I'm fairly convinced that the status quo can do nothing to prevent the collapse of complex industrial society. Obviously it's a complicated topic, but if you assume the position that by 2030 there will be dramatic, uncontrollable warming of the planet (and all of the side effects that will bring), what is to be done to prevent that?
As a guy with a decent work-from-home kind of job (for now) and enough resources to be comfortable, it's been incredibly tempting during quarantine to think about building a house off the grid, finding a stable source of drinking water, and building a sustainable farming homestead in rural America. 2020 has demonstrated that things don't always just work out. I'm worried about the precarious material conditions that pervade contemporary urban culture (at least from the perspective of sustainability if food/water/power systems are interrupted). And I know I could develop the skills I need to live like that.
But obviously, something can be done to prevent a collapse. We could work together to ensure the stability of urban environments, and produce all of the energy and matetials we need here, locally. We could put everyone to work with this goal in mind. We could build a better world collectively.
But how? How do I find a group of people to work with? How do I convince the liberals who just shrug and say, man, isn't it just terrible that trump is in charge? How do I find anyone who's thinking about this shit, and realizes that actually yes, this can all fall apart. Things are not as stable as they seem. Climate change is literally the only issue that matters in any time frame beyond 10 years.
What is next? What is there to do?
I studied sustainability in university, and I don't believe there is a need to panic. Indeed, I think panic induces us to think short-term, which is the opposite of what we need to do. As people panic and fear for their lives, they tend to cling to what already gives them security; for most ppl, that is consumerism and status quo.
The earth isn't going to be uninhabitable due to climate change, not any time soon. Things will slowly get harder and worse and more expensive, but things aren't going to Collapse™️ in the forseeable future.
Doomerism, prepping, off-the-gridding; these are all flavours of individualistic liberalism that will do precisely nothing about climate change. These are panicky, short-term answers to the longest-term problem humanity may have ever had to face.
We need militant collective resistance. We need pipeline blockades. We need mass strikes to shut down polluters and demand ecological rehabilitation. And we need to dismantle the global profit incentive.
This is a system-scale problem, and we need system-scale solutions.
I guess flight and diet are pretty huge ones too, tbh. But really, it all just scratches the surface imo :)
Ya, veganism is the best thing you can do; specifically, don’t eat beef or dairy. Flight is second best to stop; the average round-trip doubles the average flyer’s carbon emissions for that year.
I both agree and disagree on children. I think it comes from a place of believing that humans existing is the fundamental issue, rather than the fundamental issue being consumption and capitalism. The richest 10% of humanity is responsible for over half of climate emissions. Basically, those 1/10 people just need to do less, and we’ll be fine.
And I find ‘depopulation’ narratives tend to place that responsibility instead on the people who are contributing the least to climate change. The venn diagram of ‘places with growing pop’ns’ and ‘places responsible for climate change’ has little to no overlap.
And what happens when ppl from those rich places don’t have kids? Immigration, to keep the capitalist economy propped-up. Very little change.
But of course, you’re also right. Haha. Because children from rich places will have a higher impact. So it’s not all one thing or the other; how could it be, with something as global and complex as climate change?
And adoption is always based. Always. And it truly is important for as many people as possible to have healthy, leftist upbringings . :af-heart:
The global top 10% is not as exclusively megarich as you think it is. Anyone with a net worth north of $94k is in the global top 10%. Chances are, if you're making more than a few bucks more than minimum wage in any developed country, *you * need to drastically lower your carbon footprint and you're in no ecologically ethical position to reproduce.
Oh, I'm fully aware. If you go by income instead of wealth, earning over $30,000USD per year doesn't just put you in the top ten percent, it puts you in the top one percent. I definitely don't think of the 10% as the exclusively rich, quite the opposite, I think of them as basically everyone I've ever met.
I just completely disagree that reproduction is an important part of the equation, for a few reasons. Namely, rich countries will just accept more immigrants to replace the 'missing' people, and people are always willing to immigrate to rich places. If there aren't enough rich people being 'born', they will be 'made' to keep the GDP good for the overlords. The system will always balance itself out, regardless of who does or doesn't have kids.
