Although there are many potential benefits from accepting societal collapse, there is nothing inherently beneficial about being right about one’s expectations of catastrophic change. Having held more accurate assessments than the majority doesn’t reduce the pain about what’s happening or what’s to come. It doesn’t compensate for the alienation experienced with those who would not see, or even condemned our clarity. It doesn’t compensate for the pain of witnessing the lost opportunities for people to process this reality for themselves. If there is any benefit in being right, it comes from how we acted with our awareness until now. Has it influenced us to do more of what we consider wholesome, and less of what we consider unwholesome? Has it meant we have tried to develop our capabilities for coping better as life becomes more difficult? Perhaps, also, to help others develop their own capabilities? You know the basics – mindfulness, letting go of old habits and expectations, and having a way to make sense of life in an era of collapse. For some of us, we can experience a liberation from past compromises and the permission to ‘go wild’. Without evolving ourselves in such ways, then feeling we were right could generate a further alienation, through a pointless sense of superiority. And what we definitely don’t want is to be isolated in our pain as things unfold, in the same way many of us have been isolated in our anticipation. So, when our outlook is confirmed by current observation, it is a time to assess whether we have made good use of our knowledge. Then, if not sure, to commit to try again.
“But the world’s climate was as hot as this in the past.”
Do you hear this a lot? I do. The obvious answer is “sure, it was especially hot when our planet was just a chunk of molten rock spun out from the Sun. But back in terra logica, the main issue for ecosystems and agriculture is the SPEED of climate change.”
The problem with this issue of the speed of change is that consensus in climate science moves very slowly. The more funding that went into climate science, the greater was the amount of research and people to find consensus amongst. That meant the key signals, like the 2017 paper predicting 1.5C by 2025, went largely unnoticed by institutional climatology – and was certainly not acted upon.[1]
In a 2021 chapter with Dr. Rupert Read and a top German climatologist, who chose to remain anonymous, we explained the limitations of mainstream climatology for telling us the real situation. We pointed to how, in fast moving crises with high hazards, there needs to be an ability to identify salient information rapidly. This even has a name: post-normal science.[2]
There was an interesting interview with Gavin Schmidt recently. He is one of the most senior climatologists in the world, heading up NASA’s department on climate science. Refreshingly, unlike the other senior climatologists, he didn’t sidestep how recent weather was not predicted by mainstream climatology. He told the American science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson that climatology significantly underpredicted current warming. He said there was “total failure” to predict what happened in 2023. See for yourself, for 3 minutes from 4 minutes in.
Gavin is one of the more approachable of the senior climatologists. He provided specific written criticisms of my 2018 Deep Adaptation paper. That was in stark contrast to others who misrepresented it, and me, so as to discourage people from considering that the party is over for modern societies.
A new video is out, where concerns about climate change being a hoax designed to control the public were addressed by a panel of environmentalists. The event occurred in the English town of Glastonbury, which hosted a number of discussions on this topic in 2023. One trigger for this focus was probably a speech at a council meeting by the campaigner Sandy Adams back in March. She argued against the “15 minute city” agenda, with claims that ‘climate change’ is a hoax to excuse draconian controls on our lives. The freedom she was talking about was the driving of cars, rather than walking, cycling or bussing around. As people can cycle across Glastonbury in less than 15 minutes, and the local government had no proposals on ‘15 minute cities,’ the councillors of this small town were somewhat perplexed by Ms Adams. Nevertheless, the video of her speech went viral, with the claim that resistance works! It appears that targeting non-existent proposals is the ‘secret sauce’ for this kind of instantly gratifying campaigning.
Many local residents of Glastonbury had other ideas. A group of them decided to host a conference on the more troubling news about climate change – what to do if we can’t stop it disrupting our communities through direct and indirect impacts. During a hot afternoon in June, a panel took questions from the audience. Reflecting the arguments promoted by Sandy Adams’ viral video, the first question was about whether the mainstream narrative on climate is incorrect – and being used to control us. The Green Party Mayor of Glastonbury, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, two podcast hosts and myself, a Professor in the field of sustainability, offered our reflections on this issue. You can see the discussion, alongside a range of other topics, in a video of the Q&A, below.
The residents invited discussion of a wide range of topics, arising from a workshop that used the updated Deep Adaptation framework. That includes a 5th R on the ‘reclamation’ of our power in the face of societal disruption and collapse. Rachel Donald (Planet Critical) spoke of reclaiming the power of contribution by leaving behind security to build a community. Amisha Ghadiali (All That We Are) spoke of reclaiming beauty as divine, not trapped in a sanitised aesthetic. Gail Bradbrook (Extinction Rebellion) spoke of reclaiming pride in one’s own psychological patterns and capabilities. Indra Donfrancesco (Mayor of Glastonbury) spoke of reclaiming her town for positive environmental actions rather than just protests. I spoke of my personal reclaiming of my ‘OK-ness’ with aiming small, despite my cultural conditioning to strive to succeed at scale.
