[bl00k]

I'm not a doomer and never will be. I think it's utterly and totally useless to be talking about a 'total collapse of society'. Apart from what actually happens, it's a waste of time. I will talk about what has happened and perhaps make conservative predictions of the future. But telling other people there will be a dieoff and most people will die is, in my humble opinion, a load of horse sh*t even though i'm aware of possible implications of rapid oil production decline. It doesnt do any good, it only alienates people and even if people will accept it as truth, you'll only accomplish inaction or worse.

I'll stay positive and optimistic, all my life. The end will *always* be the same: death.

[Lumpy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alokin', 'L')umpy, you're really good prepared. I guess most of us (and me) think we will survive, but we are not prepared in that manner.

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.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') guess I'm a doomer. Or am I a realist?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MadScientist', 'i') look at the world my father left me.

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

Time for change.

[MadScientist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MadScientist', 'i') look at the world my father left me.

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

Time for change.

[davep]

I chose Industrial society won't survive, lots will die, but live goes on

The lots will die bit depends on what we collectively do to mitigate things, but given the late stage of the game, I don't hold out much hope.

[MadScientist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'I') chose Industrial society won't survive, lots will die, but live goes on

The lots will die bit depends on what we collectively do to mitigate things, but given the late stage of the game, I don't hold out much hope.

[JJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MadScientist', 'i') look at the world my father left me.

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

Time for change.

[Revi]

I like to think that we can prepare for this thing, but I am getting doomier every day.

I don't think we can plan more than a year or two into the future really.

Here it is, right on schedule, peak oil.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') like to think that we can prepare for this thing, but I am getting doomier every day.

I don't think we can plan more than a year or two into the future really.

Here it is, right on schedule, peak oil.

[Revi]

I guess all we can do is guy wire the house to a rock, like they do in Newfoundland.

Seriously one of the things I am doing is shoring up the hill below my house here in Maine.

There isn't much we can do, but I don't want to have my house fall down.

I can see we're in for some rough times.

[patience]

I voted the middle option, and reserve the right to change my mind as the situation developes. I don't have much faith in our society responding to our situation preemptively. We haven't so far. So, I think we will wait until our best options are gone, and try to be heroic, like humans often do, and make a lot of false starts that waste precious resources. All done for the sake of politics, as usual.

My fearless prediction (today), is:

-Economic debacle, aided and abetted by rising energy cost due to short supply, and every mistake possible to be made by TPTB.

-Shortages of fuel, goods, and food, depending where on you live.

-Society devolves slowly (hopefully) to a life vaguely resembling ca. 1910, or maybe 1860, before we figure out how to use steam again.

This could take anywhere from 6 to 10 years, up to 30 years or more, if we act intelligently. My expectation is that we will screw it up at every step, make short-term decisions that make it worse, and end up at 1915 lifestyle (on the average-worse in some places) in my lifetime, and I'm 62. Say, by 2015 to 2020. I don't think I'm a doomer, I think I'm realistic.

[bromius]

I chose option 3. I don't think industrial society will survive as we know it, but that cat is out of the bag. Industry will look different in the future and take place on a much smaller, or at least less energy intensive scale. I think it will continue because it is an efficient way to process the materials available with the energy available.

I think this will go on while population declines, at least modestly. Areas that have access to water and haven't damaged their soils too badly will probably not suffer too much. Maybe they'll take the vegetarian option to help stretch food resources. Areas not blessed with abundant or reliable water will have some trouble. Areas that degraded their soils will have some trouble. Areas that have both problems will be textbook definition doomer porn. I think areas that are fairly well endowed with natural resources but adjoining the doomer scenario lands will also have some problems with hungry refugees. As oil and other fossil fuels get more scarce, the fallout from the scarcity will become more and more localized.

edit: doomer afterthought - instead of people deciding to change their diet and drive less, the wealthy may prefer, at least until it precipitated a french revolution style terror, to use agricultural output for personal transportation and to maintain other vestiges of the old order to demonstrate status.

[StuckInPhilly]

I voted in the middle.

I look at it as being similar to the black plague hitting Europe; people die, chaos reigns and civilization bounces back after a while.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alokin', ' ')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).
.
Will humanity survive?

[Newfie]

It's funny how things go up and down. Right now the price of gas is down and to some extent that makes me feel silly about how doomerish I was a couple of months ago. Then I think that this is all just a short term correction and the general trend is not changing.

Then I think about the financial mess and go through a similar emotional roller coaster.

I've been following the Arctic Ice thread and the Methane Release threads and they are very scary. Cid seems to think that we are seeing the effects of runaway global warming right now. He might be right.

Then there is the Bartlett video on exponential growth and the Caton (?) video on excess population. Both are sober men who make plain and simple sense to me. They speak to my heart.

So I find myself telling myself (and others) that we live in a house of cards. We don't know which way it will fall, we just know that it will fall. The mechanisms could be such that there are underlying support levels, or that one thing takes the whole mess down in one fell swoop.

I try to stay nimble and to be prepared for anything, which means I am not real well prepared for any ONE thing.

I feel so screwed. But mostly for my 17 yo daughter. How can I even talk to her about this stuff? I would not want to hear this talk from my Father. Too doomerish for a young person about to embark on their life.

Shit!

[patience]

Newfie,

I went through the same thing with my kids when they were young. They were 6 and 8 years old in 1974 when we lived in an automotive town that suffered from the oil embargo. I just explained it and told them we sold the house because of that, and were going to move to a farm. They could have cared less about the economics. "Can we have a PONY on the farm?"

Later, as the auto industry recovered, but the inflation of the late 1970's and early 1980's was a problem, they also took it in stride. It was just a matter of factoring in what it meant to their personal experience at the time. (Ages 12 and 14.) By the mid 1980's, the younger girl asked my advice for a career, having considered some of these things. I told her to choose something that has a TANGIBLE result, to stay away from paper shuffling, et al. She became an Electrical Engineer. When we had hard times and couldn't pay for the last half of her college, she joined the Air Force, went in the ROTC program, and let them pay for her degree.

We always talked to our kids a lot, and let them hear my wife and I make decisions. Don't sell kids short! They are very resilient and creative about going after what they want. I don't mean to scare them to death with doomerism. Just put the facts out there and let them think about it. They will surprise you!

edit: I think that it is very important to give kids the facts, that is, to prepare them for reality as best we can. I know that I deeply resented the rose colored glasses that my parents used to explain their view of the world, after getting some hard doses of reality later! They did their best, but presented me with an idealistic "the way it should be" view. Good for setting ideals, but a poor way to prepare for life in the real world.

[AgentR]

I've thought for a long time that we are headed for a bottleneck style population collapse resulting from several very negative effects all coming together over the space of a few decades.

On the scale of billions down to thousands.

OTOH, decades still to go, not months and years.

Its not something people will get to ride out with a bit of stoic bravado and a few bags of dryed food.

As everyone here ages, and both disappointment and relief of imminent doom fades, the writing will be on the wall, and the magnitude of what is to come will be much more apparent.

Question is, will you then choose to take a pleasant funeral service and pass on a bit of screaming, "the end is nigh".

[charliebrownout]

I'm in the "life goes on" camp.

I don't see why major changes in the structure of society equates to doom. Different isn't "doom" it is just different.

I'm not saying there won't be unpleasantness along the way--that's a given--but I don't see it as the end of the world. It's the end of the world as we know it--not in general.

As for surviving, I plan to go on as long as I can and have what moments of happiness I can eke out along the way. But, that was my plan before I even knew about "peak oil".

Anyone who plans to live forever or thought they would "if only PO didn't exist" was kind of lost to begin with!