Seeing things the WAY THEY ARE

"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse;
An optimist knows they can"
Russian/Soviet folk saying

The following are some reflections that followed discussion on Robertscibbler's article This is What the Anthropocene Looks Like — Tropical Storms Are Now Forming During Winter

I was originally going to address my comments directly as an Open Letter but have decided this would be a pointless exercise, hence the current essay.

Robertscribbler and confronting reality

Seemorerocks

Yesterday there was a discussion on Facebook over Robertscribbler's article.

This arose from Scribbler's  contention that:

There's this tendency to attack COP 21 which is pretty counter-productive. What we should be saying about COP 21 is that it was progress, but that it wasn't enough of a commitment yet to deal with the problem adequately. If we go back to COP 22 and get a similar jump in ghg reduction commitments, then we get closer and closer to the goal of net zero emissions. The issue is that we are so far behind the 8 ball that this needs to be fast.

To this Guy McPherson replied:

James Hansen correctly called COP21 a "fraud" and "bullshit." Bill McKibben said it will leave us with a planet that is "uninhabitable." Apparently honesty is counterproductive.

Scribbler's reply:

Hansen's peeved. And rightly so. He warned people back in 1989 and has been fighting like hell for a great carbon emissions reduction policy that has basically been ignored ever since. But I think what's missed in all the big words and explosions and dust being scattered about everywhere is the pretty key point that these are the strongest emissions reductions commitments ever to come from a COP. And no, it's not enough to miss the stated goal of 2 C this Century. We may not be able to make that target. But it still doesn't mean we shouldn't reduce emissions as fast as possible. That we shouldn't hold people's feet to the fire to meet these commitments and more. It reduces impact. It reduces harm. And anyone who's not committed to that should really question what they're all about, McPherson.

What has really struck me about all of this is the anger and aggression surrounding all of this.

It generally perplexes me why someone who is perhaps one of the best environmental journalists, someone who has always been one of the chroniclers of just how bad things are can be so aggressively insisted in holding out hope against all odds.

Robertscribbler and his writing, it seems to me, is the best argument against himself.  

It has perplexed me in the context of news that gets worse he insists on holding out hope that if we collectively "hold the politicians to account" then somehow, after 30 years of inaction (and worse) they are going to come to the party and ave themselves and human civilisation.  Even more so it puzzles me why he, and others, become so apoplectic when confronted with the evidence that the tipping point has been reached, that we have triggered a whole host of positive, self-reinforcing feedbacks (about eighty by Guy McPherson's reckoning).

One thing that has impressed me throughout the time I've known Guy is that he is nothing less than thorough in the evidence he brings to the table, all of it based on sound science.

It seems to me that you'd be going out of your way to pull the wool over your own eyes NOT to see it.

And yet Guy has every accusation under the sun, from cherrypicking the mountain of evidence, to not being a "proper scientist" - you name it - and he has been the recipient of regular hate mail as well as death threats.

What is it that so hits a nerve in folks, even those who are bringing us the very dire news that plays a part as evidence that, at the very least, as a a human, industrial society we are not going to survive long - probably as a species, homo sapiens, the smart ape?

The logic, amidst all the science, seems to me to be relatively simple. 

We have gone past 400 ppm  (490 ppm if you take into account all greenhouse gases, not just CO2); we have reached a point of 1.15 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average and we are already seeing the degree of climate disruption that Robertscribbler describes in every one of his wonderful articles.  

We are only now seeing the effects of greenhouse gasses that were released into the atmosphere when some of us weren't even born; more warming is already baked into the cake.

Unless you believe that geoengineering is going to save the planet instead of exacerbating things (as AMEG contends) or you believe that treeplanting is going to save the planet when forests are turning into carbon emitters, or some other miraculous technology (like bio char) is going to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and reverse any number of positive feedbacks and keep the tundra frozen and the methane which is already being released, in the ground.

Maybe if you stick to pure climate science you can avoid some pretty dire conclusions. 

Life on the planet, though, is designed to operate within certain parameters. Some species may be able to migrate to polar areas but others simply cannot adapt.

Just today there was a story in the Indian press that the next 2-3 days as high temperatures are a risk to cold season wheat crops. It is clear that it will just take climate changed-induced crop failures in several key parts of the world and there will be widespread famine. Is that unlikely in the current conditions of abrupt climate change pushing el-Nino conditions?

Push the temperatures higher and there simply won't be the habitat for species that we depend on for food  That includes phytoplankton in the oceans.

I'm not insisting on near-term extinction of the very last representative of homo sapiens. 

Who's to say that there might not be some areas remaining of summer polar ice (while the rest turns to blue sea) for a few more years? 

Maybe there will be some humans on the planet in pockets for a generation or two? 

There are all sorts of uncertainties.

The Arctic Is Melting at a Record Pace — and It's Having a Scary Impact on Global Weather

But I'll tell you one thing. 

There is more evidence, if you have the stomach to look at it, to back up the scenario I have described than there is for the politicians of the world to come together (by some miracle) - admittedly under the pressure of some very committed environmentalists - and not only sign agreements to slash greenhouse gasses but to actually implement them.

