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Page added on October 5, 2015
Have We Reached A “Peak Water” Tipping Point In California?
It may be a see-saw course, but it’s riding an uphill train.
A bit ago I wrote, regarding climate and tipping points:
The concept of “tipping point” — a change beyond which there’s no turning back — comes up a lot in climate discussions. An obvious tipping point involves polar ice. If the earth keeps warming — both in the atmosphere and in the ocean — at some point a full and permanent melt of Arctic and Antarctic ice is inevitable. Permanent ice first started forming in the Antarctic about 35 million years ago, thanks to global cooling which crossed a tipping point for ice formation. That’s not very long ago. During the 200 million years before that, the earth was too warm for permanent ice to form, at least as far as we know.
We’re now going the other direction, rewarming the earth, and permanent ice is increasingly disappearing, as you’d expect. At some point, permanent ice will be gone. At some point before that, its loss will be inevitable. Like the passengers in the car above, its end may not have come — yet — but there’s no turning back….
I think the American Southwest is beyond a tipping point for available fresh water. I’ve written several times — for example, here — that California and the Southwest have passed “peak water,” that the most water available to the region is what’s available now. We can mitigate the severity of decline in supply (i.e., arrest the decline at a less-bad place by arresting its cause), and we can adapt to whatever consequences can’t be mitigated.
But we can no longer go back to plentiful fresh water from the Colorado River watershed. That day is gone, and in fact, I suspect most in the region know it, even though it’s not yet reflected in real estate prices.
Two of the three takeaways from the above paragraphs are these: “California and the Southwest have passed ‘peak water'” and “most in the region know it.” (The third takeaway from the above is discussed at the end of this piece.)
“For the first time in 120 years, winter average minimum temperature in the Sierra Nevada was above freezing”
My comment, that “most in the region know it,” is anecdotal. What you’re about to read below isn’t. Hunter Cutting, writing at Huffington Post, notes (my emphasis):
With Californians crossing their fingers in hopes of a super El Niño to help end the state’s historic drought, California’s water agency just delivered some startling news: for the first time in 120 years of record keeping, the winter average minimum temperature in the Sierra Nevada was above freezing. And across the state, the last 12 months were the warmest on record. This explains why the Sierra Nevada snow pack that provides nearly 30% of the state’s water stood at its lowest level in at least 500 years this last winter despite precipitation levels that, while low, still came in above recent record lows. The few winter storms of the past two years were warmer than average and tended to produce rain, not snow. And what snow fell melted away almost immediately.
Thresholds matter when it comes to climate change. A small increase in temperature can have a huge impact on natural systems and human infrastructure designed to cope with current weather patterns and extremes. Only a few inches of extra rain can top a levee protecting against flood. Only a degree of warming can be the difference between ice-up and navigable water, between snow pack and bare ground.
Climate change has intensified the California drought by fueling record-breaking temperatures that evaporate critically important snowpack, convert snowfall into rain, and dry out soils. This last winter in California was the warmest in 119 years of record keeping, smashing the prior record by an unprecedented margin. Weather records tend to be broken when a temporary trend driven by natural variability runs in the same direction as the long-term trend driven by climate change, in this case towards warmer temperatures. Drought in California has increased significantly over the past 100 years due to rising temperatures. A recent paleoclimate study found that the current drought stands out as the worst to hit the state in 1,200 years largely due the remarkable, record-high temperatures.
The rest of Cutting’s good piece deals with what the coming El Niño will do. Please read if that interests you.
There’s an easy way to think about this. Imagine the thermostat in your home freezer is broken and the temperature inside goes from 31 degrees to 33 degrees overnight, just above freezing, with no way to turn it down. Now imagine the Koch Bros (and “friends of carbon” Democrats) have emptied your town of repair people — every last one of them is gone. It’s over, right? Everything in the freezer is going to thaw. Then the inside is going to dry out. And everyone in your house who doesn’t already know this will figure it out. All because of a two-degree change in temperature that can’t be reversed.
