[P2P-F] Fwd: On Climate Crisis, Social Collapse and Deep Adaptation ... this is worth pondering

Mon Jul 30 16:27:22 CEST 2018

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Daryl Taylor <taylor.daryl.r at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 12:02 PM
Subject: On Climate Crisis, Social Collapse and Deep Adaptation ... this is
worth pondering
To: Daryl Taylor <taylor.daryl.r at gmail.com>

*Link to Full Paper by Dr Jem Bendell*
http://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

*Extracted Summary:*
Professor Jem Bendell discusses runaway, rather than linear, climate change
and how non-linear (and potentially exponential) changes are of central
importance to understanding climate change as they suggest that impacts
will be far more rapid and severe than predictions based on linear
projections, that multiple forcings beyond carbon dioxide will come into
play and that the changes no longer correlate with the rate of
anthropogenic carbon emissions. He describes how non-linear changes in our
environment trigger uncontrollable impacts on human habitat and
agriculture, with subsequent complex impacts on social, economic and
political systems. He focuses on opportunities such as agricultural
transformation and eco-system restoration. While he mentions climate change
having negative impacts on ecosystems, changes in seasons, melting
permafrost methane release, temperatures extremes, flood and drought, he
doesn't mention fire. Geoengineering and natural geoengineering are
mentioned and contrasted with the momentum of disruptive and uncontrollable
climate change, and it's potential human impact: starvation, settlement
destruction, mass migration, disease, war and extinction are all
entertained. He reports on how paternalistic climate and social scientists
warn against and censor discussion on the likelihood and nature of societal
collapse due to climate change, labelling it as irresponsible, in that it
might trigger hopelessness among the general lay public. He states this is
related to the non-populist anti-politics technocratic attitude that
pervades contemporary environmentalism and frames our challenge as one of
encouraging people to try harder to be nicer and better rather than coming
together in solidarity to either undermine or overthrow a system that
demands we participate in environmental and societal degradation. There is
a good discussion on the dynamics of denial which references
“interpretative denial” i.e., accepting certain climate facts but
interpreting them in a way that makes them “safer” to our personal
psychology, and “implicative denial” i.e., recognising the troubling
implications of climate facts but responding by busying ourselves on
activities that do not arise from a full assessment of the situation.
Interestingly, collapse denial is suggested to be more common among
sustainability experts than the general public, given the typical
allegiance of professionals to the incumbent social and economic structures
they benefit from. Another barrier identified is that there is no obvious
institutional self-interest in articulating the probability or
inevitability of environmental and societal collapse. He highlights how our
interests in civility, praise and belonging within a professional community
can censor those of us who seek to communicate uncomfortable truths in
memorable ways. His review of a range of projects and studies suggests that
the idea we “experts” need to be careful about what to tell “them” the
“unsupported public” may be a narcissistic delusion in need of immediate
remedy. In terms of framing, Bendell has chosen to interpret the available
information as indicating inevitable collapse, probable catastrophe and
possible extinction. He has found that inviting his students to consider
collapse as inevitable, catastrophe as probable and extinction as possible,
has not led to apathy or depression, but rather to a shedding of concern
for conforming to the status quo, and a mix of creativity about what to
focus on and discombobulation. He then posits a Deep Adaptation Agenda,
emphasising that we must look more critically at how people and
organisations are framing the situation and the limitations such framings
impose. Given that analysts are concluding that a societal collapse is
inevitable, he suggests the following question becomes important: What are
the valued norms and behaviours human societies will want to maintain,
relinquish, restore and rediscover, as they seek to survive? Resilience
asks us “how do we keep what we really want to keep?” Relinquishment asks
us “what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse?”
Restoration asks us “what can we bring back to help us with the coming
difficulties and tragedies?” Additionally, I add rediscovery might ask us
what can we dig up from archaic times of yore that may have utility in
post-collapse or catastrophic scenarios? He claims the era of “sustainable
development” as unifying concept and goal is now ending and Deep Adaptation
is an explicitly post-sustainability framing. He states the importance of
recognising our complicity and posits that the West’s response to
environmental issues has been restricted by the dominance of neoliberal
economics since the 1970s. This led us to hyper-individualist, market
fundamentalist, incremental and atomistic approaches. By
hyper-individualist, he means a focus on individual action as consumers,
switching light bulbs or buying sustainable furniture, rather than
promoting political action as engaged citizens. By market fundamentalist,
he means a focus on market mechanisms like the complex, costly and largely
useless carbon cap and trade systems, rather than exploring what more
government intervention could achieve. By incremental, he means a focus on
celebrating small steps forward such as a company publishing a
sustainability report, rather than strategies designed for the speed and
scale of change suggested by the science. By atomistic, he means a focus on
seeing climate action as a separate issue from the governance of markets,
finance and banking, rather than exploring what kind of economic system
could permit or enable sustainability. In terms of academic research and
teaching he suggests asking “How might research findings inform efforts for
a more massive and urgent pursuit of resilience, relinquishment,
restoration (and rediscovery) in the face of social collapse? and "How can
we best use MOOCs to widely disseminate the most useful economic
re-localisation and community development strategies? He emphasises the
need for citizens to access information and networks on how to shift their
livelihoods and lifestyles. He adds Local Governments will need similar
help on how to develop the capabilities today that will help their local
communities to collaborate, not fracture, during a collapse. At the
international level, there is the need to work on how to responsibly
address the wider fallout from collapsing societies, including the ongoing
challenges of refugee support and the securing of dangerous industrial and
nuclear sites at the moment of a societal collapse. He states he has
explored the emotional and psychological implications of this new awareness
of a societal collapse being likely in our own lifetimes in a reflective
essay on the spiritual implications of climate despair. His final
recommendations are narrow amounting to suggestions for academic
researchers, teachers and students, although he does say he is developing a
separate work for managers, policy makers and lay persons. He encourages
communities to engage deeply with the three (or four) guiding questions
offered up earlier. He concludes by reiterating the redundancy of the
reformist approach to sustainable development and related fields of
corporate sustainability that has underpinned the approach of many
professionals, opting instead for a new approach which explores how to
reduce harm and not make matters worse, informed by his Deep Adaptation
Agenda, which is not as yet well explicated, but certainly seems open for
more reflection and collaborative contributions.

-- 
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