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/
un-Denial 
What is real reason for China shutting down?
1) Legitimate concern about covid outbreak.
2) Desire to punish US for Ukraine response.
3) Supply chain problems caused by peak everything & war.
h/t CTG @ OFW
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/world-economy-braces-supply-chain-chaos-covid-closes-china
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Rob have you encountered the work of Peter Zeihan? He has an interesting perspective on China’s future and possibly also offers some good explanations for their current woes..
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No I haven’t. Thanks for the tip.
In his most recent video he says “falling Russian population means there are insufficient Russians to repopulate the country over the course of the next 30 years.”
Doesn’t sound like he is overshoot aware. Falling population is a huge asset that should be celebrated.
In his second to last video on Russian oil he argues the Ukraine war will shut in oil from the global market for a long time and oil prices will explode over $200. He seems to not be aware of Steve Ludlum’s triangle of doom which means he does not understand energy.
Should I invest more time on him?
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I think his perspectives on how demographics influence the economy and political decisions are informative. E.g. when more of your population is retirement age how does your economy behave? I haven’t yet heard him express an opinion on whether or not we are overpopulated. I only just starting looking into his work. I’ll keep you posted if I find any gold nuggets. His thoughts on China: rapidly aging population, capital flight, indefensible geography, han group have struggled for 2500 years for supremacy, likely to be internal conflict between groups, covid is a good excuse to keep control of the population, leadership is full of yes-men so policy isn’t solving challenges (also can’t backtrack on covid policies), China dependent on global security for trade (which he says is going away). He predicts a declining China, which is not a position you often hear. He has also predicted wheat quadrupling in price by end of the financial year. He is predicating famine 😦
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I think Zeihan is a great meta-thinker. His specialties are geography and demographics, hard realities less subject to interpretation, which is why he is so convincing. He thinks overshoot has been caused by the prosperity induced by globalization which was a creation of Pax Americana, the U.S. patrolling the seas to allow free trade in exchange for alignment against the Soviet threat during the Cold War. Which is now over. So the U.S. is abandoning its global policeman role and overshoot will quickly unwind as global dependency on free trade hits a brick wall. He is very worried about famine, and not especially caused by climate change, but caused more by lack of imported inputs for industrial ag, which the world has become dependent on for survival in the large numbers we now have. He sees overshoot as sadly temporary. A short blip in a world necessarily going regional.
Zeihan doesn’t moralize much, doesn’t theorize, and doesn’t talk much about cultural influences. He accepts rivalry and war as givens, which I find appalling, but I must admit they’ve been hugely important historically. He calls things as he sees them, maybe has some biases, who doesn’t, but overall is refreshingly attached to reality.
I have long thought that an ecological factor like overshoot would eventually self-correct without any need for our conscious intervention. Zeihan shows how indeed that is happening in the natural course of world geopolitics. And it looks like it’s proceeding mercifully fast enough to preserve most of biodiversity. So I find Zeihan cheering.
So ironic that geopolitics, which I think so irrational –the rivalry, the othering, the saber-rattling –doesn’t actually go according to some human-made strategic plan, but instead goes along more or less willy nilly, generating beaucoup unintended consequences as if it were merely one part of the mindless flow of ecology itself.
Am I wrong to feel this as liberating? We can relax and nestle into our sheltering earth, our generative universe, and take our time to feel our way along into who we are. We don’t have to drive the car because the car is driving us.
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Welcome and thank you for the introduction to Zeihan.
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Beautiful sight. We only have Black-headed gulls here in the city but never this many.
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The end must be nigh. 🙂 Mac10 today is more hyperbolic than his normal hyperbolic self.
But wait, there’s more. Mac10 appears blind to the energy and nuclear risks of Ukraine.
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2022/03/liquidity-trap.html
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Norman Pagett today on the meaning of life…
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/03/02/russias-attack-on-ukraine-represents-a-demand-for-a-new-world-order/comment-page-18/#comment-355683
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Norm takes a lot of chit over there at OFW but still jumps in with some gems.
FYI, just noticed James and Megacancer are back online.
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Yes, I can’t participate in the OFW gong show. I feel bad for Gail. She’s pretty much the only person doing original research on the economic implications of energy depletion and anyone visiting her site will immediately conclude her ideas belong to whack jobs.
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I would add to Norman’s observation that for a super intelligent species like humans to exist it must deny unpleasant realities so that an understanding of the meaning of life does not interfere with executing the meaning of life.
Therefore a super intelligent species cannot exist without denial.
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Excellent essay on the risk of nuclear war and our leaders and citizens that increase the risk by denying it.
https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/03/17/flirting-with-armageddon-is-ukraine-leading-to-nuclear-war/
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Rob,
I was just about to post this to your blog! I have been so depressed since I read this (and all his sub-links) about an hour ago. It’s hard not to go out and have a large drink and a cigar (and throw to hell all of my reformed, healthier living of the last 9 months). This was the most scary analysis I have read since Watson’s prior post on this subject a few weeks ago. The only solution I see is that Biden doesn’t change his mind (if there is one) on the no fly zone and Russia winds up it’s victory over the Ukrainian rulers rapidly (and there is a change in Ukrainian leadership). Even that is fraught with potential for going south. We are led by fools and are a nation (the entire West) of fools (at least 50% of us). I remember the Cuban missile crisis and the whole duck & cover era and anyone who thinks civilization or humans survive a nuclear war is an idiot.
Perhaps this is how we end evolution’s experiment with large brains? Would this scenario even have been possible without oil/natural gas? Probably couldn’t have gone nuclear with just coal (I don’t think it would scale up enough)?
Thanks for the blog – it’s contributed to my sanity for the last year or so.
AJ
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I too am much more depressed and stressed than normal. I have a really bad feeling about the near term. Even if we avoid nuclear war I think the economic implications will be profound.
My understanding of our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities is not helping me cope with how gobsmacking stupid our leaders are.
There is zero intelligent discussion about anything that matters.
We are on an unstable precipice and no one sees the danger.
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I told my sister a couple of months ago, that no matter how crazy the Covid hysteria was, I hoped that it continued for as long as possible, because what comes next would be worse. I knew the next thing would be bad, but I assumed a cyber attack, not a slow-motion wind up to WW3. And I have become convinced that the West is the bad guy in this drama. If it weren’t for the beautiful spring weather, I would be a complete mess.
