During my final decade in the classroom, I pushed an integrative agenda. Attempting to bridge C. P. Snow’s eponymous “Two Cultures” in a manner consistent with Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience, I required every student in each of my science courses to complete a significant piece of art or literature as a major part of the final grade. Naturally, the students hated the exercise and despised me, until the projects were complete and shared with the entire class, at which point the students unanimously agreed it was the most important activity they’d ever conducted in college. University administrators uniformly detested the exercise and just about everything else that happened in my classrooms. And this was even before universities had become widely recognized as money-making scams reflective of this entire culture. From a personal perspective, as I’ve pointed out before, the process of classroom-based integration caused me to lose my reason-driven way and venture deep into the emotional abyss of feeling and understanding.

Therein lies the dilemma I face. Perhaps you face it, too. I know nary a scientist who actually understands and takes meaningful action on any of the following primary issues, much less all of them: human-population overshoot, destruction of non-industrial cultures, extinction of non-human species, peak oil, global climate change. I know plenty of scientists who teach some of these topics, I just don’t know any who understand and act on them.

Conversely, I know several artists who understand the whole enchilada. Most of these people are marginalized by society because they are mere artists, so they have no voice. I’m not suggesting scientists have sufficient power to alter policy, or that any of these topics have politically viable solutions, but scientists can and have used reasonable argumentation to alter the views of a few thoughtful citizens. In general, and with a few notable, high-profile exceptions, artists have been less effective.

But back to me — my favorite subject, after all — and my internal struggle. My heart keeps informing me, with its never-ending screams into my inner ears, that we must terminate this set of living arrangements before it kills us all. My brain, on the other hand, tells me it’s too late: Near-term extinction is locked in because of Fukushima (times 400 and change) and the climate-change result of exponential methane release in the Arctic. Both paths of horror indicate our species has a few decades at most, and they represent merely two of three paths to human extinction within a single human generation. Well, three I know about. There are doubtless others, including the deepening extinction crisis, but I’m trying to maintain my trademark optimism. And I’m certainly not depending on the people who claim to be in charge because I know they lost control years ago, even though they keep juggling chickens and chain saws in an effort to distract the masses.

In light of this overwhelming onslaught of horrifying information, my heart tells me to seize the day, go with the flow, and a few other tattered cliches. It tells me to breathe deeply and laugh often, to throw off the shackles of transitioning in place to more fully immerse myself in nature and humanity, even if it means going down with the ship of empire. Or maybe that’s the limbic part of my brain rising to the fore, not my heart. My obnoxiously contrarian brain — the cognitive part to which I’m particularly well tuned — chimes in with unwelcome advice aimed at convincing people of our dire straits, as if I’ve made even a minor difference, while of course trying to destroy this irredeemably corrupt system.

In addition to my overdeveloped science side, I’ve no doubt there are other contributors to my inability to lean toward heartfelt intuition. Five decades of cultural programming come immediately to mind.

Integrating these two disparate approaches seems impossible, although I didn’t see it that way when I was asking students to do it. On the other hand, I didn’t realize they were running around like blue arsed flies, an approach I’ve subsequently adopted (thanks to Sue from the U.K. for information about the blue arsed fly). Perhaps that’s why I can’t answer this question: How does does one simultaneously follow his heart and his brain when they point in opposite directions?

This internal struggle feels like a battle for my non-existent soul. That reason rules, for now, leaves my heart in shards. The inability to integrate myself, to become fully human, leaves me with heartache that is irreconcilable and perhaps even lethal. After all, human survival requires a heart and a brain.

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“We’re different.”
“We’re special.”
“We’re too intelligent.”
“We’ll find a way out. We always do.”

We’re humans, and therefore animals. Like all life, we’re special. Like all organisms, we’re susceptible to overshoot. Like all organisms, we will experience population decline after overshoot.

Let’s take stock of our current predicaments, beginning with one of several ongoing processes likely to cause our extinction. Then I’ll point out the good not quite so bad news.

We’re headed for extinction via global climate change

It’s hotter than it used to be, but not as hot as it’s going to be. The political response to this now-obvious information is to suspend the scientist bearing the bad news. Which, of course, is no surprise at all: As Australian scientist Gideon Polya points out, the United States must cease production of greenhouse gases within 3.1 years if we are to avoid catastrophic runaway greenhouse. I think Polya is optimistic, and I don’t think Obama’s on-board with the attendant collapse of the U.S. industrial economy.

