Pity The Nation? Don’t
Over the years, I have accumulated several hundred links to news services and sites, blog, articles and authors that have attempted to publish relevant news on the world’s changing climate. I don’t read them all at once, but from time to time, I go back, open them up, read what they’ve reported and ponder what they’ve said.
I’ve concluded that the vast majority of these sources are full of shit. Their ‘analysis’ as it were isn’t the problem, it’s the conclusions that they draw from their own data sets and the significance of what is being measured. Most of the authors and scientists simply cannot imagine that humanity is going to go extinct from the dangerous changes we have unleashed on the planet, so they write different opinions that pretend to portray opportunities for our salvation from the death march we have unleashed. Dutifully, year by year and even month by month, they will report how conditions continue to worsen and never improve, and yet reach the same optimistic conclusions. Really? I cannot be the only person who has noticed this trend.
Readers will know that I call this hopium for good reason, because it is a false (and dangerous) hope. The pretense that the constant, non-stop decline of the physical world that supports all life on Earth is still, somehow going to get magically ‘better’ and life as we know it will continue through the sheer hope and optimism of these scientists, authors and technologists. Economists and analysts are just as bad if not worse, they too promise a glorious future despite a constant decline in global resources. How can that be?
For example, the latest measurements of sea level rise indicates that ocean sea levels have tripled in the rate of increase in the past decade, while every other website and news source will still claim it’s just 3.4 mm per year, an amount that sounds comforting and not too bad. It’s actually over 12mm per year in many places, quadruple of what is being reported, which means that massive flooding and storm surges will just keep getting drastically worse. The amount of melt water pouring off of Greenland and other land based glaciers is also simply stupendous, completely unstoppable and guaranteed to disrupt the whole of civilization.
You can also read where Donald Trump while President, refused to support the need for New York City to build a massive sea wall to protect the city from rising oceans. In this, he was right, but for all the wrong reasons. Trump remains too stupid to accept sea level rise as an existential threat, but sea walls won’t stop the inexorable rising seas.
New York City and all of Florida and many other low-lying areas with highly dense populations are already drowning more and more each year. Nothing is going to change that fact, but this is but a small subset of the true threats unfolding against planetary habitability. Globally speaking, deforestation and the conversion of carbon-capturing forests into plantations, cattle ranches and agricultural regions has tipped the planet towards irreversible collapse and runaway warming that threatens all life on the planet. We thought we were helping our species as we expanded our human operations, but didn’t realize that we would make the planet itself uninhabitable for life in the process. We’ve killed the planet while embracing the lies that our exponential ‘progress’ was the pathway towards the future.
When I re-absorb the latest news and articles found on all these hundreds of websites, it’s painfully clear that we’re still drastically losing ground virtually everywhere. One site, not updated for several years now has this to say:
“Pity the nation”
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti
City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology – 1995
There’s more:
“We should do whatever we can to make people more aware of the crises that are coming our way. Too many of us are dangerously oblivious to most of them, and the governments are doing far too little. All the best, Tad”
I know you know all this, but it’s worth saying: There are no significant ecological trend lines that are getting better for the ecosystems:
- Human population is growing, getting worse.
- Human livestock population is growing, getting worse.
- Human consumption is increasing, getting worse for all but the consumers.
- Human ecological and war-victim refugees are increasing, getting worse.
- Toxin loading biological systems is growing, getting worse.
- Wild flora / fauna diversity is shrinking, getting worse.
- Aquifers, and all freshwater resources are shrinking, getting worse.
- CO2 contents in the atmosphere is increasing, getting worse for existing biodiversity.
- Acid content of oceans is increasing, getting worse.
- Human economic unpayable debt load (fake energy, fake “growth”) is increasing, getting worse.
- Quality and availability of every critical resource are shrinking, making these resources more expensive and more destructive to recover.
- Net energy from energy resources is shrinking.
- Habitats and food for wild fauna are shrinking.
- Carbon and nutrient content of arable soils are shrinking.
- Nitrogen and Phosphorus cycles are disrupted and concentrated, creating dead lakes and dead ocean zones.
- Coral bed sea-life nurseries are shrinking.
- Tropical forest terrestrial nurseries are shrinking.
- Estuaries are shrinking.
- Ponzi schemes, stock swindles, and scams are increasing in frequency and monetary value.
- Forest fires and violent storms are increasing with CO2 and heating.
- War budgets are increasing, etc.
A Requiem for the Beautiful Earth
December 10, 2018
First, let me remind you that a pessimist is an optimist who shed his delusions and denial, and educated himself. Please keep this in mind, if you continue reading. If you don’t, that’s fine too. You will remain in your blissful bubble of denial and ignorance, which are the dominant genetic traits of most denizens of the fossil super organism. Please understand that many democratically elected governments know very well about your truth aversion and are making best use of it.
There isn’t a single solitary data point that indicates that the global situation for the future is actually improving anywhere. Technologists keep pretending that they will finally deliver human freedom and opportunities if we just embrace just a few more of the chains being offered. They’re still claiming they can fix the unfixable and solve the unsolvable, pretending that it is humanly possible to reverse centuries of endless destruction and reverse it all with a magical snap of their electronic fingers. It’s the same lie that’s been told for the past 100+ years.
This is why they’re all full of shit. The disconnect from the actual unfolding reality and the physical processes now unleashed and what human kind is technologically, physically and financially capable of doing is a chasm that rivals the deepness of space itself. We can’t do it – especially when we keep doing what caused the problems in the first place. The switch to ‘renewables’ that is supposed to save the climate turns out to be just as bad or even worse then burning fossil fuels. Electric vehicles and carbon trading schemes don’t change anything and may even make things worse then they already are. These are the interesting but ignored facts that tend to be constantly overlooked as the world is goose-stepped into accepting more technology as ‘essential’ for their future. It’s all horseshit.
