He writes with disarming composure about the factors that have led to the disintegration of empires and the abandonment of cities and about the mechanism that, in his view, makes it nearly certain that all states that rise will one day fall. How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again, 50th Anniversary of Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War, Zoom Meeting on the Melbourne Isolation Hood to stop spread of Covid in Hospital, We Can Cut the Number of Hospital Acquired Covid Infections, JCVI has not thought through their vaccine prioritisation, Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy, War and Corruption Deficits: Insects and Leviathans, Breaking News: Lt. Col. Shaffer Accuses Former CIA Dir. What Kind of a World do We Want? Here's how to thaw pipes during winter storms. However, he didn't. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. More homes needed, this is not going away. How much more stimulus will the UK economy need? But it was risky to offer so little | Naomi Klein, Covid-19 spreads to every African country - as it happened, No Name Calling Please, Give Us Evidence Which Proves GM Crops Are Safe, Let’s Be Honest About Genetically Modified Crops, Vandana Shiva : No to Junk Food in Schools, Yes to Climate Change Education in Schools, Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse, Capitol Riots: The Day of Infamy When Populism Became Fascism, The Three Farm Laws: Not Only a Fight of Farmers for Themselves but Also for India’s Food Security. His internet connection had been out for days. He writes of visions of “bloated bureaucracies” becoming the basis of “entire political careers.” Arms races, he observes, presented a “classic example” of spiraling complexity that provides “no tangible benefit for much of the population” and “usually no competitive advantage” either. The SolarWinds hackers could be in US government computers for a long time. Worse than being glorified, or not televised, our collapse is being looked at without seeing. Author: Thriving in such unforgiving terrain, Tainter argues, depended on an intricate web of “reciprocal economic relations” that took advantage of the landscape’s diversity. Reflecting on the journey of independent grassroots media, Giant Robot, Electronic Skin and more -- Mind Blow #117, Robot Muscle, Plant Tattoos and more -- Mind Blow #116, Skywalker Hand, Planet Discovery and more -- Mind Blow #115, Decommodification in the twenty-first century, Verso Book Club: February and March picks, Badiou and Cassin, two kinds of philosopher, Desperate Republicans jump on a new big lie train once again, Profiteering Radio Huckster Rush Limbaugh has died at age 70. Mar 18, 2020 Article history. The End of Police Raids -- at Long Last -- on Gays of Fire Island, "Fire Island Was Paradise,Truly Paradise", Disaster Waiting to Happen at Indian Point. Dutch appeals court rushes to the defense of tyranny, overrules Hague district court and reinstates illegal curfew. Instead, a sorrowful history tells us they were almost always for the sole benefit of the 1%." History is filled with great civilizations that have collapsed. Trade routes seize up, and cities are abandoned. Why Does Tucker Carlson Hate General Honoré? 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This decline is a direct result of human activity, the most devastating being changes in land and sea use, including natural habitat destruction. The Navajo, nearby, survived the genocidal wars of the 19th century, the uranium boom of the 20th and the epidemic of cancer it left in its wake, and are now facing Covid-19, which hit the Navajo Nation harder than it did New York. Economic Recovery from Covid-19 and Climate Action: Twin Challenges. taken over the Michigan State Legislature building. In September, nearly 23 million Americans reported going without enough to eat, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Tenet, New book – ‘Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency’, ‘The single most important goal of the candidates’ climate plan’ – CNN.com, The planet is being consumed by humans – CNN.com, UK and Trump miles apart on climate change – CNN.com, Neoliberals Used to Refer to Themselves as New Democrats. Communities to the north were not. The crisis in Texas underscores the deadly risks when the grid goes down. On their own, none of those factors would have been capable of causing such widespread disintegration, but together they formed a “perfect storm” capable of toppling multiple societies all at once. The return and disavowal of the population question, Trade-Off: Financial system supply-chain cross contagion – a study in global systemic collapse, Twenty Premises on Industrial Civilization from Derrick Jensen, Underminers: A Practical Guide to Radical Change, Wealth and Inequality – Pareto, Gini and Contingency, Who Rules America: An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%, Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power. History, US Interventions in Latin America Continue and Intensify, Gov. When Mr. Sale published the book, it looked as though he may have lost the bet he made in 1992 that we would be in collapse in March 2020. We are destroying the life support systems to which all creatures, including man, are dependent, yet it does not appear that any climate disaster no