[ashurbanipal]

Lately, I've been hearing a lot from the optimist camp that conservation, if done correctly, will be enough to save us from the deleterious effects of Peak Oil. To someone who is new to the subject, or who has not paused to examine the situation, this may seem reasonable. Optimists point to how much driving Americans do compared to Europeans, for instance. It is argued that if Europe can do without all the driving, so can America. I read a recent argument that, if necessary, people could start living where they work during the week. They could prop a cot right up next to their desk and sleep there, rather than driving to and from work. Aside from the spectre of indentured servitude this raises, there are other fundamental reasons to object to it, consequences be damned.

The first thing that comes to mind is that offices everywhere will have to build showers and provide lockers, or deal with a bunch of really stinky (and eventually ill) workers. Most offices I've worked in use all their available space and sit on a slab foundation that isn't plumbed for a full bathroom. Some buildings can be modified, and a few already have executive showers. But most buildings will require a relatively significant investment of cash, and risk significant damage to the foundation, to install showers.

The next thing that comes to mind is how someone locked into sleeping at their office during the week will take care of their children? Someone will obviously have to be hired to do so, and to take the children to school. If the purpose of living at the office to begin with is because gas has become so expensive that there is no alternative, then when one realizes that the cost of day care is already very high, it's easy to question this solution. Nor could we go back to a family living on a single income. Mortgages and groceries are already too high, and the requisite capital isn't present in order to increase wages significantly. The only solution I see is that children would have to start sleeping at state-subsidized schools. Boarding schools have provided a model for this, but they have also always been quite expensive, and the money to operate them on a broad basis has to come from somewhere. At the end of the day, people need a certain minimum allotment of resources in order to live.

Here's where I sense the optimist will want to say "But hey! We've saved a lot of money on gas by living at the office! We can afford to do this now." And this is the crux of the conservation issue. For a while, we will have saved money, and for a while, we might be able to afford this solution. But eventually, this will no longer be possible. Prices will continue to tighten, and conservation will have to proceed apace. No matter what we do, we will eventually get to a point where conservation means not eating, not having shelter or clothing, etc.

The philosopher in me senses a far deeper issue at work here. Something about the labels "Optimist" and "Doomer" seems fundamentally wrong to me, or at least that's my intuition. What's bugging me is why it would be considered "optimistic" to look forward to a future where people sleep at their place of business while their children are miles away sleeping where they go to school? I don't know about anyone else, but if it suddenly became law or custom that people had to sleep where they work a certain number of days, my boss would demand people work from 6 AM to 9 PM, and use the increased productivity to fire a bunch of people. In his mind, it would be only fair since he is now providing housing. Is the doomer scenario of powerdown and living close to the land actually worse than this somehow? We'll return to this question in a moment.

Right now, I think it's important to get a clear grip on the history of wealth. We don't need to understand anything in great depth of detail. It's commonly acknowledged that the industrial revolution broadly altered economics. Throughout history prior to roughly 1850, wealth originated in land. The more land one had, the wealthier one was. The reverse correlation did not hold--it was possible, especially during and after the high middle ages, to be wealthy and own little land. But wealth ultimately came from land--the resources that made a person wealthy were grown on, dug out of, or otherwise related to, land. The goods that were traded all followed this pattern. It was possible for someone to purchase goods from a land owner and transport them to another market where a better price could be charged. But the merchandise itself came from land and total supplies in a given economy were inexorably tied to the amount of available land.

The industrial revolution changed this significantly. As hydrocarbon fuels provided previously undreamt-of levels of energy, the origin of wealth began to shift from land to a combination of land and coal, and thence to a combination of land and oil, with the ratio of oil to land increasing steadily as time passed. Wealth still required land, but it was not inexorably tied to it. Oil provided a means to increase the amount of food that a given unit of land could produce, first by increasing harvest efficiences, then by making it easier to clear land, and finally by providing fertilizers and pesticides. Crop yields are now 8 times what they were prior to 1850. Oil has had a similar widely acknowledged impact across all areas of the economy (and at least for a while it made sense to speak of one global economy). Mines are more productive thanks to the added muscle that oil provides. Quarries are more productive for the same reason. Long distance transportation has a greatly increased capacity; supertankers could hold a thousand galleons.

