There was a play by Susan Sontag, back in the day, called Alice in Bed. It was about the life of Alice James, sister of Henry. Within it was a riff, about how any fortune cookie – “you will meet a mysterious stranger who brings peril” or “ a friend will supply much needed joy” etc – can be immeasurably improved by adding the words “in bed” at the end.
Well, that’s one set of emissions sorted. Now for the Fafocene.
If you’re reading this site at all regularly, you surely already know, but for any newbies, this: From here on, alongside breaking hearts and breaking ecosystems, we’re gonna be breaking a lot of weather “records”. The hottest day, the longest drought, the biggest firestorm, whatever.
These will get coverage while we still have newspapers and news outlets because if it bleeds it leads, and there will be a lot of bleeding. That is bleeding obvious.
So what I propose is that whenever you see one of these stories, you do a Simpsons meme on it and add “SO FAR” at the end in big red friendly letters. Here’s a worked example.
It would be better if someone makes a meme generator that automates this process, maybe? Idk.
Five years ago today, August 11 2021, what was the hottest day in Europe (so far)
The maps show temperatures in southern parts of Portugal could reach a staggering 50C on July 28 – which would be the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe. The current European temperature record is 48.8C, registered near the city of Syracuse in Sicily on August 11, 2021. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/weather-heatwave-spain-portugal-europe-37451862
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 417ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that with the coming of the industrial revolution we added to the existing issue of deforestation with a NEW way of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. GO US, the planet trashing hairless murder apes.
What I think we can learn from this is that we have little or no interest in our own futures. We seem to be operating on the assumption that a Deus or a Machina will descend to save us.
What happened next. We kept adding 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with entirely predictable consequences.
xxx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Twenty seven years ago, on this day, August 11th, 1999,
On 11 August 1999 the Senate referred the following matters to the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee for inquiry and report by the first sitting day in August 2000 (which was later extended to 8 November 2000): (what became Nov 2000 “The Heat is On” report
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 368ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that if you were paying attention, you could see that the domestic and international policies around climate change were heading in a bad direction. Although the Kyoto Protocol had been signed, and even by various nations, its actual ratification and passage into international law was looking shaky, and scientists were saying it wouldn’t be enough. By this time, you had Green senators and the Democrats in the Australian Senate whowere also on the case and they used the usual procedures to get a report to be written. Sometimes senate reports can be really consequential and influential, especially when an issue is new – for example, the 1968-69 Senate Standing Committee on Air Pollution and also the one on Water Pollution; they were influential. This one not so much, but what do you expect, it’s a crowded field by now.
What I think we can learn from this is that politicians do what politicians can within parliament. If you really want to see social change, it’s parliament yes, but it’s Parliament Plus, it’s all of the social movements and the civil society groups. But they can rarely get their game faces on for any length of time, and anyway, they’re up against incredibly powerful, clever, determined, well-resourced incumbency actors. And so it came to pass.
What happened next it would be 2006 before climate change became “an issue” in Australian politics. Not that this helped particularly.
xxx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Fifty six years ago, on this day, August 10th, 1970,
Refers to the appeal made at the Lindau meeting of Nobel Laureates for help with restoration and maintenance of a healthy environment. Invites Bragg to join the international forum as a co-founder; comments on this. Would welcome evidence of Bragg’s interest even if Bragg cannot give his active co-operation.
Date: 10 Aug. 1970
Held by: Royal Institution of Great Britain, not available at The National Archives
International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics (H.A.Schwiegart) to [Lawrence Bragg]
Reference: W.L. BRAGG/32F/1
Title: International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics (H.A.Schwiegart) to [Lawrence Bragg]
Description: Luxembourg
2/3 page, duplicated
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 325ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was there had been a brief, a brief flurry of concern in the late 40s about the ecological consequences of population growth and modern and industrialization, but this had been tamped down, more broadly as part of the whole McCarthyist wave. The groups that would have critiqued industrialism were too busy fighting off attempts to destroy them and deport them, and so forth.
The specific context was that it was only when the New Left had been going for a few years that you really got ecological critiques from people like Murray Bookchin (the liberal version of this, was Rachel Carson). Then, from 1968-69 onwards, a more broad critique of the consequences of industrialization and population growth became tolerably well-known and tolerated within mainstream circles, some of it quite worrying in its implications. Anyway, two years before the Limits to Growth here we see a whole bunch of scientists saying, “look, this is really serious.”
