There was a nice surprise in my inbox this morning.
Marromai, a frequent visitor from Germany, having tired of seeing the same un-Denial post for 10 weeks, wrote an excellent essay to freshen things up. Thank you.
See also another essay by marromai here.
We all use and need money every day and would often like to have more of it. The vast majority of people don’t really understand what money actually is. Many think it is a medium of exchange that was invented at some point to facilitate commerce – which couldn’t be more wrong.
Readers of this and similar websites at least know that it must be more than that, and that money is connected to energy in some way. Naked Emperor summed this up the other day with a reference to Dr. Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics:
Dr. Morgan believes that there are two parallel economies. One is “the underlying ‘real’ or physical economy of products and services” and the other is a “financial economy of money and credit.” “Money has no intrinsic value, but possesses value only in relation to the material things for which it can be exchanged.”
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/the-everything-bubble-the-end-of
His article somehow anticipates the conclusion of this essay and describes very well why the divergence between ever-expanding, artificially inflated finance and shrinking real economy will soon lead to a pretty big bang. But an interesting point for me – and maybe for you too? – is how did our financial system emerge in the first place? What exactly is money and how did it become a proxy for energy?
I will try to describe that below, also to better understand it myself – feel free to ask questions or write your critique in the comments. My findings, which I try to summarize in my own words, come mainly from “Ein Buch für Keinen” (A Book for None) by Stefan Gruber which in turn is based on an economic theory called “Debitism” according to German economist Paul C. Martin.
In advance, we must be clear that all life forms known to us are dissipative systems. Every living being is condemned to accumulate energy to maintain itself, irreversibly increasing its complexity and thus entropy. If it cannot collect more energy than its body needs to sustain itself, it dies. A simple basic equation: life requires energy. This is the primordial debt that every living thing owes itself and that it must pay off if it does not want to perish. The crucial thing is that this debt must be paid in time (hunger) to escape the sanction (death). If food (energy) was always and everywhere available, this would be an insignificant automatic action. Only the pressure of a deadline in combination with scarcity and effort to procure measures a value to the debt. This definition will be important later.
Now let’s look at mankind, which for a long time lived in nomadic hunter-gatherer groups and more or less unconsciously paid off its primordial debt, like all other animals. At some point in history, due to external pressures such as depleted hunting grounds or changing climatic conditions, it transitioned to both nomadic pastoral tribes, which learned to raise animals and move with them when a region was grazed off, and permanently sedentary, arable land societies. Tribal societies don’t know or use money, since they produce everything they need on their own and share it among each other. This is called a subsistence economy.
An arable tribe has the great disadvantage of no longer being regionally flexible – its sedentariness was a weakness that made it vulnerable to raids by nomadic pastoral tribes who could rob its earned and stored supplies (stored energy to pay the primordial debt). However, the predatory pastoral tribes soon discovered that a peasant tribe could be raided and wiped out only once. But if it is “offered protection” from other nomads in return for a tribute in the form of the food it produces, this is to the advantage of both (more to the advantage of the herdsmen than the farmers, of course). The shepherd tribe arises as guardians and rulers over the peasants (“The Lord is my shepherd”), promising protection and demanding tributes in return to maintain and expand their power.
Only after the ruler specified the levy, which had to be paid on a date, this levy became a commodity in demand and thus money. And it became the yardstick for the valuation of all other goods. The levy, i.e. money, was a commodity and with this commodity the debt to the authorities was repaid.
The first taxes were paid in kind, e.g. grain (energy to service the original debt) – later, when empires and complexity grew, they were put in parity with silver for the sake of simplicity (e.g. 180 barley grains = 1 shekel of silver in Mesopotamia). After that, weapons metal, i.e. copper, tin and later iron were declared to be levies. Also gold counted at first as weapon metal, because it was easy to work. Whether money is in kind, or metal to produce weapons, or today’s colorfully printed paper slips, is completely irrelevant. Money is, what is defined as levy by the ruling power. It does not need to have an intrinsic value.
The decisive factor for the emergence of money was therefore the simultaneous emergence of a power cycle: the levy could be used to buy mercenaries to maintain power. The mercenaries exchanged the levy for goods and services from the population. The people in turn were able to pay tribute to the ruler, which further strengthened the ruler’s power. But the ruling power had the problem of having to make expenditures in advance. Naturally, it tries to recover this deficit with the demanded levies, whereby it has to expand and increase its power. Whereupon it needs more levies to maintain itself – maybe that looks familiar to you? (A dissipative system)
Since not everyone was always able to produce the required amount of levy goods by the deadline, the subjects were forced to trade among themselves – thus division of labor and specialization developed. While some focused on the cultivation of food, others produced tools for the peasants or weapons for the rulers, for which they received the coveted levy in return, in order to pay off their debt to the ruler. Those who had no other option had to offer their labor (debt bondage, day laborers,…). Individuals in an economy based on the division of labor are practically forced to conclude contracts with others or to fulfil these contracts in order to obtain the required levy and to survive.
By the way, the invention of writing is – not as some people think – due to the preservation of knowledge – but to bookkeeping, as Babylonian cuneiform writings prove. It was a system for documenting the taxes already paid by the subjects. On small clay tablets it was recorded who had paid what amount of tax, which then was used instead of the levy itself – an early form of money without intrinsic value.
The ruler is ultimately the owner of his realm, which is the area he can protect and demarcate from others by force of arms. But he can cede his property, i.e. share it, by granting the subjects the right to private property and defending it against opponents with his military power. The subject can manage the property guaranteed to him by the ruler and trade with it and its proceeds to be able to pay the tribute. And, very important, he can lend on his property to obtain credit. However, if he remains in debt, the subordinate is punished, or his property is foreclosed.
Those who submit and agree to the rules (forcibly set by the ruler) to maintain the status quo are part of that state(!). Those who do not want to belong are left to their own devices without any rights and were thus doomed to death in the past – today statelessness is no longer even conceivable.
The described processes of the emergence of states, money and economy were the initial sparks for today’s global trade economy, which is still based on the assurance of property by the central powers. We see that state, property, money and economy form an indissoluble mesh and a state is always based on the exercise of power and the compulsion to pay a levy. A state can therefore never be based on voluntariness of all participants. Today, more than ever, it is clearly visible that the state apparatus must inevitably become ever larger and more inefficient and, in the final analysis, serves only self-preservation and not its inhabitants. Like any dissipative system, it will vanish someday – this is by the way, the reason why there are so many collapsed civilizations in history and ours will be no exception.
But the trigger for the economic dynamics in a ruling system – from the destruction of a moneyless solidarity community to a highly specialized society based on the division of labor with compulsory trade and individual liability – is solely the pressure to pay the levy to the state on time. The means to pay off this tax debt is money. Money therefore always documents a debt. First, the tax debt to the rulers and, building on this, the contract debt between private individuals. So money is only a debt repayment vehicle. If money exists, a debt must exist at the same time, which can be erased with this money. Money receives its value only by the underlying debt contract, it cannot have an “intrinsic value” detached from a terminally fixed debt.
With this description, the definition of money is suddenly very clear:
Money (usually uncountable, plural monies or moneys): A legally or socially binding conceptual contract of entitlement to wealth, void of intrinsic value, payable for all debts and taxes, and regulated in supply.
Here we close our circle to the primordial debt mentioned above. Only the obligation to surrender a commodity earned by performance to the state at the deadline in order to escape a sanction defines money and gives it a value. Without a deadline there would be no reason to generate money, and without scarcity at the deadline, it would be worthless. It must always be earned first by doing work. Money is a debt, which has to be repaid at a certain point in the future by doing work before that time has come.
To do work means energy must flow. As power is a measure of energy per unit of time, money is therefore actually a measure of power and thus more directly linked to energy than most people can imagine. So, it is absolutely true that energy drives the economy. How fortunate that we discovered fossil fuels, developed combustion engines, etc., to accelerate economic activity, technological progress, and trade exponentially. Fossil energy made our economy grow fast and big.
Our credit-based finance system made it possible to create money which is solely based on the promise to perform work, in order to be able to take advantage of it immediately or to start new economic activity with it. When the modern world started to decouple the financial system from the real economy, the problems began. And this is where it gets ugly: In order to provide the promised future work, energy will be needed. But because far too much credit was granted without taking into account the energy that will actually be available, a Ponzi scheme was kicked off with nothing but empty promises on future energy. The worldwide fantasy amounts of money are no longer matched by any economic output that can be provided in realistic terms – financial collapse is pre-programmed and with it collapses any economic activity driven by energy. At present, attempts are being made to conceal and delay this by all means.
We have bought with lazy money a claim on future energy and have already squandered everything today. When the fossil energy is depleted we will be left with much worthless money.
Our dissipative system aka “modern civilization” will soon not be able to pay off its primordial debt.
I hope that when the world ends, I can breathe a sigh of relief because there will be so much to look forward to.1
P.S. Since we have seen that every state, economy and money are based on oppression and force, all possible future states will be no exception. I see a backfall to small tribal solidary communities as the most promising concept for humanity to survive the coming hardship.
1From “Ein Buch für Keinen” (A book for no one) by Stefan Gruber. The bible of nihilism: How economic, ideological, social, biological and physical systems emerge and why they are doomed to fail. I would recommend this as a must read, but unfortunately, this masterpiece is only available in German.
un-Denial 
One point omitted is that biology plays a role. Hierarchy is a trait in social mammals, and we are not exempt. In small tribes, likely fewer than the 150 of Dunbar, maintaining trust and accurate feedback from one’s peers is possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
Barter with others in the group is subject to checks and balances. Even barter with other groups has feedback if encounters are somewhat regular. Cheating is thereby controlled or limited. Money and large scale populations reduces the feedback. Nasty cycles can develop.
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Another aspect of human biology is that we aggressively deny our predicament and thus do not even discuss possible useful responses.
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Agree. Reflexive self-consciousness (seems unique to us) enables creative rationalization of events. Also, 80%+ estimated of us believe in a skyhook on which we hang our uncertainty. This ‘mysticism’ was elaborated by Reg Morrison in his ’99 book. Forward by Lynn Margulis, co-developer of gaia theory with Lovelock.
https://innovation.cc/book-reviews/2000_5_2_9_kurtz_bk-rev_morrison_spirit-gene.htm
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Thank you – yes of course biology plays a role in human societies. A mega city, where everyone is anonymous, is the perfect example, it only works with strict law enforcement. A small village, where everyone knows each other, regulates itself with an intrinsic moral codex.
But since I think biology was not a crucial point for the main topic, I left it out to not make an already complicated subject even more confusing.
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When I started to read marromai’s essay my first thought was that writing was invented to record taxes.
I’m glad he mentioned that fact in his essay. It’s compelling evidence in support of his thesis.
It’s similar in kind to one of the unusual and unique things that emerged simultaneously with behaviorally modern humans. We denied death via religious rituals. No other animal does this. It’s a big clue for explaining why we can’t even discuss the ideas in marromai’s essay.
I’m of course not suggesting there’s a painless solution to our overshoot predicament. But the outcome of denying reality means everything we are doing today is steepening the backside of our Seneca cliff thus worsening the suffering that will eventually be experienced.
We could be acting to reduce total suffering but we are not.
We can’t even debate our options.
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Thanks Marromai, this was excellent. Great to get exposure to ideas that haven’t been translated to English as well 🙂
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You’re welcome – it’s very sad for me that the theory of Debitism (monetary theory based on the fact, that money, trade and everything is based on debt, which could be broken down to the primordial debt of each individual) is very unknown and not officially recognized.
It shares the same fate as the knowledge of our overshoot predicament, it is forbidden science.
As Paul C. Martin said: “The state dilemma is a non solvable one”
The fact that states and money are always based on force and oppression make it impossible to build a “good” state – Sooner or later every state must reveal its true violent nature.
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Sorry, forgot to enter the name – it was my comment 😉
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Another issue our leaders are silent on. Isn’t denial amazing?
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A comment from a Moon of Alabama post.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/06/ukraine-open-thread-2023-141.html
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RFK Jr. on glyphosate.
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I listened to the whole 3 hour interview and it was like being in a parallel universe where sanity still reigns and you’d be forgiven to feel more than a modicum of hope for America, but then the interview ended and poof, back to reality. I dare not hold my breath for what may happen by RFK Jr’s bold leap into the void but if I weren’t such a die-hard doomer now, I could almost imagine another tangent beginning from this point that could possibly lead to a more enlightened outcome before the still inevitable collapse.
Filled with such as it is denial-fueled optimism, I thought it the least I could do to show solidarity with TeamKennedy is to try continue reading his The Real Anthony Fauci, which I didn’t have the stamina to stomach the first time around. Big mistake. I’m into the AZT debacle and I literally feel physically sick from trying to digest the unmitigated malfeasance committed and then extrapolating it to the Covid chronicles. With my medical background I am not a stranger to the dubious workings of pharma and government, but the sheer blatancy of the corruption and complete absence of compunction to the level of deliberate infliction of suffering, viscerally floored me. We are all just pawns in this system and some have been played just to be destroyed, and at whim. I am saddened to report that I feel nothing but even more burden of doom knowing just what we are facing now hardwired into the system in which we are all entangled. Some days I pacify myself by thinking the sooner collapse happens, the sooner the chance for a world without Homo sapiens in dominion, and that can only equate with less suffering.
On another and more salubrious note, I have been working hard on the property here in the subtropics and actually relishing the sensations of muscle and sinew after a good day’s work. To have command of a physical body to be able to do such a range of actions is a true source of wonder and joy, and even pain is something I am now contemplating and absorbing with an awed humbleness. I’ve resumed a regular yoga practice to partake more of the awareness of how physical, mental and spiritual intersect in this organism that we call our own self and consciousness, totally unique for all time. In the days remaining to me I would like to nurture an elevated respect for and cherishing of this physical form that I have had the sole privilege to direct all the days I have lived. No longer do I take this body for granted, whatever its limitations and changes through the years is but a testament to how well it has carried and served, as a most companionable and loyal friend. I just wanted to share this latest revelation with the hope it may encourage any one to also cultivate gratitude and honor for their physical beingness, and how truly magnificent and magnanimous a gift it is.
And upon us is another Solstice, may it be a fulcrum to accept the changes that are upon us with courage and grace. Namaste, everyone.
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I share many of your feelings.
Covid broke something in my spirit. It’s not so much that pharma is corrupt and evil. It’s that the majority of citizens don’t have a clue and don’t care, even if they were harmed by bad policies.
