[AGelbert]

The 🦖 hydrocarbon fuels industry has been 😈 lying about "natural" gas for nearly a hundred years!

Where does 🙊🙉🙈 blind obedience to Capitalism's Social Darwinist Ideology of socially and environmentally destructive Profit over People and Planet end and a sense of responsibility start to take effect, if not at the highest levels of government power?

"Fascism has always involved a morally unprincipled, ruthless, and sociopathic pursuit of power as the supreme goal in and of itself. ... ... Having no moral center and being perfectly willing to lose and disdain old friends and allies is part of the game. Fascism has no problem with self-centered individual accumulation of wealth and/or power. To the contrary, its Social Darwinian ethos celebrates such accumulation in the name of natural selection, survival of the fittest, and proper social hierarchy." -- Paul Street - January 6, 2023

Read more:

The casual disregard for the lived experience of working people in America is a sign of an unhealthy society.

New Peer-Reviewed Paper Challenges Neo-Darwinism

CO2 is plant food so MORE CO2 from Burning Hydrocarbon Fuels is 😒 "GOOD"? 🙄

[AGelbert]

APRIL 2, 2023 By BILL MCKIBBEN

Truly 'Uncharted Territory.'

SNPPET:   

One understands why that was not quite as easy to put into headlines as Trump's arrest. But translated from the scientific, it's the rough equivalent of "South Pole to Planet Earth: Drop Dead." As the Guardian explained, in the best summary of the research I've seen, the study shows that "melting ice around Antarctica will cause a rapid slowdown of a major global deep ocean current by 2050 that could alter the world's climate for centuries and accelerate sea level rise."


Full article:

[RE]

Yes.

Ah, another Johnny-come-lately academic has concluded that we are in danger of collapse and we need radical social and technological change, including a lower standard of living in order to avoid it.  Don't we have enough research already on this topic?  We need an MBA from Sweden to rehash Joe Tainter and Jared Diamond?

I suppose it's good to have somebody new to do the talk show and podcast circuit, since even if Joe and Jared are still alive they're also having their asses wiped by a CNA in a Gulag for Gomers. lol.  It's good to pass the Collapse Torch to a new generation of kollapsniks.

Will people pay any more attention to the Swede than people did to any of the pundits from the last go-round?  Nope.  Academics aren't Billionaires, so nobody pays attention to them.  Billionaires aren't kollapsniks, because, hey, the world isn't collapsing for them, now is it?  In fact, life couldn't be better.

So it goes.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/28/we-need-dramatic-social-and-technological-changes-is-societal-collapse-inevitable

'We need dramatic social and technological changes': is societal collapse inevitable?

RE

[K-Dog]

"We need dramatic social and technological changes."

Which is exactly what I have been saying for twenty years.

And like most cerebral idiots he has to examine 361 studies, and 73 books to come to this earthshaking conclusion.

And the point is change, not study.  But that is too hard.

[monsta666]

"We need dramatic social and technological changes."

Which is exactly what I have been saying for twenty years.

And like most cerebral idiots he has to examine 361 studies, and 73 books to come to this earthshaking conclusion.

And the point is change, not study.  But that is too hard.

You know what the kicker is? He can back his theory with all those 361 studies and despite all the evidence available people would rather take some video off TikTok which says you can fit 8 billion people in the state of Texas so therefore there is no population problem. This isn't a problem about information but of peoples' (and societies) inability to grasp the truth despite evidence to the contrary. But I suppose he will need another 361 studies to reach that point...

[RE]

For academics who are generally impotent for making any real change, doing "studies" and writing books makes them feel like they are doing something and making a contribution.  You can't solve a problem if you haven't identified it of course.

Issue is as we have pointed out here, the problem was already identified 20 years ago, so they're not contributing anything new.  We even know not only the problem but what needs to be done.  Problem is, except for a few survivalist types who go off grid, about nobody does the necessary powering down to be doing what needs to be done.  It's pointless anyhow, since at the same time billionaires are doubling down and powering UP.

So, we get studies, not change.

RE

[Surly1]

"We need dramatic social and technological changes."

Which is exactly what I have been saying for twenty years.

