[Ayoob_Reloaded]

Holy God in Heaven.

Them's tall words from an atheist.

So it looks like the end of civilization as we know it. Should I carry a sign that says The End Is Near?

From the couple of message boards I've been reading it looks like this. You got yer peak oil, you got yer dollar crashing, you got your ice age. All three, combined with the retirement of the Boomers and the economic collapse that entails, appear to be converging in the next 20 years or so. The boomers retiring and Peak Oil seem to be coming hard and fast, with the crash of the dollar right behind.

OK.

Now that that's covered, we'll be running South to escape the fucking GLACIER that's headed our way. WTF is going to happen? Is this the dieoff? Have I finally got a concrete picture of dieoff and what it means?

Do you guys have this picture firmly in mind yet?

I sooooo hope I'mjust having a panic attack.

This winter the entire East Coast electrical grid could come down due to a shortage of nat gas, right? This winter. Not next year, but six months from now.

That's pretty much the end of our way of life here in this country, isn't it? Once the eastern seaboard collapses, there goes the banking systems. I've heard people talk about electing a fascist dictator who will scare up some food for us.

That's pretty much the end of message boards and the obesity problem in the US, right?

Somebody wake me up.

[johnmarkos]

Ah, memories of my newbiedom. I had already done some research on PO starting around the time of the 2000 election but in early '04, my father forwarded me the link to Matt Savinar's site and I kinda freaked out. I posted the link on my college's informal alumni mailing list and they laughed the topic off the list, saying it was tinfoil hat material and that we had enough shale oil to last hundreds of years.

So I figured I'd find a group of folks who wouldn't laugh at me for wanting to talk about PO. I wasn't disappointed. Excellent discussions ensued.

From what I've read, if oil prices stayed above $40/barrel, shale oil would become economically viable, even though it's too expensive now. Although $40-$50/barrel oil isn't fun, we can live with it. How does the peak oil theory take shale oil (as well as oil sands) into account?

Thanks,
John

[BabyPeanut]

http://www.peakoil.com/post17307.html#17307

The part about Peak Oil that makes me wonder is the fact that there have been artificial oil shortages created in the past. The motivation is very simple: make the price of oil go up so that if you are vested in oil you will get rich quick.

Couple the motivation for an artificial shortage with the phenomena of media deregulation:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104810/

http://www.buzzflash.com/premiums/04/05/pre04014.html

http://www.outfoxed.org/

allowing a very small number of media outlet owners to create the impression of consent.

Oil will eventually run eventually, notwithstanding, the question should be "is it happening now or are victim to yet another artificial oil shortage?

[lotrfan55345]

I'm a kid

Maybe it wasn't my first post, but it was my first "real post".

I wont tell you all my age, but I am not yet old enough to drive, but older than ten. So I'm between 10-15, think in the middle-ish of that range. I do think there will be a dieoff, or at least 1 billion will die. I dilemma is that I don't think my parents believe all this. Since the rance of economic collapse is within 5 years, I want my parents to prepare, but they don't believe... What is the best way of convincing?

Also, on another point, I do I deal w/ school, I mean, there really isn't a point anymore of going...

[skiwi]

31/8/2005 Time to make a post or two after a few weeks of lurking here
Hope to add some news from a New Zealand perspective over time

I think I have lived up to that. Not much commentary just news

[PenultimateManStanding]

Most of the big PO names seem to think the US's preemptive action ahead of the peak will bring ruin or are morally reprehensible. If we are facing major Die Off then isn't there a brutal logic to the idea of our survival? After all, we're not talking genocide here since all the worlds races are represented right here in the good ol' USA. The world can't support seven billion people so what do you do? All we have to do is shoot down ICBMs and the rest is a piece of cake, right?

If I said I was intentionally ironic it would be disingenuous since the venom is practically oozing out of my monitor! (actually is was meant ironically but the next guy, Mac, didn't see it that way.) It was back in a thread called the post peak mass death and slaughter scenario.

(by the way an easy way to get to your profile is a google search on your nickname. That's right folks, you're googled! I found that out trying to see if I could figure out somebody's nickname)

[k_semler]

mine

Posted: Friday May 21,2004 2:02:13
Post subject: A couple questions...

1) Why hasn't anyone produced an electical car that has alternators in all of the wheels, so the car would be charged when ever it is in motion, combined with energy recovery braking that is in new cars that charge electic cars when stopping, this would procide a method of transportation that is not limited by distance, or dependant on fossil fuels for operation. Why hasn't any major auto manufacturer done this? It would greatly ease the dependance on petrolium that we have as a society.

