Thank you for that impassioned whirlwind recounting of early American history and the writing you've done on climate collapse, my greatest concern at this juncture. I have been attempting to call our attention to the fact 13 million fewer Dems voted for Harris/Walz this time (81M - 13M= 68M), and Our Mad King (wannabe) Donald got 1.4M fewer votes this time around, so 14.4M Americans who voted in 2020 just stayed home or voted for a 3rd party that never gets reported by the useless MSM. What we are seeing is the final congealing of the Fascist forces that had been lurking in the wings all along, as the powerful monied aristocracy gathers in a bundle (fasces) to tighten its grip on the rest of us. A fine fellow, Steve Rattner, did a brilliant job of illustrating what's wrong with America on Morning Joe today, put simply, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. 10 billionaires are said to be $64B richer today, thanks to their man's "victory".
We are headlong into a total climate collapse and the fat cats see it coming, so they're going to milk the government and every other source of money to feather their air conditioned nests to ride it out. I've got some news for them: you can run but you cannot hide from Mother Nature and God almighty. Clearly, the middle is not holding and catastrophe looms. And what of the children? At the current rate of global heating and all of its spin-off climate destruction, we may well see an uninhabitable hothouse planet by 2047, when we could reach 6 degC over the 1991-2020 baseline (C3S) and any child unfortunate enough to be born today turns 23. God help us and Mother Earth please forgive us. Gregg Miklashek, MD
The predictions of temperature rise seem to be all over the map these days. 2.5° to 3.1° by 2100 seems to be the consensus I'm familiar with. On the other hand, many scientists seem to feel climate models have been far too conservative. We face 6 of 9 planetary limits surpassed at this point, but probably the temperature rise is the most immediately dire and concerning, since it's fueling these already huge storms and fires. This suggests economic collapse first (we already see the effects on the insurance industry) and diminished agriculture production at a rate that might start linearly, but could become exponentially worse. When, I don't know, and although I read a lot, mind you I am not a scientist.
You have more statistical information than I do about the disastrous election, but people simply giving up is not surprising. We've had decades of poor leadership and diminished hope as neoliberal economics have taken hold. Haven't seen anything about 6°C over by 2047. Sounds like a worst case climate model.
I agree, the wealthy powerful know the score and the statistics on the rate of increasing wealth disparity are stunning. As you say, they have their bunkers. I have a collection of articles on that. My favorite is the ones being built in abandoned Atlas missile silos. That appeals to my macabre sense of humor, an asset these days.
I thought, with Harris, there might be some hope for at least slowing an apocalypse. With Trump, there is no hope short of throwing our bodies in the gears of the machine. I didn't go there with this essay. I suppose I am trying to make people see the light on their own, pounding people over the head rarely works. Hence, the brief history lesson to show a pattern.
Thanks for your input. Love every moment. The moment is all we ever have anyhow.
Thank you for another intelligent, thoughtful reply. Most of all, in this time of increases Fascist traction in America, we need to know that we are not alone. Seems to me that an "alternative" media has spawned and is growing, outside the standard vacuous "(anti)social media" channels. Again, I encourage you and others to reference the EU sponsored independent Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) for accurate climate science. Have a blessed day and keep on keepin' on. Gregg
Thanks, I've referenced info from Copernicus other articles. It appears there's new content there. I agree, we need community more than ever now. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees platforms like this remain stable or safe.
My reply is not very intelligent, as I’m exhausted & depleted from the past week…but the earth is dying! It’s almost 85 F today in north Florida in mid November. So hot! Like hell. Sometimes it’s hot for 10-11 months out of the year. I worry for our Mother. Heartbroken. The evil who harmed humanity will pay with their karma, at least in their next lives..not us, we’re going Home to heaven. Elon can take his kind to Mars, as he betrays the earth & Humanity. He won’t get away with it, tho. Light AWAYS overcomes darkness, eventually. It’s a law of physics.
We're all depleted from the last week. Time to recharge and fight harder. Buffalo is hot too, hit the 70s a few days ago. Elon has probably improved his chances of getting to Mars by getting cozy with Trump, but the odds of him getting there are still poor, and building a colony and terraforming a planet far worse. Delusional, adolescent fantasies.
The super rich, knowing the collapse is coming, have bet on it. Once having placed their bets, they are now making sure the bets pay off. They are going to Thelma and Louise the planet and we are locked in the truck.
We will never get our sanity back. It will get worse from here. We are descending into the end times. I am not a religious person but when you put the religious books next to the science and you connect the dots you can see what we can expect. One side is how nature will act. The other side is how humanity will react. The story and the science provide the whole picture. I wish this was not so. But I know that it is.
Animals in captivity that are stressed do horrible things to each other. Humans are animals. The stress will continue to grow and we will see the extremes come out.
I dated a dedicated Christian woman for nine months, rather odd for an atheist I suppose, but she was bright, pretty, educated, and we didn't impose our views, just shared them. It was interesting that we both agreed we're screwed, Angie through her biblical teachings and me through my dispassionate observation of our behavior and the world we have created. Perhaps the early writers of the Bible were simply gifted in predicting the results of human behavior.
The religious books are showing us the results of the breaking apart of our holistic intelligence. Moving out of Eden was coming out of the Amazon. It is moving from indigenous to societies.
We are supposed to use emotions and intellect to navigate life.
Our systems would never get this large without separating them. They get this large because we specialize. It works until we lose the holistic thinkers from leardership. When we forget the value of the big picture and get too focused on the present we bring about our own demise.
