Open Thread - 10-29-21 - Castles Made of Sand
I apologize for this greatly truncated and over simplified version of events. I wanted to quickly hop, skip and jump over the premise to get to the point. Admittedly, much has been omitted in the run up to current affairs, so please bear with my brevity and hopefully it will appear somewhat coherent. This is an age old dialogue that we've all contemplated for decades, but it is now staring us right square in the face, much to our chagrin.
The day the hunter-gatherer stepped foot from the forest and scratched the earth to plant a crop was the day that set us on the path where we find ourselves today. Because of this new sedentary lifestyle brought on by agriculture and animal husbandry, villages, towns, and cities were subsequently established due to the capacity to store enough surplus food stuffs to survive the winter. Humans like feeling safe and their bellies full.
As the population grew and soil lost its fertility, water dried up and/or fouled, the need for new fresh dirt and water to grow ever larger crops led to outward expansion. This expansion often led to war with neighbors. As these populations grew into city states it foreshadowed empire. As empires grew so did the demand for more resources, a demand that prompted even further expansion and further conquest.
Empires gobbled each other up in the insatiable quest for more land, wealth and resources. The richer the soil and the more abundant the water and resources, the wealthier the empire became. Great wealth was accumulated as a result of the demise of the vanquished. Empire grew ever larger. Until empire reached the sea. But the sea didn't stop empire, it simply jumped the oceans and landed upon huge, new frontiers to exploit. New land, new resources, new wealth, new conquest. It was inevitable though, that one day, empire would reach the saturation point. Empire would eventually run out of new frontiers to exploit.
In my humble opinion, we have reached, or are near the saturation point, it is
undeniable that we are running out of resources. Certainly viable land to grow food and clean water, but most significantly, we are running out of energy, or should I say, cheap energy. One can read that between the lines of just about everything nowadays. Cheap oil spurred the exponential growth of the last century or so, from feeding the world with modern farming practices, to destroying the world through weapons of war. But now the world seems to be winding down. The need for infinite growth on a finite planet may have hit the wall. The old system is failing.
Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.
How the hell do we get out of this mess? I certainly don't like the idea of The Great Reset. Now, The Great Leadership Reset, I'd be all for that. We have seen where greed and power can lead to with sociopaths in control. The Great Reset is for the hoi polloi not for them, don't you know.
Is it too late for a new paradigm that may mitigate the societal consequences caused by dwindling resources? Other than one that retains the hold the oligarchs have on the throttle, per The Great Reset. (Note: I hate the words; oligarchs, the elite, the aristocracy, I much prefer calling them maggots.)
Will we, should we, look beyond the earth for alternative resources?
And now for the difficult question, the one that everyone dodges because who, quite frankly, wants to lead by example: Logic dictates that overpopulation is the cause of our current condition. How do we address that? Can the earth support almost 8 billion people equitably? If so, for how long.
Folks, I know that this conversation will inevitably lead to the proposition that "Mother Nature will take care of it all" via epidemics, so if you must bring up pandemics, please do it in general terms and please do not be specific to the current pandemic. So if you would, please post all covid 19 discussion in The Dose open thread and please keep any discussion of epidemic/pandemic in this thread germain to this article. Thank you.
Further reading: The Oil We Eat
Comments
Good morning folks...
I thought that the ability to prepare for the future was one of the major differences that separated we humans from the animals. It may be true in the micro sense, but that characteristic obviously doesn't seem to be wide spread in the macro, with Homo sapien sapien anyway.
I think the hunter-gatherers had it right.
I live in southest Arizona,
, technically a desert. We had a heck of a year for rain, though, (much needed). It produced a bumper crop of native grasses, and as they dried, the ants formed major highways, and a transportation system to carry all those grass seeds safely underground, for storage.
Likewise, we had morning glories Like I have never seen before, twining and blooming everywhere. The bees made good use of the nectar, and stored it in their own elaborate food storage structures.
I respectfully submit that we build similar systems, to feed all of our species, to cultivate our crops with an eye toward sustainable food cultivation, for next year and next decade. We need to recognize that, while we can eat meat, we (as a species) have never eaten meat (or facsimilies of meat) on the scale that we demand today. Balance, with an eye to the future, as well as taking care of the needs of all of us. (Even maggots have a place...cleaning up rot and fecal material...we should ensure that they get their due.)
