You can’t truly nourish transformation unless you get to the very essence of what is human reality. If humans are trapped as the evidence indicates then talking about a normal transformation is just empty promises. Empty promises lead to disappointment. Agroecology fails where most others fail and that is the basis of the movement. Pointing to transformation without an honesty to the reality of the current human condition will just run up against a brick wall eventually. This is not to say this movement is not without justification because it is vital. My point is at the deepest levels there must be an honesty that only comes with acceptance of reality. Since most humans can’t handle the truth this movement has a place because motivating even those who are not enlightened is vital to advancing efforts that will mitigate and lessen pain and suffering. So, my comment is more for those who want to go a step further with transformation once they master agroecology.
When ascending the ladder of reality that increasingly become abstractions one sees this is all about core human behavior not action. Action results from behavior. Honest science is pointing to a trap but science in general is corrupted and delusional on solutions. Humans are forced to fight decline because the system is growth based. Even the green versions of human activity are growth based. Degrowthers are delusional mostly because they point to success of degrowth when the reality is degrowth will destroy the current system and them with it. This system can’t be reformed either with green growth, degrowth and certainly not with techno optimism of the status quo green or brown.
The system can be adapted in a retreat “in force” only. This also means a hybridization and salvage of the forces of the status quo with properly scaled local efforts. This means permaculture must be enhanced and promoted but alongside industrial globalism of agriculture and production. The reason for this is the system cannot feed humanity on permaculture. Permaculture takes education and investment to function so it relies on status quo stability. There is only stability in the status quo albeit one in decline and turbulence. This is because the status quo is in the trap of a brick box not being able to go forward or backwards. Permaculture must adapt to overshoot by being in an Anthropocene of overshoot. In other words, accept and adapt to the trap of delocalization and tragic failure of human sapience at global levels with local expressions of constructive change in overall decline.
This then calls for individuals and small groups who choose to promote properly scaled change to embrace the decline process in a retreat in force that adapts and mitigates the forces of abandonment, dysfunction, and the irrational. So, a truly transformative event is embracing and emulating decline by retreating in force to defensive positions. This is a stair step down with 3 hands of pinpoint applications of green growth and active degrowth but with lifeboats of localism as the fortifications. Everybody and everything cannot be saved. This includes the extinction event that is now self-organizing. Keep in mind this can only happen open source and spontaneously within a trapped status quo at small scales. This means not movements but monks. Small self-organizing localized responses by the awakened will plant the seeds of change for the new human type who come after the fall.
This trap is deeper than growth or degrowth it is in the very soul of what it means to be human. The human narrative is trapped in a narrative that seeks to maintain instead of participating in the take down of the modern human system. The key to understanding this is to accept the human situation cannot be change by any means. The awakened way then is for those who are the actively enlightened to build localized monasteries of the wisdom that will be needed as a way forward in the unfolding of destructive change. A wisdom of insecurity that adapts to the fall.
Many are enlightened to this but the awakened have what it takes to do action. What this means is a select group that will be the monks nurturing the wisdom of a new human type born in the crucible of destructive planetary change. These monks will not be that new human type but the drones cultivating the queen bee of a future human type. This is a multigenerational process that is not yet ready for the new human type. Keep in mind this transformation is if the plant acquiesces to this. Extinction may be in the cards but what matters is the journey not the destination. What this means is a monastic movement of a select few withdrawn from the status quo but also harnessing it with life boats and hospices.
REAL Green Adaptation 