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Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, “Empires fall from grace with alarming speed.”

Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it’s one that I’ve kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.

I’m from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to the “New World” to seek promise for the future.

As I’ve spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I’ve had the opportunity to observe many British contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on board when Britain “came back.”

This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world’s foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn’t returned to its former glory.

And it never will.

If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal. Whether we’re looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that’s existed at one time, history is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it’s fallen.

But of what importance is this to us today?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oedipus: the Discovery of the Future

April 23, 2024

Oedipus: the Discovery of the Future

What do we know of that obscure realm where Gods and Daimones roam?

The story of how Oedipus killed his father and married his mother looks alien, even silly, to us. Yet, it resonates deeply with something profound in our modern souls. It is not just interesting for human psychology, but it is a reminder of how our ancestors discovered the future for the first time and with it concepts such as predestination, free will, and more.

I know the grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea;
I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless.
The Pythoness of the Oracle of Delphi to King Croesus.
__________________________________________________________________

Honestly, what do you make of Oedipus’s story? Seen in modern terms, it is a weird patch-up of elements that go from the silly to the incomprehensible. Do you know of anyone so careless that he married his mother and didn’t even realize it? And what should be made of the riddle of the Sphinx, supposed to be so difficult that no one in the whole city of Thebes could solve it? (“what creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday, and three legs at night?”) You can try it with an 8-year-old child, and she will probably solve it immediately.

Yet, the deep meaning of the myth is not silly, and it reverberates with something still present in our modern souls. So much that people such as Sigmund Freud, Claude Levi-Strauss, James Frazer, and Robert Graves discuss it at length in their works. But there is a point that I think hasn’t been discussed so often so far. Oedipus marks the turning point in history when our ancestors first started thinking about the future…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oh, The Irony: Congress Passes FISA-702 Extension, Allowing Warrantless Document Searches & Electronic Surveillance Of Americans, On Patriots Day 2024

April 21, 2024

Oh, The Irony: Congress Passes FISA-702 Extension, Allowing Warrantless Document Searches & Electronic Surveillance Of Americans, On Patriots Day 2024

Authored by ‘Sundance’ via TheConservativeTreehouse.com,

The fourth amendment to the United States constitution says:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Late last night, early this morning (after midnight), the United States Senate passed a FISA reauthorization bill that directly and specifically violates every tenant of the 4th amendment.

The senate voted to authorize warrantless federal government searches of every American’s private papers, effects, emails, electronic data records, cell phone calls, contact lists, text messages, buying habits, purchases, banking records, social media posts, direct messages, private communications and every keystroke of every electronic device in your life.

All of it continues to be subject to the capture, review and surveillance of an unelected opaque law enforcement mechanism, and congress supports it.

The issue is magnified because the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of the FISA-702 data collection system, because the Supreme Court also says no American has standing to challenge the federal government violation of their 4th Amendment right to privacy. It’s all infuriating… It’s all FUBAR!

Oh, and if you are reading this… you’re likely on the list.

Last night Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) teamed up with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and added an amendment that would have required the government to get a warrant before reviewing any communications incidentally collected from Americans.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

10 Ways to use comfrey, a powerful healing herb

October 14, 2022

10 Ways to use comfrey, a powerful healing herb

(Natural News) Comfrey, or gum plant, is a medicinal herb that can be used as an astringent, anti-inflammatory or anti-rheumatic agent. It can also be used to treat wounds, bites, stings, rashes and other conditions. Not only does it speed up recovery on the surface level, but it also penetrates into the tissues to speed the healing of sprains, strains and even broken bones.

Comfrey is a nutrient accumulator. The roots of the comfrey plant reach far into the earth to pull up minerals, and it is known to be a good source of calcium, manganese, potassium, vitamin A and vitamin C. (Related: How to grow and use comfrey for gardening and medicine.)

Using comfrey for healing

As Oil

You can boil comfrey in a pan and heat it on low until the oil takes the color of the herbs. This will take about thirty minutes to an hour. You can then strain the herbs and bottle the oil. While it can be stored at room temperature, comfrey oil will last longer when kept in a cool place.

