My sympathies. If it's any consolation, it's been unavoidable for decades. When Greta suggested we panic in 2018, it was already too late even for that. I myself didn't become collapse aware until 3 years ago -- embarrassingly late -- and framed my series on it via the five stages of grief.
If I may offer a shred of realistic hope, I would warn against catastrophising. Firstly, while crop failure may indeed be widespread in a decade, threatening widespread famines, it neglects our formidable ability to adapt. Secondly, a global, interconnected modern industrial civilisation is in no way comparable to previous ones. The whole card house doesn't just topple in one go. Most likely, collapse will continue to unfold slowly and extremely unevenly. Plenty of places will do just fine for a long while yet. Not Europe post AMOC collapse, no.
In the end, the Holocene Extinction will run its due course in full, and that is exactly as obscene as it sounds. But everyone shouldn't necessarily despair all at once. There is much to be grateful for in the world, and much meaning to be forged.
Hello! Thank you for the post. I wholeheartedly agree with you, and my focus is on community resilience and adaptation. I feel encouraged by your letting go of the energy transition idea and the idea of preventing what is coming. That takes so much courage! A couple of books that may help with the grief are The Wild Edge of Sorrow as well as The Smell of Rain on Dust. <3
Here is a link to a free course (by awesome people) on seed saving and landrace development. Long story short, we will all benefit from bioregionally adapted seeds and people. https://goingtoseed.org/products/1406309
I am also available to chat if you ever feel like it, as someone who is in this with you and willing to share resources and ideas. Many of the folks I'm involved with on the ground push the energy transition and I sometimes get frustrated because I believe it to be fraught, but I know they are coming from a good place.
I do not believe collapse acceptance is fear-based, I believe the belief that this civilizational model should be protected or upheld despite the evidence to the life-destroying impact it has is what is coming from fear. As you say, though collapse itself will not be easy or comfortable even for the ones who prepare to the best of their ability, we face the possibility of being free to live upon the Earth and reclaim ourselves from the machine.
There is so much nuance and paradox and loss in this conversation, and I believe we are developing the ability to be with all of that.
Thanks for traveling the path that got you here, I cannot imagine it was easy. I appreciate your frank message. I commend your courage in trusting yourself, and changing your game to reflect what you know to be true. Best wishes on your next irl chapter. Like my Grandma used to say "work like it is in your hands, pray like it is in Gods".
I think there’s a lot to be afraid about but regenerative solutions exist too. A lot can be done in 10 years in terms of creating new food systems, making the climate adapt to higher CO2 and restoring the hydrological cycle by, for example, breaking Arctic Dams. I agree with you that there will be massive changes over the next decade but I worry that the “collapse mentality” actually plays into the corrupt forces driving the very changes we fear
First off thank you for the thoughtful reply. I'll address your second point first, because it's something I should have talked about in the OP.
All of the work that I'll be focusing on is essentially the same work that I advocate for in my book. Just on a local scale. I'm just much more clear eyed about realistic outcomes.
Which brings me to your first point.
I hope and wish that you are right. That we can make big enough changes in the next decade to transform things.
But if you really look at the evidence, that hope isn't based in reality.
Simply put, you can't argue with the law of thermodynamics. We overshot any real possibility of reversing things, probably years ago.
Just one example, there are more greenhouse gases stored in the melting permafrost than exist in the whole atmosphere. By a lot.
But more importantly, 98% of our economic infrastructure is dependent upon fossil fuels. We've already surpassed Peak Oil. When we hit Peak Energy, which is inevitable, everything will start to shut down.
When we hit Peak Water (again, inevitable) people will die by the millions.
The potential for--rapid--water cycle restoration is immense, and it has the added benefit of mitigating warming substantially. Walter Jenne has done substantial research, and others have done large-scale implementations connected to revegetation and multiple other 'outputs'.
We're really just getting started and can progress faster than ever.
