Wow, I wrote about a book about how prejudiced, apocalyptic, unrealistic and faithful conservation has become, but nobody seems to care. I write a blog about it, but nobody seems to pay much attention. Now I find out there's a whole movement dedicated to being skeptical about the marketing propaganda of the conservation economy. Finally, some people with a little common sense who have managed to shed the straight jacket of pseudo-religious, penitence-seeking, emotion-exploiting cultural sympathy in favour of a slightly more scientific approach.

Stop breeding or stop worrying but don't, under any circumstances, keep chucking money at a movement that has been telling people that 'now' is the time to act for at least half a century. They are failing on all counts and if you continue to make conservation donations you will just be paying them to continue.

There is some truth in the sentiment that ever optimistic environmentalism is not really facing up to the reality of the challenges we are beginning to encounter - but we need to keep positive and keep working hard and looking for solutions - not wallowing and being self congratulatory in the pretensions of this 'minor global movement' (how very humble btw) or any other like it.

Here's a favourite from their '8 principles of uncivilisation', whatever that might be:
'We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.'

... and probably stroke a long beard while you do it, thinking how amazing you are and how stupid everyone else is.

we need less time wasted on nauseating prose like this and more time spent coming up with sustainability solutions.

This 'movement' is the worst form of environmentalism. Don't know what the Guardian is doing giving them free publicity.

Here's the 2nd "principle of uncivilisation".

2.We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of?problems? in need of technological or political ?solutions?.

So - we're all going to die, but let's embrace this reality! It is just hypocritical and unrealistic be looking for solutions.

Well, here's some more reality for you. We are not all ging to die. The ones who are going to die are the poorest - those living on the flood plains of Bangladesh, and in the drought-stricken regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

We are not heading towards a cathartic apocalyse, in which a brave new world can be forged from the ashes of the old by the noble artists and thinkers of the "Dark Mountain" movement. We are heading towards an undignified and brutal scramble for resources in which the richest and most powerful will grab the most, leaving the rest to slow extinction.

But hey, let's not waste our time on pointless protest, or looking for political or technical solutions! Let's all retreat to mid-Wales and write poems while congratulating ourselves on our deep insights!

What we need is a windmill on every hill top, a solar panel on every roof, every desert carpeted in CSP, a global HVDC grid...so we can drive electric cars, desalinate water, extract methane to make fertilisers, and keep the fridges turned on.

Great, just what the world needs; Hippy Survivalists.

This movement has one hand on its throat and the other down its pants. I read their manifesto and found it to be full of pseudo-intellectual naval-gazing that only thinly veils a kind of moral cowardice. Fine for artists and others with the luxury to live in fantasy, I guess, but I'd be glad to keep the scientists and constructive people firmly rooted in the pro-progress camp.

Their philosophy as they see it seems to be that since civilization will ultimately destroy itself, it might as well just accept the fact--much like an elderly and infirm person graciously accepting his or her own imminent demise. In reality, it's little more than cynical defeatism and self-hatred:

We do not believe that everything will be fine. We are not even sure, based on current definitions of progress and improvement, that we want it to be.

This seems the definition of clinical depression. They don't want everything to be fine, because even if it was, things still wouldn't be fine. But if we were to turn the tables on ourselves and let things get worse, well, then that would be fine. That's a snarled knot of logic--or at least an appearance of logic--they've bound us up in.

They seem to believe that society is nothing but a set of shared beliefs. This casts society in the same lot as Tinkerbell, who, as a pixie, we're told, will simply die if someone doesn't believe in her. Except in the DMP's version, no amount of clapping could possibly bring the fantasy back to life. Or maybe it would, but who would know, since the DMP's disdain for human achievement (if progress is a myth, then mustn't achievement be also?) leaves little reason for us to ever applaud. Except ironically, perhaps. Or maybe irony is a myth, too... ooh look at all that lint in my naval.

But here's the thing: the presence of food in my local supermarket is there or not there independent of my mere belief in it. That food and the mechanisms that put it there and allow me to procure it are not myths. They're very real. There are number of very concrete things that can happen that can keep that food from getting there (war, global catastrophe, etc.), but my personal illusions on the matter aren't amongst them.

