Thank you for reminding me of the frogs.

I hold it to be a self evident truth that no two humans are equal by any measure.
Therefore I try to hang around my superiors.
It's a self improvement thing.

Some of my superiors are too far up the road for me to follow their thoughts.

It is good when they pause for me to catch up.

I try to help those who are behind me in return.

Various studies published since about 2000 have put the estimate for preventable in-hospital deaths at between 90,000 and 150,000 per year. One of the leading causes of such deaths is infections not related to the reason for admission. There is some evidence that the large majority of those infections could be eliminated if all hospitals consistently followed best-practice sanitation measures. Eg, this Applied Nursing Research paper indicates that nurses in clinical situations conformed to proper "hand hygiene" practices only 34% of the time.

Do you know that the number one cause of death due to liver disease is acetaminophen (Tylenol) and at the top of the list for all cause mortality are prescription medications and hospital errors?

I think 45K seems a bit low but it sounds like you may be someone with health care. I feel fortunate because I have health care and a good plan to boot. I wonder how the number might change if 45K were given a chance at health care. Weaving another comment in here regarding the post on liver related deaths caused by acetaminophen; I can imagine this is a result of acetaminophen being the only health care plan they have.

We have such disparity in America and it's unfortunate to hear someone flaunt their fortune with indifference to those less fortunate. The fortunate are addicted and losing the source of their addiction will be painful primarily because they don't see themselves as addicted.

In what way is that 'playing the victim'? I'm semi-amused when people start to worry that something terrible might happen to their socioeconomic stratum (at which point we begin to take note) when for a lot of people, even most people, that something terrible is called "Tuesday."

Incidentally, the "improper medical care" (iatrogenic) death total is a ridiculous 3/4 of a million!

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm

Everything I've seen suggests that the middle class has been contracting in the US for some time. Wages peaked around 1970, severe lowered expectations have happened decade after decade. Again, I'm just pointing out that for many (most?) Americans this will be tough times getting worse as opposed to life suddenly becoming bad. Psychologically who knows the people who've already has lowered life expectations may ride this out better.

Of course standard of living and quality of life have no correlation once basic human needs are met. Once we achieve a very minimum level of comfort, physical security and social interaction, our happiness is what we make of our situations.

Ignore the flak. You are on the right path. Everybody has to grieve at their own pace.

I had the good fortune to spend years living and working in other people's countries, most of which allowed increasing quality of life a role in shaping civic decisions. The result was a generally happier population. It also gave me an opportunity to reflect the way that solidarity in a society increases resilience. We, the American children of the 20th Century, have lost hold of solidarity and resilience. We will find them again, in millions of individual decisions to let go, to share, to help someone in a worse place, to change careers, to send our children to trade school instead of liberal arts colleges, to grow some of our own food, to make our own happiness.

"Fulfillment is going to look very different for sure..."

aangel, the Human Psyche has not evolved at the pace of Humanity.
The state of "fulfillment" has not changed, nor will it until we "human types" have lots of funny, colorful wires just under the skin layer.

Said another way: "fulfillment" cannot be a manufactured (or reactionary) state of mind.

Troubles ahead.

Hi aangel,

what future are we going to create for ourselves

Your question is irrelevant. And, Post Peak Oil paranoia is totally off the mark for American people – especially US Americans.

Almost 85% of the American people understand that the Christian bible is the revealed truth of God. And, this is a God who is involved in our daily lives and will pass judgment upon us after death to grant eternal reward or punishment.

The Holy Bible tells us:

“Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

So, it follows that Christian people have little to worry about. We were created in the image of God and are just following God’s orders to have many babies and feed them with any and all the resources of the planet. It is just not conceivable that God would allow Christian humanity to suffer a really serious setback for following His orders.

Therefore, the solution is obvious – Christian Leadership should replace 90% of all Government services. The national government’s primary role should be to provide for a military that can defeat any non-Christian forces that threaten the way of life that Jesus blessed us with. God Bless America.

***********************************

Anyone who agrees with the above should seek help immediately. How can there be any kind of reasonable "Post Peak Future" in the US when the majority of its citizens are delusional?

http://www.amazon.com/American-Fascists-Christian-Right-America/dp/07432...

We have other ways to produce plastics.

The oil industry has been even better at polluting information than it has the environment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Ar_AvtMdc&feature=related

Hmmm...you raise the specter of nuclear combat...

My personal opinion of the high-potential flash points/situations:

- India/Pakistan

- Israel/Take your pick...some organization, Hamas, Al Quaida, some org we don't even know about yet...

- NK/ROK

- Longer-term: Russia/China: At some point down the road a few decades, Russia may decline in population enough and central control may deteriorate enough that the Chinese may be tempted to de-facto annex Russia's Eastern Siberian resources...or at least that is the paranoia that certain Russians have...this is likely the reason that the Russian do not want to (now or ever) decommission their thousand and thousands of 'tactical' weapons....they don't want to resume playing 'everyone's doormat'.

-- Not likely at all: US/Russia or US/China...all three actors are rational and there is nothing to be gained by these scenarios

--- Unknown terrorist organization vs. US: -?- There is a definite danger...and I do not think that our boots on the ground in ME/Arab/Islamic countries is helping our odds...

Methinks that at some point we will get more of our oil from the Orinoco Belt and the Athabasca tar sands, and from ANWR and increased OCS drilling and perhaps from Africa and much less from the ME. Withdrawing from the ME at some point conserves our resources and stops provoking their radicals.

A robust wall along the entire US/Mexico border is not out of the question...land mines, electrified fencing, remotely operated weapons systems, sonic cannons, laser blinders, ...all that jazz. I do not endorse this solution...I would prefer a big happy continent/hemisphere, but I am just laying out a possibility...

Canada and the US will stick tight...

I do not see Alaska being a battleground...the terrain (including the Bearing Strait) and the weather are not conducive to invasion...the only ones who could even try would be Russia or China, and, well, we do have nukes to threaten extreme retribution...boots on the ground = one small enemy city toasted. Even if we withhold that response, we have had very well-trained Army troops in AK for decades...we are deadly serious about protecting TAPS and Prudhoe Bay etc.

After the first terrorist WMD attack on U.S. soil, especially if it involves the detonation of a nuclear weapon, expect to see the US/Mexico wall I described above, plus the implementation of a pardigm where all civilian air traffic (airliners) will have to land at only Two designated international airports on on the East and two on the West coast, and likely one on the Gulf coast. These would likely be located away from heavily populated areas, and would be portals where the airplanes and passengers get the mother of all security screenings before boarding U.S.-owned planes which never leave the country.

The Coast Guard would be vastly expanded, as would aircraft to patrol the sea lanes of approach...patrol and sink vessels as required. Commercial shipping would likely be met well out at sea and boarded/inspected before being allowed to enter a very limited number of authorized ports. Perhaps all shipping into the US would have to be on US-flagged vessels with US merchant marine crew and perhaps USMC security detachments. The US Navy will be mighty...the Army will reconfigured to be our territorial guards, except for a major contingent of special forces for over-seas special, covert, these-folks-are-expendable operations.

