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What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?
Fifteen thousand scientists have issued a dire warning to humanity about impending collapse but virtually no-one takes notice. Ultimately, our global systems, which are designed for perpetual growth, need to be fundamentally restructured to avoid the worst-case outcome.
For a moment, the most important news in the entire world flashed across the media like a shooting star in the night sky. Then it was gone. Last month, over fifteen thousand scientists from 184 countries issued a dire warning to humanity. Because of our overconsumption of the world’s resources, they declared, we are facing “widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss.” They warned that time is running out: “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory.”
This is not the first such notice. Twenty-five years ago, in 1992, 1,700 scientists (including the majority of living Nobel laureates) sent a similarly worded warning to governmental leaders around the world. In ringing tones, they called for a recognition of the earth’s fragility and a new ethic arising from the realization that “we all have but one lifeboat.”
This second warning contains a series of charts showing how utterly the world’s leaders ignored what they were told twenty-five years earlier. Whether it’s CO2 emissions, temperature change, ocean dead zones, freshwater resources, vertebrate species, or total forest cover, the grim charts virtually all point in the same dismal direction, indicating continued momentum toward doomsday. The chart for marine catch shows something even scarier: in 1996, the catch peaked at 130 million tonnes and in spite of massively increased industrial fishing, it’s been declining ever since—a harbinger of the kind of overshoot that unsustainable exploitation threatens across the board.
Along with their warning, the scientists list a dozen or so examples of the kind of actions that could turn humanity’s trajectory around. These include indisputably necessary strategies such as halting the conversion of native habitats into farmland; restoring and rewilding ecologies; phasing out fossil fuel subsidies; and promoting dietary shifts toward plant-based foods. With the future of humanity at stake, why aren’t we already doing these things? What will it really take for our civilization to change course and save itself from destruction?
Ignoring climate breakdown
We can begin to answer that simply by looking at the media’s reception to this warning. With fifteen thousand scientists—including Jane Goodall, E. O. Wilson, and James Hansen—declaring a potential catastrophe at hand, you might think this would make headlines everywhere. Think again. While it led to a few short articles in select publications around the world, with the one commendable exception of CNN, it was virtually ignored by American mainstream media.
This should hardly come as a surprise. In fact, global climate breakdown—perhaps the greatest existential threat faced by our civilization—is barely considered newsworthy on American television. In 2016, the hottest year on record, when the Paris agreement was signed and presidential candidates held widely differing opinions on climate change, the entire year’s climate coverage by all network news services in the U.S. amounted to less than an hour: a paltry 50 minutes, representing a 66% drop from the previous year.
How could that be? One reason is that, as a result of decades of massive industry consolidation, the U.S. media is controlled by a few large corporations. Like all shareholder-owned companies, their overriding concern is making profits, in this case from advertising dollars. The news services, once considered a hallowed responsibility administered for the public good, have been reduced to just another profit center—and it was decided that climate change news isn’t good for advertising revenue, especially since a big chunk of that comes from the fossil fuel and agribusiness companies responsible for much of the problem.
The largest Ponzi scheme in history
Which leads us to some of the underlying structural changes that need to occur if human civilization is to avoid collapse. The fundamental problem is brutally simple: our world system is based on the premise of perpetual growth in consumption, which puts it on a collision course with the natural world. Either the global system has to be restructured, or we are headed for a catastrophe of immense proportions that has never been experienced in human history. However, the transnational corporations largely responsible for driving this trajectory are structurally designed to prevent the global changes that need to take place.
Something that is only dimly understood outside financial circles is that the vast bulk of the wealth enjoyed by the global elite is based on a fabrication: a belief in the future growth in earnings that corporations will deliver. For example, the current P/E ratio of the S&P 500 is about 23, which means that investors are valuing companies at twenty-three times their earnings for this year. Another way of looking at it is that less than 5% of the wealth enjoyed by investors relates to current activity; the rest is based on the dream of future growth.
Historically, investors have been richly rewarded for this dream. The world’s economic output is roughly twenty times greater than it was in 1950, and market valuations have increased accordingly. But this is the same growth that is driving our civilization to collapse. Today’s market values are based on a belief that the world’s economic output will triple from its current level by 2060. That implies three times as much pillaging of the world’s resources than the rate that has led to the scientists’ dire warning to humanity. Something has to give.