Every data point indicates that global collapse is still happening, faster and faster. There is nothing that indicates that we are going to avoid the implosion of our civilization. The vast majority of humankind is blissfully unaware of this unfolding catastrophe, only because most of them are still being bombarded, literally assaulted minute-by-minute with endless propaganda and deception. It could be that this is better then the panic-stricken reactionary violence and fear that knowing otherwise would entail. I don’t know, I only know beyond any doubt whatsoever that the future isn’t going to be what the vast majority of people seem to think.
We’ve already traversed far beyond the point where ‘saving the world’ is even possible, because it’s just not. Human addictions, greed and entitlement represent insurmountable stumbling blocks to the self-sacrifice and austerity that would be required to save civilization, even if we could solve the population problem. However, it would also be foolish to even try, because you can’t save a diseased patient by saving the disease, which is civilization. The global energy consumption alone reveals the sheer folly of this voracious structure on a finite world, now fast running out of available resources to exploit.
“Like you, your colleague, and our colleagues on this list, I’ve been monitoring the ecological trends all of my adult life, for some fifty years. As far as I can see, all the trend lines converge on collapse, including “technology.”
When you realize that energy-intensive technology is being applied to ecology and environmental ‘sustainability’, the fallacy of this incompatible foolishness becomes quite profound. The obvious is being completely ignored, when in reality, it should be widely and immediately embraced. We should have immediately stopped our assault on the world instead. But humankind is loathe to give up the comforts of an ‘advanced’ civilization and would rather choose death than choose survival. Most humans are still convinced that technology will finally banish the need for nature, a profound contradiction rivaled only by the stubborn refusal to see what is right in front of us.
Remember, always remember – it’s not what they say that matters, it’s what they are doing that actually counts. The funding, development, political support and investments in both time, money and labor are to apply technological solution to environmental problems. This is pure folly. Nature has never needed our supposed ‘help’. Nature needs to be left alone and do what she’s always done best, which is to take care of the natural world. We cannot improve upon this in any meaningful ways without creating a mess of things. It was human activity and the non-stop burning of fossil fuel that triggered the collapse of the environment, a large portion of which was for the advancement of technology. While we have seen gains in efficiencies, Jevons Paradox still applies – they have been lost through increased consumption and wastes.
This conundrum, which is actually now properly called a predicament, is an unsolvable problem. We can’t maintain what we’ve designed and built without making things (considerably) worse. Nor can we ‘power down’ in any meaningful ways without collapsing our economy and imperiling the survival of billions of people. But if we do not do something very drastic very soon, billions of people will die anyway through drought, starvation, violence and disruptions that have already been triggered.
Even when chopped up into bite-sized “pieces” the problems we face are absolutely enormous. How can we protect coastal cities from rising seas? How can we even protect even one city? How can we keep feeding the still rising populations of the world with declining food production? How can we prevent endemic disease and pestilence which are increasing with rising temperatures? How can we reduce global consumption with increasing populations? How can we revamp a global economy that depends on escalating levels of consumption and standards of living in order to even exist? How can we preserve any of the remaining world’s ice as temperatures continue to rise? How do we remove the extreme amounts of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses already emitted into the atmosphere? How can we actually stop fossil fuel burning when civilization itself absolutely requires it at every stage of our existence?
Nobody – not one person on the planet has the answer to even a single one of these types of questions. The civilization we designed and built was predicated upon doing the exact opposite of what is now needed. We are constantly being told that these problems have solutions, yet none have actually ever materialized. When you read enough, and realize that this same lie has been endlessly told for hundreds of years, you will realize that they’ve been lying about having workable ‘solutions’ all along. They don’t actually exist and never have, because our economy, production, capacity and direction are in direct contradiction doing the exact opposite of what is needed.
It’s pointless to use computer models and paper exercises as any sort of ‘proof’ when all that matters is does any of these solutions actually solve these problems in real life? That is to say, do they even exist? Or do these solutions even make things worse? Have any of them been demonstrated at a meaningful scale? Since none actually do, then you will quickly know that we’ve got a whole bunch of insurmountable problems that cannot actually be solved. These are predicaments, insolvable issues that predict unfolding collapse with 100% accuracy.
Most of the world is still focused on non-relevant, non-important, non-threatening things. This distraction serves to keep consumers consuming and billions distracted from the real issues of our time. The vast overwhelming majority of these other issues are functionally irrelevant and meaningless. They’re promoted into the empty mind space of billions of people to consume every waking moment by design. I’ve finally realized that most people don’t want to know what lies ahead. It’s easier to embrace the lies and to become a part of the deception. How many billions of people think they’re going to retire someday? How many people think they’re going to have a better, safer world then their parents did?
I’ve always blamed the manipulators for lying to us, but the truth is, we also lied to ourselves and we did it when the information of what is actually unfolding was easily and readily available to us all. It’s easier to retreat into lies when they are supported by so many within our social circles. Nobody wants to admit to the horrifying truth of what lies ahead, so we choose not to. We publish the results of scientists and reporters that promise us things will be ok and we’ll all get through this instead of the words of the misanthropes that point out that there is no evidence to indicate that this is even remotely true. We’re not going to get through this, none of us are.
A great deal of the time, money, attention and energy being focused on ‘life’ and all that this means to the people of the world is a horrendous waste. If you’re planning for a normal future, you are definitely on the wrong path. You’re not going to get a normal future now, nobody is. Life is just going to get harder and harder and then eventually become impossible. For everyone. Because all the things you need in order to survive and flourish will become hard and then impossible to get and 99.98% of the people on this planet have no idea how to even feed themselves. Everyone alive today is living on the dregs of a collapsing civilization that is voraciously devouring everything that is still left, whatever abundance, luxuries and comforts you have right now are nowhere guaranteed to exist in your future. They can’t continue because the civilization that you depend on to even survive is fast coming to a close and the warning signs are now everywhere. The worsening signals of economic collapse, environmental collapse, political collapse and sociological collapse are screaming “Code Red” on every measurable metric and there is no viable plans for any kind of rescue.