I'm interested in sources. I am familiar with the UK University of Exeter Actuarial report that projects that at 3C more than 4B lives are at risk by 2100. It doesn't show a time line for collapse though. Things are changing fast in real time and that article is from 2024. I do think there's still time to avoid the >2.5C scenario but only if we peacefully and lawfully remove the current regime in the US within the next year. I am not giving up hope, but there is a balance in how to spend energy - on try to prevent and wake people up vs. preparing for the collapse that's already locked in and may increase if we won't wake people up.
1. We have passed 7 of the 9 Planetary Boundries that ensure a stable liveable planet (climate change is only one of those boundaries).
2. Societal collapse has been predicted for around 2040 since 1972 in an MIT study. Those numbers were rechecked and verified by someone at Harvard in 2021. But that was before the massive (130% by 2030) increase in energy and water use by Ai. So I'm guessing that timeline has moved up.
3. The Law of Thermodynamics. I don't even pretend to understand it, but the short version is that our global society is so large and complex that it requires truly massive amounts of energy to keep it from sliding into an entropy pit. But when we hit Peak Energy (between 2030-35) we fall off the Seneca Cliff and the whole thing grinds to a halt.
There are tons of people making decentralized mini nuclear reactors the size of beach balls. It is all coming. Despite the allure, we must reject focusing on the symptoms, and instead focus on the cure.
I think Dr Louis Arnoux has a much more feasible solution. Concentrated solar, stored in molten glass, housed in a small unit built from recycled materials and a bit of sand.
I also reached this conclusion last November and grieved the future that could have been. Now I have been focusing on making the most of my life in the present as deep down I know that unless we invent fusion or aliens show up our current society is probably going to collapse within decades.
I understand that for many people, denial can sometimes feel easier than confronting the reality and the grief associated with our planet's future. I truly appreciate you sharing your honest perspective on what you see ahead for our existence on Earth. It may sound unusual, but my experience with ketamine earlier this year gave me a brief glimpse into what might come. Unfortunately, it was bleak—the Earth had become a desolate, barren landscape with no signs of life. That vision was difficult to witness, but it was unmistakably clear. Since February, I’ve been in a state of mourning for various reasons. Not only have I seen frightening visions of planetary destruction, but I’ve also become increasingly aware that, since Trump took office, the balance has shifted dramatically. It feels as though we may have reached a point of no return. I'm struggling to find how to cope with this understanding as I feel alone. I can go on pretending and that gets more and more difficult as time goes on. You're obviously more intimately engaged with environmental and global issues than I am. I wish you the best with your work.
I’m 21. My entire life has been spent with this terrifying question over my head from as soon as I was old enough to understand what climate change is. Around me people still refuse to think anything of it. It’s incredible how you can be born into this situation where people purposefully choose to doom you - and it’s only like three hundred people pressing the death button, that’s the fun thing! Most people are pretty angry too or stuck in denial because the alternative is too terrifying. We still have a beautiful world, in many ways. And it should have already been, and can become only with a lot of hard work, more humane.
In the same world as dolphins play I alongside so many others will spend what life I have a wage slave, stressed by systems where having ethics is bad for business. That’s the real reason for my generation’s mental health crisis. On some level each of us knew something, grasped even a fragment of the unnecessary suffering we all go through as working class humans. I would like everyone to be aware that mass suicides will follow in the coming years. I feel like no one has talked about this yet. People are hitting their breaking point, especially in places like the USA. I don’t know if it’s worth living through the next ten years, myself. I don’t want to be alive in 2040, or 2050. I simply don’t. There are millions like me. At any time we might simply say oh fuck this shitshow for real!!! And I don’t think God will judge those who join him early too much. I hope not. Some things are poison to the human spirit, like the hope being drained out of you by nearly 11 years of watching wealthy fools do nothing at a catastrophe we knew about decades in advance. So yes. I fully expect the mass suicides of young people. When it happens people will keep blaming it on our phones, even as the communities that once gave us hope on our phones disappear due to censorship laws. Even as the rivers run dry with AI as the culprit, and artists are forced out of their dreams to feed that same machine. People will blame ridiculous things, but you will know the truth. Horrible things like that will happen. When that specifically happens don’t agonize too much. DO NOT ASSUME IT IS TOO LATE FOR A BETTER WORLD. Instead try to find peace and love with the paths you’ve chosen, or pick new ones (that hopefully don’t involve killing yourself). You’re good people. Give yourself kindness and hope wherever you can. Give yourself love, you deserve it, everyone deserves so so much more than what we started with. Good things will also happen. Those who survive will do them together. Small miracles may never leave us.
