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Page added on October 2, 2015
Frackers Face Mass Extinction
Awareness is gradually seeping into the financial press that the Great American Oil Revolution has been over for months — witness the current Fortune headline,“Frackers Could Soon Face Mass Extinction.” If the general media had any grasp of what was happening in America, or what it meant, CNN would be doing wall-to-wall coverage of the deserted man-camps in North Dakota, the unemployment lines in Texas, the equipment yards stacked with idle derricks, the spreading panic in the junk-bond, bond and stock markets. Instead we get Donald’s beautiful tax plan, Hillary’s elusive emails and Carly’s mythical video tapes.
Today is the last day of the rest of the frackers’ lives. That’s because it is the last day of the third quarter of the year, the day after which banks audit their loans, assessing anew the value of the assets held as collateral.
Frackers pledge their oil reserves, and those reserves are worth today about half of what they were worth a year ago. A year ago, they borrowed everything they could. In about two weeks when the audits are done they’re going to have to give half of it back. Many of the companies don’t have it.
Analysts quoted by Fortune expect a third of the fracking companies to go under.
I expected this to happen at the end of the first quarter, when the banks did the first of their two annual reassessments. But I forgot the old rule of thumb: borrow ten thousand dollars, and the bank owns you, borrow ten million and you own the bank. Back in April, lenders bent over backwards to avoid reclassifying loans, and predatory investors poured money into junk-bond rollovers of expiring junk bonds, because they simply could not believe that the ride was over. Prices would go back up, was the mantra they chanted, and all would be well again.
As I’ve reported here over and over, this disaster would have overtaken the fracking patch even if oil prices had not tanked, because its root problem was the hideous decline rate of fracking wells, most of which are exhausted within four years.
Imagine if they built houses of water-soluble materials. You buy a house for $200,000 or so, and at the end of four years it’s uninhabitable and worthless, and you have to buy another one. You might have been making good money those four years, but enough to set aside $50,000 a year? That’s been the fracking problem from the beginning, and virtually every company in the business has had to borrow heavily – actually, recklessly — to stay in the game.
Which is over. For most. There will always be some operators diligently wringing out the last few drops of combustibles, but the Brave New World of American oil supremacy in a cowed world, the age of American energy security, the renewed American oil economy — all creations of marketing departments in search of the proverbial greater-fool investors and lenders — are toast.
Still can’t believe it? Check out David Stockman, “Going Broke in the Shale Patch;” Oil Price.com, “Is This the End of the Shale Gas Revolution?;” CNBC, “US Drillers About to Start Hemorrhaging;” Bloomberg, “Wall Street Lenders Growing Impatient with U.S. Shale Revolution” and “Junk-Debt Investors Fight for Scraps as U.S. Shale Rout Deepens;” and even the Wall Street Journal, “Fracking Firms that Drove Oil Boom Struggle to Survive.”
Yes, it’s morning in the American fracking patch, but instead of Ronald Reagan’s rhapsodic dawn it’s more like something out of Revelations. Even the staid Fortune Magazine says, “Doomsday may finally be coming to the fracking industry.”
56 Comments on "Frackers Face Mass Extinction"
BC on Fri, 2nd Oct 2015 10:44 pm
One-third? That’s charitable. 🙂
makati1 on Fri, 2nd Oct 2015 11:25 pm
The sooner the better and 100% not just some. The easy money is history. Debt is an anchor pulling most of the economy down to it’s death. $18+ Trillion and growing for the US. Like an incurable cancer on American health. Real US government debt exceeds $200 trillion and growing if you include social obligations like SS and the Meds. No way out.
Pennsyguy on Fri, 2nd Oct 2015 11:36 pm
I have sympathy for the now unemployed people who migrated to the oil fields to do grunt work in the Texas sun or the N. Dakota winters. If it were up to me, they would get the bailouts.
I think that the oil industry was among the last that provided well-paying, blue collar jobs in the U.S. An oil bust will mean fewer railroad jobs, among others.
theedrich on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 3:36 am
Yesterday morning (Fri, 2015 Oct 2) that renowned inventor of the internet, Al Gore, mentioned something actually worth repeating. It was a phrase he had heard from some British biggie who was warning about $21 trillion worth of “stranded carbon assets” in the world. “Carbon” meant coal, oil and natural gas. In other words, the global investment in the “carbon” industry was running out of steam and profits, with ominous portents.
