Comments on: Reinventing collapse

By: Rex Morris

Rex Morris — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:12:18 +0000

Wonderful piece. I especially liked the graphic. Economic collapse may be a bit of natural selection and, while it seems brutal to expect humanity to find salvation in starvation and economic depravation, it may actually be more merciful than ecological collapse on an accelerating scale.

By: Fas

Fas — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:39:09 +0000

well, this week saw the north pole finally become an island.
there were NO ice bridges to any landmasses, in any direction.
This is the first time in human history that such has been the case.
what does it mean?

Well, increasingly, by applying my understanding of change, i am left with the inevitable conclusion that the point of no return has past long ago.
What we are observing, is in fact the beginning of the end.
There is no power commanded by the human race, that can reverse the effects we have instigated.
Each small change in the ecosystem has knock on effects in a billion tiny ways that we may/may not ever understand, and the situation is now so complex that we have no idea whether any attempts we make will prevent or accelerate the collapse of our planetary ecosystem.
As such, we should now focus on understanding medical systems that use no product, and martial systems that require no ammunition.
The Simplification is upon us.
Prepare to fight over food.
Learn to swim and light fires.
Brush up on simple carpentry skills and forging, learn a few more languages.
Assume electricity and hydrocarbons are soon to be unavailable except that which you can provide independantly.
Get used to eating fish.

By: Penguin

Penguin — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:59:51 +0000

Great article. I agree, economic collapse is by far our best chance of avoiding runaway global warming. However, rest assured those with vested interests in the sale and unrestricted consumption of fossil fuels are probably in denial about economic collapse too. They’ll just keep going right to the end.
But it raises the question, should we be trying to hasten economic collapse? Or is this deluded thinking?
Regarding the rise of the post oil scaries, yes I’m sure they are all studying Orlov too and getting into training for their big moment of glory. This presents an additional hazard which wasn’t really present in post Soviet Russia, though it is now.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:38:10 +0000

Hi Mandy,

Interesting thought. I might add the refinement that wars are good for the economy *as currently defined*, in just the same way that bombing a city to the ground and rebuilding it just the same would boost GDP.

If peak oil does bring down our existing economic paradigm then such absurdities may no longer seem sensible. Burning up our remaining energy supplies in squabbling over the remaining energy supplies may cease to appear like a good idea.

Besides, I’m not even sure the US wants its economy boosted any more – it seems they may be trying to inflate away their ‘biggest debt in global history’ (http://tinyurl.com/2ysmjk)

Anyway, I do recommend Paul Rogers’ presentation “How can we avoid oil wars?” at: http://tinyurl.com/6ferxk

By: Mandy Meikle

Mandy Meikle — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:55:35 +0000

Me again as I’ve just had a thought which is maybe not optimistic enough for this site! The rising cost of oil may be making it harder for US to attack Iran, for example, but we all know that there’s nothing like a good old war to boost the economy. So if rising oil prices trigger a recession and oil price falls again, would that make war more or less likely? I’ve been kinda hoping for a bit of a recession to knock some sense into us. Now I’m not so sure… Maybe this is a rhetorical question but I’d love some optimistic feedback on this!

By: Mandy Meikle

Mandy Meikle — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:14:49 +0000

Interesting article and I do tend to agree that economic collapse will change our behaviour before we actually wake up to what we are doing to our planet. However, the thing I fear about economic collapse is the rise of the far right. I belong to a group called Depletion Scotland and we organised a conference in 2005 in Edinburgh to which the BNP turned up (booked under a false name, no less!). Here’s a link to the proceedings of our conference: http://archive.odac-info.org/PeakOilUKConferenceProceedings.htm

The BNP are one of the few political parties to acknowledge peak oil – they see economic collapse and the turmoil that will ensue, as a platform for their (fill in your own adjective!) policies. We have to raise awareness before that happens.