Yves here. We’ve been decrying Green New Deal unicorn/hopium as wildly inadequate responses to greenhouse gas emissions for some time. We are now past the point of no return. We’ve featured sobering warnings, such as Preparing for Collapse: Why the Focus on Climate/Energy Sustainability Is Destructive. Richard Murphy warns of what comes next on a more personal level, such as “devil take the hindmost” efforts to find relatively safe havens. Yet Helene illustrated that that may well be futile, since North Carolina was ranked by many as less vulnerable to climate change bad outcomes than most of the US.
By Richard Murphy, part-time Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School, director of the Corporate Accountability Network, member of Finance for the Future LLP, and director of Tax Research LLP. Originally published at Fund the Future
As the Guardian noted yesterday:
Many of Earth’s “vital signs” have hit record extremes, indicating that “the future of humanity hangs in the balance”, a group of the world’s most senior climate experts have said.
More and more scientists are now looking into the possibility of societal collapse, says the report, which assessed 35 vital signs in 2023 and found that 25 were worse than ever recorded, including carbon dioxide levels and human population. This indicates a “critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis”, it says.
They added:
The temperature of Earth’s surface and oceans hit an all-time high, driven by record burning of fossil fuels, the report found. Human population is increasing at a rate of approximately 200,000 people a day and the number of cattle and sheep by 170,000 a day, all adding to record greenhouse gas emissions.
I believe those scientists. All the available evidence is that they are right, given that everything that they have predicted so far, including extreme weather conditions and the threat to the survival of life on some parts of the planet, does seem to be happening.
I was eavesdropping on a conversation yesterday. I know I shouldn’t, but the two people of about my age who were partaking in it in the coffee shop where I was working were doing nothing to stop me from doing so, and such was their volume that they gave me little option but to take note. They were discussing all the places that they had been in the world – and few tourist hotspots from Hawaii to every place you can think of closer to home – had seemingly been missed by them. Despite that, discussion was being had on where to go next, with the Himalayas seeming to be high on the agenda.
Why was I interested? I also listened to their discussion about their grandchildren, for whom they very obviously cared. I then wondered whether those grandchildren were really going to thank these two for having helped burn their planet for no good reason. A cocktail is a cocktail the world over – and they seemed to have a liking for them as well. Their ‘making memories’ tours of the world are very clearly part of the problem of excess consumption that is driving our world to the brink of chaos, and beyond. But they either did not know, or did not care, or could not make the link between their own excesses and the crisis that we face.
I fear societal breakdown. It will come because of that thing that most people in this country claim to fear most – which is the movement of people. That is going to happen now. Hundreds of millions of people, or more, are going to have to move in the decades to come if they are to have a chance of survival. That is not an opinion; that’s a fact. And you can be sure that those who will move will do so because they are not going to sit still and die where life has become impossible, through no fault of their own.
In that case, what can be done to manage this risk of societal breakdown through the mass movement of people? What follows are incredibly simplistic suggestions, but in the face of a crisis of epic proportions, which is where we are, simple solutions might be required.
First, we will have to accept the reality of migration. Our narratives have to change. We embrace what is going to happen, or the turmoil of conflict will end what we have, come what may.
Second, we have to accept that our consumption is going to change radically. We will not, for a start, be aimlessly globe-trotting the world, but that is only the tip of the required change in behaviour.
Third, we might have to overthrow the powers that seek to prevent change from happening – most of whom are represented by the current power elites who have, for example, now decided that when the choice is between short-term profits and human survival, profits win. Alternatively, they are those who have decided that balancing the books should win. In either case, those priorities have to go, and those seeking to uphold them will have to lose power – however uncomfortable that might be for them.
And for the record (and in case anyone in the security services might be looking in), I am not for a moment suggesting revolution or anything so absurd because that would itself represent societal breakdown. I am suggesting that democracy – real democracy – has to deliver this. In other words, the will of the people to survive will, eventually, have to prevail at the ballot box.
Let’s not pretend we are going to be living comfortably for some time to come. What has already happened might well prevent that from happening. The only hope we have is for changed attitudes, changed priorities, and the will to live. With them, we might survive climate change. Without them, breakdown it is.
74 comments
Comments are closed.
By real democracy I hope Richard means something other than electoral politics.
By the way, to anyone interested in the topic (how anything less than dramatic and radical deindustrialization won’t stop climate change) I would recommend Derrik Jenson. Also, ‘The Ministry of the Future’ by Kim Stanley Robinson. The latter touches on the topic of tourism, in particular. Eco-terrorists start shooting down passenger planes and overnight the airline, travel and tourism industries collapse, also leading to a return of the days of sail and travel between landmasses becomes a month(s) long affair but the world adjusts to the slower pace, for the better.
