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Page added on July 8, 2015
Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse
Dr. Carolyn Baker is a profound thinker on the predicament of modern industrial civilization who comes at the subject from an invaluable perspective. Whereas many of her contemporaries focus only on the logistical details of collapse preparation, she draws on a background in psychology and psychotherapy to address how we should prepare emotionally and spiritually for what is ahead. Since she first became aware of our resources crisis well over a decade ago, she has devoted her life to helping others make what she calls the “inner transition.” She’s written books, spoken internationally, conducted workshops, life coached, hosted a radio show and otherwise made herself an indispensable resource to those seeking guidance through the terrain of inner transition.
In her latest book, titled Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse, Baker surveys 16 relationships that she’s found to be basic to human well-being but sorely in need of tending right now. They range from the obvious examples of romantic love, friendship and parent-child relationships, to the links that connect humans to all other life forms and the ties each person has to the “psychic darkness” of his or her inner shadow (to use terms from Jungian psychology). Perhaps the best indication of how broadly Baker defines love relationships is an epigraph at the beginning of the book attributed to theologian and author Father Richard Rohr: “All of creation is relationship.”
Even so, the type of relationship most people will think of when they first pick up the book is that between romantic partners. The cover image, which shows a young man and woman embracing tightly as they survey a bleak, smoking industrial landscape, suggests a sense of solace in the company of a significant other. Thus it’s appropriate that the first chapter deals with loving, living and preparing with a life partner. Specifically, it is about doing these things with a reluctant partner.
Baker has a great deal of wisdom when it comes to this all-too-familiar dilemma for collapse preppers and those who love them. She’s helped many couples in this plight either work it out or realize that it can’t be resolved, so she knows how agonizing it is for both parties. The prepping partner often feels belittled by his or her non-prepping partner, while the non-prepper is embarrassed by the prepper’s seemingly kooky behavior, and can often feel lonely and neglected. The only way to make progress in addressing the situation is for each person to refrain from imposing his or her viewpoint on the other (a futile effort) and instead work on communicating emotions. In her discussion of this process, Baker provides sample scripts and exercises that she’s assigned to couples in therapy.
The second type of relationship examined is that between parents and their children. Baker admits that her work has been mostly with adults, but says she’s still been able to glean valuable insight into how to introduce children to collapse-related topics through talking with concerned parents. Based on these conversations, as well as research she’s done, she has come up with guidelines tailored to different age groups. One fact I found particularly interesting is the tendency of elders to underestimate young people’s ability to handle knowledge of harsh realities. Baker quotes one father to the effect that children can deal with serious issues much better than we think they can, and that when we discuss such things with them, it makes them feel we trust them.
The author is a fount of firsthand knowledge on tending relationships with others in a community. Having spent years coaching collapse preppers on cultivating community, and on forming intentional communities in which to weather crisis, she knows well the work required. (For the purposes of her discussion, Baker defines community as “trusted others living in the same vicinity or region.”) Baker sagely advises that when first trying to interest fellow community members in preparation efforts, it’s best not to talk about peak oil, climate change or any of the other abstract dimensions to our crisis, since these are divisive issues that many people will be unwilling to consider. Instead, try beginning a dialog about how everyone might, say, deal with an emergency situation or reap the economic benefits of an all-solar-powered neighborhood.
In addition to its futility, there’s another reason why trying to impose one’s views about collapse onto others is a waste of time: It isn’t necessary. If you’re working to solarize your neighborhood or shift its food supply to local, organic consumption, for example, you don’t need everyone involved to agree that without these measures there will be catastrophic electricity and food shortages. You just need to demonstrate what each person has to gain from the effort. Many participants will doubtless be motivated simply by a desire to break their reliance on an aging, overburdened power grid or to eat food free of toxic pesticides, but in the process they’ll unwittingly be helping ready the community for the inevitable descent.
The relationships examined so far are ones that most people will be able to relate to easily. Less obvious relationships covered by Baker include those with our bodies, our creative souls, the food and other resources we consume, the beauty around us and the present moment. Baker also looks at human-animal attachments and how people in industrial society relate to loss and grief. On this last front, she argues that our tendency to keep sorrow private has made us a culture suffering from “congestive heart failure,” in that our pent-up emotion reduces our capacity for caring and compassion.
