http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/10/two-cl...

Our failures of leadership are comprehensive, including leadership in my nominal sector, journalism. For two weeks in a row, the price of oil on the futures markets has closed above $80-a-barrel, and for these two weeks The New York Times Sunday Business Section has failed to run one story on the consequences of oil rising into this uncharted territory of high price. Are the Times editors on crack? Surely $80-plus oil will thunder through the American economy.

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...

-- we are past the point of "painless" return. We have so consistently and drastically overshot our sustainable consumption and population levels that returning to sustainable levels will necessarily involve significant lifestyle disruptions -- living standard degradation, population level reduction, and the possible loss of sovereignty; there can be no "soft landing."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070927-9999-1n27icemelt.html

Sewall said climate change is inevitable, even if no more greenhouses gases were added to the atmosphere.

“The average person should start thinking seriously about where their water comes from now, what they're doing with it, and where the water will come from in 10 to 20 years,” he said.

Barnett, the Scripps researcher, said the West's drought, no matter what its cause, has not received enough attention.

“I don't know why people don't take it more seriously,” he said. “We're not going to have enough water for what we're doing. Nobody's facing up to it.”

Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens

It is hard for people to deal with all of these issues. It is easier to talk about the latest entertainment, the latest scandal, or the presidential candidates.

BREAKING: BRITNEY LOSES CUSTODY OF HER CHILDREN!

BREAKING: BRITNEY SPEARS LATEST NUMBER 1 ON BILLBOARD!

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Arkansaw of Samuel L Clemens

Gail, thank you for the work you put into this.

IMO while no one knows what exactly will happen and how it plays out, it is not too difficult to see that it will develop in quite unique ways in the US because there are stresses and fault lines that are not present collectively to the same degree and with the same attitude anywhere else.
It will also vary from place to place within the US.

As long as everyone has their personal or ideological horse in the race no one wants to hear tactical truths so to quite some extent everyone has to solve their own problems.

I think that despite the fault lines the national leadership will try very hard to hold the nation together, while it will be best for individual groups to control their own regions.

If it gets bad enough slow enough you might see something resembling Kosovo or Iraq.