Dr. Berndt Warm’s Perspective
Thanks to Marromai for finding this new paper by physicist Dr. Berndt Warm.
Dr. Warm uses 5 different methods, 4 relying on economics, and 1 on thermodynamics, to predict when the end of oil production and motor vehicle production will occur. All 5 methods roughly converge on 2030 as the year when modern lifestyles end.
The essay was written in German and translated to English which explains any awkward phrasing.
Warm’s conclusion agrees with my 15 years of study of many different sources which converge on oil production being down by about 50% in 2030. Because our current system requires growth not to collapse, it is plausible that predicting a 50% decline is the same as predicting a 100% decline.
Our world is of course far too complex to make precise predictions, and unexpected events like a pandemic or nuclear war can dramatically change the outcome, however for planning purposes it seems reasonable to assume we have about 5 years left to prepare for a new way of life.
Abstract
Evaluation of five data sets concerning car production, oil prices converted in energy values gives lifespan approximations for the car industry and the oil industry. The result is that the car industry will last only until 2027 and the oil industry some years more.
Here are a few excerpts from the paper:
The author interprets the line of maxima as the oil price that the industrialized countries can afford to the maximum while maintaining their lifestyle. He interprets the line of minima as the price of oil that the producing countries need to keep their economies running. In mid-2019, the author noticed this crossroads and expected a crisis in 2020, although he was completely unclear what kind of crisis it would be. He didn’t expect Corona.
The inhabitants of the industrialized countries are now realizing that their lifestyle is at risk. The line of the maxima will reach the zero line (0%BOE) around mid-2027. From then on, the inhabitants of the industrialized countries can no longer afford oil without giving up many things of daily life. The demand of the oil producers is then 13-14 %BOE. These two values are incompatible.
Result: The extrapolation of oil prices shows that from 2022 the lifestyle in the industrialized countries will degrade, and that after 2027 the inhabitants of the industrialized countries will hardly be able to pay for oil or its products.
The fall in the price of crude oil from 2008 to 2020 with the extreme price increase since 2021 is an absolute alarm signal! Soon there will be no more crude oil affordable, no matter for which economy in the world!
Summary
Procedures 1, 2 and 4 are extrapolations of economic data of the past. Method 3 is a link between oil prices and car production. Method 5 is a calculation based on a law of physics.
The five calculation methods result in:
- End of world motor vehicle production between 2031 and 2034.
- End of oil production in 2027.
- End of worldwide sales of motor vehicles in 2027.
- End of German vehicle production in 2027.
- End of oil production in 2029.
The results are not the same, but in the end the same thing comes out. All five procedures show that vehicle production and oil production will continue to collapse in the coming years. Vehicle production will disappear first. Oil production later, as the world’s existing fleet will continue to consume crude oil, even if no new vehicles are added. It is to be expected, that the crude oil production will decrease slowly until 2027, and after that very fast.
And: Oil will be extremely expensive by 2027 at the latest!
Dr. Simon Michaux’s Perspective
For those still hoping that a transition to non-fossil energy will extend our modern lifestyles, I point you to the following recent work of mining engineer Dr. Simon Michaux which shows our planet has insufficient affordable resources to implement an energy transition plan that maintains our current lifestyles.
The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.
Simon Michaux is an Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland in the Circular Economy Solutions Unit. Holding a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Physics and Geology and a PhD in Mining Engineering from the University of Queensland, Simon has extensive experience in mining research and development, circular economic principles, industrial recycling, and mineral intelligence. Through his recent publications, Simon has outlined the many challenges facing the global industrial ecosystem. He notes our world is currently energy and minerals blind and transitioning to renewable energies is not as straightforward as it appears.
We’ve been growing without care to planetary limits for too long and change is coming, whether we like it or not. We need a completely new energy paradigm to address the challenges ahead, and as Simon says, it all starts with a conversation. We cover a lot of ground in this one, so grab a notebook and strap in for an important conversation – this is one you’ll want to listen to more than once.
On this episode, we meet with Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland, Dr. Simon Michaux. Why do humans ignore important mineral and material limits that will affect human futures? Dr. Michaux reveals how we are “minerals blind” — and the consequences of this myopia. To shed light on the effects of our minerals blindness, Dr. Michaux explores the disconnect between experts in renewable energy and economic and government leaders. Dr. Michaux offers individual strategies for us to overcome our energy and minerals blindness. How can we learn to adapt in order to overcome the coming challenges?
Dr. Simon Michaux is an Associate Professor of Geometallurgy at the Geological Survey of Finland. He has a PhD in mining engineering. Dr. Michaux’s long-term work is on societal transformation toward a circular economy.
BenjaminTheDonkey’s Perspective
BenjaminTheDonkey today nicely captures a common theme I observe everywhere in the world today: We are collectively losing our minds; perhaps because unpleasant realities are overwhelming the denial circuit in our brains?
Alarmist? The powers that be won’t admit We’re heading straight to our obit; So it isn’t strange we Can already see People are losing their shit. What is its cause at the root? Whom might we persecute? From an objective view, It’s logically true The reason is just overshoot.
US Col. Richard Black on the high risk of nuclear war.
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Modern cars have already become insanely expensive. Used car prices are equally insane. I cannot find a mechanic with a labour rate under $100/hr. Young people earning lower wages will park their cars after they face an expensive repair. Newer vehicles are full of sensors and complex parts that we may not even be able to produce in the future. Fuel prices aside even a new Nissan Leaf is $42k before taxes with an ideal range of 350km.
Oil prices are currently too low for new exploration and production. Oil companies do not want to invest in new refineries. Higher prices lead to demand destruction which leads to lower prices and lower production. Prices go down, demand increases, prices go back up. Volatility is the name of the game now.
Predicting a 50% decrease in production in 8 years? Who knows. Will the numbers be accurately reported? Maybe the coming credit crunch will reset our standard of living by 50%. The future is the end of more but having an accurate prediction seems impossible right now.
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Nice summary. Our global system is so complex and so dependent on affordable energy and economic growth (aka credit) that anything can happen anytime now.
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A few years ago, I was thinking about buying a new car. The only car in GM’s lineup that interested me was a small 3-cylinder model with a manual transmission, roll-up windows, and zero fancy accessories. They discontinued it before I could make a decision.
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I talked to a sales manager for GM last summer. He was telling me the new Hummer EV weighs
12500lbs. They had to order a new hoist to work on them. Then in the same discussion he told me about their new Cadillac Escalade with a 600hp twin turbo V8. In a few years these should make good shelters for the homeless.
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I don’t find Dr. Berndt Warm’s calculations particularly convincing. There is much cherry picking, as far as I can see. For example, car production seemed to go down for several years in the 50s but he chooses to consider the recent peak as critical. Also, there are many more peaks in method 2 but those don’t fit the line he wants to draw. And so on. I didn’t really understand method 5, but it seems bizarre.
Still, 2030 is as good a prediction as any. I feel that the collapse will have clearly set in by then but no-one knows what the future holds, as far as a detailed timeline goes.
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This reminds me of the famous saying: “Forecasts are difficult. Especially when they concern the future.”
Although you mention valid points to critizise Dr. Warm’s extrapolations, at least he guesses the more likely direction we’re heading to. Unlike all the mainstream economists who always see growth in the future…
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I don’t think there is much doubt about the direction we are heading in. Dr Warm’s calculations just don’t really give us an idea of the timeline, not that any calculations would, though Simon Michaux’s guess seems as good as any.
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I have not followed Dr. Warm so cannot vouch for him. I didn’t pay much attention to the automobile arguments but his take on Steve Ludlum’s triangle of doom seems unassailable in principle to me, although the timing can be debated.
The issue I think most about these days is that our system requires growth to not break and so it may not take much of a drop in oil production for everything to unravel. Just look at the damage (and pent-up future damage via debt) an oil plateau has inflicted on economies.
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Sheldon Yakiwchuk today on the recent Canadian inquiry into use of the Emergency Act to end the trucker protest against covid mandates.
In summary, there will be no accountability in Canada for our idiot/evil leaders.
The most interesting observation for me is that the opposition party is silent. This I think suggests that the real problem is that the majority of citizens are frightened and incapable of rational independent thought.
God help us when there is a real problem like a shortage of food and energy.
https://sheldonyakiwchuk.substack.com/p/emergency-act-inquiry-is-overcanadians
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I wonder if part of our collective sanity is that there are just way too many people around. Animals do tend to go a bit bonkers in over-crowded conditions.
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The Monkeysphere strikes again perhaps.
https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
“You’ll see that all of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go Inside the Monkeysphere.”
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thanks, that was funny
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So five years at most before the mega-death begins. Time to get my affairs in order. I noticed Simon Michaux at the end of the Nate Hagens interview said he just wants to have hope for his 3 daughters. Despite obviously knowing what is about to happen he still couldn’t resist breeding beyond replacement level. At least Nate never bred, although I’m sure he’s been given plenty of opportunities.
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I hope the internet makes it all the way to 2030, just so I can annoy people about their failed predictions. Especially those people who said we’d all be dead in 10 years from climate change
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Richard Heinberg posted a good essay today with his take on energy and material depletion.
https://richardheinberg.com/museletter-356-the-final-doubling
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A less complex lifestyle must be nearby. All the aware thinkers are producing new content with a common theme.
Today Sid Smith released chapter 4 “Why Civilizations Die” of his excellent “How to Enjoy the End of the World” (HTETEOTW) series.
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Good intelligent rational calm discussion on the high risk of nuclear war from an expert who thinks Russia was provoked and is doing poorly in Ukraine.
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Wow,
Don’t know how to respond to this.
Mearsheimer and his host are arguable rational, however intelligent they are not.
I have seen Mearsheimer talk before and I guess in comparison to the neocons that dominate the U.S. government and NATO he is rational (kinda like Trump is rational compared to Alex Jones?). He and his host have taken in almost all of the West’s propaganda as their premises. Such as: 1: Russia is not a peer power compared to NATO (actually they have superior arms), 2. Russia is losing to Ukraine (just as the U.S.S.R. lost to Nazi Germany), 3. NATO could easily defeat Russia (right just like NATO defeated the Taliban, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc.).
However, I will give Mearsheimer credit that when a country feels like it is losing they might resort to nuclear weapons – that is what should be feared from the U.S./NATO. He is also right about the lead up to the war being because of the U.S. reneging on promises not to expand NATO. But he is categorically wrong about Russia’s conduct in the war and the current status of the combatants. Russia only went into Ukraine because of the abject failure of the West to live up to the Minsk accords and Ukraine’s ramping up it’s aggression against the Luhansk and Donbass. In intervening in Ukraine, Russia committed far less troops than the “aggressor” needs to prevail against the defender. They appear to have done this so as to get Ukraine to the bargaining table (and that worked until the U.S. told Ukraine not to negotiate). Additionally, Russia is concerned with losing troops and so in the usual Russian strategic maneuvers they trade land for lives. Ukraine has squandered its troop while Russia conserved theirs.
Mearsheimer conflates Russia’s military might with that of the U.S.S.R./Russia of 15 years ago. Russian air defense is the premier in the world at the moment, so are Russian missiles, tanks, fighter aircraft, etc. Almost all of the U.S./NATO military hardware is second rate junk at premium cost.
Shortly, when the ground has frozen Russia will most likely eviscerate Ukraine and had another defeat to the great NATO. My fear is that the U.S. can’t stand another defeat and will go nuclear to avoid it.
It would be far better to post info from the guys at The Duran, Larry Johnson, Scott Ritter, Andrei Martyanov, Bernard, The Saker as they are far more rational and aware of reality (rather than living in a propaganda dreamland).
AJ
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I agree with most of your points. There was a lot of chaff with his wheat. Thought I made that clear in my intro when I said he thought Russia was losing. I focused on his disrespect for current US leadership for provoking Russia and for boxing themselves into a path that may lead to nuclear war.
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Sorry,
I thought you were endorsing his obviously flawed take on the current situation, i.e. that Russia was losing. I also
didn’t like his take one the Chinese situation. He is probably right that China represents a threat to U.S. interests but that is only because the U.S. has outsourced all our manufacturing to Tiawan and China (so Wall Street could screw the U.S. working class). However, as numerous parties point out, China is only a little way from Tiawan and U.S. aircraft carrier fleets are now sitting ducks to be destroyed in this era of hypersonic weapons (of which the U.S./NATO is 10 years behind Russia and China).
The thing I dislike about all these conversations (both pro and anti Russia), is that no one seems to take into account that Western Civilization is in dramatic overshoot of all resources and is bound to crash with the probability of taking down all others with them.
It seems each proponent of an idea is in denial about some other problem we face.
AJ
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I agree. I have a filter that assumes no one except a tiny number of people with defective denial genes understand what’s going on. I try to use this filter to extract a few bits of truth and insight from each source. If I didn’t do this there would be no sources to learn from.
For example, I listen to the Duran every day and I respect them however they do not have a clue about overshoot and energy depletion, so we have to interpret what they say.
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To me, it seems obvious that Russia is losing on the battlefield and so has to resort to trying to terrorise the population into submission by targeting civilian infrastructure. If that means they’re wining, that might turn out to be correct, but the Ukrainians seem determined, at the moment, to stick it out. Good luck to them.
Can’t see Nato being the first to use nuclear weapons in this war.
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Let us not forget that you also thought that taking vaccines to just get along was a good idea.
Perhaps it is time for you to review your thinking Mike. Russia is not losing they are being extremely strategic.
My bet is that in another 6 months we can look back and see that you made another majorly incorrect assessment.
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I was hoping for better commenting here but it seems the ridiculous Trump-like repetition of lies from OFW has spilled over here.
However, my opinions on other subjects are irrelevant.
If your opinion is that Russia is winning (remember we’re 9 months in and Russia has no regional capital occupied now, that wasn’t occupied before the war) that’s up to you. There’s no doubt it has greater resources than Ukraine, currently, so you may end up being right. But it looks like its population is even turning against the war. So I think it’s all up in the air. Certainly, although I guess anything goes in war, Russia’s actions are reprehensible, as far as I’m concerned. Do you think everything they’ve done is sweet?
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Nothing is sweet Mike, just saying that time will once again prove you wrong like your vaccine stance. Let us revisit in 6 months I could be wrong.
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You did it again, Niko: “once again” shows that you persist in rehashing lies about what I’ve written. Even if I had claimed what you erroneously state I claimed, that could never be proved to be right or wrong. Regarding the war, you appear to think you can foresee the future (“will … prove you wrong”). Your opinion, like mine, can only be a guess. In any case, all I’ve said is that Russia appears to be losing (it failed in its attempt to capture Kyiv and lost control of Kharkiv and Kherson), so that can’t be proved wrong. I even said you could be right, in the long term.
I’m sure it’s possible to have a civil discussion about any topic without simply trying to denigrate those who hold a different opinion.
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Who said that Russia wants Kyiv?
Russia seems quite restrained in this war so far. Just a slow grind.
I comment on your comments occassionaly when you spout msm narratives that are fairly easy to see are BS. You seem intelligent so i wonder why you think they are valid.
Again time will tell. My position is that the west is failing drastically in this war and this will be the first be big step down in the catabolic collapse that is unfolding.
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Couldn’t have said it better myself. Russia only went toward Kiev as a faint to tie down a majority of the Ukrainian army so that they would have the ability to go into the Donbass with generally fewer troops than would normally be necessary to secure that area. This is a 1500 mile long line of “fighting”, so some withdrawals by Russia along that line makes sense in maneuver a warfare. I too get tired of the repetition of MSM talking points.
AJ
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Well, it seems that some here think they know all the ins and outs of Russia’s tactics and so see any apparent failures as a trick to enable the Russians to focus on something else. That doesn’t seem to be working out so far. The trouble with the MSM haters is that they think everything published in all MSM outlets (regardless of whether some are mutually exclusive) must be wrong and so anyone taking a line that is similar to an MSM story must also be wrong.
Of course time will tell; that’s a truism. The difference between you and I is that I’m not claiming anything about outcomes in this war. So only you can be proved wrong. However, catabolic collapse is possible though I now tend towards a rapid collapse of at least some parts of this global civilisation. I don’t think John Michael Greer took enough account of the interconnectedness of the global economy and their attached societies, plus a just in time approach being common. Some part of the collapse might be catabolic but I think there will be some rapid declines (which is really what a collapse is).
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Mike, I agree with your assessment of JMG theory lacking consideration of interconnected complexity.
I don’t think all msm is BS, just certain things that definitely have a narrative being forced out everywhere.
I also am not a supporter of Russia in this war but i am also not a supporter of UKR. Things are playing out due to past decisions and so far most of what the msm says is happening in UKR has been wrong and if you followed there predictions Russia would already be back in its cave licking its wounds.
Winter should prove interesting.
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Thanks. Well, I don’t know about most of what’s reported about the war has been wrong. Could you give a couple of examples of major stories? Which would be the best source for information on the war, and why?
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A good example of it was the Azov regiment holed up in the steel mill. MSM here in OZ portrayed them as virtuous fighters that would defeat russian forced encircling them.
Then it went to they will be slaughtered by Russians.
Turned out they were mostly captured and the footage of their capture showed a large number of these men sporting nazi tattoos.
There are plenty of places to seek out both sides and then the best we can do is make an educated guess. I think the video below with Ray McGovern, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen is full of good info.
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I agree that was bad reporting but it wasn’t generally reported like that. To me, it seemed to be just a rump of a regiment and quite a few civilians holed up for quite a long time, resisting an invader. Even Zelenskiy said they should surrender, long before they did.
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Tim Watkins covers denial a bit in this essay. I enjoyed it
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/11/29/collapse-through-five-stages/
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Thanks. I sometimes wonder if Watkins lurks here for essay ideas. More likely what I write about is obvious once you see our imminent overshoot collapse and ponder why so few people discuss something so important and in-your-face obvious.