The 'don't reproduce' angle is just too individualistic for me. We're better off, frankly, with large leftist families than we are with leftists who choose not to reproduce imo.
This is coming from someone terminally unpartnered who makes extremely little money by 'developed world' standards btw, hahaha, just so you know that I'm giving you my honest truth, unbiased by a desire to procreate or whatever.
(But also, virgin leftist anti-natalists vs. the chad quiverful kid farmers hahaha, it's a war out there)
This is an incredibly interesting question, because you recognize that there is no such thing as a win-win; this is a complex situation, and every decision has trade-offs. There is no One Simple Answer. I do think that there is an intervention point to be found here:
or the people who do live on the planet have to live actively worse lifestyles than what they presently do
This premise presumes that it is crude capitalist consumption that drives quality of life, which the evidence simply does not bear out. Consumption culture doesn’t actually make people happier, we just tend to believe that when we live in consumer culture. Above a certain level of material security, having additional material stuff doesn’t actually increase quality of life.
I don’t know a single time in history that humanity has ever collectively decided that it would peaceably go along with making do with less
Monks. My point isn’t that we all need to become monks, but my point is that, throughout history, people have been able to decide, en masse, to decide to do with less, and were happier for it.
Obviously, no firm answers. I think that mass geo-engineering is a fool’s errand, personally. It’s like trying to sweep your floor when there’s a sandstorm and all your windows are open. And geo-engineering generates other issues around ecological degradation while trying to ‘fix’ the symptoms of climate change without looking at the causes.
I don’t know what it will look like, but at a certain point, growth simply has to stop. In a materially finite world, an economy premised on infinite growth is simply not sustainable. You will always hit ecological limits. Indeed, we’re hitting many right now right resource shortages and extinction crises; it’s only that climate change is so global, long-lasting, and frankly simple that it’s the one we all focus on.
I think that we will have to stop growth, and likely degrow a little. But I also think that if we do it via socialism, the vast majority of people will end up with a lot more security and wellbeing while we do it :)
We are absolutely not better off with large families in first-world countries, whether they're leftists or not. At least not until multiple generations have passed since fixing the ecosystem.
Yes, the rich will try bringing in immigrants en masse to use more labor. That's why you have to burn the system the fuck down, but the new system will only save the planet if it is committed to consuming and producing drastically less shit, such that society can be maintained with a smaller population.
I agree we need to burn the system down. But, until we do, the system will keep sourcing the bodies it needs from wherever it can, making individualist efforst at depopulating developed countries futile. Developed countries have all had declining birth:death rate ratios for years and years, but they keep their population growing through immigration. Because that’s what the system needs.
It’s not about ‘developed nation people’, it’s about ‘developed nations’. You can’t stop it by not reproducing, you have to dismantle it.
And how do you dismantle it? By winning the class war. Not having children does nothing, because capitalism ‘promotes’ immigrants to counteract that. Again, it’s already been happening for decades.
But not having children does weaken us. We need to build left power to dismantle the system. We need to win the class war and, unfortunately, children learn their politics largely from their parents.
So to me, not having children has a negligible material impact. You either dismantle the system or you don’t. And you know what doesn’t help us dismantle the system?
Having the average leftist have 0.5 children while the average chud has 3-5.
It’s gross and weird to think about. And I think you’re rad and cool and based! (And also have a dope username) But, I just totally disagree with you about this haha. Oh well! :P
There's plenty of orphans and foster kids to adopt and teach Marxism to. Until the revolution, the average first-world lifestlye that you'd be multiplying by reproducing is not going to become any less carbon-intensive, and frankly, given the generally productivist attitudes on the left, I'm not all that confident that it'll become any less carbon-intensive after the revolution.
We agree, definitely, that the left is faaar more productivist than it should be. And also that adoption > procreation any day .
But if there isn't an ecological liberation element to the revolution, it is not my revolution :red-fist:
Fun/gross thought experiment. Ever hear of the quiverfull movement? Ultra-right christians who have as many children as they biologically can, to ensure they have a 'quiverful of arrows' with which to fight the culture war and win votes.
