«We are fucked» vs. «It’s not too late»
May 9, 2023 4:44 AM Subscribe
This is as much a problem of genre as a problem of ideology — or, more precisely, it is a problem of temporality: how we think about time. The « it’s not too late » of Earth for All misses what « we are fucked » demonstrates: a genuine grasp of tragedy. from Tragedy & farce in climate commentary by Ingo Venzke [European Review of Books; ungated]
The thing about the various doomisms is that they intersect so much.
Climate doomism intersects with political doomism which intersects with COVID doomism which intersects with the personal doomisms of the incels and femcels.
There are quite a lot of people who say things like "The climate is doomed and abortion rights are gone for good and COVID is forever and I'm never going to get a long term relationship".
There are relatively few people who say things like "The climate is doomed, but we can recreate abortion rights, and COVID is forever, but I think this new relationship could be the one".
That suggests to me that the doomisms are either personality traits or a subculture, rather than objective assessments of reality.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:41 AM on May 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
Climate doomism intersects with political doomism which intersects with COVID doomism which intersects with the personal doomisms of the incels and femcels.
There are quite a lot of people who say things like "The climate is doomed and abortion rights are gone for good and COVID is forever and I'm never going to get a long term relationship".
There are relatively few people who say things like "The climate is doomed, but we can recreate abortion rights, and COVID is forever, but I think this new relationship could be the one".
That suggests to me that the doomisms are either personality traits or a subculture, rather than objective assessments of reality.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:41 AM on May 9, 2023 [10 favorites]
There's another angle here which is pragmatism. Maybe it's spending too much time around dirty materialist Marxists and their philistine socialist-realist views on art but there's something to be said about asking of a particular view of reality, "what is this for?" "who does this motivate to do what?".
A lot of climate "denialism" by ordinary people (i.e. not hired ghouls) is cognitive dissonance. If a solution is impossible anyway, or would take measures that I know won't happen, then it better not be real. So let's fly to Disneyland, folks. Is it really sensible to think that the best future is just the same as now, but electric? Probably not on many levels, we don't have the kind of mineral and energy surplus required for everyone to have the EV equivalent of the F350 truck. On the other hand, maybe it's better to pretend a little that it does so that we can get the buy-in for the EV transition, the decarbonisation of electricity, and other necessary measures.
We can all pretend that e-fuels will keep holidays to Thailand possible if that's what it takes to make the required changes, and yeah at some point the realisation has to come that we don't have quite enough surplus energy when we're off the high of fossil fuels for that to happen, but hopefully we'll be on a less catastrophic path by then and can deal with that when we get there.
My objection to doomers is just that, really, not that they might not be right. Neither I nor they know that but certainly quite a lot of messy climate change is definitely now going to happen, but the objection is that the doom isn't good for anything. And no, something isn't in fact valuable just because it's true.
posted by atrazine at 7:43 AM on May 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
A lot of climate "denialism" by ordinary people (i.e. not hired ghouls) is cognitive dissonance. If a solution is impossible anyway, or would take measures that I know won't happen, then it better not be real. So let's fly to Disneyland, folks. Is it really sensible to think that the best future is just the same as now, but electric? Probably not on many levels, we don't have the kind of mineral and energy surplus required for everyone to have the EV equivalent of the F350 truck. On the other hand, maybe it's better to pretend a little that it does so that we can get the buy-in for the EV transition, the decarbonisation of electricity, and other necessary measures.
We can all pretend that e-fuels will keep holidays to Thailand possible if that's what it takes to make the required changes, and yeah at some point the realisation has to come that we don't have quite enough surplus energy when we're off the high of fossil fuels for that to happen, but hopefully we'll be on a less catastrophic path by then and can deal with that when we get there.
My objection to doomers is just that, really, not that they might not be right. Neither I nor they know that but certainly quite a lot of messy climate change is definitely now going to happen, but the objection is that the doom isn't good for anything. And no, something isn't in fact valuable just because it's true.
posted by atrazine at 7:43 AM on May 9, 2023 [9 favorites]
"The climate is doomed, but we can recreate abortion rights, and COVID is forever, but I think this new relationship could be the one".
Lol this is my stance in a perfect nutshell actually
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:45 PM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Lol this is my stance in a perfect nutshell actually
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:45 PM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
«We are fucked» vs. «It’s not too late»
Why not both?
