Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Six — Sociopolitical ‘Collapse’ and Ecological Overshoot
This contemplation is my concluding post regarding several psychological mechanisms at play in our thinking about ecological overshoot and the accompanying societal ‘collapse’ that will eventually result.
In the initial post, I briefly summarised four psychological mechanisms I’ve been reflecting upon in the context of ecological overshoot and in particular the collapse of our global, industrialised complex societies that will (or, as some argue, has already begun to) accompany this overshoot; you can read it here. In Part Two, I began elaborating my thoughts on the first mechanism in my list: Obedience/Deference to Authority; you can find it here. Part three comprises some thoughts about the phenomenon of Groupthink and can be found here. The fourth contemplation in this series looks at the role of Cognitive Dissonance in our cognition and can be read here. In the fifth contemplation, I round out the phenomena I review with a view on The Justification Hypothesis; read it here.
One of the primary considerations in understanding how our cognitions and thus our beliefs and behaviours are going to be affected by the unfolding of the consequences of ecological overshoot and the concomitant ‘collapse’ of our societies is the anxiety/stress that such a future (and present) is going to have (is having) upon us; personally, on a familial level, and on the broader societal scale. Contemplating an unknowable future that is unlikely to provide many of the energetic conveniences most currently depend upon and/or that will challenge our complex systems to the breaking point because of extreme weather events, or supply chain disruptions/breakdowns (especially food, water, energy), etc. can be exceedingly anxiety-provoking.
Mix these (and many other) psychological mechanisms in with Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect — that postulates all animals have an innate motivation to avoid pain/seek pleasure[1] — and you have an animal whose sense-making abilities are leveraged by its mind to deny/ignore away evidence that challenges them and can cause painful, anxiety-provoking emotions (in fact, there appears to be neuroscientific support for this[2]). In response, we appear to employ all sorts of biases/rationalisations to support our belief systems (a ‘pleasurable’ sensation) regardless of disconfirming evidence (that can lead to painful/stressful emotions).
I must begin by going back to a passage from an article I cited in the introductory ‘essay’ by Megan Siebert and William Rees: “We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”[3]
The following is my story that I’ve developed over the past 10+ years in reading relatively extensively and reflecting upon a variety of other stories about our past, present, and future. I am not SO confident in it that I would wager heavily in favour of it being the ‘truth’ — I think it’s close but I also believe that the complexities involved in attempting to understand exactly what is happening is far beyond human comprehension (and certainly mine). Plus my view changes periodically with new information/interpretations. The generality of it tends to remain but the specifics alter; and the more I learn, the more assured I am that my understanding is still quite rudimentary[4]. And then there’s the impossibility of making accurate predictions about how the future will unfold. I am relatively confident that such prognostications are completely beyond the scope of human cognition (even with the aid of computers) given the incalculable non-linear feedback loops and emergent phenomena that exist in complex systems — a single, minuscule faulty base assumption can send the trajectory of any calculation sideways in totally unexpected ways.
Anyways, here is my story beginning with a brief review of ‘collapse’ and overshoot:
Humans are susceptible not only to sociopolitical collapse[5] but collapse of its population via a massive die-off due to ecological overshoot[6]. Both seem inevitable at this point in our evolution[7]. And both are extremely anxiety-provoking regardless of whether one has moved through Kubler-Ross’s Stages of Grief[8] and reached the final stage of acceptance or not.
Let’s begin by looking at what ‘collapse’ means from the perspective of archaeologist Joseph Tainter, who summarises his perspective near the beginning of his text, The Collapse of Complex Societies, on the subject.
“Collapse…is a political process. It may, and often does, have consequences in such areas as economics, art, and literature, but it is fundamentally a matter of the sociopolitical sphere. A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity…[It manifests itself] as:
· a lower degree of stratification and social differentiation;
· less economic and occupational specialization, of individuals, groups, and territories;
· less centralized control; that is, less regulation and integration of diverse economic and political groups by elites;
· less behavioural control and regimentation; less investment in the epiphenomena of complexity, those elements that define the concept of ‘civilization’: monumental architecture, artistic and literary achievements, and the like;
· less flow of information between individuals, between political and economic groups, and between a center and its periphery;
· less sharing, trading, and redistribution of resources;
· less overall coordination and organization of individuals and groups;
· a smaller territory within a single political unit.”[9]
While Tainter’s analysis of sociopolitical collapse is startling, given that virtually every experiment we have attempted with complex societies over our pre/history have failed and thus our hyper-complex one is likely even more susceptible to the primary factor that leads to its eventual demise (i.e., diminishing returns on investments in complexity), the work of William Catton Jr. on the ecological overshoot of the human species is even more anxiety-provoking[10].
Catton argues that our leveraging of fossil fuels has allowed humanity to expand well beyond the natural carrying capacity of the planet and mirrors quite clearly the type of exploitation that is observed in species that invariably ‘bloom and crash’.
And while in our denial of this inevitability we have created stories that we can avert such a future, Catton asserts that “habits of thought persist…people continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for ‘de-collosalization’ to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem.”[11]
In fact, he recognises that “…believing crash can’t happen to us is one reason it will. The principles of ecology apply to all living things. By supposing that our humanity exempts us, we delude ourselves…whatever the species, irruptions that overshoot carrying capacity lead inexorably to die-offs. Irruptions can happen to any species that gains access to a previously inaccessible but highly suitable habitat. All it takes is for the habitat to contain an abundance of whatever resources are needed by the invading species, and for there to be little population-checking pressure from predators and little or no competition from other species having similar niche requirements and living in the same area.”[12]
As Catton concludes, when overshoot has occurred there is no avoiding the crash.
Cutting to the chase, we have a globalised world that can be expected to experience sociopolitical collapse (or is already experiencing) and/or a massive overshoot die-off that puts everything at risk, for everyone; but especially for those who live within so-called ‘advanced economies’ that have come to depend fully and completely upon the energy-averaging systems of global trade and its complex and fragile supply chains[13].
Talk about anxiety-provoking!
I have been ‘searching’ for a few poignant thoughts on how to conclude these handful of contemplations on the psychological mechanisms I’ve outlined and how this may impact our thinking (or, at least, mine) about an unwritten and unknowable future. And I think, perhaps, the comment I left at Tom Murphy’s Do the Math site in response to an article he posted recently kind of hits the nail on the head of where my thoughts have led me (at this point in my journey). The comment is in bold with some further connective ideas added:
I’m coming to three (of many) rather ‘anxiety-provoking’ conclusions given everything. First, that our leveraging of that one-time cache of fossil energy has expedited our journey into ecological overshoot — this being our fundamental predicament that is signalling its presence in all the ‘problematic’ symptoms we are experiencing.
Our primary predicament, then, seems to be ecological overshoot. The sociopolitical collapse that Tainter attributes to diminishing returns on investments in complexity appears to resonate with a society’s tendency to overshoot its carrying capacity, be it local, regional, or global. When biophysical limits of the supportive and accessible resources (given the technology of the time) are breached, diminishing returns on investments in complexity begin to arise. Eventually, such diminishing returns hits a point where participants in the society begin to make the economic choice to abandon support for it as the previous benefits gained from living with such complexities falter and no longer make the investments worthwhile. The sociopolitical system cannot function for long without support from the masses — it eventually ‘collapses’.
The unavoidable consequence of such overshoot in our current hypercomplex, globalised society is likely a massive die-off of our species as Catton warns given the fact that the vast majority of humans no longer possess the skills and/or knowledge of basic survival skills such as the procurement of potable water, local food production, and maintenance of regional shelter needs. In fact, many of today’s communities exist in regions where such resources cannot be acquired and they depend entirely upon fragile and complex long-distance supply chains. In the past, most disenchanted people simply migrated and took up existence outside of the sociopolitical realm that was disintegrating. Such an option for the vast majority, if not all, is perhaps completely out of the question nowadays.
Second, our penchant for denial of anxiety-provoking situations is leading us to ignore our predicament and cling to optimistic narratives — even if completely false (or misleading) in nature.
Add to the significant anxiety created by our predicament the profound sense of loss involved when one’s world suddenly moves sideways, particularly in unsuspecting ways, or when a loss is ‘expected’, and we experience the grieving stages Kubler-Ross identified and described — particularly denial, anger, and bargaining.
Moreover, the research around anticipatory loss suggests that the stages of grief that one experiences can actually be much more intense when one is expecting such loss than after the actual loss. There can be greater anger, more significant loss of emotional control, and atypical grief responses[14].
Most importantly it seems that the initial stage of grief, denial (especially of death and anything unpleasant) has been argued to be the defining evolutionary trait that makes us human[15], so it tends to be the most common response by people.
Wanting to avoid/reduce the pain that accompanies the resulting anxiety we search for evidence to confirm any ‘positive/pleasurable’ beliefs we tend to hold as ‘correct’ and deny and/or rationalise away the information that is challenging our ‘faith’. And what could be more anxiety-provoking than the impending collapse of one’s complex society or a massive die-off? As crises erupt and challenges our belief systems, we will search for evidence that any decline/fall is either far off in the distant future, nonsensical, can be ‘solved’ (especially via our ingenuity and technological prowess), the fault of some ‘enemy’ or opposition group within our domestic ranks (or supernatural entity), etc..[16]. This is typical ‘bargaining’ behaviour.
Third, our ruling elite are themselves leveraging our ‘fears’ to do what they do best: seeking to maintain/expand the power/wealth structures that exist in complex societies and provide them their privileged positions; and our tendency to defer to ‘authority’ and desire to alleviate anxiety make us susceptible to the narratives they create, such as human ingenuity and technology will allow us to continue to chase the perpetual growth chalice to infinity and beyond.
It seems clear to me that ‘collapse’ puts directly in its crosshairs the power/wealth structures that support the ruling class. I’ve said a lot about this in previous articles but feel compelled to share a bit more.
I have little doubt that the ruling class will take advantage of all of these well-known psychological mechanisms in their ongoing and ever-present quest to maintain/control the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and privileged status. Narrative control, perhaps one of if not the most important mechanism for sustaining the status quo societal structures, will be ramped up continuously. ‘Threats’ will be vilified. Myths will be created and/or amplified. Means of extending and pretending will likely dominate as the elite kick-the-can-down-the-road as long as they can.
We need to not only be aware and conscious of these psychological mechanisms that influence our beliefs and thus actions, but actively engaging ‘countermeasures’ by resisting our automatic responses (e.g., ‘leaders’ and their courtiers/sycophants/bureaucrats are always correct and/or have the best interest of the people/society at the top of their motivations) and reflecting upon/challenging our beliefs/thought processes periodically. We also need to admit that much of what we believe to be true/factual may, in fact, be conditioned responses and/or ‘programmed’ ideas established by the ruling elite[17].
Cognitive framing in which the way we perceive/interpret events is established for us, perhaps through propaganda or the creation of an Overton Window. We are kept from thinking about alternatives to the established options and made to believe the offered ‘solutions’ are the only ones to consider…thinking outside the box is not allowed, especially if it challenges the status quo power/wealth structures. I expect the totalitarianism that is increasingly defining our sociopolitical systems worldwide[18] to expand significantly as we slide down the Seneca Cliff of resource contraction (especially energy).
The collapse that always accompanies overshoot seems baked in at this point with little if anything we can do about it.
Personally, I’d like to see our dwindling fossil fuels dedicated to decommissioning safely those significantly dangerous complexities we’ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants, biosafety labs, chemical storage, etc.) and relocalising as much potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs as possible rather than attempting to sustain what is ultimately unsustainable given the fossil fuel inputs necessary. Perhaps, just perhaps. by doing these things a few pockets of humanity (and many other species) can come out the other side of the bottleneck we’ve created for ourselves.
In my skimming of the topic of denial I happened upon Nate Hagens’ work on this in Reality Blind. I’ll add this to my ever-expanding list of readings…
In addition, here are some useful sites/links for exploring further some of the above concepts:
[4] In my writing and reflecting upon issues/topics in this set of posts I have explored new topics that I had not previously encountered or thought extensively about.
[5] Tainter, J.. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978–0–521–38673–9).
[6] Catton, Jr., William R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 0–252–00818–9).
[7] Although I am fairly confident that this is the case, I say ‘seem’ because the future is both unwritten and unknowable. And keep in mind that recognising this does not necessitate that one has ‘given up’, an accusation common amongst those who disagree with the belief.
[9] Tainter, J. The Collapse of Complex Societies. P. 4.
[10] Although, “less sharing, trading, and redistribution of resources” has enormous implications for the masses of humanity that depend on such energy-averaging systems given their knowledge/skill loss in providing the necessities of life — i.e., potable water procurement, food production, regional shelter needs.
[11] [11] Catton, Jr., William R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. P. 174.
[13] I can’t help but ponder the chaos of my Canadian home province of Ontario with its 15 million inhabitants that imports 80+% of its food needs along complex and fragile supply chains and has pursued the ‘paving over’ of its limited arable lands to expand suburban neighbourhoods and dedicated most of its remaining ‘farming’ to industrial agriculture that produces primarily corn/soybean to feed ethanol production and livestock. We grow a very limited amount of our local food needs.
