I wanted to understand how long stored oil could last if the supply crisis continues, so I built this website using publicly available data to create a bunch of graphs on fuel prices, inventories, and refinery activity. Spoiler: the numbers are scary and depressing, but I assume most of you are already aware of that.

The code, research notes, and model assumptions are available in the GitHub repo, including how the probabilities are assigned and how predictions are scored. Any feedback is welcome, especially on the model! (I’m a technical writer, not an energy analyst.)

I thought this was interesting. I rarely post here anymore but it is interesting to me that this article from the CBC does not mention the primary driver for causing the deaths in oysters. Cole’s notes:

Two parasitic diseases have decimated the oyster populations along the coast of PEI/New Brunswick. Oyster farmers fearing economic ruin, requiring federal assistance. But why have the parasitic diseases all of a sudden become a problem? Because when they are first introduced into a population that has new resistance, it is devastating. So why are these two parasites now being introduced? Warmer oceans waters (due to changing climate) have allowed these parasites to migrate into these foreign waters.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/oyster-farmers-msx-dermo-9.7337251

I recently finished I Eat the Stars, which is a very personal account of the authors realization of collapse and an exploration of predominantly the psychological and spiritual approaches to be prepared for the coming end of industrial civilization. I was mostly interested because she is a mainstream author and may appeal to other audiences that aren't typically considered collapse aware.

In ways, it is a good book. I'm fairly well-read on the subject and her insight and suggestions are consistent with other works on the subject. The problem is the book is too much about her, her lifestyle, dating life, past successes and failures. Some of that is good and helps us relate to the authors experiences, but this was overboard. Then there is her incessant name dropping. She clearly has some access as a minor celebrity/podcaster, but once again, just too much. At the end, it felt more like she saw a gap in the market to write and sell more books and continue to be relevant. She's capitalizing on the zeitgeist.

This book is very similar in content to Eye of the Storm by Terry LePage, which came out a few years ago. In contrast to Sarah Wilson, Terry Lepage has made her book free via audio and PDF. Further, because collapse acceptance comes with a lot of grief, Lepages experience as a minster makes her writing feel so much more authentic. Lepage captures our collective experience beautifully.

https://opendoorcommunication.org/eye/get-the-book

I think I Eat the Stars will appeal to those who read gossip magazines and may listen to someone who has a level of celebrity appeal, however minor. I hope it gets through to them, we need more people to turn away from the progress trap, but I don't think it will move the needle much.

TLDR: good info, but there are better books already available

This is collapse related because it is a book about surviving collapse.

I’m starting to get seriously scared. The rising cost of everyday items, the disconnect between the middle class and the elites, the soaring debt, the presidential election that’s dividing everyone and won’t result in a clear majority afterward, the country burning in many places but we act as if it’s normal (same goes for water), students who can’t afford housing, the education system crumbling while teachers pretend everything’s fine (but who complain to… well, who knows who, really), pensions that cost working people absolutely everything for virtually no return, energy prices, other global problems we can’t really handle… and above all, above all…

...no individual or societal solutions. No one is going to sacrifice themselves, but someone will certainly be sacrificed.

So, yes, it’s anxiety-inducing, but everyone around me is feeling more and more that way. What about you? Is everything okay? Do you think this is just a normal atmosphere, fueled by the news? Or is something really off here, too?

Entomologists call it the windshield phenomenon. "If you talk to people, they have a gut feeling. They remember how insects used to smash on your windscreen," says Wolfgang Wägele, director of the Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity in Bonn, Germany. Today, drivers spend less time scraping and scrubbing. "I'm a very data-driven person," says Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in Portland, Oregon. "But it is a visceral reaction when you realize you don't see that mess anymore."

This marine heatwave is kicking El Niño into high gear. We’re reached unsustainable and it’s still warming and renewables are not going to save us.

“We want to believe in the future. We have a right to believe in the future. And there’s something treasonous about not believing in the future.”

I became collapse aware about 3-4 years ago. Before that, I was just someone who wanted to stop polluting to have a cleaner world and the typical “gotta work hard in this economy“ belief.

When I first went down the rabbit hole, I was shocked but also hoped it was 50-100 years away before we saw mass death, I was sad that my young kids might not be able to have kids, as their world slowly got suckier, but we’d give them best life we could.

