Steve: – What seems to be missing in every discussion, with regard the looming predicament in which humanity appears to find itself now, is the absence of a sense of urgency in the face of clear and present danger.

Trinifar: – As I said, I agree there is great value in putting the shocking reality in front of people. It is of course very necessary to state the problem clearly and even starkly.

John: – We need to generate the motivation to act to avert as much of the crisis as possible.

- —

You know what. I believe the time must come, pretty soon (as soon as possible), when human beings (societies, countries, continents, etc.) must start to adapt to a situation which can be known as “A State of Collective Desperation” – a psychological / mental tipping point must be reached; a point when all humans accept the basics of the climate change / global warming science.

If there’s one fear I am hoping can become a part of the collective psyche, it must be the fear of fossil-fuels. Such a fear would hardly be irrational at all. To the contrary.

We’re getting undisputable proof that there is a clear connection between items like the use of fossil-fuels, enhanced greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change. But for some odd reason, people (individuals and societies) seem to fear the idea of turning our backs of coal, gas, and oil.

We should be able to call this a lesson of history: the age of fossil-fuels must come to an end, and a new age of solar energy, wind energy, wave energy, and possibly also nuclear energy, must commence. – Now. Not later. Now. Not in 10 or 20 years time. Why wait?

A collective sense of self-preservation, based on science and hard natural evidence, should make way for such a development.

But okay: like Al Gore said (quoting someone in his film, and referring to a political energy advisor turned Exxon-boss): “You can’t teach a man something if his salary depends on his not knowing about it.”

And the proper way of saying “Two-thousand-and-seven”, would be: “1984″

:-/

Thanks for the references. And you and Paul are right that that’s an important point about how our brains have evolved, enabling us to have survived as hunter-gatherers, dealing with immediate threats, but tending not to want to be bothered with long-term threats.

We’ve had discussion here before about our collective “denial” of the realities facing us. These comments about how the brain evolved flesh those out.

Do you know if anyone has made an effort to outline ways by which we might overcome this in dealing with the ecological/human crisis we face? That would, to some extent, address Trinifar’s concern. We need to generate the motivation to act to avert as much of the crisis as possible.

I’m not sure Paul holds out a lot of hope for anything more than some limited damage control, but perhaps with a real groundswell of change on something approaching a global level, we might approach Trinifar’s ideal scenario.

On Paul’s site he mentions the kind of media saturation climate change has had doing the trick to spur change. I think we’re going to need that for the whole “world problematique.” But for now, articles and reports in the mainstream press do a terrible job of making the links between all the interrelated aspects of the problem. (Mostly we just hear about climate change, consumption levels, and technology.) That said, one key, I think, is that in this short attention span age we need to keep the message simple. Simple but accurate summaries, models, and explanations people can grasp and remember stand out to me as perhaps an obvious, but important requirement for getting large numbers of people talking about this stuff.

Believe it or not, I’m getting criticism from other quarters that my simulation is too optimistic.

Well, you run in a pretty tough crowd. :*)

Interesting comments. I still hope some of your assumptions turn out to be too pessimistic, and that some unaccounted for positive elements turn out to have a lot of influence. But interesting…

I am surprised that no one specifically commented on that observation. I have read a number books on evolution, as well as books on how the human brain has evolved. Paul has done a excellent nice job of summarizing what many evolutionists and cognitive psychologists have written on the subject. Believe me, their writings aren’t easy to summarize.

For anyone who wants to solve the problem of getting people to take action on seemingly distant, but serious problems, instead dealing exclusively with short term problems, check out the following resources. It will give you a much better idea of what we’re up against.

Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett
Evolution of Consciousness, Robert Ornstein
The Illusion of Conscious Will, Daniel Wegner
A Mind of It’s Own, Cordelia Fine

Fine’s and Ornstein’s books are written for a general audience. However, Dennett and Wegner’s books; depending upon your background, can be long and difficult to read. Both authors were writing for their peers. That said, I believe they all expose the root of our problem.

It will be difficult to get people to take action on long term problems without understanding the underlying workings of the human brain. As you might guess, the findings of these authors are completely at odds with the popular notion of how the human brain works. Simply stated, people don’t like having their fragile world-view challenged. Also, be advised, these books might cause you to rethink your notions of self. In deed, that may be the crux of the problem.

But let me come out of the closet:

I think the end result 25, 50, 100 years from now is a world that is vastly different than the one we now inhabit. Assuming the best, most proactive steps are taken with respect to population (humane ethical approaches to reducing global population), technology (total commitment to renewables, no use of fossil fuels), and economy (some kind of libertarian/egalitarian socialism) we could be living sustainably in a world with high life expectancy, low infant mortality, and a decent standard of living for all. But it would be a very different world.