Although not religious, I have a spiritual side in how I feel about the interconnectedness of all things. It's easy to feel in the woods on a mountain, marveling at all the life and wonder occurs in those places at night lying on a hill far from artificial light when eyes open enough to see the vastness of the stars. There's a humility we have lost, and too many people never experience nature. Many indigenous people still feel and try to nurture this connection, in spite of how we turned their world on its head. Spiritual wisdom is real and necessary if we are to have a future.
We have barely scratched the surface of the big picture, and much of it lives inside us. We have forgotten this.
Carl Segan, where are all the people like Carl Segan? He managed to maintain his holistic intelligence.
In order to see the entire patterns of space, first we must feel the patterns of the world. All the patterns are the same. They repeat.
Revelations says there will be a new earth and a new heaven.
I worry the elite are taking this literally. It could also mean we might have to live under ground. It is saying the change will be profound.
In order for us to navigate the change coming first we must know the world in its full dimensions, not 2D. .
We can no longer divide afford to divide our intelligence. Society is falling, we have to learn to live in a way we have not lived for at least 6k years.
I homeschool my children for this reason. It gives us much more time to spend on the deep understanding. This is holistic intelligence and if we want our children to survive this is what we must teach them. Super focus, something we have pathologized, is actually the highest form of cognition. It is holistic processing. We need to unlock our children. We need to do this yesterday.
Love Carl. Out of date now, but I have a copy of Cosmos. Another science type author I miss is Barry Lopez. He also expressed that duality of knowledge, intellect and spiritual that makes a person complete.
We have been in Heaven the whole time. The Earth is the Garden of Eden. We have reached our make-or-break moment. Either we awaken spiritually or we die. A handful of us see this, but those that run the circus don't, or find our quiet intelligence threatening. Although it's counter to who we want to be, it's time to get bloody. There is no reasoning with the fools who run the show.
There’s been unprecedented swarms of unexplained locusts the past few years in Africa, too. Scary AF. The end times for sure, but not like these Bible freaks think.
It’s 5:30 AM, Friday, November 8, and I’ve barely been sleeping. Whatever passes for God is bugging me. It didn’t give me the brilliance to know how to be heard, but it gave me the message to be delivered.
Once, years ago, I did a Lady Godiva under its instructions and got naked at an open mic. It caused a big stir, but it didn’t go beyond the 110 shocked people who were at a conference to save the world that had descended into chaos. The only obvious effect it had was to get my ticket cancelled to help facilitate a smaller group of honchos, who would be meeting soon with a similar purpose -- the FedEx letter I got, from its organizer who'd helped organize the debacle I’d been at, explained in his letter that the cancellation was because the upcoming event was too important and I was too dangerous.
Guess what. Here’s the deal. This new assignment from on high is to get going on citizen action. Fast and big. There are new circumstances now. They have the world sizzling. That’s good. The tune has changed from "I’m just one person" to "What can I do?" Now, pain is pulsing. Like what’s here.
I was on a call with 50,000 people yesterday. My iPad ran out of juice after two hours and it still was going strong. It was movement-building and speaker after speaker was passionate and smart. Everyone was worth listening to, and the moderator was brilliant. Poor Kamala. She could have gotten lessons. I joined the army that the moderator girl recruited, to host local gatherings. Actually, it was the opposite of here, Geoff, where there’s a brilliance to ain’t it awful, to where there it was ain’t it possible! It was an oasis. A gigantic one. An unexpected one. And – drumroll – a useless one.
Oh. That sounds awful. It also was the hope of the world. A track to the right place. But here’s where I step in with the puny voice that the God puppeteer gave me, to say we’ll all be dead by the time this movement could move anything. They were locked in with movement-building taking years and God bless their passion and their willingness, but with deregulation and drill baby drill coming a couple of months from now we will drown swimming to our new reality before anything gets built.
Oh God, why me? It's the opposite to my being too dangerous to have a voice, but you are making me too smart -- smart enough to know what will end humanity as we know it and stuck with my inadequacy to get any attention on my brilliance.
I am going to embarrass myself now. I said yes to an astrologer who entered my essay contest for saving the world and asked to do me. He said the greatest love of my life is to come. This white-haired lady here was dubious, but “it’s in the stars“ he says. Now, if this this love were a billionaire he could buy billboards. Or whatever. Gather the rest of his billionaire clan maybe, and I’d get people like you to meet with them to get them to compete for who can do the most good.
Then I’d get some sleep – perhaps on one of Jeff Bezos’s two yachts along with the refugees from Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan who my billionaire would have gotten him to turn it over to as an attention-getter for how wild the efforts to wake the world up to working could be. So, hey, you compatriots competing for doomsayer literary prizes, go scouting for me while you wrack your brains for what to tell my moneybags love-of-my life about what he could do.
So, as I’m writing this draft, that I’ll do some work on for my Substack on Tuesday, the sun is rising. Could it be the dawn of a new reality?
I think many of us have been searching for that brilliance you speak of. Those of us branded doomers have been trying to wake people up, which is a positive thing, not a doom thing. Denial is doom. The future can't be made better without unflinchingly understanding the past and present. Being saddled with knowledge, but without power to affect change, is a heavy burden. I have had a sense we were in deep trouble since my late teens. I wish I had done more, much earlier.
Wednesday after the election was a processing day. Thursday, to my surprise, I was able to write this article. I wrote again yesterday, and intend to keep going.
No one of us can change the future, it takes a movement and physical risk.
The Democrats have made the mistake of becoming too much like the other party, instead of strengthening the work of FDR. They lost their courage. You and I must have courage, and the 50,000 on that call can embolden more people to take the risks that are necessary. To not take risks at this point guarantees a poor outcome.
