Gail Tverberg made a comment today that rings true and motivated me to write about something I’ve been mulling for a while…
I think the reaction to COVID-19 is part of how a self-organizing system works. People were looking for a reason to cut back/shut down. The illness provided this.
I do not believe in most conspiracy theories, but I do believe that crises are frequently used to implement plans that would be impossible without a crisis. The responses to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, 9/11, and the 2008 GFC are good modern examples.
Perhaps the virus has provided (mostly subconscious) cover for:
- citizens tired of commuting 2 hours a day to a stressful job so they could keep up with their neighbor’s latest unnecessary status symbol purchase
- citizens who intuited they should reduce discretionary spending and pay down credit card debt, which interestingly declined in 2020, rather than increasing as it did during the 2008 GFC
- leaders that sensed we should voluntarily throttle back, because we’d soon be forced by limits to growth
- leaders that understood we needed to rapidly reduce CO2 emissions, and the only way to achieve this is by contracting the economy
- leaders that needed an excuse to restrict freedoms to maintain civil order in preparation for a significant contraction of our energy/economic system
- central banks that understood we had hit limits to growth and that needed an excuse for massive corporate bailouts to prevent a catastrophic economic collapse, and for MMT to keep citizens fed
Perhaps this helps to explain why our responses to the virus have not been intelligent or optimal:
- effective means of containing the spread were ignored or procrastinated in the crucial early days
- existing cheap and effective preventative measures are ignored and not promoted; new preventative measures are not researched
- promising cheap and effective treatments are ignored and/or aggressively undermined
- some lock-down measures lack logic or good judgement
- the source of the virus is not being aggressively investigated to better understand appropriate responses, and to prevent a reoccurrence
To be clear, I am not suggesting a conspiracy to release a virus. I think the most probable explanation is that the virus was engineered in a lab with good intentions, and that it escaped by accident, as explained here:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
I am suggesting that people at all levels of our society appear to be using the virus as an excuse to make changes that were impossible to make prior to the crisis. Some of these plans may have been well thought out and sitting on a shelf waiting for the right circumstances, like for example MMT, and other responses, like for example citizens paying down credit card debt, may be an instinctual response to anticipated scarcity.
Jay Hanson, who died in 2018, was one of the greatest thinkers about human overshoot. I wrote more about Hanson here:
https://un-denial.com/2018/03/26/by-jay-hanson-reality-report-interview-november-3-2008/
Hanson concluded that civilization was doomed due to genetic human behaviors that were unlikely to change, and that it would probably end with a nuclear war, as discussed in this 2008 interview with Jason Bradford:
right click save as to download
Hanson did however describe one path that was thermodynamically feasible, and that might avoid some of the worst suffering.
Perhaps we have (mostly subconsciously) decided to implement some of Jay Hanson’s ideas.
https://dieoff.com/page168.htm
<begin extract from Hanson’s essay>
SOCIETY OF SLOTH
In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses.
— Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1762
(What follows is not meant to be a comprehensive description of a new society, but only presents some conceptual ideas for consideration.)
MY KEY DEFINITIONS
- GLOBAL PROBLEMATIC (after The Club of Rome, 1972): Global tragedy of the commons because people are genetically programmed to more-than-reproduce themselves and make the best use of their environments.
- COMMONS: “A commons is any resource treated as though it belongs to all. When anyone can claim a resource simply on the grounds that he wants or needs to use it, one has a commons.” [32]
- NEEDS: Human “needs” have a scientific basis which is defined by human biology. 35,000 years ago, three million hunter-gatherers “needed” community, shelter, health care, clean water, clean air, and about 3,000 calories a day of nutritious food. Today, people still “need” the same things that hunter-gatherers “needed” then (except fewer calories).
- eMergy: [33] eMergy (with an “M”) is the solar energy used directly and indirectly to make a service or product. In other words, eMergy is the “cost” of a service or a product in units of solar energy.
Why eMergy? In reality, the economy is nothing but a monstrous, energy-gulping Rube Goldberg machine to deliver “needs” to people. But each of those three million hunter-gatherers was the energy-using counterpart of a common dolphin, whereas each of today’s 280 million Americans matches the energy use of a sperm whale. Obviously, the “economy” is incredibly inefficient at delivering “needs” to people.
No doubt my statement will stick in the economist’s craw, because after all, isn’t “efficiency” what economics is all about? The problem with “economic efficiency” is that “money” is not a measure of anything in the real world (like, say, BTUs). Money is power because money “empowers” people to buy and do the things they want — including buying and doing other people (politics). Thus, “economic efficiency” is properly seen as a “political” concept that was designed to preserve political power for those who have it.
For over a century, theorists have sought ways of integrating economics and environmental accounting, often using energy as a common measure. But these efforts met with limited success because different kinds of available energy are not equivalent. The measure of “eMergy” allows us to compare commodities, services and environmental work of different types. “Transformity” – the eMergy per unit energy – allows us to compare different kinds of available of energy.
So we need to totally junk the present economic system and replace it with a new one that minimizes eMergy costs (not money costs ) and delivers basic needs (not Cadillacs) to everyone in a sustainable way. - SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Sustainable development both improves quality of life and retains continuity with physical conditions; it requires that social systems be equitable and physical systems circular (industrial outputs become industrial inputs).
- AUTHORITY: Goals (or ideals) are not produced by a consensus of the governed, rather a qualified authority determines goals. For example, physical goals for sustainable development must come from “scientific” authority — because no one else knows what they must be. All contemporary political systems are “authoritarian” with the moneyed class ruling the pseudo democracies.
- COERCION (politics): To “coerce” is to compel one to act in a certain way — either by promise of reward or threat of punishment. Two obvious examples of coercion are our system of laws and paychecks.
- THE ONE-AND-ONLY HUMANE SOLUTION: “Mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon.” [34] A global system of coercion — laws, police, punishments and rewards. In principle, the global commons can only be managed at the global level by people who understand the physical systems involved: scientists. Global coercion can be seen in the worldwide reactions to ozone depletion and global warming. Remarkably, even economists find that authoritarian coercion can make them “better off”:
A group of economists had gathered at my house for dinner. While we were waiting for the food in the oven to finish cooking, I brought a large bowl of cashew nuts into the living room where people were having cocktails. In a few minutes, half the bowl of nuts was gone, and I could see that our appetites were in danger. Quickly, I seized the bowl of nuts and put it back in the kitchen (eating a few more nuts along the way, of course). When I returned, my fellow economists generally applauded my quick action, but then we followed our natural inclinations which was to try to analyze the situation to death. The burning question was: how could removing an option possibly have made us better off? After all, if we wanted to stop eating cashews, we could have done that at any time. [35]
Besides laws and paychecks, coercion can take many forms:
It is not necessary to construct a theory of intentional cultural control. In truth, the strength of the control process rests in its apparent absence. The desired systemic result is achieved ordinarily by a loose though effective institutional process. It utilizes the education of journalists and other media professionals, built-in penalties and rewards for doing what is expected, norms presented as objective rules, and the occasional but telling direct intrusion from above. The main lever is the internalization of values. [36]
Step one would be to establish a global government of some sort with the authority to protect the global commons — our life-support system — as well as protecting universal human rights. This government would also oversee the “clean” manufacturing of “repairable” and “reusable” energy-efficient appliances and transportation systems. It would also insure the sustainable production of staples like wheat, rice, oats, and fish.
Does this new global government sound repressive or restrictive? Not at all. A great deal of freedom is possible — in fact, far more than we have now.
eMERGY CERTIFICATES
Step two would be to replace the organizing principle of “avarice” with the principle of “sloth”; break out of the money-market-advertising-consumption death trap. The Society of Sloth would not be based on money because that would be inherently unsustainable. Instead, it would be based on “eMergy Certificates”. [37]
Global government would determine the “needs” of the public, set industrial production accordingly, and calculate the amount of eMergy used to meet these needs. Government would then distribute purchasing power in the form of eMergy certificates, the amount issued to each person being equivalent to his pro rata share of the eMergy cost of the consumer goods and services.
eMergy certificates bear the identification of the person to whom issued and are non-negotiable. They resemble a bank check in that they bear no face denomination, this being entered at the time of spending. They are surrendered upon the purchase of goods or services at any center of distribution and are permanently canceled, becoming entries in a uniform accounting system. Being non-negotiable they cannot be lost, stolen, gambled, or given away because they are invalid in the hands of any person other than the one to whom issued.
Lost eMergy certificates would be easily replaced. Certificates can not be saved because they become void at the termination of the two-year period for which they are issued. They can only be spent.
Insecurity of old age is abolished and both saving and insurance become unnecessary and impossible. eMergy Certificates would put absolute limits on consumption and provide people with a guaranteed stream of “needs” for life.
With modern technology, probably less than 5% of the population could produce all the goods we really “need”. A certain number of “producers” could be drafted and trained by society to produce for two years. The rest can stay home and sleep, sing, dance, paint, read, write, pray, play, do minor repairs, work in the garden, and practice birth control.
SELF-DETERMINATION
Any number of cultural, ethnic or religious communities could be established by popular vote. Religious communities could have public prayer in their schools, prohibit booze, allow no television to corrupt their kids, wear uniforms, whatever. Communities of writers or painters could be established in which bad taste would be against the law. Ethnic communities could be established to preserve language and customs. If someone didn’t like the rules in a particular community, they could move to another religious, cultural, or ethnic community of their choosing.
In short, the one big freedom that individuals would have to give up would be the freedom to destroy the commons (in its broadest sense) — the freedom to kill. And in return, they would be given a guaranteed income for life and the freedom to live almost any way they choose.”
<end extract from Hanson’s essay>
un-Denial 
It’s nice to see that you somehow made peace with Hanson. At least I remember that you had a grudge against him.
On topic, I’m very firmly in the human extinction camp and have a very hard time to even entertain other possibilities. At least I haven’t met someone how could argue a case for continued human survival that went beyond wishful thinking. Which is also the drawer where where I would put Hanson utopist thoughts.
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No grudge against Hanson. He was a great thinker that got a lot right. He was also closed minded and unethical in his treatment of Varki’s MORT, which is an important new theory on human behavior that explains not only the uniquely powerful human brain with its extended theory of mind, but also its tendency to deny unpleasant realities, like overshoot.
