Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb Many big-city dwellers appear to be seeking refuge in less crowded towns and rural landscapes. The wealthy, at least, are seeking “bugout” homes away from major cities as places to ride out the pandemic, the economic downturn and the civil unrest that are gripping the world.
It may be that some wonders aren’t worth it. Magic tricks that entertain us may delight us. But magic that imperils the very stability of our society can’t be justified by an appeal to the illusory and temporary “freedom” it promises.
As eviction moratoriums around the United States come to an end, it is expected that landlords will begin evicting nonpaying tenants en masse. Barring new moratoriums on eviction, one estimate suggests 23 million people will be subject to eviction by the end of September … I believe that there is yet great turmoil ahead. We are unlikely to return to the system of finance capitalism which is crumbling before our eyes.
Prior to the invention of air-conditioning, architects had to figure out ways to keep people cool and ventilated through design rather than through the action of refrigerants and compressors.
My conclusion, after years of studying environmental research literature, is that some form of societal collapse is indeed highly probable this century, depending on how we define “collapse.” … Collapse needn’t imply that nearly everybody dies at once, or that the survivors become wandering cannibals. Rather, it means our current institutions will fail to one degree or another and we will have to find alternative ways to meet basic human needs—ways that are slower, smaller in scale, and more local.
Coronavirus has prompted millions of people to get back on their bicycles. We need to get out and exercise, have fun with our families, avoid the risks of mass transit. It’s the biggest boom in bicycles since the 1970s. Sales are skyrocketing, cities are painting bicycle lanes, car traffic is down. Will it last? (First in a series)
As I sit in 90-degree heat typical of Washington, D.C. in midsummer and a so-called “heat dome” hovers over much of the United States, I am reading the following: “At 11 or 12 degrees [Fahrenheit] of [global] warming, more than half the world’s population, as distributed today, would die of direct heat. Things almost certainly won’t get that hot this century, though models of unabated emissions do bring us that far eventually.”
What we are witnessing as a result of this pandemic is a widespread challenge to metastable systems upon which our societies depend. The most obvious are those related to hospitals and health care products. We often read in the news that hospitals are near “the breaking point” as if the hospital walls will burst when too many patients crowd into the building.
Back in March, I wrote that the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic would likely
shape its economic, political, and geopolitical fortunes for years or decades to come. Four
months later, it’s time for a check-in. How’s that pandemic response going? … Keep an eye on that snow-covered mountainside.
The Cuban system demonstrates a sustainable model of medical care, providing a high level of service with low use of resources. Many greens think only in terms of reducing personal consumption, or hoping for technical advances that will enable continued affluence. Too few realise that there have to be radical changes in systems as well as in lifestyles.
As long as we think of COVID-19 as simply an implacable foe that must be vanquished, it is unlikely that we will learn to live with it or to deal effectively with the next pandemic.
The financial mindset has come to so dominate our approach to broad societal problems that it stands in the way of clear thinking about effective approaches to the challenges humanity faces.