You can apply the oil liberally to aches, pains, and other areas when desired. Use a roller bottle to use the oil without getting your hands messy.

As Decoction

Use 1-3 teaspoons of dried comfrey root for every cup of water. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for up ten to fifteen minutes. Drink this concoction up to three times a day, or gargle it to treat infections, dry mouth, sore throat and bleeding gums.

As tea or water infusion

…click on the above link to read the rest…

World population is growing faster than we thought

August 4, 2022

World population is growing faster than we thought

We’ve all heard the aphorism ‘Lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Statistics are an invaluable tool for understanding and responding appropriately to the world, but when the numbers say one thing and the headlines say another, it’s a cause for concern. TOP takes a dive into World Population Prospects 2022.

The world’s population has grown more than anticipated in the past three years.

That should have been the headline when the United Nations released its latest revision of world population data (World Population Prospects 2022) on 11 July. Instead, the headline was that global population would peak in 2086 at 10.4 billion, about 15 years earlier and half a billion fewer than projected in 2019.

Is this fake news? Why should greater-than-anticipated growth yield lower future growth projections? Let’s look at the data they have given us. Apologies if this article is a bit nerdy, but the UN projections play an important role in government planning throughout the world. Any criticism of them needs to be thoroughly justified.

Figure 1 shows the world population as it was estimated in each revision of World Population Prospects (WPP) from 2010 to 2022. The pink line connects each revision’s estimate of the current population, i.e. the mid-2010 population as estimated by WPP2010 connected to the mid-2012 population as estimated by WPP2012 etc. Using this rolling-current estimate avoids any bias in the UN’s model that might be influencing the slope of the projected line.

In blue dashed lines are the projected growth anticipated in each of those revisions. With the exception of 2019, where recent past estimates closely matched what was expected in 2017, each new revision has concluded that growth since the last update was greater than they anticipated.

The world population estimates for each successive revision of World Population Prospects from 2010 to 2022 have been higher than the previous years'

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IEA: Europe Will Have To Cut Gas Usage By Nearly One-Third

June 30, 2022

IEA: Europe Will Have To Cut Gas Usage By Nearly One-Third

In the first quarter of next year, the countries of the European Union will have to cut their usage of natural gas by up to 30% in preparation for a complete stoppage of Russian gas flows, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

IEA Director Fatih Birol on Tuesday said that “a complete cut-off of Russian gas supplies to Europe could result in storage fill levels being well below average ahead of the winter, leaving the EU in a very vulnerable position.”

“In the current context, I wouldn’t exclude a complete cut-off of gas exports to Europe from Russia,” he stated.

Citing technical issues related to the Nord Stream pipeline, Russia earlier in June cut flows of gas to Germany by 60%.

Plans to boost natural gas storage filling in Europe would not withstand a full Russian cut-off if it were to happen between now and the fourth quarter of this year.

By the first of November, the European Union should have its gas storage filled to 90%; however, a complete Russian cut-off would reduce that significantly, leading to another surge in natural gas prices, which have already tripled year-on-year, according to Bloomberg, citing figures from the ICE Endex.

European natural gas prices remained steady from Monday to Tuesday, in part due to a resumption of the flow of Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline, which was undergoing maintenance. The pipeline has a 31.5-billion-cubic-meter capacity, Bloomberg reports.

On Tuesday, Dutch front-month gas futures dropped 0.2% at the close.

Also steadying natural gas prices in Europe on Tuesday were new estimations for demand, which could see a drop due to sunnier weather that can better support solar energy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Blackout Warning For Delhi If Coal Supply Not Restored In 2 Days

October 9, 2021

Blackout Warning For Delhi If Coal Supply Not Restored In 2 Days

Over half of India’s 135 coal-fired power plants, which in total supply around 70 per cent of the country’s electricity, have fuel stocks of less than three days

Power Crisis: Coal-fired power plants are facing shortage of coal

There could be a blackout in the national capital in the next two days if coal supplies to power plants do not improve, a Delhi minister said today. Delhi joins a long queue of states including Tamil Nadu and Odisha that have raised concerns over long power cuts due to shortage of coal in power plants.