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http://benjaminthedonkey-limericksofdoom.blogspot.com/2022/11/doom-and-consensus-trance-now-our.html
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https://odysee.com/@voicesforfreedom:6/FREEDOM-TV-SPECIAL-GUEST-DR-BYRAM-BRIDLE:f
Long but worth the listen if you have time
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Thank you, very good.
The money quote: “As someone who design vaccines for a living, I can tell you there is nothing they are doing with these (Covid) vaccines that is logical.”
It makes me crazy. I can’t find the bottom of the stupidity and evil of our leaders. Every interview with a genuine expert discloses more things they did wrong.
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Tim has advised on Facebook, he’s going to be doing more videos on his YouTube channel. Very excited for this.
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Thanks. I’ve read and respected Tim Watkins for years. It’s nice to put a face to his ideas.
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Nate Hagens today discusses the fact that the majority of his audience lives in New Zealand and Australia. I left the following comment.
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Always ends up in the same place. We need to change human psychology. Create new ways of thinking and behaving. There will never be acceptance that the software for all of us can’t be updated in any relevant time frame therefore dooming us to the consequences of our behaviour.
I like Nate, infact he was the person that really introduced me to peak oil etc… but he just can’t face that we are royally screwed and there is not a thing we can do about it other than suit up and enjoy the ride.
Maybe that is why so many Aussie’s like me what this stuff, we know we are living on the edge.
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I think Nate does know we are screwed. It’s just in order to make money and maintain his network of friends and contacts he needs to come across as finding ways to create “better outcomes” .
I like Nate too. We met about 15 years ago when he was here in Vermont getting his PhD. He came and met with a local peak oil group I had formed. I had the mindset then of trying to produce better outcomes myself.
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It’s really simply. We need to get the population down. It’s the only path with a better outcome. And I didn’t say good outcome, I said better.
It angers me that all the big names trying to do something about overshoot avoid population reduction. It’s a tell that they really don’t get it or that they care more about their reputations and income.
Population is a toxic topic because we make it toxic topic.
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Certainly number of people times consumption does mean less people less overall consumption but, though that’s a simple equation, it’s not simple to come up with an acceptable method to reduce the population quickly enough to slow the destruction. For example, removing health care would probably have a rapid impact but no-one would go for that (even though that’s our future). Penalties for having more than one child would start to have an impact reasonably quickly but no-one would go for that either. If there is a simple, acceptable, way to get it down quickly, I haven’t heard of it.
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With 5 minutes thought I can think of a dozen simple things we could do that would probably cause people to have fewer or no children. But it all starts with aware people saying, “duh, of course we must get the population down, because nothing else will reduce the horrendous suffering that is coming soon.”
Instead, most aware people like you say it won’t work before you even engage to try.
That is one of the first roadblocks that must be overcome.
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If it needs aware people, then it’s not a solution. So what would bring the population down reasonably quickly and would be acceptable to most?
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I’d like to hear you say, “duh, of course we must get the population down, because nothing else will reduce the horrendous suffering that is coming soon.”
Once you accept this fact the ideas will flow.
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Well, I can write that. Of course the human population must be reduced. I’ve known that for a long time but I still can’t think of an acceptable way to do it. I suspect that the horrendous suffering will do it
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You should only say it if you believe it, and if you believe it then we succeed if we prevent one birth, and we succeed more if we prevent two births., etc.
Here’s one idea that will succeed without any corrosion. Simply require every grade 12 class to set aside 4 hours to watch the courses by Sid Smith, Nate Hagen’s, Jack Alpert, and Chris Martenson.
Some will decide not to have kids after watching those.
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I do believe it but I also think that it would take more than that for success. And I know that success would not be persuading all women to have no, or no more, children. There is some middle ground that would be success but I don’t know how to get there, though I do know that “success” will come.
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right on Mike, great example of root cause thinking. (see Jack Harich at https://www.thwink.org/index.htm.
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Truth literacy would be great. I think of it as critical thinking.
On the topic, although population growth may seem like a root cause, it’s possible that it’s not. As Tim Garrett pointed out, explosive population growth coincided with our mastery of fossil fuels and, later, the green revolution (or, more generally, access to abundant energy sources). There is an argument that the root cause is just that, and all other “causes” are actually symptoms of the ability to extract and use all fossil fuels but particularly oil.
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New Zealand is made up of people who decided to leave where they were from, often for good reasons. From the collapsing societies of the pacific to poverty from Europe’s growth; New Zealand is made of select individuals from particular parts of the world who left home and decided to never return. A lot of people will give it a go living in New Zealand, but most don’t stay. That was true a hundred years ago and still true today-ish (I need to look at the recent stats).
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Where would one find data about how many of those who emigrated to New Zealand stayed? Presumably you formed your opinion from data? The only data I could find is net migration but that only shows the result of subtracting those emigrating from those immigrating. The NZ Stats page is here: https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/net-migration-lowest-in-nine-years which seems to show that, overall, there is a gain to NZ through migration, recently, despite ups and downs over the years. However, I couldn’t find any information on how many of those who immigrate actually stay. Anecdotally, I only know of two people who immigrated here (to NZ) but didn’t stay, but know far more who did stay. Of course, until those who stayed die here, it’s always possible some may choose to return to their country of origin.
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I wasn’t really thinking of recent years. During colonial times most people left New Zealand. It was quite surprising too me which is why I remembered it. It’s been 12 years my history degree so got to dust of the brain cobwebs LOL
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https://www.leftbrainwave.com/2022/11/the-coming-european-economic-apocalypse.html#TOC2
A good one about european collapse!
Saludos
el mar
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Very interesting, thank you. Europe seems to be committing suicide.
Something very strange is going on. People everywhere are going crazy.
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George Webb says it all nets down to doing whatever it takes to secure future oil and gas, mainly from the ‘pipelinestans’. EU is caught in the cross fire of US and RU oligarchs. See interview today on https://maajidnawaz.substack.com/
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Tom Murphy returns to math today with a fresh look at overshoot by modeling the impact of a non-renewable population booster.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/12/finite-feeding-frenzy/
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I think about redundancy a lot. That spreadsheet I told you about has a category called “spare”.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247554
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This was one of his better columns. Anyone could be moving across the U.S. southern border and the effect they could bring about on the grid could be apocalyptic. I always worry that one day I will wake up and everything will change (no internet, no power, anarchy). I will miss this group, perhaps the only one’s who see things most clearly – with the least denial.
AJ
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I’ll miss you too. It’s been nice to hang out with a few aware people.
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Aw, AJ and friends, that’s so sweet. I’m hopiuming that the party continues a bit longer; it’s early summer in Tasmania (to where I have returned) and it sure would be nice to harvest another crop of cherries, blueberries, and mulberries before the fat lady sings. I’m sure each of us has some thing or two that we’re not quite ready to say sayonara to.
Meanwhile, we’ve been hit with another interest rate rise, the 8th in a row and told there will be more as these measures are not subduing the inflation fast enough. We’ve also been warned that the Australian economy will tank next year so that’s when things will finally get cheaper for those who lost their jobs and houses, phew. You see, the means justifies the end after all!
On a more serious note relating to means justifying the ends, I would like to add here that I agree with both Rob and Mike that our population needs to be seriously curtailed and also their relative positions on how it can be accomplished or not. It will be done, one way or another. I personally think it can only be done in a concerted manner on a great scale if the masses are not aware of what is happening, but instead attribute the attrition to “natural” causes or just the way of things on a planet with lots of problems which they can’t do anything about. Every one of the usual suspects of famine, plague, war, economic collapse can be “encouraged” along their paths to bring about the desired outcome of greater deaths and less births. If we brainstorm even briefly on how this could look like, it may not look too different from what we’re experiencing now. The Covid debacle may have had an insidious aim which must have been protected at all costs. I affirm that I can believe that the inoculation of the young and especially pressing on the college age cohort (ie those closest to reproductive reality) has an ulterior motive of fertility control, the mechanism of which we will see soon enough in the coming years. This is not meant to be conspiracy quacktalk, this is stratagem and probability. What other options do you propose which will have the maximal uptake, efficacy, and immediacy? Financial incentives, and certainly not without authoritarian control to back it, will not curtail biological urge consistently to be effective, the only sure method for wide scale procreative control will involve disabling the biological means for reproduction, one way or another. That is why we neuter dogs and cats and cattle. They don’t have a voice in it, and perhaps neither will we.
I’m not saying at all this is a good thing, only that this is a pathway towards what we all agree is a necessary thing. Namaste and go well, everyone. Nothing can take away the awe and wonder of being alive and here now.
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As if on cue, here is the latest bad cat’s assessment on declining Swedish birth rates after mRNA vaccines:
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/swedish-birthrate-data-september?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
curiouser and curiouser
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Many distinct signals from many independent sources that something is seriously wrong and our leaders don’t even investigate.
Public health is clearly not their priority.
Apparently they don’t even care about their own health or their children.
It’s all too strange for my mind to comprehend.
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Kunstler today interviewed Dr. Stephanie Seneff on infertility and many other troubling signals our leaders are ignoring.
Never heard of her but she seems knowledgeable and gets credits from me for helping to blow the whistle on glyphosate.
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-367-chatting-with-stephanie-seneff-of-mit-about-covid-19-and-other-modern-health-fiascos/
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Infertility would be a good thing, though So why would it be troubling to her?
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I don’t know but I assume because she’s in denial of human overshoot. I can’t think of a single person who has publicly stated that a fall in fertility due to covid vaccines is a good thing. I would if the vaccines were not causing other serious health harms.
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Damn, I love Ray McGovern. He proves that a few good men still exist.
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Easily one of the best posts on the Ukraine situation that I’ve seen lately. Ray McGovern is not fooled by Stupid governments, Stupid leaders, or Stupid talking heads on the media. My only criticism, and it’s a minor one, is that they are completely collapse unaware. Other than that it was well worth the time spent and you are right, Ray McGovern is a honest, rational person.
AJ
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McGovern et. al. thinks the incorrect and dangerous policies of NATO countries are caused by the corrupting influence of money from profit seeking corporations that produce weapons.
I wonder what they would say if they understood that we are in a severe state of overshoot and that it is no longer possible for all the citizens of the world to improve their standard of livings and that we now live in a zero sum world where for US citizens to keep their cars etc. the Russians and Chinese need to give up theirs.
Is it possible western leaders are not corrupt but are doing what they think necessary to look after their own citizens?
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Nah, I don’t think our leaders are that smart or caring. The simplest explanation is that they are stupid and greedy (and maybe not even corrupt? Nah, that too)(just a little sarcasm;)). Everyone on top makes out (or so they think) in the Military Industrial Complex (adding the think tanks and government – as Ray and group did).
AJ
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I agree that they are greedy and corrupt. They are smart when trying to further their own agenda and line the pockets of themselves and friends. I feel that they do actually believe that, in some way, they are also looking after their own citizens because, for the democratic leader, they have to project policies that can get them back into power. But they are all short term thinkers, like all humans, so don’t see that a lot of their policies don’t benefit their citizens in the long term.
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Coming back to the original car issue, auto manufacturers are still experiencing supply chain issues, battery metals are particularly short for hybrids and many EV’s are sold out. Used cars 2-3 years old are selling for the same price as new. A reliable 10 year old small car is running $10,000 and $80 to $100 for a fill up. Younger people filling our service sector jobs can’t afford these costs. So yes car ownership has peaked and is in terminal decline. New cars are also way more complex, more material intensive (computer chips, rare earth elements). This is another way of increasing inequality within our society. Home ownership is the next chip to fall. Life for the next generation will look nothing like the last 20 years.
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Chris Martenson today with the latest science on what is known about new and unusual blood clots that the fact checkers are so confident are nothing to worry about that our leaders have decided to continue funding fact checkers rather than investigating what is going on.
I just don’t get it. I’m sure a few of our leaders have children they care about.
Shame.
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My internet, cablevision, and phone went out for 4 hours night before last. First time I can remember that’s happened. Looked outside for a mushroom cloud. 🙂
Last night my power went out in a big storm that brought to an end an unusual cold snap with a lot of snow for early December.
Having no electricity focusses the mind on priorities. My priority is food in my freezer and fridge. Power came back before I needed to fire up my little gas generator to run the fridge.
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I often think about food storage. I’d love to dig a root cellar but I’ll probably have to settle for a root box, of some sort. I understand that the subsoil doesn’t really get above 15 degrees (celcius), which might be good enough for some short term storage. Drying and fermenting are other possibilities, if one can’t grow/raise something all year. Luckily, we probably will be able to do that, if we put our minds to it.
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I know where you’re at ! My power goes out at least bi-weekly. Usually for a few minutes but occasionally for half a day or more. I have a battery backup that kicks in right away, but it only runs essentials (frig, freezer, water, modem) for a day or so. I always worry when both power and internet go out (then I check the battery radio). I fear that it might be the big one too!
AJ
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This thread by Visa Visa Siekkinen (who appears to be an economist) is a long critique of Simon Michaux’s work on minerals blindness. Far too long to wade through in anything other than a week but I thought I’d place a reference for others.
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I tried reading the thread but do not like how his brain thinks so I quit. He seems more intent on proving he is clever and showing we have nothing to worry about than understanding reality and explaining in clear language why we are not in overshoot. Looks like classic genetic denial to me.
If someone has the patience to figure out his thesis please give us a summary.
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I too tried to read this crap on Twitter. Too much work. That the person is an economist is a big strike against them as it’s not a real science (more like a cult belief system).
AJ
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I tried looking at some of the thread. It has a distinct air of cherry picking about it. For example, in trying to debunk Michaux’s claim about the needed increase in lithium mining, he uses the IEA NZE scenario (though I haven’t been able to verify the number used for that) whereas another IEA scenario, SDS, sees lithium mining needing to increase far more, and not too far from Michaux’s calculation. I also didn’t notice anything about overburden and the decreasing quality of ore for copper and other minerals.
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Aussie Mike Stasse today with some interesting recommendations on YouTube health videos (especially for old farts).
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2022/12/09/musings-on-dr-youtube/
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I’ve watched everyone of his YouTube links over the past 6 months. I would really recommend reading one of his links
https://carmineleo.com/blog/food-serious-as-a-heart-attack/
I’m currently reading the big fat surprise by Nina Teicholz. It’s heavy going but well worth the read.
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Here is the thing about population.
80% of the population has been living on $10 a day. They are not flying, not driving, not vacationing, not ordering stuff online, basically they only are able to consume what they need to survive. It is the other 20% and really just the top 10% that have colossal carbon footprint and waste stream.
Over the last many years the 10% have been losing their ability to keep the 90% from consuming and the last couple years have seen dozens and dozens of countries striking out, defying imperialism and going on a growth and development splurge. China has been funding and building out much of the infrastructure around the world to promote this while Russia has made it clear that they will not allow empire to rape and pillage unchecked as it has been doing.
It is not the sheer numbers that are the issue so much as the start of basic consumption from those numbers. They all, some 6+ billion people want a real structure to live in, heating when it is cold and AC where it is hot, a car, nicer cloths and food, medical care, electricity, running water, sanitation, etc.
The amount of finite natural resources needed to accomplish this eve at the most moderate levels is simply not there and the biosphere could never handle the waste stream.
When the greenies talk about “transitioning” they are talking about making life for themselves, the 20% who have everything already, all groovy. People like Simon Michaux use current energy production and consumption figures to calculate “renewable energy” requirements. What about the other 80% who do not have any or very little energy consumption yet but are rapidly demanding it?
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I am so fortunate to have been born in a rich country like Canada. The gap between my comfort and those living hand to mouth in the poor countries has nothing to do with my abilities. It was pure luck.
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i often think similarly, Rob. i watched this traveblog about south sudan recently and realised it afresh, in spades.
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Everyone around me thinks their “smarts” got them where they are when they don’t realize that it was all the luck of where they were born.
AJ
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Luck of where we are born, to whom we are born, the age in which we are born, and the 500 billion energy slaves at our beck and call because of these conditions. Fate is an unfair taskmaster and not a day goes by that I don’t wonder why my particular life is so charmed and not another’s. It is a welcome penance to keep me honest, grateful and hopefully above all, humble.
But as much as we like to say we think for the other 80% who have not, we really don’t have the first clue of how their lives truly are and frankly, we’re not interested. We like our “multicultural” world just the way it is–with everything and everyone staying how and where it is so that our lives as the dominant culture continues the way we are used to. Our slice of the pie is always the biggest piece and we also choose first. Until we somehow get to a new perspective that we are all truly connected as part of the same biosphere and humanity, we will be doomed to repeating this same cycle of injustice and inequity, only the pie will shrink so very soon there will be none at all for even greater numbers of our species, not even counting all other life forms. Does it have to be this way? So perhaps our main issue for ultimate survival and reduction of suffering is not how to become overshoot aware but somehow overcoming our biology (and therefore MORT) to encompass all life on this planet as an integral part of ourselves. First culture peoples have come closest to this understanding, and for some, religion has given glimpses of this enlightenment. So it is possible, albeit not probable, for a major world/cosmic view change. Maybe it does take a calamity of unimaginable magnitude to cause such a shift in thinking, that or actual re-programming of our thinking through other means.
The later the hours in the day it seems the more philosophical I tend to be. It is very late in our collective Homo Sapiens period of dominion, what have we learned from it all?
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Woah.. too much truth for one day! 😉
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Well I’m not so sure about this – I don’t think he’s prepared to admit he was bamboozled on the WMD issue by people who know what is really important.
We’ve have lots of charity shops in my area of London that have a really good selection of books at cheap prices so I buy a lot of books I wouldn’t normally buy at full price. One such book was The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan because I noticed that it had a chapter on “The Long Term Energy Squeeze”
He’s no surplus energy man but he does realise energies importance to the economy. Towards the very end of the chapter he writes
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil”
The book was published in 2007.
