1) Now
This is our time. The biggest changes in the history of humanity are not coming, they’re happening right now. We’re here together at the most decisive point in the existence of our species, and if you’re alive, you’re a part of it. We can never return to the illusion we bought into as “normal.” Our course must be a new, unprecedented one.
We cannot stop the forces humans have put into play, we can only try to influence their current trajectory, and more importantly, decide how we will face the new world we’ve created, together.
This reckoning has been brewing for years. Long before a pandemic made people break their programmed routines, we knew something was up. There’s been a look in the eyes, a nagging feeling. And along with it, widespread loneliness, disconnection, lack of direction. Many of the narratives we’d lived by got harder to justify. We sensed it long before we were willing to admit it.
Birds know when a storm is approaching, and respond in kind. We have similar instincts in our DNA, we’ve just been conditioned to not trust them. Many of us see ourselves as separate from the natural world. But that lie was never sustainable, and now it’s crashing down all around us. We’ve stressed our environment to the breaking point, and have set in motion a chain reaction of forces that will dramatically alter our climate, ecosystems, societies and reality. We are causing a set of circumstances which will be radically different than those we were designed to live in.
We CAN face this self-imposed challenge, this unprecedented crisis, and in doing so rise to a level of humanity we never imagined possible. It is our destiny. We only lack the will to grow beyond our imagined limits, the trust in our potential to form a new collective vision, the courage to face the unknown, and the perspective to see beyond our differences. But we must find these and we must do it now. Because the choices we make next will set the course of human history for generations, maybe millennia, maybe terminally.
2) Reality
First, the bad news. It’s not over yet, hopefully, but our situation is beyond dire, & our only chance is to find something in ourselves we’ve never had the courage to seek before. This could be the beginning of a new age, when we finally break the shackles of the fears, ignorance & prejudices that have led us to such destructive behavior. My message will end in hope and purpose. I need to say that first, because the next part is not pretty. Some already know all this. Most don’t. My question is: why hasn’t the most important issue in history been at the top of our popular narratives?
It’s been difficult to write this, because every time I do, new, more alarming events happen. I’ve been following climate news for over 20 years. The knowledge that the Earth’s environment was changing dramatically due to human activities has been there for decades, but most were able to ignore it, deny it or shelve the thought as some abstract concept. But now, the cascading effects are really starting to hit, the grim reality is finally sinking in, and it’s no longer possible to look away.
REVELATION
A few years ago, after a lot of especially concerning climate reports, it sank in for me. I lay awake for several nights with a sense of existential terror like I’d never felt before. Not just for myself, for my entire world. Anyone who hasn’t gone through this has not yet grasped the gravity of what we face. Here’s the situation.
We’re seeing the beginnings of crises relating to an altered climate on multiple fronts.
Accumulations of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, primarily CO2 & methane, have contributed to increases in average world temperatures. According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the average global temperature has increased by 1.1 degrees C since 1880, with the majority of the warming happening since 1975, and there are indications it may be as high as 1.2 degrees, maybe higher. Anomalies in late 2023 are looking to be as high as 1.8 degrees. These changes are directly correlated to the burning of fossil fuels, and to degradation of the natural world which helps to balance and mitigate such effects. I should point out, as a US citizen, that in understanding these temperature changes, the standard way of reporting them is in celsius, so if you’re still thinking in terms of Fahrenheit, it’s nearly twice that much.
This increase has already led to catastrophic results. A few tenths of a degree more could be unimaginable, and we’re not even on course to limit it to that. The Paris Accords, an international treaty on climate, has set out an ideal increase limit of 1.5 degrees C. That seems like an arbitrary number, as the consequences of the increase we’re already at are beyond our understanding. And given the lack of will to do anything realistic to actually achieve that temperature limit, it’s looking like nothing more than a stalling tactic. Some of our leaders flat out deny that it’s happening, or say there’s nothing we can do, and that we should just carry on as “normal”. Others say they’re concerned and that it should be addressed but refuse to fight for policies proportional to the degree of changes we face. Not only could the effects at the temperatures we’re already at potentially make much of the world unlivable for humans and countless other species, they may trigger reactions that will compound the catastrophe, causing a domino effect that will fuel it’s own course, independent of our actions. Unbelievable as it sounds, with this knowledge in mind, humans are largely increasing the activities that cause these phenomena, not limiting them.
A few things already happening:
Most have heard of the potential for melting polar ice. Glaciers the size of cities could break off and melt into the ocean. The Thwaites ice shelf in Antarctica, nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier, could partially break off in 3-5 years, possibly sooner. This alone would have vast repercussions, but could also trigger other effects, as its stability holds up much more Antarctic ice. Sea levels would likely rise, putting some current coastal areas under water. It may also affect the balances of temperature and salinity that ocean currents rely on. The Gulf Stream and North Atlantic currents may be affected, causing chaotic effects on European weather. Peak ice levels as Antarctica ended its 2023 winter were the lowest ever recorded. In the Arctic, the Greenland ice sheet is losing an average of 30 million tons of ice per hour, so much that it’s actually affecting its gravity. Polar ice also serves to reflect much of the heat our planet receives from the sun. Having less ice and more dark ocean will reflect less and absorb even more heat. This is known as a “blue ocean event”.
Our oceans are heating even more than our air. 2019 saw the hottest ocean temperatures in recorded history…until 2023. It’s been estimated that oceans are warming at the temperature equivalent of 5 WW2 atomic bombs…per second. Roughly 50% of the Earth’s oxygen is produced and consumed in oceans. This heat increase could severely affect organisms who produce that oxygen. Coral reefs, which host many critical marine ecosystems, are threatened by bleaching in Hawaii, the Caribbean Sea, off the Seychelles, Southeast Asia, and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Water temperatures in the Caribbean Sea off the Florida Keys have been 92 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit. If this continues, it is expected that 90% of corals in the area will face severe bleaching, likely leading to complete ecosystem collapse. Overfishing and exploitation of ocean resources across the world strain marine ecosystems even further.
On land, warmer temperatures are melting permafrost in arctic regions that have stored methane and organisms for tens of millenia. Erosions, landslides, severe effects to communities and wildlife habitats are happening. The stored methane released is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. And we have no idea how viruses and other organisms, suddenly reawakened from eons of dormancy, would interact with our modern world.
As our climate has warmed, weather patterns have altered. Wildfires of previously unprecedented size, frequency and intensity are now common across the globe. Historic droughts are contributing to this in several continents, along with water and food insecurity. China has experienced severe drought, with dried-up rivers and lakes, as record heat in summer 2022 paralyzed cities. In the horn of Africa, drought threatens famine for millions of people. Extreme drought has affected much of the western and southern United States, threatening water supplies to many metropolitan areas and critical food producing regions. Major water sources like Lake Mead and the Colorado River were recently at record lows. The Nile, which provides water for Egypt and 11 other African countries, is in crisis for multiple reasons. Drought has also dried up rivers and harvests in Europe, which experienced its hottest summer ever in 2022.
Simultaneously, floods are wiping out towns, lives and crops all over the world. A third of the country of Pakistan was recently under water. The summer of 2023 saw unprecedented floods do immense damage in India, Southern Europe, the North East United States, Japan and Turkey. Oman recently experienced a year’s rainfall in a day. Besides extreme rainfall, the altered climate is producing more frequent and devastating hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes.
