Feminism at the end of the world

I've broached this topic in a number of forums and blog threads about peak oil, and the reactions have been pretty interesting. Given the liberal bent of most people concerned about climate change and peak oil, I expected a warm reception of at least the discussion of feminism in the anthropocene world, but by and large I was quite mistaken. The biggest complaint I heard was that feminism was off-topic for post-carbon threads, and right behind that was the assertion that we needed to be humanist, not feminist. That the special treatment of feminism was some sort of a step back, because (and this was always the rich part) feminism won, didn't you hear?

I'll treat the former criticism first, that a discussion of feminism on a blog dedicated to discussing climate change and peal oil is "off-topic." I don't think any of my co-authors here (who am I pleased as punch to be blogging with, by the way) would contest that social justice is of tremendous concern in the anthropocene world. Societies enduring privation and upheaval are pretty much always less egalitarian, less safe, less just than we might like. They are also disproportionately less egalitarian, less safe, and less just for women. The Road Warrior, A Boy and His Dog, and other post-apocalyptic exploitation films of the late '60s through early '80s prominently featured the rape, torture, and murder of women for a reason. Wherever civil unrest occurs, whether it's a rebellion, a civil war, or any of a hundred other kinds of conflict, when society breaks down, women suffer for it. I would go so far as to suggest that one of the single most powerful metrics for measuring the health of a society is rapes per capita per year!

So feminism is on-topic for our concerns here, because we are heading towards a less stable, less organized world, which means that unless we work really, really hard, women in the anthropocene are going to face more violence and more injustice than they do now. Period.

And that's unacceptable.

Ok, you might say, but violence and unrest and injustice in general are liable to become worse as industrial society collapses; we're working here to ameliorate all of that, so why talk about feminism? Let's be humanist. Women are in pretty good shape now, so working to make a post-carbon society safe and just will benefit them just as much, right? I had sympathy for this argument for a long time, and it took a brilliant post by one of the 'net's preeminent feminist thinkers to change my mind.

My take home point here is not that I want to turn Seldon's Gate into a "feminist blog," in the sense that we spend a lot of time advocating for women's issues, dissecting sexist pop culture, and the like. There are many excellent spaces for that sort of thing, some of which I'm listing below. But I DO want Seldon's Gate to be a feminist blog in the sense that, when we discuss the shitstorm that is coming, we should be mindful of the particular implications it may have for the women in our lives. That we realize that fighting misogyny and racism and marginalization is every bit as important a part of the work we do here as educating people about green technology and community support in the face of climate change. I'm not a feminist blogger, but I am a blogger who's a feminist, and I'll be talking about that from time to time.

Below are some of the feminist blogs where I spend a fair bit of time reading and, in some cases, commenting. They are well worth a visit, as they also serve as a launching point into the battles against many types of marginalization, racial and economic as well as gender-based. They are also places frequented by some kick-ass and brilliant women, and meeting them is always a great thing.

Shakesville: If you read no other feminist blog, this is the one to read. With many contributors, it is updated over a dozen times a day most days and is the site of many excellent conversations about progressive politics. Melissa McEwan's "Feminism 101" series of articles (one of which I linked above) are required reading for anybody interested in learning more about feminism, and commenting on feminist threads without looking like an asshole. I speak from experience on that.

Echidne of the Snakes: Echidne writes a more focused blog about bullshit science and public policy as it intersects with social justice, and unleashes some truly awesome weapons-grade snark on a regular basis. This is frequently where I first hear about truly onerous federal legislation.

Feministe: One of the oldest feminist sites on the net, it tends to dissect popular culture more than politics, with the result that I am often caught out in my own surprising prejudices.

Too Many Words from the Final Figure of the Four

I was pleased, honored and surprised at the invitation to join this company of fine reader-thinker-writer-geeks. Before continuing with my introduction, however, by way of full disclosure, I must admit (with an appropriate measure of shame), that I've only read the first of Asimov's Foundation books. I promise to rectify the situation with all due haste. Actually, to be brutally honest, I've only been reading Science Fiction in earnest for about four years now. I read Wells and Verne as a child, as well as a couple of the great classics (Fahrenheit 451, 1984) in college, and the Dune books a few years later, but it wasn't until just a few months before encountering Mentat and Kir'Shara that I began seriously to pursue the joys, wisdom and insights of SF.

