Horror Movies and Other Things I Don’t Want to Believe are True
Tim Bennett and I have just returned home from two screening tours of What A Way To Go. We toured 13 communities in the Northeast during August and 23 communities in the West and Midwest during October and early November. I’ve now got a finger on the pulse of current levels of awareness in the US about the seriousness of our global predicament. Our audiences I believe are the cream of the crop. They are the best, the most tuned-in, the most concerned. It was a pleasure to be with them. They shored up my waning fondness for humanity as a whole. But despite the obvious goodness of the ordinary people that I witnessed, I am not encouraged about our prospects.
I can say this with a fair degree of confidence: save for the few who are already fully awake, most people who are now looking at the world are just waking up to the four horsemen that we address in What A Way To Go: Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Species Extinction and Population Overshoot. They are just waking up and they have no accurate idea how late in the game it is.
What’s the game I’m talking about? The game of “civilized, industrial, technological life as we know it.” We are at the end of that game. And people are just beginning to wake up to the fact that it’s a game.
I’m talking about The Apocalypse, which, I’ve come to learn, literally means The Unveiling. We are on the verge of The Unveiling. We are beginning to pull back the curtain and see clearly what our civilization has actually been up to over the past two centuries and eight or ten millenia.
The Unveiling is upon us and only a small percentage of the people are waking up. Those that are, are waking up at the last minute. And they are waking up rather slowly and reluctantly. Most still imagine the full unveiling and revelation of consequences must be decades away. They believe it’s at least a generation or two off. Most, even after they see our movie, continue to think there’s time to create a mass awakening, a popular uprising, a reformation. They want to believe that there’s a revolution afoot, that “green building” and “hydrogen cars,” will save us, if only “we the people” will demand those things. They continue to think there’s decades yet ahead in order to turn away from catastrophe, that it’s possible to solve our energy and climate and ecological holocaust. But you don’t solve a holocaust. At best, maybe you survive it.
Hello. It’s not generations away. It’s not decades away. As Tim says in voice-over early on in the movie, “Turns out it may be just around the corner.” In fact, for most of the community of life, apocalypse is right now. Today, for two-hundred species, life ends at midnight, or noon, or even as I write this.
Two hundred species a day we are losing. Two hundred. As Daniel Quinn says in the movie, “This is calamitous.”
Many who have been studying peak oil for years now suggest that the “peak” may have happened a year ago. You can tell yourself that hundred dollar a barrel oil is just corporate gouging. That we can somehow make them stop the rising prices. But that’s delusion. No doubt the oil companies are going to make as much as they can manipulating the prices. But the prices are going up. And up. And up. There may be a few manipulated blips on the upward curve. But demand will outstrip supply, if it hasn’t already, and the price will continue to climb, blip, climb, blip, climb.
Likewise, the evidence that climate change tipping points have already started to tip is also mounting. Summer sea ice levels on the northern ice cap hit record new lows this summer, new lows that far exceeded past predictions. Extinction continues unabated, as does rising human population. Richard Heinberg, who published The Party is Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies in 2005, has just published Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines. The party is indeed over, and not just for oil, but for all the things we’ve become accustomed to, for all the stuff the culture has eaten up and spit out and landfilled and is now trying desperately to recycle.
People have no idea how late in the game it is. And, sadly, many don’t seem to want to know. If people wanted to know they would walk from a screening of What A Way To Go to their local library or independent bookstore and start ordering and reading books from the authors we interviewed. They would find our website and click links to the many sources of energy, climate, extinction and population information. They’d find and read Carolyn Baker and The Oil Drum and Energy Bulletin. They would immerse themselves in the information because they’d want to know. But the truth is, most don’t want to know.
Having toured 36 communities with our movie in the last three months and having sat with over a thousand people in post-screening dialogue circles, I find myself sad and sobered. And I thought I already was sober. I thought I had a clue about how little consciousness exists with regard to the extent and consequences of our human impacts on the world. I thought that was the whole point of making a no-punches-pulled, hard-hitting, wide-lens documentary in the first place. We knew people were sorely uninformed and misinformed about how dire the situation is. But we were naïve.
We were not naïve about the lack of awareness. We were naïve about the lack of desire for that awareness. People don’t really want to know. And a surprising number of people acknowledge that. They don’t want to know because they realize they are already depressed. They are depressed and discouraged. And they believe they would rather be numb and distracted. They don’t see a way through the depression and discouragement so they turn their backs and resolve not to look.
I’ve come to see that there’s a major paradox we now face, having made a documentary that is as comprehensive and thoughtful and hard-hitting as ours is, in the context of a populace that is as dumbed-down and disheartened and disempowered as America’s. I thought it would be an unequivocally good and empowering act to make a movie that is smart and compelling and that moves people emotionally. But in fact, for many, the movie actually becomes part of their sophisticated denial system. Having seen it they believe what is not true, and what is true seems to go right over their heads. Maybe it’s too smart. And paradoxically, maybe it’s too compelling. Most people don’t seem to want to think that hard. And they don’t seem to want to feel that much, either. So they don’t watch it again and again, as we have, so they won’t go back to sleep.
As we listened to people, all too often we had the scary sense that they liked our movie because they wanted to get other people to watch it. They wanted other people to wake up. They wanted to believe that because the movie had been made it was an indication that things are getting better. They wanted to don a blank, hopeful, smile and declare weakly “People are waking up!”
Other people. Because it’s always other people that need to wake up. Not us. We already know. We are the choir. We don’t need preaching to. We get it. If we can just get this movie seen by other people, the people who really need to wake up, the masses, the leaders, the rest of the population, then everything will be okay. If only we can get this movie seen by everybody, then everything will be okay.
It’s not going to be okay. It’s too late for everything to be okay.
Soon after we had finished the movie, Marc Maximov wrote that What A Way To Go is an “ecological horror film”. When we read that comment in his article we laughed. We thought it interesting and startling that he would describe the movie that way, given that we had interviewed such luminary scientists as William Schlesinger and Stuart Pimm, and such amazing thinkers as Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn and Chellis Glendinning. I mean, who would have thought that Thomas Berry would appear in a horror movie?
But now I think Marc was on to something important. I think he astutely observed that in spite of the scholarship and intelligence and poetry in What A Way To Go, many people will respond to it as if it were a horror movie rather than as a documentary. When people don’t want to wake up to the nightmare, but are faced with an accurate and compelling assessment of their condition, they can, and will, relegate that experience to the file they’ve created in their heads labeled “Horror Movies and Other Things I Don’t Want to Believe Are True.”
Human beings are extremely creative when they want to be. That includes being psychologically creative. That includes being creative about constructing defense and denial mechanisms that serve to keep them numb and asleep. They seal off accurate knowledge about the world just as they’ve sealed off a thousand other real and unreal images that they’ve been exposed to via the media. They relegate the feelings that arise when confronted by the four horsemen of This Apocalypse to the same realms they relegate feelings elicited by Stephen King’s fiction, by terrifying dreams, and by the boogey man under the bed. They unwittingly label this documentary the way they labeled The Shining: Just Another Horror Movie. And, having filed the experience away, they then go back to sleep. They step into the fantasy that “green business” is selling: the solution to our environmental and social and resource problems is to be good consumers and to buy more stuff, green stuff. After all, people vote with their dollars don’t they? Wow, lacking real elections this is the deal: You can vote by spending! So the more you spend the more powerful you are. Wow. This is great! We can step into our powerful identities as consumers and accept our full responsibility as citizens. We get to vote every day we buy something. What a great fantasy: the destruction of the world will be stopped by spending more money.
The answer to these problems is simple, and everyone can be involved: one can shop. Because shopping is fun. And shopping can happen even at home or on the airplane. One can look adoringly at advertisements for hybrid SUVs. One can admire how Chevron is going green! One can fantasize about someday living in that wonderful solar heated, natural green home of 3-5 thousand square feet, with imported rugs on comfy, cozy, water-heated slab floors. And that next bedspread? Well, do consider hemp! That will make a real difference. Best of all, considering the time of year, it’s time to vow to make it a Green Christmas: buy beeswax candles and exotic fruit baskets and yoga mats. Buy imported things and support indigenous cultures. Buy big things and small things, green things and live things. And in so buying, we can all pretend that things will get better. That things are getting better. All one need to do is shop correctly. After all, shopping is fun. And stopping the destruction of the world should be fun.
I realize I’m on a bit of a tear here. I can’t help it. I sat with over a thousand people and I’m more discouraged about the awakening in the world than ever. And mostly I’m sad. I’m sad that as a group we are not getting it.
And the rest of the community of life is at risk. No. Wait. See how easily denial slips in? The rest of the community of life is not at risk. The rest of the community of life is being wiped out while human population numbers continue to increase, and shop.
On our tour, after the screenings, we avoided the typical Q & A. After all, while we admit to some extent of knowledge as a result of the last four years spent deep in research and analysis, we really aren’t experts, or authorities. We’re pretty smart and we’ve peeled off many layers of denial. And because of that we’ve let the magnitude of the global predicament hit us in the gut, over and over. But we don’t pretend to have answers or authoritative prescriptions. Not that anyone does. In fact we hold that anyone who says they have the prescription to stop the destruction and reform this system in order to make it work is either extremely ill-informed, lying, and or flat out delusional. There just aren’t any easy answers other than shutting down the industrial infrastructure yesterday. And that would not be easy.
So we didn’t do Q& A after screenings. We refused to be set up to be hit with people’s understandable projections and anger at all the authorities and experts who continue to confuse, disappoint, and exploit them.
