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Train Wreck, Montparnasse, 1895

The world of academia is starting to pick up on the concept that humanity is unknowingly cruising on a train ride to doomsday, a surefire encounter with collapse of society based upon climate crises brought on by exponential climate change. The depth of the problem: It’s inevitable and inescapable.

Nonetheless, people do not want to discuss and/or read about an impending disruption to society, especially on the scale of a collapse. Still, some academics consider it responsible and in fact necessary to communicate the issue on a pre-collapse basis in order for people to learn to support each other and to explore the radical implications well ahead of time.

Hence, the premise for Professor Jem Bendell’s brilliant seminal work, “Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, July 27th 2018.” (http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf)

Accordingly, at the opening of the essay: “It is time we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today.”

Seemingly, Professor Bendell is going out on a limb by calling for ecosystem catastrophes followed by social collapse within current lifetimes. Few, if any, academicians dare make such a prediction, and the few that do risk loss of jobs, grant funding, and renunciation by colleagues.

Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the prestigious Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in a live interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! at Paris 15 admitted that climate scientists low-ball their findings, often times to protect grant funding.

Anderson: “Yet so far we simply have not been prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly… many are ultimately choosing to censor their own research.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We’re in year 30 of the current climate crisis

August 1, 2018

An excerpt from the Conference Statement of the 1988 World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere held in Toronto

We’re in year 30 of the current climate crisis

In late-June, 1988, Canada hosted the world’s first large-scale climate conference that brought together scientists, experts, policymakers, elected officials, and the media. The “World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere: Implications for Global Security” was held in Toronto, hosted by Canada’s Conservative government, and attended by hundreds of scientists and officials.

In their final conference statement, attendees wrote that “Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war.” (See excerpt pictured above.) The 30-year-old conference statement contains a detailed catalogue of causes and effects of climate change.

Elizabeth May—who in 1988 was employed by Canada’s Department of Environment—attended the conference. In a 2006 article she reflected on Canada’s leadership in the 1980s on climate and atmospheric issues:

“The conference … was a landmark event. It was opened by Prime Minister Mulroney, who spoke then of the need for an international law of the atmosphere, citing our work on acid rain and ozone as the first planks in this growing area of international environmental governance….

Canada was acknowledged as the leader in hosting the first-ever international scientific conference on climate change, designed to give the issue a public face. No nation would be surprised to see Canada in the lead. After all, we had just successfully wrestled to the ground a huge regional problem, acid rain, and we had been champions of the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer.”

The Toronto conference’s final statement also called on governments and industry to work together to “reduce CO₂ emissions by approximately 20% … by the year 2005…. ” This became known as the Toronto Target. Ignoring that target and many others, Canada has increased its CO₂ emissions by 29 percent since 1988.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Conservativism Now? Market Economies and the Liberal Anti-Culture

June 19, 2018

Conservativism Now? Market Economies and the Liberal Anti-Culture

The persistent purpose of my writing over the past decade has been to reflect in a hopefully complex manner on the sort of culture necessary to “solve” the climate and ecological crisis and create a truly sustainable way of life.

One of my main themes has been that neither liberalism (nor Liberalism[i] ) is suited to that task, in large part because it is fundamentally growthist, requiring for social stability the “simple requirement,” as Franklin Delano Roosevelt put it, of “the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.” As David Fleming wrote, “starting some three centuries ago, the market economy has, with growing confidence, been the source and framework for a loose and easy-going but effective civil society and social order” (85). Expansion, growth, and the promise of limitless possibility are the foundation of the “effectiveness” mentioned by Fleming. Growth is the social glue that has held liberal industrial societies together, which is one of several connected reasons why we won’t address our relationship to our natural ecology by becoming “more liberal” or “more progressive.” Sustainability, then, is neither liberal nor progressive.

