Veille 2.1

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 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

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.

This is an essay that responds critically to the widely read essay in the New York Times that appears to be calming the nerves of climate professionals here at COP27 and beyond....

30 years into the era of cooperation for Sustainable Development, this model is turning out to be a conceptually flawed and failed solution to both poverty and ecological conservation. Its near-hegemonic grip on international development agencies may well have done more harm than good, by stifling more radical alternatives while leaving communities more vulnerable to incipient climate breakdown. That is why it is high time that those of us who are employed to work on either environmental or social issues now drop the ideology of Sustainable Development

More climate scientists say emissions cuts are not enough and we face imminent catastrophe unless deliberately altering the climate. What are the options and challenges? Jem Bendell interviewed Dr Ye Tao who is proposing we use massive amounts of mirrors to reduce harm in the short term.

Et s’il était désormais impossible d’empêcher un emballement climatique et donc d’éviter un effondrement sociétal ? C’est le constat du mouvement d’origine anglaise Deep Adaptation (Adaptation Radicale), qui arrive maintenant en France. Ce jeune mouvement est né après la publication d’un article de Jem Bendell, professeur d’université sur le développement durable à l’université de Cumbria (Grande-Bretagne).

In 2018, a climate paper by Jem Bendell went viral, being downloaded over a million times. It helped to launch a worldwide movement of people seeking to reduce harm in the face of societal disruption and collapse. In this interview for Facing Future TV, Jem explains the concept of Deep Adaptation, how he developed the idea, what it means in practice, what he says to critics, and what his new book on the topic is about.

Deep adaptation’ refers to the personal and collective changes that might help us to prepare for – and live with – a climate-influenced breakdown or collapse of our societies. It is a framework for responding to the terrifying realization of increasing disruption by committing ourselves to reducing suffering while saving more of society and the natural world. This is the first book to show how professionals across different sectors are beginning to incorporate the acceptance of likely or unfolding societal breakdown into their work and lives.

L'humanité – considérant les crises climatiques, sanitaires et de la biodiversité - doit se préparer à une remise en cause fondamentale du paradigme de civilisation actuel. L’adaptation nécessaire à ces bouleversements est inédite dans l’histoire de l’humanité, et nous oblige à réinventer dès aujourd’hui nos manières de vivre, d’habiter, de nous nourrir, de nous mouvoir, etc.