What I think we can learn from this is that history “remembers” specific documents and “disregards the rest,” to quote Paul Simon.
The job of a historian is to try to give context to people, events, and so forth, you can overdo that as well.
Also, this letter would be a useful thing to point out to the critics of limits of growth, and so forth, when they try to talk about that book, that report, in isolation from all the other concerns, as if it was only that book making the case.
What happened next. These sorts of warnings and reports, which had already happened in 1969 just kept coming, kept being ignored, kept coming, kept being ignored. The emissions climbed, the atmospheric concentrations climbed, the list of extinct species climbed, and of course many species were never discovered in time to be on the list before they were wiped out by the consequences of human activity.
As Kurt Vonnegut said, “so it goes.”
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Twenty five years ago, on this day, August 10th, 2001,
CANBERRA, Aug 9 AAP – An OECD call for Australia to introduce environment taxes was today ruled out by the government and opposition despite support from rural backbenchers.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s latest report showed that Australia’s economy was faring well, and that a carbon tax would be a cost-effective way to benefit the environment.
“Setting up a trading scheme or a carbon tax of broad sectoral coverage is the most cost-effective way to achieve emissions reductions,” the OECD report said.
Environment Minister Robert Hill branded the call Eurocentric, saying the government was instead focused on building economic growth with a low-tax environment.
“We’re not going to impose another tax,” Senator Hill said.
The government wanted strong economic growth built on a low tax environment, low interest rates and low inflation, he said.
A business/environmental roundtable comprising the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Southcorp, Elders Ltd, ABN Amro, Berri Ltd and CSIRO today called for tax breaks to encourage investment in the environment.
McSweeny, L. 2001. Fed – Major parties reject OECD call for environment tax. Australian Associated Press, 10 August
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 371ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Australia had very briefly in 1988 to say 1990 professed to take a positive proactive position as a middle power on environmental issues, including climate. But that was never deep seated, and by 1991 the tune coming out of Canberra and state capitals was changing, because well, Who pays the piper calls the tune, and who pays the piper are the extractive industries.
The specific context was that in 1997 the Australian federal government had extorted a very generous deal at the climate conference in Kyoto. And it was looking like they would still not ratify it, and it was looking like they still wouldn’t have anything approaching an emissions trading scheme or any price on carbon dioxide. There had already been one cabinet proposal in 2000 defeated thanks to the machinations of South Australian Senator Nick Minchin. So the OECD had said, “look, you guys really need a carbon tax to incentivise energy efficiency and technological innovation and so forth” and both the major political parties turned around and said the OECD and future generations can get fucked. In essence that’s what they said, and they meant it, and they still mean it.
What I think we can learn from this is that democracy only works if you have an educated population that is capable of forming its own groups, which cannot be co-opted, repressed, and exhausted by the state and the corporate sector. And in the absence of an educated populace that can do that, in the absence of a genuinely independent and inexhaustible civil society, you end up with “demonstration elections” and a more or less rapid descent into the maelstrom in the Edgar Allan Poe sense of it, but without the happy ending.
What happened next – Australia got a carbon tax – after astonishingly bloody political battles – for a year and a bit (2012-2013) until the next government that came along axed it.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister almost three weeks ago. There were various quick policy announcements, but on the number one issue, the only one that will matter 20 years from now, it has been all crickets and tumbleweeds (as noted by the Ash Sakars of the world)
In this short blog post I will speculate on why that is (but what would I know?), talk about Burnham’s management of the climate issue while Mayor of Greater Manchester, and conclude with some speculation about where it all might go.
Why the silence?
I have two guesses (not mutually exclusive) as to what might be lying behind the silence.
Primarily, Burnham may simply be keeping his powder as dry as a London park. He may be waiting for Labour Party conference where he can make some big soft-or hard green splashes, and make the disgruntled Greens who have been slagging him off for all of August look petulant and immature. Rope-a-dope, as Muhammed Ali had it all those years ago.
Alternatively, the lack of any public position might be because there are some really fierce battles going on about whether to approve Rosebank or not (doing this would end up bleeding credibility and putting wind back in the sails of the Green Party? Not doing this would piss off the nutters).
Maybe there are third and fourth options too, besides it being deliberate or the consequence of a fiercely divided inner circle.
Burnham’s back story.
I saw Burnham turn up at least one of the “Youth Strike” events held in front of Manchester Central Library in 2019, and give a boilerplate speech. He has undeniable “star quality”, and the naive young activists were eating out of his hand.