Coming to terms with one’s mortality is, of course, a classic manifestation of grief, and Baker contends that this is the task now before us as a species facing the prospect of its own near-term extinction (NTE). The case for NTE, driven by runaway climate change, has grown overwhelming in recent years, prompting Baker to recommend the adoption of an “attitude of hospice” in which to prepare for the final phase of our collective earthly existence. Just as many hospice patients report living the most precious parts of their lives at the very end, so too might we all discover unprecedented meaning as we cross over into our mutual abyss.
A longtime scholar of Jungian psychology, Baker draws on Jung’s notion of the human shadow in much of her work, including this book. She sums up the shadow as “any part of ourselves we say is not me. We look at an addict and say, ‘That’s not me,’ refusing to recognize that some part of us is or could become an addict.” For Baker, getting in touch with one’s inner shadow is a crucial part of maintaining harmonious relationships in the external world. The process can be likened to cultivating the internal community within the psyche so as to be better prepared for engaging with the outside community. Among the reasons why shadow work is important is that it makes us less apt to project the dark aspects of ourselves onto others and helps ward against harm from those who may have duplicitous motives—i.e., “shady” parts to their character that would go unnoticed without careful attention to the shadow world.
This book contains many proofs for Baker’s tenet that inner work is as important as outer work when preparing for collapse, but one in particular is my favorite. It’s an excerpt in which Baker reveals that while her methods have been called “too touchy-feely,” the same people who issue this dismissal often come back to her for help when their efforts to do things by other means have failed. For example, people who have disregarded her advice about improving their interpersonal skills have lived to regret it when intentional communities they’ve attempted to start have come to grief because of communication and conflict resolution issues.
A note is in order on the use of the word apocalypse in the book’s title. Today, when people see this word, they usually think of the countless end time scenarios depicted in doomsday films. However, Baker uses the term in its original sense: a disclosure of something previously hidden. She believes we’re approaching a rite of passage that will reveal to us our true place in nature, and perhaps even transform us into a new breed of human being. The “Enlightenment Enculturation” that has tricked us into thinking we’re separate from nature, by emphasizing logic over intuition and objectifying living systems as “resources,” will give way to a truly enlightened perspective. This new outlook will be far more in keeping with the beliefs of indigenous cultures around the world that view all living beings as connected.
My one criticism of Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse is that its cover undersells it. The image of two young lovers huddling together amidst calamity is a powerful one, to be sure, but it also invites the misconception that the book deals solely with romantic love. As this review has shown, Baker’s focus is vastly more encompassing. Still, I hardly know what would be a better image, and anyway this is a minor quibble with an otherwise insightful and highly accessible book.
28 Comments on "Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse"
ghung on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 9:36 am
“Whereas many of her contemporaries focus only on the logistical details of collapse preparation, she draws on a background in psychology and psychotherapy to address how we should prepare emotionally and spiritually for what is ahead.”
Focussing on the ‘logistical details’ is the best way to prepare emotionally and spiritually, at least around my place. Identifying what the real problems are or are going to be, and coming up with solutions, locally, even if some don’t work, beats the shit out of hand-wringing and commiserating about how fucked society-at-large is. Change the things you can, learn to live on less, and produce whatever one can locally; leaves little time and energy for much else. Never be the deer in the headlights.
I have friends who have largely given up because they can’t fix the world. I suggest they shrink their world to those things they can actually change, because they never could fix the ‘world’ in the first place.
penury on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 10:40 am
I am sorry but, I would prefer that you peddle your unreadable books somewhere else.
BobInget on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 11:10 am
Is it fear of some sort of future, dateless, apocalypse or every day repetition that we find most disturbing?
Ideally, books and movies have us face ‘the end’ with our loyal life partner.
Dystopian dramas are always staffed by beautiful young people. No one wants to look at ‘ugly’ old people using up valuable, scarce, commodities.
If a person wants to see our future look at Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan,
so called ‘migrants’ fleeing Africa, Central America, Middle East. Fifty million hungry, tired, angry people uprooted by events and conditions
foisted on them beyond their control.
Suicide bombers were so rare 50 years ago when one struck it was to kill a world leader.
Today there are too many disheartened blowing up we’ve lost count
Nigeria is so overpopulated even an AIDs epidemic hardly touches a budging birth rate.
An army so corrupted neighboring Chad was hired to fight off inevitable crazies, (this bunch called Boko Haram) Outfits like Boko can be defeated militarily but new ones will rise up in their place.
The only way to stop ISIS or the like, would be to
make lives livable. By now, that’s too late. African Resources started flowing to Europe
two hundred years ago. In return ‘we’ offered our used tee shirts.
