I’ve embedded one of the thirteen presentations I delivered over a span of eight days. It’s my final presentation, excluding Q&A (which might come later), which partially explains my on-and-off incoherence (the remainder is inexplicable, as usual).

The presentation includes a half-hearted pitch of my final book. The book is available, a couple months earlier than anticipated, and can be found at this link as well as the usual online outlets. If all goes according to plan, I’ll receive a few copies later today. The book has already been reviewed by Sandy Krolick, the kulturCritic and Cameron Conaway, the poet. Krolick’s review was picked up by Transition Voice, and Conaway’s review was run by Examiner.

I’m trying to produce video from my presentation at a Harvest Gathering Festival with a barn as venue. I may post it at a later date, if all goes according to plan. It includes no slides, and the material differs considerably from the one above.

Reaction was mixed, as usual. Some people, such as this college student, found my messages unbelievable. Others quibbled with the timing of the sources I presented (I carefully avoided pushing my own predictions). Standing ovations were rare — even though I begged for them — but in the end several people understood the importance of collapse if we are to extend our run as a species.

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Huge thanks to Shelley Youngman, who facilitated, organized, chauffeured, and hosted. A kindred spirit, Shelley was kind enough to make many of the arrangements and also to spend large blocks of time with me. Voluntarily, no less.

Thanks, too, to my many new friends and hosts (in the order I met them): Mike Draney and Vicki Medland (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay), Steve DeGoosh and Brooke Isham (Northern Michigan University), Sarah Redmond and Dan Redmond (Alger Community Transition), Shelley Youngman and Frank Youngman (Transition Cadillac), and Kimberly Sager and Aaron Wissner (Local Future).

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This post is permalinked at Plan B Economics and Survival Acres.

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.

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This post is permalinked at Counter Currents.

When our son Ben was born in 1999, my wife Stacy and I decided that one child was enough. For starters, there was her obvious discomfort during the pregnancy. Financially, we knew that we could not afford to put multiple children through college. Our chosen careers brought in a comfortable income as long as we kept our ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ clearly in balance. In addition, my wife wanted to stay home with the baby for at least a year and then return to professional employment. All of this required us to quickly re-think our careers, retirement plans, and even where we lived. As any decent parent will tell you, children have a way of doing this.

At a conference in 2008, I attended a panel discussion on the future of ‘sustainability.’ A researcher from the emerging science of bio-mimicry explained how rising levels of carbon dioxide emissions would destroy much of the world’s ecosystems. With obvious difficulty, she managed to suppress her emotions long enough to describe the future she thought awaited her children. In order to prepare them for the challenges ahead, she was teaching them to be ‘resilient.’

Following the conference, I began my own research into the effects of climate change. It was then that I came across the complex economic theory of ‘peak oil’ as explained by Richard Heinberg, Colin Campbell, and many others. Quite suddenly it was clear to me that the ‘endless growth’ model of western civilization was coming to an end and that this process would only be exacerbated by the effects of climate change. This time, it wasn’t just my own future that needed re-thinking, it was my son’s as well.

How could I prepare us for an uncertain future without scaring my family? Moving to Canada or joining a ‘life boat’ community was not an option unless I wanted a swift divorce. We did not have the money to go ‘off the grid’ even if it made sense in an urban neighborhood. My wife was supportive but unwilling to confront the issue head on; she left that duty to me. As I thought through the ramifications of the ‘long emergency’ I desperately needed to channel that energy into something productive.

At the time, my wife had a co-worker who brought fresh eggs into the office: We were hooked. With my wife and son’s enthusiastic support, I set about designing a chicken coop for ourselves. My goal was to make this a neighbor-friendly project and use it as a teaching opportunity. The small city where we live permitted chickens, but had an unwritten policy banning roosters.

The first step was to teach my son the fine art of dumpster diving for construction materials. We kept our eyes on local construction bins, obtained the necessary permissions, put on our gloves and went safely to work. We salvaged scraps of construction lumber, half sheets of exterior grade plywood, and even a few concrete blocks. During construction, I let my son and the neighbor’s kids pour concrete, nail framing, and put on a coat of paint. When it was ready, my wife drove down to the Farmer’s Co-op and brought home four hens in dog kennels.

We’ve had the girls (Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Molly) for 18 months. The three of us take turns distributing free eggs to neighbors who greatly appreciate them. In return we receive empty egg cartons and kitchen scraps for the chickens. Occasionally we are rewarded with homemade cookies or a jar of local preserves as barter. A neighbor down the street was so impressed with our effort, he built his own coop. Without a doubt, this experiment has been a huge success with one exception; our care for the chickens exceeds the current cost of eggs at the grocery store. As far as I am concerned, the benefits far outweigh the difference.

This initial effort at food production encouraged me to expand the little garden I have had for many years. Last spring, my son and I planted a wide variety of seeds including lettuce, collards, beans, tomatoes, and much more. The idea, I explained to him, was to see what we could grow in our shady yard that would feed us as well as the chickens. He helped with planting the seeds, transferring the young seedlings, watering during the summer heat and harvesting. It was his idea to protect the plants from local deer by cutting and bending a section of metal rabbit fencing over the rows. We took turns with the single pair of wire cutters and discussed ways to cover them with plastic when winter set in.

Although the summer drought reduced our yield, we had good success with the lettuce and collards. We all enjoy eating the fresh lettuce; our second crop is still producing. The collards are strictly for the chickens! As summer blended into fall, Ben helped me plant onion and garlic bulbs, which have come up beautifully. Again, this ongoing project serves two purposes. It’s about learning what I can grow in our yard as well as teaching Ben where his food comes from.

My next project was to teach him how to preserve food. I purchased a large canning pot and the required accessories before we headed off last May to pick strawberries. In August, he and I went to pick peaches at the local orchard where we pick apples in the fall. For those of you who have never tried this, canning preserves is hot, sticky work with potential health effects so I limited his initial involvement in the actual processing. This has not diminished his appreciation of his own efforts, which he is reminded of every time he pops the lid on a fresh jar of jam. To add to this new family tradition, we plan on opening the peaches with the first winter snow, or Christmas morning, whichever comes first.

