I think the movie "Threads" is an accurate portrayal of what civilization has in store. If you like just substitute nuclear war with climate change. It will be much the same just minus the radioactive fallout.
Humans were natures big mistake in the scheme of things. It may not have been so much of a mistake as "let's try this and see what happens" oops. Where would the planet and life be without human existence right now? Doing just fine. Humans had their chance and failed quite miserably for whatever the many reasons- mainly the one thing that really raises the hair on their necks called overpopulation. The unmentionable. Something science gave a solution to that has been ignored and even suppressed and demonized. So for an average of two minutes pleasure with a few seconds of ecstatic muscle contractions followed by "Was it good for you too" and deep sleep for the males, we now find ourselves in a mass extinction event.
"Be fruitful and multiply" ran it's course 2 hundred years ago.
WTF is really a convenient summary for human existence and meaning.
If you don't believe me, consider the two richest men on the planet promoting populating the solar system with trillions of humans and Trump giving away $5000 bonuses for women having children in the cause of "patriotic duty ". It brings about a whole new meaning to "Drill baby drill".
I'll share widely for you. It's a great article as always. Thanks.
Haven't seen Threads, so I can't comment on that. However, I think Planet of the Apes bears some merit. If it wasn't Homo sapiens screwing things up, I suspect it would be our closest cousins chimps, who display some of the same violent behavior we carry out on one and other.
Our population is a problem, a subject that quickly becomes touchy for a lot of folks, understandably, and it's true without billionaires and reasonable wealth distribution we could do better. The maximum population figure is debated. 4 billion? 2 billion? 1 billion? I suppose it's a moot debate anyhow as we're projected to reach 10 billion soon.
The promotion of population may be motivated by having bodies for war, which as fossil fuels run out could become medieval in nature and need lots of bodies with no way to power warplanes, drones, tanks, etc. But I'm just speculating, I really haven't thought about that. I probably won't care to. And of course my speculation assumes nobody pushes The Big Button first.
Without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, the maximum supported human population is estimated to be around 2 to 3 billion people, which is roughly what the world could sustain with traditional agriculture before the mid-20th century.
However, the world population was in the range of 1.5 to 2 billion before modern medicine and widespread fertilizers, suggesting that this might be closer to the natural carrying capacity.
Both Pollan and Smil have looked at this. Pollan put the top possible global population at around 2 billion without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Smil in his 2001 book put the top number at around 3 billion.
One of the implications of degrowth is that there will NEVER be this many humans alive "at once" EVER again.
I do not think that the human population level is going to get much larger. Too many of the factors you discuss are working against us now.
2025: a year of unrelenting crises - World Food Programme
Acute hunger continues at alarming highs. As of November 2024, 343 million people were identified as acutely food insecure in 74 countries where WFP works and data is available.
Projections indicate a potential increase to over 950 million people facing severe food insecurity by 2030 if significant policy changes and investments are not made.
The insurance industry actuaries think that global population could drop as much as 1.5 billion at +2°C warming.
The population figures you suggest align with the ranges I have read, and yes, there is some creeping skepticism we will hit 10 billion by 2050. I didn't weigh in, because I haven't taken a deep dive into that topic. In addition to the factors in this article we have plastics causing infertility and people choosing not to have children because the future is so bleak.
Yes, when nitrogen fertilizers go away it's going to be epic. Art Berman's estimate of EROI on oil is a real hinge here. I would love to uncover corroborating opinions or evidence.
Hunger as always is an issue destined to become much worse. Hell, hunger is an issue in the US. Cutting kid's lunch programs the poor depend on is a huge blow to those families. Fortunately, we Americans won't have to witness world starvation much or own up to our role, just as we don't witness the Gaza genocide thanks to our corrupt media.
No doubt, the people working on vertical gardening and high-tech solutions have their hearts in the right place. There are two fundamental problems though. Feeding an ever-growing population is bound to fail on this finite planet, and their work fails to recognize all of that tech, like all tech, requires fossil fuels which for all intents and purposes will be played out in 50 years, give or take. Small scale local and regional farming is the future IF we're lucky. Unlike those who practiced such methods before FF powered machines and fertilizers took over, the challenges of climate change, topsoil loss and a shrinking insect population will pose additional profound challenges. We are rapidly heading for a low tech, low energy world and would be wise to focus on how we can make that happen.
When I posted the vertical farming video, asking if it was viable, this was his response:
"Vertical food production on a planet in collapse...nothing like becoming even MORE dependent on technology use, huh? When the grid collapses, these facilities will become brownfields, just like all other industrial/commercial factories, warehouses, and buildings."
