Gosh, this brilliantly captures the harsh truth that we've been conditioned to ignore. It’s chilling to think that we’ve been kicking the can down the road for so long, leaving future (and current) generations to face the fallout. It’s a stark reminder of how deeply entrenched our denial is—and how urgently we need to break from it.
Three years ago, I decided to start investigating our plight because of "doomers" and climate scientists I met or became aware of on Twitter. I started with a bias, even as a teen 50 years ago I felt the insanity and unsustainability of the world we have created. My research and writing has found much of the same as yours, so I can appreciate the amount of time and understanding that went into this essay. Some days I ask why I persist. The outcome, whatever the details of the scenario, are cast. I suppose I do it because once your eyes are open, they can never close and as a way of processing grief. I'm well into the acceptance phase at this point. I'm glad to find solace in meeting others the world over who live in realty recognize our situation.
It just could be that while some are giving their lives to struggling with climate change and some have given up on finding a way, that a solution comes from what neither are contemplating. Unarguably, the best chance we have is if everyone is on the same page with all hands on deck to address the challenges. That would require a shift of consciousness, and that’s something we could work on. It’s even riding the horse in the direction it’s going, which is so requirement #1 for a massive change.
I agree, it would require a paradigm shift in consciousness. Perhaps newer generations will be able to instigate that. I just fear it is too late, and am sad about the mess they are inheriting. Best wishes.
I’ve read all three. Not one argument. No need for anyone else to write about the threat. How much more brilliantly could it be nailed? But here I am, alive. What can I do?
Could there be a counterpoint to all you have written? Too late is possible no matter what, but at least let’s look to a glimmer of possibility. What if we cared about each other as much as we care about ourselves? For real. Every single person flooded with a sense of responsibility for everything. That would mean everybody would be all out to do whatever could be done. Like billionaires giving up dynastic wealth. Why not? It would feel good to them. They could be the saviors of humanity. Any society has people at all levels of affluence and they still would be the richest, but with the weight of their money strangling the rest of humanity it would be pivotal for them to only be very very rich. That’s just one category of possibility.
Not being able to find any scheming to get our perspective shifted, I even have a $100 offer out for leading me to any person or group doing that. There are great analyses, moving laments, utopian fantasies, but here we are and Now What?, which is my Substack title. Fundamental would be to adopt a new creation story. There is a zeitgeist in cultures, and the evolutionary story of where humanity is in its natural development is headed for what we haven't yet based our creation story on. That would change us from being sinners needing salvation to being the very stuff of the universe, the glorious universe, the sacred universe, what God is. Humanity is due for it now, where breakdown precedes breakthrough. This is not my clever idea but it’s a track of Teilhard de Chardin to Thomas Berry to my favorite contemporary storyteller, Brian Swimme. Have a look at my Substack track about him to get it from a charismatic horse's mouth: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/brian-thomas-swimme.
And how about linking up with me and some other savvy schemers to see what we could do to spark that sea change for humanity? I’m recruiting. “Looking for a committee to think with for a conversation to save the world”: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/looking-for-a-committee-to-think?
Counterpoint? We'll see what I can come up with in Part 4 of 5: Bargaining :o)
Gosh, it must be so hard to witness our follies for so long, Suzanne. The curse of increased wisdom and deeper understanding that comes with age also comes with increased frustration. So much inner work must be done to stay sane in an insane world and keep madness, despair, depression and apathy at bay. It's tempting to embrace ignorance and stop paying attention, but some things one sees just cannot be unseen. The lucky of us find ways via love, connection, gratitude & acceptance, and meaningful work. Some of us are not so fortunate and are left drowning alone in a storm.
Thank you for all your efforts throughout the years; I'm sure you have affected a lot of people in a positive way. I'll check your substack out. Best wishes.
It is comforting to meet the few rare individuals who are aware (IRL); it's like an entire huge WALL isn't in the way of the connection. I'll be philosophising about how to deal with being collapse aware in parts 4 & 5 Keep up the good work. Best wishes.
