Winter Solstice - Are We Turning A Corner?

The economic news has seemed to be a little better of late, at least on the home front in the USA. The Eurozone crisis is still flaming, so markets are still unresolved. But a few numbers here in the US economy have given some people renewed hope that this so-called jobless recovery is happening. Is economic spring just around the corner?

The Winter Solstice is a celebration of the fact that from here on, the days will be getting longer. There will be more light each day. And for those of us who live in higher latitudes that is meaningful. I've heard a few comments to the effect that just like the solstice, we may have reached a turning point in the economy and each day there will be a little more “light”.

I don't think so. There are several things to remember about cycles like the seasons. Most of all they go round and round. There will be a Summer Solstice in June. The economy has its cycles too and the real question is, over the long run, is it a simple cycle, or is it a spiral? And if so, which way is it going.

West Texas Intermediate crude prices are still north of $90/barrel. Tapis and Brent have been running $100 plus for a long time. Many more traditional economists are finally coming to realize what the biophysical economists have been saying all along, that the price of oil has a direct impact on the direction of the economy in terms of GDP growth. High oil prices lead to a drag on the general economy in all sectors. Today the only way governments have to appear to be countering this fact is to create more fiat money (e.g. quantitative easing) to make it seem as if there is more actual wealth available and GDP looks like it is still growing (albeit at a pathetic pace compared with what is considered robust!) They are hoping that sooner or later the whole thing will turn around, just like the Winter Solstice, and we will get back to the old normal of growth and “prosperity”. They are, of course, just aggravating the situation. The only time we might expect the price of oil to diminish is when the economy goes into a clear recession and demand goes down. The ups and downs in the economy, reflected in the price of oil and the stock markets, reminds me of the preditor-prey population dynamics models based on the Lotka-Volterra equations. The equations describe two interacting populations that affect each other's sizes with time delays. One goes up, the other follows but as it does so it negatively impacts the size of the other, which then goes down and the other one follows. Rabbit populations expand; foxes eat rabbits and with more of them the fox population goes up accordingly; then there are more foxes and they eat more rabbits so the latter population declines; and the foxes go hungry. Something like that.

The price of oil, however, is only a symptom. It tends to reflect the fact that the net energy we get from what oils we are producing is going down. Right now there is a hubbub going on about how the US is awash in oil and natural gas. What the MSM doesn't mention, or fails to analyze, is the fact that this new oil is terribly expensive to harvest. In reality, it simply takes more energy to extract tar sand oil, or shale oil (and gas) than it did extracting conventional oil (and gas). Ergo, it is more expensive even if the supply seems to be going up. By the ordinary laws of standard economic theory, greater supply should push the price of a commodity down. Or, at least, it should not trend upward, as has been the case since 2005.

Of course, energy is not like any other commodities. The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules the day. So, as we are seeing, even if supplies (actually we refer to “potential supplies”, or proved reserves) seem to be up the “purchasing power” of our money with respect to real physical work goes down.

So, unfortunately, this seeming turn around is not like the Winter Solstice. There will come an effective Summer Solstice before anything like a Spring Equinox is seen in the economy. We're in a permanent winter! In other words we are on a downward spiral that will not halt until or unless we discover some incredible source of high power energy. The likelihood of that is looking slimmer every day. Meanwhile the population continues to grow, the wealthy continue to burn up resources at a phenomenal rate, the oil continues to decline in value, and the natives are growing restive. All you pagans out there had better get in touch with the spirits. See if you can convince them that the economy really ought to be more like the annual cycle we celebrate tonight. 9:30pm(ish), Dec. 21 on the west coast (22nd on the east coast).

Comments

[Tom]

Thanks for another entertaining and enlightening article. With resources of all kinds depleting at incredible rates (with 7 billion of us and counting), the environment becoming (much) less conducive to food production, and our climate adversely affecting life all over the planet, i think this year will be one giant wake-up call to humanity. We're losing pollinators and species that eat the insects that carry disease, making us more vulnerable to epidemics if not pandemics. The tree population is being decimated by other insects, the heat and drought of climate change, and the continued harvesting by humans. The oceans are becoming more and more acidic, with dead zones all over the place and dying coral reefs, not to mention the over-fishing by us (and the sonar caused beaching of many whales and the like). i could go on, but i think you get the idea - we're killing ourselves by polluting our biosphere, and the bottleneck collapse is well under way. This year may be the turning point - we'll see.