Any privacy we think we now have wrt phone calls, computer use, and snail mail would be utterly over.

You may initially think these predictions are over the top, especially for a post-U.S-soil-nuclear terrorist detonation, but you would likely be wrong. Such an even would change everything.

Again...these are not my wishes...I want World Peace and sustainable human civilization paradigms...but these are some darker possibilities.

1) what is the next energy solution ? It will not be solar, nor wind (since both will require wars on their own to access the materials needed to create the power banks needed), ....

Huh?
Let's look at the materials in a photovoltaics (light directlyu to electricity) panel.

Crystalline Silicon PV:
* silicon <- from sand/quartzite, currently reduced with coke and wood chips and electricity. Non-carbon processes exist. Silicon is 2nd most abundant element on surface of earth.
* trivial amounts of phosphorous and boron <- tiny amounts of phosphate rock and borax
* argon shielding gas <- from air, back to the air
* hydrogen chloride (for purifying the silicon) <- salt + water (or natural gas today - but it's mostly reused).
* potassium or sodium hydroxides (current textureing for light trapping) <- salts via electrolytic process (chloralkali process.
* isopropyl alcohol (surfactant in textureing) <- currently from hydrocarbons, but can be made from biochemicals or substituted.
* steel wire and silicon carbide grit (current wafering technology) <- steel is recyclable, the grit is made in electric furnaces from sand and coke/charcoal.
* silver, aluminum, glass frit, solvent - contact paste <- silver is the only rare thing here, substitution with plated nickel and copper is possible and leads to higher efficiency.
* solder and tabbing wire <- tin, copper, etc. not super rare, potential substitution with ultrasonically soldered aluminum.
* glass mounting panel - low iron sand, sodium carbonate, calcium oxide <- limestone. nothing rare/uncommon here.
* encapsulant resins - typically ethylene vinyl acetate today, a move is afoot to replace with silicones that offer higher efficiency. Neither of these are complex materials, and while today made with with petrochemicals, are easily made from biochemicals in the low amounts needed.
* backsheet - typically plastic sheet laminates, often a fluorocarbon for long term durability. Might press the world fluorine supply at terawatts of PV installed, but can do glass-glass modules without a backsheet.
* aluminum for frame - lots of aluminum clays around, can go to frameless modules with different mounting systems.

Cadmium Telluride thin film:
* cadmium is a byproduct of zinc and lead mining, and while fairly rare, not much is needed.
* tellurium - much more rare byproduct of (copper) mining, could limit Cd-Te PV to total world-wide inventory of "only" a few terawatts (ie at least enough for the US's electricity).
* Indium Tin Oxide - high conductivity Transparant Conductive Oxide, indium is in tight supply, can used other TCOs - tin oxide, zinc oxide - though they're not as efficient.
* metal contact - typically nickel barrier layer with aluminum, very thing layers, not an abundance concern.
* glass
* encapsulant

Copper Indium Gallium Sulfide/Selenide:
* copper is not too rare, not much needed
* indium unfortunately is fairly rare, another mining byproduct. would limit CIGS more than CdTe.
* gallium is byproduct of alumina production, much is left behind.
* sulfer (for some versions and for the CdS window) is very common
* selenium is not a limitation for CIGS.
* cadmium for window layer - not a material limitation
* TCO - CIGS usually uses a zinc oxide TCO.
* molybdenum - for deposition layer. many moly mines are closed due to oversupply.
* glass
* encapsulant

So, the bottom line is for PV modules, the US and most of the world have abundant local resources, particurly for crystalline silicon PV - no resource wars needed.

For details, chase down CdTe and CIGS subpages on the wiki solar cell page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell

If you have access to a university library,
there have been papers in the journal _Progress_in_Photovoltaics_ about material abundance constraints.
Also papers from the EUPVSEC and IEEE PVSC conferences.
http://www.eupvsec-proceedings.com/
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome.jsp?punumber=1000561

How about the menthol economy? If you have a source of dirt cheap power, industry can make liquid fuel out of any CO2/hydrogen source, even plain old air and water. Such menthol liquid fuel is a good energy storage method.

Proliferation resistant high temperature nuclear reactors of unlimited size are possible, say 200 gigawatts that can supply the energy for a liquid fuel factory.

Of course solar cells and wind mills can also be used, but a lot of them! One jet engine uses 1 megawatt of power. Just to keep all of the world’s planes in the air will use plenty of power.

Such an approach has to be cheaper capital wise and less costly in human terms than all the oil wars that have occurred, are occurring and will occur in the future. And such a path will create a lot more jobs in the country as compared to soldering overseas.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy

JMO...but I believe "Peak Oil" is a theory put out by TPTB to create whatever type of panic de jour they need to accomplish whatever they like.

If there is anything that 60+ days of video feed of this oil/gas volcano should have taught us, it is that the other major theory of the origins of crude is far more likely to be correct than the "rotten dinosaurs and trees" nonsense.

Again, JMO....

Ok, had to laugh at that one. Bring out the gallows humor...

"I blame women. They are too needy. Get rid of them and the population problem goes away...a world full of dudes."

For one generation.

Not a problem: get one of these.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBpthlEx4Fw

You should read the book "High and Mighty" about the rise of the SUV. Excellent. What's funny is that the auto industry itself did extensive market research on likely SUV drivers and found that they are more likely to be self-absorbed than the general population.

This is bad news in a way----the horrible crowding, the bad behavior of drivers, the road repairs that go on forever----of course it all makes me glad to be able to say that I commute by bicycle safely away from this type of nightmare.

But on the other hand, there is a glimpse of hope as well. Because BEFORE A PARTICULAR SYSTEM COLLAPSES, IT ALWAYS GETS VERY ACTIVE.

The housing market in the US, the new cars sales numbers, the investment banks and their CDOs, the Toyota expansion, the stock market pump up, the deepwater drilling, designer fashions......whatever it is, RIGHT BEFORE COLLAPSE is the most active, panicked, bubbly, motion-filled, fraught period of the locus or node in question.

So to all those who don`t enjoy American highways at this moment (and if I were still living there and trapped in my car I`m sure I`d agree with you all), help in the form of collapse is SURELY on the way!! The collapse period will see much LOWER LEVELS of ACTIVITY.

Interesting to note also to all math wizards out there: you can probably calculate the length of time before collapse of a certain sector will occur. Yes, you will need the time when the activity got started and you will need the length of time it has been particularly frothy. "Riding for a fall" is I guess the underlying premise.

Also aren't cars riding with less passengers per mile every year? Do you know who your neighbors are? Maybe you do, but do most? When I was a kid the goal was to have a stereo that put out heavy metal at the threshold of physical pain (126 Db). We had distractions back then too. Hell, DWI was no big deal. Everybody drank and drove. We had drive through, drink now, booze. Everybody smoked and drove. We do not have communities anymore. For example, maybe I would kick a blue Ford driver's butt, but not the Jones family. We gave people rides all the time, not everyone had or needed a car. Especially the elderly. It was your duty to tote around elderly neighbors. Even though they had local children to do it too. If your folks lived near them, they would do it too. It made more sense than driving 20 miles to give your folks a ride to the store. Hitchhikers were people needing rides, not serial killers.
We cannot go backwards, but I bet the future will return some of these practices. It is just the circular nature of existence.