[16] Most are unlikely/unwilling to look in the mirror and see we have contributed to the situation.
[17] See Bernays, E.. Propaganda. iG Publishing, 1928. (ISBN 0–9703125–9–8).
[18] Do not be fooled by the narratives surrounding representative democracies. The notion that we have agency via the ballot box is perhaps one of the most successful scams ever perpetrated on the masses by the ruling elite — along with the control/distribution of fiat currency being done in an equitable and thoughtful manner that serves everyone.
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Five — Justification Hypothesis
This contemplation is the fifth part of a look at several psychological mechanisms at play in our thinking about ecological overshoot and the accompanying societal ‘collapse’ that will eventually result.
In Part One, I briefly summarised four psychological mechanisms I’ve been reflecting upon in the context of ecological overshoot and in particular the collapse of our global, industrialised complex societies that will (or, as some argue, has already begun to) accompany this overshoot; you can read it here. In Part Two, I began elaborating my thoughts on the first mechanism in my list: Obedience/Deference to Authority; you can find it here. Part three comprises some thoughts about the phenomenon of Groupthink and can be found here. The fourth in this series looks at the role of Cognitive Dissonance in our cognition and can be read here.
One of the primary considerations in understanding how our cognitions and thus our beliefs and behaviours are going to be affected by the unfolding of the consequences of ecological overshoot and the concomitant ‘collapse’ of our societies is the anxiety/stress that such a future (and present) is going to have (is having) upon us; personally, on a familial level, and on the broader societal scale. Contemplating an unknowable future that is unlikely to provide many of the energetic conveniences most currently depend upon and/or that will challenge our complex systems to the breaking point because of extreme weather events, or supply chain disruptions/breakdowns (especially food, water, energy), etc. can be exceedingly anxiety-provoking.
Mix these (and many other) psychological mechanisms in with Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect — that postulates all animals have an innate motivation to avoid pain/seek pleasure[1] — and you have an animal whose sense-making abilities are leveraged by its mind to deny/ignore away evidence that challenges them and can cause painful, anxiety-provoking emotions (in fact, there appears to be neuroscientific support for this[2]). In response, we appear to employ all sorts of biases/rationalisations to support our belief systems (a ‘pleasurable’ sensation) regardless of disconfirming evidence (that can lead to painful/stressful emotions).
The uniquely human phenomenon theorised via the term Justification Hypothesis can be summed up in a quote attributed to author Robert Heinlein in the previous article: “Humans are a rationalising animal, not a rational one”.
It is argued that we seek to rationalise/justify our behaviours and cognitions in order to align them, sometimes to justify our efforts/actions, and perhaps at the same time to present a positive image to others and ourselves. A form of positive feedback tends to then arise where we experience increasing ‘pleasure’ through the confirmation of our beliefs, putting more ‘effort’ into attempts to confirm them (i.e., seeking like-minded individuals/groups or examples/data in support of), and becoming more ‘convinced’ we are correct in our belief system.
Effort justification, for example, may be as simple as rationalising the physical or mental energy we put into an activity. Research indicates that the more effort or sacrifice we put towards an activity or idea/belief, the more we come to view it as positive. It is important to note that studies suggest that this attractiveness is stronger and more prone to occur if the activity/belief is perceived as being freely chosen and the expected ‘cost’ is known prior to any effort[3].
“At least two important implications seem to follow from effort justification. First, it is likely to have functional benefits for groups. By increasing attraction and commitment to the group, group cohesion and stability are enhanced. Second, effort justification is likely to increase persistence at tasks that are not altogether pleasant, especially when such tasks are seen as chosen. Many worthwhile outcomes in life require short-term sacrifice to achieve longer-term gain. By encouraging such sacrifice, effort justification is functional to the individual and the group.
Of course, what is functional is not always good. Attractive, cohesive groups may be more prone to group-think, and persistence at lost causes can be destructive.”[4]
While the justification by individuals is the basis of this theory, research has expanded to look at the use of it by systems in a broader sense. Systems justification theory looks at how groups justify/rationalise the status quo systems they exist within[5].
“System justification can lead us to deny and excuse aspects of our society — such as the ever-widening gap between rich and poor and the damage we are doing to the natural environment, to take just two very salient and worrisome examples — that we ought to confront sooner rather than later.”[6]
Think about this hypothesis in terms of the leveraging that can be accomplished by a ruling elite with specific motivations in mind, especially as the complexities that ‘sustain’ our industrial civilisation increasingly falter[7].
First, we tend to defer to ‘authority’ so establishing and maintaining this authority will help to ensure the majority of individuals comply with the status quo directives that may be increasingly difficult as numerous crises erupt. While ‘force’ can help to ensure such compliance, having people ‘believe’ in the narratives we are ‘herded’ towards is far more efficient (i.e., less costly) and more effective (i.e., think of Johann von Goethe quote here: “The best slave is the one who thinks he’s free.”).
Second, our motivation to belong to a social group along with our tendencies to conform to the beliefs/ideas/opinions of the majority and to view events/evidence through the context we are provided, makes establishing the narrative by which the group tends to interpret exceedingly important. By setting the context (cognitive framing as some call it[8]) through which people view the world, the stories that percolate through society can more or less be controlled, especially those that legitimise the power/control of individuals/groups that sit atop the power/wealth structures of our world. This not only maintains the flow of ‘wealth/goods’ up to the elite but minimises the discontent that can result in sociopolitical upheavals.
Third, because there can be competing narratives in large, complex social groups and people will feel dissonance when conflicting cognitions exist, it is vital that the messaging of the elite is ‘proactive’ (i.e., their story is put out very quickly in order to set the context thru which people interpret events), relatively similar/consistent (i.e., remain on message), and repeated often. This is where their control of most media institutions comes into play[9]. They not only have the means to spread their message relatively quickly and consistently, they can do it in a way that appears ‘objective’. The power structures, for example, can be reinforced through narratives regarding ‘representative democracy’ and agency via the ballot box. Not only can the context through which people interpret events be established but confirmation biases can be supported.
Once we latch on to a narrative we strive to justify it and rationalise events/evidence in light of it to reduce any anxiety that might arise from the conflicting messages our minds receive. This phenomenon is perhaps one of the strongest mechanisms that contribute to the denial of ‘facts’ that challenge one’s interpretive narrative.
This ends my thoughts on the four aspects of psychology I set out to discuss. In the next and last instalment of this mini-series of articles I shall attempt to tie them together with respect to what is increasingly seeming to me to be a self-created bottleneck that threatens our complex societies and perhaps even, as some argue, our and many other species extinction.
[7] Note that I am aware that I am as prone to these psychological mechanisms as everyone else and this long series of articles could be perceived as my attempt to rationalise/justify/reinforce/confirm my own biased beliefs; especially as they pertain to ruling elite behaviours in the face of societal collapse.
[9] It is not surprising that the rise of technologies that allow for competing narratives that challenge the status quo is creating increasing calls for censorship — currently in the guise of countering ‘fake news/misinformation’.
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Four — Cognitive Dissonance
This contemplation is the fourth part of a look at several psychological mechanisms at play in our thinking about ecological overshoot and the accompanying societal ‘collapse’ that will eventually result.
In Part One, I briefly summarised four psychological mechanisms I’ve been reflecting upon in the context of ecological overshoot and in particular the collapse of our global, industrialised complex societies that will (or, as some argue, has already begun to) accompany this overshoot; you can read it here. In Part Two, I began elaborating my thoughts on the first mechanism in my list: Obedience/Deference to Authority; you can find it here. Part three comprises some thoughts about the phenomenon of Groupthink and can be found here.
One of the primary considerations in understanding how our cognitions and thus our beliefs and behaviours are going to be affected by the unfolding of the consequences of ecological overshoot and the concomitant ‘collapse’ of our societies is the anxiety/stress that such a future (and present) is going to have (is having) upon us; personally, on a familial level, and on the broader societal scale. Contemplating an unknowable future that is unlikely to provide many of the energetic conveniences most currently depend upon and/or that will challenge our complex systems to the breaking point because of extreme weather events, or supply chain disruptions/breakdowns (especially food, water, energy), etc. can be exceedingly anxiety-provoking.
Mix these (and many other) psychological mechanisms in with Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect — that postulates all animals have an innate motivation to avoid pain/seek pleasure[1] — and you have an animal whose sense-making abilities are leveraged by its mind to deny/ignore away evidence that challenges them and can cause painful, anxiety-provoking emotions (in fact, there appears to be neuroscientific support for this[2]). In response, we appear to employ all sorts of biases/rationalisations to support our belief systems (a ‘pleasurable’ sensation) regardless of disconfirming evidence (that can lead to painful/stressful emotions).
Hastening back to the summary I wrote on cognitive dissonance in the first part of this series, recall that it is fundamentally “…the idea that humans experience negative emotions when they hold conflicting or inconsistent cognitions[3]. The resulting state of discomfort leads us to become motivated to align our cognitive knowledge, and the more discomfort or anxiety we feel from such conflicting cognition the more we struggle to reduce the resulting tension. It is during such efforts to reduce the dissonance we are feeling that we engage in significant rationalisation that can convince us to accept knowledge that we might otherwise not agree with.”
The anxiety one may experience in holding conflicting beliefs varies since some people are not as impacted by such internal conflict as they have a higher tolerance for it. In fact, there are some who are quite comfortable with holding beliefs that conflict with each other so their dissonance-reducing efforts are not as impactful as for those who do encounter such internal stress.
For those who do suffer from anxiety-provoking emotions caused by conflicting beliefs, if the beliefs one holds are more personal or valued in nature (or the disparity between them is great), even more dissonance may be experienced than may be typical if the beliefs are not personally valued. This can bring about heightened efforts to reduce the dissonance. These efforts may also be increased if beliefs are challenged by others, leading to even further entrenchment/defense of one’s beliefs and concomitant dissonance-reducing attempts.
Further, if our behaviours do not align with our beliefs we may find that we actually alter our beliefs to become consistent with our behaviours[4]. There appears to exist a feedback loop between our beliefs and actions, with each affecting the other in ongoing attempts to minimise personal anxiety (i.e., psychological ‘pain’).
Another complexity in this entire process is that a person’s comfort with uncertainty may also critical to how much dissonance may be experienced[5].
Research on human reactions to uncertainty is, of course, important to the issue of overshoot and collapse given the nature of the predicament and what we do in attempting to understand how it will impact us and the planet. We are, for all intents and purposes, making ‘guesses’ about our future and as physicist Niels Bohr has been credited with stating (and several others): “Predictions are difficult, especially if they’re about the future”.
We can’t help but be anything but uncertain about our future and this feeling of uncertainty intensifies emotional reactions; sometimes positively but most of the time negatively because humans desire certainty (which is why we sometimes are prone to misleading narratives, especially if communicated in a convincing manner that offers assurances). And the greater the uncertainty, the stronger the affective reaction. Most people experience anxiety with uncertainty[6] and seek ways to reduce this.[7]
One of the ways our brains reduce uncertainty is to simplify our understanding of the world. We engage biases and heuristics to do this[8], and in the process we tend to see patterns that don‘t exist and treat random events as meaningful[9]. By simplifying an exceedingly complex reality we can reduce our uncertainty and thus our anxiety about the future.
So, here we are, an animal existing in an exceedingly complex world with relatively remarkable cognitive abilities attempting to understand the flood of information our senses are experiencing. We also find ourselves within a hierarchical social environment where our tendency is to defer to those ‘above’ us in social status. If they can influence or create the worldview through which we interpret the world, we tend to do this.
Then comes along some disruptive technologies such as the printing press and, more recently, the internet to allow for the dissemination of competing narratives for how we view the world. The variety of interpretive lenses that are created by this can lead to ever-growing dissonance[10]. We are exposed repeatedly to the stories that our elite are pushing[11], but we are also aware of competing ones. We tend to defer to those communicated by our authority figures (be it politicians, the media, academics, etc.), but not always. We do occasionally get exposed to conflicting messages and evidence.
How do we alleviate the resulting anxiety? We employ our mind to filter out the incoming information in a way that reduces the stress we are experiencing. It matters little what we experience with our own senses or the data we are exposed to. We simplify, alter our perspective/interpretation, and create a narrative that we can filter evidence through. We also seek out self-reinforcing echo chambers of like-minded individuals/groups. Confirming information is amplified and reinforces our story while disconfirming information is ignored, denied, or rationalised away. In essence, we believe what our minds want us to believe; ‘facts’ be damned. And if we are challenged and begin to experience dissonance, we grab a hold of our fundamental beliefs even harder.
Obviously, it’s not quite as simple as this and some are more prone to the anxiety-reducing mechanisms than others, but for the most part we are ‘guided’ to beliefs that may not align with ‘reality’ but that reduce our ‘pain’ (i.e., anxiety) while increasing our ‘pleasure’ (e.g., dopamine surges appear to be one result when we encounter the pleasurable sensation of ‘confirmation’ of our beliefs[12]). We take increasing comfort in narratives that can reduce our anxiety, often regardless of any evidence that challenges them.
