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The existential moment we are in

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, June 2nd, 2025 - 26 comments
Categories: climate change, Deep stuff, Ethics - Tags: , , ,

This excerpt is from a discussion at the Festival of Debate in Sheffield, England, the largest annual politics festival in the UK (a non-partisan event “that encourages active citizenship and democratic engagement that anyone can contribute to”). The discussion breaks through our cognitive dissonance about climate collapse and the polycrisis (including in New Zealand), but also offers a way through.

The video is of architect and sustainable urbanisation expert Indy Johar, responding to the prompt to talk about the polycrisis moment we are in.

11 minute video, with transcript below.

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I think we failed and I think it’s really important to look at that properly. I think we’re in a moment when we are being forcibly re-entangled at a planetary scale. Forcibly re-entangled at a planetary scale. CO2, methane, all these gases, which were externalities in our system of single point optimisation for goals, are forcing us to recognise our interdependence.

And that’s just one thing. I can name a hundred other re-entanglements. The Amazon dies, we’re all dead. If one of the great…. ice shelves in the Antarctic fail, pretty much most of the coastal cities are done and it’s destabilised by the way, it is fundamentally destabilised.

So on one hand I think we’re systemically re-entangling, and on the other hand, I think what we’re in the middle of is an old idea of freedom in a world that’s entangling. And I would argue what’s happening is an old idea of freedom, which is feeling its future, being re-entangled, is struggling against that. Use the word America for that context.

An industrial idea of freedom is challenged by the re-entanglement of the world. And I also think a question for us is, as we re-entangle, is what is our new thesis on freedom? In a moment when actually all of our lives are becoming more precarious, more vulnerable, more fragile, how do we unleash a new type of freedom, which isn’t rooted in the expansion of consumption and the expansion of consumer choice, but the expansion of being radically human. And I think that’s a key thing.

At the same time, I think for me, I think it’s really important, we systemically realise that we are now headed towards systemic war. We’ve already been at war, at the planet and other things, but this is now accelerating. And I don’t want to be melodramatic, but you follow the numbers right now, they are all heading us that way.

Climate breakdown is going to, and it’s not climate change, it’s climate breakdown is going to massively increase price inflation. We’re going to see geopolitics, increased prices. Inflation is going to rise, inequality is going to rise. Competition for resources is going to rise in that context. And as we start to do that, we are going to massively increase inequality because actually, food, energy, water, all these things will become more and more precarious driven by climate breakdown.

And as we do that, we will threaten the social contract to which we live in. And I say all this, not because I don’t think we can do something about it, but I think we need to recognize the scale of what we need to do in order to do something about this.

I no longer think we’re living in a landscape rooted in net zero futures. I think we’re living in a landscape rooted in a new thesis on how we generate security. And not security as a bounded idea of how do we make Sheffield secure or UK secure because our future is entangled at the planetary scale. How do we build security that recognizes our metabolic interdependencies in the planetary scale? And critically, how do we do that in a different way?

So this also means security, not in a kinetic sense. I mean security of energy, food, water, critical minerals, information security, and a security that means that we can only thrive not with power over.

Power over cannot deal with complexity. Care is the only thing. And care not as a service. Care as a mutuality is the only thing that operates in complexity. Because you need to operate with a degree of unknowingness of the harm that you can do and the good that you can bring. So I suppose what I see is these levels. And the final point for me is I think this is also changes where we see value.

We’re in a moment when I think we’re going to have to rebuild and reimagine our bio regions, our economy, of our bio economy, more fundamentally our human economy. Because our human economy is fundamentally an economy of slavery. It’s an expansion of slavery. Labour is an expansion of slavery. It is not an inherent freedom of humanity. How do we build an economy not rooted in control, but rooted in learning and emancipation is a different type of economy.

And this is not a moral argument for me anymore. In a complex entangled world, you cannot organize through control, ’cause control is too difficult to organise from central points to be able to instruct the world what to do. It is an information impossibility. And if it’s an information impossibility, learning as a means of coordination, and citizenship as a method of being fully present, beyond the subject to state and beyond a consumer, is a critical part of that reality.

And I think we increasingly have the tools and the means to do that as well. I increasingly think we have the means to understand value. We have the means to understand the value of soil. We have the means to understand how critical it is.

