Jared’s Book “Collapse” is in my library. I read it back when it came out when collapse
was more immediate than it is now.
Immediate is a deceptive term because saying not immediate is like
saying we are off the hook. The
immediate in 2011 was that energy and economy were going to sledgehammer the
global economy into collapse within 3-5 years.
Energy and economy are still relevant but their conditions of immediacy
is not as strong. We still have the
condition of immediacy and it has not gone away. They won’t go away because they are symptoms
of a civilization in predicaments. Climate
change, resource depletion, and environmental degradation are not as immediate
but they are converging forces that play into more immediate forces. They are also terminal forces. Once we destroy them we don’t get a second
chance. Energy and economy we could
adapt a human world around a different civilization. Could does not mean without extreme pain. If this could be done the terminal forces
might be arrested. This “could” seems
moot today like we are on death row. The
theoretical is often just fantasy.
This is where the social condition comes in because it is
our macro attitudes, population levels, and social arrangements that could give
us a chance of change. If we have a
flawed social narrative then we are not going to affect needed change. In this case energy and economics will
continue to be potentially immediate problems.
Climate, resources, and environment continue to rot permanently. I would like to say human wisdom is key but
saying anything is Key is deceptive. A
keystone to humanity is wisdom and it is key to the individual also. The problem with wisdom today is humans are
not scaled to our planetary system of natural cycles and the web of life. We are too large a footprint. There are instincts of our intellectual
patterns driving action that are diverse caught in this out of scale
footprint. We are in competitive and in overshoot. This then means wisdom can never be a key to
success because human wisdom is overlapping in competition. The ability to have human wisdom globally is
compromised now because we are not scaled.
Human wisdom cannot regain effectiveness until our footprint is
lowered.
This then points to no hope for the status quo. No hope is deceptive too because this just
means this status quo will not end well someday maybe immediately or maybe
not. The status quo is mortal just like
humans. There is hope until it is
over. The hope is day by day survival
hoping for another day of being alive with hope. Where there is this type of hope is the
individual and the local. The key to effective
wisdom can now only be found individually and locally when one attempts proper
scale. Use the status quo to get to
proper scale. In these times of macro
destructive change you can effect positive formative change individually and
locally. This is where you find the day
by day hope. Let’s be clear many have no
hope even if the status quo was flourishing.
Some people are walking no hope people living in a day to day hell. We are all going to die and some are closer
than others.
Those who have individual and local hope can have empathy
for others that don’t. Keep scale in
mind because empathy is a scale danger.
If you are blessed with the ability reach out within your scale and help
another then you should do it. The
reason is more than altruism it is also what makes your local stronger. This is also true of the dying
environment. Take a piece of your dying local
environment and heal it.
Another individual act in your local is assemble a monastery
for those who are lucky enough to negotiate a human collapse. Leave them something as a guide that came
from your experience. Experience is hard
won knowledge that came by trial and error.
The monastery is your own personal example of wisdom. It is what you have learned that can be used
to survive and more importantly these days what you should not do. Today we are threatened by too much and too
many things. Simplicity is gone and a
zombie meaning pervades life. It is as
if we are working harder and harder to kill ourselves but can’t figure out
why. Your own individual monastery of
local meaning can be a small beacon of meaning.
It can be a flashlight in a dark world.
There are many ways to deal with our civilization in decline
individual and local is just one. It is
for those who can. Those who can and are
awakened to the end days. Some will
choose bigger avenues of change with government and business. It does not really matter because no way will
save us. It is over we just are not there yet.
If that turns you off then that is fine too because you have
choices. You can believe this time
humans are exceptional and all previous history of failed civilization is different. Maybe you are right and I am wrong. I would say finally be honest with yourself
because meaning degrades very quickly once the corruption of dishonesty occurs.
There’s a 49 Percent Chance the World As We Know It Will End by 2050
https://tinyurl.com/y54x86wq
ny mag
“As far as national crises are concerned, the first step is
acknowledge — the country has to acknowledge that it’s in a crisis.. Number two, once you acknowledge that you’re
in a crisis, you have to acknowledge that there’s something you can do about
it. You have responsibility. If instead you say that the crisis is the fault of
somebody else, then you’re not going to make any progress towards solving it.”
“there seem to be a lot of countervailing impulses on the
environmental left — from those who believe the only solution to addressing
climate is through individual action to those who are really focused on the
villainy of particular corporate interests, the bad behavior of the Republican
Party, et cetera. In that context, what does it mean to accept responsibility?”
“As for what we can do about it, whether to deal with it by
individual action, or at a middle scale by corporate action, or at a top scale
by government action — all three of those. Individually we can do things. We
can buy different sorts of cars. We can do less driving. We can vote for public
transport. That’s one thing. There are also corporate interests.”