2) Today when I went to fill up my gas tank, I pulled into the station and 2 pumps were shut off with a sign on them saying: "No Regular gas, Only Desil and Premium available." The other 2 pumps had regular, so I filled up. The fuel trucks come on Wednesdays, so it has only been 1 day since the gas station actually had gas. Is this the beggining of the slide down Hubbert's peak into the post-industrial, what will be left of civilisation?

[MonteQuest]

The Peak Oil Perfect Storm

In the research for a book I just finished, I came across this website. In reviewing the many posts and the different threads of discussion, I see a decline scenario that no one seems to have broached as yet. I will call it the Peak Oil Perfect Storm. While "peak oil" in of itself seems to be a harbinger of disaster, they are many other factors at play that I feel will exacerbate our ability to forestall a hard-landing. Here are some of the things I see:

First: With the lowest interest rates in 40 years, huge deficit spending, and a huge tax cut, we are still having a great difficulty finding economic growth pre-peak. M-3 credit card money supply is at a high only seen after the 1987 crash. June alone had a 20% increase in the trade deficit to 55.8 billion dollars. We may not have any real growth from here on out, regardless of peak oil.

Second: In 2001, a study by then Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, projected future "entitlement" expenditures (Social Security, Medicare, Veterans benefits, government retirement, etc) would exceed revenues by $44 trillion dollars. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 69 percent across-the-board income tax increase, or a 45 percent cut in Social Security and Medicare.

About 82,000 Americans 65 or older filed for bankruptcy in 2001, up 244% from 1991, according to the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a study done at Harvard. Although there is the perception that many older Americans are affluent, 44% of retirees say Social Security was their primary source of income this year, up from 38% in 2000, according to an annual survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. The personal savings rate for Americans has dropped to one of its lowest levels ever--.6 percent. (now .2% Feb 2005)

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.e ... /psavert+2

Seventy-seven million baby-boomers are going to start retiring in five years' time. As they do, the number of retirees in America will double. At the same time the workforce supporting them will grow by a mere 15%. Solving this problem will hurt like hell.

Third: At 5.1% (now 6.2% Feb 2005) of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and growing, the current account deficit (CAD) is now even bigger than the federal budget deficit. It's also much larger than it was in the mid-1980s, which was the last time the CAD triggered a big financial crisis. This included a 40% decline in the value of the dollar, a huge spike in U.S. bond yields and the 1987 stock market crash. The only thing standing in the way of a repetition of the 1987 fiasco (or worse) is the continued flow of foreign capital into U.S. assets. With the ever increasing value of the European Union's euro to the dollar, more foreign investors are moving toward investing their money there, rather than in dollars. This trend could well denote great economic turmoil in the financial markets.

Fourth: 65% of today's mortgages are progressive rates--not fixed. As interest rates rise, people are going to lose their homes. For many senior citizens, their only major asset is their home. It becomes a de facto pension. That's a problem if they file for bankruptcy. Although pensions are a protected asset, in most states only a small amount of home equity is protected in bankruptcy. So if the value of the equity exceeds the state exemption, then a person who files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy will lose their home.

Fifth: Water shortages. We are experiencing record droughts in many areas, especially the West. I was a National Park Ranger for many years and worked all along the Colorado River. Lake Powell at full pool is 27 million acre feet (MAF) of water. It is now down to a little over 9 million acre feet.

http://www.usbr.gov/uc/water/crsp/crsp_40_gc.html

If it drops much more they will not have enough head pressure to generate electricity. Also, by decree of the Colorado River Compact of 1922, they must release 8.5 MAF each year for the states of CA, AZ, NV, and the treaty agreements with Mexico. The entire economy of the West is tied to this water. And to compound matters, the historical flows have never exceeded 7.5 MAF since the pact was signed in 1922. Same holds true for Lake Mead.

James Howard Kunstler quote:
Quote:
The water situation in Las Vegas is dire. The city has absolutely no capacity left for expansion under any circumstances. What's more, Lake Mead, the impoundment behind Hoover Dam, is down to historically low levels, dropping a foot per week lately, and may soon fall so low that the turbine intakes on Hoover Dam no longer operate, meaning goodbye electric generating capacity. The Colorado River's flow in 2004 was 70 percent below average, and the region was gripped by a years-long drought. Climatologists agree, in fact, that the desert southwest has actually been enjoying two comparatively wet centuries and is now reverting to a drier cycle. Global warming could make it much worse.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3777.html

Sixth: Major culture shock. We are less than 5% of the world's population and consume 40-50% of all the resources, while being the most overpopulated country in the world in terms of impact on our environment. We took more than our share and set it up as a standard of living. The three first words out of an American baby's mouth are, dada, mama, and more. In my opinion, we are the most unstable country in the world with regard to being prepared to weather a peak oil crisis.

