[Ibon]

There is a well known saying

Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Applying this saying to the global dilemma at hand with resource depletion and related biosphere and economic events that all point to overshoot is perhaps one of the most important exercises or meditations for both those just initiating themselves to this topic along with the more seasoned amongst us who have pondered this question for up to a decade or more.

This is about making wise decisions regarding life style and career choices as much as it is about psychologically coping.

We all begin to understand, to varying degrees, that there will be a long term correction here before we will see any effectiveness at mitigation coming from our governments, economic system, technology and attempts at cultural re-engineering of our global society away from firmly non-sustainable lifestyles and values over to a more sustainable model. In other words, there is a lot already baked into the cake that cannot be changed. We are all committed to riding along with the collective ignorance until consequences create an impasse which then also represents an opening.

The wisdom of knowing the difference about what you can change here and what you have to accept cannot be overstated.

For myself I no longer assume that the monetary and physical assets within my possession are stable. I am prepared mentally to adjust whether this changes for the worst, stays the same, or even, however remote at this point, that this might temporarily improve. In other words, I am living with less assumptions on stability.

This is humbling. It changes the way I relate to fellow humans. What I choose to purchase. What I choose to invest in. It makes me develop a more defensive strategy like a goal keeper. It moves me toward becoming a better gardener. To ride the bus. To align myself more with the millennial generation I see in my children who have no assumptions going forward about a society that will provide them with sufficient ground for building up wealth.

A few short years ago these sentiments would have seemed too gloomy and too defensive and negative. And yet today they seem in alignment with the times.

Within this new orientation there is gratefulness and harmony. Joy and good times with friends. In fact, it has surprisingly revealed the hubris that was always hiding there during earlier times where I felt entitled to a more secure future.

Addressing this combination of psychological coping together with making wise decisions about ones work and study and choices of where one invests and whether to buy a gardening tool or an upgraded digital device is really important. And understanding the boundaries one has to work within and not fighting those boundaries.

This is a great time to witness our species as external events will repeatedly ask of each of us to choose between dignity and continuing a parasitic relationship with our biosphere. 99.9 % of us our compromised and beholden to some degree to the current paradigm. Accepting that part we cannot change and from within those boundaries making the wise choice is as much as each of us can be called upon to do.

Even if while doing so a big wave rolls you over and leaves you to pick up the pieces and move forward.

[Plantagenet]

I no longer assume that the monetary and physical assets within my possession are stable. I am prepared mentally to adjust whether this changes for the worst, stays the same, or even, however remote at this point, that this might temporarily improve. In other words, I am living with less assumptions on stability.

This is humbling. It changes the way I relate to fellow humans. What I choose to purchase. What I choose to invest in. It makes me develop a more defensive strategy like a goal keeper. It moves me toward becoming a better gardener.

I love your thoughtful posts, Ibon. When I see one of your posts, I immediately click on it.

However, I have to disagree somewhat here. The impending instability has partly led me to be more defensive---I've sold off stocks and put effort into "superinsultating" my house, for instance, but its also prodded me to do some of the things I've always wanted to do now. I think one of the first things to be lost as we continue to watch the economy crumble in the "long emergency" will be low cost air travel. Therefore I've kicked up my travelling to go NOW to see places I've always wanted to go. For me, while I'm crawling below my house and re-installing insulation and re-sealing and caulking now, I'm also putting things together to make a trip to Africa over the xmas holidays. I recommend other also considering doing that special trip you've always wanted to do right now, at the same time that you are making preps to hunker down for the Long Emergency.

[Pops]

I thought of looking up the old "Assessments and Plans" thread the other day but this sounds just as good.

I'm actually more optimistic than I was a dozen years ago.

Before I came to PO my immediate worry was the real estate and credit bubble. In '02 or so we dissolved our little ad agency when things slowed down. I wasn't really the owner sort it turned out, my partner was better at it, I wanted to give our people medical insurance and vacations and such and it just stuck in his craw to be giving away all that perfectly good money, lol.

