Is this our last Century?

Okay- Look, I'm training my kids and spouse (and myself, most of all) in foraging, survival skills, permaculture techniques, evasion of militant police states, hell, dumpster diving at end of semesters is a family activity!

And things sometimes look pretty grim. Almost Malthusian. Actually, exactly Malthusian- he ignored advancing technology, too.

We are one small step away from a real golden age- we have the technological capability and have since about 1985 if you trust bucky fuller's old math (and I do) to provide everyone on the planet with a reasonable standard of living WITHOUT taking anything away from anyone. We waste obscene amounts of our work time and human effort in silly corporate games designs to promote false scarcity when we're really *this* close to being able to transistion to a technology of abundance.

But "we" seem to be hell bent on destroying it all to prevent anyone having as much as "us"
 
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Fiddleback said:
Certainly we can all agree that there is a tipping point where land can no longer support population, and that Humanity is racing toward that.

We can also agree that the US is much more suitable for food producing than many of the other nations around the world I hope.

And you've already stated that the industrialized countries have leveled off as far as population growth.
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There's a correlation- as living standards improve, reproductive levels drop. Works pretty much universally.
 
I've never bought the global warming thing. We are still coming out of an ice age. As far as the human species is concerned we are still coming out of the womb. Dinosaurs had the planet for millions of years. Humans have been around for 200,000. Only the past four or five thousand have had any sort of "civilization" and in the past thousand our rate of dependence on technology has eclipsed our instincts.

Our so called intelligence has allowed us to believe we can conquer nature. Our love of life and fear of death has only exacerbated the problem. We no longer live within the constraints of our environment.

It's funny how we spend billions of dollars sending spacecraft to Mars for water when we don't even know what to do with the water on this planet. Humans are too damn concerned about the "future" which doesn't exist. We want to predict and control everything and freak out when we can't. Might as well face the fact that we are all going to end up as compost anyways.

When humanity stops it's habit of predicting and controlling and follows the balance of nature we will be all right. Might take us another million years for that to happen. But the planet will still be here regardless of what we do.
 
ilbruche said:
. Humans are too damn concerned about the "future" which doesn't exist.
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That line reminds me of a song by John Prine:

Jehosaphat the mongrel cat
Jumped off the roof today
Some would say he fell but I could tell
He did himself away
His eyes weren't bright like they were the night
We played checkers on the train
God Bless his soul he was a tootsie roll
But he's a dead cat just the same

Chorus:
We are living in the future
I'll tell you how I know
I read it in the paper
Fifteen years ago
We're all driving rocket ships
And talking with our minds
And wearing turquoise jewelry
And standing in soup lines
We are standing in soup lines

Jake the barber's lonely daughter
Went down to her daddy's shop
She plugged herself to a barber pole
And took a little off the top
Pressure on the left. Pressure on the right
Pressure in the middle of the hole
I'm goin' to Maine on a forty foot crane
I'm gonna use it for a fishin' pole

Repeat Chorus

Old Sarah Brown sells tickets down
At the all night picture show
Where they grind out sex
And they rate it with an "X"
Just to make a young man's pants grow
No tops no bottoms just hands and feet
Screaming the posters out on the street
Strangling the curious and the weak
We give 'em what they want to see - O

Repeat Chorus
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Global food stockpiles of cereal grains are at about 57 days.

An event with a .2% (.002) probability of occurring in any given year is happening right now in the upper midwest - a "500-year" flood that the National Weather service is saying, "We're in uncharted territory — this is an event beyond what anybody could even imagine."

Call it global warming, call it the wrath-of-god, it doesn't matter. It's happening and we're one crop failure away from the global pantry of food being completely bare. Might be this year, might be next year - might be five years from now. But farmers depend on one thing - stable weather patterns. And .2% events are not characteristic of stable weather patterns.

If you think weather patterns have been anything close to normal in the last five years, you're spending too much time indoors.
 
akennedy73 said:
Global food stockpiles of cereal grains are at about 57 days.

An event with a .2% (.002) probability of occurring in any given year is happening right now in the upper midwest - a "500-year" flood that the National Weather service is saying, "We're in uncharted territory — this is an event beyond what anybody could even imagine."

Call it global warming, call it the wrath-of-god, it doesn't matter. It's happening and we're one crop failure away from the global pantry of food being completely bare. Might be this year, might be next year - might be five years from now. But farmers depend on one thing - stable weather patterns. And .2% events are not characteristic of stable weather patterns.

If you think weather patterns have been anything close to normal in the last five years, you're spending too much time indoors.
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Yes, but abnormalities in the weather patterns, and cyclical heating and cooling of the globe are the norm, not the exception to the rule.
 
David E said:
BULL-ONEY !

What a load of utter and complete crap.

"Global warming" is a sham, a scam, a hoax, a fraud and a swindle. It is merely an instrument to impose taxes, regulations and controls on the masses.

Newsflash: Earth has not warmed up for TEN YEARS.

A better question would be: Will America survive 100 years (or ever 25) if we keep listening to these "Chicken Littles" and obey their every command?

To THAT question, the answer is "nope!"

