Facing down the militants of disinformation. Photo: Balakov via Flickr.
The twin sides of our fossil-fuel addiction — energy decline and global climate change — are the most important topics we can address. Sadly, the national conversation ignores or marginalizes these critical issues. On the rare occasion they inadvertently come up, we act like a roomful of kids with plates full of peas and mashed potatoes, pushing the main course around without actually ingesting it. We want dessert instead.
Yes, I’m a doomer
I admit I’m a doomer. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. To be a doomer is to recognize the tragedy of the human experience.
During the last decade, I’ve often felt like I was standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Pointing out the lunacy of our imperialism puts me in the company of social critics such as Socrates, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.
At the opposite end of the spectrum are those hopelessly optimistic writers and thinkers who don rose-colored-glasses and conclude we can always find a way to advance civilization. These same eternal optimists also find civilization meritorious, contrary to the fact that it’s not, and never can be, equitable or sustainable. Indeed, the defining characteristics of civilization include a perverse inversion of power, nonsensical structures of punishments and rewards, obedience at home, and oppression abroad. The industrial economy is the low point of western civilization.
Of course, power often doesn’t arise for those who deal in reality. Again, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer come to mind. At the same time that no good deed goes unpunished, bad acts are usually rewarded. Realists are targeted as Cassandras and treated poorly in any empire, at least as far back as Socrates.
On the other hand, optimists, however foolish, earn external rewards.
Realists are not so fortunate, but they get to deal in reality, and therefore face with honor the toughest judge of them all: the mirror. Yes, I’m a doomer. And damned proud of the company I keep, too.
A closer look
We are humans, and therefore animals. As a result, evolution drives us to a “flight or fight” existence geared toward survival. For survivors, evolution demands we procreate. Once we clear those two hurdles, evolution pushes us to acquire material possessions. Each of these three demands — requisite for transmitting our genes into the future — is disastrous to the common good, as well as to prospects for continued human survival. And although evolution is nearly impossible to overcome, as Nietzsche eloquently pointed out, culture piles on, thus driving us toward societal disaster at every turn.
Consider, for example, the costs of continued economic growth, based on an ever-expanding human population of consumers. Atop the list of hidden costs are the two hundred or so species we drive to extinction every day. They’re in our way, so evolution and culture say they have to go. But as the Sixth Great Extinction accelerates, the ongoing omnicide threatens to take Homo sapiens into the abyss.
At this late juncture in the era of industry, the data are clear and accumulating: Terminating the industrial economy represents the only legitimate chance we have to save our own species from the effects of runaway greenhouse.
In addition, completion of the ongoing economic collapse offers the only legitimate opportunity for non-human species and non-industrial cultures to survive the onslaught of industrialization. If we take our usual anthropocentric view, the data are increasingly evident: The industrial economy poses a major threat to the persistence of our species on Earth.
An appeal
I recognize the blight we people have become. I long for the day when nature, epitomized in non-human species, stands a fighting chance against our relentless assault. Is there world enough, and time, for even half these species to get through the bottleneck we’ve imposed?
This question leads to another: When will even a small percentage of industrial humans join the doomer movement? Will the day come only after our species is reduced to a couple of small groups of hungry individuals in polar regions, struggling to survive? Will we ever recognize the perils of human population growth and runaway greenhouse? More importantly, is destruction what we want? Is Hell on Earth our goal for our hapless descendants?
Will you join me in abandoning an immoral set of living arrangements? Will you join me in abandoning the empire, long after it abandoned us?
The boom
If we bring the industrial economy to its overdue terminus, we give hope to the living planet on which we depend for our very lives. In addition, we give hope to Homo sapiens — the wise ape — beyond another generation. In short, we allow Earth to bloom.
Call it a renaissance. Call it salvation. Call it the apocalypse (i.e., the unveiling).
