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 
Iran’s president apparently dead in helicopter crash. Let’s hope it was an accident.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Shall we take odds?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Consensus seems to be it was an accident, with a big dose of incompetence and/or denial of the weather risks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m a betting man. So I will put my mortgage on the line for this not being an accident.
Same with those two Boeing whistle blowers who died of some infection, and a suicide. Same with Epstein. Same with….. I better go or I’ll be here all night
LikeLike
Have you seen any evidence that this was not an accident?
I listened to about 6 experts today and none saw any evidence of anything other than incompetence/denial.
LikeLike
No evidence. Just a hunch. It’s all I can go off nowadays.
And I know you are good with researching your sources and detecting bullshit… so I’m sure you aren’t watching mainstream news. But I saw a couple “experts” on TV today and they make me automatically think there is cover up. It was the same vibe as “the Russians blew up Nord Stream”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hideaway declines to answer WHEN but clearly explains WHAT will signal imminent SHTF.
I’m thinking another pandemic might also be a clue.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-11-2023-2/#comment-775186
LikeLiked by 2 people
Excellent comment by Hideaway. My additional prediction is: we will see a trend in oil companies being nationalised / re-nationalised. By removing the need to return a shareholder profit, the system can be goosed along a little further. This will be effective only for countries that can control for corruption
LikeLiked by 1 person
For The Great Simplification Survey, I actually suggested Ajit Varki as a guest (I suggested a few others too).
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a very good idea however Hagens already interviewed Varki but they had technical difficulties that ruined the recording and it was never released.
LikeLiked by 1 person
B’s essay today on why science has stalled is excellent.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-end-of-science-as-a-useful-tool
LikeLiked by 2 people
I particularly liked this quote:
But then, as Tom Murphy asked: what’s the point? I don’t think there was a point anytime in pursuing science. We did it because we could. We had the curiosity, the surplus energy, and the mindset setting ourselves above Nature. We were, however, not evolved to decode every secret of the Universe. Much to our frustration, the world remained a largely unreasonable place, with only so many parts of it yielding to our primate logic and simple measurements. The better part of it, however, continued to act wholly irrational to us — and remained reliably beyond our capabilities to grasp.
For me Science has always attempted to answer the fundamental questions of the universe. That we have made no progress seems to me that be that we don’t have the brains that can. A brain that evolved on the savannahs that was “designed” to maximize verbal communication to facilitate small group interaction/cohesion and ultimately lead to successful reproduction would be ill suited to figure out the universe. That Science allowed us to get as much understanding as we did is remarkable. That the knowledge will be lost is sad.
AJ
LikeLike
Despite stalling I view what we have accomplished as a glass half full. I feel like our best minds do understand many of the fundamental questions about the universe.
It’s just that most people don’t understand or don’t like what they’ve discovered.
That would include the purpose of the universe, which is to degrade energy gradients as quickly as possible, with life being the universe’s best invention for degrading energy, and our species is the champion of all life being smart enough to short circuit the earth’s battery, while simultaneously denying the consequences.
Every time I dig into the details of physics theories I discover that I understand very very little compared to the experts. This recent monologue by Dr. Sean Carroll on his new book is an excellent example.
LikeLike
Big changes in the global economy.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/05/20/20th-may-2024-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
LikeLike
LikeLike
It was never a good idea to ship all of those manufacturing jobs overseas.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Dr. Philip McMillan continues to report on the clots that emerged simultaneous with mRNA transfections, and which our health authorities deny and refuse to investigate.
I’ve been encouraging Dr. McMillan to review Dr. Joe Lee’s String theory which provides a plausible explanation and he just confirmed he has.
LikeLike
This one is particularly for Hideaway 😉
How to feed 9.7 billion people by 2050 by changing the agricultural model: https://sciences.sorbonne-universite.fr/en/actualites/how-can-we-feed-humanity
https://cnrs.hal.science/METIS_UMR7619/hal-01194904v1
LikeLike
I haven’t read the article as yet, but it doesn’t get off to a good start, stating that “it’s true “that the population will continue to increase between now and 2050. It is a possibility, but the probability is that the population will be significantly lower by 2050. We can basically toss the U.N. population projections out the window. They don’t factor in oil depletion, biosphere collapse, soil erosion and desertification, increasing climatic instability,etc.
LikeLike
All true, plus the history of our species strongly suggests there will be a global nuclear war when scarcity due to oil depletion becomes serious.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Request for Pretip: Dental Hygiene
I would like to be more self-sufficient and avoid the services of dental hygienists. I was hoping there might be someone out there that has deep knowledge of what is actually required for optimal dental hygiene.
Assuming a healthy low sugar diet, here are some questions:
The only question I am reasonably confident in the answer is daily use of a waterpik. My gums really like this practice.
LikeLike
I’ve been fortunate to not have had many major dental problems. We’re not soft-drink buyers. For the last 30 years, what has worked for me is — twice annual dental cleaning, once-a-day brushing/flossing/mouthwash. Using standard toothpaste brands. Yes, some fossil fuels involved in this, but not a lot. (Floss can be re-used two/three times…). Dental hygiene seems to me to be pretty forgivable on the scale of unsustainability.
LikeLike
Thanks. I’m not so concerned about the fossil energy used or unsustainability of dental hygienists, but rather would like to simplify and eliminate expense from my life (aka crash early and avoid the rush).
Dentistry is a big industry paying big salaries that is dependent on recurring revenue from 6 month cleaning visits.
I was hoping someone might have some industry independent evidence that proves this is a good use of money when proper in-home DIY dental hygiene is practiced.
LikeLike
I’ve had bad teeth and gums my whole life. About 20 years ago I was losing on average one tooth per year because it was completely rotted out. A friend told me that it was because fluoride (which is in most all toothpaste’s) rots out your teeth. He gave me a recipe for making homemade toothpaste out of baking soda and peroxide. Taste is awful, but you get used to it. I used it for almost ten years, brushing twice a day. And it worked!!! No more rotting teeth.
I got lazy and eventually went back to store bought toothpaste. Been having some toothaches in the last couple years and hopefully this post will get me back into the homemade healthy stuff.
LikeLike
Thanks. What was your baking soda/peroxide recipe? Do you understand how it works?
LikeLike
I don’t understand how/why it works so good. Cant remember the exact recipe. Something like 4 big spoonfuls of baking soda and one big spoonful of hydrogen peroxide. I would then stir it up in a tupperware container and it was good to go for like 6 months or so (no idea what the actual shelf life is though). If the texture is too gritty (like wet sand), I would always add a little more peroxide. You can also add a couple drops of peppermint oil to help the taste.
Was looking for recipes online and just like everything online, there are many different versions. This link here is pretty basic, but I did not use the glycerin. I came across some that said using baking soda for long extended times can start to do major damage to gums/teeth. Or that you should only use it 2-3 times per week. But I used it for almost ten years (twice a day) and I only saw positive results. Cant remember why I stopped doing this. Maybe I got scared of the long-term thing, or it was just laziness. But I think I am gonna start up again.
Some online sites are saying to use apple cider vinegar instead of the peroxide. Which does not surprise me because ACV is a wonder drug that I have used to clean my car engine as well as helping with upset stomach and hemorrhoids. Pretty wide range of usefulness. 😊
Homemade Toothpaste : 3 Steps (with Pictures) – Instructables
LikeLike
I no longer clean my teeth. Much to my wife’s disdain. Our ancient ancestors never ever ever practiced dental hygiene. They didn’t get cavities or have crooked teeth. This is in the fossil record. Modern day hunter gathers also didn’t have cavities, crooked teeth, or problems with their wisdom teeth. It’s all diet!
Feed your kids shit and they will develop cavities, have crooked teeth and not have enough room for their wisdom teeth and struggle to breath through their nose due to poor face structure (mouth breathers). Feed them a proper human diet and they will have no cavities (for life), their teeth will be straight and they will have enough room in their mouth for their wisdom teeth to come through. Crooked, rotten teeth and poor face structure is purely environment not genetics. You won’t hear this from a dentist or orthodontist though.
I only eat meat. Just meat. Have done so now for two whole years. I don’t think I’ll ever get cavities but I’ll let you know how it turns out.
LikeLike
Thanks. I’ve read that eliminating all food that requires chewing from the diets of children has damaged the normal development of jaws and teeth.
The orthodontics industry does not discuss this because doing so would harm its business.
LikeLike
Hey Rob,
I am in my fifties and never had a cavity only a chipped tooth from an accident when 10. I put that down to genetics and perhaps lots of calcium growing up. My gums on the other hand were terrible. I was on the path to really bad gum disease. I put that down to not flossing and smoking. I always brushed my teeth twice daily.
After getting that fixed by root planning, my gums healed. Ever since I floss everyday and I use hydrogen peroxide at about 1% dulition as a mouth wash. I would never use a commercial mouth was as it is full of nasty chemicals. Did you know that Listerine was initially created as an antiseptic for many surfaces to kill Listeria, don’t put it in your mouth it kills all bacteria, good and bad. I still brush everyday but only once using an electric toothbrush that rotates.
So cutting to the chase. I now have great teeth and gums. I get them cleaned once a year by a hygienist to remove plaque build up.
That’s my 2c
LikeLike
oh and I quit smoking.
LikeLike
Thanks. I also quit smoking.
Are you sure hydrogen peroxide does not also kill all bacteria, good and bad?
Why are you confident plaque removal by a hygienist has more benefit than harm?
LikeLike
H202 only kills anaerobic bacteria which are harmful in your mouth, kills with O+ molecule being released. Romoving tartar or biofilm is necessary for me because bacteria set up residence in there and are protected from removal and h202 and then start to damage my gums. If I ate only meat then I would probably only floss and brush.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Rob and everyone else who has teeth,
I’ve been meaning to reply to this a few days ago but knew it would probably turn out to be a Gaia length thesis and test your patience so I restrained myself until I could get my main thoughts in order (and in paragraphs, of course).
I also believe that overall dental health has a large genetic component but in my experience the foods we eat and habits we have can mitigate any deficiencies to a great extent. I’ve had a shocking start to dental health (being raised from infancy by doting auntie and grandmother who fed me as many sweets and sodas as I demanded starting as a toddler) and my mouth was nothing short of a train wreck as a young child and teenager, with teeth needing to be pulled to make space for the 4 years of orthodontic hell to correct my teeth which criss-crossed every which way. I had to wear the headgear of shame in high school (which I obviously didn’t most days), the traction needed to straighten my teeth was that intense. My diet through these years was high in processed foods and I probably was severely Vit D deficient in the winter months growing up in Chicagoland. Neither of my parents had good dental genes (my mother now needs full dentures after years of woe) but I took the cake (probably because of eating it!) Very interestingly, I did not have any cavities (that may say something for the fluoride) but the alignment and crowding was disastrous, so I am thinking the earliest years of poor diet contributed the most to the structure of the jaw and emerging teeth.
All through my late teens and twenties I went dutifully to the dental hygienist every 6 months, only to see the plaque formation reappear after just a few weeks. I endured bouts of gingivitis and regular eruptions of canker sores. I rinsed with Listerine which burned my mouth, tried my best to floss regularly but always had bloodied gums. It was pretty miserable all in all, and all the while I was drinking Diet Coke and eating whatever I wanted. Even as a medical student it never clicked that my diet had anything to do with my health, such is the depth of denial.
I can see this anecdote is getting out of hand but I had to set the stage for the transformation. You probably can’t believe that once Gaia was this unhealthy or so unconscious about health, but it is totally true. Some days now I can hardly believe it myself, it’s amazing my body made it through. I am glad for the hard-learned experience and now I have total trust in my body to take care of itself in the best way it can, given the right conditions.
Fast forward to the time I suddenly woke up in my health journey, and as I’ve said many times here before, every individual is different and needs to find their own path in this, and the best way is through self experimentation as well as gathering the information that makes sense to you. For me, my most vibrant health started to unfold when I became more and more plant based in my diet, and at the same time, decreasing the amount of processed foods.
My oral health transformed, some things almost overnight, for example the weeks after I stopped animal products, my monthly canker sores completely disappeared and have never returned, which I account for in the change of flora in my mouth, also the calcified plaque around the gum line ceased to grow, which is probably the change in pH of the mouth due to the different bacteria colonies (once again, this is my own system which will be different for others). I did not go to the dentist for 14 years in a row because I had no need to do so and because I was starting to think that the less I tampered with my mouth, the better the chance it would take care of things on its own. I had to break that streak when I went to the dentist 8 years ago for a chipped front tooth and I haven’t been back since. My husband (who has better tooth genetics and follows the same diet) hasn’t been to the dentist in 23 years! I have a theory going that the regular scrapings, cleaning and even flossing actually caused a great deal of inflammation and introduced pathogens deeper into the gumline, and gentle brushing and especially water flossing would be enough to clear the film on the teeth and gums daily to prevent damage, It seemed to me that the more people went to the dentist, the more they had to go to the dentist for one procedure or another and eventually, in my mother’s case, one tooth after another got infected at the root and needed pulling. I realised that if I hadn’t changed my diet at around age 30, my mouth situation would have been much worse than hers by the time I reached 40 (when she already had a few implants). I know that I still have weakened teeth from my earlier history but I have been seemingly able to arrest the degradation and maintain them for a long period of time, so that has been encouraging and instructive.