Apparently — too little, too late — a couple people have noticed a few facts about Obama. This “awakening” might explain why his political support is headed south at a rapid clip.

But back to climate change, one of three likely extinction events. Well, three I know about: I’m certain there are others, and any number can play. With four months remaining in the year, the U.S. has already tied its yearly record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters. Russia is headed directly for loss of 30% of its permafrost by 2050. Tundra fires could accelerate planetary warming. This year, the Northeast Passage was open as of 27 July. This is a massively dire situation for the Arctic. In fact, we have passed a de facto tipping point with respect to Arctic ice. This latter outcome is stunning, but only to those who follow the horrifically conservative and increasingly irrelevant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Nature is responding with hybrid bears, suggesting the near-term loss of all polar bears. Indeed, all Earth’s systems are rapidly declining. Many organisms can’t keep up as they try to stay ahead of an overheating planet.

As the living planet decays, we keep piling on. Examples abound. Here’s one tiny example among thousands, from that pesky BP well at Deepwater Horizon. It’s out of the news cycle, but it’s not done destroying life in the Gulf of Mexico. But perhaps this tidbit belongs beneath the heading of …

We’re headed for extinction via environmental collapse

Nature is bankrupt, just like Wall Street and the USA. Thanks for playing, but you lose. The banksters on Wall Street “win.” But only in the short term. In the long run, we’re all dead (as first stated by John Maynard Keynes).

Among the consequences of taking down more than 200 species each day: at some point, the species we take into the abyss is Homo sapiens (the wise ape). The vanishing point draws nearer every day. Our response, in the industrialized world: Bring on the toys. Burn all fossil fuels. Harvest the rain forests and strip-mine the soil. Pollute the water, eat the seed bank.

And, most importantly, figure out how we can make a few bucks as the world burns.

We have our hand in a monkey trap, and we can’t let go.

We’re headed for extinction via nuclear meltdown

Safely shuttering a nuclear power plant requires a decade or two of careful planning. Far sooner, we’ll complete the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy. This is a source of my nuclear nightmares.

When the world’s 442 nuclear power plants melt down catastrophically, we’ve entered an extinction event. Think clusterfukushima, times 400. Ionizing radiation could, and probably will, destroy every terrestrial organism and, therefore, every marine and freshwater organism. That, by the way, includes the most unique, special, intelligent animal on Earth.

Ready for some good news?

Meanwhile, back on Wall Street

The Securities and Exchange Commission is busily covering up Wall Street crimes, just as they did during the last presidential administration. And, as it turns out, they’ve been performing this trick for two decades. Finally, though, the S&P is taking the U.S. to the woodshed.

The S&P knows what the media and politicians know: U.S. national debt isn’t really $14 trillion and change, as we’ve been led to believe. In fact, it exceeds $200 trillion. And, back when it was a mere $10.5 trillion, it exceeded the value of all circulating currencies as well as all the gold ever mined. It cannot be paid off, ever. The response will be default. With luck, it’ll happen quickly and completely, thus sending us directly to the new dark age (with the post-industrial Stone Age soon to follow).

The ongoing crash of the stock markets differs from prior events because, for one thing, the Fed is about out of ammunition. At this juncture, there are no easy solutions. In fact, there are no solutions at all. We have just about used up all our “rabbits in the hat” as far as fiscal and monetary policy are concerned. Economics pundit Graham Summers agrees: The Fed is about to find itself completely powerless as 2008 redux appears. The great collapse, for which 2008 was merely a warm-up act, is under way.

Think of 2008 as an economic teddy bear, and 2011 as a grizzly. And I think I mentioned this one already: The hunters are out of bullets.

The all-too-expected political response from the final remaining superpower: ratchet up covert wars. Maybe, while we’re at it, launch another World War.

The bottom line

You’ve been warned repeatedly in this space, and the Guardian finally joins the party: The industrial economic system is about to blow. This burst of hope, our remaining chance at salvation, will undoubtedly be greeted with the usual assortment of protests, ridicule, and hate mail I’ve come to expect from planetary consumers who want to keep consuming the planet.

The underlying predicament — reduction in available energy — is described graphically by Gail Tverberg in this essay. She then tacks on fine analysis in this subsequent essay. Jared Diamond adds a dose of complexity, as described by Erik Curren at Transition Voice.

