Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Tom Murphy's writing, always technically superbly informative, strikes me as getting deeper and wiser

okay, I probably shouldnt do this

i probably shouldn't post his material in full

I should probably just post a teaser excerpt here and let you read his post in full at his blog

so, why dont I do that?

because I think almost no-one reads this blog of mine here

and even if a few dozen or a few hundred hearty souls did... or even a few thousand..., I can't imagine someone who is promulgating the message that Mr Murphy is doing would be perturbed by someone else trying to convey his message to a (microscopically) broader audience

and partly I am posting it in full so I can come back to it later for future research purposes without having to worry about the risk that his blog gets de-activated somehow; ... and that I have bolded the parts that particularly resonate for me

but mostly I am posting it in full because its just too good not to; where would one cut it off? what piece of it isn't essential?

what else can I say, other than that I hope he accepts my posting of his work here in full in the spirit that it is meant, in gratitude for his perspectives, which are sadly uncommonly rare and as such so important:


Murphy: A Climate Love Story. Sept. 20, 2022.

The year is 2050. Things are unimaginably better than anyone in 2022 might have predicted. Such turnarounds are not without precedent. After all, the boom time in the 1950s came on the heels of the Great Depression and a crippling world war against ominously dark forces.  From the depths of those hard years, it would have been hard to foresee the glory days around the bend.

In our imagined 2050, climate change has been tamed by a spectacular suite of technological feats: fossil fuels are all but obsolete except in a few backwater places, replaced by an impressive profusion of solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, thorium reactors, deep geothermal installations, and a nascent fusion industry on the verge of commercialization. Electric transport handles most domestic needs, while a bounty of biofuels powers air travel and long-haul shipping.

Breakthroughs in battery technology have resulted in large banks of lithium storage everywhere you look to smooth out the irregularities in renewable production. Seasonal-scale storage is around the corner, so that even places like Alaska will be able to satisfy demand year-round based on a massive energy haul from long summer days.

Freed from the constraints of obtaining energy from petro-states, countries are able to source all of their energy needs within their borders and in fact have more available energy than they did when dependent on primitive fossil fuels. Economies are thriving: global trade is more vigorous than it has ever been because energy is cheap and abundant.

Continued revolutions in computing power and device technology has us swimming in cool gadgets—putting something akin to Star Trek tri-corders in our hands, in contrast to the smart phones we fawn over today (mere walkie-talkies by comparison).

Abundant energy has transformed energy-intensive practices of food production and mining, so that everyone’s dietary and material needs are met, finally ameliorating hunger and gross inequity globally. Based on rising standards of living, birth rates are predicted to stabilize by century’s end so that we are on track to cruise toward a stable, peaceful, sated global regime.

In short, we’re total rock stars for having achieved a whole new phase of prosperity and amazingness. Martian colonies? Why not? While we’re fantasizing, let’s throw those in too! So yes, we are on our way to exporting our conquest to the stars and all is as it should be.

Part of me feels really crummy doing this to you. My motivation is not to be mean, really. Rather, I think it is incredibly important that we approach our future prospects realistically and understand fundamental planetary limits. So I’m afraid this is where I pull the rug out from under you. But see, I’m warning you and apologizing in advance rather than gleefully anticipating your bruising fall. Feel free to step off the fantasy on your own, if you have not already done so. Three. Two. One.

The first thing I will say is that I have never before tried to depict details of the dream scenario, as I did above. I found it shockingly easy to do—probably because we’re immersed in narratives of this sort. I did not have to stretch to conjure credible-sounding nuances. The words on the page were not required to check out against physical reality: I could say anything I wanted, which was liberating in an empty sort of way. I suspect many in our culture find similar joy in spinning hope of this sort, which might explain its prevelance. It’s a romance novel that practically writes itself.

But maybe I’m still being insensitive to the bruises. I get it. I went through the same thing, once implicitly imagining the future in these idyllic terms. Such visions are not limited to wild-eyed techno-optimists. Even many of the folks presently suffering existential dread about climate change would likely embrace this story as the best-case outcome that we hope can come to pass if we put our shoulders into it and advocate the right policies.  Write your Senators!


Facile Fascination

Before getting into the substance of why the dream scenario is likely a prescription for “failure by fantasy,” I’ll point out that our imaginations and ambitions are disconnected from reality by the mere fact that the actual physical world is finite and limited in ways that our thoughts are not. Some react by suggesting that we harness this human virtue of unlimited creativity to shape the world to our vision. For people in this camp, I recommend a simple exercise: come up with five examples of something you can imagine, but will never be possible in this physical universe. If you find it hard to do, we’ve found the problem: stop reading and go work some things out (which likely means absorbing some key concepts in physics). The point is, our brains are capable of visualizing convincing impossibilities in a flash, which can be both a gift and a very dangerous talent.

It is far easier to outline a grand vision than it is to appreciate its myriad practical limitations and unintended consequences. It’s also more appealing. Imagine inviting two guest speakers to a classroom: a fantastical futurist weaving a story of wonder, and a finite physicist pointing out all the ways the real universe will put a damper on those lazy-minded dreams. Which will the students like more, and transmit to their friends later?  I know from teaching physics students that their drooping eyes open wide when I veer into impossible domains like time travel, a journey into a black hole (and back?), faster-than-light drive, teleportation, etc.  We likes the magic.


Finite Materials

If humans are to be successful on this planet for the long term (i.e., tens of thousands of years), we need a healthy ecosystem and we need to live off natural renewable flows rather than continue to spend our finite non-renewable inheritance. We’ve exploited the low-hanging fruit already, so cannot expect mining to continue producing a bonanza of non-renewable goods into the indefinite future. Recycling is also a limited-time prospect. Even a 90% recovery rate on a material that is recycled every 10 years is down to 10% of the original stock in a few short centuries [the number of cycles is log(0.1)/log(0.9) for reaching 10% given 90% recovery]. Long-term success can’t rely on these materials. The enduring commodities are the ones that replace themselves: living matter.

Besides the fact that we have never built any alternative energy infrastructure (dams, photovoltaics, turbines, nuclear) without extensive reliance on fossil fuels, it is not clear how non-renewable materials could be coaxed to maintain a renewable energy infrastructure for the long term.

Meanwhile, plants will continue to capture and store solar energy to fuel virtually all life on this planet, including our own. The natural world is built to last, and has stood the test of time (billions of years)—unlike our grossly unsustainable flash of “modernity” that has done nothing of the sort. Depictions of a gleaming future always leave out the unattractive yet inevitable rust, decay, waste, and cost to the biosphere.


Unlimited Energy

Part of the dream is to slip out of the yoke of finite, non-renewable fossil fuels and bathe in the unending abundance of renewable flows. Roughly speaking, the amount of solar energy striking Earth in one hour exceeds our annual energy appetite. The sun will continue providing this service free of charge for billions of years (before engulfing the earth in plasma). Likewise, enough deuterium exists in ocean water to power our current energy needs for billions of years via fusion—should it ever become practical. These inspirational facts suggest that we just need to round the corner: get through the present pinch point and we’ll be on easy street. Energy will be abundant and—to all intents and purposes—unlimited.

Setting aside for now the practical hurdles that make such visions easier said than done, I want to explore for a moment what success on these fronts would mean.

The question I ask is: what would we do with this energy? The easiest answer is to look at what we are doing with our current energy allowance. We might expect more of the same, just scaled up due to greater energy abundance.

We use energy to get things and build things, to heat things and cool things, to illuminate things and move things. (Energy interacts with things because it’s part of physics.) We use energy to clear forests, plant crops, mine materials, pump water out of aquifers, and provide goodies to satisfy global demand. Historically, we have consumed as much energy as we are able to utilize. More energy has translated into bigger (and more) houses, more cars, more possessions, and less of the natural world.

In other words, energy is the motive agent behind the relentless redistribution of ecological wealth into (ephemeral) human wealth. My last post on hockey stick curves provides a hint of the consequences of our unilateral assault on nature for our own short-term gain. We have now reduced wild mammal mass on the planet so dramatically that the extrapolated curve hits zero by mid-century.  Now humans and our livestock are 96% of mammal mass on the planet, squeezing the remaining wild mammals into an alarmingly tiny box whose walls are still closing in fast.  Deforestation (lost habitat/food) is a large part of the reason, which stands to accelerate as firewood demand tries to pick up the slack of a looming fossil fuel supply shortage as the decades wear on.

As an example, the expansion of biofuels to support air travel and shipping inevitably—as proposed in the introduction—comes at the expense of ecosystem health on a number of fronts: cleared forests, fertilizers, pesticides, soil erosion, habitat elimination, ground water depletion.  Enjoy your flight.

