The air just went out of me. Not because I haven’t understood this to some degree but because I am still in the watching and not understanding why no one else seems to be freaking out stage. This article confirms for me what my gut has known. I appreciate too that you did not sugar coat anything but instead just leading us to acceptance.
This roundup is certainly a keeper, and you deserve to feel like you put a lot of human existential matters together in one highly readable essay.
Most of us here, I would assume, have known all about civilizational disintegration, and have our own synpatical grooves that emphasize different factors to different degrees than you do.
For me, there’s precious little talk in this essay of the institutional driver, the holder of predominate social power, the corporations. Only the form of the corporation, whether private or state-corporate, amasses the overwhelming, unreachable social power in our lifetime that subsumes all regulation, all individual conscience, all institutions.
Corporations are driving this train, picking up all the profits along the way as it heads to the cliff side. Humans are not equipped with the anti-ultrasocial fearlessness necessary to be people who can hold corporations responsible for their externalities, and so corporations kill off all social forms, including the now godawful electoral politics and alleged legal oversight.
Thanks for putting all that together. I have read much of your background material. For me, as soon as I understood algebra, in the 70's, I asked my dad [mathematician] about population growth. "How is this going to work over time?" So, I've always known more or less where we were/are headed. In my lifetime the population has more than doubled!
I think the real issue for people--the one that builds the foundation for denial/discounting--is that there is no model for compassionate living in overshoot. They don't see anyone living for the future incorporating the knowledge say, that their children will have less and that their grandchildren even less. So they stick with older, well glamorized models of living as you addressed.
I've lived with hard choices I made long ago to prepare for the current and future state of things. I'd describe it as a low power and mostly low-tech life. Few have ever acknowledged my choices as good or even reasonable.
I take solace in knowing that the planet will retain its water and materials for biological life despite overshoot. When the irruption of homo sapiens winds down, balance will be returned. It may take a few million years but complexity will return and new eras of life will commence.
Some claim differently—that our actions will basically bring about the definitive end of life on Earth and turn it into a dead rock, akin to Mars. I hope you’re right and they’re wrong, and that there’s some light at the end of this tunnel, even if getting there requires for Homo sapiens to vanish.
The Polynesian rat was the main reason for the deforestation. Also you're still thinking in very small timescales. Easter Island was full of massive trees just a few hundred years ago. Think in more geological timescales. There's a strong possibility the Island will regrow over longer periods of time.
This is an essential essay that should be shared with friends and neighbors, a cogent and well-constructed presentation of where we are as a species, as a society and as planetary citizens.
This is an incredibly well put together overview of the situation. It hits all of the major points, doesn't pull any punches, and somehow remains readable and as concise as it can be considering how much ground it covers. This will be my primary recommendation to people who want/need a primer on our predicament.
Ali Bin Shahid substack "Regenesis", Ali a substack writer and a dam good one, he is offering new ideas to move us forward. There's never any silver bullet but our past holds some valuable information. Survival and thriving will require us to become a humble partner and respectful to this living planet and all life on it.
Example of small communities/tribes surviving for hundreds even thousands of years, because they were totally respectful of the gifts that came to them. We can no longer afford to remain independent of this planet and life on it. We receive gifts for survival and need not take more than our community/tribe requires.
Great essay. Humans evolved to become RNA equivalent at our scale to build enzyme-equivalent tools to break into new energy gradients. Some of that new energy, especially fossil fuels, have been applied to agriculture which allows an overshoot crop of human homozymes doing all kinds of things. We even live in cells and have and continue to self-organize based upon economic/thermodynamic principles.
As always, excellently written. I share your posts with colleagues and friends who usually respond in one of two ways; "this is complete and utter rubbish, this guy doesn't know jack shit" or "OMG the guy has nailed it, *forgets they even read it 5 seconds later and continues with their daily grind and bullshit job*".
For me, I am fully cognizant of the impending collapse. My partner and I have chosen not to have children for we do not have confidence that the world they will inherit will be prosperous. Civilisation collapse (aka The Great Simplification) and deglobalisation go hand in hand, in that both are driving each other and the effects will be the same; resource scarcity, war, protectionism, and eventually a whole lot of suffering. We have decided to use our (well-paid) bullshit jobs to see the world now before we may not be able to.
It's that bit where they just go back to their lives, doing what they were doing, that flabergasts me. They know their jobs are meaningless, the know their lifestyles are unsustainable, but do absolutely nothing about it. Surreal.
