Surviving the ecological emergency part 2

So here's part 2 of my sick bed ramble. Part 1 HERE. Basically I have no idea how anyone else is supposed to navigate through the self interest-infested waters of the climate and ecological emergency and the competing and conflicting narratives attempting to draw people into their control for better or worse. Like everything in this universe every poor wretched soul has to work out their own unique solution to thriving in the cosmic shit fest. The only advice I have to anyone is make sure you're full of your own bullshit and not some other fuckers', write your own narrative, specific to your unique and complex needs. 

So here's my bullshit. Here's how I'm trying to capitalise on this crisis. If anyone is genuinely passionate about nature the more naturalists capitalising from the crisis and building a new nature-centric system- the better.   

1. GET A STAKE IN THE GAME

You've got to be in it to win it. As nature becomes a more threatened and declining resource it becomes more valuable. The capitalisation of nature through Natural Capital Accounting, Carbon Credits, Biodcredits (announced recently at COP15), Offsets, Net Gain Frameworks, net zero and net positive frameworks, public goods for public money incentives etc etc have all exploded onto the big finance scene over the last two or three years. Seems like the game is up for charity CEOs like Carter Roberts, the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund who famously earns over $1,000,000 a year from the subscriptions we all give that bastard as now everyone can see they can get rich off the back of the ecological emergency. Instead of (just) giving that money to bank roll these charity moguls, believe in yourself and get in there. 

I wouldn't recommend anyone from the bottom of society (like me) invests directly in these new financial instruments and organisations yet. It's the wild west out there and the whole thing is full of scammers and self imploding start ups. I've invested in green transition funds, renewable energy companies, nuclear, carbon credit tokenisation block chains and carbon credit trading and I've lost on everything (although these are supposed to be long term investments- yes right, no room for bullshitting there) . Trying to pick a winner (and there will be some winners) in this gold rush is probably impossible without being on the inside track. If you thought crypto was full of scams, the whole carbon and nature offset stuff is even worse.  However if you're stupid like me, it's a bit of fun and interesting to watch how this whole thing develops because out of the melee- something useful and important will emerge. 

So I would definitely not recommend  investing in any of this new stuff unless you enjoy a flutter but I would definitely recommend that you buy actual natural capital- ie. land. Land is an investment anyway and in the future there will be added value for ecologically important land. So buy, buy, buy. Land is not particularly expensive, about £8000 an acre for agricultural land and is even cheaper in other parts of the world. 

As we begin to re-define concepts of wealth in the transition from a fundamental capitalist financial system to an ecosocio-capitalist 'financial' system, status symbols associated with dominance hierarchies will change. Celebrities and corporations are already falling over themselves to re-identify as being nature positive or carbon neutral. Even former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell has a rewilding project going on here in Oxfordshire. This stuff will trickle down into middle and lower income society with a growing trend of people owning estates or houses with rewilded areas of land and natural capital. For some people the main appeal of a property could be not how many bedrooms the house has but how many acres of land for rewilding, carbon sequestration, carbon credits and offsets it has.  Millionaire nature conservation is already a big thing and the democratisation of that is one of the biggest sitting ducks in nature conservation that I can see. A lot of the start ups in green finance are to do with carbon rather than biodiversity so to me there appears to be a massive opportunity for any smart people to crack the democratisation of natural capital financing.  

Anyway, it's a growth area and owning natural capital is good anyway as a lifestyle choice and personal empowerment and private ecological husbandry. Add to that the potential of a speculation bomb and sustained gold rush and you cannot go wrong.     

If you want to know more of this sort of stuff than sign up for CarbonCredit.Com newsletter, InkCap Journal covers everything weekly going on in nature conservation including traditional and new stuff, listen to Financing Nature on Spotify (a United Nations podcast), Dieter Helm's podcast and Mongabay Podcast. Read, read, read, read everything constantly but act slowly and carefully .You won't get this stuff from the RSPB newsletter or the nature conservation establishment because it's all a potential threat to their self preservation societies and their charity mogul model.     

 2. GO BIRDING

The defining feature of a post-capitalist world in an ecosocio-capitalist system (sustainable) is a slower, less rampantly consuming growth model with a wider multi-index value system. i.e a broader definition of capital e..g the concept of natural capital. 

Birders have known this for ever anyway. Instead of pursuing the dollar a lot of birders for years have been pursing the rarity or life list tick. This is an 'economy'  in it's own right. A life list is an extremely valuable commodity and each tick is a valuable currency. 

This idea will presumably be cemented further as biological recording and big data systems gain more power. Your birding data is valuable and at the moment most of us are slaves, building big data systems for free. Having a stake in the game, owning your own land/reserve and using these free to use platforms to monitor your own natural capital is a way of getting your investment back. Presumably in the future in order to mobilise a global reserve big enough to accurately monitor all the world's birds on a daily basis there will need to be incentives to using these platforms and maybe as eco-social credit systems are introduced, universal income will be linked to big data system use. This is a fascinating topic, as it appears birders will evolve from a pioneer/ odd ball community to a valued mainstream global citizen science community central to global ecosystem management.  

So wait for the wave, keep birding, keep building your big data system profile and combine that with your own stake in the game and happy days. 

3. BUILD RESILIENCE

I've got to go so will do this one quickly. The transitioning of our global financial system to a green one will be a total cluster fuck. There will be so many disastrous strategies and stupid ideas (although low-carbon birding has already set the floor in birding). So we are already getting used to this- sudden price rises, inflation, more taxes, lockdowns, insane rules to follow, spiritual leaders telling you slaughter yourself and your personal stake  etc etc. 

Basically during chaos it is critical to have a base camp that is stable and self sufficient. Like the whole of life you want to be in a position to tell anyone or anything to go fuck itself if it's asking you do something against your values and that's what resilience is.

So growing your own food, producing your own energy and having the capability to go off grid and be self sufficient means that no matter what happens out in the fucking mental world it doesn't really matter. If you need to go to ground and disappear and come up when the coast is clear then great.  No money- no problem. No food at the supermarkets- no worries. AI gate has refused you entry - no stress. Everyone is infected with  a real killer virus - time to make an omelet. Pronoun meltdown - top up the feeders. 

If your dependant on the system, which is becoming increasingly chaotic and psychotic as the old world dies and a new world evolves then you could get dragged into all kinds of knee jerk reactions and scams and shams (like the whole covid circus and there is plenty more of that shit coming). 

So build a self sufficient bunker and use that as HQ to coordinate missions from. 

Ok part 3- coming soon- building a network/affinity group and defence.