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You were ahead of me. I did not think our covid insanity could worsen, but it has. We’re like too many rats in a cage being shocked. Imagine when food and gas become scarce.
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Just on case you do decide to go off line Rob, I’d like to thank you for all your effort in maintaining this blog. You’ve had a big impact on me.
I really do think of switching off too sometimes.
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Thanks for the kind words Perran and thanks for the company.
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Hello Rob and friends,
I hear you and join in the commiseration for our self-exalted species, now clearly endangered. Hang in there, stalwart un-deniers! Maybe also being pushed to the brink of stupefied incredulity for how everything is unfolding has led me to ponder the issue from a new perspective: could it possibly be that the world events are actually transpiring to meet an agenda long set and planned, one that is fully cognisant of the overshoot predicament and is a concerted attempt to re-direct the course of human existence as restitution? Maybe instead of thinking our leaders are utterly inept, could it be that they are working under the pull of a hidden hand which has placed all the players on the chessboard for their ability to accomplish their part of the mission? It all begins with the question of how else to address our overshoot for energy dependence except to simultaneously reduce our population and collapse the economy? Isn’t what is happening (pandemic, real or otherwise, the subsequent vaccine mass experiment, expanding war arenas and the geopolitical, economic fallout) leading to these two very outcomes through increased morbidity and mortality, globalized supply and production meltdown, and energy scarcity which will ultimately implode our economic house of cards. This will lead to ever more morbidity, mortality and conflict but eventually secure the goal of severe reduction of population as well as energy consumption. We gather here together to bemoan the fact nothing is being done about what needs to be done, and nothing is being said what needs to be decried from every mountaintop, but perhaps the wheels are already in motion to do the very stuff that no-one can speak or admit out loud. For how would the reaction be if world leaders openly declaimed our inevitable predicament with the predetermined twin solution of immediate population reduction policies and controlled collapse of the material world as we know it. Every pandemic would be seen as a planned extinction event, there would be no hope of enticing unsuspecting masses to experimental vaccines, and a general societal collapse due to disintegrating trust in every system would ensue—that is if humans truly can overcome their erstwhile saviour and panacea, Denial, which at this point remains debatable! Perhaps denial is our saving grace after all, because if the masses can and do wake up, chaos and anarchy most likely will be the first and irreversible reaction. Thus, I have come to accept that this truly is a topic which cannot and must not be named, if there is any hope of a staged, controlled contraction of our human dominion. Once this realization came into my consciousness, I took on the mind game of being world leader pretend who actually is trying to balance ultimate survival of the planet and humanity–how better to effect my agenda without reveal than to hide it in the open where the denial-bedecked masses will just come to accept as their lot in life, living in these perilous and changeable times. We can understand war (even nuclear), pandemics, disease, famine, scarcity, reduced fertility, and natural disasters because permutations of these events have plagued humanity from year dot–they have made and destroyed empires and levelled populations in a manner that offends but not obliterates our sensibilities. And perhaps this is even where I can convince myself that progressive but ultimately controlled destruction is the more humane effort and in the final analysis leads to less overt suffering. Is it more compassionate to spare the masses from knowing and experiencing the catastrophic fate that awaits with certainty if no intervention was attempted and just usher them through the remainder of what seems a reasonable life given the circumstances, albeit shortened, less prosperous and more turmoiled? I do not begin to presume that I can even can begin to know, but perhaps some other entity who actually has that prerogative and power has already cast the die and the game has begun in earnest. Is this something to mark with solemn approbation or abject horror? Would any one of us cast the first stone in judgement for that which we have no other recourse? I am but a humble witness as well as participant to this unchartered reality.
It has taken not a little courage for me to wear my mind’s eye on my sleeve but I offer the above musings to this august company for your perusal and rejoinder which I wholeheartedly welcome in hopes that we may arrive at yet another interpretation that will engender consolation for our collective sympathies.
We approach the Autumn equinox here in the southern hemisphere, and most of you are welcoming the return of the sun. How we crave both equanimity and the light to help us through these strange and interesting times! Best wishes for peace, joy, and beauty in every day to you all. Thank you, Rob, for that uplifting reminder of the overflowing benisons of nature. Your video brought me immediately to Pink Floyd’s Learning to Fly lyrics “Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies, tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I” Very apposite! In fact, I think I will just listen to that on full bore now! That should shake off a bit of the doldrums.
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Hello Gaia gardener, thank you for contributing and welcome.
I’m not sure if you are suggesting a hidden hand of nature in play, or conscious actions by our leaders?
If the former, I agree with you. Nature always corrects overshoot.
If the latter, others share your view that covid and Ukraine might have been planned by our leaders to deal with overshoot. I personally think this is unlikely for several reasons:
1) There are simpler more probable explanations, like for example a mistake made in the Wuhan lab, which led to an opportunity for leaders who are worried about economic collapse to opportunistically get some tools in place like vaccine passports to manage the coming social unrest.
2) Events like pandemics and nuclear war are too complex and too unpredictable to ensure a desired outcome.
3) Our leaders, like ourselves, and primarily concerned with self-preservation. If what you say is true, how would our leaders guarantee their own survival from a virus or nuclear exchange?
4) Too many people from different countries would have to be involved in the plan for it to remain secret for long.
I do strongly suspect that the WEF’s Great Reset is in fact a plan to deal with economic collapse. A person can be ignorant of and/or deny peak oil, climate change, ecosystem destruction, etc. and still be confident that the economy will collapse because the mathematics of a debt back fractional reserve monetary system guarantee a collapse at some point. I do think many if not most of our leaders understand the problem of unsustainable debt.
I’m totally open to evidence supporting your theory and am interested in what others think.
Enjoy Pink Floyd and thanks for dropping by.
