(2017) The Long Summer : How Climate Changed Civilization
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1862076448?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback


The Earth's climate has always been in glacial periods and warm ones have slowly and relentlessly alternated for millennia. But the period of global warming of the last 15,000 years is without precedent, and it set the conditions which enabled civilization to arise. It is our 'long summer'. From the almost unimaginably hostile climate of the late Ice to the onset of 'Little Ice Age', which began in 1315 and lasted half a millennium, this book tells the remarkable story of how human history has been influenced by the planet's ever-changing climate. Brian Fagan deploys all the resources of the new climatology to reveal the complex interplay between human development and the weather. He shows that human beings have proved themselves to be at their most resilient and adaptable when the Earth's volatile climate has posed the greatest severe droughts in southwestern Asia, the drying of the Sahara brought cattle people to the Nile Valley with their distinctive ideas of leadership, and the ripple effects of the Medieval Warm Period had very different and profound impacts in Europe and the Americas. Confronted with such challenges, our ancestors time and again rose to meet

John Scheve - Global average 2 meter height air...
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19kfohArNF/

Global average 2 meter height air temperature is now + 1.69 degrees C (+ 3.04 degrees F) above the 1850-1900 baseline. We are likely rocketing to well above + 2 degrees C (+ 3.6 degrees F) in early 2027. There is no sugar coating this. Even though this temperature jump will be largely due to the record intensity El Niño and should ease back slightly by late 2027, the higher that margin goes the more mutual amplifications of climate feedbacks will occur, the more new feedbacks will kick in, and the more tipping points will be crossed irreversibly. There is unfortunately a growing possibility that Antarctic sea ice will shrink so dramatically this coming austral summer - reducing Earth’s reflectivity so much that the atmosphere will continue warming after this El Niño - which would trigger other feedbacks that dramatically accelerate global atmospheric warming to a runaway degree.

We are playing with not just fire but with a bomb in that further warming will trigger massive releases of methane and carbon dioxide from the melting of Arctic tundra and frozen sea floor hydrates on shallow sea floors and shelves in the Arctic plus around Antarctica.

The Holocene which began 11,700 years ago and enabled the rise of human civilization is no more. There is no going back to it barring rapid and massive greenhouse gas emissions reductions to near zero PLUS massive reductions of existing greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere PLUS developing and implementing some method of stopping the massive acceleration of uppermost ocean heat uptake. This is a long shot and it depends not only on global cooperation and resolve by all humanity working together but also on technologies yet to be developed. But we must give it all we’ve got or the warming trajectory we are on leads inexorably to extinction.

Living systems don't survive because they optimize. They survive because they engage in circularity, cooperation and robustness, leveraging diversity and mutual support to survive and thrive.

This can and should apply to human systems, as well.

Robustness Over Performance: What Biology Can Teach Us That Civilization Forgot
https://samanthasweetwater.substack.com/p/robustness-over-performance-what

Why Too Much Efficiency Makes Us Fragile with Olivier Hamant | TGS 230
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzzr15cEg3o

The gargantuan lie that is killing us

Adam McKay, the director of “Don’t Look Up”, on “The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate”, one of the “hulking distortions and misrepresentations watered and tended to by leaders, mass media, culture, and industry”, which are the most dangerous lies.

As Adam notes, “This particular sub-genus of grifts, half-truths and strategic omissions have led throughout modern history to wars, mass death, societal collapse, and the theft of humanity’s great treasures. ‘Manifest Destiny.’ ‘Aryan superiority.’ ‘The divine right of kings.’ ‘The domino theory.’ ‘Israel has a right to defend itself.’”

“However”, he adds, “there is one type of rare, gargantuan, towering lie that makes all the other mass lies throughout human history seem like frightened, scurrying, little adorable fibs.”

“It is”, he continues, “a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventually — as the deception entered mainstream culture — even by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day” — the lie that, “when it comes to climate change, we have more time.”

The Gargantuan Lie That is Collapsing The World’s Climate
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-massive-climate-lie-that-will-destroy-human-civilization

Power, Overshoot, and Climate with Tad Patzek | TGS 219
https://youtu.be/BXR94APZ31Q?si=WHCyi-LBxioPMJBD


Many of us were taught that humans have been the dominant force shaping the modern world through sheer grit, ingenuity, and innovation. While true to an extent, there are also deep, embedded laws of energy that have both constrained and enabled human cleverness and our influence over our surroundings. What exactly are these laws, and what happened in the past few centuries that allowed for an explosion of technology and consumption? Perhaps more importantly, how can that knowledge help us understand how the decades and centuries ahead might be different?

In this episode, Nate is joined by earth scientist and thermodynamicist Tad Patzek for a deep dive into the mathematics and physics driving humanity's energetic and material predicament. Tad walks us through the six great flows of power and materials that keep civilization running, and explains why our public conversation about all of them is dangerously detached from physical reality. He argues that planetary breakdown is not merely a side effect of an economic system built on growing these flows – it is a direct mathematical consequence of overshoot. He rounds out this picture by pointing out that every energy transition in history has been additive, not subtractive – increasing total power in the system – and the current push toward renewables is no exception.