Hi Sue, I did watch the video, and I do believe there are elements that will help immediately and (if humans are to survive) long term as well.
Vertical farming in particular has the advantages of low water use, no soil degradation, fewer chemicals used because of a controlled environment, better yields, and producing close to consumption so less energy to transport. It is also possible to “scale down” some of the principles so that individuals can grow some things for themselves (minus the robots lol).
Even the chemical inputs can be produced without fossil fuels… if you have chickens for example you can get all the nitrogen you need.
But beyond 2.5 degrees of warming it all goes to hell regardless.
Any viable argument for what could help us could get trial by fire with the collapse group I just mentioned in my response to Geoffrey. Is there any mileage to get from engaging with them?
A very sobering report. It's interesting that most Native American tribes contemplated the impacts of major tribal action as far as seven generations into the future, and we can only get ourselves to think about a decade down the line. And there is great irony in the Doomsday Prepper survivalists dwelling on learning the old ways of surviving while having their attention monopolized by their Iphones.
Native American tribes and Indigenous people in general seem to view the Earth much differently than Caucasians. Jared Diamond posed some of this question in Guns, Germs and Steel. Some argue whites in cold climates were formed by that experience seeing nature as hostile and to be conquered and controlled, yet Eskimos living with similar conditions respected nature just as their more southerly cousins did. It's an interesting question.
What will preppers do when they can't replace their water filters, solar cells, or Carhartt jackets? They need to think seven generations ahead, too.
It’s a crime that indigenous people have not been empowered to manage any public lands. They are the real stewards of the land. In Oregon, tribes are finally being given a real say in land management. Numerous dam removals are already a success, as salmon are returning throughout the network of rivers and streams that they were blocked off from for generations.
The indigenous deserve respect and reparations. I wish the success you mention in Oregon was more widespread. Instead, we have oil pipelines being jammed through supposedly sovereign tribal land, and lithium mining operations destroying their communities. They are still being colonized.
The U.S. has never met a treaty with Native Americans that they didn’t hurry to violate. Native Americans have been used, abused and completely disregarded. I have never heard of any federal legislation being passed that favored the tribes. Of course, those laws would have been quickly dismantled and ignored, just like all the rest of the bogus “treaties.”
Some notes: Cattle traffic on pastures creates “cattle pan,” a dense layer 12-18” down, which restricts moisture movement and available root depth. “Tractor pan” from equipment traffic is another dense layer 12-24” deep. After a while, these must be broken up with deep hook-type plows. Any plowing of fields should result in a huge carbon tax, since this causes big release of CO2, methane and soil moisture, plus the damage to soil organisms. One needs to examine soil horizons over time to see the damage being done - loss from water and wind erosion and loss of depth of organic matter layer, which is the basis for life. Alfalfa is often used in crop rotations since it has deep roots and assists in nitrogen capture. Nitrogen is a main limiting factor to food supply, so nitrogen fertilizers are a necessity. Different methods are in development for avoiding producing nitrogen fertilizers (ammonia) from fossil fuels. Every crop takes away mineral content which must be replaced. Even cutting hat or grazing takes away mineral content. There is no free lunch. No soil should be left exposed to weather, it should always have something for cover such as a mulch. Insect loss is part of the 6th extinction. Remember before about 1989, the amount of dead insects killed by car windshields? Not anymore, all gone. Pesticides, destruction of natural areas and warmer summers (and traffic) are taking down the insects (and pollinators) which has knock-on effects such as food for spiders and insect larvae to feed baby birds. So people ask, where have all the birds gone? See these links:
You are correct on all points. Industrial farming practices come with numerous downsides that are largely unknown to the average person and I well remember bugs on windshields, fairly gross. When I had motorcycles, June bugs hitting my visor were particularly revolting. I remember butterflies caught in car grills, particularly sad. I never even get a crazy housefly zipping through the house anymore. Thank you for the links. I have added them to my bulging extinction folder.
It's becoming more obvious that the oligarch's plans are meant to starve as many as possible, even in the US. Chasing off those who work in agriculture and raising tariffs are just part of the way they plan on doing it. Eugenics is also on their plans. It's in Project 2025.
I wonder what the people who called me an alarmist, hysterical, and overwrought are thinking now?
We seem to be entering a perfect storm. Reducing what little remains of the middle class to poverty will add to desperation, and further employer control. The lives of those who have been poor with no way out will become untenable. Suicides of desperation will increase just as homelessness has year after year. The usual racist tropes will be used to falsely assign blame in a society of systemic racism, even if laws have improved since the civil rights movement. Killing a targeted demographic in this way could be considered a sneaky form of eugenics in itself, and there is no doubt racism is much of the core of this administration.
