‘On the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,’ Accepting the irreversible global collapse, Five places where collapse is real, Assessing global catastrophic and existential risks, Unprecedented flooding in Spain, Ecuador in the dark, UAE, Azerbaijan, and Brazil undermine climate leadership with massive fossil fuel plans, More than half of US winter wheat in drought, and more… in The Collapse Chronicle!
Very good newsletter today, albeit with way too much bad news to fully absorb. Is it my imagination or are the crises accelerating? Certainly seems that way.
I have spent much of my life expecting many of these crises to happen one day; Peak Oil, ice caps melting, pandemics, excess population growth hitting a wall, a European war against Russia, a crash in American society, even AMOC turning off, but I doubted I would live long enough to see more than perhaps one or two of them in my lifetime. Yet here we are, on the brink perhaps of ALL of them happening, far too soon!
I feel so privileged to have lived in the golden age of fossil fuels, the richest, longest lived, most peaceable (at least in Western Europe) society there has ever been in all human history. We have been truly blessed as we happily built our 'houses of cards', but we are also so unprepared, physically and psychologically, for what is likely to come next. We simply do not have the experiences to prepare us.
Reality certainly sucks right now. But it IS reality!
It’s true that we have lived through an era of abundance and well being for many. What is heartbreaking is what we are leaving for the next generations. And yes, it does seem that the crises are accelerating.
I recall reading some story years ago about a post-crash future and rubbish tips becoming valuable resources. They were 'protected' and 'managed' by biker gangs that would dig, search and sort reusable items and sell them at the gate. The older waste tips were more valuable, from our most profligate days of cheap oil, where people would throw away anything that stopped working, along with old heating boilers and copper pipe and electrical wiring, even machinery, motorcycles, boats and cars!
And soon after reading that, I saw a news article on whole families living on or close to rubbish tips in India, Africa, and Bangladesh, and mining the tips for plastics to recycle, and glass bottles, and metals. It struck me then that in the same way modern archeologists 'mine' Greece or Egypt for antiquities, future generations will be mining our waste for the valuable resources we carelessly jettisoned.
I can only imagine what those future generations will say about our extraordinary wealth, the stupidity of our throwaway products, our reckless squandering of the Earth's bounties, and our destruction of the entire planet's climate for a few plastic baubles, used twice and thrown away like a 3 year old kid in a tantrum.
One thing I AM sure of; our children and any descendants that survive will hate us. They will spit on the ground and curse us. They will shake their heads at our mass stupidity, and wise people will try to make sense of our aberrent so-called culture, and come up with theories in the hope of some understanding.
You may not be surprised to know that I have often thought very similar thoughts. Nobody paying attention to what we've done to this planet can possibly feel otherwise. Our children and grandchildren will spit at the mention of our names for our fecklessness and profligacy.
Very good newsletter today, albeit with way too much bad news to fully absorb. Is it my imagination or are the crises accelerating? Certainly seems that way.
I have spent much of my life expecting many of these crises to happen one day; Peak Oil, ice caps melting, pandemics, excess population growth hitting a wall, a European war against Russia, a crash in American society, even AMOC turning off, but I doubted I would live long enough to see more than perhaps one or two of them in my lifetime. Yet here we are, on the brink perhaps of ALL of them happening, far too soon!
I feel so privileged to have lived in the golden age of fossil fuels, the richest, longest lived, most peaceable (at least in Western Europe) society there has ever been in all human history. We have been truly blessed as we happily built our 'houses of cards', but we are also so unprepared, physically and psychologically, for what is likely to come next. We simply do not have the experiences to prepare us.
Reality certainly sucks right now. But it IS reality!
It’s true that we have lived through an era of abundance and well being for many. What is heartbreaking is what we are leaving for the next generations. And yes, it does seem that the crises are accelerating.
I recall reading some story years ago about a post-crash future and rubbish tips becoming valuable resources. They were 'protected' and 'managed' by biker gangs that would dig, search and sort reusable items and sell them at the gate. The older waste tips were more valuable, from our most profligate days of cheap oil, where people would throw away anything that stopped working, along with old heating boilers and copper pipe and electrical wiring, even machinery, motorcycles, boats and cars!
And soon after reading that, I saw a news article on whole families living on or close to rubbish tips in India, Africa, and Bangladesh, and mining the tips for plastics to recycle, and glass bottles, and metals. It struck me then that in the same way modern archeologists 'mine' Greece or Egypt for antiquities, future generations will be mining our waste for the valuable resources we carelessly jettisoned.
I can only imagine what those future generations will say about our extraordinary wealth, the stupidity of our throwaway products, our reckless squandering of the Earth's bounties, and our destruction of the entire planet's climate for a few plastic baubles, used twice and thrown away like a 3 year old kid in a tantrum.
One thing I AM sure of; our children and any descendants that survive will hate us. They will spit on the ground and curse us. They will shake their heads at our mass stupidity, and wise people will try to make sense of our aberrent so-called culture, and come up with theories in the hope of some understanding.
And I agree with them, they will be right.
You may not be surprised to know that I have often thought very similar thoughts. Nobody paying attention to what we've done to this planet can possibly feel otherwise. Our children and grandchildren will spit at the mention of our names for our fecklessness and profligacy.