What Is It That People Need to Hear?
And how can we convey the message so that people who don’t want to hear what they need to hear actually become willing to hear?
Well, Pogo told us in 1970 what we needed to hear (that we moderns are the enemy of life on Earth and posterity too).
And Ruben Nelson has more recently told us that we don’t have a climate change problem or even an ecological overshoot problem. We have a form of non-viable civilization condition that has no solution that involves the persistence of modern techno-industrialized (MTIed) humans as such. To transcend our current non-viable condition will involve Transcending Our MTI Form of Civilization.
Okay, if so, then no problem, we just need to make transcending our MTI form of civilization fun and profitable. If the solution is irresistibly attractive (better than sex) and easy peasy, then sign me up.
Oh, but what the…#!$$$$$?????
Rapid depopulation and contraction of the economy? That doesn’t sound like fun. Maybe profitable for some, but I’m guessing not even close to better than sex, so….
The question may be: How can we convey the message so some fraction of one percent of people can actually consider the message? If as many as one in a million can, then given that they are few, likely idiosyncratic, and spread out far and wide, can a few humans find a common ground to stand on to work cooperatively together to iterate towards a viable outcome for humanity (posterity) and the biosphere (if not 8 billion modern humans)?
That’s the idiosyncratic question I’ve boiled all other questions down to. If the common ground is non-ideological (ideology, abstract systems of belief, being the sine qua non of MTI culture along with technology of course), then we may need a new form of human, or rather a return to a non-ideological form of human with appropriate technology we have forgotten ever existed.
And there would need to be enough potentially viable humans to form a founder population (several to many populations would be better) that has the potential for evolving a viable form of civilization that does not mis-take its view of the world for the world. A recognition of the need to do so has yet to emerge, so far as I know. Likely not good news for 10 year old.
The pre-contact Inuit population on 1.5 million sq km of Canada’s Arctic (Northern Arctic Ecozone) was about 2,000 people compared to 15,000 people today.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the first people in the Arctic arrived around 40,000 years ago in northeastern Siberia. The earliest inhabitants of North America’s central and eastern Arctic were the Arctic small tool tradition (AST), which existed around 2500 BCE (4500 BP). The AST included several Paleo-Eskimo cultures, such as the Independence cultures and Pre-Dorset culture. The Dorset culture, which evolved between 1050–550 BCE, was the next inhabitant of the central and eastern Arctic, but disappeared around 1500 CE, except for on the Quebec / Labrador Peninsula.
Without modern energy and materials inputs, figure a 99% die off of humans if there were 200 people left who could make a living on a vastly degraded landscape (figure 0 modern humans).
If you don’t live in Canada’s vastly degraded landscape, that’s okay, just look around. Estimate the pre-modern fossil-fueled techno-industrial population and divide by ten (and realize you are being optimistic and divide by 10 again).
“By 13 ky ago, there were almost 410,000 people in Europe.” Let’s see, current population is about 746 million. Figure it will take 500 years for forests to regrow and soils to somewhat recover. So figure an initial 99.9% depopulation if low-intensity (no direct or indirect fossil fuel inputs or mined materials) agriculture is widespread.
Oh, but don’t figure the die-off collapse event will all be over in 50–70 years and the remnant population can recover to rebuild modern techno-industrial civilization after the bad old days are over (like in the movie, The Postman).
The only prior example of a large-scale regional collapse was that of the Indus Valley Civilization. It took the population of the Indus Valley, from its peak, 600 years to decline to regional extinction. Our global population is nearing peak humans.
That it had existed only became known to archaeologists in the 1920s.
Think about it. Take your time.
But not much.
No literate Harappans survived and likely passed on their literacy beyond a generation or two, and after 20 generations on the downslope, 500 years, the evidence is that there was no one left to do more than keep on doing what had worked for 500 years on the downslope — think about 20 generations on the downslope and what life on the downslope selects for. Make computer models to model our likely future, if that might help. What works on the downslope is taking resources (which is what worked on the upslope — for a time).
Any pockets of viable humans will be resources for the taking, and globally the downslope period may take longer than 600 years to have the same outcome. The only other large-scale collapse was the Late Bronze Age collapse that selected for Sea and Land Peoples (marauding horde culture), the most “successful” being the Philistines who also failed to persist (though Egypt and Middle Assyrian empires managed not to be overrun as did other outlying populations as the collapse event was regional, not global). Modern humans are vastly more interdependent and face a global collapse event.
The pattern of collapse to extinction has played out on smaller scales numerous times, and the belief that it couldn’t happen globally is belief-based. Global extinction might just take longer.
Underestimating the challenge of sidestepping extinction will increase the probability of extinction as the outcome (as will denial).