[Falconoffury]

Bush says we are addicted to oil, but he doesn't understand what it would really take. Here is a breakdown of what it would take.

1) Get rid of the personal vehicle. Take roughly 200 million cars that exist in the USA, and junk them. There is no alternative solution that will save the personal vehicle. If all oil imports to the USA stop, then no combination of efficient vehicles, biofuels, and hydrogen will allow us to support so many personal vehicles.

2) End imports. The USA will have to manufacture everything it needs. Independence from not only energy, but all the cheap junk.

3) Population control. The USA cannot be independent with economic growth. It will have to live within its limits. Make one child laws, and force spay and neutering for violators. Also, throw them in labor camps.

4) Border control. Don't let any personal vehicles or illegals in the country. If the USA is trying to live within it's limits, it can't force the countries from which immigrants come to do the same. If one country wants to overpopulate, don't punish neighboring countries.

5) Restructuring of the economy. End the service industry crap, and get people on farms. Reduce the mechanization and other fossil fuel inputs in farming, and replace it with people. Without personal vehicles, people will be left with buses and trains for public transport. Bring back the steel industry, and all other industries that we now import. Bring back engineering and manufacturing locally. The USA will have to produce everything it uses. That is what independence means.

6) Bring back the real freedoms. Give us the freedom of speech, and a fair trial, not the freedom to waste massive amounts of energy! Give us the freedoms on which this country was based.

The USA is basically doing everything the opposite of what I typed above. Independence means living within the means of what we have. The only way to independence is to stop looting the poor countries of the world and stop depending on economic growth.

Yes, it would cause riots, social upheavel, and possibly even civil war, but look at history. The only reaction that humans have to change is chaos. The last 50 years of history is nothing like the last 4000. Don't bet on the next 4000 years to be like the past 50. Holmes, this post is for you, buddy.

[mekrob]

Mother Nature to the rescue!

[linlithgowoil]

your post is all pie in the sky nonsense neo-fascist-green rubbish.

'bring back real freedom'? Eh? after typing all that nonsense about dictating how people can live? i dont think many people would consider your points freedom at all.

i'd rather take my chances with nature than some self appointed liberal fascist idiot who thinks he has all the answers.

ive always maintained that the best course of action is to do nothing and let whatever may happen, happen.

iknow one thing, i'd rather experience a die off than live in a fascist state.

[rwwff]

Sounded like a police state to me.

[Falconoffury]

In some ways, it's a fascist police state, but in other ways it's not. The freedom of expression and ideas would be preserved, but the freedom to grow and use resources would be limited.

Peak oil is occuring not because of ideas, but because of actions. Ideas are great, and we should let everyone speak his mind, but we have to change the actions we take towards the economy.

Linlith, I guess you are promoting anarchy. Maybe you are right. End central governments and let government be run by small communities.

[XOVERX]

We are faced with hard decisions. The alternative to hard decisions is massive die-off, possibly extinction. And while my neo-con friends are ok with their kids dying, as long as they wind up living a reasonable life for the next couple of decades, others care about our children and grandchildren.

OTOH, I do not think your suggestions will lead the country onto a path that will allow for any kind of hope for the future. Your suggestions may well be what the other side of Peak Oil looks like. And I don't want to voluntarily initiate Peak Oil before it happens.

My knee-jerk impressions of your suggestions:

#1: Eliminate the personal vehicle. If this suggestion could somehow be implemented while still getting folks to work, it would be a great suggestion. Eliminating the personal vehicle "overnight" is not realistic. However, of all your suggestions, this is to one that I can most closely identify with.

#2: No imports is immediate death. The nation would wither and die with this suggestion being implemented. It would cement the end of world civilization. You don't need to worry about #3 if America stops importing oil, for example. No oil imports will also accomplish your #1 and #5. No imports is the death of America.

#3: Population control is necessary. But how? Not even the Chinese model works. The need to reproduce is biological and instinctive. If you're going to preserve any semblence of representative democracy, mandatory population control is not going to happen.

The sanctions you suggest -- "work farm" -- is a separate problem for me. Right now about 12% of our population is incarcerated. In Texas it costs over $14K per year to house these folks, most of whom are druggies. The penal institutions already try to be self-sufficient, but fail. How many folks are you willing to interdict? Half? Who is going be left to guard the interdicted?

#4: We can't keep immigrants out of country as it is. Do you propose to shoot these folks on sight? And if your suggestions are implemented, we might see invading armies from the south, not immigrants. America wouldn't have enough domestic oil to fuel the industry we need, plus fuel our military.

#5: The economy is going to need to be restructured, that's for sure. Hopefully with a national effort to develop alternative energy sources, both nationally and individually (solar in houses, for example). But how are you going to bring back the steel industry with no oil imports? Your version of restructuring is unrealistic unless you're talking about the utter destruction of the nation.