Al’s “solution” was to pour everything we’ve got into renewables so that we can keep “sustainable development” going. Unfortunately, even if renewables really were the answer, the dimensions of the dilemma facing us mean that it would be many decades before such replacements could take the place of C.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 6:42 am
I would love to get Marmi’s and the NOoo’s response to that headline. We are finally getting to the point where you can’t talk the numbers down. I dare you guys to come on here and tell me something wonderful.
shortonoil on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 7:00 am
We have been saying for the last two years that a company in the energy business that does not produce energy goes out of business. The average Bakken well reaches the “dead state” (its net energy production becomes zero) after about 70,000 barrels, or 10 months. After that energy is invested into it, and it produces feedstock which does not supply energy.
Although this does not seem to be a very difficult concept to grasp, investors have missed it about 1 trillion times ($). They must be the ones in school that didn’t do their homework?
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
shortonoil on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 7:08 am
“Al’s “solution” was to pour everything we’ve got into renewables so that we can keep “sustainable development” going. Unfortunately, even if renewables really were the answer, the dimensions of the dilemma facing us mean that it would be many decades before such replacements could take the place of C.”
By our calculations it will require an investment of $39 trillion into petroleum over the next decade to keep its production functioning.
Maybe Al can loan them the money?
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
paulo1 on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 8:26 am
If any of you have ever lost a job at the beginning of winter you will understand that flippant comments about finances and oil production masks the tragedy for families that is just beginning. Certainly, the ride down looms for all of us. However, when you and yours are the people losing your future it is a terrible state of affairs.
I lost my job in the ’80s recession. Interest rates shot up to almost 20%, and I had a mortgage and a young family to provide for. I was 28 years old. The difference was that in hindsight there were economic prospects to shoot for and a way to regroup and rebuild, (which I did). What seems to be unfolding now is a little bleaker. I urge people to not smile when you rub your hands in glee about the demise of this era. I understand the environmental issues we have unleashed with FF. Nevertheless, what we discount is the absolute misery this will unleash on families and what it will do to society. All societies. Be careful what you wish for….it could be worse.
As my father-in-law once said, “it’s always trimming the fat when it’s the other guy losing his job. When you do it’s a goddamn shame and tragedy”.
Boat on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 9:22 am
short,
Thanks for your version. Here is the IEA version.
http://peakoil.com/business/frackers-face-mass-extinction
See the number for net production? Frackers get the volume of gas and oil up front and early. Legacy production is much worse. But net production is the key stat. This is why you don’t get it.
Boat on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 9:38 am
Davy
We are finally getting to the point where you can’t talk the numbers down. I dare you guys to come on here and tell me something wonderful.
I am not sure what point your trying to make. Fracking oil is being replaced by cheaper oil around the world. Oil field jobs in the US are in a bad way but happens with all commodities. The last year has been good for the poor that have to drive. Go cheap gasoline.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 9:50 am
How quickly they forget their stories and arguments! When that story proves to be a leaky boat it is a new tune “cheap oil is great”. Wow, what a card our friend boater is.
bobtail on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 9:50 am
Paulo1
Your thoughtful, kind, and humane comment should be taken to heart by every poster. Many people will be hurt in this carnage. The disperate times are here for the children, family bread winners, and retirees
The oil field workers did their best to support their families to work in harsh, sometimes dangerous conditions. They are so far removed from the stock speculators and investment bankers who will never get their just rewards.
BC on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:23 am
paulo and bobtail, well said.
BobInget on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:42 am
Petroleum, that is oil products, not gas shortages, exceedingly high prices will promote alternative solutions.
When the US armed services realized fighter/bombers were eating vast holes in budgets, drones were embraced gladly.
(war seems to be a principal business for the US)
More jobs are being created in alternative energy then are being lost in coal and crude oil mining.
We are in transition, it’s that simple. Them that
are able to acclimate, survive.
