The Arctic is defrosting as warm Atlantic waters rush through the Fram Strait instead of skirting the southern coast of Greenland. This is an important event, regardless of the deafening silence exhibited by the mainstream media.
Image courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, http://nsidc.org/
How important? First consider the background, from the perspective of long-time climate scientist James Hansen and colleague Makiko Sato, who report the disaster awaiting us at 2 C warmer is truly catastrophic (although they downplay the likelihood we’re already committed to this outcome): “We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene and that goals of limiting human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are prescriptions for disaster” (the paper is titled “Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change: Draft paper for Milankovic volume”, as described on Hansen’s website). Currently, Earth’s atmosphere contains about 390 ppm carbon dioxide, and simply including methane (one of many greenhouse gases) brings the atmospheric equivalent of carbon dioxide up to about 460 ppm.
At the same time Arctic ice is melting, the planet is losing its lungs. Catastrophic drought in the Amazon has it emitting carbon dioxide more rapidly than the United States. Simultaneously, permafrost is thawing and methane stored in eastern Siberia is venting into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. Methane, by the way, is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Against this background, it is easy to foresee a rapidly and profoundly warming Arctic as a trigger for positive feedbacks such as release of methane hydrates and reduced albedo. These extremely dangerous feedbacks, which forecasters did not expect until the planet becomes 2 C warmer than the baseline (vs. the current level of ~0.75 C warmer), could trigger runaway greenhouse. In other words, any of these event — never mind all of them at once — could lead directly and quickly to the extinction of Homo sapiens.
Is that important enough for you?
If you’re among the mainstream media, the answer is no. If you’re any politician in the industrialized world, the answer is no. If you want to continue the process of human-population overshoot on an overshot planet, the answer is no. If you’re one of the kingpins of capitalism — or even a defender of capitalism — the answer is no. I’ll go further: If you’re a defender of western civilization, your answer is no. But if you’re among the few people working to terminate western civilization before it terminates our species, it seems we’ve lost this most important of battles.
Like economic collapse, extinction is a process that leads to an event. The last human on Earth will not die today, tomorrow, or even next week. But it clearly could happen within a generation. Indeed, the odds grow with every passing day while we continue to deny our role in our own demise.
What will it take for the people to act? For that matter, what will it take for the people to notice?
Nothing to see here. Move along. This time is different. It can’t happen here. I’m just another purveyor of negativity to be ignored by a world full of happy optimists hedonists.
I am routinely accused of being an insane terrorist because I want to terminate the industrial economy, thereby giving our species an opportunity to persist a few generations longer. At this point, with our knowledge of the adverse consequences of civilization for non-industrial cultures, non-human species, and even the persistence of our own species, how can any sane person want to keep the industrial age alive?
In the race between collapse of the industrial economy and climate chaos, it seems climate chaos won. Words are no match for the sadness I feel. I can only imagine the agony of parents as they comprehend the horrors we have created for them, and especially for their children. Or perhaps this childless atheist — as I am labeled by every writer who pens me into a story — cares about the future of humanity more than most parents. After all, nearly every parent with whom I speak — failing to notice the dependence of the industrial economy on the environment — is far more interested in growth of the former, for their child’s sake, than with protection of the latter (for their child’s sake).
We traded in future generations of human beings — all of them — for a few dollars more. We worshiped at the heavenly altar of economic growth, and triggered hell on Earth.
Chaos on this planet isn’t restricted to the climate, and it’s going global this year. We’re witnessing not merely a riot but a revolution, and it’s coming soon to a city near you.
Alas, it’s too little, too late. The American Dream long ago morphed into the American Nightmare. It’s too bad George Carlin couldn’t be here for additional commentary. Rationalist voices are hard to come by. Rationalist voices with a sense of humor are vanishingly rare.
The response remains the same, at least for me. As a society, we will continue to value financial profit over life. Therefore, as individuals we should prepare and maintain durable living arrangements in light of ongoing energy decline and ongoing climate change. And, of course, we must keep fighting to bring down the omnicidal beast that is civilization.
________________
This post is permalinked at Counter Currents.
February 7th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
It gets increasingly difficult to maintain your optimism, doesn’t it, Guy?
February 7th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
We’re getting exactly what we paid for.
February 7th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Indeed it does, Wendy. Indeed it does.
Right you are, Privileged.
Sadness reigns.
February 7th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
so what’s the best response to this kind of news. if we as a species are facing immediate extinction, is it even really a good idea to towards building sustainable community at all at this point. I just signed up for WOOF, but I’m having doubts on whether that’s such a good idea now. What would be your advice in terms of what our course of action should be at this point? I’m at a loss.
February 7th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
My advice, PNuge, remains the same: We must terminate western civilization. It may be too late, but we must act as if it’s not. Giving up is not an option. As individuals, we should be striving to develop a durable set of living arrangements.
Remember, though, to take my advice with a block of salt. After all, I’m an insane terrorist.
February 7th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
I must admit Guy, that words like “terminate” and so forth do sound a tad revolutionary. My associations are: barrikades, pitchforks and torches. I can understand why it could be understood as such anyway. ‘
I think it is important to consider the wording if one wants to have an effect on mainstream media. If one focuses too much on the doom and radical action, people shut down and one misses the oppertunity to introduce relevant themes into national debate.
To be honest, I think it should be tackled as a lifestyle issue for most poeple. I mean in Denmark and the UK, gardening/simple living programmes are among the most popular. Most people couldn’t give two hoots about saving the planet, but if you make it about improving their quality of life they might just catch on.
That being said, it is obvious that modern science and industialisation have created a number of unintended consequences which are highly dangerous. There are things like the arctic melt, which is insane this year. Given that winter sea ice growth is at an all time low – this summers melting season is likely to be utterly outrageous. (Incidentally, we had a storm in Denmark last night with hurricane wind speeds!!!! The arctic and north atlantic oscilation are totally out of whack at the moment.)
But there are also other things, like the collapse of biodiversity:
“Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees.
These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying ? or being killed ? at a disturbing pace.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8306970/Einstein-was-right-honey-bee-collapse-threatens-global-food-security.html
Herbecides, pestecides and genetically enhanced plants, which are supposed to help food production have collapsed the bees habitats making these scientific innovations in industrialised agriculture a very dangerous double edged sword.
I worry that any invasive techno-sollution to these huge problems will just introduce new unintended consequences. Ive heard of morons who as a sollution to peak oil, want to develop petrol producing bacteria – I can just envision one of these bacteria escaping and breeding in the wild.
February 7th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
“When you’re born into this world, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat” -George Carlin
Glad to see an insane terrorist include one of my favorite comedians of all time in a post.
I read that soaring food prices were a major catalyst for the rioting in Egypt. If, or when, food prices do noticeably rise here, I still don’t think it will be enough to push many American fat-asses off the couch and into the streets. When I met with you at the mud hut, I spoke of the TV needing to go black before anything would happen here. Though I didn’t catch the Gil Scott-Heron reference at the time, you replied “Ah, so the revolution will not be televised”. It makes sense to me.
In Egypt, they shut off the internet as a way to thwart the protesters. Are you kidding me? Some genius in the government sat down and said “Hey, you know all that free time people spend online chatting, watching cat videos, and surfing porn? Let’s put a stop to that. Surely they won’t join the protest in their boredom!” Idiot.
An internet/TV kill switch would be a fantastic way to get the ball rolling here at home. I just hope they don’t shut the electricity off, as I’ll need my microwave to cook my popcorn to properly watch the ensuing show.
February 7th, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Just to make my point about what people secretly desire. This is the winner of the Eurovision best public service programme in Europe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5LLFDcPnA
“Winner: The Farmer – DR2, Denmark
A big success story – the most watched programme on DR2 ever and the biggest TV surprise of the year. The simple living of young hayseed farmer Frank inspires and moves people. A young man who lives a simple life at his old, run-down farm, where he wants to realize his dream. The programme is made as pure and simple as the content – one cameraman and Frank.
The editor of The Farmer, Rikke Lauridsen says “The Farmer is so successful because it is about a young man living his dream, no matter how simple and honest it may be. This is something that attracts everyone because we would all like to live out our dreams.”
http://www.uer.net/en/union/news/2010/tcm_6-68621.php
Even popular phenomena like Jamie Oliver have heightened the the understanding for the quality and sustainability. Rejecting agro-industry and growing own produce makes for better easting:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/gardening/jamies-garden.php
Positive messages are in great demand in an age of economic decline. This issue must necessarily be how you turn the failure of one idea into the success of another.
February 7th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Dropping out of the insane industrial civilization is NOT a terroristic act! Bombs and pitchforks do not play any role in it. One (or hopefully more) simply stops giving any more of their energy to what needs to be stopped.
February 8th, 2011 at 1:22 am
Guy.
I must congratulate you. You have definitely overtaken me. For telling unpalatable truths and suggesting sane responses to the insanity of it all you are now ‘an insane terorist’. The best I managed (to my knowledge) was ‘extremist’ (though I was never sure what people said after I left the room).
You’ve got to laugh, otherwise you’ll cry.
That said, I have found the past several weeks extremely depressing, to say the least, dealing with uniformed fools who are locked into denial whilst I watched the Arctic catastrophe you have now highlighted unfold.
Although you and Derrick advocate bringing down civilisation before it terminates us and most other species on this planet, in practice we don’t need to do anything: Nature is now doing it for us. As previously discussed, any direc action we might take would simply get us killed or incarcerated, with no significant effect on the final outcome. ( Robert Atack said it first).
As you so correctly titled the site: Nature Bats Last and our days amy be numbered.
As a father and grandfather, I am still coming to terms with it all. And still coming to terms with the fact that 99% of the populace doesn’t know and apparently doesn’t want to know.
I am in the process of writing another book, which is proving a real struggle because I now realise the masses are just as unreachable as they were a decade ago, when I first stuck my head above the parapet. In fact it’s harder now because when I wrote BBB there did seem to be some hope.
Anyway, keep doing what you do. If nothing else, at least you will have the satisfaction of doing the right things even when surrounded by those who don’t. And maybe Nature has some trick up her sleeve to give us a mighty kick and then give us some breathing space (I have no idea what, unfortunately).
February 8th, 2011 at 1:25 am
Guy,
It is increasingly difficult to fight off the feeling of desperation that, for me, is rapidly approaching panic. Up here diesel is now selling for $3.79 a gallon and even though that is just one measure of how bad things are getting I was feeling hopeful that it was heralding the collapse but now…
How appropriate that for Carlin the backdrop is a graveyard. I’ve been thinking about Kubler-Ross and after review (actually Cliff Notes—I mean Wikipedia) I may be beginning to understand why I’m feeling so distressed. Kubler-Ross said that shit happens and then you grieve—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Most (many?some?) of us when faced with death or some other significant life event will go through these stages. Maybe we won’t go through all of them. Maybe we will get stuck in one stage for awhile, or never get out of it to reach eventual acceptance. Often we can flip back and forth through the stages so that the order and duration of the steps in the process is chaotic.
So, here is what seems to be happening (for me—maybe not for anyone else). Peak Oil is a global (in the all encompassing sense) disaster. It will be The End Of The World As We Know It, TEOTWAWKI, or the death of our way of life on this planet. Everything we know, our way of being in the world, is about to change. As such I should rightly be feeling grief and as a result I should be going through the Kubler-Ross stages. But Peak Oil is a disaster that is made of tens (hundreds) of secondary disasters (no gas, power grid down, no food, health care disruptions, you name it). Each of those is a loss for which I should be grieving and going through the stages of grief. Dealing with all of this, all of the time, locks me in a state of emotional chaos. It is hard to be angry about one thing and depressed about another while I’m bargain about a third and maybe flipping back and forth between stages regarding yet another. For me (maybe not for you) it becomes really hard to keep my balance.
So to cope I focus on what I can do. How do I get water up to the house without electric pumps? How do I light the house at night and how do I find enough food? Focusing on practical solutions allows me to begin to accept what is happening.
But then I made the mistake of reading NBL and discovered that on the Climate Change front we’re dead already and just don’t know it. (And they’re shoving a red, white, and blue what up where????????)
Thankfully this all reminded me about the Kingston Trio. To wit:
They’re rioting in Africa. They’re starving in Spain.
There’s hurricanes in Florida, and Texas needs rain.
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don’t like anybody very much!
But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud,
for man’s been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud.
And we know for certain that some lovely day,
someone will set the spark off… and we will all be blown away.
They’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran.
What nature doesn’t do to us… will be done by our fellow man.
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 2:59 am
this link with info about an Antarctic rainforest- i had no idea- i find reinforces Guy’s deep concern….if our more natural, historical cycles include this Antarctic rainforest what of a more extreme CO2 increase.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12378934
thanks to Guy, et al for the dialog!
February 8th, 2011 at 3:19 am
Rioting in the ‘Verse
February 8th, 2011 at 4:25 am
Carlin: “It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it!” What a brilliant line!! Carlin was a genius.
All spot on with this blog, Guy. We are going down as a species, being incapable of collectively perceiving and responding appropriately to risk that is not clear and present. Over and over throughout history, civilizations have become resource limited and died out. In each case I’d bet there was someone “ringing the bell” that they were about to run low on ___, or too much ___. This is just one more, modern-day version of that, only global this time.
So here we are, a species not well suited to the environment the Earth is about to create for us, along with most other species. Damn shame. Industrial civilization is the culprit, so it must go..sad.
…TGriz
February 8th, 2011 at 4:52 am
Blimey….what a depressed lot we are today! Let’s try to think positively, eh? No more having to wash the car! No more petrol bills! Lots of exposure to air (ok, perhaps not fresh air, but it is a start!), and nature again (ok, so it’s a bit warm outside). An opportunity to cuddle with one’s wife when the heat goes off, and to run about naked when it’s hot (and it WILL be hot!)! For the kids, no more school! For the adults, no more school runs. No more soaps on TV. No more TV! The list just goes on and on….
Cheer up, mates. The best in life is yet to come.
February 8th, 2011 at 4:53 am
Any spiders and roaches in the audience. Your day comes at last!
February 8th, 2011 at 5:10 am
On a more serious note. Yesterday, we spoke of the relationship between human behavioural characteristics, The-Powers-That-Be (TPTB) and climate change/peak oil/the move to new technologies in the face of the energy corporate PTB. I mentioned that our governments are no longer subject to the will of the people but of the multi-national corporations, and any change to be had would be down to their discretion, not ours, the people. Indeed, they are currently putting into place laws and riot equipment and technology that will constrain the masses should they decide to awake from their psyops-induced sleep and actually complain. They know what is coming and they are getting all they can whilst they can.
Read today’s article from George Monbiot explainging the new tax rules for big business. Then perhaps you will get an understadning of what he means when he says, ‘If you want to turn this country into another Mexico, where the ruling elite wallows in unimaginable, state-facilitated wealth while the rest can go to hell, you don’t declare war on society, you don’t lambast single mothers or refuse to apologise for Bloody Sunday. You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us.’.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2011/02/07/a-corporate-coup-detat/
This will have global impact. Always remember – the government, wherever you are, is not your friend. It is not looking out for you!
February 8th, 2011 at 6:21 am
Guy, thank you.
Of course, stepping out of BAU is in fact a strike against the empire. A world economy based on growth is endangered if we stop buying and buying in. Refusing to participate in endless consumption may make us terrorists.
Or we can be terrorists just by talking about bringing down the system.
Sing a long…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63cHaxefLfQ
But we are irrelevant to what is happening in the world, because we still have something to loose. The fight will come from thosee who have nothing less to loose.
http://www.youtube.com/user/drovics#p/a/u/0/a4NTisDE3D4
February 8th, 2011 at 6:33 am
Confirming facts to what I believe is a climate change process (i.e. large scale shifts in ocean currents) are very painful to read.
I do have children. Thus, it is doubly painful to witness confirming facts.
Nowadays, I try to keep focused on teaching them what I believe they will need to know in order to adapt to a very different future. We garden and preserve food, we learn to care for our bodies on our own, we build and make our objects, we transport ourselves under our own power, and we make our own entertainment. We certainly are perfect in this pursuit – but it creates a framework to see the big picture.
I call to their attention why parts of our industrial life-ways shouldn’t and can’t be continued. This is my small rebellion – I will not allow industrial civilisation to freely co-opt my children.
But it still is painful to know and witness. Perhaps that there are still blogs like this, and scientists like Guy, provide evidence that courage still exists.
February 8th, 2011 at 7:06 am
OK Guy, I usually have a very close circle of relatives and friends that I forward alot of your posts to. This one may be too much for them to handle. Thanks again for your tireless work.
“This is the era where people who have good intentions are considered traitors” Wael Ghonim upon being released by the Egyptian Internal Security Service.
On an upbeat note you may want to put these on your garden list for the coming spring: Cossack Pineapple, Ground Cherry, Ganrden Huckleberry.
Keep beating the drum,
Ed
February 8th, 2011 at 7:51 am
Perhaps we are headed back to ancient times in more ways than just socio-economic…………..
In Climate and the Carboniferous Periodthere is this Image:
Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2
and this discussion:
Similarities with our Present World
——————————————————————————–
…… atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!
Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya — 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).
An image from Wikipedia: Phanerozoic Carbon Dioxide
February 8th, 2011 at 8:14 am
“Any spiders and roaches in the audience. Your day comes at last!” I have spotted the occasional spider and a few ants in my abode. All of them quite hardworking – none have ever applied for welfare. When I have a tendency to think of them as freeloaders since they are present uninvited, but I have to remind myself that I am the uninvited one. Both as species, and as local residents, they have me beat hands – or should we say legs – down.
February 8th, 2011 at 8:30 am
Robin Datta,
Thanks for that video clip above. I was so tired by the time I got done thinking about stuff I didn’t have it in me to see if there was a clip available.
So last night I went to bed struggling with Kubler-Ross and I woke up this morning thinking about new political slogans.
Vote CORPORATIST 2012
Help us externalize our costs!
I was standing in the shower thinking over the “100 ways to bring down industrial civilization” that Guy linked to some time ago, trying to figure out how that worked for me. But today on NBL Kevin has given me the answer. He says, “As previously discussed, any direct action we might take would simply get us killed or incarcerated, with no significant effect on the final outcome.” That is pretty much my assessment too. Setting myself on fire is not my style. I think that is the source of my frustration, anger, and depression. There is nothing I can do to stop this train wreck. So I guess I’ll be fighting this war from my front porch. Maybe I can teach some of my neighbors a few skills that will help them survive. Maybe they will teach some others.
In the meantime I’ll be working at having a great day. You have one too.
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 8:38 am
PNuge, please be encouraged to move forward with your plan to be a part of the WOOF program. You will be with like minded people and that will be a wonderful source of strength for you.
Michael, we are here with you. Glad you are sharing your feelings. We gain strength in sharing.
Andrew, your rebellion is huge. You the most important person in your children’s lives are telling them the truth … they are blessed.
Guy, thank you for the continual focus and the opportunity you provide for those who read here to stay focused.
February 8th, 2011 at 8:49 am
Pardon the dragging of an item from the last post here, but I do so lest ignoramuses lead others astray:
” Go take a walk across the Hoover Dam and tell me it is symbolic!”
The Hoover Dam is part of the secondary economy. Symbols are part of the tertiary economy.
February 8th, 2011 at 9:30 am
couple of songs … seem to echo our conversation here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGMbvV71HPk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNvOwAcjg04
February 8th, 2011 at 9:30 am
Last week I was using a friend’s smart phone and saw this story on the Arctic “defrost.” I think it was on MSBC and have seen nothing since then. Even The Huffington Post is more focused on Lindsay Lohan’s latest antics. Folks are so scientifically illiterate, as well as in denial, that they no idea of the implications of these massive planetary changes.
