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MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2019: NOTE TO FILE
An Open Letter to Greta Thunberg & XR
Thus types an elder
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: HOPE, FROM THE WIRES, THINKING IN SYSTEMS
Abstract: The educational system has failed you. Boycott it. Then may you come to listen to Nature. We humans could do worse than 'listen to the scientists', but scientists are not the source of verities. We would do better to listen to those who listen to Nature, which should include, but does not, all science nerds and professional scientists, among whom 61% are on the political spectrum (liberal/conservative). Our best-guess grasp of reality is to listen to Nature, via thinking in systems, which excludes those having believing minds. True believers need to stand down, and those who endeavor to listen to Nature need to stand and deliver. Doing so would be rxevolutionary. A democratic majority-rule upraising in support of 'science' is delusional. Any call to action should start with, 'Listen to Nature' and then maybe to those who may be listening to Nature, which may, but too seldom does, include poets and other visionaries. The educational system is broken despite every intent of those within it to make it work.
COOS BAY (A-P) — At age 16 you noted that 'older generations have failed tackling the biggest crisis humanity has ever faced'. The apparent crisis is Anthropocene climate change (in sciency terms) or 'climate justice' in political speak.
Actually climate change is a politicized distraction. It is one stressor on Nature and the unsustainable human growth hegemon, the human sprawl, the now global industrial society that older generations of the past 300 years (the to you prior dozen) and the youngest generation are a product of.
The Greatest Generation were given credit for the fossil-fueled growth of the Great Acceleration I was born into—the greatest production and per capita consumption by the most humans that humanity had ever failed to manage. It was an unmanaged commons, a planet for the taking, and we took it.
In 1969, at your age, I read the Ehrlichs' Population, Resources, and Environment which the publisher had renamed The Population Bomb and wanted Anne's name to not be included as co-author to sell more copies, and he (I assume a male) encouraged provocative predictions of near-future doom that did not come to pass, as the Green Revolution was not foreseen (nor fracking).
I also read Garrett Hardin's 'Tragedy of the Commons', and in 1969 professor Albert Bartlett began giving his lecture, 'Arithmetic, Population, and Energy' which he gave 1,742 times until 2013 when he died. In 1971 I read Environment, Power, and Society by Howard T. Odum that explained things, and things to come. In 1972 I read The Limits to Growth which did not make predictions. The need to transition to a steady state economy, which was perhaps still possible in the 1970s, was clear to those who would rather know than believe, even before Herman Daly published his Steady-State Economics book in 1977. William R. Catton Jr. summarized the human predicament in 1980, in Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change.
So I knew enough, enough was known, and we older generation failed to turn things around—to slam on the brakes to growth. We started Earth First!, ZPG, killed a few elites, published manifestos, erected Guidestones, sat in trees, recycled, started foundations, NGOs, consumed organic produce, wrote/read books, protested, but above all we remained consumers, servants of the SYSTEM, rats of NIMH, and meanwhile the pace of planetary destruction was not slowed (significantly).
By the 1980s transitioning to a steady-state world was no longer possible as we humans were in overshoot, which by definition meant descent would follow, if not for us, then for you products of the twenty-first century.
At 18 I realized I might live to see 'peak everything', the climax of the exponential growth of the Great Acceleration. Best guess then, assuming a business-as-usual future, was that climax was likely in the 2030 to 2070 range. I've been paying attention since, and it's been business-as-usual since. You will likely be alive at climax, but expect it will take the intelligentsia (and CEOs, NGOs, and government officials) ten years to stop denying the fact after a consensus among systems scientists has formed (as usual).
At best you may have a prosperous way down (if just about every human on the planet decided to change their spots and embrace degrowth, including a managed rapid depopulation of pets, livestock and humans). Sorry about that.
We products of the current empire, which selects for short-termism, are posterity blind. We (and that includes 99+ percent or so of your generation) will keep on keeping on until Mother Nature helps us to understand the planet and learn to live with it properly. Or not, as Nature is unkind and failure is an option.
There are smoke filled rooms, but no one is running the show, though some 'in power' who are riding the whirlwind of fossil-fueled change fool themselves and others into believing they are in control. Actually we are all captured and being dragged along by a complex, powerful and remorseless dynamic that automatically thwarts all attempts to stop it. Some, like Henry David Thoreau or an Aldo Leopold, are less enthusiastic servants of the SYSTEM (the dynamic) who self-select out of being 'in power.' The CEO who doesn't put growth/profit/ROI above all will be replaced. The politician who doesn't....ditto.
The United Nations and World Economic Forum will invite those whom they cannot ignore or discredit to speak to them. They will listen, fine words will be spoken, and meanwhile the pace of planetary destruction will not slow (significantly).
So give up, lay down, die? No. Those who do so will not inherit the rubble. Those who fight in the streets may, but only for a time. Not going to school was your better idea. The educational (schooling) system will not educate you. Boycott it.
Don't let your forced schooling interfere with your education. As Mark Twain said, 'I have never let my schooling interfere with my education'. The current SYSTEM selects for short-term self interest and will not serve posterity. Change the SYSTEM that is changing the climate by disbelieving in it. By not believing in political 'solutions' you are almost there.
What one thing could you do now? To name one, read Donella Meadows' Thinking in Systems: A Primer. When you and enough others understand the 'remorseless dynamic', then what? You will boycott it, vote with your feet, and endeavor to create pockets of sustainability within which information can be preserved. The information would include what can be recorded on media, whether paper or magnetic bits, as words or images, but the information of how to live properly must be stored in humans who then pass on their love and understanding to those that follow as a flame passes from one brief candle to another.
Imagine you and a few hundred others stand 100 meters apart (to cover about 300 hectares) holding an unlit candle on a typical day likely with some wind blowing. Let one person in the middle somehow light their candle and carefully walk to another to light their candle, then on to perhaps two or three others to light theirs before the progenitor's candle goes out. Each with lit candles will be animated to go fourth and endeavor to light those of others. Some candles will go out due to a lack of care. Some will go out because the walker goes too slow or tries to go too fast. Other candles will be blown out by a gust before running out of wax. Actually try it. Now imagine that sunlight can make more wax that somehow self-organizes into small candles, within limits, to eMpower life on Earth. At what rate would candles have to come into being to allow the system to persist? Humans don't get a vote, but they can acquire and pass on information that is selected for (and for a time misinformation and disinformation but long-term that will not be selected for).
So why not create pockets of sustainability that only those having some remnant of functionality will self-select into and that the more dysfunctional humans of NIMH will select out of? Most will remain in industrial society to keep on keeping on until a few, who no longer have viable memes to pass on, inherit the rubble (for a time). After a few hundred years of environmental restoration, those within the pockets of functional society may come to reoccupy the rubble to aid in further Nature restorancy as Earth Agents.
