Eagle Rock Train Station, Eagle Rock, Virginia
In my last article, I spent a considerable amount of time describing how a large part of society today is still mired in mainstream thinking and I pointed out how I don’t see or expect the possibility that much will change in the future based upon a general lack of interest in the subject of ecological overshoot and collapse along with the myriad symptom predicaments that overshoot produces. Much of the material is subject matter that I have covered here before, although some of that (subject matter) was covered a considerable while back.
It’s just that I see so much material consistently which is based on what amounts to unicorn magic pixie dust rather than actual science or even common sense once one understands the basics of overshoot. Take for instance this approach from Simon Michaux, which has already been attempted in many different forms in the past, most famously as The Venus Project. Attempting such projects entirely ignores ecological overshoot and the simple fact that civilization itself is unsustainable. Michaux made himself widely known for his telling the “Captains of Industry” that their plan to replace fossil fuels with non-renewable “renewable” energy harvesting devices, simply stated, would not work. So, his plan now has replaced these devices with thorium modular nuclear reactors and he is embarking on a project to build a “radical tomorrow.” Unfortunately, this project is destined for failure. It isn’t how civilization is powered that is the issue, it is the fact that civilization is built on the platform of technology use, making BOTH of those systems unsustainable. It is precisely the power of technology to remove or reduce negative feedbacks allowing for population growth which then feeds back into a self-reinforcing positive feedback loop of more people, more technology use, and increasing overshoot. Powering it differently won’t change anything – the systems themselves will remain unsustainable.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
