🌍 on collapse
Collective action will not be considered until the impacts are obvious and likely past a point of no return.
We know of the Mayans, and Easter Island. Also, over 3000 years ago, there was the Late Bronze Age collapse. From history.com:
Ironically, the interconnectedness that had strengthened these Bronze Age kingdoms may have hastened their downfall.
Anno 2024, we sure are highly interconnected – compared to just ten, as well as twenty, and thirty years ago. The internet has come a long way. As did we, didn't we!
Our future, though, is blim & greak – to start on a jolly note, before returning to reality and realising our future is grim & bleak indeed. Many bright scientists — for every James Hansen there is an Eliot Jacobson — and many mediocre minds alike can tell you all about it. :l
How bleak could it really be? It does keep the aforementioned scientists up at night, and they would know, wouldn't they. Note that climate disaster is only the most glaring part of our predicament rooted in overshoot.
Take famine: we know of it, though mostly in Africa and from history. And the bible maybe. But indulge yourself in some mere Gedankenspielerei; imagine such very famine bluntly coming for us and our loved ones, here, in our lifetimes. When supermarkets are no longer super, logistics unraveled due to Houthis or a flu perhaps more serious than COVID-19; and crops are flooded or shrivel in the heat in one too many places at once.
Or think of refugees nowadays: they die in sad numbers on tragic treks north, in the Mediterranean or Darién Gap. When they make it to wherever they made it, they don't even need to bring religion or other bad habits to disrupt the societies in which they end up – just their numbers will do. Even with the most genuine noble intentions on both sides ist es einfach nicht schaffbar. See how it works out with just a few million people from 🇸🇾 Syria or 🇻🇪 Venezuela. Imagine a billion or two people from 🇸🇩 Sudan or 🇵🇰 Pakistan and far away 🇮🇳 India, compelled or forced to leave their home and scorched homeland. Where will they go?
Not like we didn't know. Already in the early 1970's we knew very well of
the limits we ought to
have abided by. Instead we relied on 🙌 technology to overcome and ignore them,
and gobbled are gobbling up fossil fuels like there was is no tomorrow,
disfiguring all that is beautiful and quite simply destroying the very systems
that support us. And while it's hard to fathom, probably just a few hundred
sleazy scumbags can be singularly blamed for unleashing the ongoing
sixth mass extinction.
#ExxonKnew, for instance.
This past July 21th was the planet's 🔥 warmest day in 100.000 years. Awful numbers keep blowing minds brighter than mine and presumably, though not necessarily, yours. Even high-profile mainstream media like CNN have stopped mincing words. That mere fact could be reason for pause, and then maybe cause for concern – of which, however, around me I discern absolutely NONE.
Что дѣлать? “Наболѣвшіе вопросы нашего движенія”.. Perhaps I shall go spraypaint some landmark, or glu myself to an unsuspecting work of art after all. One of few bucket list items was to go see The Hunters in the Snow someday anyway, and 🚆 the train goes a long way.
On July 30th, 2024, The Guardian reports on coral bleaching once more, for good measure. Coral reefs made for breathtaking pictures, and do so again as they succumb to marine heatwaves – life gone, death beyond repair.
“We’re coming out of a couple of decades where we made predictions,” said Prof Tracy Ainsworth, the vice-president of the International Coral Reef Society. “Now we are at a point where we hoped we would not be. Now we’re asking, what do we do now?”
If there is one thing to internalize, it is that there is no fixing things anymore, no way out of our predicament. This cannot be stressed emphatically enough. A loved one told me not to lose myself in “admiring the problem” – a wise take and sidestep I probably needed, but attitude is irrelevant in the face of said problem, a severe unstoppable polycrisis unfolding. To me it seems conceited to believe all problems can be solved, and radically ill-advised to assume so and keep on bending nature to our every will, which physically just can not go on.
I feel a quote coming up. L'homme moderne, au lieu de chercher à
s'élever à la vérité, prétend la faire descendre à son niveau.
A quote
needs context, some elaboration at least. Not right now. Our undisputable
ingenuity has had plenty of time to prove its worth; and where did that get us.
Some problems just can't be solved. The humility to acknowledge this behoves
us all. 🤷 And those problems then become a predicament.
A predicament to embrace, sounds corny, but words oh words. Truly embracing it requires not just the willingness, but also, amidst the hustle and bustle of an imposed lifestyle, the ability and time to try to get an accurate picture, to adequately assess the state of affairs. I suppose it takes a decent while to regain one's bearings then, during the process maybe surfing some unfamiliar Kübler-Ross vibes in no particular order. *feew*
This entire kerfuffle obvi doesn't leave us with nothing left to do, quite the contrary, but we'd do well to reconsider our efforts. The sooner, the better, because in the meantime we are running out of precious time, and wasting resources of human and other kinds. Green growth is such an obvi oxymoron. Resources are finite, planned degrowth a fantasy. Unplanned then, the degrowth will be forced upon us, and quite dramatically so, because it appears there really. is. no. stopping the machine.
We should try to foresee what the future holds, and then figure out how to mitigate the misery as best we can, in unfavourable circumstances baked in for decades to come. It somehow reminds me of that.. guy forced to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity. As always, Wikipedia is here to give us a think. (: Because –
“The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself.”
Frits, 5/8/24,
and 424 CO₂ ppm
PS: But then, if it were punishment.. Did not Jesus die for our sins? 🤔
What if he died in vain, and we'll have to atone for them ourselves. 😐 I'll go
find me a nice boulder already, and next time those
Jehovah's Witnesses come
knocking, I have some serious questions to their answers. 🥸
PPS: I honestly do wonder how their storyline ends though.. Happily ever
after or damned for eternity.. Some serious questions indeed!