Day 12

Saturday and everything is OK. I had a rocky night for reasons I can't quite figure - up at 3:00 for an hour - but it is a beautiful day and I left early for a long walk on the National Mall. Took the opportunity to call my Mother and Daughter and discuss the possibility of coming for a visit soon. Also called brother Dickie to see if it was OK to crash at his place. I need to be in Nashville for longer than a few days now that I have the option.

Back home on the Hill K and I go to Eastern Market for a two pronged strike - buy a chest of drawers at the flea market so we have enough storage space to fully unpack, and buy veggies for the upcoming few meals. We found a chest that should work and arranged to have it delivered. After buying vegetables, milk, flowers and wine we returned to the apartment and spent as long as we could sitting outside reading until the mosquitoes drove us in. Before the insects defeated us I managed to order Tainter's _The Collapse of Complex Societies_ for the Kindle (I can't get enough of a signal inside to actually connect to Amazon). It isn't an uplifting book but I have seen it referred to frequently in the last couple of years and feel uninformed for not having read it. So, time to catch up.

It probably is worthwhile to explain why I am interested in a scholarly treatment of the collapse of complex socities. I have always been something of a pessimist but over the last few years I have come to the conclusion that the world as we know it is quickly coming to an end. I don't really think - despite Al Gore and other hopeful critics - that changes in individual behavior will make enough of a difference to save us. It isn't just global warming - although that is serious enough - but also resource depletion generally - including the upcoming crises of oil, water, and food. Oil production peaked wordwide in 2005 and has been declining ever sense, water tables are falling and water shortages are being faced everywhere from China to California, and grain harvests for the last few years have been dramatically lower than expected even as prices for all foods have increaed. We are simply unprepared to deal with a sudden shortage of any of these and yet such shortages are inevitable given how we live. That no one in a position of authority will even suggest that we are living on the edge is a testament to how artificial and generally phony our 'government' and educated classes are. To pretend that we can continue to 'grow' the economy when what we are talking about is an exponentially growing population (with all its demands) set against a finite planet and its ever limited resources, is both foolish and the worst kind of magical thinking. No one will attempt to make sense of this because it is political suicide to address the subject of population - every single demographic group can cry fowl. There is no way of dealing with this that doesn't offend someone. Therefore, nothing will be done until it is too late - which is the same as saying that nothing will be done. I wish it were otherwise but I can't imagine how it will play out other than as a dark tragedy with most participants having no idea what has happened or why. There will be much illogical blaming of others - races, religions, nationalities, and ideologies for what is really a set of physical relationships that impose a limit beyond belief, prayer, cunning, or technological innovation. We are not prepared and nothing in our current world view, training, or experience can prepare us to deal with this. It is simply unprecedented.

So, sorry for the downer but this has been building for years and I fear the evidence is too great to ignore now. I try to live every day by savoring each moment. The richness of human experience will not diminish in the future, but any sense of security and predictability will be undone and what that will mean to human life overall can only be imagined.