The beginning is nigh.

This in an extract from the last chapter of my soon to be released e-book, entitled
"The Real Crisis".

Instead of referring to this chapter with the clichéd apocalyptic proclamation that "the end is nigh", I will instead offer a more positive tone, that in fact society faces a new beginning, and that there remains hope to develop a more resilient economy and more constructive political system from the coming collapse. If you have been paying any attention to the news recently, the world has turned bottoms up again, and it is clear that after a short period of recovery, we are again faced with the same barriers to growth that hit us in the recent crash.

To most people, the nature of our predicament is viewed only in the hazy distortions we are fed by the media. The news articles that shape public opinions are academically stratified between and gang of different journalists, each specializing in a particular area- covering geopolitical developments, the economy, politics, the environment and so on- but almost none managing to make the vital links between the breakdowns in each of these areas that we are beginning to see. This "failure of stratification" needs to be replaced by a holistic approach; one that takes into account a far wider world view rather than a narrow obsession with one field or another.

Western society's unhealthy obsession with hedonism manifests itself in its un-sustainability. Citizens have become so driven towards achieving financial wealth that they have come to confuse "cornucopia" with "utopia"- they think that money and possessions will make them more happy, even though they routinely do not. Citizens have become so "busy" with their careers, that they lack the time to learn about how the world really works. They are pacified by easy sex (as a result of rampant sexual liberalization) and cheap entertainment, of which most mainstream news coverage can be seen as. We only have to look at rapidly declining electoral participation, as well as the uncaring attitude of most western adults towards issues such as climate change and debt, to conclude that there is mounting evidence that people do not actually care about the future.

The media now seems to hold so much power over people's minds, that the latest whimsical obsession of the journalistic intelligentsia will quickly become the obsession of the worker zombies. I know that the word "zombies" may seem rude, but something desperately needs to be done to wake up the masses to see past the dream inducing veneer the news put out.

It is time we asked ourselves whether it is sustainable that we live in a world where carbon emissions are now increasing not because of greater human pollution (although we are polluting more), but because we have quite possibly triggered a systems wide ecological collapse that is reducing nature's ability to "breath back" what we "breath out". This is the carbon deficit. Ask yourself whether it is sustainable that the world uses 88 million barrels a day of oil equivalent liquid fuels when the world only extracts 85 from the ground. This is the oil deficit. Ask yourself whether it is sustainable that when government and private borrowing is taken into account, a very large percentage of our GDP is borrowed, thus predicating its annual repetition on growth to supply the extra money needed to repay ever growing debts. As yourself whether it is sustainable that the design of our financial system is such that the amount of debt owed will always exceed the amount of money in circulation. This is the financial deficit. These are the worst deficits that currently exist, and there are many more.

There are some "deficits" that will in the future occur, some of which will have terrifying immediate consequences they occur. One of the most important is the point where we can no longer increase the supply of electricity to meet the growing demand caused by an ever growing capital base. (Capital such a machinery and consumer electronics.) There is a tendency amongst consumers and firms not to worry about the electricity supply when they buy something that uses electricity. Even if the threat of shortages exists, it would not cause significant price rises, since prince is largely a function of the cost of supply to the utility firm. The cost of electricity could in theory go down even if supply did not go up, because even though there might be a supply demand imbalance, unlike oil, electricity can be generated in a variety of very cheap ways. In order to "get off" the oil we use for transport fuel, the use of electric cars may become very important. What's more, even if electricity demand declines, much of the UK's power generation capacity will need to be decommissioned in the coming years, and it does not seem as if we have remotely near the amount of projects designed to replace these, and provide a buffer in case of higher demand. For those who do not already know, when demand outstrips supply in the electricity system, there is no such thing as "stocks" that can be drained. To put it very basically, the impact is felt immediately as the result of inadequate supply is a blackout, as the system becomes overloaded, and "circuit breakers" cut the power to avoid damage to our infrastructure. An electricity crisis could easily lead to an oil crisis, since oil is pumped using electricity. It is easy to see that the situation could quickly spiral out of control.

As industry and services shutdown, the stock markets would nosedive, firms would collapse, everything from benefits to pensions and public sector salaries would stop getting paid as the government would lose its tax revenue from the by then dead private sector. Riots and pestilence would become commonplace, and the country would quickly descend into anarchy. Without electricity, transport and communication would become either very difficult, or impossible. Food would stop getting delivered, and for that matter produced. Even milk is pumped from cows using electricity these days. The water system also ultimately depends on electricity. Those on life support machines would have a certain amount of backup power, if they were lucky, in the form of a diesel generator- as is typically found is hospitals- or if they were unlucky, in the form of a quick draining batter pack. Of course, the diesel generator would run out of fuel within a certain amount of time, and it would likely be difficult to replace it if the fuel can't be pumped because of the blackout. The longer it lasts, the more of these apocalyptic consequences would result.

But there is hope... (coming soon)