I need to tell you of a very special talent I have. I have the very unusual and rare ability to find, to ferret out if you will, the blatantly obvious. I mean if it is as plain as the nose on your face, I am going to figure it out. What shocks me is that this ability is so rare. What is happening to our earth and our species is so obvious it is mind blowing.
I could give you thousands of forest disappearing, deserts expanding, rivers drying up, water tables dropping, top soil disappearing, species going extinct, ocean fish disappearing, pollution and plastic waste killing sea birds, and on and on and on. But I will start with one example that exemplifies what is happening to the entire world, the Aral Sea.
What has been happening to the world can be exemplified by this short 3 minute video on the Aral Sea: The Aral Sea story.
The Aral Sea was once the fifth largest inland sea in the world. It supported a huge fishing industry. But that was before they dammed its tributaries to irrigate cotton fields.
By 2000 it was mostly gone. The 1960 shoreline is shown on this photograph.
And today it is almost completely gone.
Of course the fishing fleet is still there.
Of course almost the exact same story can be told about Lake Chad. This once vast inland body of water once supported tens of thousands with its bountiful fish supply is now not much more than a small mud hole.
What is happening to the Aral Sea and Lake Chad is happening to the entire world. Rivers are drying up. Water tables all over the world are dropping, some by meters per year. Land in India and China, as well as in other Asian nations, irrigated from underground water, that once fed billions, now feed far less and will soon feed none.
Of course the rain forests are disappearing very fast. Some, like the forest of Borneo is being slashed and burned to cultivate palm oil. Some are being cut for lumber. But the biggest culprit is cattle ranching.
It is estimated that for each pound of beef produced, 200 square feet of rainforest is destroyed. In the past 20 years Costa Rica has lost the majority of its forests to beef cattle ranching. This is known as slash and burn farming and is believed to account for 50% of rainforest destruction. However, the land cannot be used for long: the soil is of poor quality and, without the forest, quickly becomes very dry. The grass often dies after only a few years and the land becomes a crusty desert. The cattle farmers then have to move on and destroy more rainforest to create new cattle pastures.
And because our appetite for meat is so great, it will not stop until all the rain forests are gone.
10,000 years ago humans and their domestic animals were one tenth of one percent of the land and air vertebrate biomass of the world. Today they are over 97 percent of the land and air vertebrate biomass of the world.
Examine the two charts above. It will continue. The biomass of all wild animals will continue to shrink while the biomass of humans and their animals will continue to increase. If you believe it will change simply means you do not understand why it is happening in the first place.
The amount of humans and their animals terrestrial vertebrate biomass is increasing at an alarming rate while that of all wild animals is decreasing at an alarming rate. The dotted line in the chart above, the long term carrying capacity of terrestrial vertebrate biomass, is declining because of our destruction of animal habitat, which means our habitat.
This brings up a very misunderstood point about all mass extinctions. In all past extinctions, as well as the current ongoing mass extinction, it is the megafauna that have suffered the most. In all past extinctions all the megafauna went extinct. This current extinction, the sixth great extinction, will be no different. All the megafauna, save one species, will go extinct.
Mice will survive, elephants will not. Rats will survive, orangutans will not. All great apes will be driven to extinction except one, Homo sapiens. Some small monkeys will survive. The larger monkeys and lesser apes will not. Most of them will be killed for food. The rest will die because of loss of habitat.
It is called bush meat and it is a very important food source for Sub Sahara Africa’s booming population.
If I saw a way out, a way to save humanity from catastrophe, a way to stop the destruction of our environment, then I would do everything in my power to show it to the world. But it is already way, way too late.
Now I hope you see the reason for my despondence. I hope you understand why I don’t get excited about solar or wind power, or electric vehicles. It simply doesn’t matter. There is no hope. We are already in deep overshoot. Our numbers are already at least six billion above the long term carrying capacity of the earth.
And when it crashes it will get worse… a lot worse. We will eat the songbirds out of the trees.
makati1 on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 8:48 pm
I don’t see how he can make man an exception to extinction if all of the rest of the ecology will be gone.