And here we get to one of the biggest fallacies that this project commits. It treats very real social mechanisms as mere intellectual abstractions. Like any other animal, we have constantly evolving constructs in place that have been hammered out over time to meet our specific needs. Ours are seemingly more complex than those of other animals, and they currently do indeed begin to threaten our continued existence, but like all other species we deserve the right to struggle to protect our interests on this planet.

The manifesto, in one of its many iterations of the word, expounds the "myth" of mankind's separation from nature. But in shunning our obligation to adapt progressively to new challenges, instead asking us to throw in the towel and accept the death of civilization, the DMP itself ultimately separates man from nature by asking us to do what no other creature on this earth has ever done: simply give up without a fight.

Enkergrene,

The illusion doesn't lie in the food within the supermarket; as you suggest, it is concrete. The illusion is our belief that barring disruptive events, the system that brings food into the supermarket can be sustained.

It cannot. Malthus knew this, Indian farmers are now learning this, and soon even the general public will be intimately aware of it.

The illusion is the belief that the constructs of our civilization can be improved, maintained and perpetuated. They cannot. We have developed and bought into a collective lifestyle which assumes it is built upon ultimately concrete tenants. To the contrary, nearly everything we do to support our 6.5 billion strong species is at this point by nature unsustainable. Housing, food production, travel, even reproductive and human rights.

Here's the secret. All it takes to perpetuate our species is the ability to live long enough to reproduce, and long enough so that our offspring can survive to the same point. We are a hominid, gifted with remarkable ingenuity, memory and range of emotion. We are not a species inherantly able to support an egalitarian lifestyle. We are not a species destined to transcend squalor and hardship. All we are destined to do is live into our early thirties, reproduce, and pass on.

So the accusation that somehow DMP is taking a reprehensible moral and intellectual shortcut is laughable. By what sustainable historical standard are they to be labelled as cowards? Certainly by the 10,000 year standard of modern agrarian civilization they could be measured thus. But that standard is about to be disproven.

By the original standard we were designed for, that of 190,000 years of stone age nomadism, DMP shows remarkable foresight and emotional resilience. Because we're not meant to build cities, reap monoculture crops from vast swaths of land, or maintain a simple standard of human rights.

We're meant to die young, reproduce early and survive on shortsighted ingenuity. Anything beyond that is a luxury, a fact that we're all going to become acquainted with in this century.

As a disclaimer I am not a member of DMP, just a well-read passerby.

Enkergrene doesn't like DMP's "disdain for human achievement".

What have human's achieved, exactly? We've reproduced and colonized the entire land surface of the planet. But bacteria have done that for billions of years. Even in the realm of eco-catastrophe, we can't match the cyanobacteria. They poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen (a highly reactive substance that killed many of the other life-forms of the time) billions of years ago. Mostly, we've achieved things of interest to ourselves. As far as we know, nobody else is particularly impressed.

I wonder if Enkergrene knows Ozymandias. Look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair!

This is right up there with those hoping to hasten the Rapture.

I really don't see the arguement or purpose to this movement. It seems to be suggesting that as conservationists we should just give in wait for the world to collapse and start again. Now I'm all for re-wilding and would love to be able to give huge tracts of land back to nature and have vocally supported a Global Population Plan as two drastic conservation measures. But I think after reading the 8 principles that I've clearly been wasting my time and should now retire to a cabin somewhere to write nonsensical tosh and await The End.

Would the DMP be less offensive if it advocated for developing eco-fortresses deep in the woods, and spent time oiling their guns rather than romanticizing about the end? Does their apparent passivity bother people so much?

@abortedetiquette,

I understand that many things will have to change as we adapt to environmental limitations, including how we get food. It's within the realm of possibility that, yes, things will get so bad that civilization as we know it breaks down.

But there isn't any reason to believe that we can'tt find a way, when forced, to adapt to our circumstances and sustain an evolving lineage of modern society. It may come at a tremendous cost, but it's certainly still possible. We just might even come out better off on the other end. Unless of course we just throw our hands up in the air right now, as DMP would have us do.

