[Ayoob]

I'm really surprised and disappointed at the lack of response to this thread. Jay describes, Noodge lives. This is what an Alpha male does in modern society. Ted Nugent kills the meat he puts on his table, Jay stands back and describes being driven to kill.

Ted owns the weapons that Jay suggests that we all will need. Ted defected against his own country, then comes back and describes supporting the military. Jay suggests that this is what we need to do.

The ordinary person is going to be Ted Nugent, and Jay will be his philosopher. How can this have been missed? Jay doesn't want to ruin the world, and Ted surely wants the world to provide his meat in a way that is morally agreeable. How is there much difference in their two viewpoints?

I read both of these interviews and couldn't help but be swept up into both of their arguments as being absolutely useful. Both are correct. Both are necessary. We cannot divide the world into the economically viable and the economically disadvantaged. The bottom line is that if you want to eat meat, you have to kill something in order to do so. Outsource it if you want, but the blood is still on your hands. Think about ground beef for a minute. Can you have blood running down your forearms and puddling on the table in front of you without puking?

I remember my Vegan roommate's hairy-legged girlfriend heaving while I made soup. That's how it went on that day in that place with that person.

I was fine with it, she was not. This is from fifteen years ago, this is not something I imagine as happening in the far distant future. This is how I live today and how we all live today. We take more than our share, and we take it away from others. Can you take more than your share and live with that?

If you were on the other side of this, could you live with that? Getting less than your share?

These are all interesing questions. I think they should be explored, much more so than they are today. What happens if you can live with taking more than your share? How should that behavior be viewed?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '
')These are all interesing questions. I think they should be explored, much more so than they are today. What happens if you can live with taking more than your share? How should that behavior be viewed?

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')We cannot divide the world into the economically viable and the economically disadvantaged.

[Syeer]

Lol, Ted Nugent. I don't agree with his views, but I can't help but like the guy....

[roccman]

Around the year 2005, global oil production will "peak", and the spike in oil prices will quickly exacerbate other major problems facing industrial agriculture.[52] Food grains produced with modern, high-yield methods (including packaging and delivery) now contain between four and ten calories of fossil fuel for every calorie of solar energy. It has been estimated that about four percent of the nation's energy budget is used to grow food, while about 10 to 13 percent is needed to put it on our plates. In other words, a staggering total of 17 percent of America's energy budget is consumed by agriculture![53]

By 2040, we would need to triple the global food supply in order to meet the basic food needs of the eleven billion people who are expected to be alive. But doing so would require a 1000 percent increase in the total energy expended in food production.[54] Guess what? Eleven billion people won't be alive by 2040.

The dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, the declining fertility of the land, and the positive feedbacks imposed by declining resource quality will force the economy to divert much more investment into the agriculture and energy sectors as part of a desperate attempt to maintain agricultural output. Government budgets also decline in real terms as greater and greater fractions of the economy are diverted into the resource sectors.

As resource quality and land fertility continue to fall, society will be forced to allocate more and more capital to the agriculture and resource sectors, otherwise the scarcity of food, materials, and fuels would restrict production still more -- it's circular, there is no way to avoid the positive feedback. Ultimately, industrial capacity will decline rapidly taking with it the service and agricultural sectors, which depend upon industrial inputs.

Constrained by the laws of thermodynamics, the availability of life-supporting resources will go into a permanent, steep decline.

In many ways, the next hundred years will be the inverse of the last hundred. As fossil fuels dwindle, supply lines collapse, and societies disintegrate, muscle will gradually replace machinery. "Home grown" will replace "imported". Obviously, large cities will be mostly abandoned.

Well-intended activists from both the Left and Right -- armed with facts and ideologies -- will form political movements, select the best liars for leaders, and take to the streets demanding that government take us back to "the good old days". The worse our problems become, the more they will act instead of think. The less they think, the worse our problems will become. Social order will disintegrate, and Roadside Warriors will go mad, killing, raping, torturing, and burning...

It really will be back to the good old days! Shouts of "BRING ME HIS HEAD" will ring through the land, slaves, scalps, souvenirs and trophies of all sorts, ... exciting possibilities limited only by our ingenuity.

