In his You-tube explanatory series "How to enjoy the end of the world" ( HTETEOTW ) Dr. Sidney Smith continues to describe the bare-bones of what he thinks everyone ought to know, in order to understand, accept, and maybe start preparing for some of the big changes that are happening now.
"... Nothing lives that doesn't also die, an outcome guaranteed by the fundamental laws of nature that govern both energy and complexity. Civilizations, including our own, are no exception. ... " - B. Sidney Smith
His Ph.D is in Mathematics, and a summary of his outlook includes this essay in 2012, entitled "All the bunnies in the meadow die". Some of this essay material is re-used in this latest video on Ecological Overshoot. The basic definitions are very clear.
The International Energy Agency forcefully states that the pathway to net zero by 2050 is a very narrow one and requires that no new oil and gas fields get approved.
And yet, despite the Australian public voting for Labor’s pledge to aggressively reduce emissions, on the day after he was sworn in as Australia’s 31st Prime Minister, Albanese was at Kantei in Tokyo making a contrary pledge of “better energy security” for Japan.
Recent Freedom of Information (FOI) releases, and close examination of a mosaic of evidence, have shed new light on who’s been convincing the Government to back away from turning off the gas tap.
The Barossa project is key to the future profits of Santos. The project involves piping gas from the Barossa field north of Darwin for onshore processing. Its output is intended for export to Asia.
In terms of carbon emissions, Barossa is the dirtiest of projects. Some experts have described it as a carbon emission project with LNG as a by-product. To deal with this, the company intends to bury the unwanted CO2 output in the now commercially depleted Bayu-Udan gas field in Timor-Leste waters.
Energy cannibalism, or energy self-use, is the necessity to spend energy in order to extract additional energy from the environment. This publication estimates that by 2020 the production of oil liquids, including Diesel fuel, costs 15.5% of the energy from this high energy quality resource. This fraction is growing at an exponential rate. By 2050, the net-energy fraction will be around half. Unconventional oil liquids are reported as continuously replacing higher quality conventional ones. A review of energy analysis literature and history highlights industry predictions about future supply, and evaluates several models to conservatively predict long term decline of net energy. Global heating by emissions is accelerated by the rise in gross production of oil liquids, peaking maybe in 2035, if no other dynamic factors intervene. There are a lot of caveats and assumptions listed.
For biosphere and climate integrity, and survival of other species, we cannot run out of low cost, net energy fast enough. For economies, declining net energy is the fast disappearance of the temporary carrying capacity of fossil fuels to power all the requirements of sustaining our industrial civilization, and must end our enormous population overshoot of over-consuming humans.
The "Honest Sorcerer", B on substack, presents irrefutable logic that this age of mining must reach an end, as mining ability requires energy and mineral supply, and this declines with depletion. The fully dependent renewable energy transition cannot prevent a global energy and minerals supply crunch. The end of mining brings our all-consuming, destructive industrial civilization, to its natural biosphere-breaking end.
Big overshoot of our extinction cliff edge. Our planet's cooling system has broken. . . . Lest we forget, humanity’s conundrum is an overshoot of nearly every safe environmental boundary that allowed humans to survive and thrive in the last 10,000 years. . . . The absurdity of our response, or lack thereof, is becoming ever more apparent as conditions continue to deteriorate around us. . . . We have already lost more than half, two thirds even, of all life on the planet.
Now calibrated with current datasets, an updated Limits to Growth model shows collapse in global industrial output is already happening just about now. Collapse is from resources depletion, particularly oil. Human population reduction will follow later. Persistent pollution is indexed to accumulated industrial CO2 emissions, which will continue grow to badly plague us later.
Global climate models have been underestimating the rates of polar warming. What is missing? This paper says that thin, high polar clouds may be responsible. They form in the stratosphere, with water vapor created from methane breakdown. This amplifies the greenhouse effect of the methane itself.
This nicely authored and credentialed report is the equivalent of firing at point blank range the delusions and ideas that techno-industrial civilization will still be able to "techno-progress" its way out of its multiple self-created predicaments. These predicaments are sometimes called poly-crisis, our ecological overshoot, or in philosophy termed hyperobjects whose multidimensional, time ramifications and detailed interconnections escape the most common and simple political slogans and even "green" favoritism expressed today, which are tightly restricted by politically-correct media control.
For instance this Pallas Ceres report states clearly that a real green new deal is not a renewable energy powered future. The PC report seems to require "healed-minds" concept of changing the current path of our species. This report also seems to imply that without healed minds enabled to give full guidance, our species pathologies will continue their path towards self-destruction, and future survival may just be of the few or (un)lucky.
Techo-Industrial civilization - TIC - has made its temporary escape growth from our biosphere systems ecological constraints, and the only way back to mitigate ongoing mass extinctions, requires TIC degrowth in order to return all life towards its evolutionary dynamics of balance, to allow all life to continue inside systems constraints of our biosphere life support systems.
Also in this PC report, are hopes for spiritual and metaphysical growth of human beings. This seems to be a requirement in order for governments to cooperate in having rational plans for disarming and making safe our TIC systems. According to students of history, cycles of conflicts between elites tend to bring about our own destruction. None of the PC sensible suggestions seem to be on any nations current political agenda.
The report has quite a backing list of referral materials, books and videos, on important anchoring topics, quite a few of which I have encountered previously and can also recommend. I also credit Eric Lee on medium.com for referring this report, and writing an article summary.
