It seems to me that the collective commitments are part of the problem. Phrases like net zero and a just transition, or protecting environments, have no real meaning. Net zero is meaningless because nature doesn’t do accounting…so the solutions we present aren’t in fact solutions.
Also just because there is a scientific consensus, this merely shows us that Houston we have a problem; that consensus can’t provide a solution…enter the murky world of geo engineering. All of these are by extension a western reductionist mind that is madly out of synch with a living ( or perhaps gasping) intelligent universe that would very much like us to just stop everything we are doing and get with the (new) program. But that takes humility and letting go…of a lot of things.
I agree Blake, and that challenge extends to all of us. I guess the point of my post (which I just edited and augmented quite a bit) is to ask how we get to those deeper conversations that lie inside the technocratic procedures.
there is something rather mechanistic underpinning this vitally important process. its reflected where you speak to the "soft processes" involved in the CoP "hardware". the CoP process brings planetary homeostasis into the conversation, as it were, through the amazing and diligent work of scientists of many disciplines. Homeostasis - the self-regulating interbeing of the planetary whole tends to be viewed through a lens of interacting systems. Lifeforms break down rock into soil, changing the landscape, affecting the atmosphere, altering the dynamics of the dynamics of ice and water, which affect the lifeforms and so on. Biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere interact and, over the recent holocene period, have achieved a certain cyclical rhythm very suitable to many mammals and primates. like us.
recently, insights have been converging from many different siloes that suggest that theres some vital (no pun intended) elements missing in this very objective and scientifically sound assessment. the notion that evolution progresses through interacting, felt, experience that is considered and responded to in a sentient manner implies that there an important organising principle is being overlooked.
the main driver of the polycrisis is not so much the neoliberal juggernaut racing us to the lip of any cliff one cares to mention, nor the collapse of democracy, or whatever else, but rather the unquestioned assumptions in regard the nature of human being-ness that underpins the dominant paradigm and its essential institutions. our indigenous neighbours and ancestors held an understanding of inter-being with planetary processes that called upon them to consider their decision-making within that superordinate frame. tis sensibility informs many of the world's major spiritual tradition - most dramatically indicated, perhaps, in the story of Buddha's first act on achieving enlightenment being to touch the earth as witness. when biology, social science, neuropsychiatry, quantum physics, ecologists, and eco psychology begin to see the indivisibility of our selves from the systems of which we are part - including our thin slice of Psyche within a greater interacting sentient intelligence - it is time to recognise the role of Psychosphere in the homeostatic process.
Psychology is beginning to recognise the impact of the feedback on our individual psychological well-being - eco-anxiety, climate grief, and so on are becoming familiar terms. In a pathological based, cause/effect world-view, we tend to default to seeing these asa some sort of harm being done to us personally and collectively. This is like seeing the pull of gravity as a personal comment on one's approach to cycling. The rise in mental disorders and their naming reflects the desire to end a source for our discomfort and unease that can be treated without questioning the underlying drivers. this is where psychology remains captured by degenerative cycles and worldviews. Homeostasis, a regenerative process developed over 14bn years, is pushing back, inviting us to review our relationship with balance. this is not merely a political or even economic call. It speaks to our understanding of who we are and where we fit, because until that question is addressed by accepted science - including psychology - the many opportunities to address how we approach identity and belonging will remain off the table.
Thanks Mark. There's a lot to respond to there, and I have updated the post since publishing it a little before it was fully cooked yesterday. Much of your response seems to speak to the need to move from polycrisis to metacrisis. I wrote about that here: https://perspecteeva.substack.com/p/prefixing-the-world
‘Understanding’ the climate predicament, is perhaps not really possible
It feels like deep collective self knowledge. And more and more it has a kind of fated quality, we seem determined to bring it about somehow.. Just astonishing depths of self-sabotage, pretence and avoidance are continually revealed (and not just collectively - I also observe them in myself if I am honest). It is a mirror for the hidden aspect of our modern industrial world and it is extremely difficult to look into it, for all of us in the rich world, because we are all complicit
I have spent my whole professional life trying to avert climate breakdown.. There were moments when I thought it was possible, that events like 40 degree heatwaves in London or even the pandemic would provide crisis awakenings, openings for us to start to truly act. But our societal commitment to ‘prosperity’ remains completely, obscenely, unshaken.. And it really feels now that we have crossed into the territory of when, not if, that the question is now a matter of degree..
