(The following is an article by one of our advisory board members. It is exactly what is emotionally needed while we get so much bad news on our progress in managing the climate change emergency.)

Job One for Humanity has clearly shown adequate evidence for the need to immediately reduce polluting atmospheric gas emissions. Unfortunately, politicians, power brokers, and even most environmental groups have failed, been unresponsive, or, at best, looked for piecemeal solutions that are too little too late to restore the Earth's ecological systems. Even the newest urging by Job One for Humanity to directly confront all politicians, powerful ultra-wealthy people, institutions, agencies, and governmental bodies with their responsibility to radically decrease fossil fuel consumption will likely go unheeded.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Biden's touting of it in the State of the Union address shows the maximum political will that currently exists. Still, they fall far short of recognizing the ecological necessity of cutting atmospheric gasses now. The press and most environmental groups praise the IRA as a step forward. But even if the immediate goals of the IRA are implemented, they will not be accomplished soon enough to avoid disasters. At the same time, fossil fuel companies want to increase oil and gas production as they rake in the highest returns in their history. Even more egregiously, Republican legislators and their supporters want to cancel the IRA and continue subsidizing the fossil fuel industries.

 

 

Current political and economic forces are the juggernaut that will roll over our current way of life. Because of false hopes for both technological solutions to climate change and continued economic growth, I think that we humans will experience multiple repetitions of refugee camps, inadequate shelters following hurricanes and fires, increased shortages of goods and services, riots and military actions, migrations as sea level rises, loss of life from lack of medical care, disruptions in most forms of communication, and on and on. As a result, our current institutional coping mechanisms will be inadequate. New ways of living together will inevitably emerge in unpredictable and unexpected forms on an ad hoc basis. Our existing major institutions are not up to the task. 

Several organizations are studying how smaller-scale institutions can organize and survive. I am most aware of the Post Carbon Institute's program, Resilience. It is primarily focused on local communities. The Synergia Institute emphasizes transition strategies and cooperative efforts. Other groups, like Job One for Humanity, are concerned with survival when present institutions are shattered or ineffective. (The Job One for Humanity has the Job One Plan, Parts 1 and 2 are full of critical climate change survival tips. They also have extensive advice on creating urban and rural sustainable communities that are climate change resilient.)

We are not going to avoid disasters. We will not find technological solutions that will let us continue to live as we do now. Our institutions are unprepared even to find adequate solutions to living in today's predicament. With the breakdown of familiar institutions and the resulting major disruptions in everyone's life, I think it extraordinarily important to look within ourselves to avoid anxiety, attain equanimity, and find peace of mind. To do so, we must ask: How can we be more human and humane in a turbulent world where each of us will face new conditions of life?

How might we reassess what it is to be human while living in a collapsing civilization? What are some humane ways a person might adapt to the existential predicament before us? How can we, as individual humans, live in a world in which our actions and our current belief systems are failing? Below I list the thoughts of several people and one climate change think tank that are deeply concerned about the collapsing societies in which we live. They have accepted that life within the next decades will present many challenges and have suggested how individuals may adjust to continuing to live humane lives.

1. Jem Bendell is a professor of sustainability leadership at the University of Cumbria, who presented a paper in 2020 called Deep Adaptation. It stimulated the basis for a worldwide forum discussing the societal questions that arise with destructive climate change. He calls it an ethos of being engaged, of how to support each other, of how to engage in productive dialogue, and how to determine priorities. His book, Deep Adaptation, and YouTube videos expressing his views are available. Bendell writes, "Deep Adaptation is a framework for exploring ideas for how to attempt ... what we call the four Rs … These are all questions because we are in a very new situation where the expectation of simple answers given to us by somebody else are not going to help as much as we exploring together how to be and what to do. "

The essentials of Deep Adaptation are the four Rs. The Four Rs are questions we should always ask before acting to lessen our impact on Nature:

2. Richard Heinberg is a writer and journalist who is an authority on fossil fuels, their uses, and the politics and economics of their development. He is an expert on "peak oil," and the impact fossil fuels have on nature and human society. He is a senior advisor to the Post Climate Institute, contributing a column to its blog each month. The most recent of his over 40 books is simply called "Power." From this book, I extracted the following, Sixteen Words of Advice to Young People in the 21st Century.

3. Al Urquhart. (Al is an Emeritus Professor of Geography and was a founder and director of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon. With three degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, he was trained in anthropology, soil science, ecology, and geomorphology, as well as in his home department, geography.)

Environmentalists Anonymous. (Easing the emotional pain of living in a collapsing society.)

The ten steps are a way of reconciliation: 

Step 1. We Admit that we are powerless over our exploitation of the environment--that our lives have become unmanageable. If we are to remain sane and healthy, we must find a way to recognize both (a) the life and culture in which we have lived and (b) that we are part of a system in which humans and the environment are not opposed. The realization that we are merely part of a naturally evolving and ecological world is truly a humbling experience for those of us raised in the traditions of The Enlightenment and Modern beliefs, which stress the power, rationality, and individuality of humans and humanity.

