Spreading the long emergency.

[jackshoegazer]

I told a man today that all numbers point to the world running out of oil in thirty years, that most people just think that means no more gasoline, but they're wrong.  That means no more gasoline, no more pesticides, no more plastic, no more manufacturing.  All these enterprises are available to us because of cheap fossil fuels.  Before industrialized farming, the Earth could feed about a billion people.  Now, with massive industrial farming we can feed about six to seven billion.  That means that when oil runs out in thirty years, we will suddenly have about five billion too many people who will likely starve to death.  The man said he's going to go home and forget all about that because he'll be gone in thirty years and it will all be in the hands of "you young ones."

Comments

[joraina.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I hope I'm dead before the shit hits the fan. Sometimes I really don't want to see what the world will look like in fifty years.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I have this odd, dual view where on one hand I'm frightened to death and on the other I'm insanely excited to see what happens. It makes me wish I could watch the history of the planet unfold for the next hundred years or so.

[anubis75.livejournal.com]

What an asshole! It's fucktards like that which got us in this fine mess.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

It's hard for me to blame the past because fossil fuels were easily available and how were they to know we would build our entire civilization around it and that we would eventually run out.

What I find amazing is that no one wants to face up to the facts now. Actually, through this lens, the actions of the Bush Administration make sense: Grab As Much Oil As Possible Before It's Gone.

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but what do I DO?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Read this: http://www.energybulletin.net/4856.html

[richlayers.livejournal.com]

But what can we DO?

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Stockpile guns, gold, water, food, seeds, start a self-sufficient farm near a source of fresh water. Or pray that someone invents a magical energy source that solves all our problems. You know, that sort of thing.

[lagizma.livejournal.com]

Plastic rules our lives. I don't think we take stock of how much we rely on it, in our cars, our medical lives, our households, our conveniences, etc.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

That ain't the half of it: http://www.energybulletin.net/4856.html

[shaktipat.livejournal.com]

Yes, Peak Oil is here soon if not already.

http://www.energybulletin.net/4856.html

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

"As one commentator recently observed, the reason our leaders are acting like desperados is because we have a desperate situation on our hands.

If you've been wondering why the Bush administration has been spending money, cutting social programs, and starting wars like there's no tomorrow, now you have your answer: as far as they are concerned, there is no tomorrow.

In 2003, the BBC filmed a three-part, relatively apolitical, documentary entitled "War for Oil" about the role the Bush administration's knowledge of Peak Oil played in their decision to invade and occupy Iraq. As the documentary explains, in private the Bush administration sees the war in Iraq as "a fight for survival." From a purely Machiavellian standpoint, they are probably correct in their thinking.

For what it's worth, Bush's Crawford ranch is completely off-the-grid and equipped with the latest in energy saving and renewable power systems. It has been described as an "environmentalist's dream home." The fact a man as steeped in the petroleum industry as Bush would own such a home should tell you something.

On a similar note, Dick Cheny's personal investments indicate he (or more accurately, whoever handles his money) is expecting economic collapse."

Get Ready. Now.

Gold. Guns. Groceries. And God, too: you won't make it through the 21st century on fin-de-siecle materialist cynicism and bon vivant. There was a good reason why all those medieval peasants were fervent believers. When you ain't got matter, you better have spirit.

Awareness. Are you close by a farm? Can you/do you know and trust the people around you? What does your region's economy and agriculture look like? Water supply? What would you do if you have no more gas delivery to your house? Do you have a wood stove instead? Anything?

These are life and death questions. Get on it.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I've read The Long Emergency and it's scared the hell out of me. It's hard to imagine a world not like this.

[shaktipat.livejournal.com]

Haha! Well, there will be good things as well as bad, though.

Read Post-Soviet lessons for a Post-American Century:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2007/OrlovLessonsPartOne.html

parts 2 and 3 here as well:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html


This guy lived through the collapse of That Other Superpower, the one whose decline and fall brought juvenile jubilation here, instead of mature "there but for the grace of better marketing and cheap oil go we" reflection.

In a way, they had it better: as he points out, there was NO LEGAL MECHANISM to evict anyone, period.

ps

[shaktipat.livejournal.com]

Not all is necessarily grim, incidentally:

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3003


Turns out, you CAN grow food without oil and petro-chemicals. Who knew?

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

An old man said exactly the same thing to me the other day. The disturbing thing is that this old man was my father. He doesn't care what happens to me once he's dead and is not afraid to tell me so.

The *really* disturbing thing is that I *like* this attitude.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

The absolute-truth/unafraid attitude or the complete-disregard-for-future-generations attitude?

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

The unafraid attitude. But I can't really blame him for the disregard either, because I'm not a very ecological person, and if you asked me if I was willing to trade some of my comforts in exchange for a better future, and I was compelled to answer honestly, well...

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

That's why, I think, this isn't a big deal yet - because it hasn't affected us. For many, scientific prediction is like ancient prophesy. We're not listening because we're all so comfortable and we don't care for some modern Noah coming along and telling us that our whole world is about to drown in shit, chaos, and death.

I read once that prophets never meant to tell the future, but that they were warning us of what might happen, so in a way, they wanted to be wrong.