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Hello there Rob,
Thank you for taking on board my thoughts and your considered reply. I think you are being far too generous in referring to my ponderings as a theory. What I truly wanted to express first and foremost, and perhaps in my scattered abstractions I did not make very clear, is my inkling that the overall concept of overshoot, its catastrophic repercussions and equally drastic rectification will never be openly discussed and debated by anyone in a position of power, especially if they are aware of it. In my mind, it beggars belief that they would not be aware, seeing as geopolitical control is their sphere of influence. However, this silence in no way means that nothing is being done about it, whether through Nature’s hand or human. In the end analysis, in the global scale we are contemplating, it matters not how or why decisions are made, as long as they lead to the desired result of returning to homeostasis. I tried to explain my reasons for this conclusion (that those who are in power know but cannot say), but I do not think I was too convincing so let me give another analogy. Let’s suspend disbelief and go to the movies where this has been played out in widescreen and surround sound, what if there really was an asteroid on course to make an apocalyptic collision with Earth and there was nothing that could be done to avoid it, special effects aside. Only the top level astrophysicists and world leaders know it will happen with 99.9% certainty within 10 years time, and they know only a small percentage of the population can be saved in underground bunkers. Should it be policy to let the rest of humanity know as this event nears to give everyone a chance to work out their own survival, or in doing so, would unmitigated Hollywood style chaos be unleashed, thus dooming humanity even before the main event? What is the likelihood that we would all link hands and sing Kumbayah as doomsday arrives or would 8 billion people be suddenly thrown into total anarchy and even more suffering? Is the most compassionate and ethical choice to not tell whilst working sedulously and surreptitiously to create those bunkers to save a few and plan for the aftermath? In a way, this is the same dilemma with coming clean with overshoot, depopulation, the great planned reset and simplification, even if we can break through people’s denial, the reaction could be more incendiary than can be controlled, and once the social fabric is totally rent, the chances of building back better are slimmed. So, the choice left is to continue to work towards the goal in a way that can be construed as a natural evolution, using all the methods already in place. Whether this is through Nature or guided by human machinations (ultimately Nature will still claim us as her own) is fodder for more diversion but can it be concluded that we are now firmly in the active correction phase of our overshoot? Is this a victory that the pendulum is beginning its swing back to centre? Alas, my lamentation is I feel only distress in what is occurring whilst at the same time I know it must happen thus. I suppose I am just trying to reach out to this sympathetic band for some validation and consolation.
And now I will try to respond to your key points using my intuitive faculties and my lens of interpretation of what I have gleaned from various sources. Thank you for indulging me this opportunity to dialogue.
1) Whatever happened at Wuhan or earlier ultimately and rather concertedly led to fundamental changes in governing humans including challenging sovereignty of one’s own physical body. A mass medical experiment remains on-going, even as the virus loses virulence, this is an unprecedented response but the result has paved the way for further control, and likely increased morbidity through all age groups. Continued pressure to inoculate children without convincing justification for benefit and no guarantee for longer term safety leads me to think there is another agenda. Also continued boostering with the same vaccine which is no longer current with the variant makes absolutely no sense. Never has early treatment been advocated by the main stakeholders, not even a mention of other therapies as simple and crucial as Vit D. There is more than enough evidence now that these shots are neither safe nor effective, yet they are still mandated. 10 billion doses have been served, so whatever damage, present and future, has been well and truly done. What else to think than there is something not adding up here? Pandemics and the aftermath lead to decreased population and contracted economies, both are top of the menu for how to balance overshoot. Therefore, the Covid epic has been multi-purposed, whatever the mechanism, and has served well in addressing overshoot.
2) If the desired outcome is decreasing population in a relatively controlled but decisive manner, then pandemics and war will have the proper effect. Ensuing economic and partial societal collapse will ensure the ushering in of a new world order which will have the tools to keep the population in balance with energy expenditure as a new global structure is re-made. The answer to population growth, any percentage growth is unsustainable once we understand the power of exponentials, is negative growth, which means more deaths and less births. Unless most of us choose to die sooner and the younger amongst us choose not to procreate, and neither prospect is likely to happen, nor in a timely manner. Then, the remaining options to effect this which are understandable and can be tolerated as living in these challenging times are disease (including pandemics), war,(possibly nuclear) famine, accidents (possibly nuclear), natural disasters, decreased fertility and whatever else ills we generally wish to avoid.
3) Too easy, they get the proper early treatment and avoid the damaging vaccines and then go hide out in those bunkers they built for the asteroid collision. Seriously, there’s no guarantee for any of us from anything, only more or less likelihoods. I think self-preservation is over-rated when we are talking extinction-level scenarios, even world leaders might find the courage to lead by example like the kings of old who led the charge in battle—or am I back in fantasy land again?
4) There’s no secret to hide, it’s all in plain sight but Denial is our blinkers. I know you’re meaning what’s the proof of collusion of world leaders in the nefarious agenda, but it’s simple really, the brief is to contract your economies and populations using whatever means you can whilst maintaining as much social order as possible until the last minute when a new social order will rise up. That’s pretty much what is already happening now, whether you’re in the in-club or not. I have absolutely not a shred of proof that this is orchestrated, it is only my mind games that tell me there is equally not a shred of proof that it isn’t, only conjecture of a different colour. On all levels we are players, some are Queens with more power and choices, but most of us are pawns, whether we know it or not. I have a sense that the game of Chess is an apt metaphor for current world events!
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Thanks Gaia for clarifying your views. I understand now.
Many if not most aware people agree with you that broad awareness of our predicament would make things worse. I’m stuck on the belief that extending and pretending business as usual will worsen the inevitable outcome and so if our goal is to minimize total suffering then it would wisest to rip off the bandage and take our lumps now. I acknowledge there’s a good chance I’m wrong, especially if you believe very little of value will remain regardless if we crash now or later, so best to enjoy as many good days as possible. It probably doesn’t matter who’s right because our little band of aware people will have zero impact on what the majority does.
On covid you are correct there is a ton of circumstantial evidence for a coordinated plan. I still lean to it being a subconscious emergent behavior. First off, I don’t think our health professionals are bright enough to plan anything on this scale, and I do think they are stupid enough to believe their vaccine stories. They have many core beliefs that are simply wrong, for example sugar, cholesterol, and statins, and seem incapable of absorbing evidence that contradicts their beliefs. Second, subconscious behavior can easily be misconstrued for conscious behavior. For example, the birth rate usually falls as available calories decline, not because wise aware people say “it looks like scarcity is on the horizon so I better have less sex so my fewer kids have a better chance of surviving”, but rather because our genes have evolved to reduce fecundity with caloric scarcity.
I think what’s happening with Ukraine is another emergent behavior. From an evolutionary perspective it matters not a wit who is in the right in this conflict. What matters is that we sense scarcity and know we’ll have to fight soon to survive so we are choosing our tribes and stirring up the loyalty emotions.
Thanks again Gaia for contributing and I’m glad you’ve joined our little tribe.
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its also remarkable that the US budgets far more for its military than for its domestic programs and yet the former have no demonstrable value except to terrorize the taxpayers that pay for them – neither conventional nor nuclear weapons deter hostile actions.
