Systems Collapse reDistributes Power & That Is A Good Thing

Irene Portelli • January 12, 2026

Beyond Nostalgia; Solidarity Politics For An Era Of Collapse

This is from an interview I heard on ABC Radio, can't remember the Show but I let ChatGTP dilute what they were saying about as we let the shitshow unravel from the viewpoint of a climatologist; systems collapse in nature, systems collapse in geopolitics.

How this decade really Australia as an Annex 1 Country could deliver on their responsibility as the wealthiest nation, until Africa overtakes us, in the Global South. If you don't know what is happening in Birkina Faso, in a nutshell it has kicked France out in 2024 and in 1 year it has recouped $17billion in Gold revenue.

Gold is quickly taking over from the petrodollar [especially as the Fossil Fuels are becoming more and more expensive to mine] - from Oil reserves, as a countries asset backing up say America's, trillions of dollars in debt.

This was it's closing invitation but I am asking it first.

What would it look like to stop asking how to save the system - and start asking how to take care of each other as it changes?

Across the world, politics is increasingly shaped by nostalgia. “Take back control.” “Make the nation great again.”

The problem is not human nature.
The problem is a system that trained us into extraction, speed, competition, and obedience.

Across the world, politics is increasingly shaped by nostalgia. “Take back control.” “Make the nation great again.”

The return of old families, old flags, old promises. These narratives do not arise because societies are flourishing.

They arise because people feel something fundamental has been lost—security, meaning, dignity, belonging—and they are being offered the past as a substitute for a future.

What is striking is not only the success of nostalgia politics on the right, but the failure of the centre and much of the left to meaningfully respond.

The dominant counter-message remains stubbornly optimistic: progress is still possible, systems still work, we simply need better leadership, better policy, better messaging.

We have the Policy's we need Slavery Act 2018 and Product Stewardship Certification (the latter we have had in place since 2011!!!)

#weaponisedincompetence & lobbyists in Canberra

Collapse is treated as a communications problem rather than a material condition.

At Circular Economy FNQ, we believe this refusal to engage honestly with collapse is creating a dangerous vacuum—one that is increasingly filled by authoritarianism, both nationalist and environmentalist.

The Silence Around Collapse

For decades, people working in environmental science, activism, and policy have warned about accelerating ecological breakdown. Many have worked diligently, ethically, and tirelessly.

And yet, despite carbon markets, sustainability frameworks, international agreements, and endless education campaigns, emissions continue to rise, ecosystems continue to degrade, and inequality continues to deepen. From an economic standpoint it is this that is the most dangerous.

When these tools fail, despair creeps in. And despair, when left unacknowledged, often curdles into control.

This is where an authoritarian impulse emerges within parts of the environmental movement. Not overtly, but subtly: through censorship, deplatforming, narrative policing, and the insistence that certain conclusions must not be drawn—because they might make people lose hope, lose trust, or lose obedience.

The message becomes: calm down, don’t panic, don’t disrupt, don’t revolt.

But calmness imposed in the face of lived reality is not reassurance—it is denial.

People are not anxious because they misunderstand climate data. They are anxious because they can see systems failing around them: housing, food security, energy, governance, social cohesion. Suppressing analysis that names collapse does not protect the public. It protects power.

Collapse Is Not A Moral Failure Of Humanity

One of the most corrosive ideas circulating today is that ecological crisis proves something inherently wrong with human nature.

This view is historically lazy and politically dangerous.

Humans have lived on this continent for over 60,000 years.

Indigenous peoples used fire, minerals, and fossil carbon—but they did not build an economic system that demanded endless extraction, acceleration, and accumulation.

The problem is not that humans belong on Earth. The problem is that we built institutions that reward exploitation of land, labour, and life at an ever-increasing rate.

Collapse, then, is not evidence of human sinfulness. It is evidence of systemic stupidity.

And systems, unlike human nature, can change.

Changing our Economic systems for example as explained through Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth, critiques the Kuznets Curve (upside-down U shape of inequality/pollution vs. growth) as a flawed narrative that justified rising inequality and environmental damage as necessary for future improvement, whereas Doughnut Economics offers a "safe and just space" between social foundations (no poverty) and ecological ceilings (planetary limits), aiming for sustainable well-being without getting trapped in the "worse before better" cycle of traditional growth models. - Kate Raworth.

Why Collapse Opens Political Space

There is a quiet truth many institutions will not say out loud: collapse redistributes power.

Highly unequal systems depend on stability to maintain legitimacy.

When crises multiply—climate, energy, housing, finance, health—the narrative that “there is no alternative” begins to fracture.

What once felt immovable becomes negotiable. What once seemed inevitable becomes questionable.

This is not good news in a simplistic sense. Collapse is painful, frightening, and unjust. But it does create openings: for local agency, mutual aid, new forms of governance, and solidaristic ways of living that were previously dismissed as unrealistic or radical.

The real danger is not collapse itself, but leaving the interpretation of collapse to nostalgia politicians and strongmen.

From Progress Politics To Solidarity Politics

CEFNQ does not advocate despair, nor do we advocate violent revolt.

What we advocate is honesty—and solidarity.

A solidarity-based politics for an era of collapse begins with several shifts:

From control to care
From growth to enough
From individual blame to systemic responsibility
From false optimism to shared grief and shared action

This kind of politics does not promise a return to a golden age, nor does it promise salvation through technology or markets alone.

Instead, it asks harder, more human questions:

How do we reduce harm?

How do we adapt together?

What must we let go of?

What do we restore?

And who do we need to reconcile with—each other, the land, future generations, and our own mortality?

The Four Pathways Through Collapse

In this context, the “four R’s” offer not a blueprint, but a language for dialogue:

Resilience: What do we most value that must be protected—relationships, knowledge, ecosystems, #sdg14|15 community trust?

Relinquishment: What systems, habits, and assumptions must we release because trying to preserve them will deepen harm?

Restoration: What older or marginalised practices—especially Indigenous, communal, and place-based knowledge—can be brought forward, not as nostalgia, but as living wisdom?

Reconciliation: What losses must we acknowledge? What truths must we face? Who and what do we need to make peace with as we navigate limits?

These questions are not comfortable. They are not easily monetised. And they do not fit neatly into election cycles. That is precisely why they matter.

Choosing solidarity over silence

The greatest risk we face is not that people will panic if they hear the truth.

The risk is that they will be infantilised, silenced, and pushed toward authoritarian answers because no one offered them a way to face reality together.

Solidarity is not weakness.

It is a survival strategy.

It means refusing both the false comfort of nostalgia and the false safety of technocratic denial.

It means allowing grief without letting it turn into misanthropy.

It means naming power without scapegoating ordinary people.

And it means building local, regenerative systems—not because they are trendy, but because they are necessary.

Collapse does not absolve us of responsibility. It clarifies it.

Comments Prompt: Solidarity Politics In An Era Of Collapse

If we accept that multiple systems are already in decline, what does a solidarity-based politics look like—beyond nostalgia, beyond authoritarianism, and beyond false optimism?

Discussion questions:

Why do nostalgia-based political movements resonate so strongly during periods of crisis and decline?
How has the refusal to talk honestly about collapse shaped public trust in institutions?
Where do we see authoritarian impulses emerging within environmental or progressive movements—and why?
What does solidarity mean in practical terms at the community, regional, and economic level?
How can grief, despair, and fear be acknowledged without tipping into paralysis or control?
What should we be actively relinquishing as systems strain—and who gets to decide?
How can Indigenous knowledge and place-based stewardship inform adaptation without being tokenised?
What responsibilities do we hold to future generations in a world of limits?