Like any Ponzi scheme, this global growth frenzy is based on maintaining the illusion for as long as possible. Once it becomes clear that this rate of growth is truly unsustainable, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. We saw in the 2008 financial meltdown a relatively limited dress rehearsal for what a full-scale financial collapse would look like.
This is what the global power brokers don’t want anyone to think about. It’s ultimately why the media obsesses with Donald Trump’s latest tweets rather than the devastation caused by climate breakdown-induced hurricanes. Like passengers moving deckchairs on the Titanic, much of the world’s population has been hypnotized by a daily onslaught of celebrity spats and political feuds—anything to avoid the realization that we are all heading for collapse in order to keep the affluent in luxury. It is a testament to their success so far that, in the words of Slavoj Žižek, it is “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
Imagining the end of capitalism
However, the only thing that will truly avert collapse will be a radical restructuring of the economic system that is driving us ever more rapidly to that precipice. This will only come about when enough of us are ready to jettison the consumer values that pervasive mainstream culture foists on us. In their place, we need to find other sources for meaning in our lives: growing the quality of our experiences rather than our consumption, building our communities together, and reconnecting with the natural world.
On that basis, we’ll be better equipped to join in the struggle to save humanity—and the rest of the earth—from the plundering envisaged by the perpetual growth frenzy of global corporate capitalism. There are plenty of alternative paths available to us—we just don’t hear about them because they never get the media’s attention. Most Americans, for example, are completely unaware that the little country of Costa Rica, with a GDP per capita less than one-fifth of the U.S., boasts a higher average life expectancy and enjoys far higher levels of wellbeing—while producing 99% of its electricity from renewable sources.
There is valuable work being done around the world in visualizing a future based on different principles than the current Ponzi scheme. Well-developed plans to avert climate breakdown include a state-by-state and nation-by-nation pathway to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050, and a Climate Mobilization Victory Plan to restructure the U.S. economy in a manner similar to what FDR accomplished after Pearl Harbor.
There are radically different ways for a society to function effectively that could apply to nations around the world if given half a chance. A flourishing future might involve more cooperative ventures, protection and expansion of the commons, and enhanced global governance with strict penalties for those who destroy ecological wellbeing. Collapse isn’t the only future in store for humanity—it’s merely the one we’re headed for unless and until we change course. Since the mainstream media isn’t going to get the word out, it has to be up to each of us who cares about the future of the human race. So, let’s get to it.
————————————————————————————
Jeremy Lent is author of The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, which investigates how different cultures have made sense of the universe and how their underlying values have changed the course of history. He is founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute, dedicated to fostering a sustainable worldview. More info: jeremylent.com.
156 Comments on "What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?"
Makati1 on Thu, 21st Dec 2017 11:56 pm
MM, I know you are addressing Greg, but I have a question:
Why do you think the people running nuke plants will run away if they know that the plant melting down will kill their family along with everyone else?
I would suspect that they will shut down the plants first. You have never had responsibility for a family so your would not know that a father would sacrifice himself before his family.
BTW: I do not expect the total collapse that you suggest. I expect a slowing of everything to the point where a pre-1900s lifestyle will be possible for the survivors of the first year. Granted that means many millions will die in the US, but not all. The extinction event is another story altogether. Billions will survive and move on around the world. And, much as you doubt it, Asia will be ok too.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 12:18 am
Not much to argue about with you there, except for a couple of points:
“Our global economy is basically the software that runs our entire world.”
The global economy is in reality destroying our world. The world existed for billions of years before the advent of the “global economy”, and will in all likelihood exist for billions of years afterwards. The software that runs the world is not man-made, but natural. Human beings are not in control of the natural world, but rather a feature of it. The global economy is simply another word for the consumption and destruction of the one and only planet that we humans will ever have to call home.
“And the climate is excellent so they dont have to worry about freezing to death and can hunt all year”
The climate is warming. The Amazon and Africa will be among the first places that humans will abandon in the future. You can always put more clothes on as the temperature goes down, but you can’t always take more clothes off as the temperature rises.
I can hunt all year long here as well, but it is much easier to hunt in the winter months, than it is during the summer.
