Today’s post includes a recent sobering comment on overshoot reality by un-Denial regular Hideaway that I thought deserved more visibility, and a new essay on acceptance by B, who has recently emerged as one of the best writers about human overshoot.
The ideas of Hideaway and B complement some of the recent discussions here about acceptance and the nature of our species.
P.S. I did not receive permission from B to re-post his essay but I’m hoping that since un-Denial is not monetized he will not object, and I will of course remove the essay if B expresses concern.
By Hideaway: On Radical Reality
The human enterprise of modernity and 8.1+ billion humans is going down. Reduction in available energy is the trigger and there is nothing we can do to stop it, or make it less unpleasant, or save the macrofauna from extinction.
As we build more energy machines of any type, their output increases overall energy available, and used, providing this happens faster than the retirement of old energy producing machines. Over the last few decades we, as in humanity in it’s entirety, have increased fossil fuel use developing more, tearing up the environment more, while increasing the build of renewables.
On a world wide scale, we have not replaced any fossil fuel use, we have just increased all energy use with more fossil fuels being part of that increase, and renewables being part of the increase. At some point growing energy use must stop, unless we make the planet uninhabitable for all life, which means we stop anyway.
Because of our economic system, as soon as we stop growing energy production and use, the price of energy goes up, and we go into recession/depression. It becomes impossible to build ‘new’ stuff of any kind once energy use declines, unless we take the energy from other users, for our ‘new’ builds.
Building more renewables, batteries, EVs, etc., currently means using more fossil fuels to build it all. There is no realistic attempt to build it all with electricity from renewables, nor is that possible. If we diverted existing renewable energy production to, for example, a new mine, then that renewable energy, removed from a city, would have to be made up by increasing fossil fuel generated electricity for the city.
If we ‘ran’ the new mine from new renewables, then these have to be built first, meaning we need the mine for the minerals to build the renewables, or we take minerals from existing users, elsewhere. It’s all just more, more, more and none of the proponents of renewables, including major green organizations want to acknowledge it.
The circular economy can’t work as we cannot physically recycle everything, plus we would need to build all the recycling facilities. If we were to try and do this without increasing total energy use, where does the energy come from to build these new recycling facilities? Other energy users? For the last couple of centuries it’s always come from ‘growth’, especially in energy use. None of us, nor our parents or grandparents, have known a world where the amount of energy available to humanity does anything other than grow.
Because of losses of all materials due to entropy and dissipation into the environment, we will always need mining, of ever lower ore grades, meaning an increasing energy use for mining. It is simply not possible to maintain output from mines once we go to zero energy growth, unless the energy comes from other uses, and users.
Once energy production growth stops, the price of all energy rises, because we need energy production to go up just to maintain the system, as population grows, ore grades decline, etc. If energy production was to fall, the price becomes higher, making everything else cost more. We can see this on a micro scale every time an old coal power plant is closed. On average, the wholesale price of electricity goes up, until compensated for by some newer form of electricity production (the new source taking energy to build).
Visions for the future usually include extra energy efficiency for buildings, etc. but never, ever, include the energy cost of these energy efficiency gains. For example, a simple hand wave about using double glazed or triple glazed windows. To do this, on a worldwide scale, we would need to build a lot of new glass factories, and probably window manufacturers as well. It will take more energy to do this, just like everything else ‘new’.
The phrase ‘build new’ means more energy is required for construction and mining the minerals for the new or expanded factories. The Adaro coal power plant (new) and aluminium smelter (also new) in Indonesia are perfect examples of our predicament. The world needs more aluminium for ‘new’ solar PVs, EVs, wiring, etc. which means more energy use and environmental damage, regardless of whether we use fossil fuels, solar panels, or pumped hydro backup.
Civilization is a Ponzi scheme energy trap, we either grow energy and material use, or we stagnate, and then collapse. Following feedback loops, we see there is no way out of this predicament.
People often claim the future is difficult to predict, yet it is simple, obvious, and highly predictable for humanity as a whole. We will continue to use more energy, mine more minerals, and destroy more of the environment, until we can’t. The first real limit we will experience is oil production, and we may be there already.
Once oil production starts to fall with a vengeance as it must, say 2-3 million barrels/day initially, then accelerating to 4-5 million barrels/day, it will trigger a feedback loop of making natural gas and coal production more difficult as both are totally dependent upon diesel, thus reducing the production of both, or if we prioritize diesel for natural gas and coal production, then other consumers of diesel, like tractors, combines, trucks, trains, and ships, must use less.
Mining and agriculture will come under pressure, sending prices for all raw materials and food through the roof. World fertilizer use is currently above 500 million tonnes annually. A lot of energy is required to make and distribute fertilizer. World grain yields are strongly correlated to fertilizer use, so less energy means less fertilizer, which means less food, unless we prioritize energy for agriculture by taking energy from and harming some other part of our economy.
If we banned discretionary energy uses to keep essential energy uses going, while overall energy continues to decline, then large numbers of people will lose their jobs and experience poverty, further compounding the problems of scarcity and rising prices.
Money for investing into anything will dry up. If governments print money to help the economy, inflation will negate the effort. If governments increase taxes to fund more assistance, then more people and businesses will be made poorer.
The ability to build anything new quickly evaporates, people everywhere struggle between loss of employment, loss of affordable goods and services, increased taxation, and will be forced to increase the well-being of their immediate ‘group’ to the detriment of ‘others’. Crime rates go through the roof, the blame game increases, with some trying to dispossess others of their resources. This will occur for individuals, groups and countries. Crime and war will further accelerate the decline in energy production, and the production and shipment of goods in our global economy. One after the other, at an accelerating rate, countries will become failed states when the many feedback loops accelerate the fossil fuel decline. Likewise for solar, wind and nuclear.
We rapidly get to a point where our population of 8.1+ billion starts to decline, with starving people everywhere searching for their next meal, spreading from city to country areas, eating everything they can find, while burning everything to stay warm in colder areas during the search for food. Every animal found will eaten. Farming of any type, once the decline accelerates, will not happen, because too many people will be eating the seed, or the farmer. Cows, sheep, horses, chooks, pigs, deer, basically all large animals will succumb because of the millions or billions of guns in existence and starving nomadic people.
Eventually after decades of decline, humans will not be able to be hunter gatherers as we will have made extinct all of megafauna. Whoever is left will be gatherers of whatever food plants have self-seeded and grown wild. Even if we were able to get some type of agriculture going again, there would be no animals to pull plows, all old ‘machinery’ from decades prior would be metal junk, so food would remain a difficult task for humans, unless we found ways to farm rabbits and rats, without metal fencing. While we will use charcoal to melt metals found in scavenged cities, it will limited to producing a few useful tools, like harnesses to put on the slaves plowing the fields, or for keeping the slaves entrapped.
Once we go down the energy decline at an accelerating rate, nothing can stop complete collapse unless we can shrink population much faster than the energy decline, which itself may very well be pointless as we have created such a globalised economy of immense complexity, where fast population decline, has it’s own huge set of problems and feedback loops.
Our complex economy requires a large scale of human enterprise. Reduce the scale, and businesses will have less sales, making everything more expensive. Rapid population decline will mean many businesses won’t just reduce production, but will often stop altogether when the business goes bust.
Because of interdependencies of our complex products, a scarcity of one seemingly uncritical component will have far reaching effects on other critical products. Maintenance parts will become difficult to obtain, causing machinery to fail, in turn causing other machines to fail that depended on the failed machines. Think of a truck delivering parts required to fix trucks. The same applies to production line machines, processing lines at mines, or simple factories making furniture, let alone anything complicated. If we only reach population decline as energy declines the problem is still the same.
By B: On Radical Acceptance
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/on-radical-acceptance
So what is radical acceptance? For me, it means: accepting that no single technological civilization based on finite resources is sustainable. Neither in the bronze age, nor in the iron age; let alone in an era of industrial revolutions. None. Why? Because all spend their nest egg — be it fertile topsoil, forests or coal, lithium and copper — a million times faster than it can be replenished. Recycling and “sustainability” practices can only slow down the process somewhat… At least in theory, but rarely in practice. The “circular economy”, together with „renewables” are nothing but fairy tales we tell ourselves to scare off the wolfs at night. Sorry to be this blunt, but the decline of this techno-industrial civilization is inevitable, and is already well underway.
The only type of civilization (if you want to use that term), which proved to be more or less sustainable so far, was a basic hunter-gatherer society; complemented perhaps with some agroforestry, pottery and some low key metallurgy. Anything beyond that inevitably destroyed the soil and the very resource base supporting the entire edifice. With that said, I’m not suggesting that we should immediately go back to the caves and mud huts… That would be impossible for 4 billion of us, entirely supported by large scale agriculture based on artificial fertilizers and a range of pesticides. However, it is important to note, that this is the direction we are headed, with the only question being how fast we will get there and how many humans can be sustained via such a lifestyle.
And this is where acceptance comes into view. Once you understand (not just “know”) that burning through a finite amount of mineral reserves at an exponential pace leads to depletion and environmental degradation at the same time, you start to see how unsustainable any human civilization is. All that technology (in its narrowest technical sense) does is turning natural resources into products and services useful for us, at the cost of polluting the environment. Technology use is thus not only the root cause of our predicament, but it can only accelerate this process. More technology — more depletion — more pollution. Stocks drawn down, sinks filling up. Simple as that. Of course you can elaborate on this matter as long as you wish, conjuring up all sorts of “game changer” and “wonder” machines from fusion to vertical gardens, the verdict remains the same. It. Is. All. Unsustainable. Period.
There are no clean technologies, and without dense energy sources like fossil fuels there wont be any technology — at least not at the scale we see today.
Many people say: Oh this is so depressing! And I ask: why? Because your grand-grand children will have to work on a field and grow their own food? Or that you might not even have grand-grand children? I don’t mean that I have no human feelings. I have two children whom I love the most. I have a good (very good) life — supported entirely by this technological society. Sure, I would love to see this last forever, and that my kin would enjoy such a comfortable life, but I came to understand that this cannot last. Perhaps not even through my lifetime. I realize that I most probably will pass away from an otherwise totally treatable disease, just because the healthcare system will be in absolute shambles by the time I will need it the most. But then what? Such is life: some generations experience the ‘rising tide lift all boats’ period in a civilization’s lifecycle, while others have to live through its multi-decade (if not centuries) long decline.
I did feel envy, shame, and anxiety over that, but as the thoughts I’ve written about above have slowly sunk in, these bad feelings all went away. It all started look perfectly normal, and dare I say: natural. No one set out to design this modern iteration of a civilization with an idea to base it entirely on finite resources; so that it will crash and burn when those inputs start to run low, and the pollution released during their use start to wreck the climate and the ecosystem as a whole. No. It all seemed like just another good idea. Why not use coal, when all the woods were burnt? Why not turn to oil then, when the easily accessible part of our coal reserves started to run out? At the time — and at the scale of that time — it all made perfect sense. And as we got more efficient, and thus it all got cheaper, more people started to hop onboard… And why not? Who wouldn’t want to live a better life through our wondrous technologies? The great sociologist C. Wright Mills summed up this process the best, when writing about the role of fate in history:
Fate is shaping history when what happens to us was intended by no one and was the summary outcome of innumerable small decisions about other matters by innumerable people.
