This Week in Doom August 18, 2019
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Anthony Freda
Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on August 18, 2019
“We're facing mass starvation in the next 10 years, social collapse and the possible extinction of the human race. It couldn't be worse. So that situation has come about over 30 years of failure– failure by the elites, failure by the governments, and failure by campaigners….The public Is now aware that the elites are taking them to their death!”
–Roger Hallam
Long before there was a Doomstead Diner, long before 9-11, there was Milton William Cooper. Cooper was the greatest conspiracist of this generation and a man you may not have heard of. His book Behold A Pale Horse was an […] Continue Reading…
Systems Science in Collapse: An interview with George Mobus
Off the keyboards, microphones & cameras of RE & George Mobus
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 18, 2019
Audio Only:
(audio-only MP3 provided in case you want to multi-task and listen while sitting in traffic on the way to work in your cubicle or digging post holes for your fencing on the Doomstead or kneeling by the throne and Praying to the Porcelain God. mp3 Audio can be downloaded from Diner Soundcloud.)
Discuss this Video at the Collapse Morning Wake-Up Call Table Inside the Diner
A few weeks ago I had a great conversation with George Mobus, the university academic famous for his work in Systems Science. George is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, spending his time writing still more books on this subject and the topics relating to Collapse in general. He also still maintains the blog Question Everything, although these days he only puts out 4 blogs a year, on the Summer & Winter Solstices and on the Spring & Fall Equinoxes.
George also appeared on the original Collapse Cafe we produced a few years ago, discussing topics of Sapience, Evolution and Eugenics in July of 2013.
Coincidently directly […] Continue Reading…
Responding to Collapse, Part 10: the future of the power grid
Off the keyboard of Irvine Mills
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Published on The Easiest Person to Fool on July 17, 2019
Discuss this article at the Energy Table inside he Diner
In this series of posts I've been advising my readers that moving to a small town remote from large population centres, in an area that can supply the basic necessities of water, food and firewood, is a prudent way of coping with the ongoing collapse of BAU (Business as Usual). With the caveat that some advance preparation will be needed to ensure successful use of those resources.
In the next few posts in this series, we'll look at some of the details of how BAU will collapse and how you can prepare to weather that collapse. In the immediate future infrastructure breakdowns will get more frequent and longer until finally it's no longer practical to rely on BAU for the necessities of life. It seems to me that supplies of electrical power, diesel fuel and money will be at the heart of many of the troubles that lie ahead, so I'll concentrate on those areas.
And while I'll mainly be talking about infrastructure breakdowns we should remember that interruptions of service can […] Continue Reading…
Living at the Edge of Poverty
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 11, 2019
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Did you ever wonder what it's like to live at the Edge of Poverty in modern Amerika? What IS the "Edge of Poverty"?
It's the spot the Working Poor are in, the folks who make MinWage or barely above it and the folks living on fixed income Mailbox Money of Social Security. They haven't quite completely fallen off the economic cliff, they're not Homeless People (yet!), but they are generally 1 or 2 paychecks away from that. They live in the kind of housing I live in, federally subsidized tax credit apartment complexes that developers put up to get some tax breaks. The rents on these places are fixed to your income and number of dependents, and they come in around 30% lower in my neighborhood than the open market housing. To qualify for it, you have to do a full disclosure every year of how much money you make, what your assets are, blah blah blah.
I qualify for such housing because I live on the edge […] Continue Reading…
Rock of Ages
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Published on The Doomstead Diner July 28, 2019
Discuss this article & video at the SUN☼ Table inside the Diner
Those of you who are not regular contributors from Inside the Diner may have drawn the conclusion from my recent articles and videos that the Collapse Biz Trip to Seattle-Tacoma was mainly about testing the modified Cripple Cart for the new systems we put in place to make it a better vehicle for getting around as the Age of Oil comes to a close. This regardless of whether you are a healthy young specimen of the species Homo Sap, or a decrepit and inexorably dying old cripple like yours truly.
In fact however, although very important, this field testing of the Cripple Cart was not the primary reason or motivator for this Biz Trip. It goes back much further than that, to about a year after I had the accident that morphed me into the Cripple I am today. I became obsessed with my impending death, and I remain so to this day. Since I am a Monast, unmarried and childless, there is nobody around […] Continue Reading…
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A Bugout Machine Gets a New Home
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Published on The Doomstead Diner August 4, 2019
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Longtime Diner readers know my enthusiasm for "Bugout Machines" which come in many different configurations and varieties. They can be as simple as your Car or Bicycle, but can also get pretty big and complex like RVs and Sailboats. All though have one thing in common: Their purpose is to help you GTFO of Dodge when Collapse knocks on your doorstep in your neighborhood.