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Psychedlic version
Thanks for the OT!
Off to work ..
Not that I think it will happen, but...
if we could have a societal, economic reset I like the Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, approach. The link is for a pdf of the book, but here's a short summary.
This approach to a society reduces the energy requirement because small communities are walkable and bikable, decentralized alternate energy more easily utilized, gardens and produce easily shared, and so on. TPTB would fight tooth and nail against such a system for their profits and rotten economic system would not be needed. However, we as individuals can operate more on that level.
I enjoyed your story today, but would remind you the Amish farmers soils are more fertile now that when they were first farmed (for the most part). In other words we can farm and preserve and even enhance soil fertility...just not with chemicals. Animals are necessary to enhance fertility. Perhaps the most tragic outcome of agriculture is deforestation and loss of diversity. Much like the scale we see today in the Amazon.
A first step toward survival would be to create cooperative societies rather than the competitive warmongering approach of the modern world. Fortunately we can act as individuals. Sadly I think the die is cast and I suspect human extinction within 100-200 years. Hell might happen much quicker.
Well, thanks for the thought provoking essay. Sure is a topic in my wheelhouse and an area I've long considered. So to sum up, we could transition to a sane stable economy and society, but greed and profit are a more powerful force than future survival.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning lo...
I certainly agree that the farm land has been mismanaged. Instead of natural fertilizer we load up the soil with oil-based chemical fertilizer, that do harm to the essential microbes. Eventually that will bite us in the butt when oil becomes too scarce to produce the fertilizer that's needed yearly to grow the huge harvests. There will be no cheap solution to that problem. Harvests will crash. Not to mention the pesticides and the loss of top soil every year. It's a sad and sorrowful situation.
If you get a chance read the piece I linked to at the bottom of the OT, The Oil We Eat. I read that stark assessment many years ago and it still haunts me to this day. I think you would find it very interesting.
it was very interesting...
and correlates closely with my thinking.
The long lived Sioux come to mind
...
It was also over grazing by goats and deforestation.
And sure enough it is, like it or not.
Thanks again for the reminder to read your link!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Small communities
The Transition Movement was geared to that very approach.
I first learned of the Transition Movement when I attended Occupy Tallahassee and a presentation on Transition Towns was made to the group. The Transition Movement began in Great Britain and I believe several towns have implemented the steps to become locally sustainable. I have not done much research recently so I cannot attest to if this movement has gained any momentum here in the United States.
It appears that smaller towns and communities would have an easier time becoming a Transition Town. However, there is no reason why neighborhoods in larger cities could not implement steps toward becoming a transition community by implementing things such a community gardens and farmer's markets as a beginning to getting the people to think and buy local.
On a parallel path is the Blue Zones program which is intended to promote community wellness through lifestyle changes. While much of the Blue Zones project focuses on diet and exercise, there is a very strong community building component to it. My town in North Carolina was chosen as the first Blue Zone in the state and is in its second year of implementation. This program has been very well received and I believe it is making a difference locally.
Our modern lifestyles have created a sense of isolation and lack of community among the general population. The powers that be increase their power when we are fragmented, but we can get back to the basics of small communities and gain greater control over our lives and well being.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Great ideas and much more human scaled.
This is what we need, and we don't have to lose much except maybe the frenzy we've gotten used to.
Nice seeing you.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
love the Transition Movement
...and never heard of it till now.
The blue zones of long lived people I'm very familiar with. Great idea having your city promote that varied approach (which include many different diets from meat, blood, and milk to sweet potatoes and fish). I fear the US approach is non-meat centric. Which I need to devote an entire essay to the topic. I kinda have one in mind....the meat of the matter....so to speak.
Hope to get to the topic soon. Again I appreciate the introduction to the transition movement!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The Land
https://twitter.com/i/status/1453932603531276290
https://twitter.com/sandyjfisher/status/1453932603531276290
In Stephen Donziger's 1 minute and 41 seconds of this video you can learn the salient facts about Texaco/Chevron and the lack of free speech in the USA.
NYCVG
Looks to me
like we're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
The music is good though.
[video:[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56SHlnUrhuM]]
I don't think that the end of petro-based fertilizers and
biocides will be the end of farming or that it has to crash.
The catch is that the big money and power people have to give up on owning everything and monoculture farming.
'Wilding' by Pamela Tree and anything lately by Suzanne Simard are blueprints for successful sustainable agriculture. Fantastic way out of our land use, farming, food dilemas.
