Denial wears many faces.

[GliderGuider]

Whether it's average people who are too busy with their lives to take on board the more extreme reports of environmental degradation; bloggers and politicians who believe that it's all a hoax cooked up by evil scientists to get grant money for bogus studies; or, perhaps surprisingly, the green activists who believe that more political or technological change will improve or even fix the situation - these are common techniques we use to avoid confronting the horror of global collapse face-to-face.

We are all familiar with the faces of climate change denial. The Koch brothers, James Inhofe, Anthony Watts and the host of bloggers and politicians work tirelessly to derail any efforts to address humanity's greatest existential crisis since the Toba super-volcano 75,000 years ago. They are a resilient species, their fact-resistance bolstered by inoculations of status and cash.

But this form of denial is easy to spot. There is a more subtle form, one that is endemic among the white hats of the green movement. They are the ones who tirelessly work from the moral high ground - to change policies, to develop and promote renewable technologies, to encourage sustainability. They resolutely refuse to countenance any thoughts of our predicament being inextricable. Tireless work, even in a lost cause, tends to keep one insulated from the deeper, darker realizations. One more policy change, one more solar panel, one more hugelkultur bed - the world will be a better place and the fears will be quiet for a little while. "Quitters never win and winners never quit!"

Is it unfair to characterize (at least some) green activists as being (at least somewhat) in denial? Possibly. But it's true more often than you might expect.

[Xipe Totec]

1. To quote my favorite Engineering Project Leader

If you're not worried, you obviously don't understand the problem.

[GliderGuider]

2. Smart man! nt

[LouisvilleDem]

3. So unless we throw up our hands and admit defeat...

...we are deniers?

That doesn't seem right. I for one have great hope that renewables can save us. Even if I'm wrong, I want to go down fighting.

[GliderGuider]

4. If you think renewables are a good and interesting idea, you're not necessarily in denial.

If you think they can save us, you are.

I have no idea if we're facing the end of the world. However the big picture that most green activists, including the Transition folks and most permaculturists I've met, fail to take on board includes some very simple, stark facts. The entire planetary biosphere is collapsing, including the oceans, rivers, lakes and land; we are going to break the 2C degree safe threshold (which wasn't safe to begin with) within a couple of decades even with our best efforts (which we're not giving); we will break 4C and possibly 6C with BAU; the agricultural systems of the world are destabilizing before our eyes due to extreme weather; methane feedbacks may have already begun; the world's populations of human beings and their food animals are exploding while the world's population of wild creatures is imploding; the bees and bats are dying; starfish are melting; sea turtles are dying on the beaches. It looks a whole lot like the global life-support system is coming apart at the seams, and we are doing what we've done since this became a recognized problem 50 years ago: precisely nothing.

This is not a situation that Transition Initiatives or permaculture or appropriate tech can ameliorate, because it looks to me like we're headed for world-wide economic breakdown, social breakdown, dieoff and eventually human extinction. How eventually is still an estimate, but a good bet is sooner than later.

This is what I mean by inevitable, no exit. Not boom we all fall down. Not with a bang, but with a series of low, pitiful, drawn out whimpers from every living/dying organism on the planet. Anyone who can say, in the face of this evidence, that we all have a moral responsibility to "work tirelessly to make things better" or that this or that approach will "save us" is the victim of a blindness so deep that it can only come right up from our DNA.

Now, those who DO get it, and prefer to do these sorts of things because it's what humans do and we should all leave a small space for a miracle in our Flowcharts of Doom, well they have my complete empathy. So do those who simply say, "You know, I think I'll just take a walk and look at the sky." But the moment the word "sustainability" crosses someone's lips, it's like they lit up a a big neon sign that says, "I'm blind. Please follow me!"

[LouisvilleDem]

5. Wow

I've been lurking around this board for several months now, and I've read a fair number of your posts, but I had no idea you were such a pessimist. You are entitled to think what you want of course, but I am glad that most environmentalists don't think like you do. I'm glad that most of us can see the good things that we have accomplished over the years. Granted, most of the successes have been in the developed world, and it definitely looks like China and India are going to repeat the same mistakes Europe and the US made along the road to economic prosperity, but to say we've "done nothing" is simply not true. In the US and Europe the air and water are cleaner now than they were 50 years ago. We've cleaned up toxic waste dumps and banned and/or regulated the really harmful stuff like DDT. We've placed millions of acres of forest under government protection and brought several species back from the brink of extinction. These are not trivial accomplishments. They took years of hard work and I think its shameful that you trivialize the efforts of those that made them happen.

