Tag: Climate Chaos

Back to Basics: “Green Transition” Imaginaries and the Limits to Growth

October 8, 2025

[Photo credit: World Economic Forum] Industrial-consumer modernism is often infused with glorified techno-imaginaries, unconstrained by the boundaries of scientific knowledge or by the requirements of achieving a society based on the wellbeing of people, not the accumulation of more capital by the hyper-rich. But what if we were to step back and take a look … More Back to Basics: “Green Transition” Imaginaries and the Limits to Growth

Categorical Consciousness: Imaginaries and Experience

June 4, 2025

Photo credit: R.M. Christie ~ ~ ~ What? Well, I was just thinking about how people deal with habits and addictions when either may have both pleasurable and self-destructive consequences. Some folks may be victims of another’s categorization, especially if it causes them to be ‘disappeared.’ Of course, categorization is a linguistic mechanization that is … More Categorical Consciousness: Imaginaries and Experience

Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail

January 15, 2025

What will it take to cause “shock and awe” over increasingly frequent and devastating catastrophic climate events? Consider this context: “The average temperature in 2024 was 1.6C above preindustrial levels, data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) shows.” (see story in  The Guardian, 1/10/2025.) Climate science predicts the devastating consequences clearly. Even so, LA burning becomes … More Charade: As Cities Burn, Perverse Politics Prevail

Realism: The Only Hope

February 14, 2024

As you may have noticed from prior posts here and/or from the Hopeful Realist Newsletter, I consider myself a ‘hopeful realist.’ The reason is twofold. First, neither optimism nor pessimism make any sense to me. I guide my thinking by what I know and do not know about the world. Since both optimism and pessimism … More Realism: The Only Hope

Carbon vs. Conservation: On the Necessary Maturing of the ‘Environmental Movement’

June 21, 2023

I ran across a fascinating and very important article the other day on LinkedIn, thanks to Erica Gies, author of Water Always Wins, who reposted it from Charles Eisenstein’s Substack.com platform. The importance of Eisenstein’s essay is that it clarifies the often-blurred line between the ideal and the real in what many loosely call ‘climate … More Carbon vs. Conservation: On the Necessary Maturing of the ‘Environmental Movement’

Is the Over-Population Crisis a Non-Starter?

April 26, 2023

Overpopulation has been an on-and-off issue for many decades. With the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s book, The Population Bomb in 1971, the issue came to a head…for a while. Then, with the apparent hopelessness of controlling population growth through public policy, few talked much about it for several decades. The idea of population control languished, … More Is the Over-Population Crisis a Non-Starter?

Quality vs. Quantity in a World Out of Balance

May 18, 2022

As industrial civilization unravels, the illusion of abundance is taking a hit. With destabilized agriculture, climate, and ecosystems, all sorts of supply chains will experience growing unpredictability at levels we have yet to imagine. Then we must choose what we consume far more carefully than we do now. The idea that the global industrial consumer … More Quality vs. Quantity in a World Out of Balance

Words and Deeds: Platitudes vs. Action

November 23, 2021

It was not only very disappointing that the United Nations 2021 “Conference of the Parties,” COP26, failed to reach beyond some new and some stronger “commitments” and “pledges” to reach various carbon emissions targets by certain dates. I among many others was even more disappointed with the struggle of some of the big environmental NGOs … More Words and Deeds: Platitudes vs. Action