What does doom mean to you?

coyote · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:30 pm Post subject: What does doom mean to you?

I think there's been some confusion about the word 'doomer,' especially lately. I know there has been for me. There are posters here whom I believed to be doomers, because of their beliefs, only to find out that they do not consider themselves doomers at all. Likewise, some who seemed to be poking fun at doomers eventually turned out to be doomers themselves -- or to be using a wildly different definition from what I would use. There's been some talk about doomers believing collapse will occur directly after peak oil -- mostly from their detractors. But immediate global collapse wouldn't occur to me as being a likely event.

I think it's time to lay our cards on the table and declare ourselves. Clear up the confusion.

Three questions to be answered in this thread. First: what is your definition of 'doom,' as used in the word 'doomer'? Is it human extinction, or only a grand depression? Severe and immediate dieoff, or just a few strategic resource wars? Second: by your own definition, are you a 'doomer'? Do you believe the doom you've described above will actually occur? Third: why are you a doomer, or why aren't you a doomer? What specific aspects of our situation make you think we'll be sucked into the abyss -- or that we'll skirt it neatly, or avoid it altogether?

Perhaps if this thread is successful, and enough people express their views, then at the end we'll be able to come to some kind of consensus about what these words actually mean. So: relevant discussion of other posters' definitions and declarations is also welcome. But please, keep flaming to a minimum. I know it's all too easy to make fun of those who don't share your viewpoint; but the purpose of this thread is to clarify our definitions.

Once again, the three questions:

1. What is 'doom'?
2. According to your own definition, are you a 'doomer'?
3. Why or why not?
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"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy

coyote · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:33 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

I'll get the ball rolling:

1. For me, doom means the collapse of global industrial civilization, followed by something like the dark ages and a significant dieoff event. There's no particular timetable; it could unfold over a few decades, or even a couple of centuries. My personal belief is that a global collapse would likely follow the pattern of a slow decline over some few decades, followed by a hard fast crash after too many societal supports have been taken away one after another. This is the pattern followed by many collapsing societies described in Jared Diamond's book Collapse.

2. I am a doomer.

3. Peak oil, by itself, does not cause my doomerhood (doomerosity?). I believe peak oil by itself would be a 'long emergency,' as described by Kunstler, leading to a slow, extended dieback as less and less food, medicine, etc. are produced and distributed. What makes me a doomer is peak oil compounded by the other natural resource and myriad ecological crises coming down the pike, as described in my 'Converging Catastrophes' thread. Peak oil might be navigable on its own; but not in conjunction with global heating, aquifer loss, topsoil loss, fishery depletion, mass extinctions, etc. These are the societal supports mentioned in my definition, which will be taken away one by one until continuance of industrial society becomes untenable. I don't know how long this will take; but I don't see much concerted movement in a different direction. I believe that eventually this will happen.
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"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy

Pixie · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

Coyote,

I pretty much share your definition of doom, except that I would not consider industrial collapse to be doom unless it is extremely unpleasant. To whit: if we were able to slowly transition to a low energy society without any abrupt population crash, that would not be doom to me, it would be the answer to my prayers. On the other hand, any transition involving an abrupt population crash from 7 or 8 billion down to 1 or 2 billion people would definitely count as doom.

I am a doomer. I am convinced that doom is coming by the fact that green revolution ag is fossil fuel based, and we only had 1 or 2 billion on the planet before that point. I don't believe we can produce the same amount of energy from any combination of sources without fossil fuels, and if we did, we would just pollute the planet that much more, leading to a greater degradation in the natural ecological systems that determine our carrying capacity.

I believe that the ugly die off will come between 2030 and 2070. That's just my gut feeling, based on all the arguments I have seen on all sides. I point to no single piece of evidence and no single analysis to support my feeling.

