[Landmass]

I have been researching Peak Oil for about two years. I was probably the first peak-aware 15 year old. I don't see the concerns that I have mentioned on any of the topics. Everyone talks from an educated 3rd person view about something that has a chance to end the world. What do you think from a father/son/daughter/friend point of view? I know these aren't constructive topics, but there has to be other people like me out there that are thinking about these things. Not just skeptics or soul-less peak-oilers talking from 3rd person point of views.

1. What do you think the people who shrug this off will do? (your friends, extended family, people you went to high school with?)

2. What do you think about teenagers like me, who live in the city, have no connections or materials for survival after peak oil, do you understand that some people know that they will die due to this? Not just die, but starve, or be killed.

3. I've thought about my girlfriend, family, and friends all starving to death? Does anyone else have these concerns and understand that nothing realistic can be done in some peoples situations?

4. If peak-oil plays a part, how do you think your life will end?

A quote that has helped me through a lot of the thoughts I have is "Life is but a vapor" and it's true.

I know these aren't constructive questions, but it will make me feel a lot less alone if they were answered by some of you.

[UIUCstudent01]

First, always try to put an adventuresome spin on things you do (to stop the 'woe be me'). There's always a chance that you will have a opportunity to survive. I don't think people will start dying until at least a few years after peak... and most likely you'll know when peak happens. So you'll have time... Also, since it seems like your 17 and approaching 18, I suggest you look up ways to not get Drafted. I'm not very sure of the validity of the sight, but the information about that looks to be solid and collected from other sources.

Edit: This website (Here) might help you, if you can get the books. It might be possible that you could get one at your library (possibly through an inter-library exchange thing).

Not everyone will die, but I suggest picking up gardening techniques and such in a city. (Claim it as a hobby to your parents.)

[aldente]

Hey Landmass,

Two years of being aware of PO is quite some time. How has your perspective changed? I go through my day (and function fine by the way, business as usuall) thinking whenever I see other people: How will PO hit them?

The pretty young chic for instance while I watch her pumping gas, the proud guy in his Mercedes driving by, some newscaster all thrilled to have scored the job he has while presenting the latest trivial news and,and,and. All full speed headed towards a concrete wall.

Then again, what difference does it make if you don't have a clue or if you are at least partially informed?

To answer your questions:
1: No idea what they will do. There will be a lot of finger pointing and hectic search for culprits.
2. No idea. Trust your instinct of how to get around (or out of) cities. The collapse will not be that immediate. There might be one or even two decades ahead of use during wich the system is struggeling while consistently declining. By then you will be 35!
3. Research Bretherianism which is a spiritual thought rather than an applicable reality. I don't know much about it and enjoy good food and wine on a daily basis currently. In general it offends peoples common sense though and therfore I'll leave it there for now.
4. No idea, certainly cool and happy. None of my concerns at this point. Why should it be yours?

General advice: Keep doing what you're doing and don't bother to try to discuss this topic with your parents or most others. Won't change matters,
won't do any good. Rather get used to live with this knowledge. Why do you think we have this forum? It is a "stomach" in which we hope to "at least partially" to be able to digest this "blue pill" - or was it the red...

[Ayoob_Reloaded]

Kid, you're fucked. Just get used to it. Your life is going to consist of a daily regimen of increasing poverty and depression.

I suggest joining up with some kind of armed militia that will use you for cannon fodder. Get laid while you can, because your short and miserable life will hold no joy at all starting in 2008.

It's better to burn out than fade away.

