Agency applies to individuals under certain circumstances. Even then, there will be mitigating factors to consider.
Our species has no agency. There is no trial to be held, no one to be found guilty. There will be consequences. Getting a free pass on 2 out 3 ain't bad.
I kind of agree with you, I’ve been wondering if we actually have agency. As you say, there’s little evidence to suggest that we do. But as you also point out, other cultures have shown determination to live within limits. So I suppose, I see having some kind of vision or hope as you might call it, to be logical unless you are looking forward to extinction and I know some people will broadly feel that way which I am genuinely sorry about. I can’t see a good reason for not trying to at least shape the outcome of our predicament so that there is less suffering and more chance for as many as possible (human and non human) to survive. I don’t think that’s naive I just think it’s entirely logical.
When one understands civilizational inertia, wetiko, and the Maximum Power Principle as well as our own evolution as a species, one realizes that as individuals we can do certain things that go against those features to respect nature and that which supports our own existence. But then one must also realize that we only control our OWN behaviors and have no ability to control what others choose to do, and with all those functions working against the rational approach and the bargaining to maintain civilization at any cost, one realizes precisely just HOW MUCH society is ruled by ignorance, hubris, and stupidity and that we have no real way of changing that:
So, people like you and I will choose to live lightly and respect nature as much as possible while most of society will choose what is considered "success" as written in Chapter 5 of Lyle Lewis' book, RACING TO EXTINCTION - WHY HUMANITY WILL SOON VANISH.
Agree about our lack of collective agency to prevent the global consequences of overshoot, but I wonder how many people in the world are close enough to the margins of industrial civilization that they can survive its demise? Also, do you think that it is possible for small groups to deliberately reduce their dependence on modernity enough to survive the dieoff? If so, how small does a group have to be to achieve sufficient agency?
I don't think the demise of INDUSTRIAL civilization is as big an issue as civilization itself. As long as habitat is available, some humans will survive. But therein lay the entire issue, as we are only a PART of nature and don't have the power to change or reverse our evolution. It's who and what we are as a species. Some of our individual behaviors can be changed or adapted, but not a whole suite of them simultaneously and within the timeframe available (time machine, anyone?).
The most popular number mentioned for small groups is Dunbar's number - about 150 or so. But I've seen studies suggesting that larger numbers could also be cohesive. The trouble with larger numbers, however, is whether they are small enough for the local carrying capacity, which will be decimated by the collapse of industrial civilization. Several other symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot will also be exponentially rising in unison with the collapse such as the loss of biodiversity, the loss of food and water security, the loss of medical technology and the rise of disease, the mass extinction we are in, climate change, pollution loading, energy and resource decline, and Sea Level Rise. While I think humans could successfully navigate two or three of these symptoms, I see no possibility to navigate all of them. Just the inability to reproduce in and of itself could be the determining factor in rendering us functionally extinct, and this has been modeled to occur by 2060.
However, even if we were successful with all of that, the other set of issues is the toxic wastes which will inevitably become a serious issue after IC crashes due to radiation caused by cooling pool fires and meltdowns caused by a lack of water circulation once the pumps powering those systems can no longer be powered. Combined with the other stressors, I don't see large organisms like us existing on the planet after 2100. Even that might be optimistic, as a nuclear winter could quite possibly remove humans as a species within a decade or less.
Wow! It's only rarely that I encounter someone doomier than me, but expecting near-term large animal extinction, including humans, is the maximum possible doom. Your date of 2060 is less extreme than Guy McPherson's 2026, but still pretty out there.
I'm skeptical of human extinction though. Cooling pool fires won't do much to the southern hemisphere. None of the other causes or effects of collapse are extinction level forces, except for nuclear winter perhaps, but I doubt that even nuclear winter will finish us off. I can see possibilities for people in Southern Hemisphere tropical lowlands finding enough food to outlast a decade or so of much cooler temperatures and low sunlight levels. It's telling that the one technology that everyone realizes comes closest to enabling extinction hasn't been abolished. So much for our "sapience".
Still, even if you are right, there is a half a billion years left for evolution to work its magic. Earth will once again be teeming with life, and if another species evolves human-level intelligence, it won't be able to do nearly as much damage as we have with fossil fuels. Modernity is a one-off event.
