October 30 2021 Seems it has been a while since the last post. Been taking a break from the doom, opting for more enjoyable distractions like taking advantage of an unusually warm Fall and an abundance of apples on our trees this year. We must have 40+ pounds of apple sauce in the freezer now and there are still more apples to process.. Stuff I've read recently: - Absurdistan: A Novel / Gary Shteyngart - The Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation) / Jeff Vandermeer - Going to Water / Stan Rushworth - Seahorse / Chris Lisle (okay, this is dystopian) Currently reading Daniel Sjursen's 'A True History of the United States'[0] which so far is very engaging, even a bit eye-opening. Sjursen is a veteran of the Iraq/Afghanistan fiascoes that then somehow, abet briefly, ended up teaching freshman US history at West Point. This book reflects the course material of his teaching stint. What's impressive is Sjursen doesn't come off as a hater in the way many authors of radical US historical accountings often do. [0] https://skepticalvet.com/ I had planned to be posting a review of William Catton's 'Overshoot' by now but the weather has been too distracting so it was set aside for the short, cold days of Winter which I find more conducive to focusing on serious material. That *should* be soon but with climate weirding who knows. What follows was stuff I meant to post back in September, sort of a grab-bag of Doom for your Fall 2021 depression needs.. - - - Getting Depressed w/ JP Sottile of the NewsVandal on CounterPunch Radio https://youtu.be/oojqPczmA90?t=1542 "Living fully immersed in the toxic cultural/physical environment of a dying planet." Sottile seems to get it in a way most of the Lefties on CounterPunch and Jacobin really don't. - - Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition Energies journal white paper by Megan Seibert & William Rees https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508/htm Sam Mitchel of Collapse Chronicles reading excerpts of the paper: https://youtu.be/IYPfX5j0qVQ - - More from CounterPunch.. https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/04/robert-hunziker/ "Environmental and climate journalist Robert Hunziker joins CounterPunch+ and CounterPunch Radio to discuss his latest writing about the climate apocalypse unfolding around us. Eric and Robert discuss the Arctic emergency, methane nightmares, the toxic planet, the anthropogenic rocket ship, the death of our coral reefs and wetlands, and so much more." Once again, Hunziker mostly gets it, most Lefties don't and when they do they quickly try to change the subject to something hopeful because ultimately their core ideology came about during the Industrial Revolution and was largely about a more equitable sharing of the massive surpluses derived from economies based on ecological draw-down. Arguably an equitable planned unwinding of the current neoliberal mega-machine would also entail wealth redistribution but I've yet to hear anything along those lines on the either CounterPunch or Jacobin; seems it's still outside their Overton window. - - RE -- aka John Kenneth Litter -- lives on at Global Collapse forum: https://globalcollapse.createaforum.com The long-running Doomstead Diner site went dark about 8 months ago, sometime after "Reverse Engineer" had his right leg amputated and lost motivation for continuing his video blogs[1] chronicling his and the planet's deteriorating health. RE still sounds depressed but as opined as ever. [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/DoomsteadDiner - - A pair of essays which fairly well sum up the current state of the world, first by Rex Weyler posted by Alice Friedemann of Energy Skeptics: "Why is the political process so slow to respond to our ecological crisis?"[2]. And a reply to Weyler by someone new to me, Steve Bull: "Today's Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXX" [3] Erik Michaels also has a related recent post on his Problems, Predicaments, and Technology blog [4]. Michaels has some good observations but they sound increasingly condescending to my ear and likely to the very people he is supposedly trying to reach. [2] https://energyskeptic.com/2021/rex-weyler-why-is-the-political-process-so-slow-to-respond-to-our-ecological-crisis/ [3] https://stevebull-4168.medium.com/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-xxx-e99deb615f7b [4] https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2021/09/why-is-promoting-technology-not-good.html - - A longish guest post by Bruce Teakle on the Damn the Matrix blog titled "Getting Cool with Getting Poor"[5]. This is a wide-ranging essay that explores the connections between wealth generation, energy and ecological overshoot, the problem with efficiency[6,7] and the detachment of modern economics from physical reality[8,9]. Some of the essay links are broken which suggests this was something Teakle has been working on for some time and forgot to check that all the links still worked. I've taken the liberty to correct what seem the more important links; see below. Hadn't heard of Teakle before so looked him up and seems he mostly blogs[10] about E-bikes and chainsaws; guess he felt this essay didn't quite fit. [5] https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2021/10/24/getting-cool-with-getting-poor/ [6] https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/01/bedazzled-by-energy-efficiency.html [7] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09613218.2017.1361746 [8] https://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/physics-of-the-economy.html [x] Kevin Anderson climate change & economic growth - https://youtu.be/zjTtohMgGk8 [10] https://bruceteakle.blogspot.com/