Here is a summary of what I found works for me (I should have just wrote this, but you can’t take the spots off a leopard) and the rationale I have for why. Even if one idea helps you avoid dental misery, then I would feel all my experience and indeed, outright suffering would have not been in vain.
–rinse mouth with water vigorously after each meal, especially after a fruit or starch meal, this is to clear the extra sugars so bacteria don’t have more fodder to build up and develop acids which cause tooth enamel erosion. Really sloshing it around the mouth and expanding you cheeks like bellows is good to exercise the mouth muscles and increase circulation.
–often throughout the day, use your tongue to go over each tooth surface and gum, this is also a cleaning action and encourages production of and moves the enzyme rich saliva around which helps neutralise the bacterial acid. Also, it’s a great exercise for the tongue which we don’t do enough. Really push the tongue around, press it against the cheeks and lips, reach into the back of the pharynx, tongue yoga!
–if you like, chew gum that has xylitol (epic or Spry brand), a fruit sugar that has been found to reduce the bacterial action in the mouth. Once a day for 15 minutes is enough, but this is not a totally sustainable action as we don’t know how long we can get this kind of gum. Chewing is an important action to promote jaw health, it is true that most of our foods now don’t have the robust consistency to really increase our tooth and jaw bone density. Instead of grinding your own teeth (not good, another story to tell later) to practice chewing motions, you may be able to find a piece of medical silicone that you can bite down on and chew to give your jaws that exercise, if you’re not already eating food that requires more vigorous chewing. Meat can fit this bill or plant fibres like stalks of broccoli, just chew to get all the nutrients you can from them until you can’t break it down any more. Raw carrot and celery are excellent for chewing exercise.
–adequate Vit D is always a correct answer to optimal health, not only for proper calcium uptake and metabolism but myriads of other hormonal regulation. Sunshine is best but supplement during the low sun months, starting early autumn or whenever your max sun angle is below 50 degrees. I suggest 2500U a day minimum, and have done megadoses (50,000U) to top up or if you are getting a viral illness. You need not worry about overdosing.
–I don’t floss with tape (see above for my reasons of causing more inflammatory damage) but use a waterpik religiously, probably twice a day is ideal. The water blasting is the most effective way to remove excess bacteria and their metabolic residue that has been building up through the day and night. The massage action is very good for the gums as Rob agrees, stimulating it to become stronger and encourages circulation, (anything that encourages circulation is a positive in my book with the exception of a trauma wound that’s bleeding out). I think this is one modern device that everyone should invest in, and I have a back-up one because it’s that critical to my dental well-being. What if the electricity fails? Well, you know I am also prepared with my squeezable condiment bottles…
–if you do wish to floss, consider the sequence of brushing first, rinsing well, and then flossing to reduce the available debris to jam back into your gums. I wouldn’t reuse the floss unless you want to boil it first?
–I scrape my tongue every morning (and might as well evening) with a spoon edge to reduce the accumulation of whatever was growing in your mouth overnight or through the day, which is a warm, moist, and nutrient dense, the ideal bacterial medium. You will know what I mean when you do this, just gently scrape, no need to drag harshly to damage the tongue. Scrape until it is relatively clear, it may depend on the day. In all of this effort to reduce the bacteria count and their metabolic products in your mouth (which is responsible for possible infection and tooth erosion) I am not concerned at all about getting rid of the “good” and “bad” species, it is the balance that is key and the main aim here is you are just taking out the obvious debris and reducing population numbers a bit (can you imagine the equivalent of a metal spoon for H sapiens?) there’s no chance at all that you would remove any where near a critical mass of your mouth flora, and besides, in just 64 divisions, you’d have enough bacteria to populate a gadzillion universes, so don’t worry.
–I use a non-fluoride “natural=more expensive” toothpaste that makes me feel like I’m helping the planet and the box is embossed with all kinds of happy, healthy, good for you slogans and accreditations. So probably use whatever you like, but a soft brush is best for not irritating the gums and only a smallest amount is needed, when they say pea-sized amount I cringe and think lentil-sized. I have used regular soap before, (washing out your mouth with soap isn’t at all the dreadful thing we’ve been threatened with) and also soap nuts, just don’t swallow the foam and it’s all fine. It’s the detergent action that pulls the bacteria off the teeth but still, I cannot live without the waterpik irrigator. You will see how no matter how well you think you’ve brushed, there are still lots of debris that is blasted out.
I think that’s about all my tips on oral hygiene–I told you it was going to be painful (but hopefully not dentist-chair painful). I am not a fearful person but that is one scenario that does scare me, and I have tried everything to avoid and so far relatively successfully. It will be a very difficult time indeed when things start to collapse and masses of westerners will have no recourse for their dental issues and we all know how toothache is incompatible with sanity.
I know that no other animal cares about food in their teeth and remains in perfect health and usually dies just about the time when their teeth finally do have issues. We are a hybrid animal now with all the strikes against us and none of us living ideally, I have evolved to my current regimen to help stave off that day when mouth desperation will cause me to want to end it.
Well, time to go rinse out my mouth (with soap?) and get on with the day. Hope all are well and smiling!
Namaste, friends.
LikeLike
Hi Gaia, thanks for the excellent tips and for sharing your interesting dental story.
I very much like that you explained WHY we should do things. I find it much easier to build a good habit when I understand the reason. For example, we rinse with water after a meal to eliminate the food bad bacteria need to grow. This rinsing tip is excellent and I will implement immediately. I have been rinsing after coffee to reduce caffeine stains but not after all food.
I think I subconsciously do clean with my tongue but will try to do more of it consciously now.
Last summer I listened to an alt dentist who also recommended xylitol mints so I bought a bunch but have not been regularly using them. I will resume now to see if anything changes.
It’s amazing how many benefits vitamin D seems to have. I doubled up to 2000U during covid and have stayed at that level since.
I’m also not sure about flossing. I do it but not consistently or thoroughly. I think I’ll follow your advice and increase my waterpik use to twice or more a day. I also consider it an essential device and have a spare. I have been very pleased with how reliable it has been after 5 years of daily use. I expected it to fail before now.
Thanks again for the excellent preptip.
LikeLike
Great post. Oh poor Gaia! I can so relate to your early bad luck mouth problems. Criss-crossed teeth and four years of orthodontic hell for me too. Getting that monthly tightening was the worst. I couldn’t eat anything solid for two days afterward.
After braces I had to wear retainers for a couple years (many times I was digging through garbage bins because I accidentally threw em away). Headgear of shame too, but only at night, thank god. I used to have canker sores regularly. And have been told by countless dentists that I have gum disease. When I used to floss it would look like a horror movie with the amount of blood. Not so bad anymore. The lentil-sized amount of toothpaste is a good one too. Most of my life it was a big glop of toothpaste on that brush.
The shadow incentive (Peter Joseph’s word) is everywhere I look. Around easter holiday at the grocery store I saw numerous toothpastes and toothbrushes that came with a free pack of jellybeans or some type of easter candy.
Good to hear that your mouth and teeth are much better nowadays. And funny, but so true about “we all know how toothache is incompatible with sanity”. Preptip for severe toothache: Best thing on the planet is clove oil. Dip a q-tip in the oil and then rub it on tooth.
LikeLike
Hey bro,
It is so true that misery loves company! I really appreciated your commiseration, and I’m sorry for your lot, too. But what didn’t kill us made us stronger, right? That post did bring back some very tragic memories, you’re right, the pain was excruciating. Did you have to use rubber bands as well? I think orthodontic treatment is the closest we’ll get to torture, must be some form of child abuse, however well meaning.
Yes, clove oil is great for numbing tooth pain, and should be in every prepper’s medicine cabinet for that purpose! However, it is a very toxic substance and since it can be absorbed easily through the mucous membranes, you really need to be careful to use just a bit and hopefully get to the bottom of the real cause of pain as soon as possible.
Let’s hope we’re through with the worst of our dental disasters and never have to suffer in a dentist’s chair again (that could be denial talking?)
Namaste.
LikeLike
LOL. As soon as I saw “rubber bands” I had horrible flashbacks of the torture. You’re bringing back suppressed memories. They were very tiny and would snap in my mouth. Oh, and just remembered the pain of the braces digging into my gums. I always had one tooth where it did that really bad. It was like a meat grinder. My goodness, it was child abuse.
And I am absolutely done with my dental disasters. My exit kit will be used long before I ever sit down for another root canal. 😊
LikeLike
A couple years ago I tried to buy clove oil locally and no one carries it. On Amazon there is lots but all are sold for aromatherapy and not dental pain. Is there a difference?
LikeLike
Not sure if there is a difference. The bottle I have is called “NOW essential oils” 100% pure clove eugenia caryophyllata – 1 fl. ounce (30mL). Bought it a few years ago I think at a GNC store.
My bottle says nothing about dental pain. Under benefits it says “warming, soothing, comforting”.
LikeLike
Many of you may “enjoy” this interview. Perhaps no new information for this audience, but it is a very good summary intro.
My apologies if it has already been shared.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, very good interview. A different interview with Jacobsen was posted in the past but not this one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Ok, ok, you’ve proven we can’t grow forever, how about we stop growing and stay where we are?
Dr. Tom Murphy today drops spirituality and returns to math, once again proving beyond doubt that the only good path is population reduction, despite not mentioning it.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/05/growth-or-scale/
LikeLike
The de-growth movement is doing good work, but they need to put a much bigger emphasis on population.
LikeLike
Preptip: Duct Tape
I have 6 rolls in my preps.
Most recently I used duct tape to repair the leaking sun roof in my van that once again proved complexity is a bad thing because pretty much every fancy power thing in the deluxe version of the van I bought 20 years ago has failed. I should have bought the simple version of the van for 10 thousand dollars less.
I also learned that cheap dollar store duct tape is not so good because it did not adhere for more than one summer exposed to strong sunlight. Removing the bad duct tape took a lot of time and effort and a strong solvent like gasoline.
Here’s a deep dive into the technology of duct tape.
This is a cool channel if you’re interested in how things work.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sabine Hossenfelder today explains that space-based solar power will not save us from climate change. I left the following comment:
LikeLiked by 2 people
Gail Tverberg today does a nice job of explaining the implications of globalization and the qualities of different types of energy.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/05/21/reaching-the-end-of-offshored-industrialization/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Why is there so much climate change denial in the comments on OFW?
LikeLike
It’s a good question.
I observe that people who accept the reality of climate change believe some combination of:
– innovation and technology like green energy, carbon capture, and EVs will fix the problem (eg. most climate scientists, political leaders, and many citizens)
– fossil energy depletion will prevent bad climate scenarios (eg. Nate Hagens until very recently)
– some non-human caused physical process like sun intensity or pole shifts is causing climate change so it’s out of our control and we don’t need to do anything
– god is in control and will look after me in heaven (eg. Gail Tverberg)
I observe that people who deny the reality of climate change believe some combination of:
– at least 7 out of 8 billion will not survive without fossil energy
– modern comforts and lifestyes require fossil energy
– fossil energy is non-renewable, production has peaked, and reserves are rapidly depleting
– technology like green energy, carbon capture, and EVs are dependent on fossil energy and will not reduce the climate threat
– their livelihood depends on not believing in climate change (eg NASCAR drivers and Chris Martenson)
You can clearly see MORT at work here.
If you believe there is a happy ending or it’s out of our control you accept the reality of climate change.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Who is knowledgeable enough to confidently say it is so and not otherwise?
LikeLike
I’m not sure what you are refering to but if it is MORT then I am one of very few people besides Varki that is confident it is so.
LikeLike
I apologize if this comment comes out blunt.
At first it was only a sentiment. Now a thought is slowly emerging after reading many of the comments here.
Maybe I misunderstand. But, if I flesh out what I mean, I guess it would be: to claim that MORT is at work on any topic implies one knows the truth about the topic in question.
How can one be the arbitrer of truth on so many topics?
I feel unease with that. To me, it lacks humility, the benefit of doubt.
I think it would be an interesting and fun exercise to collect several (orthogonal) statements which you hold to be definitely true, put them in a table and let all the members tick whether they ring true or not. We could compare our views (and also at different times: I am sure our opinions change).
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s a fair question to ask if MORT is being used to explain a widespread incorrect belief, rather than accepting there may be uncertainty in the truth.
Which of these widespread beliefs that I think are false and are explained by MORT, do you believe is true?
– infinite growth on a finite planet is possible
– our species is not in overshoot
– a falling population is bad
– there is no limit to government debt
– peak oil is a myth
– climate change is not caused by humans
– climate change is not a big risk
– there are plenty of minerals for an energy transition
– renewables will reduce fossil energy use
– efficiency will reduce fossil energy use
– renewables and EVs will fix climate change
– we can feed 8 billion people without fossil energy
– the West is good and the Russians are evil
– mRNA saved many lives and did not kill anyone
– Ivermectin is only good for deworming horses
– sugar is not a problem
– cholesterol in food is unhealthy
– statins add years of life
– there is life after death
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of the above statements I think the first 12 are are all false.
– the West is good and the Russians are evil: That one is more subjective so it can be up to interpretation. The mainstream media mostly portrays it as an imperialist war of aggression.