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Rob, I honestly have no idea whatsoever how Jay Hanson thought of Varki and MORT, but, as you know, there are some of us (certainly, me) who seriously valued the book, Denial, yet, ultimately ended up with a different understanding of how and why denial is so pervasive in civilized cultures but not in indigenous cultures. My personal sense is that tribal (pro-future) cultures – i.e., the first 95% of our Homo sapiens time on Earth – did not “believe” in life after death. They KNEW that when you died, you became an ancestor! And, thus, you would be as ‘present’ as the ancestors you and your people regularly consulted (imaginatively, of course,) with respect to how to live in such a way that you would honor the past AND honor the future AND honor the body of Life upon which you and your descendants (and your ancestors) depended. So I both deeply and profoundly value Varki and Brower’s work AND I have a view that, to my mind at least, is less complicated an understanding of our “denial instinct.” It seems to me that the indigenous view wins by virtue of Occam’s razor. But I know, of course, that you would disagree. And, truth be told, I love the fact that you are Varki’s bulldog! 🙂
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My old brain can only chew on one big idea at a time. and I’m currently mulling your “bad to blame” idea and am thinking about writing a contrary “using democracy to do the right thing” post.
So I’m not going to engage with you now on our species’ ubiquitous and unique belief in life after death since the emergence of behaviorally modern humans. We’ve tried to discuss this in the past without success at changing either of our views so let’s agree to disagree.
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Florian, when you say you are very firmly in the human extinction camp do you mean that it’s a good idea or just that it’s likely this century as the final consequence of Overshoot Cancer?
For me it’s both. I see no reason why we need to exist & have yet to hear anyone who wants humans to go on give me an explanation why.
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If you believe high intelligence is common in the universe then I can understand your view on humans.
I suspect high intelligence with a big store of fossil energy it can leverage to understand science is extremely rare in the universe, and may exist on only one planet, because it requires a cascade of improbable evolutionary and geologic events.
Knowledge has intrinsic value that should be conserved because it’s close to a miracle that it can emerge from a cloud of hydrogen.
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Fabulous, Rob! Wonderful that you featured Jay; he’s been one of my heroes for years.
If you’ve not already seen it, I think you’ll like my latest (7,o00+ views and nearly 200 comments in less than a week): “Irreversible Collapse: Accepting Reality, Avoiding Evil”:
Keep up the great blogging!
… and Happy New Year!
~ Michael (and Connie)
https://postdoom.com/about/
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I saw you had a smash hit and it’s already in my watch later queue. You’d better gear up your merch store to capitalize on your fame. 🙂
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Michael, why haven’t we seen Rob in one of your Post-Doom conversations? Seems it’s well overdue.
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Michael invited me but I declined because I lacked sufficient confidence. Ditto with Sam Mitchell. Ditto with my grade 5 class play.
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! 🙂
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Wow! There are some actual doomers in the comment section who take human overpopulation seriously. Here’s a good one by “peyton”:
. . . as one of the ten population doomers (I’m possibly being overly optimistic about that count!), I have found that overpopulation folks in general understand that it is too late to stop the ecological juggernaut of destruction; however, that isn’t the point. The point is to prevent suffering, one sentient being at a time. I’ll quote Jesse 987 here, who quoted “Barton,” since it really does bear repeating:
[Quote] Personally, I don’t have an issue with any type of overpopulation discussion, unlike 99.9 percent of the human herd … probably because my wife and I decided to remain child-free over 40 years ago. However, preventing our eventual extinction has never been an option for our cancerous, invasive species. We compete, reproduce, expand, and will eventually kill the host, but I agree with the Real Green New Deal’s main premise concerning the overshoot topic: the fewer babies born now, the less suffering endured later.
I was watching a conversation on a doomer channel in which a couple of folks were trying to shut the overpopulation conversation down because “it’s too late to do anything about it.” The concept of actually preventing future suffering for the unborn was beyond them, which is ironic since parents are supposed to be the sensitive entities while the child-free are considered selfish. [End quote]
And don’t forget the great Finnish naturalist Pentti Linkola: “. . . the chief cause for the impending collapse of the world – the cause sufficient in and by itself – is the enormous growth of the human population: the human flood. The worst enemy of life is too much life: the excess of human life.”
“The coming years will prove increasingly cynical and cruel. People will definitely not slip into oblivion while hugging one another. The final stages in the life of humanity will be marked by the monstrous war of all against all: the amount of suffering will be maximal.” ― Pentti Linkola, Can Life Prevail? – A Radical Approach to the Environmental Crisis
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Exactly. The only valid reason not to support rapid population reduction policies is if you think 8 billion suffering is no worse than 8 billion minus one, and if you think other species don’t matter.
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Another commenter brought up Bill Hicks, massive animal lover who never considered bringing a child to a dying planet: “Eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions god’s infinite love.” The suffering schtick seems to be popular with those of a religious mindset.
—————————
Reading all the content in that thread, I think he was right. And so was Louis-Ferdinand Celine concerning humanity in general:
“So many vaginas, stomachs, cocks, snouts, and flies, you don’t know what to do with them . . . shovelsful! But hearts? Very rare! In the last five hundred million years, too many cocks and gastric tubes to count. But hearts? Only on your fingers!”
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Nina Paley cartoon, one more time:
“Sheep Souls”
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The best way to avoid evil?
“Right now, across the world, there are places where you can literally walk 10 feet without seeing a squirrel or where you won’t spot one the very second you look out your window. It is absolutely vital that every ecosystem—whether or not squirrels are currently present—be absolutely teeming with squirrels, because squirrels should be everywhere at all times.”
https://www.theonion.com/world-wildlife-fund-announces-new-breeding-program-to-c-1819577604
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Ha ha! This is a masterful skewering of our human-overpopulation disaster. And I like the location: “Gland.”
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Added to the un-Denial gallery.
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Carlin is one of the greats.
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I think George Carlin was in denial in that clip. Humans have definitely made a negative difference to the planet big time, especially in the last 150-200 years. That’s why it’s been called the anthropocene. I wonder if he’d still feel the same if he were to come back now and study the growing effects of climate change, the micro plastics in seawater, in rivers and in life forms of all kinds. Plus the rate of habitat destruction and pesticide use and consequent accelerating rate of loss of species, including bees and insects. Not to mention the current and future dangers posed by the nuclear industry.
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Yes, I caught that too and I agree with you.
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I think you are missing Carlin’s main point. I’ve seen others do the same with this clip. I’ve seen climate deniers re title & use this clip for their agenda.
Carlin was no denier. What he is taking a shot at is the human’s ‘it’s all about me/us’ arrogance & illusion of control.
This was a running theme with Carlin……as it is with me.
“The Planet is Fine. The People are Fucked.”
“The Planet isn’t going anywhere. We are.”
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I usually like what Carlin had to say, but on this occasion, he did not express himself well. The fact that climate change deniers have promoted this clip confirms my opinion.
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“I do believe that crises are frequently used to implement plans that would be impossible without a crisis.“
I don’t think there was any plan adopted by the Trump administration to take advantage of the Covid crisis, just as there was no plan to ameliorate the pandemic. The disbanding of the Pandemic Response Team instituted by a previous administration, refusal to listen to scientists, sheer incompetence and bloody mindedness were what led to the situation today with the US being the worst affected country in the world.
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Re Lockdown. This can be a really effective response if done correctly. Australia and New Zealand prove it. First of all, both countries, closed their borders relatively early, with only citizens and permanent residents allowed to enter from oversea. Immediately upon arrival, they were bussed to quarantine facilities for a stay of 14 days.
Unfortunately the virus had already entered my country Australia and by July/August last year , my home city of Melbourne, population 5 million, had a very serious outbreak of Covid. The State Government of Victoria implemented a strict lockdown, with schools closed and only essential services and supermarkets open. No hotels, pubs, gymnasiums were allowed to open and restaurants could only provide take away meals. People were allowed to exercise outside for one hour a day and within a five kilometre radius of their homes. People were not allowed to mix with other households, unless a caring function was involved. Mask wearing outside the home was mandatory. A curfew was instigated between 10 pm and 6 am. Transgressors were fined. Lump sum and fortnightly income support was provided to all affected workers. 6 / 7 weeks of this and the virus was not only flattened, it was completely eliminated. Everyone resumed normal life, with all its freedoms. Our hospitals are operating normally, with the usual pre Covid surgeries etc. Ditto dental surgeries, restaurants, sporting events etc. etc. Kids resumed school.
And Australia is officially out of recession.
Australia has a population of 25 million people, (with nearly half resident in our two major cities, Sydney and Melbourne). So we have approximately 1/14 th of the US population. As of today ( Jan 7, 2021) Australia has had a total of 909 Covid deaths, whilst the US has had 356,000.
Good governance and a disciplined, co-operative population can achieve much.
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Thanks. It’s encouraging to hear that there are pockets of competency in the world.
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Marg, masks are still required in most places. And social distancing in shops and supermarkets and signing in at some. It’s still far from normal.
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I take your point. ‘Normal’ compared to what it was and normal compared to some other countries – like the UK which has just entered another lockdown – hopefully a longer one than before and more strictly enforced.
(Although I lived most of my life in Melbourne, I feel lucky that in recent years I live in Tasmania – where, except for a short period of lockdown in the northwest in May, we have been living fairly normally for months – not a mask in sight, everything open and only half hearted social distancing. Not that I think that it will last now that we have opened our state borders and given the number of citizens returning from overseas…)
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Four years later it’s bigger and fatter and uglier and the majority continue to deny it.
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Democracy doesn’t work so good in times of scarcity.
No worries, stock market still going up.
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Mr. Kunstler will make sense of it all in Friday’s essay.
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Bullshit. Kunstler makes little sense of anything anymore.
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I agree. Forgot the /s tag.
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I agree with David. As a declared Trump supporter, Kuntsler lost me forever. The excesses on the left side of politics ( identity politics, political correctness etc) were no justification to support the most incompetent , self serving, narcissistic and pro corporate President ever.
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When bad things are happening that most citizens don’t have the time or motivation to understand, and their leaders deny reality and make up fictional stories their followers want to hear, you end up with a really toxic soup.
When I listen to mainstream influencers not one person speaks honestly about our overshoot predicament.
When I listen to the few who do understand our overshoot predicament, almost none discuss the need for rapid population reduction policies.
I went back and watched all 5 interviews this year by one of my favorite thinkers, Nate Hagens. He’s REALLY worried, bordering on panic, about the economic implication of Covid-19, because he thinks we need to extend and pretend the system a little longer so we have time to fashion a new non-growth system.
I’m thinking that we knew the jig was up with the 2008 GFC and did absolutely nothing intelligent in response. In fact all we’ve done for 12 years is widen the wealth gap thus destabilizing society, and made the inevitable crash even more harmful for most people. So exactly how will extending and pretending again be any different? It won’t.
We must get the population down. Nothing else matters. If someone influences just one person to support population reduction policies, and they influence just one person, and so on, pretty soon we can have a mainstream discussion and a vote.
I noticed that Nate’s come around to acknowledging that climate change is a big deal. But not one word on rapid population reduction policies.
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Perfectly put. Thank you, Rob.
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Rob, I bet you 1 million condoms there will be no mainstream discussion and a vote.
