Tags
Canfield Ocean, Collapse of Industrial Civilization, Dystopic Future, Extinction of Man, Inverted Totalitarianism, Mass Die Off, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Technophiliacs, The Anthropocene Age, The Great Cleansing
I’ll admit, I don’t really read far into any of the scientific analyses. They all point the same direction: massive discontinuity and unpredictability, what some describe as nonlinear. Armed as I am with only a modest science education, the most basic fact still able to be grokked by the masses is that we live on a water world, where oceans are both the base of the food chain and the creator/regulator of the air we land-based creature breathe. The oceans need not die in their totality before withdrawal of their support functions kills us, yet we behave as if it’s all expendable. We can’t even admit such basic biological mechanisms, so the oceans are simultaneously overharvested and used as dump sites for everything. Real smart, like the rest of collective mistakes.”
~ Brutus
Hello fellow collapsitarians, train wreck rubberneckers, concerned citizens, and everyone in between. My time for respite from the horrors of capitalist industrial civilization has arrived wherein I let this site sit fallow for a couple of weeks. When I rail against capitalism, this doesn’t by default make me a proponent of communism or any other ‘ism’. Globalized capitalism is what has conquered the world and it happens to be the current ‘ism’ destroying the biosphere with the industrial efficiency and speed of a Nazi gas chamber. The time to have created another ‘ism’ which may have saved humans from omnicide has long since passed. We are hurdling towards the end of the Anthropocene and into a period I call ‘The Great Cleansing’, whereby Mother Nature scrubs the Earth of all the hubristic artifacts and baggage of modern man. Of course there will quite a bit of noxious material that she’ll have to deal with and absorb such as radioactive waste, plastics, and CO2, but what is a few million years of remediation when compared to the Earth’s age of nearly 5 billion years with perhaps another 7.5 billion to go until consumed by the Sun. Despite all the insults and neglect that she has suffered at our hands, she will probably allow a small tribe of humans to survive the bottleneck. It would be a shame for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault to have no beneficiaries, would it not?
What was our major downfall? I think we put too much faith in technology. Indeed we have used our big brains to solve many seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but we’ve put our technological cleverness on a pedestal at the expense of everything else. Technology has become the God of the 21st Century, the saviour for all of industrial civilization’s increasingly complex and insoluble problems. Granted, it has allowed man to search the stars and decode the DNA of life, but in the process it has clouded our memory of where we’ve come from, the womb from whence we were born. We’re just temporary visitors here with no preeminent right to rule the world above all other living things, and it looks increasingly like we have overstayed our welcome. While Homo sapiens are busy arguing about who or what is responsible for their current predicament, Mother Nature is slowly ramping up her fury. Geophysical forces on a planetary scale have been unleashed; they can no longer be contained by the scientific computations and laboratory tinkerings of mankind. The die has been cast and our fate sealed. No geo-engineering scheme or whiz-bang techno fix can contain her. As the Arctic melts away, followed by the Greenland ice sheet, and then the West Antarctic, our coastal cities will succumb to the sea. Jet streams and hydrologic cycles will transfigure themselves. Our once hospitable and stable seasons for agriculture will become erratic, the water sparse, and the land barren. The great oceanic currents will stall and break down, creating the anoxic and purple-hued waters of a ‘Canfield Ocean‘. As Paul said, the human race is “living in some kind of fantasy land, a land in which truth is avoided”, but a handful of us have peered into the abyss of the unfolding eco-apocalypse, and the stark reality of mankind’s own extinction has been seared into our brains.
How do we go on from here? …one day at a time. What once was important has become trivial. This would include all of the trappings and illusions of mainstream culture. Functioning in this “fantasy world” and going through the motions seems otherworldly and fake. We feel like blurting our what we know to those around us, but we can’t. There’s a straitjacket awaiting us at the nearest insane asylum. No one believes what the cold hard facts and trends have told us after we discarded the rose-tinted glasses society demands everyone wear. And why should they? It’s a traumatic experience to the psyche. Everything about the world you have been taught, all the myths of eternal progress and man’s place in the universe, comes crashing down in a thousand pieces.