Instead, on these tours, we invited people to pull chairs into a circle and talk with us and each other as concerned peers, to respond to the movie by expressing their feelings, by talking about what moved them, what emotions were touched. We knew this might be a stretch for many people. Most of us have been emotionally dumbed down as well as intellectually hobbled by this numbing and stupid culture. So we offered a menu of sorts to help people identify their feelings. We gave them a short list of the basic five: Glad, Sad, Mad, Scared or Ashamed. Turns out, this was a good thing to do. People actually reported on their feelings. They took the risk to do what is anathema for most Americans: they expressed their feelings, and they often did so in clear and heartfelt ways. I was touched and impressed. Circle after circle, people did this. They talked about their feelings with one another. Often it was quite moving. And on occasion I think the experience was not only cathartic but transforming for certain individuals. And probably it planted a fair number of seeds. I wonder, though, how many of those seeds will ever germinate into any kind of action. Despite the genuine expression of feeling in the rooms on those evenings, I don’t get the sense that the majority of these people went home to start radically changing their lives.
I say this because by the time the tour came to an end I began to see something that was fairly disturbing. The most frequently reported feelings were sad and glad, followed by ashamed and mad, with only the rare expression of people being scared. I think that’s backwards to what would best be experienced. I think if people were really letting the information sink in, if they were letting it past their denial and defense mechanisms, that they would, first and foremost, be scared.
Let me explain. If a person is not scared when confronted with the immanent demise of their lifestyle, then clearly they aren’t looking at it. They are relegating the information to the “horror movie” file and continuing to pretend. They are telling themselves that all this is going to happen in someone else’s lifetime. But, in fact, all this is happening RIGHT NOW. Preparations for dealing with this, for responding, for surviving it, for helping to heal it, needed to begin 300 years ago or 30 years ago. Or at least yesterday.
But my sense is that people aren’t preparing. They aren’t even considering what making preparation might mean. Way too often what I witness is that people see the movie and then continue to talk about careers and retirements and the future. Like the future will in any way resemble the past or even the present
I genuinely liked most of the people we sat in post-screening dialogue circles with. Their expression of concern and caring for each other and the rest of the community of life evoked fondness. I often said that the circles convinced me that the human species, at least some percentage of it, is worth saving. But I have to say that I don’t really think that one viewing of the movie or one sharing of heartfelt concerns actually changed very many people in any significant way. I still feel fondness for these members of my species. But I don’t hold any illusions that this movie is changing people, or moving them into action with any kind of appropriate speed or conviction.
So I feel compelled to say something. I hope many people who have seen What a Way To Go, or who will see What A Way To Go, will take this to heart:
Our movie is not evidence that things are changing. Once you’ve seen our movie, that does not mean you don’t need to radically and rapidly change your life in preparation for utter upheaval of how you’ve been living and what you’ve been planning and working for.
Please don’t watch our movie and then be glad that change is happening. Because the most prevalent change that is happening is that things in the real world of plants and animals and water and soil and climate are continuing to get worse. Rapidly worse. They’ve gotten worse since An Inconvenient Truth. And they’ve gotten worse since Al Gore got the Nobel prize. They’ve gotten worse since our movie was released on DVD and since we’ve traveled the country touring with it and sitting with people in circles to process it.
Things are getting worse and they are going to keep getting worse until industrial civilization either grinds to a halt or is stopped. Only when that happens will the great bulk of humanity that is enmeshed with industrial civilization stop destroying the community of life through the inexorable consumption of everything.
All evidence I see is that there isn’t going to be a popular mass uprising. So don’t be waiting around for THAT to happen. There isn’t going to be a technofix. And the aliens, if there are any, are not going to intervene and clean this up for us. It’s time to pay the piper, or the rats are going to continue to overrun our village.
So please, don’t wait for someone else to “get” it. Don’t wait for the leaders of your country, or company, or community to get on aboard. Don’t wait for someone else to wake up and make the changes happen. Because they aren’t going to get it.
I think what Upton Sinclair said is more true than we want to believe: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” How many people’s jobs depend on them NOT understanding that capitalism is a dead end, that consuming is folly, and that technology is a hoax? Don’t depend on politicians or business people or even academics to understand what’s going on when their jobs, and their mortgages and their plasma television sets and probably their marriages depend on them NOT understanding it.
And don’t depend on yourself understanding it if your job and your current lifestyle depends on NOT understanding it. Denial is real and alive and most of us continue in it’s stranglehold.
Only when we wake up to that understanding will we begin to have some choices. Work your way to that place. Watch What A Way To Go thirty times or more, like we have. Read a bunch of books and websites. Choose to step out of delusion. It will probably mean you have to plan to quit your job. And maybe move. It will probably mean you have to consider a very different kind of life.
The good new is that, probably, a very different kind of life will be a life which has meaning and purpose and is grounded in the reality of soil and water and other living, breathing, feeling creatures. In some ways it will be a harder life that you’ll have to choose. But it will be better.
Feel your way into where you want to be and get there. Focus on the basics: water, food, non-fossil energy. Focus on how you can help to stop the destruction and start the healing. Listen to the voice-over at the end of What A Way To Go:
“The waters are rising. We’re going to have to let go of the shore.”
Listen to it again and again, and again. Until YOU get it. The waters are rising. It’s time to build an ark.
It’s time. Don’t wait. Build it now.
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November 13th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Dear Sally,
I want to see your film another thirty times, and I want all my loved ones and neighbors to see it many times as well-not as a stalling or denial tactic but because I need help in crafting a new life.I’ve always understood that fear is a lousy motivator because it doesn’t provide enough energy to sustain appropriate response.Instead, I’m looking to new vision as a guide to the next culture.
Thank you for making and sharing WaWtG. What will you do with your own feelings of discouragement? What kinds of action would you like to see?
Sincerely,
- HR
November 13th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Well said, Sally, I entirely agree.
I moved my family to the other side of the world, to the safest place on the planet, the South Island of New Zealand, to survive this thing.
Sure is an exciting adventure, though! After, all, we never expected to witness Armageddon, did we?
Good luck, we’re going to need it,
Robin Scott
www.fortressnewzealand.com
November 13th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Well, I’ll just post a few thoughts here. First of all, Sally, Joy and I just watched the film for, I’m guessing, the 6th or 7th time, starting last spring. We use it to touch base with and keep focused as we plan and continue to change our lives - RADICALLY CHANGE our lives. So, maybe it’s not quite as bleak as you think.
We’ve got a joke: “Buy stuff to save the planet”, which is a bit of macabre humor that I see you share.
There are a number of problems: A. your movie takes us into major league grief (as you say), a place where people don’t generally want to go if they can avoid it. Correct me if I’m wrong here - people don’t generally run to embrace information or situations that cause grief (and disorietation and and and . . . ) You’re a therapist you know that. This is more than a loved one dying - it’s the whole planet dying, so, you know, expect a bit of resistance and defenses.
2). As you know, “the magic Kingdom”, everyday, USA, consumer land (I now call it the magic Kingdom after a dream last summer), continues on with some degree of stability - although fissures are now forming. So, there’s a reassuring, seemingly stable place, where people can continue to indulge in their denial. It requires a mental effort - you have to overcome the stability of everyday life that surrounds you (bizarre as the magic kingdom is) with mental effort. People have to sustain a sense of urgency mostly with thoughts about the four horsemen while the TV still works and the fast food huts are still pumping out the garbage and so forth. Easier to lapse back into familiar states of mind.
Yes, that’s it, You have to sustain a sense of crisis and urgency within your thoughts in order to experience deep grief and confusion - all the while bucking the everyday immediate world which continues on. And then there are the pressures of social conformity ect ect. Takes a lot of character. Easier, much easier, to go unconscious. effortless, actually.
OK, yes, I’m about fed up with Priuses and changing lightbulbs and other superficial greenery myself. As I said: Buy shit to save the planet. What can you expect from this insane culture?
Well, I’ve been at this for quite a while and I’ve tried to clue various people in at various times. Most people just can’t hold the information. They just can’t really really take it in and go with it. So, I don’t try much anymore - or only with a very select few. Your film is brilliant in that it addressess four major issues at once (and actually its still incomplete), but that’s the problem. People like to think about the pieces, because you can still come up with “solutions”. This is very difficult to do when you think about the whole. Very.
Sally, they don’t want to grow green beans - understand? They want to be all sorts of make believe identities doing make believe jobs that wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for cheap oil. Most really really really don’t want to grow green beans. Personally, I’ve been getting into eating our own food, but . . . .
Also, they want to be able to just go anywhere when they want to. right. They defenitely want something to save them here - the Prius, the electric airplane or whatever. They don’t want to walk miles. They want to be able to drive 100 miles, have dinner, go to a concert and then . . . yadda yadda. They don’t want to stay in the yard all day and grow green beans and then sit aroun telling stories. They haven’t really figured out that that’s what’s in store, and they definitely won’t take to the idea when they get to that point.
OK, Sally, now I’m a therapist too - many years. Perhaps a little of that cognitive type therapy would help here. Are your expectations rational????
Plus, you don’t really know - neither do I. Might take a week or a month or a year for it to start to sink in with people. You want something to happen immediately when people see the movie, is that reasonable? This expectation may be clouding the good that is actually happening. the movie is doing a lot of good here. I pass it around slowly It is truly excellent. I don’t have expectations - I just let it do what it does with this person or that.
I’d say let go of the expecations. Hope I’m not to presumptious here, but that’s my view.
Bob
November 13th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Hi Sally,
I’ve so eagerly awaited your return to the blog. Thank you for your film, your words and feelings. You have so helped me to not feel so alone. With Hurricane Ivan crashing through our consensus trance my family came to ARK two and a half years ago. Not fully knowing how or why we have clumsily pounded nails preparing this Ark for whatever was to come. We cried and raged and grieved and weaved the reeds of this boat, knowing full well it couldn’t be enough. When What a Way to Go arrived, for some reason, I stopped crying. I continued building though while sinking deeper into a desolate pit of despair. Finally, this past week my emotional logjam broke and I opened up again. I shared with my neighbors what I know and feel and something amazing happened. We came together to order 2.5 tons of storable food. We brainstormed how we can help each other to meet our basic needs and we felt our connection. This little hollow in ARK is awake Sally. I know it’s too late, I know it’s raining hard, but I know people are building their boats. I know how vitally important what you have done is. Thank you.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
I have watched the movie two times in its entirety and I usually run it while I am getting ready for my day or if I am on the computer. In the movie, it is said you are not there to give any answers but you just did. A different kind of life “sounds good.” But i can’t completely grasp what you mean by change my life. Do you mean start a hippy commune? Move to an Indian reservation? And if only the few of us who really get it (and I probably dont fully get it although I am completely scared) follow through with this “action” it will not save the world or even make it better after its demise or decline in population. So maybe this is why people remain asleep and ignorant. Why should I change? No one else is. I know this is an awful mentality to have but if everyone else gets to enjoy “wealth” than why not me? Also, if I jump on board and “build an ark” who is to say an “apocolypse” will not affect me or my children- we might die in awful manner too. I agree with you but I just would like a little more explanation on how to live my life without what I already know.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
You’ve got guts Sally,
you are not resting on the laurels of your tour.
