By TDoS
Crossposted from Prayforcalamity
—
Streams of sunlight find every break in the tree canopy and beam downward, electrifying the dry leaf litter that covers the ground. Our steps are slow. My daughter is twenty five pounds and the hiking pack I carry her in is probably another five which makes the up and down slopes a significant physical endeavor. Staring always at the ground near my feet, the grays and browns flecked with green and lavender make a Renoir of the forest floor, and somewhere in that morass of color there are morel mushrooms. There must be.
We take a break on a shady hillside and my daughter walks about learning the world with her mother close behind. Bear cone sprouts in abundance from nearby oak roots tricking my eye for a quick moment, making me think I have stumbled onto a mushroom bonanza. Early settlers called it Squaw Root due to the fact that the native women used it medicinally for various menopausal or hemmoragic reasons. I prefer its other name. Bear cone doesn’t care what we call it. Every four years it rises to seed itself before continuing its parasitic relationship with whichever oak tree’s root system it has settled on. Maybe we should call it “Election Root,” or “Democracy Root.” There are no more bears here to eat it, after all.
Warm days came too fast. The ticks have been worse than I have ever known them. I already have melons and summer squash planted in the garden. The climate will continue to erase established patterns, and we will continue to take mental notes on the small details of our surroundings hoping to figure out just where it is taking us. Not until a few days ago did enough rain come to cool our temperatures back to something close to normal, and the land seems grateful, lush, green.
—
There is a question I have wrestled with for years, and which I have at times presented in my writings here. That question is essentially this: How do we destroy a thing on which we are reliant? Industrial civilization will destroy the ability of the planet to harbor life. Whether we look at climate change, topsoil loss, biodiversity loss, mass extinction, oceanic acidification and oxygen depletion, toxification of landbases, etc. we see an accelerating trend by which human industrial civilization is rendering the planet inhospitable to life, all in an attempt to boost the carrying capacity of the planet in regards only to homo sapien life. Some of these crises are so firmly established that there is seemingly no way to now cease them or to reverse the damage done. Others seem to still present a window of opportunity to intervene for the protection of viable habitat. Such interventions seem as though they must come in a form that accomplishes the near immediate halting of many if not all industrial processes, but also a dramatic alteration in the standing mythology people have concerning themselves, their societies, and where they as a species are to exist within the greater context of the living world. That is a tall order indeed.
Meanwhile, billions of human beings now rely on industrial systems to provide them with every single thing they require for survival, from basic water and sanitation to food, shelter, and medical care. How does one begin to convince these billions of people to destroy the systems they rely on? How does one begin to convince these billions of people that it is in fact, in their best interests to see that the permanence of the long term damage being wrought by these systems is not nearly worth the short term gains achieved by employing them? If the billions of people were even thusly convinced, could they even do anything about it? At what level are these billions thoroughly captive to the handfuls of humans who hold political and economic power? After all, knowing is nothing if cannot be followed by some level of doing. Is it fair to say that we are living in checkmate? Have the powers that be already won the game? Is there any move left that the populace or even some subset could make that doesn’t already have a preset counter-move lying in wait that the powerful can successfully respond with?
At times it feels as if this is the case.
I have heard people question whether or not the rich and the powerful understand that the fate of the Earth includes them and their children as well. How is it that in boardrooms and government buildings the people who have various levels of control over the systems of capital and state do not find satisfaction with their wealth and power, and then having driven us so close to the brink take contentedness with their status and finally declare, “Enough!” Why do they not look at the faces of their grandchildren and finally push the big red button that grinds the assembly line to a halt and opens up that bit of space we need to remake the world in a way that doesn’t base itself on ecocide?
And then I think, perhaps we are not living in checkmate, but a stalemate. We are in a condition in which there is no plausible move for either side. This happens in chess when a player cannot make any move because each available option opens them up to certain loss. Looking on the human subplots that round the globe it often looks like this is our condition. The populace can make no move against the state or capital without opening themselves up to certain destruction by those forces. State and capital cannot unmake their machinations without opening themselves up to certain destruction by either the masses, or more likely, by those other members of the ruling cabals. Too many contingencies have been built into the system. Too many continuity of government plans.
Imagine an M.C. Escher sketch of a Mexican stand off with apocalyptic implications.
It is in this spirit that I suggest we are post ideological fidelity. Or more simply put, we must embrace the contradiction. In the broadest of terms, we must bite the hand that feeds, taking swings and jabs at the mechanics and infrastructure of industrial civilization even as we need it and liberally make use of it. We must ignore all wails and shrieks of “hypocrisy!” as purity has become impossible, and the commandments of logic and reason that were carved into stone during an age of expanding excess are turned on their head. The actions and behaviors that such times demand are not ever going to palatable to a crowd whose notions of sensibility or righteousness were forged during an expanse of time when an increase in access to material goods was axiomatic.
