Nov04

The Peak Oil Dive Has Begun (Chronicles of the final plunge)

by JB on November 4th, 2010
Posted In: Societal Dissolution, The Peak Oil Dive Has Begun (Chronicles of the Final Plunge)

This is a follow-up to the extensive Peak Oil (but more broadly peak energy) discussion that I started on the Life After the Oil Crash (LATOC) forum on 25 January 2010.  If you want to consult the content of that extensive discussion up to 17 October 2010 you can do it on the LATOC forum section where it is currently (4 November 2010) still archived or more simply by clicking on the following hyperlink:

http://www.doom101.com/resources/ThePeakOilDiveHasBegun.html

The owner of LATOC decided to unexpectedly shut down the entire LATOC discussion forum on or around 19 October 2010. Although I have a great deal of respect for the original peak oil work done by the LATOC owner, this was in my view an unfortunate decision. In particular because it stopped, dead in its tracks, the very useful discussion, pooling of information and original research that was going on the LATOC forum.

After the LATOC closure, it took some time for some of the key participants in my “Peak Oil Dive Has Begun (Chronicles of the final plunge)” thread to regroup. One of them, Dr. Doom, was kind enough to offer his new web page as a host for my continuing discussion thread and strongly encouraged the restarting of the related research effort.  I thank him for his initiative and for his support. 

Since my last post on the above mentioned thread (on LATOC on 15 October 2010)  important things have taken place and international events are unfolding rapidly. I do not have the time to comment on all of them but I would like to mention a few:

1) President Obama and the Democrats have lost control of the House of Representatives of Congress on 2 November 2010.  There is no doubt that Main Street is not happy about Obama’s performance  (since the beginning of his term in January 2009) and about the current state of the US economy.  His financial regulatory reform package adopted only during the Summer of 2010 is pathetic. Not only does it not solve any of the fundamental problems related to the economy and to the financial industry but nobody appears to be held responsible for any of the decisions that led to the financial debacle that publicly started in August 2007 with the subprime market freezing.  “Banksters” continue to collect and keep their indecent bonuses and those responsible for the debacle still hold key decision making jobs at the highest level of the pyramid of authority…  For those who have the time, go and see the recently released film “Inside Job” (narrated by Matt Damon). It will help you to understand how bad some things now are in terms of simple conflicts of interests…

2) Yesterday (3 November 2010) the US Fed has publicly informed the world that it will shortly be initiating another round of “quantitative easing” (essentially a money printing exercise) of about 600 billion $US… Essentially buying US Treasury Bonds to try to keep interests low and attempt to prevent the default of the US government who has to pay interest on its now 12 trillion $US or so of outstanding debt (excluding the long term liabilities associated with the social security and medicare programs…).  The $US 700 billion or so economic stimulus program voted early on in the Obama administration is now spent and the result is an economy that is still essentially flat on its back with official unemployment at about 10% and a housing market continuing to implode under the weight of “more or less legal” massive foreclosures by the banks… Since Congress is now much less likely to vote another economic stimulus package (the yearly deficit of the US government is now reaching about $US 1500 billions) and since the ongoing currency war with the Chinese is taking a new turn, the US Fed is putting in place a mechanism whereby it can essentially ensure that somebody will still be buying US Treasury Bonds if the Chinese decided that they had enough… Needless to say that we are here walking on thinner and thinner ice by the day in terms of international credibility. When the central bank of the country, whose currency is the main international reserve currency of the world, starts to ”create” out of thin air money to buy the debt of its own government, we are rapidly leaving the world of economic rationality to enter the one of magic…  The US stock market is for now “enthusiastic” about this news but this type of “conservative” management by the US Fed could simply end up in disaster not so far down the line (the US Fed balance sheet is already loaded with more than 2.5 trillion $US a significant part of which can only be conservatively qualified as “financial shit”). How long before the holders of US dollars start heading for the exits?

3) On 11-12 November 2010 the G20 Heads of States will next meet. The international credibility of the G20 “consensus decision” to refrain from protectionist measures and currency war has been badly shot up since its ”modern” recreation in October-November 2008. A global currency and trade war is ongoing (something similar took place a few years after 1929…) and China and the US are looking as if,  step by step, they are positioning themselves for what could be “a final great embrace”…   The recently proposed US mediation in the Japan-China conflict related to a few islands (sitting on top of important gas reservoirs) has been rebuffed by China even after the US and Japan had mentioned that they were currently linked by a military defense treaty… Tensions are therefore building up rapidly within the system. All wars have an underlying serious economic cause.

