Important Update 7th March 2023: Note that having been (while deep in my own existential personal suicidal bereavement/crisis) very worried about ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ a few years ago, especially after engaging with Jem Bendell’s ‘Deep Adaptation’ viral paper and movement, and with similar doom-ridden supposed scientific evidence of ‘no human life left on Earth by 2030′ (or even 2025), I realised increasingly from about 2019 that Earth’s warming is part of wider solar system changes and nothing really to do with human carbon ’emissions’. In fact carbon is what enables plants and trees to grow, and the evidence of sea-rises and glacial catastrophes is highly questionable at best, and politically corrupt and evil at worst.
This does not alter my belief that we have an ecosystem crisis, notably pollution of the seas and land and air by vast corporations, which needs fixing.
The remainder of this post is as it was originally written.
I’ve become quite involved in the leading edge of climate change/environment awareness in recent months – it’s a natural extension to suicide prevention, because the fundamental causes/solutions are basically the same.
This applies to other existential threats (to life on earth).
Ultimately this is about what it is to be human.
At this stage I’m simply sharing what I know, because this is now more serious than most people appreciate, and actually it’s almost impossible for anyone to absorb and consider this fully.
Up-to-date: Prof Jem Bendell at the European Commission a few days ago. https://youtu.be/Ke1PCgiM3V4
Jem Bendell (Cumbria University, Sustainability Leadership) is a world-leading authority on this, and especially the apocalyptic end of it. https://deepadaptation.ning.com/
Guy McPherson, Arizona University, is even scarier and says no human life by 2025. Of course most people would say he’s a crank, but he’s closer to the truth than common perceptions and ‘mainstream’ governance. https://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/climate-change-summary-and-update/
Also this is useful: https://youtu.be/5uTmUkIf9Lg and http://www.scientistswarning.org/
There’s a lot more on the web if you follow the connections and main people, including the Extinction Rebellion movement. https://rebellion.earth/
The UN’s latest report and David Attenborough are arguably highly optimistic. Governments are paralysed, arguing internally about power, and mostly aligned with big business, which also controls the media.
Take from all this what you will. It means different things to different people.
To me the relationships between existential survival (climate change, environment, pollution, consumption, population, big technology, big business, consumerism, waste, broken economics, politics, education, diplomacy, pece, love, gratitude, authenticity, etc) and suicide prevention offer very big clues and hope.
For example a suicidal person or a homeless person, or a terminally ill person, or a person struggling to survive in a drought or famine or war-zone or plague, is not as worried about human extinction as people who have plenty of money, food, power, luxuries, warmth, shelter, safety, etc. The weak are the strong, is a way to see it. Suicidal ideation, and other life-threatening traumas, offer a powerful lens, and a way to rebuild, towards a fully grown perspective and peace. There are other ways. Empathy cannot generally be taught; it is most reliably attained by experience.
Positive Disintegration offers clues also. bit.ly/pos-dis especially www.positivedisintegration.com
To me we must come to terms with our own mortality, life and death, and what it is to be human, and this will help us reduce the extent of the various disintegrations that have been happening for decades, and which now threaten us all, not just threaten the millions of nameless people who die every year due to the damage done to the planet.
As I say I’m just letting you know what I know. Take it easy when you think about all this. Talk to people about it. We are all in this together, and we must work together to find our way through it.
Love,
Alan Chapman