To be blunt, what we need is for someone to shut this motherfucker down and to let the chips fall where they may no matter what that might mean, as long as it opens up some small possibility of a future in which the Earth can heal and the survivors, human and non, can establish themselves anew. This is the dark, adult truth as best as I can surmise it, and it is no less terrifying for me than for anyone else. My world orbits around a two year old girl. But all of my desire to see her grow into a happy and healthy women cannot convince me to look away from the abyss. I clutch her smallness and hold her deeply, knowing that the love that overflows from me for this small person is no different, no greater, no more important than the love that every parent has ever felt for their children. We walk hand in hand through the forest, and I wonder which is worse, industrial civilization collapsing tomorrow, or industrial civilization continuing unabated, thrashing and writhing as it burns up the last of the coal and the oil bringing us an ice free Arctic, drought, dust bowls, burned forests, dead oceans. What is my responsibility to her?
—
Catalhoyuk is often referred to as the “egalitarian civilization.” A neolithic settlement in what is now Turkey, it was active between 7500 and 5600 BC. The population probably rested around seven thousand people and peaked at perhaps ten thousand. What fascinates most people about Catalhoyuk is that there is no real evidence of a tiered society of classes. The interconnected network of mud brick rooms in which people resided offer no clues to a hierarchy or priestly class. More interestingly, the human remains found buried at Catalhoyuk reveal that women were as well fed as men. Buried remains do see to suggest that perhaps there was some sort of division of labor cut along gender lines, as the men are buried with stone axes and the women buried with spinning whorls.
This small civilization that existed on the boundary of the paleolithic era is the foil of anti-civ suggestion. When anti-civ proponents suggest that city based societies ultimately outstrip their land base with agriculture and inevitably create hierarchies which lead to social stratification, expansion, war, and ecological decimation, there are critics who counter, “But not at Catalhoyuk!”
Catalhoyuk is anthropologically interesting, however it is also not completely understood. Personally, I find this ancient city fascinating because it straddled the line between the inception and outright implementation of the civilized project. Murals uncovered on the walls of Catalhoyuk depict now extinct aurochs. Cattle skulls were mounted on the walls. The population of Catalhoyuk was not completely dependent upon agriculture. They grew wheat and barely and domesticated sheep, but they gathered fruits and nuts from the hills and their meat was primarily attained through hunting.
In a sense, Catalhoyuk is the half step between tribal and civilized living. Thought of in this way, it makes me wonder what such a half step would look like only moving in the opposite direction. If we were somehow able to uncivilize ourselves in a proactive fashion, what would the halfway point between here and there look like? Is such a proposition even remotely feasible? At Catalhoyuk, a thriving and unpoisoned wild still existed on the periphery. Food was still making itself in abundance beyond the city walls. Water wasn’t laden with the heavy metals and carcinogens of industry. The path towards civilization has so many emergency exits, and indeed, peoples around the world chose to walk through them when the efforts required to maintain a massive and dense city life was fully recognized. The Maya, the Hohokam, and the people of Gobekli Tepe are examples of such.
Abandoning civilization offers no easy exits. Indigenous tribes that still exist around the globe are constantly fighting to resist enclosure. Individuals who reside within the wealthy nations are falling ever so gradually under the iron grip of high technology while slowly their bodily integrity is assaulted by increasingly artificial food, man made carcinogens, radiation, and stress. The global poor are not quite so lucky, and suffer a brutal and merciless poverty of overcrowding, lack of sanitation, hunger, and hopelessness.
Optimists continually posit that there is a move we can yet make, something political or revolutionary whereby the ruling class can be ousted, and sane, empathetic and ecologically conscious people can be put in their place. In this, optimists are suggesting that if we can just coordinate and organize all of the human community, perhaps through social media and awareness campaigns, that there is some move left on the field to be played. At best they believe we can break the stalemate. At worst, they fail to realize, we already lost. Either the game is over and our opponents gloat, or we are deadlocked, staring down bewildered by the configuration of pieces while our opponents recognize the peril of our position and make their own plans for when the game board inevitably gets tossed from the table.
And that, my friend, is I believe our conundrum. There is no easy exit, no half way point on the road home to a sustainable and ecologically integrated way of living. There is a grinding and terminal lock which will only be upset by calamity. If this is truly our context, then I forgive now anyone who works to foment that upset. We are left without ethical or even seemingly rationally consistent options. Doing nothing is safe in the individual’s near term, and a death sentence generationally. Doing something means using the master’s tools to destroy the master’s house, and doing so unflinchingly, even if they are slave-made, purchased from Wal-Mart and wrapped in so much plastic. I forgive the gasoline used to sabotage the pipeline. I forgive the miles driven to dismantle the power plant. I forgive the hours spent wearing a suit and tie working for quarterly gains when the income is spent on bolt cutters, angle grinders, sledgehammers, or acetylene torches.
Nothing makes sense. We don’t have the luxury of purity.
—
Three feet into the wet clay Earth, my shovel is pulled by a suction of water and weight, and I fight it upwards before dumping the saturated brown mud along the fence line. When the shape of the hole matches the shape of the black pond liner, I wipe my brow. It is May first, and the sun is oppressive in the clearing where we have our garden. Soon our baby ducks will live outside and use this pond for water in between running about and clearing my plants of snails and slugs. Usually I would only just be planting tomatoes, if not holding off yet another week, but alas, they have been in the ground for two weeks now.
