I appreciate Art's contributions, and have read some of his latest. Various fuels will run out at various times. We have coal enough for centuries. It's all a Faustian bargain, of course. The worst thing that could happen would be free energy, because it accelerates all the harm we do. By that logic, all energy declines are good for us long term. We will just hate it and things will grow increasingly hard: what Nate calls the great simplification. It's all details that matter a lot individually, but not regarding modern civilisation's chances, which are nil long term. Planetary tipping points will determine a lot. They might take a while.
Humans need to JUST STOP for a while, to contemplate these truths and discern a way forward. Whether you are religious or not. The pandemic offered us this opportunity. We wasted it. Who’s talking about these ideas? Who is hearing this message, anywhere? The mindless consumerism, addiction to “entertainment”, divisions, animosity, narcissistic nonsense, and senseless vengeance and violence are as pervasive and powerful as ever.
I agree. We never change, fundamentally. I'm very sceptical of us ever willingly stopping or slowing down much at all. We might cut down like 10% if we really had to, best case. We needed to cut down 100% decades ago. We are so far from doing what we need to do it isn't even funny. It's completely hopeless. It's just not gonna happen, not by a long shot.
I think it's hopeless but also deliberate. The US based oil money is accelerating by ramping up until peak oil, but also because they know climate change will affect the global south the most. They can't bear being bested by the Chinese. I think the US plans to wall itself off, economically and physically, and shoot at the US border all agricultural migrants (food will be the issue way before tipping points or peak oil, ie soon).
Hi Jan, I love how you have written this. It's a marvel of a piece. I don't find fault with any of it. There is not really much to say about the state of human civilisation and its likely possible futures further to what you have said here. At this point of complete chaotic supercomplex absurdity, it's just a case of 'do the best you can with the tools and awareness and knowledge and love that you have and can continue to build and foster, and hope for the best of possible outcomes'...
As far as 'radical acceptance' goes, which, from my view is the only valid path to take for the collapse aware (of course on top of whatever actions they are prepared to follow through with to fight, mitigate, spread/raise awareness etc). For one's own basic mental health, acceptance is paramount, and as far as acceptance goes I wonder if an even more wide lens perspective may help. I offer it with no expectation that it won't be torn to shreds by some, which is welcomed, and as something I have not fully bought into myself but have simply been exploring and testing. This might be part of the testing... just talking about it.
So, I suspect that the speed at which the human species has, is, will delete itself is kind of irrelevant. Sure, our early peoples and cultures developed immensely wise and sustainable, if not regenerative worldviews and ways of living that centred the earth and their fundamental interconnection to it. They 'participated' as just another part of everything and understood such ways of life as entirely normal, which they were. Such set ups were able to last for ten's of thousands of years, and who knows how much longer they could have lasted had not certain critical developments occurred. But at some point, whether 100,000 years, 200,000 years or millions of years, it was destined to change. Humans are clearly wired to eventually end up where we are right now. Increasing complexity seems to be tied entropy, if not effectively one and the same. Humans are inherently curious and creative problem solvers. We have certain psychological traits that will eventually rise to prominence on endlessly iterated game theoretical models. Eventually, no matter what, this happens. At the same time, any given cataclysmic disaster could have or could wipe us out anyway. It's happened before, it could happen again. Hell, there are things that happen in the universe that could wipe the entire planet into dust or nothing... such things are inevitable over near-infinite time scales. So, we have this obsession on 'time'... how long we 'last'... the idea that the earth doesn't really care, the cosmos doesn't really care... so maybe that is true, and if it is, then what are we left with? We are only left with concepts of 'meaning'. What is meaning? what do we 'mean'? Maybe the only true meaning is 'love', and not just human 'love', but the attention and care and support and intention of all entities that exist as part of the cosmic web. Humans are doomed to fail, the cosmos does not really 'care', for it has meaning and love woven into it's very fabric fighting the eternal battle against entropy and eventual destruction until the whole thing collapses and starts again. So, where does the meaning of this doomed species on this tiny planet that the cosmos doesn't even really care about fit in? Well, maybe, it is simply the meaning created by the love we feel and enact and embody through our life with and towards human and non-human entities, and what humans have created from that perspective is possibly the greatest, or one of many total, but statistically rare in the universe, dense centres of love and meaning. Are these centres just blinking flame outs in the greater picture of all, sure they are, but are they still fundamentally significant, maybe. Maybe it is literally the point of 'life', the cosmos's ultimate play to create and foster and increase 'meaning' through sentient, intentional love that requires the choice of the entity to choose against easier non-loving and destructive options?
I know that this is essentially just a messy ill-thought out woo woo secular reinterpretation of religious frameworks, but from the widest lens, what else really is there to explain it all or to bring any sense of equanimity to a collapse-aware soul in these times? I am not religious, and I have never really like woo woo, but at this point, I just can't find any other way to see it that does not end up in me being severely depressed, or angry enough to effectively end myself by going full Rambo on the system. Neither of those options are good. The fight is, effectively futile at this point, at least at a systems level. At the individual and community level it is everything, which is what we need to focus on. But meaning is the only thing that matters, and meaning, as far as I am concerned, is the most important thing in existence, as otherwise, what is the point of existence? If meaning is love and attention and care and support and understanding etc, then those are the only things we should be investing in within our own spheres. It is also the only thing we can truly control. The earth and the universe will continue after us no matter how long we persist as the time scale of the universe might as well be infinite as we can fathom it... but in the vast scale of it, true meaning is incredible rare, thus the fabric of existence relies upon it to have any reason to exist at all. We are a part of that meaning, however long we last, or however many other nodes of life and meaning exist in the universe, and even after we are gone, i suspect that the fact that we existed at all, us fundamentally important to the very fabric of existence.
I'm not implying any of these thoughts are especially profound, or original, just what i have been thinking about and what i felt to say in response to your amazing piece (and all of your others). Much love.
Man's meaning crisis is as old as time. Being a rationalist makes me a logician, physicalist and non-believer of the notion of free will. To me, there is no inherent meaning: no plan, no creator, no point. It's all just playing out without any original purpose.
But there is a way out: we can imbue it whatever meaning we like, as many of us indeed do. E.g., spreading love feels meaningful. Leaving the world a little better than you found it, etc. Pursuing your passions. All these things are purely imagined, processes of a brain darwinistically evolved to feel things that aren't real, materialistically. But they can feel real, and that matters. That matters a lot. I might not believe in free will, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where we don't pretend we have it. This is just me being human and biased, but that's my privilege.
I agree that it's inevitable that we blow ourselves up sooner or later, and that this inevitability is an excellent answer to the Fermi paradox via a Great Filter. Paul wrote about it here, and I spoke about it in my Part 1. http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html
Finding radical acceptance is extremely hard. I think pragmatic, stoic and emotionally intelligent people stand the best chances of quickly settling on an acceptable form of acceptance such as "it is what it is, so let's just make the most of it!" Indeed, hasn't that always been the case? But we're all wired differently and must all find our own way. It's a lot harder for some of us than for others..
