[ennui2]

Massholes? greenwash their lifestyles? doomsteads? yuppies? "permaculture designers"? Is there anyone you don't continually insult here?

So sayeth the king of internet decorum. Pot, meet kettle.

[ennui2]

Ennui, you are on a roll in calling everyone out.

I don't like echo-chambers. If people feel so strongly about their positions they should not mind being challenged.

By the way JMG made reference to you specifically in this weeks essay over on his blog. Read it.

Wow. I'm surprised he directly responded to this. I'm NOT surprised by his "this is all part of my narrative" rationalization, though.

The only real characterization of an end-state for his long-descent is the vague term "dark ages". It's very light on specifics other than a lack of energy and a lack of technology. I'm most interested in a LACK OF PEOPLE (i.e. Malthusian catastrophe). If the US is living in 3rd world conditions, then most of the rest of the world will have already passed TEOTWAWKI and proceeded onto "die-off" (aka the end-state of what any of us would consider to be doom). I would also say that despite the fact that people can and do live without electricity and running water that if the average American citizen is having to live in such conditions, that THAT TOO would be construed as the bottom rung on the "long-descent". Anything beyond that is just additional rungs of hell and not even worth discussing as far as a pain-point.

So as far as I'm concerned, he's saying that the world is gonna be hell on earth in a matter of decades, not centuries. So he's portraying a dystopia, and yet he's quick to attack people who he sees as being overly alarmist. There's no way to thread the needle with this guy. Unless you evaluate this situation exactly the way he sees it, you're gonna get a label slapped on you and you'll be summarily dismissed.

Probably a good half or more of the bottom of his post goes off on historical tangents one after another and it's pretty far removed from the hard data of (let's say) the limits-to-growth chart. History is the only lens he seems to be willing to apply, and he seems to have a hotkey for the phrase "end of American hegemony" considering how many times he spits it out there. It simply is NOT a full accounting for all of the factors at play. He, like Orlov, seems more concerned with the actions of TPTB than on real ecological thinking.

If an aging gray haired hippy turns his summer home into something sustainable and if his motives are not pure but a mixture of self serving interests together with some real innovations, this is not to be discounted.

Sure it is, because if it's a factor of their preexisting liberal ideology mixed with financial means in which to "unplug", then it doesn't involve any big sea-changes in personal outlook or behavior.

When I see someone like a Sarah Palin or Miley Cyrus or George Will type of person go through a complete religious conversion to ecological thinking, THEN it's a sign we've got a movement.

[Ibon]

Ennui, you are on a roll in calling everyone out.

I don't like echo-chambers. If people feel so strongly about their positions they should not mind being challenged.

I am here to be challenged and take positions sometimes to invite disagreement. It's kind of a peer review of my positions. When I suggested for example that we might one day learn to self regulate as a culture there was a lot of disagreement with this assessment, some of which made me have to dig deeper to defend that position. Discussions like that can have the quality of a chess game, can I get check mated in my position or is there a move that allows me to continue to defend it. This very thread for example is an exploration of sorts, between forces of isolation and cohesion, not so much a position.

If the US is living in 3rd world conditions, then most of the rest of the world will have already passed TEOTWAWKI and proceeded onto "die-off"

I often see folks coming to this conclusion based on the belief that the USA, with its wealth and modern infrastructure, is somehow more resilient than developing countries in surviving decline, and that if we fall then "3rd world countries" will automatically fall far lower into decline. Perhaps there are some countries, so over populated and dependent on food imports, that this would be true, but from my experience, many developing countries already have populations normalized to live with very little material stuff or savings or security, with quite resilient cottage industry style economies of carpenters, welders, craftsmen, repair shops that fix rather than throw stuff away, and that know how to grow food, etc. That have tight knit communities and still live in extended families where resources are pooled. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that if the US declines that other countries will fall way lower.

You know, JMG's followers are north americans, aussies and europeans. There aren't many filipinos, panamanians or nigerians following his blog. His essays are addressing and often confronting the assumptions of his readership who are mostly follks in the 1st world struggling with declining to 3rd world status. This is not a problem that folks already in the "3rd world" have.

If an aging gray haired hippy turns his summer home into something sustainable and if his motives are not pure but a mixture of self serving interests together with some real innovations, this is not to be discounted.

Sure it is, because if it's a factor of their preexisting liberal ideology mixed with financial means in which to "unplug", then it doesn't involve any big sea-changes in personal outlook or behavior.

