Fafocene Diaries #01: have we been here before?

Weds 17th June 2026. (What are the Fafocene Diaries? See here).

Yesterday I finished the basic tidy up of the CO₂ Newsletter texts. (1). The CO₂ Newsletter, founded and edited by William Barbat, ran from 1979 to 1982. It came out ever two months and was a round-up of what was being written, said and – marginally – done on carbon dioxide build-up. Barbat was trying to get government, industry and civil society (especially the environmental groups) to take the threat seriously. He was not successful, but he did absolutely everything he could. The Newsletters are all heart-breakers.

And within the Newsletters I noticed a big struggle – ‘are there analogs for what we are going through now?’ – Hypsithermal bit of the Holocene etc etc.

And it got me thinking about analogs for the Fafocene – the ‘Fuck Around, Find out’ ocene that we are living in.

The obvious one to reach for is the two big periods of nuclear apocalypse any minute now – from the mid-1950s to 1963 or so, and again 1979 to 1984 or so. I have read a lot and seen various movies about the first (especially Fail Safe, and of course Dr Strangelove).  The second period I lived through, albeit as an (over?)-sensitive pre-teen.  There really was a sense – in the words of the Midnight Oil song – “Imagine any mix up and the lot could go”.

We now know that 1983 was a hellacious year, full of ridiculous near-misses, amidst the paranoia, bravado and – thank god, enough of them in the right places at the right times – cooler heads.

As a species we absolutely rode our fucking luck.  We could very very easily have turned ourselves into four and a half billion serves of well-done steak.  Nuclear winter would have been a real laugh riot for any survivors.

But – and I realised this early (35 years ago? Slightly more?) the analogy with climate change and associated problems (in another Fafocene diary I intend to try to re-perspectivise myself away from the focus on greenhouse gases) is flawed.  If anything, we fearful types had it easy in the 70s and 80s.  Because all you had to do to believe that things would be alright is to believe that cooler heads would continue to prevail, that there would NOT be a change in how things were going.

Our shitstorms (climate, the sixth extinction, the other crises) are different.  If there is not a change in how things are going – and it is hard to see why/how there would be – then things will get worse.  Nuclear war required a rupture for chaos to ensue.  Our shitutation simply requires the status quo, the tragic trajectory.  Far more mundane, and therefore far far more terrifying.

Was this useful? If so, why? If not, why not?

What did you agree with? What did you disagree with?  What have I got right, and, more importantly, what have I got wrong, misconstrued, overlooked.

What should I be reading/watching?

What do you think of ‘Fafocene’ as a term? Does it work for you? What does it miss, beyond the fact that not everyone Fucked Around the same amount?

What other topics would you like the Fafocene Diaries to cover?

Footnotes

 (1) As in, the html versions of the pdfs.