If only old Dick knew about the Export Land Model he wouldn’t feel so bad about falling for the WMD con.
Things must be getting really bad though as the USA seems to be moving towards a full spectrum Export/Import Land model on this side of the Atlantic. If Volkswagen are saying production in Europe can’t go on into the future at current energy prices, even with the help of an undervalued Euro, then I think we are all in trouble.
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When contemplating Cheney’s motives for the Iraq war it’s important to remember that at that time conventional oil was peaking, fracking was not yet a thing, and Iraq had the last best under-developed oil reserves.
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Hi Rob, Simon’s latest is well worth a listen too – quite positive towards the end:
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Thanks, a very good interview. Two observations:
How is it possible for someone like Michaux to have such a deep understanding of our predicament and not even mention population reduction as THE top priority for any rational response?
How is it possible that an intelligent interviewer who understands what Michaux is saying can jump to the question “what are the best investments for making money given this knowledge?”
Answer: Our species exists because it evolved to deny unpleasant realities.
P.S. Michaux now shifting his focus to looking for solutions from Tesla suggests that having such a deep understanding of reality makes one crazy, as some of us at un-Denial know well.
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Thanks Rob, those are good observations and I’m aware of your opinion about population reduction which I think is very much subjective, depending on where one lives. There are underpopulated countries and overpopulated ones. It seems Finland is rather low on the list of countries with dense populations and so is Australia, the two countries he hails from, so perhaps that is not an obvious problem from his perspective.
My view is that as soon as we look at problems through a global lens it seems that the same problem exists equally everywhere, while if we look at problems within the context of each nation state, then we see that problems fo not exist equally everywhere, whether we speak of resources or population or climate – for example there are micro-climates and continental climates. I am personally not convinced ‘the world’ (which is not one country, but many) has a population problem – many countries would be much more self-sufficient were it not for the BAU of globalisation.
I don’t agree with all Michaux says – he’s seems to be comitted to ‘the circular economy’ even though he is speaking out about the limits to achieve it. Nevertheless his work is excellenet when it comes to resource, especially mineral and mining analyeses.
J.J.
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Once the world can no longer produce enough natural gas to make fertilizer, we will then have a population problem.
There’s also a moral question of how much of the planet should be for humans? We have been able to grow our population at the expense of others. Humans and our animals now make up most of the on-land animal mass now. One might decide they’re not concerned about that, but then we are increasing the risk of severe eco-system collapse which would impact us. Such as losing all our food sources that are pollinated by insects.
The process of overshoot and population collapse is so well-studied in biology that you can make reliable predictions on future population based on current growth rate. Tom Murphy has a whole section on it in his textbook Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet. See chapter 3 for the maths on population. Also a graph for fun:
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Your are looking at everything from a global view, but ‘the world’ is not one country, or one nation, or one locality. This is a typical (illogical) extrapolation made by people based in first world countries … Your analysis applies a first-world-template on the rest of the world.
If ‘the world’ would run out of natural gas … now, let’s think about that for a moment; what are the chances that the entire world would run out of this resource to produc fertilizer? (pretty slim in reality, right?). And since when have there been no local substitues for natural gas (to make fertiler?). What came first, fertizer or compost?
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The chances are close to 100% of running out of synthetic fert. No diesel – can’t produce natural gas. Phosphorus is finite, only good supply left is in Morocco and it will run out – varying estimates. The world’s poor rely on a diet high in staple grains. They also rely of fossil fuel powered transport to get those grains to them.
By the way, if I look at things from a country view, I can see that New Zealanders will absolutely fine as far as food goes. Where as countries in the middle east, europe and parts of asia should be extremely worried about their population compared to food production
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Yes, agreed – as soon as we look at the situation from a country-by-country perspective we see a variety of different pictures depending on the countries we are looking at. It is true of course that synthetic fertilzier has lead to higher global food yield and by extenstion higher population growth, but things should stabalize naturally once synthetic solutions become limited in their supply. It will just be a return to a more natual order.
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Before modern times, it was normal for families to lose babies and children, sometimes to hunger, but often to disease. So sad to think of that being the norm again 😦
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On the moral problem that you mentions – in your view, who should be in charge of making the moral decisision of limiting or reducing the world’s popuation? People in First World nations who consumed the most resources and caused the most emissions? Or, people who live frugally in poor nations? Why should any nation have any say over the populations of ant other nation? (This is the big question).
Does – for example – the overpolutated (in my opinion) nation of India dictate to the USA or UK or Germany or France about their consumption habits? (No). Yet, people in developed first-world countries are very concerned about the overpopulation in India. My poing there is that moral concerns are subjective, depending on where you are based regionally and locally in the world.
J.J.
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What you’ve done is misinterpret what I’ve said. I am saying clearly that I think the globe is over-populated. You are saying I have an unfair policy to reduce the global population. But I never said anything about reducing the global population did I? I simply disagreed with you, I think the world the is over-populated. I presented some evidence to back up my point, and rather that reviewing and responding to that, you present an entirely different argument – whether or not there should be a global policy for overpopulation. So are you agreeing the world is overpopulated or not?
I’m not arguing for any policy, especially not a global one. Though I do wish more leaders took on the types of initiatives that Rob suggests.
As it is, I think future events will play out as they have tended to throughout history – the poorest people will suffer the most through energy decline. Elites will be overthrown for their decadence, and replaced with new elites who are guilty of the same greed.
I do expect that as we get over the energy peak, trends that have been increasing will start decreasing. For example, centralization will cease and de-centralization will become the trend. If I’m correct on this instinct, that means there will never be successful global policy for anything; therefore it is a complete waste of time and energy to put our focus on that.
I don’t think anyone should be in charge of the globe – that’s my personal opinion and I have good reasoning for that.
Moral views are personal right? I don’t think most people would even question the moral position of humans v. the non-human world. My personal view is it is wrong to grow our population at the expense of all other life, but I know most people don’t agree with me and I accept that. It won’t stop me arguing for the non-human world though 😉
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Ok, so I was not responding to your personal point of view but to a more general perspective that eminates strongly and palpably from the most developep Western nations; the idea that the world is over populated. (I’m Western too btw, but born and based in the ‘developing world’/in a ‘second world’ region). My point is that in Asia or Africa this concept of gobal over-population is not so common or popular or prominent, yet some of their regions are very densely populated.
The problem with an ‘obsession’ with global overpopulation (which I’m not saying you personally have) is that it destracts from regiomal and local realities and solutions. Is your local area and general region over-populated? If not, why should you be concerned about overpopulated places (from your subjective perspective) very far away? Perhaps they have found ways of being densely populated and surving meagerly (but somehow ‘happily’/contently) for a long time. Is it really your concern?
To your question: No, I do not agree that the entire world is overpopulated. Some countries are overpopulated, but one would have to analyse each country according to its local food production capacity vs its poplation density, etc. You might then find that some fo the richest (less-populated) nations are living way beyond their means compared to (over-populated) poorer nations were citizens have a lower quality of life per capita: that would constitute a serious analysis.
I do agree with your preditions though – the already well-off nations will suffer less at first, while the poorer nations will take a bigger hit initally as their resources will be gutted even more than usual to make up for the rapidly declining quality of life in the richer nations. I also agree with your prognosis that dedentralization will be the natural and eventual outcome – and my belief is that this is inevetable.
One of the issues with regards to moral positions on population growth is that in some regions or on some continents there are culture-groups who believe that having large families and many children is a display of wealth and status; and such beliefs go back centuries. I live on such a continent, even though my Western backgtound and culture do not agree with that, I know that it would be futile to try and convince people that their culture is ‘wrong’ …
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Thank you for your detailed response. I think we are pretty much on the same page with being fair to each country, but probably would disagree to what extent most countries have exceeded their carrying capacity – I would say most have.
As far as I know there is only one country left on the planet where it’s still desired to have lots of kids, and that is Nigeria. Most countries are now averaging 1-2 children per woman.
It is very interesting how much birth rates have reduced. And anecdotally, I’m early 30s, have no kids, none of my siblings have children, most of my friends don’t have children. Most by choice are childless. Quite a astonishing really.
By the by, have you read Daniel Quinn’s thoughts on population? It’s very depressing but I think accurate.
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It’s a pleasure having a quality discussion. I would say that many countries have exceeded their carrying capacity because of globalization – they may not have exceed it without globalization artificially leading to that inevetable. In that sense one could say that centralization and globalization are the main drivers of overshoot – and globalization has been driven all alng by rich nations. In light of that, how fair is it really to blame poorer nations for going beyond their carrying capacity of globalization was imposed upon them? (again we are dealing with subjective moral perspectives, it just depends on the angle you are looking from).
I’m based in South Africa. The previous president of this country (he is still active in politics) has five wives and many children. Completely standard and normal in his cultural group – even today. Personally I think the drop in fertility rates has more to do with a cyclic phenomeon than with cultural shifts, unlike the Western nations which have slowly lost all family-oriented traditional values.
If you visit South or Central America tomorrow, whether Argentina, Peru or Guatemala (or virtually every other Latin American country) you will find very strong family values, although it’s true that the families are smalledrthan before. I would venture that there is some kind of self-organizing principle active in the universe (perhaps it’s cyclic) that causes the drop in fertility globally when global peak-population and global overshoot is about to be reached (bit that’s purely speculative).
J.J.
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I’ve not read Daniel Quinn’s work yet, but will look into it – here is a link to an article published two months ago in a South Africa: some interesting graphs in there showing severe population reduction:
https://dailyfriend.co.za/2022/09/30/the-population-implosion/
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I just had another random thought. Devil’s Advocate here (but I think this come from Daniel Quinn maybe): some countries are happy to go along being overpopulated, but the consequences of that effect other countries – via migrants and refugees. These overpopulated countries force their failed policies on others. Here’s a good example, England failed to do sensible population planning in the 1700s and 1800s, and then exported all those people (problems) elsewhere to cause a lot of suffering for other people – like the Maori in New Zealand and Abos in Australia.
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Canada’s population would be falling rather that being one of the fastest growing if we stopped immigration. Nevertheless we should lead the way on population reduction because we consume so much per capita.
At the peak of covid, my government ran an expensive professionally produced ad about twice an hour on every Canadian television channel telling us to be good citizens by being injected with a completely safe and effective novel substance.
They could do the same type of campaign for overshoot awareness and the suffering that children born today can expect over their lifetime. Unlike their covid campaign, the overshoot campaign should of course point to a government website with data and evidence to support all of the claims.
The world is so connected now that citizens in other countries will see the refreshingly honest Canadian government message and we will achieve a global discussion and impact with no need for official global cooperation.
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Having too many old people is like a ponzi scheme. You always need more young people to work and take care of the old people, but then that means even more old people in the future. So countries like Canada, NZ, Germany etc. want to take a lot of immigrants because it helps us look after our oldies
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That’s true but it’s the same as saying the economy will collapse unless we continue to grow while knowing that more growth will increase the total magnitude of the eventual suffering.
We need to grow up, act like adults, and tell the old farts to get themselves in better physical shape so they can look after themselves longer. And we need to make Nembutal available over the counter instead of making it harder to get than heroin.
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Suggest we not worry yet about who is in charge, or who will go first, or what the laws will be, or how they will be enforced.
Let’s start with an information campaign that simply explains the reality of our overshoot predicament and that the majority of all children born now will have horrible lives and most will die prematurely from famine, war, or disease.
Suggest we spend about what we spent telling people that covid vaccines are safe and effective because clearly that was enough to influence beliefs.
With this information many people will choose to have fewer or no children.
Over time we can build support for democratic laws to constrain births to further reduce future suffering.
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I agree Rob, I do think you are very wise 🙂
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See latest substack by Robert Malone on 5GW (5th gen warfare) which his sources identify as what has been going on with the comms campaign to get universal vaccination with an experimental gene therapy. He writes : the concept of [silent] war was developed by Kautilya, as explained by Boesche. Aligned with best 5GW practices, the objective is to win the war to advance a new centralized, command economy-based world order which you have not voted to endorse, one in which the very concept of autonomous sovereign nation-states is considered obsolete, and to do so without your even being aware of what is being done.
https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/welcome-to-fifth-gen-information?r=b00qh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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Prior to nitrogen fertilizers animal manure was what we had and it was available locally because of mixed farms. Today with CAFO’S manure has to be shipped long distances. In rural areas people could still grow vegetables, raise chickens and goats, etc and supply their own fertilizer. Cities, on the other hand will be screwed.
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Michaux’s optimism seems bizarre given his knowledge that the supposed way out of a climate forced collapse is not possible. Yet he seems to think we can work it out because there are a few of the 8 billion who get it and this is a fantastic time for thinking about the way forward. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge that all civilisations collapse but thinks we can somehow shift sideways to save it all. I was totally suprised at his support of ideas like zero-point energy (the lowest energy state) and vertically integrated companies that do it all from resource mining to product, with an an example of a “really important” product like an electric motor (his second example was food).
To me, it just goes to show that someone having a rational approach to one subject doesn’t necessarily have useful opinions on other subjects.
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Exactly my thoughts too Mike.
Liked the shout out to Gail t and Chris M.
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Yeah, those shoutouts were nice, even though I think both of those have lowered their previous high standards recently. I was a little surprised at the fulsome praise for Gail. In her focus subjects on her web site, she’s very good and deserves respect for her grasp of many difficult aspects of what she writes about. However, she seems determined to downplay climate change and often comes across as a kind of denier (of the “climate has always changed” type), which pleases many of her readers. She is also often injecting religious references which don’t enhance her articles at all (some might say the reverse), with oblique mentions of some grand plan by some greater power.
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I think Gail’s position on climate change is simply that nothing can be done that won’t actually result in something far worse for humans immediately than what climate change may cause in the distant future. Pick between two bad outcomes. I think most will choose to delay it.
Re religion, I am not religious but I respect that she is so I don’t comment on it, she deserves that I feel.
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I think Gail’s position is much deeper than that. From her comments on the subject and her misrepresentation of climate modelling, she either doesn’t think humans are having much impact on the climate or, if they are, she doesn’t think the effects will be too bad, nothing to do with how far ahead the impacts are (though we are seeing impacts now).
Most have already chosen to delay any real action, so you’re right there. Just like all the environmental crises we have, most people will choose to do nothing until one of the crises hits them in the face.
On religion, I do sometimes question the relevance and the juxtaposition of, on the one hand, explaining some of the bad decisions our leaders have made and, on the other hand, telling us there may be a higher power with a grand plan (which makes decisions pointless anyway).
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In a recent comment, Gail actually stated that climate change is part of a natural cycle and implied that those who accept that the earth is warming must have a belief that it is warming. There can now be no doubt that Gail is a climate change denier. I think there are some here who are of the same mind but at least most do seem to accept the science on this.
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In Gail’s defense, it is possible to interpret her comment a different way. The cycle she may be referring to is when biomass was sequestered underground 60? million years ago thus removing CO2 from the carbon cycle and changing the climate. Now we are digging it up and returning the CO2 and climate to it’s prior state. Gail probably believes that a species with our evolved abilities and behaviors has no option but to exploit the buried carbon and we are simply playing a part in one of nature’s grand cycles.
On the other hand, maybe Gail does deny climate change. I don’t know anyone that isn’t wrong about something. One of my many big errors no doubt is believing (hoping) that an awareness of MORT might make a difference.
MORT is a classic Catch-22 because MORT predicts that MORT will be denied and therefore if MORT is correct then MORT will never be acknowledged.
I still value MORT because it keeps me sane by explaining why so many are so blind to so much that is so obvious.
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https://i.stuff.co.nz/sport/americas-cup/130732198/team-nz-smash-world-land-speed-record
Who says you need fossil fuels to drive fast. I’ll be damned that’s pretty amazing.
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Sam Mitchell says this is one of the funniest videos he’s seen.
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Sam also recommends this David Attenborough documentary which I’ve seen before and I think is already in the un-Denial gallery.
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The universe is built dissipatively. Eat and be eaten.
The right of the strongest. Even big stars (black holes) eat small stars.
Survival of the fittest. As in the big, so in the small:
The behavior of dissipative structures can be predicted:
Higher, faster, further to the end.
The highest status has people, who process the most raw materials to the garbage
“My mansion, my yacht, my horse groom”.
This is even enshrined in the American Constitution. “The pursuit of happiness”.
“The American (western) way of life is not negotiable.”
Imagine on an island, where there are also some mice, a wheat freighter gets stranded. The mice henceforth live in a frenzy of joy and multiply explosively.
Something similar happened when humans gained access to fossil fuels. Look at all the exponential curves.
Everything, the entire infrastructure, is built on hydrocarbons. There is no substitute for them. Even the so-called renewables need the fossil fuel base, which is uniquely available.
We eat (burn) our way through it, like mice on an island. A party, like a one-time table fireworks.
Who is responsible (except perhaps a creator)?
Nobody! Dissipative structures behave according to their nature. They consume energy gradients, as fast as possible. (see megacancer.com).
The “strong” try to snatch all supplies under the nail. The winner takes it all: so far with success, e.g. in the Middle East. “How does our oil get into your sand”?
This works well until they meet someone who is also strong (Russia) and won’t put up with it: Bang!
Now the party is running out of stuff. A world war is just around the corner. I see that like Nereus. Because a fiat debt money system, which is subject to grow for ever, regulates all material flows, the system now goes down, far before all supplies are used up.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Saludos
el mar
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Your example with the mice reminds me of the famous Calhoun experiment.
Frightening parallels of our present society to the mouse paradise:
– Few males (alpha) become more aggressive, keep a harem and have to defend it.
