Collapse
Welcome to the Extinction Depression
Classical depressions and recessions, remember, are about demand. But the problem we now face is not just about demand. It’s becoming about demand, as people get poorer in real terms. But the underlying problem is about supply.
Supply as in: our civilization is now beginning to struggle to supply the basics. From wheat to metals to water and energy, and all the things derived from them. Our problem is that the planet is dying, and it can’t supply our civilization with the endless abundance of artificially cheap stuff we — we in the West, anyways — are used to taking so much for granted that until the last year or so, most of us never thought twice about where all our basics even came from.
2.5 billion people in the Earth's 125 poorest countries have received zero vaccine doses. The 85 poorest countries are projecting full vaccination in 2023 or 2024. This isn't just a form of racist mass-killing, it's also a civilizational and species-wide risk. ~
As officials move to crack down on the thieves, the drought -- which now covers every corner of the state -- threatens to create long-term impacts as climate change exacerbates the hot and dry conditions, creating a vicious feedback loop that becomes harder to break.
"All of California has to get used to this concept of water scarcity," West said. ~
A single data center can churn through millions of gallons of water per day to keep hot-running equipment cool, and the placement of these facilities in drought-prone areas is an increasing concern around the globe, even as reliance on them is growing. Data centers form the “cloud” that helps people stream movies, conduct research at the touch of a button, buy things and store photos and videos. ~
Increasing water shortages have already been blamed for igniting regional conflicts, and some researchers fear that fighting over scarce resources will intensify throughout the Middle East and North Africa as the world heats up further. ~
... as economies recover from the pandemic and with below-average gas storage levels at the start of the winter heating season. Natural gas is a key input in the production of nitrogen-based fertilizers and higher costs have caused some producers to cut production...
Prices of nitrogen fertilizer, one of the most commonly used fertilizers to boost production of corn, canola and other crops, are at their highest levels in more than a decade. ~
Prices are going to rise, probably exponentially, over the course of the next few decades. The reason for that’s simple: everything, more or less, has been artificially cheap. The costs of everything from carbon to fascism to ecological collapse to social fracture haven’t been factored in — ever, from the beginning of the industrial age. But that age is now coming to a sudden, climactic, explosive end. The problem is that, well, we’re standing in the way. ~
(hyperlinks added by me)
Our society, "thermodynamically blind and deaf", is suddenly discovering a new reality that questions its immediate future. It sees and hears things that it had never seen or heard or understood: Agricultural vulnerability, food insecurity, supply failures, peak oil, melting, droughts, fires, floods, inequity, energy transition, price rises….
... Our food system consumes 1/3 of the world's energy and 70% of the planet's fresh water and produces up to 57% of greenhouse gas emissions... Today, the food system generates consumption equivalent to the entire world oil production... However, the International Energy Agency (IEA, World Energy Outlook 2020) foresees a 50% reduction in oil production in 2025.
The threat at this time is not the very serious climate change; the great threat is the lack of oil in a global food system that depends vitally on it. ~
Shared Identity and a weakening central government are hallmarks of an impending civil war.
And what scholars found was that this anocracy variable was really predictive of a risk for civil war... And there’s all sorts of theories why this middle zone is unstable, but one of the big ones is that these governments tend to be weaker...
... And then the second factor was whether populations in these partial democracies began to organize politically, not around ideology ... but where the parties themselves were based almost exclusively around identity: ethnic, religious or racial identity... ~