[Ibon]

What we have today are new resources in the form of ffs that we have never evolved a set of taboos against exploiting. In the process of using these up, we have also evolved a particularly virulent ideology that scorns pretty much anything that looks remotely like a taboo, i.e. modernity, growth-obsessed industrialism/consumerism, and now globally rapacious capitalism.

This has also allowed for a new kind of imperialism that extends not only across physical territories, but also across time.

What gave us the brains that brought humans to where we are today? The evolution of brain size in humans paralleled bipedal locomotion. We moved out of the safety and relative simplicity of arboreal habitats, walked upright and entered savannahs and far more complex habitats where finding food sources and avoiding predators selected for intelligence.

In other words, humans developed all the attributes that make us uniquely human while evolving in bioregions and habitats that honed us as we used our smarts to tackle the challenges of survival. Like the classic story of the cheetah and the gazelle, speed in both these species evolved and was honed in that interplay between predator and prey. Evolution gave these creatures speed. Evolution gave humans big brains. Big brains that love to tinker. To think. To reason. To love. To fight. To have sex.

All of these things we did throughout our evolutionary history and we got better and better at it. What gave us the mastery we evolved where the environments that challenged us. It is an irony that the very natural habitats that enabled our brains to evolve we are now destroying. There is a reason for this. Let’s keep this principle in mind a moment. Our best evolutionary traits evolved in environments that challenged us as a species.

As a side note those scientists say that sentient self-awareness was a byproduct of our evolving intelligence. We got so smart one day we became self-aware, realized we die, and then all hell broke loose

It was inevitable that we would eventually take that mastery and apply it to the very environments that honed us and first through agriculture and then onwards to civilizations eventually lead us to the industrial revolution. Even up to the beginning of the 19th century humans still lived within carrying capacity. We did cause some extinctions but there was no overshoot. We had not yet exceeded the carrying capacity of our environments. We increasingly converted some of the natural habitats over to man made environments but we did this maintaining biodiversity and a healthy biosphere. We didn’t reach a billion until 1900. Our mastery, although formidable, was still held in check by famines and disease during the past 10,000 years when we started this novel direction of altering our landscapes.

All our cultural heritage; religions, governance, ethics, morals, politics, economies, our cities and villages evolved during our entire human evolution within the constraints set by our environment. We were never given a free lunch. We always had to apply our mastery. In other words, it is in our cultural DNA to apply all our reason and skills and technology to our survival. We needed to do that throughout all our history. We developed a collective mind set of mastery. Even though our ethics and morals and religions taught us humility, generosity and compassion we did this while all holding this collective mind set of mastery on the planet. We were always still held in check by our predators; germs and famine.
Until today.

Thanks to fossil fuels, germ theory, sanitation, etc. during the past 150 years we conquered the limits that historically throughout all our evolutionary history had held us in check. We went from 1 to 7 billion. Fossil fuels gave us a free lunch and we took all our accumulated cultural heritage and ran with it. When we look at our biosphere today and the eminent collapse of whole ecosystems and biodiversity loss, we ask ourselves…. how why could we have been so stupid as to have allowed this to happen? Well, we are collectively stupid because we have been on a one way evolutionary course of being honed to always master the challenges of our environment. Regulation always happened from the external environment. Regulation never happened from within. From any set of taboos as Dohboi mentioned. The human cultural heritage has no self regulation. We never have had to self regulate. It was always done for us by our external environment.

Here is the pregnant moment of this whole post. Pay close attention. Since we don’t have a self regulation mechanism and show no cultural resources to learn how to implement one we leave ourselves no choice but to surrender ourselves to our historical default position of allowing this to happen again from our external environment. Enter the Overshoot Predator.

The consequences of human overshoot will, for the first time, on a global scale, give humans the opportunity to evolve cultural mechanisms toward self-regulating limits to our consumption and population with a goal of self-preservation. All our predators to date where ones we had to conquer. This is the first predator that requires surrendering to it rather than dominating it. It represents a major inflection point. This is why we must worship the Overshoot Predator. This is why this is also a great opportunity. A potential gift to our species. An assurance of our ongoing resiliency.

[Ibon]

I think he's just trying to resurrect the tired old overshoot meme with a bit of extra "embrace it" spice.

Many societies have avoided the "dominion over the earth" philosophy, and we will too eventually. I prefer looking at how we can enter the transition to a sustainable future rather than embracing something that is not necessarily inevitable nor terribly healthy as an object of worship.

We can if we respond to the threat of the Overshoot Predator instead of waiting for his consequences. But by responding to his threats we still surrender to him. It is a collective mind set of humility rather than domination.

I am cynical about the possibility we can do this responding to mere threats. We haven't evolved to respond to systemic threats. We need the actual consequences of the Overshoot Predator in order to get there.

