Creativity Beyond Hope - Prof Bendell talk at Paradiso Amsterdam

Scholars’ Warning co-founder Professor Jem Bendell gave a short presentation to attendees of ‘Free Cultural Spaces’ in Paradiso Amsterdam, where he shared some of the ideas behind his art project Kintsugi World, which accompanies his new book ‘Breaking Together’. Below you can see the video of his talk, or read a rough transcript of the first part.

Jem’s explained there is evidence that the creeping collapse of modern societies has already begun and that the modernist and conformist beliefs in 'hope' can hold us back from our creative responses to that predicament. His book is free to download from the University and there is an online interactive course in November on ‘leading through collapse’. The venue he spoke in hosted #Leftfield's first ever gig in 1996 (one of Jem's favourite bands).

Check against delivery on 25^th July 2023. References to all statistics and claims are available in the endnotes of ‘Breaking Together’ (published by Good Works, 2023).

I’m happy to be joining you remotely in the venue that saw the band Leftfield’s first ever gig back in 1996. It’s a reminder, if we needed one, of the importance of free cultural spaces to creativity. And it’s another reminder of why we need a great reclamation of our power from the corporations, banks and remote state institutions. A great reclamation that we can all take part in, as normal life crumbles around us.

I’d like to take this short time together to invite you to consider three things. First, that a process of the collapse of industrial consumer societies has already begun. Second, instead of believing in the delusion of a managed transition to a sustainable consumer way of life, many people have a different motivation for engaging for the good of us all. We don’t need wishful thinking to act positively today. In that sense, we don’t actually need hope to be creative, but, instead, a faith in ourselves and in life itself. Third, I see that the creative arts can help more of us recognise that reality and discover new aims in life. That’s why I am really pleased to contribute to your event today.

My new book, called Breaking Together, explains how a process of the creeping collapse of modern societies is already underway. Modern conveniences look like they are still functioning, so it’s normal to be sceptical. But the data indicates the general situation. For instance, the Human Development Index is a basic indicator. It has been declining each year since 2019 in 80% of countries, in all regions of the world. Some of that data is collected 2 years before release. So it's a decline that began pre-pandemic. Previously it had been rising, always, in richer countries since 1990.

Data on our quality of life shows a global plateauing since 2016 and that 90% of countries have a declining quality of life. In the rich OECD countries this fall has been consistent since 2016. And some of that data was also collected a few years prior. So that suggests a persistent decline starting in 2015 or earlier.

In the book, I connect these cracks on the surface of modern societies with the crumbling foundations in our economic, energy, environmental, and food systems. Climate change is an accelerator of all these fractures, as well as being a problem in itself. Although specific societies have been disrupted terribly for centuries both by natural disasters and political violence, the evidence I present in the book ‘Breaking Together’ supports a different view. Simply, we have reached a point where most modern societies, while continuing to function on the surface, are already in the early stages of their collapse.

In the book I explain how we have not been told about this process of collapse, as experts, politicians and the media hold the microphone, and they are all incentivised to believe a myth of perpetual progress. I also provide the evidence that the reason we no longer see content about this breakdown going viral, is that the bigtech executives own the mixing board that is social media and are curating what we see and don’t see. We now know they do that in league with national security agencies of the US and perhaps other countries.

When people hear the bad news about society and the environment, some react by thinking that perhaps it’s not helpful to focus so much on the bad news. That means they aren’t facing the information, and instead switching to the topic of how we relate to that information. Which is when we hear the story that hope is essential. What is meant by the word ‘hope’ and what psychology says about the topic are not often considered.

Psychological research finds that whether people act pro-socially or not has very little to do with their perception of the future. Research finds that even catastrophic imaginaries can be more motivating than not. Instead, being attached to consequentialist ethics is the Achilles heel of activism and pro-social action. That is the idea that we do something only because we know it will have a positive impact or we think it is likely. I say it is the Achilles heel, because it can lead to people giving up when they sense they can’t achieve their goals, or even turning towards violent extremism and support for authoritarianism.

The teachings of Buddhism are relevant here. They regard hope as a thought pattern that takes us away from meeting reality as we find it. The Buddha commented there are three kinds of people in the world: “The hopeful, the hopeless, and the one who has done away with hope.”

A member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council, Oren Jay Sofer explains that hoping can, I quote, “direct our longing for happiness in an unskillful way. It places our well-being on an uncertain, imagined future beyond our control, thereby feeding craving and fixation. When the wished-for outcome isn’t realized, we are crushed.”