It's the virgin leftist anti-natalist vs. the chad quiverful kid farmers.
It's, frankly, another way that reactionary ideology is reproducing itself faster than the left is. And every singly one of those leftist children that weren't born are replaced by an immigrant, who has like a 50/50 chance of being a leftist or a lib or whatever, compared to like the 99% chance that a leftist child has of becoming an antifa supersoldier hahahaha
But, if you need a leader... I'll be--just kidding haha. You need to be the leader. And me. And we'll all keep stepping up and lifting one another, and then we'll win :)
Yeeesssss. Through our degeneracy alone, the leftist polycules will result in leftist children horny-converting half a dozen chuds each :kropotkin-shining:
Ya I hear that. The 40% of 35-and-unders in america who still live with their parents aren't exactly starting families or having kids :/
Capitalism's really got us good, ngl :red-fist:
I give you full permission hahaha, print away. Or write the parts you like by hand, that always means a lot to me and helps me remember :P The Complex Systems Perspective is a really healing and empowering way to see the world. Suddenly you're not clouded by all the consumerist, capitalist-realist guilt, and you can just see yourself for what you are; an equal member in a massive system that needs to change.
Oh, also you can 'save' posts/comments. Click the ... under a post and there's a star there ;) I do that sometimes for things that make me feel really good that I want revisit sometime
Anyway, much love, comrade. I'm really glad we have a chance to meet and talk about these big things :af-heart:
What is to be done?
I think some dude wrote a book about that once idk
The dude is Jesus and the book is the Bible, in case you're all wondering.
So which house is climate change? I bet it's Slytherin 😎
You're completely right. Want human society to be sustainable? Decouple economic stability from growth. End the profit incentive.
So, the appropriate response is "global command war economy now, zero carbon in five years"
That's not happening, and even something close to it isn't happening. If you only care about yourself, may I recommend New Zealand or the agricultural zones around Lake Baikal as likely surviving industrial enclaves, in the worst case.
Anprim and Preindustrial Agri wont work, both require a stable climate in the medium term. An industrial society is our only hope.
So what we need to prepare for is this.
-At least 60% of all agricultural zones are now going to be untenable by 2070 or thereabouts, probably more, no new zones will open up because melting permafrost does not a topsoil make. The rest will have vastly smaller and less predictable output, because seasons are not really gonna be a thing in the next few hundred years. Pastoralism is more tenable but there's not enough of it.
-Almost all current Ports will be unusable by then, and sea level and weather unpredictable so you can't build new ones, so no international trade. Air travel will be limited because carbon. Airship gang is feasible, but limited as well.
-the above two mean a)massive migrations (billions of people) b)breakdown of global trade that isn't by train.
-So what we need, technologically, is urban farming that can feed whole cities under arbitrary climate. And an early 21st century zero-carbon industrial base that can establish moderate levels of autarchy with usable urban populations of sub-10 million people. And then work out how to politically establish zones for 8 billion people from the remaining habitable areas.
-Finally, wherever possible excess industrial surplus needs to go into carbon scrubbing.
These look impossible, but there are groups working on each of these. A lot of smart people aren't blind and are putting in the groundwork they can in hopes people will wake up.
This blog, by a eco-leftist author (who is a great read btw) has some convincing arguments and some pointers on what is to be done.
http://dubiousprospects.blogspot.com/2018/08/this-regrettable-map.html
At least 60% of all agricultural zones are now going to be untenable by 2070 or thereabouts
Luckily that's less farmland than we could just let back into the wild today if more-or-less everyone switched to vegetarianism/veganism
Yes, but recall that the ones that are going are mostly our high yield food production ones, and the surviving ones are going to have to learn how to farm without things like seasons, carbon intensive fertiliser production, or reliable pollinators. All remaining meat production is either going to be grass fed or invertebrate, and it's going to be used because they aren't shipping grain there.
Check the optimistic map in the link, and colour everything above/below 60 degrees brown as well.
