Sidestepping Genetic Reality Denial by Manipulating Behavior for Overshoot Harm Reduction

It’s rare to encounter a new and constructive idea for addressing human overshoot that is not fatally flawed by a lack of understanding of either thermodynamic and geophysical constraints, or the strong genetic behavior to deny unpleasant realities that enabled the human species to emerge and dominate the planet.

For anyone still looking for technically feasible solutions that have a non-zero probability of success for reducing harms from human overshoot I recommend the most recent Planet: Critical podcast in which Rachel Donald interviews Joseph Merz.

https://www.planetcritical.com/p/urgency-action-and-ethics-joseph?s=r

There are no easy solutions to the climate crisis—most governments admit their hope lies in technology which doesn’t even exist yet. Science and “visionaries” propose increasingly mad ideas, like refreezing the Arctic, or sending humans to live in Space. But given the urgency of the situation, would we be mad not to consider these mad ideas?

Joseph Merz thinks we’ve run out of time to ask questions. He founded the Merz Institute to combat the climate crisis, gathering some of the world’s best scientists to establish what is going wrong and how to fix it. He says the answer is behavioural change—and they’re developing a programme that would manipulate mass behaviour on a subconscious level.

How? Well, using the same techniques as the advertising industry.

Key points made include:

  • It is too late to avoid suffering caused by human overshoot.
  • There may still be time to make the future less bad.
  • All actions we might take to reduce future suffering require changes in human behavior to consume less and have fewer children.
  • Information and education to date have proven completely ineffective at changing human behavior in a positive direction, and we are out of time to try new methods of education.
  • The advertising industry has developed technologies that are very effective at manipulating people to desire and acquire things they do not need to be happy, and in many cases cannot afford.
  • Merz proposes to redeploy these proven marketing technologies to manipulate people to desire happiness associated with lower consumption and fewer children.

Neither Rachel Donald or Joseph Merz appear aware of Varki’s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory but I’m thinking that Merz’s proposal might sidestep the fatal flaw in most other overshoot harm reduction proposals that require humans to first acknowledge the reality of their predicament, which appears to be impossible because of MORT.

The beauty of Merz’s plan is that it does not require reality awareness because it will manipulate humans at a subconscious level.

It will be interesting to see if the marketing technologies are powerful enough to override the Maximum Power Principle (MPP) which is another powerful genetic behavior that pushes us in an overshoot direction. I’m thinking (without any evidence or data) that it might be possible to override the MPP because we are such a strong social species.

Godspeed to Merz and screw the ethics.

P.S. I doubt it is true, but I observe that if you assume the WEF Great Reset has good intentions grounded in overshoot awareness, it is possible they are thinking along the same lines as Merz with their “you will own nothing and be happy” campaign. The WEF campaign does seem rather clumsy compared to say associating happiness with a Corona beer on a high-carbon long distance vacation. I think it is more likely the WEF is trying to prepare citizens for a Minsky moment in which much asset ownership will transfer to the state.

P.P.S. It’s fascinating that so many overshoot aware people are active in the small country of New Zealand.

393 thoughts on “Sidestepping Genetic Reality Denial by Manipulating Behavior for Overshoot Harm Reduction”

  1. “It’s rare to encounter a new and constructive idea …”
    I understand that we are past the point on whether ideas need to be “constructive”. At this point effective is the only requirement and if it happens to be destructive (of our habits, but no further damage to the earth) then the best I might respond with is a sigh.

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  2. Interesting interview — even Merz doesn’t have much hope for the methods he proposes. And he’s probably right. Advertising methods like Bernays-style propaganda do have limits in what they can achieve and almost always they have been used by the powerful, yet another tool put towards the Getting of More(tm). Has any creature on the planet ever used tools to get less? Doubtful. In any event, there is no reason to think that any anti-consumerist campaign won’t be countered with similar tactics backed by much deeper pockets — high consumption is the lifeblood of the developed world afterall. Couple this with peak energy, overshoot, exiting the Holoscene and several critical tipping points now in the rear-view mirror and I think any so-called bottleneck for humanity will be quite narrow indeed.

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    1. Agree Jeorge – first they are going to have to overcome this (from Statista), pulling in exactly the opposite direction-
      “It is estimated that media owners ad revenue worldwide fell to 622 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, representing a decline of roughly 3.1 percent compared with the previous year. In 2021 the figures grew by 22.5 percent as the market recovered from the impact of the coronavirus.”
      Rob-I’m pretty certain that “screw the ethics” is the motto of certain drug companies (as well as media, arms etc companies and most politicians). I’m not convinced it’s for us undenialists but the times are tricky to say the least.
      Any idea what has happened to David Pursel who used to comment quite often?
      Hopefully just having a doom break

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  4. Hi Rob,

    Nice to meet you here on a new page, although I mightily enjoyed the last which must be a record for number of comments tagged onto a post! Thank you for sharing this post which opens up a whole new can of worms, perhaps we are now touching on the very definition of what makes us human in regards to our behaviour and socialisation, and whether there is an a priori state from which all our evolution originated. Has it always been thus that we are creatures of survival, clinging between being the fittest and barely avoiding scarcity? Are we all just creations of our earliest socialisations and the society in which we were born? If one could snatch a new born babe from an ancient civilization and bring the child up in ours, he or she would grow up with all the mores, language and sensibilities of ours, genetically there is no difference between humans tens of thousand years ago and the specimens today, but light years apart in how our societies are constructed with life-skills and technology. In the same vein, we could take a new born today and raise him or her in any other culture and then that would be theirs even though their biological parents were of another. Maybe we all just want to channel our inner Tarzan! However, it wouldn’t work as well, if at all, if we take an adult already formed in one society and transplant him/her to another, in fact, even a teenager brought up in our Western lifestyle today would have a total culture shock going back 70-80 years even in the same Western country. I don’t believe many have even seen a dial telephone! So there is a crucial time frame for the inculcation of behaviour, that starts from our earliest sensory imprinting. Changing behaviour to any degree after our foundational wiring becomes an exercise in dogged determination, but of course can be done especially on the individual level with enough motivational force. Trying to effect a 180 degree change in the masses, especially those behaviours so ingrained to our social make-up and which actually define our identity in that society, is probably futile, as is evidenced by our recalcitrance to changing behaviours in relation to our climate crisis (which we can no longer deny), and since the majority are not even aware of our energy overshoot, the new behaviours needed aren’t even in their consciousness. We are as addicted to our energy hungry way of life as we are to air, and we just don’t see it. I do not believe the powers of advertising will work to encourage a behaviour or strike a need which isn’t already ready to be exploited, especially if it is diametrically opposed to what we have been long programmed to expect as a normal and desirable continuum of life. The only exigency may come when the masses are driven to the point of losing their security and survival in that society, when the most primal needs are threatened, then the self-preservation instinct should kick in and we shall be clamouring for a saviour to our fate. Perhaps it is this state of collective angst that the likes of WEF and whatever else controls it is organising toward and they will have their panacea paradigm shift at the ready. Their catch phrase of build back better belies the need for complete social disintegration as we know it before re-integration into the new order can begin.

    I believe that the powers that would even remotely have the capacity and ability to roll out this level of total global restructuring have done their homework for decades on the possibility of total control of the human organism, both on an individual and societal level. Behaviour scientists have been the masterminds behind governance in every arena and the art and artifice of advertising has lapped up just the crumbs of their work to staggering effect. It seems that controlling our human sensory make-up is as easy as stealing candy from a baby, once we understand what is the candy that drives us, or even better, creating it in the first place. BF Skinner wrote Walden Two in 1948, which depicts a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of manipulating human conduct, to create by purely behavioural means a modern utopia. I first read this about 30 years ago and it has been a seminal influence for me in beginning the dialogue of whether it is ethical to attempt such a radicalisation, with the end point to relieve human suffering and now, perhaps to even save the human and all other species. Today’s post brings this question back to the fore, and I refer to Skinner’s new preface to the 1976 edition for his very prescient and haunting comment:

    “It is now widely recognized that great changes must be made in the American way of life. Not only can we not face the rest of the world while consuming and polluting as we do, we cannot for long face ourselves while acknowledging the violence and chaos in which we live. The choice is clear: either we do nothing and allow a miserable and probably catastrophic future to overtake us, or we use our knowledge about human behaviour to create a social environment in which we shall live productive and creative lives and do so without jeopardizing the chances that those who follow us will be able to do the same. Something like a Walden Two would not be a bad start.”

    It’s been about one human lifetime since this book’s publication and I believe it is as relevant today for the issues raised, and also as background understanding for what the societal agenda might be in our near future. One overarching principle that stands out in the methods of behaviour control is the importance of starting with a blank slate, one only need to usurp the youngest generation into the new program and the results are assured, as long as there is no other experience available than the one you are imprinting. Every governance has known this, and we are the proof it has worked to some degree. After all, we have all gone through school as if it was the most natural and beneficial method to gain knowledge and become useful citizens in society. I spent the first 25 or so years of my life being progressively indoctrinated by instituted education and in the last 25 years I have deconstructed most of what I was taught. People like us would need a total re-boot to literally get with the program! If it could be taught in the earliest years classroom that population and consumption needed to be decreased as responsible good global citizens, then we may have that hope of changing behaviour, assuming the conflicting views are shouted down. This goes to explain why the Gretas of today will necessarily create a division between the generations, and that conflict will actually become part of the defining identity of the younger generation and make it more potent for its cause. Something similar happened in post war Germany when the young generation decried the apathy of their parents during the Nazi regime. And of course, the blind fervent obedience of the young Red Guards mobilised Communist China. To maximise the effect of the youngest generation will always need an opposition to their cause. My observation is that the aims of WEF are very much geared to the young; the “you will own nothing and be happy” shot was of a smiling young adult and the reason it may seem abhorrent to those of older generations is because our programming and experience is all about economic growth and materialism for a successful life. We may not actually have the perspective to understand that to a young person growing up today, they may reject this (possibly for the reason they cannot afford to own much anyway or perhaps they have seen the light as more commune-minded, responsible good global citizens) and what WEF is offering seems very much on target.

    What concerns me about what seems very likely the foundations being laid for the new paradigm is that many streams of influence are being robustly attempted at once, and that may be destabilising to the current system before a new one has taken its place. There is less likelihood of a controlled, effective behavioural transition (if that is our only remaining hope) when total chaos reigns, but more so, the human suffering will be insufferable.

    Thanks again for hearing me out, and for giving me the chance to revisit Walden Two.

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    1. Thanks Gaia for making this a more interesting site.

      When I read something my brain first tries to identify the key points before it decides how to respond. Please correct me if I’m wrong but here’s what I think are your key points:

      1) Human behavior is determined primarily by learned culture rather than inheritance.
      2) Mature humans do not change behavior unless forced.
      3) Advertising technology is not powerful enough to change learned behaviors.
      4) The WEF has good intentions and is preparing for BAU collapse and/or an attempt to address climate change by targeting the youth who’s behavior can be influenced.

      I think I agree with all of your points except I do believe that MORT and MPP provide inherited bounds within which learned culture must remain confined.

      Observing a few young people I think I detect support for Justin Trudeau’s authoritarian response to covid because the young believe we need harsh tools to address environmental and economic problems.

      P.S. Wikipedia provides some interesting color to Skinner’s Walden Two:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Two

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      1. I’m not so sure that human behaviour is learned, except in a superficial sense. I think we have a characteristic behaviour, just like any other species, but that behaviour is manifested in ways that have changed over time due to the change in environmental (with a small “e”) circumstances. If humans had never figured out a way to harness coal and oil, we’d still be destroying the planet and trying to gain more for ourselves, though obviously at a much lower level.

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  6. Sadly, it is WAY too late for tinkering with and titillating the brain-dead masses. The human race will be lucky to survive the next few decades, never mind trying to “fix” our global ecological overshoot with TV advertising.

    If you haven’t read it already I highly recommend the paper “Our Hunter Gatherer Future”

    Click to access Our-Hunter-Gatherer-future.pdf

    We have already spewed enough carbon into our atmosphere to totally destabilize our climate, like nothing seen since the Pleistocene, and we are only just now starting to feel the effects from the last few decades of our global shit-fuckery. It’s going to get much, MUCH worse.

    Industrial civilization is done. All that’s left is the shouting.

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    1. Thanks. Good paper by Gowdy who seems to agree with Menz that collapse of civilization is certain but we should still work to make the future less bad. Gowdy does not offer any new ideas on how to accomplish this.

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      1. I’m not sure what you mean by “new” ideas, but they had very specific suggestions for making the future less bad:

        “Policies could be enacted to make the transition away from industrial civilization less devastating
        and improve the prospects of our hunter-gatherer descendants. These include aggressive policies
        to reduce the long-run extremes of climate change, aggressive population reduction policies,
        rewilding, and protecting the world’s remaining indigenous cultures.”

        I understand if you are frustrated with just how unlikely those policy prescriptions are, but at least give credit where it is due.

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        1. I didn’t consider those credible suggestions for making the future less bad because we’ve tried those ideas for 50 years with zero success. A different approach is clearly required.

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          1. The one possible exception I’ll note is that “preserving existing indigenous cultures” was new to me. This might be the best we can do. We’ll all be applying for internships soon.

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    1. Thank you. Every aspect of covid stinks.

      Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying in their podcast today took down the recent “gold standard study” on Ivermectin that the morons in the mainstream news are gleefully quoting without asking a single skeptical question.

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      1. They “took down” their own podcast today? Should I search an archive for something with a title “gold standard study” which is likely ubiquitous, or something else? If it was taken down then I guess it is daft to ask for a link.

        Or do you mean they took apart someone else’s “gold standard study”?

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  9. I liked the Merz podcast. He at least is looking for solutions. But, I think that without an understanding of MORT and MPP you don’t realize how hard it will be to even begin to move people. A case in point is my wife: she has heard all my arguments about collapse yet denies that it is occurring or even going to occur. All the logic, facts and emotional appeals in the world can’t push past denial and hopium. And I too think it is far to late to avoid collapse and possible extinction. The only hope I have is that we can make it less worse for some small part of the bioshere so that life and maybe humans might survive – but it is a vanishingly small hope.
    AJ

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    1. Hi there AJ, I’ve appreciated your erudite, thought-provoking, yet concise comments on various topics, that is something I aspire to but alas, succinctness was never my forte! Thank you for sharing about your wife’s perspective on overshoot, that has impressed upon me greatly and I am made curious by but more so, I wish to understand more of her outlook as I am sure it will help us undenialists to find common ground with friends and family who are firmly entrenched on the grass is greener side of this fence. I can imagine you’ve had many vigorous and appealing discussions on the topic. Logically, to us at least, there is no doubt of our situation. But, I am thinking that maybe your wife’s views are formed more by great emotion, generated for those she loves and cares for greatly. I am wondering if you have children and perchance, grandchildren? Maybe some kind of overshoot denial is formed this way. A mother’s deepest instinct is to protect her young and if at all possible, prevent or ameliorate any harm which may befall them. If a situation occurs which challenges their well-being and opportunity for happiness, completely overriding any possibility of longstanding security, and there is nothing that can be done to keep the wolf from the door, then denial is the fall-back mechanism to eradicate this untenable dissociation. If it doesn’t exist in my reality, then it cannot harm me, and even more importantly, those I love; we humans are good at assuming the ostrich position. This attitude most likely is arrived at sub or even unconsciously, and no evidence to the contrary will shake it, because it is a form of self-preservation but more so, this belief preserves those who are integral to one’s self. We here are conversant with the impending chaos and possible societal collapse and even human extinction isn’t unfamiliar territory, but for most, just getting over denial of death is a challenge, not to mention the total obliteration of everything one knows and will be. I am thinking and feeling more and more that the capacity for denial is actually a compassionate escape hatch for which we have different limits before bailing out, and I should respect and even use it as such. Maybe it is enough for us to know what we know, change what we can, and have the serenity to accept all the rest. I hope all is as peaceful and joyful as can be in your corner of this earth, and best wishes to your family.

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      1. Hi Gaia,
        It’s nice to see your comments on the blog. I have written comments here for probably the better of 6 months (maybe a year?).
        So, for some of you, you already know about me already. My wife (Chinese 2nd generation) and I, are in our late 60’s. We now live in the coastal mountains of central Oregon. We both have undergrad college degrees in biology and are both retire lawyers. Because I was unaware of the true extent of the problem tying population to consumption and collapse we had 4 children. Now two (and maybe no more) grandchildren. All our kids are college educated. I have one daughter who is collapse aware and is attempting to finish a masters degree in sustainable agriculture. I meanwhile attempt to garden 3 large gardens and manage(??) 25 acres of Douglas fir (probably 3rd or 4th generation) forest/open oak pasture.
        I agree with your proposed analysis that my wife, purely for emotional reasons, denies the inevitability of collapse. She is into BAU forever, because absent that what is the purpose of life? I just try to live my life around that fact.
        AJ

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        1. Hi AJ, thank you so much for that lovely introduction to you, your family and your description of what sounds a very idyllic life in these fascinating times. I can sense the pride and joy you and your wife have for your children and well deserved, I am certain you both have provided them a wonderful foundation for them to make their self-directed lives, and each of us has to find our own meaning for ourselves. And perhaps living in the crucible moment that we are gives us the most opportunity to figure out who we really are.
          I am always interested in others’ gardens, and your forest reserve sounds like a haven! The climate where you are in Oregon is probably very similar to our maritime temperate one here in Tasmania. I’ll bet you have the most luscious small fruits as well as stone and pome fruits, we’ve just about finished picking our pears with the Comice variety being a favorite. Our lives have several other parallels–my husband and I also have undergraduate biology degrees but I took the path of medicine (which I abandoned after my internship, long story short I was completely disenchanted with the system) and he became an academic and now teaching gross anatomy at the med school here. We emigrated from the States to Australia 23 years ago and made a new life in the country on 4 acres, our village has a population of about 300. And guess what, I am also of Chinese descent (not too surprising given there are about 1.5 billion of us). I do understand how culture, even several generations removed, can color our perspectives and that may also play a great part in overshoot denial. As you know, Chinese philosophy places great emphasis on duty and obligation towards the older generations, and greater prosperity along with longevity are always the most noble goals. This necessarily means a unwavering belief in the continuation of the family and society with ever increasing affluence, which also equates to security. These entrenched ideals are in diametric opposition to what we are facing now, and with China seemingly on the unstoppable ascendancy, and their burgeoning middle class ripe for a materialistic Western lifestyle, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to deflate this bubble until the bubble completely bursts, which bubbles have a penchant for doing! I am an only child and my 75 year old Chinese mother lives with us, in a separate dwelling on the property (shades of Joy Luck Club !) and although she is somewhat aware that something is wrong with the world, her main priority now is to enjoy life as much as she can for that is her perceived due after all the hard work she’s put in. Logically, the concept of overshoot is understandable, but somehow it doesn’t apply to her or it doesn’t matter because she’s older and only one person trying to enjoy her retirement years, how much harm can she do? My very patient and understanding (but oft frustrated) husband and I are just trying to live our lives around this fact, too. All the best to you and look forward to chatting again.

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  10. Interesting essay by Kurt Cobb on the US desire to be more self-sufficient.
    I’m thinkin’ they’re gonna have to print some more money.

    The development of additional capacity could still take years to bring to fruition. There is no quick way to develop mines and the infrastructure around them short of a complete government takeover that requires no private investment and ignores costs and possibly safety and environmental requirements.

    And, that brings us to one of the major obstacles to national self-sufficiency. We have created a system that is based almost exclusively on private economic actors who must convince private investors to plow money into any mining project. And, the market for minerals is generally worldwide so world prices govern which deposits will be viable.

    That means that high-cost domestic deposits are never developed or, if developed, fail miserably when prices fall. The sad story of the rare earths Mountain Pass mine in California is instructive. This high-cost problem would imply that national self-sufficiency (or least reduced dependence on imports) would require ongoing price supports for the domestically mined minerals we deem most critical. No one is talking about that, and I doubt they ever will because it runs counter to the free-market laissez-faire ideology of those currently in charge of the world economy. And these leaders cannot yet fully imagine a world where de-globalization continues far into the future.

    http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2022/04/easier-said-than-done-national-self.html

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  11. Interesting comment by Steve St. Angelo @ POB.

    Many of you may have already seen this chart of the Global Oil Production Profile WITH and WITHOUT Debt. This chart came from one of Nate Hagen’s YouTube videos.

    I bring this to the attention of the group for discussion because I believe the dynamics of Debt are overlooked in regard to the oil industry and overall economy. Nate suggests that debt has brought on unconventional, unprofitable oil (in BLACK) and also brought forward oil from the future to increase production on an annual basis (say to 100 mbd) than would have been otherwise if debt was not used.

    Global debt has doubled since the 2008 Financial Crisis from $150 trillion to $300 trillion. With the world now reaching RESOURCE LIMITS, it seems to me that growth is over and with rising “REAL INTEREST RATES” a lot of this debt is not serviceable or sustainable. Thus, we soon see the Debt Bubble Burst.

    This would be bad for the Oil Industry because one person’s debt is another person’s asset. When Debt and Assets POP, then investment in the oil industry grinds to a halt or declines considerably.

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/us-january-production-drop-surprises/#comment-737953

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  12. Geert Vanden Bossche has a new paper out.

    https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/scientific-blog/predictions-gvb-on-evolution-c-19-pandemic

    I SERIOUSLY expect that a series of new highly virulent and highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 (SC-2) variants will now rapidly and independently emerge in highly vaccinated countries all over the world and that they will soon spread at high pace. I expect the current pattern of repetitive infections and relatively mild disease in vaccinees to soon aggravate and be replaced by severe disease and death. Unfortunately, there is no way vaccinees can rely on assistance from their innate immune system to protect against coronaviruses1 as their relevant2 innate IgM antibodies are increasingly being outcompeted by infection-enhancing vaccinal Abs, which are continuously recalled due to the circulation of highly infectious Omicron variants. In contrast, Omicron’s high infectiousness would enable the non-vaccinated to train their innate immune defense against SC-2 while the infectious and pathogenic capacity of the new SC-2 variants would be debilitated in the non-vaccinated for lack of infection-enhancing Abs in their blood. Unless we immediately implement large scale antiviral prophylaxis campaigns in highly vaccinated countries, there shall be no doubt that the pandemic will end by taking a huge toll on human lives.

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    1. Good morning to you Rob, it’s actually quite late at night here (or very early morning) and once again I find myself drawn to your site like a moth to the flame! This is sobering news indeed, and however we’ve been primed for it, it still sends shivers. As an ancillary to this topic and at the same time quite relevant to ongoing discussions of population control, have you come across this fellow A Midwestern Doctor? Yes, he’s a recent addition to my Substack collection, it’s like Pokemon cards! He’s totally not overshoot aware (in the end of this post he claims the Earth has capacity to support 40 billion people??!!) but before you throw the baby out with the bathwater, I think you’ll find what he has collated to be eye-opening and more than a bit frightening. His other posts, connecting the smallpox legacy and Anthrax vaccine to our Covid crisis are equally horrifying retrospectives into our dark history. I think he means well to release these truths and they are worth looking at, if for nothing other than assembling more pieces to the puzzle. But this latest from Geert VB is stuff of nightmares, and with that I’m going to sleep! All the best.

      https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/the-history-of-population-control?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo1MDY2MTI1MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTE1MDU5MjMsIl8iOiJrbWV1eSIsImlhdCI6MTY0OTAwMDc2MiwiZXhwIjoxNjQ5MDA0MzYyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNzQ4ODA2Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.qd7zGE6PRdyoiV6HvbGlMnFVvnvnmpG9aY00NWweSy4&s=r

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      1. Thanks Gaia. I skimmed the essay by A Midwestern Doctor and was not impressed or persuaded by his arguments. My understanding of the history he discusses is in most cases 180 degrees different.

