The archeological remains of past civilizations, including those of the prehistoric Cahokia temple mound complex in Illinois, are sobering reminders of our fate.
I disagree that we have failed as a species. But when we failed to overthrow capitalism and adopt socialism, that was a major error. That was the wrong path. Capitalism has become a rotted corpse. It just doesn't realize that it is dead.
For sure that's true, but isn't ruining the planet & killing ourselves off a failure?
The politicians and 1%$ were NEVER gonna let socialism in any way happen. Of course the majority of us would not have become what we are now becoming: disillusioned and fighting each other to the death for any scrap... the 1% would rather die than give up ANY of their yachts and mansions... GO FIGURE... so the minority brought down the majority- who didn't see it in time to stop it (frogs in boiling water we were)
I agree. We appear to be a failed experiment of some sort.
Are the 1% the cause though? The 1% didn't exist until recently-ish. They're certainly not kickin' down and they do seem to have turned cannabilistic, but there's another perspective to the lead up. Did the majority *really* not see it in time?
I remember the Carter/Reagan election (I was 9) and family members being rabid for Reagonomics. Trickle down theory. I questioned the validity of it (along with paving paradise)' but was told I was a bleeding heart and too young to understand. I wrote a poem in high school (still during the Reagan years) comparing human nature to white mold blighting an orange. My teacher said I was dramatic. They (adults) were middle class. None were 1%. The 1% was created. People chose, desired. Did I do everything I could? Knowing? Sometimes simply in the moment? No.
Grasping incarnate. Good old-fashioned greed. As a deadly sin. As a samskara. People have to collectively conquer that. The story's been told. Chris just told it. So we know how the 1% will perform. We also have to prepare - build community, grow food, be good neighbors. Chris talks about that, too. I've been working hard towards it. It's a lot.
The problem with power is that it attracts sociopaths the way catnip attracts cats. Power is also the way to get things done.
Sociopaths, however, are only interested in furthering collective objectives to the extent this allows them to achieve personal objectives. This is why societies run by sociopaths turn sclerototic (as entrenched interests prove entrenched and those at the top are only interested in personal aggrandizement) and eventually collapse.
The Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Carnegies, and the Vanderbilts actually built things and created the modern world we live in. It is not wise to scapegoat that infinitely tiny percentage of humanity for the complex problems we face and the inevitable corruption and destruction that has begun.
Socialism, while appearing Christian and benevolent, appeals to the worst instincts of people.
We now live in a society where the spoiled children of the affluent no longer have to repay college loans and everyone sees cell phones and computers as necessities.
Greed, short-sighted thinking, and overpopulation have led us to the most recent mass extinction event.
It's not about how little green pieces of paper are moved around. Did you read the essay? It's about civilization, which is inherently destructive. Your isms are mere symptoms, nowhere near the root of the problem.
Humans obsess on all the wrong things instead of focusing on the right ones. We should focus our existence on wisdom, empathy (for all, not just for humans), and expanding our consciousness. Instead, we've obsessed on ego, intellect, and unnaturally & very harmfully manipulating the physical/natural world. Humans went off the rails thousands of years ago, even before money was invented.
Overused platitudes regarding Warren Buffett and the alleged "hoarding" of resources by the mega-rich will not save the world.
Should a crew of pirates attack and steal all of George Clooney's property? If all of Elon Musk's money was re-distributed, would it meet the needs of 7.9 billion people? If Bill Gates' fortune was confiscated, would it repay America's 32 TRILLION dollar debt?
It is probably healthy to vent and to complain; but it is useless.
Any government, any revolution, inevitably becomes corrupt. Face reality.
"If Bill Gates' fortune was confiscated, would it repay America's 32 TRILLION dollar debt?"
It would be a start. But instead, to pay down the debt we will likely institute some form of austerity that will further impoverish millions of already vulnerable people instead. Much of Gates', Musk's and even Clooney's fortunes (since Hollywood gets it fair share of subsidies from government) come directly from taxpayers.
My statement that socialism will impoverish us and that it runs counter to human nature does not infer I am in favour of extreme wealth inequality. That is a strange interpretation and misunderstanding, I think.
Solzhenistsyn was a Russian....he had a point of view from Russia.
The US (uneducated) on socialism has their own point of view.
I live in France where we have 'liberal' socialism: This means we pay high taxes for free medical care/6 weeks holiday per year/time off for parents after a baby is born. Our taxes go to help people who would not have this.
Socialism can mean many things completely different in each country.
I was around back then too, in Los Angeles. Without doubt it was a far, far nicer place than it is today, but even then the downward spiral was well underway. Did you experience “smog days”, where the air was so visibly polluted you could almost cut it with a knife? When it hurt kids to breathe and they were kept home from school? They had almost finished dismantling the lower-pollution mass transit streetcar network to replace it with cars and freeways.
To paraphrase Derrick Jensen: “It is easier for us to imagine extinction of the human species in the collapse of industrial civilization than to fight back.“ He asks why? https://derrickjensen.org/endgame/
He writes it is not a failure of our humanity. It is a failure of imagination in our species. He continues to believe, as I do, that it's not over until it's over and we as human beings are collectively capable at any moment to completely shift the trajectory of our evolution.
