Guy McPherson's blog

My Dad, in 1984

by Danny Showalter I remember the presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. My Pop hated Mondale. That was 1984, and I was seven. I’ll come back to that after a brief digression. I grew up in rural Indiana. Shortly before I was born, my father, my mother, my aunt and my uncle, went [...]

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The recession is dead … long live the recession!

The world's first peak-oil recession has come to a close, according to third-quarter numbers invented by the federal government. Apparently flooding big banks, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers with fiat currency interrupted the plummeting descent of American Empire. The stock markets skyrocketed expectedly. Predictably, so did the commodities markets.

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Balance is for Buddhists

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

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Media alert

The industrial economy is slipping through our fingers like mercury from a broken thermometer. Facing a rapid terminal decline in crude oil -- the lifeblood of western civilization -- there is nothing you, me, or President Obama can do to save the industrial economy. But as we near the end of the industrial economy, complete with the collapse of our fuel-, food- and water-delivery systems, individuals can make arrangements to thrive in the post-carbon era.

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My life in song

At some point, not so far away, nature becomes the ultimate authority. And that's when I'll stop fighting authority. At that point, I'll need a new theme song. Got any ideas?

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Change we can believe in

All the wishful thinking in the country can't resurrect a long-dead corpse. By the time president-elect Obama takes the oath of office, he'll have all the power of a quadriplegic EMT without a medical kit, much less a resuscitation device. And he'll be staring at a patient with a DNR order, courtesy of a lethal combination of inevitable geology and abysmal policy.

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