So the question remains of how to live in a world of illusions and fakery. Gravitate towards that which is real. Shut off your TV and walk outside to breath in the summer air and run your fingers along the bark of an ancient tree, hike into the wilderness and watch the stars at night, spend one-on-one time with those close to you. They don’t need to know what you know; most will refuse to believe the facts even when meticulously laid out before their eyes. Leave them in their comfort zone, at least for a little while longer or until they become curious. A citizen of modern industrial civilization who confronts the horrific future awaiting their unsustainable way-of-living is like a drug abuser trying to deal with his self-destructive addiction. Both are under the spell of a very powerful force that does not let go until death. They are prisoners, mentally and physically. To talk about this dark subject, the collapse of industrial civilization and mankind’s impending extinction, join a group of like-minded people. Such clubs seem to be growing these days.
It’s a bit odd talking into the ether of the internet to people I will never meet or hear the voices of, but such a venue is really the only place a dissident voice can be heard in today’s atomized and one-dimensional society. For the reasons discussed above, I cannot speak of these disturbing topics to anyone else. This is my only outlet.
Collapse of Industrial Civilization 
I’m right there with you. Enjoying these halycon days as much as I can. Bless our beautiful world and may we meet our fate with equanimity.
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I have having been growing increasingly worried at the prospect of NTE. I have been trying to find some way that the rate of change could be stalled. For example if we have a complete economical collapse, how would that affect emissions? And would it be enough to stall the problems? Perhaps after chaos, rioting and mayhem (no doubt there will be a lot) the people left will turn to burning wood. Would there be enough wood to burn? No doubt there will be some coal we have access to still. Would the added aerosols be able to cool the planet down and give it a “breather”. Even in this scenario, there is no guarantee I will be around – although for some future generations there might be light in the end of the tunnel.
No doubt the acidification of the oceans will linger and make life difficult and although the earth can sustain current acidification somewhat, a couple more decades of CO2 emissions might give it the acidity that will be terminal no matter how much time we give it with a “breather”. Perhaps there will be some progress in simpler geo-engineering with some way of filtering the oceans (and air) if governments realise the problem in the near future (doesn’t seem likely). It would have to be a Manhattan sized project for every country on the planet then.
A lot of “if”s – but perhaps what one need to be able to cling to some hope.
As for talking about this, I have been seriously considering making a presentation of our predicament and present that at work, but I am not really sure if I would be looked upon as a loony. Haha. I believe its possible to present the problems in a way that a sane mind would go “whoa, whats happening to earth man” – without necessary giving them the Guy McPherson ending. Perhaps leaving people to figure out that themselves or whatever hope they should cling to. No doubt a sane mind with this information would make an effort into changing industrial civilization even if its just for themselves. So in that sense its important for us to plant a seed in people that the “current set of living arrangements” (to quote Guy) is unsustainable and will lead to major havoc.
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Manhattan sized projects are great if we could muster the collective will and overcome the political obstacles. This is always a possibility, yet days and months and years pass without any action.
I found this story interesting, but it appears it will be useful only on a very limited scale, if any…
And of course what will bring back the Earth’s melting ice sheets and glaciers?
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This question is like a zen koan, imo, John Christian, to be asked with mind, body, soul, spirit, one’s whole being…
Why do you want anyone to survive ? Why does it matter ?
Those questions are so profound and difficult, there are no generalised answers imo, you have to find your own personal answers.
There are some easier technical questions that can be answered. Even if everyone dies tomorrow, the world keeps warming for several decades, 20, 30, 40, because there’s a time lag, between CO2 emissions and temp increase. It might stop at the 2 deg C mark ? Perhaps ?
The climate is already destabilised, so it doesn’t return to what we had.
The CO2 in the atmosphere, at 400ppm, (which is really 450ppm if you include methane and NOx, so called CO2e or CO2 equivalent), would stop rising, but would stay that level for thousands of years. Sea levels keep rising for centuries.
If the methane really takes off, we get such a massive fast temp increase, nothing much survives at all. But, if that doesn’t happen, then, without humans, quite a lot of life survives, and nature will adjust.
The longer industrial civilisation continues, the less will be left when it collapses, and then the more extensive the extinction event will be.
This is our terrible conundrum. In the 20 most developed countries, producing most of the pollution, the end of fossil fuels, the collapse of civilisation, means most people die, because they are totally dependent upon oil.
That’s not politically, or ethically, acceptable to most people.
So, we get NTE. Which is actually very much worse.
Regarding your last point, hahaha, I’ve been talking to people about this and writing about this for thirty years and more, almost every day. Everybody will say you are batshit crazy. You have to take that for granted. If you have never done it before, you’ll be badly bruised.