But once I did so, SF changed my life. Quite literally.

If it hadn't been for SF, I'd be about three months away from a solid six-figure salary right now, happily ignoring most of the environmental, economic and political turmoils around me. Instead, I'm not even a quarter of the way through at least four years on a grad student stipend and am, on my worst days, a doom-and-gloom junkie, and on my better days a raving leftist radical.

It was Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series that really woke me up, convinced me to care about politics, economics, emerging information technologies, corporate power, workers' rights and welfare, energy crises, freedom of expression, etc. It wasn't just his books that affected me though; it was also his blog posts and their comment threads, through which I was able to interact with him on an ongoing basis while reading. This opportunity to engage directly with the author and follow his commentary on real world events lent extra power to the punch delivered by his books... and compelled me to honestly examine my beliefs, priorities and career trajectory... and ultimately to throw a big fucking wrench into the works.

There were other influential works of SF as well. Iain M. Banks' books rubbed my face into the horror and lunacy of war, the futility of torture, the extremes of sentient suffering (both physical and psychological) and the dream of a Utopian intergalactic system of government that sparkled with hope in spite of the selfish, flawed beings on which it was built.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy was more practical. It provided plausible flesh and bone to my emerging view of the world and society... and helped me to visualize the imminent destruction of this planet that I love. It also gave me a vision of what a human society should (and maybe even could, one day) be. And it helped me to imagine what a path (however narrow and unlikely) from here to there might look like. Most of my current opinions on politics, economics and business were formed while reading these books.

Paralleling my exploration of the SF realm, however, have been my readings of Kir'Shara's blog posts (including those written under a previous alias) and my real-life conversations with both Kir'Shara and Mentat. They (as well as others, both live and in print) have provided bridges between the all-too-relevant SF in which I immerse myself and the dissappointingly-not-fictional political and environmental reality that is destroying our world.

The intent of this post was to introduce myself briefly, however, and I think that I've already failed. In his post below, Mentat made mention of his superhuman skills of procrastination. It is quite possible that mine are even greater (note, for example, that I'm the last of the four to post). I also tend to ramble on in a long-winded fashion and incorporate too many themes into a single post. But Kir'Shara knew all of my literary shortcomings in advance, so you, dear readers, may address your complaints to him.

Of greater interest than my failings, however, may be my potential offerings. What have I to contribute to this merry band? I'm a thirty-something grad student pursuing advanced training in public health (environmental health, specifically). I took a rather circuitous path to get to my current position. I studied international health and development thinking that I would save the poor people of the developing world from disease. I started medical school with similar ambitions. I finished medical school disillusioned with the medical profession and disgusted with the way in which physicians in this country are forced to practice. I started a pathology residency thinking that I'd found an interesting and lucrative way to pass the days before retirement. I wasn't exactly content with this, however, and eighteen months into the four-year program, when I experienced the above described SF epiphany, I'd already determined the following: 1) the current medical system is unsustainable, even in the best of circumstances and 2) fighting disease through diagnosis and treatment is a losing battle -- prevention is our only chance. These ideas, combined with my increasing recognition of, and concern about the doom of our global environment landed me in my current program, where I hope to find ways of improving health through identification and elimination of environmental hazards. This too is a losing battle, but at least there's the possibility of fighting for the health of thousands of people at a time rather than for that of just one... at the expense of the neglected thousands.

I recently encountered a quote from Frank Lloyd Wright:

A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.

I think I know how he intended it, but the more I consider it, the more alternate meanings seem to surface, some of which are appropriate to the medical and health care realm as a whole, and some specifically to me. Maybe I'll write a post about that quote sometime.

As for today... now that I've rambled on about myself for long enough, I'll give you a preview of a post that will likely appear in about two months. Today I started reading Mark Hertsgaard's new book Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth. I'm to write a review of it for one of my classes, and it looks as though it will prove quite relevant to this blog.

More on that (and possibly other things) soon.