When I see someone like a Sarah Palin or Miley Cyrus or George Will type of person go through a complete religious conversion to ecological thinking, THEN it's a sign we've got a movement.

You'll never see these old dogs change, they are as obsolete as the gray haired hippy.

Look toward the emerging generations as I have stated several times.

They do need a few obsolete mentors. I take volunteers here at Mount Totumas every year. Often young folks. Full of piss and vinegar. I like their energy.

[ennui2]

Perhaps there are some countries, so over populated and dependent on food imports, that this would be true

Stop right there, Ibon. What will countries who ARE being propped up by external inputs. What will they do when they hit the die-off stage? Will they die quietly in their beds or will it cause a lot of geopolitical instability?

I think your narrative of the stability of hardscrabbe 3rd world subsistence is kind of meant to shame the extravagance of US lifestyles more than really a rational assessment of how TEOTWAWKI plays out.

Once people start realizing they've got the short end of the Malthusian stick, that's when we start to really wrestle with constant low-level warfare and immigration chaos. I don't think it necessarily touches off WWIII but it creates this constant sturm and drang from people trying to climb into sturdier lifeboats which are already full.

This will be a problem for the US AND a problem for areas where people are poor but natural resources are plentiful (like in your neck of the woods).

know how to grow food, etc.

Not to sound like Monte, but overshoot is overshoot. Being able to grow food only does you good when the soil, climate, etc... is prepared for it. If the planet is over carrying capacity. Not only that, it's carrying capacity is going down due to AGW, even without peak oil. Beyond a certain point after that buffer evaporates, you can't garden your way out of it. There's a net deficit and people are going to die. The LTG chart shows it. It doesn't show how they're gonna die, but they're gonna die.

And yet people who at some intellectual level know this seem to fall back on sort of romantic notion that you settle into just the right neighborhood of salt of the earth folks and these areas will never become targets. Not just targets for raiding per se, but for refugees, foragers, whatever. The biggest threat is from those who aren't perceived as a big enough threat to shoot, but they ultimately consume too many local resources for what they give back in manual labor. These salt of the earth types are not going to be able to do those sorts of ecological calculations. They'll come in, and food and water supplies will diminish. Frog in the pot.

I don't see how you will have any oasis of fertility left on the planet under these circumstances. While yes, a large chunk of the losers won't have the mobility to leave, a large chunk of them will, just like the Irish during the potato famine. There's enough technology for them to find out where things are better, and make a beeline to that area to move in, squat, or whatever else.

Look toward the emerging generations as I have stated several times.

Assuming we have enough time to allow for that generational churn.

[Ibon]

Not to sound like Monte, but overshoot is overshoot.

I don't see how you will have any oasis of fertility left on the planet under these circumstances. While yes, a large chunk of the losers won't have the mobility to leave, a large chunk of them will, just like the Irish during the potato famine. There's enough technology for them to find out where things are better, and make a beeline to that area to move in, squat, or whatever else.

Here are a few of the reasons why I think we will have populations that will vary greatly not only in the severity of overshoot but also in their ability to mitigate it.

1) Geological separation: Oceans, mountain ranges, continents.
2) Bioregions will vary greatly in rainfall, soil fertility, productivity. Climate change may shift the characteristics but there will be bio-regions far more resilient and productive.
3) Population density: Compare South America to South East Asia as an example
4) Isolationalism: Human populations will become more isolationist, less tolerant of strangers, will defend resource base.
5) Conservation: Emerging generations will be honed toward conservation as overpopulation aggravates constraining resources. Those regions that can stabilize their populations will advance conservation practices.
6) War: There will be rapid declines of population due to resource wars
7) Collectivism: In Groups will form very cohesive collectivist societies as they protect their resource base.
8 ) Sustainability: Reduced resource base will be held sacred and human ingenuity will be focused on optimal sustainable practices.
9) Food production: A much higher percentage of the population will be dedicated to food production than what we see today.
10) Reduced mobility: Less physical options for relocation.
11) Lack of incentive to emigrate: Imagine all those immigrants seeing their countrymen returning because they were rejected. Or stories of death squads. Or boats sinking. People leave because their situation is miserable but also because of hope of something better. Remove that hope and many less will leave.
12) Epidemics and secondary diseases like cholera and dysentery will ravage severely overpopulated areas disproportionately.
13) Famines in severely overpopulated areas will weaken many populations.
14) Cultural adaptability: Some cultures will learn to eat mealworms. Others due to religious reasons or cultural entrenchment will starve like the Viking Greenlanders who couldn't adapt to eating fish.
15) Cultural enlightenment: There will be cultural selection whereby some cultures will start to demonstrate more enlightened approaches toward self regulation of consumption and breeding, especially when they can hold in contrast other areas of the world going into the deep hell of severe overshoot.
16) Lack of dominant cultural paradigm: When the consequences of overshoot fully bloom todays dominant consumption driven cultural paradigm will collapse. This will actually open up the playing field for a myriad of cultural experimentation. Consider how globalization has homogenized most of the planet during the past 30 years. Overshoot will reverse that trend and some populations will show more elasticity than other in experimentation.
17) Moral and ethical elasticity: Different cultures depending on severity of constraints and over population will develop morals and ethics benevolent toward their environment or egregious. Same applies to the morals and ethics in dealing with strangers. In Group / Out Group dynamics in reference to morals and ethics will vary broadly One extreme will be Genghis Khan or Viking style nomadic conquering of territories and the other will be collectivist populations mastering defense of their commons.