The EDO in various states of Australia is fighting approvals for new Coal Mines and Fracking projects. Members of our governments and public service institutions behave as if they have been bought up to serve corporations, and have no decent regard for country, water, climate, people and biosphere. Short term money appears to be all that politicians care about. Here are links to two upcoming legal court campaigns that need your funding help, that the EDO thinks are worth fighting, because our environments are worth defending.
ParraCAN just signed up for -- "Coalition for Climate Ambition" - initiative by The Australia Institute.
A little bit of climate honesty could go a long way.
Can Juice media give a gut blow to our fossil fuels bound Australian Government? Our "climate leader" politicians are an unbelievable easy target.
"Have we finally broken our favorite planet?"
Global environment appearances can be deceptive, and Australian politicians appear to have collectively sworn not to be deceived by them. Judging by results, COP for climate action are nothing more than yearly fossil fuel corporate trade shows, designed to produce agreements to burn more of their products every year.
Michael Dowd presents a very coherent view of our civilization predicaments. Four awkward truths determine our overall fates. This links to a 55 minute presentation to the Canadian Club of Rome, drawn from years of educational effort in ecological theology.
Yet another federal government budget floods media attention in Australia. Discussions in the media tend to be about small matters of Surplus or Deficit, Taxes and Welfare. Meanwhile our petty domestic politics are overshadowed by a global polycrisis of risks, which keep looming ever larger and nearer, as listed in this World Economic Forum report.
A standard political response to preparing any of these, is the equivalent of filling a bucket with sand, and sticking one's head it. Or to start talking about incremental policy changes, or smearing the opposition party. All elements of this polycrisis are made worse by pushing for continued growth, in population, wealth and consumption. In facing these risks, Australia plans to give up nothing. This is loss aversion and fear of economic collapse. We cannot keep it all.
Notice how "Geoeconomic confrontation" risk drops from near the top, to near the bottom, over the ten years. Keep this in mind when considering that Australia's most expensive future spending plans over the next decades, are for investments in high tech weapons in support of the military industrial complex of the USA, which is rapid social and economic decline.
Notice that "rapid collapse of the USA global military empire" is not included in the risks list. This is because western media deny its existence while at the same time drumming hysterical support for its latest war and weapons business venture.
Alan Urban's "collapsesurvivalsite.com" is made of reinforced conviction. You should best believe its real.
This linked article by Alan Urban provides a comprehensive summary of reasons why our global food systems are rapidly failing, due to climate vulnerability, and harmful unsustainable agriculture technology.
All of which is the end-stage result of our overshoot of our biospheres systems capacity for regeneration. Insect species are rapidly declining in numbers, and so are all their species dependents, such birds and small mammals. The insect pests that feed on our crops are exceptions.
Why are the big nations now arming for war in haste? Why can't they wait for civilization to collapse? Why is Australian government now
wanting to buy expensive, complex USA made, deadly weapons? The "Collapse of Everything" must be accelerating, and political denial has now built up into total panic, hidden by a wall of silence.
A play list of well conceived presentations by Sid Smith, which places our present predicaments in the context of the many cycles of life.
It has been reported that our planet's average energy imbalance - EEI - has increased over the last two decades. Climate models suggest that we are likely to experience this in coming years as a faster rise in average surface temperature anomaly, and increased rate of accumulation of heat in our oceans.
In late 2022, an Office of National Intelligence (ONI) initial climate risk assessment — an election promise of the Albanese government — was distributed to members of the federal cabinet. It addressed external but not domestic climate threats. Since then there has been no government response to, or public communication of, the assessment’s findings. - Renew Economy article by Ian Dunlop and Chris Barrie
There are plenty of commonly available publications about likely future climate impacts, and consequences to Australia. Just because our government refuses to acknowledge them with report releases and appropriate changes of policy, doesn't mean they do not already exist. Also non-release does allow a full and free speculation as to the reports real contents. Future generations are already over-shadowed by the presence of the hyperobject of our global climate bomb.
Infographics about our systems Hyperthreat of climate as a HyperObject. Something beyond our mental, social and political comprehension. Something implied by the term #ClimateBomb
... the hyperthreat of climate change has warlike destructive capabilities that are so diffuse that it is hard to comprehend the enormity of the destruction, nor those responsible for these hostile actions. - Climate Change as a Hyperthreat - Elizabeth G. Boulton
Some have calculated that the global carbon budget for 2 °C is already blown. Future emissions, cannot be reduced fast enough by any mechanism known to human civilization. Not even the decline rate of production of major global about 6% a year, meets the sort of global greenhouse gas reduction rates, that is required to avoid looming tipping points that accelerate and worsen the blowbacks of global heating. Let us be absolutely honest and clear. There is no real "Safety Mechanism", just like there is no real Santa Claus, except for the delusions fostered on us by global capitalism, in particular the "dirty dozen" that profit from Australian Credulity.
All the Scope 1 emissions in Australia will be just the same no matter what carbon credit discounting scheme. The order of magnitude times more emissions exported will be the same, uncounted in Australia, known as "Scope 3" emissions, without dubious "offsets". Atmosphere CO2 will continue to grow, and biosphere will continue to die.
Nevertheless, the Climate Council of Australia is gamely trying to intervene in the current political game of lets pretend it isn't happening, and ask that the Australian government do something to exert real responsible control, and not just be remote controlled by the global mining, finance and economic growth lobby. So you can sign the petition on their dirty dozen web page, like I did, so that it can probably die unheeded later on just like all the other climate petitions already dead and buried at the hands of this "Australian" parliament.