My personal grief and the grief I feel for our collapsing world are now intertwined. I'd been able to somewhat separate the two, but now I regularly sit in my (empty) bathtub and weep. It's maddening not to sit with the full devastation.
You have my deepest sympathies. I know how that feels (as I described in Part 2: Depression).
My best advice is to disconnect completely from everything that triggers sadness and anxiety in you. Put on your own oxygen mask first, and maybe return to the topic(s) sometime in the future from a more robust place. Also pets, hugs and nature. I hope you have someone. Best wishes.
PS. The Matter With Things is very high on my TBR pile :)
Thank you! Pets and nature and indeed the best. II sit in my bathtub to keep from upsetting my dogs and prevent them from trying to comfort me. I think grieving is necessary.. Courage and hope are the antidote to despair, but if you don't have the courage to allow yourself to sit with the pain, then there is no hope. Grieving doesn't diminish your inner resources. Grieving makes space.
My plan for the group is to read the book slowly, so it doesn't take up all of our time, but also so that we can really think about it and explore its message in our psyches and minds.
Best overall summary of the elements of climate collapse I've seen anywhere! Thank you for the pain. No pain, no gain. Enlightenment is just the other side of grief. Only the courageous may enter here. However, the one, perhaps most important element you left out is our massive human overpopulation/overconsumption. We are now 3,000 times more numerous than were the last ecolgically balanced self-sustaining population of migratory Hunter-Gatherers/pastoralists just a few thousand years ago. What could go wrong? Everything?
A few corrections to your stats: we are now heating at the rate of 0.2 degC annually (C3S), so 1 degC every 5 yrs., but accelerating, so any child born today may get to burn-up by their 23rd BD in 2047. Still want to birth another innocent life into this dying world? No, well neither do 47% of American 18-50 by a recent survey. Only open borders and allowing mass migrations from desperately overcrowded nations like, well, more than half of Africa and most of Haiti. So, close the borders with already over crowded/overpopulated countries to FORCE the native populations to forgo reproduction and jack-up the UN to furnish CONTRACEPTION to their/our entire population.
You did not mention the 6th Extinction: we are 33% of the terrestrial mammalian biomass, our "domestic" animals 64-68%, so that leaves 1-3% "wild". Also, you did not mention the movie "The Planet of the Humans", a realistic take down of the "alternative energy" fraud. Math math estimates that every one of the 115M rooftop solar panels actually absorbs and re-radiates 34,500 BTUs on an average sunny day, and the average human metabolizing carbon based foods generates 11,000 BTUs/d. when mostly resting. Polymath Eliot Jacobson calculates that we are generating the heat energy equivalent of 20 (not your graph's 13) Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTU's. The 1.2 trillion tons of melting global ice annually, 3.3 billion tons/d, is the canary in the cola mine, where one pound of ice absorbs 144 BTUs. You do the math.
Thanks for the book references. Some of us still read longer posts than tweets, so you might wish to mention my free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us". The fossil fuel lobby and its propaganda arm (think Goebbels) is largely responsible for the fog of denial prevailing in our collapsing environment and your financial analysis seems right-on to me. Thanks for all your work!
Thank you very much! I did mention overpopulation/overconsumption (overshoot) in parts 1 & 2, but, as many people may stumble upon this article without having read the first two, it deserves mentioning here also. I have, therefore, added a paragraph on it. The 6th extinction event was already mentioned.
I'm not a physicist so delving into details about BTUs is a bit above my level of understanding. I am a pragmatist, however, and I respect experts, so while I see different calculations on the number of Hiroshima bombs since they're all in the countless billions per year the exact number is fairly moot given that all numbers lead to the same conclusion: it ends in doom and we should slam the brakes.
I have noticed something: the most pessimistic people of all seem to be physicists, probably because they know for a certainty that we cannot break the laws of physics. I like this quote:
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
― Arthur Eddington
Thanks for the C3S resource tip and for sharing your PDF. Best wishes.
Life in its innate power to bring a higher order or organization of matter from simpler energy forms is neg-entropic, is it not? Death follows the 2nd Law perfectly.
