By paqnation (aka Chris): My Final Act

Today’s guest essay by paqnation (aka Chris) tackles a challenging topic with deep ties to Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory which inspires un-Denial.com.

Chris discusses yet another strange behavior that is unique to our species.

And how hard it is to do the right thing in our modern world.

I have been fixating on evil lately (on an individual level). And by evil I am just limiting it to anything that degrades ecological integrity. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that 100% of my everyday actions are steeped in evil. There is nothing I do that does not involve evil towards the planet. Just typing this essay on my internet computer in my house powered by electricity with the heater on. Everything in my home used up resources and fossil fuels to get to me. And I pay for it by working at a corporation that only creates more evil in the world. Jeez! Too much evil within evil within evil, to even comprehend. Driving my car is the same story. Ditto for eating my grocery store bought food. Every action a person takes in this civilization already has loads of evil baked into it. So what is the opposite of this. Planting trees, gardening, rewilding land, composting my toilet waste? Yes, but I’m sure there is lots of evil within that, just to get to the non-evil deed. Besides, I don’t do any of those things. And even if I did, ok fine, maybe I get my 100% evil actions down to 99%.

It’s obvious that there is a threshold for an acceptable amount of evil that Mother Earth can tolerate and would even expect. Heck, just picking up a piece of deadwood and using it to make a fire is evil. So there is no way to avoid it. The ecological overshoot graphs we’ve all seen time and time again explain what this “threshold” limit looks like. Just another thing that comes down to balance, harmony, and equilibrium. Which, of course, human civilization, by default, cannot achieve.

That got me focusing on my greatest act of evil. It feels like something related to my eating habits would be the winner. The wasting of all the food throughout my lifetime. Or just the day-by-day participation in this horrendous cycle of how we eat in today’s world. But this is more about the accumulation that makes it so evil. I’m looking for a single act that can be labeled “most evil thing I’ve ever done”. Flying on a plane maybe? Prior to my awakening to reality, I was guilty of some horrible acts. On multiple occasions I have dumped trash/junk out in the desert to avoid landfill fees. When I was a teenager, I once changed my car oil and dumped the old oil on the side of the road. At least I’ve never started a forest fire, which has to take the cake for the most evil one person can do (or maybe I’m not thinking hard enough). But I believe I have a clear-cut winner that most of us will be guilty of and does not happen until we are dead.

A lot of people write about nature’s contract or the social contract. Here is a great link on the topic by Tom Murphy: In Breach of Contract.

The core of these “contracts” seems to me is the create/sustain/end part. The “end” portion is where I think our biggest act of evil may rest. We are the only species in which the dead do not return naturally to the eco-system.

Long-life coffins, clothes & decor, deep burial and embalming (which contaminates the soil and groundwater) result in the dead remaining intact for a very long time. Overall, embalming for burial uses over 800,000 gallons of toxic chemicals every year. As well as the costs thru time of mowing around your grave and re-erecting your crumbling gravestone. Not knowing much about this topic, I found out that we put coffins (wooden and metal) inside bigger cement coffins. Our fear of critters eating our corpse is laughably insane. This type of burial practice is just over a hundred years old, which makes perfect sense considering the insanity of modernity and being alive in the most abnormal moment in human history.

Cremation (which I have always preferred) is even worse and turns your body into air pollution and barren ash. Studies of emissions reveal that cremation turns people into at least 46 different pollutants. Some of these, like nitrous oxides and heavy metals, remain in the atmosphere for up to 100 years causing ozone depletion and acid rain. Cremation emits mercury, sulfur dioxide, and, in the US, about 360,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions into our air every year. Our bodies, on average, take three hours to burn in a crematorium, using up large quantities of fuels like electricity and natural gas. Once again, our fear of critters eating our corpse is laughably insane.

I was bouncing around the internet to get this info. And maybe my stats and figures can be debated, but I think everyone who is this far along into their collapse journey can easily understand how giving my 220 pounds of resources back to Mother Earth is much more beneficial than disintegrating my resources into ashes or keeping them preserved in a metal box inside of a concrete box. (and this is why it feels like my final act will be my most evil)

I can almost hear the absurd conversation with our “Creator/Sustainer/End” in my head. It goes something like:

Mother Earth: Ok, here’s the contract. I am going to create you using my resources, then sustain you with my resources, and when you die I will end you by consuming your resources so that I can keep creating and sustaining in this beautiful cycle of life. Deal?

Modern Humans: Ok, I’ll take you up on your offer for creating and sustaining me, but when it comes time for the end portion, I will renege on our deal and not allow you to use my resources for your benefit. In fact, I’m gonna go out with one last bang and continue harming you even though I’m dead. Deal?

Take, take, take. Never give. Just follows the normal human civilization theme of “everything we do and how we do it is wrong (evil)”.

Natural burials and green burials seem like a better way to go. A quick definition in case you’ve never heard of green burial: designed to have a minimal environmental impact and conserve natural resources. It emphasizes simplicity and sustainability. In a typical green burial, the body is not cremated, prepared with chemicals, or buried in a concrete vault. And some of the green burial sites sell it with options where you are buried with no casket and then a tree is planted on top of you. Having a tree sprout above my corpse is a beautiful idea that I would have mocked (or been grossed out by) prior to my “awakening”.

Unfortunately, the cost is high and availability is low. Average pricing (for my state) is $5,000. And for comparison, traditional burial is $8,000 and cremation is $1,500 (although, when my Dad passed away a few years ago, the cremation cost $2,500. No service or fancy urn. Just the bare minimum). And it looks like there is an even better way called human composting. Which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. But this is only available in a handful of states (mine is not one of them). And cost is $5,000 – $7,000.

I will definitely be looking into these alternatives more because I prefer my final act to not be evil if I can help it (and afford it). Might be my one and only good deed towards ecological integrity. There should be a legal, easy & inexpensive way to put our dead naked bodies into the soil for two obvious reasons. First and foremost, so that Mother Earth gets full maximum benefit. And second so that modern humans can at least honor a portion of our contract.

One last note. I came up with this topic by staring at the table below. Sounds weird, I know. I created this simple table a while back (which I’m sure can be nitpicked to death) for the sole purpose of keeping me on track. My bargaining phase gets me to waste time chasing magical solutions. Looking at this chart helps bring me back down to reality. Another positive outcome is that it gets me thinking about stuff I that I’ve never thought about.

Thanks for listening, Chris

Rob here, I can confirm Chris’ research because one of my university summer jobs was making precast concrete coffin liners.

Chris’ essay reminded me of a comedy skit on peak oil from the 2005 play by Robert Newman titled Apocalypso Now.

It’s a fun reminder of how many of us doomers thought 20 years ago.

If you’re in a hurry, skip ahead to the 6 minute mark for the relevant joke.

732 thoughts on “By paqnation (aka Chris): My Final Act”

  1. Indrajit Samarajiv today explains that Orwell was Orwellian, and translates some of the slogans from Orwell’s book “1984” into modern times.

    I wonder if Sri Lanka had the world’s reserve currency and the largest military, would it be trying to bomb and sanction the west into submission?

    Do good humans exist, or are we all the same?

    https://indi.ca/the-1984-similarities-are-becoming-too-much/

    First a bit of throat-clearing, lest I throw up in my own mouth. Orwell was, himself, Orwellian. Despite 1984 being critical of an oppressive state, Orwell was a literal colonizer and snitch himself. Orwell was a colonial cop in Burma and though he criticized the “unbreakable tyranny of the Raj” he was the one implementing it. He also said, “with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts.” Hence, before reading 1984 as a critique of totalitarianism, you have to consider the source.