Most of the world is ignoring all of this. Are you? Everyone should be making their own preparations now, including the world’s governments and industry leaders. Their future is at stake just as much as yours is. Their industries and businesses won’t survive any better then you will. How could they? There is a move towards gaining global control of food and water supplies, including the systems that deliver them, for a reason. They are aware of what’s coming, but instead of opting to prevent it or mitigate the effects, they’re still planning on exploiting the economic opportunities that will arise.
Unfortunately this means that the same “have’s” and “have not’s” will be largely the same as it is now. Presently, they’re supplying everything that everybody else is still consuming, and they intend to keep on doing that for as long as possible, even if it means that they will have to give up some of their other industries. Frankly, there is nothing anyone can really do about this and it’s not worth losing any sleep over, it’s going to happen. You can make your own plans and preparations, aligning your own life and that of your family (if they will listen) to mitigate and adapt to the horrific ‘adjustments’ that are coming. Everyone will eventually need to do this, if they haven’t started already.
I actually don’t pity the fools who are still enamored with the glamor of the present civilization and all the toys and trinkets it still contains. I see no point in trying to educate anyone, share with anyone or serve as a warning to anyone. Been there, done that and it’s done no good at all despite years of effort. I’m deeply saddened by the folly, stupidity and what passes for ‘culture’ and entertainment these days, but won’t try to stop any of it. Those that want to remain unaware and uninvolved in preparing their own lives for harsh times unfolding have already made their choice and they will have to live with the consequences of their inaction.
Nor do I pity the nation that refuses to do what is right, or understands when it is time to tell the truth, or admits to its own culpability and guilt to the enormous crimes perpetuated in our name. I don’t pity the nation that incessantly lies and foists deceptions and fabricates empty promises against the future welfare of its own citizens. I only pity those who are too young to know, too innocent to be charged, too guiltless to held to account, which includes nobody that can read these words. If you don’t know who these guiltless people are, then you will have not understood anything I have shared.
The crimes of the past century are writ large for all the world to see, but the supposedly ‘responsible’ have proven that they don’t really care. How could they? They’re too enamored with their own self-importance and fantasies in the mistaken belief that their lives matter more then others, and nothing bad will ever happen to them. Their screen addictions and desensitization to the real world have made them all stumbling, mindless zombies, only capable of devouring the next mass deception broadcast from millions of screens every minute of every day. Their stunning hypocrisy and blindness to the crimes of this age is colossal. Far better men then I have tried to penetrate the dull awareness peering blankly at the ongoing slaughter with no comprehension of what is taking place. Most of us have now quit, resigned to the reality that you can’t save the reprobate or educate the obtuse.
The few are now straddled by the many, unable to throw this enormous weight of apathy and indifference off of our backs, crushed under the enormous tide of staggering stupidity and moronic beliefs poisoning the minds of millions. I do not pity any of them, because I barely recognize them as even human. They seek to gut this country and divide the spoils by betraying their own oaths and the Constitution that binds us, slobbering in eager anticipation for the slaughter to come. With 147 traitors still in office, still trying to overthrow the will of the people, still fomenting complete lies and fabricated fantasies in slavish devotion to the Orange Antichrist, the Republican traitors in this country have made it clear they are willing to break every law, every rule, every modicum of decency and respect to ramrod through their fascist agenda.
Strange as it may seem, Donald J. Trump is still in power, holding complete sway and influence over the traitors in the Republican Party who continue to grovel at his feet. The deposed dictator is swiftly building his base of rabid fools and traitors to engage in guerilla warfare against the citizens and elected officials of this country. Trump would rather destroy the nation then see himself held to account. The January 6th investigative committee and the new Attorney General have been very slow to bring about criminal charges to the corrupt leadership still in office, and Trump himself has proven to be unaccountable for his crimes of treason, at least so far.
The United States is going to explode, likely into a million pieces as factions and fools spew their vitriolic hatred and violence at each other, each vying to extinguish and end the other side. That so many Americans have fallen for this complete madness is a clear sign that the end of the United States and all that it represents is at hand. The attempted coup is still underway as numerous outlets have published, still unfolding and still likely to resort to coast to coast violence. Fully one half of the supposed “representative leadership” in this country is behind this movement for civil war, which is absolutely nuts. We’ve gone far, far beyond the notion of “sore losers” in and out of office to full-blown traitors willing to shed blood to demand their bloodletting fantasies.
If you haven’t figured out that this country has lost its mind, you have not been paying attention. Americans are not willing to do the right thing, something we all witnessed during the four years of Trump’s antics. Things have only gotten significantly worse here since, you have to be completely clueless to not understand that the United States is already “over” in all but name now. The liars and lies and selfish assholes of this country have taken over the farm, poisoned the well, murdered the animals and now hungrily eye the remaining laborers. Supposedly, over 5 million have already quit their jobs knowing that the gig is up, no point in perpetuating the lie that they’re working for the future. What future? The only future I see is more suffering and death.
There are still plenty of people that prefer to remain optimistic and hopeful, but it’s all based upon self-deception and the warm embrace of comforting lies. Supposedly, endless resources and energy supplies will be magically erupt from a poisoned planet and the environment won’t collapse any further. Societal problems and disagreements won’t boil over into full-blown conflicts, climate change will be mild and completely manageable by technowizardy magic, and scientists and technologists will save the future for humanity and all will be well. We’ll go on as before, these little speed bumps in our journey through space will be hardly noticed. I can only wonder at the minds that imagine such fantasies, they’re just as guilty and just as culpable, as the ones that seek to engage in violence. Both are completely disconnected from reality.
