#wild but not unexpected from an existential threat

[forter-from-meteos]

i still have a lot of thoughts about meteos

[lets-steal-an-archive]

TVLine Fall TV Spoilers, retrospective edition (s8-s15)

Fall TV Spoiler Spectacular: Exclusive Scoop and Photos on 47 Returning Favorites! [September 06, 2012]

PREVIOUSLY ON… | After taking out Leviathan boss Dick Roman, Dean and Cas disappeared to a monster-filled purgatory while Sam was left on his own back on Earth. Ghost Bobby finally moved on to the other side.

COMING UP NEXT | Dean and Sam will reunite in the season premiere, but lots will have changed while they were separated. For one, after a “not very cute meet” with Amelia (recurring guest star Liane Balaban), Sam struck up a romance with the damaged woman during the Winchesters’ hiatus from each other, previews new showrunner Jeremy Carver. Dean’s side of the story will be told in flashbacks, which will answer the mystery of why Castiel vanished and how the elder brother got out of purgatory. Hint: He’s now indebted to the vamp Benny, “who is a super cool, super complex character who is a force to be reckoned with unto himself,” says Carver. “That is something that applies above ground and below ground.”

TVLINE BONUS SPOILER | Prepare for a major new recurring character in Naomi, who’s all business – complete with a serious pulled back hairdo – and very private. But underneath that no-nonsense suit exterior, she’s not quite so together.

Fall TV Spoiler Spectacular: Exclusive Scoop and Photos on 45 Returning Favorites! [September 03, 2013]

PREVIOUSLY ON… | Metatron expelled all the angels from Heaven and turned Castiel into a human. Sam continued his efforts to close the gates of Hell by curing Crowley, but Dean discovered that completing the trials would kill him, and begged his brother not to go through with it. Unfortunately, Sammy didn’t know how to stop what he started and collapsed in agony.

COMING UP NEXT | No surprise here: Sam survives. But why he does is a secret that the elder Winchester will hold on to — and one which may cause a rift between the brothers. “You’re going to find Dean, in the beginning of this season, in a slightly different position, one where it’s his decision driving great importance and weight on their relationship,” previews executive producer Jeremy Carver. “It’s a heavy weight to bear, and it has a great effect on their relationship.” There’s also angel mayhem on Earth for the brothers to contend with, including “a lot of players for the throne of who’s going to rise to the fore here,” including Battlestar Galactica alum Tahmoh Penikett’s injured warrior angel. Cas, meanwhile, is adjusting to life as a human by “eating, defecating and fornicating,” deadpans his portrayer Misha Collins. On the more quirky side, Felicia Day’s Charlie returns in Episode 4, which goes back in time to reveal “the first Men of Letters ever to occupy the bunker,” teases Carver. So what were they up to? You know, the usual — like “learning the truth behind the events that lead to The Wizard of Oz books. It’s a lot of fun and heartfelt.”

TVLINE BONUS SPOILER | Penikett’s Ezekiel isn’t the only heavenly creature we’ll be meeting. “We’re really delving into the individual characters here, and we found really interesting, really neat angels,” says Carver. “Wherever we can dive into Biblical references, we do and then we turn that the way that we need. Some of the angels that we see…have deep roots in angel mythology.”

Fall TV Spoilers 2014: Exclusive Scoops On 42 Season Premieres [September 02, 2014]

As a newly turned supernatural creature, Dean will have to decide “how dark and what kind of demon he’s going to be,” executive producer Jeremy Carver previews. So what’s the verdict? Per star Jensen Ackles, “[He’s] an ultra version of a womanizing party animal.” Considering how wild and fun his new life is – he even becomes too much for Crowley to handle! – it’s no wonder then that Dean doesn’t want to be found. But Sam, unaware of what’s happened to his brother, will try his darnedest, leading the younger Winchester “to do some questionable things that will make him, and certainly the audience, wonder which one of these guys is the true monster,” Carver notes. Meanwhile, Castiel is back on Earth and struggling with the moral dilemma of how to get his angelic grace back without being a burden.

BONUS SPOILER | Cas will be the harsh “voice of reason” when it comes to Dean’s situation, says Ackles. “Even though it might be hard to hear, it might be hard to say, he tells Sam, ‘Listen, you know what you have to do if things don’t go right.’”

Fall TV Spoilers 2015: Exclusive Scoop On 44 Season Premieres [September 08, 2015]

The Winchesters will need all the help they can get battling The Darkness, which brings us to Season 11’s theme: “You can’t outrun your past.” Dean and Sam “have to make some unexpected and unholy alliances involving folks from their past, which will have personal ramifications,” exec producer Jeremy Carver reveals. Will any of said people be fan faves who died? “We’re talking about a fight that is going to incorporate the likes of Heaven and Hell and those on Earth. So there’s certainly opportunity to see folks that have departed,” the EP replies. Perhaps one of them can provide some answers, because “there’s a lot of mystery to not only what or who The Darkness is” – maybe it’s a she? – “but what The Darkness wants,” Carver says. And while Castiel will be working alongside the brothers, he first needs to “find a way out of this spell that Rowena has cast.”

BONUS SPOILER!: Praise be! “We’re going to see more of a vintage Crowley in terms of scheming, less caring about Dean and Sam,” Carver shares.)

Fall TV Spoilers 2016: Exclusive Scoop On 42 Season Premieres [September 07, 2016]

“Dean, Mary and Cas are on the ‘Save Sam train,’ and that really drives them for the first three episodes,” executive producer Andrew Dabb previews. Once reunited, the Winchesters find themselves “pulled in two different directions” thanks to the dual threat of the British Men of Letters and Lucifer, who has taken on the vessel of a down-on-his-luck rock star (Rick Springfield). Everyone wants a piece of the fallen angel, including Crowley, who is looking to reclaim Hell and get payback for being humiliated. Lady Toni’s brethren, however, may turn out to be occasional allies in addition to stirring up trouble. “Sometimes, Sam and Dean will be working with them. Sometimes, they’ll be working against them,” Dabb hints. Meanwhile, the miraculous return of Mama Winchester has the brothers feeling “happy and conflicted” as she adjusts to a world that includes modern technology and angels. Speaking of heavenly creatures: Season 12 will spin “more personal” Cas stories and dig into his past a bit.

BONUS SPOILER!: “We’re putting the focus more on the world of hunters, so some of our past fan favorite hunters will, hopefully, swing through the show,” Dabb teases.

Fall TV Spoilers 2017: Scoop on 35+ Returning Favorites [September 07, 2017]

Cutting to the chase, “death is not the end for Castiel,” executive producer Andrew Dabb reports. “That being said, when we pick up our season he’s more dead than people usually get on our show. Castiel has a big role to play for us, but that may not be as soon as some people are hoping.” Meanwhile, the Winchester brothers, Dean especially, are reeling from the double whammy of losing their friend and their mom Mary. “There’s no one they can call,” Dabb notes, “so our guys are a bit on their own, a little spun out, both emotionally and in terms of the plot.” On top of that, they’re “acting as parents” to Lucifer’s “walking atomic bomb” offspring. “There are parts of him and things he does that they really love,” Dabb shares, “and there are parts of him and things he does that worry them a bit.” In the alt apocalypse world, Mary’s attempt to run away from Lucifer doesn’t go as well as she had hoped, while the fallen archangel finds that he “may not be the most powerful” creature over there.

BONUS SPOILER!: “Even if it’s not played by an actor that we recognize, there are certain characters that are going to come back in different bodies,” Dabb hints.

Fall TV Spoilers 2018: Scoop on 40 Returning Favorites [September 05, 2018]

Michael still wants to purify the world, but now that he’s loose on our earth — in Dean’s body, no less! — “his method is going to change,” executive producer Andrew Dabb previews. Back at the bunker, little bro Sam and heavenly pal Castiel are “extremely driven to find Dean,” with the latter even seeking help from “certain people, possibly with black eyes, who he would not normally contact.” Despite their efforts, “Sam, ultimately, and even Cas, to a degree, are a little pessimistic,” the EP says. “They’re not sure if it’s going to work out.” The Winchesters’ mom, Mary, however, “is optimistic, but sometimes that optimism can be very annoying.” Meanwhile, powerless Jack is back to hunter basics, “learning how to throw a punch [and] decapitate a vampire,” with the help of Bobby. Up in Heaven, Naomi and the few remaining angels are “trying to hold everything together.” As for the dark side, “we’re going to get a really good preview of what’s going on in Hell, actually, in the first episode,” Dabb teases.

BONUS SPOILER!: In Episode 4, “Sam and Dean and our whole crew get involved in our homage to ’80s slasher movies,” Dabb shares. “We’ve got some really cool gory stuff planned for that.”

Fall TV Preview 2019: Spoilers on 37 Returning Favorites [September 4 2019]

After finding out that God has been manipulating them, Dean and Sam are facing an “existential crisis” in the 15th and final season. “They’re realizing, ‘Well, we’re the Winchesters, but were we really doing this Chuck’s way?'” co-showrunner Andrew Dabb previews. “Part of reclaiming that agency is a big part of the season for them.” Plus, the brothers are “going to start to lose people who, in past seasons, we would’ve never lost — and lose them in a very real way. Our guys are going to realize there’s a certain finality, and some of the things they’ve relied on to get through the day — people, talents, things like that — they are no longer going to be able to roll out. And that’s going to throw them for a loop.” The show’s swan song will also welcome back some departed faces, including the Winchesters’ half-brother Adam (Jake Abel), God’s sister Amara (Emily Swallow) and deceased hunter Eileen (Shoshannah Stern).

BONUS SPOILER!: Jack is still in The Empty when Season 15 starts, and “he’s not coming back in the near future,” Dabb reveals. As for the deal Cas made to save Lucifer’s offspring, “when The Empty becomes more active, a lot of things are going to come to a head.”

[electricbluebutterflies]

Kabby 6+44 for the things you said prompt

Post-s2-grayspace fluff! PG-ish and also on ao3.

things you said under the stars and in the grass + things you said before you kissed me

To her surprise, they stay civil once they heal up.

The first week of this new dynamic, Abby blames on the amount of pain she's in. Movement is not at all desirable, and she's too damn tired to hide her emotions under the usual layers, and Marcus is… there, for lack of a better word. He's having an existential crisis and apparently thinks taking care of her is an acceptable way of dealing with it, and she's surprised by how little she minds. The softness of him is new and unfamiliar, but she decides she likes it.

And then he stays gentle even once she can keep up, and that is a problem.

She won't take another lover. She can't, she promised herself the moment Jake died that she'd never risk another person like that. Yes, she knows how many factors were in play and how little she actually could've done, but she still has that weight on her shoulders, that unshakeable guilt that makes her so terrified to even think about hypothetically wanting anyone. Let alone someone so distinct and so close.

This new unfolding version of Marcus Kane is not something she could've planned for - if she's honest, something he didn't plan for either. It's just kinda happening, and the changes are all such dramatic improvements, and yet he's still…

Something broke him. She broke him, she knows that much. Is it wrong to think the brokenness is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen?

They have a community to run, and that takes time and energy like nothing else Abby has ever done, but every few days he decides they need a break from administrative tasks. Today, he's decided they're going for a walk and she is not allowed to come up with any reasons to say no, and she goes with it so easily it frightens her. It won't be a full break, exactly - they'll still end up talking logistics, and likely getting more done than they would in their workroom because no one else will be in their way. Just them, in a beautiful place for a couple hours, and it will be lovely.

