Category Archives: 1) Decline

Decline will be death by a thousand cuts as too many problems occur and overwhelm societies ability to fix them (i.e. Tainter’s “complexity”). Already our infrastructure (oil and gas pipelines, electric grid, roads, bridges, etc) has a Report Card of D from the American Society of Civil Engineers. All 18 components of essential infrastructure, from the electric grid to the financial system are vulnerable to cyber-attack, The end of growth means bankruptcy for cities, pensions, families, and businesses, and no credit for energy companies to borrow for new projects to obtain oil, coal, and natural gas, the real drivers of the economy (just try putting dollar bills in your gas tank)

History of Drought in America since 1899 – Worst ever now

The dust bowls of the 1950s were worse than the famous dust bowls of the Great Depression.  The conditions for a new dust bowl are happening again, only this time we’ve cut down the trees so that 27 ton tractors … Continue reading

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Blackouts

Richard Duncan’s Olduvai theory predicts the fall of civilization (Olduvai cliff) will begin in 2012 (ending in 2030) with permanent blackouts worldwide, starting with brownouts and temporary blackouts, and then finally the electric power networks themselves will expire. Although fracking … Continue reading

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Floods and water-borne disease

Our clean water infrastructure built a century ago is rusting and eroding apart, making the invasion of disease causing micro-organisms during floods even more likely. excerpt from Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us … Continue reading

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Colder winters

Brahic, C. 7 Feb 2012. Melting Sea Ice could trigger colder winters.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Cold winters in Europe and North America may be due to declining sea ice, which warms the arctic air blowing cold … Continue reading

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Wildfire

Evans, E. July 26, 2016. Fire seasons are becoming hotter, drier and longer. Los Angeles Times. Over 29,000 wildfires have scorched more than 2.6 million acres of land already this year. Last year’s fire season was the most severe on … Continue reading

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Drought affects Survival in many ways

Christian Parenti calls multiple crises “The Catastrophic Convergence” in “Tropic of Chaos, Climate change and the new geography of Violence”.  The problem isn’t that calamities happen simultaneously, it’s that they compound and amplify one another. Obviously drought reduces agricultural production.  … Continue reading

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Chemicals

Mercury Nationally most mercury in all of our waterways, restriciting how much fish can be eaten in the lower 48 states, comes from coal power plants. California Gold Mining. California has gotten rid of coal plants and won’t buy electricity … Continue reading

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Infrastructure

  Transportation Infrastructure 2009. The economic impact of current Investment Trends in surface Transportation Infrastructure. American Society of Civil Engineers. Highways, bridges, railroads, and transit systems are vital to America’s economic system. But the nation’s surface transportation infrastructure has been … Continue reading

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Water depletion and pollution

Water Depletion Michael Specter. October 23, 2006. The Last Drop. Confronting the possibility of global catastrophe. The New Yorker. Cyanobacteria Brookes, J., et al.  7 Oct 2011. Resilience to Blooms. Science. Explosive cyanobacterial blooms cause disease in humans and livestock, … Continue reading

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Disease

Bird Flu H5N1 MacKenzie, D. 31 Aug 2011. Bird flu flies back into the news. NewScientist. Cholera 18 Aug 2011. Famine-struck Somalia faces cholera outbreak. New Scientist. 9 Feb 2011 Detecting Cholera Rampaging in 40 countries. ScienceDaily. Tick borne Illnesses … Continue reading

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