BobInget on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:52 am
(correction) I intended to make the point we are transitioning away form scarce oil to more plentiful natural gas as a principal feed stock.
This change also has expiry date. That’s why we coined the term “Bridge Fuel”
marmico on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:55 am
So far, less pain than feared as U.S. shale firms renew loans
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:02 am
Marm, do you think it is wise for political people in the U.S. to talk about fracked gas for Europe? If I remember we were going to wean Europe off Russian gas. I wonder if there is still talk of 20 U.S. LNG terminals? The NOoo was fond of that talk. Any take on that Marm? Can we put all that talk to bed and tuck it in?
BobInget on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:38 am
LNG pipeline for Oregon Coast export terminal just received approval.
GRANTS PASS — Federal regulators granted final environmental approval Wednesday for building a pipeline and port facilities for shipping Rocky Mountain natural gas to Asia via the Oregon coast.
The final environmental impact statement prepared for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that building and operating the gas terminal and pipeline would cause some environmental damage
However, it noted the problems would be reduced to less than significant with mitigation measures proposed by project developers.
The Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal at Coos Bay would be the first LNG port on the West Coast and would be linked to existing pipelines by construction of the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline across southwestern Oregon.
The $7 billion project is led by Veresen Inc., based in Calgary, Alberta
marmico on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:59 am
LNG exports: oasis or mirage?
The money quote: “Despite hopes that global demand will arrive as the
savior of US gas markets starting in 2016, it appears that
the US LNG exporters may be entering the market just as
the party seems to be dying down.”
paulo1 on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 12:24 pm
Bob,
We have one of those permitted applications just approved in BC. I doubt it will get built.
Boat on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 12:25 pm
marmico,
Yea, lol The world is finding so much nat gas the market will have collapsed to US prices. Japan will be very happy. Just in time also as they will be wanting to buy military weapons in response to China pushing it’s weight around.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 12:29 pm
Boat, you might add global demand is stalling creating a supply surplus depressing prices.
GregT on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 12:38 pm
When I worked in the oil patch back in the 80s, natural gas was used to power the pump jacks and/or flared. It wasn’t worth the time and energy to produce. Just like the tar sands, it was considered to be the dregs.
idontknowmyself on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 3:26 pm
A lot of people are now losing their job. I see a lot of houses in my neighborhood with only one person working because the other one lost its job. National Bank will layoff 400 peoples. I suspect it is because the housing bubble in Canada is collapsing and oil investment are losing money and affecting bank earning. Of course you will never read that in the media. If people continue to lose their jobs at this pace, this could cause serious social chaos and disruption of the supply chain following by shortage of goods. If demand keep going down, some manufacturer will have to close factories that could cause shortage and chaos too. Factories today are designed to produce a lot of goods cheaply. Their are not designed to operate at 50% of their max capacity. Eventually the situation will deteriorate and the government worldwide will shit into a command economy and give money to people directly.
Since all natural resources are depleted, this will cause hyperinflation and destroy confidence in currency. Directly collapsing the supply chain. Personally, I am not waiting and checking for shortage and disruption of the supply. Then I will how close we are from die off.
rockman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 4:13 pm
Frac’ng won’t stop. Wells were being frac’d decades before companies went after the shales. In 2 weeks the Rockman will frac a conventional reservoir in a well in Mississippi. The Rockman has restarted a program to chase tite conventional NG reservoirs in S Texas now that drilling/frac’ng has become cheaper thanks to the Eagle Ford slump.
Frac’ng was not uncommon before the shale boom. Amazing that so many folks buy the BS that frac’ng is a “new technology”. Almost 4 decades ago the Rockman put a 500,000# frac into the Edwards Limestone. Many times larger then the typical frac stage being done in the Eagle Ford.
ghung on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 4:36 pm
While I respect all of you who have sympathy for those who’ve lost their jobs, I’m going to play the devil’s advocate for a bit. As Rockman has been pointing out for years, the oil patch has always been boom and bust, and those who don’t conduct their personal finances with that in mind when times are good get what’s coming when things go south.