Over half of India’s 135 coal-fired power plants, which in total supply around 70 per cent of the country’s electricity, have fuel stocks of less than three days, data from the central grid operator showed, news agency Reuters had reported earlier this week.

“If coal supply doesn’t improve, there will be a blackout in Delhi in two days,” the national capital’s Power Minister Satyendra Jain said today. “The coal-fired power plants that supply electricity to Delhi have to keep a minimum coal stock of one month, but now it has come down to one day,” Mr Jain said.

“Our request to the centre is that railway wagons should be arranged and coal should be transported to the plants soonest. All the plants are already running in only 55 per cent capacity,” the minister in Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government said.

Mr Jain alleged the coal crisis appears to be “man-made, just as the crisis of medical oxygen supply during the COVID-19 second wave.”

“There is politics going on. If you create a crisis, it will seem that some great work has been done by solving it,” the Delhi minister said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK Has Ten Days To Save Christmas, Retail Sector Warns

September 26, 2021

UK Has Ten Days To Save Christmas, Retail Sector Warns

Brits are faced with the difficulty of soaring power bills, food and fuel shortages, and the possibility Christmas could be canceled unless the world’s fifth-largest economy hires more truck drivers, according to Reuters, citing comments made by the retail industry to the government.

“Unless new drivers are found in the next ten days, it is inevitable that we will see significant disruption in the run-up to Christmas,” Andrew Opie, director of food & sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, the retail industry’s lobby group, told the government on Friday.

“Heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers are the glue which hold our supply chains together,” Opie said. “Without them, we are unable to move goods from farms to warehouses to shops.”

For months, trucking and logistics companies have experienced robust demand, but a shortage of HGV drivers disrupted critical land-based shipping networks and resulted in delayed shipments for supermarkets, retailers, and other industries.

To solve the crisis and make sure that Christmas is not lost this year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said they’re considering temporary measures, such as work visas for truck drivers, allowing up to 5,000 foreign drivers onto British roads.

“We’re looking at temporary measures to avoid any immediate problems, but any measures we introduce will be very strictly time-limited,” a spokeswoman for Johnson’s office said in a statement.

UK’s Road Haulage Association said there need to be at least 100,000 more HGV drivers to meet demand.

The cause of the driver shortage is partly because of Brexit and the virus pandemic, which suspended driver training for about a year.

With Christmas in the crosshairs, the country appears to be diving headfirst into a 1970s-style “winter of discontent” of shortages and socio-economic distress.

Gratuitous self-promotion!

September 12, 2021

Gratuitous self-promotion!

Here is a pic of ecologist and author Richard Heinberg signing copies of his most recent book: Power. On the bookshelf behind him you can find a copy of my novel, Olduvai, if you zoom in two books to the right of Dmitry Orlov’s The Five Stages of Collapse and next to The Moron’s Guide to Global Collapse.

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXVIII

August 10, 2021

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXVIII

Today’s very brief ‘contemplation’ is a comment I penned on an article that discusses the limits to growth we have probably surpassed, Kuber-Ross’s stages of grief (especially denial and bargaining) that the world seems to be experiencing in the wake of increasing awareness of our existential dilemmas/predicaments, and a call for cooperation amongst the world’s people to address our plight.

I have repeatedly experienced the denial and anger that tends to arise when one challenges another’s personal beliefs. I should know better than to present countervailing evidence/narratives, especially given the defensive psychological mechanisms that arise to preserve such beliefs. We tend to look for confirmation of our strongly-held views by surrounding ourselves with like-minded voices, not disruptive narratives that can lead to cognitive dissonance. Such stories are denigrated and attacked (as the author of the article points out for the Limits to Growth authors).

