How To Enjoy the End of the World
By Sid Smith
Talk given at Virginia Tech for the Greens at Virginia Tech, March 26th, 2019. Interested persons might enjoy this interview on the same topics that I gave to Sam Mitchell at Collapse Chronicles in December 2019.
Here’s what others had to say:
Nick Blood
The opening 80% of this speech is the sort of stuff I learn at university right now as a student of sustainability. As the facts pile up, it’s become increasingly hard for me to stay optimistic. What my courses have been missing is the closing part of this speech – how to embrace collapse without being defeatist, how to be optimistic without being delusional. This is revelatory stuff, for me. I think those closing thoughts represent a really important idea that I hope gets further traction. Thank you!
Everything Matters
Sid, I’ve been waiting for you to post another talk for over a year. I’m sure you have a lot to say about resilience and adaptation.
This talk has changed my life. I’ve spent the last several weeks digging up my front lawn and replacing it with a food and pollinator garden. Also been studying Brad Lancaster’s “Rainwater Harvesting for DryLands” and will begin berms and basins next year. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.
Joseph Farkas
Hands down the best one hour breakdown of Collapse Theory we’re likely to get.
xXSoulpatchXx
This was one of the best lectures I have ever seen. Thank you.
Tim
Well researched, comprehensive yet brief, and clearly put, this lecture is extremely thought provoking. Thank you for your work and thank you for making it available.
Corben
I’ve watched hundreds of lectures on this topic and this is clearly one of the best ones – maybe THE best one. (If you know of better – perhaps which I have not seen – please let me know). If I were an awards agency this would definitely be getting a huge trophy. STELLAR presentation, sir. Thank you. Sharing everywhere I can.
Also, is there a transcript of this available somewhere?
Teresa Schulz
Great talk Sid, if a depressing subject. I have been trying to live more simply for some time now, with these expectations in mind. Every generation has had it’s wars or plagues. We would be naive to think we are getting off Scott free in this one. Rapid degrowth is probably our most hopeful path. But most humans tend to need to hit the wall before changing things though.
Geoff Palmer
I almost never sign-in to YouTube to say how much I appreciate a video, but I’m making an exception for this one. Stunning and disturbing, this needs a much wider audience. It’s not too late to mitigate some of the harm if only humanity — that’s us, folks! — will wake up to what’s happening. So let’s start giving them a shake. Thank you, Sid!
Pete Soderman
Thank you Dr. Smith for taking the time to produce one of the most useful and informative presentations on Youtube. Some of us who have studied collapse have realized for a couple of decades that a “perfect storm” is approaching, and there’s little we can do about it at this late date. Some aspects, of course, are already here, and others are rapidly approaching. Thank you for connecting all the dots in a very precise and professional manner.
