Category: deep adaptation

Last year an Extinction Rebellion handbook called “This is Not a Drill” was published by Penguin, featuring a chapter I wrote on Deep Adaptation, called “Doom and Bloom”. It has some important chapters, and you can order it here. My chapter was edited for length, and so here is the original submitted version. I release it on my blog to encourage discussions about climate activist movements, such as XR, FridaysForFuture and Sunrise, making adaptation to unfolding climate chaos a complementary focus to net carbon neutrality. Even top government advisors recognise that scale of government action on humanitarian relief, food security, disaster risk reduction, psychological support, and economic transformation, is insufficient to help us all adapt to the unfolding damage from extreme weather and its knock-on effects on our economic systems.

Doom and Bloom? Adapting deeply to likely collapse.

Original version submitted  for the XR handbook This is Not a Drill.

Our climate is changing rapidly, destroying lives and threatening our future. We must act now to reduce harm and save what we can. In doing so we can rediscover what truly matters. That may seem less of a rallying cry than “this is our last chance to prevent disaster”. But I believe it is more truthful and will be more lasting. It will also invite less disillusionment over time. And help each of us to prepare. After all, when harvests collapse, we won’t be eating our placards. We will be relying on the love we have for each other and the ways we have prepared.

Scientists and activists have been shouting for the past fifteen years about the imminent disaster we are creating. The latest message is “we’ve only got 12 years” to prevent a disastrous 1.5 degrees of warming, but I’m not swayed any more. My reading of the latest data is that climate change has gone too far, too fast, with too much momentum, so that any talk of prevention is actually a form of denial of what is really happening. It is a difficult conclusion to arrive at. And a difficult one to live with. We have too little resilience in our agricultural, economic, and political systems to be able to cope. It is time to prepare, both emotionally and practically, for a disaster.

I am social scientist, not a climatologist. So who am I to spread panic and fear when the world’s top scientists say we have 12 years? Like many readers, I had assumed the authority on climate was the IPCC – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but it turns out they’ve been consistently underestimating the changes. In 2007 they said an ice-free Arctic was a possibility by 2100. That sounds far enough away to calm the nerves. But real-time measurements are documenting such rapid loss of ice that some of the world’s top climate scientists are saying it could be ice free in the next few years.

Sea-level rise is a good indicator of the rate of change, because it is affected by many factors. In 2007 satellite data showed a sea level rise of 3.3 mm per year. Yet that year the IPCC offered 1.94mm a year as the lowest mark of its estimate for sea-level rise. Yes, you’re right: that’s lower than what was already happening. It’s like standing up to your knees in flood water in your living room, listening to the forecaster on the radio saying she is not sure if the river will burst its banks. It turned out that when scientists could not agree on how much the melting polar ice sheets would be adding to sea-level rise, they left out the data altogether. Yeah, that’s so poor, it’s almost funny.

Once I realised that the IPCC couldn’t be taken as climate gospel, I looked more closely at some key issues. The Arctic looms large. It acts as the planet’s refrigerator, by reflecting sunlight back into space and by absorbing energy when the ice melts from solid to liquid. Once the Arctic Ice has gone and the dark ocean starts absorbing sunlight, the additional global warming blows the global 2-degree warming target out the window.

The implications even of small changes are immense for our agriculture, water and ecosystems. Even just one warmer summer in the northern hemisphere in 2018 reduced yields of wheat and staples like potatoes by about a quarter in the UK. Unlike other years, the unusual weather was seen across the northern hemisphere, with declines in rain-fed agriculture reported across Europe. Globally we only have grain reserves for about 4 months, so a few consecutive summers like 2018 and the predicted return of El Nino droughts in Asia could cause food shortages on a global scale.

Having gathered a pile of this information I concluded that our civilisation would struggle to hold itself together under such conditions. I hear many voices fending off despair with hopeful stories about technology, political revolution, or mass spiritual awakenings. But I cannot pin hopes on those things. We should be preparing for a social collapse. By that I mean an uneven ending of our normal modes of sustenance, security, pleasure, identity, meaning, and hope. It is very difficult to predict when a collapse would occur, especially given the complexity of our agricultural and economic systems. Yet everyone with whom I discussed this topic asked me for a prediction. So my guess is that within 10 years from now a social collapse, in some form, will have occurred in the majority of countries around the world.

