Thursday, December 04, 2008

IS THIS SINKING IN WITH ANYBODY?

Dec 3, 2008, 11:45 PM PST

Pls read this short quote from a Reuters story about Pak-India relations at this moment.

"RISE IN TENSIONS"

"Pakistan has promised to act but insists it needs tangible proof, and has also indicated it will not accept an Indian demand to hand over 20 of its most wanted men that New Delhi says are living in Pakistan.

"When pressed on whether she would push Pakistan to hand over the 20, Rice skirted around the issue and said she did not want to "get into the specifics.'

"But she made clear any response by India should not lead to increased tensions between the neighbors, who have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947."

''Any response needs to be judged by its effectiveness in prevention and also by not creating other unintended consequences or difficulties,' Rice said.

In a two-pronged effort to put pressure on the Pakistanis, the top U.S. military commander visited Islamabad while Rice was in India, urging that country to broaden its campaign against militant groups following the attacks in Mumbai."

That was from this Reuters story:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4B00LI20081204?sp=true.

Let me spell it out slowly...

India has demanded that Pakistan surrender what may be as many as twenty of its own nationals to a foreign state for justice. Pakistan is being told to surrender the essence of its statehood. For any state that cannot protect its citizens from an external power is no longer a state. This is why states exist and why they were created in the first place. Ninety per cent of the Indian population believes that the NATION of Pakistan planned and executed the attacks. They want retribution. To quote our brilliant commenter Mary, "Does this look like an exit strategy to you?" (That was a fabulous piece of writing, Mary!) China is looking at civil unrest and elites within American banking are getting their butts kicked. In the meantime, the Fed is lending at 1900 times the amount it was two years ago and ALL of that money is getting sucked into the vortext of Wall Street... while NONE of it is reaching Main Street. This looting is so transparent as to be laughable and they're scaring us all into accepting it.

I make 50:50 odds that Pakistan and India will exchange nuclear weapons within the next two months. Where it goes from there is anyone's guess. This was a possible outcome of Peak Oil we placed on our map many years ago. The dieoff begins; and whether it becomes first apparent this way or some other makes no difference. Let's fantasize for a moment. Let's say my new book was out and doing well and that somehow evolved into meeting Mr. Obama. (My book eviscerates his enegry policy.) But, as Jim Kunstler just wrote elsewhere, what if he does know all this and can't say?... Well, if I were to meet him, and he were to ask... I would tell him that after a lifetime of effort and dedication I have distilled the problem down to this: Somewhere in between 2 and four billion people are going to have to die. The question is whether it will happen haphazardly and in a way that might end all life, or whether mankind will collectively admit and recognize the problem. And should it somehow manage to admit the problem, will it then try to find a way to achieve a better outcome, according to a new set of values which have not yet been defined? Values and beliefs which are being fought over at this very second?

Things are out of control because an epoch is ending and a new era of life is dawning. It's going to be very messy..., but then most of the good things in life are.

To Shorebreak: Anyone who has played in this game a while and managed to stay knows that anyone who comes up with a pat answer right after a major event -- too quickly -- doesn't have a clue... I am absolutely NOT convinced that India is the winner here. It is quite possible that everyone -- all of us -- will lose. This is not a plan. You watch the firestarters too closely and you'll miss the blaze that consumes you. I know the firestarters. I have spent much of my life teaching people about them; who they are and how they work. What I have warned about for so long is that the children playing with matches would possibly kill all of us, even themselves one day. Well, guess what?

The dinosaurs are about to start falling... and they'll be taking some of us with them. It has been a heavy week and the clouds have been darkening here in Culver City as a metaphor for the world as a whole. Two nights ago I wondered why, for no reason, CNN had a home page headline story with a big picture of Adolf Hitler... for no newsworthy reason. The next morning I woke up and one of the lead stories everywhere was that the next big terror attack on the U.S. would likely be a bioweapon... Sigh...

There's something very Jungian about all of this isn't there?

Of course, no mention that the Anthrax from the congressional attacks was concentrated at a billion spores per gram and could only have come from USAMRID. (Google it!)

Go back and look at Rubicon. Look at FTW. Look at all the mysterious deaths of microbiologists around the world after 9-11. Look at the work FTW did on the quest for gene-specific bioweapons. Yes, we're being prepared for some heavy shit. But we're being prepared by a crew on a sinking and damaged submarine that's doing everything it can to keep from sinking to the bottom of the ocean... Like the Titanic, maybe? Drowning things flail and thrash mightily don't they?

That goes back to one other comment from a "newbie" (I don't write that derisively) asking about what to do.

I will repeat myself here for the zillionth time... gladly.

Trees are falling in many different directions at the same time. What you need are open eyes and flexibility.

1. Get out of debt as much as possible.
2. Start saving.
3. Stay liquid.
4. Thoroughly evaluate and maximize opportunities within 5-10 miles of where you live. Make friends.
5. Do not panic.

What we all need now are options... choices. Doing what I just said gives you more choices. While many of you guys are fondly dreaming of windmills, permacutlure and twittering butterflies in harmonious rapture with grizzly bears, I'm trying to fgiure out how we get through the next six days, six weeks, or six months.