And it can be transitioned very quickly, literally in several years. It doesn't take long to let Nature work her wonders and us reap the benefits.
The more people than we can sustain problem is so horrid on so many levels, I can't hazard how it will go.
If we had time, which I don't think we do, higher education for everyone, local food and goods like the Amish ways, seems to cut down on populations very quickly. Many countries today are not replacing their population and are declining.
There is always the panic of having more older people and fewer young people to take care of or fund the old ones. We forget the tremendous bank of knowledge older people have about things like how to survive without becoming a hedge fund manager. If we could place value on knowledge and ability, then maybe we wouldn't have the panic either.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
As long as we are part of a machine
called capitalism we can't change. We are at a point that capitalism only works for those with enough capital. So much of capitalism is concerned with extraction of raw materials, creating something saleable while leaving pollution for society to clean up. Those with capital today are solely concerned with attaining and hoarding more capital.
The rest of us make a living that ultimately is dependant on enriching capitalists, either by working directly for them, buying their stuff, or supporting politicians that ultimately benefit them, or both. That's bad because todays capitalists have been hollowed out by greed and vanity and have no real desire to preserve anything that they don't own.
As to overpopulation, one way could be to pay you not to have kids, as in be sterilized before you reproduce and we'll pay you $75,000 a year for the rest of your life. Of course with American capitalism it would just be easier to start a war and reduce the population while making a profit.
It is the logical progression,
of course.
Thanks to the Cree people for one of my favorite quotes: “Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish has been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”
Soon. Soon, indeed.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Maggots,
Good choice. Noted.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
You're right
, about maggots, they are good at cleaning up rot. It's just when they start helping themselves to everything else that things get out of whack.
An eye opener
Recycle
Addressing the concerns above regarding soil depletion and sterilization, I am successfully creating "living soil" by largely composting leaf fall.
I collect loads of leaves from mulitible neighbors and add my own to a small mountain that gets mixed with loose soil, cow manure, biochar, bone meal, year round food scraps,and lime, as needed.
It gets turned every month and cooks for about 18 months before being formed into 50' raised beds.
It has become very fertile and by using the Emma Stout method of mulching heavily with straw and other organics the soil biome is automatically replenished.
Currently, I'm using the tighty-whitey method of testing the soil, which involves burying 100% cotton underwear for 90 days. If the soil is alive and healthy they will be completely consummed.
This coming spring will be my 4th year of experimentation and I will have samples tested in a lab.
But the proof is in the puddin'. This last season I had bumper crops that I gave back to my leaf suppliers, family, neighbors, and the local food bank.
Bottom line, depleted soils may not be able to be recovered, but anyone can grow good soil on top of it.
Thanks JtC for a great topic to munch on. And thanks to everyone for the brilliant commentary.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
good
stuff.
A modern-day Cortez The Killer like Elon Musk wants to send empire into space: nuke Mars, and the like, so he and his can live there.
But it’s not going to happen.
Money, cities, jobs: they’re all going to go.
The change comes, one human at a time:
Species breed unchecked when they’re under stress. When they’re not, they don’t. When Europeans commonly popped out 13 children, it was because, generally, only one or two would live to reach adulthood. Today, they're in negative birth replacement. Except for the migrants they accept. Peoples fleeing stress. These days, the human population, worldwide, is at stasis, or declining, pretty much everywhere but sub-Saharan Africa. When those people are no longer under such stress, it will stabilize there too.
It’s going to be okay.
My perception
of what you've described so well has changed a bit because last year I read Jim Kunstler's 2005 book, The Long Emergency.
What moved me in the direction you and other commenters advocate, like becoming hunter gatherers (!) or toward living in smaller towns, where I thought I already agreed but now get more emphatically, is that Kunstler points out everything we survive on now uses oil for its production, its industrial manufacture, and its transportation, and that our treated water, our food, our medicine, and our birth control, which separate us from serious suffering, also depend on oil.
Just now, I looked at my email, and truthout had sent me an article entitled, "Democrats Will Subpoena Big Oil to Force Disclosure of Climate Denial Campaigns." Exactly. This is where I now see the hypocrisy. I live in a notoriously Progressive west coast city. I challenge any city in America to have more gridlock car traffic all day, comprising commuter traffic, driving kids to school, picking kids up from school, driving kids to daycare, driving kids to sports practice, grocery shopping, medical appointments, delivery traffic, construction traffic, lunch hour traffic, and circling for parking. Constant gridlock of SUVs, trucks, and semi-trucks. Not to mention road repair.