But, one might ask, why so persistent a critique of our liberal friends? After all, they (we) seem the most inclined to pay attention to the environment, and to show care and concern for our connection to nature. One might imagine a story about a contradiction in progressive attitudes, torn between concern and empathy, on the one hand, and growth and prosperity on the other, happily resolved as the empathetic side prevails in the face of growing awareness of the collateral damage of growth and prosperity. Perhaps.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Faustian Bargain with the Climate Crisis

May 23, 2018

A Faustian Bargain with the Climate Crisis

Art by Willy Stöwer | CC BY 2.0

You’re a passenger on the Titanic on its fateful maiden voyage in 1912. As it draws away from the dock at Southampton you get a premonition that things are going to go severely pear-shaped, and that the ship is never going to make it to New York. Maybe you’re an engineer and your spidey senses are telling you that the captain and crew are far too cocky for their own good considering that the ship can only sustain damage to four of the 12 bulkheads. Maybe it’s not anywhere near as unsinkable as the White Star Line are making out in the name of PR hype…

But you don’t say anything because you know what people are like when you try to tell them things they don’t want to hear—they get defensive and shoot the messenger. Why are you being so negative on such a joyous occasion, who pissed in your bucket such that now you have to go and piss in everyone else’s? Maybe you should get some professional help. You know how it goes. So after briefly considering making a fuss and demanding the boat be turned around, or just jumping over the side and swimming back to shore, you sit back and say to yourself, fuck it, I’m in first class, if something happens I’ll get priority for getting off the boat…

But here’s the rub, because what you don’t know is that the White Star Line skimped on the lifeboats because they took up room, and they detracted from the claims about the ship being unsinkable anyway. So, when the ship eventually hits the iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland, you get a nasty shock in discovering just how shit out of luck you really are.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Keeling Curve at 60: A portrait of climate crisis

April 25, 2018

The Keeling Curve at 60: A portrait of climate crisis

If you’ve ever wondered what a scientific representation of metabolic rift might look like, check out this graph.

We are approaching the sixtieth birthday of the Keeling Curve.

It is such a stunning example of important and clearly presented science that it has been designated as a National Historic Chemical Landmark. Its creator received the highest US award for lifetime achievement in science, the National Medal of Science, “for his pioneering and fundamental research on atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide, the basis for understanding global carbon cycle and global warming.”

In July 1958, Dr. Charles Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography began measuring the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Using measuring equipment and techniques he developed, he collected air samples daily from an observatory 3,000 meters above sea level, on the remote north side of the Mauna Loa volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.

He continued doing this until his death in 2005, and his son Ralph, also a climate scientist at Scripps, has continued it since. The result is the world’s longest continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide. A recent release is shown above.

In his very first annual report, Keeling noted that the level at the end of the first year was higher than it had been 12 months earlier. That proved to be a permanent trend. The amount of CO₂ in the air we breathe has risen from 313 parts per million to 421 — a 33% increase. Keeling’s work disproved the once common view that oceans and other sinks would prevent CO₂ from fossil fuels from accumulating in the atmosphere.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Crisis and Managed Deindustrialization: Debating Alternatives to Ecological Collapse

December 4, 2017

Climate Crisis and Managed Deindustrialization: Debating Alternatives to Ecological Collapse

If we don’t change the conversation, if we don’t deal with the systemic problems of capitalism and come up with a viable alternative, our goose is cooked.

Demanding an end to coal and all forms of dirty energy extraction, over 4,000 activists descended on the Rhineland coalfields in Germany earlier this month in a mass demonstration just a day before COP23 climate talks began in Bonn. (Photo: Code Rood/Twitter)

On Monday November 13th, climate scientists from the Tyndal center for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia presented their carbon emissions research to the UN climate negotiators at Bonn Germany. The data were shocking: After three years in which human-caused emissions appeared to be leveling off, global CO2 emissions are now rising again to record levels in 2017. Global emissions are on course rise this year by 2%. China’s emissions are projected to rise by 3.5%. These may sound like small numbers but to climate scientists these are huge because if we’re to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Centigrade, those emissions need to be falling sharply, not just leveling off, let alone rising. Colorado State University climate scientist Scott Denning said “We’ve got to cut emissions by half in the next decade, and by half again in the next two decades, as well. The fact that it’s going up is like a red flag flashing light on the dashboard.”

“The problem is, we live in an economy built on perpetual growth but we on a finite planet with limited resources and sinks.”

The same day, the journal BioScience published a letter by more than 15,000 scientists from around the world that looks back at the human response to climate change and other environmental challenges in the 25 years since another large group of scientists published the 1992 “World Scientists Warning to Humanity.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Crisis, ‘Smart’ Growth and the Logic of Calamity

December 1, 2017

Climate Crisis, ‘Smart’ Growth and the Logic of Calamity

A few years back at a Leftish gathering a group of self-described Marxist economists channeled liberal Democrat Paul Krugman’s explanation of the Great Recession without apparently knowing of Mr. Krugman’s thesis. Basically, a self-perpetuating recession had a grip on the economy, Wall Street was a catalyst of the crisis but ultimately only a bit player, money is economically ‘neutral,’ and government spending could raise demand and end the recession.