Record high temperatures are simply making it too hot to live. The thermometer reached near 50 c, or 122 f, in parts of India and Pakistan where people do not have adequate means for cooling. The 2021 heat bubble in the North American Pacific Northwest caused hundreds of heat related deaths, sparked firestorms that burned entire villages off the map, and literally cooked a billion sea animals. Arizona has faced extended levels of record heat that strained levels of human tolerance, and killed many. Such record heat levels are impacting regions throughout the world. Organisms and ecosystems are only capable of tolerating certain temperature ranges. Once it goes beyond that, there could be mass die offs, and the likelihood of such extremes continuing would make regrowth unlikely if not impossible.
Besides regular too hot conditions, regions may soon experience deadly wet bulb temperatures. This refers to a combination of heat and humidity where the air is saturated with moisture to the point that perspiration and respiration will no longer be effective to cool the human body. In such a situation, any humans or other mammals who don’t have another means of cooling themselves cannot survive. Compound effects have decimated biodiversity in inter-connected, mutually dependent populations of plants and animals over the last century.
Crop harvests depend on certain climactic ranges. Changes in temperature, precipitation and soil conditions could cause food production to be dramatically impacted, even collapse worldwide, at a time when food shortages and elevated prices are already triggering social unrest. Industrial uses of pesticides threaten bee populations and other insects necessary for pollinating crops and wild plants. Insect populations, a critical part of food chains and ecosystems have seen plummeting numbers. It’s estimated that half a million insect species now face extinction. The potential impact on species like bees is terrifying to contemplate. As someone put it: “no bugs, no us.”
Forests, especially tropical rainforests, continue to be destroyed across the world, most notably in Southeast Asia, West Africa and the Amazon. These sequester carbon & provide oxygen. This is an especially important balance, provided the effects of fossil fuel consumption. But instead of protecting these resources, humans are erasing them. And along with them countless plant and animal species we may not even know about yet.
Along with wildfires in the Arctic tundra, releasing vast amounts of carbon stored in peat, these degraded rainforests could soon pass a tipping point and become carbon producers, rather than the carbon sinks we rely on.
This is only a small sampling of what’s going on. More frightening, they’re only a few of the effects we perceive so far. Things keep manifesting worse than predicted, and we don’t fully understand how these events may interact and trigger even bigger ones.
Much like climate emergencies, social, economic & political ones often don’t happen in a gradual, linear way. They can explode with a spark, igniting multiple events that fuel each other. We’ve seen a preview of the chaos & anarchy that can happen in the face of disasters like hurricane Katrina. What happens when several crises hit all at once in densely populated areas, crops fail, resources are unavailable, the power goes out in extreme heat or cold, governments are unable to meet the challenge and help everyone who needs it, coffers are empty and the populace has been hopelessly divided?
Such conditions will inevitably stress our societal fabrics beyond the point they can withstand. Things are already becoming unglued, and we’re living in a time of luxury, relative to what’s coming straight at us. The economic and social systems we take for granted to keep over 8 billion humans organized into relatively stable societies rely on the premise that resources can sustain those people. When that suddenly is no longer the case, that stability could abruptly vanish. Inevitable reactions will be mass migrations, war and death. Far more than we’re currently being conditioned to normalize. Desperate people will turn to more and more dangerous leaders who promise salvation and externalize blame, stoking greater conflict and fast forwarding our collective demise. Those with no other option will try to escape their situations to protect themselves and their loved ones, as anyone would. We are seeing just the beginnings of migrant crises, likely to grow exponentially in the coming years. And the predictable reaction, dehumanization of vulnerable people to justify mass death and suffering.
We are not equipped to handle the crises now, so we write them off as isolated incidents somewhere else. When it really explodes, it will quickly overwhelm our abilities to respond, & masses will have the same reaction of people in a theater who suddenly realize it’s on fire, they’ll see that they are COMPLETELY on their own. We are not prepared physically and CERTAINLY not psychologically to handle this. Societies WILL collapse, and people will do whatever is necessary in an attempt to survive.
But the worst of all? We cannot prevent this, at least not all of it. That window closed years ago, as frantic warnings of scientists and climate activists were routinely ignored. We cannot “beat”, “solve” or “fix” the destruction humanity has perpetuated. It will continue to some extent no matter what we do. But we can still act, we are not powerless. We have resources at our disposal we’ve not begun to tap into. I believe our only hope is to transform the most critical moment into our finest hour.
However, in addressing a problem, you have to be willing to honestly look at it and what caused it. Let’s start with ourselves.
3) Us
How can all this be happening? Weren’t we living better than in the past? We’ve made amazing strides in medicine, research, science, technology. But we neglected some important, basic things on the way. Like communication, how humans interact. How we see ourselves and each other in relation to the world we share. Awareness of the impact our actions cause to that world. Why isn’t that a main focus in how we live? What is the basic humanity that connects us all, free of any category?
The fact that we’ve sent spacecraft beyond the solar system, but after thousands of years of human society, STILL find it acceptable to spend significant energy on ways to kill each other, that we see differences as excuses for conflict rather than facets of humanity we can tap into, says that we haven’t evolved emotionally past caveman days. But now, we have the ability to destroy the world.
Many older societies understood their relationships to their natural environments, that without them in balance, they wouldn’t make it. Nature could be scary, many things in it can cause one’s departure. But it was also a thing of great reverence and wonder, to be respected, essential for survival. Many in our era have been deluded away from this perception. Modern societies, which demand so much more from the natural world, tend to be far less connected to it. We’ve traded the awe for a false sense of immunity by denying our inherent connection. Yet many millennia into our existence, despite all our grand designs, we’re still entirely dependent on what does or doesn’t fall from the sky.
Attempts to perceive ourselves as separate have led to ways of looking at the world that excused irresponsible behavior. Instead of our essential, functioning, shared home, the Earth became a convenient afterthought, something to plunder and exploit, consequences be damned, for imaginary “wealth”: higher status for a few above their world siblings, in invented fraternities and hierarchies. Low instincts became celebrated: power, celebrity, material riches and a perception of “success” closer to predation and selfishness, rather than valuing what is truly great in the human spirit. All of it justified by an “us and them” mentality.
We suffer from an epidemic of disconnection, loneliness, alienation and disillusionment. We FEEL the changes, and the futility of the false promises, regardless of the stories we tell ourselves. And as our support systems collapse, the scripts many have been convinced to live by reveal themselves as shams.
We’re told to focus on growth and production, but often without much thought about what is produced, or what impact such “growth” has. That graph is just supposed to rise eternally. That doesn’t exist in nature. This notion of eternal growth defies every natural law readily observable with the naked eye.
We’re sold this repeating loop where you just work hard and feed the machine, take care of your own, and somehow you’ll reach some mythical happiness by attaining stuff, power, leverage, celebrity, comfort or a higher rung on whichever ladder you’re supposed to spend your life climbing. But these “achievements” are often more surface than substance, the perception of success, with no long term vision, and no accounting of what it costs the world. Status is the focus, the character behind it can be manufactured later. We tend to be far more interested in the fact that someone is on a magazine cover than how they got there. And though many tell themselves this is normal, we see the emptiness behind the illusion.
Our ability to deal with things requires we communicate with each other to assess our state in the world, understand changing conditions, and strategize. And most importantly, to share experiences and knowledge, evolving our vision going forward as a species.
