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Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 1
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCVI–‘Renewable’ Energy: See, Hear, and Speak No Evil, Part 1
A recent post on environmentalism as a meme states that ‘renewable’ energy supporters hold that these technologies solve some significant problems that humanity faces.
‘Renewable’ energy enthusiasts claim the following: wars are not created as a result of them; they fight pollution; and through their use security is improved, jobs are created, and wealth is generated.
Each of these beliefs about ‘renewables’ could be argued to hold some ‘truth’ and be construed as positive, depending entirely upon one’s perspective. I would argue, however, that this perspective is relatively narrow and ignores much of the complexity surrounding our energy production, use, and especially the negative consequences that arise from such production and use.
I believe that these perceptions about renewables and the amplification of them by their cheerleaders feed into the monster that is the mythos (and false hope) around modern complex society ‘sustainability’ and a pending energy ‘transition’.
Let me deconstruct each of these ideas on our ‘renewable energy transition’ and its associated industrial technologies over this and my next Contemplation.
Claim #1: Wars are not created as a result of them
Implicit in this first view is that wars have and are arising from societal competition over the energy source that ‘renewables’ are seeking to ‘replace’: hydrocarbons. I cannot disagree whatsoever with this implication: wars have and are occuring as a result of attempts to gain control over hydrocarbon resources.
Although not typically admitted by governments and/or a region’s ruling elite, there is plenty of evidence to support the argument that resources in general are a significant contributing factor to kinetic wars; they rarely, if ever, arise due to the reasons typically promoted by nations as they seek to garner the support of their citizens for military engagements. Our elite wish the masses to buy into the belief that wars are fought almost exclusively over moral issues–to simplify: good versus evil. It is just coincidental that those evil ‘others’ tend to be in possession of lands that hold lots of natural resources, such as: water, timber, fishing grounds, arable farmland, precious metals and gemstones, rare-earth minerals, hydrocarbons, and/or uranium.
Brave AI-generated summary
It can be stated with fair certainty that for the past 50+ years many wars have been fought over our industrial societies’ master resource: hydrocarbons. This appears particularly obvious when one considers the geopolitical gamesmanship surrounding the Middle East over this time, including a number of hot wars and the petrodollar deal between the United States and Saudi Arabia struck in 1974. And it is probably not coincidental that the increase in such wars and machinations occurred not long after the U.S. Empire passed its peak in cheap, conventional crude oil in 1970 (just as predicted by petroleum geologist Marion King Hubbert in 1956).
For a current example, one need look no further than the decade-old U.S. invasion and occupation of hydrocarbon-rich regions of Syria. (Interesting, isn’t it, how the sovereignty and border integrity of some nation states is unimportant or simply ignored, while for others it’s worth ‘investing’–with probably a lot of money laundering–billions/trillions of dollars and risking many lives. Can you say double standard? Perhaps it’s because that ‘evil’ Syrian government happened to be controlling an area with ‘our’ oil.)
Regardless, it seems obvious that competition over hydrocarbon reserves results in war.
But the production and use of ‘renewables’ won’t result in wars? Let’s glance behind the curtain for a moment to unpack this initial claim.
First of all–and although die-hard techno-optimists/ecomodernists may deny/ignore/dispute the following–’renewables’ depend upon significant inputs of hydrocarbons for their production, distribution, maintenance, and reclamation/disposal. Despite extremely small-scale examples of power derived via ‘renewables’ to carry out these processes (but greatly amplified by ‘renewables’ cheerleaders), huge amounts of hydrocarbons are indispensable to the supposed energy ‘transition’. Almost all the important industrial processes required to produce ‘renewables’ need hydrocarbons to power them.
And if we are to attempt what some are calling for–a ‘war-footing’ investment in a massive rollout of ‘renewables’–then one hell of a lot of hydrocarbons are required; probably more than can be garnered from existing global reserves for the scale of such a feat. And remember scale is significantly important to any energy ‘transition’ that depends upon ‘renewables’ since the electricity generated by these technologies accounts for only a smallish amount of the current power needs of modern, industrial societies–to say little about growing energy demands due to the ongoing pursuit of the perpetual growth chalice and the globe’s increasing population.
A very significant portion of humanity’s primary energy needs is still met by way of hydrocarbons–more than 80%. To replace our current demands (ignore for the moment that these demands keep growing–just think about the energy needs being bandied about for Artificial Intelligence and data centres) would require gargantuan numbers of solar panels, and/or wind turbines, and/or nuclear power plants.
For example, to replace the electricity portion of our energy demands (remember that hydrocarbons are used for much more than just electricity production) via ‘renewables’ would require tens of millions of solar panels, and/or many millions of wind turbines to be produced, and/or thousands of nuclear power plants to be constructed.
So the initial glitch in the ‘wars are not created as a result of them’ claim is that if wars are created as a result of competition over hydrocarbon resources and hydrocarbon resources are necessary for the creation (and re-creation) of ‘renewables’, then wars are indeed created as a result of them–their production necessitates that the competition/wars over hydrocarbons continue. And such competition would need to ramp up very significantly given the scale of ‘renewables’ being clamoured for and the hydrocarbons that would be needed.
The second major glitch for this ‘no war’ claim is stumbled upon once one is aware that ‘renewables’ also require a number of other finite and rare-earth mineral resources for their production. And the concentrated deposits of these minerals do not occur in equitable distributions across the planet. Some of those evil ‘others’ happen to be sitting on the lands that hold the minerals we need for our ‘renewables’. Oops…talk about bad planning.
And then there’s the ‘warfare’ being waged upon the peoples of some of the mineral-rich regions (particularly nations with emerging or developing economies) who are stripped of rights, forcibly removed/relocated, required to work under less-than-ideal circumstances, increasingly exposed to pollutants/toxins, etc.. To say little about the ‘war’ waged against our ecosystems by the pursuit of ‘renewables’ (see below for more on this aspect).
Our species has been carrying out the brutal phenomenon of war for millennia prior to the use of hydrocarbons and I have little doubt that this is not going to halt, dissipate, or even be reduced through the adoption of ‘renewables’ as the notion implies. In fact, quite the opposite may be true if ruling elites across the globe believe that their wealth, control, and prestige are in jeopardy because somewhere and someone else has the resources required to ‘power’ via ‘renewables’ their lifestyles and fiefdoms (or at least line their pockets with the wealth being funnelled into the ‘electrify everything’ racket).
In fact, societal competition over regions of the planet that hold some of the mineral resources listed above as needed for ‘renewables’ started decades ago and can only get worse as we have already draw down a lot of the lowest-hanging fruit (i.e., best deposits) of these finite materials.
So, sorry, not sorry; if wars are fought over resources that are perceived as being necessary for a society’s energy needs, then the claim that wars are not fought as a result of ‘renewables’ is completely and utterly erroneous. To argue that wars are not created as a result of ‘renewables’ being produced and used completely ignores reality through some significantly darkly-shaded blinders.
Claim #2: They fight pollution
This is perhaps the most obviously misinformed assertion made by ‘renewables’ promoters. While within a narrow, keyhole perspective–focussed upon the lack of carbon emissions produced once the technologies have been manufactured and distributed–this may be accurate, such a statement completely ignores the massive ecologically-destructive mining required for the extraction and refinement of the minerals that help to create these technologies. It also overlooks the significant hydrocarbon inputs and their contribution to pollution of our ecosystems.
Mining is amongst the most polluting and destructive endeavours that humans engage in. To ignore this required activity in the production of ‘renewables’ technologies and then maintain that ‘renewables’ do not pollute is completely outlandish (bullshit, actually). But this fantastical belief is held tightly by many (most?) who assert that ‘renewables’ are and the energy ‘transition’ will be ‘clean/green’. This doesn’t just ignore reality, it distorts it beyond belief.
Some attempt to rationalise such destructive activities suggesting they are a one-off and everything is ‘clean/green’ once the products are manufactured. But this too ignores a lot. It ignores two very important facts: ‘renewables’ have a limited lifespan and/or can malfunction needing replacement; and, ‘recycling’ does not and cannot reclaim all the materials in them to ‘recreate’ them without more mining, to say little about the tremendous energy costs of recycling and pollutants/toxins that arise from the process.
This rationalisation also ignores the already overloaded planetary sinks and their increasing inability to absorb more pollutants/toxins. And the pollution and toxins that would be released into our ecosystems by the scale of ‘renewables’ production some are calling for would be monumental. Absolutely monumental.
Also keep in mind that the estimates provided above for how many solar panels and/or wind turbines would be required to replace the hydrocarbon-produced electricity that our complex societies demand do not take into account the number of additional panels or turbines that would be required to make up for the intermittency of these technologies. The sun only shines for a limited number of hours per day, and/or can encounter very cloudy or snowy conditions for many locations, and sometimes the wind doesn’t blow.
Then there are the massive and unprecedented battery storage facilities that would be required to store harvested energy for use when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. The negative impact upon our ecosystems from the production (that also require massive finite and rare-earth minerals via mining), use of, and reclamation/disposal of batteries would also be tremendously monumental.
Add on top of these ‘roadblocks’ to some ‘green/clean’ utopian future the infrastructure build-out that would be required to support all this ‘electrification of everything’ and the replacement of all those hydrocarbon-dependent technologies and the impact on our ecosystems is beyond comprehension.
Just as they do not reduce the drawdown of hydrocarbons and their use but add to them, ‘renewables’ do not ‘fight’ pollution–they exacerbate it, significantly. To maintain that ‘renewables’ fight pollution is probably even more outrageously egregious than holding that they don’t result in war.
I close Part 1 of this Contemplation with a section of Charles Hugh Smith’s latest book–The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century–that highlights the lore surrounding ‘clean’ technology:
The Mythology of ‘Clean Technology’
“The disconnect between the inspirational, make-believe story of Progress and the real world reaches its most jarring extreme in the mythology of clean technology, which imagines a wondrous utopia of clean skies and clean air delivered by clean technology.
The mythology neatly ignores the polluted air, ravaged landscape and exploited workers of the developing world nations that are being torn apart for the minerals needed to build the supposedly clean technologies for the wealthy developed nations.
This is mythology at its most appalling, a bizarre myopia to the dreadful environmental destruction and human suffering caused by wealthy nations’ stripmining developed nations for the resources needed for hundreds of millions of batteries, copper for expanding the electrical grid and all the other ‘clean technologies’ that are only ‘clean’ because wealthy nations have offloaded all the poisoned air and water, environmental damage and poor health onto the developing nations–the penultimate expression of the asymmetry of the global power structure created by the mythology of Progress.