But by early '04 I was looking to bail out of the CA real estate market, when the .com bust didn't stop the RE bubble in california I knew it would be trouble. Same with credit overall, although I didn't understand how bad things were going to be. I'd been reading about PO by then but figured things would move slow so by '08 I was pretty surprised at how fast things came together to fall apart.

The reason I'm more optimistic is that in my mind the great recession and crude plateau has been a relief valve and maybe somewhat of a wakeup. Really, no one I knew had any idea that things were going to slow down, ever. I told a good friend who was torn about make a move into a different house they'd better get on it, that was back in '02!

I'm encouraged at this point. The economy is holding together after a fashion, of course it is horrible in places but banks still work, FRNs still buy stuff, heirloom seeds are still a hobby, the grid is still energized. Lots of things are so much better than pre-recession, driving is down, waste is down, renewables and conservation are up. Even the modest drop - so far - in the equity markets is a good sign.

Oil prices are high but we've learned that they simply can't go stratospheric - to the Simmons level - because someone must be able to support the price or it will simply come down, not many can afford $500 or $1,000 bbl oil.

We've cut back driving to an extent some folks thought would mean babies starving in the street, well sorta. The price of oil is high enough to induce conservation and innovation and not so high as to squelch the economy completely. The government is doing some conservation stuff, CAFE, Energy Star, etc. and trying to help renewables as good as .gov can I guess.

No one need try to convince me we are Dead Specie Walking, you'll just make yourself morose and not change my mind, LOL. Obviously the big picture stuff is still there, GW, PO, OP (OverPopulation) genetic loss, etc. No doubt in my mind the grandkids will have a different life but I wondered there for a while if they'd even have a chance.

[Ibon]

I think one of the first things to be lost as we continue to watch the economy crumble in the "long emergency" will be low cost air travel. Therefore I've kicked up my travelling to go NOW to see places I've always wanted to go.

I actually understand and ironically am heartened by your view since it is tourists taking advantage of cheap air travel that enables the 3 main income streams that keep me financed in the projects I am involved with in Panama, Florida and Thailand. I have often wondered why, with all the peak oil knowledge I have gained, that I permitted myself to become somewhat financially dependent on the discretionary spending of tourists.

The end of cheap air travel will require a reassessment of how I maintain a sustainable financial base in the future.

[Ibon]

The reason I'm more optimistic is that in my mind the great recession and crude plateau has been a relief valve and maybe somewhat of a wakeup. Really, no one I knew had any idea that things were going to slow down, ever. bbl oil.

My two daughters, 22 and 20, have exposed me to their generation. They are both pretty interesting individuals who have a large network of millennial generation friends. When I look collectively at their outlook and aspirations they certainly do not appear to me to be primed with any expectations of a high consumption lifestyle going forward. Witnessing the emergence of this generation seems to reinforce your optimistic view.

[agramante]

My daughter is three, my son is one, and at times I'm almost paralytically afraid for the world they'll grow up and live in. In my better moments I realize that the life my wife and I create for them at home will largely condition what they expect beyond it. Aside from a few computers and a TV with cable we aim for a pretty simple, 20th-century-or-less lifestyle. I'm hoping to make enough in the next five or six years to pay the house off. By nature I'm a worrier, but at my best I can manage that to be motivation to get things done, and try to build a robust lifestyle. As I tell my wife: in the best (worst?)-case scenario, if the economy gets really bad, we'll have a small farm and library to sustain ourselves and stay educated; in the worst (best?)-case scenario, if things don't get that bad, well, we'll still have a nice farmhouse in Maine, and I'll have my library. My daughter, at three, has said several times that she wants to be a veterinarian. She's getting her first rabbit later this summer, once it's weaned, from her grandmother. (My son loves Thomas the train. That's about as far as he's gotten yet.)

When it comes to the many and large effects that an economic collapse would entail, and the likely climate weirdness on the way, I can only think that trying to hunker down now and make our lives more robust and sustainable will still involve plenty of unforeseen difficulties.