– mRNA saved many lives and did not kill anyone: There MRNA vaccines are not as safe as we were lead to believe.
– Ivermectin is only good for deworming horses: The problem here is that people were taking doses intended for cows and horses, animals who are significantly larger than humans.
– sugar is not a problem: false, but I don’t see many people denying this.
– cholesterol in food is unhealthy: In excessive amounts it can be unhealthy.
– statins add years of life: I don’t know enough to evaluate the veracity of the claim.
– there is life after death: This is also false.
LikeLike
On Ivermectin, I think anyone contemplating taking it as a prophylactic or as a treatment would have read the FLCC guidelines that provided well tested and safe dosages for humans based on body weight.
On sugar, have you looked in the grocery buggy of just about any shopper? It’s scary how much sugar people consume. I used to be one of them.
LikeLike
I know I eat too much sugar. I mentioned that sugar can be as addictive as cocaine.
LikeLike
I remember feeling a lot of stress and uncertainty whether I could cut my sugar. It was not as hard as I feared. The secret for me was to substitute sweets with other delicious snacks and desserts like popcorn, cheese, nuts, dark chocolate, and dried fruit when you have a craving for something sweet.
LikeLike
Why OPEC’s Production Cuts are Permanent
LikeLike
Nice list. I agree with you on all except for the last one. But you knew I was gonna go there. 😊. And I would have to replace the word “life” with “something”.
LikeLike
Rob, it’s scary how much you and I think alike…
Charles, I see MORT as the reasoning for the denial. I take reality as what exists around us, and the sciences of physics, chemistry, maths, biology have a very good handle on what is happening in the world. I have never seen any evidence for anything ‘godly’ that can’t be explained by one of the sciences and just plain logic.
Homo sapiens is just another species that had the brainpower and the dexterity to alter the world around itself, which gave a massive competitive advantage over other life on this planet.
However that’s it, we have a huge advantage, but when we have used up the resources we want, our population will fall just like any other species that massively overshoots it’s environment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sigh…
LikeLike
Thank you for coming up with this list. It’s a fun game.
I am going to try to be succinct and split the list in 4 categories. If you want me to later elaborate on anything, let me know.
Note, I understand the following statements as:
– infinite growth on a finite planet is possible => infinite material growth on a finite planet is possible
– there are plenty of minerals for an energy transition => I guess you mean an energy transition which keeps everything relatively the same and I guess by energy transition you mean towards electric
– we can feed 8 billion people without fossil energy => strange phrasing and not anecdoctical I believe. Who is the “we”? Royal we? I understand it as: 8 billion people can feed themselves without fossil energy
– sugar is not a problem => sugar is not a problem for individual health
Statements which I hold to be true: surprisingly none.
Statements which I hold to be false:
– infinite growth on a finite planet is possible
– peak oil is a myth
– there are plenty of minerals for an energy transition
– renewables will reduce fossil energy use
– efficiency will reduce fossil energy use
– the West is good and the Russians are evil
– mRNA saved many lives and did not kill anyone
– sugar is not a problem (it was difficult for me to answer, because I am not sure about what is meant by sugar. Part of me thinks industrial sugar is a problem, but fruits is not and industrial out-of-season fruits are. Sugar is a symptom. Maybe should have put in the I don’t know category, or ill-defined. I mean everything is a problem in great quantities)
Statements whose truthfulness I don’t know:
– a falling population is bad
– we can feed 8 billion people without fossil energy (could have put in the ill-phrased statements: for how long? I am pretty sure we could, but we won’t see it, starting from the current configuration. What I mean is food is not the limiting factor which hits first.)
– Ivermectin is only good for deworming horses (would like to put in the false category, but truly, I don’t know)
– cholesterol in food is unhealthy
– statins add years of life (I don’t really know what statins are, just heard the term, never researched it, haven’t seen a doctor for more than a decade+the notion of “adding years of life” is quite ill-defined and without any meaning to me: statistics are not necessarily incompatible with destiny)
Statements which I find not precise enough and need to be rephrased for me to answer:
– our species is not in overshoot: Homo industrialis, or homo animalis? Give me your definition of overshoot.
– a falling population is bad: for whom? Isn’t “bad” subjective?
– there is no limit to government debt: well, every thing has a limit. So what’s really the question? (government can certainly do debt until it vanishes. But no government is for ever)
– climate change is not caused by humans: humans certainly lie in the long chains of cause and effects. But then what does the word “humans” really mean? Is there such a thing as humanity? Isn’t the duality human/nature a figment of our mental model? Do humans pilot their collective behavior?
– climate change is not a big risk: to what?
– renewables and EVs will fix climate change: “fix”? From whose perspective? Isn’t climate change fixing humans?
– there is life after death: what does this mean? Even the word life is not precisely defined.
LikeLike
I seem to have misunderstood your original point about MORT being used as an excuse to criticize different versions of truth.
LikeLike
I am a bit lost ther. I am not sure I understand your previous comment and how it relates to my preceding answer.
To try and restate my initial point: it seems to me that in order to call denial about a given belief, a prerequisite is to be sure the belief is false. On many topics, I wouldn’t be sure enough of myself to do so.
Hence my initial remark was about: the limitations of our own knowledge, the importance of humility, the acceptance that reality is much more complex than our representation(s) of it.
I hope it makes better sense…
LikeLike
Was laughing when I saw how long this was. Leave it to you to get deep on what was a pretty straightforward task. 😊
Great analysis. You got me re-thinking a couple that I was confident and quick to label false. I appreciate that.
LikeLike
Ah ah ah. Yes, sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Be my guest. I am glad to be able to make people laugh at my expense. At least there is some use in over-thinking 🙂
School was kind of awkward, in that I rarely got the answers expected by the teachers because of the loopholes in the questions. In fact, life in general is disorienting to say the least. There is so much in a grain of sand.
I guess you are familiar with the term: nerd sniping (https://xkcd.com/356/)
LikeLike
Oh, I bet you were a pain in the ass for your teachers. 😊
Love the nerd swiping comic. I might have to come up with a way to do this to evangelical Christians. They are worth 10 points each. haha
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLike
Excellent presentation given recently by Gail Tverberg to her colleague actuaries.
Tverberg speaks with remarkable candor to mainstream professionals.
I wonder how she is perceived by her colleagues?
Perhaps the insurance industry requires employees with a higher percentage of defective denial genes to survive?
Recall that it was the insurance industry that forced citizens to accept the reality of climate change by increasing insurance rates.
I hope they do it again for the covid crimes by increasing life insurance rates. Has anyone seen any evidence of this yet?
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Tverberg-Beware-the-Economy-Is-Beginning-to-Shrink-May-8-2024-1.pdf
LikeLike
Monk, if Gail answers your question please let us know what she says.
h**ps://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/05/21/reaching-the-end-of-offshored-industrialization/comment-page-1/#comment-459752
LikeLike
from Dennis Coyne over at POB. Seems even the most diehard optimists are awake at night.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-may-2024/#
LikeLiked by 1 person
Preptip: Thanks to an excellent suggestion by Gaia, I just cut my toilet paper consumption by 80% and improved hygiene by installing a simple, low cost, no electricity, bidet on my toilet. The model is Brondell Swash CL99 and I’m very pleased with the quality. Installation is super easy and takes 10 minutes.
If you want a less expensive portable solution, there is a nicely designed Brondell squeeze bottle with spout and metal air valve available on Amazon. Strangely, this design is not available direct from China via AliExpress, only inferior designs are available.
Or as Gaia suggested, an empty condiment bottle is a free solution.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Hi Rob,
That really made my day! Thank you so much for doing your part to save the planet one bum wipe at a time! The solution to pollution is dilution, as we have been drilled (but we all know the real answer is population reduction) and a judicious squirt of water at the right place does work wonders!
I cannot help but say here, (and forgive me David H if singing your and Joanna’s praises is too brazen for your liking) but what made my day yesterday was the most awe-inspiring visit to their amazing property here in Far North Queensland. The botanical wonderland they have planted and nurtured over so many years is nothing short of legendary, as well as being able to live in harmony with the land and reducing energy inputs. I left with a van load of plants and cuttings and a heart full of joy and renewed energy for our own endeavours. Thank you David and Jo for your generous spirit and example.
Namaste, friends.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wow, congratulations to David!
LikeLike
That is very kind of you Gaia, but I’d just like to mention that we are still dependent on fossil fuels . We use petrol to pump water from the bore, diesel to take plants to market, diesel to slash the orchard and fire breaks once a year, and petrol to mow the grass around the homestead area. The small solar system doesn’t last forever, and as Hideaway and no doubt most here know, the scale of the mineral requirements to scale it all up to a global level, and rebuild it all every 25 years means that even that is just a fantasy in terms of long-term human civilisation solution I guess the ultimate irony of it all is that if one becomes, by time and effort, knowledgeable enough of the whole system, one realises that industrial civilisation is not possible for humanity on any long-term basis. It’s fascinating to me to read Tom Murphy’s essays over the years, and see his own journey of realisation. Also Hideaway’s awareness is spot on, and it is good that Rob posts his essays here . Anyway, great to meet you, Gaia, and your knowledge and enthusiasm was a delight.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Can’t find an envy emoji. That’s my kind of day out. Happy gardening 😀
LikeLike
Move along, nothing to see here.
LikeLike
Which do you think is the more likely outcome: Default or Hyperinflation? I think that the latter is more likely, because I don’t think they would allow the U.S. government to default on its debt.
LikeLike
I used to believe that deflation vs. hyperinflation was a entirely a political decision, and because politicians will always choose the path of least short term pain, hyperinflation would be the outcome.
Now I’m not sure. Our debt levels are so high and the Seneca cliff fall in fossil energy will be so fast that deflation may be the most probable outcome.
The only thing I’m confident in is that we will be a lot poorer.
I’m also confident that stocking extra food will prove to be a wise decision regardless of the outcome.
LikeLike
Why do you think it will be a Seneca cliff and not a Hubbert curve?
LikeLike
Because we have grown debt faster than the real economy to extract energy faster then we can afford using the wealth produced by that energy.
This game must end due to mathematics and physics, and when it does there will be a big discontinuity rather than a gradual change.
You can also view this through the lens of using technology to add straws to suck harder on a milkshake. For example, injecting water to accelerate a well works until it doesn’t.
LikeLike
3 days, really? Who doesn’t already have 3 days of food in their kitchen?
3 years would be better advice.
I’m surprised the idiot politician didn’t recommend an extra mRNA booster just in case you’re locked down and miss your 6 month update.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13444625/oliver-dowden-stockpile-national-resilience-power-cuts-cyber-attacks-floods.html
LikeLike
LOL!!! Why not just say three hours. And while three years is much better advice, it’s not realistic for most people (because of financial and/or intellectual capacity).
But my god, three days? Talk about worthless advice. My guess is it’s a manipulative attempt by the elite to offer advice and seem helpful but also keep the illusion that if SHTF, dont worry you just got to make it on your own for a couple of days and then everything will be back to normal.
Back to that intellectual capacity thing. I’m only gonna have about 2 months worth, tops. I’m lucky that I could afford to stock up for a couple years… but I cannot bring myself to do this. Yes, some of it is a “I dont want to survive in the Mad Max environment”, but there is something else preventing me from going hardcore prepper. Not sure what it is though. Maybe its denial related.
LikeLike
LikeLike
Strange that there is not more coverage on this. Perhaps another example of energy blindness (aka denial)?
https://swentr.site/russia/597882-ukraine-energy-capacity-loss-strikes/
LikeLike
Rachel Donald has grown into a very wise and aware interviewer.
I’d rate this interview with Dr. Tim Garrett as a must watch because it addresses most of the big questions that you rarely hear discussed anywhere:
It also provides a great example of the most powerful form of of MORT: denial of denial.
Garrett with emotion laments that we are in a serious crisis, and despite relying on physics for everything we value in civilization, we are unwilling to apply physics to understanding and improving our overshoot predicament.
He can get funding to study snowflakes but there is no funding for his much more important work on the physics of overshoot.
Garrett knows every one of the few people studying the physics of overshoot, but there too many people studying snowflakes for him to know them all.
Garrett with confidence blames this blind spot on economists who have power and are closed minded to anything that contradicts their flawed theories.
This is clearly wrong, and Garrett should know the correct answer because I have educated him many years ago on MORT. Ditto for Rachel Donald who interviewed Dr. Varki and then promptly forgot everything she learned. Ditto for Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock who interviewed Varki, understood the implications of MORT, and then promptly returned to wondering in every episode why we deny climate change.
Denial of denial is the most powerful form of MORT.
P.S. Garrett also discussed his off-grid cabin and acknowledged his solar power system is too complex and too fragile.
P.P.S. You can find more work I’ve posted by Garrett here:
https://un-denial.com/?s=Tim+Garrett%3A
https://un-denial.com/?s=Richard+Nolthenius
LikeLiked by 2 people
I listen to, and read everything I can find from Tim Garrett, because obviously we think along the same lines. He struggled during that interview to put into a formula what Rachel asked him, yet watching that, and the fact I’ve been working on power laws and scaling, the formula he was looking for is extremely simple and by itself describes why civilization can’t last and will collapse…
M = Materials … The civilization we live in is the crust of planet Earth turned into useful Materials with the use of E Energy to do it. However we humans have always ( so does every other lifeform and physical process) used the ‘closest’ and ‘easiest’ to get resources. (a hurricane gets the energy from the warm tropic waters, not colder arctic waters).
