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Alex Steffen Profile picture
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19 Nov, 4 tweets, 1 min read
There is no issue in American political life that comes close in magnitude and seriousness to this reality, that we have moved into a change of era.

Such a total collapse of leadership—that we effectively have no public discourse about the reality in which we now find ourselves.
It can make a fella tired.
More here:

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/the-last-hur…
The politically possible and the objectively necessary do not overlap these days.

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More from @AlexSteffen

Alex Steffen Profile picture
18 Nov
We're on our own, guys.

No one's coming to save us.

This isn't going to be "made right."

Personal ruggedization is no longer an idle consideration.

Indeed, there are reasons to believe it should be a primary concern for every family.

My next letter is about this clusterf***.
Right now, we see a real appetite for what I call safe utopias — fantasies where the planetary crisis is so successfully addressed that continuity is restored, and zero-sum conflicts over the pace of change become irrelevant.
But this is no utopia, and nothing about this situation is safe.

Imagination is powerful, and necessary, but imagining possibilities arising from a world where we aren't, and then treating our visions as anticipations of our options in this actual world is dangerous and deluded.
Read 6 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
16 Nov
We are surrounded by failure.

The climate mov't should be having a scathing self-examination about whether the strategic assumptions, organizational cultures and ideological assertions guiding climate activism work — or are part of the problem.

I see 0% chance that will happen.
We'll see how many people have the courage to even retweet this idea.
I'm hearing/seeing/reading so many urgent demands that the climate movement be exactly what it's always been, but more so!

It's like the old generals saying, after the Somme—after a million dead—that all we need is the right *kind* of frontal assault, with the proper spirit...
Read 5 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
15 Nov
In foresight circles, there is much discussion of general-purpose technologies.

These are techs that change everything: Printing, steam, computation.

Much effort is spent anticipating what's next.

I think, tho, that the planetary discontinuity is what will next fill that role. Image
It's orthogonal, uncomfortable to imagine.

We like to think of game-changers as being either events in the world that happen to us, or technologies we create that let to change the world.

The idea shifts in our physical relationship to the world can have similar impacts is new.
But the physical world is not just the environment in which our actions play out, it is deeply interconnected with every action we can or could take.

A physical-world discontinuity of this magnitude, then, is also a massive social, cultural and technological discontinuity...
Read 6 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
15 Nov
The central error in thinking about the planetary crisis is believing if we tackle the climate and ecological destruction that hurled us into this new era, then we'll return to a world that works the way it worked before (or the way we thought it worked).

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/were-not-yet…
Discontinuity is a one-way trip.

The forces unleashed by the climate/ecological crisis are even stronger than the climate chaos and ecological collapses we rightly fear.

If we "solve" the climate/ecological crisis, we'll still live in a planetary crisis for generations to come.
Belief we can "reverse" climate change, "regenerate" nature & *thereby restore continuity* absolutely undermine the urgency we should feel as we face the scope, scale and speed of the changes we need to make to live sustainably on the planet we've now permanently transformed.
Read 5 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
13 Nov
I'm inclined to think that the biggest ratcheting up we've seen at #COP26 is the increased pace of NDC submissions, which at least carries the possibility of a stronger debate about accelerating progress.

Convince me something else in #glasgowclimatepact was a big win.
This part
"requests Parties to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022"

unfccc.int/sites/default/…
Public discussions of targets, timelines, curves and the tempo of needed actions are themselves disruptive, as I've discussed before.

alexsteffen.substack.com/p/all-real-sus…
Read 6 tweets
Alex Steffen Profile picture
13 Nov
City climate plans that do not involve massive and rapid building — tons of new housing for all incomes and household types, low-carbon infrastructure, streetscape investments, and real ruggedization measures — are just urban planning triangulation.
They allow planners and their constituencies to feel virtuous about embracing the big goal of climate action (or climate justice), then make small steps into evidence of commitment.

They defend rent-seeking and opportunity-hoarding behaviors from demands for disruptive change.
Climate triangulation, in another context:

Read 4 tweets

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