I like an analogy I heard recently (from Dennis Meadows at 26:45 in this podcast): If a man is coming at you with the intent to do you harm, it hardly matters what technology he employs: hammer, gun, knife, mace, sword. The technology is neither the problem nor the solution. The fundamental problem is the intent of the assailant. Unless we radically change our intent on this planet, “unlimited” energy—by any technological means—only accelerates our demise. I think of it this way: if every jackass on the planet has access to cheap and abundant energy, what do you think they’ll do with it? Will they use it to restore ecosystems, or hack more of it down for their own short-term gain?


More to this Planet than Humans

To my knowledge, no species has ever been penalized for putting its own needs ahead of the needs of all other species. In fact, they would not likely have survived natural selection had they done so. Thus, it is no surprise that humans do the same thing. If more for us means less for other species, so be it (or even: all the better). The catch is that humans have reached a state of capability far in excess of any other species—largely facilitated by our ability to amplify our metabolic energy by orders-of-magnitude via the harnessing of external energy sources. So our selfishness is now deadly at an extinction-relevant scale.  We are no longer playing by the rules that got us here as “fair play” members of the ecosystem.

If we do not devise an intentional method of suppressing human exceptionalism, we will foul the nest to the point of self-harm (sound familiar?) by precipitating an ecosystem collapse. In this unfortunate, unwitting undoing, we will have answered evolution’s question: how far can intelligence be pushed as a survival strategy before it is self-terminating? Or worse than self-terminating: taking numerous other innocent species down with us.

Let’s not be those people. The path forward is to put less emphasis on “smart” and “clever” (which got us into this mess), and more on “wise.” This looks like intentionally stepping off our throne as conquerors and masters of planet Earth, appreciating that we are all (all species) in this together, and all need each other to survive. Biodiversity is our greatest ally. Give the squirrels, newts, and nuthatches a voice. Ask what’s good for them, what measures they would vote for, what legal action they would take if they could. Would they vote for “solving” climate change by bestowing more energy and growth on the human race? Does the introduction to this piece leave them applauding in admiration, or diving for cover?


This Time is Unusual

It is easy to get caught up in the heady whirlwinds of modernity. We have accomplished amazing feats in these past few centuries, and our extrapolative minds envision a continued acceleration. Given that our life span overlaps only a portion of the tale, it is easy to lose the context that our boom (the Industrial Revolution and what followed) is almost entirely due to fossil fuels. This energy surge in turn powered a surge in material access and economic activity (and human population) in what is perhaps fittingly described as a fireworks show.

Besides challenging the flawed notion that technology and innovation are still accelerating, we ought to keep in mind that the modern era has been a unique period of rapid inheritance spending. We unlocked the rich cupboards of our planet and have been tearing through available resources to build as fast as practicality allowed. Our financial system is set up to reward the fastest possible growth, so it is no surprise that that’s what we got.

When entertaining a dream scenario as presented at the beginning of this post, reflect on how much the narrative is influenced by our anomalous recent history. All kinds of signals warn that this phase may soon reach its grand finale.

In this context, it should be noted that the remarkable turnaround from the 1930s to the 1950s mentioned in the introduction coincided with the period of peak expansion of fossil fuel energy and resource extraction. It is no accident that the heyday of U.S. global dominance corresponded to a time when the U.S. used over 70% of the world’s oil production and over 80% of its natural gas. That special time had a physical basis that will never be repeated. It wasn’t a matter of policy.  The avenues available then are closing off to us now, limiting what we might expect to accomplish going forward.

Expecting the rest of the world to follow in the footsteps of developed countries in terms of birth rates and affluence overlooks this colossal point: now-developed countries had the tremendous advantage of starting with a cornucopia of untapped resources.  Those just arriving at the party are finding a picked-over scene that is more depressing than fun.  The moment has passed, and the old playbook has been rendered obsolete.


Dream Becomes Nightmare

As “fun” as it was to write the introduction fantasy, part of me was terrified. Looking beyond the shiny surface to the implications for ecosystems on a finite planet already in peril brings an element of horror to each point. I have explained above how abundant energy could backfire and have alluded to the ecosystem destruction accompanying a biofuel expansion. A growing economy is terrible news for the newts. Increasing the standard of living of a growing population makes today’s ecological pressures look adorable. I think of the hockey sticks and fear what happens if they continue to soar upwards—or even just level off at today’s crippling state of accumulating ecosystem damage, for that matter. Aside from CO2, the “dream” scenario makes every hockey stick worse: population, GWP, energy, waste, extinctions, deforestation.

This is why I worry about the disproportionate attention climate change gets. While the problem is serious in its own right, and some of the suggested responses are in the “right” direction (e.g., wean ourselves off fossil fuels; finally value trees—as carbon repositories), focusing on CO2 offers symptom relief without impeding the progression of the underlying disease.  Most of the hockey sticks would be just as bad even if we had no CO2 excess, in fact. Maybe climate change is like a nasty hangover: an unwelcome side effect of our civilization’s drinking habit. The quest to engineer renewable substitutes (better liquors) that don’t have this particular side effect might allow us to keep partying or even party harder, but avoids addressing the core problem and perpetuates the key forces threatening ecological collapse.

Let’s not engineer a nightmare for ourselves in the misguided attempt to realize a poorly considered dream. It starts by recognizing that the vision many hold as “the dream” is itself utterly unsustainable and thus may even accelerate failure, rather than avert it. The predicament has wide boundaries that reach deep foundations of our civilization’s structure. We only succeed by altering our mental models of how we live on this planet—not by finding “superior” substitutes for the very things that have put us in this precarious position—and thus will only dig our hole faster, better, and cheaper.


A Starting Place

I suppose it is unsporting of me to dash dreams and then just walk away without offering some form of hopeful replacement. Unfortunately, I don’t have any fully-formed vision of how to build a future that works. What I can offer is a set of principles that can guide and constrain our thinking.

Some colleagues and I worked on a set of principles that we published in a recent paper, that read:

  1. Humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature.
  2. Non-renewable materials cannot be harvested indefinitely on a finite planet.
  3. The ability of Earth’s ecosystems to assimilate pollution without consequences is finite.
  4. Energy throughput is essential to all human activities, including the economy.
  5. Technology is a tool for deploying, not creating energy.
  6. Fossil fuel combustion is the primary cause of ongoing global climate change.
  7. Exponential growth, whether of physical or economic form, must eventually cease.
  8. Today’s choices can simultaneously create problems for and deprive resources from future generations.
  9. Human behavior is consciously and unconsciously shaped by mental models of culture that, while mutable, impose barriers to change.
  10. Apparent success for a few generations during a massive draw-down of finite resources says little about chances for long-term success.

These may not be perfect (I am working on an alternate/complementary set based on recent inspirations), but perhaps sketch the beginnings of a mindset that could lead to better outcomes. If we hold these truths to be self-evident, what are the logical consequences of the set? What system could we devise that explicitly demotes us to a subordinate partner to the rest of nature, acknowledges and works within planetary limits, shuns growth models, and preserves good things for the far future?

Monday, September 19, 2022

Marxism and Collapse: Climate catastrophe, Collapse, Democracy and Socialism

follow the link to go to the original article to see the info graphics, plus endnotes, etc.:

Climate catastrophe, Collapse, Democracy and Socialism | Noam Chomsky, Miguel Fuentes, Guy McPherson

MARXISM AND COLLAPSE: The following is the first part of the interview-debate “Climate Catastrophe, Collapse, Democracy and Socialism” between the linguist and social scientist Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals of the last century, the Chilean social researcher and referent of the Marxist-Collapsist theoretical current Miguel Fuentes, and the American scientist Guy McPherson, a specialist in the topics of the ecological crisis and climate change. One of the most remarkable elements of this debate is the presentation of three perspectives which, although complementary in many respects, offer three different theoretical and political-programmatic approaches to the same problem: the imminence of a super-catastrophic climate change horizon and the possibility of a near civilisational collapse. Another noteworthy element of this debate is the series of interpretative challenges to which Chomsky’s positions are exposed and that give this discussion the character of a true “ideological contest” between certain worldviews which, although as said before common in many respects, are presented as ultimately opposed to each other. In a certain sense, this debate takes us back, from the field of reflection on the ecological catastrophe, to the old debates of the 20th century around the dilemma between “reform or revolution”, something that is undoubtedly necessary in the sphere of contemporary discussions of political ecology.

Noam Chomsky
American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. He adheres to the ideas of libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism. He advocates a New Green Deal policy as one of the ways of dealing with the ecological crisis.

Miguel Fuentes
Chilean social researcher in the fields of history, archaeology, and social sciences. International coordinator of the platform Marxism and Collapse and exponent of the new Marxist-Collapsist ideology. He proposes the need for a strategic-programmatic updating of revolutionary Marxism in the face of the new challenges of the Anthropocene and the VI mass extinction.

