Hey all. As always, feel free to use this space to ask/talk about whatever’s on your mind. The TS community is uniquely kind and intelligent, if I do say so myself. But here’s a question I think about a lot, and I’d love to hear your thoughts: How seriously do you take climate change and what, if anything are you doing to deal with it? Sometimes, I feel like “Fuck it, I’m just gonna have a good time while I can.” Other times, I want to install solar panels and buy a shotgun. Where are you on this issue?
I’ve been listening to this podcast since I was around 19. I just turned 28. This is my first time participating in anything.
This is a topic I try not to think about. I have been doing good lately and I know I can’t hold very much space to any ‘doomer’ thoughts. But to be candid- being environmentally friendly isn’t something I have the opportunity to worry about much. I have have essentially had zero fanatical success in my life thus far. I’m worried about being able to pay for my student loans and rent. Just left a 15$ an hour coffee roasting job because me and my brother are about to move to the nearby city (we live together). Once we move I have to try to find a job that I can stand as soon as I can. I try to not be overtly destructive to the environment- I recycle, don’t buy plastic bottles of water, etc. What’s ironic is that I very well might have one of the lowest carbon footprints on this thread- totally by accident. I bike everywhere and don’t have a car (or even a license, but that’s a whole other story). I couldn’t afford one! I saw some people talking about lowering their emissions, but not being able to because of bad public transit in the US. I feel you! I’ve had to manage out of necessity.
It might seem a little odd that I say I am doing well, despite my situation. That is because of my family, and particularly my brother. I can’t afford to pay an equal portion of the rent so I pay what I can and I help out in other non-monetary ways. The best example is that I cook. He practically has his own personal chef!
What I am getting at in a round about way is that what I focus on is community and the people I care about. Even in my most desperate times, I have skills that I can use to bring value to those around me. If the world starts to end then I’ll still being doing that same fundamental thing. My brother and I will be there to lift each other up until the end. There is not much of anything that o have to power to do in regards to the environment. I’m decently educated/aware of the topic and that informs my choices. Can’t do much else! In the mean time I’m going to laugh and dance and cook good for for people that I love until I’m 6 feet in the ground.
I try to straddle my conflicts as honestly and elegantly as possible. So with climate change I do what I can easily do (minimise waste, ride a bike, minimal energy use, consume lightly, etc) while enjoying life in a modern city (AC on hot nights, occasional flight for a holiday, I renovated the kitchen in 2022). Apparently the climate change models consistently say the ‘shit will hit the fan’ around the 2060s and I’m glad I’ll be outa here by then.
Just as we might look to you for what a healthy relationship looks like. There are those out there pointing the way to what a healthy relationship with the world might look like.
With the "wetiko" enmeshed within us and our culture at times it seems a very sisyphusian
endeavor to live in right or better relationship with the world around us... but that endeavor has
meaning and is the foundation of our relationship to others. Thanks for being out there and paying attention and articulating it in your beautiful way:)
GameB might be a resource new to some. 2nd on Nate Hagens on a perspective from our relationship to energy.
I was a bit of a "fuck it" person until I came across the concept of Permaculture in my mid 20s. Up until that point all I ever heard about were the either the unsolvable problems and doomsday scenarios, or the large scale collective solutions that we all know are impossible at best, and totalitarian at worst.
Bill Mollison, the jolly old curmudgeon of a co-founder was a brilliant man well ahead of his time. He said it best...“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.”
I've really begun to question the idea that there are too many people on the planet. People have free will, it's the most beautiful and horrifying thing about humans. If we chose to turn our actions towards regeneration and away from destruction, we could literally turn this place (back) into paradise.
Again, I'm more than skeptical of any large scale attempts to coerce people into doing anything against their will, even if it's for the so called "greater good"...No one can be trusted with that kind of power. This has to come at an individual level, people need to discover the power they have as individuals to effect great change, and forget about what the rest of the world is doing, it's the only way to escape nihilism, hedonism, or any of the other "fuck it" attitudes that are so tempting in the times we find ourselves in.
I'll leave you with this thought that I always come back to. Many species of pine tree produce edible nuts, even the northern areas have Siberian and Korean pines that are hardy to -40c. Planting one pine nut seed will produce a tree that will begin bearing nuts between 10-20 years from planting, but then continue to do so for the remaining lifespan of the tree, which can potentially be as long as 300 to 500 years.
Each tree produces hundreds of cones, each cone produces hundreds of seeds...What if...hypothetically...instead of buying into all the fear and all the noise, what if each of us reading this, each of us who still give a fuck, planted one pine nut tree for the next generation(s)? Whatever happens, people are still gonna need food, lumber, fuel, not to mention all the other amazing ecosystem services like water purification, habitat, etc that come from trees.
What if all 9 billion of us planted one? or two? World hunger solved...This is one small example of what Bill talks about. Complex problems, embarrassingly simple solutions. But because its so simple nobody thinks to actually do it, and here we are.
for obvious reasons, this issue is a struggle for individuals inclined to activism... there seems so little we can meaningfully do to change the world around us. Perhaps we just need to look after ourselves? which is why we're trying a group therapy weekend in May near Mt. Rainier in Washington for those of us concerned about this exact issue.
if you have any feedback about how we're presenting this, i'd be interested in hearing it. we're trying it for the first time, and hoping that it might be something we do 2-3x/year in the future.
Hi folks, I am also an author and Substack essayist. I've been on Chris's podcast. I am currently putting together a five-week seminar, "Embracing Our Emergency," co-hosted by Gaslands director Josh Fox and myself, with speakers including Bill McKibben, Jane Fonda, Thom Hartmann, Michael Mann, Jem Bendell ("Breaking Together"), Nate Hagens ("The Great Simplification"), and Gail Bradbrook (co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, among many more. All info on the seminar is here: https://www.liminal.news/embracing-our-emergency?coupon=PINCHBECKEARLYBIRDEMBRACE
I agree with most of the sentiments I see here. I have been watching and reviewing this interview btw Hagens and climate scientist Kevin Anderson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzdK1uGhWA&t=3407s . I recommend it - Anderson is straightforward and honest.
The point he makes is that we still would have time to have a substantive impact and reduce the scale of the tragedy but it requires a fundamental change in human society with a huge reduction in CO2 particularly from the wealthy. I made the same points in a book, "How Soon Is Now". The other point is that either we will make changes with forethought or they will happen anyway in a hell on Earth scenario.
What I am hoping to do with the seminar is reflect more on how we can collaborate and act together to avert the worst outcomes... Time is getting tight. Feel free to message me directly with questions on it - Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ... We may be totally screwed - I put that at most probable. But we probably should still try to find another outcome. Hagens also brings in the peak oil and resource depletion part of the picture, which is tough.
I am seriously concerned about climate change. I find myself wondering about 2044 a lot more than 2024 now. I changed my path to pursue this and now work in climate awareness, ecosystem restoration, and as a wildlife biologist. For me, it's mainly because the changing climate will degrade ecosystems and cause permanent irreplaceable biodiversity loss. I, however, am naive and/or optimistic. I know my generation is the one that has to solve this problem and I choose to believe we can and will. It is why I have committed myself to this path.
On a superficial level, these species took millions of years to perfect their role in the ecosystem. The value they bring to a clean, zero-waste world is an economist's wet dream manifested. On a spiritual level, I feel a deep connection with life on earth. I see our role as stewards of the natural world. I feel like an adult taking care of an aged parent in 2024 getting AI scam calls.
I'm reading Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. For those who don't know the book, it's a near-future sci-fi about how we managed the climate crisis in the 21st century. He describes the 2020s as a tumultuous period of change defined by the changes in our way of life.
I remember in a ROMA from the covid days Chris once spoke about how cutting down a tree for furniture was the norm. Taking that resource only cost the furniture builder the cost of felling the tree. It ignored the inherent value that the tree brings to the earth. I've seen that change over time, as these ecosystem services are beginning to make their way onto the corporate balance sheets. Corporate boards and shareholders are starting to realize the benefits of nature in the economy. Of course, I'm skeptical of the Man, and I hate pimping out the earth to the earth killers. At the same time, I think focusing on the positive and advocating for the preservation of biodiversity is my path.
To Chris's idea of corporates being a superorganism, I agree. They feed on increasing shareholder value and profits. If we attack the food source via regulation and link shareholder value and profit with increased resilience of nature I think we can consider a realistic path toward success. The only way out is to use the most powerful force on earth - nature.
this is long, see the last three sentences for tl;dr.
I see the greenhouse effect as one aspect of the larger ecocide that is collateral damage from greed/capitalism/industrialization/extractivism whatever you want to call it.
I think the narrative that it's about fossil fuels vs solar panels vs nuclear etc is a false choice. All of them are competing enterprises for short term profit at the expense of life; none of them are sustainable, meaning they will all decline.
I think we're in an accelerating period of decline of the total amount of life on earth, whether you measure it in biomass, diversity, enjoyment or whatever. I think humans will be included in this decline in the near-ish future.
But I disagree with what Chris said that there's nothing we can do, or that money/greed "always" wins. There are always both things going on - there's a lot of greed and killing etc, and there are people and groups doing what they can to help life thrive and to be kind to each other etc. I think it's pretty unlikely all of life will be eliminated, I imagine it will decline faster and faster, and eventually start moving the other way. Life has a tendency to convert the environment into one that fosters more life. Even human cultures do this more often than not. And we can be part of that in many different ways, so that's what I'm giving my life to.
I got to be part of stopping a logging project upstream of where I live and that forest is still alive three years later, bears and salmon and all still thriving in there. The fight is never over but differences can still be made. Currently I'm helping with an effort to stop a mine that would destroy another ecosystem and sacred place in the sonoran desert. This fight began 20 years ago, and if people hadn't stood up, the place would have been gone 20 years ago. Maybe the fight will go on a few more years or decades and then this place gets killed. Or maybe the fight will continue until industrialism itself declines to where they can't actually do the project anymore for some reason, and the place will live centuries more. It's really beautiful here and I love the people involved and am grateful that I get to be part of it.
I am very cynical about governments, institutions, and anyone that's trying to sell something. But I'm not cynical about life - most of nature and I'd argue most people have a drive to help life thrive and create beauty. Right now most people are slaves to fear and capitalism and empires, and those systems of domination and destruction are reaching farther into more places, but I think it's unlikely they'll ever reach *everywhere*. And possibly even a lot of humans will keep on living more or less free in various ways even if most of us die off. I intend to be in the hills somewhere and give it my best shot and enjoy it.