Mentat says 'hello' and breaks a ship

Greetings readers and fellow bloggers. I see that Reave has made his appearance and I thought I'd best do the same before my infinite powers of procrastination see me to mid-summer without having posted. Kir'Shara and I have known each other for nearly 25 years and over that generation (!) of time we've had many a discussion about politics, history, science, the human condition and the human future. Also, science fiction, fiction in general, film and television--the whole power and joy of narrative; so, he invited me to participate and here I am. I can't promise I'll be the most steady of contributors. I wasn't joking about my infinite powers of procrastination! But I shall try and not let too much time pass between posts.

As to the nature of my posts. Those of you who have read the science fiction book Dune, by Frank Herbert, will recognize that the mentats were the "human computers" who advised the rich and powerful in a society which had outlawed "thinking machines." I certainly don't claim to be a human computer, but one of the mentat's functions was to absorb vast quantities of information. Since I read voraciously and widely over many areas of interest, when I needed to come up with a google blogger handle, I whimsically chose "Mentat." So, most of my posts will probably be either book reviews, or musings about several books, or ruminations inspired by some book I have read. I won't always be on topic (i.e., not all my posts will focus on the ecological crisis or our post carbon future), but Kir'Shara assures me that that's okay. For this first post, however, I thought I'd keep it on topic by talking a bit about a cool YA (Young Adult) science fiction book I finished last July, called Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi.

—-------------------------

Ship Breaker's story is set several hundred years in our post-carbon future. Its protagonist, Nailer, is a boy living in a tough community of "ship breakers", people who scrape together their livelihood by salvaging what they can from abandoned and derelict oil platforms and tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. The world depicted is fascinating and believable-- the stark customs and moral codes prevalent in Nailer's community remind me of what one might find in poverty stricken shanty towns in West Africa: clannish and brutal, but also characterized by fierce loyalty to family and close friends. Nailer is small enough to work on a team of breakers that crawl through duct work and other tight places looking for copper wire. The community sells the salvaged material to corporations who keep them in a situation similar to indentured servitude. Nailer's life consists of making his daily quota, dealing with his abusive father, and day dreaming about the large clipper ships he sees passing by on the horizon to the south, indicating that somewhere in the world a post-carbon recovery has occurred complete with ocean going trade on these sleek, clean sailing vessels so different from the greasy, dank hulks he crawls through day after day. A hurricane precipitates the Novel's main narrative and Nailer's moral journey. He and one of his team members discover a beached clipper ship with a young girl, a "swank" from the North, still alive on board. Should Nailer claim the salvage rights to the ship? Or help this girl he doesn't know?

The world building in this novel is impressive and intriguing. Bacigalupi deftly hints at so much going on in the background (all in a "show-don't-tell" manner) that you really get a sense for this future world as a real place. The communities on the Gulf and north of mostly submerged New Orleans are well drawn. There are some tantalizing hints about the more affluent, recovered, societies to the North, with their post carbon technologies. There is an interesting subplot about the genetically engineered character named Tool, a human slave designed with canine genes for animal ferocity and loyalty. This being a YA novel, the plot moves along at a break neck pace. Bacigalupi manages to insert his world building and character development in a story that in many ways is a series of exciting action sequences. And yet, YA though it might be with its pacing and teenage protagonist, the story has several darker aspects that set this apart from much YA fiction (though I understand this sort of more complex, nuanced, YA fiction is something of a trend these days). As I read it I thought a lot about John Michael Greer's books, The Long Descent and The Ecotechnic Future in which he describes our future not as a sudden apocalypse so much as a long descent, a slow-motion catastrophe marked by energy shortages, climate change, wars and other painful adjustments playing out over decades and centuries. His descriptions of salvage-based economies as this long descent plays out obviously resonate with Bacigalupi's thoughts about our future.

Bacigalupi has made quite a splash in the last couple of years, winning the Nebula and Hugo awards with his science fiction novel, The Windup Girl, which I haven't read yet, but intend to at some point. In that book, I understand, he also depicts a post carbon future, but couched at a more adult level. When I get around to reading it, I'll let you all know what I think. Until then if you're looking for a good story set in a post carbon world with strong characters and cool world-building, you can't go wrong taking a look at Ship Breaker.

