John Michael Greer: The dawn of scarcity industrialism

Two bits of news circulating on the internet in the last week or so offer a useful glimpse at some of the currents of change that are setting the future into motion around us. One of them caused a modest flutter in the dovecotes of the internet and the mass media, and the other passed almost unnoticed. So far, though, the sweeping implications of both of these news items seem to have been missed by most observers.

The first bit of news was a report that the Chinese government is planning to ban the export of rare earth elements. Those of my readers who don