To either grow OR maintain the existing system, the amount of Energy must rise or the system or process collapses.
We humans go and grab lower grade ores from further away, it’s a continuous effort.
M = E to the power y………. energy has to increase constantly to maintain the system, or increase by more to grow the system.
E to the power y no matter what it is, assuming it’s positive, which it has to be because of the laws of physics, means it’s not possible on a finite planet. It’s only possible for a period of time until the system collapses.
Civilization is no different in form from a Hurricane or Tim’s cumulonimbus clouds, they are all Energy dissipative structures, that form grow with excess energy then collapse when the energy needed to maintain them is no longer available.
In reality we could have had a much simpler lower energy using system of civilization last a lot longer than our current much larger and more energy demanding civilization, but it wouldn’t be indefinite if it’s using energy to transform Earth’s crust into Materials.
Current civilization is built on ALL the forms of energy we use in an ever increasing spiral of energy needs. Once one of our energy forms starts falling rapidly and cannot be compensated by other forms of energy growing enough, then collapse will happen. It’s a law of physics and applies to organisms, hurricanes, clouds and stars. There are no exceptions…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I also saw Garrett stall on the explanation. I interpreted it as him being reluctant to say there is no hope.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but there is one sentence missing from your explanation for why steady state civilization is not possible and collapse is inevitable:
All things eventually wear out, and perfect 100% recycling of materials is physically impossible, therefore some new materials are required to maintain steady state, and over time the material reserve quality will decline and require more energy to mine and process, and therefore steady state civilization requires a growing supply of energy, and infinite energy growth, regardless of how small the exponent, is impossible on a finite planet.
I still like Jack Alpert’s plan because if we could get down to 100 million there would be a ton of used material we could recycle and scavenge and those people could enjoy many of the good things we have accomplished for many hundreds of years. Plus we would avoid 7.9 billion people suffering and dying horrible deaths.
LikeLike
I was trying to keep it as short as possible and agree with your added sentence. Realistically all recycling does, is exactly the same as efficiency gains, they slightly reduce the energy required to keep going until collapse, they add time..
What both do in our civilization is give people a reason to ignore/deny the inevitable.
The one part that is truely horrifying about it all is that collapse is a normal expected part of the process.
I support Jack Alpert’s plan for exactly the same reason, it would reduce suffering. However I’m 99.99% certain it wont happen as people will continue to deny reality. Afterall there are enough crazies out their that believe GOD will provide for his people so physics, materials, energy and compassion for every other species is irrelevant…
LikeLike
I suppose it’s not so horrifying in the context that everything in the universe eventually dies including our sun. However there is a good way and a bad way to go.
LikeLike
If I may.
They add time, probably at the expanse of a steeper decline. Hence increasing the odds of collapse in contrast to gradual decline.
We could make another long list of the things which “steepen the curve” by shifting it right. (remember the covid slogan “flatten the curve”?).
The list starts with debt, technology, efficiency, complexity. All the ingenuity constantly deployed in resistance to change.
LikeLike
Hi Rob.
This has been on my mind for quite some time (since I watched the HBO serie watchmen, maybe one year ago).
Up to this point, I didn’t dare ask to pass as a complete lunatic. But I’d like to have your opinion.
In some episode of the serie, the slogan “masks save lives” appears. (In the serie, a law is passed to allow police officers to wear masks in order to protect their lives. This significantly blurs the line between law enforcement and criminals.) I checked, the serie was aired from october to december 2019 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(TV_series)).
But the “mask saves lives” slogan was already released one year earlier (https://www.pastemagazine.com/tv/watchmen/masks-save-lives-in-mysterious-new-teaser-images-f, https://www.instagram.com/watchmen/reel/BqaXx8NFhFy/)
Covid was first identified in China in december 2019 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic). Then soon thereafter, if I remember well, we had the official “masks (and masks mandates) save lives” narrative.
So, would you say:
Are there any other examples of mainstream entertainment media which appeared before covid but clearly had a link with the slogan/policies deployed during covid?
To finish with this entertainment topic, Dune 2 is certainly heavy on the cold war references:
That was all some random association of ideas mainly just for fun…
LikeLike
Sorry, I put this comment in the wrong place. Wanted to have it as a root comment.
LikeLike
Are there any other examples of mainstream entertainment media which appeared before covid but clearly had a link with the slogan/policies deployed during covid?
Contagion (2011) – have not seen it in years, but the term “social distancing” was used heavily. I think “PPE” was a thing too. Also remember an Alex Jones type (Jude Law) hawking ineffective medicines online to the desperate population.
A couple that I need to watch again to see if there are any examples. Outbreak (1995) and 12 Monkeys (1995).
LikeLike
Hi Chris and all movie buffs,
Have you watched V for Vendetta, released in 2005, way back when we were blissfully collapse unaware? A dystopian, totalitarian vision that eerily foretells many elements of our societal trends today, and yes, there is reference to a man-made virus used to achieve certain aims.
Probably worth watching all these films you mentioned again, knowing what we know now. From thriller genre, they will have morphed into a documentary, me thinks!
Go well everyone.
LikeLike
Yes, excellent movie that I need to watch again. The Wachowskis have three masterpieces. The first Matrix, V for Vendetta, and my favorite Cloud Atlas.
LikeLike
Thanks for the tip. Added Cloud Atlas to my movie queue.
LikeLike
You’re welcome. And just a tip: The film bounces around in time. Whenever they are in the future (but it looks like the past) where Tom Hanks has stuff on his face (tattoos or birth marks), turn the subtitles on if you have the option. The English language has changed a little bit in the future, and you will understand the great dialogue much better with the subs.
And I have a guaranteed prediction about this love it or hate it movie. Gaia, Charles, Monk and CampbellS will like it. NikoB will hate it. Everyone else is 50/50. 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Hideaway.
I don’t understand your equation. It’s: M = E^y? What is y? Just some positive constant? (which could be estimated by looking at some data?)
Why this equation and not some other function which depends on E (for instance: some constant times E)? Why is time not present in the equation?
If I understand you well, once the aggregate of the energies used starts to fall, M will decrease. Why do you call it collapse, rather than decline?
LikeLike
Hi Charles, it collapses because it’s a dissipative energy structure and they all collapse due to energy decline. Decline in energy input leads to a rapidly growing set of failures within the system as the system had tried to accommodate the initial fall in energy growth by stressing lots of subsystems with inadequate energy.
Think of an organism that dies or a hurricane that goes over land. The organism dying because less energy is able to enter where it’s needed, stresses subsystems until a tipping point is reached somewhere and a critical subsystem collapses stopping the circulation of energy. We call it death, as it’s the collapse of the complete system with other subsystems unable to overcome the critical failure, so all cells then rapidly die.
Likewise for a hurricane, it gets it’s energy from the evaporation then condensation over warm water. Over land it’s not getting the energy from the warm water body so rapidly collapses. However over mostly warm water and a bit of land, it tries to accommodate the reduced energy usually by slowing down.
Failure to grow the energy input means that internal aspects of the system that distribute energy can’t all be maintained, meaning a rapid cascade of breakdown of all systems as others produced by self organisation have to do ‘more’ than they are capable of so they fail in a cascade of failure. That’s what a collapse is, a cascade of failing subsystems that can’t be maintained.
In an organism it’s one critical system fails and the rest quickly follow. A city or the whole of civilization itself acts very much like an organism with many aspects acting in tandem to keep the flow of energy within the system going.
In the formula above y is a positive number. As we turn ‘the crust’ of planet Earth into Materials of built civilization, we always use the easy to get, highest grade ‘stuff’ first. We then have to go and get ”stuff’ from further away, this means more energy expended. After the highest grades of ores, we get lower grades, again meaning more energy use turning the low grade ore into useable Material. Everything we build suffers from entropy so has to be replaced.
Energy has to continually grow, so E to the power y for the system to be maintained. We don’t know exactly what y is, but we do know that constant growth is not possible on a finite planet, so the E part of the equation can’t grow forever. Perhaps the formula should be..
M(t1-t∞) = E(t1-t∞)^y.
Even a steady state of civilization requires a constant growth in energy use just to maintain the system. If the energy growth slows down, internal systems get stressed, we don’t have enough energy to maintain everything. Eventually some critical system will be overstressed leading to a cascade of failures in other subsystems in a chaotic way, including energy gathering systems, leading to much less energy and eventual collapse. Slowly at first, then all at once.
I see all of our subsystems in our civilization under stress. The huge growing debt being a sign. We use to have exponential increase in energy available to grow our civilization up until the early ’70s, as can be seen with oil production growth rates over decades. then oil growth became linear. Coal growth went exponential in around ’65 up to ’88, while gas had exponential growth from 2001-12. Overall though energy growth rates have slowed down and put our civilization under stress. Once the fall in energy production starts accelerating, the stressed subsystems come under more and more stress with parts being unable to cope, causing chaotic cascades of failures throughout civilization.
I hope this answers your questions.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Hideaway for your quick answer.
I still don’t understand the equation. (I am unsure what t1 and t∞ stand for). But that’s OK, because I think I understand your main point. Let me rephrase to see if I got it right: for civilization to recover even a constant amount of material M, the amount of energy expanded much rise in some exponential way.
Maybe, the equation would be something like: E(M, t) = M*e^(y*t).
Where y is some constant, M and t are parameters which stand for the material amount and time.
In other words, the function E which gives the energy required to recover some amount M of material at some point in time t is some exponential of time and proportional to M.
Anyway, the exact equation is secondary. I get your point. I agree. Once the system gets to breaking point, it can not keep its shape and disintegrates quickly.
But then, parallel to that, as soon as it happens, the constituants will start to reorganize into smaller/less complex/different systems. So the interesting question to me is rather: to what extent does industrial civilization disintegrate? In other words, what constitutes the system? What relies upon its further existence and what constitutes independent forces?
I think we mainly disagree on this last phase of the dynamic. (well, if I put aside more meta discussions about the nature of reality and what constitutes a fulfilling existence) I find the currently existing large system, in a last survival effort, tries to prevent smaller systems to organize at its expense. Still I see a situation where, quite rapidly, yet gradually, the new smaller systems increasingly feed on the remnants of the disintegrating large one. A tree falls in a forest, it has been roting for some time, it is food for many.
I expect to get the answer by living it. Because I feel collapse has begun in my part of the world (even though it is not recognized, the beams are rotten to the core) and is at the point where smaller systems are starting to emerge (but not visible to mainstream yet).
LikeLike
Hi Charles, t is time going forward from 1 to infinity, showing that E rising by a power that doesn’t have to be a constant number, but does always have to be positive, is impossible. It’s impossible not only on a finite planet, but in a finite universe when I really think about it..
Stars are self organising dissipative energy systems and they also all collapse at the end of their lives.
Why collapse has to happen and not decline. All the internal parts of the system are totally reliant upon the pathways that bring energy into the centre of the system remaining fully functioning. Once they suffer under stress and can’t be maintained, the energy doesn’t get into the centre of the system, so it collapses from the inside out.
What happens when there is no electricity, water, gas or food getting into the centre of a large city? What happens to those on the periphery that might still have some foods and heat systems functioning, they will be overwhelmed by the hordes leaving the inner collapsed areas.
In an organism the cells are not able to move so they collapse in place. This might happen to people ‘stuck’ in the middle of cities. Those not stuck will overwhelm the periphery.
Charles … ” I find the currently existing large system, in a last survival effort, tries to prevent smaller systems to organize at its expense.”
Absolutely, which is why none of us can live on a piece of land ‘naturally’, in a modern country. It is compulsory to be part of the system. If you don’t pay your property taxes they will take the land off you. If you try to live ‘naturally’ in a park, or someone’s else’s land, they will lock you up.
Smaller systems use more resources than one larger system, they have a higher metabolic rate. Research shows that as a city doubles in size it needs a lot of functions to only go up by around 85%, not doubling. Biological systems have scaling at around 75% for every doubling in size, they are more efficient than the human built environment.
This has huge repercussions for a system collapsing due to lack of energy. Smaller new structures of the same population as the original system would need MORE resource to form, they have a higher metabolic rate.
Some could form out of the rubble, but it wont stop collapse. In fact when cities and civilizations in the past collapsed, the people often fled to other areas, but the overall population greatly declined during the collapse. In the modern world we don’t have areas to flee to that are away from civilization, it’s global.
After collapse happens some people that survive will reform groups into a new type of civilization, scrounging a lot of the current civilization, but this will take time to restore some type of order. They will also be living off what the natural world can supply without fossil fuels and modern agriculture, until they can form a new agricultural system or be hunter gatherers (if there is anything left to hunt!!)
We live in a world of many artificial systems within artificial systems that can’t operate without inputs of fossil fuels as our energy source. They are slowly breaking down at present. Once the process of less available fossil fuels really kicks in all the systems deteriorate faster, including the feedback systems that provide the fossil fuels. It’s an accelerating decline phase which is really the definition of collapse.
Charles … “Still I see a situation where, quite rapidly, yet gradually, the new smaller systems increasingly feed on the remnants of the disintegrating large one. A tree falls in a forest, it has been roting for some time, it is food for many.”