Discussions ranged from caring for loved ones to whether localisation needs a complementary effort at international political influence. It demonstrated what a wide, compassionate and creative agenda can emerge from accepting the gravity of our ecological crisis. However, I also welcomed a couple of questions about whether the UN, IPCC and others might be hoaxing us on climate. That’s because I am part of a growing movement of freedom-loving environmentalists, who object to the corporate capture of the climate agenda. As one questioner alluded to, during the early years of the pandemic, we were poorly served by an old guard of green leaders and commentators, who kowtowed to the big corporate agendas that were masquerading as sensible policies on public health. Unfortunately, that lack of green leadership means the ‘medical freedom movement’ has become an easy target for infiltration by the oil lobby, who are sowing doubt about our changing climate. As I argue in Breaking Together, just because some globalists have bad ideas about responding to a climate crisis which they helped to create, doesn’t mean there isn’t a major problem for us to address with urgency.
Whether we are interested in freedom or the environment, or both, we can help each other escape the false narratives coming from corporate influence on those issues. The false narratives can be appealing, as they distract from the painful reality of a global and uncontrollable ecological disaster. However, time will demonstrate both the extent of the ecological predicament, and the futility of those responses favoured by corporate elites. I believe the sooner people move beyond distractions to explore how they wish to live in this era of societal disruption and collapse, the better it will be for themselves, others and wider nature.
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When my book Breaking Together came out in May, some of my climate activist friends were surprised that I gave significant attention to rebutting scepticism on the existence of manmade climate change. I also surprised some of my colleagues at COP27 a year ago, when I gave a short talk on the rise of a new form of scepticism. That new form is couched in the important desire to resist oppression from greedy, hypocritical and unaccountable elites. I think the surprise of some that we still need to respond to climate scepticism reflects the bubble that many people working on environmental issues exist within. That’s a bubble of Western middle classes who believe they are well-informed, ethical and have some agency, despite relying on the Guardian, BBC or CNN for much of their news. Outside that bubble, there has been a rise in the belief that authorities and media misrepresent science to protect and profit themselves, while controlling the general public. That was primarily because of the experience of the pronouncements and policies during the early years of the pandemic. When people who are understandably resistant to that Covid orthodoxy have discovered the way elites have been using concern about climate change to enrich themselves, such as through the carbon credits scam, many have become suspicious of the whole agenda on climate change. Those of us who know some of the science on climate, and pay attention to recent temperatures and impacts, can feel incredulous at such scepticism. My green colleagues ask me: “How can someone deny what’s changing right before their very eyes?”
Although I resigned my academic position to increasingly focus on local resilience efforts in the country I have now emigrated to, Indonesia, during 2024 I will continue to share thoughts on collapse risk, readiness and response. I will do that in four ways – essay writing, podcast interviews, public lectures, and short courses. As long as world systems hold together until March 2025, and I stay fit and well (!!), then I will be speaking and teaching in Australia, Belgium, Hungary, Mexico, Switzerland, Germany, UK and the USA. In Belgium in March, I will be joined by Satish Kumar and Pablo Servigne. In April in Budapest I will be celebrating 5 years of the Deep Adaptation movement in the country with the largest national group.
My keynote talk Mexico in October will mark the launch of the Spanish language version of Breaking Together. Then I will head to Oakland (California) that month to teach. In November I will present at some international NGOs and the United Nations, in Geneva, which will also include the launch the French version of the book, before I head to Berlin to present there. I will conclude my book tour in Brazil in early 2025, to launch the Portuguese translation of the book.
Aside from events in those locations, I will teach an online course “Leading Through Collapse” twice a year, scheduled to be suitable for any time zone. Any income from these activities already has a destination… the regenerative farming school I’m co-developing here in Bali.
My aim with these events around the world is to support people who are bringing collapse-awareness to their professions and public, in different regions and languages. This is the first international tour I am doing for 7 years, and I don’t intend to do another for many years, if ever. Therefore, I don’t feel guilty about the flying involved, as, like me, I still encourage people to fly less and fly effectively i.e. we should think about what we are trying to accomplish. Of course, that is how we can reflect on why we do anything that has an impact on the environment. Having a better reason to travel than the largest polluter in the world, which is the US military (not including proxy wars), probably isn’t a high enough bar to set for ourselves, although puts things in perspective 😉
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Look at those trees! Unburned! That proves weapons were used and it’s a conspiracy!
Oh, wait, that is a picture of a fire from a decade ago, before any ‘Directed Energy Weapons’ had been trialled. The unburnt trees are standing next to burned out houses in Valparaiso because that’s what happens with urban fires. Wooden houses catch fire easily from being hit by burning embers blown on the wind. But green leaves on living trees don’t catch fire so easily from those embers. Have you ever tried putting green leaves on a bonfire? It might get a bit smoky, but they don’t burn easily. In case you’re in any doubt, you could pick from a list of major fires in the 2010s, and search for images to discover how many of the trees ‘mysteriously escaped’ any of laser beams (which didn’t exist).
