{"id":81,"date":"2014-10-17T16:52:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T16:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai2.wordpress.com\/?page_id=1"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:24:21","slug":"collapse","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Infinite growth.
Finite planet.
What could possibly go wrong?<\/h1>\r\n
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If you\u2019re new to my writing, check out\u00a0<\/b>this overview<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/h2>\r\n
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If you wish to help support my writing and online presence, you can purchase the Olduvai trilogy <\/strong>for just $9.99 CDN.<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n

Place your order HERE<\/a>.<\/strong><\/h1>\r\n

and\/or
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Read my latest Contemplations:<\/p>\r\n

May 8, 2026<\/p>\r\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXVIII\u2013<\/b>
<\/b>We\u2019re Saved! Solar Photovoltaic Panel Recycling.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201c<\/span>Across all four lenses, the claim that solar photovoltaic panels are \u201cfully recyclable\u201d is, in current practice and foreseeable reality, a comforting narrative rather than a technical or ecological truth. It selectively spotlights laboratory successes while ignoring commercial failures, new material throughput that merely adds to the total, and a dishonest scaling of small benefits. It suffers from carbon tunnel vision, neglects the full lifecycle\u2019s material and energy demands, depends upon scarce and depleting minerals that degrade with each cycle, and creates long\u2011lived toxic waste streams for which planetary sinks are already overburdened\u2026<\/span><\/i><\/p>\r\n

In short, fully recyclable solar panels are a techno\u2011utopian promise that serves to legitimise the status quo while offloading environmental, social, and material debts onto the future. The statement is currently false, and treating it as true actively impedes the deeper structural changes a genuine ecological transition would require. What that transition truly asks of us is not a recycling miracle, but the courage to ask how much energy is enough.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Website<\/a>\u00a0
Medium<\/a>\u00a0
<\/strong>Substack<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n

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April 30, 2026<\/p>\r\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXVII\u2013<\/b>
<\/b>We\u2019re Saved! Massive Buildout of Solar Photovoltaic Energy!<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201c<\/span>Solar photovoltaics are not a saviour and should not be advocated as such. They are a palliative extension of the hydrocarbon-energy age, providing a lower-EROI energy trickle that exacerbates overshoot while piling up toxic waste, mineral debts, and a mounting ledger of human and ecological sacrifice\u2014poisoned watersheds, stolen aquifers, child labour, and denuded landscapes\u2014that the \u2018\u201cclean energy\u201d label refuses to acknowledge.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\r\n

Humanity\u2019s complex societies cannot be \u201csaved\u201d by this technology; they can only confront the biophysical limits and deliberately choose downscaling, equity, and simplification. The notion that a technology so materially and energetically entangled with industrial destruction can rescue us from its consequences is the most dangerous of myths.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Website<\/a>\u00a0
Medium<\/a>\u00a0
Substack<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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April 26, 2026<\/p>\r\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCIIIVI\u2013
<\/b>Everything Is Fine!<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201c<\/span>Overall, the article is using a narrow corridor of evidence\u2013specific air pollutants within the US\u2013to create a story that everything is just fine within the environmental realm of the planet. This is a strategy commonly used by interest groups that aim to denigrate environmental concerns. By ignoring the broader array of evidence indicating biosphere degradation, an exceedingly misleading portrait of reality is painted. A genuine assessment of environmental improvement would demand an extremely more honest and comprehensive ledger than is used in this article.\u00a0 It is propaganda presented as a comprehensive analysis. Exactly what the authors accuse the populace of swallowing to believe that the environmental picture is grim.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Website<\/a>\u00a0
<\/b>Medium<\/a> <\/b>\u00a0
<\/b>Substack<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\r\n

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April 24, 2026<\/p>\r\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXV\u2013<\/b>
<\/b>Rules For Thee, Not For Me.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201c<\/span>The situation in the Strait of Hormuz is a mirror for all this. We are not witnessing the application of a rules-based order designed to benefit all of humanity; we are witnessing a predator state\u2014like many that have marauded through history\u2014wrapping itself in legal piety to extort sacrifice from those who hold no power, while it services those who do. The most honest, and perhaps most effective, response is to invest energy in building resilient local networks less exposed to the disruptions elite competition produces.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\r\n

Website<\/a>\u00a0
<\/b>Medium<\/a>\u00a0
<\/b>Substack<\/a> <\/b><\/p>\r\n

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March 28, 2026<\/p>\r\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXXIV\u2013<\/b>
<\/b>Collapse Is Baked Into Our Future.<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201cBefore diving into the messages that arise from some of my previous work on past collapses of complex societies, I think it\u2019s important to note that our current experiment and how things will unfold may rhyme with the past but there are many dissimilarities given our starting point and circumstances. I believe collapse is inevitable given virtually every iteration of large, complex societies over the past 6000+ years has ended in collapse. But how this plays out is unknown and unknowable. While we are likely to mirror quite a few aspects of the past, how we respond to the biophysical limits we have bumped up against and the various historical patterns that have preceded us will be quite different. For example, it is likely our globalised, industrial societies will collapse in a much quicker fashion than the relatively long and drawn-out fashion of those in the past, but more on this below.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\r\n

