Investing in Durability
Durability has always been a wise investment. Now is the perfect time to make a personal investment in durability, for myriad reasons. For one thing, most sellers still think fiat currency is valuable.
A tale of three cities
I’ve returned to the U.S. after a trip to Italy. My goals for the trip were three-fold: (1) Visit the heart of western civilization before we complete our ongoing trip to the new Dark Age and then the neo-Neolithic, (2) collect anecdotes about the collapse of a large, powerful, seemingly invincible empire, and (3) try to determine if the hatred for a living Earth by Homo sapiens, which at this point is nearly all-consuming, was initiated — or at least accelerated — by the Renaissance. These goals echo the general themes I’ve considered throughout the history of this blog, so they seem appropriate to my one hundredth post.
Power Outage
As should be clear by now, industrial humans -- or at least our "leaders" -- have chosen not door number one (ecological collapse) and not door number two (economic collapse), but both of the above.
Time for a Revolution
Not so long ago, $60 oil represented a dire threat to the U.S. (hence, world) economy. Now that we’ve seen a price spike and a rapid decline down to half the current price and one-fifth last summer’s peak, Wall Street cheers expensive oil because it profits the oil companies.
You gotta love the media, loving Wall Street for loving the oil companies.
A Friend of the Earth
I just finished reading T.C. Boyle’s 2000 novel, A Friend of the Earth. A retirement gift from a long-time friend and colleague, the book describes one man’s futile attempts to save the living earth and the consequences of his failure.
A Friend of the Earth is set in 2025-2026, with frequent flashbacks to 1989 and 1990. In this tale, the industrial age has not reached its end, and the consequences are truly horrific. The effects of habitat loss for many species, along with climate change, have produced a badly overpopulated planet that alternates between madly monsoonal and hellishly hot. The book echoes Jonathan Swift’s classic writings from three centuries ago: People are living a long time, relative to today’s standards, but their lives are truly miserable.
Humanity at a Crossroads
The evidence is gaining increasing clarity: We’ve reached a crossroads unlike any other in human history. One path leads to despair for Homo industrialis. The other leads to extinction, for Homo sapiens and the millions of species we are taking with us into the abyss. I’ll take door number one.
Neocon nation, redux
I caught a lot of flak from readers on this blog when I pointed out, six months ago, that we have become a neocon nation. I even pointed out the apparent neoconservative tendencies of our newly elected president, much to the chagrin of readers across the political spectrum (meaning, I suppose, Democrats and Republicans, the spectrum for which is about as broad as that from indigo to violet on the electromagnetic spectrum).