The Diva of Doom: Remembering the late, great Gail Zawacki – “In the end, what matters more than time?”

By James Galasyn
18 June 2022

(Desdemona Despair) – I was greatly saddened this week to read an email from climate activist Richard Pauli informing me that Gail Zawacki, the “Diva of Doom”, passed away on 9 June 2022. The community of environmental activists has lost one of its most eloquent and entertaining voices. She was 67 years old (16 September 1954 – 9 June 2022).

Gail was a prolific blogger who wrote engagingly, with numerous literary references, and I always felt a bit more educated after reading her posts. We first met online at the seminal Peak Oil site, The Oil Drum, in 2009. It was the golden age of doom blogging, with great sites like Apocadocs and World Catastrophe Map using the new medium to collect the evidence of our impending extinction.

Gail’s first blog post was on 3 May 2009, and like many of us new to blogging, she started on Blogger. She reposted a comment she’d made on a New York Times opinion column by Frank Rich. What she wrote is as relevant today as it was 13 years ago:

You left climate chaos off your list, Mr. Rich. The deleterious effects of unchecked fossil fuel emissions will soon dwarf Wall Street, Pakistan, and any other crisis. Wars and unemployment won’t mean much if we continue to march like lemmings toward an uninhabitable planet.

Gail Zawacki, commenting as “GZ”, response to Frank Rich

In her Wit’s End blog, Gail posted numerous photos documenting the decline of trees and plant life under the withering assault from industrial pollution, like ozone and nitrates. In her Basic Premise post, she wrote:

I have been looking into tree sensitivity to pollution ever since I realized that the trees are not only growing more slowly, they are actually dying at a rapidly accelerating rate. This is being reported from all over the world, not just around my farm in New Jersey. Every species of every age is in decline, as is the understory of the woods. It is well documented that ozone interferes with the ability of vegetation to photosynthesize by damaging the stomata of foliage and needles.

Because the recent decline is proceeding at a truly astonishing pace, it is possible that some wide-spread change in the composition of the atmosphere is responsible, perhaps from biofuel emissions, or a disruption of the nitrogen cycle, or hydrofluorocarbons, or heavy metal contamination such as mercury, reacting to increased UV radiation. It is critically important to determine what is killing trees, because they are the foundation of the ecosystem and without them it will collapse.

Gail Zawacki, “Basic Premise: Research Links about Dying Trees”

She was a voracious reader, collecting numerous scientific papers and news stories about the effects of pollution on plants. In her companion blog, Dead Trees … Dying forests, she assembled a trove of content that still provides a useful resource for research, like this Royal Society report from 2008: Ground-level ozone in the 21st century: future trends, impacts and policy implications.

She penned a story for WWF, Climate Witness: Gail Zawacki, USA, laying out her thesis: “I became quite alarmed last summer (2008), when I noticed the leaves of trees becoming wilted, droopy, scorched at the edges, and falling off prematurely. The phenomenon was so widespread that out of concern I began to do research, and learned about tree decline, what causes it, and the fact that it is irreversible once such extreme symptoms are visibly apparent.”

In 2013, she wrote a guest post for ScienceBlogs, Whispers from the Ghosting Trees, detailing her findings. She concluded:

Is this a distinction without a difference, when ice sheets are melting, and we face catastrophic climate change? It could matter. The melting is now unstoppable, thanks to the albedo effect and the length of time that CO₂ will continue to warm the planet. But ozone doesn’t persist nearly as long as CO₂ in the atmosphere … and all the trees aren’t dead yet. If we stopped emitting precursors, the forests could recover. If we don’t, a major CO₂ sink will be gone, and it will become so hot our planet will become uninhabitable far sooner than otherwise. And in the end, what matters more than time?