It's a little later than they should be out, perhaps, but she's unafraid as they slip through the main gate. As long as they're together, she's safe. It's a strange feeling, realizing that someone who was once her worst enemy has become her anchor, but she thinks she loves it. Marcus has a pistol on his hip and a knife in his jacket pocket in case of emergency, but the threat level is low and their direction is safe. Hell, they could be out the whole night and be okay now.

Not that Abby would ever think of such a thing, but they could. If they wanted to. Which she does not. At all. She's pretty sure.

"This is the first quiet I've gotten in a week," she murmurs once they're out into the wild. She's still overwhelmed by the sheer amount of green around her - it snowed a couple days ago but it's melted now, still bitter cold but in a different way than the sky was. Much more to look at, definitely.

"I know. I thought… we both do so much, and… for the next few hours, maybe…"

"Are you suggesting that we actually do nothing for a while? I am impressed."

"You haven't taken a proper break from anything in over a year, Abby. I know that's how you handle things, but…"

"And you're just as bad and have been for longer."

"We can do better here. I want us to do better."

There's something hesitant in the way he says us, like he's still figuring out all he wants that word to cover, and she picks that moment to reach for his hand. Neither of them are affectionate people, but there's comfort in closeness and this slowly-developing shift between them. Perhaps, in a few years…

"And how does going for a walk at sunset factor into this?"

"We've both had injuries recently and I think you said something about movement helping recovery? And we've both done even more than we planned to do today, and I thought… I thought you'd like a change of scenery."

It's a sweet gesture, and since when did sweet become a word that applied to Marcus Kane so easily, and if she were a slightly different woman she'd twirl around and kiss him right now because it would be appropriately reckless. But she is still guarded and probably cursed, and she's scared, and-

"Thank you."

These new feelings need to go the hell away, she decides as they continue to walk slowly in peaceful silence. She should not be feeling so fluttery around him of all people. She should not be wondering what it would feel like to feel his beard against her most sensitive places. But oh, she is human and her options are limited and maybe he does make sense, as someone who has seen her at her worst and yet is currently her favorite person, and-

"Is something wrong?" he asks at exactly the right moment.

"Feels strange to be talking to you and not thinking about putting my hands around your neck. Not wrong, just not used to it."

"Me neither, but I like this much better."

"You've… you've changed, Marcus."

"I finally saw what was right in front of me the whole time and decided to act accordingly."

Oh.

She'd expected as much - there aren't a lot of other possible catalysts for his transformation, especially given the timing - but hearing him actually say it is something else entirely and her heart melts. More than she ever could've hoped for, in this unexpected form, and-

It is all too easy to pull him down and kiss him, because she can and she wants to and she's curious, and she tastes the shock as he shifts around her and wraps her in his arms and oh, yes, good.

"We should… we should be careful about… doing that."

Fifteen years she's wondered what it would take to render him speechless. She really should've kissed him sooner.

"I'm not asking you to go to bed with me. Not yet, anyways. But I wanted to see if-"

He initiates the next kiss. And the one after. And all of the gentleness she's watched develop is brought into their collision, and all of the fire that has burned between them for so long, and it is beautifully enough.

"You're right," she murmurs. "We should be careful. Anyone else finds out we've done that…"

"I told you about the betting pool, right?"

"What betting pool?"

"You, um… it will be safer for everyone if you don't know, Abby. But it exists. About us."

"Can you at least tell me who I want to kill?"

"That's exactly why I can't."

"This new version of you is no fun."

He leans down and kisses her again, deeper this time. "Are you sure?"

"Don't take this somewhere you don't want to go, Marcus."

"I want to go there. But not… not here. I am not lying you down on poisonous plants. Sometime soon, if you want, but not in the great outdoors."

"Alright."

She kisses his cheek, because she's feeling playful, and the look on his face tells her everything she wants to know right now.

At some point in time, she bled pretty enough to wrap him around her fingers, and now… now she gets to figure out what to do with that. Hopefully they'll have time.

"We should go back towards home," she murmurs.

"We're safe a little while longer. I like the quiet."

"You like the fact that I won't be able to explain the state of my face if anyone notices the scratches."

"Well now that you mention it…"

[moodboardinthecloud]

“PANDEMICS: LESSONS LOOKING BACK FROM 2050” BY FRITJOF CAPRA AND HAZEL HENDERSON

https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/pandemics-lessons-looking-back-from-2050/

“Ethical Markets is happy to bring you this  latest co-authored article “Pandemics: Lessons Looking Back From 2050″ by Hazel Henderson and our esteemed Advisory Board member Fritjof Capra.   We hope for your feedback and feel free to circulate this to  your networks.

~Hazel Henderson,  Editor”

“PANDEMICS — LESSONS LOOKING BACK FROM 2050”

Fritjof Capra and Hazel Henderson

© 2020

Imagine, it is the year 2050 and we are looking back to the origin and evolution of the coronavirus pandemic over the last three decades.  Extrapolating from recent events, we offer the following scenario for such a view from the future.

As we move into the second half of our twenty-first century, we can finally make sense of the origin and impact of the coronavirus that struck the world in 2020 from an evolutionary systemic perspective. Today, in 2050, looking back on the past 40 turbulent years on our home planet, it seems obvious that the Earth had taken charge of teaching our human family. Our planet taught us the primacy of understanding of our situation in terms of whole systems, identified by some far-sighted thinkers as far back as the mid-nineteenth century.  This widening human awareness revealed how the planet actually functions, its living biosphere systemically powered by the daily flow of photons from our mother star, the Sun.

Eventually, this expanded awareness overcame the cognitive limitations and incorrect assumptions and ideologies that had created the crises of the twentieth century. False theories of human development and progress , measured myopically by prices and money-based metrics, such as GDP,  culminated in rising social and environmental losses:  pollution of air, water and land; destruction of biological diversity; loss of ecosystem services, all  exacerbated by global heating, rising sea levels, and massive climate disruptions.

These myopic policies had also driven social breakdowns, inequality, poverty, mental and physical illness, addiction, loss of trust in institutions — including media, academia, and science itself — as well as loss of community solidarity.  They had also led to the pandemics of the 21st century, SARS, MERS, AIDS, influenza, and the various coronaviruses that emerged back in 2020.

During the last decades of the 20th century, humanity had exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity. The human family had grown to 7.6 billion by 2020 and had continued its obsession with economic, corporate, and technological growth that had caused the rising existential crises threating humanity’s very survival.  By driving this excessive growth with fossil fuels, humans had heated the atmosphere to such an extent that the United Nations (UN) climate science consortium, IPCC noted in its 2020 update that humanity had only ten years left to turn this crisis situation around.

As far back as 2000, all the means were already at hand: we had the know-how, and had designed efficient renewable technologies and circular economic systems, based on nature’s ecological principles.  By 2000, patriarchal societies were losing  control over their female populations, due to the forces of urbanization and education.   Women themselves had begun to take control of their bodies and fertility rates began to tumble even before the turn of the twenty-first century.  Widespread revolts against the top-down narrow economic model of globalization and its male-dominated elites led to disruptions of the unsustainable paths of development driven by fossil fuels, nuclear power, militarism, profit, greed, and egocentric leadership.

Military budgets which had starved health and education needs for human development, gradually shifted from tanks and battleships to less expensive, less violent information warfare.  By the early 21st century, international competition for power focused more on social propaganda, persuasion technologies, infiltration and control of the global internet.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic‘s priorities in medical facilities competed with victims in emergency rooms, whether those wounded by gun violence or patients with other life threatening conditions. In 2019, the nationwide US movement of schoolchildren had joined with the medical profession in challenging gun violence as a public health crisis. Strict gun laws gradually followed, along with rejection of gun manufacturers in pension funds’ assets crippling the gun lobby and, in many countries, guns were purchased back by governments from gun owners and destroyed, as Australia had done in the 20th century. This greatly reduced global arms sales, together with international laws requiring expensive annual licenses and insurance, while global taxation reduced the wasteful arms races of previous centuries.  Conflicts between nations are now largely governed by international treaties and transparency.  Now in 2050, conflicts rarely involve military means, shifting to internet propaganda, spying and cyber warfare.

By 2020, these revolts exhibited all the fault lines in human societies: from racism and ignorance, conspiracy theories, xenophobia and scapegoating of “the other“ to various cognitive biases — technological determinism, theory-induced  blindness, and the fatal, widespread  misunderstanding that confused money with actual wealth.  Money, as we all know today, was a useful invention: all currencies are simply social protocols (physical or virtual tokens of trust), operating on social platforms with network effects, their prices fluctuating to  the extent that their various  users trust and use them.   Yet, countries and elites all over the world became enthralled with money and with gambling in the “global financial casino,” further encouraging the seven deadly sins over traditional values of cooperation, sharing, mutual aid, and the Golden Rule.

Scientists and environmental activists had warned of the dire consequences of these unsustainable societies and retrogressive value systems for decades, but until the 2020 pandemic corporate and political leaders, and other elites, stubbornly resisted these warnings. Previously unable to break their intoxication with financial profits and political power, their own citizens forced the re-focus on the well-being and survival of humanity and the community of life.  Incumbent fossilized industries fought to retain their tax breaks and subsidies in all countries as gas and oil prices collapsed. But they were less able to buy political favors and support of their privileges.  It took the global reactions of millions of young people, “grassroots globalists,“ and indigenous peoples, who  understood the systemic processes of our planet Gaia — a self-organizing, self-regulating  biosphere which for billions of years had managed all planetary evolution without interference from cognitively-challenged humans.

In the first years of our twenty-first century, Gaia responded in an unexpected way, as it had so often during the long history of evolution. Humans’ clear-cutting large areas of tropical rainforests and massive intrusions into other ecosystems around the world, had fragmented these self-regulating ecosystems and fractured the web of life. One of the many consequences of these destructive actions was that some viruses, which had lived in symbiosis with certain animal species, jumped from those species to others and to humans, where they were highly toxic or deadly.   People in many countries and regions, marginalized by the narrow profit-oriented economic globalization, assuaged their hunger by seeking “bush meat“ in these newly exposed wild areas , killing monkeys, civets, pangolins, rodents and bats,  as additional protein sources . These wild species, carrying a variety of viruses were also sold live in “wet markets,” further exposing ever more urban populations to these new viruses.

Back in the 1960s, for example, an obscure virus jumped from a rare species of monkeys killed as “bush meat” and eaten by humans in West Africa. From there it spread to the United States where it was identified as the HIV virus and caused the AIDS epidemic.  Over four decades, they caused the deaths of an estimated 39 million people worldwide, about half a percent of the world population. Four decades later, the impact of the coronavirus was swift and dramatic. In 2020, the virus jumped from a species of bats to humans in China, and from there it rapidly spread around the world, decimating world population by an estimated 50 million in just one decade.

From the vantage point of our year 2050, we can look back at the sequence of these viruses: SARS, MERS, and the global impact of the various coronavirus mutations which began back in 2020. Eventually such pandemics were stabilized, partly by the outright bans on “wet markets“ all over China in 2020 . Such bans spread to other countries and global markets, cutting the trading of wild animals and reducing vectors, along with better public health systems, preventive care and the development of effective vaccines and drugs.

The basic lessons for humans in our tragic 50 years of  self-inflicted global crises — the afflictions of pandemics , flooded cities,  burned forestlands, droughts and  other increasingly violent climate disasters — were simple, many based on the discoveries of Charles Darwin and other biologists  in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

We humans are one species with very little variation in our basic DNA.