[Aboc Zed]

@george

good post as usual and yes the economy is not like the seasons: the spring of better life for everyone is not coming

@tom

i do noot think we will ever be able to pinpoint any given year as a "turning point"

it may be that the turning point was 5 years ago :)

even when the botom of the pecking order structure (society) is dying the top is expected to continue their BAU

only when the day-to-day life disrupted for everyone, including the top, scientists may adopt a proactive approach and "take over" the government

for now i expect another year of BAU; propaganda on tv trying to calm down the angry mobs; maybe a war to distruct the people; in general more of the same :)

[Selfgovus]

Given the article linked below, we are currently past the equinox and if the world can maintain business-as-usual we will see our economic winter solstice in about 8 or 9 years. Resource depletion seems to kick the "business-as-usual" paradigm squarely in the nuts.

So even if we commercialize small thorium-powered nuclear reactors and develop a cheap source of liquid hydrogen we're still looking at another decade of deflation. I'm not holding out much hope for that though. My greatest hope is that my family lives through the coming famine and famine induced violence.

From the article...

"Statistically, it is extremely unlikely that the mathematical patterns discussed here are simply due to random chance. Taken as a group it would seem to be virtually impossible. Although the patterns are mathematically driven and not dependent upon world events it is fascinating how current events seem to be aligning with the near term pattern. In particular, the S&P decline indicated for 2012 - 2013 coinciding with the very likely disintegration of the Eurozone and euro."

http://advisorperspectives.com/dshort/guest/John-Carlucci-111208-The-Great-Repression.php

[Aboc Zed]

@selfgovus

thanks for a good article

indeed even if one thinks entirely within the established paradigm of business cycles the next 10 to 15 years goinfg to be those of "going under the trend line"

but if we take into account that this downtuurn may actually be the reversal of long term upward trend duee to peak oil then ther is no bottom in the fall

famine and famine induced violence are coming

the highest hope i can master is that it is not going to happend before i am dead

surviving it if does happen within my lifetime is unlikely :(

and for our children the best we can do is to prepare them for what is coming mentally and physically and maybe move to the country tham may succumb to it later than the others (not much of a hope there either :)

[George Mobus]

Tom,

If your "turning point" == "inflection point" then I would say we have already passed that in terms of net energy per capita available to do economic work. We are already going downward. But if you mean a turning point in people's perceptions of what is happening then lets hope it happens this year (like a paradigm shift) so that more people will take measures to adapt to what is coming.

---------------------------------
Aboc,

You see my comment to Tom above. For me it is hard to predict anything. We're in terra incognita. No human population has ever faced the combination of problems that we are facing. Hard to say how it will go down. I would bet not well, of course.

---------------------------------
Selfgovus,

What are you doing to prepare your family for those conditions?

George

[Jynx]

You nailed it. There's 7 billion people on the planet, rapid resource depletion and an ever worsening environmental situation. This won't end well.

[Robin Datta]

The peak in energy available per capita worldwide was passed in the 1970s. The ERoEI of petroleum has been on a downward trend since the beginning of the petroleum age, which in other words is that the net energy available to society from each barrel of oil has been declining. It is true in spades for the petroleum from unconventional sources. (The net energy of one barrel today is the equivalent of the net energy of many barrels of the past, and so the price of one barrel is the price of many barrels of the past.)

Increased efficiency in petroleum use can mitigate the trend upto the point of maximal efficiency. But thereafter the constraint on available energy will be felt in full. And in addition, the low hanging fruit have been picked not just from fossil fuels, but from all resources. So more energy will be needed to extract and refine what is left of those resources.

Economic "growth" is the acceleration in the rate of the conversion of resources into products, but what is forthcoming is a deceleration in that rate. The production of larger numbers of the symbols will not change this.

[Robin Datta]

Symbols being the pieces of paper with green pictures of dead presidents, or their proxy, magnetized particles on hard drives.

[Nigel Goddard]

George,

Have you seen a reliable or even semi-reliable EROI calculation for shale gas? The one at this link is the closest I've found but I have not delved into its numbers - which come out at 70+. If that were true, and the estimates of reserves were true, it would be enough to power another decade or two of growth. Very interested in your thoughts.

http://michaelaucott.blogspot.com/2011/06/shale-gas-eroi-preliminary-estimate.html

Nigel

[Selfgovus]

George,

Boy, that question really got me going...

My family is pretty unconventional.

When I say my family I'm talking about my two kids, my ex-wife and myself.

