Descending Into Madness

I think our society is going mad because there are so many overshoot related problems converging at once that our inherited denial mechanism is overloaded, with no leaders who understand what’s going on, few experts willing to speak publicly, and no honest discussion about what’s happening, nor what we should do.

I expect something will snap soon in a bad way.

Symptoms I see include:

  • We talk about everything except what matters. For example, our climate has shifted a gear, and peak oil is behind us, yet there is zero discussion about food security or the need for population reduction.
  • We’ve polarized into tribes that are unable to contemplate or respect or discuss the beliefs of another tribe. We attack or ignore opponents rather than engage in respectful debate. We’ve always tended to do this, but it’s getting worse.
  • Facts are irrelevant to beliefs. When facts are unsure or complex we are unable to admit uncertainty. While common throughout history, this phenomenon is getting worse, and is now pervasive in our intellectual leaders.
  • We’re totally dependent for everything we need to survive from other countries that we now view as enemies, yet we never discuss the need for more resilience.
  • We embrace solutions that have zero probability of improving a problem. Think green new deal.
  • Our response to problems often worsens the outcome. For example, printing trillions to further inflate a bubble that when it pops will do additional damage to that which we’re trying to protect.
  • We embrace leaders who created a problem to fix a problem, and there are no longer consequences for illegal or unethical behavior. Think Fauci.

This excellent new video has many useful insights despite the producers not being aware of Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory.

MASS PSYCHOSIS – How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL

A mass psychosis is an epidemic of madness and it occurs when a large portion of the society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions.

Totalitarianism is the greatest threat.

306 thoughts on “Descending Into Madness”

  1. Very good points Rob! I also wonder if the internet, and especially our phones, has made everyone more crazy. Sometimes I watch BBC archives or interviews with people on the street from the 70s: and people seemed so different. More calm, articulate and present. I dunno it’s just a feeling, but I think mobile phones have really aided us to live in denial

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      1. Rob said “Social media has created a unique reality for every person custom tailored to what they want to believe.”

        I am sorry but this is ridiculously wrong. If you cannot see that social media is used to enforce conformity, we live in parallel universes.
        Even the so called “alternative views” are regimented into a small subset of fantasies and/or harmless critiques. Why do you think most of the “antivaxxers” are also in support of monopoly capitalism?
        Or the fact that the greens love the destruction of the biosphere in search of lithium.
        Even your posts keep supporting liberals despite the fact that it proved for decades now to be just neocons. But you think it’s incompetence not by design…

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        1. You see conformity. I see social media increasing our division on many issues: vaccine efficacy, climate change, size of government, racial issues, abortion, immigration, foreign meddling in politics, etc.

          I do not know if the vaccine skeptics I follow like Weinstein, Martenson, and Bossche support monopoly capitalism because they generally stick to the science and avoid politics.

          “Even your posts keep supporting liberals despite the fact that it proved for decades now to be just neocons.”

          I’m not sure what or why you’re saying this because I don’t do left/right politics. In fact I don’t even vote anymore because none of the candidates understand what’s going on. I honestly don’t know what a neocon is, LOL.

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  2. Excellent video but a little to heavy on Jungian psychology. After being a psychology major for 2 years I gave up on it. All schools of psychology appeared to be like religions (mutually exclusive and believing they were in possession of the truth). At that point I found science and adopted it as a philosophy – because it is the only self-correcting philosophy. It might be slow, but dig up enough new facts and any theory that is scientific can be falsified and thereby science changes. Science has problems in that it can be corrupted by corrupt individuals (think certain public health figures or Big Pharma, Big Medicine, some Universities, etc.), BUT given time, it corrects.
    Too bad it’s too late to do anything short of collapse and hopefully avoid extinction (maybe a small chance). The person behind the video doesn’t realize that totalitarianism is no better than a democracy of idiots. What we need is less denial of unpleasant truths (overshoot, consumption, and too many people) and more thoughtful degrowth. And I too hate social media, MSM and cell phones.
    AJ

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    2. Good point AJ. Psychology is probably the closest profession to magic left in academia. It also suffers from the Replication Crisis in a big way (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis). Having said that, I still find some theories from psychology really useful, so long as I remind myself the map is not the territory 🙂 It can be really hard to explain why humans do what they do when one forgets the basics of energy in / energy out. For example, blaming a war on religion or politics and neglecting something basic like running out of trees or coal. If you’ve got a good grounding in material reality, and have psychology to anticipate how people might react, could lead to some useful insights into how future will play out?

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      1. Don’t forget that there is theology still lectured in many universitis and it doesn’t look that they will be removed soon… Additionally many people treat theology as real science…

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  3. Wolf Richter claims that shale oil production is down because producers proactively decided to push the oil price up, rather than having no choice due to geologic depletion coupled with reduced investor appetite for money losing ventures.

    Does anyone know the truth of what’s going on?

    https://wolfstreet.com/2021/08/03/us-shale-oil-drillers-battered-investors-after-upending-global-oil-industry-and-losing-their-shirts-focus-on-price-the-new-discipline/

    This new-found discipline in production, in a period of reduced demand, has helped push the price back up to a survivable level for the US oil patch. This discipline didn’t come easy. It was forced on the industry by a slew of bankruptcies and by battered investors who had had enough with the philosophy that they needed to fund production growth at any cost.

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  4. Thank you to Michael Dowd for bringing this nice essay on denial by Frank Forencich to my attention.

    https://spark.adobe.com/page/fsUbep2CJ35Gp/

    But here’s the reality: the elephant in the room is going to kill us. To be precise, it’s going to make vast regions of our planet uninhabitable. It may not kill you today or tomorrow, but there’s an enormous likelihood that it’ll kill our descendants, which is to say, our children and grandchildren. And even if our children don’t perish outright, they may well live lives of desperation: According to one projection, the dominant occupation over the next century will be building sea walls around major low-lying cities–not exactly a promising, fulfilling career path. And yet, we’re not supposed to talk about any of this? Pretend that it doesn’t exist or that someone else will take care of it?

    Denial is a funny thing. As with most things in modern culture, we’re quick to focus on the individual. Denial is a personality quirk of a particular person–an alcoholic neighbor, an abusive friend or someone in the family. But have you noticed that it’s always someone else? It’s always other people. In other words, we’re particularly adept at denying our own denial.

    Denial is individual, but it’s also cultural. Entire societies can fall into a state of willful blindness, a conspiracy of silence around things we find upsetting. If it’s challenging, just talk about something else. Which is precisely where we find ourselves today. Modern culture now resembles a vast game of “let’s pretend,” a childhood fantasy in which–if we just hope hard enough–everything is going to be OK.

    In the end, talking won’t kill us, but not talking surely will. So it’s your choice: Talk or die.

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  5. Dr. David Martin has some crazy ideas on some crazy topics, but today he does a nice job of calling out executive insider trading and egregious profits at Moderna.

    Healthcare seems to be an excellent way to get rich while saving humanity.

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  6. Chris Martenson today analyzes the 6 month report from Pfizer.

    It seems to me that either we have idiots in charge, or people that are deliberately obscuring important data.

    I vote both.

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    1. Your chance of not getting severely sick was 99.996% with the vaccine and 99.866% without the vaccine, but oops, they didn’t define severely sick.

      Your increased chance of a severe adverse event caused by the vaccine was 0.5%, but oops, they didn’t define severe.

      Vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant are as contagious as those who are unvaccinated.

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  7. Pingback: Descending Into Madness – Olduvai.ca

  10. I found a population study titled:
    “Footprints to singularity: A global population model explains late 20th century slow-down and predicts peak within ten years”

    On PLOS ONE

    They do not use a traditional demographic approach this is more of an ecological approach.

    Here is the key finding
    “Population growth has been sub-exponential over the last 50 years, suggesting that humanity is passing through an inflection point of a curve that is the product of two steep trends, one upward, the other downward. The upward curve is the combined exponential expansion of humanity and the intrinsically exponential increase in technological innovation, and the downward curve is the accelerating depletion of non-renewable resources and the loss of food security. The model predicts that the results of the 2020 census (not yet available) will be in the range 7.2 to 7.6 billion (80% confidence) instead of the projected 7.8 billion [11]. The model predicts that the population will peak or has peaked, with the peak in the range 2018 to 2023 (80% confidence) and will decline to between 2.1 and 6.6 billion by 2060. The nearness of the peak is supported by accelerating increases in adult mortality and decreases in birth rates since 2016”

    And here is what the authors think are the basic limits of their model
    “The theoretical appearance of a population decline in the near future is a foregone conclusion of the design of the model itself. The model encodes the business-as-usual (BAU) assumption that humanity will not react to change and will continue to degrade the environment. It also assumes that the carrying capacity depends critically on resources that are not under human control nor are regenerated by human activity, and which will not come under human control within the timeframe of the simulation. “

    If this model is correct we are in for an interesting decade.

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    1. Thank you.

      I’m not personally comforted by the fact that our population growth has slowed or peaked. With rising global temperatures reducing agricultural yields and less fossil energy available for fertilizer, tractors, combines, trucks, trains, and ships, we will be lucky to be able to feed 2 billion in a couple decades.

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  11. Thank you for the new essay Rob. Along the lines of madness, I’ve been wondering recently why Covid is such a juicy topic. Almost all the comments on OFW are about either the virus or the vaccines. There has to be a deep-seated reason why the collective “we” focus on this topic so ferociously. Any ideas? Covid isn’t even remotely important in the mid- to long-term. Surely most people grounded in physical reality understand this. So why the relentless dialog about it, even in collapse-aware blogs?

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    2. The focus on Covid is indeed very interesting.

      I suspect some of the reasons for the Covid obsession include:
      – It’s a really complex system with a lot of uncertainty so no one really knows the “truth”, which means many conflicting opinions are possible with no way of proving (yet) which is correct.
      – The stakes are potentially high. Deciding whether to be vaccinated or not could prove to be a life and death decision.
      – There does seem to be some unethical (or worse) behavior in the main players which engages those drawn to conspiracies.
      – Unlike our core overshoot issues of climate change and resource depletion, which we can do little about except have fewer kids and make do with less, Covid is an issue that with good leadership and innovative technology we can (or could have) done something about. People like to engage on issues that we can do something about.
      – There’s a strong tribal component to the camps, one aligned with the herd and its leaders, the other questioning everything and moving independently.

      I catch myself also falling into the Covid vortex. What engages me is that there is so little deep intelligent discussion of the known facts and risks. That’s why I gravitate to people like Weinstein, Martenson, and Bossche. I also think it’s clear there’s some bad behavior behind the curtains, and it bugs me that they’re getting away with it.

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      1. Does anyone know, what are the actual fatality risk profiles (by age) from COVID for individuals who are healthy, i.e. who are without health problems of obesity, diabetes, etc.? All the data I see obscures this point. I am myself in the COVID vortex this morning, and wondering again what is the purpose of the mass vaccination program, and what is the end game globally for a virus type that mutates rapidly and will be with us for many years, it seems. But people are dying of this thing, so maybe I should just shut up and unquestioningly trust the advice of our health and political leaders. 😦 All my family and friends do. 🙂

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            1. You could have a virus that kills no one, but it could still bring down society from its other effects. That’s why we are playing with fire. The current vaccines won’t stop the next wave or the one after.

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          2. Thanks Rob
            Here is another on-line tool.
            https://covid19risktools.com:8443/

            These tools calculate risk for individuals. However, my main interest in the question of risk to healthy and unhealthy was about broad statistics across all age groups. That would provide, me at least, a better understanding of the rational for mass vaccination programs. Or not.

            But for interest, I did run the British tool for my age and weight. Similar results as Rob Mielcarski.

            “The table shows the absolute risk of catching and dying COVID-19 over a 90-day period based on data from the first peak of the pandemic. There is a comparison with the risk for a person of the same age and sex but with no risk factors. The relative risk is the absolute risk divided by this average risk.” My Absolute risk (a) COVID associated death 0.022% or 1 in 4545, my Absolute risk with no risk factors (b) 0.0203% 1 in 4926, my Relative risk (a/b) is 1.0837 “In other words in a crowd of 10000 people with the same risk factors, 2 are likely to catch and die from COVID-19 and 9 to be admitted to hospital during a 90 day period similar to the recent peak.” M Body Mass index is 21.4 kg/m2.

            I had zero risk factors (other than age 61). This tool does not show much mortality difference between the healthy and unhealthy? That runs counter to my understanding of who are most vulnerable.

            I don’t know how these numbers compare to the risk of the seasonal flu.

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  12. I’m confused.

    I’ve been reading up on the latest climate change plan that my government has signed up for.

    When they say “Net Zero by 2050” do they mean?

    a) CO2 emissions
    b) fossil carbon extraction due to geologic depletion (which enables all of our food and wealth)
    c) total world population due to food scarcity & ecosystem collapse
    🙂

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    1. Is it fair to say it’s just a dumb marketing slogan and doesn’t mean anything? Or maybe it means we’ll have burned through all the fossil fuels by 2050 so there’ll be net zero carbon left in the ground 😉 LOL

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  13. Here is a brief account of what NZ2050 might mean:
    https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-08-04/warnings-signs-as-global-oil-and-gas-giants-adopt-net-zero-2050-climate-goal/

    It basically means, let’s buy some time to carry on with BAU.

    And, many thanks for the excellent post, Rob. It is also my perception that there is no coherent and rational discussion anymore (on none of the big and important topics) and our society is showing symptoms of extreme stress.

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  14. Must read essay from Gail Tverberg today.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/08/05/covid-19-vaccines-dont-really-work-as-hoped/

    It seems to me that Pfizer and Moderna should have said, “We are producing new vaccines that will somewhat lessen symptoms. In a way, they will be like the annual influenza vaccines that various companies make each year. We will need to update the vaccines regularly, but we will likely miss. Hopefully, our guess regarding what will work will be ‘close enough,’ so the vaccine will provide some partial benefit for the upcoming variations.”

    Such a statement would have provided a more realistic set of expectations, compared to what many people have been assuming. No one would expect that herd immunity would ever be reached. The vaccines would be perceived as fairly weak tools that need to be used alongside medications, if they are to be used at all.

    The possible use of ivermectin to cure COVID-19 seems to have been intentionally hidden. At approximately 32:45 in this linked video, Dr. David Martin explains how Moderna announced ivermectin’s utility in treating SARS (which is closely related to SARS-CoV-2) in its 2016-2018 patent modification related to the SARS virus. It sounds as though Moderna (and others) have participated both in developing harmful viruses and in developing vaccines to cure very closely related viruses. They then work to prevent the sale of cheap drugs that might reduce their sales of vaccines. This seems unconscionable.