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        1. Yeah, to say the least it’s not the most robust and validated piece but I suppose the reason I got a bit excited was just the the juxtaposition of following the threads of population control from the last page and tying it in with the current and unfolding Covid debacle. My take away message was that it was good to be reminded of the precedent that governments around the world have engaged in malfeasance to involuntarily sterilize those considered expendable or deplorable to achieve expedient goals. The system which can make and enforce these decisions for someone else is the same one that can decide we are that someone now. Every prior intervention unleashed upon various populations pales in scope of domain to this greatest human experiment bundled as the Covid “emergency” which has seen 11.3 billion doses of inoculations given as of today and counting. I am by far more staggered and concerned at this point to see this number keep climbing than by the unrelenting ticking over of the world population clock. I just can’t shake the feeling that these two are interconnected and we are about to witness a harrowing denouement. By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.

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    2. Rob,
      I read some of his paper. My problem is that Bossche seems knowledgeable but I thought early on he was postulating very virulent variants and then we had Delta and Omicron which seemed to be progressively less virulent. As I remember from my microbiology classes years ago, viruses have a tendency to evolve less virulence over time. I know that Bossche disputed that and he is far more knowledgeable than I. I hope he is wrong (having made the personal mistake of getting the vax). I have avoided having any boosters and maybe have some of my immune system left. At this point all I think that one can do is, as Chris Martenson says, prepare the terrain (take vit. D, quercetin, NAC, not be obese, and not be old (whoops failed that one)).
      AJ

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      1. I’m also not confident about Bossche’s predictions, but he is an experienced expert and seems to have good ethics and no conflicts of interest. If I had to guess there’s a large element of chance in whatever happens next with the virus.

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        1. My synopsis on COVID:

          The virus was not as bad as initially feared, and later, not as bad as commonly assumed.
          The vaccines were not as safe as advertised, or commonly assumed, but I predict also not as dangerous as the most skeptically minded feared. (i.e. not a “kill shot” set to depopulate the globe)
          The ADE fears and mutations seem to be proving not as serious as feared by the most skeptical

          Meaning I expect the affair to be memory-holed this year, because humans are insane and nobody can admit when they overreact. We have two modes: Hysteria or denial. And which one we collectively choose is a social phenomena.

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        2. Hi there fellow Covid detectives, hope you are all well.
          I appreciate all the thoughts and having many minds looking at the evidence does help put the picture in clearer focus. I think we’re still in the early phases of this experiment and just from the sheer scope of it, the possible consequences of this novel virus and the unprecedented response to it, has the ability to be world altering, as already been shown. Global lockdowns, mandates, and such have forced us to see the truth that our precarious human rights are something to be granted and earned.
          Whilst we humans have definite preferences for what is desirable for life, viruses do not, at least in the self-directed sense. I think the possible misconception that most people have is that the virus is actively seeking to be more infectious and/or virulent, I understand these are two related but different concepts, one being how easily it can spread amongst hosts and the other how easily sick the host can become, the degree of virulence refers to how severe the illness in terms of upsetting homeostasis of the organism. The virus is not purposely doing either, it just is and by hijacking the host’s replicating mechanism, it has the possibility of continuing as is or mutating into another form which may become a more efficient and effective version of something which has the possibility of being recopied. I think the point that Geert VB and others are trying to make, at least how I interpret it, is that because we are in a pandemic formation, the virus has gadzillion opportunities for mutating within hosts, as every true infection case generates umpteen viral load and there are bound to be significant mutations in the copying process, and since the viral genome is limited, even few changes can be significant in terms of altering the phenotype (how the virus physically looks, which relates to how it binds receptors and effects potential cascade of immune response, this is usually what we experience as symptoms). So, although so far the variants seem to effect a more mild symptomatology, ie less virulent (for the most part, many official Covid symptoms cannot be differentiated from the common cold, as per the UK), they are markedly more infectious, as evidenced by the huge rise in positive cases, the latest being the “son of Omicron”, BA.2 So far, nothing new here in the history of pandemics, but this time, we’ve mass inoculated (11.4 billion doses) with what is not a sterilizing vaccine, and therefore, by whatever mechanism (ADE, original antigenic sin), the virus is still able to infect and show some virulency, although mild. The crux of the matter is that the virus is still able to be kept circulating in a great segment of the world population, and thus given more chances to mutate with each successful symptomatic infection, however mild. It’s a pure numbers game that eventually, there will arise a virion in a person or population that will be the next superspreading locus with a different enough genetic code to be the “right” combination of infectivity and homeostasis disruption to be a candidate for the next dominant variant. Because the worldwide viral load at any one point in time is still so great, even if a more deadly virus arises and burns itself out in the usual way, it will still wreak havoc in terms of excess morbidity and mortality, and in the process overwhelm the health system which will lead to more M and M. It is clear by now, even for the US FDA who had a meeting today to decide future vaccine strategies, that the current ones have no power over the variants. We must consider that these novel mRNA and vector DNA vaccines have perhaps prolonged the pandemic indefinitely or at least changed the course. By the UK numbers, the vaccine efficacy is abominably negative compared to the rates of infection of the unvaccinated across all age groups (and here in Australia that is also abundantly clear, we’ve had huge spikes in cases and we’re supposed to be a highly vaccinated population, reaching 95% for over 12s, so it can’t be the unvaccinated who are driving the nearly 5 million cases, most of them since Omicron surfaced and after the majority of population only recently double vaccinated). We can look at it as the virus being increased in infectivity, or the host somehow being more susceptible to infection, so far, we have all been hammered with Omicron being an outrageously infectious agent, but what if there is another mechanism also at play? So that begs the question, is the immune modulation effect of these vaccines actually making the host more susceptible to this virus, and it happens that this particular variant can be cleared more easily by the immune system or at least presenting more typical coronaviral symptoms (perhaps a point in favour of the inoculation for being able to call the immune system into high alert, albeit temporarily, however, I am thinking that possibly any injection or even a recent upper respiratory infection by another coronavirus would effect the same). In my background research, I came to understand that all previous coronavirus vaccine attempts in animal studies led to the conclusion that eventually, the host became susceptible to repeated coronavirus infections which weakened their immune response. It is still early to say whether our highly inoculated populations who have gotten Covid will be repeatedly vulnerable to the variants or other coronaviruses, but that seems to be the general direction public health is suggesting in making ready new variant boosters. I just found in today’s news in Australia that it does seem to be the case, more and more people are getting re-infected with Omicron, even though it has only been 3 months since the initial waves of infection. It seems that those who were naïve to the virus who got the infection before vaccination and remained unvaccinated are more secure in their natural immunity to SARS-CoV2. In a landmark study early this year, for the first time, healthy, Covid naïve, unvaccinated young people were challenged exposed to the virus and only half tested positive, and of those, some were asymptomatic and the remainder only got mild symptoms. Now scientists have suddenly discovered that this rarefied group of the unvaccinated are worthy study subjects for what might be going right with their immune systems! So, perhaps the real question should be what has changed in the inoculated host’s immune system that is not only increasing susceptibility to the virus but also allowing for repeat infection, even after a short refractory period. This is an unprecedented result for an intervention meant to train the host to evade and mitigate infection. This is a main concern for me, as much or more so than the possibility of a more virulent strain emerging (which in my understanding is a pure numbers game with time), because with a possible ineffective immune response to coronavirus as the common denominator, then the host will inevitably be weakened over time with repeat exposure and infection to any strain of SARS-CoV2, however it presents.

          I stumbled through Geert VB’s paper (I seem to be a gestalt person in understanding main concepts and his level of technical explanation is challenging but of course necessary) and found his conclusion that all highly vaccinated populations be given prophylactic antiviral medication immediately to assist the host in eradicating the virus before it can take hold and continue to have a base for mutation and spread to be at once alarming but logically arrived at. This rather drastic suggestion follows our usual human thing of trying to correct one misjudgement with yet another intervention, well meaning or not, most likely it will not re-balance whatever process is already well underway and may well have even more unforeseen consequences. But I believe we can all agree that continued mass vaccinations with an ineffectual agent be immediately ceased. And my mantra has been a broken record for the need to strengthen our immune systems, that is our first, middle, last, and only defence for anything that might upset our homeostatic balance.

          Best immune status wishes to all, with a little help from sunshine, sleep, nutrition and connection with nature and our communities which I am grateful to say now includes this one!

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          1. Thank you Gaia for bringing some clarity to a complicated topic. I agree with your conclusion. It is beyond comprehension why leaders would push for more of a complex solution that does not help and that does some harm, while ignoring low risk, low cost, effective responses like vitamin D and Ivermectin.

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          2. I’m not sure I see the logic in claiming vaccines have prolonged the pandemic. This may happen if the immunity they provide is better than the immunity obtained by natural infection, since that would slow the spread. But even the unvaccinated can be infected multiple times, including by different variants. So long as people can be infected, there are chances for new more virulent variants to arise.

            Regarding variants, you seem to say that all variants have coincidentally be less virulent than the original virus but I don’t think that’s the case. Certainly, omicron appears less virulent though I don’t know the latest stats on long-Covid.

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      2. I think Bosche is right in respect of there being no reason for virus to evolve to a less virulent state. There is even less likelihood of this with SARS-Cov-2 since it is most infectious just before symptoms start, so the virus has already done its spreading before it is having severe consequences for its host. Regarding vaccines promoting dangerous variants, I’m highly skeptical of that since all of the dominant variants so far have emerged either before vaccines were widely available or in countries where vaccination was low.

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        1. Hi there Mike, hope all is going well on your end of town (or country). Rob introduced me to el gato malo who seems a genius with statistical analysis of all things Covid in a well founded and slightly snarky manner. Rob, I don’t think I thanked you for that properly, but it has been a revelatory resource as the others you’ve shared. Today the bad cat is back with some bad observations that ties in with our own discussion, in my opinion, one of the most alarming he/she has posted. It looks like what Geert VB and others have been crying Cassandra for the past two years is unfolding in a dramatically apparent way. This is really feeling like a scary movie that we’re watching in real-time, only it’s not something that will go away when we turn on the lights. Every new variant is another go at Russian roulette.

          I’m pretty sure Rob will flag this post, but here it is as well:

          https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/covid-is-becoming-increasingly-vaccine?s=r

          Any thoughts on how to ride out this storm amongst all the others if and when the variants overtake us? Here in Australia, the variant Deltacron has landed and it will be very interesting (instead of a more pessimistic term) to see what happens to our highly vaxxed population as we head into winter. However, that being said, despite our being in summer when Vit D levels should naturally be the highest even in the unsupplemented, we were decimated by Omicron, at least in numbers of infections if not overt morbidity/mortality. If these dire predictions are corret, more and more people will be suffering a myriad of symptoms and conditions that will be termed long Covid, regardless the mechanism of their retreating immune status.

          Another think I have had since the beginning relating to Rob’s question of why and how China is dealing with the pandemic (see eugyppius post) and still pursuing a no-Covid policy with draconian effect. Does it strike anyone as interesting (that’s my word of the day) that they have inoculated their billion plus population not with an mRNA or DNA vector vaccine but a traditional inactivated virus one, either SinoVac or Sinopharm. And why did we in the western world not get a choice for this one, but only offered (that’s a loaded term) the experimental genetic modulating ones?

          China’s continued stance of keeping Covid of any variant to minimal levels despite the world now just letting it rip may signal something they know but we don’t, yet. After all, it was in China that it began, and I would be willing to bet that they have more of a clue how and perhaps why. Their reaction now is precisely what Geert VB has suggested to do chemically, instead of mass antivirals to stop the virus from finding hosts to spread, maybe they are trying to use these drastic lockdowns to break the chain so more variants aren’t created within their population. It could be that the Chinese and all the populations that have used the traditional inactivated virus vaccine will be our hope for herd immunity for SARS CoV2. The plot thickens.

          Stay well and curious, friends.

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          1. LOL, you beat me to the punch. I was reading el gato’s post today and thought it was worth mentioning here. It seems possible we’re in a lull before another storm.

            You make excellent observations about China. Their behavior is very curious. I think Chinese leaders are much less stupid than our western leaders. Let’s watch.

            My personal plan remains unchanged. I’m trying to stay healthy and am keeping my supplies topped up in case I need to avoid public spaces for a prolonged period. Same plan works for possible food shortages later this year.

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          2. That link suggests that the vaccinated are more at risk of being infected. However, here in New Zealand, the unvaccinated have been at about the same risk of becoming a case as those with more than 1 dose. This is for cases, which is not a very accurate number, especially now that RATs are the predominant way of checking for cases. A couple of points about those numbers is that a study in Australia suggested that the unvaccinated are less likely to be tested even if symptomatic, and the fact that, until recently, only the fully vaccinated were able to mix, relatively freely, with others whilst not masked. It will be interesting to see how this comparison evolves now that vaccine passes have been largely abolished. Interestingly, the partially vaccinated (1 dose) are about half as likely as the unvaccinated to become a case, and both of those groups could not participate in activities that required a vaccine pass. If one looks at hospitalisations, the unvaccinated are way over represented, compared to the vaccinated (about 4 times the boosted rate of hospitalisations), although the publicly available data on this are not good quality, so I wouldn’t bet anything on that comparison.

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  13. Well I spoke to soon. Everybody caught it and all except me are now on the mend. I was the last to fall and ran a fever all night and generally feel lethargic and don’t feel like doing much. Hopefully feeling better tomorrow. Feels like a mild hangover. I’ve had worse.

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    2. I trust you’ll bounce back soon, and glad to hear everyone else is better now. You may be interested to know that just today the UK added 9 new items to the official Covid symptom list, and you ticked off several of them. Would you believe that one of the official symptoms for Covid is now “feeling sick” and another is “a blocked or runny nose”. How’s that for specificity? The NHS website apparently did state that “The symptoms are very similar to symptoms of other illnesses such as colds or flu”. Meanwhile, their case numbers are skyrocketing again (their Office for National Statistics said 1 in 13 people in the UK had the virus the previous week, such is the efficacy of the vaccines) so the best thing to do is obviously stop the free testing (the program ends today) which will naturally bring the numbers down quick smart. I know it’s a few days past the first of this month but I am wondering who is the fool here. In case you want some light relief, here’s the Guardian article.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/04/uk-covid-symptoms-list-expanded-with-nine-more-signs-of-illness

      When you’re recovered and want a bit of a diversion, you’re most welcome to swing by our place in Glen Huon. The autumn colours are peaking just about now. We even have several Sugar Maples (originally planted to tap for maple syrup and the trees are finally up to size to start doing a first tap but we haven’t gotten around to it, it seems like quite the production) so there’s our shout out to Rob and O Canada!

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    3. My whole family was also affected by Covid mid of March. I had the same lethargic feeling as you desribed but in general nobody in our family was at the brink of going to the hospital.

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    1. IPCC say “greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025” – I think we can manage that but just doing nothing at waiting for the diesel to run out

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      1. wow that was bad writing on my part *I think we can manage that by just doing nothing and waiting for the diesel to run out

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  16. It’s becoming more and more clear to me that regardless of intelligence, education, or expertise, if a person does not understand limits to growth and overshoot they understand nothing about what is going on in the world today, nor what we should be doing in response.

    Today I listened to 3 different discussions by very smart, truth seeking people:
    1) Michael Green, Hugh Hendry and Tom Roderick discussing the economy.
    2) Whitney Webb et. al. debating the Great Reset.
    3) George Gammon & David Collum discussing world affairs.

    All of them know something big is going on, and all of them are flailing around making up crazy explanations because their brain’s genetic denial prevents them from seeing overshoot and the end of growth.

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    1. Your point is well taken – their are so many factors at work. Denial, ego appeal of having esoteric answers, identity appeal of having shared group beliefs, management of death fears.

      On the Gammon/Cullum discussion I particularly enjoyed the discussion around 18-20 minutes about Hegellian dialectics playing out in society as opposed to a “they.” Very similar to Gail T’s “self-organizing complexity.”

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    2. Indeed. I get the same feeling whenever I hear about 10 year, 30 year and 50 year plans for various societies, technologies and so on. Oddly (as I’d hope for more objectivity), even science magazines fall into that trap – one even said recently that we need more green growth!

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  17. Thanks to Hole in Head @ POB for finding this hilarious piece by Dmitry Orlov. Our western leaders once again demonstrate they’re not very bright.

    Europe doesn’t have any contracts for Russian natural gas

    I promised to stop writing on this subject until something significant happened, and an entire day went by without anything significant, but now there’s this. German-language media has already been going crazy lately about future purchases of oil and natural gas. Since Germany is included in the list of “unfriendly countries” by Russia, it, like all the EU states, will only be allowed to purchase Russian natural gas for rubles, and not for euros or US dollars. And now comes this bit of news, which should make the German talking heads go super-double-crazy: Germany will be left without Russian gas because its contract is not with Gazprom but with its subsidiary Gazprom Germany, which Gazprom has abandoned.

    Barely a day or two ago, German officials were loudly declaring that their contract with Gazprom provides for payment in euros or dollars, and therefore Germany will not pay for Russian gas in rubles. That ought to make everything perfectly clear. However, Germany’s gas supply contract is with Gazprom Germania GmbH, located in Berlin, and not with actual Gazprom, headquartered in St. Petersburg! Do the German authorities even know that these are two completely different organizations?

    Gazprom Germania GmbH is the headquarters of the diversified conglomerate Gazprom Germania Group, which includes 40 enterprises operating in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Until Friday, it was a 100% subsidiary of the Russian Gazprom. On Friday, Gazprom pulled out of Gazprom Germania and no longer has anything to do with its former Berlin subsidiary. With that, Gazprom Germania has lost any connection to Russian gas. Worse yet, it is believed to be insolvent and likely to go bankrupt within a few weeks, at which point it will be liquidated. All of its customers will now be forced to buy gas from Gazprom Russia and it pay in… rubles. No rubles—no gas!

    Having imposed anti-Russian sanctions as demanded of it by Washington, Germany has already frozen Russian foreign exchange reserves. The country’s largest gas storage facility in Rehden (Lower Saxony) is only 0.5% full—an all-time low. Until this Friday, this vault, as well as a number of other facilities located at key points in Germany’s energy infrastructure, indirectly belonged to Russia’s Gazprom—but not any more! If earlier the German government threatened to nationalize Russian gas assets on its territory, now such threats have become hollow. Germany has nothing more that it can threaten to steal from Russia to force it to keep the gas flowing.

    Instead, Germany’s representatives now have to fly to St. Petersburg and negotiate a new deal with Gazprom directly, in rubles. Except that they can’t do that either! According to the Energy Charter and the Third Energy Package of the European Union, every single supplier of energy resources to the EU is required to be part of the EU legal system—perhaps not directly, but definitely through subsidiaries such as Gazprom Germania GmbH. Thus, all of Gazprom’s contracts with buyers from the European Union were signed by Gazprom Germania GmbH and its other subsidiaries. It could not have been otherwise, for otherwise the contracts would be outside the jurisdiction of the European Union and the Europeans considered this unacceptable.

    But now the Europeans will need to come to Russia and sign contracts under Russian law, with payment stipulated in rubles. Of course, the European Commission will never agree to this… and now we have to wait impatiently to see just quickly this “never” will come to an end.

    By the way, Rosneft Deutschland, the German subsidiary of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, is now also an orphan. It seems that Russia’s former partners (now “unfriendly nations”) are being moved not just to the gas ruble, but also to the petroruble. Given the current shortage of diesel fuel in Europe, the prospect of a petroruble is becoming much clearer than Europe would like.

    https://boosty.to/cluborlov

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  18. Thanks to hillcountry @ OFW for finding what appears to be an important paper explaining the mechanism that makes ivermectin effective against covid.

    Nice to see there are still a few scientists with integrity.

    Conclusions

    Attachments of glycans on SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to RBCs and to other blood cells and endothelial cells may be central to the microvascular morbidities of COVID-19. An in vitro experiment is proposed to test these attachments, in particular the binding considered here between spike protein glycans and SA terminal residues of GPA surface molecules on RBCs, possibly with a further linkage provided by anti-RBD antibodies. If hemagglutination is found to occur when SARS-CoV-2 trimeric spike protein is mixed with RBCs, possibly with anti-RBD antibody required as well, further insight can be provided by testing the capability of the macrocyclic lactone, IVM, to block these attachments through competitive binding.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8910562/

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  19. Very interesting documentary on the corn supply chain. Note the system’s dependence on abundant affordable energy for machines and fertilizer. Also note the system’s fragility to a disruption in the supply of advanced technology parts. Finally, note the dependence on stable weather.

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    1. Thanks Rob for sharing that exposition of modern corn farming, ironically entitled “The Incredible Efficiency of”. I know it was probably meant to impress the viewer on the agricultural prowess of the US but I was increasingly transfixed by horror as everything I saw in the process just leads us down the path of doom, every kernel seemed to represent another drop of oil gone. The so-called soil, no more than just a substrate, seems completely devoid of a thriving microbiome and such as it is, depleted year on year. There is little honor and life-affirming joy in bringing forth sustenance; the only aim is profit and productivity. If this is what it takes to feed humans via our livestock today, then we are another species removed from the days when Native peoples in that same area planted the time-honored Three Sisters of corn, beans, and squash in great harmony with the land, without fossil fuels nor even draft animal labor. I truly wonder if we can ever get back to that almost mythical time, even as we must.

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  20. Eugyppius weighs in on why the Chinese have locked down Shanghai.

    In summary, why speculate on a complex diabolical plan to harm the west when simple stupidity suffices.

    We’ve spent many months speculating about Chinese reasons for locking down Hubei and then promoting lockdowns to the rest of us. While malicious ends shouldn’t be excluded, their behaviour in Shanghai points increasingly to official incompetence and stupidity. The Chinese government has almost surely spent two years sowing horror of Corona among its people, to defend its harsh actions in Wuhan and to collect accolades for its alleged Zero Covid success. Now they are going the route of other Zero Covid regimes. They will double down on worthless policies, until their failure becomes so overwhelmingly evident, that they give up.

    https://www.eugyppius.com/p/why-are-the-chinese-losing-their?s=r

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  21. I’m not recommending you waste any time watching this but it is a breathtaking example of reality denial focused on telling young people they are not doomed.

    They of course do not mention the broader context of overshoot nor the need for rapid populaiton reduction.

    1.3M views in less than a day. Everybody loves denial.

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  23. When I was a young man it was normal to have recessions and they served to purge unsustainable excesses. Over the last 2 decades our leaders have done everything in their power to prevent a purge because our system is now one big unsustainable excess.

    I expect one of these days Mac10’s often repeated warnings will come true. The intensity of his warnings has increased as the pressure within our system has increased, which is what happens when you try to deny the end of growth.

    https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-brick-wall-of-more.html

    THE BRICK WALL OF “MORE”

    An intelligent life form dropping in from Outer Space would in no way believe the Titanic scale of infantile bullshit being bought and believed at this dire juncture. Only a society in late stage dementia could buy the current ludicrous promises being made about the future. The “solution” to our environmental catastrophe is coming straight at us – it’s the brick wall of “More”, which was financed for over a decade at 0% and is now facing facing imminent global margin call…

    “U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change revealed “a litany of broken climate promises” by governments and corporations, accusing them of stoking global warming by clinging to harmful fossil fuels.

