We’re Saved!
A Collection of ‘Solution’ Critiques, Volume 1.
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure but just ain’t so. For example, beliefs such as the idea that we can replace fossil fuels with ‘clean’ alternatives or that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet.
The linked PDF document (see below) is a compilation of my recent series of Today’s Contemplations subtitled ‘We’re Saved!’. These essays were penned to challenge some common and unfortunately widespread beliefs regarding the ongoing attempts by our species to sustain/expand our entirely unsustainable societal complexities.
Collectively, they are what one might term a critique of ‘techno-optimist solutions’–from hemp and nuclear power to green growth and ‘good government’–that are marketed as ‘fixes’. These ‘solutions’ for ‘problems’ (e.g., carbon emissions) are marketed as ‘clean’ and ‘sustainable’ but mostly, if not entirely, ignore their own significant ecological impacts, the scale and complexity of the issue being addressed, and the non-negotiable conflict between humanity’s pursuit of growth and its existence upon a finite planet with limited resources and fragile ecosystems.
After compiling these, I cannot help but come to the feeling that our species is currently adrift in a sea of uncertainty. As a result, we are grasping at each and every piece of flotsam passing by us, hoping one will provide the buoyancy to keep us afloat long enough to survive and reach dry land; but each and every one of these ‘solutions’ we hold onto fails to replace our dependence on the sinking ship; instead they add to our weight, causing us to sink just a wee bit deeper into the abyss.
As Erik Michaels states in the Introduction to the document:
“Needless to say, most people refuse to see that these “problems” are actually not problems at all. They are predicaments. Predicaments don’t have solutions; they have outcomes – a big difference! As such, the mindsets that we get stuck in are, as [Steve] accurately points out, entirely maladaptive. If one notices that civilization itself is unsustainable, one will also see that anything that is a subset of civilization is likewise unsustainable. That which is unsustainable cannot be sustained and is actually precisely the cause of all these predicaments, most of which are actually symptoms of the master predicament, ecological overshoot, that we suffer from.”