This is all standard fare in liberal economics. Within the circular logic of the genre, it circles just fine. What was odd was hearing it from self-described Marxists. Since Wall Street created the money that fueled the housing bubble and bust through predatory lending, how was its role not (1) pivotal and (2) political? If money is ‘neutral,’ why have financial asset prices responded so favorably (for their owners) to asset purchases by global central banks? And finally, where is the class analysis?

In similar fashion, UMASS Amherst economist Robert Pollin arguedrecently that capitalist economic production is necessary to maintain social wellbeing. The object of his disparagement is the suggestion that a planned reduction in economic growth (‘degrowth’) is the most probable way of resolving climate crisis. For the uninitiated, the contention that challenges to capitalist production will hurt ‘the little people’ has been a rhetorical tactic of capitalist economists for at least a century now.

Graph: Real (inflation-adjusted) Per Capita GDP is more than double today what it was in 1970. In the U.S. in 1970 mass starvation was notably absent. So people could conceivably not only get by if U.S. GDP were halved, but could thrive. The problems with doing so are (1) social complexity has been built into the political economy and (2) unwinding this complexity requires planning and the political will to do so. However, climate crisis poses the threat of unplanned degrowth of similar or greater magnitude. Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

People Act Where US Fails On Climate

November 14, 2017

People Act Where US Fails On Climate

The United States is experiencing a wide range of climate impacts from major hurricanes in the South to unprecedented numbers of wildfires in the West to crop-destroying drought in the Mid-West. In October, the General Accounting Office reported that the US has spent over $350 billion in the last decade on disaster relief and crop insurance, not counting this year’s hurricanes. These costs will continue and rise.

We are past the time to make a major commitment to the transformation we need to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. Imagine the benefits that such a commitment would have in creating a cleaner environment, better health and more jobs and, if structured in a way that is democratized and benefits the public, in ending environmental racism and economic injustice.

Climate talks in Germany

The 23rd session of climate talks is taking place right now in Bonn, Germany. The United States formally withdrew from its commitment to the Paris climate treaty, but delegations of people from the US are in attendance to show their commitment to addressing the climate crisis. A group of organizations, such as 350.org and Indigenous Environmental Network, presented their climate platform as “the people’s delegation.” They are calling for a just transition to a fossil-free future and an end to market schemes to offset carbon use.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Climate Crisis as seen by the economics mainstream

August 29, 2017

The Climate Crisis as seen by the economics mainstream

Mainstream economics frames the climate crisis in a particular way but this approach is not at all helpful. There have been a variety of controversies which show clearly how economists think – like the “price of a life” controversy. The findings of the Stern Review were widely quoted but how were they calculated? Much of the controversy about the Stern Review among economists was about the discount rate to be applied to future projections. These issues are explained.

Although the effects of climate change seem to be near to apocalyptic over the long term, over the
short term taking signficant action to cut emissions also appears to be a tremendous challenge. The magnitude of this challenge is indicated by a statement in the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change: “Experience suggests that it is difficult to secure emission cuts faster than 1% per year except in instances of recession…” (Stern, 2006, p. 231)

When the Soviet Union was wound up the Russian economy collapsed. Between 1989 and 1998, fuel related emissions fell in that country by 5.2% per annum because economic activity halved. However, this was no model to copy. It was a period of deep crisis. The death rate, particularly among young Russian men, soared. (Stern, 2006, p. 232)

This brings us to the climate policy response so far, or the lack of it, and how mainstream economists frame the climate debate.

• Any policies have to be consistent with growth
• Optimal policies are supposed to be based on cost benefit calculations in which gains and losses
for different people through time are held to be commensurable in money terms
• An appropriate discount rate must be charged when making policy calculations
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Forest loss and land degradation fuel climate crisis

September 26, 2015

Forest loss and land degradation fuel climate crisis

UN studies show that the combined effects of degraded farmland and the felling and burning of trees are costing the planet trillions of dollars in ecosystem losses.

The planet’s forests have dwindled by 3% − equivalent almost to the land area of South Africa − in the last 25 years, according to a newassessment by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

While the planet continues to lose its forests – albeit at a slower rate – through felling, burning or being turned into farmland, another UN study predicts that the economic cost of degraded agricultural land in the form of lost ecosystem services now amounts to up to US$10 trillion a year.

