In a classic case of better late than never, an international panel of scientists has warned that we have passed the global-change tipping point. Actually, in this case, it is not better late than never: it’s so late, it might as well be never.
I’m frequently told how easy life is for me. Always by people who think life is difficult for them, as they go on to explain.
According to these tortured souls, life is hard because they haven’t made the necessary psychological commitment to the notion of a world economic collapse. And I have, so I have it easy.
Prophet of Doom is a tough sell, as it always has been. Nobody appreciates a prophet in his own time, I suppose. On the other hand, there’s no need for a prophet in these times: the newspapers are filled with far more economic doom than I can keep up with, much less write about. So this post will focus on my personal approach to an economy rigged to fail.
Over at Endless Emendation, I’ve been debating whether the industrial economy is near its end. Even without seriously raising the issue of the horrors of the industrial economy for the world’s cultures and species, and even for our own species, I’ve met a bit of resistance.
It’s not unlike the resistance I’ve met here. Or, during the last several years, everywhere else in the empire. I’ll avoid the issue of the horrors, just for simplicity. But I’m going to foray into the last of fast collapse. Readers, brace for impact.
Seems a life in the ivory tower is damned poor preparation for post-carbon living. But I’ve largely survived the blister phase, and calluses are forming on my soft, pink hands as I return to a life of labor at the mud hut. My fingers try to wrap around a shovel handle, even when there’s no shovel in sight.
The rewards are not evident yet, but I can feel them coming closer with each new dawn. Fortunately, I’m no longer addicted to academic success, as I once was, because I know there are greater rewards than meaningless paper in the bank and meaningless plaques on the wall.
The Financial Times gives us comprehensive coverage of the “disaster” in Davos even as unrest breaks out throughout the industrialized world (e.g., France and England, but not yet in the U.S., likely because we still have food at the grocery store, water coming out the taps, and American Idol on the television). As we descend further into the abyss of the industrial economy’s unwinding, we can expect widespread rioting to spread further, finding its way to the U.S. within the year. Considering this backdrop, it’s informative to glimpse into history at similar events. Since we’ve before never witnessed the end of industrialized civilization, I’m turning to a fictional account.
Now that Barack Obama has been hanging out in the Oval Office for a whopping two weeks, he’s starting to show his true colors. Turns out those colors aren’t bright blue. They’re purple, with a red tinge. Obama has bought into the Calvin Coolidge notion that, “The business of America is business.”