Plantagenet on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 11:28 am
Dr. Baker has made a career out of counseling depressed doomers. People who believe the world is going to end soon tend to have difficulties forming lasting relationships with other people.
Apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 11:30 am
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Apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 11:41 am
Planty, how do you know that? Got any proof or did you just make that up in your little planty brain like all of your nonsensical assertions. You know that guy, Guy McPherson? He is the biggest world ending doomer out there (he claims were done by 2030) and he has a bunch of loyal followers and travels all over the world to give his doom presentation – they even pay his airfare, shelter and feed him. I guess those relationships won’t be all that lasting since they will end in 2030.
BobInget on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 12:53 pm
http://www.wired.com/2015/07/alaskas-fire-may-make-climate-change-even-worse/
THIS WEEKEND, SMOKE smothered the high-rises of downtown Vancouver. Sunsets as far south as Ohio took on brilliant hues of red and orange. And humanity reached another potential milestone in climate change—all thanks to hundreds of wildfires burning in Alaska and Canada.
The problem isn’t just scorched landscape—though that’s bad enough, to the tune of 3 million acres and 600 fires in Alaska and over 4,000 wildfires in Canada. This year has been exceptionally hot and dry—just ask a Californian—but even so this year’s blazes haven’t yet surpassed the toll of the even fierier 2004. As Sam Harrel, spokesperson for the Alaska Fire Service, puts it in understated terms, “We are on a track for a lot of acres this year.” But the real problem is that the fires could accelerate the melting of permafrost, a layer of ground that’s never supposed to get above freezing. And permafrost is one of Earth’s great storehouses of carbon. Release it, and you speed up climate change.
What ties all that together is “duff,” the thick layer of moss, twigs, needles, and other living or once-living material that blankets the forest floor. Duff can be up to a foot thick, and it provides the insulation that keeps permafrost cold through even the sunny days of summer. But when fire comes along, duff becomes fuel. Burning duff releases carbon too, of course, but losing it is like ripping the insulation out of a refrigerator.
dave thompson on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 12:57 pm
Baker and McPherson both have compiled excellent information for those of you interested.
roman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 1:34 pm
“Relationships” are the root of all problems, the cause of “ecological apocalypse”.
Plantagenet on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 2:08 pm
@Bob
You are right that alaskan forest fires can help melt permafrost. And, more directly, the smoke and soot they release are themselves contributors to Greenhouse warming. “Black Carbon” (i.e. soot) from diesel engines in the EU, coal-fired power plants everywhere, and forest fires, are one of the causes of the melting of the Arctic sea ice.
Cheers!
Plantagenet on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 2:10 pm
@apeman
Instead of sputtering cluelessly about Dr. Baker, why not read her book or visit her website? Then, after ou educate yourself, you’d actually know something about the work she does and you could make an intelligent comment about it.
Cheers!
Apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 3:17 pm
Oh I’ve been to her site planty…she accepts visa, mastercard, discover, amex, etc. Grief counseling don’t come cheap for the white privileged Boomer Doomers. Where is the lament and grief relief for the billions of 3rd world people who are already suffering and will be the first to die, yet have almost no responsibility and received very little if any benefit from industrial civilization? Fuck em. Bunch of savages don’t need no spiritual grief coddling.
apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 8:19 pm
3.1 million acres have burned in Alaska this year
Poor air quality suffocates region
http://www.wsbt.com/news/nationworld/31-million-acres-have-burned-in-alaska-this-year/34055950
apneaman on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 8:26 pm
Abilene’s 8+ inches highest ‘daily’ rainfall total ever recorded!
http://www.ktxs.com/weather/rainfall-totals-abilene-regional-airport-records-54-inches7/34031254
steve on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 9:11 pm
Ugghhh…this site is sinking…zero hedge is way up in viewers this is way down….
Makati1 on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 9:13 pm
Another touchy-feely book to make money.
Sex will take care of perpetuating the species, not love. Love is a modern concept that is dieing out if you can believe the stats of unmarried mothers and those who plan to never get married.
If your career and income is wrapped up in psychology and it’s spinoffs, then you can not see anything else. About like the General that cannot see anything but war as the answer to any problem between countries.
Makati1 on Wed, 8th Jul 2015 9:19 pm
Apneaman, I wold be glad to send you a few feet of rain if I could. At the present time, we have 3 typhoons parading past the Ps and more than 6 inches of rain in the last 3 days, with another week of rain in the forecast.
