Boom Talk

July 3, 2006
     Doug Noland's Credit Bubble Bulletin column, published every Friday on the Prudent Bear website, is about the most comprehensive and regularly intelligent view of the financial scene going. Noland ran an especially interesting piece this past week and it deserves some discussion (Note: you have to scroll way down to the end of his column under the sub-head Realty Check for this.)
     In it, Noland says:

. . . it appears certain that we are in the early stages of an enormous spending boom necessary to deal with the rapidly changing energy and climate backdrop.  The scope of the required research and development could be unprecedented.  The investment boom throughout the energy and alternative energy sectors appears poised to rival (and likely exceed) the technology boom.  The auto companies will need to gear up to develop and sell smaller, more fuel efficient and cleaner automobiles. There will be rising demand for smaller, more energy efficient homes likely in milder climates, as well as demand for efficient appliances and heating and cooling systems.  Across the board, businesses will be forced to be more energy efficient.

     It is certainly plausible that our society's efforts will have to take a very sharp turn into different areas of endeavor than, say, suburban house-building, theme park promotion, celebutante infotainment services, casino management, and RV sales. And it would make sense that a lot of investment money would start heading to different destinations. Noland himself indicates that this shift could be disruptive. But he seems to come down on the side of an incipient transformative boom.

For now, it is safe to assume that the current investment boom in ethanol, biodiesel, solar, geothermal, solar, nanotechnologies, oil and gas exploration, and myriad other energy, environmental and conservation technologies create an almost endless source of demand for financial, human and natural resources.  And, importantly, for now the Credit system is able and willing to finance this boom. 

     I think Noland leaves out two crucial parts of the story. While much investment and the work of many people will go into re-shaping and retrofitting the infrastructure of daily life, the bottom line will be a society that has to make do on substantially less net energy than has been the case for the past hundred years. And any way that you cut it, less net energy means less net productive capacity and ultimately less net wealth generated. Since financial instruments are based on the hope and expectation that society will generate more wealth, then this is a predicament for finance generally.

     Perhaps Noland posits some kind of superior lean-and-mean machine of a re-tooled economy that will actually generated more wealth using less energy, but personally I doubt this will be the outcome -- especially when you start adding up the externalities of climate change, geo-political conflict over remaining world energy resources, and domestic sociopolitical strife incurred as Americans fight over the table scraps of the 20th century. The model of an economy that produces more wealth as its basic energy inputs contract is a contradiction in terms, in essence just another perpetual motion device.

      Which leads to the second thing Noland leaves out: the consequences of the massive mis-investments we have already incurred in the crap that is already out there, namely the gigantic easy-motoring utopia of suburbia. Wind, solar, bio-fuels, tar sands, coal-derived-liquids, used french-fry oil, nuclear fission -- none of these things will rescue American suburbia from the twilight of oil and natural gas. There is a great wish abroad in the land that these alt fuels would come to the rescue, but I believe it will never get beyond the wish stage. I think most of this mis-investment will end up simply written off as a dead loss. And the sheer loss of wealth incurred in this process would take us back to the previous point: socio-political turbulance. As suburbia hemorrhages value, the formerly middle classes will freak out over their personal losses.

     Finally, it is interesting to see that Doug Noland has fallen into what has become a widespread delusion among people who ought to know better -- that energy and technology are virtually the same thing, mutually substitutable, that if you run out of energy just bring in new technology. This is really becoming the central misunderstanding of our time.

      We have invented a lot of nifty things in the past hundred years, but it has all been made possible by cheap fossil fuels and cheap electricity, which depends on the cheap fossil fuels. Even nuclear power, which was once (but no longer) heralded as "too cheap to meter," owes its existence to the fossil fuels that make all the mining, construction, and maintenance possible. The truth is, we have nothing better to plug into except the fossil fuels, and all the substitutes and schemes currently known will not even make up for a fraction of our losses as we enter the era of energy resource scarcity.

     So, getting back to Noland's original point: might we enter a fabulous boom based on "a transformation of the global energy infrastructure?" We'll certainly try, but we'd better prepare ourselves to be disappointed, and to make other arrangements as that happens.

Comments

[kd]

Fine post, Jim.

Wishful thinking, positive dreaming, & "cutting-edge" research will probably NOT usher in a Brave New World of "sustainable energy" & an eco-friendly techo-Eden for all.

What some folks complain about -- in your posts here , & murmers I've heard about your book -- is that "Kunstler's not forthcoming enough on just what those 'other arrangements' are."

[kd]

Sorry for typo. I meant "techno-Eden".

[mr. x]

Amazing the number of otherwise intelligent people who don't recognize that technology is the product of energy and that so far the reverse has proven elusive.

[ellie]

Wow, only 3 comments this late on Monday morning? I thought it was a good post.