Couple all this together, and I see the formation of the mother of all storms. Individually, any one of these could be a major crisis, but together they leave us with few options. I am impressed with the caliber of people on this site and I hope I can contribute to some meaningful dialogue. Looking forward to your follow up posts!
Monte

[JohnDenver]

Not quite my first, but the first to express my point of view:

Peak oil is an inconvenience. If you want to get scared about something, try "Peak Energy". That's the point where all energy sources, totaled together, reach their peak and begin a grim decline. Obviously, we're not at that point now, and we never will be, as I will explain in a moment.
The fact is, the solution is staring everybody right in the face: coal and nuclear. The reason the peak oilers can't get over the conceptual hurdle is that peak oil isn't about energy depletion. How could it be? Coal and nuclear aren't going to run out for a loong loong time, so there is no energy depletion problem. QED.
But wait, what about the wastes? you say, like Campbell and all those other patte-eating European twits from ALPO at their posh climate-controlled meetings in Switzerland. "We're afraid people might turn back to nuclear or coal� " Wake up Nimrods! Of course we're going to turn back to nuclear and coal.
After all, what's the alternative? "Power-down" back into quaint eco-peasantry?
Peak Oil isn't a technical problem, it's an insane environmental agenda draping itself in the robes of science. Fact is, oil is only tangentially related to the whole concept. The core is that the greenies want to shrink the human "footprint" on the earth. That's greenie code for their elitist human mass extermination program. Sorry everbody, you all have to starve and die because coal and nuclear produce dangerous wastes, and, well, we just can't risk it. Somebody might get hurt.
These people are sick. Don 't believe me? Check out this from the "What to Do" flyer over at postcarbon.org:

Triage:

� What and who "must" be saved.
� What and who "should" be saved.
� What and who "can" be saved.
� What and who "can't" be saved.

Print that out and distribute it to all your cool "in-the-know" PO greenie buddies. Can you believe that elitist crap? God help us all if those self-righteous zombies ever seize control. Sure the overlords who run the world now are a crew of vile greedy swine, but at least they have the decency to *try* to save us all.
First it was global warming, then it was peak oil, next week it'll be something else. The main thing is to prepare for the inevitable "die-off" (read: "kill-off") by making sure everybody retreats back into a little hovel made out of old PET bottles, stops moving, and eats acorns because the greenies shut off that icky coal and nuclear.
Don't get me wrong. I myself lived a semi self-sufficient lifestyle in the country for about 5 years until just a few years ago. Oddly enough, I have a lot more practical experience than most people growing gardens, composting, butchering animals etc.
But I will tell you one thing: mankind did not come all this way, just to crawl back into a hole and retreat. Screw the earth. It's like the egg we hatched out of. We suck its resources dry, and then we step out of the nest and fly into the wild black yonder. As my hero, William S. Burroughs, said: man is an artifact designed for space travel. Can you imagine anything stupider than a being, hatched into an infinite universe, wringing its hands about the finiteness and limits of its environment?
I trust that our upcoming look at Titan, the hydrocarbon moon, will have a salutory effect on the imagination of the common man. With any luck, it'll be a PR disaster for the peak oil central committee, you know: "sending the people the 'wrong message' at this critical time" etc. etc.
We will never run out of hydrocarbons or energy, because they are the basic building blocks of the universe, and the universe is infinite. Yes, folks, contrary to the solemn word of ALPO, there is an infinite supply of energy. and all we have to do to tap it is stop listening to those cowards, and get focused.

[Doly]

It was on the petrodollar vs petroeuro thread:

I've read this whole thread and it's been fascinating. But I'm still baffled by the economic arguments (I guess because I'm a techie, not a salesguy, and techies and salesguys brains are fundamentally wired in a different way). Can somebody clarify the following points for me?

1) It's quite clear to me by now that the US are deeply in debt, and that there will be a day of reckoning when the creditors start asking for their money back. But is there any way of estimating when this day will be? (I guess I'm asking for something like a "peak debt" calculation)

2) If several oil-producing countries started to sell oil in euros or partly in euros, what would be the best economic strategy for the US?

3) It's fairly obvious that most of the rest of the world would be upset if the US had a big economic crash. But would the rest of the world mind very much if the US sinks slowly during the next years? Is it possible that the EU might want this for political reasons?

4) If the US had a big crash, how would this affect the world's demand of oil? Would it be fundamentally the same or lower?