I thought throwing paint and blocking major roadways was the limit. That’s terrifying!
Limits? What limits? Why would you assume that desperate people would pay any attention to your limits? My assumption is that already approaching 90 I shall not live to see what is to come. But I have a son and grandchildren to mention only the close family circle. What of them?
We have met the enemy and he is us.
I look forward to reading those sources. The author is suggesting an electoral solution, but I suspect he’s merely backpeddling after having advocated overthrow of the powers that be, then considering the consequences; it’s a signal of submission to the security services he mentions. It’s an interesting feature of the internet, where political radicals who understand the urgent necessity of profound change also understand tacitly the implications of using the medium, and who owns or functionally controls it. I’ve argued that attempting to organize on the internet, a military project given over to consolidated capital, grants the status quo home-field advantage. It’s a great medium for disseminating information, but it would be better if it weren’t for both the ownership aspect and the concommitent degrading of the attention span with the ephemera of web 3.0 or whichever model we’re on. Place-based grassroots stuff may have more potential.
Have you read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future? It actually advocates for eco terrorism (killing and kidnapping CEOs, shooting down jets), and yet it got blurbed by Obama. I realized not only had he probably never read it but no one in Obama Inc had, either.
My point is: the censor hammer may come down hard when talking about concretes like a specific genocide, but there is a lot of breathing room for blue sky discussions, and in fact anything that is not hot button.
John Brunner’s excellent “Stand on Zanzibar” and “The Sheep Look Up” are excellent forebears of Robinson’s work & also look favorably on “eco-terrorism”as a response to ecological collappse.
IMO Robinson suggests, in the final chapter, that a black-ops arm of the UN may have in fact been responsible for bringing down the passenger jets, and not any grass roots terrorism.
Eco terrorism will rise out of jealousy (if I can’t fly then you can’t either) and not concern for the environment, although the perpetrators will no doubt state the later as their main motivation.
Yeah, the idea that our government structures, which are already threadbare now, will somehow emerge from the climate crisis in one piece is in some ways even more naive than believing we can outrun climate change. Of course they won’t. Governments are going to topple, extremist movements of the sort we thought we left in the 20th century will come back, vicious civil wars will be fought, and a whole lot of people will likely die.
The far right is bigger in Europe than it has been for decades, and this was mostly from a trickle of immigrants relative to what climate change will produce. Very dark days on the horizon.
I found “The Ministry of the Future” very engaging, particularly after the long, harrowing opening describing the precipitating climate disaster, which takes place in India in 2025. Except for one friend who is long-time KSR fan, and another with whom I read the book and discussed it at the time, I cannot get anyone else to read the book. I have repeatedly offered to lend my copy, and my friends and family repeatedly decline. They don’t want to know. Increasingly, they suffer from TDS and really don’t want to know anything. At all.
Since I can’t find any takers, I think I will read “The Ministry” again.
Ministry FOR the Future, of course
You could also read Earth Abides again. It actually offers a glimmer of hope for the planet. George Carlin had something to say about this as well.
Same/same in my literary circle. There’s one person I know who digests apocalit regularly and nobody else seems interested. The pertinent questions (what happens in the middle of it? how are our kids gonna die? how might they survive?) are so unsettling to think about that Gibson forces a time-travel trope to write around them in The Peripheral. Easier to read about the challenges to one’s identity in relation to self in the context of contemporary manners. Or get carried about in spaceships with super cool tech, awesome spells and mind bending trans-dimensional story arcs. Or both — I love Ann Leckie but I digress.
There’s a moment in the Broken Earth series (for
anyone who hasn’t read it, an actual worthy piece of woke IDPol apocalypse porn) where it’s mentioned as a given that when scarcity really sets in, private property is completely off the table, antithetical to survival. If you ain’t in a tight group of able procreators, you’re dead. And if you’re foolish enough to hoard resources from your community (like the guy in Ministry for the Future with the bottled water tucked away in his fridge) it would be wasteful for them to turn you out to die on your own, far wiser to eat the meat and compost your bones. Who wants to think about that?
Another moment, same book, when a peripheral character notices a beautiful sunset like they’ve never seen and takes it as a sign that the the weather is going to turn for the better and shit ain’t so bad. Two science savvy people in the know exchange glances and agree without speaking to not disabuse the guy of his hope. The pretty colors mark an atmospheric acceleration into doom. One more person knowing the truth won’t move the needle, and removing the comfort of a delusional better tomorrow would be a cruelty.
