I see one flaw in this argument. You say this effort should focus in cities (and blue states) because that's where progressive people are. But your vision typically--typically for city people--ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of the FOOD the city people eat comes from the country. Food is not just another commodity to trade fairly--it's THE most basic necessity. City people tend to vaguely think it comes from grocery stores and is low on the list of priorities because it's a small percentage of most people's budgets but in fact it's the most critical item (shelter is just as important but is already in cities, and water falls from the sky in cities as well as the country (except in places like Phoenix which are simply unsustainable). You scarcely mention food, although the image shows a garden sweeping down a former boulevard--but the reality is that there is not enough space in cities to grow more than a small percentage of the food needed.
But it IS true that cities are the places where large numbers of progressive people may be found Therefore, I think the solution is to create food hubs. By this I mean something like a CSA except that it would be a whole network of farms surrounding a city, ideally supplying nearly all the needs of the participating population. The urbanites would be able to inspect the farms, as they would be likely to care about sustainable, organic agriculture, free range poultry and properly managed grazing, etc. The farmers would have a guaranteed market and customers willing to pay the higher cost of that kind of farming. Likely some participants with pay with labor rather than cash, and perhaps all participants would have to contribute labor at certain crunch times.
I live in rural West Virginia, very far from progressive but I can grow most of my own food here. I keep thinking about trying to start an initiative of some sort but am intimidated by my outside status (even after nearly 50 years) and sense of being far from local consensus.I've thought maybe the best approach would be a mutual assistance/disaster relief group, which would talk about how we can build local resilience.
This is about building power, and as you note, this is more difficult in rural than urban areas. The cities are where we can achieve this to the greatest extent. I do note local food networks as one of the alternatives we need to build, and have elsewhere written about that as a place to build urban-rural connections. So I totally agree this is absolutely important. We need to build community supported agriculture, and the overall infrastructure that enables farmers in a bioregion to connect into the city. This could also be a focus of the watershed councils I mention. In our disrupted world food security is going to become an increasingly important concern. So I see this as central to efforts to build community power and find alternatives to the handful of corporations that dominate the food system. We should encourage urban agriculture to the extent we can. But making the connections between cities and producers in their bioregions is crucial. p.s. With what happened to the south of you in Helene, your idea to build a local resilience group is an excellent way to build community connections.
Dear Patrick, brilliant article. Thank you very much. I have a dream that I believe resonates with much of what you've so masterfully articulated here. I hope you can set aside a minimum of 20 minutes to review my dream. I hope some of my words resonate with you, as your words have resonated with me. Social media is more powerful than the printing press, and my dream is about harnessing that power and using it to our utmost advantage. Here's my dream: www.humbledeeds.com
Building community means in part, to make mindful and intentional choices in where we spend our money. This can be a powerful tool.
Take shopping, for example, for groceries, household items, supplies for our businesses. Consider the vendor, the manufacturer, the components, the packaging, the impact on personal health and health of the environment.
Making mindfully considered choices allows us to use our economic power to drive a local economy. Where is your money going when you make a purchase? Do you need the item? Is there are better choice? Are you making a choice that is adding to the problems or driving solutions?
I hope that Patrick will not mind me mentioning the url of a site dedicated to climate actions.
It's called "Climate: Small steps matter". Here's a link to our latest post.
Of course I welcome your link. Everything we can do counts. Part of the reason I focus a lot on building alternative economic institutions is to give people better and more accessible choices.
When Donald Trump re-entered the White House only days ago, his first deed was to sign a gigantic flurry of executive orders and to pardon those people who stormed the Capitol Building in a violent insurrectionary riot. Those not familiar with fascism and neo-fascism do not recognize the nature of this first day in office for Trump. And this likely includes ovewhelmingly most people in the United States.
This mass pardon event was perhaps the most dangerous signal contemporary America has witnessed in my 59 years, if not longer. Why we are not noticing this and responding to it in all that we say and do is a mystery to me. Our real effort now should first and foremost be a response to an effort to convert the USA from a psedo-democratic plutocratic oligarchy into a neo-fascist centralized state.
Thank you, James. Deeply insightful as always. I just read that Hitler in his first day pardoned 6,000 involved in the Munich putsch. Your comment locates the significance in time. I think most of us are in a brain fog not knowing quite how to respond or what to do. I feel it myself. Unfortunately, if it gets really mean, the police forces will side with the paramilitaries. As seen on the streets of Portland and Seattle during the BLM uprisings. What should we do?
