I’m not a doomer because the problem is technically intractable (more on that later). Nor because I can’t do enough to change our trajectory. Nor because we (society as a whole, including corporations and governments) can’t do anything to change our trajectory.
Nope, I’m a doomer because dealing with this problem is a social problem with its foundations in evolution. It has not and never had been a technical problem. We have the technologies and have had many of them for 50 or even 100 years.
There was more than enough evidence by 1970 to support hypotheses going back to the 1800s; more than enough to justify global initiatives. Yet, by c. 1980, that evidence was being not just studiously ignored, but treated as nonsense. And that programme of dismissal didn’t just continue, but grew ever more elaborate and normalized.
There were good ideas and technologies available in 1970 that, had they been acted upon and deployed would likely have greatly mitigated and possibly solved the problem. At the very least, we would have been on the right path 50 years ago instead of arguing about the best way to deal with what our inaction has turned into a crisis.
Now, at 67, I’m starting to think that the problem might be technically intractable for the simple reason that we’ve waited too long. But even if that is completely wrong, it’s clear to me that it is not just socially intractable, but impossible.
While individual humans may have the necessary foresight and behaviour, collectively, as a species, we simply don’t have what it takes to see and understand and act when there are compounding effects. Whether it’s savings, debts, or ecological and environmental impact, our poor little brains cannot reliably deal with anything other than pure linearity as applied to small numbers and tightly constrained systems. Nor, it seems, are we capable of reliably deferring to those who have managed to acquire the necessary skills.
In the same ways that the very nature of a nonhuman species can lead to population collapse or extinction under changing circumstances, so are we doomed to play out a similar script. I just didn’t anticipate that we’d hit the wall while there were still just 4 digits in our year or that we’d be at risk of succumbing to something so simple.
[ ] Climate change isn’t real. [ ] Climate change is part of a natural cycle and not related to humans. [x] Climate change is caused by humans, but we can’t do anything about it for whatever reasons. Note how all 3 lead to the same actual behaviour, and that benefits the very same people, but the first one works on conservatives and the third one works on liberals. You’ve fallen for the same gambit. There’s a big-ass sliding scale between “fuck it” and “techno utopia” both on climate mitigation and adaptation. The next 100 years are going to be hard, yeah, but those 3 propoganda tacts are designed to just make some rich twits richer before we all hit the wall.
I respectfully disagree that I’ve fallen for anything. I came by my views over several decades of discussion, debate, and activism. That doesn’t say anything about whether I’m right or wrong in my characterization of the problem as being one of human nature rather than a technical or even sociological problem.
I have never stopped taking what action I can take to minimize my personal contribution to the problem. Nor have I ever tried to sway others away from their own action. I may be misguided in my efforts, but I now focus on getting people to see that we must recognize our human cognitive failures and fight to overcome them. I may have the wrong approach in that, but I don’t see anyone else doing anything to address that foundational problem.
I reduced my focus on nuclear power, passive heating and cooling, public transit, and walkable cities nearly two decades ago when I realized that the problem is not lack of solutions, but lack of action. And not just action, but action at all scales from the local to the global, by everyone from individuals to companies large and small to all levels of government in all countries.
This is not a debate about publicly funded healthcare housing, neither of which has a deadline. This has a deadline. We can argue over the precise nature and timing of the deadline, but we cannot have any reasonable disagreement over its existence and its consequences. Unless and until we have accepted the need for action, we will not – cannot! – act, at least not effectively. So that is where the battle must be joined, in convincing people of the need to overcome their natures so they see that action is both necessary and possible.
My contention, and I’ll be very, very happy to be proven wrong, is that the time remaining to forestall disaster has run out without yet having convinced anyone of the need to act. That, of course, does not mean we should do anything other than redouble our efforts in that direction in the hopes of avoiding ecological and civilizational collapse. But that doesn’t change my claim that our only battle is our battle against our nature.
I don’t know how to phrase your missing 4th option, but it is an option and it is missing.