I saw Burnham at one of the Mayor’s Green Summits (probably 2021? idk) and he was a slick performer, knowing what the audience wanted and giving it them. They were so relieved that a ‘senior’ politician would say words, that they turned off what critical faculties they had. It was demoralising af, before you took into account the various academics willing to be his figleaf in exchange for REF points.
But the real Burnham example I’d want to push, I wasn’t there for that. But someone whose judgement I trust was there, and she wrote an article for the blog I ran – “Manchester Climate Monthly.” In July I included a portion of that in a letter I sent to the Financial Times (they didn’t publish it, more fool them).
What does it mean, this silence
It means that Burnham doesn’t – despite whatever people want to project onto him – really “get” climate change. He doesn’t understand that the usual triangulation, the usual appeasement is not going to work. He is out of his depth (but then aren’t we all- we have, by ignoring the warnings from scientists for forty years, in uncharted waters which are getting stormier by the day, with new depths to plumb).
It means we will not, of course, get the leadership we need. Ed Miliband is probably crying himself to sleep nightly. So it goes.
Where will it all end?
Sooner or later Burnham is going to have to say SOMETHING about climate change. Indefinite silence and dodging is not an option.
Between now and the Labour Party conference there are the possibilities of nasty extreme heat events (deaths of white people, wildfires) that might require more than the usual handwringing, pearlclutching and calling of COBRA meetings. But then again, there may not.
When he does say something
He will either get monstered by the “right” media outlets (well, no matter what he does, he will get monstered by them) as a crazed eco-lefty.
He will be cautiously given the benefit of the doubt by ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ types.
He will “disappoint” the “left” and put renewed wind in the sails of the Green Party – their membership will go up further (and overtake that of Labour, fwiw – it didn’t matter for Corbyn when he hit 500k, back in the day).
Meanwhile, global emissions will continue along at roughly 40bn tonnes a year. The atmospheric concentrations will continue to gallop (two or three parts per million per year. Some year soon we will hit four). The Fafocene will continue to unfold like a bad (well, ordinary) Michael Bay movie.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 386ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that from the early 1990s, non-violent direct action had been taking place on environmental issues (Twyford Down, Newbury etc). By the early 2000s Rising Tide was protesting – COP 6 in the Hague, etc etc. At the G7 protests in 2005 a bunch of people pointed out that summit-hopping was not the way forward, and that climate change was not getting the necessary treatment. This led to the first climate camp, in 2006.
The specific context was the climate movement, and the ‘alternative’ protest scene more generally, was riddled with undercover cops and so forth.
Meanwhile, there is a fairly limited number of repertoires available in these sorts of situations. The Kingsnorth mass protest drew heavily on 1999’s J18 stuff – different coloured masks etc etc.
What I think we can learn from this – we’re doomed.
What happened next this was the high water mark, pretty much for Climate Camp. People went and summit hopped Copenhagen after the nice cuddly Blackheath Climate Camp of 2009 despite the fact that Climate Camp had been predicated on not summit hopping. See also, my XR, we quit statement,
xxx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Tl;dr: academic article about the microbial swingers’ event in the Strait of Hormuz is terrifying stuff.
There’s an Open Access academic article, only 8 pages long, published two weeks, about what happens when all those ships, currently stuck by the Strait of Hormuz closure, get out and about, with new bugs. Fun times. (I came to it via this important read by Charlie Angus)
I remember, in 1991 I think, reading people warning about how the fires set off by Saddam Hussein in his retreat from Kuwait might interrupt the monsoon rains in India that were crucial for feeding a billion people. It didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean those warning about it were wrong (they never said it would definitely happen) and were irresponsible for raising the possibility.
Before this, I was trying to read diligently from both “left” (The Nation, the Village Voice) and the “right” (National Review etc). The latter really kept returning – again and again (this was the era when environmental regulation on climate might be coming) – to Paul Ehrlich’s “mass famine is INEVITABLE by the end of the 1970s” warnings.
Ehrlich, who died recently, spent decades trying – with limited success – to row back from what he said, to parse those warnings and claim that they were warnings of what COULD happen. He was by no means the most vehement “we’re all going to die soon”-er, but he was the most prominent, and the damage to his credibility was significant.
So, warnings have to be nuanced, but nuance is not what the algorithms which rule us demand. A dilemma, a kind ofcognitive bottleneck.