We are divorced but are on great terms and are still good friends.

My ex and the kids live a city away, north across the Mississippi.

I've mostly been befuddled as to how to prepare for the post-peak collapse. It has been almost two years since I woke up to the gigantic reality of the situation and I'm still unsure what to do. The biggest question I had is whether the collapse will be quick or drawn out. Thanks to this site and Cassandra's Legacy I'm now expecting a quick "Seneca" style collapse.

The first conscious choice I remember making was to quit smoking cigarettes and start exercising regularly.

On the outset of every collapse, no matter the cause or the speed, the three B's are the most important: Beans, Bandaids, Bullets.

Beans (Food & Water)
I have at least a winter's worth of food stored for four people. I still have a horribly inadequate supply of water but am working on that.
Stored food is useless once it is gone. Plan ahead, plant a garden. Learn how to save seeds.

Bandaids (Medical Supplies and Knowledge)
Each time I go into Walgreens I buy some cheap or on-sale medical necessities.
As far as medical knowledge goes I've been slacking but I did download/read two books on the topic: Where There Is No Doctor and Where There Is No Dentist. You can download them yourself for free here...
http://hesperian.org/books-and-resources/

Bullets (Self Defense)
Your best weapon is physical fitness. If you can't sprint a block, jump in place 20 times and then sprint back without wanting to die, you're going down in a hurry.
Your next best weapon is a strong community. I don't care how fit you are, how many guns you have or how big your fortress is, you can not survive this alone.
Your third most important weapon is the ability to keep from "freezing" when trouble erupts. Opportunities to jump to action present themselves often. Practice being the first to help the old lady up after a fall. Practice being the first to help the waitress or grocer after they've dropped something.
You will need a gun too. That gun should be a simple 12 gauge pump-action shotgun that can handle shells of all lengths. Shoot trap for practice.

The infrequently mentioned fourth B: Barter
Any items and knowledge related to the previous three B's will be of very high value. Medical knowledge will be priceless mostly because it can't be stolen when you die.

The three B's (and lots of luck) will only get you through the first few months of a collapse.

Afterward you're going to need a large range of traditional skills just to stay alive. I would recommend specializing in one of the three B's. The fourth B will be a skill required by everybody.

I'm specializing in food production and storage. My current projects are primarily about using permaculture to transform nutrient-poor suburban lawns into resilient food gardens. I'll write more about that if anybody shows interest.

Happy Holidays :)

TIPS
(bandaids) You can buy most perscription strength (or stronger) antibiotics at pet stores without a perscription. Check the fish meds ;).
(bandaids) With a few wires, a battery and a piece of silver jewelery you can make an antibiotic yourself.
(bandaids) Gauze and Steel wool is amazing for starting fires if you can but generate a few sparks. Steel wool plus a 9v battery = instant fire.
(bandaids) Panty liners with sticky backing are amazing for all types of medical emergencies.
(beans) Did you know that a hand warmer is also an industrial strength oxygen absorber? Throw one into a bag of any dry food you want to preserve and the food will stay good for a LONG time. (make sure you seal the bag :))
(beans) The bags of 15 bean soup at the grocery store can be planted, grown, eaten and saved for next year.
(beans) F1 Hybrid vegetable seeds can be saved and sown. With careful selection you can get reliably viable seeds after only a few ascensions.
(beans) Gardening and growing your own food is not easy and requires practice. Start practicing even if you can only practice in pots.
(beans) When things start to go bad, keep all of your bathtubs filled with water and put plastic sheets over them to minimize evaporation.
(bullets) If you drive to work, you can easily increase core strength (and decrease lower back pain) by laying the driver's seat all the way back while you drive while supporting yourself with your core muscles. It is incredibly difficult at first but after a week it will become easy and you'll notice you're physically stronger.
(bullets) Blades don't run out of ammunition. Blades don't make extremely loud noises. Killing somebody with a blade will tear out your soul and stomp on it.
(bullets) Another cheap/reliable weapon is the Mosin Nagant surplus rifle. You can purchase the weapon and 440 rounds for under $250. Make sure to buy solvent that can eat through corrosive salts like Hoppe's #9.

[gcahn2]

Oil and nuclear are fancy ways of boiling water. When I look at Hawaii I see a virtually infinite source of heat, surrounded by a virtually infinite source of water. It wouldn't take much of an engineer to see the potential for giga watts of power.

[George Mobus]

Jynx,

It probably will end badly for the vast majority, I agree. But for those who are thinking about the future...

