This months guest on Nature Bats Last is Arthur Keller author of the You Tube Presentation “Collapse: The Only Realistic Scenario”.
Kevin and Guy were joined by Arthur Keller, who studies system dynamics. Initially a rocket scientist, Keller has become an author, screenwriter, and keynote speaker. We lost Arthur for a few moments but the technicians at the studio burst into life, recovered the signal with him and he saw out an interesting hour with us.
Arthur’s seminal You Tube Presentation: Collapse: The Only Realistic Scenario
I mentioned the work of Albert Bartlett and his contention that “The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race is our inability to understand the exponential Function” I’ve embedded that presentation for further reference
This interview continues a theme on NBL of non-linear changes we are witnessing. Grasping the significance of non-linearity is crucial to this predicament. Our previous guest Dr Andrew Glikson has a similar contention. That interview and corroborating evidence is embedded here;
Professor Paul Ehrlich was interviewed previously on this blog about his position on the coming collapse. That discussion is embedded here:
Good luck everyone
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 
I noticed on the Nature bats last pages podcast only people with CELL PHONES & the right app can comment on the program!
So I cannot comment on the program because I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t need a cell phone & I can’t afford a cell phone, I agree however that collapse is in our future, we ignored scientific warnings for way too long.
Overpopulation is the most IGNORED & critical problem we have, it’s the FOUNDATION of all our other problems & by ignoring overpopulation & only treating the symptoms, it’s just as “wise” as putting band aids over a growing CANCER!
We are totally dependent upon fossil resources & the web is chock full of people claiming we can “transition” to “renewables” that are also DEPENDENT UPON FOSSIL RESOURCES!
They claim their “cheaper” than coal, they claim their “clean & green” when in fact their only clean where they are being used not where they are produced, usually in China.
They believe we can continue on as is on just “renewables”, wrong dupes!
Fast or slow? I don’t know, most of us hope it won’t happen while we are still alive.
When collapse does happen, ti will be back to being RULED by religious “leaders”, lords, kings & terrorist IF we survive what we have done to this wonderful living planet.
Great show as usual & a fasinating guest Kevin!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are part of nature, and nature is in the process of rebalancing our overshoot. Unfortunately we’re taking many other species out at the same time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I find myself saying almost exactly this almost every day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
The latest on the unfolding collapse from Arthur Keller.
The English translation is a little ‘lumpy’ but the analysis continues to be excellent
https://usbeketrica.com/article/effondrement-guerre-recits-arthur-keller?fbclid=IwAR1_sWvbindNNupZjSGkADElgT3Ytq6prlnH5rz985l2sUc3retC1pL3qdY
LikeLike
I am not new to the Doomer philosophy so I have seen a lot of very impressive ecology/collapse videos, Notably “What a Way to Go.” Mr. Keller’s video is arguably the most sobering assessment of the perfect storm life on earth faces that I have seen. I know it is rare to find a documentary these days that isn’t exquisitely shot. But this one is especially visually awesome.
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] My friend Kevin Hester wrote all this up a few weeks ago. you can read his roundup of such news at his website. But his sum-up of the situation is pretty direct: Clearly the cost of disasters is on the same Hockey Stick trajectory as our climate crisis yet “Business as Usual” carries on as if nothing has changed. All Ponzi schemes eventually implode and this one will be no different except in scale. There is no previous analogue to remotely compare with the coming collapse. […]
LikeLiked by 1 person
On the February episode of Nature Bats Last I mentioned to our guest Dr Andrew Glikson from The Australian National University that his colleague Dr. Joelle Gergis, a lead author on the IPCC’s sixth assessment report was under stating the amount of warming that we have already triggered because she refuses to use 1750 as a baseline. There was also considerable anthropogenic warming prior to 1750 from agriculture. Ignoring any warming is nonsensical and lacks academic rigor and fails the ‘Precautionary Principal’.
Complexity is our achilles heel and we’ve never lived in such complex societies making this one much more vulnerable to perturbations.