“I’m repressing a chuckle because I know how people react
when I answer that. Whenever somebody tells me, “How should we prioritize our
efforts?” My answer is, “We should not be prioritizing our efforts.”
Whole article:
There’s a 49 Percent Chance the World As We Know It
Will End by 2050
https://tinyurl.com/y54x86wq ny mag
Jared Diamond’s new book, Upheaval,
addresses itself to a world very obviously in crisis, and tries to lift some
lessons for what do about it from the distant past. In that way, it’s not so
different from all the other books that have made the UCLA geographer a sort of
don of “big think” history and a perennial favorite of people like Steven
Pinker and Bill Gates.
Diamond’s life as a public intellectual began
with his 1991 book The Third Chimpanzee, a work
of evolutionary psychology, but really took off with Guns, Germs, and Steel,
published in 1997, which offered a three-word explanation for the rise of the
West to the status of global empire in the modern era — and, even published
right at the “end of history,” got no little flak from critics who saw in it
both geographic determinism and what they might today call a whiff of Western
supremacy. In 2005, he published Collapse, a
series of case studies about what made ancient civilizations fall into disarray
in the face of environmental challenges — a doorstopper that has become a kind
of touchstone work for understanding the crisis of climate change today.
In The World Until Yesterday,
published in 2012, he asked what we can learn from traditional societies; and
in his new book, he asks what we can learn from ones more like our own that
have faced upheaval but nevertheless endured.
I obviously want to talk
about your new book, but I thought it might be useful to start by asking you
how you saw it in the context of your life’s work.
Sure. Here’s my answer, and I think you’ll find it banal and more disappointing
than what you might have hoped for. People often ask me what’s the relation
between your books and the answer is there is none. Really, each book is what I
was most interested in and felt most at hand when I finished my previous book.
Well, it may be a narrative
that suggests itself to me because I’m thinking of Guns, Germs and
Steel, Collapse, and this new one, Upheaval, but
for me it’s interesting to note that each of them arrived when they did in a
particular cultural, intellectual moment. That begins with Guns, Germs
and Steel — it’s obviously a quite nuanced historical survey, but it
was also read coming out when it did, as a kind of explanation for Western
dominance of the planet …
I would say you’re giving me more credit than I deserve. But one-third of the
credit that you give me I do deserve. And that’s for Collapse. Guns,
Germs and Steel, I don’t see it as triumphalist at all.
No, I don’t either. I don’t
mean to say that. But it met the moment of Western triumphalism in our culture,
I think.
The fact is that you and I are speaking English. We’re not speaking Algonquin
and there are reasons for that. I don’t see that as a triumph of the English
language. I see it as the fact of how history turned out, and that’s what Guns,
Germs and Steel is about.
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If you don’t mind dwelling
on Collapse for a second … Has your view of these issues
changed at all over the intervening years? I mean, when you think about how
societies have faced environmental challenges, how adaptable they are and how
resilient they might be, do you find yourself having the same views that you
had a decade and a half ago?
Yes. My views are the same because I think the story that I saw in 2005, it’s
still true today. It still is the case that there are many past societies that
destroyed themselves by environmental damage. Since I wrote the book, more
cases have come out. There have been studies of the environmental collapse of
Cahokia, outside St. Louis. Cahokia was the most populous Native American
society in North America. And I when I wrote Collapse it
wasn’t known why Cahokia had collapsed, but subsequently we’ve learned that
there was a very good study about the role of climate changes and flooding on
the Mississippi River in ruining Cahokia. So that book, yes, it was related to
what was going on. But the story today, nothing has changed. Past societies
have destroyed themselves. In the past 14 years it has not been undone that
past societies destroyed themselves.
Today, the risk that we’re facing is not of
societies collapsing one by one, but because of globalization, the risk we are
facing is of the collapse of the whole world.
How likely do you think
that is? That the whole network of civilization would collapse?
I would estimate the chances are about 49 percent that the world as we know it
will collapse by about 2050. I’ll be dead by then but my kids will be, what?
Sixty-three years old in 2050. So this is a subject of much practical interest
to me. At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex
societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most
fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted. Farms
around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil
around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably.
With all these things, at the rate we’re going now, we can carry on with our
present unsustainable use for a few decades, and by around 2050 we won’t be able
to continue it any longer. Which means that by 2050 either we’ve figured out a
sustainable course, or it’ll be too late.
So let’s talk about that
sustainable course. What are the lessons in the new book that might help us
adjust our course in that way?
As far as national crises are concerned, the first step is acknowledge — the
country has to acknowledge that it’s in a crisis. If the country denies that
it’s in a crisis, of course if you deny you’re in a crisis, you’re not going to
solve the crisis, number one. In the United States today, lots of Americans
don’t acknowledge that we’re in a crisis.