There's a sliding scale of "fucked". NZ's just had another "one in a hundred year" weather event, one of many this year alone. A friend lost his house to flooding. That's fucked. But this is NZ and he's not going to starve because of losing his home. So he could be more fucked.
And yes, the best time to plant a tree/stop eating meat/ride a bicycle/stop flying/vote for politicians who take this seriously/etc... is twenty years ago. But doing those things now reduces emissions and will reduce the future pain.
It's never too late to take actions that will reduce the degree of fuckedness.
posted by happyinmotion at 1:50 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why not both?
There's a sliding scale of "fucked". NZ's just had another "one in a hundred year" weather event, one of many this year alone. A friend lost his house to flooding. That's fucked. But this is NZ and he's not going to starve because of losing his home. So he could be more fucked.
And yes, the best time to plant a tree/stop eating meat/ride a bicycle/stop flying/vote for politicians who take this seriously/etc... is twenty years ago. But doing those things now reduces emissions and will reduce the future pain.
It's never too late to take actions that will reduce the degree of fuckedness.
posted by happyinmotion at 1:50 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
A good thought provoking book review, and at this point its hard to think of anyyhing short of a panel of reviewers being able to wrap their hands around the topic to sort out plausible vs possible vs the best we can do etc.
One thing that makes me chuckle about the half-earth socialism is its a bit like the hostage giving a list of demands to the kidnapper. Like, global industrial competivite militstism capitalsm whatever-you-call it is still training, arming hiring and arming folks to kill the indigenous in the amazon to get the timber, minerals and farmland. Its doing the same on N. American reservations for uranium and pipelines, likewise for coal in australia etc. What makes you think you could proctect half the earth, you can't defeat one industrial high tech power, let alone three or five.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:04 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
One thing that makes me chuckle about the half-earth socialism is its a bit like the hostage giving a list of demands to the kidnapper. Like, global industrial competivite militstism capitalsm whatever-you-call it is still training, arming hiring and arming folks to kill the indigenous in the amazon to get the timber, minerals and farmland. Its doing the same on N. American reservations for uranium and pipelines, likewise for coal in australia etc. What makes you think you could proctect half the earth, you can't defeat one industrial high tech power, let alone three or five.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:04 PM on May 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Inside your head, think and feel what you want, as long as you take action
what actions?
all of them.
and if everyone does that then things will be ok for me?
no, things will get worse and faster for the rest of your life but everything you do and whatever anyone else does determines how many living things and how many kinds of living things get the chance to survive and adapt to the earth as its heat tops out. Get all the radioactive materials stored as safely as possible in the ground and as much of the other tocix waste immobilized and out of the air and water, try to save as much as you can for as long as you can so that as much life with as much diversity as possible can continue.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:11 PM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
what actions?
all of them.
and if everyone does that then things will be ok for me?
no, things will get worse and faster for the rest of your life but everything you do and whatever anyone else does determines how many living things and how many kinds of living things get the chance to survive and adapt to the earth as its heat tops out. Get all the radioactive materials stored as safely as possible in the ground and as much of the other tocix waste immobilized and out of the air and water, try to save as much as you can for as long as you can so that as much life with as much diversity as possible can continue.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:11 PM on May 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Pick a continent say N. America. 400mil-500mil people, 300mil cars, 400mil firearms. 95% of everything in that continent is less than 1 days drive from 1000 people.
No climate, no food. Not every year, mind you, just takes once. No food, 400 mil guns and cars. There is not a lot of wild animals, pets, or people that will make it out of that and be in any kind of shape to do it all over again next year.
The idea that you can have other policy wins and loses during the climate crisis is like thinking you could improve your resume or your health during a plane crash.
Making yourself feel better by denigrating the folks who are in less bargaining or denial than you seems unhelpful. Incels are terrorist misogenists. Climate doomers are people who don't believe optimistic falsehoods and may or maynot believe pessimistic falsehoods.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:21 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
No climate, no food. Not every year, mind you, just takes once. No food, 400 mil guns and cars. There is not a lot of wild animals, pets, or people that will make it out of that and be in any kind of shape to do it all over again next year.
The idea that you can have other policy wins and loses during the climate crisis is like thinking you could improve your resume or your health during a plane crash.