‘Clean technology’ is nothing more than the distorted, self-serving fantasy of the wealthy exploiting the powerless for their own pleasures and profits. The clean skies and electric bikes of Amsterdam and dozens of other developed-world capitals come not from clean technology but from the exploitation of the planet and the powerless in distant lands, far from the clean skies and profits of the powerful and wealthy.” (pp. 168-169)
See also this recent article in The Tyee by Andrew Nikiforuk on the ‘energy transition’ arguing that there is no energy ‘revolution’, only addition to our growing energy use.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
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If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.
AND
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
The Bulletin: January 2-8, 2025
The Bulletin: January 2-8, 2025
End Of An Era: Ukraine Halts Transit Of Russian Gas To Europe | ZeroHedge
By Charles & Chris: Doomers Anonymous
The System’s Self-Destruct Sequence Cannot Be Turned Off
Seeing overshoot – by Elisabeth Robson
Fear of the New Year – by Geoffrey Deihl
Three-quarters of the world’s land is drying out, ‘redefining life on Earth’ | Grist
Six Dynamics That Will Shape Our Future
1.3 – Our Energy Slave Boom and Bust
That Sense of Impending Doom: Could Anything Shock The World?
Russia promises retaliation after saying Ukraine fired US-supplied missiles
After Overshoot Can Life Prevail?
Norway Doubles Down on Oil and Gas | OilPrice.com
Degrowth is the Answer – by Matt Orsagh
Debate On “Peak Cheap Oil”: Fact Or Overblown Fear? | Doomberg vs Adam Rozencwajg
Energy Prices, Shale, Global Populism, & the Huge Problem We Must Address – Art Berman | #37
We Are Living In The Good Old Days
A Reality Check on Our ‘Energy Transition’ | The Tyee
Billionaires dangle free speech like a bauble. We gawp like open-mouthed babes
Repression of climate and environmental protest is intensifying across the world
Wild Free and Happy–free ebook by Richard Adrian Reese
Click here to download a PDF version of Wild Free and Happy.
As Richard states in his introduction;
“Greetings readers! Welcome to Wild Free & Happy! Please take a seat by my campfire. I have stories to tell. I want to explore the saga of our ancestors’ journey, the long and exciting voyage from tree dwelling primates to planet thrashing thunder beings.”
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CL–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 2
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CL–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 2
September 20, 2023 (original posting date)
As I stated at the close of Part 1:
“We have, as a rationalising but not rational story-telling ape, created myths about our place in the universe and how we have contributed to it. Over the past several centuries, and certainly during the most recent one, we story-tellers have weaved narratives that it is our human ingenuity — particularly around technology — that has led to our expansion and apparent ‘successes’ (not the leveraging of a one-time cache of easily-accessible, storable, and transportable dense energy).
Along the way, we have lost sight of our place and dependence upon Nature, and how fundamentally important its complexities are to our very survival. As a result, many continue to cheerlead that which is most dangerous to our and every species existence on this planet; ignoring or rationalising away the signals being sent.”
This story-telling aspect of our species appears to be applicable to every sociocultural institution or school of thought that humans use to help them interpret, understand, and explain the universe and its workings.
As this paper that reviews the evidence surrounding the “…mainstream narrative for achieving socially just ecological sustainability” reminds:
“…humans are storytellers by nature. We socially construct complex sets of facts, beliefs, and values that guide how we operate in the world. Indeed, humans act out of their socially constructed narratives as if they were real. All political ideologies, religious doctrines, economic paradigms, cultural narratives — even scientific theories — are socially constructed ‘stories’ that may or may not accurately reflect any aspect of reality they purport to represent. Once a particular construct has taken hold, its adherents are likely to treat it more seriously than opposing evidence from an alternate conceptual framework.”
Before unpacking the psychology behind this phenomenon, let’s consider the concept of ‘energy blind spots’.
Energy Blind Spots
The term ‘blind spot’ arises from the idea that there exists a “spot within one’s range of vision but where one cannot see”. It’s initial use was physiological in nature but just as the word ‘blind’ had become used to suggest confusion or not controlled by reason, ‘blind spot’ became a reference to other more figurative aspects of life (e.g., morals, intellectual pursuits, general understanding) that one could not see, was confused about, or just simply ignored — the ‘carbon tunnel vision’ I discuss in Part 1 is an example.
In the sense of ‘energy’, it’s the inability to connect the fact that energy is the fundamental underpinning of all life and life processes but also, as Nate Hagens argues (in this video), our tendency to misattribute or ignore the ‘power’ derived from the energy sources we depend upon: “To our ancestors, the benefits from carbon energy would’ve appeared indistinguishable from magic. And instead of appreciating this giant one-time windfall, we developed stories that our newfound wealth and progress had emerged purely from human ingenuity. We had become energy blind.”
Hagens goes on to point out that everything requires energy from animal physiological functioning to human economic systems and everything in between. The ‘benefits’ that energy — particularly the one-time cache of easily-accessible/recoverable, dense, storable, and transportable hydrocarbon fuels — provides to human complex systems is, in human time scales, virtually indistinguishable from magic (see this video).
One barrel of oil, for example, can provide the equivalent of 4–5 years of human labour, but since we have been growing the supply and creating enormous surplus energy we hardly — if at all — take note of the tremendous impact and benefits of this energy source. It has been taken for granted, particularly as it pertains to our expansion of complex socioeconomic systems and technology. And this extremely unique period of our human existence (where we are drawing down a finite resource to ‘power’ our expansion well beyond the natural environmental carrying capacity of our planet) has been normalised within our social zeitgeist. It is the way things have been and will continue to be…to infinity and beyond.
Much gets discounted/ignored/misattributed by most people in their thinking (or, rather, non-thinking) about the hydrocarbon energy that goes into our existence: the millions of years necessary to create it; the complexity of accessing, extracting, refining, and distributing it; the pollution streams that arise from our extraction and use; and, all the energy that is lost in these processes — let alone the significant complexities of the socio-economic and -political aspects (from financial/monetary manipulation to resource wars).
While we appear to have more of this resource each year, we are also growing in both our population and economies resulting in less actual energy available per capita (NB: this metric has plateaued since 2018 when oil production hit its peak) and the very important surplus energy it provides to ‘fuel’ our continuing pursuit of growth (see Dr. Tim Morgan’s website for great insight into this aspect). But rather than consider these aspects of our energy windfall, we instead tend to focus upon our technology and economies (especially in terms of money) believing our current living arrangements have no limit.
In doing so, we fail to consider the drawdown of this finite resource and also the diminishing returns we are encountering as the cheap and easy-to-access reserves have mostly been extracted. To counter this (and other stressors) we have greatly expanded debt and manipulated interest rates. These financial/monetary manipulations have aided our efforts to access perhaps the last of our reserves via tight/shale oil extraction[1].
This has also helped to make it appear that our reserves are boundless — it’s simply our technology and politics holding back endless extraction — ignoring, of course, the significant fall-off in extraction experienced with these shale wells and thus the necessity to increase exponentially the drilling to maintain rates[2]. As Hagens argues, we are simply widening the straw to drawdown more quickly a finite quantity of our most important energy resource.
In addition, these shale oil reserves are drawn from the source rock that feeds other deposits; and once these are used up there are no other places to extract from except perhaps bitumen deposits — an extremely ecologically-destructive and energy-intensive process[3].
Most people’s views of energy production — be it from hydrocarbons or non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technology — is rather simplistic; in fact, the vast majority probably don’t even think about it at all as with most complex processes in today’s world and thus the ‘magical’ nature that arises with our technologies.
Hydrocarbon refining is rather complex and energy intensive (with intensity and complexity depending upon the source material) with the various products the result of distillation, cracking, reforming, treating, and blending. Basically, crude oil is heated in a distilling column that vapourises the various chemicals with each condensing at different temperatures as it rises in the distiller. Collection trays then siphon off each product.
As some products are in greater demand than others, ‘cracking’ (so named as it breaks up longer hydrocarbon molecules) is used to convert certain liquids. ‘Reforming’ is the process used to increase product quality and volume for some of these liquids. Natural contaminants (e.g., sulphur, nitrogen, various heavy metals) are removed by binding them with hydrogen (produced by the reforming process) and then used in other industries. Finally, ‘blending’ of various refined liquids is carried out to create the different products that get used to power our vast array of technologies.
Another brick in this energy wall that gets lost for most people is the vast array of products that get produced from hydrocarbons[4]. It’s one thing to argue that non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies will replace our hydrocarbons, it’s quite another to then look at the products — some of them quite important to our modern complexities, others quite superfluous — and imagine how these will be produced without oil and gas.
There are compelling stories, especially from economic schools of thought, that virtually everything is ‘replaceable’ if there is the demand — ignoring/denying, of course, the biogeophysical limits that exist upon a finite planet (to say little of the Laws of Thermodynamics).
Perhaps among the most important hydrocarbon inputs (and ones that are most people are blind to) include those into our modern, industrial agricultural and transportation systems (especially those involved in our long-distance supply chains). While there exist competing narratives about whether these inputs can be replaced by non-hydrocarbon ones, the scale and economy of such a transition are often glossed over or completely ignored — I find this particularly true for those advocating for the immediate cessation of hydrocarbon energy extraction and use — and with no real plan in place for the consequences of this approach.
The ‘Green’ or ‘Third Agricultural Revolution’, for example, has been made almost entirely possible because of the Haber-Bosch Process. This industrial-scale process for the creation of agricultural fertilisers, herbicides, and pesticides (as well as other non-agricultural products) converts atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia by a reaction with hydrogen that is produced using natural gas as the feedstock but also requiring significant oil and coal inputs.
And while some have argued that the non-renewable hydrocarbon inputs for this undertaking can be replaced by ammonia production via concentrated solar energy (ignoring the same complexities and ecological destructiveness that accompanies the production, distribution, maintenance, and disposal/reclamation of these non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies), all such bargaining does is attempt to sustain a population well above the natural carrying capacity — a predicament created by our leveraging of hydrocarbons.
As Vaclav Smil highlights in this essay on our population explosion:
“What is the most important invention of the twentieth century? Aeroplanes, nuclear energy, space flight, television and computers will be the most common answers. Yet none of these can match the synthesis of ammonia from its elements…the world’s population could not have grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to today’s six billion [over eight today] without the Haber–Bosch process.”
Removing the hydrocarbon inputs into our global food supplies would be catastrophic without a well-planned and in-place substitute readily available — and probably one that could not support current population levels, let alone be created in a short period of time. And, because of how the world works, such a withdrawal of these inputs would be felt most horrifically by the disadvantaged members of our species.
