A year ago Steve Bull assembled a best of compilation of essays titled It Bears Repeating from writers that discuss human overshoot.
Steve contacted me and I contributed my un-Denial Manifesto that launched this site.
Other writers and their essays in the compilation are:
- Michael Dowd – Forward & Afterword
- Steve Bull – That Uncertain Road, Part 1
- David Casey – Preparing
- Alice Friedemann – Net Energy Cliff Will Lead to Collapse of Civilization
- Kevin Hester – Militarism’s Role in The Sixth and Possibly Last ‘Great’ Extinction
- Tristan Sykes and Dr. Kate Booth (Just Collapse) – Talk Collapse for a Just Collapse
- Erik Michaels – Bargaining to Maintain Civilization
- Dr. Simon Michaux – Challenges and Bottlenecks for the Green Transition
- Dr. Tim Morgan – Written in the Skies
- Dr. Bill Rees – The Human Eco-Predicament: Overshoot and the Population Conundrum
- Mike Stasse – Turning Marginal Land Into Fertile Soil
- Tim Watkins – The Narrative Problem After Peak Oil
- Max Wilbert – Climate Profiteers Are the New War Profiteers
- Connie Barlow – The Legacy of Catton’s 1980 book, Overshoot
Steve recently contacted me again asking for suggestions of writers that might contribute to a second volume of It Bears Repeating. This triggered me to search for volume 1 on this site, and for reasons I cannot explain, it seems I never provided a link to the original compilation.
This post is intended to correct my error.
You can download the compilation here.
I watched most of the Chris Martenson video above.
Personally, even though I dislike Trump and I think a second Trump term would be a disaster, I think that Trump is a just symptom of the corruption and overall dysfunction in American politics.
That said, Trump wants to deport 15 million people from the U.S.
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/trumps-deportation-army
Really good interview with Col. Larry Wilkerson, one of my favorite geopolitical analysts. Too much to summarize. He touches on all the big issues except of course the role overshoot is playing in world events.
https://heatmap.news/climate/summer-2024-heat-east-coast?rxcdsdfsafds=oinniuuh
Record high temps in the middle east. I can’t imagine being aware and living in that region.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/07/16/16th-july-2024-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
The book reads like a thrilling Tom Clancy novel because she structured it around a minute by minute account of how a global nuclear war would unfold using a very plausible scenario backed by technical facts from hundreds of interviews with experts she conducted over 10 years of research.
Then she goes into painful detail of what the world will be like after the initial couple hour event. If you are vaporized during the initial attack you will be one of the lucky ones.
Is the United States a police state?
I wonder if government officials and experts have always been incompetent but now with social media we see it unfiltered in real time?
No way!
The dust bowl and great depression era tell me people are still smart, tough, useful and skillful 90 years ago. This very recent spike has pumped up the idiocracy and uselessness to a blitzkrieg pace. I’m sure it has to do with the internet going mainstream in mid 90’s. The internet is the “peak of the universe”… haha… dont know why thats funny, but I’m laughing.
Pre internet, the incompetence level was nowhere near what it is today. As soon as confused, long off the correct path, apes got to see what other confused, long off the correct path, apes were up to 24/7… let the freakshow begin.
But we’ve got to be coming to an end. Peak internet has to be behind us, because I can’t take the next blitzkrieg with A.I. Cannot imagine what that’s gonna do to the incompetence levels ten years from now. (writer/director Mike Judge might end up correct, we’ll be using gatorade for farming and wondering why nothing is growing😊. But I doubt it because how much dumber can it get before the nuclear buttons are pushed)
A low tech method of home cooling our grandparents understood and we forgot because of plentiful electricity and air conditioners.
Tim Morgan today discusses the fragility of our financial system.
Get ready for the great depression on steroids.
B today reposted a good essay on overshoot with a Hideaway theme.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/malthus-was-right
Sarah Connor today warns about forgetting the lessons of history.
Not mentioned but relevant is that the holocausted are now holocausting, and the global defenders of peace are canceling nuclear arms agreements, and causing wars to defend democracy using undemocratic dupes.
https://www.collapse2050.com/documentary-how-joseph-goebbels-sold-hitler-to-germany/
Dammit, was gonna steal your quote and post comment to Sarah. (you’re always one step ahead of me)
Chuck Watkins, the very impressive nuclear war expert, wrote a rare post today on US affairs pleading for civility.
https://enkiops.org/2024/07/15/another-fruitless-plea-for-civility/
Good piece by Chuck. Not sure any civilization in overshoot with resource constraints (and in denial of both) has ever maintained civility let alone rationality as it slid into dissolution and disintegration. Sadly I think we will use the nuclear option on the way down.
AJ
Send me an email if you want help to find Annie Jacobsen’s e-book or audiobook on nuclear war.
You’ll love it.
If you are concerned about what happened with covid and would like to see some corrective actions taken, you might consider signing the Hope Accord. I did.
https://thehopeaccord.org/
Chris Martenson is VERY concerned about the implications of the Trump shooting.
As with covid, he rightly concludes that the authorities are either evil or completely incompetent.
I had to turn it off because it totally creeps me out when Martenson includes his spouse in the conversation who adds nothing but eye candy, presumably to boost clicks.
Martenson dumped Becca several years ago for a newer model (Evie)
Most models have incomprehensible complexities, fundamental incompatibilities, reality-denying behaviors, and are heavy consumers of non-renewable resources.
I think it’s best to simplify and make do without.
I think Becca left him
Lucky you turned it off. I somehow made it 47 minutes into this garbage. I don’t follow Martenson so maybe it was an unusual topic and “heat of the moment” format for him. And yes, his wife was embarrassingly worthless. But so was Chris. No way can he be this bad in his overshoot videos.
The general overall reaction to what happened yesterday is comical. “How did we as a nation get here? There is no place in America for political violence” LOL LOL!!! Nobody can pick up a history book huh?
I am getting much closer to that George Carlin level of awareness where it was all entertainment for him in his last few years. Focusing on fire is doing it for me. Incompetence vs malice is a distinction without a difference at this point.
Martenson has done some excellent work. For example, his crash course is a top-tier introduction to overshoot.
On the negative side, he never discusses population reduction, and in the early days denied (or didn’t touch) climate change to maximize his subscriptions.
For more than 16 years I have supported and promoted Martenson’s work hundreds of times, yet he has never acknowledged the importance of Varki’s MORT, nor has he helped un-Denial even once.
Alright now you have me really hating this clown. 😊
Overshoot is not rocket science. It’s so damn easy to grasp once you get into it. I don’t know how these well-informed and aware guys that have been doing this for so long cannot grasp that the #1 reason the overshoot community is still so small is because of denial. Therefore, denial should be at the top of their lists of importance. But somehow their MORT/denial is maybe blocking them from seeing this obvious fact?… LOL… I don’t know, I get dizzy trying to figure it out.
The fact that you like him (or respect him, or whatever) is all I need to know that he must have correct knowledge on some topics. Your bullshit radar is too good for me to think you got it wrong with this guy. So ya, I’m chalking this video up to him being out of his comfort zone.
But there is something that bugs me about him. My salesman radar was blinking sometimes during the video. And the fact that he looks 60 and she looks 30 gives me a bad vibe right off the bat. (Nothing wrong if it’s real love, but that scenario is usually all about ugly insecurities. Money for her, and showing off an impressive trophy for him)
Not to give to strong a defense of him (Chris). I came across him just prior to Covid and he was one of the first concerned about it and the disinformation we were being fed. He was knowledgeable about hydroxy and Ivermectin and was an early proponent. When more and more info was stuffed behind a paywall I quit following him. Too bad he went so downhill since he picked a younger wife.
