The Imperial Meltdown News Network

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"

UPDATE:
We do not know how many readers of this website still believe the various tales told by the media that the (terminally ill) economy will recover and most of us can resume living in the privileged manner we took so for granted just a little while ago. Sadly, the conventional information sources do not even attempt to explain that this society is beginning to experience what James Kunstler refers to as the "Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century", and why this is so. But at least a portion of those with interest in the scythe sometimes ask us for references to a more explanatory version of present developments, and this update is an attempt to briefly respond to those requests.
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This newsletter is written, and the links compiled, by our friend Brandon Dennis of New York State.

An Introduction by Peter Vido:  (Skip to the most recent post)

We trust that the relationship between the use of an engine-less tool and the Meltdown of the American Empire will be -- for the visitors of this website -- readily apparent.

The financial crisis of the once rich and powerful USA will soon be among several other repercussions of the global oil dance -- a subject presented rather comprehensively in Richard Heinberg's new book Peak Everything. Heinberg is one of many authors intensely engaged in these matters which will soon usher this civilization into what James Howard Kunstler refers to as "The Long Emergency".

We have all run our machines as if resources were infinite, and partied as if there were no tomorrow. Now that yesterday's tomorrow is here, it is the time to pay the fiddler; alas, much of our "wealth" is but numbers within the electronic bubble of the financial institutions...

Historically, in times of crisis -- whatever their cause -- people have had to (sometimes very quickly) sort out their true needs from luxuries and focus their energies on providing daily bread.

Well, as for the scythe, when a person has one and knows how to use it, many a neglected patch of "weeds" or grass can be quickly turned into fodder for some rabbits, sheep, goats or cows, which can in turn help sustain the mower and his/her family...

If you think that we are unnecessarily "painting the devil on the wall" and that some scientific breakthroughs will magically save our collective ass, and business will continue as usual -- your time might be better spent browsing a more upbeat website.

If you have been awake, following the manifestations of our cultural oil-addiction, and grasp that the Long Emergency will likely be upon us within months rather than years, you know that you have much more to learn than just how to use the scythe: growing a garden and preparing simple meals, chopping a tree with an ax, building rational homes (not extravagant eco-houses!); sharing tools, resources and hope within local communities, and not taking anything for granted!

The converging catastrophes which Brandon Dennis (one of our Summer 2007 scythe course students) is trying to alert everyone to are but the tip of the iceberg -- a big iceberg, nearly another ice age!

7 November 2008: Welcome to Reality.

Kai writes: Our regular commentator Brandon has been off-blog for a while, preparing for the Long Emergency on his upstate New York homestead. This week we bring you the thoughts of two well-known contemporary prophets: James Howard Kunstler and Bill McKibben. Both are prolific writers in their respective fields; now both have some advice for Barack Obama. First we hear from Kunstler:

Regime change comes to America.
Congratulations Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden!

America gets to feel okay about itself for a little while before the rigors of reality assert themselves again.

I had a rogue idea last night while watching the sequence of John McCain's fairly gracious concession speech (given the low down tone of his entire campaign, which cannot be blamed entirely on his handlers) and the stirring spectacle of the Obama rally and speech in Chicago's Grant Park (where I was gassed by the police back during the convention riots of 1968). My rogue idea was this: what if this nation can really begin to bootstrap itself into a realistic post-oil economy? It would require not just "change," but pretty severe change -- in essence accepting the reality of a way-of-life based not on "growth" but on fruitful activity, because that's where we're headed whether we like it or not. It will be interesting to see if President Obama can discover that reality for himself and lead a government that might guide a people through that dark passage.

http://kunstler.com

Now from McKibben:

Welcome to Reality, Mr. President-Elect
by Bill McKibben

Our eight-year interlude from reality draws to a close, and the job of cleaning up begins. The trouble is, we're not just cleaning up after a failed US presidency. We're cleaning up after a two-century binge.

Barack Obama won an historic victory this week, and with it the right to take office under the most difficult circumstances since Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Maybe more difficult, because while both FDR and Obama had financial meltdowns to deal with, Obama also faces the meltdown meltdown - the rapid disintegration of the planet's climate system that threatens to challenge the very foundations of our civilization.

Do you think that sounds melodramatic? Let me give it to you from the abstract of a scientific paper written earlier this year by one of the people who now work for Mr. Obama, NASA scientist James Hansen. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleo-climate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 [in the atmosphere] will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm [parts per million] to at most 350 ppm." In other words, if we keep increasing carbon any longer, the earth itself will make our efforts moot.... read the full article

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