This ability is built into us. But we surrender our narratives to the powerful, who depend on more visceral instincts and our compliance for their positions. We allow these people to define for us what is and isn’t possible, how to interact, our culture, who to trust and who not to. So we often communicate less how we really feel than how we think we’re supposed to be perceived. At some point, we allowed profiteers to market to us a mentality where they were at the top of our social structure, and set the tone and standards for everything. Which is why we confuse commodities for culture, which is why people feel so alone and alienated, looking for the next quick fix, a momentary adrenaline rush to distract them from the void. It’s why people flock to false prophets and surface identities they can no longer see past, or are simply afraid to. Such charlatans capitalize on our divisions and emptiness. They convince us the problem is only on “the other side,” or whatever we’re lacking. It’s on every side, and it’s not what we’re lacking, it’s what we fail to recognize and appreciate in ourselves and how we fail to use that to connect with each other.
We are connected to the Earth on every level. How, living on a lifeboat hurtling through the vastness of space, could we possibly not be? We are part of it, and it is part of us. We are killing ourselves for a manufactured, false familiarity, a cheap thrill and a cheaper storyline. And as much as many will mock this concept, to convince you that some status or imaginary “profits” can fill the void, in the end it all rings hollow. All you have to do is look up at the sky, down at the ground. The river, the mountain, the forest, the ocean, the animals, the moon, each other. THAT’S where we are, that’s all we have to live with and live on. All this other stuff is just a weak facade.
The marketed philosophy of me, or some exclusive “us”, over everything has eroded not only our morality and empathy, but our relationship to our home. As long as one can still make a profit, as long as one’s country, or group is okay, as long as one can survive in a bunker…
Spoiler alert: you can’t, and you won’t. The “everyone for themselves” model has never even worked in theory, in a situation where most could always access what they need, when they need it. But try that model when the food & water gets scarce, when the power goes out, when masses of people are dropping dead from heat or violence. You can’t possibly stash enough food or ammo to make it on your own. This isn’t a short term crisis. Personal responsibility means caring for the home that you share with everyone else. You can’t practice rugged individualism without a functioning society and world to practice it in. And as much as people say they just want to live their life, we can’t escape the fact that all lives are connected.
Trouble is, the worse a problem gets, the less people want to accept that it’s happening, especially if they feel some culpability. No one likes to admit they were conned, especially if they unwittingly abetted the damage. And if they did the conning, they’ll really try to escape accountability. They’ll try to lead the gullible towards a more comforting, more controllable narrative.
Unacceptably, much of our youth feels this crisis the most. They’re the ones who face the worst of its realities. Hopelessness, terror, even suicidal thoughts are now rampant in kids no less, and understandably so. Why won’t we hear their voices? They get what’s coming. We prescribe drugs & therapy but look away from our responsibility to pass on a world where they’re less likely to feel that way.
We can’t give up. As bad as it is now and will soon be, it will be exponentially worse if we do nothing. We have no right to the luxury of resigning ourselves to fate, as daunting as our challenges may seem.
But why didn’t people speak up before? They did. Most just didn’t want to hear it. Many still won’t, but it’s becoming more obvious there are no alternatives. But how did we get stuck in this crazy mindset, when our world was giving us so many clues that it wasn’t sustainable?
How COULD it come to this? People do care about their children and their world, how could so many be misled or distracted from the most important story in human history happening right in front of them?
4) How?
But how could it happen right under our noses? How did we not know sooner? Scientists have been screaming the warnings of climate crisis for decades. How did we keep missing all the opportunities to save ourselves?
The knowledge was there. We could likely have at least reduced some of the most catastrophic impacts, had we made dramatic changes when we first knew. What kind of people ignore alarm bells ringing that loudly?
The approaches we needed to face this growing crisis don’t exist in scenarios favorable to those addicted to power & dominance. And unfortunately, those are the people we tend to hand control of our narratives and perceptions to. The status quo of conflict, division, and limited vision is what they depend on to maintain their power. They’ll tell us “that’s just the way that’s the way things are”, but what they really mean is “this is the way we like it”. And they’d unconsciously prefer annihilation to any loss of their leverage.
No one enabling our decline wants to believe that’s what they’re doing. But as one climbs to those upper levels, ego tends to warp perceptions to rationalize how one maintains their leverage. It’s not that they can’t perceive reality, they just choose an interpretation of it convenient to justifying themselves. These narratives are always being manufactured, even commissioned. In the top levels, there’s a tendency to be surrounded by others in that same space, so that one gets disconnected from real voices of the world.
But who are “they?”
PROFITEERS
In the prelude to his book “Salt Sugar Fat”, Michael Moss describes a 1999 meeting of the leaders of America’s giant food corporations. They saw the growing obesity epidemic in the US, including among children, and their connection to it. The problem was addressed in detail. Solutions, more responsible practices, and further discussions were proposed. Then a top industry executive stepped up and nipped all that in the bud. Any changes to their current approach & formulas, in his view, had the potential to negatively affect profit margins, and that is the one unpardonable sin, the one line our corporate culture cannot cross. So that was it. The discussion was ended, and the meeting was adjourned.
This mentality dominates those at the highest levels of American corporate and political culture, but can be seen worldwide. It permeates many industries, but some with the greatest influence include: the “defense”, or weapons industry, the fossil fuel industry, big agriculture, banking, giant investment and asset management firms, insurance, the food industry, real estate, the pharmaceutical industry, and big media, including news and entertainment. A web of interconnected influence involving special interests and their lobbyists controls a lot of money and pressure towards our policy makers, some whom are literally part of these industries and interests, and the popular narratives we hear and discuss. And they are driven by one motivation: increasing profits and leverage.
Much profit is made off of human desperation and misfortune, and there’s a plethora of pundits, lobbying groups, influential people, even academics behind the scenes, normalizing that & blaming the victims. But how can you normalize profit incentives that rely on making missiles to kill more people, incarcerating large parts of our population, treating symptoms of sickness rather than focusing on prevention, making billions off false promises, blaming those who got conned, exploiting the honest aspirations of vulnerable people, and selling narratives that increase our divisions?
Or the biggest of all, the destruction of the natural world which our survival depends upon? There should be costs associated with these things proportional to the damage they inflict. Instead, there’s gross profits in the destruction of our world and each other.
How do you sell that?
You dehumanize those on the receiving end of the missiles as alien monsters who need to be destroyed. Represent it as a video game or heroic movie, rather than real human suffering we can all feel. Military and economic interventions are justified behind ambiguous ethical slogans and categorizations, to hide their barbaric motivations, and most people are too busy trying to survive or too invested in one view, to question these narratives. Or they’d just rather not know.
How do you profit from misfortune? Portray incarcerated people as subhuman degenerate anomalies rather than symptoms of a broken society. Blame people for making poor health choices, after inundating them with ads 24/7 to make such choices. Blame them for not managing their finances better, after brainwashing them with credit card offers and assurances that they could afford investments they realistically could not. Tie people’s life savings and retirement to an economic system of legalized gambling. One where the house never loses. Convince people that their neighbors, even family, are the enemy, that they should instead trust talking heads, which are in reality highly produced images they will never meet. Convince them that the exploitation and destruction of the world we share is inevitable and necessary, and a better way cannot be imagined, that any who do so are naive dingbats or dangerous disruptors, a threat to their way of life. Keep everyone too occupied by sideshows and programmed outrage.
