More Than One Can Bear

I'm in a reading group for Speed & Scale by the venture capitalist John Doerr. The book does emphasize the urgency of reducing carbon emissions and the need for scale which is often overlooked when exciting new technologies are proposed. The numbers "add up" in a general sense, but any details are quickly overwhelming--how much of this plan is truly politically and technically possible?

And so I come across more and more material addressing the sense that humans need to come to terms with the situation we have created. It's not a new point of view to me. But some lessons need to be repeated to be understood. A video by Michael Dowd, "Hopium Dealers Hall of Fame", quotes William Catton from Overshoot:

Ecological understanding of the human predicament indicates that we live in times when the American habit of responding to a problem by asking "All right, now what do we do about it?" must be replaced by a different query that does not assume all problems are soluble: "What must we avoid doing to keep from making a bad situation unnecessarily worse?"

The video "Blip" by Chris Clugston highlights the coming end of humanity's overconsumption of non-renewable resources. For example, simply switching to electric vehicles (as promoted by the Inflation Reduction Act) does nothing to alter an unsustainable way of life. Books like An Inconvenient Apocalypse by Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen and Power by Richard Heinberg warn against "technological fundamentalism" and point to the need to learn to live within limits.

Even an exploration of animal intelligence, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal by Justin Gregg, expresses the paradox that humans may ultimately be a less successful species specifically due to our complex intelligence.

It is still quite difficult to imagine that a collapse is likely. The Covid pandemic already seems challenging enough--what will people do as life gets progressively worse for us all? Already, a single person can have enough of a following to credibly threaten violence--can we really produce the levels of cooperation needed to avoid the worst outcomes?

I find death hard to talk about. I know it's there, but I don't want to think about it. It's so easy to go day to day as if time just didn't matter. My mom's death seemed to come faster than I expected. There's just no way to know the timing. It feels more important, but not easy, to be prepared. Elizabeth West offers "Learning How to Die: Finding Meaning in the Midst of Collapse".

If we tell ourselves the truth, we know that things will never "get back to normal".

[I]n everyone’s personal life—and now in the life of the Earth– there comes a point when a convergence of natural forces relays the message that we are no longer the master of our physical fate.

We are now primarily in the realm of palliative measures. I continue to bow—with profound respect– to the activists who are using their lives, possibly their last breaths, to defend pieces of this beautiful planet and the various worthy species (including our own), to soften suffering, or to call for justice, but I no longer hold out hope for any sweeping worldly victories. And with that recognition, I find myself asking: What is my role? How can I do this well? How do I find meaningful direction in the midst of this often frightening process of dissolution?

Of course there is grief –and anger–when we contemplate the loss, the suffering. And it all must be honored. But if these are allowed to overtake us, if despair and hopelessness are left to eclipse all else, then we may miss our opportunity to prise from this process all that It has to offer, to transcend our egos’ addiction to survival at all cost, to become who we always believed we could be, to live as if each breath and each thought and each word matters. We may miss the only chance we have to learn to die well.

Even as you attend to the mundane, using whatever tools you need to stay afloat, go ahead and learn how to die. Start by taking the radical step of showing up, heart open to all that is, even and especially when so much is dying around you. Resist the instinct to flee, fight or freeze. This is not about surviving, it is about living. While the world we have known dies.

Using the F-word

Amanda Marcotte praises President Biden for acknowledging what most people avoid saying out loud.

What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It's not just [Fuckface], it's the entire philosophy that underpins the — I'm going to say something — it's like semi-fascism.

Marcotte argues that an honest discussion of the threat to democracy needs to be blunt.

Yes, a lot of Republicans are not personally invested in a fascist ideology but are merely conservatives who go along with [Dear Leader] to maintain their own power.

The first step to getting people to wake up is chipping away at the wall of denial that fascism could happen in America. Just hearing the word used a lot in respect to American politics will help whittle away that defensive head-in-the-sand reaction.

Update (August 29):  Heather Digby Parton notes that toadies such as Senator Lindsey Graham are echoing Dear Leader's threats.

The fact that [Fuckface] is leveraging this particular power to incite violence around these legal cases is a sign of weakness. He cannot persuade anyone who isn't already persuaded and party officials are with him only out of fear or as long as he is useful to them. Calling for riots in the streets is a nuclear option that may or may not detonate the way he thinks it will. But it has the potential to blow the country apart either way.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre points out that Graham's "riots in the streets" comment proves Biden's point.

We have seen MAGA Republicans attack our democracy. We have seen MAGA Republicans take away our rights. Make threats of violence, including this weekend [by Senator Graham], and that is what the president was referring to when you all asked me last week about the "semi-fascism" comment.

