Will We End Ourselves?

Everyone's got to decide.

“Psychopathy in the past meant—arguably—rational self-interest. But in contrast, psychopathy today means suicide and insanity and derangement, since nobody’s wealth or success will save themselves—or their family—from what’s coming.”

It would be beyond tragic if we snuffed ourselves out—we should all do everything that we possibly can to prevent that.

The self-extinction is happening as we watch—make sure to look at this information so that you know where I’m coming from on the global heating issue:

• “We’ve Failed Our Planet. This Is an SOS.” (13 December 2021)

• “Postcards From a World on Fire” (13 December 2021)

• “Time Is Running Out to Avert a Harrowing Future, Climate Panel Warns” (28 February 2022)

It’s important for people to get the latest information about global heating—people who don’t have the latest information about global heating won’t recognize that we’re in a genuinely bleak situation.

Interconnection

The war in Ukraine drives home why we really do have to worry that global heating will bring everything down—take a look at how remarkably interconnected our world really is:

It’s striking to contemplate the ripples and ramifications:

The vicious epicenter of the war in Ukraine now rests in the scorched cities of the east and the south. But the conflict’s reverberations are widening in a way that will leave few people on Earth—from small-town America to poverty-stricken Africa—untouched.

And now consider what’ll happen as global heating ravages the planet—you can expect complete chaos and complete disruption and complete disintegration.

The war in Ukraine has sent shockwaves around the world, but these shockwaves are just the most pathetic and tiny and timid preview of what’ll happen when global heating kicks in and shit really hits the fan—imagine how disruptive the collapses and famines and mass migrations will be as global heating proceeds.

So look at the shockwaves from the war in Ukraine and take some time to ponder on the following question: “What happens when some actual serious shockwaves start to hit our global system? What will happen when shockwaves hit our global system that make these current shockwaves from the war in Ukraine look pathetic and tiny and timid? What will that look like?”

So just consider the ripples and ramifications—this could really bring us down.

Criminality

There’s the obvious criminality—regarding self-extinction—that you shouldn’t have to explain to a person.

But there’s also a separate and infinite criminality that I think about all the time. People in the future might have a qualitatively better life than any life that we can currently imagine—even an “average” person in the future might have a qualitatively better life than today’s luckiest person alive. Self-extinction cuts off that future, so self-extinction is—in that sense—infinitely criminal.

Wynn Bruce

We should all reflect on Wynn Bruce’s death—I urge everyone to read this article:

• “Climate Activist Dies After Setting Himself on Fire at Supreme Court” (24 April 2022)

Look at this excerpt from the 24 April 2022 article:

“This act is not suicide,” Dr. Kritee wrote on Twitter early Sunday morning. “This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis.”

Will Wynn Bruce’s effort to “bring attention to the climate crisis” succeed? That depends on how I react and how my circle reacts and how you react and how your circle reacts.

How will I react? How will you react? How will my circle react? How will your circle react?

Tactics

I’ve always wondered what tactics might break through to prevent self-extinction.

I feel like there’d be a chain reaction and a revolution if Brad Pitt and LeBron James got together on a rooftop somewhere and said “We’re not eating till we do something on climate”. You can imagine how much media attention a hunger strike would command if A-list celebrities led the way—the media would cover it 24/7, and other A-list celebrities would join, and it would snowball and accumulate and grow and grow and grow. And maybe it would grow into a huge society-wide strike or something.

Billionaires

I don’t know why billionaires aren’t taking action on climate—see my interview with Paul Jay in which Jay and I wonder about billionaires’ inaction:

• “ICEBERG AHEAD” (9 November 2021)

You’d think that billionaires would be more worried about the cataclysm ahead than anyone else, since billionaires have—in certain respects at least—more to lose than anyone else does. And yet billionaires are doing essentially nothing, which seems to make them utter lunatics, since they’re the ones with the most to lose—in certain respects at least—when everything collapses.

Thinking About Our Kids

It’s hard to imagine what anyone who has children thinks about what’s coming—there must be some recognition that your children will be alive in the year 2060 or 2070 or 2080…or 2100.

I urge everyone to read this article:

• “The Unseen Toll of a Warming World” (9 March 2022)

Look at this excerpt from the 9 March 2022 article:

Young people say they are especially upset.

A survey of people 16 to 25 in 10 countries published in The Lancet found that three-quarters were frightened of the future. More than half said humanity was doomed. Some feel betrayed by older generations and leaders. They say they feel angry but helpless as they watch people in power fail to act swiftly.

Almost 40 percent of young people say they are hesitant about having children. If nature feels this unmoored today, some ask, why bring children into an even grimmer future?

