The faulty science, doomism, and flawed conclusions of Deep Adaptation | openDemocracy
https://www.opendemocracy.net/...nomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/
To be totally clear, we argue that all of the following are simultaneously true:
1. There is an unprecedented global climate and ecological emergency. If governments do not undertake enormous measures to mitigate climate change, then some form of “societal collapse” is plausible — albeit in varying forms and undoubtedly far worse for the poorest people.
2. Policymakers and society at large are not treating this grave threat with anything approaching sufficient urgency.
3. The climate crisis is dire enough in any case to justify urgent action, including mass sustained nonviolent disruption, to pressure governments to address it swiftly.
4. However, neither social science nor the best available climate science support Deep Adaptation’s core premise: that near-term societal collapse due to climate change is inevitable.
5. This false belief undermines the environmental movement and could lead to harmful political decisions, overwhelming grief, and fading resolve for decisive action.
6. Respecting the distinction between the coming hardships and unstoppable collapse clarifies our agency to minimise future harm by mitigating and adapting to climate change, whilst freeing us from moral and political blinkers.
The Darkest Timeline
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/style/climate-change-deep-adaptation.html
In July, with Colleen Schmidt, who is 24 and has a degree in environmental biology from Columbia — and who acted as their de facto editor — they published a paper.
“I would call it a hit piece on the paper and by implication, the framework and the movement,” Mr. Bendell said. “It was quite upsetting, and I wasn’t sure how best to respond.”
About two weeks after Mr. Hall, Mr. Nicholas and Ms. Schmidt published their paper, Mr. Bendell released a second version of his Deep Adaptation paper.
“This paper appears to have an iconic status amongst some people who criticize others for anticipating societal collapse,” he writes. “Therefore, two years on from initial publication, I am releasing this update.”
The stark statement that had opened the original paper was altered. Once, it had said its purpose was to provide readers “with an opportunity to reassess their work and life in the face of an inevitable near term social collapse due to climate change.” Now, to emphasize that the idea remains unproven, it reads “in the face of what I believe to be an inevitable near-term societal collapse.” Mr. Bendell added a sentence stating plainly that the paper does not prove that inevitability.
As the summer of 2020 ended, he announced on his blog that he would be stepping back from the Deep Adaptation forum, a decision he said he’d been planning for a year.
In this quiet, he is working on a new paper. In it, he said, he plans to explain exactly how the coming catastrophe of our society will play itself out, describing the starvation and mass death that so many anticipate.
The three young people who wrote the paper rebutting Deep Adaptation agree that the climate crisis has already resulted in horrific loss and that it will continue to exact a heavy toll. But they also believe that governments around the world can still make a difference and should be held to account, instead of being lulled into inaction by despair.
“We’ve lost some things,” Ms. Schmidt said. “We could lose everything. But there is no reason not to try and make what can work, work.”