Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining us from New Mexico is Robert Jensen. And Robert has co-written a book. And I know it's hard for the listeners to kind of see this because of the way that computer screen is. But it's called An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity. And it's co-authored with Wes Jackson, the founder of the Land Institute. Good day to you, Robert. How are you?

Robert Jensen
It's great to chat, Greg, looking forward to it.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's good to have you on the line. And I'm gonna let our listeners know a little bit about you because this is such an important topic. But you're a man of many, many books. If you want to check out Robert’s website to learn more about him go to Robert W. Jensen. r-o-b-e-r-t-w-j-e-n-s-e-n dot org. There you can read more about his books, of which you've authored how many?

Robert Jensen
Robert, I think about a dozen depending on how you count them.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, a dozen in all kinds of papers. But let me tell you a bit about him. He's an emeritus professor of journalism and media at the University of Texas Austin. He's a founding board member of the third Coast activist resource group. He collaborates with new perennials publishing and new perennials projects and mid Berry College. His latest book, which actually May of 2024, is going to come out. It's debatable talking authentic about tricky topics will be published in May, by Olive Branch press. He has an incredible background and his done a work a book previously with West Jackson, or about West Jackson and the Land Institute. I think it's really important. For my listeners, we'll put a link as well, to the lancet Institute so you can learn more about West Jackson's work. And this book, interestingly enough, is more than just about West Jackson's work. It's about both of these men, as both authors and having a passion to solve or help create the dialogue around today's world problems. And, Robert, you are such a prolific author, and you've written so many books, like I just said on a variety of topics. You also have a previous book with Wes. And what did what did you in West want to write? Or why did you want to write the book? And why is it so important for readers to digest the threats that humanity faces?

Robert Jensen
Yeah. Let me just say a word about Wes. Because I often describe him as the most important environmentalist nobody's ever heard of. Within the realm of sustainable agriculture, Wes is very well known. But in the larger society, he isn't, and I think that's unfortunate. Wes is a Kansas farm boy, who got himself a PhD in genetics and went on to teach at a university. He was director of one of the first Environmental Studies programs in California and the 90, early 1970s. But he left that to go co found the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, which began as an alternative education institution, and has really morphed into more of a Sustainable Agriculture Research Center now and it's doing some of the most important agricultural research in the world. I think that Wes was someone I read, starting, Oh, God 35 years ago, and he really shaped the way I think about ecological questions. And so it was a real treat. When about 1015 years ago, I got to meet him and eventually co author with him. So Wes is the most important part of the of the duo of of Jackson and Jensen. But when we finished work that summarize some of his contributions to environmental education and sustainable agriculture, we decided to think and write about what another friend of mine used to call the multiple cascading crises that face us. That means, of course, everybody's familiar with climate change. And climate change is a as we like to say, an existential threat. But climate change itself is not the problem. Western I would argue climate change is a derivative of a larger problem, which is overshoot, too many people consuming too much.

Greg Voisen
Right. And we know with a billion people it I'm gonna say personally, it's not sustainable. The question is for how long? How could our population grow? While scientists have a very good idea of that challenges. You know you in this book you write about many things, but the issues of social justice, and ecologically an ecological crisis. How is that related? I don't think many people are going to look at social justices, and the ecological crisis and make the link as

Robert Jensen
well. We know that the distribution of wealth and power in this world is unjust, inequitable, and morally unacceptable. When you have a relatively small component of the world population consuming at extreme levels and a good chunk of the world's population living in abject poverty, we know something's wrong. So we do need to move toward a more equitable distribution of resources. But we also have to understand that even if you could make the world magically overnight, fair and distribute all those resources equitably, we are still in overshoot. There are still too many people consuming too much. So the ecological crisis is to to understand how to move to what Wes and I call for simplicity's sake, a world have fewer and less. Yeah, if you were you weren't people consuming less energy and material resources. Yeah.