You are already stepping back and taking a hard sobering look. I think your assesment of most people, leaning into sad, or glad after seeing the movie is accurate. I’ve been reading these type of books and articles and watching docs and have now seen your doc at least 7 times. I’m noticing myself going through yet another cycle of feelings. Yes I thought bringing you & Tim and “What a Way to Go” to my community would ensure the “waking up” of the people of my community. I fantasized that then they would be ready to link arms and face that void together. What I’m noticing is most of them have just returned with renewed enthusiasm to progressive protesting of the old paradigm. So as someone who sees no hope for that anymore I feel even more isolated in my community. I believe facing the reality of collapse has it’s stages just like the stages of grief. After all we are facing the death of so much and anticipating the death of so much more. My experience has been I went to mad, then I hung out a long time in sad then I went back to mad and back to sad and then I began to feel glad and then I touched on scared. As you’ve alluded to here, not many are willing to go there that emotion makes it really real. Scared demands an action. We can be sad and glad and still avoid taking any real steps toward change but when I have the emotion of fear it seems I have to choose to actually do something to alleviate my fear or numb out so I don’t have to feel it. When the act of doing something in this case seems so radical and unpredictable and outside the box of what anyone around me is doing, slipping back into numb seems like a better option. Unlike sad with it’s romantic poetic edge and glad with it’s tinge of hope scared is just plain raw fear of what is coming. What is going to be required of us and our children. Effectively giving up our luxury of safety and comfort and notions that we are in control and facing the fact that we are going into a future that will look like a fight for survival. The reality we are used to people in other parts of the world experiencing. The people we could help if we have a “green christmas”. A reality we could turn the channel on until now that it is going to include us. Now what I’m noticing is as I cycle round to scared again I’m choosing to numb out as it seems like such a vast unknown territory and is really bloody frightening! As long as I don’t take up residence here perhaps it’s a good and necessary step.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
“The waters are rising. It’s time to build an ark.”
Sorry, but we can’t loan you any money to build an ark. Please come back with a 5 year business plan, the mortgage to your home, a recent appraisal, and proof of employment.
It’s too late. Too freakin’ late. If you know people who care, get together with them and build an exit strategy: where can you go to escape the marauding hordes and the Stern-faced Minions of Failing Empire that will be rounding up ‘dissidents’ by the thousands?
What will you need? What skills does the group have?
How will climate change affect the place you plan to go?
How will you develop a community?
Forget the ark, thain’t nobody here worth savin’, and the animals will follow you to high ground anyway.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Hello Sally
Excellent, but there is nothing for those who want to take action, regardless of what it means to their present Lifestyle. I am one such person and want to team up with like-minded people and ‘build the Ark’ — whom do I contact?
November 13th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Welcome back, Sally (and Tim). Your words here resonate so strongly with what I grapple with on a daily basis, and I’m saddened by how much denial is still out there, even amongst those who had the guts to attend your screenings. But, your posting has brought more awareness to my own lingering battles with denial — and that’s very helpful. I do think you are correct in your assessment of where most people are at. But, for the life of me, I don’t understand why people aren’t scared. Maybe, besides their denial and defense mechanisms, it’s simply that appearances are deceiving — the electric lights are on, the malls are decorated for Christmas, new housing developments are going up, grocery store shelves are full, the world as we’ve grown to know it still looks pretty much the same. Unfortunately, it’s going to take overt crises to wake a lot of people up — too late, of course. Your Upton Sinclair quote probably puts things into perspective more than anything I’ve read. Thank you for this report, bleak as it is. Your honesty is a refreshing jolt to the psyche.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Thanks for all of the honest and thoughtful replies. It felt really good to have a blog to post again. The past few months have been so consumed with arranging tour details that I haven’t had the time to really wrap my mind and heart around substantial writing. This one seems to have struck a chord.
Here are some thoughts back:
Howie: What will I do with my feelings of discouragement? Well, I’m feeling a shift of loyalties. I had a couple of experiences on tour that gave me pause, caused me to look at how human-centric I am. This warrants more thought and reflection but I think the discouragement with the human creatures of Empire may actually open the way for a new appreciation for the rest of the creatures and that investing in the life that is expressed in the non-human communities of plants and animals and fungi and in the elements, in spirit in all of her forms, may be the result of feeling deeply the limits of my current human family. What actions would I like to see? I’d like to see myself moving rapidly, as rapidly as is possible, to a life that is directly helpful and healing, that is rooted not in the structures of this culture but in the real world of gardening, caring for land and animals, using but not consuming or destroying the gifts of land and water, food and shelter. I want to add more than I take and I want to do that in real, on the ground ways. That will mean moving to a place where that is possible. I’m not sure how it will happen but if I don’t at least get clear thats what I want I won’t get there.
Bob: Yeah, adjust those expectations! I’m working at it! I’m afraid to look at what’s coming down the road with so few people making active preparation. It looks like a tremendous amount of suffering, chaos, desperation, and death, and that’s scary to contemplate. But that may be what is called for to go through this adolescent initiation we are in the midst of.
Ryanstones! Great to hear. Our experience was on tour that the smaller communitites seemed to be more likely to get in action. Less investment in the structures of Empire and a closer connection already with a landbase. Go ARK!
Shannon: You express so well the quandry of the transition. I don’t have an answer for you and you may be doing exactly what you are called to do at this moment. I know that as I let it in deeply what my lifestyle is doing to the life support systems of the planet I want to change it radically. I want to stop pooping in the drinking water and use a simple composting toilet. I want to stop eating food that requires the input of 15 cal. of fossil fuels for every cal. of energy in the food. I want to live in a space that is warm and dry but just sufficient for health and a sense of peace and solitude when I need it. I want to live around creatures that I can be fully honest with, be they human or non-human. That’s what a radical change of life is for me. And I don’t want to be in a place which requires the input of stuff from beyond its local area because it’s not right to require stuff from somebody else’s place to maintain one’s own. You are right, if we build arks that will not guarantee our own safety in the apocalypse. But it does guarantee our integrity and our connection to what’s meaningful and important. If I’m going to go, I want to go well…..It’s the punch line of the movie… what a way to go.
Vivienne: Yeah, scared to numb to scared again. That’s a lot how i’m experiencing it as well. with moments of exhilaration when i step out of the box and trust….thanks for having the guts to feel the fear……..
Antigrav: I may be being naive and idealistic here. It’s happened before. But I do think that there are little cubby holes around where arks may be viable. Places where a dozen or maybe a couple of dozen humans might set about to help the landbase recover and to meet their own basic needs at the same time, cooperating with and supporting and listening to and studying the natural world of a place and doing their best to help. It’s worth a shot. And how to create community? Ah, as a refugee myself from intentional community I am fully sober to the challenge there. But it’s a good challenge, a worthy challenge, something I am up to with others who will submit themselves to the fire of long stretches of time in a circle…..And it bites that they won’t loan money for Arks… but there’s money around…and a few people who have it that are waking up. We met a couple on our tour… keep your heart and eyes open…
David: Stay tuned. One possibility is that this website can become a place for people to find others. We’re doing all of this as fast as we can and that’s been one of the ideas, to be a meeting place for likeminded people to connect. We don’t have the mechanism now but it may come. In the meantime if you want to let me know what part of the country you are in I might be able to suggest some people to contact.
Thanks everyone……..
November 13th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Wow…
Sally…Tim…
I’m not sure what to say…
I’m scared. That’s for certain. But mother culture is a soother, as all mothers should be. And her whispers of “calm down. Things will be OK” seem to be getting louder even as the fire rages closer with every passing moment.
I purchased “What a Way to Go” oh, about a month ago. It sat on my shelf, unwatched until this weekend. I recognized it for what it was: a genie, nicely packed in a brown case; a genie, that once opened, I certainly would not be able to get back in the bottle.
Now, I have been waking up since the late 90’s, having been introduced to Daniel Quinn as a college junior. I have been doing what I can to change minds; to tell people about Ishmael and its author. And this weekend, I watched your film. As I already said, I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I have a wife, a child and another on the way. My wife and I are in constant discussion about doing something. I have a very close friend with whom we regularly discuss the future of our culture (you can view some of our recent discussions at http://whatdowedonow.pbwiki.com/. This is a very rudimentary site that I have created with future purpose, but for now simply chronicles a recent e-mail discussion between myself and my friend.) We are all scared.
I’m afraid however, that we may be part of the choir. We are planning to use your film as a start of point, to wake up some more souls, but I’m slightly discouraged by your experience. The film certainly had an impact on me, but will it wake up others? Even those who are shifting nervously in their beds? I guess that we can only try…
Anyway, I wanted to thank both of you (and everyone else involved) for the film. There are a few of us out here, ready to let go of the shore. Feel free to contact me at the e-mail provided. If, as you say, there are so few awake to the situation, it is important that we all make contact; stay in contact. I, for one, want to know what people are doing. Without dialog, without knowledge of what other awakened souls are doing out there in the world, I’m afraid mother cultures soothing voice may be too strong to ignore; sleep is so nice. We must reach out to each other; we are out here.
Again, thanks much.