    “It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track toward an unlivable world”

    I used to worry about climate change. It was at the top of my list of existential worries. But since the pandemic, I finally realized all of this risk is outside of my span of control. The pandemic caused the largest collapse in carbon output in our lifetimes. It was temporary, but it showed the potential for what can happen when a species is preoccupied solely with personal preservation. After all, the pandemic was relatively innocuous. The U.S. states that had the lowest vaccination rates, the worst healthcare, and non-existent social distancing measures all fared just fine. By any account Alabama should have imploded. But they’re still fat and happy. We were warned that our consumption-oriented way of life was ending, so what did we do, we went on a biblical scale consumption binge.

    The pandemic and associated lockdown drove a consumption preference from services to durable goods. This consumption shift combined with the supply chain disruptions, caused inventories to become depleted. As a response retailers began double ordering and they abandoned just in time inventory techniques. This accelerated the “hyperinflationary” hysteria that fueled inordinate above-trend demand. As we see below, it was A MASSIVE consumption binge that is only now starting to abate as evidenced by recent declines in trucker freight rates.

    …Meanwhile, during this hyperinflationary consumption orgy, the Fed was busy inflating their asset bubble to record levels across every risk asset class on the planet. So now they are slamming on the brakes at the fastest rate in history, which we see below via the thirty year mortgage % change. Of course this is all the PERFECT recipe for total economic collapse. And the first order effect will be financial collapse and credit crisis, both of which already started in Q1.

    Aiding and abetting this disaster in progress, are all of today’s financial pundits who are convincing people to ignore all risk. They have succeeded in convincing the masses that they can ride out a global depression, by hiding in stocks. These pundits have universally been fooled into believing that inflation is the biggest long-term problem facing stocks. None are more deluded than the Fed themselves who are now moving into what I call “Stage 2” global meltdown.

    Below we see via momentum stocks, this was the level of decline at which the Fed pivoted to a dovish stance in 2018. Then in 2019, the Fed cut rates 3 times AND expanded their balance sheet due to the repo market dysfunction.

    This time, they’re going for FULL meltdown.

    In summary, what’s coming is what I call B.S. reduction. There is far too much hot air on this planet right now and most of it is emanating from proven psychopaths.

    What this all points to is a hard landing at the zero bound. A non-existent monetary interest rate buffer to offset the fastest demand collapse in world history.

    Japanification.

    Which means ZERO economic growth long term.

    And a stock market that can be RENTED, but never OWNED. Because one thing this society will learn the hard way is in the end we are all just renters anyways.

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    1. Is this guy credible? I have tried to read quite a few posts of him now. There are a lot of graphs where something goes up and something goes down, with some peaks marked, but they are not well explained for someone not versed in economics, the content is more or less incomprehensible for me. I am also missing some advice on how to manage an upcoming crisis.

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        1. Agreed, Mac10 knows far more about finance than I do. . .but I do think he is correct that the “inflation story” is fundamentally wrong. I think he posits that we have an asset bubble and inflation is just a short term thing (due to the Fed printing lots of money and Washington giving away lots of money during Covid lockdowns(money we don’t have)). He anticipates the mother of all asset collapses when the debt fueled bubble bursts. I agree with Rob, he doesn’t understand/or acknowledge overshoot. Plus he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that the Fed has to save the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency (if they can??) rather than save the market.
          I could be wrong – as finance is not my forte.
          AJ

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      2. I have read/watched 1000s of hours worth of market commentary since January 2020……the only analyst I have found that has called it right….again and again….is Gregory Mannarino….he posts 2 videos per weekday on Youtube…and a markets look ahead video on Sundays…..

        He’s a straight shooter…funny as hell…..worth giving a chance to….. in my opinion….

        Like Mac10 he is sure that the mother of all crashes is coming….but not yet…..he watches the debt market primarily, and the 10yr yield in particular …for signs of trouble…..and until the debt market implodes…..there is money to be made in the stock market…

        As a hedge against debt market implosion/currency collapse he suggests holding “anti-debt units”…number one of those being physical silver…followed by physical gold….and yes, cryptocurrencies….

        To Rob M: kudos to you for keeping the website going!…..one of the best sidebars around…..do you still pay attention to the work of Paul Arbair or Jean Marc Jancovici?

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        1. Thanks for the tip! I’ll start following Mannarino.

          I’ve lost touch with Arbair. Has he done any good work recently?

          I still follow Jancovici but most of his work and interviews of late have been in his native French language.

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              1. Nice job and nice to be reminded….. that public intellectuals once existed…..who weren’t sanctimonious twats!!

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        2. I get the sales brochure from a “controversal” German publishing house. There is a section about economic issues. Every book in this section seems to hint at the crash of all crashes since I got the sales brochure the first time years ago. Therefore, I am critical of people, who take this position, even though I must admit, that I somehow agree with them based on my knowlegde on ressource depletion.

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          1. You are right. A lot of people have been expecting a crash for 10+ years. Me included.

            I was unable to imagine they would create trillions and trillions of taxpayer backed debt that any reality aware person would know can never be repaid from energy constrained growth. Then I studied Varki’s MORT and understood my error.

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  24. Alice Friedemann today with a summary of her research on how governments might respond to an energy crisis.

    https://energyskeptic.com/2022/energy-certificates-as-currency-when-oil-shocks-strike/

    I am sure that politicians and other government experts at all levels are aware of peak oil. You can see that clearly in the congressional hearings, from the military, and the Hirsch (2005) report on Peak oil for the Department of energy (see all posts at category Experts, topic Government here or by subtopics). For example, see my post on Oil ShockWave. I summarized an executive crisis simulation that illustrated the strategic dangers of oil dependence by confronting a mock U.S. cabinet with highly geopolitical crises that trigger sharp increases in oil prices. They had to grapple with the economic and strategic consequences of this ‘oil shock’ and formulate a response plan for the nation. Spoiler alert: they didn’t come up with a plan, and worse yet, and the military argued that they should get all the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. To do what? Start a war in the Middle East and waste our last drops of oil?

    I’ve had a hard time finding plans to cope with an energy crisis. I suspect they’re top secret within the military and Homeland Security. But recently I discovered that the governors of most states have energy crisis plans, though not all states do, and they vary in what the governor can do and is expected to do in order to cope. I’m working on the California plan now, but it is terribly out of date, from 2014, and the plan is to anticipate shortages and scramble to buy supplies to avert an energy crisis. If the grid goes down, utilities are expected to have plans for mutual aide from out-of-state utilities. There’s some hope renewables can provide more power, but even in 2014 California was aware renewables would destabilize the grid and make additional natural gas plants essential (CEC 2014).

    Of course I should have figured out actions would take place at the state level, with the governor in charge. S(he) would then ask the Federal government for help, call in the national guard, already have a plan to get more energy, where vulnerable populations were, and contacts at the county and city level to do the actual work of opening shelters and providing food.

    But these state plans don’t mention rationing, because they aren’t planning for the Long Emergency. There is no planning for oil decline visible to the public, probably because the plans are too grim, perhaps involving preventing a Grapes of Wrath mass movement of millions to other states and cities. And dealing with the Four Horsemen who are likely to appear when oil shortages are beyond coping with.

    An oil shock is coming. I make the case for in “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the future of transportation”, that it is diesel shortages that are the most critical to resolve, since diesel trucks and engines plant, harvest, and deliver food, haul garbage, mine, log, and the rest of the hard work that needs being done.

    I’ve yet to find rationing plans for energy or food or anything else at the state level.

    But I think I know why…

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      1. Heaven help us when we can’t get hold of Vegemite. That’ll really be a bad sign!

        Well I’m finally over the Rona. I think I took the longest in my family to get over it properly. Nearly a week. I ran quite a high temperature for three nights. One night I measured myself in the middle of the night and I was 40 degrees. No wonder I had trouble sleeping. Aside from that it wasn’t so bad. I’ve certainly had worse. All I’m left with is a bit of a blocked nose.

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  26. Hi Perran,
    So glad to hear you’re good now and great that your taste buds certainly haven’t been affected if you’re craving plum sauce! Being an import myself, I’ve never used EZY sauce but I know plenty of local cooks who swear by it. They said in the article it contained cloves, black pepper and chili, but there’s probably proprietary ingredients for the secret sauce and of course the proportions need to be worked out. For what it’s worth, from my cooking experience, I found that fennel seeds add a lot of flavour, especially if you dry roast them a bit first. And I think for plum sauce, a touch of ginger (probably grated fresh is better than powder here), ground cardamon, and mixed spice (which would include clove and cinnamon) would go a long way to adding that extra zing, and I can’t go past adding grated orange zest (I think orange here is better than lemon), too. If you have sumac and smoked paprika, that would give it a bbq touch, those are my favourites for that extra layer of taste sensation. For the acidity, I would use balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar. For sweetness, I use coconut sugar but honey here would work well. And I think a touch of tamari or soy would be the perfect salt compound. The idea is balancing all the flavours our tongues can detect, sweet, sour, salty and that extra savoury component. Did you have a good plum harvest this year? Ours was only so-so, I think the extended early Spring rains kept the bees away at the critical time. But what we did get was good sized fruit, especially the Golden Drop and Green Gage plums. Hope you have a great lead up week to Easter, and just to make others who are tuning in around the globe jealous, shall we tell them of our 5 day weekend here? That’s right, we not only get Good Friday as a public holiday but also Easter Monday and get this, there’s also Easter Tuesday especially for Tasmanians! No, this is not the main reason we chose to move here, but it sure was a bonus when we learned of our luck the first year. Hope you and your boys have a great school holiday, too.

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    1. I don’t know about Rob, but I like all our new commentators from south of the equator. It’s a nice perspective to see people enjoying the fruits of the harvest when we are trying to get out of winter and start planting. We had one day last week of 75 F and now have reverted to potentially winter again (likely snow and close to freezing for a week while all the fruit trees have just blossomed and leafed out), we should be mid to low 60 F about now. Don’t know about the southern jet stream but the northern one is/ or has been “readjusted” by climate change. It used to go mainly west to east with few a few small dips; now it has huge standing waves of north to south winds (with less west to east) that can fix an area with either abnormally hot or cold weather for weeks at a time. Agriculture is becoming more problematical.
      AJ

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    2. No our harvest of everything was way down this year. The only thing that had an ok crop was the pears. The cherries were light and what we had got destroyed by the rain in January. Plums and apricots were very light.
      We had snow on the ground in both September and November and we had a good frost in October. It wasn’t a good spring for setting fruit.

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  27. Thought I’d mention that I’ve read Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying’s book “A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life”.

    Three times, which means I think it’s excellent and I recommend it.

    I was going to write a review criticizing them for being in denial about human overshoot despite being brilliant biologists that should understand overshoot, but after the 2nd read I think they get it but choose not to be as politically incorrect as we here at un-denial. They do seem oblivious to the energy scarcity threat, but that’s a prerequisite for being famous these days.

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56883406-a-hunter-gatherer-s-guide-to-the-21st-century

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    1. After waiting 6 weeks or so, I am next on the wait list at the library to check it out. When I have read it I will let you know what I think. Thanks for the reccomendation.
      AJ

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    2. Thank you for the recommendation. This sounds like an intriguing book. It seems to be recommended quite often in the areas of the internet that I frequently visit.

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  28. So I went shopping today and a bag of three zucchini was almost four Euros when just few weeks to months they where around two Euros. I am/was fortunate enough that I don’t need to look at prices too closely but that kind of floored me to be honest. In regards to my zucchini situation, BAU is certainly over. But seriously, I really don’t know if we just hit another gear in our civilizatory demise or if things go back to usual. Maybe both?

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    1. This is not a good example for rising prices. Based on my personal experience, vegetable prices seem to be very dynamic. Years ago, I already made rules for when a vegetable would be too expensive to buy, e.g. I did not buy paprika if the price went above 3€ per kg.

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      1. This was not a fancy market, it was at a German discounter (Aldi). If prices rise too much they would normally simply didn’t stock them.

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        1. I also don´t buy at fancy markets (mostly Kaufland), but I was not aware that Aldi does not stock vegetables if the prices rise too high. At Kaufland I have seen high prices for vegetables quite often, even the 4€ per kg for Zucchini. I can confirm that they are high at the moment, but I am not sure whether the prices will rise further based on my knowlegde of fluctuating vegetable prices.

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          1. Addendum: If we base this analysis on the idea that we have already crossed peak oil, I could envision that all agricultural products will become a lot more expensive soon.

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    2. Hi there fellow zucchini fans, that’s a lot of Euro for not much squash! Just to think at one point this summer I couldn’t give away zucchini fast enough, but this year we had an early frost and we’ve just finished the last of our crop. I will never take them for granted again (until next summer). Our favourite variety is Costata Romanesco which is a beautiful striped and ribbed Italian heirloom that has a delicious flavour and stays tender on the vine even if you’ve forgotten to pick it, you know, turn your back and next thing you know, it’s a monster. As a visual bonus, when you slice them, they make a lovely scalloped disc because of their ribbing. For all those northern hemisphere friends who have the space and are waiting for the days to warm up enough to start tomatoes, eggplant and peppers (we call them capsicums here), to complete your ratatouille, do try this variety this year, the seeds should be easily found.

      And now for some sobering news from another island, the multicultural jewel of Sri Lanka which by all parameters should be a thriving tropical paradise. Alas, it may be yet another canary in the coalmine for what is awaiting us with multiple collapse factors converging at once. Runaway government debt and inflation, supply chain and pandemic woes, leading to Sri Lanka’s 22 million residents suffering weeks of power blackouts and severe shortages of food, fuel and even lifesaving medicine in the country’s worst downturn since independence in 1948. The country is on the brink of political unrest with the PM urging patience as the people sometimes have to stand in line for 12 hours to fill up their gas tanks.
      What should make this even more worrisome is another factor which has led to this dramatic economic demise, apparently the government thought it feasible to turn the whole country into an organic isle and forbid the use of chemical fertilizer without any real idea how it would translate full scale. Six months after going organic, the country that was once self-sufficient in rice had to import $600 million (AUD) worth of foreign crop and the loss of yield in tea and rubber hammered the nail in the coffin for their economy. They have since reversed the ban on chemical fertilizers but the damage has already been done and the country has been overtaken by fallout events. So, this is a foretaste of what might happen if the world supply of urea diminishes due to fossil fuel shortage, I am recalled by Rob’s sidebar quote that “All 8 billion of us owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact it rains; 6 billion of us also owe our existence to nitrogen fertilizer created from natural gas by Haber-Bosch factories”. Thanks Rob for suggesting “The Alchemy of Air” as another excellent read, until I did so, I had absolutely no clue of this critical process upon which modern agriculture depends. Now I really appreciate our excess zucchini and am already a tiny bit jealous that the seasons have changed and it’s your turn now to deal with them.

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      1. Very interesting. I was aware of Sri Lanka’s economic problems but had no idea that their organic policies were a contributing factor.

        I work on an organic farm and the organic certified inputs we use don’t look any less fragile or unsustainable to my eye than their non-organic counterparts. Then there is the plastic and metals we have no choice to use for greenhouse, irrigation, and fence construction. Plus the diesel and gasoline we depend on.

        I do think it is a very good idea to eliminate pesticides and herbicides from our food chain wherever possible. My research suggests some foods benefit more from organic status than others. For example, I only buy organic oats, potatoes, and strawberries.

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        1. So long as the crops grown organically are produced by the same system of large scale monoculture and the supply involves transport of thousands of kilometres, there isn’t much difference in the footprint, but nutritional and thus health benefits are measurable. Direct foraging in a permaculture based stacked food forest with in-situ inputs would be a more sustainable system but that would of course greatly limit our population just as all ecological webs find their level balance. I say more sustainable but not totally because from our experience, the initial input to set up even a small holding along some of these principles requires staggering amounts of energy (both human and fossil fuelled) and materials (more fossil fuelled). We’re talking dams and swales being dug by heavy machinery, bringing in tons of organic material initially, endless polypipe for irrigation and of course fencing. We consider having steel droppers to be equivalent to money in the bank. Then there’s pumping of water, you can’t get away from that if you don’t have a gravity gradient in your favour. All to try to replicate nature! It does seem that the beginning of agriculture was also the beginning of our doom in so many ways. But hopefully the trees we have planted and the terraforming we have done will outlast us many years and provide others who find the land with sustenance, and in time (if we are lucky to have it), actually become more self-sustaining.

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            1. That’s Australian for a steel post, in various lengths with pre-drilled holes along the length that you can easily pound into the ground for various applications like fencing, trellising, building. It’s also termed star picket which I suppose refers to the cross section which would be a + . Thank you for the encouragement to keep planting and experimenting with increasing soil fertility, not a bad way to finish up here.

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              1. Thanks. We use steel t-posts for fencing. They are 10′ long and shaped like a T with bumps down one side for securing the fence, but no holes. I just finished electrifying the last third of the perimeter fence to keep the bears out of the berries.

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          2. Yes, attempts to live sustainably in one place, trying to maintain current lifestyles perhaps, is doomed to failure, ultimately. However, I do like the idea of a windmill pumping water to a header tank to provide running water. Would like to get that going sometime soon. Of course, this isn’t sustainable, so a “natural” pond with some kind of filtration or solar distilling capacity for drinking water is desirable.

            Trees are key, though, so I wish you well with your set-up.

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            1. Hi Mike and all permies, I’m sure you’ve heard of a ram-type pump that uses the natural fall of a running creek to pump water up quite impressive heads? There are quite a few designs out now, an Australian one that we use is called the Bunyip Pump. https://bunyipwaterpumps.com
              Do you have such a situation you could tap into? There are minimum falls and flow rates to make it feasible, but even small amounts of water moved uphill 27/7 to a header tank or dam (Aussie for pond) can add up to an impressive volume which you could use gravity fed back down to wherever you need to direct the water. One of the main principles of permaculture that I’ve learned is to try to keep water on your property for as long as possible so it can totally charge the soil before draining away. Of course, standing water isn’t desirable, unless you may want to try growing rice or taro.
              As for trees, we’ve planted hundreds and they are the guardians of our homestead bringing life to body, mind, and spirit. If anyone is remotely interested, I will now divulge that our permaculture experiment actually has two sites, our home base in Tasmania which we began 23 years ago upon emigrating to Australia, and a subtropical one in the highlands of Far North Queensland which we started 10 years ago. This we began because I finally realised that the lack of sunshine, namely UVB, in Tassie in the winters was the main driver of a myriad of health symptoms I had every winter that completely reverse when I receive more intense sunlight, remarkably within hours of tropical strength UV, I feel like a charged battery. Both are about 4 acres, with a sloped aspect, and creek boundary, and about 10 km from the nearest small town. But there the similarities end for the climate and soil are as different as can be and thus our range of growing also transverses the spectrum. I go up the QLD for 3 months in the winter (this is the equivalent of Americans going to Florida) to tend the block whilst living out of a shed and soaking up the sun, it’s a real jungle but I love it, leeches, ticks, and all. Well, maybe I don’t love the blood suckers but we have come to an understanding. My husband stays in Tassie to hold down the fort (and keep the day job which fuels all of this) and he joins me during his annual holiday in the form of an intense work camp. Now you can throw tomatoes at me and rightfully so for my contribution to carbon pollution as I jet back and forth 3000 km and 25 degrees of latitude. Guilty as charged but my husband and I hope to plead clemency for not having children and also leaving behind two small but wholeheartedly intentioned landscapes which may provide sustenance for whomever will find it theirs to caretake. I almost think it’s all worth it just to know I now have had the delectable experience of growing our own mangoes as well as persimmons, both fruit of the gods.

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              2. Yeah, I know about ram pumps but don’t have running water on my land so can’t use that option (though that is also unsustainable, ultimately). I’d like a manual pump of sorts to at least get water out of a rain tank if necessary.

                I’d consider moving on to a better place but we had a hell of a problem finding this section (2 acres) and have had all sorts of problems with council on building 2 dwellings (for family) so I doubt I’d be able to persuade others to move again, not that I’m really young enough to consider it.

                Still, more trees is my main aim and persimmon will definitely be at least one of them!

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                1. Hi Mike, you’re right, this is not the best time to contemplate any sort of moving but rather hunkering down and making the best of what you’ve already got. Unless you find a property already set up for your family situation, which is becoming rare indeed as most of us like-minded people aren’t shifting either! I have an idea of what you’ve gone through with council–we also had to go through the red tape of getting permission to build another dwelling on our property as my mother lives in the original house and my husband and I in the new (now 16 years old) 1 bedroom but very versatile little house we designed and organised the build. I wouldn’t do that again even if I could!

                  A shout out to all N Zeds here, today we harvested our kiwis, 15 boxes worth, most of them rather small but some are nearly store bought sized. We have a vermin proof shed that acts a bit like a cool store where we keep our fruit over the winter, and the kiwis usually last till mid Spring, getting softer but still very serviceable for smoothies. You will certainly want to plant a persimmon tree, the astringent types are more tasty but you will have to wait until they go really soft to eat them, of course you probably know this. The other tree I think is a must-have for our climates is a black mulberry, do you already have one in the ground? And this goes for all our northern hemisphere friends with the space on their land, many of you seem to live in the same climate zone, interesting isn’t it? And one more tip of the day before I forget and I really must share this because it’s a new discovery that I am just thrilled about–did you know you can eat fig leaves? Yes, they cook up really well in curries, like spinach, and used as wraps for anything, and the most amazing thing is they give off an aroma just like coconuts and vanilla with a touch of nuttiness, so that’s why I think they’re a perfect green to add to curries. Our leaves are starting to yellow now but whoever has a fig tree, please do try this sometime this year.

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                  1. Love your food growing news and tips Gaia (we’re growing figs). We bought 22 acres in northern NZ just over a year ago with the big intention to grow our own food and house the family longterm in multiple small dwellings mainly from materials- timber, rocks, bamboo and earth – from the land. Food has been the big initial focus establishing a food forest and raised gardens for annuals. Pumpkins (over 120 so far this season), tomatoes and potatoes have been our biggest successes. Cow manure by the trailer load from a neighbour’s farm has been key to getting good soil growing. Couldn’t have done any of it so far without fossil fuels. Contemplating getting a couple of cows ourselves for dairy and meat and their nutrient cycling benefits (cow shit). We’ve been largely vegetarian and plant based milk consumers the last 5 years but not sure that’s the best option in the face of what’s coming. We have a lot of Australian possums I’m trapping and plenty of “free range” rabbits. Not quite there with eating them yet but can see a time when slow cooked wild game will be on the menu.

                    We’re lucky we have gravity fed water supply from a beautiful spring fed bush lined stream. I have also looked into the Bunyip pump but they’re expensive. Will probably install a ram pump to supply other ports of the land the gravity system can’t.

                    Our friends have a pretty high profile food forest established an hour south. It’s pretty inspiring if anyone is interested in that topic. Check out this video introduction – https://youtu.be/YBPLrr9Hph0

                    Happy gardening.

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                    1. Hello there Campbells, good to meet another neighbour across the Tasman! I trust you and your family are having a peaceful and abundant Easter, rabbits included! Your property sounds absolutely idyllic from which to create your food forest and home haven, so happy that it’s found you! Thank you for sharing your ideals and plans, it’s so wonderful to have met on Rob’s site so many like-minded earthlings who just want to learn how to live with intention and communion with the land. This has been a busy couple of days (in the garden, of course!) and I haven’t had a chance to look at the video yet but will, just wanted to say a quick hello and thank you for all the encouragement and right back at you and everyone else, wherever your life experiment might be, and whatever the scale or scope. It’s so refreshing to be able to balance pragmatic and personally fulfilling action steps with the intellectual knowledge of everything else that is happening all around us, for me the daily routines on and with the land have been critical for my sanity and well-being. There’s nothing that sunshine, bird song, and the feeling of soil between your fingers can’t make better!