Greg Voisen
You said when we talked on the pre interview, that would be the bumper sticker. Right? You You just started talking about the three crucial words multiple cascading crisis. Can you explain? Yeah, because you refer to it in the book into what you refer to as the Acropolis? The apocalypse? Yeah, I mean, the book's title is the inconvenient apocalypse. And it's these multiple cascading crises that I want the

Robert Jensen
listeners to know a little bit more about. So first of all, the word apocalypse, Wes and I are using it in its original meaning apocalypse comes from the Greek. And it's the same as Revelation and in Latin, and what it means is not the end of the world, a lot of people say, you know, well, if you're apocalyptic, you're predicting the end of the world, that's not the case. The word apocalypse means an unveiling, a coming to clarity, beginning to see what was previously hidden. And that's what we're trying to point attention to. So the multiple cascading crises are not only climate change, but soil erosion, and soil degradation, Wes has spent much of his career working on that chemical contamination of air, water, land and our own bodies. And, of course, the biodiversity crisis, the mass extinction going on? Well, all of those are these multiple cascading crises, which means if you could somehow magically solve climate change tomorrow, we would still be looking at a world in serious ecological decline. Again, I'm going to use the word because I think it's so important because as a species, we are in overshoot. There are too many people consuming too much, we cannot continue to extract resources at this rate, and the world cannot handle all of our waste. Now, the reason we haven't collapsed as a population already, you know, like deer would collapse if they outstrip their food supply, is because of the very short and short term use of fossil fuels that has allowed us to go beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. Now, that's going to come to an end, either because we get smart and start curtailing our use of fossil fuels, or because we run out or because the world goes into serious ecological climate of decline before that. So we want to keep focused on this question of population and consumption. Now, we don't have easy answers. You know, if anybody's going to pick up the book thinking that we solve the problem, we don't, we have to start talking honestly about the nature of the problem.

Greg Voisen
Well, I think the good point about this book is is it's just kind of honest expos a that the two of you have created here about what it is. Now you you stated a report that was written by World scientists warning to humanity that was in 2017. And then there was a second notice that came out. Can you speak about what the second notice said and the threats to our future as humans as we know it, because there was first one in 2017. I think the second one was 2022, or 2000.

Robert Jensen
The first one goes back to the early 1990s, the second one in the 2010s. And that same group of scientists and this is a very eclectic group of scientists from a variety of disciplines, who who called out the trajectory we were on, which was readily evident in the 1990s even more evident in the 2010s. They also just issued a new warning about the need to dramatically reduce consumption and the need to marshal all of our forces toward that. And so these are, you know, these are not political activists, these are not ideologues. These are people who work with the data. And they have made it clear that the human species is on an unsustainable trajectory. Well, you know, that's because we live in unsustainable systems based on unsustainable levels of consumption, with a short term excess of very dense energy in the form of coal, oil and gas. I'm not a scientist, to tell you the truth, Greg, I'm not even that bright. I'm, you know, I'm a kind of work a day kid from North Dakota. And if I could, and I always say, if I can figure this out, anybody can but the truth is, of course, anybody can figure this out. The data is clear, the conclusions of scientists are pretty consistent. And we see now in daily life, with extreme weather, and those kinds of things. The implications of all this, you know, I live in New Mexico, a place where a year ago, unbelievable wire, wildfires basically burned out a couple of counties. If you live in California, as you do. The evidence is all around us. We're at a point where that kind of straightforward, honest talk is not only necessary, but I think it's attractive to a lot of people because of course, when you talk this way, some people say, Well, that's a downer, you're so depressing. My suggestion is that this kind of talk is actually very heartening. Because people often feel these things. They know these things, but they feel they have no place to talk about it. You're going to a family dinner, and you're trying to talk about ecological decline. And everybody wants to talk about the Super Bowl, for understandable reasons. People don't like engaging harsh news like this. But I think the more that people feel free to talk about it, the more we will want to talk about it. And of course, that's when potential solutions will emerge. You can't solve problems if you can't talk honestly about the problem. Well,

Greg Voisen
you know, you, you mentioned in the book and I and that you and Wes, are much alike. You comment that on Wess work at the Lincoln's Institute? Or would you comment on it? And why do you believe that this is so important to the survival of our species, because we've talked about all kinds of things but Wess work in particular is around soil, and around planting, and perennial. And you know, and a lot of people that are listening to this don't have a clue about the problem about the way we're breeding our soils through nitrogen fertilizers and all these other kinds of things that are going on, you point to that work a little bit so we can get a little clearer picture about Land Institute.