AJ
CM IMHO became a sensationalist about 3 years ago and basically lost all his credibility.
Slowly not having much to do with most of the original peak-oilers now. I am this close to giving up Greer. Really don’t think he has much left to say on anything that I can make it to the end of a blog post on. I actually find it rather liberating.
You’re not alone nikoB. This and the Nate Hagens frankly thread above pretty much sums it up. The collective group here at un-Denial is farther along in understanding the big picture. We require next level sources. But because of the monetary system, they are not willing to go next level.
I used to have a golden rule to help limit the amount of sources I was using. You had to be talking about overshoot, energy, or sustainable ways of living. Have revised it to – you have to be talking about how zero energy constraints can be broken or what we should be doing to prepare for the end (pop reduction, nuclear decomm, helping animals/plants).
This revision has me down to zero sources. And I agree about finding it rather liberating.
I should have said: But because of the monetary system and/or denial, they are not able to get to the next level.
Evie is older than she looks if it makes you feel any better. But goodness me she is rather dumb. She seems like a nice person, so I feel bad for saying it.
Chris Martenson’s Crash Course is excellent. Really a must for anyone getting into these topics.
I have been a paid subscriber off and on at Peak Prosperity. The behind the paywall content is no different to his public facing content. Maybe just more illuminati type stuff (which you can get for free on any dope-head’s YouTube channel).
Back in the day, Chris was more of a finance bro and used to run a really good podcast. But something I can’t help but wonder, if he was so good at finance, why is he so desperate for coin today?
Alice F, made heaps of dough from the stock market (using her industry knowledge), and retired early so she could read science and educate the public FOR FREE. As a good Samaritan. I believe Gail Tvrberg had a similar story.
Hello everyone. This is a question to the ones knowledgeable in farming. More precisely about seed selection. Since, I am doing natural farming, I try to keep most of my seeds in order to be able to “waste” them. (I am not ready to sow a 3 euros worth pack of seeds with a probability so low that at most one plant would come to maturity. Plus, I need for the seeds to adapt to my way of gardening which is so different from the seed producers’)
In “landrace gardening” (https://lofthouse.com/), Joseph Lofthouse says he tastes all his vegetables to decide whether or not to keep the seeds (when he selects for taste). I understand how one could do that for vegetables which we eat after the seeds have achieved maturity (such as corn, squash or tomatoes). But there are some vegetables for which I find this difficult and I don’t understand how to proceed. For instance, consider carrot, daikon radish, beet or leek.
How would you do that (in the simplest way)? Could you point me to experts in this field?
Here are a few ideas I came up with, but am not convinced by any:
Plant breeding and seed keeping is fascinating to me. But, I clearly lack the knowledge and know-how. And, more importantly, I don’t know enough to know how I would like to do it.
Thank you!
We are starting on this seed saving journey too. This is a local resource we have purchased from a very well respected permaculture practitioner.
https://koanga.org.nz/gardens/all-publications/save-your-own-seeds-hardcopy/
Thank you very much for the quality reference.
Hello Rob,
Not particularly exceptional (yet mildly entertaining). This video was recommended to me by youtube algorithm (probably an AI?) I just wanted to say you were right about the impact artificial intelligence would be having on the internet:
That was fast.
It reminded me of this article by the archdruid: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-04-30/the-death-of-the-internet-a-pre-mortem/.
Or this one by Tim Watkins: https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/05/23/welcome-to-the-internet-death-spiral/.
Internet has now become an information landfill (it seems even scientific papers can not be fully trusted anymore, at least in some contentious fields, such as medicine). We are clearly past peak value of information technology. (Didn’t the argument that more people would increase the probably of geniuses being born to fix the problems facing humanity always seemed fishy, if not childish, anyway?)
Does the kind of AI we are getting increasingly smell like techno-utopian panic? (see the Spotify section in the video above)
Good one. It’s a cliche but it seems to be true. We are collectively losing our minds. Covid seems to have broken something. I am astonished by the lack of judgement our leaders have shown around Ukraine/Russia (and Gaza).
Yes that spotify bit was depressing. Reminds me of the “why music sucks” video we had last month. And it reinforces this quote: “Speaks to something beyond just music. Our whole culture is increasingly 1) Easily produced, 2) Easily consumed, 3) Easily forgotten”
And thanks for the JMG link. I’ve seen it before, but with more energy knowledge under my belt, it now reads like a Hideaway post. Lots of background stuff going on to keep the internet afloat.
More people equals more geniuses to fix the problems and invent new stuff… LOL, yes very fishy and childish. And with overshoot & overpopulation, what an idiotic message… but not surprising at all when everything we do, and how we do it, is wrong. AKA: conquering fire is evil and off limits (from Life & Mother Earth’s perspective).
I was watching a trailer for House of the Dragon recently. Scrolled to the comments, 4000 in total. Of the ones I read, 99% seemed like fake comments. Incredible stuff.
Another thing I have noticed on Pinterest. It depends on images uploaded elsewhere on the internet, especially from blogs. In the age of micro-blogging (Insta, Twitter, etc.) there is just way less new material. So a lot of the reference images still being recommended on Pinterest are now over 10 years old. It is almost becoming like time capsule.
I can’t claim I always understand HHH @ POB, but I do listen to his opinions.
It seems everything these days is bad: inflation, deflation, rising rates, lower rates.
What is good these days?
Perhaps it’s simply that every economic action is bad without increasing energy and materials??
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-10-2024/#comment-778377
Hideaway’s still banging on denial.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-10-2024/#comment-778406
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-10-2024/#comment-778419
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-4-2024/#comment-778041
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-4-2024/#comment-778111
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-10-2024/#comment-778318
The only sustainable economy (that I know of) is Nature’s circular economy.
Hi everyone, I’m back from a wonderful camping trip.
Thanks for keeping the site going in my absence.
I went to my usual spot about 130km north of here in the Sayward area. It’s a nicely treed campsite with about 7 sites on a lovely creek. Many nights I had the entire place to myself. A saw signs that a black bear visited one night and I could hear wolves howling in the distance some evenings.
My days were simple but enjoyable. A long walk each morning followed by an afternoon of reading next to the creek, a movie after dinner, and bed early with about 10 hours sleep.
I read 3 books, 2 of which were superb:
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen (2024)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182733784-nuclear-war
This is one of the best books I’ve read and I hope to do a book review as my next post. After reading this, and integrating it with current world events, it’s hard to imagine that peak anything, or climate change, will harm us before nuclear war takes us out. This, by the way, is what Jay Hanson, the deceased godfather of doomers, always predicted would happen.
https://un-denial.com/2018/03/26/by-jay-hanson-reality-report-interview-november-3-2008/
The Devil’s Element: Phosphorous and a World Out of Balance by Dan Egan (2023)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61089465-the-devil-s-element
This is a deep dive into a little discussed but critically important and super interesting dimension of our overshoot predicament. I’ll try to do a book review on this as well but in case I don’t get to it, consider this a must read, at least as good as The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager on the Haber-Bosch process, which I’ve reviewed in the past.
https://un-denial.com/2016/02/03/book-review-the-alchemy-of-air-by-thomas-hager/
Gratitude by Oliver Sacks (2015)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27161964-gratitude
Oliver Sacks is a most interesting and accomplished neurologist, and I’ve read other excellent books by him in the past. He wrote this book on his death bed and I’d heard good things about it. I thought it was ok but not great, perhaps because I think gratitude is kind of empty without deep overshoot awareness, which Sacks does not have.