Here is why. Confidence in ourselves is a hindrance at the moment because we can not separate our confidence from our hubris. The Overshoot Predator is about to feed us some humble pie.

[dohboi]

Ibon, you certainly have a handle on some crucial pieces of the puzzle.

But note that all species live in environments that challenge them, and most that have been around for any considerable amount of time have had to adapt them selves to new and even more challenging environments.

But only one evolved into the big-brain kudzu monkey that now threatens the survival of nearly every other species on earth, if s/he has not taken them out already.

I'm not sure that many things involving humans are absolutely inevitable. There are so many varieties of human culture that the claim itself seems hubristic to me. Presumably the Efe and the San, for example, are fully aware that they are going to die, but they have not been particularly involved in making 'all hell break loose'--they certainly have some effect on their environment, but they wisely avoided developing agriculture, civilization, and industrial society...

Are they more self-aware? Less? Unlucky? Lucky?

In general, you seem to switch your use of "we" and "our" rather freely between meaning 'all human beings' and 'humans in modern industrial society.'

But perhaps I'm missing something (it wouldn't be the first time.) I do think these large questions are the exact ones to be asking at this juncture. But it does open up fairly complex issues of cultural and physical evolution, history, identity...that probably deserve many books worth of discussion, rather than a few (even longish) mere posts on a forum. It's a good start, though.

In one way, I am more pessimistic than you seem to be. I don't think that even the horrific consequences of our predicament will necessarily (or likely) cause the vast majority to question their assumptions. For one thing, it is the nature of assumptions that we tend to not even realize that we hold them. So even extreme events don't make us reexamine them. In fact, when one is scrambling to survive, as most will be over the coming years, it is rather difficult to pause and reflect dispassionately about the role of one's own mindset in creating the sh!t storm that is engulfing you.

[Ibon]

But only one evolved into the big-brain kudzu monkey that now threatens the survival of nearly every other species on earth, if s/he has not taken them out already.

I'm not sure that many things involving humans are absolutely inevitable. There are so many varieties of human culture that the claim itself seems hubristic to me. Presumably the Efe and the San, for example, are fully aware that they are going to die, but they have not been particularly involved in making 'all hell break loose'--they certainly have some effect on their environment, but they wisely avoided developing agriculture, civilization, and industrial society...

Are they more self-aware? Less? Unlucky? Lucky?

In general, you seem to switch your use of "we" and "our" rather freely between meaning 'all human beings' and 'humans in modern industrial society.'

I did not address the wisdom of some of our HG cultures vs. modern industrial society for the following reasons

1) Today modern Kudzu Ape represent 99.9999% of humans. HG remaining cultures are essentially extinct.

2) While exterminating HG cultures we failed to incorporate any of their cultural values of submitting to natural limits.

3) None of the alternative human societies developed dominant technologies to test the hypothesis if their taboos around exploitation would resist the powers of a powerful technology or abundant resource base.

One can perhaps successfully argue that there existed societies that never exploited their
environments and stayed within carrying capacity and did indeed develop cultural taboos accordingly. But alas, they did not thrive and expand like Kudzu Ape. They are not with us today to share their wisdom. If it wasn't us, today in the 21st century, than at some point it can be assumed Kudzu Ape would have evolved a culture to test these limits. So here we are today. Maybe Newfie is on to something that eventually a species would have tested entropy like we are today. Would have seen this massive amount of fossilized solar energy and would be unable to resist burning through it all.

These speculations are interesting but do not really provide us any useful tools.

It is not so much that I am optimistic as I am pragmatic that the Overshoot Predator can provide an opportunity. For it is only an opportunity. No guarantees. Maybe improbable. But what alternative do we have?

I cannot succumb to the futility of our dilemma. And I do see some hopeful signs. I will elaborate further on these.

[Ibon]

So even extreme events don't make us reexamine them. In fact, when one is scrambling to survive, as most will be over the coming years, it is rather difficult to pause and reflect dispassionately about the role of one's own mindset in creating the sh!t storm that is engulfing you.

I agree. To stand back and reflect dispassionately while the shit storm is happening would be to conceptualize events analytically, and this would put one in the same category as the scientist. As Darwin describing evolution or Copernicus the rotation of the planets. And in a shit storm no individual or society would do this.

They would be applying all their resources toward survival. Reflection comes along somewhat later. Will that reflection go deeper than an analytical assesment or will it reach down and revolutionize some of our deepest assumptions about who we are? If it does we are in the territory of our morals, our ethics, our spirituality, our religions. We reach the level where mythologies are made. This reaches beyond the conceptual and allows archtypal cultural evolution to happen. This is why I mentioned above that threats are not enough.