Robert Jensen
Right, so we're talking about soil erosion and soil degradation. Now, because such a small percentage of America lives or works on farms. Most of us have no direct experience with this. And that's a recent phenomenon. West was born during the Great Depression when there was a much larger proportion of Americans living on the land. But when you live in a city and I've lived in cities, most of my life, you really don't understand the the material reality of some of these things. So we lose according to estimates something like point 7% of our topsoil every year. Topsoil is, is eroding at an incredible rate. And of course, to create topsoil takes not a year or two but decades. So at the rate we're going there would literally be no topsoil. And for those who have never been on a farm, you grow food and topsoil. There would be no topsoil in you know, 150 years. Well, of course, we'd never get that far because the collapse would come much sooner. So, we have to deal with soil erosion and soil degradation as you point out comes from living in a petrochemical farming era, when the inputs pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers are basically all coming out of an oil will and they are artificially boosting the fertility of soil when natural fertility is declining. Well, you know, West has often said we the land is on a kind of chemotherapy. So it appears to be fertile, it's still very productive, but it's a short term project and eventually, that artificially created soil fertility will not be available to us. So, the problems of soil are very, very crucial. West has always said soil in some sense, is a more important resource than oil. And he says it's also a non renewable resource. It takes a long time to create healthy soil. It takes a very short time to erode and degrade at So Wes at the at the Land Institute To start thinking about some innovative ways to grow grain, and you know, we're mostly a grain eating species, about 70% of our calories come from a very small number of grains, wheat, rice, corn, that sort of thing. And the details I love to talk about, it's kind of nerdy about the shift, where it says proposed from annual to perennial plants, the shift from monoculture to mixtures. All of that is, in a sense, technical plant breeding talk, but also very basic, I think, ways to think about how to make agriculture not only productive to sustain us, but to sustain soil as well.

Greg Voisen
Well, it all make sense. I mean, you know, it's it when you look at it, but what I'm saying if they don't believe there's a huge awareness, like you said, we don't, we're not in an agricultural age where we grew up that way, many of us, so we don't understand. But when you really look at the challenges that's being faced, by farmers in the soil, it's it's huge, and wealth is leading that movement at the Land Institute. Now, you mentioned in the book that no individual political movement or government has a viable plan for transitioning from an unstable, high energy entered interdependent Lobel Society of nearly 8 billion people to a low energy societies with sustainable levels of population and consumption. If you were to propose a plan, and answer the four hard questions you pose in the book, what would that look like to you? Yeah,

Robert Jensen
well, when we say no one has a plan, what we mean is, if I, Greg, if I took a three ring binder off my shelf, and I said, here are the 12 steps to saving the planet saving humanity and, you know, leading us to the Promised Land. My suggestion would be, you should immediately terminate the interview, because obviously, I would be crazy. Nobody can devise such a plan. Okay, so But where do we go? Well, one policy that I think is very sensible, and has been sketched out in some detail by one of Wess colleagues at the Land Institute, great writer named Stan Cox, is what he calls cap and adapt. I won't go into the details, but basically, it's just take seriously the notion of rationing. The problem, of course, is when we all have access to as much energy as we can afford, it's very hard to collectively down power to reduce the amount especially with fossil fuels that we're consuming. So Stan, and a couple of his colleagues have sketched a plan to do that to year by year, put a cap on the amount of fossil energy that we consume, and to accompany that with rationing because otherwise, the injustice in the current economy and society, the inequity, we see would would widen so you need rationing? Well, you know, rationing was used in the United States during World War Two successfully. I'm not suggesting or to stay on that it would be just as easy to do it today. Because, of course, under wartime conditions and direct threat, you can mobilize people, but the fact that we don't have an off the shelf way to accomplish this tomorrow, doesn't mean we shouldn't start talking about it. And I would repeat something I said earlier, no problem can be solved till it can be faced. There's no guarantee we can solve every problem in front of us, but we're guaranteed to fail if we don't honestly address them. Yeah. Right. And I think, you know, people like Stan are doing work to try and and sketch that out. In economics, there's an increasingly prominent degrowth movement, because of course, modern industrial capitalism is premised on continued growth. And so there are economists who are saying, now we have to start thinking about what D growth would look like. Now, that's very different than green growth, because there are also economists saying, well, we can keep growing just with renewable energy and such things. So you can see the array of options out there. My own feeling is the ones that are the most painful are likely to be the most effective. And of course, human beings don't necessarily move toward pain as a natural instinct. And, you know, we have to do this collectively.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, and it is interesting, this movement we're seeing too, you know, I've tried to be as close to vegan as possible. And that was that was primarily because of what I knew the beef industry, or I should say, the cattle industry was doing, what it costs in the way of, you know, grazing and water and, and, and then basically the pollutants that are caused from that. And, and but I have a question for you on the flip side of the coin, you know, we're seeing yesterday for the first time I saw a company in a city close to me here, making plant based dish products. And I'd never heard of that. But we are seeing so many plant based products emerge. I mean, I eat impossible burgers I eat, you know, beyond burgers, I see these kinds of things, but I don't really realize how they're manufactured. That question is, is all that has to come from a plant? Is there a give and take here? Is there something that may be weapon, you know, that, that I should know about?