I find that my reaction to all this is that every day I and my dawg Rags seeks to cause as many smiles as possible, to invest time in friends as much as possible, and to live as much as possible. We, as human beings, "are at our best when things are worst." As Siddhartha might have said... "Life sucks but it is very good."

MCR
********************************************************************************

Every couple of weeks I ask my students, "What's the inflation rate in Zimbabwe right now?"

There's always some bright-eyed young thing who eagerly proffers, "2.3 Million Per Cent" or "230 Million Per Cent" or whatever it was last time I asked.

As of November 14, says the Cato Institute, it's 89.7 Sextillion Per Cent. That's 21 zeroes, according to a kid from Tajikistan who consulted his calculator.

They didn't know how good they had it when a carton of eggs was a paltry 2.3 Million dollars.

This seems relevant somehow, the poorer countries being the canaries in the mine.

Yes I do think the India/Pakistan situation is sinking in with members of this blog. We're all a little paralyzed, hoping that understanding will bring clarity about what to do. Hence the sifting through the rubble, the reading of the charred tea-leaves.

Inertia is possibly the strongest force in human nature. People don't change til they have to. Or even after, locking the barn door once the horse has fled. They will twist reality to conform to the paradigm they grew up with. They will think they are thinking, but it's more like scheming, operating within their comfortable, familiar framework. To give it up is almost like Pakistan relinquishing its statehood.

Which also seems to have been on the agenda for a while. Obama's had it in his sights since at least 2007 and someone recently circulated a map of a new Pakistan Balkanized along ethnic lines. (Sound familiar?)

The other force at play here, alluded to in Mike's article above, is what some members of this blog might call "machismo." TPTB, whoever they are in whatever given country, are not known for putting the lives of their people ahead of their "sovereign honor." To die with dignity is better than to live with shame, goes that line of thinking. Never mind how many go down with you. To paraphrase a sage of this century, W, evoking a sage of the last, Keynes, "In the long run, we're all dead."

And now I sit back and wait for the waves of emails about Mike's line, "Somewhere between 2 and four billion people are going to have to die."

Kunstler's article
And for the uninitiated, the original website on die-off

JO

51 comments:

juanito68 said...

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/1203.html
Hum... Europe is refusing to do what the US asked for (Include Georgia and Ukraine in NATO.
Are the US already loosing Europe approval? What next?
Very interesting time we're living!

Sharon in Mississippi said...

"Somewhere in between 2 and four billion people are going to have to die."

Has MCR finally gone over the edge?

Surely he's the only one with such a "crazy" idea, right?

WRONG.

What if I told you that his idea is already cast in stone...the Georgia Guidestones, to be exact, also called "America's Stonehenge."

For real! The monument is located in Elbert County, Georgia and the message engraved on the stones in 12 languages is sobering, to say the least.

Google "Georgia Guidestones" and see for yourself.

Or go here to read the chilling details for yourself.

http://www.thegeorgiaguidestones.com/stones.htm

Love More. Fear Less!

Homebilly Farm said...

At this point things in the "real world" are so far gone I think all one can do is follow Mikes five steps. That, and remember that the sun is still coming up, the seasons still come and go, and there is still much beauty in the world and in all of us. I carry this poem with me these days as a reminder...

What We Need Is Here
by Wendell Berry

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

kiki said...

http://news-service.stanford.
edu/news/2005/november9/med-history-110905.html

after this virus was resurrected it was 'shared' with scientists around the world - on the news the other night there was a blurb about unrest throughout the world could lead to the 'unleashing' of this to kill again - any math wizards here to predict how many it would kill with todays population at the rate it killed in 1918 ?

personally, i'd prefer the option being offered to those who would 'volunteer' to decrease world population - oh no that would never work; would just start more debate/outrage on the 'right to die' issue

i like ricks and mikes ideas re: living, loving and enjoying 'today'
....

Unknown said...

Hi everyone,

For some people, saving money and getting out of debt are mutually contradictory. I've been thinking that people with credit card debt should stop paying it back. After all, credit card loans have no collateral attached to them. The only reason one would want to pay it back is to keep up their credit rating in order to get more loans in the future. But there isn't going to be much credit around pretty soon anyway, right? So why throw money away. Wouldn't it be better to buy gold with the money instead?

What do other people think?

Emanuel

Anonymous said...

I've studied the Die-Off quite extensively and there can be no rational argument against it's truth. Due to cheap fossil fuels, we have clearly overshot what can be even remotely considered a sustainable "civilization". Now the painful question is, how exactly to achieve the die-off? It just may be that in order for humanity to survive, this must happen, the question is how? Selective die-off with only the "useless eaters" going by the wayside? Leaving only those of us that can "contribute" something useful to the collective? What methods to be used? Pandemic or EMP-caused societal collapse coupled with starvation die-off? Assuming that the elites have lost control of this meltdown, how do they plan to avoid being caught up in the die-off? In my opinion, they should be the first sons-a-bitches to go. We can help them along carrying our pitchforks and torches.

A peon said...