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              3. I’m very impressed! My mental image of your small island country is wrong: 3000km between homesteads is big!

                I’ve never seen that type of water pump before. I really like that it operates without electricity.

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                1. We in Tasmania like to sometimes think we’re the mainland and the rest of Australia is just a satellite island to the north of us. There’s a formidable stretch of water separating us, called the Bass Strait and it’s more than proof that the Roaring 40s are a force to be reckoned with, even seasoned sailors consider it a challenge to navigate.
                  About your bears in the berry patch, Rob, I think I’d take my wallaby problem over yours any day!

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      1. In Germany, this would be considered normal for April. We even have poems describing the unstable weather in this month: “April, April, der macht was er will”.

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  30. Nice essay today by Alice Friedemann on the fantasy of replacing diesel with biodiesel. I’m familiar with the false hope of biofuels and instead focused on a side issue.

    Alice reminds us that we burn 28 million barrels * 159 = 4,452,000,000 liters of diesel PER DAY!

    Dwell on that statistic for a few minutes. Think about the staggering quantity of plants that had to grow 10’s of millions of years ago and then be buried and cooked so we can be alive during a few decades of burning 4.5 billion liters per day of a precious non-renewable resource to enjoy what is probably the peak of complexity that is possible in the universe.

    Now think about the probability of us being alive to witness this peak of the universe.

    Reality is much more awesome than a god.

    https://energyskeptic.com/2022/why-it-is-hard-to-replace-diesel-with-biodiesel/

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    1. I’m so grumpy that the NZ govt arrogantly tells us citizens biofuel is a good solution to rising fuel costs. They also want to do hydrogen, pumped hydro, and every other ill-begotten hair-brained scheme of the bright green dreamers. Apparently we are introducing a biofuels mandate. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/fuel-prices-government-to-push-ahead-with-biofuels-plan-raising-cost-of-fuel-5-10-cents-a-litre/PFPJY53PRQRQTLHZGWAJKSPAK4/
      https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/03/biofuels-mandate-will-create-long-term-stability-in-market-jacinda-ardern-says-amid-concerns-fuel-prices-will-jump.html

      Our Climate Commissioner (Dr Rod Carr) has degrees are in economics, law, and business administration. He also happens to have a gold status for being a frequent flyer with Air New Zealand. Here is an article of him suggesting personal changes for net zero that all involve buying new things. Note he doesn’t mention air travel at all: https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/300370248/climate-change-commission-chair-makes-lifestyle-changes-to-reach-zero-carbon

      This is the Draft Report from the NZ Climate Commission: https://haveyoursay.climatecommission.govt.nz/our-advice-and-evidence/
      This is what they say about biofuels for transport:
      “There will continue to be a need for liquid fuels for some transport uses, such as off-road vehicles and equipment, aviation and shipping. Aotearoa [NZ] should take action to scale up the manufacture of low emissions fuels like biofuels or hydrogen-derived synthetic fuels in the first three emissions budget periods. Our path assumes 70 million litres per year of low emissions fuels could be made by 2030 and 140 million litres per year by 2035. This equates to roughly 3% of total domestic liquid fuel demand in 2035, or 1.5% of total fuel demand including international transport, under our path.”

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    2. You can only get dizzy when you look at the numbers of our ressource consumption. If I remember correctly, one barrel of oil is equivalent in energy output to a human working for 11 years on a 40 hour per week schedule. So our Diesel consumption per day equals 308 million years (or arodung 112 billion days) of human work. Too bad, that this awesome energy source is not renewable on a timescale relevant for human beings.

      Regarding the use of biofuels, I remember that they have a very bad ROI. I am not sure how much agricultural area would be needed to generate these 28 million diesel barrels per day, it sounds pretty much impossible without risking the food security for a lot of people.

      Funnily, here in Germany we have gasoline mixed with 10% biofuels marketed as “Super E10” at the gas station, but if you look closely you see that the normal gasoline “Super” also contains 5% biofuels, but is not named “Super E5”. So they somehow sell you biofuels without admitting it openly.

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    3. And add to this already mind-blowing possibility the probability and occurrence of all of us from different walks of life meeting here at this crossroad of time in full consciousness of what is unfolding. This thought brings me a smile and much satisfaction.

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      1. The probability is indeed very low. I suspect it’s near zero on most life compatible planets due to the need for a eucaryotic cell, vast stores of fossil energy, and a brain with an extended theory of mind that denies reality. There’ll be lots of bacteria everywhere but it won’t be talking to each other on a computer network.

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        1. This is the microbiome you otherwise know as Gaia typing. How can you assume that I have not taken over this organism as a master scheme to further my own means and ends? Your cells number 30 trillion, we 40, so you are more us than what you call self. You earthling humanoids only think you are conscious beings but maybe we are the master computer that has decided to play with your brain and given you a theory of mind. Bwwahahahaha!

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  31. Denninger today on inflation.

    Hol-Eee-Sweet Jesus (PPI)

    And you though the CPI report was bad….

    “The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 1.4 percent in March, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This rise followed advances of 0.9 percent in February and 1.2 percent in January. (See table A.) On an unadjusted basis, final demand prices moved up 11.2 percent for the 12 months ended in March, the largest increase since 12-month data were first calculated in November 2010.”

    Remember yesterday’s stonk-market-promoter mantra: Inflation has peaked.

    Nope.

    That March figure, annualized, is 18%.

    The PPI covers goods and such not yet available to consumers; that is, in the process of production. Therefore it is behind the CPI and the CPI will follow it as certainly as spring follows winter.

    What’s much worse are the intermediate unprocessed figures less food and energy; those were up 9.5% on the month and the 12-month run-rate is 40.8%! This is not an anomaly; the last 12 months have seen these figures at 35% or better annually every single month and there is no evidence that it is coming back in.

    The foods processed good figures are now sporting three straight months of 2% increases on the month which annualizes to 26.8% and ex-food and energy they’re still sporting 10% annualized across the three month rolling average.

    These numbers are nasty folks and they make a short-term significant decline in the CPI — the so-called “inflation report” impossible.

    The Fed has two choices: Stomp on this with much higher rates and very strong pulls of liquidity (e.g. balance sheet reduction) or the entire social fabric of the nation is at severe risk of collapse.

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245630

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  32. It’s rare to get a tour of a high-end integrated circuit manufacturing facility. This is worth watching to see one of the complexity miracles created by the human brain using surplus fossil energy.

    P.S. I remember visiting Israel on business around the same time that a small group of brilliant engineers in Israel were maneuvering Intel to build a major fab facility there. Quite an accomplishment for a tiny country with zero natural resources.

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    1. Rob,
      I had read a lot about the different processes required to make a chip and at one point had seen a little part of this, but never realized the vast complexity of the thousands of machines and inputs that went into it. No wonder no one can afford to build state of the art FAB plants anymore. The height of complexity at the end of fossil fueled civilization.

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      1. I know the Israelis reasonably well and there is probably a reason they let this tech YouTuber with a big audience in to film. At the end of the documentary they showed an acreage in the very early stages of a major plant expansion. I wouldn’t be surprised if this project is in jeopardy due to the US now wanting to repatriate their strategic manufacturing. I’ll bet the Israelis permitted this video to build political support for their expansion project.

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    1. Good video! All our institutions are collapsing. Perhaps first some weakened and collapsed that we didn’t miss too much, now ones are dying which most people are attached to.

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  36. Are your worries about the Ukraine war going up or down?

    I’m getting more worried. I’d hoped for a quick Russian win. Now the west is pouring more weapons in, and I expect Russia will not and can not back down.

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    1. My perception is that the war is generally going according to Putin’s plan. I read a LOT on it daily (it’s still raining out so what else can I do?). I read mostly from non-western sources. I think the MSM in the west is all buying the narrative that Biden and his handlers put out-which is the U.S. is the best empire and should lead the world (most democratic, lawful, rules based-crap we know is lies). The west is just marketing hype (the same with Zelenski). Scott Ritter seems to be spot on. same with the guys on The Duran. I also watched most of Stone’s movie on Putin. Putin is a Russia first kinda person who appears very logical and patient. Of course all these leaders seem completely collapse unaware. I think Russia will fulfill it’s aims in Ukraine if NATO doesn’t get involved with troops. BUT I think the west is playing with nuclear fire and we might all get burned.
      AJ

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    2. I think sans Western weapons Russia would take a year or so and accomplish its goals. Then they would leave Ukraine. If NATO keeps flooding escalating munitions, I fear Russia may be forced to strike within NATO territory. I believe the NATO hope is they can draw this out and bleed Russia with foreign military aid. My default hope is that economic hardship will cause a groundswell of popular resistance to involvement. Perhaps the French election and the upcoming US midterms will shed some light. I agree with you that Russia will not back down – but they would accept negotiations for the Donbass/Crimea and an end to NATO provocations. I don’t believe for a moment that they want to occupy the rest of Ukraine.

      If the gas issue isn’t resolved within a few months, Europe will collapse next year under rolling blackouts and economic shutdown.

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        1. Yes, it appears that way. Perhaps the status quo can just proceed with bold talk not turning into anything else. I know the EU has a “plan” to fill 90% of their gas storage by Nov 1st. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/europes-plan-wean-itself-off-russian-gas-faster-2022-03-02/

          A range of impacts are being considered, from typical imports to no imports:

          https://www.bruegel.org/2022/02/preparing-for-the-first-winter-without-russian-gas/

          My prediction is that governments will address this crisis with the same level of skill they addressed COVID: Shit solutions followed by mandated restrictions. I think a reasonable assumption is 15% reduced EU economic activity during the Winter of 2022 due to scarcity, high prices, or both.

          Even in the best case scenario there will be an increasing demand on high priced LNG for the rest of the year. I predict government subsidies for high prices. Perhaps this will drive up inflation of related goods and services.

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  37. Well worth the 20 minutes. There may be more to the Vitamin d story. The take away message is that sunshine is extremely important for your health.

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    1. Interesting, thanks. My take-aways: vitamin D supplementation is good, but sunshine is better because it also produces melatonin.

      Odd that he did not discuss melatonin supplementation for those of us that live in the great white north with no sun for 6 months of the year.

      I observe that not only did our leaders not recommend vitamin D, they also blocked access to outdoor spaces via lockdowns to minimize exposure to sunlight.

      Every single thing our leaders did was the wrong, and most tellingly, they have not corrected a single one of their bad decisions as more data became available.

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    1. Thank you. Nice to find someone else trying to understand why the majority of humans deny our overshoot predicament.

      She seems to believe there are a large number of contributing factors for denial. That’s not consistent with what I observe in people. It all looks the same to me.

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      1. Agreed – I think denial is actually quite simple, but it is very broad/deep. i.e. there is no “hack” to implement here.
        It’s all-encompassing.

        Varki gives an excellent evolutionary psych approach. Most of my background in psychology is in more traditional psychoanalysis and as I’ve mentioned before I came across your page through Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death.

        Basically, nothing at all will be done about overshoot unless it can be packaged in the context of helping people deny death and reinforce their ego. This is why the most common responses (Green washing, prepping) touch only trivially on the actual problem, and primarily serve to give people a cultural identity, manage anxiety, and encourage more stuff to buy.

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        1. I listened to Alex Smith interview Dr. Paul Beckwith on the Radio EcosShock podcast yesterday. They both understand the seriousness of our situation and they both know overshoot is the key issue and yet they blathered on about the need for carbon capture technologies and how solar PV can run the modern world forever with little maintenance, and not once mentioned population or consumption reduction.

          These are intelligent extremely well informed people.

          I even had Alex Smith interview Ajit Varki so he understands MORT. A month or two after the Varki interview I spoke with Smith and suggested that since he now understood the scientific basis for denial he should call out his guests when they spray bullshit. Smith replied something along the lines of it’s not his job as a journalist to filter truth from crap.

          The power of denial is fu**ing unbelievable!!

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              1. Yes – it’s important to remember that “denial” isn’t about lack of information. I’ve come to primarily think of psychological defenses in general as about motivated attention. Older terms such as “denial” tend to convey an element of moralizing (i.e. it implies we just “shouldn’t” be in denial). This is an excellent example of one modern perspective on defenses.

                https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8681205_Psychological_Defense_Mechanisms_A_New_Perspective

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                1. Motivated attention suggests we shift focus from the unpleasant to the pleasant. That’s not what I see when I discuss unpleasant topics with people. I see discomfort and then a switch turns off, like curtains coming down over their eyes. Their brain doesn’t shift to a more pleasant topic, it turns off. This is I think consistent with what MORT predicts.

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                  1. Shutdown can happen for many reasons, and be influenced by lots of interpersonal dynamics so I don’t dismiss your point.

                    For instance, if people are bluntly contradicted they may shift to a conflict avoidance strategy having nothing to do with the topic at hand.

                    I think of motivated attention as stemming from unconscious drives, and drives are more than a focus on the happy/positive valence moods. This is because people have many other more complex motivations than pleasant feelings. Consider the political landscape: Most peoples attention is not focused on the positive (which might lend one to expect a Zen kind of “grattitude” or something). Instead it is focused negatively on other people – blaming the other for problems, and preserving the self as as superior and part of the good tribe. This motivation is more about power, aggression, or aggrandizement/protection of the ego.

                    If your experience is anything like mine most people aren’t even really using overshoot/climate conversations about solving problems and deciding personal actions, but the purpose of the conversation is one about righteous group affiliation.

                    Another common situation is that any conversation involving “fears about the future” turns into a forum for people externally process their psychological defenses for validation, to manage anxiety

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                2. Indeed. One might suppose that denial actually requires information, otherwise there is nothing to deny. However, denial does also require the understanding of that information or at least that the denial of the information is accompanied by sound arguments about why that information is wrong. I’ve lost count of the dismissal of all information on climate change, or other environmental degradations, with the truism of “the climate/environment is always changing”. No attempt to understand the reason for, and the speed of, such changes.

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                  1. Person A: I know I’m going to die because I saw my mother die, but she’s in heaven and I’m going to join her someday, therefore no need to dwell on mortality or be depressed.

                    Person B: You’re wrong, here’s all the reasons heaven can not and does not exist.

                    Person A: Brain switches off. Blank stare with no response.

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    2. Nice article. I have a few quibbles but it’s pretty good.

      Over the years, I’ve come to really understand that Homo sapiens is a species, and, like every other species, has a characteristic behaviour. Some members of the species may behave slightly differently and, if that imparts a survival advantage, over a time-scale commensurate with reproduction life-spans, then it will start to become the dominant behaviour. That characteristic behaviour may be manifest in different ways in different environments (small “e”). Humans, as a whole, are exhibiting that characteristic behaviour and I have no expectation that it will change in time to make a difference to the whole planet’s predicament. Personally, I can’t just do nothing so I do what little I can in the society I find myself in. It’s not enough.

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  39. This soon to be released documentary looks promising. If anyone finds a copy please let us know about it.

    Richard Heinberg comments:

    Filmmaker Emmanuel Cappellin contacted me back in 2015 and explained a project he had in mind. It was ambitious and profound. He’d worked with famed French documentarian Yann Arthus-Bertrand, so I assumed he knew what he was up to, but it seemed that he wanted a substantial chunk of my time. Emmanuel asked deep and probing questions. He captured interview footage of me in California and Greece; he also interviewed other environmental writers and activists—Jean-Marc Jancovici, Saleemul Huq, and Susi Moser. The result, after years of editing, is “Once You Know,” a visually stunning and emotionally grounded examination of the personal and psychological impacts of our global overshoot crisis. Once you know that humanity’s climate-biodiversity-pollution-population-inequality dilemmas will not be painlessly solved, how will you continue to live your life? Can you still make a difference? There are no easy answers; therefore, few of us tend to talk honestly about the situation with our families and friends. Instead, most of us simply live in denial a lot of the time. This film is a denial buster and conversation starter.

    On Earth Day (Friday, 22 April, 2022, 23:45 CEST), Emmanuel, I, and the other cast members will participate in a special global screening event and online discussion. Please join us for what promises to be a milestone in the ongoing discussion about out planetary future.

    https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-04-18/once-you-know-2/

    https://www.videoproject.org/once-you-know.html

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    1. This reminded me of a documentary from 2007: What a Way to Go – Life at the End of Empire. It was a similar kind of monologue and with snips from well known commentators, again including Heinberg. I think I preferred that earlier documentary, though it’s a while since I saw it.

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  40. Sid Smith just released his first few videos from his new series called “How to Enjoy the End of the World” (not to be confused with his talk of the same name) shortened to HTETEOTW. Highly recommended!

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      1. I liked the video even if I disagree with Sid on some of his points. If I was in any civilization prior to this moment, I would agree with him that collapse is just part of a process of nature’s cycle. However, being as we are here now when the “sane, mature, adult” voices are counseling nuclear war I think the situation is far worse than just run of the mill collapse.
        As we seem to be moving unrelentingly toward a nuclear war, that would seem to me to be a true tragedy. A nuclear war entails the almost certain complete collapse of all of western civilization along with the possible extinction of human life and most of the rest of life on this planet. Such a collapse would leave a world with no sentient life (maybe only microbial) in a sentient less universe. If that isn’t a tragedy I don’t know what Sid would consider one.
        We haven’t been talking much on this site about Ukraine lately and I’m not optimistic that Putin can retain control of the situation to the extent necessary in the face of a political class in the west that is determined (many are unthinking lemmings) to force a civilization ending confrontation.
        AJ

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        1. I too am very worried. Over the last few years our leaders from all political parties have shown they are incompetent on all serious matters. They are the people I remember from university that were not bright enough to make it serious disciplines like engineering and now they rule the world.

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    1. I’ve already watched the first two episodes. I will watch the remainder. My initial take-on it is that I would prefer Putin to my own leader. He may be ruthless, corrupt, etc. (western propaganda??) but he appears logical, rational, deliberate, controlled and intelligent. A far cry from the greedy, incompetent, self-centered leaders we have in the west. I was not much impressed with Stone (smart, but too much attempting to get a “gotcha” on Putin). This should be required viewing by all people in the west (especially political leaders).
      AJ

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      1. I would prefer Putin to my own leader

        I don’t know who your leader is, AJ, but would you like a leader who blocks all criticism, to the extent of making that a criminal offence?

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        1. I live in the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. So, the Empire of Lies constitutes my leadership (and I was even voted for some of them!). I was very anti-Trump but now wonder if Biden (senile/dementia) is worse as we don’t know who is the committee controlling him(and the decisions being made are illogical, irrational and appear to be emotionally driven). Putin is elected democratically about as much as Biden/Trump were in my opinion. I don’t think Putin is a great guy, just logical, rational, deliberate, controlled and intelligent. His biggest fault is that he seems to be in denial/or unaware of overshoot/collapse. And I don’t think out in public criticism of our current situation is tolerated very well.
          AJ

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          1. I’m pretty certain that the Biden’s election was much more democratic than Putin’s but I can understand the feeling of “out of the frying pan, into the fire” feeling of moving from Trump to Biden. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine doesn’t seem like the action of a rational person, but that’s just me.

            I don’t know of any leader who seems to comprehend the finite nature of our world. But then, I don’t know of many people who understand it. In terms of our leaders, I’m coming to the feeling that it doesn’t really matter who is elected leader in moderately democratic countries (undemocratic countries is another issue) because they all seem to have the same core delusion.

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            1. Not so sure that any “election” in the U.S. is truly democratic anymore. Maybe when I was a kid in the 1950’s?? But surly not in 2016 and beyond. The only people running for office in this country (99%) in my opinion, are bought and paid for by the 1% (mostly through their corporate toadies). On some level this goes back to the founding of this country when Jefferson was afraid of the money party (represented by Hamilton) and Hamilton was afraid of the people. Once the Supreme Court (bunch of ultra right wing lawyers) decided “Citizens United” and gave corporations the right to “give” unlimited funds to “candidates” elections here died. And why after a lifetime of “voting” I won’t bother anymore.
              Maybe Putin’s elections are less democratic, but not by much. The U.S. is truly now the “Empire of Lies”.
              AJ

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    1. Thanks, I don’t remember you posting that here.

      I don’t understand the motivation of the crazies. We have enough trouble breaking through the denial of all things that matter in this world without overshoot aware people distorting the story to provide good reasons for the unaware to say “those doomers are whack jobs and I’m going to ignore them all”.

      We have so little clarity and truth in this world. It makes me sad.

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  43. Stumbled on this article today from a website I haven’t seen before https://doomberg.substack.com/p/farmers-on-the-brink?s=r

    A good dive into underlying issues with shortages in key inputs and vulnerabilities in complexity.

    Even our top farmers here in NZ are talking about the looming food crisis https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/rural-life-other/food-crisis-coming-farm-leader-warns

    Yet most of the msm, our politicians and other leaders surface dwell on Ukraine, Covid and how to get economic growth cranking again.

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    1. Thanks, that was a good essay. I can’t remember who introduced me to Doomberg but I’m already subscribed.

      Lots of reasons to be worried about food.

      fossil energy + credit + global trade -> food -> 8 billion people

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  46. Gail Tverberg is good today.

    It’s no wonder everything is breaking all at once including goodwill and common sense.

    Crude oil production for the year 2021 was a disappointment for those hoping that production would rapidly bounce back to at least the 2019 level. World crude oil production increased by 1.4% in 2021, to 77.0 million barrels per day, after a decrease of -7.5% in 2020. If we look back, we can see that the highest year of crude oil production was in 2018, not 2019. Oil production in 2021 was still 5.9 million barrels per day below the 2018 level.

    …up through 2018, each person in the world consumed an average of around 4.0 barrels of crude oil. This equates to 168 US gallons or 636 liters of crude per year.

    Saying that the Ukraine invasion is causing the current high price is mostly a convenient excuse, suggesting that the high prices will suddenly disappear if this conflict disappears. The sad truth is that depletion is causing the cost of extraction to rise.

    We are likely entering a period of conflict and confusion because of the way the world’s self-organizing economy behaves when there is an inadequate supply of crude oil.

    Gail concludes by saying the only good path forward may be to strengthen the denial that enabled the emergence of behaviorally modern humans 200,000 years ago.

    About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/04/21/the-world-has-a-major-crude-oil-problem-expect-conflict-ahead/

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    1. I agree with her that religion could make a comeback if the situation gets worse. If your life at earth sucks due to ressource depletion and all its accompanying problems, the focus on the afterlife could become attractive again.

      I was baffled by the average consumption rate of crude oil. 4 barrels of oil per person per year means that each persons get 44 years of work from just oil during one year. If you consider, that oil is just 1/3 of our energy use, that means we get on average around 130 years of work from our energy sources, I would assume that this would be a lot more in Germany. I remember that I once read about a statement by Buckminster Fuller, that we are surrounded by over 100 energy slaves. This is a very accurate assessment of our situation. Too bad, that most of them are one-time-use slaves.

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  47. Rob – have you listened to N. Hagen’s recent interview of Prof. Daniel Pauly at UBC? I thought Pauly spoke eloquently on the concept of “shifting baselines.” Why do people accept degraded environments? Partly because they don’t know what came before. I’ve never really considered the intersection of behavioral sinks and shifting baselines but I think there is probably something there as well.

    Pauly’s remarks on gill oxygen limitation theory were also worth a listen.

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    1. Yes I did but I got pissed off when Pauly said the unvaccinated created virus variants which is exactly the opposite of the truth and suggests Pauly drinks Kool-Aid without thinking.

