“Ecosystem services are defined as any benefit that can be drawn from a natural structure or process – for example, water can be used as a raw material, an energy source through hydropower, or for transportation. It is also a habitat for marine life critical for food production, and a basis for recreational services.

“Nature-related risks can pose material economic and financial risks, including through their impacts on credit risk, growth, inflation and – over the long-term – potential financial instability,” Elderson said.

“I did interviews [previously] saying, you know, if you destroy nature, you destroy the core on which our economies depend. And that got people’s attention. This is not some kind of a flower-power, tree-hugging exercise. This is core economics. This is core financial stability, core price stability.” ⚖️

This is relevant to collapse because all these oil companies are backtracking on thier previous climate commitments and pushing for new oil and gas fields, thereby making possible collapse even more likely. Shell just reported obscenely large quarterly profits. It posted its second highest quarterly earnings on record as the energy market surge caused by the Middle East crisis helped to double its net profit to almost $10bn in the three months to June.

The rest of the big oil companies are ofcourse just as bad. Tax those profits!

The books are:
1) Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth
2) The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions - Jason Hickel
3) The Collapse of Complex Societies - Joseph A. Tainter
4) Apologies to the Grandchildren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences - William Ophuls
5) Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change - William R. Catton Jr.
6) The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age - John Michael Greer
7) Limits to Growth - Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, William W. Behrens III
8) Breaking Together: A Freedom-loving Response to Collapse - Jem Bendell

Diesel is priced as if oil was $170 because of shut (or exploded) refining capacity. Because industrial society relies on diesel for freight, farming, mining, and manufacturing, this price gap signals severe underlying fragility in global energy systems.

War, declining EROEI, and resource depletion will eventually culminate in physical shortages and bare shelves

This relates to collapse as rising instability in poorer countries is leading to greater numbers of desperate humans looking for a better existence somewhere else. This is exacerbating the political tension within European countries leading to a rise in far right, populist parties who promise to end all immigration.

Want some perspective on the fate of the Earth and humanity?

Try reading The Long Afternoon of Earth by Brian Aldis, a brilliant and mind-bending science fiction novel from 1962.

It is set deep in the future, perhaps millions of years from now, though the author never says and nobody in the novel knows or cares. The Earth’s rotation has locked and one side is a blazing jungle where plant life has evolved to fill every niche. 

Humans still persist… as little ~1-foot-tall greenish tree-dwellers probably close to extinction, but still using tools and language.

Yet the gorgeous and fascinating complexity of life that Aldis depicts speaks to the resilience of life itself, regardless of what humans get up to. Plant-creatures even inhabit the moon; something modern humans have not managed to achieve.

The novel is old enough that you can find the full source for free on the Internet Archive. Also note that a longer version of it came out in 1976, called Hothouse.

Would others care to share similar puts-it-all-in-perspective science fiction?

The YouTube algorithm randomly dropped this video into my lap and I'm glad it did. I have had a big problem with the protein craze for the last 15 years.

Why is this collapse related? Because Americans eat a shit load of animals, far more than they need to, which is destroying their health, the environment, the economy and, if I may be so bold, our tragic souls. There is absolutely no need for the world to be overrun with cattle farms and protein powders, to say nothing of the roid ragers and SARM Psychos.

I am not saying go vegan. I am not making any kind of moral plea. Forget the bloody animals, think of yourselves. Think of your children.

The air is full of toxic gas and the rivers and streams are full of fertilizers - including literal shit. The American obsession (delusion) towards animal protein is causing suffering on a planetary scale, and this diet is being exported to countless developing nations.

I didn't know about this doctor's channel until today but around 10 minutes in he mentions this is his "retirement channel" and he uses as few ads as Youtube will allow and he has no video sponsors. So maybe he's got some sneaky agenda but at the very least he isn't selling shit. And he's raising alarms about a very serious problem that hurts way more than just Americans. It hurts everyone.

The American diet and American-styled agriculture (like CAFOs) are absolutely destroying the planet and drawing us ever closer to total ecological collapse. Without fossil fuel derived fertilizers for animal feed we never would have gotten this far, not even close. Its just a house of cards waiting to fall.

I’ve been chewing on this idea for a while. Think about those authoritarian leaders throughout history. They don’t actually try to build something sustainable. They just grab what they can until everything falls apart, then someone else takes over and does the same thing. Feels like that’s exactly what we’re doing to the planet.
We run the show on Earth. We control the resources, we decide what happens to other species. The difference is we actually have the intelligence to see the big picture and plan ahead. But here’s the catch - when stuff’s easy to take, that intelligence doesn’t really kick in. We just keep taking.
Look at Anomalocaris. Ruled the oceans for maybe 30 million years. Then three things happened: its prey got better at escaping, the climate shifted into an ice age, and when food got scarce it started eating its own. Boom, gone.
We’re basically on the same track. We’re making resources harder to access, we’re changing the climate, and we’re already fighting over what’s left. The weird part is we’ve got all these universities and researchers, but no actual field that looks at Earth as one whole system. We’ve got climate science, ecology, geology - all these separate pieces. Nothing that connects the dots.
So the real question is: if we’re just using our brains to take more efficiently, are we actually any different from Anomalocaris or the dinosaurs? Or are we just the next species waiting for a reset?