Guy McPherson
American scientist, professor emeritus of natural resources, ecology, and evolutionary biology. He adheres to anarchism and argues the inevitability of human extinction and the need to address it from a perspective that emphasises acceptance, the pursuit of love and the value of excellence.


1. In a recent discussion between ecosocialist stances and collapsist approaches represented by Michael Lowy (France), Miguel Fuentes (Chile) and Antonio Turiel (Spain), Lowy constantly denied the possibility of a self-induced capitalist collapse and criticized the idea of the impossibility of stopping climate change before it reaches the catastrophic level of 1.5 centigrade degrees of global warming. Do you think that the current historical course is heading to a social global downfall comparable, for example, to previous processes of civilization collapse or maybe to something even worse than those seen in ancient Rome or other ancient civilizations? Is a catastrophic climate change nowadays unavoidable? Is a near process of human extinction as a result of the overlapping of the current climate, energetic, economic, social and political crisis and the suicidal path of capitalist destruction, conceivable? [1] (Marxism and Collapse)

Noam Chomsky:

The situation is ominous, but I think Michael Lowy is correct. There are feasible means to reach the IPPC goals and avert catastrophe, and also moving on to a better world. There are careful studies showing persuasively that these goals can be attained at a cost of 2-3% of global GDP, a substantial sum but well within reach – a tiny fraction of what was spent during World War II, and serious as the stakes were in that global struggle, what we face today is more significant by orders of magnitude. At stake is the question whether the human experiment will survive in any recognizable form.

The most extensive and detailed work I know on how to reach these goals is by economist Robert Pollin. He presents a general review in our joint book Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal. His ideas are currently being implemented in a number of places, including some of the most difficult ones, where economies are still reliant on coal. Other eco-economists, using somewhat different models, have reached similar conclusions. Just recently IRENA, —the International Renewable Energy Agency, part of the UN– came out with the same estimate of clean energy investments to reach the IPCC goals.

There is not much time to implement these proposals. The real question is not so much feasibility as will. There is little doubt that it will be a major struggle. Powerful entrenched interests will work relentlessly to preserve short-term profit at the cost of incalculable disaster.  Current scientific work conjectures that failure to reach the goal of net zero Carbon emissions by 2050 will set irreversible processes in motion that are likely to lead to a “hothouse earth,” reaching unthinkable temperatures 4-5ยบ Celsius above pre-industrial levels, likely to result in an end to any form of organized human society.


Miguel Fuentes:

Noam Chomsky highlights the possibility of a global warming that exceeds 4-5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels within this century in his previous response, which according to him could mean, literally, the end of all forms of organised human society. Chomsky endorses what many other researchers and scientists around the world are saying. A recent report by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration, for example, points to 2050 as the most likely date for the onset of widespread civilisational collapse. The central idea would be that, due to a sharp worsening of the current climate situation, and the possible transformation by the middle of this century of a large part of our planet into uninhabitable, a point of no return would then be reached in which the fracture and collapse of nation states and the world order would be inevitable [3]. At the same time, he states that the needed goals to avert this catastrophe which will lay the foundations for a transition to “clean energy”, and a more just society, would still be perfectly achievable. Specifically, Chomsky says that this would only require an investment of around 2-3% of world GDP, the latter within the framework of a plan of “environmental reforms” described in the so-called “Green New Deal” of which he is one of its main advocates.

Let’s reflect for a moment on the above. On the one hand, Chomsky accepts the possibility of a planetary civilisational collapse in the course of this century. On the other hand, he reduces the solution to this threat to nothing more than the application of a “green tax”. Literally the greatest historical, economic, social, cultural and even geological challenge that the human species and civilisation has faced since its origins reduced, roughly speaking, to a problem of “international financial fundraising” consisting of allocating approximately 3% of world GDP to the promotion of “clean energies”. Let’s think about this again. A danger that, as Chomsky puts it, would be even greater than the Second World War and could turn the Earth into a kind of uninhabitable rock, should be solved either by “international tax collection” or by a plan of limited “eco-reforms” of the capitalist economic model (known as the “Green New Deal”).

But how is it possible that Chomsky, one of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, is able to make this “interpretive leap” between accepting the possibility of the “end of all organised human society” within this century and reducing the solution to that threat to what would appear to be no more than a (rather timid) cosmetic restructuring of international capitalist finance? Who knows! What is certain, however, is that Chomsky’s response to the climate threat lags far behind not only those advocated by the ecosocialist camp and even traditional Marxism to deal with the latter, based on posing the link between the problem of the root causes of the ecological crisis and the need for a politics that defends the abolition of private ownership of the means of production as a necessary step in confronting it. Moreover, Chomsky’s treatment of the ecological crisis seems to be inferior to that which characterises all those theoretical tendencies which, such as the theory of degrowth or a series of collapsist currents, advocate the imposition of drastic plans of economic degrowth and a substantial decrease in industrial activity and global consumption levels. The latter by promoting a process of “eco-social transition” which would not be reduced to a mere change in the energy matrix and the promotion of renewable energies, but would imply, on the contrary, the transition from one type of civilisation (modern and industrial) to another, better able to adapt to the new planetary scenarios that the ecological crisis, energy decline and global resource scarcity will bring with them.

But reducing the solution of the climate catastrophe to the need for a “green tax” on the capitalist market economy is not the only error in Chomsky’s response. In my view, the main problem of the arguments he uses to defend the possibility of a successful “energy transition” from fossil fuels to so-called “clean energy” would be that they are built on mud. First, because it is false to say that so-called “clean energies” are indeed “clean” if we consider the kind of resources and technological efforts required in the implementation of the energy systems based on them. Solar or wind energy, for example, depend not only on huge amounts of raw materials associated for their construction with high polluting extractive processes (e.g., the large quantities of steel required for the construction of wind turbines is just one illustration of this), but also on the use of extensive volumes of coal, natural gas or even oil. The construction of a single solar panel requires, for instance, enormous quantities of coal. Another striking example can be seen in the dependence of hydrogen plants (specially the “grey” or “blue” types) on vast quantities of natural gas for their operations. All this without it ever being clear that the reduction in the use of fossil fuels that should result from the implementation of these “clean” technologies will be capable of effectively offsetting a possible exponential increase in its “ecological footprint” in the context of a supposedly successful energy transition [4].

Secondly, it is false to assume that an energy matrix based on renewable energies could satisfy the energy contribution of fossil fuels to the world economy in the short or medium term, at least, if a replication of current (ecologically unviable) patterns of economic growth is sought. Examples of this include the virtual inability of so-called “green hydrogen” power plants to become profitable systems in the long term, as well as the enormous challenges that some power sources such as solar or wind energy (highly unstable) would face in meeting sustained levels of energy demand over time. All this without even considering the significant maintenance costs of renewable energy systems, which are also associated (as said) with the use of highly polluting raw materials and a series of supplies whose manufacture also depend on the use of fossil fuels [5].

But the argumentative problems in Chomsky’s response are not limited to the above. More importantly is that the danger of the climate crisis and the possibility of a planetary collapse can no longer be confined to a purely financial issue (solvable by a hypothetical allocation of 3% of world GDP) or a strictly technical-engineering challenge (solvable by the advancement of a successful energy transition). This is because the magnitude of this problem has gone beyond the area of competence of economic and technological systems, and has moved to the sphere of the geological and biophysical relations of the planet itself, calling the very techno-scientific (and economic-financial) capacities of contemporary civilisation into question. In other words, the problem represented by the current levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, or those related to the unprecedented advances in marine acidification, Arctic melting, or permafrost decomposition rates, would today constitute challenges whose solution would be largely beyond any of our scientific developments and technological capabilities. Let’s just say that current atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (already close to 420 ppm) have not been seen for millions of years on Earth. On other occasions I have defined this situation as the development of a growing “terminal technological insufficiency” of our civilisation to face the challenges of the present planetary crisis [6].

In the case of current atmospheric CO2 concentrations, for example, there are not and will not be for a long time (possibly many decades or centuries), any kind of technology capable of achieving a substantial decrease of those concentrations. This at least not before such concentrations continue to skyrocket to levels that could soon guarantee that a large part of our planet will become completely uninhabitable in the short to medium term. In the case of CO2 capture facilities, for instance, they have not yet been able to remove even a small (insignificant) fraction of the more than 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted each year by industrial society [7]. Something similar would be the situation of other ecological problems such as the aforementioned increase in marine acidification levels, the rise in ocean levels or even the increasingly unmanageable proliferation of space debris and the consequent danger it represents for the (immediate) maintenance of contemporary telecommunication systems. In other words, again, increasing threatening problems for which humanity has no effective technologies to cope, at least not over the few remaining decades before these problems reach proportions that will soon call into question our very survival as a species.

