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First picture: Morning, Hamilton Ranch (aka Carroll Ranch), Big Hole Valley, Montana

Second picture: Beaverslide used for hay. Agriculture is what led into civilization.

After quite an interesting last week, I have a better understanding of why so many people fall into the different “traps” and mindsets that we do. Rarely do we see the bars around us and as such, we often forget precisely which boundaries are real and set in stone, which ones are real and temporary, and which ones are only illusory and imagined. This brings a new aura to the forefront; one which explains why it is so necessary to Live Now. Peter Russell points out one of the big issues surrounding modern humans, looking for external items we think we are missing in our lives.

One of my friends, Simon Michaux, just came out with a new video describing precisely where we are with regards to mining and extraction and the Limits to Growth. The content probably doesn’t surprise anyone who has been paying attention, but the implications of where this leads should be noted to those who think that technology is going to help society dig out from ecological overshoot. Technology use and addiction is precisely what has put us in this position, so giving it up and letting go of it is the only useful way to dig out from the collective hole we find ourselves in. The longer we continue using technology, the more damage we do to the environment (resulting in more climate change, pollution loading, ocean acidification, SLR, species and biodiversity decline, extinction, less carbon sequestration, etc., etc.).

This new study accurately points out how most of society views climate change as the biggest predicament society faces rather than its parent predicament, ecological overshoot; and in the process ignores the main driver of collapse, quote:

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

The Grand Illusion

July 25, 2021

The Grand Illusion

One of the things that is so pervasive in today’s society is the constant flow of hype, advertising, marketing, and propaganda, and many people fail to see through it. Steve Bull came out with this article explaining the same scenario. They are led to believe that everything is a problem and that technology or some product produced from technology can solve it all. The truth is that technology and its use is actually the root source of these issues; and they are predicaments, not problems. Furthermore, more or new technology can do nothing but cause yet more damage. Technology is what supports civilization, as I pointed out in my last article (see the top picture). Agriculture is technology. Civilization is unsustainable, so we cannot solve portions of civilization and stop the damage caused by civilization, which is causing those portions to develop trouble in the first place. In other words, we cannot switch out ICE (internal combustion engine) cars for EVs or coal- or gas-produced electricity for non-renewable solar panel- and/or wind turbine-produced electricity and claim that we have solved anything. ALL the exact same mechanisms civilization uses to destroy life on this planet are still intact. So switching out or substituting different “portions” of civilization won’t help. Civilization cannot be made sustainable.

One of my friends, Chery Young, pointed this out; quote:

“Historian H. Maynard Smith contended that a person who could perceive two conflicting sides of an issue might be overwhelmed by a mentally inflexible person:
A broad-minded man, who can see both sides of the question and is ready to hold opposed truths while confessing that he cannot reconcile them, is at a manifest disadvantage with a narrow-minded man who sees but one side, sees it clearly, and is ready to interpret the whole Bible, or, if need be, the whole universe, in accordance with his formula.

The illusion of control or agency and the attachment to it creates such suffering.“

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

Julia Barnes Discusses Her New Documentary “Bright Green Lies”

July 21, 2021

Julia Barnes Discusses Her New Documentary “Bright Green Lies”

Happy Earth Day!! The above picture looking into Glacier National Park was taken last year and is among some of my favorite pictures of the trip.I’ve mentioned the book Bright Green Lies several times and now that the movie documentary is out (today!), here is a discussion from filmmaker Julia Barnes on her new documentary. I really like how she points out the obvious hypocrisies within the environmental movement here, quote:

“If people are genuinely interested in protecting the natural world in the environmental movement, a film that points out the harmful industries of things like ‘renewables’ shouldn’t be considered divisive. It should just be something that is information that they’re going to take in and that’s going to affect the way that they look at these issues, and if someone, if their allegiance is to these technologies above life on the planet, then they were never really an environmentalist to begin with and their allegiance is NOT with the natural world. Then, I don’t think we were ever part of the same movement and you know, just like your body has to be able to recognize the difference between your own cells and foreign things like viruses and bacteria, a movement has to be able to differentiate, we have to be able to recognize when we’re being colonized and co-opted. We have to have measures to sort that out, so we need things like this; we need to know the information; we need to know if there are people coming into environmentalism and claiming that this industry that calls itself ‘green’ is going to save the world and if the reality is that there really isn’t anything green about this industry, we need to be able to recognize that. We can’t just, you know, believe everything that we’re told about these things being ’emissions-free’ and ‘clean’ and ‘green’ and whatever.”