It's our cynicism that is a gift to the oligarchs. They WANT us to believe all is lost. They win by default when we throw up our hands in despair and give up. But it takes enormous courage not to become cynical. It takes our deepest experience of love and connection in the face of utter hopelessness to triumph. Humans have demonstrated this countless times over history.
Just sayin'. Stay in a space of love and reverence for life. No matter what. 💗
Unfortunately, in sentient beings, all failures are failures of imagination.
We can reduce that population (to less than 1B) by catastrophe or by attrition. The majority of us seem unable to imagine life without babies. Well I did my part, and after five decades I’m more grateful every day not to have children. Imagine that!
More or less semi-consciously, I made that decision many years ago as well. My wife and I agreed it was not a good idea to have children in this omnicidal world. There have been things I've missed out on, I'm well aware, but at least I don't have to worry about the kind of world my kids might have had to contend with.
Based on his interviews and his writings, Mr. Hedges never calls for us to give up. He does warn about the sort of complacent hope that many people seem to have that things will work out and that optimism is the best course. We may likely lose everything but we have to TRY and do something. It is the only ethical way to live. I think that is the point of this article
I'm really trying, I put on the face more than have true faith in it anymore...I hate to focus on my negative fears but its getting harder and harder as I see what seems like less resistance-in the streets anyway
This alarm has been ringing since at least Rachel Carson. It really got loud in the late 1980s, when I was in high school. I remember Hansen's 1988 testimony to Congress on the perils of 'global warming', the same year that Yellowstone burned.
I had some hope back then. CFCs were banned in 1987, and a green resurgence from then until the early 90s was felt even in conservative backwater Dallas-Forth Worth, where I went to college. But when Clinton didn't do anything meaningful, and the 1992 Earth Summit was revealed as just more political theatre to shut people up and put them back to sleep, I began to realize nothing was going to change.
It's certain now that our civilization will collapse. It is possible--maybe--that we could truly reverse all the damage and make a 'glide path' to a sustainable future. This in no way involves the techno-futurism pushed in the mainstream media, but more like the 19th century with the internet and medicine that works. Albert Bates has the only workable plan I've come across that could achieve this, relying on large-scale carbon farming and sequestering the carbon we thoughtlessly dumped in the atmosphere back into biochar, which will stay locked away for thousands of years. https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/burn-audiobook/ (I don't know Bates or have anything to gain, but have read this book and been following him for years. Like Hedges, he walks the walk.)
But, such a change would topple the stupid and useless elites, and threaten Americans who have been trained to believe they need an SUV and suburban single-family house. The fact that both these things are destroying us and making our daily lives miserable will only make us cling harder. As I've gotten older, I've become convinced the strongest psychological force is the psychotic break. Challenging any deep belief only makes people double down, and become violent.
Charles C. Mann's "1491" has a discussion of the Missouri mound civilization. Along with many other American empires, they were struggling and going out before the Europeans showed up. Worth a read.
Glad to see Ronald Wright and Joseph Tainter getting some love from Hedges, too. Wright's "Brief History of Progress" is a short, dense, meaty yet digestible book. The day reading it will change your life forever. Wright says we have the most knowledge, and the greatest capacity, of any humans ever to change course. I wish we would. Given our idiotic response to covid, and now the other diseases following, I think the only way out is a great population reduction that seems to be already in motion. We can't save everybody anyway.
"We are cheating our children, handing them tawdry luxuries and addictive gadgets while we take away what’s left of the wealth, wonder and possibility of the pristine Earth."
One of the most painful truths, so well expressed - thanks for providing that source. Gotta get the book.
"Civilizations die in familiar patterns. They exhaust natural resources. They spawn parasitic elites who plunder and loot the institutions and systems that make a complex society possible."
The parasitic elites promote the collapse of society with their exploitation of artificial fear based on the faked up science of anthropogenic climate change.
- We don't know the actual cause of warming temperatures. We don't and it is a lie to say we do.
- Global heat waves, droughts and extreme weather have happened forever.
- Over 10 times the number of people die from cold than die from heat.
- The global warming set wring their hands over the impact to crops while banning organic fuels and fertilizer needed to grow crops.
- The global warming set ban organic fuels and shut off the electricity needed to power air conditioners and charge electric cars... and jack up the cost of heating homes.
Civilizations die because armchair intellectual elites that think they know better, but are actually the least capable of all to contribute positive productivity to better society, gain too much power and make mistake after mistake after mistake building a house of cards that eventually comes crashing down from the weight of all the mistakes.
Well Frank, I think that’s a house of logical cards to beat the band. Over a thousand times as many people die in bed as from fentanyl overdose. So, obviously...
All farmers use organic fertilizers. Who told you they should be banned?
And actually, we do know the more insidious human causes of the climate crisis. Sadly, your not knowing this doesn’t make it untrue. I’m not a big fan of elite intellectual armchairs, but I find ignorance for more terrifying. Reading is a wonderful thing, and we all should do more of it.
Your fentanyl point is what? We have many more depressed and addicted people as the globalists who push the climate change nonsense have destroyed working class economic opportunity and demand more the same by banning organic fuels before there are alternatives available. And these same globalists are committed to keeping borders open and the drugs flowing. You think this is not by design?
All farmers use organic fertilizer that the globalist project brainwashed climate change religious are also determined to ban by banning ranching and meat consumption.