Yes but the tree system has collapsed.. Our collapse of civilization might be food for lots of mice, rats, cockroaches and fungi, great for them, but not so good for the humans they are eating..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Hideaway.
Part of me is slowly being convinced. I see your line of reasoning: you are trying to integrate every factors, rather than looking along one dimension (say food production only) to see what would be possible.
I totally buy:
I have a really hard time believing this civilisation is the most effective at food production or that it is concerned with the overall well-being of life. Given that it has other priorities (like converting land to asphalt and food production to power contraptions which travel on that asphalt).
So, am I getting it right if I say you don’t believe that, when fossil energy in aggregate really starts to decline, the system will go in triage/survival mode and focus on essentials? I am eager to see how the reconfiguration goes once the central grip weakens.
If you are into this kind of things, this page is fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines. The great march forward (aka industrialisation, aka centralisation) had quite its toll on humans (WW2, Holodomor, Chinese famine)
LikeLike
Hi Charles, …. “So, am I getting it right if I say you don’t believe that, when fossil energy in aggregate really starts to decline, the system will go in triage/survival mode and focus on essentials?”
I suspect we have already been in triage/survival mode since the ’70’s. The globalisation effort started right around peak growth in fossil fuel use, the end of the oil exponential rise. We outsourced as much manufacture to ‘cheap’ countries as possible. Before then the ‘West’ did all it’s own manufacturing and heavy industry.
I certainly don’t think it was just a co-incidence that at the end of exponential oil growth that globalisation started.
Now we have fragile systems in place for all ‘goods’ that rely upon 6 continent supply chains, all working together, with massive movement of raw materials, parts and finished goods across the world. What could possibly go wrong, once oil production declines at an accelerating rate and fuel is too expensive for some, or all, of those ships?
The problem with collapse in energy availability is all the subsystems effected in multiple ways that can’t be predicted as all systems struggle to get either the energy or parts to keep operating. They will all happen at around the same time with increasing frequency, and everywhere in the world at the same time.
The last part about everywhere around the world at the same time is the important bit. Right now everyone looks at collapse as if it will be like what’s happening in Lebanon or Sri Lanka, or somewhere similar. However what’s happening in those places is that they are getting a great deal of help from ex patriots. I’ve seen a man in my local post office, sending his brother in Lebanon hundreds of dollars. These dollars from the ex-patriots/ relatives allow the country to import food and fuel from the rest of the world, that is still acting normally. The world Bank and all the international charities also plough money into these areas so they can continue with a semblance of normality.
What happens when the outside aide doesn’t come, because the whole world is in the same boat. What happens when the next diesel shipment doesn’t arrive in the country, so the coal power station stops because it needed diesel to operate the excavators shoveling coal, or the repair vehicle to go to the solar farm and repair copper cables that were ripped out by scavengers?
Lots can and will go wrong very quickly with people in the cities all believing the ‘we’ll go green’ rhetoric during the early stages of collapse, until the power goes out and there is no food in the shops, then they might wake up, all too late.
In the discussions I have on POB, whenever I bring up the topic of one aspect failing after another in a cascade of failure, they invariably come up with a we’ll do/build ‘XYZ’, without ever thinking that to build something takes materials and energy to do, the things we just wont have available. It’s appears people can’t conceive of what real shortages will look like, they continue to assume that XYZ will be available, because they always have been, in the last 2 centuries of growth in everything.
Then when collapse is in full flight and everyone realises collapse is happening, people will revert to their animal instincts to gain food and fuel for themselves and their families.
Have you ever watched the French mini series “The Collapse”, it will be like that at the beginning but within a short period much worse as the power wont come back. (I’ll have to watch it again to make sure I’m thinking of the right program, LOL)
Everyone in city areas will realise they have to get out or will starve, so will attempt to move, by foot if necessary, but any other means they can find, to where ‘food’ and ‘shelter (warmth mostly)’ is available, all very rapidly. Country areas can’t cope with this sudden influx as the people already there are suffering the same type of collapse of their own normal systems and don’t know how to farm without diesel mostly. the few farms trying to grow a huge variety of foods will be overwhelmed, overrun by those desperate to eat.
Collapse will be utter and complete without the small groups reforming something until a lot later, when enough people have perished to allow some to have more than enough resources of whatever’s left to live comfortably. It could be years.
Nearly everyone, even in the overshoot aware world, thinks that collapse will be slow process over a long period of time, so collapse is likely to take them unawares as well. I don’t think any of us can plan for what’s coming, it’s the sheer size of our population that’s the real problem. Our systems are becoming more and more fragile with every passing year, not studier…
A friend of mine, a true doomer, has been hording gold and silver for decades. I keep asking him what he thinks the gold will buy when there is nothing in the shops, and the farmer that still has some cows/sheep to sell, wants farm tools for them, not bits of pretty metal. The usual answer is silence, or words to the effect of ‘it’s useful on the way down’, after currencies crash but we can still buy stuff. It’s like everyone can’t think outside the square, of all modern downturns everywhere, have all happened in a world of growing energy use and growing production of ‘useful stuff and some ‘help from outside the downturn area. The thought of suddenly nothing available because of cascading systems collapse in a world of LESS energy and LESS stuff, without outside help, is outside the abiltiy of people’s thought processes..
Sorry for the long gloomy rant…
LikeLiked by 1 person
You don’t have to apologize for being gloomy. It doesn’t bother me the least.
First, what I meant by triage/survival mode was the cessation of every economic activity not necessary for basic needs. In my location, the focus would be on food, basic sanitation, some way to heat oneself in the winter. A kind of war economy until the system reorganizes. I don’t think we are there yet. We are still wasting a lot of energy on unnecessary things: this conversation via computers and network, all vacations and entertainment, most office jobs, commuting, housing construction, a lot of the infrastructure, individual cars, flying…
I understand the scenario you describe. It is a probability. Like nuclear exchange. But I still don’t see how it is necessarily how this plays out. Granted, we have a global economy, but it is currently unravelling. Several countries are starting to go back to protectionism. Granted, some places will fare better than others: not all countries have the same arable land or population density or population dynamic.
I don’t see how it is the most probable that all countries fail the same at the same time. I don’t see how less energy every year necessarily translates in cascading collapse (large portions of the economy do not contribute to the production of essentials).
I am not saying this is going to be a walk in the park. Far from it. But, I don’t see why this necessarily needs to become a zombie scenario. Why don’t we try to flesh this out together by using some concrete numbers and modeling (doesn’t have to be 100% accurate, just to see the scale and overall dynamic)?
LikeLike
HI Charles …”First, what I meant by triage/survival mode was the cessation of every economic activity not necessary for basic needs. In my location, the focus would be on food, basic sanitation, some way to heat oneself in the winter. A kind of war economy until the system reorganizes.”
OK, I think I can understand our differences in opinion here. I don’t they will ever go to a state of only allowing ‘essentials’ to be built. Who decides what are essentials or basic needs?
If we were to go down the route of allowing essentials only, as in basic essentials, then we would have been doing it for the last 50 years.
Instead every politician promises a bright rosy future full of money and luxury for everyone if we just elect them and their policies. The other side of politics always promises the same thing. If anyone doesn’t promise a rosy future, they don’t get elected. Once in office, they always want to be re-elected.
As Tim Garrett said in the recent podcast, he can more funding for looking at snowflakes than funding to research overshoot. The politicians control funding for research.
It’s all a shell game, we don’t have enough goods and services in the world for all the ‘money’ we have now, but the only way to get people to hold money is make them believe in a bright future, no matter how bad the present gets. I suggest you watch “The Collapse” as I did again last night. Basically people wont believe in collapse when it’s happening, let alone much earlier. That’s what the first episode is all about.
I can remember watching it several years ago, before I was full doomer, and thinking at the time how badly it was made, as the professor in episode 8 was so wrong about renewables. since I’ve first watched it, I’ve completely changed my mind, and everything he states is fully accurate, most likely including the part about “they know”.
Just imagine the authorities in charge did start drastically cutting back on all non essentials for everyone (I’m sure they will have exceptions for the rich). People will wake up that the future is not rosy and we have a real energy problem, so they will start hoarding all the things they think necessary, quit jobs to live life for now etc, which will all likely cause collapse anyway, when shortages appear, re-enforcing what people already think is happening.
We are in extend and pretend right now as Tim Morgan puts it on his blog
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
I would suggest those at the top, politicians and the very rich are very very scared of the population, because they know they will be blamed when the bleak energy future really kicks in, so extend and pretend everything is fine is the game plan. Why alert the population that we have a real crisis beforehand? People are emotional, irrational creatures, expecting a normal accepting mature response to crisis, when a few elite have been using more than their share for decades, is not on the agenda.
BTW the one weakness of “The Collapse” series is all the part about ‘the island’, the rich escape to. Life on the island, no matter how well prepared they think they are, will fall to pieces fairly quickly when something unplanned for, takes out a serious section of their lifestyle, as there will be no replacement parts from elsewhere to keep their ‘small’ elite system going.
I’m sure many rich will try, but it wont work..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Finally listened to this. I’ve heard of him, but never read or listened to any of his body of work. He sounds like he’s just getting tired of repeatedly sounding the alarm, and seeing no change in trajectory.
One thing I think he missed an opportunity on, or decided not to cover, is expanding the understanding of the alternative to growth. He kept pointing out the impossibility of maintaining the current status quo- meaning that a steady state economy at current scale is impossible, which I agree with, but the discussion that needs to happen is what IS a sustainable human footprint that takes our portion of the annual solar energy on a sustainable basis? I guess that leads to the bad news no one wants to talk about.
Obviously, humans did this for thousands of years. What might that look like with just a smidge of science still part of the retained body of knowledge? ( A guy can dream)
It would be radically different than what we do now, but what should our reasonable goal/target be? What is the carrying capacity of humans on a locality specific basis, while accommodating the rest of the ecosystem? His thermodynamics angle would be part of that conversation. Plenty also could be learned simply from studying the existing ( few remaining) non industrial cultures.
Anyone attempting to identify the skills, technology and behavior needed for the low energy future would need to know what was feasible and reasonable.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those are very good questions.
Depending how far out you look the answer can be very unpleasant as Hideaway has explained in the long term agriculture is not possible, and a hunter-gatherer lifestyle will be tough after we’ve eaten all the livestock, wild animals, and pets.
Another shorter term, and maybe less depressing question, is “although growth and steady state are not possible, can we manage the rate of degrowth to a tolerable level?”
This is the question that most interests me and I’d like to think it’s possible.
Most people in the rich countries could cut their consumption by a lot more than 50% and still have decent lives. No more children, no long distance travel, no new cars, no home improvements, no new clothing, no eating out, no alcohol, no pets, etc.
Everyone employed in the discretionary sector that loses their job can be put to work in the farm fields to reduce our diesel consumption, and to planting trees for the future wood we will require.
LikeLike
Yes 🙂
LikeLike
Rob “Everyone employed in the discretionary sector that loses their job can be put to work in the farm fields to reduce our diesel consumption, and to planting trees for the future wood we will require.”
Unfortunately the answer is no. One aspect of the ‘scaling laws’ article I’m still working on clearly shows that there are material and energy gains in being in larger settlements/cities. So unravelling them would cost a lot more energy and materials than keeping them where they are .
People have to live somewhere, they require water, they require food, meaning shops, warehouses for food storage etc, their wastes have to go somewhere. They need clothes, tools etc.
In an energy and material constrained world, it will not be possible to send people from cities back to the land en masse.
Also, the natural population levels of rural areas, are already overpopulated for a world without fossil fuel energy and fertilizers, just with those in country towns and ‘smaller’ properties (5-10 acre), unless using all trees for buildings and burning every other tree existing for heat is part of the plan.
LikeLike
Agreed that a move from the cities at scale is a nonstarter. Joe in Hawaii has pointed out more than once the vast amount of new housing, homestead supplies and other infrastructure required and not possible now. Local carrying capacity is key, and most areas with decent soil and water are taken. I’ve done rough calculations on how many acres of woods would be needed to supply firewood on an ongoing basis, and it’s a lot in temperate climates.
http://viridviews.blogspot.com/2019/01/half-way-there.html
To top off, transitioning the millions of acres of mono crop soy and corn to mixed woods and agroforestry takes decades. It’s too late.
LikeLike
Hello Steve. That picture on your blog has a “Tales from the Green Valley” vibe to it. Crazy that is only half of what you need. And just for one family. Now lets multiply that by what, one billion families. LOL. Is your wood only for warmth? Or cooking as well?
And you said it all at the end there – It’s too late.
What Was It Like To Live In 17th Century Britain? | Tales From The Green Valley | Retold – YouTube
LikeLike
The wood is for heating, but there is a cooking space in the Russian furnace where we can cook soup, stew and the like. We mostly use our grid tied stove, but have a solar cooker and a rocket stove in reserve. The house is actually a bit too big for us, but we couldn’t pass up the overall property.
Yeah, no. Won’t be a billion families.
I’ve seen a few of the Tales series, I should watch the rest. And, no, we haven’t gone to those lengths…….yet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Damn. I guess they’ll have to be put to work replacing suburban lawns with potatoes and beans, and building chicken coops.
