"We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit." ~ David Suzuki
In my last post, I focused on reiterating the difference between problems and predicaments, mainly because today's society seems to have forgotten what predicaments are. The cultural inclination is to think, "Oh, we'll just solve that problem with science and technology and engineering!" But what if that logic is based on a false belief and reductionism? What if technology and engineering are precisely the CAUSE of the issue (whether it is a predicament OR a problem)? Yes, if you're guessing that this is the case, you are correct. Ecological overshoot and all of the symptoms of it are caused by our behavior of technology use, facilitated by science, technology, and engineering. More of the same does not have the ability to extract us from the mess we are now in. When a person is drunk, does consuming more alcohol solve anything? No, it just makes the existing situation worse.
It is sometimes difficult for me to ascertain why something as simple as that isn't apparent to society the way it is to me. They are most likely suffering from denial of reality in the fact that they don't realize they are addicted to technology use. I've linked that video before, but just take a look at this page. Now, to be sure, most of those videos deal with smartphones and related gadgetry. But if you've spent any time reading my articles, you can see this addiction play out in all of our technology use. From the first thing in the morning to the last thing you do before going to bed, our lives are filled with technological devices of all stripes; we live in homes built by and powered by technology, and we eat, drive, and are immersed in technology use all day long. The food we eat is produced from the technology of agriculture. The things we do all day long revolve around technology use. We don't tend to see this as being addicted in the classic sense because we think we can get along just fine without it. But what if that logic is based on another false belief?
How well would you function without a house, apartment, or other place to live? How well would you function without running water? Electricity? Natural gas? Sewage and waste disposal services? Would you go live with the Yanomami in South America? Face it - you are, in every sense of the word, addicted to technology use. You can't live without it. There are some individuals who can live without it, just like the Yanomami, and the way they live is similar. But doing so means giving up most or all of today's modern conveniences.
Now, what if I told you that all this technology use which constitutes industrial civilization, is entirely unsustainable, and is in the process of collapse right now, and that this process will be completed by 2050? My regular readers are probably saying, "Alright, this is totally boring...tell us something we don't already know!"
OK, one of the things I'm most passionate about is showing precisely what predicament versus problem consists of. Most people have a tendency to think in terms of what conditions are like today and then extend those conditions into the future. This is what I call overshoot blindness, because the conditions we have today are changing already and they are going to continue changing at an ever-increasing rate from now until everyone alive today is dead and beyond. This is a result of the changes to the biosphere we've been working on through our behaviors of using technology; mostly over the past 10,000 years or so (although some dramatic effects occurred before this period of time as well).
I've pointed out before how all the various ideas presented by many as "solutions" are no such thing, as they don't actually solve overshoot and as such, likewise don't solve symptom predicaments either. Nothing can bring back conditions of the past because the dissipative structures which make up the system don't go backwards, the system has a massive amount of inertia, and what evolved with these systems is being lost or destroyed (see dissipative systems and dissipative structure properties). Only on geologic timescales (thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions of years) can these systems return to a previous state, and usually when it does, a whole new grouping of species accompanies it with only a few species from previous timeframes represented. This is why I frequently say that climate change is irreversible on human timescales. Because the science shows this to be the truth.
What I find so interesting about these predicaments is that sharing what I've learned tends to be an experience in humility - twice. First from my own experience and the second time from others going through the grieving process, still in the denial, anger, and bargaining phases. Denial of reality and optimism bias being two of the strongest defense mechanisms of human psychology, I wrote this about the situation we face (and faced [past tense] when I wrote it as well). I had no idea at the time just how accurate another article I included with that one, Ignorance, Hubris, and Stupidity, would turn out to be. While I was aware of the process of the dumbing down of society, and that our addiction to technology use was ramping this process up, I was unaware of just how complete this process already was. This picture describes it quite well:
I know quite a few younger folks in the overshoot community who understand precisely where we are and where we are headed, so I was stunned by the election results here in the US. Apparently, a very large section of society here actually believe the nonsense (hopium) hyped by the idiots now in charge of the country. My readers only too well understand that the economy is a subset of the energy and resources available to power and supply said economy. We've been in civilizational collapse for a considerably long time now (as evidenced by the sad state of much of our infrastructure), but the collapse has happened slowly enough to be undetectable by many people. Still, anyone who has traveled the country enough can tell you of countless areas in decline; mostly small towns, ghost towns, and sacrifice zones. The rust belt of the midwest contains a large number of once-grand cities of the early and mid-20th century which fell into decline after the departure of much of the industrial manufacturing facilities, which moved into other countries looking for cheaper labor and less environmental controls.