“Remote tribes wont have to worry about hoards of zombies rushing their visages..”
I live in a what you would consider to be a ‘remote’ area MM.
Cloggie on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 12:39 am
I know people who have all the will in the world. Who still can’t play good chess.
-Bobby Fischer
Ah yes, Bobby Fisher. Good man. Too intelligent for his own good.
Here he spills the beans about America:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oO0_1oS_oU
Fischer made numerous anti-Jewish statements and professed a general hatred for Jews since at least the early 1960s. Jan Hein Donner wrote that at the time of Bled 1961, “He idolized Hitler and read everything about him that he could lay his hands on.”
Although Fischer described his mother as Jewish in a 1962 interview, he later denied his Jewish ancestry. In 1984, Fischer denied being a Jew in a letter to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, insisting that they remove his name and accusing them of “fraudulently misrepresenting me to be a Jew […]
I think he was part Jewish. Half-German, half-Jewish, what a combination. The German in him had won. He fled to the Philippines as well.lol
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 12:44 am
Thanks Cloggie,
I was going to point that out as well.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 4:36 am
Clogg
Bobby Fischer when fuck nuts crazy at the end of his life..He was a very strange person who didn’t really get along with many others.
JuanP on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 7:44 am
MM, Collapse is a process, not an event. I used to think it would be fast like you do, too, but after decades of research and waiting I have reached the conclusion that it is an ongoing process that will take decades or centuries. There will be a series of crises along the way and I believe the Great Recession that started in 2008 was the first of those. The next crisis will be much worse because the bubbles are much bigger this time and we have a billion more people on the planet and less resources. The collapse hasnt been even so far and I don’t expect this to change. Different locations will collapse in different ways and at different speeds.
Preparing for this is the smart thing to do if you have loved ones or wish to hang on to live through it. I am preparing focusing on the basic human needs: regulating body temperature, hydration, nutrition, health, personal defense, and community relations. I am preparing to stay in place for as long as possible, but also to bail out if necessary. I have a lifetime of experience as a food grower, fisherman, forager, prepper, hiker, camper, sailor, survivalist, and primitive tech aficionado. I am constantly acquiring skills, knowledge, and supplies. A lot of people think I am crazy but I couldn’t care less because I think the vast majority of humans are selfish, greedy, arrogant, ignorant, stupid and/or bat shit crazy. I am responsible for my thoughts and actions, not other people’s, so why should I care what they think?
You should prepare now for a lifetime of living in a world that will keep getting worse all the time for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, violence, pain, suffering, deprivation and scarcity will increasingly become your generation’s lot. I recommend you focus on the basics; no matter what happens, you will always need food and water and to stay warm, as safe and healthy as possible.
fmr-paultard on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 7:50 am
bobby fischer was inflicted with extreme poverty in childhood. sounds familiar? Fuhrer was also. These are not normal people. If anyone needs to be exterminate it should be these extremist freaks. I’m a tard and I’m one of those but I woke up.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 8:20 am
Juan,
I’ve come to the same conclusions as you, except I don’t believe that it will take centuries. I’m mostly convinced that our species won’t make it through this one, and I can’t rule out near term extinction either. There are numerous potential tipping points within the Earths natural ecosystems. Triggering any one of them could cause an exponentially cascading event.
onlooker on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 9:53 am
That actually rings very true considering this “New evidence suggests that ocean acidification played a key role in the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event 252 million years ago that killed most life on Earth.” We have spewed so much CO2 already
Ocean acidification drove Earth’s largest mass extinction
Not looking good for multi-cellular creatures like us
http://earthsky.org/earth/ocean-acidification-drove-earths-largest-mass-extinction
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 10:02 am
JuanP
It won’t take decades or centuries based on the limits to growth computer models and now oil shortages coming soon. It will take at the most ten more years…If you want to stick your head into the sand and ignore all the evidence and peer reviewed science go right ahead. Our collapse will be fast and it will happen at the speed of technology..
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 12:35 pm
MM,
“Our collapse will be fast and it will happen at the speed of technology..”
Which collapse would you be referring to MM? Using the World3 simulator, the only collapse that I am aware of that leads to human extinction would be environmental.