You people are so addicted to mythological ideological symbolism you would chew your own arms and legs off to satiate your needs for another hit. Some of you are in the globalist cabal, but most of you are just duped.
Clever! But your views are so out of sync with those of Chris Hedges and everyone else here that it's clear you are only trying to create controversy, sow discord, get a rise out of people, etc. That's what a troll does.
With more than 4 billion inhabitants of this planet paying homage to the war god known as YHWH, who have access to an ever increasing stockpile of easily transported and launched nuclear weapons that will likely be pointed at nuclear power plants and the neighborhoods of despised "others," the prediction of 1 billion survivors of the climate catastrophe may be wishful thinking.
Thanks Chris for providing me with food for thought and the space to express my concerns.
Well that is a defensive ideological perspective, not one of a curious thinking person open to different opinions.
I see Chris as being stuck in an ideological pool... seeing part of the truth but clutching the rim of his old ideological tribal boundary while he tries to swim to the deeper waters. That will not work.
The climate change narrative is a scam perpetrated by the same cabal perpetrating the woke narrative scam. They are part of the globalist Great Reset project which is primarily focused on destroying the working-individual and small business economy of the US and other western nations. So as Chris correctly identifies the threat to civilization from the degradation of urban centers and other abandon regions and people, he fails to recognize that he is contributing to the ongoing reasons for this decline by supporting the hyped narrative of climate change which prescribes more economic and social destruction of the very same people.
Climate change is a luxury virtue signaling ideological position of the elite. If you subscribe to this ideology, then you are responsible for what will be continued decline of places like St. Louis.
Thank you Chris, for posting this. It has taken far too long for people to begin telling the truth about what we are facing and that, in fact, we passed tipping points that cannot be passed without collapse. These days, in my writing and teaching, I tend to make several points over and over again:
1) Our species will survive, our civilization won't.
2) "WE" are not the problem (and the universal we should not be used in this context), unrestrained corporate capitalism combined with a reductionist science which breaks the world into parts that corporate capitalism can use as they wish is the problem. (Corporate capitalism could not do what it is doing without the research being done by scientists and engineers and technophiles.) People sometimes attack me for being anti-science; i am not. But i do hate and am against the lack of moral thought and behavior in those fields. They are not innocent of the side effects of their work. As Hannah Arendt put it, "When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing. ”
3) it is clear that things could be done to lessen the degree of collapse but it is unlikely they will be done. Top down control during these kinds of situations does not work as the systems in place cannot deal with a background they assumed to be stable becomes unstable. John Ralston Saul in Voltaire's Bastards lays out a lot of the reasons why (as do the people Chris quotes herein). FIRE: A Message from the Edge of Climate Catastrophe by Margi Prideaux reveals exactly what that breakdown looks like in real time through her experiences in the Australian bush fires. What is needed is for millions of people to begin using their own genius to deal with the problems they find in front of them without waiting for permission.
Belinda H. is right on when she says she had the best of the USA; those of us born after WWII (and yes, i am aware that this does not include a lot of people) did come of age in one of the best times of all. But of course there are going to be people who continually insist on remaining optimistic (Margi Prideaux refers to this as the drug "Hopium." It is fine for adolescents but not so good for grown ups.) The truth is, if we do not accept our terminal diagnosis we will not come to terms with what we need to do now.
Again, thank you Chris, please keep the articles coming.
Thank you, Chris, for an excellent and brutal analysis of the coming collapse. All the ingredients are here now and rushing pell-mell down the hill to annihilation.
Analyses like yours (this one and others you've written) need to be seen by as many people as possible. Perhaps a few prepared folks can survive, if the end isn't nuclear, and rebuild smaller communities and perpetuate the species. Nevertheless, I'm not particularly optimistic.
It seems that Gaia has had enough of us screwing things up and is ready to be done with our entire species.
Wise words, as always. Thank you Chris. I wish they would be more widely viewed, and heeded.
In other countries I've seen where they post the newspapers on public display boards. At least there were many years ago when I traveled more. People, usually older men, would stand and read them, slowly moving down the length of the board as they read the stories. Then they could discuss the news with other readers. Quite different from here and now.
I am thinking of this after reading today's piece. I would love to see Chris' words posted in public squares to be absorbed by the population at large. Then they could be discussed and debated, and most importantly, acknowledged. I've been reading these warnings for several decades, and they keep being made and repeated and reiterated. And they've been slowly, steadily coming true. Yet the one thing they all seem to have in common is - they keep being ignored. It's more than enough to make one despair.
Still, I am grateful people with insight and intelligence are sounding the alarm. It's a tough slog, but it does give me hope. Keep it up!
Fatalists have been lamenting the end of civilization throughout the history of civilization. This would be easy to accept as a respectable alternative view had not the fatalists become the prime culprit in social and economic destruction.
“This human inability to foresee — or to watch out for — long-range consequences may be inherent to our kind, shaped by the millions of years when we lived from hand to mouth by hunting and gathering. It may also be little more than a mix of inertia, greed, and foolishness encouraged by the shape of the social pyramid.”
I think a small subset of modern people have the capacity to see the long range consequences of greed, resource hoarding, and murder. In many hunter gatherer societies, these traits or deeds were looked down upon and considered taboo, even deserving of exile.
Many of us still are content with only what we need and sharing the rest, as are many in other countries like Colombia. I don’t know if it’s all of humanity or just those peddling this ‘humans own the earth to exploit everything in it bs’ that has given rise to rapacious capitalism.
