This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).
Chris Martenson is a scientist-turned-corporate-executive-turned-evangelizer-for-self-reliance-and-resilience. He’s put together “The Crash Course,” a series of videos explaining how trends in economics, energy, and the environment are playing out in such a way that “the next 20 years are going to be completely unlike the last 20 years.”
Here’s his explanation of the concept of exponential growth, using world population as a key example:
This video is part 3 of his 20-part series warning that the Big Crash is coming, à la James Howard Kunstler, Richard Heinberg, and Dmitry Orlov. Martenson does at least offer up realistic, hopeful suggestions for how to start adapting; check out his chapter in the forthcoming Post Carbon Reader.
I’m never sure what to make of Big-Crash-is-coming talk. I can see the logic behind it, and I certainly get the wisdom of becoming more self-reliant. (I need to get to work on that; I got a low-to-middling score on Yes! magazine’s self-reliance quiz.) But I’m more compelled (if not necessarily more convinced) by Alex Steffen’s vision of working to change systems and institutions rather than preparing for their inevitable collapse.
My encounters with collapse theory do resonate in one key way, though: They reinforce my decision not to bring children into an already-troubled-and-probably-soon-to-be-much-more-troubled world.
Have a video on population or GINK thinking to recommend? Post a link in comments below.
