[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RacerJace', 'W')ell being a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan I just realised the answer is 42. When I turn 42 it will be 2012 and we will have (pobably) just passed the peak of all liquid fossil fuels. Coincidently this is also when the Mayans predicted the end of time.
.

[aldente]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', 'A')nd surely there is something as well deeply meaningful about 2012 in the Bible, or number pi.

[lakeweb]

This looks like a nice cozy thread. I'm 54. So, so what?

I'll say the old geezers have had some lifetime experience. They have read much more than the Internet would provide for the last few years. Don't get me wrong, current events are reveling. But to be reviling, these events have to be put into context. They have to be measured against human history.

I don't know, and I say that often. But anybody with any ability to think can see that things aren't what most think they are.

It seems that peak oil is like a tripping point, and almost inconsequential as far as the economical/political implications go. The real issues are what the world does in reaction to peak oil. Well, we certainly are not addressing it rationally. What does that leave? A fight?

That is what scares the hell out of me most if I, and my children, are to live.

Something I had learned a long time ago, is that I will die. If I understand that so well, why I'm I doing what I do on the Internet??????

Best, Dan.

[crapattack]

It's 1970. Crapattack is 7, blond, dreaming, lying in a field waiting for the bombs. Reading about Hiroshima and skin melting off from radiation burns, slanty-eyed people running to the steaming river to put out their faces on fire, heads bobbing in the bloody water, not deserving it. The good old human race is a surprising, nasty and loving piece of work. The rules of this world are ridiculous and strange, why do people doing the most labour get paid the least? Crapattack wears black and rescues birds that the cat attacks. Try to be good, understand, avoid the blows.

It's 1980. Crapattack has written a play about a killer. A smart boy whose mother doesn't understand him. They ski and never touch. The end of the world is everywhere any moment. Hormones are a b*tch, avoid the blows.

It's 1990. Crapattack has found love and never expected to live that long, everything afterwards is a bonus.

It's 2000. Crapattack knew the world wasn't going to fizzle in Y2K because the world never does here in the 'nice places'. Crapattack made no preparations but observations - something is very wrong.

2006. Eyes open from the dream. My life has come to mean something to me. Regardless of our niceness or because of it the world is dying. I'm not angry, I'm profoundly sad and it's hard to shake. it's our own fault. 3 months ago oil would run out in 100 years, but I had plans. Sure, but some guy'd think of something to keep us sliding along, I had other things people want. Now. Well now, I don't know how the h*ll to farm but I'm gonna try. I'll most likely die. So. This is what my life is going to be. Farmer at the end of the world, defender of land, hoarder, sower of seeds, milker of goats, protector of friends, energy catcher and grower, tide watcher. Ok. So be it. That's fine then, it takes some retuning. If I can get some land to build my nice place. The doors have opened and the bomb is falling and it's not a dream afterall.

[RacerJace]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', 'I')t's 1970. Crapattack is 7, blond, dreaming, lying in a field waiting for the bombs. Reading about Hiroshima and skin melting off from radiation burns, slanty-eyed people running to the steaming river to put out their faces on fire, heads bobbing in the bloody water, not deserving it. The good old human race is a surprising, nasty and loving piece of work. ......<snip>......

It's 1980. Crapattack has written a play about a killer. A smart boy whose mother doesn't understand him. ....<snip>.....

It's 1990. Crapattack has found love and never expected to live that long, everything afterwards is a bonus.

It's 2000. Crapattack knew the world wasn't going to fizzle in Y2K because the world never does here in the 'nice places'. Crapattack made no preparations but observations - something is very wrong.

2006. Eyes open from the dream. ...<snip>..... I'll most likely die. So. This is what my life is going to be. Farmer at the end of the world, defender of land, hoarder, sower of seeds, milker of goats, protector of friends, energy catcher and grower, tide watcher. Ok. So be it. That's fine then, it takes some retuning. If I can get some land to build my nice place. The doors have opened and the bomb is falling and it's not a dream afterall.

