For a long time, and still today, Richard has enjoyed my very highest trust rating. Close to a hundred percent, with only a tiny bit of discount because of something which isn’t a fault at all: Richard knows the real score with climate-shift, population-overshoot, the Sixth Extinction, the ferocious and still not widely understood implacable disciplines of EROEI, and on. But he disciplines himself at all times to remain self-controlled, and to go on pointing out that if we - collectively, humankind - choose, we can still find a safe-ish, uncatastrophic way down the backslope of these crises. A backslope which we’re already on, like it or not.
That’s certainly true, I estimate; but - as Richard, I surmise, understands perfectly well - we’re not going to do it. We’re going to stumble and crash and slither down the backslope with intermittent control at best, getting more gashed and bloodied the longer it goes on.
That’s not to say we have any ultimate choice about whether we go down the slope or not. We haven’t. It’s just that - if we’d be the best that humans can be - we’d be able to do it with least damage, to selves or the Earth. Richard has worked tirelessly for as long as I’ve known his work, to conjure that - possible - transformation. A good man:
PS: Can I just point out also that the current scamdemic is another approach to getting us all to go down the slope under some form of control. But for the conspirators behind the scam, the preferred form of control is a particularly horrible form of fascistic tyranny, with most of us - those who survive the deliberate culls - in the role of manipulated slaves. We have no choice about going down the slope. Our only choice is about which style of descent, exactly: tough, dreadful, or utterly dreadful; neo-feudalism or scarcity-socialism…
Or we could all sign up for tickets to Master Elon’s Disneyland-on-Mars fantasy, of course. No chance of that actually happening, I don’t believe. But it serves to distract our minds from the adult realities.
It’s the inherent arrogance of knowing what’s best for us and not bothering to consult citizens that is the most cynical aspect of the scenarios playing out. ‘Manipulated slaves’ covers it pretty well.
This project will begin construction next year a mile or so from here.
Note repeated use of the potential benefits, with little to substantiate these. How long will it take, if ever, to recoup the energy invested in constructing this thing?
Heinberg is excellent, as always. This message is so clear now, with so much to back it up that it is becoming impossible to ignore.
Thanks for the article, RG. For those who didn’t reach the bottom, the final paragraph is worth it:
The only real long-range solution to climate change centers on reining in human physical, social, and economic power dramatically, but in ways that preserve human dignity, autonomy, and solidarity. That’s more daunting than any techno-fix. But this route has the singular advantage that, if we follow it intelligently and persistently, we will address a gamut of social and environmental problems at once. In the end, it’s the only path to a better, safer future