[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I')f a wife can’t change a husband, how are “we” going to change “society”?

[HonestPessimist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'S')orry for the rant, I didn’t mean to kill this thread, HP.
Actually my views of hypothetical solutions are quite similar to yours.
I sometimes get annoyed at myself for being distracted by the forest when I should be focusing on the path ahead and the work I should be doing to get down that path.
I guess a little of that annoyance slipped out…

[Ludi]

If you're proposing community solutions, can you also go into some detail as to how you will promote these solutions in your community? Otherwise you're just typing an essay for no real purpose. Those of us who are actually doing something tend to be doing it largely for ourselves and our families. I haven't heard of very many people on here who are actively working with their communities to find and build solutions. There's a lot of hot air on this messageboard, sorry, but that's how I see a lot of this speculating - hot air to no real purpose. What are you doing with these ideas? How will you promote and actualise these schemes? Or, how will you persuade powerful people in your community to implement them? That's what I'm interested in, the actualising of the solutions, not just the talk about them. Anyone can come up with a Big Plan to Save the World. What are you doing to make this a reality?

[Revi]

We are building community right here. In our peak oil group we have discussed how to reduce our electricity and fossil fuel use. An energy engineer is telling us how to reduce our own use. We have woodlots and hybrid cars and are working together to prepare for the coming reality. The solution is in working with our neighbors.

[HonestPessimist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')f you're proposing community solutions, can you also go into some detail as to how you will promote these solutions in your community? Otherwise you're just typing an essay for no real purpose. Those of us who are actually doing something tend to be doing it largely for ourselves and our families. I haven't heard of very many people on here who are actively working with their communities to find and build solutions. There's a lot of hot air on this messageboard, sorry, but that's how I see a lot of this speculating - hot air to no real purpose. What are you doing with these ideas? How will you promote and actualise these schemes? Or, how will you persuade powerful people in your community to implement them? That's what I'm interested in, the actualising of the solutions, not just the talk about them. Anyone can come up with a Big Plan to Save the World. What are you doing to make this a reality?

[HonestPessimist]

Bump up in pertaining to the "Oil Storm" movie's depictions of the after-effects on the living infrastructure of America (and the world) as result of a major oil crisis.

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')f you're proposing community solutions, can you also go into some detail as to how you will promote these solutions in your community? Otherwise you're just typing an essay for no real purpose. Those of us who are actually doing something tend to be doing it largely for ourselves and our families. I haven't heard of very many people on here who are actively working with their communities to find and build solutions. There's a lot of hot air on this messageboard, sorry, but that's how I see a lot of this speculating - hot air to no real purpose. What are you doing with these ideas? How will you promote and actualise these schemes? Or, how will you persuade powerful people in your community to implement them? That's what I'm interested in, the actualising of the solutions, not just the talk about them. Anyone can come up with a Big Plan to Save the World. What are you doing to make this a reality?

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('HonestPessimist', ' ')When people you know and love are being suffering or dying as results of severe economic/financial situations associating with peak oil circumstances and people are calling for any solution to it, they're going to have to face up hard realities ... However, it's the people at large (your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends, whoever...) who are just contended to remain with what they have and wanted no drastic changes to their own status quo. That's the sad part.

[mgibbons19]

Well maybe I'll do the second best thing then.

What's that?

[Pops]

2nd best: Eat grass fed meat?

[nocar]

In my opinion, living car free ties with being a vegetarian.
Before industrialision, humanity lived quite sustainable also on a nonveggie diet. In many places, animals can eat things that grow on ground that is not suitable for growing crops.
With industrialisation, and particularly when we started wasting so much resources moving big metal gizmos (=automobiles) around, we started to destroy our earth real fast. So a very good thing to do for your community is to get rid of your car. Your neighbors might get a revelation: Is it really possible to exist without having a car!

[HonestPessimist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'I') think you made Ludi’s point here; to your neighbors, friends and co-workers you have made no real contribution by typing lofty rhetoric on a site such as this unless you have made real changes in your own lifestyle so that you, yourself, don’t become the “suffering or dying” burden on those same people.

[MonteQuest]

Let's get real here folks. Why are there such doomer forecasts? Maybe it's because a bit of homework has been done about the Big Picture. Hydrocarbon depletion is going to change the world. Some think for the better soon, some eventually, some never. Mad Max.
I tend to look at our limitations to bear the brunt of this storm. We know that whatever we do, it will require trillions of dollars of investment in infrastructure. Money that we don't have unless we "print it" causing hyperinflation.
Building new nuclear plants, transmission lines (more important than the plants, I'll have you know), ramping up coal production, hydrogen facilities, LNG tankers, etc. Massive new infrastructure.
No problem, you say? Well, let's have a look at our "current" infrastructure, shall we? After all, this is America, the "can do" place. We have built the best shit anywhere, right? So, let's see how we are doing, cause if we are not doing well, we don't have a snowballs chance in hell in building the required infrastructure to deal with peak oil.
The American Society of Civil Engineers assembled a panel of 24 of the nation’s leading civil engineers, analyzed hundreds of studies, reports and other sources, and surveyed more than 2,000 engineers to determine what was happening in the field.

Here is their report:The American Society of Civil Engineers' 2005 Report Card for America's Infrastructure
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ongested highways, overflowing sewers and corroding bridges are constant reminders of the looming crisis that jeopardizes our nation's prosperity and our quality of life. With new grades for the first time since 2001, our nation's infrastructure has shown little to no improvement since receiving a collective D+ in 2001, with some areas sliding toward failing grades.

[Jack]

It's interesting that the great infrastructure projects were, by and large, conceived and completed prior to North American peak oil.

Now, we cannot even maintain those projects. Which is, I think, telling.

[Doly]

I wonder if there is somewhere similar data for European countries?

[ShaneT34]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'I')t's interesting that the great infrastructure projects were, by and large, conceived and completed prior to North American peak oil.
Now, we cannot even maintain those projects. Which is, I think, telling.

[Wildwell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'I') wonder if there is somewhere similar data for European countries?

[Doly]

Certainly rail is better in most of the rest of Europe, because the comment of all my foreign friends and myself when we arrive at the UK are on the line of: "And these are the guys that INVENTED rail??!!"

It would be most useful to find a comparative study on different countries, but of course that will be difficult.

[linlithgowoil]

thing is though, how many times do you read all these reports and they say 'unless something is done, there'll be disaster!', and then the projected year of disaster comes and goes, nothing happens, and the reports continue to say 'disaster ahead'! for ever more.

maybe the reports are simply written by folk who want more money ploughed into their industry? i'd be very surprised to see a report from a car manufacturer say 'Everything's great! We don't need any money for the roads!' - of COURSE they are going to ask for more and more money, and embellish the claims of impending doom etc.

infrastructure worldwide has laways been crappy as far as i can remember. hasn't the USA always had shocking road surfaces? i was in florida in 2000 and the roads were all cracked - it resembled a third world country in some areas, but its always been like that hasnt it? things still seem to get done.

[MD]

I need to go read some uplifting material in order to reinvigorate my optimism.
Good grief....