As with any drug dealer, a population capable of perspective and rational engagement is detrimental to the current business model. People need to be addicted, in a repeating loop of perceived need and dissatisfaction to maintain demand. Divorced from the realities of the world, those who perpetuate this mentality will keep exploiting, not to some point of natural balance, but to inevitable collapse. And since they control the narratives, they will sell to the rest of us this mindset as something to be aspired to, a ladder to be climbed, instead of something to be grown past, evolved away from.
UNLIMITED GROWTH
Much of our culture of addiction hinges on an impossible, unstated concept: Unlimited growth. Those who rise to the top are driven by a relentless push for “More”. Blind ambition to accumulate dominates. They may even be nice people, but ultimately, any thought of perspective or balance is a distant second to “success” and “advancement”, according to very narrow definitions.
This model requires endless consumption and exploitation. More must be sold, extracted, consumed, & conquered. Including people. Corporate graphs must always rise. And as they rise, so does the temperature. So does the number of extinct species. So does the number of displaced & destroyed people. Our world is not set up, physically or spiritually, to handle that kind of visionless push for endless gain for a few.
It’s the mentality of the addict, except in this case the addicts are the dealers themselves. And they consume not just themselves, but everyone and everything.
MEDIA
With shattered heat records and incredible weather events, mainstream media is finally starting to jump on the bandwagon as if this is breaking news. Don’t buy it. Many have been desperately trying to get them to cover the story for decades. They buried & deflected from it intentionally all that time.
Besides the general onslaught of celebrity gossip, scripted, shifting narratives of flags, patriotic, partisan and identity stances, or 5 minutes of atrocity propaganda when needed to sell a conflict, here’s an instance that capture’s the mainstream media’s spirit.
On July 11, 2021, NBC news did a mid day broadcast. It talked about why it was a mistake for US troops to leave Afghanistan, Donald Trump, & how centrist Democrats were the future of the party. At the very end of the broadcast, with little time left, It began a segment on climate change, on the severity of our situation. I thought to myself: “Yes! FINALLY they’re giving this some mainstream coverage”, …if only at the end of a Sunday mid-day broadcast when few are watching. It aired for a minute or two, then was suddenly pre-empted. For what? Adoring coverage of billionaire Richard Branson piloting his Virgin Galactic craft to the edge of space. When that was over, it cut to Joel Osteen’s mega ministry show, already in progress.
There’s no better example of the media’s complicity & criminal negligence to inform the world of the reality of our situation. Primarily, the story has simply been buried, at best relegated to page 47 after a lot of sensationalism and hype. But our perceptions have also been worked on.
Scripted narratives embed in many of us what is impossible & what is inevitable. Which fates we cannot hope to escape or control, who we should align with, and where our focus and engagement should center.
The line between information and entertainment has become increasingly blurred, and, like all profiteer mindsets, the news has become just another business model. Or worse, a propaganda machine for individuals and empires, ensuring any information threatening to those is suppressed or spun into more controllable narratives.
Wars are sold as inevitable. We always gotta have villains & existential struggles. Scripted ones that power can use to keep us in our respective trenches, convinced that any attempt at engagement with those in the “other” trench would be futile, and anyone who tries to deescalate is weak or a traitor. And most are willing to go along with the narratives, that something far away from them is “keeping us safe”, as long as they can tune it out or hide behind comforting slogans. As long as they don’t have ever have to witness its true face. Anyone who does experience war firsthand and returns to dispel the myths power relies on to perpetuate them are swiftly discarded as no longer useful to the sales pitch.
At least in my country, we’ve watched popular engagement systematically degraded over the years. News and talk shows with large audiences exhibit the sort of behavior we tell children NOT to do when they’re still on the playground. No wonder kids don’t trust us. “Interviews” are often a few minutes of gotcha questions, forcing people to answer in a fast, controlled manner to prove the point of the questioner, never allowing the guest to express their thoughts. And more incriminating than how information is shared is what is often left out of the conversation.
The biggest story of all, the collapse of our only means for survival, has been suppressed or distracted away from for decades. The fact that our existential struggle requires collaboration over conflict is not convenient to hegemonic narratives, or for pockets of the extreme privilege which control them.
TACTICS:
But the message of climate collapse is starting to punch through, despite the suppression. So to discourage meaningful engagement, power has launched an onslaught of obfuscation to sow doubt and delay. Besides the usual denial, there are tactics used to intimidate and silence engagement, not just on climate, but any narrative that they want to control or cram down our throats. Among them:
1) The idea that in order to address the crisis, we’d have to “give up everything.” Everyone would have to live some ascetic life of deprivation and joylessness. We don’t have to give up the good things in life, we have to finally recognize and value them. We could have been living in fulfillment and mutual support all this time.
There is no way to explain the mass depression and disconnection other than to realize we’ve been doing it all wrong. You can’t demand people shut up and adhere to the system when our world is in free fall. That system was always a false promise, and it couldn’t have failed harder.
2) The demand that your concern means you have to have a complete, foolproof answer to the problem. You’ll hear “Okay, so what’s the plan? What are we precisely supposed to DO about it?” Then they’ll then find some flaw in your approach, why it can’t possibly work. This is simply an attempt to shut you down. There are many great ideas that need nurturing and growth, but what’s most needed is to elevate this topic to the forefront of our discourse. To discuss with the understanding that our collective survival depends on reevaluating our values, purpose, and relations. We need mass collaboration, not another false messiah promising all the answers, capitalizing on desperation. Unfortunately, many will likely come out of the woodwork.
Calls for engagement are often met with “Oh, so you just want to TALK about it? You don’t have any actual plan for action?” Don’t ever buy this tactic, it’s one of the most blatantly dishonest ever. Every big interest uses discussion & collaboration to form a plan of action. Generals do it to strategize, corporate boards, governments and multinational think tanks all prioritize understanding a problem, then talking about it with each other to know what course to take. Devaluing collaborative discussion amongst the masses is just a method of disempowering them, keeping narratives controlled. We’re already discussing anyway, in houses, bars, places of worship and other communal meeting spaces. What we need is a better, more responsible STANDARD of interaction, of vetting information, listening to each other, and especially ourselves.
3) The idea that having contradictions in your life disqualifies you from the conversation. This is a common one. “Oh, you care about carbon, do you? Why aren’t you living in a shack somewhere with no electricity?” Yes, all of us need to be more personally accountable and make individual lifestyle changes. But the dishonesty of this tactic is the implication that any of us had a choice in setting up the system we were born into. It’s set up so no one can live without some contradictions, at least without giving up your agency or ability to be effective. Most of us were born into some inherent hypocrisy when it comes to caring about the impact of our lives, and most don’t have the ability to instantly give up everything that causes a negative impact. What we CAN do is participate in conversations to improve how we live, figure out how to support each other through the radical changes we’ll have to make, and push for a better designed society that has a chance of leaving something for the next generation. We are perfectly capable of making dramatic changes, we’ve all done it at some point or another. The scam is to present an ultimatum where you either choose a life of total disempowerment and irrelevance, or shut up about it, which is the real goal of this tactic in the first place.
4) Labelling anyone ringing the alarm bells “doomers”. Many can’t handle the news. The implications of what’s going on are just too vast, the scope of the global impacts too much to comprehend. So the desire for denial and deflection gets played on, and people are happier shooting the messenger before they can really grasp the message, thinking of them as hysterical conspiracy nuts. But that doesn’t change reality. If one’s house is on fire, you don’t call the person saying so an alarmist for alerting everyone nor negative for pointing out the condition that caused it. You don’t spare the information because the residents can’t handle it. You yell fire and try to understand and mitigate the conditions that caused it. If we’re going to address this, we have to be realistic about what we’re up against, not sugar coat it because the reality is too harsh.