Water management is the most important part of setting up our farm. Manila gets about 5-6 feet of rain every year, and the Pacific side, where the farm is located, gets 10-12 feet annually. It is located on top of a hill and we plan a fish pond there…lol. We live in a world gone crazy.
BobInget on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 8:51 am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-colbert-goes-into-apocalypse-mode_559e371ce4b01c2162a5e4c6?
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:17 am
Q&A: Antarctica – our big icy threat
“Scientists are watching the dramatic death throes of the huge Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica, which is giving way after 10,000 years. And in only the last six years, glaciers along the Southern Antarctic Peninsula have shed 14 trillion tonnes of water. ”
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11472481
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:19 am
Latest numbers show at least 5 metres sea-level rise locked in
“WHATEVER we do now, the seas will rise at least 5 metres. Most of Florida and many other low-lying areas and cities around the world are doomed to go under. If that weren’t bad enough, without drastic cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions – more drastic than any being discussed ahead of the critical climate meeting in Paris later this year – a rise of over 20 metres will soon be unavoidable.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630253.300-latest-numbers-show-at-least-5-metres-sealevel-rise-locked-in.html?full=true#.VZ6QXrUV1NE
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:20 am
Catastrophic Chinese floods triggered by air pollution
” Over the course of 5 days, 73 centimeters of rain pounded the mountains, peaking at 29 centimeters in a single day. Rivers burst their banks and poured through city streets, washing away homes, factories, and bridges. Steep valley slopes collapsed in deadly landslides. About 200 people died, and a further 300,000 were displaced.”
http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2015/07/catastrophic-chinese-floods-triggered-air-pollution
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:22 am
Record heat, drought a fatal combination for fish across the West
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/salmon-670891-fish-river.html
apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:44 am
The Climate Deception Dossiers
“For nearly three decades, many of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.
Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven “deception dossiers”—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.”
http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fight-misinformation/climate-deception-dossiers-fossil-fuel-industry-memos?autologin=true#.VZ6gGLUV1NF
One possible scenario I can imagine is that once the bodies really start piling up (your kids and grand kids and parents and spouses and friends) the devastated apes will turn to anger and be looking for revenge. I imagine some of them, well aware of the billions spent on denial, will go for the oil people from roughnecks to CEO’s and everyone in between – they will be seen as collaborators. The “I was just following orders” defense does not have a very successful track record although it’s always the go to excuse. Apes are vengeful moralizing savage people.
1945 The Savage Peace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfElkGLXbH8
Dredd on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 12:33 pm
apneaman,
(on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 11:44 am)
There will be more hate than love when dealing with the criminal insanity of Oil-Qaeda (The Criminally Insane Epoch Arises – 4).
Dredd on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 1:05 pm
The private empire is not so private any more (The Private Empire’s Social Media Hit Squads).
Aspera on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 2:04 pm
I share Ghung’s notion that, “Focusing on the ‘logistical details’ is the best way to prepare emotionally and spiritually…”
But I also recall Jefferson’s definition of happiness (something he apparently had to keep explaining after drafting that document). “It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.” (Thomas Jefferson 1788).
“Occupation” seem like our “logistical details.” “Tranquility” seems like what Baker is focusing on.
Maybe they’re correlated. But maybe they’re orthogonal, in which case we’d need to focus on both independently. So, after the gardening, a bit of yoga?
Apneaman on Thu, 9th Jul 2015 3:10 pm
Hey, it’s Dr. Carolyn Baker’s friend and co-author Dr Guy McPherson with a message for all us privileged folks of empire, client states included.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA40gD8dGkE
apneaman on Sun, 12th Jul 2015 1:29 pm
LET IT BURN!
The case for letting forests burn
As climate change is fingered as a culprit behind the early rash of forest fires across northern and western Canada, experts say the most prudent approach at this stage is to, whenever possible, let the fires burn.
It’s a grim situation. But those studying the issue say the human toll of wildfire needs to be balanced against the reality that vulnerable forests are going to burn either way — especially given the mounting pressures presented by climate change.
“The question becomes, if we’ve got areas where fire can burn, the most responsible thing to do ecologically, fiscally and for long-term health is to let those fires burn,” said Toddi Steelman, executive director of the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan.
“If we don’t let them burn, we have to pay that account down the line … the forest will burn eventually.”
– See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/life/islander/the-case-for-letting-forests-burn-1.1997854#sthash.TiXHcyL2.dpuf