Rate Your Worries About Peak Oil

[pstarr]

I believe the opposite: I think most people know damn well that something bad is happening. And most of those know why it's happening. The interesting thing is that no one wants to acknowledge that it's happening at all. And for good reason. Let's cut to the chase: talking about resource depletion or climate change in polite company is the equivalent of farting audibly in church during service. Therefore, the 800 lb. gorilla sits in the corner while dialogue dares not stray from safe, trivial, and banal topics centered around reality television, your latest vacation, or how the pro football team did last night..

I agree completely. This is one reason why this supposed denial will morph into awareness overnight like a mushroom after a rainstorm once severe enough consequences make this no longer a topic to avoid or ignore. This is one of the main reasons I expect to see cultural adaptation happen in a punctuated fashion as apposed to a slow tooth pulling denial.

The punctuation, the oscillations are all around us.

Folks are willfully ignorant, forcing denial, stressed and turning to the virtual truth of TV and internet advertising. But there will be no more booms, we can't all write money-making apps, and the green energy revolution has sputtered. Folks look everywhere for salvation instead of facing the truth; fiat money, growth-oriented debt-based capitalist system that is inherently incapable of dealing with the real truth; declining energy, resources and wealth. Hence they are caught off guard, surprised by current events and scared they run with mobs in big sweeping pointless swoops and dives. Computer boom/crash, internet boom/crash, real-estate boom/crash, financial boom/crash. And now the crazy tea-bagger boom. They are unable to face the truth as adults, in a meditative collaborative democratic process. Just finger pointing. The oscillations rip apart this country. The punctuation has begun.

[Timo]

Let's cut to the chase: talking about resource depletion or climate change in polite company is the equivalent of farting audibly in church during service.

Not to disagree with anything you said here, but i would only suggest that perhaps the better analogy would be farting during the downward dog in yoga class. Been there, and i could barely contain myself. (Laughing, not farting.) Some old lady in her 70s WAS that very 800 lb. gorilla. Or a baboon. Her face was very bright red.

[kublikhan]

I believe the opposite: I think most people know damn well that something bad is happening. And most of those know why it's happening. The interesting thing is that no one wants to acknowledge that it's happening at all. And for good reason. Let's cut to the chase: talking about resource depletion or climate change in polite company is the equivalent of farting audibly in church during service. Therefore, the 800 lb. gorilla sits in the corner while dialogue dares not stray from safe, trivial, and banal topics centered around reality television, your latest vacation, or how the pro football team did last night..

I agree completely. This is one reason why this supposed denial will morph into awareness overnight like a mushroom after a rainstorm once severe enough consequences make this no longer a topic to avoid or ignore. This is one of the main reasons I expect to see cultural adaptation happen in a punctuated fashion as apposed to a slow tooth pulling denial.

The punctuation, the oscillations are all around us.

Folks are willfully ignorant, forcing denial, stressed and turning to the virtual truth of TV and internet advertising.

And cold fusion. Don't forget cold fusion! I have a hard time seeing people accept the realities of resource depletion. Business as usual has been all people have know. It's like the ground beneath their feet. Asking people to look at the water draining out of the tub and asking them what happens when there is no more water, you'll get an answer something like "We'll just get more water from another tub". Even when that other tub fails to materialize, I still don't think the reality of the situation will finally set in. Perhaps I am being cynical, but I think many will go to their graves never understanding the topic and instead blame various scapegoats.

[Timo]

Will there ever be a future generation that looks back at our time now and think that these were the good ol' days?

[ritter]

Will there ever be a future generation that looks back at our time now and think that these were the good ol' days?

My daughter will. Complain as she may about the misery of third grade and the tedium of piano practice, I'm sure it beats working in the field all day.

[pstarr]

There is little to say regarding peak oil after you've listened, learned, experienced the glaring truth and thought through the consequences. What I've learned is that the wealthy, their tools, and blinding corporate/political ideology will probably delay mitigation until serious spiraling ecologic/social decline happens. There is far too much entertainment to distract us.

Many intelligent contributors have left to prepare and they gain little from confronting denial, trolls, and propaganda. (I stay because I have time, am a bit isolated up here with few distractions and so bashing cornies is an entertainment). It is personally draining to be confronted with the same crap over and over again. I educated myself on petroleum geology/politics and assumed others would also. This place has been mostly hijacked by debates on the ongoing financial breakdown, clearly a consequence of peak oil. I guess that makes sense, so you can hedge the next crash and pile on the money to escape. But to where?

[Cog]

Will there ever be a future generation that looks back at our time now and think that these were the good ol' days?

The recession we are in now will never end, so yesterday will always look better than tomorrow.

[Alan Cain]

Will there ever be a future generation that looks back at our time now and think that these were the good ol' days?