Like Chris mentioned in his latest roma, the Iroquois had a way of looking at impacts on six future generations in making decisions - or at least we think they did, and have evidence that they did in the form of an extremely rich ecosystem they were enjoying living in. I fully believe humans are capable of doing this again and it's worth moving in that direction in whatever ways we can in our communities, even if the big powers never do. Just have a sense of humor and don't live in fear; enjoy trying. And slow down enough to connect with the plants and mountains and animals, and listen. There's a lot more going on here than we usually notice and it's beautiful.
I have read a number of comments in this thread in which the commenters said that because mainstream media has been spreading so much bullshit and disinformation, surely the climate situation isn't half as dangerous as the media (etc.) make it out to be. I'd laugh at these comments, but the situation is too worrying for laughter. What these commenters don't understand is that the disinformation tends to work in favor of the fossil fuel industry, automobile manufacturers, economic growth boosters, etc., and not for the greenies. I thought this was obvious, but I read a lot.
Spent the better part of two years taking care of my father who had dementia and end stage heart failure and watched him die on the floor of the house I grew up in. There is a place at the edge of the Cascade mountains in the interior of British Columbia where I worked as a driver at hiking lodge for five years. I would drive up and down this mountain road, everyday, rain, snow or shine. I knew every inch of that road and would take time to pull over and walk out into the forest just to stand and breath it in. I would say that it was my sacred place, it was the place that was going to go help heal the grief I'm grappling with from losing my father. It all burned down in a raging climate induced forest fire last year.
There are always these tropes about regeneration in nature. How as a human being, I could escape to a place that was not touched by other humans, how you could connect with something beyond human civilization. Call it God or inter-being or the Tao, whatever. With human induced climate change, there is not one inch of nature that is not affected, that is not touched by human activity in some way. Where do you go? I think we're collectively entering a stage of the climate crisis effecting every aspect of human behavior.
My brother is a climate change scientist. He’s done that work his whole life. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/eric-steig/. He has the science but he doesn’t have solutions. Neither do I. My more immediate worries are about the political shifts and tribal divisions occurring in both the USA and Canada. These changes make solutions to climate change but also to healthcare, housing and the economy even less likely.
We take Climate change very seriously in our household. Chikki and Billu are our two rescue cats - one rescued from a drain pipe and another, from the curb in front of our home. We live with them in near SFO.
After a personal event 8yrs back my much better half went Vegan. It was not new to us, a few in our family were vegan and promoting the lifestyle since '09. We were aware of the extremists, for us however, it wasn't a big change. We were mostly vegetarians having grown up in India. California afforded us enough alternatives to the make the transition easy. Compassion did seem appealing overall.
She also quit her full time tech job to focus on climate and started two initiatives:
https://cutwaste.co - an iOS app to help address a climate problem responsible for 11% of global emissions. You have to check it out to believe it.
https://greenr.gifts - meaningful gifts for people for who you go beyond, and great for those who have everything. The organization works with UN accredited reforestation efforts and makes gifting groves of native trees for occasions like birthdays, memorials, and milestones easy.
One of my main source of information regarding "Climate Change" is Alex Epstein on Substack. He's got a different take from the mainstream, but very logical.
Late to the party but it's an interesting question I'd like to answer. I take climate change very seriously. Now, do I believe there's anything I can do about it? Probably not. Climate change is already causing dramatic weather events that are outside the average. But on the whole climate change is a long term process.
I sometimes think about finding a bubble to insulate myself from the impending consequences of climate change. Mass migration out of the humid and warming equatorial regions are sure to cause social unrest as populations migrate north. The heat itself will cause mild regions to become subtropical. Diseases previously only known in places like Central America and equatorial Africa will gain a foothold further north and south.
Perhaps if I move north I can insulate myself from these issues. But then I think about the fact that one year California or Colorado might be decimated by massive wild fires and the next suffer from massive mudslides or once in a millennia snow storms. These are also caused by a warmer earth affecting weather patterns. Hiding in Montana or Colorado, or Minnesota only reveals another side of climate change.
When you look at the societies causing climate change it becomes apparent that it is only one of many problems. When you realize that polar bears, the most isolated predators on the planet, are full of forever chemicals, microplastics are clogging up our arteries and even invading our cells, cancers of all types are increasing, the mental health of our species has never been worse, and loneliness is at unprecedented levels, you realize that we live in a sick society where institutions no longer exist for the people but only for themselves. Now more than ever (at least on a global level) humans are a resource to be exhausted then discarded. The nature of our experience and existence is of little importance with the exception of extracting as much energy/money out of us as possible.
The only thing left to do is navigate this world as best you can. Bringing it back to climate change specifically, maybe the best thing you can do is acknowledge its existence. One can only hope when a critical mass is reached the institutions that rule the world will be forced to confront this issue. I find it hard to believe that much will change until institutions are forced to act, even if it's only out of self-preservation.
I'd just like to add that whether the behavior of humans and our society is labeled as "natural" or not doesn't change the results. I've never found the argument that humans are animals therefore the chemicals, concrete, and plastic that we create is natural very compelling. There are many examples in nature that see massive population collapses. Does the fact that they are "natural" allow the dying individuals to feel better as they starve to death? Probably not. I'm thinking of things like those crazy videos you see of mouse plagues in Australia. Is that what we want to be as species? Is that really what our civilization amounts to? Are the last 10,000 years really just a slower equivalent of a mouse plague? Even with our supposed intelligence?
Centered around modern day Germany and Belgium lived a group of Neanderthals that made stone tools in a distinctive style known as the Taubachian. This group is curious because before them a totally different stone style was used in the region. After them, another separate style is found. This Taubachian group happened to only live (as inferred through the artefacts they left behind) during the last interglacial, the Eemian interglacial, which spanned from about 130-115 thousand years ago. This distinct population had a good long run of 15,000 years. The utopia of the Eemian interglacial was all they knew. Their culture was built around it. Then one day things changed and they were gone. Sure we are technologically advanced, but technology is a fickle thing in an unpredictable landscape. Let's hope today's civilized world isn't the modern iteration of the Taubachians. But if we are at least its a natural process.
I'm just thinking... if we humans came from nature, we are nature. Everything that we do, all the transformations and creations are also part of nature. All the destruction and disruption. All nature. So maybe we are here to do exactly what we are doing. The other option is to use our super developed brain to get to the conclusion that the world will be safe withou us. But if our brains and everything that we do and think were created by the same thing that now seens to be endangered by us, so, maybe our arrogance and self centered way of life make us think that we are in control, that we can destroy everything or save everything. We dont. If we are reproducing, growing, creating cities, civilisation and so on is because the nature can cope with us. The day will arrive when some limits will be acting upon us, and we can not push any futher. What we can do is to delay this moment, to make the end not so abrupt, but die slowly, almost without noticing, giving a new hope to every next generation, pushing as long as we can, but no matter how smart we think we are, we still part of nature, and nature is God.
Uncle Chris, maybe you turned me on to this song a while back, in not sure. But, Billy Strings says it wonderfully in this masterpiece “Watch it fall”. The whole song is worth a listen.
“While chunks the size of Delaware are falling off the poles
Our heads are buried in the sand, our leaders dug the holes
Like junkies hooked on fossil fuels heading for withdrawal
I am really enjoying this thread, I think it forces us consider many connected issues. It sounds like the people contributing to this discussion are all thoughtful and enlightened human beings that have maybe swayed between being hopeful at times and then forced to being defeated realists.
It probably took me until I was about 50 years old to find a balance between being a committed revolutionary and still being a pleasant person to be around. I feel a certain amount of debt to the Trump phenomenon because it forced me to change my tactics and rhetoric. Gone are the days when I can recklessly create wedges with my words and dance around with my fist in the air shouting “power to the people”. I am forced to be more creative, more understanding of people’s fears and skepticism.
My grandmother was a crazy hippie. She went to prison in the 60’s for marijuana and eventually donated all of her possessions to a cult leader. She died very lonely and financially strapped but in the process she demonstrated great courage that resulted in my case being a proud grandson that carries her banner to this day.
My parents are decent people that played it safe. They were a multi racial couple that found a way live the American dream and built a network of friends from all walks of life. My father was a conservative black man his whole life until he voted for Obama. I saw him come back to the middle of the political spectrum. He just couldn’t stomach the Democratic Party until Obama was nominated president.
Sorry for being long winded, but I’ve realized by observing my family that the right path for me is being an unabashed revolutionary that loves people from all walks of life and will never turn from someone regardless of their political disposition. I’m patient with people but never shy about my views. Sometimes I’m very politically active and demonstrate perfect leftist behavior and sometimes I’m too exhausted to collect my scraps of compostable waste and instead, I throw them in the trash. But I always feel guilty and I know that at sometime in the future I will gain the energy to fight again.
I believe that we should not be too hard on ourselves. We should stay focused on the protracted struggle. But most importantly try to show love, tolerance and compassion as much as possible. Be as consistent as possible in that manner. We should be steadfast but humble. Have the capacity to sit down and have a beer with anyone but with a smile let them know that you might have to cut their head off if you meet them on the battlefield.
I think there is a huge problem with the tendency of the mainstream culture to isolate concern for anthropogenic climate disruption from the other planetary boundaries which humanity has transgressed over recent decades. The planetary boundaries framework pioneered by Johan Rockström has identified nine planetary boundaries which, if overstepped, risks throwing the biosphere into a downward spiral of collapse. Six of these nine boundaries have been overstepped already. And so Earth's biosphere is actually in the equivalent of the emergency room in a hospital. Biodiversity loss, among other variables, are just as dangerous to humans and other creatures as climate is. And it's better that our movements address the whole Big Picture of human overshoot, which is the real problem.
Human overshoot isn't like overshoot in other ecological contexts -- or outside of what is unique about modern humans ... who live within a globalized technological industrialist culture. Indeed, human overshoot is utterly and absolutely unique in that one class or grouping of people have a harmful impact hundreds of times as great as another grouping or class of people. This has never been the case with any other species. It's unique to our human situation.
If we were to completely solve the climate problem, in isolation, we'd still be at risk of catastrophic collapse of the biosphere, which sustains all of life. If we want to address the root problem we have to seek to put an end to human overshoot, which isn't just about human population numbers. It's about consumption of energy and materials..., and wastes associated with this. We must consume a lot less of this. Or we will perish along with most other species on Earth.