Just one criticism. Migration has always been a way by which humans have spread and amplified their impacts globally. Imagine if Europeans had not migrated to the Americas, or to Australia - how much in better shape their ecosystems would be now. Or even better still, if humans had never migrated out of Africa. Migration is being used as an economic lever by western governments to increase consumption, increase growth, increase emissions, and increase destruction of ecosystems & biosphere. Population growth which in Australia is virtually all due to mass immigration is causing destruction of regional wildlife populations and habitats, and local extinctions right now. And emissions are also being amplified, most immigrants multiply their emissions and environmental burden on immigration. The claim that people have the same impacts wherever they live is not reflected in reality. Just because “far right” politicians seem to be opposed does not justify downplaying its effects or even worse being supportive of it.
And in the collapse scenario we are confronting, we will behave just like the bunch on intercontinental locusts we always have been, escaping despoiled & environmentally ravaged areas to exert the same treatment on new lands we migrate to. Immigration is another facet of globalism and is not minor in its effects.
Migration is not the problem. The Europeans did not 'migrate'... they colonised, a very key difference. They stole the people's land, enclosed it, and commodified it... This is the fundamental basis of feudalism/capitalism. The fence is the main tool.
Prior to this we understood that something like 'owning land' was as delusion as owning air. We knew we blonged to the earth, that we had to work WITH it, not impose our will on it. We've now normalised the idea we control the earth, and it has destroyed our relationship with nature. Which is why we think we can force a linear system unto a circular one. That and fossil fuels is why we're in overshoot, it is why we are destoying planetary life-support systems.
The air just went out of me. Not because I haven’t understood this to some degree but because I am still in the watching and not understanding why no one else seems to be freaking out stage. This article confirms for me what my gut has known. I appreciate too that you did not sugar coat anything but instead just leading us to acceptance.
It's amazing just how long society can stay in the denial stage!
Awesome article - this is the article I’ve been meaning to write but you’ve done it already. Kudos!
This roundup is certainly a keeper, and you deserve to feel like you put a lot of human existential matters together in one highly readable essay.
Most of us here, I would assume, have known all about civilizational disintegration, and have our own synpatical grooves that emphasize different factors to different degrees than you do.
For me, there’s precious little talk in this essay of the institutional driver, the holder of predominate social power, the corporations. Only the form of the corporation, whether private or state-corporate, amasses the overwhelming, unreachable social power in our lifetime that subsumes all regulation, all individual conscience, all institutions.
Corporations are driving this train, picking up all the profits along the way as it heads to the cliff side. Humans are not equipped with the anti-ultrasocial fearlessness necessary to be people who can hold corporations responsible for their externalities, and so corporations kill off all social forms, including the now godawful electoral politics and alleged legal oversight.
Thank you! What a great summary of our predicament. I will be sharing this, and keeping it to re-read.
Thanks for putting all that together. I have read much of your background material. For me, as soon as I understood algebra, in the 70's, I asked my dad [mathematician] about population growth. "How is this going to work over time?" So, I've always known more or less where we were/are headed. In my lifetime the population has more than doubled!
I think the real issue for people--the one that builds the foundation for denial/discounting--is that there is no model for compassionate living in overshoot. They don't see anyone living for the future incorporating the knowledge say, that their children will have less and that their grandchildren even less. So they stick with older, well glamorized models of living as you addressed.
I've lived with hard choices I made long ago to prepare for the current and future state of things. I'd describe it as a low power and mostly low-tech life. Few have ever acknowledged my choices as good or even reasonable.
I take solace in knowing that the planet will retain its water and materials for biological life despite overshoot. When the irruption of homo sapiens winds down, balance will be returned. It may take a few million years but complexity will return and new eras of life will commence.
Some claim differently—that our actions will basically bring about the definitive end of life on Earth and turn it into a dead rock, akin to Mars. I hope you’re right and they’re wrong, and that there’s some light at the end of this tunnel, even if getting there requires for Homo sapiens to vanish.
Not so sure. Easter Island is a warning. They killed all their forests, and so will we when fossil fuels run out. Everyone will still want/need fuel.
The Polynesian rat was the main reason for the deforestation. Also you're still thinking in very small timescales. Easter Island was full of massive trees just a few hundred years ago. Think in more geological timescales. There's a strong possibility the Island will regrow over longer periods of time.
We do not know the actual reason for certain.
