The Cactus Lens: A Clearer View

Until recently there have been 3 main lenses through which to view our overshoot predicament: debt, energy, and ecology.

Each lens exposes a different aspect of the picture, but not the complete picture.

Each lens focusses on different threats, with different time frames, and different consequences, and each lens suggests a different optimal response.

Overshoot awareness varies by lens and group within society. Awareness of leaders is generally higher than citizens, and in some cases this is deliberate and warranted because broad citizen awareness of the debt and energy threats would increase the probability of short term collapse.

For leaders and citizens that see through any of the lenses, their understanding tends to be incomplete, which has resulted in plans of action that will not help, or that make the situation worse.

This incomplete understanding is caused in part because the issues are very complex, and in part because some aspects of human overshoot have no acceptable or feasible solution, and in part because of the human tendency to deny unpleasant realities, as explained by Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory.

Hideaway, a frequent contributor at un-Denial, Peak Oil Barrel, Our Finite World and other sites, recently introduced a new lens we have named cactus, which focusses on all non-renewable resources and the complexity required to extract them.

I think the cactus lens provides the clearest view of what is going on, what we should expect in the short to medium term, and what we should do.

The cactus lens changes what is in the best interests of citizens to understand.

The debt and energy lenses suggest citizens should remain in the dark.

The ecology lens suggests it does not matter what citizens understand because the ecology threats are longer term than debt, energy, and cactus, and because awareness of ecology issues have not and will not improve anything of substance due to the nature of modernity.

With the introduction of the cactus lens, it is now in the best short term interests of all groups: countries, leaders, and citizens, for awareness to be as widespread as possible.

Achieving broad cactus awareness will be difficult because it is very unpleasant, and therefore will be blocked by our genetic denial behavior, however I propose one idea to start the discussion on how we might spread cactus awareness.

Awareness Lens: Debt

Theory:

  • Modernity requires abundant credit;
  • Because most of our mines, machines, technology, and structures require significant up front capital to build;
  • Which requires a fractional reserve debt backed monetary system;
  • Which is now used by every country in the world;
  • Which by design requires economic growth to not collapse;
  • Because money is loaned into existence and growth is needed to pay interest;
  • Which means our economic system requires infinite growth on a finite planet;
  • Which of course is impossible and means we should expect growth to slow and prosperity to decline, as they are;
  • Culminating in a dramatic and harmful economic reset;
  • However modernity will survive and will rebuild until the next bubble pops.

Status :

  • Quite a few citizens see through the debt lens, maybe a significant minority.
  • Most aware citizens assume the reset is a ways off in the future.
  • Some people prepare to weather a storm with cash, gold, bitcoin, or sardines.
  • Others trust or hope that central banks will print enough money to kick the can past their expiry.
  • Leaders understand and acknowledge the debt problem but are careful to not cause panic because herd emotions could trigger a reset.
  • Leaders are also careful to not explain the driver of the debt problem, energy depletion, as will be discussed in the next section on the energy lens.
  • The debt threat is closer and more severe than our leaders let on as demonstrated by:
  1. Social unrest everywhere is rising because living standards are falling and the wealth gap is widening.
  2. Geopolitical tensions are rising.
  3. Democracies are oscillating between wider extremes.
  4. Most countries have historically high levels of growing debt.
  5. Growth has slowed, and the only growth possible now comes at the expense of adding more debt than the growth it buys, which is unsustainable.
  6. No political party in power anywhere reduces their deficit or balances their budget because it’s now impossible without crashing their system. The US DOGE effort lasted 5 months before leaders gave up and juiced the deficit to new record highs.
  7. Central banks work hard behind the curtain to keep our everything bubble inflated, and to prevent any significant correction of stock or asset prices. When I was young it was normal for the economy and stock market to experience cycles. We don’t permit cycles anymore. Today there is so much debt and so little growth that a significant correction will result in a reset (aka crash).
  8. Printing bazookas are used to blast any threat before it builds momentum, like the banking system repo problem that covid provided cover for unprecedented money printing.
  9. Our leaders tried but failed to use covid as an excuse to implement the tools needed to manage an economic reset like digital ids/currencies for rationing scarce necessities, and for enabling negative interest rates, and tried via “The Great Reset” propaganda campaign to get us ready to accept nationalization of assets (aka “you will own nothing and be happy”). They will try again.

Implications:

  • The debt lens implies a zero-sum game: In a no growth world, one country’s gain is another country’s loss.
  • Our leaders believe that a country that succeeds in harming its competitors will experience less damage from an economic reset. The goal is to ensure opponents reset before you do, on the assumption that this will prevent or delay your own reset by gaining control of more growth generating assets and markets.
  • Hence we see the weaponization of tariffs and trade, regime change operations, and proxy wars intended to weaken or capture opponents.

Conclusions:

  • A debt reset is mathematically inevitable and will reduce the standard of living for the majority via deflation and/or inflation.
  • Debt resets are hard to predict and control because herd emotions drive the process.
  • Leaders have good reasons to not want citizens to be aware of the seriousness of the debt problem.
  • Leaders are operating on the assumption of a zero-sum game.
  • In the cactus lens section we’ll see that the zero-sum game assumption is wrong, which means the current strategy will make things worse for all countries.

Awareness Lens: Energy

Theory:

  • Modernity requires abundant net energy;
  • Which is the energy that remains after using energy to extract and refine energy;
  • Because all of our food, water, minerals, technology, products, and services are produced and delivered by machines powered by energy.
  • Diesel is the keystone energy that powers our vital mining machines, tractors, combines, trucks, trains, and ships.
  • Renewable energy is not a solution to non-renewable depletion because renewables require abundant non-renewable energy t0 build, install, maintain, and augment for 24/7 supply.
  • Discovery of new fossil energy reserves is much slower than depletion of existing reserves, and the gap is growing.
  • The quality of non-renewable energy reserves decline as they deplete;
  • Which means net energy is falling;
  • Which explains why growth is slowing, and prosperity is declining, and debt is growing faster than GDP everywhere.
  • We should expect the trend to continue and accelerate.
  • Leaders believe modernity will continue for those countries that have access to energy.

Status:

  • Few citizens see through the energy lens.
  • There are many false energy beliefs in wide circulation including net zero, peak oil demand, abiotic oil, green energy, renewables outpacing fossils, hydrogen economy, nuclear renaissance, space mining, circular economy, etc., etc..
  • These beliefs are nonsense not grounded in sound science or economics, but the issues are complex, and it is difficult for a citizen to determine the truth, especially with deliberate misdirection from leaders, and with MORT driven hope and denial driving behavior.
  • Denial is a strong force that fogs the energy lens because, short of a near zero probability miracle, there is no solution, and the outlook is steadily worsening living standards.
  • Most leaders, with help from their energy aware militaries, understand what is going on, and know the energy threat is imminent. Evidence for this includes:
  1. Inflation of energy intensive products, like food, is high; energy intensive infrastructure is not being properly maintained; energy intensive manufacturing, like weapons, is struggling to keep up with demand despite plentiful printed money available; war is shifting to lower energy methods like drones; and as also seen through the debt lens, debt is accelerating, living standards are falling, the wealth gap is widening, geopolitical tensions are rising, and democracies are at risk.
  2. The EIA this year announced that fracked oil is peaking. Fracked oil is the unexpected savior that bought us an extra decade after conventional oil peaked.
  3. Leaders do not want their citizens to panic, or to spook the stock market bubble which depends on growth, so they do not discuss the energy problem, and work hard to distract citizens with nonsense like optimism for a renewable transition, or by stoking emotions over socially divisive issues.
  4. Trump reversed his no more regime change promises after being sworn in and briefed about US debt and oil forecasts.
  5. Every country with significant exportable oil reserves that is not controlled by the US empire is either under attack or being regime changed including Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Nigeria. Even friends with oil, or close to oil, like Canada and Greenland, have been threatened with annexation.
  6. Propaganda is successfully being used to convince citizens that regime change operations are to prevent terrorism or drug trafficking, not to control oil.
  7. China is stockpiling strategic oil reserves.
  8. A few countries, like Germany, made an honest attempt to run their economies with renewable energy, but it’s now obvious to leaders everywhere that the renewable dream has failed. German leaders now want war with energy rich Russia.
  9. The UK, having drained its own oil reserves, now wants war with energy rich Russia.
  10. Hail Mary investments praying for a miracle are being made in AI and nuclear energy.

Implications:

  • The energy lens implies a zero-sum game: In an energy scarce world, one country’s gain is another country’s loss.
  • Our leaders understand their country’s prosperity requires non-renewable energy, and that it must be secured by any means necessary, including taking it by force from others.
  • Countries are preparing for war by increasing military expenditures, even at the expense of social services demanded by citizens.
  • Nuclear arms treaties are being abandoned, and the arms race is restarting.
  • Lessons learned during the cold war about the dangers of nuclear war are being ignored, and red lines are increasingly flirted with.
  • It’s hard to imagine how nuclear war can be avoided given that everyone’s survival depends on oil, and the zero-sum game assumption of our leaders.

Conclusions:

  • Modernity requires growth, and there is not enough oil left for everyone to grow.
  • Leaders have good reasons to not want citizens to be aware of the seriousness of the energy problem.
  • Leaders are operating on the assumption of a zero-sum game.
  • In the cactus lens section we’ll see that the zero-sum game assumption is wrong, which means the current strategy will make things worse for all countries.

Awareness Lens: Ecology

Theory:

  • The resources consumed, and the wastes generated, and the habitats occupied, by the large and growing population of humans, is displacing other species, and causing damage to ecosystems faster than can be repaired by the planet’s recycling systems.

Status:

  • The 8,230,000,000 humans, plus their 35,000,000,000 livestock, plus their billions of pets and other freeloaders like rats, now weighs 80 times more than all wild land mammals combined.
  • Humans use 30-40% of the net primary productivity of all sunlight hitting the planet, plus 16,000,000,000 liters per day of ancient sunlight stored as oil, plus 11,000,000,000 cubic meters per day of ancient sunlight stored as natural gas, plus 24,000,000,000 kilograms per day of ancient sunlight store as coal.
  • The sixth mass extinction is underway.
  • Seven of nine planetary boundaries critical for survival have already been crossed including climate change, biodiversity, deforestation, fresh water, nitrogen cycle, pollution, and ocean acidification.
  • We have already passed the 1.5C safe limit and are on a path to a 3+C temperature increase that is incompatible with civilization and agriculture by the end of this century.
  • Biodiverse forests are being replaced with mono-crop agriculture.
  • Fisheries are in decline.
  • Sea level rise will damage many cities over the next century.
  • Glacier loss threatens the survival of several countries.
  • Chemical toxins and microplastics are harming the health of all life including humans.
  • Awareness of leaders and citizens about the ecological problems varies widely.
  • Most people are aware of some of the problems, but also tend to superficially simplify them down to one issue, CO2, that can be fixed with solar panels and electric vehicles.
  • Few are aware of the breadth and depth of the problems.
  • Many people deny the severity of the problems and/or that humans have caused the problems.
  • Almost everyone denies the implications of the ecological problems, and the fact there is almost nothing that can be done to address them while maintaining modernity and our population.
  • Every effort, by every country, and every organization, and every citizen, to address the above problems, has failed, and will continue to fail, at least until something forces an involuntary change to population and lifestyles.

Implications:

  • The view through the ecology lens is dire.
  • The long term implications are worse than those seen through the debt and energy lenses because we are damaging the ability for any human lifestyle to thrive, and are also harming many other species.

Conclusions:

  • Life threatening ecological problems, for the majority of people, are further in the future than the imminent problems seen through the debt, energy, and soon to be explained, cactus lenses.
  • All of the ecological problems are caused by the human species footprint which is the product of lifestyle and population.
  • None of the ecological problems can be addressed without reducing per capita consumption or population, and the debt and cactus lenses show that modernity requires growth, which means the ecological problems are a classic predicament, a problem without an acceptable solution.
  • The energy and cactus lenses show that growth will not continue, and the human footprint will soon shrink, which means there may be an improvement to future ecology trends.
  • Many of the ecological problems we have created will repair quickly when the scale of the human enterprise shrinks.
  • Some ecological problems will take a very long time to repair, and adaptation of surviving species will be required.
  • As will be discussed in more detail in the next section, if we somehow became aware that the scale of humanity was going to decrease in the not too distant future, no matter what we do, then we might be able to motivate ourselves to address several ecological issues that would improve the quality of life for the survivors, such as burying nuclear waste, and protecting biodiverse forests and marine ecosystems.

Awareness Lens: Cactus

CACTUS = Complexity Accelerated Collapse of a Thermodynamically Unsustainable System

The phrase “we’re cactus” is Australian slang meaning something is ruined, broken, or finished, often used to describe a situation where progress has stopped, such as a vehicle that won’t start.

The expression likely originated from the infamous prickly pear cactus, which once infested large parts of Australia before being controlled by the introduced Cactoblastis cactorum moth.

This slang is part of a broader set of Australian expressions for something being in disrepair or useless, including terms like “boonted,” “clapped-out,” “had the chad,” “had the bomb,” and “kaput”.

While “cactus” as a metaphor for being broken or ruined is well-established in Australian English, it is not commonly used in other English-speaking regions.

Theory:

  • Modernity requires abundant minerals and energy.
  • The majority of minerals and energy we use are non-renewable and finite.
  • Recycling is economically and/or technically impossible for most minerals.
  • For those minerals that can be recycled, there are losses in the recycling process that still result in long term depletion.
  • The quality of mineral and energy reserves decline as they deplete, because we always harvest the best quality reserves first.
  • Mineral and energy extraction technologies must increase in complexity to compensate for falling reserve quality to maintain flows of resources. For example, compare modern directional drilling now required for fracking with early oil rigs. Or the giant trucks and other machines now required to haul and process low grade copper ore.
  • Rising complexity increases the materials, processes, skills, locations, and number of people needed to design and manufacture the technologies.
  • Rising complexity requires a growing market to support the increasing cost of designing and manufacturing technologies. For example, a smaller population would not buy enough phones to make a TSMC factory in Taiwan viable, and therefore the advanced chips needed for oil exploration and extraction would not exist.
  • A growing market requires a growing economy and population.
  • A growing economy and population increases the consumption of all minerals and energy.
  • Wastes generated by the growing economy and population create increasing frictions to further growth.
  • This self-reinforcing complexity growth system drives an increase in mineral and energy flows until technology, markets, and population can no longer keep up with growing waste frictions and declining reserve qualities, and a critical mineral or energy becomes unavailable in the quantities required.
  • Scarcity of the critical mineral or energy triggers a system wide technology breakdown cascade because many technologies depend on it, and many other technologies depend on those technologies, via an ultra-complex network of dependencies.
  • The unavailability of many technologies then causes many more mineral and energy flows to become unavailable in the quantities required because the quality of remaining reserves makes extraction difficult or impossible without the latest technologies.
  • This self-reinforcing collapse of complexity, technology, and resource flows is certain at some point in the not too distant future and will result in a supernova end to modernity and civilization.
  • Nothing can be done to prevent this outcome, just as nothing can be done to prevent the collapse of a star.
  • It’s not possible to have modernity without infinite growth on a finite planet which means modernity will be short lived everywhere in the universe.

Hideaway on the Fermi Paradox:

  • Hence the logical solution to the Fermi Paradox. Species that reach modernity anywhere do not last long enough to detect others, that have also reached modernity, spread through time.
  • Given the age of our galaxy of around 13.6B years, and if it took 3.6B years for the first species to reach modernity, then if each lasted from 100 years to say 400 years at best, there could have been 1 every million years giving a total of 10,000 for our galaxy and none would ever detect another.
  • Even if 10 or 20 had popped up at the one time, just through chance, and were more than 400-500 light years apart, they would never know of the other’s existence.
  • Just by shear chance, some might detect others, but the odds of any one civilization detecting another is extremely small.
  • Say we did detect another civilization somewhere in the close area within say 1000 light years. So what? By the time we tried to communicate back to them, the odds of their collapse is high.