February 8th, 2011 at 9:44 am
Guy,
I think John Steinbeck, in Cannery Row, succinctly explained why human behavior will probably drive us over a cliff. He wrote that “It has always seemed strange to me…The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”
February 8th, 2011 at 10:31 am
Kubler-Ross aside, I think we all need a good dose of Zen detachment. You can’t change the world — hell, most of us struggle just to change ourselves!
So focus on that last bit: continue the struggle to change from within. The Earth is going to do as it damn well pleases, regardless of what you or I do.
And although humans are apparently the change agent driving the process, fretting about it or condemning it or spending all your energy trying to get others to change is still part of the mistaken paradigm that humans are somehow separate and distinct from nature.
Did one prokaryote say to another, as they changed the earth’s atmosphere from methane to CO2, “Hey, I think future generations of us will suffer for this?” Did one giant fern say to another, as they changed the earth’s atmosphere from CO2 to oxygen, “Oops! What are future ferns going to do?”
Nothing is constant but change. Will your children (if you have them) have as good a life as yours? Well, first you must define “good,” then teach your children to see the good in everything, and they will have such a good life. If we romanticize how good life was for hunter-gatherers, or pre-petroleum, surely we can fantasize about how good life may be in the future!
This fretting and sadness and depression is not what we are here for! Something will carry on, and some five billion years from now, the whole thing will go up in smoke as the Sun goes nova anyway.
We are here to have joy in our existence. Go out today and plant a flower — or a food-bearing plant. Smell the air — hopefully, you’re within walking distance of good-smelling air. Think about how privileged we are to be living in this time of great and interesting changes.
“Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice.” Robert Frost goes on to note that, although he has a preference, either one will do. Adopt that attitude. And then go out and do something good.
February 8th, 2011 at 10:36 am
If we start maneuvering ourselves now some may just squeeze through the bottleneck.
WWOOF is where I’m headed for the simple reason Sarah posted above. I need to be around some peeps that have vision and live with intent. If I let the doom consume me I’ll be of no use to myself or anyone else for that matter. All I can do is find my way through this mess moment by moment.
I am thankful for this blog and the information it provides. Are there times when I wished I had never heard of NBL..you betcha! It does feel Matrix like at times and like many of you I wonder if my despair is justified. I am excited for the changes I am making and hopefully that excitement will provide some motivation when those dark times creep in…daily.
February 8th, 2011 at 10:37 am
I agree that climate change is real and serious, but there are solutions that don’t require the destruction of civilization — which is a “solution” worse than the original problem! Our big challenge for the next hundred years is getting global systems like the climate under control. We can’t do this by retreating from industry, technology and globalism, but we should be able to if we aggressively pursue geoengineering, space solar power, nuclear fusion, weather control technology, etc. What Guy and friends are suggesting is that we give up on modern civilization and consign billions of people to death. This is never going to happen! A better approach is to use our intelligence and our technology to begin operating as a truly global species; climate change is forcing us to begin operating on this level, so in that sense it may be a blessing in disguise which helps us progress toward Kardashev type one civilization.
February 8th, 2011 at 10:45 am
“Our big challenge for the next hundred years is getting global systems like the climate under control.”
Once you give up the illusion of control, you shall be free!
February 8th, 2011 at 11:23 am
Guy,
Thanks for the link to the Hansen paper, scary stuff there. His conclusion that it would be “foolish and dangerous” to use the European plan to limit warming to +2 degree C is awash in understatement. It would be saying in effect “we’re okay with flooding most of the world’s major cities.” As for the American BAU model he is figuring on a 5-meter sea level rise this century. But wait, he says, all this melting will cool the oceans near the poles, slowing global warming. That’s a good thing, right? Nope! Really warm temperate oceans bumping up against really cold polar water is just asking for really HUGE storms. We aren’t going to win this one.
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Constance,
Huffington just sold out to AOL. You know where they are going.
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Cosmist,
You’ve got to be shitting me. Review the Carlin clip.
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Kevin,
More validation of your statement, “Any direct action we might take would simply get us killed or incarcerated, with no significant effect on the final outcome. ( Robert Atack said it first).” See the essay by Chris Hedges “Recognizing the Language of Tyranny” here http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/recognizing_the_language_of_tyranny_20110206/?ln
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Sarah,
Thanks for that.
Michael Irving
February 8th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Privileged
That seems to me to be a really good decision on your part. We carry on as if there is a tomorrow – which there is. Live your life to the full doing what you think is intelligent and right. Good luck to you.
Jan
‘We are here to have joy in our existence. Go out today and plant a flower — or a food-bearing plant. Smell the air — hopefully, you’re within walking distance of good-smelling air. Think about how privileged we are to be living in this time of great and interesting changes.
“Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice.” Robert Frost goes on to note that, although he has a preference, either one will do. Adopt that attitude. And then go out and do something good.’
Well said. I totally agree. Hard news is..well…hard to accept. I have a wife, children and grandchildren. Life is good right now. I intend to keep it that way as long as I am able.
February 8th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
You know, Robin, as my wife is prone to say when I get a bit impatient with the creatures who get in my way at times, “Every creature has its purpose and its work. Try not to interfere.” It was her who introduced me to the better side of spiders.
Did you know that the Russian language has no word for “it” with regards to a living creature? It is always he or she….I like that.
February 8th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Gary, when I was a young man (eons ago), I read everything Steinbeck wrote. He introduced me to the injustices of the world, I think.
[Kathy] ‘But we are irrelevant to what is happening in the world, because we still have something to loose. The fight will come from thosee who have nothing less to loose.’
That might come more quickly than you imagine…
Michael Irving
The Kingston Trio….Good God… a Blast from the past!
Guy,
You are not an insane terrorist…you are a ‘home-grown’ terrorist!…LOL And thanks for the article. Hadn’t seen that one. Dear me, things are accelerating all over the world. BTW, the world might have to wait on the nuclear reactors for a bit. They need lots of water which is generally why they are placed near the ocean. Perhaps when the water is done rising, they can give it a go. Of course, they could go on and build them now, but they might end up with egg on their faces after they are under 3-5 metres of water….
February 8th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Wow, lots to discuss and I am tied up today. Cosmist, every one of the billions now alive is going to die as are you – we are not cartoon characters we are mortals.
Kevin I do want to pick back up on the discussion of why agriculture won out over H-G from the last posting. Just can’t today.
February 8th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Great news. We are saved! Biochar.
Sorry, just kidding.
Further confirmation things are way out of balance, with temperature projections in line with discussion on this topic over recent months.
http://www.countercurrents.org/glikson070211.pdf
I just cannot get my head around the idea of digging up coal and burning it, and at the same time trying to convert vegetation into carbon.
February 8th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I have a serious question for the NBL folks: do you want human civilization to be saved? At what level of population and technology? If we do find a way to continue our technological progress without destroying the biosphere and are able expand indefinitely into space, would this somehow offend you? What I’m basically asking is this: do you like human life, intelligence and its creations, or do these things fundamentally repulse you and would you like to see them stamped out?
February 8th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
Cosmist please go away
And do not come back until you have grown a brain.
Your questions are idiotic and offensive.
February 8th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Kevin, your only response to my posts is vicious personal attacks, which suggests to me that it is not I who is the idiotic and offensive one…
February 8th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
To continue my response to Kevin, I’ve noticed this everywhere in the doomosphere, from NBL to the Oil Drum to the Archdruid Report to Matt Savinar’s old site: people simply won’t tolerate dissenting views and quickly attack you personally in a cult-like fashion. Guy is actually the most tolerant of the lot; if you engage in even mild debate with the Oil Drummers you are quickly banned.
Understand that I have no political agenda and I have nothing against anyone here personally, I am simply a philosopher and an ex-doomer interested in getting at the truth. When people are attacked and censored it suggests to me that the attackers’ position is not tenable in the light of honest, rational debate. I think this was made abundantly clear yesterday when Guy admitted that he is in favor of using all available tools to destroy civilization. Similarly, today at the Oil Drum someone responded to my post by saying “I go to bed every evening praying that we are visited by an asteroid. It would solve a lot of problems.” To me statements like these suggest extremely deranged and dangerous worldviews, and I feel that I have both the right and the obligation to bring such dark thinking into the light so people can draw their own conclusions…
February 8th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Sorry to feed the troll, but when Cosmist writes (as though the answer were self-evident), “Do you want human civilization to be saved?” I have to answer, “What’s so great about human civilization?”
One of the rules about having a discussion with an arrogant person is that you must never imply that they are so, but I cannot resist. Any “species-centric” approach to our problems is doomed to failure. Our technology is self-serving, at the expense of all other life on the planet. That’s arrogance.
Samuel Butler wrote, “The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.” Cosmist, you display all three, and then claim “vicious personal attacks” when someone rightly accuses you of ignorance.
We cannot separate human life from life in general. We cannot “continue our technological progress without destroying the biosphere.”
“Do you like human life, intelligence and its creations, or do these things fundamentally repulse you and would you like to see them stamped out?” Cosmist asks, again as though the answer is plain and clear to all.
Talk about a polarizing statement!
“So,” the lawyers asks the witness, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Please answer yes or no!”
Yea, human life is kinda neat, in a frustrating way. I like it — within limits.
But I’d be happy to see it go extinct, and give the bonobos or canines or cetaceans a chance to realize their potential, without the dominance of human civilization holding them back.
Perhaps in millions of years, when bonobo culture flourishes, their archeologists will discover our mistakes, and choose to avoid repeating them…
February 8th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Cosmist.
We had a great forum with highly intelligent and highly moral discussion of crucial issues that was based on the best scientific evidence until you arrived.
You have received zero support from contributors here and the owner of the blog described you as a troll.
To persist, as you do, indicates psychosis.
psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought asd emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
February 8th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Thank you for your serious and honest reply, Jan Steinman. You say:
“But I’d be happy to see [humans] go extinct, and give the bonobos or canines or cetaceans a chance to realize their potential, without the dominance of human civilization holding them back.”
This position is kind of a debate-killer. I’m not really sure how humans are supposed to have a meaningful debate about the pros and cons of their own extinction…If you feel this way that’s fine, but if you seriously try to act on such a philosophy then we may have a problem…
February 8th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.
Maybe we should arm the bonobos?
February 8th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Michael, “Huffington just sold out to AOL” was not happy to read that either … has been a brief daily stop and agree with you probably we do know where it’s going, but found this there today
“With a new wave of demonstrations in Tahrir Square on Tuesday — by some measures the largest anti-government protests in the two-week uprising — Egyptians loudly rejected their government’s approach to political change and renewed their demands for the immediate resignation of President Hosni Mubarak.”
So happy to see the demonstrations continue!
February 8th, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Cosmist “if you engage in even mild debate with the Oil Drummers you are quickly banned.”
Hmmm I have engaged in heated debate on the Oil Drum and never been banned. Who has the problem.
I suggest if you want anyone to take you seriously you disassociate yourself with your other personas. A quick look at your various blogs would convince anyone that you are stuck at about age 16. From your comics cosmos blog we read “More great stories followed, including the “Sise-Neg Genesis” story in Marvel Premiere #14, in which Dr. Strange follows a 31st century sorcerer-turned-God to the very creation of the universe.” You spend time writing comic reviews and you expect anyone here to think you have anything to bring to this discussion? In fact you seem unable to distinguish Science Fiction from Science. Take your contrails and leave for the stars PLEASE.
February 8th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Regarding Human extinction, it is a subject worth contemplation. We are possibly the only creatures on planet earth that can anticipate their own death. Other animals can fear things that are expected to cause them harm or death, but we don’t know if they actually are able to look at one that is dead in their own species and say to themselves that is going to happen to me one day.
We humans are able to do that but generally find it painful to contemplate and thus go into various forms of denial. We talk about survival as if it were an absolute. We say Doctors “save” lives instead of saying Doctors “extend” lives. We paint the cadavers and fill them with noxious chemicals and then stand around and say oh doesn’t she look good. We imagine afterlives. Clearly this is a deep discomfort that humans carry from the age that they are able to internalize the reality of their own eventual death.
Is this pain worth it. Would the world be better of with only creatures that fear harm, rather than those that fear not only harm but fear the one inevitable event of their life so much that many cannot even bring themselves to write a will. Knowing that they have to die and not knowing if they will have a life that makes up for the dying, what makes us want to bring new humans into life.
Might it be better to have a world without creatures that in their personal angst reach out and hurt others in cruel and sadistic manners.
I am not clear what I think – I change my mind daily. But I think that contemplating whether or not it would be best for humans to go extinct is a valid subject to discuss. Of course since we seem quite clearly to be sending ourselves to extinction perhaps it is a moot point.
February 8th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Kevin,
Here are some theories on the start of agriculture from wiki
I am inclined to think that something had to change in the climate and environment (megafauna extinction? over hunting) that moved people to gaining calories in different ways in certain locals – I understand agriculture arose independently three separate times at least. However technology could well be part of that. Better hunting tools would lead to increases of population and less game, as well as set the stage for creating agriculture tools. Once started down that path it created more humans regardless of the personal health, length of life etc. And more is what self replicating creatures do until something reins them in eh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution
There are several competing (but not mutually exclusive) theories as to the factors that drove populations to take up agriculture. The most prominent of these are:
The Oasis Theory, originally proposed by Raphael Pumpelly in 1908, popularized by Vere Gordon Childe in 1928 and summarised in Childe’s book Man Makes Himself.[7] This theory maintains that as the climate got drier due to the Atlantic depressions shifting northward, communities contracted to oases where they were forced into close association with animals, which were then domesticated together with planting of seeds. However, today this theory has little support amongst archaeologists because climate data for the time actually shows that at the time, the climate of the region was getting wetter rather than drier.[8]
The Hilly Flanks hypothesis, proposed by Robert Braidwood in 1948, suggests that agriculture began in the hilly flanks of the Taurus and Zagros mountains, where the climate was not drier as Childe had believed, and fertile land supported a variety of plants and animals amenable to domestication.[9]
The Feasting model by Brian Hayden[10] suggests that agriculture was driven by ostentatious displays of power, such as giving feasts, to exert dominance. This required assembling large quantities of food, which drove agricultural technology.
The Demographic theories proposed by Carl Sauer[11] and adapted by Lewis Binford[12] and Kent Flannery posit an increasingly sedentary population that expanded up to the carrying capacity of the local environment and required more food than could be gathered. Various social and economic factors helped drive the need for food.
The evolutionary/intentionality theory, developed by David Rindos[13] and others, views agriculture as an evolutionary adaptation of plants and humans. Starting with domestication by protection of wild plants, it led to specialization of location and then full-fledged domestication.
Ronald Wright’s book and Massey Lecture Series A Short History of Progress[14] makes a case for the development of agriculture coinciding with an increasingly stable climate.
The postulated Younger Dryas impact event, claimed to be in part responsible for megafauna extinction, and which ended the last ice age, could have provided circumstances that required the evolution of agricultural societies for humanity to survive. The agrarian revolution itself is a reflection of typical overpopulation by certain species following initial events during extinction eras; this overpopulation itself ultimately propagates the extinction event.
February 8th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Kathy.
Thanks for that.
Regarding animals being aware of death, I am no expert on elephants but have seen stuff suggesting they know they are going to die and head for a particular place to do so. Myth?
February 8th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for the sobering post, Guy, and thanks to all responders.
The point is being driven home that humanity will not save itself. I get that, and it’s terribly depressing. No, that’s not really true; I suppose part of me appreciates the clarity of knowing our species probably cannot be saved. Too many of us for too long have wallowed in ambiguity, arguing “if only” and “yes we can” and any number of cliches to be found in the feel-good speeches of Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile our species continues its headlong descent, and all the old paradigms shift slowly into irrelevance.
The human race is going to die out. Or, if not die out completely, then devolve as the living conditions devolve. Such knowledge triggers a “flight and/or fight” response in me. This is good. I can’t save humanity, but maybe I can save myself and a few others, for a little while. That’s do-able.
In the past few years, I’ve turned my little 1.33 acres into a nice little mini almost-farm. It was fun, and I’ve learned a lot, both from the experience and from knowledgeable folks like the regulars here at NBL. Now my family is going to take a next step: we are moving. My state (Mississippi) is overpopulated, severely undereducated, and is prone to devastating tropical cyclones. We are moving to the northern Rockies. We will be poor, but will have a better chance at survival, especially as climate change continues its shenanigans. Better to get out now, while there is still largely freedom of movement here in the U.S., and states are not reacting to hordes of climate refugees.
Some of our extended family are supportive; mainly in that they have romantic old American notions of moving. (I see it more as “fleeing.”) Others, to coin a phrase, “act as if they’d been gut-shot.” Neither group really gets it, and I know that although I love them, I cannot save them. I can save me and my immediate family, though, and I’m going to try.
It’s all come down to one thing: survival. Best of luck to Cosmist, and all the others who still believe in the possibility of a United Federation of Planets. It may happen, I don’t know. Hell, I love the thought of it. But our species has some hell to go through first, and I intend to do my part to see that it might actually make it through to the other side. (You keep on with your comics, though, Cosmist. They will be quite valuable once the grid goes down permanently. I’m a DC man, myself.)
Best wishes to all here.
February 8th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
LMFAO…United Federation of Planets!
Best of luck Christopher.
February 8th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Christopher
The very best of luck to you and your family. You and yours will always be welcome to return to the Federation…
Kathy/Kevin/All Others Interested
We discuss extinction a lot and collapse of civilisation. I suppose many would get the impression that we relish such thoughts in some perverse sort of way. I don’t think anyone here looks forward to extinction, though several seem to be becoming resigned to its real possibility. We talk about it because we must talk about it. Because talking about it is a part of the grieving process, and whether we wish to admit it or not, we grieve at the thought of extinction.
Collapse is different, I think. A large part of me does NOT want collapse to happen. Let me be clear about that. But the reasoned part of me realises that though mankind has the capacity for civilisation, yet it need not be its destiny. What is so wrong with advanced technologies, growth, and higher standards of living for the human population? It all comes down to balance of Nature for me. We are all, flora/fauna/mankind, part of a balanced natural environment. We each do what we can to survive. Unfortunately, mankind has the intellectual power to devise tools to upset that balance. If we were truly homo sapiens, we would know that to do so is unwise – you don’t mess with Mother Nature and expect to receive forgiveness. And unlike an American movie, such actions do not end well. When we devised the tolls of agriculture and domestication of animals, we began the long process of technology development and opened the door to population overshoot and a highly complex, extremely fragile civilisation. I maintain that this was a poor decision on our part. We could well have remained in much our original state and helped to maintain the balance as many indigenous peoples did before the European stock overcame them and mostly wiped them and their cultures from the face of the earth. But we are now where we are. Our numbers, our complexity, and our technologies are destroying the environment, depleting non-renewable and slow-renewable natural resources, and distorting the fast renewable natural economy thus driving a huge loss of biodiversity in our competition with other species. This can in no way continue. Nature is distorted. It must regain balance at our expense and of others, I fear. All because of us.
I don’t want the deer population to suffer, not caring to see deer die-off. But on the other hand, as any conservationist would tell you, intelligent management of that population would prevent much pain and death inflicted upon that population. Humans are more than happy to manage other populations, but not their own. Peculiar, is it not? And because we as a species have not done so, we are in deep, deep shit now.
