Interview with Geoff Mann, Co-Author of Climate Leviathan

of writing on capitalism and climate change. He is a He's a fantastic resource and I highly recommend his book. Um it can get a little academic, um making has a lot of has a lot of big fancy words that I probably I would have a hard time saying out loud, but um, it's a very it's a very good read. So I would would recommend picking up the book if you want to read about economics and climate

change and all that kind of stuff. But thankfully we interviewed him here in the pod, so if you're more so inclined, you can listen to this interview that's going to play right after I'm done talking. So without further ado Here is our interview with Jeff Man talking about politics and climate change. Let's let's go. So we're the

show we're looking to do. The first season of this, which we dropped like years ago twenty nineteen, was like kind of uh my, my, My basic experiences journalists isn't conflict reporting, so like Rack Siria Ukraine, And it was like, what would happen if there were to be a civil conflict in the United States? How would that actually look? How do these things look in the modern world? And all that jazz. This season we're doing what is the

world going to be? Just based on what we know of of how climate change is going to affect things, and um, that's all too bleak to get into without trying to provide some positive possibilities for how things could be, how adaptations that could be made and whatnot. And I think what's so interesting about your book is it provides all of the difference. With the exception of the best case scenario, all the scenarios you present seem very plausible

to me. And I guess I'm wondering, of of the ones that you've put forward in your book, is there one that seems more plausible to you right now, are you kind of at at a point where you're expecting there to be kind of a regional breakdown as to like, you know, this chunk of the world goes to this kind of climate mouthing climate Leviathan, is this sort of chunk of the world, Like, I'm wondering what you're seeing right now, just as we're watching ships start to really

hit home for people. Yeah, yeah, I I'm always reluctant in these instances to say that I know more than anyone else you know about what's going to happen, So I hope it doesn't come across as in any way like me agnosticating um, which actually, to be honest with you, Jewel is much more comfortable doing the guy I wrote the book with, who you should also chat with if you ever get the chance, brilliant guy. Um. But I

think you're right. I do think there's a sort of fragmentation right now, Um, whether or not like geo politically in the sense like you said, regional you know, breakdowns, or the way that like kind of different trajectories could be happening simultaneously in different parts of the planet. How long that can last, or whether or not it just

stays that way. I think it's a super interesting question, Like it does seem to me that, you know, the Chinese state for a variety of reasons, some of which I probably can have a handle on, and others I just don't know enough to know. The Chinese state, you know, approaches these problems in a really different way than we

do in North America or Western Europe for example. UM and and how they handle like what is clearly fucking coming down their pipe, you know, not just with these floods, but you know, the overall like the soil loss um, sort of massive ternment in the West um an urbanization at a scale that you know is like completely unsustainable because the countryside is you know, can't support its people anymore.

You know, they have these permit systems and everything. How they approach that whole problem from like ecological breakdown perspective could very much, I think, take a kind of Leviathan like form, but a much more authoritarian version. It will not, I don't think in the short term, look like now in terms of a sort of revolutionary uh process UM.

But here in North America, I think that this idea that you know, Joe and I tried to float about capital taking over and trying to basically maintain itself at the top of the hierarchy. UM. And you know, basically allow the planet to break down, but to have the social uh, to maintain the social order in its own interests. I actually still think that's unfolding right front of us, UM. And I think Western Europe is the same that just managing it in that, you know, in a very different

kind of technocratic way. UM. But I think you're right to identify not a global kind of coalescence, but rather a whole variety of conflicting trajectories. That would be my take on it right now. How do you when you're trying to have these conversations about like what's what's coming down the pipe with people who are less buried in this than you are, how do you introduce the concept of climate Leviathan to them? Well, so, I mean I

run into this. I mean this might be a terrible uh what's the right word of comparison, um to make? But I run into this a lot, like you know, just in the like classroom, like with students and stuff like that. And basically the way I usually begin it is I asked the question you know because people often I think quite rightly make certain kinds of uh agnostications about uh, you know, climate change kind of running out of control and destroying life as we know it in

a rather immediate way. And and I usually just say, like, like that that runs so counter to the interests of global capital that it's impossible to imagine I'm not responding and and and in and in anywhere from a kind of minor tweakye to men like full on emergency panic mode response, depending upon the situation and conditions. And so I basically say the idea of climate Leviathan is precisely

that it's capital responding. Now, of course, we all, I think rightly know that that response will never be adequate to the problem, not even at a purely sort of survivalist level. But I still think that in the medium term, that's what we're going to see. And that's how I usually introduced it. It's like, imagine capital response wanting to climate change because they'll have to. It'll look like Levia Yeah. And I think one of the yeah no, that that

makes sense. And one of the reasons I like that, and I like the way you Enjoel frame things is that I'm I've grown very tired of especially in the you know, I have some prepping kind of interests and

stuff like I I think that stuff is neat. But I've always felt like the the obsession with collapse is not just silly, it's um counter factual um because barring some sort of like the the ever present possibility of a nuclear conflict or something, I don't I don't see collapse as a as a realistic consequence of climate change. Actually collapses. I see places collapsing, I see survivability and chunks of the world collapse. And but I think you're

absolutely right. There's no way capital is going to allow everything to fall apart, because then they can't go them all, you know. Yeah, yeah, and we can't either, and that's they're desperate for us to keep doing that, right, So yeah, I agree, total. Yeah, I'm wondering this climate Leviathan, Like, when you describe it, it doesn't sound great. It also sounds at least familiar. It sounds like the same way

