Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse

33 Comments on "Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse"

makati1 on Sat, 21st May 2016 8:08 pm 



I do not have to (and did not) listen to a long rant to know that “love” should be tempered with the knowledge that anyone you bring into this chaotic, war torn, ecologically dying world is NOT going to live the “good life” of the past. It fact, it is going to be hard, brutish and short.

While I love my daughters, if I had to do it again, they would not exist. They had a good American middle class childhood and education. Now they have families of their own and their ability to provide is getting more and more difficult. Neither are poor or living 3rd world lifestyles, but I think it is only a matter of time until they and the rest of Americans are. So be it. I cannot change their past, nor their future.

Love is a dangerous thing. Use it with care.

Sissyfuss on Sat, 21st May 2016 10:21 pm 



I read Erlich in the early ’70s and understanding the exponential function I made the commitment to myself and the biosphere not to add to the mess. I lost the the love of some fantastic women along the way who could not understand my reticence to fill their wombs. I feel vindicated somewhat by the unraveling and the chaos that increases with every new day but I shall never realize the joy that only a family can produce.

dave thompson on Sat, 21st May 2016 10:29 pm 



Just by chance I have no children. I still however get a sick feeling when I see my siblings kids and contemplate what is in store, or so it seems. Predicting the future for the children of today is a dangerous thought process. I do not talk to anyone about climate change and the issues of our current predicament, unless it is someone on the same page. I find it helpful to follow the eight fold path and the four noble truths of Buddhism. The real side of living mindful loving kindness, leads to a good place and peace of mind for the people of my tribe and consequently myself too.

Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Sat, 21st May 2016 11:17 pm 



Cue the doomer porn echo chamber circle jerk

GregT on Sat, 21st May 2016 11:55 pm 



“Cue the doomer porn echo chamber circle jerk”

50K is chump change THALB. In the big scheme of things, you are a completely irrelevant nobody. Keep amassing firearms and ammunition if it helps to inflate your ego, I seriously doubt that you have anything worth fighting for.

Apneaman on Sat, 21st May 2016 11:55 pm 



99 Percent Chance 2016 Will Be the Hottest Year on Record
The streak of record warm months continues, thanks to El Niño and global warming

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/99-percent-chance-2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record/

Apneaman on Sun, 22nd May 2016 12:12 am 



Half a million flee as Cyclone Roanu hits Bangladesh

At least 23 killed and 500,000 relocated to shelters as cyclone makes landfall triggering flooding and landslides.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/05/deaths-cyclone-roanu-pounds-bangladesh-160521135642512.html

Perfect Storm: Climate Change and Hurricanes

“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, and a longtime participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Hurricanes could become more intense as the Earth warms. They are frightening, destructive and extremely costly, and we expect future hurricanes to leave an even greater trail of damage in their wake.”

– See more at: http://www.livescience.com/28489-sandy-after-six-months.html#sthash.usLumLB3.dpuf

Apneaman on Sun, 22nd May 2016 12:24 am 



Arctic set for record-breaking melt this summer
Wildlife, and scientists, will be scrambling

“Baked Alaska
An intensely warm winter and spring are melting climate records across Alaska. The January-April 2016 period was an incredible 11 degrees above normal, setting the stage for a potentially unprecedented summer. (NOAA)”

http://www.noaa.gov/arctic-set-for-record-breaking-melt

makati1 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 12:42 am 



Guns and ammo has no effect against Mother Nature. She is the one we should fear most. Her weapons are more powerful than all of the world’s militaries combined, by multiples. A typhoon/hurricane has more power than a thousand nuclear bombs. She inflicts billion$ (soon to be trillion$) in damages every year and kills thousands of people in the Us and other countries without any lawsuits or arrests. That is real power.

Economic collapse or WW3 are way down the list of greatest threats to humanity although the first is going to happen soon and the other may in the not too distant future. Hell on earth coming? Yep! Are YOU prepared? .

onlooker on Sun, 22nd May 2016 2:32 am 



I am also super happy I never had children.

Kenz300 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 4:36 am 



Too many people demand too many resources……yet the worlds population grows by 80 million every year…..

How many charities are dealing with the same problems they were dealing with 10 or 20 years ago with no end in sight. Every problem is made worse by the worlds growing population.

IF you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.

Rescuing Homeless Children From the Streets of India

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpaR_pTVeBk

Poverty in the Philippines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M5PAS8Lr10

Dredd on Sun, 22nd May 2016 5:32 am 



“And another one bites the dust” … love lost (DEM Frackers).

Davy on Sun, 22nd May 2016 6:53 am 



I disagree with the attitude of fear and hell of Nature. I don’t disagree with the power and supremacy of Nature. An Ancient Egyptian saying goes “Nature enjoys Nature and only Nature can overcome Nature”. This was the ultimate secret given in the Myth of ISIS. Yea the other one not the current dumbass one.