Overshoot will not be like homogenized milk. It will be quite lumpy. Also quite punctuated in the cultural experimentation that will follow.

[SeaGypsy]

I agree with Ibon regards patchy resiliency. Aside from obvious agrarian advantages in certain regions, latent militancy has been only repressed, not eradicated, in the same areas. Your example of the Philippines, where it is easy to imagine certain large cities eventually being starved out of existence by their rural neighbors. Millions of square miles of extremely fertile high rainfall tropical lands are not about to turn arid wasteland. Massive areas of arctic permafrost are converting to potential farmlands. (Dejavu on this topic Ibon)

[onlooker]

Great analysis Ibon of many factors determining overshoot trajectory. I do feel some countries at this point seem hopelessly overpopulated especially related to resources. India and China jump out. I do see at this point a long descent punctuated by periods of defining tumult. The biggest could be the one coming the soonest meaning world-wide economic collapse. Then I foresee food shortages occurring because of a lack of available transport in just in time delivery localities and fresh water shortages. Look at the thread about Rio-Brazil by Vox in terms of cities already on the brink of severe water shortages. These food and water shortages could certainly be accompanied by epidemics/pandemics. I do see wealthy countries averting some of the worst for the longest compared to poorer ones. This is mainly because of their strategic ie. money advantages and their military prowess which could serve simply as a threat/deterrent or as a tool of aggression as well as one to deny undesired immigration. I am disturbed to write about this I wish none of this unfolds but unfortunately that seems the trajectory. Thank you Ibon for some enlightening comments and having the type of not just intellect relative to nature and it's importance but on a deeper emotional level a awe-caring-veneration for all of existence and life. If more people could learn to think and feel this way I believe the remainder of humanity could proceed forward guided by the moral enlightenment of being beings who seek peace, love and harmony with each other and everything else.

[Ibon]

I do see wealthy countries averting some of the worst for the longest compared to poorer ones. This is mainly because of their strategic ie. money advantages and their military prowess which could serve simply as a threat/deterrent or as a tool of aggression as well as one to deny undesired immigration. I am disturbed to write about this I wish none of this unfolds but unfortunately that seems the trajectory.

Thanks for the compliments Onlooker. I do have a focus and dedication on preserving biodiversity and have put a huge chunk of my net worth where my mouth is so to speak. And I am the exception to the rule of people who have had some monetary success in their lives by investing accordingly. But beyond that my poop stinks as bad as everyone else and I make no pretense of that.

I am coming back to this assumption that wealthy countries will have this huge advantage over bullying poorer countries over the remainder of resources. Although this seems obvious at first sight I would like to point out some of the liabilities of wealthy countries.

1) Maintenance costs of advanced fossil fuel intensive infrastructure
2) Self entitled population making demands that are not ecologically sustainable.
3) Population poorly trained in crafts and trade and food production.
4) Resource wars to secure far away resources resulting in military over reach
5) Asset inertia of roads and personal transport with little public transportation
6) Individualism and lack of trust toward communities. Poorly trained in sacrifice
7) Lack of extended family network of support
8 ) Economy more dependent on service and consumer economies resulting in greater displacement when corrections occur.

Many less developed countries are not as burdened on many of these issues and actually have some social advantages that will aid in maintaining some resiliency.

So we shouldn't be so fast to assume that wealthier countries have the cards all in their favor when it comes to dealing with upcoming constraints.