Unsolvable problems, as unsolvable as those that would confront anyone seeking to “restore” a clay pot or a glass bottle to its original state after it has been shattered into a thousand fragments by smashing it against a concrete wall! To restore a glass of the finest crystal after it has been smashed to pieces? Not even with the investment of ten, a hundred world GDPs would it be possible! This is what we have done with the world, the most beautiful of the planetary crystals of our solar system, blown into a thousand pieces by ecocidal industrialism! To restore? To resolve? Bollocks! We have already destroyed it all! We have already finished it all! And no “financial investment” or “technological solution” can prevent what is coming: death! To die then! To die… and to fight to preserve what can be preserved! To die and to hope for the worst, to conquer socialism however we can, on whatever planet we have, and to take the future out of the hands of the devil himself if necessary! That is the task of socialist revolution in the 21st century! That is the duty of Marxist revolutionaries in the new epoch of darkness that is rising before us! That is the mission of Marxism-Collapsist!


Guy McPherson:

There is no escape from the mass extinction event underway. Only human arrogance could suggest otherwise. Our situation is definitely terminal. I cannot imagine that there will be a habitat for Homo sapiens beyond a few years in the future. Soon after we lose our habitat, all individuals of our species will die out. Global warming has already passed two degrees Celsius above the 1750 baseline, as noted by the renowned Professor Andrew Glikson in his October 2020 book “The Event Horizon”. He wrote on page 31 of that book: “During the Anthropocene, greenhouse gas forcing increased by more than 2.0 W/m2, equivalent to more than > 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, which is an abrupt (climate change) event taking place over a period not much longer than a generation”.

So yes. We have definitely passed the point of no return in the climate crisis. Even the incredibly conservative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already admitted the irreversibility of climate change in its 24 September 2019 “Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate”. A quick look around the globe will also reveal unprecedented events such as forest fires, floods and mega-droughts. The ongoing pandemic is just one of many events that are beginning to overwhelm human systems and our ability to respond positively.

All species are going extinct, including more than half a dozen species of the genus Homo that have already disappeared. According to the scientific paper by Quintero and Wiens published in Ecology Letters on 26 June 2013, the projected rate of environmental change is 10.000 times faster than vertebrates can adapt to. Mammals also cannot keep up with these levels of change, as Davis and colleagues’ paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 30 October 2018 points out. The fact that our species is a vertebrate mammal suggests that we will join more than 99% of the species that have existed on Earth that have already gone extinct. The only question in doubt is when. In fact, human extinction could have been triggered several years ago when the Earth’s average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1750 baseline. According to a comprehensive overview of this situation published by the European Strategy and Policy Analysis System in April 2019, a “1.5 degree increase is the maximum the planet can tolerate; (…) in a worst-case scenario, [such a temperature increase above the 1750 baseline will result in] the extinction of humanity altogether”.

All species need habitat to survive. As Hall and colleagues reported in the Spring 1997 issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin: “We therefore define habitat ‘as the resources and conditions present in an area that produce occupancy, including survival and reproduction, of a given organism. Habitat is organism-specific; it relates the presence of a species, population or individual (…) to the physical and biological characteristics of an area. Habitat implies more than vegetation or the structure of that vegetation; it is the sum of the specific resources needed by organisms. Whenever an organism is provided with resources that allow it to survive, that is its habitat’”. Even tardigrades are not immune to extinction. Rather, they are sensitive to high temperatures, as reported in the 9 January 2020 issue of Scientific Reports. Ricardo Cardoso Neves and collaborators point out there that all life on Earth is threatened with extinction with an increase of 5-6 degrees Celsius in the global average temperature. As Strona and Corey state in another article in Scientific Reports (November 13, 2018) raising the issue of co-extinctions as a determinant of the loss of all life on Earth: “In a simplified view, the idea of co-extinction boils down to the obvious conclusion that a consumer cannot survive without its resources”.

From the incredibly conservative Wikipedia entry entitled “Climate change” comes this supporting information: “Climate change includes both human-induced global warming and its large-scale impacts on weather patterns. There have been previous periods of climate change, but the current changes are more rapid than any known event in Earth’s history.” The Wikipedia entry further cites the 8 August 2019 report “Climate Change and Soils”, published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is among the most conservative scientific bodies in history. Yet it concluded in 2019 that the Earth is in the midst of the most rapid environmental change seen in planetary history, citing scientific literature that concludes: “These rates of human-driven global change far exceed the rates of change driven by geophysical or biospheric forces that have altered the trajectory of the Earth System in the past (Summerhayes 2015; Foster et al. 2017); nor do even abrupt geophysical events approach current rates of human-driven change”.

The Wikipedia entry also points out the consequences of the kind of abrupt climate change currently underway, including desert expansion, heat waves and wildfires becoming increasingly common, melting permafrost, glacier retreat, loss of sea ice, increased intensity of storms and other extreme environmental events, along with widespread species extinctions. Another relevant issue is the fact that the World Health Organisation has already defined climate change as the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century. The Wikipedia entry continues: “Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming ‘well below 2.0 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) through mitigation efforts’”. But Professor Andrew Glikson already pointed out as we said in his aforementioned book The Event Horizon that the 2 degrees C mark is already behind us. Furthermore, as we already indicated, the IPCC also admitted the irreversibility of climate change in its “Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate”. Therefore, 2019 was an exceptional year for the IPCC, as it concluded that climate change is abrupt and irreversible.

How conservative is the IPCC? Even the conservative and renowned journal BioScience includes an article in its March 2019 issue entitled “Statistical language supports conservatism in climate change assessments”. The paper by Herrando-Perez and colleagues includes this information: “We find that the tone of the IPCC’s probabilistic language is remarkably conservative (…) emanating from the IPCC’s own recommendations, the complexity of climate research and exposure to politically motivated debates. Harnessing the communication of uncertainty with an overwhelming scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change should be one element of a broader reform, whereby the creation of an IPCC outreach working group could improve the transmission of climate science to the panel’s audiences”. Contrary to the conclusion of Herrando-Perez and colleagues, I cannot imagine that the IPCC is really interested in conveying accurate climate science to its audiences. After all, as Professor Michael Oppenheimer noted in 2007, the US government during the Reagan administration “saw the creation of the IPCC as a way to prevent the activism stimulated by my colleagues and me from controlling the political agenda”.


2. Have the human species become a plague for the planet? If so, how can we still conciliate the survival of life on Earth with the promotion of traditional modern values associated with the defence of human and social rights (which require the use of vast amounts of planetary resources) in a context of a potential increase of world’s population that could reach over twelve billion people this century? The latter in a context in which (according to several studies) the maximum number of humans that Earth could have sustained without a catastrophic alteration of ecosystems should have never exceeded the billion. Can the modern concept of liberal (or even socialist) democracy and its supposedly related principles of individual, identity, gender, or cultural freedom survive our apparent terminal geological situation, or it will be necessary to find new models of social organization, for example, in those present in several indigenous or native societies? Can the rights of survival of living species on Earth, human rights, and the concept of modern individual freedom be harmoniously conciliated in the context of an impending global ecosocial disaster? (Marxism and Collapse)

Noam Chomsky:

Let’s begin with population growth. There is a humane and feasible method to constrain that: education of women. That has a major effect on fertility in both rich regions and poor, and should be expedited anyway. The effects are quite substantial leading to sharp population decline by now in parts of the developed world. The point generalizes. Measures to fend off “global ecosocial disaster” can and should proceed in parallel with social and institutional change to promote values of justice, freedom, mutual aid, collective responsibility, democratic control of institutions, concern for other species, harmony with nature –values that are commonly upheld by indigenous societies and that have deep roots in popular struggles in what are called the “developed societies” –where, unfortunately, material and moral development are all too often uncorrelated.

Miguel Fuentes:

Chomsky’s allusions to the promotion of women’s education and the social values of justice, freedom, mutual aid, and harmony with nature, as “moral values” disconnected from a broader critique of the industrial system, capitalism, and the class society within which threats such as global warming have been generated and aggravated, become mere phrases of good intentions. On the contrary, the realization of these principles must be thought within a context of a large-scale world social transformation. The latter if those principles are to be effective in combatting the challenges facing humanity today and the kind of civilisational crisis that is beginning to unfold as a product of the multiple eco-social (ecological, energy and resource) crises that are advancing globally. In other words, a process of historical transformation that can envisage the abolition of the current ecocidal industrial economic system, and its replacement by one in which production, exchange and distribution can be planned in accordance with social needs.