Every civilisation in the history of the world ended. So as ours will end one day. The Planet Earth will keep existing with or without us. The climate change, everything changes, and thats the beauty and the meaning of life, everything else is just mind masturbation.
I’ve come to the realization that climate change is another political distraction from actual issues..Medicare for all, housing, infrastructure..that politicians wave in our face while they collect a paycheck and donor money and fly around in jets! Big companies want to build factories to clean the air..wtf it’s called photosynthesis and nature has perfected it!
I am raising three kids between the ages of one to eight. I'm a millenial. I am often told that not having kids is the greatest way to mitigate my impact on this planet. I see this echoed here. My kids are the reason why I am not eco-anxious but rather eco-angry. They are the reason why I will never say fuck it. I was not ready to sacrifice their existences on an altar of consumerism and comfort assuming that they would have been too weak for this world anyway. I need them to hold me accountable. I wanted to leave this here because I am sick of the fuck it I'll enjoy it while it lasts discourse because most of us are not even enjoying it!
I wanted to leave this here so that there's a bit of diversity in this conversation, to let you know that this community has members like me. Fuck!
This place is beautiful! I will plant trees as an old man until they pry the shovel off my cold dead hands. I've fucked, gave life, sowed, built, planted trees, felled trees, hunted, fished, trapped and loved. I will continue to do so. Get strong people! Connect, go talk to your neighbor. My kids are strong and smart don't worry for them, worry for yourselves and how you will be remembered.
Not sure about the rest of you but I feel like such a fool . First allow me to thank the propaganda department of canada . Some of the finest gaslighting and corruption since bernie madoff . I feel like i am in a distopian episode of a alfered Hitchcock movie . The ark of the story is based on selling equality while also supplying children ages 10 to 18 with "safe supply fentanyl " an calling it that compassionate. Billions allocated to supporting the middle class via press conferences while in reality their growing homeless people while inflation destroys multi generational family buisness . One of the final markers of my demoralization was the incessant plastering of the phrase "safe effective " while my friends and family drop like flies within one month . I know of 8 people who passed and 2 were hospitalized. In 2015 I embarked on spreading information regarding the support of trauamatized men , lil did I know the gate keepers wanted the destruction of my fellow countrymen. My efforts fell flat while getting badly injured doing security for the very people I was trying to help . Recently medically retired for life from events in aug 2020 . To this day I still hadn't received appropriate medical care. Thats why I feel like a fool . Risked my life for thousands and I have left to rot .
As a physics graduate, I’ve been aware of the Greenhouse Threat at least since the 1990’s. It was plain to me that we needed to change over from coal and oil to other sources of energy. The Scientific American said in 2005 that these were changes we ought to be doing anyway, even if the Greenhouse Effect turned out not to be a problem, because of global tensions and the danger of these resources running out some day.
However, I felt at the time that nothing would be done. People in general are incapable of giving up present enjoyments for the sake of future benefits. The convenience of driving anywhere you wanted, and enjoying cheap electricity, were too appealing for anyone to worry about any consequences. (Well, of course some people were concerned, but only a minority.)
Politicians obey the people, and any politician who tried to get the public to make sacrifices to avoid CO2 emissions would be quickly voted out of office. This in fact happened to an Australian prime minister who tried to put a tax on electricity to pay for lower emissions.
My prediction was that the main hope for avoiding a disaster was scientific advancements. This is starting to happen. Solar has come way down in price, and solar installations are starting to replace fossil fuel electricity.
Note this is not an example of people giving up present enjoyments for the sake of future benefits. People are taking up solar because it is no more expensive. Nobody is making any sacrifices.
Other scientific advancements are in the pipeline, like fusion energy and CO2-free cement. It’s a sort of a race to see if the scientists can save us before some major calamity, caused by our own foolish lifestyles, arrives.
My prediction now is that humanity is in for a series of bad times, with hurricanes, droughts, and floods. Possibly some kind of tipping point will be reached, such at the Atlantic currents stopping, producing very cold weather in Europe. Major floods in a country like Bangla Desh could cause a political crisis of refugees and possibly wars.
The outlook looks very bleak for many animal species like polar bears. For humans, there will be some deaths and widespread destruction of property, but I don’t think anyone can predict the numbers.
Grieving. Embracing the pain. If I am to live in a dying civilization or even a dying world, if I belong to the last generation or one of the last, then I choose to live in dignity, in honor, with generosity, gentleness and kindness for I may die this way.
Refusing selfishness in the midst of this largest tragedy of the commons to my best. And be forgiving to myself if I failed, as I must if want to endure in this rigged game. Then start over and fail again. And start over.
Sharing, what I've learned, exchanging my sadness and fragile joy in small circles, in the hope to help thawing frozen feelings in those who despair like do.
We are about to vanish? Then let's go in grace, with our hands on each's shoulder, a wistful smile for the perishing beauty and a eased final fuck-off to the bullshit.
And, who knows, by doing so accidentally steering away from the abyss?
Ah, and not to forget: having good sex in the meantime.
We have been duped (by capitalism, etc?) into addictions that viscerally numb our natural sense of “enough.” A virus that numbs the host before devouring it. No longer nomads focused on needs, too much of society is reliant on “more, no matter the cost.” The sickness has been gradually morphing from individuals to clusters to current state where too much of the world has been brainwashed away from the “collective good” that is the root that sustains any natural species to “it’s mine, I am a god,” which is death.
I try and live day by day, work to keep my eyes open along with my heart, and to love each moment as best I am able. I help and donate to others with whatever skills my injury hasn’t taken from me, try to be of service to the highest good I can attune to. I’ve met heroin addicts, church “true believers,” plenty of alcoholics and have seeing so many of their struggles breaking free. Selfish “free market capitalism” is most likely the most nefarious purveyor of addiction and accumulation and thus death. It makes any other struggle pale by comparison, seems genetically acquired and worsening through generations. I have come to understand what I have control over, and that’s pretty much local to me. I can be a small part of activating the brakes a little bit as the “taker” society heads full force into a solid wall, with billions of humans and other species powerless as I watching the trajectory. I put my feet down like Fred Flintstone, perhaps others will join me and the vehicle slows and avoids complete obliteration on the wall, perhaps a small portion survive and learn something. Super doubtful turning the wheel much can happen with the amount of forward motion well established toward that wall. We will see, chop wood and carry water.
I've been alarmed for some time. I've had solar panels on my house for almost 20 years and am now driving my fourth electric car which my wife and I share. I've put my money in renewable energy investments and I buy carbon credits for the fossil fuels I do use. But I am under no illusion that anything I've done has had a significant positive impact. Dick Cheney was right when he said actions like these are "personal virtue" and not an effective energy policy. Only world governments working together can make any real impact. If that were to happen soon, the worst effects of climate change could be avoided based on what I read. The U.S. would have to lead the way but unfortunately we don't have a functioning government right now. Biden's IRA act is a good start but just a small first step. The most important thing any of us can do is vote and work on behalf of those candidates who see the problem and will work toward solutions. The only potential answer I see is to get involved in politics - as abhorrent as that may be to some of us.
I have always lived in Florida until on my Christopher Ryan inspired sell-almost-everything-and-travel-around-the-world-tour that began in 2019. I made it to Spain like Chris and due to a missed flight I made an AirBnB reservation the next day I left for Morocco, a week later I received a message through the AirBnB app it was the woman from the AirBnB after a week in Morocco, I went back to Madrid and ended up living with her and her 4 or 5 kids, she was awesome cooked 3 meals, other even better benefits and drove me all around central Spain including to her older brother’s home (more like a fortress) 2 houses on the property a pool and a gigantic tractor 100 yards away in a huge garage more like a hangar at least 90 feet tall. In the main house there was one of those gigantic rectangular Knights of the Templar dining room tables 10+ chairs and antiques all over the house. He took me into his office where he was in 3 different large pictures shaking hands with 3 different Spanish presidents. Seemed like he might have been in the Spanish Mafia, probably just my love of gangster movies/series, imagination getting the best of me.
Sadly after 21 days (my dwelling 90 day running VISA being the reason) I told her I was leaving. 30 days later in Izmir, Türkçe, I met my now wife and have lived here probably %60+ of the time hopefully we will get her VISA soon after applying on October 15th 2-Thousand…FREKIN’21!!!
Ramblings (more like look-at-meish-I-am-cool) are finished.
We have natural gas which I never had in Florida and now I understand why it’s so much better for cooking so I’m a huge fan of natural gas now. I believe it’s supposed to be better or more abundant or something that makes it better than using other forms of energy.
I read “a little” and listen to Michael Shellenberger and his publication Public on Substack (magically Wikipedia doesn’t mention his Substack, maybe “The Twitter Files” has something to do with that) and a couple of different things he writes about including nuclear power being a good idea and windmills in the ocean east of Massachusetts or Connecticut or one of those cold ass yankey states (satire, I think that’s the correct term,) is killing whales something to do with the sounds the windmills make.
I think solar panels especially in the middle of nowhere off gridish area something like that, is a great idea
But for solar and electric automobiles they use batteries BIG batteries and the elements inside those batteries are poisonous and if you have ever seen the mines for those elements (I believe a lot of them are in Africa,) they are humongous with thousands and thousands of people digging and probably dying early because of those poisonous materials.
That’s all I got. Getting close to my Türkçe bedtime.
As a working marine biologist living in south Florida the state of our natural world has me pessimistic at best and downright distraught on my worst days. My wife and I made a conscious decision over a decade ago to not have children and one of the primary factors for me in making this decision was my unwillingness to bring offspring into a world that may very well look nothing like the one I was born into, a world devoid of coral reefs, fish and seafood to dive for and collect as food, a world with no old growth forests, A world with none of the insects necessary for reproduction of the very plants that form the base of the earth’s ecosystem. Last summer we saw the warmest sustained water temperatures in the western Atlantic ever recorded, exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Florida Keys for over two weeks. Earlier this year we began to see odd behavior (erratic swimming, spinning and die-off) among over 50 species of fish in south Florida concentrated in several keystone species such as Sawfish and Goliath groupers. When I grew up diving and fishing here in the 70’s and 80’s we would regularly see boulder coral heads as big as VW bugs along the reef. I haven’t seen a single live coral of this type in over a decade. I try to maintain optimism but it’s becoming more and more difficult. We humans have become parasites upon the earth. Sadly I fear that the only road to restoration of the natural world will require the elimination of our species. I often feel as if I am bailing water with a leaky bucket on the Titanic. I still try to make a difference in my daily work but it’s difficult when I look around and see so few people who truly give a shit. Infinite growth in a finite system is destined for collapse. Sometimes I head to the ocean, pay my gratitude for what I have seen and experienced in my life and do my best to bear witness to what once was. It’s pretty damn bleak out here these days and I am getting tired of trying to speak logic to the illogical minds of men and women who think that the earth is flat, that Trump is a “just” man, that they are being oppressed by their neighbors. I refuse to be a victim, but sadly I fear we will be the last to watch the sunrise before the water finally overtakes the prow. It’s been a wild ride. Just glad my parents left this earth before things got REALLY bad.
