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Its too cheap to use scapegoats like "homicidal leaders" or "deep state". Here in Switzerland many things are decided by transparent democratic vote: And so we recently and democratically decided by geenral vote that pesticides will not be limited on our fields, that drinking water will not be protected from toxic substances, and that the dwindling biodiversity will not be protected. The main problem is that - like a colony of Staphylococci on an Agar plate - we just grow until the resources are extracted. Staphylococci and humans do not have a sufficient intelligence or regulatory mechanisms to ensure their long term survival. Mother nature has organised it in another way.

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Yes, but it is also true that people vote against their own interests because leaders know how to convince them to. Convincing them to drink contaminated water is another form of genocide.

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Yes one can convince them because again mother nature created the majority so dumb to believe bullshit and to be unable to see what is before their eyes (see Daniel Kahnemann Thinking fast and slow).

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That's the problem, indeed.

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I don't blame mother nature for any of this. She created a beautiful planet. I blame the idiotic men who run the place.

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Meanwhile in Palestine since 1967 Israel has deliberately destroyed ~a million olive trees, they say justified to save Western Civilisation.

On thin soils olive oil provides the necessary link for a renewable agrarian civilisation to have sufficient vital access not only to a food reserve, but also to a cash economy. The shipment of oil does not deplete the underlying soil nutrient resource and has been one ancient reponse that perpetuated agrarian settlement in certain environments.

I am reminded also that after razing cities and the use of two atom bombs, world-war thinking was paused and partially rejected in the Korean War, if only in its most extreme form. I suppose we can discuss the continuing use of bombing as an accessory to Western Civilisation and its response to resource and environmental issues?

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Hi, Ugo.

I think Nafeez Ahmed is a great guy.

I tried to interact with him recently. Here's how it went (on twitter):

Dr Nafeez Ahmed FRSA @NafeezAhmed

Sep 23

At @UN Headquarters, at @FFOP_org event organised with Govts of Panama and Antigua & Barbuda, I spoke of how we have all the tools for a new era of superabundance within planetary boundaries. But to succeed, we must save the soul of civilisation

uriel faes @urielfaes

Sep 23

but how much time is left to do it ?

Alan2102z @alan2102z

GREAT question, Uriel.

I am trying very hard to be optimistic, but it is not looking good.

In this video, 5:30-9:30, Crim suggests we will be at 2.0C by 2030. In that case, time's up.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=N9JB3LTXdJ4

Richard Crim Climate Change Part 1/2 April, 2024

May 3, 2024

Alan2102z @alan2102z

Crim's comments are based on Hansen's work.

Listen also from 30:30-33:30.

For the record: I am well aware of the skepticism re Hansen. He could tenably have been considered unduly alarmist... up until about 2 years ago. Then things changed, as reflected in (the conservative mainstream climate scientist) Hausfather's now-famous remark that record-setting temperatures in evidence recently are "absolutely gobsmackingly bananas". Yes, and SO bananas that Hansen may even be proved to have been too optimistic. At this moment no one knows, but it looks bad.

Which brings me to a question, dear @NafeezAhmed: Does the RethinkX group have a Plan B, in the event things continue on the trajectory now in evidence? A plan that calls for, let's say, devoting ALL available resources to a massive emergency carbon capture (and related) program?

Why am I not seeing Seba and Dorr videos about this? Surely they are aware of what is happening in the climate space (aren't they?). Surely they are aware that having such a Plan B ready in the wings is essential, even if not activated quite yet. Can you provide any insight?

.....................................................

End of "exchange". Ahmed did not reply.

I love Ahmed, I love RethinkX, and I think Arbib and Dorr and Seba are great guys. BUT. Where are they at this critical moment? Critical geopolitically AND climatically. The situation is dire, but all we hear from most of them (Ahmed partially excepted, looking at the totality of his ageoftransformation work) is their historical pattern of high-tech happy talk -- which I ACHE with desire to believe, and part of the time actually do believe. They have nothing to say about the incredibly narrow (and alarmingly narrowING) bottleneck through which we must pass to get to that happy world of abundance. They seem to think that the market system will just take care of things, all the new tech will be built out pronto, and all will be well. What are we to make of this? It is looking quite Pollyanna-ish to me at this moment. They seem to be stuck (again, Ahmed partially excepted) in the neoliberal mindset of "the market will provide", the invisible hand, and TINA. Dorr mentioned once that he "doesn't do politics", or words to that effect. But that's ridiculous. You HAVE to "do politics". There's no way this thing is going to get fixed without "doing politics". I fear that that sentiment ("we don't do politics") generally prevails at RethinkX.