Perhaps ‘the problem’ is that we misunderstood it as the type of problem that we had to understand fully, before we could act. I suspect the reality is exactly backwards, it is more like life itself, a deep knowledge process, where you have to act first, step into the unknown, and that produces the knowledge and understanding, and you have to do it again and again, step out without really knowing what you are doing but with a clear deeper intention and commitment.
The climate / ecological metacrisis is inseparable from the modern industrial world. We have been trying to separate them, keep one while losing the other, but it is the shadow of this way of being, it cannot be removed.. The way of being must be changed. And actually, we are being pushed in this direction, whether we like it or not. We do get to choose though whether this happens intentionally and consciously, or subconsciously, and this difference is very important..
Might there be paths from this "modern industrial world" to a "metamodern world" in which we have not surrendered nor lost the great accumulation of real knowledge of the last several centuries -- a world of both further-advanced science, which we need to ameliorate the crises, and further-advanced psycho-spiritual depth, which I take to be the larger part of Perspectiva's mission? As Freud observed a century ago, he was -- and we are -- in an age of widespread neurosis. Yet psycho-social shifts sometimes come on quite suddenly, even with faddish speed. May we yet find the keys to a fad of sanity ... soon enough?
That is a very interesting question.. my sense is that a lot of paths are opening up right now and all of them are being taken at once. Perhaps that path is one of them. Its certainly important to be aware of your company, and where they seem to be going.. this is a time of travelling together, not alone
These may already each be obvious potential collaborations, but in case not:
First, The Guardian US has announced "The 89% Project" (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-89-percent-project): "Between 80 and 89% of the world’s people want their governments to be doing more to address climate change. The Guardian has partnered with Covering Climate Now and newsrooms across the globe to tell their stories."
Second, The Union of Concerned Scientists (https://support.ucs.org/), whose desire for more effective means of communication and motivation has been at the forefront recently. They're reasonably well funded, and may see the case for investing in your project.
I've thought about this a lot over the decades. It's one reason I never went through an activist phase. There's much I could say but it's involved and frankly much of it might sound cynical.
I think if someone were to pursue this line of inquiry (and oh do I wish someone would!) eventually they would bump up against the people Nate Hagens refers to as the 1500-2000 people that could change everything if they wanted to. (They don't want to.)
Recently the New York Times ran a prominent opinion piece about the COVID era called "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives." If the world were anything like what it pretends to be, the next lines would read "And that's why we're launching a ten part series investigating Who Lied? What were the Lies? Where did the Lies Originate? When did the Lies Begin? Why Were We Lied to?" But of course that isn't going to happen. The corruption runs deep and wide.
COVID and climate are not perfectly analogous, but I think there's a lot of overlap about how real power keeps itself out of the spotlight and away from accountability.
That may well be so. And in Perspectiva's premises 8-10 above, I am tacitly referring to agency and hyperagency; the difference between acting within a context, and having the power to create one. I am not a fatalist about power. Some have disproportionate amounts of it, granted. But power is a rapidly perishable good, and also something that can be created.
Oh for sure. I’m with you on all of the above. I’m only speaking to why having large bureaucracies prepare detailed reports has had absolutely no effect. There are other paths, and I salute you and others who are preparing the alternate structures.
I salute this reflection, especially the drive to initiate a project that sheds light on the inefficacy of reports to effect the transformation they invoke.
This salute carries strong empathy, too: I left over twenty years of an academic career in sustainability science because of the naivety (at best) of our assumptions about the impact of information on habitual human behaviour—and more so, the way power adapts to information to protect and perpetuate itself. This naivety was all the more demoralising when it is perpetuated from the ranks of social sciences, where I was academically bred.
So yes to the project. In line with the need for out-of-the-box, transdisciplinary, post-academic formats, why not consider action-research methods, for instance? I would also bring a strong inquiring angle into what is actually working in the relationship between knowledge, action, and transformation—both at individual and collective levels.
We need more than hypotheses. We need to harness the art of potent catalytic questions as methodological tools (well known in wisdom traditions). This means being able to set aside what is known and ask from the unknown. Such an approach may surface hidden patterns and assumptions—your table was already tending in that direction. It enables a shift in perspective, loosening the grip of familiar frames and allowing for nonlinear insight and gestalt realisations.
This approach gestures toward first principles and values—such as truth—not as fixed claims, but as orienting forces in a metamodern sense, inviting us to consider what must be true for transformation to occur at all. In other words ontological live coordinates for action, emergence, and love.
New forms of questions may give rise to curious forms of narratives, that carry multiple interpretations while maintaining coherence—like the parables of the New Testament (these are in my understanding not moral blueprints but invitations to deeper seeing).