Case in point, I ran into the son of a friend last night at our local tavern, and, predictably, he was crying in his beer about losing his job as a heavy equipment operator in North Dakota. He went up there to work for my old employer. Around a year ago he was bragging he had made more money in three years than in the previous ten. What did he and his family do with their newfound wealth? They spent it. He got (financed, I discovered) one of the most expensive pickups I’ve seen (Ford ‘Raptor’), bought his wife a big Lexus SUV, bought his kids the horses they’ve been begging for,, I could go on.
I’ve weathered several boom/bust cycles in my time, but always planned for the busts. They weren’t fun, but I wasn’t expecting any sympathy, nor did I need any. This kid (in his late 30s, actually) could have easily paid down their mortgage and car loans, and stashed some cash for harder times – he scoffed at my suggestion some time back that this boom was fixing to go bust – but now he’s in an even deeper hole. He’ll probably be asking his daddy for a bailout soon.
Our area hasn’t really recovered from the real estate construction crash in ’08/’09 (why so many went to ND to find work), so I wish him luck. Not so much demand for equipment operators these days.
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 4:54 pm
rockman
“Which is over. For most. There will always be some operators diligently wringing out the last few drops of combustibles, but the Brave New World of American oil supremacy in a cowed world, the age of American energy security, the renewed American oil economy — all creations of marketing departments in search of the proverbial greater-fool investors and lenders — are toast.”
Must have missed that part eh? Tom Lewis has written many times on fracking being older technology. Wring away asshole. Just remember when TSHTF and your family suffers it’s on you. While we’re waiting, if your daughter get asthma or some other industrial age disease or disorder it’s because of your personal choices. Picking a career extracting FF’s was a personal choice right? We have know the nasty consequences of FF pollution for decades (especially Exxon as we just recently found out) and you choose to go into the most destructive industry known to man just like you choose to burn it and consume like a terminal cancer. Your personal choice has set the specie up for a massive dieback and possible extinction. Good choice rock. When the starvation and shooting and screaming starts, I’m just going to say too fucking bad apes, y’all made bad personal choices.
Boat on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 5:09 pm
Fracking in Mexico and Argentina are being explored. China is getting better at fracking. Conventional is still cheaper at the moment but fracking is getting more competive. Only mother earth can take out fracking.
Davy on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 5:55 pm
Boat, your comment reminded me of kenz300. It sounded so empty and tired like you really want to believe but your subconscious says your an idiot.
bobtail on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 6:31 pm
ghung,
you are absolutely correct about thrift and prudence, but when Scott Shefield CEO of Pioneer tells everyone that we are sitting on 6 stacked “Saudi Americas in the Permian Basin, I can’t fault a young person for getting over extended.
I have sympathy for the workers and contempt for the Scott Sheffields of the oil patch.
antaris on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 6:35 pm
Boat, don’t let your subconscious feel alone, lots of people feel the same way about you.
shortonoil on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 7:37 pm
“you are absolutely correct about thrift and prudence, but when Scott Shefield CEO of Pioneer tells everyone that we are sitting on 6 stacked “Saudi Americas in the Permian Basin, I can’t fault a young person for getting over extended.”
I have talked to enough of these guys to tell you that most of them really believed the ridiculous story that they were spinning. They believed it, their employees believed it, and the investors believed it. This relates to a society that has come to believe that anything that they can image must come true. Having sympathy for such people is not an easy thing to do. Even the Forty Niners knew that the gold rush would be short lived. Many of them had made plans on how to come back before they left. They were just hoping to come back somewhat richer.
rockman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 9:19 pm
ap – So you chose a career that doesn’t require fossil fuels? And you’ve chosen to get a paycheck from companies that didn’t require ff to do business? And you decided to never own an ICE and thus rode a bicycle or walked everywhere? And you chose to heat/warm your home with energy derived from only non-ff sources? And you chose only to eat vegetables grown without ff based fertilizers and harvested as well as transported to your grocery without utilizing ff?
I think everyone here should rise and give a solute to apneaman for refusing to join the single largest source of GHG and pollution on the planet: the fossil fuel consumers.
Well done, grasshopper. LOL.
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:09 pm
Yes I did. What’s your point?