Finally, and I know this is a bit of heresy, I think you have to admit that the environmentalist community has a habit of exaggerating many problems in order to spur political and social action. I don't blame the people that engage in that sort of rhetoric, because the bottom line is that it works. However, don't believe everything our side has to say. I mean, if you just look at our track record of predicting horrible things that never happen it's a bit mixed. Hello, The Population Bomb anyone?

[GliderGuider]

6. Call it the anger of a trust betrayed.

As I grew up I was taught that the world worked in a particular way: that governments were of the people, for the people; that humans were conscious, rational creatures; that policy was guided by sound science; that human beings learned from their mistakes; that the future would be better than the past.

Now in my 60's I discover that absolutely none of it is true. Governments are of the rich, for the rich; human beings are largely unconscious and most of our decisions spring from emotion rather than reason; policy is guided by greed for wealth and lust for power; most people want today to be about the same as yesterday, mistakes and all; and the future looks not just dim but bleak.

And I'm supposed to keep sucking on the hopium pipe so I don't make the sleepwalkers feel uncomfortable? I don't think so.

The few people who were awake to the knowledge of decline did what they could. Their efforts speak for themselves, and I doubt they will will feel trivialized by my outrage. But damn few environmentalists connected the dots to see where the curve was really heading, and virtually everyone has operated from the horrifyingly mistaken idea that human nature is based on rational thought.

You want to talk about failed predictions? I distinctly remember being promised flying cars and electricity too cheap to meter. Instead we got Macondo and Fukushima.

BTW, when Ehrlich wrote that book (just before Limits to Growth was published) the world population was about 3.5 billion. Today it's double that and growing by 75 million a year. We have managed to materialize Norman Borlaug's worst nightmares:

"Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the 'Population Monster' ... If it continues to increase at the estimated present rate of two percent a year, the world population will reach 6.5 billion by the year 2000. Currently, with each second, or tick of the clock, about 2.2 additional people are added to the world population. The rhythm of increase will accelerate to 2.7, 3.3, and 4.0 for each tick of the clock by 1980, 1990, and 2000, respectively, unless man becomes more realistic and preoccupied about this impending doom. The tick-tock of the clock will continually grow louder and more menacing each decade. Where will it all end?"

~Norman Borlaug's Nobel Prize lecture, 1970

And how did Borlaug's 30-year prediction hold up? Well, by 2000 we were at 6.1 billion people (about 6% short of his projection) and we were increasing by 2.5 people a second. I don't think we can count that as any kind of a victory over the evil Dr. Ehrlich.

[LouisvilleDem]

19. And you call us the deniers?

If you are incapable of seeing just how off base Ehrlich was with his predictions I'm afraid you are the one in denial my friend. You point out that Ehrlich and his fellow Malthusians were right about how fast population would grow, but fail to acknowledge that their predictions about social collapse were completely off base. I'd be happy to continue this conversation and talk about some other things you said, but unless you are willing to admit that Ehrlich was wrong far more than he was right I feel that I would be wasting my time.

On edit: I'd have to note that Norman Borlaug is more on my side of this issue than yours. He did not simply throw up his hands in despair, he figured out how to increase yields and saved billions of people in the process. He never believed the world was doomed.

[GliderGuider]

21. I don't argue with people who dismiss Ehrlich.

It's a waste of time on both sides.

If Borlaug didn't believe the world was at least potentially doomed, why did he use precisely that word in his Nobel speech? The rate of human population growth has been linear since 1980 or so which is good news, but that doesn't mean the damage to the planet's biosphere has stopped. Just ask the Formosan Clouded Leopard or the Western Black Rhino. Oh wait, you can't - they're extinct.

How much do you know about ecology? Does the word "overshoot" ring a bell?

Here's an article I wrote on the topic of sustainability back in May: No really, how sustainable are we?

