The mood on this board has been increasingly doomerish, and for good reasons: The insane politics, amoral corporations, AGW, numerous tipping points, mounting debt, GMO’s, accelerating CO2, mass extinctions, methane releases, topsoil loss, ocean acidification, overpopulation, over consumption and a soon to be ice free arctic to name a few. Even if you don’t agree/believe in all of them, I bet there are a substantial number you are concerned about. The odds do not seem to be in our favor, and a collapse seems likely, although the timing is certainly in dispute.
After years of formal and informal study of: ecology, politics, psychology, horticulture, culture, foreign affairs, military science, permaculture and numerous other subjects, I believe a fast crash, as soon as possible, is mankind’s best chance at survival. I also concur with David Holmgren that it can be accomplished in a non-violent way with minimal government involvement.
From his website:
David’s argument is essentially that radical, but achievable, behaviour change from dependent consumers to responsible self-reliant producers (by some relatively small minority of the global middle class) has a chance of stopping the juggernaut of consumer capitalism from driving the world over the climate change cliff. It maybe a slim chance, but a better bet than current herculean efforts to get the elites to pull the right policy levers; whether by sweet promises of green tech profits or alternatively threats from mass movements shouting for less consumption
I recently read David Holmgren’s “Crash on Demand: welcome to the brown tech future.”
https://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Crash-on-demand.pdf
In his paper, Holmgren said he used to believe that energy decent would naturally slow down FF use before significant climate change would take hold. He now admits he was wrong as shown by the great efforts to obtain unconventional oil and the increasing speed of climate change. If we keep on this course, we will delay the collapse, but it will be much worse and probably not recoverable. Therefore, the only ethical solution is to speed up the collapse which will dramatically cut carbon emissions giving more time to transition a regenerative society that actively repairs and enhances the environment. Even then it’s only a small chance we can help the ones who make it through the bottle neck.
He believes mass protests are no longer effective and other methods need to be employed. The 1% will not be part of this movement because their best interest is with BAU. The poor will benefit from the techniques used, but they do not have the economic impact to collapse the debt based monetary system. So that leaves it up to us, the small but growing number of middle class who are waking up to what’s going on around us. Holmgren feels if we can shrink the global debt based economy by around 5%, enough businesses would fail that it would bring down the entire JIT system through contagion. This in turn would significantly reduce trade and long haul transportation of goods better produced locally or not at all.
Anyway, a lot more in his 27 page paper covering the nuts and bolts of his proposal. It’s a pretty easy read, but the implications are profound.
I figure since we are doomed anyway, and I’m already doing most of the things he calls for, (plus some), why not lend a hand. I’ll bet a lot of you are helping too. Now you know the “secret” of Permaculture. It's about taking over the world, and installing anarchy, the garden was just a metaphor.