Best place to be/emigrate to within Europe

Nicholai

Gah I'll need to find her Mom's title again but I know she is a member of the Finnish Parliament and currently works with immigration. I'll message her in a few days and ask her again. Her daughter is an interesting girl; half Finnish, half Congolese....maybe Uganda...I forget...either way I'm very excited about coming to Finland and seeing the ecovillage. I just hope Finland is excited for me (ie, they don't start booting out foreigners left and right...but my name might be hard to recognize as 'foreign')

- Niklas Mikkelsen

GeneralGreen · Last edited by GeneralGreen on Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:52 am; edited 1 time in total

Well I can say the absolute worse places to be [/b]
England, France , Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden post peak oil! For various reasons.
I absolutely laugh Laughing

at you here who think Sweden will par good post peak oil.
I have been there and found it to be the most individualistic, multicultural "which in low energy time multicultural societies do very poor', rocky, isolated, cold, long dark winters, and lonely place I have ever been! I hated it there!!! And that was in good times oil age...
Sweden couldn't even feed most of it people up until the oil age. In 1697 a famine hit them and wiped out near 15% of its population. In 1773 , 20% of Swed succumbed to famine. In the 1800s what saved them "then around 2 million ethnic Swedish people population..Was a passport to the new world.
Sweden has 1.5% of its population in farming, a rocky soil. Nearing 9 million people "2 million immigrants' . It has no oil, no NG, hardly any coal...But does have lots of woods that will go up in smoke fast on the initial cliff "2015-2020.
The people of Sweden are total hyper individualistic..And this is going to come and bite them in the difficult days ahead. If your a social person AVOID Sweden at all cost!!
Sweden is 100% dependent on imports and exports of their goods. They have a total welfare state and a pension plan private funded.Extremely high taxes....That both the welfare state and Pension will crash with the worlds economy...leaving them in destitution.
I can tell you most immigrants are on the welfare payrole. And all old people are totally dependent on the pension "private system" Both will crash next decade with the markets. Sweden is heading for diar poverty, and destitution..and their little silly gimicks of going green by 2030 is a complete joke. These are the people who will be watching TV via their solar panels as they starve to death.

davep

GeneralGreen, could you expand on why France would be amongst the absolute worse places ? The population density is far lower than the UK, and there are still a lot of smaller farms.

Just curious...
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GeneralGreen

Carlo · Coal Joined: Nov 21, 2004 Posts: 9

GeneralGreen,

I appreciate a lot your analysis!

What do you think about Italy? I know this is NOT the best place for a collapse (100% import of energy), but in your opinion how will we deal with a PO world?

Carlo.

Homesteader

GG makes very good points. Uninterrupted food supply during our life times has been the anomaly, not the norm. Food like oil will go to the highest bidder and the rest will "adjust".

That being said there are areas in most countries that will fare better than others. A region of moderate climate, small diversified agriculture with good water/soil and access to the ocean gives the best odds IMO. Same as it always did.
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"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…"
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bl00k

As a thumb rule, i guess you could say the best place to live is somehwere away from other human beings. Problem with Europe is that such places no longer exist. And if they do, they're usually extremely uninhabitable pieces of land. Europe is small, the population is huge.

So for Europe i don't think it matters that much where you live but more what you do (profession) and who you are (social status). If things will get as bad as doomers here suggest, there's no place in Europe to hide. People who will do alright will be people with power. This includes the police, military, politicians, rich folk, royal families and basically anyone with either a gun, lots of money or loyal subordinates.

"If you can't beat them, join them" is my best bet so far. Luckily things aren't that bad yet but one thing that stays the same is how people with power act towards people with less power. Chance of reprisal determines the probability of abuse of power. This chance of reprisal is relatively high for low level government employees (law enforcement) and evenly relatively high for top government officials (exceptions are everywhere). Chance of reprisal will drop when overal prosperity will drop. Hence, corruption will increase during Peak Oil's economic effects.

My humble opinion...
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Nicholai

GeneralGreen, I couldn't agree more about your analysis of France and Sweden.

I'm looking at finding work in Norway in the Karmoy region. As well, if this isn't to my liking, I'd like to visit the island of Bornholm in Denmark. It's a beautiful place and I've always had this urge to live with the Danes.

I'm assuming you live in Europe? If you live in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden or Norway, let me know and we could possibly have a coffee?

Quinny · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 03, 2008 Posts: 171

Following General Greens comments I started looking at overshoot and carrying capacity at Optimum population . The table below shows an extension to there data which I think is interesting. If the data is accurate, then it would seem that (as I thought) the UK is particularly bad, but some others that are being quoted as 'the worst places' eg Sweden, France seem to come out better in terms of sustainability. (According to these figures Sweden could actually sustain a larger population at a 'modest' lifestyle) I realise this is not going to make things easy and theres going to be severe social unrest, but surely it's an indicator of where it's going to be better. Surely a country that's looking at losing lifestyle/wealth and over 50% of the population is going to be a lot worse than one where you are looking at a severe reduction in living standards with a less severe population drop.

As I'm going looking for a farm in France this weekend, please let me know if there is something severely wrong with these stats.

PS apologise for formatting, but you can follow them if you count the columns.
PPS. Looks like us in the UK are totally FUBAR.

CARRYING CAPACITY
Population (i) Due to CO2 world emission limit of 2.5 GtC/yr. (ii) At present lifestyle, allowing 12% for biodiversity (iii) At 'Modest' lifestyle, allowing 12% for biodiversity
WESTERN EUROPE 387 129 132 251
Austria 8 3 4 7
Belgium & Luxembourg 10 3 1 3
Denmark 5 2 2 5
Finland 5 2 5 14
France 59 20 27 53
Germany 82 27 24 40
Greece 11 4 4 8
Ireland 4 1 4 8
Italy 58 19 15 21
Netherlands 16 5 2 3
Norway 4 1 3 9
Portugal 10 3 3 5
Spain 40 13 13 23
Sweden 9 3 9 20
Switzerland 7 2 3 4
United Kingdom 59 20 15 29

energycity

Quite a few posts seem to assume:

(1) National borders will be respected, come what may.
(2) The EU will dissolve.
(3) People from formerly wealthy countries will die off quietly, whilst their neighbours enjoy relative prosperity.

The idea that it could be relatively OK in France, Norway and Finland ..... and hell in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK is completely unrealistic. Fun to discuss, but hardly likely. Have a look at a map, it's a small place, I've biked across Europe.

Europe will come together to meet the crisis or it will be hell for everybody.

Quinny · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 03, 2008 Posts: 171

Quite a few posts seem to assume:

(1) National borders will be respected, come what may.
(2) The EU will dissolve.
(3) People from formerly wealthy countries will die off quietly, whilst their neighbours enjoy relative prosperity.

The idea that it could be relatively OK in France, Norway and Finland ..... and hell in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK is completely unrealistic. Fun to discuss, but hardly likely. Have a look at a map, it's a small place, I've biked across Europe.

Europe will come together to meet the crisis or it will be hell for everybody

I agree it will be hell for everybody, but:

Cities will be worse
Unsustainable areas will be worse
You couldn't bike across the Channel!

energycity

skeptik

Quinny · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 03, 2008 Posts: 171

Sustainable Population

Now BAU Moderate Lifestyle
Spain 40 13 13 23

Hmmm!