Apparently methane is bulging up from beneath the sea floor off of the coast of Siberia. The Greenland ice sheet’s summer melt began early and violently this year. Upwards of ninety-three percent of the Great Barrier reef has suffered a bleaching event. A massive drought is devastating India where water is under guard. Venezuela is experiencing a full blown economic and political collapse as power is rationed in part due to the failure of rains leading to a failure of hydroelectric dams. It is hard to not feel that the headlines of global strife are more frequent, more dire.
Night falls and my daughter and I sit in the darkness of our home, staring out at the blackness, smiling as flashes of lightning give us glimpses of the forest. Thunder rolls and she smiles at me. I smile back, and we wait.
Jack Alpert said:
TdOs is a partial representation of your actual being. And you writing is a partial representation of reality. You have a pretty good picture of the human predicament.
We are way too big for the sustainable niche that the earth provides. And the collapsing back into that niche is highly probable. Certainly kicking legs out from under the stool will make everything fall apart faster.
But like your moniker, its not the whole story. Part of the story is that under that plan most people get hurt, killed, butchered, and eaten. And the environment is stripped naked and ruined so it cannot support the survivors. But most important your view of the future is partial because it does not include options, and like a game of chess you always have options in until the last move. The missing part of your view is we are not at checkmate yet. I can think of a path forward. And I am working out the details. Take a look at a working paper. Unwinding the Human Predicament http://www.skil.org/position_papers_folder/PlanForUnwindingThePredicament.html
Jack Alpert Alpert@skil.org http://www.skil.org
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
Dream on ! 600 million BS. the true numbers are 7-12 million https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/no-really-how-sustainable-are-we/ we are several thousand times in overshoot right now . It is all based in crowding it will end sooner than later http://hipcrime.blogspot.ca/2016/01/the-fates-of-nations-biological-theory_23.html the historical process is finite it has to be finished .. deal with it http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1895.Ernest_Becker nothing lives forever . not the individual not a species not even a galaxy probably not even the universe our end is now it is a blessing “You maybe alive at the end of the world ” said the ancient irish prayer
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Mr. Alpert, do you know what tellurium is? Indium? They’re so rare most of us have never even heard of them. The production of photovoltaic cells requires the use of these very rare metals- and old PV panels aren’t even being recycled!! The idea of making enough of these units to fuel the world just isn’t feasible. Besides, manufacturing PV cells is hazardous and toxic. And while using solar energy doesn’t create emissions, every other aspect of the PV panel lifecycle does: manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, decommissioning and disassembling… And you really would let the dams stand, sir? River killers? I respect and appreciate your intelligence and all the effort you’ve put into your calculations, but I think with further information at your disposal you’ll realize that there are no answers in technology and commerce. Proposing a ‘sustainable’ civilization to replace the dominant culture is like substituting methadone for heroin. We don’t want either one! We are the legitimate heirs of a two-million year old way of life, a life of sharing and cooperation, a life of small, close, egalitarian communities, a life of health, strength, keenness of our senses and -best of all – true freedom and connection with the wild. So, may we all now find the courage to start breaking our addiction to the alien spirit of civilization – and to the cultivation/consumption of grains and staples on which it is founded.
And here for you is the prayer of a modern day daughter of the Celts:
God DAMN civilization.
LikeLike
Jack Alpert said:
Elaine, You have most of your facts straight. So what alternative path forward follows from that knowledge.
LikeLike
Brendon Crook said:
“We are the legitimate heirs of a two-million year old way of life, a life of sharing and cooperation, a life of small, close, egalitarian communities, a life of health, strength, keenness of our senses and -best of all – true freedom and connection with the wild. So, may we all now find the courage to start breaking our addiction to the alien spirit of civilization – and to the cultivation/consumption of grains and staples on which it is founded.
And here for you is the prayer of a modern day daughter of the Celts:
God DAMN civilization”
Thank you for those words F, Elaine Anderson. Well put.
It’s little wonder people are going crazy in this neon lit freak show we live in.It has nothing to offer except bleakness & misery of spirit.
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Thanks for your kind words, Brendan. You know, sometimes all I can feel when I think about the ongoing presence of civ on our beloved earth is heartbroken despair. But most of the time, I go about with the calm, strong assurance that the Wild…………….always wins in the end. Now whether s/he will do so and consent to carry any human beings along with her this time is quite another matter. In the meantime, when I help a panhandler downtown, I say something like this: Never miss an opportunity to share; kindness undermines the power of civilization. 🙂 So, here i go along my way, trying my best to divorce the values of civilization and to un-domesticate my own spirit.
LikeLike
hikerguy22 said:
Very scary stuff. Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame, would have a fit on some of the remedies for a livable world for humans. Marshall law would certainly be required. Maybe this is what scares Trump fans.
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
“My world orbits around a two year old girl.”
So does it for everybody else –Provided they have children .. That`s the majority .. that`s the problem . having offspring’s is the substitute act for dealing with death .. People are afraid of death for they have never really lived . So they settle for the substitute means of gene propagation as some sort of form of self preservation instead of living out their wildest dreams . The more miserable unlived lives the more children the more destruction the closer to collapse … simple as shit . You yourself are the problem . Your children are the symptom the collapse of everything is the fatal checkmate outcome for all … i don`t want to go religious on your ass but Jesus said Matthew 16:25 “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”– Checkmate
LikeLike
td0s said:
I disagree with you, but will point out that I do mention in the essay that I recognize that every parent loves their child the way I love my own.