But these warning shots are only the most recent in a rich history dating back to Marcus Aurelius (and probably further). For materials only slightly older than me that focus on our energy predicament, take a peek at M. King Hubbert’s 1956 paper and the text of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover’s 1957 speech.

And then, let go.

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This essay is permalinked at Seismologik, Max Keiser, Conchscooter’s Common Sense, Counter Currents, Speaking Truth to Power, Seemorerocks, Jackpot Investor, eWallstreeter, Stocks that Pay, Intelwars, Tov Hazel, Equity Help Desk, InvestmentWatch, Gold & Silver Mashup, Singstock, a few dozen other sites, and Zero Hedge (comments at the latter site echo my opening paragraphs).

This essay will not go down the rabbit hole of inflation vs. deflation, preferring instead to use the simple, technically incorrect, but well-understood route of equating increasing prices with inflation. The academic ground of inflation vs. deflation has been worked to death with little understanding. If you want to pursue that topic, I encourage you to check in with Mish Shedlock, Nicole Foss, John Embry, Peter Schiff, and Gonzalo Lira (Lira believes hyperinflation has already been triggered). Rather than chase the tail of terminology, I’ll simply assume that when average folks can no longer afford food and water, economic collapse has occurred. At that point, we needn’t worry about the terms of the debate.

The U.S. industrial economy still faces strong headwinds from the four horsemen of the economic apocalypse: energy, employment, credit, and housing. Ultimately, the U.S. gets to choose from few remaining options. They all spell the end of American Empire: default or hyperinflation seem likely, along with extreme deflation. And although we’re already there, these 23 latter-day doomsayers figured out we’ll be in an economic depression next year.

The oil crunch has arrived, despite OPEC’s lies, and the oil squeeze is running the show. Oil prices are headed up on the perception of global economic growth, according to JP Morgan and a report prepared for the New Zealand Parliament. Even the International Energy Agency questions whether reserves will fill the gap between supply and demand. They’ve never been so circumspect. Similarly, the United States Geological Survey has infused reality into its estimates by reducing Alaska’s reserves by 90%. Meanwhile, the U.S. military — charged with making sure U.S. consumers have enough crude oil to keep the Hummers running — is feeling the squeeze.

Never mind that we’re still in an economic depression, according to unemployment numbers and other metrics of macroeconomic reality. The United States, and indeed the OECD, is no longer driving the world’s economic bus. And, of course, the entire field of economics is a sham built on a foundation of incorrect assumptions, lies, and misinformation. To call economics the dismal science is to denigrate all legitimate sciences while smearing the word “dismal.”

Is France foreshadowing the rest of the developed world? Will protests in France make it across the pond? Personally, I doubt Americans can be bothered to turn off the television long enough to notice the lies in which they are immersed. But I’ve been wrong a few million times before.

The only question of economic significance at this point is which event puts the stake in the heart of the industrial economy. At this point, a single tremor, an inopportune echo, an unexpected shift in the winds, and the entire icy edifice will come down like an avalanche. Will the derivatives explode? They’re still out there, and the exposure of JP Morgan alone exceeds global GDP. Or maybe somebody will notice the actual U.S. government debt, which is beyond belief, much less payment. Perhaps the big bank death spiral will get it done. Maybe the ongoing, ever-growing foreclosure crisis will bring it all down. The natives are growing restless about that issue. Perhaps a Keynesian liquidity trap will do the trick — and, by the way, we’re already in that trap, and there’s no way out. Under this scenario, the monetary authority (in our case, the Fed) loses control because long-term interest rates are very low (we’re stuck at zero for the Fed’s foreseeable future, and even the Fed acknowledges they’ve lost control when — in an act of treason — they defer decisions on monetary policy to banks). Although Benny Bucks have levitated the stock markets so far, the impending collapse of those markets, as foretold by insider trading at a sell to buy ratio of 3177 to 1, might be sufficient to terminate the industrial economy. Most stock trades are done robotically, so don’t think stock prices have anything to do with the worth of a company or that the time-tested buy-and-hold strategy is a safe bet. In fact, regular people have already fled the stock markets because the markets no longer reflect economic reality (although, unlike conspiracy theorists such as Charles Hugh Smith, I don’t believe stock-market movements are engineered). There’s good news elsewhere, too: We’re blowing bubbles faster than an eight-year-old with a fresh pack of Hubba Bubba, as even historians can see, and the collapse of any of those bubbles could sink the imperial ship. Bonds, anyone? There’s a fiscal train wreck on the way in the bond market. Indeed, Ben Bernanke is acting like a possessed zombie intent on destroying the U.S. economy all by himself, through hyperinflation if necessary. Ben, you’re not alone: I’m here to help.