If you knew without a shadow of a doubt that our current situation was inevitable, just an unavoidable trajectory baked into the way in which we are wired as a species, would it change how you feel about it all? Obviously, we can point to a million things in the past and present that were and are technically 'avoidable', but they have not been avoided, and it has happened very quickly compared to the amount of time that our species existed before. There seem to be a few crucial 'technologies' that would tip the trajectory this way in any given simulation, and development of those simple technologies by humans seems inevitable to me. If we could model it infinite times, does it happen every time? Or is there some tiny percentage where wisdom somehow wins the game theoretical model for long enough that humans create a regenerative utopia that stands until the earth ends it of its own accord through natural processes? I'm not sure, but unless that number is more significant, it might as well be seen as inevitable imo.
So, I suppose that I see the collapse of civilisation and the near or total extinction of our species the same as I see death in general. Both are effectively inevitable (though we are able to predict the timelines of our own deaths much more accurately, we still don't know exactly when it will happen unless we choose to end it ourselves), and as such, fearing them, or living in such a way that overly obsesses over avoiding them, seems not only a waste of time, but a massive imposition on the quality of the time/life you actually do have. I don't mean this in a selfish fatalistic way, such that we should say 'fuck it I'll do what I want and have fun no matter the cost', as obviously we have strong ethical obligations to others in the present and future if we are anything but complete nihilists or psychopaths. But, if we are doing what we can, then there is not much else we can do except to accept.
I have never been scared of death for myself, only of the physical and/or emotional consequences my death might have on loved ones. I am the same with collapse, I don't fear it for myself (though i don't like the idea of how painful it may be), what happens happens, I only fear for the potential/inevitable pain and suffering it may/will cause my loved ones because that causes me more pain that my own pain. But like death, there is only so much I can do to control that, which is quite little. All that remains is living and loving and trying to build resilience to what may come at the same time as being as present as possible within the meaning of day to day life. I know it sounds shallow, but at the end of the day, we are still unimaginably lucky to even be alive on this incredible earth at all, or unlucky, depending on how one views it or how difficult their own life is.
I respect your materialistic view, and your view on free will, but personally, though it may simply be my way of avoiding deep depression, I suspect that intrinsic relational 'meaning' might be more fundamentally baked into the fabric of existence itself, and thus, our emergence as self-reflective, highly agentic conscious beings allows for a different kind of higher order meaning to emerge in collaborative relation with the foundational meaning, rather than a mechanically emergent make-believe that simply has survival utility to our species. I suspect that free will stands at a profound intersection of deeper meaning from conscious choice and intentionality. While we don't have full 'control' over our choices, we do, again again, have the choice to choose higher virtues over baser instincts, to order and build instead of destroy, to love instead of hate etc., is that not overwhelming evidence towards a form of truly free will attached to some kind of ultimate higher order intentional agentic meaning? Every one of us knowingly chooses good over bad and bad over good over and over again throughout our lives, some of us more good over bad and some of us more bad over good. I understand the deterministic arguments against free will, I just don't think they mesh with the embodied, self-reflective and relational reality of our conscious and bodily experience, either practically or theoretically. Though, you may be right, and if you are, the conclusions we both come to about how we should respond to current times are still effectively the same anyway. Thanks again, Jan
I am very on board with your perspective on things. They are both quite literally true, and also a very sensible answer/response to the absurdity of life and its inevitable end. We always knew we all were going to die one way or the other, what does it even matter how?
“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” ― Charles Bukowski
It doesn't make any sense to not accept the inevitable. I reckon emotionally wise and robust people are better at facing this truth that those of us lacking in that area, especially if burdened further by complex trauma or chronic conditions, depression included.
I had a bit of an epiphany as to what it is that really eats at me. It's not the gruesome fate of the world, horrific as it may be. It's the frustration of being surrounded by so much irrationality and immoral behaviour. I must keep reminding myself, based on philosophy and science, ie, logic and evidence, that people are these ways for reasons, reasons I literally write about. So I understand these irrationalities quite well, and shouldn't expect anything different. So why am I so frustrated? I guess it's because it's so difficult to not be momally outraged by what I perceive as utter selfish foolishness.
And then there's the cost of viewing people as such: it disconnects me from them, as I lose respect for them and grow misanthropic, but as a social animal I desperately need company. I think the best thing I (and anyone, really) can do in life is find their own tribe that truly gets them.
It's purely speculative whether our ultimate fate was ever avoidable, but I reckon it wasn't. Not with our opposable thumbs, taming of fire that grew our brains via pre-digested proteins, development of language that enables passing down wisdom, intricate social networks and cooperation on vast scales. Darwinism and social Darwinism is truly fascinating. We did have a good long run before we fell into the fossil fuel trap; if FFs didn't exist (and it's quite random that they do, actually), we could have gone on for a very long time, as we were unable to destroy the environment, and local Overshoot issues would be keptlocal. Paul Chefurka speculates about the inevitability of our fate here http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html
Regarding the free will debate, just bear in mind that this "choice" you speak of is 100% ruled out by logic (or should I say, by those of us who have concluded we have none :). It just feels that way. Sam Harris talks about this "you can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do" issue quite well here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u45SP7Xv_oU
The best book I've found on the matter is "The Nonsense of Free Will" (Richard Oerton); his crisp, clear logic settles the matter perfectly. The excellent Robert Sapolsky took a few decades figuring it out from a biological perspective, and wrote about it in "Determined".
The Uncertainty Principle rules out hard determinism, but it doesn't make room for any free will - just randomness.
The free will discussion matters greatly regarding the justice system, esp. retributive justice. It also sneaks into real life all the time whenever we cut upset, stressed and desperate people some slack. But as to how to live as if we actually don't have it? Fuggedaboutit. It would remove all credit and responsibility for people's actions, and we are just not wired to think like that.
PS Edit: Just to be clear, I agree that we should live as if we can knowingly choose to live virtuously. When I'm being pedantic about fundamental laws of physics it's mostly besides the relevant point :)
Thanks for this Jan, I agree with everything you have written. The only answer I see is a massive reduction in birth rates to below 1 on average. This way our population can collapse naturally along with everything else, but millions/billions of deaths could be avoided
I agree that a massive drop in birth rate while the existing population getting to to age off and die in a humane way is the least bad scenario. No clue how to engineer that on a large scale, even if we agreed on the goal, which we don't and never will.
What does "Yet somehow we must" mean? What is the "somehow"? How do we get there? If we reframe it like this then it enables us to start thinking about what can actually come after modernity, and think about the path from here to there also forces us to think about adaptation and survival.
