The Future Is Not What It Used to Be: Climate Change and Energy Scarcity

7. Where to Go from Here

7 Where to Go from Here Most people act like the inductivist turkey in chapter 1. They trust that what has sustained our prosperity and growth in the past will continue to do so. Even ecologically sensitive individuals and groups focus on mitigating damage caused by industrial society, rather than confronting the disconcerting fact that industrial society as such is the least sustainable form of civilization in history. Current policies and political discourse are thus paradoxically geared toward “sustaining the unsustainable” (Blühdorn 2010, 2011). There is no appropriate strategic governance of long-term risks to provide, in so far as possible, a softer landing when industrialism enters its terminal decline. This is deeply regrettable because, if we fail to confront the human predicament, we are likely to have an enormously hard landing ahead.And yet, few of our fellow turkeys are ready to give up the comfortable habit of denial. As we have seen in chapter 6, there are numerous reasons why even well-informed people tend to be neither able nor willing to seriously confront the transitory nature of industrial society. If this is so, then why revolt against the human predicament? Why bother, if persuading people of the transitory nature of industrial society is as impossible as persuading turkeys to vote for Christmas—or Thanksgiving , for that matter? Here is my personal response: The best thing a moral individual can do is to try to live “in the truth.” Life is tragic and sometimes there are no solutions. Not every disease can be cured. Insofar as climate change and energy scarcity are part of the human predicament, even the most accurate diagnosis is unlikely to suggest an easy cure. And yet, my mission as a scholar is to get to the bottom of things regardless of whether or not there is a solution. This does not mean that, as a citizen 170 Chapter 7 and consumer, I am better than anyone else. My task as a scholar is not to save the planet or pose as an ecological do-gooder. It is plain oldfashioned intellectual honesty. Some readers will find this depressing. My attitude will sound weary to those believing that problems like climate change and energy scarcity can and must be dealt with either through politics (Heinberg 2006; Giddens 2009) or local activism (Hopkins 2008; Murphy 2008; De Young and Princen 2012). It will sound entirely outrageous to those setting their hope in a cornucopian can-do attitude and believing that aspirational statements and positive thinking can revolutionize what is politically feasible (Nordhaus and Shellenberger 2009). Of course, I would be delighted to be proven wrong. In the next few pages I will make an effort to be more constructive and ponder what it would take to confront the current sustainability crisis. My suggestion is that, at least in theory and in an ideal world, the best chances for me to be proven wrong would stem from a combination of resilience thinking and ontological securitization. Resilience Thinking Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a personal or systemic crisis, altered perhaps but essentially unscathed. In general terms, it is the capacity of a system to “continually change and adapt yet remain within Figure 7.1 The denialist turkey. Source: Courtesy of Horst Friedrichs. Where to Go from Here 171 critical thresholds” (Folke et al. 2010, 1). Or, more specifically, it is the ability of a system to “absorb a spectrum of shocks or perturbations and to sustain and develop its fundamental function, structure, identity and feedbacks as a result of recovery or reorganization in a new context” (Chapin III et al. 2009, 241). Under normal circumstances, a system is a conglomerate of largely autonomous subsidiary systems, or subsystems. Every subsystem follows its own logic and continuously adapts to a myriad of perturbations and challenges. But sometimes this is not enough. In a general system crisis, the forgotten hierarchy of functions and values comes to the fore. It turns out that the subsystems are not an end in themselves but serve essential top-level system functions and values. These top-level system functions and values provide purpose to the subsystems and constitute the framework under which they operate. They must be defended even at the price of shaking up the subsystems and their secondary values. In a general system crisis, all subsidiary systems must be up for grabs because there is an ultimate end...