    Current vaccines have been badly oversold. They can be expected to make the mutation problem worse, and they don’t stop the spread of variants. Instead, we need to start quickly to make ivermectin and other inexpensive drugs available through healthcare systems. People do need some sort of solution to the problem of COVID-19 illnesses; it just turns out that the current vaccines work so poorly that they probably should not be part of the solution.

    The whole idea of vaccine passports is absurd. Even with the vaccine, people will catch the new COVID-19 variants, and they will pass them on to others. Perhaps they may get lighter symptoms, so that they will be off work for a shorter length of time, but there still will be disruption. If those who catch COVID-19 can instead take ivermectin at a high enough dose at the first sign of illness, many (or most) of them can get well in a few days and avoid hospitalization completely. Other medications may be helpful as well.

    I am skeptical that masks can do any good with the high level of transmission of Delta. But at least masks aren’t very harmful. We probably need to go along with what is requested by officials.

    It is becoming clear that today’s pharmaceutical industry is far too powerful. Investigations need to be made into the large number of allegations against it and its leaders. Why did members of the pharmaceutical industry find it necessary to patent viruses, and then later sell vaccines for a virus closely related to the viruses it had patented?

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  15. Gail has a great ability to synthesize ideas. Prompted to think (again) about the general issues. As a COVID “survivor” my selfish questions are these.

    How long will my natural immunity last, and will it protect me against serious disease from COVID variants? (Preliminary data says at least 8-12 months, some other studies are suggesting 18-24 months, one study shows B-cells in the bone marrow ready to produce antigens meaning some lifetime protection. All TBD.)
    Is natural immunity “better” than the immunity from disease provided by the current non-sterilizing vaccines? CDC and many medical professionals quoted in various publications say COVID survivors should still be vaccinated to be safe. Only a few heretics say otherwise. (The CDC refuses to acknowledge the “had COVID” population in its communications, even though the concept of herd immunity has always included those who had contacted the disease. The WHO changed is definition of herd immunity to emphasize vaccination and de-emphasize natural infection. )
    Could taking a vaccine “booster” reset my natural immunity in such a way as to set me up for Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) later?

    As I understand it, the answers to these questions are not yet clear from science studies, although there is enough to suggest some answers. I am looking at this Novavax vaccine as a possible booster if it becomes available, and the sciences suggest my immunity will not protect me against variants.

    Other questions I have, about what should be the long term plan. I accept for the moment that the human reaction to this “fire” was to try and put out the fire with these non-sterilizing vaccines. But when do you decide it is better to let some portion of the forest to burn, in order to save the larger forest? When do you decide you do not have enough buckets to fight the fire?

    Did the current variants arise because of the use of vaccines? My memory is that Bossche originally argued they did, or probably did, but his most recent long essay acknowledged the variants arose before the wide-spread use of the vaccines. However, in section 4 of this essay, Heather Heying suggests the evidence suggests the current variants of concern might be the result of vaccine use. On Driving SARS-CoV2 Extinct – by Heather Heying – Natural Selections (substack.com) I would think that if the vaccines are in fact driving a wave of variants, even the establishment medical authorities would find the courage to stand up and say so? Bossche’s last (revised?) statement was that this new wave of vaccine-driven variants is about to begin.
    Is a sterilizing vaccine against a coronavirus possible in the near term? Bossche suggested we only use the non-sterilizing vaccines to protect the old and vulnerable, and use Ivermectin etc. to get the rest of us through illness, until a second generation of vaccines is available. But can we wait that long?
    Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) is a known risk, but not a necessary outcome is my understanding. Currently my understanding is that “they” have not seen signs of ADE yet. So far more 2Billion people so far have received at least one dose of a vaccine, presumably up to 3Billion in the near future, and more after. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations – Statistics and Research – Our World in Data Are billions of people in the world being set up for a massive wave of illness in the future? Again, if this was the case, surely even the establishment medical authorities would say so? Or will this be the greatest case of over-the-cliff-herd-mentality since the proverbial story of the lemmings?
    Recently, there have been documents released (England), statements made (Newsweek), acknowledging that more variants are coming, and possibly riskier ones, even doomsday versions. Do the authorities know something we don’t?

    No answers expected to my questions. I think only time will reveal the answers.

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    1. Rob, I had no idea that PPT replicated your content. Had I known, I would NOT have posted his essay Fantasies, Myths, and Fairy Tales on r/collapse. I offer my apology.

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  18. CTG says today on OFW regarding denial

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/08/05/covid-19-vaccines-dont-really-work-as-hoped/comment-page-1/#comment-307404

    August 6, 2021 at 3:52 am
    To Mike Roberts, Mark Robinowitz, et al,

    Let me give you my background. Bachelor of Science and Microelectronics, Plasma Etch Staff Engineer in a wafer fabrication plant before quitting 6 years ago. MBA from top 5 universities in UK; multiple critical world-changing patents in wafer fabrication process. I am immensely interested in biology and biochemistry since 1993 and did a lot of serious study and research since that point of time. I would have obtained a degree in biology if I have the opportunity. I am also very knowledgeable in sociology, human psychology and I am also a serious computer programmer (started programming and hacking computer games since 1988). I love to do a lot of research and never believe anything from the internet, be it from a reliable source or not. Since 2004, I have already realized that something is not right with energy. Yes I do love mathematics and statistics.

    The main purpose I am giving you all my background is that I am not a charlatan in science. I have something that many people don’t have – common sense and the eagerness to prove to myself that I can be right or wrong. I have so many misconceptions since young and I readily change my viewpoints when the need arises. I don’t cling on to wrong perceptions or ideas

    IYI – Intellectual Yet Idiotic. The world is full of them. You can easily identify them.

    I had a talk with someone that I knew for some time. A great guy; computer expert. We talked and he said that EV (electric vehicle) will be the future and within 10 years, internal combustion engine will be history. He asked me to buy one. He acknowledge that his condominium does not have the charging capability (condominium was more than 15 year old) and there may not have sufficient charging point. I pressed him on how the electric infrastructure will handle all this demand. We don’t have sufficient power plants, the overhead cables are too thin and it is just not possible to rewire the whole country.

    What happened after I said that? Nothing. Nothing is being said. Just quiet and then he talked about something great like asking me to buy one.
    Same goes for COVID. When I asked tough but common-sense questions to IYI, even the virologists, the reaction is identical.
    If you guys manage to catch a video of floods in Henan China a few weeks ago, you can see that the passengers of the subway train are waist deep in water yet the lights in the train are still functioning and the people are not panicking. I asked people about this. What happened? Same reaction.

    It does seem to me that
    1) Their brain not processing the information. Seems to me that they are just regurgitating out information from other sources.
    2) Common sense is not common at all. Even simple things like “how can the lights in the train be turned on” when the train is already half submerged. All the passengers would be electrocuted. Right? What is their response ? – no response. Something akin to “computer hang”
    3) Switch topics or subjects if silence is not possible.

    See, it is that simple. I give people a chance to present the information and I will judge for myself if it is good of bad. If someone wants to present “flat earth” to me, I will listen. I want to know what he is saying and I want to know why he says that. It is this that I learned a lot and I changed my perception of my surrounding because I have people an opportunity to tell me their side of their story. I will not believe everything that is said but it does perk up my interest and I will do more research (from both sides) and decide for myself how real it is.

    IYI will just push you aside and will NOT even listen to you at all if you try to say something about flat earth (or anything that is going against their narrative, even though that narrative is proven false)

    Honestly, flat earthers have many points that “round eathers” cannot refute. These “round earthers” keep on harping on the same issue – you will fall off the edge of the flat earth. That is all they are good at.

    I can even group all of these people in a common grouping
    1. Highly educated. Always think they are the best
    2. Always trust the “experts” even though the “experts” are wrong
    3. Just does not want to consider other people’s viewpoint. You can have 100 good points and just because of one point he is against you, he will discard the 99 points that you are right. You will always be wrong
    4. They are all binary – you are with me or against me
    5. Stubborn and will not accept what others says. See point #2 above. If you are in his bad books, nothing you say matter at all.
    6. Relationship is not important. Father-mother-son, friends, anyone will be dumped in the junk pile if you disagree with them.
    7. Lack the mental capacity to do critical thinking and keeps on regurgitating information that is “perceived to be true”
    Even if Neil Armstrong came out and say to the whole world that moon landing did not happen and it is a fake, these people will say that “this is fake news” even if it is shown on MSM.

    This thing transcends borders, culture, nationality, geography and race. I am more inclined towards the fact that these people are nothing more than NPCs.

    Saludos

    el mar

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    1. Thanks. CTG has some good insights into denial.

      It seems CTG may believe that the moon landing was a hoax and may also believe the earth is flat. Many people have chaff with their wheat. I’m ok sifting as long as the wheat is high quality.

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  20. My friend Panopticon still publishes a daily round up of global economic news alternating with climate news. It’s a great place to go for a global snapshot.

    https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/08/06/6th-august-2021-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/

    This article today on shipping risks was good.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/gulf-shipping-attacks-leave-global-economy-vulnerable-trade/

    Earlier this summer, a COVID-19 outbreak at the Chinese port of Yantian also demonstrated just how vulnerable globalized commerce is to shipping disruptions. In May, when a new wave of infections began spreading at the port — the world’s third-busiest —managers had to slash operations. And with Yantian handling over 13 million containers’ worth of goods traveling in and out of China each year, the partial closure caused a massive backlog. So massive, in fact, that global retailers now fear the Christmas season may be lost.

    The fact that an outbreak at a Chinese port could bring Christmas shopping to a screeching halt should worry everyone involved in the globalized economy — meaning every one of us. It also highlights the risks associated with Israel and Iran’s potential proxy war involving cargo vessels. “If less cargo is moving and taking longer, that hits consumers in the pocket,” Lockwood noted. “And confidence in shipping declines.”

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  21. We fortunate few in the rich countries are temporarily shielded from the chaos being experienced in the poorer countries. My brain struggles to maintain an integrated view of what’s going on. I’m thinking we should keep a list of countries that have food shortages and/or have a collapsing economy. Here’s a start.

    https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/3143290/catastrophic-food-shortages-set-sweep-worlds-hunger-hotspots-driving

    Please reply with additions or corrections and I will edit the list. I’ll copy/paste this thread to new posts so we can keep it current.

    • Afghanistan
    • Burkina Faso
    • Chad
    • Central African Republic
    • Columbia
    • Congo
    • Ethiopia
    • Haiti
    • Guatemala
    • Honduras
    • Kenya
    • Lebanon
    • Madagascar
    • Mexico
    • Myanmar
    • Nicaragua
    • Niger
    • Nigeria
    • North Korea
    • Somalia
    • South Africa
    • South Sudan
    • Sudan
    • Syria
    • Venezuela
    • Yemen
    • Zambia

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  22. https://www.portugalresident.com/us-study-changes-war-against-covid-and-suggests-europes-digital-certificates-are-pointless/

    US study “changes war against Covid” (and suggests Europe’s digital certificates are pointless…)

    A new study coming out of the US State of Massachusetts has changed the war against Covid-19 by demonstrating that the viral load of a vaccinated person who ends up contracting the virus is “identical” to that of an unvaccinated person.

    Portuguese immunologist Manuel Santos Rosa admits this has “changed a lot of things” – not least the “strategy” that Covid Digital Certificates are a valid weapon of combat.

    “The vaccine certificate should be an instrument that says to us that, at this moment in time, we have almost the certainty that this person is not infected and is not a transmitter of the virus”, he tells Diário de Notícias.

    “This new information demonstrates that what appears to be a certificate of guarantee that there are no risks, is not.

    “What the certificate proves is that the vaccinated person is protected and that, probably, he/ she will not develop serious illness. But when it comes to the concept of transmission, I believe the strategies for fighting infection need to be rethought.

    …the Washington Post’s conclusion is that “the war on Covid has changed, and now there is increasing concern with the possibility that vaccinated people could be a source of generalised infections”.

    This is actually nothing new: it has been the warning of bio-tech vaccine consultant Geert Vanden Bossche for months. But such is the focus of mainstream media to refer to official channels only that his warnings have been ignored (at best) if not vilified.

    Dr Bossche’s career has seen him join several vaccine companies (GSK Biologicals, Novartis Vaccines, Solvay Biologicals) to serve various roles in vaccine research and development as well as in late vaccine development. He even worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team in Seattle (USA) as Senior Program Officer before taking up a position at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) in Geneva as Senior Ebola Program Manager. At GAVI he tracked efforts to develop an Ebola vaccine. He also represented GAVI in fora with other partners, including the World Health Organisation, to review progress on the fight against Ebola and to build plans for global pandemic preparedness.

    In other words his warnings about mass-vaccinations in a pandemic were never likely to be the stuff of delusion.

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  24. Eric Weinstein paints an alternate reality where we have wise, competent, and ethical leaders.

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  25. My friend has single-handedly identified and championed this important issue that almost everyone ignores or denies. Take a close look at the trees where you live and you’ll see she’s right.

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    1. Depends where you live I guess. Here in Oz where I live the trees are thriving. Maybe there being not too much pollution here is the reason. Our devastating fires are more of a concern to wiping out the rainforests here.

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      1. I used to believe the same about the trees here in British Columbia until I started to pay attention to signs of sickness. It’s a very unpleasant thought that trees world wide are sick and dying and there’s nothing we can do about it except shut down industrial civilization.

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        1. Rob I worked for 30 years on Southern and Central Vancouver Island for the Ministry of Forests. I have been noting drought stress on trees for the last 5-6 years at least. In 2018-2019 logged cut blocks had numerous tree planting failures with mortality over 90%. This is an area that traditionally tree planting had over a 90% survival rate. I have also noticed wetlands drying up. River levels in late summer, early fall are now so low that salmon runs are significantly delayed. The late fall rain season in October-November-December now has more intense rainfall causing more serious erosion of logging roads and more significant landslides. The net effect on watersheds is higher water levels in the fall and much lower levels in Spring, summer. The other big change is freezing levels

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          1. Hi Brent, thanks for dropping by and giving us an update on what you’re seeing. I live in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island in case you’re not aware.

            The small farm I assist now gets too much rain when we don’t need it and not enough rain when we need it.

            Do you have any insight into what effect the loss of our glaciers will have? I’ve wondered about the effect on ground water levels.

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            1. Hi Rob

              I would imagine glacier melt may have some impact on groundwater but rainfall and snow melt are probably the most significant particularly on Vancouver Island.