I watched the following 7 movies:
I actually listened to The Devil’s Element as an audiobook. I even suggested Dan Egan as a guest for The Great Simplification. That would actually be an interesting episode.
Yes, Dan Egan would be an excellent guest.
I have this theme related to Egan’s work on phosphorus bubbling in my mind.
It seems all of the deposits needed to supercharge life are created by life: oxygen, phosphorous, potassium, fossil energy.
It takes life to accelerate life.
Concentrated by life, not created by life. Every granite boulder and basalt boulder has a wide range of minerals in very minor amounts. It’s the erosion by weathering, then the uptake by plants, followed by the eating of those plants by animals that ends up concentrating so many needed minerals.
Also note these days we do mine phosphorus from pure mineral deposits, created by geologic forces, (carbonatites), separate from life forces. Humans are spreading that around for the rest of life.
Some not so light reading..
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9174171/
Yes, I should have said concentrated.
Which is exactly why, I have totally changed my mind on the “meaning” of the exponential growth of the human species.
My feeling is that we are going to end up with a much more active and lush planet: accelerated water cycle, more CO2, more nutrients dispersed for life to use. Once, humans are deactivated (which as you rightly point out, will most probably happen at breakneck speed), the species won’t be able to inhibit the natural processes anymore (whether it brutally dies out or “just” loses it’s industrial super-powers). It takes a lot of energy to fell, mow and sickle yearly plant growth.
Maybe the system is much more integrated than we are able to fathom from our narrow anthropocentric view: we have always been cogs. Or less mechanistically, as her children, for a time, we have been the agents of extraction and dispersion for Gaïa. Now that we have done our part, we are going to feed the next generation of offsprings.
Life expands, feeding on life.
From the Gaian point of view, the separation human species/other species probably doesn’t make sense: at some level all living organisms form a magma of cells. Maybe striving for its survival as a whole, consuming energy in order to maximize overall throughput. (Analogy dedicated to paqnation: the Zergs) That, to me, is the extent of natural intelligence. Maybe viruses are a way to orient, control growth within the Gaïan organism. Are species, really the unit of evolution? In order to reason, human beings have to artificially create boundaries, when none totally exist in reality.
You have been entertaining the idea of the human super-organism lately, please do not discard, just out of habit, the idea that maybe it exists within the Gaïan super-organism 🙂
Maybe. I see you point but I can also see the opposing view.
A species that leveraged fossil energy to build thousands of nuclear weapons to protect itself and then launches them all because a mistake is made, or because a desperate nation facing resource depletion lashes out, will destroy much of the planet for millions of years.
Too much phosphorous can in some circumstances create a lush planet and in others a dead zone with gases toxic to all mammals.
I do agree we are a small part of a complex interconnected system but I don’t think we predict whether the destination will be good or bad. It will be whatever the feedback loops decide.
Indeed 🙂
Intuition and faith are at the basis of our respective opposite views.
Welcome back. Awesome pic. Makes me want to go camping right now. (did you eat any of those red berries above your chair?)
Forgot about Diggstown. I like it a lot, but ya not as good as The Sting (Matchstick Men is another great con movie). Might try The Burial tonight.
And we all voted while you were gone; you are not allowed to go on anymore vacations 😊
It’s a bumper year for huckleberries. I ate a ton of them.
You should watch About Time (2013) if you have not already seen it. It’s still one of my all time favorites.
Welcome back Rob! We missed you. Hope there wasn’t too much comment clean up for you to do. I had a few wordpress issues. Your camping site looks great! Can you drink the water from that stream?
Thanks. Yes, the creek flows at a decent pace which for me in this part of the world tells me it is safe to drink.
Are there any WordPress issues you want me to investigate?
One of my comments just took a day to come through, probably because of links. I also found that when I hit “shift + enter” that makes duplicate comments. It’s an old habit of mine to make a new paragraph. But don’t need to do that anymore.
That was me unspamming your comment with links. Sorry, WordPress occasionally flags a post as spam for no good reasons. If it happens again, just wait a day or two for me to fix it.
Just now came across this. The video looks real to me. Someone took a shot at (and partially hit) Trump.
Trump says he is fine after being whisked off stage following apparent gunfire at rally (yahoo.com)
I had/have fears about political violence in the US. Now, I fear it may get worse.
I’m all for it. No way to assassinate “the system”. If lone wolfs start targeting politicians one at a time, then god bless them for having the courage. (my advice would be to bypass the politicians though and aim at the mega billionaires)
And Then What?: Using Wide-Boundary Lenses | Frankly 65
Sorry, I only made it half way through before turning it off. Sure, every action has greater ramifications than it’s intended action. Most people don’t see much more than the direct action of one or two wider effects. But it seems that Nate is trying to have modernity at any cost here. His argument seems to be that if we could just see the much wider effects we could somehow ameliorate them. He never really touches the problem of TOO MANY PEOPLE. I think he is a classic case of denial.
AJ
Fully agree AJ. I watched the full episode and all I could think of is another talk fest by Nate, skirting around all the big obvious problems trying to stay relevant to the mainstream by not being too ‘doomerish’.
Just about everywhere I see the representation of ‘overshoot’ being a little above the carrying capacity, then a reduction after peak, whereas we are in massive overshoot, as in plague phase due to fossil fuels.
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-7468250ec8a03d8e5b1a6904d2f8d8d7
I hope the above image turned out. It’s the only one on ‘overshoot’ I could find where the peak is multiples above the carrying capacity, not just a little bit above carrying capacity..
I highly suspect that Nate is aware of overpopulation, but doesn’t have the guts to openly say it on his podcast for fear of alienating his audience or his sponsors. I also suspect that calling for “population reduction” doesn’t do well with the Youtube algorithm.
The bigger the overshoot and the longer the overshoot, the more the baseline carrying capacity is reduced. This can be accurately mathematically modelled (see Tom Murphy’s text book). Depending on where we consider overshoot started (herding, farming, or coal), we are looking at a tiny human population post-bust.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347657192/figure/fig4/AS:976607900618756@1609852876738/Left-world-population-growth-through-history-Right-zoomed-view-of-the-global.ppm
And than what? We are fucked! Everything comes and goes – and our civilization soon no longer can achieve any positive marginal benefits. Gossen’s second law. Nate can stop promoting the great simplification. It will come by natural law.
Saludos
el mar
Totally agree with you (AJ and Hideaway too). Glad it’s not just me who is getting sick and tired of Nate’s routine. His interviews (with a few exceptions) and his Frankly’s (with no exceptions) are a complete waste of time at this point in my journey.
Nate’s approach is that of someone who is getting thousands of new subscribers who are not overshoot aware. And then delicately trying to show them the bad news without scaring them away. But he is not getting new people. He’s just preaching to the choir. And the choir can handle (and deserves) the truth. He’s at a dangerous level now where he is providing more hopium than actual reality.
We were talking about space the other day. Found this video last night. Entertaining and surprisingly educating. If you are a big sci-fi fan, you’ll be impressed with his knowledge.