I've see. It's like, that's part of why it's very believable, is it sounds like the way the system currently deals with every problem. Right, these these technocratic half competent UH focus group solutions that are generally too late and you know, only occasionally effective. Um. What scares me is UM and I forget the exaction, but like essentially the authoritary, the more authoritarian version of this, you know, like and and the more authoritarian kind of coming from a We're not

going to fix the problem. We're just going to protect whatever kind of identitarian chunk we we we we consider our base from it. Um, do you see that gaining strength right now? Like where do you where do you looking at kind of the the lay of the land at the moment? Where are you seeing that? Yeah, that's a really good, you know comment from my perspective. I

agree with you. I think that stuff is serious, and I think, if I'm honest with you, it's a little bit of a missing bit in the book's argument in the sense that I don't think we took seriously enough a version of behemoth that doesn't deny climate change but only gives a shit about its own internal territories or you know what I mean, its own interests, so that it becomes a behemoth like fuck you to the rest of the world, but but at the same time takes

climate very seriously. Uh. You know, I think some people call it like eco fascism. I'm not so sure. You know, I don't I that term. I don't think that covers exactly what I'm trying to say. But maybe I'm just don't understand it well enough. But I do think that that the book Joel and I don't take that prospect seriously enough. And I think that is actually like that kind of Mike Davis sort of like you know, if you guys read that piece who Will Build the Arc?

Mm hmm, yeah, it's it's fucking awesome. It's an amazing piece of work. Um. It's from about two and ten, I think, in the New Left Review, and he writes basically about, you know, an elite kind of attempt to just sort of create islands of survivability or not more than survivability, islands of elite leisure in sense um, in a world that's falling apart around it. And I actually think that that's totally believable. Like I think that's more

believable than we thought it was when we wrote the book. Yeah, and I guess you know, the question of whether or not to call it climate fascism, I think that climate fascism is a separate thing from the possibility of climate authoritarianism, because I think you have this possibility of like, all right, we have a state or a group of states that are going to produce very authoritarian measures in order to protect their people, and they're so called way of life

as and I think you also have a chance of this possibility of kind of a more identarian sort of thing, like whether it's white nationalist or whatever. Um uh, I kind of see and I see maybe them feeding into each other. I don't know, like it's it all gets very muddled, and I think like one of the problems you have trying to prognosticate about the future is that there's always so many variables and you can anything, you any kind of permutation of any of these things that

you can dream up. You can see the seeds of them if you go out and find them. You can find the Christian dominionist chunk of this, like the eco fascist thing, and you can find a more socialist version, and you can find a more white nationalist version. And it's just kind of anyone's guess as to what's going to pick up steam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think yeah, I mean there's something those I think important about the kind of thing that Joel and I are trying to

do in the book. And there's also something that is uh, perhaps inevitably arrogant about that effort, and that that arrogance like well, I think both Joe and I would always say that the book what for us at least was worth writing no matter what, It would be wrong too to not to not acknowledge the arrogance of that analysis.

That then allows you as as soon as you acknowledge arrogance, then you acknowledge a lot of the stuff you're talking about, right, like the the fact that, yeah, I mean, there's a million things that ways that this could go, and some of them won't look like what we said they look and we can't you know, we have to think hard. Well, that's what I find really intelligent about the way you set it up, because you're not saying, Okay, this political

party is going to evolve in these ways. You're trying to say that these are kind of the we can see from responses to other problems and from responses even to climate change. These are kind of the patterns things are going to break down in um And I guess before I I'll hand it over to Garrison in a little bit. But um, kind of the last thing I wanted to really get into was the climate X, the term you all use for kind of the the most optimistic scenario that I don't think any of us believes

in as much as we'd like to at the moment. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, Um, I'm one of the things that we're trying to do here is envision how that

might look. And the best thing that I can come up with is a mix of um, really durable, widespread mutual aid networks to support some sort of mass general strike in order to institute sweeping changes both to the nature of capitalism and to like the social system we have in order to reduce environmental harm and anyway that sort of thing like that's that's the only thing I can imagine that I don't think you know, you're talking about an effort more ambitious than landing a man on

the moon. Um, but at least it's a set of things that could achieve a goal as opposed to like, I don't think it's totally pious, guy, it's a possibility. I'm wondering what when you think about best case scenario, how if like everything breaks right, things could be resolved positively, Like what are you envisioning? I'm wondering kind of like what's your optimistic side say when you let it peek through? Yeah, I mean I think I think it looks a lot

like what you're describing. I think that you know that they'll have to be and I do think there will be. The question is, of course whether it's too late, and whether it's effective and all other stuff. But there will have to be a kind of mass based to it, for sure. But what I don't believe, and I think you're hinting at this too, telp me if I'm misunderstanding. What I don't believe is that it will be a mass based thing from what we might think of as

a single or monolithic movement. It's gonna it's because the ways that people manage what's coming our way are going to have to be, for one thing, very locally specific. As we know, like like you said, like there's collapses, there's you know, people are dealing with different challenges in their own places, um, and not just environmentally, but of

course their own political histories and all our stuff. Um, I think it has to be like an articulation in these mass moments like you're describing, like a general strike or whatever, of a whole variety of movements that are actually organized primarily around meeting the needs of the people where they live, mutual aid societies, other kinds of distributional you know, fixes, and this kind of chaotic breakdown like you describe when things can much more important than coffee

are unavailable widely, those kinds of things. Um, let's not, let's not. Let's not downplay at the importance of coffee. No, no, no, I would never down for coffee, but for the moment. Yeah, I get it, you know, like water, you know what I mean, or something. Um uh, Then I think you're right. I think it's gonna be. It has to be climate X has to be multiple in the sense that it has to take many, many forms specific to the needs

of the folks that are there. But what I am convinced of which I wasn't always actually, is that the effectiveness of movements like that will have that they will depend upon the extent to which they're democratic, not in terms of actual long term effectiveness. Cannot be like local authoritarianisms. We can't imagine. This is sort of like a series of climate change warlords. I don't think that is a a realistic solution, even from a purely like kind of

