About Panopticon
For the purposes of this website, I prefer to hide behind a pseudonym. It is not my intention to be enigmatic or unfriendly though. It’s just that economic collapse and ecological breakdown are highly emotive topics, even if they are considerably less niche and controversial than when I first went down these rabbit holes in 2011, and I live in a small, rather remote community where tongues wag.
Back in that year, I was busy being a father, a husband and (not especially scintillating) provider in England. I had zero interest in the economy and just a nebulous concern about the state of the environment. I also thought, in so far as I thought of such things at all, that ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ were at least potentially meaningful words in the context of modern industrial civilisation.
A convergence of personal challenges cast me into a bleak state of mind, and, for reasons I still do not fully comprehend, I began a frenzy of research into peak oil, the vulnerabilities of the financial system, climate change and environmental degradation. My interest in climate change was particularly spurred on by the failure of summer to materialise in the UK in 2012, and indeed that turned out to be England’s wettest year on record. The BBC explained that the jet streams were further south than usual but their analysis ran no deeper than that. “WTF? *Why* are they so far south?” wondered the younger Panopticon.
My research naturally induced in me a state of alarm, to put it mildly, and I did what most rookie “doomers” do, i.e. run around in a state of panic, trying to convince friends and relatives of the impending disaster and looking entirely unhinged in the process. I keep my counsel these days, as I have come around to the view that this is not a journey you can force others on.
I subsequently relocated my family to an island, which at least made me *feel* better, even if the practical benefits of being here in the event of a broad socio-economic collapse are debatable. I am doing the same job now I was doing back in 2011, as I started working from home long before the pandemic made it fashionable. Times are tough in the industry though and, as so many of us are now, I am having to run ever faster just to stay still.
I started these threads circa 2013 on Facebook and a dear friend, my fairy doom-mother, who is webmaster of this site and pays all costs for its upkeep, suggested we start a bespoke site for them in 2018.
Keeping an eye on *everything* I possibly could made me feel better in a way I find it hard to articulate and I also found the process of harvesting the articles intellectually stimulating, even as it was emotionally challenging. It also quickly became apparent that by cobbling together a daily patchwork quilt of stories from the mainstream press I gained an overview that was more than the sum of its parts. In a sense I hijack mainstream, fairly middle of the road publications to tell a story that none of them individually are capable of telling or willing to tell. This is the story of how modern industrial civilisation ends.
If you visit climateandeconomy.com regularly, then I welcome you warmly and am glad of the company.
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“With the inundation of so much depressing news, Justin Panopticon presents it in a succinct format that one can quickly go thru and see the big picture of climate and economics/politics to stay current and if a particle topic is of interest one can delve into the details… I try never to miss any of his posts…I am a Patreon of his work.“
“Panopticon’s news aggregation offers a unique, bird’s eye perspective on the global economy and the climate system. It is an intelligently curated treasure trove of information. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to keep proper tabs on our era of converging crises.“
“I have been reading Panopticon’s daily threads for years. In a quick ten minutes, I get news and insights from all over the world that help me understand the trajectory we are all on. I’m proud to be a supporter of his Patreon.”
