Exponential has a mathematical definition, but why is it used as if it were a synonym for 'devastating'? Relatively few phenomena in nature follow an exponential function, yet they can be devastating. When dealing with complex systems, mathematicians are out of their league and can only speculate as to what might happen.
There are hyperbolic functions which leave exponential functions in the dust conceptually, but we rarely hear about them. Lest an accusation be made of someone being hyperbolic.
If it is implied that 'predicament' includes a positive outcome, then 'opportunity' is perceived. In that case 'predicament' is no worse than 'problem'.
Sorry for being pedantic, but I'm tired of exponential this and exponential that, and invented terms like polycrisis. The plural of crisis is crises. Most people are not mathematicians, or actuaries, so they lack those perspectives. People are not going to wake up until they experience what words inadequately convey.
p.s. When I was young I considered a career as an electronics technician. But as surface mount technology came into being, the need to repair circuits dwindled, assuming you could physically do so.
Off-grid permaculturalists are not going to save the world, but they just might save themselves. Collapse is coming, no doubt, and overshoot will be resolved with a mass dieoff of humans, but if the dieoff happens fairly soon and we avoid a nuclear winter, enough of the biosphere will remain to allow low-energy subsistence agriculture as a livelihood. It won't be easy or bucolic, but it offers the best chance of survival.
In the meantime, before collapse, permaculture (or any low-energy horticulture) does little harm and may actually do some good in terms of soil fertility and biodiversity.
If, if, if...yes. But unfortunately, what one does individually (or even in small groups) guarantees nothing. The predicaments we face are global in nature and Nature doesn't recognize borders. The Yanomami, for instance, live FAR more sustainable lives than ANY permaculturalist or subsistence agriculturalist, but they will not be spared any differently than any of the rest of us from the wildfires, floods, droughts, wet bulb temperatures, and other extreme weather events or other geological events occurring throughout the globe.
Most people don't appear to understand that there is nothing one can do when faced with a lack of habitat. The only option is to leave that area in hopes that a different area has what is needed. The trouble now is the pollution loading caused by our very lifestyles and the simple fact that wildfires are increasing throughout the globe, releasing toxic materials (PFAS, PFOS, microplastics, etc.) that land everywhere on the planet once they settle back down, poisoning the water and soil we use. Increased disease is now happening as a result of this (lack of ability to sexually reproduce being just one of them), and permaculture (or any other agriculture) can't do anything about it.
Sure, certain groups of people MAY make it - for a while, until the habitat runs out. The habitat WILL run out. That is the nature of the predicaments we face. Nothing on this planet has ever equaled the impact of what our species has done with the possible exception of the Great Oxygenation Event (and mass extinction it caused), only our geological event will be far faster than that one probably by a fairly large margin.
Keep in mind that all of this is *just* getting started and the rate of change will continue to outpace predictions time and time again. Again, evolution will be unable to adapt to the rate and level of changes coming. Habitat is already going away in many areas.
What evidence do you have that we are already past tipping points that will make the earth unliveable for humans, that liveable "habitat will run out"? Should the climate proceed to a Hothouse Earth, not quite yet a certainty, not everywhere would be unliveable. Even the PETM was probably liveable at high latitudes.
I agree that climate warming already in the pipeline will be severe, but a collapse of industrial civilization will cut off continuing anthropogenic emissions, vastly reduce human impacts from agriculture and urban expansion and allow the natural world to begin its recovery. The Holocene may be history, but humans have lived just fine without it. It's sensible to prepare for a plausible best-case scenario.
To say that the human impact so far is on a par with The Great Oxygenation and other events like Snowball Earth or even glacial maxima is just hyperbole. I'm not trying to diminish that damage done, but to say that the world is already set to become uninhabitable is pretty extreme. To use that kind of assertion to dissuade people from preparing for the loss of modernity, the one thing that could preserve the most habitat, is irresponsible.