Non-economic phenomena could bring civilization to its knees, too. Most obviously, the ongoing environmental collapse, including profound rates of extinction, could take us with the rest of the living planet. But an overdue electromagnetic pulse from a solar flare — or a nuclear device — could terminate many of the world’s electronic infrastructure instantly. A sufficiently sophisticated Stuxnet-style cyber-attack could do some serious damage, too. On the other hand, civilization could simply starve itself to death.

If the end of American Empire is the silver lining, then continuation of the empire represents the blackest cloud in world history. If Americans would get off their collective lazy asses, they might start a civil war. That’s a big if, and I’m not willing to bet on it. Additional imperial news includes war crimes perpetrated by U.S. soldiers and the abject shaming of this country by our naked aggression throughout the world. And then covering up the whole stinking mess, just as the oligarch’s presidential administration continues to cover up the environmental effects of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But those problems are about to take care of themselves in the undertow of economic collapse. And even the silver lining bears its own bad news: Peak oil spells peak human population.

Empires are not benevolent. This world has never had a larger, more effective empire than the current one. If you’re cheering for continuation of the age of industry in an overshot world, you’re cheering for more torture, more human suffering, and more human deaths. Needless to say, we’re on opposite sides of this issue.

And if you’re living that comfortable life in the city, regardless how much you recycle, bicycle to work, and tithe at the altar, you still haven’t figured out the immorality of imperial living. Cities are the nadir of civilization, and they have an increasingly short and burning fuse. Furthermore, nothing about our survival as a species matters if we keep adhering to an irredeemable set of living arrangements, even if your city has “walkable” neighborhoods. Who wants to live as if life has no merit?

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This essay is permalinked at Running ‘Cause I Can’t Fly, Counter Currents, Island Breath, and Before It’s News.

I’ve written all this before, but I have not recently provided a concise summary. This essay provides a brief overview of the dire nature of our predicaments with respect to fossil fuels. The primary consequences of our fossil-fuel addiction stem from two primary phenomena: peak oil and global climate change. The former spells the end of western civilization, which might come in time to prevent the extinction of our species at the hand of the latter.

Global climate change threatens our species with extinction by mid-century is we do not terminate the industrial economy soon. Increasingly dire forecasts from extremely conservative sources keep stacking up. Governments refuse to act because they know growth of the industrial economy depends (almost solely) on consumption of fossil fuels. Global climate change and energy decline are similar in this respect: neither is characterized by a politically viable solution.

There simply is no comprehensive substitute for crude oil. It is the overwhelming fuel of choice for transportation, and there is no way out of the crude trap at this late juncture in the industrial era. We passed the world oil peak in 2005, which led to near-collapse of the world’s industrial economy several times between September 2008 and May 2010. And we’re certainly not out of the economic woods yet.

Crude oil is the master material on which all other depend. Without abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil, we cannot produce uranium (which peaked in 1980), coal (which peaks within a decade or so), solar panels, wind turbines, wave power, ethanol, biodiesel, or hydroelectric power. Without abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil, we cannot maintain the electric grid. Without abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil, we cannot maintain the industrial economy for an extended period of time. Simply put, abundant supplies of inexpensive crude oil are fundamental to growth of the industrial economy and therefore to western civilization. Civilizations grow or die. Western civilization is done growing.

Not only is there no comprehensive substitute for crude oil, but partial substitutes simply do not scale. Solar panels on every roof? It’s too late for that. Electric cars in every garage? It’s too late for that. We simply do not have the cheap energy requisite to propping up an empire in precipitous decline. Energy efficiency and conservation will not save us, either, as demonstrated by the updated version of Jevons’ paradox, the Khazzoom-Brookes postulate.