Gail Zawacki, “Whispers from the Ghosting Trees”

Her obituary only hints at her fighting spirit and relentless activism. She was a doomer who intended to fight even in the face of hopelessness. She participated in numerous protests and engaged with some of the most famous scientists and activists in the field. She was in the Occupy Wall Street protests and received a film credit as a second unit cinematographer in the 2013 documentary, 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film.

In later years, her prolific writing tapered off. She once told me, “How many different ways can you say, ‘We’re fucked’?” Her last blog post was on 22 November 2019, ten years after her first. It was a re-post of a story by Nick Longrich of the University of Bath, Were other humans the first victims of the sixth mass extinction? She titled her post, “Well well well… I can hang up my hat”.

Gail wasn’t shy about criticizing even the most prominent figures in the climate science and environmental activist communities. She attended the Age of Limits conference in May 2013, held at the Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary in rural Pennsylvania, featuring doomer luminaries like Guy McPherson, Gail Tverborg, John Michael Greer, and Dmitry Orlov. Previously, she had written approvingly of über-doomer Orlov in her blog, but in her summary of the conference, she was highly critical of Orlov’s talk:

Things got even more acrimonious following Dmitry Orlov’s presentation, in which he examined the qualities shared by various intentional communities that he deemed successfully self-sustaining. Several women noted that not only were all of those he cited male-dominated but in fact several exhibited many even worse traits, of spousal and child abuse, as well as other forms of discrimination. In answer to a question about how LGBT minorities were treated in, say, Amish culture, he averred there would be no way to know since they are so private and secretive – but when asked about physical abuse, he responded that they wouldn’t be able to conceal “a gunshot wound” from outside authorities, as if all beatings have to be that extreme to fall into the category of abuse.

Actually, the simple answer he could have given when asked why all his examples are patriarchal would be the verity that there really aren’t any matriarchal examples to choose from, but instead he took offense and as more discussion ensued various prejudices emerged. It was like the cork had popped and there was no pushing the carbonated beverage back into the bottle. After he asserted that Russian women believe feminism in the west is a “failed experiment” and prefer the current stereotypical roles, I asked him, “What about Pussy Riot?”* He barked witheringly without any elaboration – “They’re idiots” and moved on to the next question. Well, they may be idiots but they clearly represent SOME segment of women in Russia who dissent from patriarchal privilege, especially as it is embodied in the church and government.

*everyone knows I love Pussy Riot.

Gail Zawacki, “Our Revels Are Now Ended”

Gail developed a disdain for climate scientists who promote optimistic scenarios for human society and the biosphere – of course, what choice do they have? She reasoned that “Scientists are human and hope for the survival of their children too. They can’t believe how absurdly awful and inconceivable it is that humans have ignored consistent warnings from decades ago that releasing 90 million tons of greenhouse gases per day means we are knowingly and unnecessarily destroying the habitability of our only home, Earth.” Her stubborn insistence on considering mass tree die-off as part of the climate change problem earned her a lifetime ban from the RealClimate blog.

Eventually, Gail gave up on activism, not out of cynicism so much as realistic resignation. As many doomers have concluded, there’s no point in trying to save a world that doesn’t want to save itself.

Her last essay was “In Praise of Themis”, a full-throated defense of doomers against the attacks of “apocaloptimists” who claim that we doomers are worse than climate denialists. She had realized that all the activism in the world won’t deflect industrial civilization from its biosphere-destroying course:

As pointed out in the Guardian by Dana Nuccitelli, it’s rather pointless to revile doomers for the failure of climate policy when we are such a tiny proportion of those who take the threat of climate change seriously and have virtually no influence anywhere – especially compared to professional deniers funded by multinational corporations.  Most doomers are acutely cognizant of their personal impact on the earth and exercise great efforts to be conscientious, far more so than the average person. It’s ludicrous to suggest that doomers are in even the remotest way responsible for political inaction on climate issues, since much of the electorate is voting for fascist exploitative governments quite happily, of their own volition.