Seeing it laid out so simply hurts. I'm often the one to bring up these truths and recently have also been the one to realize most people don't want to hear about it. Hard to exist, but you know that
Jan, this is an amazing effort - your tremendous writing that I have enjoyed so much! I do not know how I stumbled over these articles but its been a journey just reading it all and going through the maze that are your hyperlinks!
I am so looking forward to the next Parts. Yes, its a frightening future world but its so clear how this engine keeps going. Actually since I am getting 'older' I am selfishly thinking I might escape the worst but I am not naïve so probably I won't! Like all of us we have knowledge of the suffering all around the world but just cannot imagine that could be us!!! But it literally could. Oh no, I would not like that at all. :(
Thank you so much, Karina. I'm very glad you're enjoying it. I'm looking forward to the next parts myself, haha. I'm taking my sweet time thinking about them and also needing some breaks from this insanely heavy topic just to stay sane (I recommend the same when it all starts feeling like way too much to handle).
The older anyone is, the less of the descent they will witness. I guess that's a silver lining to not being a spring chicken anymore. I have found that a major difference in how well people handle this is whether or not they have children. I speculate that it's much easier to handle if one is eventually shuffling off this mortal coil without leaving anyone behind one loves so unconditionally as one's children.
There's no selfishness involved, please don't feel guilty of anything. You were born into this mess and if you contributed to it in any minute way, so would anyone else have done in your shoes. All we can do is try to do one's best. "Don't do unto others..", practice random acts of kindness, and be grateful for what one has, however small. The usual stuff, really. And don't catastrophise. The future is a bell curve of probabilities that will be heavily affected by our (unpredictable) behaviour and a ton of happenstance. Some people focus on the EROI collapse (energy/Seneca cliff) within a scary short timeframe of 6 years; here I try to bear in mind that we have been wrong before in our ability to kick that can down the road.
I'm glad you enjoy the links. I tried to include some juicy stuff. There's more on my resource page, accessible from my main page. Beware, it's an infinite topic that may swallow all your time and focus, to little good end. But also incredibly fascinating, complicated and horrifying. It's hard to look away once you begin delving. Good luck and best wishes.
Thank you so much for your awesome response Jan. I totally agree with everything you wrote and will keep it all in mind as I scramble around to learn more. Very best wishes to you as well Jan.
I am disappointed with everybody. Am I collapse aware? I have been for decades. I was applying the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross model to what was going to happen when peak oil hit America when Elisabeth was giving a talk about her book at the fifth Ave Theater in Seattle Washington. I was there. All of you are wrong to apply the model because the world is not going to die. In a world of 8 billion 7 billion can die leaving 1 billion remaining. A remnant survives, and you have the power to make things better or worse for this remnant. Acceptance, the end stage does not help whatever future comes. It makes you comfortable where you are, and a future will come. Kübler-Ross modeled a certainty that comes for us all. The only certainty that applying Kübler-Ross to climate change does is make sure that you will do nothing to mitigate whatever the future brings, and unlike people who do die, the future does not die. The future always comes, and there is always something you can do about it. You may not like what it brings, and it does bring doom. I said at the beginning I have been collapse aware for decades. Get over your acceptance and do something to bring about a better future. If you are here you have bitten from the Apple, leave now the garden and do the work that must be done.
You ask why people want more and more money. Why they seem willing to risk their children's future for their own wealth today. Why they envy and worship the rich, and take them as the model of what success looks like.
Obviously there are many answers, but for me the simplest is fear. I think everyone makes decisions based primarily on an inner, animal fear of pretty much everything, justified because the world is a dangerous place and none of us get out of life alive. Living is, after all, ALWAYS fatal!
So money is the way we protect ourselves, and more money means more separation and more safety. It may be enough money to buy food, put a roof over our heads so we don 't get wet and cold, or walls around us so we don't get attacked in our sleep. It might be a car so we can travel alone rather than risk the inconvenience or even danger of being on a bus with crazy or ill or dangerous people. Or it might be a mansion surrounded by walls and gates and 50 acres, and a private plane so we don't need to queue and get on that budget airline.