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:16 pm
I mean no I did not. Anyone paying attention to my comments knows what I did for a living. What’s your point?
comicrelief on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:21 pm
Rockman it’s always been “just business” for the oil industry. Their pollution, destruction and cartel behaviour over the past century and more, is very likely responsible for the liquidation of life on Earth.
The addiction to fossil fuels of all types was promoted, administered and made possible by the oil industry. Closing of tramlines, rail lines, the building of roads, bridges and other infrastructure to support a destructive suburbia to mention a little.
Of course you personally cannot be held responsible for the behaviour of the oil industry as a whole but your continuing apologetic stance is getting old. We are completely addicted, your job is done, there is no going back. Coming off the addiction will be the death of us all.
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 10:53 pm
apologetic stance? There’s an understatement if I ever heard on. You are too kind comicrelief. How about an unabashed braggart. What was that number you gave us rockman? $450,000 is what you earned doing your deed last year. Just can’t stop bragging about how much blood money you’re making eh? Not one bit of conscience in you – gonna drill baby drill right up to the end. Stupid obvious status seeking ape if there ever was one. The difference between you and me rockman is I quit when I realized just how far we had come. Will it matter? Not one bit to lessen the horror show that is coming real soon, but even in 2001 when I quit I still thought there was a chance. I don’t have kids either and I will never be innocent, but I will die knowing I did something even if I was a little naive when I did it. Your teenage daughter does not have a fucking chance at a normal life now and you did fuck all. In fact you did everything to make it worse even after you knew. Own it rockman and stop with the bragging and being a conservative apologist to justify your life and elevate yourself above others. I don’t actually believe you had all that much choice, but I think you are incapable of understanding what I mean because you are too wrapped up in your identity defense mechanisms and social conditioning to wake up.
antaris on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:36 pm
Ap we are complicate. If you can be pure, strip off your clothes, walk away and walk into the wild. Start fresh, like before our native brothers with outboards and chainsaws.
apneaman on Sat, 3rd Oct 2015 11:58 pm
antaris, you miss the point. So if no one is 100% pure then every personal action is identical? Then there is no responsibility at all. Everything can be justified because no one is 100% pure. I can chop off someone’s head with an axe and rationalize it by comparing it to how you punched that kid out in grade 9. All impurity is equal. Anything goes. You drink 1 beer a night another guy drinks 15. He gets behind a wheel and kills your family. Hey it identical, because we all drink beer. We’re all guilty and impure so consequences to others do not count. What about the people who don’t use fossil fuels are they just as deserving of what is coming? I guess so by your pretzel logic.
apneaman on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 12:01 am
From Reddit r/collapse
My hypocrisy
“A little drunk (numb) and decided to write about myself and my own hypocrisy.
Today: Wake up, piss into 1.6 gallons of clean water, take a 10 minute shower while polluting it with petrochemicals found in shampoo and other body products. Drive an SUV to your air conditioned office. Pretend to enjoy your job and coworkers. Come home and eat steaks(they’re grass fed so no guilt), watch TV or read the newspaper. Today you learn about another airstrike in the middle east that killed some civilians or how the NSA collects your personal information. Shrug it off, it doesnt affect you.
On Saturday, feel compelled to buy some plastic shit from China because your distant relative who you never talk to is graduating high school. Dont forget to denounce China’s environmental and human rights policies over dinner later that night. If you bought said plastic shit for yourself, don’t forget to show it off to neighbors while you revel in their oos and aas. Eventually it will go into the garage and collect spiderwebs. Sold for $1 in a garage sale 20 years down the road. Maybe that Saturday you go somewhere special for the weekend, but don’t forget to photo document it so you can later post in on Facebook and get some likes. Makes you feel important and we’ll liked. The more expensive the vacation, the better. Promote your social worth and brand online while having general disinterest in what others are doing. Later that night, numb yourself with alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs until you can fall asleep. Don’t forget to criticize drug addicts for being degenerate junkies. At least you but your drugs factory direct from Pfizer.
On Sundays, drive your SUV to church, listen to the pastor talk about the poor, feel inspired and donate a few dollars to the church or some mission project in Namibia. You did your good moral thing for the week. After church, go to Starbucks, order a 5 dollar latte served in a disposable paper cup. Go home, watch 300 lb men throw around a ball while risking permanent brain damage and injury while the crowd roars on. Besides, they make more in one game than you will make in the next 5 years in your air conditioned office. If they lose, your entire week will be ruined and you will discuss it with the before mentioned coworkers that you secretly despise.