As for eating anything edible, that is the case today in most of the 3rd world. Only the 1st world is blind to the existing world outside their narrow, selfish, greedy selves. I live in that outside world, as do some others here. We can tell you what is coming better than any Western MSM news outlets and it ain’t pretty. When a rat means staying alive another day, you WILL eat it, or die.
Apneaman on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 9:02 pm
mak, the same way that millions of other intelligent apes with access to all the information, from the body of accumulated knowledge/evidence including the 14 previous extinction periods (5 mass,) and the fact that 99.99% of all species had a visit and are now gone. It’s a combination of our evolved psychology and culture. Same reason most previous civilizations committed suicide.
How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v14/n11/full/nn.2949.html
Your brain won’t allow you to believe the apocalypse could actually happen
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5848857/your-brain-wont-allow-you-to-believe-the-apocalypse-could-actually-happen
makati1 on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 10:14 pm
Ap, perhaps a few of us have brains that can accept the almost certainty of our extinction in the near future. Perhaps a few here will be gone before, but a few of the younger of us may see the end before they go. I hope, for my grand kids sake it is not in their lifetimes, but I would not place a bet on that.
At the rate of acceleration in all areas, we may not have decades but years and not many of those before just surviving will be the only thing we will think about. Like the supposed meteor, man may choose to go in a world wide series of nuclear explosions that will do the same, or worse, damage to the ecosystem. But something will survive and start the next one. We will not be part of it.
DMyers on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 11:38 pm
I’m looking at the photo of the dude packing orangs on his back. I see that big smile on his face, and it’s quite clear, it makes a person happy to have an orang or two packing on his back. They have cute little faces. I wish I had one myself.
Great advertising.
“I don’t see how he can make man an exception to extinction if all of the rest of the ecology will be gone.”
Hard to argue with Mak on that point.
Apneaman on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 11:57 pm
Say So Long To Soil: The ‘Unfolding Global Disaster’ Happening Right Under Our Feet
https://theoldspeakjournal.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/say-so-long-to-soil-the-unfolding-global-disaster-happening-right-under-our-feet/
Apneaman on Fri, 8th Jan 2016 11:59 pm
DMyers, I want one with cheese, lettuce and mayo.
GregT on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 12:34 am
Fucking realists, no point in paying attention to them. They kill the buzz….
makati1 on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 1:15 am
Ap. I think there is little real soil left in the world. I can remember when you turned a spade of soil and saw a whole microcosm of living things by the hundreds. A cubic yard of real soil is teaming with millions of life forms that work to make it grow stuff. Now we have killed most of them with insecticides, and bactericides and …
When the artificial fertilizers go away, all there will be is fine sand. It will be too late to try to recover what we wasted. It takes a century to make an inch of soil and those millions of little life forms to make it healthy.
Yes, our future is under our feet. It is not a good one.
ghung on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 8:43 am
Mak, come to my place and I’ll give you a shovel. I dare you to find one shovel full that isn’t “teaming with millions of life forms that work to make it grow stuff”, except our gravel road, perhaps. Some of us know what we’re doing. Not sure what the rest of you will do.
Davy on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 9:27 am
I was going to say the same thing concerning my pasture and creek bottoms. There has been little erosion since the farm was first cleared for pasture 100 years ago. The soil profile is excellent. The native grasses planted 10 years ago have formed a thick sod. These plantings were no till drilled so little erosion occurred. Riparian buffers are now 10 years old and well established. They are now significant filter strips and brushy habitat.
Nony on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 11:18 am
I appreciate the author’s heartfelt concern. But articles like this (or similar ones by Patzek) concern me. The reason is these guys are also writing articles that supposedly try to evaluate peak oil (geological constraints, production difficulties, etc.)
I don’t really trust them to be objective. Instead their eco bias affects their evaluation of the geological and economic factors. So every growth in production is met with skepticism and every decline with belief.
This is why the peakers have been so wrong for years. They’re NOT careful analysts, finding out what the MSM and industry experts are missing. Instead they are “wishcasting”. They want oil to peak. So they predict it. BAU is not something that surprises them to the upside, but something that dismays them.
