This argument isn't relevant to systems though. In systems terms, knowledge doesn’t suspend thermodynamics. Every solution has an energy and material cost, and those costs accumulate. You can't 'solve' thermodynamics - they are immutable, physical laws.
Thanks for this excellent survey and summary! It's nice to see the most sophisticated arguments collected in one place.
I saw the fellow complaining that he can still get food, gas, and electricity, therefore it's not collapse. Poor him! I feel the need to mention that there are places in the world where those commodities are not, indeed, available. In fact, there are places which have already been rendered uninhabitable by the ravages of global industrial civilization. A little bit of empathy and imagination can bring the truth close to you, even if it's not in your house right now.
With collegial respect: I do not share your optimism (if you can call it that) that humanity's efforts can alter the downward course of collapse. I believe we are now in a regime where the Earth's systems are acting on a scale that utterly dwarfs even our prodigious capabilities. The Earth does her cycles over hundreds of millions of years, with power commensurate to those eons. We are a funny blip, not even to be noticed in the geographic record (should there be anyone to notice us). That said, our spirits are eternal and we dance in the galaxies forever, but that's another conversation!
Thanks so much David, I'm a long time follower of your work.
I only believe local responses are possible, nothing at national or global level. I think I'm fairly explicit that humans may well not have a role to play moving forward.
I've never been called optimistic before!! Thanks again mate.
Thanks for this. I didn't go too deep into the detail around resource depletion as I wanted to keep this piece as snappy as possible while tying all the key elements together. You're right though, peak oil looms large over the coming years. There is no way out of this as you say, just how we choose to respond.
Thanks Kevin, appreciate that. I'm a huge fan of Michael Dowd - he's been a huge inspiration to me to start writing about nature and our civilisational predicament. Cheers
Thank you for doing that work Adrian, your understanding of collapse and how we might respond to it has been very helpful.
I've been collapse aware for sometime, but most acutely since the significant jump in world average temperatures and severe weather events of the last three years, and through a clearer awareness of changes here in UK. I have become addicted to following posters on Bluesky, such as Eliot Jacobson (and through that others), perhaps because I keep needing to be really sure of all this.
I'm (inevitably) in the later years of my life and with my wife we are hoping to have a new life in Scotland soon, where I'd like us to live well with collapse in mind and where can contribute some skills in the local community.
Thanks Peter, glad this was helpful. Sounds like you're in a good place in terms of accepting where we are and where we're going. I hope to hear about your Scotland move on here!
You're probably aware that peak U.S. oil production, led by the declining Permian Basin, could happen as soon as 2027, with the world following not long after. Plateauing OPEC output was bailed out by U.S. fracking around 2008 and it was called a "financial" crisis, not an oil crisis.
Peak Oil will initiate global economic shrinkage and major hardships, though nuclear power could delay the worst of it for awhile. It will also be the prime factor in slowing AGW, since people won't limit greed voluntarily until gluttony costs too much.
"100% renewable energy" fantasies (sprawling wind & solar is built and backed up w/oil & gas) are preventing many people from reacting wisely to what's coming. I don't see any easy way out of this.
I really like this.It's a very clear article. I guess I'm more scientifically incline than perhaps some people.But maybe that doesn't matter. So for me , principles of thermodynamics sit very comfortably from a scientific point. But weather, I'm comfortable with it or not.I can't help thinking that the human dimension in all of this , which is about providing beliefs and values and frames to justify just about anything , is a major obstacle toward universal understanding of the issues we face. So even if we don't put her hands over our ears and ignore our crisis it's quite difficult for people who adopt even subtly different frames of reference to unite around the problem let alone the solution. Plenty to think about.. plenty to get on with. Thanks for your contributuion.
A comprehensive read with lots of resources to follow up. Thank you for writing this and for posting in the neighbourhood group on FB. I’ll be sharing this with others.
Global transnational corporations will shape the collapse, not a lonely dozen isolated substack readers and writers with commendable humanist intentions but zero social power.. Hopium is a mighty drug.
How many meals have you missed in your lifetime because of an inability to get food? How many times have you been unable to supply your car with gas? What is the longest you have gone without electricity in your house?
