WEBVTT - Interview with Geoff Mann, Co-Author of Climate Leviathan 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:08.799 Hmm. Greetings and salutations. This is it could happen here. 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.600 I'm Garrison Davis. I'm part of the research and writing team, 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:18.440 and today we have a special treat for everybody. Here. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.479 We are going to be running an interview with Jeff Man. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.720 Jeff Man is a co author of the fantastic book 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:32.000 Climate Leviathan, A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future. UM. 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.680 Jeff Man is a as a as a professor, he 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:40.680 teaches political economy and economic geography. UM. He's done lots 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:45.120 of writing on capitalism and climate change. He is a 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:49.400 He's a fantastic resource and I highly recommend his book. 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.760 Um it can get a little academic, um making has 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:54.680 a lot of has a lot of big fancy words 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:56.960 that I probably I would have a hard time saying 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.959 out loud, but um, it's a very it's a very 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.000 good read. So I would would recommend picking up the 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.160 book if you want to read about economics and climate 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.119 change and all that kind of stuff. But thankfully we 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.960 interviewed him here in the pod, so if you're more 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.840 so inclined, you can listen to this interview that's going 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.559 to play right after I'm done talking. So without further 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.160 ado Here is our interview with Jeff Man talking about 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:28.000 politics and climate change. Let's let's go. So we're the 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.080 show we're looking to do. The first season of this, 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.319 which we dropped like years ago twenty nineteen, was like 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.720 kind of uh my, my, My basic experiences journalists isn't 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.800 conflict reporting, so like Rack Siria Ukraine, And it was like, 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.800 what would happen if there were to be a civil 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.039 conflict in the United States? How would that actually look? 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:48.800 How do these things look in the modern world? And 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.320 all that jazz. This season we're doing what is the 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.640 world going to be? Just based on what we know 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.400 of of how climate change is going to affect things, 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:01.680 and um, that's all too bleak to get into without 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.760 trying to provide some positive possibilities for how things could be, 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.160 how adaptations that could be made and whatnot. And I 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.120 think what's so interesting about your book is it provides 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:14.880 all of the difference. With the exception of the best 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.840 case scenario, all the scenarios you present seem very plausible 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.880 to me. And I guess I'm wondering, of of the 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.840 ones that you've put forward in your book, is there 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.520 one that seems more plausible to you right now, are 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.400 you kind of at at a point where you're expecting 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.560 there to be kind of a regional breakdown as to like, 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.000 you know, this chunk of the world goes to this 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.519 kind of climate mouthing climate Leviathan, is this sort of 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.960 chunk of the world, Like, I'm wondering what you're seeing 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.880 right now, just as we're watching ships start to really 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:49.160 hit home for people. Yeah, yeah, I I'm always reluctant 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.919 in these instances to say that I know more than 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.600 anyone else you know about what's going to happen, So 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.040 I hope it doesn't come across as in any way 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.720 like me agnosticating um, which actually, to be honest with you, 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.720 Jewel is much more comfortable doing the guy I wrote 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:07.360 the book with, who you should also chat with if 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:12.480 you ever get the chance, brilliant guy. Um. But I 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:14.280 think you're right. I do think there's a sort of 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:19.040 fragmentation right now, Um, whether or not like geo politically 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.960 in the sense like you said, regional you know, breakdowns, 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.680 or the way that like kind of different trajectories could 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:30.520 be happening simultaneously in different parts of the planet. How 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.640 long that can last, or whether or not it just 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:37.280 stays that way. I think it's a super interesting question, 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.920 Like it does seem to me that, you know, the 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.320 Chinese state for a variety of reasons, some of which 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.320 I probably can have a handle on, and others I 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:47.960 just don't know enough to know. The Chinese state, you know, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.720 approaches these problems in a really different way than we 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:55.240 do in North America or Western Europe for example. UM 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.280 and and how they handle like what is clearly fucking 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.240 coming down their pipe, you know, not just with these floods, 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.520 but you know, the overall like the soil loss um, 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.839 sort of massive ternment in the West um an urbanization 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.400 at a scale that you know is like completely unsustainable 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.560 because the countryside is you know, can't support its people anymore. 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.000 You know, they have these permit systems and everything. How 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.000 they approach that whole problem from like ecological breakdown perspective 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.960 could very much, I think, take a kind of Leviathan 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.120 like form, but a much more authoritarian version. It will not, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.240 I don't think in the short term, look like now 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:39.040 in terms of a sort of revolutionary uh process UM. 