I’m not suggesting it will be easy to return to a set of living arrangements that provides hope for our species and the others that remain. We entered population overshoot with the initial civilization, several thousand years ago. More recently, acceleration of population overshoot has been enabled by ready access to inexpensive fossil fuels. The overshoot is so profound that completion of the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy likely will reduce the human population on Earth substantially and suddenly. But every day in overshoot adds an additional 205,000 people to the planet (births minus deaths). Extending overshoot extends the madness, ratchets up the catastrophe, and leads to even more suffering and death.
Suggesting we cannot return to our roots as human animals negates the first two million years of the human experience. It also serves as an excuse to keep the current murderous game going. Let’s not wait for the last human being on the planet to start the crusade for life. Instead, let’s facilitate the boom of life.
Let’s start today.
About Guy McPherson
Guy – As I read your piece, an old political joke/cartoon from the collapse of East Germany sprang to mind:
Erich Honecker: “Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights?”
I’m not sure there will be any lights left to turn out for us…..
The influence of logocentrism, which was an advantage to early human beings, is useful within certain spheres of influence. At the local level, it is less likely that one’s intentions will cause great harm (consumption of resources). As intentions are allowed locally, others’ intentions somewhat counteract the desires of logocentrism as a community happens to form. Dmitri Orlov also made the point that communities are not intentional. They form where resources and needs and allowances come together serendipitously. If one’s needs are met, then they stay at a place. If they stay, then others will probably stay and form community (or reproduce to form families).
If a place is useful, it attracts occupants of all kinds. If the occupants destroy it, then they were not useful to that place.
Humans have succumbed to intentionality and logocentrism with their long reach of technology, and that technology of marketing and consumption has outpaced their ability to accept satisfaction with the here and now. Profit, planning, belief, and globalization are all tools of the logos which are powerful as long as there are resources to feed them. The amount that they destroy places will determine the possibilities of survival, but intentional actions based on the present use of education and marketing will not allow intentionally reducing the ‘profitable’ actions of those systems.
Playing in this scenario is interesting from a learner’s standpoint, but it is tiring and frustrating as a concerned member of a species.
To clarify: Our minds are NOT any great Thing which is separate and greater than our physical selves. The belief in the Mind is just another religion of self-delusion which detaches us from the physical here and now. We end up serving the MODEL of the universe which is manipulated by marketing and beliefs rather than serving the real universe, which we are wont to do if we are to survive as a species.
The “doomer” cult is continually looking more and more mentally ill.
Quote: “At the opposite end of the spectrum are those hopelessly optimistic writers and thinkers who don rose-colored-glasses and conclude we can always find a way to advance civilization.”
If it weren’t for these “hopelessly optimistic” types, you wouldn’t have computers and the Internet to sit here and indulge your apocalyptic fantasies to a captive audience.
Regarding civilization, I agree with Derrick Jensen: “The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.” Read more at this link, and please let me know if you disagree with any of these premises: http://www.endgamethebook.org/Excerpts/1-Premises.htm
I welcome people who embrace the doomer term, but considering what Rob Hopkins and company had to say about Mike Brownlee’s manifesto, I can’t imagine they’d welcome something like this either.
Spoken like a true establishment minion!
Hi Guy:
I felt a lot of resonance when I read your article a day or two ago, but my message at the time seemed to get misplaced by an errant key stroke.
Our effort to draw attention the the fundamental choice of our times is introduced as “The Challenge and the Goal” at:
http://www.SustainWellBeing.net/challenge_and_goal.html
Humans are clearly capable of providing the food, shelter, education and health care needed for a long and secure future, if we only choose to apply our knowledge and abilities to such an end, rather than to the eventually disastrous goal of perpetual economic expansion. The Question of Direction is about raising the question about what we are applying our abilities to.
Working on common goals will make our efforts synchronize, but direct contact can lead to some effective collaboration.
I’d be pleased to hear from you.
Yours, Mike N.
Guy, it seems you are dismissing the possibility of a One World Government. OWG employing science and justice could govern a sustainable, equitable world economy, including basic means of survival for all and a humane, managed population reduction. ICT can make the planning and administration of it possible.