Let’s remember that we choose neither the circumstances of our life, nor the results of our actions. What we can choose is how we relate to each other, and how we respond.

When doing that, we can tune into our intuitive sense that there is something worthwhile about being alive and keep living from our hearts, no matter what happens.

There is some similarity here in the more mystical understandings of Christian teachings. The invitation for believers to have hope, as often summarized in the statement “faith, hope and charity,” does not need to suggest that a pain free world will come to exist on Earth. Rather, it can be an invitation to expect that the ultimate rightness of existence will be experienced by each of us in the end, whether that is in this life or after death. That kind of hope is closer to a faith or trust in the universe, whatever may occur in future.

It is also important we ask what it is that people are hoping for. Is it for our way of life to continue? Despite that relying on the exploitation of the world’s resources?

As Leftfield sang back in 1996: “how many visions must they burn, until we learn?” It’s time for a wholescale rejection of what I call in my book Imperial Modernity.

Because a collapsing of industrial consumer societies and the ideologies they uphold will provide opportunities for significant change which might reduce some forms of suffering in some parts of the world. Given the cumulative failure of myriad forms of past social change strategies to deliver a peaceful, equitable and sustainable world, the cracking of old systems could be regarded as a painful opportunity as well as a crisis. That is a darker hope, but it is also a practical one. My view is that we will be collapsing into communities, and the thing to play for is what we will find in community when it becomes all we have.

In Chapter 12 of my book, I profile a range of people who have allowed their acceptance of future or unfolding societal collapse to transform them. Some have become activists, some have become permaculture farmers, some have become spiritual teachers, some have become community leaders, some have become innovators of local exchange and local currency systems. Seeing what they do, inspires me with a broader hope that these disruptive times will bring more of us back to fuller attention to life itself.

In the book, I call this an ‘evotopia’ where more of us are witnessing and being with reality in all its dimensions.

So I am talking about a massive shift in our assumptions about life. How might that be helped? Art can help us see our situation and stories in new ways. It can involve a warping or mixing of old descriptions of reality. It is that intention and impact that makes something artistic, rather than the tools used in the art. That is why I was happy to work with a digital artist to create the cover of my book. It’s part of a Kintsugi World art project which I will show you in a minute.

[Professor Bendell then went on to describe the reflection invited in the art on the cover of the book, made by himself and Darinka Montico, and showed the other images in the collection. You can view them in the video of the presentation. More information on the event is at https://fcsamsterdam.nl/]. 

Breaking Together – a freedom-loving response to collapse

“Breaking Together – a freedom-loving response to collapse” is published by Good Works. 

It is out in hardback, paperback, e-book, and audiobook. The paperback is directly available from the publisher in the UK. 

From the back cover:

“This is a prophetic book.”  Satish Kumar, founder, Schumacher College

“This book shows that instead of imposing elitist schemes and scams, regenerating nature and culture together is the only way forward.” Dr Stella Nyambura Mbau, Loabowa Kenya

The collapse of modern societies has already begun. That is the conclusion of two years of research by the interdisciplinary team behind Breaking Together. How did it come to this? Because monetary systems caused us to harm each other and nature to such an extent it broke the foundations of our societies. So what can we do? This book describes people allowing the full pain of our predicament to liberate them into living more courageously and creatively. They demonstrate we can be breaking together, not apart, in this era of collapse. The author argues that reclaiming our freedoms is essential to soften the fall and regenerate the natural world. Escaping the efforts of panicking elites, we can advance an ecolibertarian agenda for both politics and practical action in a broken world.

“A signpost for people made politically homeless by the craziness of the last few years.” Aaron Vandiver, author, Under a Poacher’s Moon. 

“A new compass for navigating collapse.” Pablo Servigne and Raphael Stevens, authors, Another End of the World is Possible

“If you want to save some of the world but hate being told what to do, this book is for you.” Clare Farrell, co-founder, Extinction Rebellion 

You can listen to the introduction for free here.

