Given that we are preparing to make another move, I recently wrote my two oldest children a letter explaining why I felt like Dallas is a good place to be (for us) in the near future. Basically, I see some difficult times ahead. I don’t believe gas and oil prices are going to ease. I believe that we are near a peak in oil production. It is not clear to me how this will all play out, but I see some potentially dangerous waters ahead. Do I believe that things will play out according to the horrible scenarios? No. Do I understand that the possibility is there? Yes. So I have to prepare for the possibility, even if I think it is remote. It’s like having homeowner’s insurance. Most of the time you don’t need it. But when you do, you are glad it’s there.
I spoke to my children after sending them this, because I want them to be clear that while I am not trying to scare them, I want them to develop an appreciation for possible pitfalls in front of us. I want them to understand that the possibilities are what I am trying to position us for. In short, I am trying to educate them so they don’t grow up to be the mall brats that are so common in our society. I also didn’t want them hearing these things from someone else.
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Not Trying to Scare You
I don’t want to scare either one of you, but I do want to have a frank discussion. There are some very key reasons for us to move to Dallas that we haven’t discussed before. So, I want to discuss them. Obviously, being closer to your grandparents has advantages. But a very important factor – called Peak Oil – has an impact on the decisions that are made in this family. I think about the possibilities surrounding Peak Oil every single day.
There is a chance – and again I don’t want to scare you – that the world is headed for some very difficult times. But it is my job to protect you from bad things in the world; bad things that could be on the way. So I have to look ahead to possible scenarios, and try to prepare for them.
I want you to read this news article by a professor at the University of Arizona:
End of the world as we know it
He says some pretty scary things. Here are a few:
Peak oil spells the end of civilization. And, if it’s not already too late, perhaps it will prevent the extinction of our species.
Within a decade, we’ll be staring down the barrel of a crisis: Oil at $400 per barrel brings down the American Empire, the project of globalization and water coming through the taps. Never mind happy motoring through the never-ending suburbs in the Valley of the Sun. In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream.
In short, this country will be well on its way to the post-industrial Stone Age. The death and suffering will be unimaginable. We have come to depend on cheap oil for the delivery of food, water, shelter and medicine. Most of us are incapable of supplying these four key elements of personal survival, so trouble lies ahead when we are forced to develop means of acquiring them that don’t involve a quick trip to Wal-Mart.
I think the man’s views are too extreme, but do I understand why he concludes these things? Yes, I do. And while I don’t think things will really turn out like this, there is a real chance that oil prices – now at record highs – will cause serious suffering as prices continue to climb. You really can’t appreciate that cheap oil is the heart of American society, and oil isn’t cheap any more – and I believe won’t ever be cheap again. This may have serious consequences. We may see major unemployment, not enough food as it becomes more expensive to grow and transport, and people just struggling to feed their families.
This is one reason I am working hard to find solutions. I don’t want to leave a world like that for you. But in case no solutions come – and things do turn out badly – the best possible thing we could have is farmland to be able to raise food. We have that at your grandparents’ house – along with an extended family. And I want to spend time with you, teaching you about growing food and how life can go on without Walmart. I think it is unlikely that you will be in a position where you have to grow food to survive, but it is a good skill to know. And you may be in a position to teach others who do need those skills.
So, there is a lot more behind our move to Dallas than may be obvious. It is an “escape hatch” to see us through hard times if needed. You are both old enough now to know these things, and why I didn’t really see living in Montana as a long-term option. Things may turn out just fine, but if they don’t we wouldn’t have had a lot of farmland to fall back on.
Let me know if you have questions about all of this. There are two different views: One is that there is going to be major disaster, and many people will die of starvation. I know many smart people who believe this. The other is that technology – and these are the kinds of things I am working on – will provide a solution. I lean toward the view that things will be tough for a while, but we will figure things out. But I also recognize that there is a chance that the gloomy scenario will play out – and I can’t ignore that.
Love, Dad
May I ask how old your children are?