Kd- good point about the lack of exploration into "alt aragments" IMO, the reason that there isn't much discussion into what those alternatives will be is because there will be no "one size fits all" fix. Americas current suburbia/McMansion fixation is treated as something that should work absolutly everywhere such as places like the South-West, where the overburdand aquifirs show it clearly can't last. If energy = technology is the greatest missunderstanding of our time, then perhaps the idea that there is one single solution will turn out to be the second greatest missunderstanding. The fact that the car culture has been applied everywhere makes us think that there must be a something that can fix it everywhere. But maybe we should take a que from the re-localization movement. To transition from a car-based society every indivdual locality is going to have to work with its own strenghts and weaknesses. There will be no top down fix. Thoses who complain about Kunstler's lack of solution should stop complaining and go start finding a solution in their own local community.

[me]

Funny stuff below on Kunstler's predictions for Y2K. Sound eerily familiar? The end of the world is always right around the corner, isn't it? Good old Jim and his "other arrangements" blah, blah, blah.

Using the Wayback Machine, emersonbiggins from peakoil.com has kindly unearthed the Y2K predictions of James Kunstler written in the pre-Y2K period. This is all very amusing because it turns out that Kunstler made exactly the same predictions for Y2K as he is now making for peak oil.

"Y2K is real. Y2K is going to rock our world."
-- James Kunstler (April 1999)

emersonbiggins also notes:

It turns out that the Y2K stuff is still on Kunstler's server, but it's not linked from anywhere on his site, which makes the information impossible to find without the URL.
This is material which Kuntsler is not proud of. Highly embarassing material he wants to bury and hide.

So here's a tip for all you media people out there. When you interview Kunstler, you don't want to just let him run loose. If you do that, he's just going to start rattling off the usual doom-and-gloom spiel out of that rodent-like face of his. He's like a wind-up toy, so you don't want to press that button.

Instead you're going to want to put him on the defensive by hitting him with the hard questions, such as:

Why is it that we're supposed to listen to you -- a fiction writer, with no technical expertise whatsover -- on a technical subject like Y2K or peak oil?
Didn't you make exactly the same predictions once before regarding Y2K? Let me read you a few of them, as archived on your website. What happened there Jimbo?

KUNSTLER ON Y2K (Source)

My Y2K - A Personal Statement

1. From Duh to Huh?
Writing this in April of ‘99, I believe that we are in for a serious event. Systems will fail, crash, seize up, cease to function. Not all systems, maybe only a fraction, but enough, and enough interdependent systems to affect many other systems. Y2K is real. Y2K is going to rock our world.
People will consequently suffer. I don’t know how much. Some people may lose their lives - but more likely at the hands of a disabled medical establishment than because of civil disorder, loss of power, starvation, bad water, or other projected horrors (though these, too, are possible). Some will suffer the loss of fortunes, some of any income whatsoever, and many of something in between. Quite a few will find themselves suddenly without an occupation, and few ideas about how to make themselves useful to other people (without occupations themselves). Many will suffer a loss of comfort and modern convenience, and if that goes on any longer than a week, it may escalate into serious problems of public sanitation and infectious disease.

The foregoing may seem to be little more than unsupported generality. I will be more specific below. I won't knock myself out trying to empirically demonstrate the "truth" of these assertions. It seems to me that the Y2K problem is so broad, systemic, and unprecedented that imagining its repercussions calls for something beside conventional thinking. Many of the effects I anticipate will not be provable one way or the other until the interconnected and interdependent skein of events this problem represents plays out. Since the effects of Y2K are apt to follow fractal pathways of self-organization - with strange, surprising twists - understanding them may be better served by a mind in free flight. These scenarios therefore should be taken for what they are: an exercise in human imagining.

Nor will I go into the technical history of Y2K as a computer programming blunder. There are more than enough concise essays about that elsewhere on the internet and in other media. I assume that anyone reading this already knows enough about underlying problem. I am more interested in the social, economic, cultural, and political ramifications. Personally, I have moved from an emotional state of surprise, to alarm, to despair, and now to hopeful anticipation of Y2K in the months since I first heard my wake-up call. It was a lovely July day, 1998. I was driving to Schroon Lake on the Adirondack Northway (I-87) when Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) came on a noontime NPR broadcast and told the audience that Y2K was a global problem that had to be taken very very seriously. He explained why. It was all new to me. Up until then, all I’d heard about the Y2K "bug" was that it might screw up a few computerized accounts receivable. Senator Bennett’s message was a clear and plausible warning that there was much more to it, and he did a good job of outlining the areas of concern: the power grid, telecommunication, nuclear arsenals, manufacturing supply lines, industrialized agriculture and so on. He certainly didn’t come across as a nut.

I was stunned and fascinated by the implications. In the months that followed, I read whatever I could find about Y2K. Coverage in the regular media turned out to be rather sparse and shallow, shockingly so as the months tick by and danger approaches. I don’t believe, as some do, that newspapers, television, and radio are necessarily unequal to the task. The poor quality of their coverage may be more a reflection of the public’s ridiculously short attention span these days in what has become for practically everybody a daily shitstorm of e-mail, news, tabloid idiocy, advertising, entertainment, infotainment, and work-related required reading. Otherwise, I really can’t account for this failure and don’t especially want to try here. On the internet, however, there is a wