Here is one that I like. I think it should be shown at the beginning of any presentation having to do with Peak Oil.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait

Oil Barrels, 2008
Depicts 28,000 42-gallon barrels, the amount of of oil consumed in the United States every two minutes (equal to the flow of a medium-sized river).

Food for thought how is the river being replenished? Is it raining oil somewhere? Because if it isn't it is going to get more and more expensive and difficult to fill these barrels, and guess what, literally everything in our civilization runs on this stuff.

Now do your presentation with all the graphs.

Any questions?

We could have him point it upward to make a nice space elevator.

It is an interesting concept this idea that "a company is too big to fail". I am reminded of the AT&T break up and the creation of the baby Bells. Standard Oil was also broken up. These may provide models for breaking up companies that "get too big". But who decides? Maybe it could be a petition of citizens like California and its elections: and a court case.

Candidates could include the big banks, Exxon, Chevron, Gulf, Boeing, GM, Ford and Chrysler, WalMart, some of the communications companies and I am sure a lot more. Here in Australia 80% of retail activity is concentrated in just two companies. BHP is the biggest mining company in the world.

Not only should these companies be broken up but lobbying should be much more strictly controlled. here in Oz again the coal lobby has far too direct an influence on decision making. In fact coal lobbyists have been known to write government policy!

Great questions, WNC, especially as regards ANY spending on highway capacity expansions. Regarding CH4, not only is it smart to garner and use the energy from manure/waste digestion, but the process is also very good for protecting watersheds from runoff. I am putting the finishing touches on a piece regarding CH4 as the centerpiece of a sustainable economy, and plan to submit it to TOD shortly.

WNC, these are all questions I've thought about myself.

My brief answers to just the 1st 3:

If a company is "too big to fail", then why isn't it too big to be allowed to continue to exist?

This has been the most obvious question right from the moment we first heard of this theological principle, Too Big To Fail. It is now empirically proven that gigantic size in itself is an evil, even before you get into whether or not the personnel are actually malevolent. Any such structure is a clear and present danger to economic and social stability, and therefore must be broken up.

Yet in all the biblical floods of words spewed forth by politicians, pundits, "experts", and the mainstream media, I've heard literally not a word on this. (Indeed, it's even uncommon in the blogosphere.)

The correct way to see the big banks is as a protection racket. They are holding all of society at gunpoint, demanding to be massively paid off or they'll pull the trigger. This is a position they have systematically sought to build since the 70s, and especially since the 90s. They always built it into their business model that they could recklessly maximize short-term profits, and that if these practices ever led to a crash, the government would not only subsidize any losses but subsidize further profits for them. This was the core of Chicago monetarism and the financialization of the economy. The S&L debacle and government response (including how the Clinton adminstration evidently drew the conclusion that the answer was less regulation) was proof of principle. From then on everyone knew it was a can't-lose casino, where you played with house money. Today we now again we see the vicious wisdom of it.

The bankers are gangsters, or terrorists, or kidnappers, at any rate capital extortionists, and should be dealt with as such.

Doesn't a globalized economy imply a convergence of prevailing wage rates toward a global mean? If so, how is this a good thing for high-wage nations?

Globalization is about, among other things, the convergence of all wages to the subsistence minimum, and as often as possible even below this. It has driven down real wages everywhere, including in the ostensible "high-wage" places like America. This is part of the nefarious "race to the bottom" which is the nihilistic core of globalism.

The real point of globalism is to eradicate nation-based capitalism and replace it with an international neo-feudalist rentier racket, where this small elite would not only maximize profits but monopolize all real assets, while the people everywhere are reduced to serfdom.

This has to be the real end goal since "consumerism" is clearly not sustainable, especially as you systematically impoverish your customer base. If as walmart you come into a vicinity and destroy x middle class jobs but "create" x + y non-living wage "greeter associate" jobs (and this is precisely what globalist cadres mean when they claim globalism creates job growth), well, how long can this process continue? Walmart has lower prices, but it drives down consumer wages. It's another downward spiral which can't be sustained. Another contradiction of capitalism.

The process is most advanced in the non-industrial countries, but is also advancing everywhere else.

Those last points also provide the answer to this question:

If globalization does indeed benefit a nation "in the aggregate", but the majority of citizens do not reap the financial rewards, does this really benefit the nation?

Very simple: it does not benefit any aggregate, and it does not benefit any nation.

The fact is, there is no such thing as a "nation". There is no such thing as America, for example. Of course, TPTB want people to believe in such fraudulent mirages, since this is how they obscure the reality of class struggle.

But the fact is, this struggle is the only socioeconomic reality. A large country is by definition a free-fire zone of conflicting interests. While I won't go here into whether or not the struggle necessarily has to be zero-sum under conditions of economic growth and resource plenty, it is indisputable that in our brave new world of resource constraint and the end of growth, where everywhere we now run up against Malthusian limits, the fight will now be over a shrinking pie, and from here on to the end of history it can never be anything other than zero sum class war.