"I just read that Hitler in his first day pardoned 6,000 involved in the Munich putsch."
I'm not clear exactly why this particular historical fact has thus far escaped my awareness, as it is such a potent point of overlap and resonance with the current pardon situation (in context with the flurry of executive orders -- and with Project 2025, which is now fully in motion).
When that flurry of executive oders, along with this most disturing of pardoning events, unfolded, I heard alarm bells, and so started to educate myself -- mostly full time -- about the history of fascism and neo-fascism. My focus has been in trying to understand the fascist and neo-fascist "playbook".
I feel it is urgent that we inform as may people as possible about this history and this playbook as swiftly as possible. So to your question "What should we do?" I say, let us help educate one another, as swiftly as possible, about the resonances between fascism, neo-fascism, right wing "populism," and the like. I am getting the impression that conventional and mainstream journalism has dropped the ball here, and so "citizien journalism" seems key to me right now -- but also local organizing toward the aim of educationg the local populace about the rather extreme danger which arose on Trump's day one.
It would not hurt to consolidate together in one place (on the web) all of the best information and efforts to connect these many dots. But we also need to dialouge on the question of "What to do?" for so many reasons. None of us have all of the information and perspective we need right now, and consolidating it together seems urgent to me at the moment.
Where did you learn of these Hitler pardons? That article would seem to me to be essential to our consolidation of shared knowledge and wisdom, as I hadn't even known of this startling parallel.
Also, let's build a movement to get journalists to agree to put a lot of stuff now behind paywalls into a paywall-free space, such as was for a while being done with climate articles, e.g., in The Guardian, etc.
Can’t recall the sourcing on 6,000. One of those things in the endless social media stream. Doesn’t seem to turn up quickly on search. Just heard a Seattle judge has blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship revocation. I wonder how our “anarchist jurisdiction” is going to be targeted this time. If you write anything I want to publish it at The Raven. I also have good connections with CounterPunch. We’re both tied into Resilience.
I asked ChatGPT, which is often a source I consult as part of any research process I engage in, not because it is always accurate, but because it can save time in a very "triangulated" research process which takes real time and effort.
Here's what "Charly" said.
Me:
"In an online forum, I just read "I just read that Hitler in his first day pardoned 6,000 involved in the Munich putsch." Is this an historical fact?"
ChatGPT said:
"No, this is not historically accurate. Adolf Hitler did not pardon 6,000 individuals involved in the Munich Putsch (Beer Hall Putsch) on his first day in power. The Munich Putsch occurred in November 1923, and Hitler was arrested and imprisoned following its failure. During his time in prison, he wrote Mein Kampf and planned his political comeback.
When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, he quickly worked to consolidate power, but there was no mass pardon related to the Munich Putsch at that time. The participants in the putsch, including Hitler himself, had already been dealt with in the years immediately following 1923.
This claim might stem from confusion with Hitler's broader efforts to pardon or reintegrate early Nazi supporters and other political allies once he was in power, but such acts were part of his long-term consolidation of power, not a single event on his first day.
For historical accuracy, it's always a good idea to cross-check such claims with reliable sources."
Me: "Did Hitler ever engage in any mass pardons in his career as a fascist thug?"
ChatGPT said:
"Yes, Adolf Hitler did engage in mass pardons during his time as the leader of Nazi Germany, but these were politically motivated acts intended to solidify his power, reward loyalty, and align the legal system with Nazi ideology. Some notable examples include:
1933 Amnesty for Nazi Political Prisoners: Shortly after coming to power in 1933, Hitler's regime issued amnesties for members of the Nazi Party and its paramilitary organizations (like the SA and SS) who had been convicted of crimes during their rise to power. This included violent crimes such as assault, murder, and other offenses committed against political opponents and the state. The amnesty served as a reward for those who had participated in the Nazi movement and was a step in normalizing Nazi ideology within German society.
Kristallnacht Perpetrators: After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, during which Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes were destroyed, many perpetrators were arrested initially to maintain a façade of law and order. However, Hitler later ordered that most of these individuals be pardoned, signaling that such actions were not only acceptable but encouraged under the Nazi regime.