Contents
Introduction
1 Economic collapse
2 Monetary collapse
3 Energy collapse
4 Biosphere collapse
5 Climate collapse
6 Food collapse
7 Societal collapse
8 Freedom to know
9 Freedom from progress
10 Freedom from banking
11 Freedom in nature
12 Freedom to collapse and grow
13 Freedom from fake green globalists
Conclusion

It may seem the conclusions of the book are quite bold and contestable. So, to get a sense of the amount of research that has gone into the book, you can download a pre-released chapter on food system breakdown. Dr Katja Hujo from the UN endorsed that by explaining that my “paper (and forthcoming book) is a wake-up call that our global food systems are approaching global breakdown due to a number of interlinked hard trends, from biophysical limits of food production and climate change to growing demand and the destructive implications of our profit-oriented capitalist system. The application of interdisciplinary integrative analysis and the emphasis on economic, social, technological and ecological dimensions of the challenge ahead helps to grapple with the complexity of the issue and to avoid simplistic solutions. It is an analysis that motivates the reader to act at multiple fronts and critically engage with a topic that has a huge bearing on the future of humanity.”

Six hard trends that drive food system breakdown – globally

An IFLAS Occasional paper analyses the trends driving the breakdown of the global food system.

Endorsing the paper, Dr Katja Hujo from the UN Research Institute for Social Development (and lead author of their Flagship Report “Crises of Inequality: Shifting Power for a New Eco-Social Contract”) notes:

“Jem Bendell’s paper (and forthcoming book) is a wake-up call that our global food systems are approaching global breakdown due to a number of interlinked hard trends, from biophysical limits of food production and climate change to growing demand and the destructive implications of our profit-oriented capitalist system. The application of interdisciplinary integrative analysis and the emphasis on economic, social, technological and ecological dimensions of the challenge ahead helps to grapple with the complexity of the issue and to avoid simplistic solutions. It is an analysis that motivates the reader to act at multiple fronts and critically engage with a topic that has a huge bearing on the future of humanity.”

The Contributing Lead Author for the UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, Scott Williams, notes:

“We are conditioned to fear disorientation and seek safety in certainty and solutions regardless of the information available to us. Breaking that protective screen, this paper adds to the weight of analysis that the collapse of food systems and societies more broadly is inevitable. But how we are in relationship with these changes is not fixed even if, as this paper argues, we are stuck. Perhaps what this paper is calling for is the spaciousness to ask new questions, to challenge habits and myths, that may then shift perceptions. Consequently, we could be in relationship differently with the inevitability of collapse, and sense the possibilities that are perceivable with renewed care, compassion and generosity to ourselves and to all life.”

Co-founder, Extinction Rebellion, Clare Farrell, notes:

“The fragility of our systems is underexplored and we need to pay attention to warnings from integrative analyses like this paper. And then act like never before, with fierce resistance on behalf of life itself.” 

The paper on food system breakdown is a preprint of a chapter in the forthcoming book by Professor Bendell, Breaking Together (Goodworks, TSI, 2023). To get notified of when and how receive a free epub version of the book, subscribe to Prof Bendell’s blog.

The book launch will be at the Glastonbury Deep Adaptation event, with Satish Kumar, Gail Bradbrook, Skeena Rathor, Rachel Donald and Indra Donfrancesco on June 18^th in the UK. Information and tickets: DeepAdaptationGlastonbury.co.uk.

The preface to the paper follows below.

Download the pdf of the paper.

Preface from the author

This Occasional Paper is one output from a 2-year research project with an interdisciplinary team including an agricultural scientist, heterodox economist, and environmental journalist, as well as myself, a sociologist undertaking critical interdisciplinary research analysis on sustainable development issues. It outlines six hard trends which drive a global food system breakdown. The paper is an excerpt from my forthcoming book on the topic of societal collapse, Breaking Together, and shared now due to the urgent implications for both local and national governmental policies, philanthropy strategies, and organisational or personal decisions relating to food security.

As an academic it should come as no surprise when I claim that the scientific method is a powerful approach for understanding reality. But it should also be no surprise that an academic also recognises how the cultural, economic and institutional influences on the research process, and the ‘siloing’ of research into disciplines, constrains what specialists in specific disciplines choose to conclude and communicate. Rather than asking too much of science, we have been asking too little of it, by not interrogating sufficiently the way cultural and institutional factors, derived from systems of capital and power, are influencing questions and findings in ways that reduce the impetus for radical change.

Scientists who take these limitations seriously have been sounding the alarm for society. Two hundred of them warned of potential ‘global systemic collapse’ in a report that also explained why we do not hear such warnings so often and so clearly. "Many scientists and policymakers are embedded in institutions that are used to thinking and acting on isolated risks, one at a time," their report said [1].