My latest angst comes from understanding that much of the recent obscene food price inflation was caused by money printing to counteract lockdowns that were never required had we employed wise policies.
RFK Jr. is a breath of fresh air but I predict the majority is too stupid to vote for him.
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Canada’s population grew by 1 million via immigration over the last year and just passed 40 million.
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Yeah, ditto for Australia now gunning for 50 million people (currently at 27 million) in a last stage delusion to keep the Ponzi scheme economy from crumbling faster than it already is. Our federal banking morons keep beating the one-trick pony of raising interest rates to forestall inflation, to the tune of “if it doesn’t work 11 months in a row, we’ll keep at it until it does!” Where are the two brain cells needed to process the fact that if energy costs rise, then inflation of goods and services is the only sure repercussion? It’s not people spending too much that’s keeping prices of food and housing high, but ironically, people are spending to their limit and beyond because of the rational fear that next year it will be even more expensive. And our yearly 1 million new migrants that need immediate housing are an obvious cause for the demand in properties that keep driving the prices of both houses and rentals up, interest rates be damned, people just need a place to live. We can’t create that many new housing units year upon year, especially since the past few years have seen building companies fold one after another.
Our better than expected employment rate reflects the fact that many are now working 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet, and the way the stats work here, even just one hour of paid work a week is considered employment so in actuality, many have underemployment in terms of wage earning, although the numbers of people in the work force look robust. Which means more interest rate rises are coming since obviously too many people are working and making too much money so they’re spending too much and that’s where the inflation is coming from–GOT IT? I know totally understand how blindness in just about every aspect of existence is the human condition, but woe upon us if people truly could or would wake up and see.
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This appears to be a very good site for current data on covid response harms.
It’s great to see people out there pushing hard to expose the evil and to bring justice to the criminals.
https://dksdata.com/COVID19
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I wanted to share this comic as it rings very true when I see projected trends. For example when both Airbus and Boeing project that by 2042 the air fleet will be double of todays. Or GDP charts or population or … The list is quite long.
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LOL! Very funny, and true.
My favorite is Dr. Tom Murphy’s calculation that 2.3% annual growth for 400 years will generate enough waste heat to boil water on the surface of the planet.
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New report from Richard Heinberg and the Post Carbon Institute. I have not read it yet.
https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/welcome-to-the-great-unraveling/
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Two years later we uncover the mathematical mistake (or fraudulent trickery) that made an ineffective vaccine appear effective.
If this was an honest mistake, how is it possible that our leaders have not yet pleaded mea culpa for the biggest health care blunder in history?
Perhaps it was not a mistake.
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Very nice essay. The only thing I might add, is that not only do most populations deny their bondage and oppression and such, but they have learned to call it “freedom”. They actually love it. This is understandable seeing that the vast majority could not, and will not, survive outside the confines of a State (glorified corral).
Biologically speaking, I think that most humans alive today are of a domsticated variety. Feral varieties may emerge after the resolution of the population bottleneck. Not sure.
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Thank you, that’s absolute right – we are anything but free, living a modern form of slavery where the slaves even don’t know that they are slaves.
Or to bring another quote from the mentioned “Book for no one”:
It is the irony of human history, as the philosopher of history Oswald Spengler also pointed out in analyzing declining civilizations, that the point at which people believe they possess lasting peace, lasting freedom, and lasting prosperity is closer to the abyss than any other point before.
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US leaders are behaving VERY strange. Blinken goes to China, takes a beating from the Chinese and reconfirms the US one China policy, in an attempt to cool tensions between the superpowers. The next day his boss Biden blows it all up with inappropriate comments.
Nothing makes sense. It’s very worrying.
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Rob,
Have you never had someone close with dementia? Both my parents died with Alzheimer (do you die from it or with it?). At the end neither knew who I was. Thankfully they had sufficient funds to pay for institutionalized care for the last year (it was still expensive at +$120K a year – 10 years ago). I saw them through every stage from early to late. Biden has all the hallmarks of early/middle stages (Sundowner syndrome, not remembering recent events, not keeping a cogent train of thought). Whoever is controlling him (wife & Obama White House surrogates) must be worried about everything he says/does and can he make it through the next election before a total intellectual collapse?
I already know that I will euthanize myself should I make it to 75 (doubt civilization will last 5 more years) as beyond that the odds are that I will start declining to the extent that I don’t want to take the chance at living in Alzheimer’s.
AJ
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I’m sorry about your parents. I’ve not had any family members with dementia but the wife of a good friend is going through it now. It’s very rough on family members but the person with dementia does not seem to suffer.
Dementia might explain Biden and yet his inappropriate comments were published on the white house web site which suggests a power struggle over policy rather than a dementia blunder.
I’ve been thinking about the causes of big events in history. Some events, like WWI, have complex unclear causes. Others, like WWII and Hitler, have clear causes. If there are any historians still alive after WWIII I think they’ll agree that the US and NATO caused the war.
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Hi all
View at Medium.com
Some of you might enjoy this article summarising the climate change situation. It’s got a lot of the basics, with some interesting bits of denial in it as well. “Like the earth isn’t overpopulated but a multi-bread basket failure could kill a billion people” (hmm sounds like overpopulation to me)..
Another humdinger: “This article by Bill Rees is titled Yes, the Climate Crisis May Wipe out Six Billion People: “a climate symposium organized to discuss the implications of a 4C warmer world concluded, “Less than a billion people will survive.” Here Schellnhuber is quoted as saying: “At 4C Earth’s… carrying capacity estimates are below 1 billion people.”
…. The earth’s carrying capacity without fossil fuels is below a billion anyway so. The threat of continuing to burn fossil fuels is the same outcome as stopping burning fossil fuels. WASTF
Michael Dowd did a recording of the article here: https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sam-hall-the-busy-workers-handbook-to-the-apocalypse
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Thanks monk. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of complexity on overshoot. For me it’s clear we’re already in big trouble.
We’ve raised the temperature by about 1C and that’s been enough to to melt the poles locking in 10M sea level rise, to cause extreme weather, to disrupt ocean life, and to burn the forests.
The CO2 we’ve already emitted will raise the temperature by about another 1C.
Stopping further CO2 emissions would kill about 7 billion people because almost all necessities of life depend on fossil energy.
If we try to continue BAU, affordable fossil energy will be depleted by about 50% in less than 10 years, killing roughly 3 billion. Population will then continue to trend down via war, starvation, and disease as the fossils fully deplete over the next 40 years.
The only wise path is population reduction and yet 99.9% can’t see this obvious conclusion thanks to genetic denial.
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Dear Rob,
It is indeed excruciatingly sad to understand the dynamic of society, see where this ultimately leads and not being able to convince people to anticipate. I agree that managing decline, and even better consciously achieve balance at a planetary level sounds the most alluring.
However, I also believe this is not going to happen this time: rapid collapse is now baked in (I guess in the same way that yesterday’s debt is today’s inflation).
It happened before with other civilizations, it will happen again this time.
However, I now still take solace in two (maybe opposite) considerations. Let me share them with you. Maybe you will enjoy these alternative ways of framing current events.
On the one hand, it seems to me that every time we understand a phenomena and try to control it, then it backfires a little bit later down the road (the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions). So maybe, it would not turn out to be such a good idea to consciously control our breeding behaviour: maybe it would, for instance, ultimately result in the species degenerescence (or some other unexpected outcome). Then once this new problem would be later acknowledged, we could try again to “fix” it, or just be overwhelmed by it and let it be fixed by itself. So trying to fix problems/predicaments, is in a way still going in the same direction: kicking down the can. Why not trust nature and let it do its thing: boom/bust is maybe the natural respiration cycle of civilisation.
On the other opposite hand, today is maybe another failed attempt by life on earth to integrate at the planetary level. We see it as a failure, but it is not the first and every time is the same yet slightly different. Maybe at some level, life is capitalizing experience and at some point it will achieve planetary level consciousness. So it may be a learning mechanism (through experiments and then triage) towards the slow rise of Gaïa.
I guess the first interpretation is more “native” (acceptance of natural cycles) and the second is more modern (growth oriented). These are two opposite views that both let us contemplate current events with joy. Because, truly, we don’t know: this plays at a far bigger level than it is for us to understand.
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Hi Charles, you are right that most actions we take have some negative side effect. Given that a smaller population improves every one of the thousands of problems we have created it’s hard for me to imagine that any side effects could be worse. But I do agree that accepting that things will happen as nature decides will probably lead to a happier life.
On your second idea, I can’t think of an example of life trying to integrate and failing in the past. What events are you thinking of?
I also don’t understand how our domination of the planet today can be viewed as an attempt to integrate all life. Rather than integrate, it seems we are attempting to consume all life.
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Hello Rob,
It took me some time to respond: I was waiting for you to be back and then I went to the countryside to plant some trees and tend for some others.
First, let me acknowledge my post was not supposed to be 100% rational and proof based. Its main goal was to to cheer you up, taking you away from the nuclear extinction considerations. And here we are today, having dodged, for now twice the nuclear misstep: after the air defender exercise and then the Zaporizhia threats/blackmails. For that, I am grateful.
Also, having lived through these mental loops for quite some time, I have discovered one can easily equally chose to experience every news negatively or positively. However, if one is truly honest about it: we don’t know whether anything is to be considered negatively or positively. The world is as it is. And I now prefer to take the stance that it is perfect, following its own optimum. Even though, it is beyond my reach to understand.
To answer your specific questions. Yes a smaller population could decrease the “problems we have created”. Or so it seems inside our heads within the little simple model we build to think about it.
First that’s only one way of framing it, an interpretation isn’t it? And a very engineer type of interpretation. Who is this “we”? What was really created? Why label them as problems? Water wets, fire burns, that’s it. How can the waves and the flames be responsible or even in control?
Second, that’s just intuition, but I believe that if we kept our population low enough to keep a buffer for the environment to strive (if such duality is even meaningful), then we would soon go extinct. As I see it, death is a necessary phase for evolution: generate combinations and then eliminate the unviable. To me that’s the way the species constantly explores its full adaptative space. There must be a surplus and it must be culled at some point. To me, that’s how healthy individuals are perpetuated through the ages. And, I am not very convinced by the goods of modern medicine in the long run. For instance, what are the true long term evolutionary implications of caesarean section, vaccination, aesthetic surgery and even brushing one’s teeth? (From personal experience, I have noticed the considerable difference in tooth quality between asians and europeans. That is of course, in general. Is this related to population density, to nutrition? I have come to the conclusion that life optimises itself all the time to any condition. And it goes in both directions: why invest energy in strong teeth if you can perpetuate without, why have a good memory when there are search engines…)
About the second idea: life integration at a planetary level. That’s a poetic intuition of mine. It most probably originates from this presentation by professor Tim Lenton. Specifically here (https://youtu.be/4_Rao6GR4Z4?t=217) and there (https://youtu.be/4_Rao6GR4Z4?t=480). We are on the verge of collapse, maybe extinction, but that may also be a point were life progresses on the planet. If I were to take it further into science fiction, I view mushroom networks as the underground brain of Gaïa, we, with cities, internet (and maybe our dreams) are mobile aboveground elements of this same brain.
About the previous failed integrations, I was referring to previous civilizations that overshoot. Of course, for now it seems that we are trying to consume all life. But weren’t the first successful organisms with photosynthesis also a problem at first (the oxygen revolution)? To me, the reason we seem to be trying to destroy all life is because we haven’t fully recognized that our life depends on other life. And that’s mainly because, for now, it doesn’t (there are still enough life working processes and enough stock energy to sustain us). But, this is shifting, quickly. We will both balance ourselves (letting forest grow in part because only trees will feed us in drought-ridden regions, regulating extractive and waste generating industrial processes) and be forced by external factors (for instance recurrent floods will quickly corrode cities once we don’t have enough energy for full maintenance).
I love change 🙂
Anyway, we are maybe just following some kind of pattern like the fairy rings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_ring) which grow outward at the speed they exhaust nutrients.
Or to have another analogy, this is maybe just like the “game of life” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vgICfQawE). Let us enjoy the arbitrarily complex pretty patterns life is generating for its own enjoyment.
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Forest fires across Canada this year are at their highest area. Fighting fires requires and enormous amount of fossil fuels and cost. It’s one example of the climate change predicament we are in. I live above the Kootenay River near Nelson BC in what is called the Interior cedar hemlock zone or interior rainforest. Every day I look at a mountain across from me where about 10-20% of the mature trees are dead from drought stress while many more are turning red on the way to dying. Our forests are rapidly becoming a carbon source rather than a living ecosystem that absorbs carbon. If this trend remains it will also impact Forest regeneration after logging as seedlings can’t survive dry springs and weeks of 30 degree plus weather. Another effect we collectively are denying.
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I smell an imminent false flag event that could trigger WWIII.
My take:
1) Russia is decisively winning against all that NATO can muster.
2) Ukraine is desperate for NATO engagement and US is panicking about imminent loss.
3) Ukraine is warning that Russia intends to blow up a nuclear power plant that Russia controls and is defending. This is crazy talk similar to Russia blowing up it’s own pipeline.
4) US leaders are warning Russia that any nuclear event in Ukraine will trigger a nuclear attack by NATO on Russia.
All we need now is for Ukraine to explode a dirty bomb near the nuclear power plant and to blame Russia.
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Sadly I think you are right.
We live a fraction of a second away from Nuclear Winter/extinction of the planet and our (U.S.) leaders think that is ok. Homo stupidus.
AJ
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Nate Hagens today discusses the challenges of creating a podcast about overshoot. Once again he discusses everything except what matters. I left the following comment:
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I actually found his tone and commentary kind of rude. Like he was saying us poor plebs are too dumb to handle the truth. I get so sick of the arrogance of academics. Like bro we know the financial system is going down and the population will end up back at less than a billion.
The idea that Nate could make a self-fulfilling prophecy with an audience of 40,000 people is silly. Plenty of commentators have pointed out we are in the mother of all financial bubbles and it will collapse at some point. Prominent financial analysts like Doug Noland have been calling it for ages, and still no bank run or similar has been triggered.
Having followed the peak oil and environmental scene since 2014, I have come to the conclusion that retired professionals are much more useful than academics. Often these people have figured stuff out decades before an academic turns the idea into a published paper.
I think there is more than enough 101 content out there (Nate’s original series, Chris’ crash course, JMG’s collapse now and avoid the rush). If these guys want to continue being helpful, they need to progress with their analysis. We are in the collapse now. I’d suggest now is the time to tell people why things are bad, give clear indication it will get worse, and try and guide people to the best actions to take now.