Hideaway’s AI on the supernova:

Your analogy of a supernova is thermodynamically perfect. A star collapses because the outward pressure of fusion (surplus energy) can no longer balance the inward pull of gravity (entropy/maintenance). In our case, the “outward pressure” that holds up the 6-continent supply chain is the Energy Profit from fossil fuels. Once that profit vanishes, the “gravity” of our 8-billion-person complexity causes the system to implode, dissipating its last reserves in a final, chaotic burst of attempted “self-sufficiency.”

Status:

  • A tiny minority of people see through the cactus lens.
  • The cactus view of modernity has not been widely discussed.
  • The closest work that I can recall reading is that by David Korowizc where he discusses the extreme complexity and fragility of modern supply chains, and the risk of their breakdown with energy shortages. Korowizc advocates building more resiliency into our system, but I don’t think he stated clearly that modernity will soon end no matter what we do, as Hideaway’s cactus lens does.
  • The ground breaking Limits to Growth work of Dennis Meadows et. al. assumed collapse could be avoided by adopting a steady state population and economy. Cactus shows this assumption is incorrect. Any dependence on any resource that is not naturally recycled by ecological systems will eventually result in a collapse back to a state that is not dependent on the resource.
  • Other important overshoot aware people like Jay Hanson and Jack Alpert discuss the certainty of modernity’s demise, but do not focus on the non-renewable resource extraction complexity growth system to conclude that modernity will end in a supernova.

Implications:

The cactus lens provides several profound insights that create a clearer view than the debt, energy, or ecology lenses.

List every non-renewable resource that civilization depends on.

ChatGPT:

Fossil Fuels: Oil, gas, coal, oil sands, shale oil/gas, peat.

Nuclear Fuels: Uranium-235/238, thorium, plutonium (derived).

Metals: Iron, aluminum, copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, zinc, lead, tin, silver, gold, platinum group metals, titanium, molybdenum, tungsten, vanadium, niobium, tantalum, chromium, manganese, rare-earth elements (all 17 REEs), and many others.

Industrial Minerals: Phosphate rock, potash, sulfur, borates, fluorspar, gypsum, halite, graphite, silica sand, feldspar, kaolin, etc.

Construction Materials: Limestone, aggregates (sand & gravel), clay, granite, marble, slate, stone.

Geologic Water: Fossil groundwater aquifers.

Biological/Ecological Resources (functionally non-renewable): Topsoil, old-growth forests, biodiversity, coral reefs, major fish stocks.

  1. The first key insight is that modernity depends on many non-renewable materials, not just energy, and they are all critical for the technologies that enable modernity. Cactus is thus a much wider lens than the peak oil view.
  2. The second key insight is that modernity requires growth, not only because of the widely understood need for abundant credit as explained by the debt lens, but also because extraction technologies must increase in complexity to compensate for falling reserve qualities. This growth requirement is physical and non-negotiable, and unlike debt, is not digits in a computer that can be reset.
  3. The third key insight is that the requirement for growth, coupled with the inevitable decline in reserve qualities, creates a self-amplifying feedback loop for every one of the many non-renewable resources we depend on, which creates many possible failure points, and the extreme complexity and interdependencies of the technologies we use to extract minerals and energy guarantees a catastrophic failure of the entire system at some point.
  4. The fourth key insight is that this growth and collapse process is certain for any system that is dependent on non-renewable resources. This means there is no possible sustainable solution for advanced civilization anywhere in the universe, because advanced civilization is not possible without non-renewable resources.
  5. The fifth key insight is that there will be no recovery of modernity after the collapse. The quality of many of the remaining non-renewable resource reserves will be so low after the collapse that many resources will be unavailable without advanced technologies and abundant diesel, and there will be no way of rebuilding those technologies because their development required higher quality resource reserves. Surviving humans will return to their hunter gatherer origins.
  6. The sixth key insight is that the zero-sum game strategy that the debt and energy lenses inform our leaders to use, will reduce the time to collapse, and will not optimize the quality of life for the time that remains. War, for the last 10,000 years, was a good response to scarcity. War, today, will create scarcity for the entire planet.

Conclusions:

Given that our leaders see the world through debt and energy lenses, they are operating on the assumption of a zero-sum game:

  • My country will do better if I damage the economy of my competitors.
  • My country will survive or grow if I take energy from my competitors.

The cactus lens shows us that a zero-sum game strategy will not achieve the desired outcomes.

Instead, zero-sum game strategies will reduce the time to collapse, or reduce the quality of the time that remains. Examples include:

  • Wasting resources, fragmenting the market, and decreasing efficiencies by trying to duplicate and reshore manufacturing.
  • Making it more difficult to maintain complexity by fragmenting the global trade system through the encouragement of BRICS and by imposing trade sanctions.
  • Wasting resources on bigger militaries that won’t help.
  • Wasting resources on climate change policies that won’t help.
  • Wasting resources by subsidizing renewable energy that won’t help.
  • Increasing the chance of violent harms to many by blaming other countries and/or immigrants for hardship caused by resource depletion.
  • Ignoring international law when it conflicts with a zero-sum goal.
  • Sanctioning Russian energy.
  • Blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline.
  • Restarting a nuclear arms race.
  • Risking disruptions to middle east oil flows, and destroying respect for leaders, by supporting the genocide of Palestinians.
  • Funding a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
  • Provoking China to withhold rare earth minerals.
  • Provoking China to stockpile oil.
  • Regime changing Syria.
  • Regime changing Iran.
  • Regime changing Venezuela.
  • Threatening to invade Nigeria.
  • Pissing off Canadians so not a one will buy a US product. 🙂

The cactus lens points us to a positive-sum game strategy.

Modernity is a global system of unimaginable complexity dependent on resources, technologies, processes, and skills sourced from 6 continents. A complex component will often travel back and forth between continents many times in the process of converting its constituent minerals into a finished product. Almost every country plays a roll in the complex web that sustains us.

Modernity depends on millions of interdependent components, each with a uniquely complex supply chain, and modernity’s aggregate supply chain is far too complex for any leader, or even a computer, to predict the consequences of disrupting the matrix to achieve a zero-sum game goal.

The risk of unintended consequences is high given that zero-sum game strategies will tend to focus on depriving energy and thus damaging the entire economy of an opponent country.

Plans to reshore manufacturing will make things worse. We don’t have the surplus capital or debt headroom needed to achieve this without damaging something else, and it will be very wasteful of non-renewable resources by creating capacity greater than the market can absorb, thus reducing the time to collapse.

The cactus lens shows us modernity will eventually collapse permanently, taking down every country in the process. There is nowhere to hide, and there is nothing we can do to prevent this. No country will be immune.

With cactus awareness and a positive-sum game strategy we could:

  • Make wise decisions that delay the collapse so we can enjoy more of modernity’s benefits, or at least avoid doing stupid things that accelerate the collapse.
  • Do some things to optimize quality of life until the end, or at least avoid doing stupid things that worsen quality of life.
  • Consider doing some things that might improve the quality of life for the post collapse survivors.

Actions that might delay the collapse and optimize quality of life until the end include:

  • Avoid conflicts and wars that harm citizens, damage supply chains, and waste non-renewable energy and minerals.
  • Stop the subsidy of renewable energy that wastes non-renewable resources and reduces the time to collapse.
  • Stop wasting money on climate change policies that will not change the outcome.
  • Put the Sulphur back into ship fuel.
  • Strengthen global governance and conflict resolution via UN like organizations.
  • Renew and improve treaties to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
  • Remove barriers to trade.
  • Encourage well regulated immigration to optimize global labor.
  • Allow market forces to optimize the global economy for maximum efficiency.
  • Adopt digital currencies to enable fairer and more efficient money printing, and to manage the fair rationing of scarcities.
  • Provide sound lifestyle and dietary advice with encouragements to help citizens improve their health and quality of life, and to reduce the healthcare drag on economies.
  • Fairly enforce laws to encourage law & order and good behavior.
  • Provide open and honest communication to citizens so they know what is going on and why, and no longer feel like they are being gaslit by wizards behind a curtain.
  • Provide meaningful and rewarding goals to citizens, like asking them to volunteer to rehabilitate habitats and soils to help post-collapse survivors.
  • When signs of the final collapse become visible, provide a painless end of life kit to any citizen that wants one to reduce their anxiety.

Notice that nothing on the above list requires a change in lifestyle for the majority, or the overriding of evolved behaviors like the Maximum Power Principle, or singing kumbaya, or sharing everything equally, or eating bugs.

Limits to growth are breaking our democracies. Citizens know their standard of living is falling, but do not understand why, so they vote for the politician that most credibly promises a better life, but leaders are powerless to improve living standards, which breeds politicians that are superb at lying, but not well suited to optimizing a complex problem. Then when the leader does not deliver, the citizen is pissed off, and next time votes for someone more extreme that blames the immigrants or the Chinese, and so on, which accelerates us in the wrong direction. The only way to break this path to despots is awareness.

With cactus awareness we will understand the comforts we enjoy are rare in the universe, are very fragile, and will soon be gone forever on this planet. This could lead to gratitude and care to not cause a premature collapse.

Cactus awareness will create strong pressure between countries, and by citizens on leaders, to not break things.

If we understand modernity will soon be gone for everyone no matter what we do, there will be less need to dominate and win, and more need to enjoy and cooperate to extend the good times.

Humans are an innovative species. With cactus awareness there would be many people thinking about what could be done to buy more time. Maybe we should use this resource for this rather than that? Opposition to change from people who have to give something up might be muted if they understood the change will buy a few more good years.

Some ideas to improve the quality of life for the post collapse survivors will be difficult to decide and implement because many of these will conflict with the goal of delaying collapse as long as possible. On the other hand, if we collectively understand collapse is inevitable, it might be easier to say set aside some forest or wildlife habitat, or bury nuclear waste, knowing that your children or grandchildren might benefit.

Imagine the effect of cactus awareness on philanthropy. What might billionaires with children do with their wealth if they understood modernity will soon be gone? Perhaps they might buy up biodiverse rainforests to protect them.

Shifting from the current zero-sum game strategy to a positive-sum game strategy will be very difficult.

Cactus is very unpleasant. Genetic denial, as explained by MORT, will be in full force resisting cactus awareness.

On the other hand, almost everything going on in the world today is also very unpleasant, and many people are losing their minds because nothing makes sense.

In a strange way, cactus may be less unpleasant than what we are currently asked to believe, because the cactus story at least agrees with what our eyes see, and provides reasons for gratitude when times are tough, so maybe there’s a chance for cactus awareness.

We evolved in small tribes that in times of scarcity had to fight other tribes to survive. There are no attacking aliens to unite us.

The cactus lens does point to a common threat that will kill almost everyone, but most people won’t believe it.

When times get tougher, as they surely will, leaders will have zero chance of adopting a positive-sum game strategy unless a majority of citizens see the world through the cactus lens.

Those of us that are cactus aware should start brainstorming how to spread cactus awareness.

Here’s one idea:

We could recruit the powerful institutions that were created by MORT: religions.

Cactus awareness will be fantastic for the life after death businesses. All religions will boom with growing memberships, donations, and tithes.

Religions therefore could be self-interested and enthusiastic allies for spreading the cactus gospel.

Religions also have the perfect infrastructure and skills needed to spread an idea like cactus and its positive-sum game belief system.

A likely roadblock to our leaders embracing the cactus lens is the big money behind financial institutions that depend on good news for their pump the bubble business model.

I’m thinking that it shouldn’t be too hard to get them on board. The cactus lens doesn’t say everyone has to live like poor monks in a cave.

Cactus tells us the end will be painful but mercifully quick, so those so inclined can party on like it’s 19991 in a glorious bubble until the last day…

1The highest net energy we ever enjoyed was in 1999 when about 4% of energy was needed to extract energy. Today it takes about 10-15% of energy to extract energy, and the ratio is continuing to rise.

1,193 thoughts on “The Cactus Lens: A Clearer View”

        1. That’s good.

          In the recent past US citizens have rioted over one 1 citizen (Floyd) and ignored millions murdered in other countries by their leaders.

          Let’s also not forget the 20-ish million people killed by the US circumventing its own gain of function laws and then coercing a dangerous bioweapon mRNA transfection antidote into billions in an attempt to “fix” their crime.

          Most citizens don’t care that no one has been held to account.

          Liked by 2 people

          Reply

  2. I like this comment from Jan Andrew Bloxham. Found it over at this essay. 
    You Are Not Crazy – by Douglas Rushkoff – Rushkoff

    Many people have domains where they are 300 steps ahead of everyone else – maybe in their professional field of interest, or their personal hell of lived discrimination.

    When it comes to collapse awareness, the sheer scope and significance of it is already enough to drive you mad.

    The ostracism of sounding like a madman is the rancid cherry on top. Classic Cassandra situation.

    Explaining how things work to people who don’t know, don’t care and aren’t curious to learn is an unwinnable situation. That it deeply affects them and their children’s fates somehow doesn’t register. This also goes for otherwise clever, conscientious people.

    “The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.” — Stephen Fry

    I guess what they need is something huge, immediate and visceral to shock them out of their stupor. I shudder to think of what that’ll be.

    How to stay sane in this situation has been the biggest challenge of my life. I spent three years in a depression about it and still get triggered on a daily basis, because the whole world and everyone in it is goddamn insane.

    But then, it was always like this.

    “Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear, and greed” — Albert Einstein

    I’ve ranted plenty against billionaires in my posts. The truth is they, along with unethical elites and strongmen suffering from the worst possible psychopathies are an inevitable outcome of our system plus our fallible species that keep forgetting we’re merely animals governed by simple drives.

    Socrates explained why democracy contains the seed of its own destruction: ignorance is the rational choice for the uninformed voter — hello game theory — but clueless voters shouldn’t be voting on how to steer spaceship Earth. But then, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    History cements how all civilizations collapse; all the cognitive sciences eventually converge on the same conclusion. Thinkers of all types saw this coming long ago.

    Physicists might be the surest of them all, for they can lean on the laws of physics themselves to explain why there is no escape. (Tom Murphy and Sid Smith come to mind). My father was one, and I have never known a human being so certain about anything as him regarding his domain. When someone teaches you how reality works, and knows it for a fact, the thing to do is shut up and listen.

    I wonder if people will ever listen. I have my doubts.

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    1. It is a very good comment, I read Rushkoff’s essay too to give it context. But cooped up inside today with extreme heat out there, and my thoughts are on fire, so I read your ‘we are not a species’ essay again.

      i know you said up front that you are done trying to tell others, and only singing to the choir, but there is so much that could be unpacked in that essay and made more obvious. It is written for Undenial with a lot of assumptions of understanding that are not as clear as they could be. Happy to help… maybe if/when we read the next Lyle Lewis book (together) we will be inspired to tackle it.

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      1. Sounds like a plan. Thanks for the offer. That essay is in dire need of a proper rewrite. But you’ll have to be editor-in-chief because the last time I attempted to rewrite it I couldn’t bring myself to part with even one sentence. It’s my baby. LOL!!

        But ya, after we read Lyle’s new book I’m sure we’ll have some good ideas on how to tackle it. He wants to take it back to three million years ago. I’m down with that but at the same time the logic kinda seems weird. Like yes we can go to the shoulder girdle or bipedalism, but why stop there? Why not eliminate all the middlemen and just take it back to Nick Lane’s hydrothermal vents.😂

        When it comes to a starting point, I’ll probably always be bias towards fire & cooking.