              I moved to Vancouver Island (Port Alberni)in 1992. I honestly thought it would never stop raining here in the earlier winters but overall I see significantly less rain and far less snow particularly in the mid elevations (300-800 meters). Ive noted changes to wetlands (drying up).

              There was a micro hydro dam installed on the Kokish River near Telegraph Cove about 5 -6 years ago. It has only produced power for 1 season.

              Your articles on tree stress and mortality are definitely a trend I’ve noticed here all over Vancouver Island. Another trend I noted is when forest companies burn slash piles in the fall we now have more fire escapes. When I started working here in 1991 Companies were still broadcast burning entire cut blocks.

              The Ministry of Forests and Lands has a water management branch here in Nanaimo. Talking to staff there they informed me that wells on some of the Gulf Islands are seeing salt water intrusion.

              Right now there are thousands of Sockeye Salmon holding in the Port Alberni Inlet due to low water levels. These drought events will have significant consequences to fish survival.

              In 2019 I was involved in handing out legal orders to cease watering for corn and hay crops on the Koksilah River (Duncan area) because water levels were impacting fish.

              Here we are in a temperate rainforest with ongoing drought.

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              1. Thanks for the update Brent. The trend is not good.

                The airforce base near me exploded some munitions last week during one of their training exercises which ignited a significant grass fire that threatened the homes in my community and took about 40 men to extinguish.

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    1. I liked his analysis and he explains the epidemiology of sterilizing and non-sterilizing vaccines quit well. My problem is that if I even mention this to my “liberal” relatives they immediately go silent and won’t discus it – mostly because it’s not the MSM that is giving them this information.
      Just takes us back to the whole point of propaganda – a compliant public. “Educated” people (liberals and conservatives) just don’t see how Hitler ever got Germans to do the heinous things they did – it was easy; propagandize them (with the MSM or Fox), show them whose to blame (first the Chinese, now the unvaccinated or the liberals) and tell them it’s the other tribe and they will be compliant with whatever you want them to do. We really aren’t that smart, throw in denial and one could say we are Homo Ignoramus.
      AJ

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    2. I’ve been trying to think of any evidence that Bossche & Denninger might be wrong. Does anyone know if the annual flu shots that many people get are non-sterilizing vaccines?

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      1. I think I figured out the answer without doing any research. Flu vaccines are administered BEFORE the predicted virus is circulating in the population so it does not matter if the vaccine is sterilizing or non-sterilizing.

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  27. A refreshingly honest and aware exchange on renewable energy between Richard Heinberg and a 15 year old student.

    https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-08-05/questions-to-richard-heinberg-from-a-15-year-old-student/

    Emphasis on “In the best case”.

    Ultimately, we will have to return to a world not just of renewable energy, but mostly renewable materials—and it will be a slower way of life that’s lived closer to nature.

    In the best case, we will go through a transitional period in which we shrink our population and energy/materials usage while minimizing casualties and preserving the best of what we humans have achieved in these last few decades of anomalous energy abundance.

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  28. It’s interesting that almost nobody on the internets is willing to change their minds or simply say ‘I don’t know’.
    Even on this forum dedicated to specific limitations of the human brain.

    Here is a specific question: how do you know that the leaders are incompetent? Do you even know who the leaders are?
    But of course you don’t want to appear a crazy conspiracy theorist, right?

    Western civilization is bumping against limits for more than 20 years. And yet, the leaders manage to keep up the system. What makes you think they don’t know what are they doing?
    Forget about theories, what are your predictions? Here’s one:
    The system in US will still work in 10 years, despite a huge drop in population (covid donchaknow). There will be an oligarch selected prez and ppl will believe in democracy despite requiring a passport to leave their prison like apartment. The money will have an expiration date and the mass media will speak in unison.
    In other words North Korea with better propaganda.
    One thing will stay the same: people will blame each others instead of looking up at the money bags. And philosophers will keep bleating about incompetence.

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    1. I think our leaders are (mostly) no different than my next door neighbor who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, and does not want to know. They are both primarily motivated to keep their jobs and the status quo. I tried with a close friend to present the risks on non-sterilizing vaccines and the benefits of having Ivermectin in our toolbox and no amount of reason would shift their view. They didn’t counter with different evidence, they simply said they trust our leaders, believe that the technology will save us, and don’t want to think beyond that.

      Ditto for previous discussions on energy depletion and the need for population reduction.

      With regard to why the system has continued to function for 20 years despite limits, I think 8 billion clever people all trying to grow their piece of the pie has a lot to do with it. Also the design of our monetary system allows us to shift resources from the future to the present with the consequence of increasing future suffering, which we deny.

      I agree with you that the US will still be working in 10 years but I predict most people will be about 50 percent poorer due to energy depletion.

      I do not know what to predict on population in 10 years, it might stay flat or it might fall depending on our Covid luck, resource wars, etc. Twenty years from now I think the population will be in steep decline due to food shortages.

      US leaders are already mostly selected by the oligarchs via donations and there is no difference in the policies between the two parties on the issues that matter to the oligarchs so I think we agree on this.

      You might be right about money having an expiration date because that may be the only way to keep the bubble from popping. It’s also possible that a black swan or herd panic could cause a financial collapse and reset of the monetary system. I think anything is possible here.

      It’s possible vaccine passports will be required. It’s also possible that the “vaccines are the solution” policy will blow up in face of evidence too strong to deny.

      There’s a lot I don’t know and I think I’ve change my mind many times based on evidence. Why the hostility? I do not remember our previous exchanges, but I’m sorry if I said something rude to you.

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  30. Last month was worst July for wildfires on record, say scientists…

    Last month was the world’s worst July for wildfires since at least 2003 when satellite records began, scientists have said, as swaths of North America, Siberia, Africa and southern Europe continue to burn.
    ⁠
    Driven by extreme heat and prolonged drought, the ignition of forests and grasslands released 343 megatonnes of carbon, about a fifth higher than the previous global peak for July, which was set in 2014.
    ⁠
    “This stands out by a clear margin,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist in the EU’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service…

    https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/08/07/7th-august-2021-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/

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  31. There’s a diesel engine driving a bilge pump that’s not quite keeping up with a leak that’s filling the boat. Aware passengers wonder why the captain is not steering for shallow waters and are curious if the boat will sink before the diesel runs out.

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  32. Ivermectin: a multifaceted drug of Nobel prize-honored distinction with indicated efficacy against a new global scourge, COVID-19

    Abstract
    In 2015, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, in its only award for treatments of infectious diseases since six decades prior, honored the discovery of ivermectin (IVM), a multifaceted drug deployed against some of the world’s most devastating tropical diseases. Since March 2020, when IVM was first used against a new global scourge, COVID-19, more than 20 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have tracked such inpatient and outpatient treatments. Six of seven meta-analyses of IVM treatment RCTs reporting in 2021 found notable reductions in COVID-19 fatalities, with a mean 31% relative risk of mortality vs. controls. The RCT using the highest IVM dose achieved a 92% reduction in mortality vs. controls (400 total subjects, p<0.001). During mass IVM treatments in Peru, excess deaths fell by a mean of 74% over 30 days in its ten states with the most extensive treatments. Reductions in deaths correlated with extent of IVM distributions in all 25 states with p<0.002. Sharp reductions in morbidity using IVM were also observed in two animal models, of SARS-CoV-2 and a related betacoronavirus. The indicated biological mechanism of IVM, competitive binding with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, is likely non-epitope specific, possibly yielding full efficacy against emerging viral mutant strains.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297521000883

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      1. I think I just wasted 13 minutes listening to this podcast from Nature. The podcaster appears to be an employee of Nature(??) and he interviews a journalist. Not my idea of the best “science”. In fairness they talk about one early small study from Egypt of ivermectin that was withdrawn. They are dismissive of the idea that Big Pharma would try to quash use of ivermectin. They don’t seem to have any qualms about the current vaccines or expensive Covid treatments. And they repeat WHO talking points on ivermectin. IMHO it didn’t shed any light,but that may be because I am a little dim bulb?
        AJ

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  33. And yet my local MSM (a liberal PNW tv station) never mentions this. Instead its those evil non-vaccinated. If there ever was a “herd” (as in immunity) here it’s parrot what your herd tells you and go back to sleep. And that about sums up the attitude of everyone I talk to (which is a testament to how evolution has “designed” us – denial and go with your herd).
    AJ

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  34. I’m proud to announce a new Olympic personal best for myself.

    This year I watched Olympic media coverage totaling zero hours, zero minutes, and zero seconds.

    Wise leaders would cancel the Olympics which are an obscene discretionary non-renewable resource consumption event, not because it would reduce overshoot, but rather because it would send a strong message that if we don’t stop playing games we’re going to go extinct.

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  35. Very nice climate chaos recap by Kurt Cobb today.

    Look how far we have advanced that we now call a city of 12 million a town…

    http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2021/08/all-of-sudden-climate-change-tipping.html

    All of a sudden: Climate change tipping points appear with a vengeance

    Across the world climate change seems to have arrived earlier than expected. There are world-class athletes with bodies trained for endurance and strength breaking down from the extreme heat visited on the Tokyo Olympics by mother nature. There are the continuing wildfires in the American West that take out entire towns. The drought there is so bad that states are thinking about paying farmers NOT to irrigate their crops as a conservation strategy.

    One of the other effects of climate change is heavier rains and devastating floods. Recent floods in Germany were caused by rains characterized as once-in-a-millennium, rains which, for example, killed more than 200 people and caused $1.5 billion in damage to the German railway network. But, of course, statements about once-in-a-fill-in-the-blank rains or droughts seem less and less relevant in the age of climate change as what we call extraordinarily destructive weather just morphs into “the weather.”

    Once-in-a-millennium rains also visited parts of China recently dumping in just three days an entire year’s rainfall on one town of 12 million.

    The infrastructure we have built and the way we work and live are simply not designed for these extremes. Our systems are breaking down under the pressure of climate-change-induced extreme weather.

    But the scariest thing is that all of the incidents I cited above could happen all over again next year and the next year and the next after that in the same places as extreme weather worsens and becomes just “weather.” In California, 2020 marked the worst fire season ever in the state. But 2021 is now on pace to be even worse.

    We are now reaching tipping points in the direct, destructive and destabilizing effects of climate on humans and their infrastructure. We can no longer simply ignore these effects. We can no longer simply bask obliviously in the sunshine of unseasonably warm winter days without acknowledging their terrible message as many of my fellow Washingtonians did when I first arrived in the city in 2018.

    There are hidden tipping points waiting for us to hit them. And, there are ones that are out in the open and well-studied. When most viewers watched the 2004 fictional film “The Day After Tomorrow,” they marvelled at the special effects while dismissing the collapsed timeline for a dramatic, sudden and overwhelming freeze in Europe and North America—within a week in the film. The freeze depicted results from the collapse of the Gulf Stream which pumps heat from tropical waters northward, keeping the American and Canadian eastern coasts and much of northern Europe far warmer than they would otherwise be. A cessation of this current is believed to be one of the possible outcomes of climate change.

    What scientists now suspect is that this critical river of water and heat in the Atlantic Ocean is not only slowing, but also losing its stability. The fear is that the current could shut down unexpectedly and suddenly and that effects would be felt within months—not as quickly as in a Hollywood movie, but quickly enough to create catastrophic consequences for the food supply, economic activity and human migration even while all those reading this sentence are still alive. And that is just one key tipping point.

    Will we humans rally and address this and other looming climate threats? Some will try and even try very hard. But to truly reverse climate change now so late in the game would require draconian measures that few people would tolerate. For those who say that we will adapt, we now have an emerging picture of just what that adaptation involves. For many “adaptation” will simply mean ruin. For the truly unlucky, it will mean death.

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  36. New Zealand closing our only oil refinery. I know oil needs to go, but we have made very little progress to transition our infrastructure and lifestyles (we have some of the worst urban spread). This will make global trends even more of a threat to us. A recent example, newer transport ships are getting so big, many can no longer dock in New Zealand due to our shallow waters.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125877292/energy-minister-offers-sympathies-to-refinery-workers-after-closure-vote

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    1. There’s quite a number of smart aware people who think New Zealand will be the best place to be in the world after the coming “adjustment” down.

      I visited New Zealand once in about 1990 and very much liked it. I thought it felt like Canada in the 1950’s.

      I don’t think oil needs to go or can go because pretty much everything in our modern life depends on it, either as a feedstock or as dense liquid energy. We will be forced to use a lot less oil soon due to depletion, and we should be conserving it for important tasks like running our tractors and combines.

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      1. I do feel so lucky to have been born here. It’s quite different from the 1990s, we’ve had a lot of growth. Property market is crazy here

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  37. I usually don’t post links here, but this link from Automatic Earth (Raul Meijer) to JMG’s post of a week ago was too good to pass up. I have read a lot of JMG’s books and as SciFi goes they are entertaining and some of the only post-apocalyptic fiction that has a chance of occurring (I personally don’t think his SciFi will occur as its far too optimistic. BUT, his post here on the whole Covid saga is well worth the read and seems pretty spot on to me. I’m not sure what he thinks will happen going forward will, but who knows. Enjoy.
    https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/140421.html
    AJ

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    1. Thanks AJ, it was an interesting read. JMG might be right but at the moment I’d bet there is a more probable and benign explanation.

      My guess is that Bossche is right and variants are evading the vaccine, plus there’s a faster than expected decrease in efficacy with time against the original virus.

      Most wealthy countries seem to be following the same playbook. I can’t imagine a Canadian or German health care official seeing that the vaccine is unsafe due to ADE (or any other reason) and then saying we better get everyone vaccinated so our lie is not exposed. Maybe US leadership really is that vile and corrupt, but it doesn’t pass the smell test for other more functional countries.

      Please do keep posting good stuff you find, or if you prefer, send me the link in a private message and I will post it.

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      1. Sorry, I am seriously confused…
        So you really treat seriously guys who say things like “Have you read a chart to figure out what the stars are suggesting for the 2nd half of this year or the 1st half of next? ” ???

        If so, then shit…. I guess I lost my last “doomers’ port” 😦 …

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        1. I’m not sure what you’re saying.

          Are you commenting on the fact that JMG subscribes to a death-denying fringe religion that is as wacky as the popular death-denying religions subscribed to by 5+ billion people? Or that he uses 1000 words to describe a 10 word idea?

          What is a doomer’s port?

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          1. “Doomer’s port” for me is un-denial.com 🙂 . Sorry – I should be probably more precise – “last sane / rational doomer’s port”.
            It is not only “subscribing to a death-denying fringe religion” (Gail Tverberg subscribes to it as well, but her arguments are usually very down to the earth). It is “looking into the stars to see the future”. Really??

