Steve Bull's Blog, page 77
January 31, 2024
Europe Erupts In Widespread Farmer Protests As Revolt Against ‘Green’ Policies Intensifies
Farmers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Romania, and other countries across Europe are protesting radical leftist governments by obstructing major transport networks with tractors. This widespread populist movement is sweeping Europe at a time when over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda threaten the livelihoods of not just farmers but working-class people and comes several months before the European election cycle kicks off in June.
Some countries hit hardest by protests have been Germany, Italy, Belgium, and France. Protests are expected to spread to Spain and Portugal.
On Tuesday, France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, promised farmers emergency funds and stricter trade controls on foreign products to guarantee fair competition.
However, that might not have been enough, as the farmer’s union in France was unimpressed by concessions offered by the French government. They encouraged their members to continue the fight.
“I’m so proud of you,” Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, head of Lot-et-Garonne department’s farmer’s association, told protesters in the south of Paris.
Bousquet-Cassagne said:
“You are fighting this battle because if we don’t fight we die.”
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin told local TV station France 2 that police were preparing to defend strategic areas of larger cities.
“They can’t attack police, they can’t enter Rungis, they can’t enter the Paris airports or the center of Paris,” said Darmanin, adding, “But let me tell you again that if they try, we will be there.”
According to Armstrong Economics:
Farmers throughout the world have been protesting the increasing regulations on agriculture. The media is barely covering the story, and when they do mention it, they say that the farmers are protesting due to Russia blocking supplies from Ukraine. This is simply untrue. The farmers are protesting against over-regulation, taxes, and the climate change agenda that is making it increasingly difficult for them to make a successful living.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Shipping faces lengthy disruptions as Middle East fallout worsens
Analysts see more upside for container shipping and tanker stocks
The fire on the product tanker Marlin Luanda was extinguished on Saturday. (Photo: French Navy)The Red Sea crisis — and the Middle East situation in general — is worsening. There’s growing conviction that shipping diversions around the Cape of Good Hope will increase in scope and last much longer than initially expected. That should be good news for shipping stocks over time, due to durably longer voyage distances.
The Houthis hit the JP Morgan-owned product tanker Marlin Luanda with a ballistic missile on Friday, setting a cargo tank on fire. The tanker was chartered by trading house Trafigura and loaded with Russian naphtha. The fire was extinguished on Saturday, with all crew safe.
On Sunday, a drone attack by an Iranian-backed militia killed three U.S. service members and injured at least 40 more at a U.S. military site in Jordan. The Biden administration has vowed to respond, raising the specter of a wider Middle East conflict.
“Red Sea diversions are on the rise as continued attacks on vessels in the region are prompting more shipping companies to avoid transiting the area,” said Jefferies shipping analyst Omar Nokta in a client note on Monday.
The vast majority of larger container ships already avoid the Red Sea, and detours are rapidly spreading to bulk commodity shipping.
Citing data from Clarksons, Nokta said that crude tanker transits of the region are now down 22% versus their 2023 average; at the beginning of this year, they were down 5% from last year’s average. Product tanker transits are down 51% versus 2023, after being down 29% versus last year’s average at the beginning of the year, with liquefied natural gas carrier transits down 87% (from 36%) and liquefied petroleum gas carrier transits down 62% (from 23%).
…click on the above link to read the rest…
January 30, 2024
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XLVII–Faith in Government: A Misplaced Belief
April 13, 2022 (original posting date)
Monte Alban, Mexico (1988) Photo by authorFaith in Government: A Misplaced Belief
Today’s contemplation has been prompted by an article by ecologist and educator Richard Heinberg (see link below).
Infinite growth. Finite planet. What could possibly go wrong?
As our awareness of the various existential predicaments we face[1] grows, most people cling to the default view that our sociopolitical elite/leaders will address the issues because they, after all, have been ‘awarded’ the responsibility of governing and helping to ‘solve’ the problems that arise with living in a complex world[2].
I have, for the most part[3], lost the notion that our ‘leaders’ are ‘servants’ of the population motivated to improve/sustain society as the common notion projects. That is the belief the elite want us to hold so we support the status quo power structures[4] from which they and their families benefit.
At one time I did hold on to this belief but my view has shifted to a somewhat contrarian perspective that the ruling class/elite/powers-that-be are driven primarily by the incentive to control/expand the wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide their revenue streams and thus power, using their positions of privilege to leverage circumstances to meet this driving motivation.
