Why I Try
Feature update: A new “edit” feature for commentators (5 minutes allowed to fix your comments).
This is a follow-up post to the “The First Tiny Step Forward” commentary.
Several people here believe that we’ve already lost all opportunity to try to change the inevitable outcome of planetary habitability. Inherent to this belief (whether you realize this or not) is – a) everything possible has been tried and nothing will work and therefore – b) use the time and life we each still have left doing something else (living). This is the core of the McPherson message by the way – which I steadfastly reject.
I don’t see how this position makes any sense. Point a) is certainly not true and it appears that nobody here is even interested in being a part of any ‘effort’ outside of their own selves anymore. The blog articles here have advocated doing many different things for oneself for many years (prepare, extract, etc.), so I certainly understand this. But this cannot be enough. Not everything has been tried, in fact, appalling little has been tried so far. There is an assumption (here) that “it’s pointless”. Is it? I don’t think so.
But point b) is of the most interest and relevancy here. We do have some time left (otherwise we’d be dead already). But nobody here wants to spend this time on trying something else and that has not even been fully discussed. As it turns out, nobody here on this blog even wants to have what is the easiest part of all – a discussion!
That is truly, truly amazing (to me at least), because I never realized how much my own readers have given up. When I consider what is at stake (versus what it’s going to take, a related but different topic), I find you all incredibly wrong because the stakes are simply too high to call defeat this early. That is definitely what McPherson and others are doing. I definitely do not agree with you that have done this, but you have your reasons. I also know that what “try” humans have bothered to do is exceedingly little. To call it quits now, after such a pathetic attempt is just ridiculous.
I do realize we are all on different life-journeys, levels of interest, awareness, finances and so forth. It was wrong of me to think that any of us could lay these aside and try to focus on a ‘try’ that would be greater then our own individual efforts (which I long advocated and heavily emphasized on this blog – but realize is insufficient). I even realize now that is it wrong of me to think that any would want to engage in a discussion about the try, to brain-storm and bounce around best ideas, and whatever research is being done. To do so would, as they say, ‘upset the apple-carts’ we are all pushing around in our individual lives, it might even challenge our own beliefs, paths and life-outcomes. Sorry about that, I just didn’t realize that my desperation for a positive effort towards future habitability was not yours.
It does not matter (to me) that any effort of try is ‘known to succeed’ before trying, if it is known that it can help in some positive way, precisely because nobody can predict every possible outcome with absolute certainty. For this topic, planetary habitability – nobody fully knows if humans were to do many things new, different, vast and/or desperate, if habitability could be somehow salvaged. We do know that our current trajectory appears totally hopeless if you’ve studied the topic as length as several people here have. But we do not know what we do not know.
I have not allowed my cynicism to consume me, quite the contrary. Cynicism has not taken over my desire to try what has not been tried before. To make the attempt. Cynicism has not overtaken my desire to see life continue on this planet. It anything, it has reinforced my desire. Many decades ago, I was like most people seem to be today – indifferent about the environment. Not anymore. But I certainly grew cynical along the way, seeing through many of the lies and deceptions and folly of man. We too are a part of the biosphere – we just happen to be the ones who are ruining it.
I do have some life-experience that others may not have had, that may have an influence on why I insist “try”. I have had to struggle immensely with severe pain, physical disabilities, extreme financial hardship, no support, and some pretty dangerous experiences involving high levels of corruption and even attempts on my life. Those experiences hardened my determination to overcome each of these obstacles. I’m just not one to give up, not after all I’ve been through, and I’ve certainly not tried everything even in my own life yet to conquer each one of these. But even so, I have succeeded in many ways and made fantastic strides forward. These and other experiences have helped define me.
I am younger then most of you too (I think), and still have all of my family. I can’t let go because I can’t give up on them either. They and a few others are the humans that I want to fight for. I have something to fight for – and so do all of you, but you may not want to anymore. I also intend to fight for the other life forms that still exist on this planet. I well realize that Nature does not ‘need us to save her’, but she does need us to stop harming her and we’ve not tried hard enough here either.
This is why I advocate a different ethic and a different civilization then this one – we don’t have to have this one, we could have done things differently and not be in this predicament.
However, I have no idea if we can get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ but that’s irrelevant to me. I’m not giving up. I think giving up is immoral. It’s defeatism and the battle isn’t over. Not by a long shot. We’re still here. Giving up is an abdication of responsibility, even a denial of being truly human. We are the only species that can do the things we need to do, we have the capacity to try but some no longer possess the will. It’s been bled out along the way. But my heart still beats.
I learned way back, many lifetimes ago that everyone needs two things when making any kind of effort; the right audience, and the right timing, especially when delivering ideas. I think I’ve run ahead of all of you to be honest, many of you are way smarter then me and have far more education, but even so, I’ve left you behind with my own philosophy, goals and desires for this life. We’re on different paths. Your ‘try’ is behind some of you. Mine is still ahead.