What if we were to truly see ourselves through the lens of all the energy we consume – for Americans, the equivalent of a 40-ton whale – would that change how we live? How do technology, population, and per capita energy consumption amplify each other, creating an exponential demand for power? And if we were to acknowledge the inseparability of our ecological crises and our energy blindness, would it help us change our behavior in accordance with the kind of world we'd want our grandchildren to inherit?

“New research explores climate change and the limits of human progress…

"The deeper problem, he argues, lies in the complexity of civilization itself—a global industrial society that has grown both unsustainably expensive and dangerously vulnerable to the environmental stresses that accompany climate change."

"A lot of people confuse pessimism with nihilism, apathy and despair," Scranton said. "But pessimism is actually about recognizing our limits, letting go of unrealistic goals, finding solidarity in the fact of human suffering and doing what you can now, not in some utopian future."

"Modern pessimism emerged as a skeptical critique of early Enlightenment hubris, but it has roots in ancient wisdom from Sophocles to the Bhagavad Gita. Both the history of philosophy and modern insights from psychology show that pessimism is not only an effective way to deal with big problems, but a healthy approach to the unpredictability of circumstance, especially in fraught and difficult times."

In "Impasse," Scranton examines the "myth of progress"—how cultures have navigated societal collapse, failures in climate change communication, political extremism and "the end of the world as we know it"—ultimately concluding that the situation does not seem to be comprehensible within progressive modernity.

"Pessimism is fundamentally about recognizing and living within natural human limits,” Scranton writes. “It’s about recognizing that suffering is inevitable but not unbearable. It’s about learning to die and learning to live with death. And finally, it’s about committing to a radical and paradoxical hope: the hope that life might be worth living after the end of the world."

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-explores-climate-limits-human.html

SHEFIK: to boldly go where every civilization has gone before

ffs, co je tohle za uchylny level hry

On r/collapse, people are ‘kept abreast of the latest doom’. Its moderators say it’s not for everyone | Reddit | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/26/rcollapse-reddit-apocalypse-news


“Almost half of the members, when asked when they think collapse is going to happen, said that it’s already happening”
Anonymous r/collapse moderator

“The threat of nuclear war, genocide in Gaza, ChatGPT reducing human cognitive ability, another summer of record heat. Every day brings a torrent of unimaginable horror. It used to be weeks between disasters, now we’re lucky to get hours.

For many, the only sane solution is to stop reading the news altogether – advice often shared by therapists, self-help books and even newspaper articles.”

“But to bury your head in the sand until the day the apocalypse arrives at your doorstep is not necessarily the most tranquil, nor moral, of postures. In the sprawling Reddit community r/collapse, people instead try to stare unblinkingly at the unravelling of civilization. For the roughly half a million members here, many of whom joined in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic and two Donald Trump inaugurations, the arc of history feels more like a freefall.

This June, r/collapse was busy discussing the developing conflict between Iran and Israel, as well as “wet bulbs” (a far more humid and deadly type of heatwave), the millions of air conditioners being bought in India as temperatures rise and Trump’s plan to end Fema.

Pardon za délku, líbilo se mi na redditu, ještě jsem výrazně zkrátila :)

hyperobjects are a concept introduced by philosopher timothy morton to describe things so vast in scale, duration, or interconnectedness, existing through such vast expanses of space *and* time that they transcend the biological capabilities of human perception and comprehension. they are objects or phenomena that we interact with but cannot fully grasp due to their inherent complexity and distributed nature. hyperobjects include things like climate change, radioactive materials, global capitalism, or even the internet.

hyperobjects exist on such expansive spatial and temporal scales that they are quite literally everywhere and nowhere all at once. for example, you can experience the effects of climate change (like extreme weather), but you can never point to a single, tangible "climate change" because it is dispersed across the entire globe and throughout time. hyperobjects persist over timeframes that dwarf human lifespans. radioactive waste and climate change remain dangerous for thousand of years, potentially outlasting human civilization.

hyperobjects stick to you and are inescapable. you might try to avoid thinking about a hyperobject, but its presence infiltrates daily life like the slow creep of rising sea levels or the omnipresence microplastics in the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the soil your food is grown in.

hyperobjects exist not in isolation but in constant interaction with other objects and systems. for instance, the carbon cycle connects human industry, ecosystems, and atmospheric chemistry in ways that cannot be disentangled. hyperobjects are real, but they don’t appear fully at once. you can only perceive fragments of them through their effects (melting glaciers or sulfur dioxide in maritime shipping fuel) and through the models used to understand them (e.g., CMIP6).

hyperobjects push beyond what is called humanity’s epistemic horizon, the boundary of what we can conceptually process. they are too vast in both space and time, existing beyond the direct experience of one human lifespan. the geological timescales of climate change make it challenging to fully perceive its urgency or consequences. the causes and effects of hyperobjects are enmeshed in complex systems, making them harder to discern. global warming involves atmospheric chemistry, ocean currents, human behavior, economic systems and things we aren't even aware of. all of which often manifests indirectly, requiring abstract models, simulations, and data interpretation over time for us to engage with them meaningfully.

this sheer scale and complexity often leads to psychological overwhelm or cognitive dissonance, resulting in denial or inaction. humans often approach hyperobjects by breaking them into smaller, more manageable parts like focusing on reducing personal carbon footprints rather than addressing systemic industrial ecocide. even just recognizing a hyperobject requires collective action, interdisciplinary research, and systems-level thinking, again, over time. meaningfully addressing climate change would necessitate coordination between nations, localities, municipalities, industries, and individuals.

art, literature, and philosophy are further ways humans historically seem to engage with hyperobjects. perhaps the abstract, individual, hyperobject-like elements of art itself help to make hyperobjects themselves more relatable and comprehensible, even if only metaphorically. art can influence individuals as well as entire cultures.