Website<\/a> <\/b>\u00a0
<\/b>Medium<\/a>\u00a0
<\/b>Substack<\/a><\/b><\/b><\/p>\r\n

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February 13, 2026<\/p>\r\n

Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXX\u2013<\/b>
<\/b>Revisited: <\/b>
<\/b>Collapse = Prolonged Period of Diminishing Returns + Significant Stress Surge(s).<\/b><\/p>\r\n

\u201cPerhaps one of the more significant impediments for our species in being able to accept that societal collapse is inevitable is that in our human proclivity to deny\/avoid\/ignore anxiety-provoking thoughts, the vast majority of us disregard the overwhelming evidence\u2026so we support, even encourage, the elite response to keep pushing on the string of increased complexity and technology. Because, you know, human ingenuity. But all we are accomplishing by doing this is helping to make a tough situation even worse.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\r\n

We mostly ignore, at our peril, the alternative (and one that will appear whether we wish it or not): simplification.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\r\n

Website<\/a>\u00a0
Medium<\/a>\u00a0
Substack<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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We\u2019re Saved!
A Collection of \u2018Solution\u2019 Critiques.<\/b><\/h2>\r\n

It ain\u2019t what you don\u2019t know that gets you into trouble. It\u2019s what you know for sure but just ain\u2019t so.\u00a0<\/b>For example, beliefs such as the idea that we can\u00a0replace<\/i>\u00a0fossil fuels with \u2018clean\u2019 alternatives or that infinite growth is possible on a finite planet.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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The linked PDF document (see below) is a\u00a0compilation of my recent series of Today\u2019s Contemplations subtitled \u2018We\u2019re Saved!\u2019. These essays were penned to challenge some common and unfortunately widespread beliefs regarding the ongoing attempts by our species to sustain\/expand our entirely unsustainable societal complexities.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Collectively, they are what one might term a critique of \u2018techno-optimist solutions\u2019\u2013from hemp and nuclear power to green growth and \u2018good government\u2019\u2013that are marketed as \u2018fixes\u2019. These \u2018solutions\u2019 for \u2018problems\u2019 (e.g., carbon emissions) are marketed as \u2018clean\u2019 and \u2018sustainable\u2019 but mostly, if not entirely, ignore their own significant ecological impacts, the scale and complexity of the issue being addressed, and the non-negotiable conflict between humanity\u2019s pursuit of growth and its existence upon a finite planet with limited resources and fragile ecosystems.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

After compiling these, I cannot help but come to the feeling that our species is currently adrift in a sea of uncertainty. As a result, we are grasping at each and every piece of flotsam passing by us, hoping one will provide the buoyancy to keep us afloat long enough to survive and reach dry land; but each and every one of these \u2018solutions\u2019 we hold onto fails to replace our dependence on the sinking ship; instead they add to our weight, causing us to sink just a wee bit deeper into the abyss.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

As Erik Michaels states in the Introduction to the document:
\u201cNeedless to say, most people refuse to see that these \u201cproblems\u201d are actually not problems at all. They are predicaments. Predicaments don\u2019t have solutions; they have outcomes \u2013 a big difference! As such, the mindsets that we get stuck in are, as [Steve] accurately points out, entirely maladaptive. If one notices that civilization itself is unsustainable, one will also see that anything that is a subset of civilization is likewise unsustainable. That which is unsustainable cannot be sustained and is actually precisely the cause of all these predicaments, most of which are actually symptoms of the master predicament, ecological overshoot, that we suffer from.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Volume 1.<\/a><\/h2>\r\n

Bamboo and Hemp: Fusion Energy Is Imminent; ‘Good Government’ Has Humanity’s Back; A Nuclear Renaissance Is Upon Us.<\/p>\r\n

Volume 2.<\/a><\/h2>\r\n

Thorium-Fuelled and Molten Salt Reactors; Carbon Emissions Have Decoupled From Economic Growth; Hydrogen Energy; Wave Energy; Steel Production Without Coal; Pulling It Together…So Far; Ecomodernism; ‘Renewables’ and Energy Security.<\/p>\r\n

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It Bears Repeating…<\/h1>\r\n

A compilation of writers focused upon our unfolding predicaments.<\/h4>\r\n

Click Here<\/strong><\/a><\/h1>\r\n

Volume 1<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\r\n

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\u2019s Tristan Sykes & Dr. Kate Booth; Kevin Hester; Alice Friedemann; David Casey; and, Steve Bull.<\/p>\r\n

Volume 2<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\r\n

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.<\/p>\r\n

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Interview with Erik Michaels and myself by Michael Dowd.
June 24, 2023<\/p>\r\n