Why This Is My Last Substack Post

And it's a warning...

I’ve been putting off writing this for months now.

Every time I sit down to begin, I find another task that suddenly seems urgent, or a streaming series that needs to be watched. But the truth is, I’ve been avoiding this because it’s painful to reckon with the fact that the work I’ve been doing for the last several years has been rendered more or less moot.

For those who’ve been following along, you know I’ve been writing a book about how to reverse climate change and build a new collaborative economy. I approached this work with exhaustive research and what I thought to be a workable plan. I truly believed that if we could just get the framework right, if we could show people a viable path forward, we could turn this ship around.

However, I knew that the window for meaningful action was shrinking. And let’s be honest, that window slammed shut the day that Donald Trump was elected again to be POTUS.

And so my continued research has led me to an inescapable conclusion.

We’re too late. Things have progressed too far to stop some of the worst impacts of climate change.

What I Found

The data is clear, even if most of us aren’t ready to hear it. We’ve already crossed several critical tipping points. The feedback loops are engaged. Global societal collapse isn’t a possibility we can avoid through better policy or technological innovation. It’s inevitable, and it’s coming within the next decade.

This wasn’t a conclusion I wanted to reach. I fought against it. I looked for holes in the research, for reasons to dismiss the scientists who’ve been sounding this alarm. But the evidence is overwhelming once you’re willing to look at it without the filter of hope (and often willful ignorance) that clouds our collective vision.

From a personal vantage, I discovered two critical flaws in my own work:

First, human survival doesn’t depend on building a better economy, it depends on the elimination of “economy” itself. “The wealth and resources of a region defined by the production and consumption of goods and services.” The very framework I was trying to reform is the problem.

Second, the (Third Industrial Revolution) green energy transition I was advocating for is a fantasy. We cannot transition to a new renewable energy system without pushing past Peak Energy. The mining, manufacturing, and infrastructure required to build out solar, wind, and battery technology at the scale needed would consume more energy than we can afford to spend. We’d have to burn through remaining fossil fuels at an even faster rate to build the supposed solution, accelerating our timeline to collapse rather than preventing it.

These aren’t minor corrections to my thesis. They are crumbling foundations.

What This Means

I can’t in good conscience continue to publish a book with fundamental flaws, nor can I continue to write about solutions to problems that are, in practical terms, already beyond the point of solving.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up on meaningful work. But it does mean I’m redirecting my energy toward what actually matters in the time we have left. Building local resilience, strengthening community bonds, teaching practical skills for food production and resource sharing, and helping people prepare psychologically and practically for what’s coming.

The work I’m doing now with the non-profit Better World Coalition is more important than ever. Not because it will prevent collapse, but because the communities we build now, the information and skills we preserve and share, the relationships we forge, may be what carries us through to whatever comes after.

To Those Who’ve Been with Me

If you’ve been reading along these past months, thank you. Sincerely. Your support and engagement has meant more than you know. I’m sorry that this isn’t the hopeful ending any of us wanted. I have suspended paid subscriptions indefinitely, but my book is still available to read for free here, for what it’s worth. There is a small possibility that I might update and rework the book so that it more accurately reflects our new reality. But right now, that isn’t a project that I have the emotional or psychological bandwidth for.

I may also pop up on Notes some mornings to boost and promote other folks here that are generating useful content.

My Final Advice

Collapse is coming. This is almost certain.

I can provide receipts, and if you need that, drop a comment or message me directly, I’m happy to engage.

But here’s the bottom line. If YOU are not able to produce water, food, shelter and power in an independent and sustainable way, for you and your loved ones by 2035, it may be too late.

It really is that simple. We have lined the dominoes up in a line that goes right over a cliff, and they are already starting to tumble.

We blew it.

We extracted too much and excreted too much waste. We plundered, consumed and shit on this planet to the point of mass extinction.

Every single empire in history has collapsed within 250-300 years. This one is different in only one way. It’s global. Which means the collapse will be global. (As a side note, the one factor that every single collapsed empire has in common is widespread inequality. It’s a guarantee of collapse, and we here in America have perfected the art and business of inequality.)

The only civilizations that have survived for thousands of years have had a few things in common:

- Partnership Societies: Domination Societies (like patriarchy) are an eventual death sentence.

- Decentralized: Centralization is a recipe for inequality and inevitable collapse.

- Cooperation and sharing: Not only within communities, but between communities. Cooperating and sharing between communities ensures survival and genetic diversity.

- Community size: The “Dunbar Number” is less than 150 people. Any more than that and the community eventually breaks down into competing cliques.

- No “Economy”: Trade is not based on production, consumption and profit. But rather the direct needs and contribution of its members. Skills and knowledge are as valuable as goods.

To Sum Up

Within the next 10 years, things are going to get catastrophically bad. Institutions and infrastructure will most likely collapse. And when they start to collapse, it may happen very rapidly. Once those dominoes start to pick up speed, once the rain starts to fall in earnest, you won’t have time to build that ark.

Your best bet is to build a localized resilient community that fits the above parameters, that is connected to other similar communities.

And build it now.

Because we’re not just talking about institutional collapse. That collapse will very likely result in the deaths of around 6 billion lives by 2050. Right now, the annual rate of climate change related deaths is about 500,000. This rate will increase exponentially over the next 10 years.

You’ll either take this warning seriously or not. It’s up to you. The stakes are real, the evidence is there if you choose to look.

Ok. That’s it for me. Reach out if you have questions or you could use some direction. There are a lot of resources and I’m happy to share.

Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. That’s what matters now.

J.

P.S. One final note. The cult of “Americanism,” built on the frameworks of Racism, Patriarchy, and Capitalism is what got us here. Do not allow the corrupting influences of those frameworks into your communities. They have all but destroyed the “Old World.” Do not let them survive to poison this “New World.” The upcoming Collapse is a dystopian nightmare that is rendered all the more tragic because it could have been prevented. But when the lights go out and the internet goes down and the monetary system crumbles, we have the opportunity to build something better.