If at any point you feel that my presence or skills might serve, please feel free to reach out.
Jonathan, your article Towards a Parallel Climate Regime resonates deeply.
I’ve been immersed in work aligned with these questions, including a co-authored paper now complete, and I will also be attending the Realisation Festival this summer (where I was delighted to see Vanessa Machado de Oliveira will be present).
It feels as though many parallel currents are stirring beneath the surface.
Thank you for tending to these deeper rhythms so thoughtfully.
Think Timothy Morton made a similar point about data. What's the actual point of beating people over the head with more facts? Does the data actually lead to a perverse kind of satisfaction as we imagine we’re not actually in a catastrophe yet? İf only we could tweak the numbers we’d be in control again.
I think there is a case for data, information, facts etc etc...but we also need a theory of human understanding and agency that reflects how little impact information by itself, even when true, has on our behaviour. I guess I feel like saying 'two cheers' for the climate regime that has done what it could, but that to get a third cheer, we need some kind of parallel process that attends to the shortcomings I mention above.
Fair point, but to take a leaf out of Jason W. Moore's book, why say human agency and not capital? The ‘machines’ (corporations, states, international bodies) haven't been able to shift gears or no pressure has been brought to bear on them.
Don't want to sound fatalistic but along with Peter Fleming İ suspect we’re now locked into a process of change that will only end badly (or catastrophically). To put on my Muslim hat for a second, maybe that’s part of the plan. And on that cheerful note…
Hey Jonathan, I couldn't find any other way of reaching out to you but back in April I applied to the Operations and Project Management Associate role, sending the requested covering letter and job-specific CV to greetings@perspectiva.co.uk. I never received a confirmation that these had been received, so I reached out via the Perspectiva LI page (since messaging you directly isn't available to me on LinkedIn), and didn't receive any response to that. I have triple checked the email address and subject heading and these seem to match what Perspectiva requested. I'd appreciate knowing if my covering letter and CV were received and you decided not to move forwards with my application, or they weren't received at all. Thank you, Anna-Marie
It seems to me that the collective commitments are part of the problem. Phrases like net zero and a just transition, or protecting environments, have no real meaning. Net zero is meaningless because nature doesn’t do accounting…so the solutions we present aren’t in fact solutions.
Also just because there is a scientific consensus, this merely shows us that Houston we have a problem; that consensus can’t provide a solution…enter the murky world of geo engineering. All of these are by extension a western reductionist mind that is madly out of synch with a living ( or perhaps gasping) intelligent universe that would very much like us to just stop everything we are doing and get with the (new) program. But that takes humility and letting go…of a lot of things.
I agree Blake, and that challenge extends to all of us. I guess the point of my post (which I just edited and augmented quite a bit) is to ask how we get to those deeper conversations that lie inside the technocratic procedures.
there is something rather mechanistic underpinning this vitally important process. its reflected where you speak to the "soft processes" involved in the CoP "hardware". the CoP process brings planetary homeostasis into the conversation, as it were, through the amazing and diligent work of scientists of many disciplines. Homeostasis - the self-regulating interbeing of the planetary whole tends to be viewed through a lens of interacting systems. Lifeforms break down rock into soil, changing the landscape, affecting the atmosphere, altering the dynamics of the dynamics of ice and water, which affect the lifeforms and so on. Biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere interact and, over the recent holocene period, have achieved a certain cyclical rhythm very suitable to many mammals and primates. like us.
recently, insights have been converging from many different siloes that suggest that theres some vital (no pun intended) elements missing in this very objective and scientifically sound assessment. the notion that evolution progresses through interacting, felt, experience that is considered and responded to in a sentient manner implies that there an important organising principle is being overlooked.
the main driver of the polycrisis is not so much the neoliberal juggernaut racing us to the lip of any cliff one cares to mention, nor the collapse of democracy, or whatever else, but rather the unquestioned assumptions in regard the nature of human being-ness that underpins the dominant paradigm and its essential institutions. our indigenous neighbours and ancestors held an understanding of inter-being with planetary processes that called upon them to consider their decision-making within that superordinate frame. tis sensibility informs many of the world's major spiritual tradition - most dramatically indicated, perhaps, in the story of Buddha's first act on achieving enlightenment being to touch the earth as witness. when biology, social science, neuropsychiatry, quantum physics, ecologists, and eco psychology begin to see the indivisibility of our selves from the systems of which we are part - including our thin slice of Psyche within a greater interacting sentient intelligence - it is time to recognise the role of Psychosphere in the homeostatic process.
