A Big New Idea & Silence. Again. How is this possible? Seriously.

You can’t make this shit up.

We may soon have the world’s first trillionaire and he made his fortune selling a dream of colonizing other planets that citizens who were not brain damaged by mRNA transfections would instantly know has a 0% probability of success.

In the early days of covid, people with defective denial genes speculated that the covid virus was engineered to cut consumption of non-renewable resources, and to enable tools like digital currencies that will be necessary to manage a collapse of modernity.

Now it appears the covid virus was actually engineered to cause brain damage in billions of people so that a little more growth can be squeezed out of a depleted planet.

B today does the math on global oil flows and speculates that the global economy is so fragile that the Iran war will cause a collapse in oil demand because no one can afford higher priced oil.

He concludes that the world will break up into a collection of isolated bunker states and that growth is over.

B does not understand CACTUS because he does not discuss the implications of the end of growth, nor the implications of a breakdown in our complex networked 6 continent supply chain that enables modernity.

https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/what-if-oil-prices-never-hit-150

So, for now, the math looks as follows: the 13.9 million barrels of lost supply from the Persian Gulf is currently offset by 4-5 million bpd lower Chinese imports, rising South American exports (a 1 million increase), and the US SPR being drained at a 1.2 million barrels a day rate. Shipments originating from other parts of the world (Africa, Asia, Europe) basically stayed flat. That leaves us with a gaping hole of roughly 7 million barrels a day to cope with. So far un-sanctioned Russian and Iranian shipments, leakers from the Persian Gulf, oil from floating storage, demand destruction in South and South East Asia, as well as local petroleum reserve draw downs (primarily in Japan) helped to fill in that hole… At least partially—but never fully.

Businesses around the world are burning through their material stockpiles and cash-reserves to stay afloat. And refineries are no exception either: scooping up barrels from the spot market (to fill in the gap left behind by the loss of supply from the Middle East) is extremely expensive. 

In practical terms this means that if we ever hit “tank bottoms”—instead of shooting to the stars—oil prices could actually crash and burn, as by that time no one would be left buying that oil. Neither refineries nor actual users of oil could afford higher prices. 

China, far from becoming the forever growing “electron state” utopia of the future, is rapidly turning into a increasingly self-sufficient and resilient—albeit an eventually shrinking—economy; fully capable to hold out (and even thrive) under what’s already shaping up to be a full scale US blockade. Because, this is where we are headed. The world is increasingly fracturing into a bunch of paranoid bunker states and their satellites, not only competing with each other purely on economic and military grounds—but also actively trying to choke off each other’s supplies of raw materials and energy. Too bad that they’re slowly killing the entire world economy in the process.

And this is what’s being left out of conventional economic theory, predicting a $150 oil: the end of material growth and global western hegemony has arrived, and it’s reshaping the entire global economy. We are no longer in a world where price signals kick-off an era of new growth—a commodity super-cycle if you will. Instead, the crisis we’ve found ourselves in signals the end to affordable energy, real economic growth and a rise in prosperity. The coming decades will thus not be about a peaceful transition into an electrified high-tech utopia, which is materially impossible, but an extremely rough ride into an uncertain future.

“Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, cause Kansas is going bye-bye!”

Skip this if you’re having a nice day.

Radagast is a young man in Europe struggling with depression, who drifts in and out sanity, probably has defective denial genes, and is deeply aware of the climate change dimension of our overshoot predicament.

Yesterday he took a big dose of anti-depressants and wrote a terrifying essay on the near term implications of climate change.

I don’t believe he has any awareness of CACTUS, so reality will be worse than the horrors he describes.

https://www.rintrah.nl/nobody-is-prepared-for-whats-going-to-happen/

If you want to know what the ultimate committed warming is, from today’s greenhouse gas concentrations, you’re looking at 10 degree Celsius of global warming. That’s what you end up with eventually, as the white ice sheets gradually melt and reveal a darker surface that absorbs more sunlight (heat), while the permafrost begins to release greenhouse gasses on its own. This is a process that takes centuries, but the idea people have, that we can stop using fossil fuels and temperatures will stabilize as a result is nonsense.

No, in reality, we’re now stuck with continuing global warming for centuries to come. But in the short term, it’s very likely to accelerate. A recent study suggests we’re facing 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius of warming, in the next ten years. We had 0.488 degree of warming over the past ten years, so this is simply a modest acceleration of what we’ve already seen.

