Managing the Crash

“How do we bring together a grassroots-led response, the likes of which we have never seen, to a threat the likes of which we have never faced?”

This small workshop is free, and if you’re free then you are welcome to book and to come and join us at the Pearce Institute, Govan, Glasgow, 10am to 4.30pm, Thursday 11th November.

The workshop is called ‘Managing the Crash: How do we meet our needs as we end a system that can’t save us from itself?’  

It will focus on how to enable a leap in our collective imagination so that we can envisage, and then bring about, a transformation to our economy, so that the way we live enables all others to live well, rather than causes untold suffering.

We see this workshop as a crucial first step, to help us free up our imaginations ahead of a second workshop (in December/ January) that will embark on the transition design process (‘Managing the crash’) that we had originally envisaged we would be doing at this workshop.

The basis for the workshop is:

the need for radical action – for turning the world upside down, or rather right way up – because of the domain systems destruction of ecosystems and social systems, and the fact that this system cannot and should not continue;

the need to suspend our disbelief that we could do this: we can only move forward together if we have some kind of plan – and we can only plan if we believe we can move forward;

grounding in Scotland and taking action here but also opening up internationally (acknowledging climate justice issues globally);

building on the ‘Plan, Pause, Reset’ idea – a plan to create a ‘minimum necessary economy’;

working with our deeper knowing – imagination, body (our need to stay in calm regulation – and know what to do when we’re not); and

our need to create spaces to allow new ways of thinking and processing to emerge – as current ways aren’t working for us.

The form of the workshop is:

Participatory/ experiential, rather than presentational/ analytical.

It will create a more embodied, relaxed space for people to explore the question ‘What would a period of meeting only our most fundamental needs look and feel like?’

Using COVID first lockdown as a doorway towards a longer term scenario, we’ll be exploring:

‘Which of our needs were met – and not met – during lockdown? What did we see happening for other people’s needs?’

‘What if we hadn’t hung on to Business As Usual, and instead enabled the changes that were asking to happen?’

‘In a world where we had decided to pause everything except what’s essential in our economy – what would I really, really need? What would I be able to do without? What would bring me joy?’

By noticing when our neural pathways (our habits of thought and feeling) are activating us into pulling back towards what we’re used to, we hope to give ourselves space to think/ feel/ act/ connect differently, and so help enable alternative neural pathways and explore what is truly possible.

The workshop will draw on Active Inquiry’s forum theatre approach, ProcessWork’s awareness of how the world systems impact on us, and Grassroots2Global’s awareness of the need to reclaim our politics from colonisation/ domination/ trauma, through enabling well facilitated, locally-grounded, internationally-connected direct democracy.

We really hope you’ll be able to join us. Details here.

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Comments (22)

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  1. Mark Bevis says:

    Too far away from me, but sounds a brilliant idea. And approaching it with words that make sense.

    “Managing the Crash” is a much better title than “net zero by 2050” or other such nonsense, because it shows ACCEPTANCE that this civilisation is at an end, and far from wasting a lot of energy, time and resources trying to fix the unfixable (eg COPOUT26-32) it is promoting discourse on what comes next. Good luck, I do hope you are able to report back the results of the meeting to Bella Caledonia.

    I do envisage a post-fossil fuel world as similar to a pre-fossil fuel world, so we can look to 1750 and earlier for what society did right and did wrong. I offer this for anyone interested, bookmark this site for good discussion of past practices:

    https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/

    1. Mons Meg says:

      ‘…it shows ACCEPTANCE that this civilisation is at an end…’

      Indeed.

      I’m not so confident that the outcome of the revolution can be managed, though, from the top down (COP) or from the grassroots up (G2G): too many ‘impredictables’.

      Out of chaos comes a dancing star.

  2. Paula Becker says:

    ‘Which of our needs were met – and not met – during lockdown?’
    All of your needs were met during lockdown because working class people kept grafting while middle class people stayed home safe – safe from a disease which is no more dangerous than the flu.
    I wish you luck with the workshop. The problem that you have is that the elite class have made their move and now you are playing catch up. Possibly you haven’t even recognised that they’ve made a move. Possibly you still think that the response to the ‘pandemic’ was all about public health, when in fact it was a faked emergency with a fake solution -the ‘vaccines’ – in order to bring in the vax passport which will later grow into a full-blown digital ID, the better to surveil you with. All this leads to increased authoritarianism and under an authoritarian regime your chances of protesting or mitigating the worst aspects of climate change will be nil.
    Your best bet at present is to join the millions of workers across the world who are protesting against vax passports. Left and Right are now gone – dissolved by the fake emergency. You are either fighting back against authoritarianism or you are ushering it in.