We hope.

-----------------------------------
Robin,

Too true.

---------------------------------
Nigel,

An EROI for shale gas at +70 would be pretty hard to believe. I know that several people working with Charlie Hall have been working on pinning it down. Last time I checked the well-head EROI was estimated to be less than 20. If you start expanding the boundaries beyond well-head it has to get a lot worse.

Most of the numbers are still from wells that are too new in operation to have a large sample of costs for non-conventional drilling and production costs.

What worries me most about shale gas is the total volume of gas produced per well. The early results suggest the volume per drill is much less than the historical production of conventional gas. If so, then we can expect the EROI of aggregated production to be much lower since it will take many wells to produce the same number of net BTUs for the economy.

I remember some discussion of EROI for gas at the last Biophysical Econ meeting. You might take a look at: https://sites.google.com/site/biophysicalconferences/3rd-biophysical-economics-conference

----------------------------------
Selfgovus,

Your next best weapon is a strong community. I don't care how fit you are, how many guns you have or how big your fortress is, you can not survive this alone.

The fifth B: bodies (around you)!

-----------------------------------
gcahn2,

You are right, it wouldn't take much of an engineer to see the possibilities. But it would take an exceptional engineer (many of them) to realize it in any way that could be useful to the continental US. Mega projects invariably involve complexities unanticipated by the 'not much of an engineer' types. Hawaii may be able to capitalize on geothermal locally, but I have a tough time imagining what it would take to transport the power across the Pacific and lower 48 to make a big impact in the contiguous states. This would be on the order of space-based solar, in my opinion.

George

[Aboc Zed]

@selfgov

happy holidays to you too

thanks fgor nice B's

i am also of the opinion that it is better to be prepared to the collapse than be surprised

nonetheless my opinion is that the speed of the collapse is not predictable especially given that BAU people are hell-bent on feeding the masses and "saving lives"

my opinion it is quite possible and even likely that collapse will be a draw-out affair and may take as much as two or three generations (say over 100 years) with "officialdom" never accepting or announcing collapse to general public

this is why i'd say it is possible that we may not live through it

but of course better be prepared than die

on the other hand we all will die eventually and once we are dead there are no worries because there is no one to worry

i think teaching children critical thinking is the best way to prepare them to life in general including "collapse" which will be their reality the reality which will shape them and make them who they will be

[c woof]

I may be imagining it (anyone who thinks they know surety please speak now), but it seems to me more and more people are reluctantly jumping on the "future is heck-- we're all gonna die" bandwagon and accepting that some change is inevitable, if not desired. It just seems the momentum is growing.
The question, is, how fast (if true) and will there be enough energy behind the thoughts to turn the ship away from the iceberg, or volcano, if you prefer.
Perhaps the Occupiers, with their call to arms about inequality, have enabled people to come out of their slumber of the status quo and expand their vision of what life's all about and what's really going on-- if so, I hope it's enough to start to change BAU.
----
@Selfgovus
Frightening, but extremely helpful and thought-provoking post. Thanks!
And I agree w/George-- the most important B is bodies (around you)!(at least till the food runs out).

[Bruce]

The corner we're turning appears to be just before another trip downhill.

Annual growth of wages and salaries after reported consumer price inflation has again turned negative, which is consistent with recessions during the post- WW II period.

Similarly, when yoy real GDP decelerates to less than 2%, as is the case today, the US economy has historically already tipped over into recession.

Despite all the hype about holiday sales, the most recent estimate is for 3.8% nominal yoy growth (trend nominal GDP since '00 vs. 6-7% before the late '90s) over '10 (vs. 5.2% for '10 over '09), which is virtually unchanged after price inflation and is negative per capita.

Further, US corporate profits after tax reached a new record earlier in '11, topping 10% of GDP vs. the avg. 6% historically. At the troughs of recessions and stock bear markets, profits/GDP have averaged 4.5%.

Were profits to fall to the recessionary avg. level, the 50% or larger contraction in US corporate profits will be an equivalent of 5%+ of GDP (over $800 billion) and 8-9% of private GDP, matching the hit to the economy we experienced in '08-'09 and implying the risk of loss of as many as 8 million additional jobs, a U rate of 13-14% by '13-'14, and fiscal deficit/receipts of 75-100% by mid-decade.

In terms of the historical self-similar secular debt-deflationary pattern for capitalism's economic, financial, demographic/social, and political cycles, the US is aligning with the late 1830s and 1840s, 1890s, late 1930s, and early '00s in Japan.