General Wartime Pardons: During World War II, Hitler's government issued pardons for German soldiers and officials who committed war crimes, including atrocities against civilians, prisoners of war, and Jews. This policy, coupled with direct orders for brutal actions, effectively gave carte blanche to Nazi officials and soldiers to commit atrocities without fear of legal repercussions.
Pardons for German POWs: Toward the end of the war, in a desperate attempt to maintain morale and gain loyalty, Hitler pardoned German soldiers who had deserted or committed other military offenses, provided they returned to fight. This move was largely symbolic as the Third Reich was crumbling.
These mass pardons were less about justice and more about consolidating Nazi ideology, promoting loyalty, and enabling the violent and repressive tactics that were central to the regime's goals."
We are both journalists, and so we both know that all "information" requires very careful fact checking from multiple credible sources, of which "Charlie" cannot be the sole source, ever. It just takes a LOT more time to do research than either of us wish were the case, right?
It looks like some of the commenters here are accepting dieoff (finally!), as well as the need to get off their duffs and actually do something. I have been focused on action, rather than words, for over 55 years. And of course I get all kinds of criticism to boot. Usually it is of this kind:
"You are so full of it!"
"Here, have another piece of homemade applie pie."
"What was I saying again?"
Then there are the amateur journalists.
"It's bad."
"No, really. I mean it. It's bad."
"Did I mention that it's bad?"
If you are not working manual labor every day to make the world a better place, your fancy words don't mean much.
Actually the opposite is true. The best action is reflection and to somehow generate wisdom and then to share that. Somehow to inspire Improvement in the society. Moreover, the best action one can take is to do nothing. The level of overproduction in the world economy is grotesque and destroying the planet. People are already producing literal mountains of garbage that doesn't even bring happiness. What great satisfaction to remove my labor from the economy!
And you do a fine job of that, Todd, as I often read about your scavenging adventures around Eugene on your FB page. Amazing what you can find out there.
Thank you for your work of reinhabitation, community building and reduction of your impact on Earth. But I must disagee with manual labor only. Surely you are aware of climate projections for the south of France. “When adapting the IPCC's method for estimating global warming to the situation in France, scientists have found that the temperatures that can be expected in the country by the end of the century should be higher than thought. They could increase by as much as 3.8 °C by 2100, compared with the early 20th century, even in conditions of moderate greenhouse gas emissions . . . a figure that poses huge challenges in terms of adaptation and that could well lead to drastic changes in French agriculture and ecosystems . . . Unsurprisingly, climate models show that future increases are directly proportional to greenhouse gas emissions.” https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/global-warming-in-france-may-be-worse-than-thought. A shutdown of the AMOC adds a further complexity. I am sure you must be taking this into consideration, having written a book on adaptation. I submit to you that the mental labor of political organizing, policy change and technology transition reduces the intensity of change and makes adaptation more possible. Every reduction in greenhouse gases, every tenth of a degree makes a difference, not only for our species, but for all our co-inhabitants of this planet. We can debate the relative efficacy of these efforts, but they have had some impact, albeit far short of what is needed. Yet to give up on them, dismiss them as unimportant, is to make worst case scenarios a self-fulfilling prophecy, swamping all efforts at adaptation. Collapse is a continuum, and working toward a gentler curve downwards is crucial, for all life on Earth, and not just ours. Sitting in the south of France surrounded by nuclear reactors, you should hope for a gentler curve and not catastrophic collapse that leaves those reactors and accompanying wastes in danger of disastrous releases. We need both-and rather than either-or thinking and practice to navigate these dangerous times, and to honor what each other is doing by their own lights to make the world a better place. We don’t all have the same dharma to do. There is no one singular pathway.
I had a postscript to that. In all ancient cultures the role of the storyteller was vital. We think in stories and it is the misguided stories by which we live today that has us on the current path to some form of collapse. To navigate through we need to change the stories in people’s heads, give them some new ones. Why you write books. Why I do this. That is a form of mental labor. I will add that because the several-pound organ that does that work requires something like 15% of the body’s metabolic energy. So it is physical labor as well. As I often experience.
When a fascist assumes control of all 3 branches of the federal government, with no push back by Dems or media, and announces before being sworn in a radical fascist program agenda, including concentration camps and massive fossil extraction, it is NOT THE TIME TO GO LOCAL.
Besides, I just got home from the Philadelphia "local" resistance - I don't think there were 200 people there.