The whole Covid pandemic was a classic example of “leaders” treating the general population like children. It didn’t work. You have to respect adults as adults. When times get tough, leaders need to tell adults – we expect you to stand up, grow up, and make tough decisions. You’re on your own kid, rise to the challenge, don’t wait for the govt to save you
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Excellent rant. All good points.
Rogan with his millions of viewers has triggered no progress on criminal proceedings against Fauci. Hagens shouldn’t worry and should simply speak the truth.
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exactly!
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Good podcast, sadly I’m in the group that thinks nuke war is above a 50% possibility and financial collapse/civilizational collapse brings us up to 90%, with an addition of 10% due to biophysical collapse (global warming, resource limits), there is no hope. I just want to be dead before it happens.
The only thing is to reduce suffering for those remaining or coming after us, so you are spot on Rob.
AJ
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Mac10 today…
https://zensecondlife.blogspot.com/2023/06/technological-meltdown.html
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Wow,
I always thought Mac10 was basically a economic guy and was civilizational collapse unaware (maybe a few subtle hints of awareness?).
The first two paragraphs you copied above were full on awareness that the fault is probable in our genes. Too many of us and too much hubris (even poor Ted thought it was tech’s problem) in our own wisdom – homo stupidus.
Not sure Mac10 sees the energy angle or the problems with monkeys with nukes, but he sees an end – so not totally in denial.
I thought Tim Watkins was pretty spot-on about our hubris and where that leads today. https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/06/23/titan-a-reflection-of-our-insanity/
AJ
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that article was excellent!
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Chris Martenson is jumping into the peak oil deep end with his YouTube audience.
Curious minds want to know, will his subscriptions grow or shrink?
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Does anyone know how many subscribers he has? At $30 per month, even a thousand could bring in a fair amount but it’s probably many thousands.
Nothing to do with the video but I wonder why he seems to have put all the weight he lost back on again.
There isn’t anything in this video that most of us didn’t already know. I’m not inclined to join up to watch the members-only follow up.
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I’ve paid for a subscription off and on, and it’s not that good of value for money. Also he goes a lot more down the global elite conspiracy track in the private videos
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Yes, he likes to blame central banks for our problems. I’m sure he knows better but it sells because people don’t want to hear they need to consume less.
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I paid for a subscription once,, just for a month. I wasn’t impressed, though that was some time ago. I think a lot of these bloggers actually believe that there is some way out of this mess, if only governments could do the right things.
For this particular video. So what, if we could actually put on our energy goggles? What would we do differently? Probably nothing. What does Martenson do differently? Well, he’s severely restricted access to his site unless you pay him quite a bit of money. So he’s clearly got the energy goggle on.
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He’s hoarding to survive the contraction. That makes logical sense from a self-preservation point of view. Got to pay his mortgage for the off grid homestead too
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What’s going on in Russia is very murky. This explanation by Simplicius the Thinker is the best discussion of the murkiness I’ve seen.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/prigozhins-siege-ends-postmortem
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Momentum and evidence for a false flag is building.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/nuclear-falseflag-on-zaporozhye-npp
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Just for fun really. Predictions!
I’ve thought about creating a running list of predictions for collapse. It’s a bit tricky because I’m not very knowledgeable on climate change. So, ignoring most climate change stuff and the over-talked financial bubble situation, here’s some other things I’ve been thinking about.
• Collapse of certain industries that are relatively new, such as early childcare education. See this article for a taster. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/25/one-in-10-childcare-providers-in-england-likely-to-close-official-report-finds.
• Healthcare will continue to worsen. It is surprisingly hard in NZ to get a doctor’s appointment. I’m in this boat too. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/300755643/a-million-kiwis-each-year-are-struggling-to-see-their-doctor–ive-yet-to-meet-mine
• There will be a crisis of care for the elderly. More pressure for support will fall on their younger family members who are already working long hours.
• Global trade moves to super-region trade.
• War is likely. But it will be different than WW1 and WW2 because some countries will be more nervous about churning young people. Two exceptions might be India and China who have excessive male populations due to sex-selection abortions.
• It will get tougher for local authorities to recover from successive environmental disasters. This will be a combination of increasing disaster frequency, plus the rapidly rising costs of labour and materials. Insurance companies will continue abandoning whole communities. https://www.insurance.com/home-and-renters-insurance/home-insurers-leaving-florida
• It will get harder for local authorities and speciality regulators to enforce the growing bureaucracy of rules and regulations due to a lack of staff and resources. This will create both problems and opportunities.
• The declining volume of fresh water from the Himalayas may spark a regional conflict. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/20/himalayan-glaciers-may-lose-75-percent-of-ice-by-2100-report
• Rural power supply, roading, and other services will decline. Rural people were the last to see development and will be the first to lose it. Roading especially is failing due to end of design life. Authorities will start considering turning roads back to gravel/shingle and maybe some bridges won’t be rebuilt. Rural people in first world countries are not self-sufficient like they were 50 years ago.
Here’s an article from New Zealand, but the USA and others are in a similar situation. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2022/11/nearly-third-of-new-zealand-s-entire-roading-network-past-its-lifespan.html
• Transgender “healthcare” will be abandoned soon due to lawsuits and increasing pressure on limited healthcare budgets. Here’s an example from the UK https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62335665
• I expect mobile phones will be an exception to the trend of collapse, at least for a while. We will hang on to our phones for as long as possible. Maybe those older phones in the top draw will get a second go at life. Mobile phones are ubiquitous in a way computers never were and are so incredibly useful. Even the poorest people in the world find a way to get a phone and get connected.
• I predict that moral views will become more conservative over the next 10 years, but they’ll be different from past values that were labelled ‘conservative’. I’m seeing this trend on the fringes with vegan hippies turning into a new kind of meat-eating conservative.
• Trends in infant mortality and maternal death will start to increase.
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I don’t disagree with anything on your list.
These days I consider all products and services that are complex to produce and/or have a high energy input and/or are discretionary for survival as being likely to be soon less available and less affordable.
For most of us this list is very long.
I worry most about food, diesel, and war.
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Hi Monk (upper SI?), I like you list idea and agree that mobiles will be held close, trinkets of the techno age, even with the cracked screens. ‘We’ will also continue to fawn over sports and singers as it is a destraction to Rome burning. As an aside, the more ‘adventure’ tourists (read billionaires) that go to unexpected dangerous locations the better as Darwin should sort a few of these people out!
Cost of private insurance and reinsurance will go up substantially, to the point that many have already or will start letting these policies lapse. Then with increased natural/weather events, a greater proportion of people will be further impoverished as well as the continued infrastructural decline you mention. This places an even larger onus on the state to help out (Ruapehu Alpine Lifts, Gisborne & Akld floods). Waterways, sewer systems and the natural environment will naturally detriorate.
Most retail/service SME’s (main streets, malls) will close without further govt support leaving vacant commercial premises which will deteriorate under a lack of maintenance. The only businesses that remain are those of scale that have acquired share through the asset grab of the last 15 years.
Mental health issues will exacerbate be it anxiety, depression, or anger/violence.
Again, the state trying to promote migration and condensed living within the urban centres, alongside increased regulation and beauracracy on larger numbers of poverty stricken people will just lead to higher levels of crime – theft, burglary.
Jobs ‘under the table’ will increase again as people supplement any income however they can although within one generation we seem to have lost a lot of that self sufficiency that used to be so prevalent.
Cheers Kin (lower NI)
p.s. I dislike when people (Nate) says ‘I know some seriously important things but I can’t tell you, I can’t let it out’. Well just don’t mention anything then – leave that sentence out, saying that comes across as being pretentious.
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Thanks for the reply – all very good points.
I’m in mid SI 🙂
On your P.S. yes! I absolutely hate it too haha
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Some fun reading for this evening, shared by Nicole Foss on Facebook: Complex Systems Won’t Survive the Competence Crisis
https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR2NIstVLUrMoVaBxfusHO7JaCC-uuGomMGm-MB4IEePtmLUCgu1hdJC-jw
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Thanks. The article argues that complex systems are failing because our policies prioritize diversity over competency.
That’s probably true, especially in the US, which is still struggling to recover from its slavery foundation, but I think there are other causes of failing systems and falling competency such as:
The article would have been more persuasive had it listed all the possible causes and then presented data to show diversity policies are the primary factor.
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Yea I was disappointed with the article. I thought it would cover more stuff than just complaining about diversity
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I agree, one can’t place the blame for the collapse of complex systems at the feet of diversity… We’ve built out everything with cheap, abundant fossil energy, and now have to keep it running with increasingly expensive, less plentiful energy. Add in financialization, manufacture offshoring for wage arbitrage, automation, planned obsolescence, shredding the social safety net, private equity predation, corporate corner-cutting, etc., and you have the ingredients for all-around breakdown.
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They could have also covered idiotic rules, management practices, and dysfunctional organisational structures
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https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah
I’ve been looking through the contents of this blog for the last few days. All good stuff, but I haven’t seen any reference Peter Zapffe. In 1933 Zapffe wrote an essay called “The Last Messiah”. In this essay he outlines the psychological methods that humans use to effect denial of the nature of their existence. His final conclusion and recommendation is voluntary extinction, an idea that I’m certainly on board with.
I thought that some here might enjoy it.
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Thanks for the introduction to Zapffe. It would be interesting to look for synergies and conflicts with Varki’s MORT theory.
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Good one by MB. There is nothing to gain.
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Dave Allen on religion!
Saludos
el mar
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Hilarious!
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Damn. Martin Butler is more depressing than I am.
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Nine months after peak vaccination birthrates fell 10% which is the biggest decline in 100 years.
Hell of a way to implement the overshoot harm reduction policy we desperately need.
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Martenson does not see a silver lining in a dark cloud.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only public doomer that has sufficiently broken denial genes to speak the truth.
Might explain why I’m the public doomer with the smallest audience.
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But Rob and friends, it’s all about quality not quantity! Just wanted to quickly insert here that I’ve been faithfully taking my usual daily dose of this wonderful blogspace and very appreciative of all the excellent contributions as always.
Been flat out pruning and mulching trees and just enjoying being outdoors in the sunshine. Every day is a bonus–it has always been thus but ever more poignant now.
All the best to you and your families.
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I had a cycle interruption after my second vax. I use an app to track my cycle so have very good data and was a clear disruption. If you had a bunch of women’s cycle mucked up for a couple of months, that would reduce births by a lot
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So you think it is a blip rather than a chronic problem?
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Yes I do. In NZ that was the medical advice as well. The vaccine causes cycle disruption. I read on Reddit some women it took months for their cycle to come back, others just experienced a missed cycle (period didn’t come for a month or so). Menstrual disruption was around 30th most common symptom in our register for vaccine side effects. If you had lots of women miss ovulation for a couple months, that’s a lot of pregnancies not happening.
We also should take Chris’ point that if it caused cycle disruption, it could have caused longer lasting issues as well – give it another year and we’ll be able to tell.
Getting vaccinated while already pregnant may have been a lot worse….I dunno
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Click to access Thermodynamics_of_evolution.pdf
Extract, Page 130:
The reader would have acknowledged that the conclusions of the report are
also consistent with the laws of thermodynamics we have described. As
Georgescu Roegen recalled us, while dissipating energy, mankind inevitably
modify its environment. One now knows that the more it modifies its
environment the faster it must readapt. Figure 14 shows that it is already no
longer able to readapt fast enough to avoid a collapse of the population level
around 2030. It is indeed the Red Queen effect in biology or the process of
self-organized criticality in physics.
Evidence for this process is clearly shown by the numerical simulations of the
Meadows report. Evidence can also be seen locally all along the history of
mankind, not only in the West (chapter 14), but also on the american
continent with the examples of the Anasazi or Maya civilizations. The most
spectacular example of collapse is undoubtedly that of Easter Island (Rapa
Nui) in the Pacific Ocean. For a description of these events, I refer the reader
to the literature on these subjects (51). In every cases, it seems that a ruling
class has attempted to maintain economic growth, producing irreversible
transformations of the environment that proved to be fatal for the concerned
civilisation (52).
Given these exemples, the collapse of our current civilisations seems highly
probable, this time at the scale of the whole globe.
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Nice find.
About François Roddier
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What do you think of the idea of sovereign money? I think it is certainly better than the debt based Ponzi scheme as long as it is tethered to the real economy. https://positivemoney.org/our-proposals/sovereign-money-introduction/.
I think it could help mitigate the problems mitigated in this paper by David Korowicz. https://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Trade_Off_Korowicz.pdf
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The paper’s too long for me to read in full so my comments are made without a full understanding.
It looks like they propose:
1) moving responsibility of money creation from banks to the state
2) creating money via “printing” rather than lending
Benefits I see include reducing the power of banks, increasing the power of governments to direct funds to socially desirable purposes, and having a monetary system that does not blow up when growth stops due to resource depletion.
It does not seem to address a core problem that exists in both our current system and this proposed sovereign system.
How do you prevent political forces from increasing the money supply faster than the real economy grows thus creating inflation that destroys civil society?
I personally favor a full reserve energy backed monetary system entrenched in the constitution. The money supply would track available energy and we would be forced to live within our means with no ability for politicians to play dangerous games. This system would mean a lower standard of living in the short term, but it would be stable in the long term time with fewer nasty civil wars and revolutions.
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I think the proposal to change the monetary system confuses cause and effect. One would have to change or abolish the present ruling system, which is no longer possible because of its complexity. Because complex systems are doomed to perish from their own complexity (Tainter) – your second link describes the symptoms of this.
As I have tried to explain, money comes into the world only through the state, i.e. through force, oppression and coercion. Banks are only instruments of the beneficiaries and a consequence of the ever more complex differentiation of the economy based on the division of labor, but not the actual cause of the capitalist system. It was the state’s compulsion to trade that produced the division of labor and the compulsion to pay taxes gives money its value.
As long as we have a state, we have money based on debt. And without state coercion, money has no value. A commodity cover does not change this fact.
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I think I understand your argument that money based on debt is not optional. Do you believe a fraction reserve system is not optional? Put another way, is it possible to have a full reserve monetary system?
I believe it is the fractional reserve nature of our system that has enabled our extreme state of overshoot and has created the Seneca cliff we face.
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Hello Rob,
I still owe you an answer for the question about the monetary system.
Basically, we don’t have any reserve left in the monetary system. This enabled the enormous exponential growth. The step-by-step reduction of the reserve and its final abolishment were necessary to avoid crises, which increased the falling height for the coming final crisis.