Having worked for over 25 years in environmental sustainability, I found it hard to accept that my career added up to nothing; my sense of self was shaken because I had believed humanity would ‘win’ in the end. We had been walking up a landslide. I found myself regretting all the times I had settled for small changes when my heart was calling for large ones. I grieved how I may not grow old. I still grieve for those closest to me, and the fear and pain they may feel as their food, energy and social systems break down. Most of all I now grieve for the young, and the more beautiful world they will never inherit.

This realisation meant I began feeling the impermanence of everything in a far more tangible and immediate way than before. My attention had always been fixed in the future, but now arrived in the present, and I became aware as never before of other people and animals – of love, beauty, art, and expression. I was reminded of what my friend with terminal cancer had said about his experience of gratitude and wonder, and of the intense quality of our last meeting.

Over the past year I have met many people for whom an acceptance of the scale and imminence of the crisis has been transformative. They prioritise truth seeking and telling, inner exploration and self-discovery, self-expression and creativity, connection with others and nature, as well as cultivating their capacity for loving kindness. They are experience a renewed ability to live in what we could call ‘Expressive Presence’.

I am not the first to notice this phenomenon. The mystics have been talking about it for millennia. The Russian author Dostoevsky described the delicious intensity of the last moments before his false execution. I believe we all need to go through such a process, individually and collectively. Putting all our hopes in a better future allows us to make compromises in the present, while letting go of a better future can allow us to drop false hopes and live the present with more integrity. It might even make our activism more effective.

This is a book [This is Not a Drill] about a global rebellion to stop the rapid extinction of species and avert the possible extinction of our own. Being loving and more connected is wonderful but might seem a bit vague and inconsequential. What might we do, as publicly engaged citizens?

If our view is that societal collapse or breakdown is now likely due to climate change, might we communicate that view as widely as possible without offering a set of “answers” and action agendas? When talking with individuals and to small groups, I have witnessed, over and over, that there is a lot that people can gain from feeling lost and despairing before then piecing things back together for themselves, in their personal, professional and political lives. But speaking through the mass media to the general public is a different matter. The limitations of a superficial and combative approach from the news media are well known to those of us who hope for a more informed and engaged public. But on this topic, we have an additional problem. Our dominant culture hides the matter of death and dying away from daily life. The feeling we are part of a society and species that is perpetually improving helps to contain our fear of personal mortality. Without loving support of any kind, a sudden acceptance that collapse is now likely or inevitable in the not-so-distant future could trigger some ugly responses to difficult emotions. A quiet form of hysteria could lead to an outpouring of blame turning inward, and destructive tendencies. Some say this is already happening as people intuit how the story of humanity’s progress has lost its nourishing (or numbing) power.

My view is that normalising discussions about how to prepare for and soften collapse will benefit society. Only collective preparations have a serious chance of working. Deep Adaptation to climate change means asking ourselves and our leaders these four questions.

“How do we keep what we really want to keep?” is the first question to ask, as we seek resilience – the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances, so as to survive with valued norms and behaviours. To illustrate, here are some ideas that can considered for resilience. First, a likely collapse in rain-fed agriculture means governments need to prepare for how to ration some basic foodstuffs as well as supporting the rapid expansion of irrigated production of key crops like potatoes. Second, the way our financial markets will respond to the realisation of climate shocks is unpredictable and the risk is that our systems of both credit and payments could seize up. That means governments need to ensure we have electronic means of payment outside of the private banking system, so trade can continue if there is a financial collapse. Third, there are responses for resilience that will take a bit longer. For instance, and unfortunately, building desalinisation plants may be key across Southern Europe. Fourth, we should try to buy some more time. Many geoengineering ideas are highly dangerous and impractical. But one makes sense right now. We should be seeding and brightening the clouds above the Arctic immediately, as a global emergency response, similar in scale to how we would react if an Armageddon-sized meteor was hurtling towards Earth.

A second question to ask ourselves is “what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse?” This question helps us explore relinquishment, where people and communities will let go of certain assets, behaviours and beliefs where retaining them could make matters worse. Examples include withdrawing from coastlines, shutting down vulnerable industrial facilities, or giving up expectations for certain types of consumption. There will be the psychological challenge of how to help people who experience dread, grief and confusion. Many of us may be deeply affected by the falling away of our assumption of progress or stability. How do we plan our lives now? That will pose huge communications challenges, if we want to enable compassionate and collaborative responses from each other as much as possible. Helping people with psychological support to let go of some old attachments and aspirations will be important work.

