What if it's all real

evilmonkeyspanker · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:52 pm Post subject: What if it's all real

I am very glad to find this site, I am glad (but at the very same time I am very sad) there are others out there who see the same things I do, but why can't others in my family or even my friends see what is right in front of thier faces. I hope I am wrong but I think everything is far worse than most can even imagine, even those on this board.

I am not mathematically inclined, I really don't know how or understand how the calculations are being made that tell us when peak oil will or has been reached. What I do understand is that the world can only produce so much oil to take care of the demand. I understand that the population increases everyday. I understand that countries that were not as developed 10 years ago (China, India, and others) are now increasing thier need for oil. I understand that the cost for barrel of crude is now $21.00 higher that is was this time last year which is approximatly 45% higher than a year ago.

Now for what I don't understand, please help me to.

(1.) Why is there no news coverage covering this.
(2.) It seems to me that the stock market is still climbing how is this, when if things keep up this way we should be heading towards another potential "Great Drepression" .
(3.) What should we be doing as a people and idividually to prepare for this new world we are heading towards.
(4.) How long until we are looking at the complete meltdown of society if the peak oil theory is right on, and nothing is done.

I think my head has been buried in the sand. I didn't start researching till about a week ago, and I am damn near ready to crap on myself. I have a sick feeling that what we are heading towards will either change the world for the better or it will be it's distruction.

I have to be honest and I don't want to come off sounding like an idiot, but if things continue in this direction, I think I am moving to Amsterdam and I will just spend the next few good years we have completly blitzed out of my mind.

sol · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:17 pm Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

evilmonkeyspanker · Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:29 pm Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

I think I am going to start learning how to do something other than work on computers, and build websites.

I don't think I would be very useful in a setting that required manual labor or actual skills, I think I am going to get back into bodybuilding and learning how to plant a garden.

Raxozanne · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:53 am Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

albente · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Aug 20, 2004 Posts: 1361

Madpaddy · Expert Joined: Jun 25, 2004 Posts: 2130

auctionmonster,

Welcome and I'ld go with the Amsterdsam idea if I were you.It's a great and crazy place and the Dutch have had windmills for centuries.
_________________
www.askaboutenergy.com

Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4041

evilmonkeyspanker · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:12 am Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

Well I was thinking great depression tough, but now I am starting to think I am having a mental breakdown and this is all in my imagination Confused

AmericanEmpire · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 14, 2005 Posts: 497

Aaron · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 10:20 am Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

FairMaiden · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:49 am Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

So you know now. Don't beat yourself up about it. I have been watching this since I was 14 (I'm now 33). What does it matter? It just means I've not wasted as much fossil fuel as my neighbour. It means I've had to forgo the comforts of Western living bc otherwise I'd be a hypocrite. Unfortunately, not owning a car or cellphone or buying into consumerism has hurt my career choices and I don't have any money saved. I do know trades and I'm a fighter so I know I'll be okay. So will you. You are doing as best you can and thats all you can do. I don't think we headed towards the end of the world as we know it - but I think the lifestyle we've grown accustom to will be gone. That may not be a bad thing. How many times have you asked yourself what this world has come to? How many times have you questioned our society's morals and values?

Ghog · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 11:58 am Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

Don't panic...just prepare. Educate yourself in gardening, food saving, alt energy, survival and finance....yes finance. We have just refinanced to a fixed mortgage, getting rid of all variable-rate debt. We also have a finance plan to pay extra on the mortgage principle every month. My family are planning on going back to one vehicle, probably a hybrid maybe diesel.

The key is to START preparing. Time is not on our side. If you are prepared then there is less reason to panic.

BabyPeanut · Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 2:40 pm Post subject: Re: What if it's all real

venky · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 853

Its impossible to say what might or might not happen post peak oil. The truth is nobody knows, we can only speculate. It might be nothing more than a bump or it might be a major and spectacular collapse of the stock market followed by a great depression.

In the words of Kjell Akelett, President of ASPO (Association for the study of Peak Oil), 'There is no need to panic'. Also it is important to understand that Peak Oil is not necessarily an energy crisis, its a 'liquid fuel crisis' Oil provides only 40% of our total energy (though admittedly 90% of transportation fuel). And its not going to run out tomorrow. We will be pumping oil in 2050. The other 60% is mostly coal and natural gas which are not going to peak anytime soon.

Your reaction is similar to mine after my first week of PO research. A week is nothing, read more, study, take all claims made with a pinch of salt, and form your own opinions. Read up on conservation and alternatives. You might end being a doomer, a moderate or perhaps even an optimist.

spudbuddy · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 28, 2005 Posts: 150

Chances are this will be a long, drawn out process.
If you have a look at what happened historically in America between 1929 and 1950...the world in many ways changed drastically, and yet some things did not change fundamentally at all.
It disturbs me...that there are so many people now in this society who will resist the whole notion of peak oil to the bitter end...because they have so much to lose, because they can't imagine this society operating in any fundamentally different kind of way, because they have dedicated their entire lives to buying completely into the American corporate-sponsored dream.
If you begin the long slow painful (painstaking, nonetheless) process of educating yourself about what brought us to this place, it's a remarkable story. When you uncover it, and know and understand it, you'll be better for it....a better citizen.