When it gets bad, look for unspoken population reduction policies like ending the breeding allowance & tax breaks for families, stop buying Narcan to keep habitual overdosers alive & cuts or ending of many other welfare state benefits. Increase retirement age & cut the amounts. Stop covering drugs & treatments that keep people alive. Insulin prices so high only the well to do can afford it. Telling the kids they no longer need to wear bicycle helmets & it’s ok to accept rides from strangers should help whittle the numbers down too.
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LOL. And the local militia knocking on the doors of known doomers.
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I totally get your perspective: humans can’t change and they’re not worth trying to save anyway.
The majority of doomers agree with you on the can’t change piece.
What fascinates me are the people that understand at least some of the problem and that still want to find a better path forward. For example, pretty much every climate scientist, every environmentalist, and a few doomers like Paul Beckwith, Alex Smith, Nate Hagens, Tim Watkins, Tim Morgan, Richard Heinberg, Chris Martenson, George Mobus, Art Berman, etc.
What’s fascinating is not one of these people promote population reduction. I get that it will be very hard to gather sufficient support for rapid population reduction laws, but given that it’s by far our best response, you’d think they’d be up for trying. I mean if you don’t even try to influence friends and family, they’re guaranteed not to support population reduction laws.
It’s also odd because if you really want to communicate the gravity of the situation and get people’s attention, what better way than telling them they can’t have children because most of them will suffer or die?
I wonder if these people care more about what other people think of them than they do about preserving some of our best accomplishments, and reducing the suffering of humans and other species.
Or perhaps it’s a denial thing again: population isn’t the real problem, we just need to redistribute the wealth and make do with less. Good luck with that.
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Rob,
The MPP and MORT got us here. We are just dissipatives (thanks James). This awareness comes to a few of us way to late in life to have had much effect. I doubt that even rapid population reduction policies could avert total civilizational collapse and probable species extinction. It seems that I am watching a slow motion train wreck (that’s speeding up) and there is absolutely no hope – just watch the crash with more awareness and less denial than everyone around me. Jack Alpert seems to get it but his solutions seem like hopium. It truly is depressing – one of the few rays of sunshine it talking to my dog who is blindlessly optimistic that a better day is just one walk away.
AJ
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I think MORT is required to explain why people who understand MPP cannot escape MPP.
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Correct. I think nearly all the people you mentioned have had children of their own – maybe that’s the reason they don’t mention population reduction strategies.
I read that Africa is the main problem at the moment because everywhere else, few couples now are having more than 2 children- that is even the case in Bangladesh, for example. ( Even 2 is too many of course).
Maybe we need a more effective pandemic ?? Or at least a virus that renders 2/3rd.s of women infertile -which was the theme of one of Dan Brown’s books.
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A few comments ago you praised your states great reaction to the pandemic. Reminds me of Al Bartletts old lecture re exponential curve, all the “good” things in one column and “bad” in the other. Who’s going to get out there and advocate for more disease?
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“Who’s going to advocate for more disease” No one of course, but it will happen anyway. Something that can’t be so readily controlled. It could even be new, extremely virulent versions of Covid, which take out younger people.
And I’m pretty sure that no government will bring in mandatory fertility control – even China changed its mind on that one.
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Why bother controlling this one, then, is my point I guess.
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At least this “expert” actually admits the narcissistic truth:
“I know I have brought life into a world that doesn’t look very promising, but I believe the desire to have children is inherently selfish,” Francesca said. “She was conceived to complete me, but since giving birth to her I’ve spent every day working for her happiness.”
Alrighty then!
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4y4m/having-kids-climate-crisis
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Nice find by Mike Stasse @ Damn the Matrix today…
http://energyskeptic.com/2014/john-howe-on-1-child-per-woman-still-too-high-to-stay-under-oil-depletion-curve/
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Friedemann today on peak batteries.
http://energyskeptic.com/2021/battery-minerals-rare-declining/
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You can’t make this shit up. Today no fact is agreed. Conspiracies theories are starting that the rioters were pretending to be Trump supporters to ensure he lost.
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MAGA-tards just need someone to explain things for them.
Scientists Attempt To Convince Public To Take Covid More Seriously By Explaining Concept Of Death
“NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—As the 10-month-old pandemic continued its rampant spread and the nation’s death toll passed 350,000, top medical scientists attempted Tuesday to convince the American public to take Covid-19 more seriously by issuing a statement in which they patiently clarified the concept of death. “We just want to be perfectly clear about this: When someone dies from coronavirus, that means they’re gone forever, and they never come back,” read the Rutgers University report, which explained that sometimes people who were sick got sick so badly that every part of their whole body ceased to function—including their heart and brain—and that this was a permanent state from which no one could ever recover. “Now, we could understand if you were shrugging off the consequences of Covid because you thought hundreds of thousands of Americans were just sleeping and would wake up eventually. But that simply isn’t the case here. Let’s try this: Have you ever had a pet, maybe a dog or a cat that you loved, and one day it stopped breathing and became very, very still? Maybe you had a little burial out in the yard? So this is the same thing, only it’s happened to almost 2 million people around the world, some of whom lived in your very own community. Notice we say ‘lived,’ in the past tense. That’s because these people are no longer alive. That’s what can happen, and if it does happen to someone you love, you’ll never see them again, and they’ll never see you again, and that will probably be very sad. Hopefully this clears things up a little.” The report coincides with an attempt by top economists to convince Congress to take Covid’s financial effects on the American people more seriously by explaining the concept of people.”
https://www.theonion.com/scientists-attempt-to-convince-public-to-take-covid-mor-1845989249
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You can’t deny the facts. 🙂
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-was-founder-far-left-blm-group-filming-inside-capitol-police-shot-protester
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https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/6570794002
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/mashable.com/article/antifa-conspiracies-trump-mob-january-6-capitol-debunk.amp
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Give it up, James. I really admire your work on MPP, dissipation and RNA/tech cells, but your conspiratorial bent is fucking retarded, man. This aspect of your thinking, just like that of all conspiracy theorists, cherry picks shit to attempt to overturn the overarching reality/truth in order to better fit what you want it to be. Cut the crap!
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Well said David !
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Oh good-can you give us a quick run down on what this overarching reality/truth thing is? Many have searched and you appear to have found it -remarkable.
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I see we have another conspiracy-tard here at un-Denial. I was referring to the obvious truth/reality that MAGA-turd terrorists attacked the US capitol on Wednesday, not Antifa or any other conspiracy theory bullshit. If you can’t see that, MickN, then you’re thinking is shit and I’ll leave you to your abysmal descent into the idiocracy-space. People who think like you are a huge fucking problem that clearly isn’t going to end well no matter where you’re located.
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I’d like to amend the last sentence of my last comment (i.e. the one immediately above) to read: “The thinking of people like you is a huge fucking problem that clearly isn’t going to end well no matter where you’re located.”
I need to remember to criticize people’s thoughts/thought process and arguments (or lack thereof), not their being. Thanks.
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I respect and like very much my friend Dr. Jekyll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Case_of_Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde
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Is the Collapse of Civilization Inevitable?
Like human beings, who are born, go through different phases, and eventually die, maybe human cultures too follow a trajectory that ends in their collapse. History is filled with great civilizations that have collapsed. Maybe all of them do eventually. But what is the cause?
“Joseph Tainter’s View of Civilizational Collapse
American anthropologist Joseph Tainter explores cataclysmic views about civilizations and categorizes them into 12 basic explanations for why societies collapse. Eleven of them, he says, are wrong. The twelfth view is the one he has developed. Looking at the fall of the Roman Empire, the fall of the Western Chou Empire, the fall of Egyptian Old Kingdom, the fall of the Minoan civilization, the fall of the Olmec, the fall of the Mayans, not to mention the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, we see some interesting trends emerge.
It’s not that Malthus was right and cultures out-produced their resources. It’s not that catastrophes––like the meteor that doomed the dinosaurs––also wipe out society. It’s not that they fail to rise to circumstantial challenges they face or are replaced by more complex societies. They’re not destroyed by intruders from outside or conflict and mismanagement from inside. No, Tainter argues; it’s that they sputter and die from a lack of energy.”
https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/is-the-collapse-of-civilization-inevitable/
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Life is an electron seeking a place to rest.
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Electrons never rest but they can get more comfortable. Seventy-five percent the speed of light, around and around they go and where they end-up nobody knows. But in the same time a human can slowly plod their mass around this planet for one-hundred years, EM radiation can travel 600 trillion miles. Just like the gears in a watch don’t need energy, neither do our atoms. But to move them does require a flow of energy. We are on the cusp of much less movement (unless there are some great technological breakthroughs). Too bad we’re messing-up the plant and phytoplankton habitats, they’re rather essential in maintaining the flow through humans.
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Thanks. I don’t have that course in my library. It’s available on TPB.
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Climate change causes collapse of Angkor civilization
“The late professor of geography at Yale University Ellsworth Huntington focused on the fact that many large countries in the past either prospered or perished depending on how advantageous or disadvantageous climate conditions were. Indeed, climate change was the cause of the prosperity or collapse of civilizations. For example, the Mesopotamia civilization, which is the first civilization in human history. As city states, such as Uruk founded by Sumer, began to emerge, a civilization was born and the region was unified by the Akkadian Empire. However, a severe drought continued for about 300 years from 2200 B.C. with the temperature dropping by two degrees Celsius. A drought and an average temperature drop of two degrees Celsius are critical to the growth of crops. Once its economy collapsed, the Akkadian Empire had no choice but to disappear into the mists of history.”
https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20201219/2312113/1/Climate-change-causes-collapse-of-Angkor-civilization
Food is energy. Feed the workers & army. Store some for leaner times. Sell or trade surpluses for other resources.
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I’m increasingly convinced that conspiracy theory cognition and belief (CTCB; not an agreed upon technical term, just an acronym for simplification) functions like a virus and is a real threat to the cohesion of our societies. Living in the United (oops, I mean Divided) States of America makes it impossible to avoid CTCB. Here it is everywhere, everyday, increasing, and I’m fucking sick of it as it’s contributing in a VERY REAL way to the destruction of even basic civility. More of us need to understand how this phenomenon really works (precisely in both fundament and function) and I welcome any insights and knowledge others may have on it. We need to act more forcefully to minimize and destroy it (or is this impossible?).
“The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0963721417718261
“We have reviewed the current literature on the psychological factors that appear to drive conspiracy belief. We conclude that conspiracy belief appears to stem to a large extent from epistemic, existential, and social motives. Research has yet to demonstrate that it effectively serves those motivations, and early indications are that it may often thwart them. It is possible, therefore, that conspiracy belief is a self-defeating form of motivated social cognition. However, important questions remain open, and more controlled research on the consequences of conspiracy beliefs is needed, particularly on the vulnerable and disadvantaged populations that have been identified as most likely to benefit from them. We hope that this review will serve as an organizing schema for future research on the psychology of conspiracy belief.” [emphasis mine]
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[asterisks mine] should read [emphasis mine]. I still haven’t learned to apply text formatting in WordPress comments and didn’t realize that placing asterisks would italicize the text I wanted to emphasize. Nice surprise. 😊
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Good one. Fixed. I’ll be back after I’ve read it.
