What to do in our current predicament.
Job One for Humanity has clearly shown adequate evidence for the need to immediately reduce the emission of polluting atmospheric gases. Politicians, power brokers, and even most environmental groups have been unresponsive or, at best, looked for piecemeal solutions to restore the Earth’s ecological systems. Even the urging by Job One for Humanity to confront all powerful people, institutions, agencies, and governmental bodies with their responsibility to radically decrease the consumption of fossil fuel will go unheeded.
The IRA and Biden’s touting of it in the State of the Union address show the maximum political will that exists at present; but they fall far short of recognizing the ecological necessity of cutting atmospheric gasses now. The press and most environmental groups praise the IRA as a step forward. But even if the immediate goals of the IRA are implemented, they will not be accomplished soon enough to avoid disasters. At the same time, fossil fuel companies want to increase production of oil and gas as they rake in the highest returns in their history. Even more egregiously, Republican legislators and their supporters want to cancel the IRA and continue to subsidize the fossil fuel industries.
Current political and economic forces are the juggernaut that will roll over our current way of life. Because of false hopes for both technological solutions to climate change and continued economic growth, I think that we humans will experience multiple repetitions of refugee camps, of inadequate shelters following hurricanes and fires, of increased shortages of goods and services, of riots and military actions, of migrations as sea level rises, of loss of life from lack of medical care, of disruptions in most forms of communication, and on and on. As a result,our current institutional coping mechanisms will be inadequate. New ways of living together will inevitably emerge in unpredictable and unexpected forms on an ad hoc basis. Our current major institutions are not be up to the task.
Several organizations are studying how smaller scale institutions can organize and survive. I am most aware of the Post Carbon Institute’s program, Resilience. It is primarily focused on local communities. The Synergia Institute emphasizes transition strategies and cooperative efforts. Other group are concerned with survival in a period when present institutions are shattered or become ineffective.
We are not going to avoid disasters. We are not going to find technological solutions that will let us continue to live as we do at present. Our institutions are unprepared even to find adequate solutions to living in today’s predicament. With the breakdown of familiar institutions and the resulting major disruptions in everyone’s life, I think it extraordinarily important to look within ourselves if we are to avoid anxiety, attain equanimity, and find peace of mind. To do so we must ask: How can we be more human and humane in a turbulent world, in which each of us will face new conditions of life? How might we reassess what it is to be human while living in a collapsing civilization? What are some of the humane ways in which a person might adapt to the existential predicament before us ? How can we as individual humans live in a world in which our actions and our current belief systems are failing?
Below I list the thoughts of three people who are deeply concerned about the collapsing societies in which we live. They have accepted that life within within the next decades will present many challenges and have suggested how individuals may adjust to continuing to live humane lives.
A. Michael Dowd
has been producing many videos about climate change, environmental disruptions, and the reasons behind humanity’s inability to cope with the predicament in which it finds itself. He also has interviewed dozens of people who are concerned with ecological change. [See YouTube video, “Sanity 101(Basic Training) for a 2023 video.] As a professional minister, Dowd calls himself a “Sacred Realist or Religious Naturalist.” I list five major personal actions he says we can aspire to at all times in our lives.
Broad life processes (The 5 “L”s)
Love; 2.Learn something new; 3.Laugh; Leave a legacy;
and 5.Live courageously.
B. Jem Bendell.
is a professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria, who presented a paper in 2020 called Deep Adaptation. It stimulated the basis for a world-wide forum discussing the societal questions that arise with destructive climate change. He calls it an ethos of being engaged, of how to support each other, of how to engage in productive dialogue, and how to determine priorities. Both his book, Deep Adaptation, and You Tube videos expressing his views are available. Bendell writes
“Deep Adaptation is a framework for exploring ideas for how to attempt … what we call the four Rs … These are all questions because we are in a very new situation where the expectation of simple answers given to us by somebody else are not going to help as much as we exploring together how to be and what to do.“
The essentials of Deep Adaptation are the four Rs
The Four Rs are questions we should always ask before acting to lessen our impact on Nature.
- “What do we most value that we want to keep and how,” is a question of resilience.
- “What could we let go of so as not to make matters worse,” is a question of relinquishment.
- “What could we bring back to help us in these difficult times,” is a question of restoration.
- “With what and with whom shall we make peace as we awaken to our common mortality,” is a question of reconciliation.
c. Richard Heinberg.
is a writer and journalist who is a great authority on fossil fuels, their uses, and the politics and economics of their development. He is an expert on “peak oil” and on the impact that fossil fuels have on nature and human society. He is a senior advisor to the Post Climate Institute, contributing a column to its blog each month. The most recent of his over 40 books is simply called “Power.” From this book I extracted the following:
Sixteen Words of Advice to Young People in the 21st Century.