[galacticsurfer]

I have been a peakoiler for a couple of months now. I remember the first few days were really bad. Week for week however I have gradually psychologically adjusted to it all. It is a paradigm shift personally. I used to believe in basic business/economic tenets of growth and technology although my view of science had dwindled long before with my adoption of esoteric/new age religious viewpoints. The problem with a complete paradigm shift is to take everything you knew before and to reread it in a different light(every history book or novel or belief or occurrence or theory or relationship). It is like when people write a critique of Shakespeare or something based on feminist lesbian radicalism from the 60s. I have to do this new Peak oil rewriting or rewiring for every part of my life, tearing it all down and building it all back up bit for bit until the foundation is again stable. Since I have a habit of absorbing new paradigms occasionally this is not completely unknown to me and even sometimes a relief to the old drudge of life.

I heard about peak oil sometime last year but did not read up on it so did not "get it". I had heard before that oil was running out in 30-40 years but a friend told me when I mentioned it (10 years ago or more) that he had always heard that too but that they always found exactly that much again so there was no real problem. I could not dispute that really.

I think the critical thing in my life ( I am 40) was access to internet in late 90's. I can check things infinitely faster for truth than before. I can communicate with people and develop interrests and hobbies which would have been closed to me.

Essentially reality is an agreement or a convention between people on what is to be believed and accepted. this changes over time slowly. Whoever controls the medium of information controls the current paradigm. Without internet and mobile telephones,etc. we would not have had sept. 11 or the antiglobalizing movement which were both subcultures trying to change the current paradigm by cheap information/commnication methods. This finally seems to be taking hold. I am into astrology(since beginning 2000 when I read an article describing basic personality of each sign and could not believe that they could fit me and my wife so clearly,me Psisces, wife-Leo). I had thought this was crap before for idiots. Previous to that in mid 90s I had started with yoga and meditation to relieve stress and stay fit generally. Well I mention Astrology as a lot of things fit here. I read a good article on Pluto going through sagitarrius(1995-2008), this happens every 248 years. the last times we had Pluto in Sagittarius were the high renaissance(1500) and the enlightenment(1750) in Europe. Information explosion was the word of the day in both eras(followed in succession by heavy government repression then revolution over about a 30 year period so watch out). Additionally the astrologically aware know that Uranus was together with Neptune in early 1990s in Aquarius(every 171 years). Now Uranus is high tech/Aquarius is communications. This was just the time of the internet boom. Now we always get a shot of reality from Saturn(real bastard that one). Every 20 years Saturn and Jupiter(party time/santa claus) meet ( in1940/1960/1980/200/2020). We know in early 1940s we got WWII and in early 1960s we got worst part of cold war and in 1980 it flamed up again after a long detente. 2000 stock market crash was therefore obvious and several years political tension(911,Irak war,etc.). The question is where are we now going. I have been worrying about this for awhile and read a 6 volume/2400 pages history of Europe as well as other history books(Mongols, chinese history, Jewish history, Middle Ages, ancient european,etc.) to get some feel for the Next Big Thing. I was aware from the standard horoscopes that Uranus met pluto in oppsotion to Saturn in 1965-1966 and that in 1968 Jupiter came around to meet up with Uranus to as it was still opposed to Saturn. Everyone knows we had a really big paradigm shift then. the next big paradigm shift was 1989(end ofEast bloc/bipolar world order). Saturn and Uranus were conjunct in 1988. No big surprise therefore when The shit hits the fan next time Saturn and Uranus meet or are in opposition. That happens on US election day 2008(surprise?). In 2010 they are still in similar position when Jupiter meets Uranus. Jupiter has a tendency to expand(read explode here) everything that is happening. So I expect the real impact of what we are talking about in this forum to hit the whole society open in the face between 2008 and 2010. After that point you would have to be brain dead to not see the writing on the wall for whatever is going on. By then everyone will have played their cards(EU,USA govts., big business,Arabs,etc.) and the direction will be set for the next act of the play(by 2020-Saturn/Jupiter conjunction).

