0:01

Episode one. Welcome

0:04

to the Crumbles. The

0:06

screaming starts while you're rolling a shopping

0:08

cart down the aisle of your local supermarket.

0:11

You're trying to determine which canned meat

0:13

looks most appetizing. The price

0:15

of fresh meat has been rising steadily for the

0:17

last few years, but two months ago a

0:19

ransomware attack shut down several

0:21

massive meat processing plants in Brazil.

0:24

In Texas, the last four months

0:26

of wildfires also took their toll, burning

0:28

thousands of acres of pasture land and hundreds

0:31

of thousands of heads of cattle. So

0:33

you were trying to decide between the spam

0:35

and the canned chicken. When you heard the commotion

0:37

start a few wiles down from your position,

0:40

you knew immediately that it had to be about

0:42

coffee. In the last month, you've seen two

0:45

fist fights and a dozen screaming matches start

0:47

by the corner of the store that had once held dozens

0:49

of friendly, colorful bags of different coffee

0:52

brands. The last time it had looked that

0:54

way was a long time ago. Before

0:56

the great plantations of Central America

0:58

had succumbed to blight, fire and

1:00

drought, there was still

1:02

coffee capitalism always found

1:05

a way, but it was harsher and more bitter

1:07

than it had been before, and it was also

1:09

much more expensive. Each customer

1:11

was limited to one half pound per week

1:14

when it was in stock. You've gotten

1:16

lucky today and bought a bag, But evidently

1:19

another customer had been less fortunate. He

1:21

seemed to be screaming at a staff member,

1:23

berating her for the problems caused by a

1:25

supply chain that had been breaking for the

1:27

last decade. You couldn't

1:30

back it up with data, but you feel like this

1:32

sort of thing happens more and more often

1:34

every year, not just the supply

1:36

chain disruptions, but the outbursts of

1:38

violence and rage. You don't even

1:40

stop to watch the videos on social media

1:42

anymore. If customers screaming and starting

1:45

fights over the ground, beef that wasn't there

1:47

for their Fourth of July barbecue or whatever.

1:50

You can't tell me there's no coffee. I've

1:52

seen a dozen assholes with coffee in their carts.

1:54

If they have a right to it, I have a right do it. You

1:57

turn away from your cart and sneak a glance

1:59

down the other aisle in spite of yourself.

2:02

The angry man is heavy set around

2:04

six feet tall and wearing a T shirt with a

2:06

faded, thin blue line flag on its

2:08

back. He's yelling at a reedy young

2:10

man wearing the uniform of a grocery store

2:12

clerk. This poor kid had probably

2:15

been stalking apple sauce a few minutes earlier.

2:17

Now he was the target of this man's entitled

2:20

rage. I know you keep more in the

2:22

back. I don't give a shit about your excuses.

2:24

Get it. As the young clerk

2:27

tries to explain again that there's no

2:29

coffee left in the store, a security

2:31

guard rounds the corner at the other end of the aisle.

2:34

He yells hey and puts a hand

2:36

on the taser at his belt. Sir,

2:38

you need to leave. I'm not leaving

2:41

without my coffee. You

2:43

realize with a start that a small crowd

2:45

has started to form behind you. You feel

2:47

sudden anxiety at the fact that you've left your

2:49

cart undefended, and pull away from the scene

2:52

to put your hands on it. You were lucky

2:54

enough to get coffee and the last carton

2:56

of eggs, and a lot of customers in the

2:58

store would happily steal either. Mercifully,

3:01

your card has survived the altercation unmolested,

3:04

You wheel it away from the ongoing confrontation

3:07

towards the self checkout. Maybe

3:09

you can avoid the worst of the line that way.

3:12

The yelling stops, and as you wheel your cart

3:14

up to the checkout counter, you see the angry

3:16

man's storm out of the grocery store, cursing

3:19

under his breath. The security guard

3:21

and the clerk follow a few feet back and

3:23

stop when he exits the building. They

3:26

both sigh with relief, and for a few minutes,

3:28

you lose yourself in the task of running your

3:30

products through the self checkout. As

3:32

you prepare to pay, you happen to look up

3:35

just in time to see the angry man re

3:37

enter the store through the front door. You

3:39

see the gun in his hand an instant before he

3:41

raises it up just a few feet from the clerk's

3:44

face and fires. On

3:53

June, Victor

3:55

Lee Tucker Jr. Thirty walked

3:58

into the Big Bear Supermarket into Kalb

4:00

County, Georgia. A story employee,

4:02

forty one year old Lakita Willis, noticed

4:05

he was not wearing a face mask and violation

4:07

of the store's policies. Lookita

4:10

informed Victor that he would have to wear a mask

4:12

to continue shopping. Victor

4:14

Tucker left the store in a huff and returned

4:16

with a gun, which he used to murder Lakita

4:19

Willis and wound the store security guard,

4:21

an off duty sheriff's deputy. Lakida

4:24

and that security guard are not the only victims

4:26

of this sort of violence. At a Flint, Michigan,

4:29

dollar store, a forty three year old father

4:31

of eight and employee was shot dead over

4:33

a mask. The city of Stillwater,

4:35

Oklahoma, was forced to reverse a mask

4:37

ordinance when it led to a surge of violence

4:40

against service industry employees. We

4:42

could go on, but we won't. This

4:45

is it could happen here a podcast

4:48

about collapse dedicated to chronicling

4:50

where we all of us are headed

4:52

in the very near future if things continue

4:55

on their present course. The first

4:57

season of this show focused on the possibility

4:59

of a second to American Civil War, and

5:01

compared to that, perhaps a shooting in a grocery

5:04

store over coffee seems low stakes.