Less politics, less eco-religion, more objective scientific attitude is needed. Heck even the better ones like Staniford still show the signs of this bias. A very, very few have come out and admitted that they were wrong about imminent peak oil.
I think you should be able to differentiate what you want to happen from what you predict to happen. But very few people do this. Heck, most are so biased that they refuse to grapple with events that already disprove their predictions.
ennui2 on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 11:40 am
^^^ Well said!
Davy on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 12:15 pm
“They want oil to peak.” NOoo, I am not a peaker. I am a reluctant doomer and no, I would prefer the peak hold off a few years until us humans can get our “shit together”. I agree with your comment to a degree for a broad cross section. In a more focus look at the best of the peaker analysis most of the times these folks are looking for the truth. The problem is on both the corn and the peaker side there is uneducated, uninformed, and salesman broadcasting a distorted message. It is very hard to find realistic objective evidence all sides can agree on and utilize for proper policy and action.
There was a time when we had significant uncertainty because of supply, prices, and trends. That is changing quickly today. Then there are those who do not want any news that will upset the status quo. These folks are your folks NOoo. I have been very happy to have you on this board because I have learned much from you but you have been far from objective yourself at times. Many times in the past it was a game of he said she said in an endless round of cheerleading on all sides. You seem very much changed recently. I imagine the economic and oil complex malaise have sobered you up from your once fun and cavalier cockiness
Nony on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 12:55 pm
I’m on the side of the consumer, not the producer. I wanted US drillers to crash the price. Drill, baby, drill worked.
Hilarious to me that peakers are somehow trying to say higher volume AND lower price are now consistent with scarcity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 1:05 pm
Nony in full concern troll mode today.
Nony on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 1:11 pm
That Nony. He’s such a bastard.
Doesn’t change that oil volume is up and price is down. And that is antithetical to peak oil or peak oil “dynamic”.
Davy on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 1:13 pm
“Drill, baby, drill worked”. The key is “worked” but what is the definition of worked? That word can mean good, bad or both. “High volume and lower prices” definitely point to scarcity when one considers this may permanently damage supply. In the case of supply potential being damaged “worked” is bad. In the case of the consumer benefits we are not seeing a solid positive pass-through other than on the surface from high volume and lower prices. The economy is showing every indication of a negative business cycle period. Some oil demand increase but that is to be expected with cheaper oil. People use oil for many reasons. That increased demand does not mean all that increase demand is resulting in productive economic activity. We can be sure high volume and lower prices are preventing worse economic carnage. Imagine an oil price shock today with all the other instabilities.
Marty on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 2:33 pm
The creatures on the mans back look like a variety of baboons, not orang-utans.
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 2:50 pm
This is What the Anthropocene Looks Like — Tropical Storms Are Now Forming During Winter
“Since climatology is the understanding of trends in average weather over long periods, we can probably say that the off-season tropical cyclone climatology has already changed for the Pacific. During the 148 years since record keeping began in 1832 for the Pacific through to 1980 only seven tropical cyclones were recorded to have formed during the period of December through May. During just the 35 years since 1980, we’ve seen nearly twice that many — 12. In other words, the rate of recorded off-season storm formation septupled or increased a factor of 7. And both the earliest and the latest named stormed have now formed during back-to-back years — Nine C on New Years Eve less than two weeks ago and now Pali on January 7th.
What we are seeing now is unprecedented by any measure of tropical weather system climatology. We have never seen a tropical storm form so early in the Central Pacific at the same time during which a similar, very rare, tropical system was threatening to form in the Atlantic. In other words, it’s not just both events in isolation that’s quite odd. It’s the fact they are both happening side-by-side.”
http://robertscribbler.com/2016/01/08/this-is-what-the-athropocene-looks-like-tropical-storms-are-now-forming-during-winter/
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 3:44 pm
Record-Breaking 2015 Temperatures Connected To Ongoing Fish Kill on Mississippi Beaches
http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/12/31/record-breaking-2015-temperatures-connected-ongoing-fish-kill-mississippi-beaches?utm_content=buffer9e59b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 3:54 pm
Siberian Arctic leads the way in ‘revolutionary’ Northern Hemisphere warming
http://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/features/f0202-siberian-arctic-leads-the-way-in-revolutionary-northern-hemisphere-warming/
sjn on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 5:31 pm
That’s all just the eco-bias of natural Earth systems, don’t be fooled. If only they would just be objective and measured..
