Comments not related to oil or natural gas in this thread please. Thanks.
74 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 27, 2025”
CHINA ACHIEVES QUANTUM SUPREMACY CLAIM WITH NEW CHIP 1 QUADRILLION TIMES FASTER THAN THE MOST POWERFUL SUPERCOMPUTERS
The new prototype 105-qubit chip, dubbed “Zuchongzhi 3.0,” which uses superconducting qubits, represents a significant step forward for quantum computing, scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei said. It rivals the benchmarking results set by Google’s latest Willow QPU in December 2024 that allowed scientists to stake a claim for quantum supremacy — where quantum computers are more capable than the fastest supercomputers — in lab-based benchmarking.
The scientists used the processor to complete a task on the widely used quantum computing random circuit sampling (RSC) benchmark in just a few hundred seconds, they said in a new study published March 3 in the journal Physical Review Letters. This test, 83-qubit, 32-layer random circuit sampling task, was also completed 1 million times faster than the result set by Google’s previous generation Sycamore chip, published in October 2024. Frontier, the second-fastest supercomputer in the world, would only be able to complete the same task in 5.9 billion years, by contrast.
Steve Robeson- “The Trump base, all those gladly cheering this nightmare along. They are not all downtrodden and forgotten. They are not all uneducated either and definitely not victims of Democrats. That is the myth spun to make their hatred seem tragic, instead of purposely calculated. His base knows exactly who they are following. They know Trump lies and cheats. They know he’s been accused of everything from fraud to assault and they just don’t care. Because for them none of that is a flaw. He’s their weapon of mass destruction.
They don’t follow him because they are deceived. They follow because he gives them permission to say the quiet part out loud again to hate without apology and to seek revenge aginst the people they blame for their own failings to reassert their entitled place in a world that’s frankly, tired of them. They follow pseudo-christain nationalists. That preach about sin while living lives of greed and sexual scandal. They follow Fox News hosts who don’t believe their own words, but know how to flatter white resentment. Then frame cruelty as common sense. They follow him because it empowers them as righteous victims of a society that dared to change without asking them first. His base doesn’t want justice. They want control over America were they are determiners of all people’s rights. They want immediate punishent for people who dare to love, think or even look different. They want a country were truth is a matter of opinion, empathy is a weakness and power excuses all. They are the new world inquisitors using the dark ages ideologies to punish those who descent. They believe Trump because he feeds it, sharpens it, turns it into policy, pushes it on the media and works to make it law. It’s not political issues of governance, it’s not just disagreement of opinion, it is a movement fueled by resentment, entitlement and the deepseated need to daminate the majority.
All of this will not go away until “We the People” make it.”
“From a nadir of less than 1% in the quarter-century after 1945, trend ECoEs from all forms of energy have been rising relentlessly, from 2.0% in 1980, and 4.2% in 2000, to 11.0% now.
SEEDS analysis indicates that the Advanced Economies of the West cannot carry on growing at ECoEs above about 5%, with the same happening to less complex EM (emerging market) economies once ECoE percentages reach double figures.
We have, then, long been able to conclude that, as global ECoEs rise from 9.0% in 2020 to a projected 13.0% by 2030, prior growth in material economic prosperity must reverse into contraction.
If the “moment of inflexion” did indeed occur in 2023, this will be an observation that is both extraordinarily important but, in another way, not exactly a surprise.”
Tim Morgan’s work doesn’t include any feedback loops, it’s just raw economic stuff. He’s one of the few that understands energy constraints and the increased energy used in energy gathering that most know as EROEI yet comes up with his own term of Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE).
He gets part of the picture in falling EROEI yet doesn’t include any magnification of this concept to allow for lower ore grades of all metals and minerals we use, so yes has some nice unrealistic curves into the future of all his concepts, something we all know will not happen.
It seems to be a trait of all economists to project curves into the future as if their concepts were the only influence on society. It’s a huge weakness of all economists…
Nearly any system model is going to generate smoothed projections that lose accuracy the further they run into the future. Understood and accepted.
My main concern with Morgan’s work is the lack of transparency about what is under the hood. This stands in contrast to the good work by DC here where he pretty much lays it all out.
T Hill,
Thanks. Generally any scenario of the future use current knowledge of both history and physical and social science along with a set of assumptions about the future (generally informed by current knowledge of science and history) to create that scenario.
That is what I attempt to do in my models. The assumptions about the future will invariably be incorrect and future scientific knowledge and history have not been revealed to me (they are “hidden” as it were).
Note that in the past 250 years there have been changes in human understanding of how the World works, I anticipate there will be changes over the next 250 years as well.
Those looking back from 250 years in the future will think our musing were quaint or foolish.
THOUSANDS IN CANADA’S MANITOBA ORDERED TO EVACUATE IN WILDFIRE EMERGENCY
The climate crisis has made wildfires in Canada more frequent and intense. The country has been hit with devastating fires in recent years, including in 2023, the most destructive on record. There are now 134 active fires across Canada, including in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Half are considered out of control.
“After poaching some of the best Western auto talent, China’s car industry is about to dominate globally with charging rates, ranges, luxury design, technology, and sheer volumes.”
This is similar to Reagan Thatcher privatization where you sell and assets with embedded energy value to capitalize a failed system. The same thing happened in the shale patch as Mike has pointed out. 500 billion in losses. How much of that was someone’s retirement money?
As a dissipative system unravels it feeds on any store of value it can find(ie energy) this slowly erodes the infrastructure so that a sudden collapse becomes inevitable. Like Hideaway points out economists never include feedback loops neither do politicians. The new US budget with its huge deficit is built on an assumption that the economy doesn’t go into recession.
Explain how that is possible when every central bank is slashing rates? The rates don’t matter because central banks don’t matter but it tells us that there is a massive global slowdown happening. Low interest doesn’t stimulate the economy it signals deflation. Just like the 1930s
Banks are locking up and refusing to lend just like 2008 China has already collapsed.
If you just looked at the record blowout trade deficits that the US has been running you’d think the rest of the world must be booming trying to keep up with all the demand.
You’d think that with a record amount of debt there would be a record amount of demand and how could the global economy not be booming.
Then you realize a record amount of money is destroyed each month as debt payments are made.
Kinda like how legacy decline rates in shale have to be overcome in order to grow oil production.
The amount of money being destroyed each month is becoming increasingly more difficult to overcome.
And the real bitch of it is the lower interest rates go the greater the portion of principal money destroying repayment is. If you pay Zero interest the entire payment destroys the money supply.
Debt money is very Red Queen. While yes we can see temporary price increases due to supply side issues. In the long run deflation wins out.
Read the article you posted and you’ll notice they fail to provide a scrap of evidence for their claim. Just some gobbledeegook about the evils of central planning.
Not a big fan of central planning myself, but maybe they should tell us how they could have engineered a greater economic miracle than the one China is still in.
Or maybe they’ll just keep whining and lying. What else can you expect from an asshole that calls himself Typler Durden? Seriously that should be red flag enough.
Hate to point this out but what the article in your link is saying is. Transitioning to electric isn’t adding anything to economic growth. China is in contraction despite all the move towards electricity.
If transitioning to electricity fails to produce growth in China why would we assume it will work anywhere else?
Because you know growth is required to repay debts including debts that are incurred by building infrastructure to move towards electric everything.
Think about AI. Is it going to lead to growth or contraction? And if the answer is contraction is the debt being thrown at AI serviceable?
If AI takes up all available energy supplies. Even those that haven’t yet been built. What is leftover for the rest of the economy to grow with?
HHH
I don’t know if electrification will lead to growth or shrinkage.
I expect renewables to lead to massive shrinkage of economies that profit from selling fuel, and I expect renewables to accompany electrification.
In the case of electric vehicles, I expect them to shrink the car and truck industry significantly by simplifying vehicle design and eliminating the ICE entirely as well as its add-ons like engine cooling and transmissions. 48V electrical system should also reduce or get rid of big expensive components like power steering or power brakes. At the same time, the oil industry will take a serious hit as well. Of course the entire support industry (like Jiffy Lube) will shrink.
So Germany for example is set to lose a lot of its flagship car industry — 40% is what VW assumes. But it will gain from importing much less oil. But the balance will probably be negative. Saudi Arabia will be a net loser. A country with no car industry and no oil industry would be a winner, but there aren’t many big economies of that description. Poor countries should benefit most.
A lot of stuff has already disappeared at least partially into cell phones — rolodexes, dictation machines, notebooks, diaries, stereo equipment, books and other print media, records and CDs, handheld gaming devices, voice recorders and dictaphones, TVs, cameras and camcorders, flashlights, compasses and barometers, typewriters, pagers, barcode scanners, etc. The retailers who sold these products are getting hammered as well. I miss book stores most of all.
Billie Eillish recorded her smash hit album in her big brother’s bedroom on his home equipment. Lil Nas X shook up the country music industry from his mom’s basement. It used to take a whole studio full of high-priced equipment and professionals to do anything like that.
Electrification will replace a lot of complicated devices used in industry with much simpler actuators controlled by software. that should reduce the cost, benefiting customers but harming suppliers.
I suppose an economist would argue that getting the same value with less effort means economic growth, but it’s hard to see.
Zerohedge is a fringe, far-right agitprop source. Certainly not worth the time to read unless you’re tracking things like the political drift to the right or social media manipulation.