Surely collapse is more than a foreboding feeling. Collapse of a building is an intense on-rushing of extremely violent, destructive forces. Its societal analogue must be at least somewhat commensurate.
I don't think you read the full article - I detail how and why collapse will unfold unevenly across the world. People in Pakistan and Haiti for example are very much experiencing collapse. You're argument is also very anthropocentric - I do what I can to support the crashing biodiversity here in the UK - this is an important response. Read the full article.
There is no iron law of the Internet that says anyone commenting has to pass a test proving that they have read each and every line of a very lengthy blog post.
You also wrote that “collapse will unfold,” thus confirming my point, even though you evaded it by not answering my questions. Collapse is here now in many parts of the world, but not in others. Anybody with a functioning brain knows that everything under the sun is “unevenly distributed.”
Collapse is a difficult but very important subject, and anybody talking about it has to expect some disagreement. I’m not singling you out - you should write whatever you want. The internet has become a great void, giving so little clarity and progress as it burns the world with its data centers.
So you are agreeing with the key point of potential uneven collapse, even adding some concerns about data centers burning the world. There is no iron law of the internet that says one may not write anything about a problem that they have not personally experienced. Reading a post in full before answering is not a law, it is just the smart thing to do unless you are just trolling. Enjoy!
This comes from a reddit user and I wonder if this is what you're talking about
Hello fellow doomists, happywashers and rationnaly depressed people,
I fell down the collapse hole about 10 years ago and since changed my whole personal and professional life around it. Living on a sustainable hamlet in the french countryside and working as a sustainability consultant for those who accept to remove their heads from the sand from time to time.
But ever since the beginning of this journey, something have been bugging me and I think I found out what and wanted to share it with you : collapse is the ideal scenario we will never see happening.
Let me elaborate : when you think about the notion of "collapse" the images coming to mind are sudden, brutal changes and what we are experiencing on a daily basis is anything but sudden and brutal. Except for those experiencing natural disasters and even those are poised to rebuilding and regrow right after the crisis ends.
When Jared Diamond works on his famous book "collapse", he does it through the lens of multiple centuries and can consider the brutal changes happening to the Romans, the Mayans, the Rapa Nui... But it is only brutal from a century based point of view.
For the people living in those times, it would have been a succession of mediocre harvests, of political turmoil while the average Julius (ancestor to the average Joe !) was trying to make Rome great again because his life did not felt as great as the stories he heard at the tavern.
Fast forward to today, we reached peak conventional oil in 2007 and all oils in 2017 according to the Energy Outlook of the IEA. We have already lost 3/4 of the insects (in Europe) and are losing half a million people to pollution each year (again, in Europe). We ARE in a state of collapse if we look only at the hard data.
And yet, here we are, looking for signs, clues, of when the "big one" is going to happen because (imho) we are confused between the rationnal aspect of the collapse and the "sensory" aspect of it. We know we are knee deep in it, but for most of us we can't feel it therefore, we are waiting for something big to crack.
And therefore my take on it : it won't.
Because :
1- The powers that be are way too invested in keeping the status quo no matter the cost and
2- The majority of the people around us will fight to the last moment for a semblance of normalcy, legitimizing the pursue of growth and power accumulation.
So instead of a big crack in the fabric of our societies, leading to immediate chaos but also immediate interruption of our damages to the environment, we are the proverbial frogs in the pot watching the water slowly disappear despite our need for it to be preserved for the future.
There is a field of study in political sociology dedicated to the revolutionnary leftists which poised that waiting for "the big day" (or the "Grand Soir" in french, sorry I don't have much references for it in english...) threatens or kills the will to act now.
And I fear waiting for an hypothetical collapse may have the same effect.
A lot to agree with here Gwen - collapse can unfold over decades or a century. It's more about the steady uptick of inflation, and steady drop in fertility than some catastrophic event.
To be upfront, I think Reddit is just as stupid and malicious as any other corporate forum like Substack. Up and down voting is childish, the censorship is illogical, but it’s the one place where collapse is taken seriously at times by random commenters.
Doom is a hard subject. In the third paragraphs, there is a double mention of the word “sustainable,” which is oxymoronic, since nothing under the sun is”sustainable,” especially not the finite glory grab of western civilization.
