Re: SC42

http://carolynbaker.org/archives/unprepared-uncompensated-and-clueless-prophets-have-become-historians-by-carolyn-baker

UNPREPARED, UNCOMPENSATED, AND CLUELESS: PROPHETS HAVE BECOME HISTORIANS, By Carolyn Baker

..........As an historian, I often wonder just when historians a hundred years from now, if there are any left on planet Earth, will date the beginning of collapse. Will they mark its beginning with 9/11, Katrina, the declaration by an aggregation of scientists from dozens of nations that global warming is indeed occurring, the disappearance of the honey bees, the plasticizing of the oceans, the current deaths of hundreds of seals in California from the toxicity of ocean waters, the bursting of the housing bubble, the extinction of another 30% of species beyond the current 30% extinction rate, the first nuclear terrorist attack on a U.S. city, the proliferation of pandemics worldwide, World War III, the crash of the U.S. stock market, the inundation of coastlines and entire nations with rising oceans? Or maybe today, as scientists confrimed that a chunk of ice in Antarctica the size of the state of California, had melted?

Collapse is not in the future; it is happening in this moment, and unequivocally, the overwhelming majority of Americans are unprepared, will be uncompensated or assisted in whatever pain and suffering collapse inflicts on them, and will remain clueless and in denial of it until they have lost everything except their own lives............

..........I do not claim to be an expert on collapse, but I am quite certain that the custodians of empire are. They have engineered collapse over several decades, and will be essentially unscathed by it—if they can control the resultant chaos. I don’t wish to speculate about what form that control will take, but I don’t need to. They are making it abundantly clear that while they are unwilling to do anything to prevent climate chaos, the devastating consequences of Peak Oil, and economic Armageddon, they are formulating elaborate plans to control and contain an unruly and traumatized population.............

Here in So Cal, masses of people living in essentially a desert environment, with thier complex infrastructure utterly dependent on cheap, abundant fossil fuels, to bring them water and food, providing for the completely essential transportation that makes cities and thier sprawling suburbs even possible, are not going to become a bunch of gentle farmers, living simply off the land, as the hydrocarbon energy crisis deepens. That simple notion is not even feasible at all given the size of the populations on such arid lands, and the reality is, many will choose other " less civilized " options to get what they want to survive, in the precarious times we are fast approaching. The means of support for such large masses in area's like the southwest with realistically few of the inherent resources needed for basic survival locally, will see vast numbers trying to migrate looking for better conditions in other areas with more resources. This is when the clear reality will truly become undeniable, that we were able to maintain our unsustainable numbers, only because we found a unique, and very concentrated form of energy in hydrocarbons. As in a yeast culture, which has exhausted its energy in the form of sugar, in the process rising to vast numbers, and filling its environ with its consequent waste, collapse of the population quickly ensues for lack of energy, and also from the affects of the toxins the culture created by its activity. I'd say this is very analgous to the predicament humanity is now in.