But if you could do one extra cynical thing for me specially. SHOW YOUR FRIENDS WHO WANT TO HAVE KIDS THE CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH. It is no longer responsible to bring a child into this world. I’m sorry, it’s cruel, but consider what it will be like for a child to have to cope with this mess. Many days out of the week I wish I wasn’t born into it myself. We all need to be very very very careful about our youth and making more of them. The birth rate dropping is great actually, it means people are a finally getting to choose whether or not to have kids instead of being pressured into it. But the birth rate needs to drop way way more, as close to zero as we can get it. Your child will be born not knowing what a stable winter or maybe even water supply looks like. You can give them all the love in the world, and I’m sure you will if you have a baby, but their long term quality of life is fucked, okay? Consider fostering or adoption. Please. If you can’t afford it you probably won’t be able to afford the genetically related child through the shitshow that is the next five years. Big sorry from an American but Trump is doing things to the world trade system that the devil can’t see coming and the prayers for 2025 to be a bad dream don’t seem to be working.
Quality of life is a thing. Prioritize your own please. Every time I see a new infant cradled in their arms of their smiling parents I am pleased for them but also horrified. They have no idea what kind of lives their kids will lead. They never researched it. They may die before they have to reckon with the environment their kids must live through. It is deeply unfair to them and to their children but it is reality. Help other people make better choices. Please. No one wants to be born into this. Not right now, not for a long time, okay?
Thanks for your response. You're undoubtedly right about all of it. Those of us from older generations have done young people an unconscionable disservice. We profited and consumed, ignoring all the red flags and warnings, and left you to suffer the consequences.
It's honestly unforgivable and I'm so sorry for my part in it.
I have two kids, 17 and 21. I've asked them to take the next ten years to just live their lives and enjoy themselves. To (responsibly and respectfully) do everything they want to do with no concern for the future.
It's MY job to spend the next decade building a place where they can come, bringing their closest loved ones, to live in safety when things start to get really bad.
I can’t disagree with anything you say. I just hope you will not be one of those young people who takes their own life out of despair. Stay and with your kindness, help us muddle through as best we can. All the best. M
Thanks for writing this down Thomas. I have been feeling this in my bones. Though I keep framing it as our default trajectory, not inevitable trajectory- knowing fully well that the default is probably 99% likely. It would really help me if you can share the resources or a write up that connects the dots together of how collapse will happen and what it will look like. Something which shows the cascading chain of events. I have the various pieces of the puzzle, but no coherent narrative linking them together. This is critical for convincing more people to act as many of my friends look at the different bits and keep thinking of solutions in isolation and it is difficult for me to impress upon them the sense of urgency I feel
J. Thomas, I’m a reporter turned activist turned teacher who started telling this story in the 90s, wading through wave after wave of pushback, and was told by my VP today not to allude to climate change in my weather unit because “it’s political and some people don’t believe in it.” This is a public school system outside of Trump’s America. What little hope I had for the next generation was crushed by that interaction, along with any sense of purpose my job held. If we are still denying and equivocating in schools, 35 years after the data sets and experience of climate change were apparent, we are in deep, deep trouble. I’m really not sure I want to spend the next ten years teaching … and would so appreciate connecting with anyone else in the same moral space. The staff room is a wasteland.
Very interesting post, and I thank you for the work you’ve obviously been painstakingly doing.
While you may be right, I think it’s a disservice to just stop posting.
While the internet is here and there are pockets of communities like this one, I think there is something to be said to sticking together.
Also this post frightens me because I have a child who needs consistent access to medical care to survive. Without the infrastructure we currently have, there is little chance they make it.