We will have to live through a period of technofeudalism, but as Chris says, every empire decays under the weight of the greed of the few at the top. Instead of glorifying billionaire asshats like Musk and Bezos, we should exile and shame them. Their money is worthless without a society that accepts it.
It's worth pointing out that the existing world population of ca. 8 billion people is probably not sustainable even under current conditions, let alone at a global temperature increase of 4 degrees C! The global footprint for the current human population corresponds to the consumption of about 1.7 Earths each year. Climate change is a symptom of a larger problem called ecological overshoot. This year Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 28th, which means that the activities of the human species became non-sustainable on July 29th.
I’ve always wondered why they’re hypocrites in the green movement don’t talk about population. The earth can sustain about 2 billion people and that’s it.
True, and the religions of Man need more people too. They are against any type of contraception. After all, their bets are in the other world not our beloved planet.
Fair enough and I think you are correct but it’s human population that is threatening the earth. Reduce recycle reuse is a Band-Aid compared to depopulation: a 100 year glide slope to 2 billion.
A 100 year glide slope refers to not having children, not replacing ourselves over time. Kill myself or friends and relatives, how could you construe that?
Impossible to hit the “like” ❤️ after reading such a brilliantly written, albeit chilling, account of history and what appears to be our hopeless future. However, as usual, I so appreciate your succinct and vivid accounting of the horrors of the past that we incomprehensibly seem to insist upon hurtling toward; and now on an even grander and seemingly more final scale (!). How “exceptionally” American of us! “Now total destruction!! Bigger and better than ever before!” (Brought to you by: insert corporate name here). Sheesh 🙄! I will go to my grave shaking my head at the hubris and absurd idiocy of humankind willing to throw it all away, despite massive warnings, for the sake of what? Ego? Greed? Fear? Vengeance?
What a cowardly and egotistical species we are that we will forfeit and sacrifice everything for everyone because some of us who have amassed power, somehow feels unloved and/or can’t share with others. And the rest of us who refuse to band together to take back power and demand what might slow or stop this insanity are scarcely better. How criminal and bizarre! Ultimately, I can’t help but feel what a pathetic and tragic waste of evolution is humankind! But, who knows? Perhaps this is the way it’s supposed to ultimately devolve.
I totally agree with all that you said. I am such an admirer of Chris. It's a shame that more people aren't exposed to his thinking. Although many prefer to keep their heads in the sand. Several friends that I've forwarded this to asked me not to send his articles because they are too depressing.
Yep 👍. Same here. It saddens me deeply that so many people (most really lovely)I know refuse to open their eyes. I always feel like some kind of Cassandra when I want to talk about or forward journalists’ pieces like those of Mr. Hedges. It’s hard to find people who are willing to confront what’s happening. It would seem most prefer to look away and pretend it’s all okay and it will all be okay. Sigh 😔
Well I had the best of the USA (California in the 50’s - 60’s)
Now I may unfortunately get to see the very worst -for all humanity
It’s difficult not to be depressed when there is NO obvious way out - thx oligarchs and sociopathic greed
It was fun- while it lasted
We’re a failed species I’m afraid
😢
I disagree that we have failed as a species. But when we failed to overthrow capitalism and adopt socialism, that was a major error. That was the wrong path. Capitalism has become a rotted corpse. It just doesn't realize that it is dead.
For sure that's true, but isn't ruining the planet & killing ourselves off a failure?
The politicians and 1%$ were NEVER gonna let socialism in any way happen. Of course the majority of us would not have become what we are now becoming: disillusioned and fighting each other to the death for any scrap... the 1% would rather die than give up ANY of their yachts and mansions... GO FIGURE... so the minority brought down the majority- who didn't see it in time to stop it (frogs in boiling water we were)
I agree. We appear to be a failed experiment of some sort.
Are the 1% the cause though? The 1% didn't exist until recently-ish. They're certainly not kickin' down and they do seem to have turned cannabilistic, but there's another perspective to the lead up. Did the majority *really* not see it in time?
I remember the Carter/Reagan election (I was 9) and family members being rabid for Reagonomics. Trickle down theory. I questioned the validity of it (along with paving paradise)' but was told I was a bleeding heart and too young to understand. I wrote a poem in high school (still during the Reagan years) comparing human nature to white mold blighting an orange. My teacher said I was dramatic. They (adults) were middle class. None were 1%. The 1% was created. People chose, desired. Did I do everything I could? Knowing? Sometimes simply in the moment? No.
Grasping incarnate. Good old-fashioned greed. As a deadly sin. As a samskara. People have to collectively conquer that. The story's been told. Chris just told it. So we know how the 1% will perform. We also have to prepare - build community, grow food, be good neighbors. Chris talks about that, too. I've been working hard towards it. It's a lot.
If The Iron Law Of Oligarchy has any truth in it, rule by the 1% is nothing new
In this article Hedges writes about how they destroy themselves, too. That struck me this time.
The problem with power is that it attracts sociopaths the way catnip attracts cats. Power is also the way to get things done.
Sociopaths, however, are only interested in furthering collective objectives to the extent this allows them to achieve personal objectives. This is why societies run by sociopaths turn sclerototic (as entrenched interests prove entrenched and those at the top are only interested in personal aggrandizement) and eventually collapse.
agree with all except I look at The Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Carnegies, Vanderbuilts, and the like as the old time 1% - that what I meant.
The Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Carnegies, and the Vanderbilts actually built things and created the modern world we live in. It is not wise to scapegoat that infinitely tiny percentage of humanity for the complex problems we face and the inevitable corruption and destruction that has begun.
Socialism, while appearing Christian and benevolent, appeals to the worst instincts of people.
We now live in a society where the spoiled children of the affluent no longer have to repay college loans and everyone sees cell phones and computers as necessities.
Greed, short-sighted thinking, and overpopulation have led us to the most recent mass extinction event.
But we DO have socialism in the US;
It’s just that it’s for the rich
There are too many examples to cite, but a big one would be Obama bailing out Wall Street Bankers (too big to fail) while letting Main Street crumble
In TRUE capitalism, if you blew it, you go out of business
If you’re savvy- you make money and stay in business
In the US / huge Corporations get socialism handouts all the time
Legal bribery has made it rampant
Citizens United screwed us all
What’s happening NOW is out of control - and nothing like the roaring 20’s
These new oligarchs are out to rule the PLANET- and we’ll on their way
.......and not voting when you were OK?
What is failure?
When Americans think of only winning?
It's not about how little green pieces of paper are moved around. Did you read the essay? It's about civilization, which is inherently destructive. Your isms are mere symptoms, nowhere near the root of the problem.
Humans obsess on all the wrong things instead of focusing on the right ones. We should focus our existence on wisdom, empathy (for all, not just for humans), and expanding our consciousness. Instead, we've obsessed on ego, intellect, and unnaturally & very harmfully manipulating the physical/natural world. Humans went off the rails thousands of years ago, even before money was invented.
This is true in the US where education is a huge problem?
I am in France..we talk non-stop politics and people (unlike the US) are well informed.
Is what true in the U.S.? I don't understand your comment.
“Can Global Capitalism Endure” August 2022 William Robinson
“Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity” 2014 William Robinson
“American Empire” Project from 2000 by Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Skip Bacevich et. al.
I call it the “Quiet American” Empire in honor of Graham Greene
Horse dung, you will simply impoverish all of us with your socialism it is counter to human nature and human ambition .
Please tell me what you know about Socialism?
You cannot just write these words without back-up.
Overused platitudes regarding Warren Buffett and the alleged "hoarding" of resources by the mega-rich will not save the world.
Should a crew of pirates attack and steal all of George Clooney's property? If all of Elon Musk's money was re-distributed, would it meet the needs of 7.9 billion people? If Bill Gates' fortune was confiscated, would it repay America's 32 TRILLION dollar debt?
It is probably healthy to vent and to complain; but it is useless.
Any government, any revolution, inevitably becomes corrupt. Face reality.
"If Bill Gates' fortune was confiscated, would it repay America's 32 TRILLION dollar debt?"
It would be a start. But instead, to pay down the debt we will likely institute some form of austerity that will further impoverish millions of already vulnerable people instead. Much of Gates', Musk's and even Clooney's fortunes (since Hollywood gets it fair share of subsidies from government) come directly from taxpayers.
My statement that socialism will impoverish us and that it runs counter to human nature does not infer I am in favour of extreme wealth inequality. That is a strange interpretation and misunderstanding, I think.
I agree with you completely. I was responding to Andre Peridakis.
I was just reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn‘s 1978 addressed to Harvard University. He claims that Socialism inevitably endsup with communism.
This is what really makes me angry:
Solzhenistsyn was a Russian....he had a point of view from Russia.
The US (uneducated) on socialism has their own point of view.
I live in France where we have 'liberal' socialism: This means we pay high taxes for free medical care/6 weeks holiday per year/time off for parents after a baby is born. Our taxes go to help people who would not have this.
Socialism can mean many things completely different in each country.
BUT YOU had the best of times while NOT voting?
I was around back then too, in Los Angeles. Without doubt it was a far, far nicer place than it is today, but even then the downward spiral was well underway. Did you experience “smog days”, where the air was so visibly polluted you could almost cut it with a knife? When it hurt kids to breathe and they were kept home from school? They had almost finished dismantling the lower-pollution mass transit streetcar network to replace it with cars and freeways.
Only a fair but aggressive program of ‘Wealth Reform’ capped at $20M and combined with a program of:
LOVE OVER
POWER, MONEY
HATE & EMPIRE
will balance our society with: political-economic democratic socialism over some time and peacefully.
BUT you have to educate people first.
In the US "socialism' is communism?
I’m old but horrified to know my grandchildren and ALL children have inherited such a bleak life.
Probably you did not vote when times were good and you fell for the propaganda of the "American Dream?"
I wish that I could've lived in LA during that time period. I moved here back in 2004 and just want to escape.
Really you own the consequences.
YOU should have voted when you had the best times and please don't tell me you did!
I did vote
For Obama twice
The first time excitedly
The second time holding my nose
As a Bernie campaign volunteer -I was disgusted when the DCC pushed him out
I finally saw how rigged the game was -has always been
But…. What other choice right now ?🤷♀️
To paraphrase Derrick Jensen: “It is easier for us to imagine extinction of the human species in the collapse of industrial civilization than to fight back.“ He asks why? https://derrickjensen.org/endgame/
He writes it is not a failure of our humanity. It is a failure of imagination in our species. He continues to believe, as I do, that it's not over until it's over and we as human beings are collectively capable at any moment to completely shift the trajectory of our evolution.