There is also the notion that the best thing you can do for your kids is to leave them a lot of money, which requires one to work hard in their own life to make things materially better for them. Whilst it may not make your kids into better, more rounded human beings, it is likely to keep them safer, at least from everything except themselves.
Nowhere is this a stronger instinct than America, that has made all the above into a political philosophy that neither party object to. It is, after all, the American Way Of Life!
But at the same time, if ever there was a materially-developed country where one's wildest fears are justified, it is America, where anger and violence is so pervasive, complete with an AK47 in every household and classroom, and where that all important wealth is so disproportionately distributed. Who can be safe there? How much money is ever enough to FEEL safe there?
I cannot see any reason for Americans to feel differently. In fact as the World goes to hell in a handcart, led by America's lust for more, the fears grow and so the justification for the protection of more and more personal wealth grows too. If only for access to that self contained luxury yacht or that private plane, fuelled and waiting, that can whisk you away from the rioters and looters and civil war zone and climate catastrophes and collapse of society and zombie apocalypse and all the other dangers that may be just around the next corner.
Really well put together and have shared on various forums. I myself have put together a presentation on Ecologicial overshoot and regenerative response, including update on current Government head in the sand measures. However, yours is far more comprehensive. Understanding the profound changes that will happen within decades, allows us to understand the importance of community and working with nature.
Gosh, this brilliantly captures the harsh truth that we've been conditioned to ignore. It’s chilling to think that we’ve been kicking the can down the road for so long, leaving future (and current) generations to face the fallout. It’s a stark reminder of how deeply entrenched our denial is—and how urgently we need to break from it.
There is no extreme left🙄 Not even sure where you got that ides. Both parties are owned by the corporations.
*Idea.
Three years ago, I decided to start investigating our plight because of "doomers" and climate scientists I met or became aware of on Twitter. I started with a bias, even as a teen 50 years ago I felt the insanity and unsustainability of the world we have created. My research and writing has found much of the same as yours, so I can appreciate the amount of time and understanding that went into this essay. Some days I ask why I persist. The outcome, whatever the details of the scenario, are cast. I suppose I do it because once your eyes are open, they can never close and as a way of processing grief. I'm well into the acceptance phase at this point. I'm glad to find solace in meeting others the world over who live in realty recognize our situation.
It just could be that while some are giving their lives to struggling with climate change and some have given up on finding a way, that a solution comes from what neither are contemplating. Unarguably, the best chance we have is if everyone is on the same page with all hands on deck to address the challenges. That would require a shift of consciousness, and that’s something we could work on. It’s even riding the horse in the direction it’s going, which is so requirement #1 for a massive change.
I agree, it would require a paradigm shift in consciousness. Perhaps newer generations will be able to instigate that. I just fear it is too late, and am sad about the mess they are inheriting. Best wishes.
I’ve read all three. Not one argument. No need for anyone else to write about the threat. How much more brilliantly could it be nailed? But here I am, alive. What can I do?
Could there be a counterpoint to all you have written? Too late is possible no matter what, but at least let’s look to a glimmer of possibility. What if we cared about each other as much as we care about ourselves? For real. Every single person flooded with a sense of responsibility for everything. That would mean everybody would be all out to do whatever could be done. Like billionaires giving up dynastic wealth. Why not? It would feel good to them. They could be the saviors of humanity. Any society has people at all levels of affluence and they still would be the richest, but with the weight of their money strangling the rest of humanity it would be pivotal for them to only be very very rich. That’s just one category of possibility.
Not being able to find any scheming to get our perspective shifted, I even have a $100 offer out for leading me to any person or group doing that. There are great analyses, moving laments, utopian fantasies, but here we are and Now What?, which is my Substack title. Fundamental would be to adopt a new creation story. There is a zeitgeist in cultures, and the evolutionary story of where humanity is in its natural development is headed for what we haven't yet based our creation story on. That would change us from being sinners needing salvation to being the very stuff of the universe, the glorious universe, the sacred universe, what God is. Humanity is due for it now, where breakdown precedes breakthrough. This is not my clever idea but it’s a track of Teilhard de Chardin to Thomas Berry to my favorite contemporary storyteller, Brian Swimme. Have a look at my Substack track about him to get it from a charismatic horse's mouth: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/brian-thomas-swimme.