The globalists understand this perfectly. As always, the elite has class consciousness, the people mostly do not. That's always been the secret of their success. That's why over the past several decades they've orchestrated this world-historical shift from conventional capitalism to a rentier economy of corporatism, financialization, neo-feudalism, and asset monopoly (land, oil, infrastructure). The process is now in its endgame.

(For anyone who doubts this, who believes in the good faith of globalists, here's a question. If they were ever really serious about "comparative advantage", which concept of course incorporates regional inefficiencies which allegedly add up to a more efficient whole, then why wasn't this ever enshrined in practice? In practice, no one ever wanted to allow anyone a comparative advantage where it was possible for the handful of multinationals to seek absolute advantage.

At least in practice globalization has been literally totalitarian in seeking the hegemony of rentier finance and multinational corporatism, through the mechanisms of the dollar as reserve currency, what is basically the thuggery of the World Bank and the IMF, and the "race to the bottom".)

I dimly remember from a marketing class in my college days reading that Southwest Airlines started as a shuttle service between three Texas cities: Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, I believe. This was the early 1970s...around that time or somewhat later,there were aspirations by some people to create a high-speed rail network in a triangle between those three cities, but that SWA lobbied politicians to shoot that idea down as being unfair competition to airlines. I wish I had more time to cross-check my fuzzy memories, but other things call...

Regarding your last question about the interest in the Chevy Volt: GM made promises (that they probably couldn't keep even if they were solvent)about a car with performance parameters beyond those of commonly available and affordable hybrid and/or electric cars. The promise was a mass-market vehicle that could carry four adults and some of their baggage in relative comfort and style reminiscent of a current ICE sedan, and be able to drive some 40 miles before the gas engine kicked in. The wow factor is that is was going to be done by GM, the largest car maker in the World and one that was previously intransigent towards green technology. Add to that that this car was to be 'affordable' (in terms of the smoke and mirrors economy that had people plunking 40-50 grand down for limo-pickups and SUVs. How many people can afford a Tesla Roadster at $106 a pop plus TT&L? When is the Aptera going commercial...and if it does, will it ever emerge from CA? Where can I buy a Phoenix or Miles or Fiskars electric vehicle today...or any of the other start-up products I have read about? Now that GM is likely going under, we will have to look towards Toyota and Honda and maybe Daimler to lead the charge towards a Chevy-Volt-like vehicle....or not.

Nice one WNCO. It seems clear to me now that Barrack Obamarama is going down the same middle of the same road toward the wreck. The G20 meeting will, no doubt, initiate business as usual responses.

An interesting aside here. During the stockmarket fall, Australian Prime Minister, Mr Phil Rudd, publically declared there must be a new World economic order, based on equality and fairness. Ho Ho Ho, it was Christmas though. Funny enough, when the alleged A and B lists of the G20 Economic Summit were drawn up, Australia ended up on the B list. A sharp rap on the knuckles for Mr. Rudd.

In response to what we all know might come very soon, I suggest we start, as an OD community (that's oildrum folks and blokes), preparing for the business as usual crash that seems inevitable. I think that TOD Campfire is an appropriate forum to bring together a down to Earth action plan based on degrees of worst case scenerios-not pretty, but essential I think. From what I have seen on this site, most bases are covered, except for the timing-the big wildcard, as the largely unanticipated credit unwind attests to. That is my two cents worth.

Two sides to this. In a low-tech world, dogs and cats could earn their keep in many ways:e.g. dogs as burglar alarms, cats to control vermin around your food storage.
However, Americans are generally good at spaying/neutering pets and euthanizing strays. If we started to neglect that, we could have a short term boom in population. Feral dogs and cats are very efficient hunters and scavengers. They could wipe out wildlife and overrun our garbage dumps before crashing themselves.

Why are doomers still reading blogs if they believe the end is near?

Perhaps they're looking for something really worth doing, and perhaps we can come up with some answers here.

A skilled & motivated doomer is a terrible thing to waste.

Will fundamentalist Islam be the big winner in a post-peak world, or will Christianity enjoy a resurgence in the Western world?

I don't know about that, but the prohibition on charging interest looks pretty smart in hindsight!

I ask these questions because at the end of the day, belief systems are the most powerful force in human affairs, so it seems to me that this is where we should be focusing most of our attention as the current belief system begins its death throes

Brain Diffferences Found in Believers vs Non-believers in God

"We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors. They're much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error."

"Obviously, anxiety can be negative because if you have too much, you're paralyzed with fear," he says. "However, it also serves a very useful function in that it alerts us when we're making mistakes. If you don't experience anxiety when you make an error, what impetus do you have to change or improve your behaviour so you don't make the same mistakes again and again?"

The thin line between optimism and reality....