[Timo]

But beyond that my poop stinks as bad as everyone else and I make no pretense of that.

I'll have to take your word on that. I happen to be one of the few people on this planet who can honestly say that my shit doesn't stink. How's the fermenting barrel of fertilizer in your greenhouse coming along? That was full of chicken crap, no? I hear that smelled rancid. Tasted fine to me.

[Timo]

Ibon, on you list above, add #9 that wealthier countries require more resources, thus placing themselves in a situation to fall farther and harder when those resources are not available, or are in less supply. Also add #10, internal insurrections. France has had a few of those in its history. Someone mentioned the Guillotine somewhere here a few days ago. That device was invented for just such an occasion. Societies can disintegrate from the inside just as easily as being overrun from the outside. We're already seeing a growing number of "Sovereign Citizens" in the US, ready to run roughshod over any and all authority to preserve their own sense of autonomy.

Jenga! Jenga! Jenga!

[onlooker]

Well I will play Devils advocate here and list the
Advantages of Wealthy countries:
Having more and better health providers and services
Having military to seize from others and other countries resources and access to low wage or slave labor
Having the brightest minds and computers to initially prognosticate and prepare for the correction
Money to bride, coerce and buy land and resources from others including other countries. See the buying up of Africa
some renewable energy infrastructure and organic farming knowhow as well as GMO to possibly grow crops under adverse conditions.
In the case of the US probably a better population to resource ratio then most countries.
Ability to control chaos within borders as well as keep out others.

I think what is helpful to remember is that rich countries with their money and military can and will dictate the terms of the powerdown. That is the biggie.
We cannot underestimate the ruthlessness of elites in rich countries or desperate populations in those same countries.

[ennui2]

I just think this analysis of how things unravel and which pockets will be more resilient than the other is heavily biased by people's wish-fulfillment.

For one thing, if starving Irish were able to flee its country in large numbers over 100 years ago during the potato famine, do not rely on simple physical isolation now. Despite peak oil, travel by water doesn't consume a lot of fossil fuels per pound of cargo, and if that fails, we could see the rise of sail again for all we know.

Also, do not assume obscurity is security. With google earth, etc... and cell phones even in the hands of starving africans, people know where natural resources are. And the statistical law of probability will determine that they'll go there.

So I disagree with Ibon. I see a heat-death-of-the-universe style playout where every last oasis will face a challenge from overshoot refugees. I do not see things like local wars or famine somehow causing rainforest shangrilas to remain untouched.

[SeaGypsy]

Remaining untouched or rainforest Shangri-la weren't mentioned. Readiness to transform to locally independent community, which may be fiercely militaristic, is the point. Nation states do very poorly in geurilla warfare, across relatively small population in small areas, how much more so when full social mobility occurs? The point re long term stopping of boats is valid, when its thousands on dozens of boats it's relatively easy to pin them, whole different story when its tens of thousands on thousands of boats. A boat / raft can be made out of a lot of common materials.

[Ibon]

I do not see things like local wars or famine somehow causing rainforest shangrilas to remain untouched.

Ennui2,

You are projecting biases that don't exist. Nothing I wrote suggests that rainforest shangrilas will remain untouched... like this is some justification that my little corner of the world will be spared?

There is also a bias that exists when one turns petty.

[Newfie]

To make this a bit more concrete look at Newfoundland.

My Mom was borne there nearly 100 years ago, the population is substantially unchanged from then to now. At that theme they were a very poor people but they had huge stocks of cod fish, salmon, etc.

The population was spread out over the island in hundreds of re,one, isolated communities. Health care was poor, life span short. Folks caught cod and squid to trade for staples such as flour. But they all had gardens and a few animals and grew most of their own food.

Now the population is highly centralized around St. John's, right about 50% lives in the metro area. The outports are largely abandonded. The family gardens and animals are gone. 95% of the food is shipped in. The cod are making a very slow recovery for near extinction.

They now live in relative wealth in comfortable homes with good diets. But it is reliant upon oil money either from the GraNd Banks rigs, or remittances from the tar sands.

Eventually They will make their way back towards sustainability but the transition will be slow and painful with many deaths. Some are trying to put retirement houses in the old outports where they grew up. Some have a sense things will go bad and are trying to plan, if only busy fits and starts. No one knows when, so there is no real sense of urgency.

[ennui2]

You are projecting biases that don't exist. Nothing I wrote suggests that rainforest shangrilas will remain untouched... like this is some justification that my little corner of the world will be spared?