Emanuel,reccommended reading,and viewing:

"Debt Cures 'They' Don't Want You To Know About"

and

Maxed Out:Hard Times,Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders

in_the_light said...

First off,

Mike, Jenna, I love this blog. Thanks to you both for allowing all of us to contribute so openly. This is definately something special on the web.

To Emanuel,

it is a question I have asked myself. Your current line of thinking is something that I too am tempted with. I guess the one thing that keeps me paying it all back is this:

I agree with Mike that flexibility is the greatest tool during the great collapse. Having debts and still keeping your flexibility requires your collectors to go down. So you become significantly less flexible by making your flexibility dependent on the failings of others. Make sense?

Also, I would just like to note that the Die Off is the main reason that people don't want to talk about this stuff or acknowledge that it is happening (for anyone who hasn't realized that yet). No one gets excited about the reality of billions of people dying. The concept of peak oil strikes a chord that makes people turn away from this unpleasent reality.

Many people would rather be the one to die off than be left to live with the dead. Thus, to the many with that attitude in mind, sticking your head in the sand is an effective solution.

One thing to consider is this: when a population of deer exceeds the carrying capacity of their ecosystem, there is usually a die off around 90 percent. Not 30-60 percent like the figure of 2-4 billion gives us. 2-4 billion people dying makes sense to me in a controlled collapse scenario. But, as with a deer population collapsing, we aren't in a controlled scenario. It may take more than 4 billion dying off before the rest of us can recover and begin to stabalize the population.

Robert said...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, as I understand it, all 6.5 billion of us are going to have to die at some point. The question is, "How?"

I find any suggestion that eugenic or euthenasia is appropriate to be extremely offensive. There is still a lot of energy around if we just quit wasting it. Even here in the U.S. we still produce 1/3 of our own oil. That is plenty for growing food (if we did it right) and heating homes until we can reduce the population through birth control if we'd just quit driving around in cars and flying at the drop of a hat.

But I know enough peaknics to know that they react to such suggestions with hostility. They insist that conserving energy does no good so they might as well continue driving around in their cars and flying to conferences.

Fool Britannia said...

Mike,

With reference to your statement "CNN had a home page headline story with a big picture of Adolf Hitler... for no newsworthy reason". Tonights BBC news in UK was reporting on the further 1% interest rate cut to the lowest levels since the end of the Second World War...cut to picture of civilians putting on gas masks in 1945. Why was that image used - it has 'no newsworthy reason'??

v said...

Next terror attack on US will originate in Pakistan:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/USA/Next_terror_attack_on_US_will_originate_in_Pak_Report/articleshow/3788824.cms

Energy shortage:
http://www.energyshortage.org/

Maybe a stupid question, but what will happen when the dollar will fall in the (near) future? Should I believe all this nonsense about the Amero?

fusion_is_fundemental said...

Here's one more of the wave of emails about "Somewhere between 2 and four billion people are going to have to die."

Mike I heard allude to this is one of your lecture videos. Seriously wtf?
That's one reason I'm suspicious of you or where you get your information from.

I'm probably in the minority here in that I don't believe in the peak oil theory or in the global climate models.
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Many people here seem to be fixated in one mode of thinking and can't see anything but peak oil and that 6 billion people must die. Seriously have you all gone off the deep end?

I guess I can't blame you all too much as the American public and most of the public in other countries is ignorant of science and most of you may be getting your info from these elite controlled think tanks and mainstream discovery/history channel bs. There are many many options for generating energy.

Here is just one of them:
The Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor: What Fusion Wanted To Be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8

You may ask "why don't we have these safe types of nuclear reactors today?"
Well if you watch the video you'll see that they cannot be used to create the raw materials needed for nuclear weapons. They are proven designs that have been around since the 1960's. They don't require the huge expense of today's reactors and are safe from terrorist attack. The radioactive waste products last only 300 years. The US has 20% of the thorium reserves. They can probably provide the world with enough power for the next 500 years.

P.S. If anyone knows some high level officials in the Obama administration please get them a meeting with the speaker in the video.

Robert Paulsen said...

It's starting to sink in. Finding out the answer to the question "Cui bono?" is a moot point once the nukes leave their silos. Understanding, of course, that nukes are just one possible method of population control on the road to GlobalCorp. I'm still curious about uncovering all parties responsible for the Mumbai attacks (check out the board and members of American Committee for Peace in Chechnya) but the bottom line is once things get this far out of control, assigning blame is almost like the parlor game of JFK assassination trivia that the L. Fletcher Prouty character in Oliver Stone's JFK that prevents people from asking the real question: Why? I think most people here already know the answer to that question and have moved on to: What do we do now? MCR's five steps are the best answer so far.

wxdude714 said...

As I read the comments, I can understand some frustrations. In the "old" way of thinking, India is the "winner". If anyone is familiar with the India series at FTW, India loses out in the end. But to describe how they are the "winner" in the old way of thinking here's my angle. India just had it's 9-11. They are behaving the same way we behaved post 9-11, we were mad, wounded, upset, angry, destraught, our entire safety structure upended and we rallied around our leaders. India is following the same path we did,just as I thought and this path will prevent India from going the way of so many East Asia nations right now. Everyone will come together for a common purpose,which will keep a stable government. The Elites get to keep their cheap service base and since the US is gutting the last of the manufactoring base only service jobs matter now and a cheap "slave" labor base in the service sector is sure to wipe out the US middle class on the way down, whatever is left of it... Until the nukes start falling out of the sky over Bangalore.

