{"id":782,"date":"2026-08-28T16:02:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/?p=782"},"modified":"2026-08-28T16:03:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:03:01","slug":"we-must-change-in-the-wake-of-the-climate-change-apocalypse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/28\/we-must-change-in-the-wake-of-the-climate-change-apocalypse\/","title":{"rendered":"We must change: in the wake of the climate change apocalypse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am filled with despair baring witness to the continuation of normal life in the wake of the climate change apocalypse. I had hoped that by now people would be behaving differently, but I see much of the same. I was housesitting for a few weeks when I started writing this, in a suburb of Gothenburg (Sweden) called V\u00e4stra Fr\u00f6lunda, summer 2026. Like any Swedish city, pockets of forest are nearby in areas deemed too rocky to build upon, but the forests end where modern developments begin. Lawns and parking lots overwhelm the landscape between modern apartment buildings. Lawns and parking lots that could be gardens growing vegetables and providing habitat for wildlife. But the lawns yellowing under the new normal of hot and dry summer weather could not disrupt the regular Friday 8 AM lawnmower schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, lawn maintenance companies must send out workers to get money and workers need paycheques. I should pick on bankers, lobbyists, politicians, business and religious leaders, and corporate lawyers who advocate for fossil fuels and promote climate change denialism, but they are hidden away in office towers, mansions, private jets, yachts, or are on holiday. Lawnmowers are hired by building management after all and the landscape was designed by architects and planners regulated by federal and municipal bylaws and ordinances. Politicians shape (sub)urban policy based on their understanding of the world and the people elect the politicians. We are all entangled in a complicated net of social norms that degrade the planet in a myriad of big and small ways. Rebellion is our final hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalism is working exactly how it should when the rest of us have no time to build independence. If everyone became independent by growing food on a small scale, supermarkets, industrial farmers, petrochemical companies, manufacturers and fixers of farm implements, the producers of plastic bags, packaging, and labels, the shipping industry, would lose their clientele and collapse. Our work upholds capitalism. Our finite time is burned away at work and during the commute. Energy exhausted, our spare time is spent consuming series, movies, and the endless scroll that upholds our media overlords. We numb our pains with alcohol and drugs\/painkillers, and stay awake with the help of caffeine. Our everyday capitalist dystopia leaves us with no time to build the independence needed to get out of this mess, without disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many members of the middle and upper middle classes have the space, time, and could use their surplus wealth to become independence (a.k.a. grow vegetables), but they don’t. Perhaps as a hobby: those who enjoy<\/em> cooking every now and then and grow a few herbs<\/em>, but never on an independence scale. For them, growing food is for the poor and their entire life’s work has been to show through material consumption that they are not poor. The faithful capitalist must be wholeheartedly committed to absolute dependency on the system and remain totally blind to how easily we will be reduced to dust should global trade suddenly fail. I<\/em> say<\/em>, if you grow your own, you are richer than anyone who doesn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately for those of us who own nothing (myself included), it’s the people in the suburbs or rural areas that have the greatest potential to grow food and become independent, or at least semi-independent. They are also the ones unlikely to, as a visit to any suburb shows lawn upon lawn and paved over gardens. Many rural houses with thousands of square metres of property have lawns rather than vegetable gardens too. Now, with the advent of robotic lawnmowers, even the lawn of the holiday home is constantly kept trim, if a company wasn’t already paid to take care of it. Not even the wildflowers can hope of reclaiming that space, unless someone comes along to smash the robot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As (sub)urban populations continue to grow, and as rural communities consequentially decline into decay or holiday retreats and land is consumed by terrible suburbs and horrible data centres, we are left with less space not only for food, but for life itself. We are staring the climate change apocalypse directly in the face. Wildfires the world over are becoming more difficult to control than ever before and starting as early as the spring. Rain isn’t coming, or it’s coming too much. Glaciers are collapsing. Lakes and rivers and drying up. Oceans are rapidly warming and planetary life is dying. Insect populations, animals that reproduce more rapidly than anything else, are dwindling to nothing. We can, and should, blame industrial greenhouse gas emissions, but the climate change apocalypse is also a result of the ways in which modern humans interact with the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bodies of fresh water are important for regulating temperatures and ensuring that life can continue, but we take too much and leave too little for hydrological cycles. It’s not particularly us<\/em>, but the extractive water bottling and beverage corporations that transport water from one place and sell it in another. It’s the corporations and the consumers, and if you’re not corporate then you’re probably consumer. Wetlands have been drained for farmland, suburban development, wildlife control, and flood risk reductions. Plants and animals are part of hydrological cycles as well. Plants store water and transpire it (kind of like sweating it off) which contributes to localized rain and climate control. When forests, prairies, and wetlands are cleared of plant life, water leaves with the vegetation. We consume water and we let it out again, but rather than returning it to the hydrological system from where it came, we flush it down the toilet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image above: Hyllsj\u00f6n, a lake near Horvmantorp, Sweden. A local told me it is a metre or more lower than it should be. All of the lakes in the area I saw this year were in a similar state.