We evolved with other species in the planet’s biosphere by natural selection, responding to changes and stresses in our various habitats and environments.

We are a global species, having migrated out of the African continent to all others, competing with other species, causing various extinctions.

Our planetary colonization and success, in this Anthropocene Age of our twenty-first century, was largely due to our abilities to bond, cooperate, share and evolve in ever larger populations and organizations.

Humanity grew from roving bands of nomads to live in settled agricultural villages, to towns, and the mega-cities of the twentieth century, where over 50% of our populations lived.   Until the climate crises and those of the pandemics in the first years of our 21st century, all forecasts predicted that these mega-cities would keep growing and that human populations would reach 10 billion by today, in 2050.

Now we know why human populations topped out at the 7.6 billion in 2030, as expected in the most hopeful scenario of the IPCC, as well as in the global urban surveys by social scientists documenting the decline of fertility in Empty Planet (2019). The newly aware “grassroots globalists”, the armies of school children, global environmentalists and empowered women joined with green, more ethical investors and entrepreneurs in localizing markets.   Millions were served by microgrid cooperatives, powered by renewable electricity, adding to the world’s cooperative enterprises, which even by 2012 employed more people worldwide than all the for-profit companies combined.   They no longer used the false money metrics of GDP, but in 2015 switched to steering their societies by the UN’s SDGs, their 17 goals of sustainability and restoration of all ecosystems and human health.

These new social goals and metrics all focused on cooperation, sharing and knowledge-richer forms of human development, using renewable resources and maximizing efficiency.  This long term sustainability, equitably distributed, benefits all members of the human family within the tolerance of other species in our living biosphere. Competition and creativity flourish with good ideas driving out less useful ones, along with science-based ethical standards and   deepening information in self-reliant and more connected societies at all levels from local to global.

When the coronavirus struck in 2020, the human responses were at first chaotic and insufficient, but soon became increasingly coherent and even dramatically different.  Global trade shrunk to only transporting rare goods, shifting to trading information.  Instead of shipping cakes, cookies and biscuits around the planet, we shipped their recipes, and all the other recipes for creating plant-based foods and beverages; and locally we installed green technologies:  solar, wind, geothermal energy sources, LED lighting, electric vehicles, boats, and even aircraft.

Fossil fuel reserves stayed safely in the ground, as carbon was seen as a resource, much too precious to burn.   The excess CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning was captured  by organic soil bacteria, deep-rooted  plants, billions of newly planted trees, and in the widespread re-balancing of the human food systems based on agro-chemical industrial agribusiness, advertising and global trading of a few monocultured crops.  This over-dependence on fossil fuels, pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics in animal-raised meat diets, all were based on the planet’s dwindling freshwater and proved unsustainable.  Today, in 2050, our global foods are produced locally, including many more overlooked indigenous and wild crops, saltwater agriculture and all the other salt-loving (halophyte) food plants whose complete proteins are healthier for human diets.

Mass tourism, and travel in general, decreased radically, along with air traffic and phased-out fossil fuel use. Communities around the world stabilized in small- to medium-sized population centers, which became largely self-reliant with local and regional production of food and energy. Fossil-fuel use virtually disappeared, as already by 2020 it could no longer compete with rapidly developing renewable energy resources and corresponding new technologies and upcycling of all formerly-wasted resources into our circular economies of today.

Because of the danger of infections in mass gatherings, sweat shops, large chain stores, as well as sports events and entertainment in large arenas gradually disappeared.  Democratic politics became more rational, since demagogues could no longer assemble thousands in large rallies to hear them. Their empty promises were also curbed in social media, as these profit-making monopolies were broken up by 2025 and now in 2050 are regulated as public utilities serving the public good in all countries.

The global-casino financial markets collapsed, and economic activities shifted back from the financial sector to credit unions and public banks in our cooperative sectors of today.  The manufacture of goods and our service-based economies revived traditional barter and informal voluntary sectors, local currencies, as well as numerous non-monetary transactions that had developed during the height of the pandemics. As a consequence of wide-spread decentralization and the growth of self-reliant communities, our economies of today in 2050, have become regenerative rather than extractive, and the poverty gaps and inequality of the money-obsessed, exploitive models have largely disappeared.

The pandemic of 2020, which crashed global markets, finally upended the ideologies of money and market fundamentalism.  Central banks’ tools no longer worked, so “helicopter money “and direct cash payments to needy families, such as pioneered by Brazil, became the only means of maintaining purchasing   power to smooth orderly economic transitions to sustainable societies.  This shifted US and European politicians to creating new money and these stimulus policies replaced “austerity“ and were rapidly invested in all the renewable resource infrastructure in their respective Green New Deal plans.

When the coronavirus spread to domestic animals, cattle, and other ruminants, sheep and goats, some of these animals became carriers of the disease without themselves showing any symptoms. Consequently, the slaughter and consumption of animals dropped dramatically around the world. Pasturing and factory-raising of animals had added almost 15% of annual global greenhouse gases. Big meat producing multinational corporations became shorted by savvy investors as the next group of “ stranded assets”, along with fossil fuel companies   Some switched entirely to  plant-based foods with numerous meat, fish, and cheese analogs. Beef became very expensive and rare, and cows were usually owned by families, as traditionally, on small farms for local milk, cheese, and meat, along with eggs from their chickens.

After the pandemics subsided, and expensive, vaccines had been developed, global travel was allowed only with the vaccination certificates of today, used mainly by traders and wealthy people. The majority of the world’s populations now prefer the pleasures of community and online meetings and communicating, along with traveling  locally by public transport, electric cars, and by the solar and wind powered sailboats we all enjoy today. As a consequence, air pollution has decreased dramatically in all major cities around the world.

With the growth of self-reliant communities, so-called “urban villages” have sprung up in many cities — re-designed neighborhoods that display high-density structures combined with ample common green spaces. These areas boast significant energy savings and a healthy, safe, and community-oriented environment with drastically reduced levels of pollution.

Today’s eco-cities include food grown in high rise buildings with solar rooftops, vegetable gardens, and electric public transport, after automobiles were largely banned from urban streets in 2030.  These streets were reclaimed by pedestrians, cyclists and people on scooters browsing in smaller local stores, craft galleries and farmer’s markets. Solar electric vehicles for inter-town use often charge and discharge their batteries at night to balance electricity in single-family houses.  Free-standing solar-powered vehicle re-charger units are available in all areas, reducing use of fossil-based electricity from obsolete centralized utilities, many of which went bankrupt by 2030.

After all the dramatic changes we enjoy today, we realize that our lives are now less stressful, healthier, and more satisfying, and our communities plan for the long-term future. To assure the sustainability of our new ways of life, we realize that restoring ecosystems around the world is crucial, so that viruses dangerous to humans are confined again to other animal species where they do no harm. To restore ecosystems worldwide, our global shift to organic, regenerative agriculture flourished, along with plant-based foods, beverages and all the saltwater -grown foods and kelp dishes we enjoy.   The billions of trees which we planted around the world after 2020, along with the agricultural improvements gradually restored ecosystems.

As a consequence of all these changes, the global climate has finally stabilized, with today’s CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere returning to the safe level of 350 parts per million. Higher sea levels will remain for a century and many cities now flourish on safer, higher ground.  Climate catastrophes are now rare, while many weather events still continue to disrupt our lives, just as they had in previous centuries. The multiple global crises and pandemics, due to our earlier ignorance of planetary processes and feedback loops, had widespread tragic consequences for individuals and communities. Yet, we humans have learned many painful lessons.  Today, looking back from 2050, we realize that the Earth is our wisest teacher, and its terrible lessons may have saved humanity and large parts of our shared planetary community of life from extinction.

************

Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., physicist and systems theorist, is the author of several international bestsellers, including The Tao of Physics (1975) and The Web of Life (1996). He is coauthor, with Pier Luigi Luisi, of the multidisciplinary textbook, The Systems View of Life. Capra’s online course (www.capracourse.net) is based on his textbook.

Hazel Henderson, D.Sc.Hon., FRSA, futurist, systems and science-policy analyst, is author of “The Politics of the Solar Age” (1981, 1986) and other books, including “Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age” (2014).   Henderson is CEO of Ethical Markets Media Certified B. Corporation, USA (www.ethicalmarkets.com), publishers of the Green Transition Scoreboard ®, and the forthcoming textbook and global TV series “Transforming Finance.”

[whenelephantswereyoung]

Some Superheroes Have Tusks

Photo:  Melanie Hittrich                                                              

Elephants are critical players in the fight against the climate crisis. We need them. But because of that *other* global crisis, they’re more vulnerable than ever. They need us, too.

By Lance Gould

World Elephant Day is, of course, a global celebration of the planet’s largest land mammal. But while humans on the planet are battling two existential emergencies — the pandemic and the climate crisis — it’s worth noting that elephants can play a critical role in preventing both.

With global attention understandably focused on the more immediate dangers of the COVID-19 crisis, the climate crisis has gotten short shrift. But if you think the novel coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it, just wait to see what cataclysmic consequences await us when global temperatures rise just 2 degrees Celsius. That path is virtually assured unless we drastically change course on greenhouse gas emissions and a number of other environment-destroying policies that are threatening life on the planet.

We are going to need all the help we can get to fight the climate crisis, which, to be clear, will be considerably harder to navigate than COVID. To fight rising global temperatures, we’ll need assistance from key allies — like elephants.

Elephants and other megaherbivores (rhinos and hippos) are undercover climate change superheroes, which play a key role in keeping the planet cooler. The three recognized species of elephants (bush and forest elephants in Africa, and the Asian elephant) mitigate temperature rise in two types of essential ecosystems: grasslands and forests:

Grasslands reflect sunlight away from the planet’s surface, reducing solar radiation and keeping temperatures cooler.

Forests — particularly hardwood forests — are essential storers of carbon.

Guardians of both, elephants help maintain balance between the two habitats. Without elephants, notes professor Graham Kerley, director of the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at South Africa’s Nelson Mandela University, “trees and bushes would take over the grasslands … and grasslands would take over the tree and forest areas.”

Elephants “contribute to the dispersal of the seeds for hardwood trees and are therefore essential to the growth of hardwoods that grow slowly and hold their carbon for long periods.”

A keystone species, elephants also play critical roles in keeping soil healthy and nutrient rich. Healthy soil is essential to carbon sequestration (drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in the ground), considered one of the most important solutions to fighting climate change.

So humans don’t even realize how much we need elephants.

Of course, ever since COVID hit, elephants need us more than ever, too. It’s a symbiotic, existential relationship that is imperiled by the twin crises of the moment.

Avoiding ‘Hundreds of Thousands of Novel Viruses’

Photo: Bruere Kloppers

Elephants were already in deep trouble before the COVID-19 crisis hit. Between poachers slaying at least 20,000 African elephants a year, the ever-dwindling numbers of Asian elephants in the wild, and humans encroaching ever further into elephant ecosystems, elephant numbers globally are at a flashpoint.

The organization that monitors the planet’s fauna and flora health — the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — listed the two African species as “vulnerable” and the Asian elephants as “endangered” on it’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Now that the pandemic has hit, elephants will be subject to even greater dangers, and that is primarily because of the shutdown of global tourism.

