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Alex Steffen @AlexSteffen
, 7 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
Using the word "transition" to describe the changes climate action and response are unleashing on our societies carries two unhelpful connotations.

The first is a change from one long-term state to another.

The second is of a gradual, controlled pace of change.

Both are wrong.
One of the most pernicious mindsets we have is the idea that change is a period of time we will go through before arriving at a stable state, a long-enduring and perhaps unchanging kind of civilization.

It's a secular form of religious utopia.

2/
The truth is almost certainly that we're in for decades, perhaps centuries, of upheaval—of often rapid shifts in our climate, ecosystems, economy, societies, technologies, and geopolitics.

There is no "there" to get to on the other side of a transition.

3/
As far as I can tell—and my job is to explore these things—the most challenging aspect of this planetary crisis is exactly this erosion of stability, of predictability, of continuity... not only of the loss of "normal," but the unlikelihood of a "new normal" arising.

4/
Things change, and the change fast—including in many ways that are unprecedented since the dawn of settled habitation—and they just keep changing, even long after we've remade the human world to fit sustainably into the natural planet.

5/
I find the word "transition" to weak to carry the weight of these concepts, even if we stretch its meaning to include them.

6/
(Pardon the typos)
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