    WAR IS PEACE –> WAR IS ‘NATIONAL SECURITY’

    Just look at the American Department of War, renamed to the Department of Defense just as it went on the permanent offensive. What does bombing Yemen to support a genocide in Palestine have to do with the ‘defense’ of America? Don’t ask these questions too loudly, or end up like Julian Assange. The American concept of ‘national security’ involves constantly bombing people nowhere near their nation and calling it self-defense. This actually makes no sense, unless–apparently—you repeat it enough. War is peace and so on.

    FREEDOM IS SLAVERY –> FREEDOM IS DEBT

    Americans claim to be the freest people on Earth, but the average American is over $100,000 in debt. Freedom sure is expensive. Americans are forced into debt for every basic need—health, housing, education—and then they have to ‘work it off,’ which is just the ancient definition of slavery.

    Michael Hudson goes into it in magisterial detail, but the most common ancient type of slavery was simply going into your creditors household (or sending your wife or kids there) to ‘work it off’. This is the same thing most Americans do, only their labor is held in corporate portfolios through sophisticated record keeping and the constant threat of homelessness or jail (with no hope of a jubilee). And don’t even get me started on the American prison system, the largest imprisonment of human beings in human history, many of them working for little or nothing (ie, slavery). This is all sold as freedom, because your brains must be in debt also. Freedom is slavery.

    IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

    I don’t even need to modify this one. Just watch/read America media to see industrial ignorance that just doesn’t stop. The great American innovation was figuring out that you don’t need to delete information as in 1984, you can instead ‘flood the zone with shit’ as Trump adviser Steve Bannon said. They can even say the truth sometimes, it doesn’t matter, it gets buried in bullshit within seconds. American coverage of the world is wide, but an inch deep (and that inch has a knife in it). They can do this secure in the knowledge that few people will pick up a book and see through it, and those that do will remain irrelevant bloggers like yours truly, or picked up and jailed like Assange if they get too unruly.

    In Orwellian doublespeak, this system is called a ‘free press’ despite it being insanely expensive. The right to speech is effectively (and legally) a corporate right in America, only extended to slaves via ‘platforms’. Americans are, in fact, the dumbest people on the planet with the most ‘muscular’ foreign policy done in their names. Ignorance is strength.

    The other confession in Orwell’s 1984 is that ‘others’ will be constantly demonized, to distract from the failings of Empire. You can see that today with Jon Stewart saying, “the difference between our urinal-caked, chaotic subways and your candelabra-ed beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom.”

    The central command of the party in 2024 as in 1984 is to ignore the evidence of your eyes and years, and to never contemplate a country that just minds its own business. Because that’s bad for business. Instead people are encouraged to focus on some other place which is definitely worse than this Empire, and simps like Jon Stewart spread the message.

    For Orwell, that ‘something worse’ was communism and it’s still ‘communism’, now extended to just being Russian because they’ve gotten lazy. Today the White Empire divides the world into ‘democracies’ and ‘authoritarians’, with authoritarian meaning places that assert any authority over themselves. Meanwhile these ‘democracies’ they’re defending are widely hated by their populations and only propped up by being better than someplace else.

    Liberal democracy really just means corporate oligarchy. All the debt slaves get to choose is the paint job on the imperial war machine and the only real benefit they get out of it is a feeling of superiority. This isn’t Republican or Democrat or Labour or Tory, the ruling class is always killing and all the voting class gets to choose is the bumper stickers on the warplanes.

    The biggest swindle is the ‘Defence Industry’, which is the American innovation of losing wars and looting your own treasury. In 1984 Orwell described constant wars between indistinguishable global empires, when in reality it’s just America rage, raging against the dying of the White. What Orwell did get right is the constant demonization of Eastasia (China) and Eurasia (Russia), with ‘Islamistan’ thrown in for bad measure. The current American Empire is constantly railing against some other country that is, at worst, fighting along its own borders, and using any excuse to kill a bunch of foreigners and loot its own future.

    1984 was framed as an accusation, but it was in fact a confession of crimes to come, and 2024 is the final indictment. Now we can all see the boots stamping on human faces forever in Gaza, and all the doublespeak, thought police, and dubious narrators in the world can’t cover it up.

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    1. Me:
      I’m a big fan of your work and share your anger.
      I wonder if Sri Lanka had the world’s reserve currency and the largest military, would it be trying to bomb and sanction the west into submission?
      Do good humans exist, or are we all the same?

      Indrajit Samarajiva:
      I don’t think so. China, for example, could have colonized and didn’t. I think colonialism was a unique historical phenomena coming out of a particular place and time. The Sri Lankans are generally happy here and happy with a bit of rice and dried fish and fruit. People here often bemoan that we’re not ambitious enough but I think that’s a good thing.

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  2. In addition to clots, permanent heart tissue damage, and a degraded immune system, we can now add cancer to the list of side effects from the mRNA transfection gene therapy injections that were coerced into billions of people that did not need them, including babies and children.

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  4. Preptip:

    The least expensive places to buy food in my community are the Costco members only warehouse and the Superstore grocery store.

    Costco occasionally puts SPAM on sale for $8.82/Kg whereas Superstore occasionally puts no-name luncheon meat on sale for $8.50/Kg.

    All serious preppers will want to know if it is worthwhile to spend an extra $0.32/Kg to buy name brand SPAM?

    This careful review concludes SPAM and no-name luncheon meat are roughly the same so you should save your money.

    It’s not discussed in the video but I would ignore the best-by date and would trust the product to be perfectly fine to eat, or for you vegetarians to trade, at least 20 years from now.

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  5. I did not enjoy this discussion because our financial system is so screwed up, in part because people who could easily make do with less, refuse to do so, and our leaders refuse to tell them they have to, so instead we’re going to carry on until everyone gets hurt, except the top 10%, and then everyone will say that no one saw it coming.

    This discussion is good for those trying to understand the case for precious metals or crypto.

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    1. I don’t know if this is what actually happened at Peak Prosperity but that’s what it looks like to me:
      1) Martenson starts Peak Prosperity with a partner.
      2) The partner wants to to focus more on investing for collapse, and Martenson wants to focus on overshoot and “community building”.
      3) The partnership ends, and each partner does what they wanted to do.
      4) Several years later, Peak Prosperity is not earning enough from overshoot and “building commmunity”, so Martenson decides to also focus on investing for collapse.

      Basically there’s no money in trying to do the right thing.

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      1. I’m sure I mentioned it the other day, but anyone trying to make a living off the reality of civilization collapse is barking up the wrong tree. So despite how much Chris Martenson ‘gets it’, he doesn’t ‘get’ that people don’t want to pay to hear doom and gloom.

        People pay to hear how much money they can make doing XYZ, no matter what XYZ actually is. There are charlatans spruiking/selling how to get rich all over the place. My question for Chris, how does any ‘financial advice’ stack up during collapse? the ‘true’ answer is no-one has a clue exactly how everything will unravel when it does, except that just about everything, or just everything will unravel.

        Look at the example of Sri Lanka, as an economy not just unravelling, but being supported by Sri Lankans from overseas sending money back to relatives, and the IMF or World Bank or whoever extending another $AA billions in bailout. Imagine what Sri Lanka would be really like if there was no outside help.

