Hi Friends! The Homo sapiens species wins a Darwin Award for its dogged determination to go extinct, dragging along much of the biosphere of Earth. Biomass Distribution on Earth (PNAS 2015) alerted us to the fact that humans are an epidemic: “Humans and livestock weigh 14X more than all other wild mammals, including whales and dolphins.” Upon reading that article one knows we have crippled the balanced systems that created a the habitable planet.
“We are on a fast track to climate disaster”, warned UN Top Gun and Secretary General António Guterre in April, “Major cities underwater. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals. This is not fiction or exaggeration. Science tells us: This will result from our current energy policies.“
“Wow I’d better make a collapse buck fast!”
Sure you do! Read to the end to find out how.
Fear is a motivator—if you collect enough money you’ll be safe, right? Everybody knows collapse is imminent. Profit a book? Goog offers 45 million pages of books about collapse. Monetize your collapse videos? Gather an online tribe? Open a collapse gym to hone the competitive edge. Sell weapons? Hey, shake your money maker.
Everybody wants to stock up on stuff, and you need money for stocking up. “Having more money now, will later prevent me from becoming some desperate cannibal’s dinner!” But IMO we can only avoid becoming a desperate cannibal’s dinner in the early stages. As the collapse unfolds, we are all cooked.
Even the 0.1% are in the fear-based make-a-buck business. More could buy a floating island—instead of an attack-prone land based biosphere. If you get lucky leverage on the stock market, then planet Mars is the ultimate in safety—for the unwashed few.
“How do I grab myself a collapse buck?“
In the next paragraph I tell you how.
The the more we struggle to keep up a high ‘standard of living’ the more we fail, because we are using more than Earth can regenerate. The more we hoard—the deeper and longer the inevitable collapse becomes. We are already in overshoot. Why not lighten your load?
Buying and owning a lot of stuff is scientifically shown to not bring happiness or joy. Buying new stuff is a dopamine hit, a short-lived hormone jolt that quickly wanes. We humanoids really must stop being consumers, and that is the elephant in the room. Overshoot means we’re using more than the planet makes. We will not escape overshoot by having more stuff. Stuff does not increase human happiness. And marketing stuff to humans actually decreases our happiness, causes us to feel a lack.
My big-sisterly advice? Buy only what you really need. We must get back to basics, make stuff that lasts, repair stuff that breaks, eat stuff sustainably, and above all, take fewer airplane rides. Divesting of stuff is only a change of habit, it will not harm you. Earth has done all s/he can to support our binges, be wise and stop binging.
“Will you shoot me over a collapse buck, Wendy?
OK yes, yes I will, yes you can make a collapse buck. I am paying a toke—a token—$50 for humorous science-y collapse articles, 1000 words or less. Contact me to get a green light, as I only accept well-written articles I like. Make it funny, or at least ironic! Below are some topic— or roll your own.
$50 ? I want more!
Soon there may be a collapse buck coming from a new Darwin Awards book, right? When that happens, popular articles and writers will be offered more bucks in exchange for book publication in Darwin Awards: Dead As A Dodo. Science is always a part of the Darwin Awards books each including about 10 great science essays.
I will post the book science essays on the darwinawards.com site soon.