Maybe the sky IS falling...

[GliderGuider]

In the face of what's happening this spring, it's worth thinking about how you're responding to the opening act of world changes, both physically and psychologically.

The Sky is Falling

A few years back I had an experience that hammered home the notion of the normalcy bias. I worked for a healthcare service in Southern California which assisted home bound patients and their families. That summer the hills and scrub brush ignited into one of the West’s most ferocious wild fires. As it devoured the countryside my colleagues and I hurried to warn all of them who were in harms way and advise them to evacuate. We told them to listen to the firefighters as they knew best. One family I called were unconvinced. They said that others in the neighborhood weren’t leaving so why should they?

A few hours later we made another frantic call to that same family to urge them to leave. They said they could see flames coming up the hillside behind their house and the black smoke was thick and almost unbearable. But they were still unconvinced of the urgency since the electricity was still on and they could watch the news on television which did not warn them of any immediate threat. Eventually they did leave at the behest of determined firefighters. They were spared, their house was not. I have thought about them a lot over these past few years when thinking about the unfolding events in our world today. There is a segment of the population who appear to go too far in preparing for disaster; and in doing so they forfeit appreciating life here and now. But have we, as a society, normalized our dire predicament and the looming ecological catastrophe so much that we have paralyzed ourselves in a collective trance?

The human brain is a remarkable organ, but it is far less unique than our egos would like to admit. Like practically every other species we share this terrestrial orb with, we possess an evolutionary defense mechanism which protects us from overwhelming stress. The normalcy bias has been analyzed by many clinicians and scientists for years. It is that strange ability of an organism to deny impending danger, standing almost paralyzed in a hypnotic stupor in its face. This is most likely where the expression “deer in headlights” comes from. And it may be accurate to surmise that, similarly, the human species has its gaze fixed ahead into the blinding beams of a racing truck.

We have never been here before. This sentence sums up practically everything we are seeing unfold before us when it comes to carbon emissions, polar and glacial ice melt, erratic temperature fluctuations, ocean warming and acidity and species extinction. It is a new and terrifying landscape of the unknown. But despite all of this, industrial civilization appears to be accelerating toward the abyss rather than slowing down. Indeed, our leaders have reinforced this trance of normalization by numbing our senses with mindless entertainment and advertisements. How easy they distract us from our own existential crisis with new, plastic bobbles or gadgets and salacious celebrity gossip. How easy they play our emotions with political spectacle, nationalistic nonsense and manufactured outrage.

[Downwinder]

1. Nothing to do but grin and bear it.

No place to evacuate to. And if there were, can you imagine evacuating the planet?

[dreamnightwind]

2. Disagree, strongly

We must make radical changes to mitigate the worst outcomes. A certain degree of climate change is already baked in, much of it is not.

We could argue about where that line is, and I'm not qualified to make that argument, but I'm fairly certain mitigation of some worst outcomes is still possible and should be worked towards with the focus of something like our Manhattan Project or the first moon landing.

[Downwinder]

3. Our Leaders have known about this for 50 yeas.

They have the facilities and talents to examine all possible scenarios. It appears that they have abandoned all hope. It is not for me to dispute them. At 75 I am not inclined to board a Superman rocket to a far off world.

[dreamnightwind]

4. Was advocating for staying and fighting, not for leaving - eom

[Downwinder]

5. I really don't think there is a survivable scenario.

Last edited Sat Apr 23, 2016, 01:51 AM - Edit history (1)

I hope I am wrong and am around to see it.

We have released carbon into the environment that the planet has spent millions of years sequestering. Even without the greenhouse effect, we are acquiring and generating more heat than the planet can dissipate.

[silvershadow]

6. You are so right. I have long felt that.

[dreamnightwind]

7. Could be, we certainly haven't exhausted all possible responses though

and as such I think it's wrong-hearted to push the meme that it's done and we are fucked. Let's go down fighting this thing with all we've got, and maybe we'll salvage something inhabitable here. Peace.