The tourism shutdown has crippled the artificial elephant ecosystems in much of Asia, where in most countries with elephant populations (exception: India), the numbers of captive elephants outweigh the wild populations. Since global travel has cutoff tourists from elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Sri Lanka, elephant keepers (known as mahouts) have been challenged to come up with the funds to feed their quarry. Elephants consume huge amounts of food and without guest-admission revenue, there is no income to feed the elephants. Returning them to the wild is near impossible, because there really is no “wild” where human incursion has not yet reached.

In Africa, the greatest threat to elephants are poachers, driven by international criminal cartels that receive astronomical sums for elephant tusks. Just as it has their Asian cousins, the tourism shutdown has impacted African elephants, but in Africa it has manifest in reducing the two biggest obstacles for poachers: 1) tourists, highly visible, whose presence deters poachers, and 2) rangers, who actively serve to protect wildlife.

The sudden vanishing of tourists has led to an increase in poaching, as well as to a revenue drought to support rangers. Tourism and travel contribute $169 billion to the continent’s combined economy, representing more than 7% of combined GDP. But the shutdown of tourism has devastated economies in Africa, and rangers are fighting off emboldened poachers, more desperate for the economic riches the illegal contraband of elephant tusks, rhino horn, and other animal prizes will bring. Twelve rangers in Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were killed in April, attacked by armed militias.

Arguably worse for the planet, the tourism shutdown’s negative impacts on global and local economies has also led to an increase in another, non-commercial kind of poaching: subsistence poaching, for food.

Considering the circumstances that have given rise to our current pandemic, the more interaction that humans have with wildlife species, the more vulnerable both species are to zoonotic diseases, which jump from one species to another.

When poaching goes from commercial to subsistence, that raises an alarm with epidemiologists, because that’s where novel coronaviruses come from. The renowned epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant — who helped eradicate smallpox — cited as much in a Ted Talk in 2007, in which he laid out the case for a causal link between climate change and pandemic threats. Megatrends, such as climate change, he noted, had set off a domino sequence of unexpected effects, from desertification to urban migration to soil depletion, which “disproportionately harm the poorest and the most vulnerable.” This confluence of circumstances has led to “humans turning more towards animal consumption,” and, in 2006, the consumption, for example, by Africans of 600 million wild animals and consumed 2 billion kilograms of bushmeat.”

“Every kilogram of bushmeat,” he noted presciently more than a decade ago, “contained hundreds of thousands of novel viruses that have never been charted, the genomic sequences of which we don’t know, their fitness for creating pandemics we are unaware of, but we are ripe for zoonotic-born emerging communicable diseases.”

Navigating the current pandemic has challenged every nation on the planet — some much more than others. The idea that there are hundreds of thousands more novel viruses out there — and that they are a hungry person’s meal away from impacting huge swaths of the world’s population — should give us all pause, and focus a global effort on saving elephants and other wild creatures. Likewise, if we imagine how much worse the challenges of the climate crisis will be than the pandemic — a scenario in which no looming vaccine will alleviate the crisis — it is clear that we need to stand up for and protect elephants and other megaherbivores.

Lance Gould is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of the media-strategy firm Silicon Valley Story Lab. He is also on the board of World Elephant Day’s public charity, World Elephant Society, and is a commissioner on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Commission on Education and Communication.

[worldelephantday]

Some Superheroes Have Tusks

Photo:  Melanie Hittrich                                        

Elephants are critical players in the fight against the climate crisis. We need them. But because of that *other* global crisis, they’re more vulnerable than ever. They need us, too.

By Lance Gould

World Elephant Day is, of course, a global celebration of the planet’s largest land mammal. But while humans on the planet are battling two existential emergencies — the pandemic and the climate crisis — it’s worth noting that elephants can play a critical role in preventing both.

With global attention understandably focused on the more immediate dangers of the COVID-19 crisis, the climate crisis has gotten short shrift. But if you think the novel coronavirus has disrupted life as we know it, just wait to see what cataclysmic consequences await us when global temperatures rise just 2 degrees Celsius. That path is virtually assured unless we drastically change course on greenhouse gas emissions and a number of other environment-destroying policies that are threatening life on the planet.

We are going to need all the help we can get to fight the climate crisis, which, to be clear, will be considerably harder to navigate than COVID. To fight rising global temperatures, we’ll need assistance from key allies — like elephants.

Elephants and other megaherbivores (rhinos and hippos) are undercover climate change superheroes, which play a key role in keeping the planet cooler. The three recognized species of elephants (bush and forest elephants in Africa, and the Asian elephant) mitigate temperature rise in two types of essential ecosystems: grasslands and forests:

Grasslands reflect sunlight away from the planet’s surface, reducing solar radiation and keeping temperatures cooler.

Forests — particularly hardwood forests — are essential storers of carbon.

Guardians of both, elephants help maintain balance between the two habitats. Without elephants, notes professor Graham Kerley, director of the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at South Africa’s Nelson Mandela University, “trees and bushes would take over the grasslands … and grasslands would take over the tree and forest areas.”

Elephants “contribute to the dispersal of the seeds for hardwood trees and are therefore essential to the growth of hardwoods that grow slowly and hold their carbon for long periods.”

A keystone species, elephants also play critical roles in keeping soil healthy and nutrient rich. Healthy soil is essential to carbon sequestration (drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it in the ground), considered one of the most important solutions to fighting climate change.

So humans don’t even realize how much we need elephants.

Of course, ever since COVID hit, elephants need us more than ever, too. It’s a symbiotic, existential relationship that is imperiled by the twin crises of the moment.

Avoiding ‘Hundreds of Thousands of Novel Viruses’

Photo: Bruere Kloppers

Elephants were already in deep trouble before the COVID-19 crisis hit. Between poachers slaying at least 20,000 African elephants a year, the ever-dwindling numbers of Asian elephants in the wild, and humans encroaching ever further into elephant ecosystems, elephant numbers globally are at a flashpoint.

The organization that monitors the planet’s fauna and flora health — the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — listed the two African species as “vulnerable” and the Asian elephants as “endangered” on it’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Now that the pandemic has hit, elephants will be subject to even greater dangers, and that is primarily because of the shutdown of global tourism.

The tourism shutdown has crippled the artificial elephant ecosystems in much of Asia, where in most countries with elephant populations (exception: India), the numbers of captive elephants outweigh the wild populations. Since global travel has cutoff tourists from elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Sri Lanka, elephant keepers (known as mahouts) have been challenged to come up with the funds to feed their quarry. Elephants consume huge amounts of food and without guest-admission revenue, there is no income to feed the elephants. Returning them to the wild is near impossible, because there really is no “wild” where human incursion has not yet reached.

In Africa, the greatest threat to elephants are poachers, driven by international criminal cartels that receive astronomical sums for elephant tusks. Just as it has their Asian cousins, the tourism shutdown has impacted African elephants, but in Africa it has manifest in reducing the two biggest obstacles for poachers: 1) tourists, highly visible, whose presence deters poachers, and 2) rangers, who actively serve to protect wildlife.

The sudden vanishing of tourists has led to an increase in poaching, as well as to a revenue drought to support rangers. Tourism and travel contribute $169 billion to the continent’s combined economy, representing more than 7% of combined GDP. But the shutdown of tourism has devastated economies in Africa, and rangers are fighting off emboldened poachers, more desperate for the economic riches the illegal contraband of elephant tusks, rhino horn, and other animal prizes will bring. Twelve rangers in Virunga National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were killed in April, attacked by armed militias.

Arguably worse for the planet, the tourism shutdown’s negative impacts on global and local economies has also led to an increase in another, non-commercial kind of poaching: subsistence poaching, for food.

Considering the circumstances that have given rise to our current pandemic, the more interaction that humans have with wildlife species, the more vulnerable both species are to zoonotic diseases, which jump from one species to another.

When poaching goes from commercial to subsistence, that raises an alarm with epidemiologists, because that’s where novel coronaviruses come from. The renowned epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant — who helped eradicate smallpox — cited as much in a Ted Talk in 2007, in which he laid out the case for a causal link between climate change and pandemic threats. Megatrends, such as climate change, he noted, had set off a domino sequence of unexpected effects, from desertification to urban migration to soil depletion, which “disproportionately harm the poorest and the most vulnerable.” This confluence of circumstances has led to “humans turning more towards animal consumption,” and, in 2006, the consumption, for example, by Africans of 600 million wild animals and consumed 2 billion kilograms of bushmeat.”

“Every kilogram of bushmeat,” he noted presciently more than a decade ago, “contained hundreds of thousands of novel viruses that have never been charted, the genomic sequences of which we don’t know, their fitness for creating pandemics we are unaware of, but we are ripe for zoonotic-born emerging communicable diseases.”

Navigating the current pandemic has challenged every nation on the planet — some much more than others. The idea that there are hundreds of thousands more novel viruses out there — and that they are a hungry person’s meal away from impacting huge swaths of the world’s population — should give us all pause, and focus a global effort on saving elephants and other wild creatures. Likewise, if we imagine how much worse the challenges of the climate crisis will be than the pandemic — a scenario in which no looming vaccine will alleviate the crisis — it is clear that we need to stand up for and protect elephants and other megaherbivores.

Lance Gould is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of the media-strategy firm Silicon Valley Story Lab. He is also on the board of World Elephant Day’s public charity, World Elephant Society, and is a commissioner on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Commission on Education and Communication.

[bravenewworldvehnan-blog]

First Fanfic DA:I

Ok...so here it is: The Inquisitor trying to come to terms with her role in the impending doom...comments etc welcome! Special thanks to @solverne and @cullywullycurlywurly for helping me with a core question :)

The Inquisitor retreats to The Crossroads for a little existential crisis...

Genevive smiled as the peaceful silence of The Crossroads washed over her. It had taken some cajoling to get Morrigan to activate the eluvian and let her go through it alone. Although she had succeeded in this, she could not deter Morrigan from standing guard on the other side. She took in the trees that looked like large vine-hugged transparent planets on stems, and drew comfort from the mist that milled between mirrors and the statues that were dotted about the courtyard. The silence was the best. She had just wanted a few minutes to gather herself; Josephine, Cassandra, Cullen, Leliana - they were all so supportive and ready to jump at a moment's notice - but they weren't Inquisitor, they weren't the Herald of Andraste. Maker. Am I the Herald of Andraste? She could barely distinguish what she believed anymore.

When she, Dorian, Solas, and Cassandra had returned from The Fade a few days ago, she had thought that she had all the answers to this supposed divine anointing that had befallen her; but now...she wasn't so sure. Could one person be so blessed with "happy" coincidences that it seemed they were divinely chosen? She knew the decisions she made were her own, directed by her own conscience - but even she had to marvel that she was still alive to make them. Dorian was always so good at being glib in the face of the epic nature of what they were doing, that she never stopped to realise that what he was actually doing was pointing out how insane this all was. They fell through and walked in THE FADE - The Actual Fade. She hadn't even had time to process that part before Solas made some sort of "Oooo! I have never seen this side of The Fade before, isn't it sinister, but also pretty in its ghoulishness" comment. She really should stop spending so much time with Dorian...she loved Solas, but sometimes his enthusiasm for the Fade was a little unbearable.

The memories had come back to her, been wedged in where they were once wrenched out, and she had felt a strange reassurance that what she had inadvertently been marked to do had purpose. Whether it was divine was beyond her, but that it had to be done was not a question: Face Corypheus and win. She couldn't even say or die trying. With her dead, the tenuous alliances that The Inquisition had formed could not stand against him. She knew this from the way that some of her companions viewed each other, and feared that the bickering amongst themselves would eclipse their greater purpose. For what was an Inquisitor or Herald but the finely polished blade that gave direction and focus to a cause?

