[davep]

My goal is to build a passive solar house at least 3,000 sqft

Why would you want to make a passive solar house that big?

[AAA]

My goal is to build a passive solar house at least 3,000 sqft

Why would you want to make a passive solar house that big?

Big family and lots of friends. We routinely have 20+ people over for dinner or games. We enjoy hosting large groups.

[mos6507]

First I enjoy working and investing in oil.
...
Second a lot of post-peak preps costs money. The oil industry pays very well.

I'm sure the same could be said of those who club harp seals or poach elephants for ivory. A man's gotta eat, right? What you're telling me is that you're a sellout who is gaming the system to secure your lifeboat with blood money. Kind of like how Bush has an off-grid house paid with his oil-ties. Take the money and run.

Pragmatically speaking, that might be good for you, but you ain't no role model in my book.

I bet a lot of oil workers are as keyed into peak oil as you, but they publicly deny peak oil and privately plan their bugout when TSHTF. As far as I'm concerned you're part of the establishment. Your livelihood depends on people continuing to suckle on the teat of petroleum, so you are no credible advocate for post-peak transition.

[davep]

My goal is to build a passive solar house at least 3,000 sqft

Why would you want to make a passive solar house that big?

Big family and lots of friends. We routinely have 20+ people over for dinner or games. We enjoy hosting large groups.

Do they sleep at yours? If you're thinking of such a large passive solar house, you may just need them round every night in winter to ensure the temperature stays up

[AAA]

Pragmatically speaking, that might be good for you, but you ain't no role model in my book.

You conveniently deleted the fact that my family has been doing it over 60 years.

Its not some game. I provide oil so you can sit on your computer and type nonsense on po.com and blog about your hobbies on your doomstead diary.

What do/did you do for a living?

[AAA]

Do they sleep at yours? If you're thinking of such a large passive solar house, you may just need them round every night in winter to ensure the temperature stays up

Out-of-town family and friends do spend the night.

Remember I am young. I am going to have a house full of kiddos.

Besides most of that living area is going to be kitchen, pantry, living room, and dining room. Our current dining room table seats 12 comfortably and our house is only 1,900 sqft.

Besides a couple of strategically placed vogelzang wood stoves and an endless supply of pinon pine can provide a lot of warmth.

[davep]

Besides a couple of strategically placed vogelzang wood stoves and an endless supply of pinon pine can provide a lot of warmth.

Fine, just don't call it passive solar then.

[AAA]

Fine, just don't call it passive solar then.

Obviously you don't understand passive solar home design.

[Loki]

Let's not attribute undue significance to this site due to its domain. When this site was founded, perhaps it could claim to have a bigger slice of the pie, but these days there are so many directions in which people are bombarded with peak oil information, from books to documentaries to (yes, even MSM) news articles, to Transition booths at energy or farming fairs. This site could go offline tomorrow along with LATOC and TOD and there would still be plenty of avenues for people to learn about peak oil and limits to growth.

So the whole notion of the utility of a site like this (or even The Oil Drum) is questionable. The growing consensus is that "the converted" should log off of the damn internet and work with their neighbors. That's what Heinberg, Greer, Astyk, and just about everyone else are harping on about lately. And maybe if the neighbors just can't be reached, then move to a place where the people are more in tune with the message, and then get on with it.

Guess what, a lot of people, including those organic farmers you deride, are doing just that. They aren't wasting their time in flamewars with shorty and company. They are getting busy.

This site is kind of the purgatory for doomers who for whatever reason can't or won't find local support networks. It is not and will never be the driving force of peak-dom or social change. Few of the transition towners I've met in my travels even lurk here.

I lowered my expectations for this site some time ago. It's a glorified chatroom with a handful of weirdos who are loosely bound together with the common theme of peak oil, and yet who diverge so strongly on their underlying ideologies that they can't stop lunging at each other's throats. That's all it is.

The problem is I think some people are still in a 2004 sort of mindset of thinking about doom in a strictly theoretical/abstract context, for the purpose of future-prediction, and therefore they are merely analyzing the data rather than actually acting. That is the context in which this site was founded, or The Oil Drum, and we're in the age of consequences now. Make a plan and work it, as Pops says.

