By Roger Hallam Apr 4, 2024

Guardian columnist Owen Jones and ex-city trader, Gary Stevenson's latest video, Why We're In This Mess is great on the no-brainers. For example, in a stagnant economy, if the rich pass a tipping point of wealth, they eat up the poor. Well, nothing particularly new there - just what Marx was saying. I played Monopoly every Sunday for years when I was a kid and, if you are reasonably clever, you soon work out that as soon as you tip into owning a certain number of properties the other players are exponentially done for.

All well and good. But then, in the last five minutes, they move to “We have to give hope” and well - what's the plan? Owen is “supporting” independents and Gary wants people to listen to him more: What I call the macro delusion and the information delusion. What they are saying is so dumb it makes me want to throw myself over a cliff. All they are doing is creating even more despair and thus passivity.

Gary, quite understandably, can't get his head around why, given he has earned shit loads of money, the government and academics won't listen to him. At the same time, both of them don't want to listen to people who know how to build political power and get taxes on the rich.

That's where I come in. My team have created the three biggest climate/social movements in the UK - XR, Insulate Britain, and Just Stop Oil. We developed a detailed integrated mobilisation model and replicated it in 10 Western countries - creating the biggest campaigns in 5 of them in two years. If you are a social scientist - i.e. you’re familiar with complexity - you know that is pretty amazing. Just as you know Gary is cool for getting his predictions right several times in a row. Why? Because he has a different theory of how the world works - and so he can make lots of money. 

So guess what - why have I been successful in building political power from literally £250 in the bank and 3 people in a room? Because I have a totally different theory of how the world works to all the NGOs that have 10s of millions and do fuck all. 

Is anyone in the system interested in speaking with me? No. I have been almost completely ignored. 

By “the system” I am talking about Owen and Gary, and all the rest of the intellectual Left who continue to be completely clueless on how to build political power. They haven't even got to page 2 on the basics. (All of which I've outlined in my podcast, Designing The Revolution)

Don't get me wrong, no doubt about it, they are nice and moral people but, as Gary says, we are facing fascism. And that is going to really fucking hurt. I mean physically. People will get beaten up, get shot, get no help at the hospital, and die an early miserable death. That's what's going to happen to you reading this.

Add that onto the climate crisis, and this time round it’s going to go on forever and then everyone is going to die - hundreds of miles of rotting corpses. What do you think extinction is going to look like? It’s not a video game.

In other words, ignoring how best to change things is no fucking joke. Nothing could be more serious - why do you think I’m swearing? So please stop being stupid. Look at the evidence, check out who makes things tick, bring them into the room, and take a load of notes.

Owen and Gary - stop bollocking around on “What needs to happen”. Have me on your YouTube shows and I will go through the deal in 40 minutes and then have a concrete pathway to action. It's not complicated. Just do it.

Find out more at my monthly Zoom talks.

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📷Telling The Truth: The Easter SpiritBy Roger Hallam • 31 Mar 2024 View in browser

I was asked this week to step down from a group for saying unpleasant things on Twitter. At least I think that was the reason - the English way is never to be clear about reasons. I could (and briefly did) get into a bit of rage about it, but if there is one thing that the last few years have taught me is that people really cannot handle the truth - perhaps for good reason. Live for today - what is coming down the line is deliberately made hazy. Messengers who shine a light have to be killed - at least in an English way. 

But what enables me to get through the day in this mad, mad world is the idea that I can write something real - that which appears real I might be prompted to say because in this culture nothing is allowed to be actually real. It's all a matter of opinion for those who have the privilege to think that way. The train coming down the tracks is just one of many things. The joy of endless choice. The madness of endless freedom. The world is what you make it. 

I find it slightly hilarious how at this moment so few people want to write about what is actually going on. I think there are less than five people right now who can be emotional, use ordinary language and take things even halfway to their obvious conclusion. Obviously we are heading towards a holocaust so much worse than the previous one - and no, not in a million years am I trivialising - nothing could be further from the truth. 

"Don't mention the war" my friend who asked me to step down said a while ago - the essence of English repression. "Don't talk about Eichmann", another old punk friend tells me - something has been lost from his soul. And definitely don't mention hanging. 

It is indeed hilarious, and so so sad of course, because I say such things to prevent suffering - to alert people to the horrors they are setting in play for themselves and others. I would never want to hang anyone - I’m a follower of Gandhi for fucks sake. 

During this enforced calm before the storm, there is no point getting into that rage. I have to admit to myself that I would speak the truth even if there was zero chance of it being listened to because in all the noise I like its sound. The sound of truth is an oasis for me. And because of this, I am told how silly I am. Because being sensible at this point is believing that 2 plus 2 equals 5. Because it could, right? 

This brings me to the guy who was silly enough to have himself sacrificed on a certain Friday. The more you think about it, the more bizarre the story is - the more its logic conflicts with the essence of the logics of our present ruling regime - in the widest (Foucauldian) sense of “regime”. But for me - he’s my man. 

A while ago I was interviewed by BBC Politics presenter, Nick Robinson. I said things that in any vaguely sane society would have resulted in a thousand public meetings, an emergency mobilisation, and a great spasm of collective effort. But all that happened was silence - think, rigid, silence - its nothingness weighed down on me for days afterwards. Then this week an English professor appeared intending to write a book about my interview - in the context of St Augustine - The City of God and all that. I immediately knew what he was getting at. I think about the saint all the time. The sack of Rome, the sack of ….. Compare and contrast. 

Maybe there are a few other people out there waiting to pop up and remind me that the human spirit has yet to totally commit itself to suicide. 

In fact, in other news, I have been shortlisted by a well-known posh US magazine as one of the 25 most influential people knocking around at present.

Wonders never cease, as my mum used to say.

Does anyone have access to Designing the Revolution podcast transcripts or more detailed notes on contents? I am looking for the specific episode in which Roger goes into detail about non-violence and why it is essential to build a culture of non-violence in our organizing spaces.

It has recently come out that the rate of ice melt on Greenland has increased by eight times (yes that is right, eight times). I have yet to speak to the relevant scientists involved, but it seems reasonable to assume that it has more than doubled every decade. 

Greenland Cascading 30 Million Tons Per Hour Facing Future.tv recently conducted an interview about spooky new developments in Greenland. The ice sheet is cascading/gushing at unheard of rates never CounterPunch.org •Robert Hunziker

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Why does no one do the social science on these numbers? 

I’m a social scientist. More specifically, I did Phd research at King's College London for five years. More specifically still, you might say I learnt how to do maths about society without fear or favour. Which, as you can see below, is a radical thing to do. 

So let's get going and do a bit of maths...

This decade we are looking at 12,500 cubic kilometres of melt. Given the latest report, we should double it each decade from now on. Greenland has 2.9 million cubic kilometres of ice. So, effectively, the whole of Greenland will have melted by around 2080. That’s within the lifetime of people in their 20s or younger today. That will raise sea levels by seven metres. 

To get a flavour of the geophysical amplifiers involved watch this video on Youtube by two expert professors: Greenland: Ice Loss Accelerating.

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Taking into account the melt of other areas of the world, such as Antarctica, we can estimate that effectively everyone living within 10 metres of present sea levels will have to move. That would be 600 million people today - more like 750 million, given an increase in the world’s population to 10 billion from today's 8 billion by the mid century. 

In a conservative estimate this will lead to 40 million deaths in war (5% of the total refugees), given the “war” will continue forever (i.e. the sea level will continue to rise). It will lead to  20 million women being raped (look at the relationship between those killed in social breakdown/war and rape in places like Congo, Rwanda, Nanking - it’s around 50% of deaths).

Add in the numbers already established for temperature rise (extreme heat) - 1 billion refugees at 2॰C, 2 billion at 3॰C of warming. 

These numbers do not include the refugees caused by sea level rise. 

So let's say 2.5 billion displaced people towards the end of the century - one in four people on the planet - 125 million deaths in war/social breakdown and 60 million raped women. 

And the most important point: it does not stop - the ice continues to melt. This is nothing compared with what the 2100s will bring. 

This is the main scenario for this century with our present knowledge. It's 50% likely to happen with a 25% chance of doubling because of the compounding effects of endless social collapse and fascistic dysfunctionality (things did not end well for Germany in 1945). And a 25% chance of these numbers being halved if there are democratic revolutions which create rational policies to slash emissions and do geo-engineering (though sea level rise is now locked in regardless of what happens to emissions - it's warm: ice melts).

What to do about it is a question only those who are still in denial ask. It is beyond obvious to the 1% of the population with “self knowledge”, as Timothy Synder calls it. Give up your job and dedicate your life to enacting revolutions. So that when all this shit happens you haven't got the additional shit of knowing you stood by and did nothing effective to stop it.

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This week in the Portuguese elections, the far right surged to 18% of the vote while the two main parties collapsed to around 25% each. This is now a pattern across western democracies. The collapse in support of the centre left and centre right and the rise of the populist left and right forces. At the moment, the momentum is with the radical right. 