managing the climate change perspective. Yeah. No, I've known a couple of warlords, and none of them are good at long term planning. Yes, I've never known a warlord, but I can imagine you are, right, Garrison, you want to take it over for a bit. Yeah. So yeah, I mean I started doing just in general kind of climate research like about half a year ago, like getting like relatively deep into it, and one of your books was one of the things that kept coming up as recommended

reading on the topic. UM, and yeah, I found it super super interesting. There's a lot of a lot of stuff focuses on, like a lot of stuff on the topic focuses on like potential physical effects happening to like, um, geography and to like environments, but not there's not as much on like the political side of things and how that's going to break down like societally in terms of you know, freedom and liberty and sovereignty over specific you

know states or you know free states. Um. So that yeah, that's what really drew me into your book specifically was the kind of special focus on that side of things, UM, and the the other the other part that got me pretty early on is the mitigation versus adaption side of things, and how to my understanding, we're kind of like crossing into the place where mitigation is becoming more and more difficult and adaptation is both necessary but also unlike unfortunately necessary,

because there's a lot of ways that that can be used by authoritarian states to make things harder to have change happened in the future. UM, would you like speak on what types of mitigation, what type of some mitigation efforts might we still have, and how and how adaption is both going to be necessary and how there's going to be like a dark side to some of those adaptions.

Mm hmm. I would agree with your read there, Like I think we're at the point now where it's fair to say that if you ask the climate scientist, I could be wrong, but I know a few climate scientists and I do quiz them on stuff like this sometimes, UM, that we're at the point where mitigation efforts right now are actually purely adaptive. Like we we are past many thresholds where somehow we could imagine it's like escaping this problem, you know what I mean, like evading it, getting out

the side door or something like that. So even our mitigation efforts right now are actually adaptive in that sense, an adaptation and I think has become in many ways, the the holy grail of modern political economy. Like, you know what I mean, how do we have our luxurious Western lifestyles and consumption patterns and all this in the middle of out collapsing ecosystems? Like how do we how

do we manage that? You know what I mean? It's almost like I think at some point in the book we say, and Joel and I have certainly said it a lot since you know, adaptation has become the progress of our time. Like if in the twentieth century we talked about all progress progress, that's where capitalism and liberalism deliver. Now we're like, all the best they can deliver is

adaptation to a fucking crazy set of you know, conditions. Um, And so I guess I would say that from a mitigation perspective, for sure, we still have the capacity to to you know, considerably cut emissions if we you know, I mean, we have the sort of pie in the sky, but but hopeful things like you know that the elimination of the fossil fuel industry, that would do a lot, but we would still be in kind of short term, I mean, in medium terms sort of fucked like um,

and that's a big deal. Um So I do think that the mitigation efforts. I would never want to say, oh, it don't bother like some sort of accelerationist horseshit, because of course that will matter. But I do think that, um, that adaptation has become in some sense like the mode through which we evaluate anything from like political proposals to two you know, technical fixes, Like it's at least amongst

people who are willing to admit there's a problem. I guess there's a you know, a whole world of people who somehow still don't. Yeah that that that people is always larger than what I you know, after like spending like months reading you know, so many climate books, I'm like still struck at like how basically the majority of people in America don't think it's a big problem. And that's like, yeah, that's ire we're real script that from yeah,

it's not it's not. I mean, you know, uh, I think about like fascism the last time it came around and how what a common attitude that was towards fascism sweeping Europe And we eventually got on the same page about that, and only like a hundred million people died. So yeah, I know, but I guess I'm gonna say there there is like there. I think they're really strong.

I magical, if that's the right word. Reasons for the persistence not of like not of denial is m you know, in this kind of like stupid stereotypical way, like you know, it's a Chinese hoax and all that stuff. I don't mean that. I mean more like this kind of you know, sometimes people call it the new denialism, where you acknowledge it as a problem, but then you don't do anything about it. Like this is what we have in Canada.

We have a national government that that talks all the time and then subsidizes every oil industry that you can get its hands on, you know, a sort of like yeah, yeah, it's a problem, and we're doing everything we can. Here's our new l en Gen pipeline or whatever, um that kind of thing. I think that the dominant way of talking about the problem still contains a lot of like

weird uncertainty. You know that people say things like, um, you know there's a chance that we're heading towards water scarcity. It's like no, no, no scientist thinks there's a chance. Everybody knows it's the case, but we frame it as if it's still this big tig uncertainty in the future. And I think that allows people to feel, like what Garrison saying, a kind of like it gives a room for not doubt, but like distance or something. I don't

know what to describe it as. Um, yeah, I think distance, because that's all that's that's that's so deep, particularly in the American and I guess the Canadian psyche, right, like even just going back to like the wars of the last century, this idea that like, well, we're we're separated

from it, We're far enough away from it. And I think there was even an idea among people who accepted the reality of climate change in Canada specifically that like, well, it's just gonna make this place a better growing climate or whatever, Like it's not gonna it's not going to lead to tornado, Like it's not going to lead to like massive storm fronts of lightning built by giant fire waves destroying entire cities, Like that's not gonna happen, and

I yeah, yeah, the other Yeah. One interesting thing, This is just something I've been writing about lately, like not just for myself. I haven't published it or anything, but but one of the one of the things I've been trying to study a lot is the climate economic modeling, you know, like the stuff that the governments supposedly leans on to like make its plans or determine its tax rates for carbon and this kind of stuff, you know.

And one of the crazy things about those models, as I've dug into them, both at the technical level, like right down to the mathematical you know, choice is made, but also how they conceive of them is that all those models are built h and therefore, you know, most of the policy expertise that's based on them is also built on this idea that everything political will stay the same, everything political economic will stay the same, things will just get hotter. So like they are a model of stable

capitalism in a warmer world. Do you know, does that make any sense? No, Yeah, it's this idea that well, it's it's this acceptance that like it's going to get hotter. Um, But this ignorant, ignorant the fact that like, and that's going to increase the number of refugees, and that's going to provide fuel for the radical right, and that's going to lead to more exterminationists to talk in like mainstream politics and like, yeah, it's yes, I get what you're saying.

