{"id":160,"date":"2019-12-11T01:21:58","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T16:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wazabizapto.org\/life\/?p=160"},"modified":"2023-10-07T00:43:45","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T15:43:45","slug":"embracing-deep-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wazabizapto.org\/life\/?p=160","title":{"rendered":"Embracing Deep Adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cSociety\u2019s going to collapse, you know. Our global civilisation is heading for the abyss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conversation veered in an unexpected direction, that evening of February 2018, at Prima\u2019s Pure Vegetarian restaurant. Nearby, a gecko let out his sonorous mating call in the fragrant, tropical air. A scooter zoomed at breakneck speed down Penestanan road \u2013 they say it was a dirt path between paddy fields just five years ago. I frowned, and had another spoonful of spicy pumpkin soup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes you think that?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span>Jem Bendell finished his fried satay skewer, and scooped up some spinach in gado-gado sauce. He looked tired, preoccupied, and somewhat fatalistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IPCC is behind on the latest climate science. Their reports are consensual and conservative, and cannot be trusted. Positive feedback loops might have already started kicking in, and if so, things are spinning out of control. Crops will start failing, and people will go hungry soon, even in the West.\u201d He slurped from the straw dipped into his fresh coconut. \u201cAnd who d\u2019you think will take care of nuclear power plants when that happens?\u201d<\/p>\n

I glanced around the table, unsure whether this was a joke. You never know, with first-time encounters. But nobody was smiling.<\/p>\n

FOLLOW THE MONEY<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although I had been an occasional reader of Jem\u2019s blog for some time, this was not the kind of discussions I had been expecting when I arrived in Bali a few days earlier.<\/p>\n

I was mainly in touch with Matthew Slater, a self-styled \u201cbarefoot economist<\/a>\u201d and leading community currency engineer; fascinated with the prospect of relying on new forms of money to counteract the noxious effects of the global financial system, I had decided to take part in the \u201cMoney and Society MOOC<\/a>\u201d that he co-authored with Jem \u2013 and for good measure, I also asked Matthew if I could do anything extra to help promote these ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like to come to Bali and help Jem and I out in researching for the book we are working on? We\u2019re staying in the first village outside Ubud. There are lots of social possibilities!\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the most exciting email I had received in a while. I was unfettered by work or sentimental attachments. I was looking for a new path in my life. I was travelling through Asia \u2013 and I had never been to Bali. So a few weeks later, I found myself sipping pumpkin soup on the terrace of that restaurant with Jem and Matthew, in that little village outside Ubud.<\/p>\n

Although the two of them ended up putting their book project on the backburner, we spent most of the next two months working on a funding proposal for another project instead: the Credit Commons<\/a> protocol. Despite its revolutionary potential \u2013 it aims at federating mutual credit networks, worldwide, into an integrated system \u2013 or perhaps because of that, we failed to raise funding for the project\u2026 Irony, anyone?<\/p>\n

But something else came out of our collaboration which would change our lives profoundly.<\/p>\n

THE SCIENCE OF CATACLYSM<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For a couple of weeks, Jem tasked me with helping him research key facts for his sabbatical paper. It had to do precisely with that conversation we had had at Prima\u2019s, the very first time we spoke: he wanted to produce a rigorous synthesis of recent climate research, to confirm and to summarise the conclusions he had drawn from it over the past few months. So I dove into academic databases. I travelled to the shrinking Arctic ice cap; trudged through the melting permafrost and its pockets of methane; and ventured into the dark psychology of human denial.<\/p>\n

Even as I dug through hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, I could feel the root cause of that denial stirring inside of me. The skepticism. The wariness. The reassurance found in the scientific uncertainties \u2013 indeed, the urge to point out these uncertainties, and the conservative estimates. Anything to prevent myself from slipping into a nauseating state of fright, which would surely turn my life inside out. But in the final analysis, although I didn\u2019t fully agree with all its conclusions, I had to admit, reluctantly, that Jem\u2019s theory held water. The world started to look quite different.<\/p>\n

Three months later, the \u201cDeep Adaptation Paper\u201d was published<\/a> on the website of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability, at the University of Cumbria, where Jem teaches as a professor. Another month or so went by. One day, I received a message from him: \u201cIt\u2019s going viral.\u201d<\/p>\n

UNLIKELY VIRAL CONTENT<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Today, this paper has probably become the most widely read climate science paper in history. Download stats are very hard to interpret, but Matthew believes it has been read much more than the IPCC reports.<\/p>\n

This is all the more remarkable that it is a dense, lengthy, heavily-referenced piece of academic literature \u2013 the kind of writing we researchers are infamous for. It is definitely not an easy read, although I personally find it flows well, and avoids most of the turgid, impenetrable jargon that plagues so much academic writing (I won\u2019t claim credit for that, as I spent much more time tidying up the endnotes than contributing any breakthrough ideas).<\/p>\n