When it comes to climate, two non-obvious rules apply:
- Change won’t be linear; there will be sudden bursts at tipping points.
- Pessimistic predictions are more likely to be right than optimistic ones.
Most people get this already, even if they haven’t internalized it. Which is why most people already know, or strongly suspect, that California and the American Southwest have already crossed a line from which there will be no return. This revelation, from the state’s water agency, just adds numbers. Time to act decisively? Do enough people think so?
Negative and Positive Takeaways
I said that two of the three takeaways about California, from the text I quoted at the beginning, were these: “California and the Southwest have passed ‘peak water'” and “most in the region know it.” The third is from the same sentence: “though it’s not yet reflected in real estate prices” — meaning farm land as well as urban property.
It’s just a matter of time, though. Prices will fall as awareness hits, awareness that future prices can only fall. Note that prices in bear markets tend to be decidedly non-linear. And when that awareness does hit, when land is cheap, insurance expensive and the population in decline, nothing coming out of the mouths of the Kochs — or methane-promoting politicians in the Democratic Party — will change a single mind. (In terms of our playful freezer metaphor, you know the thing’s going to end up in the yard, right? It just hasn’t been carted out yet.)
But that’s just the negative takeaway. There’s a positive takeaway as well. It’s not over everywhere, not yet. From the same piece quoted at the top, referring to the tipping point of extreme weather:
This [incidence of extreme weather] is “a” tipping point, not “the” tipping point. We have slid into a “new normal” for weather, but please note:
- We’re talking only about the weather, not a host of other effects, like extreme sea level rise. I don’t think we’ve passed that tipping point yet.
- We can stop this process whenever we want to — or rather, we can force the “carbon bosses” and their minions in government to stop whenever we want to stop them. They have only the power we collectively allow them to have.
It really is up to us, and it really is not too late in any absolute sense. For my playfully named (but effective) “Easter Island solution,” see here. For a look at one sure way out, see here.
Will it take a decidedly non-linear, noticeably dramatic, event to create critical mass for a real solution? If so, we could use it soon, because the clock is ticking. It may be a see-saw course, but it’s riding an uphill train. (Again, the real solution, expressed metaphorically, is here. Expressed directly, it’s here. Everything less is a delaying tactic.)
75 Comments on "Have We Reached A “Peak Water” Tipping Point In California?"
onlooker on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 7:17 pm
Wow dramatic as clear as day evidence of GW effects!
makati1 on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 7:35 pm
Sorry, but it is too late. The train already left the station. The flight has taken off. The avalanche has begun … etc.
Just like stopping an ocean liner or an aircraft carrier on a dime is not possible, stopping climate change isn’t either. It is said that if we stopped all hydrocarbon use now, the change momentum would still last for at least 40 years. Extrapolate the current rate of change out 40 years and you still get a disaster. And we all know that we are not going to stop burning hydrocarbons until we financially cannot.
Not to mention the tipping point land mines that we may have already triggered.
I think we are already screwed. How bad, only time will tell.
onlooker on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 7:53 pm
If it is any consolation I do not think most on this board will be around when the worse of the effects hit, though not much of a consolation for those who give a damm about the human race. As for the worse well think mass extinction.
Plantagenet on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:01 pm
The IPCC is greatly underestimating the effects of global warming. The new study by Hansen et alia (2015) using paleoclimate data to calibrate terrestrial climate sensitivity shows that sea level rise and global warming will happen much more quickly then the IPCC has said.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/15/20059/2015/acpd-15-20059-2015.pdf
apneaman on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:23 pm
Holy shit I don’t believe it! planty got one right. Maybe there is hope for the apes after all…………….Nawww
Survivable IPCC projections are based on science fiction – the reality is much worsevideo
“The IPCC’s ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ are based on fantasy technology that must draw massive volumes of CO2 out of the atmosphere late this century, writes Nick Breeze – an unjustified hope that conceals a very bleak future for Earth, and humanity.”
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2772427/survivable_ipcc_projections_are_based_on_science_fiction_the_reality_is_much_worse.html
Rodster on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:30 pm
It’s a combination of climate change and geoengineering.
