Tag Archives: industrial collapse

The Crash of 2015, Day 49: Hell to Pay

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You have this perfectly good structure, and then you kick out a few of the supporting pillars, and the next thin you know the SEC is on the phone.

What do you mean, Uncle Clarence didn’t believe they were going to do it, and stayed in his room?

I know, it’s old news. If I stop by on Monday and tell Oscar Oblivious that his house appears to be on fire, he is of course concerned. But when I stop by on Wednesday to say it’s still burning, has consumed most of the structure, and collapse appears to be imminent, he demands to know why I am bothering him with old news. The Crash of 2015, the burn and crash of the economies of much of the world into — at least — serious recession for a very long time, is well under way. It is of course no news at all for the mainstream media, transfixed as they are with simpler stories of happier, imaginary times. But for you who come here from time to time, it’s old news. How is it then that you are still in the burning house? Continue reading →

The Crash of 2015: Day 21 [Update: Day 22]

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Hold on a second, we’ve changed our minds. Can you just hold it right there, please? We’ve decided we like it the way it is…..

The economy of the United States and the world is on fire, and with the flames and smoke visible in any direction one cared to look, the President of the United States declared last night that the worst is over, “the shadow of crisis has passed,” and happy days are here again. In reality (a state that presidents and candidates for president never seem to visit) 2015 is shaping up to be one of the worst any of us have ever seen.

It’s a potent mix of flammable situations, from an unhinged stock market to a drought-ravaged West to the fiscal convulsions of China, Russia and Europe. But for us in America, the collapse of the bogus New American Oil Revolution is the fire that’s burning hottest and spreading fastest. This is how it’s likely to go: Continue reading →

The Oil Crash is Under Way [UPDATED 12/13]

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When big trees come down, they start slow and end with a crunch. (Photo by geograph.org.uk)

When big trees come down, they start slow and end with a crunch. (Photo by geograph.org.uk)

When you are felling a really big tree, the first signs that it is coming down are subtle; a crack here and there, a twitching of the crown. By the time these clues register on you, the tree is on its way down. The cracks and twitches from the U.S. oil industry are coming almost hourly now, and although it is a really big tree, and won’t actually hit the ground until next year, its fate is pretty well sealed. Here are this week’s signs and portents: Continue reading →

Global Warming Problem Solved

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Yes we can keep our environment cool and pristine. The medicine, however, is a little strong. (Photo by Mohri United Nations University)

Yes we can keep our environment cool and pristine. The medicine, however, is a little strong. (Photo by Mohri United Nations University)

The paper was published in 2009, and those who have not ignored it since, have ridiculed it. (Sort of like Darwin’s theories, or plate tectonics, or Hubbert’s view of peaking oil.) Odd, because in a way it confirmed the fervent hope of millions that technology, which has sickened the world with its pollution — never forget, please, that climate change is a pollution problem — would restore our health with a magic pill we could take, and wake up to find the problem gone. The paper, by Tim Garrett of the University of Utah, applied the laws of physics to the cumulative behavior of human civilization, and thus discovered the magic pill. Unfortunately, it was cyanide.

But let’s focus on the good news. Continue reading →

2014: The Last Good Year

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For what we are about to lose, Dear Lord, we thank You. (Photo by Terren in Virginia/Flickr)

For what we are about to lose, Dear Lord, we thank You. (Photo by Terren in Virginia/Flickr)

Thanksgiving is coming, and Christmas and Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and New Year’s, and we should make the best of them. These are the good old days, and we should celebrate them well, because we are probably not going to see their like again. Gas is cheaper than it was, and we should go to see the relatives this year, because next year will be different. Food is a little more expensive than it was, yet we should eat hearty nevertheless, because next year will be different. We still have plenty of water (if we don’t live in California, or Brazil, or North Africa, or any of a multitude of other places being seared by implacable drought) but, because of changing climate and advancing pollution, next year could be different. The lights are still on, but the aging grid is creaking and groaning with the effort of meeting our burgeoning demand, and next year could well be different. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet. Continue reading →

Renowned Scientist Says Global Collapse “Likely”

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(graph by net_efekt/flickr)

(graph by net_efekt/flickr)

According to a paper appearing in the March Proceedings of the Royal Society, “Now, for the first time, a global collapse [of civilization] appears likely.” The paper makes, in a scholarly, peer-reviewed manner, many of the same points about the existential threats that I made in my book Brace for Impact:Surviving the Crash of the Industrial Age. According to Paul R. Ehrlich’s paper, titled “Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?” the threats include  toxic pollution, land degradation, scarcity of water and oil, plagues, resource wars (perhaps nuclear), over-consumption, overpopulation and the overarching threat multiplier, climate change.

Continue reading →

UN, Oxfam Reports: Brace for Impact.

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Oxfam volunteers demonstrate for non-readers the combined effects of rising seawater (climate change) and rising food prices. (AFP Photo/Alexander Joe)

The drumbeat of dire warnings continues about the inevitable and imminent collapse of the world’s food supply before the combined onslaughts of industrial agriculture and climate change. Despite the increasing number of scientific reports documenting ever more ominous conditions and prospects worldwide, the response from the people who could conceivably do something about it has been a collective yawn. The two latest cries of “fire” in our crowded theater came this week: Continue reading →

Zombie Weeds Attack: Desperate Farmers Resort to Hoes

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No, the weeds didn’t kill the truck, but they are making the point that they will be there after the truck is gone. Zombie weeds, on the other hand, are making a much more aggressive point. (Photo by Dave 7/Flickr)

Farmers across the Midwest and South — those whose crops are not under water or blowing away in a hot, dry wind — are besieged by an enemy straight out of a stupid horror movie: an army of undead weeds that cannot be killed by chemicals. It’s as if you shot the heart out of an attacking enemy soldier and he just kept on coming. Cotton producers in the South have deployed armies with hoes to chop down weeds with stems up to four inches in diameter that shrug off the best herbicides that money can buy. Continue reading →

New York Times Explodes Natural-Gas Bubble

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The thing about a gas bubble is, it's flammable. (Photo by Andrew Kuznetsov/Flickr)

Once in a great while a newspaper (“The few. The frail. The fading.”) reminds us why we need newspapers, and why we are going to miss them. There are no other institutions left whose purpose (speaking here of the practitioners, not the investors) is to seek the facts and tell the truth. On Friday, the New York Times published the results of an exhaustive review of America’s natural-gas industry, which has been energized by the discovery of a new way to unlock gas from shale, and has pronounced it to be — to paraphrase — a fraud. Continue reading →

Wall Street Bulls Trampling Farmland

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”]The idiots savant who lead Wall Street stampedes off cliffs have a new sure thing: by which they mean a sure-fire, get-rich-quick scheme; and from which we should infer, take cover. First, the savant part; more and more of them are coming to believe that when you apply arithmetic and logic to the rate at which the industrial world is destroying natural resources, you are led to the conclusion that the edifice is going to crash. (Also see “Hedge Fund Guy Says Brace for Impact: Believe it Now?”) The idiot part is, they want to get rich from the crash, as they cling to the pathetic belief that, after the crash, having lots of money is going to be useful. So they are pumping up a new investment bubble — farmland. Continue reading →