{"id":66515,"date":"2024-01-20T14:10:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T19:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66515"},"modified":"2024-01-20T14:10:08","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T19:10:08","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-xl-the-road-not-taken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=66515","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0XL–The Road Not Taken"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0XL<\/h3>\n

February 19, 2022<\/p>\n

Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by\u00a0author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Road Not Taken
\n<\/strong>Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
\nAnd sorry I could not travel both
\nAnd be one traveler, long I stood
\nAnd looked down one as far as I could
\nTo where it bent in the undergrowth;<\/p>\n

Then took the other, as just as fair,
\nAnd having perhaps the better claim,
\nBecause it was grassy and wanted wear;
\nThough as for that the passing there
\nHad worn them really about the same,<\/p>\n

And both that morning equally lay
\nIn leaves no step had trodden black.
\nOh, I kept the first for another day!
\nYet knowing how way leads on to way,
\nI doubted if I should ever come back.<\/p>\n

I shall be telling this with a sigh
\nSomewhere ages and ages hence:
\nTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I\u200a\u2014
\nI took the one less traveled by,
\nAnd that has made all the difference.<\/p>\n

-Robert Frost, 1915<\/p>\n

While reportedly written as a joke by Frost for his hiking companion, Edward Thomas, who often struggled to pick a path among diverging ones when they were out on walks together, this poem has been commonly interpreted as a narrative about our choices and how these shape our future. The decision to take the road \u2018less traveled\u2019 versus the one \u2018not taken\u2019 speaks to the meaningful impact this seemingly innocuous choice can have upon subsequent events[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of Frost\u2019s poem and the general interpretation of it as I contemplated the request to post for a wider audience a comment I had made regarding an article someone added to a Facebook group I am a member of. In composing this \u2018contemplation\u2019 I reflected upon this request, my thoughts regarding humanity\u2019s choices as we consider how best to deal with our existential predicament of ecological overshoot, and some of the conversations I\u2019ve engaged in with others over the past week or so.<\/p>\n

Given my belief that we are well into ecological overshoot having surpassed safe limits in a number of planetary boundaries[2]<\/a> there are, similar to the hiker in Frost\u2019s poem, several paths from which to choose\u200a\u2014\u200awith slight variations to each. While the decision tree ahead of us is not entirely binary in nature, I will paint it as such for the purposes of this contemplation.<\/p>\n

We can continue, for the most part, with business as usual: expanding our footprint on the planet with ever greater numbers and complexities. Alternatively, we can abandon this path and take a significantly different one: purposeful contraction of humanity and its complex systems.<\/p>\n

I see the first \u2018choice\u2019 as the one we have been upon for some millennia, and one that took a dramatic shift towards a significantly greater global population and associated complex social arrangements with our leveraging of a one-time cache of finite, ancient fossil energy. When viewed over the past 12,000 years, the increase in population[3]<\/a> has been nothing short of vertiginous in nature since we began employing fossil fuels, especially oil, to \u2018fuel\u2019 our growth[4]<\/a>. Concomitant with this population growth has been a huge expansion of complexities to support humanity: agricultural, sociopolitical, technological, socioeconomic, scientific, etc..<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

It is increasingly obvious (at least to many but not all, since there are still some that completely deny the following self-evident reality) that this path is \u2018problematic\u2019 in the sense that infinite growth cannot continue for long on a finite planet, be it in the number of humans and\/or the complex systems that require physical resources to support them. Call me a \u2018doomer\u2019, but I\u2019m not buying the argument by some I\u2019ve discussed this predicament with that we\u2019ll just mine passing asteroids for their resources[5]<\/a>, including ice for water, or leave this planet to \u2018colonise\u2019 some distant \u2018goldilocks\u2019 planet just waiting for this walking, talking primate to bring \u2018sustainable development\/progress\u2019 to it[6]<\/a>. The \u2018bargaining\u2019 inherent is these views is simply staggering to me. Of course, I cannot predict the future any better than the next person but such beliefs leave me shaking my head at times primarily because of the magical thinking that must be employed to believe in them.<\/p>\n

I also see this first path as the one being marketed and cheerlead by the ruling class[7]<\/a>, but with a slight twist: continue to pursue our current lifestyles and complexities but support them by way of a \u2018new\u2019 energy source\u200a\u2014\u200anon-renewable renewables that are not only \u2018clean\/green\u2019 but fully sustainable (while the natural phenomena that contain the energy we want to harvest are renewable\u200a\u2014\u200awind, solar, wave\u200a\u2014\u200athe technologies needed to harness this energy are non-renewable since they rely upon finite resources\u200a\u2014\u200aespecially fossil fuels\u200a\u2014\u200afor every step of their production, maintenance, and after-life disposal\/reclamation).<\/p>\n

I believe this is being sold as the best choice for a few reasons not least of which is the very real fact that it is in the best interests of those who tend to sit atop our power and wealth structures to keep the current systems in place. Because, after all, they tend to own\/control\/have financial stakes in the industries that stand to profit from this path. To say little about the increasing Ponzi-like structure of our economic\/financial\/monetary systems that require this \u2018growth\u2019 to keep from collapsing.<\/p>\n

So, the option that increasingly appears to be being pushed by the ruling class and their narrative control managers (especially governments and mainstream media) is this \u2018green\/clean\u2019 energy transition one. This is not because it actually will do what the overhyped marketing bellows constantly, but because it is the ruling class that stands to profit handsomely from the endeavour. As they always do, they are leveraging a situation to their advantage while selling a story that it is in the best interests of the masses; because, after all, the ruling class cares deeply for the people and their welfare (#sarcasm).<\/p>\n

