Latest Post

Four close calls for humanity — and several more fast approaching [UPDATED]

1. Supervolcano kills off most humans — About 70,000 years ago the Toba volcano, in Sumatra, Indonesia, exploded, releasing 2,800 cubic kilometers of vaporized rock into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight for several years and falling to the ground as a deep cover of ash. This blast was so big that we refer to Toba as [...]

Featured Post

Multiple, simultaneous crises [UPDATED]

In Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, Richard Heinberg addresses “a frightening array of peaks” mankind faces in the new century: oil, natural gas, coal, uranium and other crucial metals and minerals, as well as peak population, climate stability, fresh water, arable land, and grain and wild fish harvests. Heinberg notes the [...]

RECENT ASIDES

• "Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the [High Plains] aquifer no longer support irrigation," reports the New York Times. "In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers. And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains." Back in the 1960s, farmers could pump over 1,600 gallons of water a minute from the aquifer, but today the flow is a fraction of that, and there's so much sand coming up that expensive pumps are quickly befouled and lost. Six decades of relentless pumping and recent years of extreme drought have lowered the aquifer by hundreds of feet and left farmers to choose between praying for rain or looking for other kinds of work. But "when irrigation ends, so do the jobs." Will farmers head westward as they did during last century's Depression, Dust Bowl, and migration (as chronicled in John Steinbeck's novel, Grapes of Wrath, and Ken Burns' documentary film, The Dust Bowl)? Maybe not, since the West is experiencing its own drought and water problems. #
• In May, 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent. But this BLS "U-3" definition of "unemployed" is misleading, because it does not count (a) the "discouraged" unemployed (i.e., millions who, after several months of looking for work, gave up), or (b) the underemployed (e.g., PhD's flipping burgers at McDonalds) and (c) part time employed (e.g., those laid off from full time jobs with living wages and benefits now working part time at minimal wages and little or no benefits). The BLS "U-6" rate of 13.9 percent unemployed, which neither the government nor the press widely reports, is closer to reality, because it includes many part-timers seeking full time employment and most discouraged workers. The BLS also ignores another fast-growing group, the unemployed who become "disabled." A recent National Public Radio report highlighted this phenomenon -- millions filing claims for Social Security Disability Insurance after they were unable to find work. Claims have averaged 250,000 a month since 2009, and over 14 million are collecting benefits, up 20 percent since the recession began. Even if most disability claims are legitimate, millions are on disability insurance as an alternative to unemployment insurance. For these and other reasons, Shadow Government Statistics estimates that the true rate of unemployment is over 20 percent. And unemployment is increasing. Do the math: The government proudly reports that an average of 150,000 new jobs have been added per month since 2009. But twice that number of young people are coming of age and attempting to join the workforce each month! They're competing with tens of millions of unemployed for those 150,000 jobs. We're falling further and further behind. #
• "Brace yourself. You may not be able to tell yet, but according to global experts and the U.S. intelligence community, the earth is already shifting under you. Whether you know it or not, you’re on a new planet, a resource-shock world of a sort humanity has never before experienced." Michael T. Klare writes in TomDispatch about "Two nightmare scenarios -- a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change...." He warns of an oncoming "tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition, and conflict... 'water wars' over contested river systems, global food riots sparked by soaring prices for life’s basics, mass migrations of climate refugees (with resulting anti-migrant violence), and the breakdown of social order or the collapse of states. At first, such mayhem is likely to arise largely in Africa, Central Asia, and other areas of the underdeveloped South, but in time all regions of the planet will be affected." #
• "The wealth of the Walton family [of Walmart discount department stores] now exceeds the wealth of the bottom 40 percent of American families combined," notes Robert Reich. Just that one fact makes everything else Reich and others are writing about income inequality in America superfluous. #
• "We're Headed For A Disaster Of Biblical Proportions," headlines a Business Insider article on Jeremy Grantham's "startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity." Grantham manages $97 billion in assets at GMO, so it's his business to recognize threats to his clients' financial security. But he's become concerned about threats to their very lives. "The phenomenon of ever-more humans using a finite supply of natural resources cannot continue forever, Grantham says -- and the prices of metals, hydrocarbons (oil), and food are now beginning to reflect that. Grantham believes that the planet can only sustainably support about 1.5 billion humans, versus the 7 billion on Earth right now.... In the 1980s, we began consuming more oil each year than was discovered. That disparity is only going to increase.... The story for metals, by the way, is the same as for oil: The low-hanging fruit has been picked.... And the same story is playing out in food.... The growth in crop yields per acre has dropped... dangerously close to the growth of population, and at some point soon, the lines will cross.... The problems of compounding growth in the face of finite resources are not easily understood by optimistic, short-term-oriented, and relatively innumerate humans (especially the political variety). The fact is that no compound growth is sustainable. If we maintain our desperate focus on growth, we will run out of everything and crash." #