The punctuated collapse of the Roman Empire
The idea of an impending collapse of our civilization is already bad enough in itself, but it has this little extra-twist that collapse may be given more speed by what I called the "Seneca Cliff,"
collapse
The Scheduled Death of God
There’s a mordant irony in the fact that a society as fixated on the future as ours is should have so much trouble thinking clearly about it.
The Pleasures of Extinction
The latest apocalyptic fad is near-term human extinction, or NTE for short: the claim that humanity, along with most other life on Earth, will inevitably be extinct by 2030 at the latest.
“Apocalyptic Journalism” and Why We Need Reporters to Face the Reality of Our Crumbling Society
We have no choice but to deal with the collapse of journalism, but we also should recognize the need for a journalism of collapse.
The Five Stages Of Collapse, By Dmitry Orlov – Book Review
Many of us who have been researching collapse for a decade or more repeatedly use the word in writing, speaking, and daily conversation, but few of us have the opportunity to define it with such precision or personal experience as one finds in Dmitry Orlov’s forthcoming book ‘Five Stages of Collapse: A Survivor’s Toolkit’.
When Agriculture Stops Working: Ten Recommendations for Growing Food in the Anthropocene
Now, despite my best efforts to look into the crystal ball here, I fully expect there will be a lot about the future of human food acquisition that will surprise me…and perhaps even in a good way! But in light of all the known troubles bearing down on us, I think it’s just plain suicidal to muddle on as-per-usual and hope it’ll all be OK.
When agriculture stops working: A guide to growing food in the age of climate destabilization and civilization collapse
As the toxic trappings of industrial civilization crumble around us, agriculture is set to regain its place at the forefront of our daily American lives. …And won’t we be surprised to find out that it barely works anymore! So perhaps it’s time we re-think our modern food-acquisition strategies in the face of the massive changes bearing down on us. …And I mean REALLY re-think them.
Two Books that Shed Light on Our Present Predicament: Arcadia and The Dog Stars
There’s no shortage of modern writers who are exploring our modern dystopia by, as someone has put it in a different context, “remembering forward.” Recently, I happened to read two such novels back to back, both quite fine and both illustrative of that something in the zeitgeist that makes our grinding apocalypse worth writing about. Neither is a techy, sci fi, plot-driven novel such as those of William Gibson or Paolo Bacigalupi, nor are they fully akin to sociological horror stories such as 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale. They are less didactic than World Made by Hand or The Road.
Reframing the Sucky Collapse
KMO welcomes Kathy McMahon, the Peak Shrink of PeakOilBlues.com, back to the C-Realm to talk about the psychology of predictions…You may be braced for a sudden, sexy collapse, but do you have the gumption to endure the sucky collapse?
Deep thought – Jan 17
•Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
•Global warming, peak oil, economic chaos
•The Healing Power Of Beauty In A Bleak World
•Waiting for the punchline
•Moral case for sustainability more effective than economic?
•Pandora’s Boxes
The Road Down From Empire
The hard work of reinventing democracy in a post-imperial America, the subject of several of last month’s posts, is only one facet of this broader challenge. I’ve mentioned before that the pursuit of empire is a drug, and like most other drugs, it makes you feel great at the time and then wallops you the next morning.
The desert and the settlement: three American anarchists
Akshay Ahuja reviews A Paradise Built in Hell, Good News, and The Long Loneliness.