Blindness to the importance of hydrocarbon energy to almost all of our complex systems is leading us to offer narratives that most assuredly are making our predicament of ecological overshoot worse. They mostly depend upon tales that highlight human ingenuity, especially with respect to technology, and offer ‘solutions’ to maintain for the most part our status quo systems and complexities.
Perhaps the most mainstream stories are that that rally around alternative energy production and technologies but that continue to depend upon ecologically-destructive industrial processes.
Why do we do this? Why do we construct stories that, depending upon one’s perspective, could be considered suicidal in nature? This I will explore in Part 3.
NB: Note that I did not go into detail about our ‘resource- and ecological-blindness’ but remained focussed upon our energy blindness in this essay. My discussion was already getting longer than originally planned so I decided to leave those aspects since the principles are virtually identical.
In our attempts to simplify our perspective on complexities, we create stories to aid our understanding and then view the world through the lens of our socially-constructed narratives that tend to ignore/deny/rationalise away aspects that don’t fit into our preconceived paradigm/worldview/schema. This is as true for material resources and the ecological impacts of our extractive enterprises as it is for the energy aspect.
[1] See this recent article on US shale oil extraction.
[3] See this, this, this, this, and/or this.
[4] See this, this, this, and/or this.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIX–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 1
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIX–Carbon Tunnel Vision and Resource/Energy & Ecological Blindness, Part 1
September 7, 2023 (original posting date)
In my attempt to ‘market’ the article compilation that was recently published, I joined a couple of Facebook Groups in order to post about the document. I subsequently posted my last Contemplation (that shares my thoughts on the extreme difficulties, if not impossibility, of a ‘managed’ contraction by our species) and received some ‘interesting’ comments within one climate-change group, many of which I attempted to respond to (I’ve included some of these conversations at the end of this post).
Most comments were perhaps only marginally connected to my post. They tended to extoll the virtues of technological ‘solutions’ to climate change (not that I discussed climate change).
In reflecting on the ‘pushback’ to my post and my responses to comments, it would appear that the thinking behind the comments were mostly due to what could be viewed as resource/energy and ecological blindness, as well as carbon tunnel vision. These cognitive ‘blinders’, along with much in the way of rampant ‘marketing’ for technological ‘solutions’, have resulted in many viewing the world along the lines of: ‘human ingenuity and technology’ can, will, and is, saving us from ourselves. And, most certainly, the ‘gate-keepers’ for this particular group.
And the following is not to denigrate the perspectives that pushed back against mine (even if some of them wandered into ad hominem territory). We all believe what we believe based on the ‘best’ (and favoured) information available to us, and then we go to significant lengths to rationalise and ‘protect’ our beliefs. All of us.
As this has become a much longer Contemplation than the ‘ideal’ short ones I aim for, it will be at least in two parts (it may be longer as I’ve only jotted down a few brief notes for Part 2).
Carbon Tunnel Vision
There is an evolutionary-advantageous tendency for humans to view our universe through rather narrow keyholes. It’s quite normal and ubiquitous. It is the way we attempt to perceive, in relatively simple terms, the exceedingly complex world that we exist within.
In our attempts to understand the world, we rely upon experience, deductions, and external sources of information (e.g., social milieu). We make relatively quick assessments of the significantly complex world about us and make choices (e.g., should I flee or fight?) or form beliefs using a variety of heuristics (mental shortcuts). This leads to us focussing upon a narrow array of information out of all that is available — usually that which supports our ‘needs’ at the time — and ignoring for the most part superfluous inputs.
Once we’ve gravitated towards a decision or particular interpretation of our environment, we continue to view the world through this lens. We justify/rationalise our decision and/or cling to our beliefs, particularly if it has served us well or it is held by the majority of people. We tend to disregard that information/evidence that challenges our decision/beliefs, creating a bias that serves to reinforce our interpretation of things and maintain the image of ourselves as rational, perceptive, and ‘objective’ individuals.
As Wikipedia states: “Tunnel vision metaphorically denotes a collection of common heuristics and logical fallacies that lead individuals to focus on cues that are consistent with their opinion and filter out cues that are inconsistent with their viewpoint.”
The ‘bias’ that many people (not all) seem to have, including those that have concerns about the impacts of a changing climate and/or atmospheric sink overloading, is what appears to be a hyper-focus upon carbon emissions. To oversimplify, there appear to be two main viewpoints on the issue. There exist many who hold that carbon emissions are not a problem at all because not only have they been higher in the past but they are what our planet’s vegetation requires as food. In stark opposition are those who argue that our fossil fuel burning is leading to excessive emissions that are causing both extreme weather events and long-term global climate anomalies, especially global warming.
As the following graphic demonstrates (with respect to particular aspects of the issue of ‘sustainability’) this tendency to narrow our perspective can prevent the acknowledgement of so many other aspects of our world — and the graphic only includes some of the many others that could be considered, such as land-system change and biogeochemical flows. Perhaps most relevant is that this tunnel vision keeps many from recognising that humans exist within a world of complex systems that are intertwined and connected in nonlinear ways that the human brain cannot fathom easily, if at all.
My own bias leads me to the belief that this hyper-focus on carbon emissions is leading many well-intentioned people to overlook the argument that atmospheric overloading is but one symptom predicament of our overarching predicament of ecological overshoot. As a result, they miss all the other symptom predicaments (e.g., biodiversity loss, resource depletion, soil degradation, geopolitical conflicts, etc.) of this overshoot and consequently advocate for ‘solutions’ that are, in fact, exacerbating our situation.
This rather narrowed perspective tends to be along the lines that if we can curtail/eliminate carbon emissions — usually through a shift in our technology to supposed ‘carbon-free’ ones — then we can avoid the negative repercussions that accompany the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, most prominently climate change. For many this is the only (or, at least, the most prominent) issue that needs to be addressed to ensure our species’ transition to a ‘sustainable’ way of living.
So, let’s try for a moment to open up this rather narrow keyhole and take in a wider perspective. Let’s look at how some of the other significant planetary boundaries are being broached.
When one opens the keyhole wider, the concern with carbon emissions/climate change may be seen as an outsized one in comparison to boundaries that appear to have been more significantly broached, such as: novel entities, biosphere integrity, land-system change, biogeochemical flows, and fresh water change.
This is not to say that the boundary of climate change is not important, it’s to try to better understand why a hyper-focus on carbon emissions is problematic: it’s one of several tipping points that need our attention, and not even the worst. The most pressing areas that we appear to have overshot beyond climate change include:
· Biogeochemical flows: agriculture and industry have increased significantly the flow of phosphorous and nitrogen into ecological systems and overloaded natural sinks (e.g., atmosphere and oceans)
· Novel entities: geologically-novel (i.e., human-made) substances that can have large-scale impacts upon Earth system processes (e.g., chemicals, plastics, etc.) have grown exponentially, even to the point of some existing in all global water supplies
· Biosphere integrity: human demand for food, water, and natural resources are decimating ecosystems (clearing land for mining and agriculture, for example, may have the worst impacts)
· Freshwater change: global groundwater levels in particular have been significantly altered by human activity and expansion (especially our drawdown of aquifers that exceed significantly their replenishment)
· Land-system change: human conversion of land systems (e.g., solar farms, agriculture, etc.) has impacts upon several of the other boundaries (i.e., biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows, freshwater change) and the significantly important hydrological cycle
Carbon tunnel vision tends to help minimise, or at worst, ignore these other predicaments of our ecological overshoot. In fact, what I sense and what some of my conversations did suggest is that the issue of ecological overshoot itself is completely off the radar for these commenters. One, in fact, admitted he had never read Catton’s book on the subject but in ‘skimming over’ the summary notes I sent a link for he simply saw “a bunch of vague assertions…didn’t learn anything…probably heading towards a hard wall…”. He then added for effect: “I don’t see any solutions from you. I do see almost entirely your focus on smearing renewables with the exact same material the Deniers and carbon pollution people do. Exactly the same.”
Again, my own bias suggests to me that the reason for this hyper-focus (perhaps the most significant one) has been manufactured by a ruling caste and others that have created a means of monetising carbon emissions, mostly through carbon taxes and cheerleading greater industrial production via a narrative around ‘green/clean’ energy technologies. For, if we were to address those boundaries that have been more severely broached and that require curtailing of the causes contributing to this overshoot (which is human growth — economic and population), we would need to curtail industrialisation and its associated revenue streams significantly; something that would undermine greatly the power and wealth structures that benefit a large but very privileged minority class of humans.
And the marketers of this particular point of view know full well the psychological mechanisms that are effective in ‘persuading’ the masses to hold it and support it — especially the human tendency to defer to expertise/authority and engage in groupthink (see my 6-part series on Cognition and Belief Systems). It should be no surprise, given these tendencies, that the profit-/revenue-seekers amongst us have leveraged them to market the narrative, and associated industrial products, extolling the virtues of them while downplaying/denying/obfuscating the ecologically-destructive nature of what they are marketing.
Even those aware of this issue can fail to see the connection to industrial technology, cheerleading ‘sustainable’ development/practices and ‘clean/green’ (and supposedly) non-fossil fuel-based technologies[1].
As the Energy Blind animated presentation on Nate Hagen’s The Great Simplification website suggests: “…To our ancestors, the benefits from carbon energy would have appeared indistinguishable from magic and instead of appreciating this one-time windfall we developed stories that our newfound wealth and progress had emerged purely from human ingenuity. We had become energy blind.”
This energy blindness (along with ecological blindness) is what I will discuss in Part 2.
We have, as a rationalising but not rational story-telling ape, created myths about our place in the universe and how we have contributed to it. Over the past several centuries, and certainly during the most recent one, we story-tellers have weaved narratives that it is our human ingenuity — particularly around technology — that has led to our expansion and apparent ‘successes’ (not the leveraging of a one-time cache of easily-accessible, storable, and transportable dense energy).
Along the way, we have lost sight of our place and dependence upon Nature, and how fundamentally important its complexities are to our very survival. As a result, many continue to cheerlead that which is most dangerous to our and every species existence on this planet; ignoring or rationalising away the signals being sent.
As I stated to another in a subsequent discussion about another post within the same FB Group that was, again, extolling the virtues of ‘green/clean’ technology:
“We’re going to have to agree to disagree over this. Ideally we would not be debating which industrial-produced transport vehicles or energy sources are ‘better’; they are all horrible. We can’t even get a handle on the growth that is killing our planet so this debate, in that context, is meaningless — especially in a world where the dominant species is in Overshoot. Degrowth, especially in our technologies and industries is where our focus should be. Relocalising everything but especially food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs. All else is superfluous at this point.”