        That’s how civilization eventually goes, no outside help from anyone, when everyone is in the same position.

        Realistically I think Chris is in denial, expecting collapse ‘light’, where some type of near normal goes on for those that prepped, or something like that. He misses the denial bit of all the leaders…

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        1. I could change the WordPress setings to require commenters to be logged in.

          It’s currently set to not require login so that the barrier is low for lurkers who wish to remain anonymous.

          I’m inclined to leave it as is unless most of you want it changed.

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        2. Look at the example of Sri Lanka, as an economy not just unravelling, but being supported by Sri Lankans from overseas sending money back to relatives, and the IMF or World Bank or whoever extending another $AA billions in bailout. Imagine what Sri Lanka would be really like if there was no outside help.

          The foreign remittances, the IMF / World Bank loans, aid packages – it all stops at some point. Countries that depend on those are currently quiescent but going to become nightmares. Look at Haiti. Look at the deaths in the Mediterranean.

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        4. I have been a paid subscriber of Peak Prosperity off and on, and found it added absolutely nothing to my life. His paid videos are just more conspiracy sounding the public ones. His 101 content is very good and is free.
          My 2 cents is, he has had enough time to invest in real things and grow enough wealth to live off – peak prosperity should be a hobby for him, not a get rich scheme. If someone has gotten to his age and isn’t already financially set, then I don’t really think they’ve got good financial advice to give.
          Every second influencer on Instagram these days has a course or online subscription to sell. It must be easy money for a lot of people.

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  6. Excellent discussion on the unprecedented rise in all-cause mortality in healthy young people that began at the same time as mRNA injections, and that all of our leaders are ignoring.

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    1. This was a great interview. I only wish that Tucker and Dr. Kory had made the interview longer and discussed some issues more in depth. The reason I don’t listen that much to all of the other covid dissidents is that most of them are coming at COVID from way outside mainstream science or immunology. Dr. Kory was a treating pulmonary physician and the other covid dissidents are not clinical treaters as far as I can see.
      AJ

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  7. “Let’s be clear, we are already at war with Russia. By international law, Russia has every right to attack the ports of the US, UK, and France. They probably won’t because they know our leaders are crazy.”

    On this special episode, risk analyst Chuck Watson returns to discuss the current state of the conflict in Ukraine and the potential for escalation. With the conflict centered around resource control, cultural clashes, and political posturing – will European countries now push to keep the United States involved with the conflict? More, are we seeing the full picture from the perspective of western media? Who is really winning this ‘open secret war’ and what is the context behind the various realities of the players in this conflict? Are there still peaceful, stable options that maneuver us away from open war and what would those mean for the rest of the world?

    About Chuck Watson

    Chuck Watson has had a long career in military and intelligence work, with a specialty in natural and human made disaster modeling. He worked for the US Air Force, was an attache to US Ambassadors to the Middle East Robert McFarland, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as a Soviet expert. Chuck has worked as an advisor to the military for over four decades with a particular emphasis on big data, open source intelligence, with an emphasis on the Soviet Union and Russia. Chuck is also the founder and Director of Research and Development of Enki Holdings, LLC, which designs computer models for phenomena ranging from tropical cyclones (hurricanes) and other weather phenomena, earthquakes, and tsunamis, as well as anthropogenic hazards such as industrial accidents, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction.

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    1. Sobering as per usual. We all live because of the rationality and patience of Putin and Russian leadership. We are ruled by an ignorant demented gerontocracy.
      AJ

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      1. This has to be like Chucks 20th appearance on Nate’s show. I used to get bored and not even make it thru a chuck podcast. Now I look forward to him and hang on his every word.

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    2. By international law, Russia has every right to attack the ports of the US, UK, and France.

      How do you think our leaders would respond if Russia did that?

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  9. Liked by 2 people

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      1. That Newsroom video is 10 yrs old and still one of my favorites (also, the first scene of s01e01). As soon as my inner circle showed no interest in this clip I should have stopped trying.

        And I am assuming the coverage tweet is for American media. Would love to see what it looks like for other countries. Still pathetic I bet, but much more respectable than USA.

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      1. Honestly why do any of you care about climate change?
        It changes regardless of what causes it.
        Humans are doing very little compared to what plants did.
        Get over it.
        Change is all there is and there is nothing you can do about it so stop crapping on about it because every single one of you that comments on this site is making the situation worse just from your lifestyle.
        Stop all internet activity and then all modern world activity. Or shut up and realise that it is just part of a cycle where you can judge yourself the bad guy or not.
        This is overshoot and there is nothing you can do about it other than ride the ride till you are dead.
        CC is BS and you all know it because you’ve done nothing about it – meaning shutting your lifestyle down (it is what Jesus would do (sarc off))
        Don’t feel bad about it. the asteroid that hit earth didn’t care either.

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            1. Why do you read here all the time, when you clearly have very little idea of what the issue is with climate and why it’s so hard for humans to do anything about our behaviour.

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              1. Take it easy on him Mike. I bet he’s young, confused, angry and scared (or she).

                But your point is so very true. If you hang out at this site, then you should absolutely know we have no chance at changing our behavior. MORT felt like the final piece of the puzzle when I got here.

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          2. it is a simple comment. Nearly everyone here goes on about CC but they all know the only way to combat it is to stop using carbon but it is painfully clear that everyone still commenting here has no issue with continuously using gargantuan amounts of it just to keep this site active and comment on it.
            So stop with the hypocrisy and stop worrying about it. Everything dies. Accept it. Varki on steroids.

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          3. My vote, is troll-bot. One had to turn up eventually. It is the complete absence of anything new that gives it away. The rhetorical questions aimed at everyone ” why do any of you ” do not help.

            And straight to anger. I hope the vegetable ends with personal experience of a tourniquet on various limbs, as they are consumed piecemeal.

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            1. Troll bot on steroids had to turn up. Gaia is Australian, AJ is overweight, Rob lost most of his social network from comments at dinner parties. Hideaway has been commenting on gai’ls blog and others but has great things to say that are very accurate and he is an aussie. Mike is an NZer along with Monk.

              PAQ is new and ABC dumped his load just recently. And Stellar hates trump a lot.

              So why do my comments trigger you. I am a long time reader of this blog. I am just pointing out some of our deepest flaws. No action will occur to counter what most get vocal about because that requires personal change. Most of us won’t do that. And that is normal. I’m not looking to change anything. Just drunk and typing. We are all trying to do our best and the result is – well look around and ………….

              That said don’t forget you are still the most privileged human beings ever to have lived.

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              1. Excuse me. All of us already know that we’re the most privileged beings that have lived on this planet, so what? We realize the privileged lifestyle we have is not available to most of beings on this planet AND is not compatible with any form of sustainability.
                Does CC stand for carbon capture? If so, I don’t believe anyone on this site has seriously thought that we can sequester enough carbon to reverse or even ameliorate climate change/ collapse.
                If you’re writing this while drunk, maybe you better sober up and quit wasting energy.
                As for your not being an AI troll-bot. All of the things that you have cited as examples are superficially gleenable from the comment section on this site by a not very sophisticated AI.
                And by the way, I don’t believe I’ve ever stated in the comments that I was overweight, I have a BMI of under 20.
                AJ

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            2. oh and I am not angry Hamish truly. I am bemused. I gave up on anger a while ago because I realised our plight and mine is not preventable. Though I must say it does take resolve to remain cheerful knowing the ship is sinking.