Once in a while, read an article in the New York Times about melting ice caps, drought in some foreign county, social unrest in the middle east or how the honeybees are dissappearing. Note it, do nothing to prevent it, and assume your democratically elected leaders are on the case. It doesn’t concern me, I’ll be dead before these things become serious.
Wait it’s sunday. The new Game of Thrones Episode is on HBO. Watch it so you can discuss it with your friends later
Before bed, stay up past your recommended 8 hours a night and go on reddit is fun on your galaxy s5, stumble upon r/collapse. Read the articles, feel something for a while, mostly dread. Still not tired, better chug some nyquil so I can sleep.
Repeat.”
theedrich on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 4:33 am
Rockman, don’t pay any attention to the apeman. He, like many Canucks, is high on moral superiority — the kind made possible by your work. When desperation comes to North America, he will probably be among the first at your door looking for a handout, even crowding out the ThirdWorlders that his Camp of the Saints is welcoming as we write. Although he knows very well what is in store for us, he and the rest of the Saints will continue to demand that Whitey to do his best to help the proliferating “protected types” overload the planet. After all, Jesus said to do so.
Apneaman on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 5:14 am
theedrich, that’s right except I’ll have my Browning 10 gauge in my hand and it will be your door fuckwad. You don’t know shit about Canadians except what Ann Coulter tells you and you don’t know shit about me. I grew up in the Rockie mountains and can take care of myself just fine. About the only thing I haven’t killed and eaten is a human. It will be you Americans that will be staggering up here all raggedy asses pleading for a handout – please please water, food – the new wetbacks. You’ll be babes in the woods up here. Even your loud hunter tourists need hand holding guides when they come up here for a sportsman’s slaughter fest with all their ridiculous tech hunting gear – fucking useless. Oh and as for rockman making it all possible, he sat in the office trailer cutting checks while the tradesmen like me and the labourers did all the real work. Go back to jerking off to Ayn Rand you clown.
Beery on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 5:49 am
The article is so obviously wrong. US Ingenuity is the key: the new technology of fracking has revolutionized oil production and the US has become the biggest oil producer in the world. That’s never going to stop being the case. Surely any idiot can see that oil production will continue to increase forever.
U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Davy on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 5:59 am
Ape Man, I know we differ on issues and fight like cats and dogs sometimes. I will acknowledge you as the foremost on AGW climate change on this board. I have a file of ape man PDF’s from your many comments.
We differ on your responsibility meme. If there were a legitimate and workable plan B for some or most of society I could buy into it. I love Ant’s comment which is a classic and I am pasting it to my notes” Ap we are complicate. If you can be pure, strip off your clothes, walk away and walk into the wild. Start fresh, like before our native brothers with outboards and chainsaws.”
I wrestle with these issues personally on a practical and spiritual level. Do we have original sin as fossil fuel babies that needs to be baptized away by doing “Ant’s walk away”? Or, do we dance the dance because we are fated to fossil fuel life until the end when we are cremated by NatGas?
We are surrounded by trade-offs. You make sacrifices and that allows another mouth to be fed. That sounds great but is that great when it also means another new mouth born to suck life from the earth. We can quit our high polluting jobs and lifestyles. That has some sense to it but even that is not going to matter much because another person is ready and able to fill that slot.
My personal conclusion is there is little we can do at the individual level to erase the damage or change the train wreck of collapse and stable climate disruption. What we can do is prepare for a postmodern world that may be short or may be a long emergency. We can practice relative sacrifice. This can be done for ourselves spiritually and practically. Spiritually we can be proactive in lowering our footprint of damage to mother earth. We can feel like we are taking less from those who suffer.
Practically if a critical mass of people do this we can raise the sustainability level of our family and beyond to our community. Some areas have enough likeminded people to make a difference. On a personal level with your family you can raise their safety level at least for the long emergency. As a doomer and prepper I realize a hard landing will be difficult for anyone to survive even the best prepared.
