I am not going to say what it was, but this is the message I left in the chat. "This is all framed so individually and individualistically. In the absence of effective and resilient social movement organisations, there will be this endless boom-and-bust, guilt-spasms followed by burn out. But we are all so thoroughly neoliberalised... Continue Reading →
Of cyborgs, brake pedals and the much-missed Machiavelli the allotment cat #climate #LearnedHelplessness
I have, shall we say "expansive" tastes in reading matter. That's not a euphemism for pr0n habits (yawnsville). It means I will read almost anything. And one of the books I read, maybe forty-ish years ago, was Cyborg by Martin Caidin. It was the source novel for the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man. It follows... Continue Reading →
Of David Roberts @drvolts, collective cognition and botshit
So David Roberts, who writes so well on climate and economics and so forth has a thread that has gone viral, even by his standards. Inspired by (or despaired by, perhaps) the weeks long Confected Moral Outrage over Harvard University and its now-ex-President, Roberts bemoans how the "left" keeps falling into the same very old trap-... Continue Reading →
Time for a “Dying in the Greenhouse” book?
In late 1989 there was a book published in Australia called "Living in the Greenhouse." Six months later, in June 1990, there was a book published in England called.... wait for it... wait for it... "Living in the Greenhouse." Here we are, having not done anything other than (checks notes)... make the problem much much worse.... Continue Reading →
COP28, Climate and what The Wire has to teach us
At time of writing there are breathless/shell-shocked accounts on the BBC World Service from Dubai, where the 28th "Conference of the Parties" to the UN Climate Convention is entering overtime (they almost always do). It turns out that - despite literally decades of denial and predatory delay - people are still surprised that the oil... Continue Reading →
Who is going to educate the mice to bell the cat? #Climate #Academia
Will admit that I am losing the will to ... write the same thing over and over. This occurring long after others have lost the will to read the same thing over and over. And yet we plod on (or I do). There's a two page comment in the latest Nature Climate Change (an academic... Continue Reading →
On Struggling to take “it” (EOTW) seriously, and ships that sailed
There is abyss-staring and then there is abyss-staring. I am struggling to finish an overdue book. It's running in quicksand. And part (only part) of the problem is I just want to say "why are ANY OF US taking this seriously?" I mean, you really have to be very wilfully and enthusiastically ignorant to believe... Continue Reading →
“Why we fight” – of smugness, feedback and innovation
Someone, with good intentions, DMEd me this clip from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I think in response to my "what's beyond the edge of tomorrow?" post. https://twitter.com/RealTadzioM/status/1723347798324642139 The thing that enrages and exhausts me is that the repertoires of what counts as "fighting" are so narrow and (usually) doomed to failure. And that there is... Continue Reading →
What’s beyond the edge of tomorrow? Well, technofeudalism/fascism/eco-meltdown. Duh.
Marc Maron has a line I like "And don't misunderstand me, I have no hope. I think if you have hope, what are you f---ing seven?." Yes, yes, Sarah Connor and "no future but what we make." But we "make" the future under the constraints - "not in the conditions of our own choosing" - of what has... Continue Reading →
Of gods, the enlightenment, fossil fuels and our inevitable-ish doom
Climate Twitter is lighting up over the "in the pipeline" article. Quick, quick, pick a side - are you a Mann-ite or a Hansen-ite? All I want to know is how soon we will know (and how) which team won. Five years should be enough, I'd guess... Not sure exactly what the metrics would be.... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 