Out here in the ‘middle’ are the minds that know something is desperately wrong and fast getting worse. Many have tried to put their fingers on it but many more remain bewildered by the sheer speed and scale of the imploding institutions and norms that are no longer in existence. Lacking sufficient real-world awareness they sometime think that the failure is political, or economic, but these falling dominoes all stem from the same source. That’s why they don’t offer any clear explanations and cannot conceive of any viable solutions, they fail every time to identify the root causes of our failing world.
Apparently, it takes a large audience and a well-known platform to make a ‘difference’, but I suspect that it’s far too late for even this now. The only difference any of us can make is in our own lives, civilization and society will go on doing what they’ve always done, pretending to be immune from resource collapse, environmental collapse and deadly climate change. Vast changes in the stock markets, cryptocurrency and investment profiles will be attempted to stave off the global destruction, but for most of us not involved, it won’t make any difference at all. This will just be humans trying to profit from collapse, just like they do from war and selling the weapons of death and destruction. Your only hope here is to not be caught in the crossfire (or find yourself a target).
Pity not the nation that chooses to remain blind, oblivious and embracing death and destruction. All the machinations and schemes, political alignments and betrayals, all the economic manipulations and madness, all the incessant programming and brainwashing – it’s all designed to keep humanity, the whole entire world, distracted from the coming unfolding collapse accelerating around the globe. There won’t be anything to stop it, because of the sheer madness of what we’ve created, a voracious devouring global machine that depends on non-stop consumption and endless growth on a finite world of dwindling resources vastly overpopulated by an incredibly selfish species.
We deserve what’s unfolding, as horrible as it is, because we gave up caring, long ago and replaced it with greed. This will be the end of the Manifest Destiny where humanity wrongly tries to conquer the world and subdue all of nature, making biology and physics serve the whims of mankind. It was always folly, always resulting in death and destruction and has now become a suicide pact between man and machine, energy and atrophy, stagnation and supply, overreach and greed. We lost our way, long ago and killed our chances to stay alive, choosing the wrong path and the wrong way, unable to satisfy our base appetites and inherently flawed nature.
We’ve had ample opportunity to self-correct, but eradicated every opportunity and tribe to ensure that only this civilization survived. Our error was obvious then and even more obvious now.
Well stated! At this junction mankind seemly has a death wish to fulfill, yet nature also has plans for us as well, doesn’t look as if we are in the picture! At this point I’m just trying to live as normal life, maybe it’s just that I’m older and tired, I do worry for my grand babies, what we have now is not normal, they don’t realize it, maybe a good thing, yet I know different! I have great fear for their future.
We do not have a representative democracy. Gerrymandering, redistricting and voter suppression laws run rampant throughout the nation. This creates a false and phony ‘election’ that pretends to be ‘representative’. Since Trump lost in 2020, the situation has become MUCH worse.
We do not have a functioning government. Consider how the Republicans categorically refuse to cooperate on any and all legislation with the Democrats. Scoring political ‘points’ is their chosen method of operation, no matter what the issue or cause is.
The attempts to steal the 2020 election continue unabated with non-stop partisan attacks from the Republican leadership and the so-called Party of Trump (fascist party). Every attempt to disprove the election lies, bring about essential election reform, or actually represent the will of the people in this country is being stymied, thwarted and deflected by the Republican party.
The Republican leadership CONTINUES to this day to get their ‘orders’ from Donald J. Trump who has managed to develop a death-grip on the Republican party despite not being in office and likely as not, unqualified to run for office again in accordance to the Constitution.
According to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War, says that officeholders who “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” are disqualified from future office. The evidence of Trump engaging in a coup against the country is overwhelming now. Lawmakers need to grow a spine and prosecute Trump to the fullest extent of the law, and forever bar him from office again.
The election lies continue to swirl around the country. The Arizona audit by the “Cyber Ninjas” proved that Biden won Arizona and the company is now facing bankruptcy and ruin, yet connedspiracy theorists continue to promote endless falsehoods and lies, stirring up the Republican base that somehow against all the known evidence uncovered to date, the election was “stolen”. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that has not stopped this movement, it has only grown in size, vitriol and anger.
Election official, auditors, observers and the US Courts have consistently found no sufficient evidence of fraud to support the “stolen election” claims over a year later. The reality is just the opposite, the election was run fairly and the majority of the country rejected Donald J. Trump as President. The losing party has refused to accept these clear results and has fomented civil war as their response. This is worse then poor sportsmanship, it’s treason. Those behind this movement are traitors to their country and the US Constitution, acting on fear, hyperbole, fabrication and lack of evidence.
Sufficient numbers of unlearned, uneducated and easily persuaded people have bought into this connedspiracy theory after being heavily promoted by the Traitor in Chief, Donald J. Trump and his numerous accomplices. These people have abdicated critical thought and the essential requirements for factual evidence, instead embracing ridiculous and unproven conspiracy theories and outlandish claims having no merit. Their numbers are still growing since the 2020 election, despite the obvious betrayals of Trump’s followers by Trump himself.
This powder-keg situation has only worsened with truly asinine connedspiracies being fabricated daily by the fanatical right-wing movement that buys into these claims. Entire movements have sprung up to further foist lies and deceptions on the willing minds that have been so deceived. Even the religiously minded of the country have bought into the lies, demonstrating the prescient accuracy that “a strong delusion would indeed deceive the very elect” in the last days.
So far, every effort to tamp down this mass deception has failed, demonstrating that a fact-based reality is entirely absent in the minds of millions of Americans. Virtually anything is now possible with high probability to happen, as self-fulfilling fantasies, fears and prophecy are sought after to become the new “reality” in the followers of Trump.