Don Hynes said...

The Meaning of Mumbai- by Justin Raimondo
http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13848

A good piece dissembling the official MSM blather.

whistling grizzlybear said...

P.S. about the 1918 flu - in 1997 New Yorker magazine ran an article about an expedition by USAMRIID personnel to recover live samples of the 1918 flu. This is a bug which somehow targets the young & the healthy. The mission was 'successful' - they dug up graves, they dug through the lung tissue of people who died in 1918, they took the samples home, the virus was still alive. & replicating in the labs of USAMRIID.

I have copies of the article & will re-post it if someone wants.

Unknown said...

Before I start I would just like to note regarding systematically induced de-population I am not suggesting nor understand this is what is advocated by any members of this blog.

"If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels."
Prince Phillip

The quote above from Prince Philip is a verbal distillation of the malise in the mans soul and speaks volumes of the sheltered pampered world in which he inhabits he has lost complete touch with his humanity if he ever had any to begin with IMHO.

I often find when this topic comes up in conversation the advocates of depopulation when pressed of course believe this depopulation should occur or will occur in areas of the planet populated largely by poor brown, black or yellow peoples or by the "undesirables" in their own countries - "those are the ones breeding incessantly - the eaters" but can not imagine were 50% of the population to die off it might include a parent, brother, sister or a child of their own - "we have a value to society". This is the elitist type of mind set which has led us inexorably to our current set of circumstances.

I think of the movie A TIME TO KILL when Matthew McConn in his closing statement says

"Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white."

Ideals and Idealism seem to be dirty words today especially considering we may face of a crisis of biblical proportions but it is my belief more than ever the need for ideals is paramount for without ideals how can we imagine and define a better future if not for ouselves for our children. A world or society born of systematic depopulation is a world not worth fighting for.

If a "die off" is ineveitable then so be it but I will neither advocate it nor hope for it because it is "required".

I take some hope from Mikes words

"And should it somehow manage to admit the problem, will it then try to find a way to achieve a better outcome, according to a new set of values which have not yet been defined?"

In the words of Abraham Lincon

'With malice toward none with charity for all'

God Bless

Bonnie said...

In addition to Mikes 5 very pragmatic and logical steps, I would add one more:

A reawakened understanding of our interdependence with nature through regard for ALL life on Earth, not just human life.

Descartes' philosophical mind-body split that separated us from nature back in the 15th century must be rescinded. In reforming civilization away from empire's tragic destruction, we can begin to recover our reverence and wonder at being part of nature in the ongoing creation of Earth and Cosmos.

I recently read an excellent essay by Joe Bageant who expressed what I feel better than I could:

"Either compassion enters our awareness and experiental reality through suffering and contemplation of the suffering of others or it does not. Either way, it would seem incumbent upon each of us to try to bring about a world in which compassion occurs for the maximum number. Given that we all share a common grave, compassionate action may well be the only human action of any value. Compassion for all living things on a living planet. In that resides the equilibrum of the world."

As Mike says, we are entering a new era. The status quo will not give up so easily and it will be messy. As human beings, we are here together on this planet for a very short time, and we might as well celebrate that fact with friends, family and people who live near us in our neighborhoods, towns and cities. It just might rejuvenate the gentle pleasures of belonging.

kiki said...

re: images of hitler and gasmasks

i wonder how many people actually notice these images and/or give them a second thought.........i'm guessing not many, ergo: perhaps a subliminal message?

Eugene Warren said...

good time for _testing_!

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4B37GA20081204

kiki said...

I read a report concerning the ratio of global resources to global population several years ago. It was quite enlightening given what is used to calculate the statistics. At the time, I had no idea there are actually people who study such things. Since population grows exponentially and it takes so long to negotiate agreement between people/nations it seems reasonable to me that 'leaders' are left to figure out what to do. I also understand the idea of strategy; for instance, in the case of war when a choice must be made to sacrifice one for the survival of many or sacrifice many for the capture of a strategic location. When looking at the problem of overpopulation, as a purely hypothetical idea, it would seem reasonable to me and less barbaric to ask for volunteers rather than unleash something that would create such horrible suffering to so many; in the process, creating or exacerbating existing political angst. Of course it would probably take a few centuries to figure out the details so it wouldn’t work anyway. Perhaps that’s why some of these choices are left to the ones we choose to lead us since ‘we’d’ be unable or find it too painful to make such decisions ? Of course, when I’m not in ‘thinking strategy’ mode the purely human state of my being finds the entire idea abhorrent. On the other hand, if asked, I’d probably volunteer, in favor of the younger and stronger.

F.Kamilov said...

"Somewhere in between 2 and four billion people are going to have to die."



Exactly. That is it in a nutshell. May not be pleasant, but then the truth never is.

