Slowly (sorry) so: Difficult Devolution

If you don’t notice that change is about to happen Really Fast and you feel in your bones that you (and We) have no idea how that actually could come about, then why yap on about “We must turn it around immediately” or within ten years or within twenty years or within fifty years?

Just believe your eyes and then have a realistic perspective based on what you see. (Why fantasize??)

Seen:

The Green politics movement started fifty years ago and has grown (worldwide) from maybe five percent support to maybe ten percent support. Maybe fifty years from now it will have twenty percent support. Great. That’s still pretty minoritarian.

The bioregional movement started fifty years ago and has since grown extremely slowly.

The eco-communitarian movement (for ecovillages and cohousing communities) started forty years ago and in this country we notice the establishment of four or five or six each year. There still isn’t a single one in the entire New York-Philadelphia metropolitan area. It’s growing slowly.

Rather than building new eco-settlements, the Transition Towns movement is about greening your extant neighborhood. It was launched fifteen years ago. Is there one in your area? Probably not. It’s growing slowly.

The movement to replace fossil fuels with renewables started about sixty years ago and (worldwide) the transition is about fifteen percent accomplished. Maybe it will be fully accomplished by the end of this century. I doubt it. Soon it will impact living standards. There will be reactions against carbon taxes, etc. The transition might slow down.

THINGS DON’T CHANGE ALL SO FAST . . . so:

Our egregious overshoot will be ameliorated slowly and will result in generations of pain, dislocation, disorientation. Sorry. James Howard Kunstler calls it The Long Emergency.

I don’t think the human race will go extinct. I don’t think the continents will be submerged under rising ocean waters. But I do think we’re in for a long, long period of Difficult Devolution.