Warm regards,
Matt Willbergh
November 13th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Sally,
Recently, Carolyn Baker featured a fine essay by Sharon Astyk, who writes a wonderful blog. The piece is entitled “Scared? Duh.” and it dovetails nicely into yours.
http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-being-afraid.html
November 14th, 2007 at 12:00 am
From a friend;
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Oraibi, Arizona
November 14th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Hello Sally,
Thanks for the DVD and for all the effort it has taken to make this call to action, for that is how I saw it.
I have been immersed in the need for an alternative to our fractured, isolated, totally dependent on fossil fuel existance for many years. Many of us have been! Many of us are growing our food, moving to small communities where we can walk to meetings, withdrawing from consumerism, digging in for the safety of our families. It is happening! Please don’t get us wrong, there’s lots of us but we are perhaps not the people who go to see the movie because we are living it every day.
And I said, after the movie, that I am glad that I saw it because I learned something valuable from some of the people you interviewed whom I had never heard about. And what they said will further enable me to take care of my family. So I did buy their books right away and I am reading them.
In my opinion it is away past the time to be mad, sad or scared, it is time to take action.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Hey Sally
Wow, great pin-in-the-ground post. Ho!
Like you, I’m crapping myself at the inertia that surrounds me (and is in me too)…
As the mass extinction rolls on, the climate change gathers pace, oil dances around US$100 (hah! I started lobbying politicians when it was US$23 a barrel, and that was only 7 years ago!), the dollar slides, and B52 bombers fly loaded with armed nuclear cruise missiles across the USA, blow all non-proliferation treaties out of the water, and Russia and China react, and Canadian front line troops are told to update their wills and shut up about it….my culture tells me f.e.a.r. = False Evidence Appearing Real…including my wife’s sticker with this on next to the computer!
I’m very scared that those who are waking up will jump to ’solutions’ bought off the shelf, not won by hard thinking, research, soul searching, sweat and tears. As you state in the movie, this is a culture of spoilt 2 year olds.
Thanks you!
Ted
November 14th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Hi Sally
I forgot to add this.
I share a lot of your angst that I think comes because most of the folks even after the movie, are not terrified of the insane culture they find themselves in. They are fearful of peak everything, but are disconnected from why it’s happening except on a shallow basis.
To understand how pathologically insane and suicidal the culture is, is very, very scarey indeed.
I’m afraid that such is the depth of indoctrination, we’ll do whatever we can to sort things out within the culture, rather than admit it’s over and go sit at the feet of our indigenous brothers and sisters (and trees, and fish and rivers, etc) and ask for forgiveness and ask for help
Regards
Ted
November 14th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Yes, I like that “place to find others idea” - hope that happens. b
November 14th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Dear Sally,
Thanks for the personal mention! I’m involved with forming an ecovillage and am curious about your “IC refugee” status. Not a way to go? Also, why would anyone move north at this time?
Onward,
- HR
November 14th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Take heart that your (& Tim’s) efforts are having an impact. At the very least, they’re planting the seeds of awareness and action. They may lie dormant in the minds of many, but they’re there nonethess. How/to what extent people act is up to them. Many have to hit rock bottom before they’re prepared to change their destructive ways; why should society on a collective level be any different? At least people like yourselves are pointing out the error/implication of our ways, and organizations such as http://www.yesmagazine.org/ are showing us an alternative.
Thank you.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Here Sally, not to be flippant, but this might lighten things up for a minute.
http://www.energybulletin.net/37091.html
See, denial can be categorized. Maybe we can even get a new DSM category. Makes sense to me. When Crazy becomes normal and sane becomes crazy - hmm.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Sally-
I find some comfort in reading and watching universe-related stuff. One presentation that I may have mentioned when you were here is a Long Now presentation by John Baez (Joan’s cousin). It can be found here:
http://www.fora.tv/2006/10/13/Zooming_Out_in_Time
I’m in the middle of “Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang” by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok. Thinking about the time and space dimension of the universe somehow makes it a bit easier to accept our demise.
The Spokane viewers had no interest in extending the discussion. Disheartening, but expected.
In some respects it helps to think of oneself as a spectator to the whole, insane show.
All the best, Matt
November 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Dear Sally,
Your recent blog entry reminds me of the 1999 movie The Matrix. The parallel conflicts are remarkably similar. There are no doubt many of us who have seen through the never-ending corporate and media propaganda, and yes we continue to run the gamete of emotion, confusion, and bewilderment. Eventually it becomes obvious that we need to change our lives, but how, and when, and where will we go, and what will we do looms large in our thinking. This process can only begin once we have seen through our global cultural matrix. Please make this blog a place for us to continue to explore new possibilities and thank you for your fine pioneering work.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hi!
You wrote:
========================================
What’s the game I’m talking about? The game of “civilized, industrial, technological life as we know it.” We are at the end of that game. And people are just beginning to wake up to the fact that it’s a game… …Having toured 36 communities with our movie in the last three months and having sat with over a thousand people in post-screening dialogue circles, I find myself sad and sobered… …I realize I’m on a bit of a tear here. I can’t help it. I sat with over a thousand people and I’m more discouraged about the awakening in the world than ever. And mostly I’m sad. I’m sad that as a group we are not getting it… …The most frequently reported feelings were sad and glad, followed by ashamed and mad, with only the rare expression of people being scared. I think that’s backwards to what would best be experienced. I think if people were really letting the information sink in, if they were letting it past their denial and defense mechanisms, that they would, first and foremost, be scared.
========================================
I have to disagree - not with your prognosis or facts, but with your mood. Maybe I spent too many years in a zendo, but the mental space you’re exhibiting is actually dis-useful, and your audience is correct to not be fearful.
To be scared and depressed invites inaction - if it’s all going to hell in a handbasket, why bother? Live big and forget about it. That is not MY way of thinking, but it is the logical reaction to fear and depression: compensate through either denial or surrender. Neither are what we need or want, especially at this late of a time.
Therefore, the best reaction is one of determination and steadfastness. Am I planning on retiring to a vacation cottage on lake Simcoe? Hell no. Am I planning on starving to death in some transit camp in eastern oregon? Hell no. Am I planning on working in high tech forever? Hell no. So what am I planning?
I am planning on and am engaged in learning skills and acquiring information that will help me and my neighbours, yes NEIGHBOURS - you know - those people next door or down the hall - those people we have reified into the suboptimal identity political notion of “community” (who or whatever the heck THAT is) so that when things get more difficult, and they will, we will be able to meet these challenges with as little suffering as possible.
The idea is compassion and working with others. This doesn’t mean everything will be hunky dory okey dokey. But it doesn’t mean a living hell, either. One of my dearest friends is cuban, and she said this about the Powerdown they had in 1991 - I remember it almost verbatim, because it really blew me away:
“At first it really sucked. People fled the city (Havana) if they could and set up farms on the outskirts. Abandoned properties were turned into urban farms. It was rough. We only had two meals a day, and a lot of it was vegetables. My dad never had much of an appetite - his metabolism’s slower - so he’d give me his left overs because I was younger. After about six months, though, you got into new habits. You didn’t get with friends and drive to the beach - you rode your bike or walked. But the beach was still really nice, and I still loved my friends. And pretty soon, you remember how to smile and laugh. Still, it was really hard, but it wasn’t “bad”. Just difficult. you adjust.”
It’s not a “switch” - peak oil means there is still a trillion barrels of the crap in the ground. With super high prices, it’ll take a while to pump it out, and very likely, a lot will be left in the ground, when all is said and done.
The situation with the climate? Yes, that is a deep deep problem. I think we need to look at the “unthinkable” and figure out some exact numbers and ranges on clathrate and methane hydrate meltdowns, and get some real numbers on the results of that, with ranges of possible results.
If the results are Permian Level Extinction, then we will need to make a different set of plans than otherwise.
To say “we’re looking at a PLE anyway! DOOM!!!!” doesn’t really help, because tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to have to fill your time doing something, and stocking up on canned goods and ammo is not helpful or even all that smart or productive.
We need to approach this will a certain level of compassion (something I’m not very good at, but am trying to learn) for not only the fuzzy bunnies and silvery fishies that are going extinct, but for the blockheaded retard piloting the 4WD pick up truck three blocks to grab a six pack and a carton of smokes. Yeah, they are retards (I said I wasn’t very good at it) but they - the ignorant North American Middle Class - (but I’m trying) are, along with the OECD and Chinese Middle class - hold the key to the problem. It is their consumption and convenience that is driving this insane machine, and the hegemony (negotiated or imposed) of the system that feeds them.
Media and communications are VITAL right now, and we need to work at getting the ideas out there to help cushion the downturn from a howling disaster of DEATH to a Different Way of LIFE.
Your movie helps. So feel GLAD. You’re doing the right thing. And a lot of others are too. In the end, humanity will go extinct, but it’s a question of when and how (20 years and horribly, or 200,000 years and through evolution), not a matter of if.
Another thing is to just keep on keeping on. but that level of determination requires a certain amount of cheerfulness. It’s not denial - it’s a matter of personal identification.
Do you know your neighbours? Are you helping them?
S2
November 15th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Hi Sally
Hmmm…I guess a few posters here want to “cheer you up” and “get you moving”…
I’m happy to just stand beside you and acknowledge your process, your wisdom and your feelings.
Thanks
Ted
November 15th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I realized a while ago that the amount of denial is directly proportional to the amount of risk. It almost seems to be a universal character trait. As I’ve noted before, it seems like the collective mind of humanity is willfully ignoring the obvious the closer to the edge we go.
Alarmingly, I have found that it is not just the topics covered in What a Way to Go that I am unable to talk with anyone offline about…it’s practically ANYTHING of substance! Even in the 80’s I could find people who were passionate about SOMETHING besides Nascar and football! Now conversations that I used to have on a daily basis happen maybe once every six months. You and Tim were two of the only people I’ve run into in quite a while who could converse about these topics freely…and I live in Chicago…a haven for a lot of relatively educated people.
