I write as Trump gives his victory speech. …This is a dire dire day for the living planet. Probably on balance literally the worst day ever.
Future generations will curse those who made today possible. That is not any kind of nastiness; it is simply a statement of fact.
Most of the buzz surrounding climate politics/action is centred around grand plans: to allegedly avoid ecological breakdown through tech wizardry (eg unpredictable and reckless geoengineering), or through utterly improbable revolution (bringing down the government), or through unprecedented global diplomacy, diplomacy that is making an ever-hollower noise.
A realistic review of the scientific research on full-scale climate breakdown (see my previous book, ‘Why climate breakdown matters’) reveals that it might already be unavoidable; the integrity of our ecological system is certainly profoundly jeopardised. Probably the smartest thing to say is: we are IN climate breakdown, …and that its momentum just accelerated.
Now that Trump has won a second term, who still holds out hope that international diplomacy as we know it, the CoP system, is a viable option? Trump, the man who tweeted that global warming is a concept ‘created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,’ is not someone who is likely to lead the global push towards climate action. He will likely reverse what little progress has been made, like he did in his previous term by withdrawing from Paris. Yes, diplomats will try to find other ways. As they should. ‘Climate clubs’ will now come into their own. It could even be a good thing that people finally realise that the CoP system, which relies on unanimity for progress, is now officially moribund. But it is crucial to acknowledge the following inconvenient truth: If you still believe that international diplomacy as we know it can significantly mitigate catastrophic climate change, then you’ll have to wait until 2028 at the earliest for a chance to see a president who agrees. We do not have another 4 years.
It should now, today, be more obvious than ever that we cannot rely on the global political system. Instead, we should dedicate a large proportion of our time, energy, and resources into adaptation to the probable ecological collapse (or, at least, decline), because it is unlikely (realistically) that even our best efforts at mitigation will be enough to thwart climate breakdown and more.
Yes, there are limits to adaptation. Yes, any adaptation we centre absolutely must be mitigation-friendly, nature-friendly (aka ‘ecosystem-based adaptation’), and oriented in the direction of the changed society we need (and, one way or another, huge change is coming). But the pivot to adaptation is now little more than common sense. To try to find for ourselves a way through the very hard times that are coming.
So far, adaptation has not received the attention it deserves, since (as this new book shows) taking adaptation seriously would mean we can no longer deny just how bad the situation is, something that most of us most of the time remain desperate to deny. Adaptation requires an honest confrontation with the most inconvenient of truths, but that is preferable to the alternative; a half-hearted focus on mitigation that leaves us unprepared to live in a future of ecological carnage.
Upon concluding that climate breakdown is probable and incipient, we must act to adapt so that together we might bear the hardships of the future more ably. Adaptation should certainly not result in us giving up on trying to avoid ecological collapse, but unless we prepare for the worst (and probable) outcome, we risk an even bleaker future. That is why, as this book explains, it is high time for transformative (and deep) adaptations.
Deep adaptation is preparation for likely collapse. Transformative adaptation (TrAd) aims at a non-collapse future, but overlaps enough with deep adaptation to simultaneously prepare us for a collapse future. TrAd is primarily about building a future from the bottom up, building the resilience we so badly are going to need. TrAd is about protecting the local and recovering it, eventually globally.
In this dark, dark moment of a new Trump term, we must face ourselves, face reality, face the future. Now is not the time for grand plans. Now is the time for building resilience, where we live, learning from others who have already been doing so, networking our efforts.
There is a small and rapidly closing window…to prevent uncontrolled civilisational collapse.
Today, that window just got a lot smaller.
How might we just conceivably prevent outright collapse?: I have indicated the only likely pathway: through sufficient Transformative (& Strategic) Adaptation. This means inner-AND-outer adaptation. It means work primarily from bottom up. It means courage; & the processing of great grief and fear. It means making our communities robust against what’s coming.
Because as of today we know more surely than ever that what’s coming is going to be bloody hard.
But: it is our path.
Many thanks to Joe Eastoe, for invaluable help in researching this piece.