Davy on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:31 pm
AGW is clearly a catch 22 predicament. There is no changing abrupt climate change we are likely in. The options are only stay the course or attempt adaptation and mitigation.
Real adaptation and mitigation means disruptive changes that will end the status quo. We can do a carpe diem and enjoy while we can. Those that have that luxury that is. Which choice do you think will be followed? Right. Greens are a failure because they are preaching a false message but it is still far better than the Browns.
The best you can do is personal adaptation and mitigation. If you are in a bad location move now before it is too late. The economy appears to be going down the drain. When that happens you will likely be stuck unless you want to be a typical refugee.
penury on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:53 pm
Davy, again I must agree with everything you said, But the third paragraph is I think the vital piece of the puzzle for everyone.
Davy on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:54 pm
Rodster, what we need is socialengineering. We need to be moving people back to the land. This will help somewhat with the loss of industrial ag from oil depletion and climate change. We must start some widespread permaculture.
Folks, the economy, peak oil, and AGW climate change are all going to impact the food chain. These above problems are not exclusive they are converging and magnifying. This dangerous situation with an already damage global ecosystem.
Food is the key and it is the missing link from conversations today. Everyone of us should be seriously worried about our food supply and we are not. Mark my word in just a few years all of us here will be hungry. This may only be food insecurity but food insecurity means hunger is close. You should be prepping.
GregT on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 8:57 pm
“Holy shit I don’t believe it! planty got one right. Maybe there is hope for the apes after all…………….Nawww”
Planter does that every once in a while just to throw people for a loop. She’ll revert back to her usual “Obama is responsible for everything wrong in the world”, and “we are in an oil glut” nonsense soon enough. Patience Apnea, you won’t need to wait for long.
apneaman on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 9:24 pm
Davy, IMO a bad location in your country is any red state including Florida. The fanatics are growing in number in those places and so are their calls for violence. Their denial and anti science rhetoric is also getting louder in spite of them suffering as much as anyone from the consequences of AGW. Think they’ll come around as it gets worse? Don’t count on it. In fact, they will only cling tighter to their neo mythology (south is gonna rise again)and conspiracy thinking, xenophobia, religious zealotry, war mongering and blame of anyone not like them. Who wants to live with the confederate Taliban? Millions of these wack jobs believe in a “Left Behind” Rambo Jesus. Here is an essay from the late Joe Bageant, who knows all about them since he was born and raised among them.
What the ‘Left Behind’ Series Really Means
— Have we finally become the dumbest mofos on the planet?
Joe Bageant takes a look at the life-threatening Christian fundamentalism infecting tens of millions of Americans, the same fundamentalism that elects neocon governments.
http://www.energygrid.com/spirit/2005/12jb-leftbehind.html
Plantagenet on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 10:43 pm
Holy #@#$% I don’t believe it! apey got one right. Maybe there is hope for apey after all…………….Nawww
Cheers!
GregT on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 11:04 pm
Wash your potty mouth out lil planter.
apneaman on Mon, 5th Oct 2015 11:25 pm
planty, you go girl!
Stephen on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 2:55 am
I think we are going to have to make serious decisions about the way we run our economy. There will definitely be relocalations in our future. Desalination may buy us some time but we are still over capacity. I am convinced that we will have to put a sustainable way of life a higher national priority than corporate profits, investor returns, the stock market, or what creates the most campaign money for politicans. None of these decisions will be easy for anyone.