No mention of the actual social power in our times, the global transnational corporations.
“Poising” points about the long-dead, murdered phanstasm of “revolutionary leftists” belongs to maybe 1969, 1970. What does “ the will to act now” means in practical terms against the world of supertankers, techno war, useless social media, holocausts, and the completely reinforced supersystem?
Asking of course for a friend. For me, it’s all way beyond futile, which is why I have so little to say.
I am agreeing with my point that collapse is completely uneven, and unless you or I or the blog poster has missed meals and gas, it’s not collapse yet.
I also do not support “crashing biodiversity” either in the UK or where I am, yet I recognize that as a member of industrial civ humanity my existence has been tied to that very unfortunate inheritance.
Anybody can write anything, but the comments section should be for thrashing the resulting ideas around, which you term “trolling,” as if you are the internet’s tone police.
Obviously, Substack comments section tends toward either stupid, vapid, non-existent, or extremely unhelpful.
I'm interested in "thrashing ideas around," as you say. When you say that global transnational corporations will shape collapse, I'm curious as to your intended effect on readers of your comment. Are you trying to tell us, "Hey, if you're now thinking you'll try to live a less resource-intensive lifestyle, give up on that, it's no use"? Are you trying to say, "We need to do something about these corporations first"?
I also see the decision-makers at large corporations as having a disproportionate impact on how collapse unfolds. I'm curious to hear more about why you take issue with the ideas in this essay, as I did not find them objectionable.
Hmm, “the intended effect” on readers of my comment. You think that really needs a plural? This is the backwater of the mighty corporate-owned internet , where it’s single digits at best, so nobody but a fool thinks they are writing for anybody but themselves, to hear what truth sounds like when shaped into syllables.
Ever tried reading r/collapse, especially the comments section? While not unanimous by any means, most of the writers there have no hopium high to get from seeing degrowth pledges from individual screen sharers.
The world needs to sing in perfect harmony to avoid extinction, but tell me, how do you think the esteemed science honors graduate with back problems is doing right now who actually “did something” about the overmassive violence of these corporations?
As to your “curiosity” about my psychological motivations to take issue with the ideas in this very long anodyne post, you would really have to reach into my brain pan and find all the synapses that fire together against the tireless waves of self-ennobling bullshit that permeates the culture, and now Substack. That, and the wonderful luck of being born to non-parenting parents who left me alone to read from free libraries.
OK, I want to check if I'm correctly interpreting what you wrote: the part you take issue with, or even are annoyed by, is the part in which the author attempts "to explore how we might navigate the descent with integrity, purpose, and care for the living world," because you see that as a futile effort in the face of the power of corporations. Are you also arguing that, to focus on what we can do to "navigate the descent" takes corporations off the hook, or distracts us from seeking justice for what they've done? I'm wondering if you see people who think there is something that can be done in the face of disaster--and thus have a "hopium high"--as disconnected from the realities you see, and you want to have a shared understanding with other collapse-aware people.
You're right, I can't really know (especially through a screen) what's going on in your brain pan. I do believe in iterative communication, though, and still have hope (ha) that I can come close to understanding other people (even if people as a whole are doomed). (Ugh yeah it does sound self-ennobling, please excuse the stench.)
On a personal note, I'm sorry about the non-parenting parents. Call me crazy, but I don't think a kid should have to self-raise. I'm glad to be benefiting from all you gained from the free libraries, and I hope you're getting the things you need from the people around you now.
Sure, I’ll answer, even though I see in this eternal junior high of corporate social media idea exchange, it is you, and you alone, who get the red heart sticker of love and the “like” button award from the author - what’s it like?
Yes, to your first paragraph - solipsism is defined by a senseless, reality-denying focus on individual human self-worth.
Integrity, purpose, and care - in the middle of ecocide? Genocide? Extinction? Who is selling these bromides?
I think I’ve been pretty clear about the cost of being deniers about corporate power. I also do think collapse awareness is imperative.
There are brave and hard-working thinkers and authors who have tried to ring the collapse bells, to absolutely no effect. Just for you to ask these questions shows you have intimations of how social dystopia is gathering far too much momentum.
