By Bill Rees: On the Virtues of Self-Delusion—or maybe not!

Dr. Bill Rees, Professor Emeritus from the University of British Columbia, gave a presentation on our overshoot predicament earlier this month to a zoom meeting of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR).

I’m a longtime fan of Dr. Rees and consider him to be one of the most aware and knowledgeable people on the planet.

This is, I believe, the best talk I’ve seen by Dr. Rees and he covers all of the important issues, including topics like overpopulation that most of his peers avoid.

Presentations like this will probably not change our trajectory but nevertheless I find some comfort knowing there are a few other people thinking about the same issues. This can be a very lonely space.

The Q&A is also very good. I found it interesting to hear how much effort Dr. Rees has made to educate our leaders about what we should be doing to reduce future suffering. He was frank that no one to date, including the Green party, is open to his message. Not surprising, but sad. Also inspiring that someone of his stature is at least trying.

Summary

Climate-change and other environmental organizations urge governments to act decisively/rapidly to decarbonize the economy and halt further development of fossil fuel reserves. These demands arguably betray:

– ignorance of the role of energy in the modern economy;

– ill-justified confidence in society’s ability to transition to 100% green renewable energy;

– no appreciation of the ecological consequences of attempting to do so and;

– little understanding of the social implications.

Without questioning the need to abandon fossil fuels, I will argue that the dream of a smooth energy transition is little more than a comforting shared illusion. Moreover, even if it were possible it would not solve climate change and would exacerbate the real existential threat facing society, namely overshoot.

I then explore some of the consequences and implications of (the necessary) abandonment of fossil fuels in the absence of adequate substitutes, and how governments and MTI society should be responding to these unspoken biophysical realities.

Biography

Dr. William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus, and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning.

His academic research focuses on the biophysical prerequisites for sustainability. This focus led to co-development (with his graduate students) of ecological footprint analysis, a quantitative tool that shows definitively that the human enterprise is in dysfunctional overshoot. (We would need five Earth-like planets to support just the present world population sustainably with existing technologies at North American material standards.)

Frustrated by political unresponsiveness to worsening indicators, Dr. Rees also studies the biological and psycho-cognitive barriers to environmentally rational behavior and policies. He has authored hundreds of peer reviewed and popular articles on these topics. Dr. Rees is a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada and also a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute; a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the OneEarth Initiative; and a Director of The Real Green New Deal. He was a full member of the Club of Rome from 2013 until 2018. His international awards include the Boulding Memorial Award in Ecological Economics, the Herman Daly Award in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with his former student, Dr. Mathis Wackernagel).

I left the following comment on YouTube:

I’m a fellow British Columbian and longtime admirer of Dr. Rees. Thank you for the excellent presentation.

I agree with Dr. Rees’ prescription for what needs to be done but I think there’s a step that must precede his first step of acknowledging our overshoot predicament.

Given the magnitude and many dimensions of our predicament an obvious question is why do so few people see it?

I found a theory by Dr. Ajit Varki that provides a plausible explanation, and answers other important questions about our unique species.

The Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory posits that the human species with its uniquely powerful intelligence exists because it evolved to deny unpleasant realities.

If true, this implies that the first step to any positive meaningful change must be to acknowledge our tendency to deny unpleasant realities.

Varki explains his theory here:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-25466-7_6

A nice video summary by Varki is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgYqW2Kgkg

My interpretations of the theory are here:
https://un-denial.com/denial-2/theory-short/

https://un-denial.com/2015/11/12/undenial-manifesto-energy-and-denial/

918 thoughts on “By Bill Rees: On the Virtues of Self-Delusion—or maybe not!”

  4. So, I’ve internally debated writing anything about this . . .
    But here goes.
    OPINION (rest of this comment)
    Some here suggested I read “The Case Against Reality” by Donald Hoffman.
    Let me first state I am no genius and take the perspective that I can be educated. However, I am no fool either (I graduated magna cum laude with an undergraduate degree in a basic premed curriculum. I then worked in biotech for 10 years. I subsequently went to a lower tier law school and graduated top of my class and passed the California Bar on my first attempt. And was a successful attorney). So, words/ideas are something I am familiar with.
    And for fun I have read a lot of history, classic literature, philosophy, and Science (and of course all the great recent books on collapse/overshoot/denial).
    This book was a poor attempt to explain the brain and reality. A veritable word hash/salad. I suspected soon after starting the book that the author would at some point go “woo” on me. Sure enough, he kept me waiting until the very end. The author’s position is that we live in a virtual reality and when we die the virtual reality that is this reality will come off and what will happen then???
    Sorry, but I think that is preposterous. When I die I think that I will be no more, I will cease to exist (as I did before I was born) from which I will not return (as none do). Just as evolution “designed” us to do.
    IMHO. The author, is just trying to explain the brain, consciousness and reality and attempts to do this by tying together (poorly) many ideas he has come across.
    However, just to show I am not a Luddite on this subject. . . I would recommend any of the books by Nick Lane. They are difficult books, dense (lots of biochemistry), but understandable. If the above book has done anything it is making me go back and reread the chapter on Consciousness in “Life Ascending” by Nick Lane.
    Thanks to those who recommended.
    AJ

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

        1. Not yet. I’m about a third into it. It’s very good but makes me so angry I can only take it for a few minutes then have to put on some music to calm down. How is it possible that evil people like this have the support of our leaders and citizens?