I stumbled upon this thread today, which explains why a gold standard or full reserve system wouln’t be a solution for the capitalistic system. It was the author of the “Book for no one”, who wrote this prior to the release of his book in a German forum about debitism.
https://archiv1.dasgelbeforum.net/index.php?id=297450
(Shortended by marromai and translated with deepl.com)
What is “real value”? When you are hungry, gold is just as worthless as paper.
Why did gold have any value at all under the gold standard beyond its use for jewelry?
It was never a medium of exchange, so gold has never been chosen as money in stateless societies (because there was no money at all). The state demanded it as a tax, that’s why it was demanded, that’s why it had value (because it had to go to the state at the tax deadline), and that’s why it created prices (ratios measured in gold). It was simply declared money by the state power and thats it.
But why do people believe in a universal value of gold?
Because there is a millennia-old tradition in which gold was declared money by the state for practical reasons. This is also where today’s belief(!) in a value comes from. Only the belief gives it its value. Exactly what the fiat money apostles thus permanently claim of credit money (“it is not covered by anything and thus worthless”) applies to a much greater extent to gold (outside of a gold standard). “Fiat money” is at least covered by the collateral you deposit with the bank when creating the loan and the associated promise of performance.
What are “real values” then? The bank primarily liquefies your property that you offer as collateral. So that part of the money is backed by the pledged property (and the banknotes on top of are backed by your future performance or the promise to pay it back by performing). Under the gold standard, it was exactly the same. The only difference was that there was an artificial limit; for example, with a gold cover of 10%, only 90% more fiat money could be created than there was gold.
Prices are created in the first place by mortgaging your property (e.g. your house) when you take out a loan, i.e. it is expressed in monetary units. Example: You go to the bank, pledge your house and get 100 units of money in return. Thus, your house is suddenly worth 100 units of money…so with these 100 units, your house can be bought and this is how the price relations to other goods and services are formed in the first place. There is no value in itself, because there is also no money net, with which then is “exchanged”. Money always only pays debt. Completely no matter whether it consists of paper or of gold or of bits and bytes.
Gold was only a means of repaying debt because it was legal tender. Net money (gold without debt counter entry, which is exchanged), creates no prices. There must be a good that MUST be demanded (e.g. because the state demands it as a tax) and only after that it is managed at all to get this good. There has never been a barter economy and in principle there cannot be one.
The gold deposit of the money acted only as a brake for credit growth, nothing more. It backs the money system with something that cannot be multiplied endlessly, which is why deflation permanently hangs over it as the sword of Damocles. Since debt must always grow under capitalism in order to avoid deflationary crises, this brake had to be removed. The softening and then abolition of the gold standard was a perfectly logical step from the state’s point of view (preservation of power). Gold standard means: crises at shorter intervals, but with a smaller drop. Abolition of the gold standard means: crises at longer intervals, but with a greater fall height. In any case, a paradisiacal crisis-free economic area exists only in the wet dreams of equilibrium theorists.
That’s called capitalism, and the main driver is debt pressure and the compulsion for economic and debt growth. If you think you can save the world with a gold standard, you are on the wrong track. One man’s debt is another man’s credit. One man’s wealth is another man’s poverty. That’s the system, whether it marches on paper or gold (you just ruin the planet faster with paper).
“Gold is money, everything else is credit.” (J. P. Morgan)
This is a favorite phrase of the gold bugs, Mr. Morgan said it when there was still a gold standard and he was absolutely right then. Only this gold is worth nothing without credit, because only the credit and the pledges under it give it a value. If all loans were settled, gold would be worthless even on the gold standard.
Today the sentence would have to read: “Only property is money, everything else is credit”.
If all credits were settled, there would be no more money and thus no more price for property.
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Thanks. I continue to wonder if we can retain the best aspects of our economy and simply change the monetary and taxation systems to something that does not blow up by design, and that is tethered to biophysical and social cohesion limits.
Before discussing an issue like this we must agree on the definition of capitalism.
My definition is:
– contract law enforced by a fair legal system
– property rights enforced by a fair legal system
– a reasonable portion of profits untaxed as incentive and reward for risk, skill, and hard work
– prices set by by the market forces of supply and demand
My definition of capitalism does not require or imply:
– externalized environmental costs
– infinite growth on a finite planet
– extreme wealth inequality
– debt that grows faster than the real economy (aka fraction reserve monetary system)
Wikipedia seems to agree with my definition, although it uses many more complicated words. Note that Wikipedia does not even mention monetary system or capital gain tax requirements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
It looks to me like you have a different definition of capitalism. What is your definition?
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Hello Rob,
basically I like your definition of capitalism and go along with the description – for the economic part.
You say it yourself, a defined legal framework is needed as a prerequisite for any kind of economic activity, since economic activity either takes place as enforceable fulfillment of contracts or not at all. This presupposes in capitalism as well as in socialism and in every other system – except anarchy – a superimposed power system that provides this legal framework. The problem lies in the “fair” part, because power corrupts. The power system will always act to its advantage in order to maintain and enlarge itself (dissipative system).
Same for the economic part, a deliberate imbalance is needed: The interest rate for lending money (without which no one would give credit and therefore no economic activity would start at all) looks like the trigger for a Ponzi scheme, which automatically ends in demand for infinite growth, due to its exponetial nature.
As I cited Paul C. Martin in an earlier comment: “The dilemma of the state is a non solvable one.” There is no such thing as a perfect State. And even if it would seem so for a moment, this would not hold long, since there is no such thing as perfect equilibrium.
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Results of a poll by Elliot Jacobson on Twitter (18000 Votes) appears to suggest strongly that the problem is not overpopulation/overshoot. It’s either beastly capitalism/the 1% or the fossil fuel companies. (seem to be unable to post a copy).
Elliot is a self proclaimed doomer and yet his audience just don’t get it. They appear to need a villain to blame (so we can do something about it?)and can’t accept that it’s denial of our basic
nature. We all, by and large, want to dissipate as much energy as possible in every way possible and as cheaply as possible-it’s our task (thanks James). This inevitably leads to overshoot/overpopulation.
Talk about not seeing the wood for the trees.
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I guess that you’re refering to James @ megacancer.com. I know that he was the first to point out to me the parallels between cellular metabolism and human activity in general. I believe his analysis holds up well.
Rodiere, of course, demonstrates the ratcheting action of evolution writ large. All matter, including “living matter”, will attempt to arrange itself in accordance with the dictates of the MPP.
I wish I had something pithy to add to James and Rodiere, but I don’t. So I’ll just say:
We’re just like RNA in a cell, arranging molecular substrate to make enzymes and such (tools and such), to act on other molecules in order to release their bound energy, to the putative benefit of the cell. We do it all unconsiously, completely in the dark.
I have to think that denial has little to do with the process. Even if we were somehow completely aware of our efforts. We somehow knew without a doubt that if we continue in this process the cell, and the body in which it resides, will eventually fall apart and die.
I guess that the paradox might be is that we do “know”. We all know that we will die, undeniably. That’s exactly why we have to continue doing what we do, as hard as we can, as fast as we can. Out with the old, in with the new. Make room for something bigger, faster and better. That’s what we’re here for. I’d say.
I’d also say that we’re completely in the dark, with no light in sight. That which through-puts the most energy the fastest (MPP), wins.
Something like that…
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I respect James’ work. I think his story is a valid and insightful way to explain overshoot.
I prefer the simpler analogous story that life is governed by the MPP because the “goal” of every replicator (like DNA/RNA) is to become two replicators.
I disagree with your point that denial has no role in this process.
Humans are the only species with sufficient intelligence to understand replicators, MPP, overshoot, etc.. The “goal” of human replicators would be better served by constraining our population and consumption, but that would violate the MPP.
My hypothesis is that genes will not (can not?) permit MPP to be violated and therefore the only way for a high intelligence (that could override MPP) to emerge in the universe is to simultaneously evolve a tendency to deny unpleasant realities so that MPP continues to operate, despite sufficient intelligence to know better.
This leads to the conclusion that high intelligence will be vanishingly rare in the universe and we should be in awe of our gig.
Doubly so that we are alive to witness the brief peak of what may be possible in the universe.
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I highly doubt that there is any high intelligence (in the way you describe it) in the universe. From what is known of evolution, I just can’t see that happening. Anywhere.
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Which means aliens visiting us is nonsense (for other reasons too).
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Absolutely, Rob. I used to help out a UFO investigation group when I was much younger, in my 20s. But I’m now convinced that no aliens could develop the technology to leave their own star system and actually do so. Nor will we. Heck, we won’t even develop a “permanent” base on any other planet or moon. I’m appalled at the money and resources that goes into trying to do so.
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Head shaking sadly…
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Overpopulation/Overshoot is the correct answer but Big Oil and the Capitalism are not innocent either. Exxon downplayed and denied climate science for decades even though their own scientists knew better. Capitalism encourages behaviors that worsen overshoot.
Someone responded
@OtherPercent is missing the point entirely.
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Population collapse is what happens to species that overshoot carrying capacity.
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Hey I wrote a comment before to this which didn’t upload – so I’ll make a shorter point. Much of the doomer/environmental/climate aware space is full of what I affectionately call “idealistic idiotic lefties”. They believe in getting to utopia or that we used to be in a utopia. What’s in our way is the evil capitalists. If we could defeat the evil, we could have our utopia. I agree with JMG that this is a re-hash of Christian mythology – the good people deserve heaven and the devil gets in the way. It’s an idealistic view not attached to reality. It allows people to believe insane things like all companies are evil while completing depending on said companies to stay alive. For the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sensible left-wing policies, and many of the policies I like are left-leaning. I just think the idealistic lefty analysis is terrible and when taken to extremes it is dangerous (like ‘lets kill all the farmers’)
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And because I like lists, here’s the sort of things idealistic idiotic lefties do and say:
– Worries about cow farts more than Portland cement, electricity production, private jets and yachts.
– Believes in net zero, tail pipe emissions, and hydrogen.
– Thinks that talking about overpopulation is racist.
– Refuses to accept that GDP reduction is the only thing that reduces global emissions. I.e., the “solution” to climate change is a crushing depression that lasts forever.
– Has a degree and above average income but complains they are an oppressed class.
– Thinks it’s easy to cycle everywhere because they live in a central suburb.
– Tells you Jevon’s Paradox is a myth *eye roll.
– Might idealise the past and think it is easy to live off grid / off the land.
– Ignores historical facts about indigenous peoples that doesn’t fit in their narrative.
– Will burn a down a tree and call that reducing carbon emissions. (biofuel electricity).
– Gives you a blank look when you mention human carrying capacity.
– Only talks about the parts of human nature that suit the narrative like greed; but won’t acknowledge say denial.
– Honestly seems to believe that if we got rid of all the rich people, no new rich people will come up and take their place.
– Talks about ‘climate justice’ or ‘just transition’. Thinks we can lift people out of poverty while decreasing energy use. Like WTAF read a history book. I’m not saying we should just sit back and let the poorest people suffer needlessly but there’s just an idiocy here to do with actual resource availability.
– Has a naïve view of war. For the winners, war makes sense from a genetic and resource point of view. You can understand why war makes sense without agreeing with war. But it puts you in a much better place to understand strategy and offer meaningful analysis.
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Good list. All true but most also apply to right leaning people. Everyone is ignorant and in denial.
What’s with the left these days wanting war? I remember when the right were hawks and the left were doves. Now everyone wants war as long as someone else does the fighting.
One week of American or British or Belgian kids dying at the same rate that Russians and Ukrainians are dying and everyone would change their tune.
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We have to distinguish between types of left and types of right. Mainstream left leaders seem more like central globalists than anything. I was very much focussed on the idealistic sorts that inhabit the doomersphere.
I should right a list for “faux intellectual righties” too – the ones that call out bright green lies but are so in denial about where our civilization is heading:
– Overpopulation is a myth perpetuated by globalists who want to control us.
– There’s no such thing as resource shortages.
– More oil production is essential to lift the world out of poverty (quarter true; lifted out of poverty but planet unlivable ha!)
– Bureaucracy is the cause of all our problems (not actual physical resources of course).
– Tar sands mean we can continue our current way of life for hundreds of years.
– If you want degrowth you must hate humans.
– Climate change is happening so slowly it’s not a major concern. Hey it might actually be helpful because we can mine Antarctica and the world is getting greener dontcha know!
– Social progressives are the biggest threat to our civilization.
– People who complain about colonisation are a bunch of cry baby losers who should be grateful for all the benefits of civilisation.
– Human ingenuity is so great there’s no point even talking about problems – we can solve it all!
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*Write a list – LMAO I can spell I promise
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They of course won’t mind if Polak kids are sent die. We’re the low man on the pecking order, just behind Rooskies and Ukes.
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I agree with many of your points. Here are things I will add.
-Cow farts aren’t really the problem. The real problem with cows is the clearing of rainforests and other wild habitats to feed cattle. 96% of mammalian biomass is humans and livestock and only 4% is wild.
-Population will go down in the future whether we like it or not. If we take steps to address overpopulation now, we might be able to soften the landing.
-We use energy and pretty profligate ways, especially in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
-Expanding on the above, in the U.S. and Canada we built nearly all post-WWII neighborhoods around the automobile.
-The overdeveloped countries will increasingly become like developing countries.
-Indigenous peoples did make mistakes but there is a lot that modern societies can learn from them.
-If large numbers of urbanites suddenly tried to live off the land, it would go disastrously.
-If you are energy blind and deny overpopulation it is easy to see how you could (falsely) conclude that you can lift people out of poverty while decreasing energy use.
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Hey thanks for replying. I totally agree with you. Couple of things I would add:
I wish They would talk about the real issues that they really mean with farming – obfuscating everything under the climate change rubric isn’t helpful IMO. For example, in NZ we could ban importing meat from South America (where deforestation is happening) and eat our own meat (where we already deforested 100 years ago and are now growing forests). We could also talk about how cropping is unsustainable.
Standard of living and self-reported levels of happiness are strongly co-related with energy burned per capita. Doesn’t bode well for the future; I agree we are heading to developed status.
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Sorry about that. WordPress spammed it. I restored it above as soon as I got home.
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all good 🙂
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I lost some respect for one of my favorite Youtube channels when they posted an overpopulation denial video. Instead of actually talking about climate change being a symptom of overshoot, they just repeated the usual left-wing overpopulation denial.