The conventional wisdom of the liberal political class, as shown in endless opinion articles, is that the centre right and left have to, in various unspecified ways, get their act together and stop the rise of the extremes. “Will Europe ever learn?”, one Guardian article writes. What does that actually mean apart from a vague appeal for people to be nice? 

It is vague because there is, in fact, no effective structural response to the rise of the political outsiders. Both the centre right and centre left are ideologically committed to an international neo-liberal regime that systematically undermines the incomes and the identities of the majority. This international regime has also shown itself incapable of fulfilling its first political duty: to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people. The elites pouring more carbon in the air will now take us over 2C.

In other words, it is impossible for these political forces, both ideologically and structurally, to respond to what is objectively the most extreme political project in human history - the destruction of the biosphere for private commercial gain. 

The reason people are turning to the “extreme” left and right is because the centre - the existing political system - is beyond “extreme” itself. It is literally taking us to hell whilst lying and insulting our intelligence along the way - "1.5C is still possible" they claim. Not a good strategy to make friends and influence people!

The question now is which impossible options remain - the take over of western democracies by demagogic right or left wing forces - or a renewal of democracy by a new revolutionary movement which forces changes in constitutions to give legislative power to citizens assemblies based upon sortition and informed deliberation.

I’m opting for the latter impossibility.

Recently David Wallace Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, wrote a nice little article in the New York Times which challenges my use of “one billion climate deaths”. The figure comes from the peer-reviewed Pearce paper, which states:

“If global warming reaches or exceeds two degrees Celsius by 2100, mainly richer humans will be responsible for the death of roughly one billion mainly poorer humans over the next century.”

The New York Times article, “Just How Many People Will Die From Climate Change?” tells you all you need to know about the methodological illiteracy and political pathology of the global north elites. Put simply, they can’t think straight and they don’t give a shit about killing poor people. 

Elites Can't Think Straight

1. This is what natural scientists do on the elites’ death project. They go: “Factor X has only a 25% chance of happening - so we can’t be certain - so we can’t put it in the model.” Meanwhile, the rest of the world does a standard risk analysis: “How many people will die if X happens?” and times it by 0.25. So if X will lead to an estimated 100 million deaths, you put in 25 million. You don’t ignore that. 

2. They also don’t tell you the time periods. Notice there are no time periods in his article which is analytically … well, dumb. But it creates the subliminal, deluded message that the death project is an event that happens and then stops. If we’re talking about how many will die from climate change, what’s your time period on something that will get locked in for 100,000 years (at least)?

Wells says: “I don’t think it’s right to suggest that reaching two degrees of warming (which now looks very likely) will mean a billion people dead.”

Ok, so let’s do some actual numbers here. First let’s define what a 2॰C warmer world is. Five years in a row that average 2॰C or above warmer than pre-industrial levels seems reasonable. This would then lead to a triggering of all the major tipping points: Amazon droughts, permafrost melts etc. That would then take us over 3॰C of warming within a generation, regardless of what human emissions do. 

Peer reviewed predictions are that two degrees average temperature increase will result in one billion refugees. If fascist states breakout in response to such social breakdown, as they often do, then it’s reasonable to expect that 10% of that number will be killed in the process and 5% raped (100 million and 50 million). Check out recent history in The Congo, Rwanda, Cambodia, Nanking and the Soviets in Berlin for starters. Other papers say that three degrees will lead to two billion refugees, which is currently the most likely temperature increase for the end of this century. If we follow just the logic of social collapse, that’s 200 million deaths. 

You can see how a proposed New York Times article in touch with reality would get rejected even at this stage, but let’s stride on ...

Let's add in secondary effects. In his piece Wells questions my use of “a somewhat obscure paper”. So for this I’m going to rely on Professor Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and former Chief Economist of the World Bank. 

In 2006 he and his team wrote the 662 page Stern Review for the British Government. Probably the most comprehensive economic study on the impact of climate change to date. 

In it he states: “Our actions now and over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century…Hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms.” 

So, get your pen and paper out. Estimates of military and civilian deaths in World War Two range from 70–85 million. That’s about 3% of the world's two billion population in 1940. At the current eight billion population that would scale up to 240 million dead. Estimates of deaths caused by World War One hover around 20 million deaths out of a 1.8 billion global population. So a similar scale today would be around 100 million deaths. Estimated deaths from the Great Depression are up to 10 million, when the population was a quarter of what it is now, so that’s around  40 million today.

You get 300+240+100+40 = 680 million ... just from heat, war and economic depression. 

Okay, now add in water shortages, disappearing glaciers, methane bombs, water vapour, arctic blue ocean event, AMOC collapse, coral reefs, ocean heating (the list goes on)... 

To give you a number, Dr Ripple recently published a report alongside Sir David King that stated:

"By the end of the 21st century, as many as 3 to 6 billion people may find themselves outside the Earth’s liveable regions, meaning they will be encountering severe heat, limited food availability and elevated mortality rates.”

Is anyone serious that the main scenario does not take us over one billion deaths, with a thick long tail probability of burn baby burn fascism taking us to effective extinction (i.e 6-8 billion deaths)?

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They Don’t Give A Shit About Killing Poor People

Wells also says the paper I quoted for this figure is “focused less on climate impacts than on climate justice.” 

Because “climate impacts” have no connection to “justice”? - Bit of a revealing slip up there! 

The article contains all the usual bystander words: “shocking”, “scary”, “worry”, “speculations”: the euphemisms the elites use when they kill the powerless throughout history.

 And then there is the classic displacement title: “Just how many people will die from climate change?”

People don’t die from “climate change”. They are killed by those who make political decisions that mean disposing of people is worth it, to keep their power and privilege. Concentration camps do not kill people - they are killed by those who put people into the camps, right? 

And finally, there's that deeply revealing first ‘just’ word in the title. "Well, what a fascinating question, Sir, – ‘just’ how many deaths of those poor coloured folks are we looking at here? Such an interesting subject…” 

Only a culture completely devoid of empathy could write such a word in an article about such obscenity.

The elites’ pathological inability and unwillingness to follow through on the logic of even their own statements is particularly evident in Well’s case. He’s written a book called The Uninhabitable Earth. It’s good stuff. So, sorry to ask the question, but what does uninhabitable actually mean?

It means: “unliveable. unfit or unsuitable to live in or with.”

So let’s take this nice and slowly then. 

“Unliveable” means you cannot live and therefore you die.

If you die then you are…dead.

The earth is where everybody lives.

There are eight billion people on the earth

So...

8 billion people are going to die 

That is what "uninhabitable earth" actually means.

I feel like vomiting. So, I will stop there. 

By Roger Hallam • 24 Feb 2024

The Labour Party’s 24-hour U-turn on introducing Citizens' Assemblies is testament to the radical idea of actually letting ordinary people control their own future. When you realise that, it’s no wonder Keir Starmer fears them. He should. 

Citizens’ Assemblies are our last hope for rational governance in our age of climactic collapse. But the ‘powers that soon will be’ were keen to co-opt that. They only want to use them to patch up the fraying legitimacy of the neoliberal regime. That’s kind of what the Labour Party does. 

But once the spectre of real democracy was raised, the Party dropped the idea like a hot rock. Just like when Labour responded to Corbynmania by desperately trying to stop ordinary people joining the Party.

Citizens’ Assemblies have been the wet dream of the liberal middle classes for a while now. It’s like the last cake they can throw out the window of their ivory towers before the pitchforks come out. It won’t work. 

Any citizens assemblies will back the people by definition. It would just take too much obvious manipulation to thwart them once they inevitably come up with rational, common sense policies. Things like: “Apparently this country doesn’t have enough money for its people to live in dignity. So let’s tax the mind-bogglingly rich. We can use that to pay for some hospitals, schools and public transport.” 

It’s beyond naive to believe the elites will simply fall for the idea that Citizens’ Assemblies are a “good idea” - like turkeys voting for Christmas. 

There’s no point waiting for the government to do this for us. They’ll only ever allow a pale imitation of the real deal. 

Citizens’ Assemblies are not a technocratic solution. They are a political revolutionary act. If given real power as a House of Citizens, they can change the regime from a corrupted representative form to an incorruptible sortition-based system where ordinary people are selected by lottery. 

Citizens’ Assemblies will take real power only by radical social movements setting them up for themselves. They will then quickly gain popular political power to counter the constitutional power of the House of Commons. 

So the scene will be set for the classic battles of twenty-first-century social struggle. Bring it on.

I've got two focuses:

• Revolution - Building social formations to create revolution and guide moments of social disruption.
• A Balanced Society - Building the new civilisation based on a new balance of deliberative democracy, compassion, and limited consumption.

Want to join me? Sign up my monthly Zoom call.

Can't wait a month? Sign up for nonviolent civil resistance with Just Stop Oil in the UK or via the A22 Network internationally. Alternatively, you can now join a new collaborative project I'm helping with called Humanity which is aiming to build the new world ahead based on deliberative democracy.