That terrifies me. So if you’re right, now I must come to terms with that as well.
That is why I deeply hope that we’ll find a way. My child’s life literally depends on it.
Wow! Big thoughts 🥹. Humans have evolved to extraordinary creatures. Understanding power is not our strong suit. Maybe we were made to just breathe, be kind, share, enjoy a sweet life, think, love. That was plenty for me! Thank you.
I’ve been working on climate and energy since 1974. You are right to say it’s worse than most people realize, but wrong to say it’s “too late.” That phrase “the worst impacts of climate change” is too nebulous to mean anything. Tipping points are uncertain in timing and scope. The IPCC choice of 1.5*C as a threshold was a mistake, meant to spur ambition but having the unintended consequence of creating despair. Yes, the impacts are going to be serious, but serious is not hopeless. And if you dig through the IPCC reports, you can see that if emissions go down, the global temperature will also start to go down over a few decades.
So don’t give up hope! We can still make the future better!
My point is that things are probably not going to get better until they first get catastrophically worse.
Emissions are still rising, and greenhouse gases will dramatically increase as permafrost melts.
The kind of decrease in emissions you're talking about WILL occur, but only because billions of people are going to die.
And emissions and global warming is only part of the problem. Ocean acidification, the imminent death of coral reefs and the collapse of global currents is going to wreak havoc on the Planetary ecosystem.
When I say it's too late. I'm saying it's too late to stop worldwide societal collapse.
I said "some" of the worst impacts.
The WORST impact would be an extinction level event that kills 97% of all life on Earth.
I don't think that will happen. But I do think 75% of humans are probably going to die by 2050.
I'm not trying to convince you, I'm just clarifying my position.
You have to do what's right for you and your loved ones.
I have followed Dr Jim Hansen closely. At one time he speculated that a “Venus syndrome” scenario was possible, but has abandoned that position. This would have been the 97% outcome you mention. I agree that 75% human mortality is possible but highly unlikely because the global economy would fall into depression long before that and emissions would crash.
But those scenarios assume that we give up efforts to force the cuts we need. All the technologies are available, the only obstacle is the entrenched interests that cling to fossil fuels and overconsumption in the developed world. We do have agency in that world, despite how hard it is.
The only place I think we disagree is in the potential to make things less bad. Yes, permafrost emissions may ultimately wipe out our efforts. But they also may not. We don’t know for sure, so we have to assume there is still hope.
This is the first time I've read your column, and I'm sorry I missed it and just now found it. After all your research, it's heartbreaking to hear your conclusion. We knew it would happen "someday" but that seemed far off. Given the pace of change lately, I wish I were surprised to hear it's just 10 years.
My sympathies. If it's any consolation, it's been unavoidable for decades. When Greta suggested we panic in 2018, it was already too late even for that. I myself didn't become collapse aware until 3 years ago -- embarrassingly late -- and framed my series on it via the five stages of grief.
If I may offer a shred of realistic hope, I would warn against catastrophising. Firstly, while crop failure may indeed be widespread in a decade, threatening widespread famines, it neglects our formidable ability to adapt. Secondly, a global, interconnected modern industrial civilisation is in no way comparable to previous ones. The whole card house doesn't just topple in one go. Most likely, collapse will continue to unfold slowly and extremely unevenly. Plenty of places will do just fine for a long while yet. Not Europe post AMOC collapse, no.
In the end, the Holocene Extinction will run its due course in full, and that is exactly as obscene as it sounds. But everyone shouldn't necessarily despair all at once. There is much to be grateful for in the world, and much meaning to be forged.
Best wishes to you.
Thank you
Best wishes, J! Go where you feel called and make a difference with the time allotted on earth. Your voice has been appreciated!
