This post is adapted from my comments on the latest installment of the Archdruid Report.
Lately I am musing (no, really obsessing) about
geography, hydrology, cultural, and political boundaries within the
American empire. More details will ensue as I delve into the
history of border skirmishes, rivalries, and canal-building schemes in
the Susquehanna Basin.
If you look at a map of the eastern US,
you see some organic boundaries, which generally follow either river
courses or watershed divides, representing natural patterns of human
settlement, or at least reasonable attempts to foster the same. Other boundaries are arrow-straight survey lines,
representing hasty arbitration, either because the land was previously unclaimed or
had rival claims. If the republic ever breaks apart again, these may
have to be revisited.
An interesting artifact of the
age of hasty surveys is that the biggest river system on the Eastern
Seaboard, the Susquehanna, is neither a state border nor a central
feature of a single state. Also because of the way it is politically
divided, the non-tidal and tidal (i.e. Chesapeake Bay) portions are
usually thought of as separate entities. This has had interesting
political, economic, and ecological results over nearly three centuries,
and may prove more interesting again in the future.
This
is just one example of what I am calling the fractal nature of empires.
Colonial America, even as it was part of the British Empire, was made
of little empires pumping wealth from their hinterlands, coming into
conflict with neighboring empires, reaching some level of hierarchy or
parity and uniting against the next common rival. New York -vs-
Philadelphia becomes North -vs- South, etc. Maybe more fancifully it is
like the NCAA tournament, but once you get to the final that's the
beginning of the end of a civilization. But in the case of empires in
decline the process goes somewhat in reverse, with long-dormant
conflicts likely to reappear. Balkanization anyone? True, differences in
history and society will mean differences in how things play out...
Graceful Decline
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
CMD Repost: It's the Economy That's Stupid
Note: This post first appeared on Chickens of Mass Destruction November 3, 2010.
In my previous post,
I mentioned that I thought that seriously curtailing fossil fuel
consumption and contracting the economy were the best choices we could
make for the long-term future. Today I want to elaborate a bit on that
idea.
Many people are in agreement that we should reduce fossil fuel consumption, maybe because of fears of global warming or other types of pollution (the BP disaster is far from over), or a concern that we are headed for a major accessibility crisis, summed up by the term "peak oil."
Most people who are aware of these threats envision living much as we do today, maybe with more attention paid to conservation, simply substituting renewal energy sources for fossil fuels. In this scenario we can continue to grow economically. As the less-developed countries catch up their birth rates will drop, and the total human population will stabilize at a sustainable level.
There are a few problems with this.
Many people are in agreement that we should reduce fossil fuel consumption, maybe because of fears of global warming or other types of pollution (the BP disaster is far from over), or a concern that we are headed for a major accessibility crisis, summed up by the term "peak oil."
Most people who are aware of these threats envision living much as we do today, maybe with more attention paid to conservation, simply substituting renewal energy sources for fossil fuels. In this scenario we can continue to grow economically. As the less-developed countries catch up their birth rates will drop, and the total human population will stabilize at a sustainable level.
There are a few problems with this.
CMD Repost: Memento Mori
Note: This post first appeared on Chickens of Mass Destruction November 2, 2010.
It's the season of Halloween, Samhain, El Día de los Muertos. In
many cultures around the world it is time to meditate on death: the
death of the crops at the end of the harvest season, as well as the
deaths of our fellow humans. It's time to remember and honor those who
have passed from this life, as well as to be mindful of our own
mortality.
Not coincidentally, here in the USA it is also election time. Our tradition of holding elections on the second Tuesday in November goes back to our agrarian past when roads were poor, travel slow, and polling places up to a day or two travel from home. In most parts of the country as it existed then, in early November the harvest would be done but the worst of winter weather a safe way off.
It all leads me to ponder the meaning of elections for an empire quite probably in the Autumn of its existence. For America is an empire built on optimism and enthusiasm of a most material sort, and the material is getting scarce. A new global paradigm will emerge one way or the other.
Not coincidentally, here in the USA it is also election time. Our tradition of holding elections on the second Tuesday in November goes back to our agrarian past when roads were poor, travel slow, and polling places up to a day or two travel from home. In most parts of the country as it existed then, in early November the harvest would be done but the worst of winter weather a safe way off.
It all leads me to ponder the meaning of elections for an empire quite probably in the Autumn of its existence. For America is an empire built on optimism and enthusiasm of a most material sort, and the material is getting scarce. A new global paradigm will emerge one way or the other.
CMD Repost: The Elephant in the Room
Note: This post first appeared in my blog Chickens of Mass Destruction on July 9, 2010.
No, I haven't abandoned this blog, but digging through the archives of John Michael Greer's Archdruid Report, and following up on links and recommendations, has put me in serious sponge mode.
I just finished reading Overshoot by William R. Catton. It's still a timely book 30 years after publication, a stark and devastating analysis of the human predicament from an ecological perspective. In a nutshell: we're riding a wave of exuberance that started with the Age of Discovery, got a boost from the Industrial Revolution, and is accelerating straight toward a crash: a major decline in both human population and material standard of living. The timing and exact nature of the crash will depend on many factors, but at this point in time, if you accept certain premises, some sort of crash is unavoidable.