I think value and price are more visible. The disjunct between value and price is more visible. And I know I’m using economist language. It’s probably kind of the, but I’m gonna defer to Kate on this stuff. But for me it’s visceral.

And I think this, I want to put the examples, two types of examples. I use this example of the shirt, it’s a 45 pound shirt. But if you were to genuinely price the extraction. The externalization of costs, this shirt is between 250 to 450 pounds.

Your steak, if you eat it shouldn’t, but if you do $8- $5, it should be about $28 to $30 minimum. What that means is we have been living a consumer life based on the externalization and extraction is of our economy.

At the same time, the tree planted outside – and Sheffield’s great for trees – the tree planted outside is only understood through its cost. i.e. its insurance costs and its costs in terms of maintenance and more problematically, it’s optimized to reduce the maintenance costs, which is why 97% of trees planted are male trees ’cause they have lower maintenance. Not usually males but male trees. Unfortunately male trees produce pollen, which is why we have the highest rates of asthma.

So we’ve offset the efficiency of the environmental, I don’t know, management balance sheet, into the health balance sheet. So we are doing it on both sides. But what’s brilliant is that’s visible. The risks are becoming visible. People are starting to recognize the systemic crisis.

Now the challenge is we need a new generation of economists to start to code reality as Kate has been doing into this world. Because now reality is telling us your economy is fiction. Real economy is coming at you whether you like it or not. And it’ll come at us through every sense: Soil, water, hydrological risk, everything you can imagine.

And the final point I’d say is that the value of being human is massively diminished. The reason why you see homelessness everywhere, is because we as a society are subject to an economy that no longer values being human capital has greater value than being human. That is what the economy is coded.

And our society, unfortunately, is a subset of that economy because states govern through the subset of eco economic thinking. And that means we are actually devaluing and not only devaluing, we are fundamentally destroying the value of being human. And that is disastrous because that leads us to the idea that war is a permissible act because humans are no longer worth it.

There is a long arc to where this leads us. And I pointed out for real reasons because the economy will guide us in a particular way to destruction here, unless we have brilliant people like Kate opening up this conversation and all of you here that are here to open up a quite a different conversation about this. And this is no longer a moral conversation for me. It’s an existential conversation of how we survive and thrive. That is it.

And I’m happy to have any debate on this in, in real terms because I think it is fundamental to our coexistence and there is no pathway for the UK to survive if the Amazon goes. There is no divisible pathway. There is no New Zealand strategy for survival. New Zealand in COVID could not produce paracetamol, could not produce any form of antibiotics. Soon as we realize this interdependence, we start to live and act differently. And we recognize the pathway future is either forking between mutually assured destruction or mutually assured thriving. And it is entirely out of self-interest. No moral, no moral invitation.

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26 comments on “The existential moment we are in ”

  1. gsays 1
    2 June 2025 at 2:25 pm

    Jingoes that's a lot to get our heads round. Good to have a korero around it. My gut feels like this is something we will have thrust upon us rather than a transition to.

    A couple of thoughts come to mind initially.

    Any new economy that is to emerge and to be sustainable has to have sharing at it's heart. Not barter, not trade, sharing. Sharing what we have, not our surplus.

    Sharing is in accord with our nature, it feels good to share and it feels good to be shared with.

    The second thought is something that can happen in this current model but points us toward sustainability (in the broader sense) and resilience. Developing our pharmaceutical industry to manufacture the most commonly needed drugs. Paracetamol, insulin, ritalin etc.

    Reply
    • weka 1.1
      2 June 2025 at 3:18 pm

      yeah, that was immediate thought about the NZ strategy, how easy or hard would it be to manufacture here if we had to. It was mentioned a few times, my guess is that in those circles NZ is considered highly because of our pandemic approach. They're right though.

      (bearing in mind that with antibiotics, we are overusing them, so we wouldn't need to manufacture the quantities we currently buy. But it also points to the need for steady state population, the limits of growth bite every which way we look).

      I like the idea of things that we can do now that point us in the right direction (sustainability and resilience).

      Reply
      • Joe90 1.1.1
        2 June 2025 at 4:04 pm

        with antibiotics, we are overusing them, so we wouldn't need to manufacture the quantities we currently buy.

        I think antibiotics would be the least of our problems.

        https://www.pharmac.govt.nz/news-and-resources/publications/corporate-publications/year-in-review/year-in-review/top-20s/therapeutic-groups

        Reply
        • Drowsy M. Kram 1.1.1.1
          2 June 2025 at 5:25 pm

          I think antibiotics would be the least of our problems.