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              1. I thought about this exchange quite a bit on my 5 mi run/walk.
                If one remembers back to the YouTube post that had the discussion between Lex Fridman and Yan LaCunn on AI & LLM, he stated that the Turing Test is no longer accepted by the experts as being able to tell the difference between an AI that is sentient and a human.
                Hence we would have a hard time discerning between a drunk person and a crappy AI Troll-bot.
                I think we can, for most of the commentators on this site, discern by the nuance of some of their arguments and how even though we might disagree with them, lots of people’s opinion here is consistent with their thoughts on multiple different areas from politics, collapse, NTHE, resource collapse, climate change, philosophy, gardening, prepping, etc., that they are not an AI.
                AJ

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              2. Captain,

                you posses plenty of riches and skill in all fields known, to be so bored as to spend your time here and delight us miserable plebeians.

                Your wisdom is inexhaustible, strength unmatchable and your style impeccable. Alas we congratulate you, on your victory over us who mindlessly dwell on this stoa of clouds.

                May your mind be soothed by our inevitable loss, your radiant magnificence exposes our wickedness.

                May you vanquish all foes, be they great or small.

                Sail away sweet captain, guide us to blessed shores which are full of pearl where lagoons of sapphire expand to the realm where only glittering stars remain.

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                1. Dear Rob and all others,

                  I apologise for the intervention with the artistic response to the captain.

                  Rob, If you want to you may delete this comment and the previous one (the anonymous one).

                  If you choose not to remove any comments, you could place my initials on the anonymous one for clarification.

                  Kind and warm regards,

                  ABC

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                    1. Dear Rob,

                      I’m glad you found the response amusing.

                      Perhaps our dear Captain will rigorously rejuvenate themselves, before attempting further futile actions of discord, whilst under the influence of foreign substances.
                      Only time will tell.

                      Kind and warm regards,

                      ABC

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  11. Five posts from the same IP, each with a different user name. I fixed that by changing them all to Captain Ahab.

    If Captain Ahab prefers one of the other names I will change them again.

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    2. Well that was interesting. Love that Ahab admitted to being drunk. Reminds me of what I turn into when I drink. Angry and bitter. (BTW, I didnt drink last night so I have an alibi. lol)

      As our collapse gets more and more noticeable, I think we will end up with 8 billion Captain Ahab’s. It’s gonna be ugly.

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      1. Actually, I think that’s the role we, doomers play: we took the psychological blow before every body else, so we had time to mourn. It’s not that we are able to change much except ourselves.
        Prophets, survivalists, doomers, bloomers, martyrs, hermits, scapegoats, Cassandras, Themists…

        I don’t know if it’s worth to try and answer Captain Ahab’s point, which used to obsess me for quite a while but not any more. (I mean no need to comfort an AI)
        In any case, this latest article by Erik Michaels would be a good start: https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2024/03/conservation-saving-species-fighting.html

        BTW, there is absolutely no insurance our preferred pest is going down with this ship, since at some time in the past our population rebounded from only 1280 individuals https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-ancestors-nearly-went-extinct-900-000-years-ago/ (if you believe the narration of a few scientists, that is :). In a way, the tragedy already happened.

        Let’s end with a few koan:
        If we get invaded by AI chat-bots, can we get into an infinite loop of comments with two different AIs bashing one another?
        What’s the sound of one AI prattling?
        (When checking for the original one, I just got it. And then somewhat lost it, so it’s going to be hard to explain clearly. My insight lies in the Wheeler eye: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/participatory-universe. In a way, we are always clapping with one hand)

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        1. Hello Charles. Good to hear from you. I like that article from scientificamerican. Reminded me of the Toba super volcano from 70,000 yrs ago that allegedly wiped our population down to a couple thousand.

          And you’ve gotta love the big brass on some of these scientists to make such detailed claims from 900kya:

          “The population of breeding individuals was reduced to just 1,280 and didn’t expand again for another 117,000 years.” (c’mon scientists, you better check your facts again. Everyone knows the population was reduced to 1,346 and started expanding 118,952 years later)

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    3. Even though IP addresses do not necessarily correspond to individual users, given that this is a niche blog about a very sobering subject, I suspect that all of those posts are from the same person.

      “Captain Ahab” All Humans are Bastards. I think that name is rather amusing.

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  12. This roundtable discussion with John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris, and Glenn Diesen occurs every week or two. It has become my favorite source of big picture perspective on global affairs by calm intelligent analysts. Unfortunately they are not overshoot aware so we have to connect those dots when listening to them.

    Most people in the US and Europe do not understand how much trouble we are in. We are going to lose the war. The Russians are going to win. The only question is what does that victory look like? Our elites can’t accept this.

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    1. Just finish listening to this. It was very good and very scary. Mearsheimer seemed more worried than I’ve ever heard him that were rapidly walking into an all-out war. It appears no one in the west and especially the US has any brake on their Russia and Putin are evil and we must defeat them.
      AJ

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  13. Is there any feedback loop triggered by overshoot that works in a direction favorable for our future? Maybe rich western couples deciding to have fewer children?

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  15. Unfortunately I still visit scheerpost.com once in a while. It has slowly turned into a garbage site. But I came across this excellent comment (from a “banning of tik tok” article) and wondered if this is nikoB. And if so, are you a fan of Peter Joseph? I’m a big fan and this sounds exactly like something he would say:

    niko 1 day ago
    ‘Where the hell and what the fuck is the free market? I’ve been selling myself as a wage slave on the free market for as long as I’ve had to purchase my right to live in this dog-eat-dog society. The free market, or rather its mythology, largely arose from violent dispossession of public commons and commoners to enrich and empower private interests. It’s historically been a partner in crime against humanity with state powers enforcing its corrupt rule of law and order, yet we’re supposed to keep looking to other mythology like government of, by, and for the people to protect us from its excesses (like all those goddam wars we the people fight to make the rich richer)?

    More like reality is that government regulation is regulating conflicts among ruling class interests, the people be damned, with the august judgments of officialdom usually based on the highest bidders and bribers of the political whores of big business. When’s the last time, or the first time, you had some say-so over all the poisons the free market is pumping into our air, water, land…lives, such that we’re breathing, drinking, eating our own death? We’re no different than any other commodity representing the reduction of life’s beauty and goodness to the cold cash nexus of the free market, and if we can’t be sold or converted into exchange value we have no other value, simply waste to be disposed of.

    Tick tock, tick tock counts the time bomb, where it’s not only Tik Tok or Big Tech enslaving us but the “filthy, rotten system” (Dorothy Day) of a society hellbound for extinction. The free market’s going to be the death of us all.’

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  18. New video up with Professor Bill Rees.

    At least he is one person that gets the real situation. He mentions collapse and too late to solve any problem, though does ‘humour’ the host with the potential solution of degrowth, if the warnings had been taken seriously, as in limits to growth etc.

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    1. We all have a different list of our favorite collapse people. But I bet William Rees is the most common name on everyone’s list.

      My all-time favorite is the two-hour interview with him and Nate Hagens. Bill is so blunt that he almost has to change gears and resort to sugarcoating because his answers are too scary even for Nate.