So Robert has gone over to the dark side and joined the chorus of doomers?
I hope you have better luck talking to your kids than I do to my 2 teenagers (15 & 13). It seems that at that age they think their parents are idiots. If I had a doomer talk with them my kids might start the paperwork on getting me committed. But that’s just my kids, yours might be different.
I was 12 during the ’73 embargo and 18 when the second oil price spike got going in 1979. I see many parallels — food prices were also rising then, an unpopular war had sapped America’s resolve and foreign standing, and doomers were making noise. I remember a movie set a few years in the future showing SoCal freeways clogged with pedestrians. I paid more attention to school, sports and girls (not necessarily in that order) than energy, but some papers I saved from high school show I vacillated between doomer and tech-rescue thinking. The future was hard to predict because the situation was unprecedented.
We have a huge advantage today — we’ve already been there. We have a blueprint for demand reduction and fuel-switching. Peak oil doesn’t concern me in the least. Revolution in the mid-east DOES scare me, a sudden oil supply shock is a much harder adjustment than a gradual decline. We can easily switch to cars which don’t use imported oil in two decades, we can’t do it in two months.
I think we’ll see plug-ins hitting dealer lots by this time next year. Expect huge demand. I also expect a huge demand for solar panels in the years ahead. People charging their cars will want to produce their own energy. Give consumers a choice,and a high enough gas price,and they’ll make the leap.
You’re moving to Dallas for the farming opportunities.
…
🙂
I’m sure it makes sense in your circumstances, but you have to admit that it sounds kind of funny, on the face of it.
2 acres per person per year. grow brown thing that will keep till the next crop. learn to be your own vet. learn how to handle a gun and make your own reloads. grow enough and coop wit other farmers and you can make a killing on feeding the city folk.
but seriously, I thing if we can make a massive conversion to electric transport, take advantage of suburban roofs for solar, not tolerate nimby on wind farms, kill off commuting, and get people to only eat preserved foods, we’ll do ok.
I think the doomsday scenarios won’t happen BECAUSE America is so wasteful today. We could conceivably go from an average of 20 mpg to 60+ mpg within a decade, which is staggering when you think about it. And oil would have to litterally run out overnight to force is to farm our own food.
I think we’ll see plug-ins hitting dealer lots by this time next year. Expect huge demand.
Not to rain on your parade, but the business case for plug-ins is not there yet, i.e. Plug-ins clearly are not about the economics, because even the plug-in Prius (@$30k) has a payback of between 24 and 35 years versus the regular $22k Prius in the above three scenarios, even at these gas prices. And overall plug-in efficiency depends on how well your (average) daily commute matches the plug-in specs: If it has a 40 mile range, but you only drive 20, you are lugging to much battery weight around. If your commute exceeds the plug-in capacity, your gas engine needs to lug those batteries around.
I know. Higher gas prices will eventually make plug-ins look attractive. But that’s assuming oil prices do not affect electric rates. I won’t wagger any money on that happening…
I keep thinking about the potential of the process Los Alamos Laboratories announced recently. I understand the reluctance to get excited about the large scale use of nuclear power. But,what about green alternatives? Any fuel produced from CO2 would displace fossil fuels. It might even postpone doomsday,if the doomsayers are right.
Maybe it would be easier to convert CO2 to gasoline,than hooking a desert to a gazillion batteries and then the grid. Maybe a deep sea platform that can maximize solar,wind,and wave energy would be more economical than buying land and using just one of the three. I think CO2 to gasoline is an idea worth kicking around some more.
May I ask how old your children are?
The oldest are 12 and 14.
Robert,
You seem particularly doomer-minded. As I said before, I think it is because you don’t have a feel for economics. People respond to incentives (that’s how we got all those corn ethanol plants).
Right now people are responding to higher gas prices. SUV sales are tanking. Hybrid and small car sales are through the roof.
People are also innovative. Let’s see what a few years of these prices will do for innovation, with gas prices consistently above $3/gal.
Which is not to say the future will be easy cruising. But I don’t see the Mad Max future arriving just yet.