All this to say, that although I do not wish to change my lifestyle, yet I deeply believe that the only way we can act to save humanity and the natural world as we know it, is to bring down that which acts most significantly to distort Nature – modern human civilisation. This is the right thing to do. This is what we must do. We have no other choice except to let Nature Bat last which is truly inevitable and can in no way be avoided.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:02 am
kathy, in response to your meditation on the virtue or lack there-of of human life, our propensity for cruelty and destruction, and whether surreality might be better off without us, i recently wrote a relevant post, copied below, titled ‘perverse paradise’, to some local/regional peace and green email groups. it’s a bit lengthy, and mentions official suppression of medical cannabis use in support of the idea that at least so far as officialdom goes, humanity is perverse. (p.s. to those of u who may not be familiar with me, i write as an american.)
‘we aren’t reaching a point of mere economic collapse. this is economic armageddon, the end of the world as we know it (teotwawki). according to paul chefurka and relatively few others (although they seem to have science on their side), there’s a strong correlation between global (fossil fuel) energy usage and food production. he just published an article on his website about a week ago demonstrating this, and adding, as relatively few others have, that the primary and most vital fossil fuel, oil, has peaked in production and now faces a relatively swift decline, so that it’ll be reduced to 1/2 peak probably in less than 20 years, or by 2030. what’s more, the international trade in oil will dry up even faster, as it becomes too valuable to trade. thus nations heavily dependent on imported oil (gee, i wonder which nation is most dependent in terms of volume?!!!!) are either going on a severe energy diet which will necessarily entail severe economic contraction, or they’re going to use force and intimidation to steal oil from others. (it seems we’ve probably already begun treading down that path!) not a happy choice there. it seems tragically obvious which course ‘our’ leaders will choose, based on recent history. might the u.s. at some point not too long from now get a lot crazier both internally and in an increasingly hawkish foreign policy, just as the rest of the world faces similar pressures? will economic armageddon bring americans to our senses, or will it usher our (probably very painful) political demise and disunion? will extreme right wing insane fanatics seize power, as has happened at least once before (most notably in the case of nazi germany, a similarly highly ‘civilized’ nation)? or will ‘radical’ progressive greens prevail upon a suddenly enlightened public the need to voluntarily undergo a revolution to a peaceful, cooperative, scientifically enlightened and freed from repressive dogma sort of lifestyle which recognizes the necessity of drastically scaling down our ecological impact (resulting in necessary drastic economic decline)? it seems to me one or the other or a mixture of both is very likely. very unfortunately/tragically, based on past history and the present, i’m afraid our immediate future is very likely tilted much towards the former, a bitter pill to swallow. our nation is already far down the path of concentrated economic and political power. we already have a dominant culture of official violence and deceit, working in tandem with highly concentrated corporate ‘mass media’ which serves as a propaganda arm and public relations partner to official power, while also providing plenty of circus-like entertainment to keep the public occupied and pacified. it’s worked quite well thus far.
so economic armageddon is upon us and a vast majority of the public hasn’t a clue. i know there are at least a few people on these lists who do have a clue, and yet, do u surreally? how are u preparing, and who are u discussing/sharing this with? do u understand that this issue dwarfs all others? must virtually everyone, including perhaps many on these lists, be blindsided by what’s to come, probably in your lifetime if u expect/hope to live more than a few years more?
the almost complete lack of public discourse in this matter surreally astounds me.
that’s not all.
since first taking a personal interest in medical marijuana over a decade ago (actually even before then), i’ve read a good deal about it, including some entertaining autobiographies of the first 2 officially recognized federal medical marijuana patients under a special program. it was terminated as soon as it became apparent that a great multitude would soon be submitting very compelling medical arguments in favor of marijuana use. more on that later.
one of them is irvin rosenfeld, a jewish american born around 1950. he learned as a 10 year old child he had a terrible and rare disease which caused tumors which could turn cancerous to grow all over his limbs, bringing on severe pain and disability, sometimes requiring devastating surgery. he was told he might not live to adulthood, but he did. he became a college student, succumbed to peer pressure to smoke pot, and soon discovered, to his utter amazement, that it had a very pronounced medical benefit. much of his pain subsided, the tumors stopped growing. he didn’t experience a high like most people do. he was able to function much better with it than with less effective (except for undesirable side effects) conventional legal medicines. he convinced some doctors and lawyers of this, even enlisted the help of his congressperson and local and state law enforcement officials in lobbying the federal government to make an exception of him in their ‘war on (some) drugs’. why, it only took about 10 years to persuade the decision makers at agencies like the fda, the dea, and nida (about as formidable a bureaucratic hurdle as there is), that he should be granted the right/dignity/compassion of the most effective medical treatment available without the threat of arrest, and without having to pay exorbitant prices on an unreliable and sometimes unsafe (he was robbed at gunpoint once) black market. whatever tiny shred of compassion they possessed, he got a bit of it. shortly after, as i alluded to above, this program was terminated abruptly for ‘political’ reasons under the first pres. bush.
marijuana is surreally mind blowing in it’s medical benefits. it can take diseases rare and common and provide relief to many sufferers that conventional approved medicines can’t approach. if legalized, it could/would? be of great benefit to millions of americans suffering from a myriad of maladies, from glaucoma to depression, insomnia, ptsd, aids and cancer patients, people with multiple scherosis, muscle spasms, women with menstrual cramps, asthma sufferers, pain relief… the list goes on and on. it’s close cousin the hemp plant, which is also banned by dogmatically ignorant officials, also has many potential uses and benefits.
it’s surreally bizarre in a nightmarish sort of way that ‘our’ federal government official decision makers in grand and powerful blind stubborn dogmatic ignorance deny us, the people, the right to life enhancing/saving very affordable medical treatment and other botanical gifts in favor of maintaining rigid, heartless prohibition (again, greatly aided by corporate ‘mass media’ disinformation and demonization). a family of plants which should be viewed with great and wondrous gratitude is instead treated worse than criminals, driven ‘underground’ by official (expensive) attempts at eradication, at great expense and human suffering.
that’s just the beginning. i could go on, but hopefully i’ve made an impression. nature is wondrously delightful in many ways. our species, otoh, is wondrously wicked/insane/idiotic/ in many ways, culminating in this surreal moment, teotwawki, facing severe natural resource depletion and degradation, increasingly severe, unpredictable, and potentially fatal climate change, population overshoot, economic armageddon, all in a milieu of official corruption, ignorance, and unaccountability, a history of horrible warfare, and a public which almost couldn’t be any more clueless and deceived. the natural world in some ways is paradise, but our presence is perverse.’
February 9th, 2011 at 12:04 am
Christopher,
How does it feel to be a pioneer?
I know you know this but I’ll say it out loud anyway, “Montana and Mississippi may start with the same letter but all similarity ends there.” I know you just said “Northern Rockies” so I just guessed Montana. Be ready for a steep learning curve. A few hundred feet in elevation can make all the difference in what you can grow. So will a north facing vs. south facing slope. The west side and the east side of the mountains are very different. In some places winter comes really early, and “winter” does not mean a little rain. In Wyoming I got snowed on (4”) during a mid-September fishing trip last year. Here in northeast Washington, balmy compared to Wyoming or eastern Montana, our last spring frost is usually the first week of June. Our first autumn frost usually arrives on the back of a thunderstorm during the third week of August. Global Warming? What’s not to like? We just have to know how to work with the conditions (the learning curve). It’s no big deal, just different. Lots of people around here have amazing gardens.
Another thing to remember is that native people lived here for a long time with limited, but appropriate, technology. Keep in mind that even though winters are crushingly cold in North Dakota native tribes living there had agricultural systems. In the northern Rockies hunting and gathering were more the norm. In each case, smart people were making decisions about how best to survive and then building a set of skills to ensure that survival.
You’ll do great. Anybody who can garden in Mississippi can probably garden anywhere. Just make friends with the locals and ask a bunch of questions, they’ll help you make the adjustment.
Good luck.
Michael Irving
February 9th, 2011 at 1:07 am
Here is a podcast that I believe is worth hearing, from Firancial Sense NewsHour – James Puplava incerviews two heavyweights on our side of the fence:
FSN The Bigger Picture with Chris Martenson and Gerald Celente 02-08-2011
“I think we all need a good dose of Zen detachment.” If detachment refers to something like taking a shower and towelling off, then Zen is more like plunging in and living like a deep ocean fish. In fact the metaphors of
“Did one prokaryote say to another……… Did one giant fern say to another………….” are quite appropriate. Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water: the difference is in how the act is perceived by the performing self. As is described in “The Mind of Clover”, a masterly exposition on Zen Buddhist ethics, clover grows and follows its nature. The enlightened one does the same – follows one’s nature – even with the mind doing what is natural for a mind: yet every thought thought, every word spoken and every act performed is non-volitional. The difference is that the prokaryotes and the giant ferns do not have the thought and speech part of it (at least as far as ordinary human awareness goes). It is detachment in this sense that is also described in Hinduism as “pravahapatitam karyam” – “falling into action” or rather “action fallen into”.
“Every creature has its purpose and its work. Try not to interfere.” In a wider sense, every creature is just another aspect of the Self. I am mySelf fulfilling myriad purposes through the selves of all these creatures.
“I have a serious question for the NBL folks: do you want human civilization to be saved? At what level of population and technology?”
No question about it: Kardashev type IV (KT-4) civilization. Anyone who “wants” anything less is an idiot. But if such is indeed in our cards, then we need take no specific action towards that end – or at least no such action has been suggested on this blog (yet). If the KT-4 civilization be indeed inevitable, then I do not need to concern myself with it now.
“So,” the lawyers asks the witness, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Please answer yes or no!” The only honest answer in my case would be “No”. Poorly formed question: inadequate even if accurate answer. Actually in my situation, it might have been interesting to be able to answer yes, considering that I have never had a wife.
Sooner or later hunter-gatherers had to notice that seeds that fell in certain places sprouted into new plants. The difference in outcomes with such intentional plantings could lead to the realization that the planting sites (and their preparation and care) mattered. The perception of ownership of the plants growing from such planted seeds might have seemed reasonable, but it would have taken a paradigm shift to perceive ownership of the more fertile sites, when theretofore there was a socialist anarchy. Even the transition from hunting to herding would not entail an acknowledgment of the private ownership of land: even until recent times nomadic Arabs and central Asians had camels, and others nomadic peoples had horses, yaks and reindeer (a domesticated ungulate with an extant wild form: the caribou). With the dawning of the realization that ownership of human livestock was so profitable, came the fiction of the state: a convenient façade for the ruling elites.
“I am no expert on elephants but have seen stuff suggesting they know they are going to die and head for a particular place to do so.” The paucity of sites with elephant bones led to the conjecture that elephants have some secret dying place. It has since been noted that whenever elephants come upon a group of elephant bones. they seem to recognize those bones as from one or their own kind. They seem to mourn about it and pick up and carry the bones for some distance before letting it go: this results in wide scattering of the bones. Hence the difficulty in finding places where elephants have died.
“With a new wave of demonstrations in Tahrir Square……….the largest anti-government protests………..”: au contraire they are not anti-government protests: they are protests in favor of continuing government, only with a different set of human livestock farmers.
But let us be joyful and plant a <a href="http://www.procreo.jp/labo/flower_garden.swf"Flower Garden:
(click the mouse button and drag the cursor across the black field).
February 9th, 2011 at 1:11 am
Extinction?
With the 6th Mass Extinction running at a rate never seen before in the geological records, extinction is all around us. I’m convinced that homo colossus (modern industrial “civilised” humans are going to go extinct.
From the feedback I’ve received from remnant indigenous peoples, they do not want to be lumped in with “us” and are appalled to see the discussion framed in a ‘human species, humanity or human nature’ context. They have argued for a very long time that “we” are crazy!
Regards
Ted
February 9th, 2011 at 1:15 am
Let us be joyful and plant a Flower Garden:
(click the mouse button and drag the cursor across the black field).
And pardon the syntax error, if you will.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:24 am
Ted
I believe that what you say is only partly true. From what I have observed though indigenous people believe we are crazy and seem to recognise our deep and necessary connection to Nature, yet over the years they have taken on important trappings of the larger civilisation – guns/ammunition, metal boats with outboard motors, cars even. They often live in towns that have roads or other transport connections (for supplies and tourism) to civilisation. Many of these peoples are losing their old skills and infrastructure as they are gradually absorbed into modern civilisation, albeit at the fringes. Global warming is having a huge impact upon their abilities to continue living as they are where they are.
Most from what I have seen seem to have kept a significant piece of their ancient culture and old knowledge in place, but even that is eroding with more and more exposure to modern civilisation.
So whether they wish to be lumped in with us or not….they are…
February 9th, 2011 at 3:01 am
Victor.
I would hazard that some indigenous people have extraordinarily high carbon footprints and are now totally dependent on civilisation. I recall seeing a documentary some time ago which examined the lives of Inuit in (I think) northern Canada. They lived in wooden houses, which one must assume were heated by natural gas or oil. Apart from the small quantities of meat obtained by occasional hunting (using rifles, boats with outboard motors and snowmobiles) practically all their food was flown in and sold in a supermarket.
We cannot condemn them, of course: they are just victims of empire, as are most of us.
Ted’s comment could apply to many of us in that we were born into empire but no longer identify with it. Yet most of us we are dependent on it for our continued survival at this point of time.
Life’s a bitch sometimes.
Most of the time.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:44 am
Dear all.
Having been concerned for decades about how things, driven by mankind, develop around the world, I only came to understand fully about a half a year ago what is about to unfold.
Before that I tried to change things in getting involved, but it turned out as an illusion to be able to change. As this would have meant reduce, less, turn back to agriculture as done at least a century ago.
Still shaking when realizing what is going to happen to mankind as so many other species already, I still hardly find a way to accept. Not for myself, that would be a lot easier, but family, kids. At times I’m just trembling by the thought.
So that is what I want to tell you. People over (Austria) here are not aware at all. And unwilling to listen to – very careful – made statements. Lately I found some people who understand and try to act, but by themselves they also are trying to erect some kind of illusion, saying it can’t get worse than at WW II and the following famine.
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and insights, I’m very grateful to share and being able to even tell myself.
Kind regards,
Bernard
February 9th, 2011 at 6:00 am
Climate Change and Peak Oil, Backed by highly reputable people,therefore certainly true.Population and economic growth proven to be madness: Driving us to an inevitable wall and forced collapse. Personally,I find it very painful and have gone through a grieving process, not only for humanity but for a spoiled and over exploited World. One reason I don’t worry more and prepare more is I’m 62, only another 13 years for average life expectancy. When I was a teenager in the “Swinging sixties” there wasn’t a hint of CC and PO and the World seemed infinite. One of the first wake up calls came when reports talked of the devastating overexploitation of the Oceans,now 90% of all large fish gone,some types of Tuna near to extinction, the hunting of Whales in a protected treaty zone. As a species we behave as if we’re exempt from growth limits and its taboo to suggest voluntary population control. Climate change predictions are coming true with freakish weather round the Globe. I’d rather we were a successful species fully intelligently in harmony with the Planet with a bright future,but fossil fuels have made us like Gods temporarily with the release of their astronomical trapped energies giving us a temporary ability to increase our numbers, not to last.Also the love of money and wealth and profit is our undoing too as it eclipses any restraint on our exploitation of our World: Another example the demand for ivory from China is endangering the African Elephant’s very existence. If the Elephant and Tiger disappear we will be very lonely indeed.
February 9th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Christopher: I enjoyed your blog. You really should check out permies.com The guy that runs the site lives in Montana, and there are couple more folks that post regularly that live in the Rockies. Great on the ground information. Forget what you normally think about permaculture. Lots to learn on everything from housing to alternative energy and on and on. One book we wouldn’t want to be without is, Country Wisdom and Know-How by Storey Publishing LLC. Another great source of info is Backwoods Magazine which keeps a huge number of their articles on line for free. On being poor. We took a 70% cut in income when we moved and we have more money leftover at the end of the month now. You will be surrounded by poor people, and we have found that with very few exceptions poor people are good people.
Good luck to you,
Ed
February 9th, 2011 at 9:14 am
wikileaks latest! saudi’s overstated crude reserves by 40%.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:22 am
Thanks, craig moodie … a link to the story, which fails to reveal the kingdom peaked in 2005, is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks
February 9th, 2011 at 9:47 am
@Privileged: Thanks!
@Victor: I appreciate that. I think we’ll take our chances elsewhere, since the Federation has been taken over by the Borg.
@Michael Irving: Your words hearten me! Yes, Montana; specifically, the western edge, near Idaho. The wife likes Missoula, while I lean towards the Kalispell area. I’ve spent some time there, though it’s been over ten years ago. Thank you again.
@Ed: Great info. and much sound wisdom. Permies.com looks to be most helpful, especially if we end up in the Missoula area. I will look into the book (I like the Storey titles) and Backwoods magazine.
@Kathy: We have a flock of 4 Dominiques who will be needing a good home in 2-3 months. The hens are good layers!
Best of luck to all.
February 9th, 2011 at 9:48 am
Christopher, good luck on your move. Comics may be useful in the future as toilet paper, but the plant lamb’s ears is much softer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stachys_byzantina . They also attract pollinators – I think comics don’t. Once the grid goes down we may have to work all day and have no light at night to read by. I realized that my comment to Cosmos might offend someone else but I wasn’t addressing the reading or enjoying of comics, rather the time devoted to a blog on the topic rather than seriously learning things such as the laws of thermodynamics or preparing to be an astronaut.
I have moved all over the US and gardened in NYS, California, TN, GA and now in AL. It is useful to check with the locals who are gardening, they may not have the best practices but they know their climate. However with climate changing I feel like I no longer know the climate I have gardened in for almost 20 years…. Best to you and yours…
February 9th, 2011 at 10:00 am
Terry, thanks for sharing what you wrote to local groups. Let us know how it is received.
Victor you wrote “We discuss extinction a lot and collapse of civilisation. I suppose many would get the impression that we relish such thoughts in some perverse sort of way. I don’t think anyone here looks forward to extinction, though several seem to be becoming resigned to its real possibility. We talk about it because we must talk about it. Because talking about it is a part of the grieving process, and whether we wish to admit it or not, we grieve at the thought of extinction.”
That about covers it. We in the first world have a cozy lifestyle to grieve and while that is real to us, it perhaps helps (or not) to remember that every awful thing that we might imagine coming down the pike in the future is a reality to millions if not billions today. The Congo – women raped with knives and broken bottles as well as the usual equipment, lips cut off, arms and legs cut off, children kidnapped to become soldiers. Throughout the world children kidnapped or sold into sex slavery – boys and girls having their small orifices plundered by adults. Starvation. Dengue fever increases worldwide- a nasty disease that has made it to the Tex-mex border. Fathers and Mothers separated from children as they try to make a living as an “illegal” in another country, constantly fearing the law. Child labor in mines and factories. It goes on. We have lived on the top of this heap of human misery. One may look at their early demise as something evil to contemplate but many of them may well see it as a relief. Farmers are drinking pesticides in India when they have a failed crop and cannot buy more seed.
Everyone of us now alive is going to die anyway so mourning the loss of life in collapse is foolish. We can morn the lost of years of life, but our lives are destined to end the minute we are born. But an early collapse of the economy is perhaps the only thing that can bring the population down and the fossil fuel burning down in time to allow the species to continue. I don’t know if that matters sometimes, but if it matters, if there is some good reason for our species to continue then we have to welcome early collapse and know that we won’t face anything in the coming years that someone on earth is not facing now.
