Tag Archive | "extinction"
We didn’t start the fire
Actually, to counter singer/songwriter Billy Joel, we did start this FIRE. Not you and me, of course, but our culture. The U.S. industrial economy is all about Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate. The FIRE is about to run its course, extinguished by the absence of fuel in each of those interconnected sectors. The financial sector [...]
Continue reading...A Few Rocks from the Box: A Meditation
Monday, May 24, 2010
This guest post is authored by John Rember _____________________________________ 1. In my sophomore year of college I enrolled in a course that had given generations of students a painless way to satisfy the liberal-arts science requirement. It was known as Rocks for Jocks, and the final exam was the easy identification of every rock in [...]
Continue reading...Time to bury the dead
Monday, May 10, 2010
The final nail in the global financial coffin was hammered into place this morning by the masters of the Eurozone. The trillion-dollar bailout Ponzi scheme to save Greece is yet another example of kicking the proverbial can down the road, hoping the taxpayers fail to notice the 800-pound gorilla fighting its way out of the [...]
Continue reading...Rollercoaster redux
Thursday, May 6, 2010
To his imperial credit, Barack Obama did manage to calm the stock markets for a year. But his promises of oversight and transparency are being overwhelmed by his actions. It’s obvious the banksters will not be regulated on Obama’s watch in any significant manner because the entire American economic system is based on fraud, and [...]
Continue reading...What works, maybe: individual options
Monday, April 26, 2010
Like global climate change, peak oil represents a predicament, not a problem. There is no politically viable solution to either of these great challenges. Political solutions require economic growth, forever, and therefore no significant sacrifice on the behalf of the electorate. Further, the industrial economy is underlain by the assumption of growth: The industrial economy [...]
Continue reading...Surveying the field and charting a course
Friday, April 16, 2010
It’s all the rage to talk about a double-dip in the industrial economy. That would be an economic trend in the shape of a W. I think an M is far more likely. The assumption of never-ending growth underlies all neoclassical economic assessments, but I think that assumption is about to break up on the [...]
Continue reading...What works: community
Friday, April 2, 2010
As we continue into the decades-old, but only recently acknowledged era of destruction and extinction, it’s apparent the current model is not working. Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it. A vast majority of Americans are aware the industrial economy clings by the barest of threads but, too fearful of individual retribution to disrupt [...]
Continue reading...What works: Caveats for a series of essays
Monday, March 15, 2010
My next few essays will concentrate on the cardinal elements of survival: water, food, body temperature, and community. Unless and until we secure these four entities, we will not survive. At the mud hut, our goal is not merely survival. We intend to thrive during the post-carbon era. We relish the opportunity to see the [...]
Continue reading...Going back to the land in the Age of Entitlement
Monday, March 8, 2010
This essay is rife with the type of self-indulgence I try to avoid, often unsuccessfully. It’s a summary of my life’s story. It begins by insulting the readers, before the end of this first paragraph, and it ends with an unavoidably maundering, self-absorbed synopsis of recent, personal events. I doubt it’s worth your time to [...]
Continue reading...Prescription for (Killing) the Planet
Monday, February 22, 2010
Prescription for the Planet was written by Tom Blees and published in 2008. It was recommended to me, with a strong sense of urgency, by a couple friends. It is written in a very compelling style, which is too bad because it suckers people into the kind of wishing thinking for which we’ve become infamous [...]
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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