I would give us 2 to 5 years.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwygg/the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begun?fbclid=IwAR1Tup5rq_AiOzdeJJS7TOhAroA0MnicDn1fh47O1LeIAeJz96UuTRq9kVQ
LikeLike
Collapse. It’s the only realistic scenario.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/09/political-collapse-the-center-cannot-hold/?fbclid=IwAR1lgcseCt-hOomIuOuWUc5YavLLq4JH2785st9-7-8yf-NtYbdMbiuM6W0
LikeLike
On the October episode of Nature Bats Last on the Progressive Radio Network my co-host Professor Guy McPherson and I interviewed Robert Hunziker about the great unraveling we are all witnessing and are a part of.
In this latest article Robert discusses the inevitably of bio-sphere collapse! (How weird it is for me to write those words !!!!!! )
In next months episode we will re-interview Stephen Jenkinson sometimes known as “The Grief Walker” when we will continue our mission to have the conversations most shy away from.
The interview with Robert and a previous interview with Stephen Jenkinson can be found at the Nature Bats Last archive at PRN.FM
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/19/biosphere-collapse/
LikeLike
“Ultimately, the world economy may be headed for collapse.”
I was of the opinion that the world economy was in early stage collapse before this event. It can only be closer as a result.
“As soon as the shutdowns end, it will be obvious that the world economy is in worse condition than it was before the shutdown. The longer the shutdowns last, the worse shape the world economy will be in. Thus, when businesses are restarted, we can expect even more protests and more divisive politics. Some governments may be overthrown, or they may collapse without being pushed. I fear that the world economy will be further down the road toward overall collapse.”
I will be very surprised if industrial civilisation survives this level of destabilisation considering it was teetering before we all got the bug.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/03/31/economies-wont-be-able-to-recover-after-shutdowns/comment-page-2/?unapproved=234015&moderation-hash=1d49094b569b5921fe01af9e05be2900#comment-234015
LikeLike
“But the vulnerable, defenseless bottoms of things are also their foundations. The foundations of the most basic things of all — of democracy, of peace, of water, of air, of life itself. What kind of a fool would eat through the roots of his own orchard, just because he can?”
Umair Haque has great style and forethought.
The Age of Collapse
Why Everything’s Collapsing, and What to Do About It
https://eand.co/the-age-of-collapse-1b7082b75f04
LikeLike
These guys totally get that there is a global financial coup being carried out and that the ‘virus’ is a spectacularly convenient trigger to invoke martial law everywhere with a lock down. How convenient as the entire global financial system goes into meltdown.
One of the participants asks the other, I’m paraphrasing “How could this be a conspiracy between all these disparate nations” and the reply, verbatim was”Most of them are clueless”.
Bingo.
Bank robbers have been running the global monetary system and it just imploded.
These two assume there will be an economic system to follow this one. I don’t, I believe it will trigger biosphere collapse. The loss of the aerosol masking effect, the melt down of 450 nuke plants, 1300 spent fuel pool fires.
I do not believe we are ever going back to the life we all had a month ago.
The discussion is subtitled in a perfect translation from the German. Don’t let that deter you. It’s well worth the hour.
LikeLike
Another bet at the collapse casino;
https://theconversation.com/our-climate-is-like-reckless-banking-before-the-crash-its-time-to-talk-about-near-term-collapse-128374?fbclid=IwAR3nIYwoJpdeko-s2wJITY9PB9N91TKf4Ey1ApiiWspEtrqlsHoW_9Zx_BE
LikeLike
Here’s another Frenchman who sees collapse unfolding.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/collapsology-is-this-the-end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR1Kg1KvbJGnMFGeYEvAO6eygC9rStPVAKTgXJJAAthhAB8HHHYQBrK4khE
LikeLike
LikeLike
“King wrote: “The ‘comfort cult’, as Amalrik called it – the tendency in seemingly stable societies to believe “that ‘reason will prevail’ and that ‘everything will be all right'” – is seductive. As a result, when a terminal crisis comes, it is likely to be unexpected, confusing, and catastrophic,”
In Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises” Bill asked
“How did you go bankrupt?” .