[C8]

Ibon- I don't think things will be that bad for the next 20-40 years and maybe even after. I learned a lot from the non-event of the collapse that was predicted a decade ago. Our financial, energy, agricultural, etc. systems are far, far more resilient than many thought was possible. Yes we have big problems, but I am astounded at the amount of knowledge that is being created every day to solve those problems and I think disaster is very much not inevitable.

Energy shortages? There is a truly massive amount of nuclear fuel available and plants are getting to be very safe. Then add all the possibilities of renewables, natural gas, etc. its a crazy amount of energy.

Population overshoot? Yes, it is happening but we still throw away almost half of the food produced today so there is room for more at the table. Plus population increase rates are slowing down, and I think this slowdown will accelerate as electronics invade more corners of the world (these trends are linked)

water shortages? very real, but so is massive water waste. Drip irrigation could dramatically slowdown aquifer drawdown rates. Desalinization will add even more water.

Soil loss? this is a tough but slow moving one- with no easy or cheap solutions, but better tilling would help. Still, this one is tough.

Global warming? Definitely getting worse, but it will take many, many years for it to become really severe. So much depends on models that may not be entirely accurate (but might be too optimistic too!) I think we have geo engineering options that could work and will eventually be used. Carbon capture is also being strongly researched and we may see a breakthrough there.

Now these trends could get better or worse, the future could really go either way- but we are learning so much more every day.

Think of all the great scares of the last 50 years:

1. nuclear war- total wipe out, nuclear winter
2. nuclear power plants burning through the earth (3 mile island)
3. killer diseases (AIDS mutates and kills us all, bird flu, etc.)
4. asteroid impact (this one still unnerves me- but it is very remote and we still have Bruce Willis)
5. Y2K (complete collapse!)
6. Mass terrorist attacks on US (powder in your envelope anyone?)
7. Peak Oil ($400 barrel oil)
8. Global Financial Meltdown- riots in streets

There is a whole frikkin fear industry out there.

and what actually should you be worried about?

1. not getting enough exercise, obesity
2. cancer, heart disease
3. getting clobbered by that guy in a giant pick-up

But do we tackle these real dangers? Usually not, we are too busy worrying about fancy dangers.

You live in California I see, which, arguably, is part of the USA. Given the vast energy, agricultural, military, and business infrastructure resources we have here- I think America will be the best place to be if things do get worse. Plus you (Californians) create great entertainment so even if we do go down it will be an epic blockbuster.

Pick any time in history, and I can point out 20 reasons why it was a horrible time to be alive. We are actually in a very good situation compared to many. So, relax, enjoy the time life gives you. The challenges you and your family will face are likely the same ones faced by everyone else in the past. A person is no less dead at 80 than at 20. The purpose of life is not to lived the longest but the best. Worry and fear destroy the moments we have- better to optimistically tackle the future and at least you will have fun no matter what the outcome (and you will teach your loved ones a valuable lesson as well by your example). We destroy our happiness far more than events do.

[mmasters]

Don't forget technology. We have more people working on it than ever and in most every area of life the technology is already adequate or mature. There's a ton of tech resources to be dispersed towards any problem that may arise, especially the bloated energy elephant. And you can't overlook how fast solutions move now with the internet. It's a very powerful global collective tool that is just beginning to mature.

I think maturity of tech in general is a problem. I mean with all the innovation that has happened how much better a tv or a smartphone do you need? What do all these billions of people do to climb the ladder now? LOL I think socialism is inevitable. The only big ladder left soon will be energy. Too much has been done already. Most the world is moving into a maintenance mode where only tactical people are needed to keep things running (most the population is tactical in nature anyways).

The people that thought rock and roll will never die are like the people that think global capitalism will never die. Rock and roll is dead these days. I would only think when the resource shortages start the financial system will cease to function properly and the tactical fixes wont suffice anymore. Capitalism's last throes may be of an energy tech boom. I mean after that what's left to drive our exponential growth oriented financial system? Very little.

I would expect the first global financial collapse to happen in our lifetime. When? Who knows maybe 10-20 years out but it seems inevitable.

