John Michael Greer

[andrew]

This is as good a summary of our present predicaments that I've read anywhere from anyone: 

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-09-18/dark-age-america-the-e...

 

[andrew]

Hey there ya'all, my name in andy entrepreneur and i'm here to tell ya'all hows we gonna deal with them ickilogical problems  caused by climate change! I work for Dubya and Co. and we gotz best friends like that invisible asskicker in the sky and the original home plate of the asskicker is ra el! So'z you gotz to trust us that we know what were doin! But before I get into how we are gonna deal with these ickilogical problems I gotz to tell double top secret shit we discovered 60 years ago about how to manipulate weather systems! Opps, I wasn't sposed to tell ya'all that! Me BAD! hehe he. Anyways, wez been working real hard soz we going to have those vheckular emissions down to 40% of todays standards in 30 years! And not only that! We know the great invisible asskicker in the shy wants every one to have the freedom to drive as much as they want soz we figured out a plan for that to! Wez gonna charge ya'all a milez tax! Soz ya'all can drive as much as your god given right and were gonna get richer than we allready is! And we share this money with our good god given friend is ra el and those saudi princes. So everybody wins! Not only that, wez developing the technology to track every milez you drive soz well no where alls you are every minute of everyday around the whole world . Know i think thats just fracken  brillcream , eh! Like my friends say in Kanaduh say! 

[andrew]

I'm happy there is at least one other person paying attention to coincidence: 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/global_warming_and_global_warri...

This new war, as i pointed out earlier, is just another in a long line of coincidences related to environmental concerns met with warring distractions. Grandpa bush invades shortly after the first wave of CC activists. There Will Be Blood!

[andrew]

Here's a link on what I might call the , 'Krugman theory' : 

http://www.californiadrought.org/what-about-desalination-during-the...

Technological prowess is not necessarily a solution to complex ecological problems. Whether some kind  of New Deal/ Roosevelt/Keynesian reinvestment can actually solve these problems is an open question. If they don't ( or can't) we will be looking at a steady decline in the way we live in the coming years. At that point, if the intervention doesn't work, we would have to consider a complete anti-captilist alternative. 

Which leads me to my next proposal on this forum: coincidence theory! 

[andrew]

We cover pretty well anything here on the integral blacklist(ed) thread. Here is our amazing interpretation of Oblivion with T.C. : the alien represents our own dissociated alien relationship with the earth leading to the unnatural exploitation of everything. That alienation has turned us into amnesic clones unaware that we are now slaves to our dissociated state. It's only in our remembering of who we really are that we can re-enter into a healthy relationship with life; a life that would live in harmony with natural law. 

[andrew]

Here are some of those soulless clones: 

http://integral-options.blogspot.ca/2014/09/inside-koch-brothers-to...

[andrew]

People should be rightly horrified by what this article documents. However, I would like to see R.S. document the same travesty and behaviour among left leaning elites.

This week with Greer: 

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.ca/2014_09_01_archive.html

[DavidM58]

Another excellent commentary by Greer on the senility of elites as we enter a new dark age; interesting that he references the Krugman/Heinberg articles we discussed above. 

However, the acronyms on this site tend to drive me bonkers, as half the time I have no idea what is being referred to.  R.S.?  T.C.?

[andrew]

Sorry David, my last post was referencing the article on the Koch brothers by R.olling S. tone magazine. It was not referencing Greer's new blog post, which was an addendum to the original thought. Previously, I was mentioning T.om C.ruise's 2013 movie, Oblivion. And my PCMIC is the petro- chemical-military industrial- complex. Which I now believe control all the major trajectories within all the worlds societies.

[DavidM58]

Thanks for the clarification, Andrew!

[andrew]

I will assume that it would be bad etiquette to start an Integral sluts thread, so I will just stick to plain old boring linking. Neoliberal rag on Klein: 

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/10/03/terence-corcoran-nao...

They pick on Rifkin in there, too. Okay, it seems that Klein is NOT arguing for a NEW Deal; but rather some kind of paradigm change. I like that she noticed the dichotimous rise of fossil fuel and finance. I've mentioned this many times in my spiritual ramblings. I'm happy she spends some time exploring the massive cognitive dissonance i've suffered when it comes to CC and its big green benefactors. i.e. Gore etc.

This guy thinks 1750 was bees knees and we should just stay there, Woo-hoo. The brilliance!

Hey, you should all go over to Netflix and watch , The Peaky Blinders.

[DavidM58]

I haven't yet read Klein's book, but I'm guessing this neo-liberal reviewer is probably somewhat distorting Klein's take on the Enlightenment, while perhaps making a valid point or two. An integral (or at least AQAL) approach would be to acknowledge the dignity of modernity, as well as it's disaster (I started a series on that here and here, but I haven't gotten around to modernity yet).