Note how there’s a jump in the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere in 2023 and 2024. Why is that? That’s when the 2023–2024 El Niño event took place, which caused a spike in global temperatures. The Amazon suffered a severe drought as a result. That drought turned the Amazon from a carbon sink, into a carbon source. The record jump of CO2 concentrations in 2023 and 2024, was a result of the Amazon ecosystem beginning to fail.

Do you realize what this means? Our ecosystems are beginning to die and as a result they’re beginning to dump the carbon they have been sequestering for us, back into the atmosphere. And none of this is about to stop, even if our emissions suddenly stopped today, because of the positive feedback loops we have triggered. Take a good look, at the other little train we have set in motion:

What you’re looking at, is the Earth’s albedo, its ability to reflect sunlight rather than absorb it.

It has declined, mainly because of the gradual disappearance of snow and glaciers and changes in cloud coverage. The disappearance of snow and glaciers is a delayed process, that takes time to unfold, it continues even when emissions stop. The decline in albedo is equivalent in effect to raising CO2 by 110 parts per million. That’s the train that has been set in motion for us.

Again: There is no climate stability, as long as CO2 concentrations remain above 350 parts per million. Even 350ppm is a generous estimate, the safe target may be as low as 300ppm. And since nobody has a realistic way to bring concentrations back below 350, let alone 300ppm, there is no stability in our lifetimes. This is just how the climate system works. Politicians want to believe they can stabilize the climate at whatever level they want, but they can’t.

So what are the consequences in our lifetime? Well let’s start out with some of the basics. In the summer of 2022 France’s nuclear fleet sat at 40% of its peak capacity. The heat was simply too intense to use the river water for cooling, without killing all the life in the rivers. Now wait 10 years, as global temperatures rise 0.5-1 degree Celsius. Europe is warming twice as fast as the world as a whole, so add 1-2 degree Celsius on top of what we get today. Now add the demand from people’s air conditioning. You get blackouts.

Now try India. I quote:

“I’m sure some of you have seen the international headlines or the new UN climate warnings about the heat dome over India right now. The IMD (our weather department) has issued red alerts across my region (the northwest/central belt). Yesterday, a town near me recorded 48.2°C.

I want to explain what 48 degrees actually feels like when you live in a developing country, because it is terrifying.

You can’t just “stay inside and run the AC.” The power grid simply cannot handle the load of millions of people trying to cool down, so we are dealing with rolling blackouts. Imagine sitting in the pitch dark in a concrete room that has been baking in the sun for 12 hours, with no ceiling fan, while the ambient temperature inside is still hovering near 40°C at midnight. You don’t sleep; you just pass out from exhaustion.

The taps are running dry because the heat evaporates local reservoirs and water usage spikes. People who have to work outside—street vendors, construction workers, delivery drivers—are collapsing. Even the water coming out of the cold tap during the day is hot enough to literally brew tea.

It feels like we are living on the absolute razor’s edge of what the human body can endure, and it’s only May.”

This is what they’re getting in India, right now. By 2030, 21 cities in India, including New Delhi, are expected to have exhausted their groundwater. There won’t be water coming out of the tap. There won’t be water for agriculture. They’re using up their groundwater faster than nature can replenish it. That’s four years from now.

Now try adding 1 degree Celsius of warming on top of what they’re getting right now. What do you think is going to happen? People are going to flee. Not by 2100. Not by 2050. No, within the next ten years, you’re going to have droves of people try to leave India, whether legally or illegally. They’re going to try to leave, in whatever way they can.

The refugee crisis in Europe back in 2015, consisted of 1.3 million refugees, one million of whom were Syrians. Around five percent of Syria’s population of 20 million back in 2015 tried to enter Europe. If 1% of the Indian population tries to flee to Europe, that’s 15 million people.

Now add Pakistan and Bangladesh, which face the same situation as India: Depleting aquifers, sea level rise, overpopulation and global warming. In total, their population will be 2.021 billion people by 2036. If just 1% of their population tries to flee to Europe, that’s 20 million people.

There is no future in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. The heatwaves are approaching the limits of what a healthy adult can physically survive. The groundwater is being depleted, they won’t have any water coming out of the tap. The electricity grid is not equipped to handle the heatwaves, let alone once the rich start buying air conditioning.

The refugee streams you’re going to get as a result of climate change, are unlike anything the world has ever seen in history, but nobody is prepared for it. In fact, most people don’t even have the vaguest clue what they need to be preparing for. Nobody is prepared for what’s going to happen.