Zerohedge has a seat in the Washington Press Pool and interestingly published a report on April 24 that China had sent an emergency delegation to meet with Bessent. The MSM trashed the story saying tariffs only are going cause inflation here in the US and China doesn’t need US sales. Two weeks later FT confirmed that the meeting did take place. Most people who hate Zerohedge are indoctrinated by the MSM who are lackeys for corporate and political institutions. Remember these are the same guys papered over a failing president.
Why it’s important is it confirmed what HHH has been saying. There is a global dollar shortage because euro banks aren’t lending. China desperately needs dollar collateral. Even though US only represents 20% it’s transacted in dollars. They just did a dollar denominated bond issuance. They need collateral.
As I’ve mentioned before manufacturing is a loss leader. The panicked action of China might be proving that it’s true. If so bringing manufacturing back won’t help the US economy.
And let’s be clear there is a difference between the US dollar and the Eurodollar.
There aren’t any actual US dollars in the Eurodollar market which is the global medium of exchange.
US debt is the primary collateral used in the Eurodollar market. Mainly short term T-bills.
The Eurodollar is just bank ledger credits that get moved around from bank to bank on a global scale. But it’s the foundation for global trade and finance. Nothing physical ever leaves one bank and goes to another. It’s just accounting entries.
The US doesn’t even need to export dollars via trade. No such thing as a petrodollar even though it’s been talked about for decades. Oil transactions are settled by Eurodollars. Always have been even before the Saudi and US agreement.
The banks decided amongst themselves what money was going to be and cut the politicians and central banks out of the equation.
How many jobs are going to be lost to AI over next 3-5 years? And how will these people pay their debts?
It’s already very common in a fast food drive thru to have your order taken by a machine instead of a person. Millions of jobs are going away. Lots of customer service jobs are going away. Logistics jobs go bye-bye too. If you can deliver products without truck drivers, air plane pilots, train engineers and boat captains.
If governments implement UBI or any other redistribution of money. It allows consumption to remain elevated. But what doesn’t happen is growth.
None of this is necessarily bad. AI will refine itself to increase productivity and reduce inefficiency which there is ALOT of in the global economy. Also people out of a job would need to find another meaning to their existence. I would also add incentives should be given to stay at a healthy weight and live a healthy lifestyle to reduce the stress on hospital systems and have less kids, that way we can bring the global population down in a controlled way. Which will have significant benefits for the biosphere and climate.
Obviously the brave new world will have its flaws but it has its upside too without the need for “growth”.
The need for growth only goes away when the need for debt goes away. Try to imagine a world where you can’t borrow from the future.
No such thing as a loan because loans can’t be repaid.
What’s the price of anything if you can’t borrow money to pay for it? Hyper deflation.
In the real world what this will actually look like is a collapse that overshoots to the downside. Growth will return but it will be from much lower levels of total debt. But the cleansing is going to be brutal.
If the global economy completely has to reform due to A.I. There will be a debt jubilee before a new system sets in. If global cooperation holds during the AI shift, the future might be hyper deflation assuming energy, food and health systems hold, but a decline in population and a healthier lifestyle will take pressure off all those things.
But I think before any of those things happen by then the new economic system will overtake the “growth” paradigm.
You know it is possible for life to continue without loan issuance. All of the issues you are bringing up are admin issues to me. But i have no idea how all this will play out its all conjecture.
Iron Mike,
What is the difference between a debt jubilee and just straight up defaulting on debt?
Absolutely no difference. The end result is exactly the same. Money will just disappear into the thin air it was created out of to begin with. Doesn’t change the end result in any way.
You’re implying that a new economic system that doesn’t require growth or debt would replace the current. Exactly who is going to deploy money into a world where there is no such thing as a profit to be made?
Profits directly come from the ability of someone to pay more than what it costs you for a good or service. Without debt profits disappear.
HHH,
Why couldn’t the government issue loans without interest ? The way it should be ideally. Government give grants all the time.
Again you are thinking in terms of growth. Profits can be steady or decline so what ? If the population is declining profits and demands will decline which is a good thing, we can end this abhorrent consumerist society.
” increase productivity and reduce inefficiency”
This concept indicated a better world in the two decades after WW2 as there were always new industries with new products for displaced workers to move into. For a few decades after that a lot of noise was heard about the need for re-training because work was becoming more specialized and more jobs required college degrees.
I started using the word “disenfranchised” maybe 20 years ago, around the time I started seeing more homeless people, and what fraction of the population was receiving government assistance.
It may be well past half of us are getting significant public assistance of various kinds (I get Social Security and Medicare benefits!) as the economy becomes soooo efficient.
Since about 1970 virtually all of the financial benefits of improved productivity in the US have gone to shareholders and executives. Little has gone to workers.
It kinda makes a fella ask what, exactly, is the point of a society?
As hot, dry and disastrous as the last few years have been, it appears that the chaos caused by a warming planet is just getting started. Though the hottest year in nearly two centuries was recorded only last year, the world will probably shatter that record yet again by 2029, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, the climate and weather arm of the United Nations.
It is probably a moving target, like most other critical mineral resources. The world record was 65% uranium content in rocks in the old Belgian Congo extracted during WW2. Since then the downgrade of quality has been significant. To expand nuclear power a lot is unreasonable due to a multitude of factors; like the overall cost for secure reactors, the speed of constructing new reactors to online status, security of supply for nuclear weapons along with having enough low cost raw uranium supply overall. It could all be a very costly adventure even if uranium is the most energy dense fuel ever exploited. Some of the waste nuclear fuel can actually be reused as well. And who knows if technology in this field is mature or not? There is a lot of risk aversion due to operational security reasons. The picture is not black/white.
Uranium has been mined with vast amounts of oil, coal and natural gas inputs to date. Those inputs will be shrinking.
Thorium might be 3 times as plentiful as uranium but it will have to be mined with less available oil, coal and natural gas inputs.
Australia which has the largest uranium reserves only produces a 3rd of the uranium that Kazakhstan does. And likely can’t increase uranium production very much due to its methods of extraction used. Canada and Namibia are much in same boat as Australia. Not being able to greatly expand uranium production.
Only 74% of uranium used comes from mining. 26% has been coming from dismantling old nuclear weapons. Only so many old nuclear weapons available for reuse.
The USGS counts what’s a known resource in Australia, the Olympic Dam mine owned by BHP as a reserve, when it’s clearly not..
The USGS count all 11.3 Billion tonnes of known resources as reserves for both copper and uranium at this mine. The USGS counts all 2,597,000 tonnes of U2O8 as reserves.
The actual reserves from the latest BHP annual report are 590 million tonnes at 0.58kg/tonne U2O8. = 342,000 tonnes U2O8.
BHP has been high grading this mine, mining an average grade of 2.1-1.9% copper as the main product while the uranium is a byproduct. The average grade of copper in the official reserve of 590Mt is 1.82%…. lower than they have been mining.
Over the last 15 years that I’ve kept records on, the existing mine has been losing money when EBITDA and capital spending have been taken into account. They have now changed how they report copper mining from South Australia and lump several mines together to hide what’s really happening at Olympic Dam, financially…
Because they have been high grading the easiest accessible ore, and still losing money on the venture, nearly all of those ‘reserves’ reported by USGS, which are just known resources, will stay in the ground. I would also expect a lot of the known proper reserves to also stay in the ground, unobtainable for use because it’s not financially viable…
Every time I read of mine operations from various mines around the world, similar high grading is happening compared to published reserves/resources of various copper, uranium, zinc, nickel, lithium, tin, phosphate, etc, etc mines..
We all know of similar games played by OPEC countries suddenly upgrading reported oil reserves back in the ’80’s. What’s not widely known is how similar games are played for the often quoted ‘reserves’ of every metal and mineral we need to keep civilization going..
Hideaway
It’s overstated because no one wants to invest in a dying business model. By booking resources as reserves they’re assuming that some new technology will lower the cost of mining and of course they need the money to develop it. In the end it’s simply a physics problem with no solution. Mass is mass it takes a certain amount of energy to move it. But cooking the books keeps the investment herd inline and running for the edge.
HHH
Many people don’t realize SALT I and II saved nuclears bacon. Without all those war heads with uranium already enriched they could down blend there would have been shortages. Was it really about saving the planet? Or uranium shortage? Those old war heads are nearly spent now so I guess we’ll find out soon.
An aspect that few fans of Thorium ever mention is that to start up a Thorium reactor requires weapons grade enriched Uranium. I had to deal with that issue when I worked as an engineer on a Thorium based reactor, General Atomic’s High Temperature Gas Cooled reactor (HTGR), from 1971 until 1979. Only two such reactors were built.
You need to a little more realistic with your doom. We aren’t running out of food and diesel in 2 years time.
As long as there are still oil, natural gas, and coal exports happening. There will likely still be food exports. Your timeline is too short.
In the meantime job losses will be stacking up. And we will be having to deal with that long before any food shortages and mass deaths due to famine arrive.
Diesel will be prioritized for food production and distribution. Your favorite beer might not make it to the store. Your local lawn and garden store might not have anything available to sale. There for no employees, no jobs at businesses that aren’t a priority.
Unemployment will be a huge problem long before food production is.
Things like professional sports and all the jobs that are linked to them will be long gone before any food shortages and famine arrive.
“So the thesis of this book stands or falls with the correctness of the decline rate that Brown gives us. Therefore I have calculated with several different parameters as regards the decline rate, and all point in the same direction. The difference between them is a few years at most. Therefore I assume that my thesis is solid, which is that the end of global net oil exports in 2030-2032 (Brown’s scenario) is a best-case scenario.