I firmly believe change will only come in crisis and even then that change will only be partially effective in lowering our poor lifestyles and attitudes. It is almost like we will need a significant die off to change our attitudes and lifestyles. If you will a society wide “Ant walk away” but with 90% walking off the cliff and 10% into a tribal natural setting of postmodern and post fossil fuel.
As we are now the blame and complain game is legitimate to a point. We must 2×4 people into realizing the dangers ahead and why we have these dangers. Yet, blame and complain people must realize ANY significant change will cause the whole system to bifurcate. Bifurcation of the global system to a much lower level will mean a direct correlation to a die off. Fossil fuel driven just in time production and distribution supporting locals that have been delocalized and dependent on a global equates to one thing dangerous failure of a food chain. Billions will die off within two harvests.
If you are ready to pull that trigger and play God have at it. I am not. I am humbled by the thought. A part of me wants Nature to do it. A part of me believes Nature should do it and quick. A part of me says should we at least have a few lifeboats for some kind of civilization for our descendants before we advocate stepping off the cliff into the abyss. Do we even give a shit if we go extinct? If I am dead will it matter? I hope for something for my kids. So in the end personally I must think about my kids and all kids.
We are in a predicament of catch 22’s. The catch 22’s are paradoxical and many times with incongruous juxtapositions situations. You know destroy the town to save it or having the luxury of poverty instead of death. Descent will be this way with dysfunction, irrational, and random. I personally think the cake is baked. We are screwed and no amount of whining will change that.
Adjust individually and on the community level if you can. Change your attitudes and lifestyles personally if you want. I believe it is healthy but in the end I am not sure if it will matter. What we have now will end soon. I walk about in a surreal world knowing this. It is surreal because I see that which will end and I see people oblivious of it. It is almost like doing time travel and seeing the future. I see the future every day and it is not pleasant.
bug on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:23 am
” Do we even give a shit if we go extinct?”
I don’t have kids so I could care less.
Maybe others (all) with no offspring feel this way. Sounds cruel, sorry.
Knowing I just have to worry about my ass
when the SHF, gives me peace of mind to go extinct.
Davy on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 6:37 am
I can’t argue with that bug. I know the collective earth biota would agree.
Boat on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 7:37 am
Davy,
I don’t know what it is about you hair brained doomers. Ya’ll take everything out of contest. The other day I was looking at a world map that showed shale deposits. The article had a list of the top 10 most likely places to frack. They are already fracking in Argentina and Mexico but only a handful of wells. Price will stall big development the artical said.
Personally I don’t care if frackers do well or not. For some reason you want to tie me to oil like it is some bad thing. I personally don’t like the idea of flaring. The US needs legislation to stop it. Does that sound like some oil guy?
Davy on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 7:55 am
Boat what doomers don’t like is denial and delusional thinking especially when it is shoved down our throats as true. Generally it not the many small cornucopian messages that annoy doomers it is the basis underlying all those small messages that everything is fine that we find distasteful. It does not jive with honesty and reality.
onlooker on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 8:29 am
I will second what Davy states. Yes their are nuggets of good trends going on but unfortunately they are pitted against an overwhelming bad trend of overpopulation, overconsumption and faltering ecosystems. This overshoot dynamic far outweighs any positive trends. So yes this is the reality and us doomers do not admit any view that does not take into account this overriding reality.
MrNoItAll on Sun, 4th Oct 2015 12:58 pm
Davy and onlooker — Boat and his fellow cornies pick “bright points” out of the pile of stinking manure like undigested cherries from a freshly laid loaf, and then proceed directly to this forum to stand on their pedestals and crow and rant about how great things are going — “just look at this shiny data point!! Oh wait, let me rub a little of the crap off of it. There. See how great it looks!!!” It is a clown show, for sure, and they aren’t convincing anybody except perhaps themselves. Personally, I think Boat and a host of cornies who show up at this forum are all derived from the single mind (and IP address) of you-nony-who. They just love to argue and contradict and will lie and misrepresent — anything just to “win” the argument. Like I said, a real clown show. But they give us all an opportunity to highlight the truth — there’s the only bright side.