In an interesting article by educator and ecologist Richard Heinberg, the argument is made that our ruling elite were provided sound scientific evidence decades ago that humanity’s continued pursuit of the infinite growth chalice was anything but sustainable and, in fact, was heading us towards ecological overshoot and collapse[5].
What did our ruling class do in response? For the most part, they engaged their narrative control managers to craft stories which were propagated far and wide that, in fact, perpetual growth was not just entirely beneficial for humanity and achieving a host of great things for all, but completely possible due to our technological prowess and ingenuity.
Now, decades later, it seems to be more and more obvious that we’ve been led down the wrong path. That we have painted ourselves into a corner from which we cannot seem to escape and the moment of reckoning is fast approaching. And as Heinberg points out, the elite have failed to acknowledge this but instead doubled-down on their propaganda and control of information to distract from and deny this problematic perspective[6].
There are still a lot of people (most?) that do not comprehend the situation. The reasons for this are many and complex. From significant propaganda courtesy of the ruling elite and their courtiers that we are exposed to daily via the media institutions they control, to psychological mechanisms that cause us to deny uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking beliefs, think in herds, and defer to authority. We humans, in the words of author Robert Heinlein, are rationalising animals not rational ones; we don’t want to believe we are engaging in self-destructive behaviour so we justify our actions/beliefs and tell ourselves self-deluding tales to reduce our cognitive dissonance[7].
I have after some years of going through the grieving process arrived at the acceptance stage of our plight. ‘Collapse’ is inevitable. How it will proceed is still up in the air. There will be similarities to past complex societal decline but there will be significant differences. Perhaps the most significant difference to the past is that today’s people have lost the skills of self-sufficiency many people have required in the past regardless of how complex their society was. It was only a very minor segment of the population that depended almost entirely on the agrarian skills of their compatriots and the local supply chains that existed to survive. Today’s world is vastly different; to say little of the dependence upon energy-intensive technologies that make it so.
In the final accounting of all of this I have come to the same basic conclusion that Richard Heinberg does: don’t depend upon your government/ruling class for salvation from the coming collapse of current complexities. Such ‘faith’ is significantly misplaced and will be deeply disappointing if not disastrous for those that maintain it. It is personal, familial, and community resilience and preparedness that will be ease the decline; pursue this rather than believing you have significant agency via the ballot box and who might hold the reins of sociopolitical power.
As Heinberg writes: “But, dear reader, don’t hold your breath waiting for elites to get it right. I’ve used this essay to channel my own exasperation at cowards in high places, some of whom have enriched themselves to obscene degrees even as so many others languished. Rail against them a little or some, based on your level of outrage, but I’d advise directing the bulk of your energy to moving on. Anything that further divides us makes it harder for humanity to do whatever is still possible. A better path would be building personal and community resilience ahead of what’s coming. Ease the suffering. Save what can be saved.”
In this vein, I leave you to head back into our family’s growing food production gardens to continue preparing the soil and greenhouses for the coming warm weather. Much of the ground is still frozen in our area north of Toronto but there’s always work to be done and some of the raised beds have finally defrosted…
[1] Primarily, if not totally, the consequence of ecological overshoot
[2] Refer to archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies where it is asserted that “Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require.” (p. 37)
[3] I suppose I maintain a modicum of ‘hope’ that our ruling class may, in fact, be driven by higher morals than the evidence suggests but I think this may be the residual result of unending enculturation over decades prior to my losing ‘faith/trust’.
[4] I highly recommend reading Murray Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State for an interesting perspective on how State’s come into being and maintain the sociopolitical structures that benefit those in ‘control’.
[5] Important to read both Meadows et al.’s The Limits to Growth and William Catton Jr.’s Overshoot.
[6] Here I would add that the elite have in fact done what they almost always do in such circumstances: leveraged crisis to their advantage to meet their driving interest by marketing ‘solutions’ from which they profit, such as energy ‘alternatives’, and expanded control of the dominant narratives.
[7] See Erik Michael’s Problems, Predicaments, and Technology website for lots of articles and evidence of this.
The Failure of Global ElitesIn the 1970s, global political and corporate elites had all the information they needed to put the world on a path…www.resilience.org
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XLVI–Preparing For Collapse
April 4, 2022 (original posting date)
Monte Alban, Mexico (1988) Photo by authorPreparing For Collapse
A contemplation prompted by a couple of posts I read early this morning. One was a list of actionable ideas for preparing for Peak Oil and the other an article on the mainstreaming of ‘Doomsday Prepping’.
