The audience reaction to the last two essays I’ve put up here turned out to be something of a surprise to me. A month and a half ago—has it been that long already?—I posted the first of two parts of an essay on climate change, listing three things that each side of today’s climate debates get hopelessly wrong, and exploring the “crisis management model”: the system by which our managerial class exploits crises rather than doing anything useful to help people deal with their consequences. I expected that to get screaming meltdowns from both sides, and was rather startled to get a few polite, pro forma objections from the right and next to nothing from the left.
Then there was the essay I posted two weeks ago exploring the way that the elite replacement cycle now taking place is triggering emotional reactions down into the brainstem level, and suggesting that this was responsible for at least some of the spectacular paralogic that otherwise intelligent people so often babble these days. I’ve discussed this in passing before with very little result, but this time I got screaming meltdowns from both sides. Quite a few readers from the left thus angrily insisted that the managerial class doesn’t run things, that it’s not being shoved out of the seats of power by a rising entrepreneurial class, or (in some cases) both of these things at once. That is to say, there were some fine examples of status panic on display.
A whole sequence of readers on the right, for their part, took issue with my comment that social status is assigned by society rather than by biology. That’s an odd claim for conservatives to challenge, since the view they were defending would imply (for example) that the steep rise in status that women have experienced over the last three quarters of a century was biologically preordained, and the only thing they could therefore do was accept it. All in all, I watched the replies come in with a familiar feeling of wry amusement, and chalked it up as more evidence for the weirdly unpredictable nature of human behavior.
It remains to be seen what kind of reaction this post is going to get. This week, as promised a month and a half ago, we’re going to discuss what the world can actually expect over the next few centuries from the changing climate. Here again, it’s going to be necessary to set aside the viewpoints of both of the officially accepted viewpoints of our time, and push past the rhetoric to see what’s actually going on.
Let’s begin with a crucial point. It’s a common belief, but a false one, that the world’s climate stayed more or less the same until our greenhouse gas emissions changed things. The industrial revolution got under way three centuries ago in a world coming out from under the bitter cold of the Little Ice Age; the 18th century was much cooler than the present; the 19th saw general improvement in the climate of the temperate world, interrupted by bursts of volcanic cooling in 1816 and 1883, but brought devastating droughts to much of the tropical world; the 20th saw the general cooling trend that inspired the “new ice age” panic of the 1970s and 1980s, before this was drowned out by the impact of ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions at century’s end.
Thus it’s safe to say that climate is complex, and many factors feed into its constant changes. To go further, and get a broader sense of what we can expect from the future, it’s necessary to seek guidance from a less biased source than the arbitrary, repeately disproven models of climate scientists, on the one hand, and the overheated handwaving of conservative pundits on the other. That source? Paleoclimatology, and in particular the abundant evidence for dramatic climate change at various points in the prehistoric past.
Now of course this is yet another red cloth waved in front of an already overexcited bull. Suggest that the evidence of the past can be used to make sense of climate trends in the present and you can bet your bottom dollar that you’ll get pushback. That varies, of course, depending on which side it comes from. The voices on the right, for example, quite often insist that because climate change happened in prehistoric times for reasons that had nothing to do with greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas emissions can’t cause climate change. This is rather like insisting that because people died before the invention of firearms, firearms can’t kill people.
Behind all this lies the bizarre but widespread modern fallacy that nothing can have more than one cause. It’s probably necessary to be explicit here: climate change is always driven by many, many causes pushing in every imaginable direction, and the resulting change represents the constantly changing balance between these competing forces. Thus it’s quite true to say that greenhouse gas emissions aren’t acting alone—but it’s equally true that if you dump billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year, that’s going to have an effect. Yes, this is true even if those make up only a fraction of a per cent of the atmosphere; there are poisons that will drop you stone cold dead if you have one part per million of them in your bloodstream, you know, and the logic is the same here.
The standard fallacy on the left is different, though it’s just as inaccurate. In leftward circles, if you bring up the evidence of paleoclimatology, people will insist loudly that anthropogenic climate change is by definition bigger, faster, and much, much worse than anything that nature does on her own. That’s another very common belief these days. It’s also the best evidence I know of that most people are pigheadedly ignorant about prehistory and have never bothered to think through the implications of what little they do know.
Consider Earth’s most recent major extinction crisis, just 65 million years ago—a mere eyeblink in geological time. That was when a chunk of rock six miles across came shrieking down out of deep space at hypersonic speed and slammed into our planet near the northwest corner of the Yucatan peninsula. The resulting blast has been estimated at 100 million megatons, or more than 15,000 times the explosive force you’d get by setting off every nuclear bomb on Earth at once.
In the milliseconds after the impact, a fireball shot out more than a hundred miles in every direction and incinerated everything in its path. Then came the shock wave, which annihilated every living thing across an area the size of Europe. As that was hitting, chunks of white-hot rock blown clear out of the atmosphere into space began to fall everywhere on Earth, igniting planetwide fires. When those died down, dust and smoke in the upper atmosphere blotted out the sun, plunging the world into bitterly cold conditions. It only took a few years at most for conditions to return to normal, but when it was all over, two-thirds of the species on Earth had been wiped out. Compared to that, our current ecological mess is pretty weak tea.
Consider, for that matter, a much more recent bout of climate change, the one that took place around 9600 BC at the end of the Younger Dryas climate stage. Over the last few decades, advances in atmospheric chemistry have made it possible to get sensitive readings of average global temperatures from air bubbles trapped in the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps—the warmer Earth was on average when these tiny air samples were trapped, the more of certain isotopes show up in them. That’s how we know that when the Younger Dryas ended, the Earth’s average temperature jolted up between 13° and 15°F. in less than a decade.
So many people have gone out of their way to misunderstand this that it’s probably necessary to talk about it in a little more detail. No, this doesn’t mean that everywhere on Earth saw local temperatures jolt up between 13° and 15°F.; the planet’s average temperature went up that much. Most of the change was focused on the north polar regions, where temperatures soared up out of deep freeze levels, pushing the great glacial sheets of the late Ice Age into their final collapse and sending sea levels raggedly upward for the next few thousand years, drowning thousands of square miles of once-dry land. The temperate zones warmed to a more modest degree, while the tropics and the south polar regions apparently didn’t see much temperature change at all.
Climate change is complex, shaped by many factors. The fact remains that the Younger Dryas temperature spike was orders of magnitude faster and more drastic than our current experience of climate change. What’s more, our ancestors survived it—humanity had settled every continent but Antarctica long before 9600 BC—and so did every species that exists today. Not all species made it, of course; the minor extinction crisis that hit at the end of the Younger Dryas is the reason we don’t have woolly mammoths, cave bears, and dire wolves strolling around our national parks these days.
Mind you, there are also plenty of examples of prehistoric climate change that were much slower than this. Climates change at varying speeds, and of course that’s exactly the point. The current example of the type is nothing new on this planet. Among its many causes—again, no event anywhere in the cosmos ever has only one cause—is one that’s somewhat unusual: vast amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere by human smokestacks and tailpipes. Even that’s unusual only because of its source, since climate change due to volcanic emissions of carbon dioxide is a familiar process here on Earth.
(It’s at least possible that ours isn’t the first technological civilization to imitate volcanoes and dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, for that matter. Back in the Mesozoic Era, as I noted a month and a half ago, two sudden temperature spikes—the Toarcian greenhouse event 183 million years ago in the Jurassic and the Cenomanian-Turonian greenhouse event 94 million years ago in the Cretaceous—look enough like our current example of climate change that I’ve wondered if intelligent saurians might have been responsible for them. Of course geologists blame them on volcanic activity, but it’s not as though they’re looking into the possibility that intelligent beings might have been the cause instead. There are a few other events of the same general type scattered through prehistory, so it may be time to consider the possibility that intelligent species who dig up fossil fuels, burn them, and heat up the planet a little may be a recurring feature of Earth’s history.)
As I noted a month and a half ago, none of this justifies either of the claims being splashed around by the two sides in our current climate wars. One of my readers summed up those claims neatly by pointing out that by and large, Republicans embrace denial and Democrats embrace delusion. One consequence of these unproductive habits is that we can be perfectly sure that nothing will be done by either side to change the trajectory of climate change—the Republicans aren’t interested, and the Democrats have gone out of their way to embrace supposed “solutions” that solve nothing, while refusing to give up their own carbon-intensive lifestyles.
It’s safe to assume, therefore, that all the Earth’s remaining commercially accessible reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas will be extracted and burnt over the next century or so, and the resulting CO2 will go into the atmosphere as usual. Those reserves aren’t limitless—that’s one of the things climate models routinely miss—and so CO2 dumping will taper off over the course of the current century. Even so, a lot of greenhouse gases are on their way into the atmosphere. What follows from that?
First, we can expect climate belts to continue shifting toward the poles. That’s been the most visible consequence of climate change over the last few decades; it’s the reason why the last two winters here in southern New England have been nearly devoid of snow, why southern Europe is getting the kind of bitter droughts and heat waves that used to be standard south of the Mediterranean, and why Russia is harvesting bumper crops of grain these days as the growing season lengthens. As this suggests, there will be winners as well as losers from these changes. Some areas that are currently too cold or too dry for agriculture will get increased warmth and adequate rain, while others that are now breadbaskets may become deserts.
Second, there will be localized tipping points as various regions slip across thresholds that cause sudden shifts in climate conditions. 6000 years ago, during the postglacial Hypsithermal—the period after the last ice age when global temperatures were significantly higher than they are now—the Sahara and Arabian deserts weren’t deserts. They got annual monsoon rains, as the plains of East Africa do now, and had the same sort of climate and wildlife: gazelles, giraffes, lions, and so on. As the Hypsithermal ended and the world cooled, the monsoon rains stopped, and both regions turned into sun-scorched wastelands. As the climate changes back to a warmer setting, that same threshold will be crossed the other way, and the rains will return.
By and large, a warmer world is a wetter world, since increased air temperatures lead to increased evaporation from the world’s oceans. That doesn’t mean that every desert will bloom in the warming future, though. During that same Hypsithermal period, the western half of North America was far more arid than it is today. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Nebraska sandhills. Those are covered with grass today, but 6000 years ago they were bare sand dunes, part of the bleak, sun-scorched desert that a cooling climate turned into the Great Plains. In the future, as this returns, the Appalachians will likely become the boundary between the forest zone of the east coast and the grasslands of the Midwest, and the Mississippi—a much narrower river due to decreased rainfall—will become the boundary between plains and desert.
Third, we can expect at least a modest amount of sea level rise. Conservatives love to point out that this hasn’t happened yet to any significant degree, and they’re quite correct—it takes a lot of warming to begin to melt major ice sheets, and we’re only just starting to see the first traces of serious melting now. As that threshold is passed, expect sea level to start creeping up an inch or two a year, with occasional surges as ice sheets break down and send huge masses of ice spewing into the world’s oceans to drift away and melt. Glacial melting isn’t a fast process.
That doesn’t mean that it’s irrelevant. We’ve already reached the point that some neighborhoods in cities on the US east coast flood when onshore stormwinds happen to come at the same time as an unusually high tide. Low-lying districts of Miami have salt water bubbling up from their drains when that happens these days; the New York subway system has to be pumped out now and then under similar conditions, and islands in the Mississippi delta are vanishing beneath the rising waters of the Gulf. That isn’t the end of the world, but it costs. That’s the real secret of climate change. Think of it as a tax that nature places on all human economic activity.
That tax is no more equitably levied than the ones imposed by human governments. If you happen to live in a low-lying coastal area, nature’s tax could very easily reduce the value of your real estate to zero and force you to relocate in the years ahead. If you happen to live eighty feet above sea level in a southern New England state that’s seeing much milder winters these days, as I do, nature’s tax might not cost you anything at all. It’s the overall impact on industrial society that matters, though, because it’s not as though we’re in a good position to cover another round of increased costs on top of everything else.
The supreme fallacy of current climate change rhetoric, after all, is that it treats the changing climate as the only thing that matters, and sweeps all the other problems with industrial society’s mismanagement of the planet under the nearest convenient rug. In an earlier post—and of course in dozens of posts on my earlier blog, The Archdruid Report—I pointed out the downsides of our civilization’s breakneck extraction of the fossil fuel resources that power nearly all of our technology. That’s only one of the many symptoms of our collective blindness to the planetary systems that keep us all alive.
It’s reached the point now that there’s not a single nonrenewable resource on the planet we’re not using up, not a single renewable resource we’re not exploiting faster than it can regenerate, and not a single natural system that isn’t being disrupted by the waste products of our industries and our lifestyles. Nor is this going to change, because neither side in the current political wars is willing to do anything to change it. As noted above, one side embraces denial and the other side embraces delusion; the right insists that nothing can possibly be wrong, while the left pretends that everything can be fixed so long as we spend lots of tax money on things that haven’t done a bit of good so far (and, though they won’t say this out loud, so long as we keep the working classes and the poor shut out of the carbon-intensive lifestyles the privileged classes insist are theirs by right).
It’s an ugly spectacle, and it’s leading straight into a difficult future. Nor is there any good reason to think that such a future can be averted at this point. There was, I think, a window of opportunity in the early 2000s, when the peak oil movement was hitting its stride and climate change activism hadn’t yet been completely hijacked by corporate interests. It’s been years, though, since that window was slammed shut. These days, very few people anywhere are foolish enough to think that shoveling more government funding toward solar photovoltaic systems and wind farms will accomplish anything more than it’s done over the last two decades.
A great many people, for that matter, have caught onto the way that climate-apocalypse rhetoric has been used to bully and browbeat them into compliance with projects that have nothing to do with the climate, and everything to do with the kleptocratic feeding frenzies that count as business as usual in our hopelessly corrupt societies. They’ve been told so many lies by so many experts that it’s a waste of time at this point trying to convince them that climate change really could pile massive costs on the world’s economies. That being the case, all we can probably do is brace ourselves for the consequences. In an upcoming post, I’ll have some suggestions about how that might be done.
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I have just been reminded that this month has five Wednesdays, and by longstanding tradition, that means the commentariat gets to nominate and vote on topics for the fifth Wednesday post. What do you want me to write about?
At this page is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts (printable version here [7/1]). Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.
If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below.
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This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests, drawn from the fuller list.
May Princess Cutekitten, who is sick of being sick, be healed of her ailments.
May Jack H.’s father John continue to heal from his ailments, including alcohol dependency and breathing difficulties, as much as Providence allows, to be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Audrey’s friend’s daughter Katie, who died in a tragic accident June 2nd, orphaning her two children, be blessed and aided in her soul’s onward journey; and may her family be comforted.
May NeptunesDolphins’s husband, who is due to have a toe removed on July 1st for a longstanding infection, receive the best medical intervention for his future health; may the procedure go smoothly and without complication; may he heal quickly and to the greatest extent possible before and after his surgery.
May Kevin’s sister Cynthia be cured of the hallucinations and delusions that have afflicted her, and freed from emotional distress. May she be safely healed of the physical condition that has provoked her emotions; and may she be healed of the spiritual condition that brings her to be so unsettled by it. May she come to feel calm and secure in her physical body, regardless of its level of health.
May Pierre and Julie conceive a healthy baby together. May the conception, pregnancy, birth, and recovery all be healthy and smooth for baby and for Julie.
May Viktoria have a safe and healthy pregnancy, and may the baby be born safe, healthy and blessed.
May SLClaire’s honorary daughter Beth, who is undergoing dialysis for kidney disease, be blessed, and may her kidneys be restored to full functioning.
May 1Wanderer’s partner Cathy, who has bravely fought against cancer to the stage of remission, now be relieved of the unpleasant and painful side-effects from the follow-up hormonal treatment, together with the stress that this imposes on both parties; may she quickly be able to resume a normal life, and the cancer not return.
May Kallianeira’s partner Patrick, who passed away on May 7th, be blessed and aided in his soul’s onward journey. And may Kallianeira be soothed and strengthened to successfully cope in the face of this sudden loss.
May Viktoria have a safe and healthy pregnancy, and may the baby be born safe, healthy and blessed. May Marko have the strength, wisdom and balance to face the challenges set before him. (picture)
May Linda from the Quest Bookshop of the Theosophical (Society, who has developed a turbo cancer, be blessed and have a speedy and full recovery from cancer.
May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won’t be treated surgically, and who is now able to be at home from the hospital, be healed of throat cancer.
(Healing work is also welcome. Note: Healing Hands should be fine, but if offering energy work which could potentially conflict with another, please first leave a note in comments or write to randomactsofkarmasc to double check that it’s safe)
May David Spangler (the esoteric teacher), who has been responding well to chemotherapy for his bladder cancer, be blessed, healed, and filled with positive energy such that he makes a full recovery.
May Giulia (Julia) in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland Ohio be quickly healed of recurring seizures and paralysis of her left side and other neurological problems associated with a cyst on the right side of her brain and with surgery and drugs to treat it, if providence would have it, and if not, may her soul move on from this world and find peace with a minimum of further suffering for her and her family and friends.
May Liz and her baby be blessed and healthy during pregnancy, and may her husband Jay (sdi) have the grace and good humor to support his family even through times of stress and ill health.
May Debra Roberts, who has just been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, be blessed and healed to the extent that providence allows. Healing work is also welcome.
May Jack H’s father John, whose aortic dissection is considered inoperable and likely fatal by his current doctors, be healed, and make a physical recovery to the full extent that providence allows, and be able to enjoy more time together with his loved ones.
May Frank R. Hartman, who lost his house in the Altadena fire, and all who have been affected by the larger conflagration be blessed and healed.
May Open Space’s friend’s mother
Judith be blessed and healed for a complete recovery from cancer.
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Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
Absolutely spot on.. The big beautiful Bill is a great relief for those who are trying to save oceans from wind farms, and forests from Solar farms.
Related news:
https://www.icm.csic.es/es/noticia/detectan-una-reversion-importante-de-la-circulacion-oceanica-en-el-oceano-austral-con#:~:text=Gracias%20a
Haven’t actually read the post, I’m sure it’s good. But I invested too much emotional energy into my convictions to let them be challenged by some [insert race] [insert gender]! No No! Besides, watching Big Brother reruns is a much better use of my time!
Hi JMG,
A tangential remark maybe, but I got reminded of the old nuclear armagedon scare by your remark: “or more than 15,000 times the explosive force you’d get by setting off every nuclear bomb on Earth at once.” Where I live up until the end of the 90s there was a building law, that mandated every new house has a nuclear shelter. Just to drive home the panic, that we became so powerful, we could destroy the whole earth. So much for that childish delusion.
On a more direct note, as you say, there is no hope of stopping this fiasco from running at least into economic/political breakdown, maybe even a more dire civilizational one. And there is nothing I can do about it but on a personal level. So we started raising our own climate change rabbits (nomination for garage band name). The goal is to survive somehow, and the old literature about seed bearers of lost Atlantis might be to he point.
Best regards,
V
P.S.: Being a traditionalist Ecosophian, I notice there are 5 Wednesdays this month 🙂 And although it would gladden my heart to read about Wilhelm Reich. I will honor my promise and join the “Manufactured Patriarchy/Matriarchy myth” vote. This one is for you Erika; May 2025 Open post.
Did you know that there was one period in the early Triassic where it literally rained non-stop across the planet for 1-2 million years?:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian_pluvial_episode
https://www.iflscience.com/when-earth-endured-two-million-years-of-rain-the-carnian-pluvial-event-76438
I just watched Ted Rall (cartoonist, Podcaster and leftist) on the TMI Show online. He brought up an recently published article that posits that a mass extinction 250 million years ago was due to deforestation, and we’d better PANIC BECAUSE THE FORESTS ARE DYING! Especially those ignorant Brazilians cutting down the Amazon rainforest. Never mind that recent thinking is that there was no Amazon Rainforest until European diseases wiped out the indigenous population 500 years ago. Rall was neutral, his conservative co-host mocked it.
A second vote for the Patriarchy/Patriarchy myth.
“since the view they were defending would imply (for example) that the steep rise in status that women have experienced over the last three quarters of a century was biologically preordained”
I notice this a lot from insecure “race realists” and other colorful characters. When society discriminated against groups they didn’t like, that was a natural and inevitable outcome from hard biological differences. But when the discrimination is lifted or shifts to their group, that’s an unnatural imposition. I hate to fulfill Godwin’s law, but it’s very much alike to the Nazi mythology which made the Jewish people simultaneously biologically inferior (and thus destined for servitude) but also portrayed the Jews as this powerful force that ruled all aspects of society (which, according to their logic, should have meant that they were biologically superior.)
One thing of note- the fact that social status is assigned by society rather than by biology holds true even into prehistory. For instance, many prehistoric graves have been found, filled with gold and precious burial goods, implying that the deceased was a highly esteemed member of society. In many cases, the body shows clear signs of genetic deformity and disability. If human society always valued the most biologically fit, this wouldn’t occur.
Dear JMG,
I have read repeated suggestions, by you and others, that perhaps some intelligent and high-technology species evolved on earth before mankind. But I find this hypothesis hard to accept.
If any such species did exist on earth, how could they not have left innumerable artifacts and evidence of their existence in the fossil record? Aside from a few stories of curious and usually not-well-documented “ooparts” (out-of-place artifacts), I see nothing to suggest the existence of such evidence. Granted, most of our own civilization’s artifacts will almost certainly be rusted, corroded or dissolved after just a few tens of thousands of years, but one would expect SOME evidence to survive, if only buried glass bottles, or the impressions of hardware in shale, or anomalous concentrations of metal oxides from corroded objects.
Also, most of the fossil fuels that we are currently burning through were formed and laid down many millions to hundreds of millions years ago. So why would a pre-human terran civilization not have used up those resources themselves, before we got to them? Similarly, there are, or were in recent history, many readily accessible metallic ore deposits that one would expect any previous civilization to have already mined and used up. Most metallic ores were deposited before the rise of complex life, so their utilization would necessarily have been a one-time occurrence, with no subsequent renewal likely or possible.
I’ve read rebuttals to these arguments of mine that perhaps such a pre-human civilization only existed in one part of the earth, or on a continent or part of the earth that no longer exists. But I find that argument unconvincing as well. Even before our own technological age, humans had spread to every continent but Antarctica, so why wouldn’t any previous technological race have done so as well?
Thank you for these clarifying thoughts. I continue to be grateful for your good work over these many years.
the recent bacchanalian excesses of the Bezos wedding should tell us all we need to know about the future of climate centered activism. the people who run the world have absolutely no intention of moderating their behavior. what possible difference does it make what the rest of us do? Even Greta Thunberg has fallen silent in the contemplation of such grotesque extravagance. where’s the outrage among the climate activists? are they, just possibly, unwilling to criticize their funders?
I think anytime you say “X is a social construct”, it will raise the hackles (justifiedly so based on recent history) of some people. You’re either one of those people who think everybody’s the same and people are blank slates that can be stamped and molded like car parts – or – you think that there are some qualities of being that are baked into the DNA that are hardwired in. And if you try to stamp people like car parts, you’ll waste your time and greatly annoy the person.
This, is one of the fault lines between “right” and “left” thinking people. Then, I guess there’s the people who think that DNA can be rewritten but fail badly at it. *coof* *coof*
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As far as climate change goes, I long gave up on it – it seems only a way to tell the rest of the world what your politics are and nothing more at this point. Trying to say anything nuanced or constructive about it is almost impossible. I must say though, that an enterprising scientist would like your statements about it being complicated and ambiguous. Why, it needs further study, it does. Which leads to more ambiguity, which leads to further studies, which leads to…
Quin, thanks for this as always.
Ellen, the Big Blobby Bill has plenty in it that I don’t like, but the termination of subsidies for these wasteful and ecologically destructive faux-green technologies is a definite bright point.
Gustavo, thanks for this. I’ll want to see those findings confirmed by other studies — there’s been a lot of dubious science on this subject in recent years — but of course it’s quite common for oceanic currents to change significantly as the climate shifts.
Brinco, no doubt! Let me assist:
Vitranc, the thing is, there was arguably a point to fallout shelters; since even an all-out nuclear war wouldn’t destroy the earth, staying in fallout shelters for a couple of weeks would save quite a few lives and make the rebuilding of neutral countries such as Austria a much easier proposition. Raising rabbits is another smart move, of course — and so is starting your own garage band! (People will want music in a deindustrializing world, after all.) As for the fifth Wednesday, I’ve tabulated your vote and added something to the bottom of the post.
David, that is to say, at the moment scientists speculate that it rained nonstop for that long. They know that it rained a lot over most of the planet during that period, but it’s not as though a dozen sunny weeks every year would show up in the fossil record!
Great Khan, by that logic, there must have been too many Brazilians 250 million years ago — or too many dinosaurs running around today. Do you think there’s a point to launching a campaign to stop saurian overpopulation? 😉
Enjoyer, exactly. If the Jews were actually the sort of all-powerful world-controlling force that anti-Semites believe they are, that would clearly show that they were a superior race — certainly superior to the anti-Semites! Equally, if social status is purely biological, the fact that white men have declined so sharply in status over the last century would prove that white men had suffered some kind of frightful biological degeneration over that period and no longer deserved their former superior status. Fortunately, the whole thing’s codswallop.
Alan, like most people who object to this theory, you haven’t taken deep time into account. If my proposal is correct, it’s been more than 90 million years since the last intelligent species before ours. 90 million years ago, the Rocky Mountains, the Andes, and the Himalayas didn’t exist yet, the strata from which we mine metals and coal were nowhere near the surface, and the oil and natural gas we use today were carbon-rich muck, still awaiting the millions of years of heat and pressure that would turn them into fuels. Metal, glass, concrete? 90 million years from now, none of that will remain; all that will be left of human industrial civilization will be a layer of carbon-rich rock a quarter of an inch thick, with some odd trace elements in it — and that’s exactly what we find at long intervals through the earth’s rock strata.
Donald, you’re welcome.
Moishe, exactly. As I noted a month and a half ago, it’s all just theater.
Other Owen, I know — but some things are social constructs, and there’s no way around that! Other things are biological, no question, but social status isn’t among them. As for further studies, no doubt, but the funding’s being cut — and that’s probably for the best, given the abysmal quality of so much research these days.
JMG, thank you for this, one of your best recent essays, IMHO. You do and commentariat do understand, I hope, that leftist and conservative pundits , propagandists and “influencers” are bought and paid for. Both sides, the right by corporate interests who want to get in on the Last Big Killing before retiring to their Patagonian hideaways, and the left by a collection of foundations pushing a variety of special causes. Neither side has any interest in us ordinaries and basics out here in nowheresville.
About the six mile wide asteroid, as I understand it, I hope I have this right, 65M years Before Present the continents were not where they are now. Pangea had broken up, but the fragments that were to become our present continents, were much closer that they are now. That is why dinosaur fossils are found on all continents, and why the impact was so very devasting. The piece of Pangea which would become India was then sitting above the hotspot that produced the Deccan Plateau. That same hotspot is still there in the Indian Ocean: its’ more recent activity gave us the islands Mauritius and Reunion. The million or so years of eruptions which produced the Deccan Traps were ongoing when the asteroid hit–multiple causes.
I add my vote for matriarchy/patriarchy and express the hope that you will discuss Marija Gimbutas, who really was a reputable scholar. I read her big book about the archeology of the Balkans. I thought her evidence did not necessarily prove the existence of matriarchal societies. I thought that the alleged peacefulness of the neolithic villages she excavated could be more easily explained by scarce population, plenty of resources for all.
“Enjoyer, exactly. If the Jews were actually the sort of all-powerful world-controlling force that anti-Semites believe they are, that would clearly show that they were a superior race — certainly superior to the anti-Semites! ”
I know this is a bit off topic but I thought this would be a good time to share a fascinating yet little known piece of history related to impressions of Jews.
Have you every heard of the Fugu Plan? It was a Japanese plan to settle Jews in their new territories in China. The Japanese participated in the Russian Civil War along the side of the counter-revolutionary Whites. Many of the White Russians were notoriously anti-Semitic and at the time, the Japanese knew little about Jews. As a source, the White Russians provided the Japanese with the notorious Protocals of the Elders of Zion telling of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy for world domination.
The Japanese militarists were…impressed at the capabilities of such an ethnic group and subsequently sought them as allies for their own plans!
https://www.amazon.ca/Fugu-Plan-Untold-Japanese-During/dp/9652293296
Oh! Mr. Greer … I see 2 synergistic effects derived from that rising CO2 chart above: vast amounts of bloviating hypocrisy + copious pulses of ambivalence (though one might have to squint one’s eyes to see it..)
For the fifth Wednesday, I would like something on esotericism, but I would like a commentary on the current Israeli war against Iran, and its military and political implications. That’s my vote for the fifth Wednesday.
Mr. Greer, I will note that there appears to be the observation by some scientists, that our planet’s magnetic poles are moving towards a phase change (possibly with some rapidity) .. with various hiccups in between. I have to wonder what knock-on effects this might have on climate chaotics..
You describe the muddled state of popular thinking about climate change very well, as per usual. To my mind, it’s one example out of many of a particular pattern that seems to be widespread in the entire Western world: correctly perceiving that “fill-in-the-blank-phenomenon” exists, and then leaping to all manner of ill supported conclusions about it. Economic problems, climate problems, population problems, mass migration problems, armed conflict problems, resource problems, etc. I can’t put my finger on whether the pattern is just the end stage of the Faustian worldview disproving itself; or the collapse into senility of the current PMC/liberal ideology; or something else. Still trying to come up with a name for the pattern of correctly perceiving that a thing exists, and then, not just completely failing to understand the nature of the thing perceived, but frenzied efforts to explain said thing in all possible ways except the ones that actually matter. “A fine theme for meditation,” as I imagine you would say.
On a side note, JMG, I’ve been reading your essays since about 2011. Whatever else happens to me in this life, I am grateful for every word you’ve written; I cannot imagine where my head would be vis-a-vis the current state of the world had I not had the good fortune to stumble upon your influence when I did. May the ancient starlight shine upon you.
It seems that the only thing industrialized civilization has accomplished over the last 25 years is to substitute AI and Data farms for automobiles as the biggest driver of climate change. Automobiles ( EV and Gas) are still huge sources of atmospheric C02. But they are not growing in impact the way energy guzzling data centers are.
This week the Oregon Legislature declined to pass a bill that would have added new funding sources for the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). As gas tax revenues are declining with less miles traveled and EV’s they are widely trying to get more revenue by raising gas taxes, registration fees etc. They once placed their hope on Tolls but as weird as it seems to East Coasters, people in the West have a huge aversion to any kind of tolling so this died politically a year ago.
Now the agency that builds and maintains state owned roads and distributes funding to cities for the same will shrink by 600 workers ( about 15%). I expect this is a trend that will continue in to the future and spread to all states ( if it has not already).
Resource depletion and the decline of empire will accomplish what 25 years of delusional EV hopium could not. A slow and steady reduction in CO2 by automobiles.
JMG, you got me there. I did not even think about the strategic parallels in rabbit raising and nuclear shelters. But yes, I get your point. Give shelter, weather the shale storm and be there to help rebuild. Help and inspire others, and maybe we can save something.
Might not look like much now and we might think ourselves spread out and not in a position to do much. But come other times and maybe the guy / gal with a good sense of self and a clue can silently inspire others to get together and row the boat so to speak. (shows I’ve been reading the MOE stuff 🙂 )
I think most people who bother to look at the data and think beyond the headlines realize that earth will be fine in the long term, as will the biosphere. Thing is, that doesn’t mean that human societies, or stony coral reefs, will be fine. And what most people care about most isn’t actually ‘the planet’, its themselves, their society and a limited assortment of other living things they interact with. And those are threatened by anthropocentric climate change to one extent or another.
But its also true that there are many other dangers we face at the moment, and that the left’s policies don’t seem to have done much to actually reduce CO2 output, especially on a global level. I’ve found myself prioritizing other issues much of the time on grounds that if the policies on offer are ineffective I might as well prioritize something else when I vote.
I probably should have addressed this in the “status panic” post, but that’s insomnia and its effects for you. I do think that the real ruling class, as it always is, are the people who own the means of production and the bulk of the assets, and technically, the Professional Managerial Class serves at the pleasure of this owning class. However, our present-day society is so very complex that getting rid of the PMC would be very inconvenient and messy, which has effectively made the PMC into a co-ruling class. However, as you have frequently pointed out, the PMC have done such a lousy job that what is causing the current status panic is that they are being gradually phased out as a consequence of their arrogant incompetence.
Hello everyone!
Last week’s Open Post had some discussions about vegetarianism which intrigued me a bit, so in that spirit I would like to propose for the Fifth Wednesday, “Physical and spiritual effects of diets; vegan/vegetarian, carnivore and omnivore”.
When it comes to climate, I don’t know much, I just hope it won’t be that bad. Winter is just my favourite season!
The Climate Change/Global Warming issue was marketed poorly. It is much easier to build a case around pollution and resource depletion as major problems/predicaments, and thus much easier to get a majority of people to rally around it. Though, admittedly, observing the human condition the last couple of decades has hardly made a case for protecting and preserving our species.
Climate change is very difficult to forecast locally, and can only be mitigated, so there’s less rush to counter that – just deal with it as it changes. Climate change, as a public issue, will be in the rear view mirror and forgotten long before it arrives as other factors overwhelm us.
My vote for the 5th Wednesday topic is an update on the “second religiosity”, though maybe it hasn’t officially started. All I know is I’ve had some whacky discussions around religion the last few months, and some folks are getting pretty stressed and starting to think about it more….
For fifth Wednesday, I vote for Gnosticism once again.
John, thoroughly enjoy these pieces on this subject, but am baffled by the lack of attention thus far on geoengineering and its role in this. I find the traditional ‘greenhouse gases’ angle to be gobbledygook spewed by managerial class types with pronouns in their LinkedIn bios, and I’m tired of alternative ‘activists’ in the space dismissing questions and concerns about geoengineering’s potential negative effects on the environment and redirecting the debate to focus on things like commercial aviation fuel changes as the primary reason for the general white haze most of us see in the sky these days. It’s as if no one knows we can verify that the geoengineering/weather modification industry is very real and very profitable these days.
I recently read a book called “Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control” which goes deep into its subject matter and is well-sourced. It’s written by James Rodger Fleming, who touts himself as a historian of science and technology, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Colby College, and a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution. So, he at least has all the requisite managerial class credentials to spew scientism word vomit all over the place. To say this practice has been going on for a long time would be both true and false, depending on your definition of what a long time is. It certainly isn’t documented as far back as the Younger Dryas, but the industrial revolution sure does bring about a lot of entrepreneurial spirits who thought it’d be good business to charge people for the weather of their choosing. And that seems to have never stopped.
Truthfully, I have no horse in this race other than I’m not interested in participating in any further societal hoodwinks perpetuated by the robber barons and their managerial class’s useful idiocy. I simply want all bases covered, debated and once-overed again for good measure so those of us who still have some semblance of working natural intelligence and intuition (not me, mind you) can navigate this space appropriately.
Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. I keep thinking of Bucky Fullers notion of the “trim tab” this week, how small self-correcting measures can prevent a person from swinging to binary extremes. I have previously advocated for a post on Wilhelm Reich, and I’d previously advocated for a post on William Blake. So, if I use the trim tab method perhaps I can propose a post on William Reich or Wilhelm Blake? Orgone energy is eternal delight, after all.
So, not being able to decide on what to vote for that might actually win, how about casting an improbable vote for the topic of: How Rube Goldberg’s comical inventions relate to Alfred Jarry’s science of pataphysics and the quest for imaginary solutions.
That oughta do.
Anyone else who cares to, please cast a vote with me.
Thanks for an enlightening discussion of this topic! The existence of monsoon rains in the Sahara has been critical to pushing the creation of the Sphinx back well before the existence of Egyptian Pharaohs and their civilization…As a visiting geologist pointed out, the weathering of the Sphinx is vertical, not horizontal, so it wasn’t caused by wind, it was caused by rain, which didn’t exist in that area, according to current knowledge, after 8-10,000 BC….This suggests the existence of a culture (probably buried by sand) of which we have no knowledge..
“That isn’t the end of the world, but it costs. That’s the real secret of climate change. Think of it as a tax that nature places on all human economic activity.”
Well, quite. In a similar way that national debts are becoming unmanageable, so our natural debt is well into the same territory. All debts come due in time. Mother Nature generally has the last word, not to mention the most persuasive bailiffs.
I’ve been reading your posts for long enough to be nodding the whole way through this one. I live in the “wet west” of Scotland, in a stone-built house up a rise about a mile from one of the rivers that flows into Loch Lomond, which itself empties into the Clyde Estuary. All the climate maps I have seen show that our house will, in time, end up as a bijoux beachfront property on one side and still be far enough (and high enough) to avoid the expanding river on the other. It might have been trickier if the north and west of Britain wasn’t still rising after the last ice age. Depending on the state of the Gulf Stream, the owners might well need to learn to skate and ice fish in the winter, and it could still be wet all the rest of the year. Three of the multiple variables in play. Perhaps they will develop webbing between toes? But more seriously, people here will survive, and I fully expect that adventurous children out in boats will be warned to stay in the channel that was the old road and well away from the lost houses where the lake shore steeply shelves and especially away from the remnants of the drowned woods, even if the fishing is best there. (And they will, naturally, ignore the advice.)
Hi JMG. Thanks for your wisdom and balance as always. Denial used to be my favorite strategy and while I certainly have my blind spots, I appreciate your thought-provoking pieces.
Re: 5th Wednesday, I would appreciate a piece on the big picture of immigration since it’s such a hot button issue here in the US.
Several years ago in my attempt to learn new and useful skills I made a 5 gallon batch of hard apple cider. After the allotted time I bottled it in 750ml Grolsch type bottles and let it age for 6 months. During that time there was still some working going on inside. I decided to open a bottle to taste it at room temperature. What a mess, but a tasty mess. Foam everywhere .
When I refrigerated the next bottle I was prepared , but no mess; just a delicious sparkling drink. I should have known from my Sodastream water carbonator and from my experience trying to raise trout in a pond that occasionally got too warm that cold water dissolves vastly more gases than warm water.
When I would read the argument that CO2 rises occurred after the temperature rose it was apparent to me that the CO2 had been dissolved in the warming oceans and was just coming out of solution. That in itself could cause rapid temperature changes.
