Tom Ellis
2 min readApr 19, 2022

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These staccato short-sentence rants of yours are getting tedious. So many broad, facile generalizations! While things ARE bad and getting worse everywhere, they are symptomatic of the collapse of a civilization predicated on an illusory premise, and powered by a huge, rapid energy surplus in the form of fossil fuels. The illusory premise was that we could have an economy of infinite expansion of population, production, consumption, and affluence--on a finite planet. And now--inevitably--the bill has come due. The climate crisis threatens our entire collective future on this planet, but it is still only a symptom of this fundamental delusion of "more is always better" that drives our (Zero-sum) money-based economy and public policies. And this delusion of endless growth itself was made possible only by the vast increase in available net energy made possible by fossil fuels. But the party is over. Our global industrial civilization is collapsing, and must collapse, inexorably, and all the lies, all the violence, all the social pathologies you mention, are symptomatic of this inevitable collapse and die-off. So what can we do? Collectively, nothing at all. We are doomed. But individually? Plenty. We can breathe, observe, let go; we can be well, do good work, and keep in touch; we can learn, teach, heal, and create. And finally we can get our hands dirty by growing gardens (to feed ourselves and others), growing community (by actually getting to know our neighbors--by exchanging fresh produce and conversation); and growing awareness that--as our global market economy collapses inexorably, we must re-learn how to work with each other, rely on each other, and take care of each other. Out of such reconnection, assuming any of us survive at all, we can gradually heal our broken planet; maybe not in our lifetimes, but perhaps in the lives of our grandchildren. We can, however, pave the way, starting in the present moment.

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Tom Ellis
Tom Ellis

Written by Tom Ellis

I am a retired English professor now living in Oregon, and a life-long environmental activist, Buddhist, and holistic philosopher.

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