I’ve written several times about the importance of energy. Of paramount importance to our complex, global and industrialised societies is the finite energy resource of fossil fuels, particularly oil[1]. Fossil fuels underpin almost everything we depend upon[2] and there is no adequate replacement. None. In fact, all those marketed as ‘renewable’ substitutes and promising a seamless transition away from fossil fuels leave out the very important and inconvenient fact that they rely quite substantially upon fossil fuels from the mining and refinement of the resources needed to produce them to their after-life reclamation or disposal — they are non-renewable energy-harvesting technologies that cannot exist without fossil fuels, and are only truly ‘renewable’ in the sense of the energy source they attempt to harness[3].
Unfortunately for our energy-intensive and -dependent complex societies, fossil fuel extraction has encountered significant diminishing returns and will eventually cease to be available; not because we’ve run out of them but because it will require increasing amounts of energy to retrieve and transport them than we get back in return. And despite all the narratives surrounding a ‘voluntary’ cessation of fossil fuel extraction in order to address anthropogenic climate change[4], this will not happen by our conscious endeavours for a variety of reasons but primarily because of the thermodynamic, biophysical, and economic properties inherent in our exploitation of a finite resource.
The tremendous surplus of energy we’ve been leveraging to sustain our phenomenal growth and technological wonders over the past century or more has disappeared. We’ve been able to avoid the negative consequences of this physical reality for the last few decades mostly through some technological tweaks and monetary/financial manipulations[5]. However, it is increasingly looking like our attempts to kick-the-can-down-the-road have reached a tipping point — there’s no more hiding the fact that infinite growth on a finite planet was never a sustainable thing. Ever. It’s only been possible in our imaginations and we’ve crafted some fairly comforting narratives to help us believe it was an entirely plausible scenario, particularly because of our ingenuity and technology; and we have some very strong psychological mechanisms in play to help us deny the anxiety-producing reality that this would all end someday.
It seems that the narratives that we can continue to chase the infinite growth chalice and that we can easily transition to some alternative energy source (that is miraculously ‘clean/green’) are appearing to be coming under significant pressure. Reliance upon finite resources in somebody else’s backyard is being exposed as problematic for self-sufficiency[6]. Supply chains and the just-in-time delivery systems are increasingly showing their fragility[7]. Price inflation (as a result of money/credit expansion) in almost everything is placing more and more people in precarious economic straits, while those at the top of our power and wealth structures are accumulating more and more. The ruling class is beginning to voice the idea that global ‘austerity’ may be more than just a ‘transitory’ phenomenon — naturally they’re blaming this on everything but finite resources, and their chasing perpetual growth and other related economic/geopolitical ambitions.
The jig is up. The scams are being exposed. Increasing numbers of people are catching on to the various frauds and propaganda. The faulty and purposely fanciful stories are being interpreted for what they are: attempts to keep the unsustainable sustained just a bit longer[8].
Degrowth or ‘collapse’ is coming whether we wish it or not.
While I often refer to ‘collapse’ of our complex societies, I tend to do this in the context of archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s definition of it[9]. As he argues, collapse manifests itself as: less stratification and social differentiation; less economic and occupational specialisation; less centralised control (i.e., less regulation by elites); less behavioural control and regimentation; less investment in the epiphenomena of complexity (e.g., monumental architecture); less flow of information between a central authority and its periphery; less trading (i.e., more localisation); less coordination of groups; a smaller territory.
Most of that, quite frankly, doesn’t sound too bad.
So, what to do about all this?
I believe it would be in people’s best interest to recognise this and prepare for it .
I would argue there are at minimum three things we as individuals/local communities need to be ensuring: procurement of potable water, local food production, regional/climate-based shelter needs. Everything else is ‘gravy’ and can be considered after the aforementioned are procured. Do not put your faith in our sociopolitical systems or the complex technologies they cheerlead. Both of these are unsustainable and actually work against one’s preparatory interests. No matter how much propaganda there exists about having choice and ‘control’ in a democratic society, there is actually very little if any with respect to the large societal trends. I, personally, lost the belief that voters have any real agency via a ballot box decades ago. As I’ve written previously, the ruling class’s primary motivation is the control and/or expansion of the wealth-generating/-extracting systems that provide their revenue streams; it is not you or I except in terms of labour and tax generation.