It's our cynicism that is a gift to the oligarchs. They WANT us to believe all is lost. They win by default when we throw up our hands in despair and give up. But it takes enormous courage not to become cynical. It takes our deepest experience of love and connection in the face of utter hopelessness to triumph. Humans have demonstrated this countless times over history.
Just sayin'. Stay in a space of love and reverence for life. No matter what. 💗
Unfortunately, in sentient beings, all failures are failures of imagination.
We can reduce that population (to less than 1B) by catastrophe or by attrition. The majority of us seem unable to imagine life without babies. Well I did my part, and after five decades I’m more grateful every day not to have children. Imagine that!
Absolutely, could not agree more!!!
I'm glad now I too have no children...
More or less semi-consciously, I made that decision many years ago as well. My wife and I agreed it was not a good idea to have children in this omnicidal world. There have been things I've missed out on, I'm well aware, but at least I don't have to worry about the kind of world my kids might have had to contend with.
Me too ( happy with my decision to not bring any children into this world.
8-30-2022
Based on his interviews and his writings, Mr. Hedges never calls for us to give up. He does warn about the sort of complacent hope that many people seem to have that things will work out and that optimism is the best course. We may likely lose everything but we have to TRY and do something. It is the only ethical way to live. I think that is the point of this article
I'm really trying, I put on the face more than have true faith in it anymore...I hate to focus on my negative fears but its getting harder and harder as I see what seems like less resistance-in the streets anyway
This alarm has been ringing since at least Rachel Carson. It really got loud in the late 1980s, when I was in high school. I remember Hansen's 1988 testimony to Congress on the perils of 'global warming', the same year that Yellowstone burned.
I had some hope back then. CFCs were banned in 1987, and a green resurgence from then until the early 90s was felt even in conservative backwater Dallas-Forth Worth, where I went to college. But when Clinton didn't do anything meaningful, and the 1992 Earth Summit was revealed as just more political theatre to shut people up and put them back to sleep, I began to realize nothing was going to change.
It's certain now that our civilization will collapse. It is possible--maybe--that we could truly reverse all the damage and make a 'glide path' to a sustainable future. This in no way involves the techno-futurism pushed in the mainstream media, but more like the 19th century with the internet and medicine that works. Albert Bates has the only workable plan I've come across that could achieve this, relying on large-scale carbon farming and sequestering the carbon we thoughtlessly dumped in the atmosphere back into biochar, which will stay locked away for thousands of years. https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/burn-audiobook/ (I don't know Bates or have anything to gain, but have read this book and been following him for years. Like Hedges, he walks the walk.)
But, such a change would topple the stupid and useless elites, and threaten Americans who have been trained to believe they need an SUV and suburban single-family house. The fact that both these things are destroying us and making our daily lives miserable will only make us cling harder. As I've gotten older, I've become convinced the strongest psychological force is the psychotic break. Challenging any deep belief only makes people double down, and become violent.
Charles C. Mann's "1491" has a discussion of the Missouri mound civilization. Along with many other American empires, they were struggling and going out before the Europeans showed up. Worth a read.
Glad to see Ronald Wright and Joseph Tainter getting some love from Hedges, too. Wright's "Brief History of Progress" is a short, dense, meaty yet digestible book. The day reading it will change your life forever. Wright says we have the most knowledge, and the greatest capacity, of any humans ever to change course. I wish we would. Given our idiotic response to covid, and now the other diseases following, I think the only way out is a great population reduction that seems to be already in motion. We can't save everybody anyway.
Grim. But well said.
"We are cheating our children, handing them tawdry luxuries and addictive gadgets while we take away what’s left of the wealth, wonder and possibility of the pristine Earth."
One of the most painful truths, so well expressed - thanks for providing that source. Gotta get the book.
"Civilizations die in familiar patterns. They exhaust natural resources. They spawn parasitic elites who plunder and loot the institutions and systems that make a complex society possible."
The parasitic elites promote the collapse of society with their exploitation of artificial fear based on the faked up science of anthropogenic climate change.
- We don't know the actual cause of warming temperatures. We don't and it is a lie to say we do.
- Global heat waves, droughts and extreme weather have happened forever.
- Over 10 times the number of people die from cold than die from heat.
- The global warming set wring their hands over the impact to crops while banning organic fuels and fertilizer needed to grow crops.
- The global warming set ban organic fuels and shut off the electricity needed to power air conditioners and charge electric cars... and jack up the cost of heating homes.
Civilizations die because armchair intellectual elites that think they know better, but are actually the least capable of all to contribute positive productivity to better society, gain too much power and make mistake after mistake after mistake building a house of cards that eventually comes crashing down from the weight of all the mistakes.
Well Frank, I think that’s a house of logical cards to beat the band. Over a thousand times as many people die in bed as from fentanyl overdose. So, obviously...
All farmers use organic fertilizers. Who told you they should be banned?
And actually, we do know the more insidious human causes of the climate crisis. Sadly, your not knowing this doesn’t make it untrue. I’m not a big fan of elite intellectual armchairs, but I find ignorance for more terrifying. Reading is a wonderful thing, and we all should do more of it.