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Mac10 is more specific today on the how and why the markets will crash soon. He doesn’t mention Russian energy being removed from the global economy which probably means reality is worse than he thinks.
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2022/03/all-signs-point-to-crash.html
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Nate Hagens today on nuclear war.
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Wow, 2nd censorship today, this time on YouTube. I left the following comment on Nate’s video. A few minutes later it was deleted by YouTube.
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its very difficult to usefully assess the nuclear threat and impossible to do much about it – its manifestly an irrational phenomena – psychology may be the only useful approach to it.
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If you ignore his usual partisan politics, Kunstler does a nice job today of describing our insanity.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/shadows-within-shadows/
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Wow, they are ratcheting up the censorship.
I posted this on Twitter. Then a few minutes later I decided to delete it because at the end of the essay El Gato claims climate change data is as fraudulent as covid data.
My tweet was gone. Twitter seems to have auto-deleted it.
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Just to be clear, I’m sure that some climate data has been distorted to push agendas in the past. But my understanding of the evidence today is that we are grossly underestimating the climate change risk to civilization and so El Gato once again demonstrates a fatal blind spot on overshoot.
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The Saker’s also feeling increased stress today.
http://thesaker.is/day-22-where-do-we-go-from-here-two-decisions/
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Herring roe is the energy gradient. Why is there so much roe on the beach? Because herring prefer to lay their sticky eggs on kelp, but most of the kelp beds on the east coast of Vancouver Island are gone, so the herring apparently resort to laying their eggs on the ocean bottom which does not work so well. Why is the keystone kelp species gone? Experts don’t know for sure but they suspect some big force like a change in the pH or temperature caused by climate change.
I have been visiting this same beach since 1960. When I was kid, kelp and many other plant and animal species were super abundant. Today, although the beach is still pleasing to the eye, most of the life is gone. To my eyes it looks like the surface of the moon compared to what it was 50 years ago.
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Tasmania has also experienced a 95% die off of its giant kelp forests in the last 10 years. First triggered by ocean warming and now ignobly finished off by sea urchins. The beaches here are also still looking pristine but just under the surface it is a wasteland. The silver lining is efforts are being made to “replant” the kelp by tying seedlings to the reef but how will these survive with continued rising temperatures and the now ubiquitous urchins? Methinks the real urchins are we. I can’t agree more with you that Nature will always find a way and bats last.
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Seagrass beds in Florida are toast so they have to feed the manatees lettuce to keep them from starving. Totally sustainable, no problem: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/florida-plan-manatees-working-thanks-25-tons-lettuce-rcna16539
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Hi Rob:
I retired last year from the BC Ministry of Forests and Lands. They now have staff dedicated to issuing licenses for Kelp but no one overlooking the harvest. It’s typical government if they can make money at it.
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Hi Peter, I didn’t know they were allowing the harvest of kelp.
There were persistent rumors here that a fisheries authorized experimental kelp harvest in the 70’s was the cause of the destruction of the kelp beds here in Comox. I enquired at the fisheries office and they said they were aware of the rumors but had no record of a harvest. I then went to a talk by biologists studying the problem and learned that kelp is disappearing from the entire east coast of Vancouver Island and so harvesting cannot be the sole explanation. They guessed pH or temperature.
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Some good content from a couple of the speakers, plus an irritating lout and a vacuous do-gooder, with crap audio quality throughout.
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I could only watch the video for a while. The sound was so bad that when you turn up the playback speed it was hideous. This just still reinforced my feeling that we (in the U.S.) might not be around in a few weeks. Odds are not good if anyone uses even one nuke. Putin will not back down and the U.S. thinks they can fight a nuke war or limit it to Europe. What fools on the U.S. side. Nuclear winter is not to be trifled with. The chance that Russia goes nuclear because of a poor early warning system is scary. Why are people such idiots. I think without fossil fuels civilization would never have gotten to this stage. Without denial we probably wouldn’t have either (it allows very risky behavior).
AJ
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What’s more scary than US leaders who think only their country is entitled to a Monroe Doctrine?
US citizens who don’t even know what the Monroe Doctrine is and want their leaders to nuke Russia.
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Feeling like my head is going to explode.
Here is a recent must listen podcast with Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche and Dr. Peter McCullough, two of the covid heavyweight experts that have earned the right to be trusted.
Bossche is about to release a paper arguing that our vaccination policies which to date have forced the evolution of more infectious variants like Omicron, are about to take a nasty turn because we are now forcing the variants to be more virulent (i.e. dangerous).
We need an immediate U-turn in policies but they see no hope of that happening because science is now dead in the public health arena. Our health officials have so much of their personal reputations invested in the current narrative that nothing will change until their children begin to die.
What the hell has happened to our ability to think? How can this insanity be global? It makes me crazy.
https://covexit.com/anniversary-interview/
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Off on another topic here, but this just came to my attention – apparently, piston-driven propeller aircraft in the U.S. still use leaded avgas, at the thousands of local general-aviation airfields across the country. Leaded fuel in propeller aircraft is the major source of airborne lead pollution in the U.S. I came across this report:
Click to access FOE_Avgas_report_FINAL.pdf
According to the report, the countries where leaded avgas is still allowed are: Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, North Korea, Yemen and … the United States. Boy, are we in great company.
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Joe Blogs is working hard to bring a video every day looking at the economic implications of Ukraine.
Today he takes a big picture view of energy prices and makes the case we had a big problem before the war, and now things are much worse.
Buckle up.
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Nice summary of Russian exports and who buys them.
Sure looks to me like Putin is playing 3D chess and our leaders are playing tic-tac-toe.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/these-charts-show-russias-invasion-choking-world-natural-resources
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An aware person would replace “willful mass delusion” with “genetic denial of reality”.
I’ve tried on several occasions to make this guy aware of Varki’s MORT without success. Denial of denial is the strongest form of denial.
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“An aware person would replace “willful mass delusion” with “genetic denial of reality”.”
Absolutely – whether we have “will” or not pales in comparison to the fact that we do indeed have drives. Varki elegantly provides a modern explanation of why these drives have a chief side effect of denying reality.
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Gail is finally telling off Fast Eddy LOL.
Gail Tverberg says: Perhaps you need to slow down your comments. We don’t need so many of them.
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She’s not doing it on her own initiative. Somebody complained earlier in the day. Has happened in the past and things become sane for a few days and then it goes back to “normal”. Really is a shame the damage that is done to Gail’s good work.