Even more alarmingly, I have found that as most of my friends get married and have kids they all seem to have entered DenialWorld to a greater or lesser extent. Which is counterintuitive to me: I would think that the fact that you have new life to protect and defend, you would WANT to know about all the potential hazards the world you live in may be throwing your way. Nope. “If my kids might starve to death as a result of a collapsed economy I don’t want to know about it, you gloomy bastard” is about the level of response I get anymore.
I feel like I’ve entered Stepford, It is really unnerving at times.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Thanks again guys…I guess.
After listening to WAW2Go nearly a dozen times a couple months ago during a trip to Denver I decided to let go of the shore.
What this means for me is I will probably see my kids a lot less as I move to a farmlette away from the city and grow food.
It means I will probably walk away from a good job at some point in the next year.
It means I will leave most everything I have learned to be “the way it should be” behind me and expose myself to something I do not know.
So it goes.
Thanks again!!
November 15th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Sally,
On your tour, what did you not see people being or doing that you wanted them to be doing or being?
November 15th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Those who understand, must move west, stay 30 minutes away from any city with an altitude greater than 400 feet and under 1500 feet. be able to isolate your road with a fallen tree. See you afterwards.
November 16th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Hey Sally and Tim,
It’s me, Archangel, from NYC. I dunno if you remember me, but I spent some time with you during the screenings while you were out here staying with Phil and Tom. Just wanted to let you know that I am relocating and have quit my job, and I’m couch-surfing while getting things ready for a change of lifestyle. I’m going WWOOFing, initially not terribly far from you folks, in the Asheville, NC area, and I plan to learn some things, and continue to wander and find companions. It’s time for me.
Thanks for writing this- it’s helped affirm my decision and reminded me of what is at stake. Best to you,
A
November 16th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Hi Sally,
It occurs to me that the format of your movie and also the structure of the circle with the talking stick are pretty much certain to elicit sadness in viewers. There were options as to how the material could be presented that would allow viewers to explore options and interact with the others in the room in a positive way.
I don’t mean to be critical but to point out that it is disingenuous to be surprised at the response since that is understandable given the format of the message you carefully crafted: “oh woe is us!”
There is lots to be done rather than getting stuck in grief or anger!
I liked how Stuart Studebaker expressed it!
November 16th, 2007 at 2:59 am
Dear Sally,
As we discussed, you and Tim have carried the huge responsibility of bringing the most of all unpleasant news to our country. You took the challenge and met it head on when no one else cared to take the ball.
You have done it unselfishly and at great cost. You have done it without malice but with humility and through way too many public transports across our once great, proud country.
You have changed SOME lives, You have, maybe, helped some to “get it” and survive our very uncertain future.
And those that have “gotten it” are empowered to change and are greatful that they were fortunate enough to hear the message you brought on your travels.
Take a moment and acknowledge,reflect and congratulate yourself for a mission accomplished and a job well done. Take a moment and take satisfaction that your five year effort did yield SOME positive results of actual awareness leading to behaviorail and survival action. And take a moment to be thankful that you still had time to accomplish this wonderful undertaking…..
And now go build YOUR lifeboat. Protect YOUR family, Take care of YOUR needs and do what you and Tim need to do…It is time to be selfish and serve YOURself.
And as all good flight attendants remind us in all crash situations…
“It is imperative to put your own oxygen masks on first or you will be of no use to others you may want to assist in the event of a real disaster (read family).”
And remember we always had Stinson Beach and the warm sunshine of a California day.
Peace out,
J.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:39 am
Hi Sally and Tim,
I saw your film the second time when you were in Grass Valley. Meeting you before the show and then hearing your comments was helpful and encouraging. I’ve spent two years learning how to stop consuming, grow my own food and hone some barterable skills. I quit my career to work on this and am now at a roadblock. As a single with now family close by, I would like to find other committed and like minded people in Northern California who want to live in a close proximity to create a different life. I hear people talk about it but the inertia is still there. Please let me know if you come across folks who are serious and ready to get going, now. Thanks again for all that you are doing. Shirl
November 16th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Sally and Tim,
I recently read “The City of Saba” by Rumi over at zone5.org. In the poem, Rumi implores us to “Turn towards teachers and prophets who don’t live in Saba. They can help you grow sweet again and fragrant and wild and fresh and thankful for any small event.”
All of you that helped to create “What A Way To Go” are those teachers and prophets Rumi spoke of.
Thank You.
November 16th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Hi Sally,
Wow. I’m having precisely those feeling s these days.
I’ve been giving Peak Oil Outreach talks for over a year now, and I’ve been bouncing from crest to trough of the hope/despair cycle for the last three. I grokked the end of industrial civilization about 30 seconds after I figured out Peak Oil, and went straight from there to die-off. I don’t know if I’m surprised or not to find that I’ve ended up about where I started out, but with a more nuanced understanding of the phrase “Estamos tan jodidos!” We are so screwed…
Although I’m more convinced than ever about the end of the global industrial perpetual motion machine, I’m less convinced about the shape of the coming die-off. I no longer think it’s going to be universal. I’ve recently been doing some careful analysis of the impact of energy decline on individual nations I’ve come to understand that the decline will accelerate and deepen the disparities between rich and poor, and that as usual the bulk of the hardship will fall on those who can least afford it.
It is precisely the energy-poor nations that have the highest fertility rates, and will see their populations balloon over the next 30 years. It is precisely those nations that have no margin to absorb the loss of energy and GDP. It is precisely those nations that will need more and more food to feed their burgeoning numbers. And it is precisely those nations that will not be able to pony up for a 10x rise in the cost of of fertilizer as natural gas depletes. Do not move to Africa or Asia in the next couple of decades.
I went to a hope-fest last night sponsored by the Sierra Club that was anchored by a showing of “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil”. I asked a question to the panel about Cuba’s “Evil Twin” in the Peak Oil Survival sweepstakes, North Korea, whose oil was cut off at the same time and for the same reasons. It was morbidly fascinating to watch their defense shields snap to full power as they hastily explained that the reason North Korea failed to cope and so many starved to death was due to cultural differences - that climate and geography played but a minor role, and if we just created a “spirit of permaculture cooperation” in Canada over the next 10 years, We’d Be Fine.
I think most people are too afraid to wake up, the problem is just too big and too scary. Most of those that try to wake up get their eyes halfway open and suddenly realize that if they come all the way awake they’ll be screwed. So they stay half-asleep and veil the half-recognized realities with sugar-plum daydreams of solar panels, windmills and ethanol…
November 16th, 2007 at 11:07 am
To all the commentors:
I am nearing seventy. Raised on a farm, I experienced the transition from the horse drawn culture of my grandfather to mechanized agriculture in the early forties. I farmed myself until 1984. I still garden a little. My point? Those of you who think you can move a few miles away from a big city and live off of beans delude yourselves. When the SHTF, as it must very soon, you will be the first to go, as the starving masses forage outward. That is if you don’t starve first from a crop failure.
My advice: Store up a lot of goodies, keep a low profile, know how and be willing to protect your goodies, and hope they don’t get you anyhow. If you survive, you will find the other survivors, and then, maybe, you will be able to restore the pastoral life you envision. A Planet of the Apes society will probably be the reality, however.
November 16th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Sally,
Mike from Spokane here. I was on your immediate right during the discussion time.
Briefly…
It seems to me that…
As you point out… Yup, we are not understanding. We are not reacting. We are not preparing.
In addition, I would offer that there are no solutions - NONE. I would offer that ANY sense of optimism is merely an elegant form of denial.
My denial takes the form of my pursuit of that tiny glow of hope for personal [me and mine] survival. The society at large is a dead man walking. There is no future in facing that direction. One must turn away completely [save for the hope of joining with a few like-minded souls] and make preparations for rejoining with the earth.
In all sincerity, does your denial take the form of “What a Way to Go” as an expression of your hope of enlightening the masses?
survival,
~mike~
November 16th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Hi Sally,
I’m Lynnette from Bellingham. With 10 co-sponsoring oranizations, we organized a WAWTG screening and discussion with you and Tim here at Whatcom Community College where we filled Heiner Auditorium to capacity, over 328 people in October.
I want to let you know some good news. Now Western Washington University is having a showing of your film, due to demand!
I remember being surprised at the number who purchased the DVD after the event. Many in Bellingham are talking about it. It made a big impression that rippled out widely here.Thank you so much.
I have a request. I believe your current blog, Horror Movies and Other Things I Don’t Want to Believe Are True is an important report and I want to send the essence of it out to my numerous lists. Would you be willing to condense it into a shorter article and send it to me? I would really appreciate it. I’ve learned that when I send out a paragraph and a link, often only the paragraph gets read because people have so much email and other info to scan. I think they do read short articles though if they have a “calling phrase” something that gets their attention in them at the beginning. And I always include a link to the original article.
Thanks so much for this valuable follow up blog you’ve written..
Lynnette Allen
lynallen.peace@yahoo.com
Sustainable Bellingham Vision Team
November 16th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Someone I know sent me information about the Documentary today. I have read what everyone is saying about it. I have known for 30 years this ending of society as we know it would happen. How did I know? My issue has been overpopulation and the problems it causes. Once one understands the resources and the demands we put on them it is very clear what overpopulation will lead to. Those that think they are going to some isolated place and live off the land are as delusional as everyone else is right now. There are way to many people for anything like that to be safe. There are two scenarios that will likely take place. Either we enter a 1984 reality as a lot of indicators lead to as the governments in most countries are prepared to proclaim marshal law if anything gets out of hand. This is the most likely of the two scenarios. The other one is complete anarchy. It is really do bad that we as a society have been conditioned to think that our leaders will take care of us and we can’t take care of ourselves. All the leaders are going to do is take care of themselves. For anarchy to work you have to believe in the goodness of people and peoples willingness to work together without leadership. But What ever happens it is going to be interesting and historical and best of all you all are going to have a front row seat.