You who have foresight intelligence will use it. You will know that humancentrism is an illusion born of error and ignorance. You will know that failure is an option, which will give you a life-driven purpose. You will endeavor to understand Nature by listening to Nature who has all the answers. You will thereby manage human demands on Nature's resources and services. You will not take without returning service of equal value. You will dance with the system. You will revel in your systems work rejoicing in happiness that only finds thee in this good service.
Posterity will reveal that humans are a most promising species—or not. If posterity does not become evermore Borg-like, may some live long and prosper, within limits. To summarize: read.
Eric, an elder (for a time)
Note: I went to a degrowth conference in Mexico City in 2018 to present. I listened to fine words for five days. I was the only one to get there by bus and stay in a hospice as I was unable to tolerate the obsequiousness of staff at the luxury hotels the others were staying at. All the fine words spoken will change nothing as they merely serve as distractions from real solutions. All issues of interest were filtered through a politicized lens.
XR Notes:
4/19/19, historical note: Just three more days until Earth Day [started 1970 (I was there as part of a pattern you are repeating with less enthusiasm), whose protests vastly exceeded XR's current level of support. On Day 1, 'April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets...' or 1 percent of the population. The current protest, per XR, involves '5,000 to 10,000 people' (emphasis not added) in the UK]. Global Extinction Rebellion Day 4 has just ended. Claims made by UK activists are for 500 arrests so far.
Per XR newsletter email: 'Day 4 of the mother of all protests [?] and we have managed to garner over 500 arrests, £250,000 in crowdfunding, and a whole heap of headlines [locally]. And on the ground, dare I say it, this is all starting to feel like business as usual. Dancing like gangbusters around the big pink party boat moored at Oxford Circus? Check. Chilled music and poetry on a plant lined Waterloo Bridge? Check. Moving and informative speeches on a car free Parliament Square? Check. A thriving community growing steadily beside Marble Arch? Check. Sun shining, children playing, people learning? Check. Check. Check.'
The big idea is that if, per a biased study of past movements (per claims of some and as misinterpreted), 3.5 percent of a population supports non-violent civil disobedience by using their feet and not just their mouths, then they, the 3.5 percent, can shut the SYSTEM down or force mass arrests, SUCH THAT THE SYSTEM WILL ACTUALLY BE CHANGED (and not just the climate).
About 3,000 concerned citizens in the UK have indicated a willingness to be arrested (which is 0.13 percent of those needed to actually risk getting arrested) and the 500 who have so far managed to be intentionally arrested (briefly detained) are 0.02 percent of the needed 3.5 percent. Pictures of the arrested show them smiling, as the servants of our techno-industrial complex society are just doing what they are being forced to do [as servants of the SYSTEM whose leaders nod and grin broadly]. Another guess is that if '10 percent of a population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society' sort of because they can no longer be ignored, but the claim 'always' is a red flag. Actually in the early 20th century a majority of Americans, not a paltry 10% or 3.5%, demanded Prohibition and demanded (about 1925) that speed controls be installed on all cars in cites. They got Prohibition (for a time), but lobbyists turned Americans into car lovers and jaywalkers.
The activists are blocking bridges [5] in London, among doing other things (e.g. pouring fake blood on streets), forcing the SYSTEM to so far as possible allow them to or arrest them for trying to save the world by forcing mass arrests. But wait, the protesters could be wrong. The 3,000 are about 0.005 percent of the UK population. The protest is global.
In the USA, in Tampa, Florida, Extinction Rebellion protesters (per photos maybe a dozen protesters) have forced the local Press to take note of their existence. Some 10,000 hu-mans worldwide have signed on to be arrested (while smiling), which means 0.00013 percent of humans are willing to save the world from climate change (so far). So if less than 3.5 percent can force change, then maybe the world will be saved.
In the UK too few concerned citizens have been inspired to be arrested and force the SYSTEM to mostly end fossil fuel use in six years. But if XR can inspire 2,310,000 in the UK (770 times more than have so far) to say that they are willing be be arrested (while smiling), then, if they do, that should do it. The Press will be forced to take notice. The GDP of the UK might be measurably down-ticked (until the protesters move on). Meanwhile, the pace of planetary destruction will not have been slowed.
[Update: In May 2019, Roger Hallam, a cofounder of XR (who claims he had to get out of the organic farming business because of climate change even though UK agricultural production had not been apparently affected by a longer growing season yet), and eight others were candidates in the European Parliament elections in the London and the South West England constituencies as Climate Emergency Independents. Between them, they won 7,416 out of the 3,917,854 total votes cast in the two constituencies. That's 0.189% of the vote. 'Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency' that 99.81% did not vote for but will when 51% do. In a naturocracy no one gets a vote.]
XR is committed to 'Learning from other movements'. Start by reading Eric Hoffer's The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements.
Apparently innumeracy is not limited to the intelligentsia or the 99 percent. Inecolacy isn't limited either.
The fine words of the Brundtland Commission of 1987 were to justify and enable what was happening anyway. The fine words of rebels are to celebrate their movement (and themselves) as part of a SYSTEM whose consumptive hegemon is happening anyway such that all denizens of it, whether for or against, cannot change it.
But fine words have been spoken. And 'Dancing like gangbusters around the big [actually small] pink party boat' has occurred. Meanwhile the pace of..., oh, but for a few days it [planetary destruction] was slowed..., sort of, maybe, unlike in 1970 when we did nothing [significantly] to slow the pace, not to mention what we've done in the years since April 22, 1970.
As Nafeez Ahmed notes: 'It is no wonder that following the inspirational lead of Greta Thunberg, some have seen little option except to take to the streets through protest movements like Extinction Rebellion. The hope is that sustained nonviolent resistance can compel governments to take the urgent action necessary to transition rapidly to fossil fuel free societies. But there is a serious faultline in this approach. XR suffered from a serious lack of joined-up thinking. It was not grounded in a comprehension of the climate crisis as a systems crisis, and therefore failed to explicitly link up climate action to other key systems such as austerity, food, water, politics, culture, and ideology. XR therefore failed to appeal to the working class and largely occluded people of colour and diverse faith groups. The other faultline is that the target of action — national government — may well have missed the point. Governments are merely nodes in a wider system of power which they do not really control, but tend to pander to — a system of power which we are all to varying degrees and in different ways complicit in. (emph. added) It is precisely through governments that the prevailing system has, over the last several decades, carefully built-up a special resistance to the power of street protests. This is why the largest demonstrations failed to derail the Iraq War. Counterinsurgency doctrines fine-tuned in theatres of war have been increasingly applied in domestic settings to counter, disrupt and neutralise all forms of protest action. The fear of what Samuel Huntington once called the ‘crisis of democracy’ has meant that governments have dedicated themselves to ensuring that direct protest action has as little tangible impact as possible. Hitting the streets and hoping the powers-that-be do what you want is, therefore, not a viable strategy. That doesn’t mean that XR shouldn’t be part of a wider strategy.... The biggest gap here is that it doesn’t necessarily require an act of transformative change on the part of the protestors themselves.' INSERGE intelligence, Nafeez Ahmed May 10, 2019.