We have been spoiled with a life that was far too stable in many ways for too long. We are returning to a time of instability that was the human normal. This is a time that humans developed in. If this is not a complete extinction event our species will be made stronger from the culling. We may grow spiritually by a profound learning experience. If we are able to keep some kind of civilization together that can reflect on the great collapse coming then this civilization has the potential to become a new and better one. This is even the case if this new and better civilization goes extinct. We were probably going extinct anyway almost all species do and all will when our sun collapses on itself. We will no longer ever have the ability to create and develop with technology because we will have eliminated the high quality resources that allowed a several hundred years of stable growth but our spirituality can progress and the ancients show us this. Some of the most profound understandings of life were premodern.

There is no reason why this great collapse has to be “fire and brimstone” or “the end is nigh”. Could it be, Yes but must it be, NO. We are not gods that can see into the future. All our intellectual conditioning is based upon beliefs and myth both ancient and modern that make us believe we know what is ahead. Science is little different because our scientific abilities and knowing is so far from capable when predicting the future. In fact this is one of the reasons we so deceive ourselves we know so much we think we know it all. We are humans who embrace our own myths and stories that are human myths and stories not the real thing.

We can be sure that this short time in our human history of immense prosperity and growth is at an end. We cannot be sure exactly how that will unfold. There are too many possibilities. We can point to events likely to happen. I can tell you confidently globalism will end. I can tell you confidently we will not have many more people on this earth and we will likely over the next 75 years have a population reduction to bellow 1BIL. How that will unfold is not predictable. Saying we will go extinct is not knowable just as anyone who says we can’t are won’t is a fool.

We know we have a dead state of oil situation within a decade. We have abrupt climate change beginning and this has been shown in climate history to happen within as little as a decade. We have an economy that is destabilized now and will surely not survive the approach to peak oil dynamics and the instability of abrupt climate change. We can say that we have a decade or less and probably 5 years or less of status quo normal. I am not sure that status quo end is such a bad thing. Status quo normal is insanity from what is natural in Nature and what is our own evolved human nature.

This great collapse will happen individually and locally as much as globally. It is within yourself that this collapse will happen. It is your attitude how you approach this collapse that you find meaning. This is true of death which all of us should face and face honestly. Facing death is about humility and acceptance. This is exactly what we need and society needs. Higher spirituality is found in acceptance and humility. We are approaching a time we will be stripped naked by nature of all those things that make us feel great and exceptional. It is a time to embrace nature not fear her and call her hell on earth. She is our mother and we should treat her so.

bug on Sun, 22nd May 2016 6:57 am 



Onlooker, I wake ever morning knowing I
never had them. Could not imagine having them and cringe when I see them.

Davy on Sun, 22nd May 2016 7:24 am 



I have children and they are the joy of my life. I am glad they are here. It pains me to know they don’t have a future like I had but then again what kind of life did I really have within the crazy house of modern life? Maybe I could have had so much more in a life that was not modern. Who knows what kind of future my kids are going to have.

It is people who assume that a long prosperous life is the best like we had that are deceiving themselves. We lived a long prosperous life within an insane asylum how is that special? Many young people are going to find special strengths and talents that come with a brutish and tough life of the coming great collapse.

It is the middle age and old people on this board that need to be worried. And it is us that need to realize we should not have lived this long. It is us that if we had honor should have a collective suicide for the younger generation. But no it is us middle age and older that act like we are exceptional and special and deserve to have what we have. We hate the fact that young are being born and act like that is unnatural. I think instead of telling people not to have kids we need to be telling us old people to start having suicide parties because we are the unnatural ones living far too long in a destructive prosperity.

Nature will take care of the overpopulation. People can keep having sex and reproducing that is natural. We the older generation are not natural living so long in prosperity. Just enough of us with true maturity should hopefully be able to survive so we can warn the younger generation about hubris and false myths.

JuanP on Sun, 22nd May 2016 8:02 am 



I don’t have children either. I had a Vasectomy instead. I am very happy and very proud of this fact, I consider it the most intelligent thing I’ve done in my life. I pity kids. My heart breaks every time I have to interact with one of them. Children do bring a lot of joy to my life and I love spending time with them. I have spent many of the best moments of my life playing with and educating them. I am very lucky in that most children instantly like me and very easily get feel comfortable and safe in my presence.

I believe that bringing children to this world is the second most unforgivable thing a person can do, the worst mistake possible. The most unforgivable thing a human being can do in this world is abuse a child. I strongly believe in killing child abusers.

JuanP on Sun, 22nd May 2016 8:16 am 



Davy, There is no need to choose between living childfree and commiting suicide. I have always planned to do both things in my life. Being childfree makes it that much easier to kill yourself when the time comes.