Just as she was about to lose herself in a labyrinthine musing she heard the tell-tale sound of a body passing through the barrier of an eluvian. It was odd. It didn't come from behind her, and as far as she knew, The Inquisition was in possession of the only active eluvian in Thedas at present. She crouched behind the large paw of a wolf statue that seemed to be surveying the landscape with a look of remorse and responsibility. Moronically she had left her bow at Skyhold, but on Morrigan's insistence she had accepted the dagger that she was examining as a precaution. She fingered the guilded, jewel-encrusted hilt and hoped that the blade's damage was as impressive as its gaudy handle. Andraste. She should've been more careful. How stupid she had been to assume she could disappear off the world stage for a few minutes of peace. Now there she was, hunched behind a statue, bowless because of her own idiocy, and probably about to be flanked by some or other darkspawn that had magically wandered somewhere they shouldn't - yup. That sounded like her life.

She flattened her back against the wolf's heel so that she could crane her neck around to peer in the general direction of the pop, but her eyes were only greeted with dark and cracked eluvians, and swirling mist. Maybe she'd just imagined it? Her nerves were thrumming through her body, the feeling so familiar, that she had to pause and wonder whether she hadn't just created the sound because she was finally relaxing and not in a space where darkspawn lurked around every corner. She had heard tales of Templars who had been at Kirkwall who still jerk from their beds at night to attack unsuspecting inanimate objects. Maybe this was the beginning of that for her. Maybe she was losing it, maybe the anchor was changing her.

As though it knew she was thinking about it, it suddenly, angrily, flared in her hand. She yelped, dropped the dagger, and cradled her left hand as it seared with the now familiar, but increasingly intense, discomfort that felt as though her nerves had suddenly grown teeth and wanted out. This can't be happening. Can it? Not here. Still clutching her now dimly glowing, but glowing nevertheless, hand she looked up to determine where the rift was. What met her gaze was unexpected: an ethereal form hovered under the tear, but it wasn't hostile. In fact, it hardly noticed her at all. It was looking around The Crossroads like a woman searching for her matching earring before a party. This was definitely strange behaviour. She remembered the way the Spirit of Wisdom had looked at Solas when it begged him to kill it - in that moment, as in this one - the monstrous looked more human than monstrous.

She wasn't quite certain when she had decided to start walking towards it, but she found herself leaving the safety of the wolf statue, emerging in front of the spectre. Her fingers twitched towards the dagger, now in her belt, but it was her voice she used to catch its attention.

"Hello?" she said tentatively, wondering whether the spirit would even speak the common tongue. "Aneth ara, Inquisitor." The form replied.

"Do I know you?" She asked, taken aback by the social greeting.

"Not exactly, but I have been watching you." The Spirit stated simply.

"Um, excuse me? What do you mean watching me?" Genevive's momentary relaxation was replaced with confusion and a tautness in her solar plexus, the last thing she needed was more complications.

"When you dream." The Spirit replied matter of factly. "You are important, so you are seen."

"Am I dreaming now?"

"No, you are here." The Spirit confirmed. "I had hoped that you would come to this place in solitude. The veil is thin here so it is easier to manifest."

"I don't mean to be rude...but what are you doing here?"

"I have watched you move against Corypheus." The Spirit said shimmering as it spoke. "If he finds this place, he will destroy everything." Genevive looked at The Spirit, wondering why it was telling her something she already knew. "You see how easy it is for me to tear The Veil here; he will rend it asunder. There will be no stopping him. Even though The Veil has not always existed, it cannot come down now."

Genevive's eyes widened, The Veil had not always existed? She knew The Maker had put it there, but it had existed for all of human memory. "The Veil can come down entirely? I thought Corypheus would only punch a hole through to The Fade? I thought The Maker created it?"

"So many thoughts, lost to time, that become truths."

Genevive didn't even pretend to understand what that meant, but pressed on. "So you're saying that if Corypheus gains access to this place, he will not only physically walk into The Fade, but he will rip apart The Veil, thus tearing down the barriers leaving both sides to bleed into each other?"

Sadness shrouded The Spirit's amorphous features as its voice quivered. "Yes. Demons shall overrun this world. Many shall perish, but magic shall return. It will be landmark; a shift back to what was."

"You mean like before The Veil?"

"Yes, no barriers, all interacting together. After the initial chaos."

Genevive was not sure whether The Spirit longed for The Veil to come down or was asking her to make sure it stayed up. "Why are you telling me this? "

"With Corypheus at the helm, it cannot be what was. It will usher in a new Dark Age. The Age of Dragons will be over, and he will hold dominion over us all. You must stop him."

"No, really?" The sarcasm bubbled out of her before she could think, The Spirit looked slightly confused, she breathed a steadying breath as all the fears she had come here to escape flashed through her mind again. "I am going to do my best, more I cannot do."

"I know this already." The Spirit confirmed. "I came only to give you more information. I know you take Corypheus' threat seriously, I see the worry cloud your mind. I only wanted to show you that your worry is justified and how much truly is at stake."

"Gee, thanks." She didn't know how to feel about anything that was happening. She could see The Spirit was starting to disapprove of her wanton use of sarcasm.

"Go to the Arbor Wilds and stop him." It seemed as though it was waiting for her to have another acerbic retort - she bit back the 'lovely spot for a holiday' that was hovering at the edge of her tongue.The Spirit held Genevive's gaze for quite some time. "Stop him before we are all slaves to his will." With that final edict it slipped back into the Fade, leaving Genevive standing slightly agape below an open tear. She was leaving this place with her head more full of noise than when she arrived, that was for sure.

Processing this shouldn't take this long. The Spirit hadn't really told her anything she didn't know, with the exception that Corypheus would tear The Veil down. As in gone. She knew if he prevailed he'd bring hell to them in a hand-basket, but the idea of everything in existence bowing to a crazed magister had not taken full shape until just now. Something else was bothering her. The Spirit had said The Veil shouldn't come down now: as though it was inevitable that it would come down. She really hoped that would be after her lifetime, because if she still had to navigate that aftermath, she'd probably become as crazed as Corypheus.

Before she could lose herself too far down the noise spiral that that train of thought was causing, she heard the unmistakable pop of a demon crossing the tear. Andraste. She really should've closed it before she let her mind wander. She made short work of the demon by plunging the jewel-encrusted dagger into its newly formed sternum, and then, while it did the imitation of a startled guppy, she quickly mended the tear. The tear popped out of existence just as the dagger fell to the floor, no longer held in midair by the fibrous tendrils that made up the demon.  She took one last look at the now peaceful again Crossroads, and stepped back through the eluvian to Skyhold.

"Illuminating respite, Inquisitor?" Came Morrigan's velvety voice as she stepped through.

Genevieve looked at her, debating whether to tell her what had transpired. "Quiet and beautiful. Just what I needed." She smiled, "Thank you for standing guard...and for the loan." She said handing the jewel encrusted dagger back. "It may need a little polishing."

[csrgood]

“Pandemics — Lessons Looking Back From 2050”

As we move into the second half of our twenty-first century, we can finally make sense of the origin and impact of the coronavirus that struck the world in 2020 from an evolutionary systemic perspective. Today, in 2050, looking back on the past 40 turbulent years on our home planet, it seems obvious that the Earth had taken charge of teaching our human family. Our planet taught us the primacy of understanding of our situation in terms of whole systems, identified by some far-sighted thinkers as far back as the mid-nineteenth century.  This widening human awareness revealed how the planet actually functions, its living biosphere systemically powered by the daily flow of photons from our mother star, the Sun.

Eventually, this expanded awareness overcame the cognitive limitations and incorrect assumptions and ideologies that had created the crises of the twentieth century. False theories of human development and progress , measured myopically by prices and money-based metrics, such as GDP,  culminated in rising social and environmental losses:  pollution of air, water and land; destruction of biological diversity; loss of ecosystem services, all  exacerbated by global heating, rising sea levels, and massive climate disruptions.

These myopic policies had also driven social breakdowns, inequality, poverty, mental and physical illness, addiction, loss of trust in institutions — including media, academia, and science itself — as well as loss of community solidarity.  They had also led to the pandemics of the 21st century, SARS, MERS, AIDS, influenza, and the various coronaviruses that emerged back in 2020.

During the last decades of the 20th century, humanity had exceeded the Earth’s carrying capacity. The human family had grown to 7.6 billion by 2020 and had continued its obsession with economic, corporate, and technological growth that had caused the rising existential crises threating humanity’s very survival.  By driving this excessive growth with fossil fuels, humans had heated the atmosphere to such an extent that the United Nations (UN) climate science consortium, IPCC noted in its 2020 update that humanity had only ten years left to turn this crisis situation around.

As far back as 2000, all the means were already at hand: we had the know-how, and had designed efficient renewable technologies and circular economic systems, based on nature’s ecological principles.  By 2000, patriarchal societies were losing   control over their female populations, due to the forces of urbanization and education.   Women themselves had begun to take control of their bodies and fertility rates began to tumble even before the turn of the twenty-first century.  Widespread revolts against the top-down narrow economic model of globalization and its male-dominated elites led to disruptions of the unsustainable paths of development driven by fossil fuels, nuclear power, militarism, profit, greed, and egocentric leadership.

Military budgets which had starved health and education needs for human development, gradually shifted from tanks and battleships to less expensive, less violent information warfare.  By the early 21st century, international competition for power focused more on social propaganda, persuasion technologies, infiltration and control of the global internet.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic‘s priorities in medical facilities competed with victims in emergency rooms, whether those wounded by gun violence or patients with other life threatening conditions. In 2019, the nationwide US movement of schoolchildren had joined with the medical profession in challenging gun violence as a public health crisis. Strict gun laws gradually followed, along with rejection of gun manufacturers in pension funds’ assets crippling the gun lobby and, in many countries, guns were purchased back by governments from gun owners and destroyed, as Australia had done in the 20th century. This greatly reduced global arms sales, together with international laws requiring expensive annual licenses and insurance, while global taxation reduced the wasteful arms races of previous centuries.  Conflicts between nations are now largely governed by international treaties and transparency.  Now in 2050, conflicts rarely involve military means, shifting to internet propaganda, spying and cyber warfare.

By 2020, these revolts exhibited all the fault lines in human societies: from racism and ignorance, conspiracy theories, xenophobia and scapegoating of “the other“ to various cognitive biases — technological determinism, theory-induced  blindness, and the fatal, widespread  misunderstanding that confused money with actual wealth.  Money, as we all know today, was a useful invention: all currencies are simply social protocols (physical or virtual tokens of trust), operating on social platforms with network effects, their prices fluctuating to  the extent that their various  users trust and use them.   Yet, countries and elites all over the world became enthralled with money and with gambling in the “global financial casino,” further encouraging the seven deadly sins over traditional values of cooperation, sharing, mutual aid, and the Golden Rule.