For the most part, I doubt that 30 percent base will wake up. You can't teach people who deny science and are likely racist at heart as well. The ugliness truly wearies me some days.
I noted the figure, publicised here in Substack, that Trump’s ratings are at 42%, but that it is down mostly because of his poor management of the economy.
In other words, his draconian anti-immigrant actions, with ICE thugs snatching people off the streets, locking them up and deporting them to South Sudan or El Salvador, all without due process or trial, that is just fine!
If you are an American in America right now, there is roughly a 50/50 chance the person standing next to you supports Trumps racist actions.
In fact, if that person is white, the probability is actually far higher!
And that means for all your life in America, at least half of white Americans have been hiding their deeply held beliefs in racism. Trump has just given them permission to come out into the open with it!
Question. Does that change your view in the America you grew up in?
I have seen that Trump's ratings may be even lower, but don't particularly trust polls. The idea of standing shoulder to shoulder with Trump supporters is disturbing, and I am aware. Years ago I had a similar feeling when I was speaking out against the animal testing industry. Do we really need to pour laundry detergent into the eyes of rabbits to know it's caustic? What kind of person could do that?
My view of America growing up was one of growing awareness of its terrible flaws and hypocrisies. Being taught Manifest Destiny in high school was a real eye roller for me. I had the hugely great fortune to read some of the best authors of my parents and the preceding generation from The Grapes of Wrath and To Kill a Mockingbird, to Slaughterhouse Five and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I have spent my life opting out of the system to the best of my ability. I have no investments which inevitably tie back to social injustice and pillaging the Earth.
Now, due to health problems I can no longer hike and bicycle in the mountains and enjoy nature as I once did, so I attempt to warn of her demise as best I can. It doesn't bring the joy I once felt, but it does give me purpose.
So no, my view hasn't changed. I've seen the lies and greed since I was a kid.
It is, I think, just as caustic to live in a place that fundamentally disagrees with your views, but also the views of every right-thinking, moral, ethical human being. At that point you get to realise you are fundamentally living in 'the problem' and are not part of the solution.
I first came to my own realisation of that in 1970's industrial Britain, not least because I grew up near a coal mining area, in a city that grew rich off it. The connection between its pollution impact and the wealth a few people made from it was slow to impact, but when I finally understood, everything shifted.
The 1980's and Thatcher made me wonder if I was wrong, that perhaps the meaning I sought WAS money and wealth. From zilch, it took me three years and 5 start-up companies to become a £ millionaire, and then the 1989 crash took much of it away again! Educational, at least!
It was in France I found my home, but a few years more before I could finally move there for good. Life in France is fundamentally different to the Anglo-Saxon striving for more, bigger, wealthier, faster..... it suits me much better. I so wish I had been born here. My life could have been so much easier and more suited to me being me.
I can only imagine the damage living in an America under Trump must feel like for those of us blessed and cursed by a greater awareness and sensitivity to our version of reality. I struggled to live in Britain (America Lite, as I see it) and perhaps that will go down a similar crass path with Farage. SO glad to be away from there!
Keep up the good work. I and many more obviously appreciate what you think and say.
I try to say what I think and believe, albeit to a small audience, but perhaps every now and again I trigger some thought process or idea for someone that'll have some impact, change a few minds. Perhaps in times like these, that's the best we can hope for.
I have no illusions about what I do here. My audience is small, and I would do far better writing about cats I like to joke. Although I have lived small compared to most Americans, I am keenly aware of my outsized impact on the planet by being one.
In addition to the books I read growing up, witnessing my father's struggles from making ethical decisions rather than politically popular ones was influential. He was the bread winner for our family of four, and we all paid a price for his integrity. I wanted to keep life as simple as possible, and when I took work in an ad agency after graduation as a designer, the experience was forming. The agency was a nightmare, but its location in the bucolic countryside of upstate NY was heaven with hills, views, history and mountains in every direction. Time — doing things — became much more interesting to me than wealth.
I feel fortunate that the dead job market I graduated in sent me to this bizarre agency literally on a dirt road with the Hudson River at hand and villages and mansions that made history real every day on every bicycle ride.
My writing is in part an attempt to pay back a pretty good life. I can no longer do the things I love, but I can speak on their behalf.
Unfortunately, Geoffrey, I did not see as clearly as you. I drank the Kool Aid, bought the bullshit about American exceptionalism and generally believed that despite America’s troubles, we would inevitably always aim to do the right thing.