Some examples of comments that suggest ‘narrow keyhole’ perspectives:
Electric Vehicles
KFT: DS what really annoys me is the belief that someone’s time is far too precious to spend it charging an ev. Clearly way more precious than the quality of life of their children. You are correct, people refuse to use their agency.
Me: EVs are no help to ecological overshoot; in fact, they are as bad as ICE vehicles.
KFT: nonsense. Evs cancel out their manufacturing carbon in the first year of driving. ICE vehicles add carbon for their lifetime. By the way evs are likely to last much longer than ICE vehicles further reducing their manufacturing footprint. Ev batteries are 95% recyclable, gasoline is 0% recyclable unless they perfect carbon capture. I don’t anticipate that. By the way people who won’t charge an ev sure as hell won’t ride a bicycle. Just FYI I was bike commuting while you were very likely still in diapers so I know a bit about it.
DS: that’s def not true unless you cherry pick emissions and ignore externalities. in fact, it’s literally impossible for an car to “cancel out” their emissions, that’s literally not scientifically possible and a gross misunderstanding.
and even then, lithium mining still causes drought and leaches brine into natural habitat. mining still chops down rainforests and kills animals. electric vehicles are even more deadly than gas vehicles, even very large animals can’t survive a 7,000lb truck at 45 MPH or higher
Me: I think you need to scratch below the surface of the ‘green/clean’ marketing of EVs and the entire ‘electrification of everything’ narrative. I suggest starting with this article by Dr. Bill Rees: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508. I would also suggest this compilation of articles by a number of writers on ecological overshoot (in particular read Max Wilbert’s entitled ‘Climate Profiteers Are the New War Profiteers’): https://olduvai.ca/?page_id=65433. PS — you must be quite old given I’m 10+ years into retirement.
Also: https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/chris-kenny/weve-got-a-problem-here-electric-vehicles-require-a-lot-of-minerals-to-produce/video/e6e3a6c000f8a7890657d5cba2f17324
Overshoot and Food Production
Me: It would appear that you don’t understand that overshoot is a predicament without a solution. The best we might hope for is to mitigate some of the inevitable consequences.
DS: I don’t agree with that, you may not like the solutions but they are available. apathy is the biggest problem we face in society now
Me: DS I don’t agree that there is a ‘solution’ to overshoot except what Nature is going to provide. Most of the ‘solutions’ proposed by homo sapiens make our predicament worse, particularly if they involve more complex technologies/industrial production. In an ‘ideal’ world we could degrow our species and its impacts; unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world and most of the ‘decision-makers’ are steering us in an unsustainable and destructive trajectory because there are power and wealth structures that provide their revenue streams and must be maintained regardless of costs (especially environmental). Given that the ruling castes of large, complex societies have been doing this for the 10,000+ years, I see no chance we will do anything different. Of course, only time will tell…
DS: the world currently produces enough food for 16 billion humans
you think reducing food production to 8 billion peoples will make the predicament worse?
Me: Our food production is going to be reduced a lot more than 50% once fossil fuels are no longer available…and the estimates of how many we can feed currently vary tremendously: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2230525-our-current-food-system-can-feed-only-3-4-billion-people-sustainably/
DS: I have no idea why you think that
earth’s agricultural capacity is …..insane…. the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of food in the world next to the USA.
Me: Look into fossil fuel inputs into agricultural. Pesticides. Fertilizer. Herbicides. Diesel machinery. The list goes on. Here’s a paper just on inputs in the UK: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935130/
DS: I can literally do this for ever
indoor agricultural reduces herbicides and pesticides by 95–100%
Technology
DS: you literally said there is no solution to prevent overshoot, I have to assume you’re a techno-solutionist, basically you’re in the same group as elon musk who believes the future of humanity is on mars
Me: No, technology is what has put us in Overshoot. More of it only exacerbates the predicament.
DS: technology is the only way to survive overshoot, I think overshoot should be avoided. you said we can’t stop overshoot
Me: Please read some of Erik Michael’s work at: https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/?m=1.
DS: I’m sorry but this is bullshit
“This new series is critical of the Just Stop Oil Movement, specifically for how the movement makes no real sense to anyone who understands the predicament we are actually part of. Just stop oil means stopping the energy that civilization rests and depends upon — do this and civilization also stops, meaning that 7 billion people and countless millions of other animal species die in rather short order.”
“Just Stop Oil is a British environmental activist group. Using civil resistance, direct action, vandalism and traffic obstruction, the group aims for the British government to commit to ending new fossil fuel licensing and production”
Steve Bull let me repeat that to make sure
“THE GROUP AIMS FOR THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO COMMIT TO ENDING NEW FOSSIL FUEL LICENSING AND PRODUCTION”
I really don’t think it’s worth my effort to debunk this gish gallop, I specifically used my self agency to live in a 15 minute city and it’s possible if people choose it
you should honestly stop reading this bullshit blog
Me: Your 15 minute city is based and depends upon fossil fuels. It cannot survive without it.
DS: that’s also bullshit, buses can run on biofuel, buses can literally run on garbage. my neighbor Mesa Arizona literally fuels their garbage trucks with garbage, they make a fuel from gases.
Me: And the production of said buses and garbage trucks?
DS: most of the production can be done with materials like hemp and because hemp is efficient at phytoremediation it creates a completely closed carbon cycle.
by the way, carbon neutrality does not require eliminating 100% of fossil fuels, we can create strict environmental standards and reduce production by 90% -100%
KP: Advanced technologies helping humankind reduce our footprint is what Ecomodernism is about.
Without killing billions we can reduce the population footprint and travel to the stars. This preserves wild spaces and restores natural biodiversity.
And to top it all off:
Space: The Final Frontier
JN: You said, “technology is what has put us in Overshoot. More of it only exacerbates the predicament”
Yes, because and as long as we are trapped on this ‘closed system’ planet we call Earth. But if we can escape the gravity trap we will have unlimited resources in Space.
Interesting statement:
“‘Opting out’ in today’s world is more difficult as there are no more ‘New Worlds’ to exploit for their resources”
Comment: Collapse Cometh? Yes, unless we do something! But why in 148 years? Not sure if this is saying that opting out is ‘giving up’ or a ‘solution’? Yes, we need a new frontier to explore — and we don’t have any territory left on Earth to do that. The areas still remaining ‘unexploited’ must be preserved to save the biosphere and cannot be used for ‘exploitation’.
And why using the term ‘opting out’? Why not word it as part of a solution instead?
There are new worlds to exploit in Space. 148 years is plenty of time to set that up — as long as we have an economic system that will allow it! We need a space colonization and mining program as a solution to the human dilemma — which is lack of territory on Earth to ‘exploit’ and to ‘blow the fuse’…
Our species needs to become a space faring species, with future colonization in space and with mining of minerals on the Moon, Mars, and the Asteroids.
‘Why the human race must become a multiplanetary species’
(https://www.weforum.org/…/humans-multiplanetary-species/)
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIII–Ruling Caste Responses to Societal Breakdown/Decline
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLIII–Ruling Caste Responses to Societal Breakdown/Decline
August 3, 2023 (original posting date)
Today’s Contemplation is composed of my comments on two different FB posts I came across yesterday.
The first is a reply to a comment to a MSN article regarding a possible Covid-19-type lockdown scenario based upon the declaration of a climate emergency. The second to an observation regarding Big Tech narrative management.
EF:
Warning: Doomer Alert…. IMHO Carter is the only prez in my living memory that ‘got it’ and tried (very unsuccessfully) to push an agenda of reasonable austerity to curb consumption growth rates. Almost 50yrs later and while trending along predicted curves (a la Club of Rome), we’re deeper in the muck than the 1970s predictions. This rumoured ‘climate emergency’ response is suspiciously a thinly veiled cover for “oh crap, there really is no more cheap energy and we can’t get away with unjust resource wars anymore, the sheeple are on to us”. How would the White House propose moving forward? Are they going to demand all nations take action? Let’s see them try that with China, etc. (or a small town😉), or perhaps Biden’s handlers are just ignorant enough to think they can launch a political solution that only addresses national actions. It’s all likely irrelevant anyhow. The lag in climate response to radical step function changes its decades long, and we haven’t yet even experienced the fallout from GHG warming from the time of Carter’s presidency. People think this is a hot, dry, fiery summer? Pffft. Hold my beer. The only ‘solution’ in the pipeline is one that’s neither voluntary, nor negotiable and deferrable. Collapse (due to PO) is going provide the radical step function change needed for the climate to respond. But, those of us alive today will never see the warming reversal, we’ll just be the last generation to experience life awash with the fruits of petroleum’s positive effects and be the first to experience exponential declines in late life standards of living as supply chains dry up or rot from corruption among the elites pining for control and insulation to their own losses. Our offspring will ride an accelerating journey over the cliff, and maybe some of their offspring will experience some reversal in 50–60yrs. Doubtful they’ll take notice, life is likely to be days filled with foraging for nutrition and fending off would be pillagers.
Me:
Yes, we (the entire globe) needed to step down our expansion and frivolous habits decades ago (probably even longer, like with the first few complex societies millennia ago) but the narratives at the time of Carter’s attempt and the Club of Rome’s warning were increasingly influenced (and directed) by profit-seekers selling a Star Trek-type future full of technology and human ingenuity to counter the ‘doomers’[1].
It was difficult if not impossible to offset the ‘hopeful’ stories that were already circulating and those that arose in response to these warnings. Just as it still is today. The tales pushing ‘sustainability’ and/or further growth ‘powered’ by ‘renewables’ and those repeated ‘breakthroughs’ in fusion power and the like are ever present and everywhere — and they receive one hell of a lot more airtime than those that challenge the utopian future (to say little of most people’s propensity to be optimistic and/or hopeful, and defer to the tales weaved by the ‘experts/authority’ figures peddling them).
The various world governments, however, have known about this endgame of energy decline and eventual ‘collapse’ probably some time ago[2] but have (as sociopolitical ‘leaders’ tend to do with virtually every impending consequence of stupid decisions they have ‘led’, particularly economic) kicked-the-can-down-the-road while continuing to skim and scam what they can while they can, as has happened for millennia with every societal decline. They most certainly seem to be using the ‘climate emergency’ as ‘cover’ to continue their extractive schemes, dialling it down for the masses while attempting to sustain (possibly expand) their share of an ever-disappearing energy pie. And, I would argue that they have fastened upon carbon emissions as THE devil to trounce upon because they not only discovered a means of monetising this ever-present element but they have latched upon profit-gaining technologies that they have marketed as THE ‘solution’ to this particular aspect of human existence.