Scientifically speaking this civilization, just like the many others preceding it, is yet another self organizing complex adaptive system. It seeks out the most accessible energy source and sucks it dry, while increasing the overall entropy of the system. We as a species are obeying the laws of thermodynamics, and the rule set out in the maximum power principle. Just like galaxies, stars, a pack of wolves, fungi or yeast cells. There is nothing personal against humanity in this. We are just a bunch of apes, playing with fire.
Once I got this, I started to see this whole process, together with our written history of the past ten thousand years, as an offshoot of natural evolution. Something, which is rapidly reaching its culmination, only to be ended as a failed experiment. Or, as Ronald Wright put it brilliantly in his book A Short History of Progress:
Letting apes run the laboratory was fun for a while, but in the end a bad idea.
So, no. I’m not depressed at all. It was fun to see how far a species can go, but also reassuring that it was a one off experiment. Once this high tech idiocy is over, it will be impossible to start another industrial revolution anyway. There will be no more easy to mine, close to surface ores and minerals. Everything left behind by this rapacious society will remain buried beneath a thousand feet of rocks, and will be of such a low quality that it will not worth the effort. Lacking resources to maintain them, cities, roads, bridges will rust and crumble into the rising seas, while others will be replaced by deserts, or lush forests. The reset button has been pressed already, it just takes a couple of millennia for a reboot to happen.
Contradictory as it may sound: this is what actually gives me hope. Bereft of cheap oil, and an access to Earth’s abundant mineral reserves, future generations of humans will be unable to continue the ecocide. There will be no new lithium mines, nor toxic tailings or hazardous chemicals leaching into the groundwater. Our descendants will be forced to live a more sustainable, more eco-friendly life. There will be no other way: the ecocide will end. This also means, that there will be no “solution” to climate change, nor ecological collapse. They both will run their due course, and take care of reducing our numbers to acceptable levels. Again, don’t fret too much about it: barring a nuclear conflict, this process could last well into the next century, and beyond. The collapse of modernity will take much longer than any of us could imagine, and will certainly look nothing like what we see in the movies. And no, cutting your emissions will not help. At all. Live your life to its fullest. Indulge in this civilization, or retreat to a farm. It’s all up to you, and your values. This is what I mean under the term, radical acceptance.
We are a species of this Earth, and paraphrasing Tom Murphy, we either succeed with the rest of life on this planet or go down together. Nurturing hope based technutopian “solutions”, and trying to remain optimistic does not solve anything. This whole ordeal is unsustainable. What’s more, it was from the get go… And that which is unsustainable will not be sustained. And that is fine. We, as a species are part of a much bigger whole, the web of life, and returning to our proper place as foraging humanoids will serve and fit into that whole much better than any technutopian solution could.
Until next time,
B
un-Denial 
Another salvo from Hideaway. Gotta admire the determination.
It’s a similar dynamic to trying to convince someone there is no life after death. Or that mRNA has more risks than benefits. Logic and facts don’t work.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-3-2023/#comment-774839
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It seems that the only real improvement in living standards in the West in the past 50 years has been faster electronic devices. Other than that, has it improved much? I am too young to judge.
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Many more things than electronics have improved:
There’s a much wider variety of food available.
Surgery, dentistry, and eyecare are better.
Entertainment variety and audio/video quality is better.
Long distance travel is easier.
The reliability, safety and performance of cars is much better. Ten kids in my high school class were killed in car crashes. Air bags, shoulder belts, and crumple zones make fatalities rare today.
Bicycles are lighter.
Hiking and camping gear is much better.
Home insulation and heat pumps are better.
LED lighting is much better.
I’m sure there many more things I could think of with more time.
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One thing has definitely gotten worse.
The peak of good music was Led Zeppelin IV in 1971.
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I think things are a lot better for women in modern times
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That is a big one. Although, I have heard that hunter gatherers have more gender equality than agriculturalists.
In the U.S. (where I live), things have also gotten better for ethnic/racial minorities, LGBT people, and people with disabilities.
When it comes to LGBT people, they may also be better off as hunter gatherers than under civilization.
https://www.nateliason.com/notes/civilized-to-death
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I could tell you heaps of weird gender and sex things that different societies have done/believed from my time studying anthropology. Some of it is really funny like thinking you get pregnant by swimming in the ocean and the ancestors spirits swim inside of you to make the baby. 🙂 Some is super creepy like one society where the mums and dads have the “first sex” with their child of the opposite sex to teach them how it is done.
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True and sadly may take a turn for the worse with collapse.
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Good question! I read a great article a while back that had like 50 or so of these types of observations. Something like how it takes roughly the same amount of time and same energy process/amounts to fly from New York to Paris today as it did 75 years ago.
So disappointing for dupes like myself who just knew that Back to the Future part 2 (made in 1989) was correct with its flying cars and just overall cool futuristic world of 2015. LOL. While the world was standing in line to watch this movie or Star Wars or any other big blockbuster but impossible, unrealistic (because of energy) … were you overshoot lifers more disgusted or entertained by it all?
Although my journey starts a few years back it’s probably only the last 12 months or so where I start to really grasp and understand that there are limits to everything and how much rampant ignorance there is about it. And only in the last 4 months since I came here, where my grasp is getting super tight. I pretty much understood it from day one with M Dowd, but I’m talking about where I now spend loads of time thinking about it and mapping it out, etc. Mostly been disgust for me. George Carlin got to a point where it was mostly entertaining. That’s my goal.
I can’t even go to the movies nowadays. I’ll get too into thinking about the resources used to build the theatre complex and how much energy used for all the people and their cars and homes. (only half kidding)
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The Wall Street Journal What’s News podcast this morning did an in depth piece on why the energy transition is slowing down in both the US and Europe.
In summary, governments and utility companies are running out of money for subsidies and citizens cannot afford the full price.
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/whats-news/who-pays-for-going-green-your-questions-answered/6D586507-A0B1-4A3B-B477-314E13030D3C
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This might be an insanely boring and common-sense question, but sometimes you guys correct me on things I am sure of and it knocks me down a peg or two (which I like and need).
My evil job with a big-name insurance company is basically glorified data entry. There is something called Name Insureds (NI’s) which is just the primary name of the company and any additional names. Been working here for years and still can’t tell you a good reason why you need more than one name for your business.
In general (but plenty of exceptions), the higher the $ales the more NI’s increase. The smaller companies (under a $billion in sales per year) have zero additional NI’s or maybe a couple. Medium-large companies start averaging in the low double digits. When you get to the huge money makers its very normal for them to have a hundred or more. I usually get a couple every month that are closer to a thousand. And I’ve seen one from a coworker with 12,000 NI’s. But we only see a fraction of the total policies. (and the worst part about it all – the more NI’s, the more work required from me 😒)
WTF could that be about other than my obvious generalization that its all about shady hiding of money?
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Some reasons from companies I have worked at:
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Oh you damn polymath you. Be quiet and stop trying to poke holes in my brilliant theories. 😊😊
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I’m definitely not a polymath haha. My brain just remembers useless facts. I’m promise I’m shit at lots of things LOL. For example, I can’t remember phone numbers, people’s names, or people’s faces 😦
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They forgot to mention people with defective denial genes worried about the collapse of civilization.
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Hideaway explains Australia’s brilliant peak oil strategy.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-11-2023-2/#comment-774922
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Soon, we will have to start rationing fossil fuels. Knowing the state of politics in the U.S., many Americans will be apoplectic.
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Hideaway answers the question everyone wants to know. When will SHTF?
History will show it was a really bad idea to deny reality with extreme debt.
Meanwhile, Iran today may have acknowledged having nuclear weapons.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-11-2023-2/#comment-774914
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Interesting to learn that B lives in Hungary.
Today he discusses technology of the future.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/musings-on-the-nature-of-technology
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Some interesting bits from Panopticon’s economic round-up today.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/05/13/13th-may-2024-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
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Hello Hideaway,
Maybe you are right.
My brother likes to say we have absolute freedom, but simply have then to live with the consequences of our choices.
Sending you love 🙂
Don’t be afraid.
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And very much looking forward to your series of posts and book 🙂
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Nature has a backup plan in case Hideaway is wrong about oil depletion.
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“A certainty of physics” … that sounds scientific, not.
Co2-levels-historic.jpg (658×329) (rocketcdn.me)
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I often wonder what the cutoff date should be for worrying about the future. Do we worry about the next generation, up to 100 yrs, 1000yrs, millions of years. It is all so abstract yet we attach to it.
I have decided to stop worrying as there is nothing that I can do about it for the most part and enjoy my life as best I can. Getting back into music playing and writing is a big help. I recommend the same for everyone – whatever your passion maybe.
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300 million years before the sun changes it’s lumen output. Until then we should be more responsible LOL 🙂
As I understand from the internet (which could be wrong) a lot of ancient carbon is locked up in rocks and cannot get into the atmosphere again. So we could never get as hot as we have in the past when that carbon was floating around. We therefore can’t turn the planet into Venus or any other such nonsense that climate doomers fantasize about.
I still think climate change is awful. We are an ice age animal, slowly turning the planet tropical. We are an agricultural animal slowly ruining reliable weather patterns.
I worry about the rate of change, as that is a big factor in mass extinction. Climate change makes me worry for the animals and plants, especially those living in the cold extremes of the planet.
But the idea that we’ll all be wiped off the earth in a few decades by climate changes seems utterly ridiculous to me. Sometimes when you press people on this belief, they then admit they meant ‘end of modern civilization’ not NTHE (or around 90% die-off). Which makes me super grumpy because modern civilization is going to end soon anyway with or without climate change. 90% die-off is not the same as extinction, especially for an animal as overpopulated as ours. That’s just a return to the mean
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Don’t forget the hydrological cycles, large and small degraded by landuse choices the species is making.
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Hey Hideaway,
Just wondering where roughly in OZ you are?
I am in northern NSW area.
Keep up the good fight.
nikoB
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Hi NikoB, we are in rural southern Victoria about 200km (by car) from Melbourne to the South West. I know a few people in Northern NSW around the Lennox Head to Lismore area…
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I am close to that area.
If you are ever up this way would be good to have a coffee.
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Rob you will like this conversation (if you haven’t seen it yet). A smart engineer talking about our overshoot issues, biases and denial, etc.
The Failure of Experts – Peak Prosperity – YouTube
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Thanks, got a feeling I listened to it a couple weeks ago but can’t remember. I put it back on my phone and will listen to it tomorrow at the farm.
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I really did not enjoy this interview with Alan Booker.
If he is an engineer and was on my team I would have fired him like the dozens of other unimpressive engineers I terminated over the years.
All fluffy platitudes and no actionable substance.
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Fair enough. I agree it got worse as it went on and I had to give up watching about 3/4 way through.
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Yeh, it sounded promising at the beginning because he has some good insights but then it never translated into anything practical.
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Why do Australians and New Zealanders seem to be more overshoot aware than Americans, Brits or Canadians?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDjxnmZVcNM
What about the non-anglophone world?
France seems to be more overshoot aware than the U.S. as well. Almost 2 years ago, Emmanuel Macron spoke about the “end of abundance”. I can not imagine an American politician saying that (at least publicly).
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A lot of French people love ‘collapse’ as a theme in entertainment culture. Perhaps also the memory of living through the revolution and german occupation makes them appreciate how hard life would be if things collapsed again?