Robert Jensen
Well, take the question of eating meat. It's a good example. I've been a vegetarian for about 40 years. Me too. I didn't. And, you know, I could make up a story about philosophically why I did it. But the truth is, it just felt right. Right. And I realized I can live quite well without meat, and I do it. But I'm not necessarily, you know, against meat eating. And let me explain why. In a low energy economy, that is when we're not using fossil fuels to to go beyond our means. There's a lot of land that is not suitable for agriculture, especially hilly grasslands. If you plow and plant them, you get soil erosion, that's not good to plant them. Right, but they're good for grazing. The other thing, of course, is animals provide fertility through manure. And so if we're going to talk about returning to small scale, organic farming, without petrochemicals and without this large scale corporate industrialized agriculture, well, I think it's probably going to include animals. That's just inevitable. That doesn't mean that industrial agriculture and, you know, confinement units with you know, 3000 hogs are, are acceptable. They're not that industrial style of animal agriculture is both ecologically destructive, and I think morally unacceptable. But that doesn't mean meat doesn't have a place in the future. Okay. Okay. Now on on plant based meats, I'm not I don't eat them. I'm not interested in them. Because to me, they're an industrial solution, right, we're going to have to get to a low energy society, and in a low energy society, it's going to be hard to have factories churning out plant based meats, I plants. Now, that doesn't mean, I've never had a, you know, a plant based burger. They're pretty tasty. I have to say they've done some amazing things with with those products. But I don't think there's they're the solution. Right, the solution is going to be fewer and less, and there's nothing There's no way around that. Well,

Greg Voisen
let's, let's look at this. You basically, you cited a book by Joseph cantiere. I think it is called the kulaks collapse of complex societies. What are some of the features of a society? That Tentler state is collapsing? Mean? Because now you're set we're saying we're saying, hey, well, if our society is collapsing, what are the actual features of a society, which is we've heard about the Mayan cultures, and the things that happened actually have a society collapse. But it I thought found this part in the book to be pretty interesting, actually, especially the points he was trying to make.

Robert Jensen
Yeah. Joseph Tainter is an academic sociologist. And that book, The collapse of complex societies is quite, I think, insightful. And he makes an observation about collapses across time, the Roman Empire, the Mayans, whatever they might be. And he says, there's one thing that seems to be consistent is that as societies grow, especially empires take Rome, for instance, as it grows, it invests more in the machinery and the bureaucracy and the mechanical ability to govern that Empire, which is an investment in complexity. You know, you have more, you have a bigger army, you have more judges, all of these you invest in complexity. But he points out that in every one of these societies, there's a point where that complexity has diminishing returns, it doesn't work anymore. And so he points out that when that point is reached, of diminishing returns on complexity, unfortunately, these societies invest in more complexity, trying to solve a problem exactly in the wrong way. And most of the empires and of course, we can, you know, critique Imperial societies on moral grounds and all sorts of that. He's just talking about the the raw ability to maintain a large scale, Imperial society like that. He said, when you start investing at income, more complexity past the point of effective returns, you are in to collapse. And there are very few examples he says in his Straight where people pulled back, and where people did pull back and stopped investing in that complexity societies were able to endure. And so I think there's a lesson in that. Our goal right now is to continue. What?