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Honestly her blog would be helped immensely if he was just banned. It would probably help him too, it can’t be healthy the amount of time he spends looking at all those links and writing all those comments.
JMG shared this article about how to spot forum spies and forum disrupters. I’m all for having differing view points, but Fast Eddy and his ilk are disrupting the discourse, whether intentionally or not.
https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
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He’s clearly round the turn. You know I think most of the crazies on OFW are New Zealanders … weird huh? I saw recently we have the highest google search rate for the term ‘peak oil’.
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I’ve noticed for over 10 years that New Zealand and Australia seem to have an outsized awareness of overshoot.
Permaculture originated I think in Australia.
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The poster child for polymaths in denial is dialing it up.
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Dr. Kendrick today on Pfizer.
Seems consistent with Nate Hagen’s self-organizing superorganism description of civilization. Nobody’s driving the bus to grow at any cost but that’s what it looks like.
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2022/03/21/pfizer-and-me-best-buddies/
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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/OPECs-Best-Kept-Secret-Will-Soon-Be-Revealed.html
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Nate Hagens advised me not to place much confidence in analysis from The Saker and said the source he trusts most for the Russian perspective is Chuck Watson @ https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/
I went back and read Watson’s post explaining the history that led to the Ukraine invasion. It’s very interesting, especially the explanation for why US leaders hate Putin so much. As usual, it’s all about money.
https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2019/09/25/russia-ukraine-and-impeachment-some-missing-context/
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Another good post by Chuck Watson.
https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/03/09/a-warning-about-ukraine-propaganda/
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Rob,
I have read everything that Chuck Watson has written on the Ukraine war. I think he is spot on in his historical analysis and his concerns about how this could result in a nuclear war. This has led to my being even more depressed and cynical about the future. However, I disagree with Nate Hagens on The Saker. I think one needs non-Western sources of insight and information (sure can’t trust western MSM). Sure I scan Tass and RT but they are as captive as western MSM. The Saker provides a Russian perspective without being an official extension of Russia. I also think he understands the Russian mindset. I also like watching/listening to The Duran. Their analysis of the news seems to be the most insightful and they are not the stupid MSM.
AJ
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Good point – I like reading perspectives and appreciate that bias is acceptable. If anything, I think it’s dangerous to believe one has found an “unbiased” source. That can lead to fundamentalism, credulity, and ultimately disillusionment.
I read the saker and understand there may be some bias, whether from a nationalistic or Christian angle. I read Alice Friedman and Jim Kunstler, though they both wear their politics on their sleeves.
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I agree with both you and AJ. I still read The Saker and watch The Duran. I also respect Kunstler but skip over his political rants.
For the record, Nate’s warning about The Saker came from Chuck Watson.
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Twitter suspended The Babylon Bee for making a joke about gender stuff. They won’t lift the suspension unless the Babylon Bee deletes the tweet.
But it’s OK to openly call for the assassination of the president of a G20 country.
I feel like we’re in a simulation, and the programmer is just fucking with us.
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We have gone insane.
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US now sanctioning China for not condemning Russia hard enough. Seems to align nicely with policies to block effective early treatments and vitamin D awareness. A movie comes to mind.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-expands-travel-bans-chinese-officials-hours-after-demanding-beijing-condemn-russia
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This is news that connects those of us here Down Under with the other hemisphere, what do you make of the fact that both poles this past weekend broke, nay, smashed, their previous temperature records by upwards of 40C (?!!?) at one location in Antarctica and 30C in the Arctic! Now that is insane.
Apparently, attribution studies are needed to tease out the likelihood of this stunning event occurring in the absence of human induced climate change, which could take months or years to peer-review.
Happy Equinox everyone.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/21/extremes-of-40c-above-normal-whats-causing-extraordinary-heating-in-polar-regions
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I saw that. Really not good.
My understanding is we can view the poles as amplifiers of climate change signals. In other words, the poles confirm the signal.
Many threads seem to be unraveling all at once: climate, energy, food, trust, cooperation, peace, sanity, etc.
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Very interesting discussion on the end game for fiat currencies and the global economy.
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George Gammon and his guest Luke Gromen understand that energy is the economy and predict the US dollar will remain the reserve currency but the global reserve asset must and will shift from US treasuries to gold priced in oil.
What they seem to deny is that people everywhere in the world are going to be much poorer regardless of what we do, despite all of their arguments pointing to poverty as a conclusion.
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Thanks for that follow up summary!
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Tokyo electricity is becoming fragile.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japan-scrambles-avoid-tokyo-blackout-after-first-ever-power-crunch-alert
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Brief update from Chuck Watson today.
https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/03/23/doom-stalks-the-earth/
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What do you un-deniers make of people who genuinely believe we are heading into a mini ice age from a grand solar minimum? From the little bit I have read of the science, it seems that solar activity is very tricky to predict. I wonder if believing in a coming grand solar minimum is a convenient way to deny climate change? A solar minimum or solar maximum is possible, but as far as I know there is only one paper and one research suggesting we are heading for an imminent grand solar minimum.
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Having given it a moderate amount of time my interim conclusion is that (1) It’s obviously true the sun is the primary contributor to global climate patterns, (2) the sun has and will continue to create fluctuations which have contributed to past cold and warm periods, though the degree seems to be undecided. Part of this indecision seems to be that past periods overlapped volcanic activity (i.e. mini ice age). However, the magnetic changes during these sunspot cycles may be a contributing factor to volcanic activity due to the impact on the earths magnetic fields. (3) I do not believe in a conspiracy theory that this knowledge is being concealed in favor of advertising global warming.
If I had to summarize it would be “possible, hard to say for sure, and irrelevant in the big picture” unless one is concerned primarily about short/mid term famines.
In general I choose to avoid it, along with global warming, as I situate the latter as a problem under the larger context of overshoot. Global warming, or cooling being neither sufficient nor necessary to establish overshoot as our key problem.
On Climate Change my professional society, and the data we use for mechanical engineering, shows a clear moderate increase in the volume of warm weather over the last century in most geographical areas. In some it has come down slightly. So I’m in the “real, but undecided on the most catastrophic extrapolations of the data.”
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That’s an excellent summary, pretty much the conclusions I have come to as well
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Sorry I haven’t read anything about the mini ice age theory so can’t comment on that specifically.