You don't think that the Amazon Rainforest turning from a carbon sink to a carbon source is a tipping point? How about the same with Arctic permafrost? The same with the northern boreal forests of the world? How about the weakening and potential shutdown of the AMOC? There's many more, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Climate change is but ONE symptom predicament (of ecological overshoot). You're missing the forest and focusing instead on a few trees. It isn't just the climate that we must be concerned about. But let's face the simple fact that in order to reduce climate change, we must reduce technology use. Are we just going to wait until it is done for us? Because this now looks like what has been happening for the past 5 decades. I see no real movement towards voluntarily reducing technology use on any type of scale that would have any beneficial impact, meaning that it will happen on Nature's timeline.
I still don't understand this idea about where people are going to be living who cannot reproduce...what difference does it make where they live? They'll be dead people walking...when they die, it's over.
We've discussed pollution loading before, but you seem to be forgetting that there are literally TONS of toxic materials such as nuclear waste that ALREADY isn't being stored safely and once industrial civilization collapses there will be no way to deal with any of it. We're talking about one generation to get it done and nobody is even discussing it. The sheer number of solar panels and wind turbines with all kinds of different plastics and other toxic materials - again, who is discussing what to do with all that waste? We already have a PFAS, PFOS, microplastics, and other toxic materials predicament and these don't even appear on most people's radar.
As for the PETM, I highly doubt that one can compare that event with this one - we're talking two entirely different RATES of warming - centuries (today's rates) versus thousands of years (PETM).
This means that anthropogenic emissions shouldn't be as much a concern as self-reinforcing positive feedback mechanisms which we have literally NO control over, seeing how our own emissions should phase out - or will they? In reality, we will continue burning whatever is available as long as we're alive, meaning lots and lots of wood, charcoal, and plastics. The amount of pollution created before our current population levels decrease significantly is of grave concern because of what is in our food ALREADY combined with what is LACKING in our food nutrient-wise.
Hyperbole? I think not. We have begun a mass extinction and we are continuing to speed up the rate right now. The PETM got up to POSSIBLY +8C in several thousand years whereas we're talking now up to +10C in several HUNDRED years. There is literally no comparison.
Quote: "The Holocene may be history, but humans have lived just fine without it."
Not without the megafauna which we killed off. Not without the sheer numbers of wild animals which we have killed off. Not without the insects which we have killed off. There were less than one million people alive for most of our existence; it wasn't until the dawn of technology use in the form of agriculture only made available during the Holocene that our numbers started growing like they did due to the reduction or removal of negative feedbacks caused by said technology use. But now the Holocene is fading into the past, and it will be taking agriculture with it (along with a large amount of technology which will become useless without the accompanying energy and resources needed to power and maintain it).
NOBODY is saying not to prepare for the loss of modernity. But your idea on how to "save" the most habitat is laughable. If agriculture is going away (it is), then what you are proposing is to utilize an unsustainable system to promote an irresponsible species to continue killing off what's left of life on this planet, because that is precisely what we are doing, albeit not necessarily intentionally. We're in a mass extinction. You aren't going to stop that by attempting to "save" the most habitat. Every attempt we make at "saving" things, at "fixing" things, and at "solving" things ends up making the overall situation worse: https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-chief-cause-of-problems-is-solutions.html
It is our anthropocentrism; our human supremacy, that stands in our way. This is due to the narrative-generating, story-telling, and rationalizing manner in which our species is famous for, combined with our penchant for innovation. We never found a way to develop a technology that could undo the problems and predicaments use of that technology created, and we never will because of the requirements of said technology. Likewise, Joe, sooner or later you are going to have to deal with the same fact regarding the oceans, lakes, rivers, and soils that we have destroyed through our use of all this technology. Once destroyed, NOTHING will bring those areas back to the same pristine way they existed before we got our hands on them and all the toxic and poisonous chemicals, compounds, and materials that we have used to create this way of living based upon technology use.
You are still clinging to the past, attempting to save that which cannot be saved. Look at the Great Acceleration. Are any of those graphs getting better or are they all getting worse? Just one measure alone - the rate of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continues climbing at ever-higher rates. Maybe one or two or possibly three of those graphs could be tackled and reduced, at best. In order to accomplish such a task, however, all the rest of the graphs would have to be ignored. Certainly you can see that reductionism doesn't work holistically, meaning that you can work to try to "fix" something but it does no good because all the other parameters which must also be worked on must be ignored in order to accomplish the first task.