Does anyone really think that the terminally-corrupt political leaders, beholden to corporations that are as addicted to oil and permanent growth as they are to Life itself (more, I'd say), going to give up their habit and suddenly say "let's stop growing"? 

What do these people think is going to happen if we suddenly turn our back on the very thing that has fuelled growth since the onset of the Industrial Revolution?

A Brave New World fuelled by alternative energies?

We haven't even started to talk about the sixth extinction (at present at the rate of 150 species a day), or what happens if you suddenly withdraw from polluting hydrocarbons (a very rapid rise in temperature), or to the 400+ nuclear power plants that are already teetering on the edge of meltdown.

BACK TO THE DOOMERS

Instead of a reasoned appraisal of evidence we get accusations: 

"We are all here. We are all still alive. And we all still have choices. And the best choice we could make now is to reduce emissions as rapidly as possible. Not rant endlessly about why we should all just give up....."

"Well, if you want to give up. Build a ship called the Titanic, go sail it toward an iceberg, and go play with the band. But for those of us interested in actually making a difference -- that means holding governments and businesses accountable for reducing carbon emissions. If you want to help you don't just say that the strongest commitment to reducing carbon yet is a farce. You go out there and you get people to do it. Do it and more....."

I must say I've yet to hear an argument from Guy or any one of his friends for passivity or doing nothing.

Indeed one of Guy's favourite quotes (from Edward Abbey) is: "action is the antidote to despair" .

But what sort of actions does Robertscribbler have in mind for most of us?  None of us (outside of the  0.1%) have any agency or opportunity to change anything outside of our own personal lives and that of a few people around us.

Which leaves exactly what Guy and Robert have in common - acting as educators, telling people exactly the way things are.

Arne't there surely more things these two have in common?

And yet we have the venom and accusations (from one side at least):

"Yeah. It’s basically bunk. And to add to the ridiculous nonsense, I’ve got a passel of Guy McPherson cronies over on facebook trying to turn me into a doomer. I am so sick and tired of people who can’t just stand up and fight for what must be done. These guys, I swear, do the oil companies more good than the climate change deniers. They make environmentalists doubt themselves."

"Where I disagree is that his message is that the worst case is inevitable. This generates hopelessness and the exact opposite of a call to action. It is vastly irresponsible — regardless how bad the situation becomes. The equivalent to a petulant 2 year crying — I can’t."

BACK TO MY ORIGINAL QUESTION

Which brings us back to my first question, what is it that brings all this about?

The whole thing looks like two groups of people (one a majority, the other, growing, but still a tiny minority) talking past each other

But I found a clue in this passage from Robert's comments:

I think this is a key distinction. When we define success as helping others, as helping increase the vitality of our world, as helping the living creatures of this world there is a kind of end to despair. It’s deciding to carry the light rather than expecting the world to give it. It’s accepting your responsibility for your place in this. And, ironically, this is the beginning of the end of being part of the problem. This is the very nature of spiritual rebirth. When hearts, minds, and eyes become unclouded, courageous, and lusting — not for personal gain — but for justice. Lusting for the good end that should be. The right world that should be. And fighting for it. That is the death of despair.

It has always seemed to me that the most intellectually-honest approach is to look at the evidence (albeit usually with a theory in mind), all of it. and then, from there to reach conclusions - not the other way around.

Most of the evils that have given rise to our contemporary situation is precisely the lusting. for the good and proceeding from WHAT SHOULD BE, rather than WHAT IS.  It is this , precisely, that has given rise to the violence of Empire and to the tyranny of the Infinite Growth Paradigm.

Wouldn't it be radical (in the true sense of the word, instead of lusting for the Good (whatever that is) and instead looking at the evidence with unblinking yes and seeing things as they are.

I've never observed the recognition of truth as leading to despair - often, paradoxically to its opposite.  

I've seen more joy emanating from those who have made this radical jump in their consciousness and humour (albeit of a "dark" variety - gallows humour) than I have from the very earnest group of people who insist, like the American Pilgrims, on "lusting for the Good".Which brings me to this wonderful quote from Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche:

"Hopelessness is not quite the same thing as despairing. There is a difference. Despair is laziness, lack of intellect. One is not even willing to look for the reason for the despair. It is the total flop. But hopelessness is very intelligent. You keep looking. Your flip page after page, saying, "that's hopeless, that's hopeless." You're still very vigorous, hopelessly vigorous. You're still looking for hope, but each time you have to say, "Oh, no. Yuck!" Hopelessness keeps on going; it is very vigorous, very inspiring.

"Hopelessness doesn't mean that you're miserable particularly. There's lots of room for energy, more energy and more joy. Joy is probably the wrong word – a sense of wholesomeness, healthiness, a sense of well-being because of hopelessness."

So, in conclusion, let's look truth in the eye and see things as they ARE, and not as they SHOULD BE and recognise that conditions on the Living Planet are rapidly becoming very unfriendly for homo sapiens and his "civilisation" based on  Infinite Growth.

None of that precludes experiencing the richness of Life and much joy.

End of epistle