Depend significantly on industrial civilisation and all the conveniences it offers? Then you can be sure to either ignore/deny the narratives and accompanying evidence that point to its probable demise[13], and/or take increasing comfort in the stories that human ingenuity and our technological prowess will ‘solve’ our predicament[14] of ecological overshoot and its accompanying collapse. It seems we create our own ‘reality’.
Finally, keep in mind the statement attributed to author Robert Heinlein: “Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal”. We ‘rationalise/justify’ what we believe and do so constantly, which will be looked at in the next piece that reviews The Justification Hypothesis.
[6] This feeling appears to be context dependent as some activities with uncertainty may actually produce positive emotions, such as watching sports or a mystery movie, or gambling.
[11] As I have argued previously, we have a ruling elite who sit at the top of our power/wealth social structures and are motivated by a drive to sustain their privilege. Part of what they do to meet this imperative is that they create narratives that help to legitimise their positions — from being directly descended from God/the gods to chosen ‘freely’ by the masses as their representatives (or worked exceptionally ‘hard’ to deserve their privilege). This class of people also tend to be susceptible to the vagaries of groupthink due to their increasing isolation from the hoi polloi.
[13] I say ‘probable’ given the self-evident fact (at least, to me) that not one of us can predict the future with much accuracy. Evidence appears to be accumulating that the endgame of ‘collapse’ is unavoidable but in truth only time will tell if and how this all plays out.
[14] I am of the opinion that this is a predicament without solution; it can possibly, at best, be mitigated somewhat and in some places better than others.
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Three — Groupthink
This contemplation is the third part of a look at several psychological mechanisms at play in our thinking about ecological overshoot and the accompanying societal ‘collapse’ that will eventually result.
In Part One, I briefly summarised four psychological mechanisms I’ve been reflecting upon in the context of ecological overshoot and in particular the collapse of our global, industrialised complex societies that will (or, as some argue, has already begun to) accompany this overshoot; you can read it here. In Part Two, I began elaborating my thoughts on the first mechanism in my list: Obedience/Deference to Authority; you can find it here.
One of the primary considerations in understanding how our cognitions and thus our beliefs and behaviours are going to be affected by the unfolding of the consequences of ecological overshoot and the concomitant ‘collapse’ of our societies is the anxiety/stress that such a future (and present) is going to have (is having) upon us; personally, on a familial level, and on the broader societal scale. Contemplating an unknowable future that is unlikely to provide many of the energetic conveniences most currently depend upon and/or that will challenge our complex systems to the breaking point because of extreme weather events, or supply chain disruptions/breakdowns (especially food, water, energy), etc. can be exceedingly anxiety-provoking.
Mix these (and many other) psychological mechanisms in with Edward Thorndike’s Law of Effect — that postulates all animals have an innate motivation to avoid pain/seek pleasure[1] — and you have an animal whose sense-making abilities are leveraged by its mind to deny/ignore away evidence that challenges them and can cause painful, anxiety-provoking emotions (in fact, there appears to be neuroscientific support for this[2]). In response, we appear to employ all sorts of biases/rationalisations to support our belief systems (a ‘pleasurable’ sensation) regardless of disconfirming evidence (that can lead to painful/stressful emotions).
A short thought about groupthink I posted on my personal Facebook Page in March, 2021:
“I’ve been reading about the phenomena of ‘groupthink’ recently. It’s amazing how much our society (and perhaps it’s every society) reflects this and the errors in judgements/decision making that result from it. The overestimation of the group’s decisions to be invulnerable and moral; the collective rationalisation and stereotyping that happens to shut out alternative perspectives/ideas; the pressures towards uniformity and to suppress dissent (e.g., self-censorship, mind guards, direct social pressure, illusion of unanimity). The mistakes that result from groupthink are avoided when a group encourages dissent and skeptical/critical thinking and the discussions that result from different perspectives, not by censoring or belittling them. We seem to be doing the exact opposite of what is needed to prevent bad decisions and judgements from being made. Many of us seem to have lost the ability to have civil discussions about matters we disagree on; to even agree to disagree. Our media (both mainstream and social) oftentimes seems more interested in controlling the narratives and stories we share than presenting the different perspectives and allowing people to decide for themselves. In our attempts to shut down others, one has to wonder if we are falling into the trap of groupthink and leading us to make faulty decisions? And even if we are, would we recognise it as such in order to reduce the cognitive dissonance that would arise as a result??”
A reminder that groupthink is summarised as “a premature concurrence-seeking tendency that interferes with collective decision-making processes and leads to poor decisions. It is characterized by deterioration in group member mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgments that result from in-group pressures to seek consensus. It is what happens when the task demands on a decision-making group are overwhelmed by the social demands to reach consensus. When experiencing groupthink, members tend to make simplistic statements about the issues and more positive in-group references than those in nongroupthink cases.”[3]
Groupthink symptoms include: an illusion of invulnerability that leads to an overly optimistic outlook; contrarian evidence being discredited or rationalised away; an illusion of morality that ignores the ethical consequences of decisions; peer pressure to conform to group thinking/decisions or risk being deemed disloyal; a tendency by members to withhold dissenting views (self-censorship); an illusion of unanimity; the development of ‘mind guards’ who take it upon themselves to protect the group from disconfirming evidence; avoidance of opposing opinions/ideas; and, a lack of impartial leadership[4].
As research has shown, while the mechanisms of groupthink and its impact on decision-making can become stronger in larger groupings, the phenomenon of unanimity is less likely[5]. And without unanimity, dissent becomes more probable opening the door to not only alternative perspectives but different ‘solutions’. This can certainly be observed in the various narratives pertaining to addressing our existential predicament of overshoot and collapse[6].
However, add Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs[7], a theory of human motivation, and we might begin to understand that there can be a tendency towards ‘herding behaviour’[8] even in large, complex populations. Maslow’s theory proposes that humans are motivated by meeting various needs. We begin with an urge to satisfy physiological needs (e.g., water, food, sleep, homeostasis). When these basic needs are met, more complex ones motivate behaviour: safety (e.g., security, protection, health, well-being); social (e.g., kin relationships, romance, non-kin relations); esteem (e.g., personal accomplishments/recognitions, sport/community/religious involvement); and, finally, self-actualisation (i.e., personal and on-going improvement). More recent iterations of this hierarchy have added the need for belongingness between safety and esteem needs, and cognitive needs after esteem[9].
Note that the need to belong to a social group of some kind is strong in humans[10]. We want to be part of a group or ‘tribe’[11]. Some psychologists argue this desire is as strong as the need for basic physiological necessities of food and water in order to ensure safety/survival; it is seen as an evolutionary adaptation[12].
“The tribal instincts hypothesis proposes that innate human predispositions to commit to their ingroups arose by coevolution with group selected cultural institutions. We are adapted to living in tribes, and the social institutions of tribes elicit strong — sometimes fanatical — commitment… The nature of the tribes that we commit to, the kinds of commitments we make, and the strength of those commitments all depend upon the cultural traditions that define the group and its institutions. Through the evolution of work-arounds in the last few thousand years, institutions have evolved that recruit the tribal subjective commitment to far larger and very different social systems than the tribe as the concept is understood by anthropologists.”[13]
While the issue for the detrimental impacts of groupthink to arise is not so significant for society at large given the array of competing voices/narratives/interpretations that can exist, it is more so a problem for governments and other elite institutions[14]; those groups that are the primary legislative-/decision-/policy-makers for society and have significant influence over the stories most people cling to.
I would add that governments and large businesses/corporations tend to be prone to groupthink due to the ‘isolation’ that exists for these decision-making bodies. Many (most?) tend to be part of a ‘class’ of people that exclusively interact with like-minded individuals and additionally receive reinforcing feedback from their ‘courtiers/sycophants’. They do not tend to interact with the masses of people who do not view the world from the same privileged perspective; they have their own ‘in-groups’.
Given the previously discussed tendency of humans to defer to ‘authority’ figures and the proclivity for these ‘leaders’ to develop ideas/policies in isolation from a wide variety of inputs/perspectives, we can imagine how maladaptive strategies created by the elite — which are driven by a primary motivation of control/expansion of their power/wealth — can ensure we, as a collective, take a misguided trajectory into the future: the elite encourage a faulty strategy (that serves their purposes) and the hoi polloi defer to it, accepting it as the righteous path to follow and support.
To understand why this tendency towards the need to belong to a social group and groupthink is relevant to overshoot and collapse, I believe we need to revisit archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis regarding a complex society’s collapse due to declining marginal returns. Here we find that as these returns on investments in complexity decline the elite may, and invariably do, respond through greater legitimisation activities and/or control, imposing strict behavioural controls — particularly absent the ability to address such issues via territorial expansion [15]. And, in the end, these actions tend to expedite resource drawdown causing the impending ‘collapse’ due to diminishing returns on investments in complexity to arrive more quickly than might otherwise.
These attempts by the elite to ‘kick-the-can-down-the-road’ seems ample reason to believe we are ‘pushed’ into groupthink tendencies by those who ‘profit’ from the denial of overshoot/collapse, or, perhaps, from raising the prospects of it[16]. Propaganda’s fundamental purpose is narrative control in order to align group thinking so as to interpret events/observations/stories along specific lines. It is the interpretive lens through which we view the world that impacts our beliefs and thus actions/behaviour. If a nation state, for example, can predetermine how most citizens will ‘understand’ what is happening around them, they ease the manner in which they direct society at large. Beliefs impact behaviour and it is behavioural ‘control’ of the masses that is paramount to sustaining status quo power/wealth structures and avoiding — or, at least, deferring — ‘revolution /pushback’.
Consider here the research on Social Cognition, especially Context Effect[17]. What humans ‘perceive’ in their environment is impacted significantly by the context in which it is observed/understood/interpreted. Visual stimuli can actually appear differently to different observers for a variety of reasons but mostly because our brains take shortcuts to reduce the myriad of details, relying upon the context in which we observe to filter and simplify complexities for us. This is also true of our understanding of events. If the context is provided, even if it is faulty/fake, we understand events through it.
The ‘context’ through which we view/interpret information has been given a number of different terms: schema[18], paradigm[19], worldview[20], interpretive lens, etc.. Being able to establish/influence the context through which a person or group views the world is very much the role of propaganda/narrative control.
So, it would appear that humans can be ‘herded’ into believing particular stories by way of the higher status amongst us establishing the context through which we interpret and understand issues and events. This doesn’t necessarily necessitate some grand ‘conspiracy’ but simply a small number of decision-makers to set the stage through policies, actions, and/or even just repetitive ‘marketing’ via speeches, media releases, etc. that are invariably wrapped in verbiage that highlights supposed benefits for the masses. Once a majority of people come to accept the narrative being shared, our strong tendency to want to belong[21] and meet the ‘norms’ of the social group in which we find ourselves leads us to accept the group’s ideas and behaviours — primarily to avoid the negative social pressures that accompany non-conformity. We may not necessarily agree with certain things, but we tend to go along for better or worse.
And while research has expanded and clarified the mechanisms at work in all this, pre/history shows the manipulation of behaviour by the ruling elite over and over again, be it to support status quo power/wealth structures and/or to engage in geopolitical struggles. Throw in Bernays’s work, the need to belong, and tendencies towards group conformity and deference to authority, and we can see how influence of the masses by a small, elite group can occur rather easily.
This is where most of society currently appears to stand. There may be some growing gaps with ‘break-away’ groups challenging mainstream narratives but for the most part the significant majority of society holds onto the stories being weaved by our ruling elite. I see this very clearly in the marketing narratives pertaining to an energy transition from fossil fuels to ‘clean/green’ energy alternatives.
I end with a quote attributed to U.S. General George S. Patton: “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
[5] Solomon Asch’s research into social conformity due to majority peer pressure are important here as well (https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html). People tend to go along with the majority in a group — even when they don’t necessarily agree — for fear of being ridiculed by others in the group and/or believe that the assessment of a majority is more informed than their individual assessment. In the absence of group unanimity, however, overall conformity drops as people are less concerned about social approval in such situations.
[6] There exist stories along a continuum from the idea that concerns are overblown and being leveraged by the ruling elite solely for the purpose of profiteering and/or social engineering/control to the assertion that this is a predicament that has no solutions, cannot be avoided, and total human extinction is at hand.
[10] In the absence of less complex and smaller human communities that are more amenable to a sense of belonging, there is still a need for this ‘urge’ to be met. Sometimes this is achieved through community organisations or institutions, such as a religious-based one.
[11] This can be observed in the self-reinforcing echo chambers that have arisen with the widespread use of social media. It appears that in their desire to confirm/reinforce beliefs, individuals orient their online browsing and communications towards like-minded individuals/groups. See this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7936330/
[16] There seems to be, on some level, an increase in the mainstream recognition of possible ‘collapse’, be it economic or some other iteration. Perhaps some see the prospects of it as ‘profitable’ in the sense of leveraging the issue in one way or another. There is, for example, much in the way of ‘commercialisation’ of products to alleviate the anxiety of possible ‘collapse’ and prepare for it. And then there is Joseph Tainter’s observation that
We Are Not Prepared For Shutting Down the Fossil Fuel Industry
To be or not to be, that is the question…
Prince Hamlet’s well-known soliloquy in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is apropos to a question I have been pondering: should we shut down immediately the world’s fossil fuel industries, as a seemingly increasing number of individuals and groups are advocating, or not?