But even a traditional socialist approach to these problems, such as the one above, also falls short of accounting for the kind of planetary threats we face. Let’s put it this way, the discussion around the ecological crisis and the rest of the existential dangers hanging over the fate of our civilisation today really only begins, not ends, by giving it a proper Marxist contextualisation. One of the underlying reasons for this is that the traditional socialist project itself, in all its variants (including its more recent ecosocialist versions), would also already be completely insufficient to respond to the dangers we are facing as a species. That is, the kind of dangers and interpretative problems that none of the Marxists theoreticians of social revolution over the last centuries had ever imagined possible, from Marx and Engels to some of the present-day exponents of ecosocialism such as John Bellamy Foster or Michael Lowy [8].

One of these new types of problems that revolutionary theories are facing today is that of the current uncontrolled demographic growth rates of humanity. A problem that would already confer on us, amongst other things, the condition of one of the worst biological (or, in our case, “biosocial”) plagues existing to this day. This if we consider the absolutely devastating role that our species has been exerting on the biosphere in the last centuries. A plague that would be even comparable in its destructive power to that represented by the cyanobacteria that triggered the first mass extinction event on Earth some 2.4 billion years ago, although in our case at an even more accelerated and “efficient” pace than the latter. Is this statement too brutal? Maybe, from a purely humanist point of view, alien to the kind of problems we face today, but not from an eminently scientific perspective. Or can there be any doubt about our condition as a “planetary plague” for any ecologist studying the current patterns of behaviour, resource consumption and habitat destruction associated with our species? Too brutal a statement? Tell it to the more than 10.000 natural species that become extinct every year as a result of the role of a single species on the planet: ours! Tell it to the billions of animals killed in the great fires of Australia or the Amazon a few years ago! Tell it to the polar bears, koalas, pikas, tigers, lions, elephants, who succumb every year as a product of what we have done to the Earth! Very well, we are then a “plague”, although this term would only serve to classify us as a “biological species”, being therefore too “limited” a definition and lacking any social and historical perspective. Right? [9]

Not really. The fact that we possess social and cultural systems that differentiate us from other complex mammals does not mean that our current status as a “plague of the world” should be confined to the biological realm alone. On the contrary, this just means that this status could also have a certain correlation in the social and cultural dimension; that is, in the sphere of the social and cultural systems particular to modern society. To put it in another way, even though our current condition of “plague of the world” has been acquired by our species within the framework of a specific type of society, mode of production and framework of particular historical relations, characteristic of industrial modernity, this does not mean that this condition should be understood as a merely historical product. That is, excluding its biological and ecological dimension. In fact, beyond the differentiated position and role of the various social sectors that make up the productive structure and the socio-economic systems of the industrial society (for example, the exploiting and exploited social classes), it is indeed humanity as a whole: rich and poor, entrepreneurs and workers, men and women, who share (all of us) the same responsibility as a species (although admittedly in a differentiated way) for the current planetary disaster. An example of the above. Mostly everything produced today by the big multinationals, down to the last grain of rice or the last piece of plastic, is consumed by someone, whether in Paris, London, Chisinau or La Paz. And we should also remember that even biological plagues (such as locusts) may have different consumption patterns at the level of their populations, with certain sectors being able to consume more and others consuming less. However, just because one sector of a given biological plague consumes less (or even much less), this sector should not necessarily be considered as not belonging to that plague in question.

Another similar example: it is often claimed in Marxist circles (sometimes the numbers vary according to each study) that 20% of humanity consumes 80% of the planetary resources. This means that approximately 1.600.000.000.000 people (assuming a total population of 8 billion) would be the consumers of that 80% of planetary resources; that is, a number roughly equivalent to three times the current European population. In other words, what this sentence really tells us is that a much larger segment of the world’s population than the capitalist elites (or their political servants) would also bear a direct, even grotesque, responsibility for the unsustainable consumption patterns that have been aggravating the current planetary crisis. Or, to put it in more “Marxist” terms, that a large percentage (or even the totality) of the working classes and popular sectors in Europe, the United States, and a significant part of those in Latin America and other regions of the so-called “developing countries”, would also be “directly complicit”, at least in regards of the reproduction of the current ecocidal modern urban lifestyle, in the destruction of our planet.

But let us extend the discussion to the remaining 80% of humanity; that is, to the approximately 6.400.000.000.000 people who consume 20% of the planetary resources used in a year. To begin with, let us say that 20% of global resources is not a negligible percentage, representing in fact a fifth of them and whose production would be associated with substantial and sustained levels of environmental destruction. The latter in the context of an ever-growing world population that possibly should never have exceeded one billion inhabitants, so that we would have been in a position today to stop or slow down the disastrous impact we are having on ecosystems. Let us not forget that the number of people included in this 80% of the world’s population is more than four times higher than the entire human population at the beginning of the 20th century, which means that the number of basic resources necessary for the survival of this sector is an inevitable pressure on the earth’s natural systems, even if consumption levels are kept to a minimum.

In short, there is therefore no doubt that humanity has indeed become one of the worst planetary plagues in the history of terrestrial life, constituting this a (fundamental) problem in itself for contemporary revolutionary thought and, more generally, for the human and social sciences as a whole. In other words, a problem that today would not be solved by a mere change in the mode of production, the class structure, or the socio-political system, but would be associated with the very “genetics” of the development of industrial society. That is to say, a society based on a particularly destructive (voracious) form of human-nature relationships, which would be at the same time the “structural basis” of all possible and conceivable models of it (capitalists, socialists or any other type). Whether in the framework of a neo-liberal market economy or a socialist and/or collectivist planned economy, it is the industrial system and modern mass society in all its variants, whether capitalist or socialist, its mega-cities, its productive levels, its consumption patterns and lifestyles, its “anthropocentric spirit”, structurally associated with certain demographic patterns in which the Earth is conceived as a mere space for human consumption and reproduction… that is the main problem.

Is it possible to reconcile current levels of overpopulation with the survival requirements of our species? No. We have become a planetary plague and will remain a planetary plague until such time as, by hook or by crook (almost certainly by crook) our numbers are substantially reduced and remain at the minimum possible levels, for at least a few centuries or millennia. Is it possible to solve the problem of overpopulation and at the same time defend the legitimacy of traditional modern values associated with the promotion of human and social rights, at least as these values have been understood in recent centuries? No. Modernity has failed. Modernity is dead. We are going to have to rethink every single one of our values, including the most basic ones, all of them. We are going to have to rethink who we are, where we are going and where we come from. The existence of almost 8 billion people on our planet today, and moreover the likely increase of this number to one that reaches 10 or even 12 billion is not only incompatible with the realisation of the very ideals and values of modern democracy in all its variants (capitalists or socialists), but also with the very survival of our species as a whole and, possibly, of all complex life on Earth. This simply because there will be nowhere near enough resources to ensure the realization of these values (or even our own subsistence) in such a demographic context (there simply won’t be enough food and water). Our situation is terminal. Modernity is dead. Democracy is dead. Socialism is dead. And if we want these concepts -democracy or socialism- to really have any value in the face of the approaching catastrophe, then we will have to rethink them a little more humbly than we have done so far.

Modern civilisation has borne some of the best fruits of humanity’s social development, but also some of the worst. We are in some ways like the younger brother of a large family whose early successes made him conceited, stupid and who, thinking of himself as “master of the world”, began to lose everything. We are that young man. We should therefore shut up, put our ideologies (capitalists and socialists) in our pockets, and start learning a little more from our more modest, slower and more balanced “big brothers”; for example, each of the traditional or indigenous societies which have been able to ensure their subsistence for centuries and in some cases even millennia. The latter while industrial society would not even have completed three centuries before endangering its own existence and that of all other cultures on the planet. In a few words, start learning from all those traditional societies that have subsisted in the context of the development of social systems that are often much more respectful of ecological and ecosystemic balances. Those “ecosocial balances” which are, in the end, in the long view of the evolution of species, the real basis for the development of any society… because without species (be they animal or plant), any human culture is impossible. Scientific and technological progress? Excellent idea! But perhaps we could take the long route, think things through a bit more, and achieve the same as we have achieved today in two centuries, but perhaps taking a bit longer, say ten, twenty or even a hundred centuries? Who’s in a hurry? Let us learn from the tortoise which, perhaps because it is slow, has survived on Earth for more than 220 million years, until we (who as Homo sapiens are no more than 250.000 years old) came along and endangered it.

