Civilization/Collapse

“We don’t know how to be a civilization without fossil fuels” writes umair haque.

It’s the most succinct summarization of our current times I’ve read. It’s like a 15 year old with a debit card accessing their fairly rich parents’ account with no maturity, restraint, or sense of balance. Over enough time and with enough lack of maturity, and with billions of such kids, the account’s running low at least from the point of the view of the ecological niche we’ve adapted to and depend on.

We’re just not waking up to this. We’re focused on Threads, when the last 4 days have been the hottest on the planet. We’re planning more infrastrucure (cement, sand aka the destruction of mountains and rivers, and tar that’s even more fossil fuel), more new and shiny toys and an ever growing economy.

Amitav Ghosh called it The Great Derangement. It’s exactly what it is. But that didn’t work. Umair’s blogs haven’t worked. Even the very popular “Don’t Look Up” failed. The ever more frequent floods and wildfires and potentially imminent crop failures aren’t working. The omniscient devices, beautiful pictures on Instagram and high speed data everywhere have created the Matrix, surely and not-even-slowly. And we’re stuck inside it. There’s no Red Pill, either.

Sorry, kids. We’ve mostly likely failed you. Some of us will try nevertheless, and hopefully create a few islands of experiements, knowledge, nature that we might be able to rebuild on. But perhaps I’m just being hopeful when I say that.

Perhaps I should just head to the farm, learn better to grow the food we need, fix the leaks in the roof, clean the well. Perhaps the growing of the little patch of biodiversity around us is the best response as we slip further into collapse.