No surprise since pursing a ‘degrowth’ world (a powering down and simplification of pretty well everything in our complex societies) would put all their current wealth-generation/-extraction schemes in jeopardy — too say little about undercutting the foundation of the Ponzi-type scheme our financialised economic systems have become. Admitting that our overarching predicament is ecological overshoot and that in order to mitigate (or at least begin to reduce) the unavoidable fallout of this phenomena would require killing the goose laying the golden eggs for the ruling caste — as well as for all of us caught up in the scam.
Pre/history, however, shows pretty convincingly that we will experience the typical patterns that accompany all such declines. For example, living standards for the masses will deteriorate due to ever-increasing price inflation (mostly due to currency debasement as a result of money ‘printing’/credit creation) and because taxes will expand as the ruling caste attempts to sustain/expand their own standards. And, it is likely we will witness an increase/expansion of authoritarian/totalitarian sociopolitical systems as sociobehavioural control is attempted and expanded to deal with increasing unrest.
SH:
This is interesting… I posted a link to a Dr. John Campbell video in which he goes over some recent peer reviewed scientific research, from a noteworthy science journal… and Facebook warns that their “independent fact checkers have identified the research as being “false information”… Under the video in question, YouTube posts a notice that recommends consulting the CDC for the verity of the scientific research he’s reading from. Apparently Facebook and YouTube don’t know how science works… If the CDC and “independent fact checkers” are not getting their information from the latest peer reviewed science, then there’s something terribly wrong…
Me:
Unfortunately, and as like so much else in our world, science has become quite politicised. It has not only been ‘infiltrated’ (like media) by those seeking to ‘manage’ social narratives but has increasingly controlled ‘incentives’ (i.e., grants, tenure) to ensure supportive ‘evidence’ exists. Perhaps worst of all it has attacked one of the foundations of the scientific process: skepticism. Big tech and ‘science’ have become tools of the ruling caste to steer the beliefs and thus behaviours of the masses. I expect this trend to continue and worsen as our decline speeds up.
Both of my responses (as is much of my thinking around these and related topics) are guided by archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s text The Collapse of Complex societies. Most importantly, in the case of these posts, is what the archaeological record suggests are the responses to societal breakdown/decline by the ruling caste.
Some of what Tainter argues as far as sociopolitical ‘collapse’ is concerned include:
-increasing numbers of citizens detaching from the larger sociopolitical entities and pursuing their own goals as they perceive the costs of participation as outweighing significantly the perceived benefits
-greater legitimisation activities and/or control (especially sociobehavioural) in an attempt to decrease inefficiencies and thereby prolong/sustain complexities; although, this becomes increasingly difficult as rising marginal costs due to declining resources sap economic strength
-this economic decline sees a concomitant rise in peasant revolts or, more often, apathy towards the well-being of the polity increases resulting in local entities breaking away from the centre (perhaps even militarily toppled)
-societal reserves are used to counter unexpected stresses or even just to maintain ‘normal’ operations
-greater investment is made in education and research and development but inflation and increased taxes increase the likelihood of collapse due to ever-increasing diminishing returns
The cyclical ‘collapse’ of complex societies is a result of our ‘success’. In addressing the ‘problems’ that arise from living in large, complex societies we not only create greater complexity (and thus fragility and dependency) but we increasingly drawdown the various resources we depend upon for supporting our living and we contribute, through our waste production, to a polluting of our environment. All of this results in diminishing returns on our investments in this ‘problem solving’ approach to living. These diminishing returns increase over time leading to an eventual ‘pillaging’ of surpluses and reserves, resulting in decreased living standards — particularly for the masses. Unrest increases leading the elite to implement increasing draconian approaches to their ‘rule’. Eventually more and more citizens opt out of the system through either migration or withdrawal of support for their ‘rulers’. Inevitably, sociopolitical collapse ensues requiring just the passage of time or a stress surge that can no longer be offset as societal reserves have been exhausted.
Throw ecological overshoot onto this inevitable decline process and not only are the cards irreversibly stacked against global industrial society but the possibility of any further such complex society arising from our ashes is significantly depressed given the level of resource drawdown and environmental degradation.
Infinite growth. Finite planet. What could possibly go wrong?
[2] See this, this, this, and/or this.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLVIII–What Do Previous Experiments in Societal Complexity Suggest About ‘Managing’ Our Future
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXLVIII–What Do Previous Experiments in Societal Complexity Suggest About ‘Managing’ Our Future
September 1, 2023 (original posting date)
What Do Previous Experiments in Societal Complexity Suggest About ‘Managing’ Our Future
Viewing ‘degrowth’ through my archaeology/anthropology lens (and primarily via archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis laid out in The Collapse of Complex Societies[1]) there are a number of societal factors that stymie, if not make impossible, the idealised ‘managed contraction’ advocates tend to market it as. Purposeful ‘simplification/decline’ has never been wantonly experienced for a complex society outside of short-term, imposed ‘austerity’ (e.g. wartime, when the chairs are rearranged to ‘support’ the military[2]). All ‘contractions/collapses’ appear to have been ‘imposed’ by systemic ‘forces’ beyond the scope and control of the people experiencing it.
First, there is the ruling caste of a large, complex society that is HIGHLY motivated to maintain its power/control, especially over the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide its revenue streams. The notion that any of this class of society would willingly give their privileges up for the benefit of society-at-large is naïve at best[3]. In cases of ‘collapse’, society’s power-brokers place the burden of ‘contraction’ upon the masses via currency devaluation, increased taxes, forever wars, increased totalitarianism, narrative management, etc.. They continue to ensure their slice of the pie by taking from the disadvantaged/non-influential masses. While I guess one could call this ‘managed’, it is ‘managed’ in a way that protects the elite and their privileged positions but continually leads to a degradation of the living standards for most[4]. Of course, since ‘collapse’ is invariably unstoppable, the ‘rulers’ are simply amongst the last to experience societal decline, and usually because the support systems that sustain society’s complexities (and, thus, their positions atop the power/wealth structures) have been weakened beyond repair as more and more citizens ‘opt out’ due to the costs to remain outweighing the perceived benefits. And once a tipping point of withdrawn citizen support is reached, collapse of complexity ensues.
Second, there is Tainter’s contention that it is primarily diminishing returns on investments in complexity (i.e., problem solving via increased sociopolitical complexity) that invariably leads to ‘collapse’ [5]. This occurs because humans tend to employ the easiest and cheapest ‘solutions’ when first addressing ‘problems’. Our ‘solutions’ not only intensify complexity (i.e., result in more ‘problems’ that require attention) but grow our material/resource requirements (especially energy) thus increasing the ‘cost’ of our problem-solving behaviours. As costs increase and more issues arise that require attention, we experience diminishing returns on our investments and are forced to direct increasing amounts of material resources towards our problem solving, eating into surpluses. Once surpluses are exhausted, everyday operating ‘costs’ begin to suffer and living standards for the majority begin to wane. A gradual decline in complexity ensues. Any unexpected stress surge can push society off the cliff towards a complete breakdown of societal complexity. Alternatively, it is simply the passage of time before things have broken down to a point when one could label the situation an example of ‘collapse’.
Third, Tainter’s thesis is basically economic in nature. As societal investments encounter the Law of Marginal Utility due to ever-increasing costs of problem solving and its associated complexity, society experiences declining living standards. Eventually, participants opt out of the arrangement (i.e., social ‘contract’) — usually by migrating — resulting in a withdrawal of the support/labour necessary to maintain the various complex systems. ‘Opting out’ in today’s world is more difficult as there are no more ‘New Worlds’ to exploit for their resources, nor seemingly endless reserves of fossil fuels to support humans living beyond the natural environmental carrying capacity — to say little about the loss of skills/knowledge to survive without the complex systems in place (particularly procurement of potable water and food) and the overloading of sinks and biodiversity loss that reduces the carrying capacity of an area. Leaving the workforce or ‘downsizing’ significantly seems to be how some are ’opting out’ given modern constraints.
Fourth, to offset our increasing experience with diminishing returns, especially as it pertains to energy, we have employed significant debt-/credit-based fiat currency expansion to increase our drawdown of important resources among other perceived ‘needs’ — just as past societies have accomplished via geopolitical expansion and/or currency debasement. In the modern iteration, this has resulted in our globalised and financialised, highly-complex economic system increasingly taking on a Ponzi-like nature. Such schemes require perpetual growth to prevent them from imploding, not only to deal with the increased debt of ‘borrowing/creating’ currency, but to expand the resource/energy base. Maintaining this approach, however, will and is bumping up against limits to what is possible. Infinite growth is not possible (except via magical thinking) on a finite planet.
Fifth, to sustain a society’s complexity as it bumps up against limits to expanding its problem-solving ability (particularly its finite resource requirements), surpluses are drawn upon as mentioned above in the second point. The drawdown of these surpluses puts society at greater risk of being incapable of reacting to a sudden stress surge that may expedite the ‘collapse’ of complexity. A true Seneca Cliff-type decline/simplification/unravelling/collapse that cannot be ‘managed’, regardless of wishes.
Sixth, Tainter raises the unprecedented aspect of today’s technological innovations, but they too are susceptible to the Law of Marginal Utility (diminishing returns). He stresses that using a new energy source to help fund continuing economic growth can help stave off, but not eliminate, declining marginal productivity. Perhaps more importantly, a new energy source may not help eliminate diminishing returns in other areas (e.g. agricultural production). And once diminishing returns sets in for a society, collapse requires merely the passage of time. New energy sources, however, do little to address the issues that arise from expanded technology use–particularly the finiteness of the materials required and the overloading of planetary sinks that occur from their extraction and processing (see more on this below).
Seventh, pre/historic evidence also demonstrates a peer polity competition trap where competing ‘states’ drive the pursuit of complexity (regardless of environmental and/or human costs) for fear of absorption by a competing state. In such situations, ever-increasing costs create ever-decreasing marginal returns that end in domination by one state, or collapse of all competing polities. Where no or an insufficient energy subsidy exists, collapse of the competing states occurs at about the same time.
Little to none of the above takes into consideration our current overarching predicament: ecological overshoot (and all of its symptom predicaments such as biodiversity loss, resource depletion, sink overloading, etc.).
Having significantly surpassed the natural environmental carrying capacity of our planet, we have strapped booster rockets to the issue of complex society ‘collapse’.
We have chosen to employ a debt-/credit-based economic system to more quickly extricate finite resources from the ground in order to meet current demands rather than significantly reduce stealing them from the future. We have created belief systems that human ingenuity and finite resource-based technologies are god-like in their abilities to alter the Laws of Thermodynamics (especially in regard to entropy) and biological principles such as overshoot.
