by ReverseEngineer » Wed 17 Dec 2008, 06:24:42
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Sorry to expand things out to ReverseEngineer proportions.
Dang, I hardly have participated in this thread, and I get a mention here? I think I might have dropped in a post, but I'm not going to go and look it up, I'm gonna start from scratch here just on the last 2 pages of the thread.
The way things actually evolved is clearly a problem with the diminishing amount of Oil and the inability of personal transportation like the Automobile to ship everyone around all the time easily. With their current infrastructure and dependence on Oil, most cities and suburbs definitely appear quite Doomed, no doubt. However, does this mean we all are inevitably Doomed to live the life of Hunter Gatherers? While I personally would not be bothered by that outcome, I also do not think its the only possible sustainable one.
Now, I am going to write a scenario that takes place a LONG time in the future, after all the Zombie Wars and *hopefully* only a limited Thermonuclear Exchange somewhere in Pakistan, with most of the rest of the Mechanized Warfare remaining conventional until we simply can't produce more tanks and move them around the battlefields reasonably with any decent logistics.
Once the population dies off to something reasonably sustainable with what Oil is still left, we can begin to rebuild with that remaining fuel and our knowledge of how to collect energy elsewhere more sustainably. Remember, humanity built up quite a huge and complex civilization before Big Oil came to rule the world, and there is no reason to suppose that after a new Dark Age, plenty of Plagues and mass Die Off that civilization would not reorganize itself.
200 years from now, while the old cities might be wastelands in terms of anybody living there, they also are a TREASURE trove of materials that could be used for rebuilding. Steel in those buildings won;t rust out that quick, and copper wire coated with plastic insulators wont decompose that quick either. There will be stuff to mine in those cities that was mined before, cleaning it up and making it useful again will take work and energy, but that can be bootstrapped up over time. It starts with one Windmill with one motor reconditioned from old stuff, and it grows again from there.
As we rebuild, would we EVER want to, or could we even build cities along the model we did when Oil was plentiful? Obviously not, nor should we since its so obiously a very BAD model.
The model I would look to for sustainability would be one of Redundancy and small systems. Big centralized Power Generation is not sustainable, each small population has to generate its own power. Collection can come in the form of Windmills, small Hydro Plants and Sterling Engines that collect energy from the Sun via concentration of Heat. You build these things gradually over time with human labor and materials scavenged from the old civilization and knowledge preserved in books and libraries and passing down skills from one generation to the next. I do not think ALL the knowledge will ever be lost, anymore than all the knowledge was lost of the Ancients with the burning of the Great Library in Alexandria. There is in fact much more reproduction of knowledge now then there was then, even on Paper.
Individual sustainable communities can eventually evolve here, permaculture techniques for farming can be implemented gradually, an excess of collected energy relative to population size and its demands can be achieved. It will take time, generations in fact to recover from this debacle, but perpetual life as a Stone Age Hunter Gatherer? I think not, assuming we survive at all.
Gradually we will rebuild to communities and cities that were about the size and scope they were in 1750, except better because we will have electronics and we will have transportation somewhat better than the horse and buggy, though that will probably be used frequently also. Small towns will evolve again that sit at points along navigable rivers, and some also along Rail lines. Oceans will be transited by some Sailing Ships, and some ships powered by Bunker Fuel, with refurbished old hulls from the Oil Era.
Small Cities will exist for trade, which will be mostly Barter. Gold and Silver will be reviled by all as the work of Satan, and anyone who uses them for trade purposes will be strung up by their gonads, along with anyone who proposes a banking system and loans money at interest. This will be known and passed down to all members of the society as PURE EVIL, and anyone who even TRIES such a scheme will be Burned at the Stake IMMMEDIATELY. LOL.
The communities which evolve will all have their own little power plants, of several different types, and use animal power and human power for transportaiton within reasonable distances. Children will once again play outside with balls and sticks, instead of Nintendo Games, and they will be physically healthier and happy laughing children again, instead of human pincushions that tattoo their bodies and turn themselvs into canvas.
It will come eventually, just this sick culture must die first, and the earth needs time to heal itself from the damage we did. Most will die here, but in the end a few will make it thru, and Humanity will be reborn, better the next time round.
Reverse Engineer