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It would not surprise me if every country was ahead of USA for overshoot or just important issues in general. Americans take the cake for idocracy. But then again, we are Empire Babies so what else would you expect.
So yes I wanna jump ship and go live at the bottom of the world, on an island. What do you say NZ and AU, you got any need over there for a useless, asshole american male who thrives at being a Taker? That’s the best sales pitch I’ve got. This offer will only be good for a limited time. You’d be crazy not to snatch that up. 😊
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I find it interesting that there a numerous people I know here in OZ that are collapse aware or believing but none of them are overshoot savvy. Practically none of them understand the implications of peak oil and that – as hideaway so patiently explains to others – everything rests on the shoulders of fossil fuels or to be more exact diesel.
I have tried explaining for 20 yrs and all I have managed is to narrow my friendship group significantly.
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I know a lot of “green” people through the farm I assist and none understand the implications of peak oil. I don’t talk much about it these days. The response is usually battery operated farm machinery 😦 . Ditto for population reduction.
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If you’ve got a thick skin, you will love it here. Come on over 🙂 we’ll have ya’!
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Oh, I definitely meet the requirement of a thick skin. Alright, I’m on my way. As soon I get off the plane in NZ, I’m just gonna tell em “Monk sent me”. That way they’ll roll out the red carpet and give me the VIP treatment. 😊
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Haha see ya soon! LOL
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US senator says Israel should drop nuclear bombs on Gaza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jJpA11Z5N8
Wow, the U.S. and Israeli governments are both full of monsters.
Given the fact that Jews were subject to apartheid conditions in Europe for centuries, one would think that Israel would be a strong opponent of apartheid, but apparently they offered to sell nukes to apartheid South Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ghettos_in_Europe
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Chris Martenson has gone full circle to the early days of Peak Prosperity. Today he said the people predicting a climate disaster have not convinced him we have a problem. In the same video he criticized people who spread lies because their income depends on it. You can’t make this shit up.
No link because I’m not going to help him make a living.
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I think his subscriber count must be dropping as well because he is doing a lot of deals and self promotion lately
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Big Pharma owns the government, media and the medical establishment now. It took them 30 or 40 years but now it is a done deal – so why would they worry about a few deaths? Money talks in Amerika. All you can do is avoid the medical establishment and try to stay healthy. (RFK Jr. would try to take this apart but they would probably kill him if he had a chance to get elected.)
AJ
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Dr. Tom Murphy today discusses spirituality, consciousness, and free will in the context of “What’s the point of overshoot awareness?”.
Too many words for my liking and misses the genetic denial that underpins most of his essay however the conclusion is good.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/05/whats-the-point/
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I do not understand.
This will raise prices. Which will be incorrectly interpreted as monetary inflation. Which will cause higher interest rates. Which will accelerate the collapse.
It will also reduce fossil energy demand by making products that use a lot too expensive.
What’s really going on here?
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Hi Rob,
Hope you’re going well and thoroughly enjoying your little patch of soil now covered in green. Soon you will be able to share/trade your bounty and I am very happy to vicariously partake in your harvest.
I am recalled to your post a while back “The Great Reset” and I think this is all part of the controlled collapse to bring on that totalitarian system which has been Empire’s way of managing through crisis. The middle class has to be completely destroyed by one means or another to achieve the most smooth transition and control. As if times couldn’t get more interesting this election year for the States. Meanwhile, China, Russia and friends are just waiting it out for the States and Europe to finally implode and then will continue to trade nicely (hopefully!) amongst themselves until it is clear that it has truly come to the end of fossil-fuelled modernity.
The climate irregularities are making their impact here in the subtropics on an individual level. I’ve been up here a month or so (having missed the stupendous aurora display in Tasmania, doh!) and I’ve seen the sun peek out a total of 3 days. We’ve probably had over 700mm of rain in that time and if not for the fact we have freely draining soil and on a slope, I think many of our trees would have been severely affected by the constant moisture by now. There’s no chance of starting new plantings on our small holding now as the soil structure would be completely compacted. The locals can’t remember a time when it was so consistently wet, as it has been here for the past 6 months. Being a major agricultural region, the rain and wet have affected planting and harvesting commercially and soon that will filter down to prices in shops. Regularly now at the main grocery stores there are signs apologising for the lack of or reduced quality of produce due to the weather around the country (decided wetter this year in many crop growing lowland regions) and prices also reflect this. A head of cauliflower or green cabbage can be $8.
My driveway into the property has been a mud slick for weeks and somehow I have managed to negotiate it the few times I need to go out. The solar power generator which has fried has been sitting in its crate waiting for courier pick-up for the past 3 weeks, but they refuse to attempt coming down the lane for fear of getting stuck.
Building works have stopped due to the weather as well as supply issues. Everything is coming undone in a million ways and here we are in a first world country on the brink of experiencing what it could be like not being one ever again. Interesting times indeed, and there is a world of difference between being aware and being prepared.
Namaste, friends.
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Hello Gaia,
You must be on the Eastern Tablelands with that much rain. Maybe east of Tarzali or near Topaz ?
We’re maybe 30 kms (direct line ) west of you. (4kms west of Tumoulin ), and have had 75mm in April, and 27mm this month. The property next to us planted potatoes about the start of April ,and they are doing exceedingly well. Enough initial soil moisture and subsequent rain to not need irrigating so far.
I’ve read your comments over the last few years, and since you are evidently interested in tropical fruits, and are a local now, I’ll give you some information that you might find interesting. I was born in 1955, near Mackay, Qld,. Grew up on a cane farm, and have been involved with tropical fruit all my life. (I wrote an article on tropical fruits for Earth Garden Magazine when I was about 16 or 17, plus a longer detailed article on Casimiroas for the Rare Fruit Council when I was importing Casimiroa cultivars about 1980.
I gave that info to give you some context . We came here in 1977,and grew and sold fruit for 20 years.,and was well versed in what tropical fruits were here then. A lot of the fruits that you mentioned were not in Australia then. There was a single Casimiroa seedling tree in NSW, that was it. No Jaboticabas, Black Sapote. A single Pouteria campechiana in the Cairns botanical gardens. No other Pouteria spp. No Amazon tree grapes, on and on ( If you want a list of the tropical fruit that were in Australia before then, I guess that Earth Garden article would about cover it.)
1977 into the mid 1980s was an amazing time in the Australian Tropical Fruit world. I am a friend of Alan Carle (started Botanical Ark at Whyanbeel north of Mossman ), who at that time was at Avondale Nsy near
Smithfield (no longer there ). He imported the majority of the various fruits available here now. I imported Casimiroa and Cherimoya cultivars from California and Spain, plus a few from N.Z.
Anyway, I’m not sure if that is of interest to you or not. Re. vegetables, perennials are the way to go IMO. I guess you have Gynura procumbens and bicolor growing ? Lebanese cress and Water celery do well here,and should be okay for you. Do you have Chaya (Cnidosculus sp ) growing ? It should do well for you. No pest problems with it here ( some forms of Aibika here are susceptible to a leaf-rolling caterpillar here ) We have C. chayamansa. (a form with no stinging hairs ) Used the same as C.aconitifolius, has a different leaf shape.
The Rufous Bettongs here (most of this block is native wet sclerophyll forest) eat any sweet potatoes, so they either have to be fenced off, or grown in large pots ( We use 40cm pots, sequentially planted through the year)
I remember that you are interested in Bamboos. We have about 30 species, growing for about 40 years. One that flowered not long ago ,that we have seedlings of, is Otatea acuminata var. aztecorum. It is native to a drier climate than yours, but would be worth trying, as it is a very useful bamboo. In Australia, it is grown mainly for the outstanding ornamental qualities. Not many references mention that the culms are solid for over two thirds of their height. Very strong, and an excellent bamboo for tool handles and similar uses. and I haven’t tried it, but it could probably be bent to shape with applied heat, as some Calamus palm spp. are. Not susceptible to borers. I have a section that has been kept dry inside for over 20 years,and still in perfect condition.
Anyway, this comment is too long. If you want a plant of the Otatea, or Chaya cutting (very easy grower ),or the other vegetables (We have Molokai purple, Okinawan Purple, Hawaiian sunrise sweet potatoes and a Japanese one which we haven’t harvested yet ), let me know, and I’ll give them to you. We have stalls E16 and E17 at Yungaburra markets. We’ve been going there for 34 years now. Sell mainly shadehouse ornamental plants there now. Sold fruit trees as well, but stopped those a year or more ago. Have a Pouteria obovata (Lucmo) plant left if you want it. (Correctly named, I got the seeds from a woman in Ecuador )
David Higham.
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Hello David,
What a cornucopia of delights and possibilities you’ve shared so kindly and generously! I am so touched by your reaching out and so eager to learn from your experience, thank you from the bottom of my heart for introducing yourself and I feel even more grateful and awed that we’ve been able to meet through Rob’s site. I am in Ravenshoe, in the subdivision of Bellview off Tully Falls Rd, definitely the wettest side of the district as it can be sunny in Millstream only 10 km away but pouring rain here. So we are most definitely neighbours, how lucky I am to have un-denial compatriots as neighbours both here in Far North QLD and Tasmania!
I now know who to thank for bringing into this region so many of the bountiful fruits and plants that thrive in the sub and tropics. I am constantly learning and wanting so much to grow in knowledge, skill and spirit along with the many trees we have planted, and here appears before me one who has prepared the path with so much heart and labour, thank you and all your contemporaries with this vision. The saying that when the student is ready the teacher appears and I feel so strongly that this is a true statement in this instance and I am just so overjoyed and humbled.
There’s so much to connect with that I cannot wait to meet you at the next Yungaburra market (the 25th this month, if I have it correct?) it will definitely be the highlight of the week, rain or shine!
Have a lovely day and so look forward to meeting you soon. Perhaps we have already met at a prior market (I did get a quite a few plants initially from them). Thank you to Rob for bringing us together here on this page.
All the best to you and your family.
Namaste.
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Hello Gaia,
I check out several websites ,mainly in the morning, for links and sometimes read some comments, which is how I initially noticed your enthusiasm for fruits and Bamboos. I don’t know if I have much to teach you, I didn’t mean that, as I noticed that you knew a lot about the various fruits and bamboos already. Plants like the Otatea and the others I mentioned are on the “must grow” list, I think, in this climate ,(for those who are interested in bamboo and perennial vegetables )which is why I mentioned them .
Yes, unless it is very wet or something unusual happens, we’ll be at Y’burra on the 25th. Just to confirm, which of the plants that I mentioned would you like cuttings or plants of ?
The Chaya plant has a bit of a story,. I initially read about it in a book published by the National Academy of Sciences (U.S. organization) around 1978 ,titled “Underexploited tropical plants with promising Economic Value” . You can find plenty of information about it on the internet now Anyway.it wasn’t in Australia then. It was always in the back of my mind to keep a look out for it.I don’t know if you have it. It isn’t very widely grown or known here yet.
So about two years ago I was checking out some plants on eBay, and there was a single listing for Chaya cutting. I bought it, and when it arrived I immediately realised that it was an Aibika cutting.
You probably know Aibika. (Abelmoschus sp.) One reference here states that there are 70 known cultivars in New Guinea. It has a large variation of leaf forms, from dinner-plate sized almost circular leaves, to deeply incised long lobed leaves. Despite the variation, the basic morphology of the cutting made me pretty sure that it would be an Abika. So I grew it, and it was.