DMP makes a huge leap of faith by blindly believing that the implosion of society as we know it is outright inevitable, or that simply walking away from human civilization is somehow a moral imperative. In this way it's more like a religion than anything else.

My sister once told me that one of the worst things in the UK is to be considered an intelectual. This chap has brought this on himself. Oh my.
What I dont undestand is the hatred that the enviromentalism receives from "civilized" western people, instead of great capital and corporation who actually peddle ignorant consumerism, allienation though resources wastage and the like.
Earth is a closed system, so consuming resources limitless cannot go on. Every scientist can tell you that. The question is how longer. So, many of us think this will be sooner than later, even if technical solutions can be found for pollution free energy supply.
So why is this chap so villified? Wasnt liberalism about letting people think what they like? What wrong is he doing? Sincerely, I dont understand.

@nimbusco,

You don't think humans have achieved anything?

Are you aware of any earthly lifeforms (or otherwise) that have been to the moon, or even in orbit of their own volition? Do you know of any other creatures that have shot artificial auxiliary sensory devices into deep space? And all of this for no better reason than to sate their curiosity?

I suppose it's true that those things probably are only of interest to ourselves, but I'm certain that the cyanobacteria you mentioned weren't any better enamored by anyone. Indeed, the cyanobacteria most likely weren't even capable of being enamored of themselves (vanity being yet another unique evolutionary achievement of humanity).

This is all a long way of getting to a point already made more eloquently by Carl Sagan:

"We are a way for the universe to know itself."

And if you can accept knowledge as a worthy achievement, then I hope you won't find me immodest in claiming humanity as one of earth's highest achievers.

The problem I'm having with the DMP is that they, like you apparently, look upon our works--unequaled in all the galaxy for all we know--and say, "meh."

But I, for one, enjoy sitting here and typing to you all on this here laptop--a laptop which is afforded to me by a truly astounding number of human achievements. And if we don't push hard to make the innovations that we need to sustain ourselves, our great grandchildren may find themselves with the DMP dying of polio.

@Enkergrene

I appreciate your existentialism. But I don't think DMP is quite as deserving of scorn as you paint them to be.

I doubt they're so foolish to believe that everyone on earth will partake in a depressive, self-inflicted and unnatural decline. They probably assume that the other 6.99 billion humans will be erupting in short-lived fuedal warfare, having been blind to the coming problems until the last minute. That might account for their tone of defeatism and cynicism.

Further if they already had beef with society and civilization, then their stance isn't really all that unwarranted or shocking. There are worse things to be than spiritual, scientifically-informed mysanthropes. There are CERTAINLY worse things to do than walk away from a society which, by running at current levels, worsens the problem. If they go off into the hills and live a low-carbon lifestyle of pontificating, navel gazing and waiting for the end, then by default they're doing more for the planet than most.

And I think we can all use reminders that high-speed rail, bans on tuna, Passivhaus, grass-fed beef, Barack Obama, air-travel reduction and electric cars will not prove to be the panaceas we need.

@Enkergrene, in defense of nimbusco

What value is a moonwalk from a species that is incapable of providing a future for it's offspring?

Idiot-Savants are remarkable and do remarkable things, but if no one was around to tie their shoes and keep them clothed ...

Why I stopped believing in environmentalism

environmentalism

"Environmentalism is a concern for the planet as a whole...In various ways (for example, grassroots activism and protests), environmentalists and environmental organizations seek to give the natural world a stronger voice in human affairs."

You didn't stop being an environmentalist at heart Paul, the human race is a source of darkness for sure, but the mountain is still there to climb - it's just becoming tougher going as things reach a peak.

Anyway, belief is for the religious. I also don't think much of hope either.
"All hope abandon ye who enter here"

Hopenhagen was a nightmare for sure and it seems nothing can stop the bandwagon from ripping out the last oil and dumping it into the sea (an analogy: We are no better at conserving resources than dogs are at hoarding sausages, but even dogs don't poison them.).

My drive, my motivation is that experience and the teachings of others say there are ways to transcend our predicament. To state that environmentalism is not working is, for me to stumble on the journey before it's end.

Enjoy the festival by the way. I'll be walking in the mountains on the lead up, but who knows? I might make it to the debate.