Greg Voisen
What would you say then about all this investment and AI right now that's supposedly moving society forward? Forward?

Robert Jensen
Yeah. AI is moving us forward. Okay.

Greg Voisen
I think I look, I think there's a lot of listeners out there that either believe that on the other hand, we hear the negatives about it that you know, what is it? But I mean, look, if you look at Google, I granted huge, gigantic corporation with AI, you look at Microsoft huge movements, and you're talking about into complexities. I'm not saying there couldn't be anything more complex, but there certainly is complexity and keeping those computers running, that are generating that information and creating more pollution in the world, right.

Robert Jensen
Yeah. So I'm not to say the least I'm not an expert in AI. But but let's let's talk about renewable energy, which I think is a good example of what you're you're asking about, is solar energy better than burning fossil fuels? Yes, is when Andrew wind energy, yes, all renewable energy is part of any human future. But I believe that if we are developing renewable energy, with the goal of replacing fossil fuels, and then trying to keep the same level of consumption that we are currently at, then renewable energy will do us very little good. Because to go back to an earlier point, the problem is not just climate change, the problem is overshoot too many people too much consumption, right? Extraction of material resources from the earth beyond replacement levels, waste building. So if we could magically replace every, you know, coal fired power plant and every oil based product in the world, we would still be in overshoot. So renewable energy, yes. But with a recognition that more complexity, more renewable energy, more gadgets, isn't the path forward? Right. And so we have to then come back to this very blunt statement that people do not like to think about, which is, if the future includes less, that means everybody's material standard of living has to decline, everybody that is except the poorest in the world, who are at a level that we need to rise raise up. But that means Yeah, okay. So imagine I was going to run for Congress, Greg, and my platform was, ladies and gentlemen, I can guarantee that if you elect me, and if my policies are passed, within two years, you will have 50% Leonard, less energy to live on in your life. Is that a winning campaign slogan? Now I say, you know, if I say to you, for those of you who like to travel, you are no longer going to be able to take airline trips for pleasure that is unacceptable in a sustainable world. And I guarantee you that all shut down. Pleasure based airline travel, how far am I going to get? Okay, so I know that the the kind of hard truths that I think Wes and I are proposing, along with many other people in the world, of course, are not an easy sell. But yeah, you know, the thing about there's an old saying, nature bats last, that is, you know, we may want certain things, but in the end, the natural processes, the ecosystems of the world, have the final say, you know, another version of this, if people come out of religious traditions is people plan and God laughs You know, we believe that by virtue of our own will, we can remake the world. But it doesn't usually work out that way. It never has worked out that way. Well, I

Greg Voisen
think what's interesting is, you know, you look at just what we're talking on today. And you look at the numbers of trips that maybe zoom and I don't think there's a study has created. So putting more, what do you want to call it pollutants into the environment. The other thing is, I think that these people with VR, virtual reality headsets, they're actually trying to create a beam me up Scotty kind of thing and beam somebody back out down into another place. I'm not gonna say that I'm going to be able to see Europe that way, by what you know, I'm going to go in there. But I think to some degree, there might be something to be said for people not moving around using the tools that we're using today, and not burning as much fossil fuels. I know during COVID There was a study done and the amount of fossil fuel consumption because people were bunkered down, reduced considerably. I remember reading the study. I don't know what the exact mount was, but it was a lot. Now you state that you and West do not belong to any religious organizations but are products of mainly Christian cultures. But based in spirituality, you state that you like the idea of eco spirit grace. What do you mean by this term ecosphere grace because I read the whole parts about Judaism in there and Christianity in there and the things that you did. And for a lot of people writing I'm reading a book about the inconvenience apocalypse and probably not thinking that you're gonna get some.

