Snappy retorts, laced with love, love, love [family issues]

FoxV

I'm a lousy debater as well and my best arguments of course only come to me after the debate is over.

mystiek

Hopefull, just view yourself as the "watchman on the wall". Not everyone will heed, but you know in your heart that you did what was the best thing to say and do. Look at Noah-he was cackled at by scoffers for quite awhile during his boat building-but one day the rains came and well, we know the rest of the story.

CherBear1983

My friends and family make me feel like I'm crazy. I tried to talk to my mom, and I said we should start a garden when I come home from Korea. She laughed at me. She also make the following remarks:
"The States has plenty of oil. They have stockpiles of oil they're not even using." When I pointed out that, if that were true, why are the #1 country in the world for imports? She still didn't believe me, and responded with "It won't happen in my lifetime."
My boyfriend is seriously misinformed, and believes that oil will run out in "500 or 600 years," despite what I've told him. Also, English is not his first language so maybe he can't 100% understand me.
And worst of all is my best friend, because she is so much like me in other ways but she is stubborn about Peak Oil. I've told her everything I've learned about it, and she keeps coming up with excuses not to believe me. She says that the government will take care of it, and we can just switch to solar and wind energy. Of course I try to point out that that's not as easy as one might think, but she just ignores me. She also said "I think the government will know about this at least 10 years before it happens." I was flabbergasted, having told her that Peak Oil has been known about for a very long time. My other close friend is talking about buying a car when we go back to Canada, and they both are constantly buying unnecessary things because they are "cute," like umbrellas and lunchboxes from Japan. They refuse to believe that their lives will ever change. I am so frustrated. I find it hard to spend time with them lately because all they want to talk about is shopping and guys, and I want to talk about what is happening in the world, or going to happen. I was perfectly happy to be that way before, but now that I know I can't go back. Sometimes I wish I didn't know.

Kfish · Tar Sands Joined: Mar 31, 2006 Posts: 92

There are many, many ways to "sell" preparations for Peak Oil. Going "OMG ZOMBIE HORDES!!" is probably one of the least effective.

For example, you could introduce a food garden like this:
"Inflation's getting higher, maybe we should grow our own"
"I'm worried about the pesticides they put on vegetables"
"We could reduce our carbon footprint and save money at the same time"

Stockpiling:
"You know, if we bought in bulk it'd be cheaper and we wouldn't have to go shopping as often"

Cycling/reducing car use:
"Petrol's getting expensive"
"We need more exercise anyway"
"Let's reduce our greenhouse gas emissions"

Introducing the concept of peak oil gently can be an issue, but I've had success starting with "well, oil's a finite resource anyway, it's got to run out sometime" and work from there.
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mystiek

Kfish has a good point as far as approach, sometime you have to enter from their world view. Its almost what I have to do with my kids-the oldest being 11 years old. He sees us putting food up, gardening, visiting pick your own farms, canning, trying to use the scooter more than our diesel F350 pickup truck and kids are not dumb they see what you are doing and ask questions why we are doing things-they need to learn and understand, but approached at a level they can comprehend. I will admit, the hardest thing I had to explain to my kids (and my husband) was my homemade Faraday boxes...