So do I get to bury a helium-cooled fast breeder pile in Dark Mountain? With direct air cooling so no cooling water is needed. Probably not. Easier to just be a hippy Branch Dividian. Actually, having long hair does not preclude saving the planet without turning the human race back into mud suckers, in the dark. Farm out!

abortedetiquette
29 Apr 2010, 8:03PM

And I think we can all use reminders that high-speed rail, bans on tuna, Passivhaus, grass-fed beef, Barack Obama, air-travel reduction and electric cars will not prove to be the panaceas we need.

No, a crisis, or series of crises will trip up civilisation and maybe make us think. Otherwise everything we truly hold dear will be gone. We seem to need that scale of jolt to make change. The recent volcano was a very mild taste of impending inconvenience, to say the least, but it has already been forgotten!

Society has a short memory as long as times are good.

@abortedetiquettte,

You seem now to be taking issue not with my criticisms but with the very fact that I'm criticizing.

Surely there are worse things people could be doing, but to point that out in this discussion is a bit of a straw man. I'm certainly not claiming them to be worse than Nazis, but I hope you would agree that a philosophy needn't be worse than fascism in order to qualify for criticism. To quell any further misconceptions, let me just say that I'm sure most of the DMP adherents are perfectly lovely people like anyone else.

I would certainly think of them differently if they were truly just a bunch of idealistic misfits quietly setting up a sustainable compound somewhere. But that's not what they're doing. They're posing a broad philosophy--a manifesto, even!--that makes broad claims about what's best for all life on earth. As a constituent of that particular body, I have a couple opinions on the matter myself, which they're also free to criticize.

The DMP isn't just a lonely band of hermits, or at least that's not their intention. They clearly intend to recruit from amongst the more disillusioned ranks of the environmental movement from whence they came. That's what truly upsets me.

We need more support for true, forward-thinking solutions, not less.

@enkergrene

I definitely wasn't trying to poison the well, nor did I mention Nazi's or fascists. I was not attempting to gauge your personal feelings toward DMP members.

The DMP isn't just a lonely band of hermits, or at least that's not their intention. They clearly intend to recruit from amongst the more disillusioned ranks of the environmental movement from whence they came. That's what truly upsets me.

We need more support for true, forward-thinking solutions, not less.

Valid point. So let's be upset and proactive, use this as an opportunity to dismiss greenwashing and useless stopgap measures, and better the green movement as a whole. Green activists wouldn't be hemhorraging away if there wasn't something distasteful present in mainstream environmentalism, or if there wasn't appeal in DMP's manifesto.

@ abortedetiquettte,

Regarding the moonwalk bit, yes, I suppose you're right that a moonwalk doesn't help us to sustain ourselves (though the science behind it and derived from it may yet play a part), but that doesn't make any less of an achievement. I was merely trying to refute the claim that humans have never achieved anything, which is plainly wrong.

Figuring out where to go from here in order to avoid or minimize tremendous damage to humanity and civilization is the next and greatest frontier for us. All the pieces aren't in place yet, but cutting edge renewable energy techniques, efficient transportation and the Passivhaus aren't bad places to start.

The best way to make sure that we'll never pull out of this without being forced back to the savannahs from whence we came (so to speak) would be to listen to the likes of the DMP and literally resign ourselves to them with a shrug.

@enkergrene

Let's be thankful engineers, chemists, biologists and inventors aren't up on the mount pontificating with the artists, poets and doomsayers.

@abortedetiquette,

So let's be upset and proactive, use this as an opportunity to dismiss greenwashing and useless stopgap measures, and better the green movement as a whole. Green activists wouldn't be hemhorraging away if there wasn't something distasteful present in mainstream environmentalism, or if there wasn't appeal in DMP's manifesto.

I think we've found a point of agreement! haha

Good for you mate!

Loony greens split into yet another sect.

This is hardly news.

abortedetiquette

We're meant to die young, reproduce early and survive on shortsighted ingenuity.

We're not meant to do anything. There is no will behind our design flaws. We still have intelligence and choices even if we are limited by our physiology.