Our next project together was to excavate a basic root cellar by hand. Although I did most of the hard digging with a pick, my son managed to extract a few buckets of Virginia red clay on his own. As the pit got deeper, I handed buckets up to him, he dumped them in the wheelbarrow and sent the empty buckets back down to me. At some point, the ‘fun’ of hauling dirt wore off and buckets started costing me 25 cents apiece. Needless to say, the economic lesson of working and saving money is an ongoing one at our house. Although it cost me a few dollars, it was important to me to teach Ben about the earth’s constant temperature below the frost line.

When Ben was just a year old, Stacy and I started reading to him each night at bedtime. Even though he is eleven now and an avid reader himself, he still enjoys this time together at the end of the day. Some of our favorite books written specifically for young readers happen to have post-apocalyptic settings. The main characters are always children struggling to make sense of their world with little parental guidance. These stories are filled with personal suffering, loss, and efforts at survival. I have used this opportunity to make correlations with our efforts here at home, such as bartering and gathering food. Although I never suggest to him that his future will bear any resemblance, I hope these themes find their way through the daily bombardment of advertising promising a lifestyle that will not come to pass.

These are a few examples of my efforts thus far to prepare us for an uncertain future. I’ve also made a habit of taking Ben to the local used bookstores whenever we need to add to our growing library of appropriate technologies. We frequently watch the ‘survival’ programs on television together and discuss the commonalities. He probably knows more about our debt-based fiat currency system than the average adult. Occasionally he asks for an update on the spot price of silver. However, not all of my ideas have been well received. When I first contemplated ways to prepare my son, I thought of lessons from my own childhood in the late 1970s and 80s.

Camping from Lake Kissimmee in Florida to Moosehead Lake in Maine is how I learned to be resilient. As kids we endured hours crammed in the back of an un-air-conditioned Toyota Corolla with nothing but books to read. For meals we stopped and ate food out of the cooler in the trunk. Our first night in a tent, we learned to trim the excess drop cloth so that it doesn’t collect rainwater. Waiting for the Coleman stove to boil water, dealing with sand, bugs, and things we left on the counter at home were all part of our training. Although I had taken Ben camping as a toddler, he and my wife were less than enthusiastic about this idea. I did however, have their full support to go on my own.

It is important to remember that this is an ongoing process. I will continue to monitor what I believe is the unwinding of western civilization and take what balanced measures are appropriate for my family. What works for us may not work for others. I know that I cannot adequately prepare my son for the magnitude of the changes I expect to occur. My hope is that these experiences will allow him to adapt more readily. In all honesty, it is difficult for me to remain positive all the time but I try not to let it affect Ben’s vision of his own future. We obviously want him to work hard at school and pursue his own interests. He has our full support. In a way, I find comfort in knowing that preparing our children for an uncertain future is a dilemma that all parents face.

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Jeff Sties lives with his wife Stacy and their son Benjamin in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is an architect and the principal of Sunbiosis PLC which specializes in energy efficient single family homes. Jeff and Stacy met while attending Virginia Tech where he graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Architecture degree.

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This essay is permalinked at Energy Bulletin.

Not that we should believe IEA about anything related to oil. This is the gang that promised an annual decline rate of 9.1% in conventional oil, beginning in 2009. We’re holding at a decline rate of about 3%, year over year, since early 2009.

Techno-optimists take note: It’ll take 131 years to replace oil. Not 130, and not 132, but 131. And we don’t have 4.9147 years left in the Age of Oil. That might prove problematic.

Taking a turn to the other side of the fossil-fuel coin, the IEA devastatingly projects global temperature will rise 3.5 degrees C by 2035. This prediction comes on the heels of increasingly dire projections, the latter of which all suggest habitat for humans will be gone from this planet by mid-century. I remain optimistic because none of these projections acknowledge physical limits on combustion of fossil fuels. That is, they fail to acknowledge the truly good news of economic collapse for our species and many others.

If we accept the IEA’s analysis and prediction, the few humans on the planet by 2035 won’t be worried about the price of air fare. We can only hope the projection for global temperature is based on the same kind of fuzzy logic used to conclude we’ve passed the world oil peak, then conclude we never will. Or we can hope the IEA is using climate change to justify economic collapse contraction. I suspect we’ll see a lot of this type of argument in the coming months, as the world’s industrial economy goes up in flames.

Just when you thought the Great Recession Great Bank Robbery was over, it turns out the courts are helping the banks steal money from homeowners. No surprise there, of course: Civilization is properly defined as the transfer of fiat currency from those who have little of it to those who have a lot. And there is nobody more civilized than Bernanke and Obama, as indicated by the way they spend print money on bank executives instead of us “little” people. If you have a sense of humor about the economic apocalypse, check out the video below, bearing in mind that if you can laugh at yourself, and you can laugh at the apocalypse, then you’ll never run out of material.

Fortunately, regardless of the lies by the likes of Geithner, Bernanke, and Obama, the days of fiat currency are just about behind us as collapse of the industrial economy nears completion. Ireland is the new Greece, but the U.S. is dogging both countries on the path to insolvency. Historian Niall Ferguson describes one plausible outcome here. Regardless of the details, soon — and perhaps soon enough, though only time will tell — we’ll be using Federal Reserve Notes as toilet paper or fire-starter, which will be handy when we can’t find either product at the grocery store.

The American Dream, which is based on never-ending economic growth, is over. Change is coming, and it’s not the peaceful kind. But it’s bound to be better than living in country governed by war criminals who are adorned with Nobel Peace prizes.

The TechnoMessiah has met Reality. As with the Federal Reserve’s money-printing vs. the secular bear market, there can be only one winner. I’m betting on Reality, in a rout.