If our economies and population numbers continue to grow exponentially, extinction is expected during the 3rd quarter of this century. If resource use, and population are reduced, and industrial pollution curtailed, the model does not show human extinction at all.
Therefore, from a human survivability standpoint, the best thing that could happen would be the collapse of modern industrial society. The longer it drags out, the worse the outcome becomes.
Cloggie on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 12:44 pm
Bobby Fischer when fuck nuts crazy at the end of his life..He was a very strange person who didn’t really get along with many others.
So why did you bring him up approvingly in the first place?
He wasn’t nuts at all, never. He was an IQ180 lonely genius all his life, with the same, correct, opinions. And now that you found out things about him you don’t like, he is “nuts” all of a sidden.
That won’t fly.
“If anyone needs to be exterminate it should be these extremist freaks”
Neo-Bolsheviks like supertard like to exterminate people, especially the smarter ones. And they like to control the world, fantasize about invading Siberia and more of this rubbish. Quite ambitious for a junky like supertard.
Bolsheviks: miserable, low quality people.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 12:55 pm
OTOH MM,
If Dr. Peter Ward’s work is to be taken into consideration, or Dr. Guy McPherson’s, then it is in all likelihood too late to stop a GME event. Once a runaway greenhouse event has been triggered, it is only a matter of time before the planet becomes uninhabitable for humans. The jury is still out on this one, but it certainly does appear that the methane clathrate gun has already been fired. If that is indeed the case, tick tock………
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:14 pm
Ole Cloggie buddy I got some great news for you!
Hotter Temperatures Will Accelerate Mass Migration of Migrants to Europe, Says Study
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2017/12/21/hotter-temperatures-will-accelerate-migration-europe-says-study/
And your Europe masters will gladly open their arms for more mass migrants because it increases GDP! Enjoy! LOL
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:16 pm
Cloggie
Just wait till the limits to growth economic collapse hits in a few years. Those animals will be running trains on your girlfiriend/wife/sister….LOL
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:17 pm
One last point MM, for now,
Environmental degradation has been a main topic of concern since at least the 1970s. Almost 50 years later there has still been no collapse. Most stats are cyclical, but the overall trend lines over time have been downwards. The primary causes are exponential growth in our economies, our population numbers, and the pollutants emitted by modern industrialism.
Again, the best thing that could happen for the long term survivability of mankind, and most other species of life on this planet, would be the collapse of modern industrial society.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:19 pm
Gregt
Guy Mchpherson is a sexual molester and fake doomer..The planet will never even reach two degrees warmer..Once the oil starts to run out everything will collapse and the last thing you will be worried about is the climate or weather…And you might wonder why you ever even cared. Peak Oil means the problem will automatically solve itself…Just like the limits to growth models simulated it would…har har
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:20 pm
“Just wait till the limits to growth economic collapse hits in a few years. Those animals will be running trains on your girlfiriend/wife/sister….LOL”
There is no need to lash out like a spoiled brat MM. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. You are not adding anything of value to the conversation.
Apneaman on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:23 pm
There is serious problems if this ongoing collapse was to go over the cliff.
450 + nuclear reactors.
I think most regulation says the nuke power plants must have two weeks worth of fuel for back up on site. What happens if the world or a country has lost order and the power plant can’t get anymore fuel for their back up generators?
Ask the Japanese what happens without the backup.
Techno industrial civilization is a one way street. A trap.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:24 pm
Greg
Again, the best thing that could happen for the long term survivability of mankind, and most other species of life on this planet, would be the collapse of modern industrial society.
You think 7 Billion people sleepwalking into a Great Malthusian Nightmare (Trap) is what is best for mankind?
https://imgur.com/a/DVSNt
https://imgur.com/a/5hpQu
I think not….
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:27 pm
“Once the oil starts to run out everything will collapse and the last thing you will be worried about is the climate or weather”
Like I have said before, bring it on. My biggest concern would be with climatic instability. It has already become very apparent in both the surrounding flora, and the fauna.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:32 pm
MM,
I think that 7.5 Billion people sleepwalking into a Great Malthusian Nightmare (Trap) is what is best for the long term survivability of mankind. I also think that due to the environmental damage already inflicted on the biosphere from modern industrialism, it is likely too late to save mankind now.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:39 pm
Gregt
The earth will be fine. 99 percent of all species went extinct before humans had even evolved yet…And there has already been five mass extinctions in the past…The earth will recover and naturally heal itself just like it has several times before. The greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind is coming and you say “Bring it on”..I dont know if you are deluded or just naive? Take your pick..