As far as children are concerned, they are vitally important. They are as important as our ancestors. Voluntarily going extinct by refusing to have children is cutting of the head to spite the headache.
LikeLike
david higham said:
The population is growing by 200,000 thousand each and every day. And you are so fucking egocentric and myopic that you think it is ‘vitally important’ that you do your bit to add to the burden. As if we have any chance of ‘voluntarily going extinct’ due to a lack of children. You really need to do some basic study of ecology. The planet is vastly overpopulated by humans.
By the way, no one is in charge. There is no ‘Someone’ who can shut this system down.
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
250.000
LikeLike
xraymike79 said:
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/we-must-preserve-the-earths-dwindling-resources-fo-11239
LikeLike
td0s said:
People without children are beginning to act as self righteous as vegans. “Don’t blame me, I don’t have any kids.”
This isnt about blame, and trying to dodge blame is more about one’s ego than actually solving the problem. Want to feel better about yourself, go dismantle a piece of the industrial infrastructure. Go fight to preserve a piece of wild land.
LikeLike
td0s said:
Children are vitally important to human society. The answer isnt for nobody to have any children. Obviously, some people need to have children.
The problem isnt that people still have children. The problem is continuing high levels of consumption, as well as raising children in a way that isnt conscientious.
If you need someone to yell at, perhaps your parents are a better target?
LikeLike
Bren said:
Don’t be bothered by anyone else’s opinion of your life choices. Your daughter is a part of your life and you’re the one who has to live it. We are all learning to live and learning to die, at least you have a top notch teacher.
I do not envy your position, I can’t imagine hers.
Thank you for your writing. Best of luck farming.
LikeLike
td0s said:
Its just another trope getting thrown around that doesnt hold much water. I agree, truly, that we need to limit our breeding and decrease our numbers, but shouting at everyone who has one kid, and who further, is trying to raise them in a low consumption way, is pretty dumb.
LikeLike
david higham said:
At least you are limiting yourself to one. I was objecting to the ‘vitally important’ part.
With 7.4 billion people,increasing by 80 million each year,most ecologists would advise that planetary ecosystems have slim hope of recovery unless most couples have zero children for several decades,at least. Not much chance of that happening.
The point also remains that it is absurd to state that humans have any chance of becoming extinct due to a lack of children.
LikeLike
td0s said:
Children do this thing, where they grow up and then take care of the old. You see, if no one had children, in ten years, if not sooner, we would start to have real problems as there need to be new people to do the work old or people cannot do anymore. Societies need to be multigenerational, you cannot just wipe out an age group. Thats why I said they are vitally important.
LikeLike
david higham said:
I understand that. The next few decades will almost certainly not be normal times,as the many effects of climate disruption and ecosystem collapse become increasingly severe. The planet is very overpopulated now, and grain surpluses are fragile.
Famines will almost certainly occur. There will be a severe reduction in global population,even if we do not become extinct,which is a distinct possibility. It doesn’t matter what I think,children will still be born,but their lives will probably be short and filled with
suffering and turmoil.
LikeLike
Jack Alpert said:
Has anyone considered the design of a hydro electrical powered civilization? I have and while it does not have cars and planes it does have today’s amenities and technology. Because of the size and locations of the existing dams, they can support three enclaves totaling a world population of 50 million. And can last maybe 300 400 years. After that advancing technology will have to find new ways to deliver energy.
How do we get 7.4 billion down to 50 million in 100 years without killing people is addressed? How do we conflate all of human civilization into three enclaves that cover less than 2% of the land area. What social structures have to be put in place to make the transition and keep the new civilization from recreating the old? The answers to these questions are developing at http://www.skil.org
Start with : Self Guided Tour of the Human Predicament and What to Do About it.
http://www.skil.org//position_papers_folder/TourlectureSKILconcepts.html
I’d be glad to have your help.
Jack Alpert alpert@skil.org
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
“Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection “-“When The Music’s Over” -The Doors http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/doors/whenthemusicsover.html or listen to it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkKRU1ajKFA As i have said it also to the other guy . Nothing lasts forever not an individual not a species not a planet not a galaxy not even the universe . You trying for survival thru gene propagation is a vain and useless attempt which is also destructive . But its destructiveness is on the level of the individual since it prevents him or her to deal with the real existential issue at hand of the ground of being trying for uphold the one which cannot
You maybe alive at the end of the world ” ancient Irish blessing
LikeLike
matt1 said:
Looks like we are fucked. But maybe I’m wrong.
LikeLike
Michael said:
Choosing to remain child-free is not simply a trope to those of us consciously aware of the approaching ecological juggernaut and the suffering that will entail. Granted, voluntary human extinction through lack of reproduction is as aspirational as world peace. No sane person really believes it’s possible, but it’s a necessary construct to debate and a humane decision to pursue on an individual level.
LikeLike
td0s said:
By all means, make that choice. But dont try to pass it off as saving the Earth. If that’s your contribution, great. I shit in a bucket and sometimes eat animals hit by cars. But you know what, the coal plants and natural gas wells are still churning.