            Just to comment on the whole of JMG post – I see nothing in that except taking facts from last 2 years and adding “narration” to them. It is well-known trick – post-dictive “explanations” can look very convincingly.

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            1. Thanks, I understand now.

              JMG did mix some (probably) correct stuff like US funding gain of function research that was accidentally released from Wuhan, with some improbably crazy stuff. I agree that it read like a just-so story.

              I guess I tend to tolerance because it’s hard to find anyone these days that does not have some chaff with their wheat. Think, for example, Nate Hagens and Gail Tverberg and Chris Martenson and Tim Morgan and Tim Watkins and Tom Murphy and David Korowicz and Richard Heinberg, all of whom I love, not acknowledging the need for population reduction policies. They probably view my obsession with Varki’s MORT as chaff.

              For the record, I quit following and reading JMG many years ago when the chaff to wheat and words to ideas ratios got too high for me.

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              1. Amen, to your comments on JMG. As I said, I read his sci-fi and it was interesting. I used to read his blog, and you had to put up with the arch druid religion junk. He was somewhat insightful, and his core idea about a slow catabolic collapse of civilization is interesting, but I too quit reading him quite some time ago. I probably shouldn’t have put the link to him. But at 2:00 a.m. I’m not always thinking the best, if ever I am?
                AJ

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  38. Must treat early if feeling sick.

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  39. Was listening to NPR about the IPCC report. They had a few scientists on, which was interesting, they went over the different impacts to various ecosystems. But when they asked “what average people can do”, the answer: “pressure your government to enforce pollution control” came dead last, and only after the interviewer brought it up. The first answer was, quite literally, “buy an electric car”, the second was, “live in a smaller home”. Demand that your state take action? Apparently not so important.

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  41. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying respond with logic and evidence to irrational attacks from critics like Sam Harris.

    https://naturalselections.substack.com/p/on-driving-sars-cov2-extinct

    On Driving SARS-CoV2 Extinct
    Why We Need a Multi-Pronged Approach

    What is most important is this: There is a deadly virus circulating. Many have died, and many more probably will. It is in our collective interest to extinguish the virus. We must not allow it to become endemic.

    What is the best way to accomplish this? Some people, including the authors of the original Quillette article, see one and only one way forward: vaccination with the current crop of Covid vaccines. Other people, including ourselves, see a multi-pronged approach as essential:
    1) vaccinations for those who can and will have them,
    2) recognition of the natural immunity of those who have had Covid, and
    3) the global use of repurposed drugs, including ivermectin, as prophylaxis by people not in categories one or two.

    We were asked, in a recent livestreamed Q&A, to “steelman the case against ivermectin.” We focused on steelmanning the case against the use of ivermectin as a Covid prophylaxis, clipped here. Medicinal prophylaxis is not a perfect solution. Among other concerns, it requires on-going compliance. The flip side of that, however, is that it is reversible, which is not true of vaccines. All else being equal, though, vaccines are a better solution, if they are both effective (personally and epidemiologically) and sufficiently safe.

    But Pfizer now indicates that six months after vaccination, you might need another one. These vaccines are not sterilizing, and so potentially create selective pressure for new, more virulent and vaccine-resistant variants. And we have already covered a few of the safety concerns for individuals. Yet the authors of the Quillette article would have you believe that our discussions of Covid vaccine safety and repurposed drugs such as ivermectin are, in and of themselves, a threat to global health. We posit that, once again, they have that backwards.

    We are all in this together. Demonizing others, be they vaccinated or unvaccinated, is not a solution. The current vaccines cannot end the pandemic, and it is time to advance a plan that conceivably can. This has been our motivation from the beginning. We can and should all look to our better angels, and move forward with the dignity and resolve that those angels offer us.

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    1. In their article, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying seem suggest that vaccination programs are causing the variants. Specifically for Delta, they note: “The Delta variant was first detected in India in October, 2020. India hosted numerous vaccine trials including one for Oxford-AstraZeneca and one for Covishield.”

      Is it correct to even make this hypothesis? I don’t know. From “COVID-19 vaccination in India – Wikipedia” “As of early May 2020, there were over 30 vaccine candidates in development in India, many of which were already in pre-clinical trials.[73] “ However, “India began administration of COVID-19 vaccines on 16 January 2021.” COVID-19 vaccination in India – Wikipedia One fact check web site noted it was impossible for the vaccines to have created the Delta variant, since Delta was detected before the mass vaccination program. So I guess even fact checking web sites are wrong?

      This is really the informational fog of war.

      For my simple brain, the vaccination trade-off appear to be this: Mass vaccination now to prevent an average 0.6 all Infection Fatality Rate across all age groups (heavily skewed by age in actuality), and some serious long term injury to some percentage of people, and accept
      a) some negative side effects and some adverse events including some vaccine deaths now, and
      b) the (small?) possibility of antibody dependent enhancement later, and
      c) the possibility that the vaccines drive more virulent variants later.

      So the macro choices are 1) fight the fire in front of us with vaccines that do seem to reduce severe disease, or 2) manage a “controlled burn” through the population with the measures suggested by Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, or other measure like it.

      I have no idea of the correct answer. My intuition is no one has a global model that can project out the possible and probable outcomes of either macro choice. My intuition is the virus “wins” in the end globally, despite our best efforts.

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      1. It is all very confusing.
        1) Is there an agreed definition of what “Delta” is?
        2) Can we/are we accurately distinguishing Delta from other variants with our typical tests?
        3) How many people have been exposed and recovered without knowing it or being captured in a database?
        4) Do we have accurate data on who is being hospitalized (vaccinated, unvaccinated, recovered, etc.)?
        5) Why is it so hard to get a clear understanding? Is this a byproduct of complexity, or incompetence, or deliberate obfuscation?

        In your simple model do you assume that vaccination will prevent sickness from Delta, and for what duration after vaccination?

        My current working assumption is that we will have to live with many waves of Covid variants, and until I have a better understanding of the risks I’m going to be prepared for voluntary lockdown and self treatment, and I will be careful when in public.

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  42. Tim Morgan today on denial.

    https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2021/08/10/208-a-path-of-reason-part-one/

    Exercises in denial

    Recognition of this energy-constrained reality was, and remains, denied to those who believe in the infinity fallacy born of the mistaken assumption that the economy is a wholly monetary system. When deceleration – then labelled “secular stagnation” – started to be noted during the 1990s, the natural (though wholly mistaken) assumption was that there must exist a financial ‘fix’ for this unwelcome trend.

    Briefly, the history of the intervening period is that the authorities tried, first, to restore growth by pouring abundant credit into the system, a process known here as credit adventurism. The fallacy here was the assumption that the creation of demand must, by some immaterial process, be met by increased supply, an assumption which is invalid in any situation governed by material constraints.

    When, as was always inevitable, this gambit took the credit (banking) system to the brink of collapse, a resort was made to monetary adventurism. This process threatens to do to money what credit adventurism so nearly did to the banking system.

    The policy of pricing money at sub-zero real levels has had a string of consequential effects. One of these has been an escalation in debt, and another has been rapid growth in the shadow banking system, known more formally as the ‘non-bank financial intermediation’ sector.

    Over the past twenty years, we’ve been using credit and monetary policy to ‘buy’ economic “growth” at an adverse rate of exchange. Each dollar of “growth” reported since 2000 has been accompanied by more than $3 of net new debt, and by getting on for $4 of broader financial liabilities. Even these metrics exclude the emergence of huge “gaps” that have emerged in the adequacy of pension provision.

    Using SEEDS, we can quantify the deterioration in prosperity, identify the correlation between rising ECoEs and the inflexion-points in underlying economic activity, and map the relationships between liabilities and the maintenance of a simulacrum of “growth”.

    But the central issue here is the widening gap between (a) the real economy (of energy, value and prosperity), and (b) the proxy financial economy and its excess claims against non-existent future economic value.

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  44. Nice exchange between Marco and Van Kent today on OFW.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/08/05/covid-19-vaccines-dont-really-work-as-hoped/comment-page-4/#comment-308402

    Marco says:

    This waiting destroys me, I was so sure, last year that November collapse had come, I was really sure, now it looks like a dead cancer patient who thought he was dying and remained alive and doesn’t know what to do. I have no plans for this period I have quit all my work, I have quit everything and I have been out of work, I don’t know what to do, I’m just waiting for the end.

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    1. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/08/05/covid-19-vaccines-dont-really-work-as-hoped/comment-page-4/#comment-308481

      Van Kent replies:

      Marco, most of the time we do what we have to do. And some of the time, we do what we want to do. The question is, what are the things that you have to be doing right now?

      We are in the collapse.

      That is certain.

      If you sometimes have doubts about our situation, then the following thought experiment might be helpful. Humans consume oil, coal, NG, raw materials and rare earth minerals. This we transform in to GDP. Or human activity. Because there is no such thing as a green economy, therefore every thing we humans do, diminish and destroys the natural world. For every bit that the global IC economy grows, equally bit by bit then our natural world dies. But if our economy doesn`t grow, then our debts, pensions and money implodes. Therefore we must grow and dissipate energy, until the very end. We have no choice.

      Sadly there is no other way out we are in the fast collapse mode.. Half of our oil, coal, NG, raw materials and rare earth minerals have been consumed in the last 35 years. So.. humans from 200.000BCE up until 1985 consumed and destroyed the planet by “100”.. and we destroyed the planet by another “100” from 1985 till 2020. And if our exponential growth were to continue (slow collapse) then by 2050 we would need to destroy the planet by another “200”.. so something gotta give (also a slow collapse isn’t possible).

      Living with the knowledge that billions of people are going to go away in the following decades, is not easy. Living with the knowledge that we failed the Fermi Paradox and the great filter test in the last 40 years.. that is not easy. Also living “alone” surrounded by people with a psychotic delusional culture, is not easy. Humans need each other. That is what our biology has programmed us for. To rely and trust in each other. But relying on your fellow man is not easy today. The delusions our brothers and sisters have are so bark raving mad..

      Our myth of progress = that is not true
      Our destiny is a linear line in to the stars = that is not true
      We are good, honest and moral people = that is not true (look at the evidence of the mess we leave behind)
      Renewable energy and a circular economy will save us = that is not true
      Technology will save us = that is not true
      We will have pensions = that is not true
      There will be a green economy/ green new deal = that is not true
      We will build back better = that is not true
      We have a future = that is not true..

      When everybody else is delusional and psychotic.. well.. that it is not an easy place to be in. For me it works to read “realism”. Books like Sun Tzu the art of war, Macciavelli, the prince, Miamoto Musashi the book of five rings. For me the wisdom in these books represent a formula to discern reality. With the academia being what it is. And our MSM being what it is. Well.. maybe the truth ain’t pretty, but it is still the truth. And that comforts and relaxes me.

      Marco, do the things what you have to do, most of the time. And somewhere in between, do the things that you want to do. Because that’s all we can do..

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      1. For me it helps to study and understand why we’re doing what we’re doing.

        Central to understanding our predicament are:
        1) the laws of thermodynamics which govern the energy that enables and drives everything;
        2) evolution and the Maximum Power Principle which created life and it’s behavior;
        3) Varki’s MORT theory which explains the existence of one uniquely intelligent species that denies unpleasant realities.

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  45. Chris Martenson with an update on Delta.

    Extreme vigilance required:
    1) Delta is supercharged virus, gets into cells easy.
    2) Delta replicates much faster, much higher viral loads.
    3) Delta spreads as easily as chickenpox (aka like wildfire). R0 is 5-9.

    Key points:
    – Delta probably exists because of gain of function insert.
    – Likely many more infections than are being detected and reported.
    – Vaccinated people are too confident due to bad advice from incompetent leaders.
    – Delta may be less harmful but hospitals still likely to be overwhelmed due to volume.
    – Herd immunity likely to be achieved quickly (2 months?), some early evidence supports this.
    – Less deaths likely because most vulnerable have already died.
    – Some experts now acknowledge current vaccines are not a path to herd immunity.
    – Some experts now acknowledge that Bossche’s predictions were correct.
    – Some experts now agree with FLCCC that focus should be on early treatment.

    Recommendations:
    – Time to start wearing an N95 mask in public.
    – Take 0.4-0.6 mg/Kg IVM at the very first sign of symptoms.
    – Pray that another variant does not emerge.

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    1. Pray? The variants are coming, quicker than the flu (correct me if I am wrong) mutates. Just pray there isn’t a vaccine resistant variant (hoping against hope?) or a more lethal one. Is there any precedent for such a fast mutating virus without a sterilizing vaccine?

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      1. Is there any precedent for such a fast mutating virus without a sterilizing vaccine?

        I am only layman interested in the subject, but some people (example – as far as I remember – author of “Pale Rider”) claim that Spanish flu went through similar mutation process. I.e. in the spring it was moderate (or even light in terms of comtemporary death ratios for other diseases) then it mutated within a few months and in the autumn it became eponymous Pale Rider…
        Of course the big difference is that there was no vaccine then, so it couldn’t be the cause of the mutation – but what counts is the outcome…

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  46. Another brilliant intellectual in complete denial of overshoot. This one is a physics expert so has no excuse.

    Still doubt Varki’s MORT?

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    1. I know that it may sound too sharply, but my first thought when I saw that was single word: “disgusting”…
      How can any conscious being bring new life to this hell knowing even only 5% of horror that will be here in next few, maybe over a dozen years…
      And how can be they so sure that within a few years “checkbook will still be balanced”??

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  47. I reread the essay Nate Hagen wrote near the beginning of the pandemic offering warnings and advice on what we should do in response. My take is that only thing he recommended that we actually did was print lots of money and bale everything out. We like printing money because it doesn’t require reality awareness, or sacrifice, or behavior change. We’ll keep doing it until we can’t and then we’ll wish we stopped sooner.

    https://www.postcarbon.org/an-overview-of-the-systemic-implications-of-the-coronavirus/

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  49. Tverberg summarizes pro-vaccine beliefs.

    The debates I’ve had after exploring the evidence revert back to “I trust my leaders and don’t have the energy or motivation to investigate if they are correct.”

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/08/05/covid-19-vaccines-dont-really-work-as-hoped/comment-page-5/#comment-308697

    Regarding Pro-Vaccine Beliefs:

    1. There still seem to be many people who are convinced that COVID-19 will lead to herd immunity if everyone is immunized. This is nonsense; it leads to more strong variants. We never can reach herd immunity with the variants.