How is this the oil companies' fault? What I see now when the so-called progressive community blames the oil companies for our disaster is that they're saying, "Oil Companies: Stop Pouring Oil On Us!" What? That's not what's happening. If the oil companies stopped supplying our daily needs, as we are constituted now, toilet paper would be the least of our worries.
You are so right. We are going to have to start over.
The hunter gatherers diet was much healthier.
I basically have switched to a very low starch, hunter gatherer diet and I have lost more than 30 lbs in a bit less than two months. And I feel much better. I've completely stopped eating bread-like foods, and sugar, and am eating a lot of protein, and fats. No sugar! And fasting a day here and there. I feel fine. Some fruit is okay in moderation. It works. Yes, I am eating meat. But not a super lot. Its possible that we made a fundamental mistake at some point and got hooked on grains. That might have been a mistake. That's why rates of Type 2 diabetes are soaring all around the world.
Mr Meta and did the same thing several years ago
with the same outcome. The weight loss was not planned or forced. It just happened. Congratulations.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
That sounds like the city I left not that long ago.
SOMETHING JUST BROKE..
And we had to go. NOW.
It took us almost all day just to drive out of it . It was just wall to wall traffic. God forbid there was some major emergency. Several bridges make it so very difficult.
TheOLD SHELL GAME over ENERGY. HEAT PUMP SHELL GAME!
and drive lots of people out of their homes. Lots of parts of the country will be too expensive to live in because of the insane cost of heat. I can see them gearing up to do this.
Its time to insulate - well. Don't fall for the heat pumps scam. Talk about smoke and mirrors!!!
Its just smoke and mirrors, They are gearing up to force big changes so they can sell off the natural gas that's in the US, for top dollar. As soon as they can because people will be needing the gas and heat, and the money from it as jobs are replaced by AI. People, being expensive likely wont be needed for ther traditional work. Machines will do the jobs. .
They hope to be able to pull off bait and switch and massive redevelopment. TAX MONEY SHOULD NOT GO TO FUND THIS RACKET BECAUSE THEY FULLY INTEND TO MAKE LOTS OF GULLIBLE POOR PEOPLE HOMELESS. Would you pay for that? Should you?
They wont build back better, or quite possibly at all. I would bet.
Read up on the huge scms that have been done with eminent domain and redevelopment funds in California. California taxpayers paying tremendous bills and losing huge amounts of money.
Tax money is being funneled to rich developers and people pushed out of their homes. All using an excuse that the buildings to be torn doiwn are blighted.
It wont be better as the new ugly buildings they build where the old ones stood are often really hideously ugly. And not just because of the odious stench of what they represent... They will be ugly and cost much much more so much that most people who live in cities today cant afford them. The former residents will have to move out permanently. They will receive no buyout or other compensation for their formerly affordble rented homes and without a place to live will have to leae their jobs, many will lose pensions and so rendering years of work a loss for them.. Even a buyout of a half a million dollars per family would not make up their loss!
Beware of the CHURNERS..
The CHURN is what they are pushing. They appeal to the would be rich offering up the opportunity to churn, to get rich quick by pushing people out of their homes. This is the classic colonialism situation. No politician ever comes with gifts. If something seems too good to be true it most certainly is.
This is why people should not have given the corrupt parties their votes in the last three decades like they did.
Whats work like in the suburbs and exurbs. There is lots of retail but retail is shrinking fast.. People need much more education. And if people had it they would have enough money to stay in the city and the big PUSH thats coming would not be an absolute emergency for you. The impact on you might be costly, but the risk of becoming homeless and losing all your belongings and your entire support network - would be practically none. Housing is very tight in nice suburbs. Because it seems that post COVID so many in the city want out, wants to live here. Housing is very tight. There are it seems very few apartments and the ones that exist are spread far apart. There is practically no public transport and its all set up to get people to and from work, Buying food will be very difficult for families that lack cars. SO prepare for this so you wont be caught in a trap.
Beware of the heat pump scam. At the end of the day its just a way to conceal that people are being pushed out of their homes en masse.. And energy is being used as the pretext to kick them out. and steal taxpayers money to do this. Also people will be forced to switch to electricity for everything which costs so mucgh that its likely impossible for many to afford.
