{"id":36630,"date":"2024-09-22T16:33:34","date_gmt":"2024-09-22T21:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=36630"},"modified":"2024-09-23T06:06:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T11:06:45","slug":"review-of-an-inconvenient-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wlbott.com\/?p=36630","title":{"rendered":"Review of “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The book that’s making the rounds among senior leadership at WLBOTT<\/strong> is An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity<\/strong> by Professors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Confronting harsh ecological realities and the multiple cascading crises facing our world today, An Inconvenient Apocalypse argues that humanity\u2019s future will be defined not by expansion but by contraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For decades, our world has understood that we are on the brink of an apocalypse\u2015and yet the only implemented solutions have been small and convenient, feel-good initiatives that avoid unpleasant truths about the root causes of our impending disaster.
– Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The authors take a big picture, second level approach to our future. They don’t offer charts and tables and rates of ice melts. They take a really long view, stretching back to the dawn of the man – the emergence of the genus Homo, over two million years ago. Homo sapiens (us, including the Elders of WLBOTT<\/strong>) emerged between 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, around 11,700 years ago, we started tossing seeds in the ground and rounding up the chickens. And we opened a line of credit with Mother Nature, whose balance has grown to gigantic proportions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Homo habilis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Homo habilis<\/strong>\u2014one of the earliest members of the genus Homo, known as the “handy man” due to their use of simple tools. They lived around 2.1 to 1.5 million years ago, mostly in East Africa. This period marked a significant shift in early human evolution, where tool use became essential for survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the point: <\/strong>for a long, long, time – the vast majority of our modern evolution (both biological and cultural) took place is a setting much, much different from our current human world. We existed in small, egalitarian gatherer-hunter clans, probably no more than a hundred individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors emphasize the point that we are animals on planet Earth. Not special animals, not exceptional animals, but regular old animals that are bound by the cold, uncaring rules of Mother Nature. (Note: the authors use the term “ecosphere” in the sense that I’m using “Mother Nature”.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors contend that agriculture<\/strong>, beginning 11,700 years ago<\/strong>, gave us the ability to vastly increase our population, but at the same time introduced social hierarchies, patriarchy, ecological decline, and psychological isolation. At that point, we began borrowing more and more heavily from a carbon-based energy account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The industrial revolution was an inevitable point on the timeline, which begun with planting grass seeds and beans on the banks of the Nile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Guardian Review<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>
\n

Jackson and Jensen make for an interesting pairing. The former is an agronomist, having spent his career studying the problem of soil erosion and developing The Land Institute, which seeks to develop grains that can be used for sustainable agriculture.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Old Future is Dead<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n

The world of An Inconvenient Apocalypse<\/strong> is a very bleak one, and also one with no middle ground. The authors write that \u201cthe future of continued endless expansion that we have long imagined is over and a new future defined by contraction is coming\u201d.<\/p>\nThe Guardian<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Timeline<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3,000,000 years ago<\/strong> = our first Homo genus ancestor, Homo habilis
    200,000 years ago<\/strong> => Homo Sapiens emerge
       11,700 years ago<\/strong> => birth of agriculture
          280 years ago<\/strong> => beginning of the industrial revolution
             0 years ago<\/strong> => you are here
                x years in the future<\/strong> => collapse; end of capitalism
                   x+y years in the future<\/strong> => population of 2B
                   living a greatly minimized lifestyle<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The authors give no prediction of the timeline, and no scenarios of the collapse, but it is easy to read between the lines. There will be tremendous suffering during this transition period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I was reading this book, I was wondering if the authors had lived through the pandemic before writing this book. The reason for this question was because the pandemic showed, without a doubt, how selfish, ignorant and brutish so many people can be – storming state capitols with assault weapons because they don’t want the inconvenience of wearing a mask during a highly communicable and deadly global virus outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The book was published in 2022<\/strong>. The authors knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s Elder G’s vision of the human timeline, based on key events in the Inconvenient Apocalypse timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
You can watch an interview with the authors here….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n