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  19. Yet another thing the climate scientists and our leaders who believe them deny. We have to get rid of all our pets.

    https://peaksurfer.blogspot.com/2024/03/my-old-dog-quon-was-killed-and-baked.html

    Earlier I made the detailed and referenced calculation that to reach net zero and beyond by mid-century and thereby save humanity from climate-induced extinction, we would need to reduce the global population of domestic dogs from 1 billion to less than 2.5 million, or about one dog for every 300 people. Given that the dog population in many countries greatly exceeds that ratio, this is no minor undertaking. As recently as 2012, the world population of dogs was estimated at 525 million. It nearly doubled in the past decade. Canine population needs to halve now at a rate more than twice as fast.

    To reach a carbon footprint of net zero by 2050, the US will need to cut its pet population by some 10 million dogs and 10 million cats every year for a decade and then by some 200,000 per year in the out years towards mid-century.

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    1. This would be easy to achieve.
      – Shut down the puppy mills.
      -99% of dogs and cats must be neutered / spayed.
      Too many people treat dogs like fashion accessories and discard them immediately they have health issues.
      The animal shelters are already overwhelmed and every economic downturn produces greater need.

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    3. Why are they talking about reducing the dog population, and not the human population? Pet overpopulation is simply a side effect of human overpopulation.

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        1. I don’t think it is satire. There are quite a few good references. It was not advocating for immediate slaughter and pointed out that the average life span, for dogs, is only 14 years (much less for large breeds), so it would not take long to reduce the population considerably.

          If taken as one of many measures, it could soften the crash. The problem, is the dumb shits that will not take it seriously until it is too late – we are likely already there.

          I’ve see too many videos of the way some peoples (plural) treat dogs, that it sickens me.

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          2. Hello Hamish,

            In our cul-de-sac street in the subtropics, where there are about 14 properties of about 3 acres each, some fronting onto a creek, there is a ratio of 27 canines to 23 Homo sapiens. One couple has 5 dogs. How are these mouths (as lovable as the tongue-lolling smile can be) going to be fed when things really start going pear-shaped? It’s impossible to underestimate the emotional pull one’s pets can have and since many people consider their animals more family members than their biological family, you can imagine how much more they would value the lives of their pets over any other member of their own species with whom they don’t have any connection. Many humans will starve first before the pets of those who have more resource privilege. I think this is really going to give new meaning to “It’s a dog eat dog world” in many respects.

            My husband and I were dog owners for the first 20 years of our marriage, and then due to a personal tragic event (our two Dobermanns were stolen back by their breeders, and nonrecoverable) we suddenly were left utterly bereft. The pain and grief of losing a creature with whom one patterned a congenial daily life and who represented unconditional love and joy in the moment cannot be described, as many here would know and many times over. That was the last time we had dogs, not because the grief was too unbearable, but suddenly, as if a revelation, we realised that we personally no longer needed the comfort of these magnificent animals, the gift of their acceptance was enough memory and blessing for us. I am not describing this at all well, but it was as if we somehow grew in understanding along with them and felt complete in our connection as it was, neither had to depend upon the other anymore and I just felt joy, peace and gratitude from having the experience we did, and we concluded our time together as equal earthlings, each a unique expression of life, interacting with another unique life. I am overwhelmed by gratitude for the lessons learned through our time together, they were always the masters in everything that really mattered, and I their student. I have been able to delight in the joy of many friends’ dogs before and since–there’s nothing like a good romp getting down on the floor and roughing it with a playful pooch, but they do not have to be mine, nor were they ever really owned by me.

            But the days of domestic animal companionship in the manner we have come to expect and rely are fast drawing to a close. At best, we can say with heartfelt gratitude to all those animals with whom we shared this life that we have taken on board the best of their natures, and honour them for their truth of their authentic lives. They have sought to bring out the highest in our humanity and I believe their collective mission has been fulfilled. The pet friends of the final generations today are like the rear guard, faithfully seeing us through this time of turmoil and giving us emotional support until it is not possible anymore, at least by their physical presence. May all of you who are fortunate enough to share your current days with an animal companion find solace and comfort at the time of your need and be upheld always by the memory of their brilliant spark that touched and changed yours.

            Namaste, my two-legged friends.

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            1. Thank you 🙂

              I love listening to warm episodes of your life.

              Never had a dog because of fur and pollen allergies. Later found out in life that (at least for me), these allergies were just attempts of my body (with the help of trees and animals) to get rid of deeply embedded toxins. I rarely get allergies now even though I am frequently out in nature. My personal conclusion (and I have no pretence of generality here): fear is not a good guide for a fulfilled life.

              I still don’t own a dog. I love them, but that would be too heavy a responsibility.

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              1. Hello Charles,

                Thank you and everyone else here for sharing from their lives, it adds so much to our connection and gives a comforting certainty through these days of uncertainty that others here are just trying their best to be a human being through whatever circumstances and come what will. We can all recognise the same emotions and feelings from both sides of the same coin of sorrow and joy. Our stories are our virtual hugs and pats on the back to encourage us to keep going, even if for a day at a time.

                There is something to the age-old debate of being either a predominately dog person or a cat person. In my experience I found this true until the time we lost our dogs and my mother moved close to us and she got her first pet ever at age 65, Danny the Rag Doll cat. He is 13 years old now and has been the perfect companion for my mother, as well as being independent enough to not require as much attention than she is able to give. Then I finally had the chance to get to know another very distinct personality in the guise of a feline and it became obvious to me that amongst those we call friends, skin or fur or species is no matter. Then I became a cat person, too.

                I had always wanted a dog as a young child, probably because I was an only child and felt a puppy would be my best friend and be by my side. My parents refused this wish on good basis, we didn’t have the resources then to feed and care for another, both parents worked outside the home, and over all it would be too much responsibility for all of us. Silly me, even though I knew I wouldn’t get a puppy, (and I specifically then wanted a beagle because I loved Snoopy), at some stage even later in my childhood, I asked for a pony! Haha, we lived on less than a quarter acre suburban block, call me a dreamer, obviously denial was strong in me then! I made a promise to myself that as soon as I was independent enough, I would get a dog and whether or not it was the best choice at the time, I was true to my word.

                I am wondering if your only child Rachel has gone through periods of wanting a companion animal, and I can feel for her desire if that is the case. It is not so much that only children are lonely, in fact, I became quite happy and sufficient in my own company quite early on, but perhaps we become more introspective because of being the only one that we wish for a reciprocal connection with another creature (but not parent, there is always the parent and this is a matter of creating a new, exclusive relationship) that we hope will understand and accept us implicitly. I suppose we all have this desire, which is why we stake so much in finding partners and nurturing a new life together.

                I know I may be thrown the rotten tomato for saying this as it is beyond the realm of logic and reality for our times and this spot is where we come to drink deeply from that well, but I am now crossing into the realm in which only the heart reigns and that is just as much part of us being Homo sapiens, if not the defining aspect. If you have ever truly desired to share your life with a companion animal, and the main reason you are not doing so is because of principle in face of imminent collapse, then I beg you to consider this, the animal whose life you may share is already alive and like us, destined for death whether sooner or later. The circumstances of that are yet unknown, yet each one of us wishes to keep living and experiencing as much joy as we can yet gather. That is no different than the dog or cat awaiting at the shelter today. If there is a chance we might grasp more joy and comfort from both paths crossing, then where is the harm in it, especially at this very late stage when all we have are fleeting moments of joy between the chasms of trying to find them? I know all of us here would be able to make the necessary choice of ending suffering when needed, so that is the guarantee to ourselves that we will have done the right thing, a gift we cannot even bestow openly or easily for ourselves and our human family.