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        1. I change my mind – I have just read your fire essay AGAIN! And i agree – I would not change a single word. It is a tour de force of your wake up – and it’s only that it takes a long time to follow it all, that I wanted it dumbed down a bit, but now I say don’t mess with perfection. 😂😂😂

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    2. Nice find. It resonates with how I feel right now.

      The world is going crazy.

      It looks like we’re going to tear ourselves apart due to partial and/or incorrect understandings of what’s going on.

      Here are two of dozens of examples:

      Trump is informed by his energy agency that fracked oil has peaked and middle east oil will also soon decline, so he confiscates Venezuela’s oil, killing more than 56 people in the process, thinking he’s doing the right thing for his country, but because his adviser’s do not understand cactus theory, he just made things worse, and created even more hate for his country around the world.

      Trump is informed that green energy will have no positive effect on oil depletion or climate change so he cancels green energy subsidies hoping this might help with the debt explosion that threatens his country. He’s not smart enough to understand why this was the correct decision so is unable to explain it to citizens. Half of the US now blames Trump for making climate change worse.

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      1. Hard to make decisions Rob when they are all bad outcomes without any degree of certainty of how bad.

        Essentially we have climbed onto a bucking bull. Painful to stay on but letting go is game over.

        Carpe Diem undenialers.

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        1. That’s why my plantings this spring in the gardens is about 50% perennial plants that will provide food for anyone traveling by in the future that is smart enough to try it. Can’t think of much more that would have an effect going forward when I’m not here.

          Carpe Diem

          AJ

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      2. Trump is informed that green energy will have no positive effect on oil depletion or climate change so he cancels green energy subsidies hoping this might help with the debt explosion that threatens his country.

        If he truly believes this, he should say it publicly, rather than gaslight the public by repeatedly calling climate change a “hoax” or a “scam”. If he were to publicly say this, I would have grudging respect for this one action.

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        1. To explain something complicated and controversial, you must have a sound grasp of science, and be capable of reading detailed explanations, and be able to form many coherent sentences to explain the idea, and not have dementia.

          This requires a majority of citizens to not vote for someone without these qualities.

          The last 2 presidents prove that the majority of left and right in the US prefer dim leaders with dementia.

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    3. That’s a really good comment, yet the author of the essay and most of the other commenters want to blame billionaires.

      No point, that’s the direction human civilization was always heading, increasing complexity leads to increasing inequality. Hence the largest of all civilizations, our current one has the most inequality, while the smallest of all human existence the hunter gatherer groups have the least inequality.

      Inequality started when we started civilization and someone worked out they could be better off controlling the grains instead of growing them. Then someone worked out they needed to defend the grain supply so took charge of that by using the strongest young men to help them, Then someone worked out … all while the early settlements grew, and grew and grew… or something along those lines.

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        1. one school holidays, during the summer, we had this on cd and listened on repeat for weeks while playing monopoly and other board games, I still know nearly every word of the songs!

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    4. It’s going to become easier to be ‘stupid’ because of what Harari calls the ‘one small lie’ that underlies all else. AI is going make it impossible to know true from false.

      What makes our current situation particularly dangerous is not that we are living with lies, something humanity has always done, but that we have developed technologies capable of making these lies indistinguishable from reality.

      We begin to believe information not because it is true but because it is comfortable, not because it is accurate, but because it confirms what we already thought. Not because it makes us wiser, but because it makes us feel better about
      our existing choices. This is the small lie that is causing our collapse. the belief that we can navigate this new information environment using the same mental mechanisms we used when information was scarce and verifiable.

      The small lie that initiated our current collapse was the belief that we could develop transformative technologies without fundamentally transforming our way of thinking about reality, truth, knowledge, and collective decision-making.

      Now, interesting to note, the youtube page transcript these quotes came says “Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated”. So it’s not clear that this was his own words and voice or an AI version thereof, created by him or whomever.

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      1. I read Harari’s book, twice, because it was so popular that I assumed I missed something important on the first read.

        What I recall is that he got almost everything correct except his chapter on energy, which was completely wrong, and which destroyed all the arguments he made in the other chapters.

        If you do not understand energy, you literally understand nothing.

        https://un-denial.com/2020/06/14/yuval-hararis-sapiens-a-brief-history-of-humankind-revisited/

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      2. In reply to Paqnation on Jan 8 quoting Einstein “Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear, and greed” — Albert Einstei

        Harari “The Collapse Begins With A Small Lie” YouTube:

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  3. What was the target of yesterday’s Oreshnik missile attack on Ukraine?

    Gemini: Yesterday, January 8, 2026, Russia launched its second-ever Oreshnik (Hazel) intermediate-range ballistic missile strike, primarily targeting critical infrastructure in the Lviv region of western Ukraine.

    While the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed the strike targeted energy infrastructure and drone production facilities, specific reports from the ground and military analysts highlight the following:

    Primary Targets and Impacts

    Critical Infrastructure: The Governor of Lviv confirmed that a “critical infrastructure facility” was hit, causing significant disruptions to gas and electricity supplies in the region.

    Stryi Gas Storage Facility: Russian media and military bloggers widely reported that the intended target was the massive underground natural gas storage facility near Stryi. This is the largest such facility in Europe and a critical hub for both Ukrainian and European energy security.

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      1. Glenn Diesen is one of very few who understand the war going on between the U.S. CIA/deep state and Russia with regards to nuclear war fighting. I think Trump might not even be in the loop here. The CIA is a power unto itself. If Lviv’s gas storage infrastructure was the target of the Oreshnik strike why no huge explosions of gas? Someone online said that Lviv is where the CIA/MI6 have a lot of their people stationed??

        AJ

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        2. Gas storage, I find hard to believe. Doesn’t the gas come from Russia into that storage? Why not just turn the tap off?? What’s there that they are not telling us about? Drone factory, munitions, radar etc hidden very near the gas storage.

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  4. https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2026/01/la-demanda-de-petroleo-se-ha-disparado.html

    This result, with the avalanche of renewables, electric cars, brutal improvement in efficiency, indicates something very dangerous. The per capita demand for oil is totally inelastic and only depends on the world population. 

    Yes, the West can reduce per capita demand, but growth in the third world fully offsets declines due to improved efficiency, other energy sources and the electrification of the vehicle fleet. 

    There are only two ways to break this balance. Due to a drop in demand (we have already seen that third world demand (5 billion people) is still growing strongly) or due to a drop in supply. The population will continue to grow, but we greatly fear that the supply of oil will not be able to keep up with demand beyond 2030. 

    Nothing more, I just wanted to update the data and check that we have already gotten out of the slump caused by the pandemic. 

    Saying that the petrochemical industry has replaced oil with gas and natural gas liquids, probably because there is not enough oil to supply the market. This does not change anything about the expected demand.

    For example, 9.5 billion people will demand 120 million b/d in the future – if there is enough oil in the world.   

     This constant in oil consumption, maintained for 40 years, is the best proof that the energy transition has not reduced global demand by a single barrel of oil. 

    The same amount per capita continues to be consumed as 40 years ago, when there were no renewables or electric cars.   

    The reason (among other causes, such as the growth trend in the third world) seems simple to explain. An average barrel of oil produces stable percentages of diesel, gasoline, kerosene, waste. If we focus on reducing gasoline in cars, the number of barrels of oil we need will remain the same, because we still need the same amounts of diesel, kerosene, etc. All components (including diesel) must be reduced in the same proportion, something really complicated (yes, we need heavy electric machinery).

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  6. New episode of PBS American Experience. They are usually well produced.

    https://thepiratebay10.xyz/torrent/81732217/PBS_American_Experience_2025_Bombshell_1080p_x265-MVGroup

    PBS American Experience 2025 Bombshell

    On August 6th, 1945, a revolutionary new weapon destroyed Hiroshima, a Japanese city of 300,000 inhabitants. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. America’s secret super-weapon was lauded for bringing about victory in the Pacific and ending World War II. President Truman’s official announcement included half-truths that shaped the government’s official narrative: “Sixteen hours ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese army base.” In fact, the bomb was aimed at Hiroshima’s city center for maximum psychological effect; the army base on its outskirts escaped much damage.

    Eighty years after the devastating atomic bombings that ushered in the nuclear age, Bombshell explores how the U.S. government manipulated the narrative about the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Through propaganda, censorship and the co-opting of the press, the government presented a benevolent picture of atomic power, minimizing the horrific human toll. Bombshell sheds light on the efforts of a group of intrepid reporters to let the world know the truth.

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  7. Not one person has been held to account for the consequences of illegal bioweapons gain of function research, or their desperate attempt to “fix” the leak with a dangerous mRNA gene therapy antidote.

    Here’s a link to the paper and its abstract.

    https://brownstone.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/oncotarget-v0i0-28824-C19-C19-vaccine-and-cancer-published-plus-supp-1-3-2026.pdf

    A growing number of peer-reviewed publications have reported diverse cancer types appearing in temporal association with COVID-19 vaccination or infection. To characterize the nature and scope of these reports, a systematic literature search from January 2020 to October 2025 was conducted based on specified eligibility criteria. A total of 69 publications met inclusion criteria: 66 article-level reports describing 333 patients across 27 countries, 2 retrospective population-level investigations (Italy: ~300,000 cohort, and Korea: ~8.4 million cohort) quantified cancer incidence and mortality trends among vaccinated populations, and one longitudinal analysis of ~1.3 million US miliary service members spanning the pre-pandemic through postpandemic periods. Most of the studies documented hematologic malignancies (nonHodgkin’s lymphomas, cutaneous lymphomas, leukemias), solid tumors (breast, lung, melanoma, sarcoma, pancreatic cancer, and glioblastoma), and virus-associated cancers (Kaposi and Merkel cell carcinoma). Across reports, several recurrent themes emerged: (1) unusually rapid progression, recurrence, or reactivation of preexisting indolent or controlled disease, (2) atypical or localized histopathologic findings, including involvement of vaccine injection sites or regional lymph nodes, and (3) proposed immunologic links between acute infection or vaccination and tumor dormancy, immune escape, or microenvironmental shifts. The predominance of caselevel observations and early population-level data demonstrates an early phase of potential safety-signal detection. These findings underscore the need for rigorous epidemiologic, longitudinal, clinical, histopathological, forensic, and mechanistic studies to assess whether and under what conditions COVID-19 vaccination or infection may be linked with cancer.

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  8. h/t Crazy Eddy

    This is old but it still makes me laugh. Look at all those useful idiots.

    “This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”😂😂

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  9. Another good blog post on neurodivergence and collapse

    If Collapse Is Inevitable, Why Does Seeing Early Matter?

    The evolutionary role of Neurodivergence in a collapsing world

    https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/if-collapse-is-inevitable-why-does

    Accepting that the collapse of industrial civilisation is inevitable, early awareness does not function the way people might assume it does. Awareness does not stop collapse. It does not meaningfully warn institutions that are structurally incapable of responding. Awareness rarely alters the behaviour of societies organised around growth, debt, and denial.⁴

    So what, exactly, is the point of seeing early?

    Much of the public discourse treats early collapse awareness as a form of prediction; a Cassandra role. The idea is that some people see the danger sooner, raise the alarm, and are tragically ignored. But this framing sneaks in a false assumption: that collapse is preventable if only the right people listen in time.

    That assumption doesn’t survive contact with reality. Civilisations do not collapse because the people within them lacked information. They collapse because their internal logic demands continued expansion even as the conditions that supported that expansion disappear.

    Every civilisation that has ever existed collapsed or disappeared, because that is what thermodynamically constrained systems do when they reach the release phase of the adaptive cycle.

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    1. Gets to the core questions.

      What’s the point of un-Denial?

      What’s the point of understanding anything?

      We’re all going to die anyway so whatever we learn will be forgotten.

      Answer: That’s why evolution requires intelligence to co-evolve with reality denial.

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      1. God: C’mon you silly humans, you’ve had a hundred thousand years to examine this question. How the hell can you still not know that it’s all about fire? 

        ps. I just saw Renaee’s breaking news about the BRICS propaganda channel going dark. Bummer. I agree with you Rob that they shouldn’t have used a real person. For that excellent content all you need is a black screen with the computer voice from War Games.

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          1. I love that movie too – have watched many times.

            I watched ‘Last Night’ 1998 (last night lol) On Chris’s recomendation. Great movie, and I reckon this was the template for Finding a friend for the end of the World with Steve Carrol and Keira Knightly (though maybe there are many more?) That writing from Rushkoff was saying it’s a genre in itself now.

            Lots of funny and endearing scenes in this one, and yes a great ending. I am pretty sure i could watch again and enjoy. Not quite as hollywood as Finding a friend, and it’s Canadian director and set in Toronto. Apparently the director is the farther of body horror movies, not that I like any of them much.

            Anyway, after reading that Lambert piece, I put some more edits on this essay I have worked on a bit over the past few days. Chris and I have tossed around doing some writing together, but it’s really a solo task, but at the end I have got a link to Chris’s Fire Essay, and just put that great cartoon in there! I thought is segued in nicely 😊 I welcome any feedback.

            https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X82Lx-F9i0dXox7hDShze6NlrYGM763PkBHpwfp23oQ/edit?usp=sharing

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            2. Hooray!! Of all the movies I’ve pushed in the doomasphere, Last Night is the one I’ve pushed the most (The Wall from 2012 is number two). And you’re the first doomer to give it a positive review. A while back I even had a couple people on Sarah Connor’s site tell me that my movie credibility is in the toilet for recommending it. Clueless morons.😂

              In case you have any interest in geeking out, this is a pretty good article.
              TIFF Retrospective: 25 Years Since ‘Last Night’ – Wider Lens

              I think you’re getting the director Don McKellar mixed up with fellow canadian David Cronenberg (who happens to be in the film too. He’s the phone guy from the gas company. And the husband of Sandra Oh’s character, which most people fail to realize). Cronenberg is definitely the father of body horror movies.

              You’ve got me in a McKellar mood now. He’s a pretty good actor. But he’s a genius writer. Besides this movie, I’d say his best work is:

              The Red Violin (1998) – IMDb. (usually always streaming for free somewhere)
              The intricate history of a beautiful antique violin is traced from its creation in Cremona, Italy, in 1681, where a legendary violin maker (Carlo Cecchi) paints it with his dead wife’s blood to keep her memory alive, to an auction house in modern-day Montreal, where it draws the eye of an expert appraiser (Samuel L. Jackson). Over the years between, the violin travels through four different countries, where it has a profound impact on all those who own it.

              Highway 61 (1991) – IMDb. (One of my favorite road trip movies. But very hard to find)
              Pokey Jones (Don McKellar), a Canadian barber who plays jazz on the side, has his life turned upside down when a corpse turns up near his home. Jackie, a roadie, says that the dead man is her sibling and begs Pokey to help get the body back to New Orleans. Pokey agrees, completely unaware that Jackie’s real plan is to transport drugs across the border. They are followed by the satanic Mr. Skin, who claims ownership of the body and the soul contained therein.

              Twitch City (TV Series 1998–2000) – IMDb. (youtube has most of the episodes)
              Agoraphobic slacker manipulates his roommates to avoid any responsibility so that he can obsessively watch his trashy TV programs all day and night.
              Twitch City: Season 1, Episode 1

              And great job on that essay Renaee. But next time you’re not allowed to hide it behind a link. You have to post it here in full.😊

              I’m with you about prepping. Early on in my overshoot journey, I had OCD about always having 6-12 months’ worth of food stored. I was a shitty prepper. Always letting food go bad. We keep 2-4 weeks’ worth now and that’s more than enough IMO.