      I’m going to listen to it again because I think he said some interesting things about peak fish.

      I do not understand what you mean by “the intersection of behavioral sinks and shifting baselines”. Please explain if it is important.

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      1. It’s not the opposite of the truth but it’s not the whole truth. Any infection where the virus can multiply has the capability of resulting in variants of concern. Evolution will take care of which variants end up with a greek letter.

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      2. It’s important, or at least worth noting, because as our social, cultural and environmental baselines shift, we are more apt to accept the behavioral disturbances that characterize a behavioral sink (stress, alienation, hostility, lack of available social niches or meaningful roles) as relatively normal and hence less likely to fix the problem(s). And it explains why we can so easily and seamlessly slide into a downward spiral over successive generations. Or something like that.

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  48. Good morning everyone. Now to ruin your day;)
    https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/04/21/insanity-defined-us-gambles-on-russias-empty-threats/
    Chuck Watson’s post from yesterday could not be more dire. I follow the war in Ukraine incessantly (very bad habit). I was unaware on a macro level how bad the west had become. Reading the link in Watson’s blog to the Washington Post article was eye opening. It would appear that the Biden administration has gone completely delusional. Do they think the west is winning and that they can escalate the situation without a Russian response? I realize they are idiots, but that stupid? If so, one can only pray (metaphorically) that Putin’s response does not escalate the situation to the point of a reciprocal escalatory spiral. We are in dire times.
    AJ

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          1. I don’t know why you’d think I wouldn’t believe what you say. You said Putin has been clear and consistent but you can’t even summarise those reasons? Just a few sentences will do.

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            1. 1) Stay neutral (no formal or informal NATO cooperation, no threatening weapons).
              2) Respect and protect the rights and security of Russian speaking people in the east.

              Now that the west has provoked Russia to fight for the above they have additional demands.

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              1. Thanks. Yes, I’ve heard of those reasons as justification for invasion. The first can’t be expected of any country over time. The second is what I’d want for all citizens. Although I’ve heard of those demands, I haven’t heard of stories (though they may exist) where Russian speaking people aren’t respected or their rights protected. A justification for invasion? I can’t see it. And when I think of “rights” I wonder why the rights of some Russian speaking people in Russia aren’t being respected.

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                1. The invasion is consistent with what the US would do if Russia with Mexico’s blessing put weapons and biolabs on the Mexican border. Or if Russia put nuclear weapons in Cuba. It doesn’t make it right, it’s just the reality of might makes right. Ukraine will now lose much more than had it simply respected Russia’s clearly articulated red line.

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                  1. Might makes right is important. People like to make moral analogies to self defense – which legally exists in many places under the context of rule of law. This is a category error. Great powers are not individuals. The first point is that there is no “government of governments” and world powers exist in a state of anarchy – not meaning chaos, but meaning there is not central authority which can be counted on to act fairly. The existence of organizations such as the UN may be well intentioned, but are either impotent or obvious frauds/shills for the US as global hegemon. You can’t rely on the UN to do anything, and if they do something, you can’t count on it being fair or just.

                    Moral justification is mostly irrelevant.

                    I use the illustration that if your neighbor started building machine gun nests on your property line, and mortar emplacements, then saw them calculating ranges and trajectories, you’d feel your “personal security” was at great risk. The notion of one not acting in such a situation relies on appeal to a government existing which will intervene.

                    Other global powers actively ignored Russia’s attempts at negotiations and setting limits, flagrantly ignoring prior commitments. For those who want peace, the question of whether Putin “should” have done what he did is secondary to the question of whether we “should” have rationally expected him to act this way. Obviously we should have expected this because not only did Russia clearly say “If you X, we will Y”, but we have acted in the exact same way in the same situation in the past.

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                    2. Actually, Russia said they had no intention of invading Ukraine, up to the point they did. Even then, they don’t call it an invasion. But you’re right, moral justification is largely irrelevant. Everyone’s morals are different. Would anyone do anything that they, themselves, think is immoral? Maybe.

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                  2. I probably wouldn’t completely disagree with you there. As you say, it doesn’t make it right. Russia should also respect the right of Ukraine to make its own decisions about its own security policies. I’m sure there are many situations around the world where a country doesn’t like the policies of its neighbour. I hope they don’t all result in war and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and housing. Are such actions likely to result in that neighbour acquiescing to all the red lines, once the war is over?

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                    1. Disagreements obviously don’t always result in war unless you threaten a superpower. The US would attack Mexico without blinking for a similar threat. Now Ukraine will lose a big chunk of their territory, many lives, and much wealth and infrastructure for not being prudent.

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              2. Yep. Denazification is a tertiary issue. I think both sides are skewing this issue:

                On the one hand, the West is discounting the existence of these factions and their impact on Ukrainian domestic policy and the Donbass civil war
                On the other hand, the RF is overhyping this as a sort of PR which resonates more domestically in the RF than internationally

                The real issue is complicated, similar but not identical to the differences between Al Qaida and the Taliban.

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  49. Good interview with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

    56 minutes of detailed intelligent discussion. The last 2 US presidents couldn’t manage 30 seconds of a discussion like this.

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    1. On your review I watched this video. It was good and Lavrov was particularly articulate in English. Which I would expect from a Foreign Minister of a pre-eminent world power. He marshalled all the facts supporting Russia’s position vis-a-via Ukraine. I’m not sure I believe him on every single point; he is like a polished lawyer in making his client’s case. He is no doubt more intelligent and articulate than either Trump or especially Biden, sad to say. For someone unfamiliar with the facts he is a good primer-so most of the western populace could do with listening to him. Our leaders are to stupid to follow his articulation of the facts so for them this would be a waste of time.
      AJ

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      1. We already had periods of rationing during the pandemic. There were times during the first lockdown when you were only allowed to buy toilet paper and flour in household typical quantities (e.g. two per customer). Now, we have the same situation for vegetable oils, flour (again) and pasta (and maybe some other products).

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  51. Nice update today from el gato malo on possible long term effects of mRNA vaccines. Too complicated for me to understand but el gato has invested the time to understand this new theory and says it’s credible but not yet proven.

    are mRNA vaccines causing innate immune suppression?
    a look at new work on pathways and proposed areas for research

    cliff notes:
    – mRNA vaccines appear to elicit profound, broad based immune suppression
    – they are structured very differently than live virus and have the equivalent of a biological passkey allow them to proliferate through the body
    – they persist in tissues for 60 days or more generating synthetic spike protein which is a toxin
    – and this likely goes a long way toward explaining why the immune response to them is so much more intense and prone to serious, lasting side effects than other vaccines or live virus
    …
    pretty much nobody who gets covid gets dragged through this wringer for 60 days or at this level of intensity, especially while immune suppressed. there is just no predicting where all this is going to accumulate or where it’s going to manifest. fully systemic penetration of a drug that trains cells to generate neurotoxic output for 60 days or more while suppressing something as important and pleiotropic as IFN could set off damn near anything.

    the responses will be so varied (and so prone to look like other infections or conditions) that sorting them out and properly attributing them would pose a serious challenge even under the best of conditions.

    and, obviously, what’s currently going on are not the best of conditions. these are the sorts of questions that should have been studied for years, even decades before giving this to the public. this is WHY vaccine development generally takes 5-10 years, and that’s for traditional modalities that are far safer and far better understood and lack even 5% the potential for biological mischief inherent in mRNA.

    jabbing this into a billion people without even having characterized all or really any of this appears to have created a mass drug trial whose only outcomes evaluation will emerge from actuarial tables years from now. the disregard for safety, informed consent, and even voluntary consent at all has been unlike anything i have ever seen.

    and we have not yet gotten to what looks like the potentially scary part yet.

    stayed tuned for part two of this in coming days…

    end note: yet again, i just want to caution that these is research in progress. it may be incomplete or incorrect. treat this as hypothesis, not settled fact. but these questions need asking and these avenues warrant exploration, so i raise them to further such.

    obviously, if they were truly doing their jobs, this would be the role of a regulator. perhaps some pointy questions about just what their job description is these days ought be asked as well…

    https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/are-mrna-vaccines-causing-innate?s=r

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  52. Ivor Cummins today takes a big picture look at the severity of covid and concludes it’s no worse than our normal flus. No discussion of prevention, early treatment, or vaccines which I thought was a little odd, especially for someone that prides himself on big picture understanding and that has left YouTube to avoid censorship. Kind of like discussing the risk of nicotine staining you teeth and not mentioning lung cancer.

    https://odysee.com/@IvorCummins:f/20220416-Crucial-Viral-Update-Revisited-Checklist-Final

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    1. Wow. He seems to have completely lost touch with reality. This doesn´t surprise me though due to my own experience with rich people. They live in their own world and are totally clueless how life is for the majority of people.

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  56. Re “Un-denial” and “The Dawn of Everything”

    “The Dawn of Everything” is a biased disingenuous account of human history (www.persuasion.community/p/a-flawed-history-of-humanity ) that spreads fake hope (the authors of “The Dawn” claim human history has not “progressed” in stages, or linearly, and must not end in inequality and hierarchy as with our current system… so there’s hope for us now that it could get different/better again). As a result of this fake hope porn it has been widely praised. It conveniently serves the profoundly sick industrialized world of fakes and criminals. The book’s dishonest fake grandiose title shows already that this work is a FOR-PROFIT, instead a FOR-TRUTH, endeavor geared at the (ignorant gullible) masses.

    Fact is human history has “progressed” by and large in linear stages, especially since the dawn of agriculture (www.focaalblog.com/2021/12/22/chris-knight-wrong-about-almost-everything ). This “progress” has been fundamentally destructive and is driven and dominated by “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room” (www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html ) which the fake hope-giving authors of “The Dawn” entirely ignore naturally (no one can write a legitimate human history without understanding the nature of humans). And these two married pink elephants are the reason why we’ve been “stuck” in a destructive hierarchy and unequal class system (the “stuck” question is the major question in “The Dawn” its authors never answer, predictably), and will be far into the foreseeable future.

    A good example that one of the authors, Graeber, has no real idea what world we’ve been living in and about the nature of humans is his last brief article on Covid where his ignorance shines bright already at the title of his article, “After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep.” Apparently he doesn’t know that most people WANT to be asleep, and that they’ve been wanting that for thousands of years (and that’s not the only ignorant notion in the title). Yet he (and his partner) is the sort of person who thinks he can teach you something authentically truthful about human history and whom you should be trusting along those terms. Ridiculous!

    “The Dawn” is just another fantasy, or ideology, cloaked in a hue of cherry-picked “science,” served lucratively to the gullible ignorant underclasses who crave myths and fairy tales.

    “the evil, fake book of anthropology, “The Dawn of Everything,” … just so happened to be the most marketed anthropology book ever. Hmmmmm.” — Unknown

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    1. Thanks for the heads up.

      I’m only into chapter 1 but am not enjoying it. Lots of blah blah blah about what some social studies “expert” said and how that disagreed with what some other social studies “expert” said.

      I prefer my human behavior to be grounded in evolution by natural selection, preferably with a deep understanding of why our unique intelligence requires us to deny unpleasant realities. I also think any opinion on human behavior is irrelevant unless it integrates our current overshoot predicament with how our species has responded to over-population and scarcity in the past.

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      1. I am on the fence of reading “The Dawn of Everything”, but I know that David Graeber was also a political activist (anarchist). Based on what I have read about the book, his political views are reflected in the content. So the book seems to be biased in this direction.

        Currently, I am reading “The City in History” by Lewis Mumford. What I like about his writing is, that he lists pros and cons of the processes he describes (in this case the evolution of cities). Even though you get a feeling that his conclusions are somehow biased due to the two world wars and the then ongoing nuclear stalemate (cold war), you at least have the (then known) facts on the table and can form your own conclusion.

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      2. I wish I remember the name of the book about anthropology and the nature of bias. It contrasted the famous work on the Yanamamo with some other research about peaceful tribes.

        This problem exists in many fields. There is a book called “Faces In a Cloud” which reviews the psychological theories of Freud, Jung, Reich and Rank. It makes a compelling case that people’s “meta” cognitions tend to duplicate their subjective world. In other words – a persons theory of everything is likely to primarily reflect their personal experience.

        On anthropology, I can heartily recommend War Before Civilization. https://www.harvard.com/book/war_before_civilization_the_myth_of_the_peaceful_savage/

        On Amazon

        My thoughts on the matter is that we’ve always had a mix of peace and war. While we may have one global interconnected economy, we do not have one civilization. We have many civilizations. While some common themes will apply to the future of all, if there is a future it will be a heterogenous one. (Huntingon, 1993)

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          1. Last post on the subject…A good denial perspective starts on page 163 about why people began imagining a peaceful possible world in response to WWII and the fear of war/death.

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          1. This is definitely the book about the Yanomamo I’m thinking about…but I’m trying to think of the major book published in rebuttal as part of the conflict this engendered.

            For anyone interested – the book you mention (Noble Savages) is an essential, and I think, more realistic, read.

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      3. RE “our unique intelligence requires us to deny unpleasant realities”

        I guess you do not recognize the cognitive dissonance in your statement, or that you still live in a fantasy world, because any species that denies “unpleasant realities” is bereft of any REAL intelligence and will go extinct over the long run.

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        1. High intelligence can be both real and short lived, as I expect it is throughout the universe, due to the rare and self-destructive conditions required for it to exist.

          If, on the other hand, you are arguing that a species that can visit the moon yet denies it’s own obvious overshoot is not intelligent, then I agree and intelligence probably does not exist anywhere in the universe.

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  57. Thank you to hillcountry @ OFW for finding this substack by Endurance that argues everything we have been told about covid is false.

    https://endurancea71.substack.com/p/back-to-basics?s=r

    As well as the constant reiteration of the party line, the media has overwhelmed us with the sheer volume of revelation. No sooner did we have the virus than we had all the various countermeasures, treatments, hospital protocols, surges, ‘cases’, clinical trials of ‘vaccines’ and then the growing realization that all is not as it seemed, passports, mandates…the list goes on. The lies about every single aspect of the ‘pandemic’ have been too numerous to count and too frequent to effectively denounce in real time. When one lie follows hard on the heels of others, it is very difficult to gain lasting traction on any one aspect of the malfeasance before the next untruth overtakes us. The mere act of switching focus onto the latest depredation has been interpreted as tacit acceptance of everything that has gone before. Thus, the sheer volume of bullshit serves to validate, rather than disqualify.

    The lesson seems to be that unless the battle is fought and won before the heat leaves the initial argument, it will be deemed to have been lost. It has nothing to do with the facts as they are and everything to do with the desire of the dominant class to move past uncomfortable truths as swiftly and comprehensively as possible. Anybody that attempts to revisit any issue that has been dismissed in this fashion is ignored or maligned and assailed with rhetoric that insists that the discussion is settled.

    However, things that were lies then are still lies now. The passage of time doesn’t scour the truth away and fighting on the latest turf is often what the enemy wants us to do. So, let’s revisit some facts:

    It is a racing certainty that SARS COV 2, the formulation that gives rise to Covid, was created in a lab funded, at least in part, by Fauci and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

    How do we know that Covid exists? Because the Chinese told us and then the likes of the CDC, and the WHO confirmed it. That’s how precarious the entire premise is.

    The WHO changed the definition of pandemic to include non-lethal diseases.

    The ‘vaccine’, to a disease that was allegedly novel prior to the end of 2019, had already been patented by Moderna prior to the ‘pandemic’.

    The PCR test is wholly unreliable, not only in detecting the correct pathogen but also in determining whether it is live (and capable of causing disease) or dead and therefore harmless. It is a secondary diagnostic tool, not a primary one.

    The ‘vaccine’ is not a vaccine. Vaccines prevent infection and transmission; these treatments do neither. mRNA technology is historically identified as experimental gene therapy.

    Because they are not a vaccine, they are not eligible for an Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), which was nonetheless granted. The EUA is illegal for this reason.

    An EUA cannot be granted to a ‘vaccine’ if there are other effective treatments available. The rationale, sensibly, is that the risk is not justified as the EAU can only apply to a drug that has not received full approval.

    Hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, azithromycin, vitamin D, zinc and others besides are effective early treatments for Covid. Ivermectin is effective at any stage of the disease. The ‘vaccines’ are therefore disqualified from Emergency Use on these grounds also.

    Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were the prescription drugs of choice in the early stages of 2020. This is because they were known to be effective against SARS and they were fully approved drugs, able to be used for off label treatment.

    The FDA and other regulatory bodies around the world retrofitted EUAs to Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. There is no regulatory pathway for these actions. A drug that is approved has never been then downgraded for a specific off label treatment.

    Regulatory bodies, supervised by the WHO, ran two large trials (Recovery and Solidarity) which overdosed patients with lethal levels of hydroxychloroquine. Scores of patients died. The EUA for hydroxychloroquine was withdrawn.

    A regulatory body, by definition, has responsibility for policing the regulations. When it goes beyond those regulations, without authority, it loses its legitimacy and should be ignored.

    There is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of masking.

    There is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of lock-downs and plenty of evidence against them, not least the absolute certainty of collateral damage. It would be wrong to use the term ‘unintended consequences’ instead. When isolation is imposed upon a population who are also denied ongoing hospital treatments for existing medical conditions (such as cancer), the consequences can be easily foreseen and are not, therefore, unintended.

    There is no such widespread phenomenon as asymptomatic spread. There never has been.

    Over the past two years, the number of global deaths have been exactly in line with the average for the years preceding. What there have been are peaks where the old and the vulnerable have been ill with a respiratory disease of some kind. These peaks have then been prolonged by the lack of early outpatient treatment and lethal inpatient treatment.

    Excess deaths are now skyrocketing. These deaths are not from Covid. They are from heart disease, strokes, cancers and auto-immune diseases.

    The overwhelming majority of Covid hospitalisations and deaths are ‘vaccinated’. The injections do not, therefore, prevent hospitalisations and deaths, as claimed.

    ‘Vaccine’ passports are a complete waste of time, if the purpose of them is as stated. If ‘vaccinated’ and ‘unvaccinated’ alike can spread Covid, possession of a passport means nothing.

    According to the authorities, there was no flu season in 2020 and 2021. The same authorities, in the US, have withdrawn the EUA for the PCR test because it couldn’t tell the difference between Covid and flu.

    The authorities told us that the ‘vaccines’ don’t alter human DNA. They do.

    The full list of ‘vaccine’ ingredients and possible side effects has never been made public. This practice is explicitly forbidden by international treaty and human rights law. There is no exemption for emergency use. Governments are therefore in breach of both treaty commitments and the law.

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    1. I mostly agree with his assessment. Some points were new to me, like the PCR test not being able to tell the difference between the flu and Covid. The people, who made up this mess, should definitely be drawn to court. Nevertheless, as the restrictions are mostly gone now in Germany, I feel such a relief that I struggle to further bother with this topic even though this whole mess deserves a thorough clean up.

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  58. I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with the population thing.

    Here’s a quote from Eliot Jacobson
    “Just back from visiting the 20 or so exhibits at Santa Barbara Earth day. My takeaways are that everything is an alliance, disposable chachkies are still a thing, and you absolutely cannot say the word “population.””
    When asked why the reply was “we don’t talk about that because of eugenics.”

    It amazes me how they’ve managed to conflate population reduction with eugenics and all that involves and its historical associations.

    This is a workable definition of eugenics as I understand it
    “the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.”

    Zilch about population reduction but you can see why the endless growthists like to join the two together in the public’s mind

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  60. Here are a couple really smart guys who understand the global banking system and the profound importance of oil on the economy, and yet…
    they thrash around trying to explain what’s going on because they
    just
    can’t
    see
    the reality
    that oil is finite and depleting.

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  61. Steve Kirsch is on fire today with 44 questions that every citizen should demand answers to before accepting any further covid guidance from our “leaders”.

    I’m no where near as well informed as Kirsch and yet I could easily come up with another dozen important questions he missed.

    It’s hard to articulate just how putrid our covid policies are.

    https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/is-there-any-doctor-who-is-willing?s=r

    1) Why is there no all-cause mortality benefit from the COVID vaccines? Shouldn’t a vaccine that we mandate have a measurable morbidity or mortality benefit? That’s what anyone with a working brain would believe. I’ve been one of the few people speaking out about this since I first looked at the VAERS data nearly a year ago. I pointed out in the very first article I ever wrote on COVID vaccine safety (on May 25, 2021 on TrialSiteNews) that everyone was ONLY paying attention to COVID lives saved while at the same time, the deaths caused by the vaccine (the all-cause mortality) were off the charts. I argued that the vaccines shouldn’t be used. In the very first video I posted to Rumble (over 350,000 views) this was clear if you look at point #8 at 8:28 into the video: “Vaccines don’t offer an all-cause morbidity or mortality benefit.” At the time, nobody in the mainstream medical community agreed with me because they never looked at the VAERS data. But now there is a Danish preprint in the Lancet that supports what I pointed out almost a year ago: there is no all-cause mortality benefit from the mRNA vaccines. It is ZERO. Why are we mandating a vaccine that at best doesn’t save ANY LIVES???? This has got to be very embarrassing to the entire medical community since I have no medical credentials (I’m just an engineer with a couple of degrees from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). What’s astonishing is that this was crystal clear as soon as I started looking at the VAERS data. Today, the medical community is still clueless about the all-cause mortality issues because they steadfastly refuse to look at the VAERS data and discuss the data with any of our VAERS experts. In fact, they run and hide whenever we ask for a recorded discussion (similar to what cockroaches do when you turn on a light switch). A year ago, the medical academics I worked with told me I was an evil person and requested that I never talk to them again. I guess that is how science works. At any rate, it appears like that paper is going to get published, so I’ll be exonerated. Eventually, when they take a closer look at the data (such as VAERS and autopsy studies that they should have paid attention to), they will find that the all-cause mortality benefit is actually negative (as shown in the VAERS data and embalmer statistics).

    2) How do we know the mRNA vaccines don’t kill anyone? In the Pfizer trial, far more people died in the group that took the vaccine than in the group that took the placebo. Naturally, the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials claimed that none of the all-cause mortality (ACM) deaths in the vaccine arms were due to the vaccine. How do they know this? More importantly, how does the public know they are telling the truth? Did anyone see the autopsy reports on these deaths and verify that the proper tests were done that prove there was no causality? If not, how can anyone rule out the vaccines as a proximate cause of these deaths?

    3)How do you explain the 433,000 excess deaths in VAERS? As of April 22, 2022, there are 12,471 US death reports in VAERS associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. There are fewer than 220 “background” deaths reported in VAERS per year. So if we subtract double that (since there are two shots), it means there are around 12,000 excess deaths reported to the VAERS. Using the CDC’s own methodology we can estimate that events in VAERS are underreported by at least 41. This means there are nearly 500,000 excess deaths that are unexplained. Even if we subtract off the 12% of these cases who had a VAERS symptom code of COVID-19 pneumonia, we still end up with 433,000 excess deaths not from COVID. That’s a lot of people. If it wasn’t the vaccine that killed these people, what did that has a symptom profile consistent with that observed in those reported dead? This is very important to explain to the public clearly. This is not overreporting because the URF of 41 was calculated on the ACTUAL reporting rate in VAERS so it already takes overreporting into account. And these weren’t background deaths because the symptom profile (relative size of each symptom) doesn’t match “normal” background deaths. And finally, why do both the FDA and CDC duck and run for cover when I ask them to explain this? Both organizations always claim that VAERS reporting is voluntary and it can’t be used to make causality assessments. The first is true (and irrelevant since the URF is calculated based on the actual numbers of reports compared to the expected number of events) and the second has always been false (as noted in this peer-reviewed paper) and they will always decline to defend that assertion.