This guy has so much intelligence from a lifetime of reading/watching sci-fi. And all of those sources he got it from. Man, tons of wasted energy. It got me fixated on how different things would be if space was off limits. And energy (the way we at un-Denial understand it) was common knowledge and 100 plus years old. There would be no such thing as sci-fi, and all that energy would have been spent on something else. Hopefully something useful.
That had me thinking how with a few rational, obvious, and common-sense steps taken in history it would be a completely different world. It’s impossible to be this deep in agriculture and then start using fossil fuels and not go extinct. But it is possible to direct your energy into things that actually make sense. And if knowledge and equality were important in civilization (your still energy addicts, just smarter about it), you could go on a pretty good (and enlightened) run until you destroy all life on earth including yourself.
Best case scenario with a most disciplined (population control) and wise energy budget, you might make it a over a thousand years. But I’m thinking the average fossil fuel run looks more like ours and just varies on where you directed your energy. It’s like bull riding. Got to be one or two that held on much longer than the rest of us.
this was really enjoyable
It wasn’t focused on and more just said in passing, but the stuff about Voyager 1 was mind blowing to me. Launched in 1977 it is traveling at 10.5 miles per second (17km/sec). This insanely fast speed will take 18,000 years to reach one lightyear. And over 40k years to reach the closest star.
Another thing mentioned was the new estimation for the number of galaxies in the universe. Over two trillion!! If the Milky Way is an average looking galaxy with 100 billion stars that have a few planets revolving around each star… and there are two trillion Milky Way’s… and our universe might just be one of many in the multi-verse… LOL, forget it, it’s too much for my brain to compute. I need a supercomputer to figure it all out and “get it”.
Entered all the data and my supercomputer only had this message to say: You were not brought upon this world to “get it”. Space is off limits.
This video goes hand in hand with my cat story from last month. If you are into the subject matter, you might enjoy it.
Biden accidentally called Zelensky “Putin”.
He really needs to pass the torch.
Biden saying “Vice President Trump”
The Embeds don’t seem to work when I try to embed a Youtube video.
@el mar, @Hideaway, How did you get them to work? Do you just have to wait a bit?
With this video, of “The world’s Most Sustainable City” .. which it clearly isn’t, because of solar panels, wind turbines, plastic greenhouses with metal frames, plastic pots, irrigation systems relying upon metal, pumps plastic hoses etc…
I just right clicked in video then left clicked ‘copy video URL’, place it below, watch the little circle thingy go around and around for a few seconds, then hit reply. Maybe it is just waiting for 10 seconds or a bit longer to load…
Thanks for the tip Hideaway. It works Stellarwind. I had to wait about 5 seconds for the picture to pop up.
What browser are you using? The image doesn’t pop up on my browser.
Microsoft edge. But main thing is not to use the address bar and instead right click on the youtube video and pick “copy video url”. Paste it and then wait a few seconds. If the picture is not visible prior to you posting your comment, then you did something wrong, and try again.
Nate Hagens has another episode out, which just adds another dimension to the overall overshoot problem. Humans really have stuffed up the ecology of the world’s environments. However once we’ve gone life can then get ack to normal..
Thought I was gonna hate this one, but Joe was really good.
Bill Rees:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-07-11/on-being-a-snowflake-in-an-avalanche-the-catastrophe-of-overshoot-and-how-to-cope/
Thanks and good health, Weogo
Killing me how dead this site is. Might have to write another personal story. I’ll make you guys a fair deal. I’m gonna check back here at around 10pm (its 130 now). If there are at least 2 new posts then I will not do anymore stories. Otherwise, I will be forced to write another one. 😊
Ok ok. I hear ya loud and clear. Bet I could’ve set the bar at twenty new posts and you guys would have still met the requirement. 😊
Btw, this one was tame compared to the first one. It’s about my horrible mistake of joining the army. In the middle of it right now. I’m gonna finish it anyway. But I’ll honor my end of the deal and bite my tongue… I need to create my own website for this kind of stuff… but good to know that I have a motivational technique that works like gangbusters here. 😊
And I apologize if that first story offended anyone. Was only trying to help this site from becoming a ghost town. Rob, I have no problem if you wanna delete it when you get back.
I like this guy a lot. New interview today on Planet Critical.
“I’m joined by science journalist Peter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World, to discuss how the carbon cycle has caused five out of the six mass extinction events — with the worst taking 10 million years for the planet to recover.”
p.s. el mar, how did you get your Geert link above to be a picture? (I always thought Rob did that for us)
The Sixth Mass Extinction | Peter Brannen (youtube.com)
Hello paqnation, i only copied the YouTube link!
Hmmm. I must be doing something wrong. I copy/paste the link (from the address bar) but it never shows up as a picture.
p.s. I watched this interview with Peter and I do not recommend it. About the halfway point he starts sounding silly with his faith and hopium stuff. The host even calls him out for being all over the map. And I dont think its the normal “tip toeing” to not offend (scare) her audience. It sounded more like Peter really thinks humans are gonna figure it all out at the last minute.
Disaster ahead:
Saludos
el mar
Man, this site is on life support when Rob’s gone 😢. I’ve been trying to come up with something interesting to help out, but I’ve got nothing that doesn’t require massive research. Screw it, I’m in the mood to write. I’m gonna experiment with a subject that is never talked about here (no reason to on a collapse site). This story is about when my good friend Jason came out of the closet a few years ago.
Five of us (all friends since high school) took a trip to Hawaii in 2018. Couple days before the trip Jason and I were hanging out and going to Red Lobster for dinner. In the car ride over there he “came out”. He told me how he had already come out to his family and our other three friends over a month ago. He said he was afraid of how I would react (which was instantly very strange because he knows I don’t care about that stuff). And then he reminded me about my gay encounter story.
Around 2015, I had a new job working the late shift at a call center and one night while I was in the restroom, a guy came in and of the 5 or 6 open stalls, chose the one right next to me (which is a huge pet peeve of mine). He started to tap his shoe into my shoe. Lightly at first, like it could have been an accident, but then became more aggressive with it. I tried to figure out who it was for a second but after I finally and awkwardly said, “no thanks, not interested”, he got up and left the bathroom in a hurry. The next day or so Jason and I were playing tennis, and I told him about it, and we laughed. But now 2018 Jason was reminding me with excruciating detail how I told the story back then. Stuff like “Can you believe it. That guy was ready to go right there in the middle of me taking a shit! There’s a time and place for god sakes. What the hell is wrong with these animals” (btw, if I ever made it big, my past would have me canceled in two seconds)
He talked about how he was close to coming out years ago but how incidents like this would always set him back. (and I don’t even remember saying it, that’s how unimportant it was to me). He ended up crying which made me cry. I apologized and told him how much I love him. Within 5 minutes we were both cracking gay jokes and everything was all good. He also broke it down (for my ignorant ass) the roots of why that guy was doing that in the bathroom. And the history of the nook and cranny places that gay men have had to resort to because of how unacceptable society deems it.
Because I am relentless at asking questions, I also learned that the tv show Married w/ Children and Al Bundy’s gay jokes had a negative effect on him when we were young. I was a big fan of the show and me and my friends would quote it all the time. Jason said he would always have to fake laugh, which was no big deal, but he hated it because sometimes it would steer the conversation into some really dark anti-gay stuff. (dipshit Trump apologists would call it “locker room talk”)
During dinner I was teasing him that the only reason he finally came out was so that he could “let loose” in Hawaii. Which ended up being kind of true. And because I’m such a night owl, the entire vacation I was the only one still awake when he would come home to our condo after a late night out with “his people”. I’d start grilling him right there on the spot for the juicy details and making him very uncomfortable (in a funny and graphic way 😊).