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 3:58 am
Stephen, the barn door was left open and the horse is out. This is irreversible and beyond proactive management. The best we can do is manage by adapting and mitigating the results. That which is out of control we will just have to endure. Sad stories end poorly. To do this properly for the best effect would bring down the system. In other words to achieve the least amount of suffering and complexity loss we must end the status quo now because the status quo is digging the hole deeper. Ending the status quo means significant poverty and death. Reality is a bitch. Instead we are going to wade into a shit storm like cattle going to slaughter achieving much worse results later. Hairless apes are idiots deep down because they just fool themselves with cleverness.
rockman on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 6:02 am
Stephen – “I think we are going to have to make serious decisions about the way we run our economy.” That decision was made long ago and still holds today. Especially when you consider the force behind the “we”: the American consumer.
makati1 on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 7:11 am
Water and…
“Exposure to toxic chemicals threatening human reproduction and health”
“Pain-pill abuse kills hundreds in our suburbs”
“A New Global Tinderbox: The World’s Northern Forests”
“First US Public School District Limits Wi-Fi Radiation Exposure to Students and Staff”
“Ancient Romans had no need for dentists, because of one food they didn’t eat”
“First car-free day in Paris results in lower air and noise pollution”
“Heavy flooding in French Riviera leaves more than a dozen people dead”
“South Carolina hit by torrential rainfall, hundreds rescued”
“Italy tells EU it will opt out of growing GMO crops: statement”
“Bulgaria opts out of growing genetically modified crops SOFIA”
“Poland opts out of GMOs”
“15 of 28 EU member states opt out of GMO culture”
“Drought woes in California town highlight thirsty poultry industry”
“African crops, economies at risk as El Nino threatens to scorch and soak”
“Bee thefts on the rise as almond prices soar”
“10 Million at Risk of Hunger Due to Climate Change and El Niño, Oxfam Warns”
http://ricefarmer.blogspot.fr/
Just another day in planet Earth.
Revi on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 7:15 am
Most ski areas closed down in January or February this year in California. No snow. I heard that the sierra had 1% of it’s usual snowpack. It’s hard to see how that many people can be supplied with water if this keeps happening. Where are they going to go?
joe on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 7:21 am
Do climate models take into account the fact that VW (probably most car makers)lie about emissions? That Germany the so called ‘green economy’ giant was telling lies to the world (nah, only Russia/Putin/Syria/Iran does that).
Does anyone have any hope for this Paris Climate deal in the light of VW? Does anyone realise the link between this news and THAT conference?
I wont call Obama a hypocrite on GW, he knows theres no hope of global Plutocracy and saving the earth at the same time, its the vile Eurotrash that have to answer for that bunch of hoowey.
The timing is clear, Germany and France will shut there mouths and the Paris deal will be the last meeting of this type. I guess its toast for the Earth guys.
makati1 on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 7:50 am
This should stir up the old brain cells…lol
http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx?pag=1&sort=GDP&ord=DESC
Shows a collapse of Western countries in 2025 Vs 2014. Report dated today.
Interesting!
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 7:50 am
Does anyone realize the Paris climate deal is a joke and nothing will come of it whether it is passed or not? As long as China and India are free to pollute there is no hope. It is clear we have already pass the point of no return and are now in the middle of abrupt climate change. It is also clear any kind of meaningful carbon reductions mean an economic depression one like modern man has never experienced. Anything less than a severe economic depression that will not matter. It is strictly for consumptive purposes for naiveté
makati1 on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 7:51 am
Should have said: “Shows a collapse of Western countries by 2025 Vs 2014.”
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 9:06 am
The data is fun for ant-westerners but anyone with a brain knows Asia will crash and burn with a western collapse. The biggest inconvenience for the anti-Americans is the fact that the Brics are in a nose dive and the U.S. is still treading water. Since we know this process works both ways most of us here realize the western markets are set to follow China down.
Agenda speak has the age old cake problem. They want to look at it and eat it. Physics says that’s impossible but it still makes for great sowing circle conversation among old women.
BobInget on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 10:15 am
Oh dear, lets all just curl up into fetus balls, drink our tears providing energy to keyboard more terrible news.
Ya know, I don’t agree ‘Western Countries’ are doomed. Oh sure, some airborne, aerosolized virus could wipe out vast numbers of humanity
but isolated societies will persist.
Water, unlike oil used for fuel, is reusable.
Astronauts on ISS (international space station)
drink recycled urine. Sailors have been desalinating ocean waters for years.