Your fentanyl point is what? We have many more depressed and addicted people as the globalists who push the climate change nonsense have destroyed working class economic opportunity and demand more the same by banning organic fuels before there are alternatives available. And these same globalists are committed to keeping borders open and the drugs flowing. You think this is not by design?
All farmers use organic fertilizer that the globalist project brainwashed climate change religious are also determined to ban by banning ranching and meat consumption.
You people are so addicted to mythological ideological symbolism you would chew your own arms and legs off to satiate your needs for another hit. Some of you are in the globalist cabal, but most of you are just duped.
Trolling again?
Nothing worthwhile to contribute again?
Clever! But your views are so out of sync with those of Chris Hedges and everyone else here that it's clear you are only trying to create controversy, sow discord, get a rise out of people, etc. That's what a troll does.
With more than 4 billion inhabitants of this planet paying homage to the war god known as YHWH, who have access to an ever increasing stockpile of easily transported and launched nuclear weapons that will likely be pointed at nuclear power plants and the neighborhoods of despised "others," the prediction of 1 billion survivors of the climate catastrophe may be wishful thinking.
Thanks Chris for providing me with food for thought and the space to express my concerns.
Well that is a defensive ideological perspective, not one of a curious thinking person open to different opinions.
I see Chris as being stuck in an ideological pool... seeing part of the truth but clutching the rim of his old ideological tribal boundary while he tries to swim to the deeper waters. That will not work.
The climate change narrative is a scam perpetrated by the same cabal perpetrating the woke narrative scam. They are part of the globalist Great Reset project which is primarily focused on destroying the working-individual and small business economy of the US and other western nations. So as Chris correctly identifies the threat to civilization from the degradation of urban centers and other abandon regions and people, he fails to recognize that he is contributing to the ongoing reasons for this decline by supporting the hyped narrative of climate change which prescribes more economic and social destruction of the very same people.
Climate change is a luxury virtue signaling ideological position of the elite. If you subscribe to this ideology, then you are responsible for what will be continued decline of places like St. Louis.
Hi I am a music composer lyricist and world’s
oldest rapper (81)
Here is a rap I wrote 4 years ago. If you want to
hear it go to SoundCloud.com and type BK Climate Change in the search engine.
I want to talk to you today
About a subject that wont go away
It should important to everyone on earth
And you should be concerned for what it's worth
For millions of years this place we call home
has survived many disasters and carried on
Ice ages earthquakes and many other events
Even some that heaven sent
Then not so long ago in the distant past
Man came to this place that was so vast
That it took many years for him to roam
This wonderful place that we call home.
Verse 2
Man roamed to places near and far
Sailing on ships guided by the stars
He was amazed at the things he saw
And he held in respect and awe
So for mellinia still in the past
He multiplied and occupied this place very fast
And coexisted with the life that was already here
Until things started to change one year
The long time balance between nature and man
that should have been the gospel of all lands
Started to swing towards mankind
And it affected nature for the very first time
Verse 3
So in recent years scientists became concerned
And decided to study and to learn
What was causing the balance to change
cause indeed it was very strange
So they soon discovered man's drive to control
The earth from sea to sea and pole to pole
Was starting to effect nature in a bad way
So they studied and here's what they had to say
The earth is experiencing climate change
Words that seemed to us very strange
And if we dont change our ways
Nature would soon cope in it's very own way
Verse 4
So that's the subject I speak of today
That simply will not and should not go away
So all the earth's peoples of all the earth's lands
should come together and understand
That climate change is not a joke
Cause the whole world could end up going up in smoke
So the time is now to start to plan
To start making changes to how we occupy our land
Cause if we don't act immediately
Nature will make changes don't you see
When we finally decide to act
It may be too late and that's a fact
Thank you Chris, for posting this. It has taken far too long for people to begin telling the truth about what we are facing and that, in fact, we passed tipping points that cannot be passed without collapse. These days, in my writing and teaching, I tend to make several points over and over again:
1) Our species will survive, our civilization won't.
2) "WE" are not the problem (and the universal we should not be used in this context), unrestrained corporate capitalism combined with a reductionist science which breaks the world into parts that corporate capitalism can use as they wish is the problem. (Corporate capitalism could not do what it is doing without the research being done by scientists and engineers and technophiles.) People sometimes attack me for being anti-science; i am not. But i do hate and am against the lack of moral thought and behavior in those fields. They are not innocent of the side effects of their work. As Hannah Arendt put it, "When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing. ”
3) it is clear that things could be done to lessen the degree of collapse but it is unlikely they will be done. Top down control during these kinds of situations does not work as the systems in place cannot deal with a background they assumed to be stable becomes unstable. John Ralston Saul in Voltaire's Bastards lays out a lot of the reasons why (as do the people Chris quotes herein). FIRE: A Message from the Edge of Climate Catastrophe by Margi Prideaux reveals exactly what that breakdown looks like in real time through her experiences in the Australian bush fires. What is needed is for millions of people to begin using their own genius to deal with the problems they find in front of them without waiting for permission.
Belinda H. is right on when she says she had the best of the USA; those of us born after WWII (and yes, i am aware that this does not include a lot of people) did come of age in one of the best times of all. But of course there are going to be people who continually insist on remaining optimistic (Margi Prideaux refers to this as the drug "Hopium." It is fine for adolescents but not so good for grown ups.) The truth is, if we do not accept our terminal diagnosis we will not come to terms with what we need to do now.