I have said this before: It is entirely up to us. We are being presented with a marvellous opportunity to change our world for the better, to solve many of the problems (as they turn to potential crises) that have been dogging our heels for decades.
We are not at all living in the America of the post WW2 party, or the heyday of the 60's, 70's....all that is long gone.
What has replaced it?...is a social and economic malaise that drags down the efforts and energies of many good Americans.
It's easy to imagine some kind of post PO holocaust (Hollywood has taught us well). It's easy to imagine vigilantes, roving gangs, neighbors turning on each other, disenfranchised youth putting the boots to their elders...all that stuff.
Makes good fiction. Hollywood loves it. It sells well.

We need workable alternatives. We need discussion, information, research and development (as opposed to some magic foolsgold formula that will bail us out with techno-tricks.)
We need to see it happening. We need to see changes beginning in the public realm around us. This builds confidence.

The socio/political/economic elite of this nation was given a mandate, to lead, to make responsible decisions, to act competently...to, in short, earn the big bucks they've been reaping for a long time now.
Did they ever Fark up.
I heartily endorse the idea that the public get real pissed. They have every right to be.

This public will (which is so sorely lacking at the moment) is necessary to instigate the process of change.

I admit: I hate suburbia. Always have. I don't hate it because Frank Zappa sang to me that it was a cool cultural move.
I hate it because of my own personal experience with it (venturing in from my inner-city urban lifestyle.)
It is not walkable. It is conformist to the max. (my eyes tell me that.)
It is closed in on itself.
But it is also full of people, lots of people, ordinary everyday people living their lives. Nothing particularly wrong with them.
What is fundamentally wrong with suburbia becomes more and more painfully obvious when the cost of living there goes off the map (which it one day will.)
Consider that this has been subsidized for 50 years at least by taxpayer dollars.
The changes that we will have to make as a society to deal with energy shortage...will be hardest to make in suburbia...because of its design.
However, this will become imperative because approximately 67% of America lives there. That is a vast majority.

Rather than succumb to visions of apocalyptic Hollywood disaster-movie scenarios (entertaining as they might be) it would be a smart thing to focus on plausible solutions.
Look for the people talking about them, writing about them...the ones reflecting a social cohesion, a social will, a call for community solidarity.
This is where it will begin, I think. Within individual communities.

I imagine smaller walkable communities will become extremely popular in the coming decades. It makes good sense.
Consider this: If every school-age child that used to walk or bike everywhere, everything they did...did so now, this would probably by itself reduce gas consumption in the US by maybe 10 or 15%.
Of course, that require them to grow up in communities that allow this possibility.
Suburbia, of course, does not. (as it is now aligned)
Sadly, it takes the money out of mom's wallet chauffeuring her darlings to clue her in to what her kids don't have: independent mobility.
(Why did this never seem important when gas was 70 cents a gallon?)

We consume a lot of energy foolishly, for things that don't really add anything to our collective betterment as a society. Much of that we could do without, and relatively painlessly.
The trouble is...in an oil-based economy, if you eliminate Nascar or monster truck old-car crunching (whatever the entertainment value is there) you also eliminate all the income that all those workers derive from these (questionable) acitivities.
Quite frankly...a lot of income out there is derived from what is basically bullshit.
The big trick will be figuring out how to provide all that income in a different way. (sustainable, for starters.)
Anyway...a lot of these things will simply fade away when the cost of fuel supercedes the cost of doing business. Once the profit margin has eroded, any good business man will simply pull the plug.
Recessions? Depressions? Omigod...maxed out credit, home equity loaned up to paradise...
In the dirty thirties, prices dropped like stones, costs came down to nothing (ironically, starving people still had cars and drove 'em).
In short....we've forgotten our own history of adaptability.
Too many people can't imagine life without a cellphone, for godsake.
(Who the hell would I be talking to right now, without internet service? My nextdoor neighbor?) Ha!
Imagine that. Face to face and in real time. Stone-age technology.

I just don't believe it all goes boom overnight. I don't believe we implode as a society.
I do believe there will be a long slow decline of many things...some of them will be sorely missed and for good reason.
Some things we didn't even know we missed will come back. (Not because its cute and Disney-themed...but because it is ingenuous, and makes good horse sense...like the horse itself.)
Create and adjust.
Who out there is going to miss 7:15am gridlock?

I know suburban kids who ache in their bones to rediscover that stroll downtown and that long desultory ramble along Main Street.......

jp
just let me laugh when it's funny
and when it's sad, let me cry