Why have I been thinking about this? Mostly because I would argue it is suicide for our global, industrialised society and its vast array of complexities that the overwhelming majority of humans have come to depend upon, especially if it is without well-considered alternatives to support the loss of such an immense energy source.
In fact, without the energy provided by fossil fuels there would be no ‘transition’ to a ‘cleaner’ world that these same cheerleaders of fossil fuel’s immediate death suggest is ‘just around the corner’ — certainly, not a smooth and non-chaotic one. Without fossil fuels our various complexities that sustain us would collapse in short order and a massive die-off would occur[1]. Of this I have little doubt[2].
As far as a post-carbon transition based upon well-considered alternatives, I’m not speaking of so-called ‘green/clean’ energy substitutes for our fossil fuel-powered world in order to continue keeping on keeping on with our high energy-reliant complexities in some idealistic seamless shift. There is far too much evidence that that narrative is a lie and is being pushed by those that stand to profit from it and by well-intentioned but misguided others who believe the propaganda that such a shift is feasible and must be pursued with all haste[3]. Alternative energy-harvesting and -producing technologies are so dependent upon the fossil fuel platform that they cannot be constructed or sustained without significant fossil fuel inputs — to say little of the continued and significant environmental/ecological destruction necessary in both the upstream and downstream processes needed in their construction, maintenance, and after-life disposal/reclamation, and the lack of actual physical resources to build out a replacement for fossil fuels.
I’m speaking of a concerted ‘degrowth’ agenda that may need to be extremely radical in its undertaking if we are to minimise the most negative impacts of our ecological overshoot and perhaps ensure more of us are to make it out the other side of the ecological bottleneck we have created for our species (and many others)[4]. I have my own ideas about what this should and should not look like.
The very first order of business needs to be a discontinuation of the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice. This includes population growth but especially refers to economic growth, particularly for the so-called ‘advanced’ economies that are responsible for the lion’s share of resource use and abuse[5]. Without this our fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot simply grows in severity, leading to a more monumental collapse.
Given that the ruling class in particular but certainly a sizable portion of the citizens of advanced economies benefit immensely from the status quo systems and their continuation, I’m doubtful in the extreme that they would willingly admit and contemplate such a shift. As I expounded upon in my last contemplation, our ‘leaders’ are not in this for the masses as they pretend to be; they are in this for power and/or wealth[6]. As such, we will continue to be exposed to narratives that growth is not only beneficial for everyone but necessary to counteract the obvious dilemmas we are experiencing (but are, in fact, directly caused by our growth). Don’t, whatever you do, believe your lying eyes as the reality of resource shortages bite; continue to believe in human ingenuity and our technological prowess. Ignore the machinations going on behind that curtain over there.
Frankly, there are some difficult if not impossible decisions to be made that will and do challenge virtually everything the vast majority of us hold as near and dear to our hearts and our perception of what it means to be human; especially for those that live in ‘advanced’ economies where the transition necessarily puts everything on the table for discussion as to whether it can or should be maintained. Everything.
Many if not most of the cherished ideals that have been developed during a period of monumental surplus energy due to fossil fuel’s energy density, transportability, relative ease of extraction, and quantities are likely to be lost as our energy contraction speeds up. It may be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to maintain our ‘humanity’ in the face of this. Black Swan events, which is what this is going to be for the vast majority of people, have by far the largest impact on societies when they occur[7].
One of my ‘hopes’ as it were as we stumble into an unknown and unknowable future is that the dangerous complexities we have created (e.g., nuclear power plants, biosafety labs, chemical production and storage facilities) are dismantled and their dangers safely ‘contained/neutralised’ before we lose the energy capacity and related resources necessary to do this. I see zero progress currently on this front; in fact, there are increased demands to do the exact opposite.
And then there’s the whole economic-energy nexus where our monetary/financial systems are predicated upon credit/debt growth that is for all intents and purposes a potential claim on future energy and related resource use and its exponential growth[8]. If that energy is not there (and it’s not in a finite world), the entire Ponzi-like structure of these human-contrived systems collapses completely; and some argue this has actually already started and has been ‘papered’ over by manipulations that include accounting shenanigans and narrative control.
It is the glaring impediments (and the growing denial of these[9]) to the dreams of a ‘sustainable’ and ‘green/clean’ transition that increasingly lead me to conclude that we are totally and completely fubar. There is no saving our complexities that support our current ways. Does this necessitate losing ‘hope’? Well, hope as I’ve come to realise is a wish for something to happen over which we really have zero agency.
So, what do you have agency over? I would argue primarily one’s own actions, particularly at the local, community level[10].
Relocalising as much as possible now is paramount but especially in terms of potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs. To do this an awful lot of learning and work needs to be accomplished, quickly. There is no time to waste when exponential factors are at play and a Seneca cliff of energy contraction just ahead[11].
Starting your journey to self-sufficiency yesterday would have been prudent but starting today is better than tomorrow. Do what you can, even if it seems minimal. Plants a few pots of beans or tomatoes. Read a book on composting or seed saving. Find some like-minded neighbours and begin a community garden.
I’ve been busy prepping our raised beds for the seedlings we started indoors a few weeks ago. One of our greenhouses is almost cleaned up and ready to host a few dozen grow bags for our potatoes (discovered they do better in a greenhouse than the mostly shaded backyard areas I’ve tried in previous years). Some seeds of cool-weather plants are already in — lettuce, kale, sugar peas. Half of our compliment of twenty, 200 litre rain barrels are hooked up[12]. The two-compartment, concrete-block compost bin I built last summer has been extended higher and better pest screening added[13]. Almost all the fruit trees have been pruned. Mature compost has begun to be added to the various rows of raspberry and blackberry canes. Been sidelined today because of a mid-April snowstorm but another few dozen chores await, especially the replacement of rotting garden ties, that were used a decade ago to create foundations for our three greenhouses and form terraces on our side hill, with concrete blocks.
I close by repeating what I argued in my last post: “don’t depend upon your government/ruling class for salvation from the coming collapse of current complexities. Such ‘faith’ is significantly misplaced and will be deeply disappointing if not disastrous for those that maintain it. It is personal, familial, and community resilience and preparedness that will ease the decline; pursue this rather than believing you have significant agency via the ballot box and who might hold the reins of sociopolitical power.”
Please consider visiting my website and supporting my continuation of it via a purchase of my ‘fictional’ novel trilogy.
[1] There are some that argue this is exactly what we should do to ensure the survival of other species and not worry too much about humans. That is not me; at least not yet.
[2] Do not mistake this perspective of mine as one of supporting the expansion of fossil fuel extraction or our myriad of systemic complexities (especially technological) that have ‘evolved’ as a result of the growth brought about by this extraction. It is what it is and we need to consider it in its historical context and the dependencies it has led to. Given I believe that our fundamental predicament is ecological overshoot brought about by our increasing use of technologies, especially those that allowed us to extract ever-increasing amounts of fossil energy, I am all for curtailing such use; but it needs to be done thoughtfully and with targeted precision as our energy use contracts significantly.
[4] An ecological/population bottleneck is where a significant majority of a species dies off due to a significant shift in environmental conditions. See William Catton Jr.’s Bottleneck: Humanity Impending Impasse.
[5] My current region has been on the forefront of both these growth frontiers within Ontario, Canada and as a result I have witnessed seemingly unending expansion of suburban residential housing at the expense of very limited arable land. The local politicians parrot the narrative that such growth is only beneficial and any seemingly negative consequences (most of which are dismissed/ignored) can be fully and completely mitigated. Apparently the supply chains that supply most of our food needs are guaranteed…forever and always, Amen.
[6] This may not be so for very small, local governments (and I mean very small, where ‘leaders’ socialise regularly with their constituents as neighbour, friend, or acquaintance) but it is increasingly so as governments get larger and the ‘leadership’ is removed from ‘normal’ societal participation and interactions, tending to fraternise within very closed peer groups that have little in common with the ‘average’ citizen.
[8] And we’re not talking small numbers here. We are looking at hundreds of trillions of U.S. dollars in global debt. See: https://blogs.imf.org/2021/12/15/global-debt-reaches-a-record-226-trillion/. This doesn’t even account for unfunded liabilities (e.g., pension plans) that would put the ‘true’ level multiple times higher.
[10] To be honest, I am finding this difficult as well due to the widespread belief that growth only has beneficial aspects and a local town council that pushes this narrative at every opportunity.
[12] We live on a hill with a basement walkout so I’ve utilised the grade to connect 15 of our rain barrels with each higher one feeding into the next lower one, and because of our very cold winters I unhook them all and flip them over every fall to prevent damage to the hoses and taps
[13] Damned chipmunks chewed through the metal insect screening I had wrapped around the outside and began pulling un-composted matter into the yard — concrete blocks are on their sides so the openings allow air into the pile to help with the decomposition of organic matter.
Today’s contemplation has been prompted by an article by ecologist and educator Richard Heinberg (see link below).
Infinite growth. Finite planet. What could possibly go wrong?
As our awareness of the various existential predicaments we face[1] grows, most people cling to the default view that our sociopolitical elite/leaders will address the issues because they, after all, have been ‘awarded’ the responsibility of governing and helping to ‘solve’ the problems that arise with living in a complex world[2].
I have, for the most part[3], lost the notion that our ‘leaders’ are ‘servants’ of the population motivated to improve/sustain society as the common notion projects. That is the belief the elite want us to hold so we support the status quo power structures[4] from which they and their families benefit.
At one time I did hold on to this belief but my view has shifted to a somewhat contrarian perspective that the ruling class/elite/powers-that-be are driven primarily by the incentive to control/expand the wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide their revenue streams and thus power, using their positions of privilege to leverage circumstances to meet this driving motivation.
In an interesting article by educator and ecologist Richard Heinberg, the argument is made that our ruling elite were provided sound scientific evidence decades ago that humanity’s continued pursuit of the infinite growth chalice was anything but sustainable and, in fact, was heading us towards ecological overshoot and collapse[5].
What did our ruling class do in response? For the most part, they engaged their narrative control managers to craft stories which were propagated far and wide that, in fact, perpetual growth was not just entirely beneficial for humanity and achieving a host of great things for all, but completely possible due to our technological prowess and ingenuity.
Now, decades later, it seems to be more and more obvious that we’ve been led down the wrong path. That we have painted ourselves into a corner from which we cannot seem to escape and the moment of reckoning is fast approaching. And as Heinberg points out, the elite have failed to acknowledge this but instead doubled-down on their propaganda and control of information to distract from and deny this problematic perspective[6].
There are still a lot of people (most?) that do not comprehend the situation. The reasons for this are many and complex. From significant propaganda courtesy of the ruling elite and their courtiers that we are exposed to daily via the media institutions they control, to psychological mechanisms that cause us to deny uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking beliefs, think in herds, and defer to authority. We humans, in the words of author Robert Heinlein, are rationalising animals not rational ones; we don’t want to believe we are engaging in self-destructive behaviour so we justify our actions/beliefs and tell ourselves self-deluding tales to reduce our cognitive dissonance[7].
I have after some years of going through the grieving process arrived at the acceptance stage of our plight. ‘Collapse’ is inevitable. How it will proceed is still up in the air. There will be similarities to past complex societal decline but there will be significant differences. Perhaps the most significant difference to the past is that today’s people have lost the skills of self-sufficiency many people have required in the past regardless of how complex their society was. It was only a very minor segment of the population that depended almost entirely on the agrarian skills of their compatriots and the local supply chains that existed to survive. Today’s world is vastly different; to say little of the dependence upon energy-intensive technologies that make it so.
In the final accounting of all of this I have come to the same basic conclusion that Richard Heinberg does: don’t depend upon your government/ruling class for salvation from the coming collapse of current complexities. Such ‘faith’ is significantly misplaced and will be deeply disappointing if not disastrous for those that maintain it. It is personal, familial, and community resilience and preparedness that will be ease the decline; pursue this rather than believing you have significant agency via the ballot box and who might hold the reins of sociopolitical power.
As Heinberg writes: “But, dear reader, don’t hold your breath waiting for elites to get it right. I’ve used this essay to channel my own exasperation at cowards in high places, some of whom have enriched themselves to obscene degrees even as so many others languished. Rail against them a little or some, based on your level of outrage, but I’d advise directing the bulk of your energy to moving on. Anything that further divides us makes it harder for humanity to do whatever is still possible. A better path would be building personal and community resilience ahead of what’s coming. Ease the suffering. Save what can be saved.”