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:40 pm
Interesting,
It would appear that we are having the exact same conversations now on this forum, as we had 5 years ago.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 1:48 pm
“The greatest catastrophe in the history of mankind is coming and you say “Bring it on”..I dont know if you are deluded or just naive? ”
The greatest human catastrophe, would be the end of the human race. The only chance that the human race has at survival, would be to stop destroying our one and only ever planet.
“I dont know if you are deluded or just naive?”
As prepared as I ever will be. Bring it on.
And MM, what difference does it make what I say? Collapse is already baked into the cake. What’s your plan?
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 3:43 pm
Greg
So what do you suggest we do to stop destroying the world? Just give up our society and go live in the woods again? Its so egocentric to believe humans could destroy our entire planet…You are just grasping at straws to try to find a sliver lining to our collapse.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 3:56 pm
Greg
Do you think you will be able to kill? Can you pull the trigger? It is going to come to that… And worse? Will you eat human flesh if you have to stay alive?
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 4:00 pm
“So what do you suggest we do to stop destroying the world? Just give up our society and go live in the woods again?”
Yes, more or less.
“Its so egocentric to believe humans could destroy our entire planet”
We are well down the path already, to doing exactly that. At least from a human perspective. The planet will heal itself, eventually, without us.
“You are just grasping at straws to try to find a sliver lining to our collapse.”
Damned if we do, even more damned if we don’t. If we had of paid more attention to the Club of Rome report, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 4:05 pm
Greg
If the club of rome could have offered any reasonable alternatives then I am sure we would have choose a different route. I mean what were we supposed to do just quit consuming and re producing? All of our businesses would have gone bust and our economy would have crashed and people would have lost everything. The way I see it is that by the time Hubbert and the club of rome did their work. It was already way to late to change any course. Unless like you said we just brought down the system on our own. But that would be counter productive. If its going to crash in the near term future anyways you might as well keep rolling until you run out of gas..
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 4:17 pm
“If its going to crash in the near term future anyways you might as well keep rolling until you run out of gas..”
The longer we keep rolling, the worse the consequences will be. We are now adding another billion people to the planet, every 12 years.
This isn’t exactly rocket science MM.
Makati1 on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 5:37 pm
Greg, you are debating with an irrational, inexperienced, ivory tower snowflake. He doesn’t want to even consider any view but his own. He will be living in that chaotic world of the future and should be preparing for it. but…?
I too think that a collapse now would be best for the human species and the rest of the ecosystem for a number of reasons, including the inability of the US to start another world war, which is likely to go nuclear. If the Great Leveling were to take the whole world out of the industrial age and back into the ‘self-sufficiency’ age, in the next year or so, humanity might survive. Otherwise, I stick with my human extinction by 2100 forecast. I have little hope for any meaningful change to the positive.
Davy on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 5:58 pm
Mad Kat, you want a collapse now so you don’t have to die alone. You could give a shit about the human race.
Apneaman on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:05 pm
MASTERMIND 3C is already a lock and that don’t include the already underway feedbacks.
On peak oil & collapse, just because you have a few studies to throw around don’t mean shit.
You think they have proved something? Not until it happens. If any predictions within a study have come to pass then hold those up, but we’re all still here declining, but not collapsed.
Constantly barking and waving around your studies is just argument from authority X 5.
Since you are such a big fan of studies you must be mightily impressed with the hundreds of past climate studies predictions that have come to pass.
Why are you not cheer-leading them?
Having your predictions come true is the gold standard.
Climate science has a great numbers of studies with predictions that have come true and the world is experiencing them every fucking day – Record Breaking wildfires, floods, Rain Bombs, AGW Jacked hurricanes, drought, sea level rise, heat waves, record temperatures, Arctic meltdown – ice & permafrost and more.
It was all predicted and now it’s happening.
As a betting man I’m placing my money on civilization going down, once again, and for many of the same reasons you believe, but I do not share your confidence in “studies” & specific dates for peak oil nor the magical thinking that peak oil & collapse will make AGW stop.