And yes, the answer to any family trauma is to find life outside of its confines, which I have managed to do, and which I hope you have, too. Humans, like ants and termites, are ultrasocial, and don’t do well without requisite social supports. Keep on talking to others - it’s a great trait you have.
I hear you. Collapse isn’t a morality play with villains and heroes. There are bad actors like corporations that profit from destruction, politicians who delay, elites who extract. But even without them, the trajectory would still be the same. Overshoot is structural. It comes from the very qualities that made civilisation powerful; energy throughput, expansion, complexity.
That’s why I don’t frame collapse as anyone’s 'fault.' Collapse is what civilisations do. There's no point in assigning blame, personal responses are the name of the game now.
Thanks Nigel. I appreciate the optimism, and I agree that humans are remarkably resourceful and adaptive.
My challenge would be that adaptation has always depended on the ecological foundations that sustain us. Evolution isn’t a guarantee of progress; it’s a negotiation with limits.
Ok… Hmmmmmmm …. you talk about evolution being a limited affair… and if we were talking about the ability for an insect or any animal to adapt to a changing environment I would agree….. but we are talking about a species with a huge advantage of advanced technology and deployment of a rapid leaning cycle. Where we can not just adapt to an environment but fabricate one at will… Plus our level of waste is actually an advantage as we can (should) do a lot into the future to continuously improve that factor when it matters.
Maybe you need some engineers to add to the concept and possible outcome… Of course we are going to change …..but not in the direction of this article.
This argument isn't relevant to systems though. In systems terms, knowledge doesn’t suspend thermodynamics. Every solution has an energy and material cost, and those costs accumulate. You can't 'solve' thermodynamics - they are immutable, physical laws.
Thanks for this excellent survey and summary! It's nice to see the most sophisticated arguments collected in one place.
I saw the fellow complaining that he can still get food, gas, and electricity, therefore it's not collapse. Poor him! I feel the need to mention that there are places in the world where those commodities are not, indeed, available. In fact, there are places which have already been rendered uninhabitable by the ravages of global industrial civilization. A little bit of empathy and imagination can bring the truth close to you, even if it's not in your house right now.
With collegial respect: I do not share your optimism (if you can call it that) that humanity's efforts can alter the downward course of collapse. I believe we are now in a regime where the Earth's systems are acting on a scale that utterly dwarfs even our prodigious capabilities. The Earth does her cycles over hundreds of millions of years, with power commensurate to those eons. We are a funny blip, not even to be noticed in the geographic record (should there be anyone to notice us). That said, our spirits are eternal and we dance in the galaxies forever, but that's another conversation!
Thanks for this great entry!
Thanks so much David, I'm a long time follower of your work.
I only believe local responses are possible, nothing at national or global level. I think I'm fairly explicit that humans may well not have a role to play moving forward.
I've never been called optimistic before!! Thanks again mate.
Thanks for this. I didn't go too deep into the detail around resource depletion as I wanted to keep this piece as snappy as possible while tying all the key elements together. You're right though, peak oil looms large over the coming years. There is no way out of this as you say, just how we choose to respond.
Great work sir, bravo.
William Catton's work came up.
I highly recommend Mike Dowd's work on William Catton.
https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/william-r-catton-jr
Thanks Kevin, appreciate that. I'm a huge fan of Michael Dowd - he's been a huge inspiration to me to start writing about nature and our civilisational predicament. Cheers
Thank you for doing that work Adrian, your understanding of collapse and how we might respond to it has been very helpful.
I've been collapse aware for sometime, but most acutely since the significant jump in world average temperatures and severe weather events of the last three years, and through a clearer awareness of changes here in UK. I have become addicted to following posters on Bluesky, such as Eliot Jacobson (and through that others), perhaps because I keep needing to be really sure of all this.
I'm (inevitably) in the later years of my life and with my wife we are hoping to have a new life in Scotland soon, where I'd like us to live well with collapse in mind and where can contribute some skills in the local community.
Thanks Peter, glad this was helpful. Sounds like you're in a good place in terms of accepting where we are and where we're going. I hope to hear about your Scotland move on here!
Thank you. I will try to do that!