Ya, I live in a farming region and it's already become a lot harder to farm, because of the weather extremes. Month-long droughts are common, and then you'll get a whole summer's rain in two days. And it's only gonna get harder and harder! Good thing us hoomans are super flexible and resilient ;) :red-fist:
I'm confident we will survive with some kind of civilisation intact, and "everybody lives" is still within reach. But it's going to be a fun 500 years for sure.
Hot take, but I'm optimistic about climate change. Sure, the US wont stop it, but china will. China is rising and the US is in decline. A big crisis and american influence will shrink to a point where the chinese can strongarm other countries into enforcing measures. Sure, it could be seen as fucking imperialism, but still. No matter your stance on china, they plan long term. And they are in control of almost the entire market in regards to renewables. They sit on almost all rare earths and are leading in solar amongst many other things. Its only logical for them to force a change and profit massively.
Bad news is, the US must crumble. Eco accellerationism?
I'm not sure China will be able to stop or reverse climate change without new sources of energy. Think expansion of safer fission energy, or, somehow fusion. That might be the only way to effectively sequester enough carbon to even consider a reversal. But there's still the huge task of preventing the extinction of species and collapse of ecosystems, which might be happening just due to the expansion of human built environments. So it's not small task. Still, they're the only ones with the population and political mechanisms to do anything about it, if it's possible.
The hardest part is just saying, ah well you know, the Chinese will figure it out. I'll just sit here and drink and try not to think about it until I lose my job and my savings are wiped out by rampant inflation, and the grocery store prices keep climbing. It's fine. This is fine.
Evety bit of CO2 saved makes sucess more likely. That much is safe CO2 you could contribute by killing billionaires, causing stock crashes "destroying money", downing planes,... there are a lot of measures. Most importantly though is to get off of fucking coal. Tve rest is secondary.
China has given up on global climate action with the west, and taken the Akkadian strategy. They're retreating to their defensible core while preventing periphery revolt, bolstering their water and agricultural zones as best they can, and seeking to dominate trade and extraction along key routes in central Asia and Africa. Non train trade is likely not going to be possible, so they're heavily train gang.
Ultimate goal is to maintain economic capacity for an armoured strike on the trans-Siberian railroad and Lake Baikal as late as 2100, in case the climate fucks over the Three Gorges project.
They'd love action on climate change, but they aren't going to sit there and expect it to happen. They're going to preserve their power and their citizens and wait until the global political situation makes it possible.
We could for example when it comes to agriculture/farming, which is a big contributor to climate change(at least animal farming), look to a proven working concept of sustainable farming like it has been setup in Cuba.
I dunno, I studied this a lot in university and from what the researchers said, this is both true and untrue.
It's true that climate projections are usually biased toward conservative. There are systemic barriers in place such that climate data is biased to not look as bad as it is. In part this comes down to managing public and policy expectations and reactions, which is really wild.
But then there's the other side, that people are panicky and tend to catastrophize. Which leads to bias in the interpretation of climate science toward doomerism. There is no 'evidence' that societies will collapse as the climate continues to change, because we've never been here before.
What I'm trying to say is that it is both worse and not as bad as a lot of people think lmao thank you for listening to my ted talk hahaha
How do you view r/collapse? Aside from the doomerism and individualistic fantasies, how truthful and accurate is the sub's overall interpretation of climate science? Sometimes climate change induces a conspiracy-theory-like dread in me but it gets worse if I really dwell on the fact it's real and happening.
It’s just so... doomer haha. I really loved it when I first found it, honestly. It seemed like the first time I’d ever seen anyone talking about climate change with the severity it deserves.
But I think it’s a case of over-interpretting the science, even if the science is slightly softening the data for the public. To me, the sub has an obvious emotional prediliction for doomposting, and for catastrophization. Both are unhealthy, and also skew the ‘worldview’ of the sub towards worse interpretations.
Anyone who’s trying to tell you collapse is right around the corner is selling you something. That dread you feel when you soak in some of their discourse is where they live, and it poisons their perspective beyond the point of being a reliable interpretter of reality.
I mean, the place is called ‘collapse’; it’s an answer looking for the question. A conclusion gathering convenient data. Capitalist realists trapped in a singular vision of the future--one that captivates their full attention, because it terrifies them.
