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New Year’s dissolution: Surrender vs giving up
Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
… Some readers would like me to stop talking about collapse and re-frame the notion into “spiritually correct” terminology that isn’t as scary, daunting, and dismal. Many more of you are telling me that you do want to talk about collapse because even with all the opportunities for rebirth and transformation that it holds, the world we have known, demanded, and relied on to be there for us is crumbling. I too would love to focus only on opportunity, but opportunity offers no free lunch; it travels alongside this thing called collapse, and if you’re going to embrace one, you must be prepared to invite the other.
As you know, I’m traveling, and in the interest of conserving petroleum and not subjecting myself to Homeland Security “fraternity hazings”, as well as mind and body-numbing flight delays, I took the train. I dare you to do it and not talk about collapse. There it is-the rail industry, which once ruled this nation’s economy, now limited to a laughable loop of routes that never run on time and needed to be radically expanded yesterday in order to ameliorate the catastrophic consequences of energy depletion. So why would I prefer the train when it runs like a Spanish post office and experiences unpredictable delays? Because I’m a sucker for being able to stretch out and sleep, read, work on the computer, or even better, get up and walk around. All of this, of course, in the context of a system that shuffles around poor people, seniors on fixed incomes, and a few of us that just simply prefer to ride the rails as the empire circles the drain. Perhaps Amtrak is the consummate metaphor for collapse: You never know exactly when or how it will arrive, only that it will.
… What we might learn from cultures more mature than our own is the long-term value of discomfort, pain, uncertainty, and of course, feeling our feelings about those. These are not easy tasks, but then as you may have noticed, we do not live in easy times. In summary, these words from Scott Peck succinctly capture my point: Once suffering is accepted, it ceases in a sense to be suffering.
For all readers of Truth To Power, I wish an enriching and empowering 2008. May it be for you a year of stepping into a new paradigm, preparing, and becoming open to the dissolution of life as we have known it.
(30 December 2007)
Interview with New York Times Bestselling Author Steve Alten
George Washington, Op-Ed News
New York Times bestselling author Steve Alten is releasing a novel January 22nd which addresses the 9/11 stand down, the injection of false radar blips into air traffic controllers’ screens, PNAC, the 9/11 Commission whitewash, the Anthrax attacks, and related issues.
Written in the exciting, cloak-and-dagger style of Tom Clancy, the novel — The Shell Game — has a shot at educating a large segment of the American public who would otherwise remain in the dark about some aspects of 9/11.
Alten is well-aware of media censorship of 9/11 truth (for example, he agrees with this analysis, he also sent me an advance copy of the book), and is trying to break through the media blockade using his resume as bestselling author to spread his message.
I just finished reading The Shell Game, and caught up with Alten by email.
GW: I really like The Shell Game, Steve. It had me on the edge of my seat, and I stayed up later than I should have a couple of nights to finish it.
SA: My books tend to be … page-turners. The Shell Game does that and adds another twist … it’s all real, or it predicts what may really happen unless we stop the insanity. To stop it you must first be aware of it.
GW: If enough people read The Shell Game, it could bypass media censorship regarding 9/11 and reach people who would otherwise not be exposed to the facts. But if it doesn’t sell well, then it will simply be an entertaining read for those already aware of the facts behind 9/11. So how are your efforts to promote The Shell Game going?
SA: We’ve been getting copies into the hands of key 9/11 groups over the last six months. Now it’s up to them to create a buzz … along with my mainstream fans.
GW: The Shell Game reads like a mix of Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum and Dan Brown. Are those 3 authors all influences on your writing?
SA: Clancy, Thomas Harris, Ian Fleming…among others.
GW: Your discussions about 9/11 will be familiar to those who have studied the issue. In addition to Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon and David Ray Griffin’s writings, what other 9/11 writings do you like?
SA: 9/11Truth.org. And videos like Loose Change.
GW: My father-in-law says that people predicted Peak Oil decades ago, and were proven wrong. Does the discovery of the massive new oil reserve in Brazil change your conviction that Peak Oil is upon us?
SA: Unless it is as big as Ghawar … no. Oil IS running out. If not, do you seriously believe we’d have invaded Iraq?
(25 December 2007)
UPDATE: Reader OS writes:
I am among many people trying to lobby businessmen I know around Boston to make them aware of our energy predicament and to start a peak-oil lobby in our state house. I need reliable, respectable links to refer people to, and if your site is quoting 9/11 conspiracy kooks, I cannot use y’all.
Editor BA:
In general, Energy Bulletin stays away from 9/11 and conspiracy topics. Energy issues are difficult enough to talk about as it is, and there are other sites which deal with conspiracy theories.