You're probably aware that peak U.S. oil production, led by the declining Permian Basin, could happen as soon as 2027, with the world following not long after. Plateauing OPEC output was bailed out by U.S. fracking around 2008 and it was called a "financial" crisis, not an oil crisis.
Peak Oil will initiate global economic shrinkage and major hardships, though nuclear power could delay the worst of it for awhile. It will also be the prime factor in slowing AGW, since people won't limit greed voluntarily until gluttony costs too much.
"100% renewable energy" fantasies (sprawling wind & solar is built and backed up w/oil & gas) are preventing many people from reacting wisely to what's coming. I don't see any easy way out of this.
Excellent work, thank you for everything you do to spread knowledge about our predicament.
Thanks Alan, I'm grateful for the feedback and support 😁
Sounds a lot like Daniel Quinn's Ishmael.
Thanks Styro
Our civilization was wrongly conceived from day 1:
https://exploringhumans.substack.com/p/the-social-and-economic-dynamics
I really like this.It's a very clear article. I guess I'm more scientifically incline than perhaps some people.But maybe that doesn't matter. So for me , principles of thermodynamics sit very comfortably from a scientific point. But weather, I'm comfortable with it or not.I can't help thinking that the human dimension in all of this , which is about providing beliefs and values and frames to justify just about anything , is a major obstacle toward universal understanding of the issues we face. So even if we don't put her hands over our ears and ignore our crisis it's quite difficult for people who adopt even subtly different frames of reference to unite around the problem let alone the solution. Plenty to think about.. plenty to get on with. Thanks for your contributuion.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Robert, glad you enjoyed this. Adrian
https://empathphilosophy.substack.com/p/cah-a-comprehensive-analysis-of-the
Thanks! Excellent background on the science. Shared here; @PCa Permaculture Climate Action! https://www.facebook.com/groups/2046655862094973
A comprehensive read with lots of resources to follow up. Thank you for writing this and for posting in the neighbourhood group on FB. I’ll be sharing this with others.
Well described as where we are, what we face. The comment about “Hopium” a good one.
Global transnational corporations will shape the collapse, not a lonely dozen isolated substack readers and writers with commendable humanist intentions but zero social power.. Hopium is a mighty drug.
Collapse is now Martin, it’s not some abstract future. I also write about personal responses without outcomes, I’m not trying to start a revolution.
You say that “collapse is now.”
How many meals have you missed in your lifetime because of an inability to get food? How many times have you been unable to supply your car with gas? What is the longest you have gone without electricity in your house?
Surely collapse is more than a foreboding feeling. Collapse of a building is an intense on-rushing of extremely violent, destructive forces. Its societal analogue must be at least somewhat commensurate.
I don't think you read the full article - I detail how and why collapse will unfold unevenly across the world. People in Pakistan and Haiti for example are very much experiencing collapse. You're argument is also very anthropocentric - I do what I can to support the crashing biodiversity here in the UK - this is an important response. Read the full article.
There is no iron law of the Internet that says anyone commenting has to pass a test proving that they have read each and every line of a very lengthy blog post.
You also wrote that “collapse will unfold,” thus confirming my point, even though you evaded it by not answering my questions. Collapse is here now in many parts of the world, but not in others. Anybody with a functioning brain knows that everything under the sun is “unevenly distributed.”
Collapse is a difficult but very important subject, and anybody talking about it has to expect some disagreement. I’m not singling you out - you should write whatever you want. The internet has become a great void, giving so little clarity and progress as it burns the world with its data centers.
So you are agreeing with the key point of potential uneven collapse, even adding some concerns about data centers burning the world. There is no iron law of the internet that says one may not write anything about a problem that they have not personally experienced. Reading a post in full before answering is not a law, it is just the smart thing to do unless you are just trolling. Enjoy!
This comes from a reddit user and I wonder if this is what you're talking about
Hello fellow doomists, happywashers and rationnaly depressed people,
I fell down the collapse hole about 10 years ago and since changed my whole personal and professional life around it. Living on a sustainable hamlet in the french countryside and working as a sustainability consultant for those who accept to remove their heads from the sand from time to time.
But ever since the beginning of this journey, something have been bugging me and I think I found out what and wanted to share it with you : collapse is the ideal scenario we will never see happening.