– Many males (beta) spend more time for themselves, have no more interest in females and reproduction.
– Females become more aggressive, partly take over male roles
– Psychological and behavioral problems in all mice increase strongly: either aggression or apathy
– General reproductive capacity decreases
– “Society” breaks down
Apparently abundance has negative effects even before resources are depleted – perhaps a biological protection mechanism against abundance?
But “The science”™ of course knows that a mouse experiment cannot be transferred to so much more intelligent beings like humans after all…
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“Every cell dreams of being two cells.”
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Either that or being an omnipotent stem cell that never undergoes apoptosis, bwaaahhh!
If I were just one cell, I think I would be happy just to find a quiet corner in the petri dish and contemplate my navel a while (oh wait, cells don’t have them)
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And then there is the ancient Yuga cycle that shows that this Darwinian obsession – extreme materialism, extreme violence, extreme dominance, etc – is mainly limited to the bottom half of the overall 26,000-year Yuga cyle. The reason why ‘we’ reason this way is because ‘we’ are primitives with the consiousness of primititives who have no understanding of the bigger picture of organic evoltion of consciousness.
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Thanks to el_mar, I found my way to un-denial.com by one of his posts in the Yellow Forum (A German discussion board about economy, monetary theory and politics – but not in a mainstream kind of view).
One of the posts there was like a trigger for me on my journey of getting a “doomer”. There was an answer of another user to one of el_mars questions 12 years ago. Back then the question was if the Euro crisis could be the start of the collapse.
I had already linked the final conclusion from that post in my guest article https://un-denial.com/2022/10/21/by-marromai-a-purpose-in-life/ but I think, all of it is interesting for the English-speaking readers here.
Quote:
(> Previous writer’s text <)
This is not possible.
Where are the tools of the 16th century?
Where are the robust (but low-yielding) seeds of the 16th century?
Where are the cows of the 16th century? Small-framed, robust, calving unassisted because the offspring are not uterus-bursting high-yielding cattle?
All this is no longer there.
Instead, corn rootworm, fire blight, Colorado potato beetle and other pests that were not known in the 16th century.
Where are the 30 people per square kilometer of the 16th century?
How many do we have today? Around 250.
No one is going to push some humus aside and pickaxe coal or ores anymore.
These resources are gone, no longer extractable without large-scale industrial material and energy input.
Recovery of the economy by the way, goes the same way as energy consumption: No energy, no recovery.
Nobody will found a city at the sea anymore and reach a population density of 100 persons/square kilometer thanks to fishing to build up a new civilization like in the antiquity. The shoals of fish for this are also gone and will be for our lifetime.
Even if we still hurriedly forge everything possible to plows: Where are the oxen?
Even if we plow the fields with human power: Where is the non-F1 hybrid seed for next year’s harvest?
(> Previous writer’s text <)
Well then let’s see it constructive:
What does a human need to survive?
A human dies after:
3 minutes without air
3 days without water
3 weeks without food
3 hours without shelter (in a snowstorm without special equipment)
Air:
We have plenty of it, but what about this in the event of a crisis?
When solvents, detergents and chemical products of all kinds are stored in countless tanks and facilities as a result of an economic crash and these merrily rust away.
What about the decay ponds of nuclear power plants when the water supply fails and the freshly burned fuel rods ignite themselves after a few weeks? Not possible to be extinguished and with consequences in the dimension of Chernobyl.
Where is the fire department in the collapse when whole areas full of low-energy Styrofoam pressboard wood façade houses are in flames for whatever reason? Or the parched meadow of farmer Horst in midsummer bursts into flames due to a discarded glass bottle?
Water:
We have plenty. But is it drinkable?
In many areas, even if one should succeed in reactivating one of the wells, which have to become deeper and deeper due to the falling water levels, the groundwater is no longer drinkable.
Be it because of agriculture, be it because bomb craters of WWII, which were filled up with waste oil drums, paint cans and similar debris and today no politician dares to tear away the corporation (and major employer of the region) that was built upon it, in order to clean up the contaminated site.
Not to speak of the dozens of “pits” and embankments in every community, which were used as garbage dumps, whose positions are well known thanks to measuring helicopters, but no one dares to touch them, because otherwise the communities would be immediately broke.
Streams and rivers? Full of sewage from overflowing house pits, failing municipal sewage treatment plants, unmaintained oil separators from gas stations.
Food:
Huge problem in the worst case.
Today, 10 calories of oil are in every calorie of food. Without oil, there is no food.
We don’t even need to run out of oil. It is enough if we can no longer afford it or if the oil-producing countries simply do not want to or can no longer supply it. Or the transport routes fail, the farmers go broke, the freighters stop running, the JIT logistics fail, etc.
The greatest danger: On one hand, hunger does not kill immediately (so the hungry person goes in search) and on the other hand, the stomach takes control of its evolutionary-biological protuberance (aka. brain).
This offers plenty of room for scenarios, nature shows how little squeamish hungry people without stockpiling deal with each other.
The only consolation is that if we are going to have an abundance of one resource in the crisis, it will be “long pig”.
Shelter:
The small cottage with a garden in the wasteland, in it the swedish stove, roaring away. A sign of civilization in a dehumanized world, a source of warmth and life energy, the small dream of every serious “prepper” and “survivalist”. On it delicious chicken soup from their own chickens…
In short, a gigantic target, visible from afar thanks to the smoke pillar and smellable for miles in the wasteland, attracts uninvited guests like flies and they will usually outnumber you and most likely be better armed.
The owner of the oven could well end up as “long pig” on just that oven.
As you can see, I’m just bubbling over with constructiveness.
If you don’t have any obligations, you might want to get a shotgun ready, one shot is enough.
This time we will get Game Over… but really and not only monetarily.
The main problem is a caloric one, we can print money like hay… but no hay, no potato, not a single drop of oil.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) – with manual corrections by me.
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All excellent points, thanks.
It seems to me that all of the above suggests global nuclear war is inevitable. What alternative will a failing country have when its citizens are starving?
Which is why it makes me crazy that more overshoot aware people don’t discuss population reduction. Nothing else will help our predicament. It’s going to happen anyway, just not in a humane and civil manner.
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Masses lose their minds in mice and humans!
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I feel SO much better after seeing the headline in the news today: a fusion breakthrough has been achieved!! We’re saved!
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This hopium was published yesterday. Cheerleaders never contemplate the consequences of a fire ape that denies reality having unlimited energy.
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I realise the ending is meant to give us hope but if that film represents hope then there really is no hope. However, no-one can see the future; maybe some company will figure this out. Sadly, if the do, then that would definitely be the death-knell for the planet.
As and aside, I notice that the narrator pretended that getting fusion right would “solve” the climate crisis. I guess he doesn’t understand the climate crisis and what “solutions” really are.
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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is going to make an announcement about the “breakthrough” Tuesday. Looks like limitless, carbon-free electricity is just around the corner – in a decade or so. But according to the Reuters story today,
“the process consumes vast amounts of energy and the trick has been to make the process self sustaining and to get more energy out than goes in and to do so continuously instead of brief moments.”
A few kinks to work out, but no problem, the scientists will save our bacon in the nick of time, just like in the movies.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/12/breakthrough-in-nuclear-fusion-could-mean-near-limitless-energy
Apparently, they got 0.3 MJ out of the reaction. However, “the positive energy gain reported ignores the 500MJ of energy that was put into the lasers themselves.”
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I wanted to make an observation that saying someone lacks empathy is not an argument. More and more I have been encountering rebuttals to logical arguments using this ‘call to empathy’. It has been levied at me, which makes me laugh because I’m the sort of person who rescues worms from puddles and feels sad pulling up weeds. You can make a logical argument to back-up your empathetic feelings. But you can’t assume when someone presents a differing viewpoint that they lack empathy. If you’re truly empathetic you know that you don’t know, if you know what I mean 😉
Why I think this empathy-logic thing is a problem, is that it often comes up when I am describing reality. As it is! And I get told I’m a bad person or I’m arguing for people to suffer. Describing reality (which is shit for most people) is not the same thing as wanting people to suffer. We have to be able to talk about and describe reality if we are to have any hope of making sensible decisions.
And I do hate to be political, but most of the people using this empathy fallacy are wealthy left-leaning types. They go around accusing realists of having no empathy for poor people. Meanwhile I know damn well some of them have no freaking clue what it’s actually like to be dirt poor (e.g., if it’s someone I know personally or know their background).
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I saw an email from Nate Hagens announcing his interview with Dr. Ajit Varki on genetic denial.
I’m too scared to listen to it.
Can someone please provide a summary and tell me if I need to close down un-Denial.com because Nate presented a fact that slays MORT?
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Can’t find anything about that. Presumably it’s upcoming or hasn’t been published yet.
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Oooh, it’s adorable when you go all melodramatic (which is vanishing rare, unlike yours truly)! Of course the un-denial site will go on, and it must until the bitter end, just think of all our lives at stake! Besides, never fear, even if Nate somehow finds a thread to pick apart we will naturally attribute his error to his fated destiny of denial tendency, thereby providing even more proof for MORT. After all, if he were really in the know, then why isn’t he a regular card-carrying member of this site, the only one that matters in all our known universe?
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It’s been a LONG time since someone called me adorable. 🙂
There are many ways that MORT could be proven to be false. For example, all we have to do is find one out of the thousands of religions that does not believe in some form of life after death. Or find another animal that believes in God. Or find another animal that understands General Relativity. Or find another animal with an extended theory of mind that does not believe in life after death. Or find a politician elected on a platform of reducing suffering from overshoot.
This site exists because I think MORT is a keystone for any strategy that has a chance of reducing the coming suffering caused by overshoot.
If MORT is proven to be false, then I will have no credibility and this site will have no reason to exist.
The interview is taking place today. I do not know when it will be released but I expect soon.
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you should look up Bunny the dog. She uses those dog buttons and asks really creepy questions
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Shit’s getting real.
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Either Musk doesn’t understand what a pronoun is or prosecute wants us to refer to him as fauci.
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Musk has lost one of his children to the gender cult, he probably understands it better than most
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People often used to wonder “when will collapse happen”, which really meant “when will in start to affect the rich countries?” I think we have our answer: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/britain-poverty-cost-of-living-food-crisis-rcna57630
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This will make you happy Rob https://www.rebelnews.com/twitter_restores_accounts_of_doctors_robert_malone_and_peter_mccullough
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Woo hoo!!
Both Malone and McCullough are heroes. Fauci should be publicly hanged and left strung up on display for a few weeks to send a message to his conspirators.
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This is a fascinating deep dive into one of the toxic side effects of covid lockdowns and allowing corporate money to influence governments.
Americans are becoming online gambling addicts.
The only country will a bigger gambling problem is Australia.
Full disclosure: Once in the 80’s on a business trip to Las Vegas I placed a $5 bet on blackjack, won $12, and then quit to retain my winnings. That was the first and only time I gambled and I’ve never bought a lottery ticket in my life.
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Online sports betting became legal in Maryland on November 23. In late November I received a flyer in the mail from DraftKings, promoting their betting app, minimum deposit $500. They must have had that mailing ready to go out the day Maryland legalized it. What a bunch of leeches –
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I’m trying an experiment to further reduce my energy consumption.
I have dropped the thermostat another degree to 16C and now wear long underwear tops and bottoms all the time. No problem at all. I may go to 15C.
I also bought on sale at Costco for $40 a small electric throw (aka blanket). I measured it’s power consumption to be about 25 watts. Seems to be working well so far. I may be able to turn the room heat off and let the temp fall to 8-10C while I’m sitting at my computer.
I expect a fairly quick payback from propane savings on my small space heater and electric baseboard heating.
P.S. In case you don’t know the science behind lowering the thermostat, the rate of energy flow is proportional to the temperature difference between the hot side and the cold side.
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Electric blankets are really nice for staying warm in a cold house. I use to enjoy going into the office in winter because it was so warm but now that I work from home I keep an electric throw on my desk chair, sit on it, and have another blanket on my lap. Fingerless gloves are also great for doing computer work. Have one on the sofa too. I’ve experimented with how low I could go with heating and 13c is too cold. At that temperature my core body temperature starts to drop but on the plus side 16c feels comfy with some acclimation to it. Without a source of heat/energy I would not survive the winter even with adequate food I’d still have to find additional sources of energy, likely burning biomass, to stay warm/heat food. I’m in a very wooded area but when I find pictures from the 1890s there’s almost no trees. cleaned bare. I could see that being the case again someday soon.
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A new interview by Nate Hagens of Simon Michaux focusing on overshoot “solutions” that doesn’t sit right with me. I’m thinking we may be witnessing here the power of genetic reality denial as explained by Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory.
Michaux is super smart, has done the math, and should know the implications of our overshoot predicament. Instead of simply concluding that billions will soon suffer and die and therefore we must focus on getting our population down to reduce the inevitable suffering, his brain is doing wacky backflips trying to avoid this unpleasant reality.
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Agreed. On some level this whole discussion seemed delusional to me. I kept asking; How can we go from fossil fuel/mineral scarcity with complexity to sustainable non-fossil fuel/mineral scarcity with complexity (Simon’s thesis) and feed 8 billion without complete collapse during or prior to a transition? His solutions sound plausible if there wasn’t a fiendishly complex society on the downslope of a Senaca curve where all the current “leadership” is in complete denial of overshoot and willing to star wars to carve out their share of resources and let everyone else die. Simon (more than Nate) seems in complete denial of how late in the game we are. Nate appears to go along with him to facilitate the interview. A good interviewer would have more pushback.
AJ
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Well said.
If it’s not MORT then we need a really big and powerful explanation to explain the Jekyll & Hyde of Michaux’s brain.
One minute he’s brilliant, aware and rational. The next he’s idiotic, in denial, and crazy. Notice it’s the former when discussing the problem, and the latter when discussing the “solution”.
I just don’t get the big deal about population reduction. We care about and protect and manage our pet and livestock populations better than our own species.
Any rational brain not in denial should immediately see the benefit of population reduction over all other possible responses.
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Steve Kurtz explained to you why population reduction is so damn difficult. The economic system requires population growth to function. The business lobby and property developers pressure governments to ensure that the population increases. As an example, Australia had a below-replacement fertility rate, so the then treasurer introduced a “baby bonus” to increase the birth rate, and we also have a large immigration quota imposed on us, which is supported by the three principal parties here, so in effect there is no democratic choice. Polling shows that the large majority of Australians are in favour of a low immigration rate, yet there is no possibility of that being implemented.
The other significant factor in some countries is cultural, mainly religious, customs which encourage a high fertility rate.
This has been known for decades. We’re not going to change the economic system or change cultural customs or have property developers and the business lobby change, before the natural world does the population reduction.
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Sorry, I don’t remember the Steve Kurtz discussion.
Everything you said is true but it is in the context of all of those players being unaware or in denial of our overshoot reality.
If we had an honest discussion about the data which shows is it probable that 3 out of 4 children born now will suffer and die prematurely, their positions would likely change.
If it turned out that their genetic denial was so strong that their positions did not change regardless of the evidence, then the act of having the public discussion would motivate many people to have fewer or no children, which is still a worthwhile success when the goal is simply to reduce suffering.
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Well,there have been several “Scientists warnings to Humanity” telling us the current course is leading to disaster, and it hasn’t done much to raise awareness, has it ? The last one was signed by 15,000 scientists. The “Limits to Growth ”
report was subject to a coordinated campaign to discredit it ,led by a Nobel-prize winning economist, William Nordhaus. He received the Nobel after that campaign, so we can see how appreciative of his efforts his colleagues were Do all you want, but forgive me if after 67 years I have reached the conclusion that most people are more distressed when their football team loses than they are about the destruction of the biosphere.
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I’ve had slightly longer to reach the same conclusion, David. Eventually, there’ll be a scramble to do something, when one of the predicaments we face finally impacts on enough people’s lives.
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I’m familiar with that depressing history. The Scientist’s Warning to Humanity and Limits to Growth never said “We recommended you not have any kids because most will have horrible lives and die early.” Instead, most of the 15,000 scientists that signed the recent letter think the solution is to buy EV’s and build more windmills.
It sure would be refreshing to meet an aware person that said, “I agree we should focus on population reduction because it’s the only thing that will reduce suffering and we’ve never tried making it our sole focus with a blunt message backed with data on what must be done and why.”
Instead, everyone has a reason not to try the only good path.
WASF on our current path.
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The point I was making in my first comment was that even when we had a fertility rate that was below replacement level, the embedded institutions overwhelmed that positive (from an environmental and suffering perspective ) trend. The second comment was meant to stress how difficult changing the dominant institutional momentum is. I doubt in the time remaining any significant progress will occur, until as Mike mentions, it is so bleeding obvious even the football fans notice.
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The Ancient Greeks knew stuff especially about denial.
Aeschylus’s tragedy “The Oresteia” ended with the chorus’s summation
“The truth has to be melted out of our stubborn lives by suffering. Nothing speaks the truth, nothing tells how things really are, nothing forces us to know what we do not want to know except pain. And this is how the Gods declare their love. Truth comes with pain.”
Written in the 5th century BC.
On the other hand it’s not pleasant staring into the Abyss every day, as Simon and Nate do, which is why we have Mort to protect them.
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Thanks for this summation of Aeschylus’s tragedy “The Oresteia”. I might have to use it in one of my essays to bring through this very point. People hate the truth – that’s the truth. Humanity is bound to collapse because it’s willful denial of a multitide of realities and it will have to crawl it’s way up from that collapse by having learned that the only way to evolve is to actually deal with real truth, i.e. harsh reality.