This makes this disparate group of men and women exceedingly dangerous and deluded, completely and hopelessly disconnected from reality, capable and liable to do anything to fulfill their fantasies and extract their sought after vengeance for “losing” and being demonstrated as complete fools. Most of them are heavily armed and preparing for civil war to enact their fantasies. This threat is being picked up by law enforcement and media, but not quickly or sufficiently enough. It is unlikely that enough can be done to stop this, especially when considering “lone wolves” and independent actors are capable of wreaking havoc.
Worse, national leadership appears to be inept and incompetent in address this clear and present danger.
The country is now deeply and irrevocably divided over the issue of the Trump party and what this represents to the nation. The threat of fascism is VERY real and unfolding now, as Republicans enact more and more legislation in States around the country. Already they have proven that they do not need Trump is office to steal an election from themselves, by passing State laws to support their party, they can accomplish the same thing without Trump “officially” in power. Already they have purged their own ranks of “non-loyalists” who defied the deposed traitor and demand “loyalty” to Trump to this day.
This is clear representation that the United States is no longer a functioning democracy and likely, will never again be such.
All of the policies and all of the actions of governments and most citizens are counterproductive when it comes to protecting the future, since every aspect of living, every aspect of just existing in this industrial civilisation is dependent on the conversion of finite resources (especially fossil fuels) into waste -much of it life-threatening waste.
Although NZ generates a significant portion of its electricity via hydro (which is unsustainable in the long term), a substantial portion is generated by burning natural gas to run turbines. So when I turn on any electrical device in my home I am indirectly using fossil fuel to have convenience and comfort. The water that comes out of my taps is pumped using electric power. The fecal matter that goes down the sewer pipes is processed using electrical equipment.
At some stage I will have to think about collecting rain water and setting up a composting toilet. But not just yet.
I usually drive a small, petrol-powered car approximately 100km every two weeks, to get building materials, screws, bicycle tyres, paint, plants, or whatever else I need to get myself better prepared for the coming collapse of the economy. The rest of the time I use a bicycle or a foot-powered scooter. My carbon footprint is miniscule compared to many but I am nevertheless making matters worse.
That said, the trucks that move 24/7 along the state highway and the railway system outweigh anything I do by a millionfold. And then there are the occasional aircraft that pass overhead….nowhere near as many as in pre-Covid times, but again a millionfold greater than anything I do.
Much of the food I currently buy (not a lot) contains embedded fossil fuel energy utilised in its production and transport. And of course, there are the emissions commensurate with the use of fossil fuels to produce and transport food. Nothing I can do about that, other than limit my dependence.
I am producing increasing amounts of food but have no illusions about being self-sufficient. That said, there is a lot of productive land around here, with both ground crops and livestock. So when the shit really hits the fan (later this year?) people around here are far less likely to starve than most people on this planet.
In the meantime, as we wait for the implosion of the economy and the collapse of the corrupt systems that have manipulated societies for decades (centuries), we can still find snippets of truth floating in the ocean of lies generated by governments and the mainstream media.
Tim Watkins has done a good job pointing out why failure of the system s inevitable:
It’s okay to look up (consciousnessofsheep.co.uk)
‘Since the early 1970s, when the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system was followed in short order by the first oil shock, ushering in the period of deep stagflation, governments across the developed states have been grappling with the Limits to Growth – the recognition by every branch of academia except the economists that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible:’
‘those things that we are doing to maintain infinite growth on a finite planet can only make the coming collapse even worse.’
I know a guy that used large sheets of plastic to redirect both rain and snow into a catchment basin he built, which was then pumped up with solar panels powering a pump into a cistern nearby his living quarters. He was able to catch all the water he could possibly use in this fashion, tens of thousands of gallons. Worked fine until one day a fire came through and burned everything up, melting even the metals into slag.
Very few people can actually feed themselves and even far fewer without the inputs of fossil fuel energy. It’s not just the lack of skills, land and experience, the environment itself is in a state of collapse offering but a scant selection of what was once abundant. All these supposed hard-core ‘survivalists’ will discover this quickly, which is why virtually everyone has to escape the wilderness and head back to civilization. But what happens when civilization is kaput? I know the answer.
The climate here is too brutal for survival for about half the year. We’ve received quite a bit of snow and I’ve had quite the chore to keep the roadway and parking lot open, dealing with broken equipment, deep cold and even the wrong parts for repair being sold to me. At every step, I’m keenly aware of just how precarious this all is. Civilization and everyone in it is perched on a knife’s edge now, getting worse daily.
Well, here’s proof that the global leadership has massively let down all of humanity:
Once one realises that politicians are corrupt liars and that everything they say and do makes matters worse, one’s view of the world changes dramatically. No longer does one expect anything other than fabrications and lies from people in ‘the system’, and one realises that if anything good is done, it is by people outside ‘the system’; one realises that the mainstream media is an echo chamber of nonsense, primarily concerned with propping up dysfunctional arrangements via misreporting, faailure to report at all, or outright lying.
Sadly, even at this late stage in the game, the bulk of the populace of ‘civilisaed’ nations still believe the lies they are fed on a daily basis.
The good news is, as every component of government yet again fails to deliver, more people recognise that it’s all bullshit.
Here’s an interesting graph, demonstrating the substantial devaluation of money in the system over the past year, as the price of internationally-traded Brent oil has risen from mid-50s to mid-80s in US dollar terms….around a 60% increase in cost.
Brent Crude Oil Price Charts | Oilprice.com
We have witnessed oil prices go ‘splat’ in the past. But with the entire energy sector now in dire straits and the ‘money-printing’ systems in hyperdrive, I suspect we will see further increases in the cost of oil energy, and therefore increases in the price of practically everything.
