[LadyRuby]

I used to dream about someday living in a house or condo with a water view. Now I see the world through grey-colored glasses. I'm not exactly depressed, but I see a large ship and I wonder how that thing's going to run as fuel gets increasingly scarce and expensive. I drive along a 6-lane suburban road and wonder if someday that road will be a huge bicycle facility. It all just smacks me in the face. What were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LadyRuby', 'W')hat were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???

[Jenab]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheTurtle', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LadyRuby', 'W')hat were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???

[RonMN]

I have to admit i have those grey glasses on as well. What else can you think when you're talking with a friend & realize you're talking to a walking corpse? Friends & family wont lift a finger to protect themselves & I certainly don't have the resources to save them all single-handedly.

I find it difficult to speak at a family gathering when they're all talking about the addition they're adding on their home, or new SUV they just "bought" (up to their eyeballs in debt).

It's only 80 degrees outside & my sis can't figure out why i don't have the AC on...i tell her i'm teaching myself.

It looks to me like it's an all out sprint to the bitter end...and i think it's really gonna be BITTER!

[Jenab]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RonMN', 'I') have to admit i have those grey glasses on as well. What else can you think when you're talking with a friend & realize you're talking to a walking corpse? Friends & family wont lift a finger to protect themselves & I certainly don't have the resources to save them all single-handedly.

I find it difficult to speak at a family gathering when they're all talking about the addition they're adding on their home, or new SUV they just "bought" (up to their eyeballs in debt).

It's only 80 degrees outside & my sis can't figure out why i don't have the AC on...i tell her i'm teaching myself.

It looks to me like it's an all out sprint to the bitter end...and i think it's really gonna be BITTER!

[Petro]

Wasn't it Aesop that wrote 'The Grasshopper and the Ant" ?

[Pablo2079]

I've been looking at the world through those same glasses. My wife talks to me about the fact that I've always wanted a power boat, then I remember. Then, I think that a pickup truck would sure make things easier, then I remember. etc.... etc....

I was putting an empty pop bottle into our recycle bin. I thought about that bottle and how useful it might be in a few decades.

I was at the mall with my wife over the weekend. It seemed like a cruel joke.

Ah well, it will be interesting.

[Roop]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') was putting an empty pop bottle into our recycle bin. I thought about that bottle and how useful it might be in a few decades.

[I_Like_Plants]

I've been thinking about stuff as I throw it away for years, some paper, I think Gosh that's good for lighting a fire, for kindling, and here I am just tossing it out. A jar, I think, In some 3rd world country this would be prized, and used, as a container.

All this useable stuff and we throw it away, because our culture is based on that.

I was up in the "wine country" on the weekend, and the "main drags" of Napa and Calistoga are just open-air malls, and most of the stores full of the most useless, fatuous junk I've ever seen. And so much of it faux-antique junk made by slave child labor in some 3rd world country.

We have it coming, we really have it coming.

[savethehumans]

Pablo: A pickup truck may well be USEFUL post-peak. If it's well-built, has manual transmission, and can be converted to run on biofuels. (Don't laugh--I read a story today that the G8 leaders are gonna be squired around in cars that run ON STRAW! Ironic, eh?) It can move a lot of things--needed supplies for communities, and such. It can carry a lot of people--hey, small-scale mass transit! Easier to get to the fields by truck than by foot, or even horse & cart. . .and, hey, can hold the harvest and get it back to the storage bins/barns/silos! Just be sure it has the stuff to cover rugged terrain--land, and deteriorating roads!

Now, more than ever, we have to think outside of the box for a post-peak world. Motor vehicles will decline rapidly in number, obviously. But vehicles aren't gonna completely vanish from the face of the Earth overnight, either. The smart preparer will have something well-engineered, relatively easy to fix with make-shift parts, have (or know someone who has) some mechanical know-how, and the vehicle will be USEFUL to a post-peak world. Something like, well, a well-built pickup truck. Ask people who've had (and usefully used) pickups forever what you should be looking for. Find a good deal. Learn some mechanics. Make things WORK for a post-peak era!

