DAN ALLEN. Occupying Post-Collapse America: What if the industrial death-urge lived on? “We – those of us who care about life – have a choice. At each and every second we have a choice. We can open up to life, in all its complexity and horror and joy and sorrow and death and messiness. Or we can try to deny this complexity, this messiness, this life, and we can try to reduce it. …And of course once having opened up to the complexity and beauty of life, we really have no choice but to fight to defend this complexity and beauty from all those who would destroy it.” -- Derrick Jensen, Dreams (2011) “Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?” – Billy Bragg INTRODUCTION: There are books that stimulate your mind. REFERENCES: If you are a thinking, feeling human being with any fondness for, ties to, or dependencies on the living earth, take a few days (or weeks?... What if it couldn’t stop? What if the industrial death-urge wouldn’t die, even after collapse? When we are found to have been running on cynical lies and deluded wishes for decades, for centuries, And rests. As economic growth fails how do we live? Part I: The four horsemen of the economic apocalypse. As recently as a year ago it was considered heresy to suggest economic growth would not soon resume. Now, however, as The Big Engine That Couldn't has faltered for several years, it is becoming increasingly clear the economy is running off the tracks.
Both investors and the public are beginning to realize the long-revered goal of endless economic growth is failing. Anger and fear are widespread, as the livelihoods and hopes of ordinary Americans are being destroyed. Anger runs among the "99%" over economic injustices that favor the "1%". Fear, however, may run among 100% over this question: How do we live when economic growth fails? How Do We Live? If we act purposefully now as individuals and as a society, we may help to avoid the most chaotic and destructive effects of collapse. Three Years to Get Back to 2007 Levels. Image Source: Shadow Government Statistics Less Per Person. Heading Into Decline Again? Even Worse Than We're Being Told? Source: Shadow Government Statistics 1. 2. 3. 4. A conversation with Dmitry Orlov about Europe. [Première publication sur Orbite.info: Un entretien avec Dmitry Orlov] I came upon Dmitry Orlov's writings—as with most good things on the Internet—by letting chance and curiosity guide me from link to link.
It was one of those moments of clarity when a large number of confusing questions find their answer along with their correct formulation. For example, the existence of fundamental similarities between the Soviet Union and the United States was for me a vague intuition, but I was unable to draw up a detailed list as Dmitry has done. One must have lived in two crumbling empires in order to be able to do that. I must say that my enthusiasm was not shared by those around me, with whom I have shared my translations. It's only natural: who wants to hear how our world of material comfort, opportunity and unstoppable individual progress is about to collapse under the weight of its own expansion?
It would be wrong to shoot the messenger who brings bad news. . - Tancrède Bastié. Axialization. Welcome to Armageddon, USA: A Tour of America’s Most Toxic Town | Magazine. Larry Roberts angles his white Mercury Grand Marquis into the empty parking lot of a tiny café, G & J’s Gorillas Cage, and cruises into a space near the front door. The restaurant’s red and white metal trim is faded and rusted, and the lightbulb-lined roadside sign has been dark for years. Hand-painted placards in the windows advertise burger baskets, corn dogs, and a couple of untruths—”Last Place in Picher!” And “Yes, We’re Open!” When it closed in March, the Gorillas Cage was the only restaurant left in Picher, Oklahoma.
Roberts is here to make sure the owners have cleared it out for demolition. Roberts, the operations manager of the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust, works about 10 miles away in the town of Miami. His job is to inspect contaminated buildings that the state of Oklahoma is going to buy and tear down. The Gorillas Cage—named for Picher-Cardin High School’s mascot—has been gutted. Except that a few people refused to leave. The Net Energy of Pre-Industrial Agriculture. Following on from yesterday's discussion, I want to make a point that seems like it must have been made before, but I cannot quickly find a good discussion of it. That is that the net energy of pre-industrial agriculture, taken as a whole energy-gathering system, must have been low, with EROEI probably on the order of 1.1-1.6 depending on place and time.
Prior to the industrial revolution, the main source of primary energy in society was biological - agriculture and forestry, with a significant assist from water mills. The biological energy was used to feed horses (used themselves in ploughing, but also in transportation), as well as agricultural workers. The water-mills were primarily used to mill flour (ie also used in agricultural production, for the most part). Population growthThe churchGoods and services consumed by the rich, the middle class, and the militaryNow, the first, population growth, was not very different from zero.
The Energy Return on Investment Threshold. We must first realize that EROI is a somewhat theoretical concept; it is a unitless ratio that does not describe actual flows of energy. What society really cares about, and what is really used to grow economies around the world, are actual flows of energy. More precisely, the economy utilizes flows of net energy. What, if anything, can EROI tell us about the flow of net energy? To understand how EROI influences the flow of net energy, we must first look at the equation for both net energy and EROI, which are: Net Energy = Eout – Ein EROI = Eout/Ein If we solve the EROI equation for Ein and substitute it into the Net Energy equation, we get: Net Energy = Eout*((EROI-1)/EROI) From this equation Mearns (2008) created the “Net Energy Cliff” graph.