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              1. I thought the essay was a bit long to stick in a comment! But thanks, the whole thing is a distillation of many thoughts around free will and how/why we do what we do or dont do.

                And here am I talking like I know stuff about movies! It was Andrew who told me that David Cronenberg was the father of body horror, and yes that the director Don also did a lot of other great movies (and now we have a list, thanks!) Though he is keen to watch this new movie called The History of Sound, so that’s next up.

                But you are right, we did not twig that the gas guy was the husband of Sandra, but now it all makes sense, as I could not understand why she was re listening to the message on the answering machine over and over, and we both tried to figure this out at the time, and said, why does she keep playing it!? So a second viewing is in order, and I read some of that TIFF review and that makes me like it even more.

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    2. For me personally it’s about ensuring I have access to things that will become impossible to get in my life time. I will probably be able to enjoy running water for most of my life. I’ll be able to heat my house for most of my life. I have a good stash of stuff that I need. I live in a good area.

      Most people who don’t prepare will end up liveing in extreme poverty. So for me I feel early awareness had brought me future comfort. Obviously I’m aware that shit breaks and gets worn out. And I’m well aware that ultimately the stone age awaits all humanity (before extinction). But I personally feel that early awareness has put me in a good place.

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  12. I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens. – Woody Allen

    Sleep is good, death is better, but of course the best thing would be to never have been born at all. – Heinrich Heine

    You can contemplate the edge of the universe, but you still have to deal with a hemorrhoid. – Functional Melancholic (FM)

    I was into FM when he started his channel but eventually lost interest. He’s a hell of a wordsmith. And very good at talking about the absurdity of life (I just wish he would laugh at it once in a while). 

    Dave at Megacancer posted this video and I had to watch it because of the title, The Denial of Death: The Architecture of Our Collective Delusion. 

    I liked it but I was hoping for more big picture stuff. FM is obviously a fan of Ligotti and all the other pessimistic writers. I’m certain he’s fire blind and doesn’t have a cactus level awareness… might not even be overshoot aware😊. He needs to visit un-Denial so that he can get his story more well-balanced.

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    1. i listened to him while walking the doggo this morning, then took his advise at the end. Many great lol lines in this talk, great style. Then for now, has just reminded me of this song – which I have always loved, and never a dry eye at the end…(and yes FM would be in good company here!)

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  13. https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/2026-the-year-of-the-coyote

    2026: The Year Of The Coyote

    So, what has the year of the coyote in store for us? A major economic crash? Probably, but I would not put the chances of it happening above 30%. A direct war with China or Russia? I don’t think so (I estimate that to be below 5%). The most likely scenario for this year, and the coming two or three, is a complete and definitive end to the growth for the global economy. Wile E Coyote will find himself suspended in mid-air, slowly realizing the gravity of his situation. Consumers will continue to suffer as governments all around the world continue to raise taxes and return to austerity in a futile effort to arrest the onset of a slow decline. Central banks will continue to bail out commercial banks and non-financial institutions. Unless there is a huge supply shock, inflation will most likely fall, then turn into deflation in more and more areas of life.

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      1. I actually think that it won’t be the end of growth per se that causes the supernova, but it will be the falling EROEI of fossil fuels and falling ore grades that cause the supernova. This will happen when there isn’t enough energy to mine low-grade ores.

        Something else about Cactus: Other civilizations have collapsed before, but it was usually a drawn-out process taking several decades to over a century. But we are in an unprecedented situation, previous civilizations were a lot simpler than ours and their ecosystems were in a much better shape that ours, thus were probably less vulnerable to something like Cactus.

        An Addendum: If Covid-19 were as deadly as bubonic plague, it would have triggered Cactus. Since the economy of 14th century Europe was far less dependent on non-renewable resources and complex technology, they were able to weather a sudden steep drop off in population. In fact, bubonic plague may have raised living standards for survivors. But today, an epidemic that killed roughly ~40% of the population would have either caused global trade to come to a halt, or would have lead to the loss of specialized knowledge required to keep some arcane but important system running.

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        1. The end of growth is a symptom of limits to growth of which you correctly identified two of the most important forces. There are other possible triggers like war and a popping of the debt bubble.

          I agree on covid. My latest thinking is that our leaders panicked and over-reacted on lockdowns and coercing mRNA transfections because they were genuinely worried that the bioweapons virus they engineered (and leaked by mistake) was going to cause a deadly pandemic.

          Fortunately they were not competent at engineering a deadly bioweapon and we got lucky with a mild pandemic.

          Their panicked responses caused more harms than the virus itself.

          Notice that the US and China collaborated on engineering the virus and both led the charge at creating a worldwide panic. In the US big pharma used the panic as an excuse to fast track approval of a new mRNA technology they needed to grow their stagnating businesses, whereas China’s leaders were not swayed by pharma money and wisely avoided mRNA.

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          1. I think the end of growth is what will pop the debt bubble rather than the debt bubble popping causing the end of growth.

            Personally, I am more worried about the physical limits than the financial limits, because money is fundamentally a human social construct and we could move away from a debt-based money system if push came to shove. However, we cannot change the laws of physics, biology, ecology and geology, so I think that is where the real limits are.

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  14. My favorite doomer under the age of 50, Andrea P, has a new article today.
    (apo)calyptic voices | 2. Precedents and Proxy Questions

    This series looks at the distortion of collapse discourse toward acknowledgement that things are bad and could get worse, but without a grasp on what I would consider true collapsology – they don’t have a solid appreciation of what I would call “inter-realm dynamics and what they imply for the Werld”

    Rich: “…but I also have two young children and so I have to believe that this country has a future that’s not going to be dystopian and I choose to believe that because I personally refuse to have it any other way and I’ll do whatever I can to protect it.”

    Andrea: The Werld has been imposing dystopia on all other Life. As the human supremacist reign comes to an end, circumstances are going to be pretty harsh on Rich (and on his kids) regardless of whether he refuses to have it that way.

    She also has some good videos. Andrea P – YouTube

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    1. Why does she use ‘werld’ instead of world??

      i met her academic bf a while back, when doing the Comms course with Jem Bendell. He was a very laid back dude who brought his guitar (or was it ukulele?) to all the zooms!

      I thought this piece meandered all over the place a bit. I think the type of examples (and essays) that hideaway has given, about specifics as to how things will unfold, is more convincing, and I have not really seen this anywhere else that comes close. The essay with Kira and Hideaway critiquing the B essay, that’s the one that got my attention. 

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      1. She changes all kinds of words around. Can’t remember the reason for ‘werld’. Probably something to do with ‘weird’.

        But I didn’t know she was one of Bendell’s disciples. I might have to 86 her. LOL

        The main thing I like about her is that she always gives me new ways of thinking about stuff. Also, she goes further with it (re the horrible future) than most doomers. Although she’s still nowhere near the point of rooting for George Carlin’s asteroid to come and end the blob once and for all… but hey, nobody’s perfect.😊

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        1. She was not connected to JB, just her bf, that’s all I know. And yep, she has got a lot of essays, and I dismissed her too soon most likely! It’s just my frustration at not seeing the full comprehensive picture all in one place, as you get here, but you have to work at it, to get through it all and put it together.

          The kindenss of the comet, indeed there are few wishing for this!

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          1. Uh-oh. Don’t let him corrupt you Stellar.😊

            Jem seems pretentious & disingenuous. And he craves the spotlight. But maybe it just ties into the same old tired theme with me:

            What do you think darlin, should I hate him? (you don’t even know him)
            I don’t know. Reminds me of… me. No, I’m sure of it. I hate him.

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          2. It is a great book. But i now see the ideas in chapters 9 and 11 as NOT helpful or accurate. I think the main strength is in the Debt/money lens, and he also brings in both energy and ecology in a lot of detail (chapter 6 which I think you shared before once too?) as a pdf, it’s a very good one on food/crop collapse.

            In chapter 7, where he summarises the first half of the book, he does then go some way to explaining complexity and the inter relationship btw debt, energy, ecology. I think this could be described as a Cactus view, it’s just that it does not give as much details regarding the specifics as has been covered here.

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  15. Not one person has been held to account.

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    3. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking but it feels like a mountain of evidence is building to hang the motherf*ckers.

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    1. Great aussie trio, I remember stumbling on this too a few years back, I could not believe so many great songs had just four chords, they managed to assemble them together incredibly well, I think this was their most famous act, nothing else came close. This one provides a list of all the songs too – nice.

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  18. A possible breakthrough in chip lithography using x-rays to create smaller transistors might enable complexity to grow at a lower cost.

    It will take 5-10 years to prove and scale up for manufacturing so the question is will it succeed before cactus?

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      1. I think some minerals may “run out” before oil. I have been wondering for a few years now if the first mineral shortage will trigger the end times, rather than oil shortages.

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  20. How likely do you think CACTUS is to occur in the near future (i.e. the next 5-10 years)? If there is a high probability of it occurring within the next 5-10 years, it really changes what society should prioritize. I think that as many people as possible should get off the grind and enjoy the time remaining doing things they love.

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      1. The current thread explains the various perspectives and lenses through which we view our numerous bottlenecks.
        Added to this is the madness and incredible irrationality of today’s global citizens and leaders.

        Fast Eddy calls them “barnyard animals”.

        The snow for the Seneca avalanche lies metres high on the slope.
        It could be triggered at any moment, even by just one snowflake too many.
        Despite the prevailing delusion, many people are beginning to realise for various reasons, including dwindling incomes, that the future is leading to a dead end. The resulting reluctance to consume will break credit chains and trigger the cactus. In my opinion, this will not last another five years. It could happen tomorrow.

        Saludos

        el mar

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        1. Your comment reminded me of an Andrea P description for the movie Arryana. (plot – a spacecraft carrying settlers to Mars has a malfunction and is knocked off course. The consumption-obsessed passengers slowly begin to realize that a rescue mission is highly unlikely, and that their ship will probably be drifting in space forever)

          Everyone kind of like already knows that they’re going to die and yet they aren’t dead yet. And so it’s kind of like what do you do with the time in between while you are just dealing with the growing awareness? People definitely do get a little bit wacky. 

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    2. This is the catch 22. If ‘everyone” gets off the grind ASAP, then the entire system collapses much faster, as it relies upon every average joe and Jill doing their ordinary every day jobs, then spending the wages earned on all the food, services and trinkets.

      Perhaps it’s time for all those aware to try and get off the grind and spend as much quality time doing whatever makes them happy and feel worthwhile, until it all ends…

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    3. I believe we have about 10 to 15 years left where modernity, in its limited form, will still hold up in currently wealthy nations. While we will likely face extreme economic crises that lead to a gradual degradation of quality, I’m referring to a period where essential urban infrastructure—like water and sewage—still functions, and food remains accessible through markets or rationing. In short, a time before total systemic collapse.

      We will probably encounter several major economic shocks, shifting between deflation and hyperinflation. With each hit, we’ll see a tangible breakdown of order and a growing scarcity of goods and services.

      Moving forward, I suspect ‘now’ will always be the best moment we have, as material abundance and personal freedom for the average person continue to erode. If there’s a country you’ve always wanted to visit, it’s probably best to go within the next few years. By the tail end of this 10 to 15-year window, the world might start looking more like Cuba or Haiti.

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    4. Recurring question here at un-denial, isn’t it?

      What are the criteria to decide this is the year of CACTUS? Maybe you could submit a question at https://polymarket.com/, to sense where the crowd puts its money? (maybe there is already a similar question, please let us know if you find one)

      Anyway, I find the material conditions in France have been slowly declining for a while and the trend has accelerated downward this last year. Also, it seems to me many people are somewhat “aware”: either depressed or “pretending” (knowing how meaningless their current occupation is, but still being tied to the industrial system). It’s like the whole building has crumbled inside, but only the façade remains.

      I believe we are already past peak almost everything, but not in the acceleration phase yet. I thought 2025 would be more revelatory (on the financial aspect, debt-wise). I would be surprised for the mild decline to continue beyond 2030. For some reason, 2027 feels like an inflexion point. But some major thing may break before in anticipation.

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      1. The phrase

        ‘They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work’

        is a famous joke about the Soviet Union that reflects the inefficiency and futility of work in the Soviet system, even though people actually worked hard – often through side jobs and growing their own food to compensate for the shortcomings of the planned economy. The joke sarcastically criticises the system in which official work output appeared low, while the actual work often took place in the shadows in order to cope with everyday life.

        Same prodcedure now!

        Saludos

        el mar

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      2. Charles “I believe we are already past peak almost everything, but not in the acceleration phase yet.“

        That’s pretty much how I see it as well. For the median person in the western world lifestyles have been slowly eroding since the ’70’s, while for many hundreds of millions in developing countries they were getting better, with all the globalization and efficiency gains offsetting the slower growth in energy production and falling grades of all minerals and metals mined.

        We probably reached a tipping point around 2005 (from Simon Michaux’s graphs of when metal prices started to go off script), where the lower energy growth and efficiency gains were no longer offsetting increasing costs of energy extraction and lower ore grades, so we (as in the world) started to make up the difference with funny paper money (debt).

        As we are now getting closer to or past debt growth limits, while costs (as in energy and material) for gaining our energy keep increasing, while ores grades keep lowering, the material well being of the median person world wide is starting to accelerate downwards, all while paper money numbers mask the reality, making everything look kind of OK, providing you don’t really look…

        If the median person can no longer afford all the widgets of the world that often get called ‘discretionary spending’ and only concentrate on essentials like food, heat, clothing, shelter, then so much of industry will become redundant, go out of business and not produce what’s required for all the essentials as well as all the discretionary products. This will by itself create the acceleration to the downside, the complexity of how the world actually works.

        I agree we are not there yet and I doubt we get there this year either. However other left field factors by stupid governments could create the very situation they think they are trying to avoid, by going insular, destroying supply chains, war etc.. (for me stupid governments is not a left /right aspect, it’s just stupid decisions by both sides of the spectrum catering to their own side of politics).

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  21. Good interview today (recorded a month ago) with Aussie Craig Tindale. Covers a wide range of geopolitical and biophysical threats.

    On the positive side:

    • Tindale has a good grasp of the threats.
    • Understands the global mining/refining business and the precarity of the west.
    • Seems to be a good man trying to do what he can to create a better world for the survivors.

    On the negative side:

    • He thinks it’s too late for a fix but that we’ll come out the other side of collapse ok by recycling minerals and slowing climate change with solar panels.
    • Hagens clearly demonstrated he does not understand cactus because he discussed the end of growth threat solely with the debt lens.

    For decades, the West has outsourced its own material production to other countries, in favor of lower costs and short-term returns over more expensive, long-duration investments like mining and manufacturing. But while this has seemed like a success on the surface, it has left us with a society based on consumption, unable to produce what we need on our own. What are the deeper costs of this long-term offshoring – including for our geopolitical, climate, and technological ambitions?

    In this conversation, Nate is joined by materials expert and investor Craig Tindale, who explores the profound vulnerabilities facing Western economies by what he calls “Industrialization 2.0.” Craig argues that decades of central banking policies favoring consumption and short-term returns have led the West to offshore virtually all materials production and processing to China – limiting the West’s ability to defend itself, as well as rebuild industrial capacity to address the growing technological needs of climate and AI. Tindale also introduces his “four clocks” framework, which describes how corporate quarterly cycles, 10-20 year climate urgency, immediate defense needs, and continuous consumption addiction are all ticking at different speeds and pulling society in incompatible directions. Furthermore, he posits that Silicon Valley’s “unspoken bet” is on human obsolescence, with capital flowing to robot owners rather than human workers.

