Industrialization: Prelude to Collapse
Excerpt from William Catton’s classic 1980 book Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. Plus, a recent letter from William regarding his current book project.
Overshoot
Overshoot in a nutshell (Malthus was an optimist)
It is implicit in Malthus’s writings that uncontrolled population growth, failing “moral restraint”, would stall near the natural limits of the food supply. Like many who have commented on population growth, Malthus did not understand overshoot.
George, the axe and the cherry tree
Oil energy (gasoline and diesel) can be likened to the fruit of a cherry tree that bears but once in our tiny lifetimes.
Dependence on Phantom Carrying Capacity
Because the people of industrial nations did not recognize themselves as hunters and gatherers, they adhered to premises that were becoming more and more false. Franklin D Roosevelt spoke for all believers in those premises in the next-to-last sentence he ever wrote: “The only limits to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today”. [Chapter 3 from William Catton’s classic book Overshoot]
Imperial Entropy: Collapse of the American Empire
It is quite ironic: only a decade or so after the idea of the United States as an imperial power came to be accepted by both right and left, and people were actually able to talk openly about an American empire, it is showing multiple signs of its inability to continue.
An interview with George Draffan
Activist and author George Daffan on Peak Oil, the collapse of civilisation and the role of the mass media.
Peak Oil: Time to Get Serious
The skeptics think that it is already too late. Isn’t time to get serious about peak oil and global warming? About navigating The Bottleneck? About imminent global societal collapse?
Personal debt and peak oil
For those of us that think that the UK government isn’t aware of the issue of peak oil, I would ask to think again and read the newspapers more closely. The markers for the future are here in the news now and it doesn’t take too much of an imagination to understand them.
The Food Bubble Economy
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho reviews Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, by Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute.
Australia: Continent at risk of a dry tsunami
Ours may be remembered as the generation that allowed Australia to die, writes Paul Sheehan.
Why the West is riding for a fall
A little book with a big title, Dark Age Ahead, published last year, tracked the ebbs and flows of civilisations over centuries. It came to this chilling conclusion: “We show signs of rushing headlong into a Dark Age.” Not slipping towards a Dark Age. Rushing.
America’s Finite Future?
Near the beginning of “Saturday Night Fever,” John Travolta’s Tony Manero, frustrated that his boss thinks he should save his salary instead of spending it on a new disco shirt, cries out, “fuck the future!” To which his boss replies: “No, Tony, you can’t fuck the future. The future fucks you! It catches up with you and it fucks you if you ain’t prepared for it!” Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but America has morphed into a nation of Tony Maneros.