Why am I wallowing in dread? The following answers are a) wrong (we have a lot less insight into ourselves and what makes us tick than we like to believe, I think) and b) only of interest to me – and only even of passing interest then.
There are “objective facts” around what is happening to temperatures and sea ice and so on. But on their own, those are just numbers – what makes them “interesting” is the implications and extrapolations around food production, heatwaves and so on. But then again, “cheer up, it may never happen” (BUT IT PROBABLY WILL.
Second though, I shouldn’t misunderestimate the effect of not being able to leave the house, not being able to take any serious physical exercise (though that is more under my control than I like to think, I think). Endorphins have a wonderful anti-depressant quality to them, after all.
Third (and this isn’t helping) I’ve done a small amount of rummaging around in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when there were plenty of people assuming that the species wouldn’t make it to 2000 (then thirty years into the future). And here I am, in 2020, running around assuming “the species” won’t make it to 2050. (To be clear, the planet will still have humans on it in 2100, but there won’t be nearly as many, and their conditions won’t be a whole lotta fun, for the most part).
And being well into middle-age and getting to that maundering self-pity stage (how to distinguish it from youthful maundering and self-pity, though? A different kind of self-absorption…)
Right, on with the shitshow.
Orange Wedding
Someone should get Billy Idol to re-cut “White Wedding”. George Osborne got married again yesterday. There was that spectacular poison pen email that must surely have discombobulated him and the bride. But not enough, clearly, for them not to come outa the church… to be sprinkled with orange confetti.
I thought it was an hilarious playful stunt, and the fact that it’s got all the climate denialists (because, ultimately, that’s what they are) clutching their pearls and doing their stupid meat-flapping is just an added bonus.
I am constantly surprised by Just Stop Oil – partly for its longevity (but then, I have misunderstood the impact for people coming to a sudden recent understanding of what’s going on. They are frogs who have woken up to the heat of the water, while I have, over the last 33 years or so, just become used to it every step of the way. And I also just don’t believe that JSO will get the broader changes they are looking for, because the base-building hasn’t happened (to be clear, that’s not the fault of the confetti throwers, the slow walkers, the cable-tie-to-goal-posters. That’s on all of us who in the 1980s and 1990s were unable to find the magic formulae to get “ordinary people” to be able to not just “care” but also engage them in sustained radical action – not necessarily arrestable stuff, btw. That “legitimate peripheral participation” is so tough, and it’s so tough to create the conditions for it. Beyond my wit, in any case, and that of others and other groups. So, JSO will “win” in the sense that when Starmer becomes PM, there will then be a ban on new licences. Except two things – i) the damage will be done between now and then and ii) I fully expect him to do some loophole shite, saying “pending a further study, we will allow on a case-by-case basis” or “well, now we have carbon capture and storage, it’s okay to keep dishing out the licenses.”
What has happened to XR, btw? After “The Big One” in April, what have they done? I’m not even getting the begging for cash emails the way I used to. And the XR North emails are a thing of beauty/hilarity.
Presumably XR is suffering that classic problem that the most determined folks are going where the energy is (JSO) and that means that those who are left lack the numbers/infrastructure/ideas/freedom to act to do anything more than The Bigger One in September or so?
There’s also all those gnarly court cases taking up people’s time and bandwidth. It’s hard to be creative and welcoming and all the rest of it when you are facing the possibility of serious jail time.
What next for XR? We shall see.
How I feel – on the sidelines. Washed up, burnt out, futile. So it goes.
Surging doomerism
A tweet from some guy – “There seems to be an ongoing surge in doomerism within the climate-conscious world, and I don’t like it. It’s reactionary, clout-seeking group driven by a quest for influence. The climate crisis is a crisis, but our civilization is not going to collapse in 18 months.”
Hmm. I think there’s a certain amount of projecting going on here, in the claim that this is “clout-seeking.” You know, when you point one finger at someone else, you point three back at yourself. The idea too, that people are taking a position on this because it will make them stand out – yeah, maybe a while ago, but a what point does it become kinda obvious that, well, shit is actually falling apart, that the long-expected, endlessly deferred Event is upon us. The rough beast, slouching, Godot actually turning up all the rest of it.
If we’re going to psychologise and psycho-analyse each other on Twitter (I am hesitant to recommend this, btw), then I think we could do a better job than the above.
Fwiw, I too don’t think civilisation will entirely collapse in the next 18 months, but I do think it will be an infraction point (1)
How I feel – more compassion than younger Marc would have, for this guy. As I hurtle towards the grave, I realise (both emotionally and intellectually?) that one of the major missing ingredients in the broth called Marc was… compassion. That’s what I was trying to tell myself through that Buddhist stuff in my 20s. And I did not listen. Of course I did not.
The Nature of Things
And finally, here’s a couple of choice clips from the editorial in the latest issue of “Nature Climate Change”, under the heading “Rough Years Ahead”.
It begins stating the facts
And there’s this –
“The expected increase in droughts in some regions and extreme rainfall in other regions can pose substantial risks to agriculture. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is particularly concerned about food security in Southern Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, and parts of Asia in the coming years”
Fwiw, I think we have some rough decades ahead. And the editorial does that amusing/irritating (delete as per your temperament) of having to point to ‘silver linings’, presumably for fear of being accused of being “too gloomy” or “giving aid and comfort to the doomers”.
How I feel – comfortably numb, suitably detached, whatever (not really, it’s a pose. When it comes, you’ll find me in the corner in a foetal ball, whimpering and pleading to be killed last).
Footnotes
- That’s a shout out to anyone else who saw “Knives Out: The Glass Onion”
marchudson.net 
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