Now...I agree with you that it is *key* that people accept some sort of collapse lies in our immediate future. Without that the temptation to keep believing in BAU is too much for most people to resist. But having accepted that then we need to avoid people just ending up giving up all hope, not just for their own future but for the whole of humanity. We need to offer them some new way to think and talk about this situation -- a new way to navigate the world.
Yeah, it's not exactly the best call to action. That's definitely not my strong suit. No, I'll check it out.
"Yet somehow we must" is ambiguous, true. What I mean is what I write: we can't live with 'em, so we must live without 'em - but we can't. Hence the catch-22 and Gordian knot, and "something's gotta give, and that something is the population count."
I have no idea what comes after, but I feel certain we will never embrace a peaceful journey towards it. I am very sceptical of mankinds ability to rise to this challenge.
People are so far from collapse acceptence. A transition into that would take many decades. People will not accept reality, and they will keep doubling down on their misunderstandings due cognitive dissonence.
We absolutely need to do as you say. I don't think I have a lot to offer in that area, but others certainly do. But again, I'm personally extremely bearish on humanity as a whole. We have too many negative traits and bugs in our brains. I could be wrong, it's just my 2 cents.
Courageous, insightful, and highly accurate IMHO. However, you left out two critical elements IMHO: our massive human overpopulation/overconsumption and an explanation of WHY we have become so overpopulated/overconsuming. I covered this in my 2018 book, "Stress R Us", based on my attempt in retirement to explain the flourishing "stress diseases" I saw in my 42 yrs. of medical/psychiatric practice. A free PDF may be downloaded from the Stanford e-library online.
Simply put, we are descended from an ancestral ecologically balanced, self-sustaining steady population of migratory Hunter-Gatherers/pastoralists who numbered less than 10M just a few thousand years ago. So, what the hell happened? Those ancestral clans/bands numbered less than 150 (the Dunbar number) and occupied a roughly defined home territory at any one time, but moved from resource depleted to new resource sufficient physical territory, and occasionally had to repel interlopers, including with lethal force, rarely necessary. During the last Ice-age, these clans/bands were forced to take refuge in the "painted caves" of southern France and the Pyrenees of northern Spain. Their migrations held down the population, as a woman could only carry one child at a time, breast feeding for four years, and predation by carnivores/interlopers was always a danger, as were the natural resource limitations of H-G lifeway. Unfortunately, with the advent of sedentary agriculture, a new high energy storable food source was available and symbolic territory (aka surplus "Capital") was born. The late brilliant anthopologist/archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat wrote an amazing book, "Before Writing, vol. 1" documenting this transition she found in museum artifact collections. Her book is well illustrated. So, your brilliant analysis and writing describes the consequences of too many humans, using too many natural resources, and producing too much pollution, once the limits to growth extant in the natural world of the H-G clans/bands was over ridden. Gregg Miklashek, MD
Thanks Greeley. Yeah, it's hard to fit it all into one post, or even an entire series. There's so much to cover; one must pick and choose. I reckon it was inevitable that we ended up where we are, given our capabilities and the existence of abundant fossil fuels. It's speculative, of course, but I'm quite partial to this conclusion. Paul Chefurka touches upon it here http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html
"Whatever I feel in the moments before I vaporize in a nuclear blastwave, surprise won't be part of it. Maybe relief."
Amidst all the drama and terror of this predicament, I have to admit that every now and then something makes me laugh, and this part nailed it. It's exactly what I think too.
Another sentence where I think you touch on something important is this one:
"Zero prep work for collapse, neither pragmatic nor spiritual."
Very rarely in collapse-aware forums do I see the importance of spiritual preparation pointed out for the moment we find ourselves in. I'm not talking about belonging to a religion, but rather believing there's something more than what we can see, learn, and think, even if we can't understand it, and that ultimately moves the world without us being aware of it. The stage machinery of our particular theatrical performance.
I'm fortunate to believe there is, and this helps me deal with the inevitable depression of knowing that, as a species, we've failed. Some experiences in my life have led me to have the feeling that there's something more, even though I know as a human being I'll never fully understand what it is. My hope is that, once we leave this world, we can continue to grow and learn, and that perhaps the true meaning of it all lies out there, not here. Because once you become aware of our problem, an inevitable question arises. If this is all there is, what was the "right answer"?
Before I was aware of the inevitable collapse, I thought that "doing it right" meant having a career and a job that was meaningful and made others happy. But an airplane pilot taking people to a distant country for vacation is burning fuel by the bucketful. A surgeon operating on a patient to save their life is using loads of disposable material. An engineer building a dam so we can have energy is crushing biodiversity... and so on. In the end, one realizes that from the moment we embarked on the path of "progress" (a path that has no turning back once you take it), we were dooming ourselves and our world, no matter how good our intentions might've been. So, if what we see is all there is... what's the point? Why did we come here?
Now, when I stop for a moment and look at the city lights, I can't help but think that even though we failed, it was impossible to avoid it. There was no such thing as a fundamental "right choice" here. If there's a meaning, it must be different, and we probably can't understand it with the mind, only glimpse it with the heart. The smile of a child, a partner, a friend... The beauty of a sunset, a story, a piece of music... The part of me that isn't physical or mental turns toward those things now; it's the only thing that seems to calm my anxiety. To acknowledge that I've always been very small, and that the Truth is too big for me to grasp, at least for now. To forgive the rest of the people with whom I've shared and continue to share this world; we've all failed together. To trust that maybe this isn't all, and that we can have a new opportunity elsewhere, taking with us only what truly matters: what we've learned. And to accept leaving when the time comes, in peace. For me, that's preparing myself spiritually for collapse.
Sorry about such a long post, but places like this bring me relief, because I see that there are other people out there suffering and struggling internally against what's to come. Knowing I'm not alone gives me inner peace. I hope it does for you too, even if it's just the tiniest bit.
I appreciate your post; it's not long at all. I'm glad you find a tiny bit of relief knowing you're not 100% alone in the world with your thoughts, feelings and conclusions. So do I.
I agree that looking for beauty is the best we can do. There is much, and much to be grateful for. There are positives and negatives in the world, so focusing on the positives makes sense (as long as one doesn't go into la-la land of denial). I mean, what's the point of crying about the inevitable instead of making the most of what we have? What a wasted opportunity.
As a physicalist and determinist, I categorically reject literal deeper meanings to reality. It's all just happenstance playing out according to the Standard Model and the Uncertainty Principle; there are no souls floating around, and all our mental constructs are just mammalian musings.
However, that's not to stop us from simply deciding whatever we like to be meaningful; we can literally invent it out of thin air. We can do this because we're governed by our animal instincts and emotions, which feel incredibly real, and isn't the lived perspective what actually matters to the living creature? These idiot physicalists can sit around debating the true nature of the universe while the rest of us get on with living a rewarding, spiritual life. (I feel I have a leg in both camps).