Michiel said...

Bartlett had a great speech about unsustainable growth:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=bartlett+peak+oil&emb=0&aq=1&oq=bartlett+pe#

That is one part. I can't find the later part but it contains the jist of it.

Most important to me is his 'left list', 'right list' example. He puts everything we value as good in the left list and everything we percieve as bad in the right. Everything in the left list, he sais, contributes to overpopulation. So his point is that we must either choose something from the right list to overcome the problem, or nature will do so for us...

Wise man...

tim said...

Fusion is Fundamental:
We're sure peak oil is real. I believe, however, that technology and the advanced knowledge of Quantum physics can replace oil. I'm far in the minority. I think the reason this advanced technology is being suppressed is because the 6.5 billion will turn into 12 billion. We will suffer the same effects that cheap oil produced. The elite don't want this: they have always been obsessed with controlling the population of the "serfs". But Mother Nature may not allow that amount of population growth reguardless of the elite. She is one mean-ass Bitch when she wants to be.

Peter J. Nickitas said...

Mike:

Here's a link to a story on Cargill, in a follow-up to a question about Cargill and its links to big banks.

http://www.startribune.com/business/35515674.html?elr=KArksUUUU

In Minneapolis, the two biggest banks are Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank.

Peter J. of Minneapolis

Jenna Orkin said...

MCR wrote:

Whistling Grizzly... what a great name.

FTR (For the record) we posted heavier article doumentation at the time. They not only dug up corpses of victoms of the Spanish Flu, they captured the virus and resurrected it completely using the argument, "We have to make this virus live again so we can know how to defeat it."... Talk about stupidity. No one on the world had the tech skills to make that virus live again. Al Qaeda and any other terrorist group sure didn't. It required a Level 5 biolab. (Google it!)

Note to Wxdude: You have a really good head on your shoulders. Plskeep contributing.

MCR
******************************

JO adds:

as of 2007, they're still at it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/health/18flu.html

shortly after 9/11, they also announced the decoding of the plague genome:


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E6D81E3DF937A35753C1A9679C8B63

"Dr. Titball said he saw no danger in publishing the bacterium's genome. The likelihood of using the genome to design a worse pathogen was small, he said, because nature had already designed one that ''causes devastating disease, with near 100 percent mortality after one or two days' incubation, and is almost impossible to treat.''

Jenna Orkin said...

From Mark Robinowitz, www.peakoilwars.org

A commenter claims that thorium reactors supposedly are a safe way to boil water to generate electricity, stating:

"The radioactive waste products last only 300 years. The US has 20% of the thorium reserves. They can probably provide the world with enough power for the next 500 years."

Since thorium and its many decay products are radioactive for a lot longer than that, this statement is easily disproved as false.
Nuclear energy is just a complicated way to boil water, and
babysitting the excrement for centuries (really - millennia) means that it is not even an energy "source" if one factors in waste storage. We are already "mining" enough stuff out of the Earth that should be left in the ground where it cannot hurt anyone, our DNA requires a planet without manmade radionuclides in the food chain if we want to avoid catastrophic deleterious mutations. Uranium and thorium mining are extremely toxic practices that should be treated
like chemical weapons or cluster bombs - banned by international
treaties as crimes against humanity.

The amount of energy that would be required to manufacture thousands
of reactors could also implement a "powerdown" alternative scenario of relocalized food, permaculture expertise, renewable energy and hyper efficiency. That would probably have a much better chance to mitigate the fossil fuel energy downslope than the techno-topia envisioned by some.

Oil is not the only thing that is peaking - even renewable resources such as food, soils, fish, forests and other basic systems are all in overshoot. We are depleting our "natural capital" faster than renewable resources can regenerate. This is the biggest crisis of human history, a big test to see if we can evolve fast enough to avoid
extinction of ourselves and probably most of the rest of the other species we share this planet with.

The question is not how to keep the current paradigm powered, since the current paradigm is destroying the biosphere (even if Peak Oil was still a few decades in the future). The real issue is how to transform the intelligence and skills and developments of civilization toward a new paradigm that is based on compassion instead of greed.
Can anyone think of some things that would be better for the smart crazy people at the death factories (Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Boeing, DuPont and countless others both in the US and elsewhere) to be spending their days on? Biomimicry, learning to live within the
limits of the Earth, military conversion for peaceful purposes. Even the billionaires need a planet with breathable air to live on, although it can sometimes seem an alien concept from one's 70th floor penthouse. We are all in the same leaky boat, that is part of the lesson of "peak everything."

Bonnie said...

I'm sure many readers here have read this article but it might be of value to reread it.

Peak Oil, Total Collapse, and the Road to Olduvai by Perry Arnett

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlasBabylon/message/32238

tim said...

J.O./Mark Robinowitz:
Very well spoken concerning "peak everything". Compassion vs. greed. Are we really going to trandscend fear and tell our elite controllers that we've had enough of war and systems that destroy Earth? Will we be mature enough to control our own population and live in balance with a sustainable way of living? The elite don't think so, so we get the "war on terror" and tar sand development.

beauga said...