As always, the one thing that could be a real spanner in the works, would be the actions of our elected officials, as they try to:
1. blame high gas prices on the other party,
2. use the opportunity to collect more from lobbyi$t$, and
3. pretend to give a … about ordinary Americans.
As I said before, I think it is because you don’t have a feel for economics.
The usual rejoinder is that economists don’t have a feel for physics – particularly “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Now is certainly the time for economics to get back from lunch and deliver.
However, considering the current difficulties that economics has getting it’s lunch bill to tally, I am not so convinced about it’s ability to deliver us a whole new energy system.
It’ll be the engineers doing the actual work of course…
It’ll be the engineers doing the actual work of course…
True enough.
You seem to missing the gist of my point, though.
The changed economics means that the economics of any proposed solution has gotten a lot more favorable in the last few years. With the enhanced monetary incentive, I’m sure the engineers will start producing real solutions (as opposed to the numerous boondoggles we’ve had so far) soon.
Even if they completely fail to deliver, conservation has gone from a “personal virtue” to a very profitable undertaking, and will only continue along that path for the foreseeable future.
Have you lost your mind? Off your meds? Is this a belated April Fools post? With all due respect to someone who I have always found insightful and spledidly informative, that is the silliest thing I have read in a loooong time.
The very first Administrator of the EIA, Lincoln Moses, appeared early in his tenure before a Senate hearing, where one of the Senators became frustrated with the careful caveats that Moses used to condition EIA’s projections. The Senator demanded that Moses skip the hypotheticals and give him just “the facts.”
Moses responded, “Senator, there are no facts about the future.”
What is the heck makes you think human beings will suddenly lose all ability to provide for themselves? You would have us believe humans will become so stupid and unimaginative that we won’t adapt to changing circumstances? My observation of human ingenuity leads to a totally different conlusion: technological innovation will solve our problems, as it always has.
You seem particularly doomer-minded.
Yet the Doomers think I am an unmitigated optimist. I think that means I am actually somewhere in the middle.
Which is not to say the future will be easy cruising. But I don’t see the Mad Max future arriving just yet.
Do you buy homeowners insurance only if you are certain your house will burn down? Does buying homeowners insurance mean you expect your house to burn down?
What is the heck makes you think human beings will suddenly lose all ability to provide for themselves?
It is hard for me to understand how you got that out of what I wrote. I am taking out an insurance policy. That doesn’t mean I expect my house to burn down. But if it did happen to defy the small percentage and burn down, I will be glad I had the insurance policy.
RR:
I follow your reasoning 90 percent of the time, and have learned tons reading your blog. But every few months you fire off a grim missive from the dark side of the moon.
Let’s recap:
1. World oil production is hitting new peaks as we speak.
2. USA crude demand is running 1 to 2 percent below last year’s demand. And promises to keep declining as long as prices stay up.
3. Global demand rose 3.1 percent in 2004, then 1.4 percent in 2005, then 0.6 percent in 2006, BP states. Given this trend, it seems reasonable that 2007 was flat, and in 2008 we will go into demand decline. That’s what happened after the 1980 spike.
4. Shell (not a bunch of wackos) says they can pump shale oil (huge reserves) at $30 a barrel.
5. Already automobiles are on the market that get in excess of 50 mpg. PHEVs probably can get an effective 120 mpg. In short, there are solutions to low MPG cars, not dreams. Consumers will respond to price signals, and buy those solutions.
6. If there is an oil problem, it is that the world’s reserves are in Thug States. There is plenty of oil. This may be a real problem, but perhaps not an intractable problem. At $100 a barrel and up, I suspect people will be interested in selling, not posturing.
Don’t worry too much. I lived through the last doom age, late 1970s-early 1980s. The LImits to Growth, and all that. I subscribed to it. Sheesh, if I had money back then, I probably would have stocked up a cave somewhere with peanut butter.
Things worked out: The price mechanism and human ingenuity in a roughly free society with lots of capital.