This is the meaning of predicament. You can work as hard as you want just to stay in place in one area while falling behind in others - the Red Queen's legacy. One thing I like to do is plant trees. But I am unattached to any particular outcome because I know that most tree species are going extinct and that the ones I plant will be subject to those same factors, meaning they most likely will not survive to grow into 100, 200, or 300 year-old giants. If most tree species are going extinct and most insects are going extinct and most wild animals are going extinct simply because of our existence, then it is clear to me that we are the invasive species causing the trouble.
Joe, you have a beautiful vision. I understand that and I understand that you want for it to happen or be true. I'd like that too. You just don't appear to be willing to see that such a vision is not very realistic and highly unlikely because you don't WANT to see that. It took me a very long time to realize that what I wanted was also highly unlikely and the chances of it happening keep growing slimmer year after year after year. It is the very thought that we have the ability to command and control nature by "restoring" it or "saving" it or "preserving" it where the fault of logic lay. The best thing we can do is simply leave it alone and let nature do its job. This means letting go of permaculture, agriculture, and other forms of human supremacy rather than doubling down on trying to repair what we've done which ultimately always ends with a worse outcome than had we simply left things alone. At the end of the day, we lack agency because we don't control nature, we just like to THINK that we do.
I don't want you to "give up" - I want you to be inspired to focus not on survival of our species but the species which might survive us. As long as we continue focusing our effort on saving ourselves (a biological imperative that is extremely hard to let go of), we continue exterminating many other species to make room for us because we are in competition for the resources to sustain our lives on an ever-reducing carrying capacity due to the predicaments I write about. What I want isn't for anyone to give up, but to give up our self-important hubris; our anthropocentrism; our human supremacy which doesn't exist in actual reality. We have no more right to be here than any other species.
Exponential has a mathematical definition, but why is it used as if it were a synonym for 'devastating'? Relatively few phenomena in nature follow an exponential function, yet they can be devastating. When dealing with complex systems, mathematicians are out of their league and can only speculate as to what might happen.
There are hyperbolic functions which leave exponential functions in the dust conceptually, but we rarely hear about them. Lest an accusation be made of someone being hyperbolic.
If it is implied that 'predicament' includes a positive outcome, then 'opportunity' is perceived. In that case 'predicament' is no worse than 'problem'.
Sorry for being pedantic, but I'm tired of exponential this and exponential that, and invented terms like polycrisis. The plural of crisis is crises. Most people are not mathematicians, or actuaries, so they lack those perspectives. People are not going to wake up until they experience what words inadequately convey.
p.s. When I was young I considered a career as an electronics technician. But as surface mount technology came into being, the need to repair circuits dwindled, assuming you could physically do so.
Off-grid permaculturalists are not going to save the world, but they just might save themselves. Collapse is coming, no doubt, and overshoot will be resolved with a mass dieoff of humans, but if the dieoff happens fairly soon and we avoid a nuclear winter, enough of the biosphere will remain to allow low-energy subsistence agriculture as a livelihood. It won't be easy or bucolic, but it offers the best chance of survival.
In the meantime, before collapse, permaculture (or any low-energy horticulture) does little harm and may actually do some good in terms of soil fertility and biodiversity.
If, if, if...yes. But unfortunately, what one does individually (or even in small groups) guarantees nothing. The predicaments we face are global in nature and Nature doesn't recognize borders. The Yanomami, for instance, live FAR more sustainable lives than ANY permaculturalist or subsistence agriculturalist, but they will not be spared any differently than any of the rest of us from the wildfires, floods, droughts, wet bulb temperatures, and other extreme weather events or other geological events occurring throughout the globe.