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

So, What Should We Do?

July 18, 2021

So, What Should We Do?

Pictures of wildfire damage at Glacier National Park in Montana 2016

What type of activities will help in reducing the effects of ecological overshoot? I’m often asked this question when I point out that solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear energy, hydroelectric dams, EVs, and all other technological devices will not help climate change, pollution loading, or any other predicament under the parent predicament of ecological overshoot: “Well, what are your solutions?” Sadly, this question assumes that I am pointing out a PROBLEM, not a predicament. Predicaments don’t have solutions. So, I don’t have a solution (and nobody else does either, despite claims to the contrary – more on that in a couple of paragraphs). But I can tell them what WON’T help. Buying more stuff, REGARDLESS of what it is, WILL NOT HELP. Because ecological overshoot is a predicament with an outcome and not a problem with a solution, people need to adjust their expectations accordingly.

It doesn’t matter if the product is a solar panel, a wind turbine, an EV, a well-insulated new house, or a hamburger. Purchasing items require three things in particular, mining or extraction; energy use; and industrial civilization. As is demonstrated here, civilization is unsustainable. Agriculture is a form of mining (it is mining or extraction of the soil) and requires energy use and it is precisely what allows and supports civilization. It is a form of technology, and I point out here precisely WHY technology is unsustainable. So, purchasing more (unnecessary) items of any stripe will not help ecological overshoot (or climate change or any other symptom predicament of ecological overshoot).

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

Let’s Talk About Infrastructure

July 15, 2021

Let’s Talk About Infrastructure

The Hungry Horse Dam located just outside Hungry Horse, Montana

Let’s talk about infrastructure, shall we? Living in the human-built world day in and day out, we often forget that all these buildings, roads, buried pipes, wires, sewers, and literally everything else we build is not actually natural. We require nature – other plant and animal species – for the ecosystem services they provide, but nature does not require our infrastructure. Think about that deeply for a moment and realize that no other species requires our electrical grid – it only serves us, and even we don’t require it for survival; we got along fine for most ALL of the last 200,000 years or so (except for the last 150 years) without electricity. We *could* get along just fine without it now too, except we went into ecological overshoot. There is now no way to keep industrial civilization humming along without it, and this brings some rather uncomfortable facts to light as shown in this study.

So many people focus on emissions reductions but don’t realize that technology use CAN NOT reduce emissions. The only way to reduce emissions is to consume less – less food, less energy, and less products and services across the spectrum. For those who think this is not the case, please go here for the proof. Technology is an illusion not much differently than infrastructure because it literally surrounds us and practically all of our activities and daily living use it. So, learning about technology for anyone who doesn’t understand its pervasiveness in today’s culture and society is a great idea. Focusing on emissions reductions is a noble idea, but ultimately one that is somewhat misguided…

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

Agency – Do We Have Free Will?

July 13, 2021

Agency – Do We Have Free Will?

One of the things most misunderstood is the concept of free will. Most people have the misconception that we all have free will and (more or less) can “do whatever we want.” In reality, this is actually false. While we have the ability to make certain choices, those choices are all constrained to certain norms on average, based upon the reward of dopamine. As Dave Pollard writes about a year ago, “Everything we do is dopamine-driven, based on experiences that have, through positive reinforcement or coercion, dictated our entirely ‘unconscious’ behavior since we were born. There is no ‘us’ somehow apart from these evolutionarily conditioned animal bodies, to intervene to do things differently.” Now, Dave explains why assigning blame is pretty much useless and nothing more than theater here. Nate Hagens adds this to the mix.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote an article about blame because of the amount of blame I was seeing constantly in the groups I am a part of. It’s true that there is more than enough blame to go around; but at the time, I was seeing the assigning of blame as a complete waste of time and wanted to encourage those engaging in it to discontinue the drama. It’s always easy to point one’s finger away from oneself; but in reality, one often may as well be standing in front of a mirror. As the facts in that article (and many others I have written) bring to the forefront, we simply do not have the agency we often think we do. It is this assumed thought process that we have agency (which in reality we don’t) over these things which lead to hubris, arrogance, and denial of reality which inevitably lead to optimism bias.

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

What is Ecological Overshoot?