Never bet against it.
During the Great Depression, my father and his siblings and their mother went back to the rural village that my grandfather grew up in, where at least they could have 3 meals a day from the family farm, while my grandfather stayed in the city trying to find employment. That was bad enough without worrying about some post-industrial Stone Age. Sometimes I wonder what will it take for us to have another Great Depression. Would a mix of tight oil supply, a credit crisis and some poor choices by political leaders be enough? If it happens, I (a suburbanite) would be at a loss, but at least my spouse grew up in a farming family and there’s still some land left.
Yet the Doomers think I am an unmitigated optimist. I think that means I am actually somewhere in the middle.
Well, I won’t measure myself against the crowd at TOD. Who wouldn’t look moderate compared to those guys? But that’s just me.
Personally I would rate you on the doomer side of middle. Farming for survival!? But again, that’s just me.
Do you buy homeowners insurance only if you are certain your house will burn down? Does buying homeowners insurance mean you expect your house to burn down?
That’s one way of looking at it.
OTOH, preparing for a future where it’s back to self-sufficient agriculture is a bit extreme. More like tearing down the house, and rebuilding it out of stone. Just to take no chances with fires.
Where do you draw the line? Are you going to be stacking up on ammo, to protect the property against the marauding bands of hungry city dwellers that this grow-your-own-food version of the future would imply?
IMHO, this is an extremely pessimistic view of the future.
this is precisely why we should be worried: “The price mechanism and human ingenuity in a roughly free society with lots of capital.
Never bet against it.”
it’s human ingenuity and it’s lack of foresight that got us here: $117/br oil and still counting. overconfidence.
Robert, I understand from a previous post that you are going to be in Montana around the end of April. If by chance your visit extends to the week of May 5th I would like to buy you a cup of coffee and talk to you about a DME project that is in the works. We have quietly worked on this project for two years and feel we are very close to getting something done. I will not use my company email address just an anonymous one for your response. oneguppy@hotmail.com
You know, positioning yourself to grow food has value even if the “doomer futures” never come to pass.
It’s pretty unlikely that things will get so bad that it is no longer possible to purchase enough beans and rice to keep your family fed. But long before that point, you’ll be faced with spending large fractions of your income, or giving up entirely, luxuries like eggs, meat, dairy, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, salad greens, or anything perishable.
I’ve done a fair bit of hobbyist agriculture, and what I have learned is that if I to supply all or even most of my calories from my own efforts, without mechanical assistance or industrial inputs, I would most likely starve. At the very best, I would work like a dog to meet basic caloric requirements.
On the other hand, I can (and do) produce at least some of all the luxury items listed above, except for dairy. If I had more time and more immediate financial motivation, I could provide more. The hardest thing about subsistence farming, in fact, would not be producing enough food — it would be doing it without access to inputs like soil amendments and seed (you can’t save lettuce seed, for example). (As for soil amendments, I don’t really need those either: What I DO need is rabbit chow, which provides both meat and lots of really good soil amendment.)
My point is that even if you merely think that we are likely to be in for hard times ahead — perhaps on par with the Great Depression, or even WWII — then knowing how to grow your own food is worthwhile. It probably won’t mean the difference between survival and starvation — if it comes to that, we’re all probably screwed. But it might very well mean the difference between subsisting on a nutritionally marginally, boring diet and eating well without spending an arm and a leg.
Note on my last post: When invoking the Great Depression or WWII, I meant to suggest that the Depression was the worst case, and WWII was a less-bad case. I realized upon re-reading that one could think I meant the opposite, which I don’t think would be accurate historically. But consider WWII: It was a time of scarcity and some hardship, but also full employment and a booming economy. And yet American’s produced something like 40% of their own food from “victory gardens”.
ROBERT–
ref my email to you 4/20/08, ENERGY TRIBUNE, Amish win energy independence.
the sounds of irony are deafening.
thanks for reference and sharing.
fran
Shell (not a bunch of wackos) says they can pump shale oil (huge reserves) at $30 a barrel.