In this vein, I leave you to head back into our family’s growing food production gardens to continue preparing the soil and greenhouses for the coming warm weather. Much of the ground is still frozen in our area north of Toronto but there’s always work to be done and some of the raised beds have finally defrosted…
[1] Primarily, if not totally, the consequence of ecological overshoot
[2] Refer to archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies where it is asserted that “Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require.” (p. 37)
[3] I suppose I maintain a modicum of ‘hope’ that our ruling class may, in fact, be driven by higher morals than the evidence suggests but I think this may be the residual result of unending enculturation over decades prior to my losing ‘faith/trust’.
[4] I highly recommend reading Murray Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State for an interesting perspective on how State’s come into being and maintain the sociopolitical structures that benefit those in ‘control’.
[5] Important to read both Meadows et al.’s The Limits to Growth and William Catton Jr.’s Overshoot.
[6] Here I would add that the elite have in fact done what they almost always do in such circumstances: leveraged crisis to their advantage to meet their driving interest by marketing ‘solutions’ from which they profit, such as energy ‘alternatives’, and expanded control of the dominant narratives.
A contemplation prompted by a couple of posts I read early this morning. One was a list of actionable ideas for preparing for Peak Oil and the other an article on the mainstreaming of ‘Doomsday Prepping’.
I’ve written several times about the importance of energy. Of paramount importance to our complex, global and industrialised societies is the finite energy resource of fossil fuels, particularly oil[1]. Fossil fuels underpin almost everything we depend upon[2] and there is no adequate replacement. None. In fact, all those marketed as ‘renewable’ substitutes and promising a seamless transition away from fossil fuels leave out the very important and inconvenient fact that they rely quite substantially upon fossil fuels from the mining and refinement of the resources needed to produce them to their after-life reclamation or disposal — they are non-renewable energy-harvesting technologies that cannot exist without fossil fuels, and are only truly ‘renewable’ in the sense of the energy source they attempt to harness[3].
Unfortunately for our energy-intensive and -dependent complex societies, fossil fuel extraction has encountered significant diminishing returns and will eventually cease to be available; not because we’ve run out of them but because it will require increasing amounts of energy to retrieve and transport them than we get back in return. And despite all the narratives surrounding a ‘voluntary’ cessation of fossil fuel extraction in order to address anthropogenic climate change[4], this will not happen by our conscious endeavours for a variety of reasons but primarily because of the thermodynamic, biophysical, and economic properties inherent in our exploitation of a finite resource.
The tremendous surplus of energy we’ve been leveraging to sustain our phenomenal growth and technological wonders over the past century or more has disappeared. We’ve been able to avoid the negative consequences of this physical reality for the last few decades mostly through some technological tweaks and monetary/financial manipulations[5]. However, it is increasingly looking like our attempts to kick-the-can-down-the-road have reached a tipping point — there’s no more hiding the fact that infinite growth on a finite planet was never a sustainable thing. Ever. It’s only been possible in our imaginations and we’ve crafted some fairly comforting narratives to help us believe it was an entirely plausible scenario, particularly because of our ingenuity and technology; and we have some very strong psychological mechanisms in play to help us deny the anxiety-producing reality that this would all end someday.
It seems that the narratives that we can continue to chase the infinite growth chalice and that we can easily transition to some alternative energy source (that is miraculously ‘clean/green’) are appearing to be coming under significant pressure. Reliance upon finite resources in somebody else’s backyard is being exposed as problematic for self-sufficiency[6]. Supply chains and the just-in-time delivery systems are increasingly showing their fragility[7]. Price inflation (as a result of money/credit expansion) in almost everything is placing more and more people in precarious economic straits, while those at the top of our power and wealth structures are accumulating more and more. The ruling class is beginning to voice the idea that global ‘austerity’ may be more than just a ‘transitory’ phenomenon — naturally they’re blaming this on everything but finite resources, and their chasing perpetual growth and other related economic/geopolitical ambitions.
The jig is up. The scams are being exposed. Increasing numbers of people are catching on to the various frauds and propaganda. The faulty and purposely fanciful stories are being interpreted for what they are: attempts to keep the unsustainable sustained just a bit longer[8].
Degrowth or ‘collapse’ is coming whether we wish it or not.
While I often refer to ‘collapse’ of our complex societies, I tend to do this in the context of archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s definition of it[9]. As he argues, collapse manifests itself as: less stratification and social differentiation; less economic and occupational specialisation; less centralised control (i.e., less regulation by elites); less behavioural control and regimentation; less investment in the epiphenomena of complexity (e.g., monumental architecture); less flow of information between a central authority and its periphery; less trading (i.e., more localisation); less coordination of groups; a smaller territory.
Most of that, quite frankly, doesn’t sound too bad.
So, what to do about all this?
I believe it would be in people’s best interest to recognise this and prepare for it .
I would argue there are at minimum three things we as individuals/local communities need to be ensuring: procurement of potable water, local food production, regional/climate-based shelter needs. Everything else is ‘gravy’ and can be considered after the aforementioned are procured. Do not put your faith in our sociopolitical systems or the complex technologies they cheerlead. Both of these are unsustainable and actually work against one’s preparatory interests. No matter how much propaganda there exists about having choice and ‘control’ in a democratic society, there is actually very little if any with respect to the large societal trends. I, personally, lost the belief that voters have any real agency via a ballot box decades ago. As I’ve written previously, the ruling class’s primary motivation is the control and/or expansion of the wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide their revenue streams; it is not you or I except in terms of labour and tax generation.
More and more I personally am focusing upon the ‘actionable’ part of preparing rather than the ‘cerebral/academic/economic/political’ aspects of what’s happening. I can’t control what happens much outside of my own little ‘world’ so why worry about it and/or the reasons for what is happening.
And when push comes to shove it doesn’t matter the reason for our ‘collapse’, what matters is the re-learning of ‘lost’ skills/knowledge for self-sufficiency (especially for those of us enculturated in the ‘modern’ complex societies that have oriented towards a future of techno-cornucopianism that always had a relatively short lifespan on a finite planet). The last three books I have read are about composting, seed saving, and first aid/CPR. The one I just started is about mini-farming. You can find my personal summary notes of these books here (along with a couple of others, including Tainter’s).
And while my aging body may not be quite ready for the continuing work I have planned in our ever-increasing home food-production gardens, I am looking forward immensely to the coming transition to warmer weather for my northern climate and the time away from the distractions of the internet. My days will be spent outside with nature working on some specific projects requiring lots of physical labour and problem solving while I listen to some of my favourite music and get the exercise I need to be able to continue doing this work for as long as I’m physically capable.
Please consider visiting my website and purchasing my fictional novel trilogy, Olduvai, to help support my continuing online work. Less than $10 Canadian gets you the entire trilogy in PDF format.
[1] Virtually all of our other important energy sources are derived from and/or dependent upon fossil fuels in one way or another; especially the mining, refining, and transporting of minerals for nuclear plants, dams, solar panels, wind turbines, etc.. Steel and concrete production in particular cannot be done without fossil fuels.
[2] Of particular importance are resource extraction and refining, transportation, modern agriculture, long-distance supply chains, and ‘money’ (that is basically a potential claim on future energy).
[3] The narrative around ‘renewable energy’ being a solution to our fossil fuel use is a huge distraction from our underlying predicament of ecological overshoot. All the ‘clean/green’ energy in the world can’t save us from the ‘collapse’ that always accompanies a species overshooting its environmental carrying capacity and, in fact, the production and use of such energy-harvesting technologies will simply serve to put us further into overshoot.
[4] I am constantly confounded by the number of people/institutions that demand we cease our extraction of fossil fuels immediately without the slightest foresight as to what this would entail for our world, especially considering their associated call for a wholesale transition to ‘renewable’ energy. Their thinking is entirely magical in nature because it discounts entirely the reality of how non-renewable renewables are produced.
[5] Money/credit expansion and fraudulent accounting have been the primary avenues pursued.
[6] The current explanations for this are being warped by politics and economics that tends to take precedent over the biological and physical ones. But biology and physics always trumps human constructs in the end.
[7] I’ve long argued with my local politicians that dependence upon long-distance supply chains over which we have zero control is a recipe for disaster as they cheerlead the ever-increasing paving over of our limited arable lands to expand housing/industry. My Canadian province of Ontario depends upon these supply chains for 80+% of its food to feed its almost 15 million inhabitants.
[8] To consolidate more wealth at the top of the power/wealth structures in my opinion.
Today’s very short contemplation was in response to a post I was asked to comment upon that calls for sociopolitical ‘leadership’ to ‘tackle’ natural disasters that have been linked to the climate crisis.
I believe that most still don’t understand that the existential predicaments we are experiencing are but symptoms of the over-arching predicament of ecological overshoot[1]. Until and unless we acknowledge our overshoot we seem to be chasing maladaptive strategies in attempts to deal with its catastrophic symptoms and, in my opinion, asking the wrong people to address the situation.
For example, most people, in their well-intentioned desire to confront the effects of climate change, believe that if we abandon fossil fuel use and transition to some alternative (that has been mislabeled ‘green/clean’ and ‘sustainable’), we can maintain our energy-intensive complexities. Understanding that energy-harvesting technologies (e.g., solar, wind, wave, nuclear) not only depend upon the fossil fuel platform but upon finite resources that require a continuation of environmentally-/ecologically-destructive processes to retrieve and refine radically alters how one should perceive our path forward.
We need to be pursuing radical degrowth in all its iterations, from population to economics. Modern living standards of advanced economies (even of ‘emerging’ economies) are not in any way shape or form sustainable on a finite planet. If we cannot accept this and acknowledge that this needs to guide our responses and actions, then we are in all likelihood destined (some argue it is all but guaranteed) to experience the collapse that always accompanies overshoot. And such collapse will only increase in severity when it eventually occurs if we continue to chase misguided ‘solutions’ that further reduce the natural carrying capacity of the planet.
Given that our sociopolitical systems are built on power/wealth structures that for some time now have come to rely almost exclusively upon chasing the perpetual growth chalice, it seems to me that looking to them to correct our path is completely misplaced and increasingly more destructive in the end. Their tendency is to talk a good talk about addressing issues but when push comes to shove they almost always leverage such crises to their own advantage in one way or another to expand upon and prolong the Ponzi schemes they preside over[2].
As I argued in a recent article[3], people: “are encouraged to focus on relocalising the basic aspects of living (i.e., potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs) as much as possible and reconnect with community members who will be your primary supports as things go increasingly sideways. Do not put your faith in our so-called political ‘leaders’. Despite their propaganda, they do not have your best interests at the top of their agendas; if such an incentive even makes the agenda except perhaps around election time when the marketing of more, more, more really blossoms. Because, you know, more is in your best interest…only it’s not.”
Yes, we need to shut down our fossil fuel industry but we also need to realise there is no ‘replacement’ for the significant energy it supplies society. The post-carbon world will be radically, and I mean radically, different than today. The illusion of a modern utopia with electric vehicles and all the accoutrements painted by the techno-cornucopian snake oil salesmen (that are little more than grifters lining their pockets) must be abandoned if we are to have any hope of getting through the bottleneck we have created for our species and most others on this planet.
Please consider visiting my website and helping to support its continuation through the purchase of my ‘fictional’ collapse trilogy: Olduvai.
[1] If you have yet to read William Catton Jr.’s Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, I highly recommend it. It is fundamental to understanding overshoot. You can find my personal summary notes here.
[2] I use the term Ponzi scheme intentionally given the fact that such contrivances require continual growth to keep from collapsing and that they are, for all intents and purposes, rackets that benefit a few at the expense of the many participants.
Today’s contemplation has been generated in response to some comments on a Chris Hedges’ article I shared in the Peak Oil Facebook group I am a member of. Hedges’ article suggests our civilisation has not been the first to collapse but it will be the last. Two members suggested this is likely not to be the case and that another will arise — I have my doubts.
Will another civilisation rise after ours collapses?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Circumstances are always different and most certainly are today with our globalised, industrial civilisation that is, for all intents and purposes, completely reliant upon the dense and highly-transportable energy of fossil fuels — a finite resource that has encountered significant diminishing returns.
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three significant impediments to a global, complex society again rising from the ashes of our destined-to-collapse one.
First, our environment (globally) has been degraded to a significant degree. Little fertile soil remains with most of the arable lands having to depend upon fossil fuel supplements to boost food production to feed all of us[1]. Toxic chemicals have spread across the planet, some of which have had devastating impacts upon ecological systems and other species (especially very important pollinators)[2]. It will take significant time, perhaps millennia, for our planet to recover and allow the over-exploitation that is necessary for a widespread, complex society to once again flourish[3]. And then there are those who contend that our burning of fossil fuels have created an irreversible greenhouse effect that is leading to feedback loops that will ensure inhospitable environmental conditions and precluding many, if any, species to survive long on this planet[4].
