Mastodawn

Bread and Circuses Dec 16, 2023

Tough words here from Elisabeth Robson about the severe danger of a singular focus on carbon emissions, when the crisis we face is much broader than that.

"Why are we not talking about Ecological Overshoot?"
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I’m writing this as COP28 is wrapping up in Dubai, UAE. There was a lot of talk about climate change and fossil fuels — mostly whether we will “phase down” or “phase out” our use of fossil fuels — and about so-called “renewables.” The conference ended with a global goal to “triple renewables and double energy efficiency.”

“We acted, we delivered,” claimed COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, as if building more industrial technologies like wind turbines and solar panels and making more energy efficient buildings and cars will somehow restore biosphere integrity, regrow all the old-growth forests, un-pave the wetlands, un-pollute the water, land, and air, and reverse the 1000x-faster-than-normal rate we are exterminating species.

The global focus on climate change, cemented by almost 30 years of UN conferences, has blinded the world to our true predicament — that is, ecological overshoot — of which climate change is just one of many symptoms. Organizations, governments, corporations, the media are all talking about climate change and the supposed “solutions” of renewables and energy efficiency, while essentially ignoring the ongoing destruction of the natural world.

Carbon tunnel vision means other problems get short shrift. And the “solutions” that corporations are selling us in order to meet the goals set by federal and state law will actually make many of the other symptoms of ecological overshoot worse. Far worse.

Everyone’s planning assumes the same — that the economy, population, extraction, development, and consumption will all continue to grow. Indeed, an economy based on debt requires life-as-we-know-it to continue.

But this is simply not possible on a finite planet with finite resources and ecosystems already shattering under pressure. Basic laws of ecology tell us that when a species overshoots the regenerative capacity of its environment, that species will collapse. This is true for humans too.

Corporations have created technologies and industries they can sell to the world as “solutions” to climate change. These “solutions” allow corporations and the governments they influence to believe we can continue with Business As Usual. The pervasive propaganda about these “solutions” allows us regular folk to believe we can continue life-as-we-know-it without having to worry too much because “someone’s doing something about climate change.”

Unlike the “solutions” to climate change that corporations are constantly trying to sell us, there is no profitable technology that will eliminate habitat loss, species extinctions, pollution, and deforestation. And so what we hear from organizations, governments, corporations, and the media is all climate change all the time, because someone’s making money.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://medium.com/@elisabethrobson/why-are-we-not-talking-about-ecological-overshoot-f174a53756a5

#Science #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Pollution #Biodiversity #COP28 #BusinessAsUsual

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Kent Pitman Dec 16, 2023

@breadandcircuses

It's not just ecological overshoot, it's population overshoot. We stress the ecology in proportion to population.

And the problem is, or, at least, one problem is that it's difficult to tell anyone, much less many, that they must not have kids. Because obviously some people must, and then you go headlong into the question of who. To avoid issues of elitism, racism, eugenics, etc is difficult.

Central to the entire endeavor of being human is the quest to reproduce. Changing that is no small matter, even as it is essential to do. It's a strongly rooted biological drive.

We can't even seem to do the small, insufficient, easy things. For example, we should welcome and encourage anyone wanting to voluntarily not have children. Instead we create a veritable mandate for forcing unwanted children by making it difficult to seek an abortion.

And we stigmatize love for someone of the same sex, when many such couples may naturally opt not to have kids. We need to societally embrace such things. They won't be for everyone, so the species isn't at the kind of risk that those citing morality etc. like to say. But it would help.

If we can't agree those easy things, those things that are really comparative no-brainers, helping those who don't want kids or don't want to rush, we're definitely not going to be able to solve the harder problems.

We're in denial about the active danger of overpopulation. We hear "be fruitful and multiply" but can't or don't do the math. A mandate to grow without bound in a finite space cannot BE fruitful. Does it not occur to us that such advice might have been situational, how to live when there were comparatively few people, not a claim that overbreeding without bound was the key to success in all situations?

If someone says, "please go to the store," must the words "and come home after" be added to avoid someone taking up residence at the store? Does "lather, rinse, repeat" really advise using up all of a bottle of shampoo in a single session by iterating without bound?

Is no common sense allowed in understanding Biblical language? Even if one doesn't believe in evolution and thinks we were planted on earth fully formed, we were still given brains. Yet many don't seem to think USING our brains is a good idea. Why?

#population #overpopulation #ecology

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Led By Gilded Fools

@kentpitman @breadandcircuses
Robson's article needs to be heard. It seems a lot like this article from Resilience about #Catton s book Overshoot.

In the link:
"I believe that Catton is making a positive argument for change, rather than misanthropic framework to label our predicament"

"The value of ‘Overshoot’ is not simply as a warning for humanity’s ecological fate. It provides a mental framework for how we define our relationship to the issue, and map that to a practical basis for change. That, ultimately, defines the imperative for change more clearly than just the statistics for why change is necessary."

#ecologicalovershoot
#overshoot

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-05-10/overshoot-the-ecological-basis-of-revolutionary-change/

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change

Though, ‘Overshoot’, is ostensibly a book about biophysical limits, the theme that runs through it is about the human propensity for denying obvious facts: Our ability to deceive not only others, but more importantly, ourselves.

resilience