It’s striking to read that people feel:

• “frightened of the future”

• that “humanity” is “doomed”

• that “older generations” have “betrayed” them

• that the “leaders” who made decisions in the past have “betrayed” them

• “angry but helpless”

• “hesitant about having children”, given what lies ahead for us

So there’s a sense of:

• fear

• doom

• betrayal

• anger

• helplessness

• hesitation about bringing more people into a burning world

We should think about the psychological toll that global heating will have on the people who have to live through it—Noam Chomsky made the following comment about global heating:

It doesn’t mean everybody’s going to die, but it’s going to mean moving to a future in which the lucky ones will be those who die more quickly.

I don’t think that any moral person wants future generations to live in a world “in which the lucky ones will be those who die more quickly”.

And furthermore, I don’t think that self-interested parents want their own kids to live in a world “in which the lucky ones will be those who die more quickly”.

Self-Interest

Psychopathy in the past meant—arguably—rational self-interest. But in contrast, psychopathy today means suicide and insanity and derangement, since nobody’s wealth or success will save themselves—or their family—from what’s coming.

I know a lot of people who want to pursue wealth and success, so I wrote the following piece with these people in mind:

• “Are People In Denial?” (29 December 2021)

I urge everyone to read my 29 December 2021 piece, since I think that I did a good job making the case that people are actually engaged in magical thinking when it comes to global heating.

I know someone who told me that the 29 December 2021 piece actually did win them over—this person told me that they had indeed been engaged in magical thinking.

Efficacy

This person then told me that they didn’t know what to do—this person has a career and isn’t able to just quit that career and go into politics or become a climate activist.

But these facts are relevant for anyone who has a career and who recognizes their own magical thinking:

• many of the most effective people and most engaged and most active people do their work in addition to full-time jobs

• Robert Zevin was one the most active figures in antiwar resistance regarding the Vietnam War—he was an economist who had a Wall Street career

• becoming active obviously means that other things will give, but that’s a choice if you want to make any valuable contribution to the world

• it’s true that you might not be able run for office if you have a career, but you can devote time and energy to education about global heating or to 1000 other things

And Katharine Hayhoe has an extremely important 2021 book about how we can save ourselves from global heating:

• Saving Us (2021)

Hayhoe writes the following in the book:

Stanford psychologist Albert Bandura has been studying human behavior since before I was born. In 1977, he proposed—and proved—that people change their behavior if they feel self efficacy, which he defined as “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute a course of action.” “Feel” is not really the right word, as efficacy is not technically an emotion. Rather, psychologists refer to it as a cognitive process. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that if you think you can do something, like hiring your neighbor’s installer to put some panels on your roof, you’re more likely to. And if you think what you do will make a difference (for example, you’ll save money and feel good about yourself), that’s even better.

Surveys of people in different countries show that people’s sense of efficacy when it comes to climate change is not high. Even those of us who are concerned about climate change often feel as though we aren’t able to make much of a difference. In the U.S., one survey showed that over 50 percent of Americans feel helpless when they think about climate change. Another survey found that more than 50 percent “don’t know where to start” when it came to climate action.

I took these notes based on Hayhoe’s book:

• “we humans constantly fall victim to the motivation trap, waiting until we feel like it until we act”

• your efficacy can increase when you “hear or see or learn about what the real solutions look like”

• your efficacy can also increase when you “see someone else do something”

• your efficacy can furthermore increase when you “find out about something you can do”—or even something that you’ve “already done”—“in your personal life”

Hayhoe writes in the 2021 book:

It’s a true positive feedback cycle. When we feel empowered to act, individually and communally, that makes us not only more likely to act, but to support others who do. It’s a very human response that has been identified again and again around the world. It also inoculates us against despair: young people who are anxious about climate change, one survey found, aren’t paralyzed by it if they are able to act. People along the U.S. Gulf Coast who were affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill turned out to be less depressed if they were participating in the cleanup themselves and actively doing something about it. And in general, the more we do something, the more it matters to us and the more we care.

It’s not about being a lone ranger, either. Collective efficacy is even more important—the idea that together, as a community, we can make a difference. That’s why it’s so important to seek out like-minded groups: other athletes, parents, fellow birders or Rotarians, or people who share our faith. Together, our actions add up; it’s not just us alone anymore.

So the person I know recognized their own magical thinking—the next step is that I have to help them develop lots of efficacy.

My hope is that we’ll all develop lots of efficacy before it’s too late.

How will I react? How will you react? How will my circle react? How will your circle react?