'Governments are merely nodes in a wider system of power which they do not really control, but tend to pander to — a system of power which we are all to varying degrees and in different ways complicit in.' All three XR demands are the same and there could be one or 57, it wouldn't matter, because all start, 'Government must....', which presupposes government servants can do what a Citizens' Assembly tells them to, a view based on error, ignorance, and illusion. Neither XR nor government nor CEOs nor Citizens' Assemblies nor anyone can implement unthinkable policies that might actually work.
For example: 1. End all fossil fuel use in five years world-wide with, if need be, summary execution of individuals, groups, or complex societies (nation-states) who continue to use fossil fuels after five years or who fail to decrease usage by 20% the first year, 25% the second, 33% the third, 50% the fourth, or 100% by the end of the fifth year. 2. Manage the rapid depopulation of humans, pets, and livestock that will come anyway. 3. Limit human demands on Nature's resources to 20% of land surface and 20% of shoreline and sea within five kilometers of shore.
James Flint offers 'An open letter to Extinction Rebellion' that is also supportive (I support XR goals, but I doubt that their methods will destroy techno-industrial society, life as we know it, as this outcome is not acknowledged by the leadership who thereby fail to tell the truth to power/followers). It's a BAU (business-as-usual) world. Will BAU protesting change it? I don't know. It has before: the campaign against leaded gas that required cars to be tweaked (not banned), outmoded racial thinking that no longer served the SYSTEM, and CFCs for which there was an equally profitable alternative that worked. But politics-as-usual will not end the hegemon as the claim that Citizens’ Assemblies are radical or revolutionary (and not a distraction) is false, but again the XR leadership fails to tell the truth to power or 'mitigate for power', beginning with themselves.
'Extinction Rebellion was established in the United Kingdom in May 2018 with about one hundred academics signing a call to action...' [Wikipedia]. The about one hundred academics misinformed humanity, as the call to action is belief-based. As usual, every word of the manifesto is correct. Only 'the worsening ecological crisis' is cited, and mass extinction ('I'mpact) is about as 'incontrovertible' as it gets even if nothing is incontrovertible in science. And IPAT applies as our 'I'mpact = our 'P'opulation x consumption (per capita consumption being mistaken for 'A'ffluence) x 'T'echnology (cars, planes, power plants, industrial agriculture... all empowered by fossil fuels or heavily subsidized by them, e.g. PV).
About 90 percent of industrial agriculture's output depends on fossil fuel inputs and the rest on the overexploitation of planetary resources. Energy inputs (blue line) will decline and sooner is better (from the POV of all other life on the planet), but human population will follow. XR, et al., can't even think about the elephant in the room much less tell the truth about it.
We will move towards 100% renewable energy. Tell the truth—that population decline will follow. By advocating, as I do, for decarbonization of the economy, we will move towards a low-energy (sustainable) world (and to increase carbon sequestration, we should stop burning biomass in so far as possible and solar cook..., another unthinkable thought). But the transition requires rapid managed-by-intent depopulation of pets, livestock, crops, and humans.
Vet the signators of the manifesto, all about a hundred of them, and do any, outside the silo science they may be trained in, 'listen to Nature' who has all the answers? Correct me if I'm wrong about any of them, but none are systems science literate (ecolate), but they do listen to human prattle and add to it. The intellectual sleight-of-mind trick comes at the end of the manifesto: 'We therefore declare our support for Extinction Rebellion, launching on 31 October 2018. We fully stand behind the demands for the government to tell the hard truth to its citizens. We call for a Citizens’ Assembly to work with scientists on the basis of the extant evidence and in accordance with the precautionary principle, to urgently develop a credible plan for rapid total decarbonization of the economy.' This support is entirely based on political thinking that is based on a non-evidenced based belief in political solutions, on calls for action as usual. Perhaps the real solution is for XR supporters to travel back in time and join MS (the Movement for Survival 1972) to be better informed.
XR theorists should start by telling the hard truth to themselves. To date, climate change is a minor driver of species extinction (may reach 5% when temperature increase reaches +2°C around 2050). To mitigate the pace of species extinction, of 'planetary destruction' (I), requires focusing on humans (and their pets), crops, livestock, and industrial sprawl (PAT). Will climate change at some point, if human sprawl leaves any life, contribute to species extinction? Yes. Will it be significant (>5%) at some point? Yes. We are the Anthro in Anthropocene. 'Seek out the condition now that will come anyway.' —Howard T. Odum, systems ecologist who was ecolate, but don't believe me; you iterate towards truth.
'On 9 December 2018, a second open letter of support signed by a hundred academics was published' [Wikipedia]. This one includes some other inecolate academics having a higher (more impressive) standing among the inecolate, and begins: 'In our complex, interdependent global ecosystem, life is dying, with species extinction accelerating. The climate crisis is worsening much faster than previously predicted. Every single day 200 species are becoming extinct. This desperate situation can’t continue.'
Again, the sleight-of-mind trick of the added non-sequitur in the second sentence. If the second sentence was 'The unethical treatment of animals is worsening much faster....', then the politicized nature of Manifesto II would be obvious (except to PETA supporters). Again, the first and third/fourth sentences are consistent with a systems science view through the macroscope (even if an implied 'therefore join XR' is not). The second sentence/fact is merely true but in context facepalming. Every word following the above words is political speak that assumes that political solutions can and will meet 'our stewardship responsibilities to the planet' (and of course humans), whatever inecolate SYSTEM serving wordsmiths think that means.
While XR theorists may sweetly sing of such science as supports their narrative, i.e. one can mention The Limits to Growth, even Malthus, and no eyes may roll, but such are mentionable only if such thinking leads to visions of sugar plum solutions that can be believed in with enthusiasm. There are two world views that are currently viewed as real solutions for world salvation: BAU and GND (the Green New Deal or BAU in sheep's clothing), and both ignore the what-is unless to support their preferred narrative.
Naturocracy would end politics, corporations, SYSTEM serving education, media, legal systems, and religious control systems to end the dominance and normalization of belief-based thinking. The demand of XR is that 'government must' tell 'the truth' as Citizens' Assemblies democratically determine it (XR leadership still believes in democracy and in political solutions), which will end most fossil fuel use by 2025 (but not all as the Ecolate Party demands), and add Citizens' Assemblies to existing governments instead of overthrowing current government/legal/corporate/economic/NGO/military/educational mismanagement subSYSTEMS by ending belief in them. Humans don't get to decide what policies work (including Citizens' Assemblies): Nature does, hence naturocracy, not dictatorial rule by a human, a cadre of humans, or a majority of humans that can only select for human short-term self interest.