Collapse can, I think, begin in earnest already in 2026, only because of too little diesel exports. Observe that oil exports vanish successively, more and more, not all at once.” ? https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/lars-larsen-the-end-of-global-net-oil-exports-13th-edition-2024.pdf
“Your timeline is too short.”
There are catastrophic episodes that are baked in the cake of the future, and they can happen today… or in 30 years. The timing onset, extent, severity, duration and the most severely affected zones are unknowable.
This applies to famine, war, pandemic, debt implosion, depression, grand-scale natural disasters, and disorder. They all can appear suddenly, or wait in the background for much longer than you would guess.
Good luck with dodging the elusive bullet.
Be glad if you have lived in a fair and stable scenario up to now. That is a fortunate situation that most in human history have not been able to experience.
What do I mean by fair?- not a beast of burden, not a warlords plaything, not a target of ethnic cleansing, not a forced migrant, not a member of tribe who became dust simply due to the aggressiveness or cruelty of others.
Beware the mob.
HHH …. “Diesel will be prioritized for food production and distribution. Your favorite beer might not make it to the store. Your local lawn and garden store might not have anything available to sale. There for no employees, no jobs at businesses that aren’t a priority.
Unemployment will be a huge problem long before food production is.
Things like professional sports and all the jobs that are linked to them will be long gone before any food shortages and famine arrive.”
This is one of the great fallacies about our modern world. According to lots of people, we can just dump all the non essential uses of energy and materials and have plenty available for all the essentials we require for much longer..
This type of thinking overlooks how the world actually works as an economic system and the vast complexity of it all. If most cars, lawn mowers and other non essential machinery go out of business, the need for fuel filters, oil filters, air filters all crash, most likely putting the manufacturers of these out of business. All the extra ‘non essential’ uses of all these are the bulk of their business. Likewise for all these manufacturers suppliers.
There is a cascade of multiple businesses supplying all types of raw products to be manufactured for many so called ‘non essential’ purposes that also produce products for essential purposes. It’s one system of civilization we have, not separate parts that can be discarded at will..
Once farmers and trucking firms can no longer obtain filters, rubber and synthetic seals, replacement parts, brake liners, specialist oils and greases etc, etc, it wont matter how much diesel they can obtain..
Likewise for the drillers, refineries and other ‘essential’ businesses, that can no longer obtain all the necessary replacement parts of their business operations, because all the ‘non essential’ aspects of civilization went out of business, taking out the manufacture of most of the essential part making as well.
Governments cannot keep the self organising system of civilization going on ‘essentials’ only, as they will make huge mistakes in what is an essential business to keep going, not understanding that the paper supplier, supplied the raw material to the filter manufacturer, who also required specialised synthetic plastic product for the seals, etc, etc .
I would expect that when food is much harder to obtain in urban areas, there will still be diesel available (though rapidly declining in availability) for many areas, yet the problems will be all the separate parts to keep machinery going, due to businesses across the world closing all production, including essential parts, due to going out of business from falling total sales…
It’s the entirety of complexity of our total system of civilization that is just not understood by anyone, which comes back to bite us on the downslope of energy and material production very, very rapidly.
It’s not that we will necessarily be dumping nonessential use by choice. That is. When you can’t support your local sports team. There eventually is no money to be made. Team goes away.
When you can’t afford constant yard maintenance and home maintenance and repairs. Lowe’s and Home Depot go away. It’s not necessarily going to be a choice. More of a result.
Food will be prioritized regardless of if a government body decrees it or not. Parts for equipment needed to bring food to tables will be prioritized.
Your local gym will close doors never to reopen however.
There is going to be all kinds of unemployed people that never find another job in their lifetime.
I actually believe nonessential use will continue as long as humanly possible, until it can’t.
And one by one jobs that are directly related to all the nonessential use disappear.
My opinion is having less energy is going to be a deflationary nightmare.
HHH …. “Parts for equipment needed to bring food to tables will be prioritized.”
Which ‘parts’, there are many different types and sizes of all types that are used on a plethora of different types/brands of machinery, that get made in many, many different factories around the world.
If farmers in Australia suddenly can’t get Fiat parts made in Argentina, Poland and Turkey, do you really think any of those governments will give two hoots as to what Australia requires/needs??
You’ve made a hand wave about ‘parts’, that you often pull up people about money and debt.
It’s a highly complex world we live in where machinery for any brand is made all over the world and simply can become unavailable in many countries at once.
When we are in rapid decline, enough decline for governments to start to interfere with markets for products, the ability to start new factories for ‘essential’ parts will also disappear, as the machinery required in those new factories, to make the parts, will also be mostly unobtainable as well. Plus governments will not have the excess energy and materials to build whatever is required..
Governments or anyone else trying to prioritize everything required to keep farming, trucking, distribution centres, refrigeration, flour mills, bakeries, abattoirs, all the electrical equipment in it all, etc, etc, will quickly realise that it’s the entire industrial economy world wide that needs to keep going ‘normally’ for every aspect to be kept working, which of course is not close to possible in a world of declining energy and materials.
No hand waving here. I’m pointing out the fact that there is plenty of fat to be trimmed.
Producing movies in Hollywood can go away and the jobs connected to them and energy spent on them can go away without causing a complete collapse in food production.
All the energy spent surrounding a NASCAR or formula one event. Those jobs and energy usage can go away. Not only can but will. And what energy is available will absolutely go towards putting food on the table.
AI isn’t necessary. Food however is necessary.
I think if millions of people can’t even heat their homes. AI goes away. And the energy that is available is redirected to basic needs.
And by the way, what I’m describing above. The monetary system that’s in place currently will have already collapsed. And people will be doing the best they can with what they got.
People will still need to eat even if the monetary system that makes everything possible is no longer in place.
I’m pretty sure things like amusement parks and things like casinos in Las Vegas can go away without collapsing food production.
I’m pretty sure recreational boat and RV manufacturers that use lots of energy and resources can go away without much effect on food production.
I can go on and on making a list of all the things that can and will go away. But I think the point has been made.
HHH, what you seem to miss, and you are certainly not alone, is that the entire system is interconnected. It all has to operate together, and has done so over the last couple of hundred years on growing energy, materials, population and money/debt throughout the system.
We can’t just lob parts off the system of civilization due to any constraints and expect the remainder to function normally. It’s like taking off the feet of an animal and expecting the rest to survive and operate normally. It just doesn’t work in self adapting complex systems.
I am certain you are correct in that governments will try to prioritize a whole range of industries to keep going, but I’m equally certain there will be massive mistakes made because no-one understands the complexity of our modern civilization..
According to CEMA the European Agricultural Machinery Association, there are over 7,000 agricultural machinery manufacturers in Europe alone. No government can keep up supply lines for all these businesses, in an energy and material constrained world..
As world energy supplies turn down, it wont even be recognised initially that there are problems with food production, until it actually happens, while governments are dealing with high and growing unemployment, all the discretionary businesses failing and falling tax revenues, while health workers, teachers, public servants are all striking as wages in these areas are constrained due to lack of govt revenues..
By the time governments get around to realizing there is a huge problem and that diesel needs to be prioritized for mining, farming and trucking, there will already be far greater problems in the overall supply chains, and plenty of businesses going bust in these areas..
Then the big question is how do governments prioritize the hundreds of thousands of parts required to keep machinery going, each which had a very specialised supply chain form around the world. Exactly what gets prioritized??
The governments would have to start a myriad of new industries, throw out the concept of patents, then organise the new machinery that would be required to make all the separate parts, while keeping supplies up to fertilizer plants, pesticide and herbicide manufacturers, or starting those businesses as well locally, as well as all the different metals, minerals, plastics and other materials required for these new industries..
In a world of constrained energy and material availability, it will just not be possible, as there is not the excess materials and energy of the right types to build all the ‘new’ requirements for any of this to be possible.
Anyone that suggests that it’s possible to make huge areas a priority, in a world of decline, has not looked at what’s required to make it all happen, because once you do, you will quickly realise that in a world of declining energy and materials, actually following the many different pathways to make any of it possible, simply will not, and cannot work..
HHH
Priority for food production.
We are only now starting to feel the effects of over use of water, where aquifer levels are getting dangerously low in many areas of the world. This is happening all over the world at the same time. U.S. India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and on and on.
I looked at the cost of irrigation with desalination or building the reservoirs and irrigation systems needed. It would triple the price of food. A great deal of food comes from land that would produce nothing without artificial irrigation.
Replacing oil will be difficult, replacing aquifers will be horrendously expensive.
We are in for a hell of a time and it has already started, farm by farm, country by country.
Yes, we are deep into overshoot of the carrying capacity. But I think we are looking at a process where things disappear one by one instead of an immediate global famine that wipes out half of humanity.
We might eventually get there but 2-5 years isn’t a realistic timeline. I think the immediate problem will be joblessness before we get to any mass hunger.
The first thing the average Joe is going to do when he or she feels like their job isn’t guaranteed to be there. They stop spending money on things that aren’t necessary.
And that part of the economy will disappear. They won’t even make the connection to energy. All they know is they can’t spend money on things that aren’t necessary.
Bar’s closing there doors at a record pace in the UK is a prime example. If you can’t afford to patron these businesses they go out of business and jobs disappear.