          Like

          Reply

      2. Do you suppose the male jewel beetles went“YEEEEAAAAA stubbies!” when they laid eyes on the shiny, brown dimpled glass bottom? Hey Rob do you remember the beer commercial with the line “short and stubby just like me?” Late 70s maybe 🤔

        Like

        Reply

        1. I don’t remember the commercial but I remember the stubby bottles because they were the only way to buy the 5 brands of beer we had in the liquor store when I was in high school.

          Today the liquor store has 500 brands of beer, each with a unique bottle, and all at risk of being past they’re best by date because there’s too much choice.

          We were much wiser and more energy efficient in the 70’s despite not being aware of peak oil and climate change.

          Like

          Reply

    2. I recommended the book. The fact that you went to a lower tier law school only raises you in my estimation. But you failed to mention your composting prowess in the recitation of your credentials.

      Like

      Reply

  7. https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/02/21/imperialism-in-bright-green/

    Greta Thunberg once famously asked, “why should we study for a future which is being taken away from us?” One answer is that if she had taken the time to properly study energy based economics and geopolitics, she might have learned that while the climate change which she rails against is real enough, the solutions being put forward by corporate interests depend upon the immiseration of the majority of the planet’s population in order that a tiny elite and its technocratic enablers can cling to a way of life that they openly admit is unsustainable.

    The truth is that net-zero and the Green New Great Reset is nothing to do with moving to a sustainable way of life. It is merely one final imperialist blowout before global industrial civilisation is done. Après ça, le deluge…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Another professor shared this article on LinkedIn. But luckily a few people in the comments called out Jacobson’s reputation for misleading numbers. I didn’t know he tried to sue people.

        Like

        Reply

  9. Think we should go to Defcon 0 (is there a number below 1?)? Putin recognized the two breakaway regions in Ukraine a few minutes ago. Instituted mutual defense agreements with them. Soon Russia will go forward to protect them (today?, tomorrow??). Then all bets about the immediate future are off (except collapse).
    AJ

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Sorry I just need somewhere to rant. Here’s an example of the quality of thinking from the intelligentsia in NZ. A NZ politician pulled covid case numbers from our Ministry of Health that showed vaccinated people are getting covid at the same rate as the unvaccinated (I can’t vouch for if his work is good or not). A couple of “experts” (epidemiologists with a track record of failed predications) got annoyed about it. Rather than saying what the politician did wrong with his numbers, they go off on all these tangents. There’s just so much hypocrisy I can barely fathom it all. But to sum up: they are trying to convince us their science is right by using ideology, rather than you know actual science… and they tell us to put our faith in institutions that have a demonstrable track record of failure.

    Original numbers run by the politician (he also provided a spreadsheet so you can check his work):
    In the eight days from Friday 11-Friday 18, when Omicron cases really took off, there were 347 new unvaccinated cases, 140 new partially vaccinated cases, and 7,085 new fully vaccinated cases. These figures are not reported transparently, and have to be derived from the Ministry of Health Website. Of course, there are far more vaccinated than unvaccinated people, so the raw numbers do not tell the full story. For every 100,000 unvaccinated persons, 225 tested positive. For every 100,000 partially vaccinated persons, 204 tested positive, and for every 100,000 fully vaccinated 178 persons tested positive. (N.B., updated to include Saturday’s cases, these numbers are now 267, 220, and 224).
    All of this leads to a simple conclusion. If there is little difference in the rates of infection and spread of Omicron between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, then what is the point of segregating them? From the opposite perspective, if segregation is increasingly costly and undesirable, what sort of difference in infection rates would we require to justify it, and is the difference between 178/100,000 and 225/100,000 enough?