Robert Jensen
Well, Wes and I, you know, Wes grew up in a Methodist household, I grew up in a Presbyterian household. Neither one of us are religious, in any traditional sense anymore. But we often reflect on the way that the stories that come out of those religious traditions are the stories of the culture. I don't mean everybody in the US is a Christian or everybody in the world is, you know, has a Christian background. But those are part of the stock stories as much as Shakespeare or anything else. Okay. So the concept of grace is very powerful. And in a traditional religious setting, grace is seen as God's favor toward us the the unearned favor, right? Human human beings, according to this theology have grace not because we're so great, but because God loves us. Well, Wes was the one who came up with this. Well, what if we thought about the ecosphere, the larger living world, the planet on which we live and all its ecosystems? There's a kind of grace offered to us from the ecosphere. But he said, You know, it's unmerited favor, you know, we're doing fine on this beautiful planet. We don't necessarily deserve it, maybe, but there it is. He said, there's one key difference though, in traditional theology, we assert that God loves us. And West said, we have to get used to the idea that the planet Earth doesn't love us. Right? The planet Earth doesn't care one whit about humans, above any other species. The Grace he's talking about is the beauty of the world we live in. And the fact that unspoiled it provides everything we need to live, doesn't mean life is always easy, doesn't mean life doesn't have, you know, its harshness, but that grace accorded to us by the ecosphere. Isn't because the ecosphere loves us, it's because that's the nature of the world we live in. And we should be sad, he's Wess, has said often, why is that not enough? He called me one day just to give you a flavor of his personality. And he had been, he lives in Kansas in a relatively rural area. And he had been out walking on the prairie, the same prairie he grew up on, he loves that prairie deeply. And he called me up and he said, I just been walking, and I saw these plants, and he ticks off every plant he saw on the animals. And, you know, and he said, and then he paused and he said, Why is that not enough? And I just got emotional for a minute, because it's a powerful thought. Why do you need to go to Las Vegas? And, and, and bet a house payment on the Roulette Wheel? Why is that? So enticing? All of that kind of manufactured excitement? West said, when look what is around us? And I thought that was one of the most profound things I've ever heard from him. Why is this not enough? Well, it's not enough for everybody. We've created a world in which we, you know, seek out other kinds of pleasures. I

Greg Voisen
hear that you're the psychologists there. I mean, but the reality is, is that, you know, you do address it in the book wants, wants versus needs, you know, it's like, why don't we really need when you really distill it down to its essence, you know, clean water, good food to eat a house or something over our head to keep us warm. But the reality is the needs don't move to like big screen TVs, and five or six of this or that or whatever. But it seems to be we consume in mass quantities, as it was said on Saturday Night Live, I consume in mass quantities. So that's really that's really the issue. But

Robert Jensen
if I can make one point because I don't want to pretend I'm speaking from some, you know, position of moral authority. I'm 65 years old. I've lived most of my life in cities, I have consumed at the same level that most people do. I spent many years flying around the country and around the world, pretending I was important and had things to say. And, you know, I think as one ages it's easier to step back and say, what is of real value and I'm grateful to have now an opportunity to live in a rural area, surrounded by A lot of natural beauty. I don't six, I'm not arguing everybody has to live like me. I'm saying these are questions we all have to engage. And if we do engage them, we all see we've failed. Wes has failed, I've failed, you failed. Nobody lives a truly sustainable life in this culture, except perhaps people at the lowest level of consumption. Okay. That's, we're

Greg Voisen
not living life as an aborigine. Right. So reality, is that, right? We all have way too much. Yeah.

Robert Jensen
And I think, you know, some people would blame that solely on capitalism on a consumer society. Some people, you know, all sorts of reasons. But the one thing Wes and I argue is we have to go back and look at what drives human beings, we have to think about human nature, right. And it's easy to pin the blame on a particular bad politician or a particular bad political party or a particular bad economic system. But the fact is, we're dealing with something very basic, which Western I call the temptations of dense energy. Right. So you know, you can probably argue that nobody needs, you know, a yacht, I think, Greg, can you and I agree that we can probably get through life without a yacht. Okay. Yeah, definitely. So it's easy to point out the kind of gratuitous obscene consumption of the ultra wealthy. But you know, energy does things we like. It heats our houses, when it gets cold, it allows us to get in a car and visit people we love in a in a matter of hours that previously would have taken weeks. There's all sorts of things and dense energy, coal, oil, gas, the products that come out of it, all sorts of things, that, that that energy does, that are very tempting, not because we're evil people, but because they make our lives easier. Sometimes. I always use the example, I've had to dig some holes on my property here when plumbing problems emerged. And I can tell you digging five and a half feet down in Rocky clay soil is kind of hard on your back. If you get a backhoe and and you know, a diesel generated backhoe, you don't spend all day digging a hole, you do it in 20 minutes. That's not a Capitalist Conspiracy. That's just the reality that energy does work for us that we like. And so these temptations of dense energy go beyond a critique of any particular person, party or economic system to recognize, we have to impose limits on ourselves. And I would, I would argue very strongly, there's no way to impose limits on ourselves individually, you and I might decide we're going to try and reduce our consumption. But this is a collective effort. Right? This is where we have to come together and say we're going to hold ourselves accountable. And that means things like rationing, it means a collective coming together to discuss the problems and then take seriously, the the way to get to fewer and less

