The intersecting catastrophes unspooling all around us don’t offer an escape from reality, but an intensification of it. So we have a choice: (1) Accept this reality. Accept the full toxic soup of conditions we’ve put ourselves in, as well as the thick, messy, profoundly human dramas playing out amidst it. And awaken to the burdens — of grief,

... See more

The human psyche naturally rebels against the idea of its end. Likewise, civilizations have throughout history marched blindly toward disaster, because humans are wired to believe that tomorrow will be much like today. . . . Yet the reality of global climate change is going to keep intruding on our fantasies of perpetual growth, permanent

... See more

People are so busy just trying to get back to zero, or trying to build up a buffer against disaster, or trying to enjoy themselves, because there’s so little else to count on—three endeavors that could contain the vast majority of human effort until our depleted planet finally ends it all. And, while we do this—because we do this—the honest avenues

... See more

It’s frequently said that societal collapse is not a singular event, but a process. Jem Bendell’s seminal (and controversial) paper on the topic, Deep Adaptation, defines it as an “uneven ending of our normal modes of sustenance, shelter, security, pleasure, identity, and meaning.”

The writer Jack Self summed it up much better than I can: “living through collapse isn’t a factual statement, but an emotional one. It feels like we are approaching the end of a specific social contract. Modernity is a project founded on patriarchal domination, on linear time, infinite extraction and unstoppable accumulation. In its five centuries,... See more