For anyone reading this with money in the stock market, the historical secular bear market precedent implies the worst 3-, 5-, 10-, 20-year real returns for stocks over the next 2-7 to 10 years, doing no better than (and at times worse than) the 10- and 30-year Treasuries but with a cyclical risk of 35-50%+ to stocks in the meantime.

On the basis of market cap/GDP, Q ratio, profits/GDP, 10-year avg. P/E, peak earnings trend growth, dividend discount, and the equity risk premium, the S&P 500 is overvalued by 100-150% (subject to a 50-60% peak-to-trough decline).

Net flows have been negative for months for hedge and mutual funds, foreigners, retail investors, and insiders. Corporations buying back stocks has been the only reported source of net demand for equities with free cash flow or with borrowed money at 3-4%, allowing insiders to unload shares to their corporate treasurers in the customary late-cycle ploy to pad earnings/share before the bottom drops out, as similarly occurred in '00 and '07.

The labor force participation rate for males age 45-54 and older is in the process of collapsing, taking with it the growth and level of real wages and salaries and thus real consumer spending, final sales, and a further decline in real estate and stock prices.

Finally, at the trend rates of crude oil production, consumption, exports, and imports, China-Asia's growth of consumption and imports are on track to reach a critical mass at which total net available oil exports will begin decelerating at an accelerating rate no later than '15-'16, risking global supply disruptions, shortages, and the increasing risk deteriorating trade and diplomatic relations between the US and China and the risk of a collapse of trade.

Thus, the period between '12-'13 and '16 poses increasing risk of the worst financial and economic conditions of a lifetime. A system of trust, community, stores, and mutual aid to weather the worst is an imperative. Most of us don't have an established network of mutual aid but rather live paycheck to paycheck with little or no surplus upon which to rely, having instead onerous claims on future after-tax and -inflation income.

[George Mobus]

C,

I think you are right. For several years now I have been noticing that more people are at least starting to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with the conventional wisdom, even if they don't really understand what. I would certainly hope they would, given every negative thing that has been happening of late.

As to changing the direction, I have my doubts that such would occur before it is too late. Look at the problem of getting the Left, Right, and Center commentators (on air as well as in the blog) to even take a look at an alternative point of view. I think people like Miller and Huffington are reasonably smart. But they will not even bother to check out something that goes counter to their ideological perspectives. They just can't get beyond politics (and musings about same) and look at physics! Same goes for columnists Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, both of whom I have railed on for continuing to believe that growth is the solution to our economic problems. They won't even bother to look at biophysical economics because it doesn't fit their world view.

If you can't get the smart ones to consider alternative explanations (even ones with hard evidence to back them up), how are you going to get the average intelligent person to do so?

BTW: B, bodies. Community is the key, yes. But if the food does run out you can still be glad they are around. But only if you act faster than they do! Gruesome thought, that.

George

[c woof]

@George
That's been the frustration on the LR&C blog-- how incredibly obtuse some can be, so entrenched, and seemingly incapable of understanding their folly, intelligence notwithstanding. A few (like me) just don't have enough scope in their lives*.
I didn't realize Messrs Reich and Krugman were incapable of looking at what is so obviously staring all of us in the face. I'll have to look at their commentary with a more discerning eye from now on.
My wakeup call came in 1991, when I realized the California economy, in trouble @ the time, couldn't continue to expand, and, by extrapolation, neither could the rest of the world's, and that the problem was the very underlying foundation of concept of the econ systems the world was running on.
And I thought I was really a late bloomer to have only seen it then.
*I'm having another such moment, now--i.e.,- Your blog (which I swear I heard about/stumbled upon somewhere in my past); the movie series "Zeitgeist," which, when googled, leads to many other movies/shorts in the same vein, which leads to even more books of similar ilk.
There is so much reading/watching to do, the world may end before I finish!
Meanwhile, I can feel/sense/experience my horizons expanding, and as I said, that enables me to see that others are joining the parade, finally.
Another good project, it would seem, would be to figure out what hooks would get the 'average intelligent person' caught up in considering alternatives. Besides just creating a blog (a noble enterprise I've not undertaken), or teaching a class. Films are intriguing, but as was seen with Who Killed the Electric Car, The Day After Tomorrow, Collapse, etc, have their limitations, errors, and resistance and just plain ignorance of their existance. Etc.

