Beyond the horizon of the place we lived when we were young
In a world of magnets and miracles
Our thoughts strayed constantly and without boundary
The ringing of the division bell had begun
High Hopes, Pink Floyd
THE GREEN LION AND THE DEGREENING
Way back in 2011 ''the fucking MOX rods are on fucking fire'' was a conspiracy thread that fascinated me with its exquisite doominess. Earthquake, tsunami, meltdown, hydrogen explosion, radioactive robots, waste water dumped into the pacific. The fucking mox rods are on fucking fire would barely get noticed today, caught in the mix with the return of Planet X, bibilical locust swarms and the burgeoning food catastrophe. The set dressing on the Degreening is being laid thick and fast but we must remember to hang on to the narrative and not get too lost in the symbols themselves
WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE DEGREENING?
Those of you have been reading this blog will know that I have been attempting to figure out the answer to this question for the last several months. I've posited an awful lot of suggestions along the lines of anti-Gretas, evil-Gretas, ecoterrorism, financial crises (money being tied to green) food crises etc but today, in the pool, it came to me. I don't know when it will happen but at some point in this phase the penny will finally drop that the ''Green Recovery'' will not work. That it doesn't matter how many trees we plant, how much we retro-fit our houses to prevent energy loss, however many deserts we plate with solar panels, however we try to ''green-wash'' our civilization, we have simply ran out of time. ''We thought we had more time'' is often the central refrain from scientists in disaster movies and all those scientists, often outside the area of the environmental sciences, who have been cooing favourably about how China is doing great green things - will begin to say the same - we thought we had more time.
So many systems have been screwed with now, so extensively, that there is no way we will avoid total catastrophe this Summer. This catastrophe will be used to radically alter society, far more rapidly than I had previously thought. There is no way we can bring down the carbon dioxide fast enough without ''short-term'' geo-engineering to prevent total ecosystem loss but in doing so we are altering the atmosphere to the point where it will be unhinged for at least a decade. That lost time can only be regained through Faustian chaos magic. The ultimate Degreening is this realisation in everyone ecologically minded that our benign Green Dreams are just not enough. Like so many things I say on this blog, it fucking hurts me to say this.
THE LAWNMOWER MAN
What you will witness this Summer is a Degreening of everything that is Green - money, trees, grass - as if Lilith a spectral lawnmower man is sweeping the planet. The grasses, battered by the Godzilla Sahara cloud, and the intolerable heat, will dry to brown tufts. Fruit trees will be picked clean by the locust swarms and everything else that swarms and multiplies under the vengeful Sun. The financial markets are going to be obliterated. Vegans, swollen with a victory over meat, will wilt in the light of a terrible harvest that only synthetic technocracy can heal.
That Lawnmower Man will sweep over the emptying passions of the black phase, winding them down the anger into an ocean of despair, resignation and futility - only nihilists will continue to joke around. For them, either you are the Lawnmower Man or you are the grass. Only when all your passions and dreams are harvested through the realisation that all of them are less important than coral will Lawnmower man be sated. There will be violence at the beginning, but the ultimate reaction from those who want to continue the old ways will be to go black market rather than topple governments. Even the criminally minded can sense this is how it ends and will go quietly about their ways.
EATING THE SUN
The sun, like some demented Pacman is about to try and devour you. Eat the Sun before it eats you. How do you eat the Sun? Eat your greens. How do you maintain your vigour and courage during this relentless battery? Eat your greens. How do you keep your chariot in forward motion? Eat your greens. Don't just become, remember. If you are eaten by the Sun, and many of us will be, try to hang on to the tools of your own reconstruction. They might break you down, but don't let them build you back up. You build you.
The grass was greener,
The light was brighter,
When friends surrounded,
The nights of wonder
High Hopes, Pink Floyd