If everyone on Wall Street read and understood Catton's book, or if any major world leader understood and articulated it (even Jimmy Carter missed the mark), the crash would start today, and maybe in a preferable form to many of the alternatives.
I just finished reading Overshoot by William R. Catton. It's still a timely book 30 years after publication, a stark and devastating analysis of the human predicament from an ecological perspective. In a nutshell: we're riding a wave of exuberance that started with the Age of Discovery, got a boost from the Industrial Revolution, and is accelerating straight toward a crash: a major decline in both human population and material standard of living. The timing and exact nature of the crash will depend on many factors, but at this point in time, if you accept certain premises, some sort of crash is unavoidable.
If everyone on Wall Street read and understood Catton's book, or if any major world leader understood and articulated it (even Jimmy Carter missed the mark), the crash would start today, and maybe in a preferable form to many of the alternatives.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Welcome to Graceful Decline
When I started the blog Chickens of Mass Destruction, the title was mostly whimsical, a play, in case you haven't figured it out, on the phrase "weapons of mass destruction." (That phrase itself turned out to be the biggest WMD, leading as it did to a great deal of destruction over the last 8 years.)
My whimsical twist on the phrase encompassed the interests I wanted to write about: food and agriculture, ecology, and politics. There was contained therein the idea that a simple thing like backyard chickens, and the local food movement in general, could also constitute a threat, albeit a gentle and ethical one, to the industrial capitalist system.
With this post I announce a spin-off blog, Graceful Decline. Here I hope to explore the broader political, social, and ecological questions around the decline and fall of the American empire. I'll reserve CMD for food and agriculture issues. Of course these things are all related, so there may be some more cross-posting between the two.
At least some of the time, I will be using John Michael Greer's excellent blog, the Archdruid Report, as a launching point. For the last 6 years he has been laying out a feast for the cerebral cortex, making a strong case that peak oil will spell the end of our civilization, and presenting a sober projection of life after cheap energy.
For Greer it is neither zombie apocalypse nor utopian deliverance, but a middle road of hard choices, hard work, and muddling through as the gargantuan system of complexity we all depend on crumbles. His ideas are steeped in the physical sciences, particularly the limits imposed by ecology and the laws of thermodynamics. He also has a large following of commentators, with interesting insights of their own. Anyone who wants to understand what I am attempting to do here should definitely read the ADR archives, or pick up one of Greer's books. Those that deal with peak oil-related issues are like a distillation of his blog.
In looking at the nature of the empire that the US has built I am also informed by the thinking of Howard Zinn, especially his alternative history classic A People's History of the United States. It has its limitations to be sure, but for understanding the dynamics of power in a capitalist democracy it is compelling and useful. Demagogy, distraction, and divide-and-conquer were favorite tools of the founders, and they are still the mainstays of American politics on all fronts.
I look around and see a system that is committed to growth on a planet of limited capacity. It's like watching a runaway locomotive headed for a sheer drop, and all I can offer is my tiny voice. Please join the discussion, link, share. Add to my voice or try to neutralize it as you see fit...
My whimsical twist on the phrase encompassed the interests I wanted to write about: food and agriculture, ecology, and politics. There was contained therein the idea that a simple thing like backyard chickens, and the local food movement in general, could also constitute a threat, albeit a gentle and ethical one, to the industrial capitalist system.
With this post I announce a spin-off blog, Graceful Decline. Here I hope to explore the broader political, social, and ecological questions around the decline and fall of the American empire. I'll reserve CMD for food and agriculture issues. Of course these things are all related, so there may be some more cross-posting between the two.
At least some of the time, I will be using John Michael Greer's excellent blog, the Archdruid Report, as a launching point. For the last 6 years he has been laying out a feast for the cerebral cortex, making a strong case that peak oil will spell the end of our civilization, and presenting a sober projection of life after cheap energy.
For Greer it is neither zombie apocalypse nor utopian deliverance, but a middle road of hard choices, hard work, and muddling through as the gargantuan system of complexity we all depend on crumbles. His ideas are steeped in the physical sciences, particularly the limits imposed by ecology and the laws of thermodynamics. He also has a large following of commentators, with interesting insights of their own. Anyone who wants to understand what I am attempting to do here should definitely read the ADR archives, or pick up one of Greer's books. Those that deal with peak oil-related issues are like a distillation of his blog.
In looking at the nature of the empire that the US has built I am also informed by the thinking of Howard Zinn, especially his alternative history classic A People's History of the United States. It has its limitations to be sure, but for understanding the dynamics of power in a capitalist democracy it is compelling and useful. Demagogy, distraction, and divide-and-conquer were favorite tools of the founders, and they are still the mainstays of American politics on all fronts.
I look around and see a system that is committed to growth on a planet of limited capacity. It's like watching a runaway locomotive headed for a sheer drop, and all I can offer is my tiny voice. Please join the discussion, link, share. Add to my voice or try to neutralize it as you see fit...
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