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Conspiracies and other fantasies have a long history in the USA.
You might enjoy the book “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History” by Kurt Andersen.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35171984-fantasyland
I wrote this brief book review on Goodreads in March 2019:
“Very nice argument backed up with lots of facts about why the US really is special, in a crazy way.
All good until Andersen starts speculating about root causes. Unfortunately he does not understand limits to growth and its underlying thermodynamics, nor our genetic tendency to deny reality, and therefore completely misses the boat on why people are angry and seeking magical solutions to their problems.”
See also my review of another relevant essay by Andersen here:
https://un-denial.com/2017/08/10/by-kurt-andersen-how-america-lost-its-mind-on-the-history-of-denial/
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Thanks, Rob. I’m aware of this book by Kurt and I should have read it when it was first published. I should read it soon. BTW, Kurt’s hometown is the same as mine, Omaha, Nebraska. He’s on the Advisory Board of a great little independent cinema here in Omaha named Film Streams.
https://filmstreams.org/staff-board
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Yes David, conspiracy thinking is certainly a worrying worldwide phenomenon and as another commenter has pointed out , it isn’t just confined to our era , although the internet and social media have undoubtedly increased its prevalence.
Psychologists have carried out numerous studies trying to understand why some people are drawn to conspiracies. The research has found evidence of certain personality and thinking traits, including a general distrust of government, academics and scientists as well as foreigners, lower levels of analytical reasoning, a tendency towards confirmation bias, and tendencies to rush to judgement, to see “patterns” in often unrelated events and to see intentionality in chance events.
According to a research article published in the journal Social Psychology by Anthony Lantian of France’s Universite Paris Nanterre and his co-authors, people are also drawn to conspiracy theories because of an underlying need for Uniqueness. Lantian and his research team conducted a series of studies which found that people with a high level of conspiracy belief are more likely to show a higher need to feel special or above average, to reject conformity and “not follow the crowd”. The embrace of conspiracy theories can provide believers with the knowledge of “truths” that ordinary people are unaware of, and a sense of certainty and empowerment about how the world “really” works. In addition, the acceptance of simple explanations is psychologically rewarding and creates pleasant feelings of comfort and understanding. Complex explanations requires a lot of effort and a long time to understand them fully. These psychological benefits may cause believers to reject any evidence that might shake those beliefs.
Of course not all conspiracy theories are irrational. Sometimes collusion and corruption do happen. It’s natural for people to be on their guard for these things. But the problem with people predisposed to such thinking is that it can become an habitual way to look at the world — to see a world full of conspiracies, big powers behind the screens pulling all the strings. And actual conspiracies (like reports of scandal on the news that are indeed real) also feed into it.
Neuroscience has highlighted how neural pathways become deeply engrained by a combination of thoughts, feelings and trigger reactions. Observations that agree with established beliefs will lead to strong activations of brain networks. Contradicting observations will arouse only transient weak activations of brain networks and may be ignored.
Accordingly, conspiracy thinking can become self perpetuating with the deepening of automatic neural response. The more conspiracy theories a person believes in, the more susceptible they become to others. I’ve read where one study involving MRI scans of the brain have shown that the parts normally associated with paranoia are much more highly activated in conspiracy thinkers.
Yes, it’s a worry, and I have an acquaintance who immediately views things from a conspiracy point of view. I find, like other such thinkers, that she’s quite arrogant in her beliefs (Dunning Kruger) and seems incapable of admitting she’s wrong.
Here’s an Australian article on the problem.
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/coronavirus-covid-19-conspiracy-theories-hijack-friends-family/12288768
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Great feedback. Thank you, Marg.
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Here’s some food for thought.
What Today’s Headlines About Famine Get Wrong
“A new book offers a surprising perspective about the hunger crises dominating the news.
‘The History and Future of Famine’ by Alex De Waal
The author, Alex de Waal, a professor at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, is an old hand on this subject. For three decades he’s been writing about famines — and in several cases assisting with the response. But in an interview with NPR, de Waal says this latest take — the book is called Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine — marks an evolution in even his own thinking.
Herewith some of the takeaways:
As bad as things are now — they used to be so much worse.
The past year has been unquestionably terrible, notes de Waal, with famine or near-famine conditions putting millions of people at risk of severe malnutrition and even death across Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Nigeria and Yemen.
But de Waal says the current situation still represents a relatively small deviation from an overall trend of enormous progress.”
“If we look at the history of famines over the last 150 years, what we see is that about 100 million people died in famines globally over this period. And almost all of these — 95 percent — died in the 100 years up to 1980.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/01/19/577659864/author-todays-famines-arent-as-bad-as-you-think-they-are
ebook – https://b-ok.cc/book/5419135/5b047a
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From a review on amazon :
‘De waal also takes the opportunity to dismiss doomsayers who fear that overpopulation,infectious diseases,or resource depletion will lead to catasrophic population declines eventually. Nor does he think climate change will be disastrous for the food suply……’
Sounds like we can put de waal in the ‘fuckwit’ folder.
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De Waal ‘s already on my list of famous polymaths in denial. Can’t remember why I put him there but I’ve read several of his books.
https://un-denial.com/2018/09/03/on-famous-polymaths/
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I wasn’t really referring to your denial list Frans de Waal is on your list. The book above is by Alex de Waal. Probably not in the ‘Famous Polymath’ category.
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Oops, my bad. Even though he’s not famous I’ve added him to my list to shame him in front of the millions of silent readers of this blog.
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We humans have used about 80% (rough guess) of fossil fuels to date since 1980.
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Bingo! Energy #1 reason for famine reduction starting in the 70’s. Even the institutions, NGO’s, UN that did the relief work & the public donations come courtesy of fossil fuel growth/wealth.
Alex researched famines for 30 years & those findings are all I’m interested in from him. As for climate change et al overshoot issues, his anthropology degree does not qualify him as an expert on any of those matters.
Bio from wiki
“In 1988, de Waal received a D.Phil in social anthropology at Nuffield College, Oxford for his thesis on the 1984-5 Darfur famine in Sudan. This research formed the basis of his book, Famine That Kills: Darfur, Sudan (1989). The following year he joined the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, only to resign in December 1992 in protest for HRW’s support for the American military involvement in Somalia. ”
Alex de Waal. is an idealist & all idealism is hope & faith based. There are no idealist doomers, although many doomers are ex idealists. “Idealist doomer” is an oxymoron….unless you’re a sadist.
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The small organic farm I volunteer on is owned by friends who are serious environmentalists committed to doing everything they can to be green. Despite best efforts and lots of investment, the farm is still totally dependent on fossil energy.
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An open access, peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal exploring all aspects of the relationship between human numbers and environmental issues.
The fractal biology of plague and the future of civilization
William E Rees, Professor Emeritus, University of British Columbia
Abstract
At the time of writing, the CoViD-19 pandemic was in its second wave with infections doubling every several days to two weeks in many parts of the world. Such geometric (or exponential) expansion is the hallmark of unconstrained population growth in all species ranging from sub-microscopic viral particles through bacteria to whales and humans; this suggests a kind of ‘fractal geometry’ in bio-reproductive patterns. In nature, population outbreaks are invariably reversed by the onset of both endogenous and exogenous negative feedback—reduced fecundity, resource shortages, spatial competition, disease, etc., serve to restore the reference population to below carrying capacity, sometimes by dramatic collapse. H. sapiens is no exception — our species is nearing the peak of a fossil-fueled ~200 year plague-like population outbreak that is beginning to trigger serious manifestations of negative feedback, including climate change and CoViD-19 itself. The human population will decline dramatically; theoretically, we can choose between a chaotic collapse imposed by nature or international cooperation to plan a managed, equitable contraction of the human enterprise.
https://jpopsus.org/full_articles/the-fractal-biology-of-plague-and-the-future-of-civilization/
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Outstanding find, Apneaman. It appears that this journal has been published since 2016, with nine issues thus far. Now I know what my primary reading will be for the next few days.
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mmm, this sounds delicious!
Looking forward to it, thanks.
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I respect and like Rees. I remember listening to interviews with him back in my early days of discovering peak oil. He’s also from my alma mater.
I note that he did a great job of describing out predicament and that we need to choose to contract to avoid a chaotic collapse.
But I also note that he was not brave enough to state that we need democratically supported rapid population reduction policies.
In other words he blew it.
A warm and fuzzy call for “contraction” doesn’t even come close to the reality of what we need to do.
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https://wolfstreet.com/2021/01/07/having-already-dropped-for-years-us-auto-sales-plunged-to-1970s-level-in-2020/
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Very good essay today by Antonio Turiel.
He voices some of what I’ve been thinking since the insurrection.
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2021/01/se-acerca-el-invierno.html
Extract using Google translate follows.
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Interesting Rob. Hopefully, at least the Biden administration will reverse all the pro corporate environmental, workplace and consumer de-regulation that has occurred in the last few years under Trump and which no one seems to talk about.
But, as suggested, nothing that Biden’s administration does can save the majority of the American people from a steady continuing descent in their living standards. As a result, there will probably be a swing back to the republicans and to populist saviours.
Perhaps the real problem is one of expectation. We have all been exposed, via the media and advertising, to this great consumer culture of always wanting more. And bigger and better than previously. One survey asked children what they wanted to be when they grew up. Too many answered “rich and famous”. Maybe we all need to learn to be happy with less, and to be grateful for living in an era in history unparalleled for technology, for the availability and variety of food, cheap clothing, and entertainment. I’ve been looking at some online videos of people whose way of thinking makes them relatively contented and happy, even though they are not well off financially. Even ‘poor’. They have deliberately decided to focus on what’s good in their lives and to make the best of what they have, and what their community can offer. It would be great if people, kids especially, could also learn to think like that , although it seems that this might be an impossible task in modern western capitalist societies, which work on creating desire for status and personal material affluence.
In the future though, as environmental, energy and economic collapse really takes hold, I guess that not even the most positive mental outlook or personal resilience will help .
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I’m deeply concerned about the recent increase in size and strength of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) that is clearly “winning” in communities all across the planet. This recent episode of RWA terrorism at the US Capitol is just the tip of the iceberg here. Tens of millions of US Americans likely support the behavior of the RWA terrorists (insurrectionists is too light a term for these assholes) on Wednesday. Trump isn’t the problem. The ideology and worldview of people who support him definitely are an extraordinary problem.
Antonio Turiel is wrong when he states:
“But there is one thing in which the Reaction is right: in overcoming the left-right axis, which leads nowhere.”