More and more I personally am focusing upon the ‘actionable’ part of preparing rather than the ‘cerebral/academic/economic/political’ aspects of what’s happening. I can’t control what happens much outside of my own little ‘world’ so why worry about it and/or the reasons for what is happening.
And when push comes to shove it doesn’t matter the reason for our ‘collapse’, what matters is the re-learning of ‘lost’ skills/knowledge for self-sufficiency (especially for those of us enculturated in the ‘modern’ complex societies that have oriented towards a future of techno-cornucopianism that always had a relatively short lifespan on a finite planet). The last three books I have read are about composting, seed saving, and first aid/CPR. The one I just started is about mini-farming. You can find my personal summary notes of these books here (along with a couple of others, including Tainter’s).
And while my aging body may not be quite ready for the continuing work I have planned in our ever-increasing home food-production gardens, I am looking forward immensely to the coming transition to warmer weather for my northern climate and the time away from the distractions of the internet. My days will be spent outside with nature working on some specific projects requiring lots of physical labour and problem solving while I listen to some of my favourite music and get the exercise I need to be able to continue doing this work for as long as I’m physically capable.
Please consider visiting my website and purchasing my fictional novel trilogy, Olduvai, to help support my continuing online work. Less than $10 Canadian gets you the entire trilogy in PDF format.
[1] Virtually all of our other important energy sources are derived from and/or dependent upon fossil fuels in one way or another; especially the mining, refining, and transporting of minerals for nuclear plants, dams, solar panels, wind turbines, etc.. Steel and concrete production in particular cannot be done without fossil fuels.
[2] Of particular importance are resource extraction and refining, transportation, modern agriculture, long-distance supply chains, and ‘money’ (that is basically a potential claim on future energy).
[3] The narrative around ‘renewable energy’ being a solution to our fossil fuel use is a huge distraction from our underlying predicament of ecological overshoot. All the ‘clean/green’ energy in the world can’t save us from the ‘collapse’ that always accompanies a species overshooting its environmental carrying capacity and, in fact, the production and use of such energy-harvesting technologies will simply serve to put us further into overshoot.
[4] I am constantly confounded by the number of people/institutions that demand we cease our extraction of fossil fuels immediately without the slightest foresight as to what this would entail for our world, especially considering their associated call for a wholesale transition to ‘renewable’ energy. Their thinking is entirely magical in nature because it discounts entirely the reality of how non-renewable renewables are produced.
[5] Money/credit expansion and fraudulent accounting have been the primary avenues pursued.
[6] The current explanations for this are being warped by politics and economics that tends to take precedent over the biological and physical ones. But biology and physics always trumps human constructs in the end.
[7] I’ve long argued with my local politicians that dependence upon long-distance supply chains over which we have zero control is a recipe for disaster as they cheerlead the ever-increasing paving over of our limited arable lands to expand housing/industry. My Canadian province of Ontario depends upon these supply chains for 80+% of its food to feed its almost 15 million inhabitants.
[8] To consolidate more wealth at the top of the power/wealth structures in my opinion.
[9] See The Collapse of Complex Societies.
January 29, 2024
Mess In The West: ‘Army Of God’ Convoy Heads To US Border While EU Farmers Block Cities
In the US, a convoy of truckers, calling themselves “God’s Army,” is preparing to embark on a journey from several locations across the Lower 48 to the southern border as tensions soar between Texas and the Biden administration. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, farmers are bearing down on Europe’s capitals – from Bucharest to Warsaw to Brussels – venting frustrations about climate policies. These social instabilities are breaking out ahead of key European and US elections this year.
Take Our Border Back Convoy!
Convoy’s members described themselves as “God’s army.” Their mission is to shed light on the dangers of keeping the southern border open. pic.twitter.com/zeu1UeN953
— Kelly (@kellytx2) January 28, 2024
The organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy are “calling all active & retired law enforcement and military, Veterans, Mama Bears, elected officials, business owners, ranchers, truckers, bikers, media and LAW ABIDING, freedom-loving Americans” to “assemble in honor of our US Constitution and Bill of Rights” at the southern border, in protest against the federal government’s inability to secure the border, according to the convoy’s website.
“Fellow citizens and compatriots … I call on you in the name of liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American character to come to our aid with all dispatch,” Pete Chambers, one of the coalition’s leaders, wrote. “If this call is neglected, we are determined to sustain ourselves as long as possible and act like soldiers who never forget what is due to our own honor and that of our country.”