COVID-19, UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena also known as ''the phenomena''), and AI all exhibit hyperobject-like characteristics. Also consciousness.

Ecological civilization (shengtai wenming ) has been written into China’s constitution as the ideological framework for the country’s environmental policies, laws and education. It is also increasingly presented not only as a response to environmental degradation in China, but as a vision for our global future. In this article, scholars from the disciplines of media science, anthropology and sinology analyse media representations of eco-civilization in order to explore which values and visions this highly profiled state project actually entails. The article argues that eco-civilization is best understood as a sociotechnical imaginary in which cultural and moral virtues constitute key components that are inseparable from the more well-known technological, judicial, and political goals. The imaginary of eco-civilization seeks to construct a sense of cultural and national continuity, and to place China at the center of the world by invoking its civilization’s more than 2000 years of traditional philosophical heritage as a part of the solution for the planet’s future. It is constructed as a new kind of Communist Party led utopia in which market economy and consumption continue to grow, and where technology and science have solved the basic problems of pollution and environmental degradation.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959378018304448

ad alarmismus a pošuci, kteří to přehání - zrovna dnes dorazila z US (ano, velmi ekologické) tahle kniha :-)

Earth First!: Environmental Apocalypse by Martha F. Lee | Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3286966

In the summer of 1980, Dave Foreman, along with four conservationist colleagues, founded the millenarian movement Earth First!. A provocative counterculture that ultimately hoped for the fall of industrial civilization, the movement emerged in response to rapid commercial development of the American wilderness. "The earth should come first" was a doctrine that championed both biocentrism (an emphasis on maintaining the earth's full complement of species) and biocentric equality (the belief that all species are equal). Martha Lee was successful in gaining extraordinary access to information about the movement, as well as interviews with its members. While following Earth First's development and methods, she illustrates the inherent instability and the dangers associated with all millenarian movements. This book will be of interest to environmentalists and those interested in political science and sociology.



+ soundtrack s dobovými samply ze zpravodajství ohledně jejich akcí (mluví tam mj. indiánskej náčelník vyjadřující se k jejich obsazení těžebního vrtu a končí to zvoláním "year 1987 is the most critical year in the history of human evolution")

An emotionally charged and bizarrely evocative look at radical environmental advocacy groups, mainly Earth First! and Earth Liberation Front, channeled through the memories of the Swedish Plogbill-movement and their actions throughout the early 90's. Monologue, snippets of interview segments, protest songs and site recordings are mixed up with the rather raw kosmische synth music Arv & Miljö has explored during the last couple of years. The result is a mesmerizing and multi-faceted audio collage; charmingly disorienting and chaotic but also harmonic and oddly soothing. Ultimately, Jorden Först is not so much about a certain cause or organization as it is about dedication, passion and the spirit of change. Originally released as a very limited CDr on Förfall in 2021, Jorden Först was quickly hailed as one of the absolute highlights in the vast Arv & Miljö discography among the ones that heard it. The recording was extended and slightly reworked and remixed for vinyl in July 2022.

Arv & Miljö - Jorden Först (Excerpt)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebb08BpaCnE

“Once even the memory of this high tech civilization is gone, and those who survive its fall has returned to a lifestyle not seen since the Neolithic age, only then can the slow regeneration of Earth’s resource base begin. Following the large wave of extinction we have so carelessly started, and once the climate has found its new equilibrium (hopefully still within a habitable range), life may start to heal and recover. New species and ecosystems may emerge. Volcanoes, plate tectonics may create and bring new ore bodies close to the surface, which our distant ancestors (or another “clever” species) would be able to mine…

Will they make the same mistake as we did, and restart this circle of destruction? Only time will tell.”

Entropy: A Revelation - The Honest Sorcerer
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/entropy-a-revelation

get an umbrella. .)

TUCKER: Let’s touch on climate change. It’s still being pushed in the United States and Europe. What’s your position?

PUTIN: Humanity is not even a Type 1 civilization on the Kardashev scale. If we can’t harness the energy potential of the planet how can we control the climate?

TUCKER: Are you at least concerned?

PUTIN: I’m more concerned with real issues. Climate change is not one of them. The Earth does a fairly good job of regulating itself. And if Siberia gets a little warmer all the better. More farmland for Russia.

TUCKER: But what would you tell the true believers who’re convinced we’re headed for disaster?

PUTIN: I’d tell them worrying about climate change is like complaining about the weather. If you don’t like the climate, move. If you are worried about the weather, get an umbrella.