Quantifying Overextension—America’s “Predicament”
December 24th, 2008I doubt that any of you need to see a quantitative analysis about how overextended America is. So why post this?
Cryptogon is not about trying to change society, popularity contests, group think circle jerks, or lobbying politicians on the ship of fools to make minor course corrections on the way to oblivion. At this point, Cryptogon is about trying to convince a handful of you (to convince yourselves) to not only survive what is happening, but to be able to stand as examples and teachers for others wherever you happen to be.
Any top down solutions, assuming they materialize (which I wouldn’t), will attempt to centralize power with Greenwashed, Soviet style mega projects, with attendant killoff and dictatorial components. Bottom up movements will not have the funding, organizational capability or pathological motivation required to affect system-scale change.
Where does that leave us?
Get over the armchair, change-the-world ego trip. Strike “hope” from your vocabulary. Get together with your neighbors and try to produce your own food. People who are interested in surviving (or their own health, finances, spiritual well being, etc.) might mimic you.
Very, very few people are interested in voluntarily confronting reality. Those of us who are should view collapse as a crisis of opportunity and know that lots of people will be looking for ways to feed themselves when the time comes.
“Do you know how to grow a spud?”
“Yes?”
“Hmm. What else do you know? Tell me more…”
I’m starting to think of this as a home grown food insurgency. No insurgency gets anywhere without support from the occupied population. As shortages occur, and the various atrocities related to industrialized food production result in shock and anger, tell receptive people how you killed your own steer, grew your own spuds-vegetables-fruit, milked your own cow, caught fish, shot pheasants, smoked venison, etc. Better yet, offer them some. Let them taste freedom for the first time.
The state might try to stop you, if it gets wind of what you’re doing, and that’s fine if it does. You’ll know that you’ve got nothing to lose at that point. And people who know that they have nothing to lose are capable of incredible things.
Via: Energy Bulletin:
In a general sense, “societal overextension” is a condition in which a society is living beyond its means ecologically and economically. The significant consequence associated with societal overextension is that the society’s population level and material living standards exceed sustainable levels.
Societal overextension (overextension) occurs when a society’s lifestyle paradigm, its “way of life”, is enabled by the persistent overexploitation of ecological resources and economic resources.
In industrialized societies, ecological resources are the raw materials (natural resources) and waste repositories (natural habitats) that enable people to produce, provision, and utilize goods and services. Ecological resource overexploitation occurs when a society:
* Persistently utilizes renewable natural resources that are critical to its existence, such as water, croplands, pasturelands, fisheries, and forests, at levels greater than those at which Nature can replenish them;
* Persistently utilizes nonrenewable natural resources that are critical to its existence, such as oil, natural gas, coal, minerals, and metals, which Nature does not replenish; and/or
* Persistently degrades atmospheric, aquatic, and terrestrial natural habitats that are critical to its existence, at levels greater than those at which Nature can regenerate them.
Economic resources provide the “purchasing power” that enables people to procure goods and services. Economic resource overexploitation occurs when a society:
* Persistently depletes its previously accumulated economic asset reserves;
* Persistently incurs intergenerational debt, which it has neither the capacity nor the intention to repay; and/or
* Persistently defers indefinitely investments critical to its future wellbeing.
An overextended society and its lifestyle paradigm are unsustainable, and will inevitably collapse.
…
The prevailing American perception[31] is that “our system is broken” and must therefore be “fixed”, or “rescued”, or “bailed out”… This perception is fundamentally inaccurate; as a result, the proposed prescription is fatally flawed.
As the preceding analysis clearly demonstrates, we are irreparably overextended—living hopelessly beyond our means, ecologically and economically[32]. Our resource utilization behavior, which enables our “system”—our American way of life—is detritovoric[33]; that is, we are systematically eliminating the very ecological resources and economic resources upon which our ever-increasing population and our historically unprecedented living standards depend.
The inescapable conclusion is that our American way of life is not sustainable—it cannot, therefore, be “fixed”; it must be displaced[34]. Desperate and futile attempts to perpetuate our existing lifestyle paradigm simply waste remaining, and increasingly scarce, time and resources.
Our only recourse is to transition voluntarily, beginning immediately, to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm, one in which we live within our means ecologically and economically—forever. Should we fail to do so, quickly, the consequences associated with our predicament will be horrific.
Research Credit: CC
Here in Central Oregon – good news! The local Grange fraternal organization to support rural people was dying on the vine, but is now becoming re-vitalized. All of a sudden, people are deciding to grow gardens, share their knowledge, establish a Farmer’s Market, and a Trading Post for locally produced stuff, or re-cycled items. The Grange has potluck dinners each month, and an aging, but still useable infra-structure that includes buildings, land, local, state and national organization that I think could be real functional in terms of helping us get through this transition. I hope this catches on.
For our Christmas Eve dinner we are having some of our traditional Slovak foods but made this year from homegrown ingredients: egg nog made from our chicken eggs with milk and cream from the local Amish farmer (organic); lima bean soup with onions (homegrown); mushroom soup (hand picked by me – my Dad and Mom taught me years ago which ones to pick), etc.
I am hoping to teach others to grow and gather their own foods in the years to come. A home grown food insurgency sounds awesome.
Merry Christmas everyone, and here’s hoping for a Busy, Productive New Year growing food.
Eileen