LikeLike
Michael said:
Most overpopulation activists I’m familiar with are well beyond trying to save the planet. They’re just trying to prevent a little suffering, one person at a time. Considering what the future will bring, I’m still amazed how cavalier younger doomers are in making the choice to bring a child here.
The beginning of our future, posted by xraymike on Reddit:
https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2016/05/04/in-venezuela-residents-resort-to-hunting-dogs-on-the-street/
LikeLike
Michael said:
(Whoops, not posted by xraymike…)
LikeLike
Froggman said:
Thanks for another excellent entry td0S. It’s like I can hear my own thoughts echoed in your (eloquently written) words.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, eh?
None of us invented industrial civilization. We were born into this system. Certainly we bear responsibility for the part we play- using electricity to run our computers, fossil fuels for transportation, having children (gasp!). But we’re only human, doing what living things do. I feel an appropriate amount of guilt for the role that I play, but I also don’t delude myself into believing my life choices are the sole cause of earthly destruction.
LikeLike
td0s said:
It was doomed before you got here, and would have been doomed if you never showed up. People need to look at both sides of the ledger. Dont worry about that coffee you drank, go get to work taking apart the machine.
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
tdOs – Your posts are always beautifully written and right on target. Thank you for sharing stories about your daughter with us all – they are true treasures of the heart.
LikeLike
td0s said:
Thank you for reading, and for your kind praise.
LikeLike
Antoinette said:
I am in a treehouse after midnight in the Cevennes, southern France, here to keep company with my alpha cat, Emily…she is hurt and insulted by the fact I let her companion cat have disgusting kittens, and has taken to the mountain. Unfortunately, she is a Ragdoll, a breed patented in California which is very charming but which does not hunt. This poses a quandary for her, and she was pissed off to need me still, I think, though I know she loves me. (I know she can hunt; she produced a mouse for me with a quiet miaow and paws together and self drawn upright; I praised her highly, took it sadly outdoors and buried it…that was that…she doesn’t like the taste, perhaps.). We are very happy. I am like her, childless, me by choice – I like kids too much to bring them into a nuclear world, I felt this way from childhood, and when the urge came upon me for two minutes at 18 to have a child, I thought, “biology!” and rushed out to look for a stray cat to adopt, instead…she, by nature…design? as I did have her spayed, simply because because it’s a better life, I have found, and she’s not the maternal type, unlike Jojo. I am keeping company with Emily tonight, curled up on a mohair blanket three feet to my right, and I am enjoying your blogging, td0s, which I’ve just discovered, happily and fittingly discovering this website today too for the very first time. I’m very grateful. My heart goes out to those of you who have children. I have a godson…it’s been rough. What to say? Kinder to indulge him…or not? I still don’t know. I just wish he would care more…about the world, about the people who aren’t as lucky as he is, who lives in an Amsterdam slum, about the animals he loves to eat at McDonald’s. “What can one person do?” he says, and shrugs. It’s not a question. And he will not listen…not matter how I bribe or even beg. Too frightening. I could be right. Thank you, for your beautiful writing. I don’t feel so alone…Emily cares but,Moshe is overwhelmed by me, often…will return to the mountain, in the morning. And maybe she knows more than I do… As to the kittens? I am glad there is more to this Earth than just our mortal coils. X
LikeLike
Tryptamine said:
Hey
As a llong-time follower of yours, I just wanted to chime in and say that I absolutely love your posts, and your blog in general. I come from quite a different perspective than you do, as my beliefs reside on the far-right and I am an ethno-nationalist, but I believe we nonetheless share quite a bit of our worldview in common and, as someone who wishes for the environment to be preserved for future generations, I find myself agreeing with nearly everything you say in your posts.
For this particular post, I thought I would add a single point that I noticed was conspicuously missing this time: the issue of overpopulation. There was simply no other option, while die-off remains politically impossible, except to continue along the trajectory of business-as-usual while we sacrifice more and more just to keep the system going so that people don’t start to die in large numbers. I guess you could consider it a form of anthropocentrism: the reason the average person cannot give up their current way of life is that the system we live in is so overleveraged and overextended that, were it to collapse or be modified in any way, the deaths of billions would ensue. Any degree of instability would greatly disrupt the just-in-time system we have developed to provide for both our basic necessities and for our luxuries, so anyone who wanted to save the planet would essentially have to kill themselves for its sake; the planet simply cannot sustain a population of 7.5 billion apex predators drawing from finite fossil fuel resources to keep their numbers so artificially high, when a more sensible number might lie one to two orders of magnitude below this level.
The problem is, if an altruistic person in, say, the West were to, for example, decide not to have children for the good of the planet, or were even to take a more extreme path and end their own lives so as to stop consuming resources, their sacrifice would merely free up those resources for others who chose to take a different path,, particularly those who chose to have a large number of children, regardless of origin. It is a variation on Jevons paradox: sadly, one part of the world having fewer children merely frees up resources for more fecund parts of the world to increase their populations further, and even teach their resulting children the values which caused them to have so many children in the first place, which, in aggregate, leads to the type of exponential growth that might be expected from bacteria in a petri dish. It is truly tragic, but we find ourselves in a predicament where unless we found a way to convince everyone on the planet to become more unified in their resolve to have fewer children and to do everything they can to save the planet, everything will be lost. This is one of the reasons why I wish for some form of eco-fascism to take root, to force people to make the decisions they simply aren’t able to make themselves, for the sake of their own grandchildren. Sadly, I see no other way.
