Bravo! This post covers a huge amount of ground in a relatively concise and accessible way.
"Climate change is the fever. Overshoot is the infection.
Treat the fever and it comes back. Ignore the infection and it worsens."
Exactly. My own work is to take this one step further. If Ecological Overshoot is the disease, then at the root of *that*, our flawed value system is like a compromised immune system.
We have two ways of measuring success: qualitatively - where success means we have enough; and quantitatively, where More is ALWAYS Better. Both have a role to play, but when the second completely trumps the first (as it does now) we get ecological overshoot. Number-based values have NO concept of sufficiency. And here's the kicker: The impossibly infinite pursuit of 'more' is at the root of every aspect of ecological overshoot.
You spoke of endosomatic energy (what a body needs to live), and exosomatic energy (what we use outside the body). The first form of energy has a qualitative measure - there is a clear range that defines sufficiency. More is not always better. Too much food, or water, or internal heat, is *not* better. Exosomatic energy is more problematic. Some of it is qualitative - what we need to survive - but the vast majority of our external energy usage is utterly wasted. Being faster, owning more, being wasteful. Extreme examples include AI data centres so that people can post pictures of themselves in outlandish settings, or have conversations with large-language-models instead of other humans, or can have a three-page essay summarized because they can't be bothered to read it for themselves.
Our exosomatic energy and resource consumption is where we have decided that More is ALWAYS Better. Some of the wrong turns were subtle. Cooperation and collaboration are prerequisites for progress, and in our economic models, one form of community group effort became the corporation. However, instead of creating such entities to accomplish a fixed task - instead of baking sufficiency into their definition - we programmed them to be entirely number-based, to always seek MORE as their ultimate goal.
Think about it - when we say their purpose is to "maximize profit", profit is a number. There *IS NO MAXIMUM*. I call this our Value Crisis.
If you don't like the fever symptom that is climate change, and you wisely decide to address the underlying disease which is ecological overshoot, you have to do so by improving our immunity to the values that lie at the heart of it all.
You know, Ricky, there's a huge difference in the emissions between income groups, and I wish that would be addressed more.
I live frugally, am vegan, don't drive and have paid attention to energy use for a long time, and will continue to. But I wish the emissions of this group would be emphasized more. It's not about the number of people, many of whom don't have much of an impact on the environment, it's the filthy rich who travel around in their private jets, own many mansions and yachts and seem oblivious to the emissions they create.
I agree, Diana. The uber-wealthy have far more *actual impact* on this catastrophe than everyone else (combined?).
HOWEVER...
The value system of the super-rich - the value system that indeed got us in this mess - extends FAR beyond the ranks of the 1%. They just happen to be winning that particular game at the moment - the game that the vast majority of us continue to play.
I will hazard a rough guess that the world is made up of 2% obscenely wealthy, 2% who choose not to play that game (like yourself), 16% who are not even allowed to play the game, and 80% who are totally dialed into the More-is-ALWAYS-Better game, but are not all doing so well at it.
In other words, while the top 1 or 2% are having the greatest impact, they are merely following the value system that another 80% are totally supporting. It is *not* the rich. It is the system.
For example, ask the general population how many of them want to halt climate change. You will probably get a three-quarter majority. But how many of them are willing to alter their lifestyle or vote for politicians who want to take concrete action? A teeny tiny fraction of that majority.
Yes, we need to eliminate obscene wealth - *NOT* by redistributing it, but by redefining what wealth means.
Diana, as always, thank you for saying things so plainly. You’re carrying the weight many people silently carry while watching the heaviest footprints belong to a tiny few. Pretending otherwise erases real effort and care.
We are tethered to a greedy, absurd system that rewards excess while asking for restraint from individuals. That needs to change, now.
Thanks for acknowledging this reality, Ricky. I hope we can somehow get this class to curb their emissions, and address their own way of thinking that has them believing they're entitled to this excess, and to turn a blind eye to all the harm they cause, whether that be from genocide, climate change, or endless war. These are all interconnected.
Not to mention the much more numerous middle classes of prosperois nations consuming vast amounts of energy and resources to maintain their extravagant lifestyles.
That's something that is often repeated. A hight-income person have a much bigger impact than a low-income one. And of course, it's true.
