A speculative essay on how the collapse of the global economy and banking system could and probably will trigger the extinction of most if not all complex life on our planet.
All previous advanced civilisations on this planet have collapsed and disappeared leaving behind religous relics, art, weaponry, advanced engineering ruins and ecological armageddon. Common themes were financial, population and resource overshoot, regional climate change, debauchery and societal neglect from the ruling classes, the debasement of the currency of the day and complexity. Ring any bells yet?
Capitalism has created a mountain of global debt that can not and will not be repaid. “Global debt mountain officially climbs to record $237 trillion in 2017”. It will no doubt be much more considering the regulatory capture and inherent dishonesty. Ask yourself, will they be understating or overstating their levels of debt?
All ponzi schemes eventually implode and when this one does it will be like no other.
The ‘Bail out’ options of the capitalist banksters in 2008 was to cut interest rates to either close to or at zero and in some cases they were even in negative territory, money was effectively free to the banksters. Instead of injecting the money into infrastructure and structural reforms as was planned, the banksters bought their own shares and reinflated the bubble. Slowly interest rates are now creeping up as are the repayments on the spiraling debt. When the Global Financial Crisis struck we were hours away from a systemic collapse of the global financial system. Not only were the structural flaws and debts not addressed in 2008 and subsequent years the ‘solution’ was more debt. Subsequently the situation is infinitely worse today than it was in 2008.
I want to canvass in this essay just a few of the potential repercussions, as always the situation must be worse than we know. Your informed contributions to the debate are welcomed in the comments section.
When systemic collapse of the financial system unfolds the vast majority of workers will stay home from their usual toil until they know what is planned by their capitalist slave owners. With no salaries paid on the first, second, third and subsequent days people world wide will be initally thrown into fear for where their next meal will come from and panic will quickly over take societies world wide. You can’t buy groceries without a functioning banking and electricial system.
Of immediate concern will be the abrupt cessation of the flow of water from the municipal taps, electricity from the grid and the halting of trucks driving into cities loaded with food, fuel and medicines. With no ability to invoice and process sales there will be no deliveries. How long before nuclear plant workers, firestation staff, doctors, nurses and police don’t show up at work? Days at most.
Suddenly we will have mega cities, many in desert or tropical zones with the water, power and gas no longer flowing and temperatures, both atmospheric and societal rising rapidly.
Airports and Sea ports world wide will close for a multitude of reasons including those above as will most industry and we will immediately lose the ‘Global Dimming’ or Aerosol Masking effect covered previously on this blog ; Global Dimming Keeping the Planet Habitable
The loss of the aerosol masking effect will double the total of anthropogenic warming in as little as 6 weeks. 300 years of anthropogenic global warming doubling in weeks, imagine how the flora, jet streams and Arctic and Antarctic ice caps will react to that.
“A research paper concluding that climate-induced collapse is now inevitable, was recently rejected by anonymous reviewers of an academic journal.It has been released directly by the Professor who wrote it, to promote discussion of the necessary deep adaptation to climate chaos.”
“I am releasing this paper immediately, directly, because I can’t wait any longer in exploring how to learn the implications of the social collapse we now face,” explained the author Dr Bendell, a full Professor of Sustainability Leadership. The study on collapse they thought you should not read – yet
“The excavation of more than 600 billion tons of toxic carbon and hydrocarbon geological remains of previous biospheres and their transfer to the atmosphere as carbon gases constitutes nothing less than insanity leading to global suicide.” Crimes Against the Earth by Dr Andrew Glikson, a previous guest on Nature Bats Last.
The collapse of industrial civilisation is now an extinction event for most if not all complex life on the planet and collapse is imminent. Connecting the dots on these issues is imperative to understand how tenuous our position has become and how quickly it can and will unravel.
No doubt readers of this blog have been watching the IPCC talkathon in Poland where the puppets of empire have been twittering and tweeting about holding global warming to a 1.5C temperature rise. I’ll draw your attention to this blog post from Sam Carana of the Arctic News Blog;
“In other words, merely changing the baseline to preindustrial, as agreed to at the Paris Agreement, can show that we’re already above the 1.5°C guardrail that the Paris Agreement had pledged we should not cross.” More details at “How Much Warmer Is It Now”.