The Net Energy Cliff The exponential relation between net energy and EROI creates what I am calling an EROI Threshold at roughly 8. Major Caveat to the EROI Threshold There is one major caveat to this discussion. References. Atemporality for the Creative Artist | Beyond The Beyond. *An unrepentant sympathizer took the trouble to type up a full transcript of my speech at Transmediale 10 on February 6. *Since this volunteer made such a noble effort, it deserves to be pitched straight into the “Internet meme ooze” of blogs and social media.
Here you are. “Atemporality for the Creative Artist” Bruce Sterling Transmediale 10, Berlin, Feb. 6, 02010 I would like to talk about this slogan ‘Futurity Now,’ and how the idea of ‘futurity now’ might become common sense. Not a contradiction in terms, which it obviously is right now, but a legitimate demand. So, what is ‘atemporality’? History is not a science; history is an effort in the humanities. So I want to deliver a speech that’s in two parts. Now let me start with an anecdote, because I am a novelist rather than a philosopher, and I kinda like to tell stories. Well, let me take a guy who I am very fond of, a very immediate, hard-headed scientific thinker – Richard Feynman, American physicist. Now, history is a story. Bringing It Down To Earth. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last two months or so, and at this point I want to summarize the territory thus explored and link it back into the core of this blog’s project—the search for a realistic understanding of the troubled future ahead of us, and a meaningful way to respond to it.
One crucial part of that response, I’ve suggested, relates to that tangled realm where consciousness meets the unconscious drives that shape so much of our experience of the world: a realm that contemporary thought addresses, however incompletely, through the science of psychology, and that the older lore of magic approaches in a much more comprehensive and potent way. That latter lore is only one part of the toolkit we’re going to need to deal with the storms to come, but it’s an important part, and it’s well suited to deal with issues most of today’s proposals for the future leave unanswered. An effective response to this predicament, as I’ve proposed here, involves several unfamiliar steps. The myth of renewable energy.
"Clean. " "Green. " What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about "clean energy," some people think of "clean coal" and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout "green jobs," they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace.
Somehow, people across the entire enviro-political spectrum seem to have reached a tacit, near-unanimous agreement about what renewable means: It's an energy category that includes solar, wind, water, biomass, and geothermal power. Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there's one big problem: Unless you're planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy.
. • Solar power. . • Geothermal power. . • Wind power. . • Biomass. . • Hydropower. There are now seven billion humans on this planet. Death Squared ☠^2 « GardenSERF's Plot. Res Politica versus Res Economica. Today’s Outside the Box is the latest chapter in my ongoing discussion with Dr. Woody Brock on the rationale of the politics of economics. In this essay, Woody explains how political science has taken a back seat to economics, and how to redress the imbalance we find today between what he terms “Res Politica” (the rule of politics) and “Res Economica” (the rule of economics or money).
Where the rubber meets the road here is that our important economic decisions are increasingly being made by politicians (who are not particularly well-schooled in either economics or political science), with consequences that are likely to be dangerous. You will have to put on your thinking cap, but this will provide you with some real insights and food for thought. Woody is one of the best “big-picture” economic theoreticians of our time, and that’s why I treasure the times we get to talk (or rather I get to “sit in “school” and learn), and have invited him to speak at our annual conference. A. B. C. 1. ClubOrlov. Hubbert's Third Prophecy. [A timely guest post from Gary. tl;dn: Hubbert was right.
Again.] In light of recent events such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street I thought it would be pertinent to review Hubbert's Third Prophecy about the cultural crisis he expected. He wrote about it in the attached article entitled "Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History". In case you are not familiar with Hubbert's first two prophecies, he predicted both the US and world oil peak very accurately. In 1956 Hubbert predicted the US oil peak would be sometime between 1969 and 1971. For this he was ridiculed and laughed off the face of the earth (almost). Turned out the US oil peak was in 1970. Next in 1974 Hubbert predicted the world oil peak to happen about 1998. OK, now is anyone willing to make a bet that Hubbert's THIRD prophecy is wrong? Hubbert said, "The third curve (on the left) is simply the mathematical curve for exponential growth.
