Hi all.

An introductory email of sorts. I live in and work Tucson Arizona and I've been aware of peak oil for probably about three years, me and my wife have big plans for our suburban house (currently a small PV system, water harvesting and a fledgling vegetable garden)
I eventually plan to convert a small car/truck to electric, but that is a ways off yet. (I don't want to start a flame war between the hydrogen folks and the EV folks, not what I came here for more solutions the better)

The point of this post is to bring attention to "Peak Depression"
I'm sure many people are aware that all the changes we are to undergo in resource shortages and climate change are going to affect our mental health quite a bit, and the systems to treat that change are going to come under great strain.
But myself personally right now I feel HUGE anxiety, not having the funds available to put into action the plans which I hope would provide a cushion and become more sustainable on the scale I want.
This anxiety is compounded by a lot of the people around me not having even the slightest clue, or they're old enough that they may shrug it off and simply state "I'll be dead" that really sends me off the deep end.

I don't have children yet, and I look at couples the same age as me who do, and they have next to no planning skills, no passion to find out whats going on to arm themselves with the knowledge its going to take to get through the next 30 years raising your kid.
This all gets a bit much
My plan is not to have a kid until I'm in the position where I can bring it into the world with a cushion between my family and the effects of peak oil. It maybe years before I can accomplish that, but isn't it the smart thing to do ?

I find myself actively trying to avoid watching movies like "Escape from Suburbia", "Who killed the electric car" "The 11th hour" or youtube videos by "peak moments" or anything with Mike Ruppert.... (but I convince myself I need to watch, and do.)
because they send me into a deep depression and make me pretty angry.
Even though my wife shares my views, sometimes its tough when I get so angry at the world.

Uh... anyway.
Anybody else feel these effects, doing all they can but feeling outstripped and outdone ?

Well, I for one feel greatly depressed by the human condition. I'm at a very different stage of life than you are and have spent my whole career in what I thought were "green" or "eco friendly" jobs.

But it doesn't matter, we are collectively too short sighted to make rational decisions.

I DO have kids, and I feel bad for them.

A primary mandate that my wife and I both received growing up was "Leave it better than you found it." That is impossible. Even the best of us are only building sand castles that some big, stupid, over fed, stup will knock over as he careens through life in his H2.

But here is a wee dram of advice, grab a book called "Sea-Steading: A Life of Hope and Freedom on the Last Viable Frontier." It ain't what you think, trust me on that one. I just read it last night. I found it uplifting.

And be careful about the advice you get on this board about kids. There are some out there who really, really advocate NOT having kids at all. I don't agree with that and, having given the topic way too much thought, can see no reason to not have kids. You get very little vote in how they turn out, good times or bad. Basically the only vote you get is to have them or not. Then you try to do your best and give the a good start and that is about that. No guarantees, too much is in the genes.

Not smart enough. The smartest thing to do is to not have kids at all, or adopt if you need to experience parenthood.

Kids are consumption by proxy. If peakers can't learn to not have kids, then nobody else will and there will be no way out of this besides a blaze of gunfire or escape on your little Noah's ark as Newfie implies.



Your wife being on board is a great asset. You should appreciate being able to go through this as a team. Doing it completely alone sucks.



Of course.

Why should you watch them? There's no need to if you understand this issue. I've never watched any of those things. Best not to waste your time and emotional energy beating yourself over the head with stuff you already understand. The thing to do now is take what action you can to better your personal situation.

See the Planning Forum, which isn't so much about Planning as Action.

Taking action in many cases helps folks feel better. Stewing, fretting, worrying, etc, doesn't help at all and is bad for your health. Knowledge of our situation isn't bad for our health, worrying about it is, and doesn't accomplish anything unless it causes us to take action.

Good point, I should get other people to watch them, but I can't recommend something I haven't seen.

I know what my dad would say : "You can only take care of yourself, pointless worrying about others"

And I thought long and hard about not having kids too, it seems a little antithetical to being human, alright we're a virus killing the planet, but if the ones of us that acknowledge this don't pass it on to younger generations then we really are f**ked.
I'm thinking about having my own kids and adopting also, if I can ever afford it
If I can influence 3 lives or so, which lets face it I will have more control over than other people, or their kids, to care for the planet and put back as much as you take away then they can influence 3 more each etc etc etc, eventually millions of years from now my decedents will be thankful I had their ancestors and taught them right, didn't feed them bullshit etc...