Second, today’s complex societies (but especially so-called ‘advanced’ economies) have resulted in a situation — because of our leveraging of fossil fuels — where almost no one has the skills/knowledge to be self-sufficient. In the past, most of a population was still heavily involved in food production and fundamental self-sufficiency skills, and so when a society ‘collapsed’ most people dispersed into the countryside and were able to fend for themselves[5]. That is certainly not the case today. The ability to procure potable water, grow one’s own food and/or hunt and gather, and construct shelter needs for the regional climate has been mostly lost. Few of an advanced economy’s populace would survive for much more than a few weeks/months without the ‘conveniences’ of our many energy slaves due to this loss of knowledge/skills — to say little of the chaos that would ensue and probably wipeout many of those who might possess the wherewithal to get to the other side of the ecological bottleneck we seem to be in[6].
Finally, there are those very dangerous complexities that we have created that could put an exclamation mark upon our industrialised society’s impending collapse, any peoples remaining, and the ability to establish a future complex society. Nuclear power plants. Biosafety labs. Chemical production/storage facilities. We have a potpourri of potential environmental catastrophes once the ability to contain/manage these facilities and their waste products disappears — to say little of the damage that has already been done to our ecological systems from them. 437+ nuclear power reactors[7]. 59 biosafety labs[8]. Countless chemical production and storage facilities[9]. I can only imagine the local/regional/global impact of a loss of ‘containment’.
I’d argue the chips are stacked firmly against another complex society, certainly global-spanning one, developing again in the future. Of course, as several notable personalities have been credited with stating: It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future[10].
Only time will tell…
To help support my internet presence, please consider visiting my website and purchasing my ‘fictional’ collapse novel trilogy — Olduvai.
[1] I won’t even touch upon the overshoot predicament here. See: Catton, Jr., W.R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 978–0–252–00988–4).
Another contemplation prompted by an email my mum sent me. This is a lengthier article than usual (and intended) since I added further points each time I proofread it…
“This was sent to us from a college friend of XXX’s but I think he has a valid point!
___
I’ve always doubted mankind’s impact on the issue of climate change. After all, earth has had two ice ages that were followed by two warming cycles, all before humans left their caves. So, to me, the debate is whether there is a new natural, million year warming or cooling trend. If there is, there is nothing we can do about it. The following is a mixture of pictures and political comment on the matter [not included]. I am disappointed no one has followed the money and identified all those who gained notoriety, wealth, and power over the past 20 years of fear mongering.
I will begin by stating there are a growing number of people who have (and for some time) been following the ‘money’ and have uncovered growing manipulation by the ‘elite’ in a variety of areas and ways (it goes far beyond global warming/climate change). G. Edward Griffin, for example, talks about this entire situation of environmental concerns being leveraged by the ‘ruling class’ to profit from in some detail at the end of his in-depth and biting critique of the U.S.’s central banking system, the Federal Reserve, in The Creature From Jekyll Island (1994) — given the world reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar, the Fed is perhaps the most pernicious institution currently on our planet, for it those who control the creation and distribution of ‘money’ that are amongst the most powerful on the planet.
Most of those who have done this type of research, however, do not have the platform or finances for disseminating their ideas in the way that the mainstream media and/or politicians do, and for the most part their concerns have been overwhelmed by the constant propaganda of the ruling class and suppressed (and increasingly so given the expanding calls for censorship amid accusations of ‘fake news/misinformation’ by ‘the-powers-that-be’). I believe that’s changing but the impediments to revealing those manipulating the dials behind the curtain are huge; and when one does throw light upon the dark corners of our elite, more often than not if the challengers of mainstream narratives cannot be ostracised or marginalised, they are increasingly ending up like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange.
Regardless, here’s my spin on things ‘environmental’ and the connection with those who would use them for profit.
Global warming/climate change is real. There is simply too much documented evidence that it is happening to deny it. It is quite possible to cherry pick evidence/data to support diametrically-opposed perspectives on its implications, but this is true for almost all ‘science’ — it is in the ‘interpretation’ of observable data and their meaning where we get most ‘disagreements’. The overwhelming majority of evidence, however, shows that it is occurring and trending in the wrong direction as far as human society is concerned (let alone all the other species impacted by such environmental shifts; human exacerbated or not). In fact, given how fragile and vulnerable our increasingly complex systems are (especially food production), a move of the climate even marginally in any direction will be catastrophic for humanity — particularly for regions that do not or cannot produce their own food.
How global warming/climate change will unfold in the future is even more controversial as complex systems with their non-linear feedback loops and emergent phenomena make them virtually impossible to model accurately; even very minuscule input errors can have oversized impacts on future states within predictive models. So, the ‘hothouse Earth’ extreme being predicted by some may or may not turn out to be accurate; only time can be the ultimate arbiter. As physicist Niels Bohr is credited with stating: It’s hard to make predictions, especially if they’re about the future. For better or for worse, that’s science modelling (and, naturally, this opens the door to those who wish to steer the narrative in particular directions).
This being said, there is far more and increasing evidence that human expansion is having a significant negative impact on the planet and its various sinks (processes/systems that absorb and cleanse pollutants/toxins), not just atmospheric overloading of greenhouse gases; how can the processes of resource extraction and industrial production, along with basic living requirements of almost 8 billion apex predatory humans, not? We have expanded into virtually every available ecological niche on the globe, displacing and exterminating countless others species in the process (biodiversity loss being an even more cataclysmic predicament than climate change) and using increasingly complex technology to extract dwindling and progressively marginal resources to support this — resources that are finite in nature.
On top of this obvious impact humanity is having on the planet are the sociocultural structures human societies have developed to organise themselves and their increasingly complex existence. Primary among these are the ‘power’ structures of politics and wealth (monetary/financial). Every large, complex society develops a ruling class of some type that tends to sit at the top of such structures.
Regardless of whether those in this class of people have come to their positions through some ‘democratic’ process or by way of hereditary tradition, they (or at least their financial supporters) tend to hold ‘ownership’ of the most influential aspects of society such as: military/security, monetary/financial, industrial, energy/resource, media/information, etc.. Their primary motivation tends to be to hold onto and/or expand the ‘power/revenue’ their privilege provides them using whatever means are available to them and are necessary, but especially war (both hot and indirect) and propaganda/narrative control (for they still require acquiescence of their ‘citizens/subjects’ even if it is just passive since they are significantly outnumbered).
It is my firm belief that the ruling class has taken the very real and increasing evidence that there are devastating environmental/ecological consequences for humanity’s expansion, chosen one in particular, and are leveraging it to create a narrative that serves their primary motivation. They have latched onto global warming/climate change/carbon emissions and are using it to increase taxes and market/sell products (e.g., ‘clean/green’ renewables, electric vehicles, etc.), while also justifying the creation and distribution (primarily to themselves) of trillions of units of fiat currency because of this ‘crisis’ (something they’ve done even more dramatically than usual during the Covid pandemic, to say little of the huge surge in this currency expansion following the 2008 Great Financial Crisis when quite a number of financial institutions were ‘bailed out’).
Simply put, they are pushing a narrative that serves to enrich themselves: we can be ‘saved’ from climate change by appropriately-assigned taxes and funneling humanity’s wealth and resources into specific industrial products (the production and distribution of which they own and profit from).
I won’t dwell on the evidence that such industrial production actually makes our situation even worse (refer to this site for more on this), but suffice it to say the fundamental predicament we find ourselves embroiled in is not global warming/climate change/carbon emissions but ecological overshoot. The overloading of sinks (including the dispersal of greenhouse gases — that is far more than just carbon dioxide) is but one of the various consequences of our overshooting the natural carrying capacity of our planet. There are simply far too many of us for the planet’s natural resources to sustain; and this is especially true for the living standards of so-called ‘advanced’ economies that are responsible for the lion’s share of resource extraction (especially but not exclusively fossil fuels) and all the negative consequences that flow from this.
We do have a very devastating predicament impacting our planet, but it’s not the one the world tends to be focused upon (and we can thank the ‘marketers’ of the ruling class for this: politicians and the mainstream media). I believe the primary reason the focus is not on our fundamental existential threat is because the means of addressing it is the exact opposite of what the ruling class needs/wants to meet their primary motivation: abandonment and reversal of the pursuit of the infinite growth chalice, especially for ‘advanced’ economies. The elite do not want to kill the golden goose (perpetual growth) that feeds their appetites for more power and wealth — they also need growth to keep the various Ponzi-like systems they’ve created from collapsing.
I have asked rhetorically over the past decade or so in one form or another the following: what could possibly go wrong with the strategy of infinite growth on a finite planet? Well, a lot actually. We can expect things to go even further sideways as the decline we are in speeds up and the-powers-that-be attempt to maintain their privileged positions in a decaying/contracting world — I expect a dramatic shift towards totalitarian/authoritarian political systems as the elite attempt to maintain and possibly expand their slice of an ever-shrinking pie amidst an increasingly disenfranchised and impoverished population.
The evidence of all this is building and has been for some time, but our tendency towards denial is making it next to impossible for most to see. A further complication is our tendency to defer to authority and ‘trust’ our various institutions. When politicians and economists speak of ‘confidence’ and needing to maintain this, it’s primarily because that’s all that keeping the blinkers on right now: our faith in and belief that the systems we increasingly depend upon will forever and always be there.
There is no ‘solving’ our predicament of overshoot, however. Biological and physical processes and the consequences that flow from them cannot be ‘solved’. Overshoot has occurred and species that experience such a phenomenon have but two paths for their future: ‘collapse’ back to a level that the environment can support or extinction.
There may be ‘hiding’ some of the consequences of human overshoot for a time. Currently this is done via debt/credit expansion in order to steal from the future, but also through narrative control and distractions that help to take the focus off the pillaging of the treasury by the elite — war being a favoured one since it helps to funnel funds/resources as well to the ruling class. There is also the additional help of a temporal lag between cause and effect as pollutants can accumulate for quite some time before the impacts are recognised or connected to our activities. We are capable of addressing some of the effects but only inconsequentially at the margins; the momentum is far too large for us to have any significant effect. This is all that can be done, however. Nature and physics always bat last no matter our belief that we exist above and beyond them.
We also have built-in psychological mechanisms that help us to reduce our stress/anxiety when confronted by conflicting information, especially that challenges our beliefs/wishes. We tend to ignore or reinterpret data that increases our cognitive dissonance so as to confirm/support our beliefs and feel less anxious. We additionally cling more forcefully and fully to our beliefs when they are challenged — it doesn’t matter whether our interpretation of the world reflects ‘reality’ or not.
We are not special in nature, however, and every complex society that has existed in pre/history has eventually succumbed to decline/collapse — the reasons vary, but they always do. Our belief that we are unique or that our technological prowess and ingenuity will somehow ‘save’ us is all part of the denial/bargaining that comes with the grieving process when loss is imminent or happened.
Coming to grips with our own and/or society’s mortality is difficult and not everyone makes it to the acceptance stage of grieving. We want to believe it won’t happen but no one, not one of us gets out of here alive. Everything and everyone comes to an end eventually.
The maddening part of all this is that there are individuals/institutions that are leveraging our fear and anxiety about all these factors and uncertainties to their own nefarious and self-serving ends. The ruling class enriching themselves as we begin the collapse that always accompanies overshoot is perhaps one of if not the most exasperating aspect of all this since they are not only benefiting (at least for the short term because they will experience the same collapse that we all will) but they are cheerleading the very aspects that have led us here.
I happened across this article a couple of days ago that does a great job of listing some of the most notable reasons our global complex societies are experiencing an apparent coalescence of crises, with the underlying issue being ecological overshoot. Here is a link to my most recent article on the coming ‘collapse’ that is similar in its messaging, and my personal summary notes for a number of books but especially William Catton, Jr.’s Overshoot.
Dennis Meadows thinks so. Forty years after his book The Limits to Growth, he explains why
Courtesy of Dennis Meadows
On March 2, 1972, a team of experts from MIT presented a groundbreaking report called The Limits to Growth to scientists, journalists and others assembled at the Smithsonian Castle. Released days later in book form, the study was one of the first to use computer modeling to address a centuries-old question: When will the population outgrow the planet and the natural resources it has to offer?
The researchers, led by scientist Dennis Meadows, warned that if current trends in population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion continued, that dark time—marked by a plummeting population, a contracting economy and environmental collapse—would come within 100 years.
In four decades, The Limits to Growth has sold over ten million copies in more than 30 languages. The book is part of the canon of great environmental literature of the 20th century. Yet, the public has done little to avert the disaster it foretells.
To mark the report’s 40th anniversary, experts gathered in Washington, D.C. on March 1. Meadows and Jorgen Randers, two authors of The Limits to Growth, and other speakers discussed the challenges of forging ahead into a sustainable future at “Perspectives on Limits to Growth: Challenges to Building a Sustainable Planet,” a symposium hosted by the Smithsonian Institution and the Club of Rome, the global think tank that sponsored the original report.
I spoke with Meadows, who retired in 2004 after 35 years as a professor at MIT, Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire. We discussed the report and why he feels it is too late for sustainable development and it is now time for resilience.
We are witnessing the end of an era in history spanning half a millennium; the end of Western dominance in geopolitics. For those who understand the role of resources and energy in economics, culture and politics, it comes as no surprise that this shift in global power has an awful lot to do with resource depletion in particular, and overshoot in general — not unlike the many major shifts in human history. What we are facing here is something akin to the fall of the Soviet Union, but this time on steroids, and with global consequences affecting every nation on the planet to boot.