In my dreams, I envision a semi-industrialized world where we have a low population level and high average IQ, while every indigenous group of people are able to live peacefully in their own homelands, while they are able to obtain most of our power from hydroelectricity: the one renewable energy resource which has proven itself to be viable on a large scale without subsidies or other completely unacceptable drawbacks to the either the economy or the environment. A world where we could provide things like basic modern medicine, while doing away with all of the excess materialistic crap we have accumulated. Sadly, I do not believe I will live to see such a world, though I long for it. Anyway, I look forward to your next post!
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Hey, Tryp – just wanted to share a couple of (maybe a little off-topic) thoughts with you. Back when I was advocating for Deep Green Resistance, I repeatedly found a lot more intuitive grasp of the power of Aric McBay’s strategy (in short – hit the vulnerable energy infrastructure) among people that I spoke with on the Right than on the Left. And a surprising grasp of environmental issues as well (Well, I WAS living in rural Alabama at the time – and you know, people who grow up close to the land love the land. What a blessing that love can override self-described political labelling.) One time I met with a group of Occupiers from the nearest city in a cafe (every cafe needs a revolution :>) to talk about DGR. When I walked in and sat down with them, I said something like this: “I’m not left. I’m not right. I’m not center. I’m here for the whipperwills and the pine trees and the rabbit tobacco.” As we were walking out the door, the spokesperson said to me, “You’re more left than we are!”
Those were the days…
LikeLike
td0s said:
Ah, those days. I remember those days. I was stirring up as much shit as I could, too. Remember, we don’t need to fight a battle for the whole planet, not as individuals anyway. Pick a place that matters to you. Pick a place in your watershed that is under attack. Defend it.
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Right on, right on!
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
A pretty cool commenter post from NBL today i like to add here :
“steve Says:
May 7th, 2016 at 9:10 am
Two years ago when I first encountered NBL and the initial shock wore off that we had failed the second horror came to light. A lifetime of loving the earth was inconsequential to its long term survival. All the personal sacrifices made were totally irrelevant. The second most depressing aspect of this truth is that it would encourage others to do absolutely nothing to stop the daily horror of industrial civilization. I submit to all of you here at NBL that you have never truly participated in what it means to live with the heart. You have apathetically given whatever shreds of your heart you ever possessed unknowingly to this deadly set of daily living arrangements. This truncated, heavily compromised pathetic plastic lifestyle is all you will ever know because we are all so blindly ensconced at its rotten core. The love of your children is more of an inward looking narrow experience of true love. How can your love be anything but compromised when in the next room of the slave owners southern mansion the master is raping a 12 yr old black girl.
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
But anyway i don`t blame people with children it is what people do . People who possess the “swarming wisdom of the streets we trying to flee” that`s ok . That`s their trip they think they can propagate themselves into the future thru genes . And they invest in that I myself am a product of this when i was born 3.5 billion people were already on the planet that`s a several thousand times overshoot already considering true sustainability , It seems to me this life of ours is a red tide you can do whatever you want with it since we will be done in when its over . What i did until now its awesome i can die now or tomorrow . You who have settled for gene propagation as survival Technic you have failed since your progeny will be washed away as well .. That`s a wasted life not because of the loss of life but because it stayed unlived
LikeLike
td0s said:
Just so you know, your posts are a rambling mess of non sequiturs.
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_doors/an_american_prayer.html
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
That`s Ok ..I need no approval . You don`t get it .. Not yet ! You will . Your inquiry into these things shows progress . I am just visiting these domains to see who can be helped with the existential dilemma at hand . For a little more you can play around with
” Cling to life our passion’d flower
Cling to cunts & cocks of despair”
LikeLike
td0s said:
Ooh, we got a savior in our midst!
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
3 things
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
I have replied with 3 !!! Links here originally only 2 were posted also these not properly my links are timed videos starting at a specific part of the posted youtube videos to get to the points at issue here .. these are not . anyway just to let you know your blog provider is erroneously altering the messages
LikeLike
xraymike79 said:
What is the 3rd link? Post it again and I will correct it. Also, I don’t know why your comments always go to moderation.
LikeLike
John Allen said:
All I can do is wish the best for those that have children. I chose not to have children early on for other reasons and now see what a good choice that was. In the late 60’s population was actually talked about in public schools. It was a growing problem then and taught to children in science classes. So what’s happened to the movement, called zero population growth then(ZPG),since the first Earth Day in 1970? The cold war, the ‘Nam, more endless wars and empire building have taken precedence over actually being able to sustain lives without destroying the planet on which we live. Well the hens have most certainly come home to roost with no coop in which to rest. The TV is a fantasy world removed from the stark realities of poverty and the filth the vast majority of the world lives. Maybe a world war would be good to thin the herd, so to speak, but I’ve always been a peaceful, peace loving person and nuclear fallout isn’t good for any lifeforms so rule that out too. I
certainly don’t have any answers and doubt that there are. So I’ll leave with this; take care of your own family and children, really that’s all you really have after all and I’ll take care of my cat knowing I had a nice life on a fantastic planet called Earth that humanity destroyed. I’m truly sorry!