So I contacted the bloke, who said that I was wrong, it was Chaya. About a year later, the bloke was still selling “Chaya” cuttings, and he also had a listing for what he called “Male Chaya”. (Chaya isn’t dioecious, and the “Male Chaya” name is just his invention, as there is no mention anywhere else about a “Male Chaya “. ) Anyway, he had a photo of the leaf, so I bought that one as well. It has flowered, and it is Cnidoscolus chayamansa, according to a site I found which gave detailed information about the differences between C, chayamansa and C. aconitifolius.
I gave all of that story, so that you can see that there will be misnamed Chaya around Australia. I don’t know how many of the Aibika cultivar cuttings, that he was/is selling as” Chaya ” were sold,
I haven’t checked lately, so I don’t know if he is still selling the misnamed Chaya, or if he still sells the Chaya as “Male Chaya ” I might check later on.
Sorry to take up space on this site, Rob.
My email is davidjoanna122@gmail.com , Gaia,if you could send a note advising which cuttings you want, or don’t want, and we’ll take them to Y’burra. Or you could advise here, if you want, but Rob no doubt would prefer no more space taken up here. Thanks, and good luck. Sorry it has been such a wet year for you to give you a bad start. I hope the coming months and next year are better for you.
David Higham
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I’m enjoying the conversation David, feel free to continue. The annual fee I pay for this blog has no limit on comments. 🙂
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Hi Rob,
That’s a relief as I have taken up more than my share of space here on assorted (but hopefully not sordid) topics. I would like to contribute to the annual fee if you would accept it. Thank you for absorbing the cost all these years. It is part of your service to greater humanity, whether they know it or not.
I am glad you are getting something out of David’s and my obvious enthusiasm for edible subtropical plants, alas, none of the species that have been mentioned will survive in your climate zone (until the global warming really takes off), even in the tunnel house. So you will have to live vicariously through our descriptions which I am delighted to share more about.
We have been discussing some varieties of leafy greens that have been staples for many cultures, most can be likened to “spinach” roughly in taste but I don’t think they have the oxalate issue. However, some species (and I believe Chaya is one but that one is new to me thank you to David) definitely need to be cooked to destroy toxic compounds. It is interesting that the texture of many subtropical greens has a mucilaginous quality (like okra) which for many people is either you like it or don’t.
The fruit trees David have mentioned are truly exotic to the Northern hemisphere, you may not even have heard of custard apples and black and white sapotes (which just means soft fruit in Spanish) and canistel. It’s not so challenging to describe their looks (the custard apple is a bumpy irregular shaped fruit about the size of a fist and black and white sapote are usually smooth and round, one turns dark brown, inside and out, when ripe and the other either turns yellowish or stays green and the pulp is light coloured, canistel is smooth pointed oval shaped and bright yellow when ripe and but it is just so hard to describe their taste, it’s like trying to tell someone who never ate a strawberry what it’s like, and in the fruit world there’s just so much variety that there’s no equivalent to “it tastes like chicken”! Many tropical fruits have a texture that is smooth and creamy and often more sweet than temperate fruits, but of course there’s a wide range.
I hope that whets the appetite a bit and I am eager to hear how your and everyone else’s gardens are growing. There’s a wealth of experience here between everyone and all climate zones and it is just a joy and privilege to have the chance to share and learn together.
Namaste, everyone.
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Hello David,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply; I am so interested in everything you have to share both informationally and plant material. I do have Aibeka but it’s the finely dissected variety that seems slightly less vulnerable to whatever likes to eat it, I have tried and prefer the broader leaf one but apparently so do the chewing insects so that’s died off. Chaya is completely new to me and I thank you for introducing this prolific source of greens. I have the bicolour gynura which I know as Okinawa spinach, and also Brazilian spinach, both which have happily colonised several areas. My main green at the moment is sweet potato leaves, the shoots are especially tender and stir-fry well. All of these greens are seemingly loving the wet (and of course the bamboo are really soaking it up and soared skyward), so I really shouldn’t complain, it’s just me that thinks I will be growing aerial roots soon if the rain doesn’t let up!
I would love to try planting here in Ravenshoe any fruit cultivar you think would be possible, we can get frosts but not likely this season if it remains wet. I love canistel (I’ve got a few trees going and one has fruited for about 2 years now) so I am very happy to try the Lucuma. I am intrigued that your Otatea bamboo has flowered and you have new plants from their seed, all of my bamboo are clones and I am hoping that they will not flower for some time yet!
It would be fabulous for you and Joanna to come visit our place some time, everyone here is welcome of course (remember we have an un-denial members commune plan, isn’t that right?) but how lucky for us to be actually neighbours out of all the places on earth! Here I apologise to Perran if you’re reading this for not getting myself organised enough to meet you in the Huon Valley, it’s been a whirlwind year trying to get my mother’s house ready for sale and still no action on that yet.
See you on the 25th, then. My good friends and neighbours here in Bellview are Salvador and Deb who sell the Indian curries at the markets, have you tried them? Don’t know where their stall is in relation to yours but I’ll find you both! Thank you again.
Namaste.
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Okay. You can read online about the Gynura procumbens, also called Longevity Spinach or Sambung Spinach. It should do excellently for you, I think. More vigorous than G. bicolor for us, very productive, no pest problems here for it. It can be grown to form a ground cover, or to clamber up a trellis, or in an elevated 40cm pot and saucer, where it will grow out and trail down with the growing tips used raw (or cooked ), to keep it more compact with multiple growing points.
The Lebanese cress grows in shallow water, or the method that we use is a 25 or 30 litre tub,with some holes drilled about 12 or 15 cms above the base. We grow the water celery the same way. Both problem free here, except the water celery attracts some grasshoppers in summer.
Do you have Achacha ( a Bolivian Garcinia sp. ) planted ? It should do well. I’m looking out the window at a couple of 3metre tall trees here now, covered in new growth.
The Bolivian name is Achachairu. When the first commercial planting went in near the Burdekin, the people there decided that the Bolivian name was too long, and marketed the fruit by the abbreviated name , and that seems to have become the accepted name here now.
I have a plant of it left if you don’t have it growing.
Re the bamboos., yes we have had a few flower in the last few years. Do you have Schizostachyum jaculans growing, or do you want a plant of it ? I’d plant it if you have the space and inclination. Schizostachyum genus all have thin walled culms, which can be useful if you need the thin-walled culm. (Can be split easily to form a bamboo screen , for example.) Very close clumping, maximum culm diameter is about 3 cms. Very long (over a metre )
internodes. It is also used for blowpipes.
D.H.
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No, we haven’t tried the curries. We’ll have a look for them.
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Yes, the bamboos would be loving it. The Otatea isn’t your typical bamboo, though. It will be interesting to see if it can adapt to your climate. Otatea is at the extreme end of the “long -dry-season, low rainfall adapted ” spectrum of bamboos. There is a photo on page 63 of “American Bamboos” showing Otatea acuminata growing in its natural habitat in the Mexican Highlands, on the edges of a desert ,growing next to various cacti. I’m pretty sure that that would be Otatea acuminata acuminata, which is slightly smaller and more gracile than O.ac.aztecorum, which grows in regions which are not quite so extreme That is reflected in their performance here. We had a beautiful clump of O.ac. acuminata growing, but at end of one very wet “wet season”, most of it died. The O. ac. aztecorum got through it, and continued to do well.
I remember that you are interested in mangos. Mangos are my main fruit interest. We have about seventy five cultivars growing. You might find that most mangos won’t do well for you there. . We have a very disease resistant cultivar that originates in Kalimantan ,which might possibly adapt to your high rainfall,mid-altitude climate. Len Muller, an architect who was also very interested in mangos and bamboos, imported it as possibly being adapted to his property at Woopen Creek, which is a high-rainfall area near Innisfail. It did fruit for him there ,but that was low-altitude.. It sets up to eight or so fruit per panicle, so there are clusters of fruit over the tree when it fruits. The fruit are small and fibrous, end the tree here only fruits well every two or three years. It does have a pleasant pineapple-like flavour. It fruited this year, so there probably won’t be fruit next year. There are better mangos here when it fruits, so we don’t eat many, but do use some for chutney. I keep it mainly to preserve cultivars valuable for very wet climates. It is polyembryonic, so I can save seed or fruit when it fruits next, if you’d like to try it. Or if you graft, you can have some wood if you want.
We have a good form of Kuini, (Mangifera odorata,) which does well here, and I think it would fruit for you, as Kuini is more disease resistant than any M. indica. It also fruits well only every two or three years. Strong , intense flavour, (too rich for some ). Makes great chutney,imo.. Never a mark on the fruit,very disease resistant. It is polyembryonic as well, A very pretty tree when it flowers, with large red-coloured panicles.
D.H.
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The uses of Otatea in Mexico might be of interest. From “American Bamboos”,p.253 :
“Otateas are used locally for oxen poles, broomsticks, canes, furniture, basketry, crop supports, fireworks supports, and especially for house rafters. “
D.H.
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Hi Gaia,
I’m very sorry to here about your rain problems. I hope things improve for you soon.
My garden is coming to life. Very exciting! A farmer friend had some extra cherry tomato and chard starts so I got those planted last week. Some of my bok choy bolted but I’m hoping the balance matures normally.
Weather where I live is not crazy yet but the provinces next to me already have wildfires big enough to cause evacuation of whole towns.
My project this week is to rebuild my 30 year old picnic table with new wood to replace the rotten wood.
Unlike you I’m still unsure if our leaders have a plan. To my eyes they are not so bright monkeys that lack integrity and make decisions with emotions and no awareness of the risks or implications.
I’m also unsure if the financial risks in US/Europe are worse than China. I’m thinking that both have an unrecoverable interdependent debt/degrowth problem and will go down together. Russia may do somewhat better.
Stay well.
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Scheerpost is recycling things, I guess. This is a John Mearsheimer interview from two months ago. But I’m sharing it because of a comment from yesterday that I think is worth reading. It seemed to long to post here, so click the link and it should be the first comment by Randall Doyle (who is a friend of John’s).
Teaser: “Most foreign policy books, and articles, written by American scholars, are regurgitated garbage. Thus, American scholarship, for the most part, is one giant echo chamber. This is why — since the end of WWII in mid-1945 — the US military has experienced very little success on the battlefield. The same people, possessing the same thinking, taught at the same schools, have dominated our foreign policy beliefs and military operations for over 75 years! And, we wonder why we keep failing.”
‘Insanity’— John Mearsheimer on the US role in Gaza and Ukraine – ScheerPost
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When I was young, Gwynne Dyer was a journalist with integrity I respected that spoke truth about war.
h/t xraymike79
https://lfpress.com/opinion/columnists/dyer-unprecedented-warming-could-be-ocean-feedback
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Hey Rob, I noticed your shout-out to xraymike. Does he still write about collapse? Found him from Dowd a couple years ago and I was a fan of his work. Have not seen his name in a while.
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I follow him on Twitter:
He seems to write about one essay a year these days:
Here is some of his older work that I posted:
https://un-denial.com/?s=xraymike79%3A
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Thanks Rob. I just read the sep2023 one. He still has the gift, no doubt. (for the fans of “the sooner the better”, you’ll dig it)
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Complex life has existed during times that were hotter than it is now. How did animals and plants survive?
