The History Channel aired a two-hour program entitled ‘Prophets of Doom’. My kind of programming! Assembled were five experts in Apocalyptic scenarios; Michael Ruppert, Nathan Hagens, John Cronin, James Howard Kunstler, Professor Hugo De Garis and Robert Gleason. Each shared their views with one another and compared notes on how they think civilization will collapse. And to think I could have been watching ‘The People’s Choice Awards’ instead!
‘Prophets of Doom’ starts off with Michael Ruppert, an ex-police officer and detective who is mighty worried about Peak Oil. That is the point where production begins to decline, forever. The United States hit it’s domestic Peak Oil in 1970. Many analysts say that we are near, or are already now in, the Global Peak Oil moment. Ruppert tells us that about 5 Billion people alive today owe their existence to our dependency on oil and natural gas. He’s looking for a mass culling, with the world depopulating, suddenly or steadily, from here on out.
Nathan Hagens, a former hedge fund manager takes a similar view but sees the financial system as the shakiest plank on the deck. He believes our monetary system is one big global Ponzi scheme. The United States is insolvent. We are in the middle of two races; Technology versus Depletion and the National Debt vs. Natural Resources. Our problem is both Peak Oil and Peak Credit. One is bad enough, but we are facing two at once.
Or is it three? John Cronin has been studying our freshwater situation and he concludes that it is getting scarcer. Not only is our supply of freshwater running short, but the quality of the water we have is getting worse. Shortages will become more frequent and the potential for disease and contamination increases. The other prophets agree that water is an essential need for survival.
James Howard Kunstler was a journalist who often covered energy issues. Like others, he is also concerned about Peak Oil. He sees an Energy Crunch coming soon. Kunstler cites the Hirsch Report, authorized by the Department of Energy in 2005. Hirsch spells out that we are indeed approaching the Global Peak Oil point in history. But the DoE buried the report because the findings were just too dismal. Kunstler believes that it is a common human frailty that the desperate become delusional.
Professor Hugo De Garis is less concerned with human frailty as he is with the coming age of self-aware robots. An expert in Artificial Intelligence, De Garis sees us rapidly approaching ‘The Singularity’ point, where robots will be able to think and act independently. The IQ gap between Man and Machine is steadily decreasing. The future is automated, says De Garis. He gives the example of South Korea, which is making it a national effort to develop a domestic home robot that will be in every home by 2020. Will robots develop into a rebellious force that will take over and dominate, if not outright eliminate, Humanity?
Finally, Robert Gleason brings us back down to Earth with an ever growing worry, nuclear terrorism. As editor for ‘End of Days’, he talks regularly with military and intelligence experts. While the threat of a nuclear war between nations seems less, the threat of nuclear terrorism has increased. Security at many facilities, even some in the United States, is very poor. Russia arrests nearly 500 people a year trying to steal fissionable material. Al Qaeda and other groups are eager to get their hands on enough to build a bomb.
The consensus of the panel from the History Channel’s ‘Prophets of Doom’ was that we are facing many serious issue all at once. Individually, any of them could cause a collapse of civilization. The ensemble of Michael Ruppert, Nathan Hagen, John Cronin, James Howard Kunstler, Professor Hugo De Garis and Robert Gleason, all paint a dire picture. But they do offer some ideas for softening the perils. At the heart of it is decentralization. Localizing food production and water purification would go a long way to saving lives. Large institutions are the most vulnerable in their Apocalyptic scenarios. But they advocate cooperation, not the isolation of running for the hills or crawling inside a bunker.
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January 6th, 2011 at 8:37 am
Mr Zarowny’s review exemplifies the very kind of hubris and naivete that, Prophets of Doom sought to warn us about. This reviewer proceeds to equate the prospective unraveling of the US with the collapse of civilization itself. On the broader subject of naivete, if Mr Zarowny believes the sustainability of the US economic and social order are not dependent on a rapidly vanishing supply of non renewable energy resources he is a fool on both counts. I have lately taken an interest in the inverse relationship that exists between the public good and the right wing’s ideological resistance to scientific knowledge.
