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What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?
Fifteen thousand scientists have issued a dire warning to humanity about impending collapse but virtually no-one takes notice. Ultimately, our global systems, which are designed for perpetual growth, need to be fundamentally restructured to avoid the worst-case outcome.
For a moment, the most important news in the entire world flashed across the media like a shooting star in the night sky. Then it was gone. Last month, over fifteen thousand scientists from 184 countries issued a dire warning to humanity. Because of our overconsumption of the world’s resources, they declared, we are facing “widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss.” They warned that time is running out: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”
This is not the first such notice. Twenty-five years ago, in 1992, 1,700 scientists (including the majority of living Nobel laureates) sent a similarly worded warning to governmental leaders around the world. In ringing tones, they called for a recognition of the earth’s fragility and a new ethic arising from the realization that “we all have but one lifeboat.”
This second warning contains a series of charts showing how utterly the world’s leaders ignored what they were told twenty-five years earlier. Whether it’s CO2 emissions, temperature change, ocean dead zones, freshwater resources, vertebrate species, or total forest cover, the grim charts virtually all point in the same dismal direction, indicating continued momentum toward doomsday. The chart for marine catch shows something even scarier: in 1996, the catch peaked at 130 million tonnes and in spite of massively increased industrial fishing, it’s been declining ever since—a harbinger of the kind of overshoot that unsustainable exploitation threatens across the board.
Along with their warning, the scientists list a dozen or so examples of the kind of actions that could turn humanity’s trajectory around. These include indisputably necessary strategies such as halting the conversion of native habitats into farmland; restoring and rewilding ecologies; phasing out fossil fuel subsidies; and promoting dietary shifts toward plant-based foods. With the future of humanity at stake, why aren’t we already doing these things? What will it really take for our civilization to change course and save itself from destruction?
Ignoring climate breakdown
We can begin to answer that simply by looking at the media’s reception to this warning. With fifteen thousand scientists—including Jane Goodall, E. O. Wilson, and James Hansen—declaring a potential catastrophe at hand, you might think this would make headlines everywhere. Think again. While it led to a few short articles in select publications around the world, with the one commendable exception of CNN, it was virtually ignored by American mainstream media.
This should hardly come as a surprise. In fact, global climate breakdown—perhaps the greatest existential threat faced by our civilization—is barely considered newsworthy on American television. In 2016, the hottest year on record, when the Paris agreement was signed and presidential candidates held widely differing opinions on climate change, the entire year’s climate coverage by all network news services in the U.S. amounted to less than an hour: a paltry 50 minutes, representing a 66% drop from the previous year.
How could that be? One reason is that, as a result of decades of massive industry consolidation, the U.S. media is controlled by a few large corporations. Like all shareholder-owned companies, their overriding concern is making profits, in this case from advertising dollars. The news services, once considered a hallowed responsibility administered for the public good, have been reduced to just another profit center—and it was decided that climate change news isn’t good for advertising revenue, especially since a big chunk of that comes from the fossil fuel and agribusiness companies responsible for much of the problem.
The largest Ponzi scheme in history
Which leads us to some of the underlying structural changes that need to occur if human civilization is to avoid collapse. The fundamental problem is brutally simple: our world system is based on the premise of perpetual growth in consumption, which puts it on a collision course with the natural world. Either the global system has to be restructured, or we are headed for a catastrophe of immense proportions that has never been experienced in human history. However, the transnational corporations largely responsible for driving this trajectory are structurally designed to prevent the global changes that need to take place.
Something that is only dimly understood outside financial circles is that the vast bulk of the wealth enjoyed by the global elite is based on a fabrication: a belief in the future growth in earnings that corporations will deliver. For example, the current P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is about 23, which means that investors are valuing companies at twenty-three times their earnings for this year. Another way of looking at it is that less than 5% of the wealth enjoyed by investors relates to current activity; the rest is based on the dream of future growth.
Historically, investors have been richly rewarded for this dream. The world’s economic output is roughly twenty times greater than it was in 1950, and market valuations have increased accordingly. But this is the same growth that is driving our civilization to collapse. Today’s market values are based on a belief that the world’s economic output will triple from its current level by 2060. That implies three times as much pillaging of the world’s resources than the rate that has led to the scientists’ dire warning to humanity. Something has to give.