Nowadays we can talk about anything and everything. And the most private and secret stuff. I have watched him grow so much since getting that monkey off his back. For his whole life he was hiding it, and it showed. He is healthier and in much better shape and looks like he’s reverse aging. We traded lifestyles. I partied hardcore back in the day and now I’m a total hermit. Complete opposite for him.
Could never quite get him into my anti-american ideas but he does show interest in the anti-capitalism stuff. Right before Covid blew up in early ’20, and because of the resources I was using at the time (mainly certain audience members from Scheerpost and Intercept), I was strongly warning Jason how life is about to become very unrecognizable, and everything is going to be shut down completely. He was laughing in my face at the time, and a month later I was finally correct about one of my wacky conspiracies. He was all ears after that. He still talks about how much credibility it gave me for all my crazy paranoid stuff throughout the years.
I do beat him over the head a lot with overshoot and he can understand it when he actually takes me seriously. But he’s not interested, and he always wins the conversation by ending it with something like, “Thanks for telling me all that Chris. Good lookin out. I was on the fence about that all-gay cruise ship vacation, but now I’ll definitely book it”… That is the definition of where I want to be with my awareness level. Living it up and taking full advantage of the “Peak”. But I’ll never get there. Un-Denialists know way too much and there’s no going back. In fact, as I type this, Jason is on a road trip (that I turned down) to San Diego while I’m sitting at home thinking about why fire cannot be harnessed by humans. Different life for us doomers.
How important and disappointing that 2015 moment on the tennis court was for Jason and how indifferent it was for me still bothers me sometimes. With my no-filter loudmouth there is no telling how many people I have offended throughout the years. Since 2018 I have been very aware of it and go out of my way to try and prevent it. Took me 40 plus years to be able to start understanding this quote from Cloud Atlas:
“To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds, that go on and are pushing themselves throughout all time. Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”
Another post from the Honest sorcerer.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/this-civilization-is-not-interested
HS has been doing good work assembling and condensing the collapse concepts that are already out there, but I thought this one was one of the best.
From reddit.
These propagandists are eager to kill off what’s left of our biosphere as quickly as they can… to make a bit more profit than they do now.
From reddit.
From reddit.
From reddit.
From reddit.
https://realgreenadaptation.blog/2024/07/08/netzero-and-china/
“Energy is everything for modern life in that all other aspects depend on it. Something we have taken for granted for all of the modern period is now approaching a point in the future that is undependable.
We are right here right now at Peak Everything in a prosperity bubble. This is now a Ponzi with people playing at the casino. It is not the world of virtue. A virtue that is the wisdom of knowing what to embrace and what to discard. We have long since passed the virtue of wisdom embracing truth.”
Saludos
el mar
Jan, I think he lives in Austria, our german speaking neighbours, today supports my dam break analogy on OFW:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/06/22/the-advanced-economies-are-headed-for-a-downfall/comment-page-5/#comment-463171
Where could the energy come from for any external or internal conflict?
The financial system will crash as a consequence of too little resources or WW3 or BRICS. Then the senile old man will go to the public, which noone can hear because of the blackout, and announce, trust me, we have new currency, and the states will accept future tax payments in it. Then people will say, what states, what future, what tax? And refuse to give the failed state a credit.
That means 99.999% completely unprepared and naive people will think, how can they leave the city and grow some potatoes. They will see no chance: they have no seeds, no land, no water, no skills. And even if, what could they eat in between?
So they will stay in bed as a secure place and to save nutritional energy. Three weeks later they will be too weak to do anything.
There will be a few preppers and homesteaders, that have collected tools and food and seeds and books and a sheep and they can make a transition. The problem to come then is, that they cant maintain tools, houses, googles, books, knowledge – or stop the radioactivity coming out of the nuclear fuel ponds.
I give the idea, that the senile old man can convince 100.000 men to cut logs in the Rocky Mountains and convert them into charcoal to smelt some old-iron into tanks, planes and missiles a chance of zero. He could only activate the weapons that still exist. But what for? He can destroy Russia but he cannot go there and use the advantage.
The resource countries could invade Europe as a statement of dominance, but why occupy failed states? The Chinese will focus on Saudi-Arabia and Iran. Sooner or later the USA and Europe will do the same. They will fight for the last oil but cannot transport it home as the finance system has collapsed.
I would say, checkmate, the game is lost!
People are not interested, a zombie army. They have recently begged Doofenshmirtz to destroy their germ line and the DNA of all of their future offspring. Who believes that these people, including the senate, including finance, including science, will be able of any reasonable thought?
Saludos
el mar
Meh. Reads more like a power fantasy coupled with a christian sense of apocalypse. Things are fucked, but not as linear as we as humans are prone to believe. At least that’s what I learned from the last few doomsday’s that didn’t happen.
Found this link on Tom Murphy’s blog in the comments. Cool site that helps you grasp how big space is. Had a few thoughts creep into my mind while I was playing around with it.
If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel – A tediously accurate map of the solar system (joshworth.com)
For a comparison to interstellar distances
The sun is about 8.3 light-minutes from earth. The Sirius, AKA the Dog star is about 8.7 light-years from earth, and is one of our closest neighbors in interstellar terms. So comparing the distances within the solar system to distances between stars is like comparing minutes to years.
Thanks, that’s a great way of looking at it. I know how huge and empty space is, yet I always underestimate it big time.
As an additional explanation to the human drive to explore, I want to recommend this comment on a German forum (which I’ve translated via deepl.com).It’s title is “We will never travel to the stars”
He highlights the emerging and decay of civilizations as predicted by Spengler over 100 years ago, and the modern age aka. “Western civilization” is no exception to this omnipresent cycle of emerging and decay. Since our cycle is coming to an end, star travel and other technological utopies are the last remaining “hopes” for a better future (which will not come). The tragedy is probably that we are significantly accelerating the end through our technology and making the earth unusable for new generations for centuries or even thousands of years.
https://weltenwende.forum/index.php?id=54388
Nice one. Thank you.
Somehow this text conjured up images of Janus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus).
The past facing head deeply bonded with people from the other side of the Rhine. The future facing head aspiring to the damp wilderness from the other side of the Atlantic ocean or away in the Pacific ocean.
Today and Yesterday, I was thinking about the implications of the net energy cliff and felt myself starting to cry.
Here are some implications:
Mining grinds to a halt. Declining ore grades combined with declining net energy means that most mining becomes economically un-viable. I know this is good for the environment, but it means that the age of metallurgy will end a few centuries later, as the already mined metals are recycled to the point of being unusable.
“Involuntary population reduction”. Industrial agriculture becomes un-viable meaning that our inflated numbers will not be supported. It is just sad to think that billions of people will die prematurely.
Hi Stellar, I’m not talking directly to you here, just babbling to whoever is listening.
“It is just sad to think that billions of people will die prematurely”
It’s not as sad when I focus on the other life forms that we are responsible for destroying. Or when I realize that humans should not even be here to begin with. Forget agriculture and fossil fuels. Anyone that can break through the first energy constraint of fire is already a dangerous, out of control species that needs to be put down.
Fire seems pretty innocent. And safe from causing population explosions (need agriculture for that). But then focus on what exactly fire is doing (not on the advantages for the species using fire, but to the environment). It’s a constant taking from Mother Earth, and a constant exuding of pollution. If you are cutting down live trees to burn, then you can add thousands of other negative effects. So let’s just focus on deadwood only.