I find myself desperately looking for that glance exchange whenever the weather comes up in conversation. If I talk about climate at all, I alienate myself from friends I love whose denial feeds itself with every new storm or fire. Science teacher spouts “IPCC truths, not conspiracy theory” that things are really okay in the long term. So I bite my tongue and try to meditate away the question of who will be eating who.
To be honest I much preferred Steven Markley’s The Deluge. It also has the eco-terrorists, the well meaning policy makers stymied by politics but was a much more engaging story than Ministry in my opinion. It’s epic in scale as well, it’ll take time to get through.
Every time I yearn for a holiday abroad this reality stings me – haven’t been away since 2019 just before Covid hit. Gave away my flight vouchers to my sister last week. I could book, pay and jump on a flight tomorrow but what future am I leaving to the young people around me. I don’t buy into it’s just me / 1 person trope, everyone has to take responsibility, not light up an excuse. Until there is a sustainable option to travel abroad, and only then initially very short distances, I don’t feel I have a right to do so. That flies in the face of every advert, colleague, passenger numbers and security queue currently coursing all around me. How many holidays should we allow, 1 per year, 1 per 3 years, none?! Allow only the rich, which is what any carbon travel tax curbing will undoubtedly result in? Never mind the narrowing path available to traffic between Europe and Asia – who knows will any be left next year with ballooning conflict. Think I’ll just drive down to my local sea shore and recall childhood days decades before I flew anywhere at all!
As to is there anywhere safe to live at all, it’s going to be scary living and our current crop of political leaders aren’t anywhere ready for this or capable of dealing with it in my opinion. Let’s hope younger, better minds prevail.
There is a strong case right now to ban private planes (and large luxury yachts). Private flight by the rich and ultra rich (including politicians) is a disproportionate contributor to current flight pollution. As for mass-movement holiday flights abroad, or from one side of a continent to the other, they date only from the 1930’s in the US and 1960’s in Europe and elsewhere, and can hardly be classified as a necessity.
Flying in the near future should really only be for scientific reasons. In the medium term, of course, there will be no more carbon based fuel anyway for such purposes as mining for aluminium, so flight, even if electric, will cease, although not soon enough to save us.
I would look forward to the days of travel by sailing ship again if I was younger. Nothing can be more peaceful than sailing under canvas (in good weather, anyway).
Yes stop pretending for us. But those controlling our government? Stop pretending? Willing to wager many an elite Neocon influencing US policy has no pretence at all and sees climate change as onother opportunity to extend the empire. This headline at Sputnik – “Over 5.5Mln People Have to Evacuate From Florida Due to Hurricane Milton – Reports”. What might such a report do to a neocon mind? My bet is, trigger them to think of leveraging similar events (if not this particular event but similar others in poorer areas) as an opportunity for recruiting bodies for foreign adventures/wars. They couldn’t car less about the impact on people – beyond weather it affects how they will vote November…they care only about their wars. The only things US officials seem to spend time on is all their wars. And MSM dutifully never asks the leaders much or at or, questions that most of us care about that affect our lives.
Mr.Timbers, to your point about the MSM and elites not caring, I listened to a show on public propaganda radio yesterday, 1A.
Interviewing retired Admiral
James Stavridis on subjects like climate change, all the good that defense spending can lead to, mentioning things like the pier in Gaza for example and our ability to deploy troops anywhere to help out after weather/earthquake disasters, like say Haiti.
What a complete joke, no pushback on anything, maybe the host could have asked about how much carbon emissions are produced by out military antics around the world,etc. (i think the elites think they can and will buy their way out of the consequences of climate change.)I also think I am likely banned with all the messages I sent asking the host to challenge the Admirals assertions. Almost like a porno without the video.
Solidy pessimistic on this subject but we are on our own and besides reducing what we can we should develop our own networks for subsistence and survival for each other and our children.
It would be Admiral Stavridis. Here is an article describing who he is and how he got so far-
https://spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/admiral-fabuloso-thumps-his-tub
The guy should have a nice, tall mug of STFU.
Stavridis has many platforms from which he can dispense his junk thinking. The Establishment loves this guy.
I’m not sure who’s more the fool — anyone who uses the Gaza pier as an example of success or anyone who believes a word such a person says.
If I had the time I would track down who manufactured the pier and then see if Stavridis sits on the Board of Directors…
Maybe one possible explanation for touting that fiasco.
For every beginning, there is an end.