[Canoe52]

9. Your phrase

" let's go DOWN fighting " implies that we are fucked. Which we are, but to also imply that we aren't going to fight because the battle is lost, is also wrong.

[dreamnightwind]

10. Well I really meant worst case, if we fight it, is we go down fighting it

I've seen plenty of people advocating that all we do is just deal with learning how to live with the catastrophe as well as we can, and about adjusting our mental attitude to give us the freedom to basically be happy living in that context.

I say fuck that and fight like our survival depends on it, because it does. There are many different tipping points to this thing. We've past some of them. Others can perhaps be avoided. The end results may be very different if we are willing to care enough to make the changes we have to. That's all I'm saying, and I'll keep saying it.

[Canoe52]

19. I haven't talked with anyone

That is that blasé about the coming gw crapstorm. Even the ones who raise their hand when asked at one of our local lib meetings "who here thinks we are fucked". But then I live in a pretty hard-core liberal activist area. And we've been fighting for the good cause most of our lives.

So I agree, ' nightwind let's keep doing what we can to make it better, and hope that it does!

[dreamnightwind]

20. Cool but I was chiming in re...

the fatalist thing, you know, we're f'd so just enjoy the ride.

Could have kept my mouth shut, but every time I see it I want to push back, I think we still need to do everything we can, there may (or may not, but that isn't entirely known) be extremes of it that can be avoided by enough effort.

[sylvanus]

22. I always question:

What makes people feel that humanity is worthy of saving.
Given what we do to each other and the planet.

[GliderGuider]

11. This is the point where...

...each of us gets to make our own conscious choice about how to face into what's coming. We'll make that choice based on who we have become, and what our values are - for ourselves, other people and the world. Each of our choices will be different because of that. Some will choose to fight, others will build communities of various sorts, some will choose to drop out, and some will choose simply to to stay where they are and do what they can. They are all valid personal choices, along with a host of others.

I don't think my choice of mindful surrender is any more or less noble than resistance. Those approaches are just two of the many available. Insisting that others should follow my path would mark me as foolish, arrogant and insecure. I prefer a gentler advocacy.

You have to decide for yourself what you will feel, think and do under these circumstances, and not worry overmuch about others' opinions. This is a time when each of us gets to do what they feel is right.

[dreamnightwind]

12. Yes I have read your mindful surrender posts, strongly disagree

I have no problem with you personally doing that. Where I have the problem with it is it can sap energy from efforts to stop the worst scenarios of climate change. I realize we won't agree on this, and thanks for the respectful nature of your post. It's difficult for me to be respectful of people advocating that we give up any fight back against climate change, hopefully you will understand that.

[GliderGuider]

14. Yes, I understand your reaction. It's an intense issue.

I have no desire to stop those who wish to fight world changes from doing so. Mainly I'm trying to help those who feel that there's no point in doing that to feel less shame when faced with the activists' moral arguments. I've found over the last decade that there are relatively few people like that -especially on a board like DU that is dedicated to activism.

Good luck in the good fight.

[dreamnightwind]

15. Awesome

Good luck to you too.

[sylvanus]

21. Who are we to tell the world to mitigate emissions.

Who's gonna tell all the Chinese, Indians and Africans that the dream of a modern world is no longer possible for them. Do we expect that their not going to try to achieve what's best for their country and peoples. China has already stated that there peak carbon output date is 2030. Radical changes in our species are mostly relegated to our highest priorities, greed and war. ( space program was a priority mainly as anti-Soviet propaganda and rocket testing. )
Long term global climate will never be a human priority, soon it's gonna be war's for food and water. ad infinitum.

[chervilant]

8. "We have never been here before."

Yet, after reading your OP, I have to wonder if past failed civilizations were aware of their imminent self-destruction.

Actually, I suspect that you mean this statement on a macro level. Thus, I have to say two things:

1) I do think our species is facing our extinction event. Even if some of us survive (a BIG if), our numbers will be extremely sparse, and our ability to obtain food will be severely compromised.