If justice means anything then perhaps it is just and good that we who have lived well have a taste of what the bottom of the pyramid have endured for so long.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:12 am
Robin,
One of the things you said did not ring true to me. Or rather, I think it might be looked at in a different way. (Of course this is just a mind game based on zero evidence.) I’m addressing the development of the concept of private ownership. You were discussing a paradigm shift by nascent agriculturalists, i.e., learning that plants grow from seeds and that seeds grow best under specific conditions leads to taking possession of the best spots for growing seeds, hence the shift to “private ownership.” You then note that ownership was not part of the pastoralist paradigm thus suggesting that the idea of private ownership of land is a direct result of the development of sedentary agricultural activities. I would like to suggest that the roots of “private ownership” go back much farther into our collective past. I think there is evidence that part of the function of the tribal unit in hunting/gathering societies was to provide physical strength (in numbers) to claim and hold choice pieces of territory. Tribes spaced themselves out through the landscape in much the same way song sparrows establish and control breeding territories by singing. “Sparrows with the most moxie control the choicest breeding territory” is equivalent to “tribes with the greatest strength control the best hunting territory.” I’m suggesting that the jump from “I control a choice hunting location where caribou are abundant,” to “I own the richest bottom land for growing wheat” is only a change in degree, not a change in paradigm. Perhaps the development of sedentary agricultural is not the source from which all the subsequent evils of civilization flowed. Perhaps our desire to own things comes for a more primordial source, the same place songbirds get their desire to control territory. Or not, you just got me thinking.
Michael Irving
February 9th, 2011 at 10:56 am
If we were living in tents or a yurts, moving them to other locations as needed at short notice, I would certainly have a sense of joint ownership with the rest of our tribe for our geographic range: I might be willing to defend it against intrusion by other tribes. I might ever have individual ownership of animals it the tribal herd. None of these would be quite like claiming a particular piece of ground as mine.
February 9th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Kathy, if you’re still upset about me promoting Dr. Strange ahead of Thor in the cosmic pecking order of the Marvel Universe I can understand — I’m the world’s biggest God of Thunder fan too! You seem to have an obsession with the most horrific extremes of human behavior and society, as if they somehow imply that such conditions are inevitable for all of us. The solution to such horrors is not for all of us to descend into barbarism, but for us to create a prosperous world where such things are not possible. This will not happen by returning to the Stone Age!
The Stone Age would be a place of horror which no person on this forum could ever be prepared for or would prefer to life in modern civilization. Those who say they would are *delusional*! Derrick Jensen, who I know many here consider some kind of prophet, is a *total fraud*. He is dependent upon industrial civilization for his very survival due to a medical condition — he would last about five minutes in the Stone Age! I know the kind of group fantasy people are engaging in here because I’ve been there, but please admit that it is fantasy. The very fact that you are sitting at a computer connected to the internet posting about the need to destroy civilization is absurd hypocrisy. If you are serious about life beyond civilization, the first thing you need to do is stop posting at this blog and throw away your computer forever!
On the subject of indigenous people, it may surprise people to learn that I live on Indian reservation land, and believe me, no one here is interested in going back to the Neolithic! I’ve travelled all over this planet, and the idea that there is some great longing among aboriginals to return to their old ways is nothing but a white man’s fantasy! No one ever goes back to that lifestyle once they have become part of the Matrix. Maybe you should all ask yourself why that is instead of romanticizing a lifestyle that none of you has even experienced!
February 9th, 2011 at 11:08 am
Rice and Ice
http://implode-explode.com/viewnews/2011-02-09_CornOpensLimitUpAsHFTRobotsParseWhatNinefoldChineseImportIncreas.html
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/02/hudson-bay-still-not-frozen-solid.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BradDelongsSemi-dailyJournal+%28Brad+DeLong%27s+Semi-Daily+Journal%29
February 9th, 2011 at 11:37 am
@Craig Moodie—Seen any elephants lately?
@Bernard—You said, “Lately I found some people who understand and try to act, but by themselves they also are trying to erect some kind of illusion, saying it can’t get worse than at WW II and the following famine.” What a revelation. First the acknowledgement that some people in Europe think things will get really bad; as bad as the worst they can think of–WWII and the post war famine. Then, second, your assessment that it will be worse than even those times. Yes, you are right to be “just trembling by the thought.” We all should be. As Kathy notes later, “We in the first world have a cozy lifestyle to grieve and while that is real to us, it perhaps helps (or not) to remember that every awful thing that we might imagine coming down the pike in the future is a reality to millions if not billions today.”
As Victor points out, NBL has given some of us an outlet to think about things and to share our thoughts. The assessment, by many here, that we are facing the worst kind of future is not a valid reason for not facing it or talking about it. Thinking and talking about the future helps us to prepare our minds to face the physical ordeals that lie ahead. People around here, in the testosterone overdosed American West, have a term that describes the act of steeling themselves to face their fears, be it riding a wild bull or speaking to a large group. They say it’s time to “Cowboy Up!” It’s that time for all of us.
Michael Irving
February 9th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
“We must terminate western civilization.”
No! you are very wrong!
We must terminate ALL civilization, we must terminate the whole concept of civilisation! No civilization is compatible with life on eart.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Greetings, this is my first time commenting on this blog. How do you do, everyone?
Personally, Michael Irving, I’m far more worried about Kathy’s comment about us possibly having no time to read all day than I am about whether or not we need to “cowboy up.”
A people who do not have the time to read, or are illiterate and incapable of reading, are a people who cannot learn from their past mistakes because they do not have past knowledge.
A non-reading people are easily manipulated through “control of information,” as feudal serfs were during the Dark Ages by the Catholic Church. Without the ability to read, without the knowledge of philosophy, literature, science, etc., they cannot engage in the “critical thinking” necessary to leave the world a better place than they found it. The feudal serfs, for example, believed that working like slaves for their lords was a necessary part of life. It was because of readers and thinkers like John Stuart Mill that we even started to believe that all of this violation of human rights in Africa and so on was a BAD thing. Without the idea of human rights that books made possible, all of you on this blog might still be arguing as feudal peoples did that indigenous people were “savages.” Non-readers do not care about the world or what happens in other countries, because they lack the “childlike curiosity,” as Einstein put it, for knowledge.
If we’re actually reduced to working for so long that we can never read anything, as Kathy suggested might happen, that would be a catastrophe…because then we might REPEAT our mistakes. With the loss of Greek and Roman knowledge, for example, the society that replaced the Roman Empire was a pessimistic society, where people were resigned to whatever their lots in life were upon birth.
So, Kathy, you may be right, it may be inevitable that we’ll lose a lot and undergo physical hardship, but do we have to resign ourselves to a life without books, since as Thomas Jefferson said, “I cannot live without books. They are my food and drink. Without them I would die.”
I don’t know, a life without knowledge and, more importantly, curiosity sounds like a much worse life than a life without material comforts.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Woody, why are you using an internet-connected computer, the very apex of industrial civilization, to post your juvenile screeds? I think you’ll find that simplistic civilization-bashing is a phase that some young people pass through, but as you get more life experience and spend some time in nature and realize how dependent you are upon this matrix for your survival, you eventually grow out of it. The ones who don’t grow out of it tend to become extreme misanthropes like Ted Kaczynski (or Guy McPherson?), making insane terrorist threats from cabins in the woods (while still depending on the Matrix for their survival). This isn’t how you want to end up, is it?
February 9th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Cosmist, a lot of people on this blog, as well as other “doomers,” really are living lives off-the-grid, so your charge of hypocrisy does not work. Please contribute something more helpful to the discussion if you’re going to make a post.
I, for example, at least tried to raise the issue of whether or not we think we should preserve reading and knowledge for those who will have to “work all day,” as Kathy put it.
February 9th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
I love how Cosmist thinks we all want to go back in time. He just can’t see past the idea that life is more precious than human life. Sure we all use computers and many of us drive cars and depend on modern medicine. This doesn’t however change the fact that the planet is still being devoured. Because I have a car doesn’t change the fact that we live in a car culture. I will get rid of my car and the car culture will still be around. We are all aware that civilizations demise will likely be our own as well.
Tell James Tiberius Kirk I say hey.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Librarian.
Good to see new names appearing. Might that mean a lot more people are reading NBL and discovering the truth about our predicament?
‘A people who do not have the time to read, or are illiterate and incapable of reading, are a people who cannot learn from their past mistakes because they do not have past knowledge.’
Unfortunately the most important lesson of history is that the lessons of history are not learned. As has been said manmy times before, history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.
‘they do not have past knowledge’
Unfortunately they do not have present knowldege either, particularly when it comes to scientific matters. Western societies are essentially scientifically illiterate, I’m afraid. My experience of people in general is that if you offer them some vital information pertaining to their future their response is often to tell you they don’t need it.
‘feudal serfs, for example, believed that working like slaves for their lords was a necessary part of life’
Unfortunately, people in modern western sociieties believe exactly the same thing. As a consequnece of the control of information and self-censoring, most ordinary people lack knowledge of the workings of the political-economic-monetary system and are totally unaware they are ‘slaves’ who are continuously manipulated.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Hello Librarian, I like to read too. Have your read about the oral traditions? What impresses me is the feats of memeory required prior to our written word.
You wrote “A people who do not have the time to read, or are illiterate and incapable of reading, are a people who cannot learn from their past mistakes because they do not have past knowledge.” Often knowledge is gained with out the aid of a book and I wish it were so easy for us to learn from our mistakes just by having knowledge from reading books.
Also, “Non-readers do not care about the world or what happens in other countries” … then again maybe they do, they just can’t read …
The term ‘bottle neck’ is used here and you lamented that “I don’t know, a life without knowledge and, more importantly, curiosity sounds like a much worse life than a life without material comforts.” … I think it is safe to say that if a few of us humans do make it through the bottle neck we will be taking knowledge and curiosity with us … books or no books
Thank you for sharing your love of reading, appreciate your post.
You also wrote “Without the idea of human rights that books made possible” … as you probably know from your reading the U.S. constitution was to some degree based on Native American ideas of governance.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Librarian, it seems to me that despite reading and extensive histories (which are often lies) we continue to make the same mistakes over and over. Dark Age people were part of a civilization. Un-civilized people, ie hunter-gatherers had a long run – about 200,000 years minus the 10,000 in which we became “civilized”. Since they persisted for about 19 times as long as it looks like we are going to persist as a way of life and they did it without books, and despite the pressures of civilization a few H-G tribes still exist, I have to conclude that books are only important to people who choose agriculture and cities. Yet every civilization before us has fallen and we are making the exact same mistakes they made, just bigger and with extra hubris.
One thing that will be different when all the books rot away is that old people will be respected again as repositories of knowledge.
I am reminded of a story by Jared Diamond. He was out with some of the native Papua New Guinean H-G’s and they got delayed getting home. So they set about to gather mushrooms for food. Jared got nervous and told them that some mushrooms are poisonous, were they sure these we safe to eat. They got very indignant because they were the ones taking him to see new bird species, telling him their names and behavior. How could he think they didn’t know what mushrooms were safe to eat.
I love my books and read all the time. But I love learning from my garden, learning from my chickens, learning from just experiencing the world. Sometimes books get in the way of that. They make you think you have to look everything up instead of using your own reasoning to figure things outs.
At any rate, IMHO we are back to the stone age per Richard Duncan’s Olduvai theory or we are extinct – no other choices. Civilization has never worked. It destroys the world and lets us forget we are mammals.
Only question is when does the collapse start and how long will it take to return us to the state we evolved to live in.
February 9th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Sarah, Oh my chickens (I think I will elevate them to god status). The ice things confirms Guy’s post. This statement from your link however rattled me “The US Grain Council, the industry body, said late on Thursday that it has received information pointing to Chinese imports as high as 9m tonnes in 2011-12, up from 1.3m in 2010-11.” I am speechless.
I guess in answer to my own question, the collapse starts now.
By the way don’t forget ya’ll that this year and next Option Arm and Alt A mortgages are due to reset their payments – about 1 trillion worth. see the chart at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/03/new-credit-suisse-arm-recast-chart.html
February 9th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Kathy you say we have no other choices but the Stone Age or extinction. I’ll give you two other choices:
1) We keep pushing forward, expand into space and overcome our terrestrial limits by harnessing the orders or magnitude greater energy and matter available to us in the solar system. Remember that the sun produces more than 20 trillion times our current global power usage, and a single small asteroid may contain precious metals worth more than the combined GDP’s of the USA and China. You may dismiss this as fantasy, but many with high intelligence do not, and consider the idea of an imminent return to the Stone Age a much greater fantasy.
2) We re-engineer ourselves genetically and/or cybernetically, or create an artificial intelligent, and these posthuman beings create a civilization that we can’t currently even imagine. This might look to us much like the explosion of homo sapiens across the planet in the last 200,000 years looked to the rest of the animal kingdom. No one said evolution was pleasant!
The problem with the doomer community is its total lack of imagination, and its strange disregard for the power of science and technology. Like it or not, technologists make the rules on this planet, because technology *is* power, and people who voluntarily return to the Stone Age are simply making themselves irrelevant to any discussion of humanity’s future. If you do decide to go off-grid, you will have absolutely nothing to say about our future on this planet!
February 9th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Kathy, do it – elevate them LOL … yes, those mortgages, another rung on the ponzi ladder, … from thin air to thin air (you know, dust to dust)
Robin, Celente seemed even more wound up that usual … good audio, thanks. Also am checking out the “Mind of Clover” … really appreciate the Bhuddism you sprinkle in. Also, I agree “only with a different set of human livestock farmers.” but the mass of people coming together to make a change is a positive step … just need to go from ‘we want someone else to have the key to our cage to this cage is history.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
TC. Please seek treatment for your psychosis.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Kathy: Prepared to get even more speechless:
http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?post=179483
Not only is China experiencing an incredible drought in their wheat growing provinces, but they are the number 1 producer of wheat in the world. Follow the thread above, and you will see the US is way behind in 3rd place. 40% of our corn production goes to ethanol. God knows what will happen if we switch to 15% of the stuff in the gasoline we pump.
Question for Kathy: Our chicken flock is 100% RI Reds. I want to introduce 1 Rooster to our flock of 15. Best just to get the same breed or is there a better solution. We want to begin to slowly expand our flock of egg layers, while culling some on the odd occassion.
Thanks
Ed
February 9th, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Michael.
Thanks for raising the matter of ownership.
In the distant past our ancestors were picking up and throwing away stones and thinking of them as stones. Presumably, at some point one got the idea that a stone he was carrying was ‘his stone’. Hunter-gatherer societies nevertheless coped with personal ownership. It does seem the be the need to defend and recoup the time and energy invested in growing crops that set us on the path to self-destruction.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Ed if you add a RI red get it from a different supplier than the one you got your original one from. I would add a different breed as that would be a more sure way to avoid inbreeding. What are you looking for – eggs, meat, both. Do you like variety in color of chicken? color of egg? If you would like ask Guy to send me your e-mail and we can talk chickens off the blog. Here is fine though too but I can send you some pics of what we have accomplished via e-mail.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Also, let me add something:
I actually understand, a little bit, where the Cosmist is coming from, although I do not agree with his conclusions.
Unfortunately the Cosmist has little experience in his own position and is primarily motivated by a caricature of what he thinks we ourselves believe, but what I think he meant, if I were to represent his argument in its STRONGEST form, is that in order to gain knowledge we have to acknowledge that we are but one planet among the vast and quasi-limitless expanse of outer space. I think he is arguing that we should be looking up at the stars more in appreciation, as Carl Sagan did, and that any guide to the future must acknowledge that, in actual reality, compared to most of the universe our dealings are a dust speck. If we had done this earlier, as sci-fi writers like Arthur C. Clarke argued, we wouldn’t have been divided by phony human divisions by race, religion, etc., and we wouldn’t have been in this predicament to begin with.
The Cosmist would have us leave this planet behind, but even if we do not agree with that argument, why don’t we look for “that small grain of truth” that all arguments have? The Cosmist may be mostly wrong, but when he says that we should appreciate the beauties of outer space and the subtle art of the stars in the sky, I don’t think he’s completely wrong about that.
I myself often go outside at night and look at the night sky, just staring at it in awe.
In fact, ironically to the Cosmist, we might do that much better without certain parts of civilization, since with less light pollution in the city it would be easier to see the stars.
Also, Kathy, it was not my goal to insult you, especially not with my very first comment on this blog. I didn’t mean that I thought books alone justified the abuses of Western civilization.
What I meant was that if we’re serious about preventing future cruelty like this from happening again, we have to arrange conditions that would preclude any possibility of another oppressive empire emerging and TAKING OUR PLACE. For example, stopping China from becoming the next empire once America is gone, etc. What’s the point of bringing down Western civilization if Eastern civilizations like China simply copy our mistakes and “do us one better?”
And in order to prevent such things from happening again, what I meant was we can’t afford to collectively forget our history or forget how to really think critically, and I’m worried that if books disappear, we’ll be in the position of “not even knowing what we do not know,” and we won’t be able to help ourselves.
That was what I meant, Kathy. I was not intending to personally attack your comment.
Oh, and in response to something else you said on this blog: you said it may be just and good that we’ll have to suffer the same things everyone else has suffered, such as broken bottle rapes in Congo, disease in the Tex-Mex border, and child labor in factories for everyone.
Well that may be justice for us, and I can perfectly see where you’re coming from, but that is NOT justice for all the little children born after us. It may make everyone in the world equal, but if everyone becomes miserable instead of only some people, I’m not sure that’s a real solution. Real justice, in my opinion, would be getting rid of these problems for everyone (even if it means bringing civilization down) rather than forcing everyone to be burdened with these problems. Real justice, in my opinion, is spreading joy rather than spreading misery.
If you are correct, Kathy, and Western civilizations like America and Europe will be punished by experiencing the same problems as everyone else…
…then from the point of view of a future 3-year-old-toddler, he’s going to think, “But *I* didn’t go into Iraq and bomb their children! I wasn’t even born then so I had no power or resources to influence that outcome! Why must I be punished by working myself to death in a coal factory for sins I was born too late to fix that were generated by my parents and grandparents? I did not choose the time of my birth, nor did I choose the place, and I did not make the decision to force Western Virginians to perish in coal mines! Why tell me that I must suffer exactly the same fate as I made other suffer, when I did not personally make others suffer that fate? Was the reason for my birth to take the punishment of my fathers?”
Do you have an answer for that future 3-year-old toddler? It’s okay if you don’t, but I thought I should raise the issue for clarification’s sake.
Also, have I been of any use on this blog at all? I realize that McPherson gets a lot of flames because of his stance, and I hope I did not come off as a flamer.
February 9th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Librarian.
Do you have an answer for that future 3-year-old toddler? It’s okay if you don’t, but I thought I should raise the issue for clarification’s sake.’
My answer, for what it’s worth, is that our public officials are worse than the very worst of war criminals because they have promoted, and continue to promote, in the face of irrefutable evidence that they are wrong, the very systems which will lead to utter misery for those who follow them.
Don’t forget, this battle to have public policy based on reality has been raging for a decade and follows stern warnings given many decades ago.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Thank you Librarian for being the first person on this blog with anything positive to say toward me. Fundamentally, all I am arguing for is greater knowledge and bigger horizons for humanity, a longer lifespan for our biosphere, and against a return to ignorance and a retreat from the larger Cosmos. When I hear people say that we should return to being hunter-gatherers it violates my deepest values as a human being and I simply can’t remain silent. What these people are in effect calling for is a return to darkness, to a world governed by superstition, where the stars overhead are campfires, disease is caused by evil spirits and the world is a flat surface sitting on a turtle’s back. It is particularly strange since many people here are highly educated scientists, yet they seem to want to abandon everything we have learned so far and embrace the most pessimistic view of human life imaginable.
I continue to post here not because I am a troll but because I want people to see clearly where this kind of thinking leads, and to ask if that is really what they want or if they are just suffering from a personal crisis or an emotional response to certain aspects of our current civilization. I was once lost in the darkness of doomerism myself, but the condition is curable and you can be “born again”.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
@Kathy: I hear what you’re saying, and mostly agree. I would only say (with a nod to Librarian) that ‘some’ reading is better than ‘no’ reading; and reading material of any kind may become very valuable once the electricity goes off permanently. I understand that eventually even books will turn to dust, but in the meantime people are going to want and need some form of escape from their day-to-day, work-filled existence.