Rgr2,

You make, once again, an interesting and though-provoking observation.

Perhaps your perspective brings some balance to the Force here on TOD?

I couldn't say whether peak happened five years ago, but if it did It already looks a lot different to me. If this past five years is in any way indicative of a post peak economy i.e. this past five years of economic decline actually represents a new long term negative slope, I would say that is radical.

The global economy to the brink of collapse. Governments socializing the loses to such an extent that the next crisis may be one of sovereign debt. I would suggest that if that happens the gas lines of the 70's won't seem so bad.

Of course there is no way to show a causative link, but from my American perspective if this 5 years is the new reality, and revenues don't turn around soon, well...you can only keep up BAU with increased debt for so long.

I bet 5 years into the industrial revolution it didn't look much different either.

so we have 5 years of post peak life to judge it by.

We have the beginnings to judge it by...in another few years it will be clear the pensions have all failed and we'll likely be past a stock market collapse of some sort.

A common phenomenon I often witness is that people look into the future for just a few years....and stop there, as though the oil magically stops declining at a certain point instead of continuing down. There is only so much change they can confront or imagine, it seems.

Reserve, you are mistaking the post peak plateau with the post plateau slide. Since depletion is relentless at some point the plateau doesn't hold and we slide again, perhaps to another plateau. Demand destruction with a resulting plateau was envisioned as quite likely by many "doomers" such as myself. The plateau cannot be maintained and when depletion catches up with it we have another fiscal crisis with more demand destruction until industrial civilization can no longer be maintained.

To Reservegrowthrulz2

Many governments in particular the US and UK, have endeavoured to cushion the impact of financial collapse and energy decline. And they have temporarily succeeded.

Some of the methods used are :-

-Stepping up ethanol production, so that “liquids” in present oil consumption are sustained.
-Reducing interest rates so that there are less house repossessions, bankruptcies, and business failures than would otherwise be.
-Quantitive Easing, which is printing money out of thin air, because other countries are less willing to invest in us.
-Scrappage schemes, so that people will buy new cars in an environment where otherwise the sales of cars would be flat.

The list above is certainly not exhaustive, and others could easily add more. But the point is this.
You say the last 5 years of post Peak Oil hasn’t been so bad. But that is because we have temporarily been cushioned from its effects. And it can’t go on.

Here in the UK, our new fresh coalition government have drawn a line in the sand with their budget. They have seen Greece and the like, and have grasped that delusional politics, whilst waiting for an upturn in growth, is too dangerous a gamble to make with the future.
In the next twelve months we in the UK will have to endure austerity measures that will make many weep. And I suspect the US government will not be very far behind us.

Our post-peak life would be different if we didn't have 10%+ percent of the US unemployed. You see, we're rationing gas, by virtue of so many people no longer commuting to work each day. What likelihood is there of a complete recovery from the credit crisis? By virtue of the combination of sovereign debt loads and the true emergence of peak oil (I would say in the 2012-2015 timerange that Richard Branson is talking about) I'd say we haven't seen the worst of it yet.

The money could have come from TARP instead of being spent on Chrysler, GM, AIG, etc... it was onerous to see State stimulus dollars goto other failed institutions like public schools (supposedly funded by local and state taxes) to keep union school teachers in jobs.

It would be great for stimulus dollars go into something that produced export products, or diffuse energy production. imagine using those dollars on a program to put 25k-100k watts of solar power on every public building in the US exclusively using American manufactured solar equipment.

We make REALLY bad policy decisions out of sheer stupidity, I remember debating in the 80's the #2 of NIST in Stockholm on their commitment to ISO and their belief that the internet protocols were a dead end. Thank goodness their was a competing bureaucracy called DARPA. But we've gone stupidity, our policy decisions are based on political funding, that's how stimulus gets to school teachers.

The issue is that solar and wind power are not constant.

There are a lot of reasons this is not as big a deal as you think it is. Solar peak availability coincides with peak load. Wind variability can be addressed through geographic dispersion as well as through utilizing higher quality winds for higher capacity factors (especially offshore). Yes you need a source of power to ensure that a flick of a switch turns on the lights, but it is fallacious to jump from there to the conclusion that the grid relies on any given plant to operate 24/7/365 for its reliability. It never has and does not today - wind farms integrated into the grid are reliable, one wind turbine is not and does not need to be. Grid operators are able to adapt today to considerable intermittence in demand; dealing with variable output from renewables (which can be reliably forecast) is not really any more challenging and probably considerably less challenging than dealing with, say, the sudden forced outage of a coal or nuclear plant and its thousands of megawatts of output all at once. Suffice to say, no power plant of any type has a 100% capacity factor and all types go down for both planned and unplanned outages. Therefore, we have already built considerable redundancy into our electric generating system, in the form of backup power, spinning reserve, and energy storage (which already exists at utility scales and is not a myth, contrary to popular belief). As we move from fossil fuels to renewables to power the electric grid, having all of these things already in place will ease the transition.

But even to the extent that dispersed renewables (wind and solar) give variable output when integrated into the grid, that is far from impossible to manage. We will still have gas-fired peaking plants and other fueled plants for some time, they won't suddenly disappear just because supply of a fuel peaks, and hopefully we'll do more with pumped-storage hydropower over the long run by upgrading our existing hydro plants to produce more output and have pumping capabilities as well as building seawater-based pumped-storage systems. All of this is proven technology today.

And finally, lest we forget, there actually are renewables that provide base-loading or on-demand power, granted they are not as scaleable as wind or solar but the technology is improving and the available range of resources is improving thanks these improvements. I'm talking about geothermal, hydro, biomass...and of course my personal favorite (WTE).

Our most cost efficient generation that can be added today, the kind that is the most efficient, is not amenable to operating at constantly variable partial loads.

Interesting supposition. The market appears to disagree with you, however. Here is the last few years of share of new installed capacity by technology type here in the States: http://wastedenergy.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/newcapacity2009.jpg

So when you say "most cost effective generating technology," are you referring to fossil fuels or wind power? Because the latter is what appears to be gaining momentum and is, in many cases, the most cost effective. One more thing, you might want to take a look at what else has been happening lately if you don't think wind power can scale up to scales sufficient to replace fossil generation:

http://wastedenergy.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/awea20091.jpg

That one is just wind power, and just in the U.S. Of course none of it means much as far as mitigating peak oil goes, unless we combine with electric rail and assuming capacity additions continue to double every 2 years or so. But I frankly don't see any resource that would prevent wind (or solar, for that matter) from continuing to expand exponentially, other than maybe a collapse of credit linked to peak oil (which is not really a resource but something that exists only in our minds).

The biggest problem with renewables is the glass ceiling of low expectations, "no matter what we do renewable energy will never replace fossil fuels" etc. type claims. Fortunately the power market doesn't seem to be paying much attention to this ceiling!

As a Bucky Fuller fan I give your post a +100 Interwebz.