Nonsense. Trumptards don’t give a fuck about “overcoming the left-right axis”. These people couldn’t compromise if their lives depended on it. They just want things to go back to what they were like in the US up to the mid-late 20th Century.
Whoever minimizes the current threat of RWA is a fool and may pay a very heavy price for it indeed.
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Hi Rob, I’m Spanish, excuse me, but I know Antonio Turiel perfectly and he’s just a bad scientist apart from being a idiot.
I take this opportunity to thank you for your blog.
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Hi Pablo. I know nothing about Turiel. Can you please provide a couple examples of Turiel’s incorrect thinking?
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Turiel is not interested in overcrowding. He is not interested in physics, especially thermodynamics. He is not interested in economics, etc. etc. He’s interested in nothing more than peak oil as an excuse to create his outdated anti-capitalist narrative. Therefore, Turiel is foolish.
Sorry, I use Google Translate.
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Thank you. I will be much more cautious about posting his material.
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See comment below left by “Name” at Tim Morgan’s website on 12/28, 3:58 pm. One man’s conspiracy theory is another man’s accurate description of reality.
“You mistake second-tier elites, the managerial class – who really believe in convential economics, who write the newspapers, who appear on television to tell you stuff – with the Real™ Elites.
Here, for you. A 2005 article predicting the 2008 financial crisis and our current predicament of the 2020s, all well known by the elites of the time:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050807013551/http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/BilderbergExposed.html
Bilderbergers estimate the extractable world’s oil supply will last a maximum of 35 years under current economic development and population. However, one of the representatives of an oil cartel remarked that they must factor into the equation the population explosion and economic growth as well as demand for oil in China and India. Under the revised conditions, there is apparently only enough oil to last for 20 years. No oil spells the end of the world’s financial system—which has already been acknowledged by the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, two newspapers that are regularly represented at the annual Bilderberg conference. The conclusion: expect a severe downturn in the world’s economy over the next two years as Bilderbergers try to safeguard the remaining oil supply by taking money out of people’s hands. In a recession or, at worst, a depression, the population will be forced to dramatically cut down their spending habits, thus ensuring a longer supply of oil to the world’s rich as they try to figure out what to do.
Don’t be under the illusion that all of those Climate Change/Global Warming/Green Energy initiatives were for real – they were taxation schemes and desperate measures.
We won’t have EV Cars, and Combustion cars will be phased out increasily fast, in a hurried fashion.
Nothing worked. Only one thing will: Crash the economy, on purpose, with a fake threat of some underwhelming manufactured virus. That way people’s spending power (energy comsuption) is cut.
Seek depopulation, either hard (deaths) or soft (diminish birth rates).
You yourself know the predicament we are in. It’s not to be expected for things to go smoothly, neither unnoticed by the elites.”
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Irv Mills with part 5 of his series on collapse, this time focusing on over population.
http://theeasiestpersontofool.blogspot.com/2021/01/collapse-you-say-part-5-over-population.html
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“Is overpopulation the main problem we should be trying to solve? I would say no . . .”
Yes, Irv, it is. Preventing more humans from being born (anywhere, everywhere) IS tackling consumption. It is, in fact, the best way to tackle consumption: the way of no-tackle-required. If the birth of another human being is prevented you obviously don’t have to tackle consumption for this non-being.
Is tackling consumption for existing beings at the same time (as preventing further births) almost equally important? Yes, it is.
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It’s remarkable how few overshoot aware people are willing to address the core issue.
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Rob and David, there are at least some of us who do, indeed, fully ‘get’ overshoot yet also feel certain that, just as virtually every previous empire and civilization experienced a 70-90% population reduction due to die-off (we are, after all, honoring Jay here, yes?) so, too, IF there are any humans at all on Earth in 50 years there most likely wont be more than 10-50 million total…in isolated pockets of relative habitability. I see arguing for democratic population reduction similarly to the argument that everyone should become vegan: it’s demonstrably true it would make a ginormous difference and it’s theoretically possible – and it’s totally admirable for those who choose to not have children, or eat meat, and it’s an infinitely more solid ethical/moral position than saying, “Fuck it. I’m going to have kids and eat as much meat as I want.” But if I and everyone I know and love are likely to be dead in 20-30 years (possibly this decade given abrupt climate change, BOE, and all), it just feels better for me to not be judgmental toward those who make different ethical choices than I do. Ma Gaia is going to do one kick-ass population reduction in the very near-term future, with or without any conscious participation on our part. I give a multi-breadbasket failure with 1-3 billion or more people dying no more than ten years out. If either of you watch my video linked above and interpret things differently, let me know how, and what your evidence is. I respect you both and value your comments, even if I don’t chime in myself a whole lot.
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Thanks Michael.
I should have chosen better words. What I meant to say is that it’s remarkable how few overshoot aware people “who don’t think it’s too late and still advocate for societal changes to preserve some of our best accomplishments and to reduce total suffering” are willing to address the need for rapid population reduction policies.
In your case you believe there is no hope and pretty much everyone will die. I assume you have also calculated that the value of a parent enjoying a child exceeds that cost of that child suffering and dying a horrific death 10 years later.
I don’t agree with your conclusions because I think 8 billion minus 1 suffering is better than 8 billion suffering, but I can respect your views because you don’t advocate anyone do anything to change the outcome.
I have a problem with people that understand our predicament and advocate for changes that won’t help.
I also don’t understand why we make such a big deal about population reduction laws. We already impose our will on others with the force of law to prevent the suffering of sentient life.
For example, we forcibly remove a child from parents that abuse or do not provide a minimum standard of care. We have laws that force farmers to manage their livestock populations to be in balance with their feed resources. We have laws that prevent pet owners from abusing or owning more pets than they can humanely care for. We have laws that govern how animals must be treated in research labs.
And yet we don’t care that the 250,000 children born every day starting tomorrow will suffer or die.
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Wow, what a wonderful and generous response, Rob…thank you!!
Warmly, and getting warmer and crazier every year,
~ Michael
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Michael, I’m not arguing for “democratic population reduction”. I’m arguing for the PRINCIPLE (even with TEOTWAWKI, principle matters to me and it always will) that even one less human being born is essential as it will prevent tremendous suffering for this being (and others already existing, as individuals obviously don’t live in a vacuum). It will clearly also reduce consumption as a non-being can’t consume anything. And we know that it’s much more likely for terrible shit to happen to humans in the very near future which gives this principle even more validity.
A terrible ethical/moral position is to say, “Fuck it, I’m going to have more kids because shit is totally fucked anyway, so what’s it hurt to bring a few more onboard?” It’s also unethical to support such a position which it sounds like you’re doing. Or, at best, you’re turning your cheek to avoid being “judgmental toward those who make different ethical choices than I do.” Bringing more humans into a world which is fast turning to shit isn’t just a DIFFERENT ethical choice, it’s a LESS ETHICAL choice than choosing not to.
I viewed the referenced video you produced. It offers much food for thought and I thank you for your efforts in making it. I try to avoid predicting numbers, including the number of humans who’ll die in a given period of time, because I think it’s a fool’s game. But I do agree that it’s extremely likely that massive numbers of humans will die this century, or even closer to now than the end of it.
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No need to mention “overpopulation” with this image. “Democratic Population Reduction” should have been added as another doomed to fail support, IMHO.
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Can’t open that link.
If depopulation is part of the ‘plandemic’ scheme, does anyone know when that part is supposed to get
underway?
Last time I looked the humans added 225,000 new consumers per day (births minus deaths) making for a net increase of 82,125,000 annually. Covid deaths 2020 worldwide are estimated at 1.9 million.
They need a better depopulation plan. I’m not impressed, but incompetent PTB are the order of the day – decade actually.
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Because it’s not a PLANdemic. Viruses and pandemics do occur naturally after all. Even IF Covid 19 was made in a laboratory – as part of various experiments that researchers do in those places, it escaped and wasn’t deliberately released. IMO.
A deliberately thought out and organised plan would have seen the Covid virus being more potent and released simultaneously in a number of areas around the world. Don’t forget we had SARS and MERS and other things in the past which were actually more lethal, but, being less contagious, they were more easily contained.
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Once again, Apneaman’s style of wit sails over the head of a reader at light speed.
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We’re finally actually doing something about climate change.
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No acknowledgement of overpopulation in this one either.
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Apneaman, IMHO “Voluntary or democratic population reduction” should be included as one of the doomed-to-fail props, right along with “everyone should become vegans” and “everyone should stop flying” and “everyone should stop driving cars” or “everyone should GET that denial is our biggest problem”, wouldn’t you agree?
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btw… (separate topic) I read (listen to the audiobook) of Kurt Anderson’s book, “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire”, and loved it.
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Michael, it might be simpler to just have one massive I-beam propping the building up & label it ‘All Advocacy’
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But it’s not working.
WASF.
https://desdemonadespair.net/2021/01/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-to-pass-iconic-threshold-in-2021-emissions-have-now-returned-almost-to-pre-pandemic-levels-the-human-caused-build-up-of-co2-in-the-atmosphere-is.html
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I sometimes wonder, as I stated in the most forceful way I know how in the video I linked to above, “Unstoppable Collapse: How We Can Avoid the Worst”…
Will we, individually and collectively, ever learn that we can’t WIN the blame game? Sure, we can still PLAY the blame game. But it’s kind of like masturbation. Sure it feels good, but ultimately, we’re just screwing ourselves.”
My most radically honest (and un-denial) sense of reality is this, “No, we cannot stop playing the blame game.” Vegans will continue to blame meat eaters until they die. Those who choose to be childless will blame the “pro-natalists” and those who have children until they die. Those who choose to not fly, or drive cars, or use disposable items will continue to blame those who do until they die.
Such, it seems, is life (or at least human nature).
Personally, I want to live the best damn life and have the most joy and happiness I possibly can until the Grim Reaper comes for me and my loved ones … which I suspect will happen in the next decade or two.
Being judgmental toward those who have different ethical or moral values than I do simply doesn’t serve that desire.
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Not sure why it double posted the last five paragraphs. Was not intended!
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fixed
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Thanks, Rob!
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Very nice example of a person that is smart but blind to thermodynamics and overshoot, struggling to find the words to adequately express the insanity of our economy.
If you do not understand energy, you understand nothing.
http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2021/01/weekly-commentary-issues-2021.html
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https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2021/01/priced-for-explosion.html
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“The 2008 crisis was labeled “a hundred-year flood.” LMAO, we are now using climate change jacked disaster analogies to describe other calamities. The tables have turned.
Rob if declining net energy is at the root, then one can’t blame it ALL on their preferred target – bankers, politicians, libtards, right wingnuts, China or the popular targets Michael mentioned above.
The MPP or any determinism takes all the fun out of it. What are the chimps supposed to do, type out self righteous blaming rants at the universe?