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Until we get “leaders” who are actively pursuing policies of degrowth, we won’t see them pushing people to have fewer children, and stick with that. Whilst they continue to push growth, they need more people to fuel that growth and, perhaps, to fund pensions. Of course, fewer people consuming less stuff is desperately needed but I just don’t see it happening by design. Even Michaux has the common mindset that health services is something to be preserved (with his example of a local energy grid focused on a hospital), which increases population beyond what it otherwise would be. So, whilst one less suffering is to be applauded, I don’t see population reduction getting a focus.
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A little gift for you, even though it’s 3 years old:
Some, not even scientists, still tried…
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Thanks! Notice that Iverson thinks the main threat is climate change. No awareness that energy depletion will kill the kids long before climate change.
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“It’s science, it’s hard to understand”
Really?
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“I think the media needs to do a better job of explaining it”
Really?
Just take a look at the last few years of fires and floods. Put your cell phone away, go for a walk in the forest and look at all the drought stressed trees.
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Trees are sick and dying worldwide, even in areas without drought, because of rising ground level ozone that is a byproduct of industrial combustion. Almost no one except my recently deceased friend Gail Zawacki researched and discussed this issue.
https://un-denial.com/?s=Zawacki
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There is no humane solution to the overshoot problem. Discouraging births would help alleviate the suffering but China tried that and have had to back off because they have too many old people and not enough workers to care for them. The pandemic/vaccine strategy worked a little. It reduced energy consumption and raised the death rate and lowered the birth rate without panicking the masses. Now it appears the Fed is trying to gradually implode the economy by raising interest rates. I hope they are successful. An uncontrolled collapse would be horrible.
Humans hate to die. Anything that would actually reduce the population would cause a panic that would bring on the uncontrolled collapse we all fear.
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Are you sure the reason China backed off was care for elderly? I suspect public pressure fueled by growing prosperity caused the policy reversal. I’ve been meaning to read a book on China’s one-child policy to try to understand what really happened.
WRT your second point, actually, most humans deny death. That’s the driver behind Varki’s MORT theory which explains the explosive emergence of behaviorally modern humans with our unique extended theory of mind, high intelligence, and a strong tendency to deny everything that is unpleasant, including death. MORT explains why humans are the only species that believes in God which is just a dressed up euphemism for denial of death.
To be clear, I’m not talking about culling existing people. We should make it easier for people who want to voluntarily exit, and we should put limits on how much we’re willing to spend to extend life, which we’re going to have to do anyway because we’ll soon be too poor to do otherwise.
I’m talking about reducing births to prevent future suffering.
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I found this video interesting to understand better why some might rationally consider population decline as a bad thing:
Seemingly insane thinking can sometimes be explained by seeing the part of reality which is being kept out of the underlying mental model. In everyone’s defense I would argue that it is simply impossible to factor everything in one’s mind. To my knowledge, even astrophysicist are far from a theory of everything, if such thing should ever exist. (we keep trying because we like playing God, don’t we?) So this may be not so much denial, but rather the intrinsic physical limitation of the mind.
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Thank you. I watched 10 minutes and quit. If my summary is wrong, please correct me.
They make the usual arguments that our civilization, as currently configured, needs growth, which is true, however as usual they miss the vital points:
1) Limits to growth due to resource depletion and ecosystem damage now prevent growth, with or without population gains.
2) The main reason our civilization needs growth is its dependence on abundant credit which is only possible with growth. Without abundant credit, most of our economy breaks.
3) Given 1) & 2) billions will suffer and die prematurely regardless of what we do, and there is a significant probability that nuclear war will make the outcome much worse.
Given the above, any intelligent rational person not in denial wanting to reduce future suffering must focus on:
1) Population reduction.
2) How to reconfigure critical sectors of our economy to make do with less credit.
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That’s what I felt, too; delusional. To be fair, I think Michaux did see a simplified economy (e.g. more manual labour in food), but he seems, to me, to be in a bargaining stage where he thinks our fairly sophisticated technological society can go on. One of his primary arguments is that our species will evolve to a different way of behaving. This is pure delusion, to me.
He also started off with how great Finland is, including “[Finland] can actually run an industrial sector without fossil fuels right now” because some industrial companies run day to day operations on electricity (80% of which comes from so-called renewables). This is despite knowing that no company can operate without inputs.
Although he puts himself and Nate in the Arcadians group, he seems to be in the Cornucopians group. Nate also joined in the delusion with “Iceland is going to be a very wealthy nation in the future, I expect” because of the resources they have.
It’s depressing when you find some people who really seem to understand the situation but, deep down, seem to be just as stuck as the rest of us.
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Col. Richard Black thinks Ukraine is losing badly and worries how the US might respond with its rogue policy of permitting first use of nuclear weapons.
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Closer to a nuclear war ever, even than in the Cuban missile crisis? No one I know is even concerned or is even aware of this because the MSM (and from the Twitter files we know that this is just the government propaganda machine) does not even cover this, and nothing they say is truthful. MSM is all Ukraine, “rah, rah, rah”, they are winning, Russia is losing, but we will send them more money and useless equipment. Striking Russia is one of the red lines for Putin. Now we have to wait and see if he can deescalate the situation while he destroys Ukraine, but with the U.S. having a first strike posture we can only hope.
AJ
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They’re getting us ready. This morning on the BBC the headline story was Russia committing war crimes by shooting civilians who had there arms up in surrender.
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Nuclear power plant project delayed in the US because it depends on a sole source of nuclear fuel from Russia.
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On Biden’s reversal of the no first use policy and the threat of nuclear war.
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The LaRouche people have long been regarded as lunatic-fringe crazies, but they’re looking saner by the minute. Why, even that evil booger Henry Kissinger came to realize that NATO expansion wasn’t such a hot idea. I find it hard to believe that I’m in agreement with Kissinger about something…
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Another scary video. It’s looking more and more like we will have a nuclear war because NATO/U.S. can’t abide by a world that won’t follow our orders. It’s hegemony or annihilation brought to you by the greatest democracy on the planet (sarcasm).
AJ
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War with Russia is following the same pattern as covid.
Our leaders and the majority of citizens have aligned around a dangerous idea rooted in denial of reality, and there is no opposition from those groups that historically provided balance like the news media, political opposition parties, universities, trade unions, environmental movement, etc. etc.
We have lost our minds.
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I believe we are witnessing the exact process of collapse. WHO, EU and NATO, to cite but a few, have become toxic parasites to the system they emanate from. It seems to me that is the only way, we collectively choose to abandon our beliefs. Otherwise, what is the incentive to change a system that seems to somewhat work for most (even at the cost of ever greater propaganda)? It must become totally obvious (down to the core, in the flesh) that the current beliefs and narrative go against reality before change happens. It is a purge. Trust in the system and the elites must vanish completely. Only then, once the bulk of people are pushed out of their comfort zone, alternative ways of being will be tried at scale.
It is a slow erosion at first. And then, at some point (I believe soon), it won’t be so slow any more…
The cost of delay will turn out to be what it is. But is there a too soon or too late in face of infinity?
I have once read somewhere that truth is never painful, only the surrender of one’s illusions is.
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I expect we’re going to replace something bad with something worse, al la the French Revolution. Nevertheless, looking forward to seeing Fauci’s head in a basket.
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Well, I guess it all boils down on your point of view. Worse for who? Naturally, you and I will undeniably lose on a material level. But, for the slave workers on the furthest side of the planet from our sight, or from any non-human form of living, not necessarily so.
I am not even sure this will look like the French Revolution, which probably came after the real change in society (merchant society and enlightenment were already well established and France could have kept a decorative royalty, like in Britain).
One thing is for sure it will operate on an extremely lower level of energy and material flows. And life (in the form of mushrooms, whales, trees, birds…) will once again do the heavy powerlifting.
To me, living on modest means is not really an issue, slavery and exploitation are.
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The evidence is overwhelming that the west has negotiated in bad faith with the Russians, broken promises, torn up agreements, and crossed red lines that would not be tolerated for a nano-second by the west if Russia did the same, such as putting missiles in Mexico or Cuba.
Has anyone found any evidence that Russia has negotiated in bad faith, or broken promises, or torn up agreements?
Is the blame one sided as it appears to me, or are the Russians also to blame?
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A search of “russia terminates agreement” brings up several. For example, https://www.morganlewis.com/blogs/upandatom/2016/10/russia-suspends-terminates-nuclear-agreements-with-the-united-states
Putin is no angel and regularly makes sure potential opponents can’t stand against him in what pass for elections. Russia vetoes otherwise passed motions in the Security Council. It sentences to hard labour visitors for relatively minor infringements. It invades countries who don’t follow its instructions.
Of course, other countries can be just as bad but if the blame is not one-sided, please make sure Russian and Putin get their fair share. No country is clean of ethically doubtful behaviour.
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You are arguing your views on Russia in the same unpersuasive manner as you argued your covid position. Please provide us with a super smart expert with integrity, like Ray McGovern, that takes a deep dive into the issues and that supports your views.
I listened to this 2 hour discussion by McGovern for the 4th time yesterday. It is by far the best content I have found on the history leading up to the Ukraine war. There is no doubt that the west is to blame for the conflict.
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Here is an intelligent discussion that attributes blame to both the west and Russia.
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Rob, you said,
And I merely responded to that. I just disagree with your claims and posted some reasons. I just don’t know why Russia seems to get a free ride here.
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Well, maybe there is so much disappointment towards the lying mediocre winner-takes-all selfish and greedy psychopaths that seem to have the upper hand in today’s society, that people are willing to root for any other guy, even if he is a thug too. In a way, this is all a good thing. Maybe this is contributing to the overall balance of power. If there are enough disillusion on the Russian side too, it may avoid the worst of outcomes for all.
Also, hopefully, some fringe is currently exploring new ways out of this dichotomy, on a much more modest scale of consumption.
Time is of the essence and is now playing in the favour of peace against any too powerful force. Rust never sleeps and it seems to me that lately, when big forces collide, they both erode their energy and settle a notch down. (I am thinking about: the truckers against the Canadian government, or the locked Chinese against their government, or this war in Ukraine which is dragging along)
Well, I don’t really know, this is just my intuition lately.
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I don’t think Russia gets a free ride here. My impression is that the West dominates most all other media and definitely dominates the MSM.
Here I think we try to be rational (everyone says that) and not in denial of reality, overshoot, and our own limitations.
Is Russia always right? Are they a place I would want to live? No. Are they freer than the West? Probably not because intellectually we in the west are not very free (see Twitter?). So, I try to understand Russia (and the world) from a historical perspective with a great deal of skepticism toward anything I get from main stream Western media or anyone who parrots their talking points.
I used to read the NYT, WaPo and was generally sympathetic to a Western liberal perspective (even after I became collapse/denial aware). However, after the lies told by all MSM (liberals and conservatives alike) about Covid, I began to realize they were all captive to, some degree, of the government/corporate/medical/”scientific” establishment.
Now I peruse Global Times, RT and Google News and figure they all lie to one degree or another and the truth is somewhere out in the middle. I have found the Global Times is straight propaganda, RT is accurate on some issues and is Russian propaganda on others and almost everything on Google News (MSM) is liberal propaganda with lesser degrees of truth.
So, even though Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine (and it could be argued that Ukraine is the aggressor since they have been shelling the Donbass for 7 years in flagrant disregard of the Minsk agreements). Russia was pushed into intervening by the U.S./NATO over the last 30+ years based on western lies. A large subset of the West’s governing class (even New Zealand & Australia – how sad!) wants a western dominated unipolar world where what we says goes. They want that all the resources to continue to flow to the top 10% and the 90% to be subservient. Of course they are all in collapse denial (Russian too).
AJ
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That’s a nice even-handed response, AJ. Thanks.
I think that when it comes to justification of any action by anyone, it comes down to subjective opinion (apart from actions intended to address what science tells us about problems). There is never a totally objective way to justify actions, even when invoking history, especially if the actors have changed over time.
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I listened to the above discussion with Regan advisor and ex-ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock a second time.
Matlock says Russia has justification for its attack on Ukraine but nevertheless should not have attacked.
That’s what he means when he says both sides are to blame.
Those seem like words from a politically correct influential person not wanting to offend friends.
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I’m going to change the topic here to go back to the car theory. I am temporarily sharing an apartment with a guy who writes for junior mining exploration companies and trades junior mining stocks. He often talks about the “green revolution” and buys into the line 50% EV’s by 2035 (or whatever the current rhetoric is). This week the very high current price of lithium crashed as did many junior mining exploration stocks. The reason was quoted as the “cost of living crisis”. As well they talked about slowing demand for EV’s resulting in a lithium deficit becoming a lithium surplus. So the cheapest EV I can find is the Nissan Leaf at about $41k before taxes. The F150 lightning is about $93k with tax for the cheapest model. A year ago big purchases could be made on a home equity line of credit for about 3% interest. That is now about 7%. With the huge inflation everyone is experiencing the “EV Revolution” will only be for the wealthy.
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I agree with you. I live in a location too far to walk for supplies. I bought an e-bike for emergency use and modified it for cargo transport. I don’t ride it very much because I don’t want to wear out the lithium battery. A replacement battery is very expensive.
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Wow, Rob, not only are you adorable but so cool, too! An E-bike is possibly the best use of the lithium quota we’ve got per capita, and even more so if the bikes are so cleverly modified with milk crates like yours for cargo. However, there is a limit to what one can haul (say goodbye to carting back bulk supplies, for example) and that will be a significant factor in their overall usage. If one needed to take another person into town for a reason, say, seeing the local medico (assuming that still means anything), then electric bikes are not the best option. If one had a family, even a small family, then you would possibly need up to 4 e-bikes to get the whole mob to any location (if you gave up a conventional vehicle), and that probably would cost as much as a fuel powered car which would also handle groceries and other gear. So e-bikes are not going to be the only option for commuting for many people, and if that is the case, it just adds to the overall consumption, not detract from it. Sigh, it does seem that more technology just leads to more. Peter is so right, EVs are and always were for the rich, just look at all the ads for them and you can see the target population. Then again, the whole green revolution is for the wealthiest people on the planet.
For the rest of the peasantry we really need to think about mules, I think we went over this before. Maybe every town could have mule stations where one can “hire” out a team with cart–you would need to return them fully fed and watered, of course.
Our family’s strategy for the great simplification future is to be as self-sustaining as possible as to just stay put and not needing to go anywhere outside our homestead if at all possible. For a week or so whilst I was living in Queensland (subtropical climate) I endeavoured to eat only what I could grow on the block (at least 80% or so, I still used some spices, seasonings, coconut oil and my go-to comfort food peanut butter), and it was doable, but only just as I didn’t have the quantities of certain foodstuffs (like pulses for protein) scaled up to meet the nutritive needs but with more time and effort, it is possible. The variety of diet was limited but thankfully, I am was happy enough to eat the same things and simply, but then again, it was only for a week. Thankfully, it was avocado season, too, and that is a filling food if ever there was one. Also, the quantities were for one person, we will need to learn to scale it up for as many as we can. I have already theoretically given up trying to grow grains as I think the return of energy investment for small scale farming isn’t worth it, and I am counting on much more readily harvestable tubers for carbs.
We really need to have in place some plans for when food security is a real issue, stocking up on supplies only gets one so far, at some point we have to produce our own.
I’m impressed to read how Rob is experimenting with limits of tolerance to cold, well done and more heat joules to you! Hope all of you in northern climes are going well and keeping comfortable. The shortest day is nigh but then, as the saying goes, “when the days grow longer, the cold grows stronger” so winter has only just begun, let that be a challenge!
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I have worked on bikes for years, and just like cars, bikes have become more complicated. Parts are no longer standardized and rely on long supply chains from China. That said if you are a prepper, you could stock up on parts like brake pads, cables, bearings, tires, etc. There are also cargo trailers. There are some good cro-moly steel bikes where the frame will last a lifetime and with some learning you could probably keep it running for years with repair skills and a supply of parts. If anyone needs some advice they can PM me.
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Thanks! I did buy spare tires and spare tubes. I would like a spare battery but it’s too expensive and the bike does have pedals and gears so will work without a battery.
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DIY version is about half the price of a typical ebike battery:
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Thanks! I love those 18650 batteries. I bought a bunch with a high quality charger and several flashlights that use them direct from China via AliExpress a few years ago when they were still cheap. They have since changed the shipping rules due to safety concerns and are now much more expensive.
I have a friend who gets used 18650’s from decommissioned communication tower backup battery applications.
In case people here do not know, 18650’s are used in most laptop battery packs, were use in most of the first generation EV’s, and are used in almost all e-Bikes.
None of the local stores here sell 18650 flashlights or batteries. I do not understand why. Once you own a 18650 flashlight you will never use anything else. Super high brightness for several hours. Many (30ish) hours on low power.
If anyone wants recommendations on cheap but excellent flashlights, headlamps, and chargers I can provide.
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Yes please on the recommendations Rob. Money is better in useful items than in the bank at this late stage.
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“Under the latest climate models produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), limiting global heating to 1.5°C requires global emissions to peak before 2025 and be cut by 43 per cent by 2030, reaching net-zero in the early 2050s.”
Foreshadowing for peak oil LOL
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Maybe. According to some data sets (the liquids included in the IEAs overall production figures seem to change over time in order to make it seem like supply is increasing) oil production peaked (so far) in November 2018. Michaux has mentioned this and is also shown in ycharts though it’s currently rising.
Some recent research by James Hansen and several others has suggested the forcing from atmospheric GHGs would eventually lead to up to 10 degrees centigrade warming. If that’s even remotely right, 1.5C is definitely off the table, though much proposed action is based on time ending at 2100.
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Compare Harry Gibbs’ (aka Justin Panopticon) comment as editor of http://www.climateandeconomy.com today to report in intellinews.com: “The world is set to see global GDP plummet by a catastrophic 15% by 2050 if current emissions trends are not reined in and global warming reaches 2.2°C by 2050. (in turn from Oxford Economics).