And like most cerebral idiots he has to examine 361 studies, and 73 books to come to this earthshaking conclusion.

And the point is change, not study.  But that is too hard.

You know what the kicker is? He can back his theory with all those 361 studies and despite all the evidence available people would rather take some video off TikTok which says you can fit 8 billion people in the state of Texas so therefore there is no population problem. This isn't a problem about information but of peoples' (and societies) inability to grasp the truth despite evidence to the contrary. But I suppose he will need another 361 studies to reach that point...

I read this article and would not be so quick to disparage Brozovich. I, for one, am impressed that there are actually 361 studies and 73 books on societal collapse. While like most here (I assume) I have read and am otherwise familiar with many of them, I had no idea there were so many. And while we could disparage the academic as another Johnny-come-lately, I recall a lesson learned during my years as a TV producer: "About the time you are getting sick of hearing it, other people are hearing it for the first time."

Yes, study is far easier than change. Human nature being what it is, most of us are change-averse. In my dotage I've become a real rut-person. We'll keep putting one foot in front of another until the road disappears.

And in terms of "we need dramatic social and technological changes," money says not gonna happen. Idealism is dead: sold and stripped for parts. Money rules, and Mammon is hungry.

[K-Dog]

there are actually 361 studies and 73 books on societal collapse.

I was surprised too.

And in terms of "we need dramatic social and technological changes," money says not gonna happen. Idealism is dead: sold and stripped for parts. Money rules, and Mammon is hungry.

Not exactly, for as you say:

About the time you are getting sick of hearing it, other people are hearing it for the first time.

I am a critic of the academic crowd.  It takes two years to get a book written or something like that.  Academics are never up to date with real world events.  Academics abstract reality.  Abstraction is the greatest strength of humanity, and the greatest weakness.

Considering:

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.  <-- Uncle Karl

My criticism is well founded.

[Surly1]

I tend to be more tolerant of academia as a reaction to the hard-right war on expertise, and by extension, war on objective reality. Yet Mammon's greed reaches within those halls as well. You might enjoy this about Elsevier, a major publisher and thus academic gatekeeper:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/too-greedy-mass-walkout-at-global-science-journal-over-unethical-fees

'Too greedy': mass walkout at global science journal over 'unethical' fees
This article is more than 1 year old
Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon



Some lowlights:
-From 2014 to 2017, Elsevier put some articles behind a paywall that should have been open access.

-Elsevier rejected a paper for publication because it didn't cite enough of the journal's previously published papers.

-More than 40 leading scientists resigned from the editorial board of the journal Neuroimage in protest at what they described as Elsevier's "greed".

-Elsevier published six publications between 2000 and 2005 that were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies but did not disclose sponsorship.

-Elsevier has campaigned against openness to protect its paywall-based business.

-Universities have canceled their Elsevier subscriptions, citing costs and lack of open access.

Another symptom of late-stage metastatic capitalism.

[RE]

Not surprising given the POTUS is dumb as rocks and everything from economic to foreign policy and  health & medicine is a mockery of common sense, why expect anything different in climate science?  I can't think of a single issue on which Trumpolini isn't 100% WRONG and making the WORST possible policy.  If I was an Evil Genius whose goal was to destroy Amerika and bring on collapse in the most efficient manner possible, I could not do a better job than His Trumpness.  Given that nothing short of total collapse can bring the change we need, I suppose I should be greatful that the Trumpenator is hastening it along.  Unfortunately there won't be anything left to rebuild with after he's through, so it's kind of a pyhrric victory.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/09/mockery-of-science-climate-scientists-tear-into-new-us-climate-report/

"Mockery of science": Climate scientists tear into new US climate report

RE

[K-Dog]

TECHNOSPHERE.EARTH • 2026-01-23

No war on a dead planet

If defence and intelligence agencies understand the risks from climate and biodiversity collapse, why can't politicians?

This was meant to have been published last Autumn but was held back because the Prime Minister's office was concerned that it would be 'too negative'.

• Ecosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse.
• Cascading risks of ecosystem degradation are likely to include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources.
• Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity.
• Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.

UK OFFICIAL UK OFFICIAL Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security