BTW, In 2030, I will be 60, so I will have had a long, satisfying life and no kids, so I am not that worried for myself or my family.
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frankthetank · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 1:33 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

Empty grocery store shelfs. No jobs or limited number of jobs. Gas stations empty. Refrigerators that don't run and furnaces that don't heat (no electricity/no gas).
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greenworm · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jan 27, 2006 Posts: 1377

2012, oil is the least of our concerns.

Heineken · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 2:42 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

Coyote, excellent thread idea, and excellent post. You took the words out of my mouth in answering your three questions.

Global warming (increasingly being euphemized, often unwittingly, as "climate change") is the development that turned me into a hard-core doomer. As big as PO will be, GW dwarfs it in significance and ultimate impact.

When you combine GW with PO and environmental devastation, you get an overwhelming one-two-three punch that will render the world unable to support anything like its current population for more than a few additional decades at most. Thus, the doomer position is the only realistic and logical one, because the problems have become larger than we can ever solve, just like the national debt is larger than we can ever pay.

At a personal level over the remaining years I could reasonably have been expected to live (a max of about 30), doom for me is ever-hotter weather, ever-worse droughts, insects or fire consuming my forestland, my well going dry, periodic crushing storms, growing difficulty maintaining buildings and equipment, food harder or more expensive to get, health care unaffordable or unobtainable, brownouts and blackouts that leave me sweating through 100-degree nights, and electricity and fuel bills that are simply out-of-sight. Eventually these events and others are certain to conspire to kill me, and many others, prematurely.
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---Abused, abandoned hunting dog

"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
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Don35 · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 07, 2006 Posts: 143

1. For me doomerish=Die-off, economic collapse, resource wars, etc.
2. Yes, I am a doomer.
3. There seem to be more storms ahead of us than we could ever handle. There are simply TOO MANY PEOPLE. We consume everything and that can't last forever.

Good thread!
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Everybody thinks they're righteous! Adam Baldwin "Jayne" Firefly/Serenity

Concerned · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Sep 23, 2004 Posts: 1548

anagami · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 3:46 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

I concur with basically all this thread so far.

thuja · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

Doom: Civilization as we know it ending as well as an eventual population contraction towards the carrying capacity of the Earth sans fossil fuels. There will be no technological free energy machines. There will be no basket of alt. energies allowing us to live as we do now.

At the same time- doom and die-off are terms that make me very very annoyed on this board. There are many many intelligent people here but I often see people talking in generalities of a coming die-off that conjures images of starving, cannibalistic zombie hordes. As a previous poster liked to suggest, the lights are out and no more food at the grocery store. This leads to "Annie Get your gun" scenarios and the bunker mentality that I like to call uber-doomer. Please don't put me in that category. For a quick perusal of that thinking, go to Lifeaftertheoilcrash.net and Savinars's site.

I am also an optimistic doomer, as concerned said. I don't believe population contraction is a scary or dangerous thing. It is already happening in most all of the old Soviet Union States and Eastern Europe. It is about to happen in many parts of W. Europe and Japan. Its called low fertility and and lowered average lifespan. No 4 riders of the apocalypse...

I also think that after a population contraction, life will begin to moderate and will still include some vestiges of modern civilization. There will still be complicated technology a hundred years hence- it will just be used much more sparingly. The excesses of modern industrialism and associated ecocide will be curbed and humans will be forced to live within the natural perameters of the Easrth's carrying capacity. What's doomeristic about that?

So go doom- just not uber-doom!

Don35 · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 07, 2006 Posts: 143

Pixie · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

AgentR · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:05 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

coyote · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:10 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?

Thanks, Heineken. You and I are clearly on the same page with this.

I agree with you about 'climate change' being a euphemism. It just sounds so much friendlier. I personally have latched onto the term 'global heating,' as used by Lovelock. It's the least euphemistic of the three.

I like how you turned your doom definition personal. For me personally, doom is simply not having enough to eat or drink. I've gone 1-3 days without food many times, and once as long as six full days, but I still don't like the idea one bit. My various fasts, forced and unforced, have failed to dewussify me.
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"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy

Ludi · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject: Re: What does doom mean to you?