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This essay is permalinked at Darwiniana, Counter Currents, Bill Totten’s Weblog, and Island Breath.

When I discuss mitigation for ecological and economic collapse, I stress the crucial role of human community. And I’m not the only one: A few students with whom I am working this semester are focusing on how to communicate in community, with full awareness where we are and where we’re headed. They have developed a blog, and I encourage your participation as we struggle to find our way in a world turned inside out.

Louisville, Kentucky public library Tuesday, 28 September 2010

Audio file (special thanks to Nate Pederson for recording and archiving the presentation — may he attract the attention of the government as a result)

Powerpoint (pdf)

International Bioenergy Days 2010 presentation Monday, 27 September 2010

Powerpoint (pdf)

When I present, I divide into bite-sized pieces the slides with considerable text. For example, the first slide below labeled “Climate chaos” is presented in six parts, with a bit of text added to each new slide; herein, I include only the final slide in the series.

I rarely use written notes, much less a transcript, so what you see is what I saw when I was delivering the presentation. I was interrupted by several ovations (some standing, but only because I begged) and abundant laughter. When I’m nervous, I go straight to spontaneous stand-up. Later, I can’t remember a single humorous line, so every presentation is unique. At this point, I couldn’t tell you what I said, but apparently some of it was funny. I’m pretty sure they were laughing with me instead of at me, but one can never be certain.

I visited with several people after the presentation. They liked it, of course, or they wouldn’t have stayed to visit. Reaction generally (very generally) varied with age. However, all age groups failed to recognize we’re already in the midst of economic collapse, that we’ve been here for at least a decade, or that the collapse would be complete soon. Similarly, all age groups failed to appreciate the moral imperative with how we live our lives. Many youngsters from the Aldo Leopold High School were present, and they invariably went to the bargaining phase: I can still have my cell phone, right? People older than me typically went to denial: I’m glad I’m old, so none of this will impact my life. People between those groups expressed appreciation for the human community in this area and disdain for politicians, local through national, for failing to deal with either side of the fossil-fuel coin.

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A pdf version of the Powerpoint file is archived here, courtesy of Keith Farnish. Thanks, Keith!

Here in the homeland, we peaked in 1970 and we extract relatively little oil on land or at sea. BP’s 100-million-barrel reservoir off the coast of Alaska — er, rather, on a BP-constructed island, and therefore not offshore at all — will meet U.S. demand for less than a week. Meanwhile, long-time swing supplier Saudi Arabia is turning off the tap. So much for satiating our infinite desires with limitless oil from the Middle East. Even the International Energy Agency forecasts demand in excess of world supply.

As world oil supply has fallen, the price has exceeded $80 per barrel twice in recent history. Both events were followed shortly thereafter by sovereign-debt crises in several countries. We’ll likely cross the $80 threshold again soon, even as the industrial economy continues to nosedive. Considering the debt-related economic pain in Europe despite throwing money at the issue (i.e., papering over the economic mess), Keynesian economics makes no sense at all. The printing press hasn’t been sufficient in the U.S., either, and it’s the one-size-fits-all solution of the Obama/Bernanke team. This is the typical government approach: If it ain’t broke, fix it until it is.

I’m not suggesting the debt-based approach hasn’t been broken for a long time. But every attempt to “fix” the industrial economy represents a boondoggle atop a boondoggle, with every one destined for failure at a faster rate than the prior one. Helicopter Ben has created half the U.S. money in history within the last four years even as the money supply continues to crash. On one hand, states want more federal stimulus (i.e., keep the presses running) as the head into a second-half economic tsunami with no clue how to deal with it. On the other hand, pressure is building to stop or slow the printing presses, but it’s already too late: We cannot possibly pay off the current U.S. debt, so — from the perspective of Bernanke and Obama — there’s no point in slowing the presses now, despite ludicrous, vacuous threats from various factions of the tea party. Meanwhile, the sheeple are growing frustrated as they wonder where the jobs went and why the industrial economy remains in the abattoir. Nobody in a position of influence has the guts to tell them about energy decline and its economic consequences; even if anybody with the ear of the people were talking about it, the hyper-indulgent sheeple wouldn’t have the guts to listen, much less act on the knowledge.

Hyperinflation might be on the way, despite the crash in cash. At the very least, the near future will bring increased volatility and a host of economic woes.

The water is boiling around us and, like frogs, we’re failing to notice. Unlike frogs, we have the ability to see what’s going on, and how it’s killing us, but we prefer the culture of make believe over reality. So we pretend we’re immersed in an imperial spa. Fever? What fever? I just need another drink. Apparently the cancer of industrial culture removes cognitive capacity before it kills the host.

Continuing to pretend won’t help the dire situation on the housing front. As it turns out, housing and energy definitely are not too big to fail. Despite out best efforts to ignore reality, echoes of the Great Depression abound. As housing prices continue to decline, Americans lose the ability to use their homes as ATMs. As oil prices continue to increase, aftershocks continue to rumble through the system, with more quakes on the way.

And it’s not just housing and oil. The collapse in commercial real estate is fully under way, banks are withholding information from the federal government because they dare not open their books in the light of day, another credit crunch lies right out the corner because nothing about the financial system has changed since the last crisis of confidence, and bond vigilantes are coming to America and therefore to the world’s reserve currency.

Plenty of people here in the empire think there are alternatives to oil, thus failing to distinguish derivatives from alternatives. These derivatives will never pay their way, of course, much less serve as anything resembling a comprehensive substitute to crude oil. And without abundant liquid fuels, we cannot grow the industrial economy.

Other folks believe hydropower will keep the lights on in their neighborhood, without working through the consequences of capitulation of the stock markets. Why would the engineers and technicians keep showing up to run the electrical plant if they aren’t getting paid, either because all the banks fail or their employer’s stock is worthless?