It’s not an either-or. I wrote, “Truly, we must resist the injustices and abuses of centralized power in every way we can. But we need more than a politics of protest.” Perhaps the light attendance at the Philly meeting was because it is in a protest frame. We must struggle. But we must also build. Give people something to rally around that points to the future rather than being merely reactive. The fact we are in this situation illustrates the “people powerlessness” to which I referred. Trump’s election was a lot about people feeling the national Democrats are not delivering for them. We need to offer people something. We can do that in cities and in the states where we have the most potential to accumulate political power. We need to build a new base of power, and that is by joining together in the places we are strongest.
The people who will survive the increasing actions of the Earth to throw our offending species off will need arable land,access to water, a not too hot temperature, and an interdependent community. It may be a small number of people who can do that, mostly people who do not live in cities and already live close to the earth.
I understand exactly what you’re saying, and know there are scenarios where mass human dieback is quite credible. I would like to help plot a path where that is not the outcome, where we have somehow rediscovered a way to live in balance with the Earth, and have reduced our numbers more gradually. In many ways, in terms of energy and materials consumption, cities can be ecological communities with circular metabolic systems. Of course, there will need to be connections with surrounding bioregions for food, water and other materials needs, as I wrote in my response to Mary Wildfire above. I know that we won’t get there, and mass death will be more likely, if we don’t begin to build ecological communities in the places we live. And that is why I am trying to line out practical ways we can get there, working from the present. One has to acknowledge that if we go the way of mass dieback, it won’t be just the human species, but many others too. So I won’t subscribe to scenarios for inevitable doom, because they diminish motivation for action that makes them more likely to be self-fulfilling prophecies.
The challenge, of course, is to figure out how to do it, how to get there from here in our systemically wrong way world, going to what comes after overshoot, collapse. I’m giving it my best shot.
I see one flaw in this argument. You say this effort should focus in cities (and blue states) because that's where progressive people are. But your vision typically--typically for city people--ignores the reality that the overwhelming majority of the FOOD the city people eat comes from the country. Food is not just another commodity to trade fairly--it's THE most basic necessity. City people tend to vaguely think it comes from grocery stores and is low on the list of priorities because it's a small percentage of most people's budgets but in fact it's the most critical item (shelter is just as important but is already in cities, and water falls from the sky in cities as well as the country (except in places like Phoenix which are simply unsustainable). You scarcely mention food, although the image shows a garden sweeping down a former boulevard--but the reality is that there is not enough space in cities to grow more than a small percentage of the food needed.
But it IS true that cities are the places where large numbers of progressive people may be found Therefore, I think the solution is to create food hubs. By this I mean something like a CSA except that it would be a whole network of farms surrounding a city, ideally supplying nearly all the needs of the participating population. The urbanites would be able to inspect the farms, as they would be likely to care about sustainable, organic agriculture, free range poultry and properly managed grazing, etc. The farmers would have a guaranteed market and customers willing to pay the higher cost of that kind of farming. Likely some participants with pay with labor rather than cash, and perhaps all participants would have to contribute labor at certain crunch times.
I live in rural West Virginia, very far from progressive but I can grow most of my own food here. I keep thinking about trying to start an initiative of some sort but am intimidated by my outside status (even after nearly 50 years) and sense of being far from local consensus.I've thought maybe the best approach would be a mutual assistance/disaster relief group, which would talk about how we can build local resilience.
This is about building power, and as you note, this is more difficult in rural than urban areas. The cities are where we can achieve this to the greatest extent. I do note local food networks as one of the alternatives we need to build, and have elsewhere written about that as a place to build urban-rural connections. So I totally agree this is absolutely important. We need to build community supported agriculture, and the overall infrastructure that enables farmers in a bioregion to connect into the city. This could also be a focus of the watershed councils I mention. In our disrupted world food security is going to become an increasingly important concern. So I see this as central to efforts to build community power and find alternatives to the handful of corporations that dominate the food system. We should encourage urban agriculture to the extent we can. But making the connections between cities and producers in their bioregions is crucial. p.s. With what happened to the south of you in Helene, your idea to build a local resilience group is an excellent way to build community connections.
Dear Patrick, brilliant article. Thank you very much. I have a dream that I believe resonates with much of what you've so masterfully articulated here. I hope you can set aside a minimum of 20 minutes to review my dream. I hope some of my words resonate with you, as your words have resonated with me. Social media is more powerful than the printing press, and my dream is about harnessing that power and using it to our utmost advantage. Here's my dream: www.humbledeeds.com
I'll take a look.
