Dear Reader;

The precious few folks who are still checking here for content deserve an apology and an explanation. I apologize for stiffing you for so long. And I want to explain.

I have been writing about the imminent collapse of industrial civilization in this space for 15 years, since the publication of my book on the subject, Brace for Impact. During that time I have often been asked if I have grown tired of making predictions that never come true. The answer is in two parts: 1) I do not make predictions, I am not qualified to do so, I report on the predictions of others; and 2) almost all of the predictions I have reported here are coming true, with the speed and immutability of a glacier.

The fact is that I am pretty much burned out on this issue. As was the case 15 years ago, the seas are still rising, the storms still intensifying, the forests are burning, the deserts spreading, the topsoil disappearing, emissions are setting new record highs every year, we are still running out of oil (despite the relentless hype to the contrary)  and governments are steadfastly ignoring all of it. In all this time, no meaningful action has been taken by our (US) government, or any other that I know of, to confront the multiple existential threats. The issue barely appears in public polls about “issues.” In one recent political poll, only nine percent of registered voters identified climate change as an important consideration.

Back when my book was published, the people who were crying out the equivalent of “The British are coming!” were outliers. Many scientists knew we were right, but did not wish to “alarm the public” — by which they meant to endanger their sources of funding — and for years they mumbled about how things were going to get really bad if we didn’t do something real soon. “Real soon” passed some time in the 1970s, when “the British” passed us and left us in the dust while we were riding our turtles at top speed to warn the home team. 

Now, as climate refugees begin to stream across the country, as funds for disaster relief become scarce and home insurance becomes prohibitively expensive or unavailable in stricken regions, as sea water invades coastal cities, towns, farms and aquifers, as summer temperatures soar to the limits of human survival in some of our major cities, whenever I try to write again about these steadily advancing threats, I find I have said what I have to say already, and I cannot find a reason to keep repeating myself.

Meanwhile, I have been writing in other venues about another lifelong interest of mine — politics. And while I have found no reason to be optimistic about the fate of our civilization in the long term, I am upbeat about the prospects for temporary relief offered by this year’s national elections. Once again I find myself taking an outlier’s position, but this time the outcome is within our grasp and will manifest in a few months. 

Whenever I have written about politics here the reaction from the regulars has been, well, tepid. But there aren’t many regulars left, and rather than leave a black hole here I propose to make my case in the next few months about the only institution in our country that is more endangered by its suicidal stupidity than industrial civilization — the Republican party. I am fully aware that this is the same thing as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but it is either that or, as one couple on the sinking ship famously did, just go to bed and wait for the end.      

If politics is not your cup of tea, I’m sorry yet again, but that is what floats my boats at the moment.

Next up: By the Numbers: Why Trump Cannot Win