“What can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies?” is the third question I suggest guides our conversations about Deep Adaptation to our climate tragedy. It helps us explore the restoration of attitudes and approaches to life and organisation that our hydrocarbon-fuelled civilisation eroded. Examples include re-wilding landscapes, so they provide more ecological benefits and require less management, changing diets back to match the seasons, rediscovering non-electronically powered forms of play, and increased community-level productivity and support.

The fourth question I invite you to consider is “what could I make peace with to lessen suffering?” As we contemplate endings our thoughts turn towards reconciliation: with our mistakes, with death, and some would add, with God. We can also seek to be part of reconciliations between peoples with different political persuasions, religions, nations, genders, classes and generations. Without this inner Deep Adaptation to climate collapse we risk tearing societies apart.

Bold emissions cuts and carbon drawdown measures are still necessary to reduce as much as possible the mass extinction and human suffering of climate change, but we must also prepare for what is now inevitable. This Deep Adaptation Agenda takes us beyond mainstream narratives and initiatives on adaptation to climate change, as we no longer assume that society as we know it can continue.

Faced with these scenarios, some people react by calling for whatever-it-takes to be done to stop such a collapse. That is, to attempt whatever draconian measures might cut emissions and drawdown carbon in case it might stop the disaster. The problem is that such a perspective can quickly lead to calls for those with power to impose on people without it. For the powerful to satisfy themselves that they are doing needs to be done no matter what the implication for peoples’ lives and wellbeing. It is now clear that there will be tough decisions ahead. But rather than suggest we can sacrifice our values for a chance to survive, instead we can make universal love our compass as we enter an entirely new physical and psychological terrain.

People often ask me where is the hope in my rather dark analysis of our situation – what vision Deep Adaptation offers to its adherents. I cannot honestly hope for a better future, so instead I’m hoping for a better present. I’m earning less money and instead I’m eating better and feeling better. I’m not compromising my truth because I have nothing to lose. I’m sleeping more, enjoying more and loving more. In this sense, my life is not doom and gloom. Instead, both doom and bloom are complementary sides to my everyday experience. Climate activism can so easily become angry, dour, moralising, and self-sacrificing, but that must not happen to Extinction Rebellion. With so little future to hope for this rebellion is not worth our misery and pain.

In facing our climate predicament, I have learned that there is no way to escape despair. But there seems to be a way through despair. It is to love love more than we fear death. That love is why we experience loss and grief. After loss and grief there is still that love. So as things get really difficult in the years to come, I hope I will keep asking myself – what does love invite of me now?

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If you are a climate activist and want to engage in these issues, consider engaging the Campaigns & Lobbying discussions on the Deep Adaptation Forum here. There is also now a Facebook group where people discuss ideas and initiatives about the Deep Adaptation agenda within Extinction Rebellion. Join it here.

A short documentary explores how children and youth can engage in exploring the implications of the worst case scenarios of climate change.

Image Credit: Andre Clements.

Prof Jem Bendell and Rabbi Jeffrey Newman

This article originally appeared on Extinction Rebellion’s blog on March 20th 2019 and republished here for ease of access.

What would a sane society do, knowing that one of its luxury food supplies was being exhausted? Consume less perhaps? Or grow more? Japan, knowing that the Bluefin tuna is going extinct, does neither. Bluefish tuna make the most profit for fishermen the nearer they are to extinction, as their rarity endows all the more status on their consumers.

Some might think that is a quirky Japanese behaviour or an anomaly of economics, but actually the free-market system in which individuals compete for profit is resplendent with such stupidities. How else could the investment in fracking or tar sands be explained? Or the way Brazil is consuming the lungs of the Earth to pay back its debts. Or the way industry externalises the cost of processing much of its waste, poisoning the Earth and its future consumers?

The logic that leads to these flaws has long been understood, and there have been waves of visceral protest as the ideology of markets became more entrenched. It is two decades since we were shutting down city centres hosting WTO and World Bank conferences; and almost a decade since Occupy camps squatted in the sacred places of decadent high finance. This time our issue is more than economic justice – it is the way governments are standing by as the global house we live in is burning down. We now see clearer than ever how a stupid financial system is driving an environmental breakdown and mass extinction which will undermine our very civilisation.