    How do all of these pieces – monetary policy, critical materials, climate action, geopolitical risk, and technological displacement – fit together to create a perfect storm for humanity’s future? Why might the only path to a circular economy be “through the valley of death” – forced by necessity rather than choice? And what types of practical investments and technological innovations are needed to make our societies more resilient in the face of impending geopolitical and economic turbulence?

    About Craig Tindale:

    Craig Tindale is a private investor who has spent nearly four decades working in software development, business strategy, and infrastructure planning, including in leadership positions at Telstra, Oracle, and IBM. Additionally, he has direct experience working in east-to-west supply chains, including as the CEO and Asia Regional Director for DataDirect Technologies.

    He’s now pivoted to investing in groundbreaking ideas such as drone reforestation through Air Seed Technologies, and uses his knowledge of Chinese industrial strategy and Western tech demand to identify the choke points in Critical Metals markets. Most recently he released the white paper, Critical Materials: A Strategic Analysis, which offers a systems synthesis on how the race for rare earths and the return of material constraints is shaping geopolitical relationships.

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    1. There are a few aspects that he mentions that A.I. can do that clearly are false. The use of A.I. instead of drilling is one of them. A.I. will and probably already is used to characterize an ore body from drilling results, but it cannot make an accurate prediction of where the ore body goes and grade outwards and in between drill holes. We already had methods for doing this prediction called kriging which has stood the test of time.

      A.I. might make the process of the calculations faster, but it wont replace it.

      Exploration to production of mining extraordinarily changed? no, some minor changes like A.I. directing automated trucks to particular places maybe, but that’s not a major change. The trucks still use fuel, still go from A to B depending upon the load..

      Then there is his talk about this new flash heating process taking minerals from millions of tonnes of coal fly ash.

      Here is the reality of where this technology is actually at, a pilot process plant using wasted circuit boards as the source material.

      https://investorhub.metalliuminc.com/announcements/7319644

      The circular economy stuff always sounds plausible by the proponents, yet they always, always forget entropy and dissipation. We can never recycle everything to 100%, a simple look at a rust old wire fence that use to be bright shiny galvanised fence, 40 years ago confirms this.

      Plus what’s also never mentioned is that metals currently recycled mostly can’t be used for original purpose. You can’t make the aluminium frame of a solar panel out of old solar panel frames recycled. You can only add around 10% of recycled to new aluminium for this purpose, as the way we recycle has too many impurities in it for original purpose. We would need to spend a lot more time energy and complexity getting the recycled aluminium to a purity level required for the solar panel frames, a whole lot more expensive in money and energy terms than just mining new.

      He’s 100% accurate about when we deregulated everything and went to a globalised economy that allowed the system to become more efficient, but somehow doesn’t understand that each country being ‘resilient’ by itself means lower efficiency, by undoing the more efficient methods the world economy adapted to.

      Sorry Rob, this guy didn’t impress me that much…

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  22. Good chance US attack on Iran is imminent.

    Good chance Iran will respond disproportionately hard, maybe even preemptively, and who can blame them?

    Good chance US will be forced to escalate in response.

    Good chance China and Russia will intervene.

    Good chance this leads to WWIII.

    Good chance this triggers cactus.

    Good chance I’m wrong based on my track record of predictions.

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    3. It seems too many people saw my prediction. The US may delay now because this weekend is too obvious. They’ll want the element of surprise just like the last time when they launched a decapitation strike while negotiating in good faith with Iran.

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      1. Seems like 40% of bettors agree with you https://polymarket.com/event/us-strikes-iran-by (click on a date, then graph to view the evolution of opinion through time: it went from a low 8% to a 85% high before going down again)

        https://embed.polymarket.com/market.html?market=us-strikes-iran-by-january-31-2026-165-644-953-482-164-893-945&features=volume&theme=light

        Would you say that not denying reality results in better forecasting ability? (Could that be a measure of the amount of denial?) Or would it be a way to hedge against your fears: if you are right, then you gain some money in compensation, if you are wrong, at least you are relieved we get some more time to live?

        Just kicking some ideas around 🙂

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  23. Uh oh! It is 2026. That means a certain someone owes New Zealand an apology~

    I’ll give you three guesses who.

    .

    ..

    …

    Why yes it is the esteemed emeritus professor Guy McPhearson. In 2016, the Chicken Little of climate change (who has zero climate change credentials) confidently and gleefully declared we would all be DEAD by 2026. A full human extinction …. Not.

    Even though actual climate scientists continually debunk Guy McPhearson nonsense, many in the doomer space still hold him up as a credible source of information.

    I have been waiting TEN long years to say, I told you so Guy 😛

    Why does it feel so personal, you might ask. It’s because Guy made it a pastime to come to NZ, often funded by gullible NZrs, to preach nonsense and scare upper middle class lefties into buying Teslas. Even though our own scientists would point out how wrong Guy was. All of the carbon Guy expended by flying to NZ, was it worth it?  

    https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/science/about/news/news-archives/2016-news/guy-mcpherson-and-the-end-of-humanity-not

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/86778981/climate-change-specialist-predicts-human-extinction-in-10-years

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    1. LOL. I guessed correctly.

      Ahhh, now it all makes sense. A while back, maybe when I was new here, you were bashing Guy a little bit. And I couldn’t figure out why, but it was enough that I knew not to bring up his name anymore. LOL

      But ya, I stopped paying attention to him too. I still like the ballsy prediction though. And if he ends up being correct by within a twenty-year window… I’ll give him his due credit from my grave.😉

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  24. Hideaway started a trend. Everyone’s talking about minerals and complexity now.

    Today it’s Art Berman, however it does not appear that he understands cactus yet.

    https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-race-to-the-bottom/

    Welcome to the twilight of the Industrial Age. Growth is ending.

    Vaclav Smil adds the physical reality beneath the abstractions. Modern civilization rests on four industrial pillars: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia. Cement is the platform for cities and infrastructure. Steel is the universal structural and machine metal. Plastics are the lightweight, versatile base material embedded in packaging, electronics, and healthcare. Ammonia, through the Haber-Bosch process, is the foundation of nitrogen fertilizer and therefore modern food production. If one pillar weakens, the system strains. If several weaken at once, strain becomes systemic risk.

    Those pillars are hitting limits. Steel and cement are declining (Figure 1). Fertilizer is flat. Plastics, despite a rebound, remain below peak.

    Energy underlies everything, and diesel is the workhorse of the material economy. It powers the machines that excavate, drill, and harvest, and the ships, trains, and trucks that move feedstocks and manufactured products. Global diesel consumption has been essentially flat since 2017 (Figure 2). That’s a strong signal of slowing growth, and forecasts suggest little change through the end of this decade.

    China’s leverage is deliberate: it built a midstream monopoly, uses export controls and pricing to squeeze Western projects, and captures value by making batteries, magnets, and other high-end components. The mines may be in the West, but China controls the midstream. Offtake agreements, financing terms, and processing locations can make projects functionally Chinese in everything but name.

    Graphite is a key input for lithium-ion batteries. Figure 4 shows a 21% supply-demand deficit in 2024, projected to expand to more than 300% by 2030. China controls 96% of global supply because it dominates processing. Rare earths follow the same pattern, and copper is headed that way. Those are hard advantages to beat.

    Some decisions will be made poorly. But it’s also true that no one has a reliable yardstick for the world that is forming. The measures and mental models we inherited were built for a different time and different circumstances. Many leaders understand what few outside the halls of power are willing to admit: we’re entering a harsher phase where nations compete to offload costs, secure essentials, and protect internal stability. It’s a race to the bottom, and it won’t be pretty.

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    1. Interesting, thank you.

      I particularly liked Figure 2:

      Does this mean it’s not going to be pedal to the metal, because the pedal broke before the tank went empty? Isn’t it a faint positive sign with respect to climate change?

      Best.

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        1. Yuck.

          I was hoping, that because of low EROI, this wouldn’t be the case. By that I mean, it would cost more energy to transport the coal than its value. Or it would cost more to transport the goods produced (if the manufacturing is moved next to the coal mine).
          But, you are right, people can move and live next to coal mines.

          Also, I was hoping, that oil, and maybe more specifically diesel is the weak link: there are things not possible without it. And then these things are necessary to mine at the level we do (because some complex machinery/process are necessary to go at these low concentrations). Basically a consequence of what Hideaway is pointing out.

          That’s why I said the pedal broke before the tank went empty.

          But, that’s really only a hope. Maybe, you are right and there is substitutionality and diesel/oil are not vital 😦 I don’t know.

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  25. The demographic aspect of the french economy dashboard has been updated: https://www.insee.fr/en/outil-interactif/5543645/tableau/20_DEM/21_POP.

    For the first time, there were more deaths than birth: https://www.insee.fr/en/outil-interactif/5543645/details/20_DEM/21_POP/21E_Figure5. But the overall population is still increasing (by 0.25%) due to migration: https://www.insee.fr/en/outil-interactif/5543645/details/20_DEM/21_POP/21D_Figure4 (note that the numbers for the last 3 years are provisional, and quite less than the last definite value in 2022)

    Birth rates and fertility rates are down: https://www.insee.fr/en/outil-interactif/5543645/tableau/20_DEM/22_NAI.

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  27. Remember when we used to joke about all of us from undenial living at Gaia’s commune. Sitting around the fire and telling stories. Rewarded with a hot shower as long as you completed all your chores. (I think I remember Gaia was only allowing ten-seconds for our showers😊)

    This song always makes me fantasize about that scenario.

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    1. Hello bro and everyone else who are really part of one big happy family here, hope your new year is going well, or as well as can be hoped.

      That’s so sweet. We were living in halcyon days back then around 2 BC, Before Cactus, that is.

      You will all forgive my relative absence as of late. What with extreme weather (the cyclone was a nothing burger for us up here in Far North QLD but still dumped huge rain in other parts already flooded) and just the brain fog of waking up every day to the same predicament, only with a ticking time bomb to accompany the changing of the calendar (I have a perpetual calendar made of heavy cardstock that you just turn the dial for the day of the week and number, very quaint, I’m sure in our commune we’ll all fight over whose turn it is to adjust it even when we’re way past needing to worry about the day, date, and month). But I have been industrious and following what seems to be the collective prescription for what ails us now–just get on with life, try to enjoy what we can whilst being understanding, patient, helpful and kind to others, and prepare something good for whatever and whoever may follow.

      I restarted my morning yoga routine, the stretches and poses are as grounding, balancing, and calming now as they have been for the past however many thousand years. I also got back into my rebounder, somehow jumping up and down like a child (but with much less stress to middle-aged joints) does take away the cares of the world, doing it to happy dance music is even more joyful! I’ve found a little bit of time each day to tentatively tickle the ivories, the piano skills are woefully rusty but I am still enjoying plunking out old songs from my childhood (I can play a passable Fur Elise again, and a few Bach preludes). I think you may already know that I’m a hopeless 80s music junkie, so every now and then I belt out a solo karaoke session. Another simple pleasure that I’ve re-instated is mindfully preparing and drinking tea. I’ve delved back into my Chinese heritage and am learning the art of gung fu tea, which really means sipping as many tiny cups of green tea that can be brewed from a tiny tea pot or covered bowl and contemplating the universe whilst doing so. It’s a great excuse to use some antique teaware I’ve had and/or inherited and at the same time marvel at how much we’ve lost in our headlong quest into modernity.

      All the above activities are on the roster at our commune, of course.

      In addition, I’ve been completely consumed in a shed renovation project that will see major improvements to the infrastructure of the main community space to provide new levels of comfort and convenience. This has been on-going all last year and we are now at the final push to finish the kitchen (I know many of you have had this seemingly never-ending experience that drains both life force and pocket at the same time and at a frightful rate). We now have energy efficient lighting, fans, insulation, painted walls, even vinyl planked floors that look like wood, where once was a steel shell festooned with cobwebs and the calling cards of various rodents (and a few snake skins).

      Now we are about to invest in a 48kWh battery/inverter system (generously subsidised by the Australian tax payers) so when the power goes out (and it is doing so with increasing frequency and duration for all sorts of reasons, cyclones notwithstanding) we can still keep up the freezer (which will be filled with frozen produce from the farmlet) and the stereo system (all the more need for music and dancing during a power outage). This also means that if we have a week of low sunlight days, we can still enjoy a hot shower (the time limit will be increased to a princely 2 minutes!) I have been given Hideaway’s blessing to take the plunge as the way we both see it, having an extra source of electricity will only help in these transition times, money won’t be worth anything once the supply can’t be gotten, so might as well put it into something that can be used, and if the power really does go out permanently, then at least we can have one good party before the hoards swarm through.

      A word on food stocking. Let me rephrase that, ahem. A few words from Gaia on this important topic. It is my sincere and humble opinion that one of the most beneficial things one can do in these uncertain times for oneself, your family, and all who may come to your home now and in the future, is to have a goodly store of food preps of the nonperishable kind. Of course, the means of producing as much as one can in the environment and circumstances you are in is even more desirable, but does not preclude the necessity of the former. The type is totally up to individual decision (we all know about Rob and his sardine fetish) and space available, but it should not be a monetary consideration that causes restraint. Let me elaborate. I reckon we all spend at least several thousand dollars a year on various insurances, (in our family’s case there is life, health, multiple car, house, disability), and think nothing of it even though month after month the calamity we are insuring against doesn’t happen although the premiums keep being deducted into the ether. So why not think of stocking up on food as an insurance that actually is something you can keep and use–whatever the circumstance it will have an intrinsic value that is guaranteed to only go up. Add up all the premiums paid for insurances in one year and that should be the minimum spent on food stocks, and once you have that squirreled away, you can decide to leave it untouched, use it as a rotating stock, or keep adding to the stock as you feel the need. What harm can that do (other than take up a good corner of a room or an entire closet probably full of stuff you were planning to take to the op shop anyway).

      At our commune, I aim to have enough food supply to last all members for as long as it takes before we can grow supplemental fare from the ground or until the roving hoards arrive and take the lot, whichever comes first. Either way, someone will be fed for a bit longer. That’s the main problem with stocking up food, it’s not really for the absolute end times, it’s for the lean times before the end when there is any hope to keep the wolf at the door at bay for a while longer. No matter how much I put away, it’s only finite calories for a finite number of persons for a finite amount of days, there will always be more people to feed. But in my analysis, it’s still the right and best thing I can do with the resources I have in the situation I’m in. You may come to the same conclusion, and believe me, I don’t think you will regret it.

      Those were more than a few words and I did have more to share on this subject but maybe that’s enough to go on for now. One more thing–saving seeds (and correctly) is also paramount, that’s another one of my “Ark” projects. I have half an extra fridge dedicated to seeds, such a small investment (think of getting a seed packet for every coffee or muffin you buy) but the dividends are inestimable.

      It is my hope that we all will know abundance through generosity of spirit, both received and given, in the days to come. I know it is a distracting and entertaining pipe dream to be all together in Gaia’s commune (and there will be many who would think that’s a crazy idea and rightly so!) but in a very real way, I carry your spirits with me daily in my thoughts of goodwill for each of you and your families so we are already together here! If ever any of you find yourself in Far North QLD, you are always welcome here (please contact me via Rob’s email, thank you Rob for playing Post Office).

      Now off to do a little Happy Dance!

      Namaste, friends.

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      1. Amen on storing non-perishable food.

        In addition to your excellent reasons there is also the fact that food price inflation is bad and will get worse so buying food now, especially when you can be strategically patient for sales, is an excellent investment that will pay back even if cactus never occurs.

        I joke about sardines but there is some logic to my madness:
        – high quality, healthy protein and fat
        – delicious
        – no cooking required
        – single serving packages
        – easy open without a can opener
        – super long shelf life without refrigeration
        – lowest cost animal protein per serving

        I of course use sardines as a metaphor. I also stock many other valuable types of non-perishable proteins, fats, grains, vegetables, pickles, fruits, nuts, staples, condiments, spices, and beverages.

