Last year I attended the Age of Limits gathering at Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary in rural Pennsylvania. Most of the presenters were repeat C-Realm Podcast guests, and it was good to re-connect with them. I also enjoyed the opportunity to re-connect with C-Realm listeners and meet others for the first time. As denizens of countless subcultures have learned in the brief span of years since the dawn of the internet age, the internet is a great tool for finding the others, but no amount of screen time can match time spent together, in the flesh, for creating genuine human bonds.
That said, I understand and support Orren Whiddon and the other stakeholders invested in the annual AoL gathering in their decision to take a break from preaching the good word of collapse preparedness and to devote their energies inward. Here is the text of Orren's official announcement on the subject:
_________________________________
Hello All
I wanted to let you know that we have made the decision not to host The Age of Limits Conference in 2015.
There are a number of reasons for our staff having made this choice, and the relative break even status of the finances is actually a minor reason. More important is that our volunteer staff has come to the realization that they have simply taken on too much with our packed schedule, and AoL is very demanding of our volunteer resources.
Here on the Land we need to tend to our own growing list of collapse mitigation projects, some of which I spoke to in my presentations. The Water Works is large on that list with its integrated windmill pumping, distribution, catchment basins and fish ponds. And we are considering expanding the land holdings of our income-sharing community. Last year we harvested our first large crop of rye and have now earnestly begun a regular cover cropping program. And our construction projects are never ending. All of this takes time, a commodity that for us is more precious than money.
Many of our presenters also feel the pressure to "take care of business." The pace of change quickens and as I like to say, once you understand the science of collapse, there you are! At some point we start repeating ourselves, and many of us prefer to be engaged in our own personal preparations. The specific techniques of mitigating collapse in ones personal life are well known and broadly disseminated, it simply remains to begin.
As for action on a national or global scale, certainly there is room for that, but I suspect it is a small room. My own opinion is that we human primates are hard wired, for a host of good evolutionary reasons, to dissipate energy and resources as quickly as possible, turning those resources into as many chattering, charming and hopelessly flawed replication units as time and resources allow.
It may well be we will return to The Age of Limits Conference in three years or so. That would allow time to sharpen your own interest, and allow for our presenters to refresh their ideas on the accelerating unfolding of events. So pencil in the date, sometime in 2017. Until then I thank you for your support and offer my best wish that you may "Collapse Now and Avoid The Rush!"
Orren Whiddon
The Age of Limits
That said, I understand and support Orren Whiddon and the other stakeholders invested in the annual AoL gathering in their decision to take a break from preaching the good word of collapse preparedness and to devote their energies inward. Here is the text of Orren's official announcement on the subject:
_________________________________
Hello All
I wanted to let you know that we have made the decision not to host The Age of Limits Conference in 2015.
There are a number of reasons for our staff having made this choice, and the relative break even status of the finances is actually a minor reason. More important is that our volunteer staff has come to the realization that they have simply taken on too much with our packed schedule, and AoL is very demanding of our volunteer resources.
Here on the Land we need to tend to our own growing list of collapse mitigation projects, some of which I spoke to in my presentations. The Water Works is large on that list with its integrated windmill pumping, distribution, catchment basins and fish ponds. And we are considering expanding the land holdings of our income-sharing community. Last year we harvested our first large crop of rye and have now earnestly begun a regular cover cropping program. And our construction projects are never ending. All of this takes time, a commodity that for us is more precious than money.
Many of our presenters also feel the pressure to "take care of business." The pace of change quickens and as I like to say, once you understand the science of collapse, there you are! At some point we start repeating ourselves, and many of us prefer to be engaged in our own personal preparations. The specific techniques of mitigating collapse in ones personal life are well known and broadly disseminated, it simply remains to begin.
As for action on a national or global scale, certainly there is room for that, but I suspect it is a small room. My own opinion is that we human primates are hard wired, for a host of good evolutionary reasons, to dissipate energy and resources as quickly as possible, turning those resources into as many chattering, charming and hopelessly flawed replication units as time and resources allow.
It may well be we will return to The Age of Limits Conference in three years or so. That would allow time to sharpen your own interest, and allow for our presenters to refresh their ideas on the accelerating unfolding of events. So pencil in the date, sometime in 2017. Until then I thank you for your support and offer my best wish that you may "Collapse Now and Avoid The Rush!"
Orren Whiddon
The Age of Limits
2 comments:
Thank you for letting us know, Kevin. It was a pleasure meeting you there last year (I am the friend of the person who went to buy a sleeping bag with you).
I had not really learned all that much new there. It was important for me psychologically to be around "sane" people at least once a year.
Also, it was a pleasure to talk with such a large group of thoughtful persons who are so erudite on an amazingly wide range of topics. People like yourself were my teachers at the conference.
AoL has made a significant contribution. Many thanks to Orren Whiddon, volunteers and participants.
There are two matters of concern that appears to have escaped the attention of many: 1) Why the skyrocketing growth of absolute global human population numbers is occurring at the same time Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) are declining in many countries worldwide? and 2) How has the ideologically driven, utterly misleading and preternatural thinking bound up in the Demographic Transition Model become passed off over so many decades since the 1930s as scientific evidence? After all, demography is no more a science than economics or politics.
In 2017 I hope some attention will be placed on these questions. If it pleases the organizers of the next AoL Conference, it would be my pleasure to present a new, apparently unforeseen and unfortunately unwelcome perspective based upon the best available ecological science of human population dynamics.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
established 2001
Chapel Hill, NC
http://www.panearth.org/
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