    Article with the grumpy experts: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-experts-dismiss-seymours-claim-vax-rate-making-little-difference/CWMSRGXE35XT4BRIJXMRYESX5M/

    Another ‘expert’ has an opinion (notice how she never argues for actually making the Ministry data public or demonstrating why the numbers are wrong. I agree with her failure in science is fine, but the question is why do companies/institutions cover up their failures?):
    I’ve generally kept pretty quiet publicly on my thoughts about covid, however, one thing I see as an increasingly serious problem to society is the assumption that all opinions are of equal merit, the gross underestimation of the value of experts, and the perception that many people are doing their own “research”. Opinions such as in the attached article are dangerous.
    My first degree was in maths, and my takeaway message from this is that it’s genuinely hard. Certainly not something you can do with basic arithmetic. I wouldn’t even attempt to try to solve such a problem without even knowing what the assumptions are, I know it’s well beyond my scope so I recognise that and listen to the real experts.
    Similarly, when people say they’ve done their research, when what they mean is that they’ve reviewed someone else’s content on the internet, that may not be peer reviewed, that will certainly be biased on search terms and search engine algorithms that rank information according to what’s popular & what’s in line you’ve already looked at, as well as cherry picking & confirmation bias. This is not research. Genuine research takes years to learn, requires extensive facilities & teams and is up for constant challenge and change. This is why I will always choose to listen to organisations such as the CDC, WHO or MoH who have access to tested information.
    When people think science doesn’t work well because it has got things wrong in the past – they should know that is exactly why it does work well, precisely because it doesn’t hold onto preconceived or historic ideas.
    When we don’t listen to experts, what we’re saying is that we don’t value evidence, that it’s worth no more than opinions.
    If we don’t get these things right, we fail to think critically and the end result is that the most vulnerable are the most compromised. As a society, we must do better.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Kory, Dr. Vanden Bossche are FAR more expert AND honest AND open minded than Fauci and his counterpart in Canada.

      There is clearly another agenda in play and its slowly coming to light. The Rogan interview I linked above with Nawaz provides the clearest and most compelling evidence I have seen to date explaining the “non-healthcare” agenda of covid policies.

      The only piece that Nawaz and Rogan do not understand is our overshoot predicament due to energy depletion and how close we are to global collapse.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. It’s not easy making predictions in complex systems although the MIT researchers in their LtG report did a decent job IMO. PredictIt is an online prediction market that offers exchanges on political and financial events. It takes bets on near term events with clear winners and losers. I wonder if such an exchange could be used to predict key environmental tipping points or milestones like the predicted Blue Ocean Event? Or the date for when we hit 450 ppm c02? Or achievement of the SPARC fusion project at the MIT lab? Maybe some ppl would be foolish enough to bet against global warming events. You could even have several different betting pools on the effectiveness of vaccines and dying from Covid. It’s an interesting if somewhat gruesome thought. Anyone have any suggestions on how such an exchange might work? Maybe those kind of betting market feedbacks would inform decision makers for the better.

        Like

        Reply

        1. Oh crap. Sorry. Sloppy error on my part Rob. I should have noted that the MIT researchers “reviewed” the LtG report authored by the Meadows & commissioned by the Club of Rome in the 70s and concluded their predictions were on track. The Meadows should be acknowledged as the authors. You posted a video of Donella, or maybe it was Gail, I think it was Gail on OutFiniteWorld some months back that was very good.

          Like

          Reply

  12. Nice interview today by Richard Heinberg of the 80 year Dennis Meadows who is the author of Limits to Growth, the most important book ever written, and ignored.

    https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-02-22/dennis-meadows-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-publication-of-the-limits-to-growth/

    It’s not a question of whether policymakers are open or not; it’s whether they’re more likely now to take constructive action than they were 50 years ago. That’s a complex question, and I don’t know the answer. Action requires not just openness, but also resources and concern. I’ve been able to convince people that, for example, climate change is coming. They don’t take action, not because they don’t believe me, but because they just don’t care. They’re focused on a short-term perspective within which the current system is giving them the power and the money they aspire to. They see no need for change.

    It’s ironic, but with these kinds of problems over time, the concern tends to go up, but the discretionary resources tend to go down. And it’s often the case that, by the time policymakers become sufficiently concerned about something to start wondering what to do, they no longer have sufficient discretionary resources to be very effective. And this is all compounded with what I call the time horizon vicious circle. Because we haven’t taken effective action in the past, crises are mounting. It’s in the nature of the political response that, when crisis comes, you focus more and more on the short term, and your time horizon shrinks. And because that leads you to do things which fundamentally don’t solve the problem, the crisis gets worse. So, as the crisis gets worse, the time horizon shrinks even more, bad decision making increases, and the crisis goes up even further. That’s where I see us now.