Too little, too late, Bill Gates is urging us to spend billions on an energy revolution. But he’s not spending his billions on it, probably because he knows the fossil-fuel party is over.

As a result of running out of inexpensive oil on the way to passing the world oil peak in 2005, we witnessed an oil shock in 2008 that nearly brought the industrial economy screeching to a halt. Chief Executive Officer of insurance giant Lloyds warns of another price spike headed our way, and I cannot imagine the industrial machine of planetary death surviving oil priced at the expected $200 per barrel.

Source: EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2009

But I’m an optimist, as I’ve pointed out before. I think we can terminate the industrial economy before we move the assault from the Gulf on our southern border to the wholesale destruction of interior lands on our northern border even as it becomes increasingly clear the tar sands will not meet expectations. The events in the Gulf of Mexico illustrate an important point: As my detractors have been saying for years, we really are awash in a sea of oil. Are you happy now?

The disaster in the Gulf provides a perfect opportunity for the dead hand of Ronald Reagan to rise in the form of judicial activism. This pattern is blatantly apparent in the Supreme Court and all lower courts and is consistent with the notion that the right-wing thought police have taken over this country.

In support of my omnipresent optimism, historian Niall Ferguson has added his voice to the large and growing chorus predicting the collapse of U.S. empire by the end of 2012. If we cease to kill the industrial economy, it will continue to kill the living planet and all of us who depend upon it. Either way — with imperial collapse or reduction of Earth to a lifeless pile of rubble — we can stop worrying about power politics. As should be evident to any reader by now, I prefer a robustly living planet over a dying or dead one. As should be equally apparent to any sentient being, I don’t have much company on this particular point.

The economic endgame is rearing its head. The stock markets are headed down — way down — with a monster shock headed their way. One plausible scenario has collapse of the bond market following collapse of the stock markets. But at Dow zero, you’ll be a lot more worried about feeding your children than the rate of return on your bonds.

Meanwhile, out in the dying murdered Gulf of Mexico, BP has claimed success. Calls for a boycott will fade away and clueless Americans will continue to display an inordinate capacity for cognitive dissonance as they continue to demand abundant cheap oil even while throwing the occasional tantrum at Exxon-Mobile BP corporations providing our drug of choice. You might go so far as to call this yet another example of American psychosis.

Will human life be wiped out by events in the Gulf of Mexico? In a word, no. We’re taking quite an impressive toll on the entire planet, but destroying our entire species with only the tools we’ve developed during the last two centuries will take more than a few years, our vaunted technological prowess notwithstanding. The Titanic of ecological overshoot has crashed into the iceberg of limited oil, leading to a painfully slow descent of the industrial economy. The descent is painful because it allows us to keep the current game going, re-arranging the deck chairs as we head straight for a rapid decline in the human population in the wake of a devastated Earth.

There is a better way. We know what it is. It’s time to give up our childish dreams and act like responsible adults. Is that too much to ask?

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Based on recent comments in this space, and also in my email in-box, I am compelled to provide an updated overview of my proposed agenda in light of the ongoing collapse of the world’s industrial economy. There’s nothing new here, but plenty of people don’t have the time to read what I’ve written in the past so, in spasms of foolish ignorance, they keep asking me to stop driving my car (trust me, I’d love to … and I go for weeks at a time without doing so) or cease speaking and writing about economic collapse because it is not happening (and, in a related issue, there’s an invisible man in the sky who loves us and wants us to be happy).

The other primary topic of conversation, real and virtual, begins with “Okay, but what can I do?” As if I’ve ignored that particular question. “No, but I mean me. Here in Phoenix. With no money and no spare time.”

Sigh. If you’re unwilling to change, you’ll simply have to let change happen to you. And Bill Clinton was correct about this issue: People like change in general, but not in particular. Nobody who is unwilling to change is liable to appreciate the change headed their way.

If you’re willing to change, perhaps you’ll seek ideas and inspiration from sources other than me. Perhaps you’ll test your courage, creativity, and compassion. You’re going to need those attributes soon enough anyway, so you might as well drag them out now.

I think the ongoing economic collapse is driven by declining energy supply at the world level: We passed the world peak of conventional crude oil in 2005. Considering the primacy of oil to the industrial economy and therefore to our way of living, it’s no surprise the industrial economy is unraveling. Fortunately, it’s taking disaster capitalism with it, albeit far too slowly to suit me.

My hope, of course, is completion of the economic collapse in time to save the remaining fragments of the world’s biological diversity and perhaps even habitat for our own species. Call me a dreamer. Recognizing that it’s generally a waste of time to try to convince people we’re headed for economic disaster and therefore environmental nirvana, that, regardless, is my mission.

I have no interest in trying to save civilization, which is irredeemable and omnicidal. But I am interested in extending the lives of the relatively few people in the industrialized world willing to make substantive changes in their lives. Sadly, that leaves out nearly everybody with whom I converse or correspond.

Conservation is irrelevant at this point and, with respect to materials that are too cheap to meter, conservation probably has always been irrelevant. That’s the crux of Jevons’ paradox. Although Jevons’ paradox assumes free markets, and all markets are manipulated, it is not at all clear to me that relaxing the free-market assumption would have a significant influence on the global outcome of energy markets. Furthermore, if you’re really a believer in free markets and lack of governmental interference in those markets, then oil is the premier example of a global free market.

Many people are concerned we’ll respond to Jevons’ paradox with hedonism. As if we’re not already there.

If you think individual conservation efforts scale up to society, consider an incomplete but still stunning overview of the statistics on energy use. For example, the energy in a million barrels of crude oil — the amount gushing in the Gulf of Mexico every ten days or so — will supply your house with power for the next 81,000 years or so but will keep cars on U.S. highways for about four hours. So, at some level we’re all BP (those of you cheering for the industrial economy have company from J.P. Morgan Chase on the BP issue — the spill and cleanup apparently will enhance GDP, at least in the short run). More pragmatically, though, we each bear about as much responsibility for BP’s incompetence and recklessness as we bear for causing planetary ice to melt, the financial success of Wal-Mart, and the microfauna in belly of the nearest polar bear. As much as the media and politicians would like you to feel responsible and guilty, you should feel neither.