These may have been the conditions under which we evolved - but even then, once language/culture/tools had developed there was a clear advantage in at least some individuals surviving into old age to pass on acquired knowledge. Longer-term wisdom that ensured sustainable lifestyles over generations, probably acquired through trial and error, was often enshrined in taboo or religious principles that governed the group.

I can agree with much of the critique presented here of polite environmentalism - but it seems to me that the conclusion should therefore be to present a more radical, confrontational critique of current ideas of 'sustainability'.

Our politics and society may not be ready for them, but concrete proposals are needed as well as apocalyptic literature - you see, DMP didn't even 'give it a name', it had one already.

I've been on the fringes of the DMP since it began, and this idea of giving up has always been the most misunderstood. As i've come to understand the movement, it's not about giving up at all, but being realistic. DMP is involved in many social innovations as well as tangible infrastructure projects, all of which can be considered positive actions.

The focus of energy for the people behind DMP has been shifted from global binding agreements, the lobbying of governments over environmental policy, hope in technological fixes, to their own back yard and local communities.

In my opinion, it's just as valid to make a significant difference at a grassroots level that you and your community can benefit from, than trying to change things at the top. The idea that any Dark Mountaineers are oiling their guns in bunkers, or chewing mushrooms in communes is far from true.

I see it as an extension of the Transition movement, something that fits very neatly within. Resilience and independence being paramount for the area you find yourself living.

If civilisation is defined as electric cars, supermarkets, flush toilets, Wiis, 110% mortgages, gyms, missions to Mars, then I want no part in it.

?Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet? from the DMP manifesto. This statement has a negative effect on the manifesto and the ideology of the movement. Humans seeking to evolve civilisation to improve the existence of humanity and live more in harmony with nature, albeit perhaps in a changed climate and environment than at present, do so because Humans are the point and purpose of the planet. It is only the awareness of the Human mind that gives ?Life? any value.

The 8 principles of uncivilisation (is this a chris morris parody?, please someone tell me it is) are also hilarious.

1.We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.

Translation: The present is becoming history, yes, suitably deep intro *strokes beard*

2.We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of?problems? in need of technological or political ?solutions?.

Translation: Everything's like, just so complicated, and kind of sciencey, and like, my maths isn't very good, and people don't agree with me all of the time.

3.We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ?nature?. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.

Translation: It's not business, science & politics and their complex emergent interactions that determine events, it's stories, and thank f**k for that becuase we just happen to write some pretty badass stories right here. If you disagree you've just forgotton that we're right. Wow...

Lets keep going...

4.We will reassert the role of story-telling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.

Translation: Oh yeah, you were just wondering about that stories stuff weren't you. But no, not only do (our) stories 'underpin civilisation', they 'weave reality'. OMFG someone get on the phone to Vestas and tell them to fire their 2000 R&D staff and hire some m****f****g storytellers before the very threads of reality start to fray. Did I mention we write stories?

Lets keep going...

4.We will reassert the role of story-telling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.

Translation: Oh yeah, you were just wondering about that stories stuff weren't you. But no, not only do (our) stories 'underpin civilisation', they 'weave reality'. OMG someone get on the phone to Vestas and tell them to fire their 2000 R&D staff and hire some m!*f~~!g storytellers before the very threads of reality start to fray. Did I mention we write stories?

5.Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

Translation: Noone listened to me, ergo humans are not important, I will begin reciting my poetry to trees.

sorry about duplicate above, it gets even better though.....

6.We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.

Translation: Now I don't live in London and have moved to mid Wales ( have you SEEN the houses you can get out here for £100k it's unbelieveable) I'm now going to go on and on about how real and grounded I am out here.

7.We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our ?ngernails.

Translation: Now we've abandoned our ostentiably tangible and positive aims(noone listened to us remember), we'll be focusing on complete nonsense whilst lowering our standards of personal hygene. Well at least until I've put the new bathroom in the Cottage ( great investment buy did I mention the property prices here?)

8.The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will ?nd the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.

Translation: We messed up, we should have studied something useful or done something of positive practical use and had realistic expectation, but now we don't understand what's happening. But we know that the present is becoming the past-we made that clear in point 1, so that means tomorrow is like, the future, right? And this career change thing is working out, I mean, it rains alot here but those manifesto's are selling pretty well....