I’ve hesitated to even write this post for fear that I’d be misunderstood once again. But I realize that this is not an audience that wants to try. That’s probably my fault – it’s the kind of audience that I encouraged and attracted. I also know that I’m not the right audience either – for your ideas to give up and just go live life. And the timing is all wrong for all of us. Many of you are at very different stages in life then I am. It’s not reasonable for any of us to expect much from the other.
So I’m going to move my own efforts into a new direction. I’ve never thought blogging was worth much. It’s quite ridiculous to think that a tiny audience barely ‘connecting’ over vast distances with bits and bytes could change the world, or even have any kind of an effect. Extend this to all online social activity too. Unless there is a truly large participation, then translated into real-life actions and reactions, we’re all just beating at the air. It appears that most people have settled for this too as their form of ‘activism’, which it isn’t. Its delusional, distracting, ineffective. A fantastic tool to defeat the so-called ‘masses’. Obviously then (at least to me), the ‘online’ effort is just never going to mean much.
But offline efforts have been tried to. I fully acknowledge this. But not everything offline (in the real world) has been tried. And this is of course, what really matters the very most – what has been done or will be done or tried to be done in the real world. That’s where the ‘try’ is going to matter the most. Not here – not on a blog or online anywhere because the online ‘life’ isn’t the real world, it’s nothing even close to the real world. It’s simply a great way to share information (and disinformation).
So that’s my new direction. Offline. It has to be, because it is where it matters the most and the only thing that really has ever counted for a damn. What we do in life. Not how many blog posts we can throw up or how many ‘friends’ we may have online. All that stuff is totally irrelevant and meaningless.
I’m going to go find some doers to be quite frank. And if I cannot find any, I will recruit them myself. I absolutely will not ‘settle’ for this ridiculous, misguided, pathetic notion that we’ve tried hard enough yet because it is indefensible, morally reprobate and lacking in evidence.
Finally, yes, I’ll be online (of course). We cannot discuss anything illegal (obviously), but we definitely should. But can’t. So don’t go there. There are a lot of skirmishes ahead, survive those as long as you can (stay in the battle), or just give up and move on with your life. Those of you that choose to stay online (here or anywhere else), don’t fall for the illusion that online is ‘living’ because it most certainly is the tiniest slice of everything else, a false picture of the world you’re being allowed to see. I’ve pointed this out before – you have to try (there it is again, sorry) to filter out the lies, dishonesty, mistruths and deceptions that the StupidNet breeds. It’s not the real world. With a bit of effort, you can do it and obtain as much ‘truth’ as can probably be found.
But then, you should do something with that truth. It’s not enough to just sit on it and exclaim oneself ‘well informed’. You may be satisfied with only that, and you may be at a different place and point in life then I am, and content wherever you are. I however, am not because it grieves me most sincerely to see such massive failures all leading towards our extinction and the extinction of the biosphere as we know it. That moves me, it drives me, it compels me to do something more then just write blog posts.
But I cannot ask anyone else to agree with me out of respect for your own position, experiences and your time and place in life. So don’t ask me to agree with your either.
I’ve made my case, many times on this topic, yet I think I’m seriously misunderstood and yes, under-appreciated. I’m used to it. I know that this blog has failed and all the efforts I’ve put into it over many years. But these feelings are irrelevant. The stakes are too damned high to allow personal feelings to interfere. They need to be set aside or we will simply all lose our way. Some have already, but I’m not ready to abandon all my hope (Yes! I finally said that!).
Finally, despair is extremely dangerous. False hope is too. But without effort, without ‘try’, without giving it our very best shot, we slide into a dark place ourselves, never even knowing if we just had to press ahead a little further. We turn to drugs, alcohol, hedonism, distractions. That’s exactly the ‘place’ where the global zombies live now, the ones I make fun of. It’s not for me. So I’m going to seek out those who are like me, or at least close enough to understand this message. We have got to try.
There are others trying. That’s why you get to read about their science, their research, their ideas and proposals. It is irrelevant if they’ve got no answers yet. They may never find them. So what? The human race is not defeated. Not yet and not until we are all dead. Failure IS an option. It is irrelevant.
I supported Guy McPherson for many years because he was pointing out the destructiveness of industrialism, the finite nature of fossil fuels and the disastrous effect that burning fossil fuels was having on the biosphere, and the need to both prepare for a very difference set of living arrangements and the need to halt to destruction caused by industrialism -the very things I had been highlighting for many years prior to encountering GMP.