I have friends whose parents killed themselves and were brutally traumatized by the experience and never recovered from it. Their whole lives where ruined from the start. I believe people with children lose the right to kill themselves, at least while they are underage. That is one of the many, many reasons I had to live childfree. I want to feel free to kill myself when I see fit, and having children would have gotten in the way.

The least you can do if you have kids is suffer this life for them. If dying for them helps them in any way, then by all means do it, too, but only if it helps them, not you.

makati1 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 8:32 am 



JuanP, my Ex lost her mother to cancer when she was small. Her aunt and uncle adopted her, but her uncle killed himself when she was a teen. Her aunt(mom) became very difficult to live with and my Ex escaped by marrying a drug addict in her teens.

When she finally dumped him, she had two half grown kids. We met and married and I helped her raise her two and my two. We had a good 28 years, but her childhood trauma was still there and she was becoming like her stepmom. Impossible to live with.

She is well taken care of and that was the price of my freedom. No regrets. She mothered four kids, who have parented 12 more at this time. And the oldest of those have parented 3 more. I feel sorry for them, but there is nothing I can do to change where the world is going. Ah well, if only…

JuanP on Sun, 22nd May 2016 8:54 am 



Mak, That is a very sad story. My wife’s uncle killed himself and his son was my best friend at the time. The family never recovered completely. Suicide can be very hard on those left behind, particularly the young ones. A good 28 years is a lot, though. I am glad she had them.

Unfortunately, youth traumas are very hard to overcome, sometimes impossible. My wife has had to put up with a lot of crap from me, and I am getting worse, too. People like you and my wife make life possible for people like your wife and me, but there usually is a big price to pay for it for everyone involved. It is much easier to destroy a life than it is to fix a damaged person. You must have loved her a lot.

makati1 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 9:36 am 



JuanP, yes, and I gave her the best part of my life. She is doing ok, but I am glad I left. She has 4 kids to look after her and 12+ grand kids. She is ok financially as I gave her all that we had built up during those years.

I started off at zero again and it has not been easy, but I do not regret my decision. I do not blame her for any of it. As I said, we had 28 good years and both of my daughters have told me that they had a perfect family life for the years they were at home. That made it all worthwhile.

Davy on Sun, 22nd May 2016 9:45 am 



Suicide will be a valid remedy for suffering soon. Suicide is already in use and always has been. It is our insane human culture that frowns upon it. If the time comes I may chose that route. It does not have to be traumatic if it becomes a cultural remedy for suffering and social betterment. People in the last year of their lives are consuming an inordinate amount of resources and should consider ending it early.

As for my musing above it was another way of looking at the overpopulation thing. Us older guys can’t stand the thought of dying. We want to tell the young not to be human and reproduce so we can continue to enjoy life or continue this madness we call modern life. Population control will only work through nature. Yes we should stop having children in the many extremes and there are many many extreme but to say no more children at all is against nature. I don’t agree with it.

People should not be living so long and we need less children both go hand in hand. So any old guys saying to the young don’t reproduce I say to them if you are over 60 kill yourself for the same reasons. We could get a big bulge of population out of the way very quickly. We could also eliminate the majority of the poor attitudes and lifestyles. The older generation are the ones that left the place a mess we should pay the price.

Apneaman on Sun, 22nd May 2016 10:25 am 



I’m also glad I never had kids given what is upon us and without any doubt, is going to get tragic, but if my life worked out differently and I did have kids, I don’t think I would have regretted it. I kinda like the tiny humans – they haven’t been fully corrupted by this toxic society yet. I have 3 nieces and 2 nephews and have care about them greatly. I imagine those feelings get jacked up by orders of magnitude for most parents – evolution made it so.

Speaking of nieces, the young adult one(24) is getting married this afternoon to a fine young man. Family in town and we had a big dinner last night. Totally surreal for me – most of the conversations were about superhero and sifi movies, consumer goodies, memories of past jet setting trips and plans on who is going where next. All these people are very pleasant, gentle and law abiding their whole lives and are living in a manner that will fuck up their kids as fast as fast can. They live in a fantasy world that is problem free and the future is awesome. They are so far down the other end of the scale from me that it is pointless saying anything anymore. I tried many times. All the information is wildly available and disasters are a daily occurrence. The ones from Alberta were mum on Fort McMurray, which is a major deal for the province and the whole country really. The idea that if only people “knew” then a magical awaking would happen and we just need to inform and educate them is a fucking joke. The only way not to know is to have all those brain filters running on full power. I’m not talking extinction either, just that the world and their lives are going to change dramatically in the near future.

Yep the entire middle and upper classes, the supposed smart responsible adults who run and manage the world have great plans for dealing with the deadly consequences of AGW and the other over shoot predicaments.