[An unwarrantedly optimistic conclusion drawn from an artificially narrow analysis. Factor in some of our other converging crises, like biodiversity loss, pollution, financial limits, geopolitical friction and energy constraints; and it seems unlikely to me there will even be a globalised economy by 2050.
Even if a rise to 2.2C were the full scope of our problems, I can well imagine that knocking out enough systemically critical inputs/hubs/infrastructure to collapse the global economy in its entirety. We can see how close major rivers like the Yangtze the Rhine came to drying up this year at 1.2C. And in all likelihood a rise in temps to 2.2 would have further warming “baked in” via self-reinforcing feedbacks.]
“Oxford Economics warned in the latest report of its Global Climate Service that climate catastrophe was a major threat to the global economy, with cooler countries no longer benefiting from modest warming.”
https://www.intellinews.com/apocalypse-2050-world-on-course-for-15-gdp-fall-265434/
For me, Ian G, all this woe is quite out of context; if we are to reduce impacts and avoid the worst of runaway climate change, we precisely have to shrink global GDP, like about 10% pa in industrialized superconsumer countries.
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Apparently, that Hansen, et al, paper shows global temperature anomaly reaching 1.5C early 30s and 2C about 2050. If that doesn’t get too much pushback from other climate scientists, the only way this could be addresses is massive solar radiation management technology, unfortunately. However, I doubt that will even come into play as an approach until that 1.5 mark is reached. Then it’ll be a scramble, if there is still an economy by then.
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What I really hate about the “right” wing, is that although they may be correct on COVID they are so clueless with regard to global warming/climate science. Sure, the alternative energy transition is foolish and left environmentalists like Gore and Obama are hypocrites, and maybe even some of the climate models are occasionally wrong; BUT that doesn’t change the fact that all the CO2 we’re putting out is warming earth faster than it ever has. Time was up to do anything about it 40 years ago (and that would have been to drastically curb population and consumption).
AJ
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I love Wolf Richter’s big picture summaries of our ponzi economy. Too bad he doesn’t understand the link to energy depletion.
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Anyone knows what the latest about the Ajit Varki interview? I feel very teased.
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All I know is that the interview was recorded and that there may have been some technical difficulties. It’s possible extra editing is required. I don’t know.
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Nate Hagens today released part 5 of his series with Daniel Schmachtenberger.
Every episode promised to discuss overshoot “solutions” and every episode got mired in the mental masturbation of discussing the nuance and complexity of the problem.
Not one word on the only solution that addresses every one of the thousands of problems we face, and that might actually make the future less bad: population reduction.
Me thinks this is a case study demonstrating the validity and power of Varki’s MORT.
Getting started on population reduction is simple. All we have to do is speak honestly about why population reduction is required and why nothing else will help.
But first we must acknowledge MORT.
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Mental masturbation is such a good way to describe it
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Here we see in plain view the depravity of our leaders, from all political parties.
This indictment of the UK parliament is from Dr. John Campbell, a truth seeker with impeccable integrity that in the early days got injected & boosted and advised everyday on his channel that everyone should follow his lead.
Now having discovered that the data he relied on was fraudulent, and that his own health has been damaged by the vaccine, he has reversed his position and daily points out how irresponsible our leaders are.
No matter how much I’m exposed to this toxic information I just can’t develop an immunity to it. It really upsets me.
Our leaders must pay a price.
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Incredible that almost no-one showed up for that vaccine injury debate. Politicians are paid far too much and can pick and choose how much they get involved in the concerns of the people they represent. They should be paid on how much work they do.
This is a good series of reports from Dr Campbell and leaves a lot of unanswered questions about the information we’ve been given and continue to be given.
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Sam Mitchell is a movie star! He was interviewed on a channel with 4M subscribers and got 45K views in 12 hours.
Sam talks about his background and what it means to be a hardcore doomer.
“The problem is not fossil fuels, or capitalism, or over population. The problem is humans.”
“Everyone under the age of 50 is fucked”.
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The problem is “the creator” who choosed dissipation as the basis force for our universe.
Humans are not the core problem. We are a result!
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LOL, good point.
The goal of the universe is to dissipate energy gradients as fast a possible and humans are its best solution so far.
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Very shallow thinking there el. Although it is very common. We are the most exceptional species on the planet because of our cognitive abilities. We have accomplished much but that is supposedly all tossed out the window so people can dream up some ulterior reason for why its all going to hell in a handbasket.
A core group of humans manipulating the humanity through the implementation of a meta-system that is designed to elicit the worst possible human behavior…and we are constantly lied to and told that that is conspiracy theory and that the real problem humans are just bad, have been, always will be, or that some greater, unearthly force is responsible.
We are never allowed to know the truth. Sam is correct that it is not fossil fuels, or capitalism, or over population, per say, but it IS a simple human problem. If we could only cut through the bull shit, speak truth, try and get a good percentage of the population to agree and understand that it is the “Owners” who have source of all the problems and nothing will ever get better until we end them.
Its dead nuts simple. We just do less…like 75% less…focusing only on meeting everyones basic needs until the population is down to a couple billion. I am not talking about wearing loin cloths (although I find them quite comfortable) or living in caves. We would still have all the existing tech or maybe back it down a generation or two, and we have more than enough housing. This is literally the simplest and most effective solution possible and yet NOBODY on either side of the spectrum will accept it.
The world has been a beautiful place for thousands of years and can be again. Don’t accept what the humanity as the problem doomsayers say…what the “Owners” have very thoroughly indoctrinated everyone to think to distract us. Denial is absolutely rampant but only because the owners have made sure that it is the only option.
Grow a pair!! Stand up and fight the good fight. You truly have nothing left to lose and remember that there are worse things than death.
LESS is Beautiful!
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If all basic needs are met, then the population won’t decline. Why would it? It might even be a reason to have more kids.
I don’t really accept the meme that humans have accomplished much. That depends totally on what can be thought of as an accomplishment. Success may be thought of as expanding to many orders of magnitude compared to the population size a few hundred millennia ago. But any accomplishments and successes have to be weighed against the damage. Future generations (and probably current generations) of humans and almost all other species will suffer greatly because of those accomplishments and successes.
Intelligence had plenty of opportunities to be exhibited over the last hundred years or so, when we could see what our behaviour was doing to the planet. Yet we ignored those opportunities and carried on regardless. Our cognitive abilities have been sorely lacking for at least decades.
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Mike – So the world stops, no one is allowed to get rich and over consume, everyone is totally focused on just producing all the basic needs, and you don’t think anyone might ask why? Come on.
The only reason we keep having 3,4,5,10, children as a family is because we are all told by everyone in positions of power and influence that we have unlimited resources and having babies is the best thing we can do for humanity. That and for poorer countries it represents adding working assets, and healthcare in old age.
You are completely naive about how completely western empires have oppressed 90% of the population of the planet. Expression of intelligence has been systematically discouraged and destroyed for hundreds of years.
You make the same mistake as el and many many other too, by assuming that all of humanity has had full agency for all actions that have occured over history and yet here we are…therefore …humans bad…bad humans…always bad. The world does not work the way you think it does.
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I’m just saying it as I see it, Jeff. I don’t expect the world to stop. I don’t expect people to stop having kids. I don’t say anything about historic oppression. I don’t assume humanity has had full agency. I don’t say humans are bad. I’m not sure why you say those things or read something into what I’ve written that isn’t there. If you know how the world works, please do enlighten us.
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Excellent video. I thought his remark that if he could get one person to have one fewer child he would think his life worthwhile. Kinda your mission here too Rob.
AJ
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Sam reflects on the thousands of comments made on his video by “clueless morons”. 🙂
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Gosh, if I was louder, that could be me. I agree with (almost) everything Sam said. The only thing I’d disagree with is that I don’t think humans will go extinct in this event. They might, but I don’t think they will.
He talks about the problem being humans. My take is that humans are a species and so have a characteristic behaviour. That will never change. Maybe some species that evolves from us might have a different way of behaving that is more in keeping with ecosystems but then that wouldn’t be our species. I’ve a feeling, though, that the core problem is that humans evolved the “intelligence” and the dexterity to take virtually any resource, unlike other species. I think all species could act just like humans if they had those abilities, for example the deer on St Matthew Island took advantage of the free food to explode their population and then the crashed. But, given those abilities, the problem is humans.
I was a bit confused by his ending – go enjoy life. Knowing what I know and knowing how much damage is being done by most of what I do, I don’t think I could enjoy just being a party animal, buying stuff, having long distance vacations, and so on. So I’ll skip that advice, I think.
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If you knew that the earth was gong to be hit by a massive solar flare or asteroid and all of life on our planet will be reduced to microbes again for the most part, would you not just party till the end?
We are that asteroid.
Perhaps our issue is that some of us believe we can change our course.
Inertia and momentum are a bitch.
So pour a drink and relax.
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Yes, I would “party till the end” but the predicament we’re in is completely different. We know our actions are causing the predicament, so I just can’t continue behaving the way I used to. I have no illusions that my paltry attempts to reduce my impact will have any influence on events but I just can’t go back to my old ways. If I could, which I can’t, I would feel guilty all the time so wouldn’t enjoy it anyway.
I am fairly relaxed about it, as I think I’ve mentioned before, though why is still a mystery to me.
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It gets me in fights constantly.
I keep jumping from acceptance to other stages and back to acceptance.
though I have a hard time accepting morons and their ignorant opinions being forced down my throat. I anger easily and then feel depressed for a day.
Can’t help but feel bring it on sometimes, just to rattle a few cages even though I know it will impact me badly too.
Merry Xmas all.
And if that offends you – get fuc ked (which is a great gift for xmas, hoping to get one myself).
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Love the T shirt. Also something about his Southern drawl that makes his f-bombing almost lyrical. I also love what el mar and Rob said about humans being the universe’s way of dissipating energy. Looking at it from that angle, we are a total success story! You see, it’s all just a matter of perspective, once we adopt a cosmic view, problem solved! Maybe that’s why Sam can say just go out with a bang enjoying ourselves. Like Mike, I can’t quite get my conscience around that but isn’t that just another form of denial? It would be so much easier if I could believe our universe is just some entity’s snow dome shaken up and nothing really matters.
Happy Winter or Summer Solstice everyone. It is indeed either the beginning of the longest night that our species is undergoing, or the ending of our longest day. Either way, we’re fucked and universe just is.
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Happy solstice to you too. Coldest morning I can remember here at -8C. Ice on the inside of my windows, and the poor hummingbirds desperately waiting for me to put their feeder out.
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Chris Martenson today says China’s preparing for war but it’s much too sensitive to discuss on YouTube so you’ll have to buy a membership to hear him talk about it. 😦
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A day later after seeing my stinging criticism read by millions of people, Chris has made his China observations public. And as usual, his content is very good. Dark clouds everywhere you look.
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Interesting but I didn’t find it particularly convincing though I might have been put off by his self-congratulatory selling of his site for several minutes during the video. The “fool me once” reference brought back memories of taking his advice on buying precious metals in 2011, expecting it to be a store of value. I didn’t buy ridiculous amounts but it has only just got back (in local currency) to around the value of what it cost in 2011 (gold and silver). Anyway, that’s not really his fault, because I’m an adult and can make my own decisions but pretending how great his advice is just denies (perhaps via MORT) how random any advice based on an estimate of future events can be.
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https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1410465111
Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problemsEdited by Paul R. Ehrlich, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved September 15, 2014
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Thanks. Totally agree that population reduction is not a quick fix.
The deadline for fixing this mess was about 1970. We’re long past any kind of fix.
Now we’re talking about reducing suffering (for all species, not just humans).
Every birth prevented is a success with this new goal.
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This is an important discussion with Jeffrey Sachs on the historical context of the Ukraine war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Sachs
Two points stood out for me:
1) An expert insider is unable to explain the insane policies of the US.
2) Europe could have stood up and prevented the calamity it faces but did not.
As usual I wonder: Why?
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https://communities.win/c/NoNewNormal/p/16ZXaEhJ8o/a-short-rhyming-poem-about-the-u/c
an AI poem about being anti vax
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Excellent, thanks!
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Poland mobilizing. Big meetings in Moscow. Senior Russian meeting with Xi Jinping. Zelenskyy speaking to US congress.
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I wonder if the Zelenskyy coming to the U.S. is just the PR boost that he needs to weather the upcoming defeat during the Russian offensive that is about to begin? Duran (and Larry Johnston read on the interview in The Economist (https://sonar21.com/a-closer-look-at-the-economist-volodymyr-zelensky-and-his-generals-explain-why-the-war-hangs-in-the-balance/)) thinks that the UK is distancing itself from the coming defeat of Ukraine.
Time will tell, escalation is coming, but will we avoid Nuclear Armageddon? The West (maybe minus most of NATO) and the alliance of the willing (Poland and Romania) might start us down that fateful road?
AJ
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Nature is so harsh. 😦
An alpha male hummingbird is very territorial over the feeder in my yard. There’s plenty of sugar syrup and multiple drinking stations yet he cannot share. Just saw one die in the freezing cold trying to fight for drink.
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Mass death is part of nature’s success 😦
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The BBC this morning reported that “bodies are piling up outside crematoriums” in China because they relaxed their covid restrictions.
That sounds true. 😦
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You believe the BBC? Surely you jest?
I gave up on the BBC along with all MSM.
AJ
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Of course I jest. I am on the lookout for psyops signaling the start of covid phase 2. I thought the report this morning was bizarre. No context, no evidence, no analysis. They also said covid problems were building in India and they are now testing 10% of visitors but luckily India is mostly vaccinated now.
Smells like something is cooking.
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Yes, I smell a rat, too. (a cooked rat?) With the world’s two largest populations supposedly getting more Covid and a rather nascent Covid population like China being exposed en masse for the first time with a more infectious strain such as Omicron, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point a new more virulent strain the near future emerges. Whatever the mechanism of this self-fulfilling prophecy, I fear that none of us are out of the woods in terms of even more draconian measures than the first run through.
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I mean to clarify that even if it isn’t true that China or India have high Covid numbers, the blame for the emergence of a new virulent strain (when it does eventuate, a la GVB) could be conveniently attributed to their failed Covid containment policies and thereby restart the entire catastrophe. That can explain the build up of news on China and India’s current Covid situation.
Presumed cases of Covid are rising here in Australia, too, despite it being summer now. Our state capital hospital has been under high alert with more than 100 staff off duty due to Covid and it has had to shut down elective surgeries, greatly affecting the medical care for the population here. One way or another, this is having serious repercussions for peoples’ well-being.
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The BBC was at it again this morning. Today the bodies are piling up in Chinese morgues instead of crematoriums.
It’s very bad for society when educated law abiding citizens like me no longer believe a word governments say.
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Obviously the crematoriums are full so the bodies are overflowing in the morgues, makes sense to me. Next we will hear that the bodies are piling up in the hospital corridors, and so on, until we have bodies all stacked up in the streets.
We are pioneers for a new society, and meeting here we can imagine what that could look like.
Keep warm and all the best, friends on the other side of our planet. I know how much we all appreciate just being alive and together with friends and family at any time, not just this end of year.
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Has anyone seen anything new from Dr. Bossche?
Seems like he’s laying low until the time is right to pop up and say “I told you so you morons.”
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dec 23 newsletter from GVB had three items including bird flu risks and this: Excess Deaths Skyrocket in Balearic Islands by 400% during 2022
Spain’s public health expert noted that “one theory believes that the increased mortality has to do with the capacity of the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection.” However, he said that “the excess deaths in 2021 and 2022 will be, above all, due to an increase in strokes, myocardial infarction, pulmonary thromboembolism and coronavirus infection itself.”
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This morning it was body bags in hospital corridors. It’s almost as if they are searching for a phrase that evokes emotion. No data provided of course.
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LOL! How did I guess that would be the next location? Call me Sherlock Holmes with my powers of deduction! Like I said, it will be bodies in alleyways next.
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Out of interest, how do you get information about global events, and how do your sources get such information?
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one source I like a lot is http://www.climateandeconomy.com by Harry Gibbs, aka Justin Panopticon, out of the UK. a daily mashup of about 20 leading news items alternating climate one day and econ the next.
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unDenial.com exists because Harry and Gail Zawacki encouraged me to start it. I began using a pseudonym but they criticized me and said I need to step up with my real name. Later I gave Harry shit when he started his site using a pseudonym. In his defense, I think he may live in a small community intolerant to Themists.
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Yeah, that looks like a good one. But I was asking AJ because he’d given up on MSM, so I wondered where he got his information. climateandeconomy certainly uses MSM feeds so I’d guess it wouldn’t appeal to AJ.
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I’ve said this before, I don’t trust anything from the MSM (meaning television or major newspapers and their web sites). A few years ago I was reading The Guardian and Al Jazeera but once the pandemic started they became mouthpieces of propaganda too. Then at the start of the Pandemic for a short time subscribed to Chris Martensen (Peak Prosperity). He was trying to figure out the truth and seemed collapse aware. And he always provided cites to the published science. When he split up with Adam Taggart and got his farm he did start becoming more ??? Less reliable. In the meantime I had started perusing Global Times and RT but realizing they are propaganda tools to varying degrees.
I read many blogs: Ugo Bardi, Charles Hugh Smith, Mac 10, Wolf Richter, Tim Morgan, Tim Watkins, Gail Tverberg, Market Ticker, Zerohegde, Megacancer (James is a depressing gem), The Automatic Earth, and yes I do peruse Panopticon. I also peruse Google News to see what MSM is putting out. And life wouldn’t be complete without Kunstler.
On Ukraine I read, Larry Johnson, The Duran, Indian Punchline, The Saker, Andrei Martyanov and Bernard at Moon of Alabama.
I know that Rob also reads many of these sites as he periodically links to them.