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
This is exactly how civilisations collapse, slowly and then suddenly. The cognitive dissonance around not seeing the obvious signs is amazing.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6827090/we-are-witnessing-the-fall-of-a-great-power/?fbclid=IwAR1wKHRu5Tm_Fx40bzE64kaJTuIGUoKOM3JHDG6LL8QhWqY71iEMn8BBZiI#gsc.tab=0
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
“five days of prostitution followed by two days of resuscitation”.
Bingo.
‘Humans weren’t always here. We could disappear’: meet the collapsologists
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/11/humans-werent-always-here-we-could-disappear-meet-the-collapsologists?fbclid=IwAR0c4VBJrliBmcNktbgy0nqjMQsO_pYJGCdC3V0bohIrVk7BTAIGJU_qZPw
LikeLike
“The system as a whole is pushed toward collapse.”
“The situation we are headed for looks much like the collapses of early civilizations.”
Gail has come to much the same conclusions as myself and our former guest on Nature Bats Last Arthur Keller.
I would hazard that none of us want to be right but we don’t ‘do’ hopium.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2020/12/23/2020-the-year-things-started-going-badly-wrong/?fbclid=IwAR0siZx_gugMEw80Rwsu9G7XXHuD45PHDd59XR_VtPcgpJ4lJtzdk5akT5A#comments
LikeLike
LikeLike
“If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world with up to 2.8bn tonnes, surpassed only by China and the US.”
This is why only collapse will slow down this runaway freight train.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com&fbclid=IwAR3-VESk04aXoSlm-r3wZc-wp54tBMqmDWiez0mEIT8NnWkaFPlbpe3syNA
LikeLike
I’m in an email group with many scientists and researchers where we discuss the unfolding collapse.
William Rees who is quoted in this article is one of the contributors and I often quote his contention that ” The scientifically relevant is politically unfeasible and the politically feasible is scientifically irrelevant”. It’s interesting that even the mainstream media are now forced to confront the issue of collapse.
One of the most significant papers released recently is co-authored by two former guests on my and Guy McPherson’s radio show Nature Bats Last. Professor Corey Bradshaw from Flinders University in Oz and Professor Paul Ehrlich from Stanford in the USA. The paper is titled ” Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future”.
Guy recently made a video where he contends that even this paper underestimates the severity and rapidity of the collapse.
In two days we will re-interview Professor Paul Ehrlich and no doubt Guy will air his contention that even this warning doesn’t go far enough.
Shortly after the live broadcast on the Progressive Radio Network it will be uploaded to the extensive NBL archive and I’ll post it on my website with all the corroborating evidence embedded.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-31/societal-collapse-collapseology-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR3y0Np6iUNK6SmvRzJf3kjdw8eqTX0wXAEELHMwve8oyrCJLHcfavo-5Es
LikeLike
In the immortal words of Kenneth Boulding “Anyone who considers economic growth can continue indefinitely in a finite system is either a madman or an economist.”
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2021/02/25/why-collapse-occurs-why-it-may-not-be-far-away/?fbclid=IwAR0vo6aalJTPKU6VD3Sa5SSfxXY6B202GzTVnWoAgMxbaFX8KatAM3vBbwE
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
LikeLike
The latest on collapse from Umair
https://eand.co/this-is-how-a-civilization-collapses-c3d9f113b4cd
LikeLike
More on the collapse from Umair
https://eand.co/how-the-american-dream-became-the-american-nightmare-586fdf175cb0
LikeLike
LikeLike
The only caveat I’d add to Umair’s brilliant analysis is the tense in the title, we have lost the “Battle for the Future”.
https://eand.co/were-losing-the-battle-for-the-future-241b0b8c47a6
LikeLike
I absolutely love the “Are you an idiot?” at the end of the ‘Nobody thoughtful,’ paragraph 12. I laughed out loud. Haven’t done that much lately though I did put in George Carlin’s ‘Jamming in New York’ dvd recently…
As a species…yes. As an incredibly dense overpopulated mass of blithering primates greedily grasping for the banana? Yes. As a civilization owned and controlled by the wealth and power by a tiny minority of sociopaths/psychopaths?
Absolutely. Fucking. Idiots. Bezos mindless interview comments after going up in his rocket proved that without a shred of doubt.