From where I sit, religion has been evolving right along. Joseph Smith announced his 'revelations' from the alleged angel Moroni back in the later part of the 1800s, I believe. Only in the last twenty years has Mormonism come on strong and it is on=track to rival or even eclipse the 'mainline' Christian sects in the not-too-distant future. The 'Reverend' Sun Young Moon had a very 'Mormon-like' modern 'revelation' in ROK in 1938...I believe the Moonies own the Washington Times? And then there was L. Ron Hubbard, who wrote Dianetics in what, 1968? Thus was born Scientology, and now we have to suffer the antics of the likes of Tom Cruise ranting on talk shows and that facts of the not-so-secret Scientology compound in the country North-East of Santa Fe.

Who's to say that in 500 years that these three religions, currently viewed as wacko by some, won't be as mainstream as the Vatican? The non-logical argument appeals to antiquity and appeals to authority are powerful mind-control tools. I look at the modern-times birth of these religions (and other modern mystical cults)as a model for how Christianity and the other 'mainstream' religions came about.

People turn to religion when they can't otherwise deal with the World. President Obama was correct when he famously said this to a group in San Francisco. Since we don't want to leave the Republicans out, Senator McCain, as Presidential Candidate McCain in 2000, decried certain religious leaders as intolerant and hurtful...he straightened up and toed the party line and kissed the right rings when he became Presidential candidate McCain in 2008 though.

Will a new religion take hold as Christianity did amidst the fall of Rome, and have the prophets of this new religion already appeared?

Will fundamentalist Islam be the big winner in a post-peak world, or will Christianity enjoy a resurgence in the Western world?

What are some possible catastrophic events that could lead to global systems failure and civilizational collapse, or is this science fiction?

Yes.

Fundamentalism thrives on poverty and inequality. The more the better. This goes for all of the Desert Monotheisms. If the people are happy and healthy, they're hardly going to be driven into a rage at the drop of a hat and go off killing 'them', pillaging, and subjugating (women, typically). I can't see a short-to-medium-term resurgence in 'benevolent' (if there is such a thing) Religion.

We're already seeing 'new' religions and cults appear all over the place, although they are typically offshoots of existing religions (just as Christianity and Islam were offshoots of Judaism).

Catastrophic events? Where to start. Perhaps simultaneous harvest failures in two major growing areas of a foodcrop (say, US and Australia for Wheat) would do it. Mass shearing of glaciers (even over decades, this would probably overwhelm our ability to cope and move infrastructure). Pandemic is a big one. Reduced travel times means a contaigent can spread faster than ever before. If a few big Oil Fields started declining at rates similar to Cantarell, we'd be in serious trouble. Or in the borderline Sci-Fi realm, asteroid strike, reception of Alien transmissions (or arrival of Aliens themselves - although if Aliens are hostile, they probably won't bother announcing themselves - as large portions of thew world fail to come to grips with the fact they we aren't the centre of the Universe), increased/decreased Solar Flux, etc etc. THe list just goes on and on and on.

In my opinion, part of the natural gas mess we find ourselves in is the industries forced behavioral match to the wall street analysts/stock recommendations which rewarded short term drilling, reserve increase type results as opposed to some longer term metric. It is why the market prefers lower EROI resources (such as shale gas that deplete 70% in first year) to 20:1 wind that have longer 'duration' - paying off equally over 30 years after large upfront costs- we get the bang right away then drill more in 18 months. Yet the agglomeration of firms trying to provide high earnings NOW to get rewarded by stock price, bonus, etc. speaks volumes about our priorities. Plus - lower energy prices today really hurt a 20-30 year discounted cash flow.

It would take more than investor tax rates to do it - it would have to apply to the company itself - incentivize future low cost flows. There has to be a better way to match our energy demand to energy supply over long term than the two-headed hydra that is futures priced at marginal barrel, and companies rewarded for short term performance. The end result of those two standbys will be lack of viable energy industry.

Capital gains shouldn't get any preferential tax treatment at all, except just possibly indexing of the basis for inflation. As far as I am concerned, I view capital gains and winnings at the race track to be exactly the same thing economically.

If you want to build in a bias in favor of good long-term economic management, then what you really need to do is create a more favorable tax treatment for dividends. Consider dividends to be a distribution of after-tax corporate earnings, and thus not taxable at all to the shareholder.

The other thing I would do is to pay all bonuses in stock shares, which must be held for a specified period before being sold. Commissions should also be "in kind". For example, if an investment banker move an IPO, their commission is a percentage of the new stock shares.

Instead of a capital gains tax a tax on investment transactions would encourage investment for the long term and discourage day and automated trades. It would also give government a source of revenue that taps into the part of the economy where 90%+ (in dollar value) of all economic transactions take place and allowing a tax cut in the goods and services part of the economy.

Thanks from all of us for posting. Lurking is not a bad thing. I lurk a lot when I am not up to posting or get into a thread really late in the day.

Dogs and Cats will settle out I am sure, as other carnivores come back into the picture if they are not already extinct in the areas where they once lived.

Think about this, there are more big cats, lions, tigers and such in the USA than most people think. Wild game parks, and zoos might release them into the countryside if things got really bad, say a plague or something like that.