I visited Switzerland once on business in about 1995 and I was impressed with a law that required every dwelling, including apartment buildings, to have enough green space that could be replanted with potatoes that would produce enough calories to sustain the residents.
Hoping your scaling law research is part of your new essay that we all look forward to. It’s getting a little stale around here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Getting closer but I keep running into new stuff to research at every turn!! This article I’m working on should be a full book by itself…
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome to send it in chunks for editing if you want.
LikeLike
RFK’s book ‘The Real Anthony Fauci” has made my mom a crazy lady 😊. I wish she would not have read it because she is now spending too much time chasing rabbit holes of covid, big pharma, Gates, etc.
She sent me this quick video of Gates (gotta be an old clip). Its from a 2022 documentary called Died Suddenly. She watched the entire doc on Rumble and wants me to watch it. I don’t like to waste my time on this shit. Has anyone in the audience seen the doc? If yes, do you recommend?
Bill Gates – Reduce population through vaccination (rumble.com)
LikeLike
I haven’t seen the documentary. It’s a troubling reality that almost all covid skeptics think population reduction is evil and climate change is a hoax. This makes it challenge to determine which covid skeptics are intelligent, have integrity, and are not in denial.
I could not finish the RFK book on Fauci because it upset me so much that our leaders reward evil behavior rather than punishing it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nice rant on rewarding evil.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/daszaks-embarrassments-of-riches
LikeLiked by 1 person
Growing numbers of Americans can’t afford cars.
Since it is from the mainstream media (Deutsche Welle), they had to put some mandatory hopium at the end.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think it was Steve Ludlum that said cars are the single biggest mistake made by our species. When you think about the resources cars wasted in energy, materials, roads, bridges, etc., the few useful things they accomplished, and their very short lifetime in the big picture, he might be right.
Steve used to be a prominent overshoot thinker. His claim to fame is the triangle of doom which is a graph that shows the rising cost of extracting oil versus the declining ability of consumers to afford oil.
He’s since become focused on “The Putin bad”.
I don’t know what happened to him.
LikeLike
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-may-2024/#comment-775349
Hideaway:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Their numbers from how much extra capacity of solar, wind and batteries, to their ‘spend’ for California do not even come close to their own reality.
I showed how a single coal power plant in Indonesia of 1,100Mw, attached to an Aluminium smelter would need a $US72B spend on solar, wind and batteries, at a cheaper cost than today’s actual costs. California would be close to 2 magnitudes more, certainly not the $119B they claim. Of course they don’t go into detail about that…
They can keep the dream alive for the gullible, providing they don’t put numbers to it. As soon as they put their numbers in, it’s easy to show how ridiculous the whole concept is.
Perhaps it works when they project their cost lines far enough into the future to show that when solar is $5/Kw and batteries are $5/Kwh (in today’s money) it all works fine.
News flash, solar will never become $5/kw and batteries never become $5/Kwh as they are too material dense…. Just imagine the damage we would do to the environment if energy was that cheap…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hamish, are you still with us? About a month ago you said this regarding legalized and widely accessible euthanasia:
If 100% of the deaths were from the poorest 90% of the population, the difference to our predicament would be 1%.
I get that “reduction needs to come from those that consume the most”, but that’s exactly who I think will be getting in line the fastest. This comfortable, soft, weak empire baby lifestyle will be the first one’s to volunteer when the going gets tough. And I know its a hokey line, but I do think there is some truth in it; the poorest people who dont even know how bad they have it (energy wise), are the happiest.
Just wondering if you (or anyone) would care to expand on why euthanasia would not work as far as good sensible population reduction and helping to conserve resources.
Chris
LikeLike
Still around, but struggling, too much collapse. At the end of last year I created a Twitter (X) account and it is hard not to waste a lot of time there. Recently had a very old laptop bite the dust – it was being used to run Ubuntu (Linux) and Thunderbird (Mozilla email client and feeds). Yet to get around to setting up its replacement. That was my main way of following updates here on un-denial.
Also a million jobs to do on the house. (flexible tube) Duct work in crawl space needs repairs – neighbor not using regular trash collection attracted rats, somehow burrowed under the concrete foundation. Will need the air conditioning when it gets above 90F and in July/August 100 to 115F is possible. Full body cover and respirator required to go into the crawl space.
Back on topic – euthanasia “options” more likely to start to work the closer people get to the end and it becomes impossible to deny reality. Some people will still be in denial even when they are on fire. To choose euthanasia is to override biological imperatives.
LikeLike
I hear ya. Even though we know what’s coming, our normal mundane chores still need to get done. I am picturing you in an astronaut’s suit crawling around that attic. 😊
Definitely need the A/C working. What state (or country) do you live in? We are about to start our blazing summer now. 100F from now until mid-October. With 30-50 days over 110F. Peak will be 118-122F in late July. No doubt the rolling blackouts are just a matter of time (I expected them last year, but no). Worst part about this time of year, other than the searing heat, is that when you go outside all you can hear are the roaring sounds of A/C units sucking up energy 24/7.
Insane that I continue living in Arizona. My goal is to head north and relocate to Montana. But I have not been able to convince my family to get out of their comfort zone. I could make the move by myself, but I’d much rather collapse with family, then survive alone. Plus, with the wackiness of climate change, I’ll probably freeze to death in MT when the blackouts hit them. Is anywhere safe? I did see an article where Peter Thiel and some of the other disgusting billionaires are making their way to New Zealand. Monk, Campbell, and the others, you guys need to put a stop to that shit immediately. LOL
Hang in there Hamish. And get your ass off that evil twitter and back to your chores. 😊
LikeLike
Maybe you’ll appreciate some of the options highlighted in this video:
LikeLike
Couple of interesting points from this video: Big buildings with floor to ceiling glass is the worst engineering because it turns it into one big hot box. So why do we still build them this way? Because we dumb apes think it looks sleek and modern.
And 90% of US households own an A/C. In some of the hottest places in the world it’s not even 10%. LOL, we empire babies are gonna fall the hardest when SHTF.
LikeLike
The Ethical Skeptic has been a intelligent reliable critic of the covid crimes. Now he’s pushing a theory that claims the main driver of climate change is not CO2 from human burning of fossil energy.
It doesn’t smell right to me. There are too many climate scientists with integrity like James Hansen, Kevin Anderson, and Paul Beckwith that never mention this theory.
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2024/05/23/master-exothermic-core-mantle-decoupling-dzhanibekov-oscillation-theory/
LikeLike
Hi Rob,
Curiouser and curiouser. This theory is very much related to the pole shift/earth magnetosphere weakening due to our solar system entering an energetic region of the galactic magnetic and dust sheet which will ultimately be the cause of the cyclical micronova event from our sun that will cause cataclysm and innudation that Ben and Bret were talking about. They staunchly do not believe our current temperature off the charts and climate chaos is solely human driven. At least that’s my understanding of it.
I’d appreciate anyone else’s take, just for increased knowledge sake.
Namaste.
LikeLike
Dear Gaia,
I hope thou are feeling well.
It seems as if there are strange and nonsensical affiliations and matters at hand.
– Disgraceful and moronic, to think these parties would mention and even worse, be engaged in such sheer humbuggery.
Svante Arrhenius demonstrated the effects of CO2 by the late nineteenth century.
– It seems bizarre to think that the work done by countless others in various fields would be utterly incorrect in this matter, extremely doubtful if not absolutely ridiculous to say the least.
Kind and warm regards,
ABC
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hello ABC and AJ,
Thank you for your asking my state of being, ABC, I am well and hope you and your families are all well, too. Thank you so much for your injection of scientific reason, so appreciate your confidence. I am fully on-board with all the evidence that we fire-apes have overshot the mark and wreaked havoc on this planet, no issue at all there, as it’s only too plain to see our destruction in every sphere on this sphere. The science behind our rapid accumulation of greenhouse gases and the temperature forcing that represents is as simple and sound as our atmosphere is gas-tight. All this must have a consequence, the universal law. The shift of paradigm I am trying to keep open to is that there may be other mechanisms also currently in play that are augmenting the changes, as in both statements can be true at the same time.
If science is all about keeping hypotheses open to questioning and testing, then there are lots of gaps in knowledge in this unfolding climate story that can be filled in different ways. The use of the word “unprecedented” in so many scientists’ admitted confoundments in the past year in particular, as record after record both on land and sea have fallen and continuously, is a sign that their current models have not fully explained the evidence to date. As they concede their bafflement, they are waiting for more data this year to confirm that something is happening beyond their original calculations and expectations. Whether it is feedback loops finally triggered or another forcing, the difference in what is expected and observed is cause for more investigation. Every once in a long while (look how long it took us to accept the earth revolves around the sun) whole new paradigms are brought into the light when nothing else seems to fit. This is what I am allowing for, and not without others’ evidence, although it may not be mainstream at this time.
The crux of the suggestion that other forces may be at play here is that we already undisputedly acknowledge that our relationship with the Sun is our main climate driver, after all, seasons occur cyclically because of it. We fear nuclear winter because of it. I am currently here in a subtropical latitude to seek the extra warmth. We know there are Sun spot cycles, the maximum of which we are going through now. Is it such a far stretch to consider that there might be other cycles that affect both Earth and Sun, on a greater solar system and even galaxy scale? That is what I keep open in my mind as I gaze skyward into the cosmos.
Alas, it is only still a diversion and I am dragged quickly to ground by the most immediate questions of being alive in this interesting time. Like AJ and Rob, I cannot avoid thinking that nuclear war and its aftermath is our primary concern given the current state of affairs. But then, nearly every day now brings new contenders. It’s like multi-organ failure in an ICU patient kept going by life-support, the person is alive in name only, but in reality, it’s just the shell we’re pumping blood and air through so to give us something to focus on and a body to say good-bye to.
Probably looking at the sky is still the best answer.
Namaste, friends.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just what appears to be a word salad of pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo turns me off. Sometimes those who appear to be conspiracy theorists are just that and have gone off the deep end. I agree, there are too many reputable voices that say human burning of fossil fuels is the cause of increased CO2 in the atmosphere and hence global warming.
AJ
LikeLiked by 2 people
Vice president of the rules based world order. And her boss can’t form a coherent sentence. Unbelievable.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hideaway’s still pounding on the POB brains in denial and it’s not working. Fascinating to watch. No amount of data or logic can break through.
These are energy experts. Imagine trying to explain reality to Biden or Trudeau!
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-may-2024/#comment-775432
LikeLike
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-20-2024/#comment-775469
LikeLike
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-may-2024/#comment-775472
LikeLike
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-may-2024/#comment-775504
LikeLike
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-20-2024/#comment-775506
LikeLike
My bok choy bolted and I’m trying to not waste it so my jaws are getting lots of exercise chewing as Gaia prescribed in her dental hygiene preptip.
LikeLike
Oh you kill me Rob, what a trooper! You’ll still extract nutrition from the tougher stalks and the stringy bits will naturally floss your teeth, too! Don’t forget you can use them to make vegetable broth, in fact, save all peelings and off cuts of assorted veggies for that. Asian greens are notoriously difficult to keep from bolting if planted at the wrong time, which seems to be whenever you choose to plant them. I found the best way was to plant a few rows every couple weeks and eventually you’ll hit on it, and in the meantime, you’ll still get something to eat (or chew).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Richard Heinberg today discusses our polycrisis which includes:
I searched for “overshoot” and “population reduction” and got zero hits.
https://richardheinberg.com/from-climate-crisis-to-polycrisis
LikeLike
Richard Heinberg has mentioned population and overshoot in other articles.
LikeLike
Like a lot overshoot aware people Richard is trying to make his living via sales of books lecture tours etc, so has to have a solution as no-one will pay to hear the end is nigh. He dutifully comes up with magic solutions year after year if we just do this this and this.
He can’t mention massive overshoot and gross overpopulation in his work, despite him knowing very well there is no solution to what we are doing, or at least he should know it.
This bit of his latest…. “Our collective inability to reverse the rising tide of risk implies a failure of understanding: we don’t know our enemies; moreover, we evidently don’t know ourselves, because if we did, we wouldn’t continue generating such problems.”
I wonder if he ever stops to realise that we never were able to stop and think of the problems we are collectively creating. As you mentioned upthread about the ‘experts’ at POB not understanding the energy problem and no amount of logic, nor numbers from their own sources can change their thinking (denial of bad outcomes). The world is as it is and will continually being so, in their mind.
It’s no longer a matter of if we will collapse, but when, as we continually stretch and weaken every aspect of modern civilization. I’m also thinking along the lines of Robert Sapolsky these days, in that everything is deterministic. We are headed on the path we have always been headed on, and there is no stopping the train wreck from happening, no matter how much we try to flag it down with all types of warnings about the track being out dead ahead. The engine drivers just wont look our way, they are too busy telling the passengers everything is great on this trip, and not bothering to look themselves…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gotta say the deterministic bit I’m most worried about is nuclear war. I’m thinking it’s inevitable now.
Nuclear war will be the thing the allows us to never have to admit the reality of overshoot and the implications of peak oil.
The survivors will never know we were right.
LikeLiked by 3 people
“No one will ever know we were right.” 😂
This will be the least of our concerns, right?
