Flux continu

“L’effondrement de nos sociétés modernes a commencé. Telle est la conclusion de deux années de recherches menées par l’équipe interdisciplinaire à l’origine de S’effondrer ensemble. Comment en est-…

Publié par Good Works de l’Institut Schumacher, S’effondrer ensemble: Vers l’écoliberté écrit par Jem Bendell, est désormais disponible. Yes, the French version of ‘Breaking Together’ is now available, published by Good Works, of The Schumacher Institute. Initialement sur Amazon, il sera disponible sur d’autres plateformes et dans les librairies d’ici novembre, et sera disponible en tant qu’epub gratuit au début de 2025. Je présenterai le livre fin octobre à Grenoble et/ou Genève. Initially, on Amazon, it will be available on other platforms and from book shops by November, and will be available as a free epub in early 2025. I will give a talk about it in Grenoble and/or Geneva in late October.

If modern societies are breaking down, is there a political movement ready to soften the collapse and begin anew? Or do we need new ideas and organisations for collective action? Might a local focus be the only meaningful approach as industrial consumer systems decline? Or is this a period that calls for greater international solidarity with those suffering the most? I think the conversations and initiatives in the Francophone world will provide us many insights on these questions, for a number of reasons, which I’ll come to in a moment.

L'effondrement de nos sociétés modernes a commencé. Telle est la conclusion de deux années de recherches menées par l'équipe interdisciplinaire à l'origine de S’effondrer ensemble. Comment en est-on arrivé là ? Du fait des systèmes économiques et monétaires dominants, qui nous ont poussés à nous détruire mutuellement et à détruire la nature, à un point tel qu'ils ont brisé les fondements de nos sociétés. Mais alors, que faire ?

Traduction ... Le climatologue Wolfgang Knorr est une voix inhabituelle dans cette cacophonie, car il a dénoncé la science climatique elle-même et la manière dont elle est communiquée. Son point de vue n’a pas trouvé d’adeptes fortunés ni de plateformes grand public, et sa voix n’a donc pas été beaucoup entendue, c’est pourquoi je tiens à la porter à votre attention ici.

Mainstream media are ignoring a scientist who is whistleblowing the climate profession. During the five years since new kinds of activism brought the climate issue into the headlines like never before, the topic has more clearly become one where people respond due to their preexisting worldviews. It’s not just believers and sceptics, but there are those who think technology can save us, those who think it’s too late; those who think the science is clear, others who think it is open; those who believe humans will muddle through and those predicting human extinction. Climate scientists themselves now range from those emphasizing ‘we can do this’ to those that express their grief and outrage by gluing themselves to buildings. Meanwhile, misleading narratives are amplified by a variety of vested interests, including fossil fuels, nuclear, and clean tech. Climatologist Dr Wolfgang Knorr is an unusual voice in this cacophony because he has been ‘blowing the whistle’ on the climate science itself and how it is being

There was an interesting interview with Gavin Schmidt recently. He is one of the most senior climatologists in the world, heading up NASA’s department on climate science. Refreshingly, unlike the other senior climatologists, he didn’t sidestep how recent weather was not predicted by mainstream climatology. He told the American science celebrity Neil deGrasse Tyson that climatology significantly underpredicted current warming. He said there was “total failure” to predict what happened in 2023. See for yourself, for 3 minutes from 4 minutes in. Gavin is one of the more approachable of the senior climatologists. He provided specific written criticisms of my 2018 Deep Adaptation paper. That was in stark contrast to others who misrepresented it, and me, so as to discourage people from considering that the party is over for modern societies.

Last year I was fortunate enough to be joined by four remarkable women in the British environmental movement. We were speaking at a Deep Adaptation conference in Glastonbury. The way the discussion…

The collapse of modern societies has already begun. That is the conclusion of two years of research by the interdisciplinary team behind Breaking Together. How did it come to this? Because monetary systems caused us to harm each other and nature to such an extent it broke the foundations of our societies. So what can we do? This book describes people allowing the full pain of our predicament to liberate them into living more courageously and creatively.

the biophysical limits of food production are being reached. Second, current food production systems are actively destroying the very resource base upon which they rely. Third, the majority of food production and all its storage and distribution is critically dependent upon fossil fuels, not only making the food supply vulnerable to price and supply instability, but also presenting an impossible choice between food security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Fourth, climate change is already negatively impacting the food supply and will do so with increasing intensity as the Earth continues to warm and weather destabilises. Fifth, the trajectory of increasing food demand that cannot easily be reversed. Sixth, the prioritisation of economic efficiency and profit in world trade has undermined food sovereignty and the resilience of food production at multiple scales, making both production and distribution highly vulnerable to disruptive shocks. Considered individually, each one of the hard trends presents a