My main guess is polar amplification. The change in temperature during climatic changes are greater in polar and mid-latitude regions than in tropical regions. The tropics may have only been a little bit hotter, while mid-latitude and polar regions were a lot warmer. Also since the changes were slower than the changes happening now, plants and animals had more time to adapt.
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I couldn’t sleep last night so I listened to this interview by Tucker Carlson of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brother who opposes most of his brother’s policies, refused to be transfected with mRNA, and is currently travelling the US in a bus promoting RFK Jr.. 🙂
Very interesting to get a wise, reasonably aware, insider’s view of family evil.
He thinks our leaders are swept up by group emotions and are controlled by big corporate money.
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His advice for his brother “say sorry” LOL, how Canadian
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New movie out that like Quest for Fire discussed above has no spoken English but focuses on a sasquatch family rather than prehistoric man.
Haven’t watched it yet but have it queued and have a hunch it will be enjoyable for overshoot aware people. The reviews suggest you will love it or hate it.
Available for download at the usual places.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt30180830/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sasquatch_sunset
https://www.allmovie.com/movie/sasquatch-sunset-vm14128884186/review
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Its $15 on amazon right now, so I will wait till its cheaper. It does look good. I’m just worried about it having too much of today’s juvenile humor and sexual innuendos. We’ll see. The trailer made me laugh out loud for sure though. 😊
And sorry to change subjects, but I recently shared something with Charles and he reminded me that English is not his primary language. My ignorant ass sometimes forgets that the rest of the world does not have English as their primary language. So impressive how you guys are bilingual. If Charles sent me something in French, I would have zero chance of understanding it.
I’ll bet that’s another American thing. Most of the world being fluent in multiple languages, but not us Empire Babies.
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There’s a good meme about it:
You speak english, because it’s the only language You know,
I speak english, because it’s the only language You know.
We’re not the same!
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Haha. I love it! Thanks.
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Hi Rob. I finally watched Sasquatch Sunset. I don’t recommend it. A few touching moments, but way too many bad attempts at humor. And the fatal blow was how the sasquatch people were represented. No sense of thriving in their environment. Felt more like it was their very first day on planet earth.
Did you try Cloud Atlas yet? I absolutely hated it prior to my overshoot awareness. And now it’s my favorite movie of all time.
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Thanks for saving me some wasted time. So many crap movies these days.
I have not watched Cloud Atlas yet. Civil War is ahead of it in my queue. Sounds like I should swap them.
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Karl Denninger says we’ve got at most 2 years before the US financial system has a come-to-Jesus moment unless congress dramatically cuts healthcare expenditures. He also reconfirms my belief that the Fed does not set interest rates, rather it follows interest rates set by the market.
https://retirementlifestyleadvocates.com/podcast/episode/2024-05-12-retirement-lifestyle-advocates-radio-w-karl-denninger
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https://www.vox.com/24152402/mexico-city-day-zero-water-resource-management-solutions
North America’s biggest city is running out of water.
Another symptom of overshoot.
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Man, here I am trying to find a movie so that I can be entertained tonight. Then I come across this great essay from Indi. There is an intense 4-minute guerilla warfare video worth checking out. Reminds he how lucky I am to have been born when and where I was… but also reminds me that plenty of people out there are actually living life with a purpose.
Hamas In Action (Day 221) — indi.ca
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Aren’t indi (https://indi.ca/) and rintrah (https://www.rintrah.nl/) kind of the anti-thesis of each other?
Also, quite funnily, the aesthetic of their respective sites is opposite of their skin colour.
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😊
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Nate Hagen’s interview today was good with a lively intelligent aware debate on the pros and cons of nuclear energy.
I’ve never heard of fellow Canadian Chris Keefer but I was impressed and will start following him.
Keefer believes civilization will be very unpleasant without abundant energy/technology and nuclear is the only option that might keep things going.
Hagens believes nuclear is too dangerous and unaffordable given our imminent great simplification.
I believe they are both right which is why the only good path is population reduction which neither of them mentioned.
P.S. Keefer is a an MD and touched on the covid insanity from the perspective of an intelligent doctor. He was very worried in the early days due to the NYC freezer trucks etc. (which he appears unaware were probably faked to gin up panic) and therefore draconian measures were warranted in the early days, however it quickly became clear there was no need for panic and the government continued with aggressive measures much too long.
Hagens again remained silent on covid. 😠
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Not enough push back from Nate on the absolute necessity of fossil fuel to run even rudimentary modernity. Electricity from nuclear does not even come close to what is needed to run this society. Electricity may make arc furnaces but it can’t make cement, fertilizer, transport (trains, planes, automobiles, farm equipment). I seriously doubt that anyone in the nuclear industry has done a true life cycle analysis of all the fossil fuel needed to make a nuclear plant (maybe Simon?) from mining the minerals for concrete, steel, transport, etc., and then run it and decommission it. Keefer’s assertion that nuke energy is low cost seems preposterous to me. IMHO.
My second big gripe was with how cavalierly they dealt with the nuclear waste and long term pollution if (Nate mentioned an EMP and Keefer just said that nuke plants have been hardened for it) civilization collapses and all the nuke plants go Fukushima (with no one cleaning them up). There would be vast zones around those plants where no animals could live for eons is my guess.
Disappointing.
AJ
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I agree AJ. It was disappointing about the waste, especially with neither mentioning the spent fuel ponds at every NPP, and the dangers if those are not kept cool. Any supposed expert on nuclear would not mention them very deliberately in discussing power outages.
Nuclear is very expensive energy because of it’s complexity, that seems to be overlooked be every nuclear proponent. Without complexity they are not possible, and discussing that we had nuclear with the complexity of the 60’s, so it’s not that complex, totally misses the point about complexity that is maintained by huge volumes of fossil fuel energy, and in the 60’s fossil fuel energy was cheap and growing rapidly in use.
Complexity is about interactions within a system, not just that we have gone from slide rules to computers. Going back to slide rules to build nuclear power plants misses the point that it is people that need to learn how to use the slide rule. The complexity is having the excess energy to run a system where a huge percentage of the population can go on to higher education to learn the engineering concepts and be weeded out from those that can’t understand the topics.
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If you’d like to better understand the pros and cons of gold as a SHTF prep this is one of the best discussions I’ve seen.
George Gammon explains what he learned from his experiment traveling across a hyperinflating country with nothing but precious metals and bitcoin.
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I agree with George’s proposition. Gold is only valuable if someone will accept it. In a complete collapse of the economic system only things like food, weapons (and ammo), some luxury items (cigarettes and liquor), gas/diesel, maybe farm implements have value. Gold is only good once some type of limited civilization exists where there are agricultural surpluses that “money” (i.e. gold, silver) might be used as a medium of exchange. Gold might be good if their is a partial collapse of the banking/fiat currency system, it all depends on how bad the situation is.
AJ
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Ya, my takeaway was that an earlier preptip on un-Denial about keeping cash under the mattress is the way to go. My vision of near future involves the complete crashing of the bank systems and George helped me to see why cash would probably still be the preferred method.
Best part of the interview was watching the host squirming around in his chair regarding cash being king. He was trying so hard to get his guest to cave in and admit there might be a possible alternative where gold would be better to barter with than dollar bills. Obviously Nate owns a ton of gold.
However, towards the end George was talking about how he is disciplined with always setting aside 10% of his income for buying gold. So maybe the best idea is to have a little bit of everything just in case.
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Tim Morgan today instead of rehashing the same stuff has some interesting new thoughts about:
What do our leaders know?
What are they trying to do?
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Central banks are holding a wolf by the ears, whether they know it or not. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/have_the_wolf_by_the_ear
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Just saw a commerical for the upcoming Tony Awards. I despise award shows with their celebrities and money and phoniness. Thought we should have our own here at un-Denial. So without further ado. Drumroll please:
Feel free to add any awards that I missed.
Stormy Weather (youtube.com)
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I nominate:
Gaia for “most improved writer” having learned the value of a paragraph.
Hideaway for “perseverance through adversity” for his relentless attempt to educate the numbskulls in denial at POB.
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LOL. I second that. And maybe we can give an award to Charles for introducing us to the sarcasm emoji. 😊
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Nice list and I’m with you on the awards thing. My daughter is telling me that lots of youth are blocking social media accounts of celebrities and “influencers” who attended the recent Met Gala pointless display of privilege and wealth.
By the way your previous list had me as spiritual. My wife nearly choked on her coffee when I told her that 😀. Although we do have a saying that we find “God” in the garden I’m definitely a gardener having spent the last 3 years since we settled on this property establishing a food forest and vegetable gardens, and regenerating native forest.
Oh and you’d be most welcome here in NZ. Your self deprecating humour would fit in well. Problem is we’re probably about 3 million too many people already in the face of declining cheap fossil energy. 😉
Keep up the great comments.
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Thanks CampbellS. I love what your daughter is talking about. Hopefully that trend continues and grows stronger.
LOL about your wife almost choking on her coffee. Ya, you were another one I had to take a wild guess with. But it does not surprise me at all that I should have put you in the gardener category. All of you crazy NZ and AU people sound like you spend all day in the garden. 😊
And thanks for the welcoming to your country. I could see me, you, Monk, and the others hanging out and working in someone’s garden and shooting the shit all day. That would be some good times!
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We have plenty of spare room for crazy Americans who like gardening and shooting shit. You’d be most welcome.
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Omg paqnation this is hilarious! I do like the like button a lot. Probably because I’m social media addicted
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LOL, I knew you would find it funny. The timing of you taking a break from this site was incredible though. It hit me last night that you had not made a comment or liked something since I posted it. So then my overanalyzing ass wrote an apology letter to you. Thank god I did not post it. 😊
I am the king of fretting over waste of time shit. 😊
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Maybe, just maybe, a little light in the darkness.
Let’s all pray for justice.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/nih-in-the-hotseat
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Things are picking up steam now…
https://x.com/COVIDSelect/status/1790762368898654308
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Let’s hope. A bunch of people need to go to prison for life for killing about 17 million people to date and counting. That’s 3x the holocaust!
Notice that this only targets 1 of the 4 crimes committed:
1) illegal and unethical gain of function research resulting in the release of a virus
Three more groups need to be prosecuted:
2) blocking safe and effective prophylactics and treatments
3) coercing the injection of an inadequatley tested gene therapy transfection technolgy, that did not prevent transmission or sickness, without full disclosure of the risks
4) not collecting, analyzing, and reporting the data necessary to protect public health
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EcoHealth Alliance’s goose is cooked – nobody will want to touch them now…
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MORT in action?
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/16/1251769080/florida-desantis-climate-change-law
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill that strikes climate change from state law
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It’s possible this is not MORT in action.
Florida does not have policies to force citizens to consume less and to have fewer children which means the climate change policies they do have won’t help and therefore cancelling them can be interpreted as a sign of awareness, unless of course they are doing so because they believe climate change (and especially sea level rise for Florida) are not serious threats and are not caused by humans burning carbon.
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To be honest, I think that the decision to remove climate change from state law is mostly symbolic. I also think that they are doing it for the latter reason. But imagine if Ron Desantis actually told his constituents “If you want to stop sea level rise, you are going to have to change your lifestyle, and have only one kid”.