Because our oceans are getting over-exposed to sunlight every year, evaporation increases.
It’s our job to capture, redirect that excess precipitation.
Rodster on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 10:39 am
It’s an interconected world in every sense of the word. If anyone thinks the US is the only one having water issues, think again.
Brazil is in the midst of a mega drought and China has polluted more than 60% of it’s drinking water. In fact it’s so bad in China that the water is “UNFIT FOR HUMAN CONTACT”.
At least now their chemical sulphur lakes have competition.
Rodster on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 10:42 am
What we are seeing playing out is the deadly combination of climate change and weather modification “Geoengineering”.
shortonoil on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 11:07 am
When the Spanish arrived in California they called it the Great California Desert. They did for the simple reason that it was a desert, and has been throughout most of recent geological time. To connect that simple fact with Peak Oil displays a definite cognitive disconnect. This writer is definitely not playing with a full deck. It is a classic case of a three neuron brain, and two of them are not firing!
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 11:37 am
“This should stir up the old brain cells”
Thanks for the link Mak. Looks like us Canadians are in for a slightly bigger world of hurt than our good neighbours to the south. I don’t like it any more than the next person, but that is exactly the way I read things as well. No country is going to get through the coming bottleneck unscathed, but we in the west are in for an especially rude awakening.
2025 or before? My timeline as well.
Rodster on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 11:46 am
” No country is going to get through the coming bottleneck unscathed, but we in the west are in for an especially rude awakening.
2025 or before? My timeline as well.”
Meanwhile MonSatan and Syngenta are hard at work trying to control the Global food supply. Greed, Control and Power, have no bounds or human decency.
Per the article: “There is a corporate monster in the making. If allowed to emerge, it will gain near complete control of one of the most vital elements to human survival: our global food supply. This monster – a conglomeration of two corporate entities, Monsanto and Syngenta – must be stopped for the sake of the planet and future generations.
“Monsanto and Syngenta Tighten Stranglehold on Global Food Supply”
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/09/29/low-oil-prices-why-worry/comment-page-3/#comments
Rodster on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 11:47 am
I’m not sure that link will work.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33105-monsanto-and-syngenta-tighten-stranglehold-on-global-food-supply
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:09 pm
Greg, do you agree with the optimistic projections for China in that dog paw link? That’s what I am talking about and that is where that link stinks. Honestly tell me China is going to improve and the US suffer a huge collapse per the link. That is the kind of shit that is wrong. I agree the US will probably be there per the link but China may be worse considering its population and ecological destruction.
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:11 pm
Rodster said “Monsanto and Syngenta Tighten Stranglehold on Global Food Supply”
If there is evil on earth that is part of it!
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:15 pm
“There is a corporate monster in the making.”
Corporations have become entities unto themselves. Having recently left after 32 years of ‘service’, I can say that things are much clearer now that I am on the outside looking in, so to speak. Generations of people have gone through some of these “monsters”. Grown up with them, worked for them, retired from them, and died. Human beings will come and go, but many of these corporations are in essence immortal. We have even given them legal rights. Monsters of our own creation.
Rodster on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:28 pm
“Corporations have become entities unto themselves. Having recently left after 32 years of ‘service’, I can say that things are much clearer now that I am on the outside looking in, so to speak. Generations of people have gone through some of these “monsters”.”
Except that now it’s TOTALLY different in that their goal is part of the TPTB and that is a one world government and currency. Soon we can add a one world food supply.
So these fuckers want to control 99.999% of the human population much like “The Hunger Games”. Eventually human civilization collapses for good. You can’t blow up the environment, food supplies, financial, banking, social structures and expect humans to survive that.
As it’s been said many times, we are in the midst of the “Sixth Great Human Extinction”.
Rodster on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:32 pm
“Greg, do you agree with the optimistic projections for China in that dog paw link?”