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.520 But here in North America, I think that this idea 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:43.799 that you know, Joe and I tried to float about 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.680 capital taking over and trying to basically maintain itself at 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:52.160 the top of the hierarchy. UM. And you know, basically 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.159 allow the planet to break down, but to have the 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.320 social uh, to maintain the social order in its own interests. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.200 I actually still think that's unfolding right front of us, UM. 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.640 And I think Western Europe is the same that just 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.560 managing it in that, you know, in a very different 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.560 kind of technocratic way. UM. But I think you're right 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.560 to identify not a global kind of coalescence, but rather 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.680 a whole variety of conflicting trajectories. That would be my 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.600 take on it right now. How do you when you're 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.719 trying to have these conversations about like what's what's coming 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.640 down the pipe with people who are less buried in 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.680 this than you are, how do you introduce the concept 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:35.919 of climate Leviathan to them? Well, so, I mean I 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.880 run into this. I mean this might be a terrible 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:45.120 uh what's the right word of comparison, um to make? 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:47.240 But I run into this a lot, like you know, 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.159 just in the like classroom, like with students and stuff 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.960 like that. And basically the way I usually begin it 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.160 is I asked the question you know because people often 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.839 I think quite rightly make certain kinds of uh agnostications 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:07.560 about uh, you know, climate change kind of running out 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.240 of control and destroying life as we know it in 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.800 a rather immediate way. And and I usually just say, like, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:23.880 like that that runs so counter to the interests of 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.599 global capital that it's impossible to imagine I'm not responding 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.640 and and and in and in anywhere from a kind 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.760 of minor tweakye to men like full on emergency panic 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.000 mode response, depending upon the situation and conditions. And so 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.920 I basically say the idea of climate Leviathan is precisely 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.000 that it's capital responding. Now, of course, we all, I 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.600 think rightly know that that response will never be adequate 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:51.600 to the problem, not even at a purely sort of 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.320 survivalist level. But I still think that in the medium term, 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:56.720 that's what we're going to see. And that's how I 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.359 usually introduced it. It's like, imagine capital response wanting to 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:06.919 climate change because they'll have to. It'll look like Levia Yeah. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:10.040 And I think one of the yeah no, that that 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.080 makes sense. And one of the reasons I like that, 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:16.120 and I like the way you Enjoel frame things is 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.960 that I'm I've grown very tired of especially in the 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.360 you know, I have some prepping kind of interests and 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.880 stuff like I I think that stuff is neat. But 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.160 I've always felt like the the obsession with collapse is 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.680 not just silly, it's um counter factual um because barring 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.000 some sort of like the the ever present possibility of 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.600 a nuclear conflict or something, I don't I don't see 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.640 collapse as a as a realistic consequence of climate change. 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.920 Actually collapses. I see places collapsing, I see survivability and 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.040 chunks of the world collapse. And but I think you're 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.720 absolutely right. There's no way capital is going to allow 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.320 everything to fall apart, because then they can't go them all, 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:59.360 you know. Yeah, yeah, and we can't either, and that's 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.559 they're desperate for us to keep doing that, right, So yeah, 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:08.360 I agree, total. Yeah, I'm wondering this climate Leviathan, Like, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.559 when you describe it, it doesn't sound great. It also 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.000 sounds at least familiar. It sounds like the same way 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.360 I've see. It's like, that's part of why it's very believable, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.840 is it sounds like the way the system currently deals 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:24.720 with every problem. Right, these these technocratic half competent UH 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.800 focus group solutions that are generally too late and you know, 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:34.800 only occasionally effective. Um. What scares me is UM and 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:39.040 I forget the exaction, but like essentially the authoritary, the 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.520 more authoritarian version of this, you know, like and and 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.400 the more authoritarian kind of coming from a We're not 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.280 going to fix the problem. We're just going to protect 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:52.079 whatever kind of identitarian chunk we we we we consider 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.600 our base from it. Um, do you see that gaining 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.240 strength right now? Like where do you where do you 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:00.800 looking at kind of the the lay of the land 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.680 at the moment? Where are you seeing that? Yeah, that's 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.800 a really good, you know comment from my perspective. I 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.880 agree with you. I think that stuff is serious, and 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.520 I think, if I'm honest with you, it's a little 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:18.400 bit of a missing bit in the book's argument in 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.720 the sense that I don't think we took seriously enough 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:26.480 