Sucks to be us. Looks like the Fermi Paradox is gonna come true for this planet, too.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Herrington, who is also sustainability and dynamic system analysis lead at major accounting firm KPMG”.
She like former KPMG apparatchik James Shaw M.P.’s role is to run point for capitalism and try to project the unfolding collapse long off into the future. He’s got electric cars to sell with a subsidy he created, cunning plan except he doesn’t understand the exponential function.
Collapse is underway now, not in the decades to come.
https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-crisis-civilization-collapse-mit-2653980183.html?fbclid=IwAR1ZJG5m4n34ByTFJgVINjMsHrIe7rjdU_jj5dWfg2ES-QQy_zXIjsjlymU
LikeLike
What we are reading here from The Guardian is the corporate spin on the unfolding collapse.
It’s getting impossible to deny the obvious so they put a positive spin on the prospects of somewhere, in this case NZ having a better outcome, making us a target of conquest in a world already wracked with war and conquest, we haven’t seen anything yet.
The reality is that when the collapse runs it’s full course, no where will be habitable shortly after as a result of a myriad of compounding feedback loops like the loss of the aerosol masking effect, that’s another, circa 1.5C of instant warming and then of course the melt down of 450 nuclear power stations and another, possibly 100 nuclear powered ships with no support services.
Much worse than the nuclear melt downs is the 1200 spent pool fires that will erupt when the power goes off and the diesel runs out.
The billionaires are in the process of racing off to Mars because they know this planet will soon be uninhabitable.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/new-zealand-rated-best-place-to-survive-global-societal-collapse?fbclid=IwAR3PWS3ED8jvwp9ylYZIzZpcS80-WQoSemFeWWopwzRAzKstN1bSX_NxqOI
LikeLike
“Given the unappealing prospect of collapse, I was curious to see which scenarios were aligning most closely with empirical data today.“
Yeah, I don’t find it particularly ‘appealing’ but I’m morbidly fascinated by the reality that we are baring witness to the unfolding collapse.
Forget about ‘mid-century’, the slow decline before the “Seneca Cliff” scenario is already playing out.
https://greekreporter.com/2021/08/05/the-limits-to-growth-predicted-societys-collapse-research-confirms/
LikeLike
I read this when it came out along with a book on Greenhouse Effect that I don’t remember the name of at about the same time. What I read in my late teens is obviously going full bore in my mid/late 60s…
So this sentence: ““Economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline, which will hurt food production and standards of living…” This isn’t happening that way; it’s backwards from reality.
We are losing harvests right this moment around here, and a lot of other places around the planet including the worldwide ocean. But industrial and economics are not going down; instead I see rather the opposite. Drill, mine, build pipelines, that sure isn’t ceasing.
The crops have burnt up in Washington, both human and animal fodder. Those with cows have nothing growing in their pastures, there is no green here anywhere, and two of my neighbors just did a three week stint out in the middle of Washington State driving trucks having been hired by wheat farmers (and others) who rushed to get what they had growing harvested and under cover because everything was burning the hell up. One told me it was 16 hour days running from field to drop-off and back again because the farmers were freaking out watching their fields die no matter how much of the aquifer they are draining (in prodigious amounts) was sprayed on the fields. Every crop they moved was stunted, and he said the wheat was no taller than knee to thigh high. There will be nothing else planted this year as what would be the point? The farmers are…a bit depressed. Then add in what this article talks about and the link I threw at you about 1 billion dead near-shore earthlings and think about the cascading collapse of that food chain…
Oh shit is right but I think it’s going to fall the other way, food first. Food prices worldwide have jacked up in the last two months by quite a bit. One article said 40%…but with nothing growing in this heat or drowning in massive rainfall ‘events’ and floods it certainly isn’t going to become more affordable!
And I agree, morbidly fascinated is pretty close to the mark at this point. Wait’ll the methane blows out…oh my.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Our entire civilization is a bubble that’s going to have to burst fairly soon.”
No Shit Sherlock.