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance
I'm getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in the ghetto
I've lived all over this town

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey
I ain't got time for that now

Transmit the message, to the receiver
hope for an answer some day
I got three passports, couple of visas
don't even know my real name
High on a hillside, trucks are loading
everything's ready to roll
I sleep in the daytime, I work in the nightime
I might not ever get home

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around
This ain't no mudd club, or C. B. G. B.
I ain't got time for that now

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter (go Searhorse)
to last a couple of days
But I ain't got no speakers
ain't got no headphones
ain't got no records to play

Why stay in college? Why go to night school?
Gonna be different this time?
Can't write a letter, can't send a postcard
I can't write nothing at all
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
this ain't no fooling around
I'd love you hold you, I'd like to kiss you
I ain't got no time for that now

Trouble in transit, got through the roadblock
we blended in with the crowd
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines
I know that ain't allowed
We dress like students, we dress like housewives
or in a suit and a tie
I changed my hairstyle so many times now
don't know what I look like!
You make me shiver, I feel so tender
we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving
you ought to get you some sleep
Get you instructions, follow directions
then you should change your address
Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day
whatever you think is best
Burned all my notebooks, what good are notebooks?
They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace
the burning keeps me alive
Try to stay healthy, physical fitness
don't want to catch no disease
Try to be careful, don't take no chances
you better watch what you say

[gego]

I think only a fool would not feel fear about the consequences of peak oil. Perhaps the reason many appear to deal with this intellectually rather than personally is the pain and the terror involved. Maybe we know in one part of the brain, but we do not want to know, so we treat peak oil as an issue rather than the personal disaster that it is.

There is no question in my mind that a population of 6 billion is an accident waiting to happen, and peak oil is the drunk driver behind the wheel.

It is my estimation that population must come back to the long term trend line and that could happen over a period of as little as 30 years or as long as 100 years. If peak oil is the trigger, which is the most likely cause, then Richard Duncan's estimate of 30 years after peak is reasonable. Nuclear war, unexpected epedemic, agricultural disaster, or other sudden cause could make it happen even faster.

This is a human disaster; no question about it. Things like this have happened to people before on a smaller scale. How would you like to have been the target of Nazi extermination in the 1930-1940 era, or Stalin's purge of the 1940-1950's? An accident of birth placed hugh numbers of people in harm's way. You personally could not have been born at any other time than when you were born, so it would be impossible for your life to be other than on a collision course with peak oil. Same for me, except that I am toward the end of my life. There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel terror for my two daughters and my four grandchildren. I direct my full energy toward making it possible for them to survive, but I know that even the best plans will be subject to failure. I feel somewhat ashamed that I have lived such an easy life, and they will, in the relatively close future, face the largest human disaster that I can imagine.

Not only are you, as a teen, dependent on parents you did not chose for your day to day needs, but you are one of the few teens who has been given a glimpse of the future. I personally think it is foolish to alert others to the problem of peak oil since it increases their change of survival and since we are all competing for the scarce lifeboats, their increased change is your diminished chance. Plus why subject yourself to put-downs from others. You are personally responsible for your own survival, and if others close to you chose to not participate with you, then you need to look elsewhere, formulate your own plan, and work toward that end.

We should all understand that in a time when death will be from starvation, disease and social unrest, that we should see to it that we have access to water, food, adequate shelter, and distance ourselves from social unrest. The more dependent upon a failing system you are, the more likely your death, so it should be clear that away from population centers, close to where food can be grown and water is readily available, and where population is lower would be better than in the middle of the cities and suburbs. There probably is some time for you to reach your maturity and plan to migrate to such a place. There is nothing stopping you from exploring the possibilities now and then acting on your plan at the earliest possible date. Nobody is going to walk up to your doorstep and do this for you; you must take the action. You don't have a chance to get what you want if you do not ask and act.

[Cegarcon]

1. Get on a plane to Marseilles, France.
2. Get to a Legion Etranger recruitment post.
3. Join. Learn how to use a gun, kick ass, and survive on a low-calorie diet.
4. Have a tolerable, if not exactly enjoyable life.

[Nano]

After much confusion, terror, woe and sadness, the only solution to peak oil, for the poor individual, is now crystal clear in my mind.

It's pretty much what the enlightened Matt Savinar recommends:

1. Convince your friends and family (be a leader!)
2. Keep a positive attitude (be courageous!)
3. Prepare to work hard (be strong and industrious!)
4. Understand that one person will perish, but a group of persons could very well survive! (Community is everything!)
5. Make a plan (Do not waste time/energy)

No need to dispair, just to be VERY MINDFULL! There is still some time and there are still multiple options. Both will decline rapidly

[Michael_Layden]

Hi

Don't waste your time being scared or worrying about the future. Instead be angry be very very angry with society in general for robbing your'e generation blind, putting themselves and their countries in debt for inefficent and often mediocre crap. Learn to look at adults with disgust and learn to see their lies for what they are. Get your friends angry.