Update (August 31):  Amanda Marcotte argues that prosecution is the best way to counter threats of violence.

[Fuckface] is leveraging the fears of another January 6 — or worse — in hopes that it will intimidate law enforcement into backing down and letting him commit crimes, even possible espionage, in peace.

[Dear Leader's supporters are] entranced by his apparently bottomless power to rewrite reality and force others, including federal law enforcement, to kowtow to his lies. ... [But that] power is built on sand. Once his backers feel he's lost his magical ability to impose his will over reality, they will stop being so into him.

And John Stoehr defends Biden's language.

If the president says some of the Republicans are fascist, and that the soul of democracy is at stake in the coming midterms, that probably indicates that he believes a majority of Americans is behind him. (It indicates, especially, that respectable white people are behind him.) I can’t imagine him using the "f-word" if he thought for a millisecond that using it jeopardized the Democrats’ majorities in the Congress.

Update (September 1):  William Saletan also defends using the "f-word".

Biden was right. Many of the ideas and tactics deployed by [Dear Leader] and his apologists, including those who decry Biden’s comparison, fit the dictionary definition of fascism.

[His] cult includes many components common to previous fascist movements—paranoia, fantastic lies, anti-intellectualism, a mythologized national past, selective appeals to law and order, and propaganda about enemies of the state.

Saletan describes many instances falling under that definition. Using "emergency powers to override the will of Congress" over the border wall. Discussions to seize voting machines. Endorsing calls for political violence. Attempting to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Embracing authoritarian leaders such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. As usual, the Right points to the Left as the real fascists.

Update (September 2):  President Biden didn't use the "f-word" again, but he did give a warning.

For a long time, we've reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us. MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people and refuse to accept the results of a free election.

Heather Digby Parton isn't at all surprised by the resulting GOP hissy fit.

[Referring to Biden as] Satanic, Hitler, Nazi, that's all fine. Just don't call [them] semi-fascist. That would be wrong, very wrong.

And Amanda Marcotte critisizes journalists who boil everything down to partisanship.

Do they level with their readers and tell them Biden is telling the unvarnished truth? Or do they sidestep the issue of what is true, in favor of the usual "he said/he said" coverage that refuses to adjudicate, even when one side is plainly lying?

Update (September 7):  Paul Street doesn't hesitate to call out fascists--no "semi" required. He takes issue with Biden's basic remedy of merely voting for Democrats.

Do what you want for two minutes in a ballot booth once every two and/or four years but the historical record is clear as day: in the absence of militant people's movements beneath and beyond the holy ruling class electoral spectacles, nothing progressive is going to be achieved and Democrats in nominal power will consistently give way to officeholders from a major capitalist party that has crossed into fascist space.

Update (September 9):  Amanda Marcotte notes that 58 percent of Americans agree with the president's warning.

Biden is betting that a significant chunk of Republicans are harboring doubts about [Orangeman]. The polling suggests this suspicion has some merit. One out of four Republicans polled by Reuters agreed that [Dear Leader] and MAGA are a threat to democracy. True, that's only a minority of Republicans and far from the "mainstream" of the party. But Republicans still need those voters to win elections. If they start to lose some of those folks because of [Fuckface], it could go a long way towards weakening [his] power and derailing the MAGA movement.

Mineral Shortages

A study by Simon Michaux titled "The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth" finds that renewable energy technology is facing practical limits from the availability of necessary elements.

It is clear that society consumes more mineral resources each year. It is also clear that society does not really understand its dependency on minerals to function. The recycling industry is still in its infancy and is only just gaining momentum. Even when fully developed, industrial recycling cannot facilitate the transformation of the industrial ecosystem as a single solution. The mining of minerals is not only necessary in parallel to a fully developed recycling network but will be needed at an unprecedented volume to supply the construction of the post fossil fuel industrial system. Availability of minerals could be an issue in the future, where it becomes too expensive to extract metals due to decreasing grade. Discovery of new deposits is also decreasing.

Arctic Amplification

From a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment titled "The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979":

[W]e show, by using several observational datasets which cover the Arctic region, that during the last 43 years the Arctic has been warming nearly four times faster than the globe, which is a higher ratio than generally reported in literature.

In addition, some Arctic regions have warmed as much as seven times the global average. 

Update (August 15):  Jonathan Bamber discusses the implications of the findings.

Although there are some regional differences in the magnitude of Arctic amplification, the observed pace of Arctic warming is far higher than the models implied. This brings us perilously close to key climate thresholds that if passed will have global consequences.