Most people don't appear to understand that there is nothing one can do when faced with a lack of habitat. The only option is to leave that area in hopes that a different area has what is needed. The trouble now is the pollution loading caused by our very lifestyles and the simple fact that wildfires are increasing throughout the globe, releasing toxic materials (PFAS, PFOS, microplastics, etc.) that land everywhere on the planet once they settle back down, poisoning the water and soil we use. Increased disease is now happening as a result of this (lack of ability to sexually reproduce being just one of them), and permaculture (or any other agriculture) can't do anything about it.
Sure, certain groups of people MAY make it - for a while, until the habitat runs out. The habitat WILL run out. That is the nature of the predicaments we face. Nothing on this planet has ever equaled the impact of what our species has done with the possible exception of the Great Oxygenation Event (and mass extinction it caused), only our geological event will be far faster than that one probably by a fairly large margin.
Keep in mind that all of this is *just* getting started and the rate of change will continue to outpace predictions time and time again. Again, evolution will be unable to adapt to the rate and level of changes coming. Habitat is already going away in many areas.
What evidence do you have that we are already past tipping points that will make the earth unliveable for humans, that liveable "habitat will run out"? Should the climate proceed to a Hothouse Earth, not quite yet a certainty, not everywhere would be unliveable. Even the PETM was probably liveable at high latitudes.
I agree that climate warming already in the pipeline will be severe, but a collapse of industrial civilization will cut off continuing anthropogenic emissions, vastly reduce human impacts from agriculture and urban expansion and allow the natural world to begin its recovery. The Holocene may be history, but humans have lived just fine without it. It's sensible to prepare for a plausible best-case scenario.
To say that the human impact so far is on a par with The Great Oxygenation and other events like Snowball Earth or even glacial maxima is just hyperbole. I'm not trying to diminish that damage done, but to say that the world is already set to become uninhabitable is pretty extreme. To use that kind of assertion to dissuade people from preparing for the loss of modernity, the one thing that could preserve the most habitat, is irresponsible.
You don't think that the Amazon Rainforest turning from a carbon sink to a carbon source is a tipping point? How about the same with Arctic permafrost? The same with the northern boreal forests of the world? How about the weakening and potential shutdown of the AMOC? There's many more, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Climate change is but ONE symptom predicament (of ecological overshoot). You're missing the forest and focusing instead on a few trees. It isn't just the climate that we must be concerned about. But let's face the simple fact that in order to reduce climate change, we must reduce technology use. Are we just going to wait until it is done for us? Because this now looks like what has been happening for the past 5 decades. I see no real movement towards voluntarily reducing technology use on any type of scale that would have any beneficial impact, meaning that it will happen on Nature's timeline.
I still don't understand this idea about where people are going to be living who cannot reproduce...what difference does it make where they live? They'll be dead people walking...when they die, it's over.
We've discussed pollution loading before, but you seem to be forgetting that there are literally TONS of toxic materials such as nuclear waste that ALREADY isn't being stored safely and once industrial civilization collapses there will be no way to deal with any of it. We're talking about one generation to get it done and nobody is even discussing it. The sheer number of solar panels and wind turbines with all kinds of different plastics and other toxic materials - again, who is discussing what to do with all that waste? We already have a PFAS, PFOS, microplastics, and other toxic materials predicament and these don't even appear on most people's radar.
As for the PETM, I highly doubt that one can compare that event with this one - we're talking two entirely different RATES of warming - centuries (today's rates) versus thousands of years (PETM).
This means that anthropogenic emissions shouldn't be as much a concern as self-reinforcing positive feedback mechanisms which we have literally NO control over, seeing how our own emissions should phase out - or will they? In reality, we will continue burning whatever is available as long as we're alive, meaning lots and lots of wood, charcoal, and plastics. The amount of pollution created before our current population levels decrease significantly is of grave concern because of what is in our food ALREADY combined with what is LACKING in our food nutrient-wise.
Hyperbole? I think not. We have begun a mass extinction and we are continuing to speed up the rate right now. The PETM got up to POSSIBLY +8C in several thousand years whereas we're talking now up to +10C in several HUNDRED years. There is literally no comparison.