You present some good ideas. However, change of this magnitude would require societal consensus and action led by government in order to change fast enough to make a difference.

Heck, even on rare instances when Americans can agree at the 70% level on an issue (that it is OK with them to have gay folks serve in the militarily) we can't get action because a vocal minority successfully stonewalls. This is on an issue that, when enacted, no one will bother thinking about ever again, because it really won't have a tangible affect most peoples' lives.

The change you are advocating, on the other hand, would break of whole lot of glass and will be fiercely resisted.

Given what will be considered a "good" plan will be a growing economy. Thus the 'oil replacement' would have to become a larger supply over time and cost the same if not cheaper than oil.

So unless cold fusion is the nuke power that's too cheap to meter (or, say zero point from point source black holes) - I don't see an 'oil replacement' that will save the economic system in place.

i think flexibility re roles, & being reasonably good at several is a big requirement. adaption....adaption.

i think dr. hook, unfortunately is more right than wrong, but even so most of one's time where/whenever will be spent staying tight with one's group; & that will mean community, & growing food/cooking/eating likely comprises more of a group's time/energy, than security. it is also quite easy & cheap to store grains that keep something like decades... that is to me the one requirement dr. hook's scenarios mandates; & a smart one with weather/climate changes even without warlike conditions.

because i think eventually unsecure, possibly warlike conditions will begin first in a financial collapse in the US; then eventually- perhaps decades later- the dr. hook scenarios though.

so i still think 3 primary issues ...groupness/community is first roles/priority -wise, & then food producing, then security issues which can probably be solved best by a high degree of flexibility re location by a group/groups. yes some focus on protective devices, etc. is needed; but the dogs, for example we have are not just to rescue & enjoy them, & have already likely deterred a breakin.

And I love your ideas! (I cracked up at the International Dirigibles Team.)

Why?

Zan - Thanks for your response.

I suspect that your perception of the urgency of the situation is hindered (though not nearly as terminally hindered as Reservegrowthrulz2). This is game time. If we are to have any chance of avoiding experiencing the worst that mankind has to offer we need to start making quantum leaps in the RIGHT direction.

IMO Reservegrowthrulz2's dismissive atitude and out right ignorance of what is happening right now to millions of people around the world is a prime example of exactly what is wrong with humanity. I suspect that His/her every comment is computer generated, designed to keep the sheep that are still snoozing, people that desparately want to remain oblivious to ALL the constraints converging on the planet, in line.

I know that there are thousands of visits to this site daily so Please people...understand that the situation is way more critical than this smooth talking shill is depicting. Please read a wide selection of the high quality analysis of all the issues that has occurred here on TOD over the last 3 to 5 years before you jump on Reservegrowthrulz2's bandwagon.

Good things CAN happen but only if we all understand the situation and PLAN on making sure that good things do happen.

BTW, I don't get the jist behind the name 'zero-man'? What does this moniker pertain to?

'O' = Zero. Sorry, I've been upbraided here for slang before ...

Jeffrey Brown (Westexas) calls the active and self- reinforcing actor the 'Iron Triange'; the energy, auto and highway construction industries leg, the finance industry leg and the supporting media industry leg ...

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2767

They exist for themselves and serve no public interest or anything but their own gain.

The projects pictured (and other connecting links) employ 2-300 men and heavy equipment. The state of Virginia does not have enough cash to finish the entire 'improvement' project which includes dozens of miles of toll lanes.

Local transit fares are increased here as well:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/26/AR201006...

This is the trend: worthless 'improvements' and the squeeze on the margins.

The bright side is the possibility of actually addressing social issues beyond simply throwing programs at them.

I work in an engineering firm that was hoping to get some design work from the original stimulus. One of our execs put the kibosh on that when he heard the money was going to "shovel-ready projects". His take on the stimulus was "We're all going to be driving two inches closer to God."

And that's exactly what you saw. The easiest, fastest way to put people to work, requiring no design and no delay, was repaving. So that's what we got. No new energy or transportation systems, just a bunch of asphalt and "... a small number of folks operating heavy machinery."

I look at it two ways. First, it was a wasted opportunity to put the stimulus funds toward a desperately needed change in the US transportation system. Second, and contradictory, was that getting money in circulation as fast as possible was needed and may have staved off a worse recession and deflation.

"the wrath of their own people who they have betrayed."

The people betrayed themselves, by being cheapwads and shopping at Wal-Mart.

I say let's cut government by 80% by 1 Jan 2011 (the military is NOT exempt).

Cutting government by 80% means eliminating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc.

I guess some people would be happy enough stepping over the sick and dying elderly people and children in the streets (Calcutta style) or maybe just giving them a kick on the way by. In some people's calculus giving the wealthiest 1% an 80% tax break is more important than keeping the poorest 20% alive, but thankfully those people do not run the US (yet).

I say let's cut government by 80% by 1 Jan 2011 (the military is NOT exempt).

I say especially the military. This is where I cannot understand the tea party movement, they want to cut the budget, but defense is untouchable. Do we really need all those oversees bases? Or all the new super carriers and attack subs? Isn’t this the biggest form of corporate welfare? Eisenhower was very correct in worrying about the military industrial complex.

What are all those newly unemployed government workers do when the few weeks worth of savings are gone? The local and state governments can't afford to feed and house them. Charities are nowhere near able to help more that a small percentage of them. Spending at the grocery stores would collapse and the housing market would completely collapse as foreclosures would be several times the rate we see now. Private enterprises would go out of business at an astounding rate due to the lack of customers. Since the police forces could not be paid crime will explode with neighbor killing neighbor to protect their property. If one of the formerly well off throws a Molotov cocktail through your front window there will be no firefighters coming and you may not even have any water to fight it yourself. Perhaps there might be a volunteer fire department nearby like my small town has. Instead of a professional fire department showing up within a few minutes it may take 15 to 30 minutes to get all those volunteers to your house just in time to prevent the fire from spreading through the whole neighborhood. As for your house you will be counting on the kindness of strangers since there will be no government to regulate the insurance industry. The insurance company will be looking for loopholes in order to not pay your claim in a timely fashion. With no money for the courts why should they pay at all.

I'm in favor of a debate on the proper roll of government in our technologically sophisticated, globalized economy but that debate must include the costs of not having government services. Those southern republicans who say the government is too big didn't take long in criticizing Obama for the lack of responding to that little oil problem in the Gulf. Government is only too big when you think you don't need it. I let you in on a little secret. We all need the government's help in one way or another all the time.

Mr Martenson may be brilliant or even insightful, but in attempting to discover the thumbnail version of what he has to say, I stumbled across his "3 beliefs" statement. He stated that 'we lack the political will to create the changes required for the future" or something to that effect. NO PERSON who believes that the future can be prepared for, predicted, adapted to, met, or our future welfare is dependent upon politics, or politicians acting, could possibly be right.