That piece of deadwood is going to be feasted on by fungi, moss, and a million other life forms until it is completely gone or composted back into the soil. But you just took that piece away from them and made it disappear. In other words, you stole it. (if you had eaten it instead of burning it, that would have been perfectly ok). Fire is the beginning stage of what Quinn calls “Takers”. And you didn’t quite make it all disappear either. By burning it, you created some pollution that is now in the atmosphere.
It’s so radically new from the planet’s perspective. First time ever that a species is stealing (constantly) and polluting (constantly). And its solely for the benefit of that one species. Fire only (with no agriculture) will eventually get you to a level where you are too good at hunting your prey. This will cause certain extinctions and all types of domino effects. But because you have not been able to efficiently store food yet, your population is not big enough to cause any major world catastrophes.
The goal for Mother Earth is to have tons of different life thriving. But if I’m wrong and the goal is more about having a sustainable complete domination of the planet by one species, it has to look much more like the dinosaurs 150-million year run than the humans and their 12,000-year run. In other words, no broken energy constraints allowed.
p.s. I’m trying to do a guest essay about why fire cannot be conquered, but I’m struggling because my research skills are sucking right now. If anyone thinks this subject is a waste of time, please let me know why. You won’t hurt my feelings. Thanks.
Hi Chris,
On the contrary, I for one would be most intrigued by your fire essay! I find myself quite aligned to your thoughts on the main, almost scarily so at times. Just a quick little note now to say how much I appreciate your heartfelt participation and contributions here. It’s been nothing short of revelatory to have found my tribe with all here and I do hope everyone knows how much encouragement I have received and how much I wish you all well.
Namaste, friends.
Hi Gaia, thanks for that.
Yes, very scary if you find yourself agreeing with my crazy ass 😊. Thats another reason I love this site so much. The ideas being shared by everyone here somehow have me focused on fire.
Two years of overshoot training prior to un-Denial, and I never once thought about fire (in this way).
Lightning has started many a fire and this is likely how two-leggeds first got fire.
Weogo
Fire is also natural – think large wild fires. Wild fire often has an ecological purpose for many species. Such as helping certain seeds.
You and Weogo’s comment help me to see how disciplined and on track I have to be with this subject. I can’t go all in with my usual “fire is evil, blah blah blah”.
The plan is still the same. To show why harnessing fire is off limits in the game of Life. That’s pushing me towards some type of “there is no purpose for conscious deep thinking anywhere in the universe”, but I’m trying to leave that alone. Can only handle one big topic at a time. 😊
But I hadn’t even thought about any benefits of fire like you said here. Thanks.
I’m going to add some links that might be helpful for your research. Two podcasts from the For the Wild Podcast. It’s a bit woke, but a helpful start for you.
https://forthewild.world/listen/dr-chad-hanson-on-the-myths-amp-misinformation-of-wildland-fires97?rq=fire
https://forthewild.world/listen/vanessa-cavanagh-rachael-cavanagh-deb-swan-on-ancestral-fire-regimes-205?rq=fire
Looks like wordpress was a day late with these comments, but I see that I was able to track down the ones you recommended. Ep 97 and 205. Will definitely check those out. Thanks again.
For the Wild has a couple of really good podcasts on wild fire. I can’t link here because WordPress is removing my comment. But you can look it up. That might help with the research. Just FYI the podcast is super duper woke, so trigger warning LOL. But good content to help with your inquiry into fire 🙂
Thanks monk! This might be very helpful. They have like 400 episodes. These five are the ones that came up when I searched “fire”. If you think I am missing anything important let me know.
Dr. CHAD HANSON on the Myths & Misinformation of Wildland Fires /97Dr. CARLOS NOBRE on the Shifting Future of the Amazon /106VANESSA CAVANAGH, RACHAEL CAVANAGH, & DEB SWAN on Ancestral Fire Regimes /205MAYA KHOSLA on What the Forest Holds /313ROSEMARY GLADSTAR on Thriving Where Planted /325
The first one is the main one to go with 🙂
Thanks monk! This might be very helpful. They have like 400 episodes. These are the ones that came up when I searched “fire”. If you think I am missing anything important let me know.
(WordPress must be messing up today. Hopefully this comment does not show up mulitple)
Dr. CHAD HANSON on the Myths & Misinformation of Wildland Fires /97
Dr. CARLOS NOBRE on the Shifting Future of the Amazon /106
VANESSA CAVANAGH, RACHAEL CAVANAGH, & DEB SWAN on Ancestral Fire Regimes /205
MAYA KHOSLA on What the Forest Holds /313
ROSEMARY GLADSTAR on Thriving Where Planted /325
Yea it did lol. It seems to happen for me when I hit Alt and Enter. Just a normal enter is all that is needed now for comments.
Trying to bring solace by shredding your last paragraph into pieces 🙂
At some level, this has been individually and collectively chosen, nothing “sad” in living the consequences of one’s own actions.
Rather than sadness, isn’t it even allowed to despise this bunch of battery farmed humans and revel in the ineluctability of their fate?
“prematurely” compared to what?
How many “billions” and how “prematurely” remains to be seen. Industrial civilization is done for. For the rest, who knows? The goddess of life is gentle to those who care about Her. We may glide down the collapse cliff by going along with the flow instead of going on with the fight.
As paqnation rightly pointed out, from the perspective of other life forms, that’s all good (although a bit late).
From the perspective of Gaïa/the whole system, this is just another transformation. It might even give rise to a new geological epoch and entirely different life forms.
A small dot in the universe…
“Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences”
Humanity is finally sitting down for their banquet. Overshoot people have trouble with this, so just imagine the masses. It’s gonna be fugly.
Unfortunately, the Maximum Power Principle and the Multipolar Trap, may mean that this fate was inevitable.
Yes, most probably.
And if that is the case, then “unfortunately” is unnecessary 😉
Rob, I’ve been continually running into a problem with the ‘scale’ article, then something occurred to me about what I was missing.
The cities are like minor organs (Rob will understand, sorry everyone else). The following link, warning, it does take time to load, with the very first map gives the clue. Civilization is like one organism…
https://globaia.org/anthroposphere
By the way, for everyone, nice representation of our dilemma from lots of perspectives..
I think I can finish the article, which I think will highlight how much worse off we are than even most in the ‘doomsphere’ realise…
Excellent, I’m glad you’re working on the scale article.
Just to let you and everyone else know, I am leaving for a week of camping tomorrow morning so my presence here will be very limited over the next 7 days.
I hope you all continue on in my absence.
Have fun Rob. Leave your cell phone and laptop at home. You’ll feel naked but by day 3 most of the heavy withdrawals will be gone.
And great link Hideaway. Bookmarking that one. Tons of good info. My favorite was the rotating globe of original & current forests.
Thanks. No laptop, but I am taking my cell so I can watch a movie in the evenings. There’s a fire ban and I’ll be alone so I need something enjoyable to do in the evenings when it’s dark. I loaded a couple of the movies you recommended on my phone.
Damn!! You can camp by yourself with no fire. That’s hardcore. I’ve been a subscriber to Joe Robinet’s channel over 10 years now. He inspired me to try solo camping (with fire of course) and I even bought some gear from him. Still have never had the nerve to go through with it. I take my hat off to you.