Number two, once you acknowledge that you’re in
a crisis, you have to acknowledge that there’s something you can do about it.
You have responsibility. If instead you say that the crisis is the fault of
somebody else, then you’re not going to make any progress towards solving it.
An example today are those, including our political leaders, who say that the
problems of the United States are not caused by the United States, but they’re
caused by China and Canada and Mexico. But if we say that our problems are
caused by other countries, that implies that it’s not up to us to solve our
problems. We’re not causing them. So, that’s an obvious second step.
On climate in particular,
there seem to be a lot of countervailing impulses on the environmental left —
from those who believe the only solution to addressing climate is through
individual action to those who are really focused on the villainy of particular
corporate interests, the bad behavior of the Republican Party, et cetera. In
that context, what does it mean to accept responsibility?
My understanding is that, in contrast to five years ago, the majority of
American citizens and voters recognize the reality of climate change. So there
is, I’d say, recognition by the American public as a whole that there is quite
a change in that we are responsible for it.
Right.
As for what we can do about it, whether to deal with it by individual action,
or at a middle scale by corporate action, or at a top scale by government
action — all three of those. Individually we can do things. We can buy
different sorts of cars. We can do less driving. We can vote for public
transport. That’s one thing. There are also corporate interests because I’m on
the board of directors for the World Wildlife Fund and I was on the board of
Conservation International, and on our boards are leaders of really big
companies like Walmart and Coca-Cola are their heads, their CEOs, have been on
our boards.
I see that corporations, big corporations, while
some of them do horrible things, some of them also are doing wonderful things
which don’t make the front page. When there was the Exxon Valdez spill off
Alaska, you can bet that made the front page. When Chevron was managing its oil
field in Papua New Guinea in a utterly rigorous way, better than any national
park I’ve ever been in, that certainly did not make the front page because it
wasn’t a good picture.
And then finally the Republican Party, yes.
Government has a role. In short, climate change can be addressed at all these
levels. Individual, corporation, and the national level.
In the book, when you write
about the present day — you talk about climate, you talk about resources, but
you also talk about the threat of nuclear war and nuclear weapons. It may be
kind of a foolish question to ask, but … how do you rank those threats?
I’m repressing a chuckle because I know how people react when I answer that.
Whenever somebody tells me, “How should we prioritize our efforts?” My answer
is, “We should not be prioritizing our efforts.” It’s like someone asking me,
“Jared, I’m about to get married. What is the most important factor for a happy
marriage?” And my response is, “If you’re asking me what is the most important
factor for a happy marriage, I’d predict that you’re going to get divorced
within a few years.” Because in order to have a happy marriage you’ve got to
get 37 things right. And if you get 36 right but you don’t get sex right, or
you don’t get money right, or you don’t get your in-laws right, you will get
divorced. You got to get lots of things right.
So for the state of the world today, how do we
prioritize what’s going on in the world? We have to avoid a nuclear holocaust.
If we have a nuclear holocaust, we’re finished, even if we solve climate
change. We have to solve climate change because if we don’t solve climate
change but we deal with a nuclear holocaust, we’re finished. If we solve
climate change and don’t have a nuclear holocaust but we continue with
unsustainable resource use, we’re finished. And if we deal with the nuclear
problem and climate change and sustainable use, but we maintain or increase
inequality around the world, we’re finished. So, we can’t prioritize. Just as a
couple in a marriage have to agree about sex and children and in-laws and money
and religion and politics. We got to solve all four of those problems.
What should we do? Are
there lessons from history?
To conduct a happy marriage, it’s not enough to sit back and have a holistic
view of marriage. Instead you need to discuss your budget and your in-laws and
36 other things. As far as the world is concerned, solving national crises, the
checklist that I came up with in my book is a checklist of a dozen factors.
Now, I could make a longer checklist, or I could make a shorter checklist, but
if we have a checklist of three factors it would be obvious we’re missing some
big things. And if we had a checklist of 72 factors, then nobody would pick up
my book and they wouldn’t pay attention to it.
As an example of one of those factors that the
United States is really messing up now, it’s the factor of using other
countries as models for solving problems. Just as with personal crises, when
someone’s marriage breaks down or is at risk of breaking down, one way of
dealing with it is to look at other people who have happy marriages and learn
from their model of how to conduct a happy marriage. But the United States
today believes what’s called American exceptionalism. That phrase, American
exceptionalism means the belief that the United States is unique, exceptional,
therefore there’s nothing we can learn from other countries. But we’ve got this
neighbor, Canada, which is a democracy sharing our continent and there are
other democracies throughout Western Europe in Australia and Japan. All of
these democracies face problems that we are not doing well with. All of these
democracies have problems with their national health system. And they have
problems with education. And they have problems with prisons. And they have
problems with balancing individual interests with community interests. But the
United States, we too have prisons and we’ve got education and we have a
national health system, and we are dissatisfied. Most Americans are dissatisfied
with our national health system, and most Americans are increasingly
dissatisfied with our educational system.