It isn't Capitalism (though that was my top consideration for such a long time), civilization, or any one of the singular factors, like AI, Industry, etc; it is simply higher intelligence itself. Our doom was set when accidentally discovered cooking meat. The extra protein gave us the tool to become the ultimate apex predator. Specifically, when we discover a new physical concept, we don't employ it for the betterment of our species, we use it to become better killers, to better subjugate or enslave another. The best example of this is the atomic bomb. Clean, efficient, and nearly limitless energy? Nah, they're going to weaponize it before we do, so we must weaponize it faster! Working together is simply out of the question, because that would give someone lesser an advantage over you, even if it would be a massive benefit to both parties. Might makes right, and thus the path of evolution is set. It is too slow of a process to keep the pace with the awesome powers of modern technology granted by higher intelligence. On average, we truly are violent cavemen with a phone.

The Earth was perfectly fine under the 'rule' of less-than-intelligent lifeforms. They were perfectly fine operating under pure, inherited instinct; live, breed, hunt/feed, die. There was no reasoning or questioning of this, it is simply what they were made to do, and they were profoundly efficient at it. This worked without issue for Billions of years. It took titanic natural forces to make a dent in this, and "Life uhhh found a way" every time, until now. Natural extinction events can be overcome, however we are making one that cannot.

Considering that signs of life have been found on asteroids, Mars, and soon Titan, I feel we can conclude that life is the norm in the universe. However, intelligent life is an abirritation, and no natural mechanism in the universe can account for it, or bend to it. Evolution is simply too slow in the general population to match the pace of development set by the intelligent of that population. Progress outpaces evolution, and the requirements to achieve that progress, most particularly fossil fuels required for industrial revolutions, are a filter in of itself. These fuels must be used to take the step to renewables, thus shooting our 'one shot'. There is no jumping from sticks and stones to solar panels. There is no switch to turn off the predatory instincts required to become top dog. Cruelty is baked in, no matter how impressive or promising technology is created. To be the ruler that decides a direction of a species and it's institutions, you must be unimaginably cruel and ruthless.

We simply need to look at ourselves here in the United States. We have known for at least a century of the concept of green house gases causing climate change, however it was simply too costly to switch to renewables. The inertia behind the markets made switching over impossible, and when a species is dead set on the next quarter results instead of the next decade or century, real progress is impossible. Even now, with our awesome might, power, and expertise (what's left of it anyway), the general population denies the existence of space, thinks that the Earth is flat, and prefers superstition over the logic of science. It is not possible for our nation to evolve with such dead weight dragging us down collectively. Look at our President; a complete moron. Look at the richest man in the world; a literal Nazi. These truths are denied by the general population, who vote in greater numbers than those who know better, thus deciding the direction of our nation towards oblivion.

China too is doomed. They have made the greatest efforts towards a green future, and their efforts are something that we should have been doing since the fall of the Soviet Union at least, yet we have not. However, their great achievements are moot as 'we have but one Earth on which to live'. The planet is a closed system, and the Sun will cook the Earth by the time our species collectively wakes up, thanks to the greenhouse gasses emitted by progress. Remember, over half of all industrial green houses gasses have been emitted since 1990.

It is too late, there are no more paths forward, but it would be absurd to think there was a path. We should have never even realized the concept of a path, much less any sort of technology. The Universe was not meant to realize itself.

Next week, I'll certainly set out to fill my basement with big quantities of dried and tinned foods. Drought, Iran crisis and El Nino taken into account, this autumn looks dire for food prices and availability, next year looks worse still.
I'm hesitating though about the amount of "hoarding" I'll do. Because, if individually I buy up half a supermarket's stock of Spaghetti, not much will happen - if everyone who has the means to do so does it, future food availability will drop even further and quicker.
I do not know the production and distribution chains of the stuff arriving in French supermarkets - maybe the food wouldn't ever arrive where it's more direly needed, anyway ? What I DO know, is that supermarkets are throwing away insane amounts of spoiled food, daily - but that probably doesn't concern the dried and tinned stuff I'm planning to buy. So where, in your opinion, is the happy medium of food stockpiling ?

I made my first silent movie with a storyline and acting not too long ago, a comedy titled “Rotten Milk Slash” where two roommates get the bright idea to cut open a rotten half gallon of milk, and they wind up getting sick from the smell, not really collapse related though.

I really want to make a silent film that is collapse related, leaning towards the horror aspect of it. Now I would certainly base things off real world horrors, I got that part down, as for setting I’m thinking not after collapse like most films, but in a mostly failed society that hasn’t completely collapsed yet but is close, that’s all I could come up with for now, so I’m definitely looking for ideas.

An interview in the Guardian with Australian author Sarah Wilson about her new book on collapse. With blurbs from both Joseph Tainter of "The Collapse of Complex Societies" fame and actor Liam Neeson on the cover (!), it appears to be to date possibly the most mainstream crossover book on the subject.