By Ivan Idso

In 1972, a team from MIT wrote a groundbreaking report titled “The Limits To Growth”. The message of the book was sobering: “The earth’s interlocking resources- the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology.”

The book contains a message of hope as well: “Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and his production of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium with population and production in carefully selected balance.”

Fifty-three years later, we are reaching those limits and witnessing the unravelling of systems and structures many of us grew up taking for granted. We will be moving from growth to decreasing growth. 

Facing this reality does not mean giving up. There is still plenty of work worth doing that may affect how things play out. To become capable of contributing to the future, we will need multiple lenses, new maps and tools for orientation, and practical and cultural skills. But how do we find each other?  

Enter the Black Elephant.

The Black Elephant

As Dougald Hine and I wrote in the article “Finding Each Other in the Ruins”, the Black Elephant project consists of a lapel pin with the image of a Black Elephant and the text “LOOK DOWN”. 

Each Black Elephant pin also comes with a small laminated card with a link to the Collapsonomics.info web page which has resources and information for someone who is new to thinking about this predicament. The card is small enough to carry in your wallet or purse, sturdy enough to last, and if a conversation has gone off the deep end, you can leave someone with some starting points for where to go next.

The Black Elephant is a hybrid of two widely used metaphors:

• The Black Swan is a hard-to-foresee event which changes everything. (Collapse, for example.)
• The Elephant in the Room is an enormous issue that everyone knows is there, but no one wants to talk about.

So a Black Elephant is an event that everyone will try to pretend was a Black Swan, when all along it was The Elephant in the Room.

The term “LOOK DOWN” comes from the “Dark Mountain Manifesto” written by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine:

And so we find ourselves, all of us together, poised trembling on the edge of a change so massive that we have no way of gauging it. None of us knows where to look, but all of us know not to look down.

Our question is: what would happen if we looked down? Would it be as bad as we imagine? What might we see? Could it even be good for us?

We believe it is time to look down.

The Black Elephant project is managed by Dougald Hine and me, Ivan Idso. Since its introduction in January this year, 150 pins have been distributed to nearly half of the US states, Canada, five EU countries, the UK, and New Zealand.

Coming Together

I wanted a regular gathering of pin holders where we could begin to explore how to prepare individually and as a community to be more adaptable to the coming changes.

There is a good network of sustainable-living people in our community of Rochester, but the majority are of the “green growth” mentality. About a dozen of us have been exploring the tougher issues of The Great Unravelling and these people formed the foundation for our Black Elephant regular gatherings. There are now 19 people in my community with pins. 

We meet each week at a local restaurant for an hour and a half. There are usually 3-8 people who drop in and we talk about books we are reading, podcasts we’ve listened to or articles we’ve read, all related to building a new community in a post-collapse world. Topics discussed include urban homesteading, re-localizing our businesses, re-skilling, building community, and many more.

Getting Started

Black Elephant pins can be ordered in quantities of 1, 3, and 15. If you want to get a group going in your community, I would recommend ordering 15 pins to reduce shipping charges. You will be surprised how open people are to having this conversation!

Someone who recently purchased 15 pins shared that “I’d also been thinking about how those of us with similar mind-sets might go about finding each other in a world where we might not be inclined to exactly shout it from the rooftops”.

If this sounds like where you’re at, then visit the Collapsonomics.info site to learn more – or order your pin here: https://collapsonomics.metalabel.com/black-elephant-pin 

Ivan Idso is a community activist in SE Minnesota. He has organized numerous events to introduce people to the polycrisis including an annual EarthFest Expo featuring sustainability vendors, classes, keynote speaker, and an EV show. Ivan is a member of the Northstar Chapter’s Degrowth team.