Rupert Read – No words: On Trump’s triumph

"a pivot from decarbonisation-centric to adaption-centric approaches"
November 6, 2024
brown cardboard box
Photo by Keagan Henman on Unsplash
  • The US election result implies a need to pivot towards climate adaptation, as the new administration is likely to dismantle climate and nature legislation.
  • The author suggests that building inner resilience is crucial, as it allows individuals to process and express their emotions, and to summon the energy and love needed to move forward.
  • The author also emphasizes the importance of building outer resilience, by shifting focus from decarbonization to adaptation, and by developing strategies to cope with the psychological and practical impacts of climate change.
  • The author proposes the concept of “Transformative Adaptation” as a way to adapt to the changing climate, which involves a bottom-up approach and a focus on building resilience and community.

Key passage:

And: The exciting thing about this strategy that I am suggesting here is that a pivot from decarbonisation-centric to adaption-centric approaches is the one thing now that might execute a visceral wake-up call that could even yet make transformation rather than uncontrolled collapse our destiny: for adaptation is far better than mitigation/decarbonisation at demonstrating to people the reality and present-ness of our predicament. (This is why my friends the Francophone collapsologists say, paradoxically, in our book on Deep Adaptation, that the one thing that might now prevent collapse is enough people switching actively into assuming that collapse is coming and getting serious about preparedness.)

There is a small and rapidly closing windowto prevent uncontrolled civilisational collapse. That window just got a good bit smaller. The one conceivable way through the window is what we have (for some years now) called Transformative Adaptation’.  This will inevitably be mostly bottom-up. 



Read the full post at Brave New Europe - Climate Crisis.

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