I regularly promote the idea of hastening economic collapse. If you’re not on board with that idea, but you still see the huge neon signs pointing us in that direction, perhaps you can be convinced to pursue a modicum of self reliance.

Photo credit: Getty images

The notion of self reliance, long discarded in a nation where we enslave others to do our drudgery, is about to make a profound comeback. When the new Dark Age gets under way, people who are willing to do useful things with their hands and minds will be welcome additions in any community. The contemporary idea of American-style independence is, in Orwellian fashion, the exact opposite of independence. To secure our food, water, and body temperature, we have become wholly dependent on a large-scale system (the industrial economy). This is the diametric opposite of self reliance, and it’s long past time to focus on self reliance within the context of the interdependence of people in communities. We need each other, but we do not need the industrial economy.

How do you provide service to your community? What preparations should you make to thrive during the post-carbon era, and to help your community thrive, too?

I have written at length about the preparations I’ve made, with a focus on water, food, body temperature, human community, and living a life of service (in this case, four out of five gets you the equivalent of a cake with no flour). Securing these elements has been done by humans for about two million years in the absence of the industrial economy. Only recently have we become dependent on a system that is making us crazy and killing us. I suggest we get out of this system. If that cannot be done in your specific location — and I’m thinking about places such as Tucson, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Los Angeles, California — I strongly suggest changing locations. The other obvious alternative is to re-arrange the deck chairs as the cruise ship of empire takes on even more water. There are many approaches to be pursued on this front, including recycling, joining a CSA, riding the bus, and volunteering in the local literacy movement. These are noble causes, but they won’t save you or your community. And if you don’t save yourself, you won’t be able to help anybody else.

People often ask me how they can make the kinds of changes I’ve made, without actually making those changes themselves. That is, how can they turn their lives upside-down without actually changing a thing? They blame lack of finances (which, as I’ve pointed out with my own example, can be overcome by joining others in a community-based effort). They blame an unwillingness to leave the apex of empire, the large city they occupy (i.e., they do not agree with my view that industrial economy is inherently immoral). They blame the marauding hordes certain to find them if they get out of the city (i.e., they use any and every excuse to avoid taking action). Comfortable with the immorality of their lives, unwilling to forgo empire in exchange for the difficulty of self reliance, brainwashed by culture to keep pursuing this particular version of culture, they are hopelessly trapped in a hapless situation. Although I recognize the power of culture and the lack of free will for human animals, I’m beginning to lose sympathy.

Empires don’t break up, they break down. And American Empire is obviously breaking down, with abundant evidence to be found in the striking absence of any appeal to the common good from governments at any level. There has been no semblance of morality emanating from the fascists running the corporations, and therefore the country, since at least 1980. I don’t expect a vast outpouring of empathy and compassion any time soon. Faux compassion, of course. But the real deal? I hardly think so.

Digital art courtesy of Hock on the Behance Network

Although some insist a slow descent is likely, I have yet to understand how that can possibly work. Feel free to fill me in. Do we dim the lights one percent annually so that, in one hundred years, the electricity goes out without our noticing? Do we reduce our extraction of finite materials a few percent each year, even as the human population grows by more than 200,000 people daily, until we simply, peacefully, stop using everything needed to maintain the industrial economy? Do we slowly, painlessly, with no suffering at all, reduce the human population to a viable number? What is that number? A billion? Fewer?

All these outcomes seem quite unlikely to me. I think we’re so committed to unlimited, exponential growth on a finite planet that we’ll do whatever it takes to delude ourselves into believing that impossibility. If that means we have to destroy everybody and everything so we can have ice cream and cookies every night, that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’re an industrialized world of overfed clowns and we think others are laughing with us instead of at us. In short, I need somebody to show me another way. I’m eager to learn how we can prevent unimaginable suffering and catastrophic die-off on a finite planet. Sans miracles, of course.

Looking back, and relying on a plethora of economic metrics, it’s evident we’ve experienced a lost decade. So we can trace the economic decay to 2000 or so. It’s easy enough to can go back further, tracing the imperial decline to 1979 with the Carter doctrine. Or 1956 with the Interstate Highway System. Or the late 1940s with the federal government’s promotion of suburbia. Or 1789 with the unrelenting thirst for empire at all costs exhibited by the founding fathers. With respect to any of these temporal benchmarks, the decay clearly has accelerated in recent years and months.

From the day I predicted the new Dark Age would begin by the end of 2012, the criticism has been continuous. Most critics, citing no evidence and no understanding of peak oil and its economic consequences, claim we’ll surely adjust and adapt and generally demonstrate our big-brained brilliance with a long descent into peace, prosperity, and infinite good times. Adding balance in a mainstream media kind of way, the occasional critic optimistically — without recognizing the optimism — claims the Dark Age will begin well before 2012. We should be so lucky.

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This essay is permalinked at The Gable Grey, Counter Currents, Rebel News, and Island Breath, and it gets a shout out at Unconventional Ideas and it is discussed at the LATOC Forum.

As should be clear by now, we cannot grow the industrial economy while reducing use of energy. As a result, we cannot grow the economy while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Thus, we’re stuck in a politically untenable situation: To save the living planet, including habitat for our own species, we need to shrink the industrial economy. But the industrial economy requires growth. Recent research indicates we need to shrink the industrial economy to oblivion to save our species. In other words, what we really need is to kill the industrial economy before it kills us. And by us, I mean all of us: the entire collection of wise apes. As a society, clearly we have made our choice. But as an individual, you can choose to the contrary, with benefits for your psyche and quite possibly your survival.