The media has taught us that collapse would be liberating and fun, instead of just really hard and sad haha, so that little bit of excitement ppl feel when thinking about it leads them to want it, which leads them to see it. I'm personally not convinced that collapse is likely any time soon. And I definitely don't think it's inevitably happening soon.
Remember that christianity is a collapse cult; they believe that the second coming and the end of the earth has been right around the corner... for the last 2000 years. And this is the cultural heritage that america and doomerism is largely coming out of. Is the end of the world right around the corner?
Always has been 🔫👨🚀
Hahahaha ;) just my two cents. Don’t trust people who are too certain they’re right.
This is all true, but systems collapse does seem to come rapidly, after decades of increasing strain. Both the early and late Bronze Age collapses, as well as the Migration period tend to indicate that.
That said, there's a lot of ruin in a nation/global community before it goes down, and we've managed to survive things like the little ice age with only a series of horrifying wars.
I think the real argument between doomers and realists is more a 2035 collapse vs a 2080-2120 collapse. Things are gonna get very bad in a very short frame at some point, but when it happens and where it happens isn't going to be evenly distributed.
On the other hand, the 'collapse' of the roman empire took 1000 years, between the split and the fall of the west and the eventual fall of the east. And we're like rome on steroids, more than we're like bronze age farmers, and also more than we're like ppl during the little ice age tbh. Of course, you definitely still have a point.
100 years from now is definitely too far away to talk about making predictions with any level of certainty. You're totally right, system state changes are often rapid flips compared to the stability in between. And who knows what is coming when!
Been struggling with this question a lot lately so I'll be following the replies here with interest.
Well lemme know if you need a farm hand, I'm no stranger to manual labor and I'm handy with a skillet.
So we have a problem that requires long term planning, international cooperation, and rationally redesigning and rebuilding almost all aspects of our infrastructure and our economy. It will be expense but probably not enrich anyone individually, but it will collectively benefit all of humanity, and also nature.
Dang, sounds like we need a system of tax incentives or something.
I worry that, as a slow moving catastrophe, nothing will be done. As reversible as this is now, the effects won't be catastrophic. All modern politics can imagine is the catastrophe, the singular moment in history that can be heroically opposed by mobilizing resources by Great Men^tm. But this isn't a singular battle for politicians to make a place in history. This is a widespread, disparate, and non-glamorous change for the worse that whole organized efforts of humanity have helped to produce profit and accumulate the resources necessary to sustain the violence against some Other.
There is so much tangled into how politics are done that we can no longer work within the politics and markets as is to produce solutions to this. We just haven't created or designed communities, especially urban ones, to handle the impacts of food shocks, water wars, biodiversity collapses, and insecurity generally.
Neither can we rely on mass public outcry or resistance. The average American conservative won't believe it can be done, the average American liberal is too lazy to attempt to do it and prizes the life it has given them anyway, and most other places on Earth don't have the resources to enforce a collective will against the Global North. We could attempt to build one, but it will take decades and if it arrives on time it will be fragile.
The individualist fantasy of building a bunker out in the woods, growing food, and creating a singular sustainable point for the people you care about is tempting. And doomerism is tempting, especially given the increasing volume of scientific literature saying the worst is probably yet to come while watching absolute upheaval in the Global North be quietly curbed back into a yearning for "normal" instead of revolutionary efforts, but giving in is giving up. And the chance to do the right thing and maybe survive outweighs the possibility of an escape from global change.
Fidelity to that thought is the hardest step, and will catalyze the organizing force that might just curb the worst of this.
As for actual policy and not mindset things, I think personally urban farming and securing local supply lines generally in communal ownership is the quickest avenue for building robust communities and building networks of allies. Strikes, though incredible effective and by far the best way to halt the machine, require enormous initial energy to overcome the barrier of "How do I survive without a paycheck?" By creating our own supply centers we can remove the dependency on the capitalist machine and thereby create keystones to build larger movements that can leverage political institutions for change while at the same time create safety nets if efforts fail.