Thank you my friend
Hello! Thank you for the post. I wholeheartedly agree with you, and my focus is on community resilience and adaptation. I feel encouraged by your letting go of the energy transition idea and the idea of preventing what is coming. That takes so much courage! A couple of books that may help with the grief are The Wild Edge of Sorrow as well as The Smell of Rain on Dust. <3
Here is a link to a free course (by awesome people) on seed saving and landrace development. Long story short, we will all benefit from bioregionally adapted seeds and people. https://goingtoseed.org/products/1406309
I am also available to chat if you ever feel like it, as someone who is in this with you and willing to share resources and ideas. Many of the folks I'm involved with on the ground push the energy transition and I sometimes get frustrated because I believe it to be fraught, but I know they are coming from a good place.
I do not believe collapse acceptance is fear-based, I believe the belief that this civilizational model should be protected or upheld despite the evidence to the life-destroying impact it has is what is coming from fear. As you say, though collapse itself will not be easy or comfortable even for the ones who prepare to the best of their ability, we face the possibility of being free to live upon the Earth and reclaim ourselves from the machine.
There is so much nuance and paradox and loss in this conversation, and I believe we are developing the ability to be with all of that.
Thanks for the comment!
Yes exactly, I'm not coming from a place of fear or cynicism. I'm simply narrowing my focus.
Thanks for the link! Feel free to respond to any other comments here looking for info.
And yes, let's connect.
J.
This is a beautiful response, thank you for sharing.
Thanks for traveling the path that got you here, I cannot imagine it was easy. I appreciate your frank message. I commend your courage in trusting yourself, and changing your game to reflect what you know to be true. Best wishes on your next irl chapter. Like my Grandma used to say "work like it is in your hands, pray like it is in Gods".
Thank you. That means a lot.
I think there’s a lot to be afraid about but regenerative solutions exist too. A lot can be done in 10 years in terms of creating new food systems, making the climate adapt to higher CO2 and restoring the hydrological cycle by, for example, breaking Arctic Dams. I agree with you that there will be massive changes over the next decade but I worry that the “collapse mentality” actually plays into the corrupt forces driving the very changes we fear
First off thank you for the thoughtful reply. I'll address your second point first, because it's something I should have talked about in the OP.
All of the work that I'll be focusing on is essentially the same work that I advocate for in my book. Just on a local scale. I'm just much more clear eyed about realistic outcomes.
Which brings me to your first point.
I hope and wish that you are right. That we can make big enough changes in the next decade to transform things.
But if you really look at the evidence, that hope isn't based in reality.
Simply put, you can't argue with the law of thermodynamics. We overshot any real possibility of reversing things, probably years ago.
Just one example, there are more greenhouse gases stored in the melting permafrost than exist in the whole atmosphere. By a lot.
But more importantly, 98% of our economic infrastructure is dependent upon fossil fuels. We've already surpassed Peak Oil. When we hit Peak Energy, which is inevitable, everything will start to shut down.
When we hit Peak Water (again, inevitable) people will die by the millions.
In my estimation, Collapse is a 99% certainty.
J.
The potential for--rapid--water cycle restoration is immense, and it has the added benefit of mitigating warming substantially. Walter Jenne has done substantial research, and others have done large-scale implementations connected to revegetation and multiple other 'outputs'.
We're really just getting started and can progress faster than ever.
I'm interested in sources. I am familiar with the UK University of Exeter Actuarial report that projects that at 3C more than 4B lives are at risk by 2100. It doesn't show a time line for collapse though. Things are changing fast in real time and that article is from 2024. I do think there's still time to avoid the >2.5C scenario but only if we peacefully and lawfully remove the current regime in the US within the next year. I am not giving up hope, but there is a balance in how to spend energy - on try to prevent and wake people up vs. preparing for the collapse that's already locked in and may increase if we won't wake people up.
Thanks for the comment!
I'll put links below.
1. We have passed 7 of the 9 Planetary Boundries that ensure a stable liveable planet (climate change is only one of those boundaries).
2. Societal collapse has been predicted for around 2040 since 1972 in an MIT study. Those numbers were rechecked and verified by someone at Harvard in 2021. But that was before the massive (130% by 2030) increase in energy and water use by Ai. So I'm guessing that timeline has moved up.
