Culture & Behavior

Burning our bridges to the XXI century

by

As modernity runs out of resources (those photons sequestered eons ago in fossil form, now released as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) patterns of life naturally retreat to their pre-modern forms. If there are no more sneakers from China, we sew moccasins or whittle clogs. If we are resource-poor but resourceful, we can still weave basket-like shoes out of birch bark, stuffed with straw for insulation, called lapti. If we are truly destitute and feckless to boot, then we go barefoot.

Economics – April 5

by

Did the oil price boom of 2008 cause crisis? (report from energy economist James Hamilton)
Cascio: Resilience economics – one model for a new world economy
A new world model including energy and climate change data (based on ‘Limits to Growth’)
Luis de Sousa at TOD: London G20 meeting – the last chance?

Collapse psychosis: navigating the madness

by

The psyches of empire’s citizens are ill-equipped to deal with variation from the system’s proscribed roles or functions. Empire, like a “good” parent, gives one everything one “needs” in return for production-until it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, the citizen has no recourse emotionally because he/she has lived in psychological symbiosis with empire since birth.

Facing Decline, Facing Ourselves

by

Beyond the technical issues that occupy so much peak oil discussion lies the murkier realm of collective emotions and cultural narratives that so often blocks constructive action. A new book by Carolyn Baker, Sacred Demise, makes a valiant attempt to start a conversation about this dimension of our predicament — a conversation we desperately need to have.