Like any Ponzi scheme, this global growth frenzy is based on maintaining the illusion for as long as possible. Once it becomes clear that this rate of growth is truly unsustainable, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. We saw in the 2008 financial meltdown a relatively limited dress rehearsal for what a full-scale financial collapse would look like.
This is what the global power brokers don’t want anyone to think about. It’s ultimately why the media obsesses with Donald Trump’s latest tweets rather than the devastation caused by climate breakdown-induced hurricanes. Like passengers moving deckchairs on the Titanic, much of the world’s population has been hypnotized by a daily onslaught of celebrity spats and political feuds—anything to avoid the realization that we are all heading for collapse in order to keep the affluent in luxury. It is a testament to their success so far that, in the words of Slavoj Žižek, it is “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
Imagining the end of capitalism
However, the only thing that will truly avert collapse will be a radical restructuring of the economic system that is driving us ever more rapidly to that precipice. This will only come about when enough of us are ready to jettison the consumer values that pervasive mainstream culture foists on us. In their place, we need to find other sources for meaning in our lives: growing the quality of our experiences rather than our consumption, building our communities together, and reconnecting with the natural world.
On that basis, we’ll be better equipped to join in the struggle to save humanity—and the rest of the earth—from the plundering envisaged by the perpetual growth frenzy of global corporate capitalism. There are plenty of alternative paths available to us—we just don’t hear about them because they never get the media’s attention. Most Americans, for example, are completely unaware that the little country of Costa Rica, with a GDP per capita less than one-fifth of the U.S., boasts a higher average life expectancy and enjoys far higher levels of wellbeing—while producing 99% of its electricity from renewable sources.
There is valuable work being done around the world in visualizing a future based on different principles than the current Ponzi scheme. Well-developed plans to avert climate breakdown include a state-by-state and nation-by-nation pathway to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050, and a Climate Mobilization Victory Plan to restructure the U.S. economy in a manner similar to what FDR accomplished after Pearl Harbor.
There are radically different ways for a society to function effectively that could apply to nations around the world if given half a chance. A flourishing future might involve more cooperative ventures, protection and expansion of the commons, and enhanced global governance with strict penalties for those who destroy ecological wellbeing. Collapse isn’t the only future in store for humanity—it’s merely the one we’re headed for unless and until we change course. Since the mainstream media isn’t going to get the word out, it has to be up to each of us who cares about the future of the human race. So, let’s get to it.
————————————————————————————
Jeremy Lent is author of The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, which investigates how different cultures have made sense of the universe and how their underlying values have changed the course of history. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering a sustainable worldview. More info: jeremylent.com.
156 Comments on "What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?"
eugene on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 7:21 am
But, but we’ve been told by the smartest man in the universe that it’s all a Chinese hoax. Course he was elected by the dumbest people on the planet so not sure how reliable he is.
And I get repeatedly told by even the well educated that they don’t read for “some” reason, how can we expect anything better. Take some time to actually research something and they get a glazed look of horror.
Sissyfuss on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 8:23 am
” The fundamental problem: our world system is based on perpetual growth in consumption which puts it on a collision course with the natural world.” Das right, we have a winner!
MASTERMIND on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 8:54 am
There is no way to avoid collapse…And they did an earlier warning to humanity letter by scientist back in 1993. And a decade later we got the faux 911 attack. And endless resource wars in the middle east. So I doubt anyone will listen this time either.
Hello on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:01 am
Everything collapses eventually. Nothing is forever. It’s sometimes hard to grasp, but that’s what it is. And it’s good. Gives other players, other peoples a chance to shine.
Efforts do not go into the ‘futile’ avoiding of collapse, but it goes into ‘extending’ current life a bit longer. Just like you and me try to extend our life another day, and tomorrow again, and again. Knowing all well that in the end we will all ‘collapse’ no matter what we do.
Jef on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:02 am
Thats all well and good to know but in the morning EVERYONE needs to get up and go to their job to make enough money so that they and their loved ones can live instead of dying in horrible conditions.
Solve that one and then maybe we can talk about curbing collapse.
