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Some Thoughts About COP-26

November 21, 2021

Some Thoughts About COP-26

Whether you love, hate, or don’t care about Greta, one must admit that she really gets it right in this video. Like most people, she has grown in her knowledge and now no longer sees technological devices as a way out of the predicament of ecological overshoot. Of course, the COP meetings were never really about reducing ecological overshoot; they were truly pretty much about politics and BAU (Business As Usual) just like she says. It is Greta’s passion that is so awesome.Perhaps it is because she likes to point out illogical thinking and fairy tale stories, the greenwashing of industry to cash in on the public’s general ignorance, and the politicians who have been bought by the corporate overlords that attracts me to her style. Her truth to power is inspiration to those of us who have been watching these meetings unfold throughout the years, initially hoping some real progress might be made while witnessing the lack of any real action, even when agreements ARE actually made. Alas, it reminds me all too well of my younger self who thought that surely once James Hansen reported his findings to the US Congress that America would lead the charge in dealing effectively with climate change. I was in my early 20s at the time, a time of idealism and optimism – you know the story of how we are all going to “change the world” at that point. Even today I can occasionally get naïve about human behavior. So, one can see clearly now the same disappointment I experienced back then with this latest fiasco, what many are now calling COPout26…

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A Small Farm Future: Review

November 9, 2020

A Small Farm Future: Review

Chris Smaje has been a lecturer in sociology and is now a small farmer and writer, living in England. This book springs from his blog of the same name, and as posts from that blog have run on Resilience, many readers will already be familiar with Smaje and the kind of things he talks about. The book’s subtitle summarizes it fairly well: “Making the case for a society built around local economies, self provisioning, agricultural diversity and a shared Earth.”

Perhaps I should begin by noting that since I have been following Smaje on this site, and was already in agreement with his theses before I read his book, some might say I’m biased. There was very little I disagreed with; however, there was quite a bit I didn’t know. I’m glad I have a paper copy, as I will be rereading it and using it in discussion.

Before getting into the parts of the book, I will say something about the level of diction; it requires continuous attention to follow the thread of often complex argument. This is not a book to read over a long period, or while doing other things.

In the first chapter, Smaje delineates “ten crises”: population, climate, energy, soil, stuff, water, land, health and nutrition, political economy, and culture (yes, it’s quite a long chapter). In the course of discussing these issues he makes the case that we can’t just stumble on with business as usual—that won’t be possible much longer. Then in the rest of the book he argues that a small farm future is the best of possible responses to these crises, the best way to negotiate a future that avoids the inequality that plagues us today, and often has in the past, as well as to repair the ravages inflicted on our only planet by neoliberal capitalism and industrial farming. Yes–he takes on capitalism.

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Business-as-usual porn – or, We need to talk about collapse

July 16, 2020

Business-as-usual porn – or, We need to talk about collapse

I think we need to talk openly and calmly about the possibility of societal or civilizational collapse arising from humanity’s present predicaments. And that’s mostly what I want to pursue in this post – not so much what the likelihood or the underlying mechanisms of collapse might be, but the idea that it would be useful if, as a society, we could talk about it.

Maybe that’s happening in one sense. The noises offstage from scientists, multilateral agencies, social critics and political activists about the possibility of collapse are getting louder1. Inevitably, so is the pushback from those arguing that this is so much overheated rhetoric, and everything’s just fine2. My sense is that there’s far greater empirical weight behind the former than the latter position, but it’s the latter one that seems to dominate public discourse. There’s precious little public and media attention to the rather big news that the way we live may soon be ending. Indeed, people who say such things are generally relegated from serious debate, and sometimes accused of peddling ‘collapse porn’ with their mawkish tales of impending doom3. It’s a curious phrase. Inasmuch as pornography presents people with something that they guiltily want to see, but in unrealistic and idealized ways that hide the reality of the relationships involved and erode their integrity, perhaps we should rather be talking about ‘business as usual porn’.

I’m not too sure why business as usual porn is so widespread, but I think possibly it’s because of an unfortunate fusion between two aspects of modern life. First, a sense that the vast technological reach of contemporary societies armours us against the malign contingencies of the world, and second an elaborate and urbanized division of labour that denies most people even the remotest capacity to care for themselves in the face of those contingencies.

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‘Ticking a box is no longer an option’: David van Reybrouck on elections, imagination and Brexit.

November 3, 2017

‘Ticking a box is no longer an option’: David van Reybrouck on elections, imagination and Brexit.

David van Reybrouck lives in Brussels, is a pre-historic archaeologist, but works mostly as a literary writer, and as a non-fiction writer.  He’s probably best known for his book ‘Congo: the epic history of a people’, for appearing in the film ‘Tomorrow’ (‘Demain’), and for his more recent book ‘Against Elections: the case for democracy’, which is a brilliant read.  We met up via Skype, and talked imagination, Brexit, and reimagining how we make decisions together.

I wonder if you had any thoughts on in what ways the current way that we practice democracy in the West diminishes our imagination, maybe particularly in relation to our ability to imagine something other than business as usual?

You could say that the procedures we use today to do democracy have drastically narrowed down the scope of what is politically imaginable.  To me, although I’m interested in politics, it’s become quite a bit of a boring game, really.  It’s all about winning elections, trying to build a coalition, trying to run a government, or be against the government that is in power.  The bickering that is going on is not very rich.  The strategies that are being used for political gain and political loss are less interesting than watching the Tour De France on a boring day.

Political journalism very often has come down to a form of sports journalism, really.  Like, who has made what manoeuvre and what will it bring to him or to her.  The political game as it is being played these days is a pretty boring one, and a pretty predictable one, yes.

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Peak Oil; Climate Change; & System Justification Pt 8

September 17, 2016

Peak Oil; Climate Change; & System Justification Pt 8

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Of course it’s threatening to think that our lifestyles, systems of governing, and capitalist processes themselves may all face drastic changes in the not-too-distant future because of the facts and reality of Peak Oil and climate change! I’m certainly notthe poster-child for Peak Oil advocacy and lifestyles. I have a very nice, capitalist, well-to-do lifestyle. To hell with all of you, I don’t want MY life to change!

STATING THE OBVIOUS

I’ve noted this on several occasions: I’m willing to wager that almost all those urging greater awareness of the oil production/energy supply challenges we’ll be facing soon enough would be delighted to be proven wrong. None of us are eagerly—or in any other manner—awaiting the onset of the inevitable magnitude of personal, economic, commercial, and cultural changes which our beliefs about peak oil suggest. Being wrong about this would be ideal, but we—I—have serious doubts about that outcome being the likeliest.

There’s too large a group of ardent and well-financed others well aware of the inherent limitations finite resources carry. They more than most appreciate how widespread will be the impact of a diminishing energy supply colliding with increasing demand and a growing worldwide population. They also understand—as do those opposing/denying the facts of climate change—the costs and consequences to their own organizations once their Business As Usual practices succumb to the production facts of these finite resources.

What worries us: the problems will be of such scope and impact and complexity that we strongly believe in a need for planning to take place now—by all of us, both Left and Right—and we’re not seeing enough honest, intelligent, rational analysis from those whose contributions will be every bit as important and meaningful. The ideology sponsoring practical and effective adaptations and solutions won’t matter to us if they work.

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Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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