reading log: back to nature

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@@ -6,6 +6,105 @@ author: Joe Carstairs
 
 ## 2026-04-30
 
+### @{back-to-nature}
+
+The stated goal of this book was to get you to take some individual action,
+giving examples including taking the bus, eating less meat or joining a protest.
+It used a hodgepodge of different rhetorical strategies, many of which I utterly
+despised, though some were better. There were some interesting examples of these
+strategies:
+
+- Threatening impending apocalyptic catastrophe to support government action
+- Individual action is the ultimate cause, so individual change of behaviour is
+  the only solution
+- We are complicit: don't be complicit! Don't tolerate apocalyptic evil!
+- What we need to do is respond rationally to the scientific facts, the problem
+  is we don't behave rationally enough or don't listen to the scientific facts
+- Community projects are better than top-down approaches, and they begin by
+  putting up gates to keep out the bad people, ie the homeless and those
+  suffering from drug addiction
+- Apocalyptic language can wake us up from our complacent stupor
+
+In fact, I already hated it by the time they'd stated the problem. The mystery
+for the authors is to explain 'our human reluctance to change our mindsets and
+behaviours', and in particular, why the scientific facts are not enough to do
+that, but in contrast tend to arouse offence, in their view, the most important
+obstacle to conservation. The answer, according to them, rests in the fact that
+political thought is associated with the prefrontal cortex, which happens to
+also be associated with personal expression; as well as the psychological theory
+of optimism bias and brain scans revealing that human beings struggle to take
+action in respond to gradual threats. They assert that in order for human beings
+to do anything, they need to be trained in a Skinner box to do that thing: this
+is a sad scientific fact.
+
+This to me was utterly bizarre and made me angry. Not only did they assume that
+the best way of explaining human behaviour is by scanning their brains or
+turning to psychological rules of thumb, ignoring cultural or rational
+explanations altogether and reducing human beings to dumb machines, they also
+assumed that the key problem for conservation is individual behaviours, ignoring
+culture, politics, and economics. Ugh!
+
+This emphasis on individual action, and ignorance of systemic issues, ran
+through the book. Plastic pollution is caused by me and you littering, and the
+right responses are beach cleans, 3 Rs, ethical consumption, and signing a
+petition. 'Hope is the driver that underpins all these actions [...] Remember,
+you're in the driving seat and the corporations and big companies are your
+wheels. If you turn right, they will turn right too. Eventually.' The book
+concludes with an assertion that 'we can make a difference'.
+
+The better side of this came out in a later chapter, when the authors played the
+judge, and declared various groups guilty: politicians, the mass media, the
+industry leaders. But then they turned to us: we are also guilty, because we
+prefer to go along with it rather than risk conflict. The author reflected on
+how they regularly fed treats with palm oil to their dogs, contrasted the joy of
+their dogs with the destruction of the rainforests, and decided that this could
+no longer be tolerated.
+
+This passage got me thinking: what does resisting the temptation of the Beast
+look like today, with a green focus? The rhetorical line here seems really quite
+like John's.
+
+There was an apocalyptic narrative of a community project in Holyland, Belfast,
+which was diabolical in a way I haven't encountered much yet. It was a
+transformation story, and the transformation started by -- this is a genuine
+quote -- when the community 'put up some gates to keep out the reprobates'. Holy
+smokes! That's not the kind of green apocalypse we want.
+
+There was also an apocalyptic narrative around the Climate and Ecological
+Emergency Bill, encouraging people to write to their MP or join a protest in
+support of the Bill. According to the Climate Change Committee, net zero by 2050
+only gives a "'greater than fifty per cent' [...] chance of avoiding climate
+catastrophe". The Committee recommended preparing for 2-4C of warming, 'for
+which read ... Armageddon. [...] the end of life as we know it.' A good
+illustration of how apocalyptic symbols and forms can be used to try and
+motivate political action, and in particular action to avoid an impending
+future catastrophe.
+
+As examples of action, the authors raised: gardening, ethical consumption, art.
+But they ultimately placed a higher value on political activism. Their models
+are Greta Thunberg, Ghandi, MLK and (curiously) Spartacus. We know that Greta
+Thunberg is a good model because thousands of people joined her movement around
+the worldand she got lots of praise and even money. We should be like Greta and
+take action, whatever action we can.
+
+To me, this emphasis on hero-activists is alienating and makes me want to stay
+at home, because I don't believe that I will be the one-in-a-million who will
+start a massive movement, and therefore don't believe that I can make any
+significant difference. The emphasis is on making a difference: implicitly,
+then, if you can't make a difference (almost all of us) you might as well stay
+at home.
+
+There was a decent bit on p290 arguing that we have come to increasingly accept
+the catastrophe, the numbers have lost their meanings, we forget that they are a
+death toll. 'We must wake up from our complacent stupor, because as every one of
+us knows, we are presiding over a very real ecological apocalypse and conducting
+a mass extermination in our own backyard, literally my backyard and yours. [...]
+But, critically, it is not too late; there is hope and a lot more besides. [...]
+We can make a difference. [...] We don't all have to agree about all the
+details, but we must agree on our shared agenda.' I liked the idea that we need
+to 'wake up from our complacent stupor' and the role of apocalyptic language to
+achieve that, but disliked that idea that 'we' (whoever that is) are in control.
+
 ### @{green-utopias}
 
 Garforth pointed out that climate apocalypses are out there and having both