Famine isn’t yet taking place in the UK. More and more businesses will be closing their doors. It will probably be blamed on tariffs or war or whatever. But lack of energy will never make the front page of the local news. Which the local news will most likely be going away as people won’t support the news business when they are jobless.
HHH ….. “The first thing the average Joe is going to do when he or she feels like their job isn’t guaranteed to be there. They stop spending money on things that aren’t necessary.”
This is economic rational thinking 101, yet humans are not rational..
My wife is a volunteer at a charity that gives out, clothing, furniture, food vouchers redeemable at major supermarkets, provides emergency accommodation, and very occasionally cash, to those in need.
The stories she hears from the people desperate are unbelievable to economic rationalists. People will be begging for food for their children, while having an expensive phone and phone plan. They will go hungry, along with their children, yet still buy drugs, or go on an extravagant holiday if their credit card allows. They will try and change their $100 food vouchers for $50 in supermarket car parks, so they can buy alcohol and cigarettes. (I have been personally approached by people in the supermarket car park by people trying to do this, and yes from the charity my wife volunteers at!!)
How many times do we read from the news of people embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes millions of dollars to feed gambling addictions? How many manias of tulips, stocks, land, Ponzi schemes have existed over time?
All this is evidence that humans are not rational economic creatures, so expected priorities about rational choices will most likely not work at all.
Hideaway,
Of course there is irrational behavior. People mortgaging their homes to buy bitcoin. Our entire system is based on a pile of debt and a lot of irrational behavior.
People borrow to do pretty much everything. The only thing rational about that is everyone does it so why not? Well most everyone does. I personally have had no debt in over 15 years.
Clearly I’m a minority.
The declining energy world we are heading into. Most if not all of the debts are unplayable.
The idea we are just going to pay with devalued dollars is a false narrative. While the value of the dollar has risen against most other currencies since 2008. It hasn’t rose against goods and services.
Now these goods and services cost more than ever. Because we’ve been able to expand debt exponentially. When a loaf of bread was a nickel the level of debt was much, much lower.
This whole paradigm exists because we have an expanding energy supply. And debt is issued to put that energy to use.
I keep trying to hammer home that the monetary system is where the cracks are forming. Where the collapse is going to occur.
We still going to need to eat even if we don’t have functioning money. Or the ability to repay debt principal plus interest.
It’s just that when the masses are getting poorer, they will prioritise what little money they have on the necessities for survival. Businesses and industries catering to discretionary wants will not be able to cover their costs and close down 1 by 1. Don’t have to dig into complexities to understand this simple fact. The more you try to understand complex systems, the more overwhelmed and confused you become. If one is always trying to figure out “how these complexities” can work out, one will never come to a good answer because complexities inherently is unknowable by our limited human mind. And some just assume that it cannot work out since it’s not understandable. I agree with HHH.
Sorry to interject. My two cents on this Sunday morning for a ‘better path’.
Allow, and enthusiastically enable, the Right to Die-
A basic human right, for any reason that the individual has.
Maybe restrict this right to those who are old enough to vote or to serve in the military. Say 18 years old.
food production in various areas will see rapid declines. Countries will start banning food exports in certain years or permanently. The ability of the world produce food is starting to fall, slowly at first. Gradually getting worse.
The world population will have to fall fast.
Ukraine carried out drone strikes deep in Russia today, destroying billions of dollars in aviation equipment with drones worth a few thousand.
But how did they deal with the range issues of an electric drone? Apparently they have been flying drones across the Russian border and having them picked up by Ukrainian agents in Russia. Then the drones were loaded onto a truck and driven to Siberia, thousands of miles away. The trucks were parked somewhere near an airport and the drones were launched from there.
And they are building more and more of them. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/53815
So the question is – when will the west get hit by a wave of drone strikes? If it can happen there it can happen here… just a matter of time.. This truly represents a change to how wars are fought and the consequences are far, far reaching. Given the low unit costs is the “democratization” of ware a good thing or not? My guess is that right now most people are cheering for the Ukrainians but tables can – and will – turn in a second.
rgds
WP
And all sorts of other weaponized robot forms will be developed and deployed, for the purposes of domestic population suppression, foreign ‘operations’, and terrorism.
Robotics paired with various degrees of autonomous operation capabilities.
We’ve got a huge mess on the near horizon.
I doubt this current regime in the US will be giving up power. Indefinitely.
The republican policies working their way to trumps desk for signing are going to escalate the nations debt level to a new and higher upslope. We are setup for stagflation conditions. The mechanism to deal with the debt service and entitlement spending will be to gradually debase the US currency so as to pay the commitments with lower value dollars. This currency debasement will be just a bit slower than would be considered outright default.
Its a path downward, since trust is eroded. Economic transactions and standing are all about trust. Bullying erodes trust fast.
It will be a hellish trend for those who are on fixed incomes or who have jobs that don’t give compensation escalation to match the decline in purchasing power.
And the republicans will at some point declare an economic emergency with drastic cuts in not just medicaid, but the other programs as well like SS and Medicare.
A lot of predictions fail because people try to imagine everything changing at the same time in a big bang. In fact even fast changes come in steps, with the new replacing the old in niches first.
For example, there is often discussions around here about if renewables can replace fossil fuel 100%. It isn’t a realistic scenario on current technology, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a major shift towards renewables. How far it will go depends on how fast technology and other factors change, which is hard to predict. People tend to overestimate the rate of change in the short term and underestimate the rate of change in the long term.
New technology enters the market through niches. This article about sodium batteries is a good example.
He probably learned that bullying was more successful than studying or actually knowing anything at very early age. Maybe he watched “Triumph of the Will” too many times.
When we first moved here we always had our dozen squirrel proof nest boxes filled with swallows. Last year, just one. This year no swallows. Why? No bugs is my guess!
‘HALF THE TREE OF LIFE’: ECOLOGISTS’ HORROR AS NATURE RESERVES ARE EMPTIED OF INSECTS
Long-term data for insect populations – particularly less charismatic species – is still patchy, but Janzen and Hallwachs join a number of scientists that have recorded huge die-offs of insects in nature reserves around the world. A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides. The declines witnessed by Janzen – and described by others around the world – are part of what some ecologists call a “new era” of ecological collapse, where rapid extinctions occur in regions that have little direct contact with people. Reports of falling insect numbers around the world are not new. International reviews have estimated annual losses globally of between 1% and 2.5% of total biomass every year.
And those who doubt there is sufficient species data to prove the “insectageddon” can now track it by proxy, Wagner says: via the sharp declines in birds, lizards and other creatures that depend on them for food.
I live in an area that, for the past 40 years at least, apple orchards have been replaced with wine grapes. I’m pretty sure pesticide use is actually down but the species are still disappearing over time. We have seen loss of woodpeckers, swallows, starlings, spiders, quail, deer, racoons, skunks, and probably other less obvious birds. I don’t pay attention to specific insects but I suspect that the disappearance of several bird species is related to insect disappearance. I remember particularly that a regular summer phenomenon used to be swallows swooping through our decrepit orchard scooping up masses of flying insects.
I can’t say specifically what might have caused the decline but it is clearly much warmer ad drier here and while still a lot of agriculture exists a lot more has gone the way of houses.
Not a good change.
CHINA ACHIEVES QUANTUM SUPREMACY CLAIM WITH NEW CHIP 1 QUADRILLION TIMES FASTER THAN THE MOST POWERFUL SUPERCOMPUTERS
The new prototype 105-qubit chip, dubbed “Zuchongzhi 3.0,” which uses superconducting qubits, represents a significant step forward for quantum computing, scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei said. It rivals the benchmarking results set by Google’s latest Willow QPU in December 2024 that allowed scientists to stake a claim for quantum supremacy — where quantum computers are more capable than the fastest supercomputers — in lab-based benchmarking.
The scientists used the processor to complete a task on the widely used quantum computing random circuit sampling (RSC) benchmark in just a few hundred seconds, they said in a new study published March 3 in the journal Physical Review Letters. This test, 83-qubit, 32-layer random circuit sampling task, was also completed 1 million times faster than the result set by Google’s previous generation Sycamore chip, published in October 2024. Frontier, the second-fastest supercomputer in the world, would only be able to complete the same task in 5.9 billion years, by contrast.
https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/china-achieves-quantum-supremacy-claim-with-new-chip-1-quadrillion-times-faster-than-the-most-powerful-supercomputers
Trump always chickens out aka TACO is the new Wall Street strategy.
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/taco-wall-street-mocks-trump-with-4-letter-code-to-call-bets-against-him/
Donald Taco building a foundation for competent authoritarians should any follow in his path.
Why Did Americans Elect a Felon Instead of a Prosecutor?
Steve Robeson- “The Trump base, all those gladly cheering this nightmare along. They are not all downtrodden and forgotten. They are not all uneducated either and definitely not victims of Democrats. That is the myth spun to make their hatred seem tragic, instead of purposely calculated. His base knows exactly who they are following. They know Trump lies and cheats. They know he’s been accused of everything from fraud to assault and they just don’t care. Because for them none of that is a flaw. He’s their weapon of mass destruction.
