The Big Die-Off

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price


Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter

http://dieoff.org/

It is my personal conviction that everything that this administration has done or is trying to do is to hasten its bedrock, but unstated agenda:

To cull the herd.

On edit: Any talk of family values, religion and sanctity of life is simply a palliative. Read your history of the middle ages.

For more information, consider the unavailability of medical care for the vast majority of people, growth of hunger in the US and world and erosion of the economic compact with the middle class. All are designed to hasten the culling of the herd.

[applegrove]

1. I think the President wants the US. to have the only uber elite left in

the world. That way when the oil runs dry in twenty years ... they can pick & choose where they want to live and they will have weapons.

[Syncronaut Seven]

2. Just coming up to speed on this?

See also: Bush Family eugenics.

Where do you think Hitler got all those swell ideas. There's a direct connection.

[wuushew]

3. This mirrors my own thoughts

our whole economic paradigm is about to be turned on its head. The pro-growth and free trade ideologies we currently espouse cannot be sustained past peak,oil,gas,coal.

Fossil fuels and the machines that exploit them have acted as substitutes for human labor, the true source of all value in a society. The average man whose usable energy to make goods or perform labor is only about 1/10 of a horsepower at any given moment has been replaced by electrically driven machines or internal combustion engines. The energy wealth of many times our current population has been afforded us by the depletion of non-renewable fossil fuels.

The inequality of the necessary steady state future we must adopt will mean in short order the abolition of capitalism as we now know it in order to placate the majority of the population who will no longer be lifted by a supply of energy which has kept pace with population growth. Heads will roll unless a system for energy(wealth) redistribution is implemented.

[AlienGirl]

6. When machines are more expensive to run than humans, slavery will return.

[Deja Q]

4. Give it 2 years max. Enjoy life while we can. For NONE of us will survive.

[OneBlueSky]

5. well, one thing is certainly clear . . .

BushCo considers the "little people" thoroughly expendable . . . and their loss not worth a moment of remorse or even a second thought . . . and that includes members of the US Armed Forces . . .

[SlightlyWorried]

7. Sensational titles sell books

The big die off. Jeeze louise.

Yes the slow end of oil will cause a lot of problems no doubt. We will have to move to more expensive forms of energy: coal, nuclear, wind, solar, etc. We will have to figure out what to do about plastics, fertilizers, and pesticides. There will probably be a significant decrease in the standard of living for many people. But big die off? Probably not.

The only ones who talk about the big die off are people who want to sell books and people who are so unhappy with the current economic system that they will only be appeased by massive change combined with massive punishment for those that did not listen to their dire warnings.