Adaptation

“The demand for climate information is going up,” said Sarah Kapnick, global head of climate advisory for J.P. Morgan. The position at the bank, created two years ago for Dr. Kapnick, a former chief scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, underscores the desire in the business world to understand the risks and opportunities of global warming, she said. So this dude Steffen started a seminar you can join for $25,00.00. He mostly talks about places you can move to that will be more resilient, a good lifeboat. "Most New Yorkers who take the seminar want to stay in the city, despite its risks of extreme heat and flooding, and buy themselves second homes elsewhere, Mr. Steffen said." Just so we know who these people with climate anxienty that we are talking about are. The people most responsible for the catastrophe, Rich Americans. One guy in the class bought himself 40 acres in the Catskills as a "sanctuary". So not exactly Extinction Rebellion and not exactly Dark Mountain. On the other end of the spectrum there is Max Wilbert of Biocentric saying eco-sabotage is our remaining hope for slowing the warming. Like myself, he points out how catastrophic events like the pandemic, the 2007 economic collapse and today's war in the Middle East are the only times emissions actually go down. A harsh reality. Straddling the middle is the venerable Robert Jensen ( not to be confused with Derek Jensen) who has a great critique but suggests "we" need more conversation and dialogue. I heard him on a new podcast put out by the folks at Overshoot, a subsidiary of Population Balance. Riding the wave, their slogan is Shrink Towards Abundance and by shrink they mean population and economic throughput/ resource use. Speaking of abundance, Ezra Klein had Naomi Klein on his show and when asked to recommend a book, she suggested Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's On the Concept of History, written by fellow ecosocialist Michael Lowy. I have always been intrigued by that essay, especially the thesis that examines Klee's Angelus Novus, the crazy angel looking back at the wreckage of history as the wind of "progres"s blows her into the future. Progress in scare quotes because it is modernity, with it's "unwavering arrow of progress", which is the catastrophe. Or as Bruno Latour put it: "we have never been modern". Techno/industrial capitalism is powered by a dream of unending technological innovation curing every problem caused by the last technological innovation. It is the annihilation of history.