By Roger Hallam • 21 Feb 2024

You wouldn’t know it but millions of people are going to experience a lot of physical pain - not to mention the emotional pain of seeing the physical pain of those they love. The source of this pain is something called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This is the Atlantic current that comes up from the equator and keeps Europe warm. Last year it was revealed that Europe will experience an overnight fall in temperatures of 3-8C at any point after 2025 due to the AMOC collapsing. Why? Because the Greenland Ice Sheet and other Arctic ice sheets are irreversibly melting.

This prediction is an underestimate. Predictions by climate scientists are conservative because they only look at factors which are certain - and ignore uncertainties, even though they are very likely to happen. And so, for instance, it is no surprise that a few months later we have been told that the Greenland melt has been underestimated. We are now told this every year. As long as a defective methodology is used by scientists we can look forward to their predictions getting exponentially more conservative over the coming years. “Scientists were shocked” and similar phrases now occur in most “climate change” articles. 

And so we are heading to fascism. The first reason for this is because of the refusal of the liberal and mainstream media to make clear that “climate change” means physical pain - lots of it, and then you will die. The collapse of the AMOC is just one of several catastrophic situations which are now locked in. But the real catastrophe is the unwillingness to acknowledge these are social crises, not “climate” crises. What needs to be communicated is what it will mean for your pension (it will not get paid), what it means for your food supply (it will collapse), what it means for law and order (you are likely to get shot). 

The fact that such predictions seem outlandish is due to the greatest scandal of our time: the refusal of the media to tell people what ACTUALLY is going to happen. For instance the AMOC collapse will produce an overnight reduction of average temperatures by 3-8C in Europe (closer to 8C in Northern regions). Without a shadow of a doubt this will destroy our prosperity. At a minimum we will be thrown into a World War Two emergency - a state command economy and compulsory rationing. Think of an eternal Covid Lockdown and then times how bad it is by 10. That gets you in the ballpark of what’s ahead of us. 

Why don't people know this? Because no one in the media brings in an agricultural expert to tell us what an average -5C temperature situation across Europe means. It’s obvious. It means mass starvation unless the country comes together into a wartime mode.

And if we don't all come together? Then we will experience the biggest shitshow in the last 10,000 years of human history. Wave after wave of crises which will get compounded into holocaust episodes as fascistic forces drag us into a hell of permanent war. Think about Gaza. And then think about it again. That is what happens when fascism takes hold. And it is taking hold all around us - wake up!

Everything now depends on avoiding the fascist pathway. How? First it requires a mass civil resistance movement that can respond to the social crises and overcome the neo-liberal establishment. That means breaking away from the liberal climate movement and the reformist middle class. Instead we need to build an alliance with the small town people, urban youth, and non-white communities. These are the only groups that are open to revolt. How many NGO meetings have I been in where nice, university educated people insist on doing nothing - not least because they are incapable of understanding that “climate change” means you are going to be in a lot of physical pain - it is going to fucking hurt. 

The second thing that needs to happen is a concrete dialogue with the social groups who are now moving towards fascism - small business people, farmers, disaffected youth. This means something very specific - a structured, ongoing programme of going into their spaces both on and off line. There’s a three-part sequence: 

1. Listening and summarising to genuinely understand their fears; 
2. Exploring with them their views and how they hold together; 
3. Only when trust is established, engaging in reasoned discussion on how best their values can find expression in pro-social rather than fascist form: that “burn baby burn” means the death of their families and communities. 

Doing this is NOT AN OPTION - it is a matter of life or death - social cohesion or social collapse (a nice liberal phrase for rape, slaughter and starvation). And you should engage in such projects as if your life depends upon it. Because it does.

Thirdly, none of this will happen without a prophetic, ethical leadership who tells the truth. Without this leadership people will not door knock! A few people have to go out there arguing for this strategy and outlining the vision. Our organisations have to say to the younger generation - “You don't know shit and you need to learn fast. The potential leaders amongst you need to step up”. Again, it requires a structural approach. Individuals need to be proactively head hunted, trained in week long retreats, and then mentored and supported. Leadership at a time of total fuckedness is tough tough tough - it is the ultimate responsibility. And it needs to happen.

Lastly - we need to understand that this strategy is almost bound to fail in the short term - humans cannot think straight about the future and they do not give up their privileges voluntarily. We will make no substantial progress until the ruptures start to come thick and fast - which could be very soon. The realistic strategy then is to create revolutionary organisational infrastructure, culture, and strategy that are ready to go - to be rolled out as an alternative pathway to social solidarity rather than fascism, as soon as there is no bread in the shops. This is what I call the Syriza strategy; named after the Greek political party that refused to get sucked in the neoliberal delusion. When shit hit the fan and the global economy collapsed, they went from 4% to 40% in the polls. Why? Because they offered a credible alternative to fascism. 

Whoever is most prepared will win. And who wins will have a massive effect on whether billions die or just tens of millions. This is what historical agency means. Those of us who understand what is at stake have a lot of work to do. And knowing what we need to do is a massive benefit - it puts us in the ballpark of saving those we love. Which is, at the end of the day, what this is all about. 

I've got two focuses:

• Revolution - Building social formations to create revolution and guide moments of social disruption.
• A Balanced Society - Building the new civilisation based on a new balance of deliberative democracy, compassion, and limited consumption.

Want to join me? Sign up my monthly Zoom call.

Can't wait a month? Sign up for nonviolent civil resistance with Just Stop Oil in the UK or via the A22 Network internationally. Alternatively, you can now join a new collaborative project I'm helping with called Humanity which is aiming to build the new world ahead based on deliberative democracy.

On BBC’s HARDtalk 5 years ago, I was slammed across the board for saying billions of lives were at risk. The liberal climate movements tried to refute and play down the existential risks ahead. The last few months have shown ever more clearly that I was right. After all, what do we actually think the “end of civilization” will look like?

Several new scientific papers from Ripple and Pearce have outlined that not only are billions of lives on the line, but that “richer humans will be responsible for [the] killing”. This month, the NASA Climate Scientist, Peter Kalmus, also added his voice to that position. The time for shying away from our existential reality is over. The precautionary principle dictates that these realities form and guide the mission of our lives - that only a revolution to change who makes the big decisions is going to save us.

Read on for Kalmus’ quote and the regular monthly science briefing which lays out further scientific evidence of our civilizational collapse, the media’s anodyne commentary, and my criticisms of it. This should help you cut through the propaganda and repression. 

The Climate Summit Is a Sick Joke. You Should Be Angry and Afraid The primary cause of global heating is fossil fuels; and global heating is what’s driving all the crazy heat, fire, smoke, storms, flooding, drought, crop yield losses, and ecosystem death that is intensifying everywhere as Earth breaks down. 📷 Newsweek •Peter Kalmus

"If left unchecked, every year on average will be hotter than the last, and at some point  ... global heating will take down civilization as we know it. Billions of lives are at risk ..." - Peter Kalmus, NASA climate scientist. 

Maybe 2023 will be remembered as the year when the word "billion" entered the public sphere as the number of people who are going to be killed. When the liberal climate industry breaks down and people start to focus on just how serious the situation is.

Exponential Temperature Increase 

We've spent 5 months above +1.5°C.

Next year we might hit a month of over +2.0°C.
The rate of warming will keep increasing with growing greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing aerosols.
Monthly @ECMWF ERA5 Surface Air Temperature Anomalies from 1850-1900 in °C: pic.twitter.com/HSf40K7nNj
— Leon Simons (@LeonSimons8) December 17, 2023

The situation is that temperatures have been going up exponentially since the 1970s and we will pass 2C in the next 15 to 20 years. After which feedback loops will be triggered and we will continue past 3C and 4C. 

Here's just a snapshot of what those exponential temperatures really mean:

Extreme heat and drought typical of an end-of-century climate could occur over Europe soon and repeatedly - Communications Earth & Environment Extreme heat and drought typical of the end of the century could occur earlier and repeatedly over Europe, and are more likely when they coincide with a warm North Atlantic, according to 100 simulations with an Earth system model. 📷 Nature •Laura Suarez-Gutierrez

"By 2050–2074, two successive years of single or compound end-of-century extremes, unprecedented to date, exceed 1-in-10 likelihoods"

Such extreme temperatures mean that one in every ten years our ability to feed ourselves will be destroyed. Don't look away.

Fossil Fuels Are At A Record High 

Despite years of commitments from countries to slash the emissions of greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, they are still on the rise. Carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels is expected to rise by 1.1 percent in 2023 compared with 2022, scientists found in an extensive peer-reviewed analysis published this week.

This is what it looks like when cognitive dissonance goes non-linear. Especially when they have even got the full picture. Look at this new report of underreported emissions:

Climate Trace Detects Underreported Soaring Emissions COP28, the UN Conference of the Parties in oil-rich Dubai, currently underway, will not resolve the issue of oil and gas companies agreeing to slow down CounterPunch.org •Robert Hunziker

"Emissions have been soaring well beyond official statistics reported by countries."

On top of everything else, we find out they have all been lying as well.  Are we really going to let these criminals take our children into an endless hell hole?