PS: Below: best video I've seen on climate, and I've seen many hundreds. This guy is very much NOT stuck in any neoliberal mindset; quite the opposite! And what he says at 48:00-60:00 is almost certainly the only way out of this mess (i.e. massive .gov intervention, coordinated emergency efforts, etc.; NOT relying on the vaunted free market).

Listen: 9:40-22:00

Listen: 47:45-60:00

passage on mass migrations: 14:00-16:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KQYNtPl7V4

No, Kurzgesagt, We WON'T Fix Climate Change - The Danger of Fake Optimism

BadEmpanada

May 29, 2022

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On an individual level, the psychology taking over might be described as "Take all you can WHILE you can." This starts at the point where people start to reluctantly accept the fact that there are limits to what can be taken, or, at a minimum, how much longer it will be possible to take it. When people lose belief in the future of the system they are operating under, and judge that it is doomed regardless of what anyone does, they start to default to "individual survival", aka "every man for himself" as their last gasp.

For example, it is being reported that you can see this happening in Ukraine right now, where those in a position to do so are "stealing like there is no tomorrow." The rise in corruption we are seeing around the world in general, the rising upward flow of wealth, is probably symptomatic of this.

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So insightful, Signore Bardi! And the links to the Seneca Collapse and and Seneca Rebound lead me to your now-defunct Casandra's Legacy on Blogspot which is a fountain of information. Your book Before the Collapse, A Guide to the Other Side of Growth is now on my phone waiting for me to read.

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Very insightful. The OS is more important, and at this point lethal, than any individual nation state or particular alliance or antagonism between groups of states. The impetus to war is a desperate burst of self-preserving energy on the part of a system that is reaching its rational limit.

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will it by death by war or also because we run out of crude oil and fossil fuels because i do not see belgium going to war ?

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Oct 7·edited Oct 7

I don't know that it matters much, or if there is a difference when both are symptoms. The direct cause of death by war is often enough starvation, exposure or infection.

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Three movies that radicalized me as a young child:

The Secret of NIMH

FernGully: The Last Rainforest

The Rescuers: Down Under

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These three are stunningly beautiful movies that I watched with my children, and grandchildren. Thanks for the memory.

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now gaya herrington saying on a podcast we have few years left 5 years exactly gaya herrington stated on the podcast on linkedin on her page do you agree prof ugo bardi ?

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Let's not leave out the bureaucrats. What appears to be happening in all western nations is the continued growth of government bureaucracy despite the fact that there is no real economic growth in the wider economy. We have bureaucrats feathering their own nest on the back of government debt. Curiously, the politicians seem powerless to stop it. Or perhaps they don't want to stop it, since a politician's power is theoretically proportionate to the size of the bureaucracy they control.

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The bureaucrats are a form of pollution. They are one of the main causes of the Seneca Cliff.

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Indeed. Really another symptom of a failing system when none of the people filling top public positions are people you would hire for even mod tiers positions outside of government. Much like the current academic environment.

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we are moving to become a solar civilization 500 billion invested in 2024 more than other energies that is the good news and collapse does not always result in die offs and if we collapse we can still make it to a renewable energy transition

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Well said, Aaron. Now, tomorrow morning, take a walk in the sun, if there is sun. Or a walk in the rain, if it is rain. Enjoy the sun, enjoy the rain, and thank Gaia for being alive and able to appreciate her gifts. Do that!

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thank you professor ugo bardi they are the words of dr nafeez ahmed really he stated to my on linkedin that collapse does not always results in people dying off I think he means in some scenarios that we can make the transition without losing human lives ps they always say renewable energy is the future but renewable energy is already here 😉 👍

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You can have all the solar energy you want, but I'm much much more worried about massive starvation. The soil is depleted, bees all killed by pesticides, no water, modern agriculture is idiotic, etc., etc. Plus we torture cows and pigs and chickens, then eat them like the gluttons we are.

I'm in a very dark mood today because of the Israeli siege and starvation of every man, woman, and child in Gaza.

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hi aleta w by 2030 chickens cows and pigs will not by tortured no more you will see they will grow meat in labs or something I heard it already possible to print food like chicken hamburgers in a sort of 3d printer 🖨 😀 on the war side renewable energy will solve the war problem for us most wars like professor ugo bardi states is for resources like fossil fuels diamonds that is why some people call them blood diamonds there is actually a movie with leonardo dicaprio some say our smartphones are blood smartphone where there a rare earth elements in it so renewable energy is the future it is not the future it is already here the renewable energy transition is unstoppable 😉 😀 😄 😊

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I won't hit like on that, but yes the mood is justified. And I think our host is as in as dark a place as ever I've read from him . But thank you both for still caring. We still are humans,.

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