That is why critical interdisciplinary research analysis is so important. First, it is driven by the intention of identifying knowledge that is salient to an issue of public interest. It identifies research publications from a variety of different disciplines that are potentially relevant to that issue and then analyses them for what might be the most important findings on that issue. Sometimes such findings are not what the original researchers focused on in those publications being analysed. The process of salience identification by a research analyst involves cross-referencing findings and claims from different subject specialisms. It is aided by a ‘critical’ approach, which stems from appreciating the many influences on any process of conducting and disseminating research. They include the financial and political pressures for remaining deferential to established ideas and institutions, the de-radicalising influence of privilege, a wish to avoid difficult emotions and the ideology of progress that can shift where the burden of proof is seen to lie when considering data.

To do critical interdisciplinary research analysis well, it can help to have experience from different cultural, professional, and disciplinary contexts. It is also useful to have training in scientific methodologies, the history and philosophy of science, the humanities, and critical literacy. The latter term refers to understanding how frames, narratives and discourse shape what is assumed, excluded or focused on, in ways that are produced by power relations and then reproduce those power relations. Without such experiences and training, when scientists generalise outside of their field of expertise, it can involve the unconsidered use of ‘common sense’ assumptions that reflect dominant culture and exclude analyses that challenge their worldviews.

By recognising the limitations of reductionist research and siloed disciplines, scholars who are interested in ‘systems thinking’ come close to such approaches but don’t always critically analyse the source material for the biases described above. Unfortunately, critical interdisciplinary research analysis is a capability that is neither taught nor resourced in scholarship, nor rewarded with opportunities for professional progression. Because such analysis can lead to conclusions beyond those made within the specific disciplines being drawn upon, and can relegate to irrelevance some of the nuance and semantic detail, it can annoy discipline-restrained scholars. When the conclusions are particularly troubling, or threatening to the establishment, then reactions can be unusually negative and seek to marginalise the people, concepts and organisations involved. Typically, that can involve accusations of sloppiness, arrogance, conspiratorial mindsets, political bias, or extremism. Unfortunately, the temptation can be high for some experts to make such accusations if they seek to position themselves as more reasonable in the eyes of the establishment (whether for their professional advancement, or their theory of change, or even a subconscious need to fawn to power in response to growing anxiety).

In the case of societal collapse, and the food crisis, the issue is so important that, as scholars, we must not be deterred by such reactions. I encourage you to interrogate the arguments in this paper for yourself, via the references provided. The paper does not provide ideas on how to respond to the crisis it identifies. There are many ideas and positive activities occurring, some of which will be covered in my book Breaking Together. This paper is an preprint of Chapter 6 of that book, and therefore refers to the book and other chapters throughout.

Jem Bendell, March 2023

[1] Scientists Warn Multiple Overlapping Crises Could Trigger 'Global Systemic Collapse': ScienceAlert. https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-top-scientists-warn-combined-environmental-crises-will-cause-global-collapse

The Influence of the Concept of Deep Adaptation in Academic Literature - by October 2022

Dorian Cavé, November 21st, 2022. 

The Deep Adaptation (DA) paper was published by the University of Cumbria in July 2018. In the following 2 years it was downloaded over a million times and inspired the creation of networks of people focused on reducing harm in the face of societal disruption and collapse. To assess the way the concept is spreading and being used in society, the Deep Adaptation Quarterly commissioned Dorian Cavé to conduct a literature review. The study used Google Scholar to discover what academic papers referenced the original DA paper. 

As of late October 2022, the DA paper is referenced in at least 295 publications, including 138 journal articles, 49 book chapters, 44 books, 42 theses (incl. BA, MA and PhD), and 22 other documents. The full list can be accessed here. In this article, summaries are provided of those papers found to offer a substantive discussion or application of the DA concept.

If you referenced the DA paper in a scholarly publication which you don’t find in the full list, please send Dorian a link to your publication and he will add it: dorian.cave@uni.cumbria.ac.uk 

Contents:

Scholarly publications that cite the Deep Adaptation paper with depth of discussion ARCHITECTURE & URBAN PLANNING ARTS & LITERATURE EDUCATION & (UN)LEARNING PHILOSOPHY POLITICAL SCIENCE & PUBLIC POLICY PSYCHOLOGY SOCIOLOGY ARTICLES CITED

1. Scholarly publications that cite the Deep Adaptation paper with a depth of discussion

NB: Items in this section with two asterisks (**) are those I find of outstanding interest, and very much relevant to the DA field. Those with one asterisk (*) are “about” deep adaptation, or focused on a theme central to the DA paper (e.g. collapse, eco-anxiety, denial, etc.). Those without an asterisk cite the DA paper, but are less directly relevant to the DA field, although still worth a look.