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Overpopulation commenters: I respect your decisions, and applaud anyone who acknowledges we’re in crisis and acts on that awareness to the best of their understanding. Refusing to bring another slave into the world has its own merit. However, you are like the mainstream medical profession in this way: you’re focusing on a symptom of the problem rather addressing the problem itself.
LikeLike
td0s said:
I too agree that the world has too many humans in it. I dont think that means that nobody anywhere should have children. I do think it means that we need to raise children consciously. The act of being a parent cannot be taken for granted, and done in a passive and thoughtless way.
Anything can be done well or poorly. The details matter. Sure, having five kids and encouraging them all to be materialistic, screen addicted assholes probably makes the world worse. Having one or two children and working diligently to prepare them for a changing paradigm, educating them about ecology and self reliance, and giving them a deep appreciation and respect for all life — this is something the world needs!
If you dont want kids, great!
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Indeed! I don’t deny we’re in overshoot either. Didn’t mean to be so concise as to gnomic. My intent is to point outvthe need to take a cold hard look at the role of agriculture, the fundamental rape of the earth – especially the cultivation of mono-crop grains and staples – and recognize the role it has played/is playing in enabling the slavery on which civilization is based, in keeping us all sedated, dependent, addicted and domesticated, in creating carbon emissions from the days of the first plows of Sumer — and in fueling the overpopulation issues we face today.
LikeLike
Antoinette McCormick said:
Last effort to post comment, am defeated! Wrote last night, grateful for your fluid, gorgeous writing, the things you show, the things you think. A bit perturbed by the children question. Please don’t think me glib or flip…
I am in a treehouse after midnight in the Cevennes, southern France, here to keep company with my alpha cat, Emily…she is hurt and insulted by the fact I let her companion cat have disgusting kittens, and has taken to the mountain. Unfortunately, she is a Ragdoll, a breed patented in California which is very charming but which does not hunt. This poses a quandary for her, and she was pissed off to need me still, I think, though I know she loves me. (I know she can hunt; she produced a mouse for me with a quiet miaow and paws together and self drawn upright; I praised her highly, took it sadly outdoors and buried it…that was that…she doesn’t like the taste, perhaps.). We are very happy. I am like her, childless, me by choice – I like kids too much to bring them into a nuclear world, I felt this way from childhood, and when the urge came upon me for two minutes at 18 to have a child, I thought, “biology!” and rushed out to look for a stray cat to adopt, instead…she, by nature…design? as I did have her spayed, simply because because it’s a better life, I have found, and she’s not the maternal type, unlike Jojo. I am keeping company with Emily tonight, curled up on a mohair blanket three feet to my right, and I am enjoying your blogging, td0s, which I’ve just discovered, happily and fittingly discovering this website today too for the very first time. I’m very grateful. My heart goes out to those of you who have children. I have a godson…it’s been rough. What to say? Kinder to indulge him…or not? I still don’t know. I just wish he would care more…about the world, about the people who aren’t as lucky as he is, who lives in an Amsterdam slum, about the animals he loves to eat at McDonald’s. “What can one person do?” he says, and shrugs. It’s not a question. And he will not listen…not matter how I bribe or even beg. Too frightening. I could be right. Thank you, for your beautiful writing. I don’t feel so alone…Emily cares but,Moshe is overwhelmed by me, often…will return to the mountain, in the morning. And maybe she knows more than I do… As to the kittens? I am glad there is more to this Earth than just our mortal coils! X
LikeLike
F. Elaine Anderson said:
Jack, for me the way forward is what I said in my first reply: the way back! Waaaaaay back. As I see it, trying to fix civilization so as to maintain its comforts and convenience is like trying to tape a bandaid over a spurting arterial wound. I do appreciate your gifts of being able to plan and calculate, though – say, have you ever thought about how to develop small social units, free of dependence on agriculture (small enough units to have true direct democracy – for MY anarchist heart, that means I would have to know everybody in the group face to face :>) and how to begin to develop local share economies? How to move beyond literacy and speaking/living in the past and future tenses? Interesting stuff to think about, but I suspect the real planning is going to fall to tdOs’s daughter and others of her generation who are growing up close to the wild, far less tainted by civilization’s spell than we were. In the meantime time, brother, I am at war against the values of civilization – first and foremost in my own heart and lifestyle. For example, where civ teaches us to play superior/inferior games, I’m trying to learn to look at everyone as my peer. Where civ teaches us tp tear other people down to make ourselves feel better (like for instance, when commenting on anti-civ blogs, i’m trying to learn not to respond to others with anything less than respect and consideration). Where civ teaches us to hate our own bodies, I’m learning to live without the foods of the cultivated field. Where civ teaches us to use precious water to flush our natural fertizilers away, I’m learning to compost humanure and donate my (10-4-1!!) urine to the plants of the wild. Most of all, though, I try to focus on remembering this: Love, the anthises of everything civilization stands for, is the most subversive force we can use to go up against its overwhelming evil. TdOs is right – we don’t have the luxury of purity. We are sick and addicted to civilization, yes, but we can all learn to grow in the power of love – whether that love leads us to try to raise a two year old like a true human being, or whether that love for the earth leads us to choose to conserve resources by not having a child.