Before TV and the Internet became ubiquitous here in the US, comic books and dime-store novels (westerns, romances, etc.) were incredibly popular. I imagine that was due, in part, to their inexpensive-ness and ready availability, but also to the fact that working people had much less time to spend on leisure than we generally do today. That’s changing, as more people have to work more hours or pick up a second job to make ends meet. When we pass the Great Bottleneck, I imagine leisure time will become almost nonexistent. People will, however, still enjoy a good tale, and will have moments when they want to be enterained. Comic books, Harlequin romances, and westerns by the likes of Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey (and other so-called “pulp” works) can be quickly enjoyed and put down in those brief moments between the end of a work day and bedtime; they may become treasures passed among family members or used in trade — brittle, yellowing reminders of a lost world.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
Kathy, Ed, Sarah,
You must at least consider the idea that some KT-4 group or the Borg planted chickens here with malevolent intent. Perhaps they have been trained to soften-up the inhabitants of this planet for eventual assimilation. My girls are adept at some mysterious form of mind control. Any time they want something my response is complete compliance. Yes Master, I hear and I obey.
Michael Irving
February 9th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Christopher, I deeply apologize, but I would hope that people will still find value for something other than dime-store novels, such as for example the works of Voltaire the philosopher, Hippocrates the doctor, Arthur Rimbaud the poet, Luigi Pirandello the playwright, or even such marvelous works of pure fiction such as the British/French Le Morte D’Arthur or the Chinese Journey to the West or the Spanish Don Quixote.
My main concern is that without leisure (in the classical sense of the word), there is no intellectual life. Socrates, for example, could “find time” to inquire into ultimate truth in part because he didn’t have to work ALL day, just MOST of it.
So if that actually happens, if we lose our leisure time to such an extent that we can never “contemplate” anything but dime-store novels, we will not just lose our possessions, we will lose much of those qualities of mind that make what Morris Berman in his book Dark Ages America called “the good life.”
Is that an acceptable critique of your ideas, or do you believe I am being unfair to you? I’ve seen your blog, and even you realize that there are more things that “make life worthwhile” than work, although in your case you offer nature and mountain views and poetry about gables rather than books.
Am I phrasing my concerns in an acceptable way, or am I not raising an issue anyone cares about?
Please let me know, I don’t wish to unintentionally turn into another Cosmist.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Librarian.
If you can picture yourself in a cave with some companions and some materials to carve pieces of wood, or to paint images on the walls of the cave, you will have some idea of the best long term cultural arrangements likely to eventuate if we continue along the path we are currently headed.
I was looking forward ot something akin to 14th century Europe after teh crash of industrial civilisation, but as time goes by that looks increasingy unlikely.
Please do not feed the troll.
February 9th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Librarian,
In defense of Kathy (who needs no defending) I feel the need to chime in about the 3-year-old too. I think you’ve misread what Kathy was saying. The thrust of her statement was focused on how we, blessed by the accident of birth into luxury, have been spared much of the suffering that millions/billions have to deal with right now. Further she was saying that when western technological civilization collapses we would likely be living in the same conditions, and by the same rules (or lack thereof) that the poor and disenfranchised are living with today. Extending further, she is reminding us that a 3-year-old living in the Congo today should rightfully be asking those same questions. I think she is saying that there is what seems to be a parallel universe out there occupying part of the same planet that we occupy. It is another reality of pain, suffering, violence, injustice, and randomness that exists only because of the chance of birth. We in the first world have been lucky so far to have escaped emersion in that other reality. Kathy is reminding us that when the collapse comes that other reality, that parallel universe, will become our reality too.
Forgive me Kathy if I misinterpreted you comment.
Michael Irving
February 9th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Sorry that you misunderstood Librarian. I was not feeling attacked. I state my position forcefully when I have a strong opinion and this is a subject on which I have a strong opinion. I’ve been blogging Peak Oil for quite some time, often on discussion sites with only men. I used to have a bit softer way of responding but batting ideas around with mostly men wore off the soft edges.
I believe that civilization is bad for humans. When humans became agriculturalists their life style went down not up. They became malnourished. In fact when examining bones from the same time frame in the past a quick look at the teeth tells anthropologists whether people farmed or were H-G’s (the farmers had more cavities).
Hunter-gatherers also worked less – some have calculated about 4 hours a day for all their needs.
They did just fine in avoiding the mistakes of the past by passing on stories. Jared Diamond tells of the PNG as often having one very old person in a village who is taken care of extremely well. That way when a once in 50 year event happens they can turn to the elder and say what did you do then.
If you will read the Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter you will see that ever since civilizations started approx 10,000 years ago they have regularly failed. He thinks he sees a common cause, complexity rising until the marginal rate of return starts declining. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter Complexity increases as problems are solved. As I often say “every solution has a problem” thus we move from problem to problem and from simple to complex. It has always resulted in a crash. No reason to think this one won’t but there is reason to believe that no new civilization will build on the ashes of this one.
This book could perhaps help us to begin to simplify our civilization and avoid the collapse that has happened over and over to civilizations. Do you hear anyone in the houses of power talking about it? Is it taught in any schools. Are we starting a national program to reduce our society’s complexity. Is Bill Gates forswearing updates to Windows? Is anyone learning from the bacteria that quickly become antibiotic resistant to use antibiotics more sparingly or not at all. Is anyone in power powering down their societies because for 100+ years we have suspected and then known that CO2 is a greenhouse gas starting with Ahrenius in 1896 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
When I say civilization is coming down, I mean the whole kit and caboodle. The globalized industrial civilization is toast. Guy wrote on that not long ago http://guymcpherson.com/2010/12/were-toast/ and also http://guymcpherson.com/2011/01/third-times-a-charm/
Yes, I have an answer for that future toddler. Watch your parents to learn how to skin the rabbit. Watch them to learn how to make a fire with sticks. Thank chickens the coal mines will be closed and children will run free, no longer bending over desks in schools or working in mines. They will once again learn from the book of nature. Check out this link that I posted before about the Baka people – pygmies in Africa still mostly H-G. Do they seem sad, deprived?
I know I am still coming on strong. Perhaps not fair to a new poster, but I am who I am (or have become). I worked for a while in Haiti at a children’s home where babies died daily. I lost a whole lot of patience after that with any idea of keeping the global civilization rolling on. It’s just that Guy titled this “Extinction event?” That’s where we are now, not asking whether we can keep libraries open, but asking if the human species can survive. Nature is batting now.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
… read where the Chinese had gotten creative with honey but they have out done themselves with this …
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/report-china-fake-rice-plastic/
February 9th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Sarah someone needs to tell this to taco bell which still puts a tad of meat in their meat tacos. See http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2011/01/peta_applauds_t.php
Be sure to watch the Colbert clip.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
No need to apologize, Kathy, because you actually answered my question perfectly.
I should be the one apologizing. I didn’t understand your background, nor was I aware that you’ve personally witnessed babies die daily.
February 9th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
“We traded in future generations of human beings — all of them — for a few dollars more. We worshiped at the heavenly altar of economic growth, and triggered hell on Earth”.
guy mcpherson
This essay has made me question the path I’ve taken, since peak oil and AGW and LATOC and NBL turned my life upside down. Much of the past year and a half has been spent from the comfort of my easy chair, composing various group emails, essays, and even poems to raise awareness and bring attention to these very real issues. I thought I was doing something worthwhile. Some group meetings and screenings and get-togethers with Transition as the catalyst further strengthened that possible illusion. Working on my house and gardening have been concrete projects I could work up a sweat doing, perhaps continuing my illusion. But that’s my question. Am I just spinning my wheels here?
Sometimes, after reading essays like this and agonizing over what my kids are going to have to go through, I try to imagine a different world. A world where our species evolved differently. A world where we somehow developed a wiser notion of just what our place should be in the grand scheme of things. A world where cooperation trumps competition. Where spiritual happiness and contentedness trumps material desires. A world that did not have the Pandora’s Box of fossil fuels and minerals beneath our feet, waiting and
beckoning to us.
But I think that, wired into our genetic makeup, is the relentless drive towards dominance. The ruthless inclination to “advance” at the expense of other members of our species and the rest of the natural world. I am not sure this is true, but if it is, that other world never had a chance. Since we climbed down from the trees, what has happened was inevitable. We can not change our species into something it is not.
We appear to be living in the last scene of a two million year act, which is really just a tiny and insignificant part of our home planet’s life story Irregardless of what we do, and soon, very likely without any participation on our part, the performance shall continue.
The question I continue to face is—What am I going to do about it. I appear to have two choices: Continue on with my soft and easy life, paying lip service to this notion of building a better community, going to transition meetings and insulating my home and planting my garden and pretending that I’m making a difference, until the monster of chaos knocks on my door. Or join with Guy and Derrick and others to fight the unjust and horrific nature of our civilization. For the sake of my kids, rebel against all that is bad in this world. Give up my comfortable (relative) life for the life of a crusader, a patriot, a terrorist.
But if all of this has already been decided, and nothing we do matters, I sure don’t want to spend whatever time I have left away from my family, in prison or dead, by taking an extreme stance. I’m not sure I have it in me to do that in any case.
I’d like to pose a question to the Cosmist: Your visions require that nations and people come together, very soon, to voluntarily reduce birth rates at a drastic level, learn how to share resources and voluntarily cooperate on working towards the goals you have set. Do you really believe that is possible? I would love to believe this to be true, but I have never heard of such a thing happening in all our recorded history, at least not in any meaningful way. Would you please give me an example of this happening before, or a scenario of how it might actually occur now, something I can hold onto that would give me reason for hope?
I think John Wesley had the right words to live by, and I’ve felt for a long time that I can’t go too far wrong in following them. But the question remains, “By what path can I do the most good—“
“Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.
John Wesley
English religious leader (1703 – 1791)
February 9th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
John wow, I know it is a hard place to come to. Especially with kids.
I would add to John Wesley
“Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would continue to plant my apple trees.” That is the statement of faith traditionally attributed to Martin Luther. Some skeptic recently challenged the world of scholarship to demonstrate exactly where Luther had ever made such a declaration, and nobody could find an exact source. Perhaps, like so many such pieties, the idea really came from Goethe. Or perhaps Thoreau. It does not greatly matter, for the statement itself is one of abiding hope and abiding truth.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,967728,00.html#ixzz1DVd8PenE
I am no longer religious but that doesn’t mean there are no pearls to be found in their writings.
As I know you are doing, perhaps the best good is to hug your kids a lot and tell them what special people they are.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Librarian, no need to apologize, no offense taken at all here.
You and I seem to have differing views of what People actually read. I understand you may enjoy Malory, but I assure you that the unwashed masses will not kick back with a copy of Morte d’Arthur after a long day of plowing, or curing hides, or gutting chickens, or washing clothes by hand, or any combination of chores required to survive. In a perfect world, maybe they would. They never have. Before public “education,” most folk were illiterate, and not by choice. We are coming full circle now, as public schools are and have been failing our society; the best we may be able to hope for is that literate parents may pass on their abilities to their children, but if you know anything about Western civilization these days you know that most parents can’t be bothered. Is it so bad that farmers may read of the heroic exploits of L’Amour’s Sackett clan, and not Suetonius (recommended), or the Chronographia of Michael Psellus, or Beowulf?
Maybe your experience of working people is different, though.
No doubt there will still be a leisure class, i.e., the Ruling Class. Feudalism is back in vogue already, anyway. It probably never left. At any rate, there will probably still be people who read those works that are considered important by others in their class and their hangers-on. That is, until we go extinct. Then, there’ll be nobody to give a shit either way.:)
As far as what I read, if you scroll down on my blog (past the embarrasingly long list of movies) you’ll see that I really don’t read much poetry at all.
February 9th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Librarian are you by chance John’s wife?
February 9th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
No, ma’am, I am not. First of all, I am not related to John and I do not know him, and second of all, I’m a man.
February 9th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
Two relevant books:
http://www.amazon.com/Witch-Hebron-World-Made-Novel/dp/0802119611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297317347&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Witch-Hebron-World-Made-Novel/dp/0802119611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297317347&sr=1-1
February 9th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
I meant:
http://www.amazon.com/Witch-Hebron-World-Made-Novel/dp/0802119611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297317347&sr=1-1
and
http://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Communities/dp/0670021075
February 10th, 2011 at 1:19 am
Well, it seems I missed all the action over the evening. Great dialogue! Really truly enjoying this intellectually.
I would like to make an observation. The statement keeps being made to the effect that the “doomers” on this site continually express a deeply held desire to return to the Stone Age. Let me make this as clear as I possibly can without ambiguity – That statement is BULLSHIT and an affront to everything we are saying.
Let me say that one more time – That statement is BULLSHIT and an affront to everything we are saying.
Shall I say it one more time? But surely you get the point.
What we ARE saying is that as we examine the hard evidence of what is occurring in the world and the historical patterns of behaviour on the part of humanity, we are forced to draw only one conclusion – that modern global civilisation is set to implode and that the result of this implosion will in all likelihood result in our eventual return to a Stone Age existence, IF Climate Change does not result in our extinction.
We DO NOT WANT this to happen.
We do NOT WISH for this to happen.
But this is something we truly believe WILL happen.
Surely this is clear enough. It has nothing whatsoever to do with any desire, or hope, or current effort to reach the stars and find infinite sources of energy for mankind. It DOES however say that such efforts, whilst well intended, will ultimately fail because of the impending Collapse.
And here, perhaps , is where the confusion arises on the part of some about this message. Global Warming changes the game fundamentally. Current evidence suggests strongly that if we do not stop CO2 emissions immediately, all life on earth might well be threatened. In response to this, many on this site and elsewhere argue that the best and quickest way to accomplish such a reduction in emissions is by the destruction of modern civilisation, the source of the problem. In that way, we wish for the quick destruction of civilisation – NOT because we WANT it to happen, but because we believe it HAS to happen in order to have any chance of saving what remains of Nature as we have known it.
Granted, at times we might express it poorly in the form of a “want” or “desire”, but the context of what we argue is that what we really feel is that it MUST happen and WILL happen.
On a personal note, I truly love my lifestyle at this point in my history. I don’t want to give it up. On the other hand, when I grew up, there was no personal computer, no mobile phone, for a while no television, very little in the way of plastics (most toys were made of metal or wood), no supermarkets or huge bargain stores, no electric toothbrushes, no dishwashers, plane travel was uncommon, holidays overseas were almost unheard of, and on and on. Life was very different then and much simpler. But we didn’t miss those things because such things did not exist for us. And yet we could truly enjoy and appreciate life on a different plane.
The same will be true again for some future generations of our children. It won’t be soon, but I am in hopes that it will happen someday. And in the end, the standards of quality of life will be the same – job satisfaction, family, good times occasionally and looking up at the heavens and across the valleys and over the mountains, contemplating the beauty of life and the awesome power of Nature.
Hunter-gatherers were, for the most part, not empire builders as were the agriculturalists. That is a large part of the reason they are mostly gone now – “civilised” folk overran them. They were, on the whole, a happier and healthier lot and more stable lot. They worked less and played a lot. And they were deeply connected with Nature and the natural processes which kept their populations at a reasonable level. So I have to ask. What is so bad about that?
February 10th, 2011 at 1:40 am
Librarian
Thanks very much for your comments. Happy you could join us. You are so right about books and the great pleasure and educational benefits derived from reading them. No question about it. But you have to understand that books might not be around in the new order of things to come. But humanity existed quite well without books for ages. Indeed, along with the adoption of agriculture, it was probably the written word that enabled civilisation and led to where we are now. Talk about a two-edged sword!…
On another note, when “Western civilisation” is mentioned, I think the context of that expression really is “Global civilisation”. It was the highly aggressive Western civilisation and its eventual adoption of predatory capitalism that eventually overwhelmed the world and became “Global Civilisation” (IMHO). I consider the two terms synonymous. This is a long way of saying that when civilisation goes, it will not be replaced by some other form of civilisation (Eastern), but will be well and truly gone, and not likely to ever return, for several reasons.
February 10th, 2011 at 1:41 am
[Kevin]‘Please do not feed the troll.’
LOL
February 10th, 2011 at 1:46 am
John
I must say that yours was the best expression of the dilemma that faces so many of us today. Give in? Fight back? Relax and do nothing? We are all faced with those options. Which is the correct response to the future that awaits us? Only each individual can answer that for themselves. Indeed, at a given point in time, one might employ all three!
Whatever you decide, do it well and with all your heart.
February 10th, 2011 at 2:09 am
Kathy
The Colbert clip was great. It reminds me of the 80′s adverts by Burger King (?) “Where’s the beef?”
The Taco Bell meat taco is analogous to the arguments put forward by the Cosmist – 35% beef and 65% artificial “fillers”…
February 10th, 2011 at 2:12 am
@Cosmist: I’ll certainly agree with you that one form of utopianism (eternal progress and growth) should not be countered by another inverse utopianism (of state of nature, ultra-primitivism). I certainly see a tendency towards such among the posts on this page. If there is one thing history has shown, it is that utopianism leads to extremism and extremism leads to….well do the math yourselves.
If there ever was a situation where pragmatism and cool-realism regarding the state of the world was needed, it is the present. For instance the comments regarding an imminent collapse and state of nature for most people. I think its pretty obvious that even if there was an institutional collapse of the US, EU and so forth (which I doubt in the medium term), new modes of political collaboration will immediately develop in a manner which is adapted the new context. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does politics.
If the debate about malthusianism is to be take seriously, it must be conducted in realistic terms or it becomes an irrelevant pseudo-religion.
February 10th, 2011 at 3:05 am
thanks to all for the edifying discussions…i frequent as a reader mostly.
i think the reason for moving to agriculture might be more the ‘marriage’ of humans with the plant world. Bronowski in The Ascent of Man points to wheat as the primary ‘grain’ that made civilization possible….getting that much larger variety of seed that requires us to plant it.
another factor especially true for wheat[& some for corn] is the ability to store for years so as to make it thru low harvest years.
the other factors discussed, loss of large mammals to hunt, comfort, overpopulation, & ‘property’ …did i leave some out…. i imagine were factors but the developing of larger grains seems especially related to the property factor.
kathy/ed
listening to my rooster crow as i write this so i’m all about learning more;
& Ed you might consider a breed that is less aggressive as i have had a barred plymouth rock, & austrolops that were very very aggressive. i haven’t had a RI red rooster. my crowing one is a buff orphington… tame enough i can pick him up if necessary; but he took on our fence climbing dog the other day as needed[& survived].
thanks again to guy & all.
February 10th, 2011 at 3:57 am
We have put ourselves in a situation where words no longer have power. If we are into positive climate feedback as the facts on the ground seem to indicate, our human words are futile. We can doom or dream and it will make no difference. Nature has taken back the drivers seat, so we might as well sit back and watch the scenery on the way to the cliff (Duncan http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/sixteen-two/xvi-2-93.pdf ) or bottleneck ( Catton http://www.energybulletin.net/51368 )
Guy thanks for this provoking essay. My guess is that it will not make it to the Energy Bulletin. I know the theory, make it look too dire and people will not change. The theory does not hold because not enough people change with less dire predictions and it seems very very likely that it is now fully out of our hands. Guy thank you for your honesty. If I was diagnosed with a disease that would leave me 6 mos. of living I would want the Dr. to tell me so I could decide what to do with the living time I have left. Most people it turns out want that even though before they became ill they wouldn’t think so.
February 10th, 2011 at 7:56 am
Librarian, I offer my apology for the personal question.
February 10th, 2011 at 8:04 am
Victor, “That statement is BULLSHIT and an affront to everything we are saying.” Really appreciate your words!