[LouisvilleDem]

23. That's perfectly understandable

It has to be very hard to defend statements like these:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. (Population Bomb 1968)

India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980 (Population Bomb 1968)

By 1973 smog disasters will kill up to 200,000 people in New York and Los Angeles. (Population Bomb 1968)

By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people. (speech made in 1969)

By 1980 the United States will see its life expectancy drop to 42 because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population will drop to 22.6 million. (speech made in 1969)

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. (speech on the first Earth Day, 1970)

By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people ... If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000. (1971 speech)


Obviously the man is a genius

[kristopher]

9. You might have noticed the pronuclear/anti-environmentalist campaign that's underway?

GG's part in that effort is to craft an emotional appeal that will 1) discredit the judgement of the environmental community; 2) with that undermine the rational position that renewables can solve the problem, and 3) create a sense of despair that makes people open to extreme answers, in this case nuclear.

He doesn't argue for nuclear directly any longer, he just prepares the soil, so to speak, for the planting by others. He has largely been following the same formula for half a dozen years.

[GliderGuider]

10. Rumbled!

At least you've stopped calling me a pro-nuclear shill...

Do you deny the truth of what I've written?

On edit: Anyone who thinks, in the face of what's happening in Japan, that nuclear power is any kind of an option, extreme or otherwise, is dreaming in technicolor. We are facing the possibility of a global collapse well before we get enough renewable energy on line to support even a tiny fraction of this creaking monstrosity of a civilization. If that happens we set ourselves up for a "400-Fukushima scenario" in which all the world's operating reactors could be exposed to the risk of a sudden loss of electrical power, with the resulting risk of meltdowns.

The last - the very, absolutely last - thing I want to see is the world with 400 fulminating Fukushimas puking their guts all over the landscape.

[kristopher]

11. That's an odd question, coming from you.

I am absolutely sure that you have repeatedly espoused the position that you care nothing for truth.

[GliderGuider]

12. Nice dodge.

Transparent, though.

[kristopher]

13. Yes, your truthiness tactic was a nice try, but obvious as hell.

It made it pointless to discuss the bizarre claims you were making but it hardly bolstered your overall position.

[GliderGuider]

15. I understand why you're a little sensitive on this one.

If the shoe fits...

[phantom power]

16. I am the pro nuclear shill on this forum. Quit stepping on my brand, man

[GliderGuider]

17. You'll get your cut, dude. Don't get yer knickers in a twist...

[GliderGuider]

14. Not just the collapse of civ threatens to produce nuclear catastrophe - there's Stuxnet too

America and Israel Created a Monster Computer Virus Which Now Threatens Nuclear Reactors Worldwide

In their obsession to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israel created a computer virus (called “Stuxnet”) to take out Iran’s nuclear enrichment machinery.

The virus appears to have spread to other countries.

One of the world’s top computer security experts – Eugene Kaspersky – said this week that the virus has attacked a Russian nuclear reactor.

Nuclear power gone awry may even be a more immediate existential threat to humanity than climate change.

[CRH]

7. Problem with you glider is you're a realist, and reality sucks, ...

And as you say humans have been emotionally crippled from taking action, even when intellectually understanding the limitations human actions are placing on our future.

One can practice or suggest sustainability without being blind or clueless. It depends on whether whoever is speaking thinks it will save us. I often say the best course for us now is to pursue local sustainability to the degree that is possible, and edge ever closer to subsistent living, utilizing communal integration when possible. Not because I feel there is any hope it will save humanity, but rather it is an adaption method for 'prolonged' survival. Most people can make large strides in the right direction through controlling emotional desire and consumption. Conservation is at the core of future adaption, happiness with subsistence is the only recipe for sanity. Will any of it save us, no. As you point out above, it is a multidimensional collapse we are facing driven by collective action and consumption, by a population in overshoot.

Good posts, above and below.

[GliderGuider]

8. Thanks.

I've assembled all this into a coherent essay. I've put it up as a note on my FB page, and it will be going up on my web site later today.

[GliderGuider]

18. The full essay is now posted on my web site.

The Many Faces of Denial

[CRH]

20. Works for me, ...

[pscot]

22. Don't let it cloud your wah