Alternative is to love and understand this Earth and the things of it; alternative is to be a compassionate rxevolutionary. To understand something (i.e. the complex, powerful and remorseless dynamic that automatically thwarts all attempts to stop it that all of us are part of) is to be delivered from it. You are the SYSTEM. Know then thyself.
Temperature/CO2/dust changes in the past 400,000 years did not cause mass extinction events. Yes, by 2050 to 2100 anthropogenic climate change will be a significant driver of extinction. We Euro-Sinoans and Anthropocene enthusiasts, however, are the current cause. Of all mammals on the planet, 4 percent by mass are wild, and climate change isn't the cause. I protest the human sprawl I am entirely part of. I have spent my life as a servant of the SYSTEM, just not as enthusiastic nor as 'rewarded' as some. Whether future averaged temperatures increase or decrease (eventually warming will induce cooling) enough to significantly (>5%) add to the current mass extinction event (climate change will have to compete with the other anthropogenic drivers) remains to be seen. Expect that it will be significant, but to cite climate change as the number one threat to humanity and the biosphere is a distraction, which tactically may be the best the intelligentsia can do, but there will be competing narratives that feel ever so much better to believe. Climate change is one head of the hydra, the only one most can see with their blinders (political beliefs) on, and sleighing it will not change our trajectory.
But I'm a know-nothing from the hood who doesn't know enough to have an opinion. Someone who does may be human ecologist William Rees. If not a household name in your house, google his name. He agrees that six billion humans (mostly your cohort) could be part of a coming depopulation event (50% to 90% or 3.8 to 7 billion and growing). Is climate change the main driver? Rodger Hallam thinks so, but he's a know-nothing like me—I just don't have any multitudes to preach to. Listen to Nature, then to those who listen to Nature (e.g. E.O. Wilson, Eileen Crist), skeptically of course, which excludes the 99+% who don't listen to Nature. Marginalize the marginalizers of Nature, which you can do starting in the privacy of your own inner narrative.
Sorry, too many words.; let me speak more clearly: It is criminal negligence to mislead the public on such important matters (and one's self), and that means you Greta and XR and all the nonprofit NGOs 'fighting' climate change (while ignoring IPAT). We must protest ourselves, the pathology of the believing mind, our error, ignorance and illusion—but try telling that to humanity (or XR enthusiasts) starting with yourself. Depoliticize the issue, and all other for-and-against issues to minimize cognitive pathology.
No side of any politicized issue has any real solutions as blame-and-justify true believer minds cannot think in terms of them. If there was an us-vs-them narrative that isn't part of the pathology, it would be an 'us vs Nature and we loose' narrative that no human (who is also an Anthropocene enthusiast who may or may not know it) can believe in, so stop believing anything. Seek to know rather than believe. Learn to think in systems which excludes self-centered humancentric thinking. 'Seek out the condition now that will come anyway.' —H.T. Odum
click on for bigger view
Bell curve or shark-fin?
[Globally descent may be shark-finned, but regionally (within watershed management units) it could be more bell curved.]
Note that while we will transition to 100% renewable/repeatable energy, by choice or otherwise, the amount of energy available during the fossil-fueled pulse will not be available. 'Alternative' energy is not alternative in kWh. Below, same graph with different y-axis, also bell-shaped and optimistic, perhaps too optimistic as peak energy as shown is high and descent could be a shark-fin cliff.
click on for bigger view
Can we save the world by electrifying it? Expect that we will try. Maybe alternative energy will meet the increasing demand for electricity. Maybe enough to power hundreds of millions of cars, trucks, planes, and ships. Maybe enough to power AC units in Africa were over a half billion new ones will be needed by Africans leaving the countryside to move to the cities, like the Chinese did 1990-2010. Human needs must be met. Or they won't be. Read World Energy Outlook 2019, the zietgeist thinking of the best minds on the planet serving humanity (as distinct from Nature as externality).
9/23/19 UN warning note: '...if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe.' One possibility is to not believe or disbelieve anything. UN policy makers and wordsmiths, like everyone else, are part of a complex, powerful and remorseless dynamic we do not understand enough to be delivered from. The dynamic may have something to do with the sea of error, ignorance, and illusion we babies swim in and may be thrown out with. As H.G. Wells noted (1920), we are in a race between education, maturation, and catastrophe (our survival depends on winning the race).
But don't assume you should be in school in Sweden. Who educates the educators? As Isaac Asimov noted, 'Self-education...is the only education there is.' As an autodidact you will have a fool for a teacher. So you will endeavor to listen to Nature. You will also listen to those who endeavor to listen to Nature (which excludes all political and religious leaders, and virtually all media talking heads, social and mainstream intelligentsia types, e.g. XR theorists like Rupert Read [mouse over/pause], who signed both manifestos, that I watched for over an hour on YouTube with volume off and subtitles on to avoid distraction...obviously the educational system has failed, the one he is a product of and serves). [If you are Rupert Read, I considered your Deep Adaptation note, and sorry, but sometimes telling the truth to power takes words, words, words. But as I could be wrong (about you, etc.) I read your 'Truth and its consequences' pamphlet and there is hope for you, so I will have to reread to give you 'a careful hearing', which will take some days if not weeks or months. Link to be added here.]
Those evidence-based scholars who specialize help to clarify the dots, but systems science is the endeavor to connect all the interconnected 'dots', because all 'things' really are interconnected, such as humans can conceptualize and model. If anyone opens their mouth (or types) to inform you, you will vet them in terms of how well they listen to Nature as distinct from the prattle of self-serving primates who speak words tribal members like to hear—who have hair you may like or not like the color of. The struggle between like and dislike is a disease of the mind. Nature doesn't care what you like or dislike. Listen to Nature.
The world leaders are not evil. They are five-year-olds with machetes, cars, and bombs who need love and understanding—to both be loved and understood (and removed from power which will happen when we stop believing in them), and to come, with maturation, to love and understand this Earth and the things of it starting with the understanding that we are not the center of anything, are not the axis about which anything, other than our favorite stories, spins. The educational subsystem, and all other subsystems of the growth hegemon, have failed you. Boycott BAU/GND by choicelessly voting with your feet.
'For the first time in history a conviction has developed among those who can actually think more than a decade ahead that we are playing a global endgame. Humanity's grasp on the planet is not strong. It is growing weaker. Our population is too large....' — Edward O. Wilson, Half Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life 2016
10/2/19 note on voting with our feet: Assume that the final move of our global high-stakes endgame is that 40 million people end up actually doing something by daring to vote with their feet and fortune, perhaps without moving their mouth, or 10 million decide to move who bring 30 million dependents (1 decider + 3 dependents) with them. Of current global population, imagine 0.13 percent eventually decide to vote with their feet, or 13 per ten thousand who bring 27 with them to perhaps 'save' 0.5% of humanity along with a remnant of functional trust-based cooperative complex society and its true wealth of information/know-how (literacy, numeracy, ecolacy). Saving more may be possible, but 0.5% is better than zero, and perhaps more than enough.