An interesting and positive review of Klein's book was written by Robert Jensen, Extracting Ourselves from the Extractivist Mindset.  However, even he has a quibble, from the opposite perspective than your National Post review. 

Jensen's conclusion:

"I’m with Klein’s analysis all the way, until the last half-dozen pages. “There is just enough time,” (459) she writes, and we have more than enough green technology and green plans. Things may not look bright now, but we have to be ready for the “moments when the impossible seems suddenly possible” to be “harnessed not only to denounce the world as it is, and build fleeting pockets of liberated space. It must be the catalyst to actually build the world that will keep us all safe. The stakes are simply too high, and time too short, to settle for anything less.” (466)

My reading of the previous 400-plus pages, and everything I know from my own study of the issues, tells me that there is not enough time to build the world that will keep us all safe, and that we have to start preparing to settle for something less. This isn’t a nihilistic argument for giving in or giving up, but rather a good-faith assessment of what has already been lost and the limits of what might be saved. The death spiral set in motion by fossil-fueled capitalism can’t magically be reversed, and the extractivist mindset is deeply set in not only the 1% but in most of the population of the developed world.

No one has magic powers of prediction, but my best guess is that a decent human future—if there is to be a future—will be in low-energy societies with a greatly reduced human population. Most of the infrastructure of modern life will disappear, given that no combination of renewable-energy technologies can come close to replacing the concentrated energy of fossil fuels, and that the collapse of our dense-energy-dependent infrastructure is proceeding far faster than the building of alternatives. Klein touches on the other problems, often related to climate, such as dramatic changes in the hydrological cycle, ongoing soil erosion and contamination, and declines in biodiversity. Put all that bad news together, and we are not facing simply a climate crisis or a set of definable environmental problems, but what my late friend Jim Koplin called “multiple, cascading ecological crises.”

Klein is right to advise that we should grieve, and get to work. The question is how we understand that work. We need to let go of the world as we know it, accept that what is coming will test our basic humanity, and commit to constructing a saving remnant. We have to confront not just conservative climate-change deniers and liberal minimizers, but also our own desire to believe that we can solve problems because we want to solve them.

The challenge as I see it: Can we continue to exhibit the best of human nature knowing that we will lose? Can we act with hope knowing there is no hope? It may be that in the coming decades, that will be the central test of our humanity, individually and collectively.

On questions that take us beyond evidence and reason—decisions we make based on imperfect knowledge in a complex world—reasonable people can disagree, and we should not fear those disagreements. Whatever a reader’s hunch on where we are heading, This Changes Everything clarifies the nature of the crises we face and Naomi Klein provides a model for how to face the crises honestly and productively."

Disclaimer - a couple of years ago I participated in a brief group discussion with Klein as she was beginning to research this book.

[andrew]

Hey David, quite the blog there!

Thanks to I.O. again for another timely link: 

http://integral-options.blogspot.ca/2014/10/matthew-nisbet-naomi-kl...

There is a chart on there that divides up the perspectives into 3 groups. I'm of the mindset-- at the moment--  which leans towards no one overarching solution as being viable; too monological there. I see multiple ways that might be implemented given the complexities of people and cultures. Surely cultures that have a blue level centre of gravity could bring in a SABBATH! HELL, how many times do I have to say this !!! !@#$%^&*()) FUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK! Take a bloody day off driving if this is part of your worldview ( that's 3 billion people apparently). And secular cultures could implement a family rainbow day where everyone has to leave it parked! Now, of course, the reason this will NEVER happen is because of the spiritual malaise that I documented in my KA$H posts. Of course, this is where MR. Gore comes in. It's very convenient in 'coincidence theory' that Mr. Gore and his pals have conveniently transferred more money into their pockets then any other time in human history ( See Picketty). Of course, this has nothing to do with CC as nothing is connected, as we all know. Moreover, these same people have made it so NO country on the planet can live in an alternative way other than the way that THEY want. If anyone, or any group tries an alternative method to their system; said people and countries are undermined, co-opted, and destroyed by  various global trans-corporate covert agencies. It's worth noting here that these covert agencies are not so much nationalistic today; there reach is transglobal and they are an arm of the PCMIC for the most part. 

Let's get one thing straight here: most of these mega-corps care NOTHING for people or the planet. It's NOT too strong so say that they are evil ( you can see my Noah thread for a rational take on evil (the left hand of ___ protocols). Even a softer stance could easily see 1750 Scottish economics as being woefully naive in the 21ST Century as the real life consequences of those policies have only enabled humanities lowest impulses . So, no, can't say I'm buying Al's line. Besides, when his buddy Bush speaks, it's a good thing to listen very carefully; he was being very astute when he talked about addiction, as he is well aware of the nature of the pushers!

A note on Jensen's questions : NO, we are not capable of a peaceful decline, imo.