Mike, I hope your stone or drunk or both when you write about India and pakistan? I been reading lots of you stuff the last two years and because of you i made money with gold! but now when i read i almost shit in my pants because till today you were never wrong. God knows i much i wish that only ones time you would be wrong but it never happen.I am sorry i never buy one of your books but i saw all your films on youtube.Thank you very much for what you did to all of us, i love you dude ( no iam not stone or drunk yet!)i hope you stay healthy and strong for a long time. and if i survive all this it would in big part because of you.

The french Canadian living in Switzerlang.
J.

anton v said...

Mike, and Jenna -
Thank you both very much for your insights and active participation in this wonderful dialogue about humanity's evolution.

One thing that's struck me in reading everyone's posts, is that we have all forgotten that there are still a few million who are still in touch with the Earth, who will survive the collapse and will revitalize humanity - all of the Native people left, sprinkled throughout the world. After all, "the meek shall inherit the Earth."

Remember that before the arrival of 'civilization' to the shores of America (as just one example), there was a vast, rich, diverse display of all the 'sustainable life-styles' that everyone is discussing. The added irony, is that these people were also actively practicing what Christ had preached in the Sermon on the Mount. And before you offer something about savagery, consider that if they were actually so 'savage', why then did they allow those early settlers to survive?

So, it seems, that the long-wave of 'civilized' history has crested, and humanity's behavior remains as it always has, conflicted and confused, humble and boastful, always a contradiction, as we head down the steep slope. This is not the first time that we have brought this destruction upon ourselves, unless we consider Noah and all of the other world stories of cataclysmic flooding as pure myth.

Thanks to you and this blog, Mike. These discordant notes I'd picked up on when I was younger have finely been tuned. While I was attending the U of O in the early 90s, I took a Geology class where I was introduced to the concept of Peak Oil. Later that year, I took a biology course where the concept of carrying capacity was introduced. These ideas were slowly percolating in the back of my mind. Then, several years later, 9/11 happened, and I stumbled on copvcia and your writing. All of a sudden those notes started to coalesce, thanks to your investigative grisle, in to a very inevitably violent symphony.

Like a doctor analyzing a dying patient, and knowing that the only cure is to let the disease run its course, I applaud your humanity, Mike. I think that you've been striving to alter the paradigm from good/bad, to cause/effect.

A book that I would highly recommend that you check out, Mike, if you haven't ever, is Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi. The book offers his observations and a travelogue of his experiences in Greece, just prior to the onset of WWII. I think you will find a lot of comfort and solace in those pages.

I'll leave you with two quotes; first one's from Miller and Colossus, and the second's from Hopi Prophecy, considering Mumbai:

"Money has been the one thing I have never had, and yet I have led a rich life and in the main a happy one. Why should I need money now – or later? When I have been desperately in need I have always found a friend. I go on the assumption that I have friends everywhere. I shall have more and more as time goes on. If I were to have money I might become careless and negligent, believing in a security which does not exist, stressing those values which are illusory and empty. I have no misgivings about the future. In the dark days to come money will be less than ever a protection against evil and suffering."

World War III will be started by those peoples who first revealed the light (the divine wisdom or intelligence) in the other old countries (India, China, Islamic Nations, Africa.)
The United States will be destroyed, land and people, by atomic bombs and radioactivity. Only the Hopis and their homeland will be preserved as an oasis to which refugees will flee. Bomb shelters are a fallacy. "It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life. There is no shelter for evil. Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another world, be they Black, White, Red, or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers."
The war will be "a spiritual conflict with material matters. Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings who will remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator."

Jenna Orkin said...

tim

i endorse everything mark said but he wrote it on his own. i just posted it

whistling grizzlybear said...

I found the 1997 New Yorker articles on the USAMRIID mission to recover the flu virus.

I put copies online at
http://www.geocities.com/nc_infotech/1918_virus_hunt__.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/nc_infotech/1918_virus_hunt_2_.jpg

Dec. 11, 2007 there was an article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat about clusters of pneumonia deaths at US military bases
http://www.geocities.com/nc_infotech/flu__.JPG

http://www.geocities.com/nc_infotech/flu_2b_.jpg

That got my attention and made me think of the earlier articles about the the USAMRIID expedition. I'm putting spaces between the URL's to allow people to capture the entire URL. You can copy the entire URL to the clipboard (and then paste it into a browser), even if you can't see the whole URL.

Of all the news related to civil liberties that we have witnessed these last few years, one of the most alarming for me was the reports earlier this year, 2008, about families in the Northeast being threatened with jail if they didn't allow their children to be vaccinated.

HW said...

Hi,

I'm a flemish 29 year old IT'er following/studying Peak-oil and its implications since a 1/2 year now, following an accidental surf-stop at the FTW site. My life has not been the same since - in a positive as well as negative sence.

Positive in a sence that 'my eyes have opened' and I am able to breath 'free-er' thanks to my investigations off the internet peak-oil info. It reminds of the historic days we are living in. Negative in a way that I'm not too positive about the future myself now, even more so for our children.