You're right, we need someone with power and wealth to step forward, and refugees on a luxury yacht would be a powerful symbol. Bezos of course has shown his cowardice. Please everyone boycott Amazon and show Jeff we can hurt hm as much as Trump can. Ditto on everything billionaires sell us we don't absolutely need. It's a powerful and SAFE way to make a difference, while some of us stick our necks out.
Rest and process as you need to, Suzanne. Enjoy your dogs. Animals offer something people can't. What's coming is going to require a lot of energy and community. It's a sprint now, not a marathon, but we have to rest as well. Invest in your local, physical community. The bastards can pull the plug on what we have online at any moment. We can't afford to be alone.
We haven’t even tried to organize a force for the good. I am so glad we are connected, and I keep telling my subscribers to pay attention to you for grounding us in what we have come from that we need to understand for intelligent thinking about what we can do. More of that is in tomorrow’s post.
I lost the likes this had when I found I'd left out a couple of words and added them in. I'm on the prowl for allies, so if you liked it and see it again please like it again.
I have just been numb ever since the elections results were announced. If I were younger and had no family here, I would seriously consider moving to a different country. Reading your last two articles and the comments from people who are aware of what is really happening have helped.
The next four years are going to be difficult, but maybe we need to have the attitude that we can't fix everything. All we can do is try to put off disaster as long as possible and minimize the damage. At the same time, we need to protect our own mental health by keeping in touch with people who see Trump and his gang of crazies for what they really are.
So, we should spend time working to slow climate change, fix our country, and alleviate the problems of the world; but also try to keep a sense of humor, relax with friends, and save time to do something we enjoy. Then we can tackle the tough problems with more energy and keep our sanity at the same time.
I wouldn't know what country to move to anymore. None obviously are immune to climate change, and governments seem to be crazy in many places. There's even a fascist element in Sweden. The next four years are going to be worse than difficult, I'm afraid. Trump has sworn vengeance on his enemies, and the goals of Project 2025 are dystopian. Women have already been dying from medical care refused during pregnancy, and abortion may be banned nationally. I didn't write it in this essay, but taking to the streets an enduring batons, jail and potential loss of life is now necessary. Tipping points are at hand or even exceeded at this point, such as the Greenland ice sheet I wrote about a few articles ago. Climate migration is already under way, and economies so tied together will fall like dominoes.
That green renewable economy? How will we build it when fossil fuels are too expensive to extract? We're reaching that point, or we wouldn't be dealing with fracking and tar sand oils, much more difficult and expensive to extract. It's all a big lie to keep us calm.
I just showed my 13-y-o daughter Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”, & “Fahrenheit 11/9” for Veteran’s Day today… God help us all. Praying for the world for Christian nationalist to NOT take over.
Is it even possible to stay sane in these insane times?
The drop in voter participation to me signals an attitude of “meh” to the proposition of losing democracy in the US.
Yes the world is on the brink of environmental collapse and the slim chance that the worst effects could be averted has died with Trump’s election. It will literally be “all gas no brakes “ as we go over the cliff.
Have we even had a democracy ever? Based on the early white colonial history, we came from empire and have enthusiastically maintained this mode of conquest, destruction of the nest, and subjugation of all life forms.
We, as in some of us as in white males were given the right to vote rather than simply have a king. However, I agree, we have never lived up to the true standards a real democracy demands. It feels worse than ever now with free speech always abused with lies becoming ever more toxic and pervasive. The ones that voted for Trump live in the world of FOX News and numerous other streams of constant disinformation.
A fair point to make. I was mostly thinking about how voting participation rates have been in long term decline and in particular turnout in the 2024 election was far below what it was in 2020.
But true representative democracy is something we haven’t seen very much of. In Canada the closest we get to it is when we have a minority government in place where the governing coalition actually then represents a majority of those voting.
The Earth ultimately gets a veto on human endeavours and we are starting to experience that.
Yes, it is All gas, no brakes. and "pedal to metal" won't fix things. But sometimes with the "pedal to metal" people it is like when you have to take the "flat earther" and say "lets go look over the edge". They won't realize that it won't work until the whole damned thing collapses.
Yesterday's attitude has turned to a feeling of doom. I suspect it's going to be a worse ride than we can imagine. It's time to gather friends and family and make a plan.
Beautiful and educational words of intelligence and wisdom. Thank you.
We are prisoners in a multi-national corporate controlled world. Corporate criminal greed will eventually destroy life on earth, unless we unite, stay united and stop them.
Without hope, we are dead.
Kamala Harris has fought against corporate pollution and corporate oil company crime in California and won. Kamala Harris has helped to pass the most aggressive environmental laws in the world.
Kamala Harris is a very intelligent environmentalist, humanitarian, politically progressive and a minority woman. Of course, the psycho, ultra-wealthy, sexist, conservatives of Heritage Foundation, Saudi Arabians and Isreal pooled their efforts to defeat her presidency.
Despite the arguments, of course Kamala Harris does not support genocide.
America is corrupted by multi billionaire, international corporate business men. It is a disgrace that no one has called for a re-count of the vote. Even if it cannot be proven, any intelligent person knows that the election and the Trump clown and maga clowns are a sham.
I am all in favor of continuing to fight. Even if the cause becomes lost, I want to see the deserving feel pain. The worst thing we can do now is go along. Unfortunately, history shows most do just that.
Kamala dd some good things as CA AG. No doubt she's intelligent. Tragically, right wing media from FOX to AM radio and podcasts have successfully created a voice in large swathes of the country that drown out truth, and the Democrats have failed to protect average Americans, so here we are.
I’m pissed at the Dems & DNC. Just watched “Fahrenheit 9/11” & “Fahrenheit 11/9” (again). I showed my 13-y-o daughter for Veteran’s Day. F them for shoving Hilary & Biden down our throats when we wanted Bernie 2 Xs!! They lied about the winner in swing states & shoved those as**es down our throats! They gave the country to Trump! So F them too!!!