Like all other plans to handle the ongoing Collapse of Industrial Civilization, all Bugout Machines and all Bugout Plans have their deficiencies, many of them quite easily identifiable. All of these deficiencies though tend to work on different timelines than a total Collapse does. The idea here is to have a good Near Term Survival Tool that can help you negotiate your way through the early stages of a Collapse.
Depending on your situation and budget, your Bugout Machine can go anyhwhere from a Used Bike & Trailer combo up to a Big Ass RV or Sailboat if you are […] Continue Reading…
Second open letter to Extinction Rebellion
Off the keyboard of Geoffrey Chia
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on August 1, 2019
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Dear Rupert Read and Extinction Rebels,
Irrespective of any differences of opinion regarding the severity of climate change we may have, I would like to point out the following facts about a more imminent threat of immediate extinction:
Global thermonuclear war will cause more abrupt and more immediate extinction and therefore represents the most urgent threat to us by far. The undeniable science regarding this has been incontrovertibly outlined by Dr Steven Starr in his papers and presentations.
The bulletin of atomic scientists pointed out that we face the greatest risk of nuclear war right now, even worse than during the cold war.
The worst flashpoint today that poses the gravest risk is the contrived US confrontation with Iran, aided and abetted by their lapdog poodle, "Great" Britain*.
The USA unilaterally reneged on the JCPOA, a treaty which according to all non-US signatories and even according to the CIA itself was effectively containing Iran's nuclear ambitions. The US are now using slander, libel and outrageous provocations such as economic warfare against Iran to try to trigger war, […] Continue Reading…
GLOBAL WARMING DENIERS ARE EVIL HUMAN GARBAGE: A Blast from the Past
Off the keyboard of Geoffrey Chia
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on July 25, 2019
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The reposted essay below is long, outdated and depressing.
For a much briefer presentation laced with morbid humour you may wish to view this "Ecosqueak" clip instead: https://youtu.be/3_T4QaJQRL0
(if link does not work, search youtube for "Ecosqueak" and "Geoffrey Chia")
Back in 2012 I still naively believed it might be possible to mitigate against the horrific impending planetary catastrophe we face this century if only the forces of reason and fairness could prevail over those of deceit and greed. I felt that systemic change was needed which would require vigorous opposition to those forces of deceit and greed. Simply exhorting amenable greenies to change their lightbulbs was pointless. My article "The Brisbane Institute is a Brisbane Prostitute" was a personal effort towards that goal, which I sent out far and wide. Some so-called "sustainability" advocates harshly criticised me for that essay. My response to them was this: all it takes for evil to prevail is for "good" people to do nothing.
The recent flurry of "Extinction Rebellion" and "School strike for Climate" activity reflects an […] Continue Reading…
Collapse Biz Trip Day 4: The Big Ewz Marathon Test
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Published on The Doomstead Diner July 22, 2019
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Today's project on the Collapse Biz Trip was to do the most rigorous testing to date of the newly powered Ewz (aka "Cripple Cart") carrying the Full Monte of batteries, both Lithium-Ion (L-I) and Sealed Lead-Acid (SLA) for a total of 20 Amp-Hours (AH) fully charged. As the photo at left indicates, the Cripple Cart had its first live tests on the flight down to Seattle-Tacoma from Anchorage. Those tests were to determine the feasibility for a Solo Cripple to haul all his (massive) amount of baggage to the airport, around the airport and to get it through TSA Security and on the plane. Obviously, since I am now IN Tacoma, this test was successful.
In yesterday's testing, the objective was to see just how much distance I could travel around Tacoma on a single charge without mid-trip recharges. The video above is the first installment of several segments I made on this trip. It is raw video, unedited as of now since […] Continue Reading…
Collapse Biz Trip
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Published on The Doomstead Diner July 21, 2019
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As regular Diners know, I'm currently down in Seattle-Tacoma working on Collapse Bizness. I'm completing the SUN☼ Monument, to carry the SUN☼ message and rules for Sustainable Living on Planet Earth to future generations, as well as testing my small EV battery systems for post-SHTF Day resilience and utility. Also had a dinner meeting with 2 fellow Kollapsniks, K-Dog of the Chasing the Squirrel blog and George Mobus of Question Everything. We had the dinner last night at the Emerald Queen Casino buffet in Tacoma, where I am staying. I got my dinner FREE (I met the 2 hour minimum time sitting at the slot machines to earn this perk), George & K-Dog hadda pay the $20. Good deal for me, since I only lost $1 while spinning the digital wheel once every 5 minutes or so. More about that in the videos.