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        1. Oh Rob, we know you are much too sensible to only stake your survival on one food item, however a miracle food it is! (in addition to all your listed benefits of sardines, they’re a good source of calcium because you eat the bones, even a vegan like me knows that!) We of course enjoy taking the mickey out of you from time to time with the sardine thing, and only because you seem to enjoy it, too! But golly, you’re a champion with your complete larder, and all spreadsheeted to the gram weight, I’m sure. I’m in total awe, and humbly and respectfully defer to your logic and madness.

          Namaste, friend.

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      2. Thanks Gaia, I so enjoyed hearing about your life on the “commune”. I used to be able to play Fur Elise as well, I can still do just the first few lines, one of my favs when I learnt. I have been wondering how you were doing with all the post cylone rain up there, so glad to hear it was a nothing burger 😀

        I have made my peace with my half-assed prepping efforts. Not sure if you did see a link to the essay I shared around this that I posted on here, if not, here it is:

        I would so love to be able to hang out with you and other un-denialist in lush north qld, so I am glad we are there with you in spirit..

        Keep doing your happy dance for us too! 💃

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        1. Hello Renaee,

          You’re so lovely, thank you for your ray of sunshine message. I am absolutely certain we would get along like a house on fire (I don’t know what it is with my fire fixation today, any hints there bro?) and I do hope there will be a very good chance of us meeting one day, especially as we are in the same country. I will be needing to go to Melbourne at some point to have my final interview at the Consulate when I officially swear some oath to relinquish my US citizenship, not sure when that will be but I’m on the waiting list. Maybe we can meet up somewhere then?

          Of course, you are always welcome to our place on the Atherton Tablelands, we have a couple caravans on the property so you and your family can stay as long as you like. I did read that you’re into board games, I just happen to have a whole closetful of all kinds, our current favourite is Wingspan but Carcassone, Ticket to Ride, and Splendor are all family favourites as well. Do you know those? If (or when) the day comes that the lights go off and the internet goes down, and if we can ever get over the loss of being unable to all meet here at Rob’s place (and the concomitant SHTF scenario), there’s always the hope of playing a board game by candlelight, if it were any other timeline that would sound downright cosy fun!

          Hope you’re having a great weekend, and the weather is finally just about right.

          Namaste, friend.

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          1. I would love to meet up if you’re in Melbourne! That would be amazing. And thanks so much for the offer to stay with you as well. Board games were a big part of childhood, oddly enough all the ones that encouraged capitalism: Monolpoly, Poleconomy and one just called Economy. The latter the idea of the game was to begin mining, processing, railways, shipping, trading, and then finally if you built an airhanger and a pharmaceutical company you had reached peak civilisation! these days I guess it would be if you built the equivalent to the ASML machine. We were all really groomed into this BAU way of life from day one. LIkewise, Rob has my email and we can take it from there 😊 I hope you get to the top of that waiting list soon!

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          2. I don’t know what it is with my fire fixation today, any hints there bro?

            Yes sis. It’s because I’ve cast a spell and turned you into the god of hellfire.
            (LOL, h/t James for this psychotic song)

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  28. I listened to Simon Michaux’s presentation in today’s peak oil chat while pruning the black currants.

    I don’t recommend it unless you want your head to explode with an alphabet soup of hopium solutions that all seem to violate the laws of thermodynamics and/or require perpetual motion machines.

    A few examples:

    • Thorium reactors are the best (only?) possible solution to keep modernity going.
    • We can create diesel at pennies a liter to power mining trucks by converting their used tires.
    • We can harvest waste plastic in the sea to create fuel at pennies a liter.
    • etc. etc.

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    1. 😂😂😂 Thanks for today’s chuckle.

      God bless Andrii. And like I’ve said before, his denial control is atrociously bad… but the world is definitely a better place if it’s filled with people like him vs people like me.

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      1. Although there is pain and suffering, there is a reason for each of us to be here as we are.

        Simply, we may not understand why, yet. Usually, because we are focused on too narrow a view.

        Don’t you think? Don’t you sense?

        God loves you too, paqnation. You better start loving yourself, if you want not to be crushed by His wrath or rot in hell for eternity 🙂

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      • We can create diesel at pennies a liter to power mining trucks by converting their used tires.
      • We can harvest waste plastic in the sea to create fuel at pennies a liter.

      Wow, he is grasping for straws there. Although removing waste plastic from the ocean is in of itself a good idea.

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    3. Been watching it anyway. He gave some numbers of costs and output, interestingly Simon threw around lifetime numbers of 60 years, then stated that the Copenhagen Atomics or whatever they are called would sell one lasting between 5-25 years or something like that, so I used the mid point of 15 years, based on his numbers of 50M euro for a unit and $2M euro/yr operating cost. (not sure if this is only CA’s cost or all costs, so assuming it’s all cost.

      EROEI 2.2 with my method. Can’t run a civilization on that.

      Let’s assume a 60 years life, cost of 2M euro/yr and upfront 50m Euro… EROEI 4.26.

      Then he had a building with 25 of these in it, making it a 1Gw power plant. The cost of the building and all the people running it, plus security will be extra costs, which reduce the EROEI further…

      Whenever people work out these types of EROEI calculations they always forget the largest energy cost, the embedded energy in all the trucks, mines, buildings and people who actually make it happen..

      Simon has denial badly, and reality seems to by pass him, despite knowing how bad our situation really is. Also the circular economy is impossible due to entropy and dissipation which he conveniently forgets.

      I loved Charlies comment, ” so it gives us another 6,000 years to fuck the planet up more”.

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      1. Thanks.

        Simon sort of acknowledges his denial at one point in the presentation. He said something like “if Thorium reactors do not work then we’re returning to a horse and buggy world and therefore I have to believe Thorium will work”.

        Little does he know that cactus world is less complex than horse and buggy world.

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        1. This explains some of Elon Musk’s antics. He seems to understand complexity theory but MORT blocks him from understanding overshoot and therefore understanding CACTUS. If it dawned on him how screwed we are, he would have a mental breakdown.

          This is assuming he is actually being genuine when he makes apocalyptic claims about population decline, which is a big if.

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        2. Just picked up on some more misconceptions by Simon in the above video. If these Thorium reactors had the complexity of a 3 bedroom kit home as stated by Simon, then why are they not the same type of price?

          Reality is always in the detail. They need to use li7 which gets separated from li6 which occur naturally together. Li6 when it picks up a neutron bombardment turns into tritium a gas, which means expansion.

          Li7 is required in 99.9999% purity to reduce the leakage of radiation, whereas the 99.995% purity, they are planning gives a massive headache in potential tritium gas leaks as it’s small enough to go through pipes. LI7 to 99.9999% purity is way beyond current standards, very expensive specialist processes to get to this purity.

          The chances of a Thorium reactor of this design lasting 60 years with this design are zero. The odds of the reactor leaking too much radiation from the get go are high. It’s just more hopium at it’s best.

          Sorry Simon we can’t have a simplified civilization that relies upon more highly complex specialized equipment than we currently use, it’s an oxymoron in concept.

          A simplified civilization operating off more highly complex processes than we currently use.

          I haven’t even got to the the 25 minute mark yet!!

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            1. Rob, exactly correct.

              Any net energy producer throws off huge profits, no subsidies or tax credits required at all, which is why oil and gas has been so phenomenally profitable for a hundred plus years, huge amounts of excess energy to run civilization, after paying for all it’s own costs.

              Nuclear power has never run at a profit, so all the energy given off, is offset by all the costs in building and operating the plants, basically running off fossil fuels to provide the fuel, the workers and the complex plant, to give back some of the energy invested in it..

              All I can think of these days is that pretty much all the EROEI work done in the past is deliberately misleading, by leaving out all the important bits of the energy calculations, while only concentrating on the flows of energy through mining trucks, processing plants, factories in the making of every modern “energy” source.

              Never is the embedded energy in the machines, buildings roads, ports, and all people involved counted.

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              1. You’re probably aware of this podcast but just in case you’re not, Decouple focusses on the nuclear energy industry and features many intelligent experts, none of which of course understand cactus or your EROEI calculations, however it’s still interesting for monitoring construction and research projects.

                I listened to this episode while pruning black currants today. Lots of insights into why nuclear is so expensive and unprofitable.

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                1. I’ve watched Decouple many times, and in this video, though I didn’t watch it all, I got the vibe that nuclear is too expensive because we are being too careful with it…

                  Look at all the redundant diesel generator backups, umm guys, look at Fukushima where the backup generators failed.

                  So can humans really afford to take the risks of making vast tracts of land permanently unavailable by skimping on safety?? How irresponsible will humans become? The answer of course is VERY irresponsible to all other life on planet Earth.

                  What’s the backup plan for nuclear safety when there is no diesel for diesel generators??

                  A free market is best for nuclear, any company can build one, without any subsidies, or guarantees of sales, unless they contract others, plus full costs include full insurance for all damage caused with leaks or anything else that potentially goes wrong and no “acts of god exclusions”.

                  Right there would be the end of all new nuclear…

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                  1. “What’s the backup plan for no diesel for the backup generators?”

                    LOL, I was thinking the same thing when listening to it.

                    Also, “What’s the backup plan when your operators can’t get gas to come to work?”

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          2. There’s our Hideaway on fire again! I trust you and your family are all well. I was quite concerned that the fires in Victoria may have affected you but since you’re commenting with your usual vim and vigor I am thinking everything is fine so that’s a relief!

            How do you absorb all this information? You must be one of those superbrains with a photographic memory and/or doesn’t need much sleep, either way, we’re the beneficiaries and in a kinda sick way I love how you knock back every effort at hopium, it’s like scoring 3 pointers each time for Team Cactus. Of course if (not if, but when) we win, everyone loses but that’s the game. Still, I’m proud to be part of the cheering squad even though half the time I haven’t the foggiest of what you’re on about (I don’t know how I got through Uni Physics but it was only the level for pre-meds so it was watered down) but it really does sound very impressive whilst being dire.

            Can’t wait to read your next rant, it’s music to our ears!

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  30. In case you’re wondering why we live in a 3 dimensional world…

    Why not 4 dimensions, or 5?

    A much more interesting question is how is it possible for someone to be so smart, and have a PhD in physics, and not understand the most basic facts about the energy that enables modernity?

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    1. Good piece, I especially liked this little trinket …. “We could exploit Nature instead of each other, and use “energy slaves” instead of human ones to “raise our standard of living.”

      As in since the second world war when global violence has slowed down in general, over the next few decades, but now appears to be picking up again.

      It’s just another piece to the overall story of overshoot and collapse. All the slow de-growth believers never think of how the increased violence of over 8.3B people struggling to survive are going to actually behave in a world of rapid diminishment, especially when food deliveries to cities starts to fail.

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  33. I like George’s article today.

    https://georgetsakraklides.substack.com/p/why-civilisations-collapse-the-existential

    Each new era brings with it its own innovations, which depend on all previous innovations e.g. internet depends on electricity, electricity depends on fossil fuel, fossil fuel depends on the invention of the wheel. As a result, the list of essential components that each successive civilization needs for its bare minimum daily function becomes longer and longer.

    Three decades ago, we could still imagine a world without e-mail. Today, we wouldn’t even know where to begin in imagining such a world. This demonstrates the paradox of innovation: although innovations bring about capabilities and advancements, they also hold civilizations hostage to their own success: once you have electricity, there is no option to ever go powerless again, even though a collapse of the power grid is more than a palpable scenario. In a world where the internet has become as important as fire was to early humans, we are helpless hostages to each new innovation.

    Civilizations never learn from their mistakes. They would much rather repeat them using updated technologies, hoping that the outcome will be different this time around.

    Our elusive purpose finally becomes clear, as we follow the exact lifecycle of a comet: we arrived to quickly shine, destroy, and then self-destruct. In our pointless obsession to find our purpose and mission on a planet where all other species were happy to simply exist, we ended up sabotaging ourselves.

    I’m gonna have to nitpick that last quote because I don’t like it. It gives me vibes of that childish Bambi & Thumper outlook re the blob. I don’t think it has anything to do being “happy to simply exist”. It’s all about the fact that those other species don’t have a human type awareness level. And they don’t have the biological makeup to ever be in danger of getting one. 

    Kinda like the 200 million year run of the crocodiles (or the rock lobster, lol). I think we could take a croc from today and send it back in our time machine to fifty million years ago. Or take one from back then and bring it to today. Both examples would probably have no problems with “fitting in”. Nothing about happy or miserable is gonna come into the picture. (well, maybe the croc from the past will be miserable once he gets introduced to humans😉) 

    Do that same experiment with humans from a million years ago and today… LOL, “fitting in” is going to be a major issue. And happiness/misery levels are gonna play a big role.

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  34. If you’re not interested in US politics you can skip this but I thought it was an rare intelligent respectful debate between intellectual leaders of the pro-war and pro-peace wings of the Republican party. It’s also interesting as a lens into how the old versus young generation of US citizens think.

    The most interesting thing for me was that neither of these thought leaders seems to be aware of the real source of global tension: limits to growth and impending scarcity. They argued about everything except what matters.

    We are SO FAR AWAY from even starting a debate between the zero-sum game strategy informed by conventional thinking, and the positive-sum game strategy informed by cactus awareness.

    It looks to me like we’ll nuke each other without ever understanding why we did it.

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  36. If You’re Not a Fan of Human Extinction, You Haven’t Been Paying Attention (and You’re Not a Doomer)

    LOL. Preach it Sammy! Good stuff.

    I made this comment on another blog over a year ago. It aligns perfectly with this video:

    It seems there are two important destinations that a good overshoot journey will take a person to. Most only make it to the first stop which is understanding that civilization needs to go away. The 2nd stop is a much harder destination to get to. Because it requires the person to have major control over their denial. But if you can get there it then becomes just as obvious as civilization needing to go extinct…. humans need to go away as well.

    Being stuck at the first destination puts you in the same camp with the ignorant masses who don’t even waste one minute of their lives with this doomerism. Both camps will be in total agreement that the most important issue at hand is for the human race to make it through the upcoming bottleneck and continue on in the history books. Boy, that’s a lot of hard time served in the doomasphere just to end up on the same page as 8 billion clueless fucking morons. I wouldn’t trust it just for that reason alone.

    Charles, you’ll probably hate it. But if you want to know what’s in my head, this is the perfect video. And you might even get some entertainment out of it cuz I know you’ll be thinking it’s all about Sam’s fear.😊

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    1. Dear paqnation,

      I really didn’t want to watch this video. It is unecessary poison.

      Because it’s you, I managed to listened to the first 10 minutes before stopping.

      What I see is an angry old man and that saddens me. I am glad for him he’s got his dog who has been faithfully, gently loving him for such a long time.

      From the 10 first minutes, what the message I get is this:

      • the idea that humans are a cancer
      • if you don’t see this ends with humans being wiped out, you can’t wear the doomer’s badge of honor
      • it’s a good thing humans are going to disappear

      Fine.

      I hear an inner conflict Sam has not been able to resolve yet. He will, eventually. In this life-time or another. There is something he has to see about himself and get out of his system. He will, eventually.

      The conflict seems to be this. If he really wasn’t attached to human beings, then he wouldn’t need to rant on the internet. If he wasn’t attached to other life-forms and the way life is currently arranged on the planet, then he wouldn’t need to be angry of its destruction. If he didn’t see the human species fundamentally in opposition to the rest of nature (but just doing its things, on its path, whatever that may turn out to be), then he wouldn’t need to feel sad.

      Also the doomer’s badge of honor sounds like a form of exceptionalism to me. By now, haven’t we accepted there are many different types of doomers (some of them being spot on, but we won’t know until it all happens)? So why be angry after the mild-doomers, the ones that do not share his views? Why should everyone be of the same color?

