Radical Acceptance, Part Three
Last week, I detailed how practically all of the symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot are caused by civilization, itself a subset of and supported by advanced technology use. I also pointed out how ideas about how to "regenerate" or "fix" nature are entirely pointless as long as we continue to live within civilization. One cannot mitigate or reduce the effects of overshoot as long as he or she is continuing to increase overshoot.
Because money is a claim on energy (which the entire economy is derived from), fundraising has the unfortunate consequence of increasing (or diverting) overshoot, not reducing it. This is highly problematic considering that most of all environmental activities start out with a noble idea of reducing something considered a problem but which actually is a symptom predicament of overshoot. Pollution loading is an excellent example, being that carbon emissions fits into this symptom. Climate change, of course, is far more than just carbon emissions. Many of our activities contribute to climate change above and beyond carbon emissions. Land use changes, deforestation, agriculture, transportation of cargo (originally undertaken by pack animals and which led to the construction of railroads, roads, bridges, and tunnels); both on land and on water, homebuilding, reservoirs and waterworks building, sewage systems building, etc. all contribute to climate change as well as other symptom predicaments. All of these symptom predicaments are connected to overshoot and technology use, meaning that they are connected to civilization.
So, once again, all the activities of attempting to reduce emissions, or reduce pollution loading, or to increase biodiversity, or to regenerate nature, or to save species, are, in effect, complete illusions as long as we continue living in civilization. Think about this for a minute - why do we cut birds' houses down to build birdhouses? Or why do we destroy bird habitat to grow birdseed? In fact, if one looks just under the surface of many of our activities, one can see all kinds of inconsistencies and counterproductive measures. Needless to say, raising money is one of the most useless and counterproductive activities to engage in within the environmental field, undermining every activity that they claim to be doing. Yet, if one visits an environmental website, one of the very first things one encounters is frequently a request for a financial donation. Is it really any wonder that none of these groups actually do anything other than provide the means to continue civilization for all their employees? Sure, some of them provide a small-scale example of what they stand for, but do any of them actually reduce the problems or predicaments that they claim to be against at the scale required? Of course not. If that actually was happening, at some point the group would no longer be required to exist, eliminating all those "great" jobs bringing in all that "great" money.
So, basically, these organizations are really nothing more than scams. Once one understands just how this affects the overall system we are all a part of (or should I say, the lack thereof?), and considers how each one is doing its part to increase overshoot rather than reduce it, the outcome of all of these organizations becomes all too clear. There are literally hundreds of them, collecting as much money from each of us as they can. Once you realize this, then you also realize that the insurance industry is also like this. Throw in the banking industry for added fun. All industries are organized in the same manner. Civilization is great, isn't it? Here is a short list of organizations that willingly take your money and it's the very first thing they do when you visit their site - ask for money:
These organizations (like the IPCC, the UN, and hundreds of other similar organizations) exist to legitimize the system of civilization, because if they were actually doing what they claim they are doing, they would be working to eliminate civilization.
Something we all might question is our place on this planet. Why do we think that we (humans) should be the species to accumulate all wealth, all resources, and all benefits? By taking this wealth, we seal our own fate, as without the other species to provide the ecosystems service we require for our own survival, we will end up wiping ourselves off the face of this planet.
Several of the more notable scientists that irk me include Michael Mann, Katharine Hayhoe, Zeke Hausfather, and, just recently, Jason Box (see below). One thing that WON'T help as I pointed out above is raising money. Likewise, energy and resource use increases with technology use, so technology use cannot save us or reduce ANY of the symptom predicaments we face either. Furthermore, civilization itself is an unsustainable system which is self-terminating, so it cannot be saved either. Many of the scientists who promote certain ideologies and/or technologies completely ignore this simple reality.
One of the ideologies that bothers me the most is the idea that we need to "save the planet" or to "save biodiversity" or to "save the climate" or to "save a species" or to "save ourselves." We are but a part of nature, not nature itself. We do not really have the capacity to save ANY of those items because we do not control nature. A new article comes right out and points to these delusions, and Eliot is completely spot on here, quote:
And it’s worth remembering that there are individual, institutional and governmental actors whose primary goal is nothing more than to talk — to mock, obfuscate, troll, harrass and create doubt. We live in an age of massive information overload, where knowledge has become spam and opinions have become facts. Experts are competing against frauds, shills and trolls to sway policy. Talking? That era is over."
In a similar fashion, Jan Umsonst sums things up nicely, quote:
"Important to understand:
It's not just global warming; it's everything.
We (have) overrun every red line of our biosphere leaving nothing out - even the ozone layer we are on track to destroy again.
Humanity is now killed by a system running on autopilot serving only its own end - power and wealth!
The greatest danger we face: biodiversity loss and loss of function as the biosphere stabilizes and provides the living conditions needed for us to exist on Earth...
We face a world doom machine destroying humanity and "oxford" has one main objective: serving it!
Therefore, the problem has to be reduced that it appears to be only "one" fraction in the system in which all others care for our planet while the whole system depends on the destruction of our biosphere...
There exist only one solution: radical change of our social political economic system or to face extinction this century as we are on track to terraform our planet into a living hell for all complex life!"
Of course, the so-called "solution" really doesn't actually solve the predicament of overshoot since it has an outcome, although he points out how civilization depends on destruction of the biosphere and that the only way to mitigate things is to discontinue that system. This means abandoning civilization and letting go of advanced technology use. Unfortunately, I don't see such an idea gaining any traction with most people. Many people seem to ignore civilization and instead blame capitalism, which is nothing more than the economic system supported by civilization. Was feudalism a better system?