But the problem is, low-income people are much more numerous than high-income ones. And since most of the former (with the possible exception of a few people like you) want a slight increase, this would offset any substantial decrease accepted by the latter who then have no real incentive to do so as it will only make their own situation worse… This is one of the reasons this whole matter is a predicament...
A wonderful piece, thanks for sharing. I think your point "Humanity is in an invisible race where slowing down means someone else wins and takes your resources." is painfully accurate and a huge part of the problem with trying to change the system. I read an article a while back that said something like "Deciding not take that flight is noble, but all it does it lower the cost of that seat and make it more affordable to someone else - either way the plane will still be full, with or without you." and it's poignantly true.
Hey SS,thanks for sitting with it. I appreciate you bringing that example in. It sticks because it’s uncomfortable and honest. That’s the bind many of us feel in our gut: doing less inside a system that doesn’t slow down just shifts the weight elsewhere. It’s not a moral failure, it’s a structural one, and naming that matters more than pretending personal purity will save us. I’m still sitting with that tenssion myself.
Probably a good idea using the term “ecological overshoot” if only because the term “climate change” goes in one ear and comes out the other. It might also be better because it forces the denialists to deny on a wider front of issues. It also goes to the root cause, an unrealistic concept of human progress.
Stan, that’s exactly why I’m letting go of the climate language. It stopped reaching people, including me. Overshoot widens the frame and makes denial harder to compartmentalize.
It also forces us to question the story of progress we grew up inside, and that reckoning is… uncomforrtable, but necessary.
Hum… I agree on most of your points but the rocket might not be the best metaphor here. Rockets need fuel to accelerate. In space, when the engine stop, the rocket keep going at the same speed. Then it will need fuel again to decelerate and stop where it is intended to. Not really like a car.
More seriously, something weird is happening. Climate change was presented as a catastrophic event. But something we could somehow revert. Providing we use the right technologies and agree to spend enough money on it.
Then somehow, even if some catastrophes did occur, nothing apocalyptic happened while it wasn't reverted either. Then other problems came up : epidemic, wars, etc... And now, it's like the whole thing gets out of fashion. Like we collectively accepted a predicament we indeed cannot do much about it anyway...
Nessa, I’m glad you wrote this. The word “cure” feels wrong now, like it belongs to another era. What you say about composting, about staying close and quiet with what’s still here, that’s where I keep ending up, too. Not to fix, just to witness, to tend what can still be tended, even if it’s messsy and unfinished.
Ricky, ignorant and short-sighted people have fooled themselves for the longest time into thinking they have controlled for the weather. The fact that we have built sturdy dwellings complete with insulation and devised heating and cooling devices has convinced them that we can surely ideate and manufacture our way out of the changing climate. I always think, "we ain't seen nothing yet" when it comes to the power of chemistry, physics, the carbon cycle and the nature of the universe.
I have totally given up on the idea that we can forestall any of what's coming. I cautiously advise those friends and family that will listen. I don't know if any of them read what I forward. We are done for in spite of the "hopium" faction's steady cheering and beating of drums. Do we see any coordinated efforts whatsoever? Do we see the CO2 ppm declining? Do we see predictions and estimates of future temperatures being reduced?
I simply don't care any more and only read to see how bad it's getting. I tend to the macabre--how long will we have water; how long will we have food; how long will society remain cohesive and relatively sane? Good luck to you in 2026. Good luck to us all-we will need it.
Thank you for these thoughtful words, Wayne, that sense that the laws of physcis will collect their debt whether we believe in them or not. I feel that fatigue too. I’m less interested now in reassurance than in honesty, and in staying human while things get rough. That’s partly why I write this way, to sit with it instead of selling escape.
Using the term "climate change" is a de-facto concession to the denialists who natter "the climate is always changing - no big deal"
The term is tepid timid pedestrian.
It does not encapsulate not does it do justice to the fact that our
Hyper-consumptive hyper-emissive eco-cidal psychosociopathic capitalist infinite-growth predatory-parasitic exploitive extractive trickle-up dominator cult-ure has pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed...
Past Silent Spring
Past Small Is Beautiful
Past Limits to Growth
Well into Overshoot ** and
Breaching of seven of nine planetary survivability thresholds ** and
Global heating ** and
Destabilization of atmospheric and oceanic thermodynamics ** and
Massive and accelerating destabilization and disruptions to the ecosphere which adversely impact lifeforms all over earth.
