Why do so many focus on climate change these days?
It’s good that ecological issues get attention, of course, and it is an important topic.
At the same time, it is a kind of distraction.
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT
The bigger overarching issue is global ecological overshoot.
We have been in overshoot for decades already, and we haven’t seen the real consequences of it yet since we have been living off the “savings” provided by our planet. (To not deplete our ecological “savings” we would need two Earths to support our global population, and more than five if everyone lived as Westerners.)
We have not yet reached the bottom of the savings account.
When we do, we can expect massive unraveling and collapse of ecosystems and human civilization.
There is no other way it can end.
WHY DON’T WE FOCUS MORE ON OVERSHOOT?
So why don’t more people focus on ecological overshoot?
After all, overshoot is easy to understand. It’s undeniable. It’s far more relevant and serious than climate change and just about any issue imaginable.
I honestly don’t know. A superficial answer may be that people don’t know about overshoot, which is true enough. But the fundamental idea of overshoot is very easy to grasp, it is something anyone with a bank account knows firsthand and relates to on a daily basis. And many in the world do know about it and talk about it, but it does not make it into mainstream discussion.
The real question is: Why doesn’t it make it into mainstream discussion? Why is there an apparent resistance to it? It’s obviously a hugely important topic, more so than just about any topic already in our collective mainstream dialog and conversation.
Maybe it’s too big? Maybe it’s obvious that our usual solutions are not enough?
Maybe it’s more comfortable to focus on something more peripheral and less serious?
That may be one reason why climate change is getting so much attention. It’s apparently more debatable, more peripheral, and less serious. We can tell ourselves it has easier and more peripheral solutions. (Of course, none of that is really true. Climate change itself is serious and requires a profound transformation of our civilization and the worldviews we operate from.)
THE ESSENCE
We live in an ecocidal civilization that assumes infinite nature – infinite natural resources and infinite capacity of nature to absorb waste and toxins.
One of many expressions of this is climate change.
Global ecological overshoot is far more fundamental and far more serious.
And the only real solution to all of it is a deep and thorough transformation of our civilization and our most fundamental assumptions about ourselves, nature, and our relationship to this living planet.
(One practical expression of that would be a transformation of our economic system to take ecological realities and the limits of nature into account.)
Image created by me and Midjourney
INITIAL DRAFT
WHY DO PEOPLE FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND NOT OVERSHOOT?
Why do so many focus on climate change these days? Why is there even a discussion of whether it’s human-created?
I am not sure. To me, it seems like a distraction.
The bigger and more fundamental issue is global ecological overshoot.
We have been in overshoot for decades already, and we haven’t seen the real consequences of it yet since we have been living off the “savings” provided by our planet. We have not yet reached the end of the savings account. When we do, we can expect massive unraveling and collapse of ecosystems and human civilization.
So why don’t more people focus on that instead? It’s easy to understand. It’s undeniable. It seems a far more relevant and graspable focus than climate change.
I honestly don’t know. A superficial answer may be that people don’t know about overshoot, which is true enough. But the fundamental idea of overshoot is very easy to grasp, it is something anyone with a bank account knows firsthand and relates to on a daily basis. And many in the world do know about it and talk about it, but it does not make it into mainstream discussion.
The real question is: Why doesn’t it make it into mainstream discussion? Why is there an apparent resistance to it? It’s obviously a hugely important topic, more so than just about any topic already in our collective mainstream dialog and conversation.
Maybe it’s too big? Maybe it’s obvious that our usual solutions are not enough?
Maybe it’s more comfortable to focus on something that’s more peripheral and less serious?
That may be one reason why climate change is getting so much attention. It’s apparently more debatable, more peripheral, and less serious. We can tell ourselves it has easier and more peripheral solutions. (Of course, none of that is really true. Climate change itself is serious and requires a profound transformation of our civilization and the worldviews we operate from.)
We live in an ecocidal civilization that assumes infinite nature – infinite natural resources and infinite capacity of nature to absorb waste and toxins. One of many expressions of this is climate change. Global ecological overshoot is far more fundamental and far more serious. And the only real solution to all of it is a deep and thorough transformation of our civilization and our most fundamental assumptions about ourselves, nature, and our relationship to this living planet. (One practical expression of that would be a transformation of our economic system to take ecological realities and the limits of nature into account.)