@JMG
The question of ancient pre-human industrial civilizations causing some sort of climate change is indeed interesting. This brings me then to the question – could the Permian extinction have been caused partly due to something like this? And of course, this is not in the pre-Cambrian era – who knows what went on then? The geological and paleontological record is a lot more, um, “open to interpretation” as regards that period than it is for the Carboniferous period, for instance. “Snowball Earth” may also have been possibly due to some such thing, who knows?
Regarding climate models, I think we can safely conclude that climate models, or Earth sciences models in general, have only one solid, consistent use: if not anything practical and commercial, they are definitely a great way to learn advanced mathematics. Every other use is probably debatable. As an intellectual exercise, though, they are enjoyable and help build skills – this has been my experience, at least.
As for the remains of our current civilization, it’s essentially Enzymes and Co. which will do the job of “digesting” our synthetic waste products – given enough time (even a million years is small from the POV of deep time), microbes will find ways to digest them.
What was the cause of the sudden increase in temperature around 9600 BC? And a repost pertinent to the subject.
“The needed vast re-engineering of how things are done is mind boggling. I teach an environmental science class to high schoolers. In America we are surrounded by a miasma of anti-life built piece by piece since the 1800’s, in the water, air, soil, food, “medicines”, electromagnetic radiations, what we sit in, live in drive in, walk in, what we wear- plastics and forever chemicals, herbicides, pesticides. The asphalt roads exude chemicals. Human sperm counts have declined by 50% – a canary in the coal mine indicator that something is very wrong! Add to that that a culture and social arrangements that do not promote positive human connections and relationships Yet this death is an intrinsic by product of the present system we use to provide stuff and services! Neither side in the power structure squarely faces and understands the decades long deep restructuring that would have to happen to have a truly healthy society.”
Vote for the matriarchy/patriarchy myth. Here is a snarky warm up, a 90 second comedy riff by a woman on would there really be no war if we had woman leadership
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DLlkV4HJWtg
Madame Albright, first female Secretary of State on the subject
“I’m not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. If you think that, you’ve forgotten what high school was like.”
Bezos and his wedding, what a deal. 90 private jets flew in.
Did you know his yacht has a dedicated support ship? I didn’t know there was such a thing, but you can’t land a helicopter on a sailboat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht_support_vessel
The support ship is 75 meters, Bezo’s yacht is 127 meters. But since it’s a sailboat it doesn’t count, right? 😉
Alan #10 wrote:
“Aside from a few stories of curious and usually not-well-documented “ooparts” (out-of-place artifacts), I see nothing to suggest the existence of such evidence. Granted, most of our own civilization’s artifacts will almost certainly be rusted, corroded or dissolved after just a few tens of thousands of years, but one would expect SOME evidence to survive, if only buried glass bottles, or the impressions of hardware in shale, or anomalous concentrations of metal oxides from corroded objects.”
Any archeologist finding or reporting such items risks being ridiculed or drummed out of the profession and made unemployable. I suggest reading “The Hidden History of the Human Race: The Condensed Edition of “Forbidden Archeology” by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson – or the longer original version, “Forbidden Archeology”.
If you prefer videos, try this one (unexpectedly introduced by Charlton Heston, but none the worse for that):
The Mysterious Origins of Man (1996)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u__Zm4stnug
and learn about the fate of archeologist Virginia Steen-McIntyre.
Admittedly Dr. Michael P. Masters theorises in all seriousness that such artefacts were left there by our human DESCENDANTS (!), who he believes have cracked time travel and are behind many of the supposed UFO close encounters. He calls these supposed time travellers “extratempestrials”. I found his book “The Extratempestrial Model” to be a fascinating read, as he delves into biology and genetics, etc., while pursuing his theories. Did I believe his theories? I’m in two minds, but they made for a great read.
I think it is possible, but not guaranteed, that higher global temperatures will bring back a green Sahara (and Arabia). Greening depends on the monsoon direction and strength, and global warming will not necessarily impact monsoons in the same way that the movements of Earth’s axis do. I do hope you are right!
My vote is on patriarchy / matriarchy. Just recently, I read the stories at the end of The Glass Bead Game for the first time and smiled a bit at Hesse’s (or rather Knecht’s) all-out embrace of the matriarchal myth.
@The Khan: I don’t think the idea is that the Amazon was deforested before 1492, but that a rather large population was supported by living off the products of a largely human-managed forest, dotted by relatively small, highly fertile enclaves of horticulture. The European explorers saw the biggest settlements because they were sailing along the biggest rivers.
I wonder if it is possible to get the carbon isotope proportions from sediments laid down during the Toarcian and Cenomanian-Turonian temperature excursions. Carbon from burning fossilized organic matter is different from volcanic carbon. But of course the events themselves were short on a geological time scale, and it might be hard to find such sediments.
Hi JMG, Michelle here, happy to see you back. As a side note, I’ve been recovering from a mastectomy for breast cancer, and more recently enduring chemotherapy. I don’t love it but neither do I think that a 20% probability of recurrence within 10 years is a risk I’m willing to take, with the future of health care so very unclear.
I’m wondering about whether you’ve contemplated any interruptions to the AMOC in your musings? Is that part-and-parcel of the shifting rain belts in your analysis?
My vote is for the myth(s?) matriarchy/patriarchy. Gerry
i’m in my own messy writing madness and didn’t know you, Papa, would be writing before July 1. i only caught the essay on the meltdown of the laptop class this morning and YES YES YES! that’s The Great Smothering i’m feeling from their tantrums all up and down this coast. ALL small talk is Trump Trump Trump and after riding in a taxi and admitting to the driver before we left my street that i’d voted Trump, and had to ride across town on icy jagged eggshells, i no longer bother. it’s all theatre and bataka bats out here.
as a looney tunes tasmanian devil type artist, i keep looking for the soft spot to press on and help heal, and seeing their ululating caterwauls as not just simple collective tantrums, but losing Everything They Think They Are, thank you. i get it and can now come at it from a place of understanding and sympathy instead of simple irritation, because i went through my own loss of Everything back in 2011 or so, getting ready for the end of the world in 2012. (smile)
that makes a TON of sense because that’s when i did my own Living Suicide and surrendered submitted to James a la Ephesians 5:22 because i’d plum run out of so-called great feministy ideas about my eventual Greatness where it’s all endless Look at Me! Look at ME NOW!
James forced me to carry a flip phone because cops kept getting called on me for dancing whilst the thefts continued unabated at walgreen’s everywhere in town BECAUSE ACTING FREE IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN THIEVING. that’s the lesson i keep learning like a painting painted a thousand times.
surrendering submitting to James’ more expansive logical but loving vision of our life together was liberating freeing and changed the meaning of how i read EVERYTHING.
i haven’t changed my approaches to how i undermine the status quo, i only adjust the volume treble and bass for what’s needed at the moment, and i’m trying to figure out how to enunciate the words of what i do and how i do it so that other ferals may attempt their own “guided” adventures. i say “guided” because us emotionals are powerful with DIRECTION. like actors going off the edge and having a grounded director bring them back with a rope tied around his or her waist.
and now with that last essay i can hope to connect with their agonies because i know what it is to die a dozen times already. as a forced funny person (much constant pain forces you to become funny or die inside), i can easily ridicule the snapping sanity, but flushing their heads down toilets are not always the best way to settle things with beloveds you’re forced to live with.
i was looking for the EMPATHY. and now i get why their agonies are so much worse now. everyone’s noticing it but not WHY. the PG&E guy came to read the meters again and for the second time he kept bowing to me saying how KIND and NICE i was as all the customers he deals with in this town are downright mean to him. i said, “really?” because i thought it was just me and my PTSD after all they did to James and me.
nope. we’ve got an entire are aof rich people losing their not-cotton-picking minds because they’re afraid of become uber and lyft drivers like everyone else delivering food and cheap amazon last-mile crap. yup. that’s what i feared and then i went onto craigslist looking for crappy jobs that wanted me to learn CPR to walk dogs or buy a magic phone to wipe old people’s butts so i could clock in and be monitored.
i ululated alone and went mad but eventually “sane” enough once i was out of that collective agreement to not mention the DISSONANCE, and was able to read minds again and feel energy like when i was a runaway little girl surviving and protecting my hymen with deep eye contact intuition and some of those looney tune tasmanian devil moves to keep monsters at bay, so that’s my beat. my corner. pulling the thread that unravels what’s left of their fake blood-thirsty decorum so that i may see what’s behind it.
okay. i’ll read the rest of the article. i was just sooo excited by these secret essay i had no idea was even up.
oh, to all regarding the evolving Adocentyn concept:
Peter Van Erp is bringing me out to next year’s Ecosophian Potluck. i had no one to watch the kitties and i have a MegaZine to finish (a zine that is perfect bound and printed in the U.S. in Pennsauken near where my mom worked and i was from in Cherry Hill and went to the group home in Camden).
without being Devouring Mother, i’m trying to entice him into letting us do a story telling bonfire type of picnic because it’s my circuitous way of sitting at Papa G’s feet when he closes the show and talks and takes questions from the nibbling audience. can’t you just SEE it???
like an impromptu talent show of whatever ending with Papa propped up in front of us with a cold stout (or warm, depending on how he likes it) and a comfortable chair.
i want to show how easy it is. i’ve been putting stuff like this on since i was a little kid jumping on my bed to 45s and it’s soooo fun to see people as stars for a moment.
i’ll produce it! i’ll wipe people’s sweat off their brows and set up the scene!
i’m so excited about everyone meeting in the UK and even the scared people feeling like “oh! that was quite pleasant!”
yes. we are heaven here on earth, too. we just keep forgetting! i’ll remind.
x
VOTING ON YOU WRITING ABOUT MATRIARCHY-NOT-PATRIARCHY WE LIVE IN.
I vote for the false patriarchy/matriarchy conflict.
In my teenage years in the 1990s, I used to say, “All resources are nonrenewable if you do not renew them.” I was also against letting China into the WTO because that would be catastrophic to the environment since, ya know, we’re all on the same planet, but a lot of people forget that.
I think it’s why a lot of people on the right have deluded themselves into thinking humans cannot possibly be causing climate change. Since so much of the factories have been offshored, you no longer see nor smell the smokestack-filled cityscapes in the United States like you used to. Having grown up a few miles away from one such cityscape in Detroit, it’s impossible to see the scale of that and believe it’s not having an effect on our climate.
In my limited experience, right-wingers now know the weather/climate is getting more chaotic, whether they blame it on greenhouse gas emissions, God’s will, or a New World Order government conspiracy.
I don’t know what leftists think, because I don’t know that many of them in meatspace and it’s taboo to question the official climate change narrative in online left spaces & the mainstream media.
For the Fifth Wednesday post, I vote for your take on masculinity/femininity because it will likely be more interesting and accurate than the feminist or manosphere narratives.
So what you’re saying is “embrace the power of and?”
That is, things are always far more complex than we’d like.
We really aren’t as smart as we like to think our species is. God knows I see this all around me.
I love watching my sister, the world-traveler, complain about climate change!
So the crisis is more revolving around resource depletion than climate change itself in the long run? What about the argument that some people like to use about how whale blubber was used as a vital resource until something better (fossil fuels) replaced it and so there’s no need to worry about resource depletion as substitutes can always be found?
I think a post about patriarchy and matriarchy would be very fitting given the state of things between men and women in (American) society. Maybe how oppression/stratification based on sex both compares and contrasts with oppression/stratification based on race/ethnicity or religion. And maybe also touching on the definition of such terms would also be interesting, as the dictionary definitions of patriarchy and matriarchy are not (last I checked) the definitions used by (Western) feminists, as there is heavy dispute about whether the Scandinavian countries can really be classed as patriarchies or not and if the definitions are used for political purposes or if they indicate a more complex reality than a dictionary can provide.
Whatever the post is, as always, I’m looking forward to it!
and regarding societal permission, i totally agree, and that’s at the heart of my question:
WHAT ARE PEOPLE GETTING OUT OF LEAVING THINGS THIS WAY???
ever since i was young i wondered why the ones in power ever cared what the little people thought in the first place if they were so omnipotent, while the little people felt disempowered.
my ETERNAL OPTIMISM (even when i’m despairing) comes from my own ability as the feral monster girl to upend any situation just by asking the one question no one dare or say what’s obvious that people ignore.
it doesn’t take MUCH.
the question for me as an artist (as a VERB), is: “how do we tip the culture in favor of the exhibitionists who’re so past caring about being surveilled and shamed because they’ve got nothing left to lose???”
there are cameras everywhere. EVERYWHERE. san francisco i finally realized cannot come back with all of them. they’re ubiquitous. as are beeping sounds and automatic sensory lights going off all night.
okay. i’m way off topic. i was reading the comments.
(smile)
e
For the 5th Wednesday post I propose a tour d’horizon (a necessarily brief tour) of the major occultists of the 20th Century and their impact on the modern world.
A common staple of many mystery & occult themed sites is mention that Aleister Crowley irresponsibly failed to properly seal a gate to other realms during his workings in the North African desert allowing malefic influences to come into our world. Same with Jack Parson’s Babylon workings in his Pasadena desert At the very least, the sheer amount of cringe references to Crowley, call outs and larping prevalent in popular culture colors the modern atmosphere.
The more I read on Dion Fortune, the more I believe she had a solid agenda that went far beyond the day to day politics she warned members of her society against. I feel she’s also responsible (or deserves credit, depending on one’s point of view) for how some things turned out. On the other hand, someone like W.B. Yeats may have had some very subtle influences, not generally known.
I’d like to point out that the biggest daner of climate change isn’t the direction it’s going, or even the trillions of dollars of sunk costs in modern infrastructure, it’s the instability and uncertainty.
A warmer planet with more rainfall could be a paradise that supports much more life, both human and nonhuman. We built climate appropriate buildings, extensive roads and canals, granaries, monuments, etc. before fosil fuels and we will doubtless do so again after they are gone. The climate will eventually stabilize at some new equilibrium with new deserts and rainforests, but in the transition planning will be very difficult. Modern agricultural plains may become a desert, but for years it will just look like a severe drought. Massive flooding will eventually become wetlands and rainforests, but to those on the ground it just looks like a natural disaster. And those are just the ones that are following a clear trendline to a clear destination. There could very easily be stark changes in ocean currents that would completely change the neighboring climate and Hadley cells merging from 3 per hemisphere to 1 per hemisphere is going to upset a lot of apple carts should it come to pass.
Some places, like say the midwest, could just get steadily drier until it’s unambiguously a desert. But others could be whipsawed back and forth when, say, a drying trend is abruptly reversed by a change in ocean currents, then revert to a drying trend only to be undone by merged Hadley cells. Such a place might start out and end up as a pretty pleasant place for human habitation, but in the centuries in between it could be awfully ugly.
For the 5th Wednesday, I’d like to hear about miscalculation in an age of hubris. The US clearly miscalculated when it provoked Russia into invading Ukraine and Israel appears to have miscalculated when it attacked Iran. In both cases, the established power overestimated its capacities and underestimated its rivals. I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot more of that in store. The combination of a declining power and rising rivals, and the arrogance, delusions, and military weakness of the west seems like fertile territory for some devestating miscalculations. Now, I understand that times like ours are highly contingent, so I’m not looking for detailed predictions, but some historical perspective into the dynamics would be nice.
(thanks, Vitranc!)
–erika
“THE BIG BLOBBY BILL”!!!!!
man that’s soooo good it HURTS.
an example of the “managerial class” interfering with climate change narratives:
“Millán’s study was initially well received. He was invited by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to contribute to its Third Assessment Report in 2002. But that was also a time when climate scientists — who built models based on projections of increased global carbon emissions and rising temperatures — were becoming dominant.
Millán found that the modelers were not interested in his analysis of interacting factors and “questioned every result we presented.” He found himself involved in endless losing arguments and eventually left the IPCC.
Politicians, it seemed, also preferred the modelers’ straightforward analysis to Millán’s complex accounting.”
https://theclimateaccordingtolife.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-narratives?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1604432&post_id=160791979&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=6q9vp&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Mary, her stuff is considered bit outdated now, even what she wrote about indoeuropans, though she was still more right than Renfrew. Right now, archeologist tend to think neolithic societies weren’t matriarchal(they tended to be partilocal and patrilineal) and that they weren’t all that peaceful e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Schletz
I think you’re not being fair to renewables. Your chart reflects the emissions made so far. However the growth has been pretty impressive, it looks like even China’s emissions have stopped growing https://www.newscientist.com/article/2480289-chinas-co2-emissions-have-started-falling-is-this-finally-the-peak/
Mind you, this doesn’t mean that we’ll avoid the effects you’ve described, they are mostly baked in.
Do you have any sources of information on paleoclimatology that you recommend? Considering the vast amount of speculation involved in anything written about the past, are there any sources that you recommend NOT reading?
5th Wednesday vote: Population decline – historic examples, foreseeable economic, ecologic and societal impacts.
As usual, JMG, your take on a hot-button topic is sufficiently nuanced and reasonable to be a breath of fresh air. Thank you.
As for 5th Wednesday, I’d also like to vote for the matriarchy / patriarchy myth post.
Re: biology vs. culture:
I suspect human societies can be compared to an outside dog tied to a pole on a long chain. The dog can wander about through the radius but cannot go beyond it. At the edge of the territory, the dog gets choked by the chain and doesn’t like to go out that far except when reacting to some animal or unfamiliar person. And the dog wanders all over the territory (no long-term “moral progress” for societies) but keeps going back and staying in certain spots like the doghouse, the shade under the tree, water hole, and food bowls (some cultures are more stable than others).
In short, the biological foundation of human nature sets limits on the range of feasible societies.
I think more people would agree with this position, if not for moral progressivism demanding we keep moving “forward.”
The only way wind and solar work is with subsidies, as I think you need an EROEI of above 12:1 for anything to even remotely pay for itself. I really need to get my review of the great solar EROEI debate online, but I find it fascinating that in the last 10 years, some formerly conservative thinkers on renewable energy have adopted radical new methodologies for calculating solar PV EROEI, often using pay walled data that can’t be easily replicated. These calculations are designed as boosterism, pushing solar PV EROEI above 20:1, but I think in time will be seen as nothing other than false advertising. Charles Hall, now well into his 80s, is sitting there writing what he can with a sort of sad resignation. Solar PV is probably well below 10:1.
So either the subsidies are from existing generation, usually coal, sometimes nuclear and hydro, or financial subsidies, which in ultimately means energy backing.
The CEO of a major New Zealand electricity company (hydro and wind, plus solar) recently annoyed our climate activists by stating that home scale solar doesn’t make sense. He’s right. He did say that grid scale solar makes sense in New Zealand, but only because NZ is lucky to have hydro. It doesn’t solve the issue NZ, like all electricity grids (apart from Norway) face, what happens in substantial droughts when the hydro lakes run out?
The solution is, as in almost all places, burn coal.
Dear JMG,
Great essay. I wonder if it’s ever occurred to you that climate modeling is much like sham divination? The models – beyond comprehension of all but a few and certainly not to the politicians who base policy on them – build their outputs on layer upon layer of assumption to predict futures which may or may not be true. I noticed that recently you’d said AI could well be a vehicle for unknown, unseen forces and given that climate models are similar in technology, this might be the case here too.
Kindly,
Boy
For those who aren’t familiar with Fahrenheit, a change of 15 degrees F is equivalent to a 27 degree C change (multiply by 9 and divide by 5).
My fifth Wednesday vote is for gnosticism.
Hi JMG,
Great post as always! It’s so nice to have someone really “get it.” I have friends on both the right and left who deploy the exact arguments you talk about. I’ve been telling my left-leaning friend that the people running the COP organization are not our friends and he looks at me like I’ve grown a third eye, while my friend on the right says that I’ve “drunk the cool-aide” and am under the influence of “left-wing propogandists” for saying that climate change is really a thing. So, I absolutely understand your commenter’s statement about the right being in denial and the left being in delusion.
The only positive thing I will note here is that I’ve seen some people in the climate change crowd begin to recognize that what they are doing is counterproductive. I’ve seen some individuals begin to reduce their own footprint; taking trains instead of planes whenever possible, reducing the amount of stuff they buy, etc. I’ve also noticed what I interpret as the first tentative stages of grass-roots organizing to get ready for the negative effects of climate change. For example, my friend Emily Schoerning’s YouTube channel “American Resiliency” (here: https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanResiliency) is trying to do some of that by providing “actionable” information for people to help them understand what is going on in their region and things they can do to prepare for themselves and their families.
Finally, I want to cast my vote for the “Manufactured Patriarchy/Matriarchy myth’ topic for the fifth Wednesday post. Thanks again!
Not only is the concept of deep time unfathomable to modern people, historical time has been rapidly narrowed to the point that most people can’t conceive of anything outside their lived experience, and a world viewed throught the narrow lense provided by their particular place in time. I think that’s why the societal/biological question raised so many proverbial hackles.
Most corporations/people (same thing by law) don’t think any farther ahead than the next quarterly earnings statement/paycheck. What planning there is depends on how good the pay period was. If earnings don’t rise, then find someone to blame and double down. If earnings rise, then find something/someone to exploit, and qudruple down. After all, if we are successful, it’s because we deserve it. It’s our biological destiny!
People have no concept of how tiny a blip on the timescale we are. I have no trouble believing your proposition of the previous intelligent/technological societies. That’s one of the ideas I dug out of Stars Reach, humans inability to concieve of life forms that are different than us, due to the particular elements of their circumstances and ecology.
I would like you to chew on the identity politics fallacy that is corroding discourse and problem solving. It seems to be the larger issue that contains the matriarchy/patriarchy debate. It’s like the “biblical view of marriage” trope popular amongst pundits both left and right. The reality is that there are myriad ways of arranging families/tribes/societies. Does it always end in war?
@60 KAN
No, it’s an 8°C change. Multiply by 5 and divide by 9 to convert to Celsius, the other way around to convert to Fahrenheit. Celsius units are larger than Fahrenheit units.
First off, I’ve got everyone’s votes tabulated — thank you.
Mary, thank you. Er, not all influencers are bought and paid for by the elite classes; I have a fairly large following online, for example, and I’ve yet to have anyone offer me money to pitch some point of view. No doubt there are many others like me. As for continental drift, well, mammals are found on every continent but Antarctica these days, you know; different continents had different dinosaur fauna, so they weren’t as closely connected as that.
David, yes, I read about the Fugu Plan in a book many decades ago. It was a very Japanese sort of misunderstanding of the West.
Polecat, you know, I think that analysis is at least as good as the official ones. As for magnetic poles, yes, we’re probably not far from a pole reversal, or at least an excursion (the term for a temporary wobbling of the geomagnetic field), but I know of no solid evidence that that’ll mess with the climate.
RaabSilco, thank you! You’re quite right that the current climate follies repeat a standard pattern, and it’s one I’ve been brooding about of late; if I come up with some useful ways of looking at the pattern, an essay will be forthcoming.
Clay, of course. Every civilization in its decadence comes up with grandiose projects to waste resources that might otherwise save it from its fate; data centers are our contribution to that grand old pattern.
Vitranc, very often it’s all that we can do.
Pygmycory, exactly. The planet will be fine; our species will be fine; the dangers are far more direct and personal — but that’s exactly what most people don’t want to deal with, as responding to that would require them to (I’ll whisper it) change their lifestyles.
Mister N, one of these days I need to do a post on the complicated nature of power in a mature society. It’s a massive oversimplification to say that there’s just one “ruling class” — in reality there are a great many power centers of varying degrees of strength, and class is only one of many axes along which those are aligned. Factions derived from the old capitalist class still retain some of the power they had before 1929, and the managerial class has been using them as a rhetorical punching bag ever since — “don’t look at us, look at those evil capitalists over there, they’re the real ruling elite!” Look at the way that power has migrated away from boards of directors (which represent stockholders) to C-suites (which represent corporate bureaucracies), and from Congress to the executive branch (same distinction), and you can see how power is really distributed.
Drhooves, it’s not just that it was badly marketed — it’s that it has been used as a way to distract attention from other, frankly more serious issues.
Ryan, geoengineering certainly happens but I’m far from sure that it’s that big a contributor to the situation. No geoengineering project is well enough funded to equal the output of the world’s smokestacks and tailpipes, after all! That said, thanks for the reference — I’ll see if my local library has a copy.
Justin, er, I don’t encourage or welcome attempts to manipulate the voting here, whether by pataphysical methods or otherwise. Please either nominate something you actually want to hear about, vote for something already nominated, or sit this one out.
Pyrrhus, yep. I forget which pharaoh set up a memorial stone saying that he’d found the Sphinx almost entirely buried by the sands of centuries, and had his people excavate and repair it — that is to say, it was already profoundly ancient when the pharaohs reigned.
Serinde, glad to hear it. Whether your descendants go ice fishing, or lounge on a semitropical beach, is a good question, and not just because of the Gulf Stream; under the planet’s normal climate conditions, the poles are temperate…
https://www.ecosophia.net/riding-the-climate-toboggan/
…though, as a descendant of Scots Highlanders, I shake my head and laugh at the collision between semitropical climates and the Scots national character!
Hermit, yes, that could also have quite an effect! Climate change is even more complex than brewing cider…
Viduraawakened, I don’t think the Permian mass extinction is a likely candidate because it lasted so long. To judge from the current example, a climate crisis caused by intelligent beings digging up a lot of fossil fuels and burning them is a quick, self-terminating process a few centuries long, with knock-on effects on the order of a million years at most. Precambrian examples are unlikely because you need complex multicellular organisms, and those hadn’t evolved yet. That’s why I see the Toarcian and Cenomanian-Turonian events as the most likely candidates: they were sudden, relatively quickly over, and took place long after Earth had evolved complex multicellular organisms with grasping hands and binocular vision.
BeardTree, there are theories, but nobody knows for sure yet. As for “needed re-engineering,” er, it won’t happen. What will happen instead is that we and nature will muddle through. There has never been a “truly healthy society” and never will be, not least because we have no clear idea of what such a society would be like — all we have are our culturally determined and profoundly fallible beliefs about what it would be.
Siliconguy, yep. You can see from that just how much Bezos actually cares about global warming.
(Batstrel, thanks for this.)
Aldarion, well, there were certainly monsoon rains in both places in the Hypsithermal, when the Earth’s axis was in much the same place as it is now, so I think their renewal is pretty likely. As for carbon samples, I don’t know — it’s an intriguing question.
Michelle, please accept my sympathy and good wishes for a complete recovery! As for the AMOC, that and the other overturning circulations will very likely shut down at least for a while — that’s one of the ways the biosphere responds to excess carbon in the atmosphere. (Once the overturning circulations shut down, the deep waters become deoxygenated, and the constant rain of biological material that drifts down there is entombed in sediment, removing its carbon from the biosphere. Curiously enough, that’s where petroleum comes from.)
Erika, glad you liked it! That’s exactly it — the people who are melting down about Trumpety-Trump-Trump-TRUMP!!! these days are suffering a really serious crisis of identity and meaning. I’ll look forward to seeing you next June; as for the campfire et al., I wonder if maybe it’s time to do something in Providence like the event in Glastonbury, with three days or so of talks and time to hang out. If a venue for 50-100 people could be found, that would do it.
Dennis, and you were quite correct, of course, and equally so about the “out of sight, out of mind” effect, which also influences people on the left — think of all the people who insist their electric cars don’t pollute, without ever wondering how the electricity is generated!
Patrick, glad to hear it. I’ve had people from the right deny it to my face.
Teresa, exactly. The universe is too complex for our brains to comprehend. Once we grasp that, it becomes easier to work within our limits.
Dave, resource depletion and environmental disruption are the two poles around which the whole business revolves. As for the whale oil fallacy, imagine that you’re stranded in the desert without water. If I tell you, “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll surely find a substitute for water!” will that do any good? Of course not. There isn’t always a substitute available…
Erika, if I had an answer to that I’d be much further ahead of the game than I am!
Team10tim, a valid and important point!
Cushla, thanks for this! It’s a great example.
Alex, no, I’m being entirely fair to renewables. China’s emissions have stopped growing — no surprises there, since their population is decreasing and so is their industrial production — but that just means they’re adding to the atmospheric CO2 levels at a huge but steady rate instead of a rising one. Meanwhile industrializing nations elsewhere in the global south are increasing their emissions as they produce more goods for the global north. The great secret is that it doesn’t matter how fast renewable growth is, because those PV panels and wind turbines are all manufactured using fossil fuels, using raw materials mined, shipped, refined, and processed using fossil fuels, and are then shipped, installed, maintained, and discarded using fossil fuels. They yield a modest trickle of “green” grid power at a huge cost in pollution and ecosystem damage.
K.A., I’ve been collecting research papers on the subject for years. Online article repositories such as academia.edu are good places to start, and some of the general science mags routinely have articles on the subject; avoid anything that uses the phrase “global warming,” and get multiple sources on any claim before you believe it.
Adara9, you’re welcome and thank you.
Peter, exactly. I see grid-scale wind and solar as being a sort of faux-green equivalent of Tibetan prayer wheels — you do them to gain virtue, not for any more practical benefit.
Boy, hmm! That strikes me as a plausible analysis.
KAN, no, it’s the other way around — remember that there are 100 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water in Celsius, but 180 in Fahrenheit. A change of 15°F is a little over 8°C.
Chronojourner, I’m delighted to hear this! Since teaching by example is the only thing that actually works in such situations, this might actually help.
John, oh dear gods, yes. I’ve seen this at work so often that I plan on a post about the utter blindness to historical change sometime very soon. As for “identity politics,” that probably deserves a post of its own, too, since — ahem — identity is also a social construct, not a biological one. No, it doesn’t always end in war, but that happens too often for comfort.
Patrick, that metaphor works.
I vote for matriarchy/patriarchy.
please forgive the madness. i am a writer of the kind that is 180 degrees from Papa’s level of focus and chill just scroll past this if he puts this through:
full disclosure because that’s what the rest of my life will be about as i share HOW THIS ARTIST SEES THE WORLD, going off on James’ Baldwin’s quote regarding artists showing you how to see, and he himself was no slouch regarding VISION. oh, hardly.
Jesus’ example of Love is the throughline. and i don’t say Jesus in this context with the generality of “blah blah Ginger.” i am riffing off Papa G’s line a long time ago, just a seeming throwaway answer probably in the comment answers, yes it WAS… something about how Jesus is how living that philosophy would look in the flesh. something like that.
and i was electrified because he exalted that manifestation almost as part of a bigger DIRECTION. ah! writer i am NOT! i’m grasping for words with a spastic club foot. i was electrified because it was matter-of-fact, yeah, you like the idea of polytheism because no one has to be WRONG… THAT in itself IS the proverbial finger pointing to the MOON and becoming said MOON.
ya dig?
it’s not abstract, it’s in the questions assumptions… which is why he says societal not biological permission given regarding what we’ve got now… and STILL it can be interpreted a myriad of WAYS! how highlarious and how Biblical or any religion’s form of LOVE always inevitably turns into axxhole fxck you slaughter.
it would be so highlarious if it weren’t so NOW.
back to…
so why write when you think everyone knows you and STILL it gets taken for the opposite? because it starts a CONVERSATION and this is where the meat is and why i write here to say where we have to go. we question our assumptions. how far WE’LL go while chastising others for backing down. we have no shared language or even VISION. so the artist writer philosopher who dares to put their ideas down not only risk ridicule but they risk their language being of a totally alien construct compared to SOCIETY.
i’m also riffing off an article i was killing writing time with oh, the one CJ Hopkins just mentioned in his openly capitalistic plea that we buy his book. the one on how publishing now needs series and “comp” books… books eternally “compared to” and it molds THINKING.
it builds its own machine platform.
that is what we’re fighting. all the fancy words are often wasted rose petals dried up and swept out …maybe they become potpurri LATER but i’m riding on i’ve BEEN SAVED! Jesus-type near life epiphanies that you are SEEN and thus loved (to hearken to Eugene Terekhin’s work that is ALSO like a director’s voice i hear alongside my descent into the depths of our collective madness so that i may see…
WHAT DO WE OURSELVES GET OUT OF LIFE BEING THIS WAY BECAUSE WE WE WE US ALLOW IT
so i must find out what is REALLY being fed. what makes MKULtra work on ALL of us like those slave tenets about keeping the light skinned ones apart from the dark skinned ones… it’s read like HISTORY but i hear it as NOW NOW NOW like fingernails on a chalkboard. even if the willie lynch speech about how to keep the slaves enslaved by pitting them against each other, no matter: IT WORKS NOW. it’s us NOW.
so if LIFE is so good, why do we have such a hard time pitching it to an even worse reality? if we’re the power? if we keep kings in their place?
to go back to The Bible where God hopes we don’t NEED KINGS. even if The Bible was written by Bazooka gum cartoonists, it’s a GREAT IDEA.
so if people think so but can only go so far in our world but “we” run things? we’re back to Ursula LeGuin’s pitch about the artist being treasonous for going along.
so that’s why i’m trying to gather the ones who have nothing to lose the ones ready for The Living Suicide to show LOVE as a verb but how to sidestep pretentiousness art and action and leading and healing can so easily slip into? (again our platforms are heirarchy even here in Papa G’s land. i can show you how i’d happily bow at his feet in public and not resemble anything like a dormant sack of potatoes regardless of how fat my ass may be. i, an artist can SHOW you)
not to piss off that Englishman who hated parenthetical statements but loved it enough because it inspired him to write it TINGLED him. could you not FEEL it? how to channel those tingles into another non English platform that IS American? but not to piss you off, sir, but i’ve lost control of my own parenthesis entirely and if i look for it i’ll be horrified at what i’ve written here but i’ve sliced a vein to even GET to this place so i must at least cut and paste for my own clarity (it’s easier to be clear to an actual friendly audience than to myself and an imaginary one. i flounder.)
…meaning we also ceded our AMERICAN rag tag culture to the ones who LOOOVE watching Downton. Abbey. James said liberals were loyalists. he pointed to PBS’s love of shows on royalty.
Johnny Appleseed and Muddy Waters come ON, you all! different platform. where are the hillbillies???
that’s why JD Vance was everywhere in every meme. because Hillbilly’s coming back. i’m not creating anything, just pointing out the new syllables emerging underground because my own life depends on reconnecting with them.
see you next year at Adocentyn.
Thanks much, Mr Peter Van Erp. he made a toast into REALITY.
see how it works? don’t waste your time writing tingly jabs about format and fake composure. America’s where the words got all jumbled up and we still apparently have to read body language to get along.
move the tingles to the kind of love where we make each other and then it ripples. like so many here have done with me, us moving it to the REAL world, warts hugs love and all.
love is messy irritating annoying and sometimes HELL if you’re doing it right, RIGHT? if you’ve ever been in the kind of relationship that’s not torture, you KNOW. it’s better than this all THIS around us.
so we’re gonna have to figure out how to get along. that’s my take on Jesus. we may not get to the ecstatic woo woo love part where you say “power money whaaaa?..” because it’s irrelevant. an unholy waste of time.
Peter Van Erp’s offer of bringing me to Adocentyn next year is making me think of MY gift to bring, even as i’ll be traveling and have no kitchen i’m going to take over. and my gift is to produce our own little talent show to show each other our selves and show how EASY and fun it is to go back to playing outside til the streetlights come on.
that’s MY gift i want to offer.
so i’m being Devouring Mother underhanded in trying to publicly sandbag dear Mr Patient non-answering non-committal Peter Van Erp because i want to try and solicit EVERYONE else’s encouragement that they have a song to sing a poem to read a theory to openly share for tearing apart… the CONVERSATIONS. such things are like brand new tiny black box theatre.
as an exhibitionist who’s one because i simply no longer CARE what boring tedious people think of me unless they’re actively trying to kill me which isn’t out of the realm of possibility these endless days of san francisco misery and rage and fear, i’m trying to bring out the exhibitionists in the best of YOU because you all are away of the powers of ego fame and the traps that kill all good intentions.
like Eugene Terekhin’s LATEST (i told you he runs alongside where art is going… out into the WORLD. i’m convinced of it), anyhow like his latest post, it’s about how and why some don’t fall prey to the soft spoken satans of the world, because they don’t want anything. they’re not idol worshipping.
when you take people out of it, The Bible’s got amazing lessons and secrets and tips in there.
again, i think you have to read “alongside” it. another platform or language. and even then i believe we’ll still misunderstand. but that’s where the BEST art and conversations come in.
so i’m reminding us the misunderstandings are the beauty the meat the best parts of the marriage or connection that keeps us stronger because we’re endlessly fascinating to each other instead of the devouring mother or even that roman way Simon Sheridan (MUST READ HIS WORK ON DEVOURING MOTHER!!!!) reminds me is about this binary kukla fran and ollie shtick.
it’s tedious boring and UNNECESSARY.
if our way’s better {(not to be “dxcks”–[yes, ducks]) this is for YOU, English man who ignores parenthesis.. tingle away!} then why do we keep losing the sale???
we must be ruthless with our answers. i don’t have them, i’m challenging our THINKING the architecture of how we come to our interpretations and assumptions about words.
i’m a writer so words elude me (smile).
if the evil have more time and money while we’re off enjoying hikes or having good sex, we have to think smarter. BE smarter.
i believe this because without James to buffer me from The Real World, i keep saying to myself by what i see and feel now that i wasn’t in my own art world: YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.
so i’m coming clean about my ways of thinking my trying to use my manipulative powers for collective GOOD by getting you all to be into starting Adocentyn’s road show at Peter Van Erp’s potluck next year on 20th of June 2026.
i bury the lead because if you got this far down you GET this. you can’t look away because it’s in YOU. i’m a rorschach test. how you respond tells me the world about you before hello.
i’m sharing how i do this. surrender is saying yes to Jim Moore’s gift and dare as well as Peter Van Erp’s. give me something to RIFF off with my talents and it changes MY life and yours. it’s an offering and accepting for me takes much thought because every YES is a new adventure when you surrender your ideas and come with your gifts and your all.
it ups the date energy. you don’t need to “fall in love” because EVERY INTERACTION has that potential.
it gives back. it lifts up. it’s a different paradigm than feminist’s give me i want to be exalted! adore me! rape me! then bow before me!
what’s in it for The Other Beloved???
and you’re SAVED if they think surrender and submit IN THAT CONTEXT means “bend over, bxtch.”
you realize it doesn’t FEEL GOOD. that’s how you see the devils. THEY DON’T FEEL GOOD.
that’s why this feels like hedonism so then why is hedonism bad???
again… upside down world. Satan shows up as an enlightened being. fascinating!
artists… yes. we WILL teach you how to see. but artists means something different to EVERYONE, including me, and i say …
GOOD!
the creativity comes in the trying to eternally EXPLAIN. god/God is in the misunderstandings and mistakes.
no. AI cannot touch this.
whew. gotta go write. i’m gonna steal all this and edit it down. i missed this place. hard to write to yourself and so much clearer writing in THIS place, THIS audience who gets what i’m on about. some of you at least.
the ones who made it this far, next year in Adocentyn!
x
@erika
Milady
V
I was just trying to have some fun in my own way, by, I thought, being silly. I wasnt intending to actually manipulate anyone. I guess it might not have come across that way.