What I recall from reading over the years is that given the sun’s energy cycle we should be cooling right now, and the fact that we are warming tells us we’ve had a pretty big impact on the climate. Doubly so when you account for the energy masking effect of the soot we have put in the atmosphere. Apparently the temperature would jump 0.5 to 1 degree pretty quickly if industry collapsed for some reason.
When I’m seeking solid ground for what to believe about climate I default to 2 things:
1) I ignore the models and focus on the planet’s actual geologic history for which we have an excellent understanding. At all times in the past at our current CO2 level the temperature and sea level were at values incompatible with modern civilization.
2) I trust me eyes which have seen more extreme weather in the last 5 years than the previous 58 years.
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Given the sanctions placed on Russia by the west, does anyone understand why Russia is being cautious on ratcheting up the pressure that could be applied by curtailing energy flow or demanding gold for energy? Seems like an obvious response. What am I missing?
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I’ll take a stab at answering my own question.
Russia needs the cash and wants to maintain a good reputation of respecting contracts.
Furthermore Russia doesn’t need to do anything because over-levered commodities traders are already imploding thanks to western sanctions.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trading-houses-will-collapse-margin-call-doom-loop-goes-global-trafigura-cfo-warns
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And also maybe it’s strategic to keep your biggest guns up your sleeve until the situation warrants, just the threat that you might use it can cause the desired effect as you point out that it seems to be happening in other arenas. I am hoping that this applies to Russia’s literal biggest gun of nuclear bombs as well as shutting off the gas.
I’ve been thinking that cash isn’t the main driver although it it may be expedient for Russia now to go along with the narrative that it may default. For some years now, the BRIC alliance has been gaining cohesion of their geopolitical and economic goals, to the point where Russia and China have jointly stated in their 4th Feb 5000 word document that “Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation”. Putin has declared the Russian-Sino relationship as one that probably cannot be compared with anything in the world. This is a definitive declaration to the world that a new world order is upon the horizon and Russia and China will be the countries to usher it in.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/02/12/breaking-down-that-putin-xi-joint-statement-on-a-new-era/
Wouldn’t it be a logical next step for the Russian and Chinese currencies to amalgamate as a precursor to the global currency whilst taking down the US dollar and the Euro from their eyrie status as reserve currencies? With India, Brazil, and some Middle Eastern states in this alliance, trade of nearly everything could continue between them and the West could be completely shut out. These countries have all the resources needed for a self sustaining economy (such as it is for the short term). This would be a spectacular take-down move and I can’t see why or how it can’t be done, the question is just the timing of. Which is maybe why the real effect of this war is to prepare the way for such an outcome, with markets ready to collapse like a house of cards and a new hegemony ready to take its place. The bear and dragon have been long asleep but now they both are wide awake and we have only just realised they are emerging from the same den/lair.
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I believe Russia actually wants this to be a limited military operation and aren’t interested in escalating beyond their stated strategic objectives. They had to expect sanctions, and I would also guess that they know sanctions of energy aren’t going to be possible. Perhaps there is political value in letting the West come to that conclusion on their own – i.e. since time is on their side no need to instigate.
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So apparently the pipes of our one oil refinery in New Zealand are being filled with concrete. How good will this be for reducing emissions!? LOLz we are doomed https://thebfd.co.nz/2022/03/22/marsden-point-pipes-being-filled-with-concrete/
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Listening to intelligent pundits talk about the economy makes me wonder if these guys really understand anything? Or perhaps they’re all deeply in denial? Or perhaps I’m too pessimistic?
Some big themes I’m hearing include:
– inflation will get worse because the effects of the Ukraine shock have not rippled through the economy yet
– central banks will be forced to raise interest rates a lot because inflation is toxic to the election of politicians
– it will be bad for bond owners because bond values fall as the interest rate increases
– other asset holders should be ok provided they don’t have a lot of debt
– energy will keep flowing but with an upward trending price
– the global monetary system will move away from the US currency but will continue to function well
– growth will continue
I’m thinking instead:
– in about 2008 we hit physical limits to growth
– we kept the (fractional reserve) wheels on by buying growth with lots of debt
– we kept the debt affordable by buying lots of debt with printed money
– covid brought this unsustainable game to a climax by disrupting supply chains and by forcing governments to spend lots of printed money
– now the combined effect of energy constraints, supply chain problems, and circulating printed money have created inflation
– inflation created tension in buyers struggling to afford energy to survive, and tension in energy sellers not wanting to be paid with devaluing currency
– this tension erupted in a war
– the war will amplify all of the forces that created the war with more supply chain disruptions and more government spending of printed money
– all paths lead at best to a depression and social unrest:
a) if central banks raise the interest rate to constrain inflation a lot of debt will default and less money will be borrowed leading to degrowth (.i.e. depression), a big drop in all asset prices, and social unrest due to shortages and/or unaffordable prices
b) if central banks don’t raise the interest rate then banks won’t lend which will cause the economy to contract (i.e. depression), a big drop in all asset prices, and social unrest due to shortages and/or unaffordable prices
This is of course a logical conclusion because there is no such thing as a free lunch except when you are temporarily blessed with plentiful cheap surplus energy.
When the affordable energy is gone you can pretend there is a free lunch by spending borrowed money and assuming it will be repaid from future growth.
Eventually it becomes impossible to keep pretending and all of the wealth created with the borrowed money must vaporize, plus a vig for friction and momentum, and another vig to pay for the resulting wars.
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I genuinely don’t understand how it would be possible for an economy to be able to keep on going by creating lots of debt with printed money. That it if it’s based purely on physics (which makes absolute sense). Isn’t there a contradiction somewhere? Thanks!
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I think you’re right in the long term. Growing debt faster than the real economy is the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine which of course is impossible.
What I think is going on is that our monetary system is now functioning in large part because of belief. As long as the majority of people believe that growth will continue it won’t collapse.
Belief in infinite growth is a manifestation of our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities, which we know is very strong.
This probably explains why there are so many people who believe “green” growth can continue with solar and wind, and why peak oil remains a toxic topic that no one in the mainstream discusses, despite unambiguous evidence that we have a problem now.
The big question is when and why will the belief in growth stop?
I’m guessing maybe never because we will always find a Putin to blame for our temporary lack of growth.
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Despite the believe, the system will have to crash sooner or later, right!?
My forecast: 2025, because of energy deflation!
You can not eat a meal you only believe in , what is not physically avialable!
So believe will not save us:
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Yes, or maybe it’s crashing now, just not in the way we expected.