I suspect that there are politicians who know this, but don’t have the guts to say it publicly. If they were to tell the truth about this issue, they would get voted out of office, so they tell their constituents one of two comforting lies. Either they deny/downplay the situation (GOP) or they tell their constituents that technology will allow them to have their planet and eat it too (Democrats).
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Preptip: I’m always on the lookout for food that keeps many years without refrigeration, is healthy, tastes good, and is inexpensive.
Dehydrated hashbrown potatoes is an option you may not have considered.
I’ve recently done some tests that confirm it keeps at least 3 years past the best-buy date, and given zero signs of degradation, I’m expecting it will be good for 10+ years.
One carton costs me CDN$1.25 and provides 3 normal or 2 big servings. The cost of fresh potatoes here has gone up a lot and I think these dehydrated potatoes are less expensive per serving.
To cook you simply soak in hot water for 10 minutes, drain, and fry in some fat until browned.
They tastes as good as my scratch made hashbrowns using fresh potatoes.
There is one possible negative. Potatoes are one of the “dirty dozen” crops that are best to buy organic because of the chemicals used to grow them. These hashbrown are not organic. Given that I’m 65 it’s likely something else will kill me first so I’ve made a decision to stock up.
Amazon pricing seems crazy high so look for them in a local big box discount store and expect to see annual 25% off sales.
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Nice tip. And I think its fellow Canadian Jon’s favorite food (from Lost Lakes – outdoor yt channel). Always see him frying these up.
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Hideaway today on the denial of LESS.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-11-2023-2/#comment-775104
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I’ve been trying to understand why the US supports genocide.
It does not make sense, and it exceeds even the US government’s normally low morality and integrity.
Tonight I watched the documentary “Praying for Armageddon” that explains US Christian evangelicals have a lot of political power and they believe they will be transported to heaven and the evil on earth will be destroyed when Jesus returns, and this process can be accelerated by helping Israel rid the holy land of Palestinians.
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Must watch. I had no idea. I thought it was mostly about money. It’s mostly about which god will dominate.
MORT’s denial of death (aka god) is causing the genocide.
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Hi Rob,
Thanks for highlighting this very worthwhile doco, seriously crazy stuff. I happened to watch it a couple weeks ago and boy was it freaky. Even though I had a Christian upbringing (but not evangelical) so I understood the general premise, to see the Armageddon agenda followed through so blindly by so many was a shock nonetheless. I kept saying “Oh my god” aloud throughout both episodes, not because of any residual faith but in total disbelief at the state of how tribally polarised the country of my birth seems to be now.
It really saddens and sickens me that we as a species haven’t seemed to learn as a whole how to get along even after so many opportunities to do so, in large part because we can so easily consider other humans as another species, and a lower form at that, especially if they’re not in our tribe and are competing for resources. Then might makes right and all the better if our god gives us the mandate and power to conquer. What good have all our technological advancements accomplished if we can’t overcome this?
I could go on but that would mean more paragraphs and as you know, I’m still a grasshopper in learning how to manage that.
Namaste.
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Hi Gaia. I did not see your comment yet when I sent mine. As always, you said it better than me. And ya, what a wild ride that was.
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Well said Gaia. I don’t know the bible very well but I thought the jews killed Jesus. You’d expect the evangelicals to support the Palestinians. Nothing makes sense when beliefs are not grounded in science.
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HOLY SHIT!!! That was wild. I gotta take a shower because of how gross I feel. My filthiest times are when I am studying history about the white devil puritans, manifest destiny and american colonization. But that stuff seems tame to how batshit crazy this was. Same old story though.
There was a domino effect of thoughts while watching. No need in trying to get people overshoot aware. No soft collapse coming. A clearer sense that these are the consequences for any species who breaks through those sacred energy constraints. Too many people “off the farm” with too much goddam free time.
There is zero chance of this insane group of apes making it much further in the history books. Which is a good thing overall that I always preach, but somehow I was still shocked by these films. I think its time to party like it’s 1999 and have your exit kit handy because it’s gonna be a vicious and brutal fall off the cliff.
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Hey there brother Chris,
Amen to all that; I think you said it pretty well yourself. I see you’re up pretty late there (or early?) It’s always good to “see” you here and I only wish I had a bit more free time to respond to your vivid comments but often they do give me a boost for the day (and a laugh!)
Lately I have been even more of a champion of the Stoic mindset, it’s ever only our inner world that we can control and change even as all else crashes and burns around us. I appreciate all of Marcus Aurelius’ pearls of wisdom but the one that has stood out for me the most in these “end-time” days is
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly.
That makes every day I wake up a bonus and because I have already “died” it seems even clearer that what I can do that day is a gift, both to give and receive. There’s always room for more kindness and compassion, and that may even lead to the holy grail of forgiveness, if we can truly let go.
Go well and be peace, everyone. That’s what I mean by Namaste.
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Can you recommend one book on stoicism for those wishing to learn more?
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Dear Rob,
I hope you are well.
A book recommendation:
Marcus Aurelius – Meditations.
Zeno of Citium, the founder of stoicism learnt and developed the stoic philosophy from the cynics.
– Founder of cynicism, Diogenes of Sinope was even respected by Alexander the Great.
Kind and warm regards,
ABC
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Good morning to you, ABC,
Hope you and your family are well. Thank you for your comment and recommendation of Meditations, I did not see your comment until mine was uploaded and you know what they say about minds thinking alike! The great mind here of course is Marcus Aurelius.
Always nice to see you here and still I am hoping that one day we shall all see one another with our own eyes, just to add the icing on the cake and cherry on top of this most excellent fellowship here.
Namaste.
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Hello friends,
So happy to help with the side trip to Stoicism–you can’t go wrong with the actual personal journal of Marcus Aurelius, his Meditations. Also, Letters from a Stoic of Seneca to have another taste first hand. There are many excellent webpages for other introductions, and one that I have thoroughly appreciated was introduced by our friend AJ a little while back, here’s the link to Gurwinder Bhogal’s blog The Prism which may also interest you generally (many thanks, AJ, it’s a gem when you need a pick-up). His longer essay on Stoicism is a great primer.
https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/stoicism-the-ancient-remedy-to-the
As for the Christians, Jews, and Muslim triad, now that’s a sordid tale indeed and proves more our need for being part of a tribe for survival than actually cultivating any higher minded religious ideal. After all, all three religions are supposed to worship the same god, but their interpretations and tribal stories over millennia have drawn an endless bloodbath amongst the three and throughout the wider world that Christianity, the erstwhile dominant sect, has colonised. It’s definitely not about loving one another as brother and sister!
Enough of that for the moment, time to get back to the inner calm and wisdom however one can!
Hope all are travelling well and enjoying this extra bonus day of life!
Namaste.
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Thanks for the info. And thanks AJ for showing Gurwinder to Gaia. That link was a great intro for me into stoicism.
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Thank you Gaia and ABC.
I checked my library and I have Meditations. I skimmed it and there are a lot of words that look like poetry so don’t know if I’ll succeed at reading it but have added it to my read first queue.
Gurwinder Bhogal’s essay looks easier to digest so I think I’ll start there.
Thanks again.
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Thanks Gaia. Ya, I’m a night owl. Great quote by Marcus. And I’m with Rob, any book about stoicism you can recommend that helps me to have your healthy attitude would be greatly appreciated.
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Made my mom watch this. Did not plan on watching it with her, but I got sucked in again. She was blown away by it. She despises my anti-white skin stuff. To the point where I’m not allowed to even bring it up. But by the end of the film, she was much more willing to listen to my crazy ass. Also, the thing about “these are the consequences of too many off the farm with too much free time”… she was actually understanding this and asking me good questions about it.
I know I’m guilty of overreacting on this site and even exaggerating sometimes. But I don’t think I have ever uttered the words “must watch” in any of my comments. Rob was dead right on this film though. It’s one of those where you will still be thinking about it long after you watched it.
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Man this is so creepy. I liked the Rabbi for Peace guy, he seemed sensible. Jews have a similar end time thingy. That’s why some ultra conservative Jews do not support the state of Israel, because it signals the end times. Out of interest I googled if Islam has something similar. Yes!; they have the same apocalyptic judgement day coming as well. So, at least they’re all working together towards the same common goal. Top effort there Yahweh.
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Hideaway on another unpleasant reality with renewables…
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-11-2023-2/#comment-775110
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Alice Friedemann today with an interesting update on self-driving cars.
https://energyskeptic.com/2024/self-driving-cars-in-san-francisco-cause-accidents-congestion-and-more/
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I don’t understand the fascination with self-driving autos, it’s as if this is some sort of holy grail for some people/business. They dont solve the energy problem, dont solve traffic problem, don’t make collisions a thing of the past.
Is it just something to point to as “progress” ? Or an employment program for engineers and programmers?
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Good points. It is very odd.
I’d add that I enjoy driving. Why would I want a computer to do it for me?
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Even though I don’t think self driving cars will ever become wide spread. I think that public transit is a much better option.
What if you didn’t get enough sleep the previous night and still feel a bit drowsy, and you live in an area that has little or no public transit? (Like I said above, this exactly is why we need good public transit)
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/drowsy-driving
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Rintrah today with a very complicated update on the implications of recent covid mutations.
My take away: There might be a scientific explanation for why people are becoming more crazy and less intelligent.
P.S. Rintrah’s track record for predicting what will happen has been pretty good IIRC.
https://www.rintrah.nl/oops-there-goes-the-n-terminal-domain/
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Just a reminder that Rintrah’s threat is orthogonal to, and in addition to, the clotting threat explained by Dr. Joe Lee’s String Theory, and Dr. Bret Weinstein et. al.’s “permanent heart cell damage caused by immune system attacking non-self” threat, and the DNA contamination transfection threat.
Meanwhile, no one responsible has been prosecuted for murder including my prime minister and health minister.
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Yes. To me.
They are performing a very usefull task for the system (yet ugly from the part of the “victims”). That of correction.
Nobody wants degrowth, so the parasite/predators have to do it.
They will be prosecuted (or worse) once their job is completely done. (once it’s too late to avert anything)
And no, I am not implying this is a voluntary action from some group/government. I think it’s the dynamic of the whole.
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Hi Charles. Not sure I understand you. Are you saying that all this man-made virus/vaccination stuff is about population reduction because of overshoot. And that the parasite/predators are the groups/govt involved with implementing? If yes, then I am with you and agree so far. But the last line, its not voluntary by them and its the dynamic of the whole? I just lost you. What’s that mean?
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I don’t think any group has much power. Control is quite illusory. One misstep and you lose it all.
I don’t believe virus and vaccines were implemented to reduce population in prevention of overshoot. This is too noble and too complex.
I don’t view humanity (only) through the dichotomic lens of owners/sheeple. I don’t think we are yet at the point where the majority of humanity has become like battery chicken which can be euthanized as soon as the owner feels he is going bankrupt. (I hope not)
In many places of the world, people mostly brought this on themselves as much as it was enforced. Maybe nothing less could have shaken the faith in the institutions, the experts, technology or made people think about what could be more valuable than their own little self.
I think we are simply witnessing the resulting emerging behavior of multiple actors, each acting from its own point of vue (like a flock of birds, a tornado, …).