At no time in any of earth's history has politics produced the answers for people, to impose upon them, to "save" them, rescue them, or prepare them for any future which happened. Politics does not contain any answer to man's needs, nor his ability to cope with whatever arrives. That, the adaption people make to accomodate changes in the environment around them, is the only means by which survival occurs. This is not a political ideology. In fact, all political ideologies proclaim themselves to be "the answer". Which, of course, is incorrect. The men who designed our country's foundation had lived through "the world turned upside down". In fact, they had lived through some of the most profound changes in power, economics, and political thought, via recent history and publication. Profoundly wise, they created a republic of limited power and wealth. One which not only did not empower those in authority to define or create the future, but in fact, prohibited government from having the power, wealth, authority, or even the ability to try to decide what the future was going to be. Instead, it specifically delegated all such authority to the people and their local governance. That is the only real solution.

And it isn't a "solution", as in a packaged answer to the unknown challenges of the future. It is simply an empowerment of the individual, first by not making him shackled by self serving authority, and second, by requiring him to be self sufficient and durable by experience, having lived a life since conception of having to be responsible and living with the results of irreponsibility.

Many here seek the future answers in shortcutting individual responsibiltiy with authoritarian mandate. Such has never changed a society for the better, ever. It is true, society does need changing, but just like raising children, the answer to change is a pattern of change, results, learning, change, results, and learning. Not shielding the individual from risk or harm or want, but by deliberately making him bear all those himself.

Yes, we have become a society lacking thrift, one that is self indulgent and short sighted. And it precisely the fault of those who have sought to replace the consequences of risk and the learning of harsh reality that comes from requiring people to live solely by their own wits. This, of course, is immediately met with harsh cries of "uncaring" and other emotional responses. No, to truly want your children, for instance, to have a good life brought about by good judgement, they have to learn it, not from a book, but by experience. As one wit says, bad judgement brings about experience, experience brings about good judgement. Substitute "pain" for "experience" and the sentence still comes true. We will never have a society that exhibits sober good judgement again, until ever individual has to learn it for himself, by being responsible for himself, and suffering teh results of bad judgement. Shielding him from those results in the short sighted, self indulgent behavior, uncomprehending bad ideas, and emotional appeals to mitigate bad results. Wise people listen to the wisdom of those who have learned. Self indulgents never learn from history. Thus, if we wish to have future generations of wise people, it's time we started their life off learning from the results of thier decisions, not shielding them from all discomfort or even pain.

None of this has anything to do with hate or envy or wanting bad things to happen to people. It is simply a learned lesson brought about by a number of decades of life, and the pain that results from bad decisions. Every one of us knows the stereotype of the trust fund kid who wastes his life doing nothing, living off the wealth his daddy worked his life to gain. In a sense, every nation with large social safety nets, and "services" to provide all manner of needs is that self indulgent parent, bringing up generation after generation of untempered people, few of whom even fathom how desperately good judgemeent is critical to our future survival. We have wrought what the socialists all wanted. Now it's time to pay the bill. Those advocating more of the same have not the answer. They're still advocating the fault as the cure.

"Could someone point me to ANY successful planned civilization? "

That's the part I didn't agree with but didn't want to get into. Community (i.e. government and law) still counts. A lot. That's why I encourage people to take leadership roles in their community. That can be at any level, btw, not just local. I have a friend running for congress...her expression of leadership is at the state and national level.

However, I take a wider view than your point here:

It is moving closer to collapse now because it was made too unregulated and vulnerable to people trying to make a quick buck, by people who believe in the libertarian fantasy economic model.

All the financial laws and political bickering are just bumps and valleys in the momentous, inexorable force of growth.

All the hybrid cars and neat LED lamps and backpacks with solar cells sewn into them are irrelevant. Our destiny as a species doesn't change one whit until we embrace contraction as both inevitable and desired.

Hi Thane Morgan,

Excellent comment! I've held management positions in both the public and private sectors. My private sector job was probably the wet dream of most free market advocates - an IPO in an innovative technology play. My public sector job was with a major community/technical college.

What I observed in the public sector was a lot of hard working, dedicated folks who (for the most part) liked their jobs and never expected to get rich. In the private sector, I saw a few people get very rich in a vicious dog-eat-dog environment where many people hated their jobs but hung in for the money. That is until the IPO buzz faded and the take-over folks did their thing - then lots of people were unceremoniously unemployed.

I really can't understand the Tea Party mentality that seems to hate all government and enjoy vilifying government employees.

Please don't dominate the rap, jack, if you've got nothing new to say.
If you please, don't back up the track; this train's got to run today.
I spent a little time on the mountain, I spent a little time on the hill.
Axioms say "Better run away", others say "better stand still".

Now I don't know, but I been told it's hard to run with the weight of gold.
Other hand I have heard it said, it's just as hard with the weight of lead.

Who can deny, who can deny, it's not just a change in style?
One step done and another begun and I wonder how many miles.
I spent a little time on the mountain, I spent a little time on the hill.
Things went down we don't understand, but I think in time we will.
Now, I don't know but I was told in the heat of the sun a man died of cold.
Keep on coming or stand and wait, with the sun so dark and the hour so late.
You can't overlook the lack, jack, of any other highway to ride.
It's got no signs or dividing lines and very few rules to guide.

I spent a little time on the mountain, I spent a little time on the hill.
I saw things getting out of hand, I guess they always will.
Now I don't know but I been told
If the horse don't pull you got to carry the load.
I don't know whose back's that strong, maybe find out before too long.

One way or another, one way or another,
One way or another, this darkness got to give.

garcia, hunter, new speedway boogie, circa 1968

tog, as I mentioned above, I think there is a lot to be said for people taking the level of responsibility you are advocating.

But visions for a future don't have to be forced on people. A vision can be stated by someone and by accretion the conversation expands. I think it's too early for a national leader to say, "We must embrace decline for if we don't we will drive off the cliff" but it may not be too long from now when someone might make a decent go of it, perhaps a decade or so from now.

In any case, responsibility works on many levels. The leadership role is really just taking responsibility for a specific group, just as a parent is responsible for a family unit. The individuals within the group will still live more fulfilling and productive lives if they are taking ultimate responsibility for their own lives, too.

Sometimes people confuse responsibility with blame, which is more causal the way most people use it. Responsibility can overlap infinitely and I can choose to take responsibility for anything in the universe. The degree to which I direct what I take responsibility for ranges from nothing to complete, but that doesn't change that responsibility is a sort of stand one takes about parts of life, and I can take a stand on anything.

The victim role is taking no responsibility. (Again, this isn't blame, that's a different concept that I'm not addressing).

So when I advocate that someone shift out of the victim role, I am actually saying, "Take responsibility — accept that what has happened has happened, put it in the past, and resume creating." That's why, at the core of it, I think you are and are saying much the same thing.

"Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth."
George Bernard Shaw

Fantasies of extreme individualism are encouraged by corporate advertising because they support the hyper-consumer marketing that drives consumption ("I don't need anybody in my big SUV with the KC lights crash bars"). But the reality is that everyone in the US depends on government continuously (law enforcement to protect our possessions and the air to breath and water to drink, roads to transport us and our food, sewers to carry away our waste, a regulated grid to provide power,etc.,etc.)