Psychology is beginning to recognise the impact of the feedback on our individual psychological well-being - eco-anxiety, climate grief, and so on are becoming familiar terms. In a pathological based, cause/effect world-view, we tend to default to seeing these asa some sort of harm being done to us personally and collectively. This is like seeing the pull of gravity as a personal comment on one's approach to cycling. The rise in mental disorders and their naming reflects the desire to end a source for our discomfort and unease that can be treated without questioning the underlying drivers. this is where psychology remains captured by degenerative cycles and worldviews. Homeostasis, a regenerative process developed over 14bn years, is pushing back, inviting us to review our relationship with balance. this is not merely a political or even economic call. It speaks to our understanding of who we are and where we fit, because until that question is addressed by accepted science - including psychology - the many opportunities to address how we approach identity and belonging will remain off the table.
Thanks Mark. There's a lot to respond to there, and I have updated the post since publishing it a little before it was fully cooked yesterday. Much of your response seems to speak to the need to move from polycrisis to metacrisis. I wrote about that here: https://perspecteeva.substack.com/p/prefixing-the-world
‘Understanding’ the climate predicament, is perhaps not really possible
It feels like deep collective self knowledge. And more and more it has a kind of fated quality, we seem determined to bring it about somehow.. Just astonishing depths of self-sabotage, pretence and avoidance are continually revealed (and not just collectively - I also observe them in myself if I am honest). It is a mirror for the hidden aspect of our modern industrial world and it is extremely difficult to look into it, for all of us in the rich world, because we are all complicit
I have spent my whole professional life trying to avert climate breakdown.. There were moments when I thought it was possible, that events like 40 degree heatwaves in London or even the pandemic would provide crisis awakenings, openings for us to start to truly act. But our societal commitment to ‘prosperity’ remains completely, obscenely, unshaken.. And it really feels now that we have crossed into the territory of when, not if, that the question is now a matter of degree..
Perhaps ‘the problem’ is that we misunderstood it as the type of problem that we had to understand fully, before we could act. I suspect the reality is exactly backwards, it is more like life itself, a deep knowledge process, where you have to act first, step into the unknown, and that produces the knowledge and understanding, and you have to do it again and again, step out without really knowing what you are doing but with a clear deeper intention and commitment.
The climate / ecological metacrisis is inseparable from the modern industrial world. We have been trying to separate them, keep one while losing the other, but it is the shadow of this way of being, it cannot be removed.. The way of being must be changed. And actually, we are being pushed in this direction, whether we like it or not. We do get to choose though whether this happens intentionally and consciously, or subconsciously, and this difference is very important..
Might there be paths from this "modern industrial world" to a "metamodern world" in which we have not surrendered nor lost the great accumulation of real knowledge of the last several centuries -- a world of both further-advanced science, which we need to ameliorate the crises, and further-advanced psycho-spiritual depth, which I take to be the larger part of Perspectiva's mission? As Freud observed a century ago, he was -- and we are -- in an age of widespread neurosis. Yet psycho-social shifts sometimes come on quite suddenly, even with faddish speed. May we yet find the keys to a fad of sanity ... soon enough?
That is a very interesting question.. my sense is that a lot of paths are opening up right now and all of them are being taken at once. Perhaps that path is one of them. Its certainly important to be aware of your company, and where they seem to be going.. this is a time of travelling together, not alone
These may already each be obvious potential collaborations, but in case not:
First, The Guardian US has announced "The 89% Project" (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-89-percent-project): "Between 80 and 89% of the world’s people want their governments to be doing more to address climate change. The Guardian has partnered with Covering Climate Now and newsrooms across the globe to tell their stories."
Second, The Union of Concerned Scientists (https://support.ucs.org/), whose desire for more effective means of communication and motivation has been at the forefront recently. They're reasonably well funded, and may see the case for investing in your project.
Third, Bill McKibben, whose name you doubtless know (https://www.middlebury.edu/college/people/bill-mckibben; also here at https://billmckibben.substack.com/). He teaches at my son's college (not far from me), and should be useful in many ways if you can connect.
As for financial support, have you explored what it would take to qualify in the US as a "501-C(3)" tax-deductible organization?
I've thought about this a lot over the decades. It's one reason I never went through an activist phase. There's much I could say but it's involved and frankly much of it might sound cynical.
I think if someone were to pursue this line of inquiry (and oh do I wish someone would!) eventually they would bump up against the people Nate Hagens refers to as the 1500-2000 people that could change everything if they wanted to. (They don't want to.)
