Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXVI
Another Nice Mess You’ve Gotten Me Into
My comment on The Honest Sorcerer’s latest writing that looks at why nuclear energy will not and cannot address our energy needs/wants.
Another great piece of writing that outlines yet again the difficulties that lay before us.
I am reminded of the Laurel and Hardy often-used quote “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into”
We keep jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire in our attempts to solve intractable ‘problems’, never understanding that our ‘solutions’ are creating ever more complex and difficult — if not impossible — to address problems.
That we continue to deny reality, bargain with our future, and rationalise away anxiety-provoking thoughts is not at all surprising given human cognitive and psychological proclivities.
And it’s also not very surprising, given the way complex societies with their power and wealth structures are organised, that the dominant story-telling apes amongst us are pushing the propaganda that industrial-based technologies are the preferred ‘solution’ to our ecological overshoot predicament — although they’re framing the situation as a ‘solvable’ carbon-based fuel problem that avoids some inconvenient and counter-factual realities, especially that all these ‘solutions’ depend upon LOTS of fossil fuels and ecologically-destructive processes. For it is our ruling caste that owns/controls the production industries necessary to create all these technologies, as well as the financial institutions required to fund it all.
It all seems part of another grand narrative that serves to sustain their revenue streams while, secondarily, helping to maintain societal control via the carrot of ‘hope’ lest the plebeians come to understand better their plight and all hell breaks loose — at least for a little while longer while the elite extend and consolidate their wealth and very likely prepare for the inevitable ‘collapse’ on the horizon.
I too have advocated for the sensible ‘dismantling’ of our various ‘problematic’ complexities such as nuclear power plants and their waste products, biosafety labs and their dangerous pathogens, chemical production and storage facilities and their highly-toxic materials, etc., especially given the quickly diminishing resources available to do this — especially energy.
I am, however, quickly losing any remaining belief that this is remotely achievable given we seem to be doing the exact opposite by chasing the perpetual growth chalice evermore desperately as diminishing returns on our investments in complexity quicken in their Seneca cliff-type way.
If you’ve made it to the end of this contemplation and have got something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my ‘fictional’ novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website — the ‘profits’ of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers). Encouraging others to read my work is also much appreciated.