Building community means in part, to make mindful and intentional choices in where we spend our money. This can be a powerful tool.
Take shopping, for example, for groceries, household items, supplies for our businesses. Consider the vendor, the manufacturer, the components, the packaging, the impact on personal health and health of the environment.
Making mindfully considered choices allows us to use our economic power to drive a local economy. Where is your money going when you make a purchase? Do you need the item? Is there are better choice? Are you making a choice that is adding to the problems or driving solutions?
I hope that Patrick will not mind me mentioning the url of a site dedicated to climate actions.
It's called "Climate: Small steps matter". Here's a link to our latest post.
https://karenleemardicrane.substack.com/p/cut-carbon-emissions-by-staying-healthy
We are seeking subscribers, writers, people who will share and help us recruit more readers.
Subscriptions are free but payments will go to spreading the word.
Of course I welcome your link. Everything we can do counts. Part of the reason I focus a lot on building alternative economic institutions is to give people better and more accessible choices.
When Donald Trump re-entered the White House only days ago, his first deed was to sign a gigantic flurry of executive orders and to pardon those people who stormed the Capitol Building in a violent insurrectionary riot. Those not familiar with fascism and neo-fascism do not recognize the nature of this first day in office for Trump. And this likely includes ovewhelmingly most people in the United States.
This mass pardon event was perhaps the most dangerous signal contemporary America has witnessed in my 59 years, if not longer. Why we are not noticing this and responding to it in all that we say and do is a mystery to me. Our real effort now should first and foremost be a response to an effort to convert the USA from a psedo-democratic plutocratic oligarchy into a neo-fascist centralized state.
Thank you, James. Deeply insightful as always. I just read that Hitler in his first day pardoned 6,000 involved in the Munich putsch. Your comment locates the significance in time. I think most of us are in a brain fog not knowing quite how to respond or what to do. I feel it myself. Unfortunately, if it gets really mean, the police forces will side with the paramilitaries. As seen on the streets of Portland and Seattle during the BLM uprisings. What should we do?
"I just read that Hitler in his first day pardoned 6,000 involved in the Munich putsch."
I'm not clear exactly why this particular historical fact has thus far escaped my awareness, as it is such a potent point of overlap and resonance with the current pardon situation (in context with the flurry of executive orders -- and with Project 2025, which is now fully in motion).
When that flurry of executive oders, along with this most disturing of pardoning events, unfolded, I heard alarm bells, and so started to educate myself -- mostly full time -- about the history of fascism and neo-fascism. My focus has been in trying to understand the fascist and neo-fascist "playbook".
I feel it is urgent that we inform as may people as possible about this history and this playbook as swiftly as possible. So to your question "What should we do?" I say, let us help educate one another, as swiftly as possible, about the resonances between fascism, neo-fascism, right wing "populism," and the like. I am getting the impression that conventional and mainstream journalism has dropped the ball here, and so "citizien journalism" seems key to me right now -- but also local organizing toward the aim of educationg the local populace about the rather extreme danger which arose on Trump's day one.
It would not hurt to consolidate together in one place (on the web) all of the best information and efforts to connect these many dots. But we also need to dialouge on the question of "What to do?" for so many reasons. None of us have all of the information and perspective we need right now, and consolidating it together seems urgent to me at the moment.
Where did you learn of these Hitler pardons? That article would seem to me to be essential to our consolidation of shared knowledge and wisdom, as I hadn't even known of this startling parallel.
Also, let's build a movement to get journalists to agree to put a lot of stuff now behind paywalls into a paywall-free space, such as was for a while being done with climate articles, e.g., in The Guardian, etc.
Can’t recall the sourcing on 6,000. One of those things in the endless social media stream. Doesn’t seem to turn up quickly on search. Just heard a Seattle judge has blocked Trump’s birthright citizenship revocation. I wonder how our “anarchist jurisdiction” is going to be targeted this time. If you write anything I want to publish it at The Raven. I also have good connections with CounterPunch. We’re both tied into Resilience.
I asked ChatGPT, which is often a source I consult as part of any research process I engage in, not because it is always accurate, but because it can save time in a very "triangulated" research process which takes real time and effort.
Here's what "Charly" said.
Me:
"In an online forum, I just read "I just read that Hitler in his first day pardoned 6,000 involved in the Munich putsch." Is this an historical fact?"
