Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As we continue to poke and demand a systematic shift to environmental justice and ecological restoration, let us be vigilant in recognizing the emerging local projects and new institutions that stir our gratitude and provide a part of the roadmap to a new world.
The problem with the recent IPCC report is that it is still talking about ‘average’ changes over the earth, discussing what might happen decades from now as a result of increased rate of change. Even if the message is labeled “code red” or urgent, it is still understating what is already happening.
What could bring down the industrial civilization? Would it be global warming (fire) or resource depletion (ice)? At present, it may well be that depletion is hitting us faster. But, in the long run, global warming may hit us much harder. Maybe the fall of our civilization will be Fire AND ice.
Society is producing too many elite people, and their decisions are causing extreme inequality, which is one of the key components of today’s sustainability crisis.
For the purposes of this post, we can think of collapse as a drastic and probably chaotic reduction in energy and resource use per person, the result looking primitive by today’s standards.
The climate policymaking orthodoxy is that markets can efficiently price and mitigate climate risks, but this blog argues that when risks are existential — that is, a permanent and drastic curtailing of human civilisation’s future development — then the damages are beyond calculation.
There are many examples of Tipping points (TP). Although tipping points and points of no return are the buzzwords of our times, we should probably be using them more than we are.
Humans have acquired the power to radically change the world. Great power should ideally be wielded only by those capable of great responsibility.
Humans today stand in gross violation of our pact with nature. We are egregiously in breach of contract. Our protections are thereby revoked.
The temperature of our planet is rising, and I’m not talking about global warming. I’m talking about the rising social anger temperature and its potential to create a social, civil, and economic collapse.
Why wait for collapse? Repurposing growth capital now could help unwind the doomsday machine sooner rather than later.
Catabolic capitalism is an energy depleted, self-cannibalizing economy whose insatiable hunger for profit can only be fed by breaking down the society that sustains it.