Look, the way I see it, I’m like prize fighter in a traveling fair, different place every night, I take on all comers. I’m always the bad guy, the local toughs are the home crowd’s heroes. They always set out to kick my arse. But they always lose because this is my job. I do it every day. i know it inside out. The crowd always boos and jeers when I win, because they hate me. That’s how it is.
If you tell your work mates that their whole life story is wrong and that their future has just vanished in a puff of smoke, do you think they’ll give you a round of applause ?
Guy is like a standup comedian. He’s polished his act and got his timing down to perfection. He’s a master of what he does. He makes it look simple and easy and relaxed and effortless. I don’t know if you have any experience of seminars or talks ?
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Some years ago I started mailing my brothers and uncle with some information I found alarming and that the media didn’t seem to consider important. At one point I made my own newspaper mockup using the web style of a newspaper here in Norway, were all the headlines and pictures were the stuff we should be looking at. Haha that was fun. You know starting with world population and the fact that it had doubled since the day I was born (and indeed since my brothers and uncle had). Then proceeding to show the CO2 level with the past 500000 years in for contrast – you know the one graph that Al Gore showed that noone noticed – the single most profound evidence that something is completely out of tune with what the planet is used to (at least since humans started walking on it). Ofc i threw in some good old peak oil and all sorts of other peak stuff – including the hints of economic collapse due to the lack of easy to get stored energy (it still baffles me that people still don’t understand how dependent we are on cheap fossil fuels and that western civilisation is 100% built upon the existence of this). Many just seem to roll their eyes at this remark as if technology itself is the wonder and tool we have mastered.
I generally get a reply back: “DOOMER DOOMER”. 🙂
I guess time will tell whether I was indeed a doomer…
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Yes, it is hopeless, isn’t it. 🙂
I fell out with all my family and relatives over this issue many years ago. I tried talking to everyone I knew. It just didn’t work, even among conservationists and activists. Then on the internet I began to understand, because of all the millions online, there are so few who get it, just hundreds, perhaps thousands.
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Climbing The Ladder Of Awareness, By Paul Chefurka
When it comes to our understanding of the unfolding global crisis, each of us seems to fit somewhere along a continuum of awareness that can be roughly divided into five stages:
1.Dead asleep. At this stage there seem to be no fundamental problems, just some shortcomings in human organization, behaviour and morality that can be fixed with the proper attention to rule-making. People at this stage tend to live their lives happily, with occasional outbursts of annoyance around election times or the quarterly corporate earnings seasons.
2.Awareness of one fundamental problem. Whether it’s Climate Change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, chemical pollution, oceanic over-fishing, biodiversity loss, corporatism, economic instability or sociopolitical injustice, one problem seems to engage the attention completely. People at this stage tend to become ardent activists for their chosen cause. They tend to be very vocal about their personal issue, and blind to any others.
3.Awareness of many problems. As people let in more evidence from different domains, the awareness of complexity begins to grow. At this point a person worries about the prioritization of problems in terms of their immediacy and degree of impact. People at this stage may become reluctant to acknowledge new problems – for example, someone who is committed to fighting for social justice and against climate change may not recognize the problem of resource depletion. They may feel that the problem space is already complex enough, and the addition of any new concerns will only dilute the effort that needs to be focused on solving the “highest priority” problem.
4.Awareness of the interconnections between the many problems. The realization that a solution in one domain may worsen a problem in another marks the beginning of large-scale system-level thinking. It also marks the transition from thinking of the situation in terms of a set of problems to thinking of it in terms of a predicament. At this point the possibility that there may not be a solution begins to raise its head.
People who arrive at this stage tend to withdraw into tight circles of like-minded individuals in order to trade insights and deepen their understanding of what’s going on. These circles are necessarily small, both because personal dialogue is essential for this depth of exploration, and because there just aren’t very many people who have arrived at this level of understanding.
5.Awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life. This includes everything we do, how we do it, our relationships with each other, as well as our treatment of the rest of the biosphere and the physical planet. With this realization, the floodgates open, and no problem is exempt from consideration or acceptance. The very concept of a “Solution” is seen through, and cast aside as a waste of effort.
For those who arrive at Stage 5 there is a real risk that depression will set in. After all, we’ve learned throughout our lives that our hope for tomorrow lies in our ability to solve problems today. When no amount of human cleverness appears able to solve our predicament the possibility of hope can vanish like a the light of a candle flame, to be replaced by the suffocating darkness of despair.