Step 2. We have come to believe that we are but a small part of the Earth's evolutionary and ecological systems. We accept that the power of those systems is greater than ourselves. (Gregory Bateson wrote: "The self is but a small part of a much larger trial-and-error system which does the thinking, acting, and deciding." (If you want a name for that power, I suggest Gaia. Gaia is the primordial goddess who personified the Earth in Greek mythology. The Gaia principle proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.)  

Step 3. We have made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of Gaia. The third step toward sanity and mental health may be as difficult as the acknowledgment of our addiction. To surrender to this new way of thinking is, for most modern Americans, a great threat to our current ways of life. But viewed in the context where every technological triumph disrupts some ecological or evolutionary relationship, often in startling and precipitous ways, one catches glimpses of disasters far more threatening than alterations of our current lifestyles. Continued human survival in ecologic and evolutionary terms rests outside our own control; our technological addictions only precipitate the disturbance of the many interrelated natural systems of which we are but a small part. However, if we act within this new way of thinking--this new epistemology--that emphasizes the conviction that we are merely "part of" something much greater than ourselves, we may extend the positive aspects of being human--love, learning, kindness, and community support. 

(Steps 4-10. If we accept this new fundamental perspective, we can actively and honestly become part of it by physically acknowledging and, wherever possible, rectifying the wrongs we have done in the past, not perpetuating them today and avoiding them in the future. Additionally, through learning and meditation about Gaia and bypassing this message to others, we may awaken ways of gaining greater sanity within our communities.) 

Hello. My name is Al, and I am addicted to exploiting the Ecology and Evolution of the Earth. (Al is a member of the Job One for humanity Advisory Board. More information on his background is found here.) 

4, Job One for Humanity has produced much information on climate change, its environmental disruptions, and how to survive it. Job One also illuminates the many challenging reasons behind humanity's inability to cope with the climate predicament in which it finds itself.

Job One For Humanity has written much about how to survive what is coming emotionally, psychologically, and physically on its website. In addition, it has extensively discussed the eco-community-building issues of creating climate change-safer and more equitable eco-communities for the future. In fact, Job One is now developing and establishing four different models of eoo-communities (urban, rural, hybrid, and virtual) worldwide.

Here is just a bit of this type of advice found on Job One for Humanity.

As things continue to get worse, one of the most important things for you to do to survive what is coming is for you to remain emotionally and psychologically stable. To stay emotionally and psychologically stable and motivated while you help do whatever you can to slow and lessen our global warming extinction emergency to survive its now unavoidable coming catastrophes, you will need to find ways to enjoy the rest of your life to build and preserve your psychological and emotional resilience (the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.)

There is no doubt that to survive, you will need to build reserves in these areas for the times ahead. To enjoy your life today while you build and preserve emotional and psychological resilience and the needed reserves, take time every day to:

1. do the ordinary and extraordinary things you enjoy that make you laugh and that renew you,

2. cultivate new and current loving and meaningful relationships (you will need many solid, loving, and meaningful relationships as things continue to get worse),

3. experience the important things you may have delayed, 

4. create and live with courage and make the best of what you can no longer avoid,

5. decide that every difficult sacrifice and action you make can and will help preserve some part of humanity, Do everything you can to save Earth's endangered ecosystems and the best of our art, knowledge, and civilization. Your greatest legacy can be having your family survive and whatever you do helping to preserve the best of the amazing world you inherited.

6. draw strength and renewal from your faith and your faith community (if you are spiritual),

7. Learn new things. To survive what is coming, you will need to learn many new things as you become more self-sufficient. We strongly suggest learning new things to help you transition to the new way of living that accelerating climate change and our 11 other major crises are forcing on us as soon as possible.

In fact, here are our recommendations for some reading to start on right away:

Read about the principles of the Degrowth Movement and the concepts of Appropriate Technology on Wikipedia. Their intriguing and much-needed perspectives will also help evolve your thoughts and feelings about our new "fewer and less" but more sustainable future and its wise possibilities.) 

Get An inconvenient Apocalypse, Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, by Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen

This book dives even deeper into the human causes of our current climate emergency (even deeper than our highly recommended Overshoot book) going back almost 10,000 years. You may be pleasantly surprised and challenged by what you discover in this timely and soulful book.

It is based on a credible overview of climate and environmental science. It will help you quickly evolve your thinking and feelings to the new reality of our global climate-driven collapse process and what comes next.

It is a must-read for everyone you think will be there with you trying to survive what is coming. It will not only help put everyone on the same page, but it will also help produce the emotional and psychological stability required in your family or group to survive the suffering, death, and the many climate change-driven primary and secondary consequences that are no longer avoidable. Do not skip reading this book!