ARCHITECTURE & URBAN PLANNING

In July 2022, SPOOL, a peer-reviewed journal in the field of architecture and the built environment, dedicated an issue to the topic of Deep Adaptation. Here are some articles worthy of note.

Daniel Zwangsleitner and colleagues*, who teach at the Professorship of Urban Design at Technical University Munich, describe how their teaching philosophy and practice in the fields of planning, urban design, and architecture, have been heavily influenced by the Deep Adaptation Agenda. They consider the DA paper, which they assign to read in their seminars and design-studios, as a call "to enact radical action and thinking" and to "fundamentally [question] the way we live, work, move, and organise our cities" (p.61). The paper is also a foundation for the Post-Acceleration Urban Development' manifesto which is at the heart of their teaching, and which foregrounds critical and self-reflexive thinking, as well as a keen attention to the political dimensions of spatial practitioners' practice with regards to potential system change.

Meanwhile, Miller and Nay** explore how the concept of deep adaptation may constitute a methodology helping to subvert the dominant practices of 'green' design, and crisis thinking. In particular, alternative Indigenous design ontologies that are put into practice within an Oceanic context can be viewed as manifesting decolonial responses that reclaim urban spaces for the Indigenous city, and support community development through climate change adaptation and migration. These are responses that are rooted in 'deep time', as part of radically different epistemological frameworks - much better suited to an uncertain future - than those used by mainstream Western architects, urban planners, designers and educators. While the latter should refrain from appropriating Indigenous techniques and technologies, the article is an invitation for them to reconsider the universalizing nature of green design paradigms, become more meaningfully engaged with the local context of their practice, and explore the practical dimension of design as decolonial practice. As the authors stress, "Indigenous communities learned to live with environmental crisis, survived genocide, and have thrived in the resurgence of their ways of knowing. Listening and learning from Indigenous communities is an essential starting point for deep adaptation" (p.68).

Finally, Rosengren, Polleter, Sarkez-Knudsen and Mameli* present four empirical snapshots of innovative socio-spatial practices or actions taking place in northern European urban contexts - including urban gardening, commoning, intergenerational living, and learning to perceive a more-than-human urbanity. Each of these case studies engages dialectically and critically with one of the 4 "R's" of the Deep Adaptation Agenda. The authors consider that deep adaptation "should be defined less in relation to a socio-ecological 'collapse' and more through everyday occurrences in present-day urban environments" (p.5). They also articulate a critique of the Agenda, which they view as anthropocentric. Embracing Donna Haraway's ontic-epistemic approach, they recommend a deeper consideration of the agential capacities of other-than-humans in order to produce the active hope that the Agenda calls for.

ARTS & LITERATURE

Lara Stevens (2019)* considers the need for a ‘deep dramaturgy’, emphasising the relinquishment of certain attitudes and theatrical practices - and the restoration of others - in view of our global predicament. She examines examples of ‘Anthroposcenic’ performances, such as those devised by Maria Fernanca Cardoso with her Cardoso Flea Circus, and considers the extent to which these creations succeed in fostering an ecological consciousness by demanding "we surrender human exclusivity over artistic production" and "relinquish the human delusion of our monopoly over beauty, reason and aesthetic appreciation as well, more radically still, as the idea that everything beautiful in the world is for our consumption alone." (p.96) 

Phoebe Wagner (2021)** develops a theory of the environmental grotesque as a genre now emerging in contemporary literature, by studying Richard Powers' novel The Overstory (2018). She contends that contrary to previous environmental fiction, which only brought up a reactionary response (based on fear) in the reader, environmental grotesque works go further, by depicting stories of tolerance and normalisation of our broken world, and of cooperative survival in spite of the horror it may cause. In a time of collapse, "the environmental grotesque can become a transformative tactic" because "we must learn to live—and hopefully thrive—with this environmental devastation, which will require a transformation of human life as well" (p.2).

As for Susan M. Squier (2022), she looks into the narrative and aesthetic strategies of several climate change comics, to reveal how such comics may challenge climate denial. The affectively charged narratives she describes, which tend to be specific, detailed, and full of human warmth, make it easier for the reader to engage meaningfully with "hyperobjects" such as climate change or mass species extinctions.