Your post lays out the issue very clearly.
February 10th, 2011 at 8:15 am
Sam,
I had a Wyandotte rooster. He terrorized the hens. He was tame enough to perch on your shoulder but his approach to the hens was more akin to rape and the hens were as afraid of him as they were of hawks. Your Orpington seems to be a much better choice.
Michael Irving
February 10th, 2011 at 8:35 am
Michael, Sam, Ed,
Individual birds have personalities. Our first roo was a Rhode Island Red. He was the only rooster that ever attacked vistors. Our Brazilian roo was tame as a kitten with me. When he spurred my husband he was gone – of course by then we had caged him for breeding and my husband was removing an egg to put under a setting hen. If any roo starts acting aggressive to me now I grab him off the roost a few times and hold him upside down for a bit. My way of saying I am the head roo around here.
Within each breed type there are individual personalities. But breeds do matter as well. Leghorns are nervous but not in our experience aggressive. They lay probably better than any other breed – if you want lots of eggs look for production bred Leghorns which come in brown as well as white. Not as much meat on them but impressive birds.
Our Orphington hen was one of the best mothers we had even tho none of her sisters went broody and they are not supposed to be one of the setting breeds. We only have one bird left that is a breed anymore – everything else we have are mutts out of about 15 different breeds.
We have not had a young rooster that didn’t start out with attempted rape. But as they mature they learn to get food for the hens and even sometimes do housekeeping on one of the nests. The talk nice to the girls and watch for hawks. They offer food and and don’t immediately jump the hen as the teen age boys do. Rather they build a flock and get nooky without much fuss. The hens never seem to like sex but tolerate it from their chosen roo. What hens get off on is eggs and chicks if they are a hen that goes broody. However a friend told us that if the hens were without a roo for a while they would, when introduced to a roo flop and offer themselves up. All of this is easily explainable by evolution.
We have about 80 hens right now and 12 rooster running free on 1 acre. They separate into 4 flocks each with a head roo and several seconds. A few young roos have not established themselves in a flock. Thus they have to resort to raiding or staying out late to catch hens going into the coop at night. Older roos will knock young roos off a hen and then take over – sometimes in several iterations so the poor hen gets multiple matings (last sperm in wins??)
So to Terry regarding a previous post, Yes we love our birds. We would be cruel to not keep the hen to roo population in check, so we watch for who makes a good flock roo, doing hawk duty and treating the hens well. We pen those who we want to breed but can’t stop fighting or harrasing hens. We axe the rest and eat them. I assure you that while the roos look most surprised when their body becomes detached from their heads the hens are most grateful. Nature works the same ways, extra roos are driven off and unlikely to survive very long.
February 10th, 2011 at 9:39 am
Kathy.
‘We have put ourselves in a situation where words no longer have power.’
I was speaking with someone yesterday and mentioned that the Arctic meltdown we are witnessing is unprcendented.
Her response: “Well it’s happened before.”
Most people have no idea what we are talking about. They do not understand what we mean when we say unprecedented, carbon dioxide, meltdown, positive feedback etc. George Carlin was so right in his assessment of people, unfortuantely.
In the absence of words conveying the message there is only one thing that will.
‘My guess is that it will not make it to the Energy Bulletin.’
I used to be an avid reader of EB. Now I check it occasionally to see if there is anything of interest.
February 10th, 2011 at 9:48 am
I’m afraid Energy Bulletin has become a caricature of itself. It’s interested only in feel-good stories or “forecasts” that anticipate no requisite changes in how we live. The editors love the transition movement, but they fail to understand how utterly hopeless it is for cities. And they have no appreciation for the notion of morality with respect to how we live.
February 10th, 2011 at 9:49 am
[Cleitophon]‘I’ll certainly agree with you that one form of utopianism (eternal progress and growth) should not be countered by another inverse utopianism (of state of nature, ultra-primitivism). I certainly see a tendency towards such among the posts on this page. ‘
I see neither the tendency nor the outright support on this site by any individual to promote any such ‘inverse utopianism’. We have made it quite clear where we stand on that. What part of “We’re fucked as a civilisation and there’s nothing we can do about it” do you not understand? And who said we would transition immediately into the Stone Age? And who said there would not be new attempts at government to replace the old? Why are you putting words into our mouths? Please tell us what you specifically do not understand and I am certain someone here will be more than happy to respond as they are able.
As you can see, I am losing patience, so apologies for that. However, we explain something over and over, and get the same echo back repeatedly. Either we are not explaining correctly, or you simply are not reading what we say. Which is it please?
February 10th, 2011 at 9:55 am
michael
i have never had a wyandotte…but seen the rape behavior of course, but never hens afraid of the roosters.
ed/kathy
i have heard RI’s tend to be aggressive. i went hunting for a less aggressive roo after many times nicked & the final straw was when my wife had to tend & got double teamed. the recommended breed was buff orphington, & he has worked out well.
kathy all those flocks in one building/coop?
fascinating how u have so many with i gather no boundaries between flocks. i have read/heard a dozen or so is a good size…what i’ve had for 7-8 yrs. now & i have considered expanding, but thought i should establish a different area, & coop.
February 10th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Guy,
I just noted the number of comments attached to this piece, 130 and counting. I was thinking about a year ago when 20 constituted a good count. So I looked back at your first year, 2007, and the count is usually in the single digits or low teens at best. Seems like progress with more and more people finding NBL. Or else it’s a measure of people’s assessment of our current situation, i.e., the shittier it gets the more people wake up, and then they want to talk about it.
I have a reminder for you. On October 9, 2007 you posted “Thriving in the post-carbon era.” You said, “But, as I wrote in one of my recent books, I can’t fix my cranky toilet. To say I’m mechanically disinclined would be a huge understatement.”
I was wondering how that is working for you after several years of hands-on experience? Personally I suffer from a genetic disorder resulting from lack of a mechanical aptitude gene. I keep telling my kids and grandkids that if you can read you can do anything. I put that to the test often but I’ve have found it’s hard to read instructions when I’m in the mud under a truck manipulating a wrench and a screwdriver while holding a flashlight in my mouth. Most of my less literate friends (they don’t ever seem to have mechanical disaptitude disorder) do not have this problem. They just fix the truck. (“Instructions? Hell, they just throw them in there to keep the box from rattling. They’re only handy if you forgot to bring toilet paper.”)
Michael Irving
February 10th, 2011 at 10:20 am
‘Or else it’s a measure of people’s assessment of our current situation, i.e., the shittier it gets the more people wake up, and then they want to talk about it.’
That must be great comfort to you, Guy, knowing that the shittier things get, the more your site is visited…
February 10th, 2011 at 10:54 am
I would imagine as time passes more people will start to search ye ol’ Google for some answers. Stumbling upon NBL could bring some of those folks to their proverbial knees. I don’t know if easing people into “it” is the best approach these days. I just tend to lay it all out there and see what happens. Sure some of us end up in our closet laying in the fetal position but many of us eventually leave the closet and move towards an exit plan.
February 10th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Michael, I’m beginning to acquire some mechanical/physical intelligence, but it’s a slow road. It helps that I no longer have a conventional toilet, and the technology behind a composting toilet is very simple. I recently bragged about my new-found skills: “Now I’ve hammered, drilled, sawed, plumbed, tiled, and constructed. And grown, in ways I could not have imagined.”
I appreciate the growth in readership (or, to be more accurate, the number of people who comment — I don’t track the number of readers). Also note that nearly complete turnover in who’s commenting has occurred several times. Some people comment a few times and leave, either because they “get it” and move on, or because they go back to the fetal position mentioned by Privileged. My approach remains unchanged: I’ve been laying it all out there for the duration of this blog, which likely explains why some people run screaming from the (virtual) room after a single visit.
February 10th, 2011 at 11:13 am
Guy:
Thanks for your continued insightful writing. Even though there’s nothing to be cheerful about, at least I find comfort in knowing that I’m not alone. Keep up the good work!
PJNudge:
The proper response for me is to do what I can to prepare for the worst and live life to the fullest because regardless what’s happening with the world you never know when your next day will be your last.
CJ:
I’ve been without internet access at home for going on 5 days. I’ve been using my cell phone, but where we live, service is spotty at best. To make matters worse (better?), the only TV station we can pickup on our set (no cable – we use an antenna) was also unaccessible for the past week. So, eeek! We’ve been having to actually talk to one another and read and take walks and watch the birds, all while watching the snow fall. It’s been wonderful!
Kevin:
I wasn’t aware you wrote a book. What is the title? You mention that maybe nature has a trick up her sleeve. It made me think of the book “When the Sky Fell” by Rose and Rand Flem-Ath. It’s a compelling hypothesis about the lost city of Atlantis being buried under the antarctic ice after the earth crust shifted radically. They suggest that the reason agriculture rose up seemingly simultaneously 12,000 years ago all across the globe in conjunction with similar monolithic architecture was due to the survivors of the advanced civilization fleeing the destruction. There are some striking similarities to our current predicament. I don’t know how, if at all, they’ve adjusted their theory with the advent of global warming, etc., but I did find a website for them: http://www.flem-ath.com/
Michael Irving:
I wrote a post recently on my blog about the Kubler-Ross model for grieving and how I’ve gone through the stages (and am still going through them) over TEOLAWKI. You may find it helpful or at least a different way of looking at it.
To all:
Ok, after 5 days away from the internet (still none at home, I’m using the connection at my office on this slow snowy day), I don’t think I can respond to all the posts reasonably (and I doubt seriously that anyone would want to read such a large number of responses anyway). So, I’ll sign off for now. Take care my friends!
February 10th, 2011 at 11:38 am
TRDH,
TEOLAWKI has a better feel to it, more personal, more immediate. Next month gas will be $4.00. Shit will not hit the fan. It will not be the end of the world. It will just be the end of life as we know it. Things will be different. Life will change. MY life will change. Thanks for that. Sometimes attaching an appropriate name to something helps us to understand it and deal with it better.
Oh, and for my friends in Europe, forgive me for crying about gas at $4.00 a gallon.
Michael Irving
February 10th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Victor.
‘the shittier it gets the more people wake up, and then they want to talk about it’
Unemployment in the US ‘has fallen’. The motor-mouth on BBC World Busniess told me so last night.
I see public toilets and swimming pools are facing the axe in Britian. Never mind, manufactruing ‘is up’, retail spending ‘is up’, and the prospects for revovery ‘remain good’.
I look forward to the day people recognise the extent they have been lied to. Not much sign of the lights coming on in that department yet, yet, which is why I am mostly keeping my mouth shut, and why it is so good to have a few well-informed, like-minded people on NBL to discuss reality with.
And I am picking up all sorts of information I might otherwise miss.
February 10th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Sam you wrote”kathy all those flocks in one building/coop?”
) The coop is to protect them from owls at night and most of them are fine with that arrangement although they sure do squabble before they settle down for the night. If they are not fine with that arrangement we try to enforce it which involves herding chickens – a very frustrating procedure. I try to imitate an owl while rapping sticks on trees to move them in the right direction – it entertains my husband at least.
The “coop” is actually an old two room house that was no longer being occupied. The yard is about 1 acre fenced in with electric netting fence (to keep predators out, not chickens in – but mostly they don’t fly out although most of them could – when they do fly out they are frantic to get back in to the flock – unless of course they have hidden a nest outside and evaded our breeding program
Enough of a break – back out to cut wood.
February 10th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
thanks kathy. so they do their own flocking/grouping so to speak. & yes i have herded chickens to get them in…usually to try to get them into the coop early so i don’t have to lockem in at twilight. if i don’t lock them in i get raccoon raids. hell i’ve had weasel/mink raids at night…they can get thru a 2 in. crack.
February 10th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
robin: ‘With the dawning of the realization that ownership of human livestock was so profitable, came the fiction of the state: a convenient façade for the ruling elites.’
brilliant! at least so it seems to me, one of inferior intellect. we are livestock to governments which claim absolute jurisdiction over large tracts of land, and us. they rule by deceit and force and most importantly, via control over important institutions like public education and ‘mass media’.
for ‘fictions’, governments have an immense amount of temporal power to impose arbitrary and absurd restrictions in how we live. well, perhaps not arbitrary, since in fact there are often hidden agendas/reasons for the crazy things they do. for example, i believe a primary reason for prohibition of marijuana and other entheogenic (‘mind expanding’) drugs is the need for repressive power structures to limit thinking/awareness, and thus the inclination to challenge ‘authority’. which brings me to something else u said that i have a problem with:
‘As is described in “The Mind of Clover”, a masterly exposition on Zen Buddhist ethics, clover grows and follows its nature. The enlightened one does the same – follows one’s nature.’
how can one follow one’s nature in a repressive culture which outlaws certain expressions of human nature? while i dread collapse, i look forward to anarchy in the sense that at some point, i and many others will no longer have to fear arrest and prosecution for engaging in various ‘crimes’ which victimize no one except the state’s ‘right’ to rule our minds and bodies.
the recent surge in postings to this blog have made me fall behind in reading, so i’m only replying to a couple of ‘old’ posts from yesterday now. re. kathy’s considerate query about how my post to various local and regional peace and green political groups went, the answer is i don’t surreally know, since there were no written responses, except for my own 2 days later, when in response to the lack of response from others, i posted a couple of verses from the old simon and garfunkel song, THE SOUND OF SILENCE.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence
i wasn’t too surprised by the lack of response, surreally. actions speak much louder than words, and my actions have been pretty silent for the most part.
February 10th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Kevin,
I got that unemployment “good news” too, unemployment down to only 9% in the US. In the same Market Watch radio news report they were scratching their heads over the latest “jobs creation” report. Seems there were only 39,000 new ones instead of 140,000. You could practically hear them shrug their shoulders and then it was BAU. Rah! Unemployment is down to only 9%!
Now I ask you, how do you get 100,000 fewer jobs created at the same time you reduce the level of unemployment?
A part-time (23 hrs) library assistant job in the next small town north of me (pop 1500) had 53 applicants. But I guess there are plenty of jobs. At least that is what the government wants us to think.
Michael Irving
February 10th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Glad I’m not the only one who’s not impressed with Energy Bulletin these days. It’s sliding into irrelevance.
February 10th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Virgin Terry, Sounds of Silence – still sweet sung in 2003 as back when they first sung it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdD52DAaFRs
February 10th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
More trouble thanks to climate chaos
http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/11_Cosmic/110209.Sysco.Mexico.Freeze.pdf
THE EXTREME FREEZING TEMPERATURES HIT A VERY BROAD
SECTION OF MAJOR GROWING REGIONS IN MEXICO, FROM
HERMOSILLO IN THE NORTH ALL THE WAY SOUTH TO LOS
MOCHIS AND EVEN SOUTH OF CULIACAN. THE EARLY
REPORTS ARE STILL COMING IN BUT MOST ARE SHOWING
LOSSES OF CROPS IN THE RANGE OF 80 TO 100%. EVEN
SHADE HOUSE PRODUCT WAS HIT BY THE EXTREMELY
COLD TEMPS. Full View
more trouble
…
From:
Jack and Kathy Cumbee
…
View Contact
To: Jim Allen
http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/11_Cosmic/110209.Sysco.Mexico.Freeze.pdf
THE EXTREME FREEZING TEMPERATURES HIT A VERY BROAD
SECTION OF MAJOR GROWING REGIONS IN MEXICO, FROM
HERMOSILLO IN THE NORTH ALL THE WAY SOUTH TO LOS
MOCHIS AND EVEN SOUTH OF CULIACAN. THE EARLY
REPORTS ARE STILL COMING IN BUT MOST ARE SHOWING
LOSSES OF CROPS IN THE RANGE OF 80 TO 100%. EVEN
SHADE HOUSE PRODUCT WAS HIT BY THE EXTREMELY
COLD TEMPS. IT WILL TAKE 7-10 DAYS TO HAVE A CLEARER
PICTURE FROM GROWERS AND FIELD SUPERVISORS, BUT
THESE GROWING REGIONS HAVEN’T HAD COLD LIKE THIS
IN OVER A HALF CENTURY. THIS TIME OF YEAR, MEXICO
SUPPLIES A SIGNIFICANT PERCENT OF NORTH AMERICA’S ROW
CROP VEGETABLES SUCH AS: GREEN BEANS, EGGPLANT,
CUCUMBERS, SQUASH, PEPPERS, ASPARAGUS, AND
ROUND AND ROMA TOMATOES. FLORIDA NORMALLY IS A
MAJOR SUPPLIER FOR THESE ITEMS AS WELL BUT THEY HAVE
ALREADY BEEN STRUCK WITH SEVERE FREEZE DAMAGE IN
DECEMBER AND JANUARY AND UP UNTIL NOW HAVE HAD
TO PURCHASE PRODUCT OUT OF MEXICO TO FILL THEIR
COMMITMENTS, THAT IS NO LONGER AND OPTION.
WITH THE SERIES OF WEATHER DISASTERS THAT HAS
OCCURRED IN BOTH OF THESE MAJOR GROWING AREAS WE
WILL EXPERIENCE IMMEDIATE VOLATILE PRICES, EXPECTED
LIMITED AVAILABLITITY, AND MEDIOCRE QUALITY AT BEST.
THIS WILL NOT ONLY HAVE AN IMMEDIATE IMPACT ON
SUPPLIES, BUT BECAUSE OF VERY STRONG BLOSSOM DROPS,
THIS WILL ALSO IMPACT SUPPLIES 30 – 60 DAYS FROM NOW.
SOME GROWERS ARE MEETING WITH THEIR BOARDS RIGHT
NOW TO DETERMINE WHETHER THEY SHOULD IMMEDIATELY
RE-PLANT, HOPING FOR A HARVEST BY LATE-MARCH-TOEARLY-APRIL, OR WHETHER THEY SHOULD DISC THE FIELDS
UNDER AND WAIT FOR ANOTHER SEASON.
We are doing everything we can with our growers to
minimize the effect of this disaster on you. With the
unprecedented magnitude of this event we wanted to
immediately make you aware of the conditions. We will
continue to send out communications as our people
on the ground report back to us. We thank you and we
appreciate your understanding during this time.
February 10th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
People are blind. And deaf. And … (must hold onto myself)
Just watching a discussion about the situation in Egypt.
No! one seems to grasp the underlying problems. Or even wants to address them. Funnily, at this stage a Mubarak remaining in (sort of power) until September, to me seems the last resort of a rest of
stability in northern Africa and Middle East.
Energybulletin, not just this time;-) delivers good information just in time.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-02-10/egypts-warning-are-you-listening
The food situation could trigger whatever events into a jump start.
Is there any possibility to convince US/ EU and I don’t know who else turns food into fuel, to stop this immediately and return the grain to food markets?
And start rationing fuel instead?
February 10th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
So much has been said here I feel hesitant to add anything so I will be brief.
1. The human species will go extinct at some point no matter what we do or don’t do.
2. All talk of “saving the planet” seems to be nothing but human arrogance. The planet and its myriad lifeforms have been around for a very long time and I think they will continue quite nicely when we are gone. Science tells us that the output of the sun should be pretty steady for another 5 billion years or so. No matter what a mess we make of things before our inevitable departure, the planet and the web of life on it should recover in, say, 10-20 million years, a short time frame in geologic terms.
3. Its Life that matters, not just human life.
February 10th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
I was at work today and a man who had moved here 9 months ago from New Orleans told me that the oysters there are gone and the rest of the seafood has oil in it … said the area use to supply U.S. with 40% of it’s seafood now only 15% … I knew most of this and you may too but he was the first of the many people from that area that has admitted the situation to me and I have talked to many.
Victor, “What part of ‘We’re fucked as a civilisation and there’s nothing we can do about it’ do you not understand?”