    1. Thanks Paula – was the whole vaccine fake?

      1. Paula Becker says:

        Hi Mike, I’m not understanding your question – can you be more specific.
        A question for you : Do you support mandatory vaccination of NHS workers?

        1. Hi Paula – you wrote “Possibly you still think that the response to the ‘pandemic’ was all about public health, when in fact it was a faked emergency” – I’m asking you in what way was it a fake? Who organised this globally?

    2. Mons Meg says:

      Your digital ID’s already here, Paula, in the form of your metadata, which is farmed from the data you supply to governments and other corporations through your digital devices. Vax passports are just one of the means by which the state and quasi-states seek to farm the data they need to manage public health.

      Anyway: I’m away to get my ‘booster’ and flu vaccination tomorrow; it’s my duty as a citizen, like voting or jury service.

      1. Paula Becker says:

        Hi Colin, do you support the mandatory vaccination of NHS workers?

        1. Mons Meg says:

          No, but as good citizens they should obey the law, albeit under protest if they personally object to that law.

    3. Mark Bevis says:

      Whether true or not, the increase in digital ID services and surveillance merely hastens the collapse, as it uses more and more energy and resources – the more energy we use, the sooner we get to the Seneca cliff and it all comes tumbling down. The elites won’t be able to carry out mass surveillance when the electricity is intermittent. So there are a few positives to Overshoot.

      1. Mons Meg says:

        The elites don’t carry out mass surveillance. Mark; they don’t need to. It’s enough for the panopticon effect that they can gather and store our data.

      2. Paula Becker says:

        Hi Mark, do you support the mandatory vaccination of NHS workers?

  3. Paula Becker says:

    And you Justin, do you support mandatory vaccinations for NHS workers?

  4. Mark Bevis says:

    “Hi Mark, do you support the mandatory vaccination of NHS workers?”
    No, because it doesn’t follow the science. Being double vaccinated doesn’t stop you spreading Covid19, it merely reduces the probability of you getting seriously ill and being hospitalised. It may or may not reduce the probability of spreading the disease, I haven’t wasted my time looking into it, but either way, it doesn’t stop it being spread. It’s quite simple – if you are in an enclosed space with another person, there is a probability you will spread Covid19. That probability goes up if you are in that same space for 20 minutes or more.
    The problem is we don’t know what those probabilities are.
    But you would have more effect on transmission rates by moving as many patients as possible outside and treating them there if reducing the threat from Covid in hospitals was your sole aim. Although in our weather that’s a bit problematic, heyho.

    It’s not important because compared to what’s coming down the pipe, the pandemic will be like a bad hair day. Health service figures showed that in the 18 months to September 2020, 21% of total UK deaths were Covid related. Statistically then you currently have 79% chance of dying of something other than Covid19, so maybe we should focus more on those 79% factors? Coincidentally the adverts for cancer charities on the radio openly state 50% of us will get cancer…..

    As for all these plandemic theories, that claim we sometimes see that Covid19 was a deliberate attempt to reduce the population. Like all such theories it overlooks two details.
    1) they have all failed miserably. October 15th 7pm GMT 2021 should go down in history as infamy – it was the time the world population passed 7.9 billion. We currently add 1 million planet nibblers every 4 days to the planet, that’s net after all deaths, so by that reckoning November 30th 2022 will be more infamous, as the day we pass 8 billion. (Data from Worldometer – I won’t post a link because the spambots will delete my post – obviously we don’t know exactly how many people are actually born and die every minute, but it’s a good guide). Yes, that’s right 1 MILLION NEW PEOPLE EVERY 4 DAYS.
    Why do you think Boris doesn’t give a toss about 100,000 UK deaths from a pandemic, or 250,000 from enforced poverty policies? Because he and his hedge fund manager mates know a million new consumers arrive every 4 days – a million new consumers reach adulthood every 4 days, and they all want mobile phones, cars, houses, ghizmoes and gadgets. More consumers = more profits for Bojo and his mates! That’s all they are bothered about.
    2) The “elites”, the corporations, whatever the conspirators are that are blamed for depopulation conspiracies – on the contrary, they actually rely on there being more consumers for their wealth. Why would they advocate depopulation agendas when there wealth depends on there being more people buying their shit? It doesn’t make sense. Look at the adverts and policies in places such as Denmark, USA, Iran, China, etc, where having more babies is openly encouraged.