I’m happy to leave the planet to the insects who will undoubtedly crawl calmly out of the hot earth long after our dried bones have all bleached in the sun. They can have it. We didn’t even try.
Just like everything I think it's a question of doing what you can while still living in the world. Not gonna lie, this kept me up at night for a week recently, feeling so anxious about the little impact my decisions have. But that's not helpful to me or the planet. There's not much we can do individually when everything is built for us to consume and throw away but I think the little things matter for our individual wellbeing and mental health. I don't think it's wrong to absolve ourselves of guilt by doing little things that help, even if it's ultimately insignificant.
I’m pretty much a doomer when it comes to climate change. Got turned on to the (now sadly deceased) Michael Dowd a few years ago and learned about what those circles call “collapse”. Honestly, became so depressed and anxious after learning about how screwed we are that it severely affected my daily life for about two years. It’s not just global warming, it’s the sixth mass extinction, it’s mass ecological degradation and loss of biodiversity, mainly its Overshoot -there are not enough resources on the planet to support our globalized industrial civilization of 8 billion people. There will be a bottleneck at some point. Maybe there will be a huge release of methane as the permafrost melts and it will all be over as quickly as it started, maybe it will be more of a slow burn like John Michael Greer writes about on his blog Ecosophia. His motto is “collapse now and avoid the rush.”
I still freak out about it sometimes. Like when supply chains really begin to collapse, it will be so fucked. I sit in my hometown in Oregon and feel every season inch warmer and warmer and full of more wind and fire, and every winter has less and less snow pack. But people are still in utter denial!
But what can I do? I can’t turn the giant ship of late stage capitalism…. It seems no one can. Too many normies, too many people in poverty worried about their next meal, too many techno-optimists.
In Oregon, where I live, a big solar company from Arizona wants to come in and build a shit ton of solar panels in the desert. They are bribing state senators to try and speed up the approval process to install industrial-scale solar farms on federal land. Guess who will be affected? The wildlife! All the amazing wildlife who migrate through the vast Oregon desert. All in the name of hurrying up and getting off fossil fuels so we can do business as usual! But, as your recent guest author Chad C. Mulligan writes in his article “There is no energy transition” well…. There is no energy transition. As more “renewable” energy comes available, we just use more energy. (I don’t know how to link an article in the comments but go read it. It’s fascinating.) I think small solar panels for individual houses can be great and provide some security not the coming years, but solar and other renewables in a large scale are not going to save us, not by a long shot.
Ultimately, I too am in the “enjoy it while it lasts” camp. I would have loved to have kids, but it seems just cruel at this point. It’s a hard line to walk between just total hedonism (because everything’s fucked anyways) and continuing to live a “normal” life (work, pay rent, etc). That’s been my struggle for the last few years anyways. So rad to read everyone’s comments and feel less alone!!
I hear people say, “don’t leave the fridge open! Global warming is real!” And that same person goes on hella road trips and airplane rides. Like dude, STFU. I don’t take it seriously because the climate will change with or without us. But I do make sure to clean up after myself and preserve what we can of the world. I think it’s less about emissions and more about limiting the space we take up.
I think overwhelmed (or at the very least sufficiently whelmed) is the appropriate reaction/feeling here.
Certainly easy to feel like you/we can’t make a difference on our own when billions are producing and consuming at a clearly unsustainable pace - but doesn’t that also mean that each of those individual billions is also doing so because of us?
More than comfortable with the group that’s decided to simply “enjoy it while we can” (and we probably fit into that group at some level) - but I assume that group can’t also include people having children?? Not sure how both can possibly exist together… which is a large part of why we decided at some point not to have them. Both selfishly for ourselves while we’re here and out of fear of what we l’d be leaving behind for them when we’re not.
For us, we decided to “enjoy it while we have it” all too literally - by running away and living intimately close to nature while she’s here (or at least while we are).
- On the downside, that means we often see first hand the truths/realities of coral bleaching, plastics killing ocean creatures, once remote lands now overrun with selfie taking/trash scattering tourists, the literal tons of garbage that hit the beaches of Central America each and every time it rains (much/most of which has American logos on it, lest any of us should start to point fingers), the hundreds of “cloaked” mostly chinese fishing boats scattering the Pacific Ocean while they take ALL life from it in a massive swipe of the eraser…
- On the upside, it also means we travel almost exclusively by wind, we harvest our own fish sustainably (one at a time with a sharp object while staring it in the eye), and consume almost nothing/create almost no waste (which still feels like far too much).
It may not change the world, but it somehow seems like the best of both worlds - enjoying nature while she’s/we’re here, while also treating her as delicately as we can.
Yes, I’m aware that’s not an option for the “masses”, but that’s also kind of the point.
I sometimes get feeling really guilty when I have the AC on all summer or when I'm flying across the US to visit my parents or when I'm throwing a single-use plastic water bottle into the garbage or when we go for a drive just because we're bored at home. I have friends that seem to feel even more guilty than me, they don't eat meat or fly at all because of climate guilt. I don't really know what to do. The US is designed poorly, generally everyone has to get around by driving. There are no trains or good public transit where I'm at. So I guess I want to do something, but feel powerless to do so and so "fuck it" is the only option.
since I was a boy hiding under my desk waiting for the Russians to nuke us, or watching
Leonard Nimoy's documentaryin the 70's about global cooling, the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain, peak oil when they were worried about running out, it's just one more thing to keep us scared and easy to control.
I would be onboard if the solutions were really solutions, and not a way to make some people a lot of money, can't make solar panels and windmills with out burning a lot of oil. Not to mention all the coal plants being built in China. I can't get my kids to turn off the air conditioner so I'm left with Fuck it, lets ride this baby into the ground and have some Fun.
I also believe the planet will be fine, it might kick us off, but we aren't here forever anyway
My family is saving to move to a safer state, likely to be somewhere in New England. We’re also practicing gardening and raising chickens to take of care of ourselves a bit more. The dream is to find some land, build a little house that is solar powered and has a well and septic. Otherwise we’re just living our life. Change is happening and we need to deal with it.
We are toast. That used to bother me. Particularly the part about destroying the environment and other species. So much so I had to take up the “long view.” Study the long arc of evolution and geology. Embrace the impermanence that Buddhism teaches. It was heartbreaking to realize very few people love and feel apart of nature the way I do. Not enough people to shift the tide of catastrophic events that is coming. Admitting my hippy parents were right about greed, ego and capitalism. This is the main source of my loneliness not withstanding my dislike of people en masse. Now I’m just looking for land for gardening, a mythic tree for reading and yes replacing the shotgun that my tenant stole.
I believe climate change is important but it’s overwhelming collection of issues. Time again we find that many solutions that well meaning problem solvers conjure up are eventually proven to have severe setbacks such as electric vehicles or in the case of recycling, they are bandaids that only distract from the real problem of not holding industries accountable for producing materials that are so difficult to dispose of properly. The real problem is the system that we are living in, that is too easily manipulated by rich and powerful interests, and the loss of hope that we may ever find something to replace it. We’ve given up imagining a better world and we are too distracted, being led around by algorithms to recognize the doomsday ahead.
I used to feel guilt for driving my car. I was panicked. But then I realized that this planet has been through massive swings in temperature and climate regimes. I’ve zoomed out now and see humans as much smaller in the cosmic scheme and what will happen will happen. I love humanity and want the species to survive. I now believe we will survive climate change, whatever becomes of it. We ingenious beings.
What freaks me out more is how we stop the psychos pushing us to war in ever pocket of the globe. The Project for a New American Century and that ilk must be exposed.
I must admit to often feeling the “fuck it!” impulse, but never accompanied by a “Get me to my shotgun!” drive. The knowledge of what we’re doing to this planet should surely be pushing us all into living in smaller, more sustainable communities. That is what I crave on the deepest level, but it isn’t what I’m doing. A million distractions pulling me in a million different directions (war, unemployment, terrorism, cheese porn) prevent me from clearly seeing this path as the only possible option. Yet something nags. Maybe the conspiracy theorists have got to me. But the thick sticky web of deceit spun by the “shadowy powers that be” has rendered me incapable of trusting the prevailing narrative (in this case, that climate change is truly an existential threat), no matter how much this prevailing belief might seem to go against the interests of the elite. But I’m probably just looking for some reason not to change my lifestyle, and I’m willing to let myself believe that perhaps climate change isn’t as bad as we’re told. After all, we’re all being manipulated all of the time, aren’t we? So why not this time, too? I’d be curious to explore the “get me to my shotgun!” urge, but I fear that such an odyssey would take me to even darker places that these end times. So, to nudge this thread into a gentler direction. I’d like to ask you all one thing: how would you like your ideal apocalypses to be?
Mostly in the ‘enjoy it while it lasts’ camp. I used to do a lot, years ago. Worked in river restoration to bring back the salmon, planted trees, didn’t get on an airplane for years and drove car minimally. Now I fly around, travel, etc. Feel pretty powerless to make a real change.
I used to be a lot more panicked about this. Now I’m more indifferent. I recognize this as real and a problem, but I’m more worried that the cure will be more harmful than the disease. It seems that the Governments in power to do anything about this are too untrustworthy to do anything meaningful.
It boggles my mind why we don’t put more efforts into nuclear power. We can also make carbon dense liquids like biodiesel and inject those back into the oil reservoirs that we have emptied. Solar is great but has many issues also.
I’m more interested in news about UFO’s and aliens.
Unless we stop capitalism, there is no hope for the future. Can't fix climate change in an endless growth system. It's like trying to stop a sinking ship when one of the rules is to keep making new holes in the ship.
Have you considered inviting Nate Hagens for an interview? His podcast is The Great Simplification. He and his guests have nuanced conversations about this topic.