Geoff: Thank you for the distillation of historical patterns that have gotten us to a place of oppression disguised as "opportunity." The land where one can pull themselves up by the bootstraps-a lie that has been perpetuated while people are marginalized at increasing and alarming rates. The working class falling prey to Trump, like he will save them... as he cozies up with the billionaires.
I wore black this entire week, mourning the election outcome. I am trying to process the loss (literally) and emotionally the any semblance for a hopeful future. I am not in denial, I continue to be angry and sad-but I will never come to acceptance. The grief cycle is a continuous process.
I respect what you write. You provide an impressive set of facts and insights that help me process the PAIN!
Thank you, Pam. I think my writing helps ME process a lot, too. That I have built a little community here offers comfort, and that what I write — while often stressful — offers some answers and perspective.
History tells the future because motives and behavior never change. I remember rolling my eyes a lot in 10th grade American History class.
It will be interesting going forward how I handle my thoughts and writing. I have repeatedly told my readers my words could become dangerous to me. That day is quickly approaching now. My only safety is being a little fish in the great, big (and overheated) sea.
Thank you Geoffrey, for taking a stab at Hopium and boycotting beef (humans and cattle are in biological overshoot). Very sorry that America could have ever gotten to this point, that a schmuck like this could ever be a candidate and result in such a devastating demise of the country. Welcome to the dawn of a new day in Gilead! I keep thinking of what COULD have been on this small blue globe, but humans have blown it.
Yeah, we had everything we needed. Living in stick huts, and hunting with spears, had its good points. I wrote about that contrasting the Jamestown settlers to the Wampanoag tribe.
Really, we don't have to go back to the stone age. Things weren't bad before the early '50s, yes I remember that, before proliferation of plastics, building of Interstate Hwys, two doublings of planetary population, etc. And the forever-wars, when instead there was supposed to be the peace dividend. Ha, ha. See Ike's last address.
I could be wrong, but reading this gave me the sense that you are still very hopeful for humanity as a whole. I'm not.
The idea that any politician, left or right can have any meaningful affect on the outcome of collapse is to the point of self deprecating, delusion. The incoherent vavidness of Kamala, and the buffoonery of Trump are merely symptoms of a dieing empire.l, and things will get much much worse in the coming years. People were always going to choose Trump because he represents a time before the decline.
I guess what I'm saying is that humans will go full speed ahead right over the cliff, pedal to the metal. Carbon credits, solar panels and electric cars are a complete joke, a bandaid sloppily placed on a gunshot wound to the head. Drill baby drill. Why not, the energy hungry super organism has spoken.
I wouldn't say I am hopeful. Humanity's arc of behavior has led us to this precipice. It surprises me that you found my tone hopeful. I try to be neither hopeful nor pessimistic, I try to present the issues as they are.
I agree the Democrats are an incoherent mess. The Republicans have devolved to fascists on wheels. Neoliberal economics swept over the world and came for America last. Trump is in part a product of the Democratic Party becoming ever more beholden to dark money and lost principles. They have given away their role in my lifetime of being the party for the common person. Bernie, whatever his faults, is the last of those voices.
I don't know how many of my articles you have read, but some of them have been quite doomy. I have avoided going full doom, trying to present information for people to digest and come to their own conclusions. While our window of opportunity has been closing, I haven't wanted to completely throw cold water on hope, because not fighting is a guaranteed outcome. Without hope, there is no fighting.
No doubt the election has made slim odds far slimmer. If people don't stand up and fight, we're done. We may be done anyhow. I suspect it, writing on overshoot recently and the state of the Greenland ice sheet. There are many other tipping points at hand.
I do hope more people will fight, even if the cause is lost. Punching nasty people in the mouth is far better than succumbing as fearful passive sheep, at least for me. Thank you for your thoughts.
While many have already heard the sound of the big flush, and the magas and millionaires will not hear it until they are rapidly swirling at G-force near the threshold of the sewer drain. They've been leading us there, so may they go first, please.
As you likely know, the billionaires and millionaires have been building luxury bunkers. My favorite is the ones built in abandoned Atlas missile silos. They will go last and probably feel a bit mopey without us to torture as they eat the last of their caviar and drink their last bottle of Dom Pérignon P3 Plenitude Brut Rose champagne. Poor things.
And start eating each other. Will they go from poorest first? Do a lottery? Wait until one of them dies? Save a few of us for slave labor and livestock? Macabre I know. But sociopaths are capable of stunning atrocities.
I hear you. The poorest, of course, suffer and die first, as always. Being poor is proof of their superiority, why should they care about those losers? Your scenario of a few spared for labor is plausible, hell sadly logical. I wrote about that in 2022. I was able to write yesterday, but the state of shock and feeling of doom linger. The doom part may be permanent. Let's hang in there together. We need community. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/circumstantial-evidence
Then they’ll come back in-utero to earth again to finish out their karma to earth & humanity. Most of us on our last lives, but not them. They’ll come back to this purgatory they’ve created & be miserable. It’ll be awesome, watching from heaven in nirvana.
Thank you for that impassioned whirlwind recounting of early American history and the writing you've done on climate collapse, my greatest concern at this juncture. I have been attempting to call our attention to the fact 13 million fewer Dems voted for Harris/Walz this time (81M - 13M= 68M), and Our Mad King (wannabe) Donald got 1.4M fewer votes this time around, so 14.4M Americans who voted in 2020 just stayed home or voted for a 3rd party that never gets reported by the useless MSM. What we are seeing is the final congealing of the Fascist forces that had been lurking in the wings all along, as the powerful monied aristocracy gathers in a bundle (fasces) to tighten its grip on the rest of us. A fine fellow, Steve Rattner, did a brilliant job of illustrating what's wrong with America on Morning Joe today, put simply, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. 10 billionaires are said to be $64B richer today, thanks to their man's "victory".