My education was a pack of lies. The news I heard was lies. My friends? They were as unknowing as I was.
It’s difficult knowing that a fascist takeover of our democracy happened during the course of my lifetime. That I was, until recently, completely oblivious to that dysfunction and the ongoing destructive acts of our corrupt government.
You are so good I might add you to the group I suggest take over the U.S. presidency in a coup: Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Anne Applebaum, and Marianne Williamson.
Good essay. Thank you. I’d make one meaningful observation: plowing a field as the Amish man in your photo is doing is incredibly harmful to soil health. No question his approach is less harmful than mechanical plowing, but we now know it’s counter-productive.
Thank you. I suspect the Amish use cover crops and rotation to keep the soil healthy. Short of hunting and gathering, I'm not sure what sustainable farming practices look like. In part, we simply have too many mouths to feed, a population only enabled by fossil fuels. It's a terrible problem. Even no-till farming has downsides, and if Art Berman is right no-till farming may be problematic as well.
These political and social circumstances are certainly sickening, but the current rising food prices are not related to tariffs or politics. They are directly the result of weather events and crop failures. Those will not diminish ever again, so food prices will continue to rise until neighbors get in gun battles over the last bags of lentils.
I agree with you food inflation is being driven by weather caused crop failure, and that is going to be a permanent feature now. Energy prices will continue to rise, exacerbated by AI for which many average people are now footing increased electric and water bills. The tariffs are a factor, but not the fundamental one as you point out.
Right. It's not the expense of tariffs on food we're importing. Our crops are doing better than most other countries. It's the fact that they are competing for our exports, which is driving up the prices of our domestic supplies.
Good point. I would add the day approaches when the imports we take for granted become unavailable. Countries will be struggling to feed their own people. The nations we export to will likely become problematic, too, as economies struggle.
Positing the U.S. as the #1 economy is balderdash; America lives on the savings of the rest of the world and is about to get VERY much poorer for a very long time. The export of your debt to the rest of the world has collapsed and your "economy" collapsing not long afterward. You DO NOT have the productivity (or EROEI) to pay for imports of food OR your toys. Get used to it, tRump's legacy, Make America Grovel Again.
There has arguably been virtually no middle class in this country for decades. It's all been a house of cards of debt. We have extracted the planet to the point of collapse of human inhabitability. Now, the bill is due.
Half of the corn and soy is going into our cars and trucks as ethanol or biodiesel. So really we are competing with our cars and obviously our cars are the most important thing to modern man. Food is a byproduct.
Thank you. Although the failing inhabitability of the planet was my reason for starting this project, Gaza is always on my mind. Both point to profound, fatal, behavioral problems.
echoing the thanks for gaza 💜 it's dispiriting how many don't get the connection between ecocide & genocide, both inflicted by us "moderns;" it's painful how many writers i otherwise respect barely mention it.
also, thanks for another wonderful article. it's long & i'm busy so i have to keep coming back to it over the course of several days to get through it!
Thank you for the literal food for thought. The statistics are mind-boggling, but the daily realities we face will ultimately lead to a tipping point for targeted action. With so much chaos swirling around, what do you think will be the most powerful targeted approach to address agricultural issues?
I think small, local farming and is the future for those that get through collapse. With fossil fuels on the wane, industrialized agriculture can't last. Margi Prideaux, a survivor of Australia's Black Summer is a great read on the subject as she works on building a community of diverse skills independent of government support.
Geoffrey -- Did you see my post yesterday, where I talk about you? I emailed you before I put it up to get any comments or changes from you, but hadn't heard back when posting time came. How about now? And can you help getting this seen by all the degrowth/collapse/overshoot people?
I think the movie "Threads" is an accurate portrayal of what civilization has in store. If you like just substitute nuclear war with climate change. It will be much the same just minus the radioactive fallout.
Humans were natures big mistake in the scheme of things. It may not have been so much of a mistake as "let's try this and see what happens" oops. Where would the planet and life be without human existence right now? Doing just fine. Humans had their chance and failed quite miserably for whatever the many reasons- mainly the one thing that really raises the hair on their necks called overpopulation. The unmentionable. Something science gave a solution to that has been ignored and even suppressed and demonized. So for an average of two minutes pleasure with a few seconds of ecstatic muscle contractions followed by "Was it good for you too" and deep sleep for the males, we now find ourselves in a mass extinction event.
"Be fruitful and multiply" ran it's course 2 hundred years ago.
WTF is really a convenient summary for human existence and meaning.