Aspera on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:52 am
I guess one of the reason’s I’m not overly worried about the money grab by the elite is captured in the line: “The vast bulk of the global elite’s wealth is based on the dream of future growth.”
onlooker on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 10:06 am
Very true Aspera. The wealth of the world at this point is largely illusory. Just digits on a computer, arbitrarily created, IOU’s never to be fulfilled, expanding monetary bubbles of irrational exuberance. Meantime, the real wealth from Earth is being ever more depleted and degraded
Apneaman on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 10:11 am
Collapse is built in. The MPP says the cancer apes cannot stop. They must degrade all the energy they can to the best of their abilities. This means growth right up to the tipping point. It’s not a choice. Puppets don’t have choices.
U.N. official: wealth inequality, poverty destroying ‘American dream’
“The American Dream is rapidly becoming the American Illusion, as the United States now has the lowest rate of social mobility of any of the rich countries,”
“In addition to wealth inequality, Alston said democracy and freedom in the United States paled in comparison to other countries.”
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/12/18/UN-official-wealth-inequality-poverty-destroying-American-dream/2571513648580/
UK government warned over sharp rise in child and pensioner poverty
Almost 400,000 more UK children and 300,000 more pensioners plunged into poverty in past four years, new study finds
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/12/18/UN-official-wealth-inequality-poverty-destroying-American-dream/2571513648580/
Census: Children make up one quarter of 4.8M Canadians living in poverty
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/census-children-make-up-one-quarter-of-4-8m-canadians-living-in-poverty-1.3587472
It’s going to get worse and the only ways inequality has ever been reversed are brutal.
The Only Thing, Historically, That’s Curbed Inequality: Catastrophe
Plagues, revolutions, massive wars, collapsed states—these are what reliably reduce economic disparities.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/
I think AGW & the rest of the biosphere destruction may very well end up being the big equalizer, since in a decade or so having money won’t make much of a difference.
Enjoy what you have while you still have it.
Memento Mori
Apneaman on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 10:35 am
See, even the dead are collapsing.
As permafrost thaws, Western Alaska village cemeteries sink into swampland
“Climate change is thawing the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s permafrost, and it’s doing more than cracking foundations, sinking roads and accelerating erosion. In villages like Kong, communities have stopped burying their dead because, as the permafrost melts, the oldest part of their cemetery is sinking. Digging graves in the soggy ground was just making it worse.”
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/rural-alaska/2017/12/19/as-permafrost-thaws-western-alaska-village-cemeteries-sink-into-swampland/#_
Apneaman on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 10:45 am
Checkmate: how do climate science deniers’ predictions stack up?
n
The years 2017, 2016 and 2015 will make up the three hottest years on record for the planet. But there’s no convincing some people
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/dec/19/checkmate-how-do-climate-science-deniers-predictions-stack-up
Fucking retards – the lot of em.
pointer on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 11:07 am
No one will listen or do anything about the evident decline. It is too gradual (aside from some select unfortunate cases which are not longer in the news on account of lack of ad-selling draw).
A recently-released study on what happened on Easter Island is illustrative shows exactly that — the quality of life gradually diminished after rats invaded the island and killed the vegetation, but the decline was not at a pace where anyone did anything to restore the quality of life. The Easter Islanders accepted their fate, and even began to eat rat meat. Eventually Europeans showed up, gave the Islanders venereal disease, and that was pretty much the end of civilization on Easter Island. In our case, climate change and businessmen are our rats. Maybe we’ll eventually begin to eat the businessmen. What we won’t do is fix the climate change or the businessmen.
Boat on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 12:16 pm
Pointer,
For$10 per hour Mexicans would have kicked those rats asses. Whenever you have a tough problem, hire a Mexican.
Boat on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 12:24 pm
Onlooker,
Amazing that the faith in illusory systems allow the raping of the land sea and air. I don’t think doomers get the concept of faith even though they contribute to that faiths existence.
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 12:25 pm
Collapse now, avoid the rush.
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 12:28 pm
“For$10 per hour Mexicans would have kicked those rats asses. Whenever you have a tough problem, hire a Mexican.”
More great words of wisdom, from the master himself. You go Boat!
Antius on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 12:51 pm
“What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?”