5:07

When Hollywood turns its eyes towards the

5:09

subject of collapse, they nearly always

5:11

focus on the exciting parts. Buildings

5:13

tumbling down, mass violence in the streets,

5:16

bandits and gunfights, and explosions, and

5:18

all the stuff that looks rad on a silver screen.

5:21

But that's not how collapse looks to most of

5:23

the people who are forced to endure it. Civilizations

5:26

die by paper cuts more often than

5:28

by bullets. Everyone listening

5:30

has and the last year in Change watched

5:33

the global society we live in take a

5:35

solid body blow in the form of

5:37

COVID nineteen. Many of

5:39

the terrible things we experienced that year.

5:41

The supply line crunches, the culture war

5:43

over masks, the anti lockdown protests,

5:46

the explosion of conspiracism among

5:48

millions of people stuck at home online. These

5:50

things are easy to attribute to the freak coming

5:53

of a plague. But COVID

5:55

was not a speed bump. It was the harbinger

5:57

of a new era. It revealed how

5:59

fra duel much of the infrastructure of modern

6:01

life truly was. I wrote

6:04

this episode while the city of Portland, Oregon,

6:06

braced itself for an unprecedented heat

6:08

wave, with temperatures nearing a hundred

6:10

and twenty degrees. Last year's

6:13

fire season saw Portland blanketed and a cloud

6:15

of rancid yellow smog. More than

6:17

half a million people living in Oregon had to

6:19

flee their homes over ten percent

6:21

of the state's population. Stores

6:24

ran out of respirators, fire axes,

6:26

and emergency supplies. The

6:28

American West's heat wave is a product

6:31

of the same thing that may soon strip the

6:33

coffee from your store shelves, climate

6:35

change. In April of one,

6:38

US coffee stockpiles hit a six year

6:40

low, even with Brazil's record twenty

6:42

twenty crop. That country is

6:45

now experiencing its most severe drought

6:47

in decades, which will sink production

6:49

further. The global coffee deficit,

6:51

the amount of the Earth's coffee production falls

6:53

below demand, is expected to hit ten

6:56

point seven million bags this year.

6:58

The previous project was a short fall

7:01

of eight million. In the vignette

7:03

that opened this episode, I mentioned a meat shortage

7:05

caused in part by cyber attacks on meat

7:08

processing plants that actually

7:10

happened. On May thirty first one,

7:13

JBS, the world's largest meat supplier,

7:15

was hacked, shutting down much of their operations

7:18

on Australia, Canada, and the United

7:20

States from a rite up. In the Wall Street

7:22

Journal quote the culprit

7:24

a ransomware attack didn't just hit its target,

7:27

it royaled the U s food industry from

7:29

hog farms in Iowa to small town processing

7:31

plants in New York restaurants. The hacks

7:33

set off a domino effect that drove up wholesale

7:36

meat prizes, backed up animals in barns,

7:38

and forced food distributors to hurriedly search

7:40

for new supplies. The attack was

7:43

the latest clash between cyber criminals

7:45

and companies integral to the functioning of the

7:47

U. S economy. It was another disruption

7:49

to the U. S food industry after the COVID

7:51

nineteen pandemic last year forced

7:53

weeks of plants shutdowns, and this

7:55

year an economic rebound has stretched suppliers

7:58

ability to meet demand. Now

8:01

I read that whole quote because it illustrates the way

8:03

all these problems build upon themselves.

8:06

Our supply chains are what mathematicians

8:08

call a chaotic system. If

8:10

your knowledge of chaos theory comes primarily from

8:12

Dr E and Malcolm, the gist of it is this

8:15

certain complex systems can be impacted

8:17

in huge, unexpected ways by seemingly

8:19

minor changes because so many things

8:21

are interacting at once that a change in one can

8:24

set off a chain of other changes. The

8:26

most common framing of this observation is

8:28

the phrase a butterfly flapping its

8:30

wings in China, can cause a hurricane in New

8:32

York, and variations of the same.

8:35

The world we live in and the infrastructure that

8:37

makes our daily lives possible, is such

8:39

a system. We've all seen ample

8:41

evidence of that over the last year. It

8:44

really hit home from me earlier in twenty

8:47

one when a friend of mine who works as an ear

8:49

nurse at a local hospital sent a message

8:51

to a signal chat for my local friend group

8:54

and warned, the hospital is full.

8:56

Don't get hurt. Initially,

8:59

we all assumed coronavirus was the cause,

9:01

but no, he explained very few of

9:03

the cases that had filled his r and multiple

9:06

overflow rooms had anything to do with a

9:08

viral infection. Instead, the

9:10

cause was a mix of things, people

9:12

celebrating in dumb ways as the state reopened,

9:15

overdoses and car accidents, et cetera.

9:17

In normal times, these might not have drained

9:19

the system, but a huge number of doctors

9:22

and nurses quit during the worst of the

9:24

plague. My friend calls

9:26

the period wherein now where aspects

9:28

of modern society that once seemed immutably

9:30

solid start to fall apart all at once

9:32

as the crumbles. I

9:35

find this a much more useful framework for

9:37

discussing the future than the dreams of collapse

9:39

shared by apocalypse obsessives. One

9:42

April second study showed that at least one

9:44

in five healthcare workers have considered quitting

9:47

as result of the virus. More than

9:49

thirty six hundred u S healthcare workers

9:51

died in COVID's first year. These

9:53

strains hit the medical system in the midst of

9:55

an ongoing drought and healthcare workers.