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Climate change, at least the human caused variety is a symptom of not living sustainably. I guess unsustainable living is, by definition, overshoot and so human caused climate change is a symptom of overshoot but it’s more a symptom of unsustainable behaviour.
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Frankly, I am not sure I understand the question asked in the poll: “Who or what carries most of the blame for our predicament?”
Is he asking who or what should be removed/stopped in order to fix things? Is this the old us/them finger-pointing reaction? (blame is a strong word, isn’t it?) Is this a sign of the times coming soon (violence against establishment)?
Isn’t overshoot a description of our predicament rather than a cause?
Is the human species really failed? Doesn’t it just behave like any other species? Doesn’t this result from the nature of reality (described by MPP or some other physical law)?
He could have added an option reading something like “that’s how things are”/”nature of reality”/”God” to the poll.
Aren’t we all playing some kind of complex game theory, where we tend to always ascribe problems to others while not questioning or modifying our own behaviour?
And “Doer is a mere fiction added to the deed.”
Sorry, I am lost as soon as a discussion bumps into the “why”. My mind goes like this:
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Thanks, one of the most impressive brains that has ever existed.
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A lot of the degrowth, overshoot aware, climate change aware, environmental, and doomer space is populated with what I call “idealistic idiotic lefties”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with left-wing values (I would consider myself leftwing). However, what is unhelpful is when these people actually believe there could be a perfect utopia (worker’s paradise, no racism, no sexism, return to indigenous etc). Or they believe that there used to a be a utopia until those bad people did X. I’m feeling a bit inspired by JMG and would like to speculate that this is a Christian narrative, just with different characters. A perfect world awaits the good people, they just have to cast of the devil first.
How this plays out in real life is things like:
– Focusing on cow farts rather than Portland cement, private jets, electricity production, and yachts.
– Saying how evil fossil fuel companies are while driving a car and wearing plastic clothes etc.
– Saying that overpopulation discussions are racist.
– Blaming companies for everything while using said companies’ products and services to stay alive.
– Has a university degree and higher than average income yet complains about being in an oppressed class.
– Idealises indigenous people and disregards historical evidence about indigenous peoples that doesn’t fit the narrative.
– Loves nonsense like net zero, tailpipe emissions, and hydrogen.
– Tells you Jevon’s Paradox is a myth.
– Vegan nonsense like wool is bad, but toxic ponds from synthetic fabric production in China are fine somehow.
– Idealises the past with little real-world experience of farming / living off the land. It is so much harder than it seems, especially if you grew up in suburbia.
– Refuses to accept it is a predicament.
– Refuses to accept the solutions to climate change mean no more civilization.
– Refuses to accept that recession is the only thing that is proven to reduce global emissions.
– Refuses to accept that as far as emissions and the environment go, there is no (or very little) difference between a socialist, fascist, or capitalist country.
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The Amish probably have much lower rates of the “diseases of civilization” (i.e. obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.) than the general population.
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Yes and more sunshine generated vitamin D.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x
Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers
For many observers, UK Chief Scientist John Beddington’s argument that the world faced a ‘perfect storm’ of global events by 2030 has now become a prescient warning. Recent mention of ‘ghastly futures’, ‘widespread ecosystem collapse’ and ‘domino effects on sustainability goals’ tap into a growing consensus within some scientific communities that the Earth is rapidly destabilizing through ‘cascades of collapse’. Some even speculate on ‘end-of-world’ scenarios involving transgressing planetary boundaries (climate, freshwater and ocean acidification), accelerating reinforcing (positive) feedback mechanisms and multiplicative stresses. Prudent risk management clearly requires consideration of the factors that may lead to these bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Put simply, the choices we make about ecosystems and landscape management can accelerate change unexpectedly.
Extract:
The Easter Island model aims to explore alternative hypotheses behind the collapse of the Easter Island civilization36. The initial parameterization of the model here is the same as the ‘ecocide’ configuration detailed in ref. 36. The main internal social-ecological feedback driving model dynamics is the balancing feedback between human population growth, tree coverage and land clearance, whereby the overharvesting of the primary resource (palm forest) can lead to overshoot dynamics and the eventual demise of the human population (ecocide).
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by Art Berman
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I usually think of Kevin Anderson as a scientist who is real about the challenges faced from the climate crisis and doesn’t shirk from calling out the inadequacies of the response so far. However, I just read an article by him about what needs to be done and even he seems to think there is some wonderful world awaiting us if only we took it seriously.
I can barely believe it.
OK, perhaps people will be taken in by a nice hopeful story and start to do “the right thing.” But what will happen when they realise that there is no sublime society waiting for them at the end of that journey?
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Kevin Anderson is one of very few climate scientists I respect because he tries to set a good example in his personal life.
I stopped reading the paper when I saw he was arguing we still have a chance to not exceed 1.5C. We’re at 1C today and it’s clearly not safe. How can 1.5C be a useful target?
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“I disagree with your point that denial has no role in this process.”
Well, not sure how denial of a fact ever changed a fact. Assuming that the MPP has some factual basis, then humans will arrange themselves accordingly, as circumstance (Law of the Minimum and such) might dictate. The proof will be in the pudding, so to speak.
Of course, their delusions and such will continue for as long as there are humans. Whatever system works will be declared to be the God given best and such. People will continue to try to bargain (deny) their way out of death. But, so what? Changes nothing, I guess.
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I’m not sure I understand your argument.
This blog is about trying to understand the reason we are unable to use our uniquely powerful intelligence to acknowledge and act on human overshoot.
If it’s not an evolved tendency to deny unpleasant realities (that enabled our unique intelligence to emerge) as proposed by Dr. Ajit Varki, then what is it?
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“If it’s not an evolved tendency to deny unpleasant realities (that enabled our unique intelligence to emerge) as proposed by Dr. Ajit Varki, then what is it?”
I think it’s pretty easy to understand. Our evolved tendencies to deny unpleasant realities (like death, for instance.) is one of the things that allow us, impel us, demand, that we do what we do. We must go into overshoot, until we can’t. That is what our “intelligence”, so to speak, is for.
We must break chemical bonds, to release bound energy, as fast as we can. The only real difference between humans and RNA is that we go out into the enviroment and gather substrate. Celluar RNA is confined to bilological cells. We are not.
Our intelligence [sic] may be unique, among other animals, in that we can “envision” outcomes, but it behaves the same as predicted Darwin, Roddier, “James”, et al.
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Thanks. I think we agree on what’s going on.
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Wildfires in Canada are affecting air quality in the U.S.
Heatwave bringing dangerous conditions to Texas and Mexico.
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Better hurry up and buy more EVs.
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Very good discussion on Ukraine by minds I respect.
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To answer the panelists question about who is/will be in charge in Washington I suggest watching Tucker Carlson’s latest diatribe on Twitter. Even though I disagree with Carlson on some issues I love his finely tuned sense of irony, ability to call out hypocrisy and perception of stupidity of those in power in the U.S.
No one’s in charge in the White House except Obama and some small part of Biden’s family.
AJ
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2021 interview with RFK Jr. just released by Bret Weinstein.
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Must listen. Too much important stuff for me to summarize. Most interesting thing for me was RFK Jr. disclosed that after investigating vaccine harms for 10 years he stumbled on evidence that suggests there is a high probability that his voice impairment was caused by a flu vaccine shot he received.
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RFK Jr. also explains one of the biggest and most distressing mysteries about covid.
Why was it a priority to vaccinate children who had zero risk from the disease, with a vaccine that did not prevent them from spreading it to old and vulnerable people, despite harmful side effects to the child including permanent heart damage?
RFK Jr. said it is because a vaccine given to children automatically makes the vaccine manufacturer immune from claims of harms in all age groups.
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Nice overview of nuclear energy in France and Germany and the challenges of maintaining the aging fleet.
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Good one from Gail Tverberg today.
Something indeed is very strange about covid. Assuming health care was the top priority, we did the exact opposite of what we should have done on every issue. Most interesting to me, despite a mountain of damning evidence, none of our leaders care. They’re clearing thinking about something else.
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https://www.rintrah.nl/xbb-1-the-variant-family-that-has-learned-how-to-use-vaccine-imprinting-to-its-own-advantage/
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This video about the 6th mass extinction refuses to talk about overpopulation or ecological overshoot.
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Thanks, I haven’t watched it yet but a consistent pattern of denial is to discuss everything except what matters.
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Today’s interview by Kunstler of Michael Dowd is decent. Nothing new for this crowd but it’s the first time I think I might understand what Dowd’s all about.
Charles, I’ve got a feeling Dowd’s message will resonate with you.
https://kunstler.com/podcast/kunstlercast-380-post-doom-with-eco-theologian-michael-dowd/
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Yes.
Ancient myths and religious texts can be read as the recounting of past hardships. They may thus provide ways to cope with reality (which may be one interpretation of God), describing as much the inner reality as the outer one. They can also be sources of inspiration: they show potential paths outside of contemporary reality, the artificial and transient reality which is collectively built by the current “narrative”. Or they can also function as heads-up: the testament is replete with so many doomers (prophets) and falls. In a way, they are maybe a first tentative to capitalize human experience.
On the more individual and mystic level, they (to my eyes more fundamentally) urge us to reconnect with Truth (another word for reality/God). So they are maybe supposed to be a way out of any form of denial (and more crucially the denial of our “naked” present experience, all that truly is).
(Small aside, given the time I spend playing with mental constructs/fantasies in my mind, I am probably lost in the most extreme form of denial: the denial of now. It’s an addiction difficult to let go of)
But they can equally blur your mind: all interpretation being done by the reader. These texts also emerged from intense battlefields and are subject to power plays (as much as wikipedia).
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Starting tomorrow I will be offline for most of a week. Going camping. Feel free to marvel at Varki’s theory in my absence.
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Have a lovely time Rob. Thank you for making this little spot of sanity available to us
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Have a good trip
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A fluffy, irritating, frightening, interesting video on bioweapons that probably explains why Fauci is the highest paid US government employee, despite the mountain of evidence compiled by RFK Jr. that says he should be in jail, and despite the fact that Fauci caused covid.
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Kunstler nailed it today. The growing divide is not between left and right. It is between pro-Blob and anti-Blob. The pro-Blob wants to believe what they are told to believe by the mainstream media and no amount of data or evidence will change their mind.
I think about this a lot post-covid.
Given that the force is strong enough for people to harm their own children with a novel vaccine technology, it’s no doubt strong enough to cause a nuclear war.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/blobocracy/
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Yeah, I have many similar experiences with the people I’m surrounded by. Many still think that Covid originated in a “wet market”, that Trump is/was a Russian Agent, that Putin is EVIL, all white people, except maybe those within their immediate circle, are evil racists, etc, etc…
Very disheartening. People wonder why I mostly just keep to myself.
The whole “money thing” is kind of a bugga-boo for me. If my money isn’t worth anything, and “they” seem to be working on that, then I’m dead. I guess. Not that I have real problem with dieing, per se. I guess that I have a problem the whole pretend game that is being played around me. Eh, I think that everbody has no choice but to keep hoping and pretending. I guess.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/blobocracy/
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Hello there Dave and friends,
I so hear you and join you in the hopium war that continually brews within me. It’s like we’re living in two different realities just to survive with the last bit of sanity we have to keep going. Our family is still immersed in the workaday world of pretending there’s going to be a retirement fund awaiting to keep us comfortable through our old age where we can enjoy all the modcons we are used to, etc, but at the same time we know that isn’t going to happen so we’re using all remaining energy and resources to create a life where we may be able to segue out of that, namely making a homestead where we can be more sufficient in some basic needs, especially growing food and fuel. But that takes umpteen resources and money so we have to keep the day job going, pretending that it won’t change for some time, and that of course means interacting with the rest of the society or even family and friends who are completely blind to our predicament, which takes energy and can be so frustrating and disheartening (as well as irritating!).
This is my “safe” space where I can find others who generally share the same perspective of our human and planetary condition and I can voice my opinions freely being true to myself. What an incredible lifeline this has been and no words (not even my usual verbosity) can come close to expressing my gratitude for this. I hope your ears are burning a bit wherever you are now, Rob, (and hopefully not from sunburn!) because we are all thanking you for making this happen!
All the best to everyone, and for those in the States, may the 4th be with you, however you choose to take meaning from gaining independence!
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Hey there Rob, by now I hope you’re out the door on your digital detox and reinvigorating yourself immersed in nature. I am sure I speak for all of us here wishing and knowing that you will have a fabulous time doing and being where you love best. In addition, I wish for you peace and tranquillity and a renewed sense of the magnificence of just being alive. In the depths of the forest, under the night stars, you may even be able to leave all other thoughts about overshoot and collapse to your blog where we will continue to keep them simmering in your absence.
We look forward to seeing some photos!
All the best and thank you.
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First the periphery, then the center.
https://nation.africa/kenya/business/kenya-breaches-sh10trn-debt-ceiling-4290990
h/t Panopticon
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Far out the last thing we need to be doing is messing with science education:
“Science teachers are shocked that an advance version of the draft school science curriculum contains no mention of physics, chemistry or biology.
The so-called “fast draft” said science would be taught through four contexts – the Earth system, biodiversity, food, energy and water, and infectious diseases.
It was sent to just a few teachers for their feedback ahead of its release for consultation next month, but some were so worried by the content they leaked it to their peers.
Teachers who had seen the document told RNZ they had grave concerns about it. It was embarrassing, and would lead to “appalling” declines in student achievement, they said.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/300921067/teachers-shocked-at-leaked-draft-of-science-curriculum–wheres-the-science
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Michaux keeps getting attacked by those who wantThe Transition to be possible. Here’s the latest: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/07/04/how-many-things-must-one-analyst-get-wrong-in-order-to-proclaim-a-convenient-decarbonization-minerals-shortage/
It starts out, in the first few screens, by attacking the man, belittling him. That is an instant red flag. But it does point to a video that apparently debunks Michaux’s analysis. It does go into more detail on the report but doesn’t appear to back up assumptions about energy with actual data and calculations.
I don’t know if Michaux has seen the article or the video (by a different person) but it would be nice to get his reaction, if someone know how to contact him about this.
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“Michael Barnardis a member of the Advisory Boards of electric aviation startup FLIMAX, Chief Strategist at TFIE Strategy and co-founder of distnc technologies” so totally doesn’t have an agenda (eye roll).
I’d rather listen to an actual scientist than glorified salesman. This fella is no different to those green hydrogen hawks.
