The latest round of price spikes in food crops and petroleum sparked a corresponding round of predictions insisting that collapse can be expected shortly. Behind these claims is a foreshortening of historical perception that makes short term variations seem more important than the broader and slower patterns that drive them. Still, there’s one detail these claims get right; it’s now possible, with a fair degree of certainty, to put a specific date to the beginning of America’s catabolic collapse; the Archdruid explains.