Anyway, as a 'newbie' I would like to use this opening in the authors time he adresses to newbies now to ask a question too. Thank you in advance MCR/JO for your time reading/contemplating/answering them - I can only imagine how many people ask for your insight/help/etc on a daily basis.

Here goes. Since the ECB slashed interest rates heavily now (almost back to highday bubble times), is it now the time for me to buy a house through a loan with fixed interest (à 30 years)? Since we can guess that inflation will skyrocket in 1 year time due to the massive money injections in the system, I will actually make a good deal in the long run! Or is that just too optimistic, and will I/my girlfriend be out of a job in a few years from now anyway, and unable to cope with the loan in the long run? If so, what would likely happen then?

Seeing that you consistently put as your number one advice "Get out of debt", I wonder how you feel about this.

I wake up with ideas that going heavely into debt now, will make me a future prisoner/slave, at the mercy of a feudal system, working to pay back my debts.

Thanks for your time.

Best Regards,

HW, Flanders, Europe

Jenna Orkin said...

dear hw

focus on WHERE the house is, whether it's in a sustainable community with access to locally grown food, potable water, as independent of the grid as possible

matt said...

If inflation is coming, why is getting out of debt now such a priority? If I can get a loan now, and inflation becomes more than interest that would be ideal for my debt situation, correct?

My only skepticism comes reading this blog over the last 3 months or so. Russia/Georgia was going to be the end, then the bankruptcy of C was going to cause a collapse, now India will cause a world crisis.
I don't want to sound critical, I really enjoy reading this blog. But everyone needs to set a point where they must realize they are wrong. If wars/bankruptcies/terrorist attacks don't cause the result you are "looking for", what will?

Thank you for the blog

Jenna Orkin said...

matt

no one said 'collapse will take place next tuesday.'

redrosebeader said...

Stay out of debt!!
There's a big possibility the FEMA prisons that are all across the US now, will be a return to debtor's prisons where you might be forced to work or something worse...

Blackwater forces as well as the recalled military forces are ready for a reason...and it ain't going to be pretty.

I'm pretty sure I learned the following from FTW: The reason Russians survived their collapse was because a vast majority rented homes rather than owning them.

Bonnie said...

I noticed that part of the link I posted for the article by Perry Arnett did not fit on the page so here it is in 2 parts:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/
AlasBabylon/message/32238

Peak Oil,Total Collapse, and the Road to the Olduvai

He covers lots of the subjects being discussed here

Jenna Orkin said...

stu

your comment's been forwarded to all relevant people. many thanks

Jenna Orkin said...

stu

your comment's been forwarded to all relevant people. many thanks

MCR said...

All these events ARE the collapse, Matt. We are witnessing a fast-crash of indutrial civilization which will take place over brom one to five years.

In the history of indutrialized civilization, if you graph it out, that's the historical equivalent of falling off a cliff.

The best estimates for a slow burn, the worst possible scenario ere in between 20 and 30 years. It's much worse that way because there will be nothing but a skeleton left with no muscle and no blood; no infrastructure and no resources eft to convert.

MCR

Anonymous said...

Sharon I have been there it is creepy.

Robert I agree with your comments about it being ofensive.

To anyone else who believs people should... you should be the first. human life is precious. No one is better than another. So many times I hear "Oh people should die" then you should take that initiative... funny they don't jump on that.

doc altamont said...

a good article on the manipulation of gold if anyone here still needs convincing:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/109210-the-manipulation-of-gold-prices

Anonymous said...

Que pasa, Mike.
Well, I had a meeting of the minds at mi casa with a few fellow farmers of my generation this morning to put our heads together about our many challenges in agriculture. Not a real positive mood in the room, to say the least. I made the statement that "commercial agriculture" is on its death bed and the pulse is getting weaker. We asked ourselves what to do if commodities continue to crumble. No real clear solution came about except that we could feed our families and would rely on one another as needed. There aren't many of us left in our area under 40 - about nine to be exact. With all these bailouts focused on banks and automakers, I've yet to hear one word about the American farmer. And you know the sad thing is that all the guys present this morning knew we are fucked when it comes to handouts. We haven't had parity pricing since Truman did away with it. We continue to get our welfare, which is part of the Food Stamp Act. The "farm bill" is 70-80% financially dedicated to food stamps for the poor, not poor farmers. As one of my fellow sodbusters replied today, "Fuck 'em. Let their bellies go hungry. Maybe they'll think about us then." Most of us are doomed. If commodities stay anywhere where they are now into next winter, I would dare say 50% of farmers are wiped out, if not more. This is one year from now! Tractors may be parked and millions of acres will go fallow. Ever read "The Fed & the Farmer" before? Guess it was the real deal. I appreciate all of your articles and work focused on the truth of all that is transpiring. But right here, right now in agriculture we already know how big the bag is that has hit the fan. Some of us are attempting to re-wallpaper, some are staring at the brown walls in disbelief, and still others are simply walking out of the house, waving a shit-stained flag. What will the rest of this country do? Particularly, if the belly cannot get full? I am usually more positive, but my optimism has cashed in its chips for realism today. But at least I finished constructing the new chicken coop.
Stay strong and true,
Son of a Farmer

NB Patton said...