They don’t follow him because they are deceived. They follow because he gives them permission to say the quiet part out loud again to hate without apology and to seek revenge aginst the people they blame for their own failings to reassert their entitled place in a world that’s frankly, tired of them. They follow pseudo-christain nationalists. That preach about sin while living lives of greed and sexual scandal. They follow Fox News hosts who don’t believe their own words, but know how to flatter white resentment. Then frame cruelty as common sense. They follow him because it empowers them as righteous victims of a society that dared to change without asking them first. His base doesn’t want justice. They want control over America were they are determiners of all people’s rights. They want immediate punishent for people who dare to love, think or even look different. They want a country were truth is a matter of opinion, empathy is a weakness and power excuses all. They are the new world inquisitors using the dark ages ideologies to punish those who descent. They believe Trump because he feeds it, sharpens it, turns it into policy, pushes it on the media and works to make it law. It’s not political issues of governance, it’s not just disagreement of opinion, it is a movement fueled by resentment, entitlement and the deepseated need to daminate the majority.
All of this will not go away until “We the People” make it.”
“They know Trump lies and cheats. They know he’s been accused of everything from fraud to assault”
Correction, that is “convicted of”, in addition to “accused of”
Global economy stopped growing in 2023 Wiley Coyote hasn’t looked down yet.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
“From a nadir of less than 1% in the quarter-century after 1945, trend ECoEs from all forms of energy have been rising relentlessly, from 2.0% in 1980, and 4.2% in 2000, to 11.0% now.
SEEDS analysis indicates that the Advanced Economies of the West cannot carry on growing at ECoEs above about 5%, with the same happening to less complex EM (emerging market) economies once ECoE percentages reach double figures.
We have, then, long been able to conclude that, as global ECoEs rise from 9.0% in 2020 to a projected 13.0% by 2030, prior growth in material economic prosperity must reverse into contraction.
If the “moment of inflexion” did indeed occur in 2023, this will be an observation that is both extraordinarily important but, in another way, not exactly a surprise.”
Tim Morgan
Has Mr. Morgan ever pulled back the curtain to demonstrate the data and math used to produce his results?
I stopped reading and haven’t been back after seeing too many wonderfully smooth curves without validation.
I guess the same question can be asked about government and corporate states. We know they’re faked.
oooooookay…….
Tim Morgan’s work doesn’t include any feedback loops, it’s just raw economic stuff. He’s one of the few that understands energy constraints and the increased energy used in energy gathering that most know as EROEI yet comes up with his own term of Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE).
He gets part of the picture in falling EROEI yet doesn’t include any magnification of this concept to allow for lower ore grades of all metals and minerals we use, so yes has some nice unrealistic curves into the future of all his concepts, something we all know will not happen.
It seems to be a trait of all economists to project curves into the future as if their concepts were the only influence on society. It’s a huge weakness of all economists…
Hey Hideaway
Nearly any system model is going to generate smoothed projections that lose accuracy the further they run into the future. Understood and accepted.
My main concern with Morgan’s work is the lack of transparency about what is under the hood. This stands in contrast to the good work by DC here where he pretty much lays it all out.
T Hill,
Thanks. Generally any scenario of the future use current knowledge of both history and physical and social science along with a set of assumptions about the future (generally informed by current knowledge of science and history) to create that scenario.
That is what I attempt to do in my models. The assumptions about the future will invariably be incorrect and future scientific knowledge and history have not been revealed to me (they are “hidden” as it were).
Note that in the past 250 years there have been changes in human understanding of how the World works, I anticipate there will be changes over the next 250 years as well.
Those looking back from 250 years in the future will think our musing were quaint or foolish.
Recycling batteries is not working out.
Sorry renewbies
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/recycling-renewables/li-cycles-quest-to-recycle-lithium-ion-batteries-ends-in-bankruptcy?amp%3Butm_medium=email&%3Butm_campaign=canary&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9jFd6LQfAuLHxql2trcoHZdeKlvyhzXlLUhy7y-goyZTbJASRWdXO0cy_tP_gZnMxqrgJGa7C9woyX6_kMLZUHjOZlRA&_hsmi=363635886&utm_source=newsletter
And, how many animals will perish?
THOUSANDS IN CANADA’S MANITOBA ORDERED TO EVACUATE IN WILDFIRE EMERGENCY
The climate crisis has made wildfires in Canada more frequent and intense. The country has been hit with devastating fires in recent years, including in 2023, the most destructive on record. There are now 134 active fires across Canada, including in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Half are considered out of control.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/29/canada-wildfires-manitoba-province-fire-evacuation
Ad some fake EV sales to the mix.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b_L9s27CMow&pp=0gcJCbAJAYcqIYzv
“After poaching some of the best Western auto talent, China’s car industry is about to dominate globally with charging rates, ranges, luxury design, technology, and sheer volumes.”
https://www.wired.com/story/auto-shanghai-2025-car-show-warning-to-the-west/
Another example of how desperate governments are becoming
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-28/uk-plans-to-force-nation-s-pensions-to-invest-in-private-markets
This is similar to Reagan Thatcher privatization where you sell and assets with embedded energy value to capitalize a failed system. The same thing happened in the shale patch as Mike has pointed out. 500 billion in losses. How much of that was someone’s retirement money?
As a dissipative system unravels it feeds on any store of value it can find(ie energy) this slowly erodes the infrastructure so that a sudden collapse becomes inevitable. Like Hideaway points out economists never include feedback loops neither do politicians. The new US budget with its huge deficit is built on an assumption that the economy doesn’t go into recession.
Explain how that is possible when every central bank is slashing rates? The rates don’t matter because central banks don’t matter but it tells us that there is a massive global slowdown happening. Low interest doesn’t stimulate the economy it signals deflation. Just like the 1930s
Banks are locking up and refusing to lend just like 2008 China has already collapsed.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/china-drowing-soaring-coal-inventories-amid-sinking-power-demand-crashing-coal-price
Everything is unraveling
Jt,
If you just looked at the record blowout trade deficits that the US has been running you’d think the rest of the world must be booming trying to keep up with all the demand.
You’d think that with a record amount of debt there would be a record amount of demand and how could the global economy not be booming.
Then you realize a record amount of money is destroyed each month as debt payments are made.
Kinda like how legacy decline rates in shale have to be overcome in order to grow oil production.
The amount of money being destroyed each month is becoming increasingly more difficult to overcome.
And the real bitch of it is the lower interest rates go the greater the portion of principal money destroying repayment is. If you pay Zero interest the entire payment destroys the money supply.
Debt money is very Red Queen. While yes we can see temporary price increases due to supply side issues. In the long run deflation wins out.
JT —
zerohedge is lying, power demand is going up in China. It’s just coal demand that is falling.
Electricity demand has been outstripping economic growth for years in China.
https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2025/demand
Read the article you posted and you’ll notice they fail to provide a scrap of evidence for their claim. Just some gobbledeegook about the evils of central planning.
Not a big fan of central planning myself, but maybe they should tell us how they could have engineered a greater economic miracle than the one China is still in.
Or maybe they’ll just keep whining and lying. What else can you expect from an asshole that calls himself Typler Durden? Seriously that should be red flag enough.
ALIMBIQUATED,
Hate to point this out but what the article in your link is saying is. Transitioning to electric isn’t adding anything to economic growth. China is in contraction despite all the move towards electricity.
If transitioning to electricity fails to produce growth in China why would we assume it will work anywhere else?
Because you know growth is required to repay debts including debts that are incurred by building infrastructure to move towards electric everything.
Think about AI. Is it going to lead to growth or contraction? And if the answer is contraction is the debt being thrown at AI serviceable?
If AI takes up all available energy supplies. Even those that haven’t yet been built. What is leftover for the rest of the economy to grow with?
HHH
I don’t know if electrification will lead to growth or shrinkage.
I expect renewables to lead to massive shrinkage of economies that profit from selling fuel, and I expect renewables to accompany electrification.
In the case of electric vehicles, I expect them to shrink the car and truck industry significantly by simplifying vehicle design and eliminating the ICE entirely as well as its add-ons like engine cooling and transmissions. 48V electrical system should also reduce or get rid of big expensive components like power steering or power brakes. At the same time, the oil industry will take a serious hit as well. Of course the entire support industry (like Jiffy Lube) will shrink.
So Germany for example is set to lose a lot of its flagship car industry — 40% is what VW assumes. But it will gain from importing much less oil. But the balance will probably be negative. Saudi Arabia will be a net loser. A country with no car industry and no oil industry would be a winner, but there aren’t many big economies of that description. Poor countries should benefit most.
A lot of stuff has already disappeared at least partially into cell phones — rolodexes, dictation machines, notebooks, diaries, stereo equipment, books and other print media, records and CDs, handheld gaming devices, voice recorders and dictaphones, TVs, cameras and camcorders, flashlights, compasses and barometers, typewriters, pagers, barcode scanners, etc. The retailers who sold these products are getting hammered as well. I miss book stores most of all.
Billie Eillish recorded her smash hit album in her big brother’s bedroom on his home equipment. Lil Nas X shook up the country music industry from his mom’s basement. It used to take a whole studio full of high-priced equipment and professionals to do anything like that.
Electrification will replace a lot of complicated devices used in industry with much simpler actuators controlled by software. that should reduce the cost, benefiting customers but harming suppliers.
I suppose an economist would argue that getting the same value with less effort means economic growth, but it’s hard to see.
Alimbiquated,
Why bother?
Zerohedge is a fringe, far-right agitprop source. Certainly not worth the time to read unless you’re tracking things like the political drift to the right or social media manipulation.
T Hill
Zerohedge has a seat in the Washington Press Pool and interestingly published a report on April 24 that China had sent an emergency delegation to meet with Bessent. The MSM trashed the story saying tariffs only are going cause inflation here in the US and China doesn’t need US sales. Two weeks later FT confirmed that the meeting did take place. Most people who hate Zerohedge are indoctrinated by the MSM who are lackeys for corporate and political institutions. Remember these are the same guys papered over a failing president.