The recession we are in now will never end, so yesterday will always look better than tomorrow.

So the long ride downward is underway. The time to finish whatever you are planning and doing that will require the most resources you have is now, or yesterday. The time is here to prioritize for your own life like never before. Need a loan to get panels? Do it now; check your local utility agency for matching grants for energy conservation now. Get that tiller, gasoline or not. Tilling takes less gas than driving to the store. No garden space? Reconsider your locale.

In Greece, pensioners out in rural areas are rebuilding their childhood farms and gardens; many have not been paid even the first pension check even though they have been "retired" more than 2 years. As a consequence, many are replanting mastic trees, growing tomatoes and olives, chickens and sheep, and goats, making their own wine again. Their life expectancies will go up as a consequence of their healthier lifestyles and diets.

Will that be true here in the USA? It is in my neighborhood. I am doing hops and grapes; everyone wants to escape chemically...

Find your new skill set as we recapitulate our past. Enroll in that welding class at the community college, or whatever, but do it now.

No more time.

[Loki]

I chose “Losing my income” first, then social safety net failure.

I have no house to lose. Civil unrest and violence doesn't worry me, I live in the country in an ethnically homogenous area, dismiss roving hordes as fantasy, and am well armed and trained. Don't worry about going hungry, one reason I got into farming. Government repression is already a problem in very dense urban areas and places like airports---I expect this to get worse in cities; the country not so much, they're slashing deputies and state police around here.

Living in Mom's basement is basically the same as losing your source of income---besides, my Mom doesn't have a basement. Car pooling blows, but if it's that or being eaten alive by a cannibal army, I suppose I'd consider car pooling. Overdue library books are a constant burden, don't expect this will change with civilizational collapse---worse than student loans.

But the destruction of the social safety net will mean the mass impoverishment of tens of millions of Americans, especially the elderly, the sick/disabled, and the long-term unemployed. This will have all sorts of unintended consequences, and is the quickest route to Third World status. I think we're already bordering on Second World status here in the US, at least for the bottom 50%.

As for job/income loss, I've done my best to diversify my occupational skills, learned to live with a lot less, reduced my expectations, saved enough for a few months of zero income, and worked quite a bit on my self-sufficiency skills. About all I can do. Still my main worry, though.

Pops, one thing you didn't mention was unexpected serious health problems in an economic environment where private insurance and the social safety net are even more dysfunctional than they already are here in the US.

[Pops]

That's true Loki, for lots of people paying for health care will be a problem as the economy shrinks, I read yesterday the share of Americans without insurance is over 16% now, up from 13% in 2000. Government is insuring more people; employers are insuring fewer - those with job-based health insurance dropped from 64.2 percent to 55.8 percent over the last 10 years, so much for the great American system.

I'm not sure how that might work out, but obviously the "haves" like it just the way it is so those numbers will likely get much worse... I was going to say 'before they get better' but that probably won't happen either.

Personally, I don't worry about it much. At least a dozen companies sell Insulin pooped out by mutant E. coli in big vats in a process pretty well worked out by now and I'm guessing that will continue as long as the rest of me holds out

The biggest problem with the current system for the uninsured is the insurance cos and medicare insist on a big discount. What happens is that the uninsured wind up being charged list price! When I got sick I was 'self-insured', my non-profit hospital took 60% right off the top for my 2-week stay whereas the for-profit first hospital I landed at (who said I was too sick for them and transferred me on) charged me full boat with no possibility of arranging payments.

But I digress...


http://www.registercitizen.com/articles ... =fullstory

[Revi]

It's interesting that the number one concern is civil unrest/violence. I think that's my biggest worry about peak oil. As things unravel we'll see more and more violence and unrest. The poor will feel disenfranchised and the middle class, who usually uphold the standards are going to have less and less control over society. We'll all feel like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. Some of us already do.

[AgentR11]

Revi... note the rise of this thing they are calling "Castle Law".

Think about it from the nobility's point of view towards the middle class. They need the middle class to stay alive, and stay productive, *AND* stay in place. They need them in houses, for the most part, as that bulk forms the basis for real estate equities, beaten up as they are, its still an enormous market. What better way to get that, in the face of civil unrest, than saying, if you, Bob Middleclass, are attacked in your homestead, have no fear, waste the twits, and nothing bad will happen to you, other than you'll likely need to mop the floor afterwards.

How much fun, to a mob, would a subdivision appear to be, when its full of people shooting at you legally, with rifles, from behind cover, with complete confidence that there will be no legal repercussions. Castle Law has a lot to recommend it to the elite who have vast tracts of subdivisions laid out between them and the likely origination point of such violent mobs. Kinda like creating your own entrenched infantry, in place, and personally motivated and empowered to do exactly what you'd hope they'd do.