I’m cautious about making forecasts on timing. I didn’t think we’d make it more than a few years past 2008 because I was unable to imagine they would print to infinity.
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Rob Garth Turner has a blog on the Canadian Housing Bubble. 2% mortgages are heading to 6% by fall and the Bank of Canada is talking 0.5% rate hikes instead of 0.25%. They realize they have no choice now except to further prick inflation. The cycle of cheap interest that started 20 years ago is over at least for now. That will pull all kinds of spending out of our economy as peoples HELOCS(home equity lines of credit) dry up. Particularly in our part of the world (Vancouver Island and lower mainland) people have been buying vehicles, renovations, RV’s and all inclusive trips on their HELOCS and that will end. It’s illusory wealth.
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Thanks Peter. I remain curious how this plays out. They definitely want to raise the interest rate but I’m thinking high deficits and debt won’t permit it.
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Doug Nolan understands debt and bubbles better than most although he seems to lack awareness of the energy and limits to growth drivers.
Today Nolan provides a nice history of bubbles and why today’s bubble is extra special.
http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2022/03/weekly-commentary-big-test.html
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One more factor-the global chip shortage. We have built a system where chips are required for everything.
To meet current fuel mileage standards new vehicles have even more chips. Many new cars now have highly electronic 8, 9, 10 and 12 speed automatic transmissions. Most new cars now have crap like active cruise control, lane departure assist. Now we have a chip that shuts off and restarts the engine at the lights and another that deactivated cylinders when not needed.
Now we have “smart” homes with sensors that turn off light when you leave the room.
The energy we need to produce these “efficiencies” doesn’t factor the energy needed (coking coal) to manufacture them. I can’t see the shortage going away. This is the perfect opportunity for the auto industry to produce vehicles only by ordering them and customers paying full retail. Maybe they can go to much smaller dealer lots as well.
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Good points.
A wise species would be simplifying its critical products in preparation for a certain simpler future. We’re not wise so we’re going in the opposite direction.
Big talk now about plans to build silicon fab facilities in the US. These are mega-billion dollar multi-year projects. I wonder if they’ll be completed before the credit needed to build them becomes scarce, and before China repatriates the plants in Taiwan?
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Nice explanation today from fellow British Columbian Ryan on why vehicle dealerships are likely to remain as long as there are vehicles to buy.
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My son bought covid home from school. He’s quite crook actually. I’m a bit surprised. For all the talk of omicron been mild I’m not taking any chances. Taking 6ug/kg ivm, zinc, quercetin and melatonin at night. I’m out in the sun and already had exorbitant vit d levels so not bothering with that. I’ll let you know if and how it goes.
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Thanks for letting us know. Good luck Perran.
Maybe also gargle with a mouthwash that kills viruses like Crest Pro-Health with cetylpyridinium chloride or Betadine with iodine.
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G’day Perran, I believe I’m actually your neighbour in the Huon Valley, we’ve got a small holding in Glen Huon. Nice to find you here, and once again thanks to Rob for bringing us all on the same page. Sorry to hear that your son’s unwell and your household is on high alert. A prophylaxis treatment that I do is nasal rinsing with saline, you might try that with diluted Betadine added to the salt solution. The idea is to flush/kill the virus whilst it is in the nasal passage before it can take a foothold. Hope all goes well and your family is bouncing back with health soon. Hasn’t the Autumn weather been lovely in our corner of paradise?
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We can get to Glen huon without going on the bitumen by going out one of our back farm gates and trespassing through some plantation and then past the gun club. Your welcome to drop by (probably not right now though). We’re on the left at the top of the hill coming from castle Forbes Bay. We all know each other up here so the neighbours will point you in the right direction if you go to the wrong spot.
I forgot to mention I’ve been using nasal sprays. I’ve actually been doing it if after I’ve been in a high risk setting for several months. I’m using it three times a day at moment. No symptoms yet.
Yes the weather is great. I’m frantically getting ground ready to seed some more pasture so I hope it holds out for another week.
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Thank you for that invite, neighbour. You’re most welcome to our place, too, we’re just across from the old mushroom farm which you will know if you’re a local, or perhaps you’re a transplant like me? Although we’ve been here in Tassie for 23 years as refugees from the States, my American accent remains and I am only too pleased when Aussies ask if I’m Canadian. Glad to hear that all is going well in your household and it looks like you’re certainly on top of the prevention and early treatment protocol. I think I’m ready as can be for the virus but trusting that our best defence is a virgin inoculation (I refuse to call the shots vaccines) status so our own immune system can effect true longer term immunity if and when (it looks like when) we get the virus. I can’t believe they’re now recommending the 4th shot for people over 65 when they’re out scratching their heads over why there was such an jump in excess mortality in aged care homes in January and February, and not due to Covid. It seems that the Booster is certainly boosting something. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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It’ll make no difference to the outcome but somehow it makes me feel better to see the names of the leaders who killed millions with their bad ethics and judgement. How can they sleep at night? What will their grandchildren think of them?
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/naming-names/
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I’m no Sherlock by any means but I can’t help but return to this quote when confronting questions like these. “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Whether deliberate or guided, all these people (and our world governments) have effectively let this catastrophic response unfold, the question really isn’t any more on-purpose but rather for what purpose? I just can’t get away from this conclusion. Why hasn’t any in this crowd come forward even though they know by now that they must have gotten something wrong? I saw a recent interview given by Rochelle Walensky at her alma mater university, just shocking and I was nearly made nauseous by her flippancy.
https://peterlegyel.wordpress.com/2022/03/21/clueless-cdc-admits-they-never-suspected-waning-vaccines/
It must be that they think they have safety in numbers, as long as no-one goes down or comes clean, they are all protected. Of course there’s an overdose of denial happening here, too–I think that’s long overtaken religion as the opiate of the masses.
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Nice find. Sickening.
You are right, it is remarkable that not one has broken ranks.
Covid has deeply scarred my view of our leaders. I will never trust them again on anything for the balance of my life. Even the political opposition stuck to the pharma script.
Reasonable people might disagree, at least in the early days, about the benefits vs. costs of the vaccines, but the aggressive blocking of disease prevention and early treatment is worse than a war crime, and it appears the criminals are going to get away with it and retain their nice pensions.
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I understand your feelings. I started the pandemic thinking that the “authorities” were just misguided. But after awhile I was certain they were at least fools or idiots; but now think they are all captive to “group think” and denial of reality. Then we pivot to Ukraine and I am certain they are ignorant and malevolent. I will never vote again (I wasted all that time thinking democracy was responsive to the people and that the best and brightest would rise to the top). Such disillusionment. Now I only respect science and rationalism.
