[orz]

If, it's a big if, but if we can boost electricty production with nuclear and other sources, then I don't think slowly converting the transportation fleet(trucks and maybe ships) to electric will be too terrible an ordeal. Aviation is another story, but Electric trucks I think we can manage. The private automobile will at the very least be dead for a bit though. >_>

[KingM]

Thanks for the thoughtful post Donshan. Some sobering stuff there, but also some hope.

[doufus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('orz', 'I')f, it's a big if, but if we can boost electricty production with nuclear and other sources, then I don't think slowly converting the transportation fleet(trucks and maybe ships) to electric will be too terrible an ordeal. Aviation is another story, but Electric trucks I think we can manage. The private automobile will at the very least be dead for a bit though. >_>

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'W')e do seem to be in agreement. You admit it is going to be painful, you admit once hardship sets in, we will be forced to be frugal. I don't think very many people here would argue about those points.

So again, where's all this debate springing from?

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', '
')Even when people are in BASIC AGREEMENT, they divide. In fact, the chances of division might actually INCREASE the more in agreement they are.

[killJOY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebate and discussion stops groupthink from happening

[Liamj]

Nice call Killjoy.
I've often wondered at the effect of greater population densities and fewer real differences between people. If personal comfort requires a sense of group to which belong, which in turn requires contrast with other groups (as per robbers cave experiment), how much harder is it to create group when theres so many fairly similar ppl trying to do same. Hence the growing subdivision of cultural turf? (the fragmentation of jocks into football/soccer/cricket cliques, geeks into MS vs linux, ever-new rock bands and tshirts, ..).

But what are you trying to do here, short circuit eons of primate evolution?!? Sure the dieoff-q&a tribe will gift you banana's for smarts (did i already do that ), but at what cost to the self identity of the greentech soft and hard landing tribes? And lets face it, everybody likes a whipping boy, so how would the 'peak oil community' [sic] cope without a well identified bottom of the pile?

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebate and discussion stops groupthink from happening

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')In general, humans are very homegenous and cooperative compared to other species. Of course, these traits are what lead to our current state. Only a few species live in such highly dense communities, and these are usually because they are composed of genetically identical members. So cooperation makes us successful, but we will never have a society where there are no conflicts.

[Ibon]

What is a collective cultures assets toward consensus building and cooperation? Western culture, the USA for example, rewards competition and strong individuals. Consensus is perceived as a weakness. We compete to win and our conspicuous consumption is a psychological secondary sex characteristic posturing our dominance, weather its a 5000 square foot home McMansion or monster SUV. We are just fancy roosters struttin our stuff with little tolerance. We carry this over to our discussions and debates. Who can win an argument, who can impress with their brilliance. How many of you go back and reread what you'rve written here on this board anticipating how you will impress your peers with your brilliance?

I wonder how a bunch of buddhist monks would carry out some of these discussions? Or filipinos? Or Japanese? Or Hopi indians? Or an Amish community? Or any of the many cultures who have hard wired into their cultures a deference toward consensus, humility, cooperation?

The west is rich in material assets but very weak in the cultural assets required for coping with resource depletion. In the USA we have isolated ourselves in how we live and how we transport ourselves. Also how we communicate more and more through a keyboard and monitor.

We can start by recognizing how defficient we are in community building and strive toward putting higher value toward brotherhood and the emotional intelligence required to get along in harmony.

Peace my brothers and sisters.

In anticipation of all your praise on these wise words I have written.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'W')hat is a collective cultures assets toward consensus building and cooperation? Western culture, the USA for example, rewards competition and strong individuals. Consensus is perceived as a weakness. We compete to win and our conspicuous consumption is a psychological secondary sex characteristic posturing our dominance, weather its a 5000 square foot home McMansion or monster SUV. We are just fancy roosters struttin our stuff with little tolerance. We carry this over to our discussions and debates. Who can win an argument, who can impress with their brilliance. How many of you go back and reread what you'rve written here on this board anticipating how you will impress your peers with your brilliance?

I wonder how a bunch of buddhist monks would carry out some of these discussions? Or filipinos? Or Japanese? Or Hopi indians? Or an Amish community? Or any of the many cultures who have hard wired into their cultures a deference toward consensus, humility, cooperation?

The west is rich in material assets but very weak in the cultural assets required for coping with resource depletion. In the USA we have isolated ourselves in how we live and how we transport ourselves. Also how we communicate more and more through a keyboard and monitor.

We can start by recognizing how defficient we are in community building and strive toward putting higher value toward brotherhood and the emotional intelligence required to get along in harmony.

Peace my brothers and sisters.

In anticipation of all your praise on these wise words I have written.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ') The Amercian character might end up suprising alot of detractors.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ') The Amercian character might end up suprising alot of detractors.

