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Off the keyboard of Jason Heppenstall

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Published on 22 Billion Energy Slaves on September 30, 2014

Discuss this article at the Kitchen Sink inside the Diner

Just for the record, I’d like to point out that things are going horribly wrong. Yes, I know it’s a point that has been laboured again and again over the past few years but this time it seems that, erm, ‘normal people’ are starting to agree with our merry band of doomsters.

[Oh no, here we go again. Pass me the anti-depressants.]

We now live in a world pumped up with extreme debt, and yet people can’t see it. There isn’t a single major economy that isn’t bankrupt many times over when you take unpaid liabilities into account, and day by day the debt levels climb even higher just in order to preserve a way of life that is considered ours as if by some divine law.

[Okay I agree with you there, our debts have become way too big, but they’ll think of something. As a matter of fact that hairy economist guy was on TV the other day saying that economic growth is getting better and soon we’ll grow our way out of debt, or something. You worry too much!]

And we’ve used all of this debt to build up infrastructure and institutions that require abundant and cheap energy to function. The bad news is that abundant and cheap energy is getting less abundant and less affordable with every passing week. Soon it simply won’t be there at all. People, just like medieval peasants, are illiterate in this respect. Our corporate media whoops and swoons when it presents news of new oil finds, such as the ‘new Saudi Arabia of the north’ announced yesterday in the Arctic. Never mind that the oil is virtually inaccessible (the Kara Sea is not the friendliest place), the infrastructure is not there, and even if we could get at it we wouldn’t be able to afford it. These limiting considerations are given scant, if any, consideration.

[But soon we’ll have thorium reactors and nuclear fusion … just got to pump some more money into research and keep the faith.]

In any case, aren’t we supposed to be weaning ourselves off oil instead of desperately trying to burn more of it?

[We won’t need oil soon as everyone will have electric cars. Don’t you read the news?]

And then there’s ebola. As soon as this gets out of control it will make practically every other consideration irrelevant. An exponentially growing disease, this will likely kill millions over the next year, probably taking down a quarter of the world’s population in the next decade (and then some).

[But it’s not easily transmittable and it will only affect people in the Third World, which is sad but at least it won’t get to us.]

Meanwhile, as we await ebola, the knife-wielding psychopaths known as ISIS/ISIL rampage across swathes of Iraq and Syria, making a mockery of the US led efforts to control the region. All those trillions of dollars and thousands of lives expended add up to what, exactly?

[We brought them freedom and democracy but they’re just too barbaric to understand it. Why can’t people just be reasonable like us?]

And so now we have young men, and some women, heading from Britain, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and elsewhere to go and fight a holy war against, well, us. In Britain these people are not considered friends, but in Denmark they are being welcomed back and given state support to help them readjust to life, reports Channel 4 News. One of them, fresh from the killing fields of Syria, had just returned to Denmark to be with his newborn son whom, he said he “would not stop from fighting jihad when he grows up.”

What a strange setup! Is this a merging of the welfare state and the doctrine of endless war?

[You’re such a liberal – next you’ll be quoting Orwell at us.]

And the world seems to have forgotten, in the main, about the other major crises in Ukraine, Libya, Palestine/Israel, Nigeria and a dozen other hotspots. Fukushima’s disappeared down the memory hole, as has Boko Harem, the mysteriously-shot down airplane and all that melting ice. Even Vladimir ‘Hitler’ Putin has been temporarily forgotten about, but will no doubt be back in vogue as soon as winter starts to bite in Eastern Europe.

[Well, he is really a VERY bad man – you can see it in his eyes, he looks just like a Bond villain!]

Instead we are treated to column acres about an actor marrying a lawyer in Venice, and something about a new iPhone that is much like the other ones but a bit bigger and not bendy.

[Don’t pretend that you’re not worried about Bendgate.]

Those with any sense will realise that all of this is what the last act of the Age of No Consequences drawing to a close. History hadn’t ended after all, it had merely fallen asleep on the sofa watching Strictly Come Dancing.

[Oh, you’re such a cynic. Pass me the Kool Aid*.]



* “Drinking the Kool-Aid” refers to the 1978 Jonestown Massacre; the phrase suggests that one has mindlessly adopted the dogma of a group or leader without fully understanding the ramifications or implications.