ChatGPT said:
"No, this is not historically accurate. Adolf Hitler did not pardon 6,000 individuals involved in the Munich Putsch (Beer Hall Putsch) on his first day in power. The Munich Putsch occurred in November 1923, and Hitler was arrested and imprisoned following its failure. During his time in prison, he wrote Mein Kampf and planned his political comeback.
When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, he quickly worked to consolidate power, but there was no mass pardon related to the Munich Putsch at that time. The participants in the putsch, including Hitler himself, had already been dealt with in the years immediately following 1923.
This claim might stem from confusion with Hitler's broader efforts to pardon or reintegrate early Nazi supporters and other political allies once he was in power, but such acts were part of his long-term consolidation of power, not a single event on his first day.
For historical accuracy, it's always a good idea to cross-check such claims with reliable sources."
I asked Charlie this question following that one:
Me: "Did Hitler ever engage in any mass pardons in his career as a fascist thug?"
ChatGPT said:
"Yes, Adolf Hitler did engage in mass pardons during his time as the leader of Nazi Germany, but these were politically motivated acts intended to solidify his power, reward loyalty, and align the legal system with Nazi ideology. Some notable examples include:
1933 Amnesty for Nazi Political Prisoners: Shortly after coming to power in 1933, Hitler's regime issued amnesties for members of the Nazi Party and its paramilitary organizations (like the SA and SS) who had been convicted of crimes during their rise to power. This included violent crimes such as assault, murder, and other offenses committed against political opponents and the state. The amnesty served as a reward for those who had participated in the Nazi movement and was a step in normalizing Nazi ideology within German society.
Kristallnacht Perpetrators: After the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, during which Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes were destroyed, many perpetrators were arrested initially to maintain a façade of law and order. However, Hitler later ordered that most of these individuals be pardoned, signaling that such actions were not only acceptable but encouraged under the Nazi regime.
General Wartime Pardons: During World War II, Hitler's government issued pardons for German soldiers and officials who committed war crimes, including atrocities against civilians, prisoners of war, and Jews. This policy, coupled with direct orders for brutal actions, effectively gave carte blanche to Nazi officials and soldiers to commit atrocities without fear of legal repercussions.
Pardons for German POWs: Toward the end of the war, in a desperate attempt to maintain morale and gain loyalty, Hitler pardoned German soldiers who had deserted or committed other military offenses, provided they returned to fight. This move was largely symbolic as the Third Reich was crumbling.
These mass pardons were less about justice and more about consolidating Nazi ideology, promoting loyalty, and enabling the violent and repressive tactics that were central to the regime's goals."
Thanks for the correction and clarification. AI has some uses clearly.
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-hitler-rise-to-power
We are both journalists, and so we both know that all "information" requires very careful fact checking from multiple credible sources, of which "Charlie" cannot be the sole source, ever. It just takes a LOT more time to do research than either of us wish were the case, right?
Absolutely, local change has incredible potential!
It looks like some of the commenters here are accepting dieoff (finally!), as well as the need to get off their duffs and actually do something. I have been focused on action, rather than words, for over 55 years. And of course I get all kinds of criticism to boot. Usually it is of this kind:
"You are so full of it!"
"Here, have another piece of homemade applie pie."
"What was I saying again?"
Then there are the amateur journalists.
"It's bad."
"No, really. I mean it. It's bad."
"Did I mention that it's bad?"
If you are not working manual labor every day to make the world a better place, your fancy words don't mean much.
Actually the opposite is true. The best action is reflection and to somehow generate wisdom and then to share that. Somehow to inspire Improvement in the society. Moreover, the best action one can take is to do nothing. The level of overproduction in the world economy is grotesque and destroying the planet. People are already producing literal mountains of garbage that doesn't even bring happiness. What great satisfaction to remove my labor from the economy!
And you do a fine job of that, Todd, as I often read about your scavenging adventures around Eugene on your FB page. Amazing what you can find out there.