Apropos to nothing.. I think China is really going to appreciate the Himalayas. I know they will go through their own climate stress, but the Indian Subcontinent seems to be ground zero for the climate bomb. An incredible amount of people going through an incredible amount of natural disasters.
I’m all in favour of stopping pretending.
But that surely must include stopping pretending that the current political system is the source of the problems which confront us, and that those problems cannot be addressed, much less solved, without first overthrowing the current political system (including, of course, the current university system which is part of the “ideological state apparatus” as identified by Althusser).
In fact, stop pretending that the nineteenth-century Marxists were wrong. They were just ahead of their time.
O god. Stopping pretending the current political system isn’t the source of the problems which confront us.
And it seemed such a nice rant until I noticed that.
agreed, except underlying the political system is the economic system.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! – Upton Sinclair
Right now, almost everyone who is not a regenerative farmer’s job depends on the current economic system and its incentives.
So, can a political system peacefully or smoothly change an economic system? History is not replete with examples.
Murphy’s observations on the conversation he overhead is all too common and very real. Unfortunately, its human nature that even when we accept the reality of what we are doing to the planet, we always think its someone elses responsibility. And yes, I know that fossil fuel companies usually push the ‘everyone is responsible’ like to avoid anyone thinking that they are most responsible. And its not just a generational thing – I was recently asked – in genuine curiosity – by a number of young (mid 20’s) people, all highly educated, as to why I ‘don’t like’ flying (I was casually mentioning how hard it was to book a train trip to connect with ferries when visiting the UK). They were genuinely surprised when I said it was all about carbon emissions.
>And its not just a generational thing – I was recently asked – in genuine curiosity – by a number of young (mid 20’s) people, all highly educated, as to why I ‘don’t like’ flying (I was casually mentioning how hard it was to book a train trip to connect with ferries when visiting the UK).
Anecdotally, my niece and many others of her generation ( ages in the late 20s/early 30s), have remote work jobs. Apparently good paying ones at that as she and her cohorts are traveling to destinations in the USand abroad numerous times a year while logging in to work. It’s no big deal to them and along with doing their part as superspreaders, they don’t make the connection on to all their contributions to climate change with this vacation travels.
I’m not saying no one should take a vacation, but just think about options in travel and destinations.
Eric Schmidt: Build more AI datacenters, we aren’t going to ‘hit climate goals anyway’
60 comment bubble on white
Perhaps the power-draining tech is the solution after all, posits former Google CEO
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/08/eric_schmidt_speech/
Essentially he wants to worsen our climate problems, to build a god to solve our climate problems.
Perhaps the real purpose of AI is as the ulitmate copium for our oligarchs who can’t accept any solution where they give up anything.
Wasn’t it here on NC a week or two ago where an article observed that the only thing AI does well is surveillance?
They will prolong business as usual for as long as possible. We’ll probably get some half-baked stratospheric aerosol injection project within the next decade, or some other hare-brained SRM attempt.
Mother Nature will ultimately win, but the Machine will start violently thrashing about shortly. Just like when a corpse spasms after death.
I’ve long thought that instead of fleeing for perceived ‘climate havens’ if people are going to migrate elsewhere to better deal with climate disasters they should choose a place that already regularly fields natural disasters successfully and where the local infrastructure and disaster response is set up and the emergency services are regularly drilled in reaction procedures. There are a number of different types of natural disasters – fires, floods, hurricanes etc so if one does this they have to choose their preferred disaster with risk calculated (like Florida and California’s lack of home insurance) – but I spent a lot of time over the years in tornado alley during storm season and especially in the areas that regularly see F5’s carve a path through densely-populated areas you also see a very strong and practiced disaster response at the community planning, first responder, and personal level.
Also it’s shocking to me that people travel recreationally so much these days! I’ve only traveled for work the past 5 years (and only a few times at that) and prior to the pandemic it was even only a once a year max thing. Tourism isn’t even that fun! It’s baffling.
I think it’s not so much where you live, but what your connections are. People work best when helping other people. Being a new resident in a “safe haven”, if sheit hits the fan, you won’t know anyone, won’t understand the basic geography, etc. I learned a long time ago, it doesn’t matter where you are if you are injured, sick or in trouble. Trouble is trouble and we are in trouble.
The climate change movement has always been about hopium and Bandaids because to truly address the reality would mean a radical change in all our arrangements and most especially the imperatives of consumerism and capitalism. And one should be clear that those latter are themselves not necessarily irrational given the ultimate human urge to be fruitful and multiply. 8 billion people can’t go back to being hunter/gatherers so we are going to have to deal with the reality of what is and get on with it. And that will mean in part dropping all the irrational impulses that we can most easily do without such as the US urge to dominate a planet in which we are all increasingly in the same boat.