Guy McPherson:

As ecologists have been pointing out for decades, environmental impacts are the result of human population size and human consumption levels. The Earth can support many more hunter-gatherers than capitalists seeking more material possessions. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the latter rather than the former. Ecologists and environmentalists have been proposing changes in human behaviour since at least the early 20th century. These recommendations have fallen on deaf ears. However, even if it is possible to achieve substantial changes in human behaviour, and if they result in an effective slowing down or stopping of industrial activity, it is questionable whether this is a useful means of ensuring our continued survival. One reason for this lies in the knowledge of what the effect of “aerosol masking” could mean for the climate crisis.

The “climate masking” effect of aerosols has been discussed in the scientific literature since at least 1929, and consists of the following: at the same time as industrial activity produces greenhouse gases that trap part of the heat resulting from sunlight reaching the Earth, it also produces small particles that prevent this sunlight from even touching the surface of the planet. These particles, called “aerosols”, thus act as a kind of umbrella that prevents some of the sunlight from reaching the earth’s surface (hence this phenomenon has also been referred to as “global dimming”) [11]. In other words, these particles (aerosols) prevent part of the sun’s rays from penetrating the atmosphere and thus inhibit further global warming. This means, then, that the current levels of global warming would in fact be much lower than those that should be associated with the volumes of greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere today (hence the designation of this phenomenon as “climate masking”). To put it in a simpler way, the global warming situation today would actually be far more serious than is indicated not only by the very high current global temperatures, but also by the (already catastrophic) projections of rising global temperatures over the coming decades. This is especially important if we consider the (overly optimistic) possibility of a future reduction in the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere as a result of a potential decrease in greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years, which should paradoxically lead, therefore, to a dramatic increase in global temperatures.

Global temperatures should then not only be much higher than they are today, but the expected rise in global temperatures will necessarily be more intense than most climate models suggest. According to the father of climate science, James Hansen, it takes about five days for aerosols to fall from the atmosphere to the surface. More than two dozen peer-reviewed papers have been published on this subject and the latest of these indicates that the Earth would warm by an additional 55% if the “masking” effect of aerosols were lost, which should happen, as we said, as a result of a marked decrease or modification of industrial activity leading to a considerable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This study suggests that this could potentially lead to an additional (sudden) increase in the earth’s surface temperature by about 133% at the continental level. This article was published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications on 15 June 2021. In conclusion, the loss or substantial decrease of aerosols in the atmosphere could therefore lead to a potential increase of more than 3 degrees Celsius of global warming above the 1750 baseline very quickly. I find it very difficult to imagine many natural species (including our own) being able to withstand this rapid pace of environmental change.

In reality, a mass extinction event has been underway since at least 1992. This was reported by Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson, the so-called “father of biodiversity”, in his 1992 and 2002 books The Diversity of Life and The Future of Life, respectively. The United Nations Environment Programme also reported in August 2010 that every day we are leading to the extinction of 150 to 200 species. This would thus be at least the eighth mass extinction event on Earth. The scientific literature finally acknowledged the ongoing mass extinction event on 2 March 2011 in Nature. Further research along these lines was published on 19 June 2015 in Science Advances by conservation biologist Gerardo Ceballos and colleagues entitled “Accelerated human-induced losses of modern species: entering the sixth mass extinction”. Coinciding with the publication of this article, lead author Ceballos stated that “life would take many millions of years to recover and that our species would probably soon disappear”. This conclusion is supported by subsequent work indicating that terrestrial life did not recover from previous mass extinction events for millions of years. It is true, however, that indigenous perspectives can help us understand ongoing events. However, I am convinced that rationalism is key to a positive response to these events.

Friday, September 9, 2022

Collapsosaurus Rex: Collapse 101

Collapse 101, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Kali Yuga

by Collapsosaurus Rex

Editor’s note: I started this site with the intent of hosting others’ writings, as well as my own, on the topic of how to live with the awareness of impending civilizational collapse brought on by climate change and global capitalism. When I have reposted others’ writing here without permission, I have tried to remain within the bounds of fair use by limiting my reposting to excerpts and linking to the original. However, on one prior occasion, I posted essays which were not elsewhere available. This is another such instance. The three essays which follow were written under the pseudonym “Collapsosaurus Rex” in 2018. They are now only available in archived format and therefore cannot be found through regular internet searches. I am reposting them here so that they might be more widely appreciated. I recommend reading the three articles together. Michael Dowd’s audio recording of his reading of the entire series here.


Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I’m sorry to say that I have some bad news for you: Civilization is collapsing. If you hadn’t realized that already, I imagine that reading this summary will come as something of a shock. If you’ve already started putting together the pieces for yourself, then this might cover some familiar territory. In any case, the purpose of this overview is to describe in simple and straightforward terms why so many reputable people have become convinced that civilization is heading for a disaster of epic proportions.

But What About Rocket Jesus?

On the surface, the idea that industrial civilization is collapsing might seem utterly ridiculous to people raised on the techno-utopian vision of shows and movies like Star Trek, Star Wars and all the endless imitators who imagined that humanity would travel to the stars and explore the universe. Indeed, for most of my life I was one of the people who believed exactly that. I thought that humanity, despite our flaws, would mature along with our technology and eventually leave our home planet for sexy sci-fi adventures among the stars.

Looking back, that seems pretty ridiculous now, but you’d be amazed by how many otherwise intelligent and rational people still seem to believe something along those lines.

Hell, celebrity billionaire Elon Musk (henceforth referred to by his charming internet nickname Rocket Jesus) famously spent a metric fuckton of money launching a goddamn sports car into orbit in order to keep dreams of space exploration alive. The problem is, of course, that if we can’t manage to build a sustainable civilization on Earth with an abundance of resources, how the hell are we supposed to make it work on Mars?

The main point I’m trying to make here is that settling other planets or living on spaceships is no solution for the problems that have gotten us into this mess. We have built an entire civilization on the foundations of overconsumption, inequality, greed and hubris. Taking those things into space will kill us even faster than they are killing us here on Earth.

On to the Main Event

So what do I mean when I say that civilization is collapsing? Well, as it turns out, this whole shitshow of a culture is based on exploiting resources as quickly as possible and turning them into constant growth. Ever since our ancestors developed totalitarian agriculture (by which I mean the system that dominates ecosystems as opposed to coexisting with them) we have been heading down a dead-end road that ends with a very steep cliff.

Think of it like this: When yeast cells are added to a sugar solution to make alcohol, they begin by doubling their numbers over and over again until they have completely saturated the solution. Then, they metabolize the sugar for energy and excrete CO2 and alcohol. After a few days almost all the sugar is gone, and the yeast begin to die off as their food supply runs out and their waste products build up until they can no longer survive.

Humans are carrying out the same process right now on a planetary scale, but almost everyone is in denial of this fact because they can’t quite believe that our leaders and decision-makers could be so damn stupid. “But wait,” I hear some of you thinking, “humans are so much smarter than yeast! We’re individuals who make choices and create amazing technology. Surely someone will invent something that can save us!”

It’s true that as individuals we’re (marginally) smarter than yeast, but as a whole our population dynamics follow the same physical laws and respond to the same pressures and incentives as other species. When resources are abundant, our population grows until it reaches the physical limits of the environment. Once all the resources have been consumed, our population will inevitably decline, no matter how smart some individuals may be.

Unfortunately, we’ve been born into the generations living right before the peak of civilization, and we are currently witnessing the last of the easily-accessible resources being consumed. It’s somewhat like riding up the steep initial incline of a roller coaster: on the way up it can seem as though we are climbing an endless hill of progress, but as soon as we tip over the peak there will be a rapid and dramatic fall.

Oil, Energy and EROEI

The main driver of collapse is our addiction to fossil fuel energy sources. As I write this in early 2018, more than 85 percent of the world’s energy is derived by burning oil, coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels. Our civilization is completely dependent on these fuels for electricity, transportation, manufacturing and pretty much every other aspect of industrial society. There are several major problems with this situation, some of which we will have to deal with very soon (within 5 to 10 years) and others that we will be dealing with until our species goes extinct (much sooner than you probably imagine).

In the short term, the most pressing problem is that we have burned through most of the easily-accessible oil in the planetary equivalent of a wild weekend bender. Oil is basically stored solar energy that has been accumulating for millions of years, and when we first began burning through this treasure trove in the early 20th century, each barrel provided up to 40 times as much energy as was required to extract it (some estimates say as high as 100-to-1). This energy surplus allowed our population to explode and provided the fuel for massive economic growth and unprecedented prosperity for the wealthy nations of the world.

Unfortunately, just like a raging alcoholic who drinks up all their money in one weekend instead of saving anything for the future, we’ve now burned through our reserves and we’re desperately fracking everything in sight to squeeze out a few more drops of the good stuff. Making matters worse is the fact that fracking and using other technological fixes to extract shale oil is highly energy-intensive. That means that where once we were getting an Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) of greater than 40 to 1, now we’re down below 20 to 1 and falling fast.

