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?”)Please rate and review Future Fossils on Apple Podcasts! And if you believe in the value of this show and want to see it thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon. Patrons gain access to over twenty secret episodes, unreleased music, our book club, and many other great things as they spill out of my overactive imagination.We’d also love to have you in our thriving little Discord server, if you’re interested in meeting other members of our awesome scene. (And if you’d like to help edit transcripts, please drop me a line at [email protected].)Intro and outro music by Skytree.Further Reading:My appearance on Post Doom Conversationshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d2VX3cx-zM“Irreversible Collapse: Accepting Reality, Avoiding Evil”https://youtu.be/iQeK04WOGaARafe Brown at the University of Kansas Natural History Museumhttps://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 Krznarichttps://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/six-ways-to-think-long-term-da373b3377a4Gordon White and James Ellis on Accelerationism, Meaning, and Exithttps://runesoup.com/2020/08/accelerationism-meaning-and-exit-rune-soup-hermitix-swapcast/John Michael Greer’s The Long Descenthttps://www.amazon.com/Long-Descent-Users-Guide-Industrial/dp/0865716099Neil Postman’s Technopolyhttps://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408Zach St. George’s The Journey of Treeshttps://www.amazon.com/Journeys-Trees-Forests-People-Future/dp/1324001607Further Listening:MG on cultural mutation rates, network latency, and the collapse of civilizations:https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/139MG with Geoffrey West on Complexity Podcast re: cities and scalinghttp://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/35MG with Scott Ortman on Complexity Podcast re: even ancient rural human settlements obey “urban” scaling lawshttp://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/48MG with Tim Kohler and Marten Scheffer on The Future of The Human Climate Nichehttp://complexity.simplecast.com/episodes/33MG with Mark Nelson on Biosphere 2 and the yoga of optimismhttps://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/95MG with Lydia Violet on deep ecology and community as medicinehttps://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/82MG with Jamaica Stevens on crisis, rebirth, and wisdomhttps://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/61Kevin Wohlmut reads The Next 10 Billion Years according to Ugo Bardi and John Michael Greerhttps://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/116And if you just need a breather, here's my music and my recommendations on Spotify. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe