Listen now | Dr Gail Bradbrook on how activist groups can evolve their messaging and their mission to identify a new goal: solutions. Gail is one of the original members who set up Extinction Rebellion and has now transitioned to Being The Change which empowers both activists and the public to connect with one another around the world and do something.
This was a real gem! Gail Bradbrook is always an interesting and challenging listen. Whenever the Climate and Ecological crisis is explained to someone, the first question is "What can I do?". It'll take thinking like Gail's to pull the threads together and build a movement to act 'glocally'. I'll certainly be looking out for #beingthechange .
On the question you asked about activists demands being impossible in the face of the realities of the energy needs of civilization, as pointed out by Nate Hagens and others. i.e. We have to stop oil and gas extraction because of looming cascading tipping points, but we can't because it's powering 'the super-organism' and renewables won't replace the fossil energy source. This reminds me of the Douglas Adams conundrum, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The answer being that they can't both exist in the same universe. In this case the unstoppable force is nature, and the immovable object (or so we are led to believe), is the current paradigm.
The only downside to this episode is that I thought I'd read fairly widely beforehand.
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it, Tim. I agree about the conundrum, but also think this is why investing in creativity and imagination is critical at this point—and why a network like what Gail and her colleagues is trying to build will be crucial.
Degrowth suggests we can power the organism as long as we feed it less and expect it to take a different form. It is perhaps time to mould our sociological footprint consciously rather than stamp our impact all over the world.
The human species population has overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. That means the current consumption is much more than the earth can replace and our pollution is more than the earth can assimilate. The carrying capacity therefore is being reduced. We are living off the capital and not the interest. Feeding the current population cannot be done without massive fossil fuel inputs. To rein in consumption to sustainable levels, some calculations need to be done to see what is possible. Here are some results of these calculations that are out there.
Maintain current population: All poor people in the world have to remain poor and all the rest of us will need to join them.
Maintain a lower middle class life for everyone: The population would need to be reduced to less than two billion.
Any talk of healing the world without taking stock of reality is just delusion. No significant changing of the system will fix things and not possible anyway. The growth economic paradigm cannot just be stopped without massive human suffering but it will stop anyway because it is not sustainable so the massive human suffering in inevitable.
Thanks. Not able to subscribe yet. PayPal possible?
Hi Faith, thanks for your support. I don't accept Paypal, but I do have a Patreon page if that would help? patreon.com/planetcritical
This was a real gem! Gail Bradbrook is always an interesting and challenging listen. Whenever the Climate and Ecological crisis is explained to someone, the first question is "What can I do?". It'll take thinking like Gail's to pull the threads together and build a movement to act 'glocally'. I'll certainly be looking out for #beingthechange .
On the question you asked about activists demands being impossible in the face of the realities of the energy needs of civilization, as pointed out by Nate Hagens and others. i.e. We have to stop oil and gas extraction because of looming cascading tipping points, but we can't because it's powering 'the super-organism' and renewables won't replace the fossil energy source. This reminds me of the Douglas Adams conundrum, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The answer being that they can't both exist in the same universe. In this case the unstoppable force is nature, and the immovable object (or so we are led to believe), is the current paradigm.
The only downside to this episode is that I thought I'd read fairly widely beforehand.
I'm so pleased you enjoyed it, Tim. I agree about the conundrum, but also think this is why investing in creativity and imagination is critical at this point—and why a network like what Gail and her colleagues is trying to build will be crucial.
Degrowth suggests we can power the organism as long as we feed it less and expect it to take a different form. It is perhaps time to mould our sociological footprint consciously rather than stamp our impact all over the world.
The human species population has overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. That means the current consumption is much more than the earth can replace and our pollution is more than the earth can assimilate. The carrying capacity therefore is being reduced. We are living off the capital and not the interest. Feeding the current population cannot be done without massive fossil fuel inputs. To rein in consumption to sustainable levels, some calculations need to be done to see what is possible. Here are some results of these calculations that are out there.
Maintain current population: All poor people in the world have to remain poor and all the rest of us will need to join them.
Maintain a lower middle class life for everyone: The population would need to be reduced to less than two billion.
Any talk of healing the world without taking stock of reality is just delusion. No significant changing of the system will fix things and not possible anyway. The growth economic paradigm cannot just be stopped without massive human suffering but it will stop anyway because it is not sustainable so the massive human suffering in inevitable.
Thanks for platforming Gail. One of the great minds of our age. Amazing capacity in both left and right brains!