Making yourself feel better by denigrating the folks who are in less bargaining or denial than you seems unhelpful. Incels are terrorist misogenists. Climate doomers are people who don't believe optimistic falsehoods and may or maynot believe pessimistic falsehoods.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:21 PM on May 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
My goal is to become more than 50% of all comments in this thread and thereby "win metafilter".
So here's my response to that odd comment about people who didnt readLimits but supported it anyway because they are racist and needed an excuse to enact eugenics/genocide under the cover of environmentalism vis-a-vie population control.
1) racists taint everything they do, and many of the things they do aren't just accidentally racist, but are motivated and designed by racism.
2) there are many rival goods whose quantity or renewal rate are finite and within a scale of use such that there are ... ahem... limits to how much humans in total can use. this includes the pollution absorbing capacity of the atmopshere, soil and water.
3) who gets to enjoy the benefits of those materials or how those benefits are distributed is a political question. with many different horrible answers and a few less horrible ones.
4) high consumers must consume much much much less than they do now so that the total consumption is lowered to the point where it is sustainable and so that those without enough have enough to live decent lives.
5) the focus on consumption exclusively and the denial of population is for if you think you can defeat rich people and their armies AND you don't think poor people and minorities have a right to a better life.
I think thats wrong. When the rich have additional rich kids, the material harm is to the planet and to everyone else's kids, when the poor have kids, the material harm is to that family and those kids foremost and only a little to everyone else .
we have a world that coerces people to have more kids and penalizes those who dont. the one country notable for the one child policy is now the 2nd largest economy and a great power rival to the US.
But sure, its racist to want a better life for poor people.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:34 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
So here's my response to that odd comment about people who didnt readLimits but supported it anyway because they are racist and needed an excuse to enact eugenics/genocide under the cover of environmentalism vis-a-vie population control.
1) racists taint everything they do, and many of the things they do aren't just accidentally racist, but are motivated and designed by racism.
2) there are many rival goods whose quantity or renewal rate are finite and within a scale of use such that there are ... ahem... limits to how much humans in total can use. this includes the pollution absorbing capacity of the atmopshere, soil and water.
3) who gets to enjoy the benefits of those materials or how those benefits are distributed is a political question. with many different horrible answers and a few less horrible ones.
4) high consumers must consume much much much less than they do now so that the total consumption is lowered to the point where it is sustainable and so that those without enough have enough to live decent lives.
5) the focus on consumption exclusively and the denial of population is for if you think you can defeat rich people and their armies AND you don't think poor people and minorities have a right to a better life.
I think thats wrong. When the rich have additional rich kids, the material harm is to the planet and to everyone else's kids, when the poor have kids, the material harm is to that family and those kids foremost and only a little to everyone else .
we have a world that coerces people to have more kids and penalizes those who dont. the one country notable for the one child policy is now the 2nd largest economy and a great power rival to the US.
But sure, its racist to want a better life for poor people.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 6:34 PM on May 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Whoa, I kinda went off on one here. Well, anyway:
For a while I was tolerant of climate doomerism. I understood that dealing with someone else's optimism in the face of a seemingly impossible task was difficult, and didn't want to tell people how to cope with the approach of what are very likely going to be fairly major changes to the global order. But not anymore. I'm pretty sick of it now, actually.
As I read the piece, I can't help but notice the complete, glaring lack of something: statistics. There's not any a single figure included except the "60% of reserves are commodified" statistic, which in my opinion is used misleadingly.
Venzke just heaps on the endless narrative that we all wade in daily, that things are just getting worse, and nobody is doing anything, and nobody would ever accept what it takes anyway. For a problem that was supposed to be solved with science, I don't understand why our rhetoric surrounding it is all about emotion.
Don't people care about specifying or quantifying...
- What have we accomplished so far, and how?
- What would it really take? To stay below 1.5, 2.0, 2.5?
- What kind of progress have we made? How do things compare to 10 years ago?
- Assuming we can't accomplish all that is necessary, then what more is politically possible right now, and how much more mitigation could we achieve?
The key thing is what happyinmotion says above - there's "fucked" and then there's "fucked." A +2.4 C world would not be pleasant, but you would assuredly prefer it to a +2.8 world, or a +3.2 world.