Good post.

It most certainly was. I particularly like the advice to "log off of the damn internet." I went offline for well over a year, including most of 2009. Spent my time really focusing on learning the horticulture trade, building skills, credentials, contacts, experience, etc. Time very well spent.

Came back to this site in part out of boredom, in part seeking a reminder of what's motivating me to prep for a post-peak world. I'll probably be going offline again shortly (and AAA issues a sign of relief....).

My 10-year plan 10 years ago was to be a tenured professor by this time, and I was trucking along until 2006 or so, when I decided to get off that path. Current plan is to learn the organic farming trade and start my own farm, and it's working out so far. Reading this site has helped motivate that change, but it's also wasted countless hours. Contradictory, but there it is.

I'd MUCH rather be an organic farmer at this point in history than a useless academic. Or soon-to-be-made-obsolete oil industry worker....

[davep]

Fine, just don't call it passive solar then.

Obviously you don't understand passive solar home design.

I happen to know quite a lot about it. Envisaging using two stoves and endless supplies of wood is not part of it.

If you want, you can ask my mate who twice won the International Passive Solar house competition.

[cipi604]

From my standing point of view, this website doesn't have that much activity and peak-oil won't be 'The main event' until we have huge shortages of liquid fuels on the market, no matter the price, and everyone finds out what that does mean to them.

[AAA]

I happen to know quite a lot about it. Envisaging using two stoves and endless supplies of wood is not part of it.

If you want, you can ask my mate who twice won the International Passive Solar house competition.

You guys are probably dry-fly elitist also. Too good for the wooly bugger even though it catches more fish.

[davep]

From my standing point of view, this website doesn't have that much activity and peak-oil won't be 'The main event' until we have huge shortages of liquid fuels on the market, no matter the price, and everyone finds out what that does mean to them.

I'm not sure it would take huge shortages. There's only so long the powers that be can spin it. After a couple of years of constant supply deficit, price will be through the roof, and the deficit doesn't need to be that big.

The big question, as always, is when.

[Ludi]

Remember I am young. I am going to have a house full of kiddos.

Overpopulation is someone else's problem, huh?

[davep]

I happen to know quite a lot about it. Envisaging using two stoves and endless supplies of wood is not part of it.

If you want, you can ask my mate who twice won the International Passive Solar house competition.

You guys are probably dry-fly elitist also. Too good for the wooly bugger even though it catches more fish.

Why the ad-hom? What do you mean by it anyway? The engineering-architect chap I know in Germany is certainly looking at high-tech designs, but he's also interested in my straw-bale/passive solar hybrid ideas which are meant to be using locally-sourced and cheap materials (in the main) and are highly effective, without the bells and whistles.

[shortonsense]

I'd MUCH rather be an organic farmer at this point in history than a useless academic. Or soon-to-be-made-obsolete oil industry worker....

Considering the decades, if not centuries, of liquid fuels either already known and available, or capable of being made, it is extremely unlikely that oil industry workers are going to be obsolete any time soon...particularly considering that oil industry becomes "gee lets go drill gas wells instead" industry real quick-like, and natural gas is the fuel of the future no matter how this debate wprks out in our lifetime.

It seems to me that the maybe accidental, maybe on purpose implications to statements like this cause part of the credibility problem I often notice. I understand that most people aren't familiar with the work of Rogner, but some certainly are, and anyone who actually does has a tendency to roll up their eyes when someone bolts off a "soon".

Unless of course you are defining "soon" as 200 years from now? Certainly most people probably don't.

[davep]

I'd MUCH rather be an organic farmer at this point in history than a useless academic. Or soon-to-be-made-obsolete oil industry worker....

Considering the decades, if not centuries, of liquid fuels either already known and available, or capable of being made, it is extremely unlikely that oil industry workers are going to be obsolete any time soon...particularly considering that oil industry becomes "gee lets go drill gas wells instead" industry real quick-like, and natural gas is the fuel of the future no matter how this debate in our lifetime.

True, generally. But if you want to be a part of the long term solution rather than the problem, you'll be looking at organic/biodynamic/permaculture solutions so that your kids and your neighbours will have something to work with. It's a question of priorities. We all die too soon, I don't want to die having spent my productive life suckling at the teat of the corporations, I'd rather help show the path to a better life for others.