a version of behemoth that doesn't deny climate change but 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.680 only gives a shit about its own internal territories or 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.680 you know what I mean, its own interests, so that 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.440 it becomes a behemoth like fuck you to the rest 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.600 of the world, but but at the same time takes 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.360 climate very seriously. Uh. You know, I think some people 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.600 call it like eco fascism. I'm not so sure. You know, 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:51.160 I don't I that term. I don't think that covers 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.200 exactly what I'm trying to say. But maybe I'm just 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.479 don't understand it well enough. But I do think that 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:00.760 that the book Joel and I don't take that prospect 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.560 seriously enough. And I think that is actually like that 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:05.960 kind of Mike Davis sort of like you know, if 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:08.040 you guys read that piece who Will Build the Arc? 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.360 Mm hmm, yeah, it's it's fucking awesome. It's an amazing 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.160 piece of work. Um. It's from about two and ten, 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.559 I think, in the New Left Review, and he writes 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.000 basically about, you know, an elite kind of attempt to 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.679 just sort of create islands of survivability or not more 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.960 than survivability, islands of elite leisure in sense um, in 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.480 a world that's falling apart around it. And I actually 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:37.360 think that that's totally believable. Like I think that's more 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:41.920 believable than we thought it was when we wrote the book. Yeah, 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.280 and I guess you know, the question of whether or 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.640 not to call it climate fascism, I think that climate 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.920 fascism is a separate thing from the possibility of climate authoritarianism, 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.800 because I think you have this possibility of like, all right, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.560 we have a state or a group of states that 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.400 are going to produce very authoritarian measures in order to 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.640 protect their people, and they're so called way of life 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:03.400 as and I think you also have a chance of 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.800 this possibility of kind of a more identarian sort of thing, 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.320 like whether it's white nationalist or whatever. Um uh, I 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.240 kind of see and I see maybe them feeding into 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.400 each other. I don't know, like it's it all gets 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.640 very muddled, and I think like one of the problems 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.240 you have trying to prognosticate about the future is that 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.160 there's always so many variables and you can anything, you 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.080 any kind of permutation of any of these things that 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:31.720 you can dream up. You can see the seeds of 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:33.080 them if you go out and find them. You can 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.120 find the Christian dominionist chunk of this, like the eco 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.959 fascist thing, and you can find a more socialist version, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.760 and you can find a more white nationalist version. And 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.040 it's just kind of anyone's guess as to what's going 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:50.920 to pick up steam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think yeah, 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.400 I mean there's something those I think important about the 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:56.920 kind of thing that Joel and I are trying to 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.160 do in the book. And there's also something that is uh, 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:10.600 perhaps inevitably arrogant about that effort, and that that arrogance 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.600 like well, I think both Joe and I would always 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.640 say that the book what for us at least was 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.040 worth writing no matter what, It would be wrong too 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.120 to not to not acknowledge the arrogance of that analysis. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.959 That then allows you as as soon as you acknowledge arrogance, 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:31.120 then you acknowledge a lot of the stuff you're talking about, right, 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.400 like the the fact that, yeah, I mean, there's a 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.920 million things that ways that this could go, and some 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:39.480 of them won't look like what we said they look 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.240 and we can't you know, we have to think hard. Well, 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.840 that's what I find really intelligent about the way you 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.480 set it up, because you're not saying, Okay, this political 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.640 party is going to evolve in these ways. You're trying 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:51.280 to say that these are kind of the we can 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.520 see from responses to other problems and from responses even 0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:56.960 to climate change. These are kind of the patterns things 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.840 are going to break down in um And I guess 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.320 before I I'll hand it over to Garrison in a 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.960 little bit. But um, kind of the last thing I 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.199 wanted to really get into was the climate X, the 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.640 term you all use for kind of the the most 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.160 optimistic scenario that I don't think any of us believes 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.520 in as much as we'd like to at the moment. Yeah, 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.480 that's exactly it. Yeah, Um, I'm one of the things 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.000 that we're trying to do here is envision how that 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:25.679 might look. And the best thing that I can come 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:30.679 up with is a mix of um, really durable, widespread 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.079 mutual aid networks to support some sort of mass general 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.599 strike in order to institute sweeping changes both to the 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.920 nature of capitalism and to like the social system we 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.800 have in order to reduce environmental harm and anyway that 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:47.400 sort of thing like that's that's the only thing I 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.520 can imagine that I don't think you know, you're talking 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.640 about an effort more ambitious than landing a man on 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.240 the moon. Um, but at least it's a set of 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.040 things that could achieve a goal as opposed to like, 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.240 I don't think it's totally pious, guy, it's a possibility. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:07.160 I'm wondering what when you think about best case scenario, 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.400 how if like everything breaks right, things could be resolved positively, 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.160 Like what are you envisioning? I'm wondering kind of like 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:18.920 what's your optimistic side say when you let it peek through? Yeah, 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:21.680 I mean I think I think it looks a lot 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.480 like what you're describing. I think that you know that 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.640 they'll have to be and I do think there will be. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:30.600 The question is, of course whether it's too late, and 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.320 whether it's effective and all other stuff. But there will 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.440 have to be a kind of mass based to it, 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.880 for sure. But what I don't believe, and I think 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.000 you're hinting at this too, telp me if I'm misunderstanding. 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.400 What I don't believe is that it will be a 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.880 mass based thing from what we might think of as 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.880 a single or monolithic movement. It's gonna it's because the 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.960 ways that people manage what's coming our way are going 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.160 to have to be, for one thing, very locally specific. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.080 As we know, like like you said, like there's collapses, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.920 there's you know, people are dealing with different challenges in 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.760 their own places, um, and not just environmentally, but of 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.720 course their own political histories and all our stuff. Um, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.520 I think it has to be like an articulation in 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.000 these mass moments like you're describing, like a general strike 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.120 or whatever, of a whole variety of movements that are 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.080 actually organized primarily around meeting the needs of the people 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.760 where they live, mutual aid societies, other kinds of distributional 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.960 you know, fixes, and this kind of chaotic breakdown like 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.520 you describe when things can much more important than coffee 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.920 are unavailable widely, those kinds of things. Um, let's not, 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.360 let's not. Let's not downplay at the importance of coffee. No, no, no, 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:46.680 I would never down for coffee, but for the moment. Yeah, 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:48.840 I get it, you know, like water, you know what 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:54.880 I mean, or something. Um uh, Then I think you're right. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.120 I think it's gonna be. It has to be climate 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.520 X has to be multiple in the sense that it 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.800 has to take many, many forms specific to the needs 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.120 of the folks that are there. But what I am 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.400 convinced of which I wasn't always actually, is that the 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.640 effectiveness of movements like that will have that they will 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.720 depend upon the extent to which they're democratic, not in 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:22.200 terms of actual long term effectiveness. Cannot be like local authoritarianisms. 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:24.600 We can't imagine. This is sort of like a series 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:30.240 of climate change warlords. I don't think that is a 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.360 a realistic solution, even from a purely like kind of 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.640 managing the climate change perspective. Yeah. No, I've known a 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:38.440 couple of warlords, and none of them are good at 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.320 long term planning. Yes, I've never known a warlord, but 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:56.240 I can imagine you are, right, Garrison, you want to 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.280 take it over for a bit. Yeah. So yeah, I 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.080 mean I started doing just in general kind of climate 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.400 research like about half a year ago, like getting like 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.199 relatively deep into it, and one of your books was 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.600 one of the things that kept coming up as recommended 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.000 reading on the topic. UM, and yeah, I found it 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:16.639 super super interesting. There's a lot of a lot of 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.240 stuff focuses on, like a lot of stuff on the 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:25.159 topic focuses on like potential physical effects happening to like, um, 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.320 geography and to like environments, but not there's not as 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.160 much on like the political side of things and how 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.800 that's going to break down like societally in terms of 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:39.399 you know, freedom and liberty and sovereignty over specific you 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:43.440 know states or you know free states. Um. So that yeah, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:45.800 that's what really drew me into your book specifically was 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:51.600 the kind of special focus on that side of things, UM, 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.280 and the the other the other part that got me 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:59.320 pretty early on is the mitigation versus adaption side of things, 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:05.120 and how to my understanding, we're kind of like crossing 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:09.520 into the place where mitigation is becoming more and more 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:16.919 difficult and adaptation is both necessary but also unlike unfortunately necessary, 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:18.800 because there's a lot of ways that that can be 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.719 used by authoritarian states to make things harder to have 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.359 change happened in the future. UM, would you like speak 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.440 on what types of mitigation, what type of some mitigation 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.400 efforts might we still have, and how and how adaption 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:37.960 is both going to be necessary and how there's going 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.480 to be like a dark side to some of those adaptions. 