I believe this advice is probably the most important practical recommendation for preparing for the future of those who will have to live their lives in a disintegrating society. He writes:
Learn to grow food. Study permaculture.
Learn to read people. You’re going to need to know whether people in your vicinity are trustworthy.
Be trustworthy.
Otherwise smart and trustworthy people won’t associate with you.
Learn to express yourself clearly and persuasively.
Consider making a commitment not to reproduce.
There are already plenty of people in the world.
Learn to make decisions by consensus and to work collaboratively. Be a person with whom others enjoy working.
Learn to repair and use relatively simple technologies.
Studying to be a computer programmer or hacker could pay off in the short run, but over the longer term you’ll benefit more from learning to fix farming and construction tools and small engines. Learn to make spare parts from junk.
Learn how energy works.
Be able to identify the sources of energy in your environment and find ways to harness that energy to do useful work.
Learn to defend yourself.
Sadly, for the remainder of this century the world is likely to be a more violent place. Even if that turns out not to be the case, martial arts can still be useful paths of self- discipline.
Learn to heal the human body via nutrition, herbs, and basic emergency care.
Learn to recognize the subjective effects of sex hormones, dopamine, and other brain chemicals, and find ways to use their effects to help achieve goals.
Learn about nature. Memorize the names of local plants, birds, and insects, and observe their habits. Learn to be comfortable in the wild.
Learn how to produce beauty via art, music, or movement, and how to engage others in creative, celebratory activities.
Learn to emotionally process trauma and grief, and to help others do so.
Learn when and how to use humor to release tension.
Al Urquhart.
Environmentalists Anonymous.
(Easing the emotional pain of living in a collapsing society.)
I believe that when a person, discovers that his/her unconscious actions in modern society are not reconcilable with his or her thoughts about and knowledge of the Earth’s ecology, she or he can only admit that his or her life is out of control; and that s/he is addicted to exploiting the Earth. If one realizes that he/she is caught in the double bind of a modern worldview versus the natural world ecology in which we are embedded s/he will feel pain. These conflicting messages cannot be easily reconciled and will deprive us of sanity and health unless we admit them. The ten steps are a way of reconciliation.
Step 1. We Admit that we are powerless over our exploitation of the environment–that our lives have become unmanageable.
If we are to remain sane and healthy, we must find a way to recognize both (a) the life and
culture in which we have lived and (b) that we are part of a system in which humans and
environment, are not opposed. The realization that we are merely part of a naturally
evolving and ecological world is truly a humbling experience for those of us raised in the
traditions of The Enlightenment and Modern beliefs which stress the power, rationality, and individuality of humans and humanity.
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Step 2. We have come to believe that we are but a small part of the Earth’s
evolutionary and ecological systems. We accept that the power of those systems
is greater than ourselves.
(Gregory Bateson wrote: “The self is but a small part of a much larger trial-and-error system which does the thinking, acting, and deciding.” (If you want a name for that power, I suggest Gaia.)
Step 3. We have made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of Gaia.
The third step toward sanity and mental health may be as difficult as the acknowledgement of our addiction. To surrender to this new way of thinking is, for most modern Americans, a great threat to our current ways of life. But viewed in the context in which every technological triumph disrupts some ecological or evolutionary relationship, often in startling and precipitous ways, one catches glimpses of disasters far more threatening than alterations of our current life styles. Continued human survival in ecologic and evolutionary terms rests outside our own control; our technological addictions only precipitate the disturbance of the many interrelated natural systems of which we are but a small part. However, if we act within this new way of thinking–this new epistemology–that emphasizes the conviction that we are merely “part of” something much greater than ourselves we may extend the positive aspects of being human–love, learning, kindness, community support (The 5 ‘L’s and The 4 ‘R’s) further into the future.****
Steps 4-10. If we accept this new fundamental perspective, we can actively and honestly become part of it by physically acknowledging, and wherever possible rectifying, the wrongs we have done in the past not perpetuating them today, and avoiding them in the future. Additionally, through meditation about Gaia and by passing this message to others, we may awaken ways of gaining greater sanity within our communities.
Step 4. We have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
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Step 5. We admit to Gaia, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact
nature of our wrongs.
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Step 6. We have made a list of the environmental and ecological systems we
have harmed, and have become willing to make amends to them.
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Step 7. We have made direct amends to such systems wherever possible, except
when to do so would further injure them.
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Step 8. We continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admitted it.
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Step 9. We seek to improve our conscious contact with Gaia through meditation and deep thought.
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Step 10. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we try to carry this message to others addicted to exploiting the Earth’s natural systems, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
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Hello. My name is Al and I am addicted to exploiting the Ecology and Evolution of the Earth.