How people cope with despair is of course deeply personal, but it seems to me there are two general routes people take to reconcile themselves with the situation. These are not mutually exclusive, and most of us will operate out of some mix of the two. I identify them here as general tendencies, because people seem to be drawn more to one or the other. I call them the outer path and the inner path.
If one is inclined to choose the outer path, concerns about adaptation and local resilience move into the foreground, as exemplified by the Transition Network and Permaculture Movement. To those on the outer path, community-building and local sustainability initiatives will have great appeal. Organized party politics seems to be less attractive to people at this stage, however. Perhaps politics is seen as part of the problem, or perhaps it’s just seen as a waste of effort when the real action will take place at the local level.
If one is disinclined to choose the outer path either because of temperament or circumstance, the inner path offers its own set of attractions.
Choosing the inner path involves re-framing the whole thing in terms of consciousness, self-awareness and/or some form of transcendent perception. For someone on this path it is seen as an attempt to manifest Gandhi’s message, “Become the change you wish to see in the world,” on the most profoundly personal level. This message is similarly expressed in the ancient Hermetic saying, “As above, so below.” Or in plain language, “In order to heal the world, first begin by healing yourself.”
However, the inner path does not imply a “retreat into religion”. Most of the people I’ve met who have chosen an inner path have as little use for traditional religion as their counterparts on the outer path have for traditional politics. Organized religion is usually seen as part of the predicament rather than a valid response to it. Those who have arrived at this point have no interest in hiding from or easing the painful truth, rather they wish to create a coherent personal context for it. Personal spirituality of one sort or another often works for this, but organized religion rarely does.
It’s worth mentioning that there is also the possibility of a serious personal difficulty at this point. If someone cannot choose an outer path for whatever reasons, and is also resistant to the idea of inner growth or spirituality as a response the the crisis of an entire planet, then they are truly in a bind. There are few other doorways out of this depth of despair. If one remains stuck here for an extended period of time, life can begin to seem awfully bleak, and violence against either the world or oneself may begin begin to seem like a reasonable option. Please keep a watchful eye on your own progress, and if you encounter someone else who may be in this state, please offer them a supportive ear.
From my observations, each successive stage contains roughly a tenth of the number people as the one before it. So while perhaps 90% of humanity is in Stage 1, less than one person in ten thousand will be at Stage 5 (and none of them are likely to be politicians). The number of those who have chosen the inner path in Stage 5 also seems to be an order of magnitude smaller than the number who are on the outer path.
I happen to have chosen an inner path as my response to a Stage 5 awareness. It works well for me, but navigating this imminent (transition, shift, metamorphosis – call it what you will), will require all of us – no matter what our chosen paths – to cooperate on making wise decisions in difficult times.
Best wishes for a long, exciting and fulfilling journey.
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I have never found a flesh and blood human that i meet in person that would even partly agree about collapse.
Some deny global warming is even happening. Many just assume it won’t be so bad, and technology will solve resource depletion and other problems. Even rabid environmentalists feel that somehow we will all get together finally in love and respect for each other and Mother Earth and rise above our problems. Some feel we will be in great shape after a “correction”, with greater community and smaller scale technology. We will, of course, be far happier then.
Actually, most of the time people’s eyes glaze over if I even BEGIN to speak about the massive civilization induced problems we face…….they have far too much on their minds to worry about something that might affect us years from now.
And then there are those…..God will provide…..
There just isn’t any sense bringing it up to anyone.
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I suppose it’s such a non-conformist point of view to have that people shut it out as soon as you broach the subject. That’s the trick – to figure out a way to speak about this dark topic without losing people’s attention.
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I guess its also a sign of society with all the “cute kittens on facebook” to avoid the hard questions in life and just live your life like its the last one. At one point I can understand that as it brings some sort of sanity to an individual in an otherwise chaotic and insane world. But I feel one should at least be able to consider the questions whether civilisation is really working the best it should or that we can improve it beyond rising ones own wealth (which seems to be the most important thing). A person can post a picture of themselves on the top of a pyramid and all I can think of is all the energy wasted in order for that invidivual to have an experience – no doubt he could learn more in an hour on internet than travelling to the place. But since humans are very social and somewhat narcissistic (look at me) – its hard to argue with people based on logic and reason when all they can see is the status they might gain among their friends by their actions.