That's waaaaaaay more than "climate change" which use is a fundamental error and injustice.
There is no mention of the role of the primary perpetrators behind decades of psychosociopathy.
The tendency to attribute it to an inherent defect in humanity - and " too many brown people "
is fundamentally fraudulent and must be deconstructed and eviscerated by any credible analyst.
There is no mention of the role of the Denialism Racket - a hard core pathological professional propaganda operation - first launched by Exxxxxon and subsequently took over the Big Tobacco propaganda machine and now actively engaged in by the entire PetroRacket as well as the majority of corrupt governance structures.
The notion that people have "lost interest" and "become tired of" our existential predicaments and MetaCrisis evidences the success of the psy-op funded by literally unlimited resources.
The Denialism Racket and the PetroRacket have infiltrated and subverted and sabotaged the UN COPs and are being a sophisticated anti-science campaign - which has landed exceptionally well with the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging MAGA cult m0r0ns in Amerikkka and elsewhere.
A determined Manhattan Project scale engagement with
DrawDown
DeGrowth
Doughnut Economics
DeColonization
De-Industrialization of Petrochemical MonoCrop Agriculture
DeepAdaptation and
PostDoom will not provide a solution but may blunt the gnarliest edges of the MadMaxxxian dystopia hovering on the horizon and may result in refugia oases of survival for _After_
Bravo! This post covers a huge amount of ground in a relatively concise and accessible way.
"Climate change is the fever. Overshoot is the infection.
Treat the fever and it comes back. Ignore the infection and it worsens."
Exactly. My own work is to take this one step further. If Ecological Overshoot is the disease, then at the root of *that*, our flawed value system is like a compromised immune system.
We have two ways of measuring success: qualitatively - where success means we have enough; and quantitatively, where More is ALWAYS Better. Both have a role to play, but when the second completely trumps the first (as it does now) we get ecological overshoot. Number-based values have NO concept of sufficiency. And here's the kicker: The impossibly infinite pursuit of 'more' is at the root of every aspect of ecological overshoot.
You spoke of endosomatic energy (what a body needs to live), and exosomatic energy (what we use outside the body). The first form of energy has a qualitative measure - there is a clear range that defines sufficiency. More is not always better. Too much food, or water, or internal heat, is *not* better. Exosomatic energy is more problematic. Some of it is qualitative - what we need to survive - but the vast majority of our external energy usage is utterly wasted. Being faster, owning more, being wasteful. Extreme examples include AI data centres so that people can post pictures of themselves in outlandish settings, or have conversations with large-language-models instead of other humans, or can have a three-page essay summarized because they can't be bothered to read it for themselves.
Our exosomatic energy and resource consumption is where we have decided that More is ALWAYS Better. Some of the wrong turns were subtle. Cooperation and collaboration are prerequisites for progress, and in our economic models, one form of community group effort became the corporation. However, instead of creating such entities to accomplish a fixed task - instead of baking sufficiency into their definition - we programmed them to be entirely number-based, to always seek MORE as their ultimate goal.
Think about it - when we say their purpose is to "maximize profit", profit is a number. There *IS NO MAXIMUM*. I call this our Value Crisis.
If you don't like the fever symptom that is climate change, and you wisely decide to address the underlying disease which is ecological overshoot, you have to do so by improving our immunity to the values that lie at the heart of it all.
It's crazy how quietly “more” replaced care, sufficiency, and restraint. Still, values are learned, and that means they can be unlearned too.
That’s the sliver of hope I hold onto, even when it feels frayed..
Not so much crazy as a simple by-product of our intelligence. The Maximum Power Principle (MPP) is a biological phenomenon. To see how it led us off the rails, you might be interested in https://thevaluecrisis.substack.com/p/overcoming-the-greatest-threat .
I agree - values can be changed, but collapse may be a prerequisite in this case.
You know, Ricky, there's a huge difference in the emissions between income groups, and I wish that would be addressed more.
I live frugally, am vegan, don't drive and have paid attention to energy use for a long time, and will continue to. But I wish the emissions of this group would be emphasized more. It's not about the number of people, many of whom don't have much of an impact on the environment, it's the filthy rich who travel around in their private jets, own many mansions and yachts and seem oblivious to the emissions they create.