I’ve been listening to this podcast since I was around 19. I just turned 28. This is my first time participating in anything.
This is a topic I try not to think about. I have been doing good lately and I know I can’t hold very much space to any ‘doomer’ thoughts. But to be candid- being environmentally friendly isn’t something I have the opportunity to worry about much. I have have essentially had zero fanatical success in my life thus far. I’m worried about being able to pay for my student loans and rent. Just left a 15$ an hour coffee roasting job because me and my brother are about to move to the nearby city (we live together). Once we move I have to try to find a job that I can stand as soon as I can. I try to not be overtly destructive to the environment- I recycle, don’t buy plastic bottles of water, etc. What’s ironic is that I very well might have one of the lowest carbon footprints on this thread- totally by accident. I bike everywhere and don’t have a car (or even a license, but that’s a whole other story). I couldn’t afford one! I saw some people talking about lowering their emissions, but not being able to because of bad public transit in the US. I feel you! I’ve had to manage out of necessity.
It might seem a little odd that I say I am doing well, despite my situation. That is because of my family, and particularly my brother. I can’t afford to pay an equal portion of the rent so I pay what I can and I help out in other non-monetary ways. The best example is that I cook. He practically has his own personal chef!
What I am getting at in a round about way is that what I focus on is community and the people I care about. Even in my most desperate times, I have skills that I can use to bring value to those around me. If the world starts to end then I’ll still being doing that same fundamental thing. My brother and I will be there to lift each other up until the end. There is not much of anything that o have to power to do in regards to the environment. I’m decently educated/aware of the topic and that informs my choices. Can’t do much else! In the mean time I’m going to laugh and dance and cook good for for people that I love until I’m 6 feet in the ground.
I try to straddle my conflicts as honestly and elegantly as possible. So with climate change I do what I can easily do (minimise waste, ride a bike, minimal energy use, consume lightly, etc) while enjoying life in a modern city (AC on hot nights, occasional flight for a holiday, I renovated the kitchen in 2022). Apparently the climate change models consistently say the ‘shit will hit the fan’ around the 2060s and I’m glad I’ll be outa here by then.
Just as we might look to you for what a healthy relationship looks like. There are those out there pointing the way to what a healthy relationship with the world might look like.
With the "wetiko" enmeshed within us and our culture at times it seems a very sisyphusian
endeavor to live in right or better relationship with the world around us... but that endeavor has
meaning and is the foundation of our relationship to others. Thanks for being out there and paying attention and articulating it in your beautiful way:)
GameB might be a resource new to some. 2nd on Nate Hagens on a perspective from our relationship to energy.
I was a bit of a "fuck it" person until I came across the concept of Permaculture in my mid 20s. Up until that point all I ever heard about were the either the unsolvable problems and doomsday scenarios, or the large scale collective solutions that we all know are impossible at best, and totalitarian at worst.
Bill Mollison, the jolly old curmudgeon of a co-founder was a brilliant man well ahead of his time. He said it best...“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.”
I've really begun to question the idea that there are too many people on the planet. People have free will, it's the most beautiful and horrifying thing about humans. If we chose to turn our actions towards regeneration and away from destruction, we could literally turn this place (back) into paradise.
Again, I'm more than skeptical of any large scale attempts to coerce people into doing anything against their will, even if it's for the so called "greater good"...No one can be trusted with that kind of power. This has to come at an individual level, people need to discover the power they have as individuals to effect great change, and forget about what the rest of the world is doing, it's the only way to escape nihilism, hedonism, or any of the other "fuck it" attitudes that are so tempting in the times we find ourselves in.
I'll leave you with this thought that I always come back to. Many species of pine tree produce edible nuts, even the northern areas have Siberian and Korean pines that are hardy to -40c. Planting one pine nut seed will produce a tree that will begin bearing nuts between 10-20 years from planting, but then continue to do so for the remaining lifespan of the tree, which can potentially be as long as 300 to 500 years.
Each tree produces hundreds of cones, each cone produces hundreds of seeds...What if...hypothetically...instead of buying into all the fear and all the noise, what if each of us reading this, each of us who still give a fuck, planted one pine nut tree for the next generation(s)? Whatever happens, people are still gonna need food, lumber, fuel, not to mention all the other amazing ecosystem services like water purification, habitat, etc that come from trees.
What if all 9 billion of us planted one? or two? World hunger solved...This is one small example of what Bill talks about. Complex problems, embarrassingly simple solutions. But because its so simple nobody thinks to actually do it, and here we are.
for obvious reasons, this issue is a struggle for individuals inclined to activism... there seems so little we can meaningfully do to change the world around us. Perhaps we just need to look after ourselves? which is why we're trying a group therapy weekend in May near Mt. Rainier in Washington for those of us concerned about this exact issue.
www.bit.ly/ecoretreat2024
if you have any feedback about how we're presenting this, i'd be interested in hearing it. we're trying it for the first time, and hoping that it might be something we do 2-3x/year in the future.
Hi folks, I am also an author and Substack essayist. I've been on Chris's podcast. I am currently putting together a five-week seminar, "Embracing Our Emergency," co-hosted by Gaslands director Josh Fox and myself, with speakers including Bill McKibben, Jane Fonda, Thom Hartmann, Michael Mann, Jem Bendell ("Breaking Together"), Nate Hagens ("The Great Simplification"), and Gail Bradbrook (co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, among many more. All info on the seminar is here: https://www.liminal.news/embracing-our-emergency?coupon=PINCHBECKEARLYBIRDEMBRACE
I agree with most of the sentiments I see here. I have been watching and reviewing this interview btw Hagens and climate scientist Kevin Anderson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQzdK1uGhWA&t=3407s . I recommend it - Anderson is straightforward and honest.
The point he makes is that we still would have time to have a substantive impact and reduce the scale of the tragedy but it requires a fundamental change in human society with a huge reduction in CO2 particularly from the wealthy. I made the same points in a book, "How Soon Is Now". The other point is that either we will make changes with forethought or they will happen anyway in a hell on Earth scenario.
What I am hoping to do with the seminar is reflect more on how we can collaborate and act together to avert the worst outcomes... Time is getting tight. Feel free to message me directly with questions on it - Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ... We may be totally screwed - I put that at most probable. But we probably should still try to find another outcome. Hagens also brings in the peak oil and resource depletion part of the picture, which is tough.
I am seriously concerned about climate change. I find myself wondering about 2044 a lot more than 2024 now. I changed my path to pursue this and now work in climate awareness, ecosystem restoration, and as a wildlife biologist. For me, it's mainly because the changing climate will degrade ecosystems and cause permanent irreplaceable biodiversity loss. I, however, am naive and/or optimistic. I know my generation is the one that has to solve this problem and I choose to believe we can and will. It is why I have committed myself to this path.
On a superficial level, these species took millions of years to perfect their role in the ecosystem. The value they bring to a clean, zero-waste world is an economist's wet dream manifested. On a spiritual level, I feel a deep connection with life on earth. I see our role as stewards of the natural world. I feel like an adult taking care of an aged parent in 2024 getting AI scam calls.
I'm reading Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. For those who don't know the book, it's a near-future sci-fi about how we managed the climate crisis in the 21st century. He describes the 2020s as a tumultuous period of change defined by the changes in our way of life.
I remember in a ROMA from the covid days Chris once spoke about how cutting down a tree for furniture was the norm. Taking that resource only cost the furniture builder the cost of felling the tree. It ignored the inherent value that the tree brings to the earth. I've seen that change over time, as these ecosystem services are beginning to make their way onto the corporate balance sheets. Corporate boards and shareholders are starting to realize the benefits of nature in the economy. Of course, I'm skeptical of the Man, and I hate pimping out the earth to the earth killers. At the same time, I think focusing on the positive and advocating for the preservation of biodiversity is my path.
To Chris's idea of corporates being a superorganism, I agree. They feed on increasing shareholder value and profits. If we attack the food source via regulation and link shareholder value and profit with increased resilience of nature I think we can consider a realistic path toward success. The only way out is to use the most powerful force on earth - nature.
this is long, see the last three sentences for tl;dr.
I see the greenhouse effect as one aspect of the larger ecocide that is collateral damage from greed/capitalism/industrialization/extractivism whatever you want to call it.
I think the narrative that it's about fossil fuels vs solar panels vs nuclear etc is a false choice. All of them are competing enterprises for short term profit at the expense of life; none of them are sustainable, meaning they will all decline.
I think we're in an accelerating period of decline of the total amount of life on earth, whether you measure it in biomass, diversity, enjoyment or whatever. I think humans will be included in this decline in the near-ish future.
But I disagree with what Chris said that there's nothing we can do, or that money/greed "always" wins. There are always both things going on - there's a lot of greed and killing etc, and there are people and groups doing what they can to help life thrive and to be kind to each other etc. I think it's pretty unlikely all of life will be eliminated, I imagine it will decline faster and faster, and eventually start moving the other way. Life has a tendency to convert the environment into one that fosters more life. Even human cultures do this more often than not. And we can be part of that in many different ways, so that's what I'm giving my life to.
I got to be part of stopping a logging project upstream of where I live and that forest is still alive three years later, bears and salmon and all still thriving in there. The fight is never over but differences can still be made. Currently I'm helping with an effort to stop a mine that would destroy another ecosystem and sacred place in the sonoran desert. This fight began 20 years ago, and if people hadn't stood up, the place would have been gone 20 years ago. Maybe the fight will go on a few more years or decades and then this place gets killed. Or maybe the fight will continue until industrialism itself declines to where they can't actually do the project anymore for some reason, and the place will live centuries more. It's really beautiful here and I love the people involved and am grateful that I get to be part of it.
I am very cynical about governments, institutions, and anyone that's trying to sell something. But I'm not cynical about life - most of nature and I'd argue most people have a drive to help life thrive and create beauty. Right now most people are slaves to fear and capitalism and empires, and those systems of domination and destruction are reaching farther into more places, but I think it's unlikely they'll ever reach *everywhere*. And possibly even a lot of humans will keep on living more or less free in various ways even if most of us die off. I intend to be in the hills somewhere and give it my best shot and enjoy it.