Exterminate 80-90% of the world’s population, preferably using relatively clean neutronic weapons. That is about the only thing that will work, because technological solutions are all about maintaining production levels in the face of some resource shortage or other. But they cannot change the fact that environmental impact is a linear function of population level x GDP per capita.
My own favourite solution would be for humanity to escape the planet Earth and live in space using space based resources. But it is clear to me that this would not be possible for any more than a small subset of the human population.
“This is what the global power brokers don’t want anyone to think about.”
More like they don’t have any answers to it, any more than bacteria in a petri dish can really answer the question of what to do when the agar runs out. Nor do they really understand what is going at a whole system level. Similar things were said in the past and the world in front of their eyes did not imminently collapse, so they tend to think the threat is exaggerated and overblown, or that technological solutions will be found.
One thing that is noticeable about the peak oil debate is just how much effort goes into denying that it is actually happening, even as the peak oil dynamic continues to trash wages growth and standard of living. A lot of people don’t want to believe it and think they can argue it away.
“Well-developed plans to avert climate breakdown include a state-by-state and nation-by-nation pathway to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050, and a Climate Mobilization Victory Plan to restructure the U.S. economy in a manner similar to what FDR accomplished after Pearl Harbor.”
This would appear to miss the point. At a time when global resources are stretched by excessive demand, how much sense does it make to adopt energy systems that require many times invested steel and physical equipment to produce the same amount of power?
tahoe1780 on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 1:19 pm
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2016/11/humans-dont-have-10-years-left-thanks-to-climate-change—scientist.html
Is it already baked in?
https://youtu.be/kx1Jxk6kjbQ?t=3
fmr-paultard on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 1:33 pm
guys watch this video of bebe rexha till the end cursing. it’s because she hitched a hike with a couple dudes while day dreaming. but it’s better serving coffee than being blamed for rape and stoned because your words only counted as 1/2 and you need 8x that to be even
https://youtu.be/zDo0H8Fm7d0?t=165
killing is the easiest thing to do and islam is about conquest. it’s not unique to islam, everyone does it. somehow tards are opposed to women doing it.
anyways, holiday cheers!
Boat on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 1:47 pm
Yard,
Women are doing just fine in the military. The 600 billion number is what bothers me. Mexicans will fight for $10 per hr with no health insurance. Total cost for world problems? 200 billion.
Cloggie on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 2:16 pm
Women are doing just fine in the military.
The enemy is all for it.
onlooker on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 2:18 pm
Boat, Faith is precisely what has allowed us to keep along this with totally unsustainable sytem. Faith that our science, our knowledge, our technology can conquer any and all natural limits. So, Doomers do understand what Faith embodies. It embodies hubris and irrationality. Oh as for the question in this article. Well I have faith that we cannot avoid collapse. I also have a long reading history that demonstrates to me, that my faith is not displaced.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 2:32 pm
Why is this fucking site so totally obsessed with climate change. Peak oil means we dont have the fossil fuels to ever reach above 2 degrees. If you believe we do you are an idiot who doesn’t understand energy. I am not saying climate change is of no value. I am just saying when those massive oil shortages hit in a few years. And the world economy goes into an even worse depression then it already is. The last thing you will be worried about is the climate in 2100. Stop fucking spamming this site with climate garbage. Go to wonderunderground or think progress or arstechica if you want to obsess about the global warming.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 2:34 pm
If we could only get those cows to stop farting all day then we could get somewhere with gloooball Warnmmming! LOL
Apneaman on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 3:17 pm
MASTERMIND comes out of the denier closet. Why did you wait so long?
Was you ascared.
All deniers including you are skid marks in my dirty underwear.
You are a fucking punk denier.
AGW consequences are all over the place and I have more than made the case with the disaster numbers – no climate models needed – just one record breaking AGW Jacked disaster after another. All the predictions have come true and are and have been shit kicking the humans for a few years now and will continue, but worse.
What do you got for your peak oil obsession?
Your NASA study?
NASA only funded part of the study. It’s not a NASA study. Fucking sensationalizing retard.
At some point in the past you decide that peak oil is a 100% near term certainty and AGW is a hoax. Once you decided any evidence to the contrary does not count or can be explained away because you decided. You have faith. A powerful and unwavering emotional attachment to your preferred version of collapse.