The good news is that recycling will finally become fashionable! We will see feral children mining the dumps for plastic to burn (Pampers) so they can heat the hovels they are forced to live in. The strongest kids will set traps for fresh meat -- rats -- while the weaker kids will eat anything they can cram into their mouths (old shoes, styrofoam peanuts, newspaper soup). Pandemics will sweep the world, punctuated every so often by explosions as abandoned and rotting nuclear facilities blow up. Leaking dumps and tanks will spew PCBs and radioactive hazwaste into the feral food chain spawning surprising new shapes for young mothers to enjoy nursing.[55] Toxic chemical fires, blowing garbage and trash, genetic mutations, filthy water, cannibalism ...

As the Easter Islanders say: "The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth".[56]

The situation will be especially serious for a short time because the population will keep rising due to the lags inherent in the age structure and social adjustment. Then mercifully, the population will drop sharply as the death rate is driven upward by lack of food and health services.[57] Trapped in obsolete belief systems, Americans won't even know why their society disintegrated.

A hundred thousand years from now -- once the background radiation levels drop below lethality -- a new Homo mutilus will crawl out of the caves to elect a leader. Although we have no idea what mutilus might look like, evolutionary theory can still tell us who will win the election. He will be the best liar running on a platform to end hunger by controlling nature.

How could it be otherwise?

http://www.dieoff. com/page181. htm

[Plantagenet]

OK...so that was the good news.

Now tell us the bad news.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'O')K...so that was the good news.

Now tell us the bad news.

[Plantagenet]

That is definitely a very bad scenario.

Looks like if humanity is going to get into space in a meaningful way, we're going to have to do it soon and do it right the first time.

I still think we should be trying for it. "The game is worth the candle."

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'T')hat is definitely a very bad scenario.

Looks like if humanity is going to get into space in a meaningful way, we're going to have to do it soon and do it right the first time.

I still think we should be trying for it. "The prize is worth the candle."

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/

[Plantagenet]

I'm not that pessimistic yet.

And even if I was, I still want to see how it all plays out.

[Kingcoal]

Oh yeah, Jay Hanson from dieoff.com, that was where I first heard of Peak Oil. Jay pulled no punches, there was no sugar coating, no hope, just bleakness, suffering, war, and extinction - you gotta love it.

The "green revolution" will be casualty of Peak Oil. People don't understand how artificially cheap food is these days. Go back just 60 years and you'll notice that food took up a far greater slice of the budget. Not only was food more expensive, but it was seasonal. You couldn't get certain fruits and vegitables year round. There were no "3000 mile" salads back then. I remember my Grandmother canning peaches...

Slowly, but surely, food will inch up in price. Our beloved standard of living will fall, slowly, but surely.

[I_Like_Plants]

A lot of this is already happening too, from children eating flavored dirt in Haiti to the abandonment of central Detroit.

[roccman]

Jay has started a new group here:

killer_ape-peak_oil @yahoogroups.com

[roccman]

For those of you who do not know Jay Hanson, he began www.dieoff.org back in the day.

He is one of the true pioneers discussing the collapse of civilization.

He has a yahoo group at:

killer_ape-peak_oil@yahoogroups.com

He also is owner of:

http://www.warsocialism.com

He will be starting a "session" tomorrow...I have posted the course outline below.

Jay is one of a kind...hard nosed...very intelligent and "got it" long before "carrying capacity" and "die off" found their way into but a handful of books on back shelves in a bookstore.

He ties politices, energy, tragedy of the commons, war and resource depletion together.

Enjoy and hopefully I will see some of your comments on the forum.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]BASIC COURSE OUTLINE

We are NOT going to debate whether or not "evolution theory" is true because we assume mainstream scientists are correct. The same assumption applies to "peak oil" and "global warming". We are not going to debate abstractions because abstractions do not exist. We are not going to debate word definitions because, if you are using non-standard definitions, it's up to you to define them for your readers before you use them.

I want to discuss topics that are seldom (if ever) discussed anywhere else, so we are NOT going to discuss topsoil loss, falling water tables, desertification, species loss, etc. because these topics are covered extensively in other venues.