The mercy of the Overshoot Predator will be asymetrical. Not all segments of the human population will get an equal dose of selection pressure as a result of the Overshoot Predator. That asymetrical experience of the consequences provide possible locations on the planet where surviving human populations pass through the shit storm able to reflect with the collective memory that we were once 7 billion strong. The archeological evidence will be there for many many following generations.

Monuments of our Hubris will be there as alters where we will worship the Overshoot Predator.

[dohboi]

Ibon, all good points, and ones I mostly had in the back of my mind while typing. I was pretty sure you had further keen thoughts on this, so I'm glad my prodding helped jog them out of you.

I wanted to point out that other groups of humans did choose other paths, so in one sense the choice that as you say 9.999...% have now chosen was not the only one possible.

But perhaps it only ever really needed to take one group of humans that decided that domination was the way to go for (almost) all the others to succumb, so that part does look rather inevitable.

It's all rather Fermi's Paradox -like (or at least like Sagan's proposed resolution of that paradox).

[Quinny]

Sorry Ibon - I sort of get what you seem to be saying (or think I do) and tend to agree with a lot you say, but Overshoot Predator. For the simpletons amongst us ie me. What is the Overshoot Predator?

[Ibon]

Sorry Ibon - What is the Overshoot Predator?

It's a metaphor. A little twisted I acknowledge. Overshoot in ecological terms is when a species exceeds its carrying capacity usually with a population bloom followed by a die-off. You can read more here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overshoot_(population)

Predators hold populations of species in check, preventing overshoot. Human predators have been pathogens and famine historically. Fossil Fuels have allowed us to temporarily remove those predators and we have now overshot our population from 1 to 7 billion in 100 years. We are in overshoot teritorry and threatened by a die-off to bring us to some yet unknown population and consumption ratio back to within carrying capacity. Since it is a combination of numbers of humans and how we collectively behave and consume and how wise or unwise we are in applying technology toward sustainability no one can accurately say what number of humans accurately represents being within carrying capacity on our planet. Species in overshoot often degrade their environments so that carrying capacity after the die-off is actually below the population that existed before overshoot. That is the risk of Kudzu Ape if for example climate change so severly affects weather that our ability to grow food falls below that of historical levels.

Overshoot Predator is the "predator" that will be reintroduced in the human population to bring us back down to carrying capacity. It is the consequences of overshoot, the die-off that will correct our collective population and consumption. This could be specific pathogens, climate change, starvation due to droughts etc. Any of the destabilizing environmental consequences of our over population / consumption form part of the Overshoot Predator.

The other term Kudzu Ape refers to how humans are like an invasive species on the planet in the way our population has spread in the past 100 years. Invasive species out compete and crowd out native species. Kudzu is an invasive vine that was imported from Japan some 50 years ago and quickly spread over the southeast USA outcompeting native vegetation.

Humans have slowly converted natural ecosystems over to manmade ecosystems made up of our industrial/food crops, livestock, cities, mining sites etc.

Kudzu Ape is a cleaner metaphor than the Overshoot Predator. They are just devices to better understand where we are and what the forces are we have to contend with.

[drgoodword]

Thanks, Ibon, for the ideas you've posted in this thread. Interesting food for thought.

[Narz]

Two guys, one spends the next 5-years stocking a root cellar & practicing guerrilla tactics in the woods outside his isolated cabin in the hills. The other guy works, saves some money, dates different women, has fun with his friends. Doom comes. Who's led a better life? It's totally subjective. Even if guy #1 is better prepared it's not like guy #2 is gonna die overnight. Maybe he'll outlive the 1st, who might step on one of his one landmines he placed outside his property.

You forgot the guy who Turns his front lawn into a food garden and the rest of his place into a food forest. He uses no pesticides, oil based fertilizer, or other earth killing products. If he has a surplus, he shares it with others, or uses it for trade with other like minded individuals. The food he doesn't produce, is bought from the local organic producers. He supports local CSA's. He may also raise some chickens and bees increasing his independence.

He donates his time and knowledge to others in the community through volunteering, and teaching others how to become more self sufficient.

He does not buy frankin foods (GMO), or other heavily processed food. His material purchases are always bought considering the return on the purchase, and the total life cycle of the product. He strives for no waste. He avoids debt.

He plans for a future of energy decline and climate chaos.

He bases his moral code on 1. Care of the Earth 2. Care of people 3. Share the surplus.

Not to hard to do if you put your mind to it. Plus you don't have to do it all at once, just keep moving in that direction.

Good point. That's the type of direction I want to move towards. Though I don't have the means to do it on my own.

[Duende]

Ibon, I've been following your posts the past few months as you've worked to articulate your suspicions about how the consequences of overshoot will influence human faith into the future. I appreciate your efforts, as they've given me food for thought.