Just found your substack and immediately subscribed. I look forward to reading prior posts and comments. I keep up with the current state of our climate with a quick scan here:
Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals.
“Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather… Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa.”
Cool, thanks for subbing :) I hope you enjoy the other stuff, too.
I don't have the mental fortitude to hear about the latest Faster Than Expected development on a daily basis; I completely spiral into despair. Besides, I've studied collapse from most angles full time for a couple of years now, and need no further convincing (and so far haven't come upon anything remotely qualifying as a repudiation, despite my best efforts -- I'd love so much to be wrong).
If you want more daily updates, The Collapse Chronicle will keep you satiated. Good luck staying sane..
I couldn't agree with Hideaway's conclusion more, and he even only touches upon a tiny part of the entire predicament. In this article I say I can't even find the words to decribe how screwed we are, and in my Part 2 of 5: Depression (as another example), I write "The predicament is overwhelming to an absurd degree. Taking just the parts I’ve studied into account, I see no way out whatsoever."
I mention that it will be a catabolic (Greer's term) collapse, and the interdependencies of modernity will be broken slowly at first, then all at once. System's level thinking proves conceptually how there's no way to fix overly complex running systems (that end in dead ends) without breaking them down and rebuilding them from the ground up, which we cannot afford to do. Hence, the title of this post.
You've got me thinking, and I mean this seriously, of throwing my lot in with the Amish. I would live with them, imitating their lifestyle though not following their belief system.
They’re really on to something with the categorical rejection of technology, it was also The Unabomber’s stance (I had to stop reading an Adam Grant book when he ironically critiqued The Unabomber for not thinking when his manifesto’s opening paragraphs are a completely respectable point of view (obviously it all goes completely wrong with him regarding morality)).
I’m also quite attracted to disconnecting completely from the online world. I struggle to not be damaged by news cycles and moral outrage triggers, not to mention faster-than-expected news regarding climate change on a daily basis, and they’re all impossible to avoid. We didn’t evolve to being exposed to all this and I think we all suffer horrendously, not even counting the fact that it steals our attention, time, and focus from much better things.
Nice to find your site. You are a very good writer with an excellent command of our overshoot predicament.
I like that you think the correct response is for us to focus on suffering reduction. I agree. It's the only good path that remains. Extra good if we include all species.
There's one piece of the puzzle you may be missing. That's the human evolved tendency to deny unpleasant realities.
I wrote a short essay 5 years ago discussing the cognitive biases codex chart you mentioned in your essay, using it as an example of denial.
Yes, that is quite odd. It just goes to show how impossible it is for us to have a perfect, unbiased understanding of reality; the faults are hardwired into us to such a degree we could never understand or even register them all. We’re left trying to hypothesise about what’s truly going on (as you do with MORT, which I haven’t had the opportunity to fully digest yet, as it is so deep).
I did mention Denial of Death briefly in this post, and have spoken about denial a lot in Part 1 of 5: Denial and Part 2 of 5: Depression. There’s so much to cover, it’s impossible to fit it all into a few blog posts. I just hope I tickle people’s curiosity enough to take a peek for themselves.
I was struck with ambivalence when I read your note because on the one hand, I absolutely want to spread awareness, but on the other, I take zero pleasure in causing horror & dread in people.
My two words of caution would be (a) pace yourself when it's feeling like it's all too much to handle, and (b) be extremely careful when breaching the subject with people, for you will run into a deflector shield with most of them and risk ostracization. A good strategy is probably to try to awaken curiosity and nudge people towards neutral information (facts sans narratives) and not directly towards the most alarming reports. It's not easy, mind you; most people have lives to live, stuff to do and people to see. For many of them, there's an attitude of why bother looking into it; they feel it won't affect them, at least not anytime soon, or someone will fix it, or it's not as bad as it sounds.
If people are already quite worried, one can profitably give them a little nudge into the abyss, for they may be ready to fully awaken and begin changing their entire worldview and view of the future.
Industrial solutions are not an ideology, they're all subject to cost/benefit analysis in the end.
It already passes cost/benefit analysis to replace fossil-fuel consumption for cars, light trucks, shot-haul heavy trucks, district heating/cooling of air and water, and industrial heat below 500C.
Oh, and over half of electric power generation.
All of those uses have been demonstrated at scale, and repeated, with economic benefits, whatever the environmental gains. The only thing keeping, say, natural gas heating networks in business is inertia and the promotion by the gas companies: geoexchange heating and cooling is just cheaper. Already.
So, that's going to happen, except where government forces fossil usage, as Alberta and now the whole US are attempting to do. This will have no effect on Pakistan installing another 10-20GW of solar panels this year, as they did last year - and converting all their tuk-tuks into eBikes and small eVs. (70% of fuel burned on the subcontinent is in 2- and 3-wheeled vehicles).
After, say, the next 5 years of that, we'll know if renewables then stall on harder problems, or if solutions have been found for them, too - as is common with growing new technologies.
And, of course, if Eavor, Sage, Greenfire or Fervo are successful with new geothermal approaches, particularly Fervo believes it can provide major storage - the base-load problem will disappear.
Oil consumption was predicted to peak over the next two years - but if Trump doesn't stop contracting the global economy, the peak year will be 2024.
I’m sorry, but when I got to “zombie lemmings death march” I had to pause right there. You are hilarious! I mean that, sincerely. And I’m not crying, yet. That’ll come later, in my dreams. Can you came to my 75th Bday party, if I last that long(3 years)?
Thank you, Jan, for your passionate, humorous, and brilliant piece. It is the definitive guide to Collapse Awareness. I will recommend it to those friends and family with whom I can broach the subject. It’s interesting how potential converts can reveal themselves; a comment about EV’s, seed saving, no till farming, even politics. I know I risk being ostracized, but I just have to find people to share my thoughts with. It’s lonely being a Collapsologist. When the lights go off, so will Substack. Indulge in it, or renounce it, the sooner the better? Just another predicament. Best wishes.
If you're willing to do it voluntarily, then yes, that is one option.
Art Berman believes we have more time, as fossil fuels aren't about to run out as quickly as initially forecast. Another 70 years perhaps?
I accept what's coming. My only hope is I'm not around to witness it.
That being said, I want to live as long as modernity persists. This is the world I know.
https://youtu.be/n7TLTjqUyog
I appreciate Art's contributions, and have read some of his latest. Various fuels will run out at various times. We have coal enough for centuries. It's all a Faustian bargain, of course. The worst thing that could happen would be free energy, because it accelerates all the harm we do. By that logic, all energy declines are good for us long term. We will just hate it and things will grow increasingly hard: what Nate calls the great simplification. It's all details that matter a lot individually, but not regarding modern civilisation's chances, which are nil long term. Planetary tipping points will determine a lot. They might take a while.