Initially, however, 1,000,000 (0.013%) humans on the planet decide to form WMUs (watershed management units) as pioneers totaling 4,000,000 globally who form 330 WMUs averaging 12,000 would-be ecolate people per WMU. They, about three thousand households/WMUs, liquidate assets and move to an agreed upon watershed area to buy property there. The emigrants from techno-industrial society may meet with some opposition eventually, but for a price, assume 20 percent of existing property owners sell to the newcomers and happily move elsewhere as they were paid more than they thought their property was worth. The challenge is not to replace the population with ecolate immigrants, but only the BAU real estate property owners. As a majority the ecolate could, for example, ban private over-powered BAU cars/trucks, which would rapidly, and voluntarily, depopulate the watershed of BAU Anthropocene enthusiasts. A new OS, as new 'rules of the game', would become the norm. To be 'new', the rules exclude democracy other than to determine matters of taste/preference. The sustainable population supported by the watershed's sustainable biophysical economy is not voted on.
When it becomes apparent to evermore that 'the end is nigh', that they are perhaps looking over a Seneca cliff from what is still a high point, assume ten times more decide to vote with their feet, sell everything, and, for a price, buy out most of the residents in a watershed area who do not agree to the 'new rules of the game'. The new majority legally and non-violently take control of the management of the watershed (county/city/town/village level—just ignore big cities too big to not fail), change the rules, and ever fewer who refuse to sell out or accept the new rules of the 'ecolate invaders' remain to eventually die a natural death. The assumption is that the decline and fall of the Euro-Sino Empire takes more than a decade or so.
So initially 330 WMUs form within six global regions, or 55/region, clustered to allow for trade and mutual defense. For example, assume coastal Oregon is the go-to place in North America, then about half of the watershed areas in Oregon, outside the high population Portland metro area, are occupied without conquest by armed force.
Each WMU is assumed to have taken in enough supplies to support a population ten times larger than the carrying capacity the watershed's one-fifth land area can provide. So if the pioneer population is 12,000 (also the estimated carrying capacity population of an average watershed) and they had the foresight and ability to provision enough of all necessities (dry grain/food anoxicly stored for decades and condiments grown) to provide just enough to support an initial population of 120,000 (so 108,000 refugees can be taken in) such that all may expect to die a natural death (non-Malthusian), pass on memes to posterity, and to avoid a scarcity/conflict induced downward death-spiral destroying functional complex society. Otherwise, even if some remnant population survives, a trust-based cooperative society is lost and 90% to 100% of information (literacy, numeracy, ecolacy) with it. We are playing a high-stakes endgame.
All within each WMU agree to live and die by to the stated 'rules of the game' or vote with their feet and leave. Included is the understanding that if the sustainably prosperous population of a WMU is 12,000 and life-expectancy, assuming no Malthusian deaths, is 75 years, then there needs to be about 160 births per year, meaning that initially, of perhaps 16,000 fertile women wanting to have a child, only 1 in 100 could the first year (the question of how to pick the 1 in 100 is secondary to doing, and should not detract). Within one lifetime, however, the population would 'rapidly' (enough?) degrow 90% without Malthusian deaths or scarcity induced conflict and on average each woman would need to have 2.1 children to avoid depopulating the watershed to zero. The transition, without Malthusian deaths (during which the 'few' children would be provided the best schooling that would be least likely to interfere with their education and all would live full lives in so far as possible), would take a lifetime longer than if by plague. Transitioning sooner is better from posterity's view. Those not agreeing to rapid depopulation, to economic degrowth, to a managed way down, would self-select out and play a different endgame.
If Earth could support 24,000 WMUs and 330 managed to form AND the pattern could be repeated, then the total repopulation of Earth might be 288 million humans living, not on a Half Earth, but on a Fifth Earth. For the first time since empire-building began, humans in complex societies would understand the planet well enough to live properly on it, and know the place for the first time.
Before anyone (except my wife and I who have) votes with their feet, watershed management plans, perhaps 330 of them or more, are needed that detail the 'rules of the game' as best guess systems thinking can envision. It would be impossible to propose a new paradigm that might actually work and expect an existing population of Anthropocene enthusiasts busily serving the current economic/political paradigm to consider a foundationally new paradigm and 'vote' on it (or even think about it). Only some variation on the BAU/GND theme, that falls within the Overton window, can be considered by the multitude whose consent is forever manufactured as is their food and news. Drawing from a global population, however, a fraction of a percent might vote with their feet. Call me an extreme cornucopian optimist, but I'm not the only one.
Fire or ice?
Is everything Nature is telling us outside our Overton window?
In science, is having an Overton window=good listening?
And, even if we 'like' some claims, then so what?
In science, Overton window=pathology.
It is the norm of political discourse.
Left popular=Right unpopular.
Right radical =Left evil.
Consensus=BAU.
GND≈BAU
.
=policy.
BAU
?
10/7/19 end of day 1 of International Rebellion: I was on the streets of the city with three signs for five hours, walked 10 miles. Meanwhile, other 'sun kissed' rebels took to the streets. 700 XR supporters arrested worldwide (0.000002% of arrestable population). In London, 280 arrests.
10/8/19 end of day 2 of International Rebellion: I pulled my kayak on wheels 2 miles to the Empire Boat Ramp and I attempted to radicalized one willing person (but climate change didn't come up). Meanwhile, XR is growing and growth is good (as is free food). In London, 541 arrests over the two days of protests.
10/9/19 end of day 3 of International Rebellion: I managed 1.5 hours on the streets to save the planet. In London, 600 total arrests, up from 'a staggering 550' by the third day. We fade.
10/10/19 end of day 4 of International Rebellion: Over 1000 arrests total in London, and 80 tonnes of equipment confiscated. I was not arrested. I'm been on Earth 24,216 days and have not managed to get arrested. 1,112 arrests.
10/11/19 end of day 5 of International Rebellion: 'rebels showed no sign of slowing down'. In London 'some sites have been cleared'. By Oct. 12 at 9:30am arrest total 1290.
10/12/19 end of day 6 of International Rebellion: 'no slowing down of global actions'. In London 'more than 20,000 people, despite near continuous rain, and brought Oxford Street to a standstill'.
10/13/19 Rebels take Sunday off.
10/14/19 end of day 7 of International Rebellion: 'Change takes time...the past week has been a moment in history...thousands of arrests...tens of thousands undertaking civil disobedience...we have proven to the world that this rebellion is a truly global movement...comprised of people with the selflessness, the creativity and the courage to resist the madness of this ecocidal system' all are a part of and serve.
10/15/19 end of day 8 of International Rebellion: 'British police issued a blanket ban on XR protests in London, effectively criminalising any Extinction Rebellion public assembly.' What will history say? The dogs bark, the caravan [techno-industrial hegemon] passes. Celebrities backing Extinction Rebellion say ‘yes, we are all hypocrites’ in open letter to media.