But for all the dissent about this situation, there’s little agreement or clarity on where within the financial system the real problem resides – or what could be done about it. Explanations from the marching crowds often invoke privatisation, corruption, greed, the power of banks, or the shrinking state. Deeper analyses point to something that many are unaware of, even economists. It is how private banks, not the government or central banks, create our money supply when they issue loans. It is this practice of issuing money as debt that over time creates a scarcity of money which encourages perpetual economic growth whether a society needs it or not. That means more junk, monotonous work, energy burned, natural environments ripped up, more waste, more money locked up tax havens, and more unpayable debts. Lifting the veil on the monetary system reveals the interconnection between our social and environmental suffering. Through complex chains of profit-taking, the extortionate financial rewards taken by banks leads to people relying upon food banks while we trash the foundational bank that is a healthy planet.

Therefore, after decades of work on reforming corporations to be more sustainable, we both came to understand that we can’t change the way business does business unless we change the way money makes money. Given our perilous situation with the unfolding environmental breakdown, this change is more urgent than ever. As it oscillates along the knife-edge of debt maximisation and debt default, the current system is simply not fit for a future of climate-induced disruption.

But understanding the driving role of the financial system doesn’t give us a course of action and it certainly doesn’t help us to curtail it. For starters, we exist within the confines of this system. Many of us have little capacity to take radical action because we are working off our debts, or earning wages suppressed by employers servicing their own. That is hardly surprising in an economy with more debt than money.

So what might we do? We can move our money to building societies. But that won’t reform the big banks. We can work together to build alternatives at the local level, such as credit unions and mutual credit currencies. Yet in the UK this has proven difficult, as they are less available and less-funded than their competitors. So we might buy into crypto-currencies, yet many of them are run by speculators who make bankers look saintly!

So the only possible way to put the financial system into a reverse thrust is through government who, after all, unleashed the financial beast over thirty years ago.

It would seem though, that the present UK government imagines a different mandate for itself. In his 2018 party conference speech Chancellor Hammond claimed already to have ‘rebuilt the financial system’ since 2008.He said nothing about energy security, food security, climate change, the global migration crisis or indeed any future concerns except the Labour Party. One can’t imagine the sixth Mass Extinction keeping him awake at night. Rather than existential threats he focused instead on linguistic ones, repeating the term ‘21st century capitalism’ as if the next 80 years of economics was already written.

Hammond is out of touch with a public increasingly alarmed by climate predictions. After 30 years of warnings but no meaningful action, the current (very conservative) estimate is that dramatic changes are needed within the next twelve years, just for a chance of avoiding ‘run away’ climate change. Less optimistic readings of the data indicate that rapid and uncontrollable climate change has already begun. That will mean failed harvests and with it, exploding price rises and, understandably, social unrest. A new paradigm of Deep Adaptation to environmental breakdown is needed to reduce harm and risk in a very uncertain future. As friends and neighbours we might stockpile food, nurture our gardens and install solar power, but government is needed to build the sea defences, mobilise emergency food production and distribution, rebuild transport systems and integrate large numbers of people fleeing droughts, floods and related conflict.

Governments around the world need to develop climate-smart monetary and investment policies. Such bold policies must involve a scaling down of our non-reserve banking system and an increase in government’s issuance of electronic money instead of bonds. All central banks must be instructed to stop buying bonds from companies with large carbon footprints and instead only buy bonds of firms providing low-carbon solutions for a climate-disrupted future. Governments should also ensure there are networks of local banks with a requirement to lend to enterprises that are focused on cutting emissions or drawing down carbon, as well as developing resilience to disruptive weather. Making that the RBS mandate in the UK is a ‘no brainer’. Government should also look at enabling local governments to issue their own interoperable currencies, as a way of helping local communities become more self reliant in preparation for future disturbances. Treasury officials could begin their education on these ideas by talking to the folks at Positive Money. Meanwhile our diplomats could get cracking on negotiating a global carbon tax, embedded into trade law at the WTO, with government commitments to invest revenues for carbon cuts, drawdown, adaptation and reducing impacts on the poor.