The convoy plans to “send a message” to government officials at all levels about the need to secure the board amid the multi-year invasion of millions of illegals. Chambers believes Americans are “besieged on all sides” by evil “dark forces.”
#Trucker #Convoy #TakeOurBorderBack #texasbordercrisis
It’s Happening.pic.twitter.com/uv57GoJt1X
—
Robert The Builder
(@NobodymrRobert) January 26, 2024
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Climate Change™ Roundup: Backyard Gardens in Crosshairs
Roundup: Backyard Gardens in Crosshairs
“Here comes an avalanche of [Climate Change] bullshit.” -Marla Singer
John Kerry at Davos: ‘No one politician’ can resist Climate Change policy
https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1747351617282650556
“If you wound up with a different President who was opposed to climate crisis, I got news for you. No one politician anywhere in the world can undo what is happening now…The only issue for all of us is not whether or not we can get or will get to a low carbon, no carbon economy globally. We will. The only question is, will we get there in time to meet the challenge of the scientists in order to avoid the worst consequences of this crisis. That is what is at stake.”
-John Kerry, ‘Special Presidential Envoy for Climate’
Mind you, John Kerry’s “climate office” hoovers up (well, technically, it’s just piled onto the national debt, but in theory taxpayer money) in order to ferry him around the globe on private jets giving the finger to the American voter.
And America started a war with King George over tea tax. Bathe in the juxtaposition.
Obviously, the non-domestic-terrorist interpretation of Kerry’s words is that dismissing out of hand the policy preferences of a duly elected leader in a “democracy” is in no way contradictory to the elites’ professed deep and abiding appreciation for Democracy.
Only a white supremacist would see any cognitive dissonance there.
Another totalitarian Davos girl, Naomi Oreskes, issued a similar pledge to clamp down on any dissent related to the war on carbon, the essential building block of life.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XLV–Chasing Maladaptive Strategies
March 24, 2022 (original posting date)
Knossos, Greece (1988) Photo by authorChasing Maladaptive Strategies
Today’s very short contemplation was in response to a post I was asked to comment upon that calls for sociopolitical ‘leadership’ to ‘tackle’ natural disasters that have been linked to the climate crisis.
I believe that most still don’t understand that the existential predicaments we are experiencing are but symptoms of the over-arching predicament of ecological overshoot[1]. Until and unless we acknowledge our overshoot we seem to be chasing maladaptive strategies in attempts to deal with its catastrophic symptoms and, in my opinion, asking the wrong people to address the situation.
For example, most people, in their well-intentioned desire to confront the effects of climate change, believe that if we abandon fossil fuel use and transition to some alternative (that has been mislabeled ‘green/clean’ and ‘sustainable’), we can maintain our energy-intensive complexities. Understanding that energy-harvesting technologies (e.g., solar, wind, wave, nuclear) not only depend upon the fossil fuel platform but upon finite resources that require a continuation of environmentally-/ecologically-destructive processes to retrieve and refine radically alters how one should perceive our path forward.
We need to be pursuing radical degrowth in all its iterations, from population to economics. Modern living standards of advanced economies (even of ‘emerging’ economies) are not in any way shape or form sustainable on a finite planet. If we cannot accept this and acknowledge that this needs to guide our responses and actions, then we are in all likelihood destined (some argue it is all but guaranteed) to experience the collapse that always accompanies overshoot. And such collapse will only increase in severity when it eventually occurs if we continue to chase misguided ‘solutions’ that further reduce the natural carrying capacity of the planet.
Given that our sociopolitical systems are built on power/wealth structures that for some time now have come to rely almost exclusively upon chasing the perpetual growth chalice, it seems to me that looking to them to correct our path is completely misplaced and increasingly more destructive in the end. Their tendency is to talk a good talk about addressing issues but when push comes to shove they almost always leverage such crises to their own advantage in one way or another to expand upon and prolong the Ponzi schemes they preside over[2].
As I argued in a recent article[3], people: “are encouraged to focus on relocalising the basic aspects of living (i.e., potable water procurement, food production, and regional shelter needs) as much as possible and reconnect with community members who will be your primary supports as things go increasingly sideways. Do not put your faith in our so-called political ‘leaders’. Despite their propaganda, they do not have your best interests at the top of their agendas; if such an incentive even makes the agenda except perhaps around election time when the marketing of more, more, more really blossoms. Because, you know, more is in your best interest…only it’s not.”