Worse Than Previously Thought

Future floods: Global warming intensifies heavy rain – even more than expected 11/27/2023 - The intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall increases exponentially with global warming, a new study finds. The analysis by researchers from the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that state-of-the-art climate models significantly underestimate how much extreme rainfall increases under global warming – meaning that extreme rainfall could increase quicker than climate models suggest. 📷 Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that state-of-the-art climate models significantly underestimate how much extreme rainfall increases under global warming 

“The intensity and frequency of extreme rainfall increases exponentially with global warming,”

So much for "state of the art" - Linear analysis is fucked. How many experts are in their own bubbles of expertise and not looking at the bigger picture? Cascading tipping point will send us into a hothouse earth. Forever.

Just look at this new report on ice levels:

Prognosis for glacier loss in the Alps is worse than previously thought! 📷

Commited ice loss (=irrespective of any climate change) for 2050 amounts to 35%!
As this is an absolute lower bound, in fact it will be more than 50%, only 2.5 decades from now 📷https://t.co/nqarDz1TKs pic.twitter.com/kutl0mivBz
— Melaine Le Roy (@subfossilguy) December 16, 2023

If there is surely one phrase that sums up 2023 it is "worse than previously thought".

Even the new Global Tipping Points report minces its words.

"The climate change assessment process has tended to focus on the most likely outcome, rather than evaluating the highest-risk outcomes. But this is poor risk assessment and it is leaving society ill equipped for what lies ahead."

Understatement of the century – it's a total fucking disaster! 

How many euphemisms do we have to deal with before someone finally breaks free of the system and the corporate media to say how it really is?

This is what the Labour leadership refuses to accept - there is a point when we cannot stop the chaos, and the chaos gets exponentially worse. Reformism is simply irrelevant according to the science. It's self-evidently a treasonous crime for Keir Starmer to pretend otherwise.

Economic Risks

$5 trillion of nature-related economic risks will amplify climate “Nature is not the elephant in the room, it’s the huge green scorpion running towards us”- study author.Biodiversity loss and environmental degradation generates significant and long-term risks to 📷 Home Home

“Nature is not the elephant in the room, it’s the huge green scorpion running towards us”

At some point the penny will drop that nature is stronger than us, especially at above 2C global average temperatures. Yet to add to the fuckery, that realistion is going to be seriously delayed by fossil fuels firms covering up the dirt, as this new report in Nature points out:

"16 of the world’s most polluting fossil fuel companies were associated with more than 1700 climate misinformation ads on Facebook alone, with 150 million user interactions"

It's clear that the public sphere is completely corrupted - the solution: door knocking, leading to assemblies, leading to revolutions, leading to legally binding citizens assemblies. Got a better idea?

Water Crisis in Gaza

📷 We're pushing the entire water cycle out of balance. We're threatening the stability of all sources of freshwater.

Co-Chair @jrockstrom explains the urgent need to prioritize water in the climate negotiations at #COP28: https://t.co/Ccd0bZz6ea#TurningTheTide #GlobalGoals pic.twitter.com/szgAaElMGp
— Global Commission on the Economics of Water (@watercommongood) December 5, 2023

The water situation in Gaza is catastrophic. Even before the war, Gaza had virtually no potable water. The population relied on a polluted and rapidly depleting aquifer, as well as a limited number of desalination plants that fell far short of meeting local needs. This has led to the alarming statistic that 97% of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption.

One of the things no one wants to talk about is how many civilians will die once the whole of the Middle East faces social collapse as the region becomes "uninhabitable" (that nice environmentalist word for total fucking murderous hell), as the world's rich take us over 2C.

COP Fuckery

The United Nations and COP28 are lying. They know the 1.5C and 2C global warming targets are dead. Young people can and should take charge of their future. More later. See: “A Miracle Will Occur” Is Not Sensible Climate Policy - https://t.co/Wb875B1GWH pic.twitter.com/HBUhDrCjN2

— James Edward Hansen (@DrJamesEHansen) December 7, 2023

Part of me feels bad swearing away at the fuckery of COP28. ‘Calm down Roger - don't get carried away.’ Then we read the latest from Dr. James Hansen  - arguably the greatest climate scientist of our time.What does he say? 

We are going over 2C - meaning we face the prospect of 1 billion people uprooted and forced to migrate. No social scientist or historian with any self respect can avoid the judgement that this will be total hell: 20 times the number of refugees produced by WW2.

Me swearing away on twitter should be the least and last of your worries.

I don't know if Dr. James Hansen will appreciate me saying this, but he is one of my favourite climate scientists. Not just because of his immense expertise, but because he is one of the only top scientists in the world who is capable of calling a spade a spade.

UK Temperatures to Plummet

If we don't stop our reliance on fossil fuels and slow the melting of Greenland ice, we risk frequent UK winter temperatures of -20°C within decades #AMOC https://t.co/sZUGt6LVpb

— Prof Nick Cowern (@NickCowern) November 14, 2023

More importantly, temps will stay below 10C in summer. As a farmer I can tell you there's not a chance in hell of being able to grow summer crops at scale in those temps.

What sort of total fucking stupid death cult political regime takes this risk? 

Each month of these reports is another nail in humanity’s coffin. No one is coming to save us. It falls to you, the reader, to step up in defiance. To cast away this rotting system and build a 21st century revolution. Over the next few months, my team and I will be building a community of leaders from across the globe. Join it, whilst you still can. 

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For the past five years I have read ten to twenty articles and scientific papers every week on the “climate”, i.e the coming holocaust enacted by the global elites. I recently received one that predicted a 40% reduction in global GDP by later this century. This builds on two other key papers which predict over one billion migrants as we shoot past 2C in roughly the next 15 years and the resultant billion deaths by the end of the century. So if this is not a holocaust, what exactly do you think these predictions mean? Have the decency to be honest with yourself please.

I used to be a social science researcher at King’s College, London. The name of the game in that trade is to look at everything in context. So I will provide some context. There is overwhelming evidence that the climate science industry is structurally underestimating the realities we face. “Worst than expected” is the standard phrase of just about every article as new stats are published. A few years ago we were going to pass 1.5C around 2050 - now it is already happening. I remember reading reports that the Arctic will melt in the summer around 2100. Papers now predict 2035, if not before. AMOC - the ocean current that stops the 60 million people on these islands from starving to death - was going to collapse at some point next century. Now a recent paper tells us the odds are it will collapse by 2050. If you have not been paying attention, this will create a collapse of temperatures overnight of 3-8C across Europe. So don’t be surprised if it happens before your pension comes due. 

I’m like you. I don’t like to believe things are true if they conflict with my baseline beliefs - like “we will muddle through”. But then it becomes more difficult when it actually comes true. Scientists have been telling us privately and then publicly for years that staying under 1.5C was bollocks - and now here we are. For two decades or more the best kept secret of the climate space has been that aerosols (pollution from burning fossil fuel emissions) have been holding down temperatures by .5C-1C. As we passed 1.8C last September the pretence started to collapse as scientists raged about each other on a dark corner of Twitter. It's the start of the exposure of the world’s biggest cover up. That they knew we were fucked a decade or more ago. Not that the media is interested. Everyone is still in on the pretence, it seems.

Including Mr Starmer, as he decides to go back on investing a few billion in saving what is left to save. The phrase that rings through my head as the next generation takes him to trial for genocide at some point in the 2030s is “you knew and you did nothing”. No doubt Mr Starmer’s top legal team will point out, echoing Adolf Eichmann, that he did not actually do the killing. But it won’t wash any more in 2033 than in 1963. It will be a political trial. Starmer, like Eichman, will be guilty before he enters the courtroom. They hanged Eichmann. No one gets to kill Jews, and no one gets to send the next generation to their death either - without consequences.

This time round though it will be a lot worse because, as anyone with minimal analytic skills  will know, the situation now is - well, metaphysically different. With Eichmann the killing was done. The camps were closed. This time round it will go on for fucking ever. Maybe they will hang Starmer forever, whatever that means. 

Starmer and his fellow conspirators are committing treason by knowingly planning to allow emissions to continue at rates which will contribute to the collapse of the UK state and society in the next generation. Read that sentence several times, nice and slow please. I am not being in the slightest bit rhetorical - playing for effects, trying to get attention. I am absolutely serious. Physics does not lie and, as any sociologist or historian worth their salt knows, when a leader presides over the destruction of their society - things do not end well for them. When they preside over the destruction of their society forever… well, it's worth remembering the Mongols, who skinned members of the Indian ruling class and made their relatives eat the bodies.. 

There are two things for certain - what I am saying here is true, and that those in power will not believe it is true. I mean I told all this recently to Nick Robinson when he interviewed me recently on the BBC - the response: a deafening, earth shattering silence. The real question for those of us at the coal face of resisting this radical evil, pinging in and out of Europe’s worst prisons (I may be locked up again when you read this), is not what is going to happen to the present leadership of the British Labour Party. That’s a done deal.  It is what comes next - fascism or some revolutionary transformation of the human spirit. But I guess it will be a few years before the media wants articles about transcendence from materialism. 

In the meantime the best of British luck everyone.