                This all just poured out and before I doubt myself more and hesitate to send, I will remain courageous and true to my heartfelt intention and accept all rebuttals, willingly and graciously.

                Namaste, friends. Give your furry friends an extra cuddle and scratch for me.

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                1. Oh what a bunch of hippie dippie crap. Totally kidding Gaia, once again you are beautiful with your words. My mind drifts (in a good way) in some of your longer posts. And this one had me daydreaming of my childhood dogs. I was a dog lover but did not like cats. After my dogs died, I never took on another pet. Never had kids either. Most of my adult life I really thought I was incapable of unconditional love.

                  In 2016 I took in a stray cat that had been hanging out by my patio for a few days trying to scavenge for food. But I took it for selfish reasons. My mom was going thru a rough patch and was very depressed. So my plan was to give it to my mom to hopefully help her feel better and give her something to do. It took an entire day of convincing, but I was finally able to leave the cat at my mom’s house. Turned out to be one of the better decisions I have ever made. The cat (Zoey) is my mom’s best friend still to this day.

                  My mom, brother and I are all single. We were each living alone barely making it paycheck to paycheck. So a few years ago, we decided to pool our resources and move into a house together. And in our first month we had a cat visitor who would not leave. I ended up nervously & reluctantly taking him in. The first time I personally have been in charge of taking care of another living being since my childhood. His name is Zeus and once again it turned out to be one of my best decisions ever. My doubts about being able to love someone and be responsible are now a thing of the past. I get made fun of when we have company because all I do is baby talk with Zeus. I can’t help it, he’s my baby!

                  My brother has a big dog that we all love, so each of us has a best friend and someone to look after. Not sure what my point was when I started writing this…. but I think just to kind of echo Gaia. If you’re lonely or depressed, a cat or dog can do miracles for you. But they are not pets. They are family members. Two years ago, Zeus had a horrible urinary infection that was life threatening. Everything turned out ok, but I dropped like $3,000 in vet and hospital fees. I could not afford it, but somehow I made it happen. It was a tough couple months to get back on track financially. Some friends thought I was insane to do that. I’d do it again, of course.

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                2. Gaia gardener 🙂

                  You always have nice encouraging words and thoughts.

                  Yes, you are right about the psychology of an only child. And my daughter is in some ways the modern version of Rapunzel, a kind of hakoiri musume (an apartment bedroom filled with kpop posters being a middle ground between a box and a tower 🙂

                  Don’t worry about me, however 🙂 I don’t feel I need anything more (except maybe longer periods of blissful contemplation). Although, there are still a few things I would like to let go of (anger against some people, unnecessary complexities mostly related to the use of technology…)
                  I used to have many desires, and some still emerge from time to time, but most are ephemeral. Some are more profound than others and I wish to honour them exclusively.
                  The looks of babies, dogs, crows that cross my regular walks to the garden are enough to fill my heart 🙂 The light of the sky just before sunset. The radiance emanating from trees and people, especially young ones. Even the rugosity of work. The daily sight of my wife and daughter.

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    4. Albert Bates and the collective at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee have a thing against dogs and cats. But reduction in the pet population won’t happen on account of their hectoring…

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  20. Tim Watkins is good for a chuckle today as he mocks the backflips our leaders do to avoid the reality of our carbon dependent lifestyles.

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/03/17/a-balancing-act-of-sorts/

    Why, after all, should anyone believe that a government is going to deliver in weeks that which it has failed to deliver over half a decade? One such political announcement arrived yesterday, in the shape of Rishi Sunak’s announcement of the development of new gas power stations. According to Sunak:

    “It is the insurance policy Britain needs to protect our energy security, while we deliver our net zero transition.”

    Which sounds a lot like “we had to carbonise the economy in order to decarbonize the economy.”

    It would be simple enough to decarbonise the UK’s electricity. Indeed, following just four steps, it can even be done at a profit… and far sooner than the Tories’ 2035 or Labour’s 2030 target:

    1. Pass legislation to nationalise (without compensation) the remaining fossil fuel power stations
    2. Disconnect these from the grid
    3. Send in the bulldozers
    4. Sell the recovered land off to property developers.

    Ultimately, a balancing act succeeds only where there is a natural equilibrium… in this case, a stable point at which the economy has sufficient energy at an affordable cost from sources which do not cause further environmental destruction. Four decades ago, when the political class began to be exercised by climate change, it seemed like technology would somehow overcome the inherent problems with diffuse energy sources like wind and solar, so long as the requisite laws were enacted. Forty years later, we are beginning to wake up to just how wrong they were. The balance cannot be struck. The choice is to either secure a high energy-density alternative to fossil fuels (which doesn’t currently exist) or face a relatively rapid simplification of our economy – which will be something like the Great Depression of the 1930s… only much worse and with no way back.

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    1. Graphs which still do not take into account:
      * population growth (per capita)
      * the growing debt (to be somehow subtracted)
      * the decline of the non-monetized “goods” and “services” (air quality, potable water availability, silence…)
      * biodiversity (I hate this plastic term) loss
      * the unique meaning each individual assigns to its own life
      * …

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  22. The Canadian Prepper has integrity. Many (most?) of his audience denies climate change yet he doggedly sticks to reality and tries to educate his audience on the threat. Today he interviews Leon Simons.

    This interview has some fresh content. Simons explains the dysfunctional denial dynamic between IPCC scientists and governments to mislead citizens.

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      1. That clip was just scary enough to make me watch the whole interview and it was pretty good.

        But I have a question. An unusually high number of comments over there are bashing and discrediting Leon because of his Club of Rome ties. All I know about that club is they had something to do with getting the famous 1972 ‘Limits to Growth’ made so their ok in my book. Does anyone know what all the fuss is about with this club?

        I’m assuming its nothing and these guys just dont believe in anything. Went deeper into the comments and there seems to be a strong sense that climate change is a hoax and people like Leon are paid to get people scared. Confused me. Why would that crowd, of all people, go there with climate? MORT? but they love collapse stuff. Or maybe he has lots of trolls because of his scary content and I just wasted a couple more hours of my life.

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        1. The Club of Rome funded the 1972 Limits to Growth study led by Dennis and Dana Meadows which concluded that to avoid collapse about now we needed to immediatley stop growing the economy.

          They were agressively attacked by pretty much everyone at the time, and those attacks continue today, with most people believing innovation and technology eliminate limits to growth.

          Even the Club of Rome could not take the heat and in the end distanced themselves from the study they funded.

          This podcast series is excellent and takes a deep dive into the history of the Limits to Growth study.
          https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/

          I find it very sad. Smart people saw what was coming and warned us. We denied limits then, and continue to deny limits today, despite obvious evidence now that they were right.

          This is why, in part, I created un-Denial.

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          1. It’s very hard to face mass denial. At work I find myself squeezed between those who believe:
            * technology will provide, we/they will find something, innovations will be made
            * the market will decide and it will turn out fine
            * there is still an incredibly large amount of oil in the ground and the consequences of climate change are far away (for the generation after their children)
            * Tesla (and other pioneers I forgot the names: crystal energy, water motors and such) have already found unlimited energy/vehicles which are being blocked by big corporations

            Honestly, they are all so sure of themselves that it sometimes makes me doubt. I have to admit, that everything I supposedly “know” are words I read somewhere. So this may just be another belief, peculiar form of delusion of mine.