It’s more impressive to me than both your website and being a lifer with collapse, combined. 😊
Genuine inquiry . I’m in Australia, live in the bush, so what is it you are so worried about, going solo camping ? Is it bears,or what ?
Thanks for genuinely asking and not doing the easy thing of telling me what a wimp I am 😊.
I love camping. And I know I would enjoy doing it alone. Yes, fear of bears, but mainly mountain lions. Never a fear when I am camping with someone. But all alone, I think those fears would overwhelm me. Seeing the scariest thing of all out there, Man, would also freak me out when I’m by myself.
And there is something about the solitude of it all that intimidates me. Sometimes at home when meditating, I can get to a place that frightens me with my thoughts about who/what I am. I think camping alone would intensify that.
Maybe someday I will be able to face my fear. But not without fire, that is a whole nother level.
Thanks. Again, I don’t know about camping there. How often do mountain lion attacks occur there ?How many fatalities each year ? I’ve done a lot of bushwalking and a fair bit of camping . Here, probably snake bite if you are in an isolated spot is a background concern. I’m not sure ,but I think Australia only has a few snake bite fatalities each year. I have read that India’s annual snake bite fatalities is in the hundreds, but better check if that is correct.
I’ve had a few close encounters with Taipans, but haven’t been bitten. The closest encounter was when I was about ten , and in the back seat of a small Renault driven by my brother. We were driving , and an unusually large Taipan crossed the road in front.
He stopped, got out, and the fellow he was with threw a rock at the taipan, which was by then across the road. I don’t know if the rock hit it, but the taipan turned ,and shot back at them. They ran around to the opposite side of the car. The taipan came straight at the car,
and saw my movement in the back seat. It was large enough to raise the front part of its body up, and struck at the window of the Renault. If the window hadn’t been up, I might have been bitten on the face. Anyway, thanks.
Here in the PNW, mountain lions are something to be careful about. Bears (regular black bears) are generally as scared of you as you are of them. One of my first summers here I was sitting on my porch at a picnic table working on my laptop with my two dogs at my feet asleep. I looked up and a mountain lion was walking past about 20 feet away (half way between me and the pond). It had come from the forest up the hill. I immediately yelled and my dogs to get in the garage and they did that and did not see the mountain lion. The mountain lion was surprised and walked up the dam of my pond into the forest.
Mountain lions are somewhat protected in this area (there is a limited hunting season with very few permits). The state wildlife service wants rural people to call them if a mountain lion is bothering you (eating chickens/ducks or other livestock) and then they may send someone out to catch it.
A year ago in the winter (a little snow on the ground) a next door neighbor had his dog killed by a mountain lion. He found the mountain lion eating his dog and shot and killed it. He didn’t tell the state. The same day his next door neighbor saw a mountain lion stalking his grand daughter while she was on the tree swing in his yard. Both neighbors tracked and killed the mountain lion.
There are plenty of deer around for a thriving mountain lion population. I’m not sure if they hunt elk as elk usually travel in small herds of at least 4 or 5 adults and that is probably to big for a mountain lion.
The most disconcerting thing about mountain lions is that they hunt humans. Numerous people report being stalked in the dense brushy understory of the forests. Hence most carry a gun.
I’m sure indigenous people were wary of them. And humans (if the biosphere survives us) in the future will be wary of them.
AJ
A comment of mine that was tagged ‘successfully sent’ on Doomberg upthread, seems to have disappeared. Might be some problem with the world oil production graph I sent with it…
Sorry about that. I restored it from the spam folder.
Was going thru some of my oldest inner circle emails about overshoot. Funny and embarrassing stuff actually. Found this quote though. (I’m sure I got it from Dowd). I still like it and thought it would be worth sharing here.
‘Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, Medieval institutions, and Godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.’ – E.O. Wilson
Hideaway debunks another “plan”.
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-july-4-2024/#comment-778041
Doomberg specializes in energy analysis drawing attention to the importance of energy supply and why it must, and will, continue to increase because humans want and deserve better standards of living.
Doomberg also denies overshoot and that energy supply will soon fall, and he uses the word Malthusian to describe people he disagrees with.
Which probably explains why Doomberg has the highest paid site on Substack.
In his defense, he does understand the WWIII threat.
Hideaway should not listen to this because his head will explode.
Yeah, your analysis is spot on. Doomberg is just another of those “tech” success guys who think they are the smartest people in the room. Sometimes they are but it’s usually about one thing. He had more things wrong than right. Obviously he discounts Art Berman’s analysis (probably to Malthusian). He believes AI is intelligent – it’s just a LLM and simulates spoken thinking without there being anything there. It was maddening listening to all he has wrong. I’m sure you’re right, Hideaway’s head with explode listening to this idiot.
AJ
I love Art Berman’s comment about how a really good AI will respond when asked what’s the best way to solve our energy problem. It will say, “use less energy”.
Only because of your comment about my head exploding, did I bother to go and watch that Doomberg video. LOL..
I often watch and read reports of the bright green future, just to get a balanced view. If I can’t see where their arguments are incorrect, then I might have to change my thinking. So far everything I’ve looked at with any substance to it, always misses large parts of the picture and are easy to poke holes in.
Surprisingly Doomberg gets a lot correct, especially early in that video, but it’s his insistence on nuclear saving the day being unlimited etc that’s the most ridiculous.
On oil still being ‘plentiful’ I don’t think is that unreasonable, just because everyone that has called peak oil so far has been wrong. We might keep going up in production for longer than anyone expects, but eventually when the fall in production comes, the longer it takes to get to peak production, the harder the fall will come, as in the accelerating decline.
Our oil production has had 2 phases, firstly an exponential increase, then a slower linear increase over the last 40 years.
In the above graph we can see oil production clearly go up exponentially until mid 70’s, then go up linearly since then. Every oil production forecaster expects to overall ‘shape’ to be a normal distribution curve, as every separate oil field has acted that way. However they all did that in a backdrop of growing oil production worldwide, so expecting the same pattern when world oil production is falling is just junk science/statistics.
Virtually none of the oil forecasters uses actual history of growth in their future prediction. There are lots of people that put some type of normal distribution curve on the above graph to make it fit somehow. I think they are all wrong and overall oil production will not be a fall related to the growth phase.
The linear growth has dragged future use of much harder to get oil into the present. What happened to the Cantarell oil field is probably the best example of what I expect the future to look similar to. It was flowing at 1.16Mbbl/d in 1980, then up and down to only 1Mbbls/d by mid 1990’s, basically a plateau after exponential rise to 1980, then they used an enhanced nitrogen oil recovery method, that boosted oil production up to 2.1Mbbls/d by 2003.
That enhanced oil recovery is kind of like what the world has been doing since the approx 2005 conventional oil peak. Once the Cantarell field eventually went into decline, in 5 years production halved, then the next 5 years halved again, and the following 5 year period more than halved again. In 15 years production went from a new record high of 2.1Mbbls/d to 161kbbls/d (2003-18).
The real question is when does the current linear uptrend stop growing, which we can only guess the answer. Even assuming it’s not an outside event, like WW3, or a financial crash, the trend will eventually end, which makes oil prices skyrocket, so probably bringing on a financial collapse anyway, that feeds back into oil production decline (no money for new investment).
Doomberg could be correct that it continues for quite a long period, but we’ve all thought the top relatively ‘soon’. I don’t totally discount his thoughts that there is ‘more’ hard to obtain oil available, we could go on for another decade, providing all the ‘other’ problems of climate, species loss, pollution, WW3, financial collapse, etc don’t have dramatic effects.