[Aboc Zed]

george and c,

i call the situation when political and academic establishment is impervious to this conversation _institutionalized ignorance_

this is simply because mankind as organism-whole evolved out of ignorance and is constantly receiving the injections of neo-nate (newborn) ignorance

science (biophysical economics, evolution, biology, etc.) is _NOT_ institutionalized because scientists themselves are first and foremost players and agents in this system based on and made of this institutionalized ignorance

change will only be possible when enough scientists understand and are willing to form a seed group in which they will _evolve_ institutionalization of science

we have two trends here:

the current system of institutionalized ignorance (democracy and capitalism) promotes and is dependent on overpopulation; as such it is unsustainable and is bound to collapse when the biosphere can no longer support the population times consumption

on the other hand science has already accumulated all the knowledge that is necessary to properly "husband" the resource/environment to achief true sustainability and only needs enough individuals (scientists) to realize that the only way to survival and sustainability of homo species (in whatever minimal population remaining poast bottleneck event) is through employing science as the fabric of human condition; not beliefs or ideology but science

these two trends are happening simultanuosely and are parts of the larger evolutionary process; the same process that took LIFE from unicellular stage to the sexual reproduction, to encephalization and finally to a hominid that is deliberatively capable but which is still ignorant as organism-whole and is in its diasporation stage currently counting 7 billion replicas of homo sapiens sapiens

[What is the Do Good Gauge?]

The complexity of the political situation goes beyond energy. Though I see the answer in the cycles of history. The similarity of Truman's do nothing congress illustrate a similar congressional season. During the time a new wave of politician came to be. Leaders who sought out corruption. Who stood up to the Mafia infestation. Today we don't call these pest the Mafia, though start revealing the corruption and we will see how difficult it will be to rid ourselves from their pestilence. It is the season to weed the corruption. Don't wait for the media. Examine the politics of the late forties through the fifties for a better understanding of the season.

[Bruce]

What evidence is there to suggest that sapient evolution can progress without mass die-off? That is, is not mass global die-off a requisite condition for further evolution of sapience and avoidance of human ape extinction?

Does not the existence of 7 billion mostly non-sapient human apes threaten the evolution of sapience?

If so, does not sapience concede die-off and thus require it? Would not a sapient remnant or those operating on the basis of understanding of "the human condition" not then act to facilitate die-off and thus ensure that sapience (or "super-sapience") is consciously selected?

If this is a valid premise, would not non-sapients be expected to behave in ways that ensures die-off in a sufficient manner and thus further sapient evolution?

Would not a self-selected super-sapient elite devise various efficient social, political, economic, financial, scientific, military, and geopolitical relations and institutions to facilitate the efficient mass die-off of non-sapients (and not a few sapients along the way)?

While many will be appalled by such a premise, what if it is already occurring and thus is unavoidable? What if super-sapient evolution requires us to become "less human" in terms of what we perceive today to be "human"?

Are not the unique characteristics of "human" apes the basis for our reproduction success to date and thus the very root cause of our intractable challenges?

Moreover, if our seemingly insurmountable challenges are a function of our lack of sapience, our unsustainable numbers, and the resulting resource constraints and increasingly likelihood of mass-social conflict, then the inescapable conclusion is that being "human" is an impediment to sapient evolution.

If so, is not the basis for human ape evolution to become "less human", to consciously reduce our numbers dramatically, and to consciously and scientifically self-select for this self-consciousness and predisposition to sapient evolution?

If this general premise is valid, and it is imperative that concerted action occur among the sapients who are the most fit to self-select, where are the sapients or emergent super-sapients? From my experience, they are not in leadership positions of corporations, academe, political institutions, the mass media, etc.

At this risk of appearing naive, non-sapient, or just plain daft, apart from a seemingly insignificant self-selected few sharing their views on fora such as these and "fringe" groups operating in relative obscurity, where are they? And what is their motivation? What do they hope to achieve for themselves, significant others, and the species as a whole (or not)?

Having taking somewhat of a risk in asking such a question, what's the point? If one is not sufficiently socialized, i.e., "educated", socioeconomically connected and secure, and then permitted the luxury of time and resources to self-actualize individual and select group sapience or super-sapience, the inescapable conclusion is that one (and one's progeny) is (are) then simply subject to the thermodynamic determinism of mass die-off with little or no recourse than to accept it or rage in utter futility against the results of overshoot and too many non-sapient human apes.

I welcome critiques and the insights of others.