I'd be more afraid of wild dog packs than I would be of feral cat packs. Also most feral cats stay about the same size as a house cat, While dogs range in size from timy to bigger than wolves.

It all depends on what happens when the manure hits the fan, what sort of method does it all grind to a stop one day or is it a slow letting out of the air?

Charles.

Hi spring_tides!

I also have three cats and a dog.
Some ideas for post-peak pet care I've tried:

1) when our 9kg mixed breed dog died at the age of 16 last year we replaced him with a tiny 2 kg yorkie---much more economical wrt food. Although tiny, he barks when people come so he's a useful watchdog. His main job is entertaining the children.

2) here in Japan people 100 years ago used to feed their cats leftovers of miso soup (fish-based stock) plus rice. If the cats are hungry enough they'll eat it I suppose. I am planning to try this. Cat food is just getting too expensive!

3) cat litter: I will try using sand and letting rain wash it and the sun dry it before using it again. I haven't yet tried this but am planning to. Actually 2 of our cats go outside and don't use a litter box, so that is helpful too.

Welcome Michaelle.

I believe the Koreans have a few ideas about dogs.
Cats should be prepared like rabbits.
They are a traditional food for the Aboriginals around Ularu.

http://www.newscientist.com/embedded/mg20126971700-surviving-in-a-warmer...

"ALLIGATORS basking off the English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lost cities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90 per cent of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4 °C."

I wouldn't be too worried.

The Humane way to treat each other! No greed, No envy, none of those other bad habits that humans are usually filled with if given to much freedom to do whatever they want to do.

I would say that in general we have found that most of this is what got us in this mess in the first place, and getting ourselves out of it will take hard work on everyone's part. But do I see it happening, That places me firmly in a doomer mood some days I see it happening and other days when I read the news, I feel that nope you are going to change anything about us.

Charles.

"Most of our fresh fruits and vegetables are kept in cold storage for relatively long periods to maintain an even supply year around. What happens if there are serious electrical grid failures/ energy shortages? Are we prepared and can we manage to keep all that food from spoiling?"

That is a good question, and I do have an answer but it would be a big job and it would have to be done rather fast.

Cold pack + Hot pack canning and Pressure canning of all the foods in storage. Some of the foods would last in the places where the cold storage takes place because of the methods they use, others would have to canned to save them.

We would have to have a lot of changes in our food system, more so than we do have today. Some people have faced this recently in some of the southern states of the USA when Ice Storms downed the power lines to such an extent that power was off for over a week. Though it was cold outside and food was likely safer outside than inside. I can imagine the reverse being truw when Katrina hit and food was going to waste by the TON! in every grocery store in every town.

Not everyone has canning supllies, I have some of them, but not nearly enough for more food than I store.

Interesting thoughts.

Charles.

* Break up the big farms (I'll leave the how to another day) in some way so that one family isn't farming more than one family can. Tis mihgt also be considered at a community level.

* P/NF methods, e.g.: no till, water capture, co-planting, food forest, raised beds, cover crops, composting (and composting toilets), vermiculture...

* Large Ag equipment not needed in smaller plots with high human energetic inputs. (Note: a food forest, e.g., will manage itself after a few years. It's a forest, after all. In general P/NF methods are much less time/labor intensive than traditional methods.) With so little equipment needed - if not not needed at all - perhaps communities can share large equipment.

Cheers

Jon,

"If rubber for tires/tracks becomes in very short supply what would it take for farmers to make something that would take the pnuematic tires place. And are these skills available/being taught today?"

They still make steel wheels for the type of farm equipment I use. The original farm equipment that was pulled by horses and also the steam powered equipment often had steel wheels as well. This is fairly low tech and could likely be done again and thereby recreate a local industry. We could make them out of those useless things people used to drive up and down the road...what were they called again? Umm..oh yeah...Lexus's! The steel wheels do have some disadvantages, but they wear pretty well.

Wyo

"If We All Were Robots with 100,000 year lifespans, Would Planning for 2050-2100 Be Easier?"

2050-2100 with our extended lifespans, would be the equivalent of us right now, with our 80 year lifespans, planning for next month, April 2009.

Good idea about a prescription plan B. I propose decriminalization of all drugs. At the very least, it makes pain remedies easily available.

I'm starting to think this way. A few days ago I found out that a tractor only needs 35hp to tow a furrow forming trailer with blade weeders. Why not use steam instead of wood gas? No worries about lousy fuel quality or fouled spark plugs. Either way you can get biochar.

Since I am a heat engine guy, I have often thought of spending some serious time listing the ways to get mechanical power if we had to start from where we are with the stuff lying around within a few miles. Since the US is a huge junk pile, it would not be hard at all, but somebody has to list the ways to do it.

http://aperfectstormcometh.blogspot.com/2008/03/build-out-grid-vs-househ...