matter how catastrophic will alter mankind’s tragic path to extinction. IPCC Discovers Infographics – Communicates Climate Change, Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 14, 2021, Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 7, 2021, Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 31, 2021, Steve Keen vs. Nordhaus – regarding humankind’s greatest ever crisis, Statues, street names, and contested memory, DENVER CELEBRATES THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF RUSSELL MEANS, Museletter #335: Insurrection, pandemic, and censorship, Museletter #334: 2020: The Year Consensus Reality Fractured, Faith in Climate Action — The Church’s Response to Hothouse Earth, Social Distancing and Waiting Until It’s Safe Enough to Re-open, Free to be yourself. Passed the Point of Peak Water? Four Reasons Civilization Won’t Decline: It Will Collapse . : The Year Civilization Collapsed” that Late Bronze Age societies across Europe and western Asia crumbled under a concatenation of stresses, including natural disasters — earthquakes and drought — famine, political strife, mass migration and the closure of trade routes. Consumed – Is Our Consumer Culture Leading to Disaster? The system’s speed is dizzying, but so are its vulnerabilities. In the meantime, the nightly news drones on about hyperpartisan politics and economic growth. John B. McLemore Email to JHK: Huffing gas fumes in shittown alabama, Release: S-Town Podcast Prequel: KunstlerCast Ready for Binge Listening, James Howard Kunstler on John B. McLemore of S-Town, Demateralizing the economy isn't happening (Hint: All that material is actually hiding in plain sight), Saudi-led coalition loses its grip on Yemen, Gov’t Secrets #29 – JFK Assassination Pt. 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It was an overview of the “cultural resources” present in the area around a dormant volcano called Mount Taylor, a site sacred to the Navajo and several other tribes. In Turchin’s case the key is the loss of “social resilience,” a society’s ability to cooperate and act collectively for common goals. David Fridley – Green Dreams: Future or Fantasy? Find out how this civilization grew up on the fringes of the Sahara Desert, among some of the most extreme conditions that nature can throw at us. The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Federal Judges Continue to Step Back, Allowing Biden the Opportunity to Fill Their Seats, While Trump Burns Barns, McConnell Hunkers Down, Failure to Prosecute Trump's Serial Assaults on the Republic Would Be Indefensible, How One Sociologist is Using Fiction to Address Trauma, Healing, and Interpersonal Relationships: An Interview with Dr. Patricia Leavy, Cuba was saved from a brutal, destabilizing despotism. Home; Support; Contact. The platypus, another of the country’s iconic creatures, is dying off in drought-stricken cesspools. The Country Needs Universal Healthcare Now, Conservative Lawyer Bruce Fein: Trump's Acquittal Gives Future Presidents License to Break the Law, Trump Acquitted in Senate Impeachment Trial After Lawmakers Refuse to Call Witnesses, Bauchi Govt Flags Off Tree Planting Campaign To Fight Desertification, New Forest Inaugurated in Carrillo to Mitigate Desertification and Drought, Overpopulation is what’s driving climate change, News in brief: Hungary’s air quality breach, surge of interest in Innovation Fund, soil strategy consultation, UK Climate Diplomacy Staff Cut Again as Post-Brexit Links to Trump and US Deniers Strengthen, Environmental Groups Fight Back Against Alberta’s 'Anti-Energy' Inquiry, Analysis: The Natural Gas Industry Is Trying To Deny How Affordable Renewable Energy Is, Just drifting: R.I.P. “There was a senior professor,” Tainter says, “with whom I didn’t get along.”. Complexity is “insidious,” in Tainter’s words. When one way doesn’t work, we try another. NOAA: Monthly State of the Climate Report, Post-Brexit Scrapping of Erasmus Student Exchange Harms Economy and Undermines UK Relations with Europe, Sedition caucus mimics Trump’s worst sin: Demolition of content—legal, moral, democratic or electoral, UK’s 5-day Hiatus from Christmas Lockdown May Pave the Way for Ill-Fated New Year for Britain's Poorest, Green New Deal, Part VIII: New Zealand’s Zero-Covid-19 Strategy Shows how Politics Can Serve the Common Good. All civilizations, especially complex ones, eventually collapse. More than a billion creatures(excluding frogs, insects, other invertebrates, or livestock) are estimated to have perished, and the wildlife that do manage to survive the country’s apocalyptic conditions are now at risk of starvation. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. 