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Geoffrey Deihl's avatar

Fossil fuels created the unsustainable population the planet now carries. With the shrinking of them comes inflation, destroyed economies, homelessness, migration and desperation. These set the table for autocratic rule. I'm an American and participated in No Kings Day. The anti-Trump protestors far outnumbered his supporters. Many recognize that particular danger. However, I doubt the majority of them are familiar with overshoot, the ultimate driver of the future.

It's questionable at best whether humans survive the predicament we have created. Even without the threat of nuclear conflict, ever more extreme weather patterns and soil depletion threaten agriculture, as does the loss of fossil fuels to support that industrial agriculture. Plants and animals are unable to cope with the speed of change. There are a few trying to build local communities of diverse skills to survive, but regardless we are looking at a horrific, sudden collapse of population over just a handful of decades. This as permafrost melts poised to release more GHGs than we have pumped into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

The ignorance of the majority of the populace, and the selfishness of the ruling class seal our fate. Those who see these things have little or no power to affect change at the scale or speed necessary.

Compared to the reign of dinosaurs, evidence of human existence in the geologic records will be a scant, thin layer.

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PB's avatar

Weird reading your texts in full agreement, then meeting a random bit of Russian propaganda. The Ukraine thing gave me whiplash. I recommend interrogating your sources on that subject with a more critical eye.

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