Unchecked, western civilization drives us to one of two outcomes, and perhaps both: (1) Destruction of the living planet on which we depend for our survival, and/or (2) Runaway greenhouse and therefore the near-term extinction of our species. Why would we want to sustain such a system? It is immoral and omnicidal. The industrial economy enslaves us, drives us insane, and kills us in myriad ways. We need a living planet. Everything else is less important than the living planet on which we depend for our very lives. We act as if non-industrial cultures do not matter. We act as if non-human species do not matter. But they do matter, on many levels, including the level of human survival on Earth. And, of course, there’s the matter of ecological overshoot, which is where we’re spending all our time since at least 1980. Every day in overshoot brings us 205,000 people to deal with later. In this case, “deal with” means murder.

Shall we reduce Earth to a lifeless pile of rubble within a generation? Or shall we heat the planet beyond human habitability within two generations? Or shall we keep procreating as if there are no consequences for an already crowded planet? Pick your poison, but recognize it’s poison. We’re dead either way.

Don’t slit those wrists just yet. This essay bears good news.

Western civilization has been in decline at least since 1979, when world per-capita oil supply peaked coincident with the Carter Doctrine regarding oil in the Middle East. In my mind, and perhaps only there, these two events marked the apex of American Empire, which began about the time Thomas Jefferson — arguably the most enlightened of the Founding Fathers — said, with respect to native Americans: “In war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them.” It wasn’t long after 1979 that the U.S. manufacturing base was shipped overseas and we began serious engagement with Wall Street-based casino culture as the basis for our industrial economy. By most economic measures, we’ve experienced a lost decade, so it’s too late for a fast crash of the industrial economy. We’re in the midst of the same slow train wreck we’ve been experiencing for more than a decade, but the train is teetering on the edge of a cliff. Meanwhile, all we want to discuss, at every level in this country, is the quality of service in the dining car.

When the price of crude oil exhibits a price spike, an economic recession soon follows. Every recession since 1972 has been preceded by a spike in the price of oil, and direr spikes translate to deeper recessions. Economic dominoes began to fall at a rapid and accelerating rate when the price of crude spiked to $147.27/bbl in July 2008. They haven’t stopped falling, notwithstanding economic cheerleaders from government and corporations (as if the two are different at this point in American fascism). The reliance of our economy on derivatives trading cannot last much longer, considering the value of the derivatives — like the U.S. debt — greatly exceeds the value of all the currency in the world combined with all the gold mined in the history of the world.

Although it’s all coming down, as it has been for quite a while, it’s relatively clear imperial decline is accelerating. We’re obviously headed for full-scale collapse of the industrial economy, as indicated by these 40 statistics. Even Fortune and CNN agree economic collapse will be complete soon, though they don’t express any understanding of how we arrived at this point or the hopelessness of extracting ourselves from the morass.

We know what economic collapse looks like, because we’re in the midst of it. What does completion of the collapse look? I strongly suspect the economic endgame is capitulation of the stock markets. Shortly after we hit Dow 4,000, within a few days or maybe a couple weeks, the industrial economy seizes up as the lubricant is overcome with sand in the crankcase. Why would anybody work when the company for which they work is, literally, worthless? Even if they show up for a few days to punch the time-clock, the bank will not issue a check, and the banks won’t be open to cash it. It won’t be long before publicly traded utility companies don’t have enough employees to keep the lights on. It won’t be long before gas (nee service) stations shutter the doors. It won’t be long before the grocery stores are empty. It won’t be long before the water stops flowing through the municipal taps.

There are those who question my credibility, particularly when I make predictions. We’re in the midst of a war to save our humanity and the living planet, and some readers are worried about my credibility, as determined by the power of the main stream. My responses are two-fold: (1) I’m hardly sticking my neck out, unlike when I made my “new Dark Age” prediction in 2007 (at which point the price of oil had yet to exceed $80/bbl, the industrial economy appeared headed for perennial nirvana, and everybody who read or heard me thought I was insane); of the fifty or so energy-literate scholars I read, about half indicate the new Dark Age starts within a year, and a large majority of the other half give us less than two years; (2) Get over it. This war has two sides, finally. This revolution needs to be powerful and fun, and we cannot afford to lose. We cannot even afford to worry about seeking credibility from those who would have us are having us murder every remaining aspect of the living planet on which we depend for our survival.

Credibility? Respectability? It’s time to stop playing by the rules of the destroyers. We need witnesses and warriors, and we need them now. It’s time to terminate western civilization before it terminates us.

Lesson over. The exam comes within a couple years. And pop quizzes come up every day in this unfair system.