I suspect the consequences of overshoot will be experienced by humanity over a long time horizon, and in a disjointed and uneven way. What this means is there will never be a critical mass of people who suddenly awaken to the reality of the situation - hence, no recognition or articulation of the overshoot predator. After all, you have to remember that the vast majority of people remain willfully ignorant to the underlying causes to our eventuating overshoot - first-world overconsumption, spiking GHG emissions, rampant extinction, etc.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that to worship the overshoot predator, it would require that humans accept responsibility for their actions. I don't see this happening anytime soon, and certainly not as long as 'growth' is on the lips of any and every talking head explaining away our tanking economy. In effect, what they're arguing is that we need deeper overshoot!

Here's another way to look at it:
There is a metaphysical battle currently raging somewhere east of the 5th dimension between the overshoot predator and the growth monster. In many ways, this fight is playing out day by day, blow by blow before our very eyes. We all know who wins in the end, but trust me that the majority of humans are pulling hard for the growth monster at the moment.

ONLY when that big metaphysical fight has concluded - ONLY then will space open up for a new take on things. That's where my previous thinking on the subject comes in. I've my fair share on overshoot and humanity's responses to it over the ages. No book in my estimation explains the coping process better than "The Decline of the West" by Oswald Spengler. It's an old book, but it's spot on.

In many ways it teases out many of the suspicions you've hinted at over your last several posts. I can describe some of the highlights later, but in a nutshell it says that when a culture's underlying principles fail to inspire, an ennui sets in and the populace becomes stoic (though it manifests itself in varying ways). This opens the door for the new religion which reinspires the populace.

So if right now is the 'winter' of civilization, then in essence 'spring' is right around the corner. The only question is how many humans will be left to bask in its glow and reconsider the world with a fresh outlook?

[Ibon]

I suspect the consequences of overshoot will be experienced by humanity over a long time horizon, and in a disjointed and uneven way. What this means is there will never be a critical mass of people who suddenly awaken to the reality of the situation - hence, no recognition or articulation of the overshoot predator. After all, you have to remember that the vast majority of people remain willfully ignorant to the underlying causes to our eventuating overshoot - first-world overconsumption, spiking GHG emissions, rampant extinction, etc.

I resonated with your post. thanks.

This is most likely the case. Consequences will be dispersed and specific to certain areas. Due to digital communications however the whole globe will be watching whatever happens and there is a possibility that the underlying causes may start to be discussed more. Maybe even more so on a long term horizon where there is more time to digest events that at first may seem random but may start then to coalesce in the collective and understood as all related to instabilities of overshoot.

I remember the Tsunami in Dec 2004 and how this heightened awareness about Tsunamis everywhere, even in areas that weren't affected. One reason for this was the death toll and footage of the devestation. It's not impossible to imagine consequences of overshoot reaching tsunami type epic proportions and this really impacting the collective.

they're arguing is that we need deeper overshoot!

They are indeed. Think of all the emerging countries hell bent on now joining the high consumer lifestyle in addition to all those established developed countries calling for the same thing as a cure to economic hardship. This does of course result in consequences that most likely will be as exponential in contraction as it was exponential during expansion.

There is a metaphysical battle currently raging somewhere east of the 5th dimension between the overshoot predator and the growth monster.Humans are pulling hard for the growth monster at the moment.ONLY when that big metaphysical fight has concluded - ONLY then will space open up for a new take on things.

This metaphysical battle is real but the battlefield where it is being fought is physical reality. The cards used to be stacked in favor of the growth monster when oil was cheap and the cost of expansion early on in empire was minimal. Now the cards are stacked in favor of the Overshoot Predator. There is a disconnect between where the strength of the ideology is and the physical reality that supports it. The ideology supporting the growth monster represents the vast majority of the collective but stands on the weakest physical underpinnings. On the other hand the Overshoot Predator, ideologically off the radar, is getting on much firmer ground.

No book in my estimation explains the coping process better than "The Decline of the West" by Oswald Spengler. It's an old book, but it's spot on.
in a nutshell it says that when a culture's underlying principles fail to inspire, an ennui sets in and the populace becomes stoic (though it manifests itself in varying ways). This opens the door for the new religion which reinspires the populace.

Thanks for the reference of the book. Another one I have not read that I will put on my reading list. I was just quoting Eric Hoffer and his book
True Believer on the other thread about Perceptions of intangible cultural change in your lifetime. One of his direct quotes that caught my eye while reading the book is something you just alluded to. Here is that quote again.

There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In almost all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is a reference to vast ennui.

This really resonated with me. It is one of those intangibles again. I feel this very strong in the collective at the moment.

One of the reasons I argue with folks that say that Kudzu Ape is stuck and we can't ever change is that we misinterpret the inertia in our culture at this very moment. The inertia looks like a stuck inability to move out of the paradigm we are now in. But I suspect that the inertia we are seeing in the culture at large is more related to what Hoffer is saying and what you are quoting from Oswald Spengler. There is a vast ennui in the culture at large. This is one of the recessive not really obvious currents cooking in the collective soup that holds a huge charge that might snap like a spring if triggered. That's why history so often surprises and why we so often get predictions wrong.... because of these very intangibles that don't get included in analytical studies....