Now you are mad at climate change posts because that’s not the way you want collapse to be, because you already decided.
I will post whatever the fuck I want to. You can keep crying and denying all you want.
Thomas fire in California now the 2nd largest in state’s history
http://abcnews.go.com/US/monster-thomas-fire-continues-scorch-southern-california/story?id=51866176
You can run, you can hide but AGW consequences are gonna get you one way or another.
Apneaman on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 3:20 pm
Looks the good white folks down under in Rupert Murdoch land are just as suicidal as their norther cancer cousins
Australia’s Greenhouse Emissions Are at Their Highest Point Ever
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/nedzgz/australias-greenhouse-emissions-are-at-their-highest-point-ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s
Boat on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 4:02 pm
MM,
Climate change will contribute to the cost of producing oil over the next couple of decades. Unlike you I think oil will be around in 100 years along with a diminished amount of humans.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 5:36 pm
Apeman
California has wildfires every single year. You are exaggerating them and blaming the climate when no scientist has even said they are climate related. You are grasping at straws. And forget the NASA study even it was NASA who came up with the idea for the study. Here are four other studies that predict doom within the next decade you little puke.
The Royal Society: Study, Now for the First Time A Global Collapse Appears Likely (Ehrlich, 2013)
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845
Study: Limits to Growth was Right. Research Shows We’re Nearing Global Collapse (Turner, 2014)
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Study: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: in Global Systemic Collapse (Korowicz, 2012)
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
German Military (leaked) Peak Oil study concludes: oil is used in the production of 95% of all industrial goods, so a shortage of oil would collapse the world economy & world governments
https://www.permaculture.org.au/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf
Sorry Apeman but your climate change alarm-ism is absurd based on the evidence I just submitted. Just face it climate change is a big nothing burger….And that is why Americans rank it dead last on polls about issues they are concerned about.
Sean Hufford on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 5:39 pm
Boat
Apeman and Al Gore are very concerned about carbon footprints. Not Theirs..YOURS!
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 6:55 pm
“Why is this fucking site so totally obsessed with climate change.”
Maybe it’s because a runaway greenhouse event means global mass extinction?
“Peak oil means we dont have the fossil fuels to ever reach above 2 degrees.”
Peak oil means we are producing the most oil we ever will be. It also means that there is a shit ton of it left to burn.
I thought you said you were smart?
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 7:39 pm
“You are exaggerating them and blaming the climate when no scientist has even said they are climate related. ”
Scientists See Climate Change in California’s Wildfires
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/scientists-see-climate-change-in-californias-wildfires/
“There’s a clear climate signal in these fires because of the drought conditions connected to climate change,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18102017/california-wildfires-global-warming-drought-wind-climate-change-fire
Union of Concerned Scientists USA
“Natural cycles, human activities—such as land-use (clearing, development, mining) and fire exclusion—as well as climate change can influence the likelihood of wildfires. However, many of the areas that have seen these increases—such as Yosemite National Park and the Northern Rockies—are protected from or relatively unaffected by human land-use and behaviors. This suggests that climate change is a major factor driving the increase in wildfires.”
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/impacts/global-warming-and-wildfire.html#.WjsPciO-LMU
No scientists? I thought you told everyone you were smart.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:07 pm
GregT
From your article
Others were more skeptical that climate change played a role. “It was a confluence of all the worst factors,” said Joan Finkle, an innkeeper in Kenwood who was evacuated. “I’ve lived here my whole life. They always tell us “October is the worst.”
See they always tell the people that October is the worst. And the more homes and development they build the worse the damages are every year. If you want to convince me than show me a study done that concludes these are climate change related. And even if they are who freaking cares. They have wildfires every single year in California. What about all the unusual snow this year in the south? All climate change is going to do is cause a few more natural disasters. Big freaking deal. When the oil shortages hit and the price spikes. And the grocery store shelves are empty. Are you really going to give a flying fuck about global warming? You will realize you were worried over nothing. You were duped by the Government into believing fake doom. A big nothing burger
MASTERMIND on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:10 pm
GregT
Peak oil means we are producing the most oil we ever will be. It also means that there is a shit ton of it left to burn.
