1. I read this after reading an article about blackouts in San Diego because of a massive heatwave. A city is the *last* place I'd want to be during a blackout. It seems likely that blackouts during extreme weather events (heat, cold, etc.) will become more frequent.
2. It's very obvious that neither more urban nor more rural for 8B+ people is possible. No one wants to say the word "overpopulation" but the reality is that a lower-energy future in a massively ecologically degraded world will not support 8B+ people either in cities or in rural areas. And, a city is the last place I'd want to be during a massive die-off. Gruesome to contemplate, but we are living in a time when we must start being honest about these things.
It seems the overpopulation problem has been overstated and we are in fact declining in the west but either way it’s not so much the amount of the people but the way in which we live. We could have half the population and still be wreaking as much havoc on creation with our machines.
The misanthropy of “too many people” seems to me to deny our true human nature as stewards. I too would not want to be around millions of people in a city at any time let alone during a disaster but it’s a quality not quantity issue.
I recently re read the essay “four changes” by Gary Snyder. He is a wonderful poet but revisiting that work which I haven’t read since my early twenties I see it in a much different light. He’s advocating cultural encouragement and government support (which is the most terrifying) of abortion, vasectomies, polyamory etc. Essentially the destruction the family unit and family values. Which at its core it’s stable, rooted families that have in the past and will in the future, create conserving communities.
1. I read this after reading an article about blackouts in San Diego because of a massive heatwave. A city is the *last* place I'd want to be during a blackout. It seems likely that blackouts during extreme weather events (heat, cold, etc.) will become more frequent.
2. It's very obvious that neither more urban nor more rural for 8B+ people is possible. No one wants to say the word "overpopulation" but the reality is that a lower-energy future in a massively ecologically degraded world will not support 8B+ people either in cities or in rural areas. And, a city is the last place I'd want to be during a massive die-off. Gruesome to contemplate, but we are living in a time when we must start being honest about these things.
It seems the overpopulation problem has been overstated and we are in fact declining in the west but either way it’s not so much the amount of the people but the way in which we live. We could have half the population and still be wreaking as much havoc on creation with our machines.
The misanthropy of “too many people” seems to me to deny our true human nature as stewards. I too would not want to be around millions of people in a city at any time let alone during a disaster but it’s a quality not quantity issue.
I recently re read the essay “four changes” by Gary Snyder. He is a wonderful poet but revisiting that work which I haven’t read since my early twenties I see it in a much different light. He’s advocating cultural encouragement and government support (which is the most terrifying) of abortion, vasectomies, polyamory etc. Essentially the destruction the family unit and family values. Which at its core it’s stable, rooted families that have in the past and will in the future, create conserving communities.