Sunday, July 5, 2009

Trying To Understand the World

John Michael Greer- http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ - is to my mind is the pre-eminent Voice of the post-industrial age-watch community. He’s a historian/scholar/sociologist/Druid, noted speaker at ecology/crash watch conferences, author of several books on the subject & regular blogger. He’s patient, reasoned, articulate. He’s written the most lucid, understandable explanation of Peak Oil, & the ramifications, I’ve seen. His weekly blog posts are often responses to questions put to him by readers- lately, answers to the hopeful notions that technology will either save us from the ecological changes we’ve wrought, or that SOME technology will survive- like trains & the internet. He gently points out that trains, even electric trains, get their electricity from burning coal- & that the internet- free as it is- is run on servers that require huge amounts of energy. The idea that some resources are just too valuable to lose is just too bad: the value to humans doesn't determine the sustainability of the product.

His essays present a very clear understanding of the global economic, ecological,and industrial situation we're living through.

I’ve already passed along to many people printed versions of a letter he wrote to the activist community- finally, I found an online link to it: http://www.redroom.com/articlestory/getting-beyond-the-narratives-an-open-letter-activist-community . The use of magic and spell-making as metaphor in this letter explains numbers of issues to me- like forgetting your baby in a hot car, or of course thinking the Emperor MUST have clothes on. The power of the right/wrong duality he explicates, too- I hope to talk about this with you if you can read it.


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