Very asymetric though. I just spent over a month in Asia..... there is no ennui there in those cultures. There is a collective vibe that is 100% on fire with ambition and ascendency and acquiring their version of that "American Dream". The growth monster there is on steroids.

You just sometimes have to sit back and shake your head about what the f@*k is going on around us.

How can anyone be asleep at this moment in time on this planet about what is going on? It is sheer madness.

[Newfie]

To me you sound self contradictory in this last post.

How will the change you anticipate come about? I see no mechanism.

Here at the height of our accendence we have no ollective ability to reflect and predict on our downfall. There is energy to go forward, nomtter to isyhesire path to destruction

Once the downfall has started it will surely be each for himself, trying to eek out one more day of existence, at that time the drive to survive will be what is needed and selected for. Those with depression will fall fast, only those with drive will go forward. This, in my view, will reinforce the more primordial nature of humanity, that which brought us to where we are today.

I see little in Darwinian selection that rewards looking forward two generations.

So, if you are talking evolution, and I think you are, then by what selection process does humanity change?

[ennui2]

"You forgot the guy who Turns his front lawn into a food garden and the rest of his place into a food forest. He uses no pesticides, oil based fertilizer, or other earth killing products. If he has a surplus, he shares it with others, or uses it for trade with other like minded individuals. The food he doesn't produce, is bought from the local organic producers. He supports local CSA's. He may also raise some chickens and bees increasing his independence."




That was how I felt a 2-3 years ago, but there are some serious catches here.

The "guy who has a front lawn" has a house, right?

That means, most likely, he has a mortage. If he doesn't, he at least pays property taxes and utilities. Therefore he needs income. And that sure as hell isn't going to be provided by his survival garden surplus.

And the first casualty of collapse is the economy. Land ownership in a depression might have saved you if you were on the family farm, but not in the typical suburbs.

Just look at what happened to home-ownership during the peak of the credit crisis. People lost their houses, and the second wave was caused by companies downsizing and laying off people who might otherwise have been able to keep their homes, but they lost them due to unemployment, not ARMs.

Permaculture and all that jazz requires PERMANENT LAND STEWARDSHIP. Not a bunch of houses being sold on the upswing of markets (to be replaced by McMansions like where I live) or being repossessed and left to turn into weeds like in the abandoned exurbs.

Not only that, this relocalized food production requires a stable climate. How will anyone even know what kid of fruit or nut tree to plant if the zones are going to shift by 2-3 marks in a matter of a few decades? We're going to have MORE late and early frosts, freak snowstorms, droughts, and floods.

If anything, this calls for MORE global food distribution, not localization, because local foodsheds are going to fail as a matter of routine.

So local food production might be a good check against peak-oil alone, but if we're roped into 2+ degrees of climate change, then it's going to be extremely difficult to get reliable local food production. Everything is going to constantly be hit or miss, and this will further erode the financial advantages of victory gardening (which are already dubious as it is, if you do it without humanure and rely on all that trucked in compost each year).

Oh, and how are those bees going to fend against colony collapse disorder?

Need I go on?

Believe me. I wanted to wrap my arms around this stuff a few years ago, but even if everybody jumped on board, it won't be enough. By all means do it, but don't fool yourself into thinking it will significantly change the end result. It's really going to be too little too late.

[careinke]

That was how I felt a 2-3 years ago, but there are some serious catches here.

The "guy who has a front lawn" has a house, right?

That means, most likely, he has a mortage. If he doesn't, he at least pays property taxes and utilities. Therefore he needs income. And that sure as hell isn't going to be provided by his survival garden surplus.

First, I object to calling my garden a survival garden, it is much more than that.

Second, I'll use myself as an example, granted I am pretty fortunate, but anybody can work towards these goals. The goal should be to work towards extracting yourself from the system as much as possible. So if the system collapses, you are ahead of the game and in a position to help others.

True, most people have mortgages, but debt can be paid off by spending less on "wants" and applying that money to your debts.

In my case the property is owned free and clear. I also have at least three income sources to pay the taxes and utilities, and I don't NEED the utilities, (although they are nice to have). 1. My military retirement. If that goes away, America will be in very bad shape. 2. Proceeds from some wheat lands we own in Oregon. 3. Selective Timber sales from the sustainable forest (Ceder, Doug Fir, Maple, and Alder).

We are also working on adding about three acres of aquaculture raising Geoducks, and another five acres of tidelands for oysters. Once we get past the NIMBY's, and get the permit approved. At today's prices, this would net the property around 2 Million every 3-5 years.

