Despair unless the macro process is understood

The “Long Emergency” that James Howard Kunstler talks about will be very long.

What will be seen will be refugees from failed states and climatic disruptions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/world/europe/afghanistan-refugees-europe-migration-asylum.html

It will be a lurching from one crisis to the next . . . over so long a period that it will seem endless.

And that will be depressing.

I think one potential source of equanimity and solace (and it’s just a hope) is that enough people will have this perspective:

The “coming down” from the overshoot and hypertrophy will be a necessary and unavoidable process of devolution. It could be for the best in the very long run, but humanity will be challenged to avoid generalized despair, total breakdown, and species suicide as it plays out. Generation after generation, a cohort of Understanders will need to do their best to patiently explain and to encourage the gradual creation of sustainable alternatives.

This vision was actually immanent, though not presented explicitly, in Ishmael.