I have no idea why you would be skeptical of extinction. Look into the fact that all marine species are expected to be gone by 2048. When the oceans die, we are soon to follow. But, I used to be optimistic like you. I once figured we might make it to 2200, albeit at a sharply reduced population. The more I've learned over time has demonstrated to me that the facts just don't support such a conclusion. This being said, my advice is to continue with more research. Like Al Bartlett said, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
One thing I'll add is to look into some of the more esoteric articles I've written (such as the one about James G. Anderson and the ones including Peter Ward) and pay special attention to pollution loading specialists like Shanna Swan and Martin Scheringer, biology specialists like Lyle Lewis and Nicholas P. Money, ecology experts and geology specialists.
You are correct - modernity is a one-time event that will never be repeated on this planet.
Great article on acceptance. Nate Hagens and The Honest Sorcerer are some of my favorite thinkers along with John Michael Greer and William Catton.
It’s liberating to focus on acceptance and gratitude. Understanding I still have a bit of personal agency to be thankful and explore a little even if our society at large has no agency as it’s on the tracks at full speed ahead.
The entire structure of Western society, business, food production, culture, even renewables, even the value of it's money and savings and investments, is based on the constant and increasing production and use of fossil fuels. Even the growth in human population and feeding them has only been made possible by using fossil fuels to make and transport food.
There is no transition to renewables possible, because there simply is not enough power, or intensity of power possible to replace fossils, and there is not enough fossil energy to actually make enough renewables into the future.
That is more powerful than any attempt by any human agency to change things because you are putting your beliefs, opinions, efforts, politics, against the existence of the whole of Western civilisation. It will stop you, either by ignoring you, or by jailing you, or by stomping on you, and it doesn't really care what it does because you are an existential threat to its entire being.
It is simply impossible to do what you want to do without collapsing Western society first. Which is, in fact, how it will end, and even in that your efforts will have no effect.
Agency applies to individuals under certain circumstances. Even then, there will be mitigating factors to consider.
Our species has no agency. There is no trial to be held, no one to be found guilty. There will be consequences. Getting a free pass on 2 out 3 ain't bad.
I kind of agree with you, I’ve been wondering if we actually have agency. As you say, there’s little evidence to suggest that we do. But as you also point out, other cultures have shown determination to live within limits. So I suppose, I see having some kind of vision or hope as you might call it, to be logical unless you are looking forward to extinction and I know some people will broadly feel that way which I am genuinely sorry about. I can’t see a good reason for not trying to at least shape the outcome of our predicament so that there is less suffering and more chance for as many as possible (human and non human) to survive. I don’t think that’s naive I just think it’s entirely logical.
When one understands civilizational inertia, wetiko, and the Maximum Power Principle as well as our own evolution as a species, one realizes that as individuals we can do certain things that go against those features to respect nature and that which supports our own existence. But then one must also realize that we only control our OWN behaviors and have no ability to control what others choose to do, and with all those functions working against the rational approach and the bargaining to maintain civilization at any cost, one realizes precisely just HOW MUCH society is ruled by ignorance, hubris, and stupidity and that we have no real way of changing that:
https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2024/02/ignorance-hubris-and-stupidity.html
So, people like you and I will choose to live lightly and respect nature as much as possible while most of society will choose what is considered "success" as written in Chapter 5 of Lyle Lewis' book, RACING TO EXTINCTION - WHY HUMANITY WILL SOON VANISH.
Agree about our lack of collective agency to prevent the global consequences of overshoot, but I wonder how many people in the world are close enough to the margins of industrial civilization that they can survive its demise? Also, do you think that it is possible for small groups to deliberately reduce their dependence on modernity enough to survive the dieoff? If so, how small does a group have to be to achieve sufficient agency?
I don't think the demise of INDUSTRIAL civilization is as big an issue as civilization itself. As long as habitat is available, some humans will survive. But therein lay the entire issue, as we are only a PART of nature and don't have the power to change or reverse our evolution. It's who and what we are as a species. Some of our individual behaviors can be changed or adapted, but not a whole suite of them simultaneously and within the timeframe available (time machine, anyone?).