And what worries me is that that is absolutely like you can walk really far out on that limb and then it just cracks and and then you know, the whole fun and show is no longer temple. And that's I think, you know, those moments like you're describing, there'll be placed specific I suppose, yes, but it's that's the ship that scares me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it didn't make sense to the normal person in the street a couple of weeks ago. It starts to make sense. Yeah, yeah,

that's that. Yeah, I think, and I think a lot of a lot of people there is definitely like the everything will stay mostly the same syndrome along among a lot of the population, whether you know they fall the conservative or liberal side. I think there's there's a lot there's a lot of acts that that's a whole lot easier and in terms of like even for like you know, people who are more radical, um even you know who

are like on like more on like the left. Um. You know, there is like this you know perception that capital is just going is it's gonna stay very similar to how we see it now. And I think a lot of people underestimate the adaptive capabilities. And I think one of the useful things about the plagues last year is that we've seen capital like transform it like transform itself in very large ways in terms of like retail

industry supply lines very quickly. Um. So we've both seen that kind of you know, you know, large scale transformation on on like on a global scale. And we've also seen the other thing you talked about creating like islands of luxury right of like people who are um, you know, higher class, but also some people who are like middle class being able to basically create isolated pockets where they can live in a life that's pretty similar to what

they already had. Where everyone else has to live and ship like they get they they get everyone else has so much worse, whereas a middle class class get to stay kind of like in this in this small bubble um. And I think that is definitely I think it's really useful to look at how that happened in the play, you know, early on with people like you know, where people like flying to New Zealand to live in there

like cabins um and being like yeah, that's gonna happen. Um. And now with you know, Amazon Man going to space, it's like the same thing, right, there's gonna be there's gonna see more and more extreme versions of this. Um hm. Yeah. I don't know any thoughts on that that type of thing in terms of you know, how we can look at like past past, smaller you know, collapses or crumblings of you know, of societal norms get really showing how capital is going to adapt and how quickly it can

adapt in some cases. M I don't know if I have any specific thoughts, but I you know, I am with you on all of that analysis. I feel like, well, for one thing, I think you're very very right to emphasize the kind of robustness the capital keeps demonstrating, like

like we can knock it all at once. It's a yeah, exactly, that's exactly I'm just about to say exactly, And it's tougher than virtually every other political economic arrangement you know that came before it, at least in the recent centuries, like it, it does adapt in this remarkable way or you know, I don't know, shapeshift. Um. But I also think, like you know, just in terms of the kinds of

dynamics you're describing. Yeah, the the inequality that persists today, not only like in its purely economic form, in the sense that you know, there's a few very rich, very powerful people, um, and then the vast majority of the planet you know, um, isn't quite far behind, to put it lightly, um, But that but that we're also like it's almost like a total disaster that ideologically this problem emerges precisely at the moment, it seems to me when

inequality is is so widely understood to be just normal or natural, so that the reaction to almost any crisis is that, you know, the rich will be fine and and whether like people like me might say that sucks and that's shitty, but for the most part, it's wide they accepted as just the way the world works, right now, you know what I mean, Like, like, there's never been a better argument for a wealth tax than there is

right now. I can't think of one maybe the robber barons in the States or whatever, you know, in the late nineteenth early twentieth century. But it's it's like, at least to me, it seems to be just here in Canada at least it's a total joke, Like we talked

about it, but it's nowhere near happening. There's a sort of strange like you know, I think Naomi Client has written about this, like the kind of like poor timing of the fact that the climate crisis happened precisely when you know that democracy and social democratic forces are at their weakest, or at least not weakest, but you know, not in a good spot. Yeah, I mean, and uh,

I don't know. It was always tempting earlier to talk about Syria and kind of have climate change contributed to that and how that contributed to rising authoritarians And there's actually been some new analysis on that that kind of has made me less confident in climate change as a driver of that conflict. Um I am, I guess, But but what what what I do and why I do still talk about that when I talk about like how

all this is going to work? Is kind of one of the things that's most important to understand is that, like the problem is not just climate change, right, like you said, it's not just that it's getting warmer, and it's not even just that climate change is causing these problems. Is that we have these pre existing problems. We have all these these issues we didn't deal with for years

and years. Um. It's like an old house and you didn't do the repair work necessary, and then you know there's there's extreme weather and the weather does It's not just the weather that causes the problems, it's you've got all these all these issues that cascade. UM. One of the terms I think we're using a lot because we're trying to get people away from the from the discussion

of collapse, which I don't think is productive. UM. A friend of both Garrisonizes, is an e R nurse who has been kind of working through COVID and was talking about the fact that like, um, you know, prior to COVID,

we had a shortage of healthcare workers. It was exacerbated by COVID, more people quit, it was exacerbated by all of these different sort of like issues structurally within Portland itself, in the way the city is set up, and now you've got um, all these different medical systems kind of like falling apart at the point when they're most necessary. And the term that he uses is the crumbles um,

which I like a lot. Just this this thing, it's not ever going to just fall apart, but pieces of it are breaking off at all times, and it's it's this um. I think that I I think it's an easier way to get people because like there's you know, we're having an in Portland right now. We had this fucking heatwave hit. At the same time, we got a notice that because of supply line issues, um Oregon was out of chlor I think it was chlorine in order to like uh pure for the for the water filtration systems.