July 8, 2021

What is Ecological Overshoot?

What is ecological overshoot and why is it important? Is it a more important predicament than climate change? What about energy and resource decline – more important than it? The answer to the latter two questions is YES and ecological overshoot is important because it is the predicament which is causing all the other predicaments such as climate change, pollution loading, energy and resource decline, and the list of files included in this post. Practically every article I’ve written here is about ecological overshoot in one way or another. Put simply, ecological overshoot is the collection of predicaments that our unsustainable lifestyles have brought forth. Collectively, humans globally use far more energy and resources than the planet can provide in a given unit of time and we produce toxic wastes that the planet cannot process within that same unit of time – that is ecological overshoot.

Because of ecological overshoot, each predicament we face exacerbates the other ones. For instance, this article points out how agriculture and food security threaten environmental sustainability, and both amplify other predicaments such as water security, GHG emissions, aerosols, land use changes, species and biodiversity decline, and on down the list.

This article points out how the climate system is much more sensitive than previously thought, making us much closer to tipping points; some of which have already been passed. This shouldn’t surprise too many people considering how many articles are constantly laden with the “faster than expected” and “more than previously thought” phrases, but many of these types of articles tend to focus on one or two specific predicaments rather than explaining the interactions and multiplying and cascading effects these predicaments have with each other…

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

Who is Professor Thomas W. Murphy, Jr. and What Does He Know About Energy and Resource Decline?

July 3, 2021

Who is Professor Thomas W. Murphy, Jr. and What Does He Know About Energy and Resource Decline?

I have mentioned Tom Murphy many times in this blog precisely because facts don’t lie. If anyone wants to truly know where we are as a species on this planet, Tom can definitely tell you. Don’t get me wrong, I can also tell you; but I’m not a physicist. Tom is one of the few individuals who has written a book about our predicaments and allowed free access to everyone.

Tom has done far more than that, however. He has a website which has been a staple within the energy community for many years. He talks about our situation in this video and surprisingly thought the same way I did for many years regarding our future. He thought that we would develop various “renewable” technologies and that our future would be shiny and “green” so that BAU could continue unabated. I actually think a very large portion of society thinks the same way, and it is because they simply do not understand the laws of physics, thermodynamics, biology, and chemistry and how they intersect with human psychology, and how society operates within the confines of the systems we are all embedded within which seriously limit how we deal with these predicaments COLLECTIVELY.

It is very difficult for the average person to gain a holistic perspective of what we’re up against. The neat thing that Tom does is explain what IS and what IS NOT possible, based upon scientific FACTS. His website has absolutely FANTASTIC articles going into great detail about what are likely candidates to replace fossil fuels (SPOILER ALERT: No known energy source can even come close to replacing the energy density, portability, and flexibility in energy systems that fossil fuels provide AND…

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

More Bright Green Lies

June 21, 2021

More Bright Green Lies

We are now all familiar with the strategy of most of the industries surrounding the topic of climate change (or any other environmental predicament which can be utilized as a force to provide an income stream through slick PR work, propaganda, marketing, and advertising). Find what is called a “problem” (halitosis, for instance) and provide an “answer” or “solution” (mouthwash) that is within the reach of a large number of consumers or within the reach of government or shareholders (for large scale purchases or subsidies). This tactic works time and again and has made many of the investors in such schemes rich beyond belief and/or provided jobs and benefits for those employed in such schemes. Of course, schemes are mostly precisely what they are because most of them were not truly needed in the first place. There ARE SOME ideas which have provided quite serious benefits for society, but a rather large portion of these “solutions” target human emotion and vanity and are entirely or mostly useless in the quest for survival. Many others are excellent examples of “kicking the can down the road” where a short-term “quick fix” provides what is marketed as a “solution” which does nothing but exacerbate the original predicament by causing a worse predicament or predicaments in its wake. In other words, these examples use obfuscation as a means to keep the casual observer from comprehending the fact that not only are said examples not “solutions” but they actually make the original predicaments they were supposed to solve worse over the long haul. Most all technology fits this bill by requiring extraction of resources and energy to build some sort of device or contraption or product or service, maintain said product or service, and then dispose of or decommission said product or service and as a result of those requirements also requires the presence of industrial civilization and the infrastructural layers that supports industrial civilization…

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

More Myths – This Time With Some Reality

June 19, 2021

More Myths – This Time With Some Reality

Nate Hagens recently produced a new video here regarding myths and reality and it is very well done. The video goes into precise detail about many core myths and beliefs, and I have the video queued up to the part about the myth of “technology solving it” for anyone who still thinks solar panels and wind turbines help reduce emissions in any way (spoiler alert; they actually INCREASE emissions). Once you’ve seen this part, I recommend going to the beginning and watching the entire video from the start.