I do believe, however, that the acceptance of our limits in many aspects leads to a conclusion that degrowth needs to be not only considered and discussed, but widely pursued if humanity is to have any hope of at least some of us transitioning through the self-made bottleneck that is directly ahead of us. Pursing the ‘wrong’ path will only make our predicament far, far more challenging and greatly reduce any opportunities for at least some of humanity to survive.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXVII

July 24, 2021

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXVII

Tulum, Mexico (1986) Photo by author

Discussing ‘renewable’ energy and its shortcomings with those who hold on to the belief that they offer us a ‘solution’ to the predicaments humanity faces is always ‘challenging’. Today’s contemplation is based on a recent dialogue I have had with a few people who seek to hold on to the belief that we can completely abandon fossil fuels and simply shift support for society’s complexities over to ‘renewables, and my response to someone who complimented my viewpoint (an unusual occurrence on the pages of the online media site (The Tyee) I frequent, whose writers/editors/commenters mostly support ‘renewables’ and the promises the proponents of them make). The story is not so straightforward and most don’t want to hear that. You can check out the conversation here.

* * *

Thank you. The root cause of our problem appears to be ecological overshoot brought on, primarily, by our exploitation of a one-time energy cache (fossil fuels) that has helped to ‘power’ amazing technological tools and processes that, in turn, have allowed us to exploit the planet and its resources substantially. This has led to a number of positive feedback loops, particularly exponential increases in population, waste (including greenhouse gases), and the speed at which we use these finite resources.

The crowd that insists ‘renewable’ energy (and it’s not truly ‘renewable’ given its dependency on finite resources, and certainly not ‘green/clean’ based on the processes necessary to produce them) can ‘sustain’ our energy-intensive complexities tend to be willfully ignorant of their negative consequences and deficiencies. In fact, my guess is that many have little experience with or knowledge of them (see Alice Friedemann’s work at Energy Skeptic and especially her most recent Springer Energy Series publication, Life After Fossil Fuels) and are grasping for solutions to our predicaments.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Craig Murray: The Decline of Western Power

July 22, 2021

Craig Murray: The Decline of Western Power

The really interesting thing about the G7 summit is that it wasn’t interesting. Nobody expected it to change the world, and it won’t.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other leaders of the G7 watch the Red Arrows fly over in Carbis Bay, June 12. (Simon Dawson, No 10 Downing Street, Flickr)

Boris Johnson sees himself as the heritor of a world bestriding Imperial mantle, but in truth he cannot bestride the Irish Sea. The overshadowing of last month’s G7 summit by the U.K. prime minister’s peculiar concern that Irish sausages should not be eaten by those in Northern Ireland who do not believe in evolution, was a fascinating examplar of British impotence as he failed to persuade anybody else to support him. It looks like Danish bacon for the shops of Belfast and Derry will have to be imported through Dun Laoghaire and not through Larne. Ho hum.

The really interesting thing about the G7 summit is that it wasn’t interesting. Nobody expected it to change the world, and it won’t. John Pilger pointed out the key fact. Twenty years ago, the G7 constituted two thirds of the world economy. Now they constitute one third. They don’t even represent most of the world’s billionaires any longer, though those billionaires they do represent — and indeed some of the billionaires they don’t represent — were naturally pulling the strings of these rather sluggish puppets.

It used to be that any important sporting event in any developing country would feature hoardings for western multinationals, such as Pepsi Cola and Nestle baby milk. Nowadays I am watching the Euros football pitches surrounded by electronic hoardings in Chinese. The thing about power is this; it shifts with time.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Commodities, Supply-Chains and Structural Changes in Demand

July 17, 2021

COMMODITIES, SUPPLY-CHAINS AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN DEMAND

Talk of a new commodity super-cycle may be premature
Once GDP growth returns to trend, commodity demand will moderate
Fiscal and monetary relief are key to maintaining growth and demand
Structural changes in energy demand will prove more persistent

As the spectre of inflation begins to haunt economists, many market commentators have started to focus on commodity prices in an attempt to predict the likely direction of the general price level for goods and services. This indexing of the most heterogeneous asset class has always struck me as destined to disappoint. Commodity prices change in response to, often, small variation in supply or demand and the price of some commodities varies enormously from one geographic location to another. Occasionally the majority of commodities rise in tandem but more frequently they dance to their own peculiar tunes.

Commodity analysts tend to focus on Energy and Industrial Metals foremost; Agricultural Commodities, which are more diverse by nature are often left as a footnote. Occasionally, however, a demand-side event occurs which causes nearly all sectors to rise. The Covid-19 event was just such a shock, disrupting global supply-chains and consumer demand patterns simultaneously.