Yes, we need to shut down our fossil fuel industry but we also need to realise there is no ‘replacement’ for the significant energy it supplies society. The post-carbon world will be radically, and I mean radically, different than today. The illusion of a modern utopia with electric vehicles and all the accoutrements painted by the techno-cornucopian snake oil salesmen (that are little more than grifters lining their pockets) must be abandoned if we are to have any hope of getting through the bottleneck we have created for our species and most others on this planet.
Please consider visiting my website and helping to support its continuation through the purchase of my ‘fictional’ collapse trilogy: Olduvai.
[1] If you have yet to read William Catton Jr.’s Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, I highly recommend it. It is fundamental to understanding overshoot. You can find my personal summary notes here.
[2] I use the term Ponzi scheme intentionally given the fact that such contrivances require continual growth to keep from collapsing and that they are, for all intents and purposes, rackets that benefit a few at the expense of the many participants.
[3] https://stevebull-4168.medium.com/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-xliv-b81abc961f4c
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh LXIV–Will Another Civilisation Rise From Our Ashes?
August 15, 2022 (original posting date)
Tulum, Mexico (1986). Photo by author.Will Another Civilisation Rise From Our Ashes?
Today’s contemplation has been generated in response to some comments on a Chris Hedges’ article I shared in the Peak Oil Facebook group I am a member of. Hedges’ article suggests our civilisation has not been the first to collapse but it will be the last. Two members suggested this is likely not to be the case and that another will arise — I have my doubts.
Will another civilisation rise after ours collapses?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Circumstances are always different and most certainly are today with our globalised, industrial civilisation that is, for all intents and purposes, completely reliant upon the dense and highly-transportable energy of fossil fuels — a finite resource that has encountered significant diminishing returns.
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three significant impediments to a global, complex society again rising from the ashes of our destined-to-collapse one.
First, our environment (globally) has been degraded to a significant degree. Little fertile soil remains with most of the arable lands having to depend upon fossil fuel supplements to boost food production to feed all of us[1]. Toxic chemicals have spread across the planet, some of which have had devastating impacts upon ecological systems and other species (especially very important pollinators)[2]. It will take significant time, perhaps millennia, for our planet to recover and allow the over-exploitation that is necessary for a widespread, complex society to once again flourish[3]. And then there are those who contend that our burning of fossil fuels have created an irreversible greenhouse effect that is leading to feedback loops that will ensure inhospitable environmental conditions and precluding many, if any, species to survive long on this planet[4].
Second, today’s complex societies (but especially so-called ‘advanced’ economies) have resulted in a situation — because of our leveraging of fossil fuels — where almost no one has the skills/knowledge to be self-sufficient. In the past, most of a population was still heavily involved in food production and fundamental self-sufficiency skills, and so when a society ‘collapsed’ most people dispersed into the countryside and were able to fend for themselves[5]. That is certainly not the case today. The ability to procure potable water, grow one’s own food and/or hunt and gather, and construct shelter needs for the regional climate has been mostly lost. Few of an advanced economy’s populace would survive for much more than a few weeks/months without the ‘conveniences’ of our many energy slaves due to this loss of knowledge/skills — to say little of the chaos that would ensue and probably wipeout many of those who might possess the wherewithal to get to the other side of the ecological bottleneck we seem to be in[6].
Finally, there are those very dangerous complexities that we have created that could put an exclamation mark upon our industrialised society’s impending collapse, any peoples remaining, and the ability to establish a future complex society. Nuclear power plants. Biosafety labs. Chemical production/storage facilities. We have a potpourri of potential environmental catastrophes once the ability to contain/manage these facilities and their waste products disappears — to say little of the damage that has already been done to our ecological systems from them. 437+ nuclear power reactors[7]. 59 biosafety labs[8]. Countless chemical production and storage facilities[9]. I can only imagine the local/regional/global impact of a loss of ‘containment’.
I’d argue the chips are stacked firmly against another complex society, certainly global-spanning one, developing again in the future. Of course, as several notable personalities have been credited with stating: It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future[10].
Only time will tell…
To help support my internet presence, please consider visiting my website and purchasing my ‘fictional’ collapse novel trilogy — Olduvai.
[1] I won’t even touch upon the overshoot predicament here. See: Catton, Jr., W.R.. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. University of Illinois Press, 1980. (ISBN 978–0–252–00988–4).