November 17th, 2007 at 4:04 am
You may wish to look up GapMinder, and check out the oil reserves in Utah and Colorado (Green River Formation). While it is nice to think that all of these things are coming to an end, I believe it is wishful thinking at best, and utter naivety at worst. The energy footprint of humanity is less than that of mere algae, we aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
Instead what I am wittnessing is the commodification of yet another concept that utilizes fear to get people to spend a few bucks here and there. Without any indiciation of a move away from the centralized production that our global economy is so fond of. In other words, something is being sold, but that something generally results in no one doing anything about the real problems in the world. Algae store 5 times as much energy as we use anually, if they can do it without impacting the world negatively (pollution) then so can we. Undoubtedly.
November 17th, 2007 at 11:47 am
So anonymous, your point is that we can keep growing and consuming because there is more energy to be found and processed. I do fail to see your logic with using Algae as an example. As far as I know we humans do not live in water and we don’t produce oxygen. I think the point of the documentary is that our lifestyle sucks. Read overgrowth and consumption. I have not seen the film but from what I have read that is the conclusion. What do you feel the real problems of the world are?
November 17th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Here’s some very humble solutions, from a person who has been dealing with the peak oil and global warming etc. problem since 1999.
SHORTEN HORIZONS
You’ll feel better if you shorten your horizons the way a person does when they find they have cancer. That is, focus more on enjoying the more immediate future. There’s no sense in selling your house and sleeping in a graveyard - you can still enjoy what quality of life is available. You’ll appreciate it even more actually.
THINK - TROUBLE IS NOT THAT NEW
Trouble, notably big trouble is not that new. There’s already lots of hassles in our lives, Hospitals are full of people suffering dreadfully, families having to watch it. It isn’t new. Even aging and death are the same as this world decline. The old and sick aren’t running round screaming. They slow themselves down, reduce expectations, become more humble, are grateful for what they have. A lot of them grow roses and live for their grandchildren or for others as a distraction from their own worsening losses.
LOTS OF RECOURSES
The ways of dealing with trouble will be the same - available since time began. Use your brains to make some sensible preparations. Try to be cooperative to balance survival with self-love and relationships. Cry, comfort each other. Remember to be grateful for what we’ve had. Especially leave room for ‘good unknowns’ in the future rather than assuming you’re going to be in constant misery every second of the day from now on. Dare to retain some optimism, even vague optimism. Even hope that turns out to be false has been good value in making you happy.
WHERE YOU ‘GO’ WHEN YOU DIE
Much fear seems to be based on a panicky, superstitious fear of death. I think you actually ‘go’ to the same ‘place’ you were before you were conceived. Not so bad when you consider the ’safety’ of that ‘place’.
OPTING OUT (’COMPLETELY’)
I’ve put a fair bit of thought into ways of deliberately going there if the suffering gets too bad. First point: When suffering gets bad enough (even a bad ‘flu) you really don’t at all mind the idea of dying. Second: In that state of mind, there are lots of merciful ways of escaping. People use all the time, and they work well, mostly within a few seconds or minutes if you can stand some temporary extra discomfort that fades away as you lose consciousness. You don’t have to assume you’ll be ‘trapped’ into staying in extreme misery. You can get ‘out’ if you really, really want to. There are voluntary euthanasia websites, books and groups giving plenty of guidance if you want it.
DISCUSSION GROUP AVAILABLE
There’s an egroup for people new to the petroleum energy decline - where you can confer with others and get some comfort from sympathetic long-experienced peakniks like Lise Maring. I set it up a couple of years ago at
RunningOnEmpty3@yahoogroups.com
It now has about 2,000 members, all giving each other comfort and encouragement about dealing with this stuff.
Regards,
Bruce Thomson
November 17th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
An energy source to power civilization’s continued growth and exploitation of natural and human communities could, by further postponing our moral and practical reckoning with other ecological limits, produce an abiotic nightmare of a world. Even if technology came up with a substitute for oil, it would have to find substitutes for soil, coral reefs, ocean fauna, algae, forests, water, and indigenous wisdom, all of which are being ravaged by the globalized economic activity underwritten by cheap energy. The demand-side solutions, however, all involve sacrifice and social change of which anonomous is still in deep denial.
November 17th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I didn’t expect my comment to get published, it was more directed at the OP than the blog readers. I don’t want to rain on everyones parade. Though I do feel the sentiment of collapse is a non-starter, and doesn’t call for action moreso sitting around waiting for it to happen.
I think pollution is a huge huge problem. But if we reduce it down a bit we can see that life requires energy and raw chemicals to live. Everything of all of civilization requires it. Humanity just uses the chemicals the planet has provided to us irresponsibly. The waste water that is funneled into the oceans, for instance, is made up of the very chemicals that was in the food we consumed. It’s valuable. But we unwisely let it flow into the oceans. You can take any aspect of human civilization and reduce it down to this basic concept, all waste has value. Our current global economic situation places short term profit above long term sustainablity. We won’t run out of resources, either energy or chemical (due to the conservation laws). But we will permit it to get into a state where it is harder to get. By eroding soils, for instance, we’re destroying habitats, not just for animals, but for ourselves. There’s only so much effort that can be made into making fertalizers before it becomes uneconomical to exploit a bit of ground. However, we don’t need soil to grow food, and cities like Chicago and others are looking at hydroponically grown food in skyscrapers. If you don’t need soil to grow food you’ve solved one of those issues, recycle the cities waste (back into the raw chemicals which plants feed upon) and you’ve solved yet another. This is why I mentioned energy, because as it stands now, it’s really the only variable worth caring about (especially since our global economy is energy centric).
In the end I’m a bit more pessimistic than the collapse scenarios, I think. Because I don’t think it will end any time soon, I think the pollution will go on, unfettered, for hundreds of years. About 6 months ago I was researching the Green River Formation, there was one, count it, one oil company experimenting with extracting the oil shale there. Today, out of curiosity, I was reading again, and now there are 10. Ten. In 6 months it went from one to ten. Either the information 6 months ago wasn’t as easy to get to, or in that period of time many more have come up. I saw one of these extraction projects just the other day in Rifle Colorado. I have no doubt that these companies will destroy these pristine landscapes (which the Green River Formation is known to be) to get at it.
I think we’ll ravage the planet until there literally is nothing to exploit unless we do something about it. And that is why I believe my view is far more pessimistic. There was a recent news story about how projects are now putting Global Warming reaching a genocidal level in 12 years. And that’s before we start hitting resource limits because we’re not seeking sustainablity. And when we do and people need heating, and start burning forests, and killing one another, things should get real interesting as far as our ravaging the planet is concerned.
We haven’t even begun. Come out to Colorado, see the oil projects. Compare our energy usage to other life on the planet, we’re nothing.
Anyway, I’m not going to respond to whatever, I didn’t think my comment would be published. Sorry for the interruption.
(Yes I saw the movie. And I’ve read all the books, and so on.)
November 17th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
It’s great to see the amounts of comments Tim & Sally’s blogs are generating since the last tour. I’m still feeling alone here in my suburban town as far as my view of reality not being shared by my neighbours, so it helps a lot to be able to connect in with all of you.
I had a great discussion with my 18
year old son today who just returned from travelling in Europe. He noticed I was down and wanted to know what was wrong. I took the plunge and was straight up with him about how I numb out because I feel I’m not living my truth, that I’m still holding out in this old paradigm. I shared how I’m feeling conflicted about guiding him in his future. He is considering going back to school for environmental/conservation studies. On the one hand I’m thrilled that this interest has emerged from someone who wasn’t even keen on going for a walk. Once I get over that excitement I really question financing an education in a paradigm that is dieing off. He was pretty practical about the whole thing and thought he would pick up some practical skills. He is still struggling with why a techno fix is not possible but he’s willing to accept that it just might not be. He also said our culture needs to come to terms with the reality of our own death. He said he’s not concerned about the possiblity of facing his own death, he would just feel bad for the people he might leave behind.
Funny thing is I remember being 18 and feeling that same way. I was aboard a small sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic in a severe storm waiting to see if we had to abandon ship.
I’m beginning to think it’s not so much what’s coming that has got me down but the craziness of bbelieving one reality and having another reflected all around. I appreciate all of you mirroring back some sanity. Thanks
Vivienne, Ladner, B.C.
p.s. I’d really appreciate people posting their general location. Perhaps we could have a virtual map lighting us all up, sort of like the one Tim showed on his blog, which referred to the screenings. It’s comforting to know we are all out there. Beacons of sanity in an insane culture.
November 19th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Luther said: “Whatever you trust and lean your heart upon, that is your God.” The lack of expressed fear in response to What a Way to Go indicates that people are still strong in their faith. Their feeling of being in charge, being entitled, through identification with the modern industrial/social system has suffered little damage.
In northern Minnesota you will see signs along secondary roads: Prepare to Meet Thy God! The saying goes back, I believe, to the biblical prophet Amos, who addressed himself to the nation of Israel, not to individuals seeking salvation in an afterlife, as those who place the signs do. An appropriate summary of your movie might be, America, prepare to meet thy Goddess!
What should we do in the face of these “challenges?” Well, do you know how to pray?!
A Canadian friend was present at a lecture by Ivan Illich several years ago in Toronto. After the talk one young man asked the “normal” question: Yes, but what are we to do? No doubt Illich had heard this one too many times. Evidently he broke up into demonic laughter, which was quite disturbing to many in the audience. Then he answered: You can’t do anything.
I especially like Tim’s statement: “Ooh! What a good idea! Give the child a bigger gun!” This has the note of sarcastic anger which might possibly sting a bit. I find your patience and long-suffering while sitting in circle to be quite amazing. Of course, you don’t want to be lynched! Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of those right-thinking, well-meaning, pharisaical progressives? Sally, I like your sarcastic critique of shopping our way to the Kingdom. As far as I can see, this attitude is pretty typical. The idea that we might have done something wrong . . . seems to be a bit of a stretch. Rather, we just haven’t come up with the new knowledge that will solve everything . . . yet! The greatest happiness of the greatest number will no doubt be achieved, however. Our scientists are working on it.