However, he started going weird and began promoting narratives that had no scientific basis and promoting the need for grief counselling instead of promoting physical action that might modify the outcomes generated by industrialism. Then he went really weird and declared the humans species would be extinct within 10 years as a consequence of super-abrupt climate change, a narrative for which there is no scientific evidence. I tried to persuade people to not support his trip to NZ to deliver his ‘the end is now’ message to no avail. It’s quite weird that people would want to go to a talk to hear that there is no hope and that they are all going to die very soon.
Interestingly, there is still a remnant of his following that hangs on to his unscientific imminent extinction narrative even though it has been repeatedly demonstrated to be phony -further evidence that when it comes to beliefs, facts don’t matter.
I look at it this way. Humans have evolved over a period of around 3 million years, and are now at the top of the pecking order because they can adapt to a very wide range of environmental conditions and a very wide range of food sources. Humans will eat almost anything, including other humans and rats if they have to, in order to stay alive. That is why we exist now in such vast numbers.
We know temperatures will rise, sea levels will rise, the industrial food system will fail, present living arrangements will collapse, and that the death rate will far exceed the birth rate fairly soon.
I agree with you that we do not know how this will all end, though it is clear that the coming period will be grim.
Several years ago I pointed out there were three basic strategies:
1. get the word out so there was an informed community
2. build a fortress
3. run for the hills.
I have almost, but not completely, exhausted ‘option 1’. I doubt that ‘option 2’ will work, though I am more prepared than the vast majority of people around here, both in knowledge and resources. I suspect I am too old for ‘option 3’.
From what I understand you are already ‘in the hills’, so don’t need to run for the hills.
I may be worth mentioning that what distinguishes our species from closely-related species is the ability to walk and run long distances and use weapons/tools to acquire large quantities of food.
I still have a few ideas ‘on the back burner’, awaiting the right time bring them to the boil, which really means waiting for the current systems to fail a bit more.
There is an option 4. And probably 5.
“Born to Run” was a great book, revealed some amazing capabilities within our species. Such as run down a gazelle. On foot. Pretty cool for the human, no so cool for the gazelle.
some quick shots: As far as attempting to mitigate against the ongoing and expanding simian induced devastation of the entire biosphere goes, the only ‘moral’ actions I can contemplate are all highly (so-called) “illegal” – so I won’t mention them here.
I feel your pain but do not share your optimism .. that simian ways and means can somehow be or ever will be even minimally modified much less overturned. In fact, the deeper and faster the world of ultimate shit-storms become the more vigorously and violently will the denial and devastation become. A tiger can’t change it’s stripes and the lion will never lie down with the lamb (except during its digestion). Misery monkeys are genetically wedded to their chromosomes and every bit of our programing holds that change, ntm radical change, is anathema. I’ve been wrong before and no doubt still as well as again. Your passion and concern is obviously real, valid and without question. I have no capacity to effect my own little world outside my door even tomorrow or next week much less to influence planetary events in the decades ahead. To say I wish it was otherwise is as pointless and irrelevant as it is mute.. I’ve long suggested that the ‘best thing’ that could happen on Earth is for Homo fuckwit to go extinct ASAP. How come there’s never an incoming asteroid coming in when the Earth truly needs one? Oh, but we are the asteroid … 7.5 Billion strong and climbing. Regardless, the Earth will shed ‘herself’ of us. We have met the enemy and it is us. Of man’s many flaws perhaps the greatest is that we have absolutely convinced ourselves that we are SO special and important (unique yes). I, for one, am neither albeit I’ve certainly acted as though I was through the majority of my existence. All good (and bad) things come to an end – and so shall I (as too all of us). If what you need to do is to ‘fight the good fight’, then by all means available, do so. My current fight is in finding sufficient detachment to not become terminally violent and cause further harm to others and/or myself. Good luck in your future endeavors. Life, it’s been said, is only truly ‘worth’ living once you’ve found something worth dying for. Sounds like you’ve done so. … as Deek says, much more on that story later ….
I understand. I’ve been there, but won’t dwell there. It’s not for me.
I’ve no illusions about this. It’s not optimism. Call it ‘constructive cynicism’ or whatever works. I’m not important either, but my efforts are.
Your brush paints too broad as mine often do. There are other things besides humans to fight for. If we don’t survive and live, then they won’t either because it will mean that nothing can live. Well, maybe the roaches will.
I used to have this moniker (name withheld) “A life worth living”. Life embraces life, not death. We all do it, every day. We need to keep doing it, every day. Otherwise, it is no more a life worth living. I’m not taking the Ruppert Route. Not yet.
But we need to makes some truly huge changes along the way.
