Nature Bats Last has a spiffy new home. Please update your bookmarks. I'll no longer be posting here.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released World Energy Outlook 2009 today. Even before the sham was shipped, it was exposed as a big 'ol bucket of lies. Seems the current administration thinks Americans can't handle the truth, so we need to apply some pressure to keep the lid on the facts. If this country's paragon of transparency (i.e., world's leading liar) and master of hope (i.e., wishful thinking) actually trusted the American people, perhaps we could avert chaos.
Continue reading Can we handle the truth?.
If Ben Bernanke and the fools at the Fed actually thought the industrial economy was recovering, they'd jack up interest rates. When the prime rate is up around 5%, you'll know the industrial economy is back on track. Alternatively, you can monitor the extinction rate of non-human species.
Continue reading Unwinding.
The world's first peak-oil recession has come to a close, according to third-quarter numbers invented by the federal government. Apparently flooding big banks, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers with fiat currency interrupted the plummeting descent of American Empire. The stock markets skyrocketed expectedly. Predictably, so did the commodities markets.
Continue reading The recession is dead ... long live the recession!.
The property of rich folks has always been more important than the lives of the poor, a fact that will continue to create misery for the "other" 99% of us until the entire industrial economy fails. Personally, I can hardly wait.
Continue reading Economic dominoes continue to fall.
I was among the final baby boomers born in the United States. Along with my entire generation, I owe the world an apology. My generation abandoned a worthy dream, and it will cost all of us, but nobody more than civilized members of industrial society.
Continue reading Abandoning a dream.
Your medical doctor informs you: "You need to stop all industrial activities immediately, or you'll be dead in twenty years. And so will your five-year-old child. You might die anyway -- after all, nobody gets out alive -- but your death is guaranteed if you do not stop relying on fossil fuels for travel, heating and cooling, drinking water out the tap, and buying food from the grocery store."
Naturally, you go straight from the clinic to the nearest store. You need liquor, and time to ponder whether the trade-off is worth it.
Continue reading Apocalypse or extinction?.
Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.
Continue reading Resources and anthropocentrism.
War is peace. Life is death. Left is right. And this Orwellian world grows more Orwellian with each passing day.
Continue reading Tarnished gold.
We have ripped minerals from the Earth, often bringing down mountains in the process; we have harvested nearly all the old-growth timber on the continent, replacing thousand-year-old trees with neatly ordered plantations of small trees; we have hunted species to the point of extinction; we have driven livestock across every almost acre of the continent, baring hillsides and facilitating massive erosion; we have plowed large landscapes, transforming fertile soil into sterile, lifeless dirt; we have burned ecosystems and, perhaps more importantly, we have extinguished naturally occurring fires; we have paved thousands of acres to facilitate our movement and, in the process, have disrupted the movements of thousands of species; we have spewed pollution and dumped garbage, thereby dirtying our air, fouling our water, and contributing greatly to the warming of the planet. We have, to the maximum possible extent allowed by our intellect and never-ending desire, consumed the planet.
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