Despite all of that, oil is $117 a barrel and climbing, we have a mortgage crisis, brokerages are failing, airlines are going under, and that economy as a whole has a tummy ache. So my response is to hope and plan for the best, but have a back up plan for the worst.
Personally I would rate you on the doomer side of middle. Farming for survival!? But again, that’s just me.
I don’t personally believe I will ever need to farm for survival. But if I do need to, I want to know how. I also never believed that I would plunge from a helicopter into the North Sea, but I was trained to get out of a helicopter in case that happened.
OTOH, preparing for a future where it’s back to self-sufficient agriculture is a bit extreme. More like tearing down the house, and rebuilding it out of stone.
But where have I torn down my house? I am currently in an even better financial position than before, while being in a good position to have a good support network if it’s ever needed. Win-win. It’s not like I gave up my job to move to the sticks and raise potatoes.
If by chance your visit extends to the week of May 5th…
Flying back on May 4th…
My observation of human ingenuity leads to a totally different conlusion: technological innovation will solve our problems, as it always has.
My neighbor died from cancer last year. Technology didn’t save him. I am as big a technophile as you will find, but technology has not solved all problems. It has even created quite a few new ones. And finding a substitute for oil that doesn’t involve massively changing our lifestyle is a challenge that will be very difficult to meet.
CTA:
Hey, it’s not doomsday yet! $117 oil, and the world economy is growing. Is not that a sign of human ingenuity?
Crude demand falling, while we maintain economic growth. Ingenuity again.
And, we are just starting. These high prices are recent. Give the conservation and switching techniques time to evolve.
If you want to be gloomy, think about how woeful and inhuman the Oil Thug States are. Now, that is gloomy, and they have all the oil in the world. Almost literally.
A precious and valuable thing, this democacy, this free enterprise we have. Japan has no oil, and the best country on Earth. Nigeria, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Russia, KSA — thy have lots of oil. Crappy thug states, each one.
I will bet on human ingenuity any time — if some state cretin thug is not suffocating it.
You’re moving to Dallas for the farming opportunities.
It’s actually about 20 miles north of Dallas, in a little town called Prosper. My yard backs up to a large horse pasture.
Teaching our kids how to grow food is an excellent idea. Of course, it’s not easy. My wife and kids have always thought I’m nuts for living out here in the boonies. But now with the energy and food situation quickly deteriorating, they are finally starting to see the light.
Some people here say RR’s cautious attitude is being “a doomer.” But I think he’s being smart. Just about every civilization so far has crumbled. What reason is there to believe that industrial civilization and the consumer society are any different? Our food production system is falling apart, just as those of previous civilizations and societies did. Indeed, consumerism is predicated on gobbling everything up as quickly as possible, not conserving. So even if people stop buying SUVs and switch to more economical cars, that’s still the same unsustainable car culture. Basically, nothing is changing.
What is the heck makes you think human beings will suddenly lose all ability to provide for themselves?
What is the heck makes you think people provide for themselves now?
The last time I posted here I recommended for you Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy by George Olah.
Now I recommend for your kids (which is not just for boys).
Personally, I wouldn’t paint such a gloomy scenario for my children. I believe that teaching children how to hunt, fish, grow things and build things is very important. It is also important for children to know what makes the light go on when they flip the switch. And they should also consider what life would be like if the light didn’t go on (no phone, no lights, no motorcar, not a single luxury).
When thinking about a plan for a doomsday scenario, I would also consider this map. You would want to avoid being too close to any red or orange areas. I wouldn’t want to be east of the Mississippi. I was surprised to see that the area that I would run to, northern Minnesota, is more densly populated than I thought.
One thing that would be different now from previous hard times, is that now we have a whole sub-culture of people who are are completely uneducated, have no useful skills, and are totally dependent on the governmental safety net. If things go bad, our inner cities will turn ugly very quickly.
Enough gloom, I believe that technology will save us. Oh, and since I’m recomending books, get your wife anything by Lora Leigh.
sorry, I screwed up the dangerous book for boys link.