So anyhow, not much time to write or even to do any video editing right now, but here are a […] Continue Reading…
This Week In Doom July 14, 2019
From the keyboard of Surly1
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Anthony Freda
Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on July 14, 2019
“The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August
There is a steady drumbeat of madness in the air… or it is simply my pulse in my ears? It grows louder. It screams of inevitability. When I was a little boy, four or five, I distinctly recall wondering whether mine might not be the last generation […] Continue Reading…
Collapse Cripple Cart Construction Project
Off the keyboard, microphone & camera of RE
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Published on The Doomstead Diner July 14, 2019
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It's been a bizzy week for both Kollapsniks and Cripples,and I have been overwhelmed with work to do in both areas. I was working on editing a Collapse Cafe video I did with Jason Heppenstalll of 22 Billion Energy Slaves a couple of weeks ago, then George Mobus of Question Everything and I got together to discuss his new Systems Science book along with questions from the Collapse 2019 Survey early in the week as well. Then I finalized plans for a Jet Setting, Fossil Fuel Burning trip down to Seattle in the Lower 48, set now for departure on July 18th of this week. As much as I wanted to edit and publish the discussions with Jason & George though, in this case the approaching DEADLINE for the trip to Seattle took precedence over both. Those vids will be aired of course, but in all likelihood not until after I return from this latest Globe Trotting Adventure at the End of […] Continue Reading…
A Collective Action Emergency Plan
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on July 13, 2019
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Published on Chasing the Squirrel on July 7, 2019
Business as usual needs a funeral. Responding to existential risk.
Existential has been echoing around the inside of the Environmental/Collapse of Western Industrial Civilization rabbit hole for a while. I expect it will be co-opted into existential reasons to buy consumer products soon enough, so explaining what it means now is good.
Existential can mean outright extinction as in the American Passenger Pigeon or the soon to be extinct Monarch butterfly applied to humans, but existential need not go that far. Large negative consequences which can't be undone which limit human potential for all future generations are existential threats.
Current global warming is at 1 degree C and 1.5 degrees is going to happen if people were to stop using fossil fuels yesterday. Paris' agreements would like everybody to agree at stopping warming at a 2 degrees C target and science says actual results consistent with honouring the Paris agreements will result in 3 degrees C of warming. Four degrees of warming by end of century is […] Continue Reading…
Responding to Collapse, Part 9: Getting Prepared, Part 1
Off the keyboard of Irvine Mills
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Published on The Easiest Person to Fool on June 13, 2019
Willow I coppiced earlier this spring.
The new shoots are already 18" long–by fall they will be between 4 and 6 feet long and ready for basket making.
Disucss this article at the Doomsteading Table inside the Diner
The central idea of this series of posts is that the collapse of our industrial civilization is already underway (has been since the 1970s) and seems very likely to continue until "Business as Usual" (BAU) is no longer capable of supplying us with the necessities of life. This collapse is proceeding in a fashion that is uneven (geographically), unsteady (chronologically) and unequal (socially), and we can expect it to continue in the same irregular way. Accordingly, it should be possible to pick some places and lifestyles that will suffer less severely than others.
I have recommended moving to a small town fairly remote from larger cities in an area likely to suffer less from the worst ravages of climate change and with the local resources necessary to provide at least water, food and energy (mainly firewood) for its inhabitants. Of course, some advance set up […] Continue Reading…
The Math Says We’re Going to Fall…This Will Not End Well
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on July 6, 2019
Discuss this Interview at the Off the Leash Newz Table inside the Diner
Greetings Diners, K-Dog here,
I had the pleasure of being invited to share a few of my thoughs of Doom by Sam Mitchell. It is quite an honor to become a member of the kennel club that Sam Mitchel interviews. Sam finds good people. After you get your fix here at the Diner you might take a peek and look at who else Sam has interviewed at Collapse Chronicles. I have and I'm glad I did. Above is my interview.
Dr. Paul Ehrlich was Sam's first interview.
Saying it was an honor to be interviewed by Sam obviously does not say enough, Paul needs no introduction.
Best wishes,
K-Dog
Doomstead Diner Collapse 2019 Summer Solstice Festival: Coda
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Published on The Doomstead Diner June 30, 2019
Audio Only:
(audio-only MP3 provided in case you want to multi-task and listen while sitting in traffic on the way to work in your cubicle or digging post holes for your fencing on the Doomstead or kneeling by the throne and Praying to the Porcelain God. mp3 Audio can be downloaded from Diner Soundcloud.)