After seeing what happened with Iraq, it's quite clear that if a group of oil-producing countries want to change, totally or partially, to euros, their best strategy is to keep their negotiations secret until they come out, all at the same time, with a unified policy. It would be a situation similar to the OPEC embargo all over again, when the mighty US could do very little to stop the crisis. There is strength in numbers. And if Russia is one of these countries (and it very much looks like it), the group would be too strong for the US to consider military action. Everybody knows that Russia is essentially impossible to invade, unless it's using atomic bombs. And I don't think that even Bush is that insane.

Also, I think I can explain why European countries joined the war in Iraq. If the main reason had been the petrodollar vs petroeuro dispute, we would have seen the UK much more ambivalent about joining the war and the rest of Europe against, or at the very least, getting out of it at the first chance. Given that the Tony Blair has wholeheartedly supported it and the rest of Europe, in spite of some doubts, are also in it, this proves that the petrodollar vs petroeuro wasn't the main issue at stake (though it clearly influenced the attitudes of euro countries). I think having Iraq under control before peak oil was the main issue here, and from the point of view of most European countries, losing one battle in the petroeuro is less important than making sure that they will have a share of Iraqi oil. If the US had gone to Iraq alone, they could have made sure that Iraq sold only to them.

And I'd still like some good answers to my questions!

[Tyler_JC]

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic1599.html

This is basically my first post:

This effects all planing decisions. I've looked at the site and most people believe one of these.
#1Total immediate collapse: riots, looting, and all that "good" stuff .
#2A moderate soft landing where everyone works together to create peace in the future, with a few looters. The looters eventually stop or die off.
I don't think either are likely.

I think the third kind of crash is the most likely. The wealthy and anyone else who knows about this will prepare for the worst and hope for a soft landing. If the world was only made up of these people, we wouldn't have a problem in the first place. The biggest concern is what happens to everyone else and what does The Government do.

In the most likely scenario, the government realizes there is a problem. This happens the year of peak oil. It's too late to do any long term planing for The People. The unprepared will listen to what the government tells them. Cut back on consumption. Ok, we do that. Cut more consumption and join the army. Ok, we do that. Join the army, fight in Saudi Arabia, oh, and cut consumption. Each step becomes harder and harder to do. More and more people lose everything and join the ranks of the underclass. Remember, a 3% decline in a year isn't that much. But when you add that up after 5 years, we're in tough shape. The soft landing that the government desperately wants begins to become a bumpy ride.

5 years later. What was once an orderly transition becomes a bit less orderly. Food shipments start slowing down. The cities become dangerous. (At this point, the suburbs are mostly empty). Inflation is rampant. The government has to pay the bills somehow. However, the situation still isn't in total anarchy yet. In most countries, there is a depression going on and people believe it will end shortly. After this point, I'm completely guessing.

Hope fades as time passes. Currency is totally worthless at this point. This is roughly year 15 (post peak). The government has a lot less power now. They can keep a general check on invaders from other countries but the wars in the Middle East ended horribly. Most of the oil supplies were useless or destroyed because of fighting. Federal government collapses do to a lack of a communication/transportation system.

I believe what happens next is a return to the soft landing and an end of the need for oil. We return to a medieval type existence. Local lords give protection to the people in exchange for labor. Warriors protect the lords in exchange for gold/land/whatever. There aren't really any serfs, but no one wants to leave the protective confines of the Lord's land. Think of a bunch of small empires. That doesn't sound too terrible, does it? We could eventually build back up to a 1850's style of living; powered by wind and water, not coal and oil.

If anyone has any thoughts on my scenario, I'd be interested to hear them.

One extra thing, the empires might try to capture eachother so that one would have all of the good farmland. This might cause some problems, but none that can't be solved by joining the strongest empire :D .

[JillinPhoenix]

Hello everyone,

I was made aware of Peak Oil just a few days ago. I feel completely overwhelmed by everything I have been reading and, admittedly, a lot of the scientific discussions are a bit over my head. My education lies in the soft sciences, if you will (human resources). So while I'm not absorbing 100% of some of the discussions, I do think I have the gist of the issue.

With that said, I have a question/request. If some of the folks who are more educated on this topic were to put together a top 10 (or top 5, whatever) list of the things the "average" American should do in order to better prepare for this crisis and plan for the future, what would it look like? We are getting ready to buy a different house (already sold ours) in another part of town, which will be more expensive (simply because of the darn real estate market here in Phx right now), but will get us MUCH closer to my hubby's work. (I work from home teaching college courses online.) We are also thinking about having a 2nd child at some point before my age prohibits it (I'm 39 now). Knowing what I know now about Peak Oil, I'm questioning some of these decisions. Has anyone put together a list, of sorts, of tips that we should try to keep in mind while making decisions and living our lives from this point forward.

