Education

America’s self-inflicted societal collapse

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I have argued elsewhere that our American way of life is not sustainable, and I have presented compelling evidence to demonstrate that America is on the verge of imminent societal collapse. The purpose of the following paper is to make the case that we — all Americans — through our distorted worldview and resulting dysfunctional resource utilization behavior, are responsible for our “predicament”, and that we lack the collective will to take meaningful action to mitigate its catastrophic consequences.

Survival 101: They don’t teach that in most colleges, and there’s a dilemma

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Can a young person risk going to college these days?
If you’re 18 and college-bound, you may be skilled at computers and driving a car; know how to take the second derivative of a quadratic equation in calculus and have learned about electron orbits in chemistry; and may be able to discuss Shakespeare and “To Kill a Mockingbird” intelligently. But do you know how to kill and dress a chicken, or find and prepare wild edible plants in every season, or keep a goat healthy so it produces milk and meat?

The net energy cliff

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Charles Hall, the father of the energy return on investment (EROI) concept, once told me that our current society would probably not be able to function if the EROI for the entire society slipped below five. … Hall estimates that the United States is currently running on an EROI of just under 40 to 1. This looks like a fairly substantial margin of safety over the 5 to 1 that might lead to societal breakdown. But worrisome developments in the oil, natural gas and coal fields may send us rushing toward that figure.

Illusions of inclusivity in the culture of “whatever”

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As the collapse of civilization exacerbates and intensifies, the most well-intentioned and open-hearted human beings will make many mistakes. And at the same time, it is possible to become adept and wizened by warrior/elder principles that skillfully set limits and to adhere to them when it would be much easier to garner kudos from self and others for indiscriminate inclusivity. It is a delicate and daunting dance-sometimes ecstatic, sometimes excruciating. But regardless of its outcome, its pathway traverses nowhere near the land of “Whatever”.