(I thought voting fraud was as American as apple pie, though?)
How about this nomination along the lines of Goldberg & Jarry: The Imagination as a Source for Strategies in Coping with the Polycrisis.
My vote is for “Manufactured Patriarchy/Matriarchy myth”
Thank you for your reply, JMG.
I have been meditating on deep time a fair amount, trying to stretch my minds eye to slow down its view of the passage of time. I am trying this in the hopes that I can see things on a deeper level than the surface view that we have in day to day life. It’s hard, because I see things through a human lense, and that is a very immediate thing. I want to listen to what the plants have to say!
I cast my 5th Wednesday vote for the Patriarchal/Matriarchal topic then, and look forward to your unpacking of the identity politics racket.
Thank you also, for collecting and shepherding, the best commentariat around. I don’t know how you do it. Thoughtful replies to thoughtful comments. Perhaps we are a fringe community, but it gives me so much hope for humanity.
What’s the eventual fate of the Canadian prairie states like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba?
@JMG: LOL. Be assured, the Scots are extremely adaptable and are known and welcomed around the world as good natured and open-handed, even when in their cups, in part because other cultures see them as the prototype colony on which their own experience was built, so there is a certain fellow feeling, despite their time as the civil servants and soldiers of empire. Back in the last century when I travelled a bit, I always told people the truth when they asked where I lived (even when I knew they meant where was I from): Scotland. I was always made very welcome indeed (one Anglo accent being very like another, mercifully; never admit being an American if it could be avoided was my motto). The Scots love warmer climes — and the diaspora can be found in all manner of interesting places, many of them semi-tropical, so if all that comes to them — even better! Wish I could hear how traditional stories adapt. What they don’t yet realise is there are worse critters (just) than midges!
May I put a vote in for an exploration of hubris and over-reach? (Although anything will be interesting, as usual.)
I vote for the patriarchy/matriarchy topic that everyone here seems to be onboard with, but with one caveat: please devote a good portion of it to the issues that young men specifically face today with regard to the fact that the education system and pop culture tells them that they are basically useless. How will this play out? Will there be a backlash to this? (perhaps you could also address how Freemasonry offers a potential antidote to these issues?)
What could survive from a previous civilization is a good question. Shark teeth survived in sedimentary rock after all. Ceramics should as well.
As for metals, something like a stainless steel pump housing should hold up. At least some stainless steels, type 304 is barely stainless and would crumble in any brine. But the higher chrome alloys could well survive. Something like Alloy 20 used in sulfuric acid service is likely to survive. Then there are extremely corrosion resistant alloys like 825 or inconel 600 and the top of the line (and expensive) C-276.
A geologically quiet sedimentary basin has the best odds of surviving artifacts. Once you add the heat and pressure from a metamorphic process everything ends up an oxide or sulfide and the shapes would be deformed as well.
So you would need to find the thin layer corresponding to the (geologically) short lived civilization. Hard, but not impossible. They did find the Tanis site after all. But you need to know exactly what time frame you are looking for and be very lucky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanis_(fossil_site)
“Enjoyer, exactly. If the Jews were actually the sort of all-powerful world-controlling force that anti-Semites believe they are, that would clearly show that they were a superior race — certainly superior to the anti-Semites! ”
I really, really hate to have to play advocate for this devil, but I think both you and Ecosophia Enjoyer are strawmanning the antisemetic position. Propaganda, of course, doesn’t have to be internally consistent– it’s meant to convince your emotions, not your intellect– but there has been an intellectual strain of that racialist antisemetism, and their view actually does have some consistency. It is that “The Jews” (though more specifically, the Ashkenazim, since European antisemites rarely made note of Sephardim after 1492, and the Mizrahim’s existence is inconvenient to this thesis)* serve the ecological role of parasites. They are superior in certain specific traits (modern race realists admit to very high IQ, but an antisemite might want to downplay it as “low cunning”), but deficient in others in order to adapt them to that role. This parasitism does lead to them assisting one another to take positions in high society, but to the benefit of their own group and the detriment of the host nation. A parasite might have power over the host, but is it superior?
I am not saying this to endorse this viewpoint. By no means! I would like to see it disproven and dispelled in its strongest and virulant form, because I think that when you strawman the position you actually strengthen it when encountered in the wild. The way everything the regime doesn’t like is called Nazi and everything the Israelis don’t like is called Antisemitism has lifted those ideas out of the dustbin of history. If all you ever hear is a caricature of them, if you run into a real, erudite Antisemite or National Socialist, you won’t have the intellectual tools to argue. When he sounds much more reasonable than you expect, you can be taken unawares–and that weakens you to his spell. Aside from my own nearly pathological sense of fairness leading me to speak up, “know thy enemy” is an important adage for a reason.
(I’d also like to point out that most of the self-identifying “race realists” are not exactly Nazis and, indeed, the high average IQ of Ashkenazim is a key talking point for such folks. To be generous to the “race realist” position, it is entirely possible to acknowledge difference without asserting superiority. (They kind of have to: most of them are white, and whites are middling at everything by “The Bell Curve” style data.))
*(actually, at least one antisemite has used the relationship between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim in Israel as evidence of this “Ashkenazim=Parasites” thesis with the specific focus on Ashkenazim, the demographic makeup of Israeli elites being what it is.)
My vote for 5th Friday is Gnosticism
Thanks as always
“There has never been a “truly healthy society” and never will be, not least because we have no clear idea of what such a society would be like — all we have are our culturally determined and profoundly fallible beliefs about what it would be.”
You know, this has really been brought home to me in the last couple years since we had kids. We put a lot of thought and effort into providing them with the healthiest possible environment, but even very deeply held and well-considered convictions about what that actually is have had some dismaying collisions with the realities of life, personality differences, and resource constraints (and not always the obvious resources!). I think we do all right, but it certainly requires a decent amount of agility and equanimity to pull it off.
On an encouraging note, most conservatives I know are entirely receptive to straightforward concerns about toxic pollution, although most are allergic to carbon boondoggles and highly suspicious of “endangered species” initiatives (about which I have mixed feelings myself). Most of the farmers, hunters, and fishermen are also entirely aware of climate change, as well, although changes in our subtropical region may be more obvious than most (tropical fish moving in, flatly too warm to cure hams anymore most years, etc.).
>For those who aren’t familiar with Fahrenheit, a change of 15 degrees F is equivalent to a 27 degree C change (multiply by 9 and divide by 5).
Ahem, methinks you have that backward. Every 9F is 5C. Estimate it would be about 7.5C, lemme pull up the calculator – 8.3C.
The C is a chonky unit compared with F. If you’re in a real hurry, you can divide or multiply by 2 and that will get you in the ballpark. You can actually use that result and apply a correction – just divide it by 10 and then add or subtract. Instead of multiplying by 1.8 to go from C to F, multiply by 2 first and then subtract by 0.2 and then add 32 at the end.
You can also memorize all the conversions at 5C intervals too and interpolate between those in your head. Remember every 5C is 9F. And some numbers will show up more often than others and you can just cache those in your head. 35C is 95F, 27C is 80F, 30C is 86F. And the memories -18C is 0F. Brr.
I know, it’s work and let’s face it, work sucks. But when you’re stuck in Europe for a year, you have no choice, you have to convert in your head. File this away if you need it later, the rest of the world uses metric. I wonder if I should share how to convert km to mi.
If Americans are having an identity crisis, I hope it turns into multiple personality disorder. I mean that not in a strict psychological sense, but logic has only gotten us so far and going psycho for a bit might be necessary. From this alchemical stage of putrefacation new fermentatious goo may brew. On Magic Monday a commenter brought up Peace Pilgrim, one of my heroes. You mentioned in reply that she was of a particular American type, the kind who followed her own personal vision. Ala Johnny Appleseed I thought.
In the recent film Civil War ( I havent watched it… not wanting to add to its tracks in space) there was a quote talked about in articles that stayed with me: “What kind of American are you?”
I can only hope we can each find our own unique ways in order to ge able to respond as the visionary kind, the ones who find their own way, the ones who do theirvown thing.
Hi JMG,
For the 5th Wednesday, my vote is for you to write about Neptune’s entrance into Aries and what that might imply. Thanks.
I will also join the patriarchy/matriarchy bandwagon for the Fifth Wednesday. Thanks, Drew C
Once again, everyone’s votes have been tabulated.
Erika, half the reason I always put your posts through is that your style is as far from mine as possible. The other half is that there’s always something worth thinking about in there.
Justin, okay, gotcha. Remember that, autism being what it is, I don’t always recognize jokes as jokes. As for voting fraud, sure, and we can set aside Johnny Appleseed’s birthday for apple pie and vote fraud. 😉
John, I don’t know how I got my commentariat either, but you’re right that it’s the best on the internet.
Anonymous, are you suggesting that as a fifth Wednesday post?
Serinde, the thought of Scots being good-natured and openhanded makes my head hurt. Maybe it’s just my experience, or my family, but I tend to think of Scots as pinching each penny until Abe Lincoln (or, on your side of the pond, the reigning monarch) yelps in pain!
Ethan, I wonder if you’ve read these posts of mine:
https://www.ecosophia.net/on-magic-manhood-and-masculism/
https://www.ecosophia.net/on-the-metaphysics-of-sex/
https://www.ecosophia.net/our-werewolves-ourselves/
Siliconguy, and then that quiet sedimentary basin would have to be raised to surface level without any metamorphic process. There’s a reason why paleontologists estimate that only 1% of all species appear as fossils.
TylerA, so noted.
Jennifer, thanks for this. I’ve been very pleased to see conservatives in recent years become more aware of ecological issues — back before 1950 or so, conservation was a conservative issue and liberals mostly ignored it, and it’s good to see the former alignment returning.
Justin, no argument there. Central to my vision of America, certainly, is that it’s a place where people can follow their own paths, no matter how eccentric those turn out to be. My America is the America of the Shakers and the Rosicrucians, of Johnny Appleseed and Dr. Bronner and High John the Conqueror, of Cyrus Teed and Sun Ra and the Emperor Norton I. I’d like to see that America get a little more attention and respect.
No worries, my sense of humor can be subtle and droll when I am with people in person, and a quick comment doesnt always carry the massage into the medium.
…
I’ve been kicking myself all day because somehow I missed the memo that Sun Ra Arkestra played here last night at our Memorial Hall. I am on their promotional email list, but I guess I deleted the right ones and looked at the wrong ones. John Gilmore is still leading the band strong. Dang nabit!
@Ethan #77 an essay published in Time Magazine by the lesbian feminist Camille Paglia entitled – It’s a Man’s World, and It Always Will Be
https://ideas.time.com/2013/12/16/its-a-mans-world-and-it-always-will-be/
And JMG she recognizes in the essay that our current civilization will inevitably fall as others have in history
A famous quote of hers – If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.”
Katylina @ 56, I take it you mean to refer to Colin Renfrew and his Anatolian Hypothesis. Gimbutas was quite influential outside archeology in her day. I can still remember feminists blithely referring to ancient matriarchies as if that hypothesis were proven fact. Along with the assertion that Minoan religion, about which I think very little is known to this day, was the last flowering of mother goddess worship which had once, so it was claimed, flourished throughout Europe. How a pack of literature and sociology majors could have known all that was beyond me.
My vote is for Wilhelm Reich
oh, thanks, Papa.
that means the universe to me, especially right now in the thick of it all.
xxxxxx
JMG, this https://dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth#66 shows what I gather is geologists’ most recent theory about where landmasses were 66MYBP. They would have been slightly closer at the time of asteroid impact. In this rendering, India has begun to move off the Reunion hotspot. South America and Africa have separated far enough to account for divergent evolution of camelids. I am thinking that at the time of impact, all continents except for maybe India would have had some territory within the worst parts of the destruction zone.
Vitranc, i’m swooooning!
see that, you young men? THAT’s how you do it!
thank you. i’d shave my legs and paint my toenails for you.
x
—
“Erika, glad you liked it! That’s exactly it — the people who are melting down about Trumpety-Trump-Trump-TRUMP!!! these days are suffering a really serious crisis of identity and meaning. I’ll look forward to seeing you next June; as for the campfire et al., I wonder if maybe it’s time to do something in Providence like the event in Glastonbury, with three days or so of talks and time to hang out. If a venue for 50-100 people could be found, that would do it.”
—See, Peter Van Erp? SEE??? it’s on. we’ve gotta figure this out. anyone wanna take the lead on researching what Glastonbury even DID??? i won’t be able to jump in on this until the fall but i’m INTO it. THIS IS THE MOMENT ADOCENTYN GOES PROVIDENCE A GO! GO!
it’s been said out loud and we must make our dreams and prayers come true or we’ll think we’re liars.
PAPA gets what he’s doing, too.
we’re beautiful, you all.
whoever wants to lead and knows how to organize, i’ll produce the performances and anyone who wants to help or even take over i’m game. i’m just showing up where and whenever i’m needed. i promise i’ll have Papa’s illustration done by then. (giggle)
IT’S ON! i’m totally up for a few days of us all.
x
drhooves @ 26, “The Climate Change/Global Warming issue was marketed poorly. It is much easier to build a case around pollution and resource depletion as major problems/predicaments” Which is, forgive my cynicism, precisely the reason CC/GW was deployed to push issues of pollution and resource depletion off front pages. If you can build a case, you can sue, or petition for better laws, and, horrors, some of us nice people might lose money. I believe this is akin to what is called a limited hangout.
JMG, when I refer to ‘influencer’ I mean a talking head who has a YouTube channel, is a not infrequent guest on other social media platforms, is frequently active on X or the equivalent, and possibly maintains a substack or similar; it being an open question who exactly does the writing. Again, forgive my cynicism, I do not believe these THs are paying their own way.
this is a poem:
“Central to my vision of America, certainly, is that it’s a place where people can follow their own paths, no matter how eccentric those turn out to be. My America is the America of the Shakers and the Rosicrucians, of Johnny Appleseed and Dr. Bronner and High John the Conqueror, of Cyrus Teed and Sun Ra and the Emperor Norton I. I’d like to see that America get a little more attention and respect.”
—John Michael Greer [“Papa G”]
(and Emperor Norton inspired my “mad” sanity when i danced in the san francisco streets!!!!)
Thanks for another engaging deep dive into the history of our world, JMG. Why not dinosaurs in lab coats? We humans aren’t the be all and end all. I always find these essays curiously comforting. Perhaps this is because they serve as a reminder of how insignificant each of us is, in the vastness of time and space. This encourages me to focus my attention and efforts on attainable things such as planting appropriately for the zone I’m in now, and what it is becoming before my very eyes: ever drier (southwest Idaho). A few good rain years will not reverse the overall trend. The population has more than doubled since we moved here over 24 years ago. Of course it is completely unsustainable. I’m pretty sure the explosion in golf courses and enormous grass lawns will end someday.
About those “green” windmills: A person from Wyoming, several years ago, told me that the ranchers and farmers there make an amazing amount of money by allowing the “dead” windmills to be buried on their property. Obviously there is no way to recycle and reuse them, and their remains need to go somewhere.
OtterGirl
PS – Please count my vote for the big picture on immigration.
I have a lot of fun with climate change. When I first heard about biochar, back in 2006, I was excited because I saw it as a great alternative for putting much needed carbon back into my garden soil. Back then, it was called Terra Preta after the rich, black soils found in the Amazon that were created by indigenous people there.
(BTW – There is an interesting book called Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate by William F. Ruddiman that posits that the depopulation of the Amazon – mostly by disease plagues following European contact – caused the re-growth of rainforest vegetation that pulled enough CO2 out of the atmosphere to cool the planet.)
I quickly joined the international movement to promote biochar, along with lots of climate-concerned scientists and activists. I have been involved in the effort as a consultant ever since then. It has been really interesting to see this industry evolve because it has no chance of becoming a real industry like the fertilizer industry (it is too expensive and time-consuming to produce), so most participants have held out for carbon funding to support the work. Amazingly enough, that money is starting to dribble in now, as carbon removal payments are becoming more popular than carbon offsets or emissions reductions. It’s much more straight forward to measure biochar carbon and stick it in the ground than to measure and verify offsets. However, I view this current interest in carbon removal payments as a small bubble that will not last long as other crises come forward.
It’s very funny though that the leading competitor to biochar for carbon removal is wood vaulting – that is, digging big holes in the ground and burying dead trees to store their carbon away from the atmosphere. This requires a completely dry and sterile environment to keep the logs from rotting and emitting CO2 and methane. I don’t think I need to explain to anyone here the absurdity of this, but that’s what the climate change industry is all about. It is completely financialized. In fact, I remember attending a carbon credit conference in 2008 or so that was nothing but bankers who were excited about the new Democrat administration coming in, hoping it would boost the carbon markets. At a press briefing, one of the journalists asked: “Isn’t this just another derivative?” There was an honest journalist. Most of his colleagues have done very well since then pumping out the climate alarmism, fake solutions, and other Bright Green Lies (see Derek Jensen’s book).
The value of biochar to me is not about climate but about soil. Food security is my number one concern and we are degrading farmland at a furious pace. I have seen biochar do great things in my garden. The irony is that if we were to restore our soils and revegetate the vast tracts of degraded land, we could drawdown all the carbon released by fossil fuels in a relatively short period of time.
I have fun now because I have totally given up on the idea that we are going to stop burning fossil fuels, or change government policy, or suck up to bankers for carbon money to get this done. It will be done by individuals and small holders who discover the benefits for themselves. And they have the power to make their own biochar just as the Amazonians did.
BTW if anyone is interested in this topic, I have a book out: The Biochar Handbook https://www.amazon.com/Biochar-Handbook-Practical-Bioactivated-Charcoal/dp/1645022307
JMG was kind enough to write me blurb! Thanks again JMG.
Best to all.
Hi All. Once again, I vote for Gnosticism.
Annette Simard
Hi John Michael,
Strange days indeed! If may observe upon the subject of beliefs, it is that some of those are ‘thought bubbles which allow us humans to go to work on a Monday morning’. If we really thought about what they all meant, we might not want to do that act. Produces a lovely soothing effect.
There’s a sort of unspoken desire from our elites to produce an unchanging world without end… Obviously they’re wrong. I do wonder however why mitigation and adaption aren’t more widely pursued as options? These past few days the east coast of the continent has been hit with a monster storm: An east coast low. Impressive rainfall totals, high winds, and big waves (a bonus for the surfing community). Candidly it sounded like a category 1 cyclone to me, but what’s in a name? Anywhoo, I was wondering if you had any insights on why the various layers of government tend to stop mitigation and adaptation like construction of sea walls (even when privately paid for), and instead have this sort of fatalistic attitude of: Oh well, let that land fall into the sea.
It’s the elites job to solve problems, lest they become a problem to be solved! 😉
And I noticed that you’ve already been unfair to renewables. Hehe! To quote Sergeant Schultz from the long ago series, Hogan’s Heroes: I know nuszinck! Dude, I know too much about that technology. 😊 Be afraid, be very afraid!
Cheers
Chris
JMG,
No, I wasn’t. I should have been clearer; I was wondering about your thoughts as to the future climate and geography of the Canadian prairie provinces with current trends in the changing climate, in the same way that you mentioned in the article that the American Great Plains will turn into desert and America west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi River will turn into savanna grasslands.
okay i’ll do Papa’s portrait in pen and ink FOR this event and we can maybe have time to make tshirts or something WE DO to raise money for the following year’s Adocentyn! that might have to be the following year, though. we’ll keep it in mind.
BUT we need a film crew. someone to capture Papa’s talks and show others what we’re doing so they see how to pull it off or get inspiration to do their own version and we can learn from each other and eventually link up venues and tours. i really am copying chitlin circuit in having our own friendly routes and venues and places to stay and eat.
i see classes and talks and sharing collaborating arguing refining. i see a culture that helps us stay together even though we’ll be inclined to piss off and fight because that’s what we’re USED TO. it’s habit to stalk off unless you’re actually MARRIED to someone.
i suppose i was paying attention at Quaker meeting if my folks weren’t. i loved watching them struggle when they DID struggle back in the old days when it was sexy to have morals and principles that might need wrangling over or refining or reconsidering.
the Quaker wedding where we all sign the marriage certificate and promise to help keep the couple together. we’re gonna wanna fight. something like that.
we have to be gentle with ourselves and each other. coming off society is like sweating and vomiting up toxins, forget EMF waves or glyphosate. people will get to you first.
i can’t lead this project. i haven’t any income yet at all. i’m skating on severely thin lacquer film of sanity in trying what i’m trying, and i can set up the talent at the venue we wanna hang with and see what else we can coordinate over the few days but hotels and other logistics? i can’t do that part because i have no idea how to do anything of that magnitude (yet).
x
I think we passed the tipping point back in 1995 when the Larsen Ice Sheet started breaking up.
Tangier island in the Chesapeake bay is shrinking when large parts of it aren’t underwater.
Happy to see this article showed up in the aggregated news mailing list ‘The Garden Plot.’ The aggregator chooses JMG’s articles it seems when the topic of the changing climate is touched on. It is a benefit to have an aggregator send articles to a personal email address. ‘The Garden Plot’ does seem to lean primarily into the progressive spheres otherwise.
Culturally progressive people I spend time with at work and in personal life, young and senior, are quite open to discussing ideas and arguments that are presented in this blog lately. In fact one young man indicated it was healthy to ‘have that kind of conversation’ after hearing some counter arguments to his understanding of the A.I future we are supposed to be enjoying in the next decades.
I will vote for the fabricated historical narratives concerning matriarchal/patriarchal societies. It would be fun to read an analysis of ancient cultures. The alpine tribe, the Rhaetians, are a group I am familiar with that have been characterized as matriarchal?
Once again, all votes have been tabulated.
Justin, sorry to hear it. I bet Nyarlathotep was sitting in the audience, smiling cryptically.
BeardTree, there I think she’s wrong, but it would have been a very different civilization, and not any better.
Erika, you’re most welcome.
Mary, oh, quite possibly. One way or another, though, it was pretty harsh.
Erika, I’ll leave this — as I left the Glastonbury event — to those with organizational skills, which I lack. I’d enjoy it, though.
Mary, so noted.
Erika, hmm! I may see if I can make a sonnet of it.
OtterGirl, I’d heard that about windmill graveyards. I hope they don’t poison the water.
Seaweedy, it’s a good book precisely because it doesn’t pile utopian fantasies onto a simple, useful technology, but simply explains how to do it on a home-and-community scale. That’s why I agreed to write the blurb!
Chris, I’m brooding over the terror of mitigation that pervades the privileged classes today. When I come up with some kind of insight into it I’ll be doing a post on that.
Anonymous, you’d have to look up what the climate of the prairie provinces was like during the Hypsithermal, say, around 6000 BC. I don’t happen to know that.
Erika, oog — no film crew, please! Bootleg audio is fine, on the other hand. The thought of a deindustrial chitlin circuit is delightful…
Moonwolf, which tipping point, for which region? There is no global tipping point — that’s a Hollywood concept.
Ian, I’m glad to hear it.
It’s interesting as someone who lives in Southern Australia reading about the changing climate of the northern hemisphere, because down here we have reduced seasonality due to the far greater percentage of Ocean.
We have never really had dependable seasons in terms of rainfall or temperature, with wild swings between days, weeks , months, years and even decades. Erratic weather is the norm and it’s always made agriculture a difficult affair. It’s hard to judge whether anything is changing because the decade to decade records fluctuate so wildly.
I wonder if you have read the Ethical Skeptic’s theory on exothermic core-mantle decoupling. Goes a long way towards creating perspective.
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2024/05/23/master-exothermic-core-mantle-decoupling-dzhanibekov-oscillation-theory/
okay fine, AUDIO crew then. i want everyone who cannot come to be able to tap into this now and if in the future! but just let you GO until you’re tired of talking. and questions and beer… it’s beautiful! and so soon?
wow. faery tales all around. one for everyone and more!
i can help coordinate the tapings. i wanna have back up audio in case trickster.
and whoever shared that trickster book, i listened to an interview with the writer, George something, while i was in the bath and WOW! thank you for that. makes me understand why the juju came roaring back when i’d done the living suicide. now that i’m staying alive for the kitties i’m a lot more conservative now and i don’t want to tap into the mainstream vibe any more than i have to in order to see how twitchy they are on a given day.
x
“Erika, I’ll leave this — as I left the Glastonbury event — to those with organizational skills, which I lack. I’d enjoy it, though.”
we’ll figure it out. it’s out there and i think someone is waiting before they come forward to take over organizing. (smile) OR they’ll turn up eventually.
too much is happening already so fast. it’s practically a done deal. i SEE it. i SAW it. but i thought it was 5-7 years out at best. even 10.
but when you SAY it and it’s not just money but something to DO, in some ways it’s easier. that’s why this has to be better than just MONEY. money has to be the least of it. i’m referring to why i don’t ask for money. it’s one or the other for what i’m trying to inspire. and everyone’s asking for money. it’s too prosaic. i want it to be an afterthought as it should be put in its place. it’s too easy to shut things down over money. like how the truckers kept going with ridicule and jokes in their fun and scary bad ass rebellion we’ve gotta find all that’s better than money. call it what you want but enlightened self interest is fancy for having someone’s back and figuring they’ll throw you’ll wallet in the mail back to you with the cash still inside.
and this will be more fun than THAT. Kimberly should come and sell her book and of course Papa’s books, he’s there already. i’ll be mistress of ceremonies and get things rolling and also be an audience and fulfill my role as chaperone as we meet each other. i’ll wear double knit polyester pants with the molded seam down the front of the legs and a pointy bra and display my backfat in a sleeveless clingy polyester top i wear under the matching jacket. i’m the stay at home mom in the 70s who taught us how to not wipe snot on each other. that’s me now!
Thank you for the post, JMG, great as usual. Regarding “something in Providence like the event in Glastonbury” – please do that! You mentioned that you don’t get invited to the local Lovecraft conventions. Well, it would be fun to have your own!
I see that matriarchy/patriarchy is trending up, so I would like to say something about “the steep rise” in the social status of women. I think that biology did play a part in it indirectly by making certain traits strongly correlated with being a biological male less crucial for survival in the age of abundant fossil fuel. Trucks, forklifts, an intact legal system with the possibility of legal recourse (as in “beat your wife – go to jail”), and many other such things lessened the role of raw physical power in society, with the social status reflecting it. It’s only rarely that we are reminded of how important it can be. Just one example. I once went on a kayaking trip in a remote part of Russia. Toward the end of the trip, we lost our dwindling store of food to a couple of bears. The guys in our group immediately took to catching pikes out of the river with their bare hands. For two straight days, we ate nothing but the pike baked in the campfire. When I tried to do the same, I discovered to my dismay that pikes slipped out of my small hands, leaving me with bloody cuts. Other girls in the group were in the same boat. The importance of a strong grip and its distribution in the group was hard to miss.
Nowadays, being able to kill one’s dinner with one’s bare hands is of no practical significance. I mean, Whole Foods is RIGHT THERE. However, once the oil age comes to a close, raw physical power will regain its former glory and social status, and I, for once, pray to all goods that are kind enough to listen for my next incarnation to be in a male body. For now, though… yeah, it’s a great time to be a woman.
So… biology is one of many causes… Yes? No?
On the fifth Wednesday, I would love to read about gnosticism.
I want to thank our host and the commentariat for mentioning so many interesting books and articles. There is a scene in the movie Cocoon in which one of the space aliens folds a book around their forearm, light shines out from the forearm, and they have read the entire book. I would need that (quite implausible) technology to read half the books worth reading that I hear about here.
Reading about Snowball Earth or Million-Year Rain Earth reminds me of just how insanely huge the universe is in time. I imagine the Enterprise in orbit around Earth during one of those eras and they would see an Earth that was obviously unsuitable for life and uninteresting and that they would know would remain so for far longer than their time horizon.
I used to think that women running things would make a difference until I lived in a (mostly Westerner) ashram in India, then in its USA incarnation. Rule by women was more difficult. Guy bosses just cared that you did what they told you to. Women bosses tried to look into your soul to make sure you were on board with it. And as the Wild Wild Country Netflix documentary showed, there was a lot to not be on board with.
{If this is too far off-topic, I apologize and please do remove it:}
Math nerdery II (continued from open post)
OldSteve, thank you. Now I see that my mistake was assuming that the apparent size of the disc would be determined by the two points farthest to the sides (the two points at which a line through the disc center and perpendicular to a line from the viewing point intersect the edge of the disc). Instead it is determined by two points along the circumference toward the viewpoint by an angle that is half the angle that the disc covers in the viewpoint’s field of view, in this case 15 degrees. This implies that the portion of the disc that one can see is less when the object covers a large portion of your field of view, which makes sense when taken to extremes. As one lands on the moon, one can see only a tiny portion of it but for point-like stars, we see the entire half facing us.
i would like to get interviews of those who organize this, like how Peter Van Erp is the one who started it. someone who narrates. i’m just saying this like someone ELSE might wanna take this on, someone’s who’s actually a producer of audio. i’m seeing it as a wonderful opportunity to catch this at the nascent stages when it’s most inspiring and punk so others will go “fxck yeah!” and do it. it’ll make people jittery to start something and latch on. it’ll be FUN. the beginning is when it’s most malleable and creative.
I see a lot of votes coming in already for one topic or another, but here’s hoping for a dark horse/long shot campaign for the 5th Wednesday post on Occult Detectives!
also if anyone wants to take over even the producing of events, i’m perfectly happy to defer to anyone ELSE’S vision and just show up to help set up chairs and hang the posters i’ll do. i have absolutely NO proprietary vision or idea. i’m just starting the party, the stone soup, and gathering TALENT WILLS and SKILLS.
others have to take over and run their own domain or corner of this or it won’t work. i’ll fill in pitch in where needed.
there. the wish is out there. i trust it will return with wings of fire when it’s ready.
x
Hi JMG,
I wanted to add something to the comment I made earlier. One of the people I was thinking about when I wrote that comment about climate activists who were beginning to change their attitudes was David Finnigan, an Australian playwright who, in 2014, wrote a play called “Kill Climate Deniers.” He gave a TED talk a few years ago (here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHZMQLDr-OA) and in the talk he points out that he has had conversations with a hundreds of climate deniers since then and that these conversations have changed the way he thinks about the whole situation. It’s an interesting video and shows the point I was making about how some people are beginning to change their attitudes regarding accepting climate change but not doing anything about the way they live their own lives. I hope it’s useful.
How much of concern with the climate is because we read about it in the media.
I was thinking that if the current climate changes were occurring during my great grandparent’s time would they notice? They were on a homestead in the centennial valley of Montana raising cattle and sheep 60 miles from the nearest town. Would they notice the only road opened a few days earlier in may, or closed a few days later in October? Would the low temperatures in January being a bit less concern them.
Until our current infatuation with media and instant knowledge most humans sensed the climate changing so slowly that the adaptation was natural. They would notice one crop wasn’t growing as well as it used to and change to another one. Or arrange to have lambing season ( usually in the winter) at a slightly different time to avoid the coldest weather.
But I don’t think they would sit around fretting about it.
Your response to Justin is, I think, worth a Fifth Wednesday. I would like very much to know more about the eccentric and their paths.
“Justin, no argument there. Central to my vision of America, certainly, is that it’s a place where people can follow their own paths, no matter how eccentric those turn out to be. My America is the America of the Shakers and the Rosicrucians, of Johnny Appleseed and Dr. Bronner and High John the Conqueror, of Cyrus Teed and Sun Ra and the Emperor Norton I. I’d like to see that America get a little more attention and respect.”
One of our local governments here in Michigan decided it was going to go green by building more sidewalks on busy roads and is happily cutting down hundreds of hundred+ year old trees in order to clear space for the new sidewalks.
What I don’t understand is how the environmentalist movement went from conservation, reducing our energy usage, and protecting our natural environment to chopping down trees to make room for windmills, solar farms and sidewalks.
It’s bizarre.
We really have to hand it to the Gingko Biloba, the tree that survived the Permian extinction 250 million years ago. A random thought: Sometimes I have visions/impressions of spiders being the dominant species for a hot geological minute and I wonder if this ever happened or will happen.
Couldn’t sleep had to get back up to turn on computer and say:
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT RE BOOTLEG TAPING. IT’S LIKE GRATEFUL DEAD POLICY ON BOOTLEGS WAS TO WELCOME IT.
gotcha. Good thinking. Right…. new ways. Good good.
Quinn (comment #1), may I ask for urgent prayers and/or healing for my son Travis? His empty nose syndrome has led to kidney stones due to him drying out at night, stress on his kidneys, kidney infections, and a fistula between his kidney and his duodenum (probably caused by a stone) that is healing very slowly. He is a risk of having his infections go septic, which does not have a good survival rate. I have gotten his consent for prayers, healing, and other protective efforts (he’s an atheist, just as I was at his age, but he consented). My specific requests are for:
1. His fistula to heal;
2. His body to have the strength to fight off infections;
3. His kidneys to strengthen; and,
4. His empty nose syndrome to abate.
I also pray he’ll have eyes to see the broader spirit world, but all in good time. Right now I just want him to have a full and healthy life ahead of him. He’s only in his 20s. Thank you.
Blessings to all who pray and heal.
For this month’s open topic, I would vote for a discussion from an esoteric perspective, the idea of a chosen race/people/ethnicity. How does this affect the ethnic egregore? What is the karmic effect?
I am a nature lover, and my philosophy is to leave as small an environmental footprint as possible. I opt to live a relatively asectic life. I do not have many possessions, I own few electrical appliances, simple and few clothing items, I drive an ICE car with a small and energy-efficient engine, and I eat simply.
I find that if one is truly concerned about pollution, climate change, extinction of species, etc, one has to start with oneself. Everything begins with us. So I try to walk the talk.
JMG, I would like to read your view on the possibilities of geothermal energy on the fifth Wednesday of this month or whenever it might suit you.
From what I heard recently in a podcast (I think it was from the British folks of the fully charged show), there is now a great opportunity to use the knowledge accumulated in the fracking industry with drilling in various forms for a more sustainable use: exploiting geothermal energy.
Greetings all!
As for the fifth Wednesday post, I would like an essay on the rise of BRIC nations and on the decline of the American Empire.
Or if I may, is it feasible for you, John, to update us at intervals you see fit, on the decline of US power?
As an astute observer in the US your views would interest a lot of us I guess…
Yes, Scots have a reputation for fiscal meanness, and also many other unlovely characteristics. It’s never been my experience here. Living in a land which gives grudgingly, one learns to husband one’s resources. But I wonder who decided these markers described this group of thrawn people? However, the best example is when the Scottish football team supporters travel abroad vs when the English supporters do. Scots get pissed and they’re everyone’s friend (understanding they usually don’t have a cats chance of winning). The English (who always presume they will win by natural superiority) have a reputation of getting pissed and starting fights and needing to be herded to the game by the cops. Most drunk people are tedious, but I know which group I’d rather find myself with!
I realise my rose-coloured spectacles are on my nose — probably from reading too much Alastair McIntosh! But whether it’s beaches or icebergs, I’m sure the Scots will adapt to whatever comes down the track after my time. As I say, thrawn.
Matriarchy/patriarchy seems to be the hot topic – I’ll go along.
Humanity is clearly gynocentric regardless of civilization level. It pretty much has to be if species survival is the goal. My sense is that all societies are matriarchies, with external conditions dictating the precise form. And yes, this includes the so-called patriarchical system found in all rising civilizations – it too is driven by female priorities.
Hi John,
I have to admit that it was tough to be described as a waste of needed resources… But last post my meltdown would had been about Trump being a genius of trade.
I find very interesting the current post, very credible middle place between denial and catastrophism.
My dear erika,
Thank you for the intention but that won’t be needful. My partner does not wear makeup and experience has taught me that some of my muses tend to be of the luxuriously shaggy variety.
As to the Glastonbury happening, I do not think you need to plan much. Just let it happen. The proceedings and the feel of it was strange enough, that it got me thinking about the nature of the age of aquarius. I know, this usually caries risk of going stark raving hippy. But you’ll understand if such a Providence event finds place. Tis a new wind blowing 😀
Enjoy,
V
So far climate change seems good for Western Scotland, where Atlantic rainforest looks set to change gradually into semi-tropical rainforest.
My vote is for ‘autism and magic’.
Another great post JMG. Trying to talk to people sensibly about CC is a bit like banging your head against a wall.
For the fifth Wednesday I’m going to vote for Reincarnation as it relates to deep time / extinction events. A bit esoteric and unlikely to win but I’d love to see you do a whole post on it one day.
>BUT we need a film crew
Do you? All the kids these days livestream what they’re doing.
Like mister Nobody above, I should probably have posted this in the “status panic” post, but I was too busy and I missed the deadline. John Carter (not his real name, of course), from the “Postcards from Barsoom” substack, posted recently a very interesting point of view about the future of the PMC factories, hum, I mean, the universities in the West, entitled “The Class of 2026”:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-class-of-2026
He compares the current situation of the universities to the rich and powerful abbeys and monasteries in England at the beginning of the 16th century, just before Henry VIII suppressed them and took most of their land and wealth. He predicts that generative IA is probably the last nail in the coffin of the current academic system, which is now dispelling the last illusions around the value of academic credentials in most disciplines (STEM may somehow survive, maybe). Like when the printing press destroyed one of the main social functions of the monasteries. I find the comparison very apt; his conclusions about the prospects for the academic system in the West are quite bleak.
Being myself a faculty member, but from a working class background, I am feeling more and more like a stranger visiting a world gone mad, seeing some of my fellow PMC collegues living in delusion, completely out of touch with the real world around them and the changes coming ahead, but somehow unconsciously anxious about the future. The “status panic” you wrote about is very real and has many strange symptoms.