Unlike in previous times, when there was still some spare capacity, now there is none. We have finally hit the energy wall, the ultimate limit to growth.
Nevertheless, even with constrained energy supplies, the system will continue to cause substantially more environmental damage, as it staggers on towards complete collapse.
Pity the children.
Pity anyone under the age of 60, in fact.
Charles Hugh Smith has outlined the advantages of relocating early (as opposed to being caught in a deathtrap) and why most people won’t move until it’s far too late.
Of Two Minds – Should You Move While You Can, Or When You Must?
He oversimplifies things way too much. I’ve lived rural nearly my entire life. The dependencies of rural living are just as great as living non-rurally. He also wrongly assumes that social cohesion is better rurally – that has not been my experience. Outsiders are not welcomed. That rejection can last over twenty years. Since you were not born and raised here, you’re not one of us sort of thing. There is also resentment of outsiders having more money to build and gain land ownership.
Most rural areas cannot support themselves. Either they lack food production capacity (climate, water or a arable land space), or they lack the skills. Small animal husbandry can help, but it’s not sufficient. Rural living still requires constant trips to the ‘market’ for supplies and essentials and of course, virtually all of the luxuries.
I wrote about early moving years ago here on the blog, recognizing the need to get their first before the mad rush makes it impossible. That’s already well underway. But it’s not an answer like some assume. Rural areas are often deprived earlier on of essentials with the majority going to heavily populated areas (reallocation of resources). Smith seems more interested in book promotion and getting contributors to fund his writing then telling the whole story. Ultimately, rural regions and urban regions will have to relocalize their resource base in order to survive without energy inputs – and not many communities even recognize that and even fewer are trying to do that.
The reality is nobody is going to avoid the impacts of collapse, not the super-rich and most well-stocked or the poor rural tenent who’s just barely surviving on a minimum slave wage. It is all going to come down to a matter of degrees and how long you can make your own self comfortable enough to tolerate the life you will find yourself in. Competition, violence, shortages, sickness and death, it’s going to happen to everyone, everywhere.
I think a more realistic model of what will happen is already unfolding: remote delivery. It’s far more cost-effective to use online ordering of ‘whatever’ and having it delivered to you then driving around and trying to do it yourself. This solves several issues: less energy consumption; product availability; less time commitments; etc. You can find what you need online, anywhere in the world and have it delivered right to your door. You don’t have to rely upon local suppliers to ‘maybe’ have it in stock.
This is also already well underway. It makes it very possible to live anywhere now, city or rural. It’s a more efficient use of global resources, ie., energy & petroleum and will likely become a new standard for shopping. Nobody knows how long this will last, it’s dependent upon how resources will be allocated and how fast they will be consumed. The ability to power ships, drive trucks and make deliveries can be created from other non-petroleum sources once oil disappears, and will almost certainly be performed (it’s been done before during oil shortages and it’s doable).
What’s changing now and in the future is how people live – their expectations and habits, including the way in which they shop or do things for themselves. I spent many years examining the question of people living and providing for all of their own needs, it’s exceedingly rare, nobody actually does this, everybody is plugged in to the system at some level. It’s also brutally hard, which means that the present experience of living and how we go about it will be maintained as long as humanely possible.
The die-off to come will occur because of shortages, lack of skills and lack of opportunity; if you get sick, you will die just like the pioneers did. If you don’t have land to exploit, farm and stay alive on, you’ll be dependent upon whatever essentials can be provided and the means to pay or work for them.
The stupid notion that people are going to run off to the wilderness, or even to rural area and “survive” is based on severe misconceptions and stupidity. Rural people still require significant outside connections to obtain what is essential. That will simply never really change.
The world will move to remote delivery even more so then it does now.
Interesting thoughts.
America and NZ are poles apart when it comes to energy. Whereas the US still has the capacity to extract oil from underground and convert that oil into useable fuel, NZ never had much oil extraction, and has lost most of what it had. Also, it has lost the capacity to convert crude oil into liquid fuels and is totally dependent on what it can purchase on the international market via [fake] fiat currency. One or two weeks after the oil deliveries stop arriving NZ comes to a standstill.
NZ does have some resilience with respect to electricity, insofar as around 50% is generated via well-established hydro; it is when droughts occur that hydro gets seriously affected and NZ turns increasingly to fossil fuels (gas and coal) to keep the lights on.
Auckland is still a ‘magnet’ for the uninformed. But a year of lockdowns and traffic congestion when there are no lockdowns has caused increasing numbers of Aucklanders to relocate to semi-rural areas. I know if one who moved to a house just along the road about a year ago, and it is now an acknowledged phenomenon: cashing-up on a high market and buying much cheaper, elsewhere.
The other big difference between NZ and the US is distance. Nowhere in NZ is more than 2 hours drive from the coast, and most people live less than 30-nimutes-drive from the coast.
Since Auckland is a blight upon the land, and everything people in Auckland need is delivered via pipes, cables or via diesel-powered trucks, using phenomenal amounts of energy, I see living in Auckland becoming a nightmare some time over the next year or so… or rather more of a nightmare that it already is. All it will take is for the speculative bubble of housing and finance to burst and we will see hundreds of thousands of ‘chickens without heads’, having no idea what to do.
Interestingly, the woman who left Auckland and relocated nearby a years ago described ‘everyone in Auckland’ as being “angry.”
Nothing can rectify the current massive population overshoot that has been fostered over many decades , other than a mass die-off, which is clearly coming very soon.
For the moment, people who run out of milk or bread can still hop in the car and drive to a supermarket to buy some. The next fuel price rise -likely this week- probably won’t deter such actions. But when petrol gets to $3 or $4 a litre, everything will change.
I should have said, one or two weeks after the petrol/diesel stops arriving (not oil), NZ comes to a standstill.
