So lucid & informative. It's understandable that so many climate activists want solutions that they can believe in so that progress can be made on these issues. It's so difficult to get people to see the big picture, to see how human flourishing still dominates environmental discourse, as though this topic is so sensitive and morally complex that it is preferable to avoid it altogether with dreams of the sustainable future. It's difficult to get people to see how technology and agency have become synonyms and to see what that means for human industrial society.
"human flourishing still dominates environmental discourse" - I'm currently taking an Ethics class and (only now, based on collapse-awareness) find it so narrow-minded! especially since a human-lives-above-all-else agenda is bound to backfire on us eventually anyway. Despite little improvements in our rhetoric, society is soooo far from "getting it"
Many thanks, Andrea, for another well researched and written piece. Allow this ole doc to summarize: too many humans are using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including CO2 and waste heat, the yield equivalent to 20+ Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTUs of heat energy. Have a blessed day!
I appreciate this information greatly. I guess I never bothered pondering the collapse implications of some of the current foreign affairs until reading this primer. Looking at what's happening in Ukraine, though it may initially appear as a proxy war by the US to weaken Russia by throwing Ukrainian lives into a military meat grinder, it only takes a cursory peak at the financials to see that private equity has already seized the opportunity to involve itself in the coming "reconstruction" phase of the endeavor. Black Rock's Larry Fink and JP Morgan Bank have already rallied to create a "reconstruction bank" to "assist" in the so-called reconstruction of Ukraine postbellum. Ukraine, being widely hailed as the "bread basket" of central Europe, I don't know why I didn't connect the dots earlier. Yes, the proverbial chess match between national powers in terms of military might are at the fore in regards to underlying purpose. Yet, with the exponential increase in severe ecological disasters (drought, hurricanes, typhoons, floods etc.) due to ecological collapse and the feedback loops that have been and will be triggered, food scarcity will most assuredly be on the rise. It would be a wise move to secure, by might or otherwise, as many resource producing commodities as possible. Even though Russia is already one of the top producers of grain and cereal, adding Ukraine to their docket would be a nice pick up on top of its motives to "protect its borders" (or whatever motive, official or unofficial, you prefer). Maybe I'm reaching with this one. But even if it's an ancillary benefit of the land grab by either party (multinational private equity or Russia), it still is a considerable motive as impending collapse looms.
That would make sense. The USA can enjoy letting Russia expend resources to invade Ukraine, then profit off the repairs. Someone recently suggested something else interesting to me - that as resources contract, it won't be worthwhile for countries to seize distant resources. (i.e. we won't see grand campaigns like before) because -as I say in a video- imperialism delivers resources, but it also requires resources. When we're short on food and fuel, it's actually fairly likely that nations will "turn inward", exploit/target their own people, a power play for what's inside their own borders
So lucid & informative. It's understandable that so many climate activists want solutions that they can believe in so that progress can be made on these issues. It's so difficult to get people to see the big picture, to see how human flourishing still dominates environmental discourse, as though this topic is so sensitive and morally complex that it is preferable to avoid it altogether with dreams of the sustainable future. It's difficult to get people to see how technology and agency have become synonyms and to see what that means for human industrial society.
"human flourishing still dominates environmental discourse" - I'm currently taking an Ethics class and (only now, based on collapse-awareness) find it so narrow-minded! especially since a human-lives-above-all-else agenda is bound to backfire on us eventually anyway. Despite little improvements in our rhetoric, society is soooo far from "getting it"
Many thanks, Andrea, for another well researched and written piece. Allow this ole doc to summarize: too many humans are using too many natural resources and producing too much pollution, including CO2 and waste heat, the yield equivalent to 20+ Hiroshima nuclear bomb blasts PER SECOND, where each one releases 63 trillion BTUs of heat energy. Have a blessed day!
I appreciate this information greatly. I guess I never bothered pondering the collapse implications of some of the current foreign affairs until reading this primer. Looking at what's happening in Ukraine, though it may initially appear as a proxy war by the US to weaken Russia by throwing Ukrainian lives into a military meat grinder, it only takes a cursory peak at the financials to see that private equity has already seized the opportunity to involve itself in the coming "reconstruction" phase of the endeavor. Black Rock's Larry Fink and JP Morgan Bank have already rallied to create a "reconstruction bank" to "assist" in the so-called reconstruction of Ukraine postbellum. Ukraine, being widely hailed as the "bread basket" of central Europe, I don't know why I didn't connect the dots earlier. Yes, the proverbial chess match between national powers in terms of military might are at the fore in regards to underlying purpose. Yet, with the exponential increase in severe ecological disasters (drought, hurricanes, typhoons, floods etc.) due to ecological collapse and the feedback loops that have been and will be triggered, food scarcity will most assuredly be on the rise. It would be a wise move to secure, by might or otherwise, as many resource producing commodities as possible. Even though Russia is already one of the top producers of grain and cereal, adding Ukraine to their docket would be a nice pick up on top of its motives to "protect its borders" (or whatever motive, official or unofficial, you prefer). Maybe I'm reaching with this one. But even if it's an ancillary benefit of the land grab by either party (multinational private equity or Russia), it still is a considerable motive as impending collapse looms.
That would make sense. The USA can enjoy letting Russia expend resources to invade Ukraine, then profit off the repairs. Someone recently suggested something else interesting to me - that as resources contract, it won't be worthwhile for countries to seize distant resources. (i.e. we won't see grand campaigns like before) because -as I say in a video- imperialism delivers resources, but it also requires resources. When we're short on food and fuel, it's actually fairly likely that nations will "turn inward", exploit/target their own people, a power play for what's inside their own borders
The Hunger Games: coming soon to a nation near you.