Dear JMG,
I hope you had a wonderful time in Glastonbury 🌿
Thank you for this thoroughly informative and enjoyable read. Your well-balanced objectivity is always a pleasure.
Looking forward to the next one!
Waves of love 💗
~ Tanya
Hi all,
A while back on my blog, before the 2024 election I wrote an essay outlining what I called “The Second Managerial Civil War.”. The first, of course being the elite youth tantrum of 1965-1975 or so that installed the current Managerial caste that’s now declining. The prior caste that replaced the capitalists during the depression were more men of hard science. Guys who believed in Moon Rockets, Nuclear Power and Winning in Vietnam.
They were ousted by a different faction that believed in the primacy of media, symbolism and cut rate Chinese products; hence why they fetishized the internet instead of the atomic pile and sociologists instead of engineers. Crucially however both share an elitist and techno triumphalist outlook.
What our host calls the entrepreneurial class, represented by tech types for example is in some ways an attempt to roots rock managerialism. Bring it back to the imagined glory days of the 1950’s and 60’s when we had moon rockets going and nuclear stations a-glowing. Notice how they scream and rage just as much as their nominal rivals do when Trump threatens to cut their subsidies.
I think it’s that underlying techno worship that explains why both of these elite factions today, whether of the Clinton or Musk stripe are both militantly opposed to conservation and mitigation techniques. Things like slapping a solar water heater on your house or growing a small food garden out back doesn’t conform to some New Media theory nor can it be found in a Heinlein novel. Therefore does not exist as an option as far as they are concerned.
Crucially too, small scale self reliance, though great for the environment and local communities is not good for people who believe in large scale, top down solutions to all problems. Things like Green New Deals or Mars Colonies need a lot of your money to pretend to work.
So both sides push their preferred nonsolutions hoping that nobody will get wise while they argue about which bad idea the public should pay for.
Cheers,
JZ
I would like to add a vote in favour of Gnosticism.
I am fed up with experts these days. I think that great many suffer from group think and pick and choose what they want to see. I come by it honestly through my work at the FED. I saw economists (PhD and above) ignore what was in front of them to toe the company line or what was passing as dogma.
I do remember a good friend of mine there tell me that you learn the basics at the Bachelor level. The Masters and Doctor level are nothing more than learning doctrine and dogma. The only way to get breakthrough is to have all of the old experts die off, and have new ones take over.
I believe climate science suffers from the same problem. I haven’t a clue as to what is happening or why. I do know that I need to adjust to whatever comes down the pike.
Stopping climate change in my opinion is like stopping the tide from going out.
—-
I vote for matriarchy/patriarchy. Never understood where that came from. Figured it became a meme for Neo-Pagans and Goddess people to explain their outsider status and to have their belief system have roots.
JMG,
Purposely selecting low-tech solutions is highly discouraged but … easing into low-tech solutions is one of the best thing the average person can do right now. Think about all the time, money, effort, etc… required to standup a wind farm or solar farm when compared to the minimal amount required to insulate a home, go without an appliance or two, etc…
We are absurdly rigid when it comes to problem solving and that is what really puts folks in danger.
i’m loving the running gag of responses to bastrel within parentheses.
In the rare venues where climate change activism is discussed by the public with any seriousness at all, positions tend to be polarized in two directions. One position rejects any call for individual conservation that would affect comfort or lifestyle (e.g. an electric car is good, but driving less is a form of “austerity” that the greedy elite are trying to trick us into). Instead, it blames industry for failing to provide those goods and comforts in a more climate-friendly way, and/or blames governments for not forcing industry to do so.
The other opposite-pole position holds consumption as the root problem, and calls for reducing it, but only by those wealthier than themselves. The current wildly skewed distribution of wealth and consumption makes that a tempting position to justify. One can be pretty rich and still argue that “most” greenhouse emissions are the fault of people richer still. Suggest that they could afford or even benefit from a bit less consumption themselves? “Oh, I see you want the poor to make sacrifices while the richest go on ruining the planet.”
The acrimonious debate this devolves into creates the illusion that there are two sides (“fix supply” vs. “fix demand”) who disagree about solutions. Actually they’re an axis of common interest in the status quo. In that context, the incongruity of hordes of oligarchs showing up in private jets and yachts for global climate conferences resolves into inevitability.
And this axis stands in opposition to… for all practical purposes, no one. The global poor who by necessity consume and pollute the least and who are most affected by climate change have no leverage on the supply or demand sides, except the threat of violence. The coal-rollers and overt deniers are redundant.
All this to explain one obvious yet startling observation: everyone I know who actually practices some degree of voluntary austerity (LESS; “collapsing now”) is doing so not to try to protect the systems that climate change puts at risk, but to escape from them, or at least from some of their most objectionable aspects.
My latest article on an American Visionary and Eccentric is now online. Harvey Pekar: Working Class Intellectual and Everyday Visionary. In looking for images I found a strip he wrote about the time he met Sun Ra!
https://www.sothismedias.com/home/harvey-pekar-working-class-intellectual-and-everyday-visionary
The brief “A Cleveland Adventure” could perhaps be read first as to how I came to write this piece:
https://www.sothismedias.com/home/a-cleveland-adventure
At the end of the first one is an index on all the great iconoclasts I’ve written about so far.
Speaking of American visionaries there is a new biography out about Harland Hubbard. It’s called Driftwood: The Life of Harlan Hubbard by Jessica K. Whitehead. My copy just came in.
“”Writer, artist, and sustainability pioneer Harlan Hubbard (1900-1988) lived a quiet, unassuming life, and yet he is thoroughly embedded in Kentucky’s historical memory. While some may know of Hubbard’s shantyboat sojourn on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers with his wife Anna, or of Payne Hollow, their hand-built homestead, few know the full story. After four decades of transformation, Hubbard emerged in middle age as the rightful heir to the Transcendentalist ethos, ready to envision a unique existence of simplicity and wild beauty akin to that of the revered Henry David Thoreau. In this comprehensive biography, Jessica K. Whitehead reveals why Hubbard is beloved by his fellow Kentuckians and has been an inspiration to generations of readers interested in art, adventure, and environmentalism. Driftwood delves into Hubbard’s family background, education, and relationships, and into his theories on art, writing, music, and philosophy. Using journals, letters, paintings, manuscripts, and sketches, Whitehead pieces together the distinct phases of Hubbard’s life, providing new insights into his character and legacy. By examining his perspectives on creativity and responsible living, Whitehead connects the early Hubbard, who grappled with his identity and yearned for travel, with the confident and intentional Hubbard of Payne Hollow. Driftwood: The Life of Harlan Hubbard is a complex portrait of a person who deserves a place alongside other American thinkers and artists in the nation’s broad cultural history. It offers a vivid depiction of Hubbard, the traces he left behind, and his template for sustainability in our modern ecological landscape”–Provided by publisher.
Dear Archdruid: I disagree with the idea of existence of a climate because I think that there are many climates and It are in continous change.
@jmg —
thx for the essay!
I am a convert to your “muddle thru” theory (no grand fall), but I am looking at this website here: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/
In 1804 we had an estimated population of 1 billion.
we are currently estimated to be 8.2 billion.
I think as the oil age ends the population will drop down back to 1 billion to reflect that. And while it won’t happen overnight, there has to be a point where more people are leaving than coming in. I think that will affect the culture (instead of 4 weddings and a funeral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Weddings_and_a_Funeral, maybe 4 funerals and a wedding as a movie?).
I wonder if you could work this out in a future post?
thx
Jerry
ps — i second team10tims vote for miscalculation in an age of hubris
@Erika, your recent comments about the Devouring Mother remind me of some of the lyrics of “O Superman” by Laurie Anderson. If you haven’t heard it, try to do so, once. (After that, you may or may not ever want to hear it again.) The first part echoes (from 1982!) something you posted last week.
Cause when love is gone
There’s always justice
And when justice is gone
There’s always force
And when force is gone
There’s always Mom (Hi Mom!)
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms…
In your automatic arms, your electronic arms, in your arms
So hold me, Mom, in your long arms
Your petrochemical arms, your military arms
In your electronic arms
You have described how you see the Mackenzie River Delta as being a major future centre of civilization. May I ask how you see the large number of now-Canadian islands in the post-fossil fuel world? Would they be the equivalent of, say, Malaysia/Indonesia to a China-like civilization around the Mackenzie River (that is the equivalent of the Yangtse)?
More broadly, can you see the Western Hemisphere as being a source of world superpowers in the future or do you see the “American Empire” as a rare exception and the rule with see the focus of power shifting back to the Old World?
JMG, regarding your response to Justin, quoted by Rhydlyd @ 117 above, I too share that vision. What I do not understand, please do enlighten me, is how you think the present administration is going to get us there. These self styled ‘conservatives’ look to me like the same pack of cultural conformists I have been dealing with most of my lifetime.
As before, I’ve got everyone’s votes tabulated.
Willow, I’d be surprised if the southern hemisphere has much in the way of rapid climate change anyway, because the sheer thermal mass of the Antarctic ice cap will tend to stabilize things over century-long scales. That said, I hear from friends in Queensland and Victoria that they’re getting a lot of unusual weather in recent years…
Scooby, keep in mind — as I pointed out in the post — that it’s a mistake to look for just one cause for climate change. It’s quite possible that core-mantle interactions are among the many factors driving the current round of climate change…but if that’s already warming things, it’s even more stupid for us to add to the warming by dumping billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and making things even more unstable than they would otherwise be!
Erika, audio it is! Doubtless there will be bootleg live streams too, but I don’t care about those. As for the rest, it sounds like a great time — yes, Kimberly should come with her books, and so should all the other authors in the commentariat (there are quite a few of them), also musicians, poets, etc. — and I’ll look for you in that outfit!
Inna, duly noted. I’d point out that hunter-gatherers are just as dependent on the plant foods harvested by women’s smaller and defter hands as they are on the animal foods brought back by the men, but your point stands.
Jessica, oh, I know. It’s always a downer for me to reflect on all the books I’ll never have time to read. As for women running things, anybody who believes that this would be utopia has never had to deal with women’s lodge organizations like the Order of the Eastern Star!
Erika, sounds like a plan.
Chronojourner, this is really good to hear — thank you.
Clay, well, that depends. Russian farmers aren’t fretting about the bumper crops they’re bringing in, but people in Miami who are looking at salt water in the streets might be forgiven for worrying a bit.
Rhydlyd, I’ll consider it for a post.
Dennis, it is indeed.
Kimberly, I once dreamed of planting a dinosaur grove of ginkgos, dawn redwoods, and wollemi pines, with ferns and other ancient plants clustered around their feet. As for spiders, it’s a fun idea, though rather Lovecraftian…
Felix, that makes sense to me, too — it’s a good part of the reason why I don’t own or drive a car, for example. It’s embarrassing that so few other people see it that way.
Michael, geothermal power has been explored since the 1950s. In some places, such as Iceland, it works; in most places, the temperature differential between deep rock and the surface is too modest to make it economically viable. You do know, don’t you, that fracking is an old technology, perfected in the mid-20th century?
Serinde, interesting. I wonder if all the stingy Scots left Scotland, then, looking for filthy lucre elsewhere! (I’ll note for readers outside the UK that “pissed” means “drunk” to Britishers, not “angry,” which is what it means to Americans…)
Interrogante, from a strictly ecological perspective, about 7 billion of us are a waste of needed resources. The universe doesn’t care about individuals, you know!
Laurent, I haven’t caught up with “Carter” recently — thanks for the heads up. He’s absolutely right, of course; as we move into the approaching round of catabolic collapse, the academic industry is ripe fruit for the plucking, since it’s degenerated into a system for pushing predatory loans on the vulnerable and providing sinecures for otherwise unemployable ideologues. I’d be surprised if as many as half the current universities are still around twenty years from now.
Tanya, thank you.
John Z, that seems fair. Remember that the rising figures around Trump aren’t the entrepreneurial class in its developed form, they’re the first figures around which it’ll coalesce. Musk’s addiction to subsidies is very much a product of the old regime; the people who elbow him out of the way and become central figures in the new class will know better.
Neptunesdolphins, you’ll get no argument from me!
GlassHammer, bingo. I’ll be discussing that as we proceed.
Jez, if (Batstrel) hadn’t been a longtime commenter, that grammar-troll post would simply have disappeared — I’m perfectly willing to listen to advice on how to write, but only if it comes from full time authors who write better books than I do. As it is, why, yes, and it’s going to continue as long as this blog does.
Walt, oh dear gods, yes. It all comes down to “I get to keep my unsustainable high-carbon lifestyle, while still preening myself on what a wonderful, ecologically sensitive person I am.” If I ever need a good strong emetic, that’ll do it.
Justin, thanks for this.
Anselmo, so? If all those many climates are changing in the same broad direction, that adds up to the same thing.
Jerry, I wonder if you’ve read this previous post of mine:
https://www.ecosophia.net/an-unfamiliar-world/
David, I haven’t looked into it yet — I’d have to find out how many of them will still be above water when sea level rises. As for your second question, global power is only an option in a world with abundant cheap energy; in the deindustrial future, we’ll be back to regional and continental powers, as in 1400.
Mary, of course the current populist conservatives aren’t going to make that happen. Neither are the Democrats, or the old-guard GOP, or any other gaggle of politicians. If that vision is ever to blossom again, it’ll be because individuals ignore the political soap opera and follow their dreams instead.
Laurent Le Guillou #132
When I was an undergrad, we had only written closed-book exams (all you had was a scientific calculator) and practical labs. Perhaps a return to this will prevent the ChatGPT issue.
Having said that, I do think the current university model is outdated. I think it would be great to have a number of credentialing institutes, where one can sit exams to prove one knowledge – while learning online. It is like the external degree programs
JMG,
Glad to hear it, giving people something they can do by themselves and for themselves with what little they have on hand is the best way to take the fear out of the problem.
I suppose that I am “right leaning” in the grand scheme of things, despite my awkward tendency to find Mr. Marx’s description of the problems caused by capitalism to be compelling. His solutions aren’t great, but his problem identification and assessments are spot on.
I suppose that I can’t find anything particularly offensive about your first two pieces that you reference in your first paragraph. I suppose that I will need to head to the wayback machine (I miss Mr. Peabody) and read through the comment sections and try to ascertain what the “left” and the “right” found to be so offensive (sort of an Archdruid Ad Fontis).
I am wondering whether the common terms “left” and “right” have any particular meaning in the context that you use them in. I am wondering if there is a way to come up with a more precise terminology for this discussion. I can’t think of one, and I have a sneaking hunch that there needs to be more than a binary category set.
Can we surmise that, as some belts move northward above the equator, some might move southward below it ? I see that the southern hemisphere question has been partly addressed above. It’s true that the landmasses are not distributed in the same fashion down below.
I’m thinking for example of the great Namibian desert. If it moves south, it’s going to squeeze South African greenery against the coastline, worse case rendering much of it uninhabitable (as if it had not enough issues already). Southern South America is more complex, being cut vertically with the Andes. Maybe the Chilean desert could turn Santiago into Las-Vegas-of-the-antipodes. It’s fascinating to reflect on.
“the Democrats have gone out of their way to embrace supposed “solutions” that solve nothing, while refusing to give up their own carbon-intensive lifestyles.”
That has been apparent to me for a while, but it does get me thinking: are there any examples of an entire society, or a large chunk of it comparable to the US Democrats in size and influence, giving up a comfortable but unsustainable lifestyle of its own/its accepted leadership’s volition? It seems to me that individuals and small, cohesive groups (usually religious movements) can do it, but I can’t think of examples on a larger scale. Societies and elites do give up the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed, of course, but this always seems to happen very much against their will due to extraneous circumstances. Or am I overlooking someone?
I’ll also vote for the myth of patriarchy/matriarchy. I remember heated discussions about Bachofen, Gimbutas et al. from my university days and would like to know your opinion on this topic.
Random thought for the day, we are now closer to 2050 than 2000.
For fifth Wednesday I vote for Gnosticism, specifically the Irenaeus vs Valentinus debate.
As for alternate education, I took advantage of CLEP exams and what we now call distance learning while I was in the Navy.
“The College Level Examination Program is a group of standardized tests created and administered by the College Board. These tests assess college-level knowledge in thirty-six subject areas and provide a mechanism for earning college credits without taking college courses. They are administered at more than 1,700 sites (colleges, universities, and military installations) across the United States. There are about 2,900 colleges which grant CLEP credit.”
They are a good idea if you can pick up the material on your own. Personally I needed an actual instructor for calculus.
The annoying part is that the university would not give me credit for the first two semesters of chemistry even though I had taught it in the Navy. I was an engineering laboratory technician which translates to water chemistry and radiological control. The university said I needed the lab time. I had done thousands of titrations by this time, mixed standards and all other freshman chemistry tasks, but no, they didn’t believe me. So I sighed and took the classes, two of the easiest A grades ever.
By the way, the method of doing a titration they teach in college doesn’t work when at sea, especially on a surface transit. 😊
Climate wise there were two ripe green peppers in my garden this morning. That is definitely earlier than usual. The two hotter than usual weeks we had earlier seems to have kicked everything ahead even though we had a couple weeks of cooler than usual weather after them. The lettuce is bolting earlier too, drat it.
@jmg — not only did I read it, but I even commented on it.
Upon rereading, I see your points (I was just hyper-focusing on the above average population decline — and missed the forest for the trees).
I think this was a lesson learned for me! 🙂
thx
GlassHammer, exactly — and thank you. You may have just explained why the managerial class is so allergic to mitigation.
Degringolade, all definitions are social constructs, as is language itself. If you have trouble figuring out what “left” and “right” mean in today’s culture, go find a blue-haired woman protesting for transgender rights, and ask her; then go find a guy in a red MAGA hat and a “Real Men Love Jesus” t-shirt, and ask him. That should help you out a little.
Thibault, that’s the big question right now. It depends on whether the changes currently in process can overload the thermal stability of the Antarctic ice cap. If it does, yeah, South Africa is in trouble, though Angola will benefit.
Daniil, that’s a fascinating question to which I don’t have a ready answer. I can’t think of an example, but I’ll have to look into it.
Jerry, just figured I’d ask. As population decline sets in, it’s going to be a wild ride.
I like to track what I call watershed events. Most recently, YouTube and other online venues are all dissing on the Bezos/Sanchez entitled bad taste fest. I looked at few pix, and ick, eouw, OMG how could they. I peeked so you don’t have to. What might interest this commentariat is the frequent, unfavorable (to put it mildly) mention of the fleet of 90 or maybe it was 94 private jets which ferried the assembled horde. That, I call a good omen. Folks are now calling out the obscene rich for The Same Behavior that has been recently rightly criticized among virtue signaling, self styled environmentalists. Being rich doesn’t get someone a pass or immunity from criticism by the masses, as opposed to the occasional weirdo, anymore. Nor have I seen or heard of any of the usual rich is virtuous trolls rushing defend the tasteless icons.
Daniil Adamov @ 151, there is the example of 20thC communism which, as I understand it, imposed totalitarian rule on subject populations in order to harness the energies of entire societies to the project of rapid industrialism.
JMG, I concur with Erika, Rhydlin, and others that this snippet from you is brilliant:
“Justin, no argument there. Central to my vision of America, certainly, is that it’s a place where people can follow their own paths, no matter how eccentric those turn out to be. My America is the America of the Shakers and the Rosicrucians, of Johnny Appleseed and Dr. Bronner and High John the Conqueror, of Cyrus Teed and Sun Ra and the Emperor Norton I. I’d like to see that America get a little more attention and respect.”
Gave me chills and reminded me that I want to ask you when you are going to write a book compiling your posts on the history of magic in America. I loved reading that series from a few years ago and I would love to have it all published in book form.
(BTW – the posts on John Kelpius were especially meaningful to me because of his connection with the Church of the Brethren. When going through my mother’s things a few years ago, I found a newspaper clipping about the life of my great great grandfather who was an elder in the Brethren Church in Indiana. Wow – I actually have a personal relationship to these spiritual pioneers. I had never been interested in my ancestry before, but I am now.)
How this relates to climate change is that the most healthy response to climate chaos and energy descent is re-localization. That means really feeling our connections to the land and responding in ways that can heal some of the damage we have done. We need that “old-time religion,” where religion means the ties that bind: re-lig (as in ligature) -ion.
( Jez, parenthetically, I too am digging the running gag. Free the parentheses!)
As always it is so great to have a place to hear some rationality in our world filled with growing madness and hysteria. I vote with DrHooves for a post on the pace of the Second Religiousity and possibly its growing impact on those of us that will be on the fringes as it grows in strength. Thanks and hope everyone is having a good day!
@Seaweedy #98
“….that’s what the climate change industry is all about. It is completely financialized.”
Anyone who takes even a minute to consider the phrase “net zero” will realise this. Net zero is, of course, a book-keeping term. 😉
And, of course, following Vitranc’s gentlemanly lead, I will vote for the matriarchy/patriarchy post.
(*waves* at Erika…) 🙂
Mary, that’s excellent news. Thank you!
Seaweedy, I may just have to do a post on this sometime soon. It’s been a longtime irritation to me that so many people on both sides of the political spectrum who use words such as “freedom” and “liberty” seem to have forgotten completely what those mean: the chance for individuals to follow their own star, no matter how eccentric or unpopular its guidance may be to others. Talking a bit about those people in American history who walked away from the conventional wisdom and did their own thing might help clarify matters a bit.
JD, I do what I can!
Mr. Greer & Jerry D..
I just finished reading Jeff Childers recent substack posting, wherein he takes a stab at the sudden stock swandive of Centene; a very prominent healthcare insurer. He sees a connection between their actuarial guidance, er, NON-guidance as it turned out: many of their insured (people over 65, the poor/low-wage earners, and *others) having likely succumbed to ‘dying suddenly’.. and the Funeral industry (morticians, funeral directors, pathologists) noting the various manifestations behind the whole janky-jab rollout.
So yeah, perhaps this is a prelude to rapid pop. decline, through a self-owned goal via human stupidity.
*let’s not forget all the assorted ‘gliterati’ who did their virtuous ‘duty’ in their ‘aim-of-shame’ against anyone who wisely chose otherwise!
Scotlyn,
I did not know where Net Zero came from! It all fits. Somehow we gotta bust out of this finance paradigm. I suppose when population actually falls and the economy begins to contract for real, that will do it.
Thanks.
I forgot to add the recent substantial Medicare dropoffs, that Mr. Childers stated in his comparisons above .. rather germain to my post above.
“Degringolade, all definitions are social constructs, as is language itself. If you have trouble figuring out what “left” and “right” mean in today’s culture, go find a blue-haired woman protesting for transgender rights, and ask her; then go find a guy in a red MAGA hat and a “Real Men Love Jesus” t-shirt, and ask him. That should help you out a little.”
Here is one particularly brilliant article on how language has historically been used to create categories of people (and categories in general) who never saw themselves that way previously (Foucault had a point here).
https://sjquillen.medium.com/whats-in-a-name-how-words-create-categories-of-people-74c6f364f973
JMG, if you consider the following meme to be courteous, concise and relevant to the topic of this thread, will you please display it for me? 🙂
https://imgflip.com/i/9zanyi?merp=1751569845.3353
““freedom” and “liberty” … mean… the chance for individuals to follow their own star, no matter how eccentric or unpopular its guidance may be to others. Talking a bit about those people in American history who walked away from the conventional wisdom and did their own thing might help clarify matters a bit.”
That is what I have been trying to do in my on and off National Characters / American Iconoclasts / Great American Eccentrics series, now up to about 26,000 words. It was first inspired by your Johnny Appleseed post and your suggestion to look at some of these figures and see what we could learn. Thanks for the inspiration.
The list now includes: Gary Warne (Communiversity and the Suicide Club), Matokie Slaughter, Mary Lou Williams, Fakir Musafar and Friends, David Wills the Weatherman, Jim Tully (writer, boxer, circus performer & tramp), Harlan Hubbard, Brother Blue, Raymond Thundersky, Tiny Tim, Joy Bubbles and the Church of Eternal Childhood, Ray Hicks, Peace Pilgrim, Utah Philips, Henry Flynt and now Harvey Pekar.
I have a list of others I’m interested in writing profiles on (Emperor Norton is on there… so is Edward Leedskalnin). It’s been on the backburner for a bit, but I literally had some synchronicities pile up on me that say “keep going.”
Anyone who is interested in these profiles can find them on the link above, or in the index on my website. & again, happy 4th to all. Let your freak flag fly! As the great sage George Carlin said, “When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.”
Interesting side note. Ecosophy Enjoyer wrote in #9 about people with deformities being held in high regard in past cultures. When I read the book “Memoirs of a Sword Swallower” by Daniel P. Mannix (also on my personal list) he talked about how the freaks in the carnival were held in the highest regard. Everyone else had to learn an act, but theirs, according to the lore, had been given to them by God/ the Divine/ Nature. It was seen as a gift…
You have put forward, without doubt, the most balanced and aware analysis of the entire climate issue I have seen upon this suppoaed information superhighway, which overflows with opinions and citations but is a desert for those looking for wisdom and depth. I heard a podcast you participated in, where you described the following scene – a weather report, where one weatherman describes a forecast of forever summer, the other one apocalyptic freezing next tuesday – a perfect summation of the entire climate debate. Though, I believe you were descirbing the views of the future, with the forever summer weatherman representing the progressives, who in this case are forecasting a climate report of scroching sun next tuesday, while the other weatherman was the immanent collapse doomsayers, who funny enough on the climate issue predict nice weather for eternity. Oh the ironies of idologies and divination…
I am looking forward to your article on how to deal with the coming climate changes – because that’s all there really is to do, isn’t there? Adjust, adapt, and carru on. Any attempt to change these grand trends is truly am exercise in wasted energy – that ship has sailed, deal amd move on. I’m reminded of a podcast of your where you describe what would have happened if a time traveller went back to a town in 1600s scotland, warning the residents of the vast changes industrialization would bring to them and their way of life. They would ask what could be done to stop this? And in truth? Nothing much. They could only find ways to adapt to the coming chaos…
I vote for the matriarchy/patriarchy divide. Its consuming the minds of many people – a woman I know speaks of how women learn the ways of men to understand their captors, and is obsessed with the tale of Adriana Smith, the woman kept alive on life support to give birth to her child after dying due to strict abortion laws in Georgia. My attempts to convince her that ‘the patriarchy’ is not planning to turn women into brain dead birthing machines, if only due to exorbitant resource costs, have been unsuccessful thus far…
In fact, if in addition to examininf this divide, you could perhaps give your readership some advice on how to properly balance masculine and feminine energies, both within oneself and in ones relationships, that would be greatly appreciated! Any actionable advice is always appreciated. Thank you for keeping this oasis of wisdom amidst the desert of ignorance that is the modern intellectual landscape.
Math nerd again.
To multiply by 1.8 (converting from C to F), I find it easiest to multiply by 2, then subtract 10%.
Estimado JMG.
Antes que nada disculpas por usar el castellano en un foro de comentarios en ingles. Pero soy nativo de castellano y este comentario prefiero hacerlo en una lengua que domino un poco mejor.
Estoy muy interesado en el tema del patriarcado/matriarcado sobre todo desde la lógica que es un distinción/diferencia falsa ya que mi argumento es que tanto patriarcado como matriarcado son, en el fondo, lo mismo con actores de género distintos y sus matices. Por lo cual postulo que lo escencial detrás de aquellos conceptos es una cultura unitaria que describo como la “Cultura de la competencia”. En el siguiente link analizo, superficialmente, aquel tema:
https://gusdonblog.blogspot.com/2024/10/reconstruccion-amorosa-del-yo.html?m=1
A través de la idea de “Cultura de la competencia” busco resolver, y quiza extender, el falso dilema del Patriarcado/Matriarcado que Humberto Maturana, biólogo, resuelve con el concepto de Cultura Patriarcal vs. Cultura Matriztica:
https://carajo.cl/humberto-maturana-1928-2021-emocionar-matriztico-fragmento-del-libro-amor-y-juego/
Que, desde mi perspectiva es mas adecuado pese a que es una definicion estructural/funcional cuando probablemente una definición funcional/estructural puede resultar mas precisa e útil como modelo.
Espero sea de utilidad.
P. S. dentro del post inicial de mi autoria hay una referencia al siguiente articulo:
https://www.elciudadano.com/chile/once-tesis-sobre-la-crisis-de-concentracion-de-la-sociedad-chilena/10/18/
Que analiza, extrapolandolo, la dificultad que tienen los sistemas sociales bajo la cultura de la competencia el resolver adecuadamente el problema de la esteatificacion. Cosa que se relacionaa con el post de la”clase de los notebooks”.
I know it is too late in the voting for this topic to win, but I wanted to put it on everyone’s radar for the future:
JMG: “so many people on both sides of the political spectrum who use words such as “freedom” and “liberty” seem to have forgotten completely what those mean: the chance for individuals to follow their own star, no matter how eccentric or unpopular its guidance may be to others. Talking a bit about those people in American history who walked away from the conventional wisdom and did their own thing might help clarify matters a bit.”
I would love to see a post, or even a series, about true American individuals of this kind.
it’s me, erika:
thanks dear Scotlyn. i absolutely ADORE you.
i’m going to go back to writing madness and i thank you all along with Papa for being receptive to this idea. i looked up camp grounds in providence and there are two.
i see my corner being to set up the evening’s entertainment events either during or after supper/dinner, whether it’s at a campground bonfire or a dive bar who loves the business. i know more about taking over cafes restaurants book stores bars or backyards. maybe it’s three different places, each one a different night.
i can do that job, no problem. a little local help would make life easier than me relying on my raggedy charm.
(smile)
anyhow, i hope some future producers are just biding their time, but don’t bide too long; you see how fast a year goes by and “p town” is a tourist town. i looked for college dorms that might be free in the summer (Quaker conferences in ithaca had dorm rooms we stayed in as a kid), but no dice.
so i’m going to disappear as i finish up the text for my MegaZine. if you want to see some of the page spreads so far, go to my substack site https://recordscratchradio.substack.com/
—
oh yeah–Papa, do you mind if i use this quote of yours i put together? i may have run out of pages for my budget because your quotes (i blended a few in here) with another picture becomes a double page spread but it’s PERFECT as i think Americans have completely forgotten who we are and what we come from., and i have some succinct author quotes that are actually the short version of what i’m on about. yours underlines my entire vision dream and endeavour.
i’ll check back to see what you say later and THEN i’ll disappear again:
“Central to my vision of America, certainly, is that it’s a place where people can follow their own paths, no matter how eccentric those turn out to be. My America is the America of the Shakers and the Rosicrucians, of Johnny Appleseed and Dr. Bronner and High John the Conqueror, of Cyrus Teed and Sun Ra and the Emperor Norton I. I’d like to see that America get a little more attention and respect….If that vision is ever to blossom again, it’ll be because individuals ignore the political soap opera and follow their dreams instead….It’s been a longtime irritation to me that so many people on both sides of the political spectrum who use words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ seem to have forgotten completely what those mean: the chance for individuals to follow their own star, no matter how eccentric or unpopular its guidance may be to others.”
—John Michael Greer “Papa G”
—
thanks again to so many of you for SEEING me. it makes writing and searching for the proper words much less …haggard. it’s the only word that came to mind even though it’s english improper.
(sorry Englishman.)
x
sincerely,
erika “kitten” lopez
For the fifth week, I would vote for the mental health impact on people facing the end of Progress™ and the different ways that manifests.
Talking about academia and how it might fall, this guy compares it to when Henry VIII took down the monasteries. All I know is, when someone is openly boasting about graduating using an LLM to do all the lifting, the value of that degree is going to be pretty close to zero, the way an infinitesimal is close to zero.
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-class-of-2026
Hey JMG
I thought I would add a family anecdote that touches on the themes of this post and your earlier one on status panic.
It so happens that my Aunt and her husband both strong climate change-deniers. They consider the notion of anthropogenic causes for climate change as completely fabricated by scientists for political or ideological reasons. They once gave me a book full of alternative explanations for climate change that didn’t involve greenhouse gases.
Now, while I can’t speak for her husband, I have long suspected the real reason for my aunt’s beliefs are due to the fact that she works in a managerial position in some power company around rural Queensland. In such circumstances, saying anything too “Greenie” would severely affect her position in that company since it was based around a mining area and used coal-powered generators. Of course, I don’t know what her thoughts of climate change were before working there, so maybe I’m wrong. But there was always a sense of anger or annoyance in her behaviour when she heard mention of anthropogenic causes for climate change that seemed a bit defensive to me. I imagine that being in an environment where saying the wrong thing could lose you a lot of money and power can very quickly lead to you keeping up a charade until it isn’t a charade anymore.
Also, on the subject of the 5th Wednesday post, I’m leaning towards another post on some American eccentric, ideally Wilhelm Reich.
Walt 143: “@Erika, your recent comments about the Devouring Mother remind me of some of the lyrics of “O Superman” by Laurie Anderson. If you haven’t heard it, try to do so, once. (After that, you may or may not ever want to hear it again.) The first part echoes (from 1982!) something you posted last week.”
I used to hear that on KPFA in Berkeley before 6:00 AM, as I was driving to my job in San Ramon. I quickly went out and bought the album. Later I played it for my brother and it creeped him out. It was the vocoder, I think. He hates/fears vocoders. I abstain from this month’s 5th Wednesday vote. Language is a virus….
Again, I’ve got everyone’s votes tabulated.
Polecat, we’ll see whether he’s right or not — but it’s not an unreasonable hypothesis. If he turns out to be right, we’re in for a very rough time.
David, thanks for this.
Scotlyn, heh heh heh:
Justin, yes, and I had your project (among other things) in mind when I wrote that.
Paedrig, thank you. I’m not sure if I’ll have space in the matriarchy/patriarchy post to deal with potential ways of dealing with gender dynamics within and between individuals, but we’ll see.
Gustavo, I’m sorry to say that I don’t yet read Spanish, much less write it, so my response will have to be in English. Perhaps you or someone else could point me to translations of the essays you linked in English or French, those being the two languages I read (well, apart from medieval Latin!) — I prefer to avoid relying on machine translations, since those are rarely accurate. Beyond that, I’ll save any response for the post itself.
Kyle, I’m brooding over something like that at this point.
Erika, by all means use the quote!
Other Owen, the universities are in exactly the same condition as the monasteries in Henry VIII’s time — what value they provide to the system at this point is far smaller than the value that could be gained by obliterating them. Yeah, I could see Trumpy VIII or some near-term equivalent doing much the same thing.
J.L.Mc12, as Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
“I am looking forward to your article on how to deal with the coming climate changes – because that’s all there really is to do, isn’t there? Adjust, adapt, and carry on.”
That’s what humanity did during previous climate changes. I recommended this book before, The Long Summer by Brian Fagan. It describes 18,000 years or climate changes. It came out in 2004 and is a bit dated, there is newer research that paints different pictures in a few places. The basic adapt or move strategy still applies though.
One comment is pretty notable; about the transition between hunter-gathering and agriculture being irreversible after a certain population level, “The edible landscape had been eaten; people would now have to work harder for their bread.”
@polecat 160
thx!!
I had just read that as well. As our host says — if this pans out it is going to be a wild ride.
Also note in the article he talks about the 6 month drop in SSN payments — and how he realized the announced clawbacks haven’t started yet. If that plays out is going to get really hard to hide the trend. That was even more alarming than the centene stock.
link for others: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/sudden-and-unexpected-thursday-july
Jerry
Hi John Michael,
Ah, GlassHammer’s point is excellent, and one I’d not considered. Respect for that insight. It’s a bit of control through learned helplessness strategy… And anyway, if we all stopped being so wasteful, the economy would crash. Also Felix is on the money too (again respect), and I lead an ascetic life as well, for much the same reasons.
On that note about local weather, the ‘east coast low’ storm earlier in the week (tail end here, nothing to worry about other than cloudy wet winter weather) has also been described as a category one cyclone. Hmm, it was very far south. And also the weather was pulling moisture from the Tasman Sea, which is to the east of here. Err, the trade winds blow from the west. They weren’t called the roaring forties for nothing.
The satellite footage of the storm was epic and well worth your time: Rain clearing NSW, Vic as complex low engulfs Tasman Sea. I’d suggest that 331mm (one foot) of rain in three days at one location is quite a lot, although a well regarded inch of rain was gratefully received here.
What I’m observing in the longer term trends is that snow is on the decline here, and it’s down to about one day per year (and some years none now), and the rainfall is arriving in heavier splats which is more of a tropical occurrence. It’s weird experiencing thunderstorms in winter, but they’re happening too, which suggests warmer air. And in between the storms, the weather can be remarkably settled. Today outdoors looks glorious, although on the cold side. A good day to catch some rays.
Your New England winters would be quite pleasant without all that serious snowfall – and probably make for some ideal winter growing conditions. Hashtag, just sayin’. 🙂
Cheers
Chris
WALT-
went to look at that Laurie Anderson song and yeah, i know that one!
and PAPA-
thanks.
x
i think The Trickster is a romantic.
Mr. Greer,
What Childers eludes to is nothing new to me. Ed Dowd for one, whom you’ve probably heard, or read, through various intertoob sites, has a pretty good handle on this. Through his interviews, its apparent that what I’ve noted above has been known .. or at least insinuated .. for several years now, although, you’d NEVER hear such via the corpserate media.. OR, those vaunted high castles of academic professional classes .. e.i. the BJM .. NEJM .. or GASP! .. the WHO!!
My ‘hope’ (I really hate that word!..) is that RFK Jr. eventually rips the ENTIRE bandaid off Big Medico, thus revealing the gross malfeasance brought forth by the MIC .. ‘SandFly’ Fauci .. Al Bourla .. Peter Daskic .. (sp) .. and ALL the other paid Liars , in the M$M media and academia, who’ve caused so much damage to the public at large!
Not much to add other than how refreshing it is to hear a ternary option to the false binary of the climate change “debate”. It’s nearly impossible to have any sort of nuanced discussion around this topic.
I’d also like to vote for a post on another false binary: the patriarchy/matriarchy divide, please.
“What I don’t understand is how the environmentalist movement went from conservation, reducing our energy usage, and protecting our natural environment to chopping down trees to make room for windmills, solar farms and sidewalks.”
