Tag: Environmental Collapse

Odin with the ravens Thought and Memory

A couple days ago I was thinking about the problem of surveillance states and I realized, “This problem is likely to become less of one because of climate change.”

And I started thinking about all the opportunities and good things climate change makes possible.

My grieving was done.

My pre-grieving, I suppose.

I see grieving for climate change and ecological collapse everywhere. Informed people who have done their homework know it’s going to be bad, really bad, and that they and those they care about are going to be hit by it. For a lot of people it rises to the level of trauma, even though most of it hasn’t happened yet. It’s like the moment you really know you’re going to die or that something else horrible WILL happen. You can get caught on it, and traumatized by something which isn’t here yet.

But then there’s the point at which you hit acceptance.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a prayer, ““God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

But acceptance doesn’t mean resignation. It doesn’t mean “oh, nothing can be done.” If I know there’s going to be a famine I can stock up food. If I know I’m going to die, I can write a will and say my goodbyes. If I know here is going to be climate change I can take that into account in my actions going forward.

Knowing something is going to happen, and that it can’t, or won’t, be stopped is freeing and empowering. I am now able to stop worrying about the fact that it is going to happen, and plan for it.

When I was young I used to read a lot of adventure novels. One of the criticisms of such fiction is that the protagonist’s seem to just shrug off bad events: They aren’t effected much emotionally. But what they do do is take those events into consideration in their plans and actions.

Adventure fiction thinking is a pretty good way to live your life, actually, if you can pull it off. What is, is. What will be, will be, but you can adapt to it.

Here’s the truth about climate change: It’s going to suck more ass than anything since the Black Death. That’s a lot of ass.

But it’s also an opportunity. You want change? You don’t like society today?

I don’t. I mean, I fought like the dickens to avoid climate change because the price of this change is too high. Like billions of dead too high.

But we lost. It’s happening.

And horrible as it is, it’s still an opportunity. The good will go away, but so will a lot of the bad.

The society created after the Black Death was, in many ways, much better than the one that came before.

That’s our challenge. There will be real breakdowns in how we run our society. The challenge is to replace with them with something better.

Some things better.

And because you’ve accepted the truth of climate change and that it isn’t going to be stopped, you have an advantage over the deniers. Those who act in alignment with what IS and what will be are always stronger, more nimble and more capable than those running around in denial.

Climate change is coming. It’s going to suck horribly.

How are you going to use it to make your life and everyone else’s lives better?

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Making Sure YOU Stay Alive When Millions Are Dying

By Ian Welsh

On April 2, 2018

Comments

Okay, my friends, it’s time to talk seriously.

We are screwed, blued, and tattooed. We are so fucked that we can’t see straight.

The vast majority of people are in complete denial about the level of pain coming down the pike.

The combination of climate change and ecological collapse is going to hit us like a high-speed train carrying nitroglycerine derailing in the middle of a oil refinery.

The timing on this shit is unclear. I have seen coherently argued cases that ecological collapse could happen soon. Heck, I’ve seen cases that say it, er, should have happened by now.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Combine climate change with the way we have utterly fucked up our management of fresh water, and this is going to lead to, in a reasonable best case scenario, hundreds of millions of deaths, and a billion or so refugees.

The aquifers are being depleted in wide areas in China, India, America, and elsewhere. The groundwater is also being polluted.

No one is prepared and no one is doing sweet fuck all. I get chewed on for being “cynical,” but the people who are not worried are absolute fools and morons: Anyone who cheered the Paris accords on the environment was delusional at best. They had no enforcement provisions. Virtually no one was going to meet those goals AND the goals were insufficient to begin with.

We were told they weren’t going to do enough, and that the signing countries weren’t going to hold themselves to it anyway, and people pretended to believe this BS was going to make the least bit of difference?

Grow the fuck up.

Now, if you are not old or the sort of sick that means your lifespan is shit and your odds of surviving and major catastrophe are crap, or if you care about your children or some other people, you need to start taking this into account in your personal lives.

We are BEYOND STOPPING THIS.

It is too late. Too late.

Tattoo that into your brain.

Even if our governments suddenly were run by people who cared, it would be too late to do anything but prepare and try and reduce how bad it will be.

But they aren’t doing anthing, and they aren’t going to be doing anything soon enough. Heck, soon enough was about ten years ago, and that was optimistic to any sane person. By 2008, I was thinking “Yeah, we’re fucked, but maybe, just maybe, if we act now?”

Frankly, I was delusional. Hope’ll do that to you. Horrible drug. Obviously, our leaders are psychopathic douchebags with the planning ability of mythical lemmings (the real animals are not as stupid as the legend), and obviously most voters don’t take the issue seriously, and obviously nothing was going to be done no matter who was elected.

But, y’know, “hope.”

Alright, hope’s over. It died for me by February of 2009, on a bunch of fronts.

High-speed freight train, carrying nitro. Derailing. In the middle of your life.

I don’t know when this stuff will really hit. Probably someone has made the prediction that is right. But I do know it will hit. I know it will cause major wars between major states. I know it will cause waves of refugees in the millions. I know it will cause vast numbers of deaths.

This is obvious.

So take it into account in your planning of your life. I’m not talking politics in this post, that ship is done. Do what you can at the political level if you want, but I’m talking about your personal survival and that of people for whom you care most.

If you live in the most vulnerable countries and areas (for example, India will be absolutely creamed), take that into account. But also take into account we have a very fragile, just-in-time delivery system.

Are you on drugs? I mean that literally. Legal, psychoactive drugs, or legal, life saving drugs. The US had a major shortage of blood bags due to Puerto Rico getting hit by a hurricane because, hey, they were made there.

We have an intensely locally-concentrated production of materials that are then sent to entire continents and countries through fragile supply chains that end in warehouses that do not hold large stocks, because everything is “lean and mean” and “just in time.” Shocks hit a system like that, and there will be shortages. Medicine, food, fuel, and plenty of other stuff.

So start building in some ability to survive if you care about surviving.

And don’t allow yourself to go all delusional thinking it won’t happen. The best you can hope for is you die before it does. It’s a good bet for some of us. But if you’re young and healthy, or care about people who are, no.

Note: Yes, this post includes swearing. No, as a commenter you still can not swear. Also, comments suggesting that climate change is not real, etc… will not be approved. Further, apologists, that warmer climates are more lush in the long run does not change the short term catastrophic adjustments, where short term means decades to centuries.

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The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Environmental Collapse

Accepting and Using Climate Change

Making Sure YOU Stay Alive When Millions Are Dying