Just for the record, I am reading Kunstler’s latest book. It is a doomer’s delight, but that isn’t why I had this discussion with my kids. I want them to understand 1). Why we need to conserve energy; 2). How to grow food; 3). Why they should minimize their dependence upon oil.
Many of you have read things into the letter that I didn’t say. I specifically wrote several times “I don’t think….but just in case.” Yet the interpretation seems to be “This is how it’s going to go down.”
The fact is, none of us know how things are going to work out. But I am the sort of guy who likes to have a tornado shelter – even though the odds of my house being hit are pretty slim. Having a tornado shelter gives me some comfort.
CTA and RR:
This may be a speculative bubble, the $117. I rather suspect it is. But, it will have the real world effect of suppressing demand, and cementing into place long-term conservation and alternative-fuel efforts. People will remember this price. Demand is going to fall, not rise, for a long time.
Yes, our nation needs an energy policy, and we don’t have one (El Presidente “Alfred E. Neuman” Bush says “What Me Worry?). We could be energy independent in 10 years, but probably we won’t be.
Still, the price mechanism will work. The $4 gasoline mark seems to be some sort of psychological barrier, as is the $60 fill-up.
Mass transit ridership is growing, even in Los Angeles.
The credit problems are unrelated to oil, largely. And they are passing.
With even mediocre leadership, this country will surge forward. It is absent now in the White House, but maybe the next administration…..
Texas has a good net metering law. The utilities have to pay the fuel cost of whatever excess you produce each month. Their “avoided cost of power”. Louisiana just gives us a credit carryover. If I were in a rural area of Texas,I’d have windmills as well as solar panels. You can go up to 50KW,which is about what 7 families of four would normally consume. Of course,a 50KW solar system can run half a million bucks. A biomass system might be the way to go. The “fuel adjustment” tacked onto bills here in New Orleans makes up over 50% of the total now. But we have no incentive to produce extra. Just a stupid carryover credit.
Rice Farmer writes:
Just about every civilization so far has crumbled. What reason is there to believe that industrial civilization and the consumer society are any different? Our food production system is falling apart, just as those of previous civilizations and societies did.
I’m not much of a history buff, so I’m not really clear on what you mean by “just about every civilization has crumbled”. Can you tell me when was the last time civilization in Japan crumbled? Maybe that will give me an idea of what counts as crumbling.
Your letter reminds me of doomer movies. How come the future is somehow always worse instead of better when history shows us it is just the opposite?
Speaking of doomer movies my favorite is Escape from New York . This movie was made in 1981 at the height of the oil crisis and the Cold War. I always fancied myself as “Brain”, mabye because he gets Adrienne Barbeau. Brain recovered and refined oil from beneath NY. There is some truth to that because under Queens there is a large pool of hydrocarbon from leaking oil tanks.
In a doomer world Robert would have better things to do with his time than grow food. Chemical Engineering skills would come in very handy. Robert could set up his own fuel production operation and trade for all the food he and his family needs. Personally, I would go for methanol, it is much easier to make than other fuels.
EFNY also deals with energy. The point of sending Plisskin into NY is not to save the President, but to recover an audio tape that has the secrets to nuclear fusion – which Plisskin destroys at the end of the movie.
Perhaps lending some truth to Robert’s letter is this news from Japan:
Japan’s hunger becomes a dire warning for other nations
I would be curious about Rice Farmer’s take on this. I thought the information age and international trade would eliminate or at least greatly reduce food panics. It appears not to be so. Countries are starting to hoard food supplies. I heard yesterday that China has prohibited fertilizer exports. Just a few years ago there were golden mounds of solid prilled sulfur all over the world, these are gone now, all made into fertilizer.
Rice Farmer:
I live in Tokyo now and am looking for a green and pleasant corner of Japan to move to.
Are there areas you recommend?
When thinking about a plan for a doomsday scenario, I would also consider this map. You would want to avoid being too close to any red or orange areas.
