SCANDAL has broken out concerning a highly read, ground-breaking paper that presents evidence against the viability of renewables to ‘save’ us from overshoot and argues, instead, for the necessity of a deliberate contraction of the human enterprise.
Under pressure from third parties, the Editor of the journal Energies, Dr Enrico Sciubba, has reneged on the paper’s peer reviewed status, despite it having been published last year following a thorough academic peer review process. It is now designated an opinion piece.
50 years on from the Limits of Growth, the Editor claims that overshoot is an invalid concept. Importantly, the Editor, and critiques of the paper, fail to put a dent in the paper’s case against the viability of renewables. The paper, co-authored by Megan Seibert (REAL Green New Deal) and Professor Bill Rees (University of British Columbia), its critiques, rebuttals, and Editor’s statement, can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508
We are in deficit. After nearly 50 years of #overshoot, there is no surplus for making the world over as ‘green’, ‘electrified’ and ‘sustainable’. The Earth’s carrying capacity is severely diminished and continues to be diminished at an astounding rate. We can’t afford climate action that supports a ‘green’ version of the status quo. Radical change is coming, one way or the other. A #PlannedCollapse is a #JustCollapse.
Hopium, Mann, and collapse – reflections from Professor Elliot Jacobson:
‘The suffering brought on by overshoot and collapse is evident everywhere. Species in record numbers are going extinct. Our fellow humans are dying from heat, starvation, thirst, floods, fires and disease… Quite simply, many of us would make different choices if we knew with absolute certainty that this shit was coming down soon to where we live, our home, our life.’
An amusing short video on breaking the news without hopium. Our predicament is #ExtremeOvershoot. We (mostly the west) have extracted, burnt, processed and consumed our way into mass deficit, using 1.75 planets each year rather than the 1 that exists. #TalkCollapse#EndHopium
‘Dangerous’ is one of the words we use in the petition to Professor Michael E Mann. Atmospheric scientist and celebrity climate communicator, Professor Mann is calling for social media censorship of citizens and experts concerned about the severity of our climate-ecological predicament and collapse. Mann claims these people do the bidding of Big Oil.
Whilst Mann’s call is part of a more legitimate and larger effort to censor climate misinformation and diminish the power of conversative commentators and lobbyists, Mann’s definition of ‘climate denier’ has now broadened to include what he describes as ‘inactivists’. It includes people who question the environmental efficacy of renewables and who argue that collapse is possible, if not inevitable, given that the complex climate-ecological crisis lies well beyond easy fixes and solutions.
At the height of the ‘climate war’, when Big Oil still exerted overt influence on climate policy, Mann made an important contribution. He stood up for the science demonstrating that, yes, climate change is of our own making. His plotting of the ‘hockey stick graph’ has also been instrumental in our understanding of how humans (western humans) have caused a massive upward rise in atmospheric CO2.
There is little doubt that Big Oil continues to have influence, often in more subtle ways. However, Mann’s current fixation with the denier/acceptor divide makes no sense at all. Anthropogenic climate change is now broadly accepted, even at the highest levels. Climate activists and commentators come in all shapes and sizes, and if they don’t happen to agree with Mann’s narrow political perspective and techno-optimism, this does not make them ‘the enemy within’.
Not only is silencing activists and experts dangerous, but it is an incoherent reading of climate politics. Questioning the environmental efficacy of renewables based on their production being dependent, long-term, on fossil fuels, is very different from the anti-renewable stance taken by Big Oil in the 1980s and 90s. Big Oil is now a major investor in renewables. Renewables are an established part of modern techno-industrial civilisation. They are not a radical alternative energy source that will ‘save’ us. It is nonsensical to think that drawing attention to this supports climate inaction in favour of Big Oil.
Given the dire predictions presented by even the most conservative science, denying the clear-eyed realists who recognise the severity of our predicament a voice is a dangerous move. Four out of five of the IPCC scenarios appear terminal for civilization if not humanity, and the one scenario presented as ‘doable’ is based on conservative assumptions and yet-to-be developed technologies. New ideas and approaches must be on the table if we are act decisively and meaningfully in a changing climate.
Censorship based on a reductionist understanding of our predicament and a simplistic reading of the politics of action will not aid us in inhabiting this damaged Earth. At the very least, a diversity of approaches and perspectives are valid for cultural and political reasons – most of the world is not the United States. Dogmatically promoting a US-centric approach, as Mann does, will not achieve broad justice in the face of the locked-in and unmitigated impacts of the climate-ecological crisis.
By signing this petition, you help raise awareness of this dangerous stance by Mann, and exert pressure on those supporting Mann’s call for censorship.
Today on it’s 75th anniversary, the #DoomsdayClock stands at 100 seconds to midnight.
Originally created in 1947 due to the threat of nuclear annihilation, the Clock now encompasses a range of ways that global modern techno-industrial civilization seeks its own obliteration. We are currently experiencing a pregnant pause as we process the failed promises on global climate action, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem collapse.
This Clock warns us how close we are to destroying our world. At 100 seconds to midnight, we must plan for collapse. If not now, when? A #PlannedCollapse is a #JustCollapse.
Planning emerged because market-based societies do not intuitively produce habitable and just worlds (Bookchin).
As we are propelled into a future ‘unplanned’ by our system of infinite growth on a finite planet, we must make an unprecedented intervention for a #PlannedCollapse. A #PlannedCollapse is a #JustCollapse.
First and foremost, this film is entertaining, and appears useful in providing ‘Hollywood’ credence to the severity of our predicament. For those of us immersed in the world of climate and collapse activism, it is also potentially cathartic in its witty satire of the idiocracy we encounter everyday – be this the insanity of infinite growth on a finite planet, the corruption/incompetence of decision-makers, fantastical techno-fix offered up as ‘solutions’, or knee-jerk responses to the idea that civilisations do, inevitably, fail.
Yet, this satire is a double-edged sword. If the meteor is a metaphor for climate change, then Don’t Look Up understands climate change as an external threat and not one in which we (the affluent west) are complicit. As Jeff Gibbs, Planet of the Humans, says, the meteor is us. In denying the true nature of our predicament, the derision of those who refuse don’t look up or who find looking sideways more meaningful is not useful. It appears likely to alienate rather than convince people who are not already aware and active.
In this movie, the populace and all power (political parties, corporations, and media) are a blurry blancmange of idiocracy. There are no alternative politics on offer other than a misapprehension of science as ‘truth’ and scientists as ‘truth-tellers’. As the IPCC’s clumsy modelling and promotion of fantastical techno-fixes exemplifies, this is not how science and scientists actually function.
Many argue that we need systemic and radical economic and political change to address climate change and collapse. The film makes no meaningful contribution in this regard. In fact, it does a pretty good job at maintaining the status quo. Rioting by informed and disgruntled citizens is depicted as part of the problem and is instantly quelled. A star-studded rock concert fronted by scientists is depicted as significant and meaningful, but it is unclear why and how.
Interestingly, the main scientist in Don’t Look Up, played by Leonard DiCaprio, was, in part, inspired by Professor Michael E. Mann. This certainly explains a few things! Mann has cultivated a celebrity status in climate science, arguing that the ‘solution’ to climate change is, ultimately, political. Yet, he offers no overt political remedy beyond following and acting on his worldview: that climate change is fixable and the global modern techno-industrial status quo can be maintained through a transition to renewables and electrification; and, that informed and concerned activists who recognise and act on the true nature and severity of our predicament are part of the problem and should be censored.
Overall, we found Don’t Look Up very entertaining and cathartic, but largely meaningless in terms of real, radical change.
