An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity

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Confronting harsh ecological realities, this book explores the roots of social injustice and offers a down-powering path to “fewer and less.” Right now we don’t seem to have the inclination or the ability to structure our basic econ sub-systems (ag, energy, materials, mfg’g) such that they repair and replenish .vs. degrade and disperse. Take the most complex technology and move to Mars? If any survive there, many more will still perish here on Earth.

An Inconvenient Apocalypse - Notre Dame University Press

This perspective is mirrored in Bill McGuire’s Hothouse Earth , yet another new book on the crisis. McGuire writes:Harrowing and accessible, this is just the thing for readers interested in a sociological or philosophical examination of the climate crisis." This cautious approach is a way of extending the adage “There but for the grace of God go I” beyond individuals to cultures. That phrase emerged from a Christian assertion of humility in the face of God’s mercy, but we use it here in a secular fashion. If one has lived an exemplary life, that’s great, but be aware that life might have been very different if some of the material conditions in which one lived were different. Those who believe they have accomplished something and made a positive contribution to the world should remember that a change in any one of the conditions in our lives, especially in our formative years, may have meant failing instead of succeeding. We are not suggesting that we have no control over our lives but simply that we likely don’t have as much control as many people would like to believe. Scope: Our magical thinking about the relationship of the growth economy and the ecosphere in a finite world allows us to believe that an economics of endless growth will not end badly. This bleak future is “not pleasant…to ponder and prepare for, so it’s not surprising that many people, especially those in societies where affluence is based on dense energy and advanced technology, clamor for solutions to be able to keep the energy flowing and the technology advancing.” Thus, our civil religion tainted by technological fundamentalism becomes necessary [(5); the term is originally from David W. Orr]. Regarding fundamentalism of any kind – scientistic instead of scientific, religious, political, economic – I follow Janisse Ray who wrote that “ fundamentalism thrives only where imagination has died” (paraphrase from Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home, 2004). Along with fundamentalism comes the naked hubris leading us to believe that humans understand complex questions definitively. No, we never do. I read this book for my class Psychology of the Anthropocene and learned a lot from it. Basically, we are f***ed as a society. Is there hope? Maybe. It's unclear. Read this book and then read more of the books I'm reading for this class which I will continue to log here. I think it is important for everyone to understand the " inconvenient apocalypse" that our world has come to. I especially liked the last line in the book (don't read further if you're planning on reading it): I’ve sorta learned this lesson, but it took a lot of decades to choke down the pill. And it makes a huge positive difference every time I remember to do it.

An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Excerpt - resilience An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Excerpt - resilience

But “Hard questions lead to painful conclusions. We are starting too late to prevent billions of people from enduring incalculable suffering. We are starting too late to prevent the permanent loss of millions of species and huge tracts of habitat. We are starting too late, but we have to start. How should be understand the work? Honestly…we start by telling ourselves and each other the truth.” And the truth is, despite Lawrence Summers and his many acolytes and associates, the staggering costs of economic growth are with us, not because we placed sensible limits on growth, but because we failed to do so. When I started to comment there were three before me. Posting reveled 15 more insights helpful to me. Reinforces my belief that solution is only in collectivity. The authors make a crucial clarification early on in the book, namely to whom they're referring when they use the word "we" in the context of humanity's ecological predicament. They don't use it to mean citizens of high-consuming industrial nations, as many others do; instead, they use it to refer to every human alive today. They go on to explain that while the industrial world certainly is responsible for the majority of today's resource consumption and consequent environmental impacts, the path that has led us to this state of affairs is rooted in humanity's species-wide tendency to seek out ever more energy-dense fuel sources. Here’s suggesting that “royal” psychology is just a fancy way of saying power corrupts. And that by saying “corrupt” we mean that the rational, practical basis of behavior has been replaced by one that is irrational and instinctive–i.e.the competitive drive for dominance. Surely the above is correct in saying that we need to face reality but by putting that facing up into moral terms it is itself not facing the reality that humans, like all our ecosystem companions, commit behaviors that are only “sins” when they violate the prime directive of social and therefore species survival. I’ve wrestled with what this means in everyday life,” and Jensen, “and these are distressing questions. It’s about wrestling with that sense of grief, rather than trying to avoid it. And when you wrestle with that, it means you don’t wake up every day on the sunny side of the street. It’s weighing on a lot of us. My goal is just try to open up space for people to say what’s on their mind.”

Now Walter Brueggemann is anything but a Fundamentalist. He’s a modern biblical critic employing all the tools of rhetorical criticism to his chosen object of the study: the Hebrew Bible. And he has employed that methodology to highlight how the “Christian nation” of America is anything but by biblical standards. The technology has already brought us to overshoot. We are going to crash. Continuing with business as usual, especially in agriculture, only means that we will damage the Earth even further, making things harder from this point on. Relying on technology to come up with a magical solution merely delays preparing for the crash. That’s really the issue. A rāhui is, in essence, an area of land or water with a temporary limit on collecting a resource, such as a particular fish or fruit. In time, once the resource has had time to replenish, the rāhui is lifted.

An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate

The problems with capitalism. “If system change should come tomorrow—if capitalism were replaced by an egalitarian economic system focused not on endless growth and profit but on people’s needs—how easy would it be for everyone to give up most of the comforts to which we have grown accustomed, comforts that are directly implicated in ecosphere degradation?” “That starts with recognizing the need to transcend capitalism and the current politics designed to serve capitalists, in pursuit of an equitable distribution of wealth within planetary boundaries.” So what is in the book? They discuss the importance of environmental and geographic factors in history, the need for anticapitalist perspectives and for social justice. Then the overall problems of “size, scale, scope, and speed.” One useful concept was the “Overton window,” which postulates that political leaders only consider policies which already have wide public support — which explains much of the environmental crisis.In our secular analysis, there but for the specific geography, climate, and environmental conditions go we. For example, because of the differences in initial conditions, not all cultures developed the technologies to plow the ground, smelt ores, or exploit fossil fuels to do work in machines. The cultures without those technologies have not depleted the carbon in soils, forests, coal, oil, and natural gas in the ways that societies with those technologies have done.