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 5:48 pm
Enjoy the fossil fueled infrastructure while it lasts. The costs of these events are beyond most municipal, state and provincial budgets and federal governments can only pay for so many rebuilds. Insurance industry will cease to exist.
Wintertime floods among costliest ever
“As floodwaters continue to rise along the lower Mississippi River, it’s clear the slow-motion disaster will be among the costliest wintertime flood events in U.S. history. Officials are simply trying to tally the price tag.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday that damage from the floods will top $1 billion. That number is likely to climb as the unpredictable and overflowing Mississippi continues its march south.
Over the weekend and into next week, floodwaters will continue to rise along the Mississippi River in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, including the cities of Greenville and Natchez, Miss., and Baton Rouge, according to AccuWeather. Minor-to-moderate flooding is possible south of Baton Rouge to New Orleans this month.”
“That is what has made this current event so unique, since we don’t expect this kind of flooding in the Midwest and Mississippi Valley until the spring,” he said.”
“The floods stem from heavy rains linked to El Niño and man-made climate change, Trenberth said. Such unusual rain and flooding at this time of year would have been outside the realm of possibility were it not for those outside factors, he said.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2016/01/08/mississippi-river-flood-cost/78366942/
South Carolina Floods Are A Small-Business Owner’s ‘Nightmare’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/south-carolina-flood-insurance_56144d8ce4b021e856d2cad2?utm_hp_ref=flood
Head: UK floods to cost in excess of $1bn and hit insurer earnings
http://www.commercialriskeurope.com/cre/4810/56/Head-UK-floods-to-cost-in-excess-of-1bn-and-hit-insurer-earnings/
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 6:03 pm
Floods, earthquakes, wildfires and heat waves: the worst natural disasters of 2015
2015 proved deadly for many people around the world
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/year-end-2015-natural-disasters-1.3346639
makati1 on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 7:24 pm
ghung, do you live on the corporate farms where most of the food in the US comes from? I was speaking of the users of artificial fertilizers and pesticides, not the few small family plots that don’t. The big ‘farms’ Davy brags about making the US food independent.
There are exceptions but, not enough to support the half billion people in North America when the artificial fertilizers end and the pesticide resistant insects return. Mass starvation will come to the Americas just as it will to the rest of the world. The ‘locusts’ will be humans at that point. There will not be enough guns to protect it from the guns on the other side that want what you have.
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 8:16 pm
Climate Change Could Cause Power Blackouts Worldwide
Researchers find that drought and rising temperatures will reduce the water supplies that fossil fuel and nuclear power plants need to operate.
“For 98 percent of the world’s power plants, that’s a problem that could result in a 30 percent decrease in electricity production in some months at most power stations.
Natural water flow is needed to generate energy from hydroelectric plants, and cold water is essential for cooling at any thermal power plant—nuclear, natural gas, biomass, or even a solar power plant that uses the sun to convert water into steam to drive a generator.”
http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/01/09/power-production-climate-change-water
Stevo on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 9:33 pm
Ohhhhh!!!!!!!!! More doomer porn!!!! I gotta go bone the old lady…..
Why can’t you give us something we don’t already know….this article was written by a seventh grader…..
onlooker on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 9:51 pm
Stevo what about this for example “It is estimated that for each pound of beef produced, 200 square feet of rainforest is destroyed. In the past 20 years Costa Rica has lost the majority of its forests to beef cattle ranching. This is known as slash and burn farming and is believed to account for 50% of rainforest destruction. However, the land cannot be used for long: the soil is of poor quality and, without the forest, quickly becomes very dry. The grass often dies after only a few years and the land becomes a crusty desert. The cattle farmers then have to move on and destroy more rainforest to create new cattle pastures.” DOES NOT NEED REPEATING. We are literally destroying the friggin planet we depend on to live. I wish that every human would just hear this quoted paragraph for as long as it takes for it to sink in. By the way I am not directing personally to you, maybe you already have it all all too well sunk in. I am talking to the millions and billions who it may not have sunk in too.