          Yes, more clinicians are now aware that ideally antibiotics should be used sparingly, in line with the principles of antibiotic stewardship – use, do not misuse.

          https://bpac.org.nz/2024/antibiotic-use.aspx

          Global trends in antibiotic consumption during 2016–2023 and future projections through 2030 [18 Nov 2024]
          Since penicillin became widely available in the 1940s, antibiotics have played an indispensable role in reducing morbidity and mortality from both common ailments, such as streptococcal infections, and life-threatening conditions, like sepsis.

          It may surprise some that big Pharma has downsized its (expensive) antibiotic discovery programs – antibiotics aren't as profitable as medicines people might have to take daily for the rest of their lives.

          Digging in the dirt: Scientists discover a new antibiotic compound from an old source [1 April 2025]
          But by the 1980s, most pharmaceutical companies were pivoting away from environmental sources of antibiotics, because they had already found the low-hanging fruit, and new discoveries were becoming more difficult.

          "They kept finding penicillin or streptomycin or tetracycline over and over again," Wright [who directs the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University] said. "It's easy to find those molecules. It's hard to find something new."

          Reply
        • weka 1.1.1.2
          2 June 2025 at 9:00 pm

          those are big jumps. How much of that is increased need from post-covid issues, and how much is increase in price?

          Reply
      • gsays 1.1.2
        2 June 2025 at 5:45 pm

        So as to anti-biotic overuse and all other medications, as well as what we can do now…

        Stop all pharmaceutical direct to consumer marketing in Aotearoa.

        Reply
        • Drowsy M. Kram 1.1.2.1
          2 June 2025 at 5:50 pm

          Stop all pharmaceutical direct to consumer marketing in Aotearoa.

          yes Aotearoa NZ is an outlier in this area, and not in a good way sad

          Why does New Zealand still allow direct advertising of prescription drugs? [8 August 2024]
          With strong evidence it can lead to unnecessary, inappropriate and sometimes harmful prescribing, direct-to-consumer advertising is banned in most high-income countries. New Zealand now has a timely opportunity to follow suit.

          New Zealand and the United States are the only high-income countries to allow unrestricted direct-to-consumer advertising of branded medicines, including the name of the drug and the condition for which it is prescribed.

          Reply
          • gsays 1.1.2.1.1
            2 June 2025 at 6:05 pm

            In a related vein (boom boom!), the increase of American doctors comes with an increase of the tendency to lean heavily on pharmaceutical solutions.

            Reply
            • Binders full of women 1.1.2.1.1.1
              3 June 2025 at 4:17 pm

              I disagree. Even if it were true at a GP level (which I doubt). 11 out of 11 American doctors I know are all specialists and therefore mainly in levels above prescribing medicines… (ED, surgeons, radiographers, cardiologists & OBGYN). Maybe a bit of ADS creeping in??

              Reply
              • gsays …
                3 June 2025 at 4:26 pm

                This is from an ED nurse.

                Anecdotally often when paracetamol would do, codeine or tramadol would be suggested.

                Reply
        • joe90 1.1.2.2
          2 June 2025 at 6:46 pm

          anti-biotic overuse

          According to my GP the real issue is inappropriate use, of topical antibiotics in particular, rather than over use.

          Reply
          • weka 1.1.2.2.1
            2 June 2025 at 8:59 pm

            what's that about? Throwing antibiotics at whatever skin thing in the hope it goes away?

            Reply
            • Joe90 1.1.2.2.1.1
              2 June 2025 at 11:38 pm

              Yup. Inappropriate use of topical antibiotics has been fingered as a significant contributer to resistance. It's the on again off again nature of use on what may or may not be bacterial infections. Actual bacterial infections are given a fright but what doesn't kill them, makes them stronger.

              (never had a boil in my life until arthroscopic surgery on a knee and since then I've been plagued by staph infections largely confined to the same knee so super alert and paranoid AF about even the smallest scratch getting away)

              Reply
  2. Psycho Milt 2
    3 June 2025 at 10:07 am

    I don't think there could be any 'New Zealand strategy' for this just because history's shown us that desperate people are willing to undertake long, dangerous sea voyages in high-risk vessels, in large numbers, and because other countries have militaries that ours wouldn't last an hour against. If we're looking like the least-worst option, there's billions of people who'll want that option.