    I’ve used the metaphor sometimes of the roller coaster, which, for my German audiences, the most prominent example would be the one at Oktoberfest in Munich. In 1972, using this metaphor, I could say that the situation was kind of like a group of people standing at the ticket window and wondering whether or not they ought to get on the train. They still had a chance not to do it. But, in this analogy, they did. They got on the car, and they enjoyed a short period of growth up to the top of the first hill. Now they’re about to start to descend, and they no longer have much room for constructive action. All they can do is hold on and hope to survive the trip. That’s a simplistic way of understanding our situation, but it puts policymaking into a useful perspective.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I read this and don’t know what to think. In the least harmful scenario this just shows that Moderna had something to do with the creation of SARS COV 2(or it was inadvertently out in by the Wuhan lab). At the worst scenario this could be devised to kill a lot of people by cancer?
      AJ

      Like

      Reply

      1. I don’t know but it’s a pretty good clue for why it only took 1 year rather than the usual 10 years to develop the vaccine.

        Meanwhile our leaders show zero interest in figuring out what happen so we can prevent a recurrence, and instead choose to jail without bail a peaceful protester that questions their judgment.

        It makes me crazy.

        Like

        Reply

  15. I’m pretty sure that one reason many citizens support covid policies and oppose the freedom convoy, regardless of evidence, is that they think the opposition is coming mainly from the extreme right wing that also opposes things they care about like climate change action, abortion rights, gun control, etc.

    People like el gato malo, who provides some of the most intelligent critical analysis of covid policies, and that occasionally weighs in on energy and climate policy demonstrating his ignorance and denial of our overshoot reality, reinforce those views. He should shut up and focus on covid.

    https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/kitten-corner-oil-prices/comments?utm_source=url

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. The same tunnel vision seems to be the problem with Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker (https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker).
      He understands quite a lot about Covid and the vaxes and is equally knowledgeable about the market and economy. He’s kinda middle of the road (slightly right) on politics (in the U.S.) but knows nothing of collapse, overshoot and how climate is warming as a result of civilization. It gets old reading some of it and having to separate so much chafe from the wheat.
      AJ

      Like

      Reply

      1. I have a fuzzy recollection that 10+ years ago Denninger used to discuss overshoot related issues, which is why I followed him back then. But I might be wrong, and he is silent on these issues lately. Maybe someone else has a better memory than me.

        Like

        Reply

  16. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick today explains that the word “vaccine” has nuance, and reminds us that corners were cut despite the approved narrative, and discusses the worrying myocarditis signal.

    https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2022/02/23/a-few-thoughts-on-covid19-vaccination/

    Yet, we are still informed by the BBC, in all seriousness, that no corners were cut, or will be cut. The fact is that corners were absolutely one hundred per cent cut. Slashed to the bone would perhaps be more accurate. To pretend otherwise is simply to deny reality.

    It normally takes around ten years for any drug, or vaccine, to move through the clinical trials process, with each step done in series. COVID19 vaccines took around six months from start to finish, with critical steps done in parallel, and the animal testing was rushed – to say the least. To claim that no corners were cut is nonsense. Nonsense that we are virtually forced to believe?

    …we are talking about a ten-year process, cut down to six months, or thereabouts. An additional concern is that this happened using mRNA vaccines, which represent a completely new form of technology. One that has never been used on humans before at all, ever.

    As you can tell, I still cling to the concept of ‘first do no harm.’ Today, with COVID19, it seems this this idea has become hopelessly naïve. The current attitude seems to be. ‘We are at war; you must expect casualties’ ‘Also, careless talk costs lives.’ So, my friend, I advise you to keep your ‘vulnerable’ mouth shut, if you know what is good for you.’

    Well then, I just hope for everyone’s sake, that these figures are completely wrong. They are, after all, only a model. A worst-case scenario created using the most accurate information available at this time. However, as per the SAGE underlying philosophy, I believe it is important to present the information whether uncomfortable or encouraging.

    The thing that most concerns me the most is that we have a worrying signal emerging about the mRNA vaccines. A signal surrounded by a lot of noise, admittedly. Yet, the ‘official’ response continues to be to sweep the entire thing under the carpet. ‘Nothing to see here, move along.’

    Like

    Reply

  18. New episode of Nate Hagens’ Great Simplification podcast.

    On this episode, we meet with author and paleobiologist Peter Ward.

    Ward helps us catalogue the various risks facing Earth’s oceans, how the Atlantic Ocean’s currents are slowing due to warming, what happened in Earth’s history when ocean currents stopped, and why a reduction in elephant poaching is contributing to the destruction of coral reefs.

    Peter Ward is a Professor of Biology and Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He is author of over a dozen books on Earth’s natural history including On Methuselah’s Trail: Living Fossils and the Great Extinctions; Under a Green Sky; and The Medea Hypothesis, 2009, (listed by the New York Times as one of the “100 most important ideas of 2009”). Ward gave a TED talk in 2008 about mass extinctions.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Excellent interview with a superb example of why WASF.