Most likely if all of those somehow managed to be taken out, we would be in a collapse situation and property taxes would no longer be an issue. In any event, no matter what the size of your place, with a little effort, I see no reason that anyone could not produce or make enough on their land to pay the taxes.

And the first casualty of collapse is the economy. Land ownership in a depression might have saved you if you were on the family farm, but not in the typical suburbs.

That's the point! You need to get yourself, and hopefully your neighbors to a point where you need as little money as possible. Of course you can't do it all, it takes lots of skills to support a village. But you can bring something to the table to use as barter for things you need.

Just look at what happened to home-ownership during the peak of the credit crisis. People lost their houses, and the second wave was caused by companies downsizing and laying off people who might otherwise have been able to keep their homes, but they lost them due to unemployment, not ARMs.

Sad isn't it? That is what the present system is designed to do. Banks get to print money and you don't. Since the Federal Reserve Bank was established, the dollar has declined in value over 97%. Surprisingly though, an Organic Carrot is worth the same.

You can slowly extract yourself from this. It just takes planning, effort and a change of view.

Permaculture and all that jazz requires PERMANENT LAND STEWARDSHIP. Not a bunch of houses being sold on the upswing of markets (to be replaced by McMansions like where I live) or being repossessed and left to turn into weeds like in the abandoned exurbs.

Actually, with a well designed food forest, you should be able to walk away for forty years, and return to even a more productive system. McMansions provide lots of space to store things, accept boarders, run a store or other businesses. They usually also have extra land.

Not only that, this relocalized food production requires a stable climate.

Not really, it requires good design and huge diversity.

How will anyone even know what kid of fruit or nut tree to plant if the zones are going to shift by 2-3 marks in a matter of a few decades? We're going to have MORE late and early frosts, freak snowstorms, droughts, and floods.

Well if I know the zones are shifting, and I do, I can plan and design for that. I use micro climates to put in plants that normally don't grow here very well. In my case olives, persimmons, paw paw, citrus, and others. As the climate gets warmer I will have my own stock to use for expanding those fruits and vegetables.

In addition, if you grow and raise lot of different things, the likelihood of all of them failing at the same time is greatly reduced. At last count, I have over 145 different things to eat on my property. Short of a thermonuclear blast, there will always be something to eat here.

If anything, this calls for MORE global food distribution, not localization, because local foodsheds are going to fail as a matter of routine.

I have to disagree on this one. The current globalization of the food system is a disaster waiting to happen. Large mono cultures are way, way, more fragile than a bio diverse food systems. What happens when UG99 finally hits the Midwest wheat lands? How many tons of meat have been recalled for e-coli infections in large processing plants?

So local food production might be a good check against peak-oil alone, but if we're roped into 2+ degrees of climate change, then it's going to be extremely difficult to get reliable local food production.

Under those conditions, I would place my bets on local diverse production over large scale, mono culture, FF based food production using GMO plants.

Everything is going to constantly be hit or miss, and this will further erode the financial advantages of victory gardening (which are already dubious as it is, if you do it without humanure and rely on all that trucked in compost each year).

Do you think it will not be hit and miss with large scale monoculture?

I have not used ANY outside products on my plants for the last five years, and at this time I do not use humanure. My chickens turn my compost pile, and make me the most wonderful compost. My worms make an excellent "tea" for the garden as well as part of my active air compost tea. I also produce LOTS of biomass with bio-dynamic mineral accumulators like Borage, Comfrey etc. Most of these I chop and drop as mulch. My wood chips are presently produced right here (although I have a line on more free chips to speed things up).

Oh, and how are those bees going to fend against colony collapse disorder?

Fortunately for me, there is no large scale, chemical using, mono-cropping agriculture within 10 miles of me, (Honey Bees have a five mile range). So my honey bees have a better chance of surviving than most.

Need I go on?

If you want, it was a fun exercise for me. Thanks!

Believe me. I wanted to wrap my arms around this stuff a few years ago, but even if everybody jumped on board, it won't be enough. By all means do it, but don't fool yourself into thinking it will significantly change the end result. It's really going to be too little too late.

It takes a long time and practice to begin to get your arms around this stuff. It has been over five years for me, and I am just now beginning to grok this stuff. It probably won't be enough to save everyone. But I'm pretty confident it will be enough to save me and my family. The alternative is to give up and die. I don't work like that.

Finally, here is a fairly recent lecture given by Jenny Pell, a well known permaculturest, who was instrumental in getting approval to build the first City owned food forest (7 Acres) on Beacon Hill in Seattle. It will be the first of its kind in the US. She has also helped change several laws in Seattle allowing more chickens and small livestock in the city. Plus, you can now sell produce and value added agriculture products produced in your yard or home such as baked bread, honey etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dbo25S5VTw

She gives a great lecture. I have to label her as a permaculturest with an attitude. Her lecture shows examples of permaculture design in urban areas that is working now, and what can be accomplished through good design and cooperation with all stakeholders. Her main message is it is time for action now. She gives her presentation with wit and humor and is well worth watching.