Start a website, in your teens and early twenties the human mind is capable of immense data accumulation. Young people are immensely imaginative and have an ability to focus on problems with an absolute dedication that is amazing. You are often much less cynical about people and much more cynical about society than we who have molded ourself into the system are.

Society is able to keep conning itself that things will be OK because we have x years of oil, Coal, Nuclear etc. It accumulates more and more debt and hopes that some day this will be paid.

Be Angry , Be theatrical, Get groups of you to go to Shopping centres, planning appeals, Petrol/Gas Stations. Wear serious "uniforms" Matching suits or whatever, develop an image

Simple signs ,
"20 Years oil left, you used your share leave ours alone. "
"This Housing development was built on good land, How will we eat"

Serve notices to elected officials. I.e we intend to proscecute and imprison the officials involved in this project when we are in charge, because we know that this project makes no sense

"your stealing from us, don't expect us to pay your pensions"



We can survive on a 10 th of the resources we use now, We will survive, life will be different and perhaps better. It won't be if ever selfish ******* who understands the implication of Peak Oil heads for the hill to play Wyatt Earp. The amount of money we spent annually on Advertising and marketing worldwide to make us feel like crap and keep buying things is enough funds to retrofit the infrastructure we have to use 50% less resources in 10 years.

I look on this period that we are living in as the third Worrld war, it however is not between nations but between generations. Those SUVs are the panzers attacking your future. With every house we are occupying your future. With every loan we are enslaying your genertion.

You are at the eve of a whole new counter industrial revolution, it will be a differnet time but perhaps better so don't waste time worrying.

The Skillls you need first and foremost are the most human skills of being a "Homo Sapiens" i.e thinking man who is also a social animal. So learn to work and trust a large group of friends. I.e get together and workiing on a major project is a good way. Imagine after 100s of Generations of living in community we have in 2-3 generations being sold the picture of being a lone wolf as a viable evolutanry step.

The other skills you can develop when you know what you want to do.

If your sucessful at getting friends to join you start businesses, get as much allowance as you can from your parents, work for more. Advoid mass produced goods and live off the discarded materials / etc. Have fun, advoid drink drugs etc that society forces on youths to make them feel like they are adults or part of the scene. Make your fun from really having an impact plot and plan and decide the purpose of your life is to make an impact on your world. Starting sucessfull businesses between groups of you, undercut local businesses, buy land buidings etc be the coolest place in town or the neighbourhood. Focus your investment on real things not the illusionary goods that your elders and "betters" do. Be real and have fun. Being suceesful automatically validates you in this society.


But being happy and content doesn't mean being any less angry.

PS don't be hostile or agressive, thats what Adults use to categorise and nullify the antics of Teenagers and Youths. Be dignified, orgainsed , articulate and in all your dealings treat
Adults with a pained contempt , like you would an annoying child. In our additiction to excess that is what we are .

[Pops]

Hope you are feeling better, LM, after all this optimism, lol. But as they say ‘opinions are like a$$holes – everyone has one’ - so here is mine.

The peak of oil production is simply a statistic, and it could be a very badly defined one at that. New fields will be found – just not as many or large as before, old fields will pump for many years before they die, alternatives will come online – not as good as fossil fuel but good for something, higher prices will cause conservation (painful but survivable) highly processed/out of season food will go away as well as grain fed meat and it will all cost more, etc., etc. The point is; I doubt that anyone you know is going to starve anytime soon - certainly not within a month or a year after The Peak.

Not to say things won’t change, I believe they will, but it will be a long process whatever the outcome. I predict that 10 or 20 years from now there will be exactly the same posts here predicting the impending end OTWAWKI – the only difference is that TWAWKI will have already changed - we just won't have noticed.