… have to say I’m glad you addressed this issue too … as you said you feel you are losing patience but take solace in the fact that the majority of the post I’ve read of yours you are very kind.
Terry, “in response to the lack of response” … LOL
funny how songs take on new meaning when listened to in the context of collapse. I feel that the tight ownership of the music industry does not allow for what were known as protest songs in the 60′s and that is too bad because music is very powerful!
Kevin “it is so good to have a few well-informed, like-minded people on NBL to discuss reality with.” It is a life saver for me right now … I know I have to do something, can’t just hang out hear listening to everyone but the help for me comes in reading things like Christopher actually picking up and moving.
February 10th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/101350834#pm_cmp=vid_OEV_P_P
=)
February 10th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703716904576134661111518864.html
Hackers who appear to be based in China have conducted a “coordinated, covert and targeted” campaign of cyber espionage against major Western energy firms, according to a report expected to be issued Thursday by cybersecurity firm McAfee Inc.
February 10th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
“If we’re actually reduced to working for so long that we can never read anything, as Kathy suggested might happen, that would be a catastrophe…”
One is reminded of the two Roman scholars during the Roman Empire, who would hold heated debates on arcane philosophical issues in a local Greek barbershop. The barber knew no Latin, but seemed to always sense who was right or wrong. When asked how he did so, he said that he noted “which person raised his voice first”. There are a few important things in life that can be learnt without books.
“….. in order to gain knowledge we have to acknowledge that we are but one planet among the vast and quasi-limitless expanse of outer space.”
That might remind one of the story in which God once incarnated as a sow because an enlightened sage had given a demon a boon that the demon could only be killed by a sow. When the sow had accomplished its divine mission. it continued to act like a sow and started raising a litter of piglets. Since it was God incarnate, it continued throughout uninterrupted in it its peace and bliss. In fact it was so contented with its state that it felt that all other sentient beings should be born as pigs. When the divinities of the various heavens got wind of this, they had the sow killed, lest God’s feelings became wishes – in which case they too would have to be born as pigs. Depending on the person, sometimes the planet can be with us.
“What these people are in effect calling for is a return to darkness, to a world governed by superstition, where the stars overhead are campfires, disease is caused by evil spirits and the world is a flat surface sitting on a turtle’s back.”
William Harvey’s (1578-1657) “Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus ” (An Anatomical Disquisition On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals) was published in 1628, prior to which the circulation of blood was unknown and not even considered. I cannot conceive of a future time when the basic fact of the circulation of blood will be lost to humanity. Likewise there are so many other items of knowledge that will be retained. Although it is possible that large tracts of knowledge may be lost, a reversion to an exact previous state is not possible. This topic was discussed at length on The Oil Drum and addressed at length in John Michael Greer’s book Our Ecotechnic Future.
‘I used to have a bit softer way of responding but batting ideas around with mostly men wore off the soft edges”:
I have myself seen that effect: I did a year of surgical residency in 1974-75 at which time I had the acquaintance of a variety of nurses, such as med-surg floor nurse, operating room float nurse, scrub nurse, surgical intensive care unit nurse, etc. But the ones with consistently similar personalities were the operating room nursing supervisors: when occasion arose, they could be adamantine to a degree that the thought came to mind that they were a female canine. They developed that from dealing with surgeons – a group of big egos insistent or getting their way.
“Jared Diamond tells of the PNG as often having one very old person in a village who is taken care of extremely well.”
Since the time of Sergei Brin and Larry Page, Google’s server farms are filling that niche. Indeed those server farms are taken care of extremely well. Regrettably though, when the grid goes, the internet may accompany it.
“Complexity increases as problems are solved. As I often say “every solution has a problem” thus we move from problem to problem and from simple to complex. It has always resulted in a crash.”
Perhaps the reason the Australian aborigine communities have survived virtually unchanged for 40,000 years the longest surviving extant culture – before the British “civilized’ them.
“Watch your parents to learn how to skin the rabbit. Watch them to learn how to make a fire with sticks.”
Actually that was the way for Homo sapiens et al, until technical know-how began to dominate human activities. No matter how close one ‘watches” an architect, an oncologist, a nuclear engineer, etc, their seemingly simple actions emerge from voluminous knowledge, little of which is bared by those acts.
“Since we climbed down from the trees, what has happened was inevitable.”
What do you call a _________ (insert preferred ethnic epithet here) sitting in a tree full of monkeys? “Branch Manager”. However in the perspective of current trends, mis-manager would be more appropriate.
“TEOLAWKI has a better feel to it, more personal, more immediate. Next month gas will be $4.00. Shit will not hit the fan.”
When s**t is $4.00 we will know that some lessons about closing ecological loops have been learnt and that will be real progress.
“The enlightened one does the same – follows one’s nature.”
“………how can one follow one’s nature in a repressive culture which outlaws certain expressions of human nature?”
Clover withers in a drought – following its own nature.
“Now I ask you, how do you get 100,000 fewer jobs created at the same time you reduce the level of unemployment?”
in an infantry company, if the captain has said so. it must be true. Likewise when Big Brother says so. it is true.
“VOLATILE PRICES, EXPECTED
LIMITED AVAILABLITITY, AND MEDIOCRE QUALITY AT BEST.”
Subsist on “bread & water?” as occasionally done in Army stockades?
February 10th, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Dr. House, your theory of Atlantean exiles, the rise of civilization and the onset of global warming sounds like a perfect synthesis of doomer nuttiness. After all, this is a community with leaders like occultist reactionary and staunch opponent of the Enlightenment, John Michael Greer, professional astrologer Matt Savinar, mental hospital veteran James Howard “dow to 4000″ Kunstler, and now Guy “Dark Age in 2012, Stone age in 2025” McPherson.
In other words, the doomer community is not a place where rational thought is a prerequisite for intellectual leadership. To put it less charitably, many of its leaders are nutcases! It’s too bad Ted Kaczynski doesn’t have internet access at the supermax prison in Colorado, I’m sure he would quite enjoy this blog and could make some very astute contributions to the conversation. Let’s hope our esteemed host can avoid the fate of that most notorious martyr for the cause of technological civilization’s destruction and return to the realm of rationality before it’s too late.
As a side note, let me give you all a piece of advice I learned the hard way from my days as a lizard-brained prophet of doom: stop making predictions of imminent collapse due to the crisis du jour, because it will only make you look like a fool when it fails to cause this rather sturdy house of cards called industrial civilization to fall!
February 11th, 2011 at 12:03 am
My impression is that utopians (both doomers and of the progress variety) (often) begin with the concept of the future they have a normative preference for, for some reason or other, and then look for the data to support it (Cart before the horse/Affirming the consequent). In this regard the scientific approach is to be utterly agnostic about the future; I cannot know with any certainty how the future will be, because there is such complexity and proliferation of variables involved. Not only that – while there is a complex determinism involved, individuals also have the option of using their free will if they put their brains into gear and implement critical (non-automatic and non-dogmatic through). What one can do is extrapolate from current trends (analyze deterministic tendencies) and perform counter-factual analyses (take into account free-will and chance at the level of individuals).
Thus conclusions are themselves hypotheses or perhaps probabilistic ranges of outcomes that can only be falsified or attain verification through the passing of time. It is an existential condition that one must learn to live with the fallibility of knowledge. In fact I think those who profess to have such knowledge (whether optimists or pessimists) stand in the way of REAL solutions to the problems facing the world.
So, if you reach your conclusions using questionable methods, arguments, questionable selection of data ect you make a mockery of the good efforts to improve the world. Secondly, I cannot trust any claim to absolute certain truth, and i find it suspicious when somebody refuses to entertain the possibility of being wrong. It smacks of extremism!
February 11th, 2011 at 3:21 am
‘I cannot know with any certainty how the future will be, because there is such complexity and proliferation of variables involved. Not only that – while there is a complex determinism involved, individuals also have the option of using their free will if they put their brains into gear and implement critical (non-automatic and non-dogmatic through). What one can do is extrapolate from current trends (analyze deterministic tendencies) and perform counter-factual analyses (take into account free-will and chance at the level of individuals). ‘
When I was a manager, I used to hire folks like you to help analyse a particular problem set and rationalise a practical solution. You are a true analyst. You know how to analyse a problem from bottom up and top down. With utmost thoroughness. That’s good. We need people like that – desperately. But there is a dark side to the analyst. If you set them free, they will analyse a problem to an infinite degree. They won’t (can’t) stop because there always remains a new variable to expose and study, and a new way of processing variables. And even when they reach a point where they are happy to offer some limited prognosis, they invariably qualify it with some confidence factor, and are usually quite hesitant to firmly recommend a course of action without multiple caviats.
So how did I handle such people, whose value to a project was without question, but who could in reality destroy that project if turned loose? I gave them limits. I set both time limits and scope limits, and instructed them in a kindly manner, “Overstep these boundaries at your own risk.”…
They truly did not like that, but I got some of their best work doing that.
Multiples of variables, and complexity of detail can strangle any effort to effect change. This is a way of saying that sometimes one needs to rise above the complexity and begin to get a grasp of the bigger picture, and one needs to understand that sometimes there is a time constraint existing that determines future courses of action – that you simply can not afford to wallow in detail and complexities whilst Rome burns.
At some point the scientific method has inherent limits as a method of determining a course of action. In the case of the future of human civilisation, the scientific method has been used to the point in several disciplines to give us more than enough data to begin the process of projecting the likely direction things will take, and perhaps even a degree of confidence as to when this will happen.
Though there exist innumerable variables, constants and constraints on the human problem, there are certain key ones to take into account and that I believe we can use as reliable indicators of our future and that of the natural environment – population, resource availability, the impact of technology and its marginal benefits (as you well stated in your post recently), human behavioural characteristics, and time constraints imposed upon the system by critical components of any of the fore-mentioned variables.
If one steps back and observes these variables, their inherent constraints and their basic inter-relationships, which have been studied to a degree where we can identify definite trends, then one can, with what I believe to be relative certainty, determine the direction in which events are taking us and the Natural world.
This has nothing to do with starting with the premise of some utopia and then gathering supporting facts. I know of no one on this site that does such a thing. Do you?
February 11th, 2011 at 4:58 am
Sue thanks for the vid clip – sometimes a song gets thing across in a way written words fail.
Texas grid blackouts – climate chaos strikes?
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7449#more
It feels like Gail Tverberg put this article together in haste but it points out interconnectedness that we often don’t realize are a problem until they are a problem. Gail downplays global climate change, even deleting comments addressing it, one of the reasons I stopped commenting on TOD. But she has written a lot on the grid that is worth reading.
Richard Duncan thinks that likely the grid is our Achilles heel, especially in the US. It is in fact one huge machine governed by deregulated companies that are all more interested in their own profit than the grid as a whole continuing to function. Sort of like having 10 CEO’s each managing one part of your body. Not a good idea. If the entire US grid goes down for a certain number of days I do not believe we will ever get it up and running again. Maybe 5 or 10 days. We cannot pump gasoline to send out repair trucks without having electricity. We cannot make more gasoline without electricity. The list goes on. We have made ourselves extremely fragile.
On another topic there are some unsubstantiated rumors that the King of Saudia Arabia has died. http://www.businessinsider.com/abdullah-dies-report-2011-2
February 11th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Where we are going will always be an unknown. Knowing where we are seems to be the important issue. Sue’s video portrays the idiocy/horror well.
We have batted around the idea here that the possible imminent extinction of the human species could be a cause for in action in our lives. This has gotten my attention because I am trying to come to terms with how to make decisions for my life, as many of us here are. The reasons I am going to let go of imminent extinction as a reason for in action are …
1. our species will become extinct sooner or later
2. we are born into a finite life
3. all we have is this moment
I am still wrestling with life change issues but doing nothing because we very well may be extinct soon will not be a choice for me. My species will become extinct, I will die, I am living now!
February 11th, 2011 at 7:07 am
Robin, “Depending on the person, sometimes the planet can be with us.” I didn’t get this … is it worth explaining?
LOL “When s**t is $4.00 we will know that some lessons about closing ecological loops have been learnt and that will be real progress.”
February 11th, 2011 at 7:26 am
Sarah,
I like your approach – very rational, very practical. We really do not know how long this thing is going to play out. Therefore, I believe we should live each day for the value it bears – and as current events show, each day is becoming much more valuable.
February 11th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Per Farmers of Forty Centuries http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5350
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers_of_Forty_Centuries
The Chinese understood the value of human manure, paying for it to be brought from the cities to the farms and decorating outhouses near the roads to encourage the traveler to leave it here not there.
Bird and Bat manure was once so valuable that they sent ships from Europe to harvest it off of the islands of South America and the US passed the Guano Island Act “In the 1840s, guano came to be prized as an agricultural fertilizer and as a source of saltpeter for gunpowder. In 1855, the U.S. learned of rich guano deposits on islands in the Pacific Ocean. Congress passed the Guano Islands Act to take advantage of these deposits. The act specifically allows the islands to be considered a possession of the U.S., but it also provided that the U.S. was not obliged to retain possession after the guano was exhausted. However, it did not specify what the status of the territory was after it was abandoned by private U.S. interests. The implication is that it would return to its former status as terra nullius.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano_Island_Act
Unfortunately in the US it will take quite a bit to re-train citizens to see s**t as a valuable asset. We have fecophobia. http://weblife.org/humanure/chapter6_2.html
February 11th, 2011 at 7:46 am
Victor-your comment about analysts was very well said!
Sarah and Victor-I never meant to say I or we should give up. I will not do that. Three years in depresson is long enough. Time to do something!
The Cosmist-I asked you a question earlier. Perhaps you did not read it. I’d like to try again:
Your vision of the future is appealing on many levels, not the least of which it gives me hope for my children. But in order to achieve what you say is possible, it seems to me the following issues will have to be resolved, and soon.
All nations of the world, all peoples of the world, will have to agree to:
1. Immediately dissolve the military in all countries. Money spent here will be needed for more important things, like climate control and fusion power.
2. Immediately reduce the birth rate, by a great degree. For at least several generations.
3. Abolish all corporations. Corporations act for the benefit of their shareholders and these acts often run contrary to the best interests of the world at large.
4. End the money based and consumer-based economy. Develop a financial system based on steady-state or diminishing resources.
5. Share resources fairly.
6. Cooperate, on a scale never before seen.
I’m sure I’ve left out much more that would need to be addressed, but these should suffice. Jokes have been made about a Federation of Planets. I happen to like that idea. Star Trek gave hope to many of us that the future could be something grand. I recall World War III
was mentioned several times as part of the time line. Perhaps we will have to go through something like that in order to learn the necessary lessons. I just can’t see us going through steps 1 – 6 with our current mind sets. Is there some example in our history when
such a monumental change occurred? Or do you see some way that our present world can make these changes, given current conditions? As I said before, I would love to think we could. But if this is not possible, then your claims of human ingenuity and achievement overcoming all appears to be wishful thinking.
February 11th, 2011 at 8:53 am
One of the most interesting doomsday arguments, i stumbled across in Stephen Baxter’s sci-fi novel called “Time” (From the manifold trilogy). It was a thought experiment, which employs Bayesian statistics and is called the Carter Catastrophy. It goes something like this: supposing the humans alive today are in a random place in the whole human history timeline, chances are we are about halfway through it. Ang given exponential growth the other half will be done in the blink of an eye. As Baxter writes:
“Imagine that two big urns are put in front of you, and you know that one of them contains ten balls and the other a million, but you are ignorant as to which is which. You know the balls in each urn are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 … etc. Now you take a ball at random from the left urn, and it is number 7. Clearly, this is a strong indication that that urn contains only ten balls. [...]
But now consider the case where instead of the urns you have two possible human races, and instead of balls you have individuals, ranked according to birth order. As a matter of fact, you happen to find that your rank is about sixty billion. Now, say Carter and Leslie, we should reason in the same way as we did with the urns. That you should have a rank of sixty billion or so is much more likely if only 100 billion persons will ever have lived than if there will be many trillion persons. Therefore, by Bayes’ theorem, you should update your beliefs about humankind’s prospects and realize that an impending doomsday is much more probable than you have hitherto thought.”
The point being, it is highly unlikely that there will be gazillions of generations to follow, since this would make you a highly improbable occurrence in the history of man. The likely thing to expect is that you exist exactly as there are most people on the globe. Ergo, a cataclysmic catastrophe is about to happen
BOOM we’re goners!
My god I’ve just been killed by mathematics
February 11th, 2011 at 9:14 am
@The Cosmist: ‘this is a community with leaders like occultist reactionary and staunch opponent of the Enlightenment, John Michael Greer, professional astrologer Matt Savinar, mental hospital veteran James Howard “dow to 4000″ Kunstler, and now Guy “Dark Age in 2012, Stone age in 2025” McPherson.’
Thanks for almost including me in such an esteemed group of people! A nice compliment indeed!
‘In other words, the doomer community is not a place where rational thought is a prerequisite for intellectual leadership. To put it less charitably, many of its leaders are nutcases!’
Pot, meet kettle.
February 11th, 2011 at 10:28 am
Incidentally, the thought experiment is obviously faulty, since everybody will always be forced to conclude that the world is about to end. From the first cave men to Flash Gordon. And the world can’t always be ending at any given time
February 11th, 2011 at 10:50 am
Today, I am an Egyptian. Congratulations to all the young people in Egypt responsible for this wonderful and historical event today.
February 11th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Victor, yes for today we can feel the joy….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-RUzjpJyoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ct_QAo1Yuc
Sometimes the tyrants fall….
Today is all we know we have for sure and today we can celebrate the heroes of Tahrir (Independence Square)!!!! Its a good day.
February 11th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Privileged wrote: “Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.”
That’s great, Privileged! Where does that come from? Can you provide a reference?
It’s similar to this, which I thought came from Ambrose Bierce, but I can’t find it.
bomb: (n) An instrument of persuasion. When used by those in power, its use is called noble, measured, and earns Nobel Peace Prizes. When used by those not in power, its use is called terrorism, cowardly, and is subject to deadly retaliation. With apologies to whomever I can’t find who wrote something similar before me…
Maybe we should arm the bonobos?
Better to disarm ourselves, although I don’t really think that’s about to happen.
February 11th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
John, I support most of those goals, but they aren’t going to happen overnight. Notice that most of them follow naturally from a continued trajectory of increasing global prosperity. I believe we’re in for many surprises, black swans, scientific and technological breakthroughs, cultural changes, etc. in the near future that will make most of the fears of today’s doomers irrelevant. People have always projected current trends into the future and panicked, but future innovations have a way of making their concerns look silly (Paul Erlichman comes to mind here, as do all those educated fools who said heavier than air travel and space flight were physically impossible). Our planet is capable of supporting at least 100 billion people indefinitely in a technological mode of life, believe it or not, so people who insist that a die-off must begin by next Wednesday are mostly operating out of fear and ignorance.
February 11th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
@Jan,the premise is one of twenty from Derrick Jensen’s Endgame.
February 11th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Part of the hoped for collapse of the economy (hoped for not because any of us want to see our way of life go down, but because we do not want to see the ecology of the planet that gives us life destroyed) is proceeding apace
Here is again a case of NOTHING learned from history, not even very very recent history
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27461.htm
Make Sure the Wheelbarrow is Ready
By Mike Whitney
February 11, 2011 “Information Clearing House” — The game is on. Two years of zero rates, limitless guarantees, and a $2 trillion drip-feed from the Fed, has lifted Wall Street from the canvas and put the speculators back in the thick-of-things. It’s a miracle. Who would have thought that Bernanke could engineer another bubble this fast. But he has. Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are increasing, LBO’s (Leveraged buyouts) are on the rise, revolving credit (“plastic”) is expanding, and investors are scarfing up low-yield junk bonds wherever they can find them.