The bottom line here is that despite claims of being able to "fix" the economy, this is just another platitude that lacks any credible evidence of even being possible. As usual, this is just another narrative that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Most people know that despite claims that "the economy is doing great" and record highs on the stock market and low numbers of unemployed people that this doesn't translate to much of a benefit (if at all) to them. Unemployment numbers remain low because most people simply quit looking for work, are underemployed but working, or found new lower quality jobs to tide them over. These attempts to "fix" things will actually do nothing more than speed up the process of collapse, and no political party here in the US has any ability to slow down the collapse. So, get ready for the collapse.
I came across this great article from Al Bergstein the other day called The End of Environmentalism explaining so much about the movement and why it failed. Of course, anyone who truly understands the dilemma and conundrum of predicaments realizes this was always going to be the way it was going to unfold. But I really enjoyed commiserating by listening to Jackson Browne (a favorite artist of mine in the 1980s) while reading, since lyrics from Before the Deluge were printed right at the top of the article. Not only did I get to enjoy the article, but also learned quite a bit about the song and artist that I didn't already know about. All of this ties into even more info I wasn't aware of. It really is amazing how all of this combines into today's world and expresses so much about the same types of idealism we see today from some folks who just don't realize where we are and that all of this has been done before (and resolved very little if anything over the long haul).
Just think about all the so-called "progress" that was made, only to be undone again by new so-called "progress," almost 30 years of COP meetings, lawsuit after lawsuit, environmental law after environmental law, efficiency mandates, pollution mandates, and on and on, and NONE of it ever reduced overshoot. Reductionism doesn't work holistically because it doesn't account for how the parts of a whole interact with each other. This is why reducing emissions doesn't work to reduce climate change - both are symptoms of the much larger predicament of overshoot causing them. Reduce overshoot and emissions automatically come down as well. Reducing emissions might help reduce climate change in the future if reductions took place right now, but no such thing is happening as highlighted here in an article, quote:
"CO2 emissions for 2024 will break a new record, according to the new edition of the Global Carbon Budget, published this Wednesday, November 13, as COP29 takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan. The report shows that the window to stay below 1.5°C of warming is closing rapidly.
As COP29 opened on Monday, November 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan, reports on the state of the climate have been coming thick and fast. This Wednesday, the Global Carbon Budget reveals, unsurprisingly, that global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high again in 2024, up 0.8% year-on-year. Despite the urgent need to reduce emissions to slow climate change, researchers say there is still “no sign” of reaching a peak in fossil CO2 emissions."
The other issue that one must take into account are self-reinforcing feedback loops, many which do not respond to reduced emissions but to the current existing conditions, meaning not until long after emissions were reduced.
I originally had much more material I wanted to put into this article, but I have been criticized in the past for articles being too long, so I often (but not always) try to keep them shorter. This also allows me to stay on the focus of pointing out predicaments versus problems. I'll have a great article next week; until then, please feel free to relax with some pictures of Banner Elk!
Excellent as ever.
ReplyDeleteI went over to the Honest Sorcerer's article, and oh my gosh, the comments! Take out all the swearing and invective and there's a megabyte of data saved. I think one guy is whinging that (despite appearing collapse aware) all this reporting on collapse is just doom and gloom. Clearly not at the collapse acceptance stage yet then!
Maybe Erik and B perhaps could do a joint article on the following newsflash:
REALISM IS NOT PESSIMISM
and explore the theme in depth. Maybe it has been done already but needs revisiting :)
In my experience collapse-acceptance people are some of the most joyful to be around, and to read/watch their articles/videos, because of Live Now, Go Out and Enjoy It Whilst You Still Can, Live a Life of Excellence and other such values.
For me personally knowing that this shit-show we call progress is going to end - that this war on nature will end at some point and all those other species have a slight chance of making past the 6th mass extinction event, is about as heartwarming as it gets.
As Carl Sagan also said, "survival is the exception, extinction is the norm" so we don't need to attach blame to sub-sects of humans, nor exclaim that we deserve collapse/extinction in a fit of anger. All that is going on is an extreme form of normal evolutionary process, the consequences of which are beyond the control of homo sapiens. Certainly, some sub-sects of humans are accelerating the process more than others, but in the grand scheme of things it is a joint effort.
We get this obsession with "WE must do something!" Translated as the royal we being somebody else better deal with it because I have privileges I'm afraid of losing.
Most people don't get that doing nothing is probably the best thing to do in most cases, because "doing something" inevitably involves burning some energy or using resources somewhere down the line. If in doubt, look to nature and what that does. How often do we see birds just sitting in trees, doing nothing, or grazing animals just sat? Sometimes just resting and observing the natural world around us is the best "thing to do".
Niksen - the Dutch term for the Noble Art of Doing Nothing.
Hurrah! YES - THIS^^^! I am actually working on a new article right now about radical acceptance, Mark, and it entails much of what you just wrote here.
DeleteSimplification is not clarification. That is why reductionist thinking will never "solve" overshoot. We are reflections of our surroundings. Less diversity means less diverse thought, until we go extinct. Yanomami excluded, hopefully.
ReplyDelete