EDUCATION & (UN)LEARNING

In an incisive analysis, Veronika Bohac Clarke (2019)* reflects on two growing trends in academia, particularly in the humanities, "which separately contribute to self-censorship, doublespeak, obsessive crafting of personal brands, egocentrism, and sanitized discourse and publication output" (p.90). She uses Ken Wilber's integral theory as a lens to examine how two different academic populations (faculty and students), whom she groups in two different developmental levels, are pressured into fearful and maladaptive responses to the academic system. These responses severely limit the quality and boldness of research output, as well as its relevance to real-world issues (such as climate disruptions and mass migrations), and foster collective myopia. She considers ways in which universities might transform in order to bring the best out of people, regardless of their developmental adaptations to the complexity of the contexts in which they live.

By exploring the life narratives of residents of three European ecovillages, Pisters, Vihinen and Figeiredo (2020) analyse the transformative and transgressive dimensions of place-based learning. They find that such radical lifestyle changes tend to foster deep personal shifts, particularly with regards to relations towards self, other, the material, non-human and spirituality. Leaning into conflict and difficult emotions appear to be key avenues for personal growth and transformation towards an ecological consciousness.

Sharon Stein (2019)** considers what might be needed for higher education institutions to prepare learners for the collapse of the modern-colonial existence, which such institutions are dependent on and actively reproducing. She advocates addressing the denials that keep the modern-colonial habit-of-being in place - including the denials of systemic colonial violence, of unsustainability, and of the condition of our entanglement. She also outlines some of the deep changes that need to take place within intellectual, relational, and affective dimensions of (un)learning. Further, Stein and colleagues from the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (2020) present a series of pedagogical cartographies, alongside reflections on the context of their development and use, as a support for people to "stay with the trouble" of decolonization in various contexts. They highlight the many difficulties of engaging in such work without reproducing colonial habits of being rooted in modern consumptive desires and entitlements.

PHILOSOPHY

Ian Roderick (2022)* considers the multiple ethical implications of carrying out forecasting and 'future studies' research. Particularly with regards to matters of societal collapse, impacts may range from the emotional to the political dimensions, especially within a sensationalistic media landscape. He suggests that an ethics of care and respect, cherishing humanity as part of nature, is of primordial importance.

This conclusion is shared by Jonathan Leighton and Jem Bendell (2022)*, in another paper on the ethical implications of anticipating and witnessing societal collapse. They report on a focus group conversation that took place among participants in the Scholars' Warning initiative, with the aim of exploring some of the ways that anticipating collapse might influence people's values and those of society at large, and the ways in which such conversations should take place. Their conclusions foreground the universal value of avoiding intense suffering, for both humans and other-than-humans; the need to beware of group boundaries that are often arbitrarily defined by systems of power for the benefit of a few; and the importance of relying on inclusive, participatory decision-making processes rooted in compassion, fairness and mutual respect.

POLITICAL SCIENCE & PUBLIC POLICY

In a book chapter titled "Venezuela, Oil and Climate Change: Overcoming Nostalgia" (2021)**, Cristina Margarita Carbonell Betancourt and Marcela Scarpellini deliver a thorough examination of the dire situation of Venezuela, a country "in a deep state of collapse" (p.8), and use the DA agenda to consider ways of transforming Venezuela's political, economic, and cultural ‘operating systems’. As they point out, the challenges faced by this country are both representative of those that await many other parts of the world (including displacement, conflict, malnutrition, economic collapse, etc.), but also of critical importance geopolitically. Indeed, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world: therefore, whether it yields to the lure of extracting these reserves in a short-term bid to fix its current woes, or whether it succeeds in leaving this oil underground and seeks novel paths forward, will be crucial. The authors outline a comprehensive, biomimetic plan of action, based on the work of Elinor Ostrom and others, which would notably empower local and regional stakeholders through bioregional, polycentric governance; foster a localised, diversified, and circular economy detached from the fixation on economic growth and from the extraction of fossil fuels; as well as restore ecosystems, and promote the cultural wisdom and heritage of Indigenous populations. They point out that such deep changes could only take place on the foundation of a process enabling Venezuelans to acknowledge past and present grief, and work towards a national reconciliation process, in view of the widespread political and economic oppression that has characterised the country's history. 

Jason Monios and Gordon Wilmsmeier (2021)* argue that the concepts of Deep Adaptation and collapsology articulate radical alternatives to the current hegemonic order, and that they are helping to re-politicise climate change as an acute threat, in essential ways. They consider that both approaches call for a clear plan of action, based on decarbonising energy use, planning for degrowth, and relocalising key systems such as energy, food and water. The authors also view the mainstream emphasis on resilience as distracting, given the need for deep and systematic transformation of the global post-political regime. The same authors have also put forth the need for a radical, DA-inspired paradigm change and regime transition for the maritime transport sector and supply chain (2020)*.