Now for those of you who do not "believe" in astrology I would simply suggest that as biological beings we have electrical energy currents controlling our chemical processes. the planets have big magnetic fields. The interactions between our fields and the planetary fields cause our physical/emotional reactions(particularly if we are not aware) and this is were we get the question of peak oil being in and of itself unimportant. What is critical is our reaction to it. People are in the mass unaware. the planets meeting or opposing each othe directly brings awareness as their energy is so intense at hat point in time(like sticking your hand into an electrical socket or into a fire).

[crapattack]

RacerJace, I didn't think of that the other night when I was writing this but you're right! The Wall was my era afterall - maybe I was channeling it a bit. I think I was starting to fall asleep and may have been dreaming. It's very odd to me though, how denial works, and how resistant we are to bad news, even when many of us have always known in our hearts this civilization was going to end and we talked ourselves out of it when the bombs didn't fall on us. Funny thing is it's just taking a long time to fall. I think there is a good cartoon in that.

[aldente]

I think we're all channeling here, and there we go. The poster before sure was born under the picies sign, so was I - we are the crazy folks, the intuitive ones.

[crapattack]

I've never put much into Astrology although I'm pretty open to the idea. My partner is Pisces so I certainly know about that one! I'm Cancer with Gemini rising. I've never really felt like what they describe but I was 2 1/2 months preemie. Does that matter? I guess I should have been a Sagittarius.

[jdmartin]

Micro,

I'm kinda with Bob Cousins on this one, albeit in a less cruel manner.

I think it is simply one of those things that you do in the course of living and never consider. Being honest, it is quickly apparent that it is quite impossible to consider and thoroughly research everything you find yourself in touch with on a daily basis. Think about it. You wake up from sleeping, hop into the shower (where did this water come from? will it last? what about the energy heating the water?), get dressed (how many Tibetans died making my T shirt?), pour your coffee (free-trade? pesticide free?), put on your aftershave (any mice killed in the testing of this product?), grab your briefcase (enviro-polluting plastic or cruel killing leather?), hop into your car (will the oil peak next month? can I afford the gas?), get on the freeway (how will these roads be maintained if the deficit gets too high?) ...and on and on...

One person cannot be informed or an expert about everything. Therefore, you must depend to some extent on others to "take care of things". Every time I drive over a bridge I hope that there's enough money to inspect that bridge, that the bridge inspector knows what he or she is doing, and that the recommendations are followed. If they're not, I might be floating down the river. If I am, so be it. You can't exist in civilization without faith of some sort, in some things. I think this is largely true with peak oil. Most people never stopped to consider in their day-to-day living, and those that did had faith that the problem would be resolved.

Of course, there are those that are just ignorant and blissful - give 'em NASCAR and Budweiser and life is good.

PS: Being from the South, I noticed your post about being in a gifted program in public school. Without offending too many people, a gifted program in the South is akin to a normal program in the West and Northeast. I have the experience of kids who attended public schools in the Northeast and the South as personal proof.

[jdmartin]

Micro,

I'm kinda with Bob Cousins on this one, albeit in a less cruel manner.

I think it is simply one of those things that you do in the course of living and never consider. Being honest, it is quickly apparent that it is quite impossible to consider and thoroughly research everything you find yourself in touch with on a daily basis. Think about it. You wake up from sleeping, hop into the shower (where did this water come from? will it last? what about the energy heating the water?), get dressed (how many Tibetans died making my T shirt?), pour your coffee (free-trade? pesticide free?), put on your aftershave (any mice killed in the testing of this product?), grab your briefcase (enviro-polluting plastic or cruel killing leather?), hop into your car (will the oil peak next month? can I afford the gas?), get on the freeway (how will these roads be maintained if the deficit gets too high?) ...and on and on...