[donshan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'W')hat is a collective cultures assets toward consensus building and cooperation? Western culture, the USA for example, rewards competition and strong individuals.

The west is rich in material assets but very weak in the cultural assets required for coping with resource depletion. In the USA we have isolated ourselves in how we live and how we transport ourselves. Also how we communicate more and more through a keyboard and monitor.

We can start by recognizing how defficient we are in community building and strive toward putting higher value toward brotherhood and the emotional intelligence required to get along in harmony.

Peace my brothers and sisters.

In anticipation of all your praise on these wise words I have written.

[C8]

It goes without saying that there is a tendency for folks on this site to see the glass as half empty (and radioactive!) This is probably human nature- we are programmed to look for threats. But it goes much farther when everything is seen to lead to collapse.

Take oil-
*First there will be too little, but then fracking came!
*Wait a minute the Red Queen can't keep running fast enough to outpace depleting wells, but now she is lounging on a park bench enjoying horizontal well Slushies and doing her nails.
*Oil prices are too high and this will collapse society- but now they are too low and signal a recession!
*We have too little and a supply side crisis, but now we have too much and a demand side peak!

Take other resources-
*We are running out of metals, rare earths, trees PEAK EVERYTHING- but then substitutes were found and now we have too much to sell and a supply glut!
* Ethanol will be our doom and rocket food prices, but now its toast! (or cornbread)
* The Bees are dying, but now they are doing pretty well and rebounding

Take Global Warming
* Hurricanes and violent storms will increase, Hurricane Katrina is the future- but now we have gone a decade without a major storm in the US
* The North Pole will melt- except it hasn't, and has been rather within the low end of average recently
* Natural disasters will kill millions- but the death toll has actually gone down quite a bit from historical averages as radar, internet communications and weather modeling have given many a heads up to disasters- the most remarkable thing about most hurricanes these days is how few people die



Not to long ago I realized I was putting too much salt and sweetener on foods so I cut back gradually and an interesting thing happened, I started tasting the food more! Where I used to taste salt, now I taste corn, where I used to taste sugar, now I taste peaches.

I sometimes wonder if the focus on doom isn't similar to junk food. There is a constant need to hype things up because life as it is seems too boring- like an apple without a caramel coating.

Is the evolution of energy so dull it needs to be spiced up with crash depletion?
Is the study of societies by themselves so bland they need to collapse to seem interesting?
Is the study of nature by itself so boring that it needs to disintegrate to seem fascinating?

I wonder if the interest in collapse isn't having the same effect on minds that high salt/high sugar junk food has on bodies. When everything is a crisis then life seems artificial and unhealthy in a way. Maybe the real collapse is the crash in a person's mental health.

[SeaGypsy]

There there C8 it's all gonna be ok, you'll be fine, how about a cookie & a warm milk then nice rest?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('C8', '[')b]Take Global Warming
* Hurricanes and violent storms will increase, Hurricane Katrina is the future- but now we have gone a decade without a major storm in the US
* The North Pole will melt- except it hasn't, and has been rather within the low end of average recently
* Natural disasters will kill millions- but the death toll has actually gone down quite a bit from historical averages as radar, internet communications and weather modeling have given many a heads up to disasters- the most remarkable thing about most hurricanes these days is how few people die

[Apneaman]

Poorly written lip flapping word salad with lots of assertions and zero supporting evidence. We hear this contrarian lip flapping every time things lurch a little further down. It's all you have left. You have no evidence to make a case that collapse is not progressing and you have no alternative explanation for everything we are seeing. Huge bad economic news in the past week - lip flapping. Oil goes down more - lip flapping. Record forest fires in northern hemisphere - lip flapping. Pacific ocean mass die off - lip flapping. 2014 hottest year in the instrumental record - lip flapping. Every single month in 2015 so far has been the hottest ever recorded - lip flapping. Drought in growing - lip flapping. Water shortages and restrictions in western N America - lip flapping. Climate refugees all over - lip flapping. Etc, etc - lip flapping.


Here is some world class lip flapping from just befor and after the worst crash ever. Sounds familiar don't it? That's because it's what they always say when the shit is hitting and you repeat it.







“We will not have any more crashes in our time.”
– John Maynard Keynes in 1927
“I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool’s paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future.”
– E. H. H. Simmons, President, New York Stock Exchange, January 12, 1928“There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity.”
– Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928
“No Congress of the United States ever assembled, on surveying the state of the Union, has met with a more pleasing prospect than that which appears at the present time. In the domestic field there is tranquility and contentment…and the highest record of years of prosperity. In the foreign field there is peace, the goodwill which comes from mutual understanding.”
– Calvin Coolidge December 4, 1928
“There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash.”
– Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist , New York Times, Sept. 5, 1929
“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. I do not feel there will be soon if ever a 50 or 60 point break from present levels, such as (bears) have predicted. I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months.”
– Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929“This crash is not going to have much effect on business.”