Greg Voisen
is so many areas. I mean, it's the real packed question, but for my listeners, definitely go get a copy of the inconvenient Apocalypse because it it sparks what I'm going to say the conversation that needs to occur, it sparks the thoughts that need to occur, and you in West collaborated on, I'm going to call it a great book. It's infused with very thought provoking questions about our world as we know it, and what it may evolve into as well. No guarantee to that. But again, painting some pictures, what advice would you like to leave the listeners with regarding our social and ecological crisis as you address them? In the inconvenient apocalypse?

Robert Jensen
Well, I think I would respond to the question I get so often, where do you find hope. And, and my argument is, it's not about hope. It's about finding a meaningful way to live in the world that does not contribute to the problem any more than necessary. And explores solutions. You get up in the morning, realizing that the human project may fail, we may be beyond the point of no return. But that doesn't mean that when I get up in the morning, I don't have work to do. I don't have community relationships to maintain. I don't have an obligation politically to try and contribute. There's all sorts of things that make life meaningful. And I don't have to have some sort of Starry Eyed hope that we're going to solve all these problems in my lifetime. In fact, if you want to know the truth, I have no expectation that any of the major problems we've been talking about will be solved in my lifetime, maybe maybe in anyone's lifetime. But I I know that there are ways that I can find both meaning in my life and make a contribution to my community. And that's enough to get me out of bed in the morning. You know, sometimes people will say, how do you get up in the morning and I say, I don't know, it's pretty easy. I like my life. I like the world in which I live, I'm constantly feeling a sense of gratitude for the beauty around me and the beauty and other people. To me, that's enough. That's all we need to get out of bed.

Greg Voisen
I think for my listeners, and they'll probably agree, because I have a certain group of listeners, it's involved in personal growth. So they understand that one of the things that we can give grace, or I'm gonna say give acknowledgement to is the fact that we wake up the next morning, we have an opportunity to be flexible and make changes. That's one thing that human species does have the ability to do is like, we can grow. And then we can help other people grow. And if that helps to evolve this planet to a point where it becomes more sustainable, good on us. And if for some reason, we can't reach those people, and the polar ice caps melt, and there's rising tide, and the fires continue. And there's degradation of our soils and all the things that we can point to. So is, but for many people listening, it's a very massive thing. And all I would say, and encourage people to do is just do the right thing, show up and take the next best step, that under your knowledge and expertise you think you can do to help this world evolve and not make it turn into this cataclysmic Kozik crisis. The you know, as you were saying, but your book is, and I'm going to tell people go to Robert W Jensen, J en es en dot o RG, check out the website. Definitely, this is a, this is a book that you should probably bring into your living room with four or five other people that are interested in this. And it's one of those books that you know, you could do a book club around, have a thought provoking and I'm going to put a plug in for a video that's being created a documentary right now with West Jackson, through a good good friend that put me in touch with Robert Jensen, and that is that there's a video we will be putting an announcement out I don't know exactly when it's going to release around West Jackson and the work that he's doing the good work that he's doing around the Land Institute. And that's Michael Johnson. And Michael Johnson is a local resident here in North San Diego County. Been working on this project for years now, and is a good friend of Roberts. So stay tuned. There's more to come. Robert, thank you for joining us from New Mexico and sharing your thoughts and insights and wisdom about the inconvenient Apocalypse the book, and also some of the things that Wes is doing to help forward the movement toward more sustainable agriculture. That is important.

Robert Jensen
Absolutely. It's been a great pleasure, Greg, thanks so much. I'm grateful we were able to talk.

Greg Voisen
I am too. Thank you so much.