Of course to the elites wars may simply seem another way of addressing the population problem via wet work but there too–given the reality of nuclear weapons–we are all in the same boat. The meek are indeed necessary for us to inherit the earth–if we can live that long.
“8 billion people can’t go back to being hunter/gatherers”
Probably not, but in seventy years or so the remaining ¼ billion or so will have no choice about it.
And only the people who know how to hunt/gather will be among that 1/4 billion.
“to the elites wars may simply seem another way of addressing the population problem” — well, it seems to me that Covid was. (And I know I’ve got company on this site.)
i would say covid was, and is.
I dread resource wars of extermination “because markets.”
Perhaps some new wisdom can emerge from the wreckage after the conflagration.
Because markets! That leads directly to the conclusion that the economic system, the Neo-liberal horror show … you know, monopoly is good for you … billionaires are so because they are smarter than the cattle, that’s us … permanent war for the MIC (a narrow view) “grows” the economy… that economic system. It is a machine without no brakes, no negative feedback to keep it from running ever faster until it tears itself apart. How is it doing that? Climate change, plastic pollution, resource depletion, waste and waste and more waste, but at the heart climate change, which is on track to bring down human civilization. We shall all win the “Jackpot” and wish for anything else.
A Manifesto:
Stop treating corporations as ‘persons’ as they do in the UK. They are not voters, they are profit maximisers. Tax them grotesquely on their profits until they start behaving as persons should – with a conscience.
Carpet bomb the coastlines of the largest carbon sink we have, the oceans, with rocks seeded with giant kelp to sequester the carbon the sea draws from the atmosphere.
Ban trade in all meat products that come from animals with multiple stomachs – ruminants, they emit too much methane.
Ban synthetic fertiliser use, as it commonly emits Nitrous Oxide, a far more potent Greenhouse Gas than CO2, let alone Methane.
Well, that all might help – a bit.
Dang. Great article and comments.
I have looked into relocating and developing a ‘from scratch’ sustainable permaculture demonstration project, 2024 state of the art appropriate tech/low tech/no tech, a compendium of all we have learned to do, and what not to do, with a dear old friend. Sort of a retirement commune.
Frankly, looking at the impact of breaking ground, building, resources, etc, I keep circling back to doing nothing, doing little, with less. Being as kind as I can, sharing more, and riding it out and watching it unfold –the only conscionable thing to do. Put down the shovel and stop digging the hole.
It will be heartbreaking, disheartening, and a test of one’s wits and sanity.
When I watch the behaviors of my many townsfolk, I realize that the Freedumb we all pursue, the dither and intensity of passions and steadfast commitment to ‘return to normal/ B A U’,., I cannot help but conclude that the economic and political systems we embrace are a Dead End.
I remain, steadfastly, Mistah Happy — “The Chief”
In 2020 my sister had planned to fly to Sweden for a soccer tournament, so that her 15 year old son could play in it.
Covid stepped in and saved the day, and his soccer skills have atrophied immensely as often happens in the USA once adulthood takes over.
It struck me as the most foolish reason to waste oil imaginable, and yes it was also to do tourist stuff in Sweden, but still.
And i’m not one to talk, I probably logged a million miles in the air in the 1980’s chasing down old round metal discs, so it wasn’t as if I wasn’t doing something a little daffy.
Don’t get out much other than by car, and I reckon i’ve used 25,000 gallons of gas so far in my happy motoring times, which is vastly more than the entire world consumed in total before 1859 came along and made us all addicts.
We’re all guilty of this lifestyle to a large extent, and nobody is going to ease away from it gently.
I don;t know about escaping, but I do know that with major warming, comes major evaporation of surface water, and you’d want to be near proven sources of surface water, and having 5 rivers here (we only claim 3, being modest) beats being in a large city who is wholly dependent upon imported surface water.
>>our consumption is going to change radically. We will not, for a start, be aimlessly globe-trotting the world
This is where living in a PMC bubble hurts environmentalists.
The vast, enormous majority of people both in the US and on Earth are not flying in planes, let alone for international tourism. Their main contributions to climate change are meat consumption, possibly also having more than two kids, and for some, private vehicles and heating/AC–but their per-person climate impact is on average tiny compared to the elites.
So the author is really talking about the most affluent global 1-5%. And then rules out the possibility of a revolution, which seems a lot more unavoidable if you are looking at this situation from the bottom up.