The idea that there might be “solutions” to global collapse is clearly wrong, ridiculous. Yet I wonder whether the idea of “preparing for collapse” might also be flawed. “Change your life . . . in preparation for utter upheaval!”
The truth is, we no longer hold the whip over Nature. Or should I say, the illusion that we hold power over Nature is becoming more and more difficult to maintain. What troubles me most is the feeling among progressive folks that we the privileged, the educated, the rich are the ones who now need to make amends by helping others, stopping the damage to the biosphere. What we don’t get is: we are now in the same boat with the underprivileged and downtrodden. In the US we have run through our resources, we are over our heads in debt, and we have offended the rest of the world. When the shit starts, we will be in no position to help anyone else. Like a bunch of helpless babies the progressives will wail out their agony when they realize that their entitlements have been wrecked by superhuman forces over which they have no influence.
I had a couple of bad thoughts about “preparing for collapse” . . sorry, but this suddenly reminded me of the fallout shelter craze in the early 50s. People were building shelters against radioactive fallout, after WW III. But then they stopped. They realized it was futile. When they came outside, there wouldn’t be any world left that they could survive in anyway.
And our talk about “lifeboats,” which we here in New Haven also indulge in; we have a “lifeboat garden.” On the Titanic there were not enough lifeboats. “They put them down below, where they’d be the first to go.” Suddenly I wondered whether there isn’t something despicable about trying to save oneself while the majority of one’s neighbors will not survive? The captain went down with the ship, taking responsibility for his own part in the sinking of the Titanic. We who are rich in knowledge, we who have gathered “quality information” while others remain mired in the lies of the media and the politicians; are we honorable?
Among the feelings you suggest one might well feel in response, you list sadness. Yes, very appropriate. But what about repentance? A feeling that, perhaps even more, does not compute for truly modern people. Here is the bottom line for me: We have sinned against the Earth. Our sin is this: We have not loved the Earth as we ought to have done. As I said: does not compute. We have murdered our own Mother, no? Not a failure in knowledge, but a failure in love; in my opinion. True, we also are deficient in knowledge, but the reason is, we just didn’t bother to notice the carnage we were committing. A small oversight, completely unintentional; thus revealing all the more the essence of our character. We couldn’t be bothered to notice. We clearcut North America without realizing that we were doing anything wrong. All sense of the sacred lost.
I see almost no sign that people are losing their faith in Progress. That ship is breaking in pieces even as I write, but they still don’t notice. Ironclad faith, no? Prophetic symbolism is in order. Like, wearing sackcloth and ashes, publicly mourning the impending collapse, thus expressing derisively our disbelief in that which our countrymen still believe so touchingly.
Do you know the story of Micaiah ben Imlah, the OT prophet? Everyone else was in favor of the war, all were optimists. But the king’s ally insisted on hearing also from Michaiah, who had been wasting away in jail for a long time. Brought before Ahab, Michaiah answers in a voice dripping with sarcasm: “Go forth, O King, for the Lord will surely deliver them into your hand.” The following day they went out to war anyway, and suffered catastrophic defeat. I think we need all we can get of this voice of sarcastic dismissal, of contempt for the delusions in which we live and move and have our being.
I keep thinking also of Simone Weil, the brilliant French Jew who was deeply attracted to the Roman Church. She found a congenial priest, took instruction, joyfully antipated the day of her baptism and the feeling of security that would come from being inside the ark of salvation where it would be clean and dry and light, and there would be wonderful music. So she approached, came all the way to the threshold; and then a dark thought intervened: What about all those lost souls who would inevitably and permanently remain outside? And she couldn’t cross that line. She chose instead to remain outside in solidarity with the great multitudes of the lost and unredeemed.
When collapse comes, we the enlightened will not be able to remain separate. We will be in the middle of the disaster, the whirlpool will be sucking us down with the rest. If we survive, it will be mostly due to luck. And what about survivor guilt? Have any of us thought about that?
The right atmosphere: the panic-soaked night of a WW II movie, in the Ukraine or Russia. The death squads are at work, you hear the guns, and you are already booked for death.
Hitler’s winning. No chance to plan, you live a day at a time; hoping against hope that somehow the tide will turn, due to a lucky break you will come through. Terror is your normal state of mind. There’s trouble all around, but the authorities seem as if drugged, apathetic. The officers are caught flat-footed. They had not foreseen these present circumstances. Corpses litter the countryside. Children suffer.
We are not in charge of this situation. Better learn to pray! After the fall, we will no longer be living in a pacified society . . . unless the fascists prevail. What I fear most is a day when I will be grateful to the fascists for saving me from marauding gangs who would otherwise be stealing the potatoes in my basement. Some of the young working men I have known will not take kindly to sitting quietly at home, watching their babies starve. Sweetness and light still prevail in the post-What a Way to Go conversation circles. But this will not be the case in post-collapse “society.”
I am still committed to the idea of building lifeboats in the hope that they might be nuclei around which the new society will coalesce. But I can’t help wondering whether the most advanced position might be . . .
Feeling helpless,
Fred Cervin
November 19th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
“And what about survivor guilt? Have any of us thought about that?”
Of course! That’s why I DO try to warn as many as possible and my preparations may help more than just me and mine…tho’ we know I could only help so many….
Location is so vital…you could try to not be in the middle of the disaster, but on the perimeter. Absolutely luck is required, but preparation is what we do…is what we CAN do. Luck…hope…we have no agency there. There is no way to prepare for all things, and the fact that almost none are preparing with us does not bode well, no.
I will lead the way…I will figure out what to do and how to do things like create fertile ground to grow food on…like save open pollinated seeds that can be shared when the need arises. I will have water I can share and skills to obtain water. I am located in a place where people have always retained some self-sufficiency…..etc.
I might be murdered for food on the dawn of the collapse or warfare may sweep through this area…but I choose the most likely events and those things I can effect and plan accordingly. ONE thing at a time, for the enormity of the coming situation will overwhelm you.
I have no qualms, whatsoever, about working to be one of the survivors…or should I just commit suicide now? If I survive…how will I be able to help?
I think America will prolonge the collapse as long as possible. While a billion starve and/or thirst in Africa, Americans will STILL be grasping this lifestyle. It is our birthright, isn’t it?
NOW is the time to plan….now is the time to develope the skills and attitude to respond to what is to come. Choose your ground and learn what you need to know…now. Reach everyone you can with the message of peak oil…or climate change…get them started down the road, but don’t expect them to swallow collapse for quite a while. Be an example…be a leader. You are here to help, so prepare to help yourself and others when things get tough.
And BTW…New Haven?!? Get thee out of there, Fred!
You are not Helpless right now….NOW is the moment of power!
Tree
November 20th, 2007 at 2:58 am
“People have no idea how late in the game it is.”
I haven’t seen your film yet.
When it showed in my town,
I was tied up at work.
But based on my reading of
the lead essay on this page,
my sense is,
this film kicks serious butt.
I resonate to the core with
the message, even if I put climate change
in front of peak oil by an order of magnitude.
I’m planning a screening.
Thanks for your work.
~A
November 20th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Wow. Good thought provoking stuff.
I have been reading articles recommended by Tim over the past several years and came to believe that life as we know it won’t last. Of course I don’t know how long it will take for things to begin to fall apart. Too bad about the climate change part. It really throws a wrench in the works. All the best gardens and self sufficiency and living in balance with the land in a place won’t work if the stable weather conditions of the past few millenia don’t stay the same. I kinda feel like my tendency is to stay put. Changes in climate won’t necessarily allow it. Rats. Assuming the climate holds, there is no guarantee that we nice self sufficient community friendly people won’t all be overrun in the course of a half hour by hungry people. People with valuable life skills are safe in dangerous societies. The key thing there is “in societies.” Stable things. When society breaks down and there is chaos, there will be hungry people with guns who want food. they don’t see much value in “people with skills.” A pickpocket who meets a saint only sees pockets.
So do we stockpile weapons to defend out stuff? Definately a good way to get into a fight with people with weapons who want stuff.
Sheesh. Nothing feels like it’s definately gonna “work.” Way too many unknowns. I’m scared nothing will be adequate. I’m scared what I try won’t work. I’m scared society will keep working and I’ll walk away from a job I like to pursue a life of self-sufficiency that has no value to anyone but myself. So what to do? How to respond?
“Always by actions, almost never by words.”
I guess I’m lucky. I have always wanted to live on a farm with a community of people and animals near a small town. Such a life was sustainable in the past, before oil. But now I wonder…Is it going to be sustainable in the future, now that we westerners have depleted the soil and the animal and the plant communities and scatered the natural resources? Those things would take thousands or millions of years to recover to full on natural healthy conditions if we left them to recover on their own. I think hunting and gathering is right out unless the population of people went way down.
My belief (and my desire) that living a simple self sustaining farm/ community life aught to be what I work toward really might not work for several reasons.
I already live in a in an 850 sq ft solar and wood heated house that supports several people, I cook with wood and heat water with solar and wood, produce lots of food on the land and buy local stuff may all seem like I’m doing great. Who am I kidding? What looks to a standard American to be life of “meager, self sustenance” is obscenely extravagant. Completely unsustainable. It just seems meager compared to how I was raised.
So again…how to proceed?
I stopped thinking of the collapse as happening and then being over and things being different. I’m with Jim Kuntsler…It’ll be a Long Emergency, perhaps lasting generations.
