Embracing Uncertainty

We all would like to know what to expect for our future. And science is a tool used to forecast possibilities. If we get the science right, we hope, we are in better position to make decisions and anticipate results. But, of course, there are no guarantees. The science may be complicated and the debate ensues.

Robert Hunziker points to a lengthy critique of Jem Bendell's work called "The Faulty Science, Doomism, And Flawed Conclusions Of Deep Adaptation" by Thomas Nicholas, Galen Hall, and Colleen Schmidt. Bendell is not the only person to discuss the potential collapse of civilization. Bendell also has a response to the critique.

Possibly assuming good intentions all around, Hunziker doesn't seem to come down on one side or the other in the debate.

Still and all, according to [the three authors], the sky is not falling… just not yet!

Meanwhile, kudos to Jem Bendell for bringing to the surface issues that haunt many followers of the planet’s very, very rambunctious, and unpredictable, changing climate. He’s opened the door to solid debate and criticism and an awareness of two important viewpoints that otherwise would not be so readily available in a public forum.

On the other hand, Chris Smaje condemns "business as usual porn" and says it is useful for society to discuss collapse. Modern life makes it too easy to assume our technology will simply protect us from the "malign contingencies of the world" and that most of us couldn't provide for basic needs without a highly specialized division of labor. Maybe the scientific debate over the timing and meaning of collapse doesn't address the loss of a mentality held by other cultures.

In his lovely book about foraging and hunting peoples, Hugh Brody describes a very different situation among the Inuit hunters with whom he lived. Every journey across the ice was rimed with potential danger, which was freely acknowledged. The Inuit were well aware of the malign contingencies of the world over which they had little ultimate control – a situation that made them neither fearful, nor selfish, nor angry, nor sad, but in some sense alive within a culture that had to deal with it. And they had many skills for dealing with what came their way, as hunters, builders, navigators, craftspeople and so on. My sense is that they didn’t spend much time debating whether they were optimistic or pessimistic about their uncertain future, nor in honouring leaders who cheekily mocked 'project fear' and lambasted 'doomsters and gloomsters'. Instead, they carefully assessed the dangers ahead that they perceived, prepared themselves as best they could to mitigate them, but were open to the inscrutable workings of uncontrollable contingency.