I disagree.
I’m not a doomer because the problem is technically intractable (more on that later). Nor because I can’t do enough to change our trajectory. Nor because we (society as a whole, including corporations and governments) can’t do anything to change our trajectory.
Nope, I’m a doomer because dealing with this problem is a social problem with its foundations in evolution. It has not and never had been a technical problem. We have the technologies and have had many of them for 50 or even 100 years.
There was more than enough evidence by 1970 to support hypotheses going back to the 1800s; more than enough to justify global initiatives. Yet, by c. 1980, that evidence was being not just studiously ignored, but treated as nonsense. And that programme of dismissal didn’t just continue, but grew ever more elaborate and normalized.
There were good ideas and technologies available in 1970 that, had they been acted upon and deployed would likely have greatly mitigated and possibly solved the problem. At the very least, we would have been on the right path 50 years ago instead of arguing about the best way to deal with what our inaction has turned into a crisis.
Now, at 67, I’m starting to think that the problem might be technically intractable for the simple reason that we’ve waited too long. But even if that is completely wrong, it’s clear to me that it is not just socially intractable, but impossible.
While individual humans may have the necessary foresight and behaviour, collectively, as a species, we simply don’t have what it takes to see and understand and act when there are compounding effects. Whether it’s savings, debts, or ecological and environmental impact, our poor little brains cannot reliably deal with anything other than pure linearity as applied to small numbers and tightly constrained systems. Nor, it seems, are we capable of reliably deferring to those who have managed to acquire the necessary skills.
In the same ways that the very nature of a nonhuman species can lead to population collapse or extinction under changing circumstances, so are we doomed to play out a similar script. I just didn’t anticipate that we’d hit the wall while there were still just 4 digits in our year or that we’d be at risk of succumbing to something so simple.
[ ] Climate change isn’t real. [ ] Climate change is part of a natural cycle and not related to humans. [x] Climate change is caused by humans, but we can’t do anything about it for whatever reasons. Note how all 3 lead to the same actual behaviour, and that benefits the very same people, but the first one works on conservatives and the third one works on liberals. You’ve fallen for the same gambit. There’s a big-ass sliding scale between “fuck it” and “techno utopia” both on climate mitigation and adaptation. The next 100 years are going to be hard, yeah, but those 3 propoganda tacts are designed to just make some rich twits richer before we all hit the wall.
I respectfully disagree that I’ve fallen for anything. I came by my views over several decades of discussion, debate, and activism. That doesn’t say anything about whether I’m right or wrong in my characterization of the problem as being one of human nature rather than a technical or even sociological problem.
I have never stopped taking what action I can take to minimize my personal contribution to the problem. Nor have I ever tried to sway others away from their own action. I may be misguided in my efforts, but I now focus on getting people to see that we must recognize our human cognitive failures and fight to overcome them. I may have the wrong approach in that, but I don’t see anyone else doing anything to address that foundational problem.
I reduced my focus on nuclear power, passive heating and cooling, public transit, and walkable cities nearly two decades ago when I realized that the problem is not lack of solutions, but lack of action. And not just action, but action at all scales from the local to the global, by everyone from individuals to companies large and small to all levels of government in all countries.
This is not a debate about publicly funded healthcare housing, neither of which has a deadline. This has a deadline. We can argue over the precise nature and timing of the deadline, but we cannot have any reasonable disagreement over its existence and its consequences. Unless and until we have accepted the need for action, we will not – cannot! – act, at least not effectively. So that is where the battle must be joined, in convincing people of the need to overcome their natures so they see that action is both necessary and possible.
My contention, and I’ll be very, very happy to be proven wrong, is that the time remaining to forestall disaster has run out without yet having convinced anyone of the need to act. That, of course, does not mean we should do anything other than redouble our efforts in that direction in the hopes of avoiding ecological and civilizational collapse. But that doesn’t change my claim that our only battle is our battle against our nature.
I don’t know how to phrase your missing 4th option, but it is an option and it is missing.