9:58

By five the u S is likely

10:00

to face a shortage of more than four hundred

10:02

thousand home health aids, twenty nine

10:04

thousand, four hundred nurse practitioners, and

10:07

between fifty four thousand, one hundred

10:09

and one hundred and thirty nine thousand

10:11

physicians. We went into the

10:13

pandemic with a shortage of doctors

10:15

and nurses. At least some of the six

10:17

hundred thousand American deaths from the virus

10:20

were certainly due to a lack of qualified

10:22

medical professionals, and now COVID

10:25

has further exacerbated that shortage,

10:27

ensuring that the next great strain on our

10:29

health care system it's even harder, which

10:31

will drain away more professionals, which

10:33

will make the next pandemic or natural disaster

10:36

even more devastating. This is

10:38

the way the crumbles work. Problems

10:40

feed into calamities and turn into catastrophes.

10:44

A healthy society has the wherewithal to diagnose

10:46

its problems and patch the holes in its systems

10:48

when they appear. We do not live

10:51

in a healthy society. The problems

10:53

that will confront us over the next fifty years

10:55

rising sea levels, out of control wildfires,

10:58

crop failures, greater waves of ref you geez

11:00

are no less imposing than the COVID nineteen

11:03

pandemic. The virus could

11:05

have been halted by something as simple as getting

11:07

everyone to wear masks and avoid crowded

11:09

indoor spaces for a few weeks. The

11:11

United States could not handle that. In

11:14

April, I watched a crowd of

11:16

anti lockdown protesters surround a group

11:18

of doctors and nurses in the Oregon state

11:20

capital Salem. The healthcare

11:23

professionals carried signs that said please,

11:26

we just don't want you to get sick. Protesters

11:29

spat at them and screamed diaper mouth,

11:32

mocking the face masks they wore. Several

11:35

of these protesters carried rifles.

11:38

As you probably guessed by now, this is

11:40

not a particularly optimistic podcast,

11:43

but It's also not my intention to infect

11:45

you with a sense of doom. The worst

11:47

problems we face all have solutions,

11:49

or at least strategies for adaptation

11:51

and harm reduction. To my mind,

11:54

our most pressing problems fall into

11:56

three broad categories. One

12:00

the environmental consequences of modern

12:02

civilization. This

12:04

is going to be by far the most unibomery

12:06

point I make to day, but it cannot be avoided.

12:09

As I type this, fires are burning throughout

12:11

Oregon, even in the famously wet

12:13

northern reaches of the state. Towns

12:16

in northern California with huge amounts of

12:18

rainfall thirty eight inches in some cases

12:20

are so low on water that citizens have

12:22

been restricted to fifty five gallons

12:24

per day. Prior to twenty twenty

12:26

one, Portland's record high temperature was a hundred

12:29

and seven degrees this June,

12:31

before the hottest part of the year. It beat

12:33

that record for three days straight. The

12:36

year before twenty twenty, Australia

12:38

suffered a mega fire, the largest

12:40

in its history, which burnt more than twenty

12:42

three hundred square miles. All

12:45

these fires are just preludes. The

12:47

world is only getting hotter from here on

12:49

out. As I write this, the United

12:51

Nations Climate Science Advisers issued

12:53

a draft report warning that the worst

12:55

projected impacts of climate change are

12:57

hitting much faster than previously expe

13:00

did. We will probably reach one

13:02

point five degrees celsius of warming

13:04

by twenty twenty six. Now,

13:07

for years, staying under one and a half

13:09

degrees celsius has been the goal. The

13:11

target amount of warming. Mainstream climate

13:13

scientists and climate conscious politicians

13:16

wanted to limit us too. If we

13:18

were to stop all other forms of emissions right

13:20

now, agriculture alone would

13:22

carry us over the one point five degree celsius

13:25

line in just a handful of years. Most

13:28

institutional messaging posits one point

13:30

five degrees of warming as the acceptable,

13:32

even relatively pleasant option. A

13:35

UN Climate Change tweet from earlier

13:37

this year made that point in image form, showing

13:39

depictions of the Earth's atmosphere in green,

13:42

yellow, and red one point five

13:44

degrees celsius, two degrees celsius,

13:46

and three degrees celsius plus with

13:48

the text. The difference between one point

13:51

five two degrees and three to four degrees

13:53

average global warming can sound marginal. In

13:55

fact, they represent vastly different scenarios

13:57

for the future of humanity. It

14:00

is true that two or three degrees of warming would

14:02

create a radically different world than less than

14:04

one and a half. But the data and

14:06

our lived experience has made it increasingly

14:09

clear that one point five degrees, which

14:11

we will hit period in the near

14:13

future, is a calamity

14:15

of almost incomprehensible dimensions.

14:28

The phenomenon we're all staring down the

14:30

barrel is called climate tipping.

