Other Than Apocalypse, What's On the Horizon, Mr. Monbiot?

Thanks, George, but confirmation bias I can do without right now.

Guardian enviro-scribe, George Monbiot, wants you to think big, very big, about what is now on your plate no matter how much you may wish it wasn't. It's an entree he calls "The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces."

He knows it's depressing reading and he feels very sorry for that but he wants us all to realize the magnitude of what we have to confront.

I haven't got the heart to summarize it here but I'll cherry pick a couple of bon mots a la George.

On the prospect that Marie Le Pen might win the next French election.

"If Le Pen wins, the permanent members of the UN security council will be represented by the following people: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Theresa May and Marine Le Pen. It would be a stretch to call that reassuring."

Oh, shit. Damn. Bugger that. 

How about this one. Just 60 harvests left - in case anyone's counting.

"According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, at current rates of soil loss we have 60 years of harvests left."

For what it's worth, there was plenty of research on this both before the UN FAO warning and there's been plenty of research confirming it since. Around the globe we're working our farmland to exhaustion, relying on ever increasing amounts of agri-chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides needed to produce "normal" crop yields. It's a candle ablaze brightly from both ends.

And, of course, there's the accelerating extinction event. No list would be complete without it.

"One of the peculiarities of this complex, multiheaded crisis is that there appears to be no “other side” on to which we might emerge. It is hard to imagine a realistic scenario in which governments lose the capacity for total surveillance and drone strikes; in which billionaires forget how to manipulate public opinion; in which a broken EU reconvenes; in which climate breakdown unhappens, species return from extinction and the soil comes back to the land. These are not momentary crises, but appear to presage permanent collapse."

But, wait, what am I thinking? This is Black Friday, there are deals to be had - everywhere - on everything. It's past time to get down to some serious online bargain hunting. Happy shopping everyone.