Why it’s important is it confirmed what HHH has been saying. There is a global dollar shortage because euro banks aren’t lending. China desperately needs dollar collateral. Even though US only represents 20% it’s transacted in dollars. They just did a dollar denominated bond issuance. They need collateral.
As I’ve mentioned before manufacturing is a loss leader. The panicked action of China might be proving that it’s true. If so bringing manufacturing back won’t help the US economy.
And let’s be clear there is a difference between the US dollar and the Eurodollar.
There aren’t any actual US dollars in the Eurodollar market which is the global medium of exchange.
US debt is the primary collateral used in the Eurodollar market. Mainly short term T-bills.
The Eurodollar is just bank ledger credits that get moved around from bank to bank on a global scale. But it’s the foundation for global trade and finance. Nothing physical ever leaves one bank and goes to another. It’s just accounting entries.
The US doesn’t even need to export dollars via trade. No such thing as a petrodollar even though it’s been talked about for decades. Oil transactions are settled by Eurodollars. Always have been even before the Saudi and US agreement.
The banks decided amongst themselves what money was going to be and cut the politicians and central banks out of the equation.
How many jobs are going to be lost to AI over next 3-5 years? And how will these people pay their debts?
It’s already very common in a fast food drive thru to have your order taken by a machine instead of a person. Millions of jobs are going away. Lots of customer service jobs are going away. Logistics jobs go bye-bye too. If you can deliver products without truck drivers, air plane pilots, train engineers and boat captains.
If governments implement UBI or any other redistribution of money. It allows consumption to remain elevated. But what doesn’t happen is growth.
HHH,
None of this is necessarily bad. AI will refine itself to increase productivity and reduce inefficiency which there is ALOT of in the global economy. Also people out of a job would need to find another meaning to their existence. I would also add incentives should be given to stay at a healthy weight and live a healthy lifestyle to reduce the stress on hospital systems and have less kids, that way we can bring the global population down in a controlled way. Which will have significant benefits for the biosphere and climate.
Obviously the brave new world will have its flaws but it has its upside too without the need for “growth”.
Iron Mike,
The need for growth only goes away when the need for debt goes away. Try to imagine a world where you can’t borrow from the future.
No such thing as a loan because loans can’t be repaid.
What’s the price of anything if you can’t borrow money to pay for it? Hyper deflation.
In the real world what this will actually look like is a collapse that overshoots to the downside. Growth will return but it will be from much lower levels of total debt. But the cleansing is going to be brutal.
HHH,
If the global economy completely has to reform due to A.I. There will be a debt jubilee before a new system sets in. If global cooperation holds during the AI shift, the future might be hyper deflation assuming energy, food and health systems hold, but a decline in population and a healthier lifestyle will take pressure off all those things.
But I think before any of those things happen by then the new economic system will overtake the “growth” paradigm.
You know it is possible for life to continue without loan issuance. All of the issues you are bringing up are admin issues to me. But i have no idea how all this will play out its all conjecture.
Iron Mike,
What is the difference between a debt jubilee and just straight up defaulting on debt?
Absolutely no difference. The end result is exactly the same. Money will just disappear into the thin air it was created out of to begin with. Doesn’t change the end result in any way.
You’re implying that a new economic system that doesn’t require growth or debt would replace the current. Exactly who is going to deploy money into a world where there is no such thing as a profit to be made?
Profits directly come from the ability of someone to pay more than what it costs you for a good or service. Without debt profits disappear.
HHH,
Why couldn’t the government issue loans without interest ? The way it should be ideally. Government give grants all the time.
Again you are thinking in terms of growth. Profits can be steady or decline so what ? If the population is declining profits and demands will decline which is a good thing, we can end this abhorrent consumerist society.
” increase productivity and reduce inefficiency”
This concept indicated a better world in the two decades after WW2 as there were always new industries with new products for displaced workers to move into. For a few decades after that a lot of noise was heard about the need for re-training because work was becoming more specialized and more jobs required college degrees.
I started using the word “disenfranchised” maybe 20 years ago, around the time I started seeing more homeless people, and what fraction of the population was receiving government assistance.
It may be well past half of us are getting significant public assistance of various kinds (I get Social Security and Medicare benefits!) as the economy becomes soooo efficient.
Since about 1970 virtually all of the financial benefits of improved productivity in the US have gone to shareholders and executives. Little has gone to workers.
It kinda makes a fella ask what, exactly, is the point of a society?
A WARMING PLANET IS POISED TO GET EVEN HOTTER
As hot, dry and disastrous as the last few years have been, it appears that the chaos caused by a warming planet is just getting started. Though the hottest year in nearly two centuries was recorded only last year, the world will probably shatter that record yet again by 2029, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, the climate and weather arm of the United Nations.
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-planet-poised-hotter.html
With all the talk of greatly expanding nuclear energy. To power data centers and whatnot.
Kazakhstan which currently supplies about 43% of all the uranium globally has about 38 years of uranium reserves left at current extraction rates.
It is probably a moving target, like most other critical mineral resources. The world record was 65% uranium content in rocks in the old Belgian Congo extracted during WW2. Since then the downgrade of quality has been significant. To expand nuclear power a lot is unreasonable due to a multitude of factors; like the overall cost for secure reactors, the speed of constructing new reactors to online status, security of supply for nuclear weapons along with having enough low cost raw uranium supply overall. It could all be a very costly adventure even if uranium is the most energy dense fuel ever exploited. Some of the waste nuclear fuel can actually be reused as well. And who knows if technology in this field is mature or not? There is a lot of risk aversion due to operational security reasons. The picture is not black/white.
Uranium has been mined with vast amounts of oil, coal and natural gas inputs to date. Those inputs will be shrinking.
Thorium might be 3 times as plentiful as uranium but it will have to be mined with less available oil, coal and natural gas inputs.
Australia which has the largest uranium reserves only produces a 3rd of the uranium that Kazakhstan does. And likely can’t increase uranium production very much due to its methods of extraction used. Canada and Namibia are much in same boat as Australia. Not being able to greatly expand uranium production.
Only 74% of uranium used comes from mining. 26% has been coming from dismantling old nuclear weapons. Only so many old nuclear weapons available for reuse.
The USGS counts what’s a known resource in Australia, the Olympic Dam mine owned by BHP as a reserve, when it’s clearly not..
The USGS count all 11.3 Billion tonnes of known resources as reserves for both copper and uranium at this mine. The USGS counts all 2,597,000 tonnes of U2O8 as reserves.
The actual reserves from the latest BHP annual report are 590 million tonnes at 0.58kg/tonne U2O8. = 342,000 tonnes U2O8.
BHP has been high grading this mine, mining an average grade of 2.1-1.9% copper as the main product while the uranium is a byproduct. The average grade of copper in the official reserve of 590Mt is 1.82%…. lower than they have been mining.
Over the last 15 years that I’ve kept records on, the existing mine has been losing money when EBITDA and capital spending have been taken into account. They have now changed how they report copper mining from South Australia and lump several mines together to hide what’s really happening at Olympic Dam, financially…
Because they have been high grading the easiest accessible ore, and still losing money on the venture, nearly all of those ‘reserves’ reported by USGS, which are just known resources, will stay in the ground. I would also expect a lot of the known proper reserves to also stay in the ground, unobtainable for use because it’s not financially viable…
Every time I read of mine operations from various mines around the world, similar high grading is happening compared to published reserves/resources of various copper, uranium, zinc, nickel, lithium, tin, phosphate, etc, etc mines..
We all know of similar games played by OPEC countries suddenly upgrading reported oil reserves back in the ’80’s. What’s not widely known is how similar games are played for the often quoted ‘reserves’ of every metal and mineral we need to keep civilization going..
Hideaway
It’s overstated because no one wants to invest in a dying business model. By booking resources as reserves they’re assuming that some new technology will lower the cost of mining and of course they need the money to develop it. In the end it’s simply a physics problem with no solution. Mass is mass it takes a certain amount of energy to move it. But cooking the books keeps the investment herd inline and running for the edge.
HHH
Many people don’t realize SALT I and II saved nuclears bacon. Without all those war heads with uranium already enriched they could down blend there would have been shortages. Was it really about saving the planet? Or uranium shortage? Those old war heads are nearly spent now so I guess we’ll find out soon.
An aspect that few fans of Thorium ever mention is that to start up a Thorium reactor requires weapons grade enriched Uranium. I had to deal with that issue when I worked as an engineer on a Thorium based reactor, General Atomic’s High Temperature Gas Cooled reactor (HTGR), from 1971 until 1979. Only two such reactors were built.
About 2 years until the famine and peeps are worried AI is taking away fast food jobs lol nice
SURVIVALIST,
You need to a little more realistic with your doom. We aren’t running out of food and diesel in 2 years time.
As long as there are still oil, natural gas, and coal exports happening. There will likely still be food exports. Your timeline is too short.
In the meantime job losses will be stacking up. And we will be having to deal with that long before any food shortages and mass deaths due to famine arrive.
Diesel will be prioritized for food production and distribution. Your favorite beer might not make it to the store. Your local lawn and garden store might not have anything available to sale. There for no employees, no jobs at businesses that aren’t a priority.
Unemployment will be a huge problem long before food production is.
Things like professional sports and all the jobs that are linked to them will be long gone before any food shortages and famine arrive.