“China is an economic and political basket case. China’s Crash In Context”
http://debtcrash.report/all-posts-list/all-post-list/entry/china-crash-in-context
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:39 pm
Davy,
I don’t believe that any country will be left unscathed. I do believe that after the dust settles, there will be some countries that will do better than others. Countries with populations that are used to living in what we would consider to be poverty, countries that already have large percentages of their populations living lives of sustenance, and countries that are used to working hard physical labor. That is simply not the case anymore in Canada, and in all western countries for that matter. A very small percentage of our populations will have the skills, the knowledge, or the emotional and physical strength necessary, to make it through the bottleneck. Most of the people that I know in the city are very specialized in their skill sets, and those skill sets are not what will be required in a post collapse scenario. We have become used to entitlement Davy. Drive, “work”, shop, consume, and watch television. Many people these days could not even tell the difference between a Robertson, or a Phillips, let alone know how to operate a hammer.
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:50 pm
Great link Rodster. Anyone who has spent any time reading about these Chinese issues realizes China was a world project. When China comes apart so will the world. The entire global system has become orientated to Chinese growth and expansion including the west. This global project is over “NEVER” to happen again. The powers to be can muddle their way through this end but not with vision or purpose. There is no way to ever reproduce the spurt of growth we saw with China over the past 25 years. I might add this included the rest of the world in Chinese growth codependence. Without this growth engine there can be only deflation and descent.
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 12:57 pm
Also Davy,
Capitalism will die. It is in it’s very nature. Infinite exponential growth is an impossibility in a finite world, with finite resources. The democratic process is already dead. We just don’t want to believe that yet. I see the US breaking up along ethnic, religious, and political divides. The only thing that will hold it together would be a brutal dictatorship. You can already see the beginnings of this. As more people fall off of the good ship BAU, the dissent will become more serious, and widespread. Death of a thousand cuts Davy, and those cuts are going to come faster and deeper.
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:01 pm
Unlike you Davy,
I don’t see this as a competition. I am focussed on my own world. I lost faith in my ‘leaders’ and ‘institutions’ a long time ago. They have become corrupt, and rotten to the core. I do not support corruption.
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:05 pm
Greg, I asked you specifically about the dog paw link. Your comment is nothing new and we talk about that daily. How about the link:
http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx?pag=1&sort=GDP&ord=DESC
Do you agree it is logical the US will go from 318MIL to 64MIL along with China increasing some? How about the economy dropping 16Trillion and with China increasing a Trillion? You are telling me you could read that straight faced and comment back to dog paw normally without laughing. I am not going to deny the US may descend as the link mentioned what I have a problem with is the decoupling that China and others enjoy. This link stinks Greg. It is an example of agendist hard at work to distort the global picture. Lies are lies Greg either way the truth is corrupted.
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:07 pm
Greg, no arguments man but the link does it stink? Thats all I am asking?
BC on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:24 pm
Rodster and GregT, I continue to be persuaded that “capitalism” as we are conditioned to perceive it (“free” markets, “trade”, etc.) ended long ago, replaced by the rentier-socialist corporate-state, which I suspect will become increasingly privatized, excluding first the bottom 50-80%, and then the bottom 90%+, with the top 0.001-1% owning virtually everything of economic value.
So, “Hunger Games”, “Soylent Green”, “Elysium”, and “Rollerball” scenarios (or various versions) are not inconceivable.
As to what Davy writes about the vast majority of us lacking essential skills with tools, farming, animal husbandry, etc., I can envision the vast majority of Americans during a period of deep existential crisis voluntarily allowing ourselves to be herded to concentration camp-like facilities (“relocation facilities”) “where we will die like rotten cabbages.” (A line from “The Prisoner” with Patrick MacGoohan.)
Were I in charge of such a national project by the facist, rentier-socialist corporate-state, I would advocate strongly for the most highly effective pyscho-active meds to be administered to the “guests”; a sophisticated, high-tech ruse be created to show current “guests” that previous “guests” eventually leave and are successfully relocated; but when “guests” leave, they are told that they must first be “prepared” and then escorted under heavy medication to “Soylent Green”-like euthanasia facilities where “guests” drift comfortably and calmly into oblivion.
