mooreaAug 11, 2023
HeavenlyPossum

I was thinking to myself, “when will the effects of climate change get so bad that they provoke revolution” but then it occurred to me: they already did. Just in the wrong direction.

Syrians fled a civil war driven by the worst drought in a thousand years and Europe responded with a wave of reactionary fascism.

Central Americans fled rising temperatures that are killing agricultural workers and the U.S. responded with a wave of reactionary fascism.

Russia just happens to be in a war for control of some of the world’s best farmland.

Sudan is in the middle of a civil war and Niger just had its umpteenth coup.

Reactionaries are *already* at war with us over climate change. It’s only going to get worse as the world gets hotter.

Aug 10, 2023 at 10:32pmWeb
Show threadUrsidinoj/The BjornsdottirsAug 10, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum yeah...
Show threadAlex the Artistic AutistAug 10, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum yep. It's all gift to the fascists and tyrants. It's why climate denial comes so hard from their direction - disaffected and displaced people provide convenient fodder to bait weak willed racists and keep them in power. Portray the desperate destitute as opportunistic freeloaders. The more the better! Dress genocide up in "practicality" and "necessity" and you got yourself a convenient police state and then you can shit on the rest of the population too.
Show threadᛃᛉ ᚛ᚚᚄᚉᚆᚑᚅᚑᚈ᚜ ᛉᛃAug 10, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum

This is always one of the grudges I've held against accelerationism. You have no fucking idea what way that 'revolution' is going to go.

Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 10, 2023

@psychonot23

And how many people will get hurt along the way.

Show threadᛃᛉ ᚛ᚚᚄᚉᚆᚑᚅᚑᚈ᚜ ᛉᛃAug 10, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum

Yeah there's a lot of critiques of acclerationism the least of which is 'how effective it will end up being' but on top of all that critique there is that it doesn't fucking work.

Show threadmike805Aug 10, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum Get used to it. If the amount of arable land is going to decrease, then there will be wars and land grabs as every nation realizes they had better get theirs while the getting is at least possible.

Whichever nations do NOT decarbonize, but rather produce all the energy they can, will win.

Humans are made up of competing tribes and there is zero chance that all humans can agree to disarm and stop using energy. Who ever opts out wins. Prisoners' dilemma.

Show threadPedestriansfirstAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum @mike805 Depressing but realistic. #climatecrisis
Show threadWeaselAug 12, 2023

@mike805 @HeavenlyPossum
Russia stands to win from global heating. And Republicans are pro-Russia. This explains a lot.

Climate Change and Russian Agriculture
Update Date: 24 Jan 2022
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/18679

How Russia Wins the Climate Crisis
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate-migration-crisis.html

Agricultural area in Siberia will expand due to climate change
13 December 2019
https://ksc.krasn.ru/en/news/agricultural_area_in_siberia_will_expand/

Agroclimatic potential across central Siberia in an altered twenty-first century
3 November 2011
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/045207

Climate Change and Russian Agriculture

Russian weather trends such as winter softening and increase in summer heat have a significant but opposite effect on yields. An interesting finding is a...

Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 12, 2023

@weaselx86 @mike805

The problem with Russian agriculture shifting north is that none of those soils are particularly friendly to mass cereal cultivation, even if they do warm up.

Show threadEmil Jacobs - CollectifissionAug 10, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum and this is exactly why simply relying on crises to hope the ‘masses will rise’ is a losing strategy. If the working class isn’t organised as a class for its own interest (that is, to replace capitalism with a society of free producers), then the most likely outcome of any crisis will most likely be utter hellscape.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@collectifission

Organized by whom?

Show threadgavinisdie Aug 10, 2023
Things are going to get WAAAAAAY worse before it gets better
Show threadErosBlog Bacchus has moved!Aug 10, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum My only hopeful thought about this is that extreme weather will tend to dismantle the larger structures of authoritarian capital even faster than it can smash close-knit communities of peasants. We can replace drowned goats and torn-away thatched roofs faster and for longer than they can replace coastal cities, military-industrial complexes, and the chip fabs that they need to maintain panopticon surveillance.
Show threadMelissa BAug 11, 2023

@ErosBlog @HeavenlyPossum

In the past, during mass extinctipn events, apex predators have often been the first species to go, so there's some precedent to justify this hope.

Show threadsleepysafAug 10, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum The capitalists are in power and they'll do whatever they can with that power to keep it. It's not going to get better until the people organize, fight back, and wrest political control from their cold dead hands. Capitalism leads right into to fascism when threatened, historically speaking.
Show threadViolet MadderAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum And those still comfortable enough to keep both hands clamped over their ears will go on shouting LALALALALALA until they personally are on actual fire.
Show threadRaven OnthillAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum when things get bad, the public is more likely to jump right than left. This is a compelling reason not to let things get bad.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@ravenonthill

Are they? The people responsible for these fascist movements are a tiny minority of each society.

Show threadRaven OnthillAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum the organizers, maybe. But look at how many people are willing to toe the Republican line!
Show threadChris RealAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum The future is not "2001: A Space Odyssey", but "Soylent Green".
Show threadStarkRGAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum I'm about 85% sure we're doomed as a species. We're not at the point of no return, that probably won't happen for another few decades, but we're definitely beyond the point that not making it worse anymore isn't enough, the positive feedback loops have already taken hold. Were we an intelligent species, we would shift a significant portion of our efforts into undoing the damage. We're not doomed because we're incapable of fixing it, we're doomed because we just don't care.
Show threadStarkRGAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum I'm using "we" here to mean or entire civilization, not individuals. Individual action isn't going to make a difference, it has to be everyone. Even the action of entire nations wouldn't make enough of a difference, it has to be *everyone*. Sadly, given the events of the last 40 years, I have no faith whatsoever that every nation on Earth can work together to save ourselves. We're just too selfish to survive.
Show threadChris BAug 11, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum yes, fascism and rampant nationalism will take over as the southern hemisphere becomes unlivable and people move northward. The people left behind will turn to violent strongmen for supposed safety and survival.

