Problems, Predicaments, and Technology

  First picture: Morning, Hamilton Ranch (aka Carroll Ranch), Big Hole Valley, Montana Second picture: Beaverslide used for hay. Agriculture is what led into civilization. After quite an interesting last week, I have a better understanding of why so many people fall into the different "traps" and mindsets that we do. Rarely do we see the bars around us (known as wetiko or colonialism ) and as such, we often forget precisely which boundaries are real and set in stone (such as the fact that civilization is unsustainable ), which ones are real and temporary, and which ones are only illusory and imagined. This brings a new aura to the forefront; one which explains why it is so necessary to Live Now . Peter Russell points out one of the big issues surrounding modern humans, looking for external items we think we are missing  in our lives.   One of my friends, Simon Michaux, just came out with a new video  describing precisely where we are with regards to mining and extraction and

This is Part 3 of So, What Should We Do? One of the things that is so pervasive in today's society is the constant flow of hype, advertising, marketing, and propaganda, and many people fail to see through it. Steve Bull came out with this article explaining the same scenario. They are led to believe that everything is a problem and that technology or some product produced from technology can solve it all. The truth is that technology and its use is actually the root source of these issues; and they are predicaments, not problems. Furthermore, more or new technology can do nothing but cause yet more damage. Technology is what supports civilization, as I pointed out in my last article (see the top picture) . Agriculture is technology . Since civilization is unsustainable , we cannot fix portions of civilization and stop the damage caused by civilization, which is causing those portions to develop trouble in the first place. In other words, we cannot switch out ICE (internal combus

  "Civilization is the child of the Neolithic Revolution, of the widespread adoption of agriculture as a mode of production, and agriculture necessarily causes leaching and loss of topsoil, as well as many other environmental consequences, including climate change. Nor does any city live by bread alone. It needs water, so it must build dams and aqueducts. It needs wood for fuel and timber, so it must chop down forests. It needs metal for coins, swords, and ploughshares, so it must dig mines. It needs stone to erect palaces, courts, temples, and walls, so it must quarry away mountains. And it must build roads and ports needed to transport all the necessities of urban life. In short, a city lives by both consuming and damaging a wide array of ecological resources."  ~ William Ophuls - Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail See more here. "The illusion of control or agency and the attachment to it creates much suffering."                  ~ Chery Young   While I

  Pictures of wildfire damage at Glacier National Park in Montana 2016 What type of activities will help in reducing the effects of ecological overshoot? I'm often asked this question when I point out that solar panels, wind turbines, nuclear energy, hydroelectric dams, EVs, and all other technological devices will not help climate change, pollution loading, or any other predicament under the parent predicament of ecological overshoot: "Well, what are your solutions?" Sadly, this question assumes that I am pointing out a PROBLEM, not a predicament. Predicaments don't have solutions. So, I don't have a solution (and nobody else does either, despite claims to the contrary - more on that in a couple of paragraphs). But I can tell them what WON'T help. Buying more stuff, REGARDLESS of what it is, WILL NOT HELP. Because ecological overshoot is a predicament with an outcome and not a problem with a solution , people need to adjust their expectations accordingly.

 T he Hungry Horse Dam located just outside Hungry Horse, Montana Let's talk about infrastructure, shall we? Living in the human-built world day in and day out, we often forget that all these buildings, roads, buried pipes, wires, sewers, and literally everything else we build is not actually natural. We require nature - other plant and animal species - for the ecosystem services they provide, but nature does not require our infrastructure. Think about that deeply for a moment and realize that no other species requires our electrical grid - it only serves us, and even we don't truly require it for survival; we got along fine for most ALL of the last 200,000 years or so (except for the last 150 years) without electricity. We *could* get along just fine without it now too, except we went into ecological overshoot. There is now no way to keep industrial civilization humming along without it, and this brings some rather uncomfortable facts to light as shown in this study  about our