Empires implode. They collapse from within. This is beginning now on the edges of world civilization where the ecology has been stripped, the population is exploding and the resultant social turmoil insures further decline. These implosions of the colonies will eventually become general throughout the cultural system.
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The civilized people believe they have an obligation to bring primitive and underdeveloped people up to their level. Civilization, which is about to self-destruct, thinks of itself as the superior culture that has an obligation to bring others "up" to its level.
Civilization, is a cultural/mental view that believes security is based on instruments of coercion. The size of this delusion is such that the combined military expenditure of all the world’s governments in only one year- 1987- were so large that all of the social programs of the United Nations could be financed for three hundred years by this expenditure.
Looking back at the simple principle which says that humans cannot live on this planet unless they can maintain the topsoil, demonstrates the delusion. The delusion of military power does not lead to security, it leads to death. The civilized denial of the imperative of maintaining topsoil, and the addictive grasping to the delusion that security can be provided by weapons of death, is akin to the hallucination of a alcoholic suffering delirium tremens!
We of civilization have lost our way. We are now functioning in a world of confusion and chaos. We must recognize that the delusional system of civilization, the mass institutions and our personal lives function on a self- destructive basis. We live in a culture that is bleeding the earth to death, and we have been making long range personal plans and developing careers within it. We strive toward something that is not to be.
We must try to wake up and regain a vision of reality. We must begin taking responsibility for our lives and for the soil. This is a tall order. This will require study and forethought. That is what this book is about. Humans have never dealt with anything like this before. This generation is presented with a challenge that in its dimensions is cosmic. A cosmic question: will tens of millions of years of the proliferation of life on earth, die back to the microbes? This challenge presents us with the possibility of supreme tragedy or the supreme success."
You may read or download this book for free at The Final Empire
Stumble It!
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Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn groundwater and surface water, and even (largely due to increased pesticide use) caused serious public health and environmental problems. Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted water. <br />
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It takes 500 years to replace 1 inch of topsoil.21 In a natural environment, topsoil is built up by decaying plant matter and weathering rock, and it is protected from erosion by growing plants. In soil made susceptible by agriculture, erosion is reducing productivity up to 65% each year.22 Former prairie lands, which constitute the bread basket of the United States, have lost one half of their topsoil after farming for about 100 years. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural formation rate.23 Food crops are much hungrier than the natural grasses that once covered the Great Plains. As a result, the remaining topsoil is increasingly depleted of nutrients. Soil erosion and mineral depletion removes about $20 billion worth of plant nutrients from U.S. agricultural soils every year.24 Much of the soil in the Great Plains is little more than a sponge into which we must pour hydrocarbon-based fertilizers in order to produce crops. <br />
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Every year in the U.S., more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging. On top of this, urbanization, road building, and industry claim another 1 million acres annually from farmland.24 Approximately three-quarters of the land area in the United States is devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry.25 The expanding human population is putting increasing pressure on land availability. Incidentally, only a small portion of U.S. land area remains available for the solar energy technologies necessary to support a solar energy-based economy. The land area for harvesting biomass is likewise limited. For this reason, the development of solar energy or biomass must be at the expense of agriculture. <br />
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Modern agriculture also places a strain on our water resources. Agriculture consumes fully 85% of all U.S. freshwater resources.26 Overdraft is occurring from many surface water resources, especially in the west and south. The typical example is the Colorado River, which is diverted to a trickle by the time it reaches the Pacific. Yet surface water only supplies 60% of the water used in irrigation. The remainder, and in some places the majority of water for irrigation, comes from ground water aquifers. Ground water is recharged slowly by the percolation of rainwater through the earth's crust. Less than 0.1% of the stored ground water mined annually is replaced by rainfall.27 The great Ogallala aquifer that supplies agriculture, industry and home use in much of the southern and central plains states has an annual overdraft up to 160% above its recharge rate. The Ogallala aquifer will become unproductive in a matter of decades.28 <br />
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We can illustrate the demand that modern agriculture places on water resources by looking at a farmland producing corn. A corn crop that produces 118 bushels/acre/year requires more than 500,000 gallons/acre of water during the growing season. The production of 1 pound of maize requires 1,400 pounds (or 175 gallons) of water.29 Unless something is done to lower these consumption rates, modern agriculture will help to propel the United States into a water crisis. <br />
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More at: <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html">www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html</a>
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RickW
He has to go to school first, I think...