To me, the best way of thinking about this is to understand it as oil having created a bunch of "virtual" land. In so doing, it increased the available wealth via the same old relationship between land and wealth. In principle, the increased yields possible via a combination of fertilizers, pesticides, and machine harvesting is no different than if a bigger field had been plowed and more people hired to harvest it, all other things being equal.

But it is also widely acknowledged that oil is a finite resource. Land is merely bounded. The difference between the two is that land is palpable and readily apparent to everyone in a given locale. Additionally, while it may yield only so much grain this year, next year it should do the same. Oil is not palpable, and is not reuseable next year. Prior to the industrial revolution, people in a village knew how much land they had because they could see it, could walk over it, could measure it if they wished. Outputs year to year were constant, or perhaps improving slightly. Once oil made that land more productive, whether through increasing crop yields, mine yields, quarry yields, or something else, it added an intangible to the equation. They could not measure how much oil they would ultimately have or when or whether it would some day become unavailable. In the initial phases of industrialization, oil seemed more or less endless, and had anyone paused to reflect, it might have seemed that we'd have no problem creating as much virtual land as needed. This attitude, unconscious though it probably was, worked its way into public policy, and led to increased population. Why not? We seemed to have the (virtual) land to sustain them.

The lessons passed down from our ancestors were forgotten as they principally had to do with living in harmony with nature, rather than creating and using up more and more "land" to suit. It seems to me that once that disconnect happened, it was very easy to institute other disconnects as well. We disconnected from the land, we disconnected from our parents, and it became easy to disconnect from each other, from our children, and ultimately, ourselves. Once land became virtual and disposable, the elements of human life followed suit one by one.

It isn't my purpose to launch into full-blown social criticism here. Instead, I will ask a couple questions. Optimists seem to be motivated to argue that we will find a way to continue our current system more or less indefinitely. One founding principle of all optimistic arguments is that we must conserve resources to the end that we can transition our system of virtual land to the support of some other source of energy. As I hinted earlier, we're at the point now (or we soon will be) where conservation means a series of deeper and deeper disconnects. Disconnection from our families and children, from any kind of hobby, from our own humanity. Sleeping at the office was actually suggested by an optimist on JD's weblog. What should seem obvious from this long post is that the apparent underlying motivation of this suggestion is to maintain a failing system as long as possible. Should we seek to do so? Should we seek to stay alive at any cost?

"Doomers" are often called such because the scenarios they envision and argue as likely involve a massive die-off. Optimists want to eliminate such a possibility, but the question that presents itself is how it can be anything more than forestalled? We know that truly sustainable forms of energy cannot be scaled quickly enough at this point to do any good. And nothing is going to quickly replace the nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides necessary for current food production levels. We have not the land available any more to sustain ourselves; the human race grows as land shrinks. There's no question that we need to conserve as much as possible, but should we go to all lengths to preserve society as we know it? Should we be willing to engage in the evisceration of what makes us human in the name of optimism? Regardless of how much we conserve (and perhaps because of how much we conserve), a die-off is inevitable. It has, in fact, already begun. In the face of this, isn't it really madness to try to stay plugged into a system that imposes greater and greater levels of virtual reality on us? Isn't it madness to seek to enslave ourselves to a dying system? How can it be called optimistic to try to maintain a system that perpetuates such huge income gaps, environmental hazards, spiritual darkness, diminishing liberty, lack of reason, and sheer turmoil as the one we have now?

I believe the choice is not between life and death; that choice has been made for us. The choice is between cowardice and courage. Yes, conservation is important; but past a certain point, we have to get back to real land and real life, come what may. What may come will be terrible, of course. But it's coming anyway. Let's face it now, not leave it when we are a little older, or for our children.