Humans need to JUST STOP for a while, to contemplate these truths and discern a way forward. Whether you are religious or not. The pandemic offered us this opportunity. We wasted it. Who’s talking about these ideas? Who is hearing this message, anywhere? The mindless consumerism, addiction to “entertainment”, divisions, animosity, narcissistic nonsense, and senseless vengeance and violence are as pervasive and powerful as ever.
Just Stop is the mantra.
I agree. We never change, fundamentally. I'm very sceptical of us ever willingly stopping or slowing down much at all. We might cut down like 10% if we really had to, best case. We needed to cut down 100% decades ago. We are so far from doing what we need to do it isn't even funny. It's completely hopeless. It's just not gonna happen, not by a long shot.
I think it's hopeless but also deliberate. The US based oil money is accelerating by ramping up until peak oil, but also because they know climate change will affect the global south the most. They can't bear being bested by the Chinese. I think the US plans to wall itself off, economically and physically, and shoot at the US border all agricultural migrants (food will be the issue way before tipping points or peak oil, ie soon).
Hi Jan, I love how you have written this. It's a marvel of a piece. I don't find fault with any of it. There is not really much to say about the state of human civilisation and its likely possible futures further to what you have said here. At this point of complete chaotic supercomplex absurdity, it's just a case of 'do the best you can with the tools and awareness and knowledge and love that you have and can continue to build and foster, and hope for the best of possible outcomes'...
As far as 'radical acceptance' goes, which, from my view is the only valid path to take for the collapse aware (of course on top of whatever actions they are prepared to follow through with to fight, mitigate, spread/raise awareness etc). For one's own basic mental health, acceptance is paramount, and as far as acceptance goes I wonder if an even more wide lens perspective may help. I offer it with no expectation that it won't be torn to shreds by some, which is welcomed, and as something I have not fully bought into myself but have simply been exploring and testing. This might be part of the testing... just talking about it.
So, I suspect that the speed at which the human species has, is, will delete itself is kind of irrelevant. Sure, our early peoples and cultures developed immensely wise and sustainable, if not regenerative worldviews and ways of living that centred the earth and their fundamental interconnection to it. They 'participated' as just another part of everything and understood such ways of life as entirely normal, which they were. Such set ups were able to last for ten's of thousands of years, and who knows how much longer they could have lasted had not certain critical developments occurred. But at some point, whether 100,000 years, 200,000 years or millions of years, it was destined to change. Humans are clearly wired to eventually end up where we are right now. Increasing complexity seems to be tied entropy, if not effectively one and the same. Humans are inherently curious and creative problem solvers. We have certain psychological traits that will eventually rise to prominence on endlessly iterated game theoretical models. Eventually, no matter what, this happens. At the same time, any given cataclysmic disaster could have or could wipe us out anyway. It's happened before, it could happen again. Hell, there are things that happen in the universe that could wipe the entire planet into dust or nothing... such things are inevitable over near-infinite time scales. So, we have this obsession on 'time'... how long we 'last'... the idea that the earth doesn't really care, the cosmos doesn't really care... so maybe that is true, and if it is, then what are we left with? We are only left with concepts of 'meaning'. What is meaning? what do we 'mean'? Maybe the only true meaning is 'love', and not just human 'love', but the attention and care and support and intention of all entities that exist as part of the cosmic web. Humans are doomed to fail, the cosmos does not really 'care', for it has meaning and love woven into it's very fabric fighting the eternal battle against entropy and eventual destruction until the whole thing collapses and starts again. So, where does the meaning of this doomed species on this tiny planet that the cosmos doesn't even really care about fit in? Well, maybe, it is simply the meaning created by the love we feel and enact and embody through our life with and towards human and non-human entities, and what humans have created from that perspective is possibly the greatest, or one of many total, but statistically rare in the universe, dense centres of love and meaning. Are these centres just blinking flame outs in the greater picture of all, sure they are, but are they still fundamentally significant, maybe. Maybe it is literally the point of 'life', the cosmos's ultimate play to create and foster and increase 'meaning' through sentient, intentional love that requires the choice of the entity to choose against easier non-loving and destructive options?
I know that this is essentially just a messy ill-thought out woo woo secular reinterpretation of religious frameworks, but from the widest lens, what else really is there to explain it all or to bring any sense of equanimity to a collapse-aware soul in these times? I am not religious, and I have never really like woo woo, but at this point, I just can't find any other way to see it that does not end up in me being severely depressed, or angry enough to effectively end myself by going full Rambo on the system. Neither of those options are good. The fight is, effectively futile at this point, at least at a systems level. At the individual and community level it is everything, which is what we need to focus on. But meaning is the only thing that matters, and meaning, as far as I am concerned, is the most important thing in existence, as otherwise, what is the point of existence? If meaning is love and attention and care and support and understanding etc, then those are the only things we should be investing in within our own spheres. It is also the only thing we can truly control. The earth and the universe will continue after us no matter how long we persist as the time scale of the universe might as well be infinite as we can fathom it... but in the vast scale of it, true meaning is incredible rare, thus the fabric of existence relies upon it to have any reason to exist at all. We are a part of that meaning, however long we last, or however many other nodes of life and meaning exist in the universe, and even after we are gone, i suspect that the fact that we existed at all, us fundamentally important to the very fabric of existence.
I'm not implying any of these thoughts are especially profound, or original, just what i have been thinking about and what i felt to say in response to your amazing piece (and all of your others). Much love.
Hey, thanks for your comment; love it.
Man's meaning crisis is as old as time. Being a rationalist makes me a logician, physicalist and non-believer of the notion of free will. To me, there is no inherent meaning: no plan, no creator, no point. It's all just playing out without any original purpose.
But there is a way out: we can imbue it whatever meaning we like, as many of us indeed do. E.g., spreading love feels meaningful. Leaving the world a little better than you found it, etc. Pursuing your passions. All these things are purely imagined, processes of a brain darwinistically evolved to feel things that aren't real, materialistically. But they can feel real, and that matters. That matters a lot. I might not believe in free will, but I wouldn't want to live in a world where we don't pretend we have it. This is just me being human and biased, but that's my privilege.
I agree that it's inevitable that we blow ourselves up sooner or later, and that this inevitability is an excellent answer to the Fermi paradox via a Great Filter. Paul wrote about it here, and I spoke about it in my Part 1. http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html
Finding radical acceptance is extremely hard. I think pragmatic, stoic and emotionally intelligent people stand the best chances of quickly settling on an acceptable form of acceptance such as "it is what it is, so let's just make the most of it!" Indeed, hasn't that always been the case? But we're all wired differently and must all find our own way. It's a lot harder for some of us than for others..
Thank you for such a thoughtful response.
