Category: deep adaptation

Loving being human, despite a fracturing world

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Last week in London I began my talk about Breaking Together by asking the people gathered to raise their hand if they felt proud of being human. Only a couple of people did. I then asked for a show of hands on the question on whether humans are inherently destructive to nature. A small majority supported that idea. I asked these questions to get to the heart of the issue of how environmentally-conscious people understand our situation. Because I know how sadness, anxiety and frustration pulse through us in regular waves. I wanted to explore how we can love ourselves and each other, fully, despite the destruction that has been caused by modern societies – and how that can guide our future action as situations become more difficult. 

I shared some lines from Chapter 9 of my book, where I use the latest archeology and anthropology to debunk some of the assumptions that help people to conclude that humanity is inherently bad for nature, and that ecocide was in some way a ‘choiceless’ destiny for homo sapiens. The chapter is now available as a free audio on soundcloud. In it I explain some of the following insights. 

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Climate truth is a challenge to power – even that of senior experts

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After another week of frightening temperature anomalies around the world, I gave a talk to supporters of the MEER project, which is trialling various means of locally-led climate adaptation that involve reflecting the sun’s rays. The video and transcript follow below. References for all the factual statements made in my presentation can be found within Chapters 1 and 5 of Breaking Together, which is available in all formats and regions, including a free epub download. Free audios of those chapters are also available. In the talk I am critical of mainstream climatology, as well as BigTech censorship of science-based analyses of the climate crisis that lie outside their preferred view of a manageable problem with technological solutions. From the talk:

“The so-called ‘fact checking’ group ‘Climate Feedback’ didn’t even consider two top climatologists worthy of a reply when they complained to them about helping Facebook to shadow ban an article that concluded we are inevitably heading for over 2 degrees global warming that will likely set off feedback loops. My understanding is that Professor Will Steffen died without even the courtesy of a reply from Climate Feedback. Dr Wolfgang Knorr still awaits one. So, we need to reclaim environmentalism from elites and officers of the establishment. We must stop pretending we are on the same side and instead build alternatives from below.”

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Breaking Together for free – and my launch speech

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So that cost is not a barrier to people accessing the analysis in my book Breaking Together, today the ebook becomes free to download. The book is also available as paperback, hardback, kindle and audiobook. My speech at the launch of the book is now online (see the video below, along with a rough transcript). We will be discussing the themes in the book in London on July 20th and Berlin on August 1st. Then I’ll disappear again to the organic farm school I am developing with fellow doomsters. If you, or someone you know, are feeling difficult emotions about this topic, or the recent climate news, then neither of you are alone. I recommend visiting deepadaptation.info and connecting with that community, or finding a relevant Deep Adaptation Guide. Please consider forwarding this information to anyone who might benefit from peer support on this topic. Thx, Jem 

Glastonbury Town Hall, June 18th 2023.
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From doom-scrolling the latest climate news to doom-sensemaking

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As temperature records are broken around the world, some of the most senior ranking climate experts are quoted in mainstream media as expressing their grave concern. Because what is happening is worse than those climate experts predicted some years ago. They don’t say that though – misleading journalists to think that current temperature anomalies are not outside the projections from past IPCC reports. Many of them criticised and even vilified the more ‘alarmist’ readings of climate science over recent years. That includes my own Deep Adaptation paper, published 5 years ago this month. As I explain in Chapter 5 of my new book, now available as a free audio, the analysis in that paper aligns with observations of climate changes in 2023. In 2018 some NASA scientists privately agreed with me, before their bosses publicly dismissed my ‘alarmist’ conclusions after they had reached millions. Why is it that generalists like me were able to see what top climatologists would not express publicly? If we don’t inquire into the institutional and psychological reasons for their public reticence, then those same patterns will distort our future conversations on how to respond to the unfolding situation. That is not a minor concern, as psychological theories suggest that aversion to painful emotions and deference to incumbent power could become toxic to society.

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Why Growth became God

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Since last week, I’ve been reading a few chunks of my book Breaking Together to my Dad, in hospice. That means I must choose the bits that might be worth listening to! One passage tells of an experience at Davos, when I was being encouraged to regard increasing rates of GDP as an evangelical quest. You can hear me read it. The passage is from Chapter 2 on monetary collapse, which you can read in full. The book is also available in all formats and locations.

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Why Growth Became God

At Davos I thought, perhaps naively, that I was mixing with the real power wielders of the world. I never felt at ease in what Mr Johnston once described as “a constellation of egos involved in massive mutual orgies of adulation.” A few tequilas at the McKinsey Party helped me to ease my awkwardness hobnobbing with people who were often described to me as really-nice-and-down-to-Earth-despite-being-who-they-are. That was the ‘high’ bar that non-famous people tended to set for the people who happen to be billionaires, film stars, CEOs, despots and such like. I learned that the appropriate response was to put on my smile of amazement and say “that’s great.” I had thought it was important that someone like me attended and tried to promote alternative ideas. Some years later, I now know that there have been hundreds of other gullible I-am-different-and-will-make-a-difference activists who tell themselves that story as they maintain fake smiles while listening to absolute garbage coming from one panellist after another and wondering which party to go to next. But at least my years of attending the summits in Davos as a Young Global Leader opened my eyes to a reality of global power. It’s a mess. Most of the people I met with powerful roles seemed incapable of acting competently in the collective interest in accountable ways. Worse, attempts to invite people to think beyond their organisation or ego just seemed to make matters worse.