4) The price of oil has increased rapidly and is now standing at close to $US 87 /barrel after the Saudi oil minister publicly said on 2 November 2010 that he was happy with oil below $US 90/barrel…

5) Looking now at the fundamental causes of humanity’s current collective problem, it is interesting to note that Charles Hall  recently made a very interesting presentation on the key net energy issue during the “7th Advance in Energy Studies Conference” in Barcelona.  For those interested, the Oil Drum has a few recent posts in that regard. One of his key observations is that the EROEIs – at the point of delivery - of gas and oil used by the US have now declined so much, that coal may be what is actually currently running the US economy. In other words, the net energy added by all the other types of energy on a delivery basis may be presently insignificant…  If that is true, this is one hell of a bombshell!

The declining global net energy curve is a key factor that we should closely look into during the continuing discussion on this thread.  Properly interpreting the data related to the net energy curve of all the key international players could likely provide us with an instrument to ”see into the future”… and prepare for what may be coming.

The pooling of experience gathered in terms of practical preparation by all those participating in this discussion thread will also be important. We are not all living at the same place or in the same type of environment. Pooling data about preparation and localization would no doubt help every one of us in taking related decisions that might turn out – as events unfold - to be “life saving”.  

JB

What do you think? Follow the discussion on our forum.
Nov04

Intentional Poverty

by Dr. Doom on November 4th, 2010
Posted In: Societal Dissolution

What? The last two words you would ever think to see in the same sentence. Why would anyone even think to use them together? “About 2,550 results” Google says. Compare that with “About 18,800 results” for the two words “Obscene Wealth”. Unfortunately, this statistic speaks volumes about our society and also points out the magnitude of the challenges facing us. And by us I mean we few here on this site, us as a society and ultimately, us as a species. When faced with problems. people want solutions. If the solution includes giving up television, flush toilets and 24/7 electricity, you know it is going to be a hard sell. Include the fact that people are going to have to become less reliant on everything our society has to offer, from basic foodstuffs to car travel and more reliant on themselves and what their local communities can provide and it becomes almost impossible. But if we can’t manage to convince people to trade lifestyle for life, I am afraid that we are all truly doomed.

I see Intentional Poverty as one of the few actual solutions to the problems of resource depletion, global heating, ecosystem destruction and the destruction of habitat for the rest of the species we share this planet with. Intentional Poverty (IP from now on) has the benefit of slowing the pace of the first three and a giving us a short breather while we address the last. The theory is pretty straight forward: Money is embodied energy, so having less money to spend means fewer resources used, less carbon dumped into the atmosphere, fewer poisons pumped into the pollution sinks and less land bulldozed and burned. If everyone in the West would take an 80% haircut on their incomes, we could push off the inevitable collapse for another 15 years or so. If all of those in the emerging economies (BRIC) froze their incomes where they are now, we could add another 10 years to that. The resources not spent on Barbie clothes, marble countertops and Spring Break in Cancun could be used to repair damage to those pollution sinks, restore habitat, research ways to manage global heating and build as much renewable energy infrastructure as possible.

Implementation on the other hand is not so straight forward. Imposed Poverty, which is what most people in the know forsee as what we will actually get will not work. Human nature, being what it is, will not allow it to. Human beings will find a way around any government lead program and having poverty imposed by the harshness of circumstances is what we are trying to avoid. All that leaves is IP. But how do you convince people that this is what they need to do? And if you actually manage to get a few onboard with the idea, how do you keep them on the path when the society around them is still in the throes of an orgiastic frenzy of consumption? What are the benefits to the individuals involved?

How can we sell this to the average person in the Western World?

What do you think? Follow the discussion on our forum.
Nov02

Collapse, Decline or Just Another Day?

by yooper on November 2nd, 2010
Posted In: General

collapse: 1.) to fall in or together; cave in suddenly; shrink together abruptly. 2.) to fail utterly and suddenly.
decline: 1.) to bend downward; droop. 2.) to draw to a close; fail; decay; disintegrate.

The Winston Dictionary, Advanced Edition, 1946.

If I should ask you how you think our society might end, how would you reply? Collapse or decline? Maybe a combination of both? I’ve been asking this question to people for a very long time, over 25 years as a matter of fact. Perhaps, you think our civilization will last forever. Whatever “camp” you may be hanging out in, this question is pretty hypothetical and there’s a message here for everyone.