Which brings us to the Strait of Hormuz
I did not know of the journal “Biol Invasions” – aka Biological Invasions. But why would I? Anyway, it’s unlikely to appear as the guest trade publication on “Have I Got News For You?” because it would definitely harsh everybody’s Friday night jocular vibe.
Anyway, below are some highlights. You could read the whole thing in half an hour, and have nightmares that went on for days.
In the modern history of ship lay-ups (vessels remaining at anchor or dockside for an extended period of time), the number of ships that have been trapped due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is unparalleled. More than 1500 large commercial ships remained idle in the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, hereafter referred to collectively as the “Gulf region”, starting on February 28, 2026 (e.g., World Bank 2026). These vessels have arrived with biofouling organisms from a wide range of source regions and are now acquiring (and will likely depart with) extensive biofouling communities of microbes, algae, and invertebrates from the Gulf region. This massive intermingling of ships and biofouling will result in the inevitable release of non-indigenous species (NIS) at the lay-up sites and in the spread of marine species across the globe once the idle ships resume their trade routes.
The underlying inevitability of impending species translocations is based on the typical sigmoidal (s-shaped) curve that characterizes biofouling accumulation on submerged surfaces (Daly et al. 2025). Biofouling on static surfaces can reach the rapid growth phase after 10 days (e.g., Davidson et al. 2020), which is longer than typical residence times of less than 2 days for cargo vessels in most ports. When ships are idle beyond these time frames, biofouling develops aggressively as antifouling coatings become compromised from lack of movement (e.g., Casse and Swain 2006). (emphasis added)
There are various reasons why you might get a bunch of ships at anchor in one place – festivals, mothballed military etc etc. And we’ve known about the problem for yonks.
“For example, the invasion of the Australasian barnacle Austrominius modestus to western Europe during World War II was linked to New Zealand ships being held in English ports while awaiting convoy escorts (Southward 1998). “
Southward AJ (1998) New observations on barnacles (Crustacea: cirripedia) of the Azores region. Arquipelago Life Mar Sci 16A:11–27
And here come the niches, doing their niche things…
Although a variety of vessel types and sizes operate in this region, the routine presence of a considerable number of very large ships (with correspondingly extensive submerged hull surfaces and niche areas vulnerable to biofouling) from around the world amplifies their exposure to diverse biofouling communities.
Turns out the whole damn thing is a Thunder Dome for the survival of the shittiest, a Hegsethian Petri Dish.
The Persian/Arabian Gulf is a semi enclosed sea with an average depth of 35 m, characterized by high salinity and temperature, limited water exchange, and strong evaporation (Joydas et al. 2024). Summer surface-water temperatures can reach approximately 38 °C, and winter temperatures range between 15 and 20 °C (Alosairi et al. 2011), with salinities often exceeding 40 psu (Kashkooli et al. 2022). Recent data also revealed a significant increase in the spatial and temporal extent and average number of marine heat waves in this region (Paradan et al. 2025). Extreme environmental pressures, combined with coastal industrialization and urbanization, have also directly reduced biodiversity in Gulf ecosystems (Naser 2014). These conditions are relevant to biosecurity risk because the remaining stress-tolerant taxa are more likely to survive transport, persist during vessel lay-up, and establish in recipient regions with similar or stressful environmental conditions.
Here’s a couple of maps.
It doesn’t get lighter or brighter.
“Ship biofouling also poses hidden risks. Many biofouling species are globally distributed and adapted to diverse environmental conditions (e.g., Viard and Tepolt 2025). Introducing new genetic diversity into established non-indigenous populations can promote genetic introgression, accelerating adaptation, and increasing their ability to spread and persist across a wider range of conditions (Touchard et al. 2023). In particular, the warm waters of the Gulf region are likely to select for heat-tolerant genotypes, which, if introduced to thermally-limited populations, may give them a greater adaptive buffer against future warming (Griffiths et al. 2021). “
Oh crap
Stressed ecosystems, such as industrial ports, are highly vulnerable to bioinvasion because environmental disturbances reduce community resistance (e.g., Stachowicz et al. 1999). By suppressing native species, opening up ecological niches, and increas ing resource availability, disturbances allow invasive, fast-growing opportunist (e.g., tolerant and resilient) species to establish themselves; the added influence of high resource availability may further promote invasibility (Crooks et al. 2011). In the Gulf region, invasibility is paired with massive shipping volume, providing ample opportunity for the development of NIS assemblages.