Steve Alten’s “Shell Game” is not a clearcut case. I found the thriller disturbing and impossible to put down. Unfortunately, at least in the review copy I saw, Alten didn’t separate speculation from accepted facts. This confusion makes it difficult to talk about the book’s message.
One solution might be to label the different assertions in the novel – “Generally accepted,” “Accepted by many researchers,” “Some evidence,” “Pure speculation,” “Fiction.” This labelling could be done in the appendix that now exists in the book, or on a web page.
Futurist George Dvorsky on the Amish and Collapse Fetishism
KMO, C-Realm Podcast
KMO concludes his talk with futurist George Dvorsky about the wisdom of human enhancement, and then wraps up the year with a look at the real world Amish and the lure of Collapse Fetishism.
(26 December 2007)
The Emotional Scientist & Melting Models
Kathy McMahon, Psy.D., Peak Oil Blues
Caution: This article is not suitable for children. Adults, read with caution or in supportive company.
“We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
…“The Arctic sea-ice may disappear entirely as early as 2013, and climate scientists are shocked by what they are seeing.”
If it isn’t nice to ‘fool Mother Nature,’ it is even worse when Mother Nature fools scientists, as she’s doing now. She’s doing things that they don’t have models for, so they just have to “wait and see” what she’s going to do next. She’s committed the sin that women, as a group, are accused of: being fickle and unpredictable. In his paper entitled “The Big Melt: Lessons from the Arctic Summer of 2007 dated November 4th, 2007, David Spratt gives a systematic review of not only what it means to live with melting ice caps, but, inadvertently, the intensity of emotional reactions of scientists faced with an unpredictable future and grossly flawed models. He hopes his report acts to “provide education and advocacy” and “offers a message of hope.”
Filled with emotionally charged words that reflect intense language for scientists, like “catastrophic,” “shocked,” “doomed,” “faster than we thought,” “unprecedented in science,” “disintegrating at a frightening speed,” [resulting in] “rapid non-lineal collapse” and “a hundred years ahead of schedule.” “[I]t’s really quite astounding,” said one shell-shocked scientist. First, let’s take a look at what’s worrying the world of climate science, and then we’ll look at the psychological frame and language itself. I’ll offer my own psychological translation along the way for those of you who have eye “glaze-over” when percentages and CO2 emissions are discussed. A handy Peak Shrink recap is provided to those too frightened to read this entire blog entry.
…the Peak Shrink recap:
Humans are burning more fossil fuel and making less money doing so.
Politicians say: Planetary Catastrophe would definitely be bad for business, the stock market, and fossil fuel prices.
Scientists say: A lot of really bad, bad stuff is happening that we never thought possible, and we are completely and totally blown away by it. We feel helpless and out of control, because if some of us even IMAGINED that it could happen, we thought it was going to be a long time from now. We are scientists, though, and not crazy Doomers, so we use words that are calming; like “implies” and “close to being committed” instead of saying we’re screwed.” It’s been said that scientists live in a world of their own. We now have first hand confirmation. In order to have scientifically valid models, we’ll just have to wait for really bad stuff we can’t imagine, like Greenland’s ice sheet, to melt first. Two billion of us won’t be able to drink the water as the melting continues. If the phytoplankton die with the heating and acidification of the waters, the game is over. Soon our oceans will be considered industrial waste water by the US environmental agencies, because of the acid levels. There is a run away train of CO2 emission: Forests can’t pick up roots and relocate because the climate changes. As things break down because of climate change, the trees and indigenous plants slow down their absorption of CO2, and then, as they die, start releasing CO2 they are holding. This is also true when soils heat up: it causes faster organic matter decomposition and greater CO2 release.
Hotter, dryer conditions also lead to more forest fires, and wildfires, which currently release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the trees absorb naturally. As it gets dryer and dryer, they will catch fire more easily, and that will speed up the CO2 emissions as well. We call these changes “novel” and climates “disappearing,” but these are confusing terms that mean that our ecosystems and everything now in them will be destroyed. We don’t know how, because it will be destroyed in tremendously novel ways we have no models for. We scientists like models, but the Earth isn’t conforming to our models anymore and this is freaking us out. But we can predict one thing: The Arctic Sea Ice as a big surprise in the center: Methane! When methane is released, if it still acts like methane, and not like creamy nugget, 90% of the species on Earth will become extinct. “I just don’t see a happy ending for this” confided one scientist. We can use cloth toilet paper if we want to but the corporations have a huge role to play. The wrath of the planet will soon be upon us, folks. Time for rational disaster planning worldwide.
(17 December 2007)
A more optimistic post from Kathy McMahon: Visions of the New Suburban Lifestyle.