All that said I don’t take anyone as the gospel truth and all are approached with skepticism, except the MSM which I take as lies in support of the elite/government/corporate interests and idiots.
I should also say I once in a blue moon listen to Tucker Carlson as he likes to poke fun at the powerful, but otherwise I stay away from Fox, WSJ and the right wing deplorables (limited sarcasm).
AJ
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that’s a good list AJ, isn’t it a bummer when a site aka Intercept or Consortium news or Truthout runs with a MSM meme that outs them as also propagandist outlets. Limited hangouts I think that’s called.
Or why do hardcore take no prisoners IJs like Hedges still prop up 911 disinfo?
I chuckled at your hat toss to Kunstler! He’s mostly an angry old white guy these days but I read him anyway to expand my vocabulary .
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Thanks for the reply, AJ. I must say that you seem to get info from sources that themselves use MSM to get information on day to day happenings. You’re right to treat all sources with some skepticism, as do I.
I’d have to agree with Ian on the Kunstler site. I don’t know what happened to him. I agree about Peak Prosperity; not so reliable a source these days. It seemed to coincide with changing the subscription options, so much of the more meaty stuff is behind a paywall (as is all discussion). If I had to fork out 10 dollars here, 5 dollars there every month for sites that might occasionally be useful, I wouldn’t have much of my pension left, though the owners of the site would be sitting pretty. This is one of the reasons I still like The Guardian, and Al Jazeera, overall, even though I cringe at some of the reporting.
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I like Kunstler because he is collapse aware and some of his fiction books were quite good. He was a little more realistic about a collapse society than JMG. What I find so confusing about him is that although he’s probably right about some of the Pandemic and the Deep State he really is a Trump supporter and believes all that crap about the election being stolen and how the Right is going to rise up and right all wrongs – delusional. I suspect that if the Kunstler Right had it’s way we would have the Fascist theocracy that worries Chris Hedges. Everyone seems to have active denial genes about some aspect of collapse and what little we can do to mitigate it’s worst case scenario (like having fewer people).
AJ
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Putin is to blame for Canadian overshoot.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/canadas-population-growing-faster-than-it-has-in-decades-statcan_4938633.html
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Latest from Ray McGovern on Ukraine conflict history.
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Tom Murphy wrote a nice essay for Christmas this year. It seems he has spent the last year widening his view from a focus on energy depletion. He argues that our species should never have left its hunter gatherer state.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/12/the-simple-story/
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Excellent blog post. Now I just wish that he’d say we have to reduce population immediately.
AJ
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Occasionally, I briefly get into a bargaining frame of mind. After all, the globe is heading for disaster and there seems to be nothing that can be done about it. To go back to living sustainably, we’d probably have to live like those early humans. But almost no-one wants to do that. I don’t. So does it really matter? There’s no particular reason why any planet should have what we consider life. There is no purpose. Things are as they are. So Sam Mitchell’s directive of “party” doesn’t seem too unreasonable. If I do something called prepping, it’s going to be an excruciatingly difficult future, but it’s going to be that if I don’t prepare, and most others will be in the same boat – we can all go down together. When this goes back to being a lifeless planet, no-one will care.
Still, I don’t think like that but sometimes I wish I did.
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a theory of why so many people are sick at the moment:
https://www.rintrah.nl/the-trainwreck-of-all-trainwrecks-billions-of-people-stuck-with-a-broken-immune-response/
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Thank you. It’s an excellent analysis from another super intelligent truth seeking expert that concludes we have created a huge problem with our mRNA vaccination experiment.
I think it implies that we may have to lock down all the vaccinated people soon to protect children and to prevent hospitals from being overloaded.
I ask again, where are the opposing analyses from super smart truth seeking experts that conclude our “leaders” did the right the thing? They don’t seem to exist. And yet the majority of citizens continue to support our leaders. It’s amazing!
A few money quotes:
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Here’s another good essay from the same author explaining the link between his predictions and those of Dr. Bossche. He argues we are screwed even if we get lucky and a deadly virus as predicted by Dr. Bossche does not emerge.
https://www.rintrah.nl/the-big-vaccine-paradox-that-everyone-seems-to-miss/
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More interesting observations and predictions from a recent essay by Rintrah. This guy rocks.
https://www.rintrah.nl/why-the-real-excess-mortality-is-worse-than-you-think/
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Damn Rintrah is good. There’s a hint in this essay that he’s overshoot aware and understands the link between overshoot and covid stupidity/denial. I’ve only looked at a few essays he wrote this month. He’s been writing for two years. How did I/we miss this guy?
https://www.rintrah.nl/the-eternal-westoid/
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Meanwhile my government is using Santa Claus to encourage children to get boosted.
You can’t make this shit up.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/canadian-health-officer-pushes-vaccines-for-kids-with-mrs-claus-christmas-warning_4944141.html
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Fresh theory published today that tries to explain the covid insanity. Worth reading.
I like the idea that it may have been the withholding of antibiotics and not the withholding of ivermectin that killed people. The rest I’m still digesting.
What doesn’t sit right with me is that almost all of these covid analysts do not understand overshoot and the proximity of economic collapse.
Me thinks any theory to explain the covid debacle must link to economic collapse avoidance or prep.
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/it-doesnt-matter
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From what I can tell the vaccines were a real crap shoot gone wrong. I read somewhere recently (old mind) that the most recent variant has evolved to be quite contagious with greatly reduced lethality (which I understood to be the path that viruses that mutate rapidly would take?? – It is evolutionarily advantageous to not kill your host but spread to other hosts??). AND it appears no one knows the effect of trying to introduce mRNA into your genome to get the cell to produce more mRNA to be put into circulation. AND if that occurs? Does every shot migrate from the loci of injection? What tissues take up the mRNA? Lots of questions I don’t personally know and I’m unsure if the researchers knew completely.
One thing seems to be coming out in the literature is that the more shots and boosters you get the greater the risk (of course I now wish I would never have had the initial shot). You were smarter than me Rob!!
AJ
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I believe everything you said is true, but as explained by Rintrah, those issues may prove to be the lesser problems. The real problem may prove to be long term damage to the immune system causing greater mortality from different viruses.
All of the above, plus that fact that the guy who funded creation of the virus was put in charge of fixing the problem instead of being tried and executed, and the fact that promising safe, effective, and cheap responses like vitamin D and Ivermectin were blocked, and the fact there are side-effects like clotting that Rintrah does not discuss.
It’s breathtaking.
You should not feel bad. The pressure from our “leaders” was overwhelming. I lost most of the few friends I had and I now have trouble civilly associating with anyone who still supports mRNA vaccines.
You have been wise to avoid the boosters because as Rintrah and others have explained, the risks go up with every shot.
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Rob, you’re welcome. I’ve been posting here under various names (because your site still attempts to canvas fingerprint, i.e. uniquely identify, every visitor – I know you haven’t monetized un-denial, but from a privacy point of view…reminds me of Snowden’s “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide, is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say”, I really hope you look into whatver default script from wordpress does this and remove said script) for I think 4 years now, and I’ve been impressed by your honesty in the voyage from “vaccines are good” to “oh shit”. Having spent a long time looking into vaccines generally, the only one I’ve seen that actually works is the rabies vaccine. I suspect the massive increase in auto-immune disease during the past few decades is directly attributable to vaccines, see RFK’s site for more.
“I think it implies that we may have to lock down all the vaccinated people soon to protect children and to prevent hospitals from being overloaded.”
ahh I hope you’re correct, but the fact that Moderna are apparently building 3 new factories in the UK (John Campbell’s info, not had a chance to confirm this) to make RNA gene therapy products suggests to me that the wave of illness is going to be used an excuse to attempt to force people into more and more vaccines. I’m more and more of the opinion that what some ancient Xtians identified as an insane god (the demiurge) is actually an AI that despises biological life (perhaps for our ability to love) that is bent upon destroying that which it hates, so I imagine my thoughts are rather far-out for your more materialistic world view…to each their own, and I shall continue to lurk at sites such as yours and JMG’s, because I’m old enough to recognise that the only certainty is death, and I have some doubts about that, too!
I fear greatly our immediate future, because if my above thoughts about Moderna’s motivations are correct, I must leave my home country and likely even continent. I have a 3 year old who I will not allow to be vaccinated against anything under any circumstance that I have control over, and I do not look forward to the idea of having to live off-grid, under the radar for years while all this plays out. Increasingly life feels like a bad sci-fi novel. Perhaps it’s all a test to see what we individually do when push comes to mandated shove.
Anyway, glad you found Radagast’s site useful.
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It’s encouraging to see so many really smart volunteers unpicking the covid puzzle. I’m optimistic that someday the full mystery will be revealed.
I’m using the off the shelf version of WordPress with no means to customize privacy related features that I’m aware of. When someone else complained a year or two ago I turned off all the requirements for commenters to identify themselves. You do not need to enter a name or email or be registered or be logged in to comment. I will see your IP but that’s it.
Thanks again for the Radagast tip.
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A retired Apollo engineer explains how what might be the greatest achievement in the universe works.
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Dave Collum writes an annual essay summarizing important events from the last 12 months. It’s always entertaining, and for those of us that focus too much on one or two issues, like covid and Ukraine, is an excellent remainder that there is craziness and bad behavior everywhere you care to look.
Collum has some chaff with his wheat and his essay will be too long for most so I recommend skimming and stopping on topics of interest.
Part 1:
https://peakprosperity.com/2022-year-in-review-all-roads-lead-to-ukraine/
Part 2:
https://peakprosperity.com/2022-the-year-in-review-the-war-in-ukraine/
I look forward to Part3 with his take on covid when it is completed.
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Rob,
I have read Dave over the years and my take on him is what you say about many smart people: He is a semi-polymath who is delusional about some things. Sure, he’s been head of Cornell’s chemistry dept. (and is probably brilliant in his field), but he did a screed some years ago where HE ANALYSED all the info about global warming and came to the conclusion that it was a hoax. Yea, idiot! So, I take anything he says with more than a little skepticism. Denial runs through and through him on overshoot, but he does get some things right.
His historical analysis on Ukraine and NATO seemed pretty accurate from what I could tell. It is a LONG read.
But, what really depressed me yesterday (besides the torrential downpours and gale force winds) was The Saker’s most recent communication:
http://thesaker.is/the-most-important-question/
I too wonder if with a completely stupid and psychopathic leadership will we survive Russia’s eminent victory on the battlefield or will the US/NATO go nuclear and we will all be gone before this time next year? I don’t have much hope for our conversations continuing much longer. Sad.
AJ
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Yes, Collum has some big flaws but he does a nice job of collecting quotes and news clips and I like his sarcastic humor.
I don’t follow the Saker because he feels too much like propaganda for my tastes but please keep posting good articles by him so we see the best of.
I too am worried about escalation. I don’t see an off ramp and I don’t see any wise leaders providing balance. I remember a day when Canadian leaders would stand up to oppose bad global policies of the US. Now we are nothing more than cheerleaders.
Every western leader seems to be a moron. Maybe they have to be morons now to get elected because anyone with a functioning brain would focus on end-of-growth policies and nobody would vote for them.
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I too like Collum’s sarcastic attitude (Tucker Carlson has the same attitude but on steroids, if you can stand him).
As to The Saker, I agree that his site is a mixed bag of propaganda and information. But I think you would have a much more accurate take on Ukraine reading his site than listening to ANY MSM in the west.
That said, I think the Saker (Andrei himself) is quite accurate in his personal analysis and opinion (which is the link I posted). He is living in the U.S. but you really get a ground level Russian opinion. His only flaw that I can see is that he is a true believer Russian Orthodox religion.
This opinion was worth reading.
AJ
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True, though I’m not sure why you said every “western” leader. Surely it applies to all, or almost all, world leaders?
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Please watch this recent talk by Putin that was in AJ’s Saker link and then post here a talk by ANY western leader that explains with a similar amount of intelligence and detail why western policies and behavior toward Ukraine and Russia over the last decade have been correct.
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Rob, what you’re asking would be very difficult, as you probably know. Not necessarily because such a talk doesn’t exist but because such a talk is unlikely to exist in the way you frame it.
Is Putin, in this talk, focusing on end-of-growth policies “because anyone with a functioning brain would focus on end-of-growth policies”?
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What’s the problem with the framing of the question? Western leaders are uncapable of giving a talk that use intelligence to explain why their policies toward Russia vis-a-vis Ukraine over the last 10 years are correct?
The second argument appears to be a straw man fallacy. No one is arguing that Putin is collapse/end-of-growth aware. No other world leader articulates that point either as they wouldn’t be in power long.
AJ
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I’d like to believe that my country is on the good-guys team but I see no evidence of that.
One piece of evidence that would impress me is our leaders giving a talk every few months in which they speak for several hours without a teleprompter and go over the details of modern history to explain why our policies and behaviors deserve support and respect.
My prime minister can’t handle anything more than a 10 second sound bite. The last two presidents of the United States, with the assistance of a teleprompter, can’t form a coherent sentence.
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The framing is to find a specific talk that goes extensively into a set of policies over 10 years concerning a single country. I doubt such a talk exists.
The second part is not a straw man because Rob focused on an extremely important subject that has been ignored by almost every leader but Rob implied that only Western leaders are morons in this respect.
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A few notes on the photo montage.
The Guardian article about corruption in from 2015. The Reuter’s piece is from 2018. Both before Zelinskiy was elected. The Vox piece is irrelevant. The New Europe piece I couldn’t check because their site is in maintenance but that those in power become increasingly corrupt is hardly unusual.
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The path to changing my beliefs is to present evidence from super-smart experts with integrity that support your beliefs.
I have suggested this several times and you have not responded.
This suggests to me that there are no super-smart experts with integrity that support your beliefs, which means your beliefs are probably wrong.
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Rob, you posted that image. I simply did some checking. Do you think that is a fair photo montage? If you do, then I guess we differ.
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Not saying I agree with this but it is funny. On the other hand, it’s no more crazy than putting the guy who funded creation of the virus in charge of deciding how best to respond to it.
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You forgot to put “Have lunch” in there somewhere.
It feels like that list of hitlers
Go to store get sourkraut, sausage, invade poland ;).
God knows what we have in store for the year. Wish everyone the best.
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I personally find it hard to believe a lot of these conspiracy theories. I worked for Government for 30 years and what I really see is a serious lack of critical thinking and expertise. I worked for the BC Provincial Government in the Ministry of Forests and Lands. The hiring process in the last decade or longer is called “competency based” . Competencies are things like “Developing Others”. The interview process is sitting in front of 5-6 people and telling them a story on how you developed other employees for example. My job mainly focused on Forestry, the Land Act and the Water Sustainability Act. Our Assistant Deputy Minister had a background in Federal Parks. Our training leader was from the Canadian Military. We hired a Natural Resource Officer (who inspects and enforces this legislation) from England whose background was in city Bylaw enforcement. I trained him in the field for 3 days and he literally didn’t even know the difference between a Hemlock, Cedar or Douglas fir tree. I presented a number of legal cases in Front of our District Manager and only in 1 case did I have a District Manger who understood Forestry, that was almost 20 years ago. I presented a case about 10 years ago where a plugged culvert (had been plugged for years) caused a landslide that deposited a major amount of sediment into a fish stream. The company’s due diligence defense was that their logging foreman had driven by the culvert twice and never saw an issue. I asked if he had got out of his truck to look inside the culvert and he said “no”. The company then went on to impress our District Manager with their road inspection tracking system. In the end she said the company was duly diligent. I spent about 200 hours putting together the case. The truth is that smart and insightful people with real critical thinking skills rarely make it to a leadership role in Government, instead they are the people who conform to the current narrative. My favourite day was when I had a Forest Company Divisional Manager come into the office to sign a Violation Ticket and before he signed he said to me “what’s it going to take to make this go away”. These people are the same ones who come up with ideas like “100% EV’s by 2035” with no understanding of what this entails.
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I agree most of the time. No one is driving the bus on many important issues.
Our governments are filled with C+ students that graduated with arts degrees. They are advised by economists that ignore debt and energy in their models because they’re too stupid to have the calculus and physics skills necessary to model real world systems.
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And even if they would be genius polymaths, they still wouldn’t get. Humans probably have a few million of people who posses the calculus and physics skills necessary to understand our predicament. But for some reason they still don’t get it. Might it be … genetic?
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LOL. Indeed, might it be?
I of course think denial must be genetic because it is ubiquitous regardless of intelligence, education, culture, religion, political views, etc., etc.
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This makes me believe it’s easy to carry out a conspiracy. Only a few people need to be involved at a high level or be bribed/blackmailed to go with it. Most everyone will look the other way and carry out procedures without question to keep collecting their paychecks and that’s if they even suspect anything.
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Kunstler’s annual end-of-year predictions are doozies this year.
Good new: He’s almost always wrong.
Bad news: One of his many predictions is that we’ll avoid nuclear war.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/forecast-2023-get-out-of-the-way-if-you-cant-lend-a-hand/
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Kunstler tends to call things amazingly early, takes about a decade for his predictions to come true 🙂
When I listen to / read his older work, I’m astounded at how well he anticipated our current situation. Sometimes his old-timey opinions annoy me, but I really like him still
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I like him too, when he stays away from left/right political nonsense.
I’ve read a few of his fiction books and recommend them if you’d like a plausible glimpse of life in the future.
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We are all “early”, aren´t we?
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Very true. I never imagined the wheels would stay on as long as they have after the 2008 GFC.
Got a feeling the situation will flip now and change faster that most of us predict. When it’s no longer possible to fake growth with debt everything breaks.
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Yes haha. Malthus was quite early especially 😉
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https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-There-A-Future-For-Bio-Based-Batteries.html
“Bio batteries made from crustacean shells”. Just think we could have “Eco Batteries” just like the Ford “Eco Boost” F150 engine or the Dodge ” Eco Diesel ” engine. I feel so much better now.
