I don't think I fall into any of the poll categories. I voted "moderate," as I think that's closest (though I know most people here seem to think I'm a Doomer).
It's possible that we'll fall into the Mad Max scenario. It's possible that there will be nuclear war. Heck, it's possible that we'll burn so much dirty coal we'll tip the earth into a Venus-like state that is incompatible with life. But I think "catabolic collapse" is more likely.
http://www.museletter.com/Greer-on-Collapse.rtf
Here's the abstract:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he collapse of complex human societies remains poorly understood and current theories fail to model important features of historical examples of collapse. Relationships among resources, capital, waste, and production form the basis for an ecological model of collapse in which production fails to meet maintenance requirements for existing capital. Societies facing such crises after having depleted essential resources risk catabolic collapse, a self-reinforcing cycle of contraction converting most capital to waste. This model allows key features of historical examples of collapse to be accounted for, and suggests parallels between successional processes in nonhuman ecosystems and collapse phenomena in human societies.
PeakOil is You
Landers, Moderates & Doomers
Re: Landers, Moderates & Doomers
by Leanan » Thu 11 Aug 2005, 16:26:04
Greer points out that collapse usually happens over centuries, not years or decades. Usually, the society can make adjustments, develop substitutes, and settle at a point of lower complexity for awhile. This may happen repeatedly. In the end, they may have fallen far below the point they started from, but it takes a long time. If this holds true for us, none of us here will live to see the worst.
This does not mean it will be pleasant. And it may be far more destructive in the long run, as we turn to coal and nuclear and tar sands, and drill every square inch of the planet in search of oil. But it does mean we could continue more or less as we are for a long time, though with increasing difficulty.
I could see us withdrawing from the global community. That would provide jobs at home, if only agriculture and guarding the border. More and more people would fall out of the middle class. Eventually, there might be walled enclaves of wealthy people, with their wind turbines and solar panels, surrounded by slums filled with poor, much as in some Third World nations now. Or we may end up with a China-like system, where people are given residence permits that force them to stay on their farms, away from the cities. Eventually, I think we'd lose much of our modern technology, but not for a long time. We'd just lose a little, every year. At first it would be too expensive for ordinary folk, then it would be too expensive even for most rich folk, and by the time it was gone completely, no one would notice.
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Re: Landers, Moderates & Doomers
by Ibon » Thu 11 Aug 2005, 17:40:10
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', ' ')I could see us withdrawing from the global community. That would provide jobs at home, if only agriculture and guarding the border. More and more people would fall out of the middle class. Eventually, there might be walled enclaves of wealthy people, with their wind turbines and solar panels, surrounded by slums filled with poor, much as in some Third World nations now. Or we may end up with a China-like system, where people are given residence permits that force them to stay on their farms, away from the cities. Eventually, I think we'd lose much of our modern technology, but not for a long time. We'd just lose a little, every year. At first it would be too expensive for ordinary folk, then it would be too expensive even for most rich folk, and by the time it was gone completely, no one would notice.
Leanan, your post has been the first I have read in months that has threatened the hope I hold out that we can transform as a culture.
This is the most chilling account of our future I have seen not only because it is plausible but it stabs in the heart the hope many of us entertain that peak oil can usher in a transformation toward a new sustainable paradigm. The last vestiges of my optimism is with the hope that a major crisis and near collapse can transform us. THis catabolic slow decline as we desperately try to adjust to ever diminishing returns drawn out for centuries as we rape the environment in the process is just too depressing. If this is our future I hope global warming or some new virus does us in long before this happens
Or that some crazed but genius microbiologist releases a few GM germs strategically as an act of compassion to our planet 
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Re: Landers, Moderates & Doomers
by killJOY » Thu 11 Aug 2005, 17:49:19
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jm', 'I')f you do believe in concepts like "ghost acreage" and "phantom carrying capacity," consider those who drive personal automobiles. If they drive them, and they believe in those concepts, they are choosing their own personal transport over other people's sustenance.
We're in basic agreement, I think. It IS a tragedy that we burn oil to move our fat asses around, when it could be used to provide sustenance.
I do believe in Catton's concepts. I often feel trapped in a travesty here in the USA. We're hypocrites by necessity. We do have two horses here, though, that we've taught to drive a buggy. We also drive cars that are over 15 years old and have practiced leaving the house only when necessary. Not because we're more virtuous, only because we want to be prepared for what life is probably going to be like in the next few years.
As far as the calculus goes, of carrying capacity, and population numbers, and amounts of fossil energy expended for this and that.... who knows. I say, prepare for the worst.
Peak oil = comet Kohoutek.
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Re: Landers, Moderates & Doomers
by oowolf » Thu 11 Aug 2005, 18:01:17
"Uberdoomer" The greater the overshoot, the more catastrophic the dieoff. Simple ecological phenomenon.
(What do you expect from a direct descendant of MacBeth?)
(What do you expect from a direct descendant of MacBeth?)
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Re: Landers, Moderates & Doomers
by FatherOfTwo » Thu 11 Aug 2005, 18:10:54
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oowolf', '"')Uberdoomer" The greater the overshoot, the more catastrophic the dieoff. Simple ecological phenomenon.
And conversely, the lesser the overshoot, the lesser the die-off.
Absent another fuel source, our phantom carrying capacity would disappear and expose gross overshoot.
But nuclear can further the phantom carrying capacity - possibly at a reduced level but possibly at the same level or greater. (hopefully it’ll be at a reduced level, or we won’t change our ways.)
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