In other words, population reduction will happen (has already started in some countries, without the governments/economic forces able to prevent the trends) in a systemic way. Corporate/gov predators are one of the means by which it is unfolding (there are many others, each adding up)
This, of course, is my personal intuition and I accept I may be totally wrong. The only elements I have to support this thesis are:
In any case, this is only one way to look at things.
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Thanks for that Charles. Always a treat to get inside your head for a minute.
BTW, did you see that awesome Gurwinder link from Gaia? I only ask because as I was reading it, I was thinking this stuff has your name written all over it. 😊
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Thank you 🙂
I admire the Stoics and _try_ to live by their principle.
However, having been there myself, I have found there is a fine line between Stoics self-discipline and Christian mortification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_of_the_flesh), of which the cilice is an external characteristic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilice). There are internal mental equivalents which may go unnoticed to oneself for long, if this is the water you have always evolved in.
As you can see, to achieve the syncretism of their various cultural heritages is a difficult task for Europeans 🙂 (I am sure ABC relates 🙂
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And then there also is the state of bliss, faith in providence, total utter acceptance.
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Your not the only one that looks at and believes these things, I very much agree with everything you have stated above.
I’ve recently been distracted from energy studies by looking deeper into systems and system dynamics, especially in relation to scaling and natural power laws of scaling, all in regard to the human situation of current industrial civilization.
The more I research and the more modern civilization looks like Nate Hagens’ superorganism, and appears to be acting in exactly the same way, from scaling laws applying, to fractal subsystems and most likely end of growth and death.
I’m still working on the last bit in my mind, however the similarities in growth to every complex organism, is undeniable, so why wouldn’t death by either disease, starvation or just plain old age not be similar?
Look at what is happening in highly urbanised parts of civilization, whether Japan, or Germany, UK or Australia, they all have birth rates below replacement, with some countries trying to increase immigration while others not so much. Japan and South Korea are both dying internally because they don’t have immigration, with aging populations and much harder to maintain systems because of falling overall populations, especially in the future for South Korea, but in the present for Japan. (still working on all this!!)
The natural conclusion for any one society and the world as a whole is that falling population, means the ability to look after all existing systems also falls, so a simplification has to happen, as it often has when local civilizations in the past collapsed. If either Japan or South Korea was unable to gain products and energy from outside their immediate society, like they do in the modern world, the simplification would be much faster than is happening.
Likewise for the whole world, when we get to population decline, we wont be able to maintain existing systems, and without outside help, which certainly wont be coming, the systems unravel to simplicity very quickly, not unlike death in any complex organism.
Charles, instead of thinking it might be only one way to look at things, instead it might be the only way we should look at things.
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Thank you, Hideaway.
Indeed, when a large tree falls in a forest, smaller life immediately feeds on it (actually, it even started before it fell). Our modern parasites are not unlike the mushrooms and termites.
About scaling laws, are you referencing Kleiber’s law? Where does the reference to fractal subsystems come from? It seems you have a second book in the making 🙂
The fractal organisation of matter and energy flows (in space and in time!) is an incredibly intricate and beautiful sight. Modern humans call it systems and sub-systems. The nomenclature of life is used too: organisms and super-organisms. But then, does this imply the planet is alive? Maybe that’s also what the religious nomenclature of gods meant.
From the point of vue of morality, law and individual responsibility, I still think mistakes were made, care was lacking, things are being hidden, some light should be shed on the circumstances, and justice should be served. This is not incompatible. Polysemy of Reality.
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Funnily enough, I am at a stade where it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the same vaccine, but administered 70 years ago would have given all the appearances of “working”.
A smaller population, not travelling that much, not saturated with various poisons from the air, food, and water amidst richer ecosystems…
Maybe we are completely fooling ourselves with our “knowledge”.
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Very good point.
The poster child for reinforcing the widespread belief that vaccines are one of man’s most impressive scientific achievements is the polio vaccine. I have seen graphs that suggest polio was trending to zero before they started the vaccination campaign.
A problem with being caught lying is that it calls into question everything else you have claimed in the past. I don’t believe anything they say now without careful checking.
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Charles, Kleiber’s law applies to the biological world and a very similar scaling law applies to human settlements, only to a different power ratio depending on what it is. All the human ‘built stuff’, the physical like road length, power lines, energy use, number of gas stations has an 85% increase for every doubling of population size in settlements, while all the social ‘stuff’ of interactions, wages, new patents, diseases, crime etc have a superlinear power ratio of 1.15 (a 115% increase for every doubling of population size).
See all of Professor Geoffrey West’s work on this. Plenty of youtube videos…
In other words the human superorganism is acting very much like biological complex organisms, with less efficiency. Professor West has taken all this to a certain extent, but not really used it for prediction of where we are headed, which occurs to me as old age and death, just like any organism, and what happened to just about every civilization before fossil fuels.
I’m just starting to write up an article to send to Rob, to see if it’s good enough for posting..
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👍👍Perfect timing. I was thinking we need a new post.
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Great. Looking forward to reading it.
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Gaia G.,
A quick note on an off-blog-topic, so apologies to everyone else. This is a continuation of the comment above where I gave a history of the Chaya plant I have. I went to eBay, and the fellow is now selling the Chaya that he originally listed as “Male Chaya ” as ” Chaya”, and no listing for the Aibika that he was erroneously selling as “Chaya”,which I told him was a form of Aibika. Evidently he finally realised the error. At least he’s not selling the incorrectly labelled one anymore.
Also, I continued the conversation we had above, yesterday. I think you might have missed it. I just want to know if you have Achacha (a Bolivian Garcinia species ) growing. If you do, it’ll save me taking the plant here to yungaburra. A quick note about that, maybe below the conversation above, would be appreciated.
I saw your comment on the videos that Rob posted, and agree with it.. I’ve been an atheist since I was maybe 15 or so. Religion , with the possible exception of non-organised Paganism, is bane on humanity, but ineradicable. The whole blood-soaked history of it. I miss Christopher Hitchens. What a delight to watch him deflating pompous windbags like Blair. His ” The Portable Atheist.” is excellent.
David Higham
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Hello David,
Thank you for your patience and goodwill in reaching out and finding me further down the stream. I think I was broadsided by the visceralness of that evangelical doco and returning to the nurturing calm of growing things is just the antidote I need! I do have an Achacha tree that is slowly growing, it’s only about 1.5m high after 5 years so I am thinking it’s not quite in the right spot, there’s quite a bit of shade where it is but the leaves look very healthy and it’s finally starting to take off just this past year (maybe because of all the rain?) From the description of the fruit, I cannot wait to taste it, sounds just like it could be a new favourite! However, I am prone to saying each fruit is my favourite, usually the one that is ripe and in front of me! I would really appreciate another which I would try growing in another part of the property, I tend to have multiple locales for each type of tree as you never know what might work better one year or another, having so many microclimates within our block, especially due to the slope, too. But, I should have said from the onset that I want to buy all these plants, your offer of knowledge and just having them available is already the gift I am thankful to receive. I know we would prefer a trade of some kind but I don’t see what I could be growing that you don’t already have, besides petrol is getting dearer all the time and you have to drive quite some way to the markets with your plants, so let me at least feel I am contributing to travel costs. Is Yungaburra the only market you attend?
All the best to you and your family and see you soon. The rain has finally stopped today, now it will be a cool night but so good to be able to see the stars as well as sun!
Namaste.
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That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Just a couple of fruit trees left, and we’ll fit them in okay. The others will just be bare-rooted plants. I noticed yesterday that a small branch of the Chaya that was broken off by a kangaroo a while back is growing, so the Chaya should have some roots. They should all be useful and productive plants and grow well in your climate.
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Hello David and Joanna,
That’s all so wonderful and you know the most amazing thing is when I went back up to our previous thread, I read what you added about the weeping bamboo (which I believe I had tried at the beginning and it died after one season, so it must have been too wet here for it as you surmised). Lo and behold, I almost choked on my herbal coffee substitute (hiya Campbell and Nicki!) when I read that you are the undisputed Mango mavens because truly that is my favourite fruit of all time and one of the reasons I thought to try the Tablelands for our new venture 12 years ago. Alas, I did not know that they do so poorly in our microclimate here off Tully Falls Rd due to the unrelenting wet at the wrong times of year. This last season some seemed to flourish and set many flowers and young manglets (my pet name for the cute baby fruit, you can see how I cherish them) but I do not know how they ripened as I was not here during that season. I asked my neighbours to pick as many as they want for green mango chutney, but of course when I returned here in mid April, there was no sign of any fruit. Most seasons the trees flower but the panicles turn brown and fall off and only set a few fruit, but I have had ripe fruit from them, just nothing as I first imagined as mango heaven. This is bamboo and banana heaven, it’s certainly not Mareeba or even the Millstream area near here which fares very well with mangoes. I have planted about 25 of them (mostly the usual cultivar suspects which are even more dubious here as you well know) and seedlings of any new mango variety I could find at different markets. But certainly not 75 different cultivars that you boast. I am dying to secure any mango variety you think would have a chance to do well here, and I really need to learn how to graft as there are many trees here just awaiting new hope. Now I really believe I have found my guru (at least in all things that grow here and that is such thrilling news. Thank you so much.
See you on Saturday then. Where in the park are your stalls E16.17, or perhaps I will just have a good wander and I will definitely find you!
Have a great week.
Namaste.
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Hello Gaia,
I’m definitely not a tropical fruit guru, most of the more detailed stuff I know is how fruits grow here. There are plenty of people on the coast here that know a lot more about the various “ultra tropicals” that won’t grow here. For me, this block is about perfect, a moderate climate that’s still warm enough to grow plenty of various fruits, with (so far ) reliable enough rainfall. We haven’t had a wet season fail so far, always enough to keep things green and growing in the wet, the main dry time is August to the storms, in November most years. You’ll have less of a dry, but you know that anyway. Our income for the first twenty years here was growing and selling low chill peaches,nectarines,plums, persimmons, avocados (main one), mangos, plus smaller amounts of a few others . We also had a small beef cattle herd here until 2018, grazing the understory grass in the forest here (there are various forest types on the block, some sections are too dense to have any grass cover). For the last twenty plus years the income has been mainly from the sale of ornamental plants and fruit trees, though we’ve scaled back now ,and only a couple of fruit trees left. We haven’t watered or fertilized the main orchard for over twenty years, and I slash the grass only once a year at the end of winter. The mangos do well without irrigation here, so always plenty of mangos in their season. . About 25 cultivars are only two or three years old, I swapped wood with another mango collector, so we’re looking forward to those fruiting . Some interesting stuff amongst them. There isn’t a stone fruit on the block here now. Still get some persimmons and a few avocados, but not many left now in the main orchard. Around the homestead area is where we have most of the various other species are planted, most of which get some water in the dry.
When we came here it was a forest block. We’ve built everything, including the house, sheds, cattle yards, shade houses . (The main shed was wrecked in cyclone Larry, and the insurance payment paid for a replacement shed to be built, so we didn’t build that shed ) . The cyclone strength here is less than the coast, but the strong ones like Larry can still hit hard. Anyway, I’m talking too much. I hope the plants do well for you.
D.H.
