New thread because I think this needs thrashing out seperately. I asked Monte about Peak Oil in the context of the 'Third World'. He said:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')arrying capacity must come before humanitarian concerns.
An ecological paradigm must be embraced.
Mother Nature bats last.
We cannot save both the ability of the earth to support us and our full belly notions borne of the phantom carrying capacity.
When I say this, people call me a Nazi.
Mother Nature's laws dictate Nazi idealogy?
Pfft! I don't think so.
PeakOil is You
Monte's Return
Monte's Return
by JPL » Thu 27 Sep 2007, 21:13:44
There is a paradime, which the rest of the world has embraced, for the last 50 or 60 years, that more Oil was a good thing. Good for growth, good for the economy, good for lots of things (like chewing gum & hair-sticks grin).
Now that metric is coming to an end (boo-hoo).
Some say we should all embrace a new, sustainable paradime. Others (like the above) say that there is no point, than any movement for change can only make things worse because we're all so over populated anyhow.
So we're all going to 'die-off'. I am interested to see where this comes from. There is also a movement across the world called 'sustainability'. This involves localisation of production and consumption. I believe Monte subscribes to this theory, but it has been twisted to mean almost the opposite of its original; the new paradime is: One should concentrate on local forms of production & distribution & not worry about everyone else.
I don't agree with this 'new vision' - and neither does the rest of the world.
There is a country called 'Vietnam' 40 years ago that does not think that The West had the right idea at all. And they said it with a peasant army...
There is another country called 'Iraq' that was fine until a certain set of countries decided that it was Oil/not Oil. Done well there, haven't we guys? ONE poxy little middle-eastern state now in total rebellion. Good showing on the world stage & all.
China does not give a fuck about what the rest of the world thinks & if push comes to shove, can go back to it's peasant economy any time it likes.
India, Russia, the Middle East etc no-longer cares about what happens on Wall Street or in London. They have our own resources and with careful management these will do them just fine, thanks.
The Anglo-American economy is collapsing and no-one in the outside world cares any more. This is the truth. The world does not, overall, lack 'oil'. What it does have is a growing distaste for this model of 'over consumption at all costs'. And it will deal with it in its own way, thanks.
Monte's 'die off' ideas are just a reflection of the 'clusterfuck' realisation of a massive internal cultural screw-up. And also a loss of power. He couldn't believe that the rest of the world could carry on without the dream of ever-increasing growth, so he goes for extreme solutions.
I can understand why Monte weaves death & die-off with a sustainability message. He is both trying to re-live the 'New World's frontier spirit and also cope with living in a society that can't even care for its own people, never mind the rest of the world.
JP
edit: I took out some stuff that people didn't deserve (sorry...)
Last edited by JPL on Fri 28 Sep 2007, 04:44:09, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Monte's Return
by threadbear » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 02:12:21
I understand your concerns about embracing extreme measures, JPL. And I agree Monte has a frontier mentality, but it's because he lives in the frontier, and close to nature. It's not posturing and playing cowboy.
Something I've noticed about Europeans, is they have very little sense of the natural world. (I don't mean this as an insult, as in other ways, I think they have it all over North Americans).
They live in small countries with more population density than we have here. Their living environment, often in flats or apartments is more artificial.
In North America many of us have a very well developed sense of the natural world, or at least a strong memory of it. When we walk through the remains of an old growth forest that's been bulldozed, it's all many of us can do not to fall on the ground and cry. It feels like matricide to us. It's in our hearts and guts, it tears at the solar plexus. To Europeans it's likely a bit of an emotional and intellectual problem but they haven't internalized nature, the way many of us who grew up in it, have.
Something I've noticed about Europeans, is they have very little sense of the natural world. (I don't mean this as an insult, as in other ways, I think they have it all over North Americans).
They live in small countries with more population density than we have here. Their living environment, often in flats or apartments is more artificial.
In North America many of us have a very well developed sense of the natural world, or at least a strong memory of it. When we walk through the remains of an old growth forest that's been bulldozed, it's all many of us can do not to fall on the ground and cry. It feels like matricide to us. It's in our hearts and guts, it tears at the solar plexus. To Europeans it's likely a bit of an emotional and intellectual problem but they haven't internalized nature, the way many of us who grew up in it, have.
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Re: Monte's Return
by virgincrude » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 04:06:01
JPL- right on the nail.
The MAIN problem with all Americans except a mere handfull, is the ingrained, inborne sense of American exceptionalism. For them, the entire world exists thanks to America and they extrapolate from within their American exceptionalism outwards to the rest of the world and end up with such ideas as Monte's die-off scenario and the steaming hordes of raping zombies about to rise up and eat our flesh.