Crude oil is the master material, the energy source that provides access to all others. Economic growth requires ever-increasing supplies of crude oil. As availability of oil declines the price goes up (with considerable variability, as we have observed during five years since we passed the world oil peak) and the industrial economy starts to sputter. When the price gets high enough, long enough, the economy simply, finally, expires. The world has been on an undulating plateau of oil availability for several years, but that plateau leads to a cliff. According to the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. military’s Joint Forces Command, the cliff comes in 8 months or so.

I know no energy-literate person who thinks we’ll be able to avoid the post-industrial Stone Age by 2025. Assuming a conservative 4% annual decline rate of crude oil between now and then indicates we will have access to the same amount of oil in 2025 as we did in 1970, when the planet held half as many people as it now does and the world was considerably less industrialized than it now is. And that’s merely the gross rate of decline, whereas the net rate of decline will be much more rapid because it takes so much energy to extract and deliver energy. Oil priced a $147.27 per barrel nearly brought down the industrial economy five times I know about, and we’re hardly out of the woods yet. There is little hope for the industrial era to persist more than a few years, and the next spike in the price of oil could very well be the trigger that brings the industrial era to a sudden close in an unprepared nation.

I suspect we’ll pass through a new Dark Age en route to the post-industrial Stone Age. Indeed, many countries in the world are already there because they lack the world’s reserve currency and the world’s largest military. Bully for us: We have both, thus ensuring a steady supply of fossil-fuel-driven energy into every city and town in the United States. Well, so far.

As an aside, how long do you think we can maintain a military and a functioning industrial economy if we keep spending 58% of our budget on the former? We could stop our involvement in wars, but that would be quite un-American, wouldn’t it?

The costs of maintaining the non-negotiable American way of life are huge, even beyond simple economics. The American suburbs are the antithesis of durable living, as they require us to live far from work, far from play, and far from the places we shop for disposable items in our throw-away culture. They require obedience at home and oppression abroad. American Empire is city living (i.e., civilized), writ large.

The relatively few people paying attention to the undercurrents of the industrial economy know the ship is taking on water faster than the governments can run the printing presses. As the industrial economy continues to lurch and stumble, the vaunted American consumer loses the ability to consume (in part because inflation is rampant on items that actually matter, notably including food). Because ours is a consumer culture, with personal consumption accounting for 70% of the industrial economy, the ship is listing. The next financial crisis is already unfolding — notwithstanding absurd reports from politicians, media, and the irrational exuberance, again, in the stock markets — and governments have nearly exhausted their supply of tools to deal with economic issues. We hit the iceberg of peak oil and, as government administrators busily rearrange the deck chairs, it’s time to launch the lifeboats, even if you believe consumption is a good thing. Personally, I think it’s not, in part based on the definition:

Consume:

1. To do away with completely; destroy

2a. To spend wastefully; squander
2b. Use up

3. To waste or burn away; perish

Consuming gives most people a temporary emotional “high.” We’re addicted to shopping. But I trust it’s clear why rational people want no part of the consumer economy. If we cannot terminate the industrial economy, and soon, we’ll exhaust all habitat for humans on Earth by the end of this century (and, if the models are to be believed, much sooner). Along the way, if we have our way, we’ll destroy every non-industrial culture and every non-human species.

In the face of a contracting industrial economy and the knowledge we’re headed for a situation with extremely limited access to fossil fuels, a quote from Peter Drucker comes to mind: “You can either take action, or you can hang back and hope for a miracle. Miracles are great, but they are so unpredictable.”

What’s an individual to do, in light of the imminent collapse of western civilization? In addition to hastening the collapse, some tools for which I’ve listed before, I describe four points along a continuum for your own, individual, post-carbon future: (1) transition towns, (2) agricultural anarchy, (3) hunting and gathering, and (4) traveling. I will describe each approach, briefly, as a means of generating thought, action, and perhaps even discussion.

Transition towns allow us the fantasy of keeping the current omnicidal culture going, albeit in slightly different form. This model assumes a long descent that allows time for cities to develop alternative energy sources. Think solar on every rooftop, for starters, and gardens in every suburban lot. For this approach to work, though, the food shed must be sufficiently nearby and sufficiently productive to support all the people in the transition town. This seems hugely problematic in sprawling western cities, especially those with more than a few thousand people. And for areas with limited supplies of water, or water that is several hundred feet below the surface of the ground, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario that doesn’t include massive suffering along the way to a huge die-off. The inability to store energy in the absence of fossil fuels beyond a few years in expensive, transient, and toxic batteries is a microscopic problem relative to the absence of ready access to water and food. And there’s an additional problem with the transition-town notion: I seriously doubt we have access to the fossil fuels needed to create the needed infrastructure for the 250 million city-living Americans, much less the 3.5 billion people who occupy the world’s cities. Solar panels and batteries simply won’t make the grade — there’s not enough oil left to pull this one off.

When the lights go out in the city, chaos often erupts. Is your city different? If so, will that difference persist when the lights don’t come back on, ever? I’ve often said and written that I would give my life to terminate the industrial economy, if only to alleviate the burden of oppression on the living world. I’ve no doubt, in fact, that I will make this sacrifice. And that’s okay: My insignificant life pales in contrast to the living planet and the persistence of our species. On the other hand, although I loved city life, my city was not worth dying for. So I left to prepare, recognizing that fortune favors the prepared. In contrast, Michael Ruppert moved to his home city of Los Angeles with full knowledge L.A. would be among the first cities to go up in flames. Ruppert is willing to die for the privilege of comforting the afflicted there.

Agricultural anarchy was offered as a model by Thomas Jefferson, and Monticello was the prime example before it became a museum. Contemporary examples are found in nearly every “third-world” country. A large proportion of the towns and cities in Central America and South America never have had ready access to abundant fossil fuels. As a result, communities have communal water sources and people dig shallow wells and harvest rain from rooftops. On a daily basis, local markets are filled with fresh food brought from nearby gardens and farms. The power goes out frequently, and nobody seems to mind because the towns and cities are actually located in livable areas in the absence of fossil fuels to heat or cool every building (cf. Tucson, Arizona). In short, agriculture has always been, and still is, at the center of everyday life.