[2] Biosphere integrity and biogeochemical flows have been suggested to be the most severe planetary limits we have surpassed: https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html.
[3] Yes, every one overexploits its environment; a contributing factor to its eventual demise.
[4] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
[5] See: Tainter, J.. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978–0–521–38673–9).
[6] See: Catton, Jr., W.R.. Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse. Xlibris, 2009. (ISBN 978–1441522412).
[7] For those who cheerlead nuclear as the only ‘safe’ and ‘green’ option (they are not), these 437 reactors only account for 10% of current electricity generation. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/reactor-database.aspx
[8] ‘Safety’ is relative here given the number of ‘accidents/leaks’ that have occurred. https://theconversation.com/fifty-nine-labs-around-world-handle-the-deadliest-pathogens-only-a-quarter-score-high-on-safety-161777
[9] https://www.statista.com/topics/6213/chemical-industry-worldwide/#topicHeader__wrapper; https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Chemicals_production_and_consumption_statistics; https://cen.acs.org/business/World-Chemical-Outlook-2019-Around-the-globe/97/i2; https://archive.epa.gov/sectors/web/html/chemical.html.
“Dangerous Game”: Chevron Warns California That Anti-Petrol Policies Could Result In Gas Price Spikes, Shortages
Chevron is warning the state of California that its climate policies have consequences: namely, that the price of gas is going to continue to rise.
Calling the state’s policies a “dangerous game”, it was reported by Bloomberg this week that Chevron is warning the state of potential gasoline price spikes and shortages as a result of policies that discourage petrol production.
In the last quarter of 2023, drivers in California faced an average gasoline price of $4.94 per gallon, surpassing the national average by approximately $1.72, marking the highest recorded quarterly difference, as per Bloomberg’s compiled data.
Head of Chevron’s U.S. refining, Andy Walz, said this week that the spike is partly attributed to California’s stringent low-carbon fuel regulations, which prompt refineries to shift from petroleum to renewable diesel production. This transition is curbing gasoline availability and causing prices to rise, he told Bloomberg.
“They knew it was going to happen when they wrote the legislation. The problem is the consumer is starting to realize it. It’s becoming painful. The way politicians dealt with it was ‘let’s blame the oil companies,” Walz said.
But – as expected – Governor Gavin Newsom’s office responded with a vague statement blaming oil producers that was barely one brain cell above throwing paint on the Mona Lisa: “Big Oil has been ripping off consumers for decades and lying to protect their profits.”
And so, the adversarial tone naturally drives producers from the state: “If they cap the upside when conditions are good it’s going to make it really challenging to want to put our money there. I cannot compete internally for big capital investments. It doesn’t stack up. I’d rather spend money at our refinery in Mississippi,” Walz said.
As the report notes, Chevron’s relationship with California has become increasingly strained, with stringent regulations leading to a $4 billion asset write-down, mostly in the state.
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Logically.AI of Britain and the Expanding Global Reach of Censorship
Brian Murphy, a former FBI agent who once led the intelligence wing of the Department of Homeland Security, reflected last summer on the failures of the Disinformation Governance Board – the panel formed to actively police misinformation. The board, which was proposed in April 2022 after he left DHS, was quickly shelved by the Biden administration in a few short months in the face of criticism that it would be an Orwellian state-sponsored “Ministry of Truth.”
In a July podcast, Murphy said the threat of state-sponsored disinformation meant the executive branch has an “ethical responsibility” to rein in the social media companies. American citizens, he said, must give up “some of your freedoms that you need and deserve so that you get security back.”
The legal problems and public backlash to the Disinformation Governance Board also demonstrated to him that “the government has a major role to play, but they cannot be out in front.”
Murphy, who made headlines late in the Trump administration for improperly building dossiers on journalists, has spent the last few years trying to help the government find ways to suppress and censor speech it doesn’t like without being so “out in front” that it runs afoul of the Constitution. He has proposed that law enforcement and intelligence agencies formalize the process of sharing tips with private sector actors – a “hybrid constellation” including the press, academia, researchers, non-partisan organizations, and social media companies – to dismantle “misinformation” campaigns before they take hold.
More recently, Murphy has worked to make his vision of countering misinformation a reality by joining a United Kingdom-based tech firm, Logically.AI, whose eponymous product identifies and removes content from social media. Since joining the firm, Murphy has met with military and other government officials in the U.S., many of whom have gone on to contract or pilot Logically’s platform.
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