I agree, Diana. The uber-wealthy have far more *actual impact* on this catastrophe than everyone else (combined?).
HOWEVER...
The value system of the super-rich - the value system that indeed got us in this mess - extends FAR beyond the ranks of the 1%. They just happen to be winning that particular game at the moment - the game that the vast majority of us continue to play.
I will hazard a rough guess that the world is made up of 2% obscenely wealthy, 2% who choose not to play that game (like yourself), 16% who are not even allowed to play the game, and 80% who are totally dialed into the More-is-ALWAYS-Better game, but are not all doing so well at it.
In other words, while the top 1 or 2% are having the greatest impact, they are merely following the value system that another 80% are totally supporting. It is *not* the rich. It is the system.
For example, ask the general population how many of them want to halt climate change. You will probably get a three-quarter majority. But how many of them are willing to alter their lifestyle or vote for politicians who want to take concrete action? A teeny tiny fraction of that majority.
Yes, we need to eliminate obscene wealth - *NOT* by redistributing it, but by redefining what wealth means.
Diana, as always, thank you for saying things so plainly. You’re carrying the weight many people silently carry while watching the heaviest footprints belong to a tiny few. Pretending otherwise erases real effort and care.
We are tethered to a greedy, absurd system that rewards excess while asking for restraint from individuals. That needs to change, now.
Southern winds, Ricky
Thanks for acknowledging this reality, Ricky. I hope we can somehow get this class to curb their emissions, and address their own way of thinking that has them believing they're entitled to this excess, and to turn a blind eye to all the harm they cause, whether that be from genocide, climate change, or endless war. These are all interconnected.
Here's hoping that 2026 will treat you well.
Not to mention the much more numerous middle classes of prosperois nations consuming vast amounts of energy and resources to maintain their extravagant lifestyles.
They are not "oblivious"
They are actively hostile and indifferent, priviledged and entitled beyond their merits
One must presume that they KNOW or could reasonably be expected to know that their conduct is psychosociopathic.
Robesp13rre workshopped a solution to the LetThemEatCake-ers centuries ago!
That's something that is often repeated. A hight-income person have a much bigger impact than a low-income one. And of course, it's true.
But the problem is, low-income people are much more numerous than high-income ones. And since most of the former (with the possible exception of a few people like you) want a slight increase, this would offset any substantial decrease accepted by the latter who then have no real incentive to do so as it will only make their own situation worse… This is one of the reasons this whole matter is a predicament...
The disease of more!
A wonderful piece, thanks for sharing. I think your point "Humanity is in an invisible race where slowing down means someone else wins and takes your resources." is painfully accurate and a huge part of the problem with trying to change the system. I read an article a while back that said something like "Deciding not take that flight is noble, but all it does it lower the cost of that seat and make it more affordable to someone else - either way the plane will still be full, with or without you." and it's poignantly true.
Hey SS,thanks for sitting with it. I appreciate you bringing that example in. It sticks because it’s uncomfortable and honest. That’s the bind many of us feel in our gut: doing less inside a system that doesn’t slow down just shifts the weight elsewhere. It’s not a moral failure, it’s a structural one, and naming that matters more than pretending personal purity will save us. I’m still sitting with that tenssion myself.
Southern winds, Ricky
Probably a good idea using the term “ecological overshoot” if only because the term “climate change” goes in one ear and comes out the other. It might also be better because it forces the denialists to deny on a wider front of issues. It also goes to the root cause, an unrealistic concept of human progress.
Stan, that’s exactly why I’m letting go of the climate language. It stopped reaching people, including me. Overshoot widens the frame and makes denial harder to compartmentalize.
It also forces us to question the story of progress we grew up inside, and that reckoning is… uncomforrtable, but necessary.
Thanks for all your support!
Southern winds,
Ricky
Much love, dear ones 🧡🕯🧡
Always wishing you the best, dear Gary!
Again very interesting reading. If only people would take the time to stop and uni k about these things then perhaps more would be.
The smallest change can have significant results.
Hum… I agree on most of your points but the rocket might not be the best metaphor here. Rockets need fuel to accelerate. In space, when the engine stop, the rocket keep going at the same speed. Then it will need fuel again to decelerate and stop where it is intended to. Not really like a car.
More seriously, something weird is happening. Climate change was presented as a catastrophic event. But something we could somehow revert. Providing we use the right technologies and agree to spend enough money on it.