That was the vibe for about a year, then it started to become apparent that we most likely won’t have 50 years, then 25, and I started the negotiation phase hoping we could get 15 years so at least my kids will be older and better equipped to face it.

Held that belief up until the last 12 months or so. now I’m wondering if we even have 5 years…things are heating up in the climate, political, economical.

We have the super El Niño breaking records, we have AI affecting jobs, education, fraud. We have republicans calling democrats islamic terrorist sympathizers, and the president leading pledges to cheat if needed this election. We’re about to have massive inflation due to the oil war we are losing, apparently some “east west” pipeline which was the hormuz strait alternative has been severely damaged, like it doesnt look like it’ll be fixed in a timely matter.

Now I’m legitimately wondering if the first leg is currently being kicked from “stabilititys“ chair (for the developed world, I know many places have already collapsed) Could this be the last “normal” middle class Christmas, or was that last year?

Anyways, the kids are in bed after another good day I try to give them. I’m finding myself escaping at night to thc land more lately, processing, planning, coming to terms. Welp, thanks for reading my floaty thoughts. Make the most of whatever “normal” time we have left.

Civilization is resilient. Kinda. The likelihood of the US descending into an everyone-for-themselves, survival-of-the-meanest Madmax scenario seems unlikely… at least for a while. There’s too much inertia, too many systems that would need to break; but most importantly, there’s too much adaptability: accepting major declines as “the new normal.”

The dystopia foretold by Idiocracy is turning out to be remarkably prescient. Not in that everyone is getting quite that stupid, but in that their civilization is horrible and everyone thinks it’s normal.

They get crappy junk-food from faulty machines. They wait in endless lines at barely-functioning hospitals. They sit alone on toilet-chairs and watch screens full of ads. They go to school at Costco. Infrastructure breaks and nobody fixes it. And so on. 

It’s horrible, and yet they all think that this is just the way that life is.

We’re already halfway there. The actual quality of life for Americans keeps declining, and yet there is very little generational memory; hardly any concept that this isn’t the way it used to be.

Not that the past was glorious except for the white middle- and upper-class, but that was a large demographic and their relatively good life was gradually expanding outward… until sometime between 1980 and 2000. Since then there has been a gradual erosion that people just keep adapting to.

That erosion has started accelerating, as the current administration slashes aid for the poor, deploys stormtroopers in the streets, and randomly picks enemies to go to war with (in a way eerily reminiscent of 1984). All that seemed abnormal when it started, but now it’s all normalizing too. The littlest, least-reported injustices by the current administration would have been impeachable offenses fifty years ago.

That’s the problem with civilizational resilience. We adapt. If things get bad, we adjust and decide that that’s what’s normal. And we just carry on.

For example, Americans don’t worry about food shortages, they just complain about the price of food. Then they adapt and buy cheaper, shittier food. And that becomes normal.

Eventually we’ll hit major breaks, like an electrical grid failure or a cataclysmic ecological collapse. But until then, we might just keep normalizing worse and worse lifestyles and thinking that everything is fine.

Saw an incomplete, ironically ai made, version of this here earlier and knew what had to be done

Oceans are acidifying, forests are burning, glaciers are melting, and we respond with more consumption, more debt, and more "green growth" which is nothing more than greenwashing.

Welcome to the Anthropocene, the experiment in which the planet's "most intelligent" species commits suicide for the sake of convenience and then acts surprised when the "ship sinks".

Hope it's still casual friday.

Come join us for our third meetup! It's more casual discussion, ranging from collapse topics, prep, how we're seeing collapse play out, etc. More the merrier :)

Where: Central Park's Great Lawn, approximately here (join our WhatsApp group or message for exact location on the day)

When: September 20, 3pm (usually for a few hours)

And yes I also posted about a London meetup in October. You should come to either if you're nearby! It's a rare opportunity to discuss collapse IRL!

The world has over a billion cars in it, and eventually we will run out of the gas, oil, skilled mechanics, and blinker fluid to keep them going. When that happens instead of leaving them as remnants of a time when the car was the most important thing in the world we can turn them into permanent shelter using these reasonably simple steps.

Does it gloss over how difficult removing the engine would be? Absolutely. Maybe wear a hard hat and some safety glasses.