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." I continue to argue that everyone who is attempting to map current trends to past episodes has it wrong. We are in paradigm shift mode here. The world has changed. This is not JUST a financial/economic downturn, something far more fundamental is happening. The world is changing. The party is over, the punchbowl has run out, exponential growth cannot happen any more. We are now in decline mode, which is a totally different situation than anything which we have experienced. There are NO past episodes to which which we can map our present situation.

Lots of people are going to be fooled big time with this.

One of the reasons I'm here, It's my thought that with a group like this one that has self-assembled here, one of us might just catch the straw. . IOW you will probably read it here first.
You may not recognize it as such. That's also why I am glad TOD is so wide open to opinion. Kind of sick, watching the details of how it all just slides away. Much like watching a fire or a car accident.

Strong base of thinkers here. Gail is right on the money with the gradual failure of the grid. Experienced it here this winter as well. Chuckle.

I'm well prepped, but I won't mind a heads up to clean out the bank accounts and the last trip to the hardware store. ATM's will go down fast so you have to be ready. And you know, actually I might just heave a huge sigh of relief when it hits, if I go or not, doesn't matter much. It's just about fucking time.

Just a comment on the upthread post about pets. We have a new dog, he was abused, you can tell, it took him a some time to learn trust. He does now. He has six cats who are his friends.They sleep with him. He stands by me now, at my side or at my feet. He adores my wife. I can tell you with no uncertainty if someone tried to harm either of us, he would rip out their throat. He earns his keep. But you know "mans best friend" has been around for a very long time. Lots of lessons through the ages, we just need to be smart enough to see them. I'd rather have a good dog than a pile of gold buried in the backyard.

As to the doomer comments , I chuckled some hard, relating them to the "freaks" of the 60's, well done and right on. Insightful. I agree, the freaks became a message in themselves, and I expect the doomers will do it again.

Buy your Volt, or Prius, do your carbon capture, buy organic, add some insulation, get a set back thermostat. One day when you open your door, it will slap back in your face. Most of what you want to build won't work without power, the best thing you can all do is just picture, the lights dimming, and then flickering. Oh my, then they get very bright, like sunrise.. then they got out never to come on again. What will you do? You're heat pump no longer works, water stops, I can't believe people still cook food on electric ranges. Canning food on an electric range just tells me you need serious drugs, or electroshock. But we won't have the energy to do that.

Nope wake up call, you live or you don't, if you are in a city you die.

So here's my question Nate, why is it we seek to continue to be alive.

I'm no longer actively seeking it, just riding the wave, in a state we call alive now, and be in another state later. Given up the worry about it. When you a busy protecting being alive, you focus on one state, energy moves through many states, and you miss it.

I read hear some days, and I am enhtused by the energy. Good group, I'm proud to be a member. The I go down, I see many things and so much of it is just hope, don't get me wrong hope is a good thing.

It's odd for me, my life hasn't ended, and it won't for some time, food, fuel, warmth, but it will end for many of you here.

It's about living.

Get it?

Don in Maine

Along the same lines: 'V for Vendetta' vs. Soylent Green

Brave New World is more likely than either 1984 or Mad Max. A small elite who own everything with most folks working for them at subsistence wages with layers of specialists in between.

Perhaps to a lobbying charity for grain-based ethanol as a motor fuel.

All of our current assumptions would be somewhat turned on their heads by malthusian logic. The sooner food is minimized, the fewer people will eventually starve.

Due to our discount rates, we consider the starving of someone in 40 years less real than the starving of someone in 5 years, so default to choosing more starvation later. It isn't humane, it just "feels better" to put it off.

But discussion of stuff like this would have a hard time flying, I think, even if humanely motivated.

I like the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. Working on developing perennial grain crops. (don't have to be planted every year -- saves energy; preserves soil). They are making good progress and have test plots growing prototypes now.

"Are humans still evolving?"
Most asuredly sir.

In what direction? Why, let me shake you by the hand.

How fast? The bottleneck is a bit of a squeeze, but we should be through it in about, oh say, 50 years.

What to do about it?
Please try not to make too much of a fuss. There's a good chap.

Yep, we are still evolving.
CCR5-Delta 32 HIV-resistance allele is present and selected for (you survive with it) and is becoming more important in the population.
In Africa, sickle-cell disease is more resistant to malaria, and surviving in the population.
We are selecting for height, and getting taller as a species.
Just a few examples.

IMHO, the greatest value of getting a good education lies in developing the ability to observe and communicate. Unfortunately, many people get done with undergrad work without truly learning either. In accounting, the degree I have, it seemed to me that I learned all of the rules, but then got out in the real world and found that the literal application of the pronouncements of the day were being met without really communicating a lot about what the information meant. In the area of accounting for municipal governments, for instance, adding a few comparative schedules allowed the City Councils to interpret the information which the detailled reports included.