” You can’t have a globe-spanning unipolar empire without using mass military violence to hold it together, because otherwise the world will just do what it wants to do. Opposing war without wanting to dismantle the empire is like opposing the use of whips and chains but not wanting to end slavery.”
“During the partisan debates about the latest IPCC report, remember that our ecosystem is hurtling toward collapse on many other fronts besides climate change; there are many other indications of collapse besides warming.”
Exactly, collapse is locked in because of a multitude of compounding factors.
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/were-destroying-our-world-over-imaginary?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMjY0NzUyLCJwb3N0X2lkIjozOTgwNTAwMywiXyI6IjR0SmdSIiwiaWF0IjoxNjI4NTYyMzAzLCJleHAiOjE2Mjg1NjU5MDMsImlzcyI6InB1Yi04MjEyNCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.1izGE1Q4pbrnf7Ga0-aBV0hBRq48sKmfuConsmEXafQ
LikeLike
As always Caitlin Johnstone is hitting the salient points. One damned smart person most definitely! Too bad she’s…not president of the USA, eh? I’d vote for her.
Finished the book Dime’s Worth of Difference; Beyond Lesser Evil Voting. Had to put it down for a bit as it is an incredibly discouraging read due to it flat-out listing decades of personal experience watching the decline of the natural world. Makes voting for Caitlin more real than neoliberal Biden or neoliberal Trump…
Then this popped up today:
Mass Death on Butte Creek: Record Spring Salmon Run on Sacramento River Tributary Turns into Disaster as Most Fish Die Before Spawning
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/10/mass-death-on-butte-creek-record-spring-salmon-run-on-sacramento-river-tributary-turns-into-disaster-as-most-fish-die-before-spawning/
____
My one afternoon/evening a week of being off the property yesterday turned into my coming home later than usual, after sunset when it was getting dark enough to have headlights on. And there were almost no bugs! It’s August when there are/have been millions of bugs out right at dark and…the air was empty of them. It was eerie, Kevin, chilled my heart no doubt of that at all.
Almost no butterflies this year again though I’ve seen maybe three or four different types around. But rarely two within view at the same time. With the incredible heat killing off so many flowering plants and baking the ground dry so quickly even the usual masses of bugs that frolic between the front porch and the old apple tree are missing and presumed dead even though I’ve continued to water the tree and there is fairly lush wild plants (even clover!) still alive in that patch of ground. I have seen a few bumble bees on horribly pernicious Chinese Knapweed that still have flowered, but the many species of wild flowers that bloom here disappeared weeks ago so no honey bees at all. I’m still feeding the few Calliope and Rufous hummingbirds that are still hanging about because there isn’t anything for them to eat in the woods. Mostly the metallic green females of both species, and a couple of the Calliope males. The small birds that hang in the apple tree are still demanding I keep the suet feeders full…
It is so dried out that I can’t wear flip-flops outside because the weed stems have turned into vicious spikes of dead plant matter that spear right through and into the sole of my foot causing instant pain and much blood spilling out. I’ve got a pair of hiker tennis-boots that are a size to big that I now slip on to go off the porch. Learned my lesson I did…
____
The main water source down below me in the valley the Colville River is incredibly low. The median flow for this time of year is 85CFS. Unfortunately it was just recorded at 29.9 with the gauge height at 4.87 feet. From what I’ve seen they must have that gauge stuck in a hole because it’s a hell of a lot lower than that everywhere I’ve seen it sluggishly flowing north through the valley. The fishing holes are so low you can scoop fish out instead of having to drop a line. But like in Cali the water is so damned warm that the fish are doing the upside down float…
The air quality continues to be ‘unhealthy’ (nice way to say DON’T BREATHE IT!) completely full of 2.5 particulate that gets into eyes and causes them to itch and need rubbing which I’m trying not to do. I’m using an eye wash every time I go outside it’s so bad. Can’t see it in the daytime except for that brown ‘haze’ (another cute term) even though this week I can see the 300 meter Huckleberry Range rearing up to the west of me. The flashlight in the dark of night trick looks like it’s snowing in the beam…and I’m breathing that shit? Nope, I’m masked which is why I had these boxes of 3M N95 masks in the tool room in the first place…
Temperatures have dropped with the t-storm rainfall of Sunday morning that pounded the roof for a few hours before blowing away. Didn’t really make much of a dent in the deficit of water from the sky this year, though. It’s 90’F today and expecting to hit triple digits again by Friday. The blistering heat continues…