The entire video is excellent with regard to eliminating commonly held false beliefs generally encouraged by industry and governments in an effort to continue BAU (Business As Usual) and industrial civilization as long as possible.

I actually wrote out a detailed critique of the video in the groups I manage, but think that this video deserves a much wider audience, which is why I wrote this post. The video is excellent in explaining why technology can not and will not save us nor will it solve climate change, and it correctly dispels the overwhelming nonsense (such as “green” or “clean” or “renewable” energy, net-zero PR marketing, EVs and other transportation ideas based on electric motors, “smart” grids, etc.) which is constantly hyped about climate change, ecological overshoot, and energy and resource decline.

The Myth #1 that Nate has listed; the “We Are Doomed” one actually ISN’T a myth. This is an existential FACT. ALL species go extinct sooner or later and we are no exception to this rule. So, from this angle, Hagens is simply suffering from denial of reality (no big surprise there, as MOST of society is suffering from this as well; and increasingly so).

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

Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales, Part Two

June 10, 2021

Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales, Part Two

This facade of the main street in Thurmond, West Virginia, looks impressive but hides the fact

that this is a ghost town. No businesses actually exist in these buildings today and the entire town only has 4 or 5 residents today. More info can be obtained here and here.

* * *

One of the pernicious effects of the mainstream media regarding climate change and indeed, all the other predicaments under the banner of ecological overshoot, is the sheer level of denial presented. This can easily be detected in many articles about different predicaments such as climate change and I found one in particular (out of thousands; this is just one of the most recent ones) that brings this phenomenon into focus, quote:

“Climate experts warn that, without urgent action, climate change will continue to cause an increase in the intensity of extreme rainfall that can lead to severe flooding.

An international research team have concluded that increases in extreme rainfall and associated flooding are projected to continue as global temperatures continue to rise. Efforts to limit warming to +1.5C will help limit changes in extreme rainfall, though some societal adaptations will still be required.”

This is laughable to say the least. +1.5C will be reached most likely within the next five years regardless of what actions are taken at this point outside of a nuclear winter (a distinct possibility, as horrid as it is). Some experts have claimed that limiting climate change to +1.5C is now impossible and I agree. While there are some who still think it is possible to limit global temperatures to +1.5C, these appear to discount the reality of how society works, oceanic thermal inertia, and civilizational inertia. This civilizational inertia is extremely important to understand, as this prevents most attempts at reducing emissions from succeeding at accomplishing much if anything…

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

Live Now

May 7, 2021

Live Now

“If you’re in your last 10 percent of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: Precious.” ~ Tim Urban

I am about to post the 1000th “Live Now” post in the Prepping for NTHE Group today. It is special for many reasons. Most importantly is how precious the time we all have left is. Another journey awaits me soon and I am poignantly aware of how important this time spent out in nature is, and I eagerly look forward to getting away from the city for awhile. My outlook is tempered by the fact that one never knows when the last trip will be, so it is imperative to treasure and cherish these days of leisure.

I have been feverishly adding new scientific peer-reviewed literature to these pages this week, with almost 300 new articles added. 55 articles were added to the Climate Change and Collapse file alone! My efforts to get the message out to Live Now have never been more important. So many people procrastinate the things they want to do, often putting nonsensical items in front of more important endeavors. You’ll notice that I have also updated most of the articles I have written here with some of these new links with yet more incontrovertible evidence of our collective trajectory.

if this is the first article you’ve read here, I encourage you to read my first post on what this blog is all about to get acquainted with where we are as a species and the predicaments we face.

I have also added a brand new file, Invasive Species, to allow for a new category of articles which is increasingly causing a myriad of issues and previously did not truly fit into any other category. I previously assigned many of these articles to the Agriculture & Food and Water Security file or the Species and Biodiversity Loss file.

Hopefully these updates find you alive and well and that you are enjoying the beautiful spring here in the Northern Hemisphere or a colorful autumn if you are in the Southern Hemisphere.

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