We live in truly remarkable times. Most people born into a middle of an era expect things to continue smoothly, with the past being a reliable guide for the future. Those who have the “fortune” to born into the very last decades of an age tend to think similarly, and fail to recognize that they are witnessing something which future historians (if there will be any) will commemorate as an end to a period, and a beginning of a new era. Perhaps its no exaggeration to say, that what we see here is the collapse of modernity in two acts, the first being the fall of the West.
To EV Or Not To EV? One Of Many Questions Regarding Our ‘Clean/Green’ Utopian Future, Part 2.
In Part 1 of this two-part Contemplation I argue that the recent trumpeting of electric vehicle (EV) car sales as a prologue to their imminent mass adoption and possibly ‘saving of the world’ from our errant carbon emission ways is more a projection of hope than reflective of realities behind some rather opaque curtains. This growth may continue as cheerleaders hope — at least for a bit longer, and thus appearing to support their assertions — but there exist some relatively strong headwinds suggesting it will not. Time of course will tell…
In attempting to peer behind or through the curtains one must consider: the pattern of previous technology bubbles created by intense mass marketing and purchases by early adopters; the evidence for the manipulation of sales growth statistics feeding into the narrative of widespread and growing adoption; and, the need for current growth to continue in light of resource constraints, a lack of infrastructure supports, government subsidy withdrawals, inflation impacts, and the cost concerns of purchasers (see this recent Bloomberg news article that highlights the international car rental agency Hertz Global Holdings unloading 20,000 EVs (about 1/3 of its U.S. EV fleet) due to higher repair costs, low demand, and reinvesting some of the sales dollars into ICE vehicles).
There is also growing skepticism towards the most marketed aspect of EVs: they are significantly better for the planet’s environment and ecological systems[1]. One needs to step well outside the Overton Window created by the marketing propaganda of retailers (and regurgitated by much mainstream media and most politicians) to gain a more balanced view of this widespread assertion. And this is where I begin this Contemplation…
Carbon tunnel vision has created a widely-accepted narrative where the most dominant and for many the only impact of concern surrounding transportation vehicles seems to be what exits the tailpipe of an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle and does not for an EV. This creates a very narrow, keyhole perspective that ignores the embodied energy and a wide variety of ecologically-destructive, hydrocarbon-based industrial processes that are necessary for the production, maintenance, and eventual reclamation/disposal of both types of vehicles.
As I point out in Part 1 of my series of Contemplations on carbon tunnel vision and energy blindness: “…the following graphic demonstrates (with respect to particular aspects of the issue of ‘sustainability’) this tendency to narrow our perspective can prevent the acknowledgement of so many other aspects of our world — and the graphic only includes some of the many others that could be considered, such as land-system change and biogeochemical flows. Perhaps most relevant is that this tunnel vision keeps many from recognising that humans exist within a world of complex systems that are intertwined and connected in nonlinear ways that the human brain cannot fathom easily, if at all.
[See an expanded version that includes more variables we’re mostly blind to below]
My own bias leads me to the belief that this hyper-focus on carbon emissions is leading many well-intentioned people to overlook the argument that atmospheric overloading is but one symptom predicament of our overarching predicament of ecological overshoot. As a result, they miss all the other symptom predicaments (e.g., biodiversity loss, resource depletion, soil degradation, geopolitical conflicts, etc.) of this overshoot and consequently advocate for ‘solutions’ that are, in fact, exacerbating our situation.
This rather narrowed perspective tends to be along the lines that if we can curtail/eliminate carbon emissions — usually through a shift in our technology to supposed ‘carbon-free’ ones — then we can avoid the negative repercussions that accompany the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, most prominently climate change. For many this is the only (or, at least, the most prominent) issue that needs to be addressed to ensure our species’ transition to a ‘sustainable’ way of living.
So, let’s try for a moment to open up this rather narrow keyhole and take in a wider perspective. Let’s look at how some of the other significant planetary boundaries are being broached.
When one opens the keyhole wider, the concern with carbon emissions/climate change may be seen as an outsized one in comparison to boundaries that appear to have been more significantly broached, such as: novel entities, biosphere integrity, land-system change, biogeochemical flows, and fresh water change.
This is not to say that the boundary of climate change is not important, it’s to try to better understand why a hyper-focus on carbon emissions is problematic: it’s one of several tipping points that need our attention, and not even the worst. The most pressing areas that we appear to have overshot beyond climate change include:
· Biogeochemical flows: agriculture and industry have increased significantly the flow of phosphorous and nitrogen into ecological systems and overloaded natural sinks (e.g., atmosphere and oceans)
· Novel entities: geologically-novel (i.e., human-made) substances that can have large-scale impacts upon Earth system processes (e.g., chemicals, plastics, etc.) have grown exponentially, even to the point of some existing in all global water supplies
· Biosphere integrity: human demand for food, water, and natural resources are decimating ecosystems (clearing land for mining and agriculture, for example, may have the worst impacts)
· Freshwater change: global groundwater levels in particular have been significantly altered by human activity and expansion (especially our drawdown of aquifers that exceed significantly their replenishment)
· Land-system change: human conversion of land systems (e.g., solar farms, agriculture, etc.) has impacts upon several of the other boundaries (i.e., biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, freshwater change) and the significantly important hydrological cycle
Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Wang-Erlandsson et al 2022.
Carbon tunnel vision tends to help minimise, or at worst, ignore these other predicaments of our ecological overshoot. In fact, what I sense and what some of my conversations did suggest is that the issue of ecological overshoot itself is completely off the radar for these commenters. One, in fact, admitted he had never read Catton’s book on the subject but in ‘skimming over’ the summary notes I sent a link for he simply saw “a bunch of vague assertions…didn’t learn anything…probably heading towards a hard wall…”. He then added for effect: “I don’t see any solutions from you. I do see almost entirely your focus on smearing renewables with the exact same material the Deniers and carbon pollution people do. Exactly the same.””
Leaving aside the competing narratives regarding whether or not carbon emissions are in reality greatly reduced through the production and use of EVs[2] — perhaps mostly due to the source fuel for creating much of the world’s electricity that is necessary for powering EVs (hint: it’s hydrocarbons[3]) — for most critics of EVs the dominant issue is the massive mining that is required for the materials to construct the battery components for the storage of energy to run EVs[4].
Proponents of EVs tend to ignore the significantly destructive mining that is necessary and/or rationalise it away by arguing that mining can be carried out in a more environmentally-friendly manner[5], can be avoided through recycling[6], and/or future technological breakthroughs will drastically reduce its impact[7]. An example of this type of thinking is shared in a discussion at the end of this Contemplation.
Regardless of such hopefulness about future possibilities, mining is currently one of the most ecologically-destructive industrial processes performed by humans[8], and a lot must be carried out for the finite battery minerals necessary to store the electrical power required to run EVs[9] — to say little regarding all of the finite hydrocarbon inputs needed to carry this out[10] and the negative societal impacts that arise in areas where much of this mining takes place[11]. All of this potential additional mining has raised growing concerns about the ecological systems impacts of supposed ‘clean-energy’ vehicles[12], and in fact this is true for all non-renewable, renewable energy-based technologies (NRREBTs) that have been marketed as ‘green’ and ‘clean’.
Then there’s also how EVs will worsen plastic pollution in our ecological systems[13]. For a variety of reasons, but especially because they are heavier due to the weight of battery packs, the industry has increased significantly the use of plastic components in EVs[14]. Plastics, of course, are derived from petrochemicals. This graphic depicts the vast array of plastic components that help to create an EV. It is estimated that close to 50% of an EV’s volume is composed of plastic.
These hydrocarbon-based components are integral to the production of EVs and the industry argues that it is through the continued and expanded use of these hydrocarbon-based products that EVs will become even more efficient. (Note that the plasticisation of ICE vehicles has also been occurring[15] in an effort to reduce vehicle weight, avoid corrosion, and reduce costs).
Add on top of this aspect that it has been determined that car tire and brake wear of all types of transportation vehicles are the primary cause of microplastic pollution[16]. Since EVs tend to be much heavier than ICE vehicles (due to their battery packs), the wear on these components is increased[17] leading to substantially increased microplastic pollution with EVs compared to ICE vehicles.
This particular petrochemical-based, plastic-pollution aspect is one that is rarely discussed and awareness of it needs to be raised since it appears our broaching of this specific planetary boundary (novel entities) is one of our most problematic (see graphic above), yet greatly ignored[18] — particularly when it comes to evaluating the ecological impact of EVs. EV advocates are quick to counter such issues with a reminder that it’s carbon emissions that is the most significant and/or only problem to be dealt with (e.g., don’t condemn the good looking for the perfect), minimising the harm caused by other aspects — a clear reflection of the carbon tunnel vision problem summarised above.
Further, as the curtain gets drawn aside with regard to the recycling industry and the myths that have surrounded it[19], it has become apparent that: only a portion of products actually get recycled, with a lot impossible to recycle and ending up in landfills; it requires large amounts of energy, perhaps not as much as the original product production but certainly not zero and in some cases more (and then there’s Jevon’s Paradox regarding how ‘efficiency’ savings are negated via increased demands); and, depending on what is being recycled and the processing necessary, there is much in the way of toxic pollutants created.
So, the argument that EVs and all or most of their components can be recycled and thus mining for its production can be significantly minimised falls far, far short of reality — to say little about the second law of thermodynamics and the related concept of entropy. And this is as true for ICE vehicles as it is for EVs; some of the components can be recycled (with associated ‘costs’) but much cannot — and this is particularly true for the hydrocarbon-derived, plastic components[20].
Despite narratives to the contrary, replacing billions of ICE vehicles with EVs will require significant quantities of hydrocarbon extraction, processing, and burning; the opposite of what EV cheerleaders argue is the primary reason for transitioning to them — to say little about all the hydrocarbons necessary to build and maintain/resurface the roadways these vehicles tend to travel upon, be they asphalt or gravel. Often, EV enthusiasts will counter this reality with arguments that the goal is to reduce the number of vehicles (particularly if they are ICE-based) on the road at the same time, thus mitigating the replacement problem.
This is not happening, however. The world is adding more and more vehicles every year[21], and the vast majority are ICE vehicles. EVs are, despite the ‘replacement-theory marketing hype’, becoming additive to our globe’s vehicles, not replacing the ICE fleet. Not surprisingly, this is exactly the same pattern with non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (NRREHTs) such as solar panels and wind turbines — they are adding to our energy production, not replacing any of the hydrocarbon-based energy production they are supposedly meant to supplant[22].
In fact, as energy analyst/petroleum geologist Art Berman argues in this article localities that have taken up large number of EVs (e.g., Norway, where 23% of their fleet was composed of EVs in 2022) have witnessed little to no impact on their overall hydrocarbon consumption. Despite repeated assertions that hydrocarbon demand will drop with the adoption of EVs, the data indicates this is simply false. Berman’s conclusion: “If you like EVs, you should buy one but the data don’t support that driving one will do anything to save the planet.”
It’s perhaps important at this juncture to recall the opening passage from an article authored by Dr. Bill Rees and Meigan Siebert critical of the entire mainstream energy transition narrative:
“We begin with a reminder that humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed “stories” that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”
The construct that EVs are ‘green/clean’ and an important component of a global energy transition has been with us for the past couple of decades. It took a strong foothold as earlier emissions standards for an array of pollutants from vehicles and industry, as well as greater fuel efficiency, drove research[23] and subsequent narratives. With the realisation that there were technological limits to fuel efficiency improvements, it was suggested that the most ‘efficient’ engine would be the one that didn’t require traditional hydrocarbon fuel due to energy storage batteries as the ‘fuel’. An added ‘benefit’ would be the elimination of exhaust emissions (ignoring, of course, all the emissions created in the manufacture of the batteries, and/or the electricity to charge them). Thus, through the magic of mass marketing, was born the story that EVs were ‘clean’ and ‘green’.
There has been a concerted effort to spread this notion of EV ‘cleanliness’ far and wide, especially trumpeting the lack of tailpipe emissions. A majority of the ‘positive-outlook’ articles that arose in the wake of this have been from publications that are heavily slanted towards encouraging NRREBTs and/or the financing of/investing in them. These are, for the most part, individuals/businesses significantly ‘invested’ in seeing the rapid and widespread adoption of EVs and other ‘green/clean’ technologies. Their rhetoric is purposely slanted towards placing EVs in a positive light and then leveraging that perspective towards purchasers who may wish to ‘do the right thing’ where ‘the right thing’ is buying an NRREBT such as an EV.
This is Marketing 101: grow business revenue through the expansion of market share by getting the product front and centre for potential customers, particularly via the highlighting of features and/or benefits[24]. And when multiple billions (perhaps trillions) of dollars are up for grabs, multiple millions (perhaps billions) will be ‘invested’ in managing/guiding the narrative via all sorts of avenues — to say little about the mainstream media’s dependence upon funding in the way of advertising dollars, regardless of the ‘accuracy’ of what is being marketed via their product.