            But then, I see the infrastructure all around me ageing, the cars getting smaller and smaller, the roads bumpier and the buses crappier. I see the younger generation not owning cars, the car-pooling and constant construction works made in Paris to green the city. I remember the strikes and fuel shortages just one year ago, the new “green” legislations to push electric vehicles. I see house prices dropping for the first time in ages while in a period of extreme overall inflation (especially food and energy). I can even feel the air quality improving and animal life making a come back.
            I also remember previous episodes of mass delusions (over the vaccines, over the war in Ukraine)

            And I know. There are signs everywhere. People are denying that which is right in front of their eyes. We are not talking about the far future any more.

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            1. Truth is definitely elusive sometimes. Are the Russians more or less evil than the Americans? I’m not sure. I’d guess they are the same.

              On energy and overshoot matters I think we are on solid ground although all predictions on the timing of collapse will be wrong.

              Thanks for the glimpse into French life. I heard today France is sending several thousand troops to Ukraine. Is this true? How do the French people feel about this?

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              1. I don’t know. I hope not. But there are conflicting information, it is changing every day. So at this point, it looks like the harmless/lethal covid virus, mask/no mask play we have lived once already. Once, again, it seems to me, some small gang has captured the country (but nobody really considers them as “invaders”)
                I just hope this time, and there are some hints, that there are conflicting factions (the cautious and the brazen). Ukraine may be the second leg (the first being covid), the last ditch struggle of an obsolete power before we switch gears.
                To me, it makes no doubt that Macron is of the same faction/obeying the same powers than Biden is (a power that is well ready to sacrifice France as well as the rest of Europe for some Machiavellian objective).
                Strangely however, my intuition (which goes against my rational mind) is that it will turn out fine: many things will unravel after a (maybe failed) Olympic games which will show how weak the current power is. <= this is not based on any careful analysis.
                Personally, I am just happy we didn’t blew up each other with nukes (yet)

                French people do not talk about this subject any more. Deep down, I think they feel powerless. And have decided not to worry about any of this. They are mostly resigned or giving up. Nobody seems to really want to “fight back” the system. Maybe they are right: not participating in the system might be the most effective and peaceful strategy at this point. Those who still participate in the system are growth addicts/thoughtless broken automatas. In a way, France as a country is already in pieces.
                I wonder what the army’s reaction will be. In any case, if we really were to send troops to Ukraine it would turn out a disaster. I am pretty sure our army is somewhat hollowed out (competent, but too few, not enough resources, probably disillusioned of being used rather than fighting for the country, or just doing it for the pay).

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                1. Thanks Charles. Very interesting.

                  They say Macron is pissed and not acting rationally because Russia helped some African states cut off France from uranium and other resources, and because Russia recently killed a bunch of French mercenaries in Ukraine.

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                  1. Yes, that is probably part of the equation too: France (as a nation) is losing power on every ground (economically, territorially, culturally)
                    However, individuals are still well alive and active. Trying other paths, sometimes reconnecting with some forgotten traditions, at their own level and pace.

                    To my previous comment I wanted to add a quote from a well known essay by La Boétie (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89tienne_de_La_Bo%C3%A9tie):

                    Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.

                    I think that’s what many are practising now, unknowingly.

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          2. I am so glad that I sifted through those shit comments over at canadian prepper. It was all worth it for me to ask you about the Club of Rome.

            Damn that was a great podcast! Thanks. Listened to all three back to back. I was on the edge of my seat like a great thriller movie. My anger was raging especially in part 2. My respect/love for Dana has increased ten-fold. I cannot imagine her and her teammates colossal disappointment.

            And I know I am misguided with the following but I cant help it. I wish there was more color/ethnicities involved in the idiotic attacks on Limits to Growth. But its always white devils and that just fuels my conspiracy about how white skin is the cause of our downfall.

            Man, I am still pissed off from this podcast. Might need to self-medicate during my lunch hour (lol).

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              1. Ya, I’ve seen those before but I am gonna watch them again tonight. The black and white ones from 1977 are so cool. Can you imagine having Dana as your teacher? System thinkers are on a whole nother level.

                In case you have never heard of him, Peter Senge was a good friend of Dana. He has a few videos, but this is one of his better ones.

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  24. And now, Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey (older readers might get that reference):

    I do not spend much time thinking about covid, but a post (on March 5th by Rob) about covid theories got my paranoia conspiracy wheels turning. The idea that I have latched onto is that it was all about experimenting and getting us ready for massive population reduction. Future vaccines & viruses will do one of three things: nothing / kill you / save you. And we peasants will not know which is which. The one percenters will eventually get some type of vital cryptic message like “pass on the first five vaccines, but make sure you get the sixth one”. The rest of us will just have to “guess” correctly.

    I started thinking about the energy benefits of this theory. Keep on going with current status quo and I’ll be way over the top generous and give energy 50 more years till SHTF. But it doesn’t matter how many years I give it because climate change and a bunch of other predicaments will never allow us to go that long with the status quo. So it makes zero sense for the elites in charge to continue going down this road and wasting the remaining energy (“my precious”).

    One percent of our population is 80 million. That number is way too high as far as the “people in charge” or the amount that would receive the vital cryptic message. Nate Hagens recently called it “the 1500”. I’ll overestimate Nate and call it one million. Now this group will surely have many leaks to friends/family. Plus the people who get lucky and “guess” correctly. And of course the elites will need many laborers, servants, and security. So after all is said and done with the carnage of the lethal vaccine/virus…. lets go with 250-500 million survivors worldwide.

    Well, that could possibly keep the lights on for a couple hundred more years with a 1950’s american type of energy life (assuming they are more on the energy conserve side now). But once again, because of a worsening climate (and other predicaments) and now spending all of your remaining energy on building bubble cities (air outside too hot, poisonous, etc. Which I think it could get to by 2200)…. I would give them zero chance to even make it to 2200. But even this scenario makes way more sense than continuing status quo till we all run out of energy or climate swoops us up or nuclear war wipes out everything.

    IMHO it’s a mistake to think that “the 1500” are incompetent and overshoot blind. And at this late stage in the game, “if you knew what you were doing”, seems to me that the covid theory is actually your #1 option if the goal (addiction) is to keep doing the same old thing of kicking the energy can further down the road.

    And because I am convinced that we are not going to do any of the important stuff regarding softening the collapse (decommissioning nuclear power plants, helping some plants & animals survive, etc)…. in some sick, twisted way I am actually in favor of implementing this theory. Best chance of continuing the human race. But it’s an extremely selfish & supremacist mindset. Because sapiens surviving the collapse is the worst possible outcome for everything non-human.

    Chris

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    1. I had a long conversation with my mRNA’d brother recently about covid. When mRNA was rolled out he ignored my warnings and did what the government asked to get along. Now he’s waking up to the fact that I was right.

      I explained all the evidence and associated theories. He kept asking over and over, what was the motivation of our leaders? I told him I have an open mind but it’s the only important world event that I don’t have a clear idea of who did what and why.

      So I accept that your theory is possible. A sizeable sub-group of the dissidents think population reduction was the core objective, unfortunately, most (none?) are overshoot aware like those of us here so they don’t have the correct context.

      I do struggle with the idea that 1500+ people are able to plan such a dangerous operation without someone spilling the beans.

      Chris, your mission now is to go on Twitter and convince the other 4 dissident groups that your theory is the correct one.

      The thing that troubles me the most is that we don’t seem to be converging to a consensus, which means I think, that the bad guys are going to get away with it.

      https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jack_Handey

      I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they’d never expect it.