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"Arrogance is unacceptable. Do it to my face, and I will react" - Jim Callaghan
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Canada for Canadians
The overconsumption and then the militarily forced capitalism onto the so called "underdeveloped" countries will push us headlong into the microbe state.
We need to annihilate the weapons industry and go with our heads lowered back to the native peoples of the world and ask for their forgiveness, and if we have not completely destroyed their cultures would they save us from ourselves.
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"Yeah, well, [Mr. President] we used all five fingers because that's the way our mittens are made." Antonia Zerbisias
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Canada for Canadians
Saying Bin Laden isn't an extremist is news to me. You don't think hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings is extreme? Or sharia law? People may think he's some kinda freedom fighter, but he shouldn't be uncritically supported because he's against the US. Just remember he used to be the CIA's good buddy and he's still serving US military aims quite well in this "War on Terror". He and his buddies the Taliban terrorised not only the Russians and the Yanks but the Afghan people as well. And now he's being used as a boogeyman for US imperialism all over the world. Bin Laden doesn't stand for justice, freedom or democracy, just religious zealotry, war and oppression.
Apocalyptic pronouncements about our impending doom do nothing to help the situation either:
"It's funny that a species with the power to reason and a thirst for knowledge cannot learn from the mistakes of the past and are therefore doomed to self destruction. But fear not for mother earth for she will eventually give one final shake and rid herself of this parasite known as humankind!"
What are you bothering to write this crap for? If you've already given up on mankind then all you're trying to accomplish is to make yourself feel better with 'I told you so's.
And we are not rich in Canada because of our exploitation of others, although Canadian companies clearly do exploit third world nations. This isn't a first world vs. third world battle here. Some Canadians are very rich because of their exploitation of working people in the third world and working people here at home too. Working people in Canada formed unions and political parties to fight for a share of the pie of the wealthy industrialists who run this place. I'm not getting any richer from my pair of Nikes and my buddy just lost his job at the local shoe factory.
And this book, which raises some valid issues, does argue fallaciously a lot. Like criticising Darwin, when his theory was written around 150 years ago. I'm sure evolutionary theory is much more developed and deep than it was when Darwin created the theory in the first place. Arguing that Darwin was wrong when he argued the earth evolved gradually and then showing that he admitted that revolutionary changes also existed in nature doesn't really disprove his theory. It's obvious that evolution proceeds at different speeds during different eras.
And lumping Marx and all subsequent Marxist theory with Capitalist ideology is a horribly simplistic analysis. It shows a poor understanding of Marxism and all the subsequent change that body of theory has undergone. I t ignores the relevance of the marxist critique of industrial-capitalist-imperialist society.
And the author's irrational railing against science as inherently evil ignores who is using it and for what purpose. And it ignores all the great discoveries and advancements that scientific inquiry and industrial society has made. If it wasn't for science and industry we'd still be dying of TB and the flu and we wouldn't have electricity and the internet (we wouldn't be communicating right now) among millions of other things.
Okay at least we agree on that.
>And we can't go back to some primitive ideal state of nature.
And that..
>We can and must revolutionize our industrial society to coexist with nature because we depend on it for our survival.
I agree we must but I disagree that we can. There's far too much greed and corruption in the industrialized countries.
>Saying Bin Laden isn't an extremist is news to me. You don't think hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings is extreme? Or sharia law?
Okay, that is extreme but he has reasons for doing it. I'm not saying that he's right and I don't condone his, or any aggressive actions. Like flattening an entire country in retaliation or flattening a second country and killing 100,000 or even 100 of its citizens based on lies and fearmongering for ones own benefit. That's extremism pal!
>Just remember he used to be the CIA's good buddy and he's still serving US military aims quite well in this "War on Terror".
Yes he is but only because they are using him for their own purposes.
>And we are not rich in Canada because of our exploitation of others, although Canadian companies clearly do exploit third world nations.
We aren't exploiting 3rd world countries to the same degree as the u.s. but we are reaping the rewards of their exploitation by being so intertwined with them economically.
>I'm not getting any richer from my pair of Nikes and my buddy just lost his job at the local shoe factory.
You don't have a problem with child slavery? And why did your buddy lose his job at the local shoe factory? My guess would be the sagging greenback combined with cheap labour in asia. Doesn't it bother you that Nike doesn't pass on the savings attributed to cheap labour to you? You still pay the same for your fancy shoes as when someone in N. America was making $12/hr.
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Canada for Canadians