This vision of 2034 shows the way. Just extrapolate the trends.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3140#comments

Best Hopes for a Change in Direction,

Alan

"Best Case Vision, 2109":

US real (2009 $) per capita GDP: ~ $10,000
Global real per capita GDP: ~ $5,000

US population = 100-200 million
Global population = 2-4 billion

US per capita energy consumption: ~ 100 - 150 MBTU/yr
US total energy consumption: 10-20 Quads/yr
Global per capita energy consumption: ~50 - 75 MBTU/yr

I really can't flesh it out much beyond that.

Probability of our actually having it even that good: < 50%, but definitely above 0%

It's been a very warm winter here in the southwest corner of the USA. Anecdotal for sure, but, I have no ice next to my stock water troughs. Last year, there was lots and lots of ice. This year, none. The days are warm, yesterday, almost 55F. We've been very dry here besides most of the past ten years and last summer our usual moisture from the August monsoon didn't happen. There is talk this year of restricted irrigation water usage which is a big problem for those in the lower valley. I'm in my sixties and I remember the winters when I was a youngster. Always a foot or more of snow on the ground, big storms, and cold nights. The change has been gradual, but change nevertheless. How far do we have to go before the southwest falls apart? I'm not sure. Las Vegas is in a pinch water wise. The water level at Lake Powell and Lake Mead is dropping. We had a heck of a dust storm two weeks ago. Alfalfa didn't grow well last season and so hay production was reduced.

So, my question is; At what level of climate disruption/change do we have to reach before we collectively say "It's warmer". Our scientists tell us it likely will be warmer, but very few are saying "This year is warmer than last and certainly much warmer than this time twenty years ago". Maybe this is because most of us live in artificial environments (we don't get outside much) and simply don't notice the subtle changes of the past 60 years that I've noticed by virtue of being outside almost all of my life. The follow on question is when recognition comes that our climate is indeed changing, and not only that, but it's affecting ME in a very negative way as in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, is no longer inhabitable, then what will we do about it. Best from the Fremont

Thanks for the info, Alan.

Friday and Saturday, March 20 & 21, the Oklahoma Sustainability Network Annual Conference will be held in Edmond, just north of Oklahoma City at the University of Central Oklahoma. We will be looking at the transportation options as well as a lot of other good stuff - Energy, Ag related topics, water, farmers markets, education, and many other topics. The lineup is here http://www.oksustainability.org/2009-speakers.php , and the subject of TOD development is included. There has been a lot of heated conversation about rail, TOD, etc., in and around OKC, but the public will in OKC has not budged. The miles of rail would easily exceed that for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit operation without the economic engine which supports DART with a 1% sales tax. The DART tax proceeds are used mostly for maintenance and operations, and OKC just cannot support the whole hub cost, probably even with the tax revenues from the surrounding communities, and that aspect will also be discussed. The city of OKC has local only priorities in mind at this point, and all of that will be discussed as best we can without OKC's official involvement.

The Conference attendance cost is nominal as these things go - $ 45 a day - so anyone who is interested should be able to gain measurably from the experience. Most everything is inside, and there will be a good mixture of folks there, if it is as in the past. A mix of college students, old fogeys, highly motivated folks from all walks of life, skeptics, doomers, activists, etc. are the norm, so come join us if you can. Normal attendance is in the 400-500 range, so it won't be a MN or WI type of fair, just to let everybody know.

We will have an open "membership" meeting in the fall, and I'll try to post a mention of that in here as well when plans are firmed up.

Thought provoking, Charles. But, just as Social Security is a government program which is not fully funded, I have a couple of leases which I continue to operate because I would have to plug them if I shut them down. So, I do not have any debt, but just like the Fed Govt, I have a liability there which is not "owed", but is a continuing responsibility. Nobody can "forgive" the responsibility, but if I got them plugged and owed the plugging contractor for the work, I guess I'd come out OK, except for the money the bank would have owed me as a depositor, which I would no longer be owed after noon Tuesday.

Walmart, with a good part of a day's collections undeposited, would probably be the strongest US business after noon Tuesday, but what would we do when everybody gets back to the office after lunch ? Simply shred all of those unpaid bills and uncollected invoices ? I can't imagine any business taking plastic, and the only money would be currency, presumably. After all, if it happened once, it could become a regular occurence.

I guess I wouldn't be opposed if you would agree not to tell everybody else so I can go to the bank and withdraw some of what the bank won't owe me anymore after noon Tuesday, and get a contractor to plug those wells before that day at noon. I don't guess it would matter what it cost to plug them either, since I won't have to pay the bill.

Well, I guess we would find out REAL QUICK what it is like to live with no more oil imports.

Yes, plus the more common screw-ups by the nuke building industry.

Zimmer, TMI, WHOOPS, Satsup, TVA canceling 11 partially completed \ nukes, Browns Ferry, etc.

Alan

I'd vote for this.