.
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Well really the whole Global Warming debate is best saved for Current events and politics.

With regard to the chicken little aspect really isn't that what the survival aspect of our survival forum is all about??

I mean preparing for things that MIGHT happen but that which maybe the average joe isn't even preparing for?

Where I live at comparing now to the 1960's and 70's when I was a kid it is much hotter and drier, and I have lived in this same general area all my life. It was rare in the summer to get to 100 and now it's fairly common here. Also I'm 48 and I remember no droughts in the first 24 years and I have gone thru 3 pretty bad ones in the last 24 years.

The late 90's were extremely hot then 3 and 4 summers ago it was cooler than usual and last summer and this summer so far are shaping up to be hot. 2005 was the hottest year since they started keeping records but it was a cooler year in my area. But over the years the average has been hotter here.

So although I think the warmins IS real and co2 contributes to it, from a personal survival aspect the debate doesn't matter.

It's hotter and dryer here. Last year because of the drought they only got 1 cutting of hay. Right before this current cutting I paid 7.50 a bale for hay. Normally it is 4 bucks. In the last 5 years we had to hook up to "city" water in addition to our wells because we kept running out of water due to lack of rainfall.

So from a personal standpoint I'm going to continue to develop more of the springs around my house. The drought before the one last year we got cost sharing to develop one spring for water. I hope to do another this year even if I get no cost sharing.

I want to get as much hay as early as I can because we had rain for this first cutting and there's no telling if it will totally dry up like last year.

I wake up and do chores early, then just set around from about 12 to 7 and then come out and do the rest when it is cooler.

That's the survival aspect of the warming trend near me and what I do to deal with it.:thumbup: It's not so much a chicken little type of plan but a reaction to my personal experience. Also living in the country and on the farm I am sort of in touch with the weather because it affects the stuff I do. So I'm not so much reacting to what Al Gore or anyone is saying about Global Warming but I'm dealing with what is really happening where I live.
 
barrabas74 said:
I dont think it will be, things change, people change. People have come through in the past over insurmountable odds and harsh climate changes with less knowledge than we have now. I think we can survive all this, we as people just need to change the way we think and act.
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And many civilizations also crumbled and fell into dark ages. The ancient Greek, Romans, Egytians, Babylonians and the Ottomans are all a shadow of what they once were. I think all of them in their glorious prime thinks that they are invincible. Yet history has proven otherwise. More recent examples would includes the Brits and the Spanish.
 
Fiddleback said:
Yes, but abnormalities in the weather patterns, and cyclical heating and cooling of the globe are the norm, not the exception to the rule.
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Absolutely true - which is also why hunting/gathering has been the norm for our species and agriculture has been a recent 10,000-year-old experiment. Agriculture depends on climate stability - which has come about in the last 10,000 years during what is known as the Holocene era. That era is probably ending - and, in my opinion, it's pointless to debate why since there is nothing to be done about it except prepare ourselves and our children for a radically different world. Our children and grandchildren are not going to care if it was man-made global warming or natural fluctuations in the planet's climate that brought about the end of agriculture - they'll be too busy surviving.

The change in the weather foretells one thing - large scale agriculture, of the sort that supports civilizations, is going the way of the mastodon. An so are the majority of the six billion people now inhabiting the planet.

What gets me is the idea of an "advanced" agricultural civilization that doesn't even have a year's worth of food in the pantry - only two months stored up for hard times! What brilliant genius is running this show? :confused:
 
Man, you guys are smart. This is a good thread..I find this discussion pertinent to this sub forum.
I find myself caring less and less about the way things are going..I dont think that I have become a defeatest, but it seems to me that unless we return to the old ways, like living in smaller communities, and relying less on technology..then we are in deep doo-doo. I dont see anyone (other than a very slim percentage that we are in) doing anything to quell the tide. I read about the damage that we are doing to ourselves via corporate food..I.e. additives and sugar substitutes, and think "grow your own". I read about off-gassing plastic, and think ceramic and clay. I read about global warming and the GREEN movement and think..government control.
Which by the way, I dont see how they can help us...they cant seem to get anything right except thier own payraises and our taxes.
I see the last motor vehicle trend that had us all buying giant V-8's and SUV's and now the current gas prices and I see a corporate plan coming to fruition.
We, as a nation are bought and sold everyday..and we like it. The masses like fast food and american idol..this says to me that things are pretty bad off..ofcourse, I am a mean old bugger..but serious stuff is going on, and if you raise the subject..people get offended.
I cant think of anyway to get the masses to go down the right path short of them all vanishing..which could very well happen with the way the medical research is run in this country. One bug makes it way out the door, and we all die a horrible death.
The bottom line in my opinion...IS THAT WE ARE SCREWED! I wonder if we can make it another couple of decades in any civilised way...and I seriously doubt that we can...unless under a police state. And that aint livin.

WOW..theres my "mad farmers liberation front" rant. Gene
 
I think in the next 60-80 years we'll have the beginnings of colonies on Mars.So as far as the human race goes,we'll probably survive,even if the Earth does get Nuked to oblivion.Even then we can still live underground.