If you don't believe me, consider the two richest men on the planet promoting populating the solar system with trillions of humans and Trump giving away $5000 bonuses for women having children in the cause of "patriotic duty ". It brings about a whole new meaning to "Drill baby drill".
I'll share widely for you. It's a great article as always. Thanks.
Haven't seen Threads, so I can't comment on that. However, I think Planet of the Apes bears some merit. If it wasn't Homo sapiens screwing things up, I suspect it would be our closest cousins chimps, who display some of the same violent behavior we carry out on one and other.
Our population is a problem, a subject that quickly becomes touchy for a lot of folks, understandably, and it's true without billionaires and reasonable wealth distribution we could do better. The maximum population figure is debated. 4 billion? 2 billion? 1 billion? I suppose it's a moot debate anyhow as we're projected to reach 10 billion soon.
The promotion of population may be motivated by having bodies for war, which as fossil fuels run out could become medieval in nature and need lots of bodies with no way to power warplanes, drones, tanks, etc. But I'm just speculating, I really haven't thought about that. I probably won't care to. And of course my speculation assumes nobody pushes The Big Button first.
Thanks for supporting my work, Toma.
Without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, the maximum supported human population is estimated to be around 2 to 3 billion people, which is roughly what the world could sustain with traditional agriculture before the mid-20th century.
However, the world population was in the range of 1.5 to 2 billion before modern medicine and widespread fertilizers, suggesting that this might be closer to the natural carrying capacity.
Both Pollan and Smil have looked at this. Pollan put the top possible global population at around 2 billion without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Smil in his 2001 book put the top number at around 3 billion.
One of the implications of degrowth is that there will NEVER be this many humans alive "at once" EVER again.
I do not think that the human population level is going to get much larger. Too many of the factors you discuss are working against us now.
2025: a year of unrelenting crises - World Food Programme
Acute hunger continues at alarming highs. As of November 2024, 343 million people were identified as acutely food insecure in 74 countries where WFP works and data is available.
Projections indicate a potential increase to over 950 million people facing severe food insecurity by 2030 if significant policy changes and investments are not made.
The insurance industry actuaries think that global population could drop as much as 1.5 billion at +2°C warming.
I am forecasting +2°C sustained around 2035.
The population figures you suggest align with the ranges I have read, and yes, there is some creeping skepticism we will hit 10 billion by 2050. I didn't weigh in, because I haven't taken a deep dive into that topic. In addition to the factors in this article we have plastics causing infertility and people choosing not to have children because the future is so bleak.
Yes, when nitrogen fertilizers go away it's going to be epic. Art Berman's estimate of EROI on oil is a real hinge here. I would love to uncover corroborating opinions or evidence.
Hunger as always is an issue destined to become much worse. Hell, hunger is an issue in the US. Cutting kid's lunch programs the poor depend on is a huge blow to those families. Fortunately, we Americans won't have to witness world starvation much or own up to our role, just as we don't witness the Gaza genocide thanks to our corrupt media.
I'm with you on that +2C.
Deep sigh.
Have you seen this, and does it give us hope? "This ½ acre has everything you need to survive": https://youtu.be/SwZr1tt9Y0w
No doubt, the people working on vertical gardening and high-tech solutions have their hearts in the right place. There are two fundamental problems though. Feeding an ever-growing population is bound to fail on this finite planet, and their work fails to recognize all of that tech, like all tech, requires fossil fuels which for all intents and purposes will be played out in 50 years, give or take. Small scale local and regional farming is the future IF we're lucky. Unlike those who practiced such methods before FF powered machines and fertilizers took over, the challenges of climate change, topsoil loss and a shrinking insect population will pose additional profound challenges. We are rapidly heading for a low tech, low energy world and would be wise to focus on how we can make that happen.
Erik Michaels invited me to a Facebook collapse group, all about it being too late: Prepping for NTHE https://www.facebook.com/groups/196687790947688
When I posted the vertical farming video, asking if it was viable, this was his response:
"Vertical food production on a planet in collapse...nothing like becoming even MORE dependent on technology use, huh? When the grid collapses, these facilities will become brownfields, just like all other industrial/commercial factories, warehouses, and buildings."
Hi Sue, I did watch the video, and I do believe there are elements that will help immediately and (if humans are to survive) long term as well.
Vertical farming in particular has the advantages of low water use, no soil degradation, fewer chemicals used because of a controlled environment, better yields, and producing close to consumption so less energy to transport. It is also possible to “scale down” some of the principles so that individuals can grow some things for themselves (minus the robots lol).
Even the chemical inputs can be produced without fossil fuels… if you have chickens for example you can get all the nitrogen you need.