Apneaman on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 10:24 pm
Stevo will be back in 2 1/2 minutes.
antaris on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 10:35 pm
On, unfortunately nobody is listening.
antaris on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 10:53 pm
Even my wife and son just now. They laugh at me.
onlooker on Sat, 9th Jan 2016 11:04 pm
I guess its an all nighter for Stevo hehe.
GregT on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 12:18 am
“On, unfortunately nobody is listening.”
Not nobody antaris, only the vast majority. If you plan on maintaining your relationships, best not to speak until spoken to. Much easier that way.
antaris on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 12:37 am
Guess I need to find a closet , complete with a mirror to spend time in !
Apneaman on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 12:43 am
antaris, tough spot to be in man. Best.
theedrich on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 2:01 am
The main issue is not whether collapse will come. It is when and how. As is well known, global complexity makes it impossible to determine the exact timing. The manner of collapse is likewise beyond our ken.
In the United States, a large part of the populace senses that something is wrong, although exactly what, is not always very clear to that part. For many people, it has to do with lack of employment; for others, it is the “rich,rich capitalist White males” who are alleged to be ruining everyone and everything; for yet others, it is overreach of government, which has been exponentially expanding its Big-Brotherly control over the past half-century or so.
But for most people dependent on the social infrastructure, ecology does not impinge on their thinking, and the bizarre antics of many eco-freaks utterly discredits whatever they claim to be drawing attention to. Calling the citizenry “stupid,” “evil,” or various types of “phobes” ignores the slowly growing alarm of the collective unconscious.
On the political left, Trotskyite Communism seems to be making a comeback, at least in popularity, if not in reality. On the right, hopes for a return to the 1950s is attractive. (The billionaire bribers who own the MSM prefer the left because it can divert attention from their control, while they abhor the Trumpist right since it might threaten their ability to bribe.)
But whatever the proffered political “solution,” the underlying malady will get worse, for reasons well known to most of those who frequent sites such as this one. Virtually all other PO sites, of course, are dictatorial in nature and forbid any politically incorrect discussion of pertinent racial, cultural or religious factors. In effect, their contributors mostly hope that all subspecies of homo sapiens go extinct together in one fell swoop. Above all, no Whites should be left, as per the demands of the dominant media and religions.
Given the stalemate rigidly enforced in the West (the most recent example being Frau Diktatorin Angela Merkel), there is no possibility of political change. ThirdWorld parasitism on the West will not only continue but will explode; the fossilized leaderships of the various Camps of the Saints will do everything they can to immobilize their non-immigrant, native populations; and the global carrying capacity of the biosphere will continue to decay.
At some point the Ponzi scheme will end. Perhaps then the impulse to survive in the anesthetized White man will re-awaken, even though the MSM and Levantine pseudo-religions now smothering him will do everything in their power to prevent that. But one thing is clear: BAU will definitely continue to the point of planetary exhaustion. The types who meet in Davos every year will make sure of that. So will Christianity with its otherworldly fantasies and its refusal to accept evolution.
Because anything else would not be compassionate.
freak on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 2:14 am
“Dead Man Walking” enough said.
GregT on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 2:18 am
“Virtually all other PO sites, of course, are dictatorial in nature and forbid any politically incorrect discussion of pertinent racial, cultural or religious factors.”
Fortunately not this site theedrich. Many here are well aware of how badly our white race fucked up. We are the most evil of all the apes. Not only have we plundered, raped, looted, and pillaged, we are the most responsible race for the mass extinction event that we now all face. Whitey is the most greedy, and the epitome of evil on this planet.
Apneaman on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 3:02 am
theedrich, are you sure you understand evolution and how it pertains to what’s going on with the talking monkeys at this point in history? Nothing new under the sun and it all went down many times before white people even existed. Many times before the ancestors even migrated out of Africa.
