Category Archives: 1) Decline

Death by a thousand cuts — little by little, greater numbers and kinds of problems will occur that will overwhelm societies ability to fix them. Especially as there’s less oil and natural gas to fix and build infrastructure because what remains goes toward growing food, delivering food, cooking food, maintaining police forces and armies, keeping the lights on. And this in turn will lead to more chaos, civil wars, perhaps world war given how many unstable countries there are that have The Bomb.

Aquifer decline in California

Central valley of California (20,000 Square Miles) Cumulative groundwater depletion in the Central Valley of California, 1900 through 2008 California grows a third of America’s food, so what happens here affects everyone. California lost nearly 145 cubic kilometers of groundwater … Continue reading

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Ogallala (High Plains) aquifer depletion

Ogallala aquifer (High Plains) Cumulative groundwater depletion in the High Plains aquifer 1900-2008 Has declined as much as 164 feet in some places. 337 km3 total depletion since 1900.

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Aquifer decline in the United States

According to the USGS Groundwater Depletion in the United States 1900-2008: Groundwater depletion in the United States between 1900–2008 was 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic km3). That’s twice as much water in Lake Erie (480 km3). For many areas the … Continue reading

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Natural Gas and Trucking

What we are facing is a liquids fuels crisis, since 97% of transportation depends on oil (especially to plant, harvest, and distribute food, long-haul trucking, trains, etc).  To the extent that natural gas can fill in for oil, that will … Continue reading

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Poverty is Increasing

We’ve hit an all-time record of poverty not seen since the great depression.  The stock market and housing rally is not a good measure of how the majority of us are doing. 4 Apr 2013. 21 Statistics About The Explosive … Continue reading

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Financial Monsters — Bigger Crashes than 2008 are yet to come

by Alice Friedemann   October 12, 2007 This article was written in 2007.  I posted this today because I had a fight with my husband about my opinion that there is a yet bigger crash looming because of fraud,  corruption and … Continue reading

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Why is modern concrete falling apart?

Here’s more information from Courland’s book “Concrete Planet” and other information I found on the web since I wrote Enough energy after Peak Oil to rebuild and repair concrete infrastructure? It appears there’s very little testing of projects later on … Continue reading

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How long will concrete last if it isn’t maintained?

As energy grows scarcer and is devoted to growing food and other life-support services, our infrastructure will crumble. Bob Holmes. 12 Oct 2006. Imagine Earth without people. NewScientist.com Lack of maintenance will spell an early demise for buildings, roads, bridges … Continue reading

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A Century from Now Concrete Will be Nothing But Rubble

Photo: road abandoned since 1984 in the Florida Keys Concrete is an essential part of our infrastructure. And it’s all falling apart, as Robert Courland’s 2011 book Concrete Planet makes clear. The Romans built concrete structures that lasted over 2 … Continue reading

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Statistics. Michael Snyder’s “75 economic numbers from 2012″

Michael Snyder. 21 Dec 2012. 75 economic numbers from 2012 that are almost too crazy to believe. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com #1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on … Continue reading

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