Back to the topic of human supremacy and our place on this planet. Recently, Jason Box made waves when he proposed bitcoin as a solution for climate change. He made a couple of videos here and here about it, but I can assure you that it's mostly a waste of time bothering to watch them because his basic assumption is faulty to begin with. Of course, as I mentioned above, technology use cannot solve or mitigate climate change or any other symptom predicament of ecological overshoot, so this idea can be thrown out the window even before looking into why he thinks it would. It's just more evidence of reductionism at work.
Exploring a bit further into Elisabeth Robson's work, I found another gem which debunks yet another false claim about how to avoid collapse (again, yet more reductionism at work). Yet another scientist, this time, Gaya Herrington, claims that we can avoid collapse by embracing the "Big Five Turnarounds" which are her "proposals for a deliberate, drastic break with business as usual." The trouble is, as Elisabeth points out in her takedown of the book, quote:
Her enthusiasm for so-called “renewable energy” betrays that she hasn’t thought nearly deeply enough about the scale and scope of the crises we face, and that she is a bright green, which means it’s less about nature and more about us. It means that despite spending a good chunk of time on the Limits to Growth model, she has no deep understanding of ecological overshoot. It means that with just one sentence about “rights of nature,” she has no deep understanding of what true rights of nature means or what it would imply.
It means her entire analysis is a fantasy. It is superficial and based in false hope.
That multiple people expressed unbridled enthusiasm about her work in recommending it to me makes me sad, as it reflects the superficial understanding of these problems by the public at large. People flock to anything that gives them hope at a time when we are all concerned about many different global problems, and work like this gives people hope. Except that it is false hope. People love optimism and loathe realism. But how can we deal with existential environmental crises if we can’t face reality?"
This article should be read in full to appreciate how thoroughly Elisabeth dove into the material, and I truly love how she demonstrates just how anthropocentric rather than biocentric the book is. This is a familiar complaint of mine about why most all of these so-called "solutions" are simply just more of the same unsustainable systems with different methods of powering those systems. The bottom line is that they won't work long-term any better than what we have now. The window for technology-powered civilization is beginning to close and we must accept that fact (or suffer from the grief of non-acceptance).
Jean Arnold wrote this excellent summation of the predicament we face, along with some beautiful artwork which grace the pages of her essay. Once again, the overwhelming theme that keeps presenting itself is human supremacy at the expense of all other species. I featured some of Jean's earlier work a few years back but the site that she ran back then is unfortunately no longer functional. In fact, many links that appear in my older articles are probably now no longer working for one reason or another - this is unfortunately the nature of the interwebs and I expect the number of non-working sites to multiply exponentially from here on out due to collapse.
I have written before about the multi-polar trap we find ourselves within as Daniel Schmactenberger explains here why we're creating a future that nobody wants. It is important to understand how we actually arrived at this point in time. It is our innovative spirit combined with the biological imperative of the Maximum Power Principle that drives us to try to engineer and build our way out of pesky issues, but when we try to "solve" predicaments, we only end up making them worse because they don't have solutions. Notice at the end of this article about the glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in Greenland's Lake Catalina how there is talk of engineering a way to capture the energy from a GLOF. We just can't seem to be happy unless we're busy adding to our eventual extinction.
Equally haunting is the threat of AI (Artificial Intelligence). Lauded for his groundbreaking work in reverse-engineering OpenAI's large language model, GPT-2, AI expert Connor Leahy tells Imran Garda why he is now sounding the alarm regarding the fact that we might be in extinction level trouble. Go to ControlAI to learn more about this threat.
Normally, I tackle the predicament of our lack of agency early on in my articles. This time, I decided to instead post many other relevant articles (such as this one from Dave Pollard!) and other media first demonstrating once again from many other sources this intractable issue before posting my own material. Add one more Jenga block (Fartcoin anyone?) to this ridiculous joyride we call life within civilization!
One more article for today (I actually had several others ready to go, but this article has gotten much longer than I intended and it's time for me to start winding it down). As usual, Tom Murphy hits another homerun with this article (which is where I got the Fartcoin story [from a comment on my post about this story]), quote:
"My main point is: just as our culture misplaces value in money, we misplace value in brains—in a transparent display of ugly self-flattery. We’re the insufferable billionaires of the brain sector. Human brains are a very new experiment on the planet, which appears to be driving a sixth mass extinction, presently. Time to reign it in. Let’s not double-down and soothe ourselves with empty stories that we can solve any of our mounting problems (of our obvious unwitting creation) with more brain-driven innovation and technology (brain-farts, as I’ve taken to calling them)."
Just one more article - I forgot one of the most important links for this article given the subject material. No article (or set of articles in this case) on radical acceptance would be complete without a FREE book offer from Richard Adrian Reese! He has finally completed his brand new book, Wild Free & Happy, which can be obtained by sending him an email as described at the end of this article here. He makes it plain and clear right at the beginning of the book that if you are looking for solutions, this is not the book for you. Radical acceptance means accepting that we face a predicament with an outcome, not a problem with a solution. It means accepting that we lack agency to do anything different from what we have been conditioned to do. It means accepting that the best course of action is to Live Now, as highlighted in this video from Julia Sheehan.
Thank you for being a part of this ongoing journey of mine. Please feel free to take a few moments to enjoy some pictures from Salthouse Branch Park!
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