On cults, climate and culture

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – based, of course (loosely) on the infamous, real-life story of the Manson Family’s murder of Sharon Tait and her friends story gives us a glimpse of the dark side of happy hippie culture – and how counter-culture-culture can turn into a cult.

Recently, I was asked to co-author an article with my good friend, and world-renowned futurist Dr Ian Pearson about the emerging, concerning dark side of the growing global “green” movement. Don’t get me wrong. Climate change is a crisis that will affect many lives. Man made air, sea, and land pollution is a disaster in waiting. And we all have an urgent, undeniable responsibility to do our part – by voting with our votes and our wallets for a more sustainable future that takes cognisance of the long now. However, at the same time, we need to be vigilant that the fight for the future of humanity and our home, the irreplaceable (whatever Bezos and Musk say about Mars colonies and space settlements, I’m not going anywhere without home-grown wine, cheese and 100 year old trees beneath with to enjoy them without a massive fight) Earth, is not hijacked by bad actors who may use the crisis, the threat, and the real and reasonable human fears as a green-washed Trojan horse of sorts, to smuggle in, construct and consolidate authoritarian power grabs – or as Dr Pearson and myself discuss in our article – to create cult-like, self destructive, anti-human mass movements.

You can read our full discussion here: https://timeguide.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/apocalypse-tomorrow/

But before you go read that, to summarise the equally amazing Ben Hunt & Rusty Guinn from Epsilon Theory who tend to share my general views on the current global grand challenges:

1. Human-made climate disasters are terrible.
2. Humans using climate disasters to justify authoritarian regimes and anti-human money-and-power-grabs are just as terrible.
3. We don’t need to choose between either of those two evils. We can abhor them both. There is a third way; personal responsibility and individual action. Stop buying needless goods from polluting companies. Stop supporting power-hungry actors. Stop out-sourcing responsibility to the state. Invest your time and you money in your future, rather than waiting them on satiating your immediate desires. Start with your own wardrobe and your own pantry. And, most importantly, ask more questions about both the big problems of our age and their proposed solutions; make sure the prescribed cure is not even more deadly than the current ailment.