We are headlong into a total climate collapse and the fat cats see it coming, so they're going to milk the government and every other source of money to feather their air conditioned nests to ride it out. I've got some news for them: you can run but you cannot hide from Mother Nature and God almighty. Clearly, the middle is not holding and catastrophe looms. And what of the children? At the current rate of global heating and all of its spin-off climate destruction, we may well see an uninhabitable hothouse planet by 2047, when we could reach 6 degC over the 1991-2020 baseline (C3S) and any child unfortunate enough to be born today turns 23. God help us and Mother Earth please forgive us. Gregg Miklashek, MD
The predictions of temperature rise seem to be all over the map these days. 2.5° to 3.1° by 2100 seems to be the consensus I'm familiar with. On the other hand, many scientists seem to feel climate models have been far too conservative. We face 6 of 9 planetary limits surpassed at this point, but probably the temperature rise is the most immediately dire and concerning, since it's fueling these already huge storms and fires. This suggests economic collapse first (we already see the effects on the insurance industry) and diminished agriculture production at a rate that might start linearly, but could become exponentially worse. When, I don't know, and although I read a lot, mind you I am not a scientist.
You have more statistical information than I do about the disastrous election, but people simply giving up is not surprising. We've had decades of poor leadership and diminished hope as neoliberal economics have taken hold. Haven't seen anything about 6°C over by 2047. Sounds like a worst case climate model.
I agree, the wealthy powerful know the score and the statistics on the rate of increasing wealth disparity are stunning. As you say, they have their bunkers. I have a collection of articles on that. My favorite is the ones being built in abandoned Atlas missile silos. That appeals to my macabre sense of humor, an asset these days.
I thought, with Harris, there might be some hope for at least slowing an apocalypse. With Trump, there is no hope short of throwing our bodies in the gears of the machine. I didn't go there with this essay. I suppose I am trying to make people see the light on their own, pounding people over the head rarely works. Hence, the brief history lesson to show a pattern.
Thanks for your input. Love every moment. The moment is all we ever have anyhow.
Thank you for another intelligent, thoughtful reply. Most of all, in this time of increases Fascist traction in America, we need to know that we are not alone. Seems to me that an "alternative" media has spawned and is growing, outside the standard vacuous "(anti)social media" channels. Again, I encourage you and others to reference the EU sponsored independent Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) for accurate climate science. Have a blessed day and keep on keepin' on. Gregg
Thanks, I've referenced info from Copernicus other articles. It appears there's new content there. I agree, we need community more than ever now. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees platforms like this remain stable or safe.
My reply is not very intelligent, as I’m exhausted & depleted from the past week…but the earth is dying! It’s almost 85 F today in north Florida in mid November. So hot! Like hell. Sometimes it’s hot for 10-11 months out of the year. I worry for our Mother. Heartbroken. The evil who harmed humanity will pay with their karma, at least in their next lives..not us, we’re going Home to heaven. Elon can take his kind to Mars, as he betrays the earth & Humanity. He won’t get away with it, tho. Light AWAYS overcomes darkness, eventually. It’s a law of physics.
ALWAYS*
We're all depleted from the last week. Time to recharge and fight harder. Buffalo is hot too, hit the 70s a few days ago. Elon has probably improved his chances of getting to Mars by getting cozy with Trump, but the odds of him getting there are still poor, and building a colony and terraforming a planet far worse. Delusional, adolescent fantasies.
The super rich, knowing the collapse is coming, have bet on it. Once having placed their bets, they are now making sure the bets pay off. They are going to Thelma and Louise the planet and we are locked in the truck.
Yes, they know. We can't prove it, but the circumstantial evidence is there.
https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/circumstantial-evidence
We will never get our sanity back. It will get worse from here. We are descending into the end times. I am not a religious person but when you put the religious books next to the science and you connect the dots you can see what we can expect. One side is how nature will act. The other side is how humanity will react. The story and the science provide the whole picture. I wish this was not so. But I know that it is.
Animals in captivity that are stressed do horrible things to each other. Humans are animals. The stress will continue to grow and we will see the extremes come out.
I dated a dedicated Christian woman for nine months, rather odd for an atheist I suppose, but she was bright, pretty, educated, and we didn't impose our views, just shared them. It was interesting that we both agreed we're screwed, Angie through her biblical teachings and me through my dispassionate observation of our behavior and the world we have created. Perhaps the early writers of the Bible were simply gifted in predicting the results of human behavior.
The religious books are showing us the results of the breaking apart of our holistic intelligence. Moving out of Eden was coming out of the Amazon. It is moving from indigenous to societies.
We are supposed to use emotions and intellect to navigate life.
Our systems would never get this large without separating them. They get this large because we specialize. It works until we lose the holistic thinkers from leardership. When we forget the value of the big picture and get too focused on the present we bring about our own demise.
Although not religious, I have a spiritual side in how I feel about the interconnectedness of all things. It's easy to feel in the woods on a mountain, marveling at all the life and wonder occurs in those places at night lying on a hill far from artificial light when eyes open enough to see the vastness of the stars. There's a humility we have lost, and too many people never experience nature. Many indigenous people still feel and try to nurture this connection, in spite of how we turned their world on its head. Spiritual wisdom is real and necessary if we are to have a future.
We have barely scratched the surface of the big picture, and much of it lives inside us. We have forgotten this.