Then there’s the fact that Americans are the biggest per capita energy pigs at the trough. Subtract the US war machine energy use & Canadians have consumed & dissipated just as much or more per. If N Americans were to acknowledge declining net energy, overshoot & their hugely disproportionate consumption (4-5 generations running) compared to the rest of the humans, it makes any & all of their scapegoating & bellyaching absurd.
No doubt there are criminals & incompetents in many positions of authority & their numbers have steadily increased over the last few decades & they seem to operate with impunity or only get their wrist slapped at worst, but I see most of this as a consequence of decline, not the root cause. I don’t see the plebs as total innocents or victims. Most of them grabbed as much credit as they could & refinanced their house (Bank of Domicile) so they could go on an Alaskan cruise or remodel (again) & various other vapid consuming-experience dopamine hits.
If all the people were aware of ‘The 3 E’s’. Aware of the consequences because they watched 23 Nate Hagens & Chris Martenson videos (or spent a day with me), do you think they would behave any differently? I don’t.
If all the people were aware & given a vote after the GFC on whether to get real (major energy & consumption reduction) or let the financial wizards cast their can kicking spells for an unknown length of time so they could carry on with their lifestyles, what do you think they would vote for?
https://youtu.be/VFbj5brONaA
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“If all the people were aware…”
It’s an important question, maybe the question.
I don’t know the answer. I’m trying to figure it out.
Here’s what I do know:
1) leaders have never tried speaking honestly about overshoot to citizens
2) almost everything we’re told today is untrue – I’m sure many sense this and it causes division and disrespect for authority
3) most people have a very strong tendency to deny unpleasant realities
4) I see some examples of us responding to scarcity with civility and good judgment
5) I see many historic examples of us responding badly to scarcity (revolution & war)
6) I think most people are mostly good and want to do the right thing, provided pain is shared fairly
I’d like to try honesty. What have we got to lose? Out current path leads to chaos and ruin.
P.S. perfect video
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Didn’t Jimmy Carter try the experiment of speaking honestly to the American people about the concepts of limits and energy constraints ? Which Reagan promptly exploited politically by ridiculing the idea of limits to growth,morninn in America Hollywood fantasy bullshit ? I think so. We also know which path the USA chose. Fantasy all the way.
Not only the USA. Everyone followed the fantasy path if they could.
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Carter is a good man and he did speak a partial truth about fossil energy to the American people in 1979, and yes citizens did reject his message.
I wrote about Carter here:
https://un-denial.com/2016/04/26/book-review-a-full-life-reflections-at-ninety-by-jimmy-carter/
Here is the text of Carter’s Crisis of Confidence speech:
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercrisisofconfidence.htm
Here is my summary of what he actually said. Notice that we actually did a lot of what he proposed.
• context was gasoline shortage lineups caused by OPEC embargo
• current path leads to “fragmentation, self-interest, chaos, immobility”
• dependence on imported oil threatens USA security
• quotas to prevent growth in imported oil
• funding for alternate energy: coal, shale oil, gasohol, unconventional gas, sun
• goal of 20% solar power by 2000
• $10B for public transportation expansion
• financial aid to poor citizens for energy costs
• windfall taxes and citizen purchased bonds to pay for above
• electricity utilities forced to switch from oil to coal
• relaxed environmental standards to facilitate refinery and pipeline construction
• home energy conservation program
• gasoline rationing policies if required
• citizens requested to carpool, park car 1 day per week, use public transportation, obey speed limit, reduce thermostat setting
• don’t worry about running out, we have lots of shale oil and coal
What Carter did not say:
• date that global oil supply will begin to permanently decline
• ditto for coal and natural gas
• why there is no substitute for oil
• economic growth is not possible without growing consumption of fossil energy
• our monetary system requires growth to enable our standard of living
• 7 out of 8 people will starve without diesel and natural gas
• we are in overshoot and require population reduction policies to reduce suffering
A citizen listening to his speech was left with the impression that the problem could be fixed by more drilling and a bigger military presence in the middle east (which we did), and got no sense of the human overshoot threat (which we ignored and made worse).
So I’d say we’ve never tried honesty with our citizens.
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Thanks for those details. It is still relevant that Reagan’s campaign ridiculing ‘limits to growth’ was the one that
one. Look, I wish you all the best with your efforts to encourage rapid population reduction. But if you are really interested in honestly informing people about how unsustainable our current civilisation is,then the truth is that
we are in a Russian doll situation. One damned preicament after another. Do you intend to tell people that if they
want to live sustainably on this planet ,they’ll have to give up living in cities ? Have you efforts at understanding our predicament extended that far ? Cities convert nutrient systems from cyclic systems into linear systems.
It is theoretically possible to return those nutrients to the land where they originted, but the pravticalities mean
that it is not feasible. A huge eenergy and material requirement,which will be increasingly constrained .
The nutrient supplies for industrial agriculture ,suppling the linesr system that is in place,will be ending this century. Small human settlements which allow the nutrient systems to remain cyclic, are a pre-requisite for human societies to endure over thousands of years. That is just one of the Russian dolls.
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No. I propose we tell people that we are in a severe state of overshoot and that about 7 billion people may die horrible deaths this century and that we need population reduction policies because they will improve every problem we face, and even if it’s too late to avoid some problems, population reduction will reduce total suffering.
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A couple of years ago,I put a comment on OFW, saying that the children born now will certainly live lives of great
suffering, and to reduce that suufering,people should not have children. Gail replied that we never know what surprises god has in store,and that people should continue having children. So there you go. God’s going to come to the rescue.
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Yes, some Themists believe in god and don’t think we should do anything because suffering is god’s plan and we’re going to heaven after we die.
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Thank flying spaghetti monster that my country Australia is a far less religious country than the US ( having had 2 Prime Ministers who were declared atheists) !
I guess the rapture won’t save us here….
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To the Gail’s of the world, I say, you go Yahweh & I’ll go mine.
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“you go Yahweh & I’ll go mine”
Hilarious!
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Norman Pagett insight…
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/comment-page-33/#comment-274724
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Rob, have you read “The Future a Eaters” by Tim Flannery? I read it a long time ago. Good book if haven’t read it. Tim Flannery has long campaigned for a small Australia.
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No I haven’t but it sounds very good, thanks for the tip. Future Eaters is a great title. I have Flannery’s book on climate change “Now or Never” in my library. I know most of the nooks and crannies on the internet for books but could not find Future Eaters. Perhaps I’ll buy it some day.
Here is a good review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2233607812
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‘They ring-barked whole forests for a scrap of roof bark.’
The reason forests were ring-barked was not to obtain roof bark ( though I guess some of the bark was used ).
It was because it was the easiest method to kill the trees and allow more grass cover to grow. They wanted more
grass in order to stock more cattle and sheep.
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The Future Eaters. A great book, as are Flannery’s others.
Flannery has also written a book with a similar title on North America.
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Another Themist loses his mind, this time Ugo Bardi.
It would seem that many scholars of collapse can’t cope with collapse.
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-great-reset-western-path-to.html
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A side comment: OK, perhaps Twitter is a monopoly (effectively, see what happened to Parler). But Bardi recognizes that the company is not the state. We are so accustomed to limitless consumption and speed that we have to have the freedom to get our message out immediately. However, that’s not a right. You can actually still print out a newsletter; you can create an email tree, etc. Finally, 99%+ of Twitter comments are venting. If I were on it, the same percentage of my comments would be the same.
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Rob, I really think Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA, accompanied by a stronger-than-average tendency towards conspiracy theory) is the primary cause of this type of thinking. Some people are simply more prone to a paranoid, conspiratorial thinking style, as described by Richard Hofstadter in his 1964 book, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranoid_Style_in_American_Politics
Here’s a June ’20 article from the research journal, Political Psychology, which revisits The Paranoid Style in American politics and which found that paranoid, conspiratorial thinking is more highly correlated with RWAs than with other ideologies.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12681
I’m not trying to be partisan here. I have huge gripes and even outright hostility with/about some left wing ideology and practice as well. Their are probably also many left wing folks more prone to conspiracy theory than the average person, but not as prone to it as RWAs. I think both parties in the US are total shit and I’ve made on-the-ground efforts in the past to try to get more parties (way more than three) more power in Nebraska and the US as a whole, to little success due to the absurdly powerful, resistant, and entrenched political establishment.
*One more thing important to remember about conspiracy theories. There’s almost always some truth to them, but overall their logic falls apart (or is completely absent) upon close inspection/investigation.
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Thanks.
I think all political orientations tend to deny reality. Those on the right believe in god and conspiracies. Those on the left believe climate change can be fixed with solar panels. Everyone denies overshoot.
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In some way (my way) the very definition of conservative is fear of change. They have a narrow & rigid comfort zone.
Fear and Anxiety Drive Conservatives’ Political Attitudes
Can brain differences explain conservatives’ fear-driven political stances?
“Peer-reviewed research shows that conservatives are generally more sensitive to threat. While this threat-bias can distort reality, fuel irrational fears, and make one more vulnerable to fear-mongering politicians, it could also promote hypervigilance, perhaps making one better prepared to handle an immediate threat.”
Conservatives tend to focus on the negative.
Conservatives have a stronger physiological response to threats.
Conservatives fear new experiences.
Conservatives’ brains are more reactive to fear.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes
‘3. Conservatives fear new experiences.’ – well that explains their strict adherence to the missionary position.
Indeed some left wing ideology is conspiratorial, contradicts scientific evidence & is just plain ridiculous. I don’t like them, but I fucking hate the white nationalist types. All the US politicos have pretty much crossed the fanatical line.
As for the politicians, I don’t see any major differences.
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
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The well balanced mental inclination for caution or risk taking has been important for homo sapiens success both on an individual level, but especially on the tribal group level. I found E.O. Wilson’s “The Social Conquest of Earth” to be helpful in understanding how we got here. Our genetic proclivities, unfortunately, don’t do well with distant, conceptual risk. Since he argues that our group behavior dynamics are more or less hardwired, it does not bode well for us. Getting well out past Dunbar’s number has generated emergent behaviors, and made it all the worse.
What more accurately explains the current frantic whining of U.S. politics is simple desire to stay at the trough, and not wanting to share as the pie begins to get smaller. ( to mix a metaphor).
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I used to consider myself a conservative when they cared about constraining debt since with less debt we have less overshoot.
Now I don’t have a label and I don’t vote because no party offers overshoot reduction policies.
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Unfortunately, Bardo’s comments smack to me of current conspiracy talk regarding “The Great Reset” (associated with the ‘New World Order‘ conspiracy theory ), rather than referencing the actual aims of the program of that name proposed by the World Economic Forum, and unveiled by Prince Charles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset
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We’re thinking about the same thing. I’ve been researching and working on a post about the Great Reset.
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Nice overview of well intentioned climate change initiatives that have failed in the Pacific Northwest.
https://thetyee.ca/News/2021/01/11/Cascadia-Poised-Lead-Climate/
I wrote the following comment:
“How many more years of good intentions without results before we accept we do not understand the problem?
