Do you actually believe this tripe about “sacrifice?” Do you realize what could have been done with the trillions of dollars pissed away on the Iraq and Afghanistan “wars”? Let’s hear more about the super-rich doing some sacrificing. And quit wasting our money on Empire.

What Tokomi might be pointing out Sharon is that you and Heinberg, Kunstler, Greer, etc are acting as apologists for the power elite. At least Korten see the moral and spiritual reasons for opposing Empire, even if he doesnt realize that as long as the power elite doesnt FEAR the people, they will do as they please and take care of their own class while billions die.

You banter from the periphery of the literature while ignoring the bulk.

Having only opinions with their inherent fallibility and claiming no knowledge whatsoever, I remain convinced of what I have evolved to believe, not about timetables or minute details of the coming collapse as you intimate, but about the unavoidability of an imminent human dieoff. Could I be wrong? LOL I haven’t been right yet and I have never met a person that can predict the future.

Don’t get me started on Greer. Suffice it to say that I find little of his shared ruminations to retain any credibility at this late date. As is common, his excellent articulations are based on a core blind faith that everything will be ok in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

You see, it’s not so much that people are merely “ignorant or blind” as you selectively interpret of my allegations, it is predominantly that only a small percentage are mentally/physically able to contemplate the real possibility of the imminent end of industrial human society. It just won’t soak in.

…or so it all seems…

I’m done. Done!

~toktomi~

Like Dewey, Greer and everyone else, I’ve been hearing the apocalyptic narrative my whole life, and I agree, we are experiencing overshoot – but that doesn’t mean that the outcome that you predict is inevitable or right – I’ve come to another conclusions. It isn’t that you should keep your mouth shut, it is that you might consider offering a reasonable and civil disagreement for which you state the grounds of your analysis, rather than attacking everyone’s motivations and assuring us that you alone know the truth.

Sharon

Sharon

Maybe you, toktomi, know more about economics and “human dynamics” than any of us here, but economics is not what makes for survival. We, as a group, have plenty of knowledge about ecology and about poverty – that is, how humans in some places manage to live right now in dense populations, often on marginal lands, with virtually no fossil fuels or functioning cash economy. If they are doing it, then with our physical capital and educational resources, most Americans could learn to do it too. Sure, that’s my opinion, and I may be wrong. Given the failure of every dieoff prediction to date, though, you should have some humility about your own opinion too, not speak as if everyone who disagrees with you must be ignorant or blind.

“George C. Ball Jr., owner of the W. Atlee Burpee Company, said sales of vegetable and herb seeds and plants are up by 40 percent over last year”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/dining/11garden.html

“Registration for the 16th Annual Organic Growers School Spring Conference is now open! Be an early bird! Register before March 1st at 5pm and pay only $40 per day! We are capping attendance at our event for the first time ever this year. Hurry! Only 800 tickets each day. You can register here with a credit card, OR you may print a registration form and mail it in. ”
http://www.organicgrowersschool.org

“Last October, Americans traveled 3.5 percent fewer miles, on average, compared with a year earlier, according to the federal Department of Transportation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/business/economy/14gastax.html

“Americans rode subways, buses and commuter railroads in record numbers in the third quarter of this year, even as gas prices dropped and unemployment rose. The 6.5 percent jump in transit ridership over the same period last year marks the largest quarterly increase in public transportation ridership in 25 years, according to a survey to be released today by the American Public Transportation Association. ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/07/AR2008120702792.html

When an animal population in a particular area that is massively in excess of equilibrium crashes, some individuals survive but most do not.

In my estimation, to pretend that industrial human society is facing just another average survivable collapse reflects a lack of research regarding peak oil and human carrying capacity or an inability to draw the logical conclusions from the data or an inability to accept the obvious.

I can imagine nothing more difficult in this life than accepting that Richard Duncan’s Olduvai Theory provides the most probable explanation of the future of humanity offered anywhere by anyone.

I’ve been studying and watching this collapse unfold since mid-2000. Conditions have deteriorated significantly over the last 8½ years but the level of alarm in the population has increased only modestly. I have to admit that that is probably the way it has to be. To that end the corporate media has done its part and so have many popular bloggers and authors. At the same time I must also admit that at times I am afflicted by a hope and a desire that we could all come to the realization that this is not your average bad hair day, that humanity is on the verge of total collapse, and that if we are to have any chance of saving any significant number of people, then we will have to begin to come together in ways that we cannot yet even imagine and we will have to make sacrifices that even the thought of would be mind numbing.

So, troll?, no. It’s just that we are screwed and my frustration at the lack of real action bubbles over sometimes. And then there is the real possibility that the die-off is being purposefully allowed to occur. How else do you explain the monstrously insane notion of a desirable and technically possible economic recovery, the existence of such a plan to achieve such a fantasy, and an intent to manufacture nearly a trillion dollars to fund it? Keep the people distracted with ideas of false hope that they can escape into right up to the moment of disaster. The Nazis did it to millions of Jews – it works. It will work again but I get sad and a bit mad at times.

I really need to keep quiet – nobody, neither those who will suffer only a little nor those who will suffer excruciatingly, wants the truth out. And as Perry Arnett observed years ago, “it will be in no one’s best interest to factually report the reality of the decline of fossil fuels once it begins in earnest” which it surely has.

To squrrl and Jen, only after you have approached a level anywhere approaching the 4000 hours [minimum] that I have invested throughout the last 8½ years in the study of peak oil, human dynamics, the economy, and other related subjects and only after you have achieved some improved degree of serious civility will I possibly be able to consider as possessing any credibility your as yet ill-intentioned and poorly conceived comments. Stated simply, there is lot happening and Sharon’s role in all of it is not trivial. Her role is not huge but it’s not without it’s worth. I understand your loyalty and your desire to defend her. But, you see, for a few years now, I have felt that along with a few others she has been abdicating, not so much her duty, but her ability to affect positive change in at least public attitudes and knowledge. So, periodically but infrequently, I prod. Now, I think that your comments could use a little more background research and little more forethought.

I won’t blather on at length like this ever again.

May You Be Among The Survivors

~toktomi~

The rioting broke out Tuesday after around 10,000 people protested in historic Dome Square over the economic troubles and grievances involving corruption and competence of the government.

Protests in Latvia, he said, tended to follow a pattern of “standing, singing and just going home,” but the young protesters who showed up on Tuesday evening “seem to think the Greek or French way of expressing anger is better,” he said.

“In our neck of the woods, this just doesn’t happen,” he said. “But it did this time. Everyone is trying to figure out how much of this was provoked. Who are these people? Where did they come from?”

“In six months, we’re going to look back and yesterday will be a watershed,” he said. “I would be deeply surprised if it were not.”

To quote a little Ben Harper “when the people lead, the leaders they will have to follow.”

People do all sorts of things when backed into a corner, some of which aren’t pretty. We need thoughtful and strategic action to produce long lasting sustainability, not a patchwork of panic reactions.

But I hope you are right, because I’d rather be wrong on this one.

M