      On the one hand, Peter Ward is a brilliant man who articulates the severe threat of climate change as good or better than anyone on the planet, and wisely laments the lack of scientific literacy, for which he uses as an example, those who are killing themselves by denying the effectiveness of masks for covid, despite there being no credible science supporting mask use for covid.

      You can’t make this shit up.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Rob,
        I still have a problem with masks. Way back at the start of the pandemic, Chris Martenson pushed masks with the argument that they did not protect the wearer for Covid but protected everyone else from a mask wearer (who had C0vid) spreading (aerosol) viral particles to other people (the uninfected). Hence, if everyone wore masks it would decrease spread. Then I quit paying attention. I know at first, the MSM and the “experts” went on a campaign first to tell people masks were ineffective (when they were not available) and then that they were effective (when they became available). I think the MSM and “experts” are/were saying that the proper mask prevented the user from getting viral particles. That is the current view? Which is wrong? Correct? Has Martenson’s initial view been dismissed or was it wrong?
        AJ

        Like

        Reply

        1. fyi, I wear a mask indoors around other people without complaint, in part because I view it as disguise to avoid being viewed as anti-vax.

          I also recall the same changing history of mask effectiveness that you do.

          The people I trust who have looked at the science for and against say that for the masks most of us wear (ie not properly installed N90s) there is no credible evidence showing they have any positive effect. The few studies that do support mask policies have been shown to be garbage science.

          That would include el gato, Weinstein, Cummins, eugyppius (I think), Kendrick (I think), and others I can’t remember. I don’t recall Martenson’s recent position on masks.

          I have not looked at the science first hand so am more than willing to change my mind if someone credible makes a good case. But it will have to be someone other than the unethical idiots in our government.

          There is good reason to suspect masks don’t help because viruses are MUCH smaller than cloth mask pores.

          Like

          Reply

          1. Masks are not necessary at all in health settings (I mean, maybe you might not want the dentist inadvertently coughing into your open mouth, just out of general ickiness, but..).

            “Is a mask necessary in the operating theatre?

            “Summary: No masks were worn in one operating theatre for 6 months. There was no increase in the incidence of wound infection.”
            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2493952/?page=1

            Early on in the covid fiasco, I came across an image of a printed letter to the editor of a newspaper somewhere in Britain. The authors were two surgeons who, along with their staff, never wore masks at all in their private practice. Wish I had kept that image.

            Like

            Reply

          2. In 2020, I tried to share what was a recently-published article in the New England Journal of Medicine on a local bulletin board (it’s called Front Porch Forum, but there are others, like NextDoor). My post got censored. I tried to resend it again more recently, since they still want kids to remain masked here, but again it was censored. I wasn’t polemical; I merely offered that the NEJM article stated, “We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.” Too lazy to look for the link but it’s May 2020.

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply

        2. Check out Steve Kirsch’s substack. I think he has a compilation of mask studies on there. They’re useless.
          They need to keep the masking going because of the pyschological effects it causes: prolonging the fake ‘pandemic’/emergency.

          I know that I am viscerally repulsed by mask-wearers. My neurons keep firing “something is wrong! something is wrong!” and it is impossible for me to relax. I talked to a pro-masker and she said seeing everyone in a mask made her feel good. It made her feel safe! I just find that so hard to believe…

          Like

          Reply

          1. Hi lidiaseventeen,
            Sorry for some reason one of your comments was auto-moved to the WordPress spam folder and I saw it milliseconds after I clicked to delete all the spam.
            If it was important please repost it.

            Like

            Reply

          2. Wearing masks and getting jabbed are popular with the herd because following mainstream protocol is so much easier than actually exercising and losing weight. The lack of self-respect among the overweight/obese can be counted on by the puppet masters. What do I find viscerally repulsive? Breeders, especially the fat ones.

            Like

            Reply

  19. el gato uncovers another warning signal, which he is careful to say still needs to be vetted.

    https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/german-vaccine-side-effects-data?utm_source=url

    all in all, this is a pretty massive canary to see drop dead in your coal mine and warrants immediate and serious work.

    if this is anything like what it looks like (and once more, let’s be clear, we need to validate this but we’re seeing an awful lot of consonance from independent data), this is going to be one of the great scandals in human history. it will make thalidomide look like forgetting your house keys.

    the lack of urgency or even interest from public health agencies on this issue has been astonishing.

    this feels like a “drop everything and get every public health official that can fog a mirror working on it” kind of issue.

    instead we get crickets and stonewalling.

    not terribly confidence inspiring, is it?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  20. Tom Murphy et. al. have established an interdisciplinary organization called PLAN (Planetary Limits Academic Network) to address overshoot.