[holmes]

I agree 100%. There are many who preach the sanctity of life but truly hate and despise all life and liberty. What human with a life and say they love life would want to sleep in the office at their desks? These "humans" are not humans anymore but abominations. And their seeds are being released on society. Its a weird corporate/social welfare experiment. We will see how it all plays out.
and read the new National Geographic it has an article about the longest lived societies today. The US and the top industrialized nations aint on it. So its a bunch of horse shit these cornucopians talk about how modern society lives the longest with all their pharmecueticals and chemicals.
It creates a new industry and profits. Thats all. They are Bullshit artists. Con men. They are liars and cretins. Looking to get their own way. spoiled brats. The longest living live free and close to the land eating healthy and excercise. Good genes help too. All these Pharmecuticals are nothing more than a way for extra human biomass to have a "job" and making profits. They dont fool me.
Keep far away from me. Your buyproducts give us cancer and kill the strong. I would love to pull the plug on all these dependent hacks. Liars.

[coyote]

Interesting article, well written and passionate. I'm not certain that sleeping at work, as unappealing as that sounds to me, would constitute such a disconnect from humanity. It might be simply what is considered necessary for many people.

Your article made me think of another great shift in our history, which was the agricultural revolution. To many hunter-gatherers of the time who witnessed that period, tilling the ground must have also seemed like turning away from everything that made us human. I can imagine it must have seemed insane to some. And yet, the agricultural revolution did not occur because anyone thought it would be a neat idea to grow things. I don't think anyone actually wanted to make the shift to surviving through back-breaking labor. It occurred from geopolitical necessity, like all revolutions - driven, as in our current situation, by overpopulation. Hunting-gathering could not support as many people per square mile as cultivation could. And so, uncomfortable as it must have been, the shift was made.

Ultimately, though, I agree with your conclusions: even if such disconnect takes place (and I think it will - people will try to hold on to as many pieces of their former lives as they can), it won't be enough to stave off the crash for long. Over and over again, humanity has managed to sneak around sustainability ceilings: agricultural revolution, colonialism, industrial revolution, green revolution. But I just don't see it happening this time. There's nowhere else to go.

I'm not a doomer. But I am a hard lander. There will be a depression. A lot of people are going to die. The world is going to change forever. Hopefull, eventually, to something better.

[LaurentD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', 'N')o matter what we do, we will eventually get to a point where conservation means not eating, not having shelter or clothing, etc.

[holmes]

The "backbreaking work" you are describing that kills people early is just a manifestion of our constant effort and enrgy expenditure to keep entropy in check. The farmer must work himself to death to keep the breeding masses from starving. You have intelligent breeding rates and live in tune with ntures cycles one must not work "him or herself to death.

Instead of creating exponential bodies of humans, a logarithmic production of humans require less energy invested. Thus longer healthier higher quality of lives. Freer and happier.
Observe the Sardinians.

[holmes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LaurentD', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', 'N')o matter what we do, we will eventually get to a point where conservation means not eating, not having shelter or clothing, etc.

[LaurentD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', 'T')he situation is the more human biomass it does not matter what energy source we have.

[holmes]

I got one word for u Bullshit. U are detached from reality. Thus the human biomass. U are one of them. Keep away. Read up and do ur homework and do not come near me. Your reality is all evident in this day and age. Detached from reality? your full of SHIT.

[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')nteresting article, well written and passionate.

[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')o you think we will get to this point in the next 5 decades?

[LaurentD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', 'I') got one word for u Bullshit. U are detached from reality. Thus the human biomass. U are one of them. Keep away. Read up and do ur homework and do not come near me. Your reality is all evident in this day and age. Detached from reality? your full of SHIT.

[LaurentD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', 'S')urely you are familiar with the data that is already out there? I can suggest some authors if not. If you wish to debate that data and its meaning, I'm open to doing so.

[thuja]

Hey Laurent- I think your right that Holmes is way too emotional about your posts. This should be a place for a free discussion of ideas without antipathy if people disagree. It sounds like you're in the boat of saying that we'll bemost likely headed towards a depression but that nuclear/wind/solar and perhaps fusion will eventually prevent a full scale destruction of civilization with the associated massive die-off.

One thing I realized pretty early was that even if we could find a replacement for oil based transportation (let alone our fertilizer needs), we would have to not only have power plants that supplied electricity but also could be transformed and delivered to hydrogen cells for transportation/industrial use. We're talking about not only solving our electrical grid problems, which are very difficult already, but adding in the need to supplant oil with alternative forms of energy as well.