Given how bad things are with the environment we don’t know if such dramatic changes will be too little too late. But it is worth a try. And we are convinced that without an attempt to transform the monetary system then we aren’t really trying.

Let’s for a moment imagine what such changes could support. We can imagine what thriving ecosystems look like, so we let’s imagine a thriving economy. Waste would be minimised, and toxic waste eliminated. Most of what we needed would be produced nearby. There would be no unemployment and no shortage of money to pay for valuable work. Housing would be affordable as it was in the 1970s. Children would see more of their parents. Enterprises and population centres would be governed and managed less as pawns of London, Brussels, Berne, or Frankfurt and more by the people who have a stake in them and their continuance.

There must come a time when it becomes necessary to flout the law to bring down an immoral or incompetent government. Philosophers call it the ‘right of rebellion’. Naturally they differ on the details, but generally a rebellion these days must use non-violent methods, and it must be against a government which is grossly incompetent, malignant, or treacherous. In upholding a financial system determined to burn all the fossil fuels while not protecting the people from the catastrophic consequences, governments are surely being grossly incompetent, malignant and treacherous.

On April 15th 2019 international rebellion week will create all manner of creative, exciting and loving peaceful civil disobedience to show the UK government and its financial masters that we can no longer support interlocking economic and political systems that threaten to curtail the life of our children. It is time to tell the truth, act in accordance with it, and set up Citizens Assemblies with mandates that include both financial reform and Deep Adaptation.

If international rebellion doesn’t startle our politicians into making the climate crisis their central agenda, then we must stretch the rebellion into our everyday lives. How many coordinated withdrawals and loan defaults might bring down a targeted bank? How many local councils issuing inter-operable currencies could create an alternative to the Bank of England? How many people joining networks with their own currencies, like Fair Coop, Credit Commons and Holochain, could make these viable alternatives? If government does not heed peaceful calls to change our economic system so that climate sanity is an economic norm, we may well find out.

We realise that initially our suggestions may be dismissed by some office holders in our current system. Religious texts remind us that privileged people “who detest the one who tells the truth” (Prophet Amos 5:10) are neither new or unusual. But the joy of generations coming together in a new spirit of fearless love, reminds us of the divine invitation to “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Prophet Amos 5:24). We therefore invite more leaders in our current system to join this sacred flow of a peaceful rebellion for life on Earth.

Professor Jem Bendell is founder of the Deep Adaptation Forum and teaches leadership at the University of Cumbria. In April 2019, he spoke to launch the international rebellion on the Oxford Circus pink boat, with the text and video available here.

Rabbi Jeffrey Newman is Emeritus Rabbi of Finchley Reform Synagogue and leads Shema (Jewish Action on Climate Change). He was arrested outside the Bank of England for a non violent protest during XR demonstrations in London.

Further reading on monetary issues:

Currencies of Transition: Transforming money to unleash sustainability. Bendell, Greco (2013)

Re-imagining Money to Broaden the Future of Development Finance Bendell, Ruddick, Slater (2015) UNRISD

The future of sharing: it’s all about freedom, Open Democracy

Thwarting an Uber future for complementary currencies. Bendell & Slater 2017

 

One of the questions I suggested we use for exploring our responses to the predicament of disastrous climate change was:

“With what and whom can we make peace with to lessen suffering?”

I called this the fourth R of reconciliation within the Deep Adaptation framework.

Part of this “making peace” and reconciling is forgiveness.

The human race has destroyed so much life on Earth and will continue to do so. Some cultures and countries have collectively been far more destructive than others and will continue to be for some time. Some companies are more destructive than others, as are some individuals. And they may continue to be so for some time.

Anger at this situation is understandable. More than that, such anger is a sign we are awake to the situation and that we care.

But then what do we do with that anger?

Some may look for whom to blame and develop hatred for whichever category of person they choose. Because they won’t be just hating one person, but a category of person.

Every category is arbitrary.

For instance, shall we blame and hate oil company executives?

Or those who invest in them?

Or perhaps our parents who have shares in pension funds invested in those same companies?

Or perhaps ourselves, for that gift we received from our parent’s profits from the dividends that helped us get a mortgage?

Nearly all of us are embedded in the system of destruction and therefore complicit. Some of us are more complicit than others. Some people have more power to try to change things at scale than others.

