The Civilizational Hospice Protocol

Photo by Bret Kavanaugh on Unsplash

I’m writing this knowing that none of the following suggestions will be implemented — and certainly not voluntarily. Not least because we are closer to an all out nuclear war than we ever were in history; in case of which this entire discussion becomes moot. However, if we survive the birth of a multi-polar world, and as energy depletion starts to take its toll on the once wealthiest nations of this planet, the topics discussed below might come to the forefront. Join me in this mental exercise to gauge whether what your government does is in line with reality, or are they just hoping that business-as-usual would continue one election cycle longer.

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What follows, of course, presumes the acceptance of the following as universal truths. Unless we come to the conclusions outlined here, it is hopeless to have a sound debate about our future. It goes something like this:

We have built this civilization on non-renewable materials and powered it with fossil fuels. Problem is, that we have already used up the easy-to-access, low energy cost part of our mineral reserves. What remains takes an exponentially increasing amount of energy to get, and comes with ecological destruction on an unprecedented scale. Despite all protestations, there is no such thing as an “energy transition”: all proposed alternatives from nuclear to “renewables” require non-renewable materials and fossil fuels to make, deliver and install… Something which is equally true to every other technofix “solution” from “carbon capture and storage” machines to blocking sunlight via geoengineering.

There can be no technological solution to the myriad of predicaments caused by technology. After centuries of growth, our high-tech industrial civilization has become terminally ill. To this very day there are still no scalable solutions to its many problems from resource depletion to climate change. What’s worse, even if there were a magic bullet to “solve” the energy dilemma outlined above, pollution, deforestation and the many other damages done to the ecosyste

m would still continue to pile up. The root of the “problem” is that we are consuming much more natural and mineral resources (as well as energy) than which could be sustainably harvested without damaging our long term prospects. On the other hand we release much more toxic waste and pollution, which could be absorbed by Nature. We are in absolute ecological overshoot.

Ours is a moribund civilization in need of palliative care, not a vigorous youngster thinking about an elective surgery.

These are the very basics which would need to be accepted in order to have at least a chance at finding ways to adapt to our new reality. Mind you, what follows, offers no “solutions” to the predicament laid out above. As long as we remain chained to the business as usual agricultural / industrial civilization paradigm, however, we just keep sawing off the very branch we sit on. The chance of human survival (beyond a couple of centuries) lies in gradually returning to a local, regenerative culture based entirely on truly renewable materials (such as wood) and powered by the sun, the wind, water and muscle labor. No metals, no burning of coal, no electricity. Even large scale agriculture has to be left behind and replaced with horticulture, perennial plants, fruits, nuts and the like. As you can see this way of truly sustainable living won’t be able to support 8 billion humans, our numbers over the centuries ahead must also dwindle to a sustainable level. The timeline for what follows is thus not measured in years, but multiple decades if not a century, spanning across many generations. It is more of a mindset change than a physical one. With that in mind, and without further ado, here is my manifesto, the Civilizational Hospice Protocol to aid our much needed “uncivilizing” process.

1. Establish a worldwide non-governmental audit organization based on an international treaty, tasked with collecting accurate data on mineral reserves — be it petroleum, copper or uranium. This is not a law-enforcement or influence organization, but a pure audit staff tasked with looking through all books, excel files, data bases etc. across all resource extraction companies in every nation, with a sole purpose of creating and maintaining an accurate resource database for each and every country on Earth. Non-compliant companies must be banned from continuing business worldwide.

2. Establish a parallel audit staff tasked with measuring up the human demand for ecological services, as well as the health and needs of the ecosystems providing those. Don’t fret if the two figures are at odds with each other. (Of course they are, we are in overshoot after all.) The goal here is to understand how deep we are into overshoot and how to establish a pathway towards striking a balance eventually.

3. Confront the public with the stark reality we are facing based on the data collected. Explain in plain English what ecological overshoot — in combination with a coming decline in world oil production — means with all its implications. Explain the connection with climate change, and how we could only mitigate bad outcomes, and not “tackle” them. Like, for example, by embracing a smaller and smaller, less and less energy intensive economy using an ever diminishing amount of technology. Thereby we could not only reduce resource use (and make them last longer), but reduce CO2 emissions and slow down the destruction of ecosystems — all at the same time.

4. Explain how reducing human demands on the planet is not a choice, a political agenda, nor a “necessity”, but a predicament with an outcome. That is: it will happen no matter what. The only choice we have is how bad that outcome will be, and how fast we want it to arrive. We are talking about a little bad over a long time, versus a catastrophic collapse in a matter of decades.

5. Facilitate a free public debate about the subject. The louder and more vehement the debate is the better: let all emotions come out, let fears be addressed and hopes contrasted with reality. Call out deniers and confront them in public. Ask them to present a better plan based on facts on the ground. Appeal to both emotions and rationality. Do not EVER let companies, or astroturfed campaigns enter the debate. Expose their sources of funding and demonstrate their conflict of interest in the matter. This must be a civil debate in citizen assemblies, town halls, schools and every place people meet.

6. This is a revolution against corporations and business-as-usual, ultimately ending their existence before they end the human race and the life of many other species. Remove all corporate interests from government, and the election process. Ban campaign donations. If needed ban and disband unruly corporations, or bereft billionaires from their wealth. Electing a government is a public good and must be financed from a public budget. One person, one vote.

