[Jack]

Let us suppose that you, gentle reader, have developed a deep rapport with the new President who will be sworn into office in 2009.

The new President has a deep respect for your thinking, your earthy, practical wit, and your understanding of Peak Oil. They've offered you a job in the White House, complete with kitchen privileges and full benefits!. You'll have an office close to the President. Your pay will be quite generous. Heck, you even have a comely assistant.

Let us assume that Peak Oil has just begun.

KSA is now in decline - there is no doubt, and no credible source questions it.

We are in global peak, and we're going off the cliff.

The CIA projects a decline of 8% per year, factoring in new discoveries.

The stock market is at 13,000 on the Dow; it's been volatile, but hasn't crashed.

Crude Oil is at $150 per bbl, and gasoline is $6 per gallon.

The housing market is in trouble, but has not crashed.

The U.S. is in recession, with unemployment of about 9%.

Interest rates are still low - about 6% for long treasury bonds, but inflation has increased to 5% officially. Unofficially, it's closer to 10%.

The Chinese and other creditors are starting to make demands.

Iraq is a bit more peaceful, but is still a bleeding sore.

There are no new "wonder technologies" to save the country, though the media continue to spread the idea.

No significant mitigation efforts have been implemented prior to installation of the new President.

The new President feels that it is time to deal with this problem. You are brought into a meeting room.

Present are the President and Vice President, certain influential members of the House and Senate, the Joint Chiefs, the various Cabinet officers, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of the CIA and NSA.

The President looks at you, sizing you up, and fixes a gaze upon you.

What do you suggest the President do about Peak Oil?

Note: Remember, this is still a limited government, with all the various constraints of a U.S. government. Keep in mind that you'll still be dealing with typical Americans, whether for good or ill.

[lateralus]

Wow, I'm drawing a blank here Jack. Such a heavy question.

I guess screaming run to the hills and every man for himself probably won't cut it as good Presidential advice eh?

[seahorse]

Jack,

You are the eternal optimists - to even suggest we will have a presidential election in 2009. I sometimes wonder if you and Spike aren't one and the same.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lateralus', 'W')ow, I'm drawing a blank here Jack. Such a heavy question.

I guess screaming run to the hills and every man for himself probably won't cut it as good Presidential advice eh?

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lateralus', 'W')ow, I'm drawing a blank here Jack. Such a heavy question.

I guess screaming run to the hills and every man for himself probably won't cut it as good Presidential advice eh?

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', 'J')ack,

You are the eternal optimists - to even suggest we will have a presidential election in 2009. I sometimes wonder if you and Spike aren't one and the same.

[lateralus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'H')eck, maybe I'm a troll from Halliburton.

Let's suppose there aren't any elections. We still face the problem of what to do. So...you're now in front of the Decider and associates. Mr. Cheney fixes you with his gaze and says: "OK, what do we do now?"

[Ludi]

"Other"

[jboogy]