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This essay is permalinked at Counter Currents, Revelations, Islam Times, New Age Op-Ed, Island Breath, creative informationalist, Before It’s News, Mammon or Messiah research, Hot Kashmir, remedios’s posterous, and Running ‘Cause I Can’t Fly.

Update: So far, the comments at Counter Currents are absurd to the point of being humorous. But they cannot compare to the ludicrous nonsense landing in my hate-filled email in-box. Fear of the future must be driving this insanity. Similar stupidity fills the right-wing blogosphere. Google “Guy R. McPherson” for a taste.

Update 2: This essay is mentioned in the Melbourne, Australia Herald Sun, which adds one of my interviews from 2008. As usual, the comments are particularly insightful with respect to denial of both sides of the fossil-fuel coin.

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?

carrying capacity: maximum permanently supportable load.
cornucopian myth: euphoric belief in limitless resources.
drawdown: stealing resources from the future.
cargoism: delusion that technology will always save us from
overshoot: growth beyond an area’s carrying capacity, leading to
crash: die-off.

Most people to whom I speak do not believe these definitions apply to us. Our species, they say, is way too clever to cause a crash in our own population.

As if the temporary access to inexpensive fossil fuels does not constitute the basis for human overshoot. As if we’re not already there, suspended like Wile E. Coyote. As if we’re not stealing resources from the future and, in the case of industrialized nations, from every other culture on Earth. As if we are not destroying, degrading, and desecrating the living planet that supports us all.

Look around. We are surrounded by cornucopians, and we’re drowning in cargoism. Delusion? Yeah, we’ve got that.

Ignore the delusions for a short time, and you’ll see we’re headed for a correction. At this late juncture in the industrial game, hoping for anything else requires a massive dose of wishful thinking.

Even a correction seems unlikely, unless by “correction” you mean “crash.”

Yet the overwhelming majority of people with whom I speak cannot wrap their minds around correction, let alone crash. Many of these folks are university faculty members. They’re supposed to be intelligent, although I’ve concluded that the average academic has below-average intellect. Many of them are ecologists, too, who have been learning about — and in many cases allegedly teaching about — limits to growth. We’ve known about limits to growth since at least 1798. Yet we’ve acted as if those limits do not apply to us. Indeed, we’ve acted as if a miracle would will save us.

Well, two miracles. First, we need a miraculous comprehensive substitute for crude oil. Then we need a miraculous removal of carbon from the atmosphere. We need the first miracle right now. We need the second within a generation.

In the two million years of the human experience on planet Earth, we haven’t had a single miracle. Now we need two.

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This entry is permalinked at Energy Bulletin, Counter Currents, Island Breath, and Speaking Truth to Power.

If oil traders knew the truth about declining energy availability, the per-barrel price of oil would be $300 within a week. If stock traders knew the truth, we’d see capitulation of the markets shortly thereafter. If Americans knew the truth, they just might come to grips with reality, rally together, put their collective shoulders to the wheel, and start building a better world than the ominicidal culture of make believe to which we’ve all become accustomed.
But we’ll never know, because the cabal of morally bankrupt bankers and politicians running this country — and also the industrialized world — will keep playing the shell game as long as they are allowed by the impotent media. Or, more likely, until the reality of oil priced in excess of $200 per barrel interferes with their imperial ambitions.
The consequences of the shell game extend well beyond economic disaster and the likely extinction of our species. In the short term, they include hijacking the world’s marketplace, complete with child labor, hunger, and pollution (especially abroad), continued decline of intellectual “capital” in our universities, ratcheting up the war machine by attacking yet more countries (perhaps bringing a rapid demise to American Empire), further extending imperial overreach, continued shrinking of our credit-based economy, continued enrichment of the financially wealthy (including $100 billion for eight of Warren Buffett’s companies), continued profiteering by the insurance industry, and continued land grabs in poor countries by wealthy countries. All with a U.S. military on the verge of complete collapse and despite widespread acknowledgment that American-style capitalism is not working.
To reiterate the choices facing us: (1) The economically dire truth and potential for chaos, now, or (2) Certain chaos and probable extinction, later. The moral certainty of the former choice is absolute. Perhaps that alone explains why we’re choosing door number two.
Will reality intervene in time to save the living planet, including our own species? Is 2012 soon enough? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, think about what you’d do. Let’s play King For A Day. Would you trust industrial humans with the truth? Or would you commit us to chaos and probable extinction in the name of politics? In your response, please wear two hats: first your own, then, to make the game realistic, the hat of your favorite billionaire.
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This post is permalinked at Energy Bulletin and Counter Currents.

