The collapse now underway
I mentioned the documentary Collapse, available currently on Netflix Watch Instantly. Michael Ruppert discusses the perfect storm into which the world is heading, climate change and Peak Oil being the critical factors. We are doing nothing about climate change, and yet when the climate changes, massive crop failures result, which leads to food shortages and famine, with war close behind.
Notice this story in today’s NY Times, titled "U.N. Data Notes Sharp Rise in World Food Prices":
World food prices continued to rise sharply in December, bringing them close to the crisis levels that provoked shortages and riots in poor countries three years ago, according to newly released United Nations data.
Prices are expected to remain high this year, prompting concern that the world may be approaching another crisis, although economists cautioned that many factors, like adequate stockpiles of key grains, could prevent a serious problem.
The United Nations data measures commodity prices on the world export market. Those are generally far removed from supermarket prices in wealthy countries like the United States. In this country, food price inflation has been relatively tame, and prices are forecast to rise only 2 to 3 percent this year.
But the situation is often different in poor countries that rely more heavily on imports. The food price index of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization rose 32 percent from June to December, according to the report published Wednesday. In December, the index was slightly higher than it was in June 2008, its previous peak. The index is not adjusted for inflation, however, making an exact comparison over time difficult.
The global index was pushed up last year by rising prices for cooking oils, grains, sugar and meat, all of which could continue to remain high or rise.
“We are at a very high level,” said Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist for the organization, which is based in Rome. “These levels in the previous episode led to problems and riots across the world.”
Mr. Abbassian said that bad weather affecting commodity crops in many exporting countries might help keep prices high over the next several months.
“The concern is that the long duration of the high prices for the months to come may eventually result in these high prices reaching the domestic markets of these poorer countries,” he said. “In the event of that, there is the chance of the repeat of the events of 2007 and 2008.”
At that time, high petroleum prices, growing world demand for food and poor harvests in some areas combined to sharply push up food prices in poorer importing countries. That led to shortages and sometimes deadly riots in several countries, including Egypt, Haiti, Somalia and Cameroon.
Mr. Abbassian said there were several crucial differences this year…
Continue reading. And, of course, last year Russia suspended its train exports due to crop failures.
I see it as overwhelmingly likely that our governments and other institutions will do nothing effective to halt (much less reverse) climate change and it seems obvious that Peak Oil has arrived, and I would guess that the collapse referred to in the documentary could well occur within a decade: "slowly at first, and then all of a sudden."
So how should one act in the face of the end of civilization and possible extinction of the human race? I’ve been thinking about this, and it seems obvious that unremitting despair is ineffective and unhealthy—physically, mentally, and spiritually. And the situation is not that different from the familiar destiny we face in our own mortality: we ourselves are individually going to be extinct sooner (the elderly) or later (most children). What we have learned is to make the best of the time we have: treat each other well, enjoy the pleasures that come our way, enjoy learning about the universe in which we live and the things we have created, and face death with equanimity, having done our best and even (hopefully) some good.
So I’ll continue to work on fitness, try to learn Spanish, read more history, and treat people well. In time, we all will die. That is not news, and we know how best to act.