But beyond 2.5 degrees of warming it all goes to hell regardless.
Any viable argument for what could help us could get trial by fire with the collapse group I just mentioned in my response to Geoffrey. Is there any mileage to get from engaging with them?
excelsior! bravissimo! an electrifying exposition, toma, and a fulminant comment 'turgid' w/ common sense.
A very sobering report. It's interesting that most Native American tribes contemplated the impacts of major tribal action as far as seven generations into the future, and we can only get ourselves to think about a decade down the line. And there is great irony in the Doomsday Prepper survivalists dwelling on learning the old ways of surviving while having their attention monopolized by their Iphones.
Native American tribes and Indigenous people in general seem to view the Earth much differently than Caucasians. Jared Diamond posed some of this question in Guns, Germs and Steel. Some argue whites in cold climates were formed by that experience seeing nature as hostile and to be conquered and controlled, yet Eskimos living with similar conditions respected nature just as their more southerly cousins did. It's an interesting question.
What will preppers do when they can't replace their water filters, solar cells, or Carhartt jackets? They need to think seven generations ahead, too.
It’s a crime that indigenous people have not been empowered to manage any public lands. They are the real stewards of the land. In Oregon, tribes are finally being given a real say in land management. Numerous dam removals are already a success, as salmon are returning throughout the network of rivers and streams that they were blocked off from for generations.
The indigenous deserve respect and reparations. I wish the success you mention in Oregon was more widespread. Instead, we have oil pipelines being jammed through supposedly sovereign tribal land, and lithium mining operations destroying their communities. They are still being colonized.
The U.S. has never met a treaty with Native Americans that they didn’t hurry to violate. Native Americans have been used, abused and completely disregarded. I have never heard of any federal legislation being passed that favored the tribes. Of course, those laws would have been quickly dismantled and ignored, just like all the rest of the bogus “treaties.”
Great report, thank you!
Some notes: Cattle traffic on pastures creates “cattle pan,” a dense layer 12-18” down, which restricts moisture movement and available root depth. “Tractor pan” from equipment traffic is another dense layer 12-24” deep. After a while, these must be broken up with deep hook-type plows. Any plowing of fields should result in a huge carbon tax, since this causes big release of CO2, methane and soil moisture, plus the damage to soil organisms. One needs to examine soil horizons over time to see the damage being done - loss from water and wind erosion and loss of depth of organic matter layer, which is the basis for life. Alfalfa is often used in crop rotations since it has deep roots and assists in nitrogen capture. Nitrogen is a main limiting factor to food supply, so nitrogen fertilizers are a necessity. Different methods are in development for avoiding producing nitrogen fertilizers (ammonia) from fossil fuels. Every crop takes away mineral content which must be replaced. Even cutting hat or grazing takes away mineral content. There is no free lunch. No soil should be left exposed to weather, it should always have something for cover such as a mulch. Insect loss is part of the 6th extinction. Remember before about 1989, the amount of dead insects killed by car windshields? Not anymore, all gone. Pesticides, destruction of natural areas and warmer summers (and traffic) are taking down the insects (and pollinators) which has knock-on effects such as food for spiders and insect larvae to feed baby birds. So people ask, where have all the birds gone? See these links:
https://phys.org/news/2025-09-untouched-ecosystems-insects-alarming.html (Sept 7)
https://phys.org/news/2025-08-urbanization-linked-pollinating-insects.html ((Aug 6)
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-common-farm-fungicide-contributing-insect.html (June 30)
You are correct on all points. Industrial farming practices come with numerous downsides that are largely unknown to the average person and I well remember bugs on windshields, fairly gross. When I had motorcycles, June bugs hitting my visor were particularly revolting. I remember butterflies caught in car grills, particularly sad. I never even get a crazy housefly zipping through the house anymore. Thank you for the links. I have added them to my bulging extinction folder.
It's becoming more obvious that the oligarch's plans are meant to starve as many as possible, even in the US. Chasing off those who work in agriculture and raising tariffs are just part of the way they plan on doing it. Eugenics is also on their plans. It's in Project 2025.
I wonder what the people who called me an alarmist, hysterical, and overwrought are thinking now?
We seem to be entering a perfect storm. Reducing what little remains of the middle class to poverty will add to desperation, and further employer control. The lives of those who have been poor with no way out will become untenable. Suicides of desperation will increase just as homelessness has year after year. The usual racist tropes will be used to falsely assign blame in a society of systemic racism, even if laws have improved since the civil rights movement. Killing a targeted demographic in this way could be considered a sneaky form of eugenics in itself, and there is no doubt racism is much of the core of this administration.