14:32

One example of this would be unprecedented

14:34

heat waves causing mass wildfires, which

14:36

release more carbon into the atmosphere, which

14:39

speeds up warming, which accelerates the whole

14:41

cycle onward and upward. Scientists

14:44

in Europe recently found that climate tipping

14:46

is likely to cause sudden shifts in the Gulf

14:48

Stream, which will cause sudden and massive

14:50

temperature changes in normally tempered zones

14:53

like western Europe. The last

14:55

devastating heat wave to hit France and

14:57

twenty nineteen killed at least

14:59

fifteen dred people. This

15:01

particular study was the result of scientists

15:03

from eighteen universities working in tandem.

15:06

Their spokesman, doctor Michael Gill, told

15:08

fizz dot org quote these

15:11

results indicate that climate tipping is an imminent

15:13

risk in the Earth system. Even the safe

15:15

operating space of one point five or two degrees

15:18

above present generally assumed by the I p

15:20

c C might not be all that's safe. According

15:23

to the precautionary principle, we must

15:25

consider abrupt and irreversible changes

15:27

to the climate system as a real risk, at

15:29

least until we understand these phenomena better.

15:32

The central problem is that our previous models

15:35

were far too optimistic, largely in their

15:37

assumptions about how gradual the warming

15:39

caused by carbon release would be. Another

15:41

recent study, published in Science Advances,

15:44

analyzed twenty years of data to study

15:46

the transfer of carbon dioxide between

15:49

land plants in the atmosphere. Its

15:51

findings suggest that if present trends

15:53

continue, forests in twenty forty

15:56

will absorb only half as much carbon

15:58

dioxide as they do now. So

16:00

when we hit one and a half degrees celsius,

16:03

which we will permafrost will start

16:05

to thaw, releasing methane, which will

16:07

warm the planet. Forests will

16:09

hold less carbon, more fires will

16:11

burn, an estimated hundred and fifty

16:14

million people will die due to pollution.

16:17

These factors all make it likelier that we will

16:19

hit two degrees celsius of warming or

16:21

even higher, at which point we will experience

16:24

catastrophic permafrost thawing alongside

16:27

another two hundred and thirty billion

16:29

tons of carbon burping out of the soil.

16:32

The effects of this will be catastrophic for all

16:34

of us, but they will be particularly

16:36

disastrous for the traditional victims of capitalism

16:39

Africans. I want to quote from

16:41

an article in The Independent by Ugandan

16:43

writer Vanessa Naicaate quote.

16:46

This year, abnormally warm temperatures and heavy

16:49

rains have led to swarms of locusts destroying

16:51

hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops in East

16:53

Africa. Twelve million people in Ethiopia,

16:56

Kenya and Somalia are in dire need of

16:58

food. Lake Chad has runk to a

17:00

tenth of its original size over the last fifty

17:02

years. Half of Nigeria has

17:04

no access to water. It is hard

17:07

to be encouraged by stories of meatless burgers

17:09

or moonshot technologies when communities

17:11

around you are battling an endless and worsening

17:14

cycle of drought, famine, cyclones,

17:16

floods and destruction. This is

17:18

my world at one point to degrees celsius

17:21

of warming. This is not progress. Vague

17:23

distant targets for twenty thirty or twenty

17:25

fifty will not keep the world well below

17:27

two degrees celsius of warming, as

17:29

the Paris Agreement promised. I can

17:31

tell you a two degrees celsius

17:34

hotter world is a death sentence for countries

17:36

like mine. Now,

17:38

when you lay it all out like that, it can be pretty

17:41

overwhelming. For perspective's sake,

17:43

it is important to note that nearly all of

17:45

the carbon that's causing these problems was

17:47

released into the atmosphere within the span

17:49

of a human lifetime. It is, in short,

17:51

the result of industrial society and its

17:53

consequences. Right now, there

17:56

is more carbon in the atmosphere than at any

17:58

point in the last eight hundred thousand years,

18:00

and perhaps as far back as fifteen million

18:02

years. But all this carbon started

18:05

flowing into the atmosphere just three hundred

18:07

years ago in the seventeen hundreds, when

18:09

England started burning coal and kicked off

18:11

a global drive to industrialization.

18:14

The vast majority of the carbon in our atmosphere

18:17

was pumped out even more recently than that, as

18:19

David Wallace Wells writes in his book The

18:22

Uninhabitable Earth quote, the

18:24

majority of the burning has come since the premiere

18:26

of Seinfeld. Since the end of World War

18:29

Two, the figure is above eighty five percent.

18:31

The story of the industrial world's Kama Kaze

18:34

mission is the story of a single lifetime

18:36

the planet brought from seeming stability

18:38

to the brink of catastrophe in the years between

18:40

a baptism or bar mitzvah and a

18:42

funeral. That fact has a

18:44

tendency to inspire false hope and some if

18:47

the real problem only started a lifetime ago,

18:50

perhaps we can solve it in the space of

18:52

a lifetime. But reality

18:54

does not work that way, my friends. Once

18:56

the carbon is out there, released from trees

18:59

burning in millions of acres of wildfires,

19:01

from the exhaust pipes of hundreds of millions of cars,

19:03

or from the smoke stacks of factories, it

19:05

is there to stay. If we transitioned

19:08

entirely to nuclear power tomorrow, that

19:10

carbon would still be warming us

19:12

for decades. And as the globe

19:15

warms up, it dries out the soil, which

19:17

in turn heats the world further, which

19:19

pushes more people to install a c which

19:21

increases emissions, which dries out the soil,

19:23

which leads to wildfires, which releases more carbon,

19:26

and on and on and on and on it goes. And

19:29

this brings me to pressing problem number two,

19:32

the authoritarian renaissance. In

19:35

two thousand eleven, the Syrian Civil

19:37

War started, sending millions of Syrian

19:39

refugees fleeing into Europe. In

19:41

two thousand and fourteen and fifteen, nearly two

19:43

million people filed for asylum in the EU.