This attitude is what I'd like to see take hold in America.

[ennui2]

In my case the property is owned free and clear. I also have at least three income sources to pay the taxes and utilities, and I don't NEED the utilities, (although they are nice to have). 1. My military retirement. If that goes away, America will be in very bad shape. 2. Proceeds from some wheat lands we own in Oregon. 3. Selective Timber sales from the sustainable forest (Ceder, Doug Fir, Maple, and Alder).

I would argue that your situation is atypical and not a viable model for most. Your livelihood comes from your three income streams, NOT from your garden.

I see no reason that anyone could not produce or make enough on their land to pay the taxes.

Well, consider the percentage of the population that live in cities and have no land to call their own.

That's the point! You need to get yourself, and hopefully your neighbors to a point where you need as little money as possible.

Here's one thing I failed to mention last time. HEALTH INSURANCE. That's probably the biggest gotcha right there. I pay over $500 a month for health insurance, and I needed it, because my daughter developed a chronic cough and had several visits to the doctor, got a chest-X-ray, eventually got two inhalers.

Once you're off-grid and in your own little closed-loop earthship, you are going to then have to deal with not affording healthcare. You can delude yourself into thinking that eating right, getting exercise, and wolfing down medicinal herbs will protect you, but now with laws at the national level that mandate that you pay for it whether you want to or not.

Sad isn't it? That is what the present system is designed to do. Banks get to print money and you don't. Since the Federal Reserve Bank was established, the dollar has declined in value over 97%. Surprisingly though, an Organic Carrot is worth the same.

Think about how long one typically has to work to earn enough money for a calorie of food. Even at minimum wage, it's not very much. That's why the system is still functioning. The basic necessities of life are still very cheap by historic standards. And that's why the victory garden thing is really only useful for TSHTF survival purposes, and at that point, things will have broken down so much that people will be lucky to hold onto their land or not worry about personal security.

If I actually claw myself back to the cubicle I stand to make $80K+ a year. That will have no difficulty paying for all the things my family needs. Make no mistake. A life unplugged from the system is a life of poverty.

You can slowly extract yourself from this. It just takes planning, effort and a change of view.

I went so far as to clear my debt load years ago, which was the one thing everyone should do.

Actually, with a well designed food forest, you should be able to walk away for forty years, and return to even a more productive system. McMansions provide lots of space to store things, accept boarders, run a store or other businesses. They usually also have extra land.

This makes great rhetoric, but doesn't match up to what's actually taking place in my neck of the woods. Everyone near me are doctors and lawyers. They tear up their landscaping and lay down cul-de-sac driveways. They don't give a crap about any of this because they don't have to. They can afford their SUVs and the heating oil required to keep their 3-level McMansions heated in the winter.

I built a raised bed garden for one of the neighbors but it was for the fru-fru factor. While I was toiling away she was having a discussion about how the lobster tails at one of her parties were not up to snuff.

I have little to no interest in "saving" them, and they'll probably be among the last to need any help, given their net-worth.

Not only that, this relocalized food production requires a stable climate.

Not really, it requires good design and huge diversity.

What??? Plants don't need climate stability??? I know perennials are hardier than annuals, but come-on, man. You are striking a totally Pollyanna attitude here.

Did you read the other thread here about the jet-stream slowing down? Do you really know what's going on with the climate? I'm not saying you can't try to protect plants from weather extremes, but you can't just shrug this problem off so casually. Did you see what happened to the corn harvest last year? Entire regions of the planet are facing catastrophic crop-losses. This is now a regular thing.

I have over 145 different things to eat on my property.

Which takes land. You've got it. Most don't.

I have to disagree on this one. The current globalization of the food system is a disaster waiting to happen.

When you look at it at a global level, a failure in one part of the globe is compensated by food production from elsewhere fanning out and plugging the gap. The same ability to fill the shelves with summer produce when the northern hemisphere is in winter is the same ability that is able to keep the store shelves full of staples when a huge swatch of the planet loses a staple crop.

It doesn't mean I like monocropping or any of that stuff, but in this respect, it has advantages.

Under those conditions, I would place my bets on local diverse production over large scale, mono culture, FF based food production using GMO plants.

I don't think it can be JUST local, because due to AGW and global-weirding, you will face failure, and you won't have any safety net.

Do you think it will not be hit and miss with large scale monoculture?

But averaged over the entire globe's commodity supply chain, it works. Like I said, I don't LIKE it, but it is actually a form of resilience that doomers ignore.