    2. Many people also seem to believe that those who are immunized cannot spread the new variants, like Delta and its likely successors. This is nonsense as well. Immunized people can spread the variants without realizing that they are even sick, in many cases.

    I can see five other reasons for trying to increase the number of vaccinations:

    a. Vaccinated people will tend to get lighter cases, so fewer will be hospitalized. The hospital system won’t get overloaded with COVID-19 cases, so doctors can schedule elective surgery as they desire. This is a big money maker for both hospitals and doctors. When hospitals are jammed full of COVID-19 cases, there is a need to lay off doctors and other providers who don’t deal with COVID-19. This is disruptive to the health care system.

    b. In theory, health care for those with COVID-19 might be worse, if hospitals are too jammed. (On the other hand, if those catching COVID-19 were treated with ivermectin, they wouldn’t land in the hospital in the first place.)

    c. It is disruptive to businesses to have a large number of workers out sick. Hopefully, with the vaccines, the time that workers are out sick will be shorter, and the cost of these illnesses will be lower. Similarly, tour boats will not be as overloaded with sick passengers, if everyone is immunized. They can go on their trips as planned.

    d. Selling vaccines is a big money maker for the vaccine industry.

    e. Vaccines are a big draw for young people wanting a medical career. Using a cheap drug available since the late 1940s sends the “wrong message.”

    Of course, the problem is that more vaccines mean more variants. Ultimately, we put ourselves in a box we can’t get out of. The virus tends to mutate into more virulent forms, needing new vaccines. We can’t keep up with the new vaccines required.

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  52. Damn. I was hoping an unvaccinated healthy natural immune system might perform better against the variants but that does not seem to be the case. Our vaccination policy is increasing the danger for everyone. Time to rethink our strategy.

    https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/c-19-pandemia-quo-vadis-homo-sapiens

    Summary

    The WHO’s mass vaccination program has been installed in response to a public health emergency of international concern. As of the early days of the mass vaccination campaigns, at least a few experts have been warning against the catastrophic impact such a program could have on global and individual health. Mass vaccination in the middle of a pandemic is prone to promoting selection and adaptation of immune escape variants that are featured by increasing infectiousness and resistance to spike protein (S)-directed antibodies (Abs), thereby diminishing protection in vaccinees and threatening the unvaccinated. This already explains why the WHO’s mass vaccination program is not only unable to generate herd immunity (HI) but even leads to substantial erosion of the population’s immune protective capacity. As the ongoing universal mass vaccination program will soon promote dominant propagation of highly infectious, neutralization escape mutants (i.e., so-called ‘S Ab-resistant variants’), naturally acquired, or vaccinal neutralizing Abs, will, indeed, no longer offer any protection to immunized individuals whereas high infectious pressure will continue to suppress the innate immune defense system of the nonvaccinated. This is to say that every further increase in vaccine coverage rates will further contribute to forcing the virus into resistance to neutralizing, S-specific Abs. Increased viral infectivity, combined with evasion from antiviral immunity, will inevitably result in an additional toll taken on human health and human lives. Immediate action needs, therefore, to be taken in order to dramatically reduce viral infectivity rates and to prevent selected immune escape variants from rapidly spreading through the entire population, whether vaccinated or not. This first critical step can only be achieved by calling an immediate halt to the mass vaccination program and replacing it by widespread use of antiviral chemoprophylactics while dedicating massive public health resources to scaling early multidrug treatments of Covid-19 disease.

    Conclusions

    By enhancing viral infectiousness, both MASSIVE crowding and MASSIVE vaccination will only contribute to promoting dominant circulation of more infectious viral variants and hence, compromise the natural immune defense system in a relatively higher fraction of the young and healthy population (i.e., as compared to the fraction affected by previous natural pandemics). This will sooner or later lead to full viral resistance to virus-neutralizing Abs and a dramatic increase in morbidity and mortality rates. There is no way the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic could be controlled by the current, imperfect C-19 vaccines. Using imperfect vaccines to control a pandemic (of a highly mutable virus causing acute, self-limiting viral infection) will only increase the toll Nature will take on human health and lives in return for regranting a license to rebuild HI.

    A pandemic can only be terminated for good if the population develops robust protective immunity against the virus. This naturally occurs through HI. HI becomes increasingly stronger as a combined result of natural disease-mediated immune selection (i.e., as far as its innate, multipathogen-specific component is concerned) and active immunization (i.e., as far as its adaptive, pathogen-specific component is concerned). The more robust the HI becomes, the more effectively and durably the population controls the virus, the less frequently outbreaks will occur, and the less impressive those will be.

    No matter how many mistakes mankind makes, Nature will always take control of the pandemic and generate sufficient HI to bring it to an end. However, this will not come without a dire price to be paid for an immune intervention that was already wrong at the root. This is because Nature will first reset the population’s immune status to that of a Sars-CoV-2 naïve population, i.e., similar to what it was at the outset of this pandemic. The difference being, however, that the immunologically Sars-CoV-2 naïve population will now have to deal with viral variants that have a much higher level of infectiousness than the original Wuhan strain. This represents a formidable challenge to our innate immune system since it has not been conceived to deal with a high viral load (1, 2, 3). In the ‘post-resistance’ era, circulation of highly infectious variants, combined with underpowered population immunity, is likely to lead to outbreaks with higher morbidity and mortality rates in human settlements with a high population density (e.g., urban areas), whereas rural areas would be less frequently and less severely affected. Inversely, HI would build up much faster in urban areas, whereas people living in areas with low population density would be less likely to benefit from HI any time soon. In order for the latter to minimize the risk of repeated exposure, they would likely need to rely on infection-prevention measures for much longer. It could take several years before epidemiological disparities between rural and urban areas merge into a more homogenous distribution and Sars-CoV-2 becomes truly endemic.

    Artificial (human) immune intervention in a Coronavirus (CoV) pandemic could rapidly and durably yield immune protection of vulnerable individuals if and only if sterilizing immunity is induced. This means that the immune response induced is targeted at eliminating virus-infected cells. Provided this can be achieved at an early stage of infection, viral transmission and immune escape can be prevented all together. Consequently, immune interventions that generate sterilizing immunity are not at risk of putting immune pressure on the virus and breeding more infectious viral variants, even if deployed during a pandemic of highly infectious variants and even if vaccine coverage would need to be extended to larger (vulnerable) parts of the population. The first wave of a pandemic typically hits the most vulnerable part of the population. As a result of the growing infectious pressure, a number of young and healthy individuals may see their innate immune Abs temporarily suppressed. During this short period of natural Ab suppression (ca 6-8 weeks; 15), these individuals become susceptible to Covid-19 disease. Those who recover from the disease will exchange their innate immune defense for durable acquired immunity. This is to say that the overall rate of active immunization during a pandemic is merely determined by the level of infectious viral pressure exerted by the previous wave, but does not reflect the level of active immunization that would be required to tame the pandemic in case a surge in infectious pressure could be avoided. As a sterilizing immune intervention could readily abrogate a growing wave of infectious cases, immunization of only the vulnerable part of the population would already suffice to effectively and durably control a pandemic of an acute self-limiting viral disease and, therefore, obviate the need for mass vaccination. In addition, sterilizing immunity would grant full-fledged and long-lived protection to vaccinees, even if asymptomatic reservoirs of the virus would still serve as a source of continuous viral transmission. Last, usage of universal immunologic sterilizers (UISs) could abrogate and wipe out any CoV pandemic, regardless of the level of infectiousness of the circulating lineage and without the need for eradicating (*17) the virus. None of the current C-19 vaccines induces sterilizing immunity. They must not be used during a pandemic for they will merely drive immune escape and erode both, innate immunity (i.e., by breeding more infectious variants that exert enhanced infectious pressure, and thereby render younger age groups more susceptible to the disease) and acquired immunity (i.e., by driving viral resistance to neutralizing Abs).

    If we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race, one humanity, we, modern humans, should be able to exploit and coordinate our extraordinary and unique capabilities as ‘wise man’ (Homo sapiens) to turn the tide and rectify our mistakes. However, ‘wisdom’ can only prevail if we allow our intelligence capabilities (as measured by IQ) to synergize with our emotional capabilities (as measured by EQ). Over the last few months, we’ve increasingly been witnessing how profoundly this synergy has been disturbed. Let’s revamp our overall approach to this crisis and come up with a solution that can restore normality much faster, and reduce the case fatality rate much below the toll Mother Nature will claim if we leave it up to her to remedy. We can only turn the tide provided we work hand-in-hand to stop mass vaccination to begin with, and prevent high viral infection rates from inflicting further damage to the population. In the meantime we ought to upscale early treatment options and expedite the development of much more rational and pandemic-oriented immune interventions. The latter can be done if we learn how to educate our innate immune system to fine-tune its immunologic capacity and acquire immunologic memory in ways that enable more pathogen specificity and durability of the immune response, respectively.

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  53. The world is going crazy. Our best minds have degenerated into tribal politics and are unable to weigh evidence.

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    1. I read all of Dawkins’s books and I enjoyed some of them but I did notice that he is surprisingly “dumb” (aka in denial) about some aspects of human nature. He goes insane on the religious but he seems to believe that once we got rid of religions, everything will be kumbaya and Star Wars utopia.

      What clinched it for me was reading Rupert Sheldrake description of his planned debate with Dawkins. I don’t know if Sheldrake’s proposals have any merit but he is willing to subject them to scientific testing and public debate.
      Dawkins instead refused to read Sheldrake’s papers or offer any comments to it. All he wanted was a typical MSM propaganda interview where he can show Sheldrake as an unhinged nut.

      So no, Dawkins is not degenerating – he was a degenerate for a long time (maybe forever). If you think about it, what did you expect of any person that is a darling of the MSM? I don’t know of anyone famous that is not either straight evil or bought or both.

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      1. A biologist like Dawkins should be primarily worried about human overshoot and why we seem to have evolved to deny it. This would lead him to Varki’s MORT which also explains why we evolved to believe in Gods. Then Dawkins could stop ranting about religion and focus his energy on MORT awareness which might do some good.

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  54. Nice essay from Tad Patzek today that tries to find words to convey the coming horrors from climate change.

    https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/2021/08/a-letter-to-friend.html

    Are you beginning to realize what “global warming” really means for close to two billion people? Their lives and prosperity depend on the glacial rivers emanating from that most sacred cow on the Earth, the Tibetan Plateau? Tibet itself is a miracle of plate tectonics. Geologically speaking, it exploded up in no time and now it shapes lives of 1/3 of all living humans.

    Here’s how this slow-paced tragedy will unfold. First, as the glaciers continue to melt at the highest rates measured by humans, there will be increased flooding and damage. Then the glaciers will be gone and with them most or all of these live-giving rivers. And the roughly two billion humans, who depend on these rivers will wither too. Do you see the parched fields, and thirsty people migrating and dying? But where will they go? Now click on some of the links in the text and soak in the beauty of these magnificent rivers and landscapes. Geologically speaking, they will disappear in a blink. Puff!

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    1. Rob,
      This was a great essay by someone who understands how bad the future is going to be. All those around me – except on this and a few other blogs – are in complete denial about how BAU/civilization will collapse and the only questions are when and will it cause our extinction. It always amazes me how pervasive denial truly is.
      Thanks again for being such a great blogger/thinker.
      AJ

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  57. The default assumption of our reality denying brain is that climate change will cause food prices to rise. We don’t contemplate that food might be unavailable.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/13/business/food-prices-inflation-climate-change/index.html

    Wheat prices are going up in part due to “concerns over dry weather and crop conditions in North America,” according to the UN food agency. Specifically, droughts in Canada and the Northwestern part of the United States have wiped out wheat crops.

    The most recent crop report published by the USDA found that just 11% of spring wheat across six US states is in good to excellent condition. That’s down from 69% a year ago.

    In Washington State, a staggering 93% of the spring wheat is in poor or very poor condition because of droughts, according to the Drought Monitor.

    “It’s been cooked. Day in and day out they’re getting temperatures they’ve never seen before,” Yawger said.

    h/t Panopticon

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  58. July 2021 has earned the “unenviable distinction” of being confirmed as the hottest month ever recorded.
    ⁠
    According to new data released by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), global land and ocean temperatures were 1.67F (0.93 C) above the 20th-century average of 60.4F (15.8C), making it the hottest July since records began 142 years ago.

    https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/08/14/14th-august-2021-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/

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    1. Bit harsh there Rob-I think you could count Korea as a score draw and there was an island in the Caribbean and the wars on drugs and terror are still limping along so technically I don’t think you can declare them lost just yet.
      Who knows if they lost? On the face of it they did but the only people who suffered were on the ground (on both sides) who don’t really count. On the other hand a whole shitload of inventory was moved (including a MOAB?) so the people and corporations who do count made out like bandits.
      Wars are still a racket.

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        1. “so it doesn’t matter if you win.”
          A touch of denial here – it does matter. If the going was good (opium poppies and MIC contracts) why would they stop the gravy train?
          Maybe because the US army is in such a bad state that they cannot even pretend to stay there?
          I know you (like all of us) have your blind spots regarding US but try to understand that US empire is collapsing now. This is USSR in 1989 – hollowed out but still looking impressive enough that no official commentator in the west expected when it just disappeared.

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          1. I agree with you. I think we’re witnessing the slow collapse of the US, along with most other countries in the world. US culture seems to be particularly dangerous due to its polarization.

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  60. Alice Friedemann today reviewed Nate Hagens’ & DJ White’s book “The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century”.

    https://energyskeptic.com/2021/book-review-the-bottlenecks-of-the-21st-century/

    The big shock is not reality itself, but in abruptly finding out – after much of your life—that you’ve been told incorrect, incomplete, and wildly overoptimistic stories about the world by those around you who never questioned that what “feels good to believe” might not be true. We think that if kids were taught the realities of energy, evolution, and ecology from a young age, they’d adjust to it, though more than a bit annoyed with the situation they’re being handed.

    Cleverness to find energy only works when there is energy around to be found, and a practical way to put it to work. An astronaut stranded on the moon will die even with an IQ of 300, because cleverness isn’t magic. If Einstein had been born in 1800 AD, he would not have discovered relativity. At that point human knowledge hadn’t advanced far enough. And Darwin wouldn’t have discovered evolution by natural selection if Britain hadn’t expanded greatly harnessing coal and able to finance scientific voyages.

    The problem is that people forget energy is a fundamental driver of all life and technology.

