Awesome writing thanks! I'm strongly reminded of Paul Kingsnorth's essay from a decade ago, which concludes:
"...But this is fine — the dismissal, the platitudes, the brusque moving-on of the grown-ups. It’s all fine. I withdraw, you see. I withdraw from the campaigning and the marching, I withdraw from the arguing and the talked-up necessity and all of the false assumptions. I withdraw from the words. I am leaving. I am going to go out walking.
I am leaving on a pilgrimage to find what I left behind in the jungles and by the cold campfires and in the parts of my head and my heart that I have been skirting around because I have been busy fragmenting the world in order to save it; busy believing it is mine to save. I am going to listen to the wind and see what it tells me, or whether it tells me anything at all. You see, it turns out that I have more time than I thought. I will follow the songlines and see what they sing to me and maybe, one day, I might even come back. And if I am very lucky I might bring with me a harvest of fresh tales, which I can scatter like apple seeds across this tired and angry land."
Apr 20, 2022·edited Apr 20, 2022Liked by Andy Kenworthy
Your first three paragraphs, with a tweak, encapsulate much of my career too and my conscience remained clear until about 2013. Which goes to show how I was able to delude myself that through wisdom, technology and democratic politics, that we'd get it all worked out. As we sail past tipping point after tipping point, those of us with some awareness need a new paradigm to cling to or perspective to work from and I think that's what I'm seeking when I read your work and that of others. I've recently got stuck into 'How the World Really Works' by Vaclav Smil which does a wonderful job of deconstructing the tenants of our errant civilization and I heartily recommend it to your readers. It's neither alarmist nor offering any solutions but is a solid work, doing a 'stock-take' of our history and situation in quantitative but digestible terms. Anyway, thanks for exploring the depths of where we're at and helping the discombobulated (me) see ourselves and our legacy a little more clearly.
My wife, bless her brutal honesty, also reminded me a couple of days ago how ineffective I was in my corporate roles jokingly called environment and sustainability manager. But the titles made me feel wise and important and somewhat better than others in the company. I was after all charged with helping to save the world and help make the company shit loads of green profits. Anyway after a bit of stop start I guess I woke from my delusion at the end of 2018 and gave up on that career. "This civilization is finished" are the words that echo in my head now when I read, watch or listen to main stream media or LinkedIn and the postings of so many in the sustainability field.
These days through circumstance, some luck, the property market and a wise and supportive partner I'm privileged to be able to focus my time and energies on creating local resilience on our land in Northland. This means for us working towards being able to provide food, shelter, water and renewable energy from our land in the absence of fossil fuels and building community for a relocalised future. People gotta eat so I'm mainly a gardener and I enjoy it a lot. I think everyone should, and will have to be a gardener to some degree in the not too distant future.
This shortish video is a good insight into the mindset required for good mental wellbeing for those collapse aware and feeling anxiety etc. How to enjoy the end of the world by Sid Smith - https://youtu.be/5QeYM1L0FfY
There are hundreds of thousands like you out there, I am probably one of them. We get angry, we even cry when we see something horrible happening to our beloved Earth, then the next day we wake up and try to do a small dent in the problem. We talk about it to our families, to our friends, we feel good because we have 5 bins (plus a compost bin). Some days we think our actions make an impact, others day we feel like giving up. The worst of all, we cannot expect a revolution like the French one, there is no visible head to be chopped: it is all of us. Where do we start, Andy? Well, I think everything boils down to education, probably 2 generations from now will think of us as the generation that hit rock bottom. In the meantime, I will keep reading your posts to get a slap in my "asleep" face.
My own response is that +2.5C above pre-industrial is 'less worse' than +4C which is where we're heading if we do nothing. So I keep tilting at political windmills, and try to keep my own environmental footprint down.
Most of my friends take the other approach - "eat, drink and be merry (and fly and drive everywhere) for the day after tomorrow our kids die."
Hi Andy. Was listening to this from Derrick Jensen today and thought of you and this post. It's the first 10 minutes that I think you'll enjoy if you haven't listened to it already.
If it's any consolation I believe that we were all fooled by accepting token victories along the way. Just having the occasional win placated us as the machine continued grinding the living planet. I'm guilty as charged your honour.
"Meanwhile, we need to pull carbon out of the air with gadgets we haven’t invented yet, or the planet will kill most of us.”
I wrote an article about the IPCC gambling the biosphere on fantasy technology and losing!!
Very well written and chimes with me. But i disagree thst we are “actually campaigning against industrial civilisation”. Half of all production is unproductive, useless to society but essential to capitalism. Environmentalists should now properly engage with the 150 year old anti-capitalist movement of real (ie nonbolshevik) marxism. If you think the capitalist media gave environmentalists a bad press…
Awesome writing thanks! I'm strongly reminded of Paul Kingsnorth's essay from a decade ago, which concludes:
"...But this is fine — the dismissal, the platitudes, the brusque moving-on of the grown-ups. It’s all fine. I withdraw, you see. I withdraw from the campaigning and the marching, I withdraw from the arguing and the talked-up necessity and all of the false assumptions. I withdraw from the words. I am leaving. I am going to go out walking.