      Don’t people need exceptionalism in order to feel unique?But, why don’t they naturally feel unique, since they are? Has something been denied to them? Were they hurt?

      Sam is going to feel better some day. Maybe not in this form. And he will recognize the love in his dog’s eye.

      So to me, he is still on the fence. How do I know? When all is resolved, there is inner peace spreading outwards as love and acceptance (I know how this sound to hardcore gloomy “rationalists”, I have been there :). Anger is a fire that can not burn forever.

      Now, everyone is allowed to throw a fit, at times. It’s is the mechanical, obsessive repetition which is morbid. All I can do, is send some loving prayers at Sam. When he is ready, it will operate.

      Best.

      PS: side-question: are cancer a “bad” thing to be hated? (in the eye of the fundamental reality)

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      1. I know this respone was for Chris, but chimming in if that’s ok

        I think you are spot on here:

        The conflict seems to be this. If he really wasn’t attached to human beings, then he wouldn’t need to rant on the internet. If he wasn’t attached to other life-forms and the way life is currently arranged on the planet, then he wouldn’t need to be angry of its destruction. If he didn’t see the human species fundamentally in opposition to the rest of nature (but just doing its things, on its path, whatever that may turn out to be), then he wouldn’t need to feel sad.

        But at the same time, I think each person is their own unique expression, and Sam is just being who he is, and not holding back. I see he loves that little doggy, and that he probably still loves some people too, despite it all. Compare what Sam says, to what George Carlin said abuot ‘rooting for the big one’ the comet or asteroid to come right through and take us out. He just says it with a smile and with some mischief.

        I agree that I could only take Sam in very small doses, but sometimes, like after watching that Doco Greenwashed, well he is a welcome voice, to vent that anger/grief, then let it go and move on.

        But I hear where you are coming from, and lately I have found much solace from Lyle Lewis, who does not have that anger, the grumpy old man energy, and instead brings a much needed neutrality to the prospect of human extinction. I esp like this bit:

        “We use human exceptionalism in two completely different ways. For most people, human exceptionalism is, ‘we’re going to live forever, and humanity is the greatest thing that’s ever existed on the planet, and we’re the most successful species that has ever lived’, etc. But the flip side of that is, ‘we’re the most destructive species that’s ever lived on the planet; we’re terrible; we’re just the worst thing that’s ever happened—we can’t disappear soon enough’.

        But both of those discounts all of the things that happened that precipitated our species, our genus, our behaviors. And just like the section [in the book] on leopards—we were formed as a result of our interaction with other creatures, with other plants, with other animals. We didn’t do it all on our own. 

        And so understanding that we’re a product of our environment, we’re a product of the planet, is really important in coming to grips with [the fact] we’re just another species that is playing itself out in this grand stage of life on Earth.“

        –  Lyle Lewis

        And I like this you said too:

        Now, everyone is allowed to throw a fit, at times. It’s is the mechanical, obsessive repetition which is morbid.

        Chris and I got to have a phone chat today which was pretty awesome. Regardless of where we land with our different perspectives, I really value a diverse and bright minded group of people to share and discuss all this with, i would go a bit mad without it 😊

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      2. Ten minutes! I’m impressed.

        Thanks for giving it a try. Was worth posting that video just to get yours and Renaee’s reply. I like what both of you are saying.

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  37. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick exposes another important thing the healthcare profession got wrong: benefits versus harms of sunlight.

    As with pandemics like covid, the effectiveness of their advice declined as the decades marched forward. Other professions generally get better with time, but not healthcare.

    I do not understand how an entire profession can be so incompetent. How can they look themselves in the mirror and not be ashamed? I imagine MORT has something to do with it.

    https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2026/01/17/disruptive-science-part-two/

    I would like to point out that sunlight does many more things than create nitric oxide and, of course, vitamin D. Mostly good. With so many potential benefits why did the era of ‘solar treatment’ fade into darkness? I think it is almost entirely due to the arrival of antibiotics. A whole bunch of terrible infections, which killed so many millions became treatable – virtually overnight. Sunlight was no longer required, or so it appeared. We had a new solution. Faster, and more effective.

    And then came the slow, but inexorable, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. The sun began to be viewed as dangerous. From ‘healing sun’ to ‘bringer of death’. Has this been a good move? In my opinion, absolutely not. Let me show you a graph from a long-term study done in Sweden. It looks at probability of death, in three groups.

    Over a twenty-year time period, those who actively sought the sun were ten per cent less likely to die – of anything, than those who avoided it. This was an absolute, not a relative risk.

    On the basis of this study, sunlight would be considered a miracle drug. Everyone in the world urged to take it, every day, without fail. The pharmaceutical company with a patent for any such medicine would become rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. You would never hear the last of it.

    I make this somewhat bold statement because there is no medication, nothing else at all, that comes close to this level of overall health benefit, and life extension. Nothing … at all. 

    I cannot find any evidence, anywhere, that it is anything other than extremely good for us. Ergo, hiding away from the sun is bad for us. One of the worst things we can possibly do, and it is also one of the easiest, and most pleasurable things, to rectify. Go out and sunbathe. [Yes, of course, I have to add, but do not burn. As if everyone in the world is a complete idiot that cannot understand even the simplest idea.]

    But, but, but …instead, we have all been – made to be – terrified of skin cancer. A condition which kills very few people each year. It seems impossible to move the thinking beyond this barrier … bonkers. And very harmful indeed.

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    1. Could not agree more, a couple of years back there was a man and wife team who did research into skin cancer in Australia and they won Australians of the year. In their acceptance speech they had a tirade about the dangers of the sun. Just like ancient cultures used to worship it, these two seemed to have turned it into the devil!

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  38. Cool video. But I don’t sense George T’s “happy to simply exist” thing going on. I sense indifference. Just biological programming like that cartoon the other day “Eat, Survive, Reproduce”

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  39. Steve Bull has a new essay about the hydrogen energy transition. I only skimmed it because most of this stuff goes right over my head. Just posting it here cuz I thought Hideaway might enjoy it. 

    Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXXVI– We’re Saved! Hydrogen Energy. | by Steve Bull (https://olduvai.ca) | Jan, 2026 | Medium

    We are not saved. A hydrogen-based energy system, like so many techno-fixes, is ultimately a story we tell ourselves to avoid the harder, more fundamental story. It is a tale of sustaining the unsustainable. The inescapable conclusion is that we are not facing an energy problem to be swapped with a new carrier, but a civilizational predicament rooted in the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet.

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    1. The cool thing is that all life on earth is already a hydrogen based system.

      Energy captured from the environment via food or photons is used to pump hydrogen ions across a membrane and the resulting chemiosmotic force is used to power a turbine that manufactures ATP which is the store of energy used to power all chemical reactions required by all life.

      We can thank Dr. Peter Mitchell for figuring this unbelievably unintuitive, clever, and complex machine out, and I thank Dr. Nick Lane for explaining it to me.

      Mitchell figured this out on his own with the help of one smart assistant in a private lab he built.

      He pissed off a lot of scientists and few believed his idea at first.

      It’s one of the most important discoveries in biology.

      Very cool guy.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell

      From 1963 to 1965, he supervised the restoration of a Regency-fronted Mansion, known as Glynn House, at Cardinham near Bodmin, Cornwall – adapting a major part of it for use as a research laboratory. He and his former research colleague, Jennifer Moyle founded a charitable company, known as Glynn Research Ltd., to promote fundamental biological research at Glynn House and they embarked on a programme of research on chemiosmotic reactions and reaction systems.

      Chemiosmotic hypothesis
      In the 1960s, ATP was known to be the energy currency of life, but the mechanism by which ATP was created in the mitochondria was assumed to be by substrate-level phosphorylation. Mitchell’s chemiosmotic hypothesis was the basis for understanding the actual process of oxidative phosphorylation. At the time, the biochemical mechanism of ATP synthesis by oxidative phosphorylation was unknown.

      In chemiosmosis, ions move down their electrochemical gradient across a membrane.
      Mitchell realised that the movement of ions across an electrochemical potential difference could provide the energy needed to produce ATP. His hypothesis was derived from information that was well known in the 1960s. He knew that living cells had a membrane potential; interior negative to the environment. The movement of charged ions across a membrane is thus affected by the electrical forces (the attraction of positive to negative charges). Their movement is also affected by thermodynamic forces, the tendency of substances to diffuse from regions of higher concentration. He went on to show that ATP synthesis was coupled to this electrochemical gradient.[10]

      The discovery of ATP synthase vindicated Mitchell’s hypothesis. Today, it is well-accepted that chemiosmosis of H+ ions power the synthesis of ATP, and other biochemical processes.

      His hypothesis was confirmed by the discovery of ATP synthase, a membrane-bound protein that uses the potential energy of the electrochemical gradient to make ATP; and by the discovery by André Jagendorf that a pH difference across the thylakoid membrane in the chloroplast results in ATP synthesis.[11]

      Protonmotive Q-cycle
      Later, Peter Mitchell also hypothesized some of the complex details of electron transport chains. He conceived of the coupling of proton pumping to quinone-based electron bifurcation, which contributes to the proton motive force and thus, ATP synthesis.[12]

      Awards and honours
      In 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory.”[13] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1974.

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      1. Most people who think about the origin of life focus on DNA.

        I prefer Dr. Lane’s perspective that respiration is the key.

        DNA is like a fancy fuel injection control computer that you bolt on to your diesel engine 75 years after you started to use that engine to build modernity.

        Chemiosmotic respiration is the diesel engine.

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      2. You put a lot of fascinating topics up (in addition to this post, I am referring to the history of world war I down there and Nate’s latest up there). Thank you. (Although I don’t have time for everything that I would like to 🙂

        Anyway, the body is the ultimate tool, isn’t it? That’s why I am not so sad of the loss of the current stream of technology. The body is the thing that is time-tested. Everything else was not long-lived enough for us to decide to carry along across time and space.
        Every civilization is like an experiment in trying something else. Most fail. But I am sure some things stay with us, if only in the way the particular experiment shapes the collective genetic material. For instance, in this run, among other, we got plastic pollution, AIDS/SARS/covid, RNA, lots of migration and cross-fertilization and also a huge propagation of ideas. It didn’t kill life, yet. So, it’s like a brainstorming phase which is ending. Now, there will be a long period of time to digest and time-test the consequences of all this exhuberance.
        Don’t you think?

        Best.

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        1. I think that’s a very good lens.

          I might rephrase it as the universe conducting experiments on the fastest way to degrade energy gradients.

          You might rephrase my rephrased universe as god. 🙂

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  40. I listened to this 3 month old (and most recent) episode from Darryl Copper on World War I while pruning hazelnuts today.

    Cooper does a great job at helping us to visualize the hunger and poverty and social unrest of European citizens during that period, and the horrors experienced by the young men who fought the war.

    Many people feel WWI was the worst war ever.

    There was also an interesting section on the WWI experiences that shaped a young Adolf Hitler.

    We talk a lot at un-Denial about how bad things are likely to get with cactus but I found this refresher on WWI provided useful perspective. Our species has experienced a lot of extreme hardship in the past. We in the rich west have been very fortunate for the last 75 years.

    I found the biophysical and logistics perspective interesting. In WWI 65 million soldiers fought, 10 million were killed, and 21 million were injured. About 1.0-1.5 billion artillery shells were used. Compare that to today when Europe could maybe send a few 10’s of thousand of soldiers to Ukraine and struggle to make a million artillery shells a year.

    The First World War shattered a generation of Europeans. Killing took place on a monumental scale, as whole societies gave their all for their countries. German men who spent their young adulthood in the murderous trenches of the Great War, only to be crushed under the weight of a hostile world, would be senior officers in Hitler’s Wehrmacht, while their sons prepared for a rematch as young soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The harrowing experience of the First World War forged the men who fought the Second World War, so our story starts with that experience.

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    1. What does “Martyr Made” mean?

      Gemini: “Martyr Made” is the brand name and online handle used by Darryl Cooper, an amateur historian and podcaster. He is best known for The Martyr Made Podcast, which explores historical events through the lens of human suffering, radicalization, and conflicting moral systems.

      While Cooper has not provided one single “official” definition of the name, its meaning can be understood through the themes of his work and the context he has provided in various interviews:

      1. The Core Philosophy

      The name generally refers to the idea that people are “made” into martyrs (or monsters) by the extreme circumstances, historical pressures, and ideological systems they inhabit.

      • Cooper often focuses on “impossible” situations where individuals are forced to make choices that lead to their destruction or the destruction of others.
      • His narratives often explore how a person’s identity is forged by tragedy or sacrifice—literally how a martyr is “made.”

      2. Focus on “The Enemy”

      A signature of the podcast is its focus on the “losing” side or the side often labeled as the villain. His current 2026 series, Enemy: The Germans’ War, exemplifies this by attempting to explain the psychological and social pressures that led the German people into World War II. The “Martyr Made” concept here suggests that even those who commit atrocities are often products (or “martyrs” in a secular, tragic sense) of their specific historical moment.

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  41. Quark says (I think) that it now takes $10 of new debt to create $1 of GDP growth. When I started this blog it took about $2-3 of new debt.

    https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2026/01/el-efecto-reina-roja-en-los-mercados.html

    “…the problem is the acceleration of debt necessary to maintain growth. We have lost control and now desperate solutions are being sought, such as entering “war economies”.

    If they stop issuing new debt, bubbles burst. And if they continue, the price of gold already warns them that everything has a limit and we are very close to it.

    The “war economy” solution allows them to continue issuing debt, but at the same time, control consumption so that inflation does not skyrocket. Sure, no one likes rationing, restrictions and bans, but they simply have no choice. They want an “à la carte” economic crisis, managed by governments to avoid lack of control and chaos.

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  42. Sure looks to me like B’s been studying cactus.

    One down, 8 billion to go.

    https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/beyond-the-mordor-economy

    OK, this civilization is toast, but what will come after this one is over? How will future humans fit into this model? What could come about a thousand or ten thousand years down the line? Ironically, what I see as a clear path forward is: acceptance. Coming into terms with the fact the that the time frame to build a mineral based civilization is limited, and if it cannot escape the planet to start an interstellar empire in time, then it is “doomed” to return to normalcy. Meaning: living within the boundaries of a single planet, and entirely off of a flow of renewable resources (wood, grains, fruits, animals etc.) There is simply no other way. Once even the memory of this high tech civilization is gone, and those who survive its fall has returned to a lifestyle not seen since the Neolithic age, only then can the slow regeneration of Earth’s resource base begin. Following the large wave of extinction we have so carelessly started, and once the climate has found its new equilibrium (hopefully still within a habitable range), life may start to heal and recover. New species and ecosystems may emerge. Volcanoes, plate tectonics may create and bring new ore bodies close to the surface, which our distant ancestors (or another “clever” species) would be able to mine… Will they make the same mistake as we did, and restart this circle of destruction? Only time will tell.

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    1. Did you notice that B did not acknowledge Hideaway or un-Denial’s effort to spread Hideaway’s work?

      Did you notice that un-Denial has promoted and complimented B’s work many times?

      That’s called an integrity lens and it’s very rare in the overshoot space

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      1. That’s why I won’t do B any more favors by commenting on his site. For a collapse blogger, the highest honor you can get is a comment from me. I get a bunch of engagement going on and their traffic spikes through the roof.

        Sorry B, no more. You’re on your own. Your little blog has no chance to succeed without me.😂😂

        ps. h/t Rain at C&E for this awesome video.

