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| This guy has a family resemblance to my own humble self, LOL |
John Michael Greer´s peak oil update.
Short form: while fracking saved the oil industry and "solved" the peak oil problem, the deeper predicament is net energy. More and more energy and economic resources are needed to get the oil (and many other non-renewable resources). And since those resources presumably aren´t renewable either, well, brace yourselves for a new energy crisis in the near future and another chapter in the saga of the long descent.
Oh, and note the comment in passing on NGOs and USAID!
Not having read the articles it's entirely obvious our source of energy is staring us in the face every day. Our "solar disk" of all things! C'mon everybody, support green and save the atmosphere! The moneygrabbers will find out soon enough how to capitalize on it.
ReplyDeleteAnother fine dissertation! I hope Mr. Greer lives for a long, long time.
ReplyDeleteAnd who doesn't love the slurp at the straw end of a root beer float! If NGO's and USAID want to toss free money his way he could probably use it. His dismissiveness of using apocalyptic scenarios, as a way of escaping the pressures of the moment is spot on!
It´s apparently called "doom porn" by some people. Realized decades ago that this is an entire genre in the US, including countless pseudo-documentaries on TV. Yes, it´s definitely some kind of weird blend of passivity, fear-mongering and entertainment. Very mainstream American media, in other words!
ReplyDeleteOn the fringes, some people claim to believe in it...but do they, though? They´ve been at it for decades! The quest is better than the catch. Like people who are looking for BIgfoot or Atlantis, but would be disappointed if they actually found anything...
ReplyDeleteOf course, JMG´s perspective is also depressing if you like high modernity (which I tend to do). But at least in his version there is a certain possibility that the Western Roman Empire will be followed by the kingdom of the Ostrogoths, rather than a literal apocalyptic hellscape. To coin a historical analogy.
ReplyDeleteDoom porn is probably just the flip side of high modernity. After all, what is more scary to a denizen of high modernity than a sudden collapse of everything? But the weird thing is precisely the phenomenon JMG often attacks, that is, people who find a strange satisfaction in the idea that we´ll all go out with a bang, so they don´t have to do anything at all to actually save us, while still clinging to the idea that we are UNIQUE - if not uniquely progressive, then at least uniquely apocalyptic!
ReplyDeleteExactly, "well, we're all doomed anyway bro so let's kick back and fire up another one." "It's the capitalists man." and so on. But it's mostly white middle class or bored suburbanites with no empathy. Remember, 120 million eligible voters did not vote in 2024! Of course yours truly voted for the "loser."
ReplyDeleteSorry, about 89 million or about 36% did not bother to participate in their country's democracy.
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