As you might expect, I’ve received a variety of answers over the years. Some reply, oh you mean, w.t.s.h.t.f., (when the shit hits the fan)? Or the ever popular, t.e.o.t.w.a.w.k.i., (the end of the world as we know it). One thing these people have in common, is they see this as an event. Civilization or society would likely end suddenly, in a matter of days, months or years. This best describes, “collapse”.

Then there are people who believe we’ve been declining for awhile now or soon will begin to decline. For the most part, these people believe our society will decline a little bit at a time, something like going down a staircase. There’s also people who think as we descend, we’ll see periods of recovery only to eventually take another step down. Eventually it would take, 50 years, 100 years, 200 years or even longer when civilization as we know it, might have had it’s run. This best describes, “decline”.

Of course, there are those people who believe our descent, will come from a combination of decline that leads to collapse. For what it’s worth, I’m probably part of this group of people. I envision many parts of society declining to the point it will eventually collapse. There may be periods of recovery or some sort of stabilization, but declines will mount bringing yet another collapse. Series of collapses until our society changes enough to become sustainable.

Quite naturally, there are a lot of people who think, things will go on as usual. For the most part they see society as ever improving, since the “stone age”. Technology through innovation, will keep our society ever advancing.

Since I’m on the topic of asking hypothetical questions, I’ll ask one more. If you could describe one thing that we’d be without in such a descending scenario, what would it be? This is were it gets interesting… All of the above groups of people have a common answer, they would envision the power being out…… What do we make of that? Seems most people can agree on that!

I have often likened our society to fall like a house of cards and that through the loss of electrical generation would bring about collapse. My friend “Kentar”, holds another view, he likens our society to slowly decline as an old house might eventually cave in. That even though the interior walls collapsed, still this left the attic and possibly the basement still intact and might actually be livable. Furthermore, he believes that our society would eventually build in population again and has actually done this before in human history! How interesting! I had never in my life heard such a claim!

Even though I’ve been presenting a case of 95% reduction in the human population, this is hardy what one might call an extinction level event with the remaining 5% left alive. I think it is possible that there could be other civilizations that would evolve using what resources were left from this one and that perhaps this might happen again in the future.

This much is certain, our days are about to change…

What do you think? Follow the discussion on our forum.
Oct01

Welcome to Doom 101

by Dr. Doom on October 1st, 2010
Posted In: Meta

I was introduced to Peak Oil in the spring of 2007. I had finished reading Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” and immediately went out to the Internet to see if it was for real or not. It seemed plausible and I was curious to see what the rest of the world thought of it.

Big mistake. With every new article, every in depth research paper and with a thorough read through the introduction (and follow-up links) found on lifeaftertheoilcrash.net, I began to get agitated. I found dieoff.org, theoildrum.com, started paying attention to climate change and global heating and shook my head at the ecological devastation in the Amazon. I started getting anxious, wondering what I could do.

The summer of 2007 forced me to action. Wall Street imploded under the weight of 90 years of slow inflation and a mountain of unsustainable debt. Ever heard of derivatives? Deflation? I had seen enough. I needed to take action, or simply collapse psychologically under the weight of all I had learned.

So I talked to Mrs. Doom and we agreed that we needed to do something. Living in denial wasn’t working anymore, just sitting back and letting the steamroller of events hand us a plan wasn’t going to work either. The imminent collapse of the financial system would destroy agriculture, transportation and the social chaos to follow would do in a large percentage of the remaining infrastructure.

So we jumped. We sold out of suburbia (at the top of the 2008 real estate bubble here in Canada), bought 4.33 acres in a rural area and started on the path to self sufficiency. I am writing this at the end of our third summer here and after a lot of work we have managed to grow almost 10% of our annual calories.

How are you doing?

Thus, this site. Now that I have a plan, flawed as it must necessarily be, I feel compelled to do what I can to help you and the millions of families like yours throughout the Western World.  It is time for you to wake up to the future and help yourself to a place in it. Examine the evidence with me. Make plans and prepare. No one else will do it for you, you must do it for yourself. Once you are convinced of the need, this site is here to collect reliable information on the skills and techniques needed to help you become more self reliant and to make the needed preparations to survive the hard times to come.

Dr. Doom
Southern Interior Of British Columbia
Canada
September 2010

What do you think? Follow the discussion on our forum.