{"id":67135,"date":"2024-04-03T18:26:49","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T23:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67135"},"modified":"2024-04-03T18:26:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T23:26:49","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-lxxxix-were-knee-deep-in-ecological-overshoot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67135","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0LXXXIX–We\u2019re Knee Deep In Ecological Overshoot"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0LXXXIX<\/h3>\n

January 3, 2023 (original posting date)<\/p>\n

Chitchen Itza, Mexico. (1986) Photo by\u00a0author.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019re Knee Deep In Ecological Overshoot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another brief contemplation this morning that I put together in response to a post that appeared on a Facebook Group I help to administer. One of our moderators works diligently within the \u2018system\u2019 in an attempt to persuade some of the ruling caste to embrace degrowth strategies. While a very noble endeavour, we disagree on the ability of this to bring about meaningful changes.<\/p>\n

She posted the following introduction to the image below:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a quote from a friend with an exceptionally high IQ, he has encouraged me ever since I started my Degrowth divining efforts. His Twitter feed is both fascinating and thought provoking, look for JamesCMorrow; he is an expert in Nudge theory and he assures me that the paradigm shift to a united aspiration for altruistic Degrowth is already well underway. Your feedback on the idea expressed in the image below is invited.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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My feedback:<\/p>\n

While a lovely sentiment that many will certainly grasp onto and embrace in their attempts to reduce anxiety-provoking thoughts, the harsh reality is that we are probably far too deeply into ecological overshoot that even if we reach a tipping point in the population whereby a cooperative (and agreed upon\u200a\u2014\u200athe truly difficult (unachievable?) part) mentality sweeps the planet\u200a\u2014\u200aand not one the ruling caste develops\/implements since their plans are always simply a leveraging of crises to control\/expand their positions of power and prestige, despite the constant propaganda\/marketing that what they do is for the benefits of the hoi polloi\u200a\u2014\u200athe fact is we are in a predicament that can only be mitigated, not solved (not even, as some argue, if we were to experience an even more drastic population reduction than the 50% as was Thanos\u2019s plan in the Marvel Comics Universe movies).<\/p>\n

We have painted ourselves into a corner from which there appears no escape (as I would argue most evidence suggests). Rather than focus our energies (and resources) on unattainable \u2018enlightenment\u2019, I\u2019d prefer to see\u200a\u2014\u200awhile we have the quickly diminishing resources\u200a\u2014\u200aa decommissioning of the dangerous complexities we\u2019ve created (e.g., nuclear power plants and their waste products; biosafety labs and their pathogens; chemical production and storage facilities and their toxins; armament factories and their weapons; etc.) and a concerted effort to push self-sufficiency based upon local and truly renewable resources for as many as possible to help them weather the coming storm. Unfortunately, I no more see this coming down the pike than global cooperation\u200a\u2014\u200aapart from a few small communities pursuing self-reliance.<\/p>\n

Whether any of humanity makes it out the other side of the ecological bottleneck we\u2019ve created is in all likelihood well out of our hands for the biogeochemical limits, physical laws, and biological principles will always, in the end, trump human \u2018ingenuity\u2019, \u2018technology\u2019, and \u2018cooperation\u2019\u200a\u2014\u200aespecially if the last 10,000 years of our existence is any indication. Human societies grow, increase in complexity, over-exploit their surroundings, encounter significant diminishing returns on their investments in complexity, then eventually (and always) decline and perish. This time, however, this recurrent phenomenon is global in nature\u200a\u2014\u200athank you fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

We do not and have never stood apart from, outside of, or above the biosphere and its biophysical nature (especially the limits imposed by a finite planet), no matter how much we would like to believe or wish otherwise. For as Guy McPherson has argued: Nature bats last. And nature\u2019s method for rebalancing a species that has shot well past its natural environmental carrying capacity and the waste products produced from its expansion and existence cannot, no matter how much we\u2019d like, be avoided or put off indefinitely. The piper must always and eventually be paid, and s\/he is getting ever closer\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh\u00a0LXXXIX January 3, 2023 (original posting date) Chitchen Itza, Mexico. (1986) Photo by\u00a0author. We\u2019re Knee Deep In Ecological Overshoot Another brief contemplation this morning that I put together in response to a post that appeared on a Facebook Group I help to administer. One of our moderators works diligently within the \u2018system\u2019 […]<\/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":[150,203,22093,34038,1789,34215,31568,30370,33947],"class_list":["post-67135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","category-survival-2","tag-collapse","tag-degrowth","tag-ecological-overshoot","tag-natural-carrying-capacity","tag-nature","tag-nudge-theory","tag-predicament","tag-todays-contemplation","tag-todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67135","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=67135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67136,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67135\/revisions\/67136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}