And it's been argued time and again that the actual amount of FF required to grow and ship food is relatively small. The calories in FF to produce and ship food may be greater than the calories in the food itself, but the cost in dollars is still small. That's why it's still done this way. And ultimately people have to live by balancing their checkbooks, not their environmental footprints.

Fortunately for me

Which seems to be the recurring theme.

All these things are anecdotal. If you are made in the shade, great. More power to you. But do not present your case as one-size-fits-all. It's not.

The alternative is to give up and die.

Everyone's gonna die sooner or later. It's just a matter of when, and after what sort of quality of life you're going to have carved out for yourself along the way.

I don't have the link handy, but do you know the famous article that actually outlines what the world will be like at 2' vs. 3' vs. 4' vs. 5' vs. 6' warming?

Once you get to 3-4, you're talking about die-off territory, and no amount of permaculture's gonna forestall that, I'm sorry to say.

If that's where we're headed, then all of this feel good stuff is going to be just that, stuff to make people feel good during the early days, followed by the realization years later that none of it was going to be enough. To you, my attitude may feel fatalistic and cynical. To me, your attitude may feel like the "bargaining" stage of grief. Whatever you want to do, do it. If it makes you feel good, do it, but to me, even if it did take off like wildfire (which it's not), it feels like too little too late.

[davep]

What??? Plants don't need climate stability??? I know perennials are hardier than annuals, but come-on, man. You are striking a totally Pollyanna attitude here.

Forest gardens (and trees in general) help mitigate extremes of temperature as well as retain moisture due to improved humus levels and leaf litter. I believe they could have a huge role to play in future low energy input agriculture.

[Ibon]

. How will anyone even know what kid of fruit or nut tree to plant if the zones are going to shift by 2-3 marks in a matter of a few decades? We're going to have MORE late and early frosts, freak snowstorms, droughts, and floods.

it's going to be extremely difficult to get reliable local food production.

Oh, and how are those bees going to fend against colony collapse disorder?

Did you see what happened to the corn harvest last year? Entire regions of the planet are facing catastrophic crop-losses. This is now a regular thing.

Once you get to 3-4 degrees, you're talking about die-off territory, and no amount of permaculture's gonna forestall that, I'm sorry to say.

Need I go on?

"Growl", said the Overshoot Predator.

[Ibon]

How will the change you anticipate come about? I see no mechanism.

I see little in Darwinian selection that rewards looking forward two generations.

So, if you are talking evolution, and I think you are, then by what selection process does humanity change?

The evolution of course is all cultural. Biologicial evolution is ongoing at much too slow a pace to be influenced by what we are talking about here.

The mechanism for cultural evolution requires a sweet spot where enough stability remains intact in our global civilization to give adequate time for the Overshoot Predator to deliver the consequences whose results will be:

1) Reduced population
2) Cultural adaptation toward self preservation

Too much instability in our economies and politics could lead to all out war and chaos. This means no cultural evolution. Too much instability in the severity of the consequences brought on by the Overshoot Predator and there will then also be zero cultural evolution.

The sweet spot that allows cultural evolution is enough stability to get through the bottle neck of overshoot without going extinct or losing our cultural heritage but having experienced enough instability and consequences that we embed morals and ethics and spiritual beliefs that shifts our relationship to our planet from one of dominion to one of subordination to limits.

As I mentioned previously we evolved from reacting to external events. That is how we will proceed. It is the only way we know. We never had an opportunity before like the one that is before us...... as long as we pass through the bottleneck staying in that fertile sweet spot, enough stability to hold together with enough instability to change us..... to allow cultural evolution of a very very profound nature.

I can't be more specific. I don't have any clue on specifics.

[Ibon]

Fortunately for me

Which seems to be the recurring theme.

All these things are anecdotal. If you are made in the shade, great. More power to you. But do not present your case as one-size-fits-all. It's not.

Pioneers and visionaries are strong individualists. We have many here on this site. With a little reserve capitol and not being to risk averse you can step off the machine to a greater or lesser degree.

But we shouldn't kid ourselves either as Ennui is saying here. There are 7 billion Kudzu Apes and there is not enough room on this planet for 7 billion visionaries and invidualists to go off the grid. More importantly, most Kudzu Apes do not have this strong individualist ethos, they are more than happy to align themselves in collectivist societies.

That is where religion, morals and ethics comes in. To distill out the best of what we humans are capable of we will have to get squeezed through a wringer.

Think about the other side of the bottle neck.

Since carrying capacity is a factor of population and consumption per capita how much abundance of resources per capita is availalbe when there are 1 billion Humans on the planet vs 7 billion Kudzu Apes. Think of the viability of forest gardens in urban areas in a city of 400,000 vs a city of 18 million?

The Overshoot Predator will increase the death rate and who will even remember Montequest when that happens?