    They have 10 foundational principles:

    Humans are a part of nature, not apart from nature.
    Non-renewable materials cannot be harvested indefinitely on a finite planet.
    The ability of Earth’s ecosystems to assimilate pollution without consequences is finite.
    Energy throughput is essential to all human activities, including the economy.
    Technology is a tool for deploying, not creating energy.
    Fossil fuel combustion is the primary cause of ongoing global climate change.
    Exponential growth, whether of physical or economic form, must eventually cease.
    Today’s choices can simultaneously create problems for and deprive resources from future generations.
    Human behavior is consciously and unconsciously shaped by mental models of culture that, while mutable, impose barriers to change.
    Apparent success for a few generations during a massive draw-down of finite resources says little about chances for long-term success.

    I observe they are missing an 11th principle that makes having the other 10 a waste of time:

    No progress can be made at reducing future suffering caused by human overshoot until there is broad awareness of the human genetic behavior to deny unpleasant realties, as explained by Ajit Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory.

    Paper:
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629621003327

    Radio Ecoshock interview with Murphy:
    https://www.ecoshock.org/2022/02/the-rising-methane-emergency-euan-nisbet.html

    Like

    Reply

  22. Latest evidence that US “healthcare” leaders, including the guy still in charge, helped to create the virus and are now working hard to cover up their actions.

    One guy with Comcast connection figured most of this out 2 years ago.

    Shame on our news media, and everyone that works in this domain.

    Like

    Reply

    1. That’s about the size of it. We’ve been recklessly pushing NATO expansion, and crazy neocons like Victoria Nuland at the State Department have been whacking the hornet’s nest in Ukraine since 2014.

      This video is dated, and is NSFW in a big way, but it is funny as hell, and tells a lot about the Russian outlook. It was done in 2002, on the eve of the Bush administration going in to Iraq. Vladimir Zhirinovsky is holding forth at a drunken house party, with a message for Bush. Zhirinovsky is a Russian politician widely viewed as a crackpot, but he has been around since the 1990s, riding largely on the public backlash in Russia at the way it was treated after the Soviet Union collapsed, with foreign carpetbagging bottom-feeders setting up shop and ivory-tower fatheads like Larry Summers pushing economic shock therapy and privatization. Turn up the volume, especially if you know some Russian.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  26. More evidence of the Pfizer fraud.

    https://etana.substack.com/p/pfizer-data-manipulation-a-piece?utm_source=url
    https://www.iambrookjackson.com/

    On September 25, 2020, Brooke called the FDA directly and was directed to their website to file a complaint. She filed a complaint with 14 issues, beginning with the words “It is without hesitation that I’m reporting patient safety issues”.

    A few hours after filing the complaint, Ventavia called and fired her. She called an attorney and filed a “false claims act” against Ventavia and Pfizer. In doing that, the case immediately went under seal, meaning she was not allowed to discuss the study, and it stayed that way for over a year. Now that the US govt has declined to open an investigation themselves, the case has become unsealed and Brook has been unsilenced.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  28. The poster child for brilliant polymaths who are in denial of our energy driven overshoot is Eric Weinstein. I’ve written about him in the past:

    Eric Weinstein: A Case Study in Denial

    Today Weinstein published a 3 minute high quality video explaining our predicament and what we need to do.

    In summary:
    – our 2 big threats are nuclear war and genetic engineering
    – because we’re not wise enough to control these technologies, our species is doomed
    – to ensure the survival of humans we must colonize Mars

    Despite Weinstein being really smart and well educated he missed the most important short-term threat (energy depletion), and proposes a solution that any physicist should know is impossible, and doesn’t explain why we wouldn’t take our nuclear weapons and genetic engineering with us to Mars, and doesn’t mention the only thing that would help our predicament (population reduction).

    How is this possible?

    It’s not, unless Varki’s MORT is true.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  31. Mac10’s a little fuzzy but I think he’s saying there may be a market correction in our future.

    https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-crime-of-century.html

    Why the crime of the century? Because when this hot air bubble explodes, there will be NOTHING left to show for it. Corporations will be mass insolvent, households will be mass insolvent, state and local will be insolvent and many global governments will be insolvent. It will be a very hard landing back to the zero bound with non-existent monetary stimulus. The liabilities that attend this delusion will remain at all time highs while the assets collapse. Of course when Fed and Congress are trading stocks along with everyone else, then it’s easy to overlook the level of chicanery accompanying this sugar bubble. Nevertheless, the level of widely accepted fraud and criminality in this era exceeds all other recent economic cycles combined. The pandemic spawned a late cycle blow-off top in speculative mania which unleashed unfettered greed, fraud, and corruption. The fullness of time will reveal this sugar rally to have been a fool’s rally of epic proportion. One by one all of the global markets are collapsing back below the 2020 pre-pandemic high: Chinese/Hong Kong stocks, Biotech, Fintech, Global IPOs, Ark ETFs, now German stocks are flirting with breaking the 2020 support level.