And they were like, it'll be fine this time, We're gonna we have like enough stored up to to deal with like the shortage of equipment. But it's like, okay,

but what about next time? And the same thing. Because of COVID jet fuel, like to save money, companies fired all of their drivers, so there's not enough jet fuel or was not enough jet fuel, which was fine during COVID, but then these fires hit and they're having to ground firefighting planes because there's just no jet fuel, and what there is is being requisitioned to keep flames planes going to and fro, and so you can't adequately fight the fire.

It's these wow, yeah, all these these seemingly little things that become big things when you this. Uh it's like climate changes like steroids to all these little problems too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Then and they sort of tend a cascade way that we didn't we

didn't predict. Yeah. Yeah, it's chaos theory stuff, right, It's like we're we're all we're we're tipping over the edge of chaos right now, past the point where it makes things more adaptable, and towards the point where it all just kind of spirals out of control. Yeah, it's hard to imagine talking about something like equilibrium right now. It's just Yeah, but since virtually all of our science is built on the model of equilibrium that causes trouble, should

you speak to that a little bit more? Because I'm I am not a scientist, and I'm fairly certain Garrison doesn't either, so that I hadn't really thought of things in those terms. Yeah, I mean, I only think of it in those terms because you know, I'm training in economics,

and that's the framing. But in general, like most of the complex models not so that's not so true of the climate science models necessarily behind any means, but most of the ways that we model, like the behavior of an ecosystem or the behavior of an economy, assumes that there's a sort of tendency toward normally normalizing, you know what I mean, Like that over time, a series of processes kind of build up a tendency toward a particular direction.

So like that, you know, in in economics that the economy is understood to be kind of self correcting, not even kind of self correcting. So like if something they call it a shock, If something happens in the in the in the in the economic system that's unexpected, then of course the whole system kind of shakes a bit. But then the assumption is that the overall momentum and dynamics of the system will bring things back to normal. Does that make sense, Yeah, And that's exactly how we

model ecosystem behavior. Like cut a hole in the middle of a forest, the assumption is that for a second, for a second on forest time, this force is like, holy fun, there's all this sunlight and there's weird animals in a here that weren't here before, but over time, the forests sort of pattern of operation will bring it back to normal. This is why like clear cutting is supposed to be okay, because eventually the ecosystem will recover um.

And most of our sciences are built on this kind of equilibrium oriented model, kind of normalizing of the larger processes of the system that just had their own momentum. And there's only a few, like ecological sciences that break

that pattern. And there are things like people who study deserts which are like, oh, they don't really have a middle, Like it doesn't It doesn't help to talk about a desert's average temperature because the desert never is that temperature, you know what I mean, It's just in the middle

of extremes um and uh. And I think that at least from a sort of like scientific tech perspective, technological fixed perspective for climate change, one of the biggest problems is the fact that most of our kind of science and knowledge can't deal with dissequilibrium systems, like ones that actually we don't know where they're going and we don't know where they'll end and we don't have the tools, like literally the mathematical tools to manage them, so we

can't model them, and then we don't know what then to do. One of the things I've been reading in preparation with this that's been useful from a uh an intellectual framework is this. It was written in two thou and twelve. It's called the Gonzo Futurist Manifesto, and it's a guy kind of laying out as someone looking into this and told them be like, well, it looks like everything's in this process of like either free fall or massive change, and we're like, I don't think a lot

of people caught up to. And the frame that the framework day uses post normal um is like the acceptance that you're in a post normal era, which I think is what you're getting at. There's the equilibrium isn't going to come back right, like we're we and we're you're you're starting from a flawed position when you're even thinking of considering that as a possibility, um, the shift has

been too fundamental. It's the same thing politically with assuming like anything could work the same way after Trump, Like no, we're in post normal times where it's never going back. Yeah. Yeah, and that's why I think sometimes it's you know, it can be quite problematic to talk to progressives of a different generation, like say my parents, who weren't by any means lefties, but they were like old school Canadian social democrats,

you know, big welfares ate that kind of stuff. Is that the assumption is that that's what we need right now, Like that's we just need to get that back and everything will be cool. Like that's that's my dad's analysis of the problem. Yeah, and I can see the temptation, sure,

but it's totally not true. Yeah, I mean, the temptation is profound because like, yeah, I mean it if things were if you have this feeling that things were good, whether or not it's right or wrong, you're naturally gonna want to return to that, which, you know, is what what's going to be the fuel for the authoritarian version of this, but it's also going to be the fuel for climate Leviathan, you know, like in any case, like

it's easier. The scary thing about trying to bring climate X into being right is that it's by far the best possible kind of solution you have, but it requires saying fundamentally we're the way we all live is going to have to change our attitudes towards democracy, are going to have to change our attitudes towards what a society is.

You're going to have to shift in the fundamental level. Well, everyone else is saying, here's how we bring back what you used to have here, so we get the coffee back in the stores, you know, Like, yeah, yeah, that's kind of been the problem with a lot of left leaning projects is that it is a newer thing, and that's why none of them have really lasted very long

or they've you know, gone horribly wrong very quickly. Yeah, especially if we're gonna try to do any Climate X is more like a stateless world, or at least a stateless area. That introduces a whole, a whole new problem that we haven't really seen on a mass scale, you know, outside of like Rojava or something. Um, it's gonna be a whole new, a whole new problem to deal with, and a whole lot of people are going to be

scared of that. Agreed, And I mean I think it's you know, like, no, I'm stating you obvious, So I apologize for this, But part of me thinks, you know, I kind of need to say it to remind myself. But you know, for for good or ill. I mean, I guess it's for ill. A lot of people, like even though they know that how they live now is untenable, you know, in the larger frame, it's also how they

live now. Like like like a lot of us, myself included, are invested in the way things work now, do you know what I mean, Like like the prospect of that radical change that that is a hard sell when you know, like this is what put food on the table, this is how my kids go to school, Like these are you know, this is like that big leap that we will have to demand of ourselves and others at some point in the near future. Probably is also like justifiably