This is reflected economically by the anemic growth and near-zero interest rates that have characterized the post-2008 economic “recovery.” I put recovery in quotes there because it is quite clear that conditions for 99% of humanity have not recovered and never will. Instead, we will see a continual decline in quality of life and available resources until the system reaches a breaking point. Some analysts suggest that EROEI below 10-to-1 will make it impossible to sustain our manufacturing and distribution networks, effectively leading to collapse well before the planet actually runs out of oil. Based on current consumption and discovery rates, this could happen as soon as the early 2020s.

CO2, Climate Change and Collapse

Unfortunately, even if the entire world population became enlightened overnight and gave up fossil fuels today, went 100 percent vegan and lived out the rest of their lives as hermetic eco-saints, there is already so much carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution in the atmosphere that collapse is “baked into the cake.” Because of its chemical makeup, CO2 takes a few decades from when it is initially released until it is fully active as a heat-trapping agent in the atmosphere. This means that the wild climatic swings, monstrous storms and record-breaking heat waves we’re already witnessing are being amplified by CO2 emissions from the 1980s and 90s, and will continue to intensify as all the CO2 we’ve released since then stacks on top.

Basically, we would have had to dramatically downsize the global economy decades ago and actively worked to prevent the last 40 years of population growth in order to have a chance to avoid catastrophic climate change and eventual extinction. But, since our political leaders and corporate overlords have the common sense, empathy and foresight of meth-addicted hyenas, we’re now in what I like to think of as “the darkest timeline” in which our species is effectively going to go extinct by the end of this century. I say “effectively” because even if the children of a few billionaire survivors eke out a living for a while longer in underground bunkers, there will be no triumphant return to the surface for them or their descendants. Those bunkers will eventually become tombs, as elaborate and ultimately pointless as the pyramids of Giza.

I say all this with considerable confidence because we have already altered the climate of our planet so much that eventually the atmosphere will become unbreathable. To make a long story short, phytoplankton in the oceans make more than 50 percent of our oxygen, and we are killing them off by heating up the water and causing it to become more acidic as it absorbs CO2. Once the oceans pass a certain threshold, dangerous bacteria take over and produce a toxic gas called hydrogen sulfide. Here’s a link to a full explanation if you want to read more about this process. (Fair warning: It’s depressing as hell and there’s nothing you can do about it anyway, but that sure didn’t stop me from ruining my own life by learning about it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Well before the oxygen runs out, though, we will reach global average temperatures that make it difficult (if not impossible) to grow the staple crops that billions depend on for sustenance, including rice, wheat and corn. Droughts are already impacting millions of people all over the world, and they are projected to increase dramatically in many areas, turning whole swathes of productive countryside into deserts. Other areas will receive massive increases in rainfall, leading to unprecedented flooding and the loss of cropland due to pollution and erosion. The combined effects of food shortages, famines, droughts, floods, fires, hurricanes and all the other disasters brought about by climate change will rapidly destabilize most countries and lead to mass migrations on a scale never before seen. Inevitably, this will cause political and military conflicts as wealthier nation-states attempt to secure their borders and hoard the few remaining resources for the elites.

Economically, these factors will lead to death-by-a-thousand-cuts as multi-billion-dollar disasters occur over and over again until insurance companies are bankrupted and the global economy lies in smoking ruins, just like our storm-shattered cities.

(Note that I haven’t even bothered to talk about the wholesale destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity, proliferation of toxic chemicals and plastic pollution in every water source, or any of the accelerating feedback loops that are complicating all of these problems. Frankly, there’s no point. It only takes one extinction-level event to end a species, and we’ve set ourselves up for at least a dozen of them and counting. Reading the news these days feels like watching a special-needs soccer team racking up own-goals and celebrating that the score is getting so high.)

Jumping to Conclusions

At this point in the article, it’s customary to drag out the ol’ garden hose and blow a bunch of smoke and sunshine up your ass about how humanity can solve its problems with advanced technology, greater political engagement and positive thinking about chakra crystals or something.

Fortunately, I don’t care enough about what you think or do to bother lying to you. So, I am free to summarize the situation succinctly and honestly in layman’s terms: We fucked up big time and there’s absolutely nothing we can do to fix it. In upcoming articles I will dig more deeply into the techno-fantasies of carbon capture and storage, space-based reflectors and other geo-engineering pipedreams, but for now suffice it to say that you’d better enjoy your remaining time and money while you can, because the future is looking grim and retirement is a fantasy for all but the wealthiest people alive right now.

Whew! I need a drink, and I imagine you might as well. There’s plenty more we could cover, but this is just Collapse 101, so let’s save some despairoin for another day. If you’re wondering what comes next, check out our piece on What YOU Can Do to stop collapse, or get a head start on navigating the Stages of Grief.

If this is all a bit much for you, why not take a break from the hardcore doom with our suggestions for Coping Mechanisms, or consider getting offline entirely and go for a walk in the park while you can still breathe the air and see some actual plants and animals before they’re gone for good.

No matter what else you take away from this article, I hope you’ll remember to appreciate what you’ve got while you’ve got it. Becoming aware of collapse can be a terrible burden, but it can also be a great gift when it becomes a reminder to treasure each day as if it could be your last, and to live life to the fullest while you can. Our children and grandchildren will look back on these years as a time of unbelievable luxury, comfort and convenience, so try not to take anything for granted, and do your best to be grateful for the time you have left.

Saturday, September 3, 2022

Monica Lee's Realism is a breath of fresh air

Monica Lee: Climate Crisis and Bullshit Optimism. May 21, 2022.

I’m so amazed by anyone who is optimistic with regard to our current climate crisis.

I suspect that this optimism prevails maybe because almost every mainstream article or discussion on the topic by a scientist ends with a message of hope that we can turn things around in time if we just work together and cooperate to cut our emissions.

They keep telling us that all the shit hits the fan by 2050 or 2100, so we assume that we have some time before we really need to buckle down and make some sacrifices.

I also suspect that no scientist really believes this and it’s really insulting to those of us who see through the bullshit message. Even if they know that there’s realistically nothing we can do at this point to stop and reverse the warming, it’s bad PR to not at least appear hopeful. Great, the ship’s going down and why not whore yourselves out to corporate media with your bullshit message of hope instead of telling the truth?

Surely, you’ve notice what’s happening around you. You don’t need someone else to tell you that things are headed off a cliff, or are you that frog in the boiling pot?

Excess carbon dioxide heating up the atmosphere? That’s okay, we’ll develop carbon sequestration technology that will remove the excess carbon and store it underground indefinitely and not worry about the environmental degradation that accompanies this technology and the fact that we’re already several decades too late for it to be a current viable solution.

Currently, the biggest carbon sequestration plant in the world may​ negate an equivalent of three seconds’ worth of emissions per year. There aren’t enough of these extremely costly plants in existence to even make a dent in offsetting the emissions.

Let’s plant more trees! Sure, we’ll just ignore the fact that there’s not enough available land due to its appropriation for agricultural usage and that there’s not enough time to plant the amount of trees needed to grow to their full potential to sequester enough carbon to slow down the warming caused by the increasing rate of carbon dioxide and methane and warming that’s already baked in the atmosphere.

And guess what? All of these increasing wildfires release even more of that sequestered carbon creating an endless feedback loop of increasing temperatures which leads to more wildfires, etc., because trees can’t adapt fast enough to the increasing temperatures.

In the past two years alone, twenty percent of the giant sequoias were wiped out of existence due to wildfires. Twenty percent of some of the oldest living organisms on the planet that were once considered fireproof are wiped out forever. Don’t count on restoring them anytime soon. It takes hundreds of years for them to reach their full height if they are allowed to grow in a temperate climate which no longer describes California.

In fact, every year, wildfires are getting worse, and at the time of this writing, the wildfire season started four months earlier than usual in the Southwestern United States where it’s also experiencing extreme drought. The water level of Lake Mead is so low that they’re discovering more remains of discarded dead bodies from the 70s or 80s.

In California, Gavin Newsom asked residents to conserve their water usage by about 15%, but instead, usage is up dramatically. If people living in California can’t be convinced to conserve water during an unprecedented drought and in fact do the opposite, what hope is there for other regions of the world?

How about we focus on the lack of insects? We’re losing more than 70% of our insects including bees. No problem, we can hand pollinate the fruit and vegetables and mimic what the bees and insects do to ensure our food supply. We don’t need the bees if there are enough of us willing to do their work for free. If bees are disappearing from our region, we’ll just steal them from somewhere else because that’s the trend these days in the world of beekeeping.

