Living Now is Important Because You Are Not Non-Existent

I often post about depressing topics, as the predicaments we face are, in many cases, downright catastrophic. I post about these topics because I know about them and want to pass my knowledge on. I'm not doing this for my health or for money or for recognition; I'm doing it because I think it is the right thing to do and because of the benefits for me. Thank you to Brian for the comment on my last article which inspired me to write today's article!

Just like getting together with a friend doubles your pleasure and halves any potential (negative) issues that might develop, sharing this knowledge helps me by reducing stress. I think of it as a form of venting, and all my close friends and family have already heard me go on about these topics thousands of times over the years, so this blog substitutes for those listening ears. I can potentially help some people out with these articles and at the same time spare my family and friends from listening to me go on and on about overshoot.

As this post testifies, I'm far from the only one doing this. In the event the post disappears (link rot is a common phenomenon, so I will try to keep this in mind going forward), here is the entire post since it is entered into the public realm and not a private post:

"There’s so much I want to say, but finding the right words feels impossible. How many times have I warned that things are getting worse? And yet, the moment I say it, people tune out—maybe they click a like, maybe they move on. The truth is too uncomfortable, too raw.

The scale of abuse, greed, cruelty, and destruction we’re witnessing today is beyond comprehension. And yet, I’m often told by those who believe in God, “Good always triumphs over evil.” I don’t say this lightly—but that feels like denial. It’s a comforting idea, but it doesn’t match the reality I see every day.

Evil is winning. Look around. It’s not theory—it’s visible, quantifiable, and undeniable. My life has been a front-row seat to both beauty and brutality, and right now, the latter is dominating.

In many parts of the world—whether the Middle East, Africa, or Central and South America—wildlife is paying the price of human survival, poverty, corruption, and misplaced priorities. That’s not a judgment—it’s an observation rooted in decades of firsthand experience. As people flee instability and hardship, they often bring with them the customs of survival, many of which include a detachment from wildlife preservation. These pressures then collide with the already destructive behaviors of industrialized nations, compounding the damage.

In Africa, for many, there is no choice but to sell off their country’s treasures—timber, minerals, wildlife—to survive. Western trophy hunters pay fortunes to kill iconic species, and corporations devastate ecosystems in the name of profit.

In Central and South America, rainforests are disappearing at catastrophic rates. Countries export raw materials—timber, oil, minerals—to places like China and the U.S., with little regard for what’s lost. These forests are not only lungs for our planet; they are home to species we haven’t even discovered yet.

Even Europe, long thought of as progressive, is carving up wild lands to meet the demands of growing populations. And India—with nearly 1.5 billion people—is under extraordinary strain. How can wildlife thrive when space and resources are so stretched?

The oceans, too, are collapsing. Overfishing is rampant. Plastic fills the bellies of seabirds and whales. Pesticides, microplastics, oil, and sewage are choking life from the water. And on land, we drench crops and soil with poison, eliminating the insects that feed birds, bats, and other animals. Without food, they vanish.

I read today that Hawaii is considering releasing genetically modified mosquitoes to combat avian malaria and save their endangered forest birds. We’re resorting to Frankenstein solutions because the natural balance has been broken by our hand. Meanwhile, we fund wars, we destroy habitats, and we poison the very soil we depend on. It’s madness.

I’ve never felt this low.

I fight every day to educate, to lead by example, to document the wonders of this planet before they disappear. But it’s like shouting into a void, banging my head against a wall that never cracks.

If I had the choice, I’m not sure I’d want to be born into the next 50 years. It’s too painful to imagine the future we’re leaving behind. I’ve spent my life loving this Earth, capturing its voice—and now I watch as my species marches over it with guns, concrete, and greed.

I think I’m getting tired now."

This picture appears with the post:

His grief is notable and I understand it. I went to his website and found this at the bottom of the About page:

"The time to listen is now. The time to act is now. Together, we can transform awareness into meaningful change and ensure that the harmony of the natural world continues to resonate for generations to come." 

I wish there was something good I could say, but he mistakes the predicaments we face for problems (just like most of today's society). Without that key difference in comprehension, he is destined to a life of disillusionment and frustration.