3. The Law of Thermodynamics. I don't even pretend to understand it, but the short version is that our global society is so large and complex that it requires truly massive amounts of energy to keep it from sliding into an entropy pit. But when we hit Peak Energy (between 2030-35) we fall off the Seneca Cliff and the whole thing grinds to a halt.
Let me know if you have follow up questions.
J.
https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/seven-of-nine-planetary-boundaries-now-breached-2013-ocean-acidification-joins-the-danger-zone
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/climate-change/563497-mit-predicted-society-would-collapse-by-2040/
https://www.google.com/search?q=thermodynamics+and+societal+collapse&oq=thermodynamics+and+societal+collapse+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRirAtIBCTE3Mjc0ajBqOagCCbACAfEFue742i4lsX_xBbnu-NouJbF_&client=ms-android-verizon-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/collapse-too-might-come-sooner-than-expected-eb3f16e8542d
Thanks!
There are tons of people making decentralized mini nuclear reactors the size of beach balls. It is all coming. Despite the allure, we must reject focusing on the symptoms, and instead focus on the cure.
Do you actually know these folks, and what does that mean for us all to have lots of small nuclear reactors?
I think Dr Louis Arnoux has a much more feasible solution. Concentrated solar, stored in molten glass, housed in a small unit built from recycled materials and a bit of sand.
we know one of their lawyers. The future of energy will be decentralized.
Sorry to hear this —- all of it. I know it had to have been an agonizing decision, in the face of overwhelmingly shitty data.
Yeah I've spent the last couple of months going through literal stages of grief.
Thanks for reaching out. ❤️
I also reached this conclusion last November and grieved the future that could have been. Now I have been focusing on making the most of my life in the present as deep down I know that unless we invent fusion or aliens show up our current society is probably going to collapse within decades.
I understand that for many people, denial can sometimes feel easier than confronting the reality and the grief associated with our planet's future. I truly appreciate you sharing your honest perspective on what you see ahead for our existence on Earth. It may sound unusual, but my experience with ketamine earlier this year gave me a brief glimpse into what might come. Unfortunately, it was bleak—the Earth had become a desolate, barren landscape with no signs of life. That vision was difficult to witness, but it was unmistakably clear. Since February, I’ve been in a state of mourning for various reasons. Not only have I seen frightening visions of planetary destruction, but I’ve also become increasingly aware that, since Trump took office, the balance has shifted dramatically. It feels as though we may have reached a point of no return. I'm struggling to find how to cope with this understanding as I feel alone. I can go on pretending and that gets more and more difficult as time goes on. You're obviously more intimately engaged with environmental and global issues than I am. I wish you the best with your work.
Thank you for sharing. I've had to go through my own grieving process the last few months so I can relate. You aren't alone.
J.
I'm taking ketamine for chronic depression. It's giving me some relief, but also deepening my despair about the human catastrophe.
I've written about it on my Substack.
Thanks for sharing
I’m 21. My entire life has been spent with this terrifying question over my head from as soon as I was old enough to understand what climate change is. Around me people still refuse to think anything of it. It’s incredible how you can be born into this situation where people purposefully choose to doom you - and it’s only like three hundred people pressing the death button, that’s the fun thing! Most people are pretty angry too or stuck in denial because the alternative is too terrifying. We still have a beautiful world, in many ways. And it should have already been, and can become only with a lot of hard work, more humane.