It is my contention that no amount of purposeful contraction can alter the trajectory we are on. We might, at best, mitigate to some marginal degree the coming storm for small, local regions/communities. But we cannot halt the consequences that accompany overshoot.
There are many (most?) that will remain in denial about all of this. Our propensity to avoid anxiety-provoking thoughts guarantees it. Magical thinking, particularly in regard to human ingenuity and our technological prowess, will continue. We cannot help ourselves. By denying our biological nature and proclivities, we guarantee failure in ‘managing’ a ‘graceful’ fall from our elevated heights.
I would love to see homo sapiens extricate themselves and the planet from the ecological overshoot trap we have set for ourselves through our expansionary ‘successes’. I have next to no faith that we can escape, however, particularly on a global scale. Not only does the ‘average’ individual have little to no agency in any of this but adaptive systems become ever more complex as they grow requiring increasing resource inputs and becoming more fragile as a result.
Add to this growing complexity the fact that large, complex systems with their nonlinear feedback loops and emergent phenomena are, by their very nature, impossible to control. Every attempt to control/manipulate such systems invariably leads to more ‘problems’ and thus more ‘solutions’ leading to more complexity and further finite resource drawdown, sink overloading, biodiversity loss, etc.. And this says little about the sociopathic ruling caste whose primary motivation is to sustain current power/wealth structures regardless of human and environmental costs; or even if it results in thermonuclear war.
Given we cannot control complex systems, we also cannot predict them well (if at all) and thus we cannot forecast the future with any certainty. But there exist physical laws and limits, biological/evolutionary principles, and pre/historical examples/experiments that all point towards a future quite different from the optimistic ones painted by those who believe we have control over such things.
So, I repeat my ‘advice’ from my last Contemplation:
Yes, spread the message about ‘degrowth’. Encourage a managed contraction of the human experiment. But understand, we’re in a predicament without solutions and time is not on our side. Get through the grieving as quickly as you can and move on to some actions that will help to mitigate the inevitable consequences for your family/friends/local community. And, make as certain as you can that the actions do not exacerbate our predicament by feeding the monster that is continued growth.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 1
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword and Afterword by Michael Dowd, authors include: Max Wilbert; Tim Watkins; Mike Stasse; Dr. Bill Rees; Dr. Tim Morgan; Rob Mielcarski; Dr. Simon Michaux; Erik Michaels; Just Collapse’s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
[1] See: https://olduvai.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Collapse-of-Complex-Societies.pdf
[2] Actually, it’s the armament manufacturers producing the weapons and the financial institutions providing the capital that receive the lion’s share of any ‘support’ (i.e., funding). The masses are ‘persuaded’ to sacrifice for the ‘greater good’, ignoring Brigadier General Smedley Butler’s assertion that war is a racket to help enrich a few at the expense of the many. See: https://ia801004.us.archive.org/6/items/warisaracketelectronicresourcetheantiwarclassicbyam/War%20is%20a%20racket%20[electronic%20resource]%20%20the%20antiwar%20classic%20by%20Am.pdf
[3] Although they constantly virtue-signal that this is exactly what they are doing with their policies and ‘investments’, such declarations actually serve to help legitimise their power/control.
[4] Remember George Carlin’s warning: “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it!” See:
[5] ‘Collapse’, here, is defined as a loss/decline of sociopolitical complexity that results in other systems failing, such as the rule of law, economic interactions such as energy-averaging systems/trade, art and literature, etc..
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXV–Collapse Now To Avoid the Rush: The Long Emergency
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXXV–Collapse Now To Avoid the Rush: The Long Emergency
Collapse Now To Avoid the Rush: The Long Emergency
Today’s Contemplation has been prompted by yet another conversation I have had with a person who prefers not to believe the stories I tell about our predicament. Which I am totally fine with. I attempt to present my case and once the person devolves into personal attacks, childish suggestions, or simply ignores/denies the evidence (usually by way of never actually addressing the points I raise), I tend to end the dialogue with an agreement to disagree. We all believe what we want to believe so little point in belabouring the discussion with someone entrenched in their narrative.
Of the rhetorical fallacies that tend to be used against me when I highlight skepticism towards certain narratives, the latest is something along these lines: You want/wish for ‘collapse’ and a massive die-off…why don’t you start by eliminating yourself.
The thing I wish to stress is that I DO NOT wish for any type of decline/collapse, and I’ve most certainly never advocated for it to happen. I am as dependent upon our complexities as the next person, although I am working to lessen that.
As I more-or-less replied to the person: I do not want what I am writing about to occur; I am a student of pre/history observing the world and sharing my story about what I see and occasionally making suggestions on what might be wise actions to help mitigate it. In other words, ‘collapse’ appears to be happening so let’s try to prepare for it.
Do I argue for certain ‘strategies’ that would seem prudent given the biological and pre/historical precedents that suggest where our future is likely headed? Absolutely. If you have the slightest appreciation of the precautionary principle, and even some awareness of what has befallen previous complex societies throughout pre/history and how they have ‘handled’ similar situations, you would too.
But this does not mean I am looking forward to the long emergency/long descent (or worse) that appears increasingly to be where humanity is headed. In fact, given the argument that we are significantly into ecological overshoot this time around the argument for preparatory actions is quite called for. In fact, much of what I argue for is because I believe it would be wise for humanity to pay heed to John Michael Greer’s advice to ‘collapse now and avoid the rush’ so that we are better prepared for the future that we are likely going to get, whether we wish it or not.
If you’re not familiar with Greer’s reasoning for this phrase, I suggest reading the above linked post. For those who wish my take, here it is…
Industrial society (and all the complexities it entails) has been possible primarily because of the “…immense supply of cheap, highly concentrated fuel with a very high net energy…” To replace this foundational energy source in order to maintain our complex, industrial society “…has turned out to be effectively impossible.” While a ‘managed descent’ may have been possible 50+ years ago, sociopolitical decisions (along with continuing unchecked population growth) have closed off that option and instead pushed us significantly into overshoot.
Rather than thoughtfully descend (i.e., the type of ‘managed’ decline the Degrowth movement advocates), we have burned through our fundamental energy resource believing a story that the laws of physics and geology can be suspended via socioeconomic abstractions, human ingenuity, and our technological prowess.
Pre/historical evidence suggests our ‘fall’ will not be sudden in nature (commonly thought of as a ‘collapse’) for “…civilizations take an average of one to three centuries to complete the process of decline and fall…”. This ‘fall’ — that appears to have already begun and will pick up steam — will not be smooth but a series of crises across space and time, with relatively stable interludes (perhaps even some ‘recovery’) between them.
There are still choices to be made in the face of this, particularly between clinging to current lifestyles until the floor drops out from beneath that to learning the knowledge and practising the skills necessary to live well in a world of declining energy and complexities.
“Collapse now, in other words, and avoid the rush.”
What are some of the suggestions Greer makes?
Figure out how to live after the next crisis arrives and begin to live that way now. For example, if your income may be in jeopardy, begin living with less now. Get out of debt. Find much less expensive shelter. Learn practical skills so you can meet your own needs or barter with others. Weatherise your home so utilities cost less. Begin growing some of your own food.
While some envision living on an off-grid homestead away and insulated from the various crises, it is better to look at where one lives currently and how that can be made more resilient and/or self-sufficient. Take note of local resources, including human ones.
As for the utopian dream of a fanciful, high-tech future, Greer argues “There’s quite a lot of money to be made these days insisting that we can have a shiny new future despite all evidence to the contrary, and pulling factoids out of context to defend that increasingly dubious claim; as industrial society moves down the curve of decline, I suspect, this will become even more popular, since it will make it easier for those who haven’t yet had their own personal collapse to pretend that it can’t happen to them.”
And as he concludes: “… if you’re trying to exempt yourself from the end of the industrial age, nothing you can do can ever be enough. Let go, let yourself fall forward into the deindustrial future, and matters are different.”
I would tend to agree with Greer as far as the idea of a cataclysmic future being improbable, not impossible, just highly unlikely on a global scale. There are such issues as nuclear war or a large meteor strike that could occur but are far less likely (although nuclear war is appearing more probable than a large meteor hitting the planet for when hasn’t the latest, greatest weaponry not been used during war).
The highest possibility of ‘collapse’ comes from the process that archaeologist Joseph Tainter lays out in The Collapse of Complex Societies. Basically, as we encounter increasing diminishing returns on our investments in complexity, fewer and fewer benefits are accrued from our support of/investments into the sociopolitical systems that organise our society and a point arises where more and more people withdraw that support until the complexities can no longer function properly and supportive subsystems begin to fail.
As Tainter points out, a society can go a very long time experiencing this decline, with each step down in living standards being relatively minor and, with time, are accepted and adapted to as the ‘new normal’.
I have highlighted in a few multipart posts what may befall humanity as we stumble into the unknowable future:
Infinite growth. Finite Plant. What could possibly go wrong? Parts One & Two.
Energy Future. Parts 1, 2, 3, & 4.
That Uncertain Road. Parts 1 & 2.
And how the psychological mechanisms we have evolved impact our beliefs around all this:
Cognition and Belief Systems in a ‘Collapsing’ World: Part One
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Two — Deference to Authority
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Three — Groupthink
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Four — Cognitive Dissonance
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Five — Justification Hypothesis
Cognition and Belief Systems: Part Six — Sociopolitical ‘Collapse’ and Ecological Overshoot
And please note that I do refer to this inevitable simplification as ‘collapse’ not because I believe it will be a sudden, punctuated, and global event but because I tend to view the process in a broader, temporal perspective. While our ‘collapse’ may play out over a number of human generations (and be barely noticeable to many except in the sense of the past being ‘better’), in the grand scope of human 200,000–300,000 year existence, a century or three is a bump in a long and winding road.
View the following graph. If you feel this is sustainable and growth can continue because, you know, human ingenuity, you can ignore everything I’ve written above and carry on. If, however, this suggests to you an impending (or passed) tipping point of unsustainability, then you need to consider the story I’ve shared…and how you will react and act.