I think the best advice is get out of debt, get a house and get some kind of job that doesn't have a shelf life. After a global financial collapse and resource shortages we're just going to be slaves to the government with some kind of account with government issued credits on it. Best get yourself some meaningful things and have the means to maintain them. To some degree gold will just get ceased, money will evaporate, investments will dry up, etc... JMHO

[ennui2]

"get some kind of job that doesn't have a shelf life."

Seems like the one industry left in the US that is really healthy is medical. I was at the hospital tonight to visit my grandmother who had a heat-related exhaustion episode, and that place is like a fancy hotel. You have to pay extra each day just to get normal TV stations. The nurses wheel around laptops. The place is squeaky clean and new and must have cost a fortune to renovate. My grandmother gets MRIs and all sorts of other high-tech tests, which is all well and good, but this place is clearly making BANK through the f-d up insurance system we have these days. It's one of the few industries that can't be outsourced.

Elsewhere, I see working digitally being the primary career. For instance, think of the movie Metropolis, with the iconic image of the guy hooked up to the machine that is like a clock, and his hands are moving the clock hands back and forth. The industrial revolution was known for putting people to work in manufacturing. Now the main product the American worker is expected to make is virtual. So you're talking about programming as the new assembly-line worker. But not just that, also digital artists. Think about the Rhythm & Hughes bankruptcy. Just like Metropolis, the guys on the front line who are most responsible for keeping the lights on are denied a fair share of the pie.

I dragged my tail between my legs to reenter programming, and don't get me wrong, I'm making a decent living again for the time being, but it's not even close to what I made before, and it's temp-to-perm, which is a scheme I'm sure a lot of companies are employing in order to limit their liabilities.

In the golden days of the dot com boom, programmers were put on a pedestal because TPTB had no idea what the internet was. All they knew is--they wanted in. So they relied on these 20 somethings with their ponytails and blackberries to tell them what it is they needed, and they threw cash at them with abandon. That's how my old employers managed to scam Murdoch for half a billion dollars--to buy MySpace. But now, internet success stories are few and far between, and it seems there's always a point where the exhuberance wears off and the actual market value of the company is called into question, like the stock price situation with Facebook, or the Zynga downgrade.

The internet is able to make a very small people very rich, but usually even the companies that made them rich have very short shelf-lives by historical standards, which just seems wrong to me. It's not necessarily pump-and-dump, but it's pretty close to it.

Anyway, that's my updated assessment of the economy based on high-tech.

As for doom(TM), we really do seem to be looking at a medium->long descent, depending on how fast the climate chaos destroys agriculture (and it is definitely on track to do just that). I think fossil fuel supplies, when factoring in fracking, ultra-deep-sea rigs, or even methane-hydrates, will kick the can down the road far enough that stuff like nitrogen fertilizer or winter heating won't be the primary limiting factor, but rather weather patterns amenable to agriculture, as the jet streams is now permanently in a chaotic state that causes snowless winters and spring-time snowfall here in New England and 90' heat-waves in Alaska.

I no longer believe in the merits of relocalization, because we NEED one part of the globe to act as a buffer to the other side. If there were no globally shared bread-basket, we'd start having regional famines pretty quickly. That's not to say we shouldn't maximize local production anyway, but unless all the food we grow is covered in greenhouses, we're at the mercy of mother-nature. A late or early frost, flood, or drought are enough to wipe out a whole year's crop. If you insist on eating within a 50 mile radius, expect to go hungry living in Bill McKibben's Eaarth. I just don't think any degree of permaculture practices can compensate for a broken climate.

Really the #1 thing that doom did for me as far as lifestyle goes is convince me to get out of debt. I once had up to $20K in credit card debt. Now I pay it off each month. The housing boom convinced me not to buy at the top, and prices not coming down enough in eastern MA convinced me not to buy at the bottom. I might have done the doomstead thing, but could not get buy-in from the rest of my family, and I just don't have the resources to go it alone. So the earliest I could really walk the talk is when the house I'm living in now is sold, which probably won't happen until my daughter graduates from high school in 2018.