It doesn’t matter how much is left it matters that supplies can meet increasing demand so that global GDP can increase. If supplies run short and global GDP can’t increase anymore. Than we will have an economic collapse and whatever amounts of oil left will be left in the ground forever.
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:35 pm
“Than we will have an economic collapse and whatever amounts of oil left will be left in the ground forever.”
In an economic collapse scenario, the middle classes would be wiped out and would join the impoverished. The upper echelons would still have access to oil, as would their militaries. You would be living in a fascist police state, if you were intelligent enough to position yourself well in advance, if not, you likely would not survive the first few weeks.
The transition to that state is already well underway. Collapse is a process, it is not simply a moment in time.
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:39 pm
“If you want to convince me than show me a study done that concludes these are climate change related. And even if they are who freaking cares.”
Willful ignorance.
Makati1 on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:43 pm
Greg, MM does not think. He parrots the current bullshit out of DC and relies on years old “peer reviewed” bullshit from the same government owned think factories that the current ‘news’ spews from.
GregT on Wed, 20th Dec 2017 9:43 pm
Like I said before MM; I’ll likely be dead before the real SHTF. You, on the other hand, are likely to experience extremely troubling times, if you manage to survive.
DerHundistlos on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 12:22 am
@ pointer
While your conscience may feel better blaming the ecosystem destruction on rats, there is only one species responsible. Before the arrival of man, Easter Island was paradise- rich volcanic soils, moderate temperatures, abundant rainfall, forests teeming with unique flora and fauna. Among Easter Island’s species found nowhere else was the world’s largest palm tree. The tree grew to a height of 100 feet and had a girth of six feet.
Then the Destroyer of Worlds arrived in the form of seafaring Polynesians. For a time, the land produced such bounty that sufficient leisure time existed for the human inhabitants to create the toppled over ghostly stone statues that still dot the island. Human population numbers grew far out of proportion to what was sustainable- poor farming practices eroded fertile soil, animal and plant species found nowhere else were driven extinct. Incredibly, the very last tree on the island was cut down. What kind of stupidity would allow this to happen (sound familiar)? Following this, no timber existed to build the canoes necessary to harvest the only remaining source of protein.
The result: When Captain James Cook discovered the island, he was shocked to find a parasite infested human population engaged in cannibalistic internecine tribal warfare for the last remaining source of protein. Welcome to our future folks.
Hello Soylent Green.
DerHundistlos on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 12:33 am
@ Antius
I must disagree. The global power brokers know precisely what’s occurring and what’s to come. For them, the objective is to maintain BAU for as long possible while provisions are stored. Tremendous underground facilities have been under construction for years. Vast areas of land in Colombia comprising hundreds of thousands of hectares, as an example, are owned by the Cheneys, Bush families, and others. This is Plan A. Depending on the severity of ecological collapse, Plan B is to evacuate off world.
Dr. Richard Sauder has spent two decades researching this topic. Here is an interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwW-HC3umLg&t=1856s
DerHundistlos on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 12:44 am
@ MM
Until recently, California wildfires were constrained to wildfire season, months of August, Sept., Nov. Now wildfires are happening with ever increasing frequency and severity all year long. What more proof is required.
Snowfall in the South is a weather event and nothing else. What matters is trends and averages.
I can’t believe we are having this discussion in 2017. Other people of the world have known about the reality of AGW for years now. I have yet to meet a single Colombian denialist. Perhaps this is due to the people being closely connected to the land. Perhaps this is due to the citizens being better educated on the things that really matter in life. The fact that a significant percent of the US population believe AGW is a hoax is like another nail in the US coffin in that we continue to lose the respect and admiration of the global community.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 1:24 am
My view on the climate change issue is that it is irrelevant. Once we are in a full blown oil/energy crisis, with people unable to drive to work, school buses unable to run, farm tractors running out of fuel to grow our food, we’ll be existing in such a state of chaos and confusion that we won’t give a damn about the weather/climate – we’ll instead be focused on one thing and one thing only – where’s my food! If we are sitting in a freezing home with the heat unavailable and water turned off because the pipes are busting, we’ll be out and about in our immediate vicinity’s foraging for firewood. We won’t be worried anymore in the least about theoretical climate change.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 1:30 am
GregT
You are total hick hillbilly country bumpkin imbreader. Yes the collapse will be fast and it will happen at the speed of technology. When the stock markets and banks collapse. And that will be the ball game. There will be no more oil for the rich to use without the under class drilling the wells and trucking it to the gas stations…It will be a fast crash and you should read the last two studies I posted..You wont though just like Madkat you will ignore and say its just nonsense and doesnt matter. What do experts know anyways. I am sure you two uneducated idiots know more than the scientists..You both will be dead along with me in about a decades worth of time at the most…A few years at the least…And there will be no fascist state in America when there are thousands of gun owners. Maybe in unarmed slave states like China and where Madkat lives because their people are such tools for conformity by their masters. But not here ever.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 1:33 am
Study: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: in Global Systemic Collapse (Korowicz, 2012)
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
Read page 56 of this study Greg and Madkat. Authored by an Irish Physicist who specializes in ecological systems theory.