The challenge of being human is maintaining generational knowledge and skills so we grow more knowledgable as a race, a strong family structure is not an accident, it is a formula for survival which should extend to us protecting out surroundings.
"Industry is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nature"

We need more people realizing that nature comes first, not industry, that's what got us here in the first place, the oil bubble allowed people to become less conscious of that fact, people passed on false knowledge that we are masters of the planet and we can live how we like. 6bn people later here we are.

But we're able to see other non-related people as "family" if we choose to - having our own genetic offspring isn't necessary to maintaining generational knowledge and skills. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't and won't have genetic offspring - I have really bad genes and no desire to pass them on, so I suppose I have an "easy out" - it would be irresponsible of me to have children. But I feel I can share knowledge and skills with people to whom I am not related. Not trying to talk you out of having children of your own loins if you really want them. Just that there is so much of human knowledge that is passed by those to whom we are not related by blood - it's one of the gifts of civilization that we can learn from people to whom we are not related, whom we have never even met!

Welcome to the Suck! Seriously welcome to the jungle that is PO. You'll find a lot of help here, at least to understand some things.

What your undergoing is not uncommon. I still find myself stuck in between old thought patterns and what i know I should be doing. I wouldnt call
it depression though here. More like an underlying malaise to daily life. Its going to be a slow crash i think, interspersed with some real dicey landmines which we wont negotiate well as a species, or individual nations.

I like to say we are afflicted with knowledge. Its not so much depression as it is a feeling of getting overwhelmed. Dont sweat it, embrace it, and see new opportunities in the decline! Thats what Im attempting to do, meanwhile grasping at what may be coming as each new year unfolds. My kids are nearing all grwon up and Ive passed along the concerns about where i think we are going. I do not envy folks with very young kids, I truly dont.

We are in for a roller coaster ride and the first part of the ride hasn't really begun yet. We're only half way up the first big incline.

Below is Zombieland

My parents didn't give me my red pill. It doesn't have to be hereditary. Otherwise I'd be selling cars for a living like my dad.



Start a transition town. BTW, not all kids become automatic ideological clones of their parents. Oftentimes they go in opposite directions. That's pretty much what the hippie movement in the 60s was, for instance. So you can not design the mental makeup of future generations. All you can do is say your piece. People have free will.



Luckily we have more than tribal stories around the campfire as a means of passing information around. I mean, look at what you're typing on.



We need fewer people. Of those, we need a better red-pill to blue-pill ratio, and we don't have the luxury of waiting a lifetime or two for the demographics to shift.

Having red pillers and blue pillers try to breed their way to dominance is a zero sum game.

Children is a bonus, they can work. You will need them. This requiers that you raise them, and not let the TV do that for you.

Get kids now, It will not be easier in the future I guess

Produce your own slaves?

slaves, allies, offspring, pension, family, safetynet whatever you want to call them.

Mos, please don't miss quote me in a fox news esque manner

"We need more people realizing nature comes first", I didn't just flat out say we need more people. I agree we need less people and fast, but that's not realistically going to happen.

The only way it IS going to happen is through conflict, what has human nature, history & evolution taught us ? prevailing ideologies prevail through force or numbers, by adapting faster than everything else, waiting out the catastrophe of the moment while everyone else tears themselves apart or withers and dies.

Personally I think to do that myself I need help = kids. As Gorm suggests.

And to think I'd stand by childless trying to enforce my views is bizarre, nobody would take me seriously ! "You don't have a family, why the hell should I adopt you're environmentally conscious way of living, it obviously can't support my family!" (alright, an extreme, but...)
Having children integrates you into a community further.

And the model WORKS, think about Catholicism, Devout Judaism, both faiths grow through the "go forth and multiply" statement, why should my faith of conservation and minimum impact be any different ? (Look at the Amish !!! now there's a model!)
While I can't have 1500 living descendants espousing my teachings I can make a good effort.
Change doesn't happen through INACTION, it happens through active EXAMPLE.

meh, you probably have a rebuttal to everything I just said, so we'll agree to disagree

Children of your own loins may not necessarily be a very good investment compared to a network of friends and neighbors in one's community. Children can, and often do, dislike their parents and leave them to fend for themselves.

Right, like people choosing to not have children when they know the planet has plenty of people already.

This idea of producing children in order to survive a catastrophe is bizarre. Children can seriously limit your flexibility. But you seem to be settled on this idea of children being a safety net.

Having children is not "conservation and minimum impact."

"The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh."


http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/ ... l-emphasis


The Amish do not live a sustainable way - they don't have enough land to pass on to their offspring, which is why their offspring have to take town jobs. The Amish are not a good example of a sustainable way of life. They are an example of a very difficult way of life. There are other options.