But each to their own, I guess.

[shortonsense]

I'd MUCH rather be an organic farmer at this point in history than a useless academic. Or soon-to-be-made-obsolete oil industry worker....

Considering the decades, if not centuries, of liquid fuels either already known and available, or capable of being made, it is extremely unlikely that oil industry workers are going to be obsolete any time soon...particularly considering that oil industry becomes "gee lets go drill gas wells instead" industry real quick-like, and natural gas is the fuel of the future no matter how this debate in our lifetime.

True, generally. But if you want to be a part of the solution rather than the problem, you'll be looking at organic/biodynamic/permaculture solutions so that your kids and your neighbours will have something to work with.

Maybe. Maybe not. None of this transition we have been undergoing since the 70's has to happen with near the speed that many people seem to think is necessary.

It's a question of priorities. We all die too soon, I don't want to die having spent my productive life suckling the teat of the corporations, I'd rather help show the path to a better life for others.

If it becomes profitable for someone to do organic and permaculture solutions, it strikes me that its as likely to be done by a corporation as it is somebody trying to learn how to do it themselves. Which is good, because then they compete, and the regular person doesn't have to do it for themselves. I certainly have no desire to be a farmer of any type.

[mos6507]

You conveniently deleted the fact that my family has been doing it over 60 years.

My dad sells cars for a living. He enables happy-motoring with every new sale. That doesn't mean I feel like I have to follow in his footsteps.

Its not some game. I provide oil so you can sit on your computer and type nonsense on po.com and blog about your hobbies on your doomstead diary.

That sounds familiar. Where have I heard that riff before? Oh yeah, right. This.

"The Malthusian Trap", or "We own your ass, suckas!" a poem by Chevron

outside, the debate rages
Oil, energy, the environment.
It is the story of our time,
and it is definitive and all encompassing
And it leaves no one untouched.
because make no mistake
this isn't about oil companies,
this is about you, and me
and the undeniable truth that at this moment there are 6 and a half [sic] billion people on this planet.
And by year's end there'll be another 73 million.
And every one of us will need energy to live.
Where will it come from?
This is our challenge each day
Because for today and tomorrow
and the forseeable future
our lives depend on oil




Is that your idea of talking points about peak oil? Trying to convince joe sixpack to worship the oil companies for maintaining phantom carrying capacity and stalling the malthusian die-off?

[AAA]

This is why PO has credibility issues.

davep attacks me because I want to have 2 wood stoves in my passive solar house. I have seen hundreds of passive solar house plans and I don’t recall seeing 1 plan that doesn’t include fireplaces or wood stoves. When a winter storm hangs around and you don’t see sunlight for 8 days good luck trying to stay warm.

Loki and JJ attacks me because I actually spread the word of peak oil to people in Southern California and across the US and Canada. I didn’t know we were suppose to keep it some big secret and let the rest of the world perish while we hide in the corner laughing because we knew what would happen.

Ludi attacks me because I want to have a family. I didn’t know the PO community limited child births much like China and if you actually want to have a family then you get reprimanded.

mos6507 attacks me because I work in the oil industry. Its easy to forget that everything is either made using oil or shipped using oil. Name me one product or produce in the US that is not dependent on oil. Name one person in the US that doesn’t use oil.

If I live a full life I will be on earth at least another 60 years. Most of you are much older and don’t have to think about long-term planning. I am one of the few who are slowly changing their entire lives because I feel peak oil will be an issue. I don’t anticipate any type of sudden collapse but I think oil prices will continue their hike up long-term and change our way of life mainly how food is transported and the JIT Economy the US has created.

I’m not some hippie, organic purist, or radical environmentalist. I am just a regular guy who thinks PO is bad enough to take it seriously. You guys can attack me all you want but I have accomplished more in the last 5 years then many of you have in the last 20 years. I have done it through hard work and setting my priorities right. It’s nothing to brag about but just the facts. So attack all you want. I’m not sure if it is jealousy or just ignorance but whatever your reasoning for wanting to attack me is your problem.