As for threadbare's notion that all Europeans (we're talking 28 different countries here, there is no binding cultural identity other than the one fabricated by a free European Market ideal) are less in touch with nature than Americans- just another example of American exceptionalism combined with a small experience of Europe, forming an opinion. Laughable. Especially if you want to compare some European country's heavily enforced laws about nature conservancy.
Who killed all the buffalo? Who almost wiped out the very symbol of their nation, the Bald Eagle? Which, by the way is anything but the noble, elegant bird of prey representing American idealism: it is an opportunistic feeder, an aggresive bird which has managed to displace other predators from its range. Come to think of it, just like Americans.
American exceptionalism forces them to 'box' people: cultures, experiences, therefore they have a notion that the 'European' exists, as opposed to the Italian, German, Czech, Swede, Belgian etc., That there are huge cultural differences between all these countries, is irrelevant to them: it's just 'Europe'. Nice and contained and easy to understand
The World Wide Fund For Nature is based where, erm, let me see ... Washington? Nope: Geneva, Switzerland (not a member of "Europe"). You may imagine you feel the uprooting of a tree more deeply than a European, but America has done more than any other country to destroy and denigrate natural habitat around the world, especially places such as Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras. It's okay when you're destroying someone else's territory, you just feel it more deeply when it's on American soil?
The MAIN problem with all Americans except a mere handfull, is the ingrained, inborne sense of American exceptionalism. For them, the entire world exists thanks to America and they extrapolate from within their American exceptionalism outwards to the rest of the world and end up with such ideas as Monte's die-off scenario and the steaming hordes of raping zombies about to rise up and eat our flesh.
As for threadbare's notion that all Europeans (we're talking 28 different countries here, there is no binding cultural identity other than the one fabricated by a free European Market ideal) are less in touch with nature than Americans- just another example of American exceptionalism combined with a small experience of Europe, forming an opinion. Laughable. Especially if you want to compare some European country's heavily enforced laws about nature conservancy.
Who killed all the buffalo? Who almost wiped out the very symbol of their nation, the Bald Eagle? Which, by the way is anything but the noble, elegant bird of prey representing American idealism: it is an opportunistic feeder, an aggresive bird which has managed to displace other predators from its range. Come to think of it, just like Americans.
American exceptionalism forces them to 'box' people: cultures, experiences, therefore they have a notion that the 'European' exists, as opposed to the Italian, German, Czech, Swede, Belgian etc., That there are huge cultural differences between all these countries, is irrelevant to them: it's just 'Europe'. Nice and contained and easy to understand
The World Wide Fund For Nature is based where, erm, let me see ... Washington? Nope: Geneva, Switzerland (not a member of "Europe"). You may imagine you feel the uprooting of a tree more deeply than a European, but America has done more than any other country to destroy and denigrate natural habitat around the world, especially places such as Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras. It's okay when you're destroying someone else's territory, you just feel it more deeply when it's on American soil?
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Re: Monte's Return
by EnergyUnlimited » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 04:37:01
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JPL', 'N')ew thread because I think this needs thrashing out seperately. I asked Monte about Peak Oil in the context of the 'Third World'. He said
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')arrying capacity must come before humanitarian concerns.
An ecological paradigm must be embraced.
Mother Nature bats last.
We cannot save both the ability of the earth to support us and our full belly notions borne of the phantom carrying capacity.
When I say this, people call me a Nazi.
Mother Nature's laws dictate Nazi idealogy?
Pfft! I don't think so.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')arrying capacity must come before humanitarian concerns.
An ecological paradigm must be embraced.
Mother Nature bats last.
We cannot save both the ability of the earth to support us and our full belly notions borne of the phantom carrying capacity.
When I say this, people call me a Nazi.
Mother Nature's laws dictate Nazi idealogy?
Pfft! I don't think so.
I am one of those, who are considering him "Nazi".
That is because I prefer solutions handed down by Nature, regardless how good or bad those might be, over some silly designed ideas concocted by him (recently we have heared about deliberate letting in our natural predators, means contagious disease, to make a trick).
In general I think, he is simply losing contact with reality.
That is by failing to realize that his "solutions" are completely delusional nonsense with no slightest chance to be implemented in western civilization.
All "technofixes" will be explored until exhaustion and only then excessive expectations of societies will be destroyed by default from Nature.
Any meddling with that process by attempts to deliver "designed dieoff" could only increase overall suffering.
In any case peoples tend to agree with Nature's decisions without much grumbling.
There is also no one to blame...
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Re: Monte's Return
by Ludi » Fri 28 Sep 2007, 10:31:45
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'A')nd I agree Monte has a frontier mentality, but it's because he lives in the frontier, and close to nature.
From what he has said, Monte lives in an apartment in Sedona, AZ, population 11,000+.
That's not the "frontier." For comparison, my town has a population of about 63 in-town residents, and maybe 200 in the "greater" town area of several square miles.
Just sayin'.
- Ludi