In my most optimistic frames of mood, I try to envision civilization powering down out of necessity, reducing our energy use to a fraction of its current state and running that very different world on a combination of nuclear, wind/solar, and unfortunately...coal. Even in that scenario, and especially due to the lack of immense supplies of nitrogen based fertilizers, I believe we would have to pare down the world's population a great deal. With my super-rosy optimistic glasses, I see this being done not by wars and starvation but by a shorter life span due to less medical intervention as well as tax incentives and governmental penalties for overbreeding. I mean- jesus- this is my rosy view... I won't tell you what I think about on my bad days.

ok- here's a hint- I won't talk to you about the difficuty of ramping up nuclear production to an unprecedented level during a worldwide depression, the difficulty of maintaining a nuclear powered world without an oil based foundation, the likelihood of resource wars over the remaining oil supplies, the possibility of class based uprisings due to inequality (look at France right now), etc, etc.

So by all means, promote an optimistic viewoint- I think there's too little of that here. But give us plausible scenarios that we can sink our teeth into. I assure you there are many of us hungry for that.

[aflurry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', 'I') got one word for u Bullshit. U are detached from reality. Thus the human biomass. U are one of them. Keep away. Read up and do ur homework and do not come near me. Your reality is all evident in this day and age. Detached from reality? your full of SHIT.

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The most likely reason that agriculture caught on was not because of environmental pressure, but rather, to increase overall wealth. Small hunter-gatherer societies can gather all the food they need from the wilderness in a short amount of time. They began to experiment with agriculture (of the type mentioned above) to provide not only security, but also to give them an advantage over neighboring groups in trading.

[Ludi]

Ashurbanipal, I hope you'll try to get a copy of "Permaculture: a Designers' Manual" by Bill Mollison, which gives a detailed template for a different way of life not so dependent on energy, but with a high quality of life. I think you will find it very encouraging, and also may answer someof your questions about what we can do. I really recommend this book to everyone. If you can't afford it (it's rather expensive) try to get a copy through interlibrary loan.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', ' ')And this is the crux of the conservation issue. For a while, we will have saved money, and for a while, we might be able to afford this solution. But eventually, this will no longer be possible. Prices will continue to tighten, and conservation will have to proceed apace. No matter what we do, we will eventually get to a point where conservation means not eating, not having shelter or clothing, etc.

[dooberheim]

Concerning living on one income:

My observation is that often people who feel they NEED two incomes are living inefficiently. They have houses that are too large, cars that are too big, and they eat expensive food and wear expensive clothes. I know there are parts of the country that have living expenses such that two incomes are necessary, but most of the US is not in that category.

If people could downscale their expectations of material goods, they would find they have a lot more money, as well as the intangible but important presence of a full time parent in their children's lives.

Some of this ties in with conspicuous consumption, and some of it is social - the idea that a full time homemaker is somehow less of a person than one that has an outside paying job. It is also felt by women's rights advocates that this would undermine the efforts of women to better thamselves in the job market, as women might be more likely to stay home. However, the other side of that is a lot of women would consider a stay-at-home husband a bum.

I think if a significant number of people would try to live on one income, the impact on the labor market would be quite favorable. Less available labor might mean higher incomes for those that did have jobs.

DK

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dooberheim', 'C')oncerning living on one income:

My observation is that often people who feel they NEED two incomes are living inefficiently. They have houses that are too large, cars that are too big, and they eat expensive food and wear expensive clothes. I know there are parts of the country that have living expenses such that two incomes are necessary, but most of the US is not in that category.

If people could downscale their expectations of material goods, they would find they have a lot more money, as well as the intangible but important presence of a full time parent in their children's lives.

Some of this ties in with conspicuous consumption, and some of it is social - the idea that a full time homemaker is somehow less of a person than one that has an outside paying job. It is also felt by women's rights advocates that this would undermine the efforts of women to better thamselves in the job market, as women might be more likely to stay home. However, the other side of that is a lot of women would consider a stay-at-home husband a bum.

I think if a significant number of people would try to live on one income, the impact on the labor market would be quite favorable. Less available labor might mean higher incomes for those that did have jobs.

DK

[LaurentD]

Hey thuja,

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'S')o by all means, promote an optimistic viewoint- I think there's too little of that here. But give us plausible scenarios that we can sink our teeth into. I assure you there are many of us hungry for that.