How much forest can be converted to biomass / woodgas? Any idea?
Much of the forest that existed before Europeans arrived was cut down for the construction of ships, houses, furniture, factories, packing cases for exports etc., or was exported as logs. Quite a lot was simply cut down and burned to make way for sheep farms, and a little later for cattle farms.
In the 1930s it was realised there was money to be made out of exporting timber, and suitable species -primarily pinus radiata, Monterey Pine- was extensively planted on marginal, eventually turning much of the land deemed suitable into monoculture plantations.
By the mid-1970s the logging of native trees -kauri, rimu etc. was severely restricted, and now such timbers are pretty much unavailable, confined to protected areas and National Parks.
For a while the decisions whether to plant or harvest pinus radiata was determined by the carbon trading scam.
With China desperate for raw material, the price of knot-free timber has increased immensely; even pulping timber has increased outlandishly.
In regions of low population density log fires are used extensively. The problem is, felling and branch removal are done with chainsaws and transport is usually achieved via petrol/diesel-powered vehicles. Even log splitting is done mechanically in most cases.
It is theoretically possible to generate a range of substances by heating wood in an oxygen-free kiln. The problem with that is the same as we always encounter when attempting to maintain civilisation or any part of it; the metallic components that eventually wear out or corrode, and the acquisition of enough wood to make it viable.
Chopping down trees and obtaining useable planks was an exhausting and sometimes gruesome business in the nineteenth century: axes and hand-operated saws might take the best part of a month to convert one decent size tree into useful timber. And then there were the oxen needed to move the stuff to a road or rail system. I find it hard to imagone anyone wanting to got back to that.
I suppose, with population die-off, there will be plenty of empty houses and other resources. Just not much food.
I could not produce enough hand-sawn wood to keep my home heated here, not from lack of trees, but from the sheer physical effort that would be required. Wouldn’t even “try” as they say.
There is a true story of one guy who was living in forest year-round (illegally, as it is not actually allowed here, he was “squatting”). To avoid detection, he would just wear huge layers of clothing and walk around a lot. His story is on this blog somewhere in the years past, it was either in Maine or New Hampshire, which experiences extreme winter cold. He dared not use a fire because he was actually a wanted man. He did this for many years, another data point I don’t remember exactly, I think it was 24 years or 16 years, the point being, it’s “doable”, but utterly brutal in cold weather. It would quickly kill most people, and certainly any kids.
Wood gas produces methane and there are many ways to create this biogas if one wanted to, but none of the processes are particularly easy. There are also digesters that can create methane, but these large apparatuses are not something we’ll see become widespread. The reality is, an oil-free future means the absolute end of civilization and we all know it. If climate change and environmental collapse were to suddenly “not happen”, very few people could survive the oil-absent future because they could not stay warm and could not produce sufficient food. All the metal, plastic, textile objects we used daily (thousands) could not be reproduced, most could not be repaired and living would be reduced to bare subsistence survival. The vast majority of humans on the planet do not live in areas where this is even possible. It can only be done now by the trillions of kilo-calories of energy being produced and embodied in the tens of thousands of products that keep us all alive today.
The end of oil means the end of civilization. By that time, deadly climate change will be so extreme that even subsistence living won’t be possible, most life on Earth will have gone extinct and humans will too. We cannot survive on a dead planet devoid of life and devoid of a tolerable temperature range, to say nothing of water, sickness, injury or disease and so on. The trajectory of humanity will be a cliff straight down to zero when all these things culminate together, as they are doing right now.
Whatever is left of our collapsing civilization will be stripped bare and eaten down to the bone, and then the bones themselves will be eaten. Cannibalism is indeed going to be a part of the collapse story. It’s happened before and it will happen again. This is why I believe every human alive today should be making plans and preparations to make the rest of their lives as comfortable and safe as they can, this future is unfolding now and you will be able to endure far longer then those that don’t pay attention to any of this. You will not escape, nobody will, but at least you will get a ringside seat to the festivities and barbecues to come.
I view financial reports regularly, not because I have money but because they are like a thermometer of the fever that the world has been enduring.
Energy prices continue to creep up, as fiat currencies become increasingly worthless. For example, Brent oil is up again overnight, to $86.88, while the Kiwi dollar is down a bit to US67.7c. That means transport fuels, which rose in price a few days ago, will rise in price again, increasing the cost of almost everything.
‘Lower milk production is only a part of it. Agricultural production is slipping worldwide and that is keeping prices very high, and they will probably go much higher yet – making life very hard for emerging economies.
But the big overnight international financial market news is the emergence of a temper tantrum on Wall Street as markets reprice for the end of QE, earlier Fed rate hikes to push back against inflation, and sharply rising benchmark bond yields. In the situation going forward, asset valuations won’t be supported by cyclically low yields.’
Breakfast briefing; Bond yields rise sharply | interest.co.nz
I am well aware that it is very much a rigged game. But nevertheless, it does appear that those who have been doing much of the rigging – the central banks- are losing control. And this losing of control is occurring against a backdrop of a declining resource base and a severely degraded environment on an overheated planet enduring massive human population overshoot.
Under such circumstance we must expect governments to continue to generate fake narratives and expect the mainstream media to continue to generate yet more fake news….or at least present an upbeat version of dire news.
Regarding the guy who lived in a US forest year-round without a home or fire, several years ago I read a book about the ‘Deer People’ of northern Canada. The lived without houses, making temporary huts out of a few sticks covered with deer skins in the summer, and igloos carved from snow pack in the winter. They had little access to wood because they lived north of the major tree line, and all that existed was small trees and scrub. They didn’t dare travel too far south because of the very aggressive tribe that lived in that area.
