As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial
by Derrick Jensen (Author), Stephanie Mcmillan (Illustrator)

HOWLL!!!

See "As the World Burns" link at-right).

-ZMD

Breakthrough....?

Haven't read through it with all-thoroughness (yet) misself, but intrigued by the concept of this book-- that the "era of environmentalism" is over-- that a New Paradigm for taking-on global eco-challenges is necessary...

See what YOU think...the link is called "BreakThrough...?" and passiton!

HOWL!

-ZMD

"Collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global. No longer can any individual nation collapse. World civilization will disintegrate as a whole. Competitors who evolve as peers collapse in like manner."

— Joseph A. Tainter, 1988

"I chose the name "Olduvai" because (1) it is famous for the myriad hominid fossils and stone tools discovered there, (2) I've been there, (3) its long hollow sound is eerie and ominous, and (4) it is a good metaphor for the 'Stone Age way of life.' In fact, the Olduvai way of life was (and still is) a sustainable way of life — local, tribal, and solar — and, for better or worse, our ancestors practiced it for millions of years.
No doubt that the peak and decline of Industrial Civilization, should it occur, will be due to a complex matrix of causes, such as overpopulation, the depletion of nonrenewable resources, environmental damage, pollution, soil erosion, global warming, newly emerging diseases, and resource wars."

"World Energy Production, Population Growth, and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge"
by Richard C. Duncan, Institute on Energy and Man
As published in Population and Environment, May-June 2001, v. 22, n. 5.

I'm "sorry" to bear "bad news"... our culture is so used to "debunking"-- should we say, ignoring/ denying-- "sky is falling"-talk... that we even snicker under our breath at the likes of Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio... so confident we crave to be that all will continue "as normal", that neurotic anxious reports of collapse won't materialize in OUR great technological culture, which can and shall conquer all threats...

Well, it's our very technology, our very globalization, which guarantees that This Time, Collapse is not only inevitable-- but Global.

Not talking religious "apocalypse" here-- though such stories are not inconsistent with the sort of overwhelming, total collapse our human culture faces, and has created measurable conditions to guarantee...

Many will perish along with the Collapse. Much of the techno-culture, mass-civilization, mass-transportation, mass-communication and outrageous wealth (of few) which we currently consider "normal"-- will certainly disappear, with a rapidity which will seem shocking to those currently committed to denial.

Many are likely to survive, though, as well... especially if we truly commit to deep investigation of what alternatives ARE sustainable, what sort of activities and lifestyles will minimize current planetary damage-momentum, and maximize likelihood of survival and co-existence on a radically-changed planet. We need radically-changed values of survival and society/ community. We must, I believe, return to much more local, eco-logical, self-sufficient, community-oriented (rather than nation/ international-corporate) orientation, CARING for the natural environment directly surrounding our communities, rather than exploiting and destroying such "resources", ecosystems...

Please see the newest link at-right, "Olduvai Theory"-- an obscure-sounding pair of words, but an Important Essay, not to be ignored (unless head-in-sand is your preferred position, young ostrich... understandable, but extremely unrealistic, unhelpful, and unlikely to contribute to planetary survival of those who continue to care...).

CARE!!! LOVE!!!! ACT!!!!!!!!

HOWLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!

-ZMD

Two new links from the NYTimes in the past week:

Vaclav Havel, over the weekend, had an op-ed in the Times entitled "Our Moral Footprint"-- must-read, from a great moral voice.

Yesterday's Times had an unnerving article on the unpredicted speed and intensity of ice-melt in the Arctic.

See new links at right.

HOWL!

-ZMD