    A global elite driven Agenda 21, plandemic or other such depopulation conspiracies do not stack up when you look at the evidence. If “they” were serious about depopulation it would be a simple matter of secretly hiring 100 jumbo jets for 100 days and spraying the entirety of Africa with persistent nerve gases – hell, it wouldn’t even be expensive for them, and easy to make, considering the amount they waste on space flights.

    That doesn’t mean to say, that Covid19 wasn’t lab made, because some scientists will do stuff because they can rather than because they should (nuclear weapons being the obvious example). But who gives a shit? Really, how much energy have some people expended trying to show that it was a) manmade b) deliberate release? Would you rather have spent that time and energy in your local community helping build resilience to the threats your community faces?
    The outcome has been what it has been, and there are plenty more where this one came from. Of course Covid19 was man-made – too many people chopping down too much rainforest and committing genocide on our fellow earthlings means these naturally occuring Covids have no where else to go.

    It also doesn’t mean to say, that population shouldn’t go down. The sustainable carrying capacity of the planet is about 600,000,000 people. And that’s on a fully functioning planet. Latest UN studies show that only 3.5% of the planet is untainted by human activity in some way or another. Once you do the maths, it ain’t pretty.

    This is not a climate crisis.
    Climate chaos is merely a symptom of the predicament we are in.
    It’s not even a crisis of capitalism. Whatever -ism we would have had after WW2 would have got us to the same place
    It’s not even a crisis of overpopulation and overconsumption (although they both play a huge part)

    It is a crisis of civilisation itself. How humans organise, feed and equip themselves whilst staying within the ecological limits of a now resource-famished planet along with all the other species on the planet.

    Vaccine passports are small beer in comparison.

    1. Mons Meg says:

      Yep, I’ve always maintained that the best way to manage the spread of the virus is by erecting barriers to its transmission; i.e. by practising good hygiene.

      Mind you, all employment has mandatory requirements written into its terms and conditions. It may be that our care service providers want to make vaccination a mandatory requirement for new or continued employment in specific or all roles within its service. However, if so, this proposed change should be negotiated with the employees through their unions and not just imposed as a fait accompli. It’s the lack of democracy I object to, not the mandatory nature of the requirement.

      1. Mark Bevis says:

        Indeed, and the matter of trust. If I say I’ve had double vaccination, that should be enough for any institution. I shouldn’t have to go to the bother of getting a paper passport from the NHS to prove it. Which is a waste of resources, time and energy. All of which are declining assets. Habeous Corpus says that you are innocent until proven guilty, so, if someone suspects that I’m not double vaccinated after I have told them I am, then it is up to them to prove it either way. So if an institution doesn’t trust me, then why should I trust them? Indeed, do I trust their claim that they even work for that institution? I certainly wouldn’t give them the pleasure of my business. And so on.

        Once a society stops trusting itself, civilisation will cease to function, collapse is inevitable, regardless of any ecological limits. For example, we trust everyone to drive on the left hand side of the road in the UK, when people stop bothering because of some self-conceited idiocracy or laziness, what will happen?

        1. Mons Meg says:

          No, distrust is always the better policy. Doubt everything! If anyone claims that they’re in fact fully vaccinated in situations where it’s required, then we should require the claimant to publically demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt the truth of their claim.

          That’s precisely why, under a liberal regime, there’s always the presumption of doubt. If anyone claims that someone is guilty of a crime, we require the claimant to publically demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt the truth of that claim. If anyone claims that the current trend in climate change is towards global catastrophe, then we require the claimant to publically demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt the truth of their claim. If anyone claims that the Covid pandemic is a faked emergency, then we require the claimant to publically demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt the truth of their claim… &etc.

          If anyone claims that they’re in fact fully vaccinated in situations where it’s required, then we should suspend our belief/disbelief until the claimant publically demonstrates the truth of their claim – e.g. in the form of documentary evidence.

          Mind you, I might try going along to Brunton Park this Saturday and claim that I’ve bought a ticket and that it’s up to Carlisle United FC just trust that I have or prove that I haven’t.

          1. Mark Bevis says:

            Fair comment.
            Unfortunately providing links with evidence is becoming increasingly problematic on here, as the spambots have recently starteed randomly deleting my posts. It happens to my comments on Youtube channels too.