The most popular number mentioned for small groups is Dunbar's number - about 150 or so. But I've seen studies suggesting that larger numbers could also be cohesive. The trouble with larger numbers, however, is whether they are small enough for the local carrying capacity, which will be decimated by the collapse of industrial civilization. Several other symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot will also be exponentially rising in unison with the collapse such as the loss of biodiversity, the loss of food and water security, the loss of medical technology and the rise of disease, the mass extinction we are in, climate change, pollution loading, energy and resource decline, and Sea Level Rise. While I think humans could successfully navigate two or three of these symptoms, I see no possibility to navigate all of them. Just the inability to reproduce in and of itself could be the determining factor in rendering us functionally extinct, and this has been modeled to occur by 2060.
However, even if we were successful with all of that, the other set of issues is the toxic wastes which will inevitably become a serious issue after IC crashes due to radiation caused by cooling pool fires and meltdowns caused by a lack of water circulation once the pumps powering those systems can no longer be powered. Combined with the other stressors, I don't see large organisms like us existing on the planet after 2100. Even that might be optimistic, as a nuclear winter could quite possibly remove humans as a species within a decade or less.
Wow! It's only rarely that I encounter someone doomier than me, but expecting near-term large animal extinction, including humans, is the maximum possible doom. Your date of 2060 is less extreme than Guy McPherson's 2026, but still pretty out there.
I'm skeptical of human extinction though. Cooling pool fires won't do much to the southern hemisphere. None of the other causes or effects of collapse are extinction level forces, except for nuclear winter perhaps, but I doubt that even nuclear winter will finish us off. I can see possibilities for people in Southern Hemisphere tropical lowlands finding enough food to outlast a decade or so of much cooler temperatures and low sunlight levels. It's telling that the one technology that everyone realizes comes closest to enabling extinction hasn't been abolished. So much for our "sapience".
Still, even if you are right, there is a half a billion years left for evolution to work its magic. Earth will once again be teeming with life, and if another species evolves human-level intelligence, it won't be able to do nearly as much damage as we have with fossil fuels. Modernity is a one-off event.
I have no idea why you would be skeptical of extinction. Look into the fact that all marine species are expected to be gone by 2048. When the oceans die, we are soon to follow. But, I used to be optimistic like you. I once figured we might make it to 2200, albeit at a sharply reduced population. The more I've learned over time has demonstrated to me that the facts just don't support such a conclusion. This being said, my advice is to continue with more research. Like Al Bartlett said, "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."
One thing I'll add is to look into some of the more esoteric articles I've written (such as the one about James G. Anderson and the ones including Peter Ward) and pay special attention to pollution loading specialists like Shanna Swan and Martin Scheringer, biology specialists like Lyle Lewis and Nicholas P. Money, ecology experts and geology specialists.
You are correct - modernity is a one-time event that will never be repeated on this planet.
Great article on acceptance. Nate Hagens and The Honest Sorcerer are some of my favorite thinkers along with John Michael Greer and William Catton.
It’s liberating to focus on acceptance and gratitude. Understanding I still have a bit of personal agency to be thankful and explore a little even if our society at large has no agency as it’s on the tracks at full speed ahead.
What strange times.
The entire structure of Western society, business, food production, culture, even renewables, even the value of it's money and savings and investments, is based on the constant and increasing production and use of fossil fuels. Even the growth in human population and feeding them has only been made possible by using fossil fuels to make and transport food.
There is no transition to renewables possible, because there simply is not enough power, or intensity of power possible to replace fossils, and there is not enough fossil energy to actually make enough renewables into the future.
That is more powerful than any attempt by any human agency to change things because you are putting your beliefs, opinions, efforts, politics, against the existence of the whole of Western civilisation. It will stop you, either by ignoring you, or by jailing you, or by stomping on you, and it doesn't really care what it does because you are an existential threat to its entire being.
It is simply impossible to do what you want to do without collapsing Western society first. Which is, in fact, how it will end, and even in that your efforts will have no effect.
Yep. You're correct. ALL species which go into overshoot face collapse and die-off.