Ok, anyone see any cultural crisis happening? 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Illusions of Democracy - Esther Dyson. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space NEW YORK – The Internet is an extraordinarily powerful tool. It has changed how we do business, how we do politics, and even how we change our leaders – at least some of the time. But the ease with which we now communicate, the efficiencies we take for granted, can give us a false sense of how easy it is to follow through on some of these changes. Despite the importance of social media in fomenting revolution, and even in deposing deeply unpopular leaders, governing in the real world is not as easy as governing online. This struck me last week when I listened to one of Egypt’s new online generation talking enthusiastically about the future. Generally, the Internet is a tool for people whose basic needs are already being met. In centuries past, revolutionaries were farmers or blacksmiths or merchants; now they are Google executives and Facebook friends.
In many countries the answer is obvious. I don’t want to be gloomy. Collapse could happen, literally, overnight. If all our debit cards stopped working suddenly, it could crash the economy. Photo: justDONQUE.images via Flickr. In the granddaddy of all collapse books, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon gave ancient Rome a full 500 years to deflate. Half a millennium for any society to collapse always seemed a bit too generous to me. Heck, American civilization has only been around for about 300 years.
But I didn’t imagine either that the most powerful and complex civilization in world history could collapse in 24-72 hours. Shut Down: A Story of Economic Collapse and Hope by WR Flynn, Create Space, 307pp, $15.95. First-time author WR Flynn, a retired law enforcement officer living near Portland, Oregon who traveled in Eastern Europe and the USSR, and in 1985, spent a month in Cuba working on a communal farm, has written a didactic novel clearly to make a point.
First they came for the banks Guns, gangs and growth. How the U.S. Is Becoming a 3rd World Country - Part 1 | Ron Hera. The United States is increasingly similar to a 3rd world country in several ways and is accelerating towards 3rd world status. Economic data indicate a harsh reality that obviates mainstream political debate. The evidence suggests that, without fundamental reforms, the U.S. will become a post industrial neo-3rd-world country by 2032. Fundamental characteristics that define a 3rd world country include high unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, low wages, widespread poverty, extreme concentration of wealth, unsustainable government debt, control of the government by international banks and multinational corporations, weak rule of law and counterproductive government policies. All of these characteristics are evident in the U.S. today. Other factors include poor public health, nutrition and education, as well as lack of infrastructure.
Public health and nutrition in the U.S., while below European standards, stand well above those of 3rd world countries. Click here to enlarge The U.S. P2P and Utopia: the values of the new civilization. Preparing for Civilization’s End. The first edition of Shift Magazine, which is all about building resilience for a tumultuous future, and of which I am and will be a regular contributor (writing a trilogy on complexity and then some joyous short stories set two millennia from now), is now available for subscription, online viewing and (for the time being) free download. I’m thrilled to be working on theme-based editions of this edgy, unsentimental but upbeat, youth-oriented publication alongside the likes of fellow ‘collapsniks’ Guy McPherson, Carolyn Baker and Generation Alpha’s Ben Pennings.
Please check it out, talk about it, and tell us what you think. cartoon by Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig As this winter (and summer in the Southern hemisphere) of extreme weather and record-setting temperatures and precipitation (at both ends of the scales) rolls on, I am sensing a significant shift in the thinking of people who are reasonably informed about what’s going on in the world. Cartoon from xkcd. Managing Without Growth and the Economics of Flow. Can we have post-peak oil thrivable societies? Juliet Schor: Plenitude#more-20661. The only real wealth is cultural wealth. The golden globes of the planetary commons. Video: Paul Krugman's "Vision for a Decent Society" The End of the American Era. Jeremy Rifkin on the real nature of our triple crisis: peak globalization, peak oil, and 3 degrees climate change. The Depreciation of Care at Home.
Niall Ferguson does not know what "Western Civilization" means. Population, Resources, and Investments. Financial Crisis, Economic Crisis, Debt Crisis: What's next. America: Excelling at Mediocrity - Umair Haque. Unified Quest. Debtpocalyse: Army Futurists See Fiscal Meltdown on the Horizon. Critique of the scarcity-paradigm of western conservationists in the South. The Decline of Manufacturing in America: A Case Study. What is Debt? – An Interview with Economic Anthropologist David Graeber. Michael Hudson: The State and Local Budget Crisis. John Michael Greer on Resilience vs Efficiency. Sachs: The Great Failure of Globalization. Obsolete Expertise and the US Economy's Energy Problem. A Planetary Crisis Is A Terrible Thing to Waste by Christian Schwägerl.
Our Finite World | Providing a wide view of what may be ahead. It will not be a problem to feed 15 billion people. How to save the world. World power swings back to America. Macro-Historical Revolutions. The capitalist network that runs the world - physics-math - 19 October 2011. Thomas P.M. Barnett's Globlogization - Blog. The scary prospect of global drone warfare. Climate Change May Trap Hundreds Of Millions In Disaster Zones. Gregor.us. Central Planning and The Fall of the US Empire.