10/16/19 end of day 9, XR Unchained 9: 'Lawyers acting on behalf of Extinction Rebellion submitted a request for an urgent Judicial review at the High Court, challenging the Metropolitan Police’s blanket ban of Extinction Rebellion peaceful protests across the whole of London for the rest of the week.'
10/17/19 end of day 10, London Newsletter: Day 10: 'We took our fearlessness from the streets to the courts, where XR lawyers applied for a judicial review of the disproportionate ban. It was accepted, which means we will now have a platform to prove the ban’s illegality.' Let it not be said that they failed to take their fearlessness somewhere.
10/18/19 end of day 11, Rebel Daily 9: Rebellions don’t end – they regenerate, 'our hearts can demand more selfless action at the cost of our own individual well-being.' The two weeks of rebellion end, but not with a bang.
In London, 1,832 total arrests were made. Population of London, 8.9 million, so 0.02% were arrested (0.0028% of UK population, most of whom could have been there for the price of a modest effort).
11/13/19 Election Rebellion: In UK you can rebel by participating in the upcoming December 12 General Election. Follow directives: XR UK Election Rebellion Kitlist. Review: XR UK Theory of Change< (and vet all claims). Donate: Crowdfund the #ElectionRebellion!. Looks like political activism as usual. In USA I could rebel by voting Green Party. But how will doing so destroy techno-industrial society? I don't know. I don't believe in political solutions, so I'm just another know-nothing from the hood who just doesn't get it, as usual.
12/11/19 Greta and Humanity's Zeitgeist Moment:
If you've heard the speech, read it:
[The only full version of speech I found started off with promotional info about a political activist organization, and the only transcripts I found contained errors, such as having Greta say '...things like, our house is on fire, I wanted to panic or how dare you'. So I removed the ad copy and corrected for transcript errors. There are many brief clips on YouTube as everyone wants her to say what the uploader wants her to, so they pick and choose to confirm their conclusions or to vilify the messenger.]
(00:17) Hi. A year and a half ago, I didn’t speak to anyone unless I really had to, but then I found a reason to speak. Since then, I’ve given many speeches and learned that when you talk in public, you should start with something personal or emotional to get everyone’s attention. Say things like, our house is on fire, I want you to panic or how dare you.
(00:51) But today I will not do that because then those phrases are all that people focus on. They don’t remember the facts, the very reason why I say those things in the first place. We no longer have time to leave out the science. For about a year I have been constantly talking about our rapidly declining carbon budgets over and over again. But since that is still being ignored, I will just keep repeating it.
(01:28) In chapter two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out last year, it says that if we ought to have a 6% to 7% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had on January 1, 2018, 420 gigatons of CO2 left two emit in that budget. And of course that number is much lower today as we emit about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year including land use.
(02:08) With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget will be gone within about eight years. These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or political views. This is the current best available science. Though many scientists suggest these figures are too moderate, these are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC, and please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspect of equity, which is absolutely essential to make the Paris Agreement to work on a global scale. [applause]
(02:50) That means that richer countries need to do their fair share and get down to real zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same, so people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards. These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, nonlinear tipping points, or additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution.
(03:20) Most models assume, however, that future generations will somehow be able to suck hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 out of the air with technologies that do not exist in the scale required and maybe never will. The approximate 6% to 7% chance budget is the one with the highest odds given by the IPCC. And now we have less than 340 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget to share fairly.
(03:55) And why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees? Because even at one degree people are dying from the climate crisis. Because that is what the united science calls for to avoid destabilizing the climate so that we have the best possible chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions such as melting glaciers, polar ice and thawing Arctic permafrost. Every fraction of a degree matters. So there it is, again. This is my message. This is what I want you to focus on.
(04:39) So please tell me, how do you react to these numbers without feeling at least some level of panic? How do you respond to the fact that basically nothing is being done about this without feeling the slightest bit of anger? And how do you communicate this without sounding alarmist? I would really like to know. Since the Paris Agreement, global banks have invested 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars in fossil fuels. One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. The G20 countries account for almost 80% of total emissions. The richest 10% of the world’s population produce half of our CO2 emissions, while the poorest 50% account for just one tenth. We indeed have some work to do, but some more than others.
(05:54) Recently, a handful of rich countries pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by so-and-so many percent by this or that date or to become climate neutral or net zero in so-and-so many years. This may sound impressive at first glance, but even though the intentions may be good, this is not leadership. This is not leading. This is misleading because most of these pledges do not include aviation, shipping, and imported and exported goods and consumption. They do, however, include the possibility of countries to offset their emissions elsewhere.
(06:42) These pledges don’t include the immediate yearly reduction rates needed for wealthy countries, which is necessary to stay within the remaining tiny budget. Zero in 2050 means nothing, if high emission continues even for a few years, then the remaining budget will be gone. Without seeing the full picture, we will not solve this crisis. Finding holistic solutions is what the COP should be all about, but instead it seems to have turned into some kind of opportunity for countries to negotiate loopholes and to avoid raising their ambition. [applause]
(07:37) Countries are finding clever ways around having to take real action, like double counting emissions reductions and moving their emissions overseas and walking back on their promises to increase ambition or refusing to pay for solutions or loss of damage. This has to stop. What we need is real drastic emission cuts at the source, but of course just reducing emissions is not enough. Our greenhouse gas emissions has to stop. To stay below 1.5 degrees, we need to keep the carbon in the ground. Only setting up distant dates and saying things which give the impression of the action is underway will most likely do more harm than good because the changes required are still nowhere in sight. The politics needed does not exist today despite what you might hear from world leaders. And I still believe that the biggest danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when in fact almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR. [applause]
(09:15) I have been fortunate enough to be able to travel around the world. And my experience is that the lack of awareness is the same everywhere, not the least amongst those elected to lead us. There is no sense of urgency whatsoever. Our leaders are not behaving as if we were in an emergency. In an emergency you change your behavior. If there is a child standing in the middle of the road and cars are coming at full speed, you don’t look away because it’s too uncomfortable. You immediately run out and rescue that child. And without that sense of urgency, how can we, the people understand that we are facing a real crisis. And if the people are not fully aware of what is going on, then they will not put pressure on the people in power to act. And without pressure from the people our leaders can get away with basically not doing anything, which is where we are now. And around and around it goes.
(10:33) In just three weeks we will enter a new decade, a decade that will define our future. Right now we are desperate for any sign of hope. Well, I’m telling you, there is hope. I have seen it, but it does not come from the governments or corporations. It comes from the people. The people who have been unaware, but are now starting to wake up. And once we become aware, we change. People can change. People are ready for change. And that is the hope because we have democracy and democracy is happening all the time. Not just on Election Day, but every second and every hour. It is public opinion that runs the free world. In fact, every great change throughout history has come from the people. We do not have to wait. We can start the change right now. We the people.
(11:50) Thank you. [applause]
.
