US Presidential Election: an Inflection Point
And a prayer for the good fortune of the world
“The fall of Trantor cannot be stopped by any conceivable effort. It can be hastened easily, however….” Isaac Asimov, Foundation.
A short post for what many feel is an inflection point in history: the US presidential election. This blog has been asleep since COP29, but like many others, I’ve been keeping tabs on climate breakdown and significant, related world events. And this election may well prove highly significant for the US and the world. The stakes are unfortunately that high.
In my own life recently, there have been many ups and downs. In the last two weeks, a slippage back into profound depression. I spent the weekend before last on the sofa binge-watching Netflix, in my own personal hell. Yesterday, too, I was struggling to hold back the tears at work. I think, like Mary Trump, whose substack I recommend, I’m fatigued with the constant background anxiety that has lingered since 2016. But hell is impermanent, and you don’t stay there forever. I’ve discovered unexpected wells of inner resilience too, with a little help from family and friends.
Butterfly, phoenix or dodo
Since 2022, two books have been influential on my understanding of the future. The first is Rupert Read’s Why Climate Breakdown Matters, the second is Jem Bendell’s Breaking Together. Read speaks of three possible futures in consequence of climate breakdown: civilisational transformation (butterfly), a successor civilisation after collapse (phoenix) or extinction (dodo).
Jem Bendell goes further. In Breaking Together a team of anonymous experts and he argue that collapse is already underway. I urge anyone who is skeptical of this claim to read the book for themselves before making a summary judgment. A free electronic version is available here. Myself, I think that collapse is now a plausible framework. Although I still (probably naively) hope that Read’s first option, transformation, remains possible.
Extreme weather, dire reports and conspiracy porn
My fear of collapse was somewhat reinforced by the 2024 state of the climate report. This was co-authored by some leading climate and Earth systems scientists. In the conclusion, the authors wrote that they “fear the danger of climate breakdown.”
This report also warned that:
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis. (Ripple et al., 2024).
Meanwhile the climate breakdown band plays on, and on and on. The 2024 report includes a list of extreme weather events, but since publication there have of course been more. There were Hurricanes Helen and then Milton in Florida, one following the other in quick succession over two weeks. The far right was quick to spread conspiracy porn about weather control and space lasers. US Meteorologists were soon facing death-threats.
Monday, 4th November, 2024: in Spain, the King and the PM were pelted with mud by angry residents after floods in Valencia killed at least 214 people. The climatologist Friederike Otto suggested that one reason so many died was because Europe still hadn’t really accepted the realities of extreme weather. Meanwhile there were more tornado warnings in Oklahoma and at COP16 negotiations were underway to try to save the Earth’s remaining biodiversity, highlighting the link between extreme weather and ecosystem collapse.
In September, I completed Jem Bendell and Katie Carr’s online Leading Through Collapse course. This was not an easy thing to do. The people I met were lovely, but it did require facing up to some very strong feelings about where we are at as a species. It was somewhat heartening, however, to talk to others who were experiencing the same range of difficult emotions. We met again just last week, after my major meltdown, and it helped once more to be able to express these emotions. I think one of the most difficult things for me in the last few years has been walking around with a perspective that is generally denied or even pushed away. A perspective that for me becomes more plausible with each new extreme weather event.
The choice
So: the choice in the US is between Fascism and democracy. After Madison Square, especially, I think there can be little debate about this. Even the Guardian, dragging its heels on the F word, finally published a column admitting the obvious. There’s also little doubt that Project 2025, if enacted, would likely result in billions of tonnes more carbon pollution. A fascist America would also be a major destabilising force in global politics, in addition to the untold suffering it would cause to its citizens and everyone else.
More broadly, such a shift would derail even half-hearted attempts to transform consumer industrial civilisation into something sustainable. Personally, I cannot think of any other major political event, bar nuclear war, that is more likely to accelerate collapse than America falling to fascism. So the choice, really, for anyone who cares about the future of human civilisation is simple. In fact, I’d say it was a no-brainer.
So to all my American friends, but also to the world: good luck. I will be praying that sanity will prevail.
“The picture, of course, was alarming. We could tell you were in deep trouble. But the music told us something else. The Beethoven told us there was hope.” Carl Sagan, Contact.
Recommended commentators
https://www.youtube.com/@MaryTrumpMedia
https://www.youtube.com/@mmflint
https://www.youtube.com/@timothysnyder5948
Recommended books for resisting autocracy
Snyder, T. (2024). On Freedom. Bodley Head.
Snyder, T. (2017). On Tyranny: twenty lessons from the twentieth century. Bodley Head.
Temelkuran, E. (2024). How to lose a country: The 7 steps from democracy to fascism. The Canons.
Temelkuran, E. (2021). Together: 10 choices for a better now. 4th Estate.
References
Bendell, J. (2023). Breaking Together: A freedom loving response to collapse. Schumacher Insitute.
Read, R. (2022). Why Climate Breakdown Matters. Bloomsbury
William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Jillian W Gregg, Johan Rockström, Michael E Mann, Naomi Oreskes, Timothy M Lenton, Stefan Rahmstorf, Thomas M Newsome, Chi Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Beverly E Law, Thomas W Crowther, The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth, BioScience, 2024;, biae087, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biae087