It was my grief which inspired me to write about the predicaments we face. I had knowledge I could share to a wider audience, so that was what I did. I have heard that action is the antidote to despair, so this (my blog) was my call to action. My passion has been to educate folks about the difference between problems and predicaments and the role technology use plays in all of this. Technology use is a behavior of ours. Using technology is NOT always necessary, depending upon the technology being discussed, and technology is far from neutral, as this post from Justin McAffee points out. 

Two very important articles William E. Rees recently published describe the reality that we face. One discusses the Second Law of Thermodynamics and can be summed up succinctly with this quote:

"This brief synopsis shows that, because of the continuous drag of the 2nd Law, the existence and behaviour of living things can be sustained only by a similarly continuous, even greater ‘throughput’ of concentrated energy and matter. Without access to reliable supplies of low-entropy resources, death is inevitable and the system will decay in an irreversible slide toward equilibrium.

Don’t bother looking for a way out – there are no exceptions to, and no exemptions from, the 2nd Law. As British Physicist, Sir Arthur Eddington famously asserted:

[Thermodynamics]…holds the supreme position among the laws of nature… If your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation (Eddington 1929, p.74)."

That article reminds me of an article I wrote a couple years ago about defense mechanisms and technology use. The second article from Bill goes into a comparison of a semi-truck (which contains only a partial list of controls and lacks brakes, a fuel gauge, the ability to turn left, rear-view mirrors, the ability to go in reverse, and left turn signals) to our modern human civilization; which likewise has a lack of controls and indicators. As one can imagine, the truck would be a disaster in the making, which portends what will happen with civilization. 

As I have mentioned many, many times over the past several years, civilization as we know it will cease to exist in a mere 25 years (and probably much sooner than that). We (as a species) are doing a great job of destroying it without knowing that we are destroying it (despite multitudes of warnings over the years). 

Despite this, I continue to see folks talking about planting trees in hopes of making a difference (it won't - sorry). Trees in Britain are no longer regenerating. I see discussions about the "Great Green Wall" which just don't compute. Many of these ideas don't take reality into consideration...they sound good but don't hold up under scrutiny. Basically, one must remember that the systems we live within don't necessarily operate the way we want or expect them to, including the forests which surround us (or at least, used to). For more depressing news on trees, see this article or also this article.

Knowing all of this, what do you think I consider as I read a post from a friend who claims to have a "solution" developed from AI? Try as I might to inform him the difference between a problem and a predicament, his comment was this: 

"...sounds a bit defeatist. might as well continue with business as usual hey?"

 

This is a narrative that suggests that there are two sides of this debate or that some particular activity might change the outcome. Unfortunately, the laws of physics don't change just because one doesn't like them, as another friend on another post (featuring Rees' article about it above) points out:

"The Second Law is simply that; it is not a suggestion, it is immune to debate, protest, and lofty ideals."

Let me repeat that: It is not a suggestion. It is immune to debate, protest, and lofty ideals.

All these ways of obsessing over non-existent "solutions" are merely ways to waste lots of time and energy. Looking for a way out or avoidance of the outcome is merely denial of reality. For those who don't yet realize it, civilization itself is unsustainable. Many people have this false belief that we don't need fossil fuels to run civilization. This would be true for the civilization that existed before 1750. But today's civilization is even more unsustainable and requires electricity for all of the computerized and industrial systems (think of your city's water system, sewer system, and transportation systems) that are a part of our everyday lives. How sustainable is the electrical grid? Newsflash - it isn't, and when the energy to power it from fossil fuels is no longer available, it will fail just like our transportation systems and every other part of today's complex civilization.

Here's a reminder of what we as a species have done. We have made it almost impossible to live as hunter/gatherers on this planet. Justin McAffee points out the reality here. So, when civilization collapses, a broad majority of the planet's population will slowly starve to death, die of thirst, or be killed by war, conflict, or disease. The idea that collapse of global civilization can be escaped or avoided is not borne out by the facts. Such is a false belief fostered by folks who have bought into reductionistic tropes. Today's civilization requires huge amounts of energy and resources to keep everything running smoothly. Take away or severely reduce what is powering civilization and collapse is inevitable. People who think otherwise are not looking at the situation holistically. 

