Adaptation means violent defeat

“Pain is the price of consciousness
in a threatened and suffering world.

It is not only natural;
it is an absolutely necessary
component of our collective healing.”

Joanna Macy
Coming Back to Life

By the time I published my book about Climate change and the human-caused predicament (The Impossible Conversation: choosing reconnection and resilience at the end of business as usual) I noticed that the mainstream narrative was shifting from using the word ‘mitigation’, to using ‘sustainability’.

An odd kind of ache meandered up my spine as I read that word more and more often in the period leading to the release date of the book in 2017. I had become conscious enough to know that that shift from ‘Mitigation’ to ‘Sustainability’ implied more threat and more suffering just as Joanna’s quote states. It meant all serious efforts at mitigation of our big climate change problem would now be officially put to bed. In its place would be a new and oh-so inspiring term, sustainability.

Sustainability, like all bullshit management consultant and public relations-speak, would be the new, go-to word for all global Green efforts. Who could argue with sustainability? We all want a sustainable world right? But again, my level of awareness was just high enough to watch for the telltale signs that there was…