And how about linking up with me and some other savvy schemers to see what we could do to spark that sea change for humanity? I’m recruiting. “Looking for a committee to think with for a conversation to save the world”: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/looking-for-a-committee-to-think?
Counterpoint? We'll see what I can come up with in Part 4 of 5: Bargaining :o)
Gosh, it must be so hard to witness our follies for so long, Suzanne. The curse of increased wisdom and deeper understanding that comes with age also comes with increased frustration. So much inner work must be done to stay sane in an insane world and keep madness, despair, depression and apathy at bay. It's tempting to embrace ignorance and stop paying attention, but some things one sees just cannot be unseen. The lucky of us find ways via love, connection, gratitude & acceptance, and meaningful work. Some of us are not so fortunate and are left drowning alone in a storm.
Thank you for all your efforts throughout the years; I'm sure you have affected a lot of people in a positive way. I'll check your substack out. Best wishes.
Thanks, Geoff. Yes, some very few of us are simply unable to look away, like C. Ingram in her fantastic essay Facing Extinction https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facing-extinction-humans-animals-plants-species_n_5d2ddc04e4b0a873f6420bd3
It is comforting to meet the few rare individuals who are aware (IRL); it's like an entire huge WALL isn't in the way of the connection. I'll be philosophising about how to deal with being collapse aware in parts 4 & 5 Keep up the good work. Best wishes.
Thank you for writing this Jan, and capturing so well what a lot of us are thinking and feeling. Keep up the good work. It is appreciated.
Thank you, Matt, I appreciate it. And likewise, and thank you for the rec. Best wishes.
My personal grief and the grief I feel for our collapsing world are now intertwined. I'd been able to somewhat separate the two, but now I regularly sit in my (empty) bathtub and weep. It's maddening not to sit with the full devastation.
You have my deepest sympathies. I know how that feels (as I described in Part 2: Depression).
My best advice is to disconnect completely from everything that triggers sadness and anxiety in you. Put on your own oxygen mask first, and maybe return to the topic(s) sometime in the future from a more robust place. Also pets, hugs and nature. I hope you have someone. Best wishes.
PS. The Matter With Things is very high on my TBR pile :)
Thank you! Pets and nature and indeed the best. II sit in my bathtub to keep from upsetting my dogs and prevent them from trying to comfort me. I think grieving is necessary.. Courage and hope are the antidote to despair, but if you don't have the courage to allow yourself to sit with the pain, then there is no hope. Grieving doesn't diminish your inner resources. Grieving makes space.
My plan for the group is to read the book slowly, so it doesn't take up all of our time, but also so that we can really think about it and explore its message in our psyches and minds.
That was meant to be psyches and lives.
Also, did you know the ozone layer is back and is worse than ever per WMO report?
Do you mean the hole in the ozone layer? I did not; can you link a source, please?
https://library.wmo.int/viewer/68835/?offset=#page=24&viewer=picture&o=bookmark&n=0&q=
Best overall summary of the elements of climate collapse I've seen anywhere! Thank you for the pain. No pain, no gain. Enlightenment is just the other side of grief. Only the courageous may enter here. However, the one, perhaps most important element you left out is our massive human overpopulation/overconsumption. We are now 3,000 times more numerous than were the last ecolgically balanced self-sustaining population of migratory Hunter-Gatherers/pastoralists just a few thousand years ago. What could go wrong? Everything?
A few corrections to your stats: we are now heating at the rate of 0.2 degC annually (C3S), so 1 degC every 5 yrs., but accelerating, so any child born today may get to burn-up by their 23rd BD in 2047. Still want to birth another innocent life into this dying world? No, well neither do 47% of American 18-50 by a recent survey. Only open borders and allowing mass migrations from desperately overcrowded nations like, well, more than half of Africa and most of Haiti. So, close the borders with already over crowded/overpopulated countries to FORCE the native populations to forgo reproduction and jack-up the UN to furnish CONTRACEPTION to their/our entire population.