You said that there will be no homogenized collapse. I say there will be. If you look at past localized famines, they stripped the ecosystem straight to the subsoil and ate everything there was, whether it was really edible or not, like what you see today in North Korea with people eating bugs. I see no reason why there won't be enough surplus population to do that globally. I don't think the factors you gave that provide for oases of life will do anything but delay the inevitable for those particular regions, especially when factoring in the total damage AGW will cause. The only way we'll see who is right or not is in the rear-view-mirror when both of us are probably dead already.

[KaiserJeep]

I am one of those people who think that the existing developed nations will still be on top of the heap as things decline.

For example, the USA. I am one who believes that the average US lifestyle has been slipping downwards over decades, since about the 1970's. The declining value of the currency is a factor, many US citizens are feeding nest eggs and retirement accounts that are slowly growing in dollar amounts and slowly shrinking in purchasing power. Then there is the problem of aging populations, with fewer taxpayers and more people collecting benefits. I remember $1000 cars, $0.20/gallon gasoline, and $0.05 small loaves of white bread, and $0.02 1st class postage in my lifetime.

Yet corporations have kept pushing food production as a business and a science, and recently even with average incomes declining in purchasing power, the percentage of the average US household income devoted to food purchasing declined from 6% to 5.5%, while the numbers of obese Americans and the grim heart disease and diabetes statistics still increase.

It seems that there is enough resiliency there, and enough purchasing power, and enough momentum to keep up food production as we slip past the "peak food" statistic and start declining. The really rapid growth in food production has occurred since the 1940's, I am betting the downward slope is even more slow, as people start to care more about the cost of food. I could see the last of the liquid fuels and the last of the gas supplies being used for mechanized farming, decades from now.

But likewise, I can see that the first part of the food supplies to end will be the American grain that today makes the difference between malnutrition and outright starvation in many other countries. We will be watching pictures of starving Africans and Eastern Asians on our HDTVs a lot more than we do today. (I hate it when I fall asleep in my chair and wake up to images of starving fly-covered and gaunt African and South American kids.)

My theory: The slow crash rules, and the US population still grows slowly from immigration - and the American lifestyle still slowly declines, for another 80-100 years. After another century of decline, every part of the world is still dirty and overcrowded right up to the limit of local resources, and the presently sick ecology crosses the line where change is irreversible and survival of any species doubtful.

[ennui2]

What will kill people first in the developed world won't be famine but untreated disease. That's why an issue like Obamacare became such a lightning-rod. The main cost that poor people have on the system right now isn't their strain on natural resources. It's their strain on the medical industrial complex, and the rich know it. "Luxury" as we know it today isn't food, utilities, or gadgets. These things are cheap by historic standards. It's access to high quality interventionist (think MRIs, chemo, open-heart-surgery) health-care.

BTW, if you think 3rd worlders don't need health-care because they don't eat big macs to clog their arteries, think again. They just have OTHER kinds of health needs that are largely absent in the 1st world. Like treating malaria, dysentery, etc...

[KaiserJeep]

Unless you go missing in a Nigerian back alley:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/11610908/Nigerian-restaurant-shut-down-for-serving-human-flesh.html

[Ibon]

What will kill people first in the developed world won't be famine but untreated disease. That's why an issue like Obamacare became such a lightning-rod. The main cost that poor people have on the system right now isn't their strain on natural resources. It's their strain on the medical industrial complex, and the rich know it. "Luxury" as we know it today isn't food, utilities, or gadgets. These things are cheap by historic standards. It's access to high quality interventionist (think MRIs, chemo, open-heart-surgery) health-care.

BTW, if you think 3rd worlders don't need health-care because they don't eat big macs to clog their arteries, think again. They just have OTHER kinds of health needs that are largely absent in the 1st world. Like treating malaria, dysentery, etc...

In developing countries when folks cannot afford a procedure or treatment they do without. That means they often die. This is accepted in most countries. There is deep sorrow at the passing of loved ones but a greater acceptance without the heroic expectations of extraordinary measures being taken to keep someone alive nor the material or economic means to make this happen.

I have witnessed this many times with friends and family. There is surprisingly little bitterness at someones passing when there wasn't the money to afford advanced treatments.

Death is never welcomed and for the dying sometimes immensely painful but that is not the whole story. How a society views sickness and death as an accepted part of life plays an immense role in how well a society can then cope with economic constraints around health care.

The importance of this should not be under estimated for whats coming up ahead.