The stupid notion that "climate doomers are just as bad as climate deniers" is nicely refuted here by Alan Urban...
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One of the most fascinating things about humans is their endless ability to deny the obvious. Our civilization is clearly headed for collapse, yet most people — even those who know that climate change is real — think the economy can keep growing forever, just so long as it’s a “green economy.”
First of all, there is no such thing as a green economy. To create renewables and electric vehicles, we have to destroy ecosystems so we can mine rare-earth metals. And to produce the plastic, steel, cement, and other components that go into solar panels and wind turbines, we need oil. There’s nothing green about any of this.
Secondly, even if we found an infinite source of clean energy, endless growth would still be impossible. If energy usage were to keep growing at 2.3% per year — as it has for many decades — in 400 years, the oceans would be boiling just from the waste heat.
So obviously, infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible, yet most people deny this basic fact. The idea of modern civilization coming to an end is so unthinkable that they simply refuse to believe it.
What I’m trying to tell you is that it’s hopeless. We cannot save modern civilization.
Some people get angry when I say things like that. They accuse me of taking away people’s hope and making them apathetic. And recently, there have been a lot of articles complaining about climate doomers and saying they’re replacing climate deniers.
Imagine a doctor learns that her patient has terminal cancer. She’s about to go tell him the bad news when another doctor stops her and says, “You can’t tell him he’s going to die! If you do, he’ll become apathetic. You should tell him there’s still hope.”
Of course, that would be ridiculous. He needs to know he’s dying so he can warn his loved ones, get his affairs in order, decide how to spend his final days, and figure out how to manage the pain.
In the same way, people need to know that civilization is dying so they can warn one another, get their affairs in order, decide how to spend their final days, and figure out how to minimize the damage.
Imagine the doctor tells him about the cancer, but also assures him that there is still hope. Instead of spending his time with loved ones and making peace with his death, he spends his time searching for miracle cures and wasting money on phony medicine. By doing this, he causes his family more grief and leaves them less money when he’s gone.
This is why doctors don’t give people false hope. It’s cruel and unethical. Telling people we can save civilization is also cruel and unethical.
As long as people believe we can save this civilization, they’ll continue with business-as-usual while looking for solutions that only make the problem worse.
Sure, it’s possible that wind and solar power could extend the life of our civilization by a few years, but that means we’ll do even more damage to the biosphere, making the inevitable collapse that much more painful.
However, if people accept that modern civilization is unsustainable, they’ll start learning how to fix things, how to grow their own food, how to use less energy, or how to repurpose and upcycle garbage.
Meanwhile, governments could start reinforcing infrastructure, insulating homes and buildings, moving people away from the coasts, and incentivizing farmers to switch from monoculture to permaculture farming.
Of course, none of these things would stop the collapse, but instead of being sudden and dramatic, it would would be slower and less painful.
That’s why the idea that climate doomers are just as bad as climate deniers makes me angry. Climate deniers want to go full speed ahead with business-as-usual, which will destroy the biosphere and cause unimaginable suffering. Climate doomers want to stop growing the economy and save as much of the natural world as possible.
Deniers and doomers aren’t the same at all, and to say they are is both ignorant and insulting.
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FULL ARTICLE -- archive.ph/sYdoX
ALTERNATE LINK -- medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/s…
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Jacob Urlich 🌍, Bread and Circuses, Yogthos, Gerry McGovern and Sane Thinker reshared this.
Jacob Urlich 🌍
in reply to Bread and Circuses • •Erik Wesselius
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •book by Alan Weisman
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)DoomsdaysCW
in reply to Erik Wesselius • • •DeterioratedStucco
in reply to DoomsdaysCW • • •We're going to have a big enough problem just with solvents and POL as sea level rises.
Lats (314 ppm)
in reply to DeterioratedStucco • • •Janet Foggie
in reply to Lats (314 ppm) • • •Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
in reply to Janet Foggie • • •Wyatt H Knott
in reply to Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC • • •@LordCaramac @ScotHomestead @Lats @SoftwareTheron @DoomsdaysCW @erikwesselius
Not chimps. Seals.