And rhetoric about the end of human civilization is alarmist. That was maybe possible at one point, but we have already avoided the worst projections from the Inconvenient Truth era. Because measures have been taken. They have been insufficient, but not insignificant.
Here's a statistic. After growing by 31% in the 2000s, global emissions only grew by 6% in the 10s. And it didn't require a slowdown in growth in the developing world, or a major regression of living standards in the first - just application of existing technology and good policy. That kind of reduction is not business-as-usual. That's not nobody doing anything. That's not nothing being accomplished. That's hard work by legislators and regulators around the world, keeping hope alive.
We should really, really celebrate, not minimize, things like the [nonsensically/cynically-named] Inflation Reduction Act. The credits in that program were forecasted, by credible organizations, to get the US almost halfway towards its 2030 Paris emissions goals, and its programs have proven so popular that it's actually exceeding projections in impact (both atmospheric and budgetary). This was just a little reconciliation bill they snuck through in one weekend - somehow getting the official mascot of Coal to sign on - with just some tax breaks and coupons, basically. The government putting its thumb on the scale and making not polluting just a little bit less expensive than polluting. That gets us halfway! Could you imagine if we passed some real policies? Holy crap!
The whole "we haven't even begun to make a dent!" narrative gives the idea that some huge, unimaginable sacrifice is needed, that we all need to pay some terrible toll for modernity. Nah. We just need to tell the people who profit most from carbon being spewed into the atmosphere that the party's over, and they're going to have to get real jobs.
There's no "game over" screen here. There's no "fail condition." There's just a wide spectrum of possibilities ranging from "pretty much okay" to "I don't want to think about it." Every microgram of carbon we keep out of the atmosphere keeps us closer to the former than the latter. Every fight matters.
posted by mellow seas at 8:21 PM on May 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
For a while I was tolerant of climate doomerism. I understood that dealing with someone else's optimism in the face of a seemingly impossible task was difficult, and didn't want to tell people how to cope with the approach of what are very likely going to be fairly major changes to the global order. But not anymore. I'm pretty sick of it now, actually.
As I read the piece, I can't help but notice the complete, glaring lack of something: statistics. There's not any a single figure included except the "60% of reserves are commodified" statistic, which in my opinion is used misleadingly.
Venzke just heaps on the endless narrative that we all wade in daily, that things are just getting worse, and nobody is doing anything, and nobody would ever accept what it takes anyway. For a problem that was supposed to be solved with science, I don't understand why our rhetoric surrounding it is all about emotion.
Don't people care about specifying or quantifying...
- What have we accomplished so far, and how?
- What would it really take? To stay below 1.5, 2.0, 2.5?
- What kind of progress have we made? How do things compare to 10 years ago?
- Assuming we can't accomplish all that is necessary, then what more is politically possible right now, and how much more mitigation could we achieve?
The key thing is what happyinmotion says above - there's "fucked" and then there's "fucked." A +2.4 C world would not be pleasant, but you would assuredly prefer it to a +2.8 world, or a +3.2 world.
And rhetoric about the end of human civilization is alarmist. That was maybe possible at one point, but we have already avoided the worst projections from the Inconvenient Truth era. Because measures have been taken. They have been insufficient, but not insignificant.
Here's a statistic. After growing by 31% in the 2000s, global emissions only grew by 6% in the 10s. And it didn't require a slowdown in growth in the developing world, or a major regression of living standards in the first - just application of existing technology and good policy. That kind of reduction is not business-as-usual. That's not nobody doing anything. That's not nothing being accomplished. That's hard work by legislators and regulators around the world, keeping hope alive.
We should really, really celebrate, not minimize, things like the [nonsensically/cynically-named] Inflation Reduction Act. The credits in that program were forecasted, by credible organizations, to get the US almost halfway towards its 2030 Paris emissions goals, and its programs have proven so popular that it's actually exceeding projections in impact (both atmospheric and budgetary). This was just a little reconciliation bill they snuck through in one weekend - somehow getting the official mascot of Coal to sign on - with just some tax breaks and coupons, basically. The government putting its thumb on the scale and making not polluting just a little bit less expensive than polluting. That gets us halfway! Could you imagine if we passed some real policies? Holy crap!