Its interesting because for the past years I have been constantly only posting links to videos and articles about peak oil, global warming, climate change or anything related to that. So far I havent had a single comment from any of the 100 “friends” on my list. Its clear that people just dont like to hear this. Sometimes I consider posting a picture of a kitten just to see how obvious this behavioural trait is. I am not sure people are even aware of this, and no doubt a lot of them consider me a left wing environmentalist (or any other -ist so they can place me in a “box” where they cant identify themselves with).
It saddens me that so many people around me just cant see that the current set of living arrangements (Guy quote) is one that isnt sustainable and the idea that some people have of “doing their thing” by recycling paper and plastic just isnt enough. Its clear that the capitalism and consumerism is the cause for the majority of problems the biosphere face today and in the future. No doubt a lot of people will be surprised when they realise that it was all hinging on stories and lies they had told themselves for a long time.
Still, knowing what happens if there is no change, I still cannot predict there will be no change of behaviour in the future. Although hope is really dwindling for every year we drag this out. Its clear that any change to society will not come from political action or enlightened billionaires, so chances are we will stretch this until it collapses on itself and the change comes through chaos, rioting, famine, whatnot…
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We never stood a chance Mike…it’s the way of things.
“Welcome to fucking Deadwood”…
———————————————————————-
“Where can you go — even in your imagination — if you’ve got grandchildren in this world?
It’s a measure of human adaptability that should climate change and civilization’s collapse be spread over fifty or a hundred years, people will go about their daily routines without much awareness that their yesterdays were different than their todays. They may remember visiting the unshielded outside, but it won’t be home to them. Home will be the dark basement of an abandoned building when it isn’t a subway tunnel, but it will have its comforts. Lifespans will shorten and chromosomes will be ionized, but not so much that people won’t have the occasional normal child, and those children will have the occasional normal child.
Even were we to project the darkest trends forward to that day when the last band of humans is fighting the last band of cockroaches for the last cache of civil-defense crackers, I’d put my money on the humans. And I’d make a side bet that shortly thereafter, the cockroaches would be a domesticated food-source. And one last wager: I’d bet that the children of that last band, wandering with cockroach-breath through the dark underground corridors of a ruined city, will look up through holes in the concrete, see the too-bright glint of the morning sun, and will greet the new day with awe, and joy, and wonder at the miracle of their existence.”
From The Uncertainty Principle by John Rember
http://guymcpherson.com/2012/04/the-uncertainty-principle/
Very grateful for all your heavy lifting – I know it takes a hard toll…hope you’ll spend some time and your considerable talent on making videos.
Best…
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Great dystopian writing! I’ll have to read the rest. Humans do have the uncanny ability to adapt to even the most deplorable conditions.
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Beautiful essay, Mike.
“We feel like blurting out what we know to those around us, but we can’t. There’s a straitjacket awaiting us at the nearest insane asylum. No one believes what the cold hard facts and trends have told us after we discarded the rose-tinted glasses society demands everyone wear. And why should they? It’s a traumatic experience to the psyche. Everything about the world you have been taught, all the myths of eternal progress and man’s place in the universe, comes crashing down in a thousand pieces.”
I feel this all the time. And I wonder why I don’t go completely nuts. But I think that I, and most here, have always suspected that our lifestyle could not go on forever, that something just was wrong and distorted. I think we felt this even as kids, deep down inside, as we went through the normal motions of daily, modern life. And maybe that is why we seem to be able to handle the truth now, even as it seems others can’t. We’ve been getting ready for this full awakening of the truth all of our lives.
As a 22 year older I read The Limits Of Growth when it first came out. Others read it and forgot about it. Not me. I’ve thought about what it was predicting ever since. Oh, I sort of put it aside during the years of professional school and career and military service and raising my kids, but, really, it was still always sitting in the,back of my mind. There was an aching in my heart knowing that all I knew would one day die away, but usually I decided it wouldn’t happen during my lifetime, so I better get on with living. And there was no one else interested in any of it anyway, so without anyone to share my thoughts with, I kept it way down inside.
Can’t anymore. Every day, every thing I look at, has a bit of collapse written on it. But people depend on me and I have to keep going as if our lives will continue on like they always have.
I live two lives. Maybe that actually keeps me sane.