It sounds like North Korea where many people exist in perpetually freezing or broiling cold/dry or hot/humid environments.
Don't let scammers convince you that "heat pumps" are adequate means to heat your home economically. Would you heat your home with an air conditioner? Because that is basically what they are. And they use lots of electricity.
An equivalent amount of het generated that way costs at least three times or more as much here and the price will keep going up fast as the demand for natural gas elsewhere rises. It is already very high and once it starts being sold off by the boatload (the conversion of import terminals to export terminals has only begun.. Soon it will be being sold off to satisfy the growing demand of Asia and African states. The price of electricity, unless you generate it yourself and have some way of storing it will soar. Or so Ive been told. In fact it already has started to happen in Australia and Europe. People are giving their electrical appliances, and powerful computer servers away because they cant afford to use them.
Using heat pumps will cost you more for energy than it costs now. But you will get much less heat for your money. I have both kinds of heat gas and electric and the electriuc only goes on when I am working and staying in one room, with the door shut. (to keep the heat in) and I am very good at saving electricity. We have invested a lot in insulation. Thats the best way to save energy. That and LED lighting right where you work. Heating already costs us a lot though in the winter. And it really sucks always livng in the cold. Because the price of electricity goes up and up as the price of natural gas goes up so no advantage is gotten from (electric powered smoke and mirrors, (heat pumps) I tell you I have never heard as much bullshit as the mess of confusion when I brought up heat pumps. And I have an engineer in my family who actually has an advanced degree in this kind of stuff. It seems that this energy scheme is a lot like the old shell game they play at the back of the bus.. Beware. They want your home and they want your money.
unless there actually is a lot of free heat you can use somewhere and its very warm relative to the outside.. For example, if you could extract 50 degree air from a cave. Otherwise youre better off sticking with exactly what you have now. Or perhaps switching to oil? (make sure to use a steel indoor tank, not an old buried tank. I they leak they can cost a small fortune to clean it up. A friend lives in a very sunny, California like climate and similarly, gas is going into the stratosphere. He got a totally electric car. On his house, he has solar panels, a lot of them. This basically pays for itself as he runs his car off of it and he's saved thousands of dollars with it. This works out well for him financially. He basically is getting free electricity from the sun during the daytime. He's lucky that the (subtropical) climate there (its comparable to San Diego, CA.is so mild they need very little heat in the winter. People in cold areas might want to consider moving to the South before the prices go way up on heating because thats going to impact how much they can get for an existing home as people will factor in the energy costs.. Some parts of the US, he areas where it gets bitter cold will likely see a lot of outward migration. Similarly, lots of landlords are looking forward to selling buildings and getting out of the landlording biz using the cost jump in heating as their excuse. Nobody wants to put people out on the street. But there is a limit to peoples ability to endure economic losses. The costs of heating will go up a lot, hundres of dollars a month.
Maybe they will create grants for the poorest people. Thats what they are doing in England, where energy costs have been very high for decades now already. This unpayable Energy debt is a big thing there. Like health care here. I hope they dont lose their NHS. I think they will starting next year because of a hidden gotcha from Brexit and the GATS. We could lose Social Security and Medicare for a similar reason. Read the Annex on Financial Services text. Both of them, the GATS(WTO) one and the TISA one at Wikileaks.. Read them, and trace it out.
Hey JtC interesting topic, and maybe the most important one...
Where do we go from here? I'm with you on The Great Leadership Reset. At the same time, there is a new book out from David Graeber and David Wengrow that might suggest that the Premise as outlined above is not entirely correct. It might not matter, since how we got here might just be historically interesting but not useful to where we go from here. By that I mean it might be a *little* to late to change in the face of climate and other issues staring us in the face.
There is also a recent interview with David Wengrow on the Srsly Wrong podcast for those interested. I've only listened to this one podcast from them. Not a fan of their little fantasy vignettes outside the interview, but you can fastforward through them...
Thanks for everything you do.
Edit to add: There is a good review of the book at the Atlantic that might be more efficient.
Lifeboat rules
Thanks, JtC, for the notion of saturation.
When we had room (including resource space) to expand, we could afford libertarian rules.
Now our world is saturated, and we have to live by lifeboat rules.
And thanks for the Hendrix.