Within 10 years, 50 million people could have been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods to become migrants. If all those people were assembled in one place, they would constitute the planet’s 28th biggest nation in terms of population.

Increasing levels

Forest loss and farmland degradation are both part of climate change accountancy. The rise in greenhouse gases is in part linked to the loss of forest cover to soak up the carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil fuels.

But increasing levels of heat and drought are likely to accompany climate change, increasing the area of desert or land too arid to support life and industry.

So in losing forest, and in watching farmland become saline because of over-irrigation, or exhausted by intensive cultivation or overgrazing, or simply increasingly too arid to support vegetation, humans are witnessing the loss of all sorts of valuable services not normally recorded by accountants.

Ideas such as “natural capital” and ecosystem services are attempts to place a practical value on things that nature normally delivers for free.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Climate Change Asks of Us: Moral Obligation, Mobilization and Crisis Communication | The Climate Psychologist

December 22, 2014

What Climate Change Asks of Us: Moral Obligation, Mobilization and Crisis Communication | The Climate Psychologist.

Why are we morally obligated to fight climate change?

Climate change is a crisis, and crises alter morality. Climate change is on track to cause the extinction of half the species on earth and, through a combination of droughts, famines, displaced people, and failed states and pandemics, the collapse of civilization within this century. If this horrific destructive force is to be abated, it will be due to the efforts of people who are currently alive. The future of humanity falls to us. This is an unprecedented moral responsibility, and we are by and large failing to meet it.

Indeed, most of us act as though we are not morally obligated to fight climate change, and those whodo recognize their obligation are largely confused about how to meet it

Crises alter morality; they alter what is demanded of us if we want to be considered good, honorable people. For example—having a picnic in the park is morally neutral. But if, during your picnic, you witness a group of children drowning and you continue eating and chatting, passively ignoring the crisis, you have become monstrous. A stark, historical example of crisis morality is the Holocaust—history judges those who remained passive during that fateful time. Simply being a private citizen (a “Good German”) is not considered honorable or morally acceptable in retrospect. Passivity, in a time of crisis, is complicity. It is a moral failure. Crises demand that we actively engage; that we rise to the challenge; that we do our best.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Crisis and the Pursuit of Happiness: Reflections on Community Solutions Conference – Transition Milwaukee

November 12, 2014

Climate Crisis and the Pursuit of Happiness: Reflections on Community Solutions Conference – Transition Milwaukee.

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending the Sixth Community Solutions Conference: “Climate Crisis—Curtailment and Community—and The Power of Individual Action,” held in Yellow Springs Ohio by The Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions. To those not familiar with permaculture, the work of Community Solutions or for that matter The Post Carbon Institute, the most remarkable thing about the conference was what was not included—namely, the usual salvo of smart-grids and breakthroughs in efficiency, panel after panel celebrating the decreasing price of solar and wind, the false promise of carbon capture or a new knowledge economy, or, if necessary (so that we might continue to live as if there is no tomorrow) the prospect of blasting the tops of mountain tops, this time to fill the air with sun-blocking dust. There was no suggestion, here, that we might magically maintain our unsustainable way of life with nary an inconvenience; the message was far more optimistic and uplifting than that.

Any foolish hope that we might collectively address climate change in a way that does not involve massive lifestyle-changes was disposed of in Richard Heinberg’s opening talk, which highlighted the peaking of world conventional oil production, the limits of tight oil, and the fact that renewable energy just won’t behave like coal, oil, and natural gas, no matter how much we may wish it would. Pat Murphy added to this a significant discussion about the diminishing returns that we might expect from efficiency and thus the necessity of re-engineering our own practices and demands rather than the planet itself. The rest of the conference was geared mainly towards personal and community choices we can make. While some of these changes did had a technological aspect, inner-change, will, and commitment received far more attention. The power of moral reckoning and a commitment to doing what is right on a planet that is hot, crowded, and certainly not flat, were highlighted by Jim Merkel’s rousing and highly-personal account of his model of radical simplicity. No one was suggesting that politics don’t matter, nor that our current societal values might be compatible with humanity’s long term survival. But the stronger emphasis, this weekend, spoke to the belief that this group of activists and aspirants might “be the change they want to see.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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