If you wanted to play the doomer game… it’s not as simple as that. According to that logic Alaska (all yellow) would be a great place to live. Reality suggests otherwise. Ditto for Nevada, or other desert areas.
So, Dennis, factoring in the ease of survival factor, where would you go?
How come the future is somehow always worse instead of better when history shows us it is just the opposite?
That depends on your timescale. Since the advent of the industrial revolution, that has largely been true. But that’s just a dozen or so generations, less than 5% of recorded human history. Go back further, and you will see a much more variable pattern. Quality of life definitely went down hill from 100 AD to 600 AD, at least if you were a free male living in Europe.
And the industrial revolution was enabled by, more than anything else, our learning how to harness the energy in fossil carbon sources.
Just as I believe humanities next age will be defined by our learning how to harness the power of life.
If we are moving to a primarily bio fueled economy I think that genetic engineering is going to be be our new industrial revolution.
We could be headed for a biological revolution. Though I don’t think anybody really knows what shape the future will take.
So, Dennis, factoring in the ease of survival factor, where would you go?
I would go toward friends and family and what I know and away from high population density.
For me, I am in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. If doom happens (meaning little or no electricity, fuel, running water, money has no value, and no work) I could go to southern MN, I have a lot of friends there and there is agriculture, or I could go to grandpa’s house in northern MN. big house on a lake with plenty of fish with low population density, high deer pop., lots of wood. But most important a grandpa who knows how to live off the land and make things work. Also, he has guns and ammo.
So I guess I go north, I would hope others would go south. We could even harvest ice in the winter to keep my beverages cold in the summer. Cold I can handle, ferrel human beings and urban warfare I cannot.
Plan B, I would become the postman and keep the mail moving, the new government would locate itself in the Hubert H Humphry metrodome in Minneapolis, according to Kevin Costner.
If that doesn’t work, I would find a pair of shoulder pads, a golie mask and a pair of leather chaps. I would keep an S&M slave chained to my dune buggy and my gang of mutant thugs terrorize anyone with fuel.
Enough gloom and doom, let’s talk about what I would do if I won the lottery…I would inverst in alternative energy, any suggestions Robert?
I recently moved my family of four out of a major urban centre (4M+) to a small coastal town surrounded by some of the best agricultural land in the country, plentiful water, good soils, and (interestingly from a PO perspective) close to lots of sugarcane.
This was mainly driven by a desire to get the hell out of the city, cheaper real estate and a more relaxed lifestyle, but at the back of my mind was the thought: Is this a good place to be in a post-peak world?
Like Robert, I don’t anticipate that I’ll be growing my own food for survival in the next 10-20 years, but there’s a non-zero chance that might happen, and I’d like to be in a place where that is at least possible.
I don’t think that makes me a ‘doomer’. I’m reasonably confident technology can get us out of this PO/GW pickle we’re in … if only government would start taking some serious action.
I love it, the alarmed techno- & econo-copians come out of the woodwork when a smart fellow acknowledges the possibility of a hard landing.
To dismiss the possibility of hard times is a hysterical fantasy ignoring history, our actual level of dependency on petroleum, and the physical constraints on transitioning to any sort of new system.
People are starving right this moment due to high oil prices. But surely you and yours could never find yourselves in a similar situation, even for a short time?
Some of you just can’t seem to grasp that there is only so much easy to implement, low-hanging fruit, and that if the decline after is peak is fast it could outpace our ability to adapt, even for a short time.
Cold I can handle, ferrel human beings and urban warfare I cannot.
You are going to handle cold without eletricity and other fuels? Dream on!
We could even harvest ice in the winter to keep my beverages cold in the summer.
OK, I get it. You are just kidding.
Ever considered that even with the Mad Max version of the future there may be strength in numbers? Or did the movie series convince you otherwise?
People are starving right this moment due to high oil prices.
People are starving due to bad political leadership and wilful neglect (Zimbabwe). Oil prices just put a spotlight on some of the worst policies (looking at you, corn ethanol).