COVID Delta in this county continues to make being around other humans a decidedly risky behavior. Breakthrough infections among the vaccinated increase, kids are being hospitalized with it, and I’m around people that have a 31% vaccination rate every time I go to town to check the mail. Chewelah by the way now has the top spot in countywide infections and people are still not wearing masks. I saw two women on the street yesterday while unloading the 2nd hand van on the street in front of the store and another walked into the post office after putting one on before entering. I was the only guy in one and next door to the store the pizza & brew pub had tables-full of people eating and drinking in close proximity. I got the ‘pawky eye’ from a couple of people as I skated by to get my mail… This area is ripe for a full-blown raging outbreak. The only advantage I see is that Trump voters are mostly who is dying at this point… Cynical? You bet! Tired of stupidity tends to leave one less empathetic.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
There are so many separate strings in this civilization that most people don’t think about, that most people don’t realize are all tangled up together. So this vid says “it MIGHT be a good idea to START stockpiling some extra food the next time one goes shopping”… No kidding? And then this vid flips into a little talk about ‘possible’ profiteering.
Well Capitalism is all about profits isn’t it? The screw everybody else get as much as you can no matter how badly it affects the lives of others. That’s the beauty of the program, sociopathy as permissible way of life for the wealthy who own the food corporations…and whose Class own pretty much every other sector of the economy.
Then this vid wraps Covid into it…oops, a little blip gets into the machine.
But the end of it has books for sale, good Capitalism because they tell you what to do!?? One caught my eye as the vid scanned over the titles was: Cheap bunkers! I mean, really, just how long will your little cheap bunker filled with Campbell’s soup keep your family safe which of course is the main reason you’ll run out and start digging in your backyard.
But people don’t trust the government so they aren’t getting vaccinated? The government has lied about everything, thrown the people that publicized the evidence that they’ve lied about everything into prison for telling the truth and destroyed their lives, and the government is wondering why people don’t wanna believe everything the government is telling them. What, this is a surprise? Remember, once they are in office their income is in the top 10% automatically and are on the road to a Class status beyond the average citizen’s imagination. I don’t think politicians really got the message about the boy who cried wolf…
The most unfortunate part of all this is that Mr. Average Citizen has no clue that the politician they turn to who promises them the moon, or ramps up all their deepest darkest fears and prejudices, has exactly the same program as all the other politicians they don’t believe.
And the wealthy always get wealthier. That is the guiding principle here, always has been at least since agriculture was invented. If the US farmers and Big Ag actually stopped using immigrant laborers there wouldn’t be much on the supermarket shelves. If they paid these workers more by cutting corporate profits (including the HUGE mass of middlemen), you’d hear a huge howl of pain and anger off in the distance in those gated mansions. Isn’t every-increasing corporate profits codified in corporate charters.
With the damage being done by a collapsing climate whether it’s drought or deluge, I can’t see prices ever going down. Ever. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
sealintheSelkirks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The process of the collapse is underway, searching gallantly for a weak link that it will easily find with the greatest stress test of all time building we every gram of carbon added to the load.
https://www.climatedisaster.net/2021/09/when-will-societal-collapse-from-climate-change-happen/
LikeLike
Yeah, it’s been going on for years, piece by piece breaking off what was always called ‘normal’ weather. Some of us have noticed while the great majority hasn’t but now that collapse is accelerating and intensifying worldwide it is getting a lot harder to dismiss and ignore. Thought of course there are always those that refuse to see it and they tend to be ideologically blinded or seriously invested in fossil fuel. There’s nothing one can to to the willfully blind…
The comment about McPherson was fair, too, and one that I agree with. Trying to pinpoint exactly when a total breakdown is impossible even though we see the signs of that coming all around us. I’m thinking he probably does it to underline the urgency but it does take away from the message… Humans always want to know WHEN, though, the silly species.