5) There’s a great cartoon with a bunch of guys in suits looking at the Earth burn and saying to each other: We need to monetize this, and quickly. This sums up the mindset of those who exploit every crisis, or anything at all, for profit. And they’ll try to get you to invest in their Ponzi scheme. They’ll sell a lot of potential “solutions” based on false hope. But a profit mentality cannot imagine a real solution. “Tech” will not unbreak a functioning, biological system. Everyone can’t buy an electric car, and producing them has a massive impact as well. There is no evidence that carbon capture has potential to undo our damage on anything close to the scale we require. Planting trees is great and necessary, but not a balance to deforestation. Forests are complex ecosystems, and once they’re gone, many of the biodiverse organisms may be lost forever. We can’t just magically replace them.
No one is going to colonize Mars or outer space anytime soon. And even if we could, how could a species who can’t even manage a planet tailor made for it do so on one totally hostile to our life needs? These things are meant to keep us mollified with a false sense of promise. There are no substitutions to fundamentally reimagining how we live on this planet. Big power will not figure out solutions to our dilemma because their minds do not function on that level. That line of thinking is not what got them where they are. Those with the vision have no real power and those with the power lack the vision. When it comes to most of our ruling class and the crisis we face, no one is flying the plane. We are on our own. All we got is each other.
And the same people who call you negative or of limited vision for pointing out the lack of potential in these far-fetched “solutions” will call you an unrealistic dreamer for suggesting that maybe humans can engage better and stop killing each other over nothing. People will always be attracted to quick easy fixes that promise normality, but they’re trying to keep you in familiar comfort zones that won’t exist soon. They know that what many will crave most desperately will be some magical tweak back to normal that doesn’t exist. That “normalcy” of perpetual conflict, consumption and distraction is what got us here in the first place.
6) Basic Denial: The claim that it’s not really happening, that it’s overhyped, or that it’s not due to our activities. They’ll find a handful of scientists, generally paid from an industry like fossil fuels, to refute the mass consensus.
Many will claim that human behavior can’t possibly have that large an impact on the Earth. A lone beaver can radically alter its environment. Look at a hydrogen bomb blast, and imagine thinking humans can’t significantly alter our environment.
They use loaded, triggering words like “alarmism”, “hoax” or talk about how it’s really some conspiratorial money and power grab by dark world forces. But the truth is the opposite, those forces are threatened by people actually addressing this crisis.
All they’d have to do is dispute the data head on in a grand forum with the world’s top climate scientists, prove why it’s incorrect, why we’re not actually in this crisis. I’d be their biggest fan if they did that. But they never do.
The most brainwashed will continue to deny, even as their homes are washed away by floods or consumed by wildfires. Their interpretation of reality, their acceptance of information, even that which is readily observable, is subservient to their ideology.
Right now they’re worried. They see their narratives, and control, slipping. And so they lead us toward the usual, controllable scenarios: conflict, old territorial, ethnic, religious and ideological disputes in an effort to polarize us and keep us focused on any existential crises but the main one.
We’re being conditioned to accept & rationalize, or at least look away from, mass death. We see right now how effortlessly populaces can be cued to ignore, or even celebrate the suffering and slaughter of our fellow humans. We’re trained to normalize dehumanization and atrocities, as climate crises will likely make us face such large numbers of innocent victims as to fundamentally test our humanity. At the same time, people are waking up to many of the inherent injustices and unsustainable structures. Which is why we are seeing increased rhetoric demonizing protest, which is why we’ve seen the militarization of police and other security forces.
So what do we do?
5) Next
So, what next? Why do I still have hope? What do we do now?
No one person has the answer. We’ve never faced anything like this before, so I doubt anyone really understands it. But I have ideas of directions we should head in.
What we need to do will be beyond most popular thought. But most popular thought has been extremely limited. Radical changes are happening, regardless of how we feel about them. Far more of us need to explore and share wider visions than we’ve been conditioned to accept. Our narratives have been intentionally limited and controlled. It’s time to reclaim them. Listening, paying attention to each other and embracing new viewpoints will be more critical than ever. We have to control our automatic, tribal reactions that are so often used against us, and establish a much higher standard of engagement, and accountability of information, than what we’ve been lulled into. Some are already doing that, but they’re often not those good at boosting their own profiles or drawing a large popular following.
We are an integral part of the natural world. Our health & survival, physically, mentally & societally, are connected to & dependent on it. Our actions don’t just affect the natural balance, THEY ARE the natural balance.
It’s time to popularize a vision BASED on balance with this world, balance with each other. Past this dead-end grift of monetary profit and domination as the template for society, with no regard to its true cost; the gross elevation of a few over their countless world siblings. Past the warped mindset where one group has exponentially more privilege and leverage than another. That status quo is maintained by an endless cycle of oppression, exploitation and conflict, and we can’t survive any more of that.
We’re all parts of one. A bunch of bits working only in their self interests can’t sustain a functioning whole, they pull it apart. Muscles and organs have different functions, but ultimately they serve the needs of the entire body. They all work symbiotically, and if the body dies, they all die with it. Buildings collapse if the components don’t support each other. An orchestra of talented musicians playing for their own egos is cacophony compared to the resonance of one playing with one sound as the goal.
Forces working against each other shatter the whole, and the scattered pieces become satellites with no orbit. The integrity of the whole supports the units. Yet many seem eager to shirk their responsibility of maintaining our home, focused only on getting to the top of their individual games, not realizing how dysfunctional that game is.
Our planet and societies rely on sustainable actions and balances for the stability to enable billions of people and other organisms to live together. If people are floating in a lifeboat with finite supplies, you don’t allow a few to hoard all the provisions even if they’re skilled at convincing everyone else why they deserve them. We need to get a lot better at sharing.
There’s been enough for everyone, but not to live an extremist lifestyle of consumption and predatory acquisition. Not if we focus on what we can sell vs what we need. There’s been NO shortage of resources, ideas, money, even food…yet. The things in short supply are perspective, vision, morality, empathy, courage and will. We have to start seeing ourselves and our place in this world in a whole new light. The next generations may be uniquely qualified to lead such a renaissance of thought. Because what choice do they have?
We can’t allow one person to hold more wealth than millions, while millions starve. That imbalance creates too much stress to endure. There’s never been a reasonable justification for the pathological addiction we call greed. You can’t normalize it without dehumanizing a LOT of people. And the only reason that perception exists at all is because we concede to it. Many trade their integrity for the fantasy that they may someday be allowed into the upper levels of that house of cards, and many profit off of dangling that carrot in front of them.
We don’t need to employ a model where everyone has the exact same thing, that’s a false ultimatum. We DO have to address the EXTREME inequality that’s sucking the lifeblood out of our world, and grasp that we’re all in this together.
We have to sustain and protect our home and world housemates, at home and abroad. That’s our only real security. A decent society should be judged on maintaining basic levels for its most vulnerable. This mindset already exists, You see it when there is an emergency, a storm or flood, when the facade suddenly falls away, and real humanity takes over. Go to small towns. They may espouse individualism, but one of their biggest points of pride tends to be that they look out for each other. People allow mass suffering and want because they’re given the option to look the other way, or select a narrative that rationalizes it. It’s totally different firsthand. And by the way, the individual is not the natural enemy of collaboration. We’re all entitled to be ourselves. We need the perspectives of different individuals, we just need them to collaborate.