Recently the New York Times ran a prominent opinion piece about the COVID era called "We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives." If the world were anything like what it pretends to be, the next lines would read "And that's why we're launching a ten part series investigating Who Lied? What were the Lies? Where did the Lies Originate? When did the Lies Begin? Why Were We Lied to?" But of course that isn't going to happen. The corruption runs deep and wide.
COVID and climate are not perfectly analogous, but I think there's a lot of overlap about how real power keeps itself out of the spotlight and away from accountability.
That may well be so. And in Perspectiva's premises 8-10 above, I am tacitly referring to agency and hyperagency; the difference between acting within a context, and having the power to create one. I am not a fatalist about power. Some have disproportionate amounts of it, granted. But power is a rapidly perishable good, and also something that can be created.
Oh for sure. I’m with you on all of the above. I’m only speaking to why having large bureaucracies prepare detailed reports has had absolutely no effect. There are other paths, and I salute you and others who are preparing the alternate structures.
I salute this reflection, especially the drive to initiate a project that sheds light on the inefficacy of reports to effect the transformation they invoke.
This salute carries strong empathy, too: I left over twenty years of an academic career in sustainability science because of the naivety (at best) of our assumptions about the impact of information on habitual human behaviour—and more so, the way power adapts to information to protect and perpetuate itself. This naivety was all the more demoralising when it is perpetuated from the ranks of social sciences, where I was academically bred.
So yes to the project. In line with the need for out-of-the-box, transdisciplinary, post-academic formats, why not consider action-research methods, for instance? I would also bring a strong inquiring angle into what is actually working in the relationship between knowledge, action, and transformation—both at individual and collective levels.
We need more than hypotheses. We need to harness the art of potent catalytic questions as methodological tools (well known in wisdom traditions). This means being able to set aside what is known and ask from the unknown. Such an approach may surface hidden patterns and assumptions—your table was already tending in that direction. It enables a shift in perspective, loosening the grip of familiar frames and allowing for nonlinear insight and gestalt realisations.
This approach gestures toward first principles and values—such as truth—not as fixed claims, but as orienting forces in a metamodern sense, inviting us to consider what must be true for transformation to occur at all. In other words ontological live coordinates for action, emergence, and love.
New forms of questions may give rise to curious forms of narratives, that carry multiple interpretations while maintaining coherence—like the parables of the New Testament (these are in my understanding not moral blueprints but invitations to deeper seeing).
If at any point you feel that my presence or skills might serve, please feel free to reach out.
Thank you, Elsa. Yes to all that.
Jonathan, your article Towards a Parallel Climate Regime resonates deeply.
I’ve been immersed in work aligned with these questions, including a co-authored paper now complete, and I will also be attending the Realisation Festival this summer (where I was delighted to see Vanessa Machado de Oliveira will be present).
It feels as though many parallel currents are stirring beneath the surface.
Thank you for tending to these deeper rhythms so thoughtfully.
In resonance,
Dr Terry Cooke-Davies
Thanks, Terry. Look forward to seeing you in June!
Think Timothy Morton made a similar point about data. What's the actual point of beating people over the head with more facts? Does the data actually lead to a perverse kind of satisfaction as we imagine we’re not actually in a catastrophe yet? İf only we could tweak the numbers we’d be in control again.
I think there is a case for data, information, facts etc etc...but we also need a theory of human understanding and agency that reflects how little impact information by itself, even when true, has on our behaviour. I guess I feel like saying 'two cheers' for the climate regime that has done what it could, but that to get a third cheer, we need some kind of parallel process that attends to the shortcomings I mention above.
Fair point, but to take a leaf out of Jason W. Moore's book, why say human agency and not capital? The ‘machines’ (corporations, states, international bodies) haven't been able to shift gears or no pressure has been brought to bear on them.
Don't want to sound fatalistic but along with Peter Fleming İ suspect we’re now locked into a process of change that will only end badly (or catastrophically). To put on my Muslim hat for a second, maybe that’s part of the plan. And on that cheerful note…
Hey Jonathan, I couldn't find any other way of reaching out to you but back in April I applied to the Operations and Project Management Associate role, sending the requested covering letter and job-specific CV to greetings@perspectiva.co.uk. I never received a confirmation that these had been received, so I reached out via the Perspectiva LI page (since messaging you directly isn't available to me on LinkedIn), and didn't receive any response to that. I have triple checked the email address and subject heading and these seem to match what Perspectiva requested. I'd appreciate knowing if my covering letter and CV were received and you decided not to move forwards with my application, or they weren't received at all. Thank you, Anna-Marie