Hunting and gathering will doubtless make a comeback for a very few hardy, quick-witted folks. This model resembles the prior Stone Age, and clearly is the most durable approach. It worked for the first 2 million years of the human experience, and we fled from it as recently as a few thousand years ago. But if you can’t find a tribe to go along, you’ll be as lonely as a Saguaro cactus on an ice floe.

Finally, individuals can largely avoid the ravages of collapse by traveling from spot to spot. History has been kind to travelers because people rooted in a particular place hunger for knowledge. If you’re to pursue this route, you’ll need to be quick-witted, good-humored, and willing to lend a hand when needed. Also, you’ll need to recognize and avoid danger. Traveling will be terrifying, but no worse than staying in one location. And you’ll get to see the world and live an adventure-filled life, just as promised by U.S. military recruiters.

None of these options offer a life similar to the one you’ve known. But a different life doesn’t mean a worse life, especially if you give a rat’s backside about anybody besides yourself. There will be plenty of opportunities to serve your community, as there has always been, in the months and years ahead. We’ll be living closer to our neighbors and closer to the living planet that sustains us all. For those courageous, compassionate, and creative souls willing to live in the world rather than in a cubicle, life’s about to get even more interesting. For the vast majority of industrial Americans, though, life is about to become miserable and surprisingly short.

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This essay was inspired by a comment from Danielle Charbonneau. It is permalinked at Counter Currents, Island Breath, and A Climate for Change.

How does one know what to believe, and who to trust? We’re surrounded by lies. During our finest moments, we don’t believe the media, the politicians we elect (from the very small slate of candidates selected for us), or the CEOs and NGOs to whom we give our money. Awash in misinformation yet surrounded by culture’s unrepentant, never-ending message, we vacillate between cynicism and swimming in the powerful current of culture.

Although the happy-talk Obama administration — and its proxy and partner in crime, the mainstream media — would have you believe the industrial economy has recovered, many signs indicate the impacts of the last oil price spike haven’t been fully worked out. The U.S. national debt rises every day, and it already exceeds the value of all currency ever produced and all gold ever mined. It cannot be paid off. Ever. If the notion of a Soviet-style default doesn’t give you pause, consider still-rising foreclosure rates, still-falling home prices, massive unemployment, financial bankruptcy at all levels of government, ballooning entitlement programs, and collapsing pension programs. This is merely the short list of economic issues we face. Needless to say, every single one of them is a profound surprise to the vast majority of neoclassical economists, few of whom saw this economic recession coming (as if passing the world oil peak didn’t provide sufficient warning, well in advance).

Knowing culture will lead us astray, we nonetheless invite scorn when we seek the truth beneath the cultural current of the main stream. Culture does not have answers to meaningful questions. But skepticism for the sake of skepticism is no virtue, either.

Applying reason as a path to knowledge (as I’ve suggested here and here, for example) is easy enough in theory. But in practice, it’s difficult to extract the facts and then synthesize them into a coherent message that guides the way. Much less the Way. And yet, we muddle along, individually and societally, relying on some inexplicable combination of faith and rational thought. For me, the guides include data (recognizing they are undoubtedly massaged before general release), historical anecdotes (ditto), my own dubious moral compass (shaped, necessarily, by culture), and an informed set of predictions from a variety of scholars. As with any gestalt, mine is formed from parts that don’t quite add up to the whole.

So how do we go from this list of economic issues to the notion of economic collapse? I’ve moved from imperialist city educator to economic doomer rural sharecropper in one (damned difficult) step. This move was driven by many factors, including the profound (and profoundly late) realization that we live immorally, buying and selling nature’s bounty at an imperialist whim. Another contributing factor was my strongly held suspicion that we’re headed for a collapse of the industrial economy by the end of 2012. If the industrial age does not end soon, we’re headed for the complete absence of habitat for humans on Earth. Obviously, there is plenty of disagreement with me on both points, and I’ve been asked to make my case. What tea leaves do I read?

I restrict this essay to economic collapse, thus leaving the issue of environmental collapse to previous posts (and perhaps future ones). The data on collapse are clearer than the rest of my guides, so I’ll start with them.

The data interact with other elements: History indicates 10 of 11 recessions since World War II and all 6 recessions since 1972 were preceded by a spike in the price of oil. The lifeblood of civilization, and its price, dictates the direction of the industrial economy. At some point, the price of oil becomes too great to maintain the industrial economy. In fact, a per-barrel price of $147.27 nearly brought the industrial economy grinding to a halt. Only massive, and massively illegal, intervention by the executive branch of the U.S. government kept the lights on in your grid-tied house, the trucks coming to the grocery store, and water coming out the taps. These actions have been written about widely. A quick search on “plunge protection team” is a nice starting point, although the issue is far broader than even omniscient Google reveals.

For information about oil supplies, I rely on Hubbert’s model and data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). Hubbert’s model indicates we passed the world peak for crude oil in December 2005. Data from the EIA indicate peak month was May 2005. Because the industrial economy is barely limping along today, in far direr condition than when the price of oil exceeded $140, I doubt it will take a second round of $140 oil to bring the industrial age to its overdue close. Several forecasters suggest we’re headed beyond that mark with a year or so.

A little more from history: Empires fall. All of ‘em, so far. Some fall slowly, others rapidly. Some fall with a modicum of grace, others with extreme violence. American Empire is so complex, so dependent on finite materials, and intricately connected with the entire global economy that it’s difficult for me to foresee a long, peaceful decline.