DerHundistlos on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 1:42 am
The Right-Wing fossil fuel industry sock puppets are paying us a visit. People will sell their soul to the devil for money. Except these forces of pure evil will have holy hell to pay. What kind of hell? Imagine spending eternity in a Pain Amplification Chamber (PAC).
These smug, planet killing, destroyers of worlds think they have all the answers. Pride goeth before destruction.
DerHundistlos on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 1:46 am
@ MM
Well, I was surprised and disappointed to read your commentary on AGW as I perceive you to be a bright individual. It causes me despair to contemplate that if soemone like MM is unconvinced, then we really are doomed.
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 2:40 am
MM, “specialists” are blind to everything but their “specialty”. Why would I read a long bloviating self-aggrandizing piece when I can look out the window, and read the labels on the stuff I buy, to see how things really are? And, to see the constant changes.
I have 73 years experience in survival and living in the real world. Do you think I don’t see the changes? You are just a boy with no real life experience to judge change so you rely on bullshit for info. Get out of your mom’s basement and travel, if you dare. Many do it all the time. Get a real world education. Better still, get married and experience real life and it’s challenges.
MASTERMIND on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 8:42 am
Madkat
Why would you read that piece? Because its a study done on the topic of collapse.. And experience is a lousy teacher. And your IQ peaked about fifty years ago. So you are way past your prime in thinking logically…
We learn from history, we learn nothing from history.
– George Bernard Shaw
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:13 am
“Once we are in a full blown oil/energy crisis, with people unable to drive to work, school buses unable to run, farm tractors running out of fuel to grow our food, we’ll be existing in such a state of chaos and confusion that we won’t give a damn about the weather/climate – we’ll instead be focused on one thing and one thing only – where’s my food!”
There’s that ‘we’ again.
I don’t drive to work.
I have no need for school buses or tractors.
I have at least a three year supply of food, and am surrounded by hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests that the indigenous peoples survived in for at least 20,000 years, before modern industrialism even existed.
I am very concerned about climatic instability, which over the past few years has really begun to become problematic.
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:27 am
“It will be a fast crash and you should read the last two studies I posted..You wont though just like Madkat you will ignore and say its just nonsense and doesnt matter. What do experts know anyways.”
I have already told you MM, at least twice now, that I read both of those reports many years ago, when they first came out. Those reports, and many others, are the very reason why my wife and myself opted out of our former lives. Also, like I said before. Bring it on. We’re as prepared now, as we ever will be. The consequences of the continuation of unfettered capitalism, and wonton greed and consumerism, will be far worse for the future of all life on this Earth.
Bring. It. On.
“And there will be no fascist state in America when there are thousands of gun owners.”
This is how fascism comes to America
Washington Post – May 18 2016
https://tinyurl.com/y7ym7wx2
Fascism, American Style
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/opinion/fascism-arpaio-pardon-trump.html
onlooker on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:59 am
MM, Greg is an exception to the rule. You are right that the overwhelming majority of people in rich countries are woefully unprepared for living unattached to the system. And yes when the system totally falters, all people will be concerned about is the here and now of SURVIVAL
GregT on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 12:01 pm
“Read page 56 of this study Greg and Madkat. Authored by an Irish Physicist who specializes in ecological systems theory.”
That report has been discussed on PO.com before MM, several times.