This is an essential essay that should be shared with friends and neighbors, a cogent and well-constructed presentation of where we are as a species, as a society and as planetary citizens.
It’s simply the truth. Thank you.
And I like your writing style. We all need to take a step back and slap ourselves in the face…
This is an incredibly well put together overview of the situation. It hits all of the major points, doesn't pull any punches, and somehow remains readable and as concise as it can be considering how much ground it covers. This will be my primary recommendation to people who want/need a primer on our predicament.
My thoughts exactly.
Ali Bin Shahid substack "Regenesis", Ali a substack writer and a dam good one, he is offering new ideas to move us forward. There's never any silver bullet but our past holds some valuable information. Survival and thriving will require us to become a humble partner and respectful to this living planet and all life on it.
Example of small communities/tribes surviving for hundreds even thousands of years, because they were totally respectful of the gifts that came to them. We can no longer afford to remain independent of this planet and life on it. We receive gifts for survival and need not take more than our community/tribe requires.
This writer I believe has some powerful incites to share, nothing is perfect but this post from Ali will get you thinking. https://r3genesis.substack.com/p/155-the-ledger-and-the-loom
https://r3genesis.substack.com/p/153-the-architecture-of-remembrance
Wow! What a tour de force! You have really covered it. Anyone not quite sure, check out this 5 minute read. Not in MSM news much at all! https://climateandeconomy.com/2025/05/31/31st-may-2025-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
Good heavens! When it’s all put together like this article… one day of the year 🤯
Great essay. Humans evolved to become RNA equivalent at our scale to build enzyme-equivalent tools to break into new energy gradients. Some of that new energy, especially fossil fuels, have been applied to agriculture which allows an overshoot crop of human homozymes doing all kinds of things. We even live in cells and have and continue to self-organize based upon economic/thermodynamic principles.
As always, excellently written. I share your posts with colleagues and friends who usually respond in one of two ways; "this is complete and utter rubbish, this guy doesn't know jack shit" or "OMG the guy has nailed it, *forgets they even read it 5 seconds later and continues with their daily grind and bullshit job*".
For me, I am fully cognizant of the impending collapse. My partner and I have chosen not to have children for we do not have confidence that the world they will inherit will be prosperous. Civilisation collapse (aka The Great Simplification) and deglobalisation go hand in hand, in that both are driving each other and the effects will be the same; resource scarcity, war, protectionism, and eventually a whole lot of suffering. We have decided to use our (well-paid) bullshit jobs to see the world now before we may not be able to.
It's that bit where they just go back to their lives, doing what they were doing, that flabergasts me. They know their jobs are meaningless, the know their lifestyles are unsustainable, but do absolutely nothing about it. Surreal.
Department of Dystopia Studies
My thoughts and prayers go out to this dying planet.
Yes. Yes. Yes. And more yes.
Just one criticism. Migration has always been a way by which humans have spread and amplified their impacts globally. Imagine if Europeans had not migrated to the Americas, or to Australia - how much in better shape their ecosystems would be now. Or even better still, if humans had never migrated out of Africa. Migration is being used as an economic lever by western governments to increase consumption, increase growth, increase emissions, and increase destruction of ecosystems & biosphere. Population growth which in Australia is virtually all due to mass immigration is causing destruction of regional wildlife populations and habitats, and local extinctions right now. And emissions are also being amplified, most immigrants multiply their emissions and environmental burden on immigration. The claim that people have the same impacts wherever they live is not reflected in reality. Just because “far right” politicians seem to be opposed does not justify downplaying its effects or even worse being supportive of it.
And in the collapse scenario we are confronting, we will behave just like the bunch on intercontinental locusts we always have been, escaping despoiled & environmentally ravaged areas to exert the same treatment on new lands we migrate to. Immigration is another facet of globalism and is not minor in its effects.
Migration is not the problem. The Europeans did not 'migrate'... they colonised, a very key difference. They stole the people's land, enclosed it, and commodified it... This is the fundamental basis of feudalism/capitalism. The fence is the main tool.
Prior to this we understood that something like 'owning land' was as delusion as owning air. We knew we blonged to the earth, that we had to work WITH it, not impose our will on it. We've now normalised the idea we control the earth, and it has destroyed our relationship with nature. Which is why we think we can force a linear system unto a circular one. That and fossil fuels is why we're in overshoot, it is why we are destoying planetary life-support systems.
As did the “indigenous” people who first arrived. They colonised.
Indigenous people stole the megafauna’s land and sent them to extinction.