Predictive collapse studies are fun and all that, but one needs to read between the lines and acknowledge that some media people love to hype the shit out of everything for that extra attention.
“NASA is distancing itself from a new study that investigates how unsustainable resource exploitation and rising income inequality could potentially lead to the collapse of human civilization as we know it.
NASA officials released this statement on the study today (March 20): “A soon-to-be published research paper, ‘Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies’ by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota’s Jorge Rivas, was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions.”
https://www.space.com/25160-nasa-statement-civilization-collapse-study.html
This guy is a retard in his own right, but makes some legit criticisms.
About that Popular Guardian Story on the Collapse of Industrial Civilization
“Ahmed thinks of himself as a journalist, so he writes many of his blog posts in a superficial news story format. He even refers to some of his posts as “exclusives,” which is how he characterized his write-up on the supposedly funded NASA study. Journalistic gloss, however, doesn’t mask fundamental journalistic shortcomings.”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/03/21/popular-guardian-story-collapse-industrial-civilization/
The Most Expensive Weather Year Ever
Economists are tallying the damage from the fires and the hurricanes, and finding their true costs immeasurable.
“It now seems a near certainty that 2017 will be the most expensive year in American history in terms of natural disasters—and a preview of the trillions of dollars of costs related to climate change yet to come.
The effect is perhaps clearest in terms of property damage, in the United States’ territories as well as in the states, with governments, insurers, and individuals counting up the losses from torn-apart homes, flooded cars, downed bridges, destroyed electrical grids, and shuttered hospitals. Early in the fall, Hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico, which had already suffered a decade-long recession. The government there has asked for $95 billion to rebuild the electric grid, infrastructure, and homes, and the storm caused an estimated $85 billion in insured losses. The credit-rating agency Moody’s puts the estimate of the storm’s damage at $40 billion in lost economic output and $55 billion in property damage, in a region with a GDP of about $100 billion a year. The numbers are similarly devastating in the Virgin Islands, which were hit by Hurricane Irma.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/12/expensive-weather-storms/548579/
AGW will continue to take more and bigger bites out of civilization. Even if the humans hold it together otherwise [energy, economics] they are no match for the shit in the pipe and the many knock on effects it will produce. They can barely handle it now. In addition they keep forcing by the day which will only bring it on faster.
Makati1 on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:10 pm
Delusional Davy, who asked you for your two cents? You cannot resist that Yip! Yip! Yip! can you? The need to attack. Get help.
Davy on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:25 pm
Mad Kat, act stupid you get stupid.
onlooker on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:37 pm
Okay my fellow revelers can we agree on just one thing for fucks sake. We as in our species, is going down. One way or the other. We walked way too far into the minefield and too many mines to avoid.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:40 pm
Apeman you are pathetic. Do you really think NASA is going to come out and say “Yes we endorse a study that says society is going to collapse in the near term”..And NASA is a space agency not a civilization collapse study agency. That is why they hired one of America’s top applied mathematicians and scientist to author the paper. And it makes no difference what NASA says about it because they didnt author it.. And DR Ahmed has written for numerous places and has authored dozens of scientific papers. Sorry Discover magazine thinks slandering him is how you refute a scientific paper. And Dr Ahmed predicted the 2008 crisis back in 2006 due to peak conventional oil happening. And none of the studies I listed said we would collapse by now you fucking pussy…They said by no later than 2030. Based on the limits to growth models. Which are not PREDICTIONS they are computer simulations….Meaning collapse by 2030 is a mathematical certainty.
The Royal Society: Study, Now for the First Time A Global Collapse Appears Likely (Ehrlich, 2013)
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1754/20122845
Study: Limits to Growth was Right. Research Shows We’re Nearing Global Collapse (Turner, 2014)
http://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Study: Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: in Global Systemic Collapse (Korowicz, 2012)
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
Scientific American: Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apocalypse-soon-has-civilization-passed-the-environmental-point-of-no-return/
As M. King Hubbert (1962) shows, Peak Oil is about discovering less oil, and eventually producing less oil due to lack of discovery.
https://imgur.com/a/DVSNt
https://imgur.com/a/5hpQu
IEA Chief warns of world oil shortages by 2020 as discoveries fall to record lows
https://www.wsj.com/articles/iea-says-global-oil-discoveries-at-record-low-in-2016-1493244000
Peak Oil Vindicated by the IEA
And what will happen when oil shortages hit the world economy Apeman?
