[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stungmaster', 'S')o does that mean if I buy 100 barrels of crude right now around $62ish USD, that I'll triple my investment by 2015?

Can an average person even BUY crude oil like that? Methinks no.

[garyp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PolestaR', '
')I think maybe you are losing touch with "common people". Every person I have asked "What would you do if all the food dried up?" the answer they gave was "I'd go to the country" ie the source. These are non peak oil aware people.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PolestaR', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'G')otta go with Agentr (roof?) on this one.

People in the cities and suburbs will not look to the country for help. It would not occur to people raised on lattes and shopping malls to consider a soybean or wheat field as food. It does not look like food. The woods do not look like packaged steaks. Ponds do not look like fish sticks.

If anything the bored angry masses will go to the money. They will head for 5th Avenue. Rodeo Drive. The Mall.

[PolestaR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Concerned', 'D')id you ask them how they plan on getting there and what they intend to do when they get out there?

Do they plan on raiding a beef feed lot for steak? Or head to a large corn or wheat farms for grain? Whats their plan for next season after the current herd has been slaughtered?

What do they intend doing when they reach such a place and there is competition from other starving hordes?

A small farm with barely enough to feed ten or twelve over winter, how will they handle that? Do they honestly think that if one hundred thousand come one by one that food will last and be doled out for all? Do they think if that hundred thousand come as one that food will be given to all? How do they think they will get food? What about next season and next year

I think the people like me sitting back and enjoying have to be ready to take scraps, fight to the bitter end and be prepared to be the ones participating in the die off if things get in really bad shape.

[waegari]

Though as a news editor I try to remain as neutral as humanly possible, for those of you who didn't (want to) notice, I would like to point out that we at the news boards posted three stories within roughly the last 24 hours, which by and large predict a peaking of oil reserves in three different regions:

1.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')il production in Southeast Asia will reach a peak in 2013 as fewer new fields are found, forcing the region to evaluate its dependence on crude, said Michael Smith chief executive of UK-based consultant Energyfiles Ltd.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'B')as, we are in ecologic overshoot. (yes aaron I am now convinced and I am ready to join the cast. skreeee!).

--US Cropland: 442 million acres (20 percent of the land area);
--US population: 300 million
--1.5 acres/person

The US is no longer a net exporter of food. Our agricultural lands, aquifers, and surface waters are depleting at a distressing rate. A great deal of our agriculture depends on pumped water, petroleum chemical inputs, & diesel farm equipment and a beneficent climate.

If any of that fossil fuel leaves us, many of those 442 million acres are useless. All naturally irrigated (Eastern USA) farmlands are either in use or covered by suburbs. The rest depends on petroleum.

If there is the slightest chance we will soon see yearly, permanent, 5%, 7%, or 10% declines (these decline rates are very very real--see North Sea, Cantarell) then adapting a 'doomer' perspective is not an unreasonable response.

Year one: discretionary incomes evaporates
Year two: municipal town and county budgets gutted
Year three: federal budget in free-fall
year four: economy in ruins
year five: food?
year six: skreee!

Bas, you want to tell me everything is just comin up roses?

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stungmaster', 'I')'ve never understood the whole survivalist thing, but I guess I don't understand a lot of things.

What makes one think, in the face of the worse of the worse, when the TSHTF that they'll be safe in their log cabin away from the "suburban zombie hordes?" I don't think anyone would have enough rounds to take 'em all out, if they think guns and ammo can save them...

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'I')f the Mad Max scenario actually does come to pass, there will be no safe place to hide, anywhere.

[JustinFrankl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stungmaster', 'I')'ve never understood the whole survivalist thing, but I guess I don't understand a lot of things.

What makes one think, in the face of the worse of the worse, when the TSHTF that they'll be safe in their log cabin away from the "suburban zombie hordes?" I don't think anyone would have enough rounds to take 'em all out, if they think guns and ammo can save them...

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PolestaR', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR', 'N')o. There will be no horde. Rural folks will have other problems to deal with of course; but a rampaging horde of fleeing suburbanites isn't one of them.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR', '.')...

I am concerned about many things with regard to peak oil and a collapse. Refugees aren't one of those things.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR', 'I') am concerned about many things with regard to peak oil and a collapse. Refugees aren't one of those things.

[holmes]

Just my observations most environmentalists have not a clue of what the environment is all about. Just sierra club backpacking trips. Pretty pictures. Thats why I ceased to be associated with them. We really need realists and ecologists.

[holmes]

Did I mispell something? Thats another issue I have with many of them: Elitism.
Many have not clue on how much land and how much goes into stocking their urban organic produce market.
Many were just bred from the urban pavement so how can I blame them?
And pstarr your not one of the ones Im speaking of. You have an edge that I admire.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('holmes', 'D')id I mispell something? Thats another issue I have with many of them: Elitism.
Many have not clue on how much land and how much goes into stocking their urban organic produce market.
Many were just bred from the urban pavement so how can I blame them?
And pstarr your not one of the ones Im speaking of. You have an edge that I admire.

[holmes]

But Bas do you see the illogic species thinking? The human scale must be reduced or you have NO environment! Its dissapearing 2.2 million acres a year in the US alone! You are trying to find away around the overshoot problem. Your solutions will be somewhat ok when we drop population. even then it will just create another set of problems. Environmentalists must promote powerdown and an ecological paradigm! No other way for you to be an environmentalist with a BAU mindset. Thats my issue with them!

[Bas]

I agree we have a set of huge environmental problems that are related to overpopulation of this planet. And I think things will get much worse before they get any better, and it's highly unlikely that things will get better within our lifetimes. That this doesn't seem to alarm the political elite is a mystery to me.

[holmes]

Now we agree! Good deal.