So I live on a free world and public opinion is running the show. Continents drift, Earth freely spins on its axis, empires rise and fall, and democracy is happening. Humans are the storytelling animal, and a claim that every great change throughout history has come from the people is facepalmingly delusional, but if you make 57 reasonable, mostly evidence-based claims first, who's gonna notice?
I'm not listening to nor reading the words, thoughts, or concepts of a 16 year-old. If Greta were a feral child she would not speak, much less say what she says. She is a Cassandra, the voice of posterity, as imagined, speaking to we Anthropocene enthusiasts. Some may demur, claim that they do not serve the SYSTEM, the growth hegemon, with as much enthusiasm as others, but meanwhile the pace of planetary destruction has not slowed.
Greta wants (as will posterity) to know why we are not doing something. Sadly, it is because we can't. Greta is speaking to the Great Amoeba we are all a product of and serve. Posterity is asking the Amoeba to commit suicide, to cease its activity, its acquisition of energy and materials. Greta is pleading with the forest fire to stop its flames, with the cancer to stop its enthusiastic metastasizing.
Some of the more thoughtful cells may listen, foresee the outcome, perhaps even vote with their feet and leave the hegemon, but they, the few, merely opt out to be replaced by those cells whose enthusiasm is undimmed, untroubled by thoughts of the last bitter hour, who remain time and energy blind. Still, they who opt out will have a different trajectory and may be humanity's only hope. Don't expect a wolf in sheep's clothing, even a hyper-eloquent one who references climate scientists, to save the world.
Cassandra's voice is not the only voice Greta channels. She [i.e. the author(s)] selectively listens to those who endeavor to listen to Nature, and theirs is the Cassandra voice, but Greta is also informed by those who offer solutions, who long for solutions that only political activism and vision can deliver (or so they fervently believe). Thus they are why no effective action will be taken. They distract, they politicize all issues and use them to demand change that We the People, once we are properly informed, will demand (NOT!).
XR demands that governments act. At least Greta is not as delusional, but the last resort of political belief is always the appeal to We the People, to a relentlessly humancentric appeal, to the very error that is the distal cause of our problematique. All good hu-mans believe in political solutions as We once, in 12th to 17th centuries Europe, believed in religious salvation before we came to trust in Growth's Mandate instead.
Now that 99+ percent of humans have been subsumed, if there was a button such that if I pressed it all fossil fuel oxidation ended tomorrow, forever, then, knowing the likely consequences, would I push it? Would you? Could anyone know the outcome for humanity? Knowing only that all other life on Earth (with a few exception such as cows and cockroaches) would benefit, would you push it? What if you could stop all fossil fuel use tomorrow, but for only 24 hours to get humanity's attention (almost all vehicles stop, all airplanes in flight become gliders), and then simultaneously appearing on all screens worldwide, you warn humanity that all fossil fuel use will end in five years, forever after. No one gets a vote. You add that waiting five years will result in the extinction of tens of thousands of more species.
Why wait? Perhaps to give some humans time to transition, to seek out the condition now that will come anyway. Humans would do well to quickly consider real solutions. Oh, and starting 12/11/2019 you have 1,825 days to acquire a life-driven purpose, because I pushed the button after negotiating for a five year delay. We hu-mans have five years to develop a 500-year plan. In five years, how many will agree I shouldn't have pleaded for a delay?
Hint: Don't look to political or religious leaders. Listen to Nature, to your Cassandras, to they who endeavor to think in systems. To think is to listen. Listen.
1/3/20: Happy birthday, Greta.
9/7/2020: Rebel Daily 5: We will not be intimidated September 07, 2020 by Extinction Rebellion. Over 600 arrests. Protesters are going all out. Much as Earth First! was hijacked by the far-left who were then ousted by anarchist enthusiasts, and more recently BLM has attracted Antifa enthusiasts, XR is boiling down to the harder core. The current rebellion is a UK thing and talk of classifying XR as an 'organised crime group' is topical. The climate issue is increasingly politicized, so lines are drawn, with the far-left rhetorically facing off against the far-right tribe which may lead to blows on the streets and dead bodies as usual. Once again the brown shirts will face-off against the red shirts or green shirts, or black shirts, or... who will do what they have to do. Meanwhile....
XR is in the business of telling truth to power. It is one of their causes to die for, and one of mine. I'm listening.
Read: The flawed social science behind Extinction Rebellion’s change strategy: White privilege leads to cherry-picked misreadings of data on worldwide struggles of people of colour (and beyond), by Nafeez Ahmed, Oct 28, 2019, who agrees with XR, as I do, that we are on an 'extinction trajectory' and who would be XR if he could be. I would be XR too, I would spend a month in jail being tortured, I would fast unto death to protest, and I would kill a few elites IF doing so had a reasonable, evidenced-based chance of changing the trajectory. Who wouldn't? If XR theorists would get their conceptual shit together and 'listen to Nature who has all the answers', as Hallam and Read obviously don't, then I would be XR even if I didn't call myself XR. For now, I'll just have to be Federation.
[Note: Read Ahmed's article(s) and follow all the links (the latest: The Collapse of Civilization May Have Already Begun Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's imminent. But can we afford to be wrong?). If Ahmed is too much, start with Rupert Read's Truth and It's Consequences as a stepping stone (or gateway entheogen to vap), though he lost me after the first sentence (but last sentence of first paragraph notes: 'With truth-force, anything is possible. Without it, game-over' and may the Force be with us). We are playing a high-stakes endgame, so if killing elites is thinkable, perhaps thinking should be thinkable. One could spend a month in jail being tortured, or a month thinking...considering the possibility you might be wrong. Or would you rather believe than know? Dear Rupert: I have a button that, if pressed, would humanely euthanize the global 1 percent. Would you push it? (The 1% being anyone with an income over USD $32K/year, people like me and some others you might know.) I would push it, in the absence of a better plan (e.g. yours), on the off chance that doing so would change our trajectory. It's time for pretend rebels, like me, to stand and deliver.]
You can't join the compassionate revolution, but you can be a compassionate rxevolutionary.
We need prescriptions for our continued evolution.
We need a 500-year plan.
"There is a recent trend in environmental media asserting climate change is the primary systemic risk faced by civilization. One of the points of this paper is to suggest that climate change is one symptom of a much larger dysfunction. Multiple interrelated risks all point to an impending, imposed reduction in energy/material throughput in coming decades." —Nate Hagens, Economics for the future – Beyond the superorganism
"Climate change is not the biggest threat to the world’s environment – we are.... While it’s reassuring that today’s young people are increasingly aware of the seriousness of their environmental plight, they are protesting up the wrong tree. They should direct their passionate attention to the real enemy – a greedy, arrogant, two-legged species [7.7 billion and counting] that’s in furious denial and has become far too adept at making excuses for the inexcusable." —Kevin Casey, Why climate change is an irrelevance, economic growth is a myth and sustainability is forty years too late
“As the name implies, 'process politics' emphasizes the adequacy and fairness of the rules governing the process of politics. If the process is fair, then, as in a trial conducted according to due process, the outcome is assumed to be just—or at least the best the system can achieve. By contrast, 'systems politics' is concerned primarily with desired outcomes; means are subordinated to predetermined ends.”—William Ophuls, from: Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited, 1992. A 'predetermined end' could be extinction, another unsustainable empire, or a viable civilization.
