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!

Oil Built Our Infrastructure Back When it was Cheap & Abundant

Most of our infrastructure was built many decades ago, when the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) of oil was 100:1, and now it’s down to roughly 30:1 in the gulf, and much less elsewhere (at 10:1 civilization collapses). What … Continue reading

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Hurricane Vulnerable Gulf area Supplies Over Half our oil, One-third of our Natural Gas

Energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to hurricanes in the gulf region, which: Produce or imports 60% of the country’s supply of crude oil Supplies a third of U.S. natural gas supplies Generates half of the United States refined products supplies … Continue reading

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Ozone Loss from Storms Increases Skin Cancer, Crop Damage

James G. Anderson, et al. 26 Jul 2012. UV Dosage Levels in Summer: Increased Risk of Ozone Loss from Convectively Injected Water Vapor. Science. Climate change is increasing the number and severity of storms, which is depleting the ozone layer … Continue reading

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Climate Change and Infrastructure

Matthew Wald. 25 July 2012. Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling. New York Times. From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed … Continue reading

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Methane’s potential for another major extinction event

June 22, 2016. As Alaska warms, methane emissions appear stable, study finds. phys.org. Excerpts: One reason no increase has been seen may be that “Bacteria that produce methane and bacteria that consume methane will both become more active as temperatures … Continue reading

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Inequality goes back to the Stone Age

28 May 2012. Inequality Dates Back to Stone Age: Earliest Evidence Yet of Differential Access to Land. ScienceDaily. Hereditary inequality began over 7,000 years ago in the early Neolithic era, with new evidence showing that farmers buried with tools had … Continue reading

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Super Weeds resistant to GMO pesticides are taking over millions of acres

Coombs, Amy. May 20, 2012. Revenge of the Weeds. Plant pests are evolving to outsmart common herbicides, costing farmers crops and money.  the-scientist.com Please read the above article, below are some excerpts: Weeds are developing resistance to glyphosate—the most common … Continue reading

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New finding: Plants far more harmed by Climate change than previous estimates

Shifts in the timing of flowering and leafing in plants due to global warming appear to be much greater than estimated by warming experiments. Predicting plant responses to climate change has important consequences for human water supply, pollination of crops … Continue reading

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Biodiversity loss impact on ecosystem worse than climate change and pollution

David U. Hooper, et al. A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change. Nature, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/nature11118 “This analysis establishes that reduced biodiversity affects ecosystems at levels comparable to those of global warming or air … Continue reading

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Fungi destroy bees, bats, amphibians, trees, etc

Attack of the Killer Fungi: Rising Threat Worries Scientists Wynne Parry, LiveScience   11 April 2012 An unprecedented number of diseases caused by fungi have been causing some of the most severe die-offs and extinctions ever witnessed in wild species and … Continue reading

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