As I conclude in one of the posts linked above:
“And, I offer no ‘solution’ to any of the above. I have increasingly come to hold that this is all one humungous predicament without a ‘solution’. The best we might hope for is to increase local self-sufficiency of communities and cross our fingers that some might make it through the impending transition that will be the result of complex society collapse compounded by ecological overshoot. On the other hand, all the other species on our planet might be hoping for our extinction given our track record of destructive tendencies…”
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXV–Hydrocarbons And The Maximum Power Principle: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXXV–Hydrocarbons And The Maximum Power Principle: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Hydrocarbons And The Maximum Power Principle: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Today’s Contemplation is a sharing of the response by a Facebook Friend, Schuyler Hupp, whose occasional commentary on posts in our mutual Facebook Group, Peak Oil, I have come to appreciate for their insightfulness and conciseness regarding humanity’s predicament. I could share a number of these going back for some time but felt this latest one was particularly good.
Question.
[Global Warming] You have a substance that when burnt releases a gas that makes it warmer, you burn as much as you can to make your car go broom broom and feed 8 billion people. Would it get warmer?
In response to the above question posed by a mutual FB Friend, Schuyler had the following to say:
Burning hydrocarbons on a massive scale, and for a century or more… That’s exactly what an army of engineers would propose if you actually wanted to warm the climate… Though they would warn that the long term outcome would be difficult if not impossible to predict or control, due to the complexity and the number of variables, both known and unknown… However, they would also warn that there would be a very real possibility for the climate being forced into a new steady state equilibrium that might not be compatible with human life. They would also be the first to point out that fossil hydrocarbons, i.e. ancient sunlight, are a finite mineral resource, and that their quality and the net energy return would become uneconomical after about 150 years or so, and thus it would not represent a sustainable energy paradigm, not to mention all of the damage to ecosystems that would result from the pollution, or the population growth that would result from their introduction, with humans essentially being slaves to their innate Maximum Power Principle behavioral instincts… and that population Overshoot would ensue, thus condemning the entire planet to a future of ecological collapse…
I have little to add to Schuyler’s response, except to stress that we appear to be in a predicament of ecological overshoot that has only an outcome, not a possible ‘solution’ — something almost everyone wishes to have laid out before them, seemingly to help them in their denial of reality to abolish the stress such an inevitable trajectory brings. This is usually accomplished through a kind of magical thinking that humans stand above and beyond nature, and can thus control it — usually via our technology — and then demand that the dominant, story-telling apes within our sociopolitical systems act to save us.
[NOTE: the links in the above paragraph will take you to articles by another FB Friend, Erik Michaels, who has been doing deep dives into these subjects for a number of years and posts at Problems, Predicaments, and Technology — a site I highly recommend.]
I’m pretty certain that there is no Plan B possible; in fact, I’m not even sure there was ever a Plan A…except, perhaps, to pursue our reproductive ‘success’ in adapting to our immediate environment of the moment for as long as possible (and this does not imply there is a predetermined evolutionary ‘goal’ involved aside from successful gene duplication).
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
The Bulletin: December 19-25, 2024
The Bulletin: December 19-25, 2024
The Great Simplification in Action: Building Resilience Through Local Communities
Antarctica’s tipping points threaten global climate stability
Homesteading 101: Regenerative Farming and the American Farmer.
Population Decline & Overshoot – Itsovershoot
American Can’t Escape Its Water Crisis | by Angus Peterson | Edge of Collapse | Dec, 2024 | Medium
How ‘the mother of all bubbles’ will pop
Prices Rise As Food Production is Threatened by Drought, Topsoil Loss, and Overheated Earth
Technocracy Rising: Why It’s Crucial to Understand the End Game – Global Research
US Shale Nears Limits Of Productivity
Middle East – Towards Endless Chaos? – Global Research
Even NASA Can’t Explain The Alarming Surge in Global Heat We’re Seeing : ScienceAlert
Nuclear Neo-Feudalism – The Honest Sorcerer
Political Economy Forever? – by Steve Keen
Depression, Debt, Default & Destruction in 2025 -Martin Armstrong | Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog
Health Prepping: Stop Poisoning Your Family
Are You Willing To Reduce Your Standard Of Living By 50%, Or Even 10%
Trump’s Trade Wars Will Fail, Currency Wars Will Be Next – MishTalk
Central Banks Will Prioritize Government Spending Over Inflation In 2025 | dlacalle.com
Superorganism – by Nathan Knopp – System Failure
The American Shale Patch Is All About Depletion Now
US Shale Nears Limits Of Productivity Gains
A Debt Jubilee of Biblical Proportions Is Coming — Are You Ready?
The End Of The Age Of Scientism
A List Of 24 Things That You Will Desperately Need In A Post-Apocalyptic World
The Impending Collapse of Modernity: A Stark Warning for the Next Few Decades
The Bulletin: December 12-18, 2024
The Bulletin: December 12-18, 2024
The Baby Bust: How The Toxicity Crisis Could Cause the Next Economic Crash
Global Warming and the Great Unravelling
All Stories Are Propaganda | how to save the world
The Big Shining Lie: We’re Better Off Now–No, We’re Poorer, Much Poorer
Are We Running Out Of Copper? This Image Says Yes
Saltwater will taint 77% of coastal aquifers by century’s end, modeling study finds
Fukushima: Disaster Response is to Spread Radioactive Waste to the Commons – CounterPunch.org
Drought alert issued in Pakistan
Environmental-Political Collapse Accelerates – resilience
Book review: Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse
Why I Am a Realist – by John J. Mearsheimer – Savage Minds
THE EVIL CYCLES OF WAR AND ECONOMIC DESTRUCTION – VON GREYERZ
“Thank You for Ruining My Life” – The Great Simplification
What it Takes to Master a Collapsing World
Corporations Are Not Your Friends | how to save the world
Rhyming History: France’s First Hyperinflation
Before Societal Implosion Comes
Syria: Will It Prove To Be the Empire’s Final Quagmire?
Food From Commodity To Commons
World Coal Demand and Exports Set for New Record Highs in 2024 | OilPrice.com
Can Europe Afford Its Energy Transition
Science Snippets: Microplastics Changing Earth’s Climate
Kansas farmers wrestling with how to save their water source — and their future
#295: Beans on tech | Surplus Energy Economics
All Three Pillars Holding Up the Economy Have Cracked
Why it is urgent to take a proactive attitude towards protecting the extant natural forests
UN Talks Fail To Reach Agreement On Dealing With Rising Risk Of Global Drought
Santa, Please Bring Me a War for Christmas
Peter Thiel Reveals How Scared Oligarchs Are Of The People
Control Oil and You Control Nations | Art Berman
Over 70% of the world’s aquifers could be tainted by 2100
Copper Mining: Totally Not Green, But Totally Needed for “Green” Energy
Whoever Does Not Respect the Penny is Not Worthy of the Dollar – Doug Casey’s International Man
Trump And Israel Can’t Wait To Start Bombing Iran
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCIII—Societal Collapse, Abrupt Climate Events, and the Role of Resilience
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCIII—Societal Collapse, Abrupt Climate Events, and the Role of Resilience
Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.
This Contemplation comments upon and summarises two short archaeology articles on societal collapse.
The first raises the increasing evidence of abrupt climate events being a precipitating factor in societal collapse over the past dozen millennia.
The second discusses the possibility of identifying Early Warning Signals that indicate declining societal resilience and could be used to suggest when preparations for ‘collapse’ would be advisable.
Summaries of both of these articles follow my introductory comments directly below.
Climate shifts happen. Not only do we have evidence that these shifts occurred long, long before our hominid species evolved (100,000-300,000 years ago) but have been occurring with regularity since we appeared. The planet’s orbit around our star, its geology (tectonic plate shifts and volcanic activity), and solar radiation fluctuations have all contributed to past climate changes.
The last dozen millennia have tended to be seen as a period of relatively stable climate which helped to give rise to large, complex human societies. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that this is not so and that abrupt climate shifts occurred and contributed to both the emergence of these societies and their eventual collapse.
The argument that relatively sudden climate shifts during the past dozen or so millennia may have been more significant in leading to societal collapse than some acknowledge is interesting on a number of levels, not least of which is the concern over the speed with which our current climate system appears to be shifting.
Archaeologist Joseph Tainter argues that complex societies themselves emerge as a result of our problem-solving strategy of increasing complexity. The innovation of sedentary agriculture, around 12,000 years before present (BP), is perhaps one of our species’ more significant ones. It has been theorised that the main impetus to this particular adaptation was a changing climate–people migrated from drying environments, gathered in more suitable areas (particularly in terms of water availability), and these denser populations eventually led to groupings requiring food production innovations and organisational complexities.
The research evidence presented in the first article argues that, regardless of where and when during the past dozen millennia, abrupt climate shifts have served to disrupt this relatively new food acquisition technique to the extent that prehistoric societies that depended upon it were unable to adapt and subsequently collapsed–settlements were abandoned with populations dispersing or dying off.
While the article focuses upon possible disruptions to food production for those that continue to engage in subsistence and small-scale agriculture (a still substantial number on our planet) and the consequences for them, it fails to consider the negative impacts for those in modern complex societies.
Rather than an abrupt climate event being problematic for modern, industrial societies, the authors conclude that they have an advantage over past ones and current small-scale agriculturalists of being capable of tracking and thus predicting potential deleterious environmental changes that would negatively impact food production and thus respond appropriately.
What ‘appropriate responses’ might be is not delved into by the authors but rather they close with the suggestion that strategies be designed to minimise the impacts for those areas to be impacted by impending climate events.
Without getting into the psychological mechanisms that suggest such a proactive and widespread shift in human behaviour and action in the face of impending environmental shifts is unlikely (the second article touches on some of these), complex systems by their very nature are virtually impossible to predict with much accuracy–particularly with regard to timing–and thus why some dismiss modelling predictions of climate change as mostly fear mongering. So there’s this not unsubstantial hurdle.
And, even if we could predict where and when such impacts may occur with precision there may not be adequate time nor capacity for adaptation–particularly given the significantly increased population densities of our modern world and lack of fertile, arable lands to shift to as some past societies did–and, of course, there are some models that suggest that future climate shifts will be of an amplitude that is unadaptable.
The past practice of simply migrating our food production system to suitable areas for agriculture is not only inhibited by political borders and vested interests, but humanity has already leveraged all the best food production regions of the planet and there is little, if any, in the way of rich, arable lands to shift to should significant and/or abrupt climate shifts disrupt currently-used regions.
The standard option of increasing complexity via technological innovation is also problematic given the limits that such an approach has encountered in terms of resources–especially energy–but also the tendency to experience diminishing returns on the investments made: innovations are becoming ever more costly and less effective.
Throw on top of these basic impediments that our current industrial system of food production is destroying the present environments and ecosystems it is using via significant water drawdown of underground aquifers and application of massive amounts of petrochemical-based products, and our societies are in even more of a dire position with regard to feeding everyone in the present let alone at a future time that may experience an abrupt climate shift.
