Happy Holidays! I Have Brought Hopium!

 

Looking down the trail at Whiteface Mountain, New York

Recently, an article from scientist Silvia Pineda-Munoz caught my attention. Most of the article goes into detail about how sea turtles have survived countless mass extinctions but are threatened (as are most marine animals) once again and most likely will not make it this time. That part of the article was great; what really garnered my focus, however, was this quote:

"So what can we do?

We can support organizations working on turtle conservation, reduce plastic waste, protect nesting beaches, and share their story so others understand what is at risk. Because once these survivors are gone, the oceans will never be the same."

It's a nice laundry list of things that either cannot be accomplished or won't make any difference, unfortunately. This same scenario presents itself time and time again in each situation involving symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot.

Supporting turtle organizations? How well has this worked to date? Apparently not very well or they wouldn't be threatened. 

Reduce plastic waste in a civilization that continues manufacturing plastic waste? Hahaha, not gonna happen anytime soon.

Protect nesting beaches? Yeah, sea level rise and extreme weather events will make that one impossible.

I'm sharing this story, but because I understand this as a predicament with an outcome and not a problem with a solution, I realize that sharing it is more or less irrelevant to the outcome. 

What I find overwhelmingly saddening is that so many scientists are reductionists without realizing it. It's such a shame because if they just widened their boundaries to see the bigger picture and began to understand these things as predicaments instead of problems, perhaps they could come up with more realistic goals, such as reducing overshoot. I suppose I can fantasize a little bit on that. At least I understand that doing so is just good old hopium.

I know, I know, I must not reveal the truth that we aren't as special and intelligent and ingenious as we think we are. It does get disheartening to watch society go through all kinds of pointless gyrations in an effort to come up with "solutions" to all these "problems." It only goes to prove once again how we are not a rational species, but a rationalizing one - one that loves to tell stories and create narratives.

So many of these stories surrounding society today don't appear to take into consideration how we arrived at this point. If they did, then they would quit making all these prescriptions to treat symptom predicaments of the root predicament and work instead toward reducing the root predicament, right? In reality, no, they would not - because we actually lack agency in that regard. That is precisely why all these efforts at conservation, saving species, fighting climate change, and rebelling against extinction are a complete waste of time and energy. Unless and until society works together in unison to reduce overshoot, none of the symptom predicaments (including emissions, BTW) will show any improvement because overshoot is what is causing them. In other words, one can't reduce pollution by fighting pollution. One cannot reduce climate change by fighting climate change, or reduce extinction by fighting extinction (or "saving" species or attempting conservation efforts). Without addressing overshoot, the root issue causing those predicaments remains unaddressed, and as such, fighting each symptom is useless window dressing. 

Another hilarious attempt at "command and control" of nature is a subject that has received a considerable amount of attention over the years. Lyle Lewis recently wrote an excellent article explaining why "Holistic Management" is anything but holistic. The title of the article is a play on the author, Allan Savory, of what should be called "Reductionist Management." I've tackled this topic before in my article about agriculture, but it deserves more attention here due to the narratives surrounding it. 

Lewis has another article here that also deserves attention, as it points out how typical narratives are dangerously incomplete and often include assumptions that are often quite wrong. 

Most people have multitudes of assumptions (I know I most certainly did before I understood overshoot and all the symptom predicaments it causes) about the predicaments we face, which is why so many people are busy fighting cancer, fighting climate change, fighting emissions, fighting pollution loading, and trying to save biodiversity, species, and even the planet. They are all noble goals, but ultimately those fights will ALL be lost without tackling overshoot. The longer we bargain with the predicament to maintain civilization, the worse these issues all become, regardless if we are working to address them. The only way to truly address these issues is to comprehend that we can not and will not be able to extend civilization indefinitely. It is going to crash - that is the outcome of overshoot - collapse and die-off. 

Art Berman recently wrote a critical article about Luke Kemp's new book, Goliath's Curse. I think it is good to critique these narratives, especially when books like these disagree with so many established facts. I especially like the pushback against this idea that humans had a "fall from grace," an illusion that just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Richard Adrian Reese also provides details on why a "fall from grace" is an incorrect narrative on what really happened in his book Wild, Free, and Happy.

There is definite value to society in coming to acceptance of these realities. Instead of constantly "fighting" these symptom predicaments of overshoot and increasing overshoot as a result, a much superior effort would be to accept said realities and work towards reducing overshoot. Inevitably, due to human aversion to loss, this superior effort is most likely not going to happen unless and until no other option is available.

I came across a story about the Teakettle Experimental Forest in California where original plans to use a controlled burn to get rid of overgrowth were superseded by the Garnet Fire which more or less wiped the forest out, quote: 

"There are large swaths where everything is dead - all the trees are dead," said Scott Scherbinski, a biologist and program manager at the Climate & Wildfire Institute. "It will be a start-over event for this forest."

Old growth forests across the American West are at risk of disappearing within the next 50 years due to a combination of extensive drought-related tree deaths and high severity fire, according to recent studies."

Much more info regarding tree decline is available in this article I wrote back in 2021. The inspiration for that article came from a trip I made in 2020 specifically to visit Pando, the aspen clone located at Fish Lake in Utah. Of course, I visited many other areas as well, but that was the last trip I made out west after over two decades traveling out west on many, if not most, trips over the period from the mid-1990s through 2020. Another trip was to visit the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park, and I visited Mount Rainier National Park on that same trip. Two other trips in 2010 and 2013 traversed Redwood National and State Parks, Sequoia National Park, Aufderheide Forest Drive, Yosemite NP, and many others.

If one looks at all the various states of ecological collapse surrounding us such as tree decline as outlined above and the ongoing insect apocalypse which I have brought up multiple times over the years, then combine these predicaments with emerging social and cultural issues caused by ignorance, hubris, and stupidity along with our complete disconnect with the relationship we have with the rest of life and the planet around us, then one can see just how a unified manner of addressing these issues are not forthcoming. 

I want to take a moment to wish you and yours a very Happy Holiday season! Thank you for reading my articles and spreading awareness of predicaments and how they're different from problems. In appreciation, I have some special pictures from the Thorny Mountain Fire Tower and Seneca State Forest and Cass Scenic Railroad State Park!