An especially pernicious assertion by this “shoot the messenger” crowd is the common claim that doomers are secretly desirous of a catastrophic end for humanity. I doubt there is a single doomer who finds any comfort whatsoever in either the inevitability of extinction or their own individual role in it. Every doomer I’ve ever interacted with, and there have been many, has agonized and mourned – and some have even gone crazy with grief and guilt and committed suicide. It’s not fun being a doomer, which is why there are so few of us. […]

A fundamental reason for the mountains of scorn being heaped upon doomers is the sanctity of hope in human culture. Hope is often sacred even to secularists, who put their faith not in god(s) but just as fervently in technology and human ingenuity. The hopeless doomer is an affront to their beliefs and is usually received with anger, resentment, and insults.  I have been asked with tedious regularity why I don’t just kill myself, since I have no hope. When I respond – if I had a diagnosis of terminal cancer, would you expect me to kill myself right away? – that is generally when the conversation ends.

Gail Zawacki, “In Praise of Themis”

In 2010, Gail and I met in Seattle over dinner, with a few other doomers. She jokingly referred to us as “Left Coast wannabe ecoterrorists”. Perusing her Wit’s End blog again, I’m reminded that she once called me “the Enfant Terrible (at least to us elders) behind Desdemona Despair”. It was an honor that I’ll cherish to the end of my days. The Doomers’ Dinner was the only time I was with her in person, and I’m fortunate to have experienced her presence in real life.

After a whirlwind tour of Seattle and Vashon Island, she wrote, “I really am very sorry to say that trees here on the West Coast exhibit the same symptoms of chlorosis, bare branches, splitting bark, cankers, brown foliage, yellow needles, and limp leaves that have become so painfully familiar at home on the East Coast.”

Gail Zawacki had the passion to defend the natural world against the continuous assault from industrial civilization, yet she somehow balanced her realistic and pessimistic outlook with the joy of living. She was an inspiration and a revelation. The Doomosphere will be a less enjoyable place without her.

By Richard Pauli
12 June 2022

So this is my climate doomerist friend Gail Zawacki – who died June 9th 2022 from hemorrhage of a fast metastasizing brain cancer.

She was an activist blogger and a mom and a general thorn to the fossil fuel interests. It is difficult for anyone to take a self-portrait. She really selected this one, made in 2011.

When it comes to the science of ozone damage, Gail was probably the most informed person ever. She put together a deep collection of links on the subject.  http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/p/basic-premise.html

She mentioned her early career reporting for a small-town newspaper – clearly, she knows how to assemble source material. Her last big project was http://doomfordummies.blogspot.com/  — from a few years ago, it is quite a respectable compendium of what global warming is all about.  She was fearless about speaking out about our dangerous conditions — ozone – which really does kill any living matter – it’s just that most life forms can quickly repair the damage — green plants are seriously harmed – lots of studies in the US and Europe.  Gail just talked about it more than anyone.  And about global warming doom, she would often blurt out what she learned, not in a mean way, just matter of fact.  But clearly nobody wanted to hear it.  But she would say it anyway.

For the longest time I would hear Gail talk about her dinner table conversation with her adult children — it seemed like they just politely tolerated her obsessions and doomerism. Sort of as if a “let mom do what she wants” attitude. And Gail promoted and encouraged their great careers – all the while keeping her ozone and global warming rants and activism going full tilt. And she was serious but insisted on enjoying it too. 

Eventually – if all goes right – everyone becomes an orphan. And we are left alone to form our own family and to remember what Mom said – and why. And maybe that’s another parenting suggestion — to allow and encourage happiness at the dinner table while the parents can promote the warrior talk for the future. The children will inherit the chaos eventually anyway. They will be fighting on the front lines. The new orphans now just have to remember conversations, or know the text or web pages, or where the instructions are.  We who survive must share what we learned and heard and saw and who accused and who fought. I suspect that every mother gets to lecture their children just enough so that they remember – even if it is just to see how to endure as long as you can.