The fall season of the human species has arrived. We are already feeling the effects in a contracting economy. The decline of high power energy from fossil fuels is already on us. It will take a months before we rise out of the winter gloom. It will take weeks before there is any perceptible lengthening of the days after the Winter Solstice. But it isn't zero length (outside of the Arctic or Antarctic circles, that is)! And it is just part of a continuing cycle of renewal, maturation, decline, decay, and back to renewal. This is the shortest day of the calendar year. The days will get progressively shorter, the temperatures colder, and, in my part of the world, the days gloomier.īut then I think about the Winter Solstice. In many ways this isn't a cheery thought, right up there with the sorrow we feel to see summer end. We are headed for the winter solstice for the human race. But I have grown increasingly certain that a decline of some kind is surely coming. ( Bottleneck: Humanity's Impending Impasse, book review by me). We might be in for a long slow decline, as suggested by John Michael Greer ( The Archdruid Report) or we could be in for a cataclysmic collapse as suggested by William R. I don't really know how this will play out, only that it will play out. The peak of oil extraction is essentially the peak of human progress in material wealth and population. We have reached the summer solstice of this cycle. Humanity has been on the up swing of the cycle of growth and wealth. Almost immediately my mind went to thoughts about this day, the shortest day of the year, and then to the whole idea of cycles. and then just sat back to catch my breath and relax. I finished grading exams and programming projects, recorded my grades, etc. ![]()
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