The ultimate irony is the use of the internet, developed by the cooperative effort of millions working together, to promote the fantasy ideology of individualism (YOU need to find your own answers, etc.,etc.)

Good Luck building YOUR OWN internet!

One saving grace of the ridiculous Ayn Rand style individualism is that believers usually self-select out of political action, preventing their silly ideas from having any real impact, allowing them to rant on the government-invented internet about how un-necessary government is, while the real world continues around them.

Post-peak, there will still be government of some form, even if it is like the bandit warlords currently ruling Afghanistan, and those believing government is irrelevant will still find themselves irrelevant.

backs up your assessment well :) and not in a way I would have directly thought off.

So to continue on that line of thinking, there should be some level of depreciation in the common mean level of education. Wouldn't this indicate a loss, or at least a general stagnation of knowledge that we now possess...I would be curious to see parallels drawn between that and the dark ages. Not necessarily to the same degree, or by the same means, but the general concept appears to be the same....

Assuming of course:

We are unable to advance to enough alternative energy sources to redevelop a functioning economy that would allow for access to such knowledge.(Which it appears by your assessment this will come to pass) If this is the case higher educations remained unavailable to the general populace for some time, and thus the stagnation...

I'm curious about your thoughts on this...

~Dawn

You're assuming most people in the US go to college in order to get training for work. Most full-time students coming out of high school attend college as a social marker. Many students have no idea going in what they want to major in let alone how that might be connected to the job market. Families that can afford to send their children to college because that's the "next step" in life. It so happens that many HR departments require a college degree for what jobs they have.

Wasted - On the law school front, I was recently listening to NPR, and they were doing a segment about job, and the lack thereof, particuarly in the field of law. Because of the current strain on companies, they have been freezing hiring, not only that, last years class, 2009, many new interns/college students graduating were actually told not to start in 2009, but rather whatever company hired them, paid them between 40% - 50% of their salary to work at a nonprofit/pro bono work fro a year until the company could start them in 2010.

Because of this, graduates with a law degree of 2010, not only have to face a small job market, but many of the 2009 graduates were also newly filling many of the jobs..

Because of this, firms that usually take 100 - 120 new graduates (they cited several schools, but for the life of me I can not remember them) these same firms are taking 20 - 30%

(and I feel your pain, I am working two menial jobs for slightly above minimum wage, 75 - 80 hours a week, to make ends meet)

Iaato - I agree that knowledge is easier to sustain, and that we likely will not lose it straight up, except if conduits such as the internet fail, but it seems to be a bit of a paradox to me.

"It will be more costly and harder to get, and hopefully the nature of it will change. Our higher ed programs are currently teaching for the old future (the way up, permanently growing) rather than the new future, the way down. "

We overreach. And it appears we will remain blind and unwilling to change until it smacks us in the face. I will take my alma mater for example: University of Connecticut. It's a large college 25,000+, 17,000 on campus, and 8,000 commuters. We have a broad level of majors, including all facets of life.

The time it would take to reorganize a university of this size (which many major universities are) would take years, particuarly if facing an oil shortage. If the cost of higher ed is going up, and perhaps society begins to feel the squeeze of oil, I fear a reorganization will be impossible to achieve

If this is the case, then local communities would have to become responsible for education. How many people in your town understand the sciences necessary to produce alternative energy?

In addition, the paradox becomes visible when I think about the nature of higher ed. Higher ed costs need to come down, and focus on the true majors/fields necessary, but there is little way to reorganize any large, (or even small for that matter) colleges in a timely manner to translate this information.

As a result, I see a stagnation in knowledge.

I think part of my problem is that my brain is unwilling, or at least it takes a lot of thought, to see a society, say 75 - 100 years down the road, that has reorganized and allowed universities to function: this would imply we have a good mass transit program, having worked out the sustainable living/energy problem.... Yet all of this happening after a time when higher education becomes increasing difficult for the general populace....Without oil, or in an oil squeeze, I don't see how these institutions can last.

Just a few more thoughts...good discussion, I've lived less than three decades, so I'm willing to listen to anyone's point of view, particuarly many of the experts here on TOD.

~Dawn

The Walmart model is not sustainable. Ask Sears.

Socal, I have to admit that I have never been to Europe, but I did finance my kids making multiple trips. They expressed surprise and frustration that so many stores closed early and were closed on Sunday. I explained that the same model prevailed during my youth here in the states. They were not impressed.

My thinking on this has been evolving. While the "family business" model versus Wal-Mart and supply-chain distribution has emotional appeal, it may be one more inefficiency we cannot afford in a post-carbon world, at least here in the United States. Let me explain:

In the 19th Century our pattern of cities and towns developed first along navigable rivers and then along rail lines. As the population moved west, the spacing of the towns was a function of the rail lines. (In the case of Nebraska, a new town was formed literally every evening when the railroad construction crew stopped work for the day.) When rail passenger service was at its peak, the system was extremely efficient, despite towns being scattered over great distances. The Railroad Post Office (RPO) car had clerks sorting mail enroute, with a bag "dropped" via a hook at small stations as the train slowed just enough for the transaction.

If our future in North America is truly going to be based on electric rail and electric street car lines in cities over 10,000 population (along with a revival of the old interurban electric lines) then we are going to need to look at the patterns of the 19th Century as our guide. A Harvard professor, John Stilgoe, has outlined the history and potential in a fascinating book entitled Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape. In such a rail-based network, supply chains will still function, and just-in-time delivery will be as workable as it is today, maybe even better, provided the town or city in question is on a functioning rail line.

The real dynamics occur at the neighborhood level. If each neighborhood is connected to the larger urban area via a rail station or along the corridor of a streetcar or tram line, then creativity, not survival, can dominate. This can mean neighborhood-sized grocery stores, "general stores", or even small pharmacies in walking distance along with small cafes. Each could depend on nightly freight delivery by the same rail or tram line that serves the station or corridor in the daytime. Those deliveries could then be centralized near a rail yard for distribution nationally. One would walk or bike within the neighborhood to the small commercial areas. Stores might be owned or leased individually via a franchise that delivered the goods, or the larger corporation could adapt to a series of smaller neighborhood markets, something Wal-Mart is already testing.

One could still work elsewhere in the urban area, or travel within the urban area to shop or visit. The difference is that the travel would be via a grid-connected system. Urban folks might own a single electric car, in contrast to rural folk who might still have an gas-driven vehicle plus a couple of draft animals. As you can guess from my user name I grew up on a farm. We worked from sunup to sundown, and there was nothing romantic or inspirational about it. It was a fight for existence. My elementary school, with one teacher for four grades, did not even have running water. I went to engineering school and never looked back.

There is no room in rural America for a horde of city folk trying to "live on the land." There are only so many wells that the underground aquifer can support. Transportation will be limited to one trip a week to "town," town being less than 5,000 people. The last gasoline will be rationed to the rural areas. Trust me, stay in the city. Find a sustainable one with a developing transit system and be sure to live within walking distance of existing public transportation. (Even today I ride public transportation to work each day, in preparation.)