One person cannot be informed or an expert about everything. Therefore, you must depend to some extent on others to "take care of things". Every time I drive over a bridge I hope that there's enough money to inspect that bridge, that the bridge inspector knows what he or she is doing, and that the recommendations are followed. If they're not, I might be floating down the river. If I am, so be it. You can't exist in civilization without faith of some sort, in some things. I think this is largely true with peak oil. Most people never stopped to consider in their day-to-day living, and those that did had faith that the problem would be resolved.

Of course, there are those that are just ignorant and blissful - give 'em NASCAR and Budweiser and life is good.

PS: Being from the South, I noticed your post about being in a gifted program in public school. Without offending too many people, a gifted program in the South is akin to a normal program in the West and Northeast. I have the experience of kids who attended public schools in the Northeast and the South as personal proof.

[MicroHydro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'M')icro,PS: Being from the South, I noticed your post about being in a gifted program in public school. Without offending too many people, a gifted program in the South is akin to a normal program in the West and Northeast. I have the experience of kids who attended public schools in the Northeast and the South as personal proof.

[elroy]

I'm 26 now. Growing up as a child I've always been an outcast, picked on and bullied by everyone, so it's no wonder that by the time I reached my teens I was (and frankly, still am) quite messed up. And I had long loong bouts of depression. Not suicidal, but more a gloomy "I'm never ever gonna be happy and probably won't live to be 50'. And to be honest, I've never actually been truly happy so far. In that light, peak oil or anything related to energy simply didn't cross my mind. I had other things to worry (mope) about.
I've read newspapers since I was like, 6 years old. I probably didn't understand much of it, or wasn't able to connect the dots. Although I've always had the feeling that there was something going on behind the curtains that couldn't stand daylight. As a kid, 12 or something, this translated into UFO conspiracy interest, X-files like stuff. On the other hand I've never been a dumb kid and I've always believed that 'end-of-the-world' scenarios never happen, they're just things people use to control other people. Mainly, church & state control the masses. And I reasoned, the end of the world has been predicted so many times yet here we are, all alive and still kicking.
I haven't really been critical of the USA's actions until Bush entered office. I don't think I followed elections much before then. And I really didn't know the extend to which they'd go in smear campaigns, corruption and lies for power. The invasion of Afghanistan seemed an appropriate answer to 9/11 cause that's where Bin laden was supposed to be, and the media had already shown the Taliban as these opressive backwards religious nutjobs. But with the Iraq war it was clear as day there was something else going on. With Abu Graihb, torture outsourced to other countries, the patriot act, Cheney's comments concerning torture and other things from the Bush administration, my eyes have been opened for good.

[apocolyptica]

i just learned of peak oil about a year ago and yes i didnt think about the grocery store or where electricity came from or for that matter where gas came from but in the past year my eyes have been opened wide and im playing catch up to get prepared for what is going to happen to us all i dont think of myself as stupid merely uninformed my cellar is full of canned fruits and veggies i have plenty of rice and cured meats and my guns are all loaded and cleaned

[mermaid]

3 years ago i started to think of the world's depending on oil.
I realize then that it must have an end, and so i started to find out some more information.
This year i have the acces to internet and so i found more information about PO. and in a short periode of time i realized that it could have some drastic conseqeunses.
i started thinking where to go and live during and after PO and maybe take lessons in survival skills. all kinds of wild idea's came up and i really have no idea of what will come.
I'm very afraid of the slow proces of going down in all sorts of materials and resources and that the wealth and healt of people will no longer be sustained. i also think of the poor countries, at this moment there is still a little(far from enough, but that is an another story) economic input by charity and smallscale trading, but when PO is there, they will be the hardest-hit victims, i'm afraid.

ok, the moment is still there and on this moment we, my husband and my son(2) are thinking of where to go. exually we want to have a piece of agricultural land an the possibility to keep livestock and be selfsufficient. the question is were??? not too close to a city, otherwise when cities are the worst place to live in people will come to the farms for food and shelter and so on.

I'm afraid live will be a hazard and lot and lots of people will not survive. That is what i think of and it keeps me busy everyday. And when i look in my son's eyes i just only can think of 1 thing: you will have a difficult future and that was a understatement!!!