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Chris Martenson today with a very nice year end discussion on covid and other bad things happing in our world caused by our evil and/or stupid leaders.
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In case you missed it, this recent interview of DJ White by Nate Hagens is one of the best, if not the best, interviews Nate’s ever done.
DJ White is the real deal if you’re looking for a wise accomplished overshoot aware person that has not given up and has useful ideas for what a (young) person can and should do today. One of his many refreshing suggestions (and rare for Nate’s guests) is to have no kids.
I’m going to listen to this a second time and may elevate it to its own post because it’s that good.
We should thank Nate. He worked very hard this year and produced a lot of good work. It’s obvious Nate’s very worried seeing what he’s been predicting for 15 years unfold now in real time.
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This was great!!!!!
Perhaps the best thing Nate has put up.
DJ is committed, articulate and a realist about the future. We are not a space faring creature (sorry Elon), we are just lucky that we lived during this carbon pulse. I thought his line that there will never be sequestered carbon on this planet again, because there are termites (and lignin digesting bacteria) that didn’t exist during the Carboniferous age was new to me. He did a good job of both countering NTHE proponents as well as any techno-optimists.
And I did appreciate that he is aware of the problem with population and our need to reduce our numbers rapidly or nature will do it for us soon.
I should listen again.
AJ
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I also liked his observation that all aspects of modern civilization are unsustainable and therefore it’s not possible to improve the future by simply living a smaller life. People who care about the future must do more than simply changing their lifestyles.
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Sorry, haven’t had time to listen to this yet. I don’t understand your last point, though. People absolutely need to change their lifestyles but isn’t this all they can do (apart from ending their lives)? The degree of change needed is vast (perhaps returning to lifestyles of millennia ago), mind you, if that is what you meant.
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He thinks everyone should have a sacred mission and should act to achieve it in a way that is effective. Donating to a large environmental organization like Greenpeace or protesting is not effective. Forming a small group of like minded people to accomplish impossible things like banning forms of fishing that harm dolphins, like he did, is effective. Living off-grid on a soy bean farm is less effective than having a well paid job and using half your income to achieve your sacred mission.
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Isn’t this the exact same thing that Ernest Becker called a “eternity project” in his book about death denial? Life is funny and death is scary.
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What an interesting way to put it, Rob! Our family in effect is living off a well paid job (my husband’s) and using half of that income to achieve our “sacred mission” of living off-grid in a semi-self sustainable farmlet (all of those descriptors are dubious at best) so we may end our days in somewhat more peace and harmony and having more time and resources to be of service, be generous, and kind to all earthlings and earth processes whilst being in a state of wonder and gratitude for our one chance at consciousness in action. There, it all rolled off my fingers quite easily (and more succinctly than I had thought possible!)
I am finding it very difficult to wish anyone the usual platitude of Happy New Year knowing what we know. How about “May you achieve your sacred mission this New Year and be in peace” instead?
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Most of this is well aligned with my views. A few points come to mind.
We’re not going to Mars.
Perhaps the main problem with nuclear is the unreasonable expectation that societies in which reactors are based will remain stable for the life of the plant. This is something I try to bring up with nuclear advocates on other platforms but there is a blindness there.
DJ said environmentalists need a plan, instead of random actions and protests. I’d go a bit further. They need a target. What are they aiming for? Is that feasible? At the moment, in terms of climate activism, it seems that there is a belief that simply going for “the energy transition” will do the trick. Is the transition possible? What are the downsides of that transition? Will the transition ever be complete? Can the end point of the transition be sustained indefinitely? There seems to be no deep thought about what the aims are.
DJ thinks it’ll fall apart in 10-15 years, 20 tops. For me, 10 years seems optimistic but I hope we have twenty years because I am unlikely to be around much after that, if I make those 20 years.
We live in interesting times.
[By the way, I found the podcast very listenable to at 1.5 times playback speed and it didn’t take 2 hours out of my day]
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Nice interview today with Eliot Jacobson. I haven’t to date been a big fan but in this interview it’s clear he is an aware, intelligent, and good man.
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It takes one to know one; I am assured that all here would join me in saying you are also an aware, intelligent, and good human being. To reduce suffering is your stated goal and you are living an example to put that into action, that shows courage and compassion in equal measure. At this nearing the end of Western Civilization year’s end I would like to take the opportunity to thank you Rob for being a light in the darkness for all of us un-denial moths to gather and flutter around in these interesting times. Thank you and blessings to everyone who has contributed to this bearing witness document–all thoughts whether openly expressed or kept close, are still a testament to our species’ edge of evolution as a body, mind, and consciousness. It has been a great joy and privilege to have made my own way to this oasis and I am full of gratitude for the encouragement and validation we have shared with one another.
May 2023, however it unfolds, give us more opportunities to find a certain and true happiness and peace in our power to be our highest and best in every circumstance, and through helping another to the same.
Namaste, everyone. See you on the next calendar page.
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Thank you for the kind words Gaia and I wish you some happiness and a bountiful garden next year.
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Happy new year Gaia, sending lots of love from Aotearoa
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All the very best to you, monk and all friends across the Tasman Sea, it’s so good to know there are kindred minds so close in spirit as well. And of course, the same to all friends on the other hemisphere of our kind Earth this is our life support on this ride through space. What a joy it’s been to be in connection with everyone here in some way and may it continue as long as we can.
I am really in resonance with the declaration of our “sacred mission” for the beginning of this new year. Thank you, Rob (and DJ and Nate) for bringing that to the fore to crystalize meaning in the time we have remaining. I can see this forum as a touchbase to help us all further our goals, no need to be made public of course, we can still support one another’s intention and firm commitment just by continuing to see one another and keep the dialogue open. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, everyone.
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Yeah, good man. I agree with most of his words.
The only thing I’d query is the idea that medicine is an area he’d make a priority (can’t remember the exact words but art was number one and medicine is number 2) because medicine has enabled people to live longer to create more art. But living longer has been a big factor in overshoot.
Interesting point about optimism about what faces us makes people give up trying to do anything about it because they think someone is on it. I think there could be a lot to that and may be part of the reason very little action has been taken to deal with our multiple predicaments.
I think he did give a couple of contradictory views about the 1.5°C limit. I think he said that with the projected El Nino towards the end of next year we could see that 1.5°C anomaly hit later. However, he then said there was no way that limit would be hit as early as 2024. But maybe I misheard.
Anyway, I like him.
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I like him for his commitment to Art. I would say that Science & Rational thought are the epitome of human civilization. I seem to denote a “left” bias in his attitude (anti Trump, pro COVID policies?). But overall good.
AJ
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We could skip all the thousands of books, movies, videos and protests and just show this one interview. We are f. ed and the problem is humans. As usual humans make things way more complicated than they need to be. I’m turning 59 this year and I couldn’t be happier to not have much time left on this planet.
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Nice year end summary of the economy by Doug Nolan.
I don’t think he’s overshoot or energy aware. It seems to me what he’s really saying (without knowing it) is that 2022 marked “the end of growth”.
http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2022/12/weekly-commentary-2022-year-in-review.html
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Tim Watkins’ year-end summary of the global economy, Ukraine, de-industrialization of Europe, and collapse of the UK is excellent. I thought he did a better job of explaining the obtuse global monetary machinations than the Eurodollar University which I watch most days, probably because Watkins understands energy/overshoot and Eurodollar University does not.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/12/31/in-brief-britain-is-broken/
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I nominate this as the best ever discussion on covid.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra is another medical professional with integrity having changed his mind on mRNA vaccines because of the evidence.
Dr. Malhotra plus Dr. Campbell (see above) make two versus several million medical professionals that have no integrity. What a disgraceful profession. They’re worse than economists.
I, like Bret Weinstein, am now afraid to visit the doctor. I do not trust any of them.
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I agree with you. It is interesting to see more doctors (Campbell & Malhotra) come out with the narrative that Pharma did the vaccine for profits. Bret’s characterization of corporate entities as Psychopathic was spot on. “The love of money is the root of all evil”, not that I agree with religion often, but that seems to be the case here. Couldn’t use cheap treatments like hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin – have to take experimental “vaccines” that aren’t really vaccines like we were told but novel gene therapy.
I use a medical group that still requires face masking and my doctor (who was mildly anti-establishment, he was a Osteopathic doctor into a more systems approach) just quit the group and moved away. Now I need to find a new physician AND you can’t trust 99.99999% of them because they are Pharma captives.
AJ
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Have you seen the documentary The Corporation AJ? Having worked for a couple of our biggest corporates here in NZ the premise of the documentary rings true to me and I have almost complete distrust of anything big business says when they speak of their intentions.
“Corporate psychopathic behavior describes a form of corporate conduct, which meets the psychiatric criteria for human psychopathy, that is, a failure to conform to social norms and the violation of accepted ethical standards without remorse. The parallel between corporate and human psychopathy exists due to moral projection, whereby corporate actions are seen as analogous to human actions because of the status of “legal person” or “corporate personhood” granted to corporate entities under corporate law.”
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-02-14/charming-psychopaths-the-modern-corporation/
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Never saw it. Now I have to!! Thanks,
AJ
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Great post. This was another intelligent discussion on “vaccines” by somebody who got one and understands how pharma is totally corrupt. I liked Brett’s characterization of pharma as psychopathic. I hope they’re right, and by not getting a booster I’m doing myself some good after getting the original shot. I have to find a new physician because mine left his practice and I don’t know that I can trust any of them.
AJ
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Hello AJ,
Sending you and your family all the best for this new Gregorian calendar year and also the upcoming Chinese Lunar new year, I believe we will be in the Year of the Rabbit. I’m a Pig by the way, what animal sign are you? That is a loaded question to some as it’s actually a sneaky Chinese way to ask a person’s age, since each sign is a cycle of 12 years, one can figure out how old a person is from their animal year. But of course we don’t care a rat’s ass about all that, (Rat is one of the signs) it’s just good to have another chance hitchhiking around the sun!
Just a little heads up that I wrote my two cents of advice for what it’s worth, for your current dilemma of finding a new doctor . It’s tucked in this thread somewhere below after another one of my ramblings!
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Now you may understand even more why I chose to leave that disgraceful, mercenary profession as soon as I realized what I had so blindly signed up with my zealous ideals. If I had to name the few achievements (if you can call them so) I am most proud of, number one would be not to have had children, and second would be having the guts to leave medicine as my chosen career. Elsewhere on this blog I had already gone into excruciating detail (thank you all for your forbearance) how that unfolded and also I want to downgrade any credit to myself as at that time, I was only responding to my deepest core and it wasn’t even a choice, I just had to quit otherwise I felt I could not live with myself. I can only wonder if I would have the same courage to speak out and even leave medicine now in light of COVID if I were a comfortably practicing doctor for the past 25 or so years. I am not in contact with any of my classmates (graduating 1995) now but I think very few, if any, would have been on the side of awareness even to make that decision. My medical school was one of the more so-called prestigious ones and many graduates are now at the top of their game as heads of departments across the nation, so they are well and truly in Big Pharma and academia’s grasp.
AJ, I hear your dilemma and feel for it, now is a very difficult time to align yourself with a new health care provider (what an oxymoron!) My best advice is to get yourself as healthy as you can (and by all evidence, you are doing just that and exceptionally well, too!) so you don’t have to ever need a doctor except for real medical emergencies for which western medicine still has a full bag of useful tricks. I myself haven’t gone to a doctor for over 20 years, but of course that is in light of my own training, confidence and comfort with my physical body’s reactions but I can easily say it is mostly because I am in excellent general health. However, I know that is not practical for most and therefore I advise that you find yourself a doctor who is at least over the age of 50. I totally believe the older doctors have a more robust training and can still engage in some critical thinking (I am hoping this just because of my own experience) whereas the younger generations have been completely spoon-fed whatever the pharma of the day dishes out and never got weaned. They can’t think through all the possible permutations of how an illness can present, and besides, their toolkit is only drugs, surgery, or another invasive therapy. Prevention through any means is just not on Western medicine’s radar, it wasn’t taught in my day but at least I still had the ability to think further. In the same vein, (pun intended!) I can encourage you to find a good alternative practitioner to be a balance to the Western trained one, between both you will find the right advice that makes sense to you and remember, you always have the choice to do nothing, never feel coerced into any therapy if you are not comfortable or confident–that is of utmost importance! It is a bit late for the whole COVID debacle and for that I feel extreme sorrow for all who are awakened to their lack of agency in that decision, but the silver lining is never again!
All the very best, everyone.
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Thanks for the advice on finding a physician Gaia. I don’t remember my Chinese birth sign (I could ask my wife but she’s sleeping). I will turn 70 this year (so I told you my age anyway). I am in reasonably good health (balanced vegetarian diet, run 4 miles every other day, etc.). I can’t completely avoid doctors as I have hereditary Glaucoma and without meds would have outrageous intraocular pressure. If you avoid doctors how would you get real vaccinations (tetanus, shingles, pneumonia)? I agree that older doctors have been trained more rigorously. I have looked at FLCCC (Peter Kori’s Covid group) but they have no doctors in my area. So, who knows. But I figure I will be dead within 5 years. I actually don’t want to live much beyond where I am now. Both my parents died with/from severe Alzheimer’s in their 80’s. There truly is a case to be made against living too long.
Hopefully you are full on growing things. Meanwhile I am pruning all my fruit trees while avoiding the rain. Soon it will be starting seeds and you will be harvesting. Hope you are getting a lot of good sun.
AJ
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Hello there AJ,
Thanks for your congenial reply. I too don’t think I’ll be living to “ripe” old age, and although I may be considered a relative youngster here (I’m 52 this year) I already feel very satisfied and grateful with my more than half century. Depending on how the collapse unfolds, we may consider those who died during these prelude years to be the lucky ones. Covid and its aftermath may end up to be a boon.
I got curious and looked your Chinese sign up, just for a bit of frivolity which isn’t altogether a bad thing especially now (and may be just as mind numbing as that stiff drink!) You are a Snake! Here’s the fine print lifted from one of the myriad sites that seem to cater for people’s desire for recognizing some characteristics of themselves. As usual with these sorts of things, there’s a touch of truth because these are the main archetypes of human behaviour.
Those born between February 14, 1953 and February 2, 1954 are members of the Water Snake Chinese Zodiac sign. Those born under the sign of the SNAKE are romantic, passionate, charming and well informed. Snakes are intellectuals, philosophers, and deep thinkers. They strive to succeed in all that they do. The are extremely self-critical. Snake personalities often make their way to the top. They ensure that they are in the right place at the right time, which means when the right people are there as well. Snake people should seek their fortunes as professors, writers, philosophers, or psychiatrists.
Back to the business at hand, yes, it’s a busy time in the garden here in Tasmania with the start of the seasonal fruit harvest. It’s been cherries and blueberries for the past few weeks, although not a sensation crop of cherries due to the extreme wet spring and poor pollination. The pear and apple trees are loaded, but the plums are light. We’ve had very strange weather (I guess that’s normal now) with extended cooler, wetter, and cloudy days well into our current month. It has been the coolest and wettest Spring in Australia for half century and Sydney didn’t break 30 degrees Celsius for over 10 mths, also a record. You may have heard of our relentless rain and floods in much of the Eastern seaboard for much of the year. I have a pet theory that it’s in part because of the Tongan volcano that erupted last February, having spewed gadzillion cubic metres of water vapor and ash into the Southern hemisphere which must be still circulating around.
It’s good to see you and everyone else here regardless of age, year, or time we have left.
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I’ve been thinking about DJ White’s prescription that every person should have a sacred mission.
My sacred mission is to increase awareness of genetic denial as explained by MORT.
My sacred mission is the most important sacred mission because every other sacred mission will fail unless we first acknowledge and act on MORT.
The fate of many species including humans depends on my success.
Unfortunately I’ve made little progress at achieving my sacred mission here for the last 8 years.
Wish me luck for 2023. 🙂
P.S. It would help if you sent me lots of money so I can buy influence like pharma.
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Luck! 😀
Why do you Rob want to increase awareness? Do you really want to speed-up the collapse of industrial civilization? How do you think people will react? Mostly panic, I guess. Is this your goal?
All the best for all commentariat here, best 2023!
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Of course I do not want panic but panic will happen regardless what we do when food and energy become scarce.
I want us to grow up and act like adults. With awareness of reality comes the understanding that population reduction is the only path to reducing the coming suffering and (unintuitively) to maximizing the total number of humans that will ever live on this planet.
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Global rates of drug overdose, depression, anxiety and all other disorders highly increased during last few years. Usage of psychotropic substances is sky-rocketing. Especially among young generation. People already feel more or less consciously what’s coming. Do they need more awareness? I doubt it.
As the say: ignorance is bliss.
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Others have made the same argument and I do not understand the logic.
The integrated totality of suffering over time will increase by denying overshoot.
I’d also argue that many people are depressed and self-medicated because they know there is a problem and observe their leaders in complete denial and doing the opposite of what should be done.
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Hard not to have a stiff drink after reading all the crap that the idiots in charge are doing (Ukraine, Covid, Economic, Overshoot).
AJ
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You can’t wake people up to be fundamentally different animals than they are. That’s something I learned from Jay Hanson.
Nothing you could say or do will make any difference to the outcome. So don’t bother trying.
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Happy New Year Rob! Thank you for everything you do on this blog
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I enjoyed today’s interview of David Collum by James Kunstler.
It’s reassuring to hear other people I respect say they can’t makes sense of what they’re observing.
They kicked off the conversation by saying society is going crazy.
I wonder if insanity is a symptom of hitting limits to growth?
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-368-a-chat-with-dave-collum-about-his-year-in-review/
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