If you knew without a shadow of a doubt that our current situation was inevitable, just an unavoidable trajectory baked into the way in which we are wired as a species, would it change how you feel about it all? Obviously, we can point to a million things in the past and present that were and are technically 'avoidable', but they have not been avoided, and it has happened very quickly compared to the amount of time that our species existed before. There seem to be a few crucial 'technologies' that would tip the trajectory this way in any given simulation, and development of those simple technologies by humans seems inevitable to me. If we could model it infinite times, does it happen every time? Or is there some tiny percentage where wisdom somehow wins the game theoretical model for long enough that humans create a regenerative utopia that stands until the earth ends it of its own accord through natural processes? I'm not sure, but unless that number is more significant, it might as well be seen as inevitable imo.
So, I suppose that I see the collapse of civilisation and the near or total extinction of our species the same as I see death in general. Both are effectively inevitable (though we are able to predict the timelines of our own deaths much more accurately, we still don't know exactly when it will happen unless we choose to end it ourselves), and as such, fearing them, or living in such a way that overly obsesses over avoiding them, seems not only a waste of time, but a massive imposition on the quality of the time/life you actually do have. I don't mean this in a selfish fatalistic way, such that we should say 'fuck it I'll do what I want and have fun no matter the cost', as obviously we have strong ethical obligations to others in the present and future if we are anything but complete nihilists or psychopaths. But, if we are doing what we can, then there is not much else we can do except to accept.
I have never been scared of death for myself, only of the physical and/or emotional consequences my death might have on loved ones. I am the same with collapse, I don't fear it for myself (though i don't like the idea of how painful it may be), what happens happens, I only fear for the potential/inevitable pain and suffering it may/will cause my loved ones because that causes me more pain that my own pain. But like death, there is only so much I can do to control that, which is quite little. All that remains is living and loving and trying to build resilience to what may come at the same time as being as present as possible within the meaning of day to day life. I know it sounds shallow, but at the end of the day, we are still unimaginably lucky to even be alive on this incredible earth at all, or unlucky, depending on how one views it or how difficult their own life is.
I respect your materialistic view, and your view on free will, but personally, though it may simply be my way of avoiding deep depression, I suspect that intrinsic relational 'meaning' might be more fundamentally baked into the fabric of existence itself, and thus, our emergence as self-reflective, highly agentic conscious beings allows for a different kind of higher order meaning to emerge in collaborative relation with the foundational meaning, rather than a mechanically emergent make-believe that simply has survival utility to our species. I suspect that free will stands at a profound intersection of deeper meaning from conscious choice and intentionality. While we don't have full 'control' over our choices, we do, again again, have the choice to choose higher virtues over baser instincts, to order and build instead of destroy, to love instead of hate etc., is that not overwhelming evidence towards a form of truly free will attached to some kind of ultimate higher order intentional agentic meaning? Every one of us knowingly chooses good over bad and bad over good over and over again throughout our lives, some of us more good over bad and some of us more bad over good. I understand the deterministic arguments against free will, I just don't think they mesh with the embodied, self-reflective and relational reality of our conscious and bodily experience, either practically or theoretically. Though, you may be right, and if you are, the conclusions we both come to about how we should respond to current times are still effectively the same anyway. Thanks again, Jan
Thank you, too.
I am very on board with your perspective on things. They are both quite literally true, and also a very sensible answer/response to the absurdity of life and its inevitable end. We always knew we all were going to die one way or the other, what does it even matter how?
“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” ― Charles Bukowski
It doesn't make any sense to not accept the inevitable. I reckon emotionally wise and robust people are better at facing this truth that those of us lacking in that area, especially if burdened further by complex trauma or chronic conditions, depression included.
I had a bit of an epiphany as to what it is that really eats at me. It's not the gruesome fate of the world, horrific as it may be. It's the frustration of being surrounded by so much irrationality and immoral behaviour. I must keep reminding myself, based on philosophy and science, ie, logic and evidence, that people are these ways for reasons, reasons I literally write about. So I understand these irrationalities quite well, and shouldn't expect anything different. So why am I so frustrated? I guess it's because it's so difficult to not be momally outraged by what I perceive as utter selfish foolishness.
And then there's the cost of viewing people as such: it disconnects me from them, as I lose respect for them and grow misanthropic, but as a social animal I desperately need company. I think the best thing I (and anyone, really) can do in life is find their own tribe that truly gets them.
It's purely speculative whether our ultimate fate was ever avoidable, but I reckon it wasn't. Not with our opposable thumbs, taming of fire that grew our brains via pre-digested proteins, development of language that enables passing down wisdom, intricate social networks and cooperation on vast scales. Darwinism and social Darwinism is truly fascinating. We did have a good long run before we fell into the fossil fuel trap; if FFs didn't exist (and it's quite random that they do, actually), we could have gone on for a very long time, as we were unable to destroy the environment, and local Overshoot issues would be keptlocal. Paul Chefurka speculates about the inevitability of our fate here http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html
Regarding the free will debate, just bear in mind that this "choice" you speak of is 100% ruled out by logic (or should I say, by those of us who have concluded we have none :). It just feels that way. Sam Harris talks about this "you can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do" issue quite well here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u45SP7Xv_oU
The best book I've found on the matter is "The Nonsense of Free Will" (Richard Oerton); his crisp, clear logic settles the matter perfectly. The excellent Robert Sapolsky took a few decades figuring it out from a biological perspective, and wrote about it in "Determined".
The Uncertainty Principle rules out hard determinism, but it doesn't make room for any free will - just randomness.
The free will discussion matters greatly regarding the justice system, esp. retributive justice. It also sneaks into real life all the time whenever we cut upset, stressed and desperate people some slack. But as to how to live as if we actually don't have it? Fuggedaboutit. It would remove all credit and responsibility for people's actions, and we are just not wired to think like that.
PS Edit: Just to be clear, I agree that we should live as if we can knowingly choose to live virtuously. When I'm being pedantic about fundamental laws of physics it's mostly besides the relevant point :)
Cheers,
Gnug315
Thanks for this Jan, I agree with everything you have written. The only answer I see is a massive reduction in birth rates to below 1 on average. This way our population can collapse naturally along with everything else, but millions/billions of deaths could be avoided
I agree that a massive drop in birth rate while the existing population getting to to age off and die in a humane way is the least bad scenario. No clue how to engineer that on a large scale, even if we agreed on the goal, which we don't and never will.
I agree with all that, but it leaves people with no hope and no means of action. Are you aware of my group? (In Search of Ecocivilisation) https://www.facebook.com/groups/931427295715081
What does "Yet somehow we must" mean? What is the "somehow"? How do we get there? If we reframe it like this then it enables us to start thinking about what can actually come after modernity, and think about the path from here to there also forces us to think about adaptation and survival.
Now...I agree with you that it is *key* that people accept some sort of collapse lies in our immediate future. Without that the temptation to keep believing in BAU is too much for most people to resist. But having accepted that then we need to avoid people just ending up giving up all hope, not just for their own future but for the whole of humanity. We need to offer them some new way to think and talk about this situation -- a new way to navigate the world.