What I'll be doing for a living then is anyone's guess. But I used to think we'd be well on our way to Mad Max by then, and now I think it will be more or less similar to what we have now, barring dollar collapse doom (which is something people also keep saying is 'imminent' for years).

But the moral of the story, for Gen-X, is that the main equity my generation has comes from inheritance from the booty of the boomers that was earned during the glory post-war days of the US. The last true golden period was something I was fortunate enough to enjoy, that being the two dot-com booms.

The downside of not taking on debt is I have absolutely no idea how I will be able to get my daughter through college. Like I said--I originally didn't think college would mean anything to her. I thought she'd be busy plugging zombies with a bow and arrow from the doomstead. Now I'm ambivalent about it, because even in my optimistic scenarios, I think she'll certainly have whatever BAU career she establishes cut-short, so it would probably be better not to blow $100K+ on a college education that could be better spent elsewhere. I really think doomer parents face tough decisions regarding higher-education.

[Keith_McClary]

Plus population increase rates are slowing down, and I think this slowdown will accelerate as electronics invade more corners of the world (these trends are linked)

[agramante]

We've already had a global financial collapse. Europe is barely breathing, the USA is recovering only weakly, and China's export model is starting to suffer. There are very likely worse collapses to come, which might make this one look as quaint as this crisis made the mid-1980's commercial bank crash look. And not necessarily the cataclysmic, End Of Debt-type crash that some might imagine, but merely a logical result of lessons not learned from the last crash, in banks continuing to play with derivatives, only now having insulated their positions somewhat with new laws which give them preferred access to bailout funds--at the expense of everyone and everything else.

I'm less sanguine on the potential of nuclear and renewables. I think we should try to further implement them, especially using safer new nuclear designs, but the numbers still aren't favorable. According to the IEA, in 2010 more than 81% of the world's energy came from fossil fuels, 5% from nuclear, and 3.2% from hydro, solar and wind (10% came from biofuels and burning waste). And it remains true that the only really viable fuel source for transportation is oil or possibly natural gas, particularly in the areas of shipping, flight and heavy machinery. Implementing and maintaining use of renewables and nuclear, and maintaining the related infrastructure, requires a large amount of petroleum and/or gas.

[Ron Patterson]

Total collapse is already baked into the cake. Human destruction of the natural world began perhaps 200 years ago but has dramatically accelerated during the last half century. Animal species are going extinct at the fastest rate in 55 million years.

Ocean fisheries are disappearing, deserts are expanding, rain forest and boreal forest are disappearing, topsoil is being washed away, water tables in most of Asia are dropping at the rate of meters per year.

Rivers, lakes and inland seas are drying up. The once mighty Yellow river in China now only reaches the sea in the rainy season. The Aral Sea once supported a fishing industry that supported and gave employment to tens of thousands in the area and fed millions. Now it is mostly a dry salt bed. Lake Chad, once the size of New Jersey is now a tiny mud hole.

Now the peaking of world oil production is playing havoc with the economies of the world. Most of Europe is experiencing a slow collapse. And it will get worse, much worse.

Yes total economic collapse is already baked into the cake. The only question left to answer is: How fast will the economies of the world collapse? Will there be a great acceleration like there was with species extinction? Or will the collapse take decades, leading to the extinction of most of the rest of the world's species?

The only thing worse than peak oil would be no peak oil.

[mmasters]

We've already had a global financial collapse.

No we haven't.

[agramante]

What do you call the last five years, then? The banks are still zombies.

[SeaGypsy]

A 'Global financial collapse' would be recognizable as something like Cyprus something like everywhere. Hasn't happened, yet.

[agramante]

For the sole reason that other countries are still willing to accept dollars as reserve currency, so the Fed can still fling trillions at banks to save their balance sheets. Perhaps that's the last barrier that needs to break for everyone to realize that the system has failed. But the financial system worldwide has been on taxpayer life support for the last five years. It will likely take a different crisis for the life support to be terminated and the fiction of bank solvency to end.

[Ibon]

We've already had a global financial collapse.

