The Wider Boundary of Symptom Predicaments
How is it that so many people fail to see the wider boundary of the various symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot beyond climate change and energy and resource decline?
As the last two articles I have written have focused on how things have been "supercharged" and how the rate of change is accelerating (exactly as has been predicted), my efforts are aimed at the typical "faster than expected" and "more than previously thought" memes that all of us are now used to. While most of us knew that this would happen, it is one thing to understand intellectually this phenomenon and another to actually experience it.
Comprehending that this is happening across the board - ALL symptom predicaments are increasing their rate of change - is quite important. Last week I brought up the interesting change in narrative coming from Art Berman and how IF his predictions come true, then the supercharging of the predicaments we face will receive an even greater thrust before driving us over the Seneca Cliff.
But that big IF is where I think Berman might be spinning a narrative that doesn't really hold up under scrutiny. The big question is how this turnaround happened so quickly. Does this have anything to do with the Heritage Foundation perhaps? Take a look at the picture below from the 1980 Libertarian Party Policy Platform:
Does that look like anything happening today with the Project 2025 plans? How about plans from the Heartland Institute or ALEC? Here's the trouble with the catabolic collapse that this plan seems to entail. By eliminating these organizations, the infrastructure of the USA disintegrates even further and faster than I think the organizers have planned. They're shooting themselves in the foot. More on that later...
Color me skeptical about Berman's predictions. I'm not saying that he is wrong. But whether or not his current predictions actually pan out over time depends on quite a few different factors. Whether his original predictions are true or his latest predictions are true, both scenarios are bad news for you and me and the rest of life on this planet. One scenario gets us a deepened and widened collapse with potentially slightly better conditions initially (and potentially better conditions across the board over time as well) with regard to overshoot and all the symptom predicaments. The other gets us a delayed collapse but ever-worsening overshoot and symptom predicaments.
With regard to the topic of peak oil, I (and quite a few others) think that the big mistake many people make is trying to attach a particular date to what is being perceived as the "end of oil" or some similar scenario. This is essentially no different than trying to attach a date as to when the last human dies and our species becomes extinct. For all practical purposes, it's a fool's game because the future has a tendency to change dramatically due to human assumptions, blind spots, and misunderstandings of key findings to begin with. I've made a serious effort to not attach timelines to any particular predicament, but I have frequently mentioned others' timelines. Chris Clugston's prediction of industrial civilization being finished by 2050 is one prediction mentioned frequently here. Even if Berman's predictions pan out, ecological collapse will force most of industrial civilization to crash anyway. Nature bats last and one must remember this.
However, this narrative of Art's seems to be powered by finance and technology. I recall a time when folks claimed that nuclear energy was so awesome that it would produce electricity "too cheap to meter." We all saw how that turned out. We've also seen how fusion has been predicted to be a reality within the next 10 years for the last 5 decades, and it still isn't here and probably never will be. Even if it was here, it would just be a disaster as I have pointed to before. My thoughts are that all of this (regarding Berman's predictions) is a big nothingburger. The only thing that this accurately predicts in my opinion is that the decline of oil and fossil fuels in general will not help with regards to climate change.
Now, to tackle what I see as a huge blind spot within society. We often talk about pollution and see how it is adding up, but very few actually know or admit the inside details on how it is affecting life on this planet. Not only do we have our reproductive capabilities being hamstrung by endocrine disruptors, but microplastics are collecting in our brains, causing strokes and dementia. Now, let's take things a step further and admit that we are literally wiping ourselves out. What's interesting about this last link is contained in this section, where Nate talks about the plastics issues as if it is a problem rather than the symptom predicament (of overshoot) it actually is. The ironic part about this ties both of the issues in today's article together, since Art Berman and Nate had a discussion video regarding this issue of oil extraction being tied to plastics.
What would make anyone think that a plastics treaty would work any better than a climate change treaty (commonly known as the Paris Agreement)? They even point out the marketing and advertising going on with regard to medical plastics and how it goes against what they are attempting to accomplish with a treaty. I'm certainly not saying that they should just give up, but one must realize that in order to reduce plastics, one must reduce fossil fuel extraction. Reducing fossil fuel extraction voluntarily requires reducing technology use. That goes against attempting to keep civilization humming along, so my thought on this is that it just isn't going to happen (voluntarily). Nature will handle these details through energy and resource decline and disease naturally.
Here is what the Military Industrial Complex wants the future to be. (This is also the paragraph I mentioned above about shooting ourselves in the foot.) I'm not certain that we will actually reach such a point, although we're pretty close now. Increasing complexity always brings diminishing returns. What is really interesting here is that they can "see" the threat with regard to exponentially increasing threats from the very architecture of quantum systems but ignore the very same threats from civilization itself. Of course, we're also pretty close to many other scenarios too, which might make that particular scenario moot. Just like the people who decided to use agriculture to make up for the loss of the megafauna, nobody at that point in time saw anything wrong with the idea - nor could they possibly see how that would naturally lead to ecological overshoot by reducing and/or removing negative feedbacks. Now, with a world already in massive overshoot, SUPERCHARGE the system to almost instantly trigger ecological collapse. What could possibly go wrong? Why don't we have the foresight to look at all the other disasters employing new types of technology have had on the world around us before letting the "AI apes" run free? I know, I know, that would be too much like making sense.
Obviously, to even rudimentary knowledge about overshoot and its implications, and to the lack of understanding society has regarding how complicated and complex and endemic technology has become, it is beyond clear to me that we are entering the very last phase of our dominance on this planet. This is the phase where it all collapses. Remember our lack of agency. Get ready for the fireworks and the misery following them. What has been happening in remote, isolated regions of the world will now come home to roost.
The one thing people need to know right now, even before the fireworks begin here in the U.S., is to mask up. Forget about convenience and begin protecting yourself. Bird flu is rampant and not limited to birds or even wild mammals. It is now in our domesticated animals, both cattle and our pets, and yes, even us. Just today I heard about three veterinarians who had bird flu, two of whom had no knowledge the animals they were working with had it and they showed no symptoms.
Stay safe, everyone. Today's sets of pictures (two sets!) are a bit lengthy, so prepare yourself for some real fun and joy at Yatesville Lake State Park!
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