Because your first response to something is usually your most honest I decided to respond immediately after reading Steve's essay.

First thought, it's great. Second thought, I have been outplayed.

In this debate I am going to graciously concede defeat. Shake Steve's hand and say "well done Sir, well done".

As I have stated before, our positions were never that far apart. Some have accused us of 'pedantic quibbles' over terminology.

However, each of us felt "somewhat strongly" that "words matter". That, how we talk about this, will define the social response to the CRISIS.

Labels are shorthand for ideas and often come to serve as a way to define one's "group identity".

The label you chose (or that gets forced upon you) defines you, not only to others, but also to yourself. Steve quite clearly draws a distinction between "End Times Doomism" and, his "Energy Descent Realism".

There IS a difference between, knowing a dinosaur killer sized asteroid is going to strike the earth in 2 years aka "When Worlds Collide" and the Climate Crisis.

They are both existential problems but our response to them SHOULD be very different.

The word "doomer", in and of itself, implies that one see's the situation as being more like scenario one than scenario two. As Steve notes, it is an easy slide from being a "doomer", to feeling doomed, to seeing action as futile.

Still, really Steve?

Energy Descent Realism?

Really?

It hardly rolls off the tongue. As a label it's awkward to apply to ones self. Much less be a "group identity label".

Identity Labels should NEVER be longer than two words.

"Wild Thing" is an infinitely better label than "Wild Thing under the Right Circumstances". Maybe "Descent Realism"?

That would play on "descent" sounding like "decent" and imply a moral predisposition towards decency in taking on this label as part of your group affiliation.

I'm a "Descent Realist" has a better ring than Energy Descent Realist. Just saying ;-)

I thought this example was very effective.

Radical Hope means I work for the things I have some agency to influence. I work to defeat Republicans because they want to abandon all climate policies that might contribute to delaying (Collapse).

I completely agree. Points like this were never in dispute between us. Both of us are urging that people continue to do things that prevent the situation from getting worse, for as long as possible.

There can still be hope in the face of significant adversity and uncertainly. There can still be hope in the face of significant likelihood of failure. That’s what makes it radical hope.

To have HOPE when all others see only despair is a RADICAL ACT. Although, I gotta say this sounds vaguely like a speech Gandalf gives in LOTR.

My plan? A lot of people are accusing me of having a plan. No, I do not have a plan. I have a series of observations about how the next few decades might play out. My model of energy descent is based on humans going ahead and doing what they’ve always been doing, as mindlessly and selfishly as ever, until they simply no longer can.

I appreciate the honesty of this statement. Like Steve I often get asked for a PLAN about how this Crisis might be survived or managed.

There is no PLAN. You cannot "plan" chaos.

The whole point of chaos is that its "chaotic" and unpredictable. Plans require predictability.

We are leaving the "predictable" world of the last 100 years behind. The world we are entering into makes "plans" meaningless. This is going to be a world of "reaction".

As Steve eloquently states.

"In other words, unplanned, not planned."

It will be driven by a series of climate catastrophes and bad economic and political decisions that will propel us through the four waves of collapse I’ve described:

first environmental collapse,

then economic collapse,

then political collapse

and, finally, population collapse.

I don’t think this sequence can be avoided, short of some kind of Road to Damascus moment for our political leaders. But

"I think it could result in a wide range of outcomes, depending on the choices we make as each wave hits us over the next few years and decades."

My belief is that people who are resilient will survive and adapt to adverse conditions much more successfully than people who are rigid and dogmatic.

We should all strive to be more resilient.

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE.

That's pretty much the point Steve WINS this debate.

Because Steve's right. I am not an "End Times Doomer". I do think that people are smart and tough. Some will survive and adjust to the new reality over the next few hundred years.

I don't see this as the end of people. But it/s definitely the "End of Civilization as We Knew It".

Besides I LIKE Steve's "Attitude".

"how can we make this situation less horrible than it could be?” That attitude difference is important to me".

Me too Steve, me too.