The whole "we haven't even begun to make a dent!" narrative gives the idea that some huge, unimaginable sacrifice is needed, that we all need to pay some terrible toll for modernity. Nah. We just need to tell the people who profit most from carbon being spewed into the atmosphere that the party's over, and they're going to have to get real jobs.
There's no "game over" screen here. There's no "fail condition." There's just a wide spectrum of possibilities ranging from "pretty much okay" to "I don't want to think about it." Every microgram of carbon we keep out of the atmosphere keeps us closer to the former than the latter. Every fight matters.
posted by mellow seas at 8:21 PM on May 9, 2023 [11 favorites]
And rhetoric about the end of human civilization is alarmist.
It's simply a fact. The only part we don't know is when. I do not think that part is sad, and we should not deny it. It's about perspective.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:19 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's simply a fact. The only part we don't know is when. I do not think that part is sad, and we should not deny it. It's about perspective.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:19 AM on May 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
How to stop catastrophising
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:52 AM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
If a catastrophiser is told something inconclusive... they look for a way to feel in control again immediately. They learn to choose the worst possible outcome because it allows for the greatest sense of relief when they are reassured.If you feel absolute certainty about something that is extremely complex, and your certainty is that the worse possible case is true, it's quite likely that you are catastrophising rather than thinking objectively.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:52 AM on May 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
"It's simply a fact. The only part we don't know is when. I do not think that part is sad, and we should not deny it. It's about perspective."
I mean, okay, yes, humans becoming extinct is a fact - but the odds of it happening within our lifetimes, or within the next 10 or even 100 generations, are vanishingly small, and if it happens it will be because of nuclear war or a cosmic impact, not because of carbon emissions. "The extinction of humanity" doesn't really have anything to do with climate policy in 2023. Of all the terrible outcomes on the table with regards to climate change, extinction is not among them.
(I suppose climate change may contribute to extinction to whatever extent it causes political instability that could increase the odds of nuclear war. But that's different from a consequence climate change can have by itself.)
posted by mellow seas at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I mean, okay, yes, humans becoming extinct is a fact - but the odds of it happening within our lifetimes, or within the next 10 or even 100 generations, are vanishingly small, and if it happens it will be because of nuclear war or a cosmic impact, not because of carbon emissions. "The extinction of humanity" doesn't really have anything to do with climate policy in 2023. Of all the terrible outcomes on the table with regards to climate change, extinction is not among them.
(I suppose climate change may contribute to extinction to whatever extent it causes political instability that could increase the odds of nuclear war. But that's different from a consequence climate change can have by itself.)
posted by mellow seas at 7:03 AM on May 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
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I wanted Venzke to say something explicitly which, unless I missed it, he never did. Amid the arguments about the cloying weakness of "It's not too late" lurks the question: Too late for whom? The people who have already lost their homes, towns, lives or livelihoods, may point out it is, in fact, too late, because the crisis is happening now, has been happening for some time. To believe "it's not too late" isn't just tepid, it's delusional.
As we watch agreements being broken faster than they can be signed, and CO2 climbing faster still, the techno-optimists have retreated to EVs and batteries and the IRA (in the US at least), in the same way they retreated to "bending the curve" on healthcare costs a few years ago. We can't make things better, and we can't stop making things worse, but if we could stop making things worse quite as quickly, then that's a great victory to be celebrated. And you begin to see his point about the cruelty of that form of optimism, as the climate carnage piles up.
We are fucked. We really blew it! This thing could have been fixed, and it wasn't, and now our grandchildren will starve and suffer for the benefit of our present-day billionaires, who aren't even going to do anything interesting with the money. We didn't even get any pyramids or sphinxes out of the deal, just a lot of boring skyscrapers and a thousand years of streaming television.
I'm more curious now to read the half-earth book, which has been on my TBR since Verso first put it on sale a while back. Because I'm not sure I'd find it as bracing as Venzke. There's just something sad about big plans that you know will not, can not happen. I don't know if "sad" means the same thing as "tragic," I don't think it does. It's a different feeling. Unless you're allowed to have a sort of future-nostalgia, that sense of loss for what could have been. I imagine we'll all be feeling that, soon enough. And it will be a lot more honest than "it's not too late" ever was.
posted by mittens at 5:43 AM on May 9, 2023 [15 favorites]