Still can’t believe it? Then, take a look at this from Businessweek:
“Home loans that inflated the U.S. housing bubble…are fueling the fastest gains in the mortgage-bond market….Prices for senior bonds tied to option adjustable-rate mortgages, called “toxic” by a government commission, typically jumped 6 cents to 64 cents on the dollar in the past month, according to Barclays Capital.
Rising values show Federal Reserve efforts to stimulate the economy by purchasing an additional $600 billion of Treasuries and holding interest rates near zero percent are driving investors into ever-riskier securities…..
The market is pricing in defaults on option ARMs of about 75 percent, according to hedge fund Metacapital Management LP in New York. As the worst housing slump since the Great Depression deepened, assumptions reached as high as 90 percent, said Whalen, who’s based in Los Angeles.”(“‘Toxic’ Mortgages Rally as Resets Accelerate: Credit Markets”, Businessweek)
Got that? Investors are loading up on these garbage bonds even though they expect 75% of them will go belly-up. That’s what you call a Bernanke gold rush! And the author even points to Bernanke’s QE2 as the proximate cause for the feeding frenzy.
And then there’s this from dailyfinance.com:
“The New York Stock Exchange released data showing that margin credit — money investors borrow to buy shares — increased to $276 billion in December, up from $233 billion at the start of the year. That reflects a sharply higher stock market but also an increased appetite for borrowing.” (“With Consumer Credit Up Sharply, Is America Releveraging?”, dailyfinance.com)
Yup, it’s bubble-time again.
February 11th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
On the same theme
“NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The International Monetary Fund issued a report Thursday on a possible replacement for the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/markets/dollar/index.htm
Didn’t we invade Iraq to keep Sadaam from trading oil in currency other than Euros. Maybe we can invade the IMF?
February 11th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
So happy to see this conversation still going on.
Seems to me TZM3 has the group busy out drumming up converts.
Found a great discussion here that explained so much if anyone is interested. (http://www.hubberts-arms.org/index.php/topic,3351.0.html)
Great writing as always Guy and glad you liked the song.
=)
February 11th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
victor, kathy, et.al., i’m afraid the egyptians’ victory in ousting mubarak is going to be a very hollow one. as the link below shows, egypt is going to be one of the first and perhaps hardest casualties of collapse. they’re vastly over-populated, oil production peaked 15 years ago, the whole country is desert, heavily dependent on imported food, the price of food’s going to skyrocket, and without oil to export, they aren’t going to be able to afford it. i think it’s comment #22 to the linked article that maybe sums it up best, and here i’ll loosely paraphrase: the oil wealth has already been looted!
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/egypts-warning-are-you-listening/52575
February 12th, 2011 at 1:03 am
VT,
I fear you are correct. We must always keep our eyes on the context, eh? Neverthless, it is a good feeling seeing the people show their real power for a change…
February 12th, 2011 at 7:57 am
Humanity is creating conditions for both a collapse of industrial civilization and collapse of Earth’s biosphere.
If civilization collapses first, billions of humans will die and, unless we have passed the tipping point, the biosphere will recover somewhat. Eventually, humanity would breed itself back to where we are today.
If civilization hangs on long enough, the biosphere will be degraded to the point of collapse and our extinction will be one of the millions. Eventually, the biosphere would recover from severely diminished biodiversity, as it did from 65 million years ago.
There’s a third possibility that could avoid both collapses: voluntary human extinction through non-breeding. If we choose to stop creating more humans, those of us alive will potentially live in ever-improving conditions, retaining our technology as we phase out ourselves, our industry, and our domesticated species. Wildlife and its habitat could increase as there are fewer of us.
This may not be as likely as the collapse we seem to be accelerating toward, but we can be the change we want to see in the world. Thank you for not breeding. http://vhemt.org
February 12th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
No, thank *you* for not breeding! Why stop there? Why not call for the extermination of humanity via technological means? We have much more efficient ways of eradicating the human virus today than old age or even Zyklon-B gas. What you’re suggesting is not only never going to happen, but it’s far too slow. Please think your ideas through before you embarrass yourself and your comrades with these absurd proposals!
February 12th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
the virgin terry Says: “… i’m afraid the egyptians’ victory in ousting mubarak is going to be a very hollow one. as the link below shows… comment #22 to the linked article that maybe sums it up best, and here i’ll loosely paraphrase: the oil wealth has already been looted!”
Thanks for the plug! (#22 is my comment.)
Chris Martenson’s “Crash Course” is well worth looking over, if you aren’t already familiar with it. He ties the problem of growth, financial collapse, peak oil, and global warming all together nicely. I was an early reviewer before it was complete, and bought a whole box of DVDs of it when it first came out, which I distributed to friends and relatives, none of whom have changed their lives in any way, but at least I can say they’ve been warned!
February 13th, 2011 at 7:14 am
@The Cosmist, I shae your concern that our voluntary extinction by natural attrition might take too long, since we may have passed the tipping point. However, “extermination of humanity via technological means” is what we are already doing, and we’re taking millions of other species with us. Perhaps you’re right that “We have much more efficient ways of eradicating the human virus,” but if you think about what that would entail in reality, I doubt you would recommend it. Homo sapiens is not a virus, by the way” we have the capacities for reason and compassion. Sometimes we even use them.
February 13th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Jan & Terry, so is it that, Terry you referenced a comment at Martenson’s site not realizing that it was Jan’s?
February 14th, 2011 at 8:49 am
What of democracy? Why does democracy prevail? What is the source of democracy’s lasting value? Can democracy make a difference?
To psychologists like myself the terms superego, ego and id are commonplace and refer to the remarkable institutions of an individual’s mind. In a similar way the words judiciary, executive and legislature are ever so familiar signifiers for political scientists and many others of the national institutions which organize our country into a democracy. That these great systems of “mind” and “state” may emanate from a common, all- too-human nature has been discussed many times heretofore.
These brief comments attempt to extend that discussion and are a condensed presentation of a way in which the recognizable institutions composing the mind and the state might be objectively correlated. I present it now here because it seems somehow right, and possibly useful, for human beings to communicate their perceptions about basic aspects of our shared reality. As an example, consider how the judicial branch of government possesses certain essential features of the mind’s superego; that the executive branch functions much like the ego; and of course the ways the legislature most directly represents the wishes and needs of human beings everywhere and reflects the id.
The nature and significance of the relationship between mind and state has been commented upon since the early days of Western civilization. This commentary begins with Pythagoras’ effort to answer the questions: What is the nature of human nature, and how might this nature express itself in the organization of human society? To put these questions another way: May the structure and dynamics of the mind have significance for the manner in which the social world is ordered and functions? Pythagoras and later Plato perceived that the organization of two levels — the psychological/individual and the governmental/societal — could be governed by the same principles. While Pythagoras is most likely the first to record this relationship, one of the truly impressive portrayals of these symmetrical psychological and governmental formations is to be found in the Dialogues of Plato, wherein he presented three governance mechanisms of the city-state mirroring three psychic agencies perceived ubiquitously within the human beings who belong to that city-state. It appears that the three governing elements of a state are derived from individuals who themselves possess these same elements in a terminal system he called psyche, others have called soul, and we call mind.
By fixing his analysis on the conflict among certain institutions of government, Plato posited that the social order is a replica of a person’s conflict-ridden mind, but on a much larger scale. Indeed, it has appeared to some people throughout the course of Western civilization that governance mechanisms of a state originate in, and are congruent with, the agencies which compose the mind. That is to say, the origin of a social order is not bestowed by a higher authority or based upon a conscious ’social contract’ , but given in what is uniquely human in the nature of the individuals themselves.
From this perspective, a state also is not the product of an historical process as many since Cicero have believed, but rather is derived from something plain and fundamental in the minds of its membership. It is possible to consider individual minds as microcosms in which the governing features of a macrocosmic social order can be apprehended and, in a most rudimentary way, understood.
It may be fruitful to consider this fundamental relationship in which the human being gives objectivity to his/her terminal system in the formation of a state, yet does not often acknowledge the independence and validity of the governing institutions in this ‘object’ as being reflections of her/his own nature. This does not mean that the individual is equal to, or stands above, this necessary object. On the contrary, the state is above the individual and governs her/him. The point here is merely this: a plurality of individuals projects its commonly-held psychic elements into governance mechanisms of the state and then makes itself subordinate to this external organization. Human beings, it appears, are by nature constituted for social living, and most people become engaged in the outward events of the social and material world as a way of meeting basic needs determined by the practical requirements of reality.
Ancient thinkers as well as contemporary scholars have postulated that there can be no meaningful human existence absent a social order. Perhaps it can be said that certain aspects of mentation are knowable because the mind presents itself both in three distinguishable parts to itself and in three governance mechanisms of the state. This mind / state relationship can be thought of as an example of the state having been generalized from, or having taken on the structure of, animating principles of unity in the mind of the individual. Individual members of a state unconsciously consent to be governed, as it were, by a state which typifies their nature. It is then plausible that the state comes closest to ensuring the expression of naturally determined human potential and relational capabilities of its members, as their ‘lights’ accord them a view of just what potential and capacity for relations they possess. Institutions of government begin to exist where individuals in sufficient numbers recognize that they are incapable of providing for their well being through personal thought and initiative alone. By adequately organizing governance mechanisms, government deals at once with inner conflict and outer challenges to the social order in much the same way the psychological agencies in the mind of the individual respond to the needs of the self. The state has ultimate concern for the needs of the individual by ensuring the opportunity for the fulfillment of those purposes for which individuals are created. Those governments which are most successful in accomplishing this goal are founded upon an understanding of the capacities of human beings, with particular attention to the goals toward which human beings
tend. Then the state becomes a structure common to individual minds; conversely, their common psychic structure serves as a model that is employed to organize, authorize and empower governance mechanisms which direct society toward a remote, unreachable goal: the good of all.
Here we identify a dynamic terminal system in its individual and its societal form. In the latter, human beings shape, amplify and adapt governance mechanisms according to their make-up in the formation and maintenance of a personality writ large, called a state. Since the dawn of Western civilization notice has been taken regarding how governance mechanisms of a state may spring from and ‘mirror’ the interplay of structured, psychodynamic distinctions of personality. Thanks to certain eminent psychological findings by S. Freud and to the constitutional inventions of T. Jefferson, we can see with more clarity how the structure, the dynamics and the overall momentum of the mind furnish the model for the structuring and functioning of a democracy.
February 14th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
In light of what I have tried to communicate, however feebly and tentatively, about democracy, perhaps we can better understand the psychological dynamics of human mentation as well as discern the behavior of the citizens of Egypt as they go about the task of forming a democratic government.
February 14th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Don’t have an attribution, but I’ve always agreed with this: “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep, voting on what to have for dinner.”
February 15th, 2011 at 7:33 am
Perhaps what we need, maybe all we need, is an adequately functioning democracy, but first ordinary people will have to liberate ourselves from the pernicious, widely shared and consensually validated thinking of a tiny minority in the human community who extol the virtue of greedmongering as good, as an activity to be valued most highly.
Even an enlightened dictator is not a person in whom I could place much faith. We need for duly elected, common people who are chosen by a society to accept the responsibilities and fulfill the duties of leadership by meaningfully embracing democratic principles and eschewing greed, by not “selling out” to greedmongers.
It appears to me that the most arrogant, foolhardy and avaricious, self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us rule the world in our time, and rule it absolutely. This situation is bold evidence of a corruption of democracy, not an example of the reasonable exercise of democratic principles and practices. These circumstances are not only a colossal insult to human beings with feet of clay, but also are a clear and present danger to global biodiversity, Earth’s environs, its limited resources and to a good enough future for the children.
Democracy requires representatives who reject the entreaties and bribes of greedmongers as well as embrace principles and practices that promote long-term well being of ordinary people and not only the short-term desires and fantasies of masters of the universe.
February 16th, 2011 at 5:57 am
And after fearlessly acknowledging many problems and courageously fighting on so many fronts, we find ourselves in the unexpected position of not yet having mustered the nerve to openly discuss either the necessity for finding balance in relationship between humankind and the natural world we inhabit, thanks be to God, or the bold fact that a good enough future for coming generations to Earth is being stolen from them now here, before our eyes, thanks to the relentless, soon to become patently unsustainable pursuits of self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us.
February 19th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Well for f*&ksake stop saying human species this, humankind that and grow up and face the reality modern industrial “civilised” humans and “our” culture are the real issue NOT homo sapiens!
Until this is faced, it’s evident you are Not following indigenous people plea/advice for right now: DECOLONISE YOUR HEARTS AND MINDS! You may find yourself enmeshed in a pathologically suicidally insane dominant culture, but it isn’t who YOU are.
The myths of this culture come through very clearly, even here sadly.
There are probably at least 10,000 different ways to live ecologically sustainably on this planet, and the dominant one is NOT it! Our task os to face up to this and start the process of relocalising, becoming indigenous to our landbases again…almost impossible, but someones going to have to do it, lead the way.
Thanks Guy for the leadership you are showing through doing what you’re doing and sharing it here!
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:49 pm
How do we go about “de-industrialising” especially when dealing with a system which desperatly resists change and pursues growth at its own ultimate cost?
It would require “The Monkey Wrench Gang” writ large.
thanks
Martin
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Our seventeen year-old son was rather melancholy the other week; when I asked him why he said it was because his little step-brother would not get to see the world he knew, it’s falling apart too quickly.
April 27th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Thank you SO much for your blog. You present an important discussion. Anyone following the science can understand life in the year 2100 – grim, if at all.
What we fail to understand is the near future, the next few years, this decade. And few of us want to discuss it.
Thanks for all that you do.
May 5th, 2011 at 2:43 am
Harry, that is sobering.
Iam one year shy of 50 and have two nieces and nephews, the oldest 25 and youngest just out college/high school. WQhat will the think as their world unravels before they can really start doing the things their parents generation has done.
I am glad I never had children
July 12th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
The great part about the situation is that there is no downside to trying to make a difference.
July 13th, 2011 at 4:40 am
I think like you Mr.Guy McPherson . But , unfortunately , there are very few on our side . In general , people are selfish . And , I think , this is our fundamental characteristic which lead us all to the final catastrophe .
July 13th, 2011 at 8:55 am
“Thorium” was the Question I asked Hansen in Gore New Zealand from the floor. Hansen said it was the best audience he had had (in New Zealand presumably). Alleles that rest on our 30,000 gene loci are 680 million years old in the cascade in getting to us as individuals and that is just the sex part of alleles. Also we have not, H.s.s., completed collecting and arranging our fissionable products on this earth yet. A task for the next 500,000 years. So I too like in one of the safest places on the planet and when the 300km by 3km by 2 km ice torpedos slide off the Antarctica producing waves the size of the Port Hill in Christchurch New Zealand there will go 80% of the world population in one day in the coastal areas. I live in south Waikato where the water will just lap around my feet before running back again. So are you in location location location to see this 24 hour period out and ready with technology ideas for the next 500,000 years. I think Ice age as well as Heist Age (play on the fractional reserve banking fait money system). Here are my policy concentrations. Learn to speak english and be feed. Men need to agree to have one child per life time for the next five generations and women can have as many children as they wish.
I watched you talk on Max Keiser. I like to say I see you needing a friendly comment on your website Guy. 
Ask Max to send you a gold and silver coin for his advanced say with you. lol. Ask him for enough to run the currency system of you valley group.
July 13th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
I live in the NWT of Canada I grew up here and over the last 20 years I have seen with my own eyes and felt the north is warmer during winter and heavier rains in summer.
20 years is very fast for earth time!
September 14th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
do you have fb?
November 20th, 2011 at 9:22 pm
It seems that the Arctic will be ice free in summer by 2015. It takes 81 times the energy to melt ice than to raise water 1 degree. Once that ice is gone, I suspect that runaway warming to some hotter state will commence.
We are flailing in a rushing river, about to go a waterfall. There’s little we can do. Perhaps, as we fall, we will regain our humanity. Or perhaps we’ll devolve into genocidal cannibals. Perhaps we’ll see a rainbow…
February 15th, 2012 at 1:25 pm
My take on the whole thing is that there is no climate crisis. There are also no energy, freshwater or land crises. There is only a runaway human population crisis. Like all organisms under similar staits, we will suffer shortages in resources and buildup in waste products. Solve the population crisis and technology can keep pace with industrialization, Fail to and nothing can save us.
April 15th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
What’s the big deal? Population of any species follows the resources available to it. A new species rolls into a habitat and jumps in population while it consumes the pre-existing resources, and then numbers fall back to a sustainable level. Mathematicians and biologists have modeled this for many species. Why wouldn’t it apply to the human species as well? Are we somehow immune to basic biological laws?
April 18th, 2012 at 10:03 am
Greetings all,
Guy, thanks for all your championing, you are not alone and your voice sings to me and mine:)
Amit Goswami – Quantim Physist – Oregon University
http://www.amitgoswami.org/
Please take the tme to watch his 1hr:15 video ‘The Quantim Activist’
It seems like somewhere between global warming leading to our physical extinction – and the theory that our collective conciousness is not on the physical plane maybe what is happening is destiny for it to all lead to our ‘transformation’ to a non-physical existance?
Love & Peace
May 28th, 2012 at 10:01 am
Seems to me your “solution” to the problem leaves no more hope for survival than the current course. Mass extinctions existed long before humans existed – and will again, unless we develop the capacity to stop it. Your “solution” eliminates the latter posibility. Given that, what’s the use of even worrying about it, as we (life on Earth) are all doomed anyway?
June 27th, 2012 at 11:44 am
Good post. Maybe you can comment on the UN proposal to tax the Internet? You know it will happen. Governments HATE the Internet.
July 26th, 2012 at 11:34 am
Thank you so much.
I don’t know if its just me, but I always get really really excited by anyone who predicts that the world will end, or that we need to extinguish billions of people for the world to survive. Back when I was a conspiracy theorist who believed in 9/11 “Inside job” theories, the world was so exciting. But then I started reading all the debunking websites and realized I was being silly.
Then I got involved in new age stuff! BOY WAS THAT FUN. All that time imagining creating my own reality with my thoughts. Then I got tired and realized all the people who study it couldn’t meaningfully prove their abilities and that even if it were real it was extremely weak.
Then the eurozone was on the verge of financial collapse. I was getting excited again. I thought…THIS TIME, something *BIG* is gonna happen, that will shake the foundations of the Earth! But then…as months passed on, all the doomsday forecasters pretty much repeated every month that the eurozone was going to go bankrupt. And then it never happened, and I was severely disappointed.
But my friend, today, the passion is back. You have inspired me with the bombastic language used in your posts. I can’t believe it, global warming will create the end of the world!! We have to actively destroy western civilization to save the Earth! WOWOWOWOOW thats some exciting stuff. I can’t wait to see if your predictions come true, you’re like the doomsday forecaster of all doomsday forecasters
. I don’t mean it in a bad way, I thoroughly enjoy it (obviously).
Looking forward to more bombastic language,
Cordially yours,
Piotr B.
July 26th, 2012 at 11:39 am
Aww crap, in my overzealous excitement I realized you weren’t actually saying we need to exterminate people, just that climate change WILL KILL OF OUR SPECIES!!
Oh well thats a shame. I thought you were going to share a plan to set off a series of nuclear weapons to destroy western civlization and save the planet, and then there would be a big multi-pronged investigation by the FBI or CIA (whichever, I dunno) where you would fly to Iran in an attempt to help them get their nuclear weapons program online. *SIGH* that’s probably not going to happen, is it.
Well. We can always look forward to THE EXTINCTION OF THE HUMAN RACE!! This is the most exciting day of my life
Cordially yours (again),
Piotr B