“How Everything Can Collapse: Excerpt”
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020 ... e-excerpt/“The birth of ‘collapsology’ Despite the high quality of some of the philosophical reflections on this topic, the debate on collapse (or ‘the end of a world’) fails because of the absence of factual arguments. It is stuck in imaginary or philosophical speculation without any real factual grounding. The books dealing with collapse are usually too specialized, restricted by their point of view or discipline (archaeology, economics, ecology, etc.), while more systematic discussions are full of gaps…Not only do we lack any real inventory – or better, any systematic analysis – of the planet’s economic and biophysical situation, but above all we lack an overview of what a collapse might look like, how it might be triggered and what it would imply in psychological, sociological and political terms for the present generations. We lack any real applied, transdisciplinary science of collapse…Immersing ourselves in the word ‘collapse’, understanding its subtleties and nuances, distinguishing between fact and fantasy – these are some of the objectives of collapsology. We need to take this notion apart and conjugate it in different tenses to give it texture, detail, and nuance: we need, in short, to make of it a living and fully operational concept…Moreover, the world is not uniform. The question of ‘North-South relations’ needs to be considered in a new light…It’s a book that attempts lucidly to set out the facts, to ask relevant questions, and to assemble a toolbox which will make it possible to grasp the subject other than through Hollywood disaster movies, the Mayan calendar or ‘techno-bliss’. We are not just presenting a ‘top ten’ of the century’s bad news stories, we are mainly proposing a theoretical framework for hearing about, understanding and welcoming all the small-scale initiatives that are already facing up to the ‘post-carbon’ world, initiatives that are emerging at breakneck speed.”
REAL Green has been the result of my evolution of collpase studies since 1999 with my early experience with Y2K. That turned out to be a hoax but it inspired me to systematic dangers. I already had been exposed to peak oil and climate change in college in 85. I have since evolved over 20 years with actual life style of a person managing a collpase process. This is both for myself and those who come after me. I am constructing a monestary to offer my experiences and things I have gathered. I no longer am looking for the event. I am concerned with the process. I no longer look to the top to deal with the process. I am pointing to the individual in his local of people and place to adapt and mitigate what is coming.
I am talking about a hybrid arrangement of using growth to degrowth. This hybridization also involves leveraging the old ways that are robust with modern best practices and things. I am talking about triage to embrace priorities because this is about increasing poverty and poverty means sacrifice. This sacrifice is both physical and mental. Most of all I am talking about acceptance. This behavioral mindset allows one to live a status quo life as they find meaning in decoupling from the status quo. This decoupling is relative to ones unique local of people and place.
All humans are trapped in planetary succession and the human Anthropocene carbon trap plus the human narrative that is path dependent. While I believe much can be done by humans concerning the dangers ahead it is my point of view we are fated to decline and possibly collapse because of planetary succession combine with path dependencies that got humans to where they are at. Most of all, the planet dictates this because it is clearly in succession. Human civilization is suffering decline because of a clear scientific picture of overshoot of both population and consumption. Humans are at thresholds of diminishing returns. The effects of diminishing returns are non-linear at a point and the result is a cascade of thresholds being breached. It is the converging of destructive planetary change and the declining human ecosystem that marks an inflection point. The scale of time and location is a key variable to embrace for the individual. Humans are mortal and place is a real spot on a vast map. If one embraces this process with a time and a place scale then real meaning can be found.
Books like “How Everything Can Collapse” are very useful for a person embracing decline. This way of life also involves the academics of the process. REAL Green seeks an edge and guidance from the academics of the process. Timing and location are critical elements for an individual. There is likely still time to relocate. This relocation is not only with place but people. If you are living in a place with no future and can move then do it. This is also true of your local of people that are the groups or the significant other in your life. Leave them or try to adapt them. If none of this is an option then acceptance of and end game is called for. Find meaning that comes with the acceptance of the end of normal. Choose palliative care to adapt to an end game. This becomes a hospice mentality with a lifeboat of things.
This all has to be done in the surreal of living in a world you are making efforts to leave. This world is relative also because often one person’s strategy is not applicable to an others because of how very different locals of people and place are. It is about adapting your dependence on networks and systems. You can’t leave these but you can orientate properly to them in an effort at risk management. This means prepping as insurance to their failure.
Once meaning has been found and an effort at risk management of prepping embraced this is when the journey can become an effort at going green. REAL Green calls this green prepping. What is good for the individual is also green for the planet. A lower footprint of scaling locally in low carbon capture and conservation is also more resilient. This is where the journey also becomes one of education and training. It is where theory meets practice. This is where talking meets lifestyle.
Life is about mortality but also rebirth. Embrace destructive change and find a free niche to create constructive change. This does not mean transcendence of and end game it just means transforming it. This is not a cult but merely and add on to your exiting higher power. Green prep is an Ap to guide and strengthen your existing meaning. Mirroring what is going on with the planet will strengthen you. The planet will assist you because you are embracing the planets way.