The Deep Adaptation Review is an independently produced look back at the year on the topic of collapse readiness. There are a few sections in it, with one of them covering interesting new publications. I want to share with you that part, below. The full review is available here, where you can also subscribe to receive it once a year. Thx, Jem
Publications in 2024
Perhaps the most important paper on climate in the past year was co-authored by a range of leading climate scientists, including those who have actively vilified scholars whom they consider to be too alarmist or doomist. The 2024 ‘state of the climate report’ was co-authored by Professor Michael Mann and concluded “We find ourselves amid an abrupt climate upheaval, a dire situation never before encountered in the annals of human existence.” It should be noted that even the analyses so despised by Mann and others just six years ago, such as the Deep Adaptation paper, did not conclude that the planet is already experiencing abrupt climate change. Don’t expect apologies, however, or a depth of reflection into why so many climatologists undermined the more alarmist and radical response to the science over recent years. That’s despite very real negative consequences in the lives of activists and others.
Meanwhile, the collapse agenda is evolving, as more people focus on how to look after each other as systems break. Adam Greenfield helps move the focus forwards in the English-speaking world with Lifehouse: A guide to community resilience in the face of climate catastrophe. The book helps make this topic tangible and practical by centring actions around ‘Lifehouses’, which are imagined as institutions at the heart of each neighbourhood that respond to the unsettling reality of collapse in our own communities.
Fast on the heels of Teaching at Twilight, another book was published on the educational implications of perceiving societal collapse. Pedagogies of Collapse looks set to bring this agenda more into the mainstream of universities and colleges.
Due to philanthropic foundations moving into this area, research on systemic risk and its policy implications is increasing. The Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA) is one new institution reflecting this trend. It is housed by the UN Foundation, and although it receives funds from a foundation committed to working on collapse, it avoids that concept and instead speaks of helping humanity and nature to thrive in the face of a polycrisis. Do such framings matter? In their detailed report on the current situation, they didn’t mention capitalism once when calling for systemic thinking and policy. Therefore, they are not yet looking at causal mechanisms of ‘polycrisis’ which means they may be advancing a managerialist and technocratic response. Such responses have dominated the agenda of ‘sustainable development’ since 1992 and accompanied the ongoing destruction of life on Earth. Therefore, the question remains whether establishment-aligned donors, institutions, and personnel can be useful in this era of disruption and collapse.
A very different perspective is offered in Breaking Together, which sees that meaningful efforts to soften societal collapse and plant the seeds of something new will not be led by the current beneficiaries of Imperial Modernity. Instead, it invites connection, solidarity, and amplification together with grassroots movements across the Global South, to free communities from extractivist pressures, and adapt better locally to disrupted environments. In 2024, the book was released in Hungarian, Spanish and French, with emphasis on the role of communities in Latin America and Francophone Africa in advancing a non-imperialist environmentalism for an era of collapse. Reflecting the cultural openness to this topic in Hungary, in the week of its launch, the book went into the top 10 bestseller list of any kind of book – a reaction that is bringing the publisher of this review back to Hungary next year.
A sobering counterpoint on what can happen as societies become more difficult to live in and political opportunists capitalise on the rebellious mood, is offered in the book ‘Disaster Nationalism’. It explains that societal difficulties caused by unrestrained capitalism are leading to the rise of far-right politics, where various ideas and enemies are blamed other than capitalism. Part of the answer, the author writes, is for people from the left and centre of politics to not shy away from just how bad the social and environmental situations are, and the inevitability of economic collapse. And then to be relevant to community needs and organise at that level, but with a sense of wider solidarity.