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I think your numbers for carrying capacity are too high, but it's all guesswork now. Looking at the pre-industrial world population, say 1000 years ago, the population was around 200 million, give or take 50 million. I think the upper limit is about 300-400 million, but not with the state of today's ag land. I think we'd be lucky to support 200 million now.
Feudalism will probably be the most common social and political structure if the nation-state, or even principalities, still exist once population stabilizes after dieoff.
As long as we're "hand to mouth" consumers, we might avoid feudalism, which started when we began grain agriculture, which was the first time we could store food for over a year, which enabled hoarding and withholding.
Subsistence societies with food sources that won't survive a turn of the seasons are generally egalitarian.
I now live in Hawaii and once lived in the Marshall Islands, both of which are tropical places that had little indigenous long term food storage. The pre-European-contact social structure for both was feudalism. Also, since land area was tight, there was a lot of violent territorial conflict in both places. There was no grain agriculture in either place.
Both Hawaii and the Marshalls had populations that exceeded Dunbar's number by a lot. Perhaps smaller tribes, like those found in the New Guinea highlands or other tropical places maintained an egalitarian social structure. I'd have to do a bit of research to find out (and yes, I've read The Dawn of Everything).
How did the lords maintain control over the vassals? They had to withhold something, right?
Without something to withhold, control can only be achieved through personal might, right? What happens if a bigger guy comes around?
I have learned about the Iroijlaplap. But it wasn't clear how they maintained their authority.
Great quote.
Great book! Quinn is one of my major influences.
I don't see why Read needed help researching a piece with no specifics. And while Trump's reelection is a bad sign, I'm not sure how much difference it makes–the COP-based approach was already moribund. The difference between Trump and the Democrats is the difference between "Climate change is a hoax and we need do nothing–drill baby drill!" and "Yes we have to do something about climate change, but we can't do anything that changes anyone's lifestyle in any way, or slows the flow of profits or economic growth, so here's what we can do–unveil a shiny new project to use some grand, magic "new" technology all dressed in green ribbons, which subsidizes the fossil fuel industries or deforestation." The problem with Trump's reelection is not so much a change in policies as what it indicates about the state of mind of Americans. Given that, working to build resilience and adaptation locally is a challenge.
I dunno if you saw but Bart@EB (the moderator) and I had a disagreement about Nate Hagens' interview with Richard Gephardt. I was amazed that they said the problem was political opponents not respecting one another. I had not heard so much "respeto" since I was captured and tortured by Contras in Nicaragua while on a grad school trip. What has happened is that Oligarch concentrated wealth has leapfrogged politics and dominated the narrative. Trump would never be able to recruit Neo-Nazis without dark money funding.
Weird, mentally ill Christians called Trump a "vessel" but what he really was is a vehicle for
wealth dominance. Now he will be easily discarded or bypassed while a fascist agenda is "legally" installed. Mike Johnson will be able to fulfill all his sadistic dreams, like ending meager (Obamacare) medical subsidies. In the next 4 years SS and Medicare could evaporate. So many old GOP senators say retirees need an incentive to go back to work.
Likely there will be no Congressional appropriation at all for Hurricane Rafael recovery, and the hillbillies up in Asheville and Chimney Rock can just forget it and sell their lots to Blackrock.. JD Vance will soon be Emperor, implementing the wishes of CyberCapital.
Rupert Read's personal Transformative Adaptation is trying to sell a moribund book written before Trump was re-elected. I expect the book consists of more jargon and buzzwords that will keep the upper middle class jolly. The folly of wasting energy learning fresh propaganda
is that it keeps us from weeding our garden. Say 'Hi' to Senator Justice for me. How does it feel being "the enemy within"?
Thanks Campbell Sturrock for reading my comment. I am a retired, disabled anthropologist living near Charlotte, NC, in the region where I was born. You may be a "meat king"' or a do-gooder in a bus. I read your only discuss comment. I wish you'd write more. If you read PattiMichelle Sheaffer (below) you will deduce that this career astrophysicist more or less prefers low energy overshoot adaptations. I think she's fed up with high tech. Maybe give her an upvote too.Check my profile and see my other preferred commentary sites.