2) Selfishly, I am thankful that I'm in my twilight years, even as I continue to grieve for our younglings.

I sincerely hope you will continue to post on DU. I appreciate your OPs.

[pscot]

13. This is the Dream Time

We live in a dream of normalcy.

[sue4e3]

16. These diatribes on life and death are getting annoying

We have known we have all been dieing since the day we were born. If you have not been told at some point you are going to die. The fear is whether we are all going to do it at the same time for the same reason. Yes it is scary but we can not die one day sooner than we are supposed to and that is probably why most people don't have long drawn out conversations about it. The only reason I think any one even entertains these conversation is because there is something big, looming and at some point deadly that we know is happening but the reality is the same big questions still can't be answered when, where and how. When - sooner than we think ( there isn't a general consensus from every thing I have read which is quite a bit hundreds of studies and as many hours) If I were to average every thing I have read I would say some where between 20 - 60 years for really bad shit to happen not necessarily the Apocalypse but that could be the case ( if you take in extremes it's what are you doing next sunday because I wouldn't plan anything to 100 years from now) . Where - prospectively wherever your living something bad can happen. How - well the how gets a little more fun that could be any thing starvation, suffocation, radiation, disease, drowning , just overheating, I even read once bursting into flames (that's one of those extremes), dehydration and any other way you can think of. My point is exactly what are we supposed to accept past what we already know that some day we are all going to die. See If I am going to die tomorrow I don't want to spend all day today talking about it. As far as acceptance that's a load of BS no one really accepts death because you can only do it once. You can get comfortable with it and some people can even look forward to thier idea of it but accept what it is ,on some psychological level ; we can't because we don't know what it really is to go through it. We only know what it looks like. Yes we should fight potentially horrible out comes with all that we have right down to any bitter end but at some point you have to live in the right now because technically that's all you ever had. I will reiterate that climate change is an inevitability and death along with it and I believe we should fight to push it farther out, down or however we choose to describe it. but I'm not ready to hop on some death march on a death knell until it's actually time to die

[GliderGuider]

17. People vary widely in their responses. From where I sit, every response seems valid.

Your emphatic rejection and annoyance with attitudes like mine is par for the course, especially in activist communities like this. I have no problem with people who choose activism - wanting to fix things is a very normal human behavior. We each have the right to find our own comfort zone along the spectrum that runs from quietism to activism. You and I may be at different places along that continuum, but at least our responses are both motivated by a deep awareness of what's happening to the world.

The fact that I hold different views doesn't mean I'm trying to make yours wrong. My expression of these views isn't intended as advocacy so much as an attempt to ensure that outliers get heard. The other end of the spectrum is held down by the Deep Green Resistance folks who follow thinkers like Edward Abbey and Derrick Jensen. We live in a free marketplace of ideas where even the outer tails of the bell-curve of opinion have a place at the table.

[sue4e3]

18. I don't emphatically reject your attitude I expect it from someone in thier twilight years

( your words not mine ) not meant in disrespect. I get annoyed with the constant conversation of death because no matter when this impending doom will occur there is still life to live. If it were to happen in the next few hours we still have 3 hours of life and technically there is nothing that says it absolutely has to occur on some short term time scale . I would say doesn't absolutely have to happen at all but extinctions is an inevitability , no matter the cause or time scale.It can, could and might happen in the short term. There is a lot of people who think it will. I think you may be in the same place whether climate change gave you an excuse to be preparing to die or not. I know because do you really think a house wife(happily married) , mother of 3 , worked in the medical profession says hmmm "let me read hundreds of studies that potentially mean my children will die some heinous death". Of course not, You have to already be looking for death. Whatever your reason, old age, your work, death in the family, some eye opening event ect...ect.. I really do not mean that rudely. I watch people, animals, places and things and I see whether I want to or not.