Let me elaborate : when you think about the notion of "collapse" the images coming to mind are sudden, brutal changes and what we are experiencing on a daily basis is anything but sudden and brutal. Except for those experiencing natural disasters and even those are poised to rebuilding and regrow right after the crisis ends.
When Jared Diamond works on his famous book "collapse", he does it through the lens of multiple centuries and can consider the brutal changes happening to the Romans, the Mayans, the Rapa Nui... But it is only brutal from a century based point of view.
For the people living in those times, it would have been a succession of mediocre harvests, of political turmoil while the average Julius (ancestor to the average Joe !) was trying to make Rome great again because his life did not felt as great as the stories he heard at the tavern.
Fast forward to today, we reached peak conventional oil in 2007 and all oils in 2017 according to the Energy Outlook of the IEA. We have already lost 3/4 of the insects (in Europe) and are losing half a million people to pollution each year (again, in Europe). We ARE in a state of collapse if we look only at the hard data.
And yet, here we are, looking for signs, clues, of when the "big one" is going to happen because (imho) we are confused between the rationnal aspect of the collapse and the "sensory" aspect of it. We know we are knee deep in it, but for most of us we can't feel it therefore, we are waiting for something big to crack.
And therefore my take on it : it won't.
Because :
1- The powers that be are way too invested in keeping the status quo no matter the cost and
2- The majority of the people around us will fight to the last moment for a semblance of normalcy, legitimizing the pursue of growth and power accumulation.
So instead of a big crack in the fabric of our societies, leading to immediate chaos but also immediate interruption of our damages to the environment, we are the proverbial frogs in the pot watching the water slowly disappear despite our need for it to be preserved for the future.
There is a field of study in political sociology dedicated to the revolutionnary leftists which poised that waiting for "the big day" (or the "Grand Soir" in french, sorry I don't have much references for it in english...) threatens or kills the will to act now.
And I fear waiting for an hypothetical collapse may have the same effect.
Thank you for your time,
Thoughts ?
A lot to agree with here Gwen - collapse can unfold over decades or a century. It's more about the steady uptick of inflation, and steady drop in fertility than some catastrophic event.
To be upfront, I think Reddit is just as stupid and malicious as any other corporate forum like Substack. Up and down voting is childish, the censorship is illogical, but it’s the one place where collapse is taken seriously at times by random commenters.
Doom is a hard subject. In the third paragraphs, there is a double mention of the word “sustainable,” which is oxymoronic, since nothing under the sun is”sustainable,” especially not the finite glory grab of western civilization.
No mention of the actual social power in our times, the global transnational corporations.
“Poising” points about the long-dead, murdered phanstasm of “revolutionary leftists” belongs to maybe 1969, 1970. What does “ the will to act now” means in practical terms against the world of supertankers, techno war, useless social media, holocausts, and the completely reinforced supersystem?
Asking of course for a friend. For me, it’s all way beyond futile, which is why I have so little to say.
I am agreeing with my point that collapse is completely uneven, and unless you or I or the blog poster has missed meals and gas, it’s not collapse yet.
I also do not support “crashing biodiversity” either in the UK or where I am, yet I recognize that as a member of industrial civ humanity my existence has been tied to that very unfortunate inheritance.
Anybody can write anything, but the comments section should be for thrashing the resulting ideas around, which you term “trolling,” as if you are the internet’s tone police.
Obviously, Substack comments section tends toward either stupid, vapid, non-existent, or extremely unhelpful.
I'm interested in "thrashing ideas around," as you say. When you say that global transnational corporations will shape collapse, I'm curious as to your intended effect on readers of your comment. Are you trying to tell us, "Hey, if you're now thinking you'll try to live a less resource-intensive lifestyle, give up on that, it's no use"? Are you trying to say, "We need to do something about these corporations first"?
I also see the decision-makers at large corporations as having a disproportionate impact on how collapse unfolds. I'm curious to hear more about why you take issue with the ideas in this essay, as I did not find them objectionable.
Hmm, “the intended effect” on readers of my comment. You think that really needs a plural? This is the backwater of the mighty corporate-owned internet , where it’s single digits at best, so nobody but a fool thinks they are writing for anybody but themselves, to hear what truth sounds like when shaped into syllables.