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With Earth Overshoot Day arriving ever earlier each year, we have arrived at the last stage of global civilization’s doubling time. In fact, they believe that the personal sacrifices needed to halt greenhouse gas emissions will create a public backlash towards such efforts. and Media Whitewash 'Reformer' Saudi Prince MBS as He Beheads Dissidents. And you should too. As always, we have no other choice. A farewell post: Three reasons why good science writing is worth defending. In colder, wetter years, the reverse held: The lowlands produced more than they needed while the growing season shrank in the highlands. specialized roles and the institutional structures that coordinate them, in order to solve problems. Yet another study released this week shows that Earth’s biodiversity is crashing under a perfect storm of global warming, extreme weather events, and human activity. Digg. The first round of QE started in 2009 after the housing bubble collapsed. The more a population is squeezed, Tainter warns, the larger the share that “must be allocated to legitimization or coercion.” And so it was: As U.S. military spending skyrocketed — to, by some estimates, a total of more than $1 trillion today from $138 billion in 1980 — the government would try both tactics, ingratiating itself with the wealthy by cutting taxes while dismantling public-assistance programs and incarcerating the poor in ever-greater numbers. Are Humans Inherently Unsustainable? Chacoan civilization had survived extended dry spells before. When I first spoke with Joseph Tainter in early May, he and I and nearly everyone else had reason to be worried. In our telephone conversations he was courteous but laconic, taking time to think before speaking, seldom offering more than he was asked. Ours, like many before, will be undone by overshoot of the environment’s carrying capacity, albeit this time on a planetary scale and with no second chance for a do-over. Why are Effective and Inexpensive Chinese and Russian Vaccines Unavailable in Much of the West? Tainter, who grew up in San Francisco and has spent all of his adult life in the West, has never been one to play Cassandra. GBOAT: Is This the Greatest Bubble of All Time? The fall of Minoan civilization has been attributed to a volcanic eruption and the subsequent invasion of Mycenean Greeks. And in the U.S., the last decade has been ‘unprecedented‘: The U.S. billion-dollar disaster damage costs over the last decade (2010-2019) were also historically large, exceeding $800 billion from 119 separate billion-dollar events. However, if you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The collapse of our civilisation is not inevitable. Decades of greenwashing, empty rhetoric, and regulatory capture by the fossil fuel industry have brought us to this precipice: As you can see, any mitigation efforts at this late date rely heavily on the fantasy of carbon capture with nonexistent technologies that, truthfully, will never scale up to the enormous problem. There is no Trumpism. But this doesn’t mean we have to give up hope. As horrific as the fires have made life on land, what’s happening in Australia’s oceans out of site and mind is equally disturbing, but of course this is not confined to Australia. Do you know how to put an ocean back together? Princeton has a research program in Global Systemic Risk, Cambridge a Center for the Study of Existential Risk. Why Are So Many Millions Still Mesmerized By A Loser Traitor Like Donald Trump? That’s bad for climate change, The Australia Clause and Kyoto Carryover Credits demystified, 5 Year Fossil Awards - the Paris Agreement Five years on and Australia, DELWP fails consumer choice on electricity plans and greenhouse gas emissions, Matters of fact that we ignore at our peril, New research on forests and oceans suggest projections of future warming may be too conservative, with serious consequences. Scholars tended to limit themselves to understanding single cases — the Akkadians, say, or the Lowland Classic Maya. The president of the United States had appeared to suggest treating the coronavirus with disinfectant injections. “As resources committed to benefits decline,” Tainter wrote in 1988, “resources committed to control must increase.”. Geologic and human time scales: How can we salvage our global civilization? 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How the fossil fuel industry convinced Americans to love gas stoves, Finding Common Ground (podcast episode 53), Shrinking Your Travel Footprint (podcast episode 52), Philosophy of Shrinking Footprints (podcast episode 51), Taking a Vacation from Carbon Emissions (podcast episode 50), Science Update: Arctic Permafrost, Mines Releasing Carbon, Public Health’s Response to Decline: Loyalty to the 1%, Hot Topic: Global Warming and the Future of New Zealand, Postcards from La La Land #132: time warps and twaddle, The final cut: crank paper on NZ temperature record gets its rebuttal – warming continues unabated, Anthropogenic climate change is real: pithy post-punk anthem for the Trump generation. The bill, introduced by two Democrats, would also ban the drilling method around schools and homes by the start of 2022, Solomon Islands: ship crew accused of dumping 1,000 tonnes of oil in sea | Solomon Islands, 'He Is Lying. 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We’re undergoing that process right now as anthropogenic climate disruption returns planet Earth to the chaotic climatic conditions of the Pleistocene —a time in which organized societies and agriculture will be impossible. Over the last 10 years, more and more scholars have, like McAnany, been questioning the entire notion of collapse. The bibliography alone stretched to 37 pages, and Tainter included an extensive section on the Chaco Canyon complex, which was more than 100 miles from Mount Taylor. Help! ‘Dirilis Ertugrul’ — A History We’ve Forgotten? In two and a half weeks, cases there leapt from 72 to more than 700.