Scientists and environmental activists had warned of the dire consequences of these unsustainable societies and retrogressive value systems for decades, but until the 2020 pandemic corporate and political leaders, and other elites, stubbornly resisted these warnings. Previously unable to break their intoxication with financial profits and political power, their own citizens forced the re-focus on the well-being and survival of humanity and the community of life.  Incumbent fossilized industries fought to retain their tax breaks and subsidies in all countries as gas and oil prices collapsed. But they were less able to buy political favors and support of their privileges.  It took the global reactions of millions of young people, “grassroots globalists,“ and indigenous peoples, who  understood the systemic processes of our planet Gaia — a self-organizing, self-regulating  biosphere which for billions of years had managed all planetary evolution without interference from cognitively-challenged humans.

In the first years of our twenty-first century, Gaia responded in an unexpected way, as it had so often during the long history of evolution. Humans’ clear-cutting large areas of tropical rainforests and massive intrusions into other ecosystems around the world, had fragmented these self-regulating ecosystems and fractured the web of life. One of the many consequences of these destructive actions was that some viruses, which had lived in symbiosis with certain animal species, jumped from those species to others and to humans, where they were highly toxic or deadly.   People in many countries and regions, marginalized by the narrow profit-oriented economic globalization, assuaged their hunger by seeking “bush meat“ in these newly exposed wild areas , killing monkeys, civets, pangolins, rodents and bats,  as additional protein sources . These wild species, carrying a variety of viruses were also sold live in “wet markets,” further exposing ever more urban populations to these new viruses.

Back in the 1960s, for example, an obscure virus jumped from a rare species of monkeys killed as “bush meat” and eaten by humans in West Africa. From there it spread to the United States where it was identified as the HIV virus and caused the AIDS epidemic.  Over four decades, they caused the deaths of an estimated 39 million people worldwide, about half a percent of the world population. Four decades later, the impact of the coronavirus was swift and dramatic. In 2020, the virus jumped from a species of bats to humans in China, and from there it rapidly spread around the world, decimating world population by an estimated 50 million in just one decade.

From the vantage point of our year 2050, we can look back at the sequence of theses viruses: SARS, MERS, and the global impact of the various coronavirus mutations which began back in 2020. Eventually such pandemics were stabilized, partly by the outright bans on “wet markets“ all over China in 2020 . Such bans spread to other countries and global markets, cutting the trading of wild animals and reducing vectors, along with better public health systems, preventive care and the development of effective vaccines and drugs.

The basic lessons for humans in our tragic 50 years of  self-inflicted global crises — the afflictions of pandemics , flooded cities,  burned forestlands, droughts and  other increasingly violent climate disasters — were simple, many based on the discoveries of Charles Darwin and other biologists  in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

We humans are one species with very little variation in our basic DNA.

We evolved with other species in the planet’s biosphere by natural selection, responding to changes and stresses in our various habitats and environments.

We are a global species, having migrated out of the African continent to all others, competing with other species, causing various extinctions.

Our planetary colonization and success, in this Anthropocene Age of our twenty-first century, was largely due to our abilities to bond, cooperate, share and evolve in ever larger populations and organizations.

Humanity grew from roving bands of nomads to live in settled agricultural villages, to towns, and the mega-cities of the twentieth century, where over 50% of our populations lived.   Until the climate crises and those of the pandemics in the first years of our 21st century, all forecasts predicted that these mega-cities would keep growing and that human populations would reach 10 billion by today, in 2050.  

Now we know why human populations topped out at the 7.6 billion in 2030, as expected in the most hopeful scenario of the IPCC, as well as in the global urban surveys by social scientists documenting the decline of fertility in Empty Planet (2019). The newly aware “grassroots globalists”, the armies of school children, global environmentalists and empowered women joined with green, more ethical investors and entrepreneurs in localizing markets.   Millions were served by microgrid cooperatives, powered by renewable electricity, adding to the world’s cooperative enterprises, which even by 2012 employed more people worldwide than all the for-profit companies combined.   They no longer used the false money metrics of GDP, but in 2015 switched to steering their societies by the UN’s SDGs, their 17 goals of sustainability and restoration of all ecosystems and human health.

These new social goals and metrics all focused on cooperation, sharing and knowledge-richer forms of human development, using renewable resources and maximizing efficiency.  This long term sustainability, equitably distributed, benefits all members of the human family within the tolerance of other species in our living biosphere. Competition and creativity flourish with good ideas driving out less useful ones, along with science-based ethical standards and   deepening information in self-reliant and more connected societies at all levels from local to global.

When the coronavirus struck in 2020, the human responses were at first chaotic and insufficient, but soon became increasingly coherent and even dramatically different.  Global trade shrunk to only transporting rare goods, shifting to trading information.  Instead of shipping cakes, cookies and biscuits around the planet, we shipped their recipes, and all the other recipes for creating plant-based foods and beverages; and locally we installed green technologies:  solar, wind, geothermal energy sources, LED lighting, electric vehicles, boats, and even aircraft. 

Fossil fuel reserves stayed safely in the ground, as carbon was seen as a resource, much too precious to burn. The excess CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning was captured  by organic soil bacteria, deep-rooted  plants, billions of newly planted trees, and in the widespread re-balancing of the human food systems based on agro-chemical industrial agribusiness, advertising and global trading of a few monocultured crops.  This over-dependence on fossil fuels, pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics in animal-raised meat diets, all were based on the planet’s dwindling freshwater and proved unsustainable.  Today, in 2050, our global foods are produced locally, including many more overlooked indigenous and wild crops, saltwater agriculture and all the other salt-loving (halophyte) food plants whose complete proteins are healthier for human diets.

Mass tourism, and travel in general, decreased radically, along with air traffic and phased-out fossil fuel use. Communities around the world stabilized in small- to medium-sized population centers, which became largely self-reliant with local and regional production of food and energy. Fossil-fuel use virtually disappeared, as already by 2020 it could no longer compete with rapidly developing renewable energy resources and corresponding new technologies and upcycling of all formerly-wasted resources into our circular economies of today.

Because of the danger of infections in mass gatherings, sweat shops, large chain stores, as well as sports events and entertainment in large arenas gradually disappeared.  Democratic politics became more rational, since demagogues could no longer assemble thousands in large rallies to hear them. Their empty promises were also curbed in social media, as these profit-making monopolies were broken up by 2025 and now in 2050 are regulated as public utilities serving the public good in all countries.

The global-casino financial markets collapsed, and economic activities shifted back from the financial sector to credit unions and public banks in our cooperative sectors of today.  The manufacture of goods and our service-based economies revived traditional barter and informal voluntary sectors, local currencies, as well as numerous non-monetary transactions that had developed during the height of the pandemics. As a consequence of wide-spread decentralization and the growth of self-reliant communities, our economies of today in 2050, have become regenerative rather than extractive, and the poverty gaps and inequality of the money-obsessed, exploitive models have largely disappeared.

The pandemic of 2020, which crashed global markets, finally upended the ideologies of money and market fundamentalism.   Central banks’ tools no longer worked, so “helicopter money “and direct cash payments to needy families, such as pioneered by Brazil, became the only means of maintaining purchasing   power to smooth orderly economic transitions to sustainable societies.  This shifted US and European politicians to creating new money and these stimulus policies replaced “austerity“ and were rapidly invested in all the renewable resource infrastructure in their respective Green New Deal plans.

When the coronavirus spread to domestic animals, cattle, and other ruminants, sheep and goats, some of these animals became carriers of the disease without themselves showing any symptoms. Consequently, the slaughter and consumption of animals dropped dramatically around the world. Pasturing and factory-raising of animals had added almost 15% of annual global greenhouse gases. Big meat producing multinational corporations became shorted by savvy investors as the next group of “ stranded assets”, along with fossil fuel companies   Some switched entirely to  plant-based foods with numerous meat, fish, and cheese analogs. Beef became very expensive and rare, and cows were usually owned by families, as traditionally, on small farms for local milk, cheese, and meat, along with eggs from their chickens.

After the pandemics subsided, and expensive, vaccines had been developed, global travel was allowed only with the vaccination certificates of today, used mainly by traders and wealthy people. The majority of the world’s populations now prefer the pleasures of community and online meetings and communicating, along with traveling  locally by public transport, electric cars, and by the solar and wind powered sailboats we all enjoy today. As a consequence, air pollution has decreased dramatically in all major cities around the world.

With the growth of self-reliant communities, so-called “urban villages” have sprung up in many cities — re-designed neighborhoods that display high-density structures combined with ample common green spaces. These areas boast significant energy savings and a healthy, safe, and community-oriented environment with drastically reduced levels of pollution.

Today’s eco-cities include food grown in high rise buildings with solar rooftops, vegetable gardens, and electric public transport, after automobiles were largely banned from urban streets in 2030.  These streets were reclaimed by pedestrians, cyclists and people on scooters browsing in smaller local stores, craft galleries and farmer’s markets. Solar electric vehicles for inter-town use often charge and discharge their batteries at night to balance electricity in single-family houses.  Free-standing solar-powered vehicle re-charger units are available in all areas, reducing use of fossil-based electricity from obsolete centralized utilities, many of which went bankrupt by 2030.

After all the dramatic changes we enjoy today, we realize that our lives are now less stressful, healthier, and more satisfying, and our communities plan for the long-term future. To assure the sustainability of our new ways of life, we realize that restoring ecosystems around the world is crucial, so that viruses dangerous to humans are confined again to other animal species where they do no harm. To restore ecosystems worldwide, our global shift to organic, regenerative agriculture flourished, along with plant-based foods, beverages and all the saltwater -grown foods and kelp dishes we enjoy.   The billions of trees which we planted around the world after 2020, along with the agricultural improvements gradually restored ecosystems.

As a consequence of all these changes, the global climate has finally stabilized, with today’s CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere returning to the safe level of 350 parts per million. Higher sea levels will remain for a century and many cities now flourish on safer, higher ground.  Climate catastrophes are now rare, while many weather events still continue to disrupt our lives, just as they had in previous centuries. The multiple global crises and pandemics, due to our earlier ignorance of planetary processes and feedback loops, had widespread tragic consequences for individuals and communities. Yet, we humans have learned many painful lessons.  Today, looking back from 2050, we realize that the Earth is our wisest teacher, and its terrible lessons may have saved humanity and large parts of our shared planetary community of life from extinction.

************

Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., physicist and systems theorist, is the author of several international bestsellers, including The Tao of Physics (1975) and The Web of Life (1996). He is coauthor, with Pier Luigi Luisi, of the multidisciplinary textbook, The Systems View of Life. Capra’s online course (www.capracourse.net) is based on his textbook.

Hazel Henderson, D.Sc.Hon., FRSA, futurist, systems and science-policy analyst, is author of “The Politics of the Solar Age” (1981, 1986) and other books, including “Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age” (2014).   Henderson is CEO of Ethical Markets Media Certified B. Corporation, USA (www.ethicalmarkets.com), publishers of the Green Transition Scoreboard ®, and the forthcoming textbook and global TV series “Transforming Finance.”

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/44073--Pandemics-Lessons-Looking-Back-From-2050-?tracking_source=rss

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

As we normal folks prepare for emergencies, disasters and the like, I was curious as to how one might approach this should “money be no object.” I myself have never had that problem, when cost was an afterthought, not a concern. But there are those that are born to or succeed to a point where this is their reality and in such Daniel Williams brought the following to my attention.

I for one found it fascinating, not just for the content and presentation but for the reality that if the EOTWAWKI, SHTF happens some of the “Golden Horde” is going to be its own little fiefdom, replete with private armies and weapons you only see in the movies. Another consideration to take into account as we all try to survive.

If it demonstrates anything it clearly shows that being rich and successful does not mean you are not just as flawed as us little people.