    Reply
  3. Hunter Thompson II 3
    3 June 2025 at 10:45 am

    Weka’s right about competition for resources; it could lead to war.

    Water will be a prime flashpoint, as shown by the dispute between Ethiopia (building a large dam on the Nile) and Egypt: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2020/grand-ethiopian-renaissance-dam-egypt-nile/

    Reply
  4. Res Publica 4
    3 June 2025 at 11:26 am

    In a New Zealand context, it’s both prudent and achievable to build limited strategic buffers for critical supplies: such as essential medicines, energy inputs, and staple foods, to improve our resilience to global supply chain shocks.

    But aiming for broad-spectrum self-sufficiency or economic autarky is neither feasible nor wise. The global supply chain is highly specialised and deeply interwoven; attempting to replicate its complexity domestically would be prohibitively expensive and technically unrealistic for a small economy like ours.

    Instead, our long-term strategy should centre on resilient interdependence. That means engaging in fair, smart trade rather than free trade at any price, that aligns with our national values, upholds high environmental and labour standards, and leverages our comparative advantages, international reputation, and geopolitical reliability.

    I believe someone wrote a particularly smart and prescient take on what a new NZ trade policy along those lines could look like a couple of months ago laugh

    Resilience doesn’t require isolation. It requires deliberate choices about where to invest in redundancy, and where to build trusted partnerships that support shared security and mutual benefit.

    Reply
    • weka 4.2
      3 June 2025 at 5:19 pm

      I rarely see anyone arguing for NZ to adopt autarky (Draco used to argue for this, but he hasn't commented for a long time) and it's definitely not what Indy Johar was saying (they're talking interdependence as central to our wellbeing).

      For me it's threefold:

      1. how do we shift from the death cult economic model we are currently using?
      2. what happens to and in NZ if the shit hits the fan too fast and the global economy and market collapses? This seems likely, eventually, if we don't do the first.
      3. what if we changed to something like doughnut economics, what would that look like in NZ?

      Those all intersect. I think a lot about #2, the reason it matters is because while isolation isn't something to desire, it might happen anyway, especially if we don't do #1. We can live without new iphones but it would be better if we had the capacity to repair. Medicines are more difficult, so which can we potentially manufacture onshore? But we could also change our approach to preventative medicine and make it much more effective.

      The most useful one to think about is food. To do all three points, we should be growing most of our food locally, relying on local economies, and export should come after that (I can easily see us producing excess food for regions that really need it, as well as trading mostly with our close neighbours). That's a major change, one that many people can't conceive of. But it's sustainable and resilient and our current system isn't at all. It's hard to understand why people think our current system is going to survive. It's isn't, but we still have a choice about jumping to something else or being pushed off a very high cliff.

      Johar's reference to the NZ strategy was what we did during covid, and how people hold it up as this wonderful thing. It was, but it doesn't translate to the metacrisis precisely because of the nature of interdependence.

      Reply
    • weka 4.3
      3 June 2025 at 5:23 pm

      Resilience doesn’t require isolation. It requires deliberate choices about where to invest in redundancy, and where to build trusted partnerships that support shared security and mutual benefit.

      This. The people like Johar and Raworth continually amaze me in their capacity to keep working on that kind of vision and making it reality. Most people see the doom, the challenge now is to see how things could work out. I can't see any way of things working out if we can't see what that looks like (although I guess we might get lucky).

      Reply
  5. Ad 5
    3 June 2025 at 2:37 pm

    Well it's fine talking about your feelings about climate and existence as if there was still a global multilateral will to do something about it.

    In December 1997 when Kyoto was signed there was still a functioning United Nations, the President of the United States could actively persuade the President of China and of Russia to sign Kyoto and then 2015 Paris.

    Even in 2018 the big CPTPP was signed, no matter that the US stayed out.

    What a difference a decade makes.

    Pretty pointless moaning that "we" are headed for war when much of Europe has already been at it for two years already, and any multilateral engagement with Russia is dead under the toll of trade and financial sanctions.

    It's also pretty pointless wading through more tragedean melancholic complaints about a "long arc" with zero recognition of the massive strides most countries have already made in decreasing combustion engine reliance, and in decreased oil reliance, power generation, heating energy, and increased industrial process efficiency.

    Reply

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