terrifying to lots of people. Yeah, and it's I mean the big yeah. And it's always easier, it's always it's a lot less frightening to tell people. I can make it like it was yeah, which but it was you know, yeah, and maybe it was awesome for some of them, you know, um,

for my dada, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I find it interesting that you bring up deserts in that framework of like of like equilibrium in terms of like, you know, they're being a normal and desert is not as one of the things that isn't it's always fluctuating between different temperates um and you know, and and I think there was there was a popular anarchists book I think also written in two thousand and twelve, um just called Desert about climate change and how basically it's it's it's it's it's

it's not. It's not about like how the whole world we're literally turned into a desert. It's about like how the desert model in terms of like they're never being a normal again. It's gonna fluctuating between extremes. It's going to happen in a lot of places, like like everything is gonna get turned into their own version of deserts. Yeah. The title is based off the idea of that old quote that like empires make a desert and call it peace right, and it's kind of seeing global capital as

the Yeah, it's called desert. Yeah. Online, it's like a little bit of a manifesto. But yeah, but yeah, like in terms of like we're never gonna even even as the crumbles start happening, we're not We're never gonna rereach a place of stability. It's always going to be in flux.

We're never going to get to that normal again. We may have coffee for a year, we may have insulin you know, being produced locally, but it's going to be it's not that we're not going to have the same false stability that we have now, right, Like we have an idea of stability now now it's not true, you know, because Taco Bell doesn't have ground beef anymore. Um right, but like, actually real, are you guys saying yeah, yeah, yeah, there's I mean there's shortages Taco Bells, like not able

to serve a lot of stuff. They're having shortages of things. You don't really have Taco Bell here in can You're not missing. I was, Oh, but you guys have tim Horton's so no one's hands are clean. No, no, no, it's true. Yeah. I didn't didn't mean. I didn't need to absolve my strow responsibility. I just ate some Tim Horton's cereal this morning. My my mother, who lives in Canada sent me some. Um so that's what I ate for breakfast. So yeah, did you used to live in Canada?

I did, Yeah, I'm Canadian Oh yeah, he's Canadian as hell. Yeah. I moved to Portland with my family. Then most most of my families moved back to Canada, which is probably the smart move. Um. But I mean, as we see, you know, both both these countries right now have like liberals in charge quote quote right now, and it's not no. You know, both Trudeau and Biden have a lot of the same problems despite their generational gap, and they have kind of the same effect in terms of what they

say versus what they do. You know, both of them. You know, Biden talked about banning fracking in his campaign, and everyone who is further to the left of Biden new like, no, you're just lying. I like this, come on, like come on. And you know Trudeau made a lot of promises about pipelines and how that's not that's not

working out, um. And I think one of the things that we haven't talked about yet is the symbiotic relationship between the state and like tech companies and oil companies, um, and how that will be alert how that I see that being a large part of Levivan is basically the government subsidizing or the government letting tech companies try to fix the problem therefore increasing our reliance on capital and those companies to maintain kind of you know, you know

in terms of like gew in terms of like gew and engineering or carbon capture. Right if if the government is gonna is gonna help help those companies do those things, as soon as those companies go away, we get so much more carbon released immediately. And it's kind of like this like self preservation that I think capital is going to try to do. Um. I know you you you brought up stuff similar to this in terms of like climate levies. That's like, yeah, do you do you have

like what what? What do you see? Now? That's kind of frightening in terms of you know, tech getting its hands on not just like government influence, but like you know, trying to make itself a necessary part of our world in terms of in term terms of climates. I mean, the text is necessary for a lot of ways right now, but specifically in terms of climate. How do you kind of see that happening? Yeah? Now, I think that's a

really good point. And I'm not sure I put enough thought into it to be honest with you, but I do think you're right there. It's it's it's obvious, it seems to me right now that that tech or you know,

green whatever they're calling themselves this kind of stuff. The goal, and I think it's actually like quite explicit, is to make itself essential to how we deal with the problem, which which means that of course, like I think you just said, the first thing that that requires is that we write off a whole bunch of ways of dealing with the problem so that we can prioritize this way

of doing things. And then and then once that, once that becomes the way of managing things like carbon capture or you know, something like that, that requires, as you say, you know, once you once you start, it's like an addiction, like you can't you can't stop it, or you're fucked. Um. If we've written the other options off the table or they just become untenable at some point, then then yeah, I mean, the way that that tech will be crucial

to this um is absolutely their plan. I would say, you know, like and I would say probably it's it's already under discussion in big you know, serious ways that big companies like Google and all the rest of it.

But the other thing I would say, on this same front, and I think you just mentioned it too, is this idea of you know, what will happen with geo engineering, which I think it in terms of what I find scary that I find a bit scary, and not just of course, you know, the sort of experimenting with the planetary system, which you know is pretty terrifying, but but the political implications of of the power associated with being able to manipulate the planet purely in the interests of

maintaining capital's power, you know, like we're really like, we're really talking about we are willing to dicker with the entire planet rather than change the way that we live. Like that's that's that astounding. The scariest part of your book for me was when you started talking about that and space weaponry um, and that I was thinking about this a lot yesterday with Bess going up in his penis rocket um. And I think I even talked about

it on on another show. Is yeah, is the intersection between the militarization of the atmosphere with the UH then with like the control of the atmosphere right like basically like making the atmosphere a thing that we're like, I think colonizes the wrong word. I think that that's kind of inappropriate for actual clon colonization. But it's it's kind of similar, Like it's like it's the it's another frontier