So, even though our choices for where to place any blame will be arbitrary, it is sensible to discuss where responsibility lies, and who should be challenged to change behaviour.

But if that leads to blame and hatred? Then we risk losing our way and making matters worse.

As I write the words of that last sentence, boy does it feel annoying. I want to rage at the wilful ignorance of self-satisfied people who benefit from systems that are ruining lives around the world and threatening our very survival.

But I still know it is true that blame and hatred risks making matters worse.

To not forgive gives rise to our own suffering as well as wider suffering. If we cannot let go of a real or imagined wrong against us then we are unable to free ourselves from hate and we will suffer as a result. The tensed shoulders, clenched teeth, and hormones pumping around our body. The time spent thinking through why someone is worse than us, rather than spent thinking what we could do differently ourselves to improve our situation.

When people start to talk about their hatred of groups of people, then they are de-humanising them and sowing the seeds for violence. This is often done when people say that we should be disgusted by a type of person. When people with a public audience begin to invite disgust with and hatred of groups of people, then the seeds of violence can rapidly grow.

As we are all made of the same stuff, and come from the same original consciousness, then the way we behave is the result of the conditions within which we have learned to be human. If you had been born to be me and experienced what I experienced in life, you would likely be quite like me! And vice versa. With that perspective, it is less easy to be hateful at someone for how they are. We can try to challenge them and hold them accountable for attitudes and behaviours that are harmful to others. But where would hatred come from? And what would it serve?

Many people are rightly angry at the destruction of our biosphere.

I am.

Angry, frustrated, sad, and scared all at the same time.

I realise part of that anger is at myself. I am a human. I am one of the species that has done this. I am a man. I am one of the gender that has dominated culture for thousands of years in ways that denigrated reverence for nature. We burned women, for fxxks sake. I am white. A race that has pioneered the culture that violently and systematically suppressed other races and cultures until a system of the infinite exploitation of the Earth had been crowned triumphant.

I am not just angry at what I am. I am beyond that. I am depressed at what I am. I think it is this subconscious self-hatred that drives some of the anger we see in the environmental movement today. We are so upset at what we are, that we distract ourselves from the pain of self-hatred by vilifying other people who are, at least, worse than us!

So where do we go from here?

Can we forgive ourselves?

When I reflected on how I am part of nature, which created all humans as well as little me, I realised that there was nothing to forgive. Whatever is happening, however horrible, is arising from natural processes. Over millions of years, life comes and goes. In the universe, over billions of years, perhaps life comes and goes.

The fact we are all made of the same stuff and that we are a member of the species that has been so destructive, are both reasons for recognising the futility of blame and hatred of others for how they damage the planet and our fellow humans.

These reflections do not mean I do not feel anger. They do not mean I do not see people and categories of people as “opponents” who could be far better engaged, challenged or disempowered (oil executives, for instance). But it means that blame and hatred aren’t alive for me when I think about these things. Maybe that will help me be better at making choices about what to do. At least I do not suffer from carrying around my own hatred.

The reason I write this blog now, is because I realise the power of humanity to make bad situations far worse. As climate chaos gets worse over the coming decade, so there will be more refugees, more disasters, more hunger, more families disgruntled at the cost of living and fearful about the future. Some of the elites will be worried that we might club together and change systems of power, and thus look to manipulate us to blame each other. In future, I fear intergenerational hatred will grow, and be used by elites to justify policies that harm people of a certain age. A narrative that blames the older generations for climate change will be used by elites to justify the ending of state support for the poor and frail in those generations.

Or worse.

We live in a time when the internet is a playground for people who want to invite our disgust at others, rather than explore difficult issues together. One of the inflammatory modes is to say some people have more right to be angry than men like me; that I am speaking about forgiveness from a privileged position. That is why in the past year I have reached out to teachers, children, social justice groups and the decolonisation movement, to better hear their perspectives, and bring attention to them. I have not heard more hatred. I have heard an openness to healing. Because they realise the gravity of the situation we all face.

Inviting discussion about whether it is right or wrong for activists to be proud of never forgiving politicians – and the older generations, is important. I believe it is important because that non-forgiveness is a form of hatred which could one day be used by authoritarian regimes to justify abuses in the name of climate reality. Therefore, I will continue to question the words of activists or politicians if they ever invite hatred, even if people misrepresent that in order to allow their rage to flow without consequence.

