Were fossil fuels just a bridge?

July certainly has been an interesting month this year: record-setting heat waves, wide-spread drought, smoke-filled skies from hundreds of wildfires in Canada, and a third surge of the COVID-19 virus, Delta variant this time. Now that the Democrats are letting the federal eviction ban expire, the homeless population is likely to expand or we'll see a strange case of musical chairs, but, as I've read, landlords are hesitant to rent to those who've been evicted so I can't begin to guess how that may play out.

Is it possible that  we've reached a point at which the  new normal is that there is no normal, and won't be for some time? A dictionary definition if normal is "conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine." Do you foresee a near future in which  we can characterize anything as usual, typical or routine? The "rock" is the need to transform our society and economy to become carbon-neutral within a generation or so. The "hard place" will be found as the consequence of not rapidly completing those transformations, plus the continuing disruptions to what was considered normal during  the last millennium. We're caught between them. Some may think we are approaching the time of the rapture or the end of days. I'm wondering if genesis might not be a better model to consider.

Western "civilization" is being cast out of its paradise founded on fossil fuels, which supplied energy to do the work of moving and warming things between the time of feudalism and whatever comes after where we are. We may have initially responded to the discovery of how to use oil in a manner similar to that of animals no longer constrained by predators or food shortages. [See, e.g., Kaibab Deer Herd and table below] 

World population milestones in billions (Worldometers estimates)
Population	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Year	1804	1927	1960	1974	1987	1999	2011	2023	2037	2057
Years elapsed	—	123	33	14	13	12	12	12	14	20

 The question now becomes, will we exhibit enough sense and cooperation and collaboration to structure a soft landing, or will we resolve our  imbalances through a devastating crash. The choice is ours.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

I'm old enough to remember Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb. I found the approach and analysis in Limits to Growth to be more persuasive. In fact, "In 2020, analysis by Gaya Herrington (Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States but in a personal capacity) found that current empirical data is broadly in line with the 1972 projections.^[50][51]" Unfortunately, our "world leaders" seem more interested in contesting who's going to get to be the captain of our Titanic earth as it sinks, rather than checking the radar screen and the rearview mirror. As Yogi Berra has told us, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

Olympic Drive

By Kyle Dargan

Los Angeles

Across from the gorgeous dog park,

men dream against poodle-pissed trees — 

their pillows made from breath captured

in milk cartons. Only arid, temperate

climate offers respite. Let us suppose

they have tales, here in this city

where filmed stories turn a mint.

All around, one wide screen — the dark hills

due north pixel-pocked with villa lights.

Below, streets hemmed with haggard

brown men — jack-in-the-box bodies

ever unfolding. Who is pitching

this script? Title: “The Child of 1968.”

Voiceover: After the Integration Apocalypse,

one man must find his way in a land

where the sole survivors who look or speak

like him are those rendered disturbed

and indigent. Assume the Motion Picture

Association eager to levy a “Rated R,”

then remember that those who judge

violence never shared your definition

of savagery. A culling is all your eyes

decipher — your herd thinned. No urban

wildlife anywhere to be found,

yet hunger for a hunt remains.

Tagline: A hero must choose — 

between starving or bartering one’s own

skin. Plot: Amidst the solar famine, bio-

electric studies revealed melanin’s subtle

charge — the brown population gone

mad from being sapped like CopperTops.

Imagine The Matrix without the extra-

terrestrial machines. Imagine that among us

there have lived men churning statistics,

devising a human harvest, a brutal method

to subsist off fellow men and leave their bones

for the gnawing of next century’s mutts.

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