[weimar]

Hi everybody!

I've been interested in this topic for a while, only started reading this forum a few weeks ago. This is one of the most interesting threads I've read so far, enough so that I registered to post a reply.

I am 29, about to turn 30. Grew up in suburban Ohio in a town that would be considered exurban in the 1970's. My earliest awareness of PO was reading National Geographic's special issue on energy (it stood out on the shelf, bright orange among a shelf of yellow). I was too young to remember the Carter administration. My parents always drove Buicks with large engines and oil/gas was never really discussed.

Only from reading history at school and mostly on my own did I begin to understand oil and energy's importance. As a WWII buff from an early age I read about energy's role in military campaigns i.e. the German drive to secure Russia's Caspian Sea oil deposits, as well as domestic measures like rationing in both Axis and Allied nations.

In 1995 I took a college course on urban studies and also read James Howard Kunstler's "Geography of Nowhere" on my own outside of school. This book was relavatory, it encapsulated my teenage loathing of suburbia. I didn't think much about oil but was more interested in alternatives to suburbia, yet semi-oblivious to its unsustainability.

1997-1998 I was making more money than I'd ever made in my life delivering pizza in suburbia, filling up my 1989 Accord with gas at $.97 per gallon.

Went back to college full time in 1998, totalled my Accord in an accident, and lived car free for three years in Columbus. Walking, bicycling, and riding the bus, it was easy to get around with few exceptions like grocery shopping.

I bought a used Camry in 2001 as graduation was approaching and I would need a car to find a job. I remember on 9/11 I registered the car and got my plates that morning and was driving home when people in New York started calling in on Howard Stern screaming that the World Trade Center was on fire. I got home in time to see the second plane hit the building.

Since graduating college in December 2001 I've been living under the shadow of Bush's recession (there has been NO recovery in Ohio) and the neocon war which I sincerely believe Rumsfeld's comment, will be a "generational committment".

I've watched the price of gasoline slowly climb and stay above $2.00 as inflation erodes my already modest standard of living. My current job in financing auto and truck loans is subject to the volatility of oil prices and interest rates. It is a dead end with no future and I am getting out of it soon and going to grad school.

Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma and reading Kunstler's "Long Emergency" last year have cemented my belief that the American model of consumption and suburbia is completely unsustainable and will decline/collapse within my lifetime.

On a personal note I have no wife or children, little debt and few assets, and a desire to dump what non-utilitarian things I still own. I feel like a freak in our society, surrounded by oblivious consumers, able to discuss PO and America's decline with only family and a few enlightened friends. Driving as little as possible and trying to avoid buying and owning things is how I live now.

Discovering the peakoil.com forum was another welcome reminder of why I no longer view or listen to commercial media.

[rwwff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MicroHydro', 'S')o, people aged over 26 who didn't learn about the concept of peak oil until this century, please share with me what you were thinking back then. I promise not to be rude to anyone.

[gg3]

(MicroHydro, you mentioned in your first posting that Huxley had it pegged in 1928. Which book or essay, and do you have the quote?)

I was aware of "environmental issues" at about age 9, and quickly figured out that every single such issue was ultimately driven by overpopulation. I read _Limits to Growth_ in highschool and concluded that the first half of the 21st century would be the crunch time. Also concluded that the necessary response strategy was two-fold: a) build sustainable communities as test platforms for new technologies and methods, and as personal/group "insurance" against the probable crises, and b) use all of the tools of private enterprise and civic engagement to minimize the depth, intensity, and duration of the crisis phase.

However, when I was in college people thought this was "survivalism" and "not politically correct." Fast-forward 20-something years of not getting anywhere on this, and we come to the present.

I first learned about PO in a specific way (i.e. as distinct from other resources crises) a couple of years ago and at the same time found this board and signed on. Prior to that point I believed that other sustainability crises would go critical before fossil fuel shortage went critical. At this point I see all of them running neck-and-neck (ha, the proverbial horsemen of apocalypse at the race track!:-).