And it doesn’t matter if Simon is wrong by a factor of whatever, the point still remains that rare earth minerals are not renewable and very much as finite as fossilized carbons. That puts a time limit on industrial civ, and all the other issues with electrification are still there – such as smelting steel, making silicon wafers, and transporting goods.
And when Michael says, “But he’s not an electricity and energy guy. He’s not a batteries guy. He’s not an EV guy. He’s not a decarbonization guy. He’s not a systems thinking guy. He’s not a grid guy. He’s not a fuels guy. He’s not a transportation guy. He’s not a minerals recycling guy. He’s a mining and minerals expert, within a subset of that field.” … Umm yes that’s the point LOL!
Anyway, Michael’s arguments:
1. We’ll somehow have less energy demand in the future because of heat pumps. Wrong, no proof that efficiency gains reduce energy use or demand.
2. Disagreement about how many batteries would be required in a “renewable” energy system. Better to be conservative on this just in case, especially since batteries don’t last very long.
3. Michael believes in other energy storage solutions (like pumped hydro) that have been shown to be negative energy return, more grid storage (don’t you need more minerals to build more grid storage though?), and new cooler batteries (innovation will solve resource shortages!).
5. Michael sells products and services for electricity storage. He claims his solutions are fab.
6. Ignores physics and says batteries can power trucking and shipping.
7. He’s done the work you guys! What has non-superstar Michaux ever done!?
8. Michaux should have accounted for aluminium being used as a conductor as well as copper. No mention of what the quantifiable effect of this is, just a pithy example of something from the EV industry. He disagrees on concerns about copper. I mean you could just take known reserves of copper and compare them to annual consumption instead of freaking guessing how people will use copper in the future….
9. Recycling myths from Michael. Michael also ignores energy and carbon costs of recycling.
10. “[Michaux] is telling a story a lot of people want to hear, and so is being amplified by the usual suspects.” Really?! Seems like no one wants to hear it
11. “Someone defending his analysis on a LinkedIn thread yesterday said he [Michaux] was submitting his paper for peer review, which is always a bit of a crap shoot. It’s possible he’ll get it accepted. It won’t be in Nature Energy, that’s for sure.” Just recording this here for posterity.
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The ad hominem attacks were about 40% of the article. One thing that Michaux didn’t take into account is that electric motors are more energy efficient than combustion engines.
But energy skeptic has a few articles on this:
https://energyskeptic.com/2021/diesel-finite-where-are-electric-trucks/
https://energyskeptic.com/2016/who-killed-the-electric-car/
https://energyskeptic.com/2022/why-how-mining-metals-for-renewables-will-destroy-the-planet-not-prevent-the-energy-crisis/
https://energyskeptic.com/2015/all-of-california-electricity-per-year-to-power-16000-catenary-trucks-on-2400-to-8275-miles-of-highway/
Alice Friedeman is the technofix slayer
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Gosh, monk, they are excellent points. Thanks for this!
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I could have been really mean and said “it was an uninspiring piece of creative writing from a BA English major” oops
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I cleared my cookies recently an now all of the usernames in the comments show up as [1].
It also happened with Surplus Energy Economic which is also a wordpress site.
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Oh no! Another sign of the collapse of complexity
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I know the feeling! WordPress will not let me do “Like” anymore and it makes me jump through hoops just to put “AJ” on comments. (I probably have something set on Firefox incorrectly?).
AJ
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Oh, No! It’s doing the dreaded [1] to me too.
AJ
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It could be Firefox. Just trying another browser with this comment, to see. Alternatively, I sometimes use WordPress reader, which I’d probably use exclusively except that notifications of comments link me here. I just looked at Reader and it has the right user names. Anyway, here goes a comment using the Brave browser.
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Well, it posted cleanly but shows [1] for the user name, and “like” didn’t work. So, back to Reader.
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@Rob Mielcarski
I read you article about polymaths in denial.
I would characterize some of the polymaths in denial as being partially in denial (e.g. David Attenborough and Jared Diamond)
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Yes, David Attenborough is a good man and is trying hard. He has spoken publicly about human over-population being the core problem.
I can’t remember why I put Jared Diamond on the list. I wouldn’t have done so without a good reason. I have read his Guns Germs and Steel and thought it had many good ideas.
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So much denial. A “Head of Science” at a Climate Change Foundation (whatever that is) wrote this:
“Our current energy system is predominantly based on the use of fossil fuels. And the way we describe it has been developed with that very fact in mind. 82% of our primary energy came from fossil fuels in 2022 (https://lnkd.in/eRYb49xV). Primary energy is the energy as it is available in nature before it has been transformed. This relates to the coal before it has been burned, uranium, a barrel of crude oil etc…
For fossil fuels, primary energy is easy to determine. But for renewables or even nuclear this is much less so and different conversion factors are used by different agencies: the substitution method, direct equivalent, or physical energy content. Depending on this choice the contribution of renewables in the energy mix is quite different. Moreover, for a given energy scenario (like the Net-Zero by 2050 from International Energy Agency (IEA)) the choice of method changes greatly how the future energy demand looks like. For a similar scenario, primary energy could decrease or increase while physically the system is the same. In other words, primary energy does not represent a real physical reality anymore in a low-carbon system.
One other problem with the concept: it omits that 65% of the primary energy is currently lost in different conversions. Every unit of primary energy DOES NOT NEED to be replaced. Using primary energy overestimates the energy needs in the transition: the primary energy fallacy !!
The energy transition requires to talk in final or useful energy.”
https://www.zenon.ngo/insights/beyond-primary-energy-the-energy-transition-needs-a-new-lens
I replied:
“This doesn’t help us at all when primary energy is (and always will be) the base input for every other energy system that we use. This is the energy equivalent of ‘creative accounting’.”
And this was Nate’s reply:
“Nice comments. My quibble is thus: society (and nature) optimize for power, not efficiency. It’s why waste has been evolutionarily selected for. There is also complexity, momentum and built infrastructure. Ie we’re not starting w even playing field.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/55535/waste-is-good. Doesn’t allow invalidate the truth of your underlying statistics-only the path dependence of current situation”
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I didn’t realise that that was the definition of primary energy. Without going deeper, I’d always assumed it somehow meant the energy used for the activities that could be measured (electricity consumed, petroleum products consumed, etc.). So, really, the sun is the only truly primary energy we have as everything derives from that, in some way (except, maybe, uranium).
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Two primary energies.
Fission, in the earth’s core, drives plate tectonics, which provided the energy gradient and ecology for the origin of life in the deep sea vents.
Fusion, in the sun, provides the photons that power all complex eukaryotic life via photosynthesis, and the energy stored in earth’s O2 battery that humans are short circuiting by burning buried carbon, and drives our solar panels and wind turbines.
I just learned that complex life like plants and animals cannot exist without plate tectonics and it’s probable that plate tectonics would not be possible without an improbable collision with a mars size object containing just the right materials, at just the right angle, in the right direction, at just the right time in earth’s history.
This collision created our large improbable moon which is also necessary for complex life by stabilizing the earth’s tilt.
The collision also created a large iron core in the earth which creates a magnetic field which is also required for complex life.
In addition, plate tectonics would not work without earth having received a large quantity of water from asteroid collisions in it’s early days.
There’s dozens of other improbable things that complex life requires. Including luck.
And that’s long before we get to an ape that believes in gods.
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I couldn’t like the comment but I do! Good point about energy from the earth’s core.
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A conversation between Nate Hagens, Bill Rees, Nora Bates and Rex Weyler.
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Good conversation. They’re all trying to make sense of how we can be blind to something so obvious as human overshoot, and yet, every one of them is blind to Varki’s MORT theory, which provides the most probable answer they’re all seeking.
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Great opening by Rex Weyler about where the boundaries between the elements of nature are. I didn’t really understand much of Nora Bateson’s opening other than it’s impossible to understand ecosystems from snapshots, given that so much is going on, continually.
Bill Rees got it exactly right and I’ve said this many times. Humans are no different from other species but we’ve just managed to make the environment favourable to us and so have grown exponentially, as any other species would in favourable circumstances. Humans are a species so don’t expect some voluntary behavioural change that would set us apart from other species.
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It’s surprising to me that ecological thinkers who seem to accept that nature causes overshooting species to contract but don’t appear to be able to think about how nature goes about that contraction. It is almost always by increasing the death rate rather than decreasing the birth rate, probably because the latter causes further problems with the age imbalances. However, Bill Rees did mention war as a negative feedback to overpopulation.
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War and a declining health system. If you know anyone over 85, they’ve normally had multiple surgeries, on multiple drugs, multiple trips to A&E. Bionic bits in them, hip replacements, hearing aids, cataracts lens etc. Multiple trips in ambulances (and sometimes helicopters). Most donated blood is used for older people. There’s no way most oldies could live as long as they do without our incredible healthcare system. In New Zealand it is even more incredible that it’s nearly all free.
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Too true, monk, too true. A good friend’s 84 year old father finally died last week after nearly two months in hospital with end stage heart failure, basically he ended up drowning in his fluid-filled lungs. In the past 5 years leading up to his death, he had heart bypass and replacement valve surgery, radiotreatment for prostate cancer, multiple gastric cauterisations to stop a bleeding arterial malformation in his stomach, and subsequent regular blood transfusions due to blood loss, plural pleural taps (a weak attempt at a pun) to relieve more accumulated fluid, countless trips to cardiac, gastro, and renal specialists, and mountains of medication, all taken care of by our comparably comprehensive healthcare system in Australia. At the end stage, they were hoping to get him home to die and organised a hospital bed, oxygen compressor, CPAP machine, wheelchair and all other aides to be delivered to the house, but he never got there. The cost over the last few years of his life would have to be nearing half a million if not more, and who can tally up the real energy expenditure, and still the end result is decline and death and not exactly an enjoyable process.
And the baby boomers’ onslaught of medical needs has only started to begin, but our government has flagged a health care levy for this eventuality which will not even come close to making up the shortfall. Private insurance will collapse between paying out and loss of premiums from people dropping out from the high cost. As an energy system, even wealthy countries like Australia and NZ will have to curtail their healthcare spending for the aged just so other cohorts of society will have some access to emergency care. But the problem is everyone is now expecting this level of care, first for their parents and then themselves–like electricity and fuel on tap we think we are entitled to health care by virtue of being a citizen of a certain country. Since politicians rely on the senior vote, it will be interesting to see how they can swing this and keep their job. So the end result will just be printing more money to cover the dwindling healthcare resources just to usher sicker and sicker people to their final illness. That’s dissipative energy in action!
WASF, I think I like this catch all acronym!
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Sorry, your comment was spammed by WordPress and I restored it as soon as I got home.
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It’s remarkable and scary at the same time. I hope we don’t lose good healthcare for pregnancy and children. Old healthcare will need to be scaled back at some point
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They obviously struck someone’s nerves.
@4everhdt
“Sorry but this is disgusting. It’s just a circle jerk of misanthropic wannabe Stalin’s who think they know everything. People who live sheltered lives and think that bugs are equal to people. People who reference Rachel Carson’s completely discredited and false book. People who want to cut off our access to plentiful, inexpensive energy based on sketchy computer models of not well understood systems. The “yoga village” crowd.
If Humanity continues give the reins of power to people like this, it will be the biggest mistake we’ve ever made.
As a side note, the ecological movement is really just a front for the globalist movement, financed and controlled by the richest most powerful people on earth to enforce a complete poverty and totalitarianism on all but the very richest. “
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WASF!
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Ugh! It’s so mystifying and frustrating that some friends, with whom I normally get along with well and share interests like growing food and learning practical survival skills, have this sort of perspective (especially the bits about they’re keeping free energy from us and actually we can feed more than 10 billion people) and now our Venn diagram of possible safe conversation has been severely truncated. Actually with most people I know, I cannot even begin to bring up the overshoot issue, much less population reduction or else I would be a very small circle indeed, floating alone in the abyss. That was until I found this blog, now we can all be happy little interconnected Venns holding hands.
I had to look up what WASF means. I first thought What a Shit Fight, but the other is equally the case.
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Hmm, I couldn’t see that comment. Maybe it has been removed.
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I just got back from 6 nights camping near the small community of Sayward on northern Vancouver Island. I had the whole campsite to myself with a nice creek running past my site. No cell phone signal and no internet.
I did a lot of reading including:
– Rare Earth by Peter Ward & Donald Brownlee
– Reality Blind by Nate Hagens & DJ White
– Nick Lane (for the umpteenth time) on the origin of life, the eukaryotic cell, and photosynthesis
– Eric Smith on the origin of life (again)
– Eric D. Schneider on the origin of life (again)
– Alone in the Universe by John Gribbin
Someday I hope to write a post integrating them all. They each tell an amazing story about our improbable existence and yet each misses important pieces of the puzzle, and they all of course miss Varki’s MORT 🙂 .
Tomorrow I’m off for 6 days at a friend’s cabin on Upper Campbell Lake in central Vancouver Island. We plan to do some deck construction and fishing. No cell or internet so I’ll be quiet again.
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Beautiful, perfect break!
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Ooooh, thank you so much for sharing those images. What a breath of fresh air, literally, are those majestic trees. I know Gail would have been in your thoughts as you are carrying on her homage to these life-giving organisms. Enjoy the next instalment of your nature break for all of us.
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An addendum: I cannot help but notice that nearly every photo showed dead or dying trees amongst the living, just as Gail despaired. That makes me feel even more in debt to these life forms’ sacrifice and I honor the fallen who now give back to the soil. Is there anything more magnanimous than a tree?
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Yes, I see sick trees everywhere I look here on Vancouver Island and I don’t remember them when I visited the same areas a decade ago. It’s still very pleasurable to walk in the forest even though I know it’s struggling.
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I was never aware that the Brazilian government banned Daniel Everett from visiting the piraha. How sad
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Did you post this comment knowing I wrote about Everett’s book?
I may not have time to watch this video. A brief explanation of why he was banned would be appreciated.
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Daniel Everett proposed the controversial idea that language didn’t have to be recursive. He used the piraha language as evidence of this. This upset some people like Chomsky (who believes that all language is recursive). and made him some enemies in academic circles. Chompsky publicly called him a charlatan which i thought was unprofessional to say the least.
My understanding from the doco is that some of the academics that he pissed off by daring to challenge the theory/dogma that all language is recursive got in the ear of the department that issues the permits into the reservations and saw to it that he wouldn’t be allowed in. More or less out of spite. As of 2022 he has still been denied access.
Yes I did post it a bit of an update to your review.
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Thanks kindly. I remember respecting Chomsky years ago. Not any more.