19:46

Contrary to popular opinion, experts

19:48

are heavily divided on whether or not climate

19:50

change played a major role in sparking the conflict,

19:53

but the refugee crisis did play a major

19:55

role in sparking something else, the rise

19:58

of Europe's authoritarian right wing. I'm

20:00

going to quote now from a Leibnitz Institute

20:02

for Economic Research report by Andreas

20:05

Steinmeyer. Quote. In

20:07

the Upper Austrian state elections in two thousand

20:09

fifteen, the far right Freedom Party of Austria

20:11

doubled its vote share from two thousand nine

20:13

and obtained over thirty percent of the vote with

20:16

a fierce anti asylum campaign. Polls

20:18

indicate that support for the Freedom Party remained roughly

20:20

at the level of two thousand nine state elections until

20:23

late two thousand fourteen, but subsequently

20:25

increased drastically. In two thousand fifteen,

20:27

When refugee numbers started to grow, the

20:29

salience of the issue in the media, measured

20:32

as the number of newspaper articles covering the refugee

20:34

situation, increased almost in proportion

20:37

to the number of asylum applications. Upper

20:39

Austria was no exception in Europe. The

20:41

Sweden Democrats, for instance, obtained five

20:44

point seven percent of votes in the two thousand ten

20:46

parliamentary elections in Sweden. After

20:48

that, support increased parallel to the rising

20:50

number of refugees, which increased earlier

20:53

in Sweden than in other European countries.

20:55

In parliamentary elections in two thousand fourteen,

20:57

the Sweden Democrats obtained twelve point nine

21:00

percent of the vault and pulled around twenty

21:02

percent in late two thousand fifteen at the peak

21:04

of the refugee inflow into Sweden. The

21:06

alternative for Germany a f D, was

21:08

not founded until two thousand thirteen. Poles

21:11

show was sharp increase in support of up to fifteen

21:13

percent along with growing refugee

21:15

numbers. Now During

21:18

the two thousand and sixteen election Canada, Donald

21:20

Trump in the United States constantly

21:22

harped on the danger of refugees from

21:24

Syria, but also from places in Latin America

21:27

like Guatemala, whose economies had

21:29

been devastated by climate change.

21:31

These climate refugees and the false perception

21:34

that they were causing crime and of violence, fed

21:36

into a rising American fascist movement

21:38

that is still with us today. Authoritarians

21:41

have always used fear of the other, and specifically

21:44

fear of foreign asylum seekers, to

21:46

stoke division. That part of their

21:48

job is only going to get easier. The

21:51

UN projects that by twenty fifty

21:53

an additional two hundred million people will be

21:55

climate refugees. This was the

21:57

entire population of planet Earth during the

21:59

high of the Roman Empire, clawing

22:02

desperately at the iron gates of any country

22:04

better off than where they've left. Climate

22:07

change doesn't just provide opportunities for authoritarian

22:09

politicians. It tends to make society

22:12

itself more authoritarian by increasing

22:14

military conflicts and domestic crime.

22:17

In two thousand and fourteen, the U. S Department

22:19

of Defense authored an annual Defense Review

22:21

that noted, quote the nature

22:23

in pace have observed climate changes and an

22:25

emerging scientific consensus on their projected

22:28

consequences pose severe risks

22:30

for our national security. The

22:32

report goes on to warn about conflicts

22:34

over resources, particularly water in

22:36

places like Lake Mead, Nevada and the

22:38

Colorado River system, where conflicts

22:41

over scarce water could spiral into violence.

22:43

As I write this, a group of militiamen under

22:46

the banner of Aim and Bundy have set up shop

22:48

by the Klamath River in central Oregon,

22:50

claiming to represent the interests of farmers

22:52

being denied their normal allotment of water due

22:55

to severe drought conditions. Bundy

22:57

at All have threatened to break onto federal land

22:59

are armed and released the water. As

23:02

that Department of Defense reports so aptly

23:04

noted, these effects are threat

23:06

multipliers that will aggravate stressors

23:08

abroad, such as poverty, environmental

23:10

degradation, political instability,

23:13

and social tensions, conditions that can

23:15

enable terrorist activity and other forms

23:17

of violence. We've already

23:19

seen how both main parties in the United

23:22

States react to violence and the perception

23:24

of violence. President

23:26

Trump responded to a popular uprising

23:29

against police brutality with a wave

23:31

of police brutality. He was

23:33

almost universally supported in his re election

23:35

bid by police unions. On January

23:38

six, at least

23:40

thirty one police officers took part in the

23:42

Capital insurrection aimed at keeping

23:44

Trump and power Despite

23:46

this fact, President Biden suggested in June

23:49

that communities should spend much of the three hundred

23:51

and fifty billion dollars in COVID nineteen

23:53

aid dispensed in May to hire

23:55

more police officers. A few

23:57

days earlier, his administration released its

24:00

plan for dealing with domestic terrorism,

24:02

inspired by the violence of the Capital Riot.

24:05

This included an additional hundred million

24:07

in funding for local law enforcement. All

24:19

this is to say that the state only has

24:21

one solution to deal with the problems we

24:23

will increasingly face, and that solution

24:26

is to put more men with guns in our communities.