    4) How do you explain the fact that in Australia which is highly vaccinated, there are more deaths in the first 4 months of 2022 than in 2021 and 2020? Wasn’t the vaccine supposed to reduce the death toll? The COVID variants are less deadly, but the vaccines make people more susceptible to getting infected as we know from the UK data: triple-dosed people are 3 times more likely to be infected. Isn’t it time we stop making the problem worse with vaccination?

    5) Why was the Pfizer clinical trial fraud in the 12-15 trial never investigated? Fraud is grounds for suing the drug companies and revoking the EUA. There was fraud in the Pfizer trial where a perfectly healthy 12-year old Maddie de Garay was paralyzed for life (she’s currently a paraplegic) less than 22 hours after her Pfizer shot. But in the trial documents submitted to the FDA, Pfizer lied and reported her symptoms as mild abdominal pain. FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock promised to investigate, but nobody ever called the family. Explain to us why this was never investigated and how you know for certain that there was no fraud in any of the trials.

    6) What killed the 14 kids the CDC analyzed? The CDC did an analysis of kids in VAERS who died after getting the vaccine. The problem was that in all cases, the causes of death were not consistent with background death causes for kids that age, nor were they consistent with COVID. So what killed these kids? The CDC never told us that and they never pointed out that these death causes were not normal. They basically said “here are the causes of death and there is nothing to see here so let’s move on.” So how can they be so certain none of the kids died from the vaccine? There was no mention of autopsy reports, so how does the CDC rule out the vaccine as being a possible cause? They are silent on this. Why?

    7) How do you explain why the CDC and NIH ignored early treatment protocols that worked in the real world? The Fareed-Tyson early treatment protocol has been used since March of 2020 on over 10,000 COVID patients of all ages in an area of the country with a high hospitalization and death rate and unfavorable demographics. The results: a few brief hospitalizations and no deaths as long as the patient arrived promptly after symptoms. How could the CDC justify telling people to do nothing was better than recommending this protocol be used? Even today, the absolute efficacy and safety profile of this treatment is superior to any alternative. How do you justify to the public that completely ignoring this protocol was the right thing to do to minimize hospitalizations and deaths? Explain why, in a pandemic that is killing massive numbers of people with no treatments available, the NIH refused to return the calls from these doctors. Why don’t we just use these protocols today as the primary COVID-19 mitigation measure? If we did that, wouldn’t it mitigate the need to do anything else?

    8) How do you explain a 1,000-fold increase in the reporting rate of pulmonary embolism in VAERS after the vaccines rolled out? If the high rates of pulmonary embolism were not caused by the vaccine, what was the cause? Also explain why this didn’t generate a public health warning since the CDC was watching the VAERS data like a hawk. The CDC won’t tell us so we’re understandably confused by that. Why would they refuse to answer this simple question?

    9) How do you explain why individual physicians we’ve talked to are seeing a high rate of adverse events after the COVID vaccines, yet not for previous vaccines? For example, one doctor I know has never needed to file a VAERS report in her 11-year career. But this year needs to file 1,000 reports (a 5% rate of neurological injuries). That’s a 10,000-fold increase in actual events. If it wasn’t the vaccine, what is causing these adverse events?

    10) How do you explain why thousands of records were removed from the VAERS database? HHS has removed 8,600 total VAERS reports for COVID-19 including 491 deaths. There was no reason code or public explanation given for removing any of these records. Why should we not be concerned about this? This is an important government database where lives depend on this information being complete and accurate. Also, there are at least 20,000 missing VAERS IDs that have never been explained. Why should we not be concerned about that? In the old days, we could trust the government. Those days are gone. Why is there no transparency here?

    11) Where is the evidence supporting the FDA’s hand-waving argument that VAERS is just overreported? The FDA says the overreporting in VAERS (where more events have been reported this year than for all vaccines combined in the 30 history of VAERS) is because doctors are reporting significantly more this year than in the past. Seriously?!? Where is the evidence of that and why won’t you show us? Also, the reporting requirement for vaccine-related deaths hasn’t changed this year at all. So why do we see fewer than 220 deaths a year consistently for the past 30 years, yet in 2021 there were 10,100 reported deaths. That’s a 46-fold jump in reporting rate. What caused that if it wasn’t an increase in the number of actual events?

    12) Why was there no investigation into the corruption of the DMED database used by the Department of Defense? There was a huge spike in adverse events after the vaccines rolled out. And then, after this was disclosed at a hearing hosted by Senator Ron Johnson, the spike just “disappeared.” How could that happen? Senator Johnson wrote to Defense Secretary Austin, but there was no response and no investigation. Why not? And what was the cause of the “data corruption?” It seems to us that everyone is hiding hoping that nobody will ask any more questions about this. Surely, there is nothing to hide since the vaccines are safe and effective, right?

    13) How can there be 15% to 30% vaccine injured in the Army if the vaccines are safe and effective? An army flight surgeon estimates there are 15% to 30% vaccine injured from the COVID vaccines in the armed forces. Since there are 9,000 VAERS reports at a 41X underreporting factor, that would be 369K/1.4M = 26%. So the estimate matches the VAERS data. If this isn’t right, then what are the real numbers and what is the source for that data? Also, one army doctor told me he’s seen hundreds of vaccine injured this year, but one in the last 30 years (due to the smallpox vaccine). That would be an increased incident rate of three orders of magnitude. How is that consistent with a safe vaccine?

    14) Why did only 6 soldiers out of 3,000 opt to get the vaccine after COVID vaccine safety briefings by Army Lt. Col. Pete Chambers? Chambers didn’t say anything false and misleading. So why was he relieved of his duties after that?

    15) Why did the F-35 crash? A vaccinated pilot crashed a $100M F-35 jet into the side of an aircraft carrier. I wrote about it on Feb 8, 2022. It’s now almost 3 months later. Why isn’t anyone talking about what happened?

    16) Where is the evidence that the papers showing the spike protein is cytotoxic are all wrong? The spike protein in the vaccines is cytotoxic according to multiple peer-reviewed papers published in the scientific literature. Yet the CDC and Wikipedia both say that the spike protein is harmless. Why haven’t any of these papers (see the references in these links) been retracted?
    – Be aware of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: There is more than meets the eye
    – Toxicological insights of Spike fragments SARS-CoV-2 by exposure environment: A threat to aquatic health?
    – SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2
    – Pay no attention to the spike proteins behind the curtain
    – Clearing up misinformation about the spike protein and COVID vaccines
    – Innate immune suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes, and MicroRNAs

    17) Explain how you know that masks work and the peer-reviewed randomized trials were all wrong. Perhaps there was a randomized trial for masks and SARS-CoV-2 that we missed? Also, let us know what the effect size is for cloth masks, surgical, and N95 masks and explain why the Denmark, Spain, and Bangladesh mask studies all failed to find any effect whatsoever and why the Finland study showed masks actually increased the rate of infection. Also, explain the graphs in this article The More Masks Fail, The More We Need Them.

    18) How do you explain the elevated D-dimer and troponin levels post-vaccine? Tell us what % of people have elevated levels for D-dimer and troponin and how long they last. Assure us that the vaccines don’t elevate D-dimer and troponin levels after vaccination in anyone and how you know that.

    19) Please assure us that nobody has died from the mRNA COVID vaccines and explain how you are confident that this is true. In particular, if you can address the errors Dr. Peter Schirmacher and Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi made in their studies, that would be very important. Please tell us how many post-vaccine autopsy reports you have seen where they did the proper tests to rule out that the vaccine could have caused the deaths? Is there a reason these reports must be kept confidential?

    20) If the vaccines are safe, then how come the NIH hasn’t been able to cure a single vaccine-injured person and restore them to health? How many vaccine- injured people has the NIH tried to cure? How many have been cured? It’s zero as far as we know. Read this article; they’ve known about vaccine injured patients since January 2021, but later had to abandon all 34 vaccine injured patients because they were unable to help any of them and they didn’t want to acknowledge that there were any vaccine injuries. Also, if they had found a link between the injuries and the vaccine, they’d have to admit that, so by terminating the research before it concluded they have plausible deniability: they can say that they weren’t able to find a link (and omit the fact that they prematurely terminated the program so that they could avoid finding the link).

    21) If the vaccines are perfectly safe, then why did the NIH cover up the fact that they were treating vaccine injured patients? The 34 vaccine injured patients that the NIH was seeing starting in January 2021 were told not to say anything because the NIH didn’t want to create a panic that the vaccines caused injuries. As of June 2021, the NIH is no longer treating the vaccine injured. Nath claims publicly that he doesn’t know whether any of the 34 cases were caused by the COVID vaccines. That’s a lie. All these patients with similar symptoms never seen before, all starting shortly after the vaccine, and he doesn’t have any clue as to whether the vaccine might have caused them even though VAERS lights up with all the associations of the COVID vaccines and the symptoms of these patients? If it wasn’t the vaccines causing these symptoms, what was the most likely explanation? If the vaccine was the most likely explanation, they why not admit that? What evidence was there that the reported injuries could not have been caused by the vaccines? But we don’t even need to argue this logically because we have first-hand statements from the vaccine injured who treated him that he knew.

    22) What ever happened to evidence-based medicine (EBM)? What was it replaced with and when did this happen? A lot of us missed the memo. The reason I ask is that both ivermectin and fluvoxamine have published peer-reviewed meta-analyses and systematic reviews which are the highest level of evidence-based medicine. So it is inexplicable that the NIH says there is “insufficient evidence” to recommend these drugs. It’s the HIGHEST level of evidence in EBM!?! Fluvoxamine alone has the potential to reduce death from COVID by a factor of 12: “There was one death in the fluvoxamine group and 12 in the placebo group for the per-protocol population (OR 0·09; 95% CI 0·01–0·47).” That’s another reason the NIH should be recommending it. Giving it a neutral recommendation won’t save lives: it’s a message to physicians to avoid using the drug; the NIH knows this. See also: New Analysis Shows Fluvoxamine Has The Potential To Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations By More Than 90%.

    23) How come nobody has been paid any compensation for their COVID vaccine injuries? We have millions of vaccine injured, but our government hasn’t paid even a dime to any of them. So how is the government protecting the public by refusing to compensate them for an injury that the public sustained because the government screwed up and approved an unsafe vaccine?

    24) Deaths per million vaccinated. The smallpox vaccine killed 1 person per million vaccinated. That was previously the world’s most deadly vaccine; too unsafe to use today. Yet the COVID vaccines kill 1,000 times more people per million than the smallpox vaccine. What do we do? We mandate it! How do you explain that?

    25) Re-kindled latent cancers. Please assure us that the rates of “re-emerging” cancers did NOT increase at all after vaccination and tell us how you know that. We are referring to cancers that were under control before vaccination and that shortly after vaccination either became out of control or killed the patient. Many doctors have observed a 10X increase in such events. Clearly, that must be false if the vaccines are as safe and effective as claimed. Can you show us the data showing it is false?

    26) Why are there no autopsies? Why isn’t the CDC requesting that medical examiners in a dozen randomly selected locations do proper autopsies and provide them with the money, tools, and training to detect whether the deaths were caused by the vaccines? Instead, they do nothing. How is that protecting public health? The CDC appears to be behaving like an organization that does not want to know how many people are being killed by the vaccines. Show us evidence that we are wrong.

    27) Blood supply safety. We’ve heard horror stories from embalmers of people who got blood transfusions and died with telltale blood clots found only in vaccinated patients (and those with transfusions). Explain how this is possible if the blood supply is perfectly safe.

    28) Stillbirths since the vaccine. A maternity ward nurse at Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, CA reported that she has “never seen so many stillborn and miscarriages since the jabs started being administered.” Why not have all the hospitals report their numbers so we can have transparency here? And make it a federal crime to report false information. That would inspire confidence that the vaccines are perfectly safe and there is nothing to worry about, right?

    29) Where is the scientific study behind the 6 foot rule for COVID? All of us misinformation spreaders are baffled here. Scott Gottlieb is too. The virus is spread as an aerosol that hangs around for hours to days. As soon as you advance in line to the place that the person was just standing in, you are breathing in what he just breathed out. And the next time he moves forward in line, the process repeats.

    30) Why no debates? There has never been a debate between any of the top misinformation spreaders and any of the health authorities. Why are the health authorities so afraid? In Canada, just three doctors challenged every health authority in Canada and none of the authorities showed up. This makes the Canadian health authorities look really weak if collectively they are afraid of just 3 Canadian doctors. Is “running and hiding when challenged” considered exemplary behavior in science today?

    31) Harm to our immune system. The latest scientific research published in peer-reviewed medical journals shows the vaccines impair our immune system. Tell us how you know for sure that this is just a temporary effect. How long does it last for and how can you be sure of that?

    32) Prion diseases. I tweeted a Substack article that the COVID vaccines cause prion diseases and Twitter banned me for life! But that doesn’t change the science or the data. It just tells me that our government doesn’t want anyone to know this. CHD just ran a story of a mom who died shortly after vaccination from a prion disease. Explain to us why the strong elevation in VAERS reports for prion diseases is nothing to be alarmed about.

    33) Vaccine mandates for kids. We can’t figure out why anyone would mandate the vaccine for kids. Note that we know why the drug companies want it: because it exempts the fully-approved vaccines from liability. Kids are orders of magnitude less likely to die from COVID, they aren’t spreading it to adults in any significant numbers, and we have absolutely no clue as to the long-term effects of the vaccines on them. So even if things look safe today (which they don’t), there is still no compelling reason to mandate vaccination of our kids. Explain to us what we are missing here and please show us the risk-benefit analysis that is being used here because the only one I’ve seen shows we kill 117 kids to save 1 COVID life, which, to be honest, doesn’t make much sense to a lot of us normal people (though if you are a public health official, it seems to make perfect sense for some reason). Also, in the Los Angeles school district, they test all the kids on a regular basis. Surely, there must be a good reason they don’t tell us what the case rates are in the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Could that be because the rates aren’t any different? Or because the cases are higher in the vaccinated? Boy, that would be embarrassing, wouldn’t it?

    34) Origin of the virus. The gain-of-function research work in Wuhan was funded by the NIH. This isn’t subject to debate anymore. Why didn’t the NIH admit this at the start? Also, why did Fauci cover it up? And when Biden went to investigate the origin of the virus, why didn’t he ask the NIH for Fauci’s unredacted emails which would have told us everything? From our perspective, failing to do that showed that Biden knew full well Fauci funded the virus and covered it up. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have sought his emails so we can see the information that was redacted in the FOIA request?

    35) The lockdown policies of the US government. We aren’t aware of any science showing lockdowns have worked in past pandemics to save lives (any virus lives saved by the lockdowns were more than offset through loss of lives due to the lockdowns). The Johns Hopkins study of lockdowns for COVID showed that they ended up costing more lives than they saved. Where is the evidence showing the opposite? How is it that Sweden did so well without any lockdowns and other Nordic countries with even fewer restrictions did even better?

    36) Vaccine-induced hepatitis. In light of this paper published in a peer-reviewed medical journal (“SARS-CoV-2 vaccination can elicit a CD8 T-cell dominant hepatitis”), explain to us how this paper is wrong and the COVID vaccines cannot induce hepatitis. The conclusion reads, “COVID19 vaccination can elicit a distinct T cell-dominant immune-mediated hepatitis with a unique pathomechanism associated with vaccination induced antigen-specific tissue-resident immunity requiring systemic immunosuppression.” You told us that the vaccines were safe and had been thoroughly tested. So someone is lying. Who is lying and how do you know? Also, there are cases of acute hepatitis in kids 16 and underreported all of a sudden in 11 countries. Do we know for certain that none of these kids were vaccinated? 10% of the kids are having to undergo liver transplants due to the illness.

    37) Vaccine safety vs. efficacy for the elderly. Most people claim that the vaccines are justified for the elderly, but for some reason, they never present data from nursing homes showing that their claims are true. We’ve never seen this anywhere. We do see occasional leaks from nursing home whistleblowers like Abrien Aguirre and these people tell us flat out that it is just the opposite: that far more old people died due to the COVID vaccine than actually died from COVID (and not with COVID). These people, who expose the fact that people are re-coded as COVID deaths to collect the extra reimbursements, are then fired and their nursing homes refuse to talk about the numbers disclosed by the whistleblowers. So we are confused by this. If the vaccines are saving lives, why are the nursing homes hiding the numbers and firing the whistleblowers?

    38) Myocarditis caused by the vaccines. Please show us the evidence in the clinics that the rates of myocarditis actually observed by cardiologists DECREASED after the vaccines rolled out. Since the authorities claim that the rates of myocarditis from the vaccine are small compared to COVID, we should see the rates of myocarditis decrease after the vaccines rolled out, but all the cardiologists we talk to tell us that the rates increased dramatically. Also, why aren’t any schools voluntarily sharing their myocarditis rates to show how low it is? Instead, they are staying completely radio silent. For example, at MVCS, the rate confirmed by the head of school is at least 4 in 400 boys, but she won’t publicly talk about it. Isn’t that a trainwreck? Why are all the school nurses we contacted unwilling to reveal the numbers? The schools are behaving as if they don’t want parents to know that the vaccines they mandate are harming the kids.

    39) Cardiac issues in kids after the vaccines rolled out. What accounts for the increased rates of cardiac issues in kids under 16 that started happening after the vaccines rolled out? This includes things like tachycardia and myocarditis? How could the rates go up so high as soon as the vaccines rolled out for kids? Is this caused by a change in the virus? If so, where is the paper describing this? And why are the hospital lab technicians in fear of being fired if they talk about this publicly? Isn’t this something the public should know? Or is it better for society if these incidents are covered up?

    40) Cause of death shift in 2020 vs. 2021. We know from the Massachusetts death data that after the vaccines rolled out, that the cause of death shifted from respiratory causes (due to COVID) to circulatory issues (which we claim were caused by the vaccines). If the vaccines didn’t cause this, then the only possibility is that the virus decided to fundamentally change how it kills people. Yet we’ve never seen a paper on this. Is that the explanation? If not, what caused this dramatic shift in the causes of death? John Beaudoin would be happy to share the analysis with you before you do your video.

    41) Massachusetts death data. If the vaccines are safe and effective, explain how this analysis got it wrong and why there is nothing to see here.

    42) Telltale blood clots in vaccinated people (and people with blood transfusions). Up to 93% of cases of embalmers seeing long blood clots (never before seen prior to the vaccine) seem troubling. Why are these nothing to worry about, what is causing them, and how do you know that? Do you have tissue analysis you’ve done to reassure us that the vaccines are not the cause?

    43) How can there be hundreds of thousands of seriously injured vaccine victims for a vaccine with such mild side effects? Why did hundreds of thousands of people join vaccine injury groups on Facebook? Why did Facebook shut these down? Were all of these people lying? How did Facebook make that assessment? Was there any coordination with the US government?

    44) The UK government data clearly shows that triple-vaccinated people are 3 times more likely to get COVID. So for those of us with a working brain, it’s silly to get vaccinated if we want to avoid a COVID infection. It’s been argued by the UK authorities that this isn’t really true, but they used a laundry list of hand-waving arguments rather than any actual data to support their claims in the hopes you’ll believe one of the arguments and won’t ask for data. Over time, the numbers got so bad that they now no longer publish the numbers. Show us credible data that shows why these numbers are wrong and the triple- vaccinated are far less likely to be infected than the unvaccinated. Make our day. I’m sure Alex Berenson would love to see this too. Also, can you explain this image from Alex’s Substack? To us it looks like vaccination makes things worse; are we interpreting the graph wrong?

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    1. I really appreciate Steve´s dedication and effort. He is one of the few Covid “rebels” that I still read occasionally. The topic in general is so mentally draining, that I try to avoid it now. A news fast is something that I seriously consider to increase my mental health. Two years of gloom and doom are enough.

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      1. It would be so simple for our leaders to stop “misinformation”. All they have to do is provide answers with supporting evidence for the many questions people are asking.

        But they don’t. Perhaps because they are idiots, or perhaps because their policies have nothing to do with health.

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        1. The opposite seems to be the case. Yesterday, I read in the German news that there is a commission in place to evaluate the Corona measures for their effectiveness, which I would really appreciate. Unfortunately, the major fear mongers from Germany Christian Drosten (the “royal” virologist) and Karl Lauterbach (minister of health) try to sabotage this commission more or less openly. Drosten claims that we don´t have enough data, which sounds totally ridiculous after two years of worldwide data gathering, while Lauterbach wants to delay the release of the results of the commission to the end of this year, currently they are scheduled to be released in Summer. I still lean to them just being idiots trying to rescue their reputation by any means.

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    2. I thought about providing some responses to many of those questions but I then I wondered why Steve Kirsch didn’t do the work himself. It could be because he doesn’t want the answers. Perhaps he could start by looking at data which doesn’t seem to support his opinion and then find out what systems like VAERS actually are and are not.

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      2. Based on what I have seen from Steve, I would not expect that he does not have the answers to his questions. He just wants to hear the answers from the fear mongers.

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        1. I agree. Most of the questions appear to be tinged with a perhaps subtle rhetorical slant. He just wants affirmation from those “in charge”.
          AJ

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          1. Hey AJ, sounds like you’ve been studying Ukraine more than anyone else here, how about quick summary of where you think we are and where we’re going?

            Maybe post it as a new comment rather than a reply to this one so it does not get buried.

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        2. My interpretation is that Steve thinks he knows that valid concerns exist and he wants the authorities to present the logic and data they have used to justify not investigating and/or acting on the concerns.

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  63. Latest from Nate Hagens. Nice to see that Nate succeeded in breaking through the overshoot denial of an important influential person, although Tristan Harris is now finding it difficult to sleep at night.

    I left the following comment:

    Very good interview, thanks. It would be interesting to know if there are discussions on the Taiwan democracy platform about the need for rapid population reduction policies, since nothing else will help with our overshoot predicament. I’m betting not. Addressing social media problems is important but acknowledging our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities is even more important. Social media simply amplifies an already loud denial problem.

    Further to my point, it was illuminating to see an expert on social media discuss the damage it does to rational thought, and then state that the Ukraine invasion is due to an irrational dictator.

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    1. This was a great article. Thanks for introducing me to Doomberg. It looks like they do very good work and I’ve been gobbling up their content. It seems they are nuclear power optimists. I must confess I’m skeptical, but I see passionate well educated people in disagreement over the viability of nuclear (short term). As you’d no doubt point out, the energy problem if solved would just kick-the-can on many other problems. I’ll keep digging to see if they address overshoot in general. They describe themselves as “human centered” and targeted at minimizing the loss of life. Seems to me this requires birth reduction. I think our actual path will be excess deaths.

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      1. Nuclear is a tricky question that well informed people can disagree on.

        On the one hand, nuclear can be engineered to be safe enough, and is a dense, clean, reliable 24/7 source of electricity.

        On the other hand, electricity doesn’t replace the diesel we depend on for survival, and if you expect fossil energy depletion will collapse the economy then degraded governance and maintenance abilities could make nuclear unacceptably dangerous, even with good intentions.

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    2. On the topic of alternative fuels check out this from national airline here in glorious 100% pure NZ.

      I left the following comment on their LinkedIn post.

      “This ad made my stomach churn. It’s absolute #greenwashing by a distant commitment based on yet to be viable technologies and #hopium. Statements like “could be available sooner than you think” and “might be” confirm this. Your slick marketing team should be ashamed of the way they’ve taken advantage of these child actors when every carbon spewing flight contributes to locking in an unlivable world for their future. I would be inspired if AirNZ faced reality and pivoted to a future of coastal sailing ships. There is no sustainable future involving people flying.”

