Jan 6, 2022
Epoch Splinter Break
Emergencies of education, infrastructure, refugees, the climate, the environment, resources, the growth economy and, of course, the work that depends on it: the inflation of the recorded emergencies marks the Epoch Splinter Break as the end of the stories in which people worldwide dream of participating in the prosperity of growth societies.
The narrative of growth as the goal of history, in which we are embedded with our life stories, has come to an end. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated in an interview: “We need a more sustainable lifestyle. And time is pressing, especially with regard to our children and grandchildren.”
The party is over and we now need to clean up the trash and clear the decks. There’s a lot to do, we’re pretty darn late, and a lot of things are already broken for good. Let’s play it out on the climate. “We are the climate” writes Jonathan Safran Foer in his very artful book of the same name. Not the climate, not the growth societies, no, we are the problem. We are the problem because we do not see ourselves as a social global we and live accordingly. Despite all communication, networking and dependence, we all and all systems cook our own soup in the first place, as if the environment were only a framework condition and not a co-world in which everything coexists and depends on each other for survival.
Even the experts at McKinsey, who are not suspected of pessimism, are drawing up an imminent horror scenario for climate change that assumes hundreds of millions of endangered human lives and trillions of dollars in lost sales. The problem is simply us. Climate change is just a symptom of growth, which in turn is a symptom of a self-centeredness that undermines its own foundations.
Sustainable future?
But how can we ensure a future that is sustainable again? Through digitalization, AI- and Big Data-based sensible systems without Chinese autocracy, a globally valid legal order of responsible sharing of air, water, soil and resources? Through local cooperative economies that assure that the money isn’t going wild? This presupposes that the wealth profiteers do not understand this as a restriction and reduction of their quality of life, but as lived humanity which is the expression of a felt new responsibility as global citizens.
Of course we must feel this new responsibility ourselves. Nothing can force us to it, some things however can cause us to it, e.g. the Corona pandemic. Unlike climate change, corona affects us directly and, lo and behold, the majority of us behave responsibly. But who seriously wants to rely on Corona and its possible future mutations as a cause for a global change of consciousness and a sustainably effective brake on growth? Who seriously wants to count on other forms of environmental systemic self-regulation, such as the spread of the Lone Star tick due to global warming whose bite would give people with blood group B a lifelong allergy to meat which would significantly reduce CO2 emissions? There are still a lot of unforeseen things to come in this area.
Either way, the Epoch Break as the end of stories means nothing other than that we are all actors, extras or victims in the last possible story. This new grand narrative of the last story is unsurpassed in drama. It deals with the “either” of a self-extinction resulting from the environmental system — accompanied by drought, flood, brutal distribution struggles, prophets and apocalyptic horsemen — or the “or” of a salvation of the environment and human future as far as possible, influenced by figures of light, heroes and wire-pullers of all kinds.
In fact, since the beginning of climate change denial in 1954, the number of those who awaken from their indifference, resignation or melancholy and see themselves as flag-bearing actors of the last story is growing virally. With a very high identification potential, they feel and live activistically the new responsibility on which everything really depends.
The followers of Extinction Rebellion (XR) are way out in front. Their common struggle with many other climatarians is perceived by many at XR as redeeming and liberating. At XR, people come together who want to change something and thus bring real, motivating meaning back into their lives. They counter the belief in the growth society with their belief in the end-time vision of fighting the decisive battle of the last history, in which their own life stories alone are justified.
In fact, nobody knows exactly if and when the human world will end. That could be the case tomorrow or maybe next week due to an asteroid or a nuclear strike, but definitely in 100 years at the latest if we continue to miss even minimal climate targets.
Of course, everything has always changed. That’s not new. What is new is that the world because it is currently being completely influenced by humans, could with a certain probability soon be ruled by ants or other tiny creatures that prove to be heat-resistant and fallout capable of surviving which irreversibly overturns all of our human plans and ambitions will throw.
Nevertheless, it makes no sense to get stuck on a demotivating apocalyptic doomsday trip including a hangover because that’s nothing but a perfidious kind of self-pity. We are only delaying what is currently pending, be it only a small or large contribution, in order to delay the downfall or perhaps even to avert it entirely.
Who knows?
From: Epochensplitterbruch, first published on German on: Medizindoc