24:29

Platoons of goons armed with grenade launchers

24:31

and armored vehicles may in fact provide

24:34

some protection to the people at the very top

24:36

of our society, but they will not protect

24:38

you. That's not just my own personal

24:40

bias speaking. And there were

24:43

more than eight hundred thousand sworn law enforcement

24:45

officers serving nationwide, the

24:47

highest number ever. That same

24:49

year, homicides raised nearly among

24:52

the nation's ten largest police departments.

24:55

The average clearance rate in those departments,

24:57

however, dropped by seven percent to

24:59

about This

25:01

means a few things. Murders rose

25:03

in the United States, with more cops than ever

25:05

before. Those cops solved

25:07

fewer of the murders committed than they had

25:10

in prior years. President

25:12

Biden's one budget included

25:14

twenty two billion dollars to fight global

25:16

climate change. His two

25:18

budget calls for thirty six billion

25:20

dollars in funding. That is a substantial

25:23

rate of increase, but even thirty six

25:25

billion dollars is only about one sixth

25:27

of what the United States spends on policing

25:30

and incarcerating its citizens each year.

25:32

The cost to stop global warming at

25:34

less than two degrees celsius is a

25:36

contentious issue, but one estimate

25:39

places it at as much as fifty trillion

25:41

dollars. Whether you buy that estimate

25:44

or not, by any sober analysis,

25:46

thirty six billion is a drop in the

25:48

bucket compared to what will be necessary to

25:50

avoid the worst case scenario. And

25:53

the worst case scenario is coming. If

25:55

we want to have any chance at avoiding it, we're

25:58

going to have to organize. And that brings

26:00

me to pressing problem number three,

26:03

weaponized unreality. Starting

26:06

in two thousand sixteen, Russian disinformation

26:09

became a major media buzzword. There

26:11

were stories about that nation's Internet

26:13

Research Agency, its armies of botanuts

26:16

and trolls aimed as stoking division and pushing

26:18

certain narratives into the American consciousness.

26:21

Russia absolutely has an advanced

26:23

disinformation operation, but the media

26:25

made a mistake focusing on them alone.

26:28

The reality of the situation is that nations,

26:31

corporations, political parties, extremist

26:33

movements, and every other organization with its

26:35

shipped together does the same thing the

26:37

Russians do. The name of the

26:39

game is to take lies, propaganda,

26:41

incendiary claims in rage bait and

26:43

use them to stoke the ire of millions

26:45

of people. I can't claim

26:48

credit for creating the term weaponized unreality.

26:50

That one goes to my friend Carl, but

26:53

the term does a brilliant job of describing

26:55

the problem. If the coronavirus

26:57

has taught us one thing, it's that the right

26:59

lies can be deadlier than a thousand

27:01

or six hundred thousand guns when

27:04

properly deployed. Weaponized

27:06

on reality is part of why our present

27:08

problems with climate change have gotten so

27:11

very dire. Starting in the nineteen

27:13

seventies, Exxonmobile and later

27:15

a host of other oil and gas companies, borrowed

27:18

a public relations strategy initially invented

27:20

to serve the needs of big tobacco. The

27:23

Union of Concerned Scientists describes

27:25

the strategy as manufactured

27:27

uncertainty by raising doubts about even the most

27:30

indisputable scientific evidence. Adopted

27:32

a strategy of information laundering by using

27:34

seemingly independent front organizations

27:36

to publicly further its desired message and

27:39

therefore confuse the public. Promoted

27:41

scientific spokespeople who misrepresent peer

27:43

reviewed scientific findings or cherry pick

27:45

facts, attempted to shift the focus

27:47

away from meaningful action on global warming

27:50

with misleading charges about the need for sound

27:52

science. That all sounds pretty

27:54

bleakly familiar to us now after a

27:56

year of dueling coronavirus conspiracy

27:59

theories matas de sized que and on bullshit

28:01

and stop the steel style election disinfo.

28:04

Weaponized un reality is often used

28:06

by politicians and grifters people

28:09

like Alex Jones or Andy No, to

28:11

make quick profits or energize their base

28:13

during an election. Such individuals

28:15

seldom consider or fully anticipate

28:18

the long term impact of building out an

28:20

alternate counter factual reality.