Like Chris mentioned in his latest roma, the Iroquois had a way of looking at impacts on six future generations in making decisions - or at least we think they did, and have evidence that they did in the form of an extremely rich ecosystem they were enjoying living in. I fully believe humans are capable of doing this again and it's worth moving in that direction in whatever ways we can in our communities, even if the big powers never do. Just have a sense of humor and don't live in fear; enjoy trying. And slow down enough to connect with the plants and mountains and animals, and listen. There's a lot more going on here than we usually notice and it's beautiful.
I have read a number of comments in this thread in which the commenters said that because mainstream media has been spreading so much bullshit and disinformation, surely the climate situation isn't half as dangerous as the media (etc.) make it out to be. I'd laugh at these comments, but the situation is too worrying for laughter. What these commenters don't understand is that the disinformation tends to work in favor of the fossil fuel industry, automobile manufacturers, economic growth boosters, etc., and not for the greenies. I thought this was obvious, but I read a lot.
Spent the better part of two years taking care of my father who had dementia and end stage heart failure and watched him die on the floor of the house I grew up in. There is a place at the edge of the Cascade mountains in the interior of British Columbia where I worked as a driver at hiking lodge for five years. I would drive up and down this mountain road, everyday, rain, snow or shine. I knew every inch of that road and would take time to pull over and walk out into the forest just to stand and breath it in. I would say that it was my sacred place, it was the place that was going to go help heal the grief I'm grappling with from losing my father. It all burned down in a raging climate induced forest fire last year.
There are always these tropes about regeneration in nature. How as a human being, I could escape to a place that was not touched by other humans, how you could connect with something beyond human civilization. Call it God or inter-being or the Tao, whatever. With human induced climate change, there is not one inch of nature that is not affected, that is not touched by human activity in some way. Where do you go? I think we're collectively entering a stage of the climate crisis effecting every aspect of human behavior.
My brother is a climate change scientist. He’s done that work his whole life. https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/eric-steig/. He has the science but he doesn’t have solutions. Neither do I. My more immediate worries are about the political shifts and tribal divisions occurring in both the USA and Canada. These changes make solutions to climate change but also to healthcare, housing and the economy even less likely.
We take Climate change very seriously in our household. Chikki and Billu are our two rescue cats - one rescued from a drain pipe and another, from the curb in front of our home. We live with them in near SFO.
After a personal event 8yrs back my much better half went Vegan. It was not new to us, a few in our family were vegan and promoting the lifestyle since '09. We were aware of the extremists, for us however, it wasn't a big change. We were mostly vegetarians having grown up in India. California afforded us enough alternatives to the make the transition easy. Compassion did seem appealing overall.
She also quit her full time tech job to focus on climate and started two initiatives:
https://cutwaste.co - an iOS app to help address a climate problem responsible for 11% of global emissions. You have to check it out to believe it.
https://greenr.gifts - meaningful gifts for people for who you go beyond, and great for those who have everything. The organization works with UN accredited reforestation efforts and makes gifting groves of native trees for occasions like birthdays, memorials, and milestones easy.
One of my main source of information regarding "Climate Change" is Alex Epstein on Substack. He's got a different take from the mainstream, but very logical.
https://substack.com/@alexepstein
Late to the party but it's an interesting question I'd like to answer. I take climate change very seriously. Now, do I believe there's anything I can do about it? Probably not. Climate change is already causing dramatic weather events that are outside the average. But on the whole climate change is a long term process.
I sometimes think about finding a bubble to insulate myself from the impending consequences of climate change. Mass migration out of the humid and warming equatorial regions are sure to cause social unrest as populations migrate north. The heat itself will cause mild regions to become subtropical. Diseases previously only known in places like Central America and equatorial Africa will gain a foothold further north and south.
Perhaps if I move north I can insulate myself from these issues. But then I think about the fact that one year California or Colorado might be decimated by massive wild fires and the next suffer from massive mudslides or once in a millennia snow storms. These are also caused by a warmer earth affecting weather patterns. Hiding in Montana or Colorado, or Minnesota only reveals another side of climate change.
When you look at the societies causing climate change it becomes apparent that it is only one of many problems. When you realize that polar bears, the most isolated predators on the planet, are full of forever chemicals, microplastics are clogging up our arteries and even invading our cells, cancers of all types are increasing, the mental health of our species has never been worse, and loneliness is at unprecedented levels, you realize that we live in a sick society where institutions no longer exist for the people but only for themselves. Now more than ever (at least on a global level) humans are a resource to be exhausted then discarded. The nature of our experience and existence is of little importance with the exception of extracting as much energy/money out of us as possible.
The only thing left to do is navigate this world as best you can. Bringing it back to climate change specifically, maybe the best thing you can do is acknowledge its existence. One can only hope when a critical mass is reached the institutions that rule the world will be forced to confront this issue. I find it hard to believe that much will change until institutions are forced to act, even if it's only out of self-preservation.
I'd just like to add that whether the behavior of humans and our society is labeled as "natural" or not doesn't change the results. I've never found the argument that humans are animals therefore the chemicals, concrete, and plastic that we create is natural very compelling. There are many examples in nature that see massive population collapses. Does the fact that they are "natural" allow the dying individuals to feel better as they starve to death? Probably not. I'm thinking of things like those crazy videos you see of mouse plagues in Australia. Is that what we want to be as species? Is that really what our civilization amounts to? Are the last 10,000 years really just a slower equivalent of a mouse plague? Even with our supposed intelligence?
Centered around modern day Germany and Belgium lived a group of Neanderthals that made stone tools in a distinctive style known as the Taubachian. This group is curious because before them a totally different stone style was used in the region. After them, another separate style is found. This Taubachian group happened to only live (as inferred through the artefacts they left behind) during the last interglacial, the Eemian interglacial, which spanned from about 130-115 thousand years ago. This distinct population had a good long run of 15,000 years. The utopia of the Eemian interglacial was all they knew. Their culture was built around it. Then one day things changed and they were gone. Sure we are technologically advanced, but technology is a fickle thing in an unpredictable landscape. Let's hope today's civilized world isn't the modern iteration of the Taubachians. But if we are at least its a natural process.
I'm just thinking... if we humans came from nature, we are nature. Everything that we do, all the transformations and creations are also part of nature. All the destruction and disruption. All nature. So maybe we are here to do exactly what we are doing. The other option is to use our super developed brain to get to the conclusion that the world will be safe withou us. But if our brains and everything that we do and think were created by the same thing that now seens to be endangered by us, so, maybe our arrogance and self centered way of life make us think that we are in control, that we can destroy everything or save everything. We dont. If we are reproducing, growing, creating cities, civilisation and so on is because the nature can cope with us. The day will arrive when some limits will be acting upon us, and we can not push any futher. What we can do is to delay this moment, to make the end not so abrupt, but die slowly, almost without noticing, giving a new hope to every next generation, pushing as long as we can, but no matter how smart we think we are, we still part of nature, and nature is God.
Uncle Chris, maybe you turned me on to this song a while back, in not sure. But, Billy Strings says it wonderfully in this masterpiece “Watch it fall”. The whole song is worth a listen.
“While chunks the size of Delaware are falling off the poles
Our heads are buried in the sand, our leaders dug the holes
Like junkies hooked on fossil fuels heading for withdrawal
How long until there's nothin left at all?”
I am really enjoying this thread, I think it forces us consider many connected issues. It sounds like the people contributing to this discussion are all thoughtful and enlightened human beings that have maybe swayed between being hopeful at times and then forced to being defeated realists.
It probably took me until I was about 50 years old to find a balance between being a committed revolutionary and still being a pleasant person to be around. I feel a certain amount of debt to the Trump phenomenon because it forced me to change my tactics and rhetoric. Gone are the days when I can recklessly create wedges with my words and dance around with my fist in the air shouting “power to the people”. I am forced to be more creative, more understanding of people’s fears and skepticism.
My grandmother was a crazy hippie. She went to prison in the 60’s for marijuana and eventually donated all of her possessions to a cult leader. She died very lonely and financially strapped but in the process she demonstrated great courage that resulted in my case being a proud grandson that carries her banner to this day.
My parents are decent people that played it safe. They were a multi racial couple that found a way live the American dream and built a network of friends from all walks of life. My father was a conservative black man his whole life until he voted for Obama. I saw him come back to the middle of the political spectrum. He just couldn’t stomach the Democratic Party until Obama was nominated president.
Sorry for being long winded, but I’ve realized by observing my family that the right path for me is being an unabashed revolutionary that loves people from all walks of life and will never turn from someone regardless of their political disposition. I’m patient with people but never shy about my views. Sometimes I’m very politically active and demonstrate perfect leftist behavior and sometimes I’m too exhausted to collect my scraps of compostable waste and instead, I throw them in the trash. But I always feel guilty and I know that at sometime in the future I will gain the energy to fight again.
I believe that we should not be too hard on ourselves. We should stay focused on the protracted struggle. But most importantly try to show love, tolerance and compassion as much as possible. Be as consistent as possible in that manner. We should be steadfast but humble. Have the capacity to sit down and have a beer with anyone but with a smile let them know that you might have to cut their head off if you meet them on the battlefield.
I think there is a huge problem with the tendency of the mainstream culture to isolate concern for anthropogenic climate disruption from the other planetary boundaries which humanity has transgressed over recent decades. The planetary boundaries framework pioneered by Johan Rockström has identified nine planetary boundaries which, if overstepped, risks throwing the biosphere into a downward spiral of collapse. Six of these nine boundaries have been overstepped already. And so Earth's biosphere is actually in the equivalent of the emergency room in a hospital. Biodiversity loss, among other variables, are just as dangerous to humans and other creatures as climate is. And it's better that our movements address the whole Big Picture of human overshoot, which is the real problem.
Human overshoot isn't like overshoot in other ecological contexts -- or outside of what is unique about modern humans ... who live within a globalized technological industrialist culture. Indeed, human overshoot is utterly and absolutely unique in that one class or grouping of people have a harmful impact hundreds of times as great as another grouping or class of people. This has never been the case with any other species. It's unique to our human situation.
If we were to completely solve the climate problem, in isolation, we'd still be at risk of catastrophic collapse of the biosphere, which sustains all of life. If we want to address the root problem we have to seek to put an end to human overshoot, which isn't just about human population numbers. It's about consumption of energy and materials..., and wastes associated with this. We must consume a lot less of this. Or we will perish along with most other species on Earth.
Every civilisation in the history of the world ended. So as ours will end one day. The Planet Earth will keep existing with or without us. The climate change, everything changes, and thats the beauty and the meaning of life, everything else is just mind masturbation.
