When the empire falls

25. September 2009

As American Empire is completing its fall, the American government might find itself at war with its own people. As long as we have American Idol and high fructose corn syrup, I doubt the people are willing to rebel. But if they are, perhaps this time the people will win.

Balance is for Buddhists

22. September 2009

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Balance is a central tenet of Buddhism, foundational to the four noble truths and the eight-fold way. Balance is a superb notion and I strongly support, for individuals at least, balance, moderation, and many other principles of Buddhism. Indeed, had Buddhism found roots in this country a couple hundred years ago, we probably would have avoided, or at least delayed, the series of catastrophes we now face. But with fewer than one percent of the American population dedicated to Buddhism, it’s a little late for balance and moderation to work their magic at the scale of this country, much less planet Earth.

Ramping up the Speculator

18. September 2009

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I’m going to ramp up the Speculator™ with this post, notwithstanding the pathetic failure of my short-term prediction for the week just ended. Seems all my wishful thinking won’t push the teetering industrial economy over the cliff. I’m sure there’s a lesson here, but — in classic American style — I’ll pretend there’s not.

A transcript from today’s panel discussion

16. September 2009

10 Comments

Thanks to a couple long-time readers for attending today’s panel discussion, which I described briefly a couple days ago. One of you asked me to post the transcript, so I’ve cleaned up my notes and posted them below.

Briefly, for now

14. September 2009

17 Comments

While I’m developing a post about the ongoing decline into negative territory beyond Hubbert’s Peak, today’s brief post satisfies two purposes: (1) shameless self-promotion, and (2) short-term prediction.

Scale

9. September 2009

31 Comments

The many miles and frequent pauses reveal to any sentient animal the sheer lunacy of the living arrangements we’ve built for ourselves. Within the span of a couple generations, we abandoned a durable, finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provided commerce, services, and culture. Worse yet, we traded that model for a coarse-scaled arrangement wholly dependent on ready access to cheap fossil fuels. Then we ratcheted up the madness to rely on businesses that use, almost exclusively, a warehouse-on-wheels approach to just-in-time delivery of unnecessary devices designed for rapid obsolescence and disposal.

Guy McPherson's blog

Archive | September, 2009