First, ethics: Did these people learn nothing in kindergarten? Never mind treating every single thing as a resource, placed here (and apparently everywhere) specifically for human consumption. Do they have no problem obliterating the living Earth in the name of economic growth? Do they have no problem committing future generations to hell on Earth, as long as they get “their” share of the planetary pie?
Consensus around an ethical argument requires agreement about ethical behavior. Apparently that’s beyond us, as a species. Onward, then to the overwhelming technological challenges faced by co-opting the resources of other planets as if they are our own.
An overwhelming majority of Americans (and citizens of the world, for that matter) think Earth is a mere stopover for a better future. The future lasts forever, and the destination is heaven. There is no need to conserve this planet’s resources if the rapture is near. Never mind that the planet’s days were seriously numbered, according to Jesus during his own time — specifically, to the generation populating the planet when Jesus was preaching. The rapture has been right around the corner for at least two millennia.
Even many secular people believe Earth is an egg. Once needed, we will simply abandon this ship for another planet. How stupid is this view? Quantitative skills have never been revered in this country, so it’s no surprise most people think we can simply plan the journey and load up the rich folks (including all middle-class Americans, of course) on a few minutes’ notice. Let’s actually do the math.
The following analysis is adapted from my 2005 book, Killing the Natives. Numbers are from NASA’s website, accessed in 2004. I suspect the situation has become considerably less tractable during the last five years.
The space shuttle represents the pinnacle of the manned space program, so I use it as the basis for this analysis. Endeavour, the latest addition to the fleet, cost $1.7 billion to construct. Current cost to launch the shuttle is $300 million for the first 8 launches each year, then $90 million for the subsequent 2 annual launches on the rare occasions they are possible. A variety of logistical constraints limit NASA to 10 launches each year. For purposes of this analysis, I assume a single craft can be ramped up to carry 10,000 people (vs. 7, a 1,400-fold increase) with no increase in cost. I further assume NASA will overcome the many constraints on the number of annual launches, so that — starting next week — 20 shuttles per day can be launched (vs. 10 per year, a 730-fold increase). For simplicity, I assume each launch will cost only $90 million. Finally, I assume the increased number of launches will come at no cost to human life, in contrast to the 2% failure rate currently exhibited by shuttle flights (a failure rate of 2% translates to 4,000 human deaths each day).
Why 20 shuttles per day? With 10,000 people on board, we must launch 20 shuttles each day just to keep up with current population growth. This rate of emigration gets rid of the 200,000 extra people born each day, compared to those who die. Thus, we will barely keep pace with current population growth.
These very conservative figures suggest a daily cost of $34 billion to build the 20 required shuttles and an additional $1.8 billion to launch them. Thus, the cost for a year’s worth of launches exceeds $13 trillion, or about 30% more than the annual gross doomestic [that's not a typo] product of the U.S.
A condom, on the other hand, costs less than a dollar. Thirteen trillion bucks will buy a lot of condoms, thereby sparing us the daunting task of shipping our extra progeny to space and having to worry about finding a new planet when we’ve mined this one beyond all possible of repair.
In addition to the daunting economic challenges facing space travelers — which, after all, can be overcome by the printing presses Obama and his gang of Keynesian neo-cons have running at full speed already — there is the more significant set of constraints imposed by the laws of physics. For example, the nearest star beyond our sun that might support life is Alpha Centauri, at a distance of 4.3 light-years. Thus, the nearest planet potentially (but improbably) capable of supporting human life is about 25 quadrillion miles away (that’s 25 million million miles, sports fans). No physicist believes it is possible to travel anywhere near the speed of light. If we could, the 4.3 light-years would be traversed in 4.3 years. Since there is no sunlight to produce energy along the way, the shuttle would have to be modified to carry enough energy to push the vessel and support the needs of passengers. No reasonable scenarios have been developed to support such an effort.
Two additional constraints are obvious. First, a vessel traveling at the speed of light would be destroyed upon striking an ounce or so of particulate matter. As currently designed the shuttle cannot withstand being struck by small pieces of foam at velocities considerably less than the speed of light. If the ship survives the constant assault from small stellar bodies, it likely will accrue mass from interstellar dust. The accumulated dust will significantly slow the ship’s speed. Second, there is no guarantee that a planet in Alpha Centauri’s orbit will support human life. There is a very good chance that 25 quadrillion miles is merely the first leg of a very long voyage.
These significant obstacles notwithstanding, the greatest constraints on interstellar travel are based not on economics or logistics, but on human psychology. Given the acute constraints on cargo, people on interstellar flights will have to live with essentially no conveniences. There could be virtually no bathing (water would be far too valuable), no washing clothes (but there would be very few clothes to wash, in any event), no food except that absolutely necessary for survival, and so on. Due to the extremely high cost associated with transporting each ounce of material, this would be a bare-bones journey. And because there will be no room for resources or extra bodies, the travelers will have to forgo reproduction at least until they find the next planet to colonize. By the most optimistic accounts, this will take many years; more realistic scenarios suggest that finding a new home will require several generations of space travel, indicating that reproductive rights must be restricted for several generations. The people who are willing to make these sacrifices, and who therefore serve as suitable candidates for interstellar travel, are badly needed here on Earth. The people we really need to dispatch are the ones who are unqualified for space travel: They can restrain themselves neither with respect to procreation nor acquisition and use of material possessions.
If we’re “successful,” we need to ask the ecological literate question: “And then what?” We’re still on the brink of ecological disaster here on Earth, and we’ve managed to export the predicament of ecological overshoot to another planet. And this seems like a good idea?
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This post was inspired by Greg Breneman’s exemplary comments about technology, and improved by Mike’s off-blog wisdom. Energy Bulletin has a permalink here, and Counter Currents has a permalink here.

