. . . The blind pursuit of economic growth stokes a cycle of financial crisis, and wrecks our world. . . . To try to stabilise this system, governments behave like soldiers billeted in an ancient manor, who burn the furniture, the panelling, the paintings and the stairs to keep themselves warm for a night. 

The Financial Times reports today that China now resembles the US in 2007(2). Domestic bank loans have risen 40% since 2008, while “the ability to repay that debt has deteriorated dramatically”. Property prices are falling and the companies that run China’s shadow banking system provide “virtually no disclosure” of their liabilities. Just two days ago, the G20 leaders announced that growth in China “is robust and is becoming more sustainable”(3). You can judge the value of their assurances for yourself.

Quoted from George Monbiot - [1]

Mike Whitney calls out Japan --

Japanese stocks suffered their biggest one-day plunge in more than four months following an announcement that the world’s third biggest economy had slipped back into recession.[3]

Globalization War against Nature

And the world is ruled mostly by a few rich and powerful people who could all fit into a greyhound bus. Confronting climate change requires a systemic transformation of how our economies are run and who runs them. Part of this radical change will involve disempowering the global 1% and the disaster-producing industries they profit from.[4]

Our leaders seem to be detached from reality, playing their roles and stories and national relationships as if nothing has changed since last century. That's how many peoples minds do work. Humans prefer stories, roles and dramas, rather than hard data, invisible laws, and prescriptive science. Ugo Bardi points this out in his latest blogs [2], that economists and political leaders seem to be deluded and completely missing the point.

War against people

Meanwhile, lights are going out in Syria.[5]  Australia helps the USA bomb ISIS in Syria and Iraq, in the hope that more oil from the middle east will flow their way. USA boom in shale oil starts to prove illusionary, as reserves get written off. The smell of scam is strong. Investors and Regulators get told different stories, and who really knows the truth? [6]   Somehow, a gas boom is going to displace Russian gas sales to Europe, from non-existent LNG exports from USA. These are corporations keen to tell lies to extract your investment money, then turn water and land into useless waste.

Wars against nature and people

Meanwhile  in NSW Australia, which doesn't really need the extra gas, the very same sort of fracking disaster companies continue to invade every sacred place, and water sensitive area, aided by state politicians  who have been sniffing boom money and jobs. Only the townships and agricultural areas being fracked don't agree. The lying corporations are chasing the smell of high exported LNG prices. Its getting ugly[8].  The midas touch of the fracking business turns good water into bad, and good land into poisoned land, and political parties into high class whores for business.

When the car is out of gas, and no tow service, we have to get out and take up walking. The rising cost of maintaining oil extraction is a hard limit to further global economic growth. Contraction or collapse is inevitable. Once the supply chains of derived products, food, labor productivity, chemicals, plastics and transport take up the increased costs, the networked nature of our profit oriented economy is not going to be fixed up by any free trade agreement, or extreme fossil fuel mining. The extreme fossil fuel mining is just making the problem worse, by destroying resources that did not depend on oil, like good water and soil, which are still needed for life.

The economic collapse of oil based civilization is happening faster now. Its just a matter of time before global arrangements collapse in their quagmire of oil system dependence. We have to fight for what can be preserved against further damage from global system death throes.

Having said good-bye to oil powered life, its time to restore local productivity from whatever will grow food. Local food and water are essentials, and should not be compromised by the failure of the global fossil fueled economy. The fracking invasions are a war crime, and should be repelled as such.

For those story minded politicians, when we hurt people, they will likely hurt us back.  When we hurt Nature, even more so, everywhere and forever.

Ugo Bardi's version [2]

A better story of the world says that the world is not our enemy. The world is, rather, our partner : it can provide us with bountiful goods, but, as for a human partner, and as it is the stuff of so many stories, what we do to our partner comes back to us. If we hurt our partner, we will be hurt back and this is true in fiction as in real life. If we hurt the world surrounding us (or "Nature" or "the ecosystem", or whatever term you prefer) we will be hurt back, and this is already happening. This is the story we are living: we may be the good guys or the bad guys; it depends on us.

References:

[1] http://www.monbiot.com/2014/11/18/the-insatiable-god/
Even with the TPP, trade deals galore and pressing the globalization pedal to the floor, and the economy just won't go faster anymore.

[2] http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/the-peak-oil-theater.html
Ugo Bardi notices that stories and roles are more important to most people. Political success depends on the stories we tell. Paying attention to data and system behaviour is hard, even for scientists.

[3] http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/18/recession-in-japan-sends-shares-tumbling/
Printing more money and squeezing the economy doesn't work for Japan either.

[4] http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/20/who-rules-the-world/
Who rules the world?

[5] http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/the-olduvai-cliff-are-lights-going-out.html
Bombed back into the stone age?

[6] http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2442482/fracking_the_us_monterey_shales_96_downgrade_blows_the_scam.html
Two thirds of Shale Oil reserves disappear overnight.

[7] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-09/frackers-reports-on-oil-reserves-differ-for-investors-regulators
Neither might be getting the truth. Its out there, probably buried underground. 10 billion barrels, would you believe 2 billion? How about a few million?

[8] http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-09/frackers-reports-on-oil-reserves-differ-for-investors-regulators
Turning good water and land into bad. The midas touch of the fracking business.