For the most part, I doubt that 30 percent base will wake up. You can't teach people who deny science and are likely racist at heart as well. The ugliness truly wearies me some days.
I noted the figure, publicised here in Substack, that Trump’s ratings are at 42%, but that it is down mostly because of his poor management of the economy.
In other words, his draconian anti-immigrant actions, with ICE thugs snatching people off the streets, locking them up and deporting them to South Sudan or El Salvador, all without due process or trial, that is just fine!
If you are an American in America right now, there is roughly a 50/50 chance the person standing next to you supports Trumps racist actions.
In fact, if that person is white, the probability is actually far higher!
And that means for all your life in America, at least half of white Americans have been hiding their deeply held beliefs in racism. Trump has just given them permission to come out into the open with it!
Question. Does that change your view in the America you grew up in?
I have seen that Trump's ratings may be even lower, but don't particularly trust polls. The idea of standing shoulder to shoulder with Trump supporters is disturbing, and I am aware. Years ago I had a similar feeling when I was speaking out against the animal testing industry. Do we really need to pour laundry detergent into the eyes of rabbits to know it's caustic? What kind of person could do that?
My view of America growing up was one of growing awareness of its terrible flaws and hypocrisies. Being taught Manifest Destiny in high school was a real eye roller for me. I had the hugely great fortune to read some of the best authors of my parents and the preceding generation from The Grapes of Wrath and To Kill a Mockingbird, to Slaughterhouse Five and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I have spent my life opting out of the system to the best of my ability. I have no investments which inevitably tie back to social injustice and pillaging the Earth.
Now, due to health problems I can no longer hike and bicycle in the mountains and enjoy nature as I once did, so I attempt to warn of her demise as best I can. It doesn't bring the joy I once felt, but it does give me purpose.
So no, my view hasn't changed. I've seen the lies and greed since I was a kid.
It is, I think, just as caustic to live in a place that fundamentally disagrees with your views, but also the views of every right-thinking, moral, ethical human being. At that point you get to realise you are fundamentally living in 'the problem' and are not part of the solution.
I first came to my own realisation of that in 1970's industrial Britain, not least because I grew up near a coal mining area, in a city that grew rich off it. The connection between its pollution impact and the wealth a few people made from it was slow to impact, but when I finally understood, everything shifted.
The 1980's and Thatcher made me wonder if I was wrong, that perhaps the meaning I sought WAS money and wealth. From zilch, it took me three years and 5 start-up companies to become a £ millionaire, and then the 1989 crash took much of it away again! Educational, at least!
It was in France I found my home, but a few years more before I could finally move there for good. Life in France is fundamentally different to the Anglo-Saxon striving for more, bigger, wealthier, faster..... it suits me much better. I so wish I had been born here. My life could have been so much easier and more suited to me being me.
I can only imagine the damage living in an America under Trump must feel like for those of us blessed and cursed by a greater awareness and sensitivity to our version of reality. I struggled to live in Britain (America Lite, as I see it) and perhaps that will go down a similar crass path with Farage. SO glad to be away from there!
Keep up the good work. I and many more obviously appreciate what you think and say.
I try to say what I think and believe, albeit to a small audience, but perhaps every now and again I trigger some thought process or idea for someone that'll have some impact, change a few minds. Perhaps in times like these, that's the best we can hope for.
I have no illusions about what I do here. My audience is small, and I would do far better writing about cats I like to joke. Although I have lived small compared to most Americans, I am keenly aware of my outsized impact on the planet by being one.
In addition to the books I read growing up, witnessing my father's struggles from making ethical decisions rather than politically popular ones was influential. He was the bread winner for our family of four, and we all paid a price for his integrity. I wanted to keep life as simple as possible, and when I took work in an ad agency after graduation as a designer, the experience was forming. The agency was a nightmare, but its location in the bucolic countryside of upstate NY was heaven with hills, views, history and mountains in every direction. Time — doing things — became much more interesting to me than wealth.
I feel fortunate that the dead job market I graduated in sent me to this bizarre agency literally on a dirt road with the Hudson River at hand and villages and mansions that made history real every day on every bicycle ride.
My writing is in part an attempt to pay back a pretty good life. I can no longer do the things I love, but I can speak on their behalf.
Unfortunately, Geoffrey, I did not see as clearly as you. I drank the Kool Aid, bought the bullshit about American exceptionalism and generally believed that despite America’s troubles, we would inevitably always aim to do the right thing.
My education was a pack of lies. The news I heard was lies. My friends? They were as unknowing as I was.
