Peak Oil is You
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Page added on May 3, 2016
Time To Get Serious Pt 4
A fossil fuel-driven-and-made-possible life is all any of us have ever known. There are virtually no aspects of commerce, leisure, transportation, or consumption which do not depend in some part on inexpensive, readily-available and easily-produced fossil fuels. That is most certainly not going to change dramatically overnight, but the situation we’ll soon be facing simply isn’t going to get any better if all we’re counting on for many more years is even more inexpensive, readily-available and easily-produced fossil fuels.
So what to do? Do we want a voice in the solutions or not?
Who among us wants even more problems and worries to contend with now? Plates are still full and then some. For issues like peak oil—where it’s not at all clear that problems with fossil fuel supplies exist today or tomorrow or next month—that challenge very quickly slides down our list of priorities.
Aided by determined efforts to shade the truths about current and future production challenges makes it that much easier to pay no attention at all to what a declining base of our primary energy source might mean for all of us.
All duly noted and a perfectly reasonable determination to make … today. The underlying concerns voiced by proponents of peak oil and its impact remains unchanged notwithstanding. A future with diminishing fossil fuel resources—our future, more specifically—is going to be so different and in so many ways, and so much more constrained by that fact, it’s unlikely anyone can legitimately wrap their mind around that eventuality at this moment.
We have relied on inexpensive, readily-available and easily-produced fossil fuels for so much, so long, in so many ways, for so many products and services that it is just about inconceivable right now to appreciate how many changes are in the offing. Anyone thinking that freedom to be free as one pleases without regard for others (so long as the same rights and freedoms of every other person are similarly respected) is sheer fantasy in a post-Peak Oil world.
Fossil fuel—oil in particular—plays an essential role in almost everything that touches our everyday lives. From the food we eat; to the means by which we transport ourselves; to the creation and availability of the innumerable products we need and use; to the availability of and development of the just-as-countless services we rely upon; to everything else we grow, build, have, own, need, and do, oil is almost always an important element. Who among us ever pauses to consider that? [No blame assessed because we don’t.]
Just look outside your window and appreciate all that our ingenuity and technological prowess has created. But consider also the output and process of both creation and use. Multiply that by countless millions of locales and hundreds of millions of other individuals and organizations doing the same, dependent on that same finite and ever-depleting resource. No consequences to any of this? Seriously?
Transitioning to a non-fossil-fuel based society will be no easy or quick process. Very few aspects of our lives—personal or commercial—will be untouched. The evolution of new systems and production modes and transportation options will be years/decades in the making. Accepting that is step one. The creativity and vision and skill and sense of community that first built this nation are the very same traits we will need once again as we usher in a new future.
Can we at least start the conversations needed?
9 Comments on "Time To Get Serious Pt 4"
Makati1 on Tue, 3rd May 2016 9:36 pm
Oil is a luxury that many can no longer afford. As time passes, fewer and fewer will be interested in oil in any form. Yes, ANY form.
If you cannot grow your own food, you will not eat. If your water is polluted, you will drink it and hope it is not fatal. If you need shelter, you will find a way to get it. If you need clothes, you will learn how to make them from what is available.
Scrounging like a 3rd worlder will become the norm for the 1st world inhabitants that survive. Few will. Survive, that is. They are not in a condition to do so.
Extreme? Maybe. Or maybe not. How long would it take to reach that level if all electric were to be destroyed by a natural or man-made EMP? Or a nuclear exchange that took out all of the major cities in America and started a nuclear winter?
Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That is all we can do. Buckle Up!
Sissyfuss on Wed, 4th May 2016 12:26 pm
The author says the conditions brought about by fossil fuels will not change in a dramatic way overnight. And yet there are millions of Americans who will tell you that the conditions of their lives have already changed dramatically and abruptly at this point in time. Transitioning to a post fossil fuel existence will be neither easy or quick. It will be impossible. Ask the residents of Fort McKinley for a glimpse of all of our fate.
Sissyfuss on Wed, 4th May 2016 12:28 pm
Edit. Fort McMurray.
Davy on Wed, 4th May 2016 1:47 pm
The beginning of the process of ending cash?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-04/war-paper-currency-officially-begins-ecb-ends-productionissuance-eu500-bill
peakyeast on Wed, 4th May 2016 2:06 pm
@Davy: We have had a lot of trouble in Europe with the 500 euro note. Its very common that people try to falsify it and some of them are very good.
There has been a lot of rumbling and complaining about this through the years – I suppose they finally gave up.
But its for certain the government(s) are fast tracking towards outphasing physical money. They have already put in laws that no payment above 10.000kr (about 1300$) can be made legally in physical money. It must be a bank transfer.
Also a lot of shops are talking about not accepting physical money anymore. – Incl. supermarkets.
But the reality is that its not the shops thats talking about it – because they know they will lose customers – so they are all waiting for legislation to make it so.
Apneaman on Wed, 4th May 2016 2:46 pm
Collapse goes mainstream…sort of.
Glenn Reynolds: Don’t let U.S. become next Rome
Entrenched political elites will sacrifice anything to retain power, including their own country.
“I happened to be reading two things at once last week that in combination led to some disturbing thoughts.
The first was Joseph A. Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies, which looks at the fall of various ancient empires, from the early civilizations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, to the Roman Empire and the Maya. Tainter’s theory, to simplify things quite a bit, is that as societies grow they become more complex, slapping on layer after layer of institutions, regulations and customs to deal with challenges (and, I suspect, to facilitate the ruling classes’ extracting resources from the ruled).”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/05/03/government-complexity-entrenched-special-interests-illinois-puerto-rico-venezuela-column/83801194/
makati1 on Wed, 4th May 2016 6:57 pm
Peaky, when the cash is gone, so is your freedom. It will never happen, I hope. Those idiots have not considered what happens when the internet connecting all of those transactions goes down and never comes back up(EMP?). Or is even down for a day. The riots will be much worse than any ‘inconvenience’ on the part of banks or shop keepers. The biggest counterfeiters are the various governments that want total control of your money.
I don’t see it ever happening globally. Small countries do not have the banking coverage to make it possible. Here in the Ps less than 30% have bank accounts and even fewer have any credit or debit cards. Almost every purchase is for cash. I am sure most non-Western countries are not much different. Banking is for the rich. Not the serfs.
peakyeast on Thu, 5th May 2016 3:04 am
@mak: I also hate the idea. And it is going to be interesting what happens if they do it.
I think a lot of the “economic” activity will be done in naturals or foreign currencies.
People are getting very tired of the taxation here in Denmark. We have had several cases where businesses pay 120% in TAX. IOW: They have to PAY to “earn”…
At the same time our tax office has been giving away 12E9 kr. about 2billion $ to foreigners claiming tax refunds without ever checking them – even after they were warned.
Is anybody being penalized? The tax-office bosses? NOOOOO.. of course not. They are a sick mafia – and they choose the judges they come in front – so they choose the ones that are in their club.
Denmark – not corrupt??!? – fucking LOL – we have legalized corruption – thats why.
Davy on Thu, 5th May 2016 6:43 am
“Peaky, when the cash is gone, so is your freedom.” Your freedom is gone now Makati Bill and you like to think it is not. It does not matter where you are at you are a prisoner of the global system. Makati Bill is a prisoner of it in Makati, P’s. Everything he needs is sourced into the city and he is a prisoner of that reality. Cash or no cash is just a minor distraction from this reality. We are a prisoner of oil and oil based food. We are a prisoner of a climate in abrupt change. The list goes on and on because we are in an existential catch 22 trap. It is a manifestation of a mega predicament with no solution.