As to your specific questions,
1, People trudge through life everyday just hoping to get home to the TV and don’t give a thought (or a rip) about anything or anyone outside their cocoon – why would this be different? They will cope on a daily level as they always have without consideration of anything outside their tunnel of vision.

2, So if you began reading about PO 2 years ago at 15 that makes you 17 now. If I may say, in order to starve or be killed as a teenager you better get to it, you only have a year to go!
Seriously, you know you are going to starve?
Be killed by roving mobs of emaciated grandmas?

C’mon, it won’t be nearly that dramatic. You are going to go to school, to your after-school job, to your sports or whatever and out on Saturday night. Then you’ll go to college or into a trade, get married, blah, blah. Yours won’t be life-as-a-movie-script but whose is?

3, My mom had a saying, ‘Can’t never did anything.â€

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Landmass', '1'). What do you think the people who shrug this off will do? (your friends, extended family, people you went to high school with?)

[Michael_Layden]

Oh and go to College. BUT not like 99% of consumers of education to get a job or because it
is expected, like a 2 car garage or two holidays a year but because

1. It is a truly wonderfull place to meet friends who will be the best asset you will ever have.
2. If you go to it to actually learn and are prepared to take an active part in class you can stretch the mind (relying on lecturers alone is not an option nless you are very lucky.
3. Get involved in every extra curriculia activity you can, leave college fit and with debating, drama and musical ability.
4. Where possible use volunteer programs for your holidays to see the world/your country.
5. Research oppurtunities are much better in college. Try to pick your own projects anything in Sustainability /PO is a topic worth researching
6. We will need a great many skill and THINKERs

As the army would say be all that you can be !! (But without being shot at)

[Ryan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nano', 'A')fter much confusion, terror, woe and sadness, the only solution to peak oil, for the poor individual, is now crystal clear in my mind.

It's pretty much what the enlightened Matt Savinar recommends:

1. Convince your friends and family (be a leader!)
2. Keep a positive attitude (be courageous!)
3. Prepare to work hard (be strong and industrious!)
4. Understand that one person will perish, but a group of persons could very well survive! (Community is everything!)
5. Make a plan (Do not waste time/energy)

No need to dispair, just to be VERY MINDFULL! There is still some time and there are still multiple options. Both will decline rapidly

[RonMN]

Listen! We'ra all in the same boat (basically) when it comes to PO...LEARN LEARN LEARN!!! Learn gardening, Learn to filter and boil water, learn to grow & save heirloom seeds. save old torn cloths, wash them & save them in garbage bags. have SOMETHING of use to offer...we'll all need to think on our feet and we'll ALL need help...nobody will be able to survive on their own so GET YOURSELF READY TO CONTRIBUTE ANY WAY YOU CAN! Study how people live on poor countries right now & find out what tools are most usefull to them. Dont be afraid...be prepared! and MOST prepparation is MENTAL!

[DamianB]

Hi Landmass

I started posting on this board because of younger people like you who believe all the doom and gloom that pervades this and other sites. I'm trying to inject a more realistic view into the debate. I think that some of the people who post here live such sad and unfulfilling lives that they want anarchy to break out so that they can be delivered from the cult of consumption, the keeping up with the Joneses, the banal and indoctrinating TV, dis-enfranchised politics, etc, etc.

Peak oil means the end of cheap oil, it won't ever run out, not ever, not in 1000 years. What will happen is that it will get more and more expensive and less and less available. Products made from it will also get more expensive in proportion to the amount of oil used in their production. No-one will starve in the US from PO-related issues for at least 20 years. So the fact that you know about this issue means that you can plan your life accordingly and make adjustments early on so that as depletion bites, you are less affected.

My advice would be to carry on with your life with PO in your mind, gently explain to people who ask that your actions are based on the premise that oil and nat. gas will constantly go up in price, choose courses that you enjoy and a career that won't be redundant in 10 years time.

#1 They won't be able to shrug if off for much longer as its getting more and more mainstream coverage. If you can cope without the support of you friends and family then do so, don't try to convince them if it will distance you from them. If you need them on your side then buy a less 'in-you-face' book like 'Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight' by Thom Hartmann.