      MAYBE in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Basically, it’s made up of two separate words — “mank” and “ind.” What do these words mean? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.

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    2. Looks like Gail Tverberg agrees with you.

      Advanced Economies Will Be Especially Hurt by Energy Limits

      Many people understand the overshoot problem. Somehow, world population must be reduced.

      It doesn’t work for people in rich countries simply to stop having children. This leads to a big immigration problem, which we have now.

      The self organizing economy will give us solutions. The badly behaved vaccinations for Covid-19 may have been part of these solutions.

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      1. Would be cool if she hangs out at this site and I just influenced her. I dont follow Gail, but I’m betting she already had that viewpoint.

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  26. Art Berman today argues energy is far more important to productivity than innovation and technology.

    https://www.artberman.com/blog/technology-and-innovation-are-overrated-implications-for-ai/

    At some point we will have to step back from the sacred alters of technology and start working on our own behavior if we expect to continue thriving. If we don’t, Nature will do it for us and that will be a civilization-altering trauma.

    Energy is what matters. Technology and innovation are like tiny stowaways on the super tanker of the human enterprise that take credit for the journey without acknowledging the massive fossil fuel engines underfoot.

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  27. B today on falling UK CO2 emissions, and why global GDP growth is struggling despite record high production of oily substances.

    https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/bye-bye-carbon

    Ours is a carbon based economy. On the other hand, carbon emissions are wrecking the climate; for proof just take a look at this short tour de force from Paul Beckwith. In related news UK emissions in 2023 fell to lowest level since 1879. But why is that so? Are we on a path to a green Nirvana, or something entirely different is going on? If you suspect that it is the latter, then this one is for you.

    Who wouldn’t want to produce oil at $25–30 and sell it for $90? The wee little problem we have is that on a global level we cannot produce more oil at this price. And soon, not even for a higher one. Simply put: we have run out of the easy to access stuff, requiring low to modest energy investments to get.

    This relentless rise in energy investment needed to replace depleting wells, let alone bringing more oil onto the market, leaves a mark on even the best financed players’ balance sheet. Saudis, for example, are literally out of money to expand oil production, and rather pay dividends than to invest in future production. Perhaps, they are not so eager to squander their oil wealth in one fell swoop (like US shale producers), but a worsening return on investment should at least ring some alarm bells…

    The growth in global oil production is approaching its end, before a terminal decline sets in. Something, that with a natural decline rate of 6 million barrels a day globally could be pretty steep. (This of course presumes that everybody decides to stop replacing depleted wells all at once, which I find highly unlikely.) However, even a steady annual 2–3 million barrel/day production loss could lead to a massive deterioration of the global economy. Sure, more and more trucks will be converted to burn LNG or other manufactured fuels (gas to liquids or coal to liquids, biofuels, synfuels, etc), but as the production of these fuels are intimately tied to oil production and have a dismal energy return on investment, I would not bet the house on their success.

    It should not come as a surprise then that the much touted “renewable” and nuclear powered green economy remains hopelessly tied to affordable diesel (from mining resources to delivering everything on site), and other fossil fuels powering the creation of all the necessary steel, cement and the plethora of other technologies. These “new” energy resources are nothing but a desperate attempt to buy more time — to watch more cat videos while getting rich on Bitcoin.

    The fall in CO2 emissions, while good news for the future of the global climate, signals a turning point in the life of this civilization. The UK, Germany, and Europe in general are just the first canaries to kick the bucket in this rapidly depleting coal mine we call the ‘economy’. I know this might sound “depressing” to some, but it is what it is. I see no use putting lipstick on this pig. This is how infinite growth ends on a finite planet, much sooner than the resulting climate change could wreak havoc on the economy. This civilization was built and maintained by the power of fossilized plants, and as their carbon returns to the atmosphere to recreate a state of climate not seen in the past 3 million years, the human enterprise will return to a much simpler state and to much, much lower numbers; not seen since the Neolithic age.

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  28. Very interesting deep dive today into steel production and recycling and it’s relationships with renewable energy by Kris De Decker.

    https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2024/03/how-to-escape-from-the-iron-age/

    The high steel intensity of low carbon power sources confronts us with a so-called “catch-22”, a situation in which there seems to be no escape from a problem no matter what we do. We need much more steel if we replace thermal power plants with renewable ones. Because there is not enough steel scrap available, we can only produce that extra steel from iron ore in blast furnaces burning fossil fuels. To address climate change, we need to build low-carbon sources quickly and in great numbers. However, to achieve circular material flows and build low-carbon power sources from scrap and renewable electricity, we would have to do the opposite: slow down the development of a low-carbon power grid.

    The picture painted above seems to offer little hope for carbon-neutral steelmaking and power production. However, there is a low-tech solution that could achieve it. We could adjust steel production to the available scrap supply both in quantity and quality. That would allow us to produce all steel from scrap in electric arc furnaces, dramatically reducing energy consumption and eliminating almost all carbon emissions. Of course, the intent should not be to replace steel with plastic composites and aluminum because they are even more energy-intensive to produce. The only solution is to reduce material use overall.

    There is a lot of room to reduce the steel intensity of modern society. All our basic needs – and more – could be supplied with much less steel involved. For example, we could make cars lighter by making them smaller. That would bring energy savings without the need for energy-intensive high-grade steel. We could replace cars with bicycles and public transportation so that more people share less steel. Such changes would also reduce the need for steel in the road network, the energy infrastructure, and the manufacturing industry. We would need fewer machine tools, shipping containers, and reinforced concrete buildings. Whenever steel intensity is reduced, the advantages cascade throughout the whole system. Preventing corrosion and producing steel more locally from local resources would also reduce energy use and emissions.

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  29. Tim Watkins today discusses our simultaneously too-high and too-low population. I think it’s analogous to fossil carbon use being too-high and too-low. We face a predicament, not a problem.

    Watkins does not believe there is a cabal trying to reduce our population. Just natural forces.

    https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/03/18/natural-decline/

    The key statistic within the falling birthrate is the absence of growth of one-child families. That is, people who have children tend to have two or more. The big increase is in the number of people not having children at all. And what began in Japan soon spread across the westernized parts of Asia, and on to Europe and North America, as the energy crisis and economic slowdown of the 1970s gathered pace.

    The three key mechanics for responding to the growing economic decline also involved sour grapes narratives to cover their mercenary nature:
    – Equalities legislation was couched in progressive language, but its primary purpose was to create a pool of cheap excess labour with which to break trades unions and to drive down real wages.
    – Offshoring was sold as a means of bringing developing states up to western levels, but again, the real purpose was to lower wage costs and to avoid regulation in order to drive down prices.
    – Credit was promoted as a sensible “buy-now/pay-later” approach to consumption in an age of inflation, since economic growth was assumed, and the value of the debt was expected to deflate over time.

    Economic growth across the western states since the 1970s has been increasingly an illusion resulting from a growing and indebted population. But now, with the youth population in decline, any “asset” which depends upon a growing mass of payers – a house, a pension, a government bond, a collateralized debt obligation, an apple i-phone, or a Netflix subscription, to name but a few – will be rendered unviable… only the order and timing of the failures is left to discover. And beyond that, all that remains is when the various sour grapes narratives – including the one about how some all-powerful “they” behind the curtain is doing this deliberately – finally breakdown and people are forced to acknowledge the reality of a natural process of collapse which has been slowly gathering pace for more than half a century.

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