In the same world as dolphins play I alongside so many others will spend what life I have a wage slave, stressed by systems where having ethics is bad for business. That’s the real reason for my generation’s mental health crisis. On some level each of us knew something, grasped even a fragment of the unnecessary suffering we all go through as working class humans. I would like everyone to be aware that mass suicides will follow in the coming years. I feel like no one has talked about this yet. People are hitting their breaking point, especially in places like the USA. I don’t know if it’s worth living through the next ten years, myself. I don’t want to be alive in 2040, or 2050. I simply don’t. There are millions like me. At any time we might simply say oh fuck this shitshow for real!!! And I don’t think God will judge those who join him early too much. I hope not. Some things are poison to the human spirit, like the hope being drained out of you by nearly 11 years of watching wealthy fools do nothing at a catastrophe we knew about decades in advance. So yes. I fully expect the mass suicides of young people. When it happens people will keep blaming it on our phones, even as the communities that once gave us hope on our phones disappear due to censorship laws. Even as the rivers run dry with AI as the culprit, and artists are forced out of their dreams to feed that same machine. People will blame ridiculous things, but you will know the truth. Horrible things like that will happen. When that specifically happens don’t agonize too much. DO NOT ASSUME IT IS TOO LATE FOR A BETTER WORLD. Instead try to find peace and love with the paths you’ve chosen, or pick new ones (that hopefully don’t involve killing yourself). You’re good people. Give yourself kindness and hope wherever you can. Give yourself love, you deserve it, everyone deserves so so much more than what we started with. Good things will also happen. Those who survive will do them together. Small miracles may never leave us.
But if you could do one extra cynical thing for me specially. SHOW YOUR FRIENDS WHO WANT TO HAVE KIDS THE CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH. It is no longer responsible to bring a child into this world. I’m sorry, it’s cruel, but consider what it will be like for a child to have to cope with this mess. Many days out of the week I wish I wasn’t born into it myself. We all need to be very very very careful about our youth and making more of them. The birth rate dropping is great actually, it means people are a finally getting to choose whether or not to have kids instead of being pressured into it. But the birth rate needs to drop way way more, as close to zero as we can get it. Your child will be born not knowing what a stable winter or maybe even water supply looks like. You can give them all the love in the world, and I’m sure you will if you have a baby, but their long term quality of life is fucked, okay? Consider fostering or adoption. Please. If you can’t afford it you probably won’t be able to afford the genetically related child through the shitshow that is the next five years. Big sorry from an American but Trump is doing things to the world trade system that the devil can’t see coming and the prayers for 2025 to be a bad dream don’t seem to be working.
Quality of life is a thing. Prioritize your own please. Every time I see a new infant cradled in their arms of their smiling parents I am pleased for them but also horrified. They have no idea what kind of lives their kids will lead. They never researched it. They may die before they have to reckon with the environment their kids must live through. It is deeply unfair to them and to their children but it is reality. Help other people make better choices. Please. No one wants to be born into this. Not right now, not for a long time, okay?
Thanks for your response. You're undoubtedly right about all of it. Those of us from older generations have done young people an unconscionable disservice. We profited and consumed, ignoring all the red flags and warnings, and left you to suffer the consequences.
It's honestly unforgivable and I'm so sorry for my part in it.
I have two kids, 17 and 21. I've asked them to take the next ten years to just live their lives and enjoy themselves. To (responsibly and respectfully) do everything they want to do with no concern for the future.
It's MY job to spend the next decade building a place where they can come, bringing their closest loved ones, to live in safety when things start to get really bad.
I would ask the same of you.
Reach out any time in my DM's.
❤️
J.
I can’t disagree with anything you say. I just hope you will not be one of those young people who takes their own life out of despair. Stay and with your kindness, help us muddle through as best we can. All the best. M
Thanks for writing this down Thomas. I have been feeling this in my bones. Though I keep framing it as our default trajectory, not inevitable trajectory- knowing fully well that the default is probably 99% likely. It would really help me if you can share the resources or a write up that connects the dots together of how collapse will happen and what it will look like. Something which shows the cascading chain of events. I have the various pieces of the puzzle, but no coherent narrative linking them together. This is critical for convincing more people to act as many of my friends look at the different bits and keep thinking of solutions in isolation and it is difficult for me to impress upon them the sense of urgency I feel
Sorry for the delayed response.
Here's how I answered this question for another commentor...
Read that and let me know how I can help clarify.
Thanks for your patience!
J.
https://thatbetterworld.substack.com/p/why-this-is-my-last-substack-post/comment/176961760?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3jsrp9
"First, human survival doesn’t depend on building a better economy, it depends on the elimination of “economy” itself."