By means of a detailed typology, encompassing various views on the seriousness of climate change, prospects for climate mitigation, and the types of mitigation measures that can be put into place, Anders Nordgren (2021) analyses a variety of pessimistic and optimistic opinions expressed in the debate on climate change. He stresses that it is problematic to speak about this pessimism and optimism in general terms, and points to the importance of uncertainty in climate models, and of commenters' own political ideologies, as key factors determining their more pessimistic or optimistic views on different aspects of climate change impacts. Focusing on some of the forms of 'climate optimism' that correspond to those analysed in Nordgren's paper, Philip J. Wilson (2021) considers how attempts to shield the public from the realities of climate change, and suppressing truth in the name of positivity, can lead to climate inaction.

PSYCHOLOGY

Susanne Moser (2020)** writes about the difficult work of "after it's too late" (to prevent dangerous climate change). As Western society approaches "both symbolic and actual death," (p.2) and is entering its final decline or at least a profound transformative process, what is to be done? Her response: politics that face into the cultural taboo of endings; continued climate mitigation; transformational adaptation; ending separation; and inner work.

Joseph TC Rehling (2021)* uses an existential lens to examine the phenomenon of eco-anxiety, a state of being that triggers concerns around issues of death, isolation, meaning, and freedom/responsibility. The author finds the approach useful as a way to inform clinical therapeutic work, based on encouraging and facilitating active engagement of people in distress with the topic of climate change, for example through group or community interventions. In his doctoral thesis (2021)*, Rehling elaborates on how mental health services might support "small-group, nature-based, eco-behavioural interventions" (p.147).

Similarly, Lewis and colleagues (2020)* discuss how climate anxiety gives rise to a myriad of dialectics in people who experience distress in view of the immensity of climate change as a problem. From a therapeutic perspective, the authors strongly recommend an exploration and transcendence of these dialectics by mental health practitioners. Instead of seeking to reduce patients' climate anxiety, following the usual approach, practitioners should help them to transform it "into relational, agentic, cognitive, and spiritual forms of adaptation to climate threats" (p.291).

SOCIOLOGY

Helen Etchanchu, Frank G.A. de Bakker and Giuseppe Delmestri (2021)* consider the agency of sustainability-related social movement organisations. They focus in particular on various strategies of carrying out internal and external organising, and outline key factors that may contribute to movement success. A case study of Extinction Rebellion leads them to highlight the movement's connections with Fridays for Future and the Deep Adaptation movements, and to examine the novel forms of organising that XR introduced. The chapter concludes with a call for more engaged forms of research on behalf of scholars, to help further the goals of such movements.

In his MA thesis titled The End of the World as We Know it: Hope, Despair and Action among Deep Adapters (2021)**, Chris Tröndle explores the topic of “How do Deep Adapters imagine the future?” by sharing fictional stories collected from Deep Adaptation spaces. The research questions “Which emotions follow the acceptance of collapse as a possibility for the future and how are they dealt with?” and “How does anticipation of collapse influence everyday life and activism?” are explored in more detail through ethnographic research. This research depicts various elements of the Deep Adaptation journeys of Chris and his research participants. He concludes that criticisms brought forth against the Deep Adaptation framework as disempowering and leading to apathy do not hold up with his research participants - most of whom have been inspired to undertake various new creative endeavours around the topic of collapse; and that collapse anticipation and Deep Adaptation, in fact, are essential to the environmental movement.

ARTICLES CITED ABOVE

Bohac Clarke, V. (2019). Double Indemnity: Integral Analysis of the Culture of Fear Inside Academia and How It Fails Its Members and Its Greater Community. Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 11(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.18733/cpi29487

Carbonell Betancourt, C. M., & Scarpellini, M. (2021). Venezuela, Oil and Climate Change: Overcoming Nostalgia. In J. M. Luetz & D. Ayal (Eds.), Handbook of Climate Change Management: Research, Leadership, Transformation (pp. 2777–2806). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57281-5_242

Etchanchu, H., de Bakker, F. G. A., & Delmestri, G. (2021). Social movement organizations agency for sustainable organizing. In S. Teerikangas, T. Onkila, K. Koistinen, & M. Mäkelä (Eds.), Research Handbook of Sustainability Agency (pp. 197–212). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789906035.00019