Why do I publish articles like this? Because I think that even though these articles are depressing, people should know about what is happening so that they can immediately discount comforting narratives about "avoiding or escaping collapse (or industrial civilization)" or "saving the planet" or "energy transitions" and instead prepare themselves mentally (at least) for what is coming. Those media sources all have something to contribute with regard to the popular narratives we often hear about overshoot, climate change, and environmentalism, but just like the last one which points out how there really is no energy transition, saving the planet and escaping the predicaments we face are likewise illusory. Sure, there are things one can do to build resilience and become more sustainable (than one is today). However, thinking that doing so actually changes much in the face of what is coming is a mistake. If one simply looks at several of the symptom predicaments of overshoot such as climate change, energy and resource decline, and/or pollution loading, one can see that ultimately, there is no escape from the consequences of these predicaments regardless of what we do from this point forward. One can make today better, and if one is up for that, then all the better. Today is really all one has - tomorrow is never guaranteed to anyone. By the way, I really like Justin's qualifier in his article linked above, quote:

" *Author’s Note: Not everyone reading will believe there is a beyond collapse. Some view the ecological tragedies as unrecoverable, particularly for humans. Even if you are in that camp, we have whatever time we have left. That is not for us to decide. Either way, we can choose how to live in that time. We can choose to participate in a cultural being of meaning, mutual aid and defiance for however long we live. We resist not because we know we will win, but because it is the right thing to do."

The systems that are causing the unfolding disasters around the globe are beyond our capacity to control. Planting a garden, organizing community outreach programs, and building secondary or backup power systems are ways to increase your own resilience, and as such, are still good ideas. But please don't get stuck in thinking that doing so somehow exempts you from the consequences of the predicaments we face. All the same tragedies that are currently affecting others await you as well, regardless of how much you plan and/or execute such plans. Maybe you will escape flooding - for now. Maybe you will escape drought - for now. Maybe you will escape cancer - for now. Maybe you will escape energy and resource decline - for now. Maybe you will escape death - for now. But these symptoms of overshoot WILL eventually affect you in one way or another and there is no preventing that simple fact. Also, one last point: I've seen many others talk about the "right thing to do" as if that makes such a prescription more palatable to others. Let's try to see this from Nature's perspective - does Nature apply such labels to actions taken by living organisms? It's really not so easy to determine right and wrong from such a perspective, as organisms aren't going to necessarily choose the "right" action (according to us humans). In addition, who determined that we get to apply these labels? Does this all seem a bit anthropocentric and arrogant?

Some people think that not "working on solutions or mitigations" equates to "giving up." Understanding that predicaments don't have solutions and only have outcomes means that "working on them" is actually equal to pure insanity. The people making these claims of "giving up" or "giving in to doomism" are actually suffering from cognitive dissonance as Steve Bull demonstrates in this article. As for mitigations, if one chooses this route, it is vitally important not to attach a particular outcome to it, lest one develop the attitude expressed in the quote in the fourth paragraph. One can attempt to work towards mitigations but should not expect anything to come of it/them. When I plant a tree, I don't do it in an effort to "save the planet" or "solve climate change" or "stop a species from going extinct." I do it simply for the joy in doing it. 

This is why I constantly preach about acceptance - the mental preparation for the predicaments which await us. The moral of this article is rather simple - do yourself a favor and quit obsessing over solutions or ways to escape or ways to avoid the inevitable. Those are all ways to bargain with or deny the predicament, but they do little or nothing to change the outcome. This is why acceptance and the Live Now ethos/approach to living is so important to me. I've spent the last 15 years thinking about this, and throughout all that time, I have never found anything that can be considered a "solution" to the predicaments we face. I laugh at the idea of underground bunkers (they make nice burial plots). So one must learn to live with these predicaments, and this requires awe and wonder at what we still have surrounding us today. The practice of having humility and realizing our place in the tree of Nature and appreciating said tree grounds one in today and provides much needed joy in the midst of so much pain and suffering. Avoiding said pain and suffering is just like death; it can only be possible with non-existence. 

"Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift."

~Albert Einstein

"Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things."

~Thomas Merton

Thanks for reading if you got this far. I'll leave you with something that I find quite inspiring, pictures from Clover Hollow and Link Farm Covered Bridges and Camp Creek State Park and Forest!