@whollymolly

We're not meant to do anything. There is no will behind our design flaws. We still have intelligence and choices even if we are limited by our physiology.

I agree. I was just using the notion of our "default physiology" to dismiss the idea that we'll undoubtedly reach a point of equillibrium and somehow save our civilization without drastic change. Culture and ingenuity are definitely adaptive qualities. But they won't necessarily perpetuate our current paradigm.

I can agree with much of the critique presented here of polite environmentalism - but it seems to me that the conclusion should therefore be to present a more radical, confrontational critique of current ideas of 'sustainability'.

You don't think a social movement convinced that our fate is sealed, and willing to resign itself to our ni-extinction is radical and confrontational enough? Look at the discussion here; a group that is effectively passive is already making people reflect upon environmentalism and call for greater radicalism.

@MrBronze

?Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet? from the DMP manifesto. This statement has a negative effect on the manifesto and the ideology of the movement. Humans seeking to evolve civilisation to improve the existence of humanity and live more in harmony with nature, albeit perhaps in a changed climate and environment than at present, do so because Humans are the point and purpose of the planet. It is only the awareness of the Human mind that gives ?Life? any value.

In the middle ages there was a practice called "Memento Mori," whereby you reflected upon your own mortality to keep yourself humble. When Hamlet holds Yorick's skull, he's reminded of the ultimate futility of his efforts against his stepfather; it humbles him and allows him to complete his task without too much bloodlust and exuberance. In a sense, DMP is a gigantic Memento Mori: there's nothing wrong with being a little less sure of our "grand purpose".

Self-reflection does not make us the panultimate beings of Planet Earth; DMP and science remind us that if enough carbon gets belched into the atmosphere, our supposed "purpose" will go right into the fossil record along with us. Life will continue whether or not we exist to "give it meaning." Life has the same intrinsic meaning as carbon, space dust and solar radiation.

Let's not kid ourselves that we labor to live in harmony with nature for a grand validational purpose. We labor to live in harmony with nature as a last-minute survival tactic. There's nothing wrong with trying to survive.

OK, I?ll bite, with my usual slightly woolly unformed thoughts (typical CiF contrib., then). Have been intrigued by Paul?s writing before, and followed birth of DMP, glad to see it here.

I agree that there?s a bit of semantic confusion (Bluecloud, if I have you right?). Is this simply another form of environmentalism? If you?re presenting a new set of ideas, you may need to exaggerate the differences between yourself and existing ideologies (see Clegg?!) to get yourself noticed. But I think many people working in the environmental movement share Paul?s beliefs. Just maybe not those who still fly globally to see special wildlife?

The path of environmentalism has grown (as Kingsnorth states elsewhere) from being concerned with single local sites on to a more global dimension. Increasingly there is a need to engage with human activity, where before much could be done just by working with the wildlife. This is a good thing. Furthermore, in recent years, as the general green agenda has grown in public profile, there is dilution and/or hijacking of the message, so that some people now think all we have to do is buy an electric car, and then we can just keep driving forever.
I think DMP seems to be a bit strong on the anti-tech for me (Turbulence, is this why you?re angry? Funny, but angry). Maybe I?ve misunderstood them, but I?d say technology can definitely provide some answers. I?d take a few solar plants and windfarms in a few wild locations if (and it?s a big if) it would save a few species, and limit climate change. But technology won?t solve everything. Part of the big sustainability solution lies in sorting our psychology, so that we don?t all have to buy the latest gadget/4x4/flight to exotic holiday location. And a few new stories might help. Personally I like Dr Seuss' The Lorax, which not only talks about sustainability and economic growth, but also how grumpy environmentalists never make themselves popular!

@Turbulence

I'm going to spout a lot of topical hot air and not directly refute any points of their manifesto, while waggling my genitals and making snide sitcom remarks about cynical trends of the day.

Well, I can't quite argue with his logic. Can you, folks?

@abortedetiquette

I see your logic but if there is no awareness of the existence of Life then although the planet may continue on without Humans what would be the point of it?