The only thing that might help, assuming it’s not too late, is fewer people or poorer people. I prefer the former and would like us to vote on rapid population reduction policies. If you prefer the latter, all we have to do is raise the interest rate, which one person at a keyboard can implement.”
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Norman Pagett today on god…
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/comment-page-36/#comment-275110
I agree with Pagett’s outcomes but I think about religion differently. The human species succeeded in large part because of social cooperation facilitated by religions which serve to define, unite, govern, motivate, and entertain groups, and (especially in times of scarcity) define outside groups as enemies.
But here’s the interesting bit:
The one and only thing common to the thousands of religions is that they each have some form of life after death story. Religions can and do tell every conceivable story, but religions do not need a life after death story to define, unite, govern, motivate, and entertain a group. It might be reasonable for a few random religions to include life after death in their stories, but it is not reasonable that every religion has a life after death story.
Unless the need for a life after death story has an important genetic foundation.
Enter Varki with his MORT theory which explains our denial of death and other unpleasant realities.
https://un-denial.com/2016/11/14/on-religion-and-denial/
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Fascinating explanation of how the Amazon fulfillment system works. To my eyes it looks very fragile.
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I get the feeling someone is trying to manipulate me. What’s wrong with this statement?
https://energybulletin.org/the-energy-bulletin-weekly-11-january-2020/
1) “stopping emissions” – is not feasible unless our species goes extinct; if they meant to say “achieve net zero emissions” it’s still not feasible without a medieval lifestyle
2) “break cycle of warming temperatures faster than expected” – this is very misleading, it’s already too warm (Artic ice gone soon, Antarctic is melting now), and there’s about another degree of warming coming due to momentum regardless of what we do
I suspect they’re trying to build optimism and support for net zero policies at COP26 in November 2021, which is what I think the Great Reset is all about. More on this later.
If I’m right this means we’ll waste a few more years by avoiding the real issue – rapid population reduction.
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On my walk this morning I saw an eagle eating an octopus that washed up after a big storm last night.
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‘godbotherer’ that’s new to me. The term, not the disciples it describes.
Robespierre & Co, Lenin, Stalin & Co, Mao & Co & Pol Pot & Co did the same thing only they substituted their ideology for god & had a many millions body count & all of it was in the name of justice & making a better/Utopian nation.
Belief in god is not needed to live in denial & do stupid shit. Being a human is the only prerequisite for that.
All those leaders I mentioned were intelligent & educated, which served to help them to rationalize the killing they ordered.
Why Do Smart People Do Foolish Things?
Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking—and the difference matters
“We all probably know someone who is intelligent but does surprisingly stupid things. My family delights in pointing out times when I (a professor) make really dumb mistakes. What does it mean to be smart or intelligent? Our everyday use of the term is meant to describe someone who is knowledgeable and makes wise decisions, but this definition is at odds with how intelligence is traditionally measured. The most widely known measure of intelligence is the intelligence quotient, more commonly known as the IQ test, which includes visuospatial puzzles, math problems, pattern recognition, vocabulary questions and visual searches.”
“You might imagine that doing well in school or at work might lead to greater life satisfaction, but several large-scale studies have failed to find evidence that IQ impacts life satisfaction or longevity. University of Waterloo psychologist Igor Grossmann and his colleagues argue that most intelligence tests fail to capture real-world decision-making and our ability to interact well with others. This is, in other words, perhaps why “smart” people do “dumb” things.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-smart-people-do-foolish-things/
The Intelligence Trap: Why smart people do stupid things and how to make wiser decisions by
David Robson (2019)
” A startling, provocative and potently useful book’ Sunday Times
Instant Evening Standard bestseller
‘As a rule, I have found that the greater brain a man has, and the better he is educated, the easier it has been to mystify him,’ Houdini to Arthur Conan Doyle
Smart people are not only just as prone to making mistakes as everyone else-they may be even more susceptible to them. This is the “intelligence trap,” the subject of David Robson’s fascinating and provocative debut.
Packed with cutting-edge research, historical case studies, entertaining stories, and practical advice, The Intelligence Trap explores the flaws in our understanding of intelligence and expertise, and reveals the ways that even the brightest minds and talented organizations can backfire – from some of Thomas Edison’s worst ideas to failures at NASA, Nokia, and the FBI. With a knack for explaining complex ideas and featuring timeless lessons from Socrates to Benjamin Franklin to Richard Feynman and the latest behavioral science, Robson shows how to build a cognitive toolkit to avoid mistakes and protect ourselves from misinformation and fake news.”
https://b-ok.cc/book/3713723/61736f
http://audiobookbay.nl/audio-books/the-intelligence-trap-david-robson/
Just grabbed them – haven’t read.
IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle
“Background : “IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact mostly measures extreme unintelligence (learning difficulties), as well as, to a lesser extent (with a lot of noise), a form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects — how good someone is at taking some type of exams designed by unsophisticated nerds. It is via negativa not via positiva. Designed for learning disabilities, and given that it is not too needed there (see argument further down), it ends up selecting for exam-takers, paper shufflers, obedient IYIs (intellectuals yet idiots), ill adapted for “real life”. (The fact that it correlates with general incompetence makes the overall correlation look high, even when it is random, see Figures 1 and 2.) The concept is poorly thought out mathematically by the field (commits a severe flaw in correlation under fat tails and asymmetries; fails to properly deal with dimensionality; treats the mind as an instrument not a complex system), and seems to be promoted by:……”
View at Medium.com
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Thanks, added to my queue.
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I agree with you completely. I experience this quite regularly when I interact with people I deeply respect for their knowledge and experience. Here is an example of that. This is my exchange with Dennis Conye who is one of the admins of Peakoilbarrel.com. Dennis is really knowledgeable but seems to disregard EROI which is the most important aspect when it comes to energy production. It is really baffling and difficult to wrap my head around it.
Here is my exchange with him where he did not address any point I raised.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/permian-basin-the-death-of-tight-oil-has-been-greatly-exaggerated/#comment-712988
http://peakoilbarrel.com/permian-basin-the-death-of-tight-oil-has-been-greatly-exaggerated/#comment-713010
Just scroll in above comment to see the complete exchange.
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I haven’t frequented the site for a while. I think I left because EROEI was seldom, if ever, part of the discussion. At least there is a recognition that the EROEI of society is important. In the meantime, debt can paper over decreasing EROEI. Perhaps Mr. Coyne would acknowledge decreasing EROEI, although still high enough for now.
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“I agree with you completely.”
Really? OMG I adore you 😉
Great timing eh? Well into the endtimes and I finally meet the woman of my dreams.
Just my luck. Hell, I couldn’t win a ham sandwich if I owned a pig farm.
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I think the last paragraph in the ‘Ecological Overshoot’ Section will prove to be delusion. The current ‘Bubble’ population can only survive while oil continues to flow and climatic conditions allow regular grain harvests. Oil won’t be flowing ‘well into the 22nd century’. Climatic factors will also be causing severe disruption well before then.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
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Hi Rob my comment was not posted for some reason.
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Sorry about that. It was marked as spam for some strange reason. I check the spam folder once a day to see if WordPress made any mistakes.
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The big fat Orange Peach, The President
sof the United States of America, got im-peached. AgainMoving to the White House gonna get a couple of impeachments
Moving to the White House gonna get a couple of impeachments
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LMFAO! And I hadn’t heard that song since the ’90s . . . for reals.
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Perfect!
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2020 was hottest year on record by narrow margin, Nasa says
Due to different methods, US Noaa judged year as fractionally cooler than 2016 while UK Met Office put 2020 in close second place
“The world’s seven hottest years on record have now all occurred since 2014, with the 10 warmest all taking place in the last 15 years. There have now been 44 consecutive years where global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average.
Scientists said average temperatures will keep edging upwards due to the huge amount of greenhouse gases we are expelling into the atmosphere. “This isn’t the new normal,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “This is a precursor of more to come.”
The record, or near-record, heat came despite the moderately cooling influence of La Niña, a periodic climate event. “While the current La Niña event will likely end up affecting 2021 temperature more than 2020, it definitely had a cooling effect on the last quarter of the year,” said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, which found 2020 was narrowly the second hottest year on record.
“It suggests that we’ve added an equivalent of a permanent El Niño event worth of global warming in just the last five years,” Hausfather added, in reference to the counterpart climate event that typically raises temperatures.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/14/2020-hottest-year-on-record-nasa
No one wants to hear it. I don’t know one person who wants to discuss any of it. It ain’t easy being a Doomer. Especially a bachelor doomer who would at least like to have a girlfriend.
Unless I’m willing to fake it (I can’t) my only hope for companionship is winning the lotto or having a rich, long lost uncle die & inherit his millions.
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No it’s not easy. Awareness colors everything.
I hate small talk. And it’s all small if you’re aware and not discussing overshoot. No one wants to talk about anything that matters.
One date in the last 10 years and it was scary. I’m at peace with spending the rest of my life alone.
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Rob, can you believe all of this rain we’ve been having? I hear they’re calling for thunderstorms all weekend. How about them Canucks eh? Did you watch the game last night? What do you do?(boo hiss). Did you hear what [insert politician or celebrity] did/said? Have you checked out that new burger joint?
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You two are definitely not alone. Sam Mitchell of Collapse Chronicles/ Humpty Dumpty Tribe also despairs of finding a “doomer chick”.
I think about the problems facing our planet every day. And follow all the appropriate sites. And yes, when it comes to conversation with ‘ordinary’ people, there is just too much attention given to trivialities, especially celebrities! Ugh!
It’s so good when you do find informed, like minded people to chat with – something that the Internet allows us to do virtually at least. Short of someone starting up an online dating site specifically for educated and informed doomers and collapsniks , I think the main chance of finding a satisfactory real life partner would be by joining an environmental group….
Failing that, there’s always a good dog, or two.
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I don’t know what is worse: 1. Being alone or, 2. Being with someone in denial who refuses to discuss what really matters (and accuses you of being in an intellectual echo chamber)? Having married when I was somewhat unaware of overshoot (40 year ago) and becoming aware over a period of time tears at all relationships.
My dog is my best companion and discussion partner – other than the people here;).
AJ
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Q: Hey honey buns, did you hear ocean temperature records were smashed again?
A: I want a divorce.
Upper Ocean Temperatures Hit Record High in 2020 – Poses “A Severe Risk to Human and Natural Systems”
“Using a method developed at IAP/CAS, the researchers calculated the ocean temperatures and salinity of the oceans down to 2,000 meters with data taking from all available observation from various measurement devices from the World Ocean Database, which is overseen by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the National Center for Environmental Information.
They found that, in 2020, the upper 2,000 meters of the world’s oceans absorbed 20 more Zettajoules than in 2019. That amount of heat could boil 1.3 billion kettles, each containing 1.5 liters of water.