I do. It’s something our esteemed host has mentioned before: entryism, where new people join an existing movement or organization with the intention to redirect it to a different purpose than the one for which it was originally founded. Once environmentalist organizations began to have some power, they began to attract people who wanted to use that power to put money in their own pockets or in some other way to support their personal lifestyles. If you look into the “environmentalists” advocating for sidewalk construction at the expense of trees, don’t be surprised if at least some of them, possibly all, turn out to have connections to the company that got the contract to put those sidewalks in.
Hi all,
FWIW,
A manga artist and seer in Japan (Tatsumi?) predicts a Pacific mega-quake on July 5, 2025. Certainly, such a quake is overdue on the West Coast US. Here’s a link in case anyone is interested. If you live on a coast of the Pacific Ocean, it might be a good time to review your disaster plan–
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/manga-doomsday-prediction-spooks-tourists-japan-2025-07-03/
Apparently this is causing a lot of social concern throughout China and Japan.
Hope its just a social meme/panic…
You invite dissensus, so I’m going to offer a little bit of dissent.
In my youth (the 1970s) every once in a while some American with greenish leanings would come back from France saying “There are so many shopkeepers who live behind or above their shops. Their commute all happens under the same roof! Think of the fossil fuel savings! We could do that here!” And then nothing would come of it.
I didn’t understand why until a few years ago when I read an essay by an American who had grown up in that lifestyle. For much of his childhood and youth, he and his family lived above his father’s hardware store. One frequent occurence of that lifestyle was having the family dinner interrupted by a customer who wanted his father to reopen the store after closing time to sell them something, usually some small thing such as a mousetrap or a handful of nails. That sort of thing played a big part in his parents’ decision, when he was a teenager, to move to a subdivision a couple of miles away.
Contrary to its reputation among English speakers, French culture is quite rigid in some ways. One of the the ways in which it is rigid is that the dinner hour is sacred. If a customer in France had interrupted a shopkeeper’s dinner to get them to reopen the shop for a single sale, what that customer would have received is a tongue-lashing, and the whole community would have sided with the shopkeeper.
American free-spirited individualism is, in a sense, a luxury made possible by the abundance of this continent. We are able to follow our own paths, no matter how eccentric those turn out to be, because we simply don’t need each other all that much, because there’s always somewhere else to go. We’ve never suffered the formative post-imperial privation that forced cultures such as the French to learn to get along in one village through generations and centuries because the world outside the village was one of exclusion and constant danger.
Will we suffer a similar privation in our post-imperial future, or will conditions be just different enough to preserve something of our present national character? I don’t pretend to know.
Off topic, so I’ll keep it short, Centene indirectly runs my Medicare plan. They are not paying their share, so as far as I’m concerned in breach of contract. When money is tight Accounts Payable is the first thing to be sacrificed.
They also keep bombarding me with messages about “reviewing my prescriptions’. They know full well (they have my medical records after all) I don’t take anything, so I suspect they are trying to con me into taking something for which they can bill Medicare.
So I can’t refute Childer’s column either. Centene is not getting a renewal from me either. Self-propelled turds is the least obscene thing I can think to call them.
I don’t want to be pedantic, but I do want to chime in on converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. The best way to do it in your head is ((C*2) – 10%) +32 = F. This is not an estimate. It’s the real number.
Some of the best advice I have seen in public came from a vending machine – “Please accept change”. Ha!
That is the core of the problem, most people don’t want change. Both in terms of the world and their actions.
Yes, agriculture is going to change, maybe certain crops of wheat become untenable and sorghum becomes a new staple. Those 120,000 varieties of Apples, you now only have 20,000 or maybe something other than Apples will come along. “OH NO! HOW COULD IT BE!?!” they cry!
It has been said that stagnant cultures build museums, people are now trying to build the who world into a museum. To become ‘Culture hoarders’, compulsively trying to keep everything in place. The fear that we might lose even a single little thing.
I have some bad news for them, it will all go away. Not just the conditions we find our selves in but mortality itself. Fixation on climate change could be because it reminds them of that fact – and it doesn’t care to listen to them one bit.
An aside, the best summary of the issues of climate change is the term ‘Threat multiplier’. By itself it isn’t really a major issue, but it likes to poke its nose in others business and make inconvenience’s become big problems. Like many coastal cities, housing already costs a lot (some reasons non-material) and that is a big issue, but it gets multiplied because occasionally Neptune gets hungry and needs to feed his growing waist line on a decadent meal of Mansion Flambé.
Well, the current post is about climate change, and I feel my temperature rising, since I’m being mercilessly mocked – a couple of commenters have called me “Bastrel”, and you know what that sounds like. Commentress Erika Lopez accuses me of making “tingly jabs”, which has to be a first for me. And JMG accuses me of having made a “grammar-troll post” – a category error that is rather Trumpian in its way, since parentheses are punctuation and not grammar. Then, with rather Trumpian vanity, JMG exposes his elitism by declaring that he is only prepared to learn from full-time authors who are better writers than he is. So that’s doubly Trumpian. As for me, I’m prepared to learn from anything that resonates with me, whatever its provenance, and I suspect that JMG does too, consciously or not. Then JMG imposes a punishment on me for the lifetime of this blog – which is rather Trumpian in its extremism – of always enclosing my name in parethenses. So that’s triply Trumpian. And given what I’ve just written, JMG may proceed to be quadruply Trumpian – which admittedly doesn’t sound quite as good – by DEPORTING me from his blog – banning me, in effect.
Be that as it may, has JMG heard of Ben Davidson and his Space Weather News websites? He believes that the Earth is experiencing a quickening pole shift and a rapidly weakening magnetic field, which are causing the beaching of multiple marine animals around the world. This will also cause the electric grid to stop functioning some time in the 2030s. Cars will not start, the internet will no longer function, and machines will become statues. Eventually major cataclysms will ensue, as the Earth’s mantle detaches from the core and rotates by up to 90 degrees. Only 10 to 15% of humans and other animals will survive this. But Earth has been here before, he says, and these events occur in cycles of around 12 000 years. In the Bible and in legends right around the world, from the Amazon to the South Seas islands, there are stories of an ancient cataclysmic flood. Davidson believes that those in power know all about it, which is why they are frantically creating DUMBS: “deep underground military bases”.
I finish, (((JMG))), by declaring that anything you can do, I can do better. I can do ANYTHING better than you. Yes, I can, yes, I can, yes, I can! 😉
There is another reason to be skeptical of the wisdom of dramatically increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air: since it is easier for the body to measure carbon dioxide levels than oxygen levels in the blood, it plays a crucial role in regulating breathing for a large number of animals. The exact level where it causes problems is unknown, and will probably vary from species to species, but it is worth being concerned about.
Re social assignment of status–I think the different roles of women in different cultures makes a clear example. Women are, for every society, the only source of new members, and until recently the only reliable way to feed those new humans. This is biology and, of course, men are equally essential to the production of new humans. But outside of human reproduction the variety of roles and gender expectations for both sexes is amazing. In one culture women make the beer, in another it is men’s work. Same for such basics as weaving, pottery, cooking, gardening and even war, although I can’t think of any culture in which women are exclusively warriors. In some cultures, women are the hardheaded traders or handlers of family finances, in others they shouldn’t bother their pretty heads about such things. Margaret Mead made this point in _Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies_. She did note that societies tended to consider whatever men did as having more prestige than what women did.
Re the Scots–no one has mentioned that there are two kinds of Scots. Highlanders, some of whom were still speaking Gaelic into the early 20th Cent. were frugal out of necessity, especially after the Clearances destroyed the tightly knit clan structure. Highlanders tended to spread to other nations either as economic emigrants or as members of British armed forces. Lowlanders tended to spread to other nations as technicians and engineers (there is a reason that Star Trek’s engineer was a Scot). Lowlanders spoke Scots–a dialect of English. Highland author Jane Duncan married a Lowlander engineer and portrays both types in her My Friends series of novels set in Scotland, England and Jamaica of the first half of the 20th century.
Looking forward to discussion of the matriarchy myth. In preparation I recommend _The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory_ by Cynthia Eller.
Rita
@Brother Kornhoer,
I’ve added your son to my Sunday prayer list, and will contact Quin to be sure he is aware of your request. I’ve worded my prayer almost exactly as you have stated your request.
My warmest regards to you both.
I’ve been reading the comments on the possibility of deep-past civilization, and something off the wall occurred to, coming at it from a completely different angle. One thing that has fascinated me for a long time is how ubiquitous dragons and dragon-like spiritual beings are in the mythologies and religions of people around the world. Think about it. Big bold eyes, clawed hands with opposable digits, and long, flexible bodies with varying degrees of slenderness.
I wonder if these are beings that stayed on from one of those advanced civilizations, because even though they’d mucked it up, it was still a wonderful world, and they took on various healing and stewardship roles, such as the Dragon Kings of the eight inner and eight outer lakes of Mt. Fuji.
Brother Korhnoer, Pat Ormsby gave me the heads up and I just added Travis the prayer list. I hope he gets better soon.
By the way, I recently edited out old prayers from the list. If you’d like any of the old prayers for other family members back up, you know where to find me.
@Mary Bennet #155 The communists were a small group of internal (or, in many countries, external) conquerors who initially imposed their radical policies on an overwhelmingly non-communist populace by force. That’s a different situation from what I meant, which is a large group of people changing their way of life without external coercion (the overwhelmingly urban Bolsheviks being definitely external to most of Russia, for example, though they had collaborators on the ground). Otherwise we may as well include the considerable transformation of Aztec and Incan society under the Conquistadors, of Gaul under Roman or Frankish conquerors… or the Democrats being forced to change their way of life at gunpoint under some hypothetical American or foreign totalitarian regime. Without a doubt one can force other people to change how they live with enough coercive power and drive, but that’s one variant of people being forced to change against their will by changing circumstances.
Hi JMG. With regard to the pushback you got, I think those on the right who had issue with your theory got tripped up by the phrasing you used. I had a somewhat similar reaction.
Here’s what I mean. When you say “assigned by society,” it appears that you yourself are claiming there’s no room for social mobility.
(Disclaimer 1: I’m not saying this is how I interpret your theory)
(Disclaimer 2: this is not a fully baked idea, I haven’t had my coffee yet as I’m writing this)
From one end:
Assigned by society = assigned by others based on your appearance and behavior = meaning if you can change your behavior, then you can change your status, therefore status is not assigned by society, because you have some control over it.
From the other end:
Assigned by biology = means I can take whatever biological gifts I have been given (take high IQ for instance) = which means I can use them to change my behavior, my appearance, & my profession (use them to break into a laptop profession, for instance) = therefore my status is assigned by me, by what I decide to do in life, not externally by society.
So I guess one question for you is whether you what you really mean is that status is assigned by society upon a “mask” versus upon “me.” If I had to guess, I think you mean society assigns it to a mask. (In other words, if I dress in a suit and carry a briefcase, I take on the status of that outer shell or “mask.” Whereas if I dress in overalls and carry a toolbox, I take on the status of that “mask.”) Is this what you mean?
Or… (pls recall disclaimers above) Maybe it all boils down to the verb “assign,” which carries some negative emotional connotations. Perhaps because, unlike the word “confer,” the word “assign” seems to carry an element of judgment, and judging of others, which makes people uncomfortable (in today’s society, at least).
Either way, I think there’s room for you to make refinements to the nuances in your theory, especially with regard to the causation mechanism of how status is conferred.
Hopefully this is constructive feedback, even if only half baked.
And I’m not surprised the pushback was from people on the right, but I won’t get into that because it’s a topic in itself.
In response to your comment to Seaweedy about the need for an article about liberty and freedom, and with this being the 4th of July, I would love to vote for a liberty article for the fifth Wednesday.
Heck, I would love to see you at some point do that as a series of posts that turns into a book. We could use an anthology of eccentrics (assuming you have the time despite your numerous other projects). It seems like to many Americans have forgotten what we were founded to be.
I do know that the climate is changing. I remember Fourth of July’s in Northern Maine, when we wore coats and there was frost on the window. A very hot day was 80 degrees (F). Now they have heat waves in Alaska.
Since we were guided by the seasons in what we did – spring thaw – log drive, berry picking – summer, etc, we watched the weather very closely.
I think a lot of people have lost that sense of local seasons and rely on their computers or local weather people to tell them if it is raining. I wonder if climate change panic (or whatever) is something that various people keep harping on and everyone else takes as faith as they do what the computer or media tells them.
Do people look out the window to tell if it is raining?
I wonder how much of the climate change panic is manufactured and for what reason. Why cannot people adjust to what is and what will be? Is it a matter of becoming a part of the natural world that people lost? Is it something that was lost that people are unsure they can get back again?
I’d like to put my vote in for population decline and its ramifications going forward as a fifth wednesday topic.
Thanks.
Happy Independence Day for those of us here in the USA. I noticed that Trump is doing one thing that both JMG and Dion Fortune say is a primary thing: boosting the morale of the nation with “Let’s Make America Great Again,” rather than crying doom and destruction. People down here in Florida are unabashed flag-wavers, which was a more low-key thing in my adult years in the Southwest.
About climate change, and the reaction of “oh, horrors!” – Among JMG’s many writings was “Consider a planet…..” and he goes on to describe the highly reactive atmosphere and often corrosive water, the geological instability, and often violent weather, until you start thinking of a science fictional Deathworld. It is, if course, the one we’ve lived on from the beginning. As a species, we’re so highly adaptive, we can not only eat a wide variety of things, we can even adapt mating patterns to the harshness or ease of the environment – or even as we see fit culturally.
And you mentioned the heavy need for meat in colder climes, and lesser need for it in warmer ones. I’ve noticed that also, the further north you go, the blander the food, and the further south, the spicier. Try some red chili enchiladas in a Las Cruces restaurant! I know a man who hauls down a small bottle of very strong hot sauce to spice up a generic casserole in out own dining hall.
Anyway, it’s Independence Day, and as on all patriotic holidays, calls for a barbecue dinner at noon.
Once again, everyone’s votes have been tallied.
Siliconguy, exactly. We’re a tough, adaptable generalist species, and another round of climate change is well within our capacities to deal.
Chris, if I end up with a garden again — other than my little hydroponic unit, that is! — I plan on using the winter gardening skills I picked up in the Seattle area; southern New England seems to be shifting into a rather Seattle-esque climate, so that ought to work well. Our latest heat wave broke last night with a thunderstorm and half an inch of rain, which seemed pretty torrential, though not on a tropical scale!
Polecat, well, we’ll see. I hope it doesn’t get as extreme as some predict.
Tim PW, thank you. I figure the only way to start moving out of the current nonconversation about climate is to present the third (and more realistic) option at intervals, and see who’s willing to listen.
Emmanuel, and again, we’ll see…
Joan, that example shows that the community was already falling apart by then — in a thriving community nobody would do that, as word would get around that they were behaving like jerks. I’ll be discussing that in an upcoming post. As for American eccentricity, maybe so, but not everything can be reduced to sheer economic pressures. Here again, I’ll discuss that in a future post.
Siliconguy, thanks for the data point!
Michael, true, and well put. I think the fear of death lies somewhere down under it all, too.
(Batstrel, so noted! I’m not sure if you remember the posts I put up back in the Archdruid Report days about the reams of bad writing advice I received back then — every month or so, somebody would send me a lengthy, labored bit of prose insisting that I had to change my writing habits to conform to some set of canned rules or other — but that’s what’s behind my Trumpesque insistence that I don’t accept writing advice from people who haven’t proven they know how to write better than I do. That rule’s worked very well for me, though of course it’s also true that Trump’s behavior also seems to work well for him.)
(The reason you’ve been put in parentheses, though, mostly has to do with your distinctly George III-esque insistence that, being English, you get to tell us uppity colonials what to do. As for the pole shift business, yes, claims like that get retailed every decade or so; you might see if you can find a secondhand copy of Richard Noone’s book 5/5/2000: Ice, the Ultimate Disaster, which had quite a fandom back in the day. Since there’s no evidence of mass extinctions every 12,000 years, Davidson’s claim will end up the same way.)
(Finally, if you really can do anything better than me, I’m delighted to hear this. I look forward to reading your forthcoming novels and books of occult instruction!)
Anonymous, maybe so, but since CO2 levels appear to have varied fairly drastically in the prehistoric past, it may not be as big a problem as it seems.
Rita, I’ve read Eller’s book; Sara got it from the library some years ago, read it from cover to cover, and then handed it to me saying, “You’ve got to read this.” Of course she was right. I recently learned that she has another book out, Gentlemen and Amazons, about the 19th-century construction of the myth; I’ve got a copy on its way.
Patricia O, hmm! An interesting speculation.
Blue Sun, interesting. That interpretation hadn’t occurred to me, and of course it’s not the one I had in mind. Instead, what I meant by “status is assigned by society” is that your status depends on a social process and thus can change as fast as any other social process — think of the rise and fall of hula hoops! — while if it were biological, it would change only over evolutionary time. In place of your term “mask,” I’d say “category”.
Stephen, I’ll certainly keep that in mind.
Neptunesdolphins, those are crucial questions and I’ll be brooding over potential answers to them.
Patricia M, enjoy your barbecue! Yeah, Trump is demonstrating that he paid close attention to those lessons in New Thought he got from Norman Vincent Peale in his boyhood. I wonder how long it’ll take the Democrats to realize that they won’t stop losing until they can focus on a positive goal rather than just denouncing (and thus contemplating, and thus imitating) what they don’t like.
The REAL problem, of course, is not CO2, peak oil, or Climate Change– The real problem is that we have passed Peak Sand! You need a certain kind of sand to make concrete, computer chips, and so many other things, and the world is running out of it. There is a Sand Mafia that illegally mines sand in India, and will kill you if you get in the way! Australia is selling sand to Saudi Arabia… Here’s a link:
https://energyskeptic.com/2019/peak-sand/
It turns out that Greenland, under the glaciers, is ‘awash with the right kind of sand.’ Canada has a lot of it too. Knowing this, Trump’s desire to swallow up Canada and Greenland makes SO much more sense! Truly, he’s a master of 4-D Chess. Nay, even 5-D….
I’m tempted to request Peak Sand for the 5th week topic, but I think a discussion of Matriarchy/Patriarchy sounds fascinating, so I’m throwing in my vote for that– Also, we need a better name for this phenomenon. Perhaps ‘Fake-iarchy?’
“that example shows that the community was already falling apart by then — in a thriving community nobody would do that, as word would get around that they were behaving like jerks”
I was raised when the small town, small farm agrarian culture of the Midwest was still intact and yep, being a jerk there was a nonstarter. That culture due to economic changes has faded away starting in the mid 1970’s.
On this July 4th it astonishes me that there are people who object to the positive visions of Make American Great Again, Make America Healthy Again, and putting American First in policy actions. I expect any country to do the same. I like the Swiss option, efficient limited, local government, healthy economy, keeping to yourself and avoiding entangling alliances as George Washington advised, and a strong enough military so others leave you alone. What’s the alternative – some nebulous one world, globalist fantasy where we are homogenized into ann undifferentiated mass, except of course for five hundred and one genders ruled over by Cruella de Vil harpies. Oops, prematurely strayed into the patriarchy/matriarchy topic again.
Perhaps it is a good idea to create multidisciplinary online universities where one can study and obtain credentials at a low-cost model, similar to the University of the People model.
No tuition fees, only pay a fee per exam taken.
Well, considering I’ve tried to wrestle with this myself, in a post here, https://cassiodorusquodlibeta.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-owl-versus-dynamo-restoring-sacred.html
I’d like to upvote something on “Dissolving the Monasteries” or “the Demise of the University”. But all of the suggested topics sound lovely.
Have you ever heard the late actor/comedian George Carlin’s skit on how absurd the idea is of human civilization being a unique threat to the “planet” given how much Earth has been through in its history?:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=09FmRNb3Krg&pp=ygUdZ2VvcmdlIGNhcmxpbiBzYXZlIHRoZSBwbGFuZXQ%3D
Michael Gray @ 188, beins as how a tad bit of personal remarks seems to be being allowed into this discussion, I would like to know why did you select agriculture, and apples specifically, for your example of change is a’commin? Which is a sort of polite way of asking who put you up to that? IDK about anyone else, but my reason for getting into old time (I shall refrain from affronting anyone’s sensibilities with words like ‘heirloom’ or ‘historic’) vegetables was that most of such, if selected with one’s own climate and soil in mind, Taste Better. As in orders of magnitude better. As a Mom trying to feed girls, I was directly competing with the likes of MickieD, and so-called convenience foods which are engineered to be addictive. Anyone who finds that reasoning “opinionated” is welcome to your beliefs but you will not alter mine.
What is going to disappear is industrial agriculture, which relies on cheap labor and massive chemical inputs, both of which we can ill afford. We can’t any longer afford the cheap labor because of the destabilizing effect on our communities of large numbers of desperate people. I believe that eventually county and municipal govts. are going to be telling farmers pay your workers enough to live decently.
Would you describe the ancient Egyptians as “culture hoarders”? Their civilization persisted for nearly 3000 years. Ancient travelers whose accounts we have expressed amazement at the wealth of Egypt and at how well even the meanest citizens lived. OK, such visitors might not have visited the turquoise mines, but neither do most classicists of today who praise Athens have a word to say about the silver mines. Are the Chinese “culture hoarders”? I believe I have heard or read that in the time of Confucious, about 2500 years ago, Chinese civilization was recognizably Chinese and has remained so as successive dynasties rose and fell.
Since Al Gore’s apocalyptic climate disaster predictions don’t seen to be panning out they are starting to shill something more immediate and personal. ” Climate Scientist” Michael Mann was recently on fake Leftest show ” Democracy Now” warning the easy alarmed audience of the growing menace of ” Heat Domes”.
It appears if we get temperatures anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere ( outside of known hot deserts) then that is evidence of ” heat domes”.
As if to tell the upper class fence sitters that even they are not safe in their mountain chalets or Inland mansions. Climate change will not just get those poor slubs near the water in New Jersey or the Carolina sand islands, it can come and get you anywhere with it’s devilish ” Heat Dome”. So you better get an EV now and plan your next Jet vacation to a Climate Conference.
JMG, now you’ve done it.
I can’t get the image of a bunch of teeny bopper saurians sitting on stools at a manicure shop trying to decide on what colour to paint their claws.
BeardTree, well, yes, that’s the vision that the transnational laptpop class has — a homogenized world where they get to tell everyone what to do. It’s not just the harpies, though; the laptop class has plenty of…well, what would you call male harpies? Harpthems?
Felix, while the internet lasts, yeah, that might be an option.
Celadon, thanks for this!
David, if it’s visual media, assume that I haven’t seen it and am not interested in seeing it Jerky little blobs of color on a glass screen just don’t do anything for me.
Clay, I’m waiting for “Climate Change will give you Covid!” Any day now, in fact…
Annette2, ha! The unnerving thing is that scenes not too completely unlike that may actually have happened…
One additional cheers to Erika’s matriarchy!
JMG wrote: “The reason you’ve been put in parentheses, though, mostly has to do with your distinctly George III-esque insistence that, being English, you get to tell us uppity colonials what to do.”
Except, as Robert Mathiesen correctly surmised, my comments were tongue-in-cheek. To leaven my criticism, I included a couple of bits of absurd humour, in the typical English nonsense tradition of the Goons and Monty Python, to do with topical themes such as tariffs and nationalism. I was about as serious as Spike Milligan when he commanded: “Be SILENT when you speak to me!” And when I wrote, “My language, my rules”, I was deliberately parodying a certain author who wrote, “My blog, my rules”. But it occurs to me that humorous intent is not always obvious, so I’ll leave it at that. 🙂
“BeardTree, well, yes, that’s the vision that the transnational laptpop class has — a homogenized world where they get to tell everyone what to do. It’s not just the harpies, though; the laptop class has plenty of…well, what would you call male harpies? Harpthems?”
Rapid trans-oceanic communications have paradoxically made the world less “diverse” than predicted in the 19th Century. In 1877, one Oxford scholar predicted that in just a 100 years, the languages spoken in Britain, America, and Australia would become mutually unintelligible:
https://sjquillen.medium.com/the-story-of-english-part-iv-looking-forward-looking-back-679aa7004357
@Rita Elizabeth Rippetoe #191 and JMG:
You write, “the variety of roles and gender expectations for both sexes is amazing”. This is true, of course. However, the things that appear to be on the opposite ends of the continuum from each other signal the same thing in vastly different circumstances, and sometimes are not random, but have a solid biological component behind them. Take our esteemed host’s example from two weeks ago of Charles II’s lover, Nell Gwyn. She was plump and considered a standard for beauty in her time. Well, XVII century England was not exactly the land of plenty. Being plump signified the following:
1. Access to resources (she got to eat);
2. A body that is well adjusted to circumstances; in case of lean time, she had fat to lose, while a skinny woman would die.
Fast forward 350 years. What does being fat mean? Oftentimes, too many Doritos. Also, psychological issues, lack of time for meal prep, lack of money for quality foods, etc.
Nowadays, in the age of crapification of foods and using cars rather than one’s feet for transportation, being skinny signifies the same thing as being plump in the XVII century:
1. Access to resources (time for cooking, money for high-quality ingredients, gym membership, you name it);
2. A body type that is well adjusted to circumstances: no matter how many bags of Doritos you inhale, you’re still skinny, putting you at lower risk for a host of diseases from arthritis to Alzheimer’s.
Being fat in the XVII century and being skinny in the XXI century signifies the same thing in different circumstances; and there is a solid biology behind it. A human animal being quite a fighter assigns a high social status to what’s good for survival right here, right now.
What do you think?
Pat (#192), Quin (#194), I’m grateful.
“Clay, I’m waiting for “Climate Change will give you Covid!” Any day now, in fact…”
That horse left the stable quite a while back. 😉
https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/430229-climate-change-the-culprit-in-the-covid-19-pandemic
@JMG,
Sorry for sticking my nose in, and thank you for being courteous about it. Now I’m going to do it again: the Internet has decided, collectively, that the Phillipine monster called “Alan” is the male equivalent to the harpy. With the females in Greece and the males in the Phililpines, now you know why the species died out!
For something on-topic to the post, David Suzuki has just this week outed himself as a climate doomer, declaring “it’s too late”. Suzuki was for many, many years the face of the environmental movement in Canada– and for a while, Science itself, as he was propped up by the CBC as a Canadian Carl Sagan. That David Suzuki (who has no relationship to the zaibatzu) is throwing in the towel is a sign, I think. The man is Establishment through-and-through. I’m not sure what it’s a sign of, but I expect a shift in elite opinion to follow. Last I checked, the idea that doomerism was equivalent to denialism was pretty prevelant in climate circles up here. I’m not sure where they go from here, but I know it’s not to scaling back their lifestyles or anything actually useful.
Good morning my dear Mr Batstrel,
i had a friend named Flower Frankenstein who lived in a storefront beneath one of the cartoon brothers who did the Love and Rockets cartoon. she sold screen printed stuff from her cartoon worlds. one of her last stories was “kitty catty” and there were all sorts of characters, but the ones i remember most were the FARTING TURTLES. they show up wherever anyone’s trying to have a party or get anything done or come up with new ideas, and they’d just FART. hence the name, farting turtles.
you were farting.
John Michael Greer does all this writing for free while others nickel and dime for portions available to the public because they feel writers gots ta git paid, but it silos off their ideas. Papa here is up all hours tending to the comment sections and writing subjects on request and you took all that for granted and just showed up farting all over the place.
apparently wedgies have already come back in style. (smile) we’re trying to survive thrive and overthrow the global wet blanket unfurled to smother us all to death and you come here indignantly talking about style guides is like telling a woman or man or both, willing to shtup you, “what’s this? cellulite? i want seltzer water!”
it’s ungrateful and we were being NICE with a sense of humor and giving you the benefit of the doubt that for being English and you all are supposed to be the POLITE ones, well… that wasn’t very polite not being grateful for the gifts so freely given.
wedgies are back and i myself have decided that if i’m to produce our evenings of entertainment, i’ll have to be on watch for those who don’t pay attention to the AUDIENCE and LISTEN. it’d be cruel of anyone putting on a show to make kind polite people suffer through a self absorbed performer not paying attention to the AUDIENCE. they are sacred to me and i’m grateful for their attention.
i don’t want to force anyone to sit through self indulgent amateur HOURS so i want to be kind to the audience and will have to figure out a funny nice sweet endearing way to nudge someone who’s gotten lost and wasting everyone’s energy and attention.
right now it is imperative that we are ever-vigilant at protecting what energies we can fluff up and court because they’re new like baby colts barely able to stand up just yet.
i don’t think you MEANT to be a “duck,” but you were in that moment. i think you were going for something ELSE. i’m writing here so that instead of you just feeling slapped, maybe you can find a tributary to follow and find HOW you can be a part of the change and try new ways of pitching in that lift UP instead of tear DOWN.
it will be scary for you and even naked and vulnerable feeling, but practice with us; we’re safe here. anywhere else you would’ve been hit with a torrent of internet agonies rage evil and a lack of understanding.
as the polyester pant wearing matronly cat lady, my job is to tell you and others this so that you can consider new ways of being at the dance without having to upend the punch bowl to get attention.
but wedgies, they are back, and i for one say not a moment too soon! even my light-butch friend is finally considering leaving her harpie of a woman (love that word!) because for some reason even though she thinks NPR is even-handed, she’s feeling the tickle of “HELL NO!” and is starting to stand up for herself as she’s the one who actually gets things done in that relationship. (her girlfriend is one of those straight women who ran through men and started ravaging unsuspecting lesbians she knew from facebook who hadn’t yet cut their breasts off).
i never thought my friend would EVER stand up. she’s like the guy of the relationship and just takes it and said she watered the lawn for an hour in the same spot doing the calculations of how to get out of the house they bought together. i think her excruciatingly high-maintenance girlfriend is losing status quickly like the sands of the hourglass. she already sleeps on the sofa so my friend doesn’t even get the cuddling closeness that keeps so many miserable men happy for a time.
so wedgies are in fact back.
thank you for reading me to the end, dear Mr Batstrel. thank you for the R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
i figured i’d take the time and procrastinate on my own writing to write you an affectionate, but honest, note.
by olde timey American standards, how we responded was actually LOVING. teasing=love but the new folks in charge forgot that. in New York “fxck you!” used to mean, “i LOVE you!”
for me though, it STILL does. however they’re setting middle aged ladies on fire and stripping and sodomizing freshly-dead oldsters so new york isn’t the new york i remember, obviously. who knew we’d look back fondly on the quaint days of yore, being pushed in front of trains and losing a few limbs.
don’t be a farting turtle! it’d be more interesting if you said, “i’m English and am trapped by so many Great Expectations, i can’t hear see or read a thing you’re saying!” that’s a place to start because with all the loyalists and royalists still here, we can understand THAT more than your farts.
mwah! many besos to you.
and Papa G, those last parenthesis were SO hella funny, i’d laugh out loud just making my tea. what’s this about your so-called Asperger’s killing your sense of humor??? that was HELLA funny and even manly. i was so glad you didn’t back down just to be liked or heaven forbid, “nice.”
thank God wedgies are back, especially with good nature and a full-throated belly laugh!
okay, back to work for me.
x
erika
BeardTree @ 202, I also like your “Swiss model”. Howsomever, policies which take us in any such direction will be vigorously opposed by: a. the globalist faction you described, b. the Ziocon faction, who fear for their investments, AND, c. the likes of Mr. Koch, Mr. Murdoch, the entire Medical Industrial Complex. Not to mention Amazon, Agribiz, and a host of powerful but not so well-known commercial interests. What will it take to make some folks understand that Big Business is NOT their friend. The loss to fire of whole towns out west because PG&E couldn’t be bothered to maintain its powerlines doesn’t seem to have made a dent in some folks’ pro-business delusions.
“I believe that eventually county and municipal govts. are going to be telling farmers pay your workers enough to live decently.”
But then your food prices go up. And there is the root of the problem. One way to disguise the slowly declining welfare of the working class is too suppress food prices. Then you end up needing economies of scale that only industrial agriculture can deliver. Another thing you can do is extend shelf life of the products and make the dregs you would normally toss look and taste at least acceptable which leads directly to the Advanced Food Substitutes now on the market.
High food prices can cause governments to fall, so they have a problem. You want healthy food, but Whole Foods is commonly called Whole Paycheck. To avoid that and have healthy food produced by people that are not deliberately kept destitute either the farmers need to be subsidized to cover the difference between the actual costs of production (including fair wages for them) and the price the market will bear without causing revolution, or everyone gets a SNAP card to provide for a basic diet.
Or in bullet points the options are;
Industrial food, likely combined with as close to slave labor as you can get away with,
Farm subsidies,
Food subsidies for the general population.
On a completely different topic, the southern end of the Cascadia Subduction zone is somewhat overdue, but that generates smaller earthquakes. The northern end is not overdue, that is the section that makes the 9 and up quakes.
https://survivingcascadia.com/how-often-do-they-occur/
Nick Zentner has a YouTube video on the topic too. He’s a geology professor at Central Washington University.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tW4D6OE7Qkc&pp=ygUlbmljayB6ZW50bmVyIGNhc2NhZGlhIHN1YmR1Y3Rpb24gem9uZQ%3D%3D
There is also this one. A repeat of Entiat is the one I worry about. That one caused a landslide big enough to block the Columbia.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ7Qc3bsxjI
A male harpy would be a harpon obviously. I have OPD, Obsessive Pun Disorder.
(That said, there IS, of course, a case to be made, that it is very hard to help humans to be vibrantly healthy when their environment is sickly… that is a different argument than the argument invoking “climate change”, though).
Since the topic of geo-engineering, and weather-making generally, has been raised, I’m happy to have come across this fascinating look into the work of a pair of Russian scientists (among others) into the ancient weather-making (aka geo-engineering) skills of forests…
The review article includes such wonders as biotic pumps, and air-borne “rivers” purportedly carrying as much water as the land-borne rivers flowing below them…
Anyone interested in such natural wonders will find plenty in this article… https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.368.6497.1302
My vote for the 5th Wednesday topic is the myth of patriarchy/matriarchy. Or should it be myths, plural? I heard enough about these concepts in the 1980s and 1990s that I am very interested in reading about them from a history-of-ideas point of view such as you will provide.
I’m distressed by the degree to which climate change delusion is part of everyday conversation among the self-labeled “progressives” whom I know. You’ve written about the religion of progress expressing itself as technological, economic, and moral progress. To so-called “progressives”, technological progress can solve the climate crisis (solar, wind, passivhouses, and so on); further economic progress depends on solving the climate crisis (rebuilding to stronger codes allows the economy to grow and people to stay where they are); and moral progress demands that we solve the climate crisis (because humans are moral beings, therefore we must act morally in order to keep humans from suffering from coastal flooding, heat waves, and all the rest). When I offer arguments about climate change being a predicament that we have to adjust to rather than a problem we can solve, eventually most progressives offer as their final and weightiest argument the argument from moral progress: We are moral beings, therefore solving the climate crisis is a moral imperative! My sense is that moral progress is what “progressives” will hang on to the hardest and the longest of these three forms of progress. Maybe it’s the only one they still fully believe in.
Where I live, a few miles from the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, is where the current eastern broadleaf forest biome shades into the current tallgrass prairie biome, or what’s left of it at least. The ecological history of this area during the current interglacial period is a shift between wetter times, when it’s forested, and drier times, when it’s a grassland. During the glacial period the southern edge of the southernmost ice sheet is well marked by the course of the Missouri River, a few miles north of me. All this is to say that since I live in the middle of a large continent that is far from maritime influences, both weather and climate will continue to swing widely, weather at shorter time intervals, climate at longer intervals. Your suggestion that this area will swing to hotter and drier (grassland) eventually as glaciers continue to melt is what I expect as well. In the past few decades it has gone overall hotter and wetter here, but that is a very short interval of time within which the swing could have any number of causes.
@Annette2 and @JMG RE: Message #208 — And dino Rachael said, “Why do stegosauruses have to be so bony? I chipped a claw last night when we were catching dinner and now I have to get beautician Emily to try and fix it. I may even have to get claw filler! Can you imagine!” To which dino Charlotte replied, “Be thankful it was only a chip. Emma lost a whole claw last year trying to catch an Iguanodon in hunting 101 class. It took three whole months to grow back!”
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
(Batstrel, er, as I’ve had occasion to note before, autists like me routinely don’t get the joke…)
Inna, any time we’re talking about incarnate human beings, there’s a biological component, but society decides which biological cues are valued. In the days of Charles II, famine was no more common than it was in the Middle Ages, and yet here’s a cutie from a medieval book of hours who would get the pulses of young men racing today:
Scotlyn, I commented a while ago that the most heartbreaking job in today’s world is that of satirist — how can you possibly be more absurd than the mass media? Thank you for proving my point!
TylerA, that’s actually good news. When a social movement makes the transition from “We can change the world!” to “We’re all going to die!” you know that they’ve lost, they know they’ve lost, and they will be fading out of the picture in the not too distant future. Maybe, once the climate change scene is gone, we can reawaken some genuine, non-astroturf, non-corporate-shill conservationism again.
BeardTree, excellent! That works — harpoons it is.
Scotlyn, thanks for this.
SLClaire, fascinating — hotter and wetter? That’s not what I would have expected. When time permits, I’ll see what I can find in prehistory that echoes that.
Chronojourner, the Teeny Bopper Saurians have just entered my list of garage bands. Thank you. 😉
Well, I meant harpon as in harping on a subject and a bit of double entendre as a pun in sound considering it is the male of the species. But harpoon works also.
Dear JMG, I really enjoy your balanced approach to these contentious topics.
There could be biological reason for change in society for women. That is modern birth control, especially the pill (hormones), morning after, and abortions.
@SLClaire (#224):
You wrote, “My sense is that moral progress is what “progressives” will hang on to the hardest and the longest of these three forms of progress. Maybe it’s the only one they still fully believe in.”
I think you are absolutely right to emphasize how central a belief in moral progress is to progressives’ identity and self-image. Since I personally do not believe that long-range moral progress (however one may define the specifics) is possible for human beings, I am brought up against this facet of their world view whenever conversation with them turns toward politics.
As Franz Boas once wrote, “Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards is not universal” [in his forward to Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)].