AJ
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Richard Heinberg today with an excellent peak oil perspective on the Ukraine war.
On balance the essay is excellent but I thought it a little light on how we will manage to keep the wheels on as debt defaults and energy declines.
Reading between the lines suggests another possible motivation for Russia’s decision to invade was an awareness that Russia is now at peak wealth and power and therefore now is the best time to secure its border.
https://richardheinberg.com/museletter-349-after-the-ukraine-invasion
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Eric Weinstein today for a nice change is wise.
Click for a thread of important observations.
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Panopticon’s roundup of climate news is a doozy today.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2022/03/26/26th-march-2022-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
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I’m of the opinion that Apollo was and will remain the pinnacle of human engineering accomplishments.
Concorde is another very impressive engineering accomplishment that will probably also not be surpassed because we’ve depleted the low cost energy necessary to do so.
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Steve Kirsch is challenging the authorities to a debate on covid. I haven’t followed Kirsch much since he first appeared with Malone on Rogan’s podcast and proved to be a bit of an arrogant prick, which in fairness he apologized for.
Today Kirsch published 20 questions he’d like our health leaders to answer. They’re a nice concise summary of the issues if your brain ever needs a refresher on the many dimension of the vaccine insanity.
I observe his 20 questions do not address prevention, effective early treatment, dangerous late treatment, conflicts of interest, lab leak, etc. so our leaders have even more questions to answer.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/20-questions-they-dont-want-to-answer?s=r
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Steve Kirsch´s substack was one of the first that I encountered during my research regarding the Covid issue. Since then, I took a deep dive into substack and subscribed to way too much substacks. I did a clean-up a few days ago, but Steve´s substack still remains as I find him very informative. I fully support his 20 questions catalogue.
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RIP. Maybe waited too long to boost the last booster.
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Well my son has now nearly fully recovered. He was quite sick for two days being very lethargic and slept most of the two days. Started recovering on the third and by the fourth day 100%.
So far no one else in the house has shown symptoms. We live in a small one bedroom house and my other son shares his bedroom with his brother. I made no attempt at reducing contact while he was sick. Ivm? Vit d? Zinc? Spending lots of time outside? Luck? Fuck knows but so far I’ve avoided it.
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Excellent news. Glad everyone’s ok.
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Thank your parents for providing you good hearty stock and well done on figuring out the rest on your own. Great news that all is well and now your immune systems are primed properly and stronger for it when it comes time for variant XYZ.
This will be a confidence booster (if I may use that term) for your sons so they will know in future to trust in their own common sense and do their own research before listening to the main stream narrative, especially when it comes to their health. Also this has given them invaluable experience to trust in their own innate body wisdom to heal. Sometimes all our bodies ask for is a bit of patience and tolerance for some inconvenient and uncomfortable symptoms whilst it gets on with the job of fighting infections and cleaning house. Rest, hydration and sometimes fasting (which is often secondary to our bodies mounting fevers) have always been time honoured methods since time immemorial for healing. So well done and thank you for helping instil this wisdom for them.
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Nice interview with Dr. Pierre Kory.
This is the best explanation I’ve come across of the crime of the century: Why our leaders killed millions by blocking effective early treatments.
https://philharper.substack.com/p/dr-pierre-kory-the-digger-episode?s=r
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Wolf Richter is another really smart finance guy that thinks the Fed is going to do what it takes to get the most pressing problem facing the world, inflation, under control.
My guess is they’ll try with a few small hikes and then will quit when all hell breaks loose. Very curious to see who is right.
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Rob, I listen to Wolf and I think he nailed the whole problem. The FED either props up the market, housing, and the US economy or it props up the US dollar as the global reserve currency . If they don’t raise interest rates to kill inflation then no one will have any faith in the US dollar. (However that faith may have just been destroyed by US sanctions on Russia and us confiscating their reserves that are not in Russia. Many countries are now trying to get rid of US Treasuries because they fear the same could happen to them-the US may have destroyed the global reserve currency on its own).
So the Fed is really between a rock and a hard place, blow up the US economy or destroy the dollar as the world reserve currency? Correct me if I’m wrong.
AJ
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I think most people agree with you AJ but I’m not so sure the Fed has a choice this time between protecting the US economy or the value of the dollar. I suspect they’re stuck between a rock and hard place and things will unfold as they unfold.
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I suspect the power to do anything about inflation now lies with congress and how large a deficit they choose to run. This might explain why they announced a new tax this morning on capital gains before the gains are realized. A long time ago I argued they should have implemented such as tax as soon as they embarked in QE to prevent a widening socially destabilizing wealth gap.
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How many times can you spot reality denial in this 8 minutes of Elon’s wisdom?
How is it possible that someone so smart can understand nothing that matters?
It’s not possible unless Varki’s MORT is true.
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My biggest question is where is all the energy for his space ventures going to come from? fusion? oil? di-lithium crystals most likely. He initially offended my by reading Carl Sagen and they dismissing his wisdom. Is he smart? Is a con artist smart? I think he has been incredibly lucky (Ebay, Paypal, Tesla, and a fixed stock market propped up by the Fed) and people think that is genius. When the market crashes he’ll be forgotten. So much denial he proves MORT just by himself.
AJ
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I think he is a really good con artist.
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It’s quite troubling that censorship is getting more aggressive every day. Unfortunately it seems to be working. I asked a friend for his assessment of Ukraine today and quietly listened. He basically echoed all of the mainstream talking points with zero nuance or skepticism. Ditto on covid.
Democracy does not work with a corrupt news media and citizens that do not think.
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I share this today if you want to read some good old fashioned denial dressed up to look intelligent. For some reason the author, David McEwen, has focused on weight, while ignoring the basic principles of energy; like there’s always waste every time you convert energy (don’t get angry, that’s just how the universe made it). There are so many faults in this article, just about every line has something infuriating in it. #wishfulthinking
Energy to Waste – Fossil Fuels’ Dirty Secret: https://illuminem.com/energyvoices/011290d4-686c-4d4b-a0cd-e7cc7c56dec3
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Thanks, very good example of denial. If what he said is true then he should be able to point to one country, or one province, or one city, or one neighborhood, or one house somewhere in the world that has a modern lifestyle with zero fossil energy.
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