I am certain of only one thing: Living rationally may have its rewards, but an “easy” life is not one of them. Yes, I made the psychological commitment to the obvious. And that part — arguably the most important part of this whole affair — was relatively easy, I suppose because life-long education in ecology makes me understand the limits of growth. The Ph.D. minor in economics helped a little, if only to pull back the curtain to expose the flawed arguments of neo-classical economists.
But let’s start with the bigger, more important issue, the one that actually threatens our species with extinction: I mourned for six full months when I realized our species was likely to cause its own extinction via global climate change by 2100.
Imagine my elation when I discovered there is one potential, viable solution to this predicament. But when I point out that solution, I am not exactly hailed as the savior of our species. We studiously avoid even discussing that option, thereby committing ourselves to the aforementioned extinction. This is absurd and obscene, to me and nearly a dozen other people on the planet.
But, back to my elation, and the ease of my life in these economically challenging times.
Cheerleaders for empire (hence, to our own extinction) go on to explain another source of my ease: I have no children, and they do, so they have so much more to worry about than simple-living me. As if I didn’t make the choice about procreation, on my own. As did they. It was obvious to me, from the time I was twenty, that bringing more people into the world was not going to help the planet and its occupants. I decided not to contribute to planetary overshoot. Somehow, that makes me the self-absorbed bad guy.
And on they go, about the dreams they have for their children. Their children should be allowed to travel, as they did. The children should be allowed to experience the world’s cultures (and run fly safely back to the comforts of the empire). As if there are no costs to our addiction to fossil fuels. As if I don’t have dreams of my own, which I’m unable to pursue. Through an entire career, I did what I was “supposed” to do: Nose to the grindstone, saving a majority of my earnings, I put my dreams on hold until after retirement. In other words, I threw it away, down the rat-hole of imperial dreams.
At some point, our dreams must match reality. Most people hate that. Sometimes, I’m among them.
Never mind the hard work, physical, mental, and emotional, I’ve invested in my post-carbon future. That’s actually been fun and rewarding (and it’ll be a lot more rewarding in the near future).
There’s more. (Isn’t there always?)
I love my family. But I doubt I’ll know when my parents die. And I’m certain I’ll not know when my siblings and their family members die.
When there’s no food on the shelves, no gas at the convenience store, and no water coming out the taps, it’s safe to conclude the empire has abandoned you. But if you think an economic recovery is right around the corner, you still will not abandon the empire. By that time, it’s too late to start thinking about other arrangements. Hell, it’s too late to pack the car and hit the road.
With apologies for the self-indulgent nature of this posting, I have to ask: Easy? Compared to what, exactly?