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Hello David,
Wow, I have been so inspired by what you and your family have created together but mainly I am so happy for you that you lived your dream to be in connection with the land through your own vision and labour all these many and good years. I am grateful to have had a taste of that and despite all that is happening, it still is to me the thing I want to do in the time remaining, just disappear into the block and commune with fruit trees. It doesn’t seem too much to ask but at the same time, I have already received too much of my share of energy and there are times when I feel remorse and wistfulness for my part in the great unravelling. l can only hope that humanity will be able to re-weave itself into a new form but I don’t expect to be here for that great work. However, perhaps someone will find our patches of trees and shelter awhile here, and if they still bear fruit and fuel for their needs, then I will be very satisfied for all my varied efforts.
Here I will openly invite myself to your property, maybe that’s an easier way to meet than at the market? It would save you taking the plants there and I really would love to share some time with you as I am certain we have a lot to talk about! You’re closer to me here in Ravenshoe than Yungaburra (I must admit, I rarely go out to the markets now, I’m really a hermit when I’m up here). Let me know what suits you best, I look forward to meeting you both. We can continue this conversation on your email, thank you for sharing that earlier.
Namaste.
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By “here”, I meant this block. As you know, your climate is not the same. Your best adviser would be a closer neighbour. It sounds like you’ve got quite a lot planted anyway, so it won’t be long before you figure out what does or doesn’t do well. Bananas have an interesting range of flavours too. We have about nine types growing. I recently planted a Pisang Rajah, which I hope is correctly named. Some people rate it the best flavour-wise. Supposed to have a slightly furry skin, orangy flesh, and a flavour distinctly different to others. I’ve had misnamed plants of a lot of things,in the past, so we’ll see how it goes.
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https://x.com/EliotJacobson/status/1791441865256132740
–Nathaniel Rich, Losing Earth
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The bulk that suffer aren’t human.
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Art Berman’s logic today seems a little shaky.
MPP states life evolves and behaves to maximize power. Because renewables have lower power density Berman concludes a transition from higher power fossil energy is impossible.
That’s no doubt true for a voluntary transition. But what about a forced transition when fossils deplete?
I think we will transition back to a renewable wood/beasts of burden/slave world, because with fossils gone these will be the maximum power sources available. But it won’t be voluntarily.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/a-renewable-energy-transition-violates-the-maximum-power-principle/
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Nate Hagens’ Great Simplification podcast is asking listeners to provide feedback and suggestions via a survey.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/special-request-and-community-announcement
Perhaps you could join me in recommending he focus on population reduction, which is the only useful response to overshoot, and that he interviews Jack Alpert.
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Dear Rob,
I hope thou are feeling well.
I did partake in the survey and mentioned Dr. Alpert.
Kind and warm regards,
ABC
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Me too. I plagiarized Rob for three of the fill in questions: “Interview Jack Alpert and focus on population reduction, which is the only useful response to overshoot”
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Done.
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I did the survey last night, and mentioned population, population, population as what needs to be discussed along with more overshoot awareness.
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I have a background in designing surveys for academia and this is not a great survey TBH, but I’ve had a crack at it 🙂
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This was my comment: People either see the world as driven by geology or driven by culture. The people who who use geology are normally right. This podcast has way too much focus on armchair experts speculating about how to make peasants behave better through the lens of culture. It would be much more helpful to work on accurately describing our predicament rather than going on and on about the special topics of wealthy liberals who are trying to “fix” things.
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That’s a really good comment. An accurate understanding of the physical reality would I think be enough to cause the population to fall quickly. He should interview Hideaway.
I also was not impressed with the design of the survey.
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I hope Nate reads all of these. When I was a supervisor in a call center, we would setup these so called “anonymous” surveys for the employee with the intention of “with your help, we want to make this a better workplace”.
But it was never about that, and it was just about weeding out the disobedient employees. As soon I was shown the survey results with the name of the employees who were supposed to be anonymous…. Well, I knew everything was full of shit.
p.s. Good to see you back on this site Monk. I was actually getting a little worried that I might have struck a nerve with that wisecrack about the like button a few days ago. 😊
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I’ve been busy with work, many deadlines. My job is stressful 😦
I forgot to add in the survey that Nate is a lil b!tch for bragging about having secrets and then saying he can’t tell us! LOL
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He’s also a coward without integrity for staying silent on a crime that has killed 17 million people and counting.
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Nobody understands and explains middle east geopolitics better than Prof. John Mearsheimer.
In this talk he discusses the Gaza genocide and concludes:
I’m thinking this means eventual nuclear war.
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Preptip: Healthy fat will probably be scarce when SHTF. I like olive oil, coconut oil, and butter.
The price of olive oil has gone up a lot recently (I think) due to drought. I have learned that it keeps well beyond the BB date so when it goes on sale, which is rare here and maybe only once a year, I stock up. Because tensions are rising I will buy more than normal this time. I know from my spreadsheet that I consume about 1L of olive oil every 3 months. So 4L is good for one year. Tomorrow I will buy 8L to give an extra year of buffer. If international trade was to stop before I could buy more I know I could easily consume half what I do now and thus stretch 8L to 4 or more years.
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Preptip: Continuing on the fat theme, lard is another healthy fat that, although I do not consume a lot, I like to have a stock on hand for yorkshire pudding and pastry. Lard is also a good locally produced backup in the event imported fats like olive and coconut oil become unavailable.
Despite what you read on the box and on the web, I have learned lard does not keep well for more than a couple years at room temperature, especially if you have warm summers. So now I keep 6 lbs of lard in the bottom back corner of the fridge and expect its shelf life to be infinite.
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We render our own lard each time we kill a pig. Best fat for cooking with. We store it in the fridge or freezer, there is no degradation. I have not tried room temp as we live in the sub tropics.
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Nice! Unfortunatley the farm I assist has no livestock. They are discussing adding a few small breed cattle so maybe in the future.
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Preptip: My final fat tip is on butter. Salted butter seems to have a near infinite shelf life in the fridge. Given inflation, there is no reason to not buy as much as you have space to store it in your fridge.
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Dear Rob,
I hope thou are feeling well.
Have thou considered ghee as an option instead of butter in terms of longevity whilst in storage?
Kind and warm regards,
ABC
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Yes I have made ghee at home from fresh butter and recently my local discount store started carrying 3Kg buckets of ghee so I considered buying some. I calculated that bulk ghee is the same price per Kg as fresh butter, however I prefer the taste of fresh butter so I decided not to stock ghee. I suppose if you consider the water that is evaporated from butter then ghee is the better deal but it was not enough to sway me.
I’m also trying to standardize on one item for each class of foods. For shelf stable cooking fat that does not require refrigeration I very much like coconut oil, and it is half the price of ghee per Kg.
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This upcoming episode is going to be epic. 🤣
Last I checked, the most valuable company in Europe, as determined by the infinitely wise stock market, makes Ozempic.
Lots of profit to be made from fatties who would rather inject a dodgy substance with side effects than knock off the soda pop.
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Sugar can be as addictive as cocaine.
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug
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Another implication of climate change I had not thought about.
https://www.collapse2050.com/collapse-of-the-u-s-home-insurance-system/
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When insurance collapses so does our society basically.
Who would buy something expensive especially a car knowing that you can’t insure it. One crash and it is useless and no compensation. Houses, boats, art works, machinary are big investments. INsurance requires a growth economy to function due to investment returns. Unless it is subsidised by governemts it will falter in the coming decade.
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Hello everyone,
Yes, Houston we have a problem, as proven this week with the wild storms there that have left a trail of destruction to the tune of estimated $7 billion in damage, with just one freak storm lasting a few hours. Have you seen the photos of the mangled power lines and skyscrapers of broken windows? Even if the insurance companies can manage to cough up the funds to even attempt repair before the next storm hits, countries are scrambling to find the manpower to do the fixing, and the replacement materials as well, not to mention the energy costs in extra fossil fuels which are now siphoned off to repair infrastructure. The climate chaos is striking our Western civilisation very squarely on now.
Also very instructive is the down grid scenario for hundreds of thousands of Western-living people, occurring during a heat wave, after a few days the rotting foods from fridges and freezers will become a real problem, as well as the inability to live without air-conditioning, and this is just the beginning of the longer term repercussions of longer term power outages. They are warning that it will be weeks before all customers have their power restored, but every week now finds us in unchartered territory, so who can say with any certainty of anything?
The recent solar storms should give us pause that a wider scope grid-down event is possible. We have been forewarned again to have more this coming week, and they are billed as another lucky chance for us to capture the stunning auroras, rather than yet another Russian roulette for major systems disruptions for which we have no plan B. I thank Rob and others here for opening eyes to new ideas that propel an un-denial mindset down another rabbit hole, and this time I have revisited one in which once interred, there is no clawing back out. Rob, you shared that episode between Bret Weinstein and Ben Davidson on the solar storm activity and what that means in a greater cosmological view and I have now listened to it several times to try to understand the main premise, that of up-coming earth magnetic pole shift and cataclysm, stuff of ancient legends of every major religion and civilisation but now we have the scientific means of ferreting out a mechanism. You said these concepts were new to you, but there was no follow-up discussion on them here. What did you and others think of the science of that presentation, namely the periodicity of earth, sun, solar system, and galactic changes? I raise it now because there seems a thread of truth here that follows on the idea of a fractal nature of the universe and all systems within, and perhaps understanding the greater cosmological picture can give us some insight to what is happening on every level of our cycles of collapse and renewal? I found myself asking “What knowledge could supersede all others in changing our world, or even cosmological view?”
There has been a pause in the rain here and I bounce back and forth between purposeful physical activity outside and purposeful mental excursions in front of this screen, and never a moment do I want to forget how incredibly lucky I am to be alive in consciousness.
Go well everyone, namaste.
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Here is the episode Gaia is referring to in case you missed it above.
It introduced a bunch of new ideas to me that I am still digesting so do not yet have an opinion.
I will say that I respect the integrity and intelligence of Bret Weinstein very much so I would not be quick to dismiss anything he covers. He’s also very good at coming back and correcting himself if he learns he made a mistake, as for example he did with mask effectiveness for covid.
I does bother me that he covers this threat which I think has a lower probability of taking out civilization than energy depletion and degrowth, which he is mostly silent on, and I assume is another example of a polymath in denial.
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Here’s a 3 minute summary of Ben Davidson’s theory that sun activity impacts our weather.
Some people think this is pseudoscience, others think it’s real.
It could be a sophisticated attempt to deny human caused climate change, or it could be a valid theory that fills gaps in our understanding. I don’t have an opinion yet.
https://x.com/SunWeatherMan/status/1792305169159397392
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Understanding climate I think is mostly beyond us because our models are too simplistic. Does digging up millions of years of buried carbon and burning it have an impact – most likely. But what is the impact of the furnace of our little solar system as it provides most of the heat to begin with? What about water vapour, vegetation removal, ice formation, etc…. it is all too complex to make anything close to accurate predictions.
In the end overshoot has consequences and that is that. We could be hit by a meteor tomorrow and that would stop all this worrying about well everything. Carpe diem.
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I think it’s reasonable to have some doubt about the climate models, which is why I place more weight on the work of James Hansen et. al. that predicts the future by looking at what actually happened in the past under similar conditions. His work has concluded that every time CO2 has risen to current levels the temperature has increased by amount that will be incompatible with our current civilzation. I also trust Hansen because IIRC all of his predictions have come true, and in most cases reality has proven to be worse than his cautious forecasts.
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