Read Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Bread and Circuses
in reply to Wyatt H Knott • • •Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •DoomsdaysCW
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
in reply to DoomsdaysCW • • •DoomsdaysCW
in reply to Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC • • •Mike
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Cotopaxi
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Bread and Circuses reshared this.
Liz Burton #IStandForPeace🕊
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Blue Meeple
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Helen Graham
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Michael Wong
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •If many believe there is truly no decent future, just a painful shitty one of austerity like living in a 3rd world country, many will find no reason to hold back on carbon emissions. They will continue to hold barbecues, get the big truck and fly around the world.
If you want to convince them that the future can be decent if they sacrifice and there will still be minor civilization niceties like cable tv and microwave popcorn then you gotta give them something: hope.
DoomsdaysCW
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Bread and Circuses reshared this.
MHowell
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Here is a book that I read probably 30 years ago that left an impression: Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change
ISBN: 9780252009884
ISBN-10: 0252009886
thirdplacebooks.com/book/97802…
Description: Our day-to-day experiences over the past decade have taught us that there must be limits to our tremendous appetite for energy, natural resources, and consumer goods. Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth. These scientists see an appalling future riding the tidal wave of a worldwide growth of population and technology.
Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (Paperback)
www.thirdplacebooks.comBread and Circuses reshared this.
MHowell
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •I thought you might have been referencing this thread posted by Nika Shilobod
fediscience.org/@NikaShilobod/…
Nika Shilobod
2023-10-08 12:37:00
Bread and Circuses
in reply to MHowell • • •MHowell
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •everyone should know about Gail Walicki (aka "Diva of Doom") and her life's work as a climate activist, RIP (1) desdemonadespair.net/2022/06/t…
(2) Her blog doomfordummies.blogspot.com/
#ClimateCrisis #climatescience
#doom #doomer
#doomerism
The Diva of Doom: Remembering the late, great Gail Zawacki – “In the end, what matters more than time?”
desdemonadespair.netUnofficial Firefox Ambassador of Victoria
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •@IanAMartin This article is a turning point in how I think about the climate crisis. Thank you!
The end of modern civilization doesn't have to be impossible to conceive, or inevitable. I want to see it as a natural transition towards a different future.
What if the end of modern civilization was looked at as a positive goal? Let's create a positive vision of how we'll handle it!
#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Degrowth
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CoolMcCool
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Yep, have to agree... except for the use of the term 'civilization'. It will surely be the end of late-stage capitalism and the consumer society / culture now in place... but I wouldn't call that *civilization.*
Hopefully in the future there will be a continuation of knowledge transfer and education and the growth of a new culture of sustainability - a new type of civilization growing from the rotting remains of the old?
anarchademic
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •bettercatastrophe.com/highligh…
I Want A Better Catastrophe — Highlights from the Book
I Want A Better CatastropheBread and Circuses
in reply to anarchademic • • •@emeritrix Yep, we looked at that a couple days ago -- climatejustice.social/@breadan…
Bread and Circuses
2023-10-10 17:02:57
@emeritrix Yep, we looked at that a couple days ago -- climatejustice.social/@breadan…
Bread and Circuses
2023-10-10 17:02:57
anarchademic
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •millennial falcon
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •a useful response to gaining information is gratitude and curiosity. the described phenomenon of a person responding to the acquisition of information with apathy I would consider to be an illness.
I haven't observed it personally. when I share information it is with people who can use it and want to use it.
VulcanTourist
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Economies only grow when population grows. Can population grow forever if the population just behaves "green"? We already know the answer.
Overpopulation has always been the 800-pound gorilla in the Collapse Room that everyone wants to ignore, simply because there's no easy ethical means to address the problem. Well, guess what? Overpopulation doesn't serve the Common Good, and thus is unethical.
The ecosystem will solve the ethical conundrum if it we don't.
Kent Pitman
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •The trouble is the word "doom". I think the more common meaning is "game over". Though some just mean "the current game", not "all games". It's as much an issue of this terminology as anything else.