          2. Mark Bevis says:

            Test post:
            10 step grief network
            https://www.goodgriefnetwork.org/10-steps/#10step
            1 Accept the Severity of the Predicament
            2 Practice Being With Uncertainty
            3 Honor My Mortality & The Mortality of All
            4 Do Inner Work
            5 Develop Awareness of Biases & Perception
            6 Practice Gratitude, Witness Beauty, & Create Connections
            7 Take Breaks & Rest
            8 Grieve the Harm I Have Caused
            9 Show Up
            10 Reinvest in Meaningful Efforts

  5. Paula Becker says:

    Hi Mark – you say ‘the pandemic will be like a bad hair day’ compared to the climate emergency. Yes I agree, the climate emergency is much more serious. But perhaps the two are connected. I have argued below previous articles on Bella that the ‘pandemic’ should be seen as a reaction to the climate emergency. The elite class are spooked – by the climate crisis and, possibly, by financial crisis – and are reacting by attempting to gain greater control over the population. They know that as these crises get worse the masses will get more angry. They see authoritarian governance as giving them greater safety – and perhaps it will, at least in the short term.
    Rather than seeing them as all powerful overlords directing the course of events we should, instead, think of them as desperate, scared and clueless. They sense, as many do, that we have run out of road, and they are shitting themselves.

    1. Mark Bevis says:

      Hi Paula,
      Yes, agree, Covid19 is a symptom of ecological overshoot. I also have linked the climate crisis and Covid19 in previous posts, which is where much of the environmental science puts it. There are over 60,000 Covids in the wild, naturally occuring. We have massacred 68% of the wildlife on the planet between 1970 and 2016, more now, and chopped down 2/3rds of the forests, so these diseases are running out of places to go – other than to humans. Many will be harmless, but it only takes one mutation….. The two are linked in that both climate catastrophe and pandemics are both symptoms of ecological overshoot. Wish I could bold and underline or italicise the word symptoms.

      As a recent post on Bella showed from COP26, the elites are still more scared of communism than they are of climate catastrophe:
      https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2021/11/09/police-intimidation-at-cop26/

      pathetically ridiculuos, which shows how out of touch they are, still living in the black-and-white us-&-them simplicity of the Cold War.
      As Greta Thunberg also just said, the emperor has no clothes, and this is how we must view them. They have absolutely no idea how to deal with this predicament, and Boris in particular believes in “small government”, and is trained that way, so it’s difficult for him to show real leadership. When he does, he reverts back to training and it becomes jobs for the boys – Naomi Klein’s Disaster Capitalism kicks in. In other words, how can he and his rich mates make an 18-month profit out of this?

      We also have to remember that at increased CO2 levels, cognitive function decreases. At 900ppm by 15%, at 1500ppm by a massive 40%. (it often gets to these levels in closed offices, airliners, trains, etc). So even outside at 420ppm CO2, we’ve reduced the planet’s ability to think clearly by ~5%. Which may contribute to the decision making this century.

      There have been at least 80 societal collapses in the last 3000 years, studies of these all show that the current behaviour – denial on a mass scale – is quite normal behaviour. William Catton’s Overshoot (1981) also shows that collapse is normal evolutionary process – all species exhibit growth, overshoot then collapse, with sometimes extinction. This time however, we humans (and more importantly, our fellow earthlings) have the predicament that it is planet wide, and not isolated to one county, country or continent.
      https://m.cityweekly.net/utah/times-up/Content?oid=17298723

      Erik Michaels quoted in that article has an excellent blog on these issues:
      https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/

      and for the UK, I highly recommend Consciousness of Sheep:
      https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/

    2. Mons Meg says:

      My interpretation of the current historical situation is more systemic and less moralistic.

      Capitalism (the sum total of social relationships into which we currently must enter in order to reproduce our means of life, and in so doing produce the capacities peculiar to our species and the reality we inhabit) is deconstructing under the weight of its own immanent contradictions. This immanent deconstruction is manifested in both the serial global crises those relations of production are generating (the ‘crash’ of the foregoing article) and our inability to manage them from within those relations. This systemic failure of capitalism and the reality it produces doesn’t call for revolution; it IS the revolution.

      What the outcome of this revolution will be (the sum total of social relationships that will emerge from the deconstruction of capitalism to produce our new reality) no one can predict or engineer, for the simple reason that there’s no Archimedean point outside of the system from which we can ‘move’ or ‘oversee’ the system That’s what we mean when we say that ‘God’ is dead. We’re the creatures rather than the creators of our history.

      The idea that ‘the crash’ is an instrument of some conspiracy that’s being deliberately orchestrated by ‘elites’ or some other melodramatic ‘villains’ is no less a consoling fantasy that imagines humanity to be in command and control of its own destiny than the apocalyptic idea that we can somehow save ourselves from the serial crises of revolution. It’s the last refuge of the bourgeois humanism that has emanated from capitalism as one of its ideological expressions.

      All we can do is help facilitate the revolution through the praxis of immanent critique and hope that ‘out of chaos comes a dancing star’.

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