“Why is the ocean not boiling?” Cheng asked. “Because the ocean is vast. We can imagine how much energy the ocean can absorb and contain, and, when it’s released slowly, how big the impact is.”
https://scitechdaily.com/upper-ocean-temperatures-hit-record-high-in-2020-poses-a-severe-risk-to-human-and-natural-systems/
Q: Hey honey buns, did you know that latent ocean heat is what powers hurricanes & is why they have grown more powerful & destructive with no end in sight?
A: I’m taking the kids & we’re moving in with my mom.
Q: Hey honey buns, have you heard of professor Guy McPherson?
A: I’ve met another man.
Q: Have you heard about the Lonesome Doomer?
https://youtu.be/u63CjV9xToY
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But but but Alex Smith interviewed yesterday the world famous climate scientist Michael Mann who said they made a calculating mistake and now believe the oceans can save us by absorbing much more CO2 if we’d just stop emitting, oh and don’t worry, we can still grow the economy without fossil energy.
Mann says the problem we face now is that climate denialists have shifted their strategy from denying climate change to saying that it’s too late to do anything about it.
https://www.ecoshock.org/2021/01/the-new-climate-war-michael-mann-andrew-glikson.html
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Mann is just re-purposing his long running & absurd ‘blame it on the Doomers/Guy McPherson’ fairy tale.
So a few thousand internet doomers, almost no one has heard of, are responsible for 30 years of global inaction on climate change? Responsible for influencing 8 billion humans & 200 governments? Sounds plausible Mikey.
Mann’s a PhD halfwit. Made stupid by his careerism & American progressive ideology.
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Apneaman, I specifically focus on DENIAL (thanks, Rob!) and take on Michael Mann, specifically, with this video, which I consider my most important contribution to-date. Would love to know what you (you, too, Rob) think of it. You both can be radically honest with me:
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Gates & Mann are of the same mind & neither knows it. They could share a title for their new books.
How To Fight Climate Change, Save The Planet, Civilization & My Privileged Position In It”
$49.99
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Oh, that’s good!! 🙂
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Thanks for saying.
As seen on r/collapse yesterday:
“Society -Are there any good YouTube channels related to societal collapse? (self.collapse)
submitted 20 hours ago * by peacetweety”
“Rit0tiR45 6points 15 hours ago
Thegreatstory on YouTube is pretty good. It is run by a guy named Micheal Dowd and he focuses on coping with collapse and how to minimize collapse for yourself and others.”
https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/kyqxr4/are_there_any_good_youtube_channels_related_to/
I don’t visit r/collapse as often as I used to & I don’t comment & rarely read comments. I just go there looking for links. r/collapse ain’t what it used to be. Many young, angry, ignorant (not knowing) young men. Lost souls. I lack the patience (effort) & desire to engage there any longer.
I’ve seen you, Rob, James, nutty professor McPherson & many other science-reality based ‘DOOMERS’ mentioned & almost always as teachers. Many of them say that learning the real root causes of Overshoot takes the edge off & enabled them to stop carrying around & drop that big heavy sack of bricks – Blame. I know exactly what they mean.
I have to come clean. I’m more than a little envious of y’all big time Doomers with your fancy blogs, videos, millions of adoring fans, high dollar endorsement deals & groupies (especially the groupies).
See, I tried for years to emulate y’all famous Doomers, but, no matter what I did, nothing worked.
Now I just mope around all day mumbling & feeling sorry for myself – “It’s not fair”……”Every Doomer’s making it big but me :(”
https://youtu.be/TqUAT7XxPs4
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Last time I visited reddit was probably 4 years ago. Too much noise for my taste.
I like that maybe our work might reduce blame a little. I’m thinking blame via war is what will likely bring us down much faster than necessary.
You are more than welcome to take advantage of my millions of readers to write a feature post anytime. Maybe a monthly “Apneaman Rant”? You really should consider it, you’ve got a lot of unique and useful stuff to say.
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Reduce blame (self & others), expectations & thus disappointments. Dooming done right is stoic.
If I decide to write a ‘formal’ rant, I’ll email it to you for editing. Thanks for your confidence.
I really really really want groupies.
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Money for nothin’ and chicks for free…
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Redneck woman denial mix…
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Redneck woman reality mix…
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Hi Michael,
I just finished watching your video. Here are a few thoughts which I’ll also copy to your YouTube channel in case you don’t come back here.
Unstoppable Collapse is indeed your best work to date. It’s a great primer on our overshoot predicament with many useful references for a person that is learning. It’s difficult to synthesize so many complex topics in a short talk and I thought you did an great job. You’ve clearly been working very hard over the last decade.
I would say this is the first time that I’ve understood the underlying intent of your message. That’s a good thing. I now have framework in my mind for interpreting your work.
I was pleased to see your emphasis on denial as a core impediment to anything changing in a positive direction. I of course would go a step further and say denial explains the existence of our species, but I understand that you (and others) have not yet bought into Varki’s MORT theory.
If I have a criticism I would say that I am confused about your advice to people on what they should do.
On the one hand you encourage people to work to shut down nuclear plants, to plant trees in different regions with compatible climates, and to build regenerative agriculture.
On the other hand, you do not encourage people to have fewer children, or to advocate for population reduction policies which would reduce suffering of all species including humans, and which would improve every dimension of a post collapse world. Fewer people would also reduce demand for more nuclear plants and more industrial agriculture.
Your logic does not make sense to me. The probability of shutting down nuclear plants is about the same as passing a one child law. Could it be that one message is agreeable with your audience and the other is not? If true, that’s a very bad criteria to be using for a message like this.
If your message was simply “be kind and try to do no harm” it would resonate better and would be less vulnerable to criticism.
On the other hand, if you are going to advise people to do something pro-future, then you must include on your list advice to not have children.
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Rob, thanks for taking the time to watch my video and thank you for your thoughtful response. You are, of course, correct. Too many people consuming too much of the biosphere and producing too much waste exacerbates every ecological and social problem we face.
The main reason I don’t tend to emphasize the obviously ecologically wise advice of having fewer children (or, better yet, no children!) is two-fold: (1) It would be hypocritical of me, as I had three children before I got a vasectomy at the age of 32 (I’m 62 now), and (2) Just as virtually every previous civilization experienced a 70-90% population reduction after overshooting their carrying capacity, I see it as inevitable that our civilization will experience such a die-off, too (most likely this decade) due to runaway climate change, societal collapse, and a multi-breadbasket failure.
So while I would certainly not advise or recommend that anyone bring a child into the world at this time, it would be wildly hypocritical for me to condemn it. (As I mentioned in the video, four months ago Connie and I moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan precisely so I could care for my 8-month-old granddaughter five days a week for 90 minutes or longer.) My only son, who is 35 years old, had a vasectomy last year.
Thanks, again, for your comment… and, more importantly, for your vital role as Varki’s bulldog! 🙂
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I think you said you learned about overshoot and collapse later in life which means that you would not be a hypocrite to share your new found wisdom and advice with young people.
My point is that if you’re going to provide specific guidance on things to do, then you should include the thing that will by far do the most good. Or don’t tell people to do anything, like most doomers do.
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I respectfully disagree, Rob. Telling people to not breed makes little to no difference, in my experience. It’s like wishing or hoping or telling people to stop eating meat, or stop flying, or stop driving. Doing so mostly just gives me a judgmental attitude which is not what I want to cultivate in what is likely to be the last decade of my life and most of our lives.
In the days, months, and possible years we might have before we all boil like lobsters or starve to death, I want to encourage folk to live life fully, love the life they live, and be of service to others and the world however they can. I want to encourage people to (A) spend as much time as possible outdoors, (B) to learn to grow at least a little of their food, (C) to learn about and support systemic change to ensure as few nuclear meltdowns and toxic contamination as possible, (D) to assist native trees and shrubs in migrating poleward, and (E) to invest time and energy in anything and everything regenerative. That’s just my work, that’s all. You have your work to do (which both overlaps some and diverges from mine). I am a deep bow of respect to your work, Rob…and to you.
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Thanks Michael. It seems to me a person should either give up and accept fate, or work on changing what matters. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point. I think you’re doing a great job on the other dimensions of your work.
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Varki’s bulldog!
LMFAO!
No worries Rob, it’s a good thing bro……woof woof!
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That comes from my About page…
https://un-denial.com/about/
“I sometimes like to think of myself as Varki’s Huxley.”
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I don’t recall visiting your About page before, Rob. Do you update it every year on your birthday or have you decided to remain 62 years 0ld from now until Dooms day? Why not eh?
It’s very informative Rob. For instance, I wasn’t aware until just now that they allowed dinosaurs to roam around Strathcona Park.
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62 is correct. I’ll update it every year until my Alzheimer’s gets too bad.
Maybe you’ll cut me some slack now when I have a feeble moment. 🙂
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Kunstler says the troops massing in Washington DC are not there for inauguration security but rather to execute a coup.
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Gee willikers, perhaps I should start reading him again. /s/
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Darth Kuntsler – definitely now on the dark side….
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BenjaminTheDonkey today with a new limerick…
https://benjaminthedonkey-limericksofdoom.blogspot.com/2021/01/where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we-where.html
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Can you spot the trend?
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Art Berman predicts a 30% spike in oil prices later this year.
If he’s wrong, oil companies will continue to lose money, supply will decline, and the economy will be harmed. If he’s right, consumption will fall, and the economy will be harmed. This is the triangle of doom pioneered by Steve Ludlum.
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https://www.artberman.com/2021/01/15/duc2k-drilled-uncompleted-wells-wont-save-u-s-oil-production/
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If we consider that we need to stop population growth, then we need to reduce fertility and increase the death rate to come up wit a reduction of 86 million a year. But with the loss of only two-million humans our societies are already paralyzed. The viruses and perhaps fertility reducing vaccines will really have to wallop the humans just to put their MPP on pause. Then if you want to maintain net energy per capita in an environment where net energy is falling by about six-percent a year, then you have to eliminate about 462,000,000 the first year and then six-percent every year thereafter of what remains. Of course, you may be told that you will own nothing and be happy, which is a way of cutting net energy and allowing you to stay alive. A world war may knock-off 100 million in a single year, but even that’s not enough. The big fall will come with system collapse, both technological and biological. Even if we lose ten -million to this virus we’re not going to awake to a bright and shiny morning after. What if we lost 462 million out of 7.7 billion in a single year? The entirety of the interconnected technological system would collapse and we would then lose another seven billion in short order. They promoted the growth of the human population to the edge of the the petri dish and time is almost up. They’re a day late and a dollar short.
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Yes, it’s a wicked problem.
Wikipedia seems to have missed one characteristic of wicked problems relevant to the context of overshoot: Improving the long term worsens the short term.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
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