Behavior is indeed the key to constructive change but it must first start with the Kubler Roth of acceptance. This acceptance then accepts destructive change is the paramount force now in the paradigm change of planetary decline. The acceptance is all humans are in a vicious circularity of a carbon trap with path dependencies. This is a circular economy and social system that is a trap not a solution like often pitched by greens with a circular economy. There is no circularity in nature with ecosystems. They are always evolving and entering succession.
This goes to the very heart of the matter with the first step of denial and the second of anger and the third of bargaining. We see denial in a significant portion of the population. There are the most obvious with the Brown DENIALIST. These people dismiss the science for a variety of reasons or cherry-pick science to prove a false point of there are no problems with growth. A Brown DENIALIST will advocate growth as the only solution and they are right to a point. Entropy does not allow degrowth of complex systems except in destructive change. Brown forget about limits though.
We have FAKE Greens which represent the vast majority of greens who accept the science but are in denial of the solutions and bargaining with the false claim that renewables and an EV car culture can work with our carbon predicament. There are other FAKE Greens advocating degrowth but then are in delusional bargaining with the economic consequences of collapse that economic abandonment represents. They ignore the destructive dysfunctions and the irrational behavior which become powerful forces with economic abandonment. The narrow specialists found in academics and science fall into these categories also by proposing and supporting unsound techno and social policy. The unsoundness is believing we can geo engineer or solve techno problems with techno solutions. Then there is the social belief we can all eat plants and save the planet and at the same time pitch vertical farming and organics behind a techno society. It comes down to a culture that bargains with “failure is not an option” when failure is the underlying planetary trend of succession of complex ecosystems, we are trapped in.
There is then the awakened ones who have gone to the acceptance phase. I call these people REAL Greens. A REAL Green accepts the science, is not in denial of the solutions, and passes through the depression phase of failure by going forth in adaptation and mitigation. A REAL Green is an optimistic pessimist and it is the paradox of that juxtaposition that becomes a truth that can be manifested locally and in small groups. A REAL Green understands that in an overpopulated world in global overshoot caught up in a competitive cooperative of globalism there can’t be reform of the macro status quo. This status quo is self-organizing and complex with complicated nodes. What supports such a large population and also nodes of production and control are dependent on high consumption is the essence of a trap. Even those areas that are subsistence and in poverty are at risk for a cascading collapse. There are no refugees nor solutions to predicaments of this type.
A REAL Green then realizes that he can make a difference locally with small groups and small footprints. A REAL Green can build networks, skills, and structures of resilience and sustainability. Not many are capable of going REAL Green because so many are locked into survival in the status quo. They are path dependent prisoners. Many don’t have the education or the wealth to do it. Those who do should do it but many don’t because the enjoyment of affluence is too great. This includes a many of the affluent FAKE Greens. Any FAKE Green has the potential to be REAL. A REAL Green will leverage the status quo with things like fossil fuels and Amazon to leave it. He will dive into permaculture with a hybrid of the best of the old like the Amish and the best of the new with simple and effective techno solutions like renewables. It may have to be a hobby or passion so he quits vacations and luxuries as needed in sacrifice.
It all starts with behavior first for a REAL Green. A REAL Green accepts failure as the starting point then goes forth in relative effort based upon his local of people, place, and position in adaptation and mitigation. This is done with local life boats of resilience and sustainability along with hospices of empathy and understanding for those who are not awakened. It includes regeneration of the local land a REAL Green inhabits. The hospice is human and natural and both will suffer the final chapter of the Anthropocene but that does not mean they cannot be regenerated to be better able to face the coming decline. So, behavior is the key but behavior that is honest with science and human nature. This behavior becomes a physical and mental monastery of seeds that might be a flap of a butterfly’s wing into seeds of recovery post collapse.
“We Can’t Do It Ourselves”
https://tinyurl.com/wg4pctx local futures
“Advances in energy efficiency have not resulted in lower energy demand, because they don’t address new and more resource-intensive consumption patterns that often emerge from more energy efficient technologies. [1][2] Likewise, renewable energy sources have not led to a decarbonisation of the energy infrastructure, because total and per capita energy demand are increasing faster than renewable energy sources are added.[3] Consequently, the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to focus more on social change. Energy efficiency and decarbonization policies need to be combined with “social innovation” if we want energy use and carbon emissions to go down. This is where behavioral change policies come in. The third pillar of climate change policy tries to steer consumer choices and behaviors in a more sustainable direction.”
REAL Green Adaptation 