____
Here’s an interesting point of view on why the US politics are congenitally unable to make any progress. When you’ve got a so-called ‘Socialist/Commie’ like Bernie Sanders portrayed in this country by the corporate media as the epitome of evil lefty thinking when he’s pretty much right in line with the “average Christian Democratic” in Germany…
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/14/so-called-democratic-moderates-are-actually-right-wingers-who-have-always-thrown
It is no wonder at all that nothing gets done. Collapse will continue piecemeal until a really huge event does so much damage that it can’t be swept under the rug in the corporate media. That probably is coming sooner than later I’m afraid. Of course if it doesn’t happen to the US nobody will pay attention in this fucking country…
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
He’s not a good public speaker, very dry and too much into diagrams of how the disparate parts of the world, and economics, have drastically changed in the last two hundred years. With his comparisons using France back when it was nearly all agrarian small farmsteads, and the constant and never-ending famines compared to the current heavily interdependent worldwide model…yeah, a collapse will be magnitudes worse due to one main reason; a population of 8 billion.
There is no way for that many people to eat and keep having babies when any part of the big food machine breaks down. Pretty obvious. But then going back to ‘localized’ self-sustaining farming that doesn’t share widely like the France model, repeated famines are guaranteed due to finicky or just unlucky at the worst time weather conditions that kill the crops with nothing to fall back on as your close neighbors are in the same boat and nobody outside the range of the localized disaster is going to send food.
No wonder there is so much historical evidence of cannibalism in past collapses across the planet.
Big sigh. Now can you put up some cute kittens videos or maybe funniest baby videos so we can all just forget the bad parts of our future and quit paying attention by pretending all will work out in the end just like in the movies?
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Read through this one dedicated to climate and oil spills etc etc including the dying coastline of SoCal due to the never-ending streams of oil killing it including the current one hitting the Flyway bird marsh during this migration time. Most of the time Roaming Charges are more about political but death of the biosphere seems pretty political to me.
The first ever Cyclone in the Persian Gulf dumped five years worth of rain in three days. Not that Oman gets all that much but…really?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/08/roaming-charges-29/
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
LikeLike
At the edge of extinction only love remains, eh Guy? No, I really don’t think that is going to be what we will be dealing with. Not given the history of empire collapses around the world the last 10,000 years and what I’m already seeing and reading about in this country.
But then that’s just my knowledge of history talking. I could be wrong. And Guy could be wrong, he said so…but he doesn’t really think so and neither do a large batch of scientists working in the field doing the research. Economic, climate, oceans…tits up, baby.
___
Some rain here a couple days ago, an overcast and chill sky today, below freezing at night for the most part. Trying to get my winter firewood in since we’ve finally dropped to lower fire danger. It is still very very dry in the woods.
And the last 10 weeks have been the highest two-week totals ever, over and over, for new covid cases and dead people. I go into town and restaurants and bars are full of people without masks, the kid TKD dojo is full of kids without masks in the windows, the local Safeway supermarket won’t enforce state mask mandates so 1/3 at least of people in there are exhaling death. Delta is winning due to stupid people. With a 41% vaccination rate I don’t expect much to improve, so I just stay the fuck home.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
“This is the collapse”
https://eand.co/the-future-of-the-world-economy-is-perma-crisis-4157c5e05c01
LikeLike
It’s obvious to anyone paying attention just how far into this Sri Lanka we are at. Here’s just a tiny article lost in the blizzard of insanity this country has fallen into:
Journalist Targeted For Reporting On Police Working For A Pipeline Company
https://www.desmog.com/2021/10/12/karen-savage-journalist-louisiana-trespassing-bayou-bridge/
___
With the vast majority of US police on the wrong side of humanity, the judges and DAs and the majority of politicians in the pockets of the wealthy…you know, those who are building all those lovely bunkers (like that billionaire Texan!); there is no longer any doubt just how bad it is going to get. We are all just targets…if we’re in the way of fossil fuel profits or any other profits the wealthy who control governments want.