What defines collapse or even crisis is somewhat subjective. Think a moment of how many folks are reacting to what is really the first major grinding of the gears in what has been an unprecedented linear growth curve for several decades. We have become so habituated to this growth mind set that when these first early corrections occur we call it collapse.

We are not by any means anywhere even close to a financial collapse situation.

We haven't bounced back because we no longer really can. We are just all still somewhat dazed by this realization. What is also baked into the cake are the products of several decades of unprecedented growth; a well educated work force, decades of R&D, an aging but still amazing infrastructure, the asset inertia of long standing industries which will continue to function even though they make change more difficult.

All in all, we are still chewing through the planets resources with a rapacious apetite that has hardly slowed with what we are calling collapse.

[Loki]

Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I prefer the more parsimonious Stoic version, but it's the same idea: “Of things, some are in our power and some are not.”

How much is already “baked into the cake” is certainly not within my power to change. What is within my power is 1/7 billionth of how much more the cake will be baked. And how I react.

Reducing one's personal demands and becoming more self-sufficient, preparing to live in a lower energy world with a lower level of material wealth, building useful skills, and building social networks are about all one can do.

And, most importantly, keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of adversity and finding joy in changing circumstances. As Epictetus said, our opinion is the one thing we have total power over.

[Loki]

Yes we have big problems, but I am astounded at the amount of knowledge that is being created every day to solve those problems

I'm not seeing that. Most of our financial and human capital is being frittered away on useless or downright destructive technologies.

Energy shortages? There is a truly massive amount of nuclear fuel available and plants are getting to be very safe. Then add all the possibilities of renewables, natural gas, etc. its a crazy amount of energy.

Thousands of gallons of virtual ink have been spilled on this subject here at PO.com. Nukes will not save us.

Population overshoot?

It's already happened. Theoretical reductions in future growth rates are largely irrelevant at this point.

Global warming? Definitely getting worse, but it will take many, many years for it to become really severe.

True, but I don't have kids. I'd be worried as hell if I did. If I had grandkids they would live to the year 2100, by which time climate change will likely have become catastrophic. That's really not that far away, though I'll be long dead.

Pick any time in history, and I can point out 20 reasons why it was a horrible time to be alive.

True enough, but a student of history will also know that some serious shit has hit the fan in the past. Think World War II, the conquest of the Americas and associated dieoff, the Black Plague, various sundry famines, etc. Read a history of 14th-century England if you want to know how bad things can get.

We spoiled modern Americans live in a technofantasyland where bad things can never happen to us any more. History and nature say otherwise. And they always have the last word.

That said, I think what most folks posting here on PO.com will see during the course of our remaining lives is increasing poverty and social disorder. The actuarial tables say I should live into the 2040s---by then I don't expect the US to be like Mad Max's Australia, but it could very well look like modern-day Bolivia. The truly bad mojo operates at a scale of decades and centuries. It will be our childrens' children who will get to fully enjoy the climate and energy catastrophes we've been cooking up.

[agramante]

I agree with you, Loki, though I think it's possible that within our lifetime we could be seeing pretty serious climate change effects (though still more serious would be likely yet to follow). I suppose the question of financial collapse resides in how you define the terms "financial" and "collapse". I was thinking of the banks, which have largely failed, except that the world's governments (notably the Fed) have been propping them up for the last five years--to the tune of $29T in bailouts, as of December 2011 (a full 18 months ago). If that's not collapse, I don't know what is. The banks are dead like Bernie. What's left is for the governments, ours and others around the world, to become insolvent themselves. I didn't include that in thinking about financial collapse because the bankruptcy of a government would be a much wider systemic collapse than just financial, though it would surely complete the destruction of our financial system as we know it.

It's been written often and comprehensively enough that our economy based on growth is staring its own mortality in the face. I'd argue that's why trade agreements like NAFTA have proliferated in recent years, to allow industrialists to continue making profits by shifting their production to undeveloped parts of the world, and leaving the developed parts to decay. Now that oil scarcity and prices have made further growth largely impossible, banks (and at some point in the future, governments too) cannot make good on their obligations. The system has already seized up and failed. When it fully crashes to the ground is yet to be seen.