NOTHING good can come from within government or electoral politics at this point in the USA. Only bad things can come of that. We need to organize communities OUTSIDE of government, as I have been saying for decades now.
Been there, done that, got the boot-tracks up my spine. Our downfall was one-part mental illness and excessive individualism and one part lack of access to capital.
Just today, I got a feedback query from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, who, in the middle of a housing crisis, turned us down for minority financing. (We had 55% shareholder equity!) I suitably blasted them.
Bottom line, there is precious little support for alternatives to large-scale capitalism. As a co-op, both our mortgage rate and the cost of insurance was nearly double that of a single owner.
Last night's election shows that (in the immortal words of Walt Kelly) "We have met the enemy, and they are us!" It wasn't the jack-boot of predatory capitalism that drove that election, it was a majority of votes cast.
The good news is that we are entering a crucial four years, no matter who wins what election. The imminent decline of Permian Basin fracking, combined with a growing reticence of OPEC nations to export (they need more and more of their oil for their own use), is going to make things much worse for whomever is in power.
Sorry, that's the best news I can come up with on this dark day.
The difference remains: Harris would have allowed us to continue careening off a cliff. Trump is actively shoving us all off. That is a difference.
Yes, it is a difference. A short sharp collapse – more likely under Trump but likely either way via financial meltdown – potentially leaves more planet still intact, than a slow grind to oblivion.
But overshoot and feed-back loops probably override.
"here is a small and rapidly closing window…to prevent uncontrolled civilisational collapse." This I disagree with – that collapse is inevitable, from an energy/physics/overshoot POV.
Erica Chenoweth's work showed that we (the US) have long since passed the point where our institutions are failing and we are therefore no longer with adequate guardrails. Her work showed several potential fixes – but these fall generally into the category of immense "popular discontent." We already know that immense discontent is locked-in to our future because of planetary physics. The most proximate one, I suggest (following Lester Brown), is that of food shortage; already ramping up, as we all know. (This may be what trump botches this time around.) War is often a result of this sort of thing, and significant thought is undoubtedly being applied to this in the US, as has been in China and many polities (global land- and/or food-grabs). This strikes me as, essentially, countries vying to be Read/Bendell's "lifeboats" – but can lifeboats be as big as a country?
All of this is rational – but politics is irrational. Ah, mi
Andorra? Lichtenstein? Vatican City?
There's been hope that Cuba, with a nation-wide emphasis on Permaculture, could do it, but they appear to be hitting roadblocks, notably a 60+ year blockade by the US. (I actually thought that was a feature, not a bug, but perhaps it simply points out that Cuba wasn't actually a lifeboat after all.)
Perhaps regional strategies? Mondragon?
I keep coming back to the magical number of ~150 — about the largest a single tribe or clan can grow to, while using fully-participative democracy.
Another pertinent number is 2 billion,1 billion, and maybe 600 million.
Whatever it is, it is the number of our species that the planet can carry long-term, ex degradation/dissipation.
And I doubt that those number do 'participatory democracy'; they're too busy producing food…
James Hanson said he thought it would be a few tens of millions, clustered around the poles in the summer, migrating south in the winter.
Where do the South Pole folk go south to?
🙂
Have the comments above yours been removed by a moderator?
Don't think so. There was a 'we are f…ed' comment from someone recently – not sure which thread – which I was waiting for them to remove, given the level of editing I'd recently experience myself. But not that I can remember. Typically, good editing would delete but say so – preferably with a 'why'.
Given Trump, I suspect you folk are likely to get Dutton – what a piece of work! I was in Queensland during the Hinze years – must be something in the fourth X?
Go well…
I have a lot of the comments not visible. It just says ‘comment unavailable’ or something to that effect so I guess someone has blocked me.
Yes Dutton may well win the next election. He is vile. But we seem to swap parties every election cycle or two regardless of leadership. 😑
Or even more often, from memory 🙂