[alokin]

I remember doomerish predictions about the ecological state of planet earth 30 years ago. I don't tell these are untrue because nothing really severe has happened until now, at least not on a scale of the deluge (big flood).
Sometimes I think everything simply goes on and sometimes I tend to believe more the doomers like CidYama and his runaway global warming.
And there is PO, which might be less severe that climate change, but severe on food production.
Will humanity survive?

[joeltrout]

I think life will go on as "normal" for at least another 10 years. The US is going through the biggest housing collapase and credit crisis EVER yet things are relatively "good".

joeltrout

[eXpat]

I think that we are headed for an economic collapse in the next 6/12 months. After that, I don´t see how our current level of civilization can be maintained with decreasing input of resources (not only PO, but water, food, etc.).
In the meantime, climate change is working its way to what I think could well be the biggest mass extinction in Earth history.
I would love to be proved wrong, but I just don´t see data supporting other conclusions.
Needless to say, I voted for the first option.

[mos6507]

I voted in the middle but I'm really undecided on this, mostly because peak oil is only part of a larger problem of infinite growth. There is no long-lasting solution outside of population reduction.

[Revi]

This next generation will have a tough time of it. Car culture is still going, but it is showing signs of weakening. We are just at the beginning of the big change. The average person won't be able to heat their home with oil and won't be able to afford to drive their car around soon. That will force change, but a lot of people won't be able to change. They will be economically marginalized. There will be lots of homeless, carless people.

I guess I'm a doomer. Or am I a realist?

[DantesPeak]

Even though be may be heading directly to economic collapse, it does not mean everyone will wake up in the morning with no jobs.

Most likely, barring a war/plague, the drop off in jobs will take months or years. The price of oil (again outside of war) is unlikely to double overnight. We will see our income squeezed and squeezed agaIn by rising energy costs, that is for people lucky enough to maintain their income. For those loosing their source of income, the drop off could be quite terrible.

Fortunately for most of us in the US/Canada, it will probably not seem like the end of the world for maybe up to ten years from now. That is without some new war in the ME, which unfortunately can not be discounted.

[alokin]

There were so many threads to planet earth I can remember:
the demonstrations against Pershing II, the overkill, Waldsterben, the dissappering Amazon forest, but here we are.
Pure luck, so far.
But I have still hope and go to the Community Garden meeting now.

[venky]

I think things will go on as "normal" for much longer than most people on this forum think. I think "normal" will last for atleast a decade more, if not two or three.

But, in the long term, as fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources run out, and I dont just mean energy but even metal and others and global warming changes our planet for the worse, I wonder if Industrial society as we know it can carry on. Atleast our mass consumerism wont last.

I wonder though if we can build a society based on the fundamental values of prudence, thrift, conservation and above all sustainability and harmony with the planet.

[ohanian]

I'm so doomerish
that I'm convinced that
one day I will DIE!

[MadScientist]

i look at the world my father left me.

I look at the world i'm leaving my children.

Time for change.

[kpeavey]

The only way to describe how doomerish I am is to put the word "very" in front of the word "doomerish"

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I') voted in the middle but I'm really undecided on this, mostly because peak oil is only part of a larger problem of infinite growth. There is no long-lasting solution outside of population reduction.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('venky', 'I') think things will go on as "normal" for much longer than most people on this forum think. I think "normal" will last for atleast a decade more, if not two or three.

[coyote]

The middle option is the only one both doomerish and vague enough to be selectable for me. That there will be a crash I'm pretty well convinced - If life as usual winds up being able to continue in the face of all this environmental degradation, then quite a lot of how I understand the world to work will be false.

But 50%? Who knows? And who knows when?

The reason there's a problem with the predictions made 30 years ago is that they were predictions. Paul Ehrlich for instance made some pretty precise predictions about what he though would happen and when. You just can't do that, there are far too many variables. (And in Ehrlich's case, he seemed to not even bother to research some of them. At least he made some people aware that there was a problem.)

Life has a way of bumbling along through sheer inertia it sometimes seems. The whirlwind we see developing may take much longer to form than we here think - or it could envelop us with a speed that catches us all off guard. That there will be a whirlwind that our culture must reap, at some point, I have no doubt.

Understand the immensity of the issues we're facing, and communicate them, but don't make predictions - particularly ones involving a specific time frame. You'll wind up being wrong, and the folks looking for an excuse to not believe will find one, even as the real storm approaches. The Boy Who Cried Wolf comes to mind.

[jlw61]

I plan for getting my family through the bottleneck (the few will survive option), I expect the industrial world to crumble but I hope for things to muddle along as they always have.

It's all in timing, how inventive we get, and if people start to panic.

I can as easily see us muddling along as crashing hard.

My current "likely" scenario is major short-term disruptions (2-5 yrs), and still pull through with geotherm or other tech, without losing more than low double digits in population.

If we have 10 years without major disruptions, then we have a really good chance of maintaining industry... if we don't nuke each other first.



I guess I'm feeling pretty optimistic today!

[TheDude]

Didn't care for the options either. These things need to be balanced, otherwise it's just pushing a line. You may as well make it a joke in that case - [Poll] "How many of your family members will be eaten by zombies?"

[JustaGirl]

I see the 2nd & 3rd options going on simultaneously around the world. The ELM theory has me very worried and then there's the report of China consuming ALL coal exports within 4-6 years That could very well cause a fast crash for countries that import coal to burn for electricity. Probably more resources wars as well.

[killJOY]

The second and third options could be one and the same.

Given that I've been in preps since 2003, it's really sad that, at this point, I just don't know what to do.

[Lumpy]

This is a difficult poll for one main reason -- what do you mean by "the next generation"?

Many people in our (husband and mine) generation have parents still living. But we also have grown children, nearly grown children, and toddler & pre-school grandchildren. Are you talking about the little kids? Or unborn but soon to be born kids? (They are really of the same generation.) I assumed for the sake of my response that you were speaking of that generation.

My answer is that our grandkids' and the rest of their generation's survival will be 100% dependent on preps made by us, and by their parents.

Unfortunately, even though they have been given the opportunity (by us) to move to our farm and prepare along with us (we just really got started big time 3 years ago), the parents of the grandkids have rejected the way of life that requires hard work on the farm, plus working off the farm to earn money while they still can.

We foresee being able to feed ourselves here at about 90% from what we grow by end of harvest season, 2010. By then, it may be like during the Great Depression -- grandkids sent to live on the farm with grandparents, while parents tried to find work wherever they could. We will take in our grandsons. So none of them will be in the die-off from starvation, we believe. As to their parents .... well, they are prime candidates for the die-off, as the world they insist on living in and the lives they insist on living becoming completely unsustainable.

I guess that means DOOM, here -- I'm talking about my kids being dead within the next 10 years ... but the NEXT GENERATION (grandkids) -- ours have a good shot at making it. And so do the others of their generation that are the grandkids and/or kids of other people making serious preps - like us.

(I picked the middle answer.)

Lumpy

[alokin]

Lumpy, you're really good prepared. I guess most of us (and me) think we will survive, but we are not prepared in that manner.
The next generation thing - yes it depends weather you have no kids, small or big ones or even grandkids.
These questions actually came into my mind because at the moment everything seems to halt, oil price down, banks still alive and live just goes on.
Most people forget about what happened some month ago until the next bang. I myself sometimes think if all these doomer theories are pure vain? My brain says no, but my ambiance says no everything's fine.