Welcome to Reality

Brian McLaren posits that a process has been set in motion by humans that, unless some revolutionary change in thinking and behavior happens, will almost inevitably lead to major societal and environmental collapse and perhaps the extinction of our species.

My friend Lowell Bliss puts it this way: “The New Future will experience excruciating collapses, catastrophes, and/or extinctions for which our faith in current efforts at activism, sustainability, and/or technological innovation is unfounded.  It is neither pessimism nor doomism to admit this.”

Another way of putting it is in three premises:

Collapse is inevitable.

Catastrophe is probable.

Extinction is possible.

Given inevitable "collapses, catastrophes and/or extinctions", what might the future look like? In chapter 2, Welcome to Reality, McLaren lays out four possible scenarios for our future, based on the diagnosis that “our global civilization as currently structured is unstable and unsustainable.” (23) 

So, what might happen?

Scenario 1 is Collapse Avoidance. Humankind will be able to avoid final collapse by waking up, joining together to do what is necessary to change course, and learning to live without destroying the earth we have. The needed changes will not come without great struggle and turbulence, and they will not come quickly.

Scenario 2 is Collapse/Rebirth. We will not come together and do what is necessary to live within our limits. Slow and gradual decline will continue, occurring over a longer period of time, and ending in collapse. Some percentage of humans will survive and regroup. They will rebuild their communities. Their societies will – necessarily – look different than ours because if they don’t irreversible, total collapse will certainly come.

Scenario 3 is Collapse/Survival. Humans will not work together to rebuild after collapse. They will live in a world of violence and oppression as they seek to survive. Brute survival will be the norm. Cultural and environmental conditions will be difficult.

Scenario 4 is Collapse/Extinction. This is mutually assured self-destruction. The collapse will destroy our systems, people, and the environment. War will break out that, given the technologies available, will be catastrophic for human survival. Most animal and plant life will suffer the same fate.

Note, as McLaren does, that “the primary problem (in these scenarios) is not the environment. The primary problem is us. Humans don’t have an environmental problem; the environment has a human problem.” (28,29)

Take a moment to let these scenarios sink in. What are your thoughts? What are your feelings?

Our (American/Christian) culture has not prepared us to face catastrophe. We push it away in every possible way: we fix it, dammit, we numb ourselves with entertainment or consumerism, or we espouse theological systems that provide for our escape.

McLaren challenges us to be honest about what is real, and to acknowledge the damage we are doing to our Earth, its biosphere, and ourselves. It really should be obvious to any observant person that we are on a path toward a future that will include calamity.

So look the future in the eye.

As McLaren will explain later, therein lies hope.

There is, of course, much that we don’t know. None of us can predict the future. Our knowledge of the environment and of humans is, even now, rudimentary.

“To hold both knowing and unknowing in a delicate, dynamic and highly creative tension…that is one of the primary skills we will need if we want to live with courage and wisdom in an unstable climate, whatever scenario unfolds.” (34)