My blog post on Baseline Temperature Dishonesty at the Edge of Extinction
I will continue connecting the dots as I see them at this blog and on my and Professor Guy McPherson‘s radio show Nature Bats Last on the Progressive Radio Network.
Good luck everyone, we are going to need it. Soon the living will envy the dead
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Thanks Kevin. I like your ‘oral submission’ also .. strong!
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Unless the world unites, not just on issues, but as a whole, we will not be able to do anything and to be able to do this, we have to cater to the interests of both the rich AND the poor. The only way we can do this in the short time we have, is given in the purposely small Free eBook which has 4.5/5 star reviews – Only Two Ways Left – Continue as at Present and Perish or Change available at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/528063
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This is the end most scientists see – The spiritualist holds a hope on awakening to Truth -Becoming conscious and intelligence and gain knowledge and wisdom to live in peace with the earth. I understand earth is a danger, but she is hostile to awakened children
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“The excavation of more than 600 billion tons of toxic carbon and hydrocarbon geological remains of previous biospheres and their transfer to the atmosphere as carbon gases constitutes nothing less than insanity leading to global suicide.” Crimes Against the Earth by Dr Andrew Glikson, a previous guest on Nature Bats Last.
The above says it all. We’re finished, hard to believe but facts are facts. I quote Ruppert on this one.: “This is a culminating event of all of what we have called history, its here, its now, it’s what we came here to witness and be a part of, there’s no game left to play but to face it.”
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Professor Tim Garrett tweets: “We will not meet a 1.5C goal or any other.”
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Anyone who still believes we are below 1.5C now needs to do a bit more research.We’ve allready passed that thresh-hold,that’s why we’re witnessing cascading feedback loops left,right and centre.We would all like a few more cushy years to kick around in but we’re not going to get them sorry to say.time to face the music…and dance!
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Add another 10 trillion to the figure I used in my blog post reiterating my contention that it’s always worse than we know.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/global-debt-hits-a-new-record-at-247-trillion.html
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Follow the money
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Blame The CEOs. they took our air, water, mountaintops, land, healthcare, government and courts. They give back war, cancer, pollution, and poverty. We will mass in the streets, the water cannons and gas will come, we will fight amongst each other, the jails will fill, we will fight for food, fuel, water, homes become outcasts in our own countries. It is imminent and irreversible as phytoplankton the creator of all life and oxygen is in a 40% decline in my life time because it is ingesting PCB laced marine microplastic. The poisonous seas will rise the fires rage until we are purged from Eden forever.
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Frank, This planet never was the Christian’s idea of Eden. I mean, really, an Eden with a nature full of Ebola and Polio, tsunamis & earthquakes & tornadoes, tapeworms and smallpox, and asteroids smacking into it killing almost all life because the planet got in the way of a flying rock? Physical reality denies the Eden thing rather abruptly…but I do understand what you were trying to say. How about “we sure could have done better as a species, eh?
Hey, I have snow up here. The ongoing Climate Collapse is officially over!
Snark! Had ya going!
By the way, Happy Winter Solstice today! Best to everybody here. I celebrate our species’ oldest holiday celebration tradition based on actual celestial events visible to the naked eye. Screw all that myth crap, this is real and right above our heads. It may not be Eden but this planet certainly had (and still has some of) its fine points as I look out my window at a forest of snow-covered conifers…a logged forest…. Sad to say, Frank, I concur with the gloomy prediction you wrote but how it plays out is up to chance at this point I’m afraid.
sealintheSelkirks
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i believe you have identified the reality of the situation. we have no more than 5 years before the end arrives. given this reality, what do you think of the phenomenon of “green shaming?” is this a thing?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/02/communism-fascism-and-green-shaming/
is there any reason to continue to feel guilty about the impacts that our own “carbon footprints” are creating in this world when we are, in essence, the walking dead already?
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Another great article from John Steppling making some excellent points.
Edward Abbey once said “Action is the antidote to despair”. The most productive activism we can do now is to fight milatarism. If you want to go down fightig it’s the logical target.
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There’s a whole Solar system of resources and room, and planets aren’t the only or best places.
Space resources can help us work around resource scarcity and survive and thrive during +6degreeC warming, or an ice age, or Yellowstone.
Global debt will vanish, when asteroids are being mined.
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