For a while I've been talking about a 2035 extinction. I find people quibbling about whether it'd be extinction or "merely" civilization collapse. Are these usefully different? If civilization collapses, can we be sure we won't go extinct? If we can't, then in my mind it's pointless to quibble. I've bargained down to just talking about a 2035 civilization collapse (though it seems kinda optimistic these days) because there's less useless conversational friction.
The doomer conversation is, I think, denialists applying a straw man word that is extremely pessimistic and leaves people quibbling over how extreme the pessimism is when really all the people are trying to say is "this is going to get awful fast, please let's hurry up". The point isn't doom at all, it's need for imminent action.
I'm also not buying the notion that it's more humane to declare the patient termi
... show moreThe trouble is the word "doom". I think the more common meaning is "game over". Though some just mean "the current game", not "all games". It's as much an issue of this terminology as anything else.
For a while I've been talking about a 2035 extinction. I find people quibbling about whether it'd be extinction or "merely" civilization collapse. Are these usefully different? If civilization collapses, can we be sure we won't go extinct? If we can't, then in my mind it's pointless to quibble. I've bargained down to just talking about a 2035 civilization collapse (though it seems kinda optimistic these days) because there's less useless conversational friction.
The doomer conversation is, I think, denialists applying a straw man word that is extremely pessimistic and leaves people quibbling over how extreme the pessimism is when really all the people are trying to say is "this is going to get awful fast, please let's hurry up". The point isn't doom at all, it's need for imminent action.
I'm also not buying the notion that it's more humane to declare the patient terminal and just let them live out their life in peace. We're talking about potentially the continuation of a species. We owe better than fatalism. Worse than dying out because there was no way to win is going extinct because we thought there was no way to win and we gave up early when we didn't have to. We all need to behave like there's a chance, just in case there is. But that doesn't mean we have to avoid saying there's a big problem.
Maybe instead of "doom", let's insist on some other word like "dire" and "urgent" and "immediate" that makes it harder for someone to claim the aim is inaction. We do need to act, and soon, not just chide people about their tone of voice. Losing civilization over such quibbling would also be bad.
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mazzeri
in reply to Kent Pitman • • •@kentpitman In terms of civilization collapse or human extinction, even if 97.5% of all humanity was wiped out tomorrow, there would still be more people than the entire population of Earth at the time of the Roman, Parthian and Han Empires and Ptolemy Egypt.
And they all had stable societies, good architecture, roads, plumbing, laws, education, agriculture etc so a massive population decline wouldn’t automatically spell the end of all civilization, climate permitting.
Kent Pitman
in reply to mazzeri • • •@mazzeri
With apologies we are now performing a play to illustrate the coversational scenario I meant meant upthread because I really do mean there's a good chance of extinction.
It worries me to need to engage what I consider overly rosy stories of humanity surviving this way, not because I think it would be bad for humanity to survive. I'd love to be wrong on this But it seems likely to me that what's coming is not survivable and I want people to visualize true badness.
I don't want them to do so in order to say there's no hope, but in order to understand that without serious action, the situation you're describing, which is the luckiest of luck, even if we DO act, isn't in scope.
So I often talk of civilization collapse hoping to avoid someone offering an upside, to get them to focus on real badness. But you are, I think, by hinting the worst case isn't complete devastation, feeding people's desire to deny badness. I wish you would not.
If we survive, great, but for now the key thing is to understand that that is FAR from certain. Let's not leave it to chance.
Near North camp
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •It's not too late to befriend your local unhoused folks!
We have a lot of experience living through a form of societal collapse and getting by with much less.
Comrade Ferret
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •lorano
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Now is it truly beyond, I don't know. And I think that's the whole point : can we change? Or better again, do we want to?
MatthewToad43
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Have to respectfully disagree with this one. Of course current civilisation isn't sustainable. But we have to move towards something that is. And even if that's a lost cause, we can reduce the amount of harm done.
Saying there is no hope is exactly the same as saying you might as well take that holiday since the nature you'll see won't be there for much longer.
Worse, it supports disinformation campaigns by the fossil fuel industry against renewables. Yes there is a cost to the transition. Yes there is no perfectly green civilisation on the horizon. However, the faster we act the less the overall damage. And zero fossil fuel use *is* possible, and quickly, even if other forms of harm will take longer to deal with.
Extinction of the human race also means a huge biodiversity loss. We are part of the ecosystem. And extinction remains a possibility depending on the science and our actions.
I care about the wider ecosystem because we're part of it and utterly dependent on it. However I mainly care about people, and that's okay. Managed decline into oblivion is n
... show moreHave to respectfully disagree with this one. Of course current civilisation isn't sustainable. But we have to move towards something that is. And even if that's a lost cause, we can reduce the amount of harm done.
Saying there is no hope is exactly the same as saying you might as well take that holiday since the nature you'll see won't be there for much longer.
Worse, it supports disinformation campaigns by the fossil fuel industry against renewables. Yes there is a cost to the transition. Yes there is no perfectly green civilisation on the horizon. However, the faster we act the less the overall damage. And zero fossil fuel use *is* possible, and quickly, even if other forms of harm will take longer to deal with.
Extinction of the human race also means a huge biodiversity loss. We are part of the ecosystem. And extinction remains a possibility depending on the science and our actions.
I care about the wider ecosystem because we're part of it and utterly dependent on it. However I mainly care about people, and that's okay. Managed decline into oblivion is not acceptable, and if there's even a 1% chance of avoiding it then it's worth fighting for. For your family, your friends, for people. Not just for the earth, which we depend on. Activism has a cost, and being able to be motivated not just by love of non-human life but by love of human life too is important.
Further, there is a primitivist and therefore eugenicist implication to this sort of argument. Collapse will not be equally distributed. The rich think they'll be comfortable for long enough. The disabled, the global poor, will be first out the door. People who depend on modern medicine to survive are marginalised (or worse) by able-bodied survivalists.
And I'm not conflating civilisation with survival here. First, we may need technological civilisation (admittedly different technologies) to survive as a species, in some of the worst case scenarios. Second, pretty much everyone depends on civilisation, and some more than others, especially if they are dependent on modern medicine. More to the point, sufficient food for everyone is necessary. No doubt the rich will continue to eat beef while the poor starve, but there are limits to how far money can insulate you when the whole system is collapsing.
Admitting defeat is demotivating. But above all, it plays into the fossil fuel industry's strategies, particularly attacks on renewables.
Renewables have ecological costs. Many of those costs are the direct consequence of the rest of the economy still being based on fossil fuels, so deploying them quickly reduces the overall cost of the transition. Using less energy is vital, but it's not enough while we are still burning fossil fuels. The harm done by mining for renewables is a fraction of that needed for the equivalent fossil fueled energy. And short term, because of electrification of heat (which radically reduces energy usage), and to a lesser degree of transport (we need more electric *buses*), we will need more electrical energy.
Aaron
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •David Benfell, Ph.D.
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •I would treat "the stupid notion that 'climate doomers are just as bad as climate deniers" as on par with #ClimateDenial.
The reality keeps turning out to be far worse than climate scientists predict even in their most alarming articles, in significant part due to an instinct to understate and hedge conclusions. To refuse to acknowledge this is every bit a form of denial.
blogs.scientificamerican.com/o…
Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change
Scientific American Blog NetworkMori
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •#ClimateChange
James Cameroun
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Timo Tiuraniemi
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •This is an odd take.
Climate doomers' mantra is "we're doomed". "Doom" means "inevitable destruction or ruin", so doomers claim that we as people are headed towards inevitable destruction.
If they believe that, why would they "start learning how to fix things, how to grow their own food, how to use less energy, or how to repurpose and upcycle garbage"?
I've never heard the term "doomer" used to refer to people claiming "modern civilization is doomed". Is this use common?
Jimmy Havok
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Zohan 🇨🇦🔐
in reply to Bread and Circuses • • •Here is a starting point to fight climate change...
theconversation.com/us-militar…
US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries – shrinking this war machine is a must
The Conversation