I am leaving on a pilgrimage to find what I left behind in the jungles and by the cold campfires and in the parts of my head and my heart that I have been skirting around because I have been busy fragmenting the world in order to save it; busy believing it is mine to save. I am going to listen to the wind and see what it tells me, or whether it tells me anything at all. You see, it turns out that I have more time than I thought. I will follow the songlines and see what they sing to me and maybe, one day, I might even come back. And if I am very lucky I might bring with me a harvest of fresh tales, which I can scatter like apple seeds across this tired and angry land."
https://orionmagazine.org/article/confessions-of-a-recovering-environmentalist/
Your first three paragraphs, with a tweak, encapsulate much of my career too and my conscience remained clear until about 2013. Which goes to show how I was able to delude myself that through wisdom, technology and democratic politics, that we'd get it all worked out. As we sail past tipping point after tipping point, those of us with some awareness need a new paradigm to cling to or perspective to work from and I think that's what I'm seeking when I read your work and that of others. I've recently got stuck into 'How the World Really Works' by Vaclav Smil which does a wonderful job of deconstructing the tenants of our errant civilization and I heartily recommend it to your readers. It's neither alarmist nor offering any solutions but is a solid work, doing a 'stock-take' of our history and situation in quantitative but digestible terms. Anyway, thanks for exploring the depths of where we're at and helping the discombobulated (me) see ourselves and our legacy a little more clearly.
It’s a privilege to read your work Andy.
My wife, bless her brutal honesty, also reminded me a couple of days ago how ineffective I was in my corporate roles jokingly called environment and sustainability manager. But the titles made me feel wise and important and somewhat better than others in the company. I was after all charged with helping to save the world and help make the company shit loads of green profits. Anyway after a bit of stop start I guess I woke from my delusion at the end of 2018 and gave up on that career. "This civilization is finished" are the words that echo in my head now when I read, watch or listen to main stream media or LinkedIn and the postings of so many in the sustainability field.
These days through circumstance, some luck, the property market and a wise and supportive partner I'm privileged to be able to focus my time and energies on creating local resilience on our land in Northland. This means for us working towards being able to provide food, shelter, water and renewable energy from our land in the absence of fossil fuels and building community for a relocalised future. People gotta eat so I'm mainly a gardener and I enjoy it a lot. I think everyone should, and will have to be a gardener to some degree in the not too distant future.
This shortish video is a good insight into the mindset required for good mental wellbeing for those collapse aware and feeling anxiety etc. How to enjoy the end of the world by Sid Smith - https://youtu.be/5QeYM1L0FfY
There are hundreds of thousands like you out there, I am probably one of them. We get angry, we even cry when we see something horrible happening to our beloved Earth, then the next day we wake up and try to do a small dent in the problem. We talk about it to our families, to our friends, we feel good because we have 5 bins (plus a compost bin). Some days we think our actions make an impact, others day we feel like giving up. The worst of all, we cannot expect a revolution like the French one, there is no visible head to be chopped: it is all of us. Where do we start, Andy? Well, I think everything boils down to education, probably 2 generations from now will think of us as the generation that hit rock bottom. In the meantime, I will keep reading your posts to get a slap in my "asleep" face.
I’m hearing that radical change is required, but giving up my middle class lifestyle is hard.
Perhaps it will take catastrophe to bring about lasting change?
Yes, we're pretty much f#cked.
My own response is that +2.5C above pre-industrial is 'less worse' than +4C which is where we're heading if we do nothing. So I keep tilting at political windmills, and try to keep my own environmental footprint down.
Most of my friends take the other approach - "eat, drink and be merry (and fly and drive everywhere) for the day after tomorrow our kids die."
Hi Andy. Was listening to this from Derrick Jensen today and thought of you and this post. It's the first 10 minutes that I think you'll enjoy if you haven't listened to it already.
https://youtu.be/hOOuGb_E86Q
Would you/have you considered civil disobedience and resistance?
If it's any consolation I believe that we were all fooled by accepting token victories along the way. Just having the occasional win placated us as the machine continued grinding the living planet. I'm guilty as charged your honour.
"Meanwhile, we need to pull carbon out of the air with gadgets we haven’t invented yet, or the planet will kill most of us.”
I wrote an article about the IPCC gambling the biosphere on fantasy technology and losing!!
https://kevinhester.live/2017/05/18/survivable-ipcc-projections-based-on-science-fiction/
Very well written and chimes with me. But i disagree thst we are “actually campaigning against industrial civilisation”. Half of all production is unproductive, useless to society but essential to capitalism. Environmentalists should now properly engage with the 150 year old anti-capitalist movement of real (ie nonbolshevik) marxism. If you think the capitalist media gave environmentalists a bad press…
So how about we start doing shit? (I feel you on everything, and as a young person, I've been trying to avoid the pitfalls / quicksand into them.)
- https://rebrand.ly/tools-for-conviviality
- https://rebrand.ly/30-months
- https://juststart.do
I'm not sure if there's anything more pragmatic then connecting, organizing, and finding agency with one another and making it happen. So let's do it?