#6: If your scenarios is implemented, you'll get back a lot of real freedoms because law enforcement will no longer exist. Patriarchal society will reemerge, and the history of social organization, assuming people are not extinct, will repeat itself. Meaning that period of unlimited freedom will last for just a little time before the "Jefe's" come calling in your neck of the woods.

The problem is vast. Assuming your suggestions are serious, then it's a good thing you post them. Because talking about the problem of Peak Oil is the beginning of thinking our way through it. If it can be thought through. In this sense, good post.

[Falconoffury]

XOVERX, I'm glad you posted what you did. It shows how unfeasible energy independence really is. Bush should tell us that we need to loot and pillage the oil from other countries or our country will be destroyed. I have to laugh whenever I hear people saying that other countries need to trade with the USA more than the USA needs them. They say that the USA can end trade with other countries at any time because the ingenuity of the USA will solve any problem. What a joke.

I feel that those who have large families are stealing from everyone else in the region. In a system with no surplus resources, large families will be leeching resources from others. Personally, I think stealing from a huge group of people is a big crime, and deserves a big punishment. I don't see how it's fair for my dinners to go down half the size just because the neighbors had their 4th child. I mean, hypothetically I would be getting just enough food to support the hard work that I do.

[EnergyUnlimited]

The other solution is:

1. Build necessary infrastructure for coal liquificatin to provide necessary fuel for cars.
Within say 15 years it will be ready.
Coal will last next 40 or 50 years.

2. Build new nuke plants, say 10 large plants per year from 2010 onwards, for forty years at least. Meantime prepare necessary legislation to be able to carry out these projects without undue obstruction.
Those will take care to provide necessary electricity for next 200 years or so. Uranium shortage will not be a problem as most of new reactors would be of fast breeder type.

3. Develope technology to extract methane hydrates from the sea bed in Mexican Gulf, then build necessary infrastructure to tap this useful energy source. Within 2 decades you will forget, that you needed oil in the past. Now you have about 200 years to develope fusion reactors.

4. Develope commercial fusion technology within 200 years you have now and you do not have to worry about further energy shortages. Do not forget about necessary infrastructure, which will allow you to run economy based on fusion as a major energy source. You have 200 years to think about it and get there.

5. Rob meantime porer nations from their energy resources to patch some holes in your system as need arise. Within say 20 years your new infrastructure should be good enough to stop it.

6. Forget about much of green nonsense, which will not work anyway (or return to caves and hunt baboons otherwise).

[rwwff]

I think we need to let the market get rid of liquid fuelled cars itself. All we have to do is allow the price of oil to float as high as possible, and build lots of nuclear and coal plants.

I think the steps from today look something like, gas -> efficient EuroDeisels, -> plug in hyrbrids and then watch the competition shift from bigness to how many miles you can get without turning on the gasoilne/deisel engine.

And a note of political realism here:

Any suggestion of dictatorial action in this country will see the party in power at the time absolutely obliterated at the next election. Try being dictatorial about kids or cars and you might as well disband as the party. So I think I can honestly predict no US political party is going to be banning cars or limitting the number of kids. In fact, just in case you haven't noticed, the US Tax code pays you extra cash to have more kids.

[aflurry]

your post is all pie in the sky nonsense neo-fascist-green rubbish.

'bring back real freedom'? Eh? after typing all that nonsense about dictating how people can live? i dont think many people would consider your points freedom at all.

i'd rather take my chances with nature than some self appointed liberal fascist idiot who thinks he has all the answers.

ive always maintained that the best course of action is to do nothing and let whatever may happen, happen.

iknow one thing, i'd rather experience a die off than live in a fascist state.

you are correct here, but i can't understand how you are defining "liberal" in this post... or are you just using it a definitionless slander, as is the vogue?

[Ludi]

Having sex is biological and instinctive, having children isn't necessarily so. Many people are quite happy not having children and many people are quite happy raising the children of others (adoption). Folks love to fall back on the old "having kids is instinctive" thing, but that doesn't make sense really in light of the many people who never have children or who have a very limited number of them (say, one). Not very many people "instinctively" want a dozen or more children, which it is entirely possible to have if one simply gives in to "instinct" (which is the instinct to copulate, but not necessarily to produce children).

Giving incentives to not have children, rather than incentives to have them, would be a start. No need to get all fascist and draconian on everyone's ass right from the start, for pete's sake.

I'd like a tax credit for NOT having any kids, thank you.

[Poordogabone]

Short of being draconian, 'energy independence' sounds like
hollow political rubbish to me.

[Falconoffury]

I know my post is rough and draconian, but it would help if the country moved slowly towards the direction I layed out. When people adapt to the new economic conditions, people can be happy in them. One can lead a perfectly fulfulling and happy life with a lot less resources than the average USA citizen has.

I don't think it's all that draconian. Assuming that resources are limited, what is so bad about running a government in which those limited resources are fairly distributed?

[Daryl]

Right now about 12% of our population is incarcerated.