Massive cruise liners ‘each spew out as much sulphurous emissions gas per day as 376 MILLION cars’ it is revealed as experts call for action on the pollution they cause in port cities
Harmony of the Seas has 16 decks, 23 swimming pools and 52 trees
16-cylinder Wartsila engines will burn 1,147 gallons gallons of fuel an hour
Pollution analysts say it will emit more sulphur than millions of cars

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3602126/Massive-cruise-liners-spew-sulphurous-emissions-gas-day-376-MILLION-cars-revealed-experts-call-action-pollution-cause-port-cities.html

The humans are literally rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship going down.

makati1 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 10:59 am 



I keep trying to post a comment and it tells me that I have already posted it, yet it is not here. Virus PO?

makati1 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 10:59 am 



Trying again….Ap, the Us military is one of the major oil burners in the world yet they blame cruise ships. LOL

“…the U.S. government burns up about 160 million barrels of oil per year, at a cost of something over $10 billion at recent price levels.

Of the total U.S. government liquid fuel use, about 97% of that is consumed by the Department of Defense,…”

http://www.peak-oil-news.info/military-oil-usage-statistics/

That is twice what the whole country of the Philippines uses in a year.

makati1 on Sun, 22nd May 2016 11:01 am 



Maybe censoring because it is about the US military burning more oil than many countries? Twice that of the Ps. LOL? I give up.

onlooker on Sun, 22nd May 2016 11:07 am 



Thought I would apprise people of what Sulfur dioxide does to the environment. Environmental effects—

When sulfur dioxide combines with water and air, it forms sulfuric acid, which is the main component of acid rain. Acid rain can:

cause deforestation
acidify waterways to the detriment of aquatic life
corrode building materials and paints.

Davy on Sun, 22nd May 2016 11:07 am 



I had my nuts cut right after my twins came almost 10 years ago. I admire people who make a conscious choice not to have kids. Juan is one in particular that has good population reduction ideas and promotions.

My biggest point at a macro level is abstinence has no chance just as my musing people over 60 need to kill themselves. I say that being in my mid fifties. We are not going to manage these things but Nature will. Nature is going to start taking away on average 100MIL humans a year very soon. This means nature is going to get bad on us old people and young people. We old people are going to die off rapidly in the next 10 years all the while the young will continue to reproduce. The young are going to die young also. Women are going to die in childbirth. We are going back to how it was. In fact in many places every age bracket is going to die from famine and pandemics. These things are coming and it we are lucky extinction might not happen for a few hundred years.

There is no reason to sugar coat shit. What is IS. None of us are getting out alive anyway why all the concern this is all natural.

JuanP on Sun, 22nd May 2016 11:19 am 



Apneaman, Talking to family, friends, and other normal people about these issues is counterproductive and leads to a lot of arguments. I only talk about these things with people who are voluntarily willing to take the pain as I am. I am of the opinion now that the best thing to do about the sheeple is to ignore them, keep my distance, and listen to them rather than talking. Ignorance is bliss, let’s let them enjoy it since we can’t. I did spend my childhood, adolescence, and youth trying to educate the sheeple. I wish I could get those wasted years back. I agree with you that they are mostly nice, good people. They just have defective brains! The road to hell is paved by people with good intentions. 😉

JuanP on Sun, 22nd May 2016 11:28 am 



Davy, I agree that society needs to change its attitude towards suicide, and I believe and hope that it will happen.

I hope Vasectomies will become popular, too, but I am not holding my breath out on that. I have always been impressed by how negatively most men react when I tell them I’ve had one. It is the perfect conversation ender for an antisocial freak like me. Whenever I want to get rid of some man talking to me, I always bring up the subject and off they go. LOL! Most women, on the other hand, love it.

JuanP on Sun, 22nd May 2016 11:33 am 



Mak, If my wife and I ever get divorced, she will get everything I own regardless of the reason for the divorce. My wife saved my life. I would have killed myself a long time ago if it wasn’t for her. I owe her everything I am and everything I have.

Ralph on Sun, 22nd May 2016 2:42 pm 



My grandparents were all from families of seven or more. My parents each had one sibling. From those four people five children were born. From those five, just one. He is 30 and showing no sign of fathering a child.

My children are adopted. They had a tough start in life, and I fear they will not cope well with the tough conditions ahead.

freak on Sun, 22nd May 2016 3:26 pm 



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BtquTKw78

sidzepp on Sun, 22nd May 2016 8:59 pm 



I am glad to have children, natural, step, and adopted. My yin of pessimism is often negated by the yang of optimism that they display as they pursue their lives.
The customer base during the days at Waffle House is dominated by septuagenarian men who fail to heed Thoreau’s suggestion of leading lives of quiet desperation, sit around vocalizing opinions on everything under the sun and blaming it all on Obama. I prefer to wait on those who are young and optimistic.
I realize that we are going down unchartered waters and have probably already opened the Pandora’s Box of climate catastrophe, but I will enjoy my children and grandchildren as time permits