I hope I'm not around to see it;)
 
I'd say that it is obvious and traceable that we *are* changing the global environment and atmosphere. We've got 50+ years of records now on the atmosphere thanks to a college professor who died a year or two ago.

What is changing BECAUSE of that, well, it's really hard to say. The global environment is a huge collection of small network systems that we can't honestly even begin to predict the behaviour of. Are we going to lose the Wwst Antarctic Ice Sheet? Stall the Gulf Stream? Is the sierra going to go jungle, desert, or tundra? who knows?

It is pretty obvious when we screw up- the asthma rates in traffic heavy areas are insane. We've killed entire river ecosystems and anyone who thinks superfund sites are a joke is welcome to prove it by sinking a well and drinking the water. (so to speak, doesn't work in all areas) - So we need to not screw up, think ahead a bit. Put people before profits, and realize that healthy people really do require some health in our natural world.
 
If the climate is growing warmer for the long term (which is debatable), then it would actually improve agricultural production. Longer growing seasons, allegedly higher CO2 concentrations ... all good for growing stuff.

The big ball of crap is that humans and their activity are somehow the cause of long term climate changes, or that we even could be. We're insignificant specks in space and time with respect to the planet itself.
 
hollowdweller said:
Well really the whole Global Warming debate is best saved for Current events and politics.
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It was one of the main points of the posted link/story.

With regard to the chicken little aspect really isn't that what the survival aspect of our survival forum is all about??

I mean preparing for things that MIGHT happen but that which maybe the average joe isn't even preparing for?
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I call it being smart by being more self-sufficient.

So although I think the warmins IS real and co2 contributes to it, from a personal survival aspect the debate doesn't matter.
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It's real, but it's not caused (or cured by) mankind. It's a cyclical thing. And thank God for Co2 emissions so the plants won't die and stop giving off oxygen.....

With all due respect, 48 years on this planet, 38 of which you might have memory of, means absolutely nothing to a planet that's been around for 4.5 BILLION years.

So I'm not so much reacting to what Al Gore or anyone is saying about Global Warming but I'm dealing with what is really happening where I live.
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If things are changing in your area, weather-wise, people-wise, water-wise, etc, it's only prudent to take steps to off-set the effect(s).


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Well Im not saying it will or won't happen, if it does, at least all of us people who learned bushcraft, hunting, trapping, survival, etc. will live while all the people who scorned us for wasting our time, learning useless skills, using knives and hunting will die because they didn't know how to do anything better than punch keys on a keyboard.
 
I'll miss this forum when it's gone...


We should all start a colony together where we can subsist separate from the roving hordes of the unprepared when it all goes down!
 
Well, guys, I'm throwing in with the "it's cyclical" crowd. Geologically, even archaeologically, we have evidence that such cycles have been going on for our entire history, and it's logical to say, long before we were around. Now, IMO there is WAY too much "chicken little" going on. However, it's not the people who are into survivalism/woodscrafting, etc that are the chicken littles. It's the Al Gores, the "global warming pandemic" people, etc breeding fear to place all kinds of restrictions on us, tax us to death, and in general, control every aspect of our life to fit an aganda. I don't even think they believe in the "human induced global warming" lie, since these are the same people that said we'd be under a mile of ice right now. It's about control, and building their fuinancial empires.

I'm not saying the climate isn't changing -- it is -- I'm saying we aren't significant. Sure we poison ecosystems. But how many years will it take the planet to clean up if we stopped right now? Not many. The planet was created with robust self-cleansing and regenerative systems. Good example: Chernobyl. Probably the worst ecological disaster ever created by humans. Yet look how overgrown the "NO-GO" zone is.

Hell, the cyclical climate changes may be a design feature to control populations. A failsafe from the planet itself to prevent irreparable damage by any one species.

To address the lack of food: I think it's funny, yes, funny, that some of the most fertile, and least used, farmland in the world is in Africa. Yet, the "breadbasket" countries over there ran off the white farmers that were providing a LOT of food. What of the farms? They are desolate. The idiot warlords don't bother with agriculture because they can use starvation as a control mechanism, and we dummies keep sending food over there, which gets appropriated, so that the morons that caused the problem are well fed, and the everyday Joe is still starving. WE are financing the destruction of an entire continent. A continent which could provide an enormous supply of food. Maybe we just need to let these idiots kill themselves off.
 
You make an excellent point. What used to be Rhodesia was a big exporter of grain to the rest of Africa, yet now ... they don't even come close to meeting the domestic needs of Zimbabwe. Hey, maybe it was the global warming? :rolleyes:


Cpl Punishment said:
To address the lack of food: I think it's funny, yes, funny, that some of the most fertile, and least used, farmland in the world is in Africa. Yet, the "breadbasket" countries over there ran off the white farmers that were providing a LOT of food. What of the farms? They are desolate. The idiot warlords don't bother with agriculture because they can use starvation as a control mechanism, and we dummies keep sending food over there, which gets appropriated, so that the morons that caused the problem are well fed, and the everyday Joe is still starving.
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I have seen the stats that we use more resources in the US than other countries. What they fail to mention is that we also produce more, much more. We can easily feed ourselves if needed. I don't believe the Chicken Littles either....
 
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