      I know I’m wasting my time doing this but sometimes you gotta vent. Of course cheap fossil energy depletion and overshoot will trump climate change and the bogus net zero commitments.

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      1. LOL. Our moron leaders love that 2050 date.

        A net zero commitment by 2050 will be the only climate change commitment we ever meet because all the fossil energy will be gone by then and we’ll be net zero whether we want to be or not.

        I agree venting is a waste of time but it does feel good to let the universe know there are a few functioning brains on the planet.

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  66. I initially embraced Substack with enthusiasm. Now I’m cancelling subscriptions. It seems most authors think they have enough important things to say that several posts a day are warranted. Most people don’t have that many good ideas a day. I wish they would concentrate their best thoughts into maybe one post a week.

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    1. I have the same impression. I cancelled quite a few subscriptions because I wasn´t reading them anymore. It wasn´t just the pure quantity of stuff that I had to read but also the quality. I mean you could read hundreds of bloggers on a topic (e.g. Covid), but the important information is coming from the same few bloggers most of the time.

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  67. Tim Morgan today reminds us that pre-covid we were buying $1 of growth with $4 debt (plus $6 more for future liabilities). Post-covid the picture is worse.

    Morgan concludes:

    The extinguishers used to fight (or at least to damp down) the fires of the global financial crisis now contain, not foam or water, but gasoline.

    …the era of self-delusion is over, and the stoicism involved in facing reality will now be the characteristic most required to adapt to a new era.

    https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/04/28/227-pictures-of-imperfection/

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    1. Good article as usual! I still have a “wait and see” attitude about the durability of inflation. It doesn’t ultimately change the outcome, but I hope to call an “I told you so!” as the ship goes down. After all – Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.

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  68. Just stumbled on a new covid blogger mentioned by the infamous Fast Eddy @OFW.

    I really like the way Joel Smalley writes. Unlike so many other covid bloggers that are WAY too verbose and obtuse, Smalley writes with clarity and an economy of words.

    In this essay published a few days ago he reviews the global data to make a persuasive case that vaccines are doing more harm than good.

    It seems to me when trying to assess any health policy, harms versus goods is THE most important question.

    So he nails the key issue with no excess baggage.

    Other strong points include links to data sources and references to people that I know and trust from 2 years of vetting.

    https://metatron.substack.com/p/covid-requiem-aeternam?s=r

    Conclusion

    The Safe and Effective™ vaccine hypothesis is rejected.

    In fact, according to the evidence, the more obvious conclusion is that the COVID vaccine has caused more death, not less, so much more in fact, that it has actually wiped out the expected natural declines and caused yet more death still.

    The signal is significant in terms of temporal proximity and consistency across countries regardless of geography and demographics.

    Applying the Bradford Hill criteria:

    1. Strength of association – vaccinated (richer) countries have relatively more COVID death than less vaccinated (poorer) countries.

    2. Consistency across countries and continents.

    3. Specificity – the vaccine kills people.

    4. Temporality is observed in a significant number of countries, especially those vaccinating aggressively in the middle of outbreaks.

    5. Biological gradient – there is an evident positive correlation between vaccination rate and COVID death rate and increase in COVID death rate.

    6. Biological plausibility – the 2-week period of immunosuppression immediately post injection has been very widely observed and reported, as have the plethora of fatal adverse events. The evidence suggesting that variants are spawned due to unnatural selection is also growing4.

    7. Coherence – we get the same information from analyses of vaccine adverse event reporting systems, hospital records, national surveillance systems, even the vaccine trial data itself (albeit hidden in the data appendices)5, and other independent mortality analyses with different methods6.

    8. Experiment – the entire world has been subjected to a massive clinical trial without consent. Fortunately, different countries had different rates of vaccine uptake so comparative study has been possible to demonstrate causality, especially between countries with similar geographic and demographic qualities.

    9. Analogy – Marek’s chickens (1970)7.

    This is a global public health failure of truly unprecedented and epic proportions.

    P.S. In the comment thread Fast Eddy is active and presents his trademark Ultimate Extinction Plan (UAP) in its entirety, rather than the usual confusing fragments, just in case you’ve ever wondered what makes that duck quack.

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    1. Commenting on the internet seems to be Fast Eddy´s only activity based on the volume he alone puts out at OFW. He must have found out how to clone himself, if he now spreads to other sites.

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    1. I’ll watch this when I get a chance. Spring is planting season and I have far too much work outside in the rain to do to get some crops in the ground. (Why do I do this??) As I am more depressed by the day. We are purposefully getting into WW3 and sooner or later obama (or whoever controls the senile Biden) will cause Russia to nuke us.
      Shorter reads that explain where we are:
      Larry Johnson seems to be right on point here.
      https://sonar21.com/those-who-cannot-remember-the-past-are-condemned-to-repeat-it/
      Karl Denninger says we are insane (in the U.S.).
      https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?blog=Market-Ticker-Nad
      I hoped we would avoid this fate but denial is strong and most people deny (or are to stupid) to think we have an existential problem with Ukraine.
      AJ

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      1. Thanks, I’ll read those links.

        Things are busy at the farm I help despite cool and wet weather. Finished a project yesterday installing lighting and plugs in a 40′ shipping container we recently purchased. I’ve been encouraging the farm to store more key supplies like fertilizer, fuel, and spare parts. They seem to be taking my concerns seriously now.

        Today’s project is to run the flail mower down both sides of the fence line.

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        1. I know the work never stops. I spent the morning turning over one gardens winter cover crop by hand (shovel and rake). I could rent a roto-tiller but that wastes fuel and I have to drive for two hours (round trip) to get it. I could buy one but again a waste of resources and used only a few times a year. Sure it takes a long time to turn over the soil by hand but that’s what our ancestors did (unless they had cow/oxen – but that’s another story). I have my new scythe blade coming and then I get to cut grass/weeds. I never appreciated how much time/energy it takes to mow grass (or grains). Get a scythe and work with it for a few hours a day and you really appreciate fossil fuels. 😉
          AJ

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          1. A few years ago I worked on a different farm that used almost zero fossil energy. We scythed several acres of grains and legumes and threshed by hand with chaka sticks. I quite enjoy scything but it takes a lot of practice to be good at it.

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            1. Hello friends of the Scythe, so good to hear you’re practicing your swing! What brand blade are you getting, AJ? We’ve had good results with the Falci, an Italian make. Note the similarity to Fauci and isn’t it ironic that our arch Covid nemesis’ name actually means sickle in Italian, could this mean something as the scythe has always been the weapon of choice for the grim reaper. However, these days my left-handed husband uses battery powered Stihl tools, just that much quicker and more versatile with the interchangeable attachments, especially the pole pruner which has been a godsend. One day when he retires, I am sure he will return to the meditative rhythm of scything but maybe by then our food forest will be so dense that grass will be a thing of the past (dream on!) I’ve been joining you in the heads down bum up department here down under, Autumn clean up tasks are as demanding as Spring planting, with the extra bonus of trying to harvest and process the last of the fruit, quinces, medlars, and persimmons will round out our year here in Tasmania. I am also getting ready for my annual winter migration to the highland tropics which will see me flat out like a lizard drinking (don’t you just love Aussie slang!) trying to reclaim the jungle which has grown in my absence. There’s no way a scythe could tame that elephant grass, it’s hard yakka even with petrol powered brushcutters, but once again, the Stihl battery models do a commendable job. My pride and joy there are my beautiful 9 year old clumping bamboo. We have about 20 varieties, all useful in various ways and many edible, some have 25 cm diameter culms and are nearly 25 metres tall in just 3 months–how can anyone fail to be awed by that rate of growth and the cumulative biomass, all thanks to the energy of the sun and a good deal of rain. My goal this winter is to experiment with making bamboo biochar which we will first use to improve our own soil and perhaps later it can be a small sideline for markets/trade, as we think we’ll have a lot of bamboo to turn to charcoal! I’ve been following the posts diligently but admit I haven’t checked out as many links as I wish but am glad that the stalwart band is keeping things ticking over.

              One thing that keeps fermenting in my mind and at the risk of sounding like a tiresome broken record, isn’t everything that is unfolding before us in double time now exactly what is required to accomplish the twin pillars of overshoot correction, that is population reduction and collapse of the consumable economy? How else to orchestrate such a seismic shift but to do it in ways we can just about understand to be part of our human history, that is war, plague, famine, natural disaster, and yes, even ineffectual if not outright imbecilic leaders, whatever it takes to keep the current human morass going until the next big thing is ready to take its place. I am coming to accept this as our inevitable doom but that makes me all the more determined to look forward to another Spring, just as you good people in the northern hemisphere are trusting now that your honest labour will reward you with Autumn harvest. All the best, everyone. Happy May Day, by the way. In addition to the billions of human workers worldwide, let’s honour the trillions of energy slaves who have made our lives of denial possible.

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              1. Hi Gaia,
                I am buying a ditch blade that is manufactured in Austria by Schroeckenfux (Maine Scythe Supply). I already have a grass/grain blade but have a lot of weeds/berry vines to keep cut back. I like the scythe – but it is hard work (especially when you are old). Have fun with the harvest.
                AJ

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              2. I’ve been busy on a project intended to get my ageing mind working again but I did want to jump in on the scythe thread just to say that I’m a big fan of it. I have two (different length snaths as my son is noticeably taller than I) and I think they are both Austrian snaths but I can’t think of the blade manufacturers off the top of my head, and couldn’t be bothered to go check. I love scything but it it so hard on our current land as it is full of tufts of grass, so very difficult to keep a rhythm going. I’m in a bit of a limbo at the moment due to council woes but hope to get many more trees planted in the food forest this autumn and winter. The scythe is good for mulching around trees but I’m using the Ego battery mower to keep the grass down for now.

                I wanted to mention another great gardening tool that I discovered a few years ago. It’s called a “Magna Grecia Hoe”. I got mine from The Scythe Connection and don’t know if they are available anywhere else. If you can get one, do so.

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                  1. Yes. Now you mention it, I think I got one of my snaths from there but, eventually, the same sort became available here in NZ (from gardentools.nz) so my other one was locally sourced. Actually, I believe Scythe Works and Scythe Connection are related sites. Peter Vido seems to be the scythe wizard.

                    Peening is one of the critical skills with scything and I think I’m OK at it but hopefully I’ll get better when I have more time to spend on it.

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  70. I watched the entire piece with Col. Black. He is correct about everything. Just like Scott Ritter, Larry Johnson, Chuck Watson, The Duran, the Saker and Col. McGregor (Sp.?). His presentation is excellent. If I criticize it the only thing I think it is short on is the history of our (U.S./NATO) lies with respect to the recent history of the collapse of the USSR and our dealings with Russia/vis-a-vie NATO expansion. We have pushed Russia to the edge for nothing other than a desire to rule the world and rape it of its last resources in the service of our elites. Such is the collapse of civilization. Without denial on the part of the west’s people and leaders this might not have happened.
    AJ

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    1. I agree with the first half of your article. The “why” kind of baffles me on this one.

      It’s possible this is merely anti-russia boomer inertia, and irrational.

      It’s possible that the U.S. believes there is somehow a rational geopolitical advantage to be had, but I can’t see it.

      It’s possible that those involved aren’t thinking beyond the surface of “looking good” by opposing Russia.

      But it seems so obviously ill-considered, both based on the risks and paucity of rewards. This would be a “politics as usual” scenario in my mind.

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  71. Tim Watkins today on the triangle of doom and our denial thereof.

    “It might seem almost heartening that, in the absence of logic and evidence, TINA has become the sole prop retained by the consensus ‘narrative’.

    “We need to beware, though, that TINA may have a far less forgiving sibling, with the confusingly-similar acronym TINAR – There Is No Acceptable Reality.”

    We are, like the passengers on Edwin J. Milliken’s Clattering train, careering toward catastrophe unaware that we are running on automatic pilot:

    Who is in charge of the clattering train?
    The axles creak, and the couplings strain.
    At every mile we a minute must gain!
    A hundred hearts beat placidly on,
    Unwitting they that their warder’s gone
    For the pace is hot, and the points are near,
    And Sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear
    And signals flash through the night in vain.
    Death is in charge of the clattering train!

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/04/29/economic-train-wreck-ahead/

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    1. Thanks, as Nate Hagens would say, nobody’s driving the bus.

      On the other hand, some buses, like the “safe and effective” bus and the “let’s arm Ukraine” bus, do seem to have drivers.

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  73. Another futile attempt to steer the brain-dead Homo Mess-up-the-Planet in the right direction.
    Not gonna work but hey we have to nurture the illusion that we can do “something” about it.

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  74. Rob, et al
    I just finished reading Heying & Weinstein’s “A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century”.
    Although an interesting read I was somewhat disappointed (IMHO the whole discussion on consciousness and culture was obtuse). It is not up to Caton’s “Overshoot” (which is the most essential read). You said they were “politically correct” in not calling out collapse/overshoot, but although I’m sure they ‘get it’ I think they are in denial as to the late state we are in. That they don’t even seem aware that we are heading for an energy collapse. Again, they may get it, but at what point does your not saying something become hopium or denial? They are good ecologists/evolutionary biologists and understand, and at multiple time articulate that we have too many people for the carrying capacity of earth (but why don’t they just say that we are overpopulated? – again being politically correct?). Maybe I’m too old and depressed, but I think a true “Hunter-Gatherer’s guide to the 21st Century” would have focused on: Can agriculture in any form survive or will the remaining humans be itinerant gatherer’s with very little to hunt?
    AJ

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    1. I was very disappointed after the first read. Less so after 2 more reads but I accept your criticisms. Maybe I’m too tolerant with them because of their good works on covid.

      P.S. They also don’t seem too concerned about climate change having just returned from a vacation in the Bahamas.

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    1. I’d give it another shot. Is this book “the answer”? No, and does it cover what you think is the essential fact that needs to be addressed by all books or bloggers? No, but humans are a many faceted mess that warrant analysis that will supplement a singular focus on our overshoot condition.

      Not all reviews have been ecstatic, but it’s at least got some folks rethinking the mainstream narrative. While the authors are in many cases probably as speculative in their interpretation of pot shards as anyone else, they acknowledge that, and so give one pause about whether our conventional storyline is any more solid.

      It is a weighty tome, and I got rather impatient slogging through it, but it makes a plausible argument that we may not be locked in to the current statist rush for the cliff.

      I still think the current culture is too far down the line to alter and choose another path as they think has been done in the past ( some flavor of collapse is baked in now), but in the end, I though the book was worth the read.

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      1. I agree our path is probably fixed. Evidence for this is that pretty much everyone that discusses the human predicament, including these authors, does not focus on population reduction, which is the only thing that will reduce future suffering.

        My focus has been on trying to understand why an intelligent species is unable to see the obvious.

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  76. Assuming the goal was to minimize sickness, death, and damage to the economy, it is a remarkable fact that every single one of our responses to covid was wrong.

    I’m therefore always on the lookout for a plausible big picture explanation for our collective insanity. Today Gail Tverberg gave her spin, which I like:

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/04/21/the-world-has-a-major-crude-oil-problem-expect-conflict-ahead/comment-page-9/#comment-364628

    …until collapse actually leads to a huge reduction in fossils fuel availability, the actions of governments help support the pharmaceutical industry over the education industry, the fancy clothing industry, the convention industry and the tourism industry. When there is not enough resources to go around, they direct a disproportionate share of resources are available to the pharmaceutical industry.

    Pushing the use of vaccines gives the illusion that governments are in charge and know what they are doing. Related shutdowns can cut down on fossil fuel use. This is a big problem for fossil fuel importers. The shutdowns can also help governments keep order.

    The mRNA COVID vaccines mostly have one benefit: they shorten hospitalizations when a person gets COVID. This makes the vaccines very appealing to employers and governments that have to pay for hospitalization after people catch COVID. It also makes they very appealing to US medical groups, who make their money mostly from elective surgery. If there is too much COVID, the elective surgery gets pushed out of the way, by the less profitable COVID hospitalizations. So, the rest of the medical industry strongly supports the vaccines, as well.

    At the beginning, it looked as if mRNA COVID vaccines could prevent transmission. This gave hope that the vaccines could actually stop the cycle of transmission. But, as time goes on, it has become clear that the mRNA vaccines increase overall mortality rates in people under age 65. Also, the length of time that they can act to prevent transmission gets shorter and shorter, as more shots are administered. In fact, the mRNA vaccines seem indirectly to increase transmission because people are so lightly sick that they don’t realize that there is a problem. Once the short period of stopping transmission ends, those with the vaccines seem to be more vulnerable to catching the illness than they would be otherwise. This keeps the virus circulating endlessly.
    …
    The self-organizing economy acts to pull together many pieces that grew up independently:

    Many countries figured out that conventional wars were simply too energy intensive to depend on in the future. The military arms of quite a large number of countries decided to look into the use of biological weapons, to work around this difficulty.

    There are also viruses that naturally jump from animals to humans.

    Pandemics are a known problem. They have happened over and over. Countries are interested in what causes them and what the latest research seems to say is useful for fighting them.

    Medical researchers figured out that finding ways to defeat these viruses (whether biological weapons of naturally jumping to humans) was a useful thing to do. In fact, they could make money if they could patent new techniques. Pharmaceutical companies figured out that they could make a lot of money if they could figure out how to quickly make and sell a vaccine that would stop problem virus. (There was a side benefit as well. Some vaccine techniques might be used as drug delivery techniques, allowing the possibility of more money elsewhere.)

    Someone clever got the idea of calling the COVID mRNA pre-treatments “vaccines.” The use of this misleading term led people everywhere to think of the “vaccines” as a more or less magical solution. Once a person had a vaccine treatment, the virus could no longer harm them. People assumed that the vaccine would stop transmission and would not cause a large number of adverse effects. People in charge of “vaccines” could logically be put in high positions, when it came to decide what to do about the pandemic.

    Johns Hopkins University (with federal money, I am sure) put together a training program called Event 201 to train government officials and influential news media how to respond if/when a pandemic occurred.

    https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

    Look at this site carefully to see how many influential people from around the world came. The introduction to this site says:

    “The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.”

    One of the responses, even at this point, was the idea of using fear to keep people at home to stop spreading the disease.

    There was also a UK modeling exercise, very early on, that led to the belief that the deaths from the pandemic would be far worse than was really the case.

    Also, the only data presented in televised reports was the number of deaths relative to the number of hospitalized patients. This ratio seemed very high, partly because the treatment was entirely wrong, killing the patients, and partly because the large number of people having light cases was not included in the denominator. People everywhere were led to believe that the disease would kill them. Neal Ferguson of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team came up with an approach to be used until vaccines became available:

    Click to access Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

    Politicians were, at that time, having troubles controlling angry mobs, because people were unhappy wages were too low, or pensions were too low. China, where the illness broke out, took an incredibly strict approach to trying to control the virus (perhaps because the Wuhan area also was having demonstrations because of low wages).

    To some extent, those following the example of China were simply following a pattern they saw used elsewhere. It did seem to calm down some other problems. and it gave countries an excuse to borrow more money and begin new programs, to fix financial problems they were having. Indirectly, these financial problems were the result of the energy limits we are reaching. I doubt that many people made the connection between low wages and low profits corresponding to energy limits.

    Volunteers, basically from the pharmaceutical industry (Fauci) and from those investing in the pharmaceutical industry (Bill Gates), took a lead in telling people what to do do. Also, Andrew Cuomo of New York gave COVID briefings that acted to confirm the belief that all of these strange actions were necessary.

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    1. Just quoting you but changing two words and lo, how our worldview is upended…

      Assuming the goal was to maximize sickness, death, and damage to the economy, it is a remarkable fact that every single one of our responses to covid was correct.

      Now the only questions remaining–could this have been deliberate and if so, why? Is this an answer to our overshoot? I’m hopelessly stuck down this rabbit hole because I’m just in denial of how it could be anything else as it’s a perfect bullseye target match for an agenda that will lead to the Brave New World Order with quite a few less brave among us around to be ordered.

      Sigh, best thing is to get back into the garden and await for solace and tranquillity which always seem to find me there.

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      1. Given the globally coordinated covid policies that got, and to this day still get, everything wrong, despite mountains of evidence that there is a better path, it is very tempting to assume a plan exists to address overshoot.

        I still assign a very low probability to such a plan existing because I don’t think our leaders are bright enough to plan and execute such a complicated exercise. Nor do I think so many people could be involved without someone spilling the beans. Finally, I think such a plan would be thwarted by our leader’s desire for self-preservation trumping the global good.

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        1. Hi Rob, I do like and appreciate your logic very much; thank you for being a calm voice of reason to check my hysteria. I suppose I will just have to come to accept that our leaders are egotistical, dumber than sticks maniacs who will continue to have no clue about anything that might preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or facsimile thereof all the above. But what if there is something that trumps them that does, a top down approach so to speak, and our leaders are only on a need to know basis and the more dronelike they are, the better? I must have watched too many suspense thrillers with double/triple crossings in my formative years. Thank you for reminding me that this isn’t a movie even though it seems like we’re in one at times.
          No matter, however the means, can we say that the pendulum has started to swing to overshoot correction in a very decisive way? No plan needed, just inevitability.

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    1. I don´t know whether the price difference between gasoline and diesel is that high in Germany, but it is the first time during my life that diesel is more expensive than gasoline.

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      1. When I visited Germany last in the 90’s I remember most cars were small manual transmission diesels. I’ve read that diesel cars are now being discouraged in Europe to reduce pollution. I wonder if the real reason is to conserve diesel for trucks. Do you know what is the truth?

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        1. Good question. We had the Volkswagen emissions scandal, where VW (and maybe other car manufacturers as well) had built their diesel fueled cars with an emission control only working during lab tests to hide the real NOx emissions. So this whole scandal put a major dent into the popularity of diesel cars. As a consequence, the government is discouraging using diesel powered cars by banning them from streets where high emissions occure. In addition, old diesel powered cars are phased out by strict city access rules. So the explanation, that it is discouraged to reduce pollution, seems reasonable. The conservation of diesel for trucks looks like a “beneficial” side effect to me.

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      2. Here in Australia, as far as I can recall in the 23 years we’ve been here, diesel has always been more expensive than petrol, due to the tax structure as well as the cost of refining. And it just happens we decided to get a VW Diesel Golf when it first became available here 17 years ago (to replace our 22 year old Volvo station wagon) mainly because of the fuel economy because my husband needed to drive over 100km daily to work. He takes the bus now, and thanks to Covid, one of the silver linings is that he is allowed to work from home from time to time. VW has fallen from grace but we’re determined to drive their car until its last km remaining, or when fossil fuels run out, whichever comes first. We’ve woken up to the green energy scandal and have decided that an EV is not in our future. Methinks a mule might be, however! Seriously, I have suggested the idea of starting to breed up mules to a few farming friends here but they think I’m a jackass, no offense to me at all!

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        1. I remember studying the advantages of mules. If I recall compared to horses mules are more fuel efficient, have better tires for traction, and have a better temperament for cargo caravans.

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          1. Yes, and they have hybrid vigour but as you know, the biggest downside is they’re sterile so you will always need a male donkey and a mare to make more. So breeding up would be a very long process, probably just for hobby farmers at this time until the need for another method of carriage becomes critical, but by then it will be much more difficult and late in the game to ramp up large animal husbandry operations without already having enough animals. I have learned that the reverse coupling, that is a stallion with a female donkey produces another sterile hybrid called a hinny that is not as robust nor tractable. However there is the saying “Stubborn as a mule” so apparently this combo in either form needs a lot of patience in training. But then again, there’s “Stubborn as an ox” too, so maybe it’s just human beings trying to get animals to do what they want when the animal doesn’t want that’s the problem. No one really says “Stubborn as a diesel engine” but maybe we will soon, when the fuel runs out.