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Kudos, Mike. Look forward to what you give us when you return. Meantime, NTE rules & explains one helluva lot.
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DK,
Looking forward to your piece inspired by the “factory collapse of last month in Bangladesh.”
If you have any problem with “the google authenticator” when you log into this site, let me know.
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The weather here this week is beautiful. It’s not hard to leave the on-line field lay fallow when there is so much to be done in the garden. I’ve been busy mounding the potatoes, trimming the hops, covering the blueberries with bird netting, etc. And with summer nearly upon us, I look forward to enjoying some off-line time with my family as well.
‘One day at a time’ is excellent advice. I’ve also decided to let my loved ones remain in their comfort zones. I know them better than anybody else and I’m certain that explaining NTE to them will serve no purpose. But I struggle internally with the cultural norms; especially that I should be out striving each day to make as much money as possible. It’s tough to see what’s coming and somehow justify further exploitation for short term personal gain.
There is a lesson here about rediscovering what is truly worth growing, nurturing and preserving. It isn’t easy and there are few trail signs but perhaps it’s the most important thing we can do.
Thanks, Mike, for being a guide and doing what you do so well.
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Yes, I’ll take that as the primary lesson of this post:
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Requiem for a Dying Planet
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Thanks for taking the trouble to quote my comment, but gawd these comment windows make it nearly impossible for me to write even a few sentences without committing errors that are visible only after hitting the “post” button. I’m embarrassed. Please feel free to copyedit my comments for spelling and grammatical accuracy if you wish.
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I think the brilliance of the comment overshadowed any grammatical errors.
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Death by a thousand cuts on the Planet of the Maniacs.
I use to say Planet of the Apes, but we are in the process of exterminating most of those..
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Hello Kevin,
We would have had better luck if these guys were actually in charge, no?
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I have been following all of you guys and finally Guy’s spreech for a little less than a year now, I have been following the oil drum for many years and I have been internet reading and watching as much of the climate change, economic collapse, political mess etc., ever since I began teaching about crude oil in my Applied tech class at my high school. I was a founding member of our town’s unique producer/buyer growers coop. I am a board member of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association and I have been growing vegetables for about 45 years. I want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. : )
I am scared to death of the near future, but thanks to you all and Guy for your input I have developed an incredibly enabling sense of peace with how I am spending the rest of my, perhaps shortened life. The frustration of trying to communicate these realities, mostly of climate change, has been almost overwelming, but thanks to all the comments and information from everybody I have been able to be at peace with what I know almost to an empowering degree. keep up the good work.
I myself have been brainstorming what I think could be the best option available to us. If I get the time and nerve to put my thoughts in print I may be sharing more than just this “atta boy” that this writing is about.
“The green shall inherit the Eaarth”
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Hello Boii,
I hope to hear more of your thoughts as soon as you get the time to type them up.
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‘she will probably allow a small tribe of humans to survive the bottleneck. It would be a shame for the Svalbard Global Seed Vault to have no beneficiaries, would it not?’
i don’t believe mother nature possesses any of your sentimentality, xray. talk about rose colored glasses!
‘What was our major downfall? I think we put too much faith in technology.’
i think it’s our predilection for ‘authority’, faith-based nonsense or dogmas. with civilization came great wealth, greed, inequality, a social hierarchy of exploitation. this has greatly exacerbated the problem. it creates incentive to dumb down the masses, because ignorant, non-critical thinkers are easier to control and exploit. humans have been domesticated like other livestock, and certain traits have been selected for over the many generations. the result is now before us.
‘No one believes what the cold hard facts and trends have told us after we discarded the rose-tinted glasses’
belief is a matter of faith, something the masses can relate to a lot better than science based facts/convictions. they have no trouble believing nonsense; it’s facts they can’t handle. intelligence is lacking.
appreciate your going to the trouble of illustrating what a purple ocean might look like. i thought a green sky over the purple water would have been a nice added touch peter ward would have liked.
great blog. very under appreciated, but at least it’s getting more popular, judging by how the comments have picked up.
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– So you’re saying the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will have no human beneficiaries… what a shame.
– Give a human a source of cheap, seemingly unlimited supply of energy and he’ll forget where food comes from (not the grocery store), where water comes from (not the faucet), and what is reality (not the TV and Hollywood).
– wishful thinking and “techno-narcissism” have supplanted critical thinking and intelligence in capitalist industrial civilization.
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