Those deer people lived in the region for thousands of years, and all was fine until Europeans arrived with guns, wanting furs. The deer population (along with everything else) got decimated, and the last remnants of such ‘Deer People’ either died of starvation or got assimilated in the 1940 to 1950s.
I see that benchmark Brent crude is up again, by almost $2 a barrel. Current price $88.76.
Brent Crude Oil Price Charts | Oilprice.com
We have seen this kind of thing before. The price goes up and up, and then collapses when demand destruction sets in or speculators take their profits and stop bidding it up.
However, this time the situation is far more dire, with so much more of the ‘easy oil’ extracted and burned and the entire system even more dependent on expensive-to-extract ‘difficult oil’.
I also see that the level of Lake Mead is rising extremely slowly compared to previous years.
I really cannot see how ‘the system’ can possibly keep going for more than another few months.
Crude will top $100 fairly soon I think.
Western ‘civilization’ isn’t civilized, it’s rapacious. Kills everything that is natural. Pretends to be a force for good while constantly engaging in evil. I’ve found some interesting documentaries on Netflix, Tales by the Light. Some small notable ‘successes’ to preserve some small areas, but overall, it’s still global decline / global collapse / death everywhere. Most people don’t bother paying any attention to it, we live in ‘Disneyland’ here (and so do you there) compared to how much of the world actually lives. Everything is quite literally dragged to our doorstep, all we have to do is find a way to pay for it (wage slavery).
Everyone else not living in a Disneyland world (from one of the episodes) has to scratch out their living. Little tiny kids forced to work as young as four years old. Abandoned children all around the world slaving away like chain gangs. Ultimately, most of their labor and production winds up somewhere in ‘Disneyland’ on somebodies door-step, delivered in a box. The disparity and injustice of all this is profound.
I rarely care how much stuff costs. For me, it is a meaningless metric, because I cannot do anything about it anyway; I’ll be forced to pay it when I need it; most of these costs / products are things I cannot produce or do for myself. The only response is to use less, consume less, do more, learn more or simply do without. But we still live like royalty compared to the lives of
millionsbillions and frankly, have no moral justification to complain.The staggering hypocrisy of the Western world is unbelievable. Americans are the worst, bitching about their phony ‘freedumbs’ and racists fears while actively suppressing real democracy, voting rights and equality. I’ve come to realize that large numbers of Americans are just selfish assholes who wouldn’t recognize freedom if it bit them in the ass. They demand superiority, not freedom and they can’t tell the difference.
When the water runs out, which it will, one day, somewhere here, there or wherever, they will finally get a tiny taste of what generations of people have had to endure their entire lives. We are so goddamned spoiled while pretending to the the Chosen. What a fucking joke.
Food prices: add the increased price of wheat to the increased price of energy. It’s not looking at all good for the vast majority of people on this planet, now that all the bullshit economics of recent decades meets population overshoot and energy depletion.
‘Meanwhile, China is buying up the world’s available wheat supplies, putting sharp upward pressure on prices. Global wheat prices are up +23% in a year and China’s imports rose +17% in the same time, an increase of almost 10 mln tonnes in 2021. A key driver is a shift in diet towards bread in China, but high corn prices for animal feed bolstered demand. The local harvest of wheat in 2021 was down too.’
Breakfast briefing; Higher inflation & higher rates spreading | interest.co.nz
We have known for a long time that Industrial Civilisation is completely mad. However, the degree of madness just keeps on increasing, as energy supplies get constrained and the environment slowly collapses.
I was staggered to read this today:
‘In Australia, the world’s first ship carrier of liquefied hydrogen has arrived at Victoria’s Port of Hastings to pick up its inaugural cargo and transport it to Japan, marking a major milestone for the emerging industry.’
Following the link at
Breakfast briefing; Equities rally on bond sell-off pause | interest.co.nz
takes us to
World’s first hydrogen ship Suiso Frontier raises hope for a new industry (smh.com.au)
There’s just one small problem with all this cheerleading for dysfunction (well several problems actually), as explained here:
Liquid Hydrogen Delivery | Department of Energy
‘LIQUEFACTION
Gaseous hydrogen is liquefied by cooling it to below −253°C (−423°F). Once hydrogen is liquefied it can be stored at the liquefaction plant in large insulated tanks. It takes energy to liquefy hydrogen—using today’s technology, liquefaction consumes more than 30% of the energy content of the hydrogen and is expensive. In addition, some amount of stored hydrogen will be lost through evaporation, or “boil off” of liquefied hydrogen, especially when using small tanks with large surface-to-volume ratios. Research to improve liquefaction technology, as well as improved economies of scale, could help lower the energy required and the cost.’
‘−253°C (−423°F).[
‘more than 30% of the energy content of the hydrogen’
And what about all the fossil fuels consumed making steel and constructing the ship and the storage tanks! And what about the diesel consumed carting the liquified hydrogen from one place to another! And the commensurate emissions!
Better not talk about any of that.
I guess someone is making money out of this nonsense. Quite a few people, in fact.
Nice to see that the level of Lake Mead fell yesterday (at a time when it would normally be rising quite quickly). I’m not a proponent of suffering, but the longer this madness goes on, the greater the suffering in the future. So if the water level drops and no irrigation or hydro generation are possible, that’s got to be a good thing.
Hydrogen is a lose-lose proposal. The failure to accurately assess it’s costs, footprint, energy requirements and losses has some people enamored that it’s an “energy source” when it actually isn’t (just the opposite). Madness indeed. It seems as if nothing at all is going to penetrate through to the minds of the money makers and planet wreckers, they’ll have to go broke first before changing their habits. Since there is still enormous ‘opportunity’ to profit from madness, they’ll keep doing that instead, thereby guaranteeing the collapse of civilization will just be that much worse (nothing left) to try and survive on. Pure madness, selfish, greedy, short-sighted insanity.