If this is too much to ask (esp. coming from a newbie) OR a ridiculous request, I understand. I just figured it couldn't hurt to ask.

TIA.
Jill in Phoenix, AZ

[Ludi]

You might want to look at the "Planning for the Future" forum to see what other people are doing to prepare.

[Jack]

Welcome to Peak Oil!

You'll find a wealth of information if you browse the site - the challenge will be to decide which set of preparations are right for you. Some believe in a "head for the hills" strategy...others advocate forming voluntary, rural communities...and still others seek to pay down debt, reduce consumption, and build networks of friends right where they are.

The good think about Phoenix is that you probably won't freeze

Seriously, reading posts in the "planning for the future" forum, as Ludi suggests, or in the open discussion or peak oil depletion forums should supply plenty of information to consider.

[NeoPeasant]

The first thing some might tell you is "Get out of Phoenix!" It takes a lot of energy to supply water and air conditioning to the southwest.

I wouldn't buy a house right now, there is likely to be a housing value collapse. And certainly not one in Phoenix.

[Ebyss]

I know nothing about Phoenix, but my suggestion would be to try and buy a house that has a decent size garden that you can grow some vegetables in (maybe keep a chicken or two?) and invest in some renewable energy technology, like a solar array, if you can afford it. Solar won't solve all your problems, but it would help you out in an energy pinch. Learn how to cut down your energy usage by buying energy efficient appliances, not to conserve energy, but to cut your dependence on it, and save some money. Get to know your neighbours, and maybe join a local gardening group to build relations with your future community. These are the people who might be able to help you in a pinch. Oh, and try to get somewhere that has good amenities for walking if you can't use your car (it came as quite a shock to me to learn that pavements are not standard in some parts of America).

If it were me, I'd move to the countryside, I'm not a "run for the hills" type, but farms are where we get our food, it makes sense that food will be easier to get in rural areas (or is that just wishful thinking on my part?, where else will the food come from?). I wouldn't disappear way out into the back of beyond though.

[EnviroEngr]

Also, spend a little time on the front end of the forums: http://www.peakoil.com/forums reading what various of our experts have said. You will see them pictured near the bottom. Just click on a name.

Good luck. Ask us lots of questions.

[Carlhole]

No one knows what in hell to do really. Everyone is watching the story develop to try to get some sort of clearer idea about what the future holds. We can all hear something huge rumbling in the distance but we don't know whether to climb a tree or dig a hole.

Rather than spend all sorts of money, energy and worry on ammo and heading for the hills, probably the best thing for all of us to do is to build immense political clout around this one issue and change what the country (and world) is doing with its human and financial capital and its remaining resources. Personally, I had wanted to vote for a candidate in 2004 that stood up to the issues succinctly summarized in the following article published just recently:

"Will the End of Oil Mean the End of America" by Robert Freeman
http://tinyurl.com/3pcs3

I was so utterly ashamed of the abysmal performance of the Kerry campaign that I seriously began to believe that there really is only one party on Washington - The War Party; and the appearance of politics as usual is just a charade. But hopefully that is not entirely true. I wish the Green Party and Democrats (along with disgusted Republicans) would become unified by the issue of energy. The realization seems to be dawning only slowly that we are facing a tremendous problem with the threats of global warming, peak oil, and overpopulation.

Many on this site will shout down any suggestions towards solving our global energy dilemma as completely futile because they have convinced themselves that a mass die-off and abrupt end of civilization is inevitable. Thus we are seeing all sorts apocalyptic scenarios stream forth on these forums. I don't think they do much good. If the idea is to head for the hills, those folks should just do it rather than try to warn everyone to do the same! How many hills are there to head to anyway? Those shrill warnings are more suited to a Hollywood script (actually, a follow-up to Mad Max wouldn't be a bad idea!).

So...there are no solid answers yet. But stay tuned.

[Phil]

Peak oil or not, the West will be facing serious water shortages in the decades ahead. Pheonix gets 7 inches of rain per year. That's not gonna cut it.

Your first priority should be to move to an area with at least 30 inches of rainfall per year.

If I were you, I would buy an acreage and build from below ground up with a mind for efficiency, security, and sustainability. Then you will deed one acre to me so I can build my home from your excess materials.

Ya dig?

[Phil]

Forum destroying Image

another

Does that look unsustainable to you?