Discuss this Video at the Collapse Morning Wake-Up Call Table Inside the Diner
The Collapse Summer Solstice 2019 Festival comes to a close today here on the Diner, after a very succesful launch of our newest project for the SUN Foundation, the Diner Mobile Food Truck. We're still only in the testing phase for this project, but so far all is going according to plan and swimmingly well.
In the world at large of Collapse, it was another lively week, this time with the Democratic Debates as the Feature of the political Clown Show that will continue right through to the end of 2020! That's over a year of almost guaranteed Collapse-o-tainment, unless of course the Internet Goes Dark, Global Thermonuclear War gets underway or […] Continue Reading…
Open Letter to EXTINCTION REBELLION
Off the keyboard of Geoffrey Chia
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on June 29, 2019
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Dear Extinction Rebels,
First of all, let me salute your fortitude to speak (what you think is) the truth, no matter how frightening.
Let me salute your resolve to do (what you think is) right, no matter how difficult.
Let me salute your courage to risk life, limb and liberty to oppose the omnicidal juggernaut of Industrial Capitalism, no matter how hopeless.
I understand your deep frustrations regarding the abject failure of our so-called leaders to do anything meaningful to address the obscene planetary devastation now spiralling out of control.
I understand you feel that your only remaining option now is mass civil disobedience.
I understand you believe that if only you can reach certain critical numbers within each population, you can drive urgent social change around the world to enact emergency measures to prevent global collapse of our life support systems.
In a world steeped in deceit, mendacity and narcissism, you strive for honesty, integrity and selflessness.
In a world steeped in vulgarity, materialism and avarice you stand for nobility, humanism and generosity
In a world steeped […] Continue Reading…
A Collapseitarian Brunch
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Published on The Doomstead Diner on June 23, 2019
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A cornucopia of threats is on the horizon. Nobody is prepared. Constructive leadership is vacant in the face of multiple global existential emergencies. To say the limits to growth have been reached does not go far enough to say what is now happening on our planet.
Limits to growth have been exceeded by unrestrained global population growth. The world is being rapidly terraformed into a caricature of the emerald and blue jewel the earth has been for people throughout all human history.
The earth needs to keep being a verdant green jewel for human survival but the earth is beginning to run a fever and may get very sick. It has an infection. The fever will cure the infection; population numbers will be reduced to a fraction of current numbers. Or people will become extinct. The earths' fever will rise to a temperature needed to do the job of eliminating the infection before it begins to go down.
If population impact is reduced by changes in human ways of living actual numbers need not be […] Continue Reading…
Summer Solstice Doom Days
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Published on The Doomstead Diner June 23, 2019
Audio Only:
(audio-only MP3 provided in case you want to multi-task and listen while sitting in traffic on the way to work in your cubicle or digging post holes for your fencing on the Doomstead or kneeling by the throne and Praying to the Porcelain God. mp3 Audio can be downloaded from Diner Soundcloud.)
Discuss this Video at the Collapse Morning Wake-Up Call Table Inside the Diner
The Summer Solstice (in the Northern Hemispher where I am writing from, Winter Solstice for you Diners on the other side of the Equator in Oz, South America, Africa, India and a few other dots of land mass down under) has brought with it a healthy Dose of Doom as our path to Industrial Civilization Collapse accelerates. It was tough to select out a few choice morsels for consumption today, I left out many calamitous events that occured this week. How much Doom can you squeeze into a 20 min Newz Briefing anyhow?
The doom events of the week were both local and international, and they steadily escalate in intensity as well […] Continue Reading…
Doomstead Diner 2019 Summer Solstice Celebration
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Published on The Doomstead Diner June 21, 2019
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Diners are always concerned with topics relating to the SUN☼, which provides the ENERGY for all life on Earth. When the Sun☼ finally does burn itself out a few 100 Million years into the future, the species Homo Sap and all the other life forms inhabiting this rock hurtling through space will all finally go EXTINCT, if they don't before then if other calamities overtake them. SUN☼ as a result is the acronym for our 501c3 non-profit corporation, the Sustaining Universal Needs Foundation.
Also as a result, our most recent convocation was held down in Rexburg, Idaho in 2017, where we camped out in a Sun Baked Farmer's Field to observe the Total Eclipse of the Sun☼ as it passed along the Path of Totality. For me, it was a transformative experience, trancendental and spiritual. I had never witnessed that 2 minutes of time that comes rarely to any given spot on the earth. I have travelled extensively through my life, but never was I at […] Continue Reading…
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