The collision of worlds

Amazing article at:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/NBR.php The New Biofuel Republics

There is a collision of worlds going on - the natural world and diverse systems we are destroying - the human food system that sustain us - and the fuel system that powers our industrial civilization.

Cheap fossil fuels create an industrial production for material goods and advanced the material wealth of humanity beyond the imagination of previous generations. Now that progress has successfully BEGUN to use up the fossil fuel energy source, or at least reached a point where supply will not continue to grow even as our demand continues to grow.

There's long been a competition for resources between the human and nonhuman world for food and for fuel. I've read previously that the extinction of many species of whales was avoided because of the discovery of petroleum oil to replace the markets for whale oil.

Similarly the 6000 year old forests of Europe were cleared for both building materials and fuel for the industrial revolution. The discovery of coal as a source of energy both saved the remaining forests as well as upscaled the power available for industrialized development.

I accept the conclusions that there simply will be no scalable substitutes to power our economies the way fossil fuels have done.

The Cornucopians believe we'll just forever keep discovering NEW BETTER sources of energy as we need them, and economic growth will continue an orderly advancedment finally off the earth and into the solar system even.

The technical optimists believe proper "planning and management" can smoothly transition us, if not to a bigger-and-better future, one at least as good as what we know now.

Myself, I am a pessimist. I certainly believe humans will TRY to continue, TRY to develop newer and better ways of living, BUT if it means moving towards sustainable energy, it will mean MUCH lower availability of energy than we've known. AND more likely this "powerdown" will occur via forced limitation of a diminished environment rather than well-planned management of dwindling resources. Well planning WILL occur, like pollution laws and Kyoto and fishing rules, all meant to share and moderate our over-exploitation of the world.

If it was just a group of enthusiastic yahoos on easter island cutting down all their trees, I'd say "let them starve", and if I lived there, and there was another land known, I'd make arrangements to leave. WELL, I guess that's what MY ancestors did from Norway in 1850 when too many sucessful children being raised was making the farming options restrictive for the next generation. ANYWAY, this time I belive we DON'T have anywhere else to go - no "America" to colonize, and a sucessful "world economy" bent on exploiting every last resource it can get its grubby hands upon, future be damned.

Well, we're all a part of that industrialize destruction model, and it would appear to continue INTO and BEYOND our energy crises on the immediate horizon.

You might imagine the oil age like a summertime feast - vines and groves full of edible food everywhere, and a coming winter. SURE, we're as good planners as anyone, and we'll save up some of our abundance collected for the winter, BUT if the winter is harsher or longer than we thought, WE'LL be eating our seed for the next promised year, and if our fuel is running low, we'll burn down our forests for heat. Not right away, but when times are tight, you do what you have to do, surely, rather than starve or freeze to death!

So when an author like Jim Kunstler and his "The Long Emergency", predicts the end of suburbia, and of the easy abundance we've known so long, he's seeing a future where there'll be short term crises of need, like hurricanes, and longer ones inbetween the crises, where the next one comes before we can clean up the last, and we'll dig a little deeper each time into compromising our "seeds of promise" for short term survival.

On the one side, I can see the threat of starvation as a reality, even for America and our promised abundance from a good god. But I accept it'll probably stay mostly hidden around the corners for a long time, or in "special times and places" of disaster and such.

Ultimately I accept there's two models for survival: (1) Huddled together in cities with less local resources but more community (2) Spread out on the country side with more local resources but less company. I accept the middle ground of "suburbia" is not a good place - with neither local amenities or local production. So the question comes down to "where will the jobs be?" Will there be work in the cities for the vast majority as now?

Seriously these questions are real ones, even if too far removed from current reality to have any answers. I'd say in the early years of a depression those best off will be those in the city. However in either case, without high employment rates, people with LESS debt will be better off. I imagine there will indeed be much available WORK in cities. I just don't know how much money may be available to pay for that work! So those with the smallest needs will be most helpful in organizing this third-world dilemma "more people than capital".

The main PROBLEM with the city model is that cities have great needs for resources to come in, but not necessarily aware of the origin of those resources. SO if a international corportation of Alberta wants to stripmine for tarsands and make oil to sell to us, they can earn enough money to bribe anyone they like for their markets and pollute all they want, and WE WILL BUY it, if we need it, no questions asked.

In contrast, people living on rural lands would rather minimize their cash flow and so they'll look for a local support system that can sustain them. They'll pollute and change the environment, but these decisions must be considered as tradeoffs. I imagine the Amish communities which prefer horses to tractors and cars. They'll prefer manure and crop rotation over high input fertilizers, and they'll grow first food for their own consumption, and see surplus in the light of protecting against future shortages rather than simply needing a market. I MEAN they've not indebted themselves to the bank to expand their farm to produce more food than they have a local market to sustain, and whatever fractional surplus exists has local uses as well, even if some can be sold.

Maybe the future will continue to have much of our technical improvements in communication and we can make the best of the old and new - using less energy, and maintaining trading systems where awareness of producer and consumer is available.

Mostly I don't FEAR for city folks starving. I more fear they'll be more dependent then a honest conscience allows, and blind themselves from their failings, and thus continue to drive environmental destruction further and further.

Anyway, I accept the collisions are ongoing and will get worse as oil stoppped subsidizing our energy systems. I accept individuals NOW ought to keep a heads-up over this and get their finances in order BEFORE the crash. Maybe it'll be slow, maybe fast, maybe both. I just know we'll all be better off sooner than later without debt.

Of course debt runs our system, so perhaps no matter what, there'll be a generation that gets the short end of the stick - gets stuck accepting promises for a future that won't exist, and debt they can't pay. In such times it'll be up to the lucky few who did find themselves on the upside of this debt circle. Lucky yes, but intentional, probably too.

I don't know anything better now except "Home economics":
(1) Live frugally and get out of debt
(2) Invest in a future that needs less money
(3) Grow some food, compost some waste.
(4) Know your neighbors, and see what you can do together.