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I also hate this conclusion (on net zero)

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I begin the final section of my chapter on Energy Collapse with the subtitle “I also hate this conclusion”. Because I did not want to discover that modern societies cannot continue their energy trajectories by simply displacing fossil fuels with new technologies. But that is what the sum of the relevant research shows us. In addition, the pursuit of the total electrification of economies will have hugely damaging effects on the biosphere, due to the mining involved. This is the awkward reality that most Western environmentalists are ignoring. The ‘green’ capitalists are extremely happy for us to keep ignoring that reality, as then any pressure for action translates into more money and pleasure for them. But if activism is about our personal commitment to higher goals, whether using moderate or radical tactics, then it must start with a fair assessment of reality and possibility. Otherwise, how is such activism not simply a mix of self-aggrandisement and emotional distraction by keeping busy?

The book Breaking Together is now available in audio, and Chapter 3 on Energy Collapse can be heard for free on soundcloud. To convey some of the arguments, below I share the first and last sections of the chapter. The image of the Kintsugi Tesla is from the Kintsugi World art project which accompanies the book.

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Audiobook and art for Breaking Together

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The audiobook of Breaking Together is out. So you can learn about a freedom-loving response to collapse without taxing your eyes! It is narrated by my friend and longtime colleague Matthew Slater. To celebrate this, I am sharing a video of the Kintsugi World art project that accompanies the book (and from which the Kintsugi Atlas adorns the front cover). There have been a number of reviews already, and they follow the video below. The video includes the full introduction of Breaking Together.

Other ordering information is available here. The book will become free as an epub download from July 10th from www.jembendell.com.

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Alternative approaches to combat respiratory viruses – freedom from the failing corporate-induced orthodoxy of the early 2020s

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Faced with ongoing risks from Covid-19, as well as future pathogens, all responsible citizens have an interest in what actions might combat respiratory viruses in future. That is whether actions are in addition to, or instead of, the approaches that have largely failed since 2020, despite the hiding of that fact by government authorities and mass media. Low levels of awareness about complementary or alternative approaches to combatting respiratory viruses has meant that many people assume that anyone critiquing the orthodoxy on Covid-19 must have less concern for public health, rather than being more concerned about it. Such lack of awareness is due to the corporate takeover of medicine, government, media and the digital sphere, which is hiding relevant expertise while promoting false moral narratives to elicit disdain towards people with heterodox views. Despite the resultant vilification, some experts have been so concerned about public health that they have been assessing whether other approaches might work better, as well as having fewer negative impacts on health and wellbeing. As I am often asked what I suggest would be a smarter response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as future epidemics, I am summarising some of my understanding in this essay.  

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Should scientists moonlight as ideologues?

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This is an edited excerpt from Chapter 7 of ‘Breaking Together’ where I get a bit technical on the nature of the scientific method and how unscientific some natural scientists and other experts have become when they discuss our societal predicament. Listen to the whole of this chapter on “recognising collapse and cultural decay” for free on Soundcloud. The release coincides with the availability of the paperback from the Schumacher Institute. Further ordering info follows at the end of this excerpt.

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Much of the discussion about risks and processes of societal collapse involves arguments about what people think is useful to believe, or how they wish to feel about the future. Such discussion is about people’s own identities and worldviews, involving lots of assumptions and logical fallacies. It can get quite nasty and resort to demonisation of individuals, condemned for being too negative. However, returning to the basics of scientific method can help to cut through this ‘noise’.

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Getting more serious about food system breakdown

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Combativeness and moral disdain pervades recent public discussion of environmental problems. It is not just one ‘side’ that resorts to such tactics. Take food and agriculture as an example. Some people speculate that eco-totalitarians will successfully force us to eat bugs and goo, whereas others oddly claim that anyone defending farmers is a far right extremist, obstructing the technological salvation of humanity and life on Earth. The AI generated image above is poking fun at the piety that’s in an unnecessarily binary discussion – as if we must all be steak lovers or steak haters, food tech fanatics or small farm purists. The famous climate activist Greta Thunberg has not descended into those silly binaries. Which is good, as they are unhelpful when we need a plurality of ideas on what to do about the unfolding breakdown of global food systems, as I chronicle in detail in Chapter 6 of my book “Breaking Together”. This blog coincides with the release of that chapter as a free audio (it is also available free from my University). 

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