You did not mention the 6th Extinction: we are 33% of the terrestrial mammalian biomass, our "domestic" animals 64-68%, so that leaves 1-3% "wild". Also, you did not mention the movie "The Planet of the Humans", a realistic take down of the "alternative energy" fraud. Math math estimates that every one of the 115M rooftop solar panels actually absorbs and re-radiates 34,500 BTUs on an average sunny day, and the average human metabolizing carbon based foods generates 11,000 BTUs/d. when mostly resting. Polymath Eliot Jacobson calculates that we are generating the heat energy equivalent of 20 (not your graph's 13) Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTU's. The 1.2 trillion tons of melting global ice annually, 3.3 billion tons/d, is the canary in the cola mine, where one pound of ice absorbs 144 BTUs. You do the math.
Thanks for the book references. Some of us still read longer posts than tweets, so you might wish to mention my free online e-book PDF, "Stress R Us". The fossil fuel lobby and its propaganda arm (think Goebbels) is largely responsible for the fog of denial prevailing in our collapsing environment and your financial analysis seems right-on to me. Thanks for all your work!
Thank you very much! I did mention overpopulation/overconsumption (overshoot) in parts 1 & 2, but, as many people may stumble upon this article without having read the first two, it deserves mentioning here also. I have, therefore, added a paragraph on it. The 6th extinction event was already mentioned.
I'm not a physicist so delving into details about BTUs is a bit above my level of understanding. I am a pragmatist, however, and I respect experts, so while I see different calculations on the number of Hiroshima bombs since they're all in the countless billions per year the exact number is fairly moot given that all numbers lead to the same conclusion: it ends in doom and we should slam the brakes.
I have noticed something: the most pessimistic people of all seem to be physicists, probably because they know for a certainty that we cannot break the laws of physics. I like this quote:
“The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
― Arthur Eddington
Thanks for the C3S resource tip and for sharing your PDF. Best wishes.
Life in its innate power to bring a higher order or organization of matter from simpler energy forms is neg-entropic, is it not? Death follows the 2nd Law perfectly.
Seeing it laid out so simply hurts. I'm often the one to bring up these truths and recently have also been the one to realize most people don't want to hear about it. Hard to exist, but you know that
Jan, this is an amazing effort - your tremendous writing that I have enjoyed so much! I do not know how I stumbled over these articles but its been a journey just reading it all and going through the maze that are your hyperlinks!
I am so looking forward to the next Parts. Yes, its a frightening future world but its so clear how this engine keeps going. Actually since I am getting 'older' I am selfishly thinking I might escape the worst but I am not naïve so probably I won't! Like all of us we have knowledge of the suffering all around the world but just cannot imagine that could be us!!! But it literally could. Oh no, I would not like that at all. :(
Thank you so much, Karina. I'm very glad you're enjoying it. I'm looking forward to the next parts myself, haha. I'm taking my sweet time thinking about them and also needing some breaks from this insanely heavy topic just to stay sane (I recommend the same when it all starts feeling like way too much to handle).
The older anyone is, the less of the descent they will witness. I guess that's a silver lining to not being a spring chicken anymore. I have found that a major difference in how well people handle this is whether or not they have children. I speculate that it's much easier to handle if one is eventually shuffling off this mortal coil without leaving anyone behind one loves so unconditionally as one's children.
There's no selfishness involved, please don't feel guilty of anything. You were born into this mess and if you contributed to it in any minute way, so would anyone else have done in your shoes. All we can do is try to do one's best. "Don't do unto others..", practice random acts of kindness, and be grateful for what one has, however small. The usual stuff, really. And don't catastrophise. The future is a bell curve of probabilities that will be heavily affected by our (unpredictable) behaviour and a ton of happenstance. Some people focus on the EROI collapse (energy/Seneca cliff) within a scary short timeframe of 6 years; here I try to bear in mind that we have been wrong before in our ability to kick that can down the road.