Thank you for your work of reinhabitation, community building and reduction of your impact on Earth. But I must disagee with manual labor only. Surely you are aware of climate projections for the south of France. “When adapting the IPCC's method for estimating global warming to the situation in France, scientists have found that the temperatures that can be expected in the country by the end of the century should be higher than thought. They could increase by as much as 3.8 °C by 2100, compared with the early 20th century, even in conditions of moderate greenhouse gas emissions . . . a figure that poses huge challenges in terms of adaptation and that could well lead to drastic changes in French agriculture and ecosystems . . . Unsurprisingly, climate models show that future increases are directly proportional to greenhouse gas emissions.” https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/global-warming-in-france-may-be-worse-than-thought. A shutdown of the AMOC adds a further complexity. I am sure you must be taking this into consideration, having written a book on adaptation. I submit to you that the mental labor of political organizing, policy change and technology transition reduces the intensity of change and makes adaptation more possible. Every reduction in greenhouse gases, every tenth of a degree makes a difference, not only for our species, but for all our co-inhabitants of this planet. We can debate the relative efficacy of these efforts, but they have had some impact, albeit far short of what is needed. Yet to give up on them, dismiss them as unimportant, is to make worst case scenarios a self-fulfilling prophecy, swamping all efforts at adaptation. Collapse is a continuum, and working toward a gentler curve downwards is crucial, for all life on Earth, and not just ours. Sitting in the south of France surrounded by nuclear reactors, you should hope for a gentler curve and not catastrophic collapse that leaves those reactors and accompanying wastes in danger of disastrous releases. We need both-and rather than either-or thinking and practice to navigate these dangerous times, and to honor what each other is doing by their own lights to make the world a better place. We don’t all have the same dharma to do. There is no one singular pathway.
I had a postscript to that. In all ancient cultures the role of the storyteller was vital. We think in stories and it is the misguided stories by which we live today that has us on the current path to some form of collapse. To navigate through we need to change the stories in people’s heads, give them some new ones. Why you write books. Why I do this. That is a form of mental labor. I will add that because the several-pound organ that does that work requires something like 15% of the body’s metabolic energy. So it is physical labor as well. As I often experience.
Patrick, I just read your piece here. I wrote a concept paper that you may have an interest in.
If you send me your email address I can send you the paper.
Chuck Willer
chuckw@coastrange.org
I will look at it.
Sorry, gotta disagree.
When a fascist assumes control of all 3 branches of the federal government, with no push back by Dems or media, and announces before being sworn in a radical fascist program agenda, including concentration camps and massive fossil extraction, it is NOT THE TIME TO GO LOCAL.
Besides, I just got home from the Philadelphia "local" resistance - I don't think there were 200 people there.
It’s not an either-or. I wrote, “Truly, we must resist the injustices and abuses of centralized power in every way we can. But we need more than a politics of protest.” Perhaps the light attendance at the Philly meeting was because it is in a protest frame. We must struggle. But we must also build. Give people something to rally around that points to the future rather than being merely reactive. The fact we are in this situation illustrates the “people powerlessness” to which I referred. Trump’s election was a lot about people feeling the national Democrats are not delivering for them. We need to offer people something. We can do that in cities and in the states where we have the most potential to accumulate political power. We need to build a new base of power, and that is by joining together in the places we are strongest.
The people who will survive the increasing actions of the Earth to throw our offending species off will need arable land,access to water, a not too hot temperature, and an interdependent community. It may be a small number of people who can do that, mostly people who do not live in cities and already live close to the earth.
I understand exactly what you’re saying, and know there are scenarios where mass human dieback is quite credible. I would like to help plot a path where that is not the outcome, where we have somehow rediscovered a way to live in balance with the Earth, and have reduced our numbers more gradually. In many ways, in terms of energy and materials consumption, cities can be ecological communities with circular metabolic systems. Of course, there will need to be connections with surrounding bioregions for food, water and other materials needs, as I wrote in my response to Mary Wildfire above. I know that we won’t get there, and mass death will be more likely, if we don’t begin to build ecological communities in the places we live. And that is why I am trying to line out practical ways we can get there, working from the present. One has to acknowledge that if we go the way of mass dieback, it won’t be just the human species, but many others too. So I won’t subscribe to scenarios for inevitable doom, because they diminish motivation for action that makes them more likely to be self-fulfilling prophecies.
By coincidence, or synchnicity, I just watched this video tonight on urban ecovillages in Portland. https://youtu.be/BWOSDhf8Fls?si=T2qb8VUYwWisi6I-
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I would be glad to be wrong. If so, building ecological communities would be the way to go.
The challenge, of course, is to figure out how to do it, how to get there from here in our systemically wrong way world, going to what comes after overshoot, collapse. I’m giving it my best shot.