The massive and significant marketing propaganda we are constantly exposed to[25] about EVs and their ‘great-for-the-planet’ attributes have convinced a lot of people. The majority of these accept without question the positive aspects highlighted in commercial advertising or preached by EV cheerleaders. The illusory truth effect explains a lot of the power of this propaganda/advertising on beliefs: repeated exposure to information regardless of its validity/reliability comes to be perceived as truthful, primarily because familiarity overpowers rationality. This is why many hundreds of billions (perhaps trillions when one includes ‘public relations’ work/agencies/departments for corporations and governments) of dollars are ‘invested’ annually in advertising and narrative management — it works to impact belief systems and thus behaviour[26].
I would argue that consumers are additionally more prone to such narratives to help alleviate and/or reduce the cognitive dissonance that arises from a growing awareness that industrial civilisation is unsustainable and destructive to ecological systems (i.e., infinite growth — that we are continuing to pursue/experience — is impossible on a finite planet and has significant negative repercussions) yet wishing to also believe that human ingenuity and our technological prowess can overcome and ‘solve’ the predicament of human ecological overshoot and/or its symptom predicaments (e.g., biodiversity loss, resource depletion/scarcity, etc.)[27].
A part of me additionally believes that the narrative that EVs can be part of some grand ‘solution’ to our ecological overshoot predicament and its various symptom predicaments is the mind’s attempt to not only reduce anxiety-provoking thoughts but cling to the notion that we all have agency in/control over a very uncertain future[28]. We story-telling apes are creating tales to support such belief systems and reduce our anxiety. Perhaps buying an EV is subsequently not really about addressing environmental concerns; it’s about telling ourselves a comforting tale and engaging in some virtue-signalling to others to help us maintain our self-image as thoughtful, caring beings with agency over our future[29].
Personally, I view technocornucopian perspectives as delusional in a world of significant human ecological overshoot where the surplus energy to continue pursuing growth and such complex technologies is quickly disappearing[30] (if not already exhausted). We have for some time been pulling growth from the future via financial/monetary machinations and supported by geo/political gamesmanship (i.e., wars over resources and market control)[31].
That governments are not only complicit but encouraging the deception about EVs and NRREBTs being ‘green’ perhaps says a lot about their stake in the narrative. And what is a government’s incentive? Aside from the need in a debt-/credit-based economic system to chase perpetual growth to avoid ‘collapse’, this may be just another racket being perpetrated on the masses as U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler suggested war is.
For myself, I tend to gravitate towards the entire energy transition narrative (of which EVs are but one component) being another in a wide array of profiteering rackets, leveraging the growing evidence and recognition that Homo sapiens are having a profoundly negative impact on the planet’s ecological systems. And those that are benefitting from this story will disseminate and protect it vociferously. Others, well, they’re caught up in the narrative/propaganda.
Given the Ponzi-type nature of our monetary/financial/economic systems, geopolitical stressors, resource constraints, and ecological concerns, one has to wonder just how far and how long the uptake of these NRREBTs can or will continue. In fact, some are arguing that the wheels have already fallen off with increasing numbers of planned projects being paused/cancelled[32]. And despite all the marketing and shouting from rooftops that the EV market is exploding, the sheen appears to be coming off the EV narrative.
Michael Shedlock begins this article with: “The market for used EVs is plummeting. What will car rental companies do with the used ones? Problems started in China but have spread to Europe and the US.” Citing a Bloomberg article, he highlights that “A subsidy-fueled boom helped build China into an electric-car giant but left weed-infested lots across the nation brimming with unwanted battery-powered vehicles.”
In this article economist Stephen Moore is quoted as stating: “The Edsel was one of the great flops of all time. I’m here to tell you, if these trends continue, we’re going to see the EV market become the next big flop because car buyers don’t want them.”
Let’s dispense with the binary narrative that is often on display and be perfectly clear and honest for a moment. Both EVs and ICE vehicles — along with all the infrastructure supports necessary for their production and use — are detrimental to our significantly important ecological systems. The continuing production and use of one, the other, or both simply exacerbates the human ecological overshoot predicament.
Once again, while the future cannot be predicted with much accuracy, the current reality is much, much different than the bargaining being carried out by those wishing to see a shift from ICE vehicles to EVs — particularly given that the environmental advantages cheerleaders crow on about are mostly founded upon as-yet-to-be-hatched-technologically-improved-and-massively-scaled-up chickens. These potential breakthroughs/improvements may or may not come to fruition. Most likely they will not make it much beyond a research lab or marginal prototype use, and believing otherwise is akin to faith/hope/wishful thinking; it is certainly not reflective of current realities.
We are being convinced by growth profiteers and their narrative managers that ‘smart’ or ‘green’ or the ridiculously oxymoronic notion of ‘sustainable’ growth is the way to maintain ‘progress’ and that human ingenuity, especially where technology is concerned, will extricate us from any and all issues we encounter along this inevitable path. We are not abiding by the precautionary principle and erring on the side of caution, however; not even close. We are travelling full-steam ahead and creating rationalisations/justifications in our story-telling manner to make us feel good about our suicidal behaviour and actions, thereby reducing our cognitive dissonance.
Without a significant, and likely expedient, reduction of both types of vehicles (that we are very unlikely to do voluntarily), there is little point in bargaining ploys to keep the status quo from continuing for as long as possible which seems to be what the narrative around an energy ‘transition’ and the adoption of NRREBTs is.
I had written a suggestive path forward on this issue that might provide some mitigation by avoiding the exacerbation of our destructive tendencies but in reflection see little point in sharing it. Given the human proclivity to pursue the business-as-usual scenario painted by Meadow’s et al. in The Limits to Growth over the past handful of decades[33], I’m certain any guideline would not be pursued and it would simply be cathartic for me.
While most want ‘solutions’ to our overshoot predicament, this demonstrates a weak understanding of not only what a predicament is (it has no ‘solution’) but also displays energy/resource blindness and denial of the ongoing ecological systems destruction that accompanies all complex technological ‘solutions’. The best mitigation any of us can pursue is a dramatic reduction in our consumptive and excessive tendencies.
The best vehicle in terms of reducing damage to our planet is the one not produced, regardless of type. If reducing one’s dependency upon and/or use of a well-maintained ICE vehicle can help to prevent the production of a new vehicle (of either type), then the negative ecological systems damage that accompanies the creation of transportation vehicles is reduced dramatically. Reducing dependence upon and/or use of an ICE vehicle (to zero if at all possible) will likely go much further than purchasing an EV.
You are not a progressive steward of the environment with your purchase or heralding of an EV (or related NRREBTs). That is a narrative we story-telling apes have weaved in order to avoid reality and reduce our anxieties, engaging in denial and massive magical thinking/bargaining along the way. As I’ve said numerous times, we are an intelligent species just not very wise.
The bottom line is as I commented on a recent FB post regarding supposed misinformation about EV battery ‘facts’: Substituting one resource-intensive and complex (and thus environmentally destructive) technology for another fully and completely overlooks humanity’s fundamental predicament of ecological overshoot, and is more about reducing one’s cognitive dissonance than anything else.
[H/T Schuyler Hupp]
A handful of other ecological variables that could be added: land system changes, resource depletion, food scarcity, biosphere integrity, climate change, novel entities, stratospheric ozone depletion. Then add on top of this massive ecological complexity all the socioeconomic and sociopolitical systems that Homo sapiens have created that exacerbate our ecological overshoot.
Here is the discussion that I referred to above that demonstrates the magical thinking some engage in regarding the energy transition being touted by many. It was in response to this posted article.
Me: It would seem we need to destroy our ecological systems to save them…hmmmmmm.
UB: I am always in favor of creative disruption. It is the very concept of “Seneca Cliff,” normally followed by a “Seneca Rebound”
D: With a sad caveat the Good Doctor has pointed at: it must be not that much fun to be creatively disrupted 😉
Me: The one aspect of this energy ‘transition’ that seems to be invariably left out of the equation is the massive and significant destruction that would and is being wrought on the planet (and a planet with already very overloaded sinks). The scale of the mining and processing that is being considered (and requiring a gargantuan pulse of fossil fuel extraction and burning) would surely put us over (if it hasn’t already) any tipping point from which our planet could recover from (let alone Homo sapiens survive, or many other species for that matter). I’ve not seen anywhere a detailed consideration or analysis of this particular perspective; except to mostly dismiss it via omission of the issue.
E: Sorry Steve Bull — but mining for the energy transition will NOT destroy the biosphere. The “Energy Transitions Commission” is a huge global think tank. They estimated the entire energy cost to mine and build the entire Energy Transition over the next decades. The total thing will release about 4.5 to 9 months of today’s global annual emissions. Once. Fossil fuel emissions will have stopped forever. (Figures here — but I converted to months equivalent CO2 emissions for ease of comparison.)
From the link above: “Between 2022–2050, the energy transition could require the production of 6.5 billion tonnes of end-use materials, 95% of which would be steel, copper and aluminium which the energy transition will require,”
Again — fossil fuels are 14 billion tons EVERY year.
Sure, a ‘think tank’ composed of people with very vested (financial) interests and focused on economic growth is guaranteed to be providing objective opinions based on very sound research and models.
It’s a great (cognitive dissonance-reducing) narrative but given how far into ecological overshoot the human species has travelled, whether it is death by a 1000 cuts or 999 or even 900 is truly moot. Both are ultimately suicidal when sustaining ‘growth’ is the fundamental driver (even if it’s not, maintaining the status quo is equally problematic given the amount of resource drawdown it requires).
The most appropriate path would be to attempt to reduce (significantly) all our complex technologies (along with other things like population) rather than attempt to carry on with business as usual via non-renewable, renewable energy-based industrial products.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
[25] It’s hilarious, in a very sad way, that the advertisements that flood my Facebook feed are almost entirely focused upon non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (e.g., wind turbines, solar panels) and electric vehicles. This is perhaps because I occasionally comment on these posts. What the FB algorithms seem to be missing, however, is that my comments are quite critical of the assertions being made in the ads.
Yes, the grieving process must be travelled through to the end to reach ‘acceptance’ of our human ecological overshoot predicament. Some are just beginning this process and as such display the very typical denial and bargaining stages, thinking quite adamantly that human ingenuity and our technological prowess will triumph over any and everything that Nature has in store for us story-telling apes. In fact, it’s not unlikely that the vast, vast majority of people are not even remotely aware of the human ecological dilemma and attribute growing signs of ‘collapse’ to socioeconomic and sociopolitical factors solely.
For myself, it took a number of years to move through these grief stages and I still get bogged down in some ‘hopefulness’ periodically that we can avoid what is for all intents and purposes inevitable (I think mostly because I have children whom I’d like to think can ‘dodge’ the ramifications of the coming storm).
Aside from this psychological journey of grieving, I wrote a series of Contemplations (starting here) about a number of other cognitive aspects that impact our belief systems and thinking about this, concluding that:
“The collapse that always accompanies overshoot seems baked in at this point with little if anything we can do about it.
Personally, I’d like to see our dwindling fossil fuels dedicated to decommissioning safely those significantly dangerous complexities we’ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants, biosafety labs, chemical storage, etc.) and relocalising as much potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs as possible rather than attempting to sustain what is ultimately unsustainable given the fossil fuel inputs necessary. Perhaps, just perhaps. by doing these things a few pockets of humanity (and many other species) can come out the other side of the bottleneck we’ve created for ourselves.”
Your call for focusing on a ‘graceful landing’ immediately had me think about Dr. Kate Booth and Tristan Sykes ‘Just Collapse’ initiative. They describe it as “an activist platform dedicated to socio-ecological justice in face of inevitable and irreversible global collapse…[that] advocates for a Just Collapse and Planned Collapse to avert the worst outcomes that will follow an otherwise unplanned, reactive collapse…[and] advocates for localised insurgent planning and mutual aid.” And this avenue may be the best path to follow at this point, particularly since it appears that most of our reactionary attempts to stave off the symptom predicaments of our overshoot are serving to exacerbate our issues.
The tricky part is distinguishing the critical dependencies–those resources the empire literally cannot do without–from longer-term sources of decay and decline.
What conclusions can we draw from recent research and the voluminous work done by previous generations of historians? Our first conclusion is simply to state the obvious: it’s complicated. There was no one cause of Western Rome’s decay and collapse. A multitude of factors generated feedback loops and responses over hundreds of years, some more successful than others.
Indeed, we cannot help but be struck by how many times impending collapse was staved off by brilliant leadership and policy adjustments.
Our second conclusion is to distinguish between the erosive forces of decay and critical vulnerabilities that can trigger collapse. Many authors have pointed to moral decay and fiscal over-reach as sources of Rome’s eventual fall, but there were far more pressing dependencies that created potentially fatal vulnerabilities.
In the case of Western Rome, these included:
1. The depletion of the silver mines in Spain (and the eventual loss of Spain to the Visigoths). Once you run out of hard currency, your free-spending days are over. This dependence on large quantities of hard currency to fund your armed forces is a trigger for collapse.
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