OVERSHOOT LOOP:
Evolution Under The Maximum Power Principle
Here is a synopsis of the behavioral loop described above:
Step 1. Individuals and groups evolved a bias to maximize fitness by maximizing power, which requires over-reproduction and/or over-consumption of natural resources (overshoot), whenever systemic constraints allow it. Differential power generation and accumulation result in a hierarchical group structure.
Step 2. Energy is always limited, so overshoot eventually leads to decreasing power available to the group, with lower-ranking members suffering first.
Step 3. Diminishing power availability creates divisive subgroups within the original group. Low-rank members will form subgroups and coalitions to demand a greater share of power from higher-ranking individuals, who will resist by forming their own coalitions to maintain power.
Step 4. Violent social strife eventually occurs among subgroups who demand a greater share of the remaining power.
Step 5. The weakest subgroups (high or low rank) are either forced to disperse to a new territory, are killed, enslaved, or imprisoned.
Step 6. Go back to step 1.
The above loop was repeated countless thousands of times during the millions of years that we were evolving[9]. This behavior is inherent in the architecture of our minds — is entrained in our biological material — and will be repeated until we go extinct. Carrying capacity will decline[10] with each future iteration of the overshoot loop, and this will cause human numbers to decline until they reach levels not seen since the Pleistocene.
http://www.dieoff.org/
onlooker on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 5:34 am
“best not to speak until spoken to. Much easier that way.” Especially in regards to the topics we discuss here. I think we all are discovering some wish to know, others not so much. Oh well to each his own.
Davy on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 6:07 am
I think it is easier for me then many urbanites to deal with the surreal-reality of an awakened doomer. I live on 400 acres that I can get lost on so to speak. I can connect to nature very easily. Urbanites can do the same but they must head out to the ocean or the mountains and just for a few days then you are back home in the mob of cornucopian existence. I am generalizing about urbanites and places to make a point on the difficulties of staying on message. Life is about meaning. We desperately search for meaning and fight loss of control.
Of course I go into town and socialize some but the majority of my time is on the land. There is never enough money and time for farming. Urbanites on the other hand must live and work with those who are adapted to the status quo. They live in an urban area and must endure this disconnect and existential dysfunction.
We have the family situation and their acceptance to our message. My wife and kids accept my message but they don’t want to live in doom. My brother acknowledges my doomstead and is giving me some support with it yet, he is running a status quo business. He can’t afford to fight the status quo. My family acknowledges my doom and prep but they only partially live in it or at best acknowledge what I am doing has merit.
The status quo is like nature which is analogy that is in itself surreal. If you fight nature it will drown you in the river of life. If you swim with the current you will not drown. The same is true of the status quo with our lives. The kicker is the status quo is fighting nature instead of swimming in her current so it will be destroyed eventually. That is the catch 22 of the status quo, nature, and our lives.
It is a pity the top of our system at the level of leadership and those who make economic things happen do not acknowledge doom and prep. At a minimum they could be putting aside some resources as we do with insurance for us to make some much needed preparations. Instead we promote our fantasies of consumerism and the wealthy life. We build sports stadiums instead of places for people to be active and grow food.
I could go on and on because the status quo is the biggest malinvestment in human history. The recent two hundred plus years of malinvestment has created the largest overshoot in human history. It ranks at the top of the list of epoch level earth events. We are obvious changing the earth not unlike the cyanobacteria that scrubbed the atmosphere of carbon replacing it with oxygen which caused a snowball earth. This is just theory of course but you get the point that humans are earth impacting creatures causing earth size changes. In our case extinction events.
In this sense we doomers are the awakened ones who see through the fog of the status quo. We have vision. Unfortunately it is very difficult to remain at this level because just as the mystics can be considered crazy so are we considered odd. It is difficult to remain in the surreal of doom when you must operate in the status quo. When most of those around you are living and working in the status quo.
We have our fair share of problems with trying to be prophets of doom and predicating events. These problems have certainly hurt our efforts. This is unavoidable because humans live in the here and now with what has value but have anxiety for the future. We cannot help but plan and muse on what is coming because we are aware of our future and death but live in the here and now and denial of it.