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  61. The collapse of Lebanon paints a picture of what we can expect in a few years:
    1) overshoot and energy are central to the story
    2) population grew 500% in 70 years from 1.3M in 1950 to 6.8M in 2021
    3) almost all energy is imported and the price is rising due to depletion
    4) the economy is collapsing due to insufficient affordable energy to power it
    5) citizens do not earn enough to afford energy without subsidies
    6) the government can no longer afford to subsidize energy because the economy is collapsing
    7) the central bank can no longer print money without destroying the currency
    8) the government is dysfunctional because there is no quick solution for overshoot
    9) starvation and a despot are likely on the horizon

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    1. When I was a kid, we lived in Beirut (1959-1965); my dad taught at the American University. In the late 1950s / early 1960s, Lebanon was still a frugal place – I remember my mom saying that she had to bring her own containers to the local dry-goods merchant when she went shopping. There were street vendors who sold their wares on hand-push carts. The photos I’ve seen of Beirut’s 2015-2017 garbage crisis would be inconceivable to Beirutis back then – rivers of white plastic trash bags… Lebanese have been emigrating abroad for the last century, because there were too many people for the land to support – and that was at a time when Lebanon was largely self-sufficient. The concrete grain silos that protected part of Beirut from the full effects of the catastrophic ammonium-nitrate port explosion last year contained much of the country’s imported grain. The British school my folks sent us to was on the outskirts of the city, on the airport road. At the time, it was surrounded by fields and woods – they are all gone now, cut down for urban development. In the nineteenth century, there were still some cedar forests in the mountains, but the Ottoman Turks cut them down to build and fuel the Hejaz Railroad, to ferry pilgrims to the hajj. There isn’t much forest left. Granted, Lebanon has had a serious refugee problem from neighboring conflicts for many years, but it is a microcosm of our modern consumer society – there is simply no room in the country to contain the waste, provide the resources and grow the food for everyone.

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      1. Thank you for educating us on life in Lebanon. I see signs of overshoot and ecological collapse everywhere here in sparsely populated Canada. I can’t imagine what it must be like in a densely populated country.

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            1. There is a lot of future firewood in California going up in smoke. In the link below is a map showing how much of California has burned in the last five years.
              https://www.popsci.com/california-five-year-wildfire/

              How quickly would North America be stripped of trees and the wildlife hunted out if our current energy system collapsed? I wonder if anyone has done that calculation? I am grateful that we still have some relatively intact ecosystems given that there are 7.8 billion humans on the planet.

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  62. Dr. Bossche challenges opponents to a public debate.

    https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/how-remaining-in-the-dark-and-turning-in-vicious-circles-inevitably-leads-to-erroneous-decisions

    This is to say that it is the complete lack of understanding of why morbidity rates are now increasing in younger age groups that now prompts short-sighted experts and politicians, who typically have no long-term antennae, to advocate for mass vaccination of younger age groups and children. As they obviously lack any kind of insight into the evolutionary dynamics of a pandemic and how those are driven by the interplay between viral infectious pressure and host immune pressure in the population, they don’t understand that mass vaccination of the younger age groups is only throwing fuel to the devastating fire of a self-amplifying vicious circle. I challenge any expert, regardless of reputation or qualifications, to invalidate or oppose my arguments in a public debate on a mainstream broadcasting channel. If that debate doesn’t take place, it should be very straightforward for youngsters, parents, guardians, or even the children themselves, to draw their own conclusions and decide what is best for themselves or the children.

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    1. LOL!

      The most rational argument for vaccination, which was not mentioned in the skit, is that by reducing severe sickness we help to keep the health care system functional for other non-Covid needs.

      This advantage is offset by the fact that vaccine effectiveness declines with time, and use of a non-sterilizing vaccine in the middle of a pandemic will likely promote vaccine resistant variants which seems to be happening as Dr. Bossche warned 12 months ago.

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      1. Exactly. Could be that in a year our hospitals are full of vaccinated people having terrible health issues. We just don’t know.

        I have had friends tell me “You are immoral if you don’t get the vaccine and then get sick and use up a free space in ICU”.
        I said “You’re being selfish for using for using up an ICU bed”.
        They said “I’m not using an ICU bed”.
        I said “you’re f***ing about to”.

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          1. “That comedy skit demonstrates how confusing our reality is.”
            The Twitter account is suspended. Your liberal friends protected me from seeing it. Thank you, progressive liberal elites!

            By the way Rob do you stay by what you said last year, that the teachers are well intentioned people that are trying to do their best?

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            1. I don’t do politics or have political friends. I disrespect all parties.

              I don’t remember the discussion about teachers. You’ll have to provide more context for me to comment.

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  65. Here is a new way (at least for me) to think about the growing pressure to vaccinate everyone.

    If Dr. Malone is correct, you can make a coherent argument that we need to increase the percent vaccinated to compensate for our initial mistake of vaccinating more than just the highly vulnerable with a non-sterilizing vaccine, which promoted more infectious variants.

    It’s analogous to our debt problem. By refusing to live within our declining means we have created a predicament where if we curtail debt growth we blow up the system, but if we continue on our debt growth trajectory we also blow up the system.

    I guess I need to say this again.

    1) Delta has an Ro of about 8, about 3x that of the Alpha (ref- CDC). With these leaky vaccines, if we were to have 100% vaccine uptake and perfect mask use we cannot stop the spread of Delta (ref- CDC).

    2) the current vaccines provide about 50-60% efficacy in protection from infection. They are not fully protective.

    3) if you are vaccinated and become infected (“breakthrough”), the virus will replicate at the same or higher levels than if you were unvaccinated and then become infected.

    4) if you are vaccinated and then become infected, your risk of transmitting virus to someone else is quite high – remember, the Ro measures how likely you are to transmit the virus.

    5) if you are vaccinated and then become infected, your risk of developing severe disease or dying is better than if you were not vaccinated and then become infected with Delta.

    6) Therefore, if you are vaccinated and then become infected, you MAY have a higher risk of becoming a “superspreader” because you are less likely to show disease. This has not been measured, but it should be.

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    1. Hi Rob

      Regarding the red line on the chart above….

      It looks like the main variants of concern came before the clinical trials?, and definitely before the introduction of widespread vaccination. Still, it is interesting to see the spread of variations of variants after mass vaccination began. This is the new phase of leaky vaccine virus mutation that Bossche warns about?

      Whether the clinical trials “pushed” variation, I have no idea. I would assume precautions were taken to prevent such unintended consequences?

      per Wiki. History of COVID-19 vaccine development – Wikipedia “Some 321 total vaccine candidates were in development as either confirmed projects in clinical trials or in early-stage “exploratory” or “preclinical” development, as of September.[5] “

      On Phizer: About Our Landmark Trial | pfpfizeruscom The Phase 3 clinical trial was designed to determine if the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 disease. This trial began July 27, 2020, and completed enrollment of 46,331 participants in January 2021.

      Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine – Wikipedia
      On 31 August, AstraZeneca announced that it had begun enrolment of adults for a US-funded, 30,000-subject late-stage study.[73] ……
      Clinical trials for the vaccine candidate were halted worldwide on 8 September, as AstraZeneca investigated a possible adverse reaction which occurred in a trial participant in the UK.[74][75] Trials were resumed on 13 September after AstraZeneca and Oxford, along with UK regulators, concluded it was safe to do so.[76] ………
      .[77] While the trials resumed in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Japan[78] and India, the US did not resume clinical trials of the vaccine until 23 October.[79]

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      1. Thanks for checking the chart. I should have done the same. Sounds like it is not good evidence in support of Bossche’s hypothesis.

        Stepping back from the detail, it does seem true that variants became a thing in the 2nd year of the pandemic about the same time vaccinations started. Of course not necessarily causation but is suspicious.

        It seems hard to argue that evolution by unnatural selection is a powerful force. Think wolf to chihuahua.

        Have you seen an intelligent argument why Bossche’s hypothesis is wrong?

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        1. I don’t speak a lot on Covid as the ocean of mutually contradictive opinions is so hugh that it is impossible to comprehend everything.
          Especially that I am laymen in the subject.

          More importantly – I really perceive Covid as a “relatively minor issue”. Unless it kills 500 millions people it is just another “blip” in our road to self-destruction.
          More than that – it may have some positive effects and the biggest one could be “lower population growth”. I guess many people has been really spooked by Covid and postponed decission about having children (in developed countries, in under-developed I am affarid it may be opposite). Moreover – people could start understanding that life may be something unpredictable and we don’t know what waits for our children. Of course it is again only “hypothesis” – I think population numbers in 2022 will tell us if it had any impact.

          Coming back to “Bossche’s hypothesis” I will invert your question. Does Bossche have any sound evidence that supports his hypothesis? I mean solid proof, not just “strong arguments”.

          As layman I know one thing. Most of viruses mutate with “impossible rate”. 99% of flu that “goes out” sick person differs from the flu that “went in” that person. And of this 99%, 99% will never really leave host organism – because mutation was dead-end, non-adaptable.
          Why then it seems to be unnatural that virus that infected 100 million people, mutated into many variants? I would expect tens of thousands of variants – and probably we have that many or more. 99,9% of that is just illy adapted.

          Ana again – looking at weather pattern, chaos in geopolitics, deplated resources – Covid is not our main issue. Though I absolutely agree that it impacts and deteriorates current situation (can we really assess he impact on poor countries?).

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          1. It makes sense that variants arise naturally when a population is infected. I think Bossche’s point is that if you apply a specific leaky filter to a large number of already infected people, you will push the variants in a more infectious direction that evades the filter, thus eventually worsening public health for both vaccinated and unvaccinated.

            Two people I respect now seem to disagree. Martenson says Delta is 50% less deadly than the flu and that most people will get it and recover with excellent natural immunity over the next 2 months, and then we’ll live with another flu like sickness forever. Bossche seems worried that the worst is yet to come with more infectious and virulent variants. It will be interesting to see who is right.

            I do agree that we’re facing much worse problems. I’m watching food and energy and the interest rate.

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        2. Hi Rob

          Yes to your question, there are rebuttals to assertions made Bossche. Most were posted up in March-April 2021. A few others since then, specifically addressing Bossche or the idea in general. I can send them to you directly if you like.

          The gist of the rebuttals is yes, virus mutate, but the risk of more virulent variants is in the large population of unvaccinated, not the vaccinated. Therefore we must vaccinate.

          That runs counter to what I read in science papers confirming (some) viruses tending towards greater transmissibility but less virulence.

          I did find one science article showing a higher evolutionary clock rate on the SARcov2 virus, the authors proposed it might have occurred within immunocompromised patients but they did not point the finger at vaccination.

          This article just posted, generally supporting Bossche, although some different thoughts. I don’t know the author or their qualifications. “leaky vaccines, super-spreads, and variant acceleration – by el gato malo – bad cattitude (substack.com)” They are careful to say these ideas (I will call them the Bossche position) are hypotheses, the authorities need to track the data and more data gathered and investigation needs to be done. Quickly.

          I have seen a few others (virologists) provide support for some or most of Bossche’s position, as I understand them.

          Clearly, some establishment folks think the virus will continue to mutate. “Long term evolution of SARS-CoV-2, 26 July 2021 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)” There is some discussion on the possible emergence of much more lethal variants. The question is how and why.

          I don’t have any qualifications to adjudicate. I suspect the correct answers will only be known in another year or two as we conduct the largest medical trial in history on 8 billion people in a highly complex mobile and networked world.

          Meanwhile, my next door neighbor is badly sick today from her third (booster) shot. Fever, pain all over.

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          1. Thank you very much.

            Do you recall if the rebuttals to Bossche made a clear distinction between sterilizing and non-sterilizing vaccines? This seems to be a key point that many gloss over. The famous effective vaccines from history (I think) were sterilizing and non-specific.

            It’s quite possible that the outcome is unknown to anyone because there is a large element of random chance involved.

            I know 2 people who had/have severe reactions to the vaccine. Both were already unhealthy in the highly vulnerable group.

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    2. What drive me crazy is every bloody website is different. Imagine going into a bookstore or a library to find that every book on the shelf is formatted differently. Just sayin’

      David Windt suggests that the clinical trials may have been the catalyst.

      Yes, Rob, there are much more dire situations looming on the horizon. But in the mean time, we can play inspector sleuth with COVID 😉

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      1. I’ve never seen such a confusing mess as Covid.

        The people in charge appear to be idiots, or are deliberately avoiding obvious important questions. The stated goal is impossible so there must be an unstated goal, but what is it? It can’t be to keep people healthy or they’d be talking about other obvious things we should be doing. The data we need to understand what’s going on is not available, why is it not collected and presented? Everyone, including the experts, has a different belief about what’s going on. Almost none of the the beliefs make logical sense.

        WTF!

        Maybe this is all a consequence of the systems involved being incredibly complex with a large element of random chance determining the outcome, plus leaders too incompetent to know what they don’t know, plus big money to be made, plus an opportunity for more power for some, plus a big dose of Varki’s MORT.

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        1. Yes, I think your explanation exactly hits it: it is a rapidly changing, overcomplex system with too many factors to understand and control, combined with a serious lack of understanding and logical thinking in almost all leaders and experts so that not even the right questions are being asked, let alone answered, and then a lot of confounding factors including greed (big money to be made etc.), “solutionism”, and denial of reality. And, this is a reality that is highly unpleasant and threatening. Compared to how easy and straightforward life used to be in our parts of the world 50 years ago, the world is disintegrating now, and that is what people cannot swallow.

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  66. Yesterday I bought some more Mountain House dehydrated food for hiking. It’s light weight, very convenient to cook on the trail, tastes pretty good, and has a 30 year shelf life so doubles as emergency food.

    Mountain House recently changed their packaging design and in the process decreased the portion size by 30% and increased the price by 30%.

    That’s 60% inflation in one year!

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    1. I guess dehydrated food might be best investment for coming times 🙂 . It is relatively expensive, but it is lightweight and “compact”. And of course shelf life is hugh advantage.

      Still philosophical question remains – do I really want to live in the world “after” 😐 ?? And I am affraid that even I “don’t want”, the biology will win 😐 .

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  67. So, the adult daughter who lives with us tested positive for the Delta variant. She has a job with exposure to the public here in Oregon. I anticipated getting Closeovid at some point. How can you not with the current R0? My spouse and I have been doing Quercitin/Zinc, Vitamin D and C for well over a year. I started the horse paste today, it tastes like crap but smells like apples. Better safe than sorry. Chris Martinson had an interesting video today, he expects based on Israeli experience that the Delta variant will be gone in a short time. I hope he’s right, wish me luck with the horse paste (Ivermectin)!
    AJ

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      1. Yep, the Melatonin and mouthwash are on the way. The protocol calls for baby aspirin and that is an easy do. I don’t have any symptoms and hopefully if I have it this will be a mild asymptomatic case. So, I will stay home for a week or so (now I can’t give my excess eggs, tomatoes and zucchini to neighbors).
        AJ

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  68. Interesting explanation of the Rubik’s cube the Fed has created. They had to print lots of money to keep the system from crashing, but as a consequence interest wants to go negative which would crash the system, so they’re trying the only trick they have left to stay on the razor’s edge.