But surely you and yours could never find yourselves in a similar situation, even for a short time?
In a free country, it is at least unlikely. But hey, our politicians could screw that up at any moment.
To dismiss the possibility of hard times is a hysterical fantasy ignoring history, our actual level of dependency on petroleum, and the physical constraints on transitioning to any sort of new system.
And to assume that oil dependence will remain where it is at these prices is to ignore economics. Both sides tend to see what they want to see, then.
But where have I torn down my house? I am currently in an even better financial position than before, while being in a good position to have a good support network if it [i]s ever needed. Win-win. It’s not like I gave up my job to move to the sticks and raise potatoes.
OK – Fair enough.
I think King expressed my sympathies a bit better, when he said: In a doomer world Robert would have better things to do with his time than grow food. Chemical Engineering skills would come in very handy. When it comes to the worst, those Chem Eng skills will be worth more, not less. Even if you primarily use them for Food Processing.
Anyway, how did the kids take it?
You are going to handle cold without eletricity and other fuels? Dream on!
We are just pretending here, but…People lived in cold MN long before we had electricity and fossil fuel. Wood is a good fuel and we have lots of wood, and well insulated homes in the north.
By the way I have harvested ice, you cut it, float it and slide it, it’s not hard.
Also, grandpa knows a guy who collects and tinkers with steam engines, we could get some things running. A steam engine runs on fire and I can make fire.
You said that there is strength in numbers, but if the numbers have no useful skills, then you have weakness.
This is getting too silly
Now I’m going to think about how a car with a modern steam engine would be superior to an electric vehicle.
This may have been completely lost on me. I live in Dallas, and I have for the last 22 years.
Why in the hell would anyone, much less a well-informed, highly educated engineer, move to the cesspool that is Dallas?
Like I said, I’ve probably missed that explanation somewhere.
Will someone please maybe reiterate just one more time why Dallas is such a great move?
I would like to start an aggressive dialogue to prevent someone from making what will inevitably be the worst decision that person will ever make.
After having lived here for so long, I am of course intimately familiar with the entire DFW metroplex.
I would like to start by stating that for every one good reason you can come up with for moving here, I will provide 10^10000 great reasons why Dallas is the worst possibly place to live for the future (besides Houston).
Moreover, moving anywhere near Dallas for the farming opportunities is like moving to Houston for the quaint, small community feel of the city.
You might have had me with say, Stephenville, or hell, even Fort Worth.
But Dallas…
Someone please tell me this is a joke.
It isn’t actually Dallas, it is Prosper. This is very close to SE Oklahoma where I grew up and where my family maintains a lot of farmland.
I agree with your comments on Dallas. To me it is suburban hell; as you fly in you see one house after another and they all look exactly the same. I also hate big cities; I hated living in Houston. But I have a unique situation that makes it better suited for me.
RR
I bet you had no idea that when you started college, when, I’m assuming you were 18, you would one day be in the particular position you are in with this particular mindset. I find the difference between where we think we’ll be at when we start college to where life actually takes us 25 years later just incredibly interesting.
I highly respect your viewpoint, since it’s much like my own, and many ideas I get, I get from you. Therefore, I can only assume this new situation is highly sustainable for the future.
Nonetheless, I wish you well!
Let me be the first to welcome you to Tornado Alley.
By the way I have harvested ice, you cut it, float it and slide it, it’s not hard.
I don’t doubt that part. It’s the keep my beverages cold in the summer part that I would call a flight of fantasy.
Also, grandpa knows a guy who collects and tinkers with steam engines, we could get some things running. A steam engine runs on fire and I can make fire.
Perhaps you should generate electricity and then sell it to the neighgbors for a nice profit.
You said that there is strength in numbers, but if the numbers have no useful skills, then you have weakness.
Take that, neighbors! That’s a pretty negative view of humanity! You don’t expect the great unwashed masses to learn any useful skills? You expect them to have no useful skills to start out with? That indeed sounds too silly.