I'm glad you enjoy the links. I tried to include some juicy stuff. There's more on my resource page, accessible from my main page. Beware, it's an infinite topic that may swallow all your time and focus, to little good end. But also incredibly fascinating, complicated and horrifying. It's hard to look away once you begin delving. Good luck and best wishes.
Thank you so much for your awesome response Jan. I totally agree with everything you wrote and will keep it all in mind as I scramble around to learn more. Very best wishes to you as well Jan.
Very good. Mother Earth will be fine once she shakes us off- the planet is not in danger.
I am disappointed with everybody. Am I collapse aware? I have been for decades. I was applying the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross model to what was going to happen when peak oil hit America when Elisabeth was giving a talk about her book at the fifth Ave Theater in Seattle Washington. I was there. All of you are wrong to apply the model because the world is not going to die. In a world of 8 billion 7 billion can die leaving 1 billion remaining. A remnant survives, and you have the power to make things better or worse for this remnant. Acceptance, the end stage does not help whatever future comes. It makes you comfortable where you are, and a future will come. Kübler-Ross modeled a certainty that comes for us all. The only certainty that applying Kübler-Ross to climate change does is make sure that you will do nothing to mitigate whatever the future brings, and unlike people who do die, the future does not die. The future always comes, and there is always something you can do about it. You may not like what it brings, and it does bring doom. I said at the beginning I have been collapse aware for decades. Get over your acceptance and do something to bring about a better future. If you are here you have bitten from the Apple, leave now the garden and do the work that must be done.
Want something to do? Spread the word: https://youtu.be/AcPgHDGc8_0
Carbon Fee and Dividend, learn about it! There will be a quiz. How is this different from other carbon schemes?
Good post!
You ask why people want more and more money. Why they seem willing to risk their children's future for their own wealth today. Why they envy and worship the rich, and take them as the model of what success looks like.
Obviously there are many answers, but for me the simplest is fear. I think everyone makes decisions based primarily on an inner, animal fear of pretty much everything, justified because the world is a dangerous place and none of us get out of life alive. Living is, after all, ALWAYS fatal!
So money is the way we protect ourselves, and more money means more separation and more safety. It may be enough money to buy food, put a roof over our heads so we don 't get wet and cold, or walls around us so we don't get attacked in our sleep. It might be a car so we can travel alone rather than risk the inconvenience or even danger of being on a bus with crazy or ill or dangerous people. Or it might be a mansion surrounded by walls and gates and 50 acres, and a private plane so we don't need to queue and get on that budget airline.
There is also the notion that the best thing you can do for your kids is to leave them a lot of money, which requires one to work hard in their own life to make things materially better for them. Whilst it may not make your kids into better, more rounded human beings, it is likely to keep them safer, at least from everything except themselves.
Nowhere is this a stronger instinct than America, that has made all the above into a political philosophy that neither party object to. It is, after all, the American Way Of Life!
But at the same time, if ever there was a materially-developed country where one's wildest fears are justified, it is America, where anger and violence is so pervasive, complete with an AK47 in every household and classroom, and where that all important wealth is so disproportionately distributed. Who can be safe there? How much money is ever enough to FEEL safe there?
I cannot see any reason for Americans to feel differently. In fact as the World goes to hell in a handcart, led by America's lust for more, the fears grow and so the justification for the protection of more and more personal wealth grows too. If only for access to that self contained luxury yacht or that private plane, fuelled and waiting, that can whisk you away from the rioters and looters and civil war zone and climate catastrophes and collapse of society and zombie apocalypse and all the other dangers that may be just around the next corner.
And who can blame them all for being so fearful?
Really well put together and have shared on various forums. I myself have put together a presentation on Ecologicial overshoot and regenerative response, including update on current Government head in the sand measures. However, yours is far more comprehensive. Understanding the profound changes that will happen within decades, allows us to understand the importance of community and working with nature.
Thank you, I appreciate it 🙏🏻