BLACK TUESDAY


– Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929“There will be no repetition of the break of yesterday… I have no fear of another comparable decline.”
– Arthur W. Loasby (President of the Equitable Trust Company), quoted in NYT, Friday, October 25, 1929
“We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices.”
– Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

“This is the time to buy stocks. This is the time to recall the words of the late J. P. Morgan… that any man who is bearish on America will go broke. Within a few days there is likely to be a bear panic rather than a bull panic. Many of the low prices as a result of this hysterical selling are not likely to be reached again in many years.”
– R. W. McNeel, market analyst, as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929“Buying of sound, seasoned issues now will not be regretted”
– E. A. Pearce market letter quoted in the New York Herald Tribune, October 30, 1929“Some pretty intelligent people are now buying stocks… Unless we are to have a panic — which no one seriously believes, stocks have hit bottom.”
– R. W. McNeal, financial analyst in October 1929
“The decline is in paper values, not in tangible goods and services…America is now in the eighth year of prosperity as commercially defined. The former great periods of prosperity in America averaged eleven years. On this basis we now have three more years to go before the tailspin.”
– Stuart Chase (American economist and author), NY Herald Tribune, November 1, 1929“Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street.”
– The Times of London, November 2, 1929“The Wall Street crash doesn’t mean that there will be any general or serious business depression… For six years American business has been diverting a substantial part of its attention, its energies and its resources on the speculative game… Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over. Business has come home again, back to its job, providentially unscathed, sound in wind and limb, financially stronger than ever before.”
– Business Week, November 2, 1929
“…despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression such as would entail prolonged further liquidation…”
– Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929

“… a serious depression seems improbable; [we expect] recovery of business next spring, with further improvement in the fall.”
– HES, November 10, 1929“The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most.”
– Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, November 14, 1929“In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect.”
– Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929
“Financial storm definitely passed.”
– Bernard Baruch, cablegram to Winston Churchill, November 15, 1929

“I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism… I have every confidence that there will be a revival of activity in the spring, and that during this coming year the country will make steady progress.”
– Andrew W. Mellon, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury December 31, 1929“I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence.”
– Herbert Hoover, December 1929“[1930 will be] a splendid employment year.”
– U.S. Dept. of Labor, New Year’s Forecast, December 1929
“For the immediate future, at least, the outlook (stocks) is bright.”
– Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in Economics, in early 1930
“…there are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over…”
– Harvard Economic Society (HES) Jan 18, 1930
“There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about.”
– Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930
“The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern…American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity.”
– Julius Barnes, head of Hoover’s National Business Survey Conference, Mar 16, 1930“… the outlook continues favorable…”
– HES Mar 29, 1930
“… the outlook is favorable…”
– HES Apr 19, 1930
“While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed through the worst — and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There has been no significant bank or industrial failure. That danger, too, is safely behind us.”
– Herbert Hoover, President of the United States, May 1, 1930“…by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent…”
– HES May 17, 1930“Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.”
– Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930
“… irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery…”
– HES June 28, 1930
“… the present depression has about spent its force…”
– HES, Aug 30, 1930
“We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression.”
– HES Nov 15, 1930
“Stabilization at [present] levels is clearly possible.”
– HES Oct 31, 1931
“All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed… and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S.”
– President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933

[Hawkcreek]

Typically creatures who don't see any threats in their environment end up fertilizing the environment.
That's ok - it needs the nitrogen, probably.
But, if you are a rabbit telling all your friends that the nearest fox is a thousand miles away, you may just be wanting them to quit looking around so that they are first on the menu.

[ralfy]

I'm not sure, but I think the tendency is to ignore threats. Thus, peak oil, global warming, and other crises are either hoaxes or easy to solve. Given that, more priority is given to entertainment, technofixes, or the belief that those in authority will solve these problems.

Fracking and unconventional production in general are not proof that peak oil did not take place but actually confirm it. That's why debts had been rising and more oil companies face difficulties given lower prices, especially around half-a-trillion during the next few years:

"Oil Industry Needs Half a Trillion Dollars to Endure Price Slump"

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... to-survive

Meanwhile, higher prices leads to more economic crises, in turn already worsened due to fallout from financial speculation coupled with more credit created. That combined with the oil crisis has caused several economies to fall apart and considerable damage to most.

For material resources, there are no substitutes, which is why energy and financial costs to obtain them have been going up. Meanwhile, fallout from financial crises has dampened prices.

For global warming, one report indicates something like a trillion dollars has been lost each year due to its effects, prompting even insurance companies, multinational banks, military and science organizations, etc., to publish reports warning of its effects.

Finally, I think these crises are brought up not to make things more interesting but to show that they are connected to and amplify each other.