"For as long as I could think about it I have had an unconditional love for the natural world outside the city, and therefore I thought that I was a 'green'. Urban and suburban green ideology talks of saving the planet, but it has mainly become another radical political movement, no longer concerned with the Earth, only with people." —James Lovelock, A Rough Ride to the Future 2014. From XR, environmentalists, Anthropocene enthusiasts, vegans, carnists, alt energy enthusiasts, degrowthers, ecomodernists (and supporters), all the shouted rage and clenched fist shaking or academic papers and conferences is irredeemably humancentric. Depower humanity starting with yourself, otherwise political narratives are distractions all. As long as you believe in political solutions you'll pick and choose, be for or against, like and dislike, believe you are right and know the truth, meanwhile the pace of planetary destruction will not slow.
Population, not climate change, is the distal driver of species extinction. Industrialized empire-building humans are colliding with Nature, which we conquistadors view as a resource for the taking. We took and are still taking it, for a time. Human population will descend, but in our endeavor to keep on keeping on we will degrade the planetary life-support system further, further accelerating the rate of extinction. A damaged Nature will survive. Humanity may not. If you understand the dynamic you are part of and a product of, then you cannot serve it (i.e. work for money). If you serve it, you don't understand the dynamic. To understand the dynamic is to be delivered from it. Anthropocene XR enthusiasts wake up and tell the truth to power starting with your inner potentate. Love and understand that well that thou must leave ere long.
'Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the [White] Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."'
Somewhat like the White Queen, I sometimes think as many as six unthinkable thoughts before breakfast. And as I endeavor to be literate, numerate, and above all ecolate, it is easy to do when surrounded by the semiliterate, largely innumerate, and wholly inecolate hu-mans who decide what is thinkable by consensus of the ignorant living on a vast expanse of error and illusion.
Bearing in mind that climate change is merely one (a mostly future) driver of ecocide and that no one can see a thousand years ahead:
So 'posterity and life on Earth...'. But that would include everyone. Okay, maybe the word 'functional' was assumed. So pathogens, such as cancer cells, would not be included. But...but WTF? That means Anthropocene enthusiasts and hu-mans of NIMH like me would not be included among those whose POV matters.... Cool, I haven't had breakfast and I'm up to two already. This is like so easy.
Activists think they can talk the Great Amoeba into committing suicide (#3). We can't destroy it by trying to no matter how vigorously we shake our fists or how many parliaments we blow up (#4). The SYSTEM is not remotely sustainable and will self-destruct faster if we don't try to stop it (#5). What we, qua 'individuals', can do is not believe in it which involves failing to serve it with enthusiasm—don't believe its stories or the ones you want/like to tell. Listen to Nature because you don't get a vote (#6, time for breakfast).
We are all part of the Great Amoeba. The better one understands the remorseless dynamics of the whole shebang one is part of, the less one's enthusiasm will be. At some point serving the SYSTEM is no longer an option. One is forced to consider voting with your feet and 'walk away from Omelas'. The more who walk away, the sooner the Great Amoeba will whither.
'My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.' ― Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973 (Hugo 1974), SF writer channeling a likely future assuming continued business-as-usual. Global population at time of which she is writing? (1 to 11,000,000?)
11/21/2021 SUBNOTE TO FILE:
Bill Maher telling the truth to power. As a Boomer, I can say, 'Sorry about that'. I failed to destroy modern techno-industrial society. What will those currently empowered by Like ad Share (e,g, those currently schooled by media and a broken 'education' system) have to say in fifty years? If not, 'sorry about that', then plan on not being part of the 99.999% who will not consider The Malta Solution.
12/20/2021 SUBNOTE TO FILE:
Why is Extinction Rebellion supporting illegal immigration? XR is not an environmental movement, they are a political one. This is becoming more evident after their recent protests. The UK has nearly 70 million people and a huge carbon footprint and ecological footprint. XR enthusiasts fail to realise that the more people who come to the UK, the more GHGs will be produced. Thanks to immigration, the UK has a major housing shortage and swathes of countryside are being destroyed to create new housing to add to future ruins. Only rapid contraction of population and consumption everywhere will reverse our overshoot condition. Seeking out that condition now that will come anyway in a managed descent/contraction would mitigate chaotic collapse. but there are no political solutions. Political movements are distractions, are part of the problem and not any real solutions. Sorry about that.
3/25/2022 SUBNOTE TO FILE:
“Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in ‘t!” [Shakespeare]
Leanne McNulty seems tempest tossed, a bringer of things to come. She is "... a proud and passionate fundraiser... connecting people to causes... a lover of nature... [who views] the Extinction Rebellion April actions in London [as] the biggest wake-up call to learn the truth about the scale of the climate crisis... Leanne now considers herself a bona fide... environmentalist keen to share the infinite benefits of slowing down and living more mindfully with anyone who will listen!"
As evidenced by: "The overpopulation myth is an example of ecofascism. Here’s Why."
A proud and exemplary product of the modern education system that exists (is funded) to serve modern techno-industrialized society? I'm guessing she and many in her cohort will stridently demand ecological justice for all organisms as in different words my cohort did in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the pace of planetary destruction has not slowed.
McNulty's "biggest wake-up call" is about a century too late. The biggest modern wake-up call was WWI. In 1920 H.G. Wells noted that modern history "becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." He could only have thought so then if he did not view the education system as being at risk of failing. By 1933, Wells clearly thought it had failed, and envisioned a New Education system arising by the 21st century, which of course did not happen. Ergo, the race was lost by the 1930s. Sorry about that.
Ecofascism is rooted in *surprised gasp* fascism – an ideology, usually on the far-right or far-left that restricts the freedom of individuals or groups of people. In environmentalism, it manifests in climate targets or conservation plans that sacrifice certain groups’ safety, wellbeing or even their life in the name of protecting the planet.... but safe to say, we produce an abundance of food already and by tweaking the system [modern techno-industrialized monetary system] we can do it more sustainably, reduce methane in the atmosphere and ensure no one goes hungry....
It’s easy to assume that defending nature and animals is synonymous with caring about people but racism, classism and ableism that exist in society also show up in environmentalism. Ecofascism is what you get when white supremacy and environmentalism collide.... the preoccupation with population growth is a product of white supremacy and colonisation.... Two mass shootings in recent years, in El Paso USA and Christchurch New Zealand, have been attributed to ecofascism. In both instances, the shooters held beliefs around overpopulation and migration causing environmental breakdown.