‘In the face of the mind-boggling peril of climate change, feel the despair, then work harder
…..And serious action is what’s needed – urgently. To limit warming globally to 1.5 or 2°C, there’s a maximum budget of CO2 we can put into the atmosphere. At current emissions rates, the 2°C budget will be blown within 20 years, and the 1.5°C budget in only four or five. Living up to Paris will take a huge concerted effort from every country. One other thing that became clear last year, thanks to research from VUW scientists and others, is that 2 degrees of warming, and around 400ppm CO2, is close to a threshold for irreversible loss of big parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and part of the East Antarctic as well. That fits with geological records showing that sea levels were 10-20 metres higher back 3 million years ago, the last time we had CO2 levels as high as they are now.’
http://thespinoff.co.nz/science/11-01-2017/in-the-face-of-the-mind-boggling-peril-of-climate-change-feel-the-despair-then-work-harder/
Wish they’d stop babbling about 2C. It’s never meant what they claim. Also wish they’d stop babbling about the “budget”. This too is totally bogus. It is pretty well known already that coming full stop on all emissions immediately and forever still warms things up past both the 1.5C and 2C claims. So there is no budget. It’s bankruptcy.
And their simply wrong about the so-called ‘threshold’ claims for West Antarctica too, and the whole ‘irreversible’ claims to boot. If we’re having catastrophic ice loss now on virtually ALL ice world-wide, then the ‘threshold’ and ‘irreversible’ has already been reached. At far, far lower temperatures.
So in reality, all they’re doing now in articles like this is continuing to prevent the truth from coming out. They’re fabricating a entirely false history of what is really occurring.
The Limits to Growth revisited article I linked previously suggested economic collapse would occur around 2020.
This recent item from Nafeez Ahmed suggests we have a year or so before the next round of financial mayhem commences as a consequence of the declining oil availability. Though this time there will be no phony recovery based on fracking and extraction from tar sands etc.
Let’s face it, Peak Oil never went away, if just got postponed slightly.
‘Brace for the oil, food and financial crash of 2018
80% of the world’s oil has peaked, and the resulting oil crunch will flatten the economy’
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/brace-for-the-financial-crash-of-2018-b2f81f85686b#.as48qnawe
I rather hate HSBC, and highly distrust them. So having said that… the oil issue was always a matter of time. Some of us will be here to experience it.
There’s no way collapse will be avoided. They’re just moving the deck chairs now, which is going to increase in a frenzy of activity under the Orange One.
I’m looking past this for ideas on preservation. It’s an area I don’t see much thought going into.
I am at peace with what’s coming, largely due in part to my pragmatic nature, age, and decision not to have children.
My acceptance of the denier stranglehold on unfolding events is unfortunately strengthened when I read comments like this (from another forum about abrupt climate change):
“Pragmatically, we are the only species that matters, as far as we know, the only intelligent species to exist, ever. I have made my choice in this matter, just as you have made yours, and I’m sticking to my guns here. Our number one priority must be, should be, and is exactly what is happening today – we need to preserve our own species, even at the cost of all others. If the cost of that is a much simplified planet, humans and human food species alone, managed by humans and with an artificial diversity brought about by genetic engineering, so be it.
I did not say I would not be saddened by such a change, only what my priorities are. It is very possible that a new Einstein or Galileo will come from a humble 3rd world origin, and save both us and the planet by inventing a new energy source to replace FF’s. Thank you, I can sleep quite fine at night, the discomforts of arthritis aside, and I can even maintain a civil discourse with murderous and genocidal people who would prioritize the survival of other species over ours.”
I, too, admire your passion and feel your anguish but you are doomed to failure in your goals, in my opinion.
However, don’t stop trying. Miracles do happen.
He’s among those that need to be eradicated from the Earth.
I don’t have any ‘goals’ here. It’s not a goal – it’s an effort. The process of setting things right whether there is a ‘win’ or not. So its actually not possible to be ‘doomed’ either. We’re all ‘doomed’, but we’re not all making an effort. Nobody has put in enough effort if they’re still upright (you don’t stop trying).
I’ve no interest in saving this civilization in its present form. Or the indifferent people within it.
the misery monkey, aka anus ape, shit its own nest and is fully deserving of what happens as a consequence. ALL of the rest of the lifeforms on Earth – so-called (allegedly)) unintelligent or otherwise – did absolutely nothing to contribute to the predicament we’ve ‘intelligently’ created and are in NO way remotely ‘deserving’ of the devastation we have wrought upon them (ALL life) – past present and future. iF there is anything ‘worth saving’ on the Earth, it is the flora and fauna (biosphere) but IMO this decidedly does NOT include HOMO ingnoranus malignantii. FUCK the ape monsters very much, ntm since we are totally fkn fkd anyway. JHFC. As Einstein is said to have stated, “There are only two things that are infinite; the Universe and human stupidity … and I’m not sure about the former.” Ah Fkn Men.
I can’t disagree with that, Lonewolf. I can watch different species of animals playing and working and foraging side by side without running from each other, unless one of the species is man: then everybody splits. They know, and they’ll still be here when we’ve killed ourselves off.