Other countries face these same problems and
other countries do reasonably well, better than the United States in solving
these problems. So, one thing that we can learn is to look at other countries
as models and disabuse ourselves of the idea that the United States is
exceptional and so there’s nothing we can learn from any other country, which
is nonsense.
Do you think of this as
being a sort of book about the path forward for the U.S.? Or do you think of it
as having a broader, global audience?
It is a book about the U.S. plus 215 other countries. The United States is one
country in the world, and we’ve got our own problems, which we are struggling
with. I came back from Italy and Britain. Britain when I was there was at the
peak of Brexit, but Britain is still at the peak of Brexit.
They’re not leaving that
behind.
They’re making, I would say, zero progress with Brexit. Italy has
its own big problems. Papua New Guinea has its own problems. I’m trying to
think what country does not have problems …
It’s hard.
Norway is doing pretty well. What else?
Portugal maybe is doing
relatively well.
Which one is that?
Portugal, maybe.
Portugal, maybe. Costa Rica, all things considered. Well, Costa
Rica has problems because I think all four of Costa Rica’s last four presidents
are in jail at the moment. That’s a significant problem.
If there’s hardly a nation
in the world that seems to be a good model, a thriving example for other
nations of the world to follow behind, how much faith does that give you that
we can find our way to a kind of sustainable, prosperous, and fulfilling
future?
That’s an interesting question. If I had stopped the book on the chapter about
the world without writing the last six pages, it would have been a pessimistic
chapter, because at that point I thought the world does not have a track record
of solving difficult problems. The U.N., well bless it, but the U.N. isn’t
sufficiently powerful, and therefore I feel pessimistic about our chances of
solving big world problems.
But then, fortunately, I learned by talking with
friends that the world does have a successful track record in the last 40 years
about solving really complex, thorny problems. For example, the coastal
economics. So many countries have overlapping coastal economic zones. What a
horrible challenge that was to get all the countries in the world to agree with
delineating their coastal economic zones. But it worked. They’re delineated.
Or smallpox. To eliminate smallpox it had to be
eliminated in every country. That included eliminating it in Ethiopia and
Somalia. Boy, was it difficult to eliminate smallpox in Somalia, but it was
eliminated.
I wonder if I could ask you
about California in particular. It’s interesting to me in the sense that when I
look at the example of California, I see a lot of reasons for hope in
the sense that there’s quite focused attention on climate and resources used
there — probably more sustained interested in those subjects than there really
is anywhere else in the U.S. And it has policy that’s, by any metric, I think
more progressive than the relevant policies elsewhere in the U.S.
And yet, it’s also a state
that — maybe it’s an unfortunate phrase — by accident of geography is also
facing some of the most intense pressures and dealing with the most intense
impacts already, from water issues to wildfire and all the rest of it. As a
Californian who’s informed by these concerns looking at the future and thinking
about the future, how does the future of California look to you?
California has problems like every other place in the world. But California
makes me optimistic. It does have the environmental problems but nevertheless
we have, I would say, one of the best state governments, if not the best state
government in the United States. And relatively educated citizens. And we have
the best system of public education, of public higher education in the United
States. Although, I, at the University of California, know very well that we
are screaming at the legislature for more money. So we have problems but we’re
giving me hope at how we’re dealing with those problems.
I’m a native New Yorker and
lived my whole life in this environment on the East Coast. And when I see
images of those wildfires and
when I hear stories of people I know or people I meet, and the fact that
they’ve evacuated, the fact that no matter where you are in Southern
California, also in parts of Central California and Northern California, you
have an evacuation plan in mind. I just don’t understand how you guys can live
like that. It must begin to impose some kind of psychic cost.
Well, I understand psychic costs and I understand getting my head around it
because I was born and grew up in Boston. The last straw for me was that in
Boston I sang in the Handel and Haydn Society chorus, and we were going to
perform in Boston Symphony Hall the last week in May and our concert was
canceled by a snowstorm that closed Boston down. And for me that was the last
straw. I do not want to live in a city where a concert in Symphony Hall is
going to get closed down in the last week of May by a snowstorm.
That’s just one event, but the fact is that
Boston is and was miserable for five months of the year in the winter and then
it’s nice for two weeks in the spring and then it’s miserable for four months
in the summer, then it’s nice for a few weeks in the fall. Similarly with New
York. So when I moved here, my reaction is, “Yes, we have the fires and we have
the earthquakes and we have the mudslide and we have the risk of flooding. But,
thank God for all those things because they saved me from the psychic costs of
living in the Northeast.”
NY Mag
REAL Green Adaptation 