Again, thank you Chris, please keep the articles coming.
Thank you, Chris, for an excellent and brutal analysis of the coming collapse. All the ingredients are here now and rushing pell-mell down the hill to annihilation.
Analyses like yours (this one and others you've written) need to be seen by as many people as possible. Perhaps a few prepared folks can survive, if the end isn't nuclear, and rebuild smaller communities and perpetuate the species. Nevertheless, I'm not particularly optimistic.
It seems that Gaia has had enough of us screwing things up and is ready to be done with our entire species.
Wise words, as always. Thank you Chris. I wish they would be more widely viewed, and heeded.
In other countries I've seen where they post the newspapers on public display boards. At least there were many years ago when I traveled more. People, usually older men, would stand and read them, slowly moving down the length of the board as they read the stories. Then they could discuss the news with other readers. Quite different from here and now.
I am thinking of this after reading today's piece. I would love to see Chris' words posted in public squares to be absorbed by the population at large. Then they could be discussed and debated, and most importantly, acknowledged. I've been reading these warnings for several decades, and they keep being made and repeated and reiterated. And they've been slowly, steadily coming true. Yet the one thing they all seem to have in common is - they keep being ignored. It's more than enough to make one despair.
Still, I am grateful people with insight and intelligence are sounding the alarm. It's a tough slog, but it does give me hope. Keep it up!
Fatalists have been lamenting the end of civilization throughout the history of civilization. This would be easy to accept as a respectable alternative view had not the fatalists become the prime culprit in social and economic destruction.
“This human inability to foresee — or to watch out for — long-range consequences may be inherent to our kind, shaped by the millions of years when we lived from hand to mouth by hunting and gathering. It may also be little more than a mix of inertia, greed, and foolishness encouraged by the shape of the social pyramid.”
I think a small subset of modern people have the capacity to see the long range consequences of greed, resource hoarding, and murder. In many hunter gatherer societies, these traits or deeds were looked down upon and considered taboo, even deserving of exile.
Many of us still are content with only what we need and sharing the rest, as are many in other countries like Colombia. I don’t know if it’s all of humanity or just those peddling this ‘humans own the earth to exploit everything in it bs’ that has given rise to rapacious capitalism.
We will have to live through a period of technofeudalism, but as Chris says, every empire decays under the weight of the greed of the few at the top. Instead of glorifying billionaire asshats like Musk and Bezos, we should exile and shame them. Their money is worthless without a society that accepts it.
It's worth pointing out that the existing world population of ca. 8 billion people is probably not sustainable even under current conditions, let alone at a global temperature increase of 4 degrees C! The global footprint for the current human population corresponds to the consumption of about 1.7 Earths each year. Climate change is a symptom of a larger problem called ecological overshoot. This year Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 28th, which means that the activities of the human species became non-sustainable on July 29th.
I’ve always wondered why they’re hypocrites in the green movement don’t talk about population. The earth can sustain about 2 billion people and that’s it.
Politically too toxic ... and the capitalist system based on growth needs more people ...
True, and the religions of Man need more people too. They are against any type of contraception. After all, their bets are in the other world not our beloved planet.
Fair enough and I think you are correct but it’s human population that is threatening the earth. Reduce recycle reuse is a Band-Aid compared to depopulation: a 100 year glide slope to 2 billion.
A 100 year glide slope refers to not having children, not replacing ourselves over time. Kill myself or friends and relatives, how could you construe that?
That’s very well said had a very good point
Mr Hedges is a clear thinking observer and writer.
Impossible to hit the “like” ❤️ after reading such a brilliantly written, albeit chilling, account of history and what appears to be our hopeless future. However, as usual, I so appreciate your succinct and vivid accounting of the horrors of the past that we incomprehensibly seem to insist upon hurtling toward; and now on an even grander and seemingly more final scale (!). How “exceptionally” American of us! “Now total destruction!! Bigger and better than ever before!” (Brought to you by: insert corporate name here). Sheesh 🙄! I will go to my grave shaking my head at the hubris and absurd idiocy of humankind willing to throw it all away, despite massive warnings, for the sake of what? Ego? Greed? Fear? Vengeance?
What a cowardly and egotistical species we are that we will forfeit and sacrifice everything for everyone because some of us who have amassed power, somehow feels unloved and/or can’t share with others. And the rest of us who refuse to band together to take back power and demand what might slow or stop this insanity are scarcely better. How criminal and bizarre! Ultimately, I can’t help but feel what a pathetic and tragic waste of evolution is humankind! But, who knows? Perhaps this is the way it’s supposed to ultimately devolve.
I totally agree with all that you said. I am such an admirer of Chris. It's a shame that more people aren't exposed to his thinking. Although many prefer to keep their heads in the sand. Several friends that I've forwarded this to asked me not to send his articles because they are too depressing.
Yep 👍. Same here. It saddens me deeply that so many people (most really lovely)I know refuse to open their eyes. I always feel like some kind of Cassandra when I want to talk about or forward journalists’ pieces like those of Mr. Hedges. It’s hard to find people who are willing to confront what’s happening. It would seem most prefer to look away and pretend it’s all okay and it will all be okay. Sigh 😔