Leighton, J., & Bendell, J. (2022). Ethical implications of anticipating and witnessing societal collapse: Report of a discussion with international scholars. (Vol. 9) [Report]. University of Cumbria. https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6326/

Lewis, J. L., Haase, E., & Trope, A. (2020). Climate Dialectics in Psychotherapy: Holding Open the Space Between Abyss and Advance. Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 48(3), 271–294. https://doi.org/10.1521/pdps.2020.48.3.271

Miller, J., & Nay, E. (2022). Ontological Upgrade: Indigenous Futures and Radical Transformation. SPOOL, 9(2), 65–76. https://doi.org/10.47982/spool.2022.2.05

Monios, J., & Wilmsmeier, G. (2020). Deep adaptation to climate change in the maritime transport sector – a new paradigm for maritime economics? Maritime Policy & Management, 47(7), 853–872. https://doi.org/10.1080/03088839.2020.1752947

Monios, J., & Wilmsmeier, G. (2021). Deep adaptation and collapsology. In F. Carrillo & G. Koch, Knowledge For The Anthropocene (pp. 145–156). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800884298.00023

Moser, S. C. (2020). The work after “It’s too late” (to prevent dangerous climate change). WIREs Climate Change, 11(1), e606. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.606

Nordgren, A. (2021). Pessimism and Optimism in the Debate on Climate Change: A Critical Analysis. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 34(4), 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-021-09865-0

Pisters, S. R., Vihinen, H., & Figueiredo, E. (2020). Inner change and sustainability initiatives: Exploring the narratives from eco-villagers through a place-based transformative learning approach. Sustainability Science, 15(2), 395–409. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00775-9

Rehling, J. T. (2021). Exploring psychological responses to climate change using an existential framework: What hurts, what helps, and implications for mental health services [PhD Thesis, University of Essex]. https://repository.essex.ac.uk/31346/1/Thesis%20final%20-%20J.%20Rehling.pdf 

Rehling, J. T. (2022). Conceptualising eco-anxiety using an existential framework. South African Journal of Psychology, 00812463221130898. https://doi.org/10.1177/00812463221130898

Roderick, I. (2022). Ethics in research for resilience and societal collapse. In R. Iphofen & D. O’Mathúna (Eds.), Ethical Evidence and Policymaking—Interdisciplinary and International Research (pp. 240–271). Policy Press. https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/book/9781447363972/ch013.xml

Rosengren, M. R., Polleter, F., Sarkez-Knudsen, J., & Mameli, F. A. (2022). Urban Space and Everyday Adaptations: Rethinking commons, co-living, and activism for the Anthropocene City. SPOOL, 9(2), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.47982/spool.2022.2.01

Squier, S. (2022). The Narrative and Aesthetic Strategies of Climate Change Comics. In L. Campos & P.-L. Patoine (Eds.), Life, Re-Scaled: The Biological Imagination in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Performance. Open Book Publishers.

Stein, S. (2019). The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability: A Decolonial Approach to Climate Change in Higher Education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35(3), 198–212. https://doi.org/10.1017/aee.2019.17

Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Suša, R., Amsler, S., Hunt, D., Ahenakew, C., Jimmy, E., Cajkova, T., Valley, W., Cardoso, C., Siwek, D., Pitaguary, B., D’Emilia, D., Pataxó, U., Calhoun, B., & Okano, H. (2020). Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures: Reflections on Our Learnings Thus Far. Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE), 4(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.7577/njcie.3518

Stevens, L. (2019). Anthroposcenic Performance and the Need For ‘Deep Dramaturgy’. Performance Research, 24(8), 89–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2019.1718436

Tröndle, C. S. (2021). Hope, Despair, and Action among Deep Adapters [MA Thesis, Freie Universität Berlin]. https://www.teotwawkipaper.com/

Wagner, P. (2021). Embracing the Environmental Grotesque and Transforming the Climate Crisis. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, isab086. https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isab086

Wilson, P. J. (2021). Climate Change Inaction and Optimism. Philosophies, 6(3), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6030061

Zwangsleitner, D., Carnelli, E., Boucsein, B., & Fettahoglu-Özgen, E.-S. (2022). It’s too late for pessimism: How the Deep Adaptation Agenda is relevant for teaching in the spatial disciplines. SPOOL, 9(2), 57–64. https://doi.org/10.47982/spool.2022.2.04

Mushrooms near the Ambleside Campus, University of Cumbria, October 2022