And of course, I welcome everyone everywhere to join with me in my fervent prayer:
God damn civilization!
LikeLike
david higham said:
I think the Ehrlichs are too optimistic about the climate situation and the Paris conference,but still worth reading:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41247-016-0003-y/fulltext.html
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
LikeLike
matt1 said:
progress anyone ?
LikeLike
EtyerePetyere said:
Funny as shit . Probably the destruction and disposal of those shoes cost the Germans more than to the chinese to produce them . That`s progress at its best
LikeLike
Kenn Orphan said:
I have re-visited this post several times in the last few days. It is devastatingly beautiful in its haunted truthfulness and I cannot help but find myself in tears at the end of each reading, It has touched me in a way no other essay has,
LikeLike
td0s said:
Well thank you for reading. I am certainly glad you enjoyed it.
LikeLike
Kenn Orphan said:
I did. And I am sharing it with my friends too. It gives a voice to a grief many of us share.
LikeLike
hikerguy22 said:
Many of us have nowhere to turn as even most environmentalists are thinking we have simple fixes. Like just divest, go solar, and eat less meat.
I still have the first issues of Mother Earth News, and look at it today! Until a recent in editor in chief change, climate warming was not a major problem. And still they promote fossil fuels use and industrial agriculture methods.
My source of climate news now is from unknowns like You Tube’s Humpty Dumpty Tribe. No one really concerned knows where to turn. Any suggestions? Or are we completely screwed?
LikeLike
Mp said:
At this stage I think our best strategy is to go completely insane and therefore not want or need anything at all.
LikeLike
steve said:
Some reflections on your thoughtful essay:
A half step down is an idea that merits some more thought and exploration. I live near several Amish settlements, and they are one type of half step down, or rather, a half step up never taken. There are lessons to be learned there.
My half step down is to plant perennial food plants- have done thousands of nut and fruit trees so far. I plan to slowly figure out food without fossil fuels, but with less effort or land than foraging. Oh, I am impure and hypocritical, but that is not stopping me from doing something.
Regarding the apparent sociopathic behavior and goals of our ruling elite- “the powers that be” might be larger pieces on the board, but are not in charge. The predicament we are in is systemic, though partially of our own unwise making. There is no one coming to “shut this motherfucker down”. In my estimation, the shut down will be systemic, with some Seneca Cliff events, and some slow mouldering declines over decades. ( As we are already seeing. The decline has begun.)
Human nature is not all that different from all the other species in wanting to consume, survive, and reproduce, we are just really good at it. The irony is that our brains, which enable this success, are also incapable of modifying these behaviors even though we are capable of anticipating the probably future. Dave Cohen, if you aren’t familiar with his blog, has explored this interior realm of our predicament over at decline of the empire.
LikeLike
Mp said:
We are just too good- our flaw is that we are too good at what every other species does.
LikeLike
Dredd said:
The Authoritarianism of Climate Change (The Psychology of the Notion of Collective Guilt, 2)
LikeLike
gwb said:
Does anyone know what happened to James’ megacancer.com blog? Excellent commentary. It went offline about a week and a half ago — a “suspended page” link comes up. I heard that he used to comment here, so I thought I’d ask.
LikeLike
James said:
Just a couple of more days. Credit card expired at hosting service. I think I’ll prepay for a year next time and I’m changing internet service providers. Can’t believe it takes two weeks to get someone to the house to hook it up. I’m getting really tired and a little apprehensive about the 24/7 Clinton/Trump coverage on the networks. They seem to be involved in deliberate obfuscation of worldwide conditions. BBC news is a little better. Hope XrayMike is doing well.
LikeLike
xraymike79 said:
Ah yes doing well. Stoicism is a good trait to have in these times.
LikeLike
James said:
Be positive. Trump and or Clinton will be in control and they promise more. By the almost exclusive news coverage of the campaigns, that’s all we need to know.
LikeLike
hikerguy22 said:
We see the storms coming but many do not and believe they can stay put and survive even if it puts their lives at risk. And as long as the majority believe this we all suffer. Our challenge is to bring the airplane (earth) out of a nosedive any way possible, that is if it is not too late.
LikeLike
hardraindance said:
Well that was refreshing.
LikeLike
David L. Jewett said:
I take it that this blog is dead?
LikeLike
td0s said:
No, I usually dont write in the summer due to other obligations. I posted today, however, because I felt a strong inclination to do so.
LikeLike
mike k said:
I didn’t get a notice when the blog came on a few months ago. Just checked it out from curiosity to see if it still lived. Beautiful essay and a lively but respectful discussion. I think this venue is a real resource for some of us, and I hope it continues. Glad to hear that some of the “old timers” are still kicking, if not so publicly. I am grateful xray-mike kept it going for so long – I learned a lot here.
Good to hear from you James. Even though I poked at your cancer analogies re: our predicament, I really reluctantly agreed with most of what you said. I just didn’t want to be sealed in a no-exit box by that line of thought, or any other really. I am one of those who question everything – especially myself!
LikeLike
td0s said:
I will begin posting again soon. I take summer off.
LikeLike
Perran said:
You still writing tdos? Your website is no longer.
LikeLike