Since The New Yorker unveiled the doomsday survivalist strategies of the super-rich in 2017, the planet’s most monied men and women have proceeded to amp things up.

And you can’t fault the scope of their ambition as they look to inter-planetary escape, de facto states and even immortality to evade the collapse of our planet and the revolt of its stinking, heathen masses.

As such, the content team at Loanable have created an infographic which shows the freshest, weirdest and most popular ways the master’s of the universe will side-step doom should a catastrophe topple the natural order.

Mars Biospheres

Do you believe this better for mankind than to become extinct?

It is possible this dilemma will come to pass. Because what if Musk musters only a few thousand survivalists to colonize the red planet? It will be their duty to spread life on Mars.

Musk’s recent pledge to bring Pizza Hut to his biospheres also extends to some of The Hut’s industry rivals, so his Spaceship X survivalists will see out their days with a heady mix of fast food inside a giant greenhouse with an anti-gravity chamber on hand. Should the world end, some will perhaps consider that an upgrade on our current form of civilization.

Laser Eye Surgery

To prepare for post-nuclear melt down and martial law being unable to contain the baying mobs, then first things first. You absolutely, positively, need to pre-emptively correct the plus 1.2 vision in your left eye, right?

Because this is what Steve Huffman would have us believe.

And if you can’t get round to laser eye surgery before the world goes to hell, then you must face down the existential threats by stockpiling contact lens solution instead.

And who am I to deride Huffman and his survivalist priorities? This man who is the brilliant, billionaire, founder of the “front page of the internet” as against a glib content creator, sitting in pajamas in a tiny basement flat, with pieces of peppermint immovably lodged in between his teeth?

Private Armies

The private standing army is the essential end-of-the world accessory for the financial overlord. And what really matters is how big your force of mercenary soldiers is compared to the next man’s.

In this spirit, a number of American survivalist billionaires recently met in secret in Switzerland – with the size of their squadrons top of the agenda. After all, what’s the point in accruing billions of dollars if you don’t have a system in place to protect it from the antsy hoi polloi when the world is in peril?

But if food and water and law and order are in short supply, and hyper-inflation kicks in as it typically does during extreme crisis, then subordinating one’s troops becomes a real issue.

And whereas in the past, the very rich could trade Givenchy, Chapaud and furs for loyalty, today’s fiscally elite survivalists are largely austere, righteous and lacking in ostentatious possessions (other than, ironically, their anti-armageddon accouterments) This means they’ll be faced with the futile task of trading stock in solar powered hectares in Arizona for the fading loyalty of their soldiers.

Food Mountains

Instead of posing the tired question of what would be your last meal before you die, we can instead ask what’s the best meal to have when the planet dies?

And on this front, survivalist food kits are a multi-billion dollar business. They are also a great leveler: rich and poor alike will typically be reliant on the same, boring types of emergency food: cereals, tinned fruit and vegetable and freeze-dried produce.

Many of the survivalist food kits, though, do offer charming, unexpected flourishes such as the hand wipes provided by leading emergency food kit manufacturer, Gear Hungry. After all, it’s bad enough having the world end before your very eyes without also having to deal with pesky, sticky fingers from your mini-pack raisin and sultana mix.

Survival Condo Projects

Luxury living inside a former nuclear bunker is a special pitch for special times. This form of subterranean existence is perfect for the super rich survivalist who isn’t grandiose or romantic enough to set their sites on living in space.

The full luxury, doomsday units in Wichita Falls, Texas can be yours from around $3 million USD and they will allow 75 people to outlive the real world for up to 5 years.

There is also a special, organic hydroponic and aquaculture facility which is THE place to get your hands on luxury survivalist produce. This means that when the general public run out of food and start eating each other’s radio- active flesh, you can dine on carefully cultivated matsutake mushrooms, saffron and albino sturgeon procured from the Sterlet fish being farmed in the sea water tanks.

The Wichita Falls condo units also offer a further, rich blend of banal and apocalyptic features. So you can enjoy “Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical air filtration” alongside the “Washer and dryer in each unit”. And as well as the “Command & Control Center” you will find “Full kitchens with High-end stainless appliances” lest you endure a nuclear fall out with the added indignity of not having a sashimi-grade cutting knife.

The Doomsday Clock

The time of the clock (which gauges how close the world is to catastrophe) is governed by The Board of Atomic Scientists whose numbers include a dozen Nobel prize winners and experts in various fields.

As well as the present day, the only other occasion the Doomsday Clock was as far gone as 11:58 pm was in 1953 – after the Soviet Union and the U.S had developed and tested “H-Bombs”.

So it doesn’t look good for us then.

It might, perhaps, be said, though, that The Board of Atomic Scientists a doom- laden lot. The earliest time they have ever recorded was 11:43 pm in 1991, after a pact between Russia and the U.S to reduce nuclear arms.

Which means we’ve never been more than a figurative 17 minutes from the end of the world. And this begs the question of what insane level of utopia we’d have to attain to make it, say, 08:27 am?

New Zealand

Many New Zealand media outlets reacted with anger to vast parts of their beautiful country being sold to over a dozen Silicon Valley billionaires. Presumably, it was more irritating still, though, when James Cameron started buying up land there.

All of the above contributed to a change in the law in 2018, restricting non-citizens’ right to buy property in New Zealand. This can be side-stepped, however, by acquiring permanent residency if $7.5m USD is invested in the country year-on year after an initial outlay.

This forms part of a bigger picture of “passport collecting” amongst dozens of the world’s richest survivalists. Because as well as allowing them to find political and economic safe havens, multi-citizenship is the ultimate keeping-it-classy-the hell with-you status symbol; the non-gauche equivalent of the mega-yacht.

Inside the mind of Ray Kurzweil

Eternal life achieved through a downloaded conscience is of long-running intrigue to survivalists, science fiction writers and raging narcissists alike. So let us ponder, then, what it means to exist without bodily movement or sensation for infinity…

…Those billions of years you’d have alone with your biggest regrets. The trillions of years spent with no means of generating new memories. Or perhaps you’d lose your mind and your memories altogether; for there can be no absolute guarantee against that.

So maybe, then, you’d be terrified, trapped and confused ad infinitum. In which case you’d think someone would flip the switch and put out of your misery. Unless you get overlooked in the data base, lost in the system. Forever conscious.

Enjoy it, Ray.

There you have it, perhaps “out there on some points” eye-opening on others. Knowledge is power, and your power is to process it and keep the parts that add value to your life.

Be Safe out there and be sure to check out The Prepper Journal Store and follow The Prepper Journal on Facebook!

The post Survival of the Richest: How the World’s Financial Elite are Preparing for Armageddon appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[silviajburke]

The Era of Complacency Is Ending

This post The Era of Complacency Is Ending appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Physicists say a “subcritical” system that’s waiting to “go critical” is in a “phase transition.” A system that is subcritical actually appears stable, but it is capable of wild instability based on a small change in initial conditions.

The critical state is when the process spins out of control, like a nuclear reactor melting down or a nuclear bomb exploding. The phase transition is just the passage from one state to another, as a system goes from subcritical to critical.

The signs are everywhere that the stock market is in a subcritical state with the potential to go critical and meltdown at any moment. The signs as elevated price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, complacency, and seasonality — crashes have a habit of happening around this time of year.

The problem with a market meltdown is that it’s difficult to contain. It can spread rapidly. Likewise, there’s no guarantee that a stock market meltdown will be contained to stocks.

Panic can quickly spread to bonds, emerging markets, and currencies in a general liquidity crisis as happened in 2008.

For almost a year, one of the most profitable trading strategies has been to sell volatility. That’s about to change…

Since the election of Donald Trump stocks have been a one-way bet. They almost always go up, and have hit record highs day after day. The strategy of selling volatility has been so profitable that promoters tout it to investors as a source of “steady, low-risk income.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, sellers of volatility have made steady profits the past year. But the strategy is extremely risky and you could lose all of your profits in a single bad day.

Think of this strategy as betting your life’s savings on red at a roulette table. If the wheel comes up red, you double your money. But if you keep playing eventually the wheel will come up black and you’ll lose everything.

That’s what it’s like to sell volatility. It feels good for a while, but eventually a black swan appears like the black number on the roulette wheel, and the sellers get wiped out. I focus on the shocks and unexpected events that others don’t see.

The chart below shows a 20-year history of volatility spikes. You can observe long periods of relatively low volatility such as 2004 to 2007, and 2013 to mid-2015, but these are inevitably followed by volatility super-spikes.

During these super-spikes the sellers of volatility are crushed, sometimes to the point of bankruptcy because they can’t cover their bets.

The period from mid-2015 to late 2016 saw some brief volatility spikes associated with the Chinese devaluation (August and December 2015), Brexit (June 23, 2016) and the election of Donald Trump (Nov. 8, 2016). But, none of these spikes reached the super-spike levels of 2008 – 2012.

In short, we have been on a volatility holiday. Volatility is historically low and has remained so for an unusually long period of time. The sellers of volatility have been collecting “steady income,” yet this is really just a winning streak at the volatility casino.

The wheel of fortune is about to turn and luck is about to run out for the sellers.

Here are the key volatility drivers we have considered:

The North Korean nuclear crisis is simply not going away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. It appears North Korea has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb last weekend.

This is a major development.

An atomic weapon has to hit the target to destroy it. A hydrogen bomb just has to come close. This means than North Korea can pose an existential threat to U.S. cities even if its missile guidance systems are not quite perfected. Close is good enough.

A hydrogen bomb also gives North Korea the ability to unleash an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). In this scenario, the hydrogen bomb does not even strike the earth; it is detonated near the edge of space. The resulting electromagnetic wave from the release of energy could knock out the entire U.S. power grid.

Trump will not allow that to happen, and you can expect a U.S. attack, maybe early next year.

Another ticking time bomb for a volatility spike is Washington, DC dysfunction, and the potential double train wreck coming on Sept. 29. That’s the day the U.S. Treasury is estimated to run out of cash. It’s also the last day of the U.S. fiscal year; (technically the last day is Sept. 30, but that’s a Saturday this year so Sept. 29 is the last business day).

If these two legislative fixes are not done by Sept. 29, we’re facing both a government shutdown, and the potential for a default on the U.S. debt. Time is short and my estimate is that one or both of these pieces of legislation will not be completed in time. This will certainly trigger a volatility spike and produce huge profits for investors who make the right moves now.

Even if the budget CR and debt ceiling get fixed under Trump’s new deal with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, that simply postpones the day of reckoning until December 15. That’s only three months away and will be here before you know it. Markets tend to discount the future so a train wreck on December 15 will start to show up in market prices today.

Congress has to pass two major pieces of legislation. One is a debt ceiling increase so the Treasury does not run out of money. The other is a continuing resolution so the government does not shut down.

Both bills could be stymied by conservatives who want to tie the legislation to issues such as funding for Trump’s wall, sanctuary cities, funding for Planned Parenthood, funding to bailout Obamacare and other hot button issues.

If the conservatives don’t get what they want, they won’t vote for the legislation. If conservatives do get what they want, moderates will bolt and not support the bills. Democrats are watching Republican infighting with glee and see no reason to help with their votes.

If these two legislative fixes are not done by Sept. 29, we’re facing both a government shutdown, and the potential for a default on the U.S. debt. Time is short and my estimate is that one or both of these pieces of legislation will not be completed in time. This will certainly trigger a volatility spike and produce huge profits for investors who make the right moves now.