Get Overshoot, the Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, By William R Catton Jr.

This book goes into some of the most profound deep causes of the climate change and environmental emergencies so powerfully that everyone concerned about climate change and our environment must read this book.

And if you are really brave, start reading the two spellbinding fictional books on the horrible consequences of global warming after individuals waited too long to prepare for it, or migrate away from it, by the award-winning black female writer.

They are:

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993. This is part one of the two sequential novels. It is set in 2024.

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. Seven Stories Press, 1998. This is part of two of the Parable duology. It is set in 2032

These two books are absolute must-reads to see the day-to-day ordinary and extraordinary suffering that our current runaway global warming will impose upon our future. These two books are emergency preparation must-reads! Even back then, she pretty much got the global warming consequences right.

These two books will educate you in detailed ways we at Job One for Humanity have not yet been able to do with the many climate facts and consequences found on our web pages. Frankly, our website lacks the finely detailed, phase-by-phase emotional power and astute psychological and character insights into what happens to and between people, families, and communities in deep crisis as things just keep getting worse.

Franky, we are baffled as to how Octavia Butler could so accurately depict the tortuous lives of individuals who waited too long to get prepared and migrate because of global warming and then suffered horrible consequences. She skillfully compels the reader scene by scene with a brilliantly written cast of families trying to migrate up the California coast through crisis after crisis. It is impossible not to be drawn into the painful personal lives and details of what happens to these decent, regular families when societies break down at every level because of the consequences of late-stage global warming.

As we move into greater global warming consequences and catastrophes, as well as the consequences of the worsening of our other major global challenges described here, it is critical to take one day at a time and always make time for having fun and renewing experiences and loving relationships.

The importance of taking one day at a time and doing whatever you can each day to appreciate and enrich the life you have right now is --- that it will allow you to:

a. emotionally and physically survive,

b. still have many rewarding experiences while the environment still supports them so that you do not miss what may be your last opportunity to experience the many everyday things of life we take for granted. and

c. effectively contribute toward resolving the global warming extinction emergency and the other major global challenges we face.

"The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much." — William Hazlitt, English writer, philosopher, and critic.

Being satisfied and at peace with the many new and limited conditions and global warming consequences you will experience as climate change conditions worsen will be critical to maintaining your emotional and psychological well-being. Job One for Humanity also has excellent advice on the essential importance of "changing the way you think and feel" about your relationship with nature and the many lifestyle and livelihood changes you will have to make to survive what is coming and live in the new post-climate change collapse and extinction world. 

Unless one also changes their thinking and feelings about nature and their old way of living and working, they are highly likely to feel very unhappy and dissatisfied and even repeat the same mistakes that have created the climate change nightmare we now find ourselves in. (This critical needed attitude-evolving information is found in our Adaptation Actions section, in Step 17.

 

There are several highly public individuals (several with university credentials) who have been promoting in the climate change newsgroups and elsewhere that "the world is going to collapse because of climate change and other problems within the next nine to ten years." Current climate change science does not support these fixed-date short-term predictions.

Yes, of course, the world could end if there is a global thermonuclear war at any moment, but no one can predict that except the nation that starts it.

One of these individuals is on their second or third time actively publicly promoting "the world is gonna end in nine or ten years." Each time his prediction fails to happen, he waits for the dust to settle a bit, then starts again and just moves the date up another nine or ten years. 

Our economic, political, and social systems have enormous inertia in them. Climate change systems also have tremendous inertia in them. All of these systems are highly resistant to change. As a result, mass extinction, global chaos, and collapse will not occur within the next decade, short of having a global thermonuclear war.

For a worldwide climate change-driven mass extinction, global chaos, and collapse to occur, it will take at least 3 to 5 more decades for us to cross all of the necessary climate change tipping points and positive climate feedback loops to fully destroy ourselves.

Individuals worldwide still have a very limited amount of time (to about 2025-2031) to prepare and live their lives as comfortably as possible. At the same time, they must also keep working to save much of humanity by getting our politicians and governments to enforce the required 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets.

Never forget that appropriate fear helps move mature adults into action. Inappropriate or exaggerated fear creates panic and disperses the needed intelligent and focused actions.

Knowing the correct climate science-grounded mass extinction and collapse time frames is critical for every government and individual alive today. You can find more about these critical climate change-driven collapse and extinction time frames in this article. (If you want to find out why we only have from now until about 2031 to control our climate change futures, if we are fortunate, click here.)

And finally, please share this article in climate change newsgroups, with other climate and environmental organizations, and with your friends.

Useful Links

Job One for Humanity has an honest plan to survive and fix climate change. See the Job One Overview here for critical climate change survival tips and more.

Job One for Humanity has extensive advice on creating urban and rural sustainable new communities that are climate change resilient.

What must our governments do to save us from near-total to total extinction?