Yeah, it's not exactly the best call to action. That's definitely not my strong suit. No, I'll check it out.
"Yet somehow we must" is ambiguous, true. What I mean is what I write: we can't live with 'em, so we must live without 'em - but we can't. Hence the catch-22 and Gordian knot, and "something's gotta give, and that something is the population count."
I have no idea what comes after, but I feel certain we will never embrace a peaceful journey towards it. I am very sceptical of mankinds ability to rise to this challenge.
People are so far from collapse acceptence. A transition into that would take many decades. People will not accept reality, and they will keep doubling down on their misunderstandings due cognitive dissonence.
We absolutely need to do as you say. I don't think I have a lot to offer in that area, but others certainly do. But again, I'm personally extremely bearish on humanity as a whole. We have too many negative traits and bugs in our brains. I could be wrong, it's just my 2 cents.
Courageous, insightful, and highly accurate IMHO. However, you left out two critical elements IMHO: our massive human overpopulation/overconsumption and an explanation of WHY we have become so overpopulated/overconsuming. I covered this in my 2018 book, "Stress R Us", based on my attempt in retirement to explain the flourishing "stress diseases" I saw in my 42 yrs. of medical/psychiatric practice. A free PDF may be downloaded from the Stanford e-library online.
Simply put, we are descended from an ancestral ecologically balanced, self-sustaining steady population of migratory Hunter-Gatherers/pastoralists who numbered less than 10M just a few thousand years ago. So, what the hell happened? Those ancestral clans/bands numbered less than 150 (the Dunbar number) and occupied a roughly defined home territory at any one time, but moved from resource depleted to new resource sufficient physical territory, and occasionally had to repel interlopers, including with lethal force, rarely necessary. During the last Ice-age, these clans/bands were forced to take refuge in the "painted caves" of southern France and the Pyrenees of northern Spain. Their migrations held down the population, as a woman could only carry one child at a time, breast feeding for four years, and predation by carnivores/interlopers was always a danger, as were the natural resource limitations of H-G lifeway. Unfortunately, with the advent of sedentary agriculture, a new high energy storable food source was available and symbolic territory (aka surplus "Capital") was born. The late brilliant anthopologist/archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat wrote an amazing book, "Before Writing, vol. 1" documenting this transition she found in museum artifact collections. Her book is well illustrated. So, your brilliant analysis and writing describes the consequences of too many humans, using too many natural resources, and producing too much pollution, once the limits to growth extant in the natural world of the H-G clans/bands was over ridden. Gregg Miklashek, MD
Thanks Greeley. Yeah, it's hard to fit it all into one post, or even an entire series. There's so much to cover; one must pick and choose. I reckon it was inevitable that we ended up where we are, given our capabilities and the existence of abundant fossil fuels. It's speculative, of course, but I'm quite partial to this conclusion. Paul Chefurka touches upon it here http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Fermi.html
"Whatever I feel in the moments before I vaporize in a nuclear blastwave, surprise won't be part of it. Maybe relief."
Amidst all the drama and terror of this predicament, I have to admit that every now and then something makes me laugh, and this part nailed it. It's exactly what I think too.
Another sentence where I think you touch on something important is this one:
"Zero prep work for collapse, neither pragmatic nor spiritual."
Very rarely in collapse-aware forums do I see the importance of spiritual preparation pointed out for the moment we find ourselves in. I'm not talking about belonging to a religion, but rather believing there's something more than what we can see, learn, and think, even if we can't understand it, and that ultimately moves the world without us being aware of it. The stage machinery of our particular theatrical performance.
I'm fortunate to believe there is, and this helps me deal with the inevitable depression of knowing that, as a species, we've failed. Some experiences in my life have led me to have the feeling that there's something more, even though I know as a human being I'll never fully understand what it is. My hope is that, once we leave this world, we can continue to grow and learn, and that perhaps the true meaning of it all lies out there, not here. Because once you become aware of our problem, an inevitable question arises. If this is all there is, what was the "right answer"?
Before I was aware of the inevitable collapse, I thought that "doing it right" meant having a career and a job that was meaningful and made others happy. But an airplane pilot taking people to a distant country for vacation is burning fuel by the bucketful. A surgeon operating on a patient to save their life is using loads of disposable material. An engineer building a dam so we can have energy is crushing biodiversity... and so on. In the end, one realizes that from the moment we embarked on the path of "progress" (a path that has no turning back once you take it), we were dooming ourselves and our world, no matter how good our intentions might've been. So, if what we see is all there is... what's the point? Why did we come here?
Now, when I stop for a moment and look at the city lights, I can't help but think that even though we failed, it was impossible to avoid it. There was no such thing as a fundamental "right choice" here. If there's a meaning, it must be different, and we probably can't understand it with the mind, only glimpse it with the heart. The smile of a child, a partner, a friend... The beauty of a sunset, a story, a piece of music... The part of me that isn't physical or mental turns toward those things now; it's the only thing that seems to calm my anxiety. To acknowledge that I've always been very small, and that the Truth is too big for me to grasp, at least for now. To forgive the rest of the people with whom I've shared and continue to share this world; we've all failed together. To trust that maybe this isn't all, and that we can have a new opportunity elsewhere, taking with us only what truly matters: what we've learned. And to accept leaving when the time comes, in peace. For me, that's preparing myself spiritually for collapse.
Sorry about such a long post, but places like this bring me relief, because I see that there are other people out there suffering and struggling internally against what's to come. Knowing I'm not alone gives me inner peace. I hope it does for you too, even if it's just the tiniest bit.
I appreciate your post; it's not long at all. I'm glad you find a tiny bit of relief knowing you're not 100% alone in the world with your thoughts, feelings and conclusions. So do I.
I agree that looking for beauty is the best we can do. There is much, and much to be grateful for. There are positives and negatives in the world, so focusing on the positives makes sense (as long as one doesn't go into la-la land of denial). I mean, what's the point of crying about the inevitable instead of making the most of what we have? What a wasted opportunity.
As a physicalist and determinist, I categorically reject literal deeper meanings to reality. It's all just happenstance playing out according to the Standard Model and the Uncertainty Principle; there are no souls floating around, and all our mental constructs are just mammalian musings.
However, that's not to stop us from simply deciding whatever we like to be meaningful; we can literally invent it out of thin air. We can do this because we're governed by our animal instincts and emotions, which feel incredibly real, and isn't the lived perspective what actually matters to the living creature? These idiot physicalists can sit around debating the true nature of the universe while the rest of us get on with living a rewarding, spiritual life. (I feel I have a leg in both camps).
Just found your substack and immediately subscribed. I look forward to reading prior posts and comments. I keep up with the current state of our climate with a quick scan here:
https://climateandeconomy.com/2025/03/13/13th-march-2025-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
One from today:
Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals.
“Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather… Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa.”
Cool, thanks for subbing :) I hope you enjoy the other stuff, too.