In response to your statement:

Let's not kid ourselves that we labor to live in harmony with nature for a grand validational purpose. We labor to live in harmony with nature as a last-minute survival tactic. There's nothing wrong with trying to survive.

I disagree. We labor to live in harmony with nature because it would likely lead to a more pleasurable existence. Trying to survive and surviving in a way that is worth living are different propositions.

@MrBronze

I disagree. We labor to live in harmony with nature because it would likely lead to a more pleasurable existence. Trying to survive and surviving in a way that is worth living are different propositions.

I agree with you, and I think many people now see the tangible benifits of living in harmony with nature. But you can't be so naive to think that when we do effectively change civilization to play by nature's rules, that it'll be done because it's more pleasant?

It will be done as a survival tactic. Governments, companies and most citizens would have continued spewing carbon and grinding ecosystems endlessly if it did not threaten our survival.

The Gaurdian ran an article a weeks ago about how making a percieved moral/green action causes you to be less moral after the fact. We cannot risk moralizing this situation. People already accuse environmentalists of being holier-than-thou. This is about our civilization and species' survival; nothing less will motivate change.

@abortedetiquette

I agree it may come down to a survival tactic. However I disagree with your statement:

Governments, companies and most citizens would have continued spewing carbon and grinding ecosystems endlessly if it did not threaten our survival.

It may be a slow process in comparison to an individuals life time but the development of technology is a continuously evolving process of trying to improve the experience of being alive. We currently exist in a time when our technology is causing a problem. Many technologies have been dramatically improved over the course of time to be less harmful while many others are still very poor. The fact that the way we live will have to change in the future is part of this continuos evolution.

@ recyclist
You're probably right, there is an element of fustration there. The anti-tech is part of my problem with it yes. These guys are embedded in a technological society, using technology and 'solutions' people have worked hard on, then professing inexorable doom, and offering to take a lead through art and stories? I'm absolutely not disparaging these things for their own sake but there are indeed 'problems' in humanity's relationship with it's environment (including not acknowledging that we are part of it) that can be addressed meaningfully, whilst acknowledging that 'solutions' are rarely magic bullets.

However it needs to be an honest, self critical approach, carefully assessing where we are going wrong technologically, sociologically and politically in transparent language, avoiding fatalism or preaching, and continually readjusting the proposed action to reflect reality as it is. The 'world as we know it' is not perfect, nor will be the world to come. However, DMP don't (from what I have seen) make the link between their uncovering of the myths/assumptions underlying our behavior and addressing the 'converging crises of our times'. That is not without value but cannot be a sole course of action. As you say psychology plays a big role, but some aspects of human behaviour are innate and we would do better to acknoledge them and to act accordingly.

@ abortedetiquette
I didn't think anything needed refutation, taking a logical argument against something so obviously ridiculous would be futile. Not sure which cynical trends of the day you are referring to, and you're quite welcome to play with yourself but I'll keep my trousers on thanks.

@MrBronze

We currently exist in a time when our technology is causing a problem. Many technologies have been dramatically improved over the course of time to be less harmful while many others are still very poor. The fact that the way we live will have to change in the future is part of this continuos evolution.

And then what? Will everyone on earth enjoy the same materialistic standards we in the west do? Will we be entitled to our 2.5 children each without reservation? Will we be able to wring 9.5 billion people's worth of food from the soil? 10 billion? 12 billion?

It is naive to think this is purely a problem of technology in engineering terms. Our problems form a hydra; greenhouse gases, overpopulation, freshwater capacity, soil erosion. Can technology solve all of them?

This is where I admire DMP; they're not so foolish as to think with some technological tweaks, we can keep on keepin' on. At least they propose a radical cultural shift, much like primitivist movements before them.

@abortedetiquette

Look again at what I said:

The fact that the way we live will have to change in the future is part of this continuos evolution.

I am stating that every aspect of the way humans currently live will have evolved.

Evolution is a long process, the change from the civilisation of today to the one of tomorrow is a slow continuos process that looked at on a day to day basis shows virtually no change. Only when viewed from the timescale of millennia can the changes be seen clearly.

individuals in the present can choose to live their lives differently but the swing of the whole of civilisation to this change will take millennia, we are the first.