January 6th, 2011 at 9:54 am
Any information always should be taken with a grain of salt from the media (whatever the source),I though the show was wake up call for all of us that inhabit this planet we call earth. Lets resepect and take care of this place we call home. For all generations to come.
Great Program
January 7th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
The “Prophets” fail to emphasize that the projected growth of human population will inevitably cause any solution to fail, unless that solution if to stop and reduce human population. What are the chances of the world voluntarily decreasing their population? The existing population is already polluting and poisoning the earth’s resources. What will the increase in number and standard of living of humans do?
January 7th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
@ Vernon Wong
Actually Michael Ruppert implied it when he argues that about 5 Billion people will probably die off once The System collapses. As far as he’s concerned, we’ve already passed the point where population ‘might’ be a problem.
@ grmorrison
The financial collapse of the U.S. will have a major impact globally. We’ve already seen such in Greece and other nations that got suckered into our Ponzi monetary and derivative schemes. A good deal of the world does depend on us for vital drugs, food, chemicals. When we go down we’re going to take a lot of others with us.
January 12th, 2011 at 4:35 pm
Dude… is that Peak Oil Debunked youtube video a freakin JOKE?
The guy’s clearly some hillbilly, religious psycho.
“Nature doesn’t give a damn what we do to it. It says, drill, drill, drill.” – WHO THINKS THAT? Clearly this man is deranged and if you are using him as a “related article” you are insane for doing so too.
January 19th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Of course, like everyone who watched this show, it freaked me out. But I did wonder about the accuracy of the “prophets.” Mainly because of my field, I’m quite aquainted with the ‘singularity’, and the “humanlike robots will kill us all’ isn’t really high up in Artifical Intelligence scenarios. De Garis didn’t even *mention* the idea that is much more likely that humans will hybridize with machines (thus the “transhuman era” we’re currently in). He manipulated the information to create a really outlandish ‘worst-case’. So, knowing that, I wondered how much bullshit was contained in the arguements by the other experts.
January 29th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Your wrong my friend. Sure maybe the A.I. theory is a little off but as far as the concerns they had they were very accurate they had strong points if we dont pull together we WILL fall not as people but as a human race. He was right humans are compassionate we must learn to love and do it quick were running out of time maybe not for us but generations to come and maybe not just the U.S but the world…
January 29th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Vernon Wrong
Mr. Ruppert did mention the issue with population it was n the frist 10 min of the show.
I have watched the show many times i agree with them all in. will fall regardless of what.
@ Andy Z
Yes when we go down we will bring alot of country down with us.
We have over expanded ower resourses and we will pay for that shortly we as Human need to make a change in the way we live and the way we use ower reourses.
January 30th, 2011 at 8:50 am
Every subject covered in Prophets of Doom is a symptom. No one talked about the cause of all these symptoms. No one talked about controlling population. Until that is done all these problems will continus to exist. Lowering the world population is a long term project, if done by humane ways, but it needs to be done, before the planet does it for us.
January 30th, 2011 at 10:55 am
It is always interesting to see how people think, you had better listen to what these men have to say. The fact of the matter is that they are right and wrong at the same time. It is the cause of it all that you and they the “prophets” are missing. Everything is fixable but will never happen because of the way we perceive money and this thing we call an economy. Money has become to important and is the true addiction. The majority of us no longer care for one another. If we did we would not argue over universal health care, you should all look up FDR and the second bill of rights btw. But until we learn that we are all of us responsible for one another we simply will not survive. The tribe is truely gone. We no longer care for our home, we trash it constantly and think oh well, somebody else will take of it. If you can not see what is about to happen then you are close minded and blind. The people we elect no longer work for the people, only for themselves and what they can gain. It is no longer public service and they should all be fired. And now we have hate mongers like Sarrah Palin, money power and greed. I guess we should just kill off all the homeless and unemployed, forget about the enviroment keep going the way we ARE it will all just go away. Get rid of Social Security and medicare, better offjust shooting yourself at retirement since the company you worked for lost all your retirement thru ahemm bad luck. Lets just turn our backs on each other now and get it over with I mean really what the sence of even waisting your time talking about it no body will listen becasue no one cares!! RIGHT.