Seems a little high. I googled this. It seems that the commonly used measure for this estimates roughly 1.5 million prisoners in the US. I think that includes about half a million county jail prisoners, most of whom are short timers, say 30 days or so. That would mean about a million longer term inmates, say serving 1 or 2 years plus. Since the population of the US is about 300 million, that would mean about 0,3% is imprisoned. That's still way too many of course. Without the current drug law enforcement that number would probably drop in half. Of course, drug law enforcment is lost in that same political Kafka novel as immigration reform and energy policy.....and Social Security reform, tax reform, campaign finance reform......................

[Lighthouse]

Bush says we are addicted to oil, but he doesn't understand what it would really take. Here is a breakdown of what it would take.

... Yadi yadi ya ...

Yes, it would cause riots, social upheavel, and possibly even civil war, but look at history. The only reaction that humans have to change is chaos. The last 50 years of history is nothing like the last 4000. Don't bet on the next 4000 years to be like the past 50. Holmes, this post is for you, buddy.

Welcome to the USSR ...

[Lighthouse]

...

I feel that those who have large families are stealing from everyone else in the region. In a system with no surplus resources, large families will be leeching resources from others. Personally, I think stealing from a huge group of people is a big crime, and deserves a big punishment. I don't see how it's fair for my dinners to go down half the size just because the neighbors had their 4th child. I mean, hypothetically I would be getting just enough food to support the hard work that I do.

I'm sorry, but that is the biggest bullshit ever written on this boards.

If you think your argument through you should already be punished big. You are stealing already resources from a big group of people.

You are driving your car down to your local supermarket on 40.000 bodies dying of hunger every day.

Sometimes I got the feeling some Americans often think they are alone on this wonderful blue rock circling the only star in our system.

[Laurasia]

Aflurry, I think Linthlithgowoil is using the term 'liberal' in its classic sense, implying a 'laissez-faire' point of view towards economics, etc. The term 'liberal' has, in the last couple of generations, been turned 180 degrees in some places to mean left-leaning politically.

Regards,

L.

[Falconoffury]

If you think your argument through you should already be punished big. You are stealing already resources from a big group of people.

You are driving your car down to your local supermarket on 40.000 bodies dying of hunger every day.

Sometimes I got the feeling some Americans often think they are alone on this wonderful blue rock circling the only star in our system.

Firstly, you are assuming you know how much energy I use, which is something you don't know.

Secondly, it was a hypothetical situation. It was meant to illustrate the idea that, if there are no surplus resources, more people taking from that resource pie will shrink everyone's pie piece. If there is a surplus, more people being born will simply draw resources off the surplus, and everyone's dinner can be the same size. If there is no surplus, those new human beings will have to pull food out of the dinner plates of others.

Is it a good way of life to live in a state of malnutrition and just barely scraping by? I don't think so. I think it requires a little more than the bare minimum resources to have some quality of life. We can either live within our limits or constantly push against them. If we constantly push against them, we will be taking Africa's example, living in garbage, flies, and a state of severe malnutrition. If we try to live within our limits, maybe the remaining people can live a decent quality of life and not destroy the planet in the process.

Now, to tie it all back to my main argument. To power down in preperation of declining oil would require a police state transition phase. The idea of economic and population growth is so heavily indoctrinated into Americans, that a police state is the only way to power down. Extreme measures and strict enforcement would be the only way to power down in an organized manner. It all comes down to two basic choices for our future: mad max, or police state. Choose wisely.

[holmes]

Hey Pal I agree with this. Its never going to happen but hey we can dream while we are lobotomized by the shit-stem. Its a lobotomy really. A dulling down of the human free spirit. Its a barrier to truly evolve past this primitive materialist consumer stage. Its really tragic.

"It is no accident that most of the remaining natural resources are on indigenous land. First the white world destroys their own environment, then they come asking for the last pieces of land they have put us on, the earth we have protected." -Luis Macas, former president of CONAIE

[holmes]

Cut off all subsidies and welfare too. All I say. If folks die becuase of it thats the way it is. Its fascist to steal other peoples tax money. But as long as it giving ME ME ME what I I I want then its ok. Not in my world. cut the fk off.
Hey this is to reduce the suffering. Better change now or die. But I luagh at the folks bringing their babies into the world now. Like this shit-stem is going to provide and protect them.
Real freedom is a simple existence.
This has nothing to do with fascism. Its about getting back in to reality.
Power down is needed. Not wanted. needed.
But it seems the 2 parties are really only just weak frail dependents. I would have some hardships going to a powerdown paradigm. and it would be hard but it would probably bring back the spirit of adventure, communication, free time, etc..

and your present shit-stem is fucking killing the last vestiges of freedom. Driving into the last productive lands. killing of the last indigenous sustainable peoples.
I despise murder and murder by proxy. Im at least willing to change this fact.
fk u and your fascist labels.