To say we are on a knife’s edge with regard to our global food production systems being capable of adapting to significant environmental disruptions is not hyperbole, particularly in the face of a growing global population and increasing geopolitical turmoil as we encounter limits to growth and resource extraction–especially of our master resource: oil.
The ability to adapt successfully to such changes raises the issue of resiliency, which the second paper discusses. It suggests using Early Warning Signals (EWSs) to identify periods of low resilience in a society so that preparations for impending collapse can be made proactively.
While a commendable suggestion, the roadblocks to the successful widespread adoption of such preparations are in all likelihood insurmountable–for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the vast chasm of disagreement over the recognition or acknowledgement of low societal resiliency and impending ‘collapse’.
It is quite likely our modern, complex societies are well into a low-resilience regime and there exist a number of EWSs that could confirm this. It is also likely that the recognition of and ‘preparations’ for impending and widespread collapse should have begun decades ago.
Instead, as I have argued previously, we have pursued a doubling/tripling of our propensity to pursue more complexity via investments in technological innovations and institutional growth rather than consider the alternative of choosing less complexity and avoiding the pursuit of perpetual growth.
Regardless, in a somewhat hubristic and narcissistic manner, many humans in today’s societies hold on to the notion that our species stands above and separate from Nature, and that we can conquer and control what is for all intents and purposes a completely unpredictable and chaotic world–including threats to our food production systems from a changing climate. There is, then, no need for heeding any warning signals nor preparing for impending collapse through any kind of resilience building nor simplification. For some, the entire ‘impending collapse’ narrative–especially as it concerns resource limits–is a conspiracy by the world’s elite to maintain and extend control over the masses.
For those that perceive there are no limitations to humanity’s increasing prosperity, it is through the pursuit of greater complexity via human ingenuity, technological innovation, and institutional growth that humanity will ‘solve’ any potential societal stresses. The issues of finite resource limits and ecosystem destruction are for all intents and purposes meaningless in this worldview: should resource limits hinder our progress and forever-increasing prosperity, we will simply leave this planet for others.
Perhaps, rather than expending resources and time to identify low-resilience regimes as the authors suggest (that I would argue we are well into), we might be ahead by identifying what constitutes high-resilience behaviours and actions, encouraging the widespread adoption of these at this point in our journey, and attempting to ensure these are maintained in perpetuity. I know, I’m dreaming in technicolour here but it does align somewhat with what I’ve been advocating for some years now.
The best one might do given the circumstances of our existence is to encourage and facilitate the increasing need for one’s local community to be as self-sufficient/-reliant as is possible. Particularly in terms of food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs.
We have no agency in what is happening globally, nationally, and/or province-/state-wide. Probably not even much, if any, in one’s local community depending upon its size and/or the people who compose it. Most people are caught up in day-to-day struggles and don’t even ponder the issues raised in this post. And in our so-called ‘advanced’ economies, the majority hold tightly to the mainstream belief that human ingenuity and technology will ‘solve’ our more pressing issues and predicaments, and they have no interest in simplifying their lifestyles or pursuing self-sufficiency.
The denial, bargaining, and purposeful ignorance among many in our complex societies is astounding…but not surprising given the human proclivity to suppress anxiety-provoking thoughts.
Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
What Drives Societal Collapse?
H. Weiss and R.S. Bradley
Science, Jan. 26, 2001, New Series, Vol. 29, No. 5504, pp. 609-610
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3082228
The authors argue that there is a significant amount of archaeological evidence demonstrating rather quick collapse of past societies. While social, political, and economic factors have traditionally been identified as the root cause(s), increasing research and improved techniques are pointing the finger at abrupt climate events being a precipitating factor.
They cite several examples from across the planet and throughout the past 11,000 years where sudden changes in environmental conditions due to a changing climate led to settlement abandonment. They assert that “[m]any lines of evidence now point to climate forcing as the primary agent in repeated societal collapse.” (p. 610)
The climate during the past dozen or so millennia has tended to be viewed as relatively stable but paleoclimatic data is now showing this not to be true and that there was significant instability. This unstable situation appears to have repeatedly disrupted food production with societies unable to adapt to the rapidity, amplitude, and duration of the changing conditions.
Models of future change suggest that modern societies may face environmental shifts of even greater magnitude as a result of human activity and for a greatly increased and more dense population. And despite modern technology and industrial agriculture, many communities in the world continue to live as subsistence or small-scale agriculturalists who may be greatly affected by such changes.
The habit-tracking adaptations of past societies and communities will not be an option in our increasingly crowded world. Modern societies may have some advantage in their capacity to track these changes and possibly predict where issues may arise. The authors conclude by suggesting that data be used to design strategies to minimise the impacts of these shifting conditions otherwise unprecedented social disruptions are likely to occur.
The more detailed summary notes for this article can be found here.
Anticipating Societal Collapse; Hints From the Stone Age
M. Scheffer
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 113, No. 39 (September 27, 2016), pp. 10733-10735
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26471823
New research has demonstrated that just prior to collapse prehistoric societies exhibit reduced resilience. Several examples are cited where growing societal stress caused by a variety of factors builds over a number of years/decades. This reduces the resilience of the society with a sudden stressor tipping it into a fairly abrupt collapse.
The author wonders if there may be indicators of such a loss of resilience that might signal that collapse is imminent and thereby provide some time to prepare.
This research is based upon systems theory that proposes subtle changes occur in a complex system’s dynamics as it approaches a tipping point. Systems naturally experience fluctuations in their conditions with fairly quick recovery when their resilience is high, but when their resilience is low recovery is much slower. When this occurs near a tipping point, the chances of “an avalanche of self-propelling change” increases. Tipping points, therefore, may be signalled by a noticeable loss in resilience. See Figure 1.
A 2016 paper by Downey et al. claims to have found evidence of such signalling about 8000 years ago. Agricultural societies that spread out from the Tigris-Euphrates region showed rapid growth followed by collapse with population densities just prior to collapse showing rising variance suggesting declining resilience. The data further shows a cyclical boom-bust cycle lasting 400-1000 years.
If it is a case of a user-resource cycle, the declining conditions should have alerted communities to alter their economies and institutions to adapt prior to collapse. However, a number of factors led to societies resisting the necessary change to avoid a crash (i.e., sunk-cost effect, bystander effect, vested interests). These factors may actually become stronger with a more complex and elaborate society.
It may be impossible for a society to avoid collapse via adaptation, if it is in a low-resilience situation. Identifying resilience indicators and scanning for them to determine a society’s level and vulnerability may be a useful endeavour.
The more detailed summary notes for this article can be found here.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
Attempting a new payment system as I am contemplating shutting down my site in the future (given the ever-increasing costs to keep it running).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please try the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a ‘tip’ on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.
Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
Click here to access the document as a PDF file, free to download.
The Bulletin: December 5-11, 2024
The Bulletin: December 5-11, 2024
The Argument for Assisted Collapse – George Tsakraklides
Total Grid Collapse Strikes Cuba (Again) | ZeroHedge
Yes, Climate Change Is Probably Going To Kill You
Reductionism Doesn’t Work Holistically
#294: The perils of extremes | Surplus Energy Economics
Lavrov Warns Europe The New Cold War Is Turning ‘Hot’ | ZeroHedge
‘Scary’ drought empties one of Bosnia’s largest lakes
Chevron Cuts Permian Capex for 2025 | OilPrice.com
Money is a Claim on Energy – Nate Hagens (The Great Simplification)
The war whores of the military-industrial complex are lighting the world on fire
Global Food Prices Hit 19-Month High As Upward Momentum Sparks Fears Of Stickiness | ZeroHedge
The Three Types of Elites – Charles Hugh Smith’s Substack
Ecological Overshoot: Humanity’s Countdown to Extinction
Too Many Elephants In The Room: The Overpopulation Taboo (Readers’ Poll) – George Tsakraklides
Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment – urgent action is needed
Escobar: The Syria Tragedy & The New Omni-War | ZeroHedge
Grey Swans Are Circling – Charles Hugh Smith’s Substack
The Fall of Assad & What it Means for The Middle East (w/ Alastair Crooke) | The Chris Hedges Report
Oil, Power, and Statecraft: The Geopolitics of Energy in a Changing World | Art Berman
Disarming Propaganda | how to save the world
Ray Dalio predicts global debt crisis, backs Bitcoin, gold
De-Banked: It’s Only a Matter of Time Before It Happens to You
World Coal Demand and Exports Set for New Record Highs in 2024 | OilPrice.com
East vs. West: A Global Dollar Dump Is Inevitable And The US Must Prepare
The Bulletin: November 28-December 4
The Bulletin: November 28-December 4
Globalists Go For Broke: Plan To Trigger World War III Moves Forward – Alt-Market.us
Why Bunkers Won’t Save The Super Rich
Hydropower decline due to climate change may increase price tag to decarbonize the grid
Energy Crises & Global Power Shifts: The Struggle for Stability in Israel, Iran, and Beyond
The shocks that made me abandon the green movement
Exxon Pours Cold Water On Trump’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” Plans | ZeroHedge
The Dilemma and Conundrum of Predicaments
Landman | Tommy Explains Why Even Wind Turbines Depend on the Oil Industry (S1, E3) | Paramount+
Here’s Why We Could See a Big Pivot Away From the Green Scam Agenda
This Dystopia Depends On Hiding Inconvenient Truths
Bankers, Fed Origins, and World War I | Mises Institute
The Civilizational Hospice Protocol
Small Farming, Urbanisation, and Climate Migration
Depopulation: Are the World’s Elites Planning to Kill Us?
Oil Producers Block Binding UN Treaty To Curb Plastics
Green Energy vs. the Mojave Desert
Babson’s Warning – Doug Casey’s International Man
Are Stocks Poised to Crash 55% Soon? – by David Haggith
Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in ‘remarkable’ Scotland rewilding project
Rethinking Energy, Productivity, and the Illusion of Endless Growth | Art Berman
DIY Microplastic Removal From Water? Study Says Yes
The Looming Debt Crisis: Is America Following the Path of Collapsed Empires?
A Mind-Blowing Leap | Do the Math
How Climate Change Is Framed to Disempower You | by Joe Brewer | Dec, 2024 | Medium
Carbon Dioxide: The Wonder Molecule
Don’t Buy Into Phony Anti-Establishment Schtick
Iran Ready To Send More Troops To Syria, But This Could Trigger Deeper Israeli Entry | ZeroHedge
House Oversight Report Supports Chinese Lab Leak Theory For Covid-19 Origins
Existential Risks: The Biggest Threats to Life as We Know It
