We are in immense amounts of trouble:
The world populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles fell overall by 52 per cent between 1970 and 2010, far faster than previously thought, the World Wildlife Fund said on Tuesday.
If we survive the next two hundred years, this is another thing our descendents will curse us for, because the genome of other species will be more valuable than gold, oil or any other substance you can think of: design material for the real biotech revolution which is just beginning.
The real risk is not in the higher animals, though, it is in phytoplankton in the sea (also crashing precipitously) and in trees, which are responsible for much of our oxygen cycle. If we screw those up, well, we’re dead. And evidence is strong that we are screwing them up.
The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died.
It is not God who will destroy us, of course, but ourselves. And we will do it because our ideology tells us to do so. Preparatory to series of articles on technology, please take the time to read this collation of articles on ideology, character, why we are destroying ourselves, and how it can change.
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Uset
A cruel angel’s thesis…
EmilianoZ
We currently have an Ebola epidemic. In Dallas, a patient named Duncan is fighting for his life. According to the Guardian:
Duncan’s neighbours in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, believe he became infected when he helped a sick pregnant woman, who later died of Ebola, a few weeks ago.
Duncan contracted the disease because he felt compelled to help a pregnant woman. Had he been selfish and uncaring he would probably be healthy now. Since the beginning of time, that’s how diseases have spread. That’s how nature has selected the callous, the sociopaths among us to survive and procreate. If we are destroying nature now, she only gets what she deserves. After all, we’re only the little monsters she created.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/03/ebola-dallas-hospital-flawed-response-officials-scramble
Ian Welsh
If nature selected only for bastardy, there’d be no altruism. But this is about neither bastardy nor altruism, it is about self-interest.
Lisa Formally OldSkeptic
Yes, we are getting a whole confluence of disasters all at once, either occurring or starting.
These are all choices by a small elite, largely, but not entirely US or US orientated (‘Atlanticists’ in Europe for example).
Let’s tick off a few boxes of issues that are affecting the whole world, firstly existing:
Syria & Iraq.
Ukraine.
European economy.
Japanese economy.
Unending ecological damage: oceans, forests, wildlife, etc.
California drought.
Southern US drought
Ever greater coal use (even in ‘green’ Germany)
Emerging and/or growing:
Ebola.
Hong Kong being blown up (as per Ukraine).
Unending ecological damage: oceans, forests, wildlife, etc.
Ever greater coal use (even in ‘green’ Germany).
And the kicker:
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/the-us-dollar-is-about-to-inflict-carnage-all-around-the-planet/
Ilargi is one of the few to follow and watch this unfold ans should be commended for watching and warning about it.
The US been dumping huge amounts of dollars all over the world since the GFC. This has undervalued the $US, crushed interest rates, caused vast amounts of speculation, enabled countries/companies/etc to build up huge $US debts.
So much of the world has put its head in a noose and the US is now going to kick the chair away.
Oh yes it will hurt ordinary Americans badly (duh) but the dollar printing did that too from another direction. US elites care more about the color of their toilet paper than their own citizens and have bet (the farm) that the massive national/security state (and military police) they have built up will protect them from the proles. They are also betting that their satraps can also hold the line in their own countries.
But the coming economic holocaust will benefit the debt holders, massively, particularly $US debt holders. Debtors are going to die. The full force of US might will work to collect that debt, as well as the said satraps in other countries.
Why? Well it maintains US supremacy for a little while longer as other places economically implode and many grovel for $US, it enriches the asset holders and debt holders even more and will enable many of them to pick up more cheap assets as other places go under. The US elites no longer depend on consumption of the proles for wealth, rather they hold assets and debt.
Why now? Well there is a de-dollarisiong movement going on, when even places like Australia start to trade in Yuan then you can see a trend. In another 5-10 years the US won’t be able to do this. So now is the time to hammer everyone else before it is too late.
Essentially this is an economic nuclear attack on the whole world. The impact of even 1-2% increase in interest rates around the world will be totally devastating. Oh and forget all that nonsense about China (etc) holding US treasuries, and because of that had some sort of power over the US, that was and is nonsense. The Fed can simply print more money and (directly or indirectly) replace them all in minutes. In actual fact the US has held China (etc) hostage….something China only woke up to not long ago (oops).
I have long argued that, unlike the UK or USSR elites the US ones would go down kicking and screaming and take everyone else with them if allowed to. We are in the final stages of that process now.
Ian Welsh
Yeah, I’ll be writing on the dollar later. Written plenty in the past. It means a worldwide recession; that’s fine, in fact, it is necessary.
Mary McCurnin
I didn’t mind the recession so much cause I figured it meant less consumption and less pollution. Then came fracking, etc.
We are fucked.
Celsius 233
@ Ian
We are in immense amounts of trouble:
Yes we are. That’s a fact. But we are also in powerful denial. That is also a fact.
Our economy is hell bent on war and it’s continuation. That is also a fact.
Those facts cannot be reconciled to a peaceful solution to the trouble we’re in…
It’s been real, if not way too short…
Lisa Formally OldSkeptic
Sometimes (often?) it is hard to get a handle on all the environmental destruction going on, the volumes are simply too great to imagine or conceptionalsze.
Just picking a single example can be instructive. My favourite one is how we destroyed all the cod in the North Sea and Atlantic. And this was done by advanced, supposedly sophisticated societies. A massive, easily sustainable food resource completely wiped out.
As an an example of total, complete stupidity and short term greed it is hard to beat. At so many points in time, just a few actors could have prevented it with simple decisions.
And it is that level of stupidity and greed that has to be beaten to create any changes at all. Not trying any breath holding here though…. The entire history of humanity is ‘overshoot’ and collapse.
Stirling Newberry
don’t worry, life is crappy. and it’s going to get worse, trust me.
Bruce
Its tipped already – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4PFxZpm62s
Lisa Formally OldSkeptic
The cod one is such a classic. I remember as a kid in Aberdeen (Scotland) discussions THEN about overfishing… nobody did anything. Unreal.
astrid
I would call someone who knowingly lied to the airport authorities, his family in Dallas, and the emergency room staff about that exposure a real bastard. Much more of one than someone who refused to help carry a deadly ill woman for fear of infecting himself.
There’s plenty of scientific literature to suggest that while being selfish is a winning strategy for an individual, a certain amount of altruism is the best strategy for selection on a group level. And humans are very much social animals.