that we wanted to conquer. It's the next one is gonna be the atmosphere itself in terms of like weapons as you talked about in the book, and then geo engineering, and then with you know Bezos talking about moving all of the polluting stuff into space, you know, it's the same thing. Um yeah, I'd like so, yeah, I was watching that happened yesterday, and you know, your your book was written a few years ago, and it's like it's the same thing. You're like, that's and before I read

your book, that's not that's not. I never thought about the space thing specifically, And now with Basis talking about that, that's like wow, they're just going all for it, Like they're just yeah, they're just like it's like what what what? What what made you guys think of that possibility? Like what was the thing you saw there? Was like, hey, this is how we kind of see this trend going that will result in this kind of colonization of the atmosphere in space, And well, well what did you see

that kind of got you there? Well, like, if I'm honest with you, ah, that was really Joel's brainchild, like that that part of the book about SRM solar Radiation management and the space weaponry and that kind of stuff. That was something that was a connection that he made and he pursued, uh, most rigorously, and he actually wrote that part of the book because as you can imagine,

to split it up, you know what I mean. Um. And so I wouldn't want I mean, for me what who made that connection was Joel, So I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to speak for him. I think he he's he's in conversation both professionally and also just like interest wise with a whole range of of international relations scholars who inside the university are considered kind of wacky, like people who take like space weapons seriously, like they're

sort of like peripheral, you know what I mean. And Joel has been in conversation with him for a very long time, so that he knew all that literature like already before we even started. And I've never even heard of it, um. But I do think the connection is really compelling, and I know he's pursued it since I hope you guys get a chance to chat with him. He's a fucking brilliant I love to you're you're just

the easier person to contact. Yeah, yeah, you know, he's and he loves to chat chat and he's infinitely more articulate than me. Like you'll you'll you'll get way more out of him than you ever have from me. Um, he's a brilliant guy. Uh, but he's he's a that's a connection that he made and I wouldn't want to speak for how he got there. Sure, like you're more interested, Like correct me if I'm wrong, But it's more you you have like a lot of more studying in like

the economics side of things. Um, do do you see because like the other the other kind of out of this you know, ties in the space separy is just the U. S Military itself. Um do you see them interacting with the economy and in collapse like in like crumble scenarios. How how do you see the military being used by the state to kind of not solve issues but like you know, mitigate some of them or adapt

to some of those. Yeah. I mean again, I don't want to say I know any better than anyone else, but I do think, I mean, the U. S Military in particular has a couple of advantages you want to call it that in terms of the role that they might play as you know, certain kinds of crumbling become essential for the state to deal with them. The first is that it's been taking climate change seriously for decades like that. Yeah, no mencing words in any of those reports, exactly,

very blunt and very accurate. Yeah. And they even they know for a long time, they know the international security risks. They you know, they have they have plans, they're you know, they're trying to design weapons that don't require fossil fuels like they are. They take the problem seriously, so they're

ahead in that sense. And also, I do think that the kind of sort of localized for lack of a better term, of regionalized crumbling that you guys are just discussing will make the militarization of certain parts of the economy, probably especially supply lines um and certain production processes, maybe even if something as central as agriculture um, well, the militarization and the securitization of those aspects of the modern economy are going to become more and more essential, and

as far as I'm concerned, at least in North America, the principle instrument of that securitization will be the military. And I think the other interesting things in terms of like the plague is like that's the one thing we all saw the military do is be crucial in the vaccine distribution effort. Um. So I think, you know, really the past year has been for interesting glimpse into how we're gonna use our capital and military power when stuff

gets more and more unstable. Um. It seems like in the States that's how the state, the state knows how to step in is via the military or via the police. Do you know what I mean? Because there isn't like

as you know here in Canada. I mean, we've got lots of things that are problematic, but one of the things we didn't need for the distribution of the vaccine was anything more than our public health care system, which was extant and worked perfectly fine, you know what I mean, Like we didn't have to build up any new infrastructure, and like that, we just had to say, oh, you people who are already doing this do this too. Yeah.

And the lack of the lack of civil infrastructure in the States makes US more both need to rely on the military, and it makes Americans imaginations so small that the only way they can envision that is your military force or is through policing because the only civil infrastructure

we fund is policing in the military. Well in the military is also the only thing Americans overwhelmingly trust, Like there's no other like you look at polling, like there's no other branch of the government that is widely trusted by US citizens other than the military. And it's I mean, it's because of the most successful propaganda campaign of all time, um, their partnership with Hollywood, but it is it is a reality, Like huh, yeah, that's a really interesting point. We'll probably

want to rap up with. The one other thing I want to mention is like the hardest part of looking at Levithan for me is the is how incapable the UN is um in terms of like like how bad they are at doing their job. So what do you think would need to change um for something like the UN And maybe maybe not then specifically, but like you know, if we're going to have like a transnational cooperation of the state and capital to try to to try to to try to you know, alleviate some of the worst

spect of climate change. What would need to happen for to make that more realistic because the u N is not it, at least not right now. Um yeah, yeah, I don't know if I have a good answer to that question, to be honest with you, you know, partly

because it's such a good question. Um. I think the U N and the u n F Triple C you know, have have proven like like I mean, I don't think it's too much to say that, you know that the international negotiations that have gone on around this, you know, Copenhagen, Paris, can COOUM whatever, Dada da da have literally got us nowhere, like seriously nowhere. Um. It's been more of, you know,

a sort of long term dithering. H And it's hard to imagine to me at least that that framework an approach to global problem solving is gonna you know, somehow be redeemed the next meeting a Glasgow and everything will be fine again. Um. I think that from a purely like real politic perspective, it's gonna take like the US and China creating a G two and just making rules for the world. Those rules will be terrible um and and it it will be a kind of levi authoritarian

Leviathan form if that happens. I think, but I think in terms of what we might actually anticipate happening in the medium term, that's much closer than any sort of like global hug that's gonna get us through this. I'm so like, I'm I'm pretty young, I'm eighteen. I'm part of the zoomers, um my generation. You know. The friends that I've had that are my age don't have much hope for the future. Kind of like the term we

use is like a dum er. That's like kind of like the kind of thing we use is like we can't see anything besides doom and despair. And for some people that drives them to nihilism. For some people, it just drives them to apathy. Uh, sometimes it drives them to like anger and resentment and attack. Um do do you have any hope for what's going to happen in the next few years? Do you? You know, I'm not sure if you have kids, but like how what what

do you think? You know, like you're you're at least your teachers, Like what what do you say to like younger generations? In terms of like, how can we look at these very depressing problems and how can we get a more useful outlook than just being doomers, because like, the doomer action is natural, it's easy, you know. I I default to that every day. You know, it takes it takes takes active fighting to not just want to lay in my bed and cry. Um, So like what what? Yeah?