“So the thesis of this book stands or falls with the correctness of the decline rate that Brown gives us. Therefore I have calculated with several different parameters as regards the decline rate, and all point in the same direction. The difference between them is a few years at most. Therefore I assume that my thesis is solid, which is that the end of global net oil exports in 2030-2032 (Brown’s scenario) is a best-case scenario.
Collapse can, I think, begin in earnest already in 2026, only because of too little diesel exports. Observe that oil exports vanish successively, more and more, not all at once.” ?
https://un-denial.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/lars-larsen-the-end-of-global-net-oil-exports-13th-edition-2024.pdf
https://un-denial.com/2024/07/29/book-review-the-end-of-global-net-oil-exports-by-lars-larsen-2024/
“Your timeline is too short.”
There are catastrophic episodes that are baked in the cake of the future, and they can happen today… or in 30 years. The timing onset, extent, severity, duration and the most severely affected zones are unknowable.
This applies to famine, war, pandemic, debt implosion, depression, grand-scale natural disasters, and disorder. They all can appear suddenly, or wait in the background for much longer than you would guess.
Good luck with dodging the elusive bullet.
Be glad if you have lived in a fair and stable scenario up to now. That is a fortunate situation that most in human history have not been able to experience.
What do I mean by fair?- not a beast of burden, not a warlords plaything, not a target of ethnic cleansing, not a forced migrant, not a member of tribe who became dust simply due to the aggressiveness or cruelty of others.
Beware the mob.
HHH …. “Diesel will be prioritized for food production and distribution. Your favorite beer might not make it to the store. Your local lawn and garden store might not have anything available to sale. There for no employees, no jobs at businesses that aren’t a priority.
Unemployment will be a huge problem long before food production is.
Things like professional sports and all the jobs that are linked to them will be long gone before any food shortages and famine arrive.”
This is one of the great fallacies about our modern world. According to lots of people, we can just dump all the non essential uses of energy and materials and have plenty available for all the essentials we require for much longer..
This type of thinking overlooks how the world actually works as an economic system and the vast complexity of it all. If most cars, lawn mowers and other non essential machinery go out of business, the need for fuel filters, oil filters, air filters all crash, most likely putting the manufacturers of these out of business. All the extra ‘non essential’ uses of all these are the bulk of their business. Likewise for all these manufacturers suppliers.
There is a cascade of multiple businesses supplying all types of raw products to be manufactured for many so called ‘non essential’ purposes that also produce products for essential purposes. It’s one system of civilization we have, not separate parts that can be discarded at will..
Once farmers and trucking firms can no longer obtain filters, rubber and synthetic seals, replacement parts, brake liners, specialist oils and greases etc, etc, it wont matter how much diesel they can obtain..
Likewise for the drillers, refineries and other ‘essential’ businesses, that can no longer obtain all the necessary replacement parts of their business operations, because all the ‘non essential’ aspects of civilization went out of business, taking out the manufacture of most of the essential part making as well.
Governments cannot keep the self organising system of civilization going on ‘essentials’ only, as they will make huge mistakes in what is an essential business to keep going, not understanding that the paper supplier, supplied the raw material to the filter manufacturer, who also required specialised synthetic plastic product for the seals, etc, etc .
I would expect that when food is much harder to obtain in urban areas, there will still be diesel available (though rapidly declining in availability) for many areas, yet the problems will be all the separate parts to keep machinery going, due to businesses across the world closing all production, including essential parts, due to going out of business from falling total sales…
It’s the entirety of complexity of our total system of civilization that is just not understood by anyone, which comes back to bite us on the downslope of energy and material production very, very rapidly.
HIDEAWAY,
It’s not that we will necessarily be dumping nonessential use by choice. That is. When you can’t support your local sports team. There eventually is no money to be made. Team goes away.
When you can’t afford constant yard maintenance and home maintenance and repairs. Lowe’s and Home Depot go away. It’s not necessarily going to be a choice. More of a result.
Food will be prioritized regardless of if a government body decrees it or not. Parts for equipment needed to bring food to tables will be prioritized.
Your local gym will close doors never to reopen however.
There is going to be all kinds of unemployed people that never find another job in their lifetime.
I actually believe nonessential use will continue as long as humanly possible, until it can’t.
And one by one jobs that are directly related to all the nonessential use disappear.
My opinion is having less energy is going to be a deflationary nightmare.
HHH …. “Parts for equipment needed to bring food to tables will be prioritized.”
Which ‘parts’, there are many different types and sizes of all types that are used on a plethora of different types/brands of machinery, that get made in many, many different factories around the world.
If farmers in Australia suddenly can’t get Fiat parts made in Argentina, Poland and Turkey, do you really think any of those governments will give two hoots as to what Australia requires/needs??
You’ve made a hand wave about ‘parts’, that you often pull up people about money and debt.
It’s a highly complex world we live in where machinery for any brand is made all over the world and simply can become unavailable in many countries at once.
When we are in rapid decline, enough decline for governments to start to interfere with markets for products, the ability to start new factories for ‘essential’ parts will also disappear, as the machinery required in those new factories, to make the parts, will also be mostly unobtainable as well. Plus governments will not have the excess energy and materials to build whatever is required..
Governments or anyone else trying to prioritize everything required to keep farming, trucking, distribution centres, refrigeration, flour mills, bakeries, abattoirs, all the electrical equipment in it all, etc, etc, will quickly realise that it’s the entire industrial economy world wide that needs to keep going ‘normally’ for every aspect to be kept working, which of course is not close to possible in a world of declining energy and materials.
Hideaway,
No hand waving here. I’m pointing out the fact that there is plenty of fat to be trimmed.
Producing movies in Hollywood can go away and the jobs connected to them and energy spent on them can go away without causing a complete collapse in food production.
All the energy spent surrounding a NASCAR or formula one event. Those jobs and energy usage can go away. Not only can but will. And what energy is available will absolutely go towards putting food on the table.
AI isn’t necessary. Food however is necessary.
I think if millions of people can’t even heat their homes. AI goes away. And the energy that is available is redirected to basic needs.
And by the way, what I’m describing above. The monetary system that’s in place currently will have already collapsed. And people will be doing the best they can with what they got.
People will still need to eat even if the monetary system that makes everything possible is no longer in place.
I’m pretty sure things like amusement parks and things like casinos in Las Vegas can go away without collapsing food production.
I’m pretty sure recreational boat and RV manufacturers that use lots of energy and resources can go away without much effect on food production.
I can go on and on making a list of all the things that can and will go away. But I think the point has been made.
HHH, what you seem to miss, and you are certainly not alone, is that the entire system is interconnected. It all has to operate together, and has done so over the last couple of hundred years on growing energy, materials, population and money/debt throughout the system.
We can’t just lob parts off the system of civilization due to any constraints and expect the remainder to function normally. It’s like taking off the feet of an animal and expecting the rest to survive and operate normally. It just doesn’t work in self adapting complex systems.
I am certain you are correct in that governments will try to prioritize a whole range of industries to keep going, but I’m equally certain there will be massive mistakes made because no-one understands the complexity of our modern civilization..
According to CEMA the European Agricultural Machinery Association, there are over 7,000 agricultural machinery manufacturers in Europe alone. No government can keep up supply lines for all these businesses, in an energy and material constrained world..
As world energy supplies turn down, it wont even be recognised initially that there are problems with food production, until it actually happens, while governments are dealing with high and growing unemployment, all the discretionary businesses failing and falling tax revenues, while health workers, teachers, public servants are all striking as wages in these areas are constrained due to lack of govt revenues..
By the time governments get around to realizing there is a huge problem and that diesel needs to be prioritized for mining, farming and trucking, there will already be far greater problems in the overall supply chains, and plenty of businesses going bust in these areas..
Then the big question is how do governments prioritize the hundreds of thousands of parts required to keep machinery going, each which had a very specialised supply chain form around the world. Exactly what gets prioritized??
The governments would have to start a myriad of new industries, throw out the concept of patents, then organise the new machinery that would be required to make all the separate parts, while keeping supplies up to fertilizer plants, pesticide and herbicide manufacturers, or starting those businesses as well locally, as well as all the different metals, minerals, plastics and other materials required for these new industries..
In a world of constrained energy and material availability, it will just not be possible, as there is not the excess materials and energy of the right types to build all the ‘new’ requirements for any of this to be possible.
Anyone that suggests that it’s possible to make huge areas a priority, in a world of decline, has not looked at what’s required to make it all happen, because once you do, you will quickly realise that in a world of declining energy and materials, actually following the many different pathways to make any of it possible, simply will not, and cannot work..
HHH
Priority for food production.
We are only now starting to feel the effects of over use of water, where aquifer levels are getting dangerously low in many areas of the world. This is happening all over the world at the same time. U.S. India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and on and on.
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-quantifies-aquifer-depletion-threatens-crop.html
https://eos.org/articles/groundwater-levels-are-dropping-around-the-world
I looked at the cost of irrigation with desalination or building the reservoirs and irrigation systems needed. It would triple the price of food. A great deal of food comes from land that would produce nothing without artificial irrigation.
Replacing oil will be difficult, replacing aquifers will be horrendously expensive.
We are in for a hell of a time and it has already started, farm by farm, country by country.
Loadsofoil,
Yes, we are deep into overshoot of the carrying capacity. But I think we are looking at a process where things disappear one by one instead of an immediate global famine that wipes out half of humanity.