There are lots of things that are valuable, but which can't be readily bought and sold. Barbie dolls can be bought and sold; going into the back yard to play with your kid cannot (or not very easily, anyway). Fertilizers and pesticides can be easily marketed; knowledge of the soil is harder. Cars can be easily marketed, walking, bicycling, or transportation reduction strategies are harder to market. Drugs and surgery can be easily marketed; personal exercise and a more vegetarian diet are harder to market. So what do we have today? Lots of Barbie dolls, fertilizers, pesticides, cars, drugs, and surgery; but not very much playing with kids, knowledge of the soil, walking, bicycling, exercise, or eating vegetarian.

This "commoditization" is what is driving the endless growth of the economy until it destroys everything. It's actually the root of the problem, and if we could deal with it, we'd have the ability to deal with peak oil and everything else. If we don't deal with it, though, then there will be this huge economic force pushing against whatever changes we advocate. We could advocate policies X, Y, and Z to deal with peak oil, but at best that will fix the oil situation but leave everything else racing out of control down the path to destruction. The peak oil policies which are closest to poliltical and economic reality are, alas, things such as electric cars and enhanced oil recovery; things like "not driving as much" and cooperative strategies like electrified rail are harder to market.

We certainly need culture change that is sustainable, but unless it has economic support, commoditization will always be there, this huge economic force always pushing against us. That's because you can make money through commodities, but there's not nearly as much money in sustainable culture change.

"Commoditization creates a hierarchy of value where what is most readily marketable receives the largest share of society's resources. As a result, what gets pruned from our existence is very much of what matters in life."

Privileged Goods by Jack Manno, p. 121-122.

"So did someone answer the question: "Are humans smarter than yeast?" Who won?"

Humans are infested with yeast.
Yeast R Us.

The point is, if you think global warming is the main problem, then snow volumes are interesting; if you think financial collapse is the most likely, then empty malls are an important indicator. And so on.

It's a false dichotomy, imo. We aren't going to solve any of the major problems we have in isolation. That said, the one of the problems that has an ultimate terminus of no or nearly no humans left is AGW. So I work backwards from that. If CO2 350ppm is accurate and 6C for doubling is accurate, our time is exceedingly short. But time is already short for the economic crisis, so it's a good fit and a huge opportunity at the end of the day.

Canaries? They're already dead. All of them. IMO, they were Arctic melt > methane emissions > Antarctic melt AND economic crisis > socialized (fascist?) bailout > complacent public response AND Obama = lesser war hawk BuCheney on economy > anemic response to AGW.

Cheers

I'm thinking it was a rhetorical question.

Cheers

Joking aside, I'd like to see discussion of the "canaries in the coal mine" to watch out for that might confirm which doomer scenario is most likely.

There are plenty of anecdotal observations: less snow than usual; empty shops in the mall; farmers not planting; whatever.

I'm not seeing any significant change in traffic volumes, nor shoppers, but perhaps there is a small, unnoticed shift from 'corner stores' to the large shopping centres/malls. Perhaps I'm just looking harder or something, but there seems to be more vacant shops around town these days, even though the shoppers at the major shopping centres seem to be just as active.

Given the above observations, what have you done to ensure for the safety and well-being of yourself and those immediately around you?

Nothing. :( I procrastinate. I have finally gottern off my arse and am having plans drawn up for a house. It'll be Insulated for the climate, and have space for bulk food storage. It'll also have Solar Hot water, at least a small PV system, and I'm eschewing upright fridge/freezers in favour of the 'chest' variety. Despite all that, the personal security of my loved ones is my main concern.

I don't speak for Nate, I am just curious about why you believe the things you do.

There is plenty of wind, solar, and geothermal energy available just for starters.

Have you looked at the amounts of energy these contribute to to society vs fossil fuels? How do we go about transitioning between the two? Do we have enough time to complete this transition before fossil fuels begin to terminally decline?

Civilization is becoming increasingly more energy intensive. I see this as a good thing. We have a short period of universe time to learn how to get off of planet earth, or we will perish along with it.

Conversely, we have, in a very short time, opened up a Pandora's box of problems with all of this energy-intensiveness. (Climate change, pollution, species loss, ecosystem destruction, nuclear war, etc.) Do you mean to suggest that we must destroy the planet so that we can escape that same destruction? Where are we going to escape too when our planet is destroyed? How is this going to be accomplished? Is a functioning biosphere important to achieving these ends?

The root source of power is more knowledge than energy.

Can you expand on what you mean by this?

We need to focus on advancing our knowledge of how to control nature.

Wouldn't it be more effective to use our knowledge to work WITH nature rather than against it?

Preaching energy conservation and self sufficiency does not advance the cause of building knowledge.

Sure it does, it's just not the sort of knowledge that you think is important. Why do you think "advancing knowledge" is so important?

It encourages the next generation to reduce expectations and to live with less. What kind of vision is that?

Perhaps a realistic one? While it isn't as exciting and bright as the future the last generation was promised, it's still a future worth living.

It encourages the next generation to reduce expectations and to live with less.

There are something like 7 billion humans here now on the planet Today.

The oil used worldwide today is something like a cubic mile of crude oil.