The industrial economy relies heavily on crude oil, and particularly inexpensive oil. We’re perfectly willing to spend $400/gallon for gasoline to support our imperial ambitions in Afghanistan if that’s what it takes to keep the price of oil at a reasonable level for us exceptional Americans. (How exceptional? Check the charts in this essay.) But when the price of gasoline exceeds $4/gallon in the heartland, there’s trouble brewing for our all-important economic growth.

In addition to the near-term price of oil, our empire is threatened by the ever-tightening grip of globalization, which ensures that economic collapse in any of the world’s large economies will lead, domino-like, to economic collapse throughout the industrialized world. This grip was allowed and facilitated by cheap oil, and it’s no coincidence that the end of the cheap-oil era resulted in financial crises throughout the civilized world. Today, Greece is the word. But Portugal, Spain, and Japan hover on the brink (Japan is the world’s second-largest economy). So does the U.S. and the remainder of the industrialized world, though you’d never know it based on mainstream media reports from this country. We have the advantages of the world’s reserve currency and the largest killing force in the history of the world (and the willingness to use it, everywhere, all the time). But when China stops buying U.S. Treasury notes, a process already under way, the de facto rate of interest will rise, taking us inexorably and likely quickly into the land of hyper-inflation. At this late juncture in the industrial era, the only questions of great significance are whether our bubble will pop before China’s, and which of myriad potential events will serve as the proximate cause to the end of American Empire. The price of oil was a trigger event, and it might be again. But it might not, too.

As far as my moral compass is concerned, I’ve written plenty about that. There’s no need to pummel the deceased equine yet again. Check the archives, if you’re interested. Or, for a different take on the situation, read this.

So much for the models, data, history, and my sense of morality. What about those voices I hear words I read?

When I open my browser to start the day, several tabs reveal themselves. Some of these websites give the facts, as accurately as they can be determined: Bloomberg energy prices, American stock markets, and the U.S. national debt clock. Others are information clearing houses with occasional original essays, notably including the sites of Matt Savinar, Mike Ruppert, Rice Farmer, and Chris Martenson, along with Energy Bulletin, Counter Currents, and The Oil Drum. Others provide synthesis and analysis: Business Insider, Baseline Scenario, Dmitry Orlov’s blog, Speak Truth to Power, Economic Collapse Blog, The Automatic Earth, and Zero Hedge. Finally, one tells me what people are thinking out there in the culture of make believe: MSNBC. Needless to say, that’s the scary one.

I’m not foolish enough to read every article, much less read every article linked from these pages. But there is plenty of fodder here, much of it informed by biophysical economics. Biophysical economists, unlike neoclassical economists, know about finite materials. As a result, the former know starvation can kill people. Any self-respecting neoclassical economist assumes the rumbling of his stomach will cause food to appear.

Now let’s pause for a quick story about neoclassical economists.

Four shipwrecked economists wash ashore on a deserted tropical island. The first Asian economist says, “I’ll gather wood and start a fire to keep us warm and cook our food.” The second Asian economists says, “I’ll find water.” The third Asian economist says, “I’ll find food.” The American economist sits down, smiles, and says, “When you’ve got that all taken care of, I’ll consume whatever you produce. You’re darned lucky I’m here: Without me, the entire system falls apart in a hurry.”

Note that confidence among U.S. consumers fell in April. Unexpectedly, of course.

We now return to our regularly scheduled essay.

Among the places these links lead are the following. This summer’s hurricane season likely will contribute to high oil prices. And we might not need the hurricanes: According to the International Energy Agency, world oil demand will set an all-time record this year, exceeding the amount actually being sucked out of the ground by 2.4 million barrels per day. The global financial system is primed and ready to implode. The Fed admits to breaking the law in the name of transferring wealth (and not to me or you). And the Fed, like the U.S., is bankrupt. That alone will cause hyperinflation. “Real estate built America, and it’s going to take it down. Foreclosures will be the wrecking ball for the American economy.” The economic crisis in Greece is just getting started. Recent reports of economic growth are mere mirages from the smoke-and-mirrors cabal behind the curtain (duh). More than half your tax dollars support the military (yeah, that’s sustainable; even an increasing percentage of military personnel is questioning whether they will accomplish their amorphous mission in Afghanistan). Warren Buffett bought the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, calling it an “all-in bet” on the U.S. economy, as if he’d been reading the work of James Howard Kunstler. Buffett’s partner Charles Munger wrote a parable transparently about the U.S. economy titled, “Basically, it’s over.” A large European bank warned its clients about completion of the ongoing collapse by the end of 2011. The U.S. dollar will collapse, causing world economic collapse, by 2012. Catherine Austin Fitts moved from New York City to rural Tennessee to build a doomstead. As should be obvious, “from now on the risk of entering a collapse must be considered significant and rising” (pdf file). And so on. The evidence mounts daily, and it all points in the same direction.

My interpretation and synthesis of these many essays and the data on which they rely suggests the industrial age is near its terminus. How near? Recognizing the difficulty of predictions, and the animus they elicit, I’ll go out on the often-wrong limb of forecast and give us a 99% chance of “lights out in the empire” by 21 December 2012. And I didn’t even look at my Mayan calendar.

Reinhart and Rogoff’s 2009 book, This Time is Different, describes financial crises in 66 nations dating to the 13th century. For a change, I agree with the rallying cry of people subject to previous collapses: This time is different. This time it’s not one of 66 nations. It’s every country in the entire industrial world. Indeed, this time is different.

In short, civilization is only a few days removed from chaos or, if you’re an optimist like me, from anarchy. This has always been the case, for every failed civilization as well as the one left standing. With every passing day, we move further into ecological overshoot and also closer to the end of western civilization and its apex, the industrial economy. For most individual industrial humans, the end will not be welcome. But for the living planet on which we depend, and therefore our very species, the end of industry will bring a welcome relief from decades of oppression. It might even give us back our humanity while granting our species a few more decades of planetary existence.
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This essay was inspired by a comment from Marguerite Daisy. It is permalinked at Counter Currents, Bluegrass reVisions, and Island Breath.