    Like

    Reply

  32. Didn’t know Russia was the biggest exporter of nitrogen fertilizer.
    h/t Panopticon

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/nitrogen-fertilizer-prices-spike-after-russian-attack-on-ukraine

    Fertilizer prices are skyrocketing on concerns that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will curtail global supplies.

    Prices for the popular nitrogen fertilizer urea in New Orleans surged Thursday to $700 per short ton versus $560 earlier in the week, a 25% jump, according to Bloomberg’s Green Markets.

    Russia was the world’s largest exporter of nitrogen products in 2021. The risk of disruption to shipments comes as costs for fertilizers have already been soaring because of high prices for natural gas in Europe, which forced some plants to halt or curtail production. The spike for the nutrient is stoking concerns about rising food inflation as crop prices climb.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Agreed.

      Unfortunately it looks like the NATO block still intends to supply future munitions and arms. I’m not here to argue morally about whether fears about national security SHOULD entitle a nation to aggress, but it is OBVIOUS historically that such concerns DO lead nations to act in this manner. To ignore this is either disingenuous, stupid, or purposeful. We need a new “hat trick” to encompass all three – Stupid liars with bad ideas? I suggest: “Stupor-villains” – those who are both evil and incompetent!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  35. As I work my way through Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book on Fauci the same thought keeps repeating over and over in my brain.

    How is it possible that the guy in charge who didn’t made a single correct decision for minimizing covid harm retains his job and the support of our leaders?

    The answer’s obvious. It’s not possible. Unless minimizing covid harm is not the top priority of his bosses.

    Sorry for saying what many of you probably think is obvious but I had to say it.

    I have real trouble accepting that some of our leaders are this evil.

    Even if the real goal is to implement tools that might help to reduce harm from the coming economic/energy collapse, it’s not ok to kill hundreds of thousands of people with a virus as collateral damage.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Rob, I agree. Every blogger/pundit that I respect seems to think that the market is due for a crash. My personal opinion is they are probably right but markets are illogical. A war will be rationalized by the greedy until they are wiped out. Some of this comes from experience with losing money in the dot.com bubble when I was younger. Sooner or later it will pop, when is still a guess.
      AJ

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

          1. James in late January commented on collapseofindustrialcivilization.com — it’s in the message string of xraymike’s latest post. James said he “ran out of quarters” for his “jukebox of doom”. Apparently, his family all came down with omicron. Sounds like megacancer.com is out of commission. I think Google has cached his old posts.

            Like

            Reply

  39. This is an interesting, well-researched video on why Putin / Russia is in Ukraine. It dwells on the historical, geopolitical, economic and energy angles — it doesn’t justify the brutality of the Russian invasion, but tries to put the viewer in the mindset of the Russian policymaker. It seems to have gone viral, with over 5 million views and 17,000+ comments, and it has been up for less than a week.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thank you. It’s an excellent and fairly balanced explanation of the conflict in Ukraine which involves energy, water, climate change, and security. No mention of nuclear risks, or US involvement in 2014 Ukraine regime change, or Russia’s peaked and soon to be declining energy production.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Some weasel words regarding gas reserves in that report. In 2012 it was reported apparently that the Black Sea around Crimea “may” have large reserves and in Ukraine proper there may be “potential” shale gas hotspots.
        Unless you’re the reserve currency printer and can waste money as you choose does shale gas ever make sense?-I don’t know.
        See the great Polish shale gas find
        https://www.dw.com/en/polish-shale-hits-the-rocks/a-19279069#:~:text=Poland%20is%20estimated%20to%20have%20between%20350%20billion,commercial%20quantities%2C%20and%20the%20prospects%20don%27t%20look%20good.
        “The foreign pullout started when ConocoPhillips announced in July 2015 it was putting a halt to its shale gas exploration in Poland due to what it said were unsatisfactory results.
        That basically left the rest of the field to Polish state-run firms – after Chevron, another US energy major, gave up looking for shale gas earlier in the year. Exxon Mobil, Total and Marathon Oil had already ceased their Polish shale-gas efforts over the previous three years.
        ConocoPhillips said its subsidiary Lane Energy Poland had invested around $220 million (196 million euros) in Poland since 2009, drilling seven wells over its three Western Baltic concessions.
        “Unfortunately, commercial volumes of natural gas were not encountered,” Tim Wallace, ConocoPhillips country manager in Poland, said.”
        Or closer to home – Monterey shale from the always excellent Kurt Cobb
        https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2021/12/us-shale-oil-and-gas-forecast-too-good.html

        Again it seems to me unlikely, to say the least, that there are many, if any, large fossil fuel deposits (except perhaps lignite) west of the Urals but I’m no expert.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  40. I’m beginning to wonder if world leaders have been quietly reading my blog 🙂 and now with their veil of denial lifted see the merit in my argument that the only good path forward is a planned economic contraction because the alternative is an uncontrolled and violent economic explosion.