However much oil may be left in the ground, scattered among a million small pockets of varying quality, be it near the surface or miles under seafloor, it can only be pumped out at some fixed speed.

If the next generation - call it 10 billion - will all be driving SUVs, we'll need maybe a cubic mile-and-a-quarter of oil. much much more.

But we can't get much much more - we'll actually have much much less, as the supergiant oil fields run out.

It gets worse: to fabricate enough windmills, the copper wires, rare-earth magnets, concrete, installation and access roads to hilltops, new transformers and lines and pylons, new cars and batteries, and so on and on and on, would require us to divert a really good chunk or Current, Today's oil into this infrastrucure build-out.
But to do this would involve reducing people's oil consumption by say a half, Today.

Reducing people's oil consumption by a half, Today, would make oil prices explode, and seriously crash (as in the movie 'mad max') the world economic system.

So we have painted ourselves into a corner.

We don't have the spare resources today to build infrastructure for tomorrow.

Energy-wise, worldwide, we are just going to bleed to death.

A possible alternative would be nuclear annihilation of the entire human populations of one of :

• united states of america
• india
• china
• europe

That ought to free up enough spare resources.

cheers

Do youremember Bio-Dome where we failed to live in a isolated environment?
Would my hand survive by itself in the wild?
Most of me does not carry my genes. I am a walking ecology.

We would join the poor wondering flying saucers forever doomed to perv on planets that are still alive.
If we fell to temptation and land, both us and the planet would disolve into goo.

This is not first prize.

Hi CRM

The hope would be to create a better understanding of what impacts would occur

I like your thoughts and would like to see two additional questions asked as a prelude to the analysis you are suggesting:

1. How can we better understand the nature of the problem?
2. What are the impediments to a critical mass of people understanding the problem and having a willingness to take action?

1. One method for problem analysis is to separate symptoms and causes. Symptoms should be readily observable and relatively non-controversial. Causes are usually more speculative and often require rigorous scrutiny and testing to validate.

The symptoms, in this case, are simple:
- Fossil fuels are finite and the reserves of conventional oil supplies, in particular, are known to be inadequate to satisfy consumption projections for the rest of this century.
- All industrialized countries are highly dependent upon a stable supply of oil that is near or above current production levels. Within this century, possibly very soon, shrinkage of that supply has a strong potential to destabilize world economies. Undoubtedly, a destabilization of world economies could easily lead to all manners of human hardship and suffering.
- Alternatives measures to offset a declining oil supply require significant lead time and commitment of resources. Little of which is currently occurring.

The causes for this impending problem are complicated but very likely include:
- To a lesser degree, are the deliberate disinformation efforts by parties that have a vested interest in maintaining dependency on oil and other fossil fuels. Lesser, because the distortions are so obvious.
- To a much larger degree, an underlying cause is the public’s willingness to ignore the obvious facts of oil depletion. It is this desire to continue with “Business as Usual” despite the fact that they (or their children) may suffer dire consequences. The primary cause appears to be the “blind spot” portrayed in a recent documentary about oil depletion – a massive psychological delusion that renders people unable to recognize the problem and deal with it effectively.

2. So, why do the majority of the people have this inability to understand such an obvious problem? What is their impediment to rational thinking? The assertion here is that early childhood indoctrination of religious beliefs is the main culprit. The overwhelming majority of US citizens self identify as believing in a god that oversees their daily life; who occasionally intervenes in daily affairs when petitioned by prayer; and who will administer various details of a person’s afterlife. The fallacy of these beliefs is obvious to anyone who subjects these ideas to scientific scrutiny. The insidious part of these beliefs is the manner in which they are propagated – small children have these irrational “faith” ideas pounded into their developing brains with the explicit assertion that these beliefs are factually “True”. Once a child has their reasoning capacity corrupted by these illogical assertions, they are then scarred for life in regard to reasoning about major issues. It is also very easy for authority figures to manipulate this “faith” in a “higher authority” to disseminate all sorts of falsehoods as “true” (because god says they are true). Authorities today include the catholic pope, corporate leaders, government officials, media personalities, and others. Most of these parties have little incentive to candidly discuss the consequences of declining oil and its counterpart: human over-population. So, when these parties ignore or downplay the real planetary issues by manipulating the levers of belief systems, the general public defers because they have such limited ability for independent critical thinking – that skill set has been crippled by religious indoctrination.

So, what can be done to counteract this impediment to rational thought? Perhaps nothing. It is truly an overwhelming task, and only small measures can be undertaken at this time. We can vigorously support legislation that promotes “Separation of Church and State”. We can fight against crackpot ideas like “intelligent design” in educational curriculum. We can promote the “Scientific Method” (see discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) and urge more scientific rigor in educational curriculum. We should fight against all “faith based” government programs. We can attempt to create awareness that critical thinking skills are more important than discovering more oil. Ideally, religious indoctrination of children should be punishable as child abuse – however, this is highly unlikely for many years to come. Perhaps efforts like these will eventually help with a return to rationality.