Category Archives: 2) Overshoot

The polycrisis/overshoot, collapse of the financial system, breakdown of supply chains, blackouts, end of being able to make computer chips, and so on are symptoms of the underlying cause: peak energy and peak everything, especially peak diesel since trucks, rail, and ships make this one-time only fossil fueled civilization possible. Wind, solar, nuclear, and so on also need fossil fuels for every single step of their life cycle, so that is a dead end. It is back to before the 15th century — wood world. Whether the house of cards collapses from chokepoints in the middle east such as the Suez canal, the financial shock of a natural disaster or from debt and corruption, Export Land Model, or nuclear war — there is certain to be a series of dislocations that ultimately bring population down to 400 million (population before fossil fuels) or less (due to overshoot factors such as top soil erosion, pollution, etc) Let’s hope there are some islands of sanity and that you are living on one of them!

PNAS: Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises

Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises. 2013. sponsored by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Intelligence community. This was the best summary of the 223 page National Academy of Sciences publication I could … Continue reading

Posted in CO2 and Methane | 1 Comment

Pity Brazil’s Military Police. FEB. 19, 2014. Vanessa Barbara. New York Times.

Pity Brazil’s Military Police. FEB. 19, 2014.  Vanessa Barbara. New York Times. In 2012, 1,890 Brazilians were killed by the police. 351 occurred in São Paulo — 20% of all homicides. Organized crime retaliated by killing 11 police officers and … Continue reading

Posted in Crime, Gangs, Corrupt police, Private security | Comments Off on Pity Brazil’s Military Police. FEB. 19, 2014. Vanessa Barbara. New York Times.

Colombia’s Warning for Mexico

Preface. This is a pattern you see over and over again in civil wars and collapsing bits of nations no longer under government control Abadfeb’s editorial reminds me of feudalism. Until the rise of state-level armies in the 17th century, … Continue reading

Posted in Crime, Gangs, Corrupt police, Private security | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Colombia’s Warning for Mexico

Eduardo Porter : Next Crisis from Rising Interest Rates? (New York Times)

A World Unprepared, Again, for Rising Interest Rates. Feb 11, 2014. Eduardo Porter. New York Times. I was living in São Paulo in 1997 when, out of the blue, an investment banker I knew called to ask about Brazilian cocktails. … Continue reading

Posted in Crash Coming Soon, Interest Rates | Comments Off on Eduardo Porter : Next Crisis from Rising Interest Rates? (New York Times)

Banks get around Bonus Rules = less money to take back after risky bets go bad

February 13, 2014. Banks in London Devise Way Around Europe’s Bonus Rules. Jenny Anderson. New York Times. Since the 2008 crisis, regulators around the world have tried to rein in bonuses, worried that big payouts encourage excessive risk-taking by bankers … Continue reading

Posted in Crash Coming Soon, No Reforms | Comments Off on Banks get around Bonus Rules = less money to take back after risky bets go bad

Matt Taibbi : Commodity Scams on Wall Street Will Cause the Next Crash

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks’ Most Devious Scam Yet Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever. Matt Taibbi.  February 12, 2014.  … Continue reading

Posted in Commodity Scams, Crash Coming Soon, No Reforms | Comments Off on Matt Taibbi : Commodity Scams on Wall Street Will Cause the Next Crash

Set the planet on fire: Burn underground coal to gasify it. Worse than Fracking.

Fire in the hole: After fracking comes coal. 13 February 2014 by Fred Pearce. NewScientist. Setting fire to coal underground could answer our energy prayers, or start an environmental disaster on a bigger scale than ever before. Without a way to … Continue reading

Posted in Coal, Global Warming | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Set the planet on fire: Burn underground coal to gasify it. Worse than Fracking.

Kaplan on West Africa

Preface. This article interest me because I want to understand what collapse from energy decline will be like where I live.  The same patterns appear over and over in this category of collapsed and collapsing nations. Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author … Continue reading

Posted in Collapsed & collapsing nations, West Africa | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Kaplan on West Africa

Our interlinked infrastructure is so vulnerable one piece can take the others down with it

This article by Robinson et al is a very prescient article written back in 1998, long before 9/11 and he also points out how vulnerable U.S. infrastructure is to cyberwar and cyberattacks at a time when our infrastructure wasn’t nearly … Continue reading

Posted in Infrastructure & Collapse | Comments Off on Our interlinked infrastructure is so vulnerable one piece can take the others down with it

Aquatic Invasive species

Allegra Cangelosi. 9 Jan 2003. Blocking Invasive Aquatic Species. Federal law must be updated to stop introductions of nonnative organisms, especially by ships. Issues in science and technology. National Academy of Sciences. Examples of invasive aquatic species Voracious snakehead fish … Continue reading

Posted in Biodiversity Loss, BioInvasion | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Aquatic Invasive species