Ever tried reading r/collapse, especially the comments section? While not unanimous by any means, most of the writers there have no hopium high to get from seeing degrowth pledges from individual screen sharers.
The world needs to sing in perfect harmony to avoid extinction, but tell me, how do you think the esteemed science honors graduate with back problems is doing right now who actually “did something” about the overmassive violence of these corporations?
As to your “curiosity” about my psychological motivations to take issue with the ideas in this very long anodyne post, you would really have to reach into my brain pan and find all the synapses that fire together against the tireless waves of self-ennobling bullshit that permeates the culture, and now Substack. That, and the wonderful luck of being born to non-parenting parents who left me alone to read from free libraries.
OK, I want to check if I'm correctly interpreting what you wrote: the part you take issue with, or even are annoyed by, is the part in which the author attempts "to explore how we might navigate the descent with integrity, purpose, and care for the living world," because you see that as a futile effort in the face of the power of corporations. Are you also arguing that, to focus on what we can do to "navigate the descent" takes corporations off the hook, or distracts us from seeking justice for what they've done? I'm wondering if you see people who think there is something that can be done in the face of disaster--and thus have a "hopium high"--as disconnected from the realities you see, and you want to have a shared understanding with other collapse-aware people.
You're right, I can't really know (especially through a screen) what's going on in your brain pan. I do believe in iterative communication, though, and still have hope (ha) that I can come close to understanding other people (even if people as a whole are doomed). (Ugh yeah it does sound self-ennobling, please excuse the stench.)
On a personal note, I'm sorry about the non-parenting parents. Call me crazy, but I don't think a kid should have to self-raise. I'm glad to be benefiting from all you gained from the free libraries, and I hope you're getting the things you need from the people around you now.
Sure, I’ll answer, even though I see in this eternal junior high of corporate social media idea exchange, it is you, and you alone, who get the red heart sticker of love and the “like” button award from the author - what’s it like?
Yes, to your first paragraph - solipsism is defined by a senseless, reality-denying focus on individual human self-worth.
Integrity, purpose, and care - in the middle of ecocide? Genocide? Extinction? Who is selling these bromides?
I think I’ve been pretty clear about the cost of being deniers about corporate power. I also do think collapse awareness is imperative.
There are brave and hard-working thinkers and authors who have tried to ring the collapse bells, to absolutely no effect. Just for you to ask these questions shows you have intimations of how social dystopia is gathering far too much momentum.
And yes, the answer to any family trauma is to find life outside of its confines, which I have managed to do, and which I hope you have, too. Humans, like ants and termites, are ultrasocial, and don’t do well without requisite social supports. Keep on talking to others - it’s a great trait you have.
I hear you. Collapse isn’t a morality play with villains and heroes. There are bad actors like corporations that profit from destruction, politicians who delay, elites who extract. But even without them, the trajectory would still be the same. Overshoot is structural. It comes from the very qualities that made civilisation powerful; energy throughput, expansion, complexity.
That’s why I don’t frame collapse as anyone’s 'fault.' Collapse is what civilisations do. There's no point in assigning blame, personal responses are the name of the game now.
A lot of good points but it badly assumes that humans are not resourceful reactive and resilient…
We will be fine and so will the planet and we will evolve as needed and don’t need any thought of going backwards.
The good news is that we have plenty of room and time for improvement…
Thanks Nigel. I appreciate the optimism, and I agree that humans are remarkably resourceful and adaptive.
My challenge would be that adaptation has always depended on the ecological foundations that sustain us. Evolution isn’t a guarantee of progress; it’s a negotiation with limits.
Ok… Hmmmmmmm …. you talk about evolution being a limited affair… and if we were talking about the ability for an insect or any animal to adapt to a changing environment I would agree….. but we are talking about a species with a huge advantage of advanced technology and deployment of a rapid leaning cycle. Where we can not just adapt to an environment but fabricate one at will… Plus our level of waste is actually an advantage as we can (should) do a lot into the future to continuously improve that factor when it matters.
Maybe you need some engineers to add to the concept and possible outcome… Of course we are going to change …..but not in the direction of this article.