We might eventually get there but 2-5 years isn’t a realistic timeline. I think the immediate problem will be joblessness before we get to any mass hunger.
The first thing the average Joe is going to do when he or she feels like their job isn’t guaranteed to be there. They stop spending money on things that aren’t necessary.
And that part of the economy will disappear. They won’t even make the connection to energy. All they know is they can’t spend money on things that aren’t necessary.
Bar’s closing there doors at a record pace in the UK is a prime example. If you can’t afford to patron these businesses they go out of business and jobs disappear.
Famine isn’t yet taking place in the UK. More and more businesses will be closing their doors. It will probably be blamed on tariffs or war or whatever. But lack of energy will never make the front page of the local news. Which the local news will most likely be going away as people won’t support the news business when they are jobless.
HHH ….. “The first thing the average Joe is going to do when he or she feels like their job isn’t guaranteed to be there. They stop spending money on things that aren’t necessary.”
This is economic rational thinking 101, yet humans are not rational..
My wife is a volunteer at a charity that gives out, clothing, furniture, food vouchers redeemable at major supermarkets, provides emergency accommodation, and very occasionally cash, to those in need.
The stories she hears from the people desperate are unbelievable to economic rationalists. People will be begging for food for their children, while having an expensive phone and phone plan. They will go hungry, along with their children, yet still buy drugs, or go on an extravagant holiday if their credit card allows. They will try and change their $100 food vouchers for $50 in supermarket car parks, so they can buy alcohol and cigarettes. (I have been personally approached by people in the supermarket car park by people trying to do this, and yes from the charity my wife volunteers at!!)
How many times do we read from the news of people embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars and sometimes millions of dollars to feed gambling addictions? How many manias of tulips, stocks, land, Ponzi schemes have existed over time?
All this is evidence that humans are not rational economic creatures, so expected priorities about rational choices will most likely not work at all.
Hideaway,
Of course there is irrational behavior. People mortgaging their homes to buy bitcoin. Our entire system is based on a pile of debt and a lot of irrational behavior.
People borrow to do pretty much everything. The only thing rational about that is everyone does it so why not? Well most everyone does. I personally have had no debt in over 15 years.
Clearly I’m a minority.
The declining energy world we are heading into. Most if not all of the debts are unplayable.
The idea we are just going to pay with devalued dollars is a false narrative. While the value of the dollar has risen against most other currencies since 2008. It hasn’t rose against goods and services.
Now these goods and services cost more than ever. Because we’ve been able to expand debt exponentially. When a loaf of bread was a nickel the level of debt was much, much lower.
This whole paradigm exists because we have an expanding energy supply. And debt is issued to put that energy to use.
I keep trying to hammer home that the monetary system is where the cracks are forming. Where the collapse is going to occur.
We still going to need to eat even if we don’t have functioning money. Or the ability to repay debt principal plus interest.
It’s just that when the masses are getting poorer, they will prioritise what little money they have on the necessities for survival. Businesses and industries catering to discretionary wants will not be able to cover their costs and close down 1 by 1. Don’t have to dig into complexities to understand this simple fact. The more you try to understand complex systems, the more overwhelmed and confused you become. If one is always trying to figure out “how these complexities” can work out, one will never come to a good answer because complexities inherently is unknowable by our limited human mind. And some just assume that it cannot work out since it’s not understandable. I agree with HHH.
Loadsofoil,
What do you see for major global trends in the next 25, 50 and 75 years?
Assuming that some of these trends are very negative for life on earth, what would you advocate for a better path?
Thanks
BCK
Sorry to interject. My two cents on this Sunday morning for a ‘better path’.
Allow, and enthusiastically enable, the Right to Die-
A basic human right, for any reason that the individual has.
Maybe restrict this right to those who are old enough to vote or to serve in the military. Say 18 years old.
T Hill
I don’t see 75 years or 50 or even 10 as they are now.
Looking at deforestation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation
Soil erosion, and aquifer depletion,
https://eos.org/articles/groundwater-levels-are-dropping-around-the-world
food production in various areas will see rapid declines. Countries will start banning food exports in certain years or permanently. The ability of the world produce food is starting to fall, slowly at first. Gradually getting worse.
The world population will have to fall fast.
Ukraine carried out drone strikes deep in Russia today, destroying billions of dollars in aviation equipment with drones worth a few thousand.
But how did they deal with the range issues of an electric drone? Apparently they have been flying drones across the Russian border and having them picked up by Ukrainian agents in Russia. Then the drones were loaded onto a truck and driven to Siberia, thousands of miles away. The trucks were parked somewhere near an airport and the drones were launched from there.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14769629/Putins-doomsday-bombers-wiped-daring-drone-blitz-Ukraine-Russian-war-hawks-demand-nuclear-retaliation.html
Operation Spider Web hit 40 Russian aircraft.
Russian war hawks call for nuclear response.
Eyewitness:
https://x.com/saintjavelin/status/1929226260221214730
O blyat!
If they get to the Siberian pipelines, those things may never be rebuilt.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14770641/How-Zelenskys-men-plotted-Op-Spiders-Web-blew-7bn-hole-Putins-irreplaceable-nuke-bomber-fleet-Experts-praise-genius-attack-warn-violent-response-humiliated-Kremlin.html
Experts warn of response from Russian Pearl Harbor
And they are building more and more of them.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/53815
So the question is – when will the west get hit by a wave of drone strikes? If it can happen there it can happen here… just a matter of time.. This truly represents a change to how wars are fought and the consequences are far, far reaching. Given the low unit costs is the “democratization” of ware a good thing or not? My guess is that right now most people are cheering for the Ukrainians but tables can – and will – turn in a second.
rgds
WP
And all sorts of other weaponized robot forms will be developed and deployed, for the purposes of domestic population suppression, foreign ‘operations’, and terrorism.
Robotics paired with various degrees of autonomous operation capabilities.
We’ve got a huge mess on the near horizon.
I doubt this current regime in the US will be giving up power. Indefinitely.
Anduril, and Tesla robotics partnership coming soon.
https://www.anduril.com/
https://www.anduril.com/article/anduril-and-meta-team-up-to-transform-xr-for-the-american-military/
The republican policies working their way to trumps desk for signing are going to escalate the nations debt level to a new and higher upslope. We are setup for stagflation conditions. The mechanism to deal with the debt service and entitlement spending will be to gradually debase the US currency so as to pay the commitments with lower value dollars. This currency debasement will be just a bit slower than would be considered outright default.
Its a path downward, since trust is eroded. Economic transactions and standing are all about trust. Bullying erodes trust fast.
It will be a hellish trend for those who are on fixed incomes or who have jobs that don’t give compensation escalation to match the decline in purchasing power.
And the republicans will at some point declare an economic emergency with drastic cuts in not just medicaid, but the other programs as well like SS and Medicare.
A lot of predictions fail because people try to imagine everything changing at the same time in a big bang. In fact even fast changes come in steps, with the new replacing the old in niches first.
For example, there is often discussions around here about if renewables can replace fossil fuel 100%. It isn’t a realistic scenario on current technology, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a major shift towards renewables. How far it will go depends on how fast technology and other factors change, which is hard to predict. People tend to overestimate the rate of change in the short term and underestimate the rate of change in the long term.
New technology enters the market through niches. This article about sodium batteries is a good example.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250530-how-electric-scooters-are-driving-chinas-salt-battery-push
Synthetic diamond prices are collapsing
https://www.businessoffashion.com/news/luxury/de-beers-closing-diamond-jewellery/
I think part of the reason is that fewer and fewer Chinese couples are getting married.
“Trump’s loathing of education dates back to his school days when he was one of the dumb kids in class.”
He probably learned that bullying was more successful than studying or actually knowing anything at very early age. Maybe he watched “Triumph of the Will” too many times.
When we first moved here we always had our dozen squirrel proof nest boxes filled with swallows. Last year, just one. This year no swallows. Why? No bugs is my guess!
‘HALF THE TREE OF LIFE’: ECOLOGISTS’ HORROR AS NATURE RESERVES ARE EMPTIED OF INSECTS
Long-term data for insect populations – particularly less charismatic species – is still patchy, but Janzen and Hallwachs join a number of scientists that have recorded huge die-offs of insects in nature reserves around the world. A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides. The declines witnessed by Janzen – and described by others around the world – are part of what some ecologists call a “new era” of ecological collapse, where rapid extinctions occur in regions that have little direct contact with people. Reports of falling insect numbers around the world are not new. International reviews have estimated annual losses globally of between 1% and 2.5% of total biomass every year.
And those who doubt there is sufficient species data to prove the “insectageddon” can now track it by proxy, Wagner says: via the sharp declines in birds, lizards and other creatures that depend on them for food.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/03/climate-species-collapse-ecology-insects-nature-reserves-aoe
I live in an area that, for the past 40 years at least, apple orchards have been replaced with wine grapes. I’m pretty sure pesticide use is actually down but the species are still disappearing over time. We have seen loss of woodpeckers, swallows, starlings, spiders, quail, deer, racoons, skunks, and probably other less obvious birds. I don’t pay attention to specific insects but I suspect that the disappearance of several bird species is related to insect disappearance. I remember particularly that a regular summer phenomenon used to be swallows swooping through our decrepit orchard scooping up masses of flying insects.
I can’t say specifically what might have caused the decline but it is clearly much warmer ad drier here and while still a lot of agriculture exists a lot more has gone the way of houses.
Not a good change.