However anyone might choose to define moral progress, it always seems to be counterbalanced eventually, in the course of human history, by an equal measure of moral regress. I have never been able to see how, except perhaps as an act of wishful thinking, Martin Luther King Jr could ever have come to believe that there might be “arc of history” that “bends toward justice.”
@ Mary #207 “I would like to know why did you select agriculture, and apples specifically, for your example of change is a’commin? Which is a sort of polite way of asking who put you up to that?”
Sorry I just picked that as a random example. Thinking it over, considering we live in a world much more mono cultured (Wheat, corn, rice), Apples was just the first example that came to mind in terms of abundant variety types. The hyper mono crops of corn will probably be where we get hit first.
As you said, industrial agriculture is on the chopping block here. And without the chemical cocktail we use to bleach the soil into dust, that will mean some of varieties that we are growing in areas we normally wouldnt be able to, will go to Dodo land.
It will mean that things can become much more regional again.
I just picked agriculture as it is one area that climate impacts ecology that directly overlaps industrial society.
And no, nobody put me up to this. Do not confused ignorance for malice. 🙂
“Would you describe the ancient Egyptians as “culture hoarders”?”
Not as much. We seem desperate to keep “Everything!”(TM). Every tweet, photo and well… everything just because we can. There are collections of 300,000 VHS tapes of TV from decades that nobody will ever watch again but we cannot part with then apparently.
One definition of wisdom is the ability to know the difference between what we can do and what we should do. As far as we can tell the Egyptians where much more selective in their preservation, they may have been much more wise than us, at least for a while.
There are many societies that try to keep a history of their events but nothing on the scale of what we are doing. Partially because of our technology, partially out of a fear of loss.
I do like the practice some buhhdist monks do of making these georgeous and incredibly detailed images in sand only to sweep them away once done. It is a good lesson in impermenance. I mean even the statue of David will turn into dust one day. Folks will be a little more at ease if they come to grips with that.
JMG,
Curious to hear more about your “little hydroponic unit” – how ‘little’ is it, and how much of your nutritional needs does it meet? I also assume you built it yourself?
I understand their various limitations (space, climate, learning curve) but remain somewhat surprised that hydroponic/aquaponic systems aren’t more widely popular. It is quite an old and tested/proven technology after all, and relatively labor un-intensive, certainly compared to farming, even of the garden variety.
There was plenty of hype around hydro-based vertical gardens and similar over the past decade or so, but everything I’ve seen was more about building large indoor ‘farms’ in huge warehouses, full of the usual tech bro nonsense (app this/electronic that/LED the other) and geared toward delivering large yields to sell to markets, as opposed to focusing on building easy-to-assemble and easy-to-use units for individual or multiple households, or indeed places like schools, for example.
The ” good people” love to talk about fighting climate change with EV’s and taking plastic bags away from the masses but in reality the single most useful thing they ( or our society as a whole) could do is not build more infrastructure, homes etc in the zones that will almost certainly be under water in the next 200 years. The stuff that is there, stop putting money in to it and let it fade away.
But that would be opposite of what high finance, and the real estate industry want. Houses and Condos near the water are the most expensive and prestigious. Never mind that driving low slung battery cars to your semi-submerged Palm Beach Condo will not work out well.
But there is no money to be made in not doing something. Which in many cases is the most sensible thing.
Hi JMG. I know we’re forbidden from posting about AI here, and I understand your reasons for that. That said, I think you doing a single post about your views on AI so that you and everyone else here can “get it out of their system” might not be a bad idea.
@JMG – the barbecue was very tasty; later, around supper time, Jupiter Pluvius provided a brief downpour preceded by fireworks. If you don’t like the weather in Gainesville, just wait a few minutes!
Don’t worry, JMG.
In short, the links say that patriarchy and matriarchy are systems of power organization that have the same nature. That is, according to Humberto Maturana, those systems respond to the same emotion. I argue something similar, but my theoretical basis is Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory, where I argue that both organizational systems (patriarchy/matriarchy) are based on the sense of “competition.”
For there to be a real difference between one system of power organization and another, both should be based on different emotions, according to Maturana, or different senses, in my opinion.
An alternative system of power organization, such as that of pre-patriarchal Neolithic Europe or some Native American tribes, for example, could respond to the sense of respect, understood as “the acceptance of the other as an authentic other.” Maturana calls this the emotion of love.
The ancient Mapuche, inhabitants of pre-Columbian Chile, responded to the concept of “itrofil mogen,” a definition of respect, to guide, among other things, the system of power organization.
Siliconguy, IDK to whom you think you are speaking. I have never lived anywhere near a Whole Foods store. Last week at the farmer’s market I paid $3 for a small basket of potatoes, another $3. for an absolutely delicious small head of cabbage. Oh, right, I splurged a buck on a zucchini, mine not having flowered yet.
One way around your dilemma might be to treat farmland as a critical natural resource and not allow it to be bought or sold. I do suspect something like this is a coming trend. I have read about housing developments who will set aside some land and hire a farmer, often a young couple, to grow food for the residents. As I recall, a house was provided, and the farmers received a modest stipend plus the right to sell surplus outside the development.
I would argue that the purpose of a farm sector is not to earn foreign exchange, nor to make investors rich, but support a vigorous and healthy population. A population which can withstand invasion, which can win wars and build stuff, like, you know, bridges, roads and the like which effort I have yet to see coming from the MAGA folks. I would further assert that large scale consolidation of farming Does Not Work. Not for the Romans with their latifundiae, nor for the USSR with collective farms, and it is not working for us.
>High food prices can cause governments to fall, so they have a problem. You want healthy food
Do you? It’s cheap, plentiful, healthy – pick two. And it seems the system and its lords have picked “cheap and plentiful” for decades. In fact, I think it was during the 70s inflations that they started down that road of optimizing for “cheap and plentiful”. Although it seems that the idea that the MIC might not have the cannon fodder props they need to put on their shows has them motivated to find ways to choose “healthy” for the first time in decades. You notice that fast food is now subtly in decline? Next it will be junk food. That will get harder to get. Not that’s a bad thing, but it’s the reasons behind it that worry me. Still, the universe doesn’t care how you come up with the right answer, just that you do so when asked.
But in doing so, either “cheap” or “plentiful” have to go. You can’t have it all, you have to pick and choose what you value. We’ll see if they can do that or if they’ll fall into the “can’t we have it all” path to disaster.
“One way around your dilemma might be to treat farmland as a critical natural resource and not allow it to be bought or sold.”
But also;
“I would further assert that large scale consolidation of farming Does Not Work. Not for the Romans with their latifundiae, nor for the USSR with collective farms, and it is not working for us.”
Those two statements are contradictory. So you do see the problem. The farmer becomes a wage employee, or actually a wage sharecropper. The estate or collective farm takes its cut and the surplus, if any, can be sold so the farmers get a bonus. Is the estate’s cut a fixed amount or a fraction of the harvest? And who pays for maintenance and repairs? The estate? Look how well the condominium maintenance funds worked out in Florida. If the estate is doing everything, then it is a de facto corporation, and that’s where we are now. If you want to put a maximum size limit on them we could use anti-trust law to do that now.
If the goal is cheap calories the current system does work. It’s when you want better quality, low cost and good environmental practices that it gets complicated. It’s a variation of better-cheaper-faster, but there is no faster in agriculture.
A few decades ago, I belonged to a local environmental group in the Central Ontario city I lived in at the time. Our focus was primarily on pesticides. A few of us formed an Ad-hoc committee and researched the effects of pesticides on human health. Much of our research in those early internet days came from printed sources and from contacts with other similar groups. I remember very well how difficult it was to find reliable information. We spent months gathering information and preparing our presentation to city council to ban the cosmetic use of pesticides. City council decided to send it to committee (government-ese for talking it to death). They were still talking when the Ontario government passed a law banning the cosmetic use of pesticides. HA!
Before I became involved with that group, I thought that climate change was the biggest environmental problem, but in the over two decades since, I’ve become convinced that chemicals are a bigger danger. We really don’t know how they will impact future generations.
The benefits of a long life include seeing the changes that happen so gradually. I remember living in Northern Ontario when I was younger and -40C (also -40F) was the normal low through most of the winter. Now it seldom hits -30C and usually doesn’t even go to -20C. My oldest one complains if it gets that cold, forgetting what it was like when he was growing up.
And cancer. When I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s I didn’t know anyone who had cancer. It existed but was very uncommon. Around the late 1970s and early 1980s it started to become common to spray lawns to kill weeds and then in the 1990s suddenly people I knew were dying of cancer. Chemicals aren’t like germs. Germs will make you sick within, usually, a few days. Chemicals take years to mess up your system.
Dandelions, btw, are members of the endive family and are a powerhouse of nutrients. They were brought to North America by the early European settlers as a culinary and medicinal herb. And, in case you didn’t know, they are very easy to grow (REALLY) so in a changing climate they will be a valuable food source. I collected dandelion recipes when I was with that group. I no longer have them but remember most of them. If anyone is interested, I can post them on the next open post.
“Never mind that driving low slung battery cars to your semi-submerged Palm Beach Condo will not work out well.”
Looking 200 years out may be too far, but preparing to abandon everything due to be flooded in 100 years is certainly defensible. Certainly the legal framework for abandoning land ownership should be done now. The State has title to everything below the high tide line, so does that hold true as sea level rises? Is the former land owner due compensation or is it tough luck? Does the. Former landowner retain mooring rights to their former land to park a house boat?
For that matter what about houseboats? English canals have their narrow boats. Houseboats have engines and could move out of the way of hurricanes. Maybe we should evaluate them as a solution to rising sea level. Note you could use a much smaller engine if you only need to dodge the annual hurricane.
https://www.boattrader.com/boat/2001-gibson-custom-sport-41-9797351/
JMG #226 – yes, hotter and wetter, at least so far. We averaged 40 inches of rain per year in 2010-2020 versus 36 inches per year in 1980-1990, and we are already at 25 inches of rain in 2025, 3 inches above the current average for this date. The climate change models project us to move toward present-day Oklahoma in climate, but so far it’s more like moving to southern Tennessee or northern Alabama. But as I said, that may be due to certain shorter-range phenomena that are reflected in weather. The one I’m studying right now, astrometeorology, suggests that the current sextile between Uranus and Neptune reflects unusual weather in any place where the sextile is active in reflecting weather at one of the solstices or equinoxes. This sextile continues through 2029 iirc before it goes out of orb. I am slogging through a steep learning curve so I don’t have anything more I feel comfortable in saying about it, but I hope to have more to report as I have more time to study a wider array of resources than I have so far.
Robert Mathiesen #229: while I have some arguments that can address the technological and economic aspects of the religion of progress without completely shutting down my progressive friends’ ability to hear me, I feel helpless when they deploy the argument from moral progress. I’ve studied and practiced occultism long enough to have lost my belief in moral progress and to accept my insignificance as a human being, but I know that anything I might say that suggests that (a) humans are insignificant and/or (b) MLK was wrong about the “arc of history” will cause progressives to close their mind against me.
I would be interested in a paragraph or two on expected population declines, not including mass migration. I remember a comment a while back (less than 10 years ago) about how little time (100 years?) to get to 5% of current population. The data are coming out on excess deaths due to the jab side effects, and also the drop in fertility rates.
On the subject of climate change, I acknowledge it is happening (I Don’t miss six weeks of -40 in the winter) but the idea that carbon was the be all, end all cause didn’t hold water. If they had been spending the newly taxed money on remediation (sea walls, modifying ports and such) or other walk the talk measures, I would have given the benefit of the doubt. However, those that should know better are spewing carbon and buying ocean front mansions (Obama) proved the lie.
Annette2, I agree that chemicals in food, air, water and soil are a far greater danger to human and animal health than climate change. I would like to see your dandelion recipes. Perhaps you would consider posting them on Frugal Fridays. Also nettle recipes if you have any. So far, I chop nettles into scrambled eggs.
i’m back because it’s july 4th and i get to procrastinate, although i think i’m writing in my head because it’s related to my itchiness around you, Papa G, politely assuming you didn’t get the badly-landing “joke” about editing you, and saying it’s because you’ve got autism.
the way i see it, you actually were animal sensitive to what was REALLY being said under that excruciatingly thin veneer of bad humor, and for someone who knows the power of words and ownership, i want to challenge you because i don’t think you were wrong and dull but SENSITIVE. way too sensitive for prime time.
i don’t know where i read someone reading George Hanson’s “Trickster and the Paranormal,” but listening to a few podcasts with him (and he’s GROUNDED like you and James around this stuff), it’s adding to what i intuited and why i somehow have always tried to seriously emobody trickster but flip it for GOOD…
and that’s what i was telling YOU, dear Englishman. i furiously jotted notes to you in the sun then of course later they seem so… who do i think i AM? that’s why i must write here and click SEND before i have a chance to reconsider how i LOOK or how i’ll LOOK.
i hope we don’t drag these old unkindnesses into Adocentyn. that’s why i’m bringing it up. saying the things no one does in polite conversation and it KILLS the best part of where this CAN GO.
for example:
this is an opportunity to acknowledge that our dear Englishman is evidence how QUICKLY the shift in culture is now going from smothering despair to a sparkly… it feels like feminist consciousness raising events where these young perfect dolls proclaim their freedoms by getting divorced and let their arm pit leg and pubic hair grow wild.
men are doing the SAME thing now. men and butches and maybe even the kind of straight women who comment on Rohan Ghostwind’s site.
that whole interchange was Devouring Mother Classic, with Papa G thinking he’s bad at detecting humor and this belittles all the SENSITIVITY he did have! he lied about himself, whether he knows it or not, to be polite.
i realized you’re hella funny, John Michael Greer. on audio and in writing. you give as good as you get so maybe reconsider what you’re saying about autism. and then what again IS autism?
not being able to be insane and pretend and play games?
because then defending himself for a bad joke instead of taking it on the chin, that’s not very …”manly.” it’s effete, even. and this is a PERFECT discussion for July 4.
Devouring Mother apologizes says she’s hurt and we say our childhoods were great and they were awesome mothers and before we know it, WE’RE INSANE.
for me to annoy you all now is my colt feet saying, No! we must resist the wily tendrils of Devouring Mother or we will buckle under. that easily??? my two right wing gay men friends who flipped me conservative cowed to two WOMEN they didn’t even KNOW when they said, “yeah… uh… we’re vaccinated” just to make them HAPPY.
and look where we are now.
so let’s not take this forward into the new world or we shan’t be leaving this last one very far behind and then there’s nothing new or evolved and then we’re despairing it’s hopeless and it is because by then we’re plugged into the side of the transamerica pyramid so our life fluids can fund musk’s new civilization of his city of progyny who drink plasma like shots of vodka wheat grass.
dear Englishman (i forgot your name but you wanted attention and i shill give you QUALITY attention), i challenge you because being paid attention to is a form of love–good or bad— and you were FUNNY and why write all that if it wasn’t titillating. it took care.
you wanted to be helpful useful… we ALL do. i erika lopez, in my polyester pantsuit will tell you:
jokes are TRUTH. just oblique indirect. some of us are sensitive to the INTENTION underneath. i have gone insane from trying to pretend i don’t see what you all in this european-inspired world insist i see and our future depends on my finally SOMEONE finally calling b.s. on what you intended vs. what you DID.
you’re not bad. i’ve kicked dogs stolen money set things on fire. i’ve done the back stroke in evil so i’m not pointing fingers. i’m saying: see how sensitive you are not even using your REAL NAME??? good. you’re not a bot.
do bots have senses of humor?
your humor sucked, BUT you can write. you’ve got attitude. good.
flip it. come up with a good idea that uplifts… anyone… watch how HARD that is. it’s vulnerable. you’re showing you CARE. don’t do it for accolades. do good things secretly as you men often do without gratitude, and feel the TINGLES from seeing the power that urge to help and be funny but ADDING something good.
that’s also hard. so seeing how hard it is, see why i’m verrrry protective about not knocking our colt legs from under us???
i must protect the new but i’d love to show you how to engage be a part of the party and not sulk away.
but you’ve gotta be able to take the truth and challenge yourself and LAUGH at yourself. so what a joke went bad? you learned.
besides, it’s not entirely your fault: the tenor of society has changed in the last few weeks only. it’s sudden but you, me, and many others are going to need much forgiveness as we stumble into new ways of being.
new habits have to be created.
and the urge to fart on others’ energy is usually fear, right? cut the other down to size.
we’re all colonists. (smile)
you have to admit you had that coming, dear Englishman. i think Papa was not only justified but masterful in how elegantly he dealt with you. that’s dude stuff. even i remember. i’m doing female talky stuff NOW.
because i HATED seeing you wuss out and not own you fell flat, and i HATE seeing Papa say he’s not able to see humor when he obviously sees BEYOND the oblique humor. i use humor like a stab instead of the wipe it usually is. i’ve been called out and have to do the calling out.
there’s no more TIME for this… fake politeness.
let’s go DEEPER. how do i make you feel included, dear Englishman? i told you some ways you can work with us struggling Americans and also bring that BACK to your own people. you’re here for a reason. let’s figure it out, shall we???
you ARE a decent guy. you’re HERE! you read me to the end. you come back and don’t have a tantrum and storm off. you’re so far a good road trip person and stick out the hard times. if you’re here about magic remember the WORDS the incantations we say are important especially about ourselves and each other.
know that about yourself and forget trying to defend a bad joke and move on from THAT. or let’s dissect and make meat of this. move beyond the pretending, can we Giacommetti this and get to the ESSENCE?
so i think Papa G is super senstive and being diagnosed by two faced weak society who follow each other leaves me less and less impressed that this “autism” diagnosis is much of a “thing” just because you can’t pretend.
autism of a certain functioning kind reminds me of the twilight zone episode of the pretty woman trying to look like the pig faced people who put her on an island of other non-pig faced people.
everything’s upside down. please don’t mess with my head.
this trickster stuff and realizing the word “liminal” is that belljar Temporary Reality said i lived inside. i was listening to podcasts with George Hanson and all the sudden my childhood everything and even my theory of the abused and feral makes SENSE: we have more of these paranormal experiences when our lives are unstable. like NOW. that’s why the feral and abused can wing this more than the normals!
and when George Hanson was talking about how these experiences can damage you, yeah… that’s kind of what i fear about myself NOW. i’m like a snap away from being like that old lady a commenter mentioned, his grandmom i think, she was giving everything away and barely here.
liminal. the in between.
but that’s where we are now. and i see that’s why i court terror regarding going to the edge of my resources when i do new moves. the nausea and fright make me “know” and decide things that usually end up saving me in the long run, not the short. ha. hardly ever the short.
whoever mentioned “The Trickster and the Paranormal” THANK YOU.
see? now i don’t want to send this. i think i’ll sound mad. i can’t even re-read it because i’ll delete it. but i’ve been writing notes on this all afternoon and it’s part of where i’m going in my own writing thoughts.
x
Hey Annette2
Rather than waiting for the next open post, why not post your Dandelion-based recipes on the Frugal Friday post on Dreamwidth right now? It definitely fits the theme and rules of that post.
SL Claire and Robert M,
Would you say that more accurately, the arc of history bends towards the bender?
😉
Helen in Oz
Wer here
Well here in the local area there has been a lot less snow recently and that is a problem you see Poland often gets scorching temperatures in the summer (The giant fire in Kuźnia Raciborska was in 1992 when 38+ was happening the entire August then) but lack of snow is a problem because usually this snow stayed on the surface for a long time and melted slowly and the meltwater went into the ground and replenished the local lakes and ponds right now we have a lot of rain recently but because there is no snow the local lakes and ponds are drying up. And don’t get me started on building dams here… People say things like let’s build dams but then they realize their village would have been sacrificed and Poland is a low lying country which limits options of building dams to the mountains and highlands here(where almost all of our dams are including hte largest Solina na Sanie)
Wer here
Well I don’t consider myself as an global alarmist at any point in my life. My outlook on this is that any form of collective action on the climate would require an non existent cooperation between nations and communities. And let me tell you many people in our community decided to act as irresponsible as possible…
In recent time (thank you sanctions on Russia) illegal logging has become a plague in my local area. Polish ministry of interior claimed that is planing on sending drones to combat this but good old fashioned bribery has shoot down literally this proposition. Funny what happened to “hurting Russia” because if you see the damage the local forests had took someone is getting hurt but it is not who they wanted. Desperate people will do anything to heat themselfs in winter and no amount for proclamations or “drones in the air” will stop that, another thing is the insane worship of solar panels in the area, which came almost at the same time as massive EU slush money for that something tells me this is not organic nor will it last and when that happens we here in our local area will have: damage forests and abandoned solar farms 9this toxic waste inside those dammed panels what on earth we will do with them….
Re: Moral Progress
Many progressives used to be Internet Atheists, who by-and-large believe there are no objective moral standards. For some of them, the belief in moral progress & universal human rights is probably a tool to manipulate people into adopting the same moral opinions as progressive atheists. Publicaly admitting to being a moral relativist or nihilist is shooting oneself and one’s cause in the foot– better to pretend that chocolate ice cream is objectively better than vanilla ice cream (to use a common analogy of internet atheists on morality being “subjective”).
JMG – I’d be interested to read your thoughts on medical astrology in a future post
1. My vote for Wednesday the Vth topic would be for eccentrics and their paths.
Actually, I am surprised (now that it occurs to me to think about it) that you never wrote a book centered on that topic.
2. I just want to point out that even though “alternative energy” is expensive (and a boondoggle) and wouldn’t be competitive if it were unsubsidized, people sort of miss the point that the worldwide price of oil is *very* heavily subsidized by the US military basically spending obscene amounts of money to keep open the sea lanes and of course more or less occupy the Middle East (and also by the accounting treatment that enables corporations to not pay taxes on its production the way that manufacturing would be taxed). Both of those tasks are becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Under no circumstances does this make wind or solar or hydrogen competitive (in fact, the costs of all of these sources will likely go up as mining costs increase, and mining costs will rise disproportionately with respect to oil prices), but I personally think that you might want to diversify energy sources while you can–even if they are more expensive–just to offset the inevitable effects of supply shocks to the degree possible. I realize this gets complicated because you cannot substitute solar for oil, and I realize that the US currently has a reasonable amount of oil and NG, but I am trying to think long-term, not just over the next 12 months or whatever.
Just a thought to stir the pot a bit 🙂
Dear JMG:
My vote for the fifth Wednesday is the “Patriarchy” .
I suppose that the response to Status Panic versus Climate Change shows which the majority of the PMC REALLY care about!
Cugel
Once again, I’ve tabulated everyone’s votes.
BeardTree, not sure how I misread that! Thanks for the correction.
Monk, and yet the first great wave of feminism, which brought about dramatic changes in the status of women, happened before any of that was available — first wave feminism began in 1848.
Revelin, it’s 16 inches long and 8 inches wide — the height varies depending on how high I raise the lighting unit — and it has 12 wells, each of which holds one plant. It looks a lot like this:
I got it for $11.95 at a local thrift store (it’s around $130 new) and it uses a little over 30 watts for the lights and the little aquarium pump that keeps the water circulating — that is to say, less than one fairly dim incandescent light bulb. Obviously it provides only a miniscule share of my total food intake, but it’s given me the chance to learn hydroponics on a conveniently small scale. If I end up someplace with more space I’ll seriously consider a much larger unit.
Clay, well, yes. Especially if you’ve been raised to believe that no crisis can ever actually affect you, and that the point of yelling about crises is to bully other people into changing their behavior…
Varnsen, if I ever get really bored, I’ll consider that.
Patricia M, glad to hear it. Here in Rhode Island we had the most perfect 4th of July, weatherwise, in my memory — clear and sunny but not too hot, and not especially humid, either.
Gustavo, many thanks for this. I propose to take the issue considerably further, and discuss patriarchy and matriarchy as purely rhetorical categories with no existence in the world of real relationships and power differentials. Stay tuned!
Annette2, thanks for the data points — and I’ll look forward to seeing those dandelion recipes.
SLClaire, interesting. Thank you for these data points!
Dennis D, the long term impact of the jabs makes the future population curve almost impossible to gauge at this point — until we know the full toll in terms of death and infertility caused by the Covid “vaccines,” it’s anybody’s guess. As for the Obamas’ waterfront properties, it’s clear that they don’t think climate change is real…but that in itself doesn’t prove that the seas won’t rise; it just proves that a couple of supremely clueless privilege bunnies who have never once in their lives had to take responsibility for their actions haven’t thought things through.
Erika, thank you, but I really do miss the point of jokes fairly often. What is autism? I can’t give you a blanket definition, but in my case it’s an inability to read nonverbal communication, caused by the absence of certain brain structures — “mirror neurons” is the standard term for them among neurologists. (I’ve got the neurons, they just didn’t get the memo that they’re supposed to tell me what other people are feeling.) It’s the reason why sports games, church services, and rock concerts leave me cold: the waves of collective emotion that most people wallow in, at those and similar activities, don’t reach me. Since about 90% of human communication is nonverbal, and a lot of social instruction uses nonverbal pathways, there’s a lot I don’t get — which is why I like using books and blog posts to get my ideas out there. Mind you, there’s an upside — peer pressure doesn’t work on me at all, and when people are caught up in some group emotional crisis, I’m the guy who goes to get the box of kleenex and makes sure the pot of soup on the stove doesn’t burn.
Wer, thanks for the data points! This is worth knowing.
Patrick, what I’ve noticed is that most self-proclaimed atheists have never thought through the implications of what they claim to believe, and continue to brandish around concepts that only make sense if there’s at least one god in the universe. My favorite example is the notion that it’s humanity’s destiny to colonize space. “Destiny” is a theological concept; if there are no gods, and humanity is just a random life form that got hawked up by the thin film of slime on the third rock from an unimportant star, there’s no such thing as destiny, and whether humanity goes into space is utterly unimportant. Try telling them that, though!
Dan, I’ll consider it.
Wick, of course! That’s exactly the point I spent a dozen years trying to make during the peak oil era. Fossil fuel production is not going to be sustainable indefinitely, and all the proposed replacements for them are even less viable. I’m sure you can imagine how that went over…
Cugel, exactly. We’re all basically baboons anyway!
Helen in Oz (246) asked:
“Would you say that more accurately, the arc of history bends towards the bender?”
I wouldn’t say that, if by “the bender” you mean humans and their institutions. I don’t think our insignificant species, prone as it is to rationalization, is able deliberately to influence the course of history at all. Insofar as there is an arc at any given moment in history, only human folly, never human wisdom, contributes to its shaping.
Way back in 1494 Sebastian Brandt put it succinctly in his Narrenschiff / Ship of Fools: Die Welt … will betrogen sein / Mundus … vult decipi. “The World wants to be deceived.”
As the step-grandson of a one-time professional con-artist, I can only say “You’ve certainly nailed it, Sebastian.” (In general, his Narrenschiff is well worth a read.)
@Dennis D (#242) on expected population decline:
I’m a bit more optimistic than the folks who see a 95% die-off over the next 100 years or so; maybe humans will be as few as 1 (or maybe 2) billion within the lifetime of the youngest living today. Mortician may well be one of the most lucrative professions a young person might go into now.
An aquarium pump .. Check! Water circulation .. Check! A small opening for mosquitos to lay some potential fish/mollusk food .. Check Again! Hmm? Mr. Greer, looks like you have room in that thang to house a few blind cave fish, no? Should you upgrade to a larger unit, perhaps something on the order of catfish … or even some, ahem ..zebra mussels.. would be fitting. ‘;]
You know Mr. Greer .. I just realized, that with the introduction of zebra mussels in your grow unit, you could dispense with the pump altogether! .. thus making it even cheaper to operate. Watts not to like!
@ Michael #123
I visited one of the first two geothermal power stations in New Zealand. It was very interesting, but a few things become apparent. It was in a region where it was not unusual to see steam coming out of the ground, so there was plenty of heat available close to the surface. But to get enough steam to make a power station viable you need a lot of wells, and they need to be spaced far enough apart that they don’t steal each other’s heat, which means you need to own a lot of ground and install a lot of insulated pipework to bring the steam to the central power station. Then of course there’s the drilling and fracking of the wells, and a source of water to inject.. All in all, I guess it’s quite a dicey proposition from a financial point of view.
I’d like to include my vote for matriarchy. If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion with my vote, it be that you try comment on the dissident right concept of our scociety as a sort of dark matriarchy, as perhaps best-expressed in John Carter’s essay “The Devouring Mother of the Digital Longhouse”
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/the-devouring-mother-of-the-digital
John’s prose is near-peak here, so you won’t likely regret time spent reading it.
Scotlyn, thanks for bringing up Anastassia Makarieva. Her work on the small water cycle showing how rain travels across land was eye-opening for me. It suggests that there is a lot we can do to re-hydrate landscapes. We can stop channeling streams and allow more flooding to retain soil moisture and vegetation that drive transpiration and nucleation to form raindrops. Farmland is a big culprit here where fields are left bare all winter and then drained of excess rain during the spring and summer, sending waves of nutrient polluted water down the Mississippi to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of America (appropriate to call it that since we are the ones polluting it).
There is now a community of scientists and restoration ecologists who are exploring practical ways to “plant water” in soils. Following the Pacific Palisades fire there was a lot of discussion in this community (mostly on Linked In and Substack) about not only the failure to do prescribed burning in the dry, dry hills around LA, but also the loss of wetlands and channelization of rivers and streams to East that dried out soils, feeding the hot, dry Santa Ana winds that act like a blow torch on the inevitable ignitions of the chaparral.
Then there is the water vapor factor in climate change. I have recently been reading more of the climate “skeptic” literature and there are many valid critiques of the IPCC climate models, especially regarding the failure to adequately model clouds (see: https://scienceofclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/SCC-2025-vWijngaarden-Happer.pdf).
Judith Curry’s site, Climate, etc, is a good place to find the work of these “skeptical” scientists (shouldn’t all scientists be skeptical?): https://judithcurry.com/
I gotta say, for someone like me who works in the “climate” industry, if I cared about my professional reputation, I would hardly dare to bring up Judith Curry and the others for fear of being blacklisted by the true believers. It feels more dangerous than revealing my support for RFK Jr and MAHA. That is the one good thing about the Covid/jab psyop – it freed me from any lingering respect for scientific authority and consensus. You may recall the 2005 paper by Naomi Oreskes (https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1103618) that “proved” that almost 100 percent of scientists agreed with the consensus view on climate:
“The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”
At the time I accepted that conclusion and kept sounding the alarm on climate in my writing and in my work. Now, after covid and the underhanded manufacturing of “consensus” on all the covid topics (hey – if you don’t publish the skeptic papers and even retract the ones that make it through, then of course you will get 100% consensus!), my faith in scientific authority is utterly destroyed. Thank Heavens!
Dear JMG, the following book by Humberto Maturana might be helpful on the topic of Patriarchy/Matriarchy:
https://a.co/d/iPFIreA
I highly recommend it.
What is autism? I can’t give you a blanket definition, but in my case it’s an inability to read nonverbal communication, caused by the absence of certain brain structures — “mirror neurons” is the standard term for them among neurologists. (I’ve got the neurons, they just didn’t get the memo that they’re supposed to tell me what other people are feeling.) It’s the reason why sports games, church services, and rock concerts leave me cold: the waves of collective emotion that most people wallow in, at those and similar activities, don’t reach me.
OK, here’s a question I could never ask another autistic person whom I know personally: If you remember details of your past lives and were not autistic in them, how do you remember your interactions with people and your reading their non-verbal gestures? More to the point, why can you not apply those learnings to your current life/circumstances?
I guess that even in a best case scenario this would be sort of like “speaking emotions” as if it were a second language, but presumably it would still provide more accuracy/information than being autistic without the memories?
The things I discuss/ask on this site that I would never ask anywhere or anytime else…
We are living in a climate shift out here in the colonies, moving a couple of zones without pulling up stakes. We also are aiming for the Old Pueboan summers, although we got rain a few days ago, kicking us well above 2 inches of rain/snow for the year. I think this valley will make it as human habitation goes, but if the water stops…black swan, or silver raven, oops a surprise, and it seems the catastrophe will be localized, whether by too much rain, or too little, fire, wind or sudden freeze, maybe too much heat. Forty million drinking Colorado River water, or growing alfalfa. At least here we have orchards of trees, but in my conversations with growers, it is a challenge, but we are eating fresh peaches from local growers. The summers are hotter, but not Phoenix hot. When Mead and Powell start coughing up mud, they will demand Colorado stop taking our first rights of water., although Denver gets their share and more, but the state to the east want their share of water as well, not to mention wells dotting the sacred plains. The first million that leave the desert will probably get the best deal. We will all know that it is passed the time to leave when the insurers go. Then again, developers built four story wooden framed apartments right next to the river. I think, back in ‘84 the river shoved 50,000 cubic feet of water per second, into Utah, but there are a lot more gravel pits along the banks of the river. The highest levee, which forces the river in a big S turn, could easily see another flood year like that, if a volcano pushes enough water vapor our way. Right now it is dry as dust, once again. The petroleum industry provides us with more than carbon dioxide. What do microplastics do to humans?
The toxic waste in solar panels depends on what kind they are. The cadmium telluride panels are very toxic and do need to be carefully recycled. The much more common silicon variety are basically sand with parts per billion level phosphorous and boron. There is a small amount of indium tin oxide, not very toxic, a bit of silver that will combine with the first chloride atom it finds to become a rock, and the solder that connects the cells. That once was lead based but now it’s tin/silver/copper alloy.
Even in the case a the traditional lead/tin solder the lead finds either a sulfate ion to become the rock anglesite or a sulfide ion to become galena, another rock. Eating lead is the problem, it’s quite hard to get into solution. Nitric acid will do it, as will a poorly fired pottery glaze soaked in citric acid or vinegar.
Anyway, the most dangerous part of old silicon solar panels is being cut by sharp metal and what amounts to broken glass.
Thanks for this, a good summary of your position, and I agree with those saying it’s a reasonable middle between the deniers and the delusional. And just so it’s out of the way: I’d like to vote for the matriarchy/patriarchy binary too.
“That isn’t the end of the world, but it costs. That’s the real secret of climate change. Think of it as a tax that nature places on all human economic activity.”
Especially since we have such a fondness for building mega-cities and infrastructure right on the shoreline. I’m sure I’ve said this before both here and elsewhere, but as you rightly emphasize, it’s industrial civilization and its “inmates” that’s in danger from climate change, not the planet or the life on it. After spending much of the 2010s as a climate activist (to an extent, at least), I agree that it’s clear we’ve made our choice as a society by now: nothing is going to get done voluntarily, and all we can do is adapt. No matter how many times I see it, that Mauna Loa graph is haunting. Will be interested to see your follow-ups about the details.
A potential AMOC shutdown has been living rent-free in the back of my head for a while now, and I just saw there’s been a new paper about the possible consequences. (I expect I’m late to the party compared to many here, but still.) It’s not pretty: winters where I live could hit -50C (-58F) lows, even if those are once in a decade events per the model. Of course I get that this is all based on computer models, which have their faults. They also assumed a general temperature rise of “just” 2C, which I think is unrealistically low since as per this week’s post, “all the Earth’s remaining commercially accessible reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas will be extracted and burnt over the next century or so”.
All that said, since it happens to be on topic this week, I wanted to mention it and ask if any of the European commenters have thoughts on this. I know you’ve been pretty frank in advising Europeans to consider relocating before, and this feels like one more ominous mark in the “leave” column. I suppose the silver lining is that it might make Europe a less tempting place to migrate to, but that’s a quite literal cold comfort.
@Mary Bennet re. small scale agriculture:
Generally much to agree with in your comments on this topic here. Just wanted to ask if you’re familiar with the writings of Chris Smaje? If not, I think you’d find them to be of interest. He’s a British sociologist turned small farmer of 20 years now who has a lot of thoughtful writing on both the political and practical side of what feeding our populations with a saner farming system would look like. He has a few books published, and blogs at https://chrissmaje.com/blog/
Vote for Myth of Matriarchy/Patriarchy, please.
Siliconguy et al,
The third option is remarkably simple, and not particularly expensive in spite of the best efforts of various companies to monetize it, and of governments to forbid it. Our gentle host is doing it in his hydroponics, my family has about an acre under various forms of cultivation (we are fortunate to have land AND water), and it used to be common and acceptable for everyone to do it, everywhere. Talking about the humble home garden.
It’s not always easy to find landrace varieties, that is, locally adapted varieties that breed true like heirlooms only modern, but ask around your neighborhood, someone probably has something going on. I have “Soup Pumpkin” growing in my garden right now, from an acquaintance about an hour away: we’ll see how it does. But you can create your own landraces! It just takes time and patience. Save the seeds from your boughten hybrid plants, and grow them yourself the next year. It’s fun to see what you get, and the best time to start developing a new landrace, like planting a tree, is always yesterday, and the second best is today.
It doesn’t help poor folks stuck in high rise apartment buildings much if they don’t have a window they can put pots in or a mini hydroponics unit, but even just removing some of us partway from the commercial food stream changes things. If it didn’t, why would the governments propose garden registries? Or forbid the sale of garden seeds? And did you all see the articles about how bad for climate change gardening is, earlier this year? That was enough to motivate me further: you must not grow plants, it causes climate change.
As far as climate change goes, it’s been interesting. So far . . . we had snow in late June followed by scorching heat (the strawberries love this?) followed by cold and rain just for Independence Day, with projected more scorching heat to come . . . near record high precipitation in May, near record low in June . . . well, the official government charts for here are still absurd, and not likely to become less so (still officially zone 5, our personal records show zone 3). A friend informed me of grapes hardy to Zone 4 which I am now searching for a source for, if anyone else is interested developed by the University of MInnesota. I make use of the warm zone from heat loss right next to the house to stretch my zones, but not for anything large like trees.
If anyone wants to do a deep research dive, it looks like the Eemian had the warmest period as we judge pre-historical temperatures with the continents in more-or-less the current configuration. If your area has the right deposits and researchers, that’s a good era to look at.