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  80. Liked by 1 person

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  81. Chuck Watson today with a nice primer on nuclear weapons.

    https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/05/03/nuclear-weapons-what-you-need-to-know/

    So it is vital to keep in mind that nuclear weapons are not just big radioactive explosions. They have secondary effects well beyond just the explosive force and prompt radiation. The operational characteristics (like selective yields) and plans to use them (doctrine) makes some kinds of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems inherently destabilizing. This is a danger we’ve ignored for the last 30 years, while the technology and doctrine has changed significantly over that time. The framework of treaties and lines of communications that existed at the end of the Cold War has fallen apart, and for all of those reasons the danger of nuclear war has probably never been greater. We need to quickly re-establish safeguards and step away from the brink. The future of humanity – and most other life on earth – literally depends on it.

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    1. Yes,
      Again Chuck Watson comes through with a depressing analysis of where we are with nuclear weapons and how our leaders have no clue (being to young and stupid) to understand what they are “playing” with.
      AJ

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      1. Rich overshoot aware people have I think voted NZ as the best bugout place on the planet. There’s some evidence that Vancouver Island might be #2. James Cameron bought farm land in NZ and in my community. I worked on his farm here for a year. After learning how difficult it is to turn a profit here he sold (or is selling) the property.

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        1. Yes there’s been a bit of media coverage of Cameron’s farm over the years. He and his wife were planning a huge food forest at some point. Not sure where they got to. He’s making the next Avatar movies here too.

          But alas our leaders are idiots here too. Celebrating our borders opening after covid and promoting sustainable tourism. Signing hydrogen deals with Toyota and pushing other hydrogen myths. In response to rising fuel prices they cut fuel taxes so people could still drive around “affordably”. Our climate change minister promotes a clean energy transition as the biggest economic opportunity of our time. They shutdown local farmers markets and small local independent food retailers during covid lockdowns so everyone had to shop at the big chain stores. The list of evidence is long. But it’s still the only place I’d want to be living. Although my uncle and aunt have a place on Vancouver Island and it always looked beautiful there.

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        2. Hey, don’t forget us here in Tassie, maybe we’re an even better bugout because most Americans have no clue where we are or think we’re somewhere in Africa… geography not exactly being a strong point for the self proclaimed greatest nation on earth. With a native population of just over 500,000 it’s a cosy little island but for me the downside is there’s still winter and it’s as long and dark as Vancouver Island. In addition to my vitamin D inadequacy (supplements just don’t seem to cut it for me) we all know winter is gruelling for energy expenditure and food security. Which is why I have an annual migration to the Atherton Tablelands outside Cairns in QLD–now if I had to choose the best spot for maximising self-sufficiency year round, this highland tropics with volcanic soil and adequate rainfall would be it. I think Campbell’s North Island paradise is very similar, especially if you can grow bananas! Bananas are just amazing, the rate of growth and abundance is just spellbinding. If you can get a variety call Blue Java, please try it, it tastes just like vanilla ice cream. And all bananas can be eaten green as a very passable starch, and don’t forget the peels of a ripe (organic) banana can be eaten, too, blended it makes a nice addition to smoothies, cakes and breads, increases nutrients and fibre.

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          1. Tasmania is indeed another good spot Gaia. Our climate is not quite as tropical as Cairns but thanks to the industrial revolution and fossil fuel combustion exhaust gases we are heading that way. Gotta plan ahead with plant selection for a future climate. We don’t have Blue Java bananas yet although I have friends who do so hopefully some plant trading will take place at some stage. All ours are Misi Luki also known as Ladyfinger. Banana flour is in my mind once ours start producing. We also have plenty of Macadamia nut trees which is an Australian native. The rats love them so pest control is a key task here. Your native Possum has done so well here and love all things fruity. While protected over there here we trap millions each year and use them for dog food, fur products and even eat them. The dozens I’ve trapped are feeding the bananas and other fruit trees we’ve planted so far.

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      2. Yeah, I like your odds of avoiding immediate death and nuclear winter (starvation). However, I don’t know if anyone has looked at the odds of your surviving a nuclear war long term (provided no strikes in the southern hemisphere). “On the Beach (1959)” anyone?
        AJ

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        1. Thanks AJ. My moment of smugness has passed 😉
          Yes full blown nuclear war wouldn’t help my garden longterm I’m sure. Today I’m preparing new areas for extending our food forest. More citrus, avocados, nut trees, bananas and more. I’d like to get at least one harvest off them before calamity strikes.

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            1. I haven’t seen that movie and Wikipedia’s entry on it convinces me I don’t want to. This from the plot summary stuck out for me….”Since money serves no value, food takes place as the only form of currency; awarded for labour and withheld as punishment. The narrator states the cruel irony in that for the more people who die, the more food there is to go around.”

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  85. While it’s up for debate whether we’ve reached peak oil, it’s much easier to argue we’ve reached peak oil investment. The end of oil is near, renewables are taking over.

    Which proves we’ve clearly not yet reached peak denial.

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      1. The official difference between a depression and a recession is the duration and severity of a reduction in economic activity. I think one implication of overshoot and fossil energy depletion is that we face a permanent depression. When I hear someone say the word recession I visualize the denial circuit in their brain saying, “don’t worry it’s temporary”.

        A severe (GDP down by 10%) or prolonged (three or four years) recession is referred to as an economic depression…

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession

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          1. The long descent as described by JMG seems like a realistic scenario for the immidiate future. It could be a centuries long mixture of periods of decline interspersed with stabilisation periods on lower levels, but without any improvement.

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            1. We already experienced the slow collapse phase with deteriorating standards of living in the western world. Maybe not you, but others did. It’s either continued exponential growth or the cliff. “Gradually, then suddenly.” I’m sorry for the older people how think or thought they would fade away into the night with BAU still intact.

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              1. I agree that for quite a few people the standard of living has already decreased in the western world, e.g. in Germany, we have a lot of old people that are collecting refundable bottles to increase their meager pension.

                In addition, the infrastructure is crumbling. I once read an article that we only renovate 50% of brigdes in need of renovation. On most freeway bridges we already have a speed limit and driving lane reduction to reduce the wear and tear. In addition, we have some bridges that are in such a desolate condition that even construction workers are not allowed to enter them to do the repair works. At least, we did not have a major catastrophy with crumbling bridges like Italy.

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    1. Great presentation by concerned humans. I have little to no faith that humanity will survive extinction and wiping out most life on this planet. We evolved for a different world and have made a civilization that doesn’t value the natural world. Such is the end of life on this planet. We have answered the Fermi Paradox – evolved creatures can not survive their encounter with technology – there is no other intelligent life in the universe. How sad.
      AJ

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    1. Abortions are not effective to reduce population if you substitute the aborted children with more migrant children. Our native population is already in decline due to a low birth rate in Germany (shared by many industrialized countries). We reproduce below replacement level since 50 years (https://www.bib.bund.de/DE/Fakten/Fakt/F08-Zusammengefasste-Geburtenziffer-ab-1871.html). You see the results mainly in regions without major influx from other countries, which is covering the population decline. The prognosis for the town, where I live, is a population decline of 15% until 2030, and we already lost 50% since the 1970s. There are towns around here, that would be empty in 20 years based on the current shrinking. Sure, not all of it is related to low birth rate as we also have migration movements within the country (mainly from north to south), but 50 years reproduction below replacement level is showing its effects now. Due to our system of endless growth, we try to counter this problem by importing women with lots of children and/or who are willing to procreate.

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      1. We have a similar situation in Canada. I believe without immigration we would have one of the lowest rates of population growth in the world. With immigration we have one of the highest, if not the highest populaiton growth rates.

        I understand problems result from a falling population, but we have no choice. It’s going to go down one way or the other. We should choose the way with the least suffering.

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    2. Hello friends, perhaps this is the best time and place to introduce you to VHEMT, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement as outlined by a “Les U. Knight”. Check out http://www.vhemt.org for a brave and timely offering to our population crisis. It’s a great conversation starter and highly entertaining, the cartoons and chart on pages https://www.vhemt.org/biobreed.htm and https://www.vhemt.org/whybreed.pdf are gold. Anyway, I’ll say no more (now that’s a first!) and let you discover it for yourself. Cheerio.

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      1. I heard the organization disbanded…apparently it had as much internal momentum as “The International Introvert Initiative.” Also disbanded, LOL.

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  90. Gail Tverberg follows the money to explain our covid insanity…

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/04/21/the-world-has-a-major-crude-oil-problem-expect-conflict-ahead/comment-page-15/#comment-365494

    There are a lot of reasons why this situation of “vaccines for COVID” situation is taking place.

    Pfizer is making money off of the sale of vaccines.

    Also, in theory, (and maybe in actuality), if a person catches COVID after being vaccinated, the length of the hospitalization is shorter. In the United States, employers are paying most of the hospitalization costs for people under age 65. So employers become a natural ally of pharmaceutical companies, and the one most likely to fire people if they are unvaccinated.

    Hospitals are in favor of vaccinations, because if too many hospital beds are taken up by COVID patients, it squeezes out the more profitable elective surgery. Thus, vaccination makes hospitals money.

    Politicians can use vaccination to make it look like they are doing something to “save” everyone the world from COVID, even thought the vaccine increases transmission, rather than reducing it. This makes politicians a natural ally.

    The CDC is funded to a significant extent by the pharmaceutical industry and (perhaps others, such as Bill Gates’ foundation??). There are also elected politicians to please. As a result, whatever the CDC tells the world is heavily “spun.” In fact, the General Accountability Office wrote a report related to this issue.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/whistleblower-cdc-fda-altered-covid-guidance-and-suppressed-findings-amid-political

    https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104613

    Various forces are leading to a situation where the media are increasingly being forced to tell the “politically correct story,” rather than the scientifically accurate story. If the CDC says something, it must be the final answer, in their view.

    Once the wrong story has been told, it would be terribly embarrassing to go back and correct the story. In fact, there would be the temptation for citizens to retaliate against the leaders of the strange scenario.

    Now, with the new spread of disease (facilitated by the fact that the vaccine really makes a person more vulnerable to COVID, over the long term), Pfizer is also making money off of its new pharmaceutical product, Pavloxid.

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    1. On our national news today they’re spruiking the next Covid wave which will see Australians overcome with the new variants, like alphabet soup. It’s totally out in the open now that the vaccine didn’t and won’t do diddlysquat to prevent infection or multiple re-infections and they still haven’t worked out why, only that Omicron will continue to mutate and sorry, no one told us about variants when we thought the shot would work. They pretty much have put the noose around their own neck when they admitted that influenza mutates 4X faster than SARS CoV2 but you don’t see people getting re-infected multiple times with flu within one season, so what’s the difference here? It’s becoming so bleeding obvious now that the vaccine is causing people to be more susceptible to the virus and there’s no lasting immunity even after having a bona fide infection. That is truly scary, and now we have been officially warned this will happen by the people who wouldn’t let the misinformationists tell us over a year ago. Funny how everyone seems to have forgotten what the original meaning of vaccine was and now it seems normal that a vaccine is an experimental injection you are forced to take with all the risks to increase your chances of getting again and again what you thought you would avoid for the remainder of your life. But, of course, we’re still being told the best response is getting your booster, and then just wait like sitting ducks. Now we’re getting into the winter months here and not a single peep about supplementing with Vit D or anything else to actually treat oneself, just keep masking, RATting, and isolating until we get another vaccine ready, this time it will be an intranasal one. Hey, how about that idea of actually trying to stimulate the immune system where it needs to be, begs the question why these types of vaccines weren’t shortlisted like the mRNA injections in the first place. But they’re trying to make an mRNA intranasal one, so there’s still something about that technology that just won’t go away.

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      1. Nice summary. I find it hard to express in words just how bad our leadership has become. Scary thing is, the majority of citizens think our leaders have done a good job on covid.

        We seem to be tracking to what Geert Vanden Bossche predicted would happen. Lately he’s been getting even more concerned because he thinks it’s just a matter of time before a variant emerges that harms many more people than we’ve experienced to date.

        I remember my personal journey trying to make sense of my friends and family raving about this new miracle technology that was going to save us all. I had alarm bells going off because as an engineer that has brought many products to market I know how hard it is to launch products quickly without defects.

        I think it was my March 12, 2021 blog post when I flipped fully into the anti-pharma camp.
        https://un-denial.com/2021/03/12/dr-geert-vanden-bossche-on-vaccination-policy-risks/

        At the time I resisted suggestions our leaders were evil. Today I do think they are evil for ignoring science and data that could have prevented maybe 80% of deaths to date and god knows what is going to happen to vaccinated people over the coming years.

        Stepping back and looking at the big picture we really seem to be a species in decline. 50 years ago we knew eggs were healthy and pasta made you fat. 50 years ago we knew you never cut corners on vaccine testing and you never vaccinate with a leaky vaccine in the middle of a pandemic. 50 years ago we understood the risks of nuclear weapons.

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    1. OMG, I think I’m in love! We have been waiting all our lives for someone like this to show up to show us how everything was and can be done. Thank you a million, Rob, for introducing this legend to us. Now someone like him definitely should breed up but the next best thing is for us to learn from his example and start mastering even the most basic of skills. I think I’ll be binge watching all his videos when I’m up north and maybe try out making mudbricks or a pot or anything he’s done. I can’t wait for his book to come out in October, hope we will make it that long!

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    2. Are you tired of your large house?

      For Rent:

      A noble pile of vernacular architecture situated in a woody glen that will appeal to nature lovers. Quiet location. Open concept. Livestock under 100 kilos welcome. Price negotiable. Great place to raise free range kids. Utilities not included.

      Serious inquiries only.

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    1. A reasonable summary, yes. I don’t get the impression, though, that Murray Grimwood fully understands our predicament. We can’t just figure out what we can do with 50% of our current energy inputs. In part, it depends on the quality of that energy, but, really, it seems to ignore the environmental damage that certain ways of life would do. I don’t see any possibility for anything resembling our current way of life, even if we “have a discussion about maximum desirable population”.

      It’s hard to see any politician offering a platform of “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” being elected. Unless all parties and politicians offer that – highly unlikely. It seems more likely that environmental damage will accelerate as global so-called leaders try to find a way to keep BAU going as long as possible. Polls may suggest people are worried about the environment but my guess is that they are more worried about maintaining and improving their standard of living.

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    2. Murray is a great friend of ours. Spent two months of the first covid lockdown living (in our bus) at his off grid paradise north of Dunedin. Learnt a lot. He’s been writing about overshoot and energy and setting his place up for collapse for years. He most recently writes about offgrid life and his low tech projects in The Shed magazine. Here’s an article from 2009 showing how far ahead he’s been in his thinking on energy depletion than most.

      https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/life-grid-one-pioneering-familys-experience

      I know he visits Un-denial.com on occasion.

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  93. Dear Rob, if you can bring yourself to then please read The Philosophy of Redemption or The Philosophy of Salvation by Mainländer. Please don’t kill yourself after it.

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      1. Thanks for the suggestion. It doesn’t look like ideas I would agree with or enjoy. What was his most important idea for you?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Mainl%C3%A4nder

        Philipp Mainländer (October 5, 1841 – April 1, 1876) was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to “Mainländer” in homage to his hometown, Offenbach am Main.

        In his central work Die Philosophie der Erlösung (The Philosophy of Redemption or The Philosophy of Salvation) — according to Theodor Lessing, “perhaps the most radical system of pessimism known to philosophical literature” — Mainländer proclaims that life is worthless, and that “the will, ignited by the knowledge that non-being is better than being, is the supreme principle of morality.”

        Philosophy

        Working in the metaphysical framework of Schopenhauer, Mainländer sees the “will” as the innermost core of being, the ontological arche. However, he deviates from Schopenhauer in important respects. With Schopenhauer the will is singular, unified and beyond time and space. Schopenhauer’s transcendental idealism leads him to conclude that we only have access to a certain aspect of the thing-in-itself by introspective observation of our own bodies. What we observe as will is all there is to observe, nothing more. There are no hidden aspects. Furthermore, via introspection we can only observe our individual will. This also leads Mainländer to the philosophical position of pluralism.[2] The goals he set for himself and for his system are reminiscent of ancient Greek philosophy: what is the relation between the undivided existence of the “One” and the everchanging world of becoming that we experience.

        Additionally, Mainländer accentuates on the idea of salvation for all of creation. This is yet another respect in which he differentiates his philosophy from that of Schopenhauer. With Schopenhauer, the silencing of the will is a rare event. The artistic genius can achieve this state temporarily, while only a few saints have achieved total cessation throughout history. For Mainländer, the entirety of the cosmos is slowly but surely moving towards the silencing of the will to live and to (as he calls it) “redemption”.

        Mainlander theorized that an initial singularity dispersed and expanded into the known universe. This dispersion from a singular unity to a multitude of things offered a smooth transition between monism and pluralism. Mainländer thought that with the regression of time, all kinds of pluralism and multiplicity would revert to monism and he believed that, with his philosophy, he had managed to explain this transition from oneness to multiplicity and becoming.[15]

        Death of God

        Despite his scientific means of explanation, Mainländer was not afraid to philosophize in allegorical terms. Formulating his own “myth of creation”, Mainländer equated this initial singularity with God.

        Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer’s metaphysics in two important aspects. Primarily, in Mainländer’s system there is no “singular will”. The basic unity has broken apart into individual wills and each subject in existence possesses an individual will of his own. Because of this, Mainländer can claim that once an “individual will” is silenced and dies, it achieves absolute nothingness and not the relative nothingness we find in Schopenhauer. By recognizing death as salvation and by giving nothingness an absolute quality, Mainländer’s system manages to offer “wider” means for redemption. Secondarily, Mainländer reinterprets the Schopenhauerian will-to-live as an underlying will-to-die, i.e. the will-to-live is the means towards the will-to-die.

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        2. Sounds like a lot of philosophy – garbage in equals garbage out. If what comes out is not grounded in thermodynamics (physics) and the scientific method (falsifiable) it’s idiosyncratic (and probably garbage). IMHO.
          AJ

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          1. I agree.

            There are two ways to explain that life has no meaning.

            The philosopher’s explanation is depressing and is not grounded in science or reality.

            The aware explanation is inspiring and is grounded in thermodynamics and biology.

            I choose the latter and it makes me grateful to be alive and to witness this rare event in the universe.

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  95. Steve Van Metre sounds the alarm on draining the US strategic petroleum reserve to combat inflation and to fund the deficit.

    Reserves are at 20 year lows. The plan is to sell high now and refill in unspecified future years at a lower price.

    Imagine what Van Metre would say if he understood peak oil, the end of growth, and overshoot.

    Only a species in denial would drain its emergency reserve of oil before there was a real emergency.

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  96. If you’re still trying to understand what’s going on with covid I would say today’s interview with Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche is a must watch.

    The interviewer, Del Bigtree, is new to me but seems to be very intelligent with truth seeking integrity and does an excellent job of trying to summarize and simplify a very complicated explanation by Bossche.

    The interview begins at about 1:01:40 so you can skip the first hour unless you want some relevant background.

    My take away is that it is probable that things are going to get MUCH worse soon. Better make sure you have IVM etc. in your medicine cabinet, especially if you are vaccinated.

    Perhaps a good chunk of our overshoot problem will be fixed.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/v8A7TM6MmK57/

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    1. Great interview. Best 90 minutes I have spent on Covid in a long time. Seems like we will know in a few months if Bossche is right or not. It’s a shame that we have such stupid leaders (and with such hubris). So, for those of us who made the mistake of vaccination, where are we. I think at the very least we need a good supply of Ivermectin and use it at the first sign of any respiratory illness. Not sure if I want to start taking a small dose prophylactically? It could be worse – we could be fighting a war with a nuclear armed adversary!! (snark).
      AJ

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  97. Sabine Hossenfelder weighs the pros and cons of gasoline vs. diesel cars and misses the most important issue. I left the following comment:

    Peak oil is behind us and diesel is becoming scarce before gasoline for geologic reasons. Because we need diesel to survive, think tractors, combines, trucks, trains, and ships, we should expect governments to ration diesel away from car use. Therefore your best bet is an old, efficient, gasoline car. Also, consider moving so you don’t need to drive to survive.

    And yes, Hossenfelder’s already on my list of polymaths in denial.

    On Famous Polymaths

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  98. Karl Denninger today with some important and interesting insights including:
    – how falling interest rates permitted us to live beyond our means
    – why government deficits must now shrink
    – why Russian sanctions demonstrate how stupid our leaders are
    – why we should expect a “significant” adjustment in asset prices 🙂

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245810

    We’ve spent the last nearly forty years, as you can see here, in a generally declining-rate environment.

    Let me explain what this means for corporate America.

    I borrow $1 million at 13% interest. This costs me $130,000 a year to keep “outstanding.” I produce nothing for the next five years and pay the coupon with the $130,000 each year. I’ve now got $350,000 in cash left (the rest I paid in interest) and I’m very bankrupt since I can’t pay the million back — right?

    Wrong.

    I roll it over. I don’t have to pay the million dollars. It’s five years later and the rate is 9%. Now it costs me $90,000 to keep it out, not $130,000. Note that I just bought myself more time, but since the market is “looser” I can borrow a second million. This costs me $180,000 a year to keep out, but, in five more years…. I refinance it again at 5%.

    Now I’ve only got $450,000 in cash left — remember, I’ve produced nothing — but now my “nut” annually is $100 large. Can I get another $2 million? Probably. With which I sit for another five years or so and do it again, and again, and now I am eventually down to a 2% rate on the money.

    I’m not out of money. I should have been out of money seven years into this game but I got away with it for close to 40 years. If I produce anything whatsoever with the funds I’m even better off in terms of my credit posture, and I’ve probably borrowed even more. Not $4 million, probably $20 million.

    My stock price, which was $5/share back then, is now $3,000 split-adjusted — and it has split several times.

    All I have to do is convince Wall Street — or some venture hack — that he’s got something here and since the market keeps running and the cost of borrowing keeps getting cheaper they finance folks will keep letting me do it!

    Here’s the problem: None of that was ever paid back. None of it can be, because I have no assets that are worth anything and I certainly don’t have any money in the bank. If I had assets originally they’re 40 years old and likely out of date and worthless. How much is an old open-hearth style blast furnace worth these days? Zero. In fact it probably has negative value because you would have to pay someone to wreck it out and haul it away, likely more than the iron and steel in the unit is worth.

    But now those days, my friends, are over.

    The belief that we can spent six trillion dollars on alleged “pandemic relief” without consequence because rates will stay pinned to the floor was stupid.

    Worse what we’ve done to Russia with sanctions has slammed the door on sequestering trade flows in dollars. Why? Because if you produce things overseas you’d be out of your mind to price them in dollars rather than your own currency when your nation might be next. “Oh, that will never happen” sounds quaint, but how certain are you when if you’re wrong you’re instantly bankrupted? Why would you take that risk when you can insist on payment in your currency? Nobody would, nobody is and nobody will going forward.

    This in turn means that every dollar spent in deficit by the federal government will instantly be reflected back into inflation. No exceptions.

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    1. Those in charge will continue to deny any harm from vaxs for some time. To acknowledge harm would destroy the illusion of control. Just like Ukraine, the propaganda needs to be maintained else the populace might demand change.
      AJ

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