Very nice recap of the US genocide crimes.

Despite both being CACTUS blind this discussion between Carlson and Mearsheimer about how the US has lost its way is very good.

Prof. John Mearsheimer on genocide in Gaza, looming defeat in Iran and the potential of a nuclear strike in Europe.

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. A leading international relations scholar, he is known for his realist theory that great powers compete for security and influence. He authored The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and co-authored The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with Stephen Walt, and has been a prominent voice in debates on the Iraq War, Ukraine, and Gaza.

M: There’s a lot of people who are not thinking straight these days.

C: I agree. What is that? Have you ever seen anything like it before?

M: No. Not at all.

M: It’s widespread in the west.

I agree.

I blame brain damage from mRNA transfections. China and Russia did not use mRNA. It’s too big of a coincidence to ignore.

What’s your theory?

I listen to a lot of geopolitical analysts that try to explain the US objectives for its wars with Iran and Russia.

Many different objectives are proposed and discussed over and over and over.

Interestingly, the true objective is NEVER mentioned: control of oil.

If oil is mentioned it is in the context of US wanting to export more oil to capture market share from Russia and the Middle East.

Q: How is this possible? Seriously.

A: MORT explains this because to acknowledge oil as the US objective you have to accept that scarcity must be imminent, and that leads to an avalanche of unpleasant awareness including wondering why we care about oil if renewables can replace it, and what the end of growth implies.

Nate Hagens continues to do impressive mindgame gymnastics to avoid saying what will almost certainly happen and what should be done.

Today he paints a future with a wide range of possible outcomes for economic growth, overshoot limits, power/wealth concentration, geopolitical cooperation/conflict, and ecosystem damage.

This despite the trajectory being obvious for anyone with eyes.

I find it disingenuous and another great case study for MORT.

I much prefer the clarity and honesty of CACTUS which says collapse cannot be avoided however with awareness and wisdom (assuming you believe MORT can be overridden, which Hagens and others assume) we can delay collapse, and maybe avoid war which will magnify the suffering, and maybe, just maybe, prepare a softer landing zone.

https://natehagens.substack.com/p/essay-how-to-think-about-the-future-92e

There are a zillion ways to parse all this – I came up with these four grids, which I think cover the main bases:

1) Economic direction – growth or contraction.

2) Power and distribution – both how it’s concentrated and how it’s shared.

3) Geopolitics – adversarial versus cooperative relations, and independent or connected.

4) Earth systems – basically warmer climate or much warmer, and more or less biosphere integrity.

Plus technology as a modifier to it all.

None of these can be a “future scenario” by itself – these are only layers. A real scenario would be a composite of these layers. We won’t live in a general Great Simplification, we’ll live in a Great Simplification with a particular power structure, a particular geopolitical backdrop, and a particular ecological condition. The same economic headline scenario will produce radically different lived realities depending on what else is in the stack.

In the next part of this series, I’m going to build a handful of scenario composites from this foundation that will be vivid and concrete enough so we can feel the difference between living inside one world versus another. Imagining these scenarios is important because it will then inform which interventions make sense depending on which stack we’re considering, or maybe actually moving into in 2026, and which ones we’d like to steer toward.

Once we can articulate the stacks somewhat clearly, we can perhaps reduce our arguing about single-story futures and start talking more about practical robust choices and effective strategies under genuine uncertainty.

Art Berman does not think we are facing an imminent oil shortage in July as many others like Martenson are claiming.

Key points:

• Oil prices reflect fundamentals, not manipulation.
• Hormuz closure has removed 20M barrels per day from market.
• Resilience of system has proven to be much greater than many expected.
• SPR tanks will not be empty in July as many predict.

Berman believes the consequences of the Iran war are serious, but it will take longer than July for the problems to emerge.

https://www.artberman.com/blog/hormuz-a-logistics-crisis-not-yet-an-inventory-crisis/

Hormuz: A Logistics Crisis, Not Yet an Inventory Crisis

Inventories are clearly declining and the disruption is real. At the same time, the global system has proven far more resilient than most analysts expected, while physical markets continue to signal severe stress in specific products and locations.

Both camps may be right.

Today we appear to be facing a logistics crisis more than an inventory crisis. But if the Hormuz disruption persists long enough, the distinction between stocks and flows will eventually disappear. Physical and financial prices will converge, and substantially higher prices will be required before demand destruction restores balance to the market.