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Peakoil.com :: View topic - Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil?
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Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil?

 
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issk
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:38 pm    Post subject: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

I know that only 1% of Alaska is arrable land. Yet, greenhouses exist there. And in Anchorage, from early April to early September the sun sets after 9 p.m. So crops can grow large in greenhouses to feed the local population when shipping gets too expensive to bring food to Alaska.

I mention Alaska because it seems to me that MAJOR population centers (e.g., the Lower 48 states) will have social chaos when TS hits the fan. Why live near the masses?

Anchorage, Alaska seems like a good balance between city services and the sparsely populated Alaskan peninsula. Why? Because if things get bad (socially) in an Alaskan town/city like Anchorage, one can GET OUT to where millions of people can't go (because Alaska doesn't have millions like the Lower 4Cool.

Living in cities is important, I read, because during the Great Depression, it was the rural areas that had MASSIVE STARVATION. Paradoxically, people in cities got food. Why? Because cities had/have ORGANIZED people to distribute the food, whereas people in rural areas were NOT connected to one another (less social networks in the rural areas vs. more people networks in the cities). Sure, one had to wait in line for food in the cities of the 1930s. But in the countryside, there were NO bread lines.

In the Lower 48, if cities get chaotic and violent, one has NO FRONTIER to disappear to because even small towns are days walking distance from where the masses are (again, in the Lower 4Cool.

Yet, Alaska without heat can get very cold (but so can the Lower 48 states).

What about a college town like Ellensburg, Washington? It is east of a natural barrier (the Cascade Mountains). Also, most of the population of Washington state lives west of the Cascade Mountains (5 million I read once vs. 1 million east of the Cascade Mountains).

Bottom line: As far as relocating, is Alaska (FAR from the masses) a good choice, or is eastern/central Washington like Ellensburg (a college town, read more educated people) better? I know that central Washington is a desert. But snow melt from the mountains irrigate volcanic-rich soil, where crops are grown in the valley east of the Cascade Mountains.

Any suggestions about which geographical area might fare better: Alaska due to its isolation from social chaos or Ellensburg, Washington?
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Rogozhin
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:25 am    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

Quote:
Any suggestions about which geographical area might fare better: Alaska due to its isolation from social chaos or Ellensburg, Washington?


I've lived in Ellensburg before (5 years) and there is a growing 'sustainability' community. I worked on two of the first straw bale structures built outside of town.

I've never been to Alaska, but I think I'd rather be there than down here (though Ellensburg would be one of my top choices for riding it out in the lower 4Cool.
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Rbaogoem
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 5:55 am    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

Come to the southwest coast of Oregon! GOOD GRIEF, we are so far off the grid here, if the SHTF, we wouldn't know for three weeks after the fact!
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Lumpy
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 6:04 am    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

Rbaogoem wrote:
Come to the southwest coast of Oregon! GOOD GRIEF, we are so far off the grid here, if the SHTF, we wouldn't know for three weeks after the fact!


Where are you talking about? A town? A series of little villages? You are now on the grid enough to have internet ... so do you mean that you are just off the beaten path?

Is the land there arrable, with the sea salt breezes? What zone are you in for growing stuff? Is fresh water (via wells) any problem?

Thanks in advance for the info!

Lumpy

PS - Doesn't it concern you to be that near the potential for millions moving north from California?
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AlterEgo
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 10:56 am    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

issk wrote:
I know that only 1% of Alaska is arrable land. Yet, greenhouses exist there. And in Anchorage, from early April to early September the sun sets after 9 p.m. So crops can grow large in greenhouses to feed the local population when shipping gets too expensive to bring food to Alaska.


The Regional Investment Ratio in Alaska is very very very low (0.0Cool. That means that the ratio of annual solar emergy brought into the area by purchase versus that contributed free by the environment is about 4,500 SEJ free environmental renewable components versus 360 SEJ economic components (non-renewable and imported empower use) (Odum, Environmental Accounting, p. 168). That compares to the World average at 1.47, and Germany at 90.0. So that bodes well for Alaska; the footprint is very low for people up here. Plus we have lots of non-renewable resources available. So in terms of resources we've got a lot. The downside is that the diet is limited, and the traditional sustainability is based on a migratory, sparse culture; salmon camps in the summer, moose or caribou in the fall, and so on. And it's difficult up here to grow vegies in a greenhouse in winter, even with wood heat sources; the light is so diffuse.

Quote:
Anchorage, Alaska seems like a good balance between city services and the sparsely populated Alaskan peninsula. Why? Because if things get bad (socially) in an Alaskan town/city like Anchorage, one can GET OUT to where millions of people can't go (because Alaska doesn't have millions like the Lower 4Cool.


Anchorage is just a bad idea. It's already over sustainable carrying capacity by quite a bit. Horrible idea. You'll be much better off in Ellensburg. Smile

Edit: that's interesting. My keyboard is reading the number eight as a rue-smiley.
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mmasters
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:40 pm    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

The Pacific Northweast is geologically probably the most dangerous spot in the world something many seem to ignore.
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AlterEgo
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:57 pm    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

If you're living sustainably, MMasters, the impact of an earthquake shouldn't be too bad. It is the high-energy infrastructure that gets trashed in a quake.

Volcanoes are another thing, though. If you're in the way and don't have a quick way out, you're SOL.
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mmasters
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 2:26 pm    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote


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socrates1fan
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 4:59 pm    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

Rbaogoem wrote:
Come to the southwest coast of Oregon! GOOD GRIEF, we are so far off the grid here, if the SHTF, we wouldn't know for three weeks after the fact!


Sorry if this sounds noobish but what is the SHTF?
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Homesteader
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 5:00 pm    Post subject: Re: Alaska and Pacific NW after Peak Oil? Add User to Ignore List Reply with quote

socrates1fan wrote:
Rbaogoem wrote:
Come to the southwest coast of Oregon! GOOD GRIEF, we are so far off the grid here, if the SHTF, we wouldn't know for three weeks after the fact!


Sorry if this sounds noobish but what is the SHTF?


When the crap Hits The Fan.
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