LikeLike
Wrong. Ego never dies. We want our credit dammit!!! 😊
But seriously, Rob has some powerful words there regarding nuclear war – allows us to never have to admit the reality of overshoot and the implications of peak oil.
Feels like that is exactly how it has to play out for this group of confused apes in extreme denial, who think they are god’s gift to the universe, and are not capable of recognizing (accepting) that they got it all wrong.
LikeLike
I thought we were supposed to be the most intelligent creature on planet Earth…
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are, except that intelligence can only exist in the universe as a two-for-one evolutionary special bundled with a tendency to deny unpleasant realities.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Look at the bright side. At least we will go back below 1.5° C due to the nuclear winter. (I am being facetious)
LikeLike
😢😢😢
LikeLike
Rich people (the types that go on Everest expeditions) don’t have to abide by the rules that they make for us plebes. They get to leave their junk for hoi-polloi to clean up for them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You could not pay me to visit Everest. My perfect camping trip is finding a spot with no sign of another human.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Levke Caesar: “Oceanic Slowdown: Decoding the AMOC” | The Great Simplification 124
Interesting, sadly there is no mention of population or overshoot as root cause.
LikeLike
Any time I see anything on a new virus threat I tune out because of the covid lies.
Canadian Prepper today said he thinks bird flu is going to be a big deal soon.
Is there anyone here that has gone deep on bird flu to sort out what is real and what is BS?
Please don’t offer opinions unless you’ve spent a lot of time studying the issue.
LikeLike
If bird flu is the serious threat that it could possibly be (read rintrah on it) it will be self evident. People will be dying in droves. By this I mean you will know many people in short order getting flu like sickness and being deceased within a day or two. If that doesn’t happen it will be another scare campaign in my opinion. I think the baseline problem is that raising animals in the concentrated populations for industrial agriculture and vaccinating them constantly will drive viruses to evolve in different ways to how they would in nature. Add to that, that we humans want to mess around with them and make them more virulent, we have a fair chance of making a really deadly pathogen.
For now I would say don’t stress but stay vigilant. And even if it is a monster virus don’t get vaxxed to fight it. There are always better ways than trusting big pharma.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Do you recommend anything other than the usual D, C, and zinc for strengthening the immune system against bird flu?
LikeLike
I would add NAC and nattokinase to the general health mix too. I take those plus some milk thistle to keep my liver top notch.
LikeLike
Geert Vanden Bossche today with an update on covid and a reconfirmation of his warning.
https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/from-science-fiction-to-scientific
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Hideaway. I love the way you’ve been recently tying energy into how everything collapses. Your comments have got me thinking about what my purpose is for constantly consuming this collapse content. I think it’s a mix of the following:
I am crossing off #1 for good now. I dont believe it in the way I used to with Dowd. Its been building up for a while. And Hideaway, you have been giving off this vibe for a while now, but I dont think it was this strong when I came over here at the beginning of the year. Am I right? If yes what has pushed you into being even more certain that hard collapse is the only way it’s gonna be?
You and Rob are the heavyweights here with the most influence, so it makes me curious if both of you are sensing a bad ending somewhat soon. Is there a chance Guy McPherson is gonna be correct with his NTHE by 2026.
We all know there is no going back to the person you were prior to overshoot aware. But even if it was possible, I couldn’t do it because #4 is the gospel. Knowing how everything is intertwined and dependent on each other is too valuable to go back to “ignorance is bliss”. Ecologist, biologist, and geologist interviews can sometimes accidentally morph into a spiritual experience for me. So no, I would not trade this for that.
But my new goal is to get back to enjoying the fruits of the “peak” and be entertained rather than disgusted by humans. Been working at it ever since I saw the famous Praying for Armageddon documentary last week.
And Sarah Connor has a new one about energy that you might like.
The Renewables Farce (collapse2050.com)
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi paqnation, I went to Sarah Connors site and yes that article has it correct. I particularly enjoyed the comments, yours sum it all up..
” But the more you learn, the more you understand that human life needs to resemble every other species.
My magic wand would also be staying in Africa. And never conquering fire. The type of lifestyle we should be living is too incomprehensible for our modernity brains to compute.”
We have been living above our ‘weight’ for hundreds of thousands of years and it will all end one day. The more modern part of our existence will end a lot sooner than us going back to being animals without fire..
I’ve been getting more gloomy every time I do more research on something related to overshoot. Just over hte last couple of weeks I’ve been reading everything I can find about scaling laws, that seem to apply universally (as in to the whole universe!!).
In relation to human settlements, we follow these scaling laws. Bigger settlements need less per capita of resources, whether social insects or humans. What this means is that over the last century as we became urbanised, less resources would have been needed for the same population, but instead we grew our population, and added more (on average) to every human’s lifestyle.
Since the 70’s, when we became fully aware of limits, we have increased the rate of urbanisation, but continued to grow population. The combination of greater efficiency in our machines plus the efficiency gains of larger cities, should have overcome the higher energy needed to gain resources, but it hasn’t. Instead we have been using greater quantities of energy every year on average to maintain and grow our civilization.
In light of the discussion with Charles upthread, I’ve been trying to think of how we could unwind modern civilization in a gentle way. It’s not possible. Even if we had a constant population, instead of a growing one, returning people to rural areas, requires more energy than leaving them in cities, it’s the reverse of scaling, let’s call it unscaling. If it’s not possible to do energetically, what happens if you try to do it anyway… collapse of existing systems that get robbed of energy they need to function, leading to overall collapse when enough subsystems reach collapse thresholds.
What happens if you try to reduce population rapidly, births via ballots, only of 5-10m/yr maximum world wide, allow the infirm or very old to take their own lives peacefully etc. In modern civilization all those whose ‘work’ and income depends upon all these people dries up, lots of unemployement, the need for new construction declines rapidly, more people out of work etc. The economy pretty quickly becomes unbalanced and you get collapse.
Any change has to be very gradual, to not collapse the entire system, we don’t have the time to do any type of gradual change. The problem of once there is less energy, year after year, is we can’t plan for the future in a gradual way. Less energy available means less for every purpose on average, including energy collection, which accelerates the decline in available energy.
As Rob says trying to reduce population now and stopping young being born now is the only way to reduce suffering when collapse happens. Every year that passes without collapse, sends us to a higher state of energy use and makes the system more fragile and unstable, meaning when collapse comes it will be harder from a higher level.
We are most likely to bake in our own extinction after collapse by killing every bit of megafauna for food in the first few years after collapse. Perhaps a few deer or whatever can exist in the Siberian tundra, well away from humanity, but that’s about it. If there is no megafauna left, we can’t be HUNTER gatherers and we can’t live a vegan lifestyle either, as we require vitamin B12, which only comes from animals and animal products. Vegans in our modern civilization get B12 from foods fortified with B12 or from direct pill supplementation.
Perhaps the need for B12 supplementation is attached to the gene that gave us ability to deny bad outcomes and believe in magical solutions to problems (god), and the ability to talk, while meaning only those that ate meat thrived in early Homo sapiens development, separating us from other Homo species..
LikeLiked by 3 people
Didn’t know (or forgot) that about B12.
Perhaps one should stock up on B12 supplements in case meat becomes scarce? I wonder what the shelf life of B12 is?
Meat is a divisive issue because for some it is an ethical issue, for others it either harms or can improve the environment, and for others it is a key to either poor or good health.
For me, I think about meat like I think about energy. I’d rather have a tank of diesel (meat) than a tank of propane (beans) but will be grateful for either, and will try to conserve both and waste nothing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Preptip: Woohoo. No name B12 on sale this weekend for $0.03 per tablet. Buying 3 years supply in case meat becomes unavalable.
Tried to find B12 shelf life data without success. Shelf life info on the internet makes me crazy. People just make stuff up. I do actual tests on food. I’m going to assume that B12 is like all drugs.
If it’s a dry pill, sealed, and not exposed to oxygen, moisture, or UV, I will ignore the best-by date and assume an infinite shelf life.
If it’s a liquid drug I will respect the best-by date plus a few years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a good point about supplementary Vit B12 for modernised lifestyles but I am thinking that in the unsanitised collapsed world we will be consuming plenty of bacteria where B12 is originally made from, whether or not accumulated in animal tissue. If we don’t wash our plant matter (or our own bodies) obsessively, as well as eat more naturally fermented foods (think ripening fruit with blackened spots which we will consider a delicacy when hunger strikes), and of course any animal matter we can get our hands and mouths around (don’t forget we will probably be eating quite a few bugs, both wilfully and unwittingly), I think B12 will be naturally be assimilated in enough quantity. Even obligate herbivores consume significant quantities of bacteria and animal proteins in their natural diet (I am sure cows don’t wash their grass and eat quite a few insects along with their clover).
The most important consideration is actually our gut microbiome, which is capable of producing its own Vit B12 to be self-sustaining. However, it seems that humans only absorb Vit B12 in the small intestine rather than the colon which follows down the track. That is not to say that the microbiome in the small intestines cannot produce enough Vit B12 to be absorbed there, and this would be an important avenue to study, with the current research for humans being thin. It makes intuitive sense to me that obligate herbivores primarily rely on this mechanism for their supply as they would have a huge load of fermenting bacteria in their guts and evolutionarily speaking for us omnivores, it would be a wise ability to retain not knowing where our next meal comes from. It is already an established theory that our gut biomes change very quickly depending on our mainstay diet (a vegetarian gut can morph into the bacterial species of a carnivore within 3-4 days of changing the diet, and vice versa). Amongst the reasons for this, it gives some evidence that the flora are changing so rapidly because of a different nutrient profile which would translate into a different metabolism and by-products. It is a theory that if given much exogenous (outside derived) B12, like that coming from animal foodstuffs in our diet, our bodies will adopt mechanisms to absorb it following physical (chewing) and chemical (enzymatic) breakdown of the animal material to release the nutrient. On the other hand, if the exogenous intake of B12 is low, and we are eating the right foodstuffs to support a microbiome that produce it, then it makes sense that we would have developed a symbiotic relationship with those flora to absorb their product, either when directly leached into the gut or from the regular die-off of bacterial cells and we absorb their breakdown that will contain B12 (which is what we do when digesting material of animal origin).
I think it wise to take supplementation when it is still readily available (I do when I remember to but I am not religious about washing veggies, especially those home grown, and consume a range of fermented foods) have some on hand when it won’t be, (make sure it’s the right form which is more easily absorbed, Methylcolbalamin) but even more so, prepare to widen your diet to include more direct bacterial enhanced foodstuffs, or trust that your extended microbiome (once devoid of all processed matter) will also be assisting you in maximal health.
Sorry again for the usual long-windedness, think of it as Gaia chewing the cud, and chewing, and chewing…
Namaste, everyone.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks for the deep explanation Gaia.
Good to know we might survive without supplements. I do try to regularly eat fermented food.
The B12 I bought is Methylcolbalamin.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jeez Rob, with all your prepping, you are gonna be the last man standing when its all said and done. But get your compound fortified well because I will be sneaking up on your property when the hunger and desperation sets in. 😊
Did Hideaway just make this theory up on the fly? “Perhaps… only those that ate meat thrived in early Homo sapiens development, separating us from other Homo species”. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I read it and am wondering if you had ever heard it before.
And I like your meat/energy analogy. It might be worthy of adding to your wall of quotes.
Quick off topic that you might appreciate. My mom has this RFK quote posted on our fridge: “The compelling evidence suggesting that COVID-19 emanated from a Fauci-funded Little Shop of Horrors in Wuhan, China, raises the ironic possibility that the man whom two US presidents have charged with leading the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic may be the same man who spawned it.”
I told you she was going crazy from reading his books. 😊. Told myself I will never vote again but might have to make an exception for this guy. I dont think he will be effective or get anything meaningful done, but I do think he will make the elites very uncomfortable.
LikeLike
I’ve never heard of Hideaway’s meat theory. I try to stay away from the meat topic because its so controversial. To each his own.
The American people will have a choice between two corrupt morons that want to divide their country, and one wise intelligent man with integrity that wants to unite his country, and who has written two important books on the biggest crime of our lifetimes that citizens can read to assess his intellect and character.
The outcome of the election will tell us everything we need to know about the American people and their future.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hideaway did indeed make up that theory on the fly. I don’t think early hunter gatherers fermented foods. So I looked it up…
This is information from very well educated vegans for vegans….
https://veganhealth.org/vitamin-b12/vitamin-b12-plant-foods/#intro
“Because bacteria produce vitamin B12 and fermented foods are generally fermented using bacteria, there are many rumors regarding vitamin B12 being in fermented foods. To my knowledge, no vitamin B12-producing bacteria is required for any fermented food and, therefore, any fermented food that contains vitamin B12 does so via contamination. Because the human colon contains vitamin B12-producing bacteria, it is possible for B12-producing bacterial contamination to occur during food preparation, particularly in places that do not have high levels of cleanliness. To my knowledge, no fermented plant food in Western countries has been found to contain relevant amounts of vitamin B12 analogues.”
I’m not vegan nor vegetarian, in fact I’m paying a lot of attention to some people, including a friend of mine that are going carnivore. One person a former vegan Mike Stasse, who runs the Damm the Matrix website, has turned from being vegan to nearly a total carnivore with fantastic personal health measures.