Like do you have hope? Where does it? If so, where does it come from? Where can you see you know, not non dumor outlooks being useful? Yeah, I think about this all the time too. Um. I do have kids there, you're exactly your age, you're seventeen and twenty. Um. So one just graduated high school. There's part way through university. Um, that's what he went to do. Um And I don't think interestingly enough. And I don't mean this in any kind of like value of way. Neither of them are dumers.

Both of them are. I wouldn't call them hopeful, but they are. They are not h which and it would be totally reasonable to be. They are not obsessed with what the future seems not to hold. Um. And I say that only because um, I do think that well, I guess one of the have to sort of responses, and the first of which is is, I apologize quite cliche, but I actually think it still matters, and that is that your generation will soon be in charge and that's

a very good, good thing. Um. But but that's the cliche.

But the second part is that I I because I because, like Robert was saying earlier, I think I'm assuming you sort of have a little bit of a similar take cares because I don't see this as kind of like a collapse process, but rather us managing a series of radical changes in the way that systems work, crumblings, you know, and breakdowns, that kind of thing, but also changes that that we that my hope lies in our capacity to use those moments as ways to not fix things or

make things all better, but to like work together generously with the folks with whom we're alive they'll be dickheads for sure, um, to to make the most of what we have at that moment and to work to the future.

And I don't see those moments running out. Those will be there, and insofar as we leap into them generously, because we don't know any better than anyone else, necessarily we will always have the capacity for hopeful and actually joyous solidarity in confronting those problems, and it won't always be fun around on the tournament romanticize it. But all I'm trying to say is that I actually think that they're the world will not be without joy unless we

choose to let it go there. And I guess like, at least for now, I still feel like we can. We can tell ourselves, we can, we can confront what's coming our way. I don't know if it's going to be bad or good, but we will do so. Um. And there will be a group of us who does it with good in our hearts, and I would just

take that for what it's worth, you know. Yeah, It's like, in like a weird way, a lot of these crumbles will almost give an opportunity for radical freedom because like, you know, we we think of ourselves and looking like a free society, but you know, we rely on so many things that are out of our control and that you know makes us unhappy subconsciously and subconsciously um. And when we're forced to live such be so active in our life and in our communities and with you know,

people we love and care about. You know, it does it the one thing that I hope that I do hope for that it will give us more opportunities to have like some like radical freedom, um, and you know, be able to live and to be able to have small communities that can live, you know, much much more free than what we do now. Um in terms of you know, authoritarianism from the state and through you know, companies in capital um. Yeah, as as long as as long as we don't fall into a full military dictatorship

of capital tech. UM, that's kind of that's kind of the thing that I would like. Um. Yeah, I don't know. It's really hard to talk about this stuff without sounding cheesy. Yeah. Yeah, especially when you talk about when you try to sell people on the only possible optimistic outcomes for this, because there's you you have to I guess I think we were also trying. This is another thing capitalism does well,

talking about it as a resilient system. Um. When you talk about alternatives to capitalism, it's hard not to sound like, uh,

it's hard. It's hard not to sound silly to people because anything that isn't this specific system either sounds you're either going back and saying I want to do a community Soviet Union again, but we'll get it right this time, or you're I don't know, it's it's tough because people are are very bought have very much bought into the idea that like anything that isn't a slight modification of what we're doing right now is um is silly, uh star trek bullshit. You know, I agree you guys, you

guys have probably both heard that. I always come back to it all the time. I think it's great that famous quote from Frederick Jamison where he says it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is the end of capitalism and u and it gets attributed to tons of different people, but it was you know, it was coined by that guy Jamison. He's a English professor actually weirdly enough at Duke. But there's a good ursula kay La gwinn uh comment on kind of the same.

Oh yeah, I'm sure, but I think you're right, Like it's it's a it's a quip and it's sort of you know, superficial, but it's actually also true. Like a lot of the times today, it does feel like that it's easy, it's literally easier to imagine us driving the planet into the end of its functioning, and it is for many people to imagine otherwise. I think I think you're right, Robert, like when you tell people, oh, no, no, In fact, a lot of things could be otherwise, and

we could have it quite quickly if we chose. People

look at you like you have two heads. Yeah, And that was one of the most optimistic thing I've experienced in the last several years was going to northeast Syria, which is a mess in a very complicated situation, but like sitting down with like militia in the desert and having these conversations about like the future that they were trying to build, and like here's the like here's our soil reclamation project, and like here's the way we're trying to like alter and it like, well, if they're able

to like try, that's remarkable and they've got some ship to deal with, you know. Um amazing, Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, super nice to meet you both. I really appreciate. And that is our interview with Jeff Mann, co author of Climate Leviathan. You can find him on Twitter at Jeff p. Man Um Jeff spelt with a with a with a G. Not with a not with a J, and follow us on Twitter, at cool Zone Media and happen Here pod. You can find me at

Hungry bow Tie. Thank you for listening, and see you tomorrow.