Finally, I don't yet buy into the idea that we need to give up the specialization of work. Even 100 years ago we had specialists, and everything we have accomplished as a society is not going to disappear with peak oil. We will need an educated work force, and the generation that comes after peak oil will not have the illusions we do. Together, we will take what the 100 years of oil gave us and build something better than we have today.

Of course, I'm a civil engineer. What else would you expect me to say? Engineers were put on this earth to fix things! Let's get started. ;-)

G'dammnit, near miss (<= 50km!). LOL. Didn't know/remember that though, although I've seen such thingies somewhere.

What America needs are good American trade schools.

Got blisters. Pictures this evening.

Sir, I'm afraid I do not!

I wouldn't be surprised if you know/knew my former boss and a couple colleagues from World Game Institute..? I'm likely about (egad!) 20 yrs your junior so I wasn't doing anything useful in 1971... I worked at WGI roughly '93-'00.

Bob

here is the one i am making

http://www.geopathfinder.com/9473.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*

the screen is the tough part...expense-wise. i'm planning to use ss welding wire & weave my own on a frame. good luck!

Which comments and analysis are you referring to? By "fat tail" phenomenon, do you mean that the decline in availability of oil will be more gradual than anticipated by many? That sounds like it would come as a considerable relief for the short run, say over the next few years. On what data are you basing your mathematical model?

Kevin sweet .... Here's yer " Atta Boy " .

Come on everybody show your dome.

You could never go see Bucky Fuller and come out feeling bad about the world.

I am reminded of the scene in " Glory " -

Trip: I ain't fightin' this war for you, sir.
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: I see.
Trip: I mean, what's the point? Ain't nobody gonna win. It's just gonna go on and on.
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Can't go on forever.
Trip: Yeah, but ain't nobody gonna win, sir.
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Somebody's gonna win.
Trip: Who? I mean, you get to go on back to Boston, big house and all that. What about us? What do we get?
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Well, you won't get anything if we lose.

What exactly are they doing with all the skimmers and other resources O was speechifying about?

Welcome to The Oil Drum.

I wish you luck.

If the Elites are using Peak Oil as a tool to keep the masses down, they sure aren't doing a very good job. Most of those masses have never heard of it!

I'll leave the debunking of Abiotic Oil to those who can explain it better than I can.

Time to dust off my tin foil hat...

We're here because BP drilled for ABIOTIC OIL and wasn't technically ready for the pressure.

My understanding of the situation is that Transocean was drilling and the failure was due to Halliburton's inability to pour concrete/Halliburton miscalculated the pressure.

Now if you have evidence that BP did the drilling - show it. Same goes for showing proof of abiotic oil.

Well just to be clear I'm not talking about optimal solution often far from optimal.

I'm glad you brought this up as most of my concepts would be suboptimal and inefficient but would work.

What they would do is allow you to easily transform local raw materials into valuable items using methods that
are scaled to a large workshop or small factory. Effectively recreating the blacksmith but leveraging what we know now.

I try to explain to people that efficiency is not the issue. Lets take a simple example modern wind turbines are huge and cost millions of dollars and are big business. Perhaps smaller less efficient turbines can be readily manufactured in a small work shop using local resources. No way do they compete with the larger turbines designed to work in a BAU scenario however thats not the problem I want to solve. Smaller turbines can readily be used to pump water for example and if you can pump water you can create a stored energy gradient and generate electricity or do something else with it.

Efficiency is not the primary problem that needs to be solved whats being optimized is a solution starting from local materials and a fairly simple workshop to produce some desired end goal in a reasonable manner.

Certainly it can be refined and made as efficient as possible given the constraints. But hopefully you can see that my inefficient local small turbine "wind farm" can also be completely maintained with no external inputs.

Thats not to say you don't take advantage of laminates and epoxies and perhaps aluminum etc. Any organic compound can be made in fairly small batches and for that matter so can inorganics. Chemistry scales well.

The only obvious trade good are elements esp catalysts these of course would have to be traded based on their natural abundance. But even here very interesting approaches are possible under the right conditions.

A really simple example is isolation of some metals via concentration in certain types of plants or bacteria. Perhaps inefficient but simple.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/106571115/abstract?CRETRY=1&S...

The problem is not that it can't be done just that if you look there are so many choices that its hard to figure out what would work in a complete system and what won't. In the really big picture recovery of trace minerals from sea or well water via bioabsorption of some type looks like the long term solution.

I could right a book.
Concentration of platinum and palladium when lost on a desert island using sulfate bacteria :)

I've got no idea what the right answer is just that if you dig a big its fairly clear there are lots and lots of ways to solve "high tech" problems that don't require our complex infrastructure 99% of the problem is knowledge. Once you dispense with the need for economies of scale past a certain reasonably small level its a wide open field.

Today knowledge workers are highly leveraged in large scale industries but thats not required. Anyone with a good grasp of the basic sciences can readily develop expertise sufficient to manufacture a wide variety of goods.

Indeed this is the key distinction between what I'm looking at and the past. Before the industrial revolution the broad scientific understanding did not exist processes where developed via trial and error and inspiration. A future small scale worker can build on a huge body of scientific knowledge that simply was not possible earlier.

And finally with that said obviously if the world changes we may simply not have the need to make a lot of the stuff we do today. One example is injected molded plastic articles this is a process thats hard to make sensible on the small scale but also often is not needed. Almost all the articles produced using plastics today could be replaced with alternatives. Very few use cases are of industrial importance. The prime example is of course cheap plastic toys.

That in my opinion is the question we have to ask ourselves about technology.

By identifying technologies esp energy intensive ones that could leverage more diffuse renewable resources if executed differently you can dissipate if you would the need for economy of scale.

Thats not to say that the answer is less energy intense. Reduction of iron ore is constrained by the requirements of the reaction. However just before coal took over coppiced trees where extensively used to support iron and steel manufacturing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing

Efficiency could well be lower but so what if it can be distributed to the point that a small town or village can engage in the industry renewably thats what matters.

For plat glass right now my best answer is to make it using the old methods but then to float the glass on top of a very thin tin bath in batch mode so it can be flattened. If the bath depth is low enough then heating and cooling it would not be nearly as energy intensive as a larger bath. Obviously since you would know the size of the final product the bath could be sized much smaller and sheets close to the end use size flattened. Again a much smaller bath.

So instead of continuous its a batch process. Indeed in many cases it seems a move to scalable if less efficient batch processes are the key to downsizing industries to match up with capabilities of a small town or village industry.

Once you produce the raw and refined starting materials obviously going forward to produce a wide range of finished goods locally makes sense. Thus for the glass example you would probably provide finished windows to order via a local craftsman. Almost certainly leading to windows again becoming works of art.

energy efficiency will go way down

Depends heat exchangers are your friend and another process could be coupled to freezing the tin.
Obviously you can makes steam and thence whatever.
One reason I stress looking at the overall efficiency esp things like combining various process.
Another similar problem is cooling charcoal again heat exchangers and steam generation.

Next so what ? And thats the second point if you can make good glass to supply a village or small town good enough.
Assuming a static population with basically no buildings you simply don't need to make much plate glass.
The issue is quality not quantity. Thus so as long as your not building like crazy and you would not in the case
of a static population its a process issue. Take any small town and remove new construction how much glass is used today ? I'd have to think not much.