I wrote this blog to provide context for some parts of an interview of Charles Eisenstein. I recommend watching the whole thing here.

If you are interested, please discuss these ideas in the Philosophy Group of the Deep Adaptation Forum.

The ‘deep adaptation’ framing of our situation is not an easy one to take onboard. In a nutshell: because widespread and near term societal collapse is likely, inevitable or unfolding, we should begin to prepare emotionally and practically. I experienced emotional pain in allowing this possibility into my awareness, and then sharing it with my profession (the sustainability business and leadership fields) – and now with others.

Some climate scientists say my view that we seem set for uncontrollable levels of climate change is unscientific. Other climate scientists say that we may have already reached dangerous tipping points and some think we have breached some of those tipping points already. That would mean uncontrollable levels of change. Some scientists say it is unscientific to talk about near term societal collapse, and other top scientists have just started agreeing that we must have that conversation right now.

Given my outlook on our situation, and my research into systems of personal and institutional denial, I have found it difficult to muster motivation to engage with critics over small scientific details in my original Deep Adaptation paper, which came out in July 2018. Instead I have focused on implications for activism, mental health, spirituality, economics and professional collaboration. However, as the concept spreads, so does some criticism. Some climatologists have a microphone to speak on our predicament, and have an important role in helping humanity understand our situation today. Therefore, I want to engage as best I can with the arguments that I have heard from some critics in the field of climatology.

Therefore, I am inviting any climate scientist who is concerned with the deep adaptation message to apply their skills in challenging or improving its basis in climate science. We have put an excerpt of the climate science section of the July 2018 paper online as a googledoc, open for comment. I welcome comments from any professional climate scientist on what is considered inaccurate or misleading, or that could benefit from further clarification. The document will remain open for comment until January 10th 2020. I will then blog on the feedback in Q1 2020, include a box at the end of the pdf of the paper with any corrections, and incorporate insights into my future work.

This invitation to comment is being sent to scientists featured in a recent Vice article, including Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt, Wolfgang Knorr and Cynthia Rosenzweig. If these people are too busy, the invitation is extended to their research teams. Non-climatologists featured in the article are also being invited (including Scott Williams, Jeremy Lent, Aled Jones). Please seek comment permissions by Jan 5th 2020 here.

In focusing on one section of one paper, now 17 months old, we risk avoiding the issue at hand – the extent of climate chaos and what to do about it. However, it appears that criticism of the Deep Adaptation paper itself is a means by which some scientists engage with the possibility of us entering a period of rapid climate change. Therefore, I hope that this opening of the climate science section of the paper to feedback, publicly, will help clarify any mistakes and improve the discussion. I know that I will get some things wrong (see below). I am most interested in widening the topic of discussion and innovation, so that more people consider implications of the most troubling news. Therefore, I come at this issue of what weaknesses there may be in the original paper in the hope of supporting that widening discussion.

Of course much new science has been published since July 2018, and I summarised some of it in a compendium here. I am currently focused on how climate stressors will impact on agricultural, water, and financial systems, and will share more on that in Q1 also.

If you are a professional climate scientist, in employment in a research institution, you can request permission to comment on the document here.

I realise that in the face of the fearful situation we are in, to seek security in one’s self image and self worth is a natural response, yet will only be futile and unhelpful in the long run. So, thank you to everyone who is engaging with compassion, curiosity and respect in this difficult issue.

You can view the excerpt of the paper, and any comments that have already been made here.

A correction of one statistic in a speech

In a speech I gave this Autumn I mentioned that a 1 degree rise in the global average temperature is about 11% more energy in the atmosphere. However, it is only an 11% increase in the temperature above freezing point, as measured in Celsius. Rather, ambient energy can be measured from absolute zero, which is -273 Celsius. I was attempting to explain in a simple way that although 1 degree warming might sound minor, it is a significant change in the energy in our atmosphere. That point remains accurate, and could be expressed in the following way instead. “Since 1990, the increase in greenhouse gas levels has made the heating effect of the atmosphere 43% stronger” than in pre-industrial times. Some people have made a comparison between global warming and the danger for a human body warming up by that amount. I have never made such a comparison and don’t think it accurate to do so. The incorrect description of 11% more energy in the atmosphere was not in the original Deep Adaptation paper.