Like the enormous number of covididiot cops that are claiming ‘religious’ exemptions from having to get a vaccine and the hundreds of them dying because they are stupid (compared to 50 cops shot in the last year), the enemy of life on the planet are everywhere and very very powerful. With get out of jail cards that say ‘immunity from prosecution’ on them…
People who think differently don’t understand the difference between justice and Just-us. Until it happens to them. So an anti-mask anti-vaccine cop stops you for whatever (last time I was it was because, and I quote, “I can’t read your license plate” like a pipe bumper designed to fit my old Toyota truck is going to block the plate?), what do you do when they want you to roll down your window and breathe in your face and demand you take off your mask so they can do it? And if you refuse to risk being contaminated the sick fuck you get dragged through the window, beaten, and then arrested for ‘refusing to follow an order’ and/or assault on the ‘law offiicer’ because your face bruised their knuckles.
This IS collapse, just not in fast motion. Yet.
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLiked by 1 person
I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There.
Living in Sri Lanka during the end of the civil war, I saw how life goes on, surrounded by death
https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc
LikeLike
Collapse isn’t an event, it’s an unfolding process.
https://eand.co/things-feel-bleak-because-this-way-of-life-is-coming-to-an-end-4304b0de8879
LikeLike
Good read, and absolutely true in my experience. And I agree, practically nobody wants to hear about it much less talk about it much less STOP DOING STUPID SHIT that makes it worse. It’s taboo, dude, and you can see the wall come down behind their eyes or the person will literally lean away from you to get away from thinking about it if I am talking. There is NO THINKING going on here
I have very few people I can actually talk to who have a practical understanding of what’s involved here. Hell, people cannot believe that I haven’t had a working television in my house since 1993, they seem to be unable to wrap their heads around that fact. To them it makes no sense. Nor that I have never owned a cell phone. I’ve been asked what do I DO without Faceblech? All I can do is sort of chuckle. Probably why I post so much here and commondreams.org and obrag.org; the need to let out my thoughts?
Big sigh. There is an…incapacity for critical thought that is extremely prevalent in this country. Even more so in this county for that matter. To steal a line from Greta Thunberg, I’m surrounded by blah blah blah that passes for thought and nobody notices.
____
2nd snowfall last night, not much but added to the covering from two days ago. At the very least it is making this adopted girl dog incredibly happy as she loves ecstatically rolling on her back every time she goes out the door. Happy Golden Retrievers really show their joy! The new kitty that’s been hanging around is not very happy with it and can’t understand why the dog is so happy, but she’ll daintily tip-toe over and rub up against her anyway. I’m perfectly content with being able to smell the cold clean air after another smoke-filled months-long dry period with 4 wildfire evac emergencies. At least for the next few months I can enjoy this temporary respite…
sealintheSelkirks
LikeLike
‘If hope becomes something you express through illusion then it’s not ‘hope it’s fantasy.’
AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS on Vimeo
“Those who speak truth are marginalised and ignored, dismissed as pessimists in a culture that prides itself on a child like optimism, at the expense of reality. We have a mania for hope, which our corporate masters lavishly provide across the political and cultural spectrum to keep us passive.”
https://www.oftwominds.com/blognov21/collapse11-21.html?fbclid=IwAR0_p064IDD_vuKQ7Irvplj6wfjAqBKQNB1M9tXPZUyBZBmr5M2HGZRKdtw
LikeLike
I haven’t popped into this link yet but a thought: so Mann is a fantasy guy!
Here’s one for you. I watched it the other night. A lot like Carlin.
sealintheSelkirks
Lewis Black | The Rant Is Due best of Climate Change
LikeLiked by 1 person
I too have lived through collapse. Mozambique during the apartheid funded and propagated civil war and the occupied 6 counties of Ireland during the multi-decadal war against the British occupation. I also visited Sri Lanka whilst the Tamil Tigers had large tracts of the nation under their control.
Collapse is not an event, it’s a process and we are deep into this one which will probably be the last one considering nuclear weapons will be used and between the subsequent nuclear winter and the temperature spike due to the loss of the aerosol masking effect habitat on this war ravaged planet will collapse.
https://gen.medium.com/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there-ba1e4b54c5fc
LikeLike
LikeLike
LikeLike