Yes. Well noted. Almost no one has gotten to that level of understanding.
FWIW, a presentation of the solution (in that regard) is in the works. How it's received and acted on is another matter.
Feedback activation….two very powerful and existential words.
J. Thomas, I’m a reporter turned activist turned teacher who started telling this story in the 90s, wading through wave after wave of pushback, and was told by my VP today not to allude to climate change in my weather unit because “it’s political and some people don’t believe in it.” This is a public school system outside of Trump’s America. What little hope I had for the next generation was crushed by that interaction, along with any sense of purpose my job held. If we are still denying and equivocating in schools, 35 years after the data sets and experience of climate change were apparent, we are in deep, deep trouble. I’m really not sure I want to spend the next ten years teaching … and would so appreciate connecting with anyone else in the same moral space. The staff room is a wasteland.
I'll reach out on DM'S
J.
Very interesting post, and I thank you for the work you’ve obviously been painstakingly doing.
While you may be right, I think it’s a disservice to just stop posting.
While the internet is here and there are pockets of communities like this one, I think there is something to be said to sticking together.
Also this post frightens me because I have a child who needs consistent access to medical care to survive. Without the infrastructure we currently have, there is little chance they make it.
That terrifies me. So if you’re right, now I must come to terms with that as well.
That is why I deeply hope that we’ll find a way. My child’s life literally depends on it.
Thank you.
There's a really good chance that I'm right.
Act accordingly
Wow! Big thoughts 🥹. Humans have evolved to extraordinary creatures. Understanding power is not our strong suit. Maybe we were made to just breathe, be kind, share, enjoy a sweet life, think, love. That was plenty for me! Thank you.
I’ve been working on climate and energy since 1974. You are right to say it’s worse than most people realize, but wrong to say it’s “too late.” That phrase “the worst impacts of climate change” is too nebulous to mean anything. Tipping points are uncertain in timing and scope. The IPCC choice of 1.5*C as a threshold was a mistake, meant to spur ambition but having the unintended consequence of creating despair. Yes, the impacts are going to be serious, but serious is not hopeless. And if you dig through the IPCC reports, you can see that if emissions go down, the global temperature will also start to go down over a few decades.
So don’t give up hope! We can still make the future better!
My point is that things are probably not going to get better until they first get catastrophically worse.
Emissions are still rising, and greenhouse gases will dramatically increase as permafrost melts.
The kind of decrease in emissions you're talking about WILL occur, but only because billions of people are going to die.
And emissions and global warming is only part of the problem. Ocean acidification, the imminent death of coral reefs and the collapse of global currents is going to wreak havoc on the Planetary ecosystem.
When I say it's too late. I'm saying it's too late to stop worldwide societal collapse.
I said "some" of the worst impacts.
The WORST impact would be an extinction level event that kills 97% of all life on Earth.
I don't think that will happen. But I do think 75% of humans are probably going to die by 2050.
I'm not trying to convince you, I'm just clarifying my position.
You have to do what's right for you and your loved ones.
I'm building an "ark."
J.
I have followed Dr Jim Hansen closely. At one time he speculated that a “Venus syndrome” scenario was possible, but has abandoned that position. This would have been the 97% outcome you mention. I agree that 75% human mortality is possible but highly unlikely because the global economy would fall into depression long before that and emissions would crash.
But those scenarios assume that we give up efforts to force the cuts we need. All the technologies are available, the only obstacle is the entrenched interests that cling to fossil fuels and overconsumption in the developed world. We do have agency in that world, despite how hard it is.
The only place I think we disagree is in the potential to make things less bad. Yes, permafrost emissions may ultimately wipe out our efforts. But they also may not. We don’t know for sure, so we have to assume there is still hope.
Maybe you're right
This is the first time I've read your column, and I'm sorry I missed it and just now found it. After all your research, it's heartbreaking to hear your conclusion. We knew it would happen "someday" but that seemed far off. Given the pace of change lately, I wish I were surprised to hear it's just 10 years.
Thank you