Carl Segan, where are all the people like Carl Segan? He managed to maintain his holistic intelligence.
In order to see the entire patterns of space, first we must feel the patterns of the world. All the patterns are the same. They repeat.
Revelations says there will be a new earth and a new heaven.
I worry the elite are taking this literally. It could also mean we might have to live under ground. It is saying the change will be profound.
In order for us to navigate the change coming first we must know the world in its full dimensions, not 2D. .
We can no longer divide afford to divide our intelligence. Society is falling, we have to learn to live in a way we have not lived for at least 6k years.
I homeschool my children for this reason. It gives us much more time to spend on the deep understanding. This is holistic intelligence and if we want our children to survive this is what we must teach them. Super focus, something we have pathologized, is actually the highest form of cognition. It is holistic processing. We need to unlock our children. We need to do this yesterday.
Love Carl. Out of date now, but I have a copy of Cosmos. Another science type author I miss is Barry Lopez. He also expressed that duality of knowledge, intellect and spiritual that makes a person complete.
We have been in Heaven the whole time. The Earth is the Garden of Eden. We have reached our make-or-break moment. Either we awaken spiritually or we die. A handful of us see this, but those that run the circus don't, or find our quiet intelligence threatening. Although it's counter to who we want to be, it's time to get bloody. There is no reasoning with the fools who run the show.
Will we be sheep or fight?
There’s been unprecedented swarms of unexplained locusts the past few years in Africa, too. Scary AF. The end times for sure, but not like these Bible freaks think.
Yes. Ditto. I believe trump is the antichrist the Bible speaks of & his followers wear his mark (“MAGA”) on their foreheads.
It’s 5:30 AM, Friday, November 8, and I’ve barely been sleeping. Whatever passes for God is bugging me. It didn’t give me the brilliance to know how to be heard, but it gave me the message to be delivered.
Once, years ago, I did a Lady Godiva under its instructions and got naked at an open mic. It caused a big stir, but it didn’t go beyond the 110 shocked people who were at a conference to save the world that had descended into chaos. The only obvious effect it had was to get my ticket cancelled to help facilitate a smaller group of honchos, who would be meeting soon with a similar purpose -- the FedEx letter I got, from its organizer who'd helped organize the debacle I’d been at, explained in his letter that the cancellation was because the upcoming event was too important and I was too dangerous.
Guess what. Here’s the deal. This new assignment from on high is to get going on citizen action. Fast and big. There are new circumstances now. They have the world sizzling. That’s good. The tune has changed from "I’m just one person" to "What can I do?" Now, pain is pulsing. Like what’s here.
I was on a call with 50,000 people yesterday. My iPad ran out of juice after two hours and it still was going strong. It was movement-building and speaker after speaker was passionate and smart. Everyone was worth listening to, and the moderator was brilliant. Poor Kamala. She could have gotten lessons. I joined the army that the moderator girl recruited, to host local gatherings. Actually, it was the opposite of here, Geoff, where there’s a brilliance to ain’t it awful, to where there it was ain’t it possible! It was an oasis. A gigantic one. An unexpected one. And – drumroll – a useless one.
Oh. That sounds awful. It also was the hope of the world. A track to the right place. But here’s where I step in with the puny voice that the God puppeteer gave me, to say we’ll all be dead by the time this movement could move anything. They were locked in with movement-building taking years and God bless their passion and their willingness, but with deregulation and drill baby drill coming a couple of months from now we will drown swimming to our new reality before anything gets built.
Oh God, why me? It's the opposite to my being too dangerous to have a voice, but you are making me too smart -- smart enough to know what will end humanity as we know it and stuck with my inadequacy to get any attention on my brilliance.
I am going to embarrass myself now. I said yes to an astrologer who entered my essay contest for saving the world and asked to do me. He said the greatest love of my life is to come. This white-haired lady here was dubious, but “it’s in the stars“ he says. Now, if this this love were a billionaire he could buy billboards. Or whatever. Gather the rest of his billionaire clan maybe, and I’d get people like you to meet with them to get them to compete for who can do the most good.
Then I’d get some sleep – perhaps on one of Jeff Bezos’s two yachts along with the refugees from Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan who my billionaire would have gotten him to turn it over to as an attention-getter for how wild the efforts to wake the world up to working could be. So, hey, you compatriots competing for doomsayer literary prizes, go scouting for me while you wrack your brains for what to tell my moneybags love-of-my life about what he could do.
So, as I’m writing this draft, that I’ll do some work on for my Substack on Tuesday, the sun is rising. Could it be the dawn of a new reality?
I think many of us have been searching for that brilliance you speak of. Those of us branded doomers have been trying to wake people up, which is a positive thing, not a doom thing. Denial is doom. The future can't be made better without unflinchingly understanding the past and present. Being saddled with knowledge, but without power to affect change, is a heavy burden. I have had a sense we were in deep trouble since my late teens. I wish I had done more, much earlier.
Wednesday after the election was a processing day. Thursday, to my surprise, I was able to write this article. I wrote again yesterday, and intend to keep going.
No one of us can change the future, it takes a movement and physical risk.
The Democrats have made the mistake of becoming too much like the other party, instead of strengthening the work of FDR. They lost their courage. You and I must have courage, and the 50,000 on that call can embolden more people to take the risks that are necessary. To not take risks at this point guarantees a poor outcome.
You're right, we need someone with power and wealth to step forward, and refugees on a luxury yacht would be a powerful symbol. Bezos of course has shown his cowardice. Please everyone boycott Amazon and show Jeff we can hurt hm as much as Trump can. Ditto on everything billionaires sell us we don't absolutely need. It's a powerful and SAFE way to make a difference, while some of us stick our necks out.