But how do you convince people desperately clinging to their old familiarity? Can humankind really change how it thinks?
In the early 1600’s, it was widely believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe. The astronomer Galileo championed Copernicus’ view that the Earth was not at the center, it actually orbited the Sun. For this he was tried for heresy, damn near executed, forced to recant his view, and had to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. Yet not only was he correct, his knowledge that we now take for granted was only a small step toward a much larger understanding of our reality, a critical link in a long, ongoing chain of discovery.
Every age wants to believe they have a firm grasp on things, a near complete understanding of natural forces that past ages couldn’t imagine. That they finally have the tools and processes to clearly observe the world around them.
Most worldviews now are as limited as they were in Galileo’s time, because they’re beholden to the same motivations that limit the view.
We’ve been granted our insights because a few brave visionaries were able to break through our fortified walls of familiarity, but we still regard with suspicion anyone who tries to crack them. 300 years ago, gamma, ultraviolet and infrared rays were everywhere, yet we had no clue as to their existence. Who knows what phenomena surround us now, are within us, awaiting revelation? I say we’ve barely begun to explore the forces within our reality in a true spirit of discovery. More importantly, we’ve not begun to probe the potential within ourselves and our relationships.
The reality of the limits we accept is the one that’s been sold to us. There’s been literally nothing preventing us from having a world free of want, injustice and war. We were all born human beings equally onto an Earth that provides everything we need, before we fenced it off from each other.
War & massive inequality only exist because we consent to them. No sane person accepts that killing vast numbers of our fellow humans is a reasonable solution to anything.
There’ll be no shortage of dilemmas and tests going forward. We just shy away from them, choose the familiar scenarios, like blowing people up. We’re too scared to accept the bigger challenge of facing our own natures, looking with honest eyes at ourselves and our universe. Mass killing feels safer & more familiar. Facing ourselves requires far more courage than war. But so far, we lack it.
Nor is the insane inequality that’s driving us to the brink of collapse inevitable. A reasonable society would not tolerate diverting extreme wealth to a few while allowing millions of their neighbors to die from hunger and violence.
But how about a few tangible ideas?
FOSSIL FUELS
We have to shift off of fossil fuels. Their consumption is at the heart of the emissions and pollution heating our world and destroying our climate.
We use them primarily in the forms of petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Major uses include transportation via motor vehicle and jet fuel, electricity production, heating and manufacture of plastics. Stopping their use won’t be simple. Besides the difficulty of transitioning off such a universally embedded system, some of the aerosols they produce actually have a cooling effect on the climate by blocking sunlight. But that’s not a good thing, just a delay of realizing how much we’ve actually heated. And these same aerosols are toxic to humans, causing around 8 million premature deaths per year. So our phase out must be rapid but well thought out.
Jet fuel is a huge contributor to fossil fuel consumption and emissions. We cannot fly nearly as much as we currently do. Short flights should not be a thing except in emergencies. As much as we need people to connect and experience each other’s cultures, we simply cannot fly at our current rate. The emissions are just too high.
Especially here in the US, we have to grow past our current car culture. Unless you need to deliver goods and supplies, transport equipment and people, we should be driving far less. Electric cars give off less emissions, but they still require resources and energy to power and manufacture. If we rethink and redesign cities and communities, we can have things more centrally located. People should work where they live. Sitting in traffic for hours a day is a dystopian scenario that degrades not just our environment, but our lives.
Let’s build efficient regional train systems. If you make them adequate and affordable, people will use them. Some countries are already prioritizing this. Mine is not.
Let’s make communities whole so people can live and work there. It won’t be possible in every rural area, but they’re usually not the main problem. For most urban and suburban areas, we have the means to make things far more accessible.
Innovations like heat pumps can save fossil fuel consumption and emissions. And solar, wind, ocean and other alternative energy sources can vastly reduce their use.
MILITARIES
A seldom discussed villain in the climate fight is militaries. The US military alone emits more greenhouse gases than Denmark or Portugal. It’s bad enough in peace time, actual wars cause horrific environmental impacts and emissions, besides the cost to human life and dignity, and increasing world tensions that prevent our essential collaboration. Ending military adventurism worldwide, popularizing diplomacy over militarism, would reduce not only the destruction to ourselves, but go a long way toward healing our world.
Another huge cause of emissions is intensive industrial agriculture, especially livestock. Our meat heavy palate is at odds with most past societies, who could not hide from the cost to their resources that sort of diet requires to feed large centralized populations. US beef consumption is directly related to clear cutting of the Amazon rainforest, much of which is due to soy cultivation to feed cattle. Shifting to a more plant based diet would save huge amounts of energy, emissions, water and land. Especially given the amount of waste our modern consumption requires, as opposed to past cultures, who used every part of the animal and wasted nothing. Such a shift would dramatically increase our capacity to feed our populations. We also need to explore more sustainable practices in agriculture, like crop rotation and regenerative farming.
But we have to protect farmers, keep them whole through the transitions. They will face huge challenges on economic, regulatory and ecological fronts. We cannot survive without them, and besides, they’re our family.
Along those lines, it’s time we recognize a lot of the people who keep us going, people who often get treated like an afterthought.
During the COVID pandemic, we briefly realized the importance of people like farmers, truckers, grocers, nurses, cleaners, harvesters, delivery people and other service workers in keeping us running, but quickly forgot once things settled down. Let’s permanently prioritize these people, and treat them with far more respect.
WORK
In fact, what if we just rethought our concepts of “hard work” and “success” all together? Instead of lionizing people for moving vast amounts of figurative wealth around, or for convincing enough people that they’re important, for whatever reason, what if we actually honored all the slogans we like to recite about humanity, empathy and thinking outside the box? What if we based our world societies on how well they interact, how well they take care of their people, elevate their best qualities, like compassion, originality, and mutual respect, instead of leaving it to those who climb to the top of the heap, by any means necessary?
What if we redefined what we mean by “work”, to measure its actual contributions and costs to our shared world, instead of the simple act of laboring, or generating income?
We hear so many people frustrated with their jobs, like they’re spinning their wheels and don’t understand their purpose, always trying to catch up to some unknown point, always with a profound sense of dissatisfaction.
People don’t need a job, they need a purpose. Our planet is our purpose. Each other is our purpose. We have to grow the hell up past this idiotic societal stratification that dehumanizes many of our siblings for the elevation of a few hustlers, and start valuing humanity and the world we were tailor made to be in, rather than artificial perceptions of “success” that only serve the most insecure in our society.
Yes, some jobs would become obsolete. But only because other tasks require those people’s services far more. Imagine, the human resources available in the world’s militaries. The trained, able bodied people who are needed to fight far more noble battles than each other. Struggles that would leave them feeling fulfilled and worthy, instead of the mindless mass killings that create generations of ptsd and depression.
Imagine if we repurposed these brothers and sisters toward good causes rather than brainwashing them to kill each other to maintain privilege for a few empires. Unfortunately, this one is probably toughest to implement, as it’s a primary tool of oppressive powers. Still, the thought that we have this potential resource is potent.