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  71. Nice Mac10 rant today on denial…

    https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2021/08/fool-me-all-time-shame-on-me.html

    Fool Me All The Time, Shame On Me

    Blogging in a denialistic society is like pounding sand up your ass. These people are on permanent mental vacation. They have outsourced all thinking to their trusted psychopaths. Millennials at least have an excuse for not seeing this coming, this will be their first margin call of a lifetime. Very exciting. The rest of this society has made a way of life out of ignoring risk and central banks have ensured they are highly incentivized to do so…

    Mid-week the Fed minutes monkey hammered markets when it was “revealed” the Fed plans to taper their asset purchases starting this year. Deja vu of the retail sales “shocker” earlier in the week, this “news” should have come as no surprise to markets and yet it did. Why? Because there is nothing priced into these markets except for fantasy, delusion, denial, and misallocated capital on a biblical scale.

    In summary, the risks and divergences coalescing at the end of this summer far exceed those we witnessed one year ago when the market tanked in late August/early September.

    Next week is the Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole Wyoming. A chance for the Wizards of Oz to communicate their money printing plans for the future.

    Try not to be too shocked if the Creator pulls back the curtain on this Roman Circus.

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  72. Another port closure in China, due to a single case of Delta. Maybe.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/8/18/china-port-congestion-worsens-as-ships-divert-away-from-ningbo

    The partial closure of the world’s third-busiest container port is worsening congestion at other major Chinese ports, as ships divert away from Ningbo amid uncertainty over how long virus control measures in the city will last.

    In nearby Shanghai and in Hong Kong, congestion is once again increasing after dropping due to the reopening of Yantian port in Shenzhen, which shut in May for a separate outbreak. The number of container ships anchored off Xiamen on China’s southeast coast rose to 24 Tuesday from 6 at the start of the month, according to shipping data compiled by Bloomberg.

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  73. Peter Carter nicely summarizes the latest IPCC report.

    Notice that Carter denies the implications of what needs to be done and who needs to do it. I’m thinking he needs this denial to remain sane while having such a deep understanding of our peril.

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    1. The latest IPCC report says drastic methane cuts are necessary.

      The methane concentration in Earth’s atmosphere has been surging. The good news is we are finally getting serious about mapping methane emissions via satellite. Carbon Mapper is slated to launch two satellites in 2023 with more to follow which will provide near constant C02 and methane monitoring around the globe. The goal is to identify the super emitters and mitigate if possible. It is a good step in the right direction.

      https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210805-the-search-for-the-worlds-largest-methane-sources
      https://carbonmapper.org/

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    2. My perspective is that the only way we get “immediate and rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions” is by a collapse of civilization and a die off of most of the world’s population. Even that might not be enough (global dimming removed). Since mitigation strategies appear in the realm of science fiction what else is there?
      I know your plan Rob, but realistically what chance is there that government (mindless people) will wake up, transition us to a 1750 lifestyle with a birth lottery? No, governments along with their people will go on denying till the end. That’s what we are denial machines. So bleak.
      AJ

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      1. Stopping all high carbon discretionary activities might make the future less bad (it’s too late for a good outcome). The people who earn a living from the discretionary activities will need to find new useful work, like producing food and building climate change/peak oil mitigation infrastructure, and the people who still have a job will have to pay higher taxes to support the less fortunate.

        The probability is near zero that a majority will vote for severe austerity. The probability might increase a little if experts like Carter spoke honestly about what needs to be done, and compared the discomfort of austerity with the discomfort of a climate incompatible with civilization.

        But they don’t. It’s very curious that no one speaks the truth. Why? I think genetic denial.

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  74. A lot of chaff with Martenson’s wheat this week…

    How is saying godless atheists are the real threat and not mentioning the fact that our species is in severe overshoot and needs to reduce it’s population any better or wiser than promoting big pharma and the great reset?

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    1. Sorry Rob,
      Sorry for you if you wasted 2 hours listening to this podcast. I usually respect Chris Martenson, but the moment he opened the interview talking about sports I quit (20 seconds wasted). If there is anything more unimportant than sports (bread & circuses) I don’t know what it is (because of some genetic endowment you have some athletic ability that you have wasted countless hours practicing to extract MONEY from our civilization says – you are not thinking about what really matters). And being a godless atheist I think those that don’t understand that gods are just the result of magical thinking (i.e. completely irrational) and unscientific are almost hopeless. I guess even Martenson makes bad mistakes.
      Day 4 of 5 days of Ivermectin – then I’ll get tested.
      AJ

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        1. Other than the fact that my BMs (TMI?)have slowed way down (probably because my resident tapeworm is rebelling), I haven’t noticed any effect from the Ivermectin. Today for the first time I feel severely fatigued my muscles ache (kinda reminiscent of the normal Flu I had in the ’70s), I have a slight headache and my nose is a little runny. My daughter’s symptoms were a headache a runny nose and a cough but she appears to be slowly getting over it. She’s taking Ivermectin too.
          AJ

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      3. I also think his Delta isn’t as bad as the flu could be a mistake, but who knows? Current US death counts, to say nothing of other effects, are a tad more than the flu.

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        1. I looked at his video above again. Perhaps the infection fatality rate of Delta is similar to the flu. But he was quite hopeful for the UK on 8/10. Since then, cases have crept back up there. If mutation is happening faster than the flu, herd immunity may remain elusive

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      4. I hate sports too and never watch them. I was curious to see what an influential celebrity that opposes the mainstream had to say. Just like Kunstler predicted in his novels, and what’s happening in Afghanistan, it seems our next government will likely have God as one of its policies. I suppose how else can they rally our death denying brains to a new cause?

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  75. Some of the information on the flccc.net website was a little confusing. But I checked and rechecked and converted my figures to imperial/U.S. grams per pound of body weight. So I’m taking 25 mg once a day for 5 days.
    AJ

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  76. Like

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  77. Reality denial has struck again! The moderators on reddit have suspended one of my accounts for posting the following comment:

    “Water shortages are everywhere especially in the Colorado River watershed. It’s a twenty year drought that will NOT get better over time because “we” humans continue to increase CO2 through our use of fossil carbon. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/08/us/colorado-river-water-shortage/

    Tucson does have aquifers. Those aquifers were nearly drained dry (subsidence). The majority of Tucson’s water supply comes from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project. Tucson is at the butt end of the line.

    Never fear Tucson Water is looking out for your protection. https://www.tucsonaz.gov/water

    Edit Keeling Curve link https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/”

    It’s not my best comment for sure, but I didn’t expect my account to be suspended. The censorship AND denial is unreal.

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      1. My suspicion is the moderator wants to keep the r/Tucson sub on a “rainbows and ponies” track. He has stated that antivaxxers are not welcome and will be banned without notice. I wasn’t aware of his denial of climate change. But then again, who wants to here that the end is nigh.

        C’mon, Rob, who knows about overshoot except for a very small percentage of us. We be in an elite group.

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      2. Lack of hope is offensive. BAD. Like farting in an elevator. No actually it’s worse than that. It’s like the evil guy popping some kid’s balloon.

        or more artistically…

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  79. Albert Bates today takes a deep dive into the history and politics of carbon taxes. Notice how we humans take a simple concept and completely obscure it in layers of complexity.

    Here is the simple version: Energy from burning carbon produces almost all of our wealth and food. To retain a climate compatible with civilization we must reduce carbon emissions which means we must lower our standard of living and/or population. This simple truth leads to the next problem which is that debt requires growth which means we’ll need our best minds to engineer a smooth decline that retains a civil society.

    https://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-great-pause-week-75-rolling-thedice.html

    A flurry of carbon pricing bills await the US Congress when it returns from vacation next month. Fifteen now pending are supported by Democrats and 5 of those are also supported by Republicans.

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    1. Rob- What is the source for this data, or at least can you explain it a bit more? Offshoring oil use can skew the interpretation.

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  82. Good one from TAE today…

    https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2021/08/the-covid-coyote-conspiracy-theory/

    As I mentioned early my town has a rat infestation problem and though some suggested rat traps the mayor (who owns a coyote pelt farm) decided to address this by introducing coyotes. This had some unforeseen consequences. The coyotes also ate peoples’ pets and chickens and were a danger to toddlers. The rats mutated to a strain that many coyotes wouldn’t eat (the so called Sigma Rats). Now there is a new problem: Coyotes kill other animals (like racoons) and the rats feed on the carcasses and their population explodes (this is known as Coyote Dependent Enhancement).

    Many people with pets, chickens and toddlers distrust coyotes and fenced off their yards and started using rat traps. They claimed traps worked well but the mayor brought in an expert that claimed that traps don’t work as well as coyotes and that traps can be dangerous to the user so the city outlawed the sale of rat traps. The mayor’s expert also did a study that showed that 93% of the rats were now coming from fenced yards and that Sigma Rats were breeding and mutating there. In desperation some anti-coyotes started buying gopher traps and trying to use these to catch rats.

    One woman injured her finger in a gopher trap. Her trip to the emergency room was front page news. People complained that news of their pets that were eaten were never covered by the paper. This was dismissed as an anti-coyote conspiracy theory. Pro-coyotes are saying those with fences don’t care about their neighbors, should be ostracized, lose their jobs and they are threatening to forcibly tear down all coyote proof fences in town. The mayor is consulting with the city lawyer to see if these things are legal.

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  83. If we can’t cope with a simple reality like Ivermectin that distorts the desired narrative, god help us when the distortions get serious like, for example, growth is over forever due to peak oil and climate change.

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  86. I’m surprised that the economy has remained as stable as it has through 2 years of pandemic. Wolf Richter today paints a nice picture of the extreme measures that were taken to achieve this stability. The negative consequences are beginning.

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    1. One of my general rules of life. Nothing is for free. Or, there is a cost for everything that appears to be free. Or, for every action there is a re-action. Etc. Etc.

      Of course, another rule is the law of unintended consequences. The vast money “printing” and “unearned” distribution of that money – without a corresponding increase in energy production and real economic “growth” – may have costs and consequences beyond just simple high inflation.

      What might those consequences be? It could be the complete un-mooring/un-tethering of the U.S. dollar from benchmarks of the dollar’s value. It could be the acceleration of actions by our international competitors to remove themselves from the U.S. dollar denominated system and end the U.S. hegemony. Or it could be something mostly “unpredicted” – such as a much earlier than anticipated fiscal “reckoning” for the U.S.A., and with it social and political upheaval.

      In a large, complex, interconnected system, I see the law of unintended consequences as a version of my “whack-a-mole” rule. Put “unnatural” pressure on one part of the system, and unwanted things pop out somewhere else. Unlike the child’s game version of whack-a-mole, things pop out in completely unpredictable ways. Print vast amounts of money to eliminate suffering, the suffering will occur elsewhere and at another time.

      One wonders, did the excessive money printing – and behind that the decline in U.S. oil production/surplus energy – influence the way the pull out of Afghanistan was mis-managed? Maybe there was subtle hidden-hand sort of “pressure” on the decision making that resulted in the too rapid withdrawal. We will probably never know and even the people who made the decisions may never understand what drove those decisions.

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      1. Could be there was “subtle hidden-hand sort of pressure” in the Afghan withdrawal. Seems plausible.

        Or maybe the new standard is incompetence.

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        1. It’s unbelievable that the mighty US military was unable to keep the Kabul airport and roads leading to it open long enough for friends to depart on an convoy of well organized US military flights. Is the most expensive and powerful organization on the planet collapsing before our eyes? Or has it simply become as incompetent as its political leaders?

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      2. I wonder about the scenario where rising inflation requires an increase to an interest rate that can’t increase without blowing up the system. I don’t understand how this would play out. Any ideas?

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        1. Here’s one hypothesis from HHH which might work for a little while.

          https://peakoilbarrel.com/april-non-opec-oil-output-declines/#comment-723866

          I’m going to explain what I think the FED will do this week and why they going to do it and how it will effect the price of oil.

          FED is have a hard time keeping short term interest rates from going negative. So they want to raise short term rates without actually raising rates.

          So what I think they will do is raise the interest they are paying on reverse repo. From 0.05% to 0.10% this will force people out of T Bills and into longer dated bonds. They going to compress the long end of yield curve below 1%

          Side effect from this is a stronger dollar. Which will put downward pressure on prices.

          They going to try to tame inflation with a stronger dollar.

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          1. It may work, probably even it will work.
            The question here is – for how long time?
            Autumn is coming and it is often time of “interesting developments”.

            In generally – I don’t believe in any signficant, middle-term interest rate increase. It would simple mean collapse. So this is last ditch effort in my opinion and “beyond that ditch” there is nothing else.

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    1. Thanks, that’s really funny, and ironically is another case study for Varki’s MORT.

      One of the actors (I think) is Michael Shermer who I’ve followed for years. His wheat to chaff ratio is pretty good on the small issues but stinks on the big issues like human overshoot and peak oil which he’s certain are loony doomer conspiracies.

      Shermer’s another famous polymath in complete denial of everything that matters and he’s already on my list:

      On Famous Polymaths

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  88. Liked by 1 person

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  89. Slipping into madness…

    Saagar announces he has Covid and the number of views is currently at 158k

    Paul Beckwith discusses weather whiplashing events in North American and the views are under 1k

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      1. Talking about overpopulation is taboo because of its historical association with racism, eugenics and ethnic cleansing. Most scientists and policy makers talk around it euphemistically as “reproductive rights” “educating women,” etc. Trying not to be offensive I suppose. One could make the case that the Sixth Extinction requires plain direct language.

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    2. Re: weather whiplashing events – all the back-to-the-land types must be pissed that their fruit trees and bushes are dropping buds prematurely. So much for food security and self sufficiency. Josh Dolan’s list of what to look for in a mate should include someone who can deal with unpredictability, disappointment and hunger. Good sense of humor is important ’cause you’re going to need it.

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    1. Yeah make yourself useful Muskrat. I could use one of those bots, a down-graded version would be acceptable, for urine duty detail. My dog George, 16 yrs old, has taken to stealthily pissing inside.