28:23

Think of former President Trump begging

28:25

his supporters to get vaccinated and trying to

28:27

take credit for the creation of a vaccine

28:29

that forty one percent of his followers think

28:31

is some sort of Chinese Bill gatesy and genocide

28:34

conspiracy. Or think of Mike Pence,

28:36

whose career is built on decades of right

28:38

wing lies about abortion, climate change, terrorism

28:41

in the economy. Now think of Mike huddled

28:43

in fear behind his bodyguards as a

28:46

mob of fanatics burst through the halls of

28:48

power with murder on their minds. The

28:51

problem with weaponized unreality is that

28:53

to really make it work, you have to craft

28:55

an entire alternate reality for

28:57

the true believers, one with its own meat

29:00

ea in its own self reinforcing cycle

29:02

of disinformation. This is extremely

29:05

profitable and creates a durable base

29:07

of support for the precise reason it is tremendously

29:10

dangerous. Two entirely separate

29:12

realities cannot coexist in the same political

29:14

system. The unreality that the

29:16

right wing has spent decades building is

29:19

centered around the contention that its enemies,

29:21

Democrats and the left, are literal

29:23

servants of Satan, hell bent on building

29:25

a system that will exterminate real Americans

29:28

and moss. At present,

29:30

twenty three percent of Republicans believe

29:33

Satanic pedophiles control the US

29:35

government, the media, and the financial

29:37

sector. Roughly fifteen to twenty

29:39

percent of Americans nationwide share

29:41

the same belief. Nearly thirty percent

29:43

of Republicans believe that patriots, which

29:46

their unreality has defined as white conservatives,

29:48

may need to resort to violence

29:51

in order to restore their version of American

29:53

values. The good news is that

29:55

a clear majority of Americans do not abide

29:57

by those views, but they don't need

30:00

two. In nineteen thirty

30:02

two, the National Socialist German Workers

30:04

Party had their best performance in a legitimate

30:06

election and got just thirty seven point

30:08

three percent of the vote. A minority

30:10

party can manage tremendous bloodshed if

30:12

they are sufficiently unified, their opponents

30:15

are sufficiently disorganized, and the political

30:17

system is biased in their favor. All

30:20

of those things were true of the Nazis in the nineteen

30:22

thirties, and all of those things are more

30:24

or less true of our situation now.

30:27

The next three years in change will bring continued

30:30

climate related collapse. This added

30:32

strain will reveal more and more of the holes

30:34

in our infrastructure. As I type

30:36

this, a massive condo complex in Florida

30:38

has just collapsed into a sinkhole, killing

30:41

dozens, and the state of Oregon has issued

30:43

a warning that a chlorine shortage threatens

30:45

the state's ability to properly sanitize

30:47

drinking water. A new study has revealed

30:50

that despite six months of counter disinformation

30:52

efforts, one third of Americans still

30:54

believe the election was stolen

30:56

by the Democrats, the same percentage

30:59

you believed that in No Wimber. On

31:01

June one,

31:03

American news network host Pearson

31:05

Sharp got in front of his viewers and said

31:08

this about the election he believed had

31:10

been stolen. How many

31:12

people were involved in

31:14

these efforts to undermine the election? Hundreds,

31:18

thousands, tens of thousands.

31:21

How many people does it take to

31:23

carry out a coup against

31:25

the presidency? And when

31:28

all the dust settles from the audit Arizona

31:30

and the potential audits in Georgia, Michigan,

31:32

Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin, what

31:36

happens to all these people who were

31:38

responsible for overthrowing

31:41

the election? What are the consequences

31:44

for traitors who

31:46

meddled with our sacred democratic

31:48

process and tried to steal power by

31:51

taking away the voices of the

31:53

American people? What happens

31:56

to them in their sundry internet?

31:58

Heidi holes Q and UN believes took this broadcast

32:01

as hard evidence that their long awaited storm

32:03

was coming and the mass execution of democratic

32:06

officials and journalists was about to begin.

32:09

I don't think I have to spend much time here saying how

32:11

dangerous this is. What I do want

32:13

to do is point out that Pearson Sharp was also

32:15

a major personality on Sputnik, a

32:17

Russian propaganda news outlet. I

32:20

don't bring this up to further any sort of Russia

32:22

Gate fervor, because I don't think that's one of our

32:24

main problems. But the kind of content

32:26

Pierson made for Sputnik is important.

32:29

His job was to repeatedly slander

32:31

the White Helmets, an organization

32:33

of Syrian volunteers who helped provide medical

32:35

aid and the immediate aftermath of Syrian

32:37

regime bombings. A complex

32:40

and sophisticated propaganda campaign

32:42

has turned them into boogieman for a sizeable

32:44

chunk of the international left. There are

32:46

conspiracy theories that the White Helmets actually

32:49

staged and faked all of the chemical

32:51

weapons attacks and bombings, but shar Al Assad's

32:53

air force did against civilian targets.

32:56

On June eleventh, two thousand eighteen, Pearson

32:58

took a state sponsor trip into Syria,

33:01

escorted by the soldiers of a dictator who

33:03

has killed half a million of his citizens. He

33:05

posted this, everyone, literally

33:08

everyone you made in Syria will tell you how grateful

33:11

they are to be living under government held areas

33:13

and that the Syrian army freed them from torture under

33:15

Western backed rebels. Only the terrorists

33:18

complain about being liberated. That

33:21

last line, only the terrorists

33:23

complain about being liberated strikes

33:26

hard within my soul. The point

33:28

of this digression is again not about

33:30

Russian propaganda, but about the kind of man

33:32

Pearson sharp is. He has made

33:35

for years a career out of denying

33:37

the violence of brutal dictators and

33:39

justifying massacres with propaganda,

33:41

and in one he's decided

33:44

that the trumpe Ist wing of the Republican Party

33:46

is the place to be. He is not alone.

33:49

The same night that one American news broadcast

33:51

dropped, Tucker Carlson got on his show

33:54

and in front of a graphic of a Democratic

33:56

Party donkey with the words anti white

33:58

Mania written in front of it, he said

34:00

this, The question that we should be meditating

34:03

on day in and day out is

34:05

how do we get out of this vortex, this

34:07

cycle Before it's too late. How

34:10

do we save this country before we

34:12

become Rwanda. It's interesting

34:14

that Tucker brings up Rwanda here, Interesting

34:16

and telling because the genocide that cost

34:19

a million people their lives in that country was

34:21

driven in part by a talk radio station

34:23

called r t l M. Scholars

34:26

describe r t l M as a de facto wing

34:28

of the extremest Hutu government that started

34:30

the massacre. Roughly ten percent

34:32

of the violence that occurred has been tied directly

34:35

to specific r t l M broadcasts.