@Bluecloud

You didn't stop being an environmentalist at heart Paul, the human race is a source of darkness for sure, but the mountain is still there to climb - it's just becoming tougher going as things reach a peak.

I assume that DMP is drawing a line between the tenants of classic Environmentalism, and the brand name of modern Environmentalism. A useful move, I think.

...a crisis, or series of crises will trip up civilisation and maybe make us think. Otherwise everything we truly hold dear will be gone. We seem to need that scale of jolt to make change. The recent volcano was a very mild taste of impending inconvenience, to say the least, but it has already been forgotten!

Society has a short memory as long as times are good.

Agreed. What I am increasingly attracted to in this whole debate is the power of names in motivating people. Everyone here knows that environmentalism may as well be called "save civilization-ism"

I wonder if the movement could be renamed something less tarnished and tired and overmarketed than Environmentalism. At it's core, this is the movement to save our species.

How about Human Survivalism? Or Civilizational Preservation? Something to remind people of what's at stake and who (everyone) is effected.

@abortedetiquette
Thank you for your post. Maybe something has been missed here, I thought it didn't need spelling out but apparently it does.

DMP come across as unhappy with the progress of the environmental movement and lets say, negative, about the future prospects of the environment and humanity itself.

Instead of a clear assessment of where they percieve the environmental movement has failed, (he says above the campaigns failed, but does not ask why) they have decended into a somewhat unhelpful, pretentious, self-indulgent literary nonsense.

In using the teen-speak I was mocking the unneccesary flowery prose they are using, their underlying message is negative, imprecise and somewhat lazy, masked with this adult language.

Having apparently failed to meet their environmental aims, the aim to head 'a new cultural movement'. This seems all rather aspirational, hence my jibes about property (though i might not be a million miles off).

What is most fustrating is that they seem to be saying that the environmental movement:
a) cannot achieve it's aims, partly because it has ineffective campaigning
b) is aiming for a point that cannot be reached, partly because of a, and also for external reasons

The leap from this is to "Once we stop pretending that the impossible can happen, we are released to think seriously about the future" and from there to 'nights of radical and engaging music; workshops; cinema and theatre. '

The only concession to anything practical is an enormously unspecific:'Dark Mountain Camp', co-ordinated by practical people with hands-on ideas for building the post-oil world in a century of chaos.

So environmentalism has apparently failed in it's actions and aims, but where is the analysis of why these have failed, one by one, rationally and open to new evidence, and from there proposing an improved environmentalism. Perhaps part of the failings were in chaps like these preaching to people, not actively seeking to address the true levers of change and not being rationally self critical.
That is the source of my maths/science jibes, rather than try and seek to learn from past failings they are starting something new based on stories, for seemingly no other reason than they are authors, disenchanted with their failure but uninterested in its causes.

To be honest the people that are attracting may be better off outside mainstream environmentalism, people that think that coming to a demonstration wearing fancy dress does not detract from their message, or that spouting literary eco-babble about collapsing civilisation doesn't turn most people off entirely.

I think my proposed alternative is clear, face the situation head on, use the appropriate tools to achieve concrete gains, work with the systems that exist and be prepared to adapt your strategy in a rational way in the face of failure. It doesn't have to be in Sci/Tech but also media, business, politics - anything but this!

Aside from the remote possibility of a Pompeii event 'Civilisation' will very slowly alter its course to fit an evolving environment and evolving cultural attitude. The 'future' in terms of 'Civilisation' is not the year 2050 it is the year 2500 at the least.

@MrBronze

This event is hauntingly similar to today's situation. I hope you're right, but I doubt it.

Here's the meat of what I'm insinuating (spare you from reading the entire first article.)

@Turbulence

I didn't think anything needed refutation, taking a logical argument against something so obviously ridiculous would be futile.

I assumed you were trolling. My mistake.

@abortedetiquette

This event took 80 000 years to complete its cycle. It is only the year 2010 now. If you start applying Universe size timescales to Civilisations predicament then yes, mankind is doomed to extinction at some point but it is highly unlikely to happen overnight.