      Burrry me wee bonnie bone in the back yaaard

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  92. WSJ reported this morning that despite good sales the major wind turbine companies are losing money because of high shipping and raw material costs. Nevertheless they think the future of wind remains bright, especially if subsidies are increased as expected.

    What they did not discuss, despite their own report confirming it, is that wind energy depends on affordable fossil energy. Nor did they discuss how an energy source that requires taxes rather than paying taxes will ever succeed.

    Denial is amazing.

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    1. They are going to be amazing monuments to “not that distant civilzation”. Our global-level Moais. Easter Island on planetary scale.
      What a pity that they will be there only for a few tens of years before calapsing… (of course assuming that hey are not blown earlier by… wind???)

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      1. Everything turns to dust, sooner or later. I think I heard that on RHOBH. Sometimes those gals have moments of profundity.

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        1. psst…Dave

          Break it to Uncle Remus gently that Disney redid Splash Mountain in a ‘Princess And The Frog’ makeover

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  93. “How climate change amplifies extreme weather like Tennessee’s deadly floods and NYC’s record rainfall…
    ⁠
    …in Tennessee this weekend as more than 17 inches of rain fell in just 24 hours around McEwen and Centerville — a third of the region’s typical annual rainfall — which would set a record in the state of Tennessee once made official…
    ⁠
    Meanwhile, in New York City on Saturday night, residents saw extreme rainfall rates unmatched in the city’s history… 1.94 inches of rain fell in Central Park, setting the all-time record there for the largest amount of rain in a single hour, according to the National Weather Service.

    https://climateandeconomy.com/2021/08/24/24th-august-2021-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/

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    1. Headline from The Advocate – Aug 13, 2021
      “Rainfall tops annual average in Baton Rouge with four months left to go: It’s an odd anomaly.”

      Have to remind myself not to fall prey to confirmation bias but it does seem that weather patterns are trending to the extremes. Too much rain, not enough rain. Maybe next year it will go back to normal and we can all relax. 😉

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  94. Well, here is my report and I’m not dead yet – but give it a little more time. At 68 years old I figure I’ve lived past my expiration already.
    Now for the genetics and contingency (Steven J. Gould was good for that – history can control destiny?).
    I am fit (low BMI), exercised regularly for the past 50 years, am a vegetarian. But I smoked cigarettes in my late teens and early twenties for about 6 years (conformation changes to the lungs are permanent). I have NO co-morbidities, the only med I take is for genetic glaucoma.
    I have taken Quercitin, Zinc, Vit. D, Vit. C, N-acetyl cistine, and a multi-vitamin since the pandemic began. Against my better judgement I got the J&J shot in early April.
    I started the Ivermectin on the 21st. 5 days at 25mg a day. Didn’t notice any effect on the illness(but then how would you since you are a sample size of one?). Yesterday I tested positive for Covid and I was the sickest I have been in 10 years. Low grade fever (100.8F) followed hours later by sweats and chills and then no fever. Same thing repeated the next day (today). Cough is less, total wipe-out fatigue. The only saving grace is my pulse oximeter has never shown a %SpO2 below 90%. I don’t know what I will do it I become hypoxic. I have no desire to end life intubated, unconscious in some ICU while people who are dedicated but in denial try to “treat” me. Hopefully it will not come to that.
    My wife who is the exact opposite of all my parameters above tests negative (she is Chinese). My daughter has almost completely recovered from the Covid she passed to me.
    Genetics? Contingency?
    Be very careful, every disease is a personal crap shoot – that’s the universe!!
    AJ

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    1. Thank you AJ for finding the energy to update us despite feeling awful.

      Your experience demonstrates how difficult it is to know what is true. Perhaps you’d be in hospital without the IVM, or perhaps it had no effect. Who knows? At least we know it is probably safe based on 4 billion doses of history. I still plan to take it if I get sick.

      Wishing you the best of luck with your recovery.

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      1. Thanks for the get well wishes. I would not hesitate to use Ivermectin again. The science seems to support it’s efficacy. And you’re right Rib, without it I could be much worse. I was just trying to make the point that your personal genetics and life history constrain your responses to both Ivermectin and the Covid virus. And now in retrospect I think that my biggest problem was physical exhaustion prior to being exposed. I have been attempting to water and tend three huge gardens during an extreme drought and after working most days 8 plus hours I was physically exhausted. So that probably set me up to be hit by the virus regardless of all the other good things I was doing. Perhaps, who knows?
        AJ

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  95. Chris Martenson’s video today was harshly sarcastic of the incompetent manner that the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine. His video was deleted by YouTube for violating their guidelines. It seems you’re no longer allowed to say an idiot is an idiot.

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    1. Rob,
      I wonder how long it will take people to adapt to totalitarianism and censorship?
      Looking at history of communism it seems like in Eastern Europe it took less than 5 years to go from a corrupt but open society to a fully totalitarian nightmare.
      I bet the capitalists can do it better!
      I expect in a couple of years most of the independent internet will be gone and FB won’t have to censor anymore (or just notify the secret police of any dissenters).

      So how should we prepare? I think only in person networks can help.
      It is interesting though what will people read in a history book in 10 years. Most of the controversial data is not preserved so it will be easy to craft a narrative post-factum, especially if the ADE hits hard enough (“the great plague of 2020 that killed a billion people…”)

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      1. For some reason your comment reminded me of Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil. I should see that one again given our current state of madness.

        Mark Crispin provides a compelling argument about today’s propaganda. His main focus is the propaganda from 2019 to today’s hysteria over the “unseen” vapors. The two videos are titled Perspectives on Pandemic #17 and #18. The only concern I have is Crispin is spouting nonsense about masks causing hypoxia and children are NOT able to get COVID-19. Bunk.

        https://off-guardian.org/?s=mark+crispin&submit=Search

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        1. “The only concern I have is Crispin is spouting nonsense about masks causing hypoxia and children are NOT able to get COVID-19. Bunk.”

          There are many peer reviewed studies that show that masks do lead to high CO2 values in the lungs (aka hypoxia).
          Also all the statistics that I have seen show that NO healthy child ever died of Covid and when they get it, it’s much milder than the flu.

          So why cast aspersions on your own link?

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  96. Tad Patzek today with an interesting essay looking at the relationship between mineral resources and oil. We see once again that the discipline of economics is best understood by those without an economics degree.

    https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-mulitple-fallacies-of-simon-ehrlich.html

    Multiple Fallacies of the Simon-Ehrlich Wager

    In summary, the blanket statements issued by economists and journalists are too simplistic and do not reflect the nuances of this complex wager. Dr. Paul Ehrlich has proven himself to be a deep thinking scientist, while Dr. Julian Simon remained a happy imbecile until his death. So much for the confrontation of science of the spherical physical world with the flat-earth, infinity-seeking economics.

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    1. Rob, do you have a sense of how credible “Sam Carana” is? I accept that there are possible “fat tail” events of abrupt climate change that “could” happen and rapidly change climate and weather patterns regionally and globally, and be very disruptive to human civilization. Or end it, I suppose. But Carana seems to stack possible event on event for a rapid rise in temperature amount that I don’t see supported anywhere else. Of course, on topics of such impact, the truth can be hard to find, and harder to talk about publicly.

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      1. I’m not sure Shawn. I’ve read her for many years and she seems credible but as you say is on the more extreme side of the balance. In her defense, the IPCC ha been consistently too optimistic, and my eyes tell me things are changing quickly now.

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  99. Nice response by Dr. Bossche to a critic today. I predict the rebuttal will be crickets.

    https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/response-to-attacks-from-dr-david-gorski

    Response to attacks from Dr. David Gorski

    My name is Geert Vanden Bossche. I received my PhD in Virology at the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and I have held adjunct faculty appointments at universities in Germany and Belgium. I also have worked in R&D and vaccine development for GSK, Novartis, and Solvay Biologicals. Next I was a Senior Program Officer for the Gates Foundation’s Global Health Discovery team, and from there went to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and was the Senior Ebola Program Manager. Then I joined the German Center for Infection Research as head of the Vaccine Development Office. Currently, I work as a consultant on biotech/vaccine issues, and I also do my own research on “natural killer” cell-based vaccines. I have argued that immune escape due to the current COVID-19 vaccines is driving new variants as the virus evolves its way around the inoculation. Dr. David Gorski is a Wayne State University of Medicine (Detroit) associate professor in oncology and surgery. He is also chief of the breast surgery division. Gorski has launched several “hit pieces” about me and my views. In one article, he attacks the notion that vaccines have a part in driving variants. He also has criticized YouTuber/intellectual Brett Weinstein for supporting the use of ivermectin in our pandemic.

    Lack of Expertise

    In my view, Gorski is both stigmatizing honest scientists and seemingly trying to create socially-dangerous tensions between the vaxed and the unvaxed and between medical experts who hold different views on our current vaccines. Gorski creates false dichotomies wherein one is good (pro-vaccine, put faith in government) or bad (anti-vaccine, open to alternate views and arguments), and this type of discourse and rhetoric is incompatible with science.

    Gorski is also largely scientifically illiterate in the fields of virology, immunology, vaccines, and evolutionary biology. He cannot see that both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are involved in the evolutionary dynamics of the pandemic; his effort to blame the latter category is unfair and potentially dangerous. Dr. Gorski is quick to mix up unrelated topics to create parallels that don’t make sense. He unscientifically conflates or compares data about: live vaccines and inactivated vaccines; epidemics and pandemics; measles and SARS-CoV-2; herd immunity and vaccine coverage rates; efficacy with effectiveness in vaccines; and sterilizing immunity with transmission-reducing immunity.

    He also unfairly lumps me in with antivaxxers when I am pro (beneficial) vaccines. Much of this is likely based on the fact that Gorski’s expertise is largely lacking. His professional expertise in breast surgery seemingly does not allow him to opine intelligently about the topics at hand. And he regularly gets tangled up in his own misunderstandings and contradicts himself. Also, he sets himself up as a maximal “pro-vaxer” despite the noted lack of expertise in the various disciplines that apply to vaccination during a pandemic.

    Innate Immunity

    Gorski possesses no understanding of the workings of innate immunity, i.e., innate oligospecific antibodies or natural killer cells. He does not know the difference between innate (i.e., polyreactive) and naturally-acquired (i.e., antigen-specific) antibodies. This is clearly reflected by Gorski’s list of ‘factors proposed to explain the difference in severity of COVID-19 in children and adults’. None of these factors could explain why not only children, but any young and healthy individual, could become susceptible to Covid-19 disease only a few months after they got asymptomatically infected. This can only be explained as a result of suppression of protective, innate antibodies by spike-specific antibodies (including vaccinal antibodies) as the latter outcompete innate antibodies for binding to SARSs-CoV-2. Gorski’s list, therefore, is completely irrelevant in regard of the overarching mechanism of natural immune protection against Covid-19.

    He doesn’t have the wherewithal to understand the difference between naturally acquired immunity’s sterilizing cell-mediated immunity (CMI) and the S-based vaccines’ lack of CMI. He fails to see that there is currently no evidence of population-level immune selection pressure on CMI-mediated, sterilizing immunity induced in previously symptomatically infected persons. He doesn’t seem to realize that only a minor fraction of the population acquires protective immunity against COVID-19, whereas the vast majority are naturally protected by their first line of innate immune defense (a notion, he obviously didn’t even hear about).

    Gorski specifically claims that younger people are now getting infected more because, “the variant is so much more transmissible and, therefore, the higher the percentage of the population that needs to be immune.” He doesn’t even seem to realize that these younger (<65 years) and healthy people (i.e., the majority of the population) proved to be immune during the previous waves. So why would they all of a sudden lose their immunity a few months later? Further hurting his credibility, Gorski refers to ivermectin as an “anti-worm” drug and wildly misrepresents the evidence so far showing that it can help with COVID-19. Again pushing the false either/or paradigm, he puts ivermectin in the “bad” category without any nuances.

    …

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      1. Why no hope that Delta is less deadly?
        Why no hope for early treatment?
        Why no hope for IVM?
        Why no hope for natural immunity?
        Why no hope for a sterilizing vaccine?
        Why no hope for vitamin D?
        Why no hope for not being obese?
        Why no hope that the fuckers who created this are fried?

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        1. As someone who is slowly recovering (little bit better every day), I really want to see Fauci brought down. People with such hubris need what the Greek playwrights always gave them – their comeuppance. What’s particularly infuriating is how when the right was in power it was full of hubristic megalomaniacs and now with the left in power they’ve been replaced by hubristic incompetents – denialists all. That they don’t get their comeuppance just shows that laws of physics that rule this universe really don’t give a crap about us (and why should it? we are just stupid apes).
          AJ

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        2. Thank you Rob for asking questions.
          Last year I thought for a while that you were a lost cause – you seemed to be defending TPTB and said that you don’t believe in any stinking conspiracy theory about this pandemic.
          Seeing how one sided the incompetence/mistakes are it’s hard not to wonder: what is the goal?

          As for me, I have no idea. What I do know is that most of the “debates” are distractions.

          To change the subject, there is the debate about AGW. I think it is useless and a distraction. Why not focus on environmental destruction? That is something concrete that everybody in the world (even remote tribes) can see in their locality. Instead, people that cannot imagine the size of a dinosaur try to debate the whole Earth.

          Thanks!

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          1. Thanks NomadicBeer.

            I try to be an evidence based truth seeker but sometimes fail. If the TPTB do something wise I will praise them. If they’re ignorant or in denial I will call them out.

            The quality of the discussion about our AGW predicament and what needs to be done is so abysmally bad, even among the experts, that perhaps shifting the focus as you suggest would be a good idea. The problem I see is that the same solution is required for environmental destruction as AGW: we must reduce our footprint via austerity and population reduction, and we aggressively deny this reality.

            Why do you think the outcome might be better with a different focus?

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            1. Like you said, the same response is required for AGW and for environmental destruction. So instead of playing into the hands of the manipulators and talk about abstractions, why not talk to your neighbors about local issues? Talk to redneck hunters and you will see they agree with you about deforestation for example.
              Same with air or water pollution, soil loss etc. Talk to people that are suffering because of it and we might be able to do something locally.

              That being said, I don’t believe there is a happy ending here. The best we can hope for is that in some localities people will come together and manage to survive despite the attempts of the Great Reset crowd to enslave them.

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              1. I don’t know. Suffering people usually want better jobs. Here in BC there’s a big fight underway to save the last 5% of the old growth forests. We’ve cut 95% and we can’t even find the will to save 5%.

                I do agree that whatever the future brings will be local. With scarce energy and an unreliable internet there will be no choice but to be local.

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  100. Like

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