I think I will read the Nearings book again to review his collapse predictions--it has been a while.
I have been reading more lately about bleak items such as global warming, peak oil, overpopulation, developing-world poverty, hunger, more resource wars (water, soil, and metals), HIV in Africa, people eating dirt in Haiti, species extinction, rising food prices.
(Dang--we should have gotten a replacement TV for the one that broke down 15 months ago, and I could have continued watching sit-coms instead of all this reading.)
I don't know the good that it does me or the world when I really am not doing much of anything about the problems except the usual little conservation stuff that jives with LBYM and the common lifestyle changes like buying local and/or organic food, using less plastic and paper, driving less, sending off a few dollars to charity, etc. I've never written elected officials; maybe I will start.
Mostly, the problems are just like black clouds in the back of my mind, except for the very tangible one that the devaluation of the dollar means I have to set aside and send more dollars for my family "back home".