34:38

Now, look, I promised this wasn't going to be a Dumer

34:40

podcast, and I mean to keep to that. While

34:42

the three factors I mentioned are churning us

34:44

all in the direction of hell, they're not

34:46

the only factors to consider. We,

34:49

the people who do not want to live in a dictatorship

34:51

or see the mass murder of our fellow citizens,

34:54

are in the majority, and we have tools

34:56

with which to fight against our enemies. The

34:59

last year and struggles of the pandemic have

35:01

brought with them a tremendous rise in the

35:03

number of organizations practicing mutual

35:06

aid. This term has its origins

35:08

and anarchist political theory, and is

35:10

very different from charity. In charity

35:12

and individual or organization with plenty

35:14

gives aid to people who cannot help themselves.

35:17

Mutual aid is when communities rise up

35:19

to serve their own needs without waiting

35:21

for their government or some in GEO to do it

35:23

for them. The goal of mutual aid

35:26

is not just to handle immediate needs,

35:28

but to build dual power.

35:31

When you build dual power, you are essentially

35:33

creating organizations that fulfill the useful

35:35

roles formerly filled or poorly filled

35:38

by the state. Doing this reduces

35:40

or eliminates people's reliance on the state,

35:42

and as a result, vastly increases the public's

35:45

bargaining position. If you want to force

35:47

massive sweeping changes on the system

35:49

will replace it entirely, you're

35:51

going to need to build dual power

35:54

first. Mutual aid is

35:56

also just fucking inspiring, And when

35:58

you spend as much time staring into the this as we

36:00

all do these days, you need inspiration.

36:03

While researching this article, I came across

36:05

a wonderful piece and The Guardian about

36:07

the rise of mutual aid, and I want a quote

36:09

from it here. During the final

36:11

thousand days of the Second World War, shipyard

36:14

workers in the San Francisco Bay area produced

36:16

one thousand warships a warship a day.

36:19

Something like that epic urgent industry seems

36:21

to be at work now, but outside the federal government

36:23

or any government. In early April, the

36:25

Bay Area branch of the news site Hoodline

36:28

reported on Thursday morning, two tons

36:30

of rolled sheet plastic arrived at a warehouse

36:32

in Alameda. By the end of the weekend, it had

36:34

become sixteen thousand plastic face shields.

36:37

That remarkable turnaround is entirely owed

36:39

to self organization by Bay Area makers

36:41

who have transformed maker spaces, universities,

36:44

fabrication shops, and almost anyone

36:46

with their own sewing machines, C and C machine,

36:48

or three D printer into an ad hoc core of

36:50

medical supply manufacturers. The

36:52

report called the self organized effort involving

36:55

industrial design students and teachers a

36:57

distributed factory. Let's

36:59

do send. Realized efforts organized without

37:01

top down authority are exemplary

37:04

mutual aid. In April fourteenth,

37:06

nurses and seven doctors from the same institutions

37:09

set off for a one month assignment on the Navajo

37:11

Reservation, whose residents are facing

37:13

high levels of infection. They were coordinated

37:16

by the existing ucsf Heal

37:18

Initiative, which works with impoverished

37:20

and vulnerable communities from Haiti to Nepal.

37:23

Its mission statement is we seek to embody

37:25

solidarity and contribute to the movement for global

37:27

health equity led by communities themselves.

37:30

This initiative, based on the principle of solidarity

37:33

not charity, has been working with communities

37:35

under stress for six years and will still

37:37

be there when the immediate crisis is over.

37:40

When faced with the looming specter of fascism

37:42

and gangs of heavily armed racists spent on

37:44

massacrring the other, mutual aid

37:46

may seem like a poor defense at best. This

37:49

is not the case. It is, in fact, the only

37:51

thing that can pull us back from the brink. Weaponized

37:55

on reality works because people are angry,

37:57

confused, and frightened. Now

38:00

of the thirty of Republicans willing to kill

38:02

to save their concept of America are

38:04

bigots, and the things that confuse and anger

38:06

them are equality in progress. But

38:08

those people are only dangerous at scale

38:11

when there is a much larger number of less

38:13

radical people scared and confused enough

38:15

to buy into their lies. The one

38:17

thing that can cut through lies, that can build

38:19

the empathy necessary to forestall terror

38:22

is community. When you help people

38:24

with their material needs and provide them

38:26

with a community that makes them feel valued

38:28

and cared for, they are unlikely

38:31

to support your murder. Effective

38:33

mutual aid also undercuts the ability of

38:35

authoritarians to profit as much from

38:37

climate change. When the system falls

38:40

apart, authoritarians always promised

38:42

to fix it. The best way to put lie to that

38:44

promise is to build a better solution

38:46

to the problems, one that works in

38:48

real time periods of collapse,

38:51

and we are right now all living through collapse,

38:54

our times in which people are more open

38:56

to new modes of living, new visions

38:58

of how the world could exist. That's

39:00

why these times are so dangerous, but

39:02

it's also why they hold so much promise.

39:05

Right now, we face the risk of falling together

39:08

into the darkness, but we also have

39:10

the opportunity to build a new world from

39:12

the ashes of the old. Either

39:14

way, we'll be doing it together. For

39:17

my part, I know which option I prefer.

39:20

What about you,