{"id":66020,"date":"2023-10-24T18:45:41","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T23:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66020"},"modified":"2023-10-24T18:45:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T23:45:41","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-xxiii-clean-energy-and-the-stages-of-grieving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66020","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIII–\u2018Clean Energy\u2019 and the Stages of Grieving"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIII<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by\u00a0author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Clean Energy\u2019 and the Stages of Grieving<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s thought was motivated by another Tyee article<\/a> that carries on the notion of \u2018clean energy\u2019 and the \u2018magical thinking\u2019 needed to buy into such narratives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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As long as language is being manipulated (e.g., \u2018clean energy\u2019 is a gargantuan oxymoron), magical thinking employed (e.g., \u2018green hydrogen\u2019 or some iteration of it has been on the books for 2+ centuries and is still far, far away, if ever, given the physical and economic hurdles\/roadblocks), and fundamental causes of our dilemmas conveniently ignored (e.g., our pursuit of the infinite growth chalice on a finite planet), the \u2018solutions\u2019 we so desperately seek will always elude us (if they even exist).<\/p>\n

Despite relatively general recognition of humanity\u2019s impending \u2018challenges\u2019, we continue to follow the \u2018Business-As-Usual\u2019 (BAU) scenario painted for us by Meadows et al. in their 1972 Limits to Growth<\/a>. Our \u2018leaders\u2019 talk a good talk but the reality (given the obvious lack of \u2018progress\u2019 in mitigating our issues and their increasingly probable negative consequences) is that we have painted ourselves into a corner from which we apparently cannot extricate ourselves (except through some very convoluted narrative creations).<\/p>\n

There is overwhelming and increasing evidence that there is a significant reckoning in terms of energy decline (and various other resources) in our future, regardless of our wishes, ingenuity, and technology. The complexities of our globalised, just-in-time, and highly resource-dependent industrialised societies are losing their support systems in terms of the resources they require. We have encountered significant diminishing returns on our investments and can no longer \u2018afford\u2019 them. All the talk of \u2018solutions\u2019 is, at this point, seemingly reflective of the first four stages of grief outlined by Kubler-Ross<\/a>: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.<\/p>\n

We are very keen on avoiding the final acceptance stage. Instead, we listen and accept faulty narratives about how this will all work out just fine. We create and propagate misleading phrases like \u2018clean energy\u2019 and \u2018net zero emissions\u2019 which are primarily marketing slogans. We allow ourselves to believe in \u2018promising\u2019 technological \u2018fixes\u2019 that require us to ignore or dismiss the constraints and physical impossibilities that are involved. And perhaps the worst of all, we look the other way when our \u2018leadership\u2019 completely \u2018jumps the shark<\/a>\u2019 and whispers in our ears that we indeed can pursue \u2018sustainable growth\u2019 (a phrase that totally twists the concept of sustainability and ignores the biophysical constraints of a finite planet) and live, for the most part, happily-ever-after.<\/p>\n

Such a fairy tale ending is indeed possible, but only in our imaginations. The momentum of our complex systems and the reality of a finite world straining under the exploitation of cognitively \u2018advanced\u2019 walking-talking apes are taking us down a path that is best described by William Catton Jr. in Overshoot<\/a>: a species that overshoots its environmental carrying capacity is destined to encounter a population \u2018collapse\u2019 and any response that increases the drawdown of the fundamental resources upon which the species is reliant only speeds up the process. And this seems very much to be exactly what we are doing as we \u2018debate\u2019 ways in which to sustain our living standards and most of our energy-reliant and -intensive sociocultural practices.<\/p>\n

Our best option may be to, in the words of author and social commentator John Michael Greer, \u201cCollapse Now and Avoid the Rush<\/a>\u201d. Degrowth<\/a> is coming. We can have some say in how this occurs but the longer we delay (and we\u2019re very, very good at delaying our encounters with \u2018reality\u2019), the less \u2018control\u2019 we will have in meeting the coming challenges.<\/p>\n

My suggestion is to detach from the \u2018Matrix\u2019 as much as possible by relocalising production of necessary goods but particularly shelter needs and organic and regenerative food production, and ensure the procurement of potable water. The government\/politicians\/ruling elite are not coming to the rescue; that is not their primary concern despite everything they say. The way in which they have met these challenges (that have been known for a number of decades) is evidence of that. We have continued to follow the BAU path set out in 1972 and simply managed to put ourselves further and further behind the eight ball. It\u2019s perhaps no exaggeration to suggest that the planet burns while our \u2018leaders\u2019 are fiddling. Rely on yourself, family, and like-minded community members; not some politician promising more of the same actions that brought us to where we are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXIII Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by\u00a0author \u2018Clean Energy\u2019 and the Stages of Grieving Today\u2019s thought was motivated by another Tyee article that carries on the notion of \u2018clean energy\u2019 and the \u2018magical thinking\u2019 needed to buy into such narratives. As long as language is being manipulated (e.g., \u2018clean energy\u2019 is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,5,6,7],"tags":[27351,150,30371,2327,32572,2328,31385,485,4692,33984,5833,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-66020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-clean-energy-2","tag-collapse","tag-collapse-cometh","tag-finite-planet","tag-grief","tag-infinite-growth","tag-kubler-ross","tag-limits-to-growth","tag-magical-thinking","tag-stages-of-grieving","tag-steve-bull","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66021,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66020\/revisions\/66021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}