A Crash Course(?)

Terry Thomsen from The Inside Story sent me a really interesting link last night: Chris Martenson's Blog.

I started watching his "Crash Course" last evening. It began with an outline of the basis of the US (and world) economic system and provided some fascinating insights about recent bank collapses and the property market bubble. He then provided some very clear and chilling analysis of the effects of climate change, peak oil, the aging population and currrent human resource use. The course is a series of short lectures that take about 2-3 hours to watch/ listen to, but once I'd started I found them just riveting and well put together. I think they are REALLY important.

Chris's descriptions of what is happening right now reminded me strongly of the descriptions that Jared Diamond provided in his book "Collapse" about societies which .... well ... collapsed, although I feel as if I may be lapsing into the rhetoric of "I have a nightmare" which, as my last post implies, may not be productive.

What I particularly liked about Chris's articles were his own attitude that this is a really exciting time to be living and that we really need to be thinking about and planning for the things that are coming. We need a vision of how the world might look in the future! As Chris points out, we will have to lead more simple lives and we'll have a more simple society with lower standards of living, out of necessity but that could well mean a better quality of life!

I recommend you have a look at this site and in particular at the crash course.