    Given our leaders’ aggressive opposition to any covid policy that would calm panic and reduce harms, it is reasonable to wonder if they wanted to slow the economy.

    Now with the stated goal of punishing Russia, they are again pushing policies that will probably not deter Russia but will definitely slow the economy.

    I also observe that our leaders are reckless. In the case of covid they underestimated the risks of a new vaccine technology. In the case of Russia they underestimate the possibility that Russia will let nukes fly before it gives up a buffer in Ukraine.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  41. Your can see the consequences of the internet gutting the traditional news media organizations. I remember news reports from the Vietnam and Desert Storm wars when reporters broadcast live from the fighting zones.

    This morning I listened to 30 minutes of Ukraine news from Al Jazeera, BBC, CTV, and CBC. It was all blah blah blah. The only hard news about the war was a satellite photo released by western authorities of a column of armored vehicles approaching Kiev.

    What a disgrace news is today.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  42. Gail Tverberg today explains how energy is a key driver of Russia’s actions.

    In summary:
    – Desperation causes desperate actions.
    – Russia fears a repeat of the 1991 Soviet Union collapse that was caused by low energy prices.
    – Russia needs higher energy prices to prevent its economy from collapsing.
    – The west needs Russia’s energy to not collapse but cannot afford higher energy prices.
    – Russia intends to shift its energy exports to China because China might be able to afford higher energy prices.

    The scary thing is that our idiot leaders do not understand any of this, and so may be doing more harm to us than to Russia.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/03/02/russias-attack-on-ukraine-represents-a-demand-for-a-new-world-order/

    Like

    Reply

    1. The scary thing is that our idiot leaders do not understand any of this

      Hi Rob and all, what about Putin, do you think he gets it?

      Like

      Reply

      1. I don’t know, probably not.

        We’re shaking an unstable system that was already on the edge of collapse, and the monkeys in charge have stone age brains and nuclear weapons.

        Like

        Reply

        1. I thought Gail did a good job of both Russia and energy and how they both underpin everything about our current world. I think there is more strategy to Putin (and understanding) than all of the U.S. political establishment combined (the Europeans don’t add one iota to that). Not to say that Putin is a genius but he seems to be a clearer more logical thinker than most in power. I doubt he sees collapse coming or even the causes.
          If I knew how to cut out the chart Mac10 had today in his post I would. IT IS PERFECT for a world civilization in decline.
          AJ

          Like

          Reply

  43. After over a year of growing his subscriber base by providing excellent covid journalism, Chris Martenson wades back into peak oil. I’m very curious to see what happens to his business. I hope he succeeds, but I’m guessing he’ll be back to non-overshoot issues soon.

    Like

    Reply

  44. Hagens interviewed Ehrlich today. A little too much denial of how bad our situation is for my taste. Empowering women to reduce the birth rate was a good idea in 1970. We need much stronger medicine today.

    Like

    Reply

    1. That was impressive. Even a few things from “civilization” would make this so much easier. No wonder natives took an interest in items (other than alcohol) that “traders” brought with them. I have no doubt that our ancestors, if any, will live more like this than like us.
      AJ

      Like

      Reply

    1. I didn’t think the simulation was realistic. With this amount of nuclear exchange, IMHO you would have quite a few more deaths worldwide in 12 months than only 1/2 billion. I think it would be close to 8? This low figure of 1/2 billion deaths would probably be in a few days/weeks.
      AJ

      Like

      Reply

    1. Gasoline prices in Germany are approaching the 2€ barrier. I have never seen such a high price for gasoline before. Before the pandemic, we had prices around 1,30€. After an initial crash to 1,10€ at the start of the pandemic, when oil demand slumped, we had a relatively stable price aroung 1,50€ during most of the last year. This is really worrying.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

        1. Heating Oil is even worse. At the end of 2020 I bought heating oil for 0,40€ per Liter, at the end of last year, we were already at 0,80€ per Liter. Today, the average price is 1,40€ per Liter. So, while gasoline prices increased by a factor of 1,3 since last fall, we have an increase by a factor of 1,75 for heating oil since last fall.

          I am not sure about natural gas, but the cancelling of Nordstream 2 due to the Russian/Ukrainian war does not bode well for Gas prices in Germany.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  49. The Ukraine conflict will accelerate the transition to renewables. Unfortunately most of the renewables will be trees that are close enough to homes to be chopped down with axes and transported with wheelbarrows.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Too bad, that our landlord has cut down a lot of trees on our plot before we moved in. They could have been useful soon.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a reply to AJ Cancel reply