After 40 years of immersion in environmental issues, including climate change (and a career as a conservation scientist), I have backslid. For decades, for carbon conscious reasons, I mostly avoided air travel except for work and visiting family (and have also deliberately limited consumption), all the while those with enough means and without such and awareness and/or conscientiousness globe trotted with a clear-conscious impunity. I’m convinced that the die is cast – by sheer virtue of our very nature as a species and biological organism, not only is it now too late, but moreover, we simply don’t have the capability to restrain our behaviors on a collective basis enough to address climate change and other environmental issues. I now permit myself to go on the occasional few highly carbon intensive trips for reasons of personal inspiration, interest, and novelty – aware still of the the malignancy that I am participating in, yet resigned/accepting of the functional immutability of the not-to-distant breakdown of the richness and stability of our biosphere. I have chosen to indulge in the last of the delusional pathology of the “golden years”.
Your “reasons” are what got us here. Thanks for being reasonable, for yourself. Too many “reasonable” people on this planet.
What is the problem? Why are we in denial? The problem of climate change is shared by all humanity in one way or the other–yet, why don’t we care? And don’t blame governments because they merely reflect our values, i.e., radical materialism/consumerism/narcissism which is our official religion and other religions are just a subsidiary life-style choice. We need to stop blaming the corrupt politicians that reflect and express the utter absurd and comic-book version of evil that appears close to their hearts. They represent us and our values. Don’t they always bleat out how they will lower taxes and increase prosperity (even though they lie continually because our critical faculties have atrophied, so why shouldn’t they lie)–don’t they almost perfectly reflect our collective values?
Before we can deal with climate change, war and all those collective dangers we face we need to ask and attempt to answer existential questions like–we are we here? What is the meaning of life? Who am I, really? Is there an afterlife? How can we actually create a truly convivial society? We know, through some great social science what the requirements for happiness are ust as we know about how to truly educate people. We have the technology to create any sort of life we collectively choose. Yet we continue in this increasingly narcissistic and almost psychopathic lifestyles. Why?
Why do we continue in this increasingly narcissistic and completely psychopathic lifestyle? It’s because of the reproductive imperative that’s hard-wired into our monkey-brains.
Scratch at why it’s so important to talk loudly in a coffee house about taking cocktails in Kathmandu or Kilimanjaro. Take a deep look at why we must sling bunker-busters from airplanes in order to “Kick their ass and take their gas” or their ancestral olive groves and sheep pastures. Delve into the thought-process of taking off from one of your five mansions in Telluride, Park City, and Bozeman in a private Gulfstream to jet to the packed apron at Davos. Why all of this peacock display?
It all comes down to attracting and controlling sex partners. From Elon Musk to Leon Black to Eric Schmidt to Bill Gates to Jeffrey Epstein to Peter Thiel — the motivation is the same. But it’s also the same in the favelas of Rio and the slums of Mumbai. I mention only men, because it’s why the world’s major religions are dedicated to the repression of women and girls — and boys (Yves can no doubt provide female examples of the same compulsive psycho-sexual pathology).
Why are we here? Like any cancer: to multiply. The reproductive imperative is why there are 8 billion of us choking the planet to death. It’s why we can’t seem to stop.
There are clear and do-able spiritual paths or paths towards authenticity that go beyond the monkey-mind. Nothing wrong with monkeys or lower-brain stuff–they have their place in us. Spiritual paths involve ways to handle the monkey mind without deleting it but giving it purpose and dignity other than simple self-indulgence. We all sense there is something “greater” than getting our rocks off–in fact sometimes getting our rocks off can help loosen us up so we can start to develop spiritual consciousness.
I suggest reading-up on the monkey-brain peccadillos of the individuals named in my comment. Give particular attention to the involvement of messers Black and Gates in Mr. Epstein’s “post-apocalypse genius-breeding” project…
I think that’s over-estimating the monkey mind. There are other ways to go.
You expect too much from homo sapien. Do dogs and cats think about the meaning of life? Do elephants and baboons? We are born. Nobody asks us if we wish to be born. We want to live with minimal physical discomforts just as dogs and cats do. We are brought up in a world of material comforts. Who will willingly give these up, even for the betterment of the world? Very few. When all is said and done we will use up the planet just as a herd of cows ravages a pasture. When it’s gone it’s gone.
