Revi wrote:If we have only about 25% of the available energy in 2020, we had better get going and do something about it. We can live on less quite easily. In the US we could live on half of what we have now with no trouble at all. We just have to start doing it. 12 years isn't that far away. What are we doing?
Ah, that difficult word 'we'.
The 'we' to whom you refer, are not about to change their lifestyle. Their response during the first years of hardship (and yes, they will maintain this response for
years) will be to direct their thoughts and energies into campaigning for a restoration of past conditions. There will be no shortage of populist opportunists to position themselves to reap the temporary benefits. Debates over siting of utility and transport infrastructure will become more vicious, international tensions will become more intense, domestic policy more reactionary (and this by popular demand), regions within a country or city more fractious, and current exceptionalist individualist thinking in the West more pronounced.
Put simply, much of the inadequate adaptation time will be squandered. I say 'adaptation' not 'preparation' because much less of the latter remains than the former.
It has been said that foreknowledge of peak oil and surrounding issues will confer no advantage to the few once the crowd has its epiphany. I do not believe that is so. Even as economic effects strike and understanding spreads, the crowd response will be to pull in the wrong direction. To use the tired vegetable garden example, the majority will be entreating their governments to feed them for years after they could have planted something.
The mitigation which on paper is possible, requires nothing less than hundreds of millions of people in the developed world writing off not only their financial but their cultural investments. This is expecting a bit much in the space of a decade. Few peoples are up to the task, the American people less able than most, and failure is pretty much inevitable. I think the well-informed among the powers that be, understand well the limitations of their subjects. Not that they will ever admit this. YOU can do it! YOU are amazing! YOU are special!
Yeah.
I do not mean to be unconstructive, but the years pass, more insights are gleaned, more points added to the curves, and our collective ability to survive collapse diminishes. The time remaining does not lend any sense to stepping onto a box and shouting encouragement at people to cooperate.
Think about it this way, the time remaining is within the lifetime of a truck rolling off the production lines right now.
It makes more sense to find somewhere already quiet and backwards, become a part of it, and hope it stays quiet and backwards.