I’ve come to the realization that climate change is another political distraction from actual issues..Medicare for all, housing, infrastructure..that politicians wave in our face while they collect a paycheck and donor money and fly around in jets! Big companies want to build factories to clean the air..wtf it’s called photosynthesis and nature has perfected it!
I am raising three kids between the ages of one to eight. I'm a millenial. I am often told that not having kids is the greatest way to mitigate my impact on this planet. I see this echoed here. My kids are the reason why I am not eco-anxious but rather eco-angry. They are the reason why I will never say fuck it. I was not ready to sacrifice their existences on an altar of consumerism and comfort assuming that they would have been too weak for this world anyway. I need them to hold me accountable. I wanted to leave this here because I am sick of the fuck it I'll enjoy it while it lasts discourse because most of us are not even enjoying it!
I wanted to leave this here so that there's a bit of diversity in this conversation, to let you know that this community has members like me. Fuck!
This place is beautiful! I will plant trees as an old man until they pry the shovel off my cold dead hands. I've fucked, gave life, sowed, built, planted trees, felled trees, hunted, fished, trapped and loved. I will continue to do so. Get strong people! Connect, go talk to your neighbor. My kids are strong and smart don't worry for them, worry for yourselves and how you will be remembered.
Not sure about the rest of you but I feel like such a fool . First allow me to thank the propaganda department of canada . Some of the finest gaslighting and corruption since bernie madoff . I feel like i am in a distopian episode of a alfered Hitchcock movie . The ark of the story is based on selling equality while also supplying children ages 10 to 18 with "safe supply fentanyl " an calling it that compassionate. Billions allocated to supporting the middle class via press conferences while in reality their growing homeless people while inflation destroys multi generational family buisness . One of the final markers of my demoralization was the incessant plastering of the phrase "safe effective " while my friends and family drop like flies within one month . I know of 8 people who passed and 2 were hospitalized. In 2015 I embarked on spreading information regarding the support of trauamatized men , lil did I know the gate keepers wanted the destruction of my fellow countrymen. My efforts fell flat while getting badly injured doing security for the very people I was trying to help . Recently medically retired for life from events in aug 2020 . To this day I still hadn't received appropriate medical care. Thats why I feel like a fool . Risked my life for thousands and I have left to rot .
As a physics graduate, I’ve been aware of the Greenhouse Threat at least since the 1990’s. It was plain to me that we needed to change over from coal and oil to other sources of energy. The Scientific American said in 2005 that these were changes we ought to be doing anyway, even if the Greenhouse Effect turned out not to be a problem, because of global tensions and the danger of these resources running out some day.
However, I felt at the time that nothing would be done. People in general are incapable of giving up present enjoyments for the sake of future benefits. The convenience of driving anywhere you wanted, and enjoying cheap electricity, were too appealing for anyone to worry about any consequences. (Well, of course some people were concerned, but only a minority.)
Politicians obey the people, and any politician who tried to get the public to make sacrifices to avoid CO2 emissions would be quickly voted out of office. This in fact happened to an Australian prime minister who tried to put a tax on electricity to pay for lower emissions.
My prediction was that the main hope for avoiding a disaster was scientific advancements. This is starting to happen. Solar has come way down in price, and solar installations are starting to replace fossil fuel electricity.
Note this is not an example of people giving up present enjoyments for the sake of future benefits. People are taking up solar because it is no more expensive. Nobody is making any sacrifices.
Other scientific advancements are in the pipeline, like fusion energy and CO2-free cement. It’s a sort of a race to see if the scientists can save us before some major calamity, caused by our own foolish lifestyles, arrives.
My prediction now is that humanity is in for a series of bad times, with hurricanes, droughts, and floods. Possibly some kind of tipping point will be reached, such at the Atlantic currents stopping, producing very cold weather in Europe. Major floods in a country like Bangla Desh could cause a political crisis of refugees and possibly wars.
The outlook looks very bleak for many animal species like polar bears. For humans, there will be some deaths and widespread destruction of property, but I don’t think anyone can predict the numbers.
Charles MacFarland
Grieving. Embracing the pain. If I am to live in a dying civilization or even a dying world, if I belong to the last generation or one of the last, then I choose to live in dignity, in honor, with generosity, gentleness and kindness for I may die this way.
Refusing selfishness in the midst of this largest tragedy of the commons to my best. And be forgiving to myself if I failed, as I must if want to endure in this rigged game. Then start over and fail again. And start over.
Sharing, what I've learned, exchanging my sadness and fragile joy in small circles, in the hope to help thawing frozen feelings in those who despair like do.
We are about to vanish? Then let's go in grace, with our hands on each's shoulder, a wistful smile for the perishing beauty and a eased final fuck-off to the bullshit.
And, who knows, by doing so accidentally steering away from the abyss?
Ah, and not to forget: having good sex in the meantime.
We have been duped (by capitalism, etc?) into addictions that viscerally numb our natural sense of “enough.” A virus that numbs the host before devouring it. No longer nomads focused on needs, too much of society is reliant on “more, no matter the cost.” The sickness has been gradually morphing from individuals to clusters to current state where too much of the world has been brainwashed away from the “collective good” that is the root that sustains any natural species to “it’s mine, I am a god,” which is death.
I try and live day by day, work to keep my eyes open along with my heart, and to love each moment as best I am able. I help and donate to others with whatever skills my injury hasn’t taken from me, try to be of service to the highest good I can attune to. I’ve met heroin addicts, church “true believers,” plenty of alcoholics and have seeing so many of their struggles breaking free. Selfish “free market capitalism” is most likely the most nefarious purveyor of addiction and accumulation and thus death. It makes any other struggle pale by comparison, seems genetically acquired and worsening through generations. I have come to understand what I have control over, and that’s pretty much local to me. I can be a small part of activating the brakes a little bit as the “taker” society heads full force into a solid wall, with billions of humans and other species powerless as I watching the trajectory. I put my feet down like Fred Flintstone, perhaps others will join me and the vehicle slows and avoids complete obliteration on the wall, perhaps a small portion survive and learn something. Super doubtful turning the wheel much can happen with the amount of forward motion well established toward that wall. We will see, chop wood and carry water.
I've been alarmed for some time. I've had solar panels on my house for almost 20 years and am now driving my fourth electric car which my wife and I share. I've put my money in renewable energy investments and I buy carbon credits for the fossil fuels I do use. But I am under no illusion that anything I've done has had a significant positive impact. Dick Cheney was right when he said actions like these are "personal virtue" and not an effective energy policy. Only world governments working together can make any real impact. If that were to happen soon, the worst effects of climate change could be avoided based on what I read. The U.S. would have to lead the way but unfortunately we don't have a functioning government right now. Biden's IRA act is a good start but just a small first step. The most important thing any of us can do is vote and work on behalf of those candidates who see the problem and will work toward solutions. The only potential answer I see is to get involved in politics - as abhorrent as that may be to some of us.
CR
I have always lived in Florida until on my Christopher Ryan inspired sell-almost-everything-and-travel-around-the-world-tour that began in 2019. I made it to Spain like Chris and due to a missed flight I made an AirBnB reservation the next day I left for Morocco, a week later I received a message through the AirBnB app it was the woman from the AirBnB after a week in Morocco, I went back to Madrid and ended up living with her and her 4 or 5 kids, she was awesome cooked 3 meals, other even better benefits and drove me all around central Spain including to her older brother’s home (more like a fortress) 2 houses on the property a pool and a gigantic tractor 100 yards away in a huge garage more like a hangar at least 90 feet tall. In the main house there was one of those gigantic rectangular Knights of the Templar dining room tables 10+ chairs and antiques all over the house. He took me into his office where he was in 3 different large pictures shaking hands with 3 different Spanish presidents. Seemed like he might have been in the Spanish Mafia, probably just my love of gangster movies/series, imagination getting the best of me.
Sadly after 21 days (my dwelling 90 day running VISA being the reason) I told her I was leaving. 30 days later in Izmir, Türkçe, I met my now wife and have lived here probably %60+ of the time hopefully we will get her VISA soon after applying on October 15th 2-Thousand…FREKIN’21!!!
Ramblings (more like look-at-meish-I-am-cool) are finished.
We have natural gas which I never had in Florida and now I understand why it’s so much better for cooking so I’m a huge fan of natural gas now. I believe it’s supposed to be better or more abundant or something that makes it better than using other forms of energy.
I read “a little” and listen to Michael Shellenberger and his publication Public on Substack (magically Wikipedia doesn’t mention his Substack, maybe “The Twitter Files” has something to do with that) and a couple of different things he writes about including nuclear power being a good idea and windmills in the ocean east of Massachusetts or Connecticut or one of those cold ass yankey states (satire, I think that’s the correct term,) is killing whales something to do with the sounds the windmills make.
I think solar panels especially in the middle of nowhere off gridish area something like that, is a great idea
But for solar and electric automobiles they use batteries BIG batteries and the elements inside those batteries are poisonous and if you have ever seen the mines for those elements (I believe a lot of them are in Africa,) they are humongous with thousands and thousands of people digging and probably dying early because of those poisonous materials.
That’s all I got. Getting close to my Türkçe bedtime.
İyi geceler.
As a working marine biologist living in south Florida the state of our natural world has me pessimistic at best and downright distraught on my worst days. My wife and I made a conscious decision over a decade ago to not have children and one of the primary factors for me in making this decision was my unwillingness to bring offspring into a world that may very well look nothing like the one I was born into, a world devoid of coral reefs, fish and seafood to dive for and collect as food, a world with no old growth forests, A world with none of the insects necessary for reproduction of the very plants that form the base of the earth’s ecosystem. Last summer we saw the warmest sustained water temperatures in the western Atlantic ever recorded, exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Florida Keys for over two weeks. Earlier this year we began to see odd behavior (erratic swimming, spinning and die-off) among over 50 species of fish in south Florida concentrated in several keystone species such as Sawfish and Goliath groupers. When I grew up diving and fishing here in the 70’s and 80’s we would regularly see boulder coral heads as big as VW bugs along the reef. I haven’t seen a single live coral of this type in over a decade. I try to maintain optimism but it’s becoming more and more difficult. We humans have become parasites upon the earth. Sadly I fear that the only road to restoration of the natural world will require the elimination of our species. I often feel as if I am bailing water with a leaky bucket on the Titanic. I still try to make a difference in my daily work but it’s difficult when I look around and see so few people who truly give a shit. Infinite growth in a finite system is destined for collapse. Sometimes I head to the ocean, pay my gratitude for what I have seen and experienced in my life and do my best to bear witness to what once was. It’s pretty damn bleak out here these days and I am getting tired of trying to speak logic to the illogical minds of men and women who think that the earth is flat, that Trump is a “just” man, that they are being oppressed by their neighbors. I refuse to be a victim, but sadly I fear we will be the last to watch the sunrise before the water finally overtakes the prow. It’s been a wild ride. Just glad my parents left this earth before things got REALLY bad.