40 plus comments only one day after posting? Good lord. That's gotta be a record. I remember a time "long ago" in the land before "NOW IS THE TIME - THERE IS HOPE" when we were lucky to have 10 for the entire life of the post!
Wonder how many new readers there are as opposed to how many are just now deciding to post?

OH and my little addition would be a sixth step, Buy Ammunition, Lots of it. Or not,... more for me!

Good luck to everyone! I will likely be posting here less frequently; As I am reallocating a bit more time to filling my sandbags and building my Ark.


Tim -
Damnit man I thought we went over this "free" energy from nothing concept a couple times already. Quantum Physics or not you cannot "create" energy from some magical machine. "Work" is done during the transition of energy from one form to another. As energy changes forms you will have less and less potential for work until energy in the "usable" form is added from OUTSIDE your "set". That outside source subtracts energy from it's total and transfers it to your "set" by X means.
For us here on Earth that source is the Sun, or radioactive elements which are both finite and NON RENEWABLE as well. And I personally think we should leave the fusion/fission deal to be done OUTSIDE of our set (ie the Sun).

Of course, any open minded person understands the fact that ANY of their ideas or beliefs can be wrong. And since your understanding of Quantum physics is much more mature than mine, please fill the void that is my ignorance with some convincing evidence, even if it is just theory.

gildone84 said...

>>>MCR wrote: While many of you guys are fondly dreaming of windmills, permaculture and twittering butterflies in harmonious rapture with grizzly bears, I'm trying to fgiure out how we get through the next six days, six weeks, or six months.<<<

I would suggest that it's not so much dreaming as trying to keep one eye on the long term.

We definitely need to understand and not lose site of what's going on in the short term because that affects our lives on a day-to-day basis and helps form the map.

But, we have to focus some attention on the long term solutions. Personally, I think permaculture is the most viable long term solution, so I've started networking with a local permaculture group here that's actually interested in doing things, not just dreaming.

>>MCR said: I find that my reaction to all this is that every day I and my dawg Rags seeks to cause as many smiles as possible, to invest time in friends as much as possible, and to live as much as possible.<<

You understand what Edward Abbey said quite well: "When the situation is desperate, it's too late to be serious. Be Playful". It's not easy to do, but we must.

>>>Matt asked: If inflation is coming, why is getting out of debt now such a priority? If I can get a loan now, and inflation becomes more than interest that would be ideal for my debt situation, correct?<<<

I would suggest reading this blog post about why it's best to get out of debt during deflation rather than inflation:

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

Bonnie said...

matt

I couldn't help but notice the skepticism in your post :)

I have been reading about peak oil and collapse, economic and otherwise, for about two years now and have myself been skeptical. I've never discussed this very much with anyone except my husband before now as I am a relatively new "blogger."

But Mike's title "Is this sinking In" made me start thinking, if I had been around in 1928 and someone had told me to be prepared for the Depression of the 1930's and told me to pull all my money out of the stock market, would I have believed them? Probably not.
Or if I had been more than a kid in 1958 when Kerouac and Ginsberg were screaming about alienation, conformity and howling "Moloch!" and Eisenhower warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, could I have forseen the upheaval and amazing events that took place in the next decade. Probably not.

Now here we sit at the end of 2008 facing the same shocks, upheavals, and surprises that shaped both those periods.

But his time we can see the storm clouds on the horizon. This time, we have a better chance to prepare psychologically for the shocks. Well I'm trying.

gildone, thank you for that Edward Abbey quote.

Anonymous said...

All I can say is that probably, no matter how much we prepare, there's going to be a large element of stumbling and groping as we move through the collapse of our civilization. I suspect that it's impossible for anybody to be truly "prepared" for what is going to happen. I seriously doubt that anybody is REALLY in control of who dies and who doesn't, regardless of how much they'd like to flatter themselves.

Again, I say, "Damned if this ain't an INTERESTING time to be alive!"

Anybody happen to catch the segment on Peer Bearings last night on Katie Couric (I think)? This is a family business who got sold...and the CEO made sure that each EMPLOYEE got a "golden parachute", up to $100,000, depending on how long they had been with the company. Now, THAT's a corporation! Let's hope that more people like this guy survive!

As for the thorium reactor and quantum physics stuff...I'm with NB. Ain't gonna happen. Why? Because, at the very least, you have to use energy to build the fusion machines, dig the stuff out of the ground, process it, create the infrastructure to use it, etc. I haven't actually done the research myself, but I suspect that it would takes WAY more energy to create these plants than they would produces. I think I've gotten THAT concept through my thick skull, if nothing else.

On the other hand, I read somewhere that a quasar will produce enough energy to power something like twice the current human population long after the planet gets burned to a crisp. Anybody feel like going quasar-hunting?

John von said...

great writing mike

i see you're in culver city now, are you doing any public speaking engagements or other get-togethers in the LA area anytime soon?

would love to hear you speak or even discuss these things with you in person

feel the earthquake last night...?

michael said...

Richard Heinberg tackling the population issue (somehow) delicately a few years back:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/15480