How many more people who do regular tasks would feel worthy and balanced if we valued their service, instead of the hustlers? Our challenge to deal with the results of our own pathologies will require all the Human Resources we can muster. Maybe this would go a long way towards fighting the despair, alienation and disconnection so many feel. To let them know that they are a needed part of our conversation and journey forward.
CONSUMPTION
So much of of our economy is based on endless consumption, with endless waste as the result. The urge to keep buying things is a compulsion most of us are too familiar with. One that was far different even a couple of generations ago. I remember my mother telling my grandmother about a dress. Her response was “was that the boughten one?” Because back then, a purchase was not assumed when people made things themselves. Ever notice you find stuff in an antique store made a hundred years ago that’s still functional, while things you buy today are lucky to last 10 years?
Planned obsolescence is a seldom discussed reality that fuels this monster. We need more right to repair, longer warranties for what is sold, and an end to single use anything. This would create more opportunities for those who repair and maintain things vs cheap goods which are quickly discarded. And in a world where microplastics are now in every last crevice of our planet, including our own bodies, can we please stop buying cheap plastic trinkets and “fast fashion”, almost certainly produced by slave labor, to show off once before they wind up in landfills and waterways weeks later?
Let’s make it cool to just use what we really need, vs whatever we can get our hands on.
Value services we can offer each other. Repair things that break. Build things that last.
We need a more realistic understanding of what our way of living requires. We throw plastic in the recycling bin and forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind, we have business to attend to. But the truth is, very little plastic actually gets recycled. The main reason plastic recycling exists at all is to make people feel better about it so that the industry can produce more and not be accountable. We need to see the truth of what we consume.
But what can actually be reused and repurposed?
I ride the train through the American Midwest past countless dilapidated cars, trucks, houses, warehouses, machinery, and I wonder, how much of that could be reclaimed and processed? It seems like a hell of a lot of raw materials are sitting around rusting. Is there potential to harvest some of these with less environmental impact than extracting more?
EDUCATION
The burden will fall heaviest on the next generations, so why not give them a few tools to face it? It’s the least we can do. Instead of indoctrinating them into the mentality of our failed system under the usual guises of “opportunity”, “thinking outside the box”, etc, what if we cut the bs and did it for real? What if we showed them the world they’re actually in, rather than the collapsing facade? The collapsing ecosystems and how they got that way. What if we taught them how their food is produced, and the challenges that production faces? Instead of just the buildings they live in, the soil and rock beneath it, past the point where our perception generally ends? What truly runs the economic and geopolitical forces that shape the world they were born into? How to see what people actually mean, beyond what they say? The condition of the river, the mountain, the forest, the fields, the ocean that flows next to them, the human forces and motivations that influence their fates?
I have a feeling they will be far more open to new thought on these things. Lets teach them to be stewards to the Earth. Show them their reality early, so they can strategize how to save themselves.
And most importantly, let’s teach the kids how to interact and engage. But to do this, we’re going to have to teach ourselves first.
COMMUNICATION
Our standards of talking to each other and honestly appraising the information we receive were never stellar, but they have been systematically degraded to catastrophic levels. The perfect scenario for authoritarians and societal collapse. Healing that wound may be the most monumental task we have ever faced, but it would also be our greatest achievement, as in all of human history, it’s never been done.
The basic premise sounds elementary, but has been the one thing we’ve been least capable of, at least on a large societal level: how to engage with each other fairly, choosing honesty, verifiable evidence and a standard of assessing information reliably that we all, or at least most of us, can agree on. Concurring that truth is a knowable thing, independent of any affiliation or ideology. That differing beliefs do not necessitate conflict.
People do value truth and fairness. Enough of them, anyway. People WILL do the right thing when the illusions are stripped off. There is enough good in enough people. I believe that because I see it every day. We can move to a more honest, more responsible way of engaging and vetting information. Yes, that’s a radical shift, but all fundamental changes in societal behavior were considered impossible until they actually happened.
In so many situations, people are discouraged from discussing sensitive topics. But isn’t saying “don’t discuss so and so” simply an admission of immaturity and failure to engage responsibly? Maybe the problem isn’t the topic, but our egos, our inability to tolerate challenges to our embedded doctrines like adults, as opposed to frightened people with fragile hair triggers whose only response to pressures on their insecurity is avoidance or a brawl?
We can, as a society, develop this skill, and agree on a fair template of exercising it.
That would, however, destroy every manipulation and false narrative the sociopaths need to maintain control. So resistance to such an effort would be extreme, even violent, if it ever came close to fruition. I maintain, however, that it is our only hope as a human species. Then we could really collectively strategize our direction.
We need our everyday conversations to be connected to the realities we live in, not the virtual one mainstream power is determined to keep us in.
There are countless great ideas, likely better than anything I’ve offered here. But to realize and develop them, we need to tap into our greatest resource, the one thing we’ve never before had the courage to use to it’s potential: the power of human imagination, united in purpose, for all humanity, for the only home we have.
The real answers will come when we prioritize & collaborate on our situation. Make it front and center, where it’s always belonged.
We want technology that doesn’t exist to solve all our woes and protect our familiarity. But the people who control that are motivated by instincts that shut off the perspective to create real solutions. Ancient voyagers navigated the largest oceans equipped with nothing but knowledge and connection to their environments. We’ve abandon that part of ourselves for the crutch of convenience. But there it remains. Nature has an amazing ability to heal itself, when allowed. So do we.
We need to rediscover that within ourselves we’ve abandoned and neglected for so long.
We need to get on this right away. Many aren’t ready for it, but we’re out of time. When our reality sinks in, people will be utterly terrified, their entire perception off balance. Many won’t be able to cope. That’s the dangerous time. That’s the kind of situation malicious power loves to exploit for its own interests. They’ll use the usual tactics: attack, misrepresent and demonize the messengers. They often employ “experts” to sell this. While expertise on topics is critical, it is not always correlated with good intent. The worst actors in history had knowledgeable experts selling their schemes. So let’s listen, but with healthy skepticism and a solid ethical base. And let’s be there to help and support each other through the fear, grief and trauma, as we come to terms with this.
Let’s make it trend worldwide. Collaboration with all world societies. We’re all in it together.
6) Accountability
This is our time. Evolve or die. World societies big and small won’t survive our current path. This is a moment of responsibility and courage, to finally realize our potential, our shared humanity.
I believe we have the capacity to save ourselves, hence that last section. But it’s a chance, not a guarantee. So far, there hasn’t been much indication that we’re willing to pull ourselves out of this mess. We keep hoping for some magic pill to let us go back to the usual that’s making everyone crazy. If we don’t all get to work on changing course in a hard and fast way, it looks very bad.
Systems & countries without perspective cannot hold their positions under stress, & will lash out, suppress empathy and reason and encourage tribalism & sadism. We’re seeing it now, as protesters are defamed & armed repression from the state is lauded. The outrage we see in the streets now is a fraction of what will come when the impact of what’s been done to us and our climate sinks in. Which is why they’re criminalizing dissent, removing platforms, militarizing police & offering incentives to those who suspend their morality to serve as propagandists for amoral power.
Climate crisis is already decimating humanity, and it’s about to go into overdrive. They can’t control the narrative much longer, so they use distraction, division and war. Powers are in a state of escalation and saber rattling, provoking nationalist fervor, dehumanizing entire populations, desensitizing us to atrocities and the suffering of desperate people with nowhere to run. They’ll need a lot of us to suspend our morality to justify their means of clinging to power a bit longer, trading a fake security for the prerogative to turn us into monsters. The vulnerable and idealists will be sacrificed first, and we’ll be expected to look away, abandon our most basic principles of decency. They know how, & are doing it right now. As catastrophes mount, many will use the panic to claim that they’re our only hope of survival. But ask them their visions for 10 years from now. They have none that live in reality.
