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The World F-‘d Around, Now It’s Finding Out

March 24, 2024

THE WORLD F-’D AROUND, NOW IT’S FINDING OUT

Well, everyone wanted to do what they wanted to do instead of what they needed to do, and this is the end result. It was inevitable. Neglecting our responsibilities on this earth only had one outcome, and it’s a living nightmare. I think it’s time we talked about the time we all F-’d around, and ended up in Find Out-ville.

MOTHER NATURE IS PISSED

Look, we are definitely not on a winning streak right now. Mother Nature is pissed off, the weather and climate is all over the place, our food supplies are being disrupted in every way imaginable, and natural disasters are occurring left and right with no end in sight. And to top it off, people are struggling economically, emotionally, and psychologically. Don’t get me started on politicians, business leaders, and the 1%. Oh did I mention that everyone I know is in debt? But the reality is, I think we only have one to blame for our situation, ourselves. After all, we allowed it to happen, stood by and watched and went right along with it.

WE WERE WRONG

Personally, I think it all started with money and the inevitable greed that it brings to literally every society that has ever used it, but that’s another story. If you’re in the Daniel Quinn camp, it all started with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago when we transitioned from nomadic to sedentary and started taking more than we need (Ishmael had some good points on this). What ever the start, we are most definitely racing towards the finish like a fireball on cocaine. How the hell did we end up here? Well that is simple.

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On Being Reasonable

October 4, 2023

On Being Reasonable

The Thinker

Scientists have been in the news of late fretting that their projections about the onset of disasters caused by a warming climate may have been off the mark. It appears that Mother Nature has pushed the “fast forward” button and we are all paddling, choking, and sizzling much sooner than sober science had led us to expect. We will be hard-pressed to devise a plan of action commensurate with the trouble we are in if we come at that task wielding flawed assumptions.

Events cannot speak of their own accord but if they could recent ones would surely be telling us that any forecasts based on conditions prevailing even until yesterday are not worth much. We have entered a new phase in the life of our planet and, by all appearances, do not have a clue about what that circumstance demands of us as inhabitants.

I am not a scientist, but I did recently encounter a related case of cluelessness that I thought I might try to diagnose. Writing in The New Yorker (07/24/2023), Louis Menand pauses at the end of an essay on the rise and fall of neoliberalism to take stock of its achievements and failings. On the positive side, he claims that globalization has lifted a billion people out of poverty, lowered the cost of many household items, turned formerly marginal nations into “economic players,” and broken the monopoly held by First World powers on modern technology. On the debit side, he notes a deepening “trend towards monopoly” in every major industry and a disturbing increase in inequality. This latter, he believes, fouls the workings of democracy and thus poses a threat to civic order.

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Charting a Jagged Course Through the Apocalypse

October 4, 2018

Charting a Jagged Course Through the Apocalypse

Photo Source NASA’s Earth Observatory | CC BY 2.0

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop”

-Economist Herbert Stein

Those who live in the reaches of the Arctic Circle tend to convey the same humbling lesson: Mother Nature calls the shots and survival depends upon preparing for her mood swings. It’s an adage that will take on increasing relevance as history unfolds because disaster has been baked in to our future. Decades ago a whole series of events was set into motion and it may be too late to break their momentum. Civilization will be tested as large swathes of the globe become uninhabitable. While it might be tempting to seek refuge in the form of denial or nihilism, doing so won’t prevent what’s coming down the pike.

It’s Much Worse than You Think   

The indicators are hard to miss. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached levels not seen for nearly a million years. Roughly half of India’s population (which tips the scales at over a billion) currently faces extreme water scarcity and within two decades India’s demand for water will likely rise to twice the available supply. Moreover, by the end of the century scientists assess that population centers across the Middle East will confront “temperature levels that are intolerable to humans.” Which is a polite way of describing a death trap. One that will probably snap shut even if emissions are somehow kept within internationally agreed upon levels.

At some point our system’s requirement for infinite economic growth will hit the limits of a finite planet. As the ensuing collision transpires there will be widespread famine, mass migration, and disease. Thus setting the stage for military conflict on a global scale. People rarely go gently into the night when their backs are thrust against a wall.

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When the Butterfly Flaps Its Wings

August 28, 2017

When the Butterfly Flaps Its Wings

It remains to be seen what the impact will be from Mother Nature putting the nation’s fourth largest city out-of-business. And for how long? It’s possible that Houston will never entirely recover from Hurricane Harvey. The event may exceed the physical damage that Hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans. It may bankrupt large insurance companies and dramatically raise the risk of doing business anywhere along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the USA — or at least erase the perceived guarantee that losses are recoverable. It may even turn out to be the black swan that reveals the hyper-fragility of a US-driven financial system.

Houston also happens to be the center of the US oil industry. Offices can be moved elsewhere, of course, but not so easily the nine major oil refineries that sprawl between Buffalo Bayou over to Beaumont, Port Arthur, and then Lake Charles, Louisiana. Harvey is inching back out to the Gulf where it will inhale more energy over the warm ocean waters and then return inland in the direction of those refineries.

The economic damage could be epic. Much of the supply for the Colonial Pipeline system emanates from the region around Houston, running through Atlanta and clear up to Philadelphia and New York. There could be lines at the gas stations along the eastern seaboard in early September.

The event is converging with the US government running out of money this fall without new authority to borrow more by congress voting to raise the US debt ceiling. Perhaps the emergency of Hurricane Harvey and its costly aftermath will bludgeon congress into quickly raising the debt ceiling. If that doesn’t happen, and the debt ceiling is not raised, the federal government might have to pretend that it can pay for emergency assistance to Texas and Louisiana. That pretense can only go so far before government contractors balk and maybe even walk.

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Olduvai II: Exodus
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