We are coming together because - well, because things are going badly - things are getting worse and we can see it all around us. It's something we can all agree on.

​

Launch of the Humanity Project in Bristol (Spot me preparing my speech)

Maybe you can say there are three things most people agree on: first, far too much money, profit - power - is going to a very small number of people - the elites, the super rich, the billionaires. We pay our taxes, why not them? Second - due to them running off with all the money, as you might say, there is no money for things we all care about - things which really do not work properly any more - whether that be our health services - the schools - the trains - the list goes on and on. Lastly, we all have this bad feeling about the future. What will happen if these super rich people and companies continue to put carbon into the atmosphere?  What happens when food shortages occur and much worse things? Things we do not want to think about, but are right there at the back of our minds. It's like we have enough to worry about without having to think about the end of the world.

If things continue to get increasingly stressed, then people turn against each other. In many countries you are going to get vicious governments and we know from history this leads to fascism, with all those horrors you see in the movies. It really does not have to be that way. Yes, it is going to get worse - let's be honest with ourselves, but we do not want and do not need to start tearing each other apart - picking on groups - making scapegoats. 

If we are going to avoid this hellish future for our kids and young people, we have a responsibility - a duty - to stop it if we can. It brings us to what is positive  - an essential part of the solution anyway - and that is to come together as a community to do two simple human things: to talk with each other and to listen to each other. Put away our phones, switch off the social media for an hour or two, and speak with each other - look into each other's eyes and remember there is so much more we have in common than makes us different.  We all care about this neighbourhood - this town/city - our country - we all want the best for our kids  - the young people. We all are decent people who play a part - all that sort of thing.

Okay, so we are not saying we know how to sort everything out, but all round the place people are getting together to do the first thing we can all do - which is have a good chat. It sort of feels good, doesn't it?! 

We need more democracy, not less. That means building new political spaces and places, being brave enough to create our new future.

The start of that process begins with people powerhouses, new assemblies forordinary people, and new ways of taking action and of showing everyone what we’re doing together.

We’ve got 70+ assemblies happening the run-up to April, and you can run one too.

Set up a Popular Assembly in your local area and empower everyday people to make decisions about everyday issues.

Sign up for the online humanity project

Let me know what you think of Humanity Project in the comment sections.

Liked it? If so, tell about it to 5 friends who might be interested. This is the mission of our lives and we need everyone involved.

​

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This interview was originally published in the Dutch Magazine, De Volkskrant.

Roger Hallam opens the door: 'Ah, the journalist person.'

His living room, in a small apartment in South London, is crammed with a piano, bookshelves, two bicycles, an armchair, and a sofa with duvets and blankets on it – apparently, someone is sleeping there. The curtains hang loosely on one side. Hallam offers water in a tea mug with brown residue. 'How long do you want to talk, by the way? I have an hour.'

An ankle monitor is strapped around one of his ankles because Hallam is under house arrest – he is not allowed to leave his house between midnight and seven in the morning. The arrangement has recently been slightly relaxed; initially, he couldn't leave his house after ten. Nowadays, he can visit his children, who live elsewhere in the United Kingdom. 'A political measure,' Hallam judges. Harassment by the authorities, just like the police raids he experiences every few months. 'They take my devices, interrogate me, all with the aim of putting me behind bars. It's state intimidation.'

A week before this interview, it happened again: the activist group Just Stop Oil posted a video of officers ransacking his living room. Hallam cheerfully looks into the camera and gives a thumbs-up before being taken away by the police himself. It has become business as usual. He estimates this to be his thirtieth arrest.

Hallam: 'These raids don't happen because I publicly call for roadblocks. If you've watched my speeches on YouTube, you know I never do that. I point to the science and the absolute necessity to resist. The law is politicised to create repression. You are now talking to me about civil disobedience. Are you also civilly disobedient? Under an authoritarian regime, probably. I'm afraid we are increasingly heading in that direction here in the United Kingdom.'

As a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, Hallam is one of the most influential environmental activists globally. You could consider him the mastermind behind the Dutch blockades of the A12 in The Hague – 27 days long and resulting in 9,000 arrests. Earlier this year, Hallam spoke several times via video link with Dutch activists, he says. Hallam was the one who said: you have to come back every day. 'They wanted to go to the A12 every month, they said. I said: that's great, but it makes no sense. You have to do it day after day. That's the only coherent strategy.'

Just Stop Oil, founded in 2022, gained global fame after two activists threw soup at Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers (behind glass). But there have been numerous actions, from smearing buildings and glueing themselves to oil pipes to blocking roads. These weeks, 'slow marches' in London, where a group of activists walk slowly across the road, lead to a wave of arrests. Causing traffic disruptions makes Just Stop Oil a favourite target of right-wing politicians and tabloid newspapers, who speak of 'eco-idiots,' 'thugs,' and 'gangs' hindering ordinary citizens and costing millions in taxpayer money.

In recent years, the actions of environmental activists have been increasingly heavily punished. Two Just Stop Oil activists were sentenced to 2 years and 7 months and 3 years in prison, respectively, for climbing a bridge, causing a major traffic artery to be closed for hours. Ian Fry, the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights, said he was 'particularly concerned' about the sentences, the highest ever imposed in the UK for nonviolent protest.

Hallam himself spent four months in pretrial detention at the end of last year on suspicion of participating in a conspiracy to disrupt public order. A speech for Just Stop Oil activists had been secretly recorded by a journalist from the tabloid The Sun and leaked to the police, according to the tabloid itself: 'a victory for the people.' The newspaper then photographed the police raid on Hallam's apartment – a one-two, according to Hallam. He was not at home but was later arrested elsewhere.

Hallam: 'Make no mistake, it may seem to you that the Netherlands is friendlier, but we are just a few years ahead of you. It could go the same way for you.' In the 37 seats for the right-wing populist Dutch Party For Freedom, Hallam sees new evidence that a 'real left' story is missing. 'Neoliberal "left" breeds fascism,' Hallam wrote on social media after the Dutch election results because the left refuses to break with capitalism. 'We will only be saved by real left, which declares: "We will tax the rich, and they will pay for the carbon transition."'

In interviews, Hallam often clashes with British journalists, not only with those from the tabloids but also with those from the BBC. Hallam says, "Because they don't want to talk to me about the science. But if you, as a journalist, don't summarise the latest state of science, the public will think: this is just a strange radical saying crazy things to entertain us."

According to the annual greenhouse gas report from UNEP, the United Nations environmental organisation, released at the end of November, the current climate policy is far from sufficient to stay below a 2-degree Celsius increase. According to UN experts, the Earth is expected to warm by 2.5 to 2.9 degrees by the end of this century. Disasters, such as the melting of parts of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, are likely to occur, resulting in metres of sea-level rise. The monsoon in Africa could stop, the North Pole could lose its summer ice, and the glaciers in the Alps are likely to melt. According to UNEP, "ruthless mitigation and transformation to low carbon" are necessary, while greenhouse gas emissions rose by 1.2 percent last year, setting a new record.

Due to the climate crisis under the current climate policy, the World Bank estimated that 216 million people would have to relocate. UN chief António Guterres said at the end of September that "humanity has opened the gates of hell" and warned that we are heading towards a "dangerous and unstable world."

Hallam, trained as a sociologist, worked as an organic farmer in South Wales but stopped when prolonged rainfall led to the death of his crops. Hallam believes this is due to climate change. In 2017, he moved to London to pursue a Ph.D. at King's College on civil disobedience, a path he abandoned to focus full-time on his activism.

In 2018, he co-founded Extinction Rebellion with others but distanced himself from the group a year later due to conflicts over leadership and strategy. He wanted to fly drones near Heathrow to force the closure of the airport, but the action faced resistance from other activists due to safety risks. Hallam denies the risks, intending to launch the drones just within the restricted zone but at a safe distance from air traffic. He proceeded and was arrested. A lawsuit related to that action is ongoing.

Hallam also sparked anger among other activists when he described the Holocaust as "just another fuckery" in human history. Several XR chapters publicly distanced themselves from him, including in the Netherlands. Hallam also claims that global warming will lead to civil wars, which, in turn, will lead to, for example, group rapes, mass murder, and cannibalism. He describes these scenes in detail to journalists, stating, "They take your mother, lay her on the table, and rape her, then they grab a stick and gouge out your eyes. That is the reality of the destruction project we are facing."

In early 2022, Hallam founded Just Stop Oil, a movement explicitly focused on disrupting public order. The UK branch of XR, on the other hand, renounced civil disobedience, claiming it would be less effective, though stricter penalties might also play a role. Hallam sees it differently, stating that demonstrations, petitions, and lobbying won't move politics. He claims to know nothing about recent Just Stop Oil actions, deliberately keeping his distance as he feels he's being watched. He says, "I think at a distance about strategy."

You also spoke with Dutch XR activists in preparation for the A12 blockades. Were they a success? "Oh, yes. Well done. Congratulations to the Netherlands, what a great country."