\u201cDeep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy\u201d was written for the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal<\/a>, a publication for which Jem had worked as Guest Editor in 2017. It was rejected by the reviewers of that journal, who found unacceptable that the paper didn\u2019t build off existing scholarship \u2013 while the paper\u2019s aim was in fact to fill in a gap in such scholarship \u2013 and who found it inappropriate, moreover, to \u201cdishearten\u201d readers with its central claim: that the collapse of global civilisation is inevitable within the coming decade, due to the catastrophic impacts of climate change.<\/p>\n

Jem defines social collapse as an uneven ending of normal modes of sustenance, security, pleasure, identity, meaning, and hope. As he puts it emphatically, this is not something that will happen elsewhere: \u201cWhen I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you wouldn\u2019t have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbours for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won\u2019t know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.\u201d<\/p>\n

How could such a gloomy and difficult text \u2013 which Vice claims<\/a> has been \u201csending its readers to therapy\u201d \u2013 possibly go viral, among the millions of fluffy cat videos shared over the Internet?<\/p>\n

THE ARGUMENT<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The paper starts off by reviewing the latest climate science. It notably points out that while previous climate models predicted a linear degradation of the climate system, recent data shows that the climate is responding non-linearly, meaning that impacts will happen more rapidly and severely than anticipated. In particular, food security worldwide will be massively impacted, leading to the aforementioned consequences on well-being and social stability. The paper also argues that technological progress, including geoengineering, cannot save us.<\/p>\n

One of the chief reasons why we won\u2019t react in time to prevent such foreseeable consequences holds in one word: denial. The paper sheds a harsh light on the various psychological and social strategies that have prevented, and still prevent us, from taking meaningful action and acknowledging the severity of our situation. Denial extends even to environmental NGOs committed to an incremental, \u201cpragmatic\u201d approach, and who claim \u201cthere is still time to act.\u201d But what if there isn\u2019t? We must realise what this entails: according to the paper, near-term collapse is inevitable; catastrophe is probable; and human extinction is possible.<\/p>\n

However, this does not mean we should all throw our hands up to the sky. On the contrary, Jem argues that by fully embracing the meaning of our predicament, and a more radical or active kind of hope, we can choose to explore how to evolve and take action collectively. Carbon emissions must be cut aggressively, to soften the impacts that so many of us are already experiencing. But on top of that, he suggests new conversations should unfold by approaching these topics using what he calls the \u201cDeep Adaptation Agenda.\u201d This agenda is structured around four main \u201cRs\u201d1<\/a><\/sup>:<\/p>\n

(1) Resilience<\/strong> \u2013 How do we keep what we really want to keep? What are the valued norms and behaviours that human societies will wish to maintain as they seek to survive?<\/p>\n

(2) Relinquishment<\/strong> \u2013 What do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse? What are the assets, behaviors and beliefs that would make matters worse if we keep them?<\/p>\n

(3) Restoration<\/strong> \u2013 What can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies? What attitudes and approaches to life, eroded by hydro-carbon society, should we rediscover?<\/p>\n

(4) Reconciliation<\/strong> \u2013 What could we make peace with to lessen suffering?<\/p>\n

Many readers have testified that it is both this open-hearted acknowledgment of how terrifying the situation actually is \u2013 for humans and the living world everywhere, including in Western countries \u2013 but also this clear and stimulating perspective on what to do about it, that have struck such a deep chord within them.<\/p>\n

Moreover, far from \u201cdisheartening\u201d people, contrary to what the reviewers feared, this message has in fact been a catalyst for action, for example among activists driving today\u2019s leading environmental movement: Extinction Rebellion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

THE DEEP ADAPTATION FORUM<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The sudden and unexpected response this paper generated has had a deep impact on our lives. Late last year, a private sponsor approached Jem, pledging some financial support if Jem chose to launch an initiative in response to the conversations around his work. Eventually, after a period of soul-searching, the initiative took shape under the form of the Deep Adaptation Forum.<\/p>\n

Launched formally in March 2019, the Forum<\/a> now gathers over 10,000 participants on the three platforms that comprise it \u2013 and I have become the curator of one of these platforms. These include spaces for mutual emotional support and community-building, as well as a place designed to explore how professional fields and industries should evolve to face the prospect of societal collapse. We have also been organising and supporting local gatherings, providing strategic advice to XR, and accompanying an emerging network of Deep Adaptation regional groups around the world (including one in Australia), among other activities<\/a>. And we hear that Deep Adaptation is now being discussed at the highest levels of government.<\/p>\n

That evening in Bali seems eerily faraway to me now \u2013 but what has followed it is now with me day by day, as I spend a seizeable part of my time engaging with thoughts of what may come next. Undeniably, living with the consciousness of impending catastrophes can be a painful lot; but to me, it has also been the entry point into a caring, generous and inspiring community of people, intent on exploring creative and compassionate ways of facing and shaping the future. Together, we hope to reduce harm \u2013 and to ensure that experiencing the joy of being alive remains an option, for humans and our fellow species alike.<\/p>\n

Learn more about the Deep Adaptation Forum here<\/a>.
\nIf you like our work, you can support us on Patreon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

1<\/a> Jem added the 4th<\/sup> \u201cR\u201d later. See here<\/a><\/p>\n

NB: This is an extended version of the article published in Issue #61<\/a> of the Australian magazine Dumbo Feather<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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