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Forget about sociopathic power-hungry leaders, the average person doesn’t care either. Just try to bring up the topic with friends or family, you will either get an angry reaction, outright dismissal, or pleas to seek treatment for mental health because they think you’re insane to feel anxiety over such a trivial matter.

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We should have been protesting the shit out of our crisis many decades ago and worked furiously to come up with solutions to slow and reverse the damage that we’re seeing now. We should have looked beyond the profit motive as a solution to all of our problems.

It’s pathetic and sad that the climate crisis spokesperson who berates world leaders for not making this issue the number one priority is a teenage girl who knows that we didn’t care enough to leave a sustainable planet for her and future generations.

Unfortunately, we have proved to be incapable of divorcing ourselves from this profit-driven system to come up with any meaningful solutions to save our asses and secure the viability of future generations.

Human reactions to this crisis tell me that there is no hope. I already knew this years ago, but I thought that at the very least a lot more people with all of the glaring evidence of the current environmental collapse would “look up”.


Monica Lee: The Best Kept Secret in Climate Science. July 10, 2022.


Disclaimer: Please stop reading if you are “doomed out” and would rather read solution-oriented articles sprinkled with sugar-coated positivity. I understand your need to avoid our harsh reality in order to cope with daily life, but some of us realists are unable to build up a wall of protective denial around us and pretend that everything will be okay.

We’ve disrupted the Earth’s climate systems to the extent that ironically, the only thing that’s kind of saving our asses right now and keeping us from experiencing a summer hotter than Hades is also what’s killing about four to seven million of us every year — industrial aerosols, or pollution.

We don’t truly understand the climate crisis and just how fucked we are unless we understand the concept of global dimming, or the Aerosol Masking Effect (AME).

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The general idea of AME is that some of the pollution we’re emitting in the form of sulphur dioxide is actually keeping us cooler. Tiny water particles bind more readily to SO2 particles, reflect sunlight, and prevent further global warming.

If you live in one of the areas inflicted by never-ending heatwaves right now, you don’t want to know how hot it would get without the cooling effect of aerosols, but scientists estimate that aerosols offset the effects of global warming, depending on the source, anywhere from a whopping 40 to 55%.

Therefore, the potential risks of reducing our emissions quickly and abruptly at this late stage after our long history of poisoning the planet are akin to an alcoholic abruptly quitting alcohol — dangerous and life-threatening.

So why is the most important news that affects all living organisms on the planet being kept secret?

Scientists have attempted to warn the public for decades that we need to cut our emissions. While it’s true that we can’t continue to poison the planet at this rate because it’s killing anywhere from about four to seven million people every year, the loss of cooling aerosols and the AME would kill us faster, thus creating a sort of Sophie’s Choice-type paradox.

Say what?

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Perhaps the AME is deliberately left out of mainstream discussion because it complicates the general message that we need to cut our emissions, and populations don’t seem to respond to simple messages too well, let alone complicated ones.

It’s as if our leaders and scientists collectively decided to not further confuse and frighten the already confused and frightened public.

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Wet-bulb temperatures, with previous maximum temperatures of human survivability at 35°C (95°F) with 100% humidity, have been lowered in a recent study to 31°C (87°F) with 100% humidity even for young, healthy subjects. For older subjects, the temperature is likely lower.

I don’t need to be told what this spells out for all of us.

Dr. Michael Mann, scientist and corporate whore who praised Joe Biden for his “climate plan” after his election, blatantly lies in this interview posted here on Medium:
“There’s no science that supports the idea that we are committed to some sort of runaway warming. The science pretty clearly now indicates that how much warming we get is a function of how much carbon we burn. And the flip side of that is if we bring our carbon emissions to zero, the warming, at least of the surface of our planet, stabilizes very quickly. We basically stop the warming of the planet if we stop polluting the atmosphere with carbon.”
I don’t know how these kinds of comments go unchallenged.
[they do, but by too few, and on Twitter, Mann blocks anyone who tries to debate the point with him

And Joe Biden never had a plan. In case you were optimistic that we were going to get our shit together in the United States as the world’s biggest carbon emitter historically— and currently the world’s second biggest emitter — and take the first steps to reverse course and serve as an example to other nations, the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling just dealt a crushing blow to the EPA’s power to regulate emissions.

Most of us haven’t even noticed that we’ve run out of time to “really do something”, and the only choices we currently have are to continue with business as usual like we’ve been doing and watch mass die-offs in horror, or attempt to geoengineer ourselves out of this mess and hope against all odds that luck is on our side.

Do you ever wonder why geoengineering solutions to save the planet have even been considered in the first place?

More scientists are now admitting that if we don’t consider them, we are positively screwed. Even if we were able to curb our emissions to net zero right now, the rate of warming would continue to increase due to the built-in warming from CO2 emitted about a decade ago and the tendency for CO2 to linger in the atmosphere from hundreds to a thousand years.

If we attempt geoengineering solutions, the best-case scenarios of implementing these Hail Mary attempts could theoretically buy us some time, but more likely, we’ll cause more harm to the planet in the process and cause ourselves to become extinct faster.

Those are our choices?

Yes, apparently.

What former NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen has referred to as the “Faustian bargain”, the devil has come to collect. The stakes are much higher today than they were decades ago.

We’ve waited way too long, and instead of curbing our emissions when it really mattered, we’ve doubled down driving exponential growth of human population and expansion, global carbon emissions, and resource depletion thanks to capitalism.

Dr. Hansen noticing an unusually hot July in 2021, considering that it should have been relatively cooler in a fairly strong La Niรฑa phase but was later confirmed to be the hottest month ever recorded, admitted in a study published in August 2021 that scientists are underestimating and ignoring the climate impact of the AME.

He recently stated that reducing aerosol pollution could double the rate of global warming over the next 25 years. That’s not good news considering that the amount of heat that the Earth traps has doubled since 2005 and is warming “faster than expected.”

The AME is the biggest wild card in climate change, perhaps the least understood climate forcing impacting global warming, and it complicates any geoengineering solution that exists today.

The most recent and well-known examples of real-world immediate impacts of the AME on global warming were the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the temporary grounding of all airline flights after 9–11, and the temporary halting of production and manufacturing during the lockdown in China in 2020.

How did each scenario affect global temperatures?

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo caused a reduction in global temperature by about 0.6°C (1.1°F) for about two years. The vast amounts of aerosols injected high into the stratosphere created a cooling affect.

The period of September 11–14 when all flights were temporarily grounded had the biggest diurnal temperature range of about about 1.1°C (2°F) of any three-day period within the previous 30 years due to clear skies and lack of contrails that normally reflect solar radiation during the day and trap heat during the night.

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Despite the large drop in CO2 emissions of 5.4% in 2020, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continued to grow at about the same rate compared to previous years, and methane grew by 0.3%, at a faster rate than any other year within the decade due to the reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx).

This is quite disconcerting considering that scientists are finally beginning to admit that we need to also focus on rising methane emissions.

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Most people don’t even know that our climate crisis is heading toward not just a crisis, but a total annihilation in the very near term.

It’s not just a mass annihilation of all humanity.

It’s a mass annihilation of all living organisms on our planet, and it’s happening now, not in the distant future.



They’d be cheaper, too.

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We’re going to live harder lives than our parents.

We’re going to have to get scrappier.

A lot of knowledge hasn’t been passed down from prior generations, so we’re going to have to get it from places like books. Some good ones include David Pogue’s How to Prepare for Climate Change, and Carleen Madigan’s The Backyard Homestead.

Hey, I know.

We were preparing for a different future, one stripped of upward mobility and easy retirement like we were promised. We’re looking at a future where it’s smart to know how to build an outhouse.

The future of our old dreams is gone.

It’s not going to happen.

Adopt a new mindset.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, just a starting point.

It’s a different way of thinking.

It’s a way of investing that most Americans don’t think about, because they’re too busy worrying about stocks and crypto. It’s about redesigning a future where we actually feel some hope.

I don’t know about you, but just knowing that I could pull water out of the air if I needed makes me sleep a little better.

You could even just dig a hole.

There’s options.

There’s no point in working all the time and dreaming of the things that we’ll never afford, especially when those things were creating enormous inequality and destroying the planet. There’s also no point in curling up into a ball and crying yourself to sleep every night.

Imagine if millions of us adopted this new mindset. Imagine if we gave up our dreams of making millions and owning big homes, and instead we started thinking about how to live better with less. We could live happier and more in tune with our environment.

We could be more equal.

Instead of wasting our last resources on mansions in the desert, we could be building smaller, cheaper homes that use less energy. We could be housing more people with less. We could be designing and building homes for a better future for everyone, not just the super rich.

It’s what we always talk about anyway, right? Let’s apply this trendy minimalism in ways that actually matter.

Endless growth was killing us.

This way is better.