Like all forecasters though, he tends to work with the background working normally whenever his large new energy source comes about, nuclear in his case. It’s obvious that the world takes a long time to build a NPP. Even some of the newest ones in China, that don’t suffer all the regulation, which is given as the reason for slow and costly development in the West, were 4-5 years late and cost double original estimations. (We never read about this from Nuclear promoters).
Simple reality is that Nuclear takes so long to build and takes so much in the way of specialist materials, that it doesn’t have a positive return of energy, especially when we take into account the energy forms required to build and operate the plants. We get energy and products from fossil fuels, so replacing all this with just electrical energy is not the equivalent.
To replace fossil fuels, the ‘new’ energy sources have to provide an assortment of energy types and products. All the planned replacements provide ‘electricity’ therefore we can’t have modern civilization in the future.
Doomberg, like every other believer in the continuation of civilization indefinitely, makes the absurd assumption that the background system operates normally when fossil fuels production are in decline, yet never do any of these forecasters explain where the energy to take the workers to the factories, or do the mining of raw materials, will come from. They ‘expect it’ to operate normally, while ‘everything else’ suffers.
In other words none of these type of forecasters of a bright future have any understanding of how the economy actually works, with everything in the system of civilization affecting everything else.
Excellent critique of Doomberg’s work.
Even if Doomberg is correct and we have another decade or two of oil growth, it seems deeply disingenuous to paint it like there is no problem given that 7+ billion will die horrible deaths shortly thereafter. Even with two more decades we should be pulling the fire alarm now to do something useful with the remaining oil.
Hello Rob,
Just a random question: is it mainly the privileged spouting nonsense about the human predicament? Maybe at some level, they just do that to maintain the illusion and their privileges. Illusionists.
If that’s the case, and even if it’s unconscious, this may shed some light on your repeating interrogation: evil or incompetent.
Btw, for some reason, I feel unease with statements such as “7+ billion will die horrible deaths shortly thereafter.” I can’t quite put my finger on why. Maybe because, this is too bold a statement and has not been definitively proven true. Or maybe it’s “horrible” which sounds like a personal expression of fear and does not mix well with some results from a mind model. Or maybe it’s “shortly” which is not precise enough (a few days, a few years…). Or maybe it’s because life seems to be already quite difficult for a few billions. Or maybe it’s because saying it like that makes it worse than it is: each of us will see when he gets there. Sorry for telling you that, this way. It’s just a feeling that i needed to express.
It’s the privileged that do every discretionary activity not directly involved with subsistence.
My statement about the implications of oil running out might be a little inaccurate in time or magnitude but is plenty accurate enough to warrant our species pulling the fire alarm if it did not deny unpleasant realities.
Yes.
Nice Ivermectin rant and thread.
I’m going to vote for the nastiest Stalin on offer until a bunch of people hang for this.
I loved their rant! Right to the point and why I have lots of “horse paste” for the next time the “flu” comes around.
AJ
Hideaway,
I gave your name to Steve Bull as someone who should contribute to volume 2 of the overshoot compilation. I did not give him your email and asked him to send me the request which I will forward to you.
My suggestion is that you should collect all of your important comments from POB and un-Denial and assemble them into one essay.
I think what you have to say is too important and fresh to be scattered across dozens of comments.
I can help, if you need it, to collate your comments into one document for you to edit into a single essay. I’m also willing to help with proofreading and editing.
If Steve does not follow through we can still publish your essay here.
Hideaway, do you have any of that ugly/toxic “what’s in it for me” attitude about this? I have some for you. 😊
Fight through that shit if you do. Would be so cool to see your name listed among the other big names. (we already know you belong in that club)
There’s nothing in it for anyone that writes about overshoot except the satisfaction of seeing truth in print instead of the usual bullshit, and proving to the universe that a few fire apes can see reality.
Good point.
There is nothing in the reality of our situation for anyone, and those trying to make a buck out of it, like Chris Martenson are just backing themselves into a niche market while destroying their overall credibility.
One of the reasons I use the ‘nic’ Hideaway is that I expect repercussions for those that bring reality to the masses. ‘Shoot the messenger’ is alive and well throughout human cultures and history. It might be one of the main reasons people like Nate Hagens never states how bad the situation really is, while explaining the only course to reduce suffering, is to reduce overpopulation as quickly as possible. I’m sure many people confronted with overwhelming evidence would say fine to reducing population….’you first’..
I’m also fairly certain the elite of the world don’t really want reality spread to everyone, they would prefer to live as kings as long as possible, so would not be happy with overshoot becoming common knowledge, as it would mean rapid reduction in their relative wealth.
They have to keep the myth of continuous growth going until it can’t as otherwise it would mean giving up their wealth as people worldwide strived for equality now, knowing the fate of humanity. I would expect them to protect their privileged position at whatever cost necessary.
What I write on POB is as much to get the feedback of magical outcomes. They are always with zero evidence, as the proponents of the bright green future, never go into actual numbers and calculations, it is very deliberate.
Whenever someone decides to get creative with ‘evidence’ of the bright green future, they point to ‘research’ which is massively flawed because of the limits and boundaries placed on whatever the ‘paper’ is looking at.
It’s clear too me, that everyone that has looked into the future in detail, would come to the same conclusion we have, so those that claim to have details of the bright green future are really getting paid by whatever institution to keep going. The self interest comes with painting a bright green future..
Has everyone noticed that those ‘in the know’ from the academic world, like a William Rees or Tom Murphy only have talked about future collapse and massive overshoot since retiring from their positions, because such views are not tolerated by those who give funding to these institutions..
Exactly. That is why many bloggers who are still dependent on the system for their livelihoods write under pseudonyms in order to tell the truth.
I think that gives Rees and Murphy too much credibility. Rees is firmly in line with degrowth hope fantasy, which has a proud tradition in the ivory tower of voluntary simplicity classics scholar-monks. Murphy likewise spouts bullshit change-the-world hopium, if I remember correctly, or maybe I’m thinking of his NASA affiliation.
The academy is a conservative religious institution. Just like a religion would never tolerate an anti-religious lecternist, no professor would last long publicly calling bullshit on the whole enterprise.
I only lasted on my job because it was at the ass end of education where nobody cared about anything, and I still kept my head down to avoid being summarily fired/executed.
Tom Murphy has the “Do the Math ” site . I like your site too. I posted a section of one of your book reviews under one of T.Murphy’s recent essays.
Another brilliant interview with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.
Topics discussed include:
Steve Bull’s very impressive compilation gives me good memories from when he posted it last year. The names in that table of contents are the ones who should be in charge of the world. Gonna take me all weekend to read it again.
Looking forward to volume 2.
Long time un-Denial friend AJ has discussed his doomstead over the years and today sent some lovely pictures to help us visualize his impressive accomplishments.
Awesome pictures AJ. Love that is has such a “Goonies” vibe to it.
Makes me want to send Rob some pics of my doomstead. 😊. Cookie cutter houses packed together with brick wall backyards. No trees. No lush greens at all. Landscape is just rocks in front and back for every house.
You’re supposed to say that you live in an enlightened green community that conserves water and energy by foregoing useless status symbols like grass lawns.
😊😊😊
I know Phoenix/Scottsdale. Once owned a house like you describe in Scottsdale many years ago (bought during Savings & Loan debacle in the 80’s) and sold it to buy in the PNW.
AJ