I don't have the mental fortitude to hear about the latest Faster Than Expected development on a daily basis; I completely spiral into despair. Besides, I've studied collapse from most angles full time for a couple of years now, and need no further convincing (and so far haven't come upon anything remotely qualifying as a repudiation, despite my best efforts -- I'd love so much to be wrong).
If you want more daily updates, The Collapse Chronicle will keep you satiated. Good luck staying sane..
Great essay Jan. You're getting good at this. I think you're ready to take your overshoot journey to the next level with us over at un-Denial.
Here's an absolute must read comment from a legend over there named Hideaway:
https://un-denial.com/2025/02/15/rfk-jr-confirmation/comment-page-2/#comment-111014
Not a must read here, just something a little different that'll probably get you thinking:
https://un-denial.com/2024/07/20/by-paqnation-aka-chris-humans-are-not-a-species/
I couldn't agree with Hideaway's conclusion more, and he even only touches upon a tiny part of the entire predicament. In this article I say I can't even find the words to decribe how screwed we are, and in my Part 2 of 5: Depression (as another example), I write "The predicament is overwhelming to an absurd degree. Taking just the parts I’ve studied into account, I see no way out whatsoever."
I mention that it will be a catabolic (Greer's term) collapse, and the interdependencies of modernity will be broken slowly at first, then all at once. System's level thinking proves conceptually how there's no way to fix overly complex running systems (that end in dead ends) without breaking them down and rebuilding them from the ground up, which we cannot afford to do. Hence, the title of this post.
I'll take a look at your article, thanks :)
You've got me thinking, and I mean this seriously, of throwing my lot in with the Amish. I would live with them, imitating their lifestyle though not following their belief system.
They’re really on to something with the categorical rejection of technology, it was also The Unabomber’s stance (I had to stop reading an Adam Grant book when he ironically critiqued The Unabomber for not thinking when his manifesto’s opening paragraphs are a completely respectable point of view (obviously it all goes completely wrong with him regarding morality)).
I’m also quite attracted to disconnecting completely from the online world. I struggle to not be damaged by news cycles and moral outrage triggers, not to mention faster-than-expected news regarding climate change on a daily basis, and they’re all impossible to avoid. We didn’t evolve to being exposed to all this and I think we all suffer horrendously, not even counting the fact that it steals our attention, time, and focus from much better things.
Nice to find your site. You are a very good writer with an excellent command of our overshoot predicament.
I like that you think the correct response is for us to focus on suffering reduction. I agree. It's the only good path that remains. Extra good if we include all species.
There's one piece of the puzzle you may be missing. That's the human evolved tendency to deny unpleasant realities.
I wrote a short essay 5 years ago discussing the cognitive biases codex chart you mentioned in your essay, using it as an example of denial.
https://un-denial.com/2020/06/30/biased-cognitive-biases/
Thank you very much, Rob.
Yes, that is quite odd. It just goes to show how impossible it is for us to have a perfect, unbiased understanding of reality; the faults are hardwired into us to such a degree we could never understand or even register them all. We’re left trying to hypothesise about what’s truly going on (as you do with MORT, which I haven’t had the opportunity to fully digest yet, as it is so deep).
I did mention Denial of Death briefly in this post, and have spoken about denial a lot in Part 1 of 5: Denial and Part 2 of 5: Depression. There’s so much to cover, it’s impossible to fit it all into a few blog posts. I just hope I tickle people’s curiosity enough to take a peek for themselves.
You, sir, wield the proverbial pen like a neurosurgeon with a scalpel.
My existential angst has been now seared from a medium-rare to a charred remnant of existential horror & dread.
Thanks, I s'pose.
Anyway, constructively, my "BAU" attitude has been re-calibrated to at least "collapse-aware".
You have a new convert.
I will continue to drink from the dutifully provided "collapse cups" and forward your message far and wide.
Peace.
That's quite a compliment! Thank you very much :)
I was struck with ambivalence when I read your note because on the one hand, I absolutely want to spread awareness, but on the other, I take zero pleasure in causing horror & dread in people.
My two words of caution would be (a) pace yourself when it's feeling like it's all too much to handle, and (b) be extremely careful when breaching the subject with people, for you will run into a deflector shield with most of them and risk ostracization. A good strategy is probably to try to awaken curiosity and nudge people towards neutral information (facts sans narratives) and not directly towards the most alarming reports. It's not easy, mind you; most people have lives to live, stuff to do and people to see. For many of them, there's an attitude of why bother looking into it; they feel it won't affect them, at least not anytime soon, or someone will fix it, or it's not as bad as it sounds.
If people are already quite worried, one can profitably give them a little nudge into the abyss, for they may be ready to fully awaken and begin changing their entire worldview and view of the future.
Good luck and best wishes.
Industrial solutions are not an ideology, they're all subject to cost/benefit analysis in the end.
It already passes cost/benefit analysis to replace fossil-fuel consumption for cars, light trucks, shot-haul heavy trucks, district heating/cooling of air and water, and industrial heat below 500C.
Oh, and over half of electric power generation.
All of those uses have been demonstrated at scale, and repeated, with economic benefits, whatever the environmental gains. The only thing keeping, say, natural gas heating networks in business is inertia and the promotion by the gas companies: geoexchange heating and cooling is just cheaper. Already.
So, that's going to happen, except where government forces fossil usage, as Alberta and now the whole US are attempting to do. This will have no effect on Pakistan installing another 10-20GW of solar panels this year, as they did last year - and converting all their tuk-tuks into eBikes and small eVs. (70% of fuel burned on the subcontinent is in 2- and 3-wheeled vehicles).
After, say, the next 5 years of that, we'll know if renewables then stall on harder problems, or if solutions have been found for them, too - as is common with growing new technologies.
And, of course, if Eavor, Sage, Greenfire or Fervo are successful with new geothermal approaches, particularly Fervo believes it can provide major storage - the base-load problem will disappear.
Oil consumption was predicted to peak over the next two years - but if Trump doesn't stop contracting the global economy, the peak year will be 2024.
I’m sorry, but when I got to “zombie lemmings death march” I had to pause right there. You are hilarious! I mean that, sincerely. And I’m not crying, yet. That’ll come later, in my dreams. Can you came to my 75th Bday party, if I last that long(3 years)?
Thank you, Jan, for your passionate, humorous, and brilliant piece. It is the definitive guide to Collapse Awareness. I will recommend it to those friends and family with whom I can broach the subject. It’s interesting how potential converts can reveal themselves; a comment about EV’s, seed saving, no till farming, even politics. I know I risk being ostracized, but I just have to find people to share my thoughts with. It’s lonely being a Collapsologist. When the lights go off, so will Substack. Indulge in it, or renounce it, the sooner the better? Just another predicament. Best wishes.
I appreciate that a lot, thank you 🙏🏻