#2&3 You have plenty of time to figure out what to do and get the finance together to do it. There won't be any mass deaths in your country because of peak oil for decades. [Just what is that trigger event that the doomers believe in?]

What will start to change is what you actually eat. There will be less processed food, more local food, less out-of-season food, more cooking at home, simpler more boring food, less meat, but you and those you know will not starve to death in the next twenty years

4. Don't worry about this - pay full attettion when driving or crossing the road, steer clear of guns and violence, keep watch on your mental health, don't smoke, as these are more likely to kill you than anything PO-related.

There are positive things you can do or find out about that are enjoyable and worthwhile as well.

Best Wishes,
DamianB

[Cegarcon]

To be more practical, I really don't think getting yourself set up on the farm or worked up about some kind of alternative energy scheme is really the best idea. You are still vulnerable and unable to protect yourself if something shitty should happen. I wasn't entirely joking about the Foreign Legion. Join a military force. The ability to defend oneself is vital in any emergency.

[Landmass]

Wow, this is the first time I've talked to a lot of intellegent non-skeptics at one time. Not only that, but people talking from there own point of view. I feel like today is the first day of my life. I also enjoyed The Talking Heads lyrics, good song.

I wrote an e-mail to my uncle in Tennessee and I'm planning on living with him in a very rural town and attend the University of North Alabama to get horticulture skills. It has a low population, and my family owns 20 acres there. The community 50 years ago is what I want it to be again, very agricultural and apart from the mainstream society. I'm going to live like my great-grandfather did in the same house. That feels right to me. My plan for the future just has a correct feel to it.

My dad is ok with this, and I didn't have to mention Peak Oil, I get very riduculed in my house about that. My plan has probably made a 180. My entire focus before was to become as nihilist as possible, which is a terrible tactic. Thats what my great-uncle told me to do, who educated me about this in the first place. He died of a heart attack.

I can't be drafted into actual combat because I have hearing problems, which makes me pretty unsuitable for jobs where I have to hear orders correctly. The criteria of a soldier may change however but I won't join any army to kill for oil. Once again, thank you so much for your comments, keep them coming, it's helped tremendously to know that I'm not the only one out here.

I'm going acoustic, probably selling my electric guitars soon.

Everyone who commented is very enlightening and no one thinks the same way towards this issue, I'm taking everything into my mind and putting it to use. I've read everything here 10 times.

Classes for next year: (senior in high school)
1. Horticulture
2. AP Biology
3. Sociology
4. Government

I'm thinking ahead, it would be good to have knowledge in these areas.
I can't thank you enough, and maybe I can help some of you out in the future.

[threadbear]

Ayoob Reloaded, Telling a child they're f'd isn't irreverant. It's sadistic. Got your leather gear on?

Landmass, That was a very moving post. When I was 15, I wondered how I was going to survive my parents, not the end of the world. When people much older than you start giving you the gears about how hard they had it, try to be patient with their ignorance. They really don't have a clue.

There's always hope. What you're living right now is pretty creepy, a corporate consumer hell, that hollows people out incrementally. You've obviously survived it with your spirit intact and thriving. I don't know if you realize just how amazing that is.

Getting through post peak will actually be more like a hero's mythic voyage, than a spiralling down into hell. Your post indicates you're more than up to the challenge. What'll it be? Hero or hopeless?

[Michael_Layden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Landmass', '
')I can't be drafted into actual combat because I have hearing problems, which makes me pretty unsuitable for jobs where I have to hear orders correctly. The criteria of a soldier may change however but I won't join any army to kill for oil. Once again, thank you so much for your comments, keep them coming, it's helped tremendously to know that I'm not the only one out here.

[Hermes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Landmass', '
')1. What do you think the people who shrug this off will do? (your friends, extended family, people you went to high school with?)

[Doly]

Hey, doesn't it give you all this nice warm feeling to have a part in turning a poor doomer kid into a kid that is taking some practical and positive action?