Blogomorphosis: Seldon's Gate expands its coverage of life in the eco-catastrophe

This blog began in June 2010 as the personal journal of a single individual on issues of energy, ecology, and climate change. This weekend it became something more: a shared online home for the writing of four people instead of one.

We, the authors of Seldon's Gate, come from different backgrounds and perspectives. But we share a common awareness that the unfolding ecological crisis is far greater in scale and implication than most people yet realize. It is terraforming our planet -- changing it into a different world, with radically new physical and ecological systems. This planetary catastrophe is devastating the climate, ecology, and resources that nurtured the first five thousand years of human civilization. The resulting upheaval will force massive transformation in human societies as they struggle to adapt. It will change everything.

Not someday, but now. In our lifetime. In our routine, ordinary lives as individuals, trying to make ends meet and get through the day. The planetary cataclysm will not be a distant event seen only on television screens. It is all around us, even now. In the people we know who are unemployed, poor, sick, anxious, fearful, and lost. Energy and resources are becoming scarce, services and institutions eroding away. Politics shifting, driven by tyranny and hate. It's all going to get worse, putting an end to the abundance and tranquility that Americans, at least, have always taken for granted. Something new is in the process of being born. The story of its emergence will define the remainder of our lives. 

All of us will be forced to ask: what do the changes mean, and what should we do now?

This blog now has four authors trying to answer those questions, instead of just me. Reave Vanshar has already posted his first contribution as one of my co-bloggers here. Also new to our cast of characters here are ilorien and Mentat. All three of them are smart, articulate, opinionated, and in every imaginable way supremely cool. All three of them are my friends.

Our writings here will vary quite a bit, in tone, topic, and perspective. The unifying thread will be the background awareness of what's happening to our planet and our people. But the individual posts might cover anything, from the frivolous to the profound. Each of the authors chafes against excessive specialization. Life is a landscape, not a niche.

The four of us together bring quite a considerable array of knowledge to this little corner of the webular-inter-tubes. As a collective, we know more than a little bit about history, politics, literature, information technology, ecology, economics, geology, medicine, and public health, to name a few. All four of us are lifelong fans of science fiction and fantasy. We know who Hari Seldon is. We grew up dreaming of new worlds and new civilizations. Which, I think, is significant. In the face of what's coming, we will need not just knowledge but imagination.

I hope this blog will be a useful record of how we and others tried to prepare for the new world.

San Francisco, AD 2106. From http://gliving.com/san-francisco-future-ecotopia

Enter, stage left, a sarcastic scientist.

Greetings folks. This is my first post here at Seldon's Gate, and while I loathe introductory posts I should probably mention what I'm doing here. Kir'Shara was kind enough to invite me to contribute, since I clog up the comments stream so much anyway! I'm a PhD student in biology and geology, studying climate change. From this you know I am an intellectual masochist and a cynic. Anybody in ecology and climate science is intimately familiar with the systemic problems Kir'Shara has been discussing here, and my goal is to bring a slightly more technical and focused look at them to the table. All of the problems we face are, at the end of the day, going to take the form of individual-scale, daily struggles with energy flow problems, and I want to start conversations about how to meet those with the sorts of resources that will always be available to our communities, namely teamwork, brainpower, and not a little moxie.

In that vein, I want to point everyone to a simple little site that I've been mining for information for days; the "Compendium of Useful Information" is a link database to all sorts of DIY technology for dealing with peak oil and industrial collapse. It's far from comprehensive, and it is vulnerable to broken links (although I haven't found any yet), but the principle is great and represents a good start. My hope is to provide links to these sorts of resources whenever I find them. I urge anyone with the resources to spend the time to identify and PRINT OUT articles that look like they could possibly be useful in the future. The internet is a great vehicle for moving information, but it will not prove to be terribly effective at STORING it, not in the sort of situation we're facing. A few three ring binders stashed in you garage or under your bed may come in very, very handy later when you need to figure out how to reestablish water pressure in your house when the power goes out!