A major storm or other catastrophe can be met by making glass in a number of villages and shipping it out.
Thus distributed production works well.

I think its a really good example of one process that may well "deindustrialize" and return to a village process.

Do you realize that the HealthCare act contains a mandate saying that any person paying for something in cash or coin has to issue a 1099 to the payee?

Probably an overinterpretation of this, which is not a ridiculous hallucination. OTOH, give the politicians a little more time and the overinterpretation may yet become law - after all, there will never, ever be enough resources to fulfill all the promises they'd like to make in the name of purchasing votes to keep wielding power.

I would encourage you to check it out personally but I believe I read those facts in one of the business journals I read.

BTW, I don't watch Beck or listen to Limbaugh and their ilk. They are entertainers of a highly disturbing sort, playing on the fears of people who don't have the intelligence to form their own thoughts and make up their own minds. Much the same as many of the students graduating from our so called institutes of higher learning.

If you are going to post up BS like this

So you agree with the IRS as a means of control/punishment over citizens?

With respect to runaway climate, vastly larger perturbations have occurred repeatedly in the geologic past without making Earth into Venus - else we wouldn't even be here to talk about it.

Get yourself a copy of "When life nearly died" by Michael Benton about the Permian extinction when 95% of all species died. http://www.amazon.com/When-Life-Nearly-Died-Extinction/dp/050028573X/ref...
"Today it is common knowledge that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that killed half of all species then living. Far less known is a much greater catastrophe that took place at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago: ninety percent of life was destroyed, including saber-toothed reptiles and their rhinoceros-sized prey on land, as well as vast numbers of fish and other species in the sea."

The planet did not become a Venus, that is not necessary to extinct humans. But what happened at the End Permian may speak to what worse case scenario for AGW if it goes into positive feedback and melts all the frozen methane in the ocean.

Less worse case involves the fact that except for a few remaining Hunter-Gatherer tribes we only know survival by farming and it doesn't take much warming to start to very negatively impact agriculture.

Are your familiar with War Cycles?

Per Figure 1 of the reference, the sucessive interval between the Thirty Years War, the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars, and the World Wars I&II, is about 141 years and 100 years. I'd put the duration of the WW I&II total war episode at 1914-1950 so as to include the Chinese Revolution. Also, the deaths in that period as shown in the graph do not include the 1918 flu and the purges, starvation, concentration camps, gulags, Spanish Civil War, Japanese invasion of China and the Chinese Revolution. Thus the death toll for the period should be much higher.

The next general war should break out around 2030 following about a 80 year interval, if the intervals are shrinking. The general use of nuclear weapons is somewhat unlikely, since they have rather bad climate outcomes. Nuclear weapons and chemical weapons are more likely to be limited to destroying selected cities or small countries.

Biological science in the late 20th century has opened up entirely new possiblities for destructiveness, paralleling the development of nitrated hydrocarbon explosives and nuclear explosives, the gifts of chemistry and physics to WW I&II. A lot of work has already been done on the use of biological agents to control invasive alien species. In most of the world, humans are an invasive alien species. A mid-21st century war is likely to be fought with biological weapons.

Casualty estimates will depend on whether there is general global involvement. The previous general wars were general only in that they involved most of Europe, although more and more of the European Empire colonial possessions became involved in the later wars. If the war is global, then the population could easily be reduced by 1/3 or about 3 billion, based on projecting the effect on German populations during the Thirty Years War.

Perhaps this dire prediction will not come about. Perhaps the new technologies of information processing and communications will knit together humanity in a way that can forestall a global conflict.

However, note that in the last decades prior to WW I, the nobility, businessmen, bankers, intellectuals and politicians of Europe were a thoroughly interanationalized group. French then played the role of a commonly understood language that English does today. Ferries and railroads made travel easy throughout Europe, and young men often spent a year traveling at the conclusion of their studies. The monarchs of the most powerful European Empires were cousins that were all related to Queen Victoria.

As the stresses build, it only takes defenestration of a couple of Counts, storming of a prison, or the assasination of a not very well thought of Archduke to start the conflict.

Too bad "good technology" requires fossil fuels, and we still need a functioning biosphere, unless you are looking forward to Soylent Green. So I would let go of the idea we could host 10x our current population. You're going to be solely disappointed.

aangel, thankyou for your answer. why do you think those predictions will not prove correct on a longer time scale? can you clarify which of these predictions are energy-related?

See my response to Red-Dawn elsewhere. Higher education is one of the first casualties of even the end of growth. Contraction makes it worse. There will not be very many people going to college in 10 years compared to now, in my view.

>Who was talking about overproduction? Quite the contrary: we could conceivably discuss whether the keypost is too doomish

exactly, PaulS. the post and the thread discuss if mankind will be forced to scale back its energy-devouring civilization development. this is an uncorrect way to deal with the future of the planet earth. marxism, instead, is all about a critique on capitalism, as it is seen unable to lead mankind to higher levels of human domain over natural forces. the post says capitalism brings to a shrinking industrial production. marxism teach us capitalism brings to overproduction crisis (such the present crisis), which brings to counter-revolutions and wars, so a revolution is required, instead, to shift toward a superior production-way, called communism. Communism never existed, soviet union-like economies were all state-capitalisms (same system now USA is headed to, after these last years free market failed). Under communism, mankind could get rid of money, market and salaries, so to free itself from productivity restraints typical of capitalistic crisis, putting all mankind to work, without unemployment crisis and capitals-lack crisis. Under a united world-government, and with virtually unlimited resources, probably mankind will choose to export production toward outer space, collect the energy from the sun down to earth via micro-waves and transform the earth in a garden. You can see, all these posts are focusing on energy; instead, the correct, dialectical-materialistic, scientific way to deal with the problem is to focus on classes, workers against bourgeoises. You think all about to scale down the human lifestyle, we marxists are working for a class-war against capitalists, since they'll bring workers of the world toward fascism and world war. You can think this is science-fiction, but it is exactly the way the world is shaping in front of us. Oil is absolutely NOT the problem. The workers/bourgeoises conflict IS the problem, and the oil issue will be strumentally and ideologically used within this conlict. Blood will spill, not oil.

Needed one last year. In Alabama, sometimes we even wait until they kill and process the lamb. Seriously though, they are the best ones on the market for fun, worst ones for STD's. Great for married folks.

HAH! Sometimes reading DOES pay off!

But of course, abstinence and what not........

I would have liked the health care "reform" bill to have included free or subsidized sterilization. Of course that would be an acknowledgment that perhaps we ought to be adding fewer humans to the planet.

Related, irrelevant but amusing anecdote from about 15 years ago: I was watching some show on TLC that documented a vasectomy. While the guy was on the table and chatting with the doc while the doc was down there working around a small incision in the scrotum, he commented (for the camera, I think), "Now here I have to be very careful to make sure that the second tube I cut is not the same one as the first." The guy on the table says, "You mean they're not color coded?" Still cracks me up.