Thanks, JMG, for the delightful post and thanks to the commentariat for the lively and informative discussion! I am grateful for the fact that science and technology are ‘laggards’ regarding the rise and fall of our civilization: while the West has been artistically on the down slope for over a century now and economically for a half-century, we have had great revelations in the field of paleoclimatology in the past couple of decades. Paleoclimatology has provided a touchstone of actual data to combat the incessant howling of the two opposing ‘werewolves’ of ‘anthropogenic climate change is destroying the planet’ and ‘humans aren’t responsible for climate change and CO2 is a myth’. Such data are a treasure. The old ‘stable climate’ model reminds me of the old ‘incremental change’ model of evolution: the world is far more interesting than the boring old scientists could imagine! Knowing the facts, of course, is little consolation when in mixed company: try to voice a data-based argument that supports neither ‘werewolf’ and one is guaranteed to have a very short conversation. I humbly suggest that the #1 cause of climate change is the over-abundance of CO2-rich hot air that is being spewed by both irrational sides of the issue like millions of smokestacks: for the sake of the world, I wish they all would just shut up (good luck with that, eh?)! Again, a masterfully handled topic – much appreciated!
@Tyler! #217 re: David Suzuki. When I was growing up in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Suzuki ‘was’ science in Canada thanks to his long-running TV series “The Nature of Things”. I had a friend who in the late-1980s wrote a letter to Suzuki criticizing him for his jet-setting lifestyle while telling his audience that burning ‘fossil fuels’ was the road to Earth’s perdition; Suzuki actually replied, telling my friend that such allowances need to be made for eco-evangelists like himself and by the way how dare you question me you stupid prole! I ran into Suzuki in person in 1996 in Dubai (of all places) where he was the keynote speaker at a meeting of the World Arabian Horse Organization. He frankly admitted that he knows squat about horses but based on his knowledge of genetics the best thing to do for the future of Arabian horses is to cross-breed them into extinction (the audience was absolutely incensed). He collected a cool $20k for insulting his audience for 1 hour on the other side of the planet. Such an eco-hero (NOT)! I guess that since he has declared that the ‘it’s over’ for the climate, nothing that the eco-warriors do is of consequence so they can go buy Hummers and fly whenever they feel the inclination to do so with a clean conscience… either that or they burn him at the stake for ‘going to the Dark Side’.
@Rita #191 – indeed, the Lowland Scots and engineering! I recall a hilarious short video on the topic of inventions around the world in which a small number of world-changing inventions were attributed the Dutch, the Italians and the English – and thousands of them to the (Lowland) Scots! The best part of the video was an observation that a person living in Brazil or the French Riviera wakes up in the morning and says, “Oh, what a lovely day – I think I’ll go to the beach!” while the Scot wakes up in the morning and says, “Another dreary, rainy day… I guess I’ll just go to the shed and invent something…” Thanks for mentioning author Jane Duncan: I’ll have to check her out, as my Highlander mother and Lowlander father had endless (mostly friendly) quarrels about the ‘flaws’ of each others’ heritage.
@JMG #201 – if you ever get back into winter gardening, Rhode Island should be a cinch! Eliot Coleman (author of Four-Season Harvest) does a great job in the hardier state of Maine and I in central Ontario (at 44 degrees north) manage to do a decent job using Coleman’s methods. Nothing beats eating fresh home-grown spinach in April! You should be able to over-winter Swiss chard – a feat which I can only do in the mildest winters as usually the second hard Canadian cold snap puts an end to them.
Re: patriarchy and matriarchy: Lois McMaster Bujold said once “Everybody has had the experience of living in a matriarchy when they were small children. ” And in one novel set in her very patriarchal Barrayar, a character at a high-level social function pointed out to a newcomer that there were two agendas there: the political agendas of the men, and “the genetic agenda” of the matchmaking grandmothers. I think Jane Austen could point out the immense importance of the latter.
Europe just got another heatwave with Sahara Desert temperatures:
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/01/europe-swelters-under-severe-heatwave-as-temperatures-soar-above-40-degrees-celsius
https://worldstagetoday.com/europe-heatwave-2025-crisis/
Hi John Michael,
Long ago I lost money by investing in geothermal energy production. Hard to know what actually happened from my distance, but I got the impression that people were enjoying drilling deep holes in the ground at remote spots where there are hot rocks on this continent. Possibly the energy returned from the energy invested was too low? But generally the hot rocks were located in arid areas where there was possibly insufficient water? Dunno. It all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Oh well. There is a long history of volcanic activity on this continent, even if the in-between time scales exceed our species capabilities to comprehend. Most certainly there were humans around to witness the most recent eruption, which was meant to be around the Mount Gambier area.
Another eruption is only a matter of time, but who knows when? The Earth is not quiet.
Respect for growing at whatever scale is available to you. There’s so much each of us can do, and yet many don’t. It’s that learned helplessness again… I regularly communicate the idea to anyone foolish enough to complain to me, that if you’re living in an apartment, there’s no reason why you can’t make soap, yoghurt, bread, you name it. Hardly takes up any space at all, but usually I hear quiet afterwards, which may have been the entire point. People confuse the concepts of interest, enthusiasm and whingeing.
Trust me, you’re not missing out on that swampy morass. Oh, covering a lot of topics today, why doesn’t anyone appreciate that patriarchy and matriarchy are abstract ideas? 😊 As a civilisation I believe we’re frightened of what a genuine meritocracy would look like.
Cheers
Chris
“well, what would you call male harpies”
If we combine German article endings and English pluralization,
harpies are feminine
harpers are masculine
harpass are neuter
Just saying
Looks like I am not in a swing state for this election. The winner looks pretty clear.
I would like to vote for a trial balloon to see if there is interest.
I would like to see a discussion of how to handle waves of suffering around oneself (and one’s closest and dearest) and still retain one’s humanity, one’s better angel as Lincoln phrased it. , on the emotional level but more on the etheric and astral levels.
A crude approximation would be how to walk the line between patsy and a**hole when that line gets finer and finer.
Decline is not going to be fun for many people, particularly those in denial who will be caught off guard. And in the not probable but possible case of some sudden massive catastrophe, won’t there be huge waves of pain on the etheric and astral levels (on top of all the practical issues)?
“I believe that eventually county and municipal govts. are going to be telling farmers pay your workers enough to live decently.”
I doubt it’ll do much good to tell them that when most can’t do it without going out of business, unfortunately—barring major changes in the rest of the food system, anyway.
Not getting jokes is certainly part of autism. It’s a standing joke with my friends that jokes, and particularly leg-pulling, will go over my head, and that I’ll take everything they say literally.
There are actually some profoundly negative sides to this condition, particularly the extreme types, but there are also some minor benefits.
An obsessive monomania with particular subjects allows one to study them to the exclusion of everything else, for quite long periods of time. By accident I’ve apparently become an expert in one or two eccentric subjects, simply because I’ve studied them for forty years. It’s easy for autists to become bookworms and information addicts.
Robotic responses clearly unnerve neurotypicals so one has learn human behaviour by rote. As a result one naturally becomes an accomplished impersonator and a keen observer of humanity.
Lastly, there is pattern recognition. On the one hand, an obsessive conviction that there is a true order to things can be really tiresome when it comes to arranging books and household ornaments, but on a larger scale it pushes one to seek insight and perfection. There is always a nagging sense of some hidden cosmic pattern (which makes Taoism very appealing). It can also be of great benefit in divination, and in other intuitive ways of working with patterns, such as Bonsai cultivation.
Once again, everyone’s votes have been tallied.
Polecat, even with plant roots, the water in my hydroponic garden isn’t filthy enough to make zebra mussels happy! They love vile, polluted, murky water, which is why they thrived so well in Lake Erie. Down the road a bit, when and if I have a larger unit, I’ll look into what might thrive in the tank.
TylerA, it’s another very good example of “matriarchy” as a purely rhetorical category. I’ll see if it finds its way into the post. (At this point, the matriarchy/patriarchy thing is a slamdunk — it’s got an order of magnitude more votes than anything else — so I’m beginning to brood over how I will be approaching the theme.)
Gustavo, thanks for this.
Wick, first of all, my memories of previous lives are like my memories of early childhood — little fragmentary glimpses without much context. Second, those memories don’t give me mirror neurons! Neurotypical people literally have the equivalent of a sense organ picking up on other people’s feelings and intentions — I don’t have that. If I were blind in this life, memories of a sighted life wouldn’t let me read the street signs in front of me in this life, and the situation is much the same in my actual case.
Jdm, it doubtless depends on the microplastic in question.
BorealBear, exactly. The planet, the biosphere, and our species will be fine. It’s industrial civilization that’s going to get stomped with the inevitabilty of a boot coming down on an eggshell. The AMOC deserves very close attention, and yeah, I can see a lot of reasons to get out of Europe while the getting’s good, and that’s one of them.
Ron, thank you. If only we could harness all that hot air as an energy resource, industrial civilization would be in much better shape! As for winter gardening, well, first I need a garden, but yeah, I don’t expect any real trouble.
Patricia M, good. I wonder if Bujold ever met church ladies; I’ll be talking about them in due time.
Anonymous, yep. The climate belts are marching north.
Chris, please add kimchi and natto to your list! They’re very nourishing and easy to make.
Jessica, “harpasses” is just too tempting to neglect. As for your question, I’ll have to toss that one out to the commentariat, since — being autistic — I don’t feel those waves at all.
Tengu, oh, granted! It’s also very useful to be able to stand aside from mass hysteria and other unhelpful collective emotional conditions with zero effort.
The mighty way declined among the folk
And then came kindness and morality
When wisdom and intelligence appeared
They brought with them a great hypocracy,
The six relations were no more at peace
So codes were made to regulate our homes.
The fatherland grew dark, confused by strife:
Official loyalty became the style
Translated by Blakey
I think the Chinese found a useful tradition of which I got from a translation from a Jesuit missionary that brought back a copy of my favorite book I Ching, but Lao Tzu walks slowly beside
Being crazy can be of short duration or long, ignoring the reality of the shift of a warmer climate, with weather striking the most unlikely or likely places, fires running down funnels and taking the houses, no rain, or too much. Systems spinning and those living too close to the local change agent cease, and the next layer of humanity are reminded to jump. The variety of local change agents, and the places we dump our trash, the places where our water comes from, where the winds come from, where our food comes from, and where our fuel comes from, and where our poop goes, and the liquid untested chemical stews, the plastic, and glass and wood products, the big trucks and the electronics dumped on our public land because people don’t like paying for what they throw away, and out here in the colonies, we just want to be like the money folk, the class clown warrior, except part of the time it is Groucho, or Harpo, or Karl, and live in a race that I knew I was behind in 1969, and it took two more years to get a few years learning how to live cheaply, and then working at a wage always below cost of living, inflation, a short little bump in prices, oh your ———costs more, and eventually the sacred places I know are harder to get to, except the one here at the place i call home for decades. It is long enough to find sacred places, visit other sacred places, and be considerate to the other places. No, pave it and plant houses, townhouses, apartments, and ignore the bigger unhoused population. The world that we each inhabit is full of a unique population, in an environment that is leaning in a peculiar design, either away or toward the particular currents. i stand under the mother cottonwood tree out back, in the shade, watching the weather avoid this valley. All I have to do is drive about four miles, beyond the canal, to see what would happen with no water. I have look at and pondered rock art throughout my life, and considering what they learned about living through a drought of long duration, I wonder how I might pass some idea of that to my grandchild. I doubt this house will be able to protect my family through the next generations, but it might. Each place holds out hope they will weather the storm, what ever that may be, but I already have lived in two “ghost towns” during my life, one which is buried like that place in Washington should be. What is the morality of spending a trillion dollars for war toys, and ignore war debt as a reason we are broke. But not the rich. There is a rich tradition of folks living on the fringes and the edges, some are damaged by design or circumstance, some ignore it, some try to hide it, some project it or reject it, some inspect it, in whatever way opens, and then the work begins.
“I wonder if all the stingy Scots left Scotland, then, looking for filthy lucre elsewhere”
Yes they did, as a colonised and not incredibly fertile country, working class Scots were poor (due in part to decisions that the English AND Scottish ruling classes made) and middle class Scots couldn’t get the plum jobs in Great Britain, which is why they ran the British Empire abroad – a ridiculous percentage of postions (at all levels), in a variety of places (including the American Colonies), were Scots. Also the reason we are “careful” with our money 🙂
@Serinde re the football hooligans: about, I think, twenty years ago, the roles were reversed, Scottish fans were appalling, the English were reasonably well behaved. It seems to me that since the rise of the Scottish nationalist movement (which is very much NOT about ethnicity) Scots have become TO SOME EXTENT less racist, homophobic, and possibly even less misogynist. This is particularly noticeable in relation to English people. We feel more confident about ourselves and our identity therefore we don’t have to waste quite so much time being hateful! I agree re being openhearted.
(Scot in France)
“all definitions are social constructs, as is language itself”
I might just add that to my “most important aphorisms to think by” 🙂 …along with “The World is Not Binary” and “Context is Everything” (Trevor Noah, but no doubt he got it from elsewhere).
BorealBear @ 265, I have heard of Smaje, thank you for the link. I will take your post as an omen and look into his blog. It astonishes me to learn that some think that producing healthy food is optional.
BoysMom, Govt. is forbidding sale of garden seeds? Do you mean right now or during covid?
Jennifer @ 297, the excessively high price of land is a choice our society has (foolishly, IMO) made. Treating land as just another commodity to buy and sell is another choice.
“As for your question, I’ll have to toss that one out to the commentariat, since — being autistic — I don’t feel those waves at all.”
Got it. As someone with considerable knowledge and experience of the occult, do you think others experience such waves? In other words, do you think they exist? I am open to the possibility that those I know who do perceive such things are receiving information on more conventional channels and framing it as etheric or astral.
Wer here
Well Poland is getting really hot, JMG you mentioned that the definition of an desert is a place with little rainfall or snowfall for example Antartica can be considered an desert. Well here we are no strangers to hot days but the declining avaliability of water and alarmingly low water levels in the wells are concerning. There once were systems in place and irrigation during the Soviet times but now…
With the amount of disreapair that has accumulated etc. I don’t know if anything functions like that in my country now. The lack of planing was obvious during last years flood in Opole region in southern Poland despite not being the largest flood it still was the most expensive via damages reason “we were not prepared” despite the fact that the amount of water was lower then and you should be in a better position.
Speaking about “solutions” to global warning, I might be like a broken record but these solar panel farms that need a lot of computers to run perfectly (the opposite of resilience) the amount of solar panels being installed is dropping now and only companies who get a paycheck from the EU are installing them.
I am concerned because very soon the paycheck may disappear and then what. Those solar panels I became afraid after I read what kind of chemicals are inside them, If they are abandoned or worse taken apart by metal scavangers they will spill that toxic sludge to an already declining water supply and nobody is even worried and there are no plans for any way to dispose of them safely…
@ Seaweedy #260 – thank you for the thoughtful reply and the links…
The specific “corner” of scientific literature that I am more familiar with is the medical corner. In relation to “consensus” I noticed a long time ago that published, peer-reviewed papers regarding any vaccination topic, and ESPECIALLY papers containing data casting doubt on safety and/or efficacy, always contained a sentence or two somewhere in the introductory paragraphs, summarising the required “statement of faith” that would allow them to get away with the rest of the paper… somewhere in those introductory paragraphs would lurk the unevidenced assertion of orthodox belief: some version of the sentence “vaccines have saved millions of lives”. After this statement, however, some scientists could be rather adventurous in presenting both data and physiological reasoning that might undermine that belief, if anyone were to read that far… 😉
In relation to the paper you cite looking into “consensus” I wonder if there is a similar thing going on in climate circles? Is there a specific statement of orthodoxy, that, once it is uttered, allows the scientist to skate closer to the edge of doubt in their presentation of data and reasoning and still be published? And if so, did this particular researcher even bother to read further than the inclusion of such statements in the introductory parts of the papers reviewed?
Annette and Mary,
I am also concerned with widespread synthetic chemicals of our industrial civilization, including health effects to our environment and all living creatures. Mother nature appears to be responding better than promoters of the myth of progress:
Lay: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/gut-microbes-could-protect-us-from-toxic-forever-chemicals Original journal: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02032-5
Abundant gut bacterial species bioaccumulate and tolerate PFAS over a broad concentration range. Also pesticides, plastics and bisphenols.
Regarding the climate, I once again notice the binary (Ahrimanic?) nature of the debate, in which its all or nothing, while the truth is a ternary which lies in the middle. Or to quote the prequels (which were flawed, but not garbage reboots like the “sequels”): only a Sith deals in absolutes!
As for thrifty/stingy Scots, this seems to be an old-fashioned stereotype, which was popular for much of the 20th century, but isn’t really current anymore. I remember being in an English class years ago where this topic came up, and my classmates were not familiar; only I recognized it, and that from my reading.
An excellent article by The Honest Sorcerer on the realities of our energy use and sources.
https://substack.com/inbox/post/167504563
The controversy over continued fossil fuel use and climate change will be a moot point 50-100 years from now as only precious residual supplies of fossil fuels will be left.
Mary,
The high price of land is definitely part of it, but I was actually thinking more of the middle-man monopolies, the debt- and subsidy-fueled instability that many farmers are dealing with (not to mention the inherent vagaries of commodity markets and weather), as well as suppressed food prices to some degree (fueled by the aforementioned subsidies and possible only for large operations with economies of scale and lobbyists and lawyers on staff). Plus myriad idiotic regulations and flaming hoops to jump through regarding inspections, payroll, insurance, etc which are also designed to drive small farmers out of business IMO. I’m also not sure you can say that high land prices are “a choice”. Many, many choices have gone into that outcome, and many of them are very resistant to change, even if there was political will to change them. My point is that mandating that farmers pay people better is futile if they actually can’t afford to do so. The fact that high land prices could theoretically be lower doesn’t really change that at all.
The Oregon legislature passed the Oregon Climate resilience investment act. This apparently encourages the state pension fund to steer away from fossil fuels. I love this line from one of the groups lobbying for this, “Tim Miller, director of Oregon Business for Climate said, “The world is moving toward a carbon-free future and it’s not turning back. ”
Not sure if this is delusion or a racket.
Chronojourner and JMG
Oh no. Teeny bopper saurians as a garage band. I come from the Elvis generation and now I’ve got a vision of a bunch of teeny bopper saurians screaming as an Elvis saurian seductively wiggles his tail on stage.
Aghhhhhhhh. All I need now is for one of Erika’s farting turtles to show up.
Yeats next week, I hope. I need to clear my head.
A quote from the Honest Sorcerer which shows how over the past two centuries we have built a temporary one time industrial edifice
“We know that the economy depends on fossil fuels in every critical area. Cement. Steel. Fertilizers. Plastics. Agriculture. Mining. Metallurgy. Glass. None of these would be possible at present scale (if at all!) without coal oil and natural gas — all of which is found in finite and rapidly depleting reserves. . . . . . . . . What we should do instead of chasing the illusory white rabbit of the “energy transition” is to acknowledge how much we depend on fossils for our economic survival and how much fuel we still have in the tank, then engineer a slow and equitable power down of this high-tech civilization. Yes, that would mean a relentless decrease in economic output, job losses and a ton of things needed to be reorganized. Since that’s not gonna help them win any elections, our economic and political elite decided to keep pretending that all is fine and that we are making progress”
Bujold, Barrayar, and its opposite Cetaganda. There was a lot of sociology in those stories, with the consequences of uterine replicators being a big part of several of them.
Back on climate, the Coast Guard might finally get a new ice breaker. (It’s 8.6, not 86 so don’t panic)
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/eyeing-arctic-dominance-trump-bill-earmarks-86-billion-us-coast-guard-2025-07-03/
That assumes someone can build them. The US people who built the last ones are gone, an initial attempt at design didn’t go well, and they didn’t want to just hire the Finns to design them for some reason. Ice breakers are pretty specialized.
Regarding the fifth post of the month, I am very interested to see your predictions as to what the essential qualities, public or private values, etc. of the coming entrepreneurial class will be. I’ve done some adjacent divination, more about the coming landscape than the people adapted to it, and the term Ideenrevolutionsfieber was one of the stickier things to appear. Having some foresight into the coming ruling class could be very valuable to anyone who wants to try and maneuver their way into it or improve their children’s odds of doing the same, and I for one would like all the perspectives I can gather.
@polecat and @JMG
Of course, my immediate thought on seeing the photo of the aquaponics unit was… “wouldn’t that sit nicely on the top of an aquarium with actual fish swimming in it…”
And of course, that horse too, is (apparently) long out of the stable…
to wit – https://content.instructables.com/F6H/RSO4/KNABJ8N3/F6HRSO4KNABJ8N3.jpg (an image)
which derives from this – https://www.instructables.com/Aquaponics-for-Everyone/ (a website)
Anyway, it is encouraging to realise how much scope there is for both husbandry and gardening on a person’s kitchen table!
Best wishes to all!
@jennifer #287
I’d recommend watching Clarkson’s Farm, he stumbles across just about everything you mentioned in a very real and practical way. It’s one of those lines of work where you can be doing everything right and still lose. God help you if you aren’t (like him), there’s no margin for error in that line of work either. It’s not rocket science but it’s a skilled trade.
Once again, I’ve tabulated everyone’s votes.
Jdm, an interesting translation. Er, were you asking a question?
Michael X, duly noted! My ancestors had an extra reason to make tracks — ahem, Clan Gregor — but I’ve lived in several places in the US that were crawling with descendants of Scots.
Jessica, yes, I think such waves exist. A lot of polarity magic relies on them, especially in group settings.
Wer, well, the Sahara is moving north as the climate belts shift…
Xcalibur/djs, so noted! It’s true, of course, that I mostly read books by dead people.
BeardTree, yep. By then a fair amount of climate change will have happened, but it won’t be world-ending — just expensive.
Clay, it’s not as though those are mutually exclusive.
Annette2, so…Elvisaurus Rex? 😉
BeardTree, good. He’s getting it.
Scotlyn, all in good time. First I want to get good at ordinary hydroponics, then I’ll be experimenting with anthroponics — human urine diluted in water makes great plant food — and then I have some plans for fish.
Dear Mary Bennet,
I mean both, during covid, but also there are restrictions on growing plants by location. “Cannot ship to ID, OR, WA etc . . .” Usually for the plants that grow best here, and are thus zealously guarded by the farm seed providers. Under the rational that they might carry infectious micro-organisms, and that the particular garden supply company has not jumped through the proper govermental hoops, whatever those are, to get permission to ship here. It makes perfect sense from the angle of preserving the local cash crops, but, if I grow the plant here from properly certified seed or plants, my resulting seeds are not properly certified and cannot be legally used, which is silly because they didn’t bring anything in that wasn’t already here.
Currants are the classic example of a plant that cannot be bought or sold at all: it is illegal to even plant currants here, because of the posibility that they may carry some micro-organism that infects elms. There are no elm trees anywhere about. Perhaps elms dislike the weather, or the soil, or the micro-organism already got them-my guess is weather and soil because both are very harsh. There are many feral currants about: the wild birds carry the seeds, and we just tend them where they happen to sprout if they aren’t totally inconvenient (which is why my strawberries surround a currant bush). Currents grow well and fruitfully and come in right about now, when there is not much else yet. We have strawberries, the earliest cherries, rhubarb, greens, peas, and radishes, so far.
Put my vote with Jessica – How to handle ongoing and increasing waves of suffering around us, balancing usefulness with being used, while retaining emotional, spiritual and overall health.
It occurs to me that many here may be unfamiliar with these dynamics, so I wanted to comment on the economic ecosystem of farmers’ markets:
There are generally three types of growers at farmers’ markets (leaving aside resellers and people selling things other than meat and produce).
The first type is the home gardener who’s selling some surplus to recoup some of the money they spend on what amounts to a hobby or personal pursuit and/or to socialize at the market and trade for other goodies. It’s unlikely that they’re profitable in any real sense and they price more or less at random. Their overall effect on the market is pretty negligible except for slight downward price pressure because sales volumes are low and crops are likely fairly low-value.
The second type is the new and/or less serious commercial market grower. These folks are often technically skilled and highly productive, and may have some employees. They may even pay them better than more established growers selling at higher prices (see type three, below). They seem successful and often sell a lot. Many socially responsible, organic and regenerative types fall into this category. If you ask them how profitable their farm is, they’ll say something like, “We netted $60k last year—not too bad.” But if you probe further, you will realize that they often have no clue whether or not they are actually profitable or why. You may think this can’t be true of accomplished farmers who have been in business for several years. But if you ask them, “What does your hourly wage work out to before profits,” they will look at you like a clubbed fish or say something like, “Well, whatever $60k is divided by say 70 hours a week…plus I guess my wife puts in 20 or 30 on bookkeeping and marketing and helping in the field when things are busy…and the two older kids actually help out for five or ten hours a week…so that times 52 weeks a year because we can’t really leave for vacation divided into the $60k…” and you realize that they actually made no profit, but it’s simply disguised by the fact that they don’t account for their own labor costs, performed at a rate that makes the local McDonald’s look magnanimous. These farms are also often subsidized by off-farm labor (town jobs). They usually use competition-based pricing models and often don’t realize that they’re selling some crops at a loss—even if they themselves worked for free—because they’ve never done time studies to track how much hired labor goes into each crop. They only know what yields well and what sells high, and intuit profits (often incorrectly) from that. These are the people that “Know Your Cost to Grow” and similar programs are designed for, because they actually don’t know, as baffling as this may seem. Unfortunately, buying from these folks often seriously undercuts farmers who are pricing and paying more reasonably, because sales volumes are high and prices are relatively low. It also supports a system in which farm workers may be paid pretty well, but farmers themselves are making sweatshop wages and often going out of business five years or so after starting.
The third type is the serious and experienced small grower—what the second type will probably become if they make it long enough and are not able to coast on off-farm income. They are disinguished by the efficiency of their operations and their knowledge of the financial minutia. They actually know how much it costs to grow each crop because they have done time studies that take labor costs into account. Their crop list is streamlined so that only crops with a high contribution margin take up bed space and labor hours. They may have some wholesale restaurant or grocery store accounts. These farmers are actually profitable and are probably making a modest but decent hourly rate for their labor. In my experience it might be (for my area) something like $25-30 an hour while their employees make $15-20. But of course the farmer bears the risk of the operation, is usually faster and more careful at fieldwork and post-harvest handling, and must be able to fill multiple roles, from executive to manager to fieldworker to salesman and cashier. Buying from these folks is probably the best choice for ensuring a fair wage for all, but their stuff will be more expensive and/or they simply won’t sell the less profitable crops for the area. They know the price elasticity of demand for their goods and simply don’t produce those that are not elastic enough to sell profitably.
Of course it is not always obvious which growers are which.
(JMG, if this is too long or too off-topic, please of course feel free not to put it through, but it seemed like something that might be of interest to readers here).
Papa…
hmmmm….. if you say so.
(crooked smile of acceptance but i’m not buying it)
could be you don’t “get” lame jokes and aren’t plugged into the borg of tedious boring polite acceptance of generic canned humor math and trite intonations indicating: “insert laugh here.”
when i was little my mom used to say she didn’t like punsters because that meant they weren’t REALLY paying attention to what was earnestly being said during a deep conversation, but skating on the surface of other meanings waiting for their moment to shine. maybe punsters are so far ahead they’re bored and trying to pretend they’re listening. James used to make puns and i’d wanna punch him because he was so far ahead of me and i knew he was “humoring” me.
we can agree to disagree about your “lack” of getting jokes meaning you’re autistic.
i’ve also heard autism is playing the same song over and over for 3 hours. but that’s me and every artist i know. i wish i could publicly make the joke of having an artists-with-asperger’s radio station where each DJ plays the same song on repeat for a few hours.
that still makes me laugh just thinking about it.
x
Annette2, Re Message #289.
I know, right!
Hi JMG,
Wednesday afternoon, I set myself what I thought would be the relatively simple task of verifying your statement from this week’s post, as follows:
“Over the last few decades, advances in atmospheric chemistry have made it possible to get sensitive readings of average global temperatures from air bubbles trapped in the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps—the warmer Earth was on average when these tiny air samples were trapped, the more of certain isotopes show up in them. That’s how we know that when the Younger Dryas ended, the Earth’s average temperature jolted up between 13° and 15°F. in less than a decade.”
I was specifically trying to confirm the global temperature change and their timeframe.
Instead, I have ended up being pulled down the rabbit hole of epistemology and wondering how the heck we know what we know at all.
I couldn’t find anything to confirm that average global temperatures rose by 13 to 15 degrees F in under a decade at the end of the Younger Dryas. The consensus among all the literature I searched was more like 0.9 to 1.8 degrees F over a period of 40 to 60 years. Regionally, however, Greenland went way beyond the global rise, increasing by 10-18°C (18-32°F) in the same period, according to the sources I found.
However, when I went to check the sources that claimed to show the 0.9 to 1.8 degree F increase, none of them appeared to have that information in the articles that were cited. Most of the articles referred to other articles, with an article by Shakun, J.D., Carlson, A.E. “A global perspective on Last Glacial Maximum to Holocene climate change.” Quaternary Science Reviews Vol. 29 (2010): 1801-1816, being the most cited one. Upon checking this and having to finagle my way around a paywall, I discovered that it said no such thing (though it is an interesting read on its own). A lot of people seem to cite these numbers and this source, and they’re all wrong. What’s worse, there doesn’t seem to be a verifiable source for the claim. It appears to be one of those “common wisdom” things that everybody knows and that they think they know the source for, but everybody is wrong.
The citations for Greenland are much firmer, however. A major source for this information is Steffensen, J.P., et al. “High-resolution Greenland ice core data show abrupt climate change happens in few years.” Science Vol. 321 (2008): 680-684. DOI: 10.1126/science.1157707. I accessed this one without even encountering a paywall (yay). They say that while there was a spike upwards during the first 1 to 3 years in Greenland, it took fifty years for the temperatures to rise fully, which is still a monumentally high change, though only in Greenland.
At any rate, this effort has completely frustrated me. Authors of articles cite other articles that don’t say what they say they do. They cite articles that do say some of what they say, but add important caveats that the authors don’t bother to mention. Articles are behind paywalls and can’t be accessed without paying a high fee that requires mortgaging your first-born child or something. It’s all exceedingly frustrating.
It really makes me question how we know what we know and how we can trust citations of any sort without double checking everything ourselves.
Anyway, back to my original point, could you possibly provide me with the citation for the article(s) that show the numbers you cited. Thanks, and forgive my frustration.
This is a great article! I’ve been of the opinion for some time that we are going to burn up all the fossil fuels we can get our hands on as fast as we can. Nothing can stop this. We’ve kind of painted ourselves into a corner by demonstrating how wonderful fossil fuels are. Everyone wants a piece. Mr. Greer seems to think that this will occur gradually over the next century or so. On this aspect of things I have a different opinion. It’s just a feeling, but I think that we’ll burn and burn and burn until we reach a crisis point where everyone is running around in a panic wondering where all the fossil fuels went. It will be something relatively sudden, probably occurring in the second half of this century. And it won’t be pretty.
Dear Mr. Greer,
I have a rather vague topic to suggest for the fifth Wednesday. The media loved to display images of Waymo cars burning during the anti-ICE protests in LA. But where was the fire department? How about all the air pollution that was causing? I got the sense that no one in charge of anything cared at all. Is our government impotent, apathetic and indifferent to everything? And if that’s true, do we really need them at all?
Just like to know your thoughts on that.
Transactional Analysis is so helpful at diagramming this paradigm if Devouring Mother doesn’t work.
There are 3 basic ego states
PARENT ADULT CHILD
underneath those are subsets going in different directions that are embarrassingly consistent in the reacthey inspire. Thinking this way also is too grounding for the powers that be to let this system flourish. Besides people who can afford therapy prefer to pay someone to listen rather than change. A consistent realization regarding climate change (ayooooooh! Im in topic!)
The PARENT is vigilant and guiding but generally nurturing. CRITICAL PARENT is the one who tells you how you gained weight first thing, and this kills the FREE KID who has open arms is curious aboulife and is striving to learn and make his way into the big world,
Free kid with all the critical parent judgement turns into an ADAPTIVE CHILD , twisting a lifetime of cold pricklies into more cold pricklies, convincing everyone that warm fuzzies were scarce and should be hoarded and hidden.
Jesus isn’t the only one who had the market cornered. James baptized me in warm fuzzies and i just can’t go back.
Also on playing love tennis, I’m going to try and get Jim Moore a girl to love if he shows up next year at Adocentyn.
He’s given me an artistic reason to live with this dare. He’s my brother now in the verb sense of the word.
X
P.s.
Most important gift of transactional Analysis is not just recognizing these states as another parlor game but having a cartoonishly simple paradigm while indulging your emotions so you can snap out of it long enough to CROSS THE TRANSACTION.
Transactional Analysis didn’t figure how selfish their secular boomer clients were, and the ability to cross the transaction is where some Jesus DOES come in…
You’ve got to presume if not love, at least a modicum of respect for Other.
And we’re back in the sweaty Smothering Bosom of Devouring Mother.
So then it’s on us. How do we cross this transaction.
I see a more masculine firm love that looks like that BE HONEST meme where the guy firmly repeats same line till other forced facade falls apart.
Any weird typos is this pad I’m pecking on. Has its own word prefs
Jennifer @ 287, I recommend you acquaint yourself with the system of commodity price supports which prevailed after WWII until I think the Reagan admin, (of course). It was, in brief a system of upper and lower price ceilings and floors for agricultural commodities, kept prices reasonably stable and irresponsible traders out of the commodity markets. Maybe someone who knows more about it can weigh in here.
The hoops and regulations, not to mention the small army of go-betweens who have inserted themselves between farmer and citizen, are a prime example of what I believe our host calls mediation. Some of this is helpful but a lot of it is harmful and unneeded. I think the place to start, to restore sanity to our ag sector would be two things: a. restoration of commodity price supports, and b. not allowing foreign ownership of our farmland. This is not unprecedented, Ukraine, for example, had such a prohibition before the Maidan coup. I also hope Mr. Kennedy is successful in getting unneeded chemicals removed from our foodstuffs. I regard this practice, chemical additives, as nothing less than rich people taking in each other’s laundry. John imports red dye, Mary owns a factory which makes a certain artificial vitamin, James is a purveyor of artificial sweetener, all three know each other, sit on each other’s boards, and all get a piece of the action.
Jennifer @ 298, I would say that your folks in the 2nd category are basically earning wages, and they hope for enough to pay taxes mortgage and insurance, while they learn the business and get their soil built up. I have no problem buying from them. I am not aware that there is a moral imperative to make a profit over and above what one needs for living expenses and taxes, etc. The more experienced farmers at the FMs I frequent appear to be making most profit from value added products, jams, pies and such. Which are priced out of my budget, but seem to sell well.
@Chronojourner (#301):
The problem you highlight is endemic throughout the academic world, in the humanities (where I worked) as well as–I dare say–the sciences. As a young and obsessively meticulous academic back in the 1960s, I soon learned that I had to read for myself any source cited by another academic, to be sure that it supported what that other academic asserted. Very often it did not, or it merely cited an earlier article by someone else (which I then had to find and read, and discover that it, too, did not).
Much of the academic world, with fairly rare exceptions, resembles nothing so much as a sand castle built by children on an ocean beach as the tide slowly goes out. Eventually the tide turns and the castle slowly crumbles.
The main problem is not academic fraud, though that is a real thing too, but academic carelessness.
P.p.s.
LOVE AT ADOCENTYN
I want to bring all bachelor’s Bachelorette straight gay both and all up and either promote each on an email newsletter or page people can write on like here and missed connections after the fact
I’m open to all ideas to help instigate love or friendships
Do you wear something what do the singles themselves want
Think on creative ideas and I’ll be the polyester panted chaperone
I also want to encourage people with theories who’re bursting to have side discussions over beers afterwards to develop a pitch they throw out
I’d like to help incite moving tables of engrossed arguments and discussions
That’s why I’d like to help start a rowdy culture of ideas humor and audacity
Some of the tentative quiets are going to barely need a nudge to fly. Those are who I’m going to look out for
James was like that. I’ll see James everywhere from now on. They’ve been ignored at our peril. They’ll be my secret specialty
X
It should be called
ORDER UP A CONVERSATION
You can pitch your idea on our ADOCENTYN NXT YEAR page or up on stage or with a menu we xerox and you promote with a folded card at your table booth blanket tent nametag wherever.
Like that change my mind table
(Yes ORDER UP A CONVERSATION as in “do all philosophers’ names have an ‘s’ in them? “)
Jennifer, our local farmer’s market does not have any of group A, because they price them out by only allowing highly priced season long stands.
However, a good chunk of my neighbors have built little stands by the road that have whatever extras they have and a box, on the honor system. Eggs and veggie starts right now, firewood year around, and some brave soul is selling oil as well, both the stuff for your car and the stuff to add to your gas for your two-stroke engine. They tend to have a solid top, back, and sides, and a hinged netted front. One has a cooler built in, that hangs down below, very clever.