That many in the environmental movement have embraced such a narrative speaks to both the power of the propaganda\/greenwashing\/bright green lies of the \u2018green\/clean\u2019 storyline but also the well-intended desire of people to act in the face of a \u2018problem\u2019. The issue I see is choosing, regardless of the best intentions, the wrong path to travel down. Yes, this is the path of least resistance as it, for the most part, supports the notion that we can transition seamlessly to a world not unlike our current one with all its energy-intensive technologies and conveniences, but with environmental \u2018awareness\u2019 and \u2018cleanliness\u2019. We\u2019re having our energy cake and saving the planet at the same time (#sarcasm, again).<\/p>\n

I have to call bullshit on that narrative. There are no \u2018sustainable\u2019 technologies (at least none that could support anywhere near the current world population) and there are certainly no \u2018clean\/green\u2019 energy technologies[8]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For me at least, the choice of which path we need to follow is obvious: purposeful contraction of humanity and its complex systems. It needs to be purposeful if we are to have any say in how it proceeds. I am increasingly coming to the conclusion, however, given everything I have discussed above, that the path I advocate will be \u2018The Road Not Taken\u2019; at least not until nature forces us upon it and then we won\u2019t have any say in how it unfolds.<\/p>\n

Anyways, without further ado, here is the comment that prompted this contemplation based upon the linked article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This author begins with a premise that indeed many still fail to grasp: climate change is but one of the existential issues the planet faces (and I would add probably not even the most pressing, with biodiversity loss and pollution loading having far surpassed safe \u2018limits\u2019 some time ago). Unfortunately, I believe the author then misses the fundamental \u2018cause\u2019 of these predicaments; rather than seeing them as symptoms of humanity overshooting the natural carrying capacity of the planet, economic and political systems are fingered as the ultimate culprit.<\/p>\n

This misattribution then leads him to the conclusion that with the abandonment or tweaking of these systems, our various issues can be resolved. But if the real cause has been overlooked, then the shift in human systems he suggests will not resolve the issues he seeks to address.<\/p>\n

In fact, many of those who argue along a similar line actually end up cheerleading the pursuit of changes that actually exacerbate our overshoot. They ignore the pre\/historical evidence that complexity in the form of large social units (e.g., civilisations, empires, nation states, city states, etc.) and their energy and resource demands are unsustainable regardless of the economic and\/or political systems employed; that all of our previous experiments with complex societies have failed because they expand and overexploit their environments, requiring them to disband or takeover un- or under-exploited regions to sustain themselves.<\/p>\n

With the human expansion and exploitation experiment we are now entrapped within and having reached its zenith (significantly intensified by our extraction and leveraging of ancient fossil fuel energy), there is but one viable path: a dismantling of our expansion and the complexities that support it through radical degrowth. We cannot even begin to mitigate our predicament if we have identified the wrong culprits. In our motivation to \u2018do something\u2019 we are simply making the hole we are in ever deeper.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Conversations I\u2019ve had and comments I\u2019ve made over the past few days that demonstrate the differing perspectives on which path to trod:<\/p>\n

Feb 11 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/2213264857\/posts\/10158898444989858<\/a>
\nFeb 12 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/460086781192413\/posts\/1200265477174536\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb 13 (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/406824673049557\/posts\/1564064043992275<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Feb 14
\nhttps:\/\/medium.com\/age-of-awareness\/complexity-revisited-2436bc93f11e<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb 15 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/460086781192413\/posts\/1202654196935664<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb 16 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/1295234503849294\/posts\/4950034151702626\/<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/460086781192413\/posts\/976797916187961\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb 17 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/460086781192413\/posts\/1203885663479184<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb 18 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/460086781192413\/posts\/1204483863419364<\/a><\/p>\n

Feb 19 https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/460086781192413\/posts\/1204992450035172\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/blog.prepscholar.com\/robert-frost-the-road-not-taken-meaning<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/stockholmresilience.org\/research\/planetary-boundaries.html<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/world-population-growth<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_the_petroleum_industry<\/a><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20160103-the-truth-about-asteroid-mining<\/a><\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> https:\/\/www.howcast.com\/videos\/459203-how-to-colonize-a-new-planet<\/a><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> To clarify, I use the catch-all \u2018ruling class\u2019 to help define a loose grouping of individuals\/families\/institutions that sit atop the power\/wealth structures that have existed in every complex society throughout pre\/history. With the division of labour and need for organisational structures to help coordinate them in complex societies, differences in access to power\/wealth\/influence developed. As our societies grew larger and more complex, so did these structures and the \u2018power\u2019 of those that occupied the upper tiers. I believe that the primary motivation of those that reside atop these structures grew to be (or perhaps always was) the continued control and\/or expansion of the wealth-generation\/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and power\/prestige. Everything they do is in service of this. Everything. Whether this \u2018class\u2019 of people actually plans anything in concert with one another is certainly open for debate and interpretation, but they are certainly driven to maintain their privileged positions and all that entails.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> https:\/\/energyskeptic.com<\/a>; https:\/\/problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com<\/a>; https:\/\/www.realgnd.org<\/a>; https:\/\/www.brightgreenlies.com<\/a>; https:\/\/planetofthehumans.com<\/a>;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0XL February 19, 2022 Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by\u00a0author The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took […]<\/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":[22093,2327,2328,1160,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-66515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-ecological-overshoot","tag-finite-planet","tag-infinite-growth","tag-population-growth","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66515","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=66515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66516,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66515\/revisions\/66516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}