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrial agricultural practices have destroyed ecosystems by clearing away vast quantities of forests, wetlands, and prairies to make room for cropland. Farmers have killed the soil life that supports plant life. They ensure it stays dead by tilling the land, and applying synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. The collapse of ecosystems in current agricultural and urban areas, along with the steady flow of herbicides and insecticides, is driving plants and animals, insects included, closer to extinction. Industrial foresters too have carelessly mismanaged forests, also killing soil, plants, and animals, often using herbicides to kill unwanted vegetation around farmed trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve seen Google’s plans to eradicate mosquito populations in their entirety in California and Florida by introducing sterile genetically modified mosquitoes into the wild. They claim mosquitoes have little ecological significance. Tell that to their 150 million years of existence. The genius of the planet cannot be understood by human beings. Even if mosquitoes account for a mere 5% of the diet for birds, frogs, bats, dragonflies, and all of the other animals that feed on mosquitoes, a localised mosquito extinction means 5% less food for these animals, it’s like putting animals on diets when they don’t need it. 5% may starve to death, continuing the spiral of ecosystem decline. I invented 5% by the way. I have read in an informative pamphlet that one bat can eat 4,000 mosquitoes in a night. That sounds significant to me. Real ecologists would never advocates extinction, but we know Google doesn’t care about the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve heard of resort islands coated in insecticides to prevent the guests from experiencing insects, the entire island ecosystem be damned. In Brandon (my hometown), and many cities across Canada and the USA, malathion is used indiscriminately to control mosquito populations. It’s an insecticide that targets the nervous system of vertebrae. Everyone is ordered to stay indoors with the doors and windows closed, and the air conditioning turned off, while trucks drive around dousing the city in neurotoxicity. Malathion kills practically every insect, and species that prey on mosquitoes, like dragonflies, birds, and aquatic life. Mosquitoes can reproduce rapidly and populations bounce back quickly to an environment without predators. Yes, the common mosquitoes control programme is helping mosquito populations grow, but it keeps the pesticide companies in business. The best way to control mosquitoes is to restore the balance of the ecosystem, but who can make money from that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where there are ants, people use insecticides. Where there are wasps, people use insecticides. Where there are rats, people poison them. When an insect is near, the common reaction is to kill it. We manage food scraps and biological waste to prevent it from feeding insects, whose life work is to convert rot into usable soil. It’s no wonder biodiversity is in decline, our relationship with the natural world is toxic. Rather than modifying the world to fit our toxic visions, we need to rethink everything we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I go walking after the rain and find a few earthworms struggling on asphalt surfaces among snails and slugs. The ones I find I carry over to vegetated places, in hopes of saving them, but there are far more that I don’t see. People see me doing this and sometimes ask what I’m doing. I tell them. They say \u201cthat’s nice\u201d and carry on their way. Later in the day, I see dead worms on the asphalt, run over by cars, bicycles, crushed underfoot, dried out by the wind, or baked by the sun. The architects of the asphalt landscape failed to consider their monstrosities through the eyes of the tiniest creatures. We should remove the asphalt and replace it with something that supports insect life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modern humans are not only populating every place on earth, we are also bringing along our modern machines, their noises, lights, and emissions. We bring insecticides. We over-consume water, reduce plant diversity to lawns, parking lot, or buildings. Unless we stop all of this, there will be nothing left in the near future. Human beings aren’t the problem. It’s the anti-ecological modern way of life that is. This is what we must rebel against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We should be gardening like mad in every available space to reduce the shock of widespread crop failures and to provide food for insects, our beloved pollinators, and expand habitat space for non-human lifeforms. We must act as if everything beyond our control will fail. Lawns are death. There should be no lawns. We should stop driving cars, rip out parking lots and streets to make wildlife parks and corridors. We need to accept that we share the planet too and allow non-humans the space they need to live. We should downsize our massive houses to create more surface area for life. If you<\/em> can’t do it, ask others to garden your space. I will garden your land for you. Municipal governments can help out by coordinating actions and connecting the propertied class with people seeking to garden. Together, we can achieve independence and if independence collapses the present economy, so be it. We will prepare for the shock through gardening. We will create new ways of human existence. If capitalism feeds on our dependency, then it is the shackles that bind our feet and hands. If you think this year was bad, it’s only going to get worse until we start living differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Not<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image above: Not all apartments in V\u00e4stra Fr\u00f6lunda are surrounded by lawn and parking lot. This one has vegetable gardens. These buildings are likely run by a collective who own the flats and have organised to make these gardens possible.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am filled with despair baring witness to the continuation of normal life in the wake of the climate change…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[20,23,27,26],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-anti-car","tag-climate-change","tag-ecological-society","tag-gardens-not-lawns"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":18,"label":"Article"}],"post_tag":[{"value":20,"label":"anti-car"},{"value":23,"label":"climate change"},{"value":27,"label":"ecological society"},{"value":26,"label":"gardens not lawns"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Suburban-Apartment-Garden-in-Frolunda-Gothenburg.jpg",1000,750,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Graham Janz","author_link":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/author\/graham\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":18,"name":"Article","slug":"article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":18,"category_count":3,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Article","category_nicename":"article","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":20,"name":"anti-car","slug":"anti-car","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":20,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":23,"name":"climate change","slug":"climate-change","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":23,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":27,"name":"ecological society","slug":"ecological-society","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":27,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":26,"name":"gardens not lawns","slug":"gardens-not-lawns","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":26,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":788,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwithoutcars.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}