For me there are other levels of reality that connect with this “normal” level if we allow it to. The process is called spirituality. Every civilization, except our own, has had paths to higher levels of consciousness. For me it started in childhood and it is what I now, basically, do particularly in terms of helping others. Our culture has militantly opposed spirituality since the Inquisition and the burning of witches–but it is still here among a substantial minority of us despite the repression from the Church and repression from the reductionist types in science who ally with the capitalists and political leaders who say, as you do, but there is nothing but, this very narrow (by historical standards) view of what is real. Science itself offers us many ways to look at life that does not follow the narrow 19th century scientific viewpoint. For many, psychedelics offer an opening to that “level” if you can’t reach it “normally.”
Humanity is a complex animal; beautiful, powerful and noble, but also capable of rapacity and cruelty. Why are some inclined to one way, and others to other ways?
The problem of human violence and conquest, driven by greed or need for glory, food, and materials goods, is possibly as old as humanity itself. Once we could form tribes and identities, the in group vs the out group mindset was also created; group on group war for exploitation became possible. And there is no culture and no place or time on the earth where war was not present; North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, were regions where the fires of war burned bright and neighbour hated neighbour. (Indeed, this tendency fractured innumerable lands, and the European nations were lucky in that they developed a sense of nationhood more quickly than many, the marine technology to sail the oceans, and could play off the blood feuds of the indegenious ethnic groups or nations of to facilitate their conquests ) Mythology and religion were alive and well, but it did not hinder these tendencies anywhere.
Unless the drive to accumulate glory and wealth and express power is addressed in a constructive manner at the individual, community and national level, no social system and no religion or ethic will successful and creating a peaceful and inclusive future for all.
We do this because it’s easy. Wolves on an isolated island will hunt all their prey until they collectively starve to death. We are no different – we just have the misfortune of self-awareness while doing so. It’s why Nate Hagens and other eggheads are so into the spiritual flimflam. A global consciousness awakening is literally our only hope. The Marxists would call this a class revolution, but for it to meaningful change things it has to be about more than material interests.
It’s all about energy gradients. It takes effort to change the world for the better. Why bother when it’s easier to scroll TikTok and eat Cheetos?
For example: what did you do after writing this comment? Volunteer at a soup kitchen? Plant a tree? Probably not.
I actually am cutting down/trimming some trees in the back yard. So, I’ve had spiritual visions and expanded consciousness since childhood. Have you ever thought why every single culture but our won has some form of spirituality? Whether its shamanism or the religions of the Book there have always been people like me who help others awaken to other levels of consciousness. I you are so stuck on this one–psychedelics might help. We have continued to narrow our conception of reality just as mystics and scientists have opened it up–but you won’t find any of this in mainstream culture. I’m convinced that increasing numbers of people don’t know that there is life beyond an Excel spreadsheet with it’s narrow definitions attached to each cell (I used to program Excel). Ever experience joy? That is the beginning and end of spirituality and it feels pretty good–try it. Just imagine a period of time when you experienced joy and know that is your true natural state.
No disrespect intended to this “spirituality” hijack, but controlling our monkey-brain’s biological reproductive imperative isn’t going to be quite so simple as turning-on and tuning-in.
For example, Elon Musk is a huge user of …”LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms.” This doesn’t appear to have tamped down his monkey-brain much, if at all. He’s had a string of high- and low-profile marriages and dalliances in the course of fathering at least 12 children by multiple women. Watching Elon pogo around the stage “experiencing joy” with the Orange One in Butler the other day makes me seriously question his degree of enlightenment. https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-illegal-drugs-e826a9e1 My personal experiences with psilocybin and LSD (50 years ago when you could still get really good acid) didn’t make me any more (or less) enlightened. For me, it was being drunk in Technicolor. Your mileage may vary.
And BTW, the Inquisition wasn’t really that into burning witches. Torquemada was mainly focused on putting Muslims and Jews to the stake. Plus ça change…
Also, let’s not forget that there was extensive use of psychedelics in Mexico, central and South America, and extensive hiearchial societies with substantial levels of slavery and human sacrifice.
Mushroom are no panacea for peace
Mushrooms offer a potential to awaken spiritually. Most people just go “wow” and keep worshiping the dollar.
What is the carbon footprint of a 2,000-pound bomb? What is the carbon footprint of all the bombs dropped on Gaza and Lebanon? Or Ukraine? Now, thinking about that, and the discussion above, go back and read (or reread) the recent post on the American Empire war machine. Now, feel free to spend modestly your carbon budget, because you cannot advance or delay the likely collapse by even an hour, let alone a day. Just do not move where the flailing MIC wants the resources under your feet, if you can figure that out.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Was recently on a panel with Steve Koonis who argued humans have spent $12 trillion on efforts to transition to renewables with negligible affect on actually shifting the dial (% energy renewables). Was it well spent, he asked?