Other sources of volatility include a planned “Day of Rage” on Nov. 4 when alt-left and antifa activists plan major demonstrations in U.S. cities from coast-to-coast. Antifa are neo-fascists posing as antifascists; hence the name “antifa.” Based on past antifa actions in UC Berkeley and Middlebury College violence cannot be ruled out. This could be unsettling to markets and be another source of volatility.

Finally, another monster hurricane could be bearing down on U.S. shores, just after Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston and other parts of Texas and Louisiana.

Hurricane Katrina struck at the very end of August in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy hit the Jersey Shore in October 2012. Both did enormous damage and unsettled markets for a time. Now we’re facing two major hurricanes almost at once.

Other wild cards include domestic terror and cyber attacks.

Finally, we are entering an historically volatile time of year. Many of the greatest stock market crashes of all time have occurred in September or October including the Black Thursday (Oct. 24, 1929) and Black Tuesday (Oct. 29, 1929) crashes that started the Great Depression, and the Black Monday (Oct. 19, 1987) crash, in which the stock market fell 22.61% in a single day. From today’s levels, a 22.61% drop would mean a loss of 4,900 Dow points in a single day.

Don’t rule it out.

None of these scenarios are far-fetched or even unlikely. The war with North Korea is coming. Washington, DC dysfunction is a fact of life and we’ve had several government shutdowns in recent years. Social unrest is spreading and in the headlines every day. Hurricanes and terror attacks happen with some frequency.

It has been nine years since the last financial panic so a new one tomorrow should come as no surprise.

In short, the catalysts for a volatility spike are all in place. We could even get a record super-spike in volatility if several of these catalysts converge.

The “risk on / risk off” dynamic that has dominated most markets since 2013 is coming to an end. From now on it may just be “risk off” without much relief. The illusion of low volatility, ample liquidity, and ever rising stock prices is over.

The safe havens will be the euro, cash, gold and low-debt emerging markets such as Russia. The areas to avoid are U.S. stocks, China, South Korea and heavily indebted emerging markets.

It looks like a volatile and bumpy fall ahead.

Regards,

Jim Rickards for The Daily Reckoning

The post The Era of Complacency Is Ending appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

[cabiba]

A sign of strange times: 1984 by George Orwell has become a bestseller yet again. Here is a book distinguished for its dark view of the state, together with a genuine despair about what to do about it. Strangely, this view is held today by the Right, the Left, and even people who don’t think of themselves as loyal to either way. The whole fiasco happening in D.C. seems insoluble, and the inevitable is already taking place today as it did under the presidents who preceded Trump: the realization that the new guy in town is not going to solve the problem.Now arrives the genuine crisis of social democracy. True, it’s been building for decades but with the rise of extremist parties in Europe, and the first signs of entrenched and sometimes violent political confrontations in the United States, the reality is ever more part of our lives. The times cry out for some new chapter in public life, and a complete rethinking of the relationship between the individual and the state and between society and its governing institutions.

Origins of the Problem

At a speech for college students, I asked the question: who here knows the term social democracy? Two hands of more than one hundred went up. That’s sad. The short answer is that social democracy is what we have now and what everyone loves to hate. It’s not constitutionalism, not liberalism, not socialism in full, and not conservatism. It’s unlimited rule by self-proclaimed elites who think they know better than the rest of us how to manage our lives.

By way of background, at the end of the Second World War, the intellectual and political elites in the United States rallied around the idea that ideology was dead. The classic statement summing up this view in book form came in 1960: The End of Ideology by Daniel Bell. A self-described "socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture,” he said that all wild-eyed visions of politics had come to an end. They would all be replaced by a system of rule by experts that everyone will love forever.

To be sure, the ultimate end-of-ideology system is freedom itself. Genuine liberalism (which probably shouldn’t be classified as an ideology at all) doesn’t require universal agreement on some system of public administration. It tolerates vast differences of opinion on religion, culture, behavioral norms, traditions, and personal ethics. It permits every form of speech, writing, association, and movement. Commerce, producing and trading toward living better lives, becomes the lifeblood. It only asks that people – including the state – not violate basic human rights.

But that is not the end of ideology that Bell and his generation tried to manufacture. What they wanted was what is today called the managerial state. Objective and scientific experts would be given power and authority to build and oversee large-scale state projects. These projects would touch on every area of life. They would build a cradle-to-grave welfare state, a regulatory apparatus to make all products and services perfect, labor law to create the perfect balance of capital and labor, huge infrastructure programs to inspire the public (highways! space! dams!), finetune macroeconomic life with Keynesian witchdoctors in charge, a foreign-policy regime that knew no limits of its power, and a central bank as the lender of last resort.

What Bell and that generation proposed wasn’t really the end of ideology. It was a codification of an ideology called social democracy. It wasn’t socialism, communism, or fascism as such. It was a gigantically invasive state, administered by elite bureaucrats, blessed by intellectuals, and given the cover of agreement by the universal right of the vote. Surely nothing can truly be oppressive if it is takes place within the framework of democracy.

A Brief Peace

The whole thing turned out to be a pipe dream. Only a few years after the book appeared, ideology came roaring back with a vengeance, mostly in reaction to the ossification of public life, the draft for the Vietnam war, and the gradual diminution of economic prospects of the middle class. The student movement rose up, and gained momentum in response to the violent attempts to suppress it. Technology gave rise to new forms of freedom that were inconsistent with the static and officious structure of public administration. Political consensus fell apart, and the presidency itself – supposed to be sacrosanct in the postwar period – was dealt a mighty blow with the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Government no longer held the high ground.

All that seemed to hold the old post-war social-democratic consensus together was the Cold War itself. Surely we should put aside our differences so long as our country faces an existential threat of Soviet communism. And that perception put off the unleashing of mass discontent until later. In a shocking and completely unexpected turn, the Cold War ended in 1989, and thus began a new attempt to impose a post-ideological age, if only to preserve what the elites had worked so hard to build.

This attempt also had its book-form definitive statement: The End of History by Francis Fukuyama. Fukuyama wrote, “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

It was Bell 2.0 and it didn’t last long either. Over the last 25 years, every institution of social democracy has been discredited, on both the Right and the Left, even as the middle class began to face a grim economic reality: progress in one generation was no longer a reliable part of the American dream. The last time a government program really seemed to work well was the moon landing. After that, government just became a symbol of the worst unbearable and unworkable burden. Heavily ideological protest movements began to spring up in all corners of American public life: the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Bernie, Trump, and whatever comes next.

The Core Problem

Every public intellectual today frets about the fracturing of American civic life. They wring their hands and wonder what has gone wrong. Actually, the answer is more simple than it might first appear. Every institution within this framework – which grew more bloated and imperious over time – turned out to be untenable in one or another sense. The experts didn’t know what they were doing after all, and this realization is shared widely among the people who were supposed to be made so content by their creation.

Every program fell into one of three categories of failure.

Financially unsustainable. Many forms of welfare only worked because they leveraged the present against the future. The problem with that model is that the future eventually arrives. Think of Social Security. It worked so long as the few in older groups could pillage the numerous in younger groups. Eventually the demographics flipped so that the many were on the receiving end and the few were on the paying end. Now young people know that they will be paying their whole lives for what will amount to a terrible return on investment. It was the same with Medicare, Medicaid, and other forms of fake “insurance” instituted by government. The welfare state generally took a bad turn, becoming a way of life rather than a temporary help. Subsidy programs like housing and student loans create unsustainable bubbles that burst and cause fear and panic.

Terminally Inefficient. All forms of government intervention presume a frozen world without change, and work to glue down institutions in a certain mode of operation. Public schools today operate as they did in the 1950s, despite the spectacular appearance of a new global information system that has otherwise transformed how we seek and acquire information. Antitrust regulations deal with industrial organization from years ago even as the market is moving forward; by the time the government announces its opinion, it hardly matters anymore. And you can make the same criticism of a huge number of programs: labor law, communications regulations, drug approvals and medical regulations, and so on. The costs grow and grow, while the service and results are ever worse.

Morally unconscionable. The bailouts after the 2008 financial crisis were indefensible to average people of all parties. How can you justify using all the powers of the federal government to feed billions and trillions overall to well-connected elites who were the very perpetrators of the crisis? Capitalism is supposed to be about profits and losses, not private profits and socialized losses. The sheer injustice of it boggles the mind, but this only scratches the surface. How can you pillage average Americans of 40% of their income while blowing the money on programs that are either terminally inefficient, financially unsustainable, or just plain wrong? How can a government expect to administer a comprehensive spying program that violates any expectation of privacy on the part of citizens? Then there is the problem of wars lasting decades and leaving only destruction and terror guerilla armies in their wake.

All of this can remain true without creating a revolutionary situation. What actually creates the tipping point in which social democracy morphs into something else? What displaces one failed paradigm with another? The answer lies with an even a deeper problem with social democracy. You can discern it from this comment by F.A. Hayek in 1939. “Government by agreement is only possible provided that we do not require the government to act in fields other than those in which we can obtain true agreement."

Agreement No More

Exactly. All public institutions that are politically stable – even if they are inefficient, offer low quality, or skirt the demands of basic morality – must at the minimum presume certain levels of homogeneity of opinion (at least) in the subject population; that is to say, they presume a certain minimum level of public agreement to elicit consent. You might be able to cobble this together in small countries with homogeneous populations, but it becomes far less viable in large countries with diverse populations.

Opinion diversity and big government create politically unstable institutions because majority populations begin to conflict with minority populations over the proper functions of government. Under this system, some group is always feeling used. Some group is always feeling put upon and exploited by the other. And this creates huge and growing tensions in the top two ideals of social democracy: government control and broadly available public services.

We created a vast machinery of public institutions that presumed the presence of agreement that the elites thought they could create in the 1950s but which has long since vanished. Now we live in a political environment divided between friends and foes, and these are increasingly defined along lines of class, race, religion, gender identity, and language. In other words, if the goal of social democracy was to bring about a state of public contentedness and confidence that the elites would take care of everything, the result has been the exact opposite. More people are discontented than ever.

F.A. Hayek warned us in 1944: when agreement breaks down in the face of unviable public services, strongmen come to the rescue. Indeed, I’ve previous argued that the smugness of today’s social democrats is entirely unwarranted. Trump won for a reason: the old order is not likely coming back. Now the social democrats face a choice: jettison their multicultural ideals and keep their beloved unitary state, or keep their liberal ideals and jettison their attachment to rule by an administrative elite.

Something has to give. And it is. Dark and dangerous political movements are festering all over the Western world, built from strange ideological impulses and aspiring to new forms of command and control. Whatever comes of them, it will have little to do with the once-vaunted post-war consensus, and even less to do with liberty.

Presidential advisor Steve Bannon is a dark figure – straight out of Orwell – but he is smart enough to see what the Left does not see. He claims to want to use the Trump years to “deconstruct the administrative state.” Notice that he doesn’t say dismantle much less abolish; he wants to use it for different purposes, to build a new national collective under a more powerful executive.

The institutions built by the paternalistic, urbane, and deeply smug social democrats are being captured by interests and values with which they profoundly disagree. They had better get used to it. This is just the beginning.

The partisans of the old order can fight a hopeless battle for restoration. Or they can join the classical liberals in rallying around the only real solution to the crisis of our time: freedom itself. These are the ideological battle lines of the future, not Left vs. Right but freedom vs. all forms of government control.