Learning is a biophysical function

Garrett Hardin observed that it required five years for him to change his mind about abortion after all the facts were in. This was no doubt because of the time and energy required to rewire the neurons and dendrites in his brain. So take what you learn in this course home and think about it until it makes sense to you. Realize that it may require years of effort to finally understand how your world actually works. I can't say that this knowledge will make you any happier, but if you are addicted to learning as I am, this course will at least feed your addiction.

A Technically- Insoluble Problem

If you were born after 1960, you will probably die of violence, starvation or contagious disease. Although it's news to you, your generation is challenged with a technically- insoluble problem1 – a political problem – which will ultimately kill five out of six worldwide – or perhaps all. You can not solve this problem because that carbon-based, selfish-gene rational computer on your neck isn't logical!



Topic #1: What specifically was the human brain designed to do? How does the brain decide? What kinds of decisions are selected? Do the math.

Topic #2: What is "politics?" Why is an understanding of politics absolutely critical to understanding how our rulers (the rich) regulate the behavior of almost everyone in our society? I will present a quick look at a chimp response to "overpopulation" (too many animals chasing too few resources) in the Gombe National Park, and also look at the human response to overpopulation.

"War is politics by other means." – Clausewitz.

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." – Mao

Topic #3: What is – and what is not – contemporary economics? The origins of modern economics: the Roman Catholic Church and the French Physiocrats.

"The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise ... economics is a form of brain damage." – Hazel Henderson

"Economics is politics by other means." – Jay Hanson

Topic #4: What are the physical, economic and political implications of "peak oil?" Review Karl Polanyi's work on the first free trade episode (1846-79) and the international "gold standard." Discuss Jevons' sunspots. Discuss the upcoming "energy standard." Discuss the events which led up to World War Two, and then some of the resource shortages that will lead to World War Three.

History repeats because human behavior is "caused" (as in cause/effect) by one's environment superimposed on one's genes – and genes do not read history books!

Topic #5: Which systems will prevent our present political system from reinventing itself, and thereby delay or avoid a global nuclear war three? I will present a brief look at the essence of our Founding political system, the way our government actually works today, the ongoing production of "university- trained liars," the fatal corporate form, human decision criteria, and the human addiction to dopamine and other neurotransmitters.

Topic #6: We will take a look at a few longer-lived political systems from the historical record.

Topic #7: How would we structure an ideal government for the world we face today?

Topic #8: A novel tactic for political change.

[Graeme]

James Hansen: Prosecute oil companies, top scientist says

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'J')ames Hansen, the leading climate change scientist who made a ground-breaking speech about global warming exactly 20 years [ago], will today reprise his seminal address when he calls for fuel companies to be tried for crimes against humanity.

In his speech to Congress today, he is expected to target big corporations and members of US Congress who had a poor record of dealing with climate change.

"When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime," he said in an interview with the Guardian.

[Graeme]

Aren't we merely ignorant "smokers" (Hansen compares oil companies with tobacco companies who "blurred the links between smoking and cancer")? At the moment, we have very little choice at the pump.

The oil companies could do a lot more in developing alternative fuels. We need them NOW to replace gasoline, and of course our cars must not discharge CO2 as we burn the new fuel.

[essex]

This is a peak oil web site. By far the majority of visitors to this web site couldn't give a rat's arse about Hansen and his eco-theology. No warming since the El Nino of 1998 and now their computer models tell them to cancel calamity for another decade.

[Graeme]

When I can, I do walk to work. But when I need to travel larger distances, I do use the convenience of a personal vehicle to go where I want when I want. It's nice to have that freedom and not rely on public transport that is sometime not punctual.

I think the main point that Hansen is making though is that oil companies and some members of congress are spreading a misinformation campaign (lies) about global warming so that some of us can still innocently continue to burn fossil fuels. That's the crime. It will be interesting to see how congress reacts to this.

[Graeme]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'T')his is a peak oil web site. By far the majority of visitors to this web site couldn't give a rat's arse about Hansen and his eco-theology. No warming since the El Nino of 1998 and now their computer models tell them to cancel calamity for another decade.

[idiom]

Well the US already banned ethanol once. And then unbanned it. Stupidest amendments ever.

Seriously, take all the saftey labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself.