Like so many people and organizations, we at Post Carbon Institute have been reflecting and recalibrating since November 5th. Wherever you fall on the political spectrum, Trump’s victory, along with his campaign pledges and cabinet nominations, should be an indication that the status quo is in the rearview mirror if not actually crumpled and smoking on the side of the road.
Yet, as dedicated followers of PCI and readers of resilience.org well know, the status quo of continued growth, consumption, globalization, and exploitation has been steering us slowly but surely to the edge of collapse. A second Trump presidency could either fast-track this process or veer us onto a different course.
There are truly frightening, cruel, and disastrous possibilities to consider, including policies that must be resisted. But as I recently discussed with my colleagues Jason Bradford and Rob Dietz (and as PCI’s Theory of Change illustrates), cracks in the status quo also create space for positive alternatives to emerge.
Each of us has agency to reinforce one of these pathways — status quo, regressive, or pro-social/pro-nature — in our own lives and communities. But perhaps as important as the question of what we do to respond to this political moment and the larger Great Unraveling is the question of how we comport ourselves.
The team at Post Carbon Institute is redoubling our efforts going into 2025 and beyond, with plans to further expand our offerings at resilience.org. But we’re also committed to ensuring that our how will be guided by values of authenticity, truth-telling, humility, generosity, reciprocity, respect, and relationality. That means exploring challenging topics, supporting meaningful connections and interactions with and between our community of readers and allies, and always being honest with ourselves and you — even about the things we don’t know.
It also means making access to our content and live events free to any and all, for as long as Post Carbon Institute is able. Our hope and trust is that those who value these offerings, and who have the means—large or small—to do so, will contribute what they can in kind, by sharing our work with others… by courageously engaging in the hard work of building community and collective resilience… by embodying the values of care, integrity, and openness. And, yes, by supporting our work financially — while money still matters.
Thanks for taking the time to read this letter and for being part of our growing community.
Best,
Asher Miller
What is 'social policy?' Is it random human behaviors operating within a superstructure of entropy and uncertainty? Is it engineered human behaviors controlled by any number of illusions – freedom, security, economic force, calamities, both acute and chronic, ethnic superiorities with license to define underlings and their worth, etc. etc.? Is it the obvious uncertainty of probabilities that determine the outcome of human stability and planetary ecological stabilities needed for biotic continuance?
Before the cart comes the horse, with or without a driver and a whip. What is crucial here? The horse, the cart, the driver, the road or the destination? Some combo? Why do PCI humans stress resilience? Is it to weather the storms of 'progress' or regressive 'engineering?' Is it to re-define reductionism to an active mechanism of paring down the excesses and narcissistic delusions of human over-reach? Is it to just 'survive' in enough numbers to keep the needed breeding pairs of humans viable until the extinction passes?
As a community, we are obliged to 'define' the ecological superstructure of the past, present and possible future prior to either re-engineering human/Earth compatibilities or just staying alive and finding some patterns of refuge we can use/count on to continue long enough for the chaos to kill itself off. To simplify human behaviors to match a degrading system of support is obviously not enough. Less and less of something never leads to more.
I propose we look at the numbers. There are way more of us than them. They need to consume 1000x MORE than we do to keep their arks afloat. We, collectively, have more than enough energy available to us to keep the ecology and ourselves afloat IF we assume a strategy of guerilla warfare, which looks quite different than past human combat.
Right now I am watching many dozens of mountain bluebirds hover around two watering station I have installed. It is the dead of winter and our area is in drought. In this location, bluebirds are less than rare, but here they are because I provide daily food and unfrozen water, and I have used the resources I have to create and protect habitat they can use, along with dozens of other species. I am poor by any standard, but at 76 I still work and earn enough to feed myself, one dependent, hundreds of birds and other species, donate to various ecological and human welfare orgs. a small amount each month.
How? I live very simply, even though my carbon footprint is still above one Earth, due to oil/gas powered vehicles. I installed solar to eliminate the electric deficit. I am rebuilding gardens for edible, organic food production/usage. I keep the thermostats at 65 winter and 80 summer. I wear old clothes, bought at the hospice store. I drive really old vehicles and maintain them. I ride an electric bike. I use water to grow crops or keep trees alive and healthy. I recycle virtually everything possible. I re-use constantly and reduce consumption/waste at every turn. I spread the word daily to all I come in contact with, via friendship making and sympatico sharing. I read and strategize constantly on how to balance my energy consumption with my storage and re-use. And still it is not nearly enough, but by writing this perhaps I can convince someone else that to change is not only possible, but absolutely mandatory and is the only path to rescuing any human dignity left alive. Use guerilla warfare via the quantum field to re-imagine what peace, calm and some semblance of joy and humility feel like, and can accomplish to rescue the sentience of Earth from the ravages of its least capable occupant – me.