You are a hard ,cold calculating man of action PMS.Probably not my way of handling things but I'd have to back you up just because you sound so f**king confidant and I haven't heard nothing better yet. If it twer me however I think I'd probably get the prez' to issue an executive order immediately mandating all v-8 engines be taken to a mechanic to have at least 2 cylinders disabled,commercial trucks would be exempted.The strategic reserves would be utilized for the manufacturing infrastructure to mass produce solar panels and wind turbines, oil saved from reduced consumer demand would go to refill the reserve as needed. All big ticket military aircraft and naval ships would immediately be shelved , missile defense shield? stop now and while your at it give back the billions you've already wasted. NASA? unless your launching commercial satelites that the corporation's gonna pay for, forget it. Foreign gubmint's enjoying our military's protection?(Japan,south korea,colombia,germany,italy,ETC.)you can start picking up the whole tab.Granted, many ,many countries would be tickled pink to see us leave their lands.Really progressive tax rates? Yeah man!How's a top bracket of 60% sound?How about some serious health care for our wounded veterans?How about some kind of help for EVERYBODY that can't afford health care?How about making oil and timber companies pay a real percentage for resources they take from federal lands?Hey , why don't we stop fishing in U.S. territorial waters for a year or two and give the stocks a chance to replenish?Boeing can support the fishermen for a little while, can't they? Cattle ranchers putting up fence on federal lands?The president doesn't think so. Pacific Northwest want to cut down some redwoods and other assorted old growth? Not on MY buddies' watch.Any more developers wanna pave over good topsoil? O.K. , but you better believe your gonna pay through your f**king nose to do it. Here's an idea Hillary , Obama, John,Rudy,Mitt,Bill,Joe and maybe Newt and Al, let's see if we can maybe persuade some corporations to not only return their plants to the U.S. , but maybe even locate those plants near urban centers. No? they don't want to do it?well maybe they'd rather pay a HEFTY tax on all profits generated in the U.S. , and maybe they'd rather the justice dept. takes a hard long look at their corporate headquarters in the cayman's that's staffed by one fulltime secretary that don't speak no good english.I could go on and on but I'm starting to get pissed, Thanks Jack, I was in a good mood(resigned , melancholy looking emoticon)

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'Y')ou are a hard ,cold calculating man of action PMS.Probably not my way of handling things but I'd have to back you up just because you sound so f**king confidant and I haven't heard nothing better yet.

[cynicalheretic]

I would tell the president to go fuck themself. I would never sink the level of working for a politician... you know standards and all what they are.

[Baldwin]

I would tell the president and every other politician to shoot themselves in the head. We might actually have a hope of survival then.

[Jack]

Guys...I'm all for having fun...but you DO realize that these responses suggest that there is no solution other than dieoff. That's probably not something the politicians can embrace.

Which means we'll have a crash as hard as can be.

I do believe I'm going to need to increase my doomerosity.

[kochevnik]

Major Massive Triage -

Prime Directive : either we all make it or none of us make it - either we all cooperate or we all die.


1) Housing - I did a thread here a long time ago that calculated that if you built housing like what is found in the Russia and China and packed it densely enough (and tall enough), you could fit 200 million people in a single city 5 miles on a side. Basically it is the world's largest remodelling project. Choose one hundred new metropolitan areas to house 90 percent of all Americans - the 'New Cities'. The remaining ten percent (the 'Farm People') are organized to run the ag and minerals/metals systems. All unnecessary roads, houses and buildings are demolished and the raw material is used to build the 'New Cities'.

2) Transport - All autos are outlawed. Trucks for mining and ag use only. All other transport is via ship and train between the 'New Cities'. No airplanes. Travel to other countries is allowed (if they will have you) - by ship only.

3) No more immigrants - period. All illegals - every single one is deported pronto.

4) Drugs are legalized - Cable TV is free - Everyone eats for free - housing is free. If you want a job, you can have one - as long as it doesn't use excess energy - being on American Idol or TV is good - making (non-standard) lightbulbs or widgets is illegal. All forms of entertainment are encouraged, restaurants, theatres, movies (CGI of course) create a Golden Age of entertainment. Politics is encouraged - every city, every building, every floor has a representative voice (as long as they don't change the basic system of course ) Working gives you extra privileges - choose you building/floor etc. Dirtiest / most intellectually difficult jobs get the most privileges - sewer workers/prison guards/computer programmers/technicians/ doctors/nurses etc get the most privileges.

5) One child policy for everyone. No exceptions. If you could have a child and opt not to (permanently steriled) then you get to use/control some percentage of the energy that that chiild would have used during their lifetime (5 percent maybe). Short-term thinkers will go for sterilization - long term thinkers will opt for kids, in spite of the difficulties involved. Over time the genetics of the population should improve (perhaps ?)

6) Recall the military - all of them - from the 700 bases worldwide. They become the police force for the 'New Cities' if they want the job. Ten percent of them are used to run/control the nukes which keep any other country from invading.