The reason a wildfire can burn many trees in a forest, not an urban area, is because the fire can pass through the canopy, so an actual flame passes from tree to tree. Crucial to such wildfires is the amount of dry matter on the forest floor, and the number of dead trees due to disease – as they can catch fire easily. Extremes of heat and cold, dry and wet, as well as the shrinking of forest area due to felling, are all known to increase the number of diseased trees, and therefore the likelihood of localised fires becoming massive wildfires. That is the best explanation for why, globally, forest fires have roughly doubled in the last 20 years. In case you didn’t know it yet, I am writing about these fire dynamics because of the tragic fires in Hawaii. In particular, there is strangely popular theory about the deadly fire in the town of Lahaina. The theory has meant that popular youtubers with massive audiences have chosen to ignore the reasons why forest fires became worse in recent years, and what we could be doing to try to reduce that in future. The conspiracy theory goes like this: the fires are started by Directed Energy Weapons (DEW), to create panic about climate change, and to force cities that resist adoption of ’15-minute smart city’ policies to curb private vehicle use. Some of the conspiracy theories also like to claim that the 15-minute smart cities agendas will curb personal movement rather than just cars (although there have been no such proposals or initiatives). The ‘evidence’ put forward for this view of the fires in Hawaii, includes: the fires only burned properties not trees, that the ashes look weird, boats were burned in the water, there are images of Direct Energy Weapons being used, and that Hawaii is hosting a 15-minute smart cities conference. Writing more than a week later, there are still many videos being widely shared on TikTok and other platforms that make some or all of these claims (see the ‘screen grab’ one of the most popular).
Every 5 months or so I send out a summary of some of what I’ve been doing. Last weekend I sent the latest. It follows below. If you would like to get the next into your inbox in about 5 months, sign up here.
How is your experience of social media these days? There is quite a lot of stress-inducing news and modes of interaction online. In my case, being kicked off Twitter a month ago with no explanation has had an upside – and not just less screen time! It has given people the opportunity to express their views on dialogue and censorship. Friends and colleagues have sent me messages from all kinds of people who are saying my account should be restored, as well as senior-ranking academics who are actually celebrating me being censored. That’s quite revealing, isn’t it?
Psychologists know how our fear of feeling painful emotions can lead to us suppressing them by directing our anger at people whose existence reminds us of the reason for our painful emotions (they call that response ‘experiential avoidance’). If you disagree or deny that environmental disruption is already so severe and self-reinforcing that the breakdown of industrial consumer life is unavoidable, then you may feel more uncomfortable as reality hits home. The world is witnessing major disruptions, ocean temperatures are freakish, and the month of July was globally 1.5C degrees above pre-industrial temperatures, indicating that many self-reinforcing feedbacks are likely [see endnotes]. As I describe in my book’s chapter on the food system, a ‘multi-breadbasket failure’ with huge implications for grain markets has been calculated as near certain within 3 years of such a global temperature rise. In response, many senior ranking climatologists are doubling down on criticising those of us who warned 5 years ago, or more, that the current situation was the most likely scenario. In my book chapter on climate, there is a section where I revisit the claims in my Deep Adaptation paper of 2018, and show that 2023 observational data and climate science corroborates what I concluded back then (you can listen to the chapter for free, or get the whole audiobook).
The COP27 climate conference announcement of a new fund, of unknown quantity, for the loss and damage occurring due to climate chaos, means it might appear that politicians and bureaucrats are finally getting real about how bad the situation is. So could they be catching up with the ‘Deep Adapters’? Unfortunately, no fund will ever be able to recompense the loss and damage that is being suffered – and will be suffered – from the impacts of climate and ecological breakdown. No international currency, bank, or payment system will likely survive the extent of disruption when impacts of global heating really kick in. I am just back from my first and last climate conference, and not only experienced it as an exercise in denial but one that is made impenetrable by the numbers of people and resources maintaining it in myriad ways. Even critics of COP27, and climate policies more generally, have their budgets, wages, skills, and status tied to the story of ultimate salvation from climate chaos. A consequence of this denial is not looking at the root causes of our predicament. Which might also be a reason for the denial. So let’s go there…
Text of speech delivered at COP27, Nov 9th 2022, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, by Prof Jem Bendell. Check against delivery. The video of the speech:
“We have a communications problem. Just as political support for climate action is growing, so political resistance to climate action is also growing. The use of the hashtag #ClimateScam has exploded since July of this year. From never exceeding more than 3,000 tweets in any month up to June 2022, it has been used 70,000-100,000 times per month in the four months since. Compare that to the hashtag #ClimateJustice, which has averaged about 30,000 tweets per month for the last two years and almost hit 100,000 unique tweets in the month of COP26 in Glasgow, with all the world’s media attention. But now? #ClimateScam is being used two and a half times for every #ClimateJustice tweet throughout the last 4 months. These twitter trends are one indicator of a growing resistance to climate action.
Prof Jem Bendell 
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