I have certainly not studied the topic anywhere near enough to come to any conclusions, except it seems strange to me that the one human species that not just survived, but thrived, by eating meat, for whatever reason after branching away from other plant eating primates, has come to rule the world.
The natural shortage of B12 for those not eating meat, means meat was hugely important to get our species to where we are.
Does anyone think future humans, well into the future, that know nothing about vitamins, or fermenting foods, will thrive in a meat free world?
I certainly understand Gaia’s position on fermented foods, I’m not talking short term, I’m thinking very long term when all knowledge and education have gone, plus any equipment that is ‘safe’ to ferment foods in…
IMHO, it’s a distinct possibility that if humans kill and eat every form of macrofauna on planet Earth, it could very well lead to our own extinction, for everyone relying only a plant based diet. That’s assuming we cause a anoxic event in the oceans and kill off all the fish..
Come to think of it, assuming existing gasses in the atmosphere are not enough to cause an anoxic event, then the humans who catch fish in the future will be able to perpetuate humanity for a long time to come.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Man, the rabbit holes never stop do they. Now I need to go deep diving in the Vit B12 arena. 😊
Like I said, I have been focused on your meat theory since last night. Fascinating if something that seems so miniscule turned out to be so important to how our story played out. Thought I had a good grasp of the vital moments in history where humans fu#ked up. Conquering fire, domestication of plants/animals, the plow, the written word, etc. But now I might have to add B12 to the list.
And your last line about fish. I’m now picturing a Mad Max world where the fishing pole is the most important item on earth. Guerilla warfare will not be going on in the decaying cities for the last few supplies, but rather on the borders of lakes and rivers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have heard you can also get B12 from some mushrooms, see this for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4042564/. I have also heard of cats and dogs getting vitamin b12 deficiencies, despite their high meat diets.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ya, you definitely have a book or two in you. That was great. Thanks.
Wish I could have a good long discussion with you like yours and Charles, but I got nothin. You said it perfect.
LikeLike
Hideaway, please remember human species have been using fire for over 1 million years. Homo sapiens descend from fire-using hominoids.
LikeLike
Well aware thanks, Monk. Perhaps we descended from a species that already had a need for meat due to a b12 deficiency. I have not looked deeply into this at all, just thinking out loud…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Matt Orfalea today rips the genocide hypocrisy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good comment by blastfromthepast @ OFW on monetary system monkey business.
My summary, they’re printing a shit ton of money and hiding it.
Not clear how much longer this can continue.
Probably explains why both blue and red want the border wide open in the hope that a higher population will boost the real economy and taxes collected to service the debt. Very strange that almost no one discusses this, especially since the majority of citizens oppose immigration. I guess it would require admitting that the debt is now a problem.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/05/21/reaching-the-end-of-offshored-industrialization/comment-page-2/#comment-460045
LikeLike
Hideaway’s take on the discussion.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/05/21/reaching-the-end-of-offshored-industrialization/comment-page-2/#comment-460066
LikeLike
So let me get this right. You’re saying 0’s will be worthless or already are. Does that mean I should invest all of the other numbers only? 😉
LikeLike
You should only spend odd numbers, prime numbers, square numbers and round num… Oh I see the the problem..
Problem is none of us know when it’s all going to be worthless, and we still need it to pay for loans, groceries, seed, farm equipment, fuel, insurance ( we have compulsory insurance to sell produce at farmer’s markets) , taxes, rates etc..
So none of us can get rid of all our money for ‘goods’ all at once, but we also shouldn’t save it for too long either..
LikeLiked by 1 person
constant conundrum
how to save for no future
LikeLike
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt_ceiling
Last year, there were shenanigans over the U.S. debt ceiling. If the U.S. defaults on its debt, the house of cards will simply collapse. This will be a phase transition or a tipping point.
Now that I think about it, if the U.S. was in immanent danger of default, they would likely devalue the currency (i.e. basically a soft rather than a hard default).
LikeLike
Geert Vanden Bossche today with a deep dive on bird flu vs. covid.
I think Bossche knows what he’s talking about but he makes my brain hurt trying to understand him.
I’m going to have to listen to this a second time. If anyone smarter than me can summarize this is in a couple sentences it would be appreciated.
One point I did understand is that our leaders don’t have a clue that they’re doing on this issue.
LikeLike
I listened to this again. I did not understand all of it but here are the main points I did understand:
P.S. An interesting observation. Not one word on the millions of people that have been harmed and killed by mRNA. I’m thinking this is a wise strategy on his part for trying to get our leaders to engage in understanding what he’s saying. They’re already struggling to admit they screwed up by creating variants. No need to add to their MORT pressure. We can hang any leaders that survive after the storm.
LikeLike
I am not saying he is wrong. I don’t know. However, I remember he made similar catastrophic predictions before which did not come to fruition. Why should we listen to him now?
LikeLike
He made 2 predictions in the past.
Vaccinating the entire population in the middle of a pandemic with a non-sterilizing vaccine would result in many new variants. True and accelerating.
One of those variants will eventually become deadly because of the pressure being applied to the variants by damaged immune systems. Not yet true.
Biology has a large element of chance. Time will tell if he is right but at least he’s thinking about the risk and what we might do to reduce it. Whereas our idiot unethical leaders don’t understand or deny all of this.
LikeLike
I read the primer on stoicism by Gurwinder that was recommended above.
https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/stoicism-the-ancient-remedy-to-the
It says I’m wasting my life and should close un-Denial and spend more time hiking in the woods.
The rest of stoicism seems to be a grab bag of good but common sense self-improvement ideas.
I’m not sure what the central idea is.
Maybe something like obtain happiness from within, not from others or the material world?
LikeLike
Be creative, that’s it.
Bring something into the world that doesn’t already exist.
LikeLike
Hi Rob,
You’re sure a quick study! I think you summarized the core Stoic precept perfectly, seek and improve within oneself, and that’s more than enough to go on for a full human life.
The bushwalking and camping season is well upon you, and you should take every opportunity to leave this space for those. We’ll hold the fort as best we can whilst you’re away.
As for closing the site voluntarily, no way! I know you were just trying to be dramatic, you wouldn’t leave us all like dangling participles. Think of this as a journal just as the Meditations, it’s been both a journey within and through for everyone who has joined you here, certainly a seeking and finding.
Namaste.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Prior to becoming spiritual/religious/whatever, I always thought this stuff sounded like a horoscope or fortune cookie. Vague common sense crap. But I don’t see it that way anymore. I see it as wisdom collected over the millennia, but hard to appreciate and practice in this cynical, sinful, consumer culture.
So I think of it as nothing will be life-changing in a day, but over the slow grind of time it most certainly will be. With a couple of big breakthrough moments sprinkled in. And like everything else, balance is the key. If I underdo it, I will remain a typical miserable human supremacist Taker. If I overdo it, I’ll end up burning witches at the stake. (or Praying for Armageddon)
p.s. And please continue wasting your life with un-Denial. 😊. We all appreciate it mightily and would be lost without it.
LikeLike
LikeLike
I feel like I have a reasonable grasp on most issues however I still struggle with cause and intent.
Is someone driving the bus?
Or are we witnessing a complex system of social primates behaving as it must when energy growth is constrained?
Here we have a well written essay claiming our problems are caused by evil elites.
If this guy was overshoot aware, and understood the relationships between wealth, growth, energy, and materials, would he write the same essay?
I’m thinking not.
But when SHTF most citizens will choose to believe this story, rather than Dr. Tim Garrett’s story, which means I think a lot more chaos and violence.
What do you think?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Michael Dowd once said “Failure to understand overshoot will cause you misdiagnose everything important”. That certainly applies here. Although our leaders are not paragons of virtue, and some have taken actions that make our situation worse, they aren’t evil. The “cost of living crisis” is really just material limits starting to bite. In a capitalist system, since essentials are a much bigger portion of an ordinary person’s budget than a rich person’s budget, ordinary people are going to be squeezed first. While he complains about transfer of public assets to the rich, why do I think that if the assets of the rich were being transferred to the public, he would scream “that’s communism/socialism”?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Howler Monkeys are dying from heat stroke in Mexico.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Guys this is fascinating. Potentially a link between increased turbulence and climate warming. We need to be flying a lot less anyway. Anyway if you are flying anywhere, try to stay in your seat and belted in as much as you can.
Passengers injured in severe turbulence on Qatar Airways flight days after man’s death on Singapore Airlines plane (msn.com)
LikeLike
A little justice for the poor people in the south that are being harmed by climate change before we rich northerners that created the problem.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Martenson smells trouble soon and is increasing his prepping activities. Ditto for Canadian Prepper. Ditto for me.
Preptip: I just bought 5 Kg of chicken bouillon powder on sale for $8.88/Kg. I know it has dodgy ingredients but it’s cheap, keeps forever at room temperature, and soup needs a flavorful broth.
Soup will be the go-to SHTF food because:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Totally agree about soup. It will be breakfast lunch and dinner. Actually, we will probably remove one of those and just eat twice a day… then eventually once… and eventually nonce.
p.s. Don’t F**k With Cats 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bouillon powder needs to be kept incredibly air tight to last. I don’t know how yours are in Canada, but the ones in NZ don’t last very long (foil wrapped cubes). Soup / stews are an excellent food choice. Especially a slow cooked one with bone joints and whole grains, it becomes a multivitamin.
LikeLike
Thanks for the tip. The bouillon powder I bought is sold in 1 Kg metal cans with an air tight seal. The little cubes here are about 4x more expensive per Kg.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Preptip: I drink a lot of chamomile tea because I stay away from caffeine late in the day, I love the taste, and it seems to make me sleep well.
Chamomile tea used to be available here at a fabulous price of $1.00 for 24 bags. Then about 2 years ago something happened other than the usual inflation and the price jumped 300% overnight to $3.00.
I thought about growing some at the farm but it looks like a pain in the ass to harvest and dry.
I just tried ordering bulk chamomile from Frontier-Coop via Amazon as a 454g bag of dried organic flowers. The flavor is superior and the price per cup is excellent. It’s sealed in an aluminized bag so I assume has a near infinite shelf life. I’m going to order more so I have enough for at least 5 years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
yes I need to plant some Camelia tea trees so that I have my favourite drink available while roasting human flesh of my most disliked neighbours.
LikeLiked by 1 person
HHH with his opinion on inflation vs. deflation.
The US is spending $10,000,000,000 more than it taxes every 24 hours.
That’s $7,000,000 a minute or $116,000 a second.
And it’s not even a campaign issue.
And everyone will claim no one saw it coming.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may-20-2024/#comment-775650
Tom, The US government is adding $1 trillion to the deficit every 100 days. Yet the money supply is still shrinking currently.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the government does. It doesn’t matter what the central bank does. QT and higher interest didn’t slow down the stock market because neither QT nor higher interest rates matter. The amount of bank reserves on FED’s balance simply doesn’t matter.
What matters is what commercial banks do. And their willingness and ability to extend credit into the economy. Banks that become balance sheet constrained don’t lend. It’s that simple.
Without a growing energy supply the banks aren’t going to grow the money supply. Debt deflation is way more likely of an outcome than runaway inflation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve got a hunch B lurks here.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-destiny-of-civilization
LikeLiked by 2 people
“got a hunch B lurks here” – I was immediately thinking B might have referenced Vit B12 in this week’s article. LOL. I have no doubt that he lurks here. Same with Tom Murphy, Sid Smith, Nate Hagens, Erik Michaels, etc. This site is the water-cooler-gossip headquarters of the tiny overshoot community. Its like that hip, cool, hidden club where you have to go around to the backdoor and give a secret password/handshake to enter.
If you are pumping out new content every week, then hanging out at un-Denial is gonna be the best medicine for writer’s block and fresh ideas. So to our audience here: next time you read a good article (like this one from B), go ahead and pat yourself on the back… because you helped create it. 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m fairly sure that most people ‘aware’ of overshoot, eventually come to the same conclusions about most things. Once you break the undenial gene, a line of logical thinking seems to appear. If A can’t be done then B becomes impossible, meaning C, D, and E are not either…
For example, take the ‘resources’ issue for all the metals needed for the bright green future. We are only short of economical resources, there is no shortage of any of the metals on/in planet Earth. In the crust and mantle of Earth there is approximately 4.8 trillion tonnes of gold, enough gold for every person to ‘own’ 590 tonnes of the metal.
The problem is it’s at a grade of around 1.2 parts per billion spread evenly through the mantle. It takes a lot of energy to separate the gold (or any other metal) from the waste rocks that also have minor amounts of just about every other metal required for modern living. What we mine has already undergone a massive concentration due to natural Earth processes over billions of years.
Then you realise that all minerals we mine are getting to lower grades requiring more energy, fossil fuels energy mostly, plus all metals suffer from entropy and dissipation back into the environment (rust on steel, the green oxidised layer on copper pipes etc) and can never be fully recycled, so more mining of lower grades is needed in eternity, until we don’t have enough cheap fossil fuels to gain access etc, etc.
It’s seems like it’s a natural progression of thinking, until one runs into a bit od denial at some point, we can do x, y, z into perpetuity, or goes full doomer. Of course reading some other people’s thoughts can push the thinking along in leaps and bounds..
LikeLiked by 1 person
A little good news for a change.
LikeLiked by 2 people