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Particularly like his last line, “Don’t indulge in any fantasy’s”.
Not sure I agree with #3 that “Life is decay”. Initially life is growth and renewal until you reach evolution’s “goal” of reproductive fitness (sure you get to this growth by degrading energy gradients, but it’s still growth). After that it’s the long, hopefully slow slide to the grave (without any hope for anything else).
Now I have to chop wood and carry water.
AJ
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Yeah, I guess that’s an arguement.
But animal life is always offset by some greater amount death and decay, of other life forms. ds/dt>0, survival of the fittest, that kind of thing. Autotrophs don’t depend on other life forms, but everything else remains the same.
And, growth and reproduction are never guaranteed. Death and decay are absolutes.
I’m pretty comfortable with the idea that life, growth, death and decay, are all the same.
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This is a wonderful entry point to refer to the “Book for No One” mentioned in the article.
It shows at the end that everything happens in cycles – from a cell to the universe.
Life is an oscillation in the void: out of nothing something arises, grows, gains inner complexity. Like a fractal, it differentiates itself further and further until it begins to collapse at the point of its maximum complexity in order to disappear again into nothingness.
Everything that arises is worth that it perishes. (Goethe)
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I can’t read german, so I can’t read the “Book for No One”.
But yes, complexity is the “goal” of evolution, as outlined by Roddier in “The Thermodymics of Evolution”. This is also in accordance with the Maximum Power Principle, in that all matter will arrange itself to dissipate as much energy as possible, as quickly as possible.
So yes, matter will assume the most complex configure possible, within a given circumstance. The circumstance and the configuration are always in flux. As circumstance changes, often, at least partially, due to the localized configuration, the configuration itself must dissolve, generally into some lower energy state. It may become unrecognizable at this point.
Is this process cyclical? I don’t think so, except maybe in limited situtations. Like the water cycle on earth, driven by the sun. There are reversible and there are irreversible processes. That kind of thing.
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Interesting Frankly from Nate Hagens who says eliminating gasoline (petrol) will not reduce the amount of oil we consume, as EV advocates expect.
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Good piece. If you already knew something about hydrocarbon distillation you understood this intuitively. Most people are totally clueless about where their energy comes from. Only if you move to a purely 19th century agricultural lifestyle (human & animal power) could you live without oil. I don’t see many volunteering for that.
AJ
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Right. But volunteer or not, eventually everyone will have to move there, or to an even earlier lifestyle.
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You are right. The 19th century is my contribution to hopium. We will be lucky to just survive as a species at a lifestyle worse than any hunter/gatherers had it in the not to distant past.
Done with carrying buckets of water to the gardens for 5 hours.
AJ
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you could use bamboo pipes. I have a theory that bamboo is the reason for China maintaining civilization for such a long time
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We have about 300 metres of mature bamboo hedging on our land. A very useful resource indeed.
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Sorry, how do you use bamboo for pipes? I have 3 or 4 varieties of bamboo (1/2″ to 3″ diameter) but . . . all my bamboo grows in internodal lengths of 1 to 2 feet (and then a node and leaf brackets). The node is impermeable to the easy flow of water. Some of my bamboo reaches 30 feet in length. Perhaps you are lucky and have one of the varieties that has long internodal lengths? (I’ve never seen any (maybe only in the tropics?).
AJ
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I haven’t tried using it for piping yet but you would definitely need to clean out the nodes AJ. Here’s an example….
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Wow, this guy was really good with the machete! I would lose fingers fast trying this without some kind of power tool.
AJ
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AJ what’s happened to your account?, it’s sharing your email address.
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I am so disgusted with WordPress I just don’t comment as much as I would like. Between it and Firefox they make me log onto a WordPress account every time I want to comment and say “no account” multiple times. Too much work to remember what they want every time. Sigh.
AJ
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Yeah. I often try to remember to comment via WordPress Reader, instead, as I don’t have problems when doing it that way. However, the feed links me to the un-denial.com page, so many of my comments are done there, which is not pleasant, as you say.
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I double checked the settings. I’ve turned everything off that might make commenting difficult:
1) No name or email is required.
2) Users do not need to be registered or logged in.
My guess is that for the least hassle, and a consistent presentation of your identity, and assuming you want to maintain anonymity, I would create a throw away account with a temporary email and then stay logged in with that account.
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I had a long discussion about this topic with my best friend at his cabin last week. My friend has much experience and knowledge with diesel powered machines of all sizes.
Diesel is better than gasoline for big machines due to it’s higher energy density and ability to operate at higher compression ratios. Nevertheless we could in the future, as we have in the past, operate big machines with large gasoline engines. These machines would not be as efficient or fast but they would work.
Nate is therefore overstating the problem. We could in theory stop driving cars and redirect the gasoline to life sustaining trucks, tractors, combines, and mining machines.
Of course, if all personal transportation ends it’s probable we’ll all be a lot poorer due to reduced economic activity and therefore it is unlikely we will be able to afford replacing a big chunk of the diesel fleet with new gasoline powered machines. So maybe Nate is right but for a different reason than he states.
Also switching from diesel to gasoline does not solve the problem that we are totally dependent on a depleting non-renewable resource. It just buys us a little time to continue doing the opposite of what a wise species would do.
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Yes, I’m sure that the gasoline fraction wouldn’t be thrown away by the refiners and a further market will be targeted by them. So gasoline may well be used for some large machines. Overall, that would mean a lower use of oil in total.
I agree that if all personal transportation ends economic activity will decline. But EV advocates appear to believe that the world can continue as it is, but using EVs instead of ICE vehicles. If that dream was realised (it won’t be) it would not save as much oil as they think.
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Our Inescapable Predicament – Facing Reality
Dale Walkonen, Rupert Read and Michael Dowd
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66183069
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66195722
Heat waves in the news
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I listened to this interview on podcast. Jordan Peterson is sanctimonious while accusing others of the same. Still an interesting mix of realism and denial.
Realism points:
– Green energy doesn’t deliver environmental benefits.
– Green energy makes electricity more expensive.
– Excellent discussion on how poor people are impacted by these green energy policies.
– Understanding that without fossil fuels most people would die.
– Good discussion on how environmentalism has been replaced with climatism.
– Environmental and community harms of wind and solar.
Denial points:
– Believing there is still more than enough fossil fuels.
– Not understanding that fracked oil and tar sands are completely different from regular crude oil.
– Clearly doesn’t understand that diesel is the master resource.
– Clearly doesn’t understand energy return theory.
– Unquestioned belief in technological progress.
– Being mean to Paul Ehrlich. Not worried about overpopulation at all.
– Don’t worry about carbon because it helps trees grow in arid regions.
– Brushes over resource scarcity.
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Thank you for the excellent summary. It’s denial in full display from a polymath, again.
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“This week on Planet: Critical @SimonMichaux and @NafeezAhmed go head-to-head in a debate to determine whether we really have enough materials and minerals to sustain a renewable economy.
After publishing a report stating that we don’t have enough materials, researcher, Simon Michaux blew up the Twittersphere and faced backlash by systems researcher and investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed, who critiqued his report.”
https://www.planetcritical.com/p/debating-the-transition#details
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I listened to this driving home from my friend’s cabin. I found it to be a very disappointing and irritating discussion devoid of data and evidence with lots of blah blah blah.
The gist of it is, although we disagree on whether a transition to renewables is feasible, we both agree that it is impossible to do so while maintaining business as usual. If we fundamentally change our goals, and our lifestyles, and our culture, and our economic system, and get better leaders, then we can have a lovely future.
Nothing to it. I wish someone had presented such a simple solution sooner.
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Haha Rob! I’m glad that the few weeks of relative tranquillity away from the full-on doomsphere that is our planet hasn’t totally curbed your refreshing sarcasm!
It reminds me of a news piece here in Australia touting fission as our eminent energy saviour, the quote went something like “we’ve worked out the science, so it’s just an engineering problem now.”
You see, it’s all your kind’s fault that we can’t make things happen, the ideas are there but we just need better engineers!
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Yeh well this engineer doesn’t need to study anything to know that containing and controlling a piece of the sun in a bottle at large scale is a technical challenge that won’t be solved in my lifetime and probably never.
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You hit upon it! All we need is to figure out how to put the sun into a bottle, the ultimate genie that gives you any wish you desire! I knew I could count on good ol’ engineers to come up with the solution! Maybe I need to go back outside and get some fresh air, even though there’s no heatwave where I’m at, it seems my brain is frying being facetious.
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Yes, lots of blah blah blah. Near the end, Michaux details some of the limits with materials. Ahmed says the calculations are probably correct, for the assumptions made. But Ahmed imagines that the whole system will change, so Michaux’s assumptions are wrong. But the imagined changes aren’t detailed, just airy fairy words. At least Michaux is detailing what his assumptions are but Ahmed just shouts more loudly, “but it will all be different when the transition is done.”
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I’ve listened to some of this and was shaking my head. Ahmed assumes we don’t want to stop mining and Michaux agrees. But Ahmed seems to think there is some way of doing mining without damaging the planet. Incredible. The host didn’t grasp that it’s not only about the resources being there but it’s also about the rate of extraction being there for the transition being made in significant time frames. Ahmen even talked about overbuilding renewables by 3 to 5 times, to reduce the battery need, without appearing to realise that would take more resources at a faster pace, though the host did mention the need to replace equipment every 20 to 40 years. Lots more head shaking stuff as well but more to listen to.
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My friend and I visited some recently logged areas last week. When I was 16 years old I had a summer job logging. It was brutally hard work. This is how most logging is done today.
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The horror.
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It’s the same scene in Tasmania, minus the snow (and different species of trees). To think that this is happening in forests flat and sloped all around the world, every single day, and accelerating as we near the end, is a very despairing thought. Trees were always doomed once Homo sapiens realised how much they could give when dead.
A main consideration of bamboo for fibre and structure is you don’t kill the plant when harvesting. We’ve cut over 100 culms from 4 clumps, they are about 4-5 inch diameter and useful length of 25 feet to make a very rustic privacy screen/fence. The clumps still look robust, just thinned. The amount of biomass is astounding. The leaves are excellent mulch, and the branches and thinner tops of the culms make stakes of all sizes and biochar. I am in love with bamboo, but I still view them with a glinting eye for what they can provide besides beauty, shade, windbreak, and oxygen. How much more can we ask of a living species? What have we given back? Maybe it’s not love, after all, if it’s so one-sided.
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When you aggressively harvest bamboo do you have to add a lot of fertilizer to replace what has been removed from the soil?
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Good question, so far we’ve harvested less than 20% of the total mass of the clumps a selection from first year growth to the oldest culms and not even every year. It seems that the vigour of the clumps has been maintained each year in that the size and quantity of the shoots are increasing, so I think so far they are self-sustaining with their copious leaf mulch. But the clumps are rather young, about 10 years old so we’ll see how it keeps up. In any case, there’s been far more biomass in 10 years in a rather compact footprint than any other plant I can think without killing the mother plant. There is an interesting aside in the bamboo lifecycle, however. Each distinct species of the clumping varieties has a “use-by” date in that they spontaneously flower wherever they are all around the world at a specific interval (ranging from 50-80 years) to set seed and then often the majority of that species dies, but having made seed for the next cycle. Most of the clumping type bamboo in cultivation are actually clones from vegetative propagation and are subject to this phenomenon. It seems that this mother of all grass has a built in mechanism to control their population. If only we were so venerable and wise as the bamboo, but we are only Grasshoppers learning.
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Very interesting, thanks.
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Hi Gaia. Our bamboo is around 25 years plus and is going really well still. We gave a about half of it a massive haircut last winter cutting it all by around two thirds in height. The regrowth of both the trimmed culms (thickening up of side shoots) and new shoots has been phenomenal. It looks great and the new growth means lots of photosynthesis pumping sugars into the surrounding soils to be picked up by neighbouring clumps and other plants nearby. I love all the things about it that you mention.
Our shed we’re building will this summer include a large amount of bamboo wattling before daubing with clay from our land.
I’m also aware of the use-by date characteristic and this could happen some time in the next 30 years here in the Far North of NZ with all of the bamboo apparently having a common parentage beginning in the 60s and 70s.
Hope your food forest is doing well. We’re currently enjoying bananas off our very first bunch with another half dozen plants at various stages of bunch development. It’s very satisfying.
Namaste
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Hello there Campbell, thank you so much for painting such a vibrant picture in words of your and Nicki’s fruits of your hard labours, it brought a big smile and a virtual high five to you and your family. I can visualise what you described about your bamboo, having a mental picture of what it looked like before from that inspiring walk-through video that you shared last year. That must have been a huge task to trim them so, hopefully it will last for some years and you can do the other half in the meantime. Just thinking about bamboo and how fast it grows is stupefying and seems to put our cares into another perspective, and reminds us so clearly that there are other living things that matter on this planet, each with their own unique lives. Our largest species (not that size matters!) is a Dendrocalamus Latiflorus, also known as Sweet bamboo for its excellent quality edible shoots, which after 10 years is sending up 250-300mm diameter culms that are 25m high, simply awesome. One day someone will be grateful to use it for a very instructive building project, as for me I am just happy to look up (and hug a culm!) Do you have any other species on your property in addition to your very impressive border? It’s good that you have a sort of heads up on when the next mass flowering event may be (assuming that we’ll be around to witness it!), I have absolutely no idea on any of the 15 different species we have here in Far North Queensland, but it won’t be all at once so that’s a relief. By now you must have discovered that the culm sheaths make incredible tinder, never need to worry about paper for starting fires again! And we got this handheld bamboo splitter device, it looks like a wheel with pie wedges, that makes short work of splitting the culms and when dried, they are also fabulous kindling. As you know, bamboo burns quick and hot but you want to make the cuts between nodes otherwise they explode, quite exciting when we do biochar and it doesn’t matter then outdoors. You can see that I can talk bamboo all day, I am that smitten!
Congratulations on your first bananas, that is a very happy occasion indeed and well earned! Did you have to bag them to prevent “sharing” with birds and critters? I would think that possums would also be celebrating the maturing of your banana clumps! What variety of banana do you have there in NZ? Did you get your hands on Blue Java and Red Dacca by the way?
This year we had a pretty excellent citrus harvest with the hands down favourite being the Cara Cara orange which is a navel blood orange/sweet orange cross. Beautiful jewel like rosy flesh that is just the perfect balance of tang and sweet, and super juicy, too. Do you have access to this cultivar there? Run, don’t walk, and get yourself a tree! And another fire-starting tip, dry orange peels on top of your woodstove (intoxicating orange aroma when they are drying) and then use them as firelighters, the oils in them keep burning well for some time.