I will continue to live a good life day to day. I will continue moving away from consuming and toward a life of local-ness. I will continue to be willing to try things that don’t Know will work. Don’t take myself too seriously or be unwilling to use materials at hand. Should I only use locally available material to build water cachments and build fences? Well, no. I think it’s OK to use what’s on hand while learning to get things form more local sources. I think it’s important to practice old ways of doing things now. I believe we have lost thousands of years of knowledge in the past few generations, so I read the things written about the old ways of doing things, ask the elders questions about the old ways and actually try them until I get a feel for them. Albeit with modern materials. I’m not gonna beat myself up for bringing the water to the cow in a 5 gallon plastic bucket, or for feeding her with hay I brought home in my truck, you know? Take Baby steps, but take steps, dammit. Grow food, can food, dry food, make clothing and shoes, learn metalsmithing, make movies about the state of things, sit in circles, train cows to pull carts, . Do what feels to be the right thing to be doing. Be a part of the solution, knowing all along that it may not work and there is no solution. Tell people what I think will be happening to the planet and to society and be willing to have some think I’m crazy. Be informed. Be humble. Be a good human.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Ok, so we watch the movie. We read Ishmael, educate ourselves, realize how fundamentally fucked up our lifestyle is, and how our culture is on a collision course with extinction. Then, we realize that there’s nothing at all that we can do about it. Massive change has to happen, we know. But how? No one knows. No one can tell anyone else what to do, and anyone who would try is lying or an idiot. So of course we go back to our lives, our jobs, our classes, whatever. Life goes on, until we’re dead - how can we change? What can we do?
All I can do is my best with what I have now. I can’t prepare for a future that doesn’t exist. All I know is what I’ve experienced so far, and what I have read or absorbed from people in the past. I don’t know what tomorrow will look like, so the best preparations I can make are the ones that have made sense up until now. I’m going to school, going to get a MSc and maybe a PhD, and, if I can, research a magical way to pull energy out of thin air. Wishful thinking? Sure why not! Anything’s possible. I try to have the biggest positive effect on the world with the least negative effect, set my goals high and hope for the best. Until my world crumbles around me, I’m going with what I’ve got.
My “Oh Shit!” bag is packed and ready, I’m reading (and practicing) some basic survival skills, slowly building reliable allies, for whatever that’s worth. As if we’ve got a snowball’s chance when a 6 billion of us run for the hills, and colonize more untouched wild lands into human habitat…. we can’t all live in the woods anymore. Or maybe we should start killing people? Anything we can do from this new viewpoint is ridiculous, especially “business as usual”. But since no better idea presents itself, I guess it’s back to business as usual
November 25th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Hi. Wow. I am temporarily in denial by choice, by semi-aware choice. Because I want to rest a bit. But, what seems real loomingly apparent is how, in the Southeast here, it is untenable to live honestly, unless one is prepared to forego heating and air conditioning. It is not fair to the Earth for us humans to live anywhere that we can not survive without drawing upon the central energy grid. True, if we have the resources to set up a passive solar, cozy or cool place, then we can choose to live in ‘too-cold’ or ‘too-hot’ places. But, most of us don’t even have access to this type of resources and money and know-how. So, then we can decide to live in a milder type of climate: but this has unsupportable consequences too. All the milder climate places are subject to drastic change too, and right now all the milder climate places are over-populated and wracked by drought. I am of course referring to Mediterranean types of climate. So, it is not a pretty picture. Now I alternate between mostly conserving water drastically (when WAS the last time I took a shower?), and then caving, and splurging for reasons of comfort and nostalgia. Thank you so much for what you are doing. It keeps poking at me. And that’s good. Being aware of being scared is usually the best goad to action for me. Love to you both. Barbara
November 25th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
November 28th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I take seriously what you wrote about, and apply it to myself (but of course still told OTHER people to read you here…) I’m the aging Boomer that wants to change other people, and be rewarded for the changes I’ve made myself. I’m hoping that if I watch enough movies or write enough blog entries, that I’ll change the world. But I’m the one who needs to change. What I’ve set in motion over my decades on this planet may not be slowed down by the actions I take now and the inactions I’ve refused to take yesterday.
You are speaking the unpopular thought that maybe, just maybe, we are too clever, glib, facile. Maybe we’ll have to actually DO something, even if we fail miserably. Maybe remaining physically and psychologically uncomfortable IS a way of remaining in awareness. Maybe discomfort is the NEXT New New Thing.
Also, in the piece I wrote, quoted above: “Do You Have a Panglossian Disorder?” the humorous categories were designed to be the sugar to help the medicine go down. Just because we’re in denial, doesn’t mean that the planet won’t change.
Thanks for more potent medicine, Sally.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:10 am
I’ve not yet seen your movie, but I’ve been an avid follower of global warming news for several years, and in the past year, peak oil (among other peaking resources). It really took me several months to get my brain around both concepts and realize the true meaning of it: that life as we know it was going to disappear and the landscape was going to change radically. It was only then that I could begin to prepare: start a garden, research where to live, educate and convince my wife of the need for change, research how to survive in a low-tech, low-energy, low-food world, consider what job I might do and what skill I might take up (blacksmithy and pottery interest me). Being raised by environmentally conscious parents (both botanists) and studying Zen Buddhism earlier in life had prepared me somewhat for reaching this conclusion. However, I can’t imagine the kind of effort required to turn around the thinking of those who have been born, raised, and lived their whole lives without this preparation.
I wouldn’t be disheartened by people’s responses. It’s the death of their lifestyle, and people need to go thru (and jump around among) the classic reactions (anger, denial, etc.) to death before final acceptance and action can occur. This may take years. You really can’t expect to turn the hulking SUV of people’s acceptance of this current wasteful lifestyle after watching a single movie. The Matrix analogy is truly apropos here. These people know no other life. They’re invested in the system, and their ego will convince them that the truth you’ve exposed them to is not true, or that technology will save them, or that it won’t happen in their lifetimes. They will fight to protect it, not realizing it seals their fate. Unfortunately, Cheney was speaking for a majority of us when he claimed, “This lifestyle is not negotiable.”
In Buddhism, although every person is born enlightened, a person’s ability to reach enlightenment is often compared to a particular horse’s reaction to the whip when it is brought to bear to force the horse to run. In some horses, the mere sound of the whip motivates the horse to run. The second type of horse runs when the whip grazes his hair. The third type of horse refuses to run until the whip cuts his skin. And the last type of horse won’t move until the whip cuts to the bone (in Buddhist terms, I am sadly in this last group). Humans are much the same when it comes to accepting these radical, life-altering truths. There are those that come to realization sooner than others. For many, the realization won’t come until they feel the whip cut to the bone: the store shelves are empty, there’s no electricity, there’s no gas to buy for the car, desertification and drought have ravaged the land where they live.
I hope that humanity will come to its senses and follow Richard Heinberg’s Powerdown (a book I’ve only recently read) suggestions to share what little resources there are left and shift to a localized, more organic, agrarian lifestyle with some sort of population control mechanism. Sadly, I see little movement in that direction. The world is moving towards war and competition instead of cooperation. The last great abundance of resources will be burned like so much fireworks, and then it will go dark. All that we can really hope for is to create some lifeboat communities that will be able to restart civilization mostly from scratch, with the lessons of the coming tragedy etched into successive generations, much the way the story of the holocaust continues to be passed on, and thus, prevented in the societies educated about it.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:38 am
I have been studying, reading, etc about the nuclear war, pandemics, over population, peak oil etc, etc, etc, for a number of years and watching the movie “What A Way To Go, Life At The End Of Empire” really bring it all together in one cinematic conclusion. Basically “the end or at least the beginning of the end” is near, and I personally believe that my grand child, and at least his child, if they live, will be living in a world that has gone haywire brought on by our own device. I am 61 years of age, and believe I will live long enough to begin to see the future that my decendents will be facing and I do not believe that the outcome will be any different. The peoples of the earth do not have the same thoughts, actions, wants, or most do not even want to know what is coming,,,,the end is coming.
The movie itself is the most negative movie I have ever seen and I am watching and will watch over and over again to at least better understand what is happening and coming. When I tried to show this movie to friends,,,,,most say shut it off……and I think that what is happening in the world at large. We all will be walking along the cliff and we will be walking over the edge,,,,,how many survive in a hundred years (yes I believe humanity will survive) but nothing like it is now.
I have gardens, I have a hybrid car, I have wind and solar, and I dont think what I do will have any change in the overall happenings. All I can do to try to pass along information and help those that want some help. Will be interesting for sure!
December 10th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Hi Sally:
Great movie! Thank you. We’ve shown it to about 20 people in our small town in central Mass, and I think your observation that people see it and then DO NOT make a radical shift is true. I worked hard to prevent nuclear war in the 80’s. Denial is HUGE and its in me too. Working with it consciously, is part of the compost of the human psyche. I try to wake up myself and others,gently. That said, the false cultural stories in the middle of the movie were the best part for me. They are the glue that keeps the death grip of industrial culture nicely in place. Can you list those on your site and/or send them to me?
They go by so quickly its impossible to write down.
Thank you for your COURAGEOUS work!!
Bill
December 11th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Greetings, Sally — You may remember me talking in an earlier reply about how difficult it is for a single person to meet someone else in this culture of denial who has even a gram of understanding about our situation. In a first phone conversation with a newly met (online) lady, she said something all too typical about not wanting to pay too much attention to what’s going on — too depressing. That could have been a signal to back off, but there was too much good in her to give up that easily.
Last weekend I showed her WAWTG. In the first scenes of increasing intensity, she wanted to turn away from the truth being told, but she kept on watching. By the end she was paying rapt attention. In the morning, she said bluntly, “I am changed forever.”
This morning’s email from her said this: “Lastnight was wonderful! My brother came to sit with me. He is incredible! Little did I know he is totally aware of the world situation…we are going to plan………we have started already……the basics ……..
The list begins………he took the literature you sent [a print-out of Dmity Orlov’s classic three-part series “Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century] and was very anxious to engulf it! We both have had similar experiences, with not sharing what we believed to be true due to people discounting reality and appearing to be the fool…….We are thrilled to have one another as allies……
I feel a bit of comfort knowing he is here and I am not alone in my community here………. It was truly wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
So, how many people really know what is going on, but they keep their mouths shut, or deny to others that they know or want to know, because they are afraid of being considered “the fool” by those who are in denial?
Doomers, come out of the closet!