Rest and process as you need to, Suzanne. Enjoy your dogs. Animals offer something people can't. What's coming is going to require a lot of energy and community. It's a sprint now, not a marathon, but we have to rest as well. Invest in your local, physical community. The bastards can pull the plug on what we have online at any moment. We can't afford to be alone.
We haven’t even tried to organize a force for the good. I am so glad we are connected, and I keep telling my subscribers to pay attention to you for grounding us in what we have come from that we need to understand for intelligent thinking about what we can do. More of that is in tomorrow’s post.
I lost the likes this had when I found I'd left out a couple of words and added them in. I'm on the prowl for allies, so if you liked it and see it again please like it again.
I have just been numb ever since the elections results were announced. If I were younger and had no family here, I would seriously consider moving to a different country. Reading your last two articles and the comments from people who are aware of what is really happening have helped.
The next four years are going to be difficult, but maybe we need to have the attitude that we can't fix everything. All we can do is try to put off disaster as long as possible and minimize the damage. At the same time, we need to protect our own mental health by keeping in touch with people who see Trump and his gang of crazies for what they really are.
So, we should spend time working to slow climate change, fix our country, and alleviate the problems of the world; but also try to keep a sense of humor, relax with friends, and save time to do something we enjoy. Then we can tackle the tough problems with more energy and keep our sanity at the same time.
I wouldn't know what country to move to anymore. None obviously are immune to climate change, and governments seem to be crazy in many places. There's even a fascist element in Sweden. The next four years are going to be worse than difficult, I'm afraid. Trump has sworn vengeance on his enemies, and the goals of Project 2025 are dystopian. Women have already been dying from medical care refused during pregnancy, and abortion may be banned nationally. I didn't write it in this essay, but taking to the streets an enduring batons, jail and potential loss of life is now necessary. Tipping points are at hand or even exceeded at this point, such as the Greenland ice sheet I wrote about a few articles ago. Climate migration is already under way, and economies so tied together will fall like dominoes.
That green renewable economy? How will we build it when fossil fuels are too expensive to extract? We're reaching that point, or we wouldn't be dealing with fracking and tar sand oils, much more difficult and expensive to extract. It's all a big lie to keep us calm.
“It’s all a big lie to keep us calm.” Spot on. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I just showed my 13-y-o daughter Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”, & “Fahrenheit 11/9” for Veteran’s Day today… God help us all. Praying for the world for Christian nationalist to NOT take over.
Is it even possible to stay sane in these insane times?
The drop in voter participation to me signals an attitude of “meh” to the proposition of losing democracy in the US.
Yes the world is on the brink of environmental collapse and the slim chance that the worst effects could be averted has died with Trump’s election. It will literally be “all gas no brakes “ as we go over the cliff.
Yeah, it's hard to know what to do from here. I'd tell you what I'd like to do, but I don't want to get locked up.
Same here
Have we even had a democracy ever? Based on the early white colonial history, we came from empire and have enthusiastically maintained this mode of conquest, destruction of the nest, and subjugation of all life forms.
We, as in some of us as in white males were given the right to vote rather than simply have a king. However, I agree, we have never lived up to the true standards a real democracy demands. It feels worse than ever now with free speech always abused with lies becoming ever more toxic and pervasive. The ones that voted for Trump live in the world of FOX News and numerous other streams of constant disinformation.
A fair point to make. I was mostly thinking about how voting participation rates have been in long term decline and in particular turnout in the 2024 election was far below what it was in 2020.
But true representative democracy is something we haven’t seen very much of. In Canada the closest we get to it is when we have a minority government in place where the governing coalition actually then represents a majority of those voting.
The Earth ultimately gets a veto on human endeavours and we are starting to experience that.
Yes, it is All gas, no brakes. and "pedal to metal" won't fix things. But sometimes with the "pedal to metal" people it is like when you have to take the "flat earther" and say "lets go look over the edge". They won't realize that it won't work until the whole damned thing collapses.
Yesterday's attitude has turned to a feeling of doom. I suspect it's going to be a worse ride than we can imagine. It's time to gather friends and family and make a plan.
A good time to watch Don’t Look Up.
Yes, that's applicable, but unfortunately without the humor.
You are probably going to cycle through that a few times between now and January, but your conviction is solid.
And, yes, gather friends, and family, and neighbours close.
Beautiful and educational words of intelligence and wisdom. Thank you.
We are prisoners in a multi-national corporate controlled world. Corporate criminal greed will eventually destroy life on earth, unless we unite, stay united and stop them.
Without hope, we are dead.
Kamala Harris has fought against corporate pollution and corporate oil company crime in California and won. Kamala Harris has helped to pass the most aggressive environmental laws in the world.
Kamala Harris is a very intelligent environmentalist, humanitarian, politically progressive and a minority woman. Of course, the psycho, ultra-wealthy, sexist, conservatives of Heritage Foundation, Saudi Arabians and Isreal pooled their efforts to defeat her presidency.
Despite the arguments, of course Kamala Harris does not support genocide.
America is corrupted by multi billionaire, international corporate business men. It is a disgrace that no one has called for a re-count of the vote. Even if it cannot be proven, any intelligent person knows that the election and the Trump clown and maga clowns are a sham.
Never Say Die!
I am all in favor of continuing to fight. Even if the cause becomes lost, I want to see the deserving feel pain. The worst thing we can do now is go along. Unfortunately, history shows most do just that.
Kamala dd some good things as CA AG. No doubt she's intelligent. Tragically, right wing media from FOX to AM radio and podcasts have successfully created a voice in large swathes of the country that drown out truth, and the Democrats have failed to protect average Americans, so here we are.