How’s that for bottleneck-induced compassionate social and population control? 😀
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:39 pm
“but the link does it stink?”
I don’t think that it does Davy, unfortunately.
MrNoItAll on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:43 pm
BC — Or how about just air dropping billions of individually wrapped “see you in the next life” pills across the continents, with a succinct message (in local dialect) saying something like: “Put this somewhere safe. When the going gets tough, take this pill to end the pain.” That would be the humane thing to do, IMO.
BTW, did pure unadulterated capitalism ever exist on any kind of a significant scale? There has never been a capitalist-like economy anywhere in the world that wasn’t gamed by greedy power-hungry cheaters, has there?
BC on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 1:45 pm
@GregT: I see the US breaking up along ethnic, religious, and political divides. The only thing that will hold it together would be a brutal dictatorship. You can already see the beginnings of this.
Yes, there are AT LEAST 5-6 distinct cultural regions in the US and thus arguably that many “countries” on our part of the North American continent. If one were to count geographic sub-cultures, there might be 10 or more countries.
The coasts self-identify with, and disproportionately benefit from, the neo-liberal (or however it can be best described) or rentier-socialist, imperial corporate-state’s “globalization”, deindustrialization, financialization, and feminization of the economy and politics, and the militarization of the goods-producing sector and foreign policy. The population of these “countries” are much more “education”, i.e., “credentialed”, cosmopolitan in their world view, have “high-brow” tastes and preferences, and disproportionately represent the top 0.001-1% to 10% of the socioeconomic strata.
The rest of the “countries'” populations tend to be more insular, provincial, parochial, socially conservative, less “educated”, more racially/ethnically homogeneous, i.e., white and non-Hispanic/-Latino white, and disproportionately are distributed in the bottom 50-80% of the socioeconomic strata. But these traits/characteristics are suited for the social, economic, geographic/climate, and political conditions in which they live; and I suspect that these traits will serve these populations better during the bottleneck than will be the case in the high-cost, high-tech, high-entropy, complex urban metro areas.
Time will tell . . .
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 2:06 pm
According to this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
81% of the 321,729,000 people residing in the US live in cities or their suburbs. That works out to 260,600,490 people, and leaves 61,128,510 people living in rural areas. 260 million people completely reliant on BAU, and JIT delivery systems. Anyone who thinks that society will somehow manage to completely revamp itself in the period of time necessary to stop total societal breakdown in a collapse scenario, has obviously not though this through.
MrNoItAll on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 2:11 pm
GregT — And to make matters worse, a majority of those 61,128,510 people living in rural areas are every bit as dependent on JIT/BAU as the people living in or close to big cities. Honestly, what percent of the total population will “be okay” if suddenly food delivery, medicine availability and other critical systems break down completely? One percent? Probably not five percent. Not many, that is for sure.
GregT on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 2:19 pm
Absolutely agree NWR. I myself still depend on those same systems much more than I would like to. It is something that I think about almost every day, and is something that I am doing everything in my control to change. Like so many others have said here before, the longer the system holds itself together, the better. Except of course when it comes to environmental degradation, which is also on my mind. Given recent trends, that alone could very well be the game changer for my plans.
We shall see.
Davy on Tue, 6th Oct 2015 3:00 pm
Greg, so you are saying you believe China is going to increase with population and economy with a complete collapse of the U.S.? That’s friggen nuts.
I am not denying a collapse is not possible for the U.S. Yet, a decoupled and whole China (that is currently in a descent) surviving that kind of economic collapse of another major power is ludicrous.
This points to the crazy thinking on the board that is centered on one objective and that is the complete destruction of the U.S. We have people actively wishing the death of millions. They have all kinds of justifications. Murder and mayhem is always justified in these people’s minds.
Dog paw is an example of a man who if able would see the deaths of millions. He would do this with a spark of happiness in his eyes. When I say this the anti-Americans retort with “flag waiver” bullshit. You all take no prisoners and want blood. What is really disturbing is then you talk up liers, thieves, and killers like Putin.