159 - Michael Dowd on Post Doom: Life After Accepting Climate Catastrophe

2021 comes in hot with Michael Dowd, ecumenical Christian preacher turned climate grief advocate, whose Post Doom Conversations are a well of wisdom for anyone prepared to stop fighting the inevitable* and start celebrating what actually can be done in these weird, scary, precious years to come. We discuss his time as an evolutionary biology evangelist and his friction with techno-optimists, what it means to live sustainably within a mature religion of place, urban scaling and collective action problems, a general theory for the collapse of market-based civilizations, and how to reorient one’s faith to planetary and secular values that allow us to accept reality as it is and avoid doing further evil to the Biosphere and each other. (*We spend a lot of time in this encounter digging underneath the surety to ask not “Is there hope,” but “Where am I still doomed by my conditioning?”)

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Intro and outro music by Skytree.

Further Reading:

My appearance on Post Doom Conversations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d2VX3cx-zM

“Irreversible Collapse: Accepting Reality, Avoiding Evil”

https://youtu.be/iQeK04WOGaA

Rafe Brown at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum

https://biodiversity.ku.edu/herpetology

“What if preventing collapse isn’t profitable?”

https://www.postcarbon.org/what-if-preventing-collapse-isnt-profitable

“Six ways to think long-term” by Roman Krznaric

https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/six-ways-to-think-long-term-da373b3377a4

Gordon White and James Ellis on Accelerationism, Meaning, and Exit

https://runesoup.com/2020/08/accelerationism-meaning-and-exit-rune-soup-hermitix-swapcast/

John Michael Greer’s The Long Descent

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Descent-Users-Guide-Industrial/dp/0865716099

Neil Postman’s Technopoly

https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408

Zach St. George’s The Journey of Trees

https://www.amazon.com/Journeys-Trees-Forests-People-Future/dp/1324001607

Further Listening:

MG on cultural mutation rates, network latency, and the collapse of civilizations:

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/139

MG with Geoffrey West on Complexity Podcast re: cities and scaling

http://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/35

MG with Scott Ortman on Complexity Podcast re: even ancient rural human settlements obey “urban” scaling laws

http://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/48

MG with Tim Kohler and Marten Scheffer on The Future of The Human Climate Niche

http://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/33

MG with Mark Nelson on Biosphere 2 and the yoga of optimism

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/95

MG with Lydia Violet on deep ecology and community as medicine

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/82

MG with Jamaica Stevens on crisis, rebirth, and wisdom

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/61

Kevin Wohlmut reads The Next 10 Billion Years according to Ugo Bardi and John Michael Greer

https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/116

And if you just need a breather, here's my music and my recommendations on Spotify.

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