I’m pissed at the Dems & DNC. Just watched “Fahrenheit 9/11” & “Fahrenheit 11/9” (again). I showed my 13-y-o daughter for Veteran’s Day. F them for shoving Hilary & Biden down our throats when we wanted Bernie 2 Xs!! They lied about the winner in swing states & shoved those as**es down our throats! They gave the country to Trump! So F them too!!!
Geoff: Thank you for the distillation of historical patterns that have gotten us to a place of oppression disguised as "opportunity." The land where one can pull themselves up by the bootstraps-a lie that has been perpetuated while people are marginalized at increasing and alarming rates. The working class falling prey to Trump, like he will save them... as he cozies up with the billionaires.
I wore black this entire week, mourning the election outcome. I am trying to process the loss (literally) and emotionally the any semblance for a hopeful future. I am not in denial, I continue to be angry and sad-but I will never come to acceptance. The grief cycle is a continuous process.
I respect what you write. You provide an impressive set of facts and insights that help me process the PAIN!
Thank you, Pam. I think my writing helps ME process a lot, too. That I have built a little community here offers comfort, and that what I write — while often stressful — offers some answers and perspective.
History tells the future because motives and behavior never change. I remember rolling my eyes a lot in 10th grade American History class.
It will be interesting going forward how I handle my thoughts and writing. I have repeatedly told my readers my words could become dangerous to me. That day is quickly approaching now. My only safety is being a little fish in the great, big (and overheated) sea.
Thank you Geoffrey, for taking a stab at Hopium and boycotting beef (humans and cattle are in biological overshoot). Very sorry that America could have ever gotten to this point, that a schmuck like this could ever be a candidate and result in such a devastating demise of the country. Welcome to the dawn of a new day in Gilead! I keep thinking of what COULD have been on this small blue globe, but humans have blown it.
Yeah, we had everything we needed. Living in stick huts, and hunting with spears, had its good points. I wrote about that contrasting the Jamestown settlers to the Wampanoag tribe.
https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/imagine-an-earth-first-policy
Really, we don't have to go back to the stone age. Things weren't bad before the early '50s, yes I remember that, before proliferation of plastics, building of Interstate Hwys, two doublings of planetary population, etc. And the forever-wars, when instead there was supposed to be the peace dividend. Ha, ha. See Ike's last address.
Yep, Fuck everyone and Run
I could be wrong, but reading this gave me the sense that you are still very hopeful for humanity as a whole. I'm not.
The idea that any politician, left or right can have any meaningful affect on the outcome of collapse is to the point of self deprecating, delusion. The incoherent vavidness of Kamala, and the buffoonery of Trump are merely symptoms of a dieing empire.l, and things will get much much worse in the coming years. People were always going to choose Trump because he represents a time before the decline.
I guess what I'm saying is that humans will go full speed ahead right over the cliff, pedal to the metal. Carbon credits, solar panels and electric cars are a complete joke, a bandaid sloppily placed on a gunshot wound to the head. Drill baby drill. Why not, the energy hungry super organism has spoken.
I wouldn't say I am hopeful. Humanity's arc of behavior has led us to this precipice. It surprises me that you found my tone hopeful. I try to be neither hopeful nor pessimistic, I try to present the issues as they are.
I agree the Democrats are an incoherent mess. The Republicans have devolved to fascists on wheels. Neoliberal economics swept over the world and came for America last. Trump is in part a product of the Democratic Party becoming ever more beholden to dark money and lost principles. They have given away their role in my lifetime of being the party for the common person. Bernie, whatever his faults, is the last of those voices.
I don't know how many of my articles you have read, but some of them have been quite doomy. I have avoided going full doom, trying to present information for people to digest and come to their own conclusions. While our window of opportunity has been closing, I haven't wanted to completely throw cold water on hope, because not fighting is a guaranteed outcome. Without hope, there is no fighting.
No doubt the election has made slim odds far slimmer. If people don't stand up and fight, we're done. We may be done anyhow. I suspect it, writing on overshoot recently and the state of the Greenland ice sheet. There are many other tipping points at hand.
I do hope more people will fight, even if the cause is lost. Punching nasty people in the mouth is far better than succumbing as fearful passive sheep, at least for me. Thank you for your thoughts.
While many have already heard the sound of the big flush, and the magas and millionaires will not hear it until they are rapidly swirling at G-force near the threshold of the sewer drain. They've been leading us there, so may they go first, please.
As you likely know, the billionaires and millionaires have been building luxury bunkers. My favorite is the ones built in abandoned Atlas missile silos. They will go last and probably feel a bit mopey without us to torture as they eat the last of their caviar and drink their last bottle of Dom Pérignon P3 Plenitude Brut Rose champagne. Poor things.
And start eating each other. Will they go from poorest first? Do a lottery? Wait until one of them dies? Save a few of us for slave labor and livestock? Macabre I know. But sociopaths are capable of stunning atrocities.
I hear you. The poorest, of course, suffer and die first, as always. Being poor is proof of their superiority, why should they care about those losers? Your scenario of a few spared for labor is plausible, hell sadly logical. I wrote about that in 2022. I was able to write yesterday, but the state of shock and feeling of doom linger. The doom part may be permanent. Let's hang in there together. We need community. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/circumstantial-evidence
May their children & grandchildren for generations to come be cursed to suffer.
Then they’ll come back in-utero to earth again to finish out their karma to earth & humanity. Most of us on our last lives, but not them. They’ll come back to this purgatory they’ve created & be miserable. It’ll be awesome, watching from heaven in nirvana.
Are you cool then with me having North America climb its way back to sanity?
OMG man, anyone who can accomplish that has my heart.