That the Deep Adaptation movement involves tens of thousands of people, worldwide, who have been doing just that for over five years, is something that people new to this analysis could learn from. The book was reviewed favourably by many progressive and environmental publications, including the Ecologist Magazine. Unfortunately, many such publications have been hostile to the Deep Adaptation movement, vilifying it as defeatist rather than a sensible position from which to develop a culture of care and a politics of solidarity for an era experiencing the collapse of modern societies. This has included rather rabid misrepresentations of Deep Adaptation in the Ecologist, in order to promote a techno-salvationist agenda (the kind that can play into the hands of the disaster nationalists when it involves massive taxpayer subsidy of specific industries). Sadly, years have been lost to the opportunists in politics due to environmental leaders being so privileged that they remained wedded to the ideology of progress and attacked the more radical wings of the movement, such as Deep Adaptation and the original rebels within Extinction Rebellion.
So where can we look for inspiration as more of us struggle to find our feet in this new era? Many people in the Deep Adaptation movement have found inspiration from indigenous cultures, whether connected to their own location or elsewhere. A range of publications in 2024 could help inform such thinking. In Globalizations, a fascinating discussion of organising modalities in the Andes was presented back in May. Its discussion around Crianza Mutua Networks highlighted community-led initiatives that provide practical frameworks for mutual support and resource-sharing. They include emotional resilience as an integral part of community strength, emphasising the importance of mental well-being in navigating crises, as well as issues of resource allocation during disasters. In Radical Ecological Democracy, a paper looked at the way the Kogi’s nature-based ‘cosmovision’ (worldview) influences their ability to adapt to a changing environment. Key elements such as the Kogi’s spiritual-political governance model and their biocultural harmony are particularly valuable. These aspects can serve as case studies for practitioners and researchers looking to implement community-led resilience strategies. The opportunities to learn from indigenous practices was the topic of another paper from a Geneva-based international network. The contributors emphasize the need for educational frameworks that address climate change and societal collapse, advocating for non-reformist reforms that challenge existing paradigms.
Another range of papers in 2024 emphasised the importance of locally led adaptation to crises, disasters, and collapse. International Accountability Project released a paper that emphasised the successes from participatory planning processes. It discussed strategies such as fostering local food systems, enhancing social networks, and building infrastructure that reflects community needs. A report from the UN’s Development Programme seemed to agree, encouraging a shift from top-down approaches to more inclusive, community-led initiatives on climate adaptation. It highlighted examples of local groups implementing agroecology and water management systems that enhance resilience against climate disruptions.
Might such reports just provide ‘lip service’ to grassroots solidarity in the face of collapse? Unfortunately, the mainstream agenda on both sustainability and climate adaptation are corporate-led and have hijacked the vast majority of professionals working in related fields. We face a disgraceful situation of environmental professionals saying kind words about indigenous cultures and local communities, while working in their day jobs to compel the destruction and oppression of those communities to extract the resources from under their feet. This harsh choice facing ‘environmentalists’ today was laid out in the publication “Navigating collapse: a guide to cope with civilizational crisis and the false solutions to climate change”. It made clear that the current net zero policy agenda is devised by the factions of capital involved in renewables, nuclear, engineering, tech, and finance, which is continuing colonial logic. It outlines “deep alternatives”, many of them coming from the Global South.
If the tragedy of well-meaning people in the environmental sector becoming agents of destruction in pursuit of a ‘fake green fairytale’ is painful to contemplate, then some solace could be found in the new book from Reverend Stephen Wright. On the cover he explains: “This book is about the cause of the causes… the spiritual collapse that has underpinned our disconnection from each other, life and the Source of life itself. We take a deep dive into how we deal with fear and loss, the ‘addictions’ of modernity and the cracks that are appearing into what it is to be human. In these pages we question accepted notions of life and death, and examine what alternative views there might be. We will explore what that form of spirituality known as contemplation or mysticism has to offer amid the disintegration. The Deep Adaptation movement informs these ideas. It has shown us where we have gone awry. Spirituality is central to that adaptation if we are to re-establish right relationship with each other and all of life. Without it there will be no adaptation.”
READ THE FULL REVIEW.
JOIN THE SHORT COURSE ‘LEADING THROUGH COLLAPSE‘ WITH JEM BENDELL AND KATIE CARR (STARTS END OF JANUARY).
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