Then somehow, even if some catastrophes did occur, nothing apocalyptic happened while it wasn't reverted either. Then other problems came up : epidemic, wars, etc... And now, it's like the whole thing gets out of fashion. Like we collectively accepted a predicament we indeed cannot do much about it anyway...
Thanks Ricky.
The infection has indeed spread. Cure is nowhere in sight. Unless we reframe what that word means.
We debride the necrotic universal wound in one shared pile of shit.
Compost what we can.
I love the act of being with the natural world right now. In reverence and in silence.
Carl Sagan was a wise one.
May we all find peace.
Nessa, I’m glad you wrote this. The word “cure” feels wrong now, like it belongs to another era. What you say about composting, about staying close and quiet with what’s still here, that’s where I keep ending up, too. Not to fix, just to witness, to tend what can still be tended, even if it’s messsy and unfinished.
Southern winds,
Ricky
Ricky, ignorant and short-sighted people have fooled themselves for the longest time into thinking they have controlled for the weather. The fact that we have built sturdy dwellings complete with insulation and devised heating and cooling devices has convinced them that we can surely ideate and manufacture our way out of the changing climate. I always think, "we ain't seen nothing yet" when it comes to the power of chemistry, physics, the carbon cycle and the nature of the universe.
I have totally given up on the idea that we can forestall any of what's coming. I cautiously advise those friends and family that will listen. I don't know if any of them read what I forward. We are done for in spite of the "hopium" faction's steady cheering and beating of drums. Do we see any coordinated efforts whatsoever? Do we see the CO2 ppm declining? Do we see predictions and estimates of future temperatures being reduced?
I simply don't care any more and only read to see how bad it's getting. I tend to the macabre--how long will we have water; how long will we have food; how long will society remain cohesive and relatively sane? Good luck to you in 2026. Good luck to us all-we will need it.
Thank you for these thoughtful words, Wayne, that sense that the laws of physcis will collect their debt whether we believe in them or not. I feel that fatigue too. I’m less interested now in reassurance than in honesty, and in staying human while things get rough. That’s partly why I write this way, to sit with it instead of selling escape.
Southern winds,
Ricky
I see a few defects in this piece...
Using the term "climate change" is a de-facto concession to the denialists who natter "the climate is always changing - no big deal"
The term is tepid timid pedestrian.
It does not encapsulate not does it do justice to the fact that our
Hyper-consumptive hyper-emissive eco-cidal psychosociopathic capitalist infinite-growth predatory-parasitic exploitive extractive trickle-up dominator cult-ure has pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed...
Past Silent Spring
Past Small Is Beautiful
Past Limits to Growth
Well into Overshoot ** and
Breaching of seven of nine planetary survivability thresholds ** and
Global heating ** and
Destabilization of atmospheric and oceanic thermodynamics ** and
Massive and accelerating destabilization and disruptions to the ecosphere which adversely impact lifeforms all over earth.
That's waaaaaaay more than "climate change" which use is a fundamental error and injustice.
There is no mention of the role of the primary perpetrators behind decades of psychosociopathy.
The tendency to attribute it to an inherent defect in humanity - and " too many brown people "
is fundamentally fraudulent and must be deconstructed and eviscerated by any credible analyst.
There is no mention of the role of the Denialism Racket - a hard core pathological professional propaganda operation - first launched by Exxxxxon and subsequently took over the Big Tobacco propaganda machine and now actively engaged in by the entire PetroRacket as well as the majority of corrupt governance structures.
The notion that people have "lost interest" and "become tired of" our existential predicaments and MetaCrisis evidences the success of the psy-op funded by literally unlimited resources.
The Denialism Racket and the PetroRacket have infiltrated and subverted and sabotaged the UN COPs and are being a sophisticated anti-science campaign - which has landed exceptionally well with the mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging MAGA cult m0r0ns in Amerikkka and elsewhere.
A determined Manhattan Project scale engagement with
DrawDown
DeGrowth
Doughnut Economics
DeColonization
De-Industrialization of Petrochemical MonoCrop Agriculture
DeepAdaptation and
PostDoom will not provide a solution but may blunt the gnarliest edges of the MadMaxxxian dystopia hovering on the horizon and may result in refugia oases of survival for _After_