7) Shopping, stores and 'buying' things is outlawed. Everyone gets basic items needed to survive replacements if necessary. Most manufacturing/production is done on the outskirts of the New Cities. Each New City has it's own nuke/solar/wind plants or inputs from the surrounding countryside.

----------------

Do these seven things and energy costs (once the New Cities are built) drop to 1 to 2 percent of what they are now. Over time the population falls to a fraction of what it is currently.

If we all cooperated - this 'remodelling' project could be done in ten years or less.

Everyone lives, no one dies.

[mercurygirl]

See my sig.

[kochevnik]

You're right Shanny - Harlan Ellison is the bomb !

As for my proposal - I wouldn't live there either - unless I could be a Farm Person. But I'd bet you this - ten years from now, if you did a poll on the streets asking 'the people' if they would willingly participate in such a project and I'd bet you could get universal approval from anyone who was down and out.

[lateralus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'G')uys...I'm all for having fun...but you DO realize that these responses suggest that there is no solution other than dieoff. That's probably not something the politicians can embrace.

[Tanada]

I would make it illeagle to make, import, or supply parts for internal combustion engines larger than 2.0 Liter excepting those greater than 20.0 liter. That should eliminate all the SUV's and pickup's within a few years while keeping the Locomotives in production for railroads. I would also make it illeagle to build any new fossil fuel power plants unless they make up less than 20% of grid capacity. As old fossil fuel power plants wear out they would have to be replaced with something else.

National building codes referring to insulation values. Build your McMansion if you want, but it will be so insulated it will use very little energy for heating/cooling.

Those changes are somewhat realistic and have a chance of actually mitigating things. IMO of course.

[jboogy]

Solid thinking Tanada, I went the route of mandating having existing vehicles made more fuel efficient because I think(and I could be wrong) if you in effect "outlaw" anything larger than a four cylinder you're forcing people into MAJOR expenditure when their current car breaks down, your 60,000 dollar zo6 vette broke a belt? oh well take it to the junkyard cause we don't import or make parts for that car no more.(red , square-mouth emoticon), I'm a little concerned about the energy that would be required to build new cars for half the country when their old one springs a leak or burns out a chip.If you just take off the rocker arms and pushrods for two or three cylinders ,they can keep using it ( yeah it might run a little rough) and just get the four banger when it's normal life has run out. I would outlaw the sale of new cars bigger than 2.2.Europes commercial trucks are turbo 4-bangers!Love the idea of insulating the crap out of new homes.

[dinopello]

I said other.

This is pretty radical.

Hopefully the president would be articulate and know how to discuss and explore topics that he probably doesn;t know much about. Obama seems like he might be such a person.

I would suggest he think about holding regular panel discussions that would be held on air (might have to force the networks to cover it, but maybe not). Maybe an hour or two every other week. On the panel I would tell him to have people who disagree with each other. Lets get Yergin, Lynch, Simmons, Cambell etc people like that on a variety of subjects or at least aspects of the energy problem - like exploration, production, alt energy, consumption, economics, food production, political, settlement patterns, transportation, geopolitics, security etc. The president would host, but have his own advisors who would assist - maybe some other congressional leaders could be there. Basically each of these would explore in gory detail the issues and force those taking positions to defend them from all aspects (technical, political, public interest etc).

Having a conversation, on air, in public with a sitting president would be intimidating for those participating but would at least be interesting for me to see. PBS hosted something like what I'm thinking with ex-politicians, generals, industry CEOs etc and it was really interesting. They also used a lot of hypotheticals to really explore the issues.

The main point of all this would be to slowly inform the public. Of what, I don't know. Yergin would say one thing, Deffeyes another and president and advisors and each other would grill them in depth. What the public would take away and who would watch (I know many of you would say nobody will watch) is unknown.

It is radical, particularly in the political sense as I mentioned. The president would have the power to make it happen if he wanted though and I believe everyone he invited would show up.

I know, people think its too late for this. Oh well, that's what I would tell him/her to do.