Quote: "The Holocene may be history, but humans have lived just fine without it."
Not without the megafauna which we killed off. Not without the sheer numbers of wild animals which we have killed off. Not without the insects which we have killed off. There were less than one million people alive for most of our existence; it wasn't until the dawn of technology use in the form of agriculture only made available during the Holocene that our numbers started growing like they did due to the reduction or removal of negative feedbacks caused by said technology use. But now the Holocene is fading into the past, and it will be taking agriculture with it (along with a large amount of technology which will become useless without the accompanying energy and resources needed to power and maintain it).
NOBODY is saying not to prepare for the loss of modernity. But your idea on how to "save" the most habitat is laughable. If agriculture is going away (it is), then what you are proposing is to utilize an unsustainable system to promote an irresponsible species to continue killing off what's left of life on this planet, because that is precisely what we are doing, albeit not necessarily intentionally. We're in a mass extinction. You aren't going to stop that by attempting to "save" the most habitat. Every attempt we make at "saving" things, at "fixing" things, and at "solving" things ends up making the overall situation worse: https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-chief-cause-of-problems-is-solutions.html
It is our anthropocentrism; our human supremacy, that stands in our way. This is due to the narrative-generating, story-telling, and rationalizing manner in which our species is famous for, combined with our penchant for innovation. We never found a way to develop a technology that could undo the problems and predicaments use of that technology created, and we never will because of the requirements of said technology. Likewise, Joe, sooner or later you are going to have to deal with the same fact regarding the oceans, lakes, rivers, and soils that we have destroyed through our use of all this technology. Once destroyed, NOTHING will bring those areas back to the same pristine way they existed before we got our hands on them and all the toxic and poisonous chemicals, compounds, and materials that we have used to create this way of living based upon technology use.
You are still clinging to the past, attempting to save that which cannot be saved. Look at the Great Acceleration. Are any of those graphs getting better or are they all getting worse? Just one measure alone - the rate of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continues climbing at ever-higher rates. Maybe one or two or possibly three of those graphs could be tackled and reduced, at best. In order to accomplish such a task, however, all the rest of the graphs would have to be ignored. Certainly you can see that reductionism doesn't work holistically, meaning that you can work to try to "fix" something but it does no good because all the other parameters which must also be worked on must be ignored in order to accomplish the first task.
This is the meaning of predicament. You can work as hard as you want just to stay in place in one area while falling behind in others - the Red Queen's legacy. One thing I like to do is plant trees. But I am unattached to any particular outcome because I know that most tree species are going extinct and that the ones I plant will be subject to those same factors, meaning they most likely will not survive to grow into 100, 200, or 300 year-old giants. If most tree species are going extinct and most insects are going extinct and most wild animals are going extinct simply because of our existence, then it is clear to me that we are the invasive species causing the trouble.
Joe, you have a beautiful vision. I understand that and I understand that you want for it to happen or be true. I'd like that too. You just don't appear to be willing to see that such a vision is not very realistic and highly unlikely because you don't WANT to see that. It took me a very long time to realize that what I wanted was also highly unlikely and the chances of it happening keep growing slimmer year after year after year. It is the very thought that we have the ability to command and control nature by "restoring" it or "saving" it or "preserving" it where the fault of logic lay. The best thing we can do is simply leave it alone and let nature do its job. This means letting go of permaculture, agriculture, and other forms of human supremacy rather than doubling down on trying to repair what we've done which ultimately always ends with a worse outcome than had we simply left things alone. At the end of the day, we lack agency because we don't control nature, we just like to THINK that we do.
I don't want you to "give up" - I want you to be inspired to focus not on survival of our species but the species which might survive us. As long as we continue focusing our effort on saving ourselves (a biological imperative that is extremely hard to let go of), we continue exterminating many other species to make room for us because we are in competition for the resources to sustain our lives on an ever-reducing carrying capacity due to the predicaments I write about. What I want isn't for anyone to give up, but to give up our self-important hubris; our anthropocentrism; our human supremacy which doesn't exist in actual reality. We have no more right to be here than any other species.