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:44.320 Mm hmm. I would agree with your read there, Like 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.320 I think we're at the point now where it's fair 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.359 to say that if you ask the climate scientist, I 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.199 could be wrong, but I know a few climate scientists 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.560 and I do quiz them on stuff like this sometimes, UM, 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:58.760 that we're at the point where mitigation efforts right now 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.520 are actually purely adaptive. Like we we are past many 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:07.320 thresholds where somehow we could imagine it's like escaping this problem, 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:08.800 you know what I mean, like evading it, getting out 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.000 the side door or something like that. So even our 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.560 mitigation efforts right now are actually adaptive in that sense, 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.080 an adaptation and I think has become in many ways, 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.919 the the holy grail of modern political economy. Like, you 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.919 know what I mean, how do we have our luxurious 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:34.639 Western lifestyles and consumption patterns and all this in the 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.280 middle of out collapsing ecosystems? Like how do we how 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:39.800 do we manage that? You know what I mean? It's 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:41.480 almost like I think at some point in the book 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:43.879 we say, and Joel and I have certainly said it 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.840 a lot since you know, adaptation has become the progress 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:49.960 of our time. Like if in the twentieth century we 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.080 talked about all progress progress, that's where capitalism and liberalism deliver. 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.520 Now we're like, all the best they can deliver is 0:19:55.640 --> 0:20:01.800 adaptation to a fucking crazy set of you know, conditions. Um, 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:03.879 And so I guess I would say that from a 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.879 mitigation perspective, for sure, we still have the capacity to 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:13.119 to you know, considerably cut emissions if we you know, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.320 I mean, we have the sort of pie in the sky, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.720 but but hopeful things like you know that the elimination 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:20.600 of the fossil fuel industry, that would do a lot, 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.000 but we would still be in kind of short term, 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.200 I mean, in medium terms sort of fucked like um, 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.160 and that's a big deal. Um So I do think 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.719 that the mitigation efforts. I would never want to say, oh, 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.240 it don't bother like some sort of accelerationist horseshit, because 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:40.080 of course that will matter. But I do think that, um, 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.679 that adaptation has become in some sense like the mode 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:50.440 through which we evaluate anything from like political proposals to 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:55.600 two you know, technical fixes, Like it's at least amongst 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.000 people who are willing to admit there's a problem. I 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.480 guess there's a you know, a whole world of people 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:06.520 who somehow still don't. Yeah that that that people is 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:10.080 always larger than what I you know, after like spending 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:15.040 like months reading you know, so many climate books, I'm 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.359 like still struck at like how basically the majority of 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.120 people in America don't think it's a big problem. And 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:28.440 that's like, yeah, that's ire we're real script that from yeah, 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:34.840 it's not it's not. I mean, you know, uh, I 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:38.679 think about like fascism the last time it came around 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.280 and how what a common attitude that was towards fascism 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.120 sweeping Europe And we eventually got on the same page 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.760 about that, and only like a hundred million people died. 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:54.760 So yeah, I know, but I guess I'm gonna say 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.160 there there is like there. I think they're really strong. 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.720 I magical, if that's the right word. Reasons for the 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.960 persistence not of like not of denial is m you know, 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.520 in this kind of like stupid stereotypical way, like you know, 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:12.520 it's a Chinese hoax and all that stuff. I don't 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:14.720 mean that. I mean more like this kind of you know, 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.560 sometimes people call it the new denialism, where you acknowledge 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:18.960 it as a problem, but then you don't do anything 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.040 about it. Like this is what we have in Canada. 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:23.720 We have a national government that that talks all the 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:27.159 time and then subsidizes every oil industry that you can 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.280 get its hands on, you know, a sort of like yeah, yeah, 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.440 it's a problem, and we're doing everything we can. Here's 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:35.560 our new l en Gen pipeline or whatever, um that 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.119 kind of thing. I think that the dominant way of 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.439 talking about the problem still contains a lot of like 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:47.119 weird uncertainty. You know that people say things like, um, 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.440 you know there's a chance that we're heading towards water scarcity. 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:54.679 It's like no, no, no scientist thinks there's a chance. 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.159 Everybody knows it's the case, but we frame it as 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.320 if it's still this big tig uncertainty in the future. 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.719 And I think that allows people to feel, like what 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:09.760 Garrison saying, a kind of like it gives a room 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.520 for not doubt, but like distance or something. I don't 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:17.080 know what to describe it as. Um, yeah, I think distance, 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:22.479