The chart below shows the CRB Index since 1995: –

Source: CRB, Yardeni

This chart looks very different to the energy heavy GSCI Index, which is weighted on the basis of liquidity and by the respective world production quantities of its underlying components: –

Source: S&P GSCI, Trading Economics

The small rebound on the chart above is not that insignificant, however, it equates to a 55% rise since the lows on 2020. The fact that prices collapsed, as the pandemic broke, and subsequently soared, as vaccines allowed economies to reopen, is hardly surprising. Economic cycles wield a powerful influence over commodity prices; short-term, inelastic, supply, confronted by an unexpected jump in demand, invariably precipitates sharp price increases.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Cooling effect of clouds ‘underestimated’ by climate models, says new study

June 12, 2021

Cooling effect of clouds ‘underestimated’ by climate models, says new study

Cooling effect of clouds ‘underestimated’ by climate models, says new study

* * *

Clouds could have a greater cooling effect on the planet than climate models currently suggest, according to new research.

The paper, published in Nature Climate Change, aims to correct a “long-standing” and “unaddressed” problem in climate modelling – namely, that existing models simulate too much rainfall from clouds and, therefore, underestimate their lifespan and cooling effect.

The authors have updated an existing climate model with a more realistic simulation of rainfall from “warm” clouds – those that contain water only, rather than a combination of water and ice. They find that this update makes the “cloud-lifetime feedback” – a process in which warmer temperatures increase the lifespan of clouds – almost three times bigger.

The authors note that the newest generation of global climate models – the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) – predicts faster future warming than its predecessors. This is largely because the new models simulate a smaller cooling effect from clouds.

However, the lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that fixing the “problem” in rainfall simulations “reduces the amount of warming predicted by the model, by about the same amount as the warming increase between CMIP5 and CMIP6”.

Due to this, he says that the key takeaway from the study is to “take the extra warming in CMIP6 with a grain of salt until some of the other known cloud problems are also fixed in the models”.

Cooling clouds

The impact of clouds on global temperature is a complex area of research that scientists have been working on for decades.

In a Carbon Brief guest post published in 2018, Prof Ellie Highwood – professor of climate physics in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading – explains how clouds can affect global temperatures:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XIX

June 7, 2021

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XIX

Andrew Nikiforuk is an author and contributing editor of the online media site The Tyee. He has been writing about the oil and gas industry for close to 20 years. In his most recent article he writes about the lies being told by the Canadian government regarding its attempts to reduce carbon emissions. The Canadian government is certainly not alone in its misinformation (propaganda?) and one of the issues I believe is contributing to the lies is a (purposeful?) misidentification of our planet’s fundamental existential dilemma. Below is my comment on Andrew’s excellent discussion.

* * *

Thank you, Andrew. You’ve laid out the case for some very, very difficult decisions/choices/discussions that lay ahead of us.

I’m not convinced we will make what I consider to be the correct choices or even engage in some meaningful and productive dialogue since the changes that I believe are needed (degrowth) would be viewed as exceedingly painful to many as it challenges not only some core beliefs but what could be considered rights/entitlements/expectations regarding living standards (and it doesn’t help that we are genetically predisposed to avoid pain and seek pleasure). The brakes that need to be applied to some social practices/policies (perhaps most? all?) would also be challenged by some because I would contend the fundamental dilemma we are having to address is not necessarily carbon emissions, which I would argue is one of the consequences of the underlying issue, which is ecological overshoot.

The finite, one-time cache of easy-to-retrieve and cheap-to-access energy provided by fossil fuels has ‘fuelled’ an explosion in human numbers and sociopolitical/cultural/economic complexities unlike any other time in human pre/history. With this energy resource at our disposal we have constructed a complex, global, and industrialised world with technological wonders that would certainly appear magical to past generations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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I know the grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea; I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless. The Pythoness of the Oracle of Delphi to King Croesus. __________________________________________________________________

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I know the grains of sand on the beach and measure the sea;
I understand the speech of the dumb and hear the voiceless.
The Pythoness of the Oracle of Delphi to King Croesus.
__________________________________________________________________