7. Establish a technology triage by involving citizen assemblies and experts in each area. Ask what can we let go of today, tomorrow and later on? Again, this must be a result of civil discourse: no campaigning, no astroturfing. Decisions must be made on local levels, based on what makes sense locally, then aggregated to a national level to see if they can be carried out on a much broader basis. Do not force solutions by decree, establish a realistic phase out plan based on pilot projects instead.

8. Investment plans (from now on) must be expressed in resources used (in kW-s of energy, tons of steel, copper, concrete etc. and hours worked). I know it sounds complicated but this is the only way to decide which project can be (physically) done, and which cannot.

9. Similarly, express all mineral reserve figures in energy demand per unit extracted. For example: How much energy is required to drill and extract petroleum from a given reserve (kW/barrel)? Similarly, calculate how much energy it would take to mine and refine an lb of pure copper, uranium, nickel etc. Figures, of course, will vary greatly depending on the location and quality of the reserve.

10. Build computer models using this dataset to estimate how long the extraction of a given resource could continue. Align resource extraction plans (opening new mines, drilling new wells) with the investment plan, and the time needed for the transition back to a pre-industrial society. If necessary open new mines and drill for more oil, but only with a total phase out in mind.

11. Develop an international accounting and clearing system for resource trade. Get rid of existing market structures, together with the free selling / buying / shorting of commodities. End speculation and treating food and commodities as virtual (paper) assets. Find a new trading mechanism. Price products according to energy and raw materials needed to produce them, not based on a cost+profit model. Forget profits. The goal is survival and the mitigation of human and animal suffering.

12. Stop extending existing infrastructure, especially roads, and especially in areas subject to rising seas or unbearable summer temperatures. The only exemption is building more resilient places to live in locations out of harms way. Estimate how existing infrastructure in safe places can last, and what is the minimum level of investment needed to maintain a basic service for as long as it takes to finally leave them behind.

13. Develop a plan on how to wean agriculture off of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Fund a global project on breeding resilient, perennial plant species suitable for a hotter / drier / wetter climate (depending on the area people live in). Distribute seeds and knowledge freely. Funding should come from the resource extraction business, which, instead of investing in expanding operations, should invest in developing adaption techniques.

14. Nationalize all resource extraction and power generation facilities. Investigate and audit each site, and establish a viable plan for closing / re-cultivating them safely. The same goes for nuclear power plants with ample time given for reactor cores and fuel rods to cool down. Bury all nuclear waste many miles deep inside mountains then collapse the tunnels. Never worry that someone will find these places later: lacking fossil fuels no future civilization will have the power to dig them out. Remember it is better to place nuclear waste in a less than ideal location, than let it explode and burn where it currently is.

15. Embrace population decline: celebrate small families with 1–2 children. The goal again is to minimize suffering, and to let human populations recede back to sustainable levels peacefully.

Being my own worst critic, however, I can already hear a thousand voices scream at the top of their lungs: ‘Eco-fascism!’ ‘Communism!’ ‘Jacobin terror!’ ‘Bah, non-sense! Fusion energy will solve our problems!’ ‘What limits?! Human ingenuity is limitless!!!’ I have no illusions. This plan will never come true. Not even close. And perhaps it’s better this way.

Our global human enterprise is one massive superorganism, a complex adaptive system with all its emergent features and unpredictable quirks. It is comprised of 8 billion people with radically different personality types, backgrounds, values, upbringing and social circumstances. Such a large system has it’s own inertia, which could much better be described by natural laws (such as the Maximum Power Principle) and observations like Jevons-paradox, than historical figures changing the course of events.

Seeing how a small group of people among Western elites cling to power and their lost dominance over geopolitics, we might as well go up in nuclear flames. Heck, we might kill ourselves over which nation is called the world’s largest economy. Seriously. And I want to talk to them about de-growth? Or accepting that we are potentially on a clear glide-path towards extinction, and that our best hope is that somewhere down the line our descendants manage to return to a hunter gatherer lifestyle? Who the hell I think I am?

We are facing a predicament. It has many facets (1), neither of which can be tackled or solved. Only adapted to. And this is what we must do. (How you, dear reader, prefer to do that is entirely up to you.) Some might want to find their tribe, or build better relationship with their relatives and neighbors. Others might want to pick up a new skill or learn more about how to deal with a lack of electricity and fuel. Some might opt to watch all this from a distance, like a beautiful sunset. One thing I’m sure of: the sooner you accept that this will happen no matter what, the better you will be able to focus on your path ahead. When the inflection point — the bend or break moment as Nate Hagens prefers to call it — arrives you will find your role and place. While others will go crazy over their lost wealth and opportunities you will be already crafting, teaching, leading, building a lifestyle better adapted to this rapidly changing world. Instead of trying to save civilization, embrace its beauty, and learn to let it go knowing, that what is unsustainable eventually won’t be sustained.

Until next time,

B

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Notes:

(1) In case you were wondering what the icosahedron (a polyhedron with 20 faces) represents in the logo of this blog look no further for an answer. Our human overshoot predicament is a dice with multiple facets, with each triangle representing another face of the polycrisis besetting this civilization (such as net energy decline, resource depletion, climate change, chemical pollution, ecological collapse etc.)