I’m happy to leave the planet to the insects who will undoubtedly crawl calmly out of the hot earth long after our dried bones have all bleached in the sun. They can have it. We didn’t even try.
Just like everything I think it's a question of doing what you can while still living in the world. Not gonna lie, this kept me up at night for a week recently, feeling so anxious about the little impact my decisions have. But that's not helpful to me or the planet. There's not much we can do individually when everything is built for us to consume and throw away but I think the little things matter for our individual wellbeing and mental health. I don't think it's wrong to absolve ourselves of guilt by doing little things that help, even if it's ultimately insignificant.
I’m pretty much a doomer when it comes to climate change. Got turned on to the (now sadly deceased) Michael Dowd a few years ago and learned about what those circles call “collapse”. Honestly, became so depressed and anxious after learning about how screwed we are that it severely affected my daily life for about two years. It’s not just global warming, it’s the sixth mass extinction, it’s mass ecological degradation and loss of biodiversity, mainly its Overshoot -there are not enough resources on the planet to support our globalized industrial civilization of 8 billion people. There will be a bottleneck at some point. Maybe there will be a huge release of methane as the permafrost melts and it will all be over as quickly as it started, maybe it will be more of a slow burn like John Michael Greer writes about on his blog Ecosophia. His motto is “collapse now and avoid the rush.”
I still freak out about it sometimes. Like when supply chains really begin to collapse, it will be so fucked. I sit in my hometown in Oregon and feel every season inch warmer and warmer and full of more wind and fire, and every winter has less and less snow pack. But people are still in utter denial!
But what can I do? I can’t turn the giant ship of late stage capitalism…. It seems no one can. Too many normies, too many people in poverty worried about their next meal, too many techno-optimists.
In Oregon, where I live, a big solar company from Arizona wants to come in and build a shit ton of solar panels in the desert. They are bribing state senators to try and speed up the approval process to install industrial-scale solar farms on federal land. Guess who will be affected? The wildlife! All the amazing wildlife who migrate through the vast Oregon desert. All in the name of hurrying up and getting off fossil fuels so we can do business as usual! But, as your recent guest author Chad C. Mulligan writes in his article “There is no energy transition” well…. There is no energy transition. As more “renewable” energy comes available, we just use more energy. (I don’t know how to link an article in the comments but go read it. It’s fascinating.) I think small solar panels for individual houses can be great and provide some security not the coming years, but solar and other renewables in a large scale are not going to save us, not by a long shot.
Ultimately, I too am in the “enjoy it while it lasts” camp. I would have loved to have kids, but it seems just cruel at this point. It’s a hard line to walk between just total hedonism (because everything’s fucked anyways) and continuing to live a “normal” life (work, pay rent, etc). That’s been my struggle for the last few years anyways. So rad to read everyone’s comments and feel less alone!!
I hear people say, “don’t leave the fridge open! Global warming is real!” And that same person goes on hella road trips and airplane rides. Like dude, STFU. I don’t take it seriously because the climate will change with or without us. But I do make sure to clean up after myself and preserve what we can of the world. I think it’s less about emissions and more about limiting the space we take up.
I think overwhelmed (or at the very least sufficiently whelmed) is the appropriate reaction/feeling here.
Certainly easy to feel like you/we can’t make a difference on our own when billions are producing and consuming at a clearly unsustainable pace - but doesn’t that also mean that each of those individual billions is also doing so because of us?
More than comfortable with the group that’s decided to simply “enjoy it while we can” (and we probably fit into that group at some level) - but I assume that group can’t also include people having children?? Not sure how both can possibly exist together… which is a large part of why we decided at some point not to have them. Both selfishly for ourselves while we’re here and out of fear of what we l’d be leaving behind for them when we’re not.
For us, we decided to “enjoy it while we have it” all too literally - by running away and living intimately close to nature while she’s here (or at least while we are).
- On the downside, that means we often see first hand the truths/realities of coral bleaching, plastics killing ocean creatures, once remote lands now overrun with selfie taking/trash scattering tourists, the literal tons of garbage that hit the beaches of Central America each and every time it rains (much/most of which has American logos on it, lest any of us should start to point fingers), the hundreds of “cloaked” mostly chinese fishing boats scattering the Pacific Ocean while they take ALL life from it in a massive swipe of the eraser…
- On the upside, it also means we travel almost exclusively by wind, we harvest our own fish sustainably (one at a time with a sharp object while staring it in the eye), and consume almost nothing/create almost no waste (which still feels like far too much).
It may not change the world, but it somehow seems like the best of both worlds - enjoying nature while she’s/we’re here, while also treating her as delicately as we can.
Yes, I’m aware that’s not an option for the “masses”, but that’s also kind of the point.
I sometimes get feeling really guilty when I have the AC on all summer or when I'm flying across the US to visit my parents or when I'm throwing a single-use plastic water bottle into the garbage or when we go for a drive just because we're bored at home. I have friends that seem to feel even more guilty than me, they don't eat meat or fly at all because of climate guilt. I don't really know what to do. The US is designed poorly, generally everyone has to get around by driving. There are no trains or good public transit where I'm at. So I guess I want to do something, but feel powerless to do so and so "fuck it" is the only option.
since I was a boy hiding under my desk waiting for the Russians to nuke us, or watching
Leonard Nimoy's documentaryin the 70's about global cooling, the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain, peak oil when they were worried about running out, it's just one more thing to keep us scared and easy to control.
I would be onboard if the solutions were really solutions, and not a way to make some people a lot of money, can't make solar panels and windmills with out burning a lot of oil. Not to mention all the coal plants being built in China. I can't get my kids to turn off the air conditioner so I'm left with Fuck it, lets ride this baby into the ground and have some Fun.
I also believe the planet will be fine, it might kick us off, but we aren't here forever anyway
My family is saving to move to a safer state, likely to be somewhere in New England. We’re also practicing gardening and raising chickens to take of care of ourselves a bit more. The dream is to find some land, build a little house that is solar powered and has a well and septic. Otherwise we’re just living our life. Change is happening and we need to deal with it.
We are toast. That used to bother me. Particularly the part about destroying the environment and other species. So much so I had to take up the “long view.” Study the long arc of evolution and geology. Embrace the impermanence that Buddhism teaches. It was heartbreaking to realize very few people love and feel apart of nature the way I do. Not enough people to shift the tide of catastrophic events that is coming. Admitting my hippy parents were right about greed, ego and capitalism. This is the main source of my loneliness not withstanding my dislike of people en masse. Now I’m just looking for land for gardening, a mythic tree for reading and yes replacing the shotgun that my tenant stole.
It seems like most people here, recognize climate change as a problem but are more in the “Fuck it” camp.
What are the societal/geopolitical/environmental issues that you worry about the most?
I believe climate change is important but it’s overwhelming collection of issues. Time again we find that many solutions that well meaning problem solvers conjure up are eventually proven to have severe setbacks such as electric vehicles or in the case of recycling, they are bandaids that only distract from the real problem of not holding industries accountable for producing materials that are so difficult to dispose of properly. The real problem is the system that we are living in, that is too easily manipulated by rich and powerful interests, and the loss of hope that we may ever find something to replace it. We’ve given up imagining a better world and we are too distracted, being led around by algorithms to recognize the doomsday ahead.
I used to feel guilt for driving my car. I was panicked. But then I realized that this planet has been through massive swings in temperature and climate regimes. I’ve zoomed out now and see humans as much smaller in the cosmic scheme and what will happen will happen. I love humanity and want the species to survive. I now believe we will survive climate change, whatever becomes of it. We ingenious beings.
What freaks me out more is how we stop the psychos pushing us to war in ever pocket of the globe. The Project for a New American Century and that ilk must be exposed.
I must admit to often feeling the “fuck it!” impulse, but never accompanied by a “Get me to my shotgun!” drive. The knowledge of what we’re doing to this planet should surely be pushing us all into living in smaller, more sustainable communities. That is what I crave on the deepest level, but it isn’t what I’m doing. A million distractions pulling me in a million different directions (war, unemployment, terrorism, cheese porn) prevent me from clearly seeing this path as the only possible option. Yet something nags. Maybe the conspiracy theorists have got to me. But the thick sticky web of deceit spun by the “shadowy powers that be” has rendered me incapable of trusting the prevailing narrative (in this case, that climate change is truly an existential threat), no matter how much this prevailing belief might seem to go against the interests of the elite. But I’m probably just looking for some reason not to change my lifestyle, and I’m willing to let myself believe that perhaps climate change isn’t as bad as we’re told. After all, we’re all being manipulated all of the time, aren’t we? So why not this time, too? I’d be curious to explore the “get me to my shotgun!” urge, but I fear that such an odyssey would take me to even darker places that these end times. So, to nudge this thread into a gentler direction. I’d like to ask you all one thing: how would you like your ideal apocalypses to be?
Mostly in the ‘enjoy it while it lasts’ camp. I used to do a lot, years ago. Worked in river restoration to bring back the salmon, planted trees, didn’t get on an airplane for years and drove car minimally. Now I fly around, travel, etc. Feel pretty powerless to make a real change.
I used to be a lot more panicked about this. Now I’m more indifferent. I recognize this as real and a problem, but I’m more worried that the cure will be more harmful than the disease. It seems that the Governments in power to do anything about this are too untrustworthy to do anything meaningful.
It boggles my mind why we don’t put more efforts into nuclear power. We can also make carbon dense liquids like biodiesel and inject those back into the oil reservoirs that we have emptied. Solar is great but has many issues also.
I’m more interested in news about UFO’s and aliens.
Unless we stop capitalism, there is no hope for the future. Can't fix climate change in an endless growth system. It's like trying to stop a sinking ship when one of the rules is to keep making new holes in the ship.
Have you considered inviting Nate Hagens for an interview? His podcast is The Great Simplification. He and his guests have nuanced conversations about this topic.