This best of all possible futures does not include cars that go from 0 to 60 in three seconds or easy access to perishable goods from far away, because the cost of energy will be very high. That is the price we pay for sustainability. It may be that owning a personal car that you can drive anywhere you want on roadways that go pretty much everywhere will be looked back on as a quaint and foolishly short-sighted idea. Similarly for shipping, flying, and trucking vast quantities of products and resources all around the globe. Localization is a necessary part of high-living-standard sustainability.

With the best of all possible futures being a really hard sell today, the less optimal and more likely scenarios — involving thirst, hunger, resource wars, higher level of climate change leading to a much lower standard of living in a much more degraded environment — become increasing frightening.

I’m searching for ways to better describe, support, and where necessary modify this vision of the best possible future to provide a positive goal in the midst of the scary alternatives. As I said above, it takes a mix of approaches to get attention and motivate action.

If the crowded theater is on fire we need to shout “Fire!” It’s also rather beneficial to point to the emergency exit and try to get people out of danger without them trampling each other.

Believe it or not, I’m getting criticism from other quarters that my simulation is too optimistic.

I’m not sure if I would characterize my motives for writing it as trying to win people over to my point of view. The concept of human dieoff is simply too outrageous for most people to accept on someone else’s assurance, no matter how well reasoned. Most people arrive at that conclusion on their own, usually from following a chain of reasoning that starts from other points well distant from the goal.

My hope is that people who read it will use the possibility of such an endpoint to help them tease out significance and connections between otherwise unconnected dots in the world around them. Also, the idea is so extreme that it will stick in peoples’ minds even if they do nothing else with it. Then as the decline begins to unfold they may say, “Oh crap, I understand what’s happening here!” and take some action that is just enough ahead of the curve to give them some personal advantage.

I agree Paul’s essay shocks. That can be problematic in winning people over. On the other hand, it has going for it some very solid reasoning, which makes it hard to dismiss. It may be a bit of a worst case scenario, but it’s a well constructed one. I think if you’re going to go out on a limb with fairly dire predictions, your argument better be very solid. Paul’s seems to be.

_______

Lo,

Thanks for the ideas and words of support. I think you’re right that the best defense is a good offense when it comes to the race issue. And yeah, I do think it will help to jump on anything smacking of eugenics. (Though I don’t want to spend much time reading the sites of racist groups. But anything that comes up in the media, yeah…)

In the Art of War

“Attack is the secret of defense; defense
is the planning of an attack.”

_____________________________
In America there is no way you can have this conversation and pretend like the race thing doesn’t exist, if you do no one is going to take you seriously. That is the number one reason no one is going to talk about this issue, so unless you can over come that, this cause will be lost.

I think the internet is an awesome tool. If you are able to market what you do online as legit and be consistent, you can gain a following. Growth is doing a good job talking about this issue. John you’re the point person on this issue. You need to make your self an authority and jump on anything that seems even a little bit eugenics. If you keep it going and everyone sees that your forum is not filled with crazies, hey people like money, they aren’t going to risk it if they think people aren’t going to be into it. You should make Growth the guinea pig site.

_______________________________
“The publication (magazine or newspaper) depends on the money which stems from advertisement. And what’s advertisement doing, really, if not making sure that the consumerist culture remains alive and well. I think you can see the paradox? ” Magne

I realize that I am very screwed. I read All the Presidents Men and stayed up late watching the Killing Fields and thought that journalism had integrity or something…if I had known I was going to spend half my time writing fluffy stories about art openings and the other half writing about bars…

Anyways that’s why I do my blog. I need to be connected with truth without concern for people’s feelings. I know that in print, connected to a larger entity I am never going to get to write about what I want to write about the way I want to write about it. Yes there is a “market” for what I write about low-impact living, environmental issues, and veganism, but I don’t have sprinkled throughout my writings things you can buy. Editors do not like that.

Lo

Paul Chefurka’s population essay (linked above) is a different approach, one that I appreciate if used carefully. It’s about shocking people to garner attention for the subject. Steve also favors this approach.

It’s going to take a mix. Personally I want more thoughtful discussion about solutions and better descriptions of the precise nature of the problem. The shock approach is only useful if, once you have gotten attention, you can offer meaningful action otherwise you become discounted as an alarmist nut. So I’d like to know much more about organizations working effectively to coordinate activists and/or providing concrete action plans to lay people like me.

Luckily most of things being proposed to mitigated population growth are also effective in other areas which are now getting higher visibility (e.g. climate change, peak oil, water issues, human rights).

Much to think about. More later.