The way I have come to adapt to this existential situation of doom is living doom as a hobby. Many aspect of doom and prep are permaculture. I am hanging out with people who have perma-culture farms. I am in a bee club. I am farming. These are just a few examples of living doom within the status quo. I am doing this with doom on my mind. So I am getting as close as I can get to the doom and prep way of life within the status quo.
Many of these permaculture people will lightly touch on doom but can’t go there as we do. Life and human nature puts such a high value on optimism that it is nearly impossible to push a movement of pessimism. We are going to have to accept the best we can be is monks who build monasteries. Some of us will go on to be prophets that will endure status quo ridicule. Some of us will organize cults of fellowship. We have a little bit of a cult following her on PO.com. Good luck those of you who share this dysfunction you are not alone. If that makes you feel any better.
onlooker on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 7:06 am
Funny, as we are talking about just that on the main board forum. About letting go of the illusion that we are in control. That in the long run will always make a person more equipped to deal with whatever reality has in store even though it may sound counter-intuitive. Well, we here among others are mentally prepared because we have accepted the irrefutable nature of the predicament we are in as a species. Doing so is half the battle. The other half is finding where you can fit in, in the grand scheme of things. That path is inherently a individual path. Nobody can walk with you because it is your free will. I, for one will never regret learning about all this.
Dredd on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 11:07 am
Dredd Blog’s Seventh Anniversary
Apneaman on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 1:21 pm
“There is no natural weather any more,” declared Professor James Curran, the former chief executive of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and a leading climate expert. “The world is now warmer by one degree centigrade than it would be without climate change – so there is no weather anywhere, at any time, that isn’t man-made these days.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14194010.Revealed__scientists_warn_climate_changes_means_wild_weather_in_Scotland_is_the__new_normal_/
Apneaman on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 5:10 pm
COP21: Paris deal far too weak to prevent devastating climate change, academics warn
Exclusive: Some of the world’s top climate scientists have launched a blistering attack on the deal
“The scientists, who also include University of California professor James Kennett, argues that “deadly flaws” in the deal struck in the French capital last month mean it gives the impression that global warming is now being properly addressed when in fact the measures fall woefully short of what is needed to avoid runaway climate change.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cop21-paris-deal-far-too-weak-to-prevent-devastating-climate-change-academics-warn-a6803096.html
Davy on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 6:21 pm
“2015 Arctic Report Card: Visual Highlights”
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/2015-arctic-report-card-visual-highlights
Highlights:
The average annual air temperature over land areas between October 2014 and September 2015 was 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 degrees Celsius) above average, the highest in the observational record which began in 1900.
Sea ice extent at winter maximum was the smallest on record. Summer minimum extent was the fourth smallest on record.
Arctic-wide June snow extent has declined 18 percent per decade since 1979.
Melt season was 30 to 40 days longer than average in western, northwestern and northeastern Greenland.
Tundra vegetation no longer “greening” over past 2-4 years.
The decline in sea ice is dramatically changing the habitat for walruses, increasing the use of land-based haul outs that are more dangerous for the young.
onlooker on Sun, 10th Jan 2016 7:01 pm
This and I quote “I suppose I knew it would come to this. We’ve just flashed past another awful marker toward a new climate age. At the end of 2015, the hottest year ever recorded, it rained, in the 24 hour darkness, at the North Pole.” Astonishing.
Apneaman on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 7:15 pm
Spread of algal toxin through marine food web broke records in 2015
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160108211404.htm
Apneaman on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:52 pm
Army Corps Opens Bonnet Carré Spillway; a January Subtropical Storm in the Atlantic?
“This is the earliest that the Corps has been forced to open the spillway, and just the 11th time since it became operational in 1931 that it has been used.”
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/army-corps-opens-bonnet-carr-spillway-a-january-subtropical-storm-i
Apneaman on Mon, 11th Jan 2016 8:53 pm
State of Emergency now underway for L.A. gas blowout — Oil begins raining down on homes — Official: “It’s on the brink of pandemonium” — Many worry plume will ignite, cause explosion — Concern over geysers, sinkholes being created — Company: Experts have “never seen anything like this” (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/state-emergency-issued-la-gas-blowout-oil-begins-raining-down-homes-concern-sinkholes-geysers-being-created-official-brink-pandemonium