German Military (leaked) Peak Oil study concludes: oil is used in the production of 95% of all industrial goods, so a shortage of oil would collapse the world economy & world governments
https://www.permaculture.org.au/files/Peak%20Oil_Study%20EN.pdf
I rest my case…And global warming models assume unlimited amounts of fossil fuels because the climate scientist want to scare the hell out of everyone so they can get more grant money and become famous.
Peak Oil may keep Climate Change in Check – Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/peak-oil-may-keep-catastrophic-climate-change-in-check/
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:44 pm
Apeman
Unfortunately, however much we may deplore something, it does not stop being true.
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:44 pm
From oil slick to tyranny
https://extranewsfeed.com/from-oilslick-to-tyranny-e35d04b31fc3
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 6:55 pm
US suicide google searches going up up up at an all time high
https://imgur.com/a/Ngb1U#ngWlq6I
Makati1 on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 7:02 pm
Delusional Davy, then you are the stupid poster boy. BOY! Get help.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 7:11 pm
Hey Apeman if we could only stop those cows from farting all day then we could get a handle on all this gloobbball Warmmmiggg! LOL You have been duped! COW FARTS! LOL So dumb people are they will believe anything!
JuanP on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 10:14 pm
Greg, I agree that NTHE as described by Guy McPherson is a possibility, but it is at the end of the spectrum. With so many positive kickbacks kicking in the whole thing could go from exponential to ballistic in a few years. I am particularly thinking of clathrates and hydrates here. A warming Arctic could set off some major reinforcing evaporation. It’s just that I’ve been following humanity’s destruction of the biosphere for around 40 years now, since a was a young boy, and the resilience of all the systems involved constantly amazes me. Not only is nature resilient, but our own economic, political, and social systems are, too. There is a lot of momentum and inertia involved. The other thing is that there is so much waste in modern human civilization that we could probably reduce our consumption by a factor of ten and still get by. We need very little to survive. Our population is still growing by around 80 million per year. And when I think of all the worst catastrophes faced by humanity in its history I realize how hard it will be to stop this. If we had the deaths of both World Wars, the Spanish Flu, and the Black Plague all together the population would still grow. And people are likely to have more children as things get worse, not less as we would expect. I think that what is coming will have to be unimaginably long and brutal, completely unprecedented, and hard to imagine.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 10:14 pm
You really should seek professional help MM.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 10:30 pm
Juan,
Completely agree. There are so many factors involved, that it is next to impossible to accurately predict how this all plays out. I have my thoughts, as does anybody else who has given our predicament serious consideration. .
Keep up the good work Juan, you are to be commended for your efforts, and Merry Christmas to you and yours!
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 11:30 pm
JuanP
I think your low Hispanic IQ is showing once again..That is why Greg is now so found of you. Almost every major energy expert including the IEA and Saudi’s and Goldman Sachs are warning about massive oil shortages coming in the next few years caused by peak oil. And you retards are worried about the climate? Don’t you idiots get it? Climate is irrelevant once the oil starts to run out. This is like worrying about your CD player skipping when your car is about to run out of gas…. Its like you two and the vast majority of morons on this site have no fucking perspective at all.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 11:34 pm
Guy Mchperson is a loony tune. He just uses his hansome looks and authority status. To convince idiots that the world is going to come to an end by global warming. And he uses this doom to pick up stupid girls..By uses the logic..The world is ending soon so do you wanna have sex with me before it does? Here is the proof…He is another Chester molester.
https://imgur.com/a/vDvsj
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 11:38 pm
“Guy Mchperson is a loony tune.”
On a scale from one to ten, with complete looner being 10, I would give him about an 8. The Guy believes in a rapid collapse.
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 11:40 pm
“That is why Greg is now so found of you.”
Yah, I’m found of Juan. Whatever the fuck that means?
ESL perhaps?
GregT on Fri, 22nd Dec 2017 11:41 pm
Or maybe just sheer stupidity?
Hard to tell.