It’s difficult knowing that a fascist takeover of our democracy happened during the course of my lifetime. That I was, until recently, completely oblivious to that dysfunction and the ongoing destructive acts of our corrupt government.
Mea culpa?
It’s always a breeze to finish one of your well documented, factoid rich articles, Geoffrey. This was exceptional.
I appreciate that. This one has been on my plate for a while. Some articles are more difficult than others.
You are so good I might add you to the group I suggest take over the U.S. presidency in a coup: Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Anne Applebaum, and Marianne Williamson.
Only if John Cleese will join me to head up the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Yes, he'd be a jolly addition. Make America Fun Again!
Good essay. Thank you. I’d make one meaningful observation: plowing a field as the Amish man in your photo is doing is incredibly harmful to soil health. No question his approach is less harmful than mechanical plowing, but we now know it’s counter-productive.
Thank you. I suspect the Amish use cover crops and rotation to keep the soil healthy. Short of hunting and gathering, I'm not sure what sustainable farming practices look like. In part, we simply have too many mouths to feed, a population only enabled by fossil fuels. It's a terrible problem. Even no-till farming has downsides, and if Art Berman is right no-till farming may be problematic as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming
These political and social circumstances are certainly sickening, but the current rising food prices are not related to tariffs or politics. They are directly the result of weather events and crop failures. Those will not diminish ever again, so food prices will continue to rise until neighbors get in gun battles over the last bags of lentils.
I agree with you food inflation is being driven by weather caused crop failure, and that is going to be a permanent feature now. Energy prices will continue to rise, exacerbated by AI for which many average people are now footing increased electric and water bills. The tariffs are a factor, but not the fundamental one as you point out.
Right. It's not the expense of tariffs on food we're importing. Our crops are doing better than most other countries. It's the fact that they are competing for our exports, which is driving up the prices of our domestic supplies.
Good point. I would add the day approaches when the imports we take for granted become unavailable. Countries will be struggling to feed their own people. The nations we export to will likely become problematic, too, as economies struggle.
Positing the U.S. as the #1 economy is balderdash; America lives on the savings of the rest of the world and is about to get VERY much poorer for a very long time. The export of your debt to the rest of the world has collapsed and your "economy" collapsing not long afterward. You DO NOT have the productivity (or EROEI) to pay for imports of food OR your toys. Get used to it, tRump's legacy, Make America Grovel Again.
There has arguably been virtually no middle class in this country for decades. It's all been a house of cards of debt. We have extracted the planet to the point of collapse of human inhabitability. Now, the bill is due.
Half of the corn and soy is going into our cars and trucks as ethanol or biodiesel. So really we are competing with our cars and obviously our cars are the most important thing to modern man. Food is a byproduct.
Great point. The cars are winning the food war.
“Cars are Winning the Food War.” Great headline.
Loved reading your article and thanks for Gaza ❤️
Thank you. Although the failing inhabitability of the planet was my reason for starting this project, Gaza is always on my mind. Both point to profound, fatal, behavioral problems.
echoing the thanks for gaza 💜 it's dispiriting how many don't get the connection between ecocide & genocide, both inflicted by us "moderns;" it's painful how many writers i otherwise respect barely mention it.
also, thanks for another wonderful article. it's long & i'm busy so i have to keep coming back to it over the course of several days to get through it!
It’s all connected, and I get frustrated with many of the better known writers who don’t put it all together. Thank you for being supportive.
Thank you for the literal food for thought. The statistics are mind-boggling, but the daily realities we face will ultimately lead to a tipping point for targeted action. With so much chaos swirling around, what do you think will be the most powerful targeted approach to address agricultural issues?
I think small, local farming and is the future for those that get through collapse. With fossil fuels on the wane, industrialized agriculture can't last. Margi Prideaux, a survivor of Australia's Black Summer is a great read on the subject as she works on building a community of diverse skills independent of government support.
This is so good. No surprise. I hope people click on your name that I have linked to this piece in the Substack about saving ourselves I just posted:
Problem dire. Letting humanity know.
Working up an internet new way
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/problem-dire-letting-humanity-know
Ozark chinquapin chestnut and honey locusts can feed the world and fix the climate by using currently unusable land.
Geoffrey -- Did you see my post yesterday, where I talk about you? I emailed you before I put it up to get any comments or changes from you, but hadn't heard back when posting time came. How about now? And can you help getting this seen by all the degrowth/collapse/overshoot people?
Problem dire. Letting humanity know.
Working up an internet new way
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/problem-dire-letting-humanity-know
Yes the Trump billionaires with their bunkers absolutely strive to eliminate the masses.