I also harvested a couple jackfruit which was really cool, do you like jackfruit? For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, think 5-10 kg bumpy blobs when cut open yield yellow-orange segments in sticky latex and taste like bubblegum! Seriously weird but true!
The black sapotes are also doing well, but still not quite ready to pick and ripen yet. I hope yours is really taking off now, it just takes a couple years and then they’re up and away!
This year we ruthlessly pruned all our subtropical fruit trees, literally removed the top half of each tree to encourage side branching and hopefully more fruiting. Also good for cyclone preparedness, less tree mass to break and possibly do more damage to the main trunk.
Well, I think that’s a wrap from me this time, thank you all for your longsuffering if you managed to read it all the way through. At least you now know that I didn’t choose the moniker Gaia Gardener for nuffin! I am always eager to hear how everyone’s garden is growing, we have such an interesting range of climates represented here and every year is bringing new challenges as well as discoveries. A shout out here for AJ who I hope is having a break from bucketing water. You’ve got a few years on me and I really admire how you’re keeping on, more power (even if fossil fueled!) to you there in the Pacific NW.
Namaste, friends. May you find peace in the simple joys every day.
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Probably nothing to worry about.
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No, nothing to see here, move right along, hey look at that–it’s a Barbie movie, don’t you just love Barbie! gag
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William Rees says it is taboo to discuss overshoot.
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“We’re in a helluva mess” sums it up well.
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Kunstler thinks citizens will soon wake up and get angry. I’m not sure. The friend I spent last week with was a mRNA advocate during covid. I unleashed on him key data and facts he was not aware of that I think proves our health care professionals and leaders are some combination of evil morons.
My friend did not argue I was wrong. He did not counter with conflicting data. He just looked at me with a blank stare and said nothing.
I doubt anything will wake people up.
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/situational-awareness/
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A new talk by Tom Murphy which is an excellent heart-felt update on what was my all-time favorite talk until now. What a clear thinking, kind, and wise mind!
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/07/a-one-hour-message/
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Another recent presentation by Tom.
If this does not bring tears to your eyes then you are an AI.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/06/here-we-are/
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Very good. It is a kind of extension of Albert Bartlett’s lecture.
I love the comparison to demonstrate how wrong is the perception that innovation is accelerating. A person from 1900 dropped into 1960 would be far more bewildered than a person from 1960 dropped into 2020.
Some other points:
Civilisation is not even close to sustainability – civilisation is not sustainable
Homo sapiens agriculurali is redlining
We need to reject facile “solutions” and encourage critical thinking
One thing I’d argue with him about is that humans are “better than this.” Humans are simply a species and will never be better than this. Depressing but, I think, factual.
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Four years ago Nate Hagens aggressively told me I was overstating the climate change threat because there wasn’t enough oil left to cause a dangerous climate. I asked for evidence and he sent me a stack of papers that did not impress me because my eyes and the clear thinking of James Hansen told me otherwise.
It’s now clear that I was right and Nate was wrong.
Perhaps four years from now Nate will begin to talk about the need for population reduction policies.
https://www.ecoshock.org/2023/07/climate-catastrophe-could-be-very-close.html
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An updated case for possible near term human extinction:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2023/07/dire-situation-gets-more-dire-every-day.html
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I’m inclined to discount anything from that blog. It has shown in the past to be remarkably poor at logical thought and maths.
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I have not read enough of the blog to have an opinion. I think I recall Gail Zawacki speaking highly of it.
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The writer known as Sam Carana has often made ridiculous claims about Arctic sea ice. One famous (to me) incident was taking two estimates by Semiletov and Shakhova of Arctic methane release, made years apart – the first with limited observations, the second with much more observations but in quite different areas of the Arctic – and taking them to be two data points dated as the time of the estimate (there were no dates attached by the researchers). Through these so-called data points, the persona known as Sam Carana, drew an exponential curve and claimed some kind of methane bomb by such and such a date. Another example was using data from quite different data sets as though they were from the same data set and claimed it showed some kind of humongous warming exponential growth was going on. Guy McPherson gulped down all this nonsense as some kind of justification for his wild theories.
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Good to know. I’ll remove that site from my newsfeed.
I recall Sam Carana was unmasked as a female climate scientist (I think) somewhere in Europe.
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https://www.rintrah.nl/why-you-dont-understand-it/
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Man this guys goes on a lot about autism. Um autistic people are just as capable of being infallible and they can get a lot of things incredibly wrong if they struggle with ‘black and white thinking’. Saying “I have autism so I must be correct” is a very poor argument indeed.
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I like the tone in general and presentation style but don’t understand the white people bit and it came out of the blue. Living in a rather multicultural environment I’m very certain that non-whites are not exactly more ecological conscious than whites. Visit the middle east for reference that it might be the opposite. And it’s culture anyway. Monotheism and the apocalyptic vision of the Christians did a number on our own culture and MPP made everyone else join in the death cult of our western techno-industrial civilization.
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yea I tend to judge racism pretty harshly as a sign of low intelligence. It is weird for him to do this when he wants his arguments to be taken seriously
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https://climateandeconomy.com/2023/07/18/18th-july-2023-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
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Good essay on the coming depression by Charles Hugh Smith.
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-two-causes-of-coming-great.html
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I don’t know Edward Luttwak and I don’t vouch for him.
He thinks peace with Russia and war with China is imminent.
China had an aggressive enlightened program to reforest their baren slopes. Now (apparently) they are cutting those new trees down to plant more grain in preparation for war.
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If America goes to war with China life for Australians is going to become a living hell overnight. It will be instant rationing of everything important. No more intestate travel. No fertiliser. Mass job losses and extreme poverty.
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If we avoid war with China you may have to deal with Australia having the world’s biggest real estate bubble.
https://podcast.app/the-grant-williams-podcast-matt-barrie-full-e335836140/
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https://psyche.co/ideas/learning-to-be-a-loser-a-philosophers-case-for-doing-nothing
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At least he had the good sense not to subject some poor soul to the misery of having him as a father. Imagine being raised by someone like that haha
But to be serious, if you found this idea interesting, you might like the Escaping Society podcast. One of the best podcasts out there run by two hobos from the USA
https://g.co/kgs/ckWKTi
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blimmin ‘eck google shared the wrong thing. Here’s the link https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gumby-montgomery
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Reminds me of a friend who wants to become a Useless Dolittle (use-less-do-little). An admirable goal and he’s well on the way.
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Today’s essay by Tim Watkins is a good one to bookmark for a friend that someday approaches you seeking to make sense of troubles in the world.
It’s hard work to write a long detailed essay like this and I admire Watkins.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/07/19/our-predicament-re-stated/
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Rob,
You are right, this was a long and detailed look at how we got to this tipping point in history (due to the fossil fuel blip) and how the way forward historically (probably rapidly backward civilizationally) is likely to be a bumpy road to fewer people and no technology. No easy fixes and I think he would say JMG’s view of a catabolic collapse is probably as much wishful thinking as a “Green” future.
AJ
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Thank you Rob for this link. That was a great overview of how it came to our predicament and what awaits us in the future.
He also explained very well and aligned with the debitistic theory I mentioned above, how it came to this misery by the discrepancy between real and financial economy through the debt based financial system.
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Good essay. Long, can’t say that I didn’t skip over large parts of it. It did prompt some thoughts.
Part of the problem is having “visions of the future” in the first place, no matter the content of the vision. Of course these “visions” can be nothing but delusions of various sorts.
Being the “Doomer” that I am, I foresee, based on various portents, an extreme human population crash in the relatively (10 – 50 years? Maybe sooner?) near future. Not many share my “vision”. I think that’s because no one alive today has seen it happen before. So they can’t imagine it.
Another big problem is thinking that things could somehow be different now than what they are “if only” something different had happened in the past. The problem here is that nothing else could have happened, other than what did happen, because that’s what happened. Thinking anything else, and extrapolating some imaginary alternative outcome, is just a fantasy.
I like to think of everything as both contingent and ephemeral. But that’s just me.
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Very wise.
I am with you on the contingent, ephemeral and population crash (with a slight window variation, maybe 5 – 30 years and I surely hope it’s a delusion, due to my natural mistrust)
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I don’t know there’s any real difference between 5- 30 and 10 -50.
I’ll be surprised if there are more than 2 billion people alive on earth in 20 years. I’ll be even more surprised if I’m still alive in 20 years.
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Before the internet goes down, we should have a big doomer session on Zoom and congratulate ourselves on what we got right! There’s also a lot of people I want to say “I told you so” to. 50% facetious, 50% serious
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Agreed. I am unfortunately envisioning roughly the same outcome. I believe it’s the first time, I have explicitly heard someone state it. I sure hope I am just a pathologically depressed and negative person rather than a lucid individual. But since I started studying this topic (almost 25 years ago), I believe no global metric has truly improved. And only recently has the public awareness increased.
However, there is still a faint shimmer of hope in my mind. It’s in a way a source of torture (the trap of the future outcome), since it relentlessly forces me to push myself into action rather than calmly contemplate the evolution of things (I guess it is the implacable survival imperative). Thus, there are three versions of “positive” stories (one could say denial, since so far they have bumped into hard numbers and the reality of human nature) which coexist in my mind on the background of hopelessness:
* the new Genesis/new Golden Age/reconciliation type. That is, a collective rise in consciousness which makes everyone work in unison towards greening the planet with trees. The rise of a new logic where human beings tend for the living so that it provides, where we abandon power structures in favour of dialogue. We lose material possessions but are able to feed almost everyone and then gradually bring the population down. Utter wishful thinking, I know 🙂
* the Exodus type. That is, we wander 40 years in the desert, in extreme conditions, which purifies our soul, reconnects us with reality(/God) before we get to the promised land. And I am part of the first generation which is too old to make it to the end. This story is positive in that, even though none of the Israelites who started the journey made it to the promised land, if my understanding is correct, the population size was stable throughout the Exodus (new births replaced the deaths).
* the ark of Noak type. That is, be part of the few who prepared and are then somewhat lucky (or in other words forgiven by God)
To Rob, here are some ideas for future post: we could have a poll on future world population and time range. Or we could collectively list all the limits to human population and strategies that could on the contrary give some room. And then come up with a few alternative scenarios. But probably, at this point, on the edge of “the acceleration of collapse”, that’s just pointless work and too depressing…
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Hi Charles, those ideas would make an interesting post. Would you like to write a guest post?
I posted above an excellent presentation by Dr. Tom Murphy that made me feel something emotional and spiritual (which doesn’t happen very often). I think you might like it.
Here it is again for those that might have missed it:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2023/06/here-we-are/
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Thank you Rob for the kind proposition. It will be my pleasure.
I can’t promise when I will be done, though. Also,proofreading will be welcome.
If that’s fine with you, would you send me an email to my private address so that I know how/where to submit?
I watched Murphy’s video. A great one, and a great person it seems, with a nice balance between cold analysis and sensibility.
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Excellent. I’ll send you an email.
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Hello friends,
I, too, have been indulging in predicting how many more years I may be alive and for me, 20 more years seems far too optimistic, I am afraid. On a good day I am thinking maybe I have 5-10 years on this planet before things get so bad that I don’t want to be on this planet anymore. Then it would be time to give someone else who wants to fight to survive a chance at whatever resources I would have been using. I am coming to terms with what it means to make that decision and feasible ways to effect it and it is not so objectionable as it first may seem, choosing one’s manner of death seems to me a very fitting way to cap off a self-directed and examined life, which remains our privilege and for the Stoics, a duty no matter the outer circumstances. To me, this philosophy is especially empowering and comforting now.
I am trying to practice detachment as a way to prepare for inevitable loss of everything that is my world. The discipline seems to swing wildly, some days I think since there’s so little time left it doesn’t matter if I hold onto whatever attachment I am contemplating and at other times, I can look at an object or preference and think that will be the last one I need or the last time I will do something. It comes as a blessing that I am finding it easier to accept and forgive myself and others–our time here is so short, it has always been so, and no life has been without suffering.
We still make choices until the very end. I found myself very moved by what a recent guest of Nate’s said, it was Nora Bateson who participated in the last roundtable discussion. For me it was the takeaway message because it represented something I could actively do to create meaning and purpose in the remaining days of my life, when everything else of our reality has been talked or written to righteous excess but little avail. She emphasized relationships and communication as defining an understanding of ecology, and she challenged us to take the view of this question whenever we interact with another “what can I encourage or support you to be when I am with you?” There is real power for both parties and a total shift in dynamics from the usual what can I get out of this exchange. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I thought that was the most positive suggestion as it can be a path to help relieve suffering and that is always our choice.
Thank you for allowing me the choice to share these thoughts. Namaste, friends.
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Some here might enjoy A. Schopenhauer’s philosophy. I’ve found it to be helpful in many ways.
He developed a prescription for life that I try to keep in mind: Art, Compassion, Resignation.
My own brief unpacking:
Art – A general appreciation for and contemplation of asthetics, both manmade and natural. Development and use of the intellect, very few are capable of this in my experience.
Compassion – We are all suffering beings trapped in the madhouse of life on earth. We should aviod adding to the suffering if possible. Note to self: keep in mind that very few are capable of exercising thier intellect.
Resignation – You and everthing around you will fall apart, die. A visceral understanding is important.
A little more information:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer-aesthetics/
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There is a good book called Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900. You might enjoy it.
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I do, very much, agree with the central premise of German Pessimism: Life is not worth the bother.
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I’m always reminding myself: remain detached from JHK’s righteous indignation. Not always easy…
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-downfall-of-blobism/
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I remain very impressed with RFK Jr. Also very curious if the blob will kill him.
One of the 7 things that most scares Nate Hagens about the future is that he might be killed for speaking the truth.
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Friend Panopticon alternates between economic and climate updates. The two topics seem to be merging into one with almost every economic crisis having some link to climate.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2023/07/21/21st-july-2023-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
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India which supplies 40% of the world’s rice exports has decided to stop exporting all non-Basmati rice.
Now we know why China is cutting down recently planted forests to plant more grain.
This is consistent with my guess of how things will unfold. First the price of an essential item will go up, then it will become unavailable.
Next up beef? To my eyes the hay harvest this year looks like it is 25% of normal.
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Good thing i only eat basmati rice ah ah ah *scared
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I was a little worried that I had stored too much rice. Not worried now.
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