It'll be awful and ugly.

Show threadToni M.Aug 11, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum

so sad and also so true

😢

Show threadszakibAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/08/10/protests-erupt-in-dagestan-after-heat-wave-triggers-rolling-blackouts-governor-warns-such-forms-of-dialogue-will-be-stemmed-in-future
Protests erupt in Dagestan after heat wave triggers rolling blackouts. Governor warns ‘such forms of dialogue’ will be ‘stemmed’ in future. — Meduza

Late on August 9, Makhachkala residents blocked one of the city’s main streets in protest against the authorities’ inaction with regard to power outages in the capital of Dagestan. Some of the protesters said their homes had been without electricity for three days, and no help was coming.

Meduza
Show threadszakibAug 15, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum And it continues https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/08/14/water-supply-crisis-in-dagestan-pushes-protesters-to-block-federal-highway
Water supply crisis in Dagestan pushes protesters to block federal highway — Meduza

Dagestan’s ongoing utilities crisis saw another major protest on Sunday night. The residents of Karaman-2, a settlement outside of the region’s capital Makhachkala, blocked the federal Makhachkala–Astrakhan highway, trying to draw attention to the dire water-supply situation in the area.

Meduza
Show threadMs. DenieAug 11, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum It took some digging, but I found Charles Stross´ old blog post, appropriately titled "some notes on the worst-case scenario":

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/02/some-notes-on-the-worst-case-s.html

Show threadvegancoderAug 11, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum

The Russia's war has absolutely nothing to do with farmland.

Look at the territory of Russia - it's extremely huge and low populated.

Even though there's plenty of land to farm, it's not farmed, because it doesn't make sense economically.

Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@vegancoder

It’s just a coincidence I guess that the Russian state is in the process of expending its military might in an attempt to capture a country that represents a tenth or more of global grain production.

Show threadvegancoderAug 11, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum

It is.

There are many reasons for the war, but the farmland has nothing to do with it.

I grew up in a Siberian city with thousands of square kilometers of good farmland, which was not used for farming.

Instead, it was and is used to mine coal, because coal makes more money.

Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@vegancoder

Ok!

Show threadTransitBikerAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum it really feels like we are in the months and weeks before everything just completely falls apart.
Show threadSandra MaazouzAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum i have had an unestablished thought that authorities and powers might be slacking in resisting global warming seriously because they find global warming a benefiting tool to be able to use the Arctic ocean..
Show threadmaiamaiaAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum yep
Show threadMichael CoorlimAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum "the world's best farmland" not for long as the climate shifts. Look to Siberia and Northern Canada as the permafrost melts.
Show threaddalAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum i would like to not be a doomer but every day the evidence points closer to that direction
Show threadSans-culottes Aug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum What in the flying fuck happened in here? I'm just going to torch my History degree because, obviously, the whole 20th century in Europe is vastly different than anything I have read or studied. Sweet baby Jesus.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@Existentialcrisis86

?

Show threadSans-culottes Aug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum Ugh I replied to the wrong part of this conversation. This was in response to the Faye Loves Godzilla rant about the Nazis being environmentalists. I don't remember that being discussed at the Wannsee Conference or in Generalplan Ost.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@Existentialcrisis86

You never know what off-handed comment will trigger someone’s personal obsession

Show threadSans-culottes Aug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum I do feel like this has really ramped up lately. I guess it was just a matter of time for Mastodon to become like this. Especially with large unmoderated instances or openly reactionary ones.
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@Existentialcrisis86

Honestly, a lot of it is from people who self-identify as “leftists” in some way but aggressively hold some weird and not at al predictable grievances

Show threadSans-culottes Aug 11, 2023

@HeavenlyPossum Yeah, I'm always skeptical of people like that. Though I definitely run into self-described leftists that have some batshit ideas and knowledge of history. It does make me wonder what cesspits of the internet they are coming from where these ideas were fostered or encountered.

Though I'm skeptical of a lot of online "leftists" in general. Places like Reddit and Revleft really cemented that skepticism for me.

Show threadRob LandleyAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum David Graeber predicted that about 10 years ago. It would take some digging to pull up the specifics but here's a random example of the kind of thing he talked about: https://www.disenz.net/en/david-graeber-on-harmful-jobs-odious-debt-and-fascists-who-believe-in-global-warming/
David Graeber on harmful jobs, odious debt, and fascists who believe in global warming - Disenz

It was a warm spring evening in London and David Graeber, an anthropology professor at the LSE, was sitting on a rooftop. Our conversation was...

Disenz
Show threadHeavenlyPossumAug 11, 2023

@landley

Absolutely. In retrospect, I think the long duree of climate-driven political rot and collapse have obviously started long ago.

Show threadRob LandleyAug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum Everybody around here is waiting for the Boomers to die. It's learned helplessness, but with a distinct expiration date.
Show threadt_masto_077Aug 11, 2023
@HeavenlyPossum no