Yet another reason why I suggest to folks, that there will be no uprisings or revolutions within the borders of the US...

[mmasters]

The future of the US will eventually be the third world and there's always a level of violence that comes with that.

The things that worry me most are seeing overpopulation becoming reality, being stuck in some crappy survival situation where things are continually deteriorating, and that much of the best the human race has to offer has already happened.

On the positive side the US is sheltered from the worst overpopulation, the status quo continues that much of the world caters to us, we have more people working on solutions in all areas of life than ever before, and there's enough educated people out there that at some point there will have to be an awareness and large scale movement (or attempt) at getting on track.

[Pops]

I'm kinda surprised losing income isn't first, not that this is in any way scientific - heck I don't even give the polls much thought when I write 'em.

But logically, the only reason for zombies is poor economics and ya have to think you are somehow above the herd to think your income is immune. AR makes a good case agains any organized insurrection, secession, revolution or whatever. I think those are fantasies of the narrow-minded who figure if they can whittle down their universe sufficiently they will never be forced to look upon someone who is different from themselves.

I don't discount violence at all, I'd rate it at about the same threat as government repression since they will go hand-in-hand. Especially the localized more or less random kind of violence like we just witnessed in the UK and what I'm sure is now a much more intrusive police presence over there. Though I doubt we'll see anything large or organized, small and frequent and disjointed can getcha just the same.

[wisconsin_cur]

If I can keep the house, much else is mitigated. Note i did not say eliminated. Income is needed (at this point) to keep the home. Hunger is the prime motivator.

[pstarr]

The wealthy require an somewhat functioning lower and middle class structure, and so will ensure an orderly collapse where necessary. The lower class is responsible for important dangerous physical work---resource extraction, infrastructure maintenance, industrial manufacturing, handiwork, security/police, etc. A limited middle class is necessary to do the books and especially buffer the wealthy from the angry lower classes.

But only where necessary. The American consumer class is not necessary to the wealthy. Do not expect to be coddled, even defended in your old urban neighborhood or suburban tract home. Middle class suburbs will be downgraded.

[AgentR11]

But only where necessary. The American consumer class is not necessary to the wealthy. Do not expect to be coddled, even defended in your old urban neighborhood or suburban tract home. Middle class suburbs will be downgraded.

Yeah, don't misunderstand my point; no coddling should be expected, nor is it necessary. Do expect decisions to continue that permit most solid middle class productive people to continue to own and control their homes. OTOH, do not expect external, government forces to defend those neighborhoods. Do expect laws that permit residents to provide that defense, and with far lower liability than what is experienced by local governments. This is happening *now*.

You can kinda hear the chant too, a steady stream of reported mob related violence, never too much at once, but always just enough to keep the tension there, a steady increase in the number of shall issue CCW and "castle law" states, a steady alienation of the police from the middle class residents, the result almost seems inevitable. The nobility intend to use the middle class as their meat shield against the lower classes; and as long as those middle class families can maintain a home (regardless of its value as an asset), they will willingly serve that role. Because they have nowhere to run.

So don't read my discussion of "Castle Law" or even CCW as a triumphal success; its a very grim result being prepared for where we are headed.

[Alan Cain]

I'm kinda surprised losing income isn't first, not that this is in any way scientific - heck I don't even give the polls much thought when I write 'em.

Put losing income with loss of social safety net and you get 32 - the majority. Your off the cuff guess is absolutely correct.

[Cloud9]

The concept that the castle doctrine was to provide a barrier between the elites and the great unwashed is a fascinating idea. I had not really thought about it in that sense. Usually when we think of the second amendment , we look at it through the lens of it serving as a check on a government run amuck. The idea that it would serve as a check on a citizenry run amuck has been largely ignored. Now that I think about it, the Korean shop keepers in L.A. served as a pretty serious check on the rioters that would have looted their shops.

If this premise is correct, then we should see a more liberal reading of the second amendment over the coming years along with statutes that expand the use of deadly force to protect property.

[Loki]

But only where necessary. The American consumer class is not necessary to the wealthy. .

Plutonomy.

There is no “average” consumer in Plutonomies. There is only the rich “and everyone else.” The rich account for a disproportionate chunk of the economy, while the non-rich account for “surprisingly small bites of the national pie.” Kapur estimates that in 2005, the richest 20% may have been responsible for 60% of total spending....
The best way for companies and businesspeople to survive in Plutonomies, Kapur implies, is to disregard the “mass” consumer and focus on the increasingly rich market of the rich.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/01/08/plutonomics/

We are indeed living the Chinese curse. The death of the American middle class, peak oil, climate meltdown, economic meltdown. And we all get a front row seat!