Of course, there is routine “IWC” – “in-water cleaning” of ship hulls and niche areas. But
The application of IWC will surely be incentivized because of the direct benefits on ship operations, particularly reduced drag and fuel consumption (e.g., Schultz et al. 2011). However, this scenario is unlikely for most vessels given the urgency of evacuating stranded seafarers and restoring shipping movements, and due to limited regional IWC capacity and operational constraints associated with safety and logistics. (emphasis added)
Turns out niches can be, in the old Multi-Level Perspective, places where BAD SHIT happens, and then comes up and knocks the regime and the seascape around the chops. Ha ha ha, you read it here first.
As a result, demand will likely also shift to subsequent ports of call. The capacity of IWC in many recipient ports may also be insufficient to accommodate the anticipated surge in needed services, and cleaning operations may be restricted or prohibited in some jurisdictions, creating additional bottlenecks to mitigate biosecurity risks. Finally, the current trade disruptions and shifting shipping routes are expected to reshape maritime networks and port connectivity, expanding and making less predictable biosecurity risks linked to Gulf vessel traffic.
The authors, bless them recommend
“We therefore strongly encourage a coordinated global network of safe and effective IWC services”
Yeah, good luck with that.
It’s popcorn- o’clock!!
So anyway, I learnt three words – sessile, propagoule and introgression.
And, because my brain is (quat)raining quatrains right now, these –
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 384ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the climate issue had exploded back into prominence in 2006 thanks to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the coming IPCC report, the Stern review, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, Climate Campers; take your pick. There’s always a bunch of factors for a window to open. There almost, by definition, has to be.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
In the long-running cartoon strip Peanuts, by Charles Schulz, there was a character, Linus, who was – even more than the others (Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy etc) – a bit of a contradiction.
He was rational, sensible, well-informed and yet, also a believer in “the Great Pumpkin” who would come flying out of the pumpkin patch at Halloween. Repeated cycles of excitement and disappointment could not dissuade him (as per Festinger et al).
Perhaps this is why Linus needed his security blanket – to cope with the contradictions.
I thought of Linus just now, when reading Adam McKay‘s latest essay. McKay, the brains behind “Don’t Look Up,” and script-writer for “The Big Short” talks about lies being like gourds – coming in different shapes and sizes. There is then an extended riff on pumpkins and climate change, and the lies we marinate in.
There’s lots of good stuff and I am not doing it justice, and you should defo read it. (McKay’s bsky here).
There are, of course, other ways to talk about the lies – The Emperor’s New Clothes is one. “Kayfabe” – the word that professional wrestling uses for the agreed hallucination of the ‘narrative’ of heels and faces – is another.
We have, in the second half of the twentieth century, under the shadow of the bomb, been able to use astonishing advances in public health (water treatment, inspection of food production), medicine (vaccines and anti-biotics), food production (pesticides, mechanisation, containerisation, etc) and much else to create a world of luxury, convenience and safety for a significant minority of the world’s (expanding) population. Almost by definition if you are reading this you are part of that significant minority. Leisure time, access to education (albeit massified and largely indoctrination, but nonetheless, education), access to information. Clean water coming out of your tap. I mean, wtaf.
All of this seems “normal” if you’ve grown up in it, but it really isn’t. Occasionally reality – in the form of a pandemic – intrudes, but even then, in what is probably one of the last gasps of technological fixery, human ingenuity intervenes and softens the blows.
Meanwhile shifting baseline keeps shifting, the springs get silenter and the oceans warmer.
All this luxury, given names like late capitalism, or the Great Acceleration, or post-modernity (“sociologists invent words that mean… industrial disease“) is based on looting the past (fossil fuels), looting the present (using other humans and animals, and ecosystems as ATMs) and looting the future (deforestation, soil depletion). We are like nothing more than a trustafarian ripping through two or three generations of accumulated wealth on a six month bender after they turn 18 or 21. the kind of bender which ends with them as a corpse with a crusty cocaine facemask in a five star hotel’s penthouse, and a weary detective (Jimmy, or Bunk, or Lester) writing it off as a suicide but knowing it was social murder.
“We” are that trustafarian. After us, not the deluge, but the desert, the boiling unforgiving desert.
What kills me (!) is that it didn’t need to be this way. We could have done better. We didn’t though, and here we are, on that island, it burning to the ground because we were feckless, and without the British Navy officer arriving to save us and chide us at the same time.
Oh well. Welcome to the Fafocene, I hope you enjoy your stay.