Then, seriously: 'There is overwhelming evidence that large-scale civil disobedience is the fastest mechanism to bring about policy change. Demonstrations that do not disrupt are at best useless and at worst undermining. If you spend your energy making banners and waving flags, that energy cannot go to actions that do make sense. I now see all sorts of demonstrations for Palestine, but they have no impact because there is no disruption."

Does demonstrating only make sense if you break the law? "As a sociologist, I say: there is overwhelming evidence that 'just' protesting has no influence on deeply rooted power because power does not listen to arguments."

The A12 blockades were paused after the Dutch parliament adopted a motion asking the government to develop scenarios for phasing out fossil subsidies. Do you think this is a good reason to stop for now, or should XR have continued?

"I don't know the details, but in general, the biggest mistake of social movements is demobilising before they have won. The authorities may say they have accepted a demand, but nine out of ten times they are lying. That's how power works. They make a vague promise, so it seems like the protest movement has succeeded and they don't have to deal with it anymore, then nothing happens. The danger is that a protest movement is demoralised in this way."

When you spoke to Dutch XR activists, you said, 'Stopping fossil subsidies is not what it's about. There is a 'total fucking disaster' going on, and we have to fight that with everything we have.' Is a campaign focusing on fossil subsidies too narrow?

"Yes. The climate movement is embedded in a white, middle-class, Western, urban, bourgeois framework. I'm not saying that's all bad; it has pros and cons. But in the context of the mass murder project we're in, it's dysfunctional. It doesn't work because the climate problem is not a technical problem caused by an unfortunate set of circumstances. That's a neoliberal pretence – that's how it was sold to us in the '90s, and that's how the system still wants us to see it. What's really going on is that a billion people will die. A rational debate won't lead to a solution. To prevent it, a massive revolution is needed, culturally, socially, and economically. Nothing will change without large-scale civil resistance. The paradigm must shift, even within the climate movement itself."

Has the climate movement failed?

"Yes. Firstly, because there's too little at stake during actions. You have to sit in the city center on the road until you're arrested, and the next day you come back. You don't stop. Secondly, communication needs to change: focused on emotions. It's a Western misconception that you can convince people with arguments. You have to appeal to their values, to what's important to them, their history, traditions. You have to make them feel that our governments are inflicting violence on us. The analogy from my friend Adam McKay, director of 'Don't Look Up,' was that of a meteorite coming to Earth. A good analogy, I think. People see it but do nothing. While everyone understands, watching that movie, that it's crazy and criminal not to do anything."

You're not talking about the climate problem, but a 'mass murder project by the elites.' Can you explain that?

"The climate is only the mechanism that creates death. We also don't talk about the concentration camp problem; we talk about National Socialism, about the Nazis. We don't talk about the lynching problem, but about racists. So we shouldn't talk about the climate problem, but about the elites who want the lives of millions of people destroyed so they can maintain their power."

Why do you use the word 'want'? The intention is not to kill millions of people.

'It is indeed not about premeditated murder, no one is saying: I don't like those people in the global south, so they must die. What is happening is that the elites, and by that, I mean governments and big companies, say: we know that millions of people will die, and yet we consider our profit and power more important. We simply don't care. If you go to someone in the Sahel to explain that it's not about him personally, but that he will die so that you can retain your power, do you think he will understand? I don't think so. The incredible scale, the numbers involved, makes this crime incomprehensible.'

Why does it seem to be difficult to appeal to people's emotions when it comes to the climate problem?

'Most climate activists come from the middle class and are not used to shouting. They think they can solve everything by talking. While shouting is necessary. Suppose your teenage son refuses to help with the dishes. You say something about it, say it again, and he still doesn't do it. At some point, you have to change your strategy. You can, for example, become emotional, shout at him: what the fuck do you think you're doing? You're letting me down, I have to do everything alone! It doesn't always work, and you shouldn't overdo it, but sometimes it's a good strategy. Another strategy is to impose a punishment: if you don't help with the dishes, you're not going out tonight. I guarantee that works. On a societal level, it works the same way: the climate movement is the ineffective parent who keeps talking.'

You also emphasise the importance of sacrifice. You say: we in the Western world have forgotten to give something of ourselves for the greater good.

'The course of the last decades in the Western world deviates extremely from the normal course of history. In the past, people were aware that, occasionally, they had to give their lives for a collective goal, be it their tribe, their ideology, their country, or whatever. We are now in a long period of intense prosperity and stability, a period that may be unique in human experience. As a result, people have forgotten what it takes to ensure the survival of a society when faced with an existential threat. In Western societies, people think, when it comes to the climate crisis, that they can bring about change without sacrifice. That shows a complete lack of historical awareness. It just doesn't work that way.'

A quote from you is: 'For millennia, central to human societies has been the understanding that life is suffering. Through that suffering, you become whole, and wholeness is a deeper and more organic concept than something as superficial as happiness.'

'In our culture, we suffer under a simplistic idea of well-being, it's like accounting, there are costs and benefits. That may be useful if you run a store, but when it comes to human psychology, it's total nonsense. You can also become happy by sacrificing something. When people are arrested for something they do out of ideology, and they enter a cell for the first time, they feel peaceful because they stand for what they believe in. If you don't do what you believe in, you are always under some degree of psychological tension.'

Did you feel peaceful when you entered a cell for the first time?

'I don't remember, honestly. But I am certainly an example of someone with little fear and a high degree of willingness to sacrifice. I am embedded in the Christian tradition; I have read Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. I understand that the purpose of life is not happiness. The purpose of life is to lead a meaningful life, and that means sacrificing yourself for the common good. Whether I am happy about it or not doesn't matter.'

Are you never afraid?

'I am not afraid of my own fear. Naturally, I am quite fearful. I don't like conflict and I’m shy. Of course, I still feel fear, although I must say that, after a few years of civil resistance, I have become calmer. The first time in a cell, you are afraid, the second time less, and by the fifth time, you think: a day off. You know the ropes. Although I must say that when I was in pretrial detention for four months at the end of last year, I found it terrible. Objectively, it was terrible. At the same time, it was a privilege to spend time in a humble way with people deprived of their freedom by society, to see their spiritual resilience. I don't romanticise it - you can have great spiritual resilience and still be willing to kill someone. That's one of the ambiguities of the human condition.'

You often accuse British journalists of being part of the problem because they 'intellectualise' the climate crisis. What should journalists do?

'Get arrested, like everyone else. I'm not provoking; I'm serious. In our culture, we are what we do: our work. That idea is naive and absurd; we all know that what we really are is something else. A mother, daughter, son, father, lover, partner. And, even deeper, a human being, with a sense of existential responsibility. I'm not saying that your daytime activities don't matter, but in a human life, that's the most superficial element. Of course, you need journalists, doctors, photographers, politicians, activists; everyone has their role. That's fine if it's 1995. But it's 2023, and the reality is: we're all gonna die. Those specialties don't matter anymore; it's all hands on deck now.'

Everyone should ask themselves: why am I not in prison?

'Exactly! And that doesn't mean you have to spend all your time in prison. Suppose you participate in civil disobedience once a year, to the point where you have to go to jail. The rest of the time, you can still be a journalist, and if you get fired, you'll find an alternative way to be useful. Only if politicians, lawyers, journalists, doctors, farmers, and priests commit to the climate movement can the movement succeed. But those people are too privileged and too dumb to commit to it.'

And afraid, perhaps?

'They are afraid, yes. But they need to be challenged. When I see these people at my lectures, I say: you have the most to lose if our society collapses due to the climate crisis. Working-class people already have a worthless life. Most of your readers are probably well-educated, employed people. I want to tell them: the choice is not a choice between your current safety and prosperity and the frightening prospect of civil disobedience. The options are: join civil disobedience or passively watch as liberal democracy collapses in the next twenty years.'

They will dismiss it. It will all be fine.

'That's like telling the doctor: you say I have cancer and need chemotherapy, but I don't believe it, so I'll just go on with my life. We are now exceeding 2 degrees of warming, and that means a billion people will die.'

You consider it 'essential' to draw comparisons between the climate crisis and the Holocaust. Why?

'I don't think we have another choice. When I said that the Holocaust was 'just another fuckery' in human history, I didn't say that to trivialise the Holocaust; it is a terrible, terrible fuckery, and the world is full of other fuckeries. I think people know that it's true, if they are honest with themselves. A culture faced with an existential threat cannot survive without a moral framework. And the moral culture in Europe is rooted in the Holocaust. So when I make that comparison, I do it to emotionally involve people in what is happening now.'

Doesn't that comparison lead people to say: I won't listen to you anymore?

'That can happen. Because people feel uncomfortable with the idea that something similar is happening now. But making the comparison is the task of the moral actor in a society, it is the task of the prophet, of the radical. It is necessary to use the immorality of the recent past to expose the immorality of the present. People died back then to fight fascists. Why don't you go out to stop the fascism coming our way due to climate change?'

Going from the climate crisis to future fascism might be a logical step for you, but don't you think you lose a large part of the audience?

