Collapse (2009) by Mike Ruppert

by Mincan 33 Replies latest social current

• 

  leftbelow

  I guess that would finally cap carbon emisions.

  All joking aside I can't wait to see that movie I read "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler and we are going to see some really insteresting and chalenging times ahead.
• 

  slimboyfat

  It seems to me that the looming energy and resource crisis is very real indeed. It is a shame this guy mixes those very important concerns with his conspiracy theories about 9/11.

  I have read The Long Emergency that BTS mentions. Another good one I would recommend is The Last Oil Shock by David Strahan.

  For some balance I have read some information from the other side of the debate. For instance Vaclav Smil in Oil: A Beginners's Guide argues we have plenty of oil left, and that even if we are running out there are other resources and technologies we can use instead. I read his argument, I think, with an open mind. He has a lot of comtempt for "Peak Oilers" but his argument does not match his rhetoric in my view.

  I have no technical expertise to evaluate the various claims made in relation to "Peak Oil". I just gather from what I have read, and looking in the news at statements from various people who should know, reading between the lines, and looking at the moves China and America are making in positioning themselves in relation to the last big oil fields, it does look like we are running into a bit of a problem very soon.

  Nuclear war between China and America looks the most likely outcome as far as I can see.
• 

  besty

  http://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years-Forecast-Century/dp/038551705X

  George Friedman's book is also worth a read for a 100 year guess....

  Executive summary:

  America to dominate massively - land control linking East + West trade routes is key

  Russia to re-emerge in 2010's and 2020's as USSR 2.0

  China to plateau due to geographical and cultural constraints

  Turkey and Japan to rise as significant regional powers, culminating in USA Japan war in the 2050's

  Mexico to rise as North American alternative power, retaking parts of Arizona, New Mexico, SoCal in the 2080's

  etc.

  Interesting read from a strategic analysis veteran....Google Stratfor and you can sign up for his free email updates.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Does he think China will give up its ambitions without a conflict? I really think mankind will be lucky to make it out of this century alive.

  On the positive side, you could say that probably it is not in America's nature to go down without a fight. And on the negative side, it is probably not in America's nature to go down without a fight.
• 

  sacolton

  I suppose the GB don't have a thing to worry about. They'll be sitting in their luxury lofts, eating food prepared for them, laundry done for them, sleeping in their beds high above the chaos of the swarming R&F trying to make ends meet. If this is our fate - perhaps it'll bring us closer as people and not separate in our beliefs.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Does he think China will give up its ambitions without a conflict?

  China has never been culturally expansionist. They just want a piece of the pie. They'll fight for that, of course. I don't see nuclear war between the US and China in the cards. The stakes are too high, and both powers are relatively rational actors.

  BTS
• 

  slimboyfat

  George Friedman says no one has ever controlled the world's oceans the way the US does. Has he never heard of a nineteenth century entity known as the British Empire?

  I think the US has about as much chance dominating the late 21st century world as Britain had of ruling the waves in the late 20th century.
• 

  slimboyfat

  China has never been culturally expansionist. They just want a piece of the pie. They'll fight for that, of course. I don't see nuclear war between the US and China in the cards. The stakes are too high, and both powers are relatively rational actors.

  Pah! What is this thing called "culture"? I agree with Marx that economics is the basis of everything. Culture is the superstructural candyfloss, not the determining essence. What in Germany's nineteenth century "culture" indicated it would become a twentieth century expansionist aggressor? Demography, international relations and class relations within Germany induced its responses, not the fanciful Sonderweg idea of some sort of intangible cultural essence.

  Let that be a warning to Amercia, or any nation or people, who think they are in some sense too "good" or too "mature" to take a terrible wrong turn.
• 

  slimboyfat

  Pointing to centuries of conservative foreign policy from China is not relevant. And talking about "culture" as a reason for why this or that nation won't act in a certain way misunderstands the nature of historical causation in my view. China may not have been expansionist in the past (but then what do we call the invasion of Tibet and moves on Taiwan in any case?) but it has not faced the situation that it does now, where it has an economic system in flux, attempting to hold a rigid political structure in place, trying to manage a (perhaps unmanageably) huge population, with a globalised and aspirational set of wants, located in a world of diminishing resources.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  I guess we'll have to wait and see, slim. I don't buy into the Marxist view of what drives history.