Either way my original conclusion has held: build sustainable communities, and use every tool of free enterprise and politics to minimize the severity of the crisis. The difference now is that I've found others who have arrived at the same or similar conclusion on their own, and we agree on the overall framework, and we are working concertedly toward our goals in these areas.

At this point I don't believe we'll be able to turn things around at a macro level to the degree needed to prevent a catastrophic scenario during this century. When Carter was President I felt there was a decent chance, but since that point, the odds have declined to the point where now the primary emphasis is on sustainable community for the sake of personal/group resilience. That is to say, it appears the perfect storm is coming whether we like it or not, so it's now time to batten down the hatches and ride it out. This does not mean abandoning engagement in economic and civic affairs, only a shift in priorities until such time as our group is safely established in the country.

[pedalling_faster]

i'm 48. when i started as a design engineer in Silicon Valley, it was "before outsourcing". actually, we were still doing engineering drawings on paper.

my first job, the "outsourcing" was to San Antonio, Texas. we made drawings and occasionally got a free trip to the plant in San Antonio, if we wanted it. at that time, the outsourcing made sense - i accepted that "loaded" (with overhead) labor rates were lower in San Antonio.

in 1985 i did some consulting for some of the guys i worked with in the first job. they were outsourcing everything above 100 MHz to Taiwan, another guy who worked at the first job had returned to his home in Taiwan and set up a microwave manufacturing facility.

also about that time, i got a tour of a company named Convergent Technology, right in Silicon Valley. they had built a huge automated manufacturing facility. i spent a few hours speaking with the employees and then indicated where the robots and other machines i was selling could be integrated into the facility. i showed that to the customer, a manufacturing engineer. he freaked out, like i had stolen their manufacturing process, and introduced me to one of the plant managers, which was actually good.

anyway - and this relates to "going local" - in the early to mid 1980's, a lot of manufacturing in Silicon Valley was local.

for about the next 15 years, i worked for 2 companies that were vertically integrated ... the rest outsourced. the engineers at the vertically integrated (local manufacturing companies) spent a lot less time doing paperwork.

anyway, outsourcing always struck me as Bullsh*t. but, it was my job to support it, so i did.

so i didn't think about Peak Oil until Michael Ruppert, Matt Simmons, Ken Deffeyes et al started ringing the alarm bell, after 9-11.

as far as, "what was i thinking" ? about doing my job, getting laid, and going to the gym after work.

now when i hear people talk about "going local" i think about as being like "the old days", though with iPods.

i would love to see manufacturing re-patriated (localized), including food production. there was a lot of food production in Silicon Valley in the "old days". considering what companies spend on air conditioning and the cost of electricity, it makes sense to build plants (engineering & manufacturing) underground, and to grow food on the roof or at ground level.

one of the other drivers for outsourcing was - no pollution control. this happened recently (in 2005) with the shutdown of Clark Foam, the biggest maker of surfboard blanks in the world. their plant in Irvine County got shut down, permanently. Cyanide is an integral part of polyurethane foam, "TDI" is the acronym for another nasty chemical used in surfboard manufacturing.

anyway, i was always more comfortable as an engineer with local, non polluting manufacturing processes.

[mjpete]

I dislike the original question because it implies that if didn't know about peak oil, you were somehow doing something wrong. Obviously peak oil as a concept has been around for decades, but it is only in the last decade has it really passed form being a fringe or very industry specific idea to one of wider acceptance and or relevance. The real reason that we are seeing wider acceptance, is because peak oil is becoming relevent. 20 years is relatively long time horizon for most people and so until the time horizon for event is less than 5 years things do start to happen. Look at Y2K. Not much was done, until the last couple of years of the 1990's. The main difference, is that Y2K has a specific date to work on. Peak oil has no such date. However, it is clear that peak oit is likely within the 5 year time horizon and so the effects of peak oil are starting to occur. Peak oil is no longer something that is going to happen in the far future, but most likely relatively soon. This is why most people have started to learn about peak oil.