Reply #7: Could be. Here's how I worry reality is going to involve itself: [View All]

[phantom power]

it's going to make people desperate. And angry. It won't change minds, it will make people's minds open to whoever provides scapegoats and false promises of a solution. Think Hitler in Weimar Germany. Or, more recently, George Bush on September 12, 2001.

Of course, I ripped this off from Kunstler, but history is unfortunately full of evidence supporting the prediction.

In any case, I think it is still the right thing to do, to get the word out to whatever extent is possible. As a kind of innoculation against the madness. The more people who have at least been exposed to the concepts of climate change and peak fossil, the harder it will be for demagogues to prey on these people when things start to get desperate. Maybe not a lot harder, but it's worth a try.

I just think we should all go into the breach understanding that enlightenment is not the most likely outcome of this catastrophe. In bad times, it's the bad wolves who get fed the most, disheartening as that is.