[ubercrap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('savethehumans', 'P')ablo: A pickup truck may well be USEFUL post-peak. If it's well-built, has manual transmission, and can be converted to run on biofuels. (Don't laugh--I read a story today that the G8 leaders are gonna be squired around in cars that run ON STRAW! Ironic, eh?) It can move a lot of things--needed supplies for communities, and such. It can carry a lot of people--hey, small-scale mass transit! Easier to get to the fields by truck than by foot, or even horse & cart. . .and, hey, can hold the harvest and get it back to the storage bins/barns/silos! Just be sure it has the stuff to cover rugged terrain--land, and deteriorating roads!

Now, more than ever, we have to think outside of the box for a post-peak world. Motor vehicles will decline rapidly in number, obviously. But vehicles aren't gonna completely vanish from the face of the Earth overnight, either. The smart preparer will have something well-engineered, relatively easy to fix with make-shift parts, have (or know someone who has) some mechanical know-how, and the vehicle will be USEFUL to a post-peak world. Something like, well, a well-built pickup truck. Ask people who've had (and usefully used) pickups forever what you should be looking for. Find a good deal. Learn some mechanics. Make things WORK for a post-peak era!

[rostov]

Yup, grey glasses here as well. But please, keep it up! If given a chance, you could even try to get your body trained for various conditions (warm, cold, wet, very dry) under physical strain and hunger and thirst for prolonged period. What matters most is that you're doing it not for yourself, but for those loved ones you're deciding to save when TSHTF -- especially those unable to understand why things are happening NOW, and will appreciate you for your efforts when they're mature enough years later. If. And when. they survive thanks to you.

I see dark corridors and dark buildings and skeletons, and dead people. I conditioning myself to look at people without a 2nd look -- the same thing I'd do when I sight a (hungry?) face at the end of my low-powered sniper scope and not hesitate (be it dig in or nomad style). I know the air-conditioning in this data center (50 degrees) is not going to be real. The food I eat is luxury, and I crave to prepare my own hunt to eat and store myself. I yearn to spend time away from the mundaneness of earning my pay at present times, to be able to again grow things from the ground. I crave for the long lonely miles of army scout travels in the hot tropical jungles in my younger days. Car skeletons, rusted buses, battleground deserted roads, cities devoid of present amenities (ala 12 monkeys).

I wonder if the grey glasses are the thing that cushion our psychological impact when we decide to quit the cities/suburbia?

[madison]

I also wear grey glasses.

I work with children, and I look at them and shudder to think of the life they are inheriting.

I wonder if they'll be alive in 20 years, or struck down by some horrible disease like bird flu or the hanta virus or ebola. Or if they'll be hand hoeing some wealthy land owners fields somewhere for a share of the crops. I wonder what shoes and what clothes they'll be wearing. I wonder if they'll hate my generation (X) for being so extravagent and ignorant and arrogant. I wonder what the lives of their grandchildren will be like.

If I go to the mall, I see gluttony and it disgusts me. I drive home from work and pass thru suburbia and I see disaster. I watch the cars on the freeway and see death... like that scene in Terminator, you know the one, where the cars are dusty and filled with skeletons from a nuclear war? I see hundreds of people daily, and I think "FIVE IN SIX WILL STARVE" and I count the five unlucky souls unconciously....

Yep, I wear grey glasses, too.

[Doly]

Madison, you're overworrying. What are you going to do if only one in six people die, and you've been all this time seeing skeletons all over the place?

[The_Virginian]

First Grey glasses = sunglasses, and we all know thats

Secondly, a little planning could go a long way to improving ones lot PP. (post peak)

Think Green coloured glasses. The USA has enough land to keep everyone alive PP, other countries won't be so fortunate.

So learn how to grow things, get some land, get used to a harder life, but maybe not such a bad one. Pay attention to what Colin Cambell's vision of the future is: A return to 100 years ago...is that the end of the world?

I agree with Aaron 100% in that the Governments reaction to PP is worse than the actual threat of PO. That is where armagedon could play it's depopulation role...even in the USA.

The glass is already half full, so try and take a sip while there is still water in it!

[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Virginian', '
')Think Green coloured glasses. The USA has enough land to keep everyone alive PP, other countries won't be so fortunate.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Raxozanne', '
')Yes but without cheap oil will there be the huge irrigation systems running to make sure crops don't fail in case of drought?

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat were we thinking, building this entire infrastructure that relies on finite supplies of fossil fuels???

[pea-jay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')uge irrigation systems are nothing new. The Romans already did them. They are totally doable without oil.