Everyone would be in it together. OECD nations will be required to accept a massive reduction in resource consumption of course, third world countries would need to accept 2 child policy. But quality of life can be acceptable maintained and improved for all.
Why not shoot for that goal?
Even if we could get OECD nations to agree — which seems extremely unlikely — I think we’re headed for profound contraction of the industrial economy, which makes this goal beyond our reach. We cannot even feed the hungry in the U.S., and I doubt we’ll know whether Washington, D.C. or Beijing exist in another decade. Even if they do, I’d rather not put my future in the hands of politicians at any level above extremely local. Relocalization is making a comeback in a big way. One World Government points the other way, which I believe is the wrong way.
“OWG employing science and justice could govern a sustainable, equitable world economy…”
This is sarcasm, right? I guess this makes me a doomer.
Presently industrial civilisation and 7 billion humans are wholly dependent for their existence upon fossil fuels. Indeed, were it not for fossil fuels, 7 billion folks could not possible live on this planet. We eat them. We drink them. They grow and deliver our food. They pump, clean and deliver our water. They provide our shelter. The provide our medical care. They provide our ICT capabilities. They provide the very possibility for any and all alternative energy sources we might develop. There is virtually nothing any of us do that does not in some way depend upon fossil fuels. Our entire modern infrastructure is built upon them.
Fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource. Contrary to common thought, they will not last forever, nor will we have the time or capability to create and deliver any alternative, nor the infrastructure that would support such an alternative. As they become more and more unavailable through either cost or geological limits, we will accordingly lose our ability to support 7 billion people, inequities or not.. We will also lose our ability to support ICT and all the other technologies we are fortunate to have available to us today.
But fossil fuels are not our only problem. There is also the problem of fresh water availability. We are tapping out our nonrenewable and slow renewable underground water aquifers. This is no small problem. The glaciers upon which so many millions depend upon for their annual water supplies are retreating all over the world. When those glaciers retreat to a given extent, rivers will dry up, agriculture and drinking water will be at risk. Water shortages and management of water resources are a severe problem in many areas today.
And then there is the problem of the availability and loss of arable land to cities and industry, through sterilisation imposed by industrial agricultural practices (to keep those 7 billion people alive), and through erosion due in part to climate instability.
The same can be said of metal ores and mineral depletion as well. We have picked the low hanging fruit and now are on a path that requires enormous amounts of energy to supply the same amount of metals and minerals for use by society in our technology.
Lack of energy through either shortages or high costs will cripple our industrial society on a global scale, permanently destroying our ability to grow the economy. We are just as dependent upon growth to sustain our global way of life today as we are on fossil fuels. Without growth everything deteriorates – investment, availability of credit, availability of money. Without investment, there are no new technological development, no ability to change the infrastructure, and no ability to sustain a highly optimised, inter-connected, just-in-time globalised supply chain that provides goods and services throughout the world.
This has nothing to do with “doom and gloom”. It has everything to do with recognising where we are and where we are going. We must, as a global society, confront the issues we are faced with and accept that we have not only reached the limits to our growth, we have over-reached. Logic tells us that there can be only one end to this – collapse of modern industrial civilisation. To be able to recognise approaching danger and to take steps to mitigate it is not pessimism, but positive forethought. In our current state we must begin the process of re-directing our remaining resources and energies to maximising the numbers of people and other creatures on this planet to pass successfully through the coming bottleneck. Right now, we are sadly too busy trying to save what is already lost and destroying what remains.
“Let’s start today.”
You know, there are things I am willing to do that people around me aren’t ready for and/or willing to accept. These people depend on me and I love them dearly. Sometimes I want to cry and sometimes I just laugh when I think of the impossible decisions ahead of us.
I understand this sentiment, Jb. As Bill Clinton used to say, people like change in general … but not in particular. That is, not when it influences them, specifically. Given the resistance to significant change, we’re in for a long haul in the years ahead. Good luck to us all.