These just popped up in the last two years, and I think are an adaptation to the current economic situation. I’d like to add us to the collection, probably with bread, but so far the rest of the family is not enthused. I think sourdough loaves would sell well, being different from anyone else’s offerings. One benefit of being on a fairly major county highway, high enough traffic to make some few sales.
now even the word “Liminal” is meaningless. what do we suppose is one state or the other with our own arbitrary categories? i like George Hanson (“The Trickster and the Paranormal”) but i have decided he is too …wants to be too normal was normal. he’s fascinating. but just like he doesn’t trust non-magicians, i don’t trust HIS assumption of reality.
all this because i think Papa G is actually EXTRA-sensitive instead of missing neurons, or rather i should say:
that may be SO, but i argue that whatever makes you, You, made its own pathways, as brains apparently are wont to do.
even if we didn’t know my on-the-ground argument i cannot completely concede because i think really smart cranky people think all the time, like artists may be obsessives, chewing on projects questions ideas just as any ARTIST would. and often easier projects bore because they are too easy. like gluing things is its own ART requiring patience knowing what formulas work on what for how long how to score what material to what and finally does this NEED gluing in the first place? a valid question.
anyhow, my argument is the people doing the diagnosing are pig people. i don’t think you don’t “get” things i think you are on a different plane. i joked James was autistic but he was ahead of people saw the shtick and he tried to bring the most interesting out of people, wanted to argue get to know them. he could argue any side, see any side, although he had definite opinions and he could CHANGE them if you convinced them like it was no big deal. it was the damdest thing to watch. he’d laugh at himself so easily.
but in demanding a lot of himself he’d often get irritated as the world was too slow for him and it was to no one in particular but he’d get crabby. he was always kind even to people who were cruel to him. i loved his grouchiness because it wasn’t at me, it reminded me of my thinking father. he was in his “room.” didn’t wanna have to consider anyone, just be.
so i’m reconsidering what is GROUCHY then? if politeness is constantly being “on.”
so what is Liminal? maybe that in between is GROUNDED.
i say this because i think fine you’re autistic whatever you say, BUT if you believe you’re weak regarding humor then weak compared to WHAT?
in acting class there are excercises where you babble, but it’s your inflections intonations that are the MEANING.
yes, yes, you say that’s where you’re deaf dumb and blind: body language inflection all that.
i’m saying THEY’RE LYING EVEN TO THEMSELVES and i think YOUR BRAIN FIGURED THAT OUT AND HAS MOVED ON unbeknownst even to YOU, and to the pig people, you’re slow but you’re BORED and have moved on even without words because you respond beyond the sing song gibberish and it pays to be literal.
as you see your brain knows we’re all insane together. frotagging with humanity has its led zeppelin concert upsides but it often ends up in lynch mobs so why waste TIME indulging that sensory???
i think behind crazy mind losing passion is actually a shxt ton of LOGIC.
answering that passion and trying to channel it into the paranormal… well, George Hanson i don’t trust his so-called statistics-only take because he has NO IDEA why they started getting good results on the paranormal and then all the sudden funding dried up and yet as a side note he doesn’t know if the government is doing anything, though.
that to me SCREAMS:
YES GOV’T KNOWS THE BLUES IS HOW WE CONNECT AND SLOW DANCE AND IF YOU KEEP US APART AND AT EACH OTHER THE FAKE WILLIE LYNCH RULES WAS THAT JOKE THAT WORKS NOW
this is TRICKSTER!!! all of it!!! willie lynch was shown to be fake but we LIVE IT NOW. crazy. it’s why we’re in upside down world.
this is my song i listen to 3 weeks all the time:
that’s my theory. the slaves singing in the fields passing news they say the quilts with messages are lies… who cares… the point is i also think the paranormal plays back with us and when we step up like this Next Year in Adocentyn magic prayer incantation thing…
i think we can play WITH the trickster in all this. i love George Hanson’s information about how it WORKS, though. instability and how it often undermines itself by always leaving plausible deniability.
this is perfect and answers the clue to me about us being able to be ungoverned by kings. if we’re designed this way, supposedly, and we SEE examples of it so why did the axxholes win out and keep winning out???
it’s cultural.
us artists thinkers story tellers have to wither the hedge fun hero.
when i read somewhere that elon musk had to use IVF in his plot to take over the world with his DNA, i thought, “man, these tech guys will never have a clue.”
this is why i knew that bezos and his new wife’s sex was out in public when she shows her titties. that’s it. i’d bet (so much) that she’s watching the pictures and doing her nails while he’s wanking off to. his stock in his office on the yacht. her job is when the helicopters come and she’s gotta go live and pop the champage and pour it on her tetas on deck while he giggles and says “wait’ll fxckerberg sees THIS!”
—
for Adocentyn i will do my best to accomodate love and friendships and encourage you to tell me all the different ways we can bring enchantment to the event by passing notes or having codes or colors or nothing but a listing or anything… be creative! let’s go all out and people love to be shaken out of complacency.
welcome to the belljar! told you i was 4X Leo.
i wasn’t kidding.
xxxx
okay i’m done now. gotta work so i have something to edit more on monday…
@ Martin #238 “I visited one of the first two geothermal power stations in New Zealand. It was very interesting, but a few things become apparent. It was in a region where it was not unusual to see steam coming out of the ground”
That was the thing that struck me about going to Taupo, you could even see vapor coming out of the drain pipes there is so much heat there. By the time you get to Rotarua up north, it is even more obvious and not just because of the sulfur smell.
@Robert Mathiesen — RE: message #308 from my message #301:
I absolutely agree, but I think we may be in danger of steering the conversation off topic, so that’s all I’m going to say about it here. Perhaps we can continue the conversation in the next open post. Cheers!
Mary,
I’m all for not allowing foreign ownership of farm land! I will look more deeply into the price supports you mention; I am somewhat familiar with them, but not deeply so.
My points about the type 2 people are that 1) the wages they’re earning are horrible, often far worse than their own employees’ or even a migrant worker’s, which is still a problem ethically and pragmatically even if they’re doing it to themselves and 2) their pricing practices (and those who buy from them at those prices) unwittingly help create the environment where type 3s can’t afford to pay better wages to their employees because their reasonable prices are being undercut by inexperienced businesspeople selling at a loss. If one wishes farmers to pay good wages or to make good wages, one needs to be willing to buy food at a price that allows them to do so. Profit for the sake of profit may not be a moral imperative, but rare is the businessperson who wants to work like a dog and take on all the risk and stress and liability of financing and running a public-facing business only to make less than they would by simply showing up to work and putting in their eight hours doing a less demanding form of the same labor for someone else. It’s not a question of morality, it’s a question of whether or not we want farming to be sustainable and appealing enough that we have a robust small farming culture.
Value-adds certainly up the profit margins and have the added benefit of reducing waste and spreading out the income distribution (by preserving for sale year-round), as well as making organic/regenerative methods more possible (it is eminently possible to produce delicious produce of superior nutritional value using holistic biological methods, but harder to produce cosmetically flawless produce, especially fruits, in a similar manner). They can also sometimes allow small producers to keep some of their employees year round instead of hiring and firing with the harvest season. But I also do not usually buy value-added products from other producers for reasons of economy.
BoysMom,
That’s really cool! I bet the bread would go over well. Farmers’ markets (especially of any real size) can be quite expensive, and sometimes ridiculously snooty and cliquish. There’re all kinds of weird in-group dynamics with established producers, and often they won’t let in people who compete with an established vendor in their particular niche. I often think of a meme I saw once, which just said “~Community~” in a nostalgic font over a picture of two women at a community garden locked in snarling, hair-pulling physical combat. Heh.
“here once were systems in place and irrigation during the Soviet times but now…
With the amount of disreapair that has accumulated etc. I don’t know if anything functions like that in my country now.”
This sounds like the model Germany used for decades: cut back on public infrastructure investment, which makes your numbers look good, until the infrastructure deteriorates enough to interfere with your numbers. That is the 1-2 punch hitting the German economy right now. (The other punch being the loss of cheap energy from Russia.)
I wish better results for Poland, but …
I appreciate your insights from your corner of the world.
@ChronoJourner #301, if I may: Steffensen et al. affirm that “The most abrupt transitions are those of the deuterium excess. The excess is considered to be mainly a proxy of past ocean surface temperatures at the moisture-source region.”
So, in my understanding (and I am not a climatologist), the abrupt transition seen in the gas bubbles from Greenland ice cores do not reflect simply Greenland temperature changes (since very little moisture will evaporate in Greenland itself), nor temperature changes on the entire globe, as JMG affirmed, but something in between.
Somewhere (sorry, I can’t find the reference now), I saw the formulation that this is an average temperature for the middle and high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere.
“but rare is the businessperson who wants to work like a dog and take on all the risk and stress and liability of financing and running a public-facing business only to make less than they would by simply showing up to work and putting in their eight hours doing a less demanding form of the same labor for someone else. ”
Exactly why Dad sold the farm. It wasn’t even public facing, but the cows needed milking twice a day every day.
As for cosmetically perfect fruit, every fall we have what my daughter calls sad-apple crisp. The apples come from the ground fall, apples the pickers decided were too blemished to sell and left on the ground. One bird peck will do it. The defective apples make fine crisp, pie, and sauce.
“is illegal to even plant currants here, because of the possibility that they may carry some micro-organism that infects elms.”
If you are in the US it’s not elms, it’s white pines. White Pine blister rust spends part of its life cycle in currants and gooseberries.
https://extension.umn.edu/plant-diseases/white-pine-blister-rust
Scotlyn, you are correct – the Oreskes paper claiming 100 percent scientific consensus on the causes of climate change only examined abstracts, not the full text of the 928 papers. I have also seen these “statements of faith” in the first parts of scientific papers and it does feel like some kind of indulgence that has to be granted by the orthodoxy before the researchers can proceed with the actual science. Therefore, never rely on the abstract alone if you want to understand the actual results!
@Chronojourner #301 and Robert M #308
The classic (and in some circles, famous) example of this empty citation issue you’ve both referenced is the story told, and retold, by Kary Mullis (Nobel prize winner and inventor of the PCR process), who was writing a paper in which the simple declarative sentence “HIV has been determined to be the cause of AIDS” was going to figure in the introductory paragraphs. When he went looking for a source in support of this assertion (a matter of high scientific consensus at that time) he could not find one sufficiently robust to confidently cite. He became so disturbed by this that he spent a few subsequent years going to scientific conferences asking everyone who was closest to the relevant research areas, what source they would cite, or what work/data had persuaded them of the truth of the assertion cited above, without any success in getting closer to substantiation of the assertion that HIV causes AIDS…
Ultimately, as he began to share his story, his frustration, and his increasing scepticism, he became generally known as another “cancelled” scientist, now seen as an “AIDS denialist” kook. Also, his PCR process, which he himself warned was not suitable for diagnosing any disease, has become the flagship test for precisely that. The irony!
Hi John Michael,
Those preserving techniques are good although I’ve not tried natto, to be honest such foods are probably very much needed right now. Whilst everyone is worrying about the climate, there’s other news afoot: Cancer rates in Australians under 50 are rising at a pace that’s alarming doctors and scientists.
You’ve mentioned the sad and sorry ragged tale that depopulation will be, and here we are.
The wonderful thing about the ecosystem which supports us all, is that it has all manner of ways to self correct.
Cheers
Chris
5th Wednesday: pat-mat-riarchy seems to be unstoppable now, so I’ll throw in ‘The Ethopian Bible’ as a subject idea, just to see whether it stimulates any discussion.
@Patricia A. Ormsby (#193):
I very much like your suggestion that dragons, known from all over the world, may be the remnants (or memories) of an unknown deep-time civilization. We may never know for sure, but it’s a compelling theory.
BTW, did you know that the Orm- in your surname is an older Scandinavian word that can mean a snake, a worm or even a dragon? So Ormsby can mean dragon’s town.
I vote for the Manufactured Patriarchy/Matriarchy myth.
Another great post! My vote for a subject is chemtrails. Particularly how that operation will disappear quickly or with much resistance as public awareness grows and fuel becomes more expensive. Is chemtrails the ultimate demonstration of incompetence, and techno narcissism mixed with too much money?
In my inbox this morning, a webinar for climate journalists on how they can adjust to the dominance of social media. I am sure they will have lot of tips on how to combat climate “mis-information.” Or is it
dis-information, mal-information, fake news, or another form of “information disorder?”
https://commonslibrary.org/disinformation-and-7-common-forms-of-information-disorder/
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQbgJFKcNHSVmqbrnrPdGsMCkDx
“Amplify Your Impact: Social Media Strategies for Climate Journalists”
Tuesday, July 18, at 12pm US Eastern Time
For the first time, social media has overtaken television as Americans’ top news source. That’s according to Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its 2025 Digital News Report, released earlier this month. “The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.”
This webinar will take a look at how the social media landscape has changed in recent years; the challenges journalism faces on social media; and the opportunities that social media provides for individual journalists, newsrooms, and news institutions.
PANELISTS
Dr. Waqas Ejaz, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Reuters Institute’s Oxford Climate Journalism Network
Ginger Zee, Chief Meteorologist & Chief Climate Correspondent, ABC News
Theresa Riley, CCNow’s Audience Editor, will moderate.
With regard to, um ‘bopper bands’ … what I conjured up was: ‘Little Greta and the Stromatolites’ … who’s fictitious no. 1 hit is thusly named: “Fossil Gurrrl Virtue”
Brought to you courtesy of .. Crimetgate Records
‘;]
I vote please share your insights on the Marti/Patri malarchy.
@Aldarion RE: Message #319
@Scotlyn RE: Message #323
Thanks for the information you both provided. I agree with it at least 99%. I will post on this topic again when we have the open post in a couple of weeks. I want to be respectful of JMG by remaining on topic this week, but, trust me, I’ll have a lot to say about it during the open post.
Having made the genius mistake of adopting two lovebirds during Covid and spending the last five years in awe and contemplation of the absolute horror that is avian intelligence, I now have no doubt that the Saurians reached states of advanced intelligence at multiple points during their 186 Million (!) year run and were easily capable of things like… burning a crap-ton of fossil fuels. My more controversial belief is that the meteor that hit the Yucatan wasn’t just a fluke of space debris happenstance, but that it was effectively summoned/attracted by High Priest Velociraptors using a black magic level of technology that mammals (a clever but hopelessly lunarian race) will never discover and that the last surviving Saurians, the Avians (true Apollonians to the last), will hopefully never again have reason to use. While I wont be so bold as to claim that I can “prove” anything in this regard, there are some pretty weird facts about the K-T meteor event that standard orbital science can’t explain. First, the meteor hit in the tropics and, judging by the conspicuously round shape of the impact crater, hit the surface of the Earth at more or less a perfectly perpendicular angle. The angle alone is curious but the tropical setting means that whichever direction it came from, it was moving along the solar disc like a billiard ball, cross-cutting the orbital paths of either just the outer planets, if it hit at night, or all the planets and the sun, if it hit during the day. The night-time scenario is at least plausible if the spacing of the big outer four planets was just right but if the Tanis formation discovery isn’t a hoax (and I don’t think it is), then that meteor hit during the day (Tanis is notable for many things but it includes the remains of burroughing mammals who were entombed in media res in hot ash, Pompei-style, while napping/sleeping). To successfully cross the orbital trajectories of the big four outer and then the inner planets, not get pulled into the suns gravitational field, and the inner planets again, is one hell of a coincidence. The odds of such a coincidence occurring naturally? About as good as High Priest Velociraptors gone mad using forbidden gravitational wave technology that was originally used to consolidate a bunch of lost mini-moons into the Moon or, conversely, blow out a good chunk of the Moon. Circumstantial but no less compelling evidence: the Aztec High Priests that occupied the same territory as the late Suarians wore ornate bird garb and a blew a ceremonial death whistle that sounds an awful lot like the shriek a modern avian raptor uses to paralyze its often mammalian prey in terror. If places have spirits then the Yucatan is haunted to the core.
Geeze, I don’t read the comments, while busy painting my toenails for the 4th of July, and I’m suddenly responsible for a 3 day Ecosophia Adocentyn. That’ll teach me for inviting Erika next year….
I have some ideas. I can think of a place to meet. I will need others help.
Tomorrow, I will post a link for anyone interested in helping me with this.
In answer to Erica’s question: the annual potluck started by me asking JMG if he would come if I hosted. He said yes, I posted here, and 2 dozen people came. Still waiting for Chris from Ferndale, though.
Peter you made me GIGGLE SOOOOO HARD!
(This is gonna be so fun)
XXXXXX
You weren’t kidding about the arrogance and single-mindedness of the “Climate Change is catastrophic” scientocracy. I picked up a 2026 calendar put out by the Union of Concerned Scientists from my apartment’s lobby table, informally a giveaway table. JMG, I will be mailing it to you. Though it does hit off some of the known villains: Big Oil profits and meatpacking plants pollution. But check out the September page: there’s a guy who knows what the wave of the future will be (standing by his horse and buggy) as the commentary gets its nose in the air about those who won’t go gung-ho for electric cars.
Oh, my, talk abut “our way or the highway; we know in detail what’s best for everybody” arrogance in full bloom.
Once again, all votes have been tabulated.
Jennifer, I certainly found it interesting. Many farmers markets don’t make room for the first category, unfortunately.
Erika, I hope you’re not setting yourself up for too heavy a disappointment when you meet me next June and find out that I really am rather geeky, can’t read nonverbal signals at all, and miss the point of jokes.
Chronojourner, you tried to do it on the internet, didn’t you? A lot of information on paleoclimatology got stuffed down the memory hole as soon as it contradicted the latest proclamations from the Ministry of Truth. You need to use books. I recommend Steven Mithen’s 2006 book After The Ice as a good starting point; that’s where I first learned about the scale of the temperature spike following the Younger Dryas. Just in case, get a copy of the first edition.
Thomas, do some research about the physics of fossil fuel extraction, and you’ll discover why that prediction won’t wash. The short form? Oil and gas wells don’t keep producing at a fixed rate and then all of a sudden run out. Once they’ve given up around half their original contents, production starts to slump, and declines gradually, ending in a long slow trickle years down the road. Because of that, by the time we reach the end of our oil and natural gas supply, it’ll have declined steadily for years, and will be at a small fraction of peak production. Please do read up on this! As for your question, er, those protests were approved by the city government and paid for by local elites, since ruthless exploitation of illegal immigrants is most of what makes the California economy function — to the extent that it does.
Erika, assuming that I haven’t already met somebody by then, I’d certainly be in favor of this!
Chris, give natto a try! It smells a little like sweaty socks and manages to be both sticky and slimy, but once your body realizes how nourishing it is, you’ll develop a taste for it. As for depopulation, yeah. It’s not a pretty sight, and here it is.
Seaweedy, and of course it’s never occurred to them that the reason people are turning to social media for their news is that it lets them screen out the mis-, mal-, and non-information churned out by climate journalists among others…
Polecat, funny.
Christopher, here’s a suggestion. What if the species of intelligent saurians living on the earth at that time had achieved space travel, decided to try its hand at asteroid mining, brought a big asteroid full of metals in from the belt toward earth, and lost control of it before they could get it into a stable earth orbit? The people who babble about bringing asteroids full of gold back to earth, in the usual way of things, never talk about what might go wrong…
Peter, delighted to hear it.
Patricia M, snd then they wonder why everyone else doesn’t trust them!
Rice prices in Japan spike, government imperiled. Apparently a couple years ago a hot summer messed up the harvest, now the reserves are gone and things still haven’t settled down. The Japanese do not view rice as a fungible commodity and that’s making it worse.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/will-japans-rice-price-shock-lead-government-collapse-and-spark-global-bond-crisis
I made apricot jam yesterday and will be canning apricots tomorrow and eating apricots today.
“Erika, I hope you’re not setting yourself up for too heavy a disappointment when you meet me next June and find out that I really am rather geeky, can’t read nonverbal signals at all, and miss the point of jokes.”
–disappointment??? i wrinkled my eyebrows up into balls and tossed ’em into a trashcan when i read that. what a strange word to use as i usually have low expectations of humanity while believing we could should ought to be more amazing than we have been / and yet you have completely blown my mind since i first realized you exist when James was reading you years ago as Archdruid, and have consistently exceeded all of my ideas that enchantment magic and beautiful people power is tiny and hidden under bridges only. you have made the world more beautiful and interesting than my child faery tale mind knew what to do with and have created a place of people who have saved me held me up during the worst traumas of my entire life.
disappointment? ha! even if you did something others figured was seemingly “bad” i’d figure there’s a reason behind it that i just didn’t understand. / yet.
you’re not set in plastic wrap or even amber.
i just find it more interesting to not shrug all your differences off to autism or some diagnosis the borings labeled you because of their habit to pin to foamcore dissect organize kill hang in a DSM manual or museum then i cannot see you as clearly from afar.
when i was in art school so many people had done time in mental institutions because their parents figured all that sensitivity meant their kids were insane. i got the group and foster homes but the reason was the same. and in the group and foster homes more sensitives.
so i’m a little doubtful of the ones who said you’re missing such and such when you consistently go beyond over and above. and being with James 26 years… i still don’t have him all figured out and it’s the approach not diagnosis. diagnosis makes people go “ah!” and move on to something else like they think they know anything.
so you could be as you say and think and assume you are and fine. i’ll be sure and underline any jokes you don’t get as i often have to do with the normals anyway as they don’t get ME, either.
it’s all words anyway. learning anyone is a tango dance vs. the line dance of zumba i could never follow.
when i was dancing outside students and teachers beggged me to bring my energy to zumba classes at the gym. i looked at them and had to explain my dancing was anti-zumba. it was MY moves MY time MY nakedness. they wanted my energy but it doesn’t work in line dancing following moves. i get retarded awkward off time and feel SHY then less than and powerless weird…
it’s like how fat women look better nude rather than in others’ designed bikinis.
so no. there is no disappointment to be had on the horizon if you are generally as open honest and genteel as you are here and on phones. you get to be cranky tired grouchy irritated. it’s hard belonging to people, many who just want to touch your robe and call you daddy without doing the work. we’ve ALL got daddy issues so some of you (Naomi Wolf’s another one) will become targets of missing parental fantasies come true.
x
Yeah, the fossil fuel production will at one point will slowly and relentlessly decline because of diminished ability to extract from diminishing reserves. First prices will rise – no more casual fifty mile drives to go to the beach for the day, then rationing will happen, eventually fossil fuel use will be reserved for essential agricultural, industrial, and sadly “essential” military uses. Long distance trucking and shipping and jet travel will no longer be a routine matter. I think by 2040 we will be undeniably and openly and irreversibly in at least the first stages.
@JMG
You’re right, of course. Good old Saurian greed combined with incompetence would be more than enough to explain the situation, not to mention the extra-cursed status of Aztec Gold. Descended, as I am, from possum-like hobbits, I still tend to ascribe god-like powers to my Lizard People overlords. Standard rocket tech combined with a precise astronomical calendar of when Earth was closest to which asteroid field/belt are all you really need for such a fiasco. Could maybe throw in nuclear-propulsion for the extra-orbital rockets if we wanted to get fancy but not necessary.
JMG,
In my experience it depends a lot on the size of the market. Many smaller markets are organized by and comprised almost entirely of type ones, but it gets harder for type ones once you hit mid-sized city territory. Part of it is that everybody at the market tends to sell more if all the booths have plenty of high-quality stuff on display and don’t sell out before end of market. Empty or straggly looking stalls tend to discourage shoppers even if there are still a lot of full stalls. So there’s pressure from the pros to only let in higher-volume vendors, and those are also the people who can pay substantial vendor fees.
Happy Composite Day to those who celebrate the composite numbers. I am celebrating composite day by listening to “The Most Unwanted Song”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ8P4DNQA90
“Why?” you may ask. Well, the most unwanted song taps into our primal unmet needs, even as all our wants get wish fulfilled through giant online mail order catalogs. It’s also a song that has a lot of lyrics about holidays, and also strangely, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. What does this have to do with climate change you may ask?
Something to do with when all those vans are driving around. Celebrate Composite Day. It is a sister holiday to Buy Nothing Day…
man i seem to have taken over this corner but Papa has let me go he knows what he is doing / i was just outside meditating on what’s next for me because things ARE ramping up and a lot of us who’ve been “dreaming” we’re up and that we were always here for a reason that seemed obscure aspirational at best because maybe we were just Americans, “embarassed millionaires” and it’s all silly.
no, i don’t think so. was writing and Naomi Wolf’s live feed was cut in her UK hotel room where she was reading her last article. on the side folks, myself included, half-jokingly assumed that in a country where old tweeting ladies get years in the pen for tweeting their displeasure at what’s going on while a somali rapist gets out in a fraction of the time, that their live feed was cut and they were arrested.
i laughed later.
but i didn’t tell you all that the new woman who moved into Simone Bailey’s old apartment died a few weeks after being there, after she was telling me our landlord, Lincoln Shaw, who lives here in town up on diamond heights, that he belongs to some association that’s worse than satanism. i knew about the whaling and that he was a businessman and had a boomer ponytail and wore dockers in a meek way… yes! the type who might be “worse than a satanist” but i’d had enough of them in my head and i had a guest and had to go so i cut her off and she died a few hours later.
like a spooky story. i salted the doorways and i knew not where THAT came from but did a quick search to see if i was being told something ELSE by someone ELSE. it was fine. so i kept a candle lit did prayers lit incense and didn’t tell you all because i didn’t know anyone was HERE until July and …
i don’t know what to make of it.
but my point really is whether Brian and Naomi are arrested in a UK prison for life, or coffee got spilled on a connection, i think we have to get ready and rehearse what you’re gonna do and get ready for an uptick needed for our energy to be prepared to ACT in reality.
it’s happening here, if you need the proof. look at Peter coming in with ideas. someone’s gotta answer or we’re actively clogging what we’re courting and HAVE been courting.
i’m sensitive to the smothering the lethargy because it is ME but i can feel the stirrings of “oh crap, i’ve gotta get UP and answer the door???”
part of being prepared and not losing it (like the grounding of practices discussed here or transactional analysis or art music nature gratitude blessing walks WHATEVER) i think it’s time to start “rehearsing” how you’re going to respond to what you’re seeing around you if you were in the situation but also try (like an actor or fiction writer) try to understand the OTHER’s side and give into the arrogant eye-rolling tendency we all have because my intuition says that NUANCE understanding and empathy are going to come in handy as you’re negotiating with a very nervous twitchy dangerous and potentially very murderous energy.
i already came out of a wave. that was all that happened to James and me and it’s NOT over. not by a long shot. i’m being perceived as weak because i’m taking other things that have been coming (got more eviction notices over things that wouldn’t stand up– they’re tactics).
but i’m still healing and writing ENDCAT, writing is like forcing my own head into a toilet while disemboweling myself and i end up wracked in sobs on my way to all i have to say so it sounds chill by the time you get it.
i’m telling you all this because we’re up NOW. some of you know like Peter. that’s why i laughed so hard all the way til i finally fell asleep.
it’s ON, you all. we’re up….
if you sit this out you’ll kick yourself all the way to your death. THIS is the Twilight Zone “kick the can” episode.
he gave warnings. Rod Serling was our secret “tome.” cave warnings scrawled on the wall for who came next.
Papa G we will find you a new wife. i’m putting her through HER paces, too.
when that guy commented about how he figured a woman already existed and had her eye ready to make her move? i read that as PROPHECY.
let’s call out your Queen. can you imagine the power of you two??? Sara makes the next woman show up with her shoulders back. not to show you her tetas but for AUDACITY, being ready aware focused.
we’re spinning a cypher, you all. see how this Love thing goes???
things are getting REALLLLY BAD that’s why things are also getting REAAAAALLY GOOD on this side of things. remember… when you play with the paranormal they play BACK. for us.
like having Kali on your side. i think this is why the government squashed any further research on the paranormal. BECAUSE it’s fringe it WORKS. it depends on the outliers. that’s what America is about. they’re trying to fart us into oblivion but the paranormal…
this Battle for Britain thing and how Dion Fortune said “it is done”….
the trickster i think is our ace in the hole you all.
even my city lights friend is cracking. was in greece saw cashless society no free speech all through europe. he didn’t see or expect this.
it’s over. Donald Trump has already peaked. they blew their credibility. no one wants to be at elon musk’s 3rd party of brain chips but … things are coming apart. the crack is deeping and running. like a fault?
no, the run is more like the plastic of a potato chip bag that never stops a run in the stocking…
we’re far from the SEAMS of it stopping. it’s catching momentum. things are happening much faster than i figured.
don’t worry i won’t take over other postings. i CAN’T i must finish this ENDCAT so that i may defend myself as things kind of pick up over here on the personal side. i have to handle things before i can ground my situation and be ready for The New World.
it’s already here. fxxxxxxck…
things may not happen or get to you for years (that’s always my out) but some of you are next up in the run … it’s an energy thing. people are losing it and they’re useless anyway.
when the gov’t runs over you…well, the personal “this one starfish matters” it’s like CJ Hopkins going to court and being so chill they made the following appearances private. as a director and playwright i KNOW KNOW KNOW he rehearsed a myriad of ways it could go, but he focused on the humanity of the judge and at least what his eyes his presence would do.
you’ve gotta rehearse not being a duck sometimes.
this is what the unhinged don’t know. this is freedom riders rehearsing getting beat stuff. you will be tested and we can only make it if we’re…. coooool.
we’ve gotta be like the “Be Honest” meme until we’re like the video of the guy punching the antifa guy on zerohedge. that muscly guy. as a WOMAN i noticed how even in the heat of all that commotion, he INSTINCTIVELY physically DIDN’T hit that woman who came up during the punch.
that is elegance that WE need to practice. that post-punch deflection of that power of a fist? that man did not vote biden i’ll tell you that right now. that tells me all i need to know about how he feels about women and thus ME.
that’s what i aim to show women how to see again, as an artist, like Baldwin said we do.
okay. this is probably last comment for awhile. i’m calling out women sitting on sidelines watching. NOPE. time for you all not to just heal or come in a pinch (JDecandia/Temp Reality/Ellen in ME/Lilly/Scotlyn) but show up nervously for the FUN parts.
i am heartened Papa’s up for the LOVE part because then others will see how FUN it is to be publicly adored and visited by nervous women figuring out how to seem like they didn’t make a beeline to him. oooh this will be fun!
Peter i crush hug you. you’re FUN.
someone! he needs HELP! you can help from anywhere and learn how to do this where you are or create all THIS. this is the funnest part!!!! the beginning! the NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING part!
there WILL be lots of trickster energy also AGAINST this. so know we will have to fight to go around the many obstacles i assume will be set before us and that will just happen spontaneously to see how much we really even WANT this.
this has to be STRONG… and yet decentralized and different. like an accident… but NOT an accident. that’s the sense i’m getting. and the sillier we seem the better. (that’s my forte)
x
p.s. this has nothing to do with trump or biden left right. this is about the weirdos. this is going to get paranormal crazy and fast. it already IS. look!
JMG,
Thanks, I’ll check this out.
A bit late if anyone is still reading this, but the dandelion recipes are up on JMG’s Dreamwidth site. Don’t expect gourmet recipes. These are quite basic.
And we have 2 more months this year with 5 Wednesdays–October and December. I would like to put out the suggestion that we consider the toxic chemical soup we’re living in and also the future of agriculture. I think both are important to our future.
Hi John,
I appreciate the depth and clarity you bring to today’s most complex and overlooked issues. I recently noticed that you linked to an article from our site WorldStageToday.com regarding the Europe heatwave thank you for the inclusion.
Our team continues to explore a range of topics that may overlap with some of your interests from global cultural shifts and ecological crises to the evolving dynamics of power, technology, and human response. If any of our future pieces ever align with your writing or offer value to your readers, we’d be honored to support your work in any way.
Thanks again for the thoughtful work you do on Ecosophia your essays continue to be a much-needed voice of reflection and foresight Regards Dani
“You need to use books. I recommend Steven Mithen’s 2006 book After The Ice as a good starting point; that’s where I first learned about the scale of the temperature spike following the Younger Dryas. Just in case, get a copy of the first edition.”
I can find the 2013 edition online. What should I look for to see if it has been orthodoxed?
“Those protests were approved by the city government and paid for by local elites, since ruthless exploitation of illegal immigrants is most of what makes the California economy function — to the extent that it does.”
I doubt that the protesters had to be paid. If there are 1 million illegal immigrants in Los Angeles and ICE starts raids, a response is to be expected. Add on the ICE agents being masked and not proving who they are in some cases and those taken being transferred to undisclosed locations and the response can be expected to intensify. If, as is claimed, the raids are targeting folks who look Mexican, even if they are citizens, then the proportion of the population affected is even greater.
Please someone correct me if I am wrong, but I do not remember federal forces being used this way to enforce something that the particular state is opposed to except for Civil Rights enforcement in the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s. And of course, the Civil War. Whiskey Rebellion maybe if one considers only western Pennsylvania. Oh, anti-polygamy law enforcement in Utah after statehood but I don’t think anything like ICE was sent in. The Deep South in the 50s and 60s and Utah around the turn of the century were different because those states did not have substantial support elsewhere. The current ICE raids are much closer to dividing the country in half, which is much more dangerous.
I promised a link to the Adocentyn/Providence 2026 conference ( I need a better name).
I will continue to post this link monthly on the open post.
Ideas, offers to present, and offers to help organize are all welcome. Otherwise it’ll be me and Erica dancing in the street.
“Kimberly, I once dreamed of planting a dinosaur grove of ginkgos, dawn redwoods, and wollemi pines, with ferns and other ancient plants clustered around their feet. ”
It’s been more than a decade since I visited the large botanical garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but I seem to remember it having a section just like that.
Whew! Like Peter, the potluck Khan, I looked away for the holiday weekend, and have just caught up on the comments.
@seaweedy- I read your book on my road trip and very much enjoyed it. I first learned about terra Preta probably at the same time you did, but I just filed it away as interesting, but you RAN with it. Thank you for your research and inventions.
Trying to figure out how to get to the east coast for Adocentyn next year.
@ Jennifer and BoysMom regarding farmers markets.
The city I live in is fairly decadent, that is a very polite way of saying extreme excessive in our wealth and all the snooty projection of status that brings. And as such, farmers markets are now just a status thing. If you want excessively higher prices for some “exclusive” tomato, go there.
There are some great farmers markets that are a bit out of town and they have some brilliant produce, the kind of stuff you can smell before you even see it. You know when I have leeks from there. They also sell a lot more stuff that many authority type would not approve of, I don’t participate but if anyone in a position of power asks, I saw nothing. 😉
There are also some places in the city that still deliver some great value and quality but they are much more established and are basically just on sellers that don’t have the same overheads at the large super markets. A reasonable middle ground for the moment.
JMG, really enjoy your interesting views. I think the most important thing you mention is that no one is going to seal up the oil wells and say “i will leave the rest in the ground”. aint going to happen. so the debate about will she-or wont she is irrelevant, and so is the attempt to control the outcome.
Readers may be interested in this website:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/
Very good analysis of how all of human civilizations depend on energy of one type or another, and how this affets economics. The website writer is a retired actuary.
Regarding climate change, during the past several years in Japan I’ve noticed an increasingly prominent shift in the prevailing winds from constant westerlies to a spell when those disappear and are replaced by weak easterlies during summer, such that typhoons track from east to west at or around Tokyo’s latitude. At first, several years ago, it occurred for a course of a week or two, and then the familiar westerlies returned. I’ve been keeping a record of the timing of climate markers for about 20 years, so a couple of years ago I began recording the onset of easterlies and resumption of westerlies with a set of my own criteria for judging this, including the location and strength of a high pressure system in the North Pacific, with synoptic charts showing a general region of easterly winds in conjunction with that, typhoons tracking east to west, and local thunderstorms over the mountains failing to proceed to the east across the plain where I live. In 2023 and 2024, that period started in early August and ended in early September.
This year all the signs of it have already appeared, and I’ve tentatively marked July 3 as the onset, more than a month earlier than the past two years. The weather bureau is predicting a return of the rainy season, i.e., a stationary front that typically stretches from the Himalayas into the North Pacific for a while during late spring in Japan, so I will have to see how that goes before I make a final decision on whether to keep that date. So far, the easterly regime has held up for a week.
I note a whole band of abnormally hot temperatures extending from Europe through Asia into the Pacific, and it looks like a potential start to a shifting of the world’s desert regions toward the poles. There is cracked dried mud in the rice paddies around us, with attempts to irrigate them not reaching the whole paddy, and we saw a farm vehicle today kicking up a tail of dust, just like I recall in the deserts of southern Utah.
Our watermelons are doing great, and we see some farmers starting up grape cultivation, with decent results despite winds tearing apart the rain shields they have over them–which may become less and less necessary.
@Robert Mathieson,
Yes, it seems my name means “Wormsville.” My ancestors thought worms grew up into snakes, and snakes into dragons. We hear that some dude way long ago in Sweden by the name of Orm went down to Scotland on a ship with a bunch of other Vikings and did battle on the sea, during which, Orm got his leg chopped off, but managed somehow to keep on fighting. When the Vikings won this battle, their leader shouted, “the land will belong to the first to set foot on it,” upon which Orm picked up his severed leg and hurled it onto the shore. That appears to have been the derivation of my name.
The Right embracing denial and the Left embracing delusion on the subject of climate is a useful framework; thank you for that. After being more or less frozen out of certain leftward-leaning friend groups, I currently find myself, more by default than anything, around more rightward-leaning folks at the moment. Regarding climate change, there’s an oddity I’ve noticed: some (not all) of the rightward-leaning who have correctly noticed the hypocrisy of the “climate change movement” wind up going whole hog into theories of weaponized weather modification, usually controlled by some nebulous and nefarious “They.” Perhaps I haven’t looked into the veracity of such claims sufficiently, but much of it sounds too much like the vaporware sales pitches of things like the inevitability of fusion power or fill-in-the-blank Tomorrowland fantasies for me to take seriously. Have you encountered anything similar JMG (and commentariat)?
Or is it just me?
As a suggestion for the 5th wednesday, i vote either on a post on the nature of the new entrepreneurial class or on a post about the myocene maximum and the youger dryas since they are the thermal crisis that really matter to us. Late Permian and Mesozoic crises can be dismissed by saying that the existance of a Pangea either fully formed or breaking down made these worlds too diferent from ours (and i agree with that up to a certain point: pangeas amplify everything bad due to extreme climates in their interiors.).
Hi JMG,
I hope all is well over by you‼️
I vote for “one-room schoolhouses.” Or “Sherlock Holmes.“🇬🇧
💨Northwind Grandma💨🏚️🕵🏼♀️
Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
Several people have kept trying to post comments to this after the end of the discussion. Many of them deal with points that have already been discussed. Furthermore, if you’ll read the text above the comments box, you’ll find the phrase “relevant to the topic of the current post” there. Ahem; this isn’t the current post, and I do have other things to do with my time, you know. ‘Nuf said.
This is spot on the current post. One of the more profound things that I’ve read here was JMG pointing out n months ago (n ~ 6?) that the earth is a heat engine. And that the first order effect of more heat/increasing the temperature is more motion. Fair enough the thermohaline elevator can toggle overnight (10 to 30 years?) to a new mode, but most likely it will move heat, salt, air, and water faster. Not slower.
In case you were wondering why Vermont, North Carolina, Maryland, and everywhere else between here and California are having surprise flash floods, this is it. More steam is moving across the sky. Just for the record, the pre-eminent greenhouse gas is water vapor. CO2, methane, and all the rest are just forcing functions.
Ben Noll on X: “How unusual are these moisture levels? Very! … maximum precipitable water levels over the next two weeks are compared to 85 years of historical data …
https://x.com/BenNollWeather/status/1942942562123452757
The earth/climate/weather is a heat engine, powered by the difference between insolation, albedo, and thermal emission. It should surprise no one that bumping CO2 levels up from 200 ppm to 400 ppm would change some things.