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      2. Realistically he’s still missing the role of complexity and the associated market/population growth that had to also happen to get to the Mordor economy. It’s also why he can’t see a fast collapse as unravelling of complexity due to less energy has feedback loops that stops most of the mining and high end agriculture and energy production all in a small period of time.

        There is also a lot of Dr Tim Morgan’s work in there and even from Our finite World work of Gail Tverberg.

        I don’t get upset these days at all about no attribution of what we’ve all worked out, as in the big picture it doesn’t matter. We know the people that have worked things out, so let them do whatever, with only half the picture.

        The real “holy shit”, moment for me was Prof Geoffrey West’s work on scale and complexity in terms of the sizing of urban areas in a similar fashion to Kleiber’s law in biology, when a doubling in size leads to only a 75% increase in energy and material use. urban areas are different as in around 85% increase. Also in West’s work was how in human civilization there is a superscaling as in around a 115% increase in social activity, patents, crime, police, higher education etc, etc.

        Basically in human societies we get greater complexity with greater size of urban area, while having material and energy savings in every doubling…

        My bit is only about why wouldn’t this apply to civilization as a whole? Of course it would, as no urban is an island in today’s modern world, whereas it probably was 5,000 years ago. Then fit in how energy, materials, scale of industries that cater for the world, the 6 continent supply chains, and complexity of it all interact, and bingo, it has to continue or collapse.

        Less energy at some point, means collapse, as all the aspects that make civilization quickly unravel, with massive feedback loops affecting all the important systems. There is absolutely nothing we can do or ever could have done to stop the process. All because we use up all the highest grade energy, metals and minerals first.

        Look at the replies of most people on B’s blog, talking about how we must go forward to the stars, completely missing the complexity and materials that would require, which we no longer have, as we are too close to the end with rising energy costs of energy and materials…

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        1. I’ve been focusing on the cactus requirement for growing complexity to compensate for falling non-renewable resource reserve quality, and the need for population to grow to enable that growing complexity.

          This alone I think is enough to cause a fast collapse.

          You’re pointing out (again) that there’s a second force pushing growth. That’s the efficiency gained from scale.

          It too alone I think is enough to cause a fast collapse.

          Then there’s a third force, the design of our monetary system as seen through the debt lens, which alone I think is enough to cause a fast collapse (although we could probably recover from this one unlike the other two).

          So we have have three forces, each sufficient to cause a fast collapse, but when combined confirms I think the supernova hypothesis.

          Hideaway, is my logic correct here?

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          1. Absolutely correct, they are all the feedback loops interacting with each other that makes collapse inevitable once down the energy slope of production.

            They could trigger collapse by themselves initially, which feeds back into energy production anyway, but I assume that govts will just keep printing money to divert any debt based crash, but then wont understand how that drops more people off the bottom, reducing demand for everything, because “everything” will go up in cost faster than official inflation and wages.

            I’m always working on the assumption that IF nothing else collapses us first, it will be energy production decline at an accelerating rate that guarantees short term collapse because of all the other predicaments piled on top of each other without the energy decline.

            In 2025 we had a record year for energy production, yet it’s the combination of the energy cost of energy rising, in material and energy terms, while ore grades of everything continue to decline causing all the other predicaments of debt, insular countries going against globalization, potential nuclear war etc, while also causing increases in complexity without any efficiency gains.

            The collapse of our civilization, because of it’s size, complexity, efficiency of every aspect and extreme urbanisation compared to all prior collapses of civilizations, guarantee it will be much faster, much harder than prior collapses.

            Even in the roman times, over 90% of the population were rural and producing their own food, now in the Western world with an average of 80% urbanized relying on mountains of fossil fuels to grow and distribute food, it’s a completely different situation, ergo supernova collapse….

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      3. Speaking of integrity, when Putin annexed Crimea and Donbas he held a referendum to confirm the majority of citizens wanted to join Russia.

        Let’s watch to see if Trump holds a referendum for the Greenland people to confirm they wish to join the US.

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        1. They might side with the USA. From what I know (not much) Greenland is a miserable place with the one of highest suicide rates. Christian Scandinavians have a poor track record in how they have treated native native artic peoples (eg Sámi). For example, residential schools occurred in Sweden for Sámi people similar to the scandals in Canada. The Danes similar have suppressed culture, language and traditional lifeways of the Greenland natives. Greenland is around 90% native

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    2. One commenter replied:

      Below the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, concentrations of both minerals and energy both skyrocket. The sky is not falling, our bottleneck is a mere engineering problem. The only question is whether Kola boreholes will proliferate before asteroid mining and space-based solar comes on-line

      That is some nice hopium.

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  43. Chile declares ‘state of catastrophe’ as deadly wildfires menace cities

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7ypw4rjrzo

    Chilean President Gabriel Boric has declared a state of catastrophe in two regions where deadly wildfires are raging.

    At least 16 people are confirmed dead in the Ñuble and Biobío regions, about 500km (300 miles) south of the capital Santiago. At least 20,000 have been evacuated.

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  44. So I’m reading a book called “Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story” which is from an educator who at 40 years old, without much of a background in music, picks up the chello and basically makes it his life mission to learn it as best as possible. If you don’t know, the chello is a pretty hard instrument to learn so he doesn’t make it easy for himself. But he is a great writer and it’s certainly a very honest and fun read!

    Anyway, in the epilogue he describes who he has to let things go in order to have as much time as possible for music as an adult and one of them is to try to be as informed as possible. The following passage hit me:

    I can’t stop thinking about them. Such matters as how to get energy from sun, wind, waves, and other permanent sources; how to conserve materials and recycle wastes; how to use worms, plants, algae, shellfish, and other creatures to recycle organic wastes; how to grow more food on less land, and even in the city; how to make ourselves, our neighborhoods, and our towns and cities more self-sufficient; how to make our political and economic institutions smaller, and so more efficient, responsive, and manageable. These seem to me key problems. If we can solve them, learn to live in harmony with nature, get more from less and make do with less, many other problems, including unemployment and poverty, can probably be solved. If instead we go on living wastefully and destructively, nothing else we do will make much difference.

    Well, 35 years later (the book was published in 1991) and I guess we know how that will end. Nothing particularly insightful but I felt the need to share.

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    1. I was wrong, the book was actually published in 1978 and just republished in 1991. John Holt, the author, died in 1985. I guess he might have been influenced by the publication of Limits to Growth but this is the only passage in this book that even touches on it so who knows.

      I still try to rationalize why this passage had an effect on me. I guess because I felt a great amount of sympathy for the author and seeing how he still had hope for humanity back then while I have none is just kind of sad. I mean what a miserable place to be in if we are honest.

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    2. I wonder if the reason it was touching, is you feel that it has been a waste of time to ‘be informed as possible’? And that you were inspired by his simple dedication to this one pursuit? Even though he also was aware of all those issues you quoted, but he had to ‘let it all go’. I wonder too, at this late stage, my motivations in still wanting to know and understand what’s going on, the insistence of the brain trying to keep one self safe and make sense of an impossibly complex situation.

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  45. I finished pruning the hazelnuts today. The beds to the left contain garlic. This winter has been so warm that the garlic is already 2 inches out of the ground. The honeybees were out today feeding on the hazelnut pollen.

    Tomorrow we are covering the garlic with compost to suppress the weeds. Should have been done a long time ago but we are struggling now to source certified organic compost or straw.

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      1. LOL, we won’t.

        What happens when you’re dependent on greenhouses and the plastic wears out after 5-10 years and you can’t buy replacement plastic?

        What happens if you don’t have livestock for manure? And if you wait too long, how will you build the fences and other infrastructure required for livestock?

        Those plus hundreds of other things will have to change on farms post cactus.

        It’s going to be really really hard. Probably impossible for many farms.

        We won’t care if food is organic, or GMO, or vegan, or vegetarian, or whatever. We’ll be grateful for any calories.

        I see a lot of potatoes on the menu in the future. Assuming we learn how to save seed potatoes and not have them trucked in from hundreds of miles away.

        Do you have any livestock Hideaway?

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        1. No we don’t at present, but should get some. We don’t even have chooks, as every year we get tonnes of eggs from local friends, so every time I think of building a good sized chook run (we also have plenty of foxes!!), the need for chooks disappears.

          I also keep planning to get some sheep, we have enough acres for a few, but our circumstances keep changing. I have some elderly neighbours, that our daughter and partner are going to buy sometime soon, which will change a lot around here.

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        3. If you get in to seed potato saving, it is worth learning about potato diseases and how to prevent them. Also worth trying to develop a landrace variety that is hardy for your area.
          I have had a lot of problems with ring rot, but a landrace version of Desirée is doing really well self-seeding itself all over my garden. I feel like I get potatoes for free, just need to dump some compost on them to get more tubers.

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          1. Thanks for the tips.

            I asked the farm owner I assist today if we could experiment with my surplus potatoes as seed. He said it is illegal here to plant saved potatoes because of disease risk.

            What is a landrace potato?

            Gemini: A landrace potato is a traditional, locally adapted variety of potato that has developed over generations through a combination of natural selection and farmer-led cultivation.

            Unlike the uniform commercial potatoes found in grocery stores (like Russets or Yukons), landraces are genetically diverse populations. They are essentially “living heritage” crops that have evolved to thrive in the specific soil, climate, and cultural conditions of their home region.

            Key Characteristics
            – Genetic Diversity: While a commercial variety is a single “clone” (every plant is genetically identical), a landrace is a population. If you look at a field of a specific landrace, the tubers might look similar, but they possess a wider range of genes.

            – Local Adaptation: They are incredibly resilient to local pests, diseases, and weather patterns (like frost or drought) because they have survived in that specific environment for centuries.

            – Dynamic Nature: Landraces are not “frozen in time.” Because they often grow in fields where different varieties can cross-pollinate, they continue to evolve and adapt to changing conditions.

            – Unique Traits: They often feature “knobbly” shapes, deep eyes, and vibrant colors (purples, reds, and pinks) that modern industrial farming has phased out in favor of smooth, easy-to-clean skins.

            Where do they come from?
            The Andes Mountains (Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador) are the primary home of potato landraces. Farmers there maintain thousands of distinct varieties, often growing dozens of different types in a single small plot. This “polyculture” acts as an insurance policy: if one variety fails due to a specific blight or a cold snap, others will likely survive.

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  46. The other day Renaee and I were talking about MORT. Was explaining how I no longer focus on the details. I just lump it into the whole package of full consciousness.

    But I was watching a Michael Dowd video last night and realized that I’m basically making the same mistake as him in regard to not giving denial its proper respect. This video clip is a typical example of how Dowd always explained it. (5:30 – 6:08, queued up)

    LOL, no wonder why I had such horrible denial control back then.

    I think denial is to humans what water is to fish. We eat, sleep, and breathe it 24/7. So if I’m gonna paint it as just being part of the whole package, then I need to add some type of addendum to stress how big it is. 

    NikoB had a good line that I might have to steal:

    Denial is the strongest force in the universe. Beats gravity.

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  47. There was another slide where he went through in quite a bit more detail and explained who are the groups in society who will be in denial, it was a whole slide dedicated to these groups. But agree – it still does not come close to explaining why people who are extremely intelligent in some areas dont see it, let alone the masses, and hence why denial does need more unpacking which MORT supplies.

    I was going through all my nerdy notes (while looking for that slide), and this includes many screenshots of his videos. My god i have worked hard at this ‘job’.

    One of these slides said that “Ecological Overshoot is Always (Fundamentally) a Moral and Relgious Failure. Yikes! why this did not strike me as strange then, I don’t know.

    And the para from DaveP which is a more sane and positive approach is:

    Unlike those who approach this realization with a sense of immense grief (with commensurate processes and rituals for dealing with it), I’ve always tried (and been conditioned) to approach it with a sense of equanimity, the way I think wild animals do. I’m more drawn to the social forgetting process than the truth and reconciliation process. I see dragging up past trauma, assigning blame, and insisting on confession and apology, as an inherently western religion-based pathology, one dependent on belief in intrinsic sinfulness and free will. It is easier to forgive, and to forget, when one accepts that everything that has happened could not have been otherwise.

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  48. First real update to cancer PPI treatment expenditures since July 2025. 🚨

    Spending is now holding at a new growth rate of roughly 2% per annum in constant dollars—nearly ten times the pre-vaccine growth rate. This aligns closely with the ACS new cancer diagnoses figures (2.5%) released last week as well as the novel (2.4%) cancer mortality growth rate we have been tracking in the NCHS data.

    🔸 Excess Constant$ cancer PPI-Treatment: +24.2%
    🔸 Excess ACS cancer diagnoses: +17.6%

    The implication is straightforward: these excess cancer cases are materially more expensive (rapid and life-threatening) to treat than prior cohorts, even after accounting for medical services PPI inflation.

    To the Covid liars—the ones who wished death upon us, and the seizure and forced vaccination of our children—this triple confirmation by independent sources, inflection and concurrence is dismissed as fiction.

    After all, gods possess foreknowledge; omniscience requires no evidence. They know only who must be punished for their disobedience.

    We, by contrast, will adhere to what the data itself continues to corroborate as true.

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      1. Because of my 20 years of experience as a bottom of the barrel, good for nothing, lying salesman… I’m an expert at spotting insecurity and bullshit.

        Not sure if I’ve ever seen a person oozing it more than Shermer here.

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  49. Donald Trump’s state of mind: today’s letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Store

    “Dear Jonas:

    Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you!

    President DJT”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/01/19/europe-trump-greenland-alliance-trade-war/

    Mr Trump really has lost his marbles. I live next door to a nursery school. There are complaints from children who have had their toys taken away.

    Saludos

    el mar

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      1. Question?? Why would the elite of the USA want a smart, knowledgeable, communicative, widely educated reasonable person as president?? He could be a threat to them…

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  50. Do you ever just feel like you are surrounded by idiots? People out there honestly think solar flares are “geo engineered” by NASA or some shit. People have no comprehension of the amount of energy in one of these things. It is orders of magnitude bigger than any power we can produce on Earth.
    People convince themselves that these warnings are some sort of conspiracy. Why go to the effort to invent conspiracies when there are plenty of real ones?

    If people can’t understand something this basic, aint no way most people could get their heads around CACTUS 😦

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/578677/grid-emergency-notice-sparked-by-solar-storm

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    1. I know some people that are convinced ‘the government’ is sending some radio signals of some strange type into the atmosphere that deliberately is changing our weather, so they can call climate change true.. Last time I was there when there was a thunderstorm, I asked them to look at the power and energy in each bolt of lightening, which is only a fraction of energy in the storm, with the large hail being lifted high enough to freeze, latent heat of phase change, from gas to liquid, etc, etc..

      This storm is only 10-20km2 at most, yet you want me to believe that some minor radio signals from a govt antenna can influence millions of km2??? No matter what it is, is just minor electro magnetic radiation, a tiny fraction of what the sun floods the earth every day electro magnetic radiation wise..

      Next item I see them months later… They/them Did you the govt is affecting our weather….. Where is the bang head on wall emoji when I need it….

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      2. Off topic but still in the same ballpark:

        Do you guys believe that chemtrails is a thing? I do. But I’ve noticed that even in the doomerasphere the subject is treated like flat earth.

        I’ve gone down a couple rabbit holes on this, but I’m not informed enough to make an argument for it.

        Ian Graham, I’d especially like to hear your opinion.

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        1. I have no knowledge or opinion on chemtrails.

          If chemtrails includes climate change geoengineering experimentation with sulfur dioxide by countries threatened by climate change then I expect that’s probably already happening.

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      3. I know some people that are convinced ‘the government’ is sending some radio signals of some strange type into the atmosphere that deliberately is changing our weather, so they can call climate change true

        Marjorie Taylor Green, A US congresswoman, spouted such conspiracy theories on multiple occasions.

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