Many are “prepping”. There are billionaires planning bunkers to ride the coming crisis, the “event” out, but there is no riding it out. The best bunker can’t sustain anyone very long. One cannot stash enough food and ammo for an event with no end. Hired guards will be hard to keep when money is worthless. All machines need energy and maintenance and break down eventually. And whatever crops one does grow, wherever you are, eventually desperate people will come for them. Wouldn’t you?
Our one hope is collaboration, and to make that stick, we need a far more equitable distribution of power and resources.
The alternative, mass conflict, is world suicide.
But those who run the show don’t get it.Their promises are empty, dark fairy tales from their imaginary world. We are on our own, and all we have is each other.
Many are complicit & should be held accountable. But I would caution against making that our primary focus. As terrible as what’s been done is, we need progress, not vengeance. Rage & retribution are instincts people like that are more adept at manipulating than collaboration, & tend to turn people into the same thing they were fighting against. Besides, the best revenge is to disempower them, render them irrelevant.
TO THE YOUTH
I want the youth especially to understand that what happens next is a choice. None of us chose to be born into our particular moment in time, but we can choose how we live in it.
I’ve heard too many demand that that youth fall in line, usually behind a particular party or ideology, often pointing out advancements in human and civil rights handed to you by past generations. Many did strive to get you these things, and they deserve gratitude. But that does not give anyone the right to silence your voice or demand your acquiescence, because we are also handing you a future where none of those achievements may soon be relevant. No great strides in discovery, medicine, humanity etc will matter if society collapses. Good luck insisting on rights when the food gets scarce and people are dropping dead en masse from deadly temperatures, floods, wildfires and wars. You can see what that looks like in real time in parts of our world right now.
This doesn’t mean that all older people are complicit, many have fought all their lives for change, some have sacrificed everything. And voices of experience will be critical going forward. But it’s your futures on the line. You have the energy, don’t let them dilute it.
EMPATHY
As we reject past narratives, we also need some empathy for how others were unwittingly programmed. Most had no idea it was happening to them. And as you judge those who did it to you, you will soon be the older ones, being judged. It happens faster than you think, and the next generation will likely be less interested in context than you were. Open up to wider swaths of humanity than you’re use to, we need far more allies than enemies. And be aware, your colleagues and adversaries won’t always appear the way you expect them to.
TO PARENTS
Parents, if you saw a bus hurtling towards your child in the road, you would risk your lives by dashing in front of it to snatch them out of its path. There’s a ten million ton bus coming straight for them, yet so many just stand on the side of the road, dumbfounded. It’s so big and beyond our comprehension, people don’t know how to react, so they carry on as if nothing is happening. But its trajectory continues, regardless.
LEGACY
This will be our legacy for whatever of human history there is left. Every period of humanity is remembered for something. We will be the ones remembered for knowingly letting the world end, robbing the future from everyone who was to come after. A slave in the ancient world could at least dream that one day, his progeny could taste freedom, and a better life. We won’t even leave our descendants that much, we are consuming whatever livable world they might inherit. We will be remembered this way, for all time.
TO THE FUTURE
If nothing else, I want to leave a record of how it all came to this, and how easily it could have all been prevented. The pathological instincts that caused us to squander our most precious gifts for false perceptions. And a warning not to make that mistake again, if anyone is lucky enough to get the chance. Prioritize what is truly good & valuable, in our Earth and in each other, not the cheap illusions.
To future survivors, and to our younger generation now, I want you to know this: if we do nothing to alter our behavior, that it was not an accident, it was intentional. WE did this to YOU. We knew, and through weakness, fear or bad intent, we allowed you, knowingly, to be dealt this nightmare. We hid from the truth as it stared us in the face, because we were too weak to face it. Don’t forget this. It was cowardice and greed that robbed you of your future. We found our comfort zone in a very dark place.
We can address it together, with intelligence and vision, or we can let it overtake us, and allow those who profit from human misfortune to lead us into oblivion.
7) Invitation
This is the toughest thing I’ve ever done. Putting this out there is my biggest leap of faith. I have no idea how this will affect my life. It’s been a struggle to put it together. I don’t even look the same as when I started. I’m certainly not the same person, and it’s an understatement to say I have mixed feelings.
A lot of good people believe in the principles I’m denouncing, as well as a lot of not so good people, who don’t tolerate threats to their grip on the narrative. But as I called out hiding our true feelings behind facades, I guess I’d better put my money where my mouth is and speak mine.
Many won’t get what I’m talking about. And who am I? Just some guy. But that’s the point. We’re ALL just fellow humans with a view. I’ve offered more questions than solutions. But that’s because I can’t answer this one my own. I need your help to find the path. Our coming challenges require more of us regular folks to engage. And to hold power truly accountable, embrace our own, see it as we see ourselves instead of a giant to be worshiped or feared. I want my world neighbors to find their voices, learn to share them and listen so we can work toward our collective salvation. To spawn a counter narrative to those who would use any crisis to disempower and divide us.
I don’t want this to be real. If I was wrong, and looked like a fool in front of the entire world, validated the most dishonest deniers, I’d be the happiest guy ever. Most climate activists don’t want to be right. But this is real, and it’s here now.
I don’t want to do this, I want to do what I do & enjoy my time living here with you all. But how could I, knowing my inaction is denying others the chance to live as I did? Our life’s work means nothing if there’s no legacy to pass it on to. How can we value our own contributions, knowing those who came after were robbed of the opportunity to chase their own dreams, to gaze in awe, live in their own times in the continuing flow? Future generations deserve the same things I had, the chance to love, laugh, realize their potential, enjoy this incredible world that we fit into perfectly. To lay the grass as they look up and ponder the stars.
This is our greatest challenge, it must be our greatest work.
We have what it takes, if we just learn to believe in it. Looking at and understanding ourselves isn’t just acknowledging the faults, it’s realizing the promise. It’s recognizing our true value and connection. We’re all part of a flow, not just of humanity, but everything it exists within. We are the product of those who came before us, custodians for those who will come next. I look around, and see so much goodness, so much incredible human potential. You just want to grab people and show them a better mirror than they’re used to looking into. But I can’t, so this is my best attempt.
Maybe I am just being idealistic, and it simply isn’t within human capacity to realize what I’m envisioning. But I don’t believe that. And even if it were true, I’d rather go out this way, trying, than silently succumbing to emptiness.
Because even if our climate was not in grave peril, this message would still apply. The only reason we don’t annihilate the entire planet via nuclear holocaust is because we’ve been in a fragile stalemate between superpowers for decades. How can anyone be sane in that climate? A species that’s existed in organized societies for 10s of thousands of years, viewed its own planet from the outside and sent its creations to the stars, yet spends a great part of its energy and resources devising ways to kill massive amounts of its own, needs to seriously wake up. None of that is inevitable, regardless of the excuses. Let’s stop fearing, & learn to use our greatest resources, each other, and the collective power we all share. Get in the conversation, share what you have. Find your truth in this moment. Allow it to evolve, but hold onto it. We CAN do this, and we must. Thank you.
Jack Davis, June, 2024
Hudson Views 