My view, it was well spent for virtue signaling, not so much for affecting climate – almost as if that was not the goal.
If it can be shown that it would be worse if we hadn’t, debatable, then likely it was well spent.
I would argue that if the money was spent building solar farms in Nigeria and elsewhere including a grid, it would be serious.
Personally, I think 10 trillion to preserve the Amazon would probably have been better spent – atmospherically speaking.
And efficient mass transit – such as light rail – over Teslas.
Steve Koonin, who argued humans have spent $12 trillion on efforts to transition to renewables with negligible effect on actually shifting the dial (% energy renewables). Was it well spent, he asked?
[ The money spent shifted the dial, and was money well spent. ]
As early as 30 years ago, there have been commercial aviation companies that seed storm clouds off the coast of Calgary in Canada— seed them with silver iodide to break up the storm cells. UAE in the Mideast does the opposite with the same tech— different placement in the clouds: they make rain, today.
The reason in Calgary is the construction business. The aviation/ cloud seeding companies are paid by the construction- industry to break up the seasonal storms of hail and heavy rain that are a burden to their business—
look at Science Magazine from 24 April 1970 (see next link) and an article on cloud seeding. It is a way of working with the weather; and just as we should recognize migration as a fact, we should recognize violent weather as a fact, and there are actually things we can do.
I mention this now also because of Helene and Milton; it is not rocket science to diminish the power of a hurricane, for example, it is surprisingly simple. Two pilots could do it and 240 pounds of silver iodide. It was done with Hurricane Debbie in 1969:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.168.3930.47. —-
This is heavy stuff, the implications, because you can both break up a storm and build one up and it doesn’t take that long. In Vietnam and using the same techniques, Dr. Ben Livingston, one of the pioneers of cloud seeding, was able to build a 65,000 foot storm cloud in 41 minutes; and the techniques to break up storm cells are equally fast .
The military use of weather —as in Weaponized weather— given its vast potential for damage , was then outlawed at the EMOD conference in 1978 — a kind of Geneva convention on weaponized weather. From Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Modification_Convention
so there’s a lot going on here. I’m really solidly behind some of the less-alarmist and very accomplished climate scientists out there and the suggestion that we can handle all this!!— learn to harness better the violent weather and protect ourselves from it, adapt to it—as with cloud seeding that can both make rain and stop it. (Keep in mind the 1930s were more extreme than today, even.)
…And of course there is EO Wilson. I think as far as simple solutions go —and I believe in them —his book Half Earth is wonderful. The idea that we sat aside half the Earth, not for eco tourism but for ecosystems.
re Typo — correct link to Science Magazine is here:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.168.3930.473
Science Magazine article from 24 APRIL 1970 — on the cloud seeding of Hurricane Debbie, in 1969.
This reduced the force of the hurricane significantly, and its rain volume.
400 seeding units (weight: 120 pounds, only) carried into a storm by two planes may be enough to modify.
Here is the Wikipedia on the basic technology — WHICH IT PLACES IN A POSITIVE LIGHT — though stating the obvious dangers of weaponized-weather at the same time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
It’s important to note that computer models of hurricanes were not available in 1969, nor wind radar, nor satellite-derived winds, so wind measurements were not in any way representative. Even so, by 1971, the experiment’s “success” is unclear.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/99/5/1520-0493_1971_099_0427_coroth_2_3_co_2.xml
In any case, what would happen if, after seeding, the hurricane strengthened? The litigation would never end and the party in power would lose, maybe for decades, in all those destroyed states. What politician is going to take the risk of assuming responsibility when acts of nature are, by definition, not their responsibility? And they can claim responsibility for funneling disaster relief funds?
William Gibson’s, the future is here, just not evenly distributed: Florida is about to get a strong dose of future…just as Gaza has for the past year…along with so many standing in line to get their ticket to the future.
I like the late Michael Dowd’s No Gloom, Post Doom philosophy.
The reboot could take 10-20 million years. Not such a long time. All those untended nuclear reactors will extend the timeline for the return of mammalian life.
Well, the collapse is coming, eventually. Smaller, like-minded groups with survival skills should do better than most, when push comes to shove.
No, the problem is our human condition of irreducible aggression combined with the failure of societies’ cultures to control the aggressive actors, as in rules of behavior. We must all get along as social cultures because nonsocial cultures will decay. So you become a little neurotic because you have to follow some rules, that’s the price of peace.
it occurs to me that the planet itself is nudging its human parasites to use the nuclear option. with 90% of the species gone and temperatures lowered, it could begin recovery. god help us over the brutal years ahead.