'What you're doing now is over-intellectualizing. Politics is about rhetoric, about stories. The collapse of society due to the climate crisis is an objective reality, not my opinion. If you don't put oil in your car and you drive onto the highway, you know your engine will blow up. You don't know exactly when, but you know it will happen. We live in a global society with enormous interconnectedness. If certain elements collapse, it will have consequences for the entire system, as you saw in the COVID-19 pandemic. If the climate deteriorates, we can grow less food, so people will suffer from hunger. There will be mass migration, wars will arise. If there are 200 million refugees in the world, as predicted, it will lead to the collapse of the world economy.'

When you talk about the collapse of society, civil wars, and hunger, do you get the emotional reaction you're looking for?

'No. I am often asked to prove that society is really going to collapse, which is naturally impossible. Asking that question, to me, means that someone is stuck in an intellectual approach, that they don't let it sink in. What works better is to appeal to their guilt: you contribute to this if you do nothing, and your children will suffer. Guilt and shame are powerful motivators. Your rights and ideals are violated, those of your children, those of your parents, those of people in the global south, those of the coming thousand generations. I keep saying it, and many people will read this piece and think: it's not going to work. This still won't activate people. Throughout human history, most people are never activated, right? Only 1 percent of the French population was involved in the French Revolution. There were 1 million people in Tahrir Square, 90 million people were watching soap operas. Do you understand what I mean?'

Does the climate movement need a new charismatic leader?

'Yes. Good strategic, moral, emotional, and charismatic leadership is crucial for success. That leader, or leaders, must be willing to go to jail. Greta Thunberg must be willing to go to jail. Then, when she comes out, she must say: it was fine, now the rest of you must go to jail. A day on the streets with 100,000 people is pointless. Making statements to the UN is pointless. Those days are over. The movement needs prophetic leadership. Not just Greta-like leadership. Someone who is just like me, or even better.'

What is the difference between a prophetic leader and Greta Thunberg?

'A prophetic leader gets upset, a prophetic leader gives emotional speeches, will cry, will shout, will make people feel guilty, will shame people, will become emotional. It is a person of the people, not an intellectual. Someone who speaks the truth. It must be someone willing to suffer and die for the cause.'

I've been thinking a lot in 2023 about fundamental strategic matters - more than at any time since the beginning of Extinction Rebellion. My work was mainly focused on refining and enhancing an established civil resistance model of “how to cause trouble effectively”. The basic frame was - “Look, let’s work together to create a massive nonviolent disruption and push the state into making big reductions in carbon emissions''. We were pushing up against a boulder called ‘the carbon regime’. Now, like Sisyphus, I see that we were doomed to watch it roll back in our faces.

In 2024, I’m working on a profoundly different framing: it goes something like: “Look, the carbon regime has totally fucked up so the climate crisis is now locked in. We don’t need to create massive social disruption because it’s going to happen anyway! The regime will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. So, what next? We need to build the next civilization and stop fascism from taking us to a terminal hell”. Bit long but you get the idea.

That’s the job, like it or not. You might want to stay doing your little thing in the world but greatness is about to be thrust upon you. As Trotsky said, you might not be interested in war but war is interested in you. Some have the privilege to ignore this reality, at least for the moment, but in 2023 the signs were all around us. The situation in Gaza shines a light on the complete moral idiocy of the old paradigm of violence and retribution. It is overwhelmingly obvious that what comes next cannot be more of that! Similarly, the latest COP makes 1984 look like kids’ play. ‘Let’s destroy billions of lives, but dress it all up as having a nice sensible discussion.’ Lastly, I recently sat through an absurd four week “climate” trial where the judiciary were simply unable to confront the enormity of what we face. Humanity’s destruction through carbon emissions was totally off the cards. So much for “intelligence”.

But we know all this. The point is, what’s next? For me, the new central concept is “balance” - which sounds moderate, hence why it has wide appeal. In the present context, in which everything is so imbalanced and getting exponentially worse, the notion of balance becomes a necessarily and paradoxically revolutionary idea. A balanced revolution, as theorised by Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, is actually against “revolution” - in the sense that it’s against the uprooting of human connection by psychotic utopian projects, whether they be communist, fascist or now “neo-liberal”.

Listen to Designing The Revolution Podcast for More

Over the year, I’ll outline different aspects of a balanced revolution as I get more ideas about “how to do it” from working on practical designs (e.g. how to hold a public assembly, how to door knock, how to stand in elections, how to create functional ethical control systems). As always with what I do, it is all about turning theory into practice and practice into theory.

The mission is to empower people to see the big picture - one that transcends the traditional categories of politics, economics, social connection, and spirituality in favour of a new fusion of confrontation and dialogue. At this time of total crisis, new social formations need an overarching and uncompromising ideology. What we create over the next decade has to be a credible national and international entity - think early Christian church but without the crappy bits - that can give us a real shot at survival.

A big part of the project is to bring on the leadership of the younger generation so they, in turn, can take their generation through the coming turmoil with a degree of intelligence and grace.

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If you’re interested in leadership and support, sign up for my upcoming online talk where I’ll lay out the plan ahead and you can ask me about where we go from here. Together, we need to lead humanity out of this mess.

Sign up for Jan 14th 4pm Q&A

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It may be “too late” of course - in which case, so be it. But it may not, and my intuition, for what it is worth, is “we ain’t seen nothing yet” - both in a negative and a positive sense. Many of us don’t want to go gently into that extinct night. The collapse of society means that revolution is now inevitable - transformation is coming and it’s up to us to guide it.

That is the light bulb realisation: that light comes out of the dark.

I wish you all a bright New Year. Whatever it may bring.

Looking on the bright side we now know the existing political arrangements are going to collapse. Each month the science brings more bad numbers. Last month the parts per million of CO2 increased by 5ppm in 12 months - only a few years ago we were looking at numbers saying it was 3ppm a year. The rate has doubled in a decade. In 6 years we will have 450ppm and 2C locked in. The usual response within exhausted “activist” communities is a cynical regression into passivity - “it’s all too late”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ordinary people are not so easily given over to such “sophistication”. “So we are fucked” leads to - ”Okay so what’s the plan?”

The plan is as our political regimes literally collapse under the weight of their own contractions - the resulting “social fluidity” will open up for the amazing potential for the biggest social transformation in the human story - not despite things being “so bad” but because they are “so bad”. Of course nothing is certain. Fascism will present its burn baby burn option to those drawn to nihilism, and of course it is possible it will in fact be “too late” and a revolution whether social or technological will still not save us

But still - looking on the bright side… And there’s another thing. Aside from the high drama of the end of the world there is the low drama of the price of bread - and the price of everything else. And then there are the lies and more lies from “them”. 

It is a truism that things can be totally crap but people will only rise up if there is a vision and pathway to something a lot better. That vision and pathway does exist - running things ourselves through assemblies. 

Seeing is believing.  When people sit around a table and go round one by one to moan about all the shit, people can't help but to cheer up. Of course that is just the starting point. You then have to have them go round on what needs to get done. And then they are ready. It takes about an hour for transformation to happen for most people most of the time. Forget social media - eye to eye trumps the screen just about every time. As I say, seeing is believing. 

Bristol Humanity Launch. Spot Me?

And then what. Well let’s just take one thing. 90% of the people in the UK don’t believe in the present constitutional arrangements. People are more pissed off with the political class than at any time in my lifetime - since the 1970s. So in the assemblies you say (it’s not a choice) we’re going to put up community candidates all over the country to stand in the national elections. There will be say 5 assemblies around a constituency - at which people will create their programme of what needs to change - and nominate candidates - ordinary people like them. Then those that agree to step forward go to a public hustings (a big party basically) and the candidate is chosen. Everyone goes away with 2 rules for the election campaign - keep it positive and do what the fuck you want (the model that won the Madrid mayorial election in 4 weeks in 2016). 

Everyone owns the process and so everyone gets involved. Loads of different posters and leaflets get produced and yes half of them are crap but that’s the whole point - it’s people power - people are doing their thing. 

For those clever sceptics out there - yeah the candidates have to take an oath to follow the will of the assemblies and the assemblies need a central group that ensures they are inclusive and well run - only centralisation can ensure sustainable decentralisation.

And then it goes wild because no one wants “them” anymore. And we are “not them”. As a friend said when this was a great success on a local scale - all people had to say on the doorstep was they were “not them” - that was it. 

I have helped to create a few successful things. And really it comes down to a stat. A XR public meeting got 20% of people to do civil disobedience. A Insulate Britain meeting got 1 person to go on the motorways. So here is the stat on this one - 80 hours of labour - leafleting, doorknocking, posters, stalls -  gets 70 people into an assembly in the inner suburbs of a Western city. I expect 20% will step up to create more assemblies/support an election campaign. Wash and repeat. We did 1000 meetings for  XR and 1000 more for Just Stop Oil. 1000 assemblies in an average sized western democracy and you are shaking a good dice on a revolution.

There is something else you can be sure of is that 90% of the people reading this will go - “well yeah” and carry on. For the 10% that want to fight before we die then you can email me to say you want to do an assembly and get the details of what is happening in your country.

I am in no doubt this is the next big thing. But hey what do I know.

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Humanity Project

We have faith in people. We know that when ordinary people come together, we can make better decisions than politicians. So Humanity Project’s goal is to develop and provide the tools to help us all build our own future and new democracy.

To get involved, sign up for one of our in-person or online briefings here.

For more information, feel free to contact info@humanityproject.uk or check out our information folder.

Sign up for nonviolent civil resistance with Just Stop Oil in the UK or via the A22 Network internationally. 

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FULL VIDEO INTERVIEW - Nick Robinson and Roger Hallam.

Like other interviews I’ve done with members of the political class, this one again shows their psychotic inability to see that the real world trumps the political world. The contemporary British Establishment is a cult that believes in two extreme worldviews:

1. Vulgar Utilitarianism: the complete inability to see the value in doing anything because it is good in itself. Everything is a function of the question “does it work?” – which practically results in a chronic short- termism, and the notion that ends always justify the means (e.g., it’s okay to lie if it will take you into “power”).
2. Absolute Post-modernism: the complete inability to see that some things are objectively real, such as the laws of physics. Everything is seen as a “point of view” and a “belief,” apart from the belief that everything is subjective which is insisted upon with rigid dogmatism.

The reason the political class is taking us to civilisational collapse is because it cannot think straight. It has lost its moral compass and any analytical intelligence. It exists in its own closed world.

Worst of all, it cannot feel emotion – the entry point for a change in one’s worldview. When did you see a political or media figure cry about the betrayal of our youth, our country, our world?

The political class is DEATH itself – there can be no compromise with it. It is never going to save us in the time we have left.

We can only save ourselves through a political revolution which puts ordinary people in power through assemblies – not because “it will work,” but because it is the right thing to do.
- Roger Hallam

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This is what has come to me:

A few days before the ongoing mass killing started I watched the film “Kingdom of God”. You could say it tells the story of the crusaders trying to hold onto Jerusalem but it's not really about that, in the same sense that “Gaza” (note the material frame) is not really about the Israelis and Palestinians. What is happening is the playing out of a meaning system that justifies killing which has been going on for 10,000 years. It assumes that humans can run the world rather than god. When people kill they are pathologically attached to the idea that they are real and the world is real, and that is all there is, and so they fight to the death over it. This attachment, this desperation, creates a never-ending cycle of rage and slaughter. The logic of hate is remorseless.

But this world, of land, treasure, and power, is not real - it is just one meaning system amongst many, as confirmed by modern physics and traditional mysticism. Paradoxically the alternative ways of seeing thrust themselves into existence at times when the killing reaches one its of periodic spasms of hell.

“I can do this no longer”: the exhaustion of hate leads to the collapse not just of the ideology that drives hate (“this is my belief, I am right, and I can kill for it”) but of the whole materialistic worldview of the self/world. Into being comes a third “entity”: god. Not the material god - another “thing” - of modern religious practice, but something very different: an awareness of an invisible presence that cannot be reduced to words and concepts.

The realisation is that truth, love, consciousness, and god are all part of a family of what might be called sensibilities. The utter failure of human moral reason - “they did this so I can do that” is replaced by an overriding single commandment: do not kill.

This is not about ethics and its feeble attempts to provide “reasons” - it comes to you. Your unbearable disgust and despair drive you to another place. They turn in on themselves and destroy themselves. And you come out the other side and find yourself another person in another world. It comes about by what used to be called the “grace of god”. There is no will, only the acceptance of a gift.

Love is not that sentimental brittle notion we have been told it is. Love is a militant adherence to a single principle - that love dies for itself. Love is beyond any mundane consideration of life and death. Love is the dogma that action has to be dedicated to the wellbeing of the other, “love your enemies” - regardless of the consequences.

Love in action is forgiveness. Forgiveness, properly understood, has nothing to do with the person who has done you wrong. It is not just the refusal to keep score, it is the rejection of the very idea of keeping score. It is not just the refusal to judge but the refusal to accept that it is possible to judge. It is a completely different aesthetic of what it means to live a good life. We are not here to act for ourselves, we are here to submit to god.

Love is the opposite of calculation. Love is the diametric opposite of material logic. Love relishes being smashed and extinguished. Love finds itself when alone and forgotten in a prison cell. Love is completely stupid - only a fool would follow it. But the hilarious thing is that it is only through its abject failure that it conquers the world - it is god’s joke. Because the enemies of love are fighting on foreign ground. They know neither what they do nor who they are.

They are children of god but they resist this truth to the death - unless they are saved and save the world in return.

This is the hidden and dark origin of the modern notion of nonviolence. Not the shallow contemporary obsession with “what works”. Love works because it does not work. It only works when it is done for itself. Only the very few receive the gift of this realisation but society is always redeemed by the actions of the very few.

In Gaza love in action would require a hundred people to sit by the road and stop eating and drinking. When asked what they are doing, they would say they are waiting to die, or the killing needs to stop. They would win because love is prepared to die for love. And many of the hundred might indeed die before love shames those doing the killing to stop. They are warriors of god.

Of course, people will be outraged. But why object to a few people dying for love when thousands die for hate?

To be clear then; love is only love when it is for itself; because love is god and god is for god. Infinite.

And those who die for love, with mayhem happening all around them, will have a smile on their face. They have entered the Kingdom as it was once called. Reunited with the One. At peace at last.

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Looking for a reliable secondary source on this topic.

“If warming reaches 2 °C … mainly richer humans will be responsible for killing roughly 1 billion mainly poorer humans”

- Energies, July 2023

"If you feel our children need a party that conserves, that fights for … the careful bond between this generation and the next – then let me tell you, Britain already has one."

- Keir Starmer’s conference speech.

The greatest denial – probably the greatest to exist in human history – is the lie that the “climate problem” is linear. Meaning that it just exists – like slavery, inequality, dictatorship, - you name it. It’s there, it’s obscene but if you don’t sort it this year, well there’s always next year – it will be much the same. Slavery will still be there – but it won’t be 10 times bigger next year, and 100 times bigger a year after that.

Compare that with a meteorite heading for New York in one of those movies. You can do nothing – you can slow it down a bit, or you can destroy it. Options 1 and 2 are effectively the same. With both options, the kilometre-wide rock crashes into the city and millions of people die. There is only one moral option – the third, which is to destroy the rock. This is not politics, it’s not ideology, it’s physics.

The “climate” is independent of “politics”. The present Labour Party has the wildly irrationalist notion that politics comes first –that the climate can be fitted into its logic. This means that to win power Labour must not do too much on climate and so climate has to be constructed as “having not much needing to be done to it”. But the climate is not socially constructed. It’s physical. It’s non-negotiable.

At between 1-2C of global heating, all the main tipping points will be passed with the resultant main scenario that the human race will effectively go extinct - 8 billion deaths in the coming two to three generations. If you doubt this then you have – with respect – simply not been paying attention. Tipping points are like dominos and you just follow the peer-reviewed papers on what happens when one domino falls then what happens when this leads to the next one being knocked down and you continue to follow the science along the line.

The debate about the “odds” of various levels of mass death is as obscene as questioning whether 5 or 6 million Jews were murdered by Hitler. Does it matter whether 4 or 8 billion people die? It does not matter whether there is a 10% or 30% chance of going over 5C during the lifetime of our children. Only a culture which has descended into the depths of moral depravity entertains whether such odds justify the risks of continuing the emission of more carbon.

Which brings us to the psychotic stupidity of Keir Starmer. We do not need to get lost in the weeds of whether he will cancel Rosebank or just stop new drilling from the point of winning the election. All we have to recognise is that the ideology is inseparable from the project to create mass death because the essence of that ideology is to act as a house slave to international capital – to the carbon system. Only a revolutionary change in the structure of the state, society, and culture over the next decade has any chance of actually stopping the meteorite devastating New York. Option three is political revolution.

The Labour Party needless to say is never going to do anything even approaching option three. It has no intention of “conserving the careful bond between this generation and the next”. Its intention is to stand by and have our children die slightly slower than the Tory Party.

The analogy with a meteorite of course is radically inadequate. The hyperobject that is the “climate” is the ecological collapse of the whole planet, not one city, causing billions of deaths and going on effectively forever. There is no greater crime than for a political party to allow this to happen. And there is no greater crime than to vote for a party that will facilitate such evil.

House slaves will say what they always say – “We have no choice” but to submit to those who impose humiliation and murder upon us. But their demand for our submission is always the Big Lie. We are human for one simple reason – we always have “free will” – we always have the choice to revolt.

Concretely, around the Western world, some people will now do whatever it takes to stop this system from violating everything we value – there are plans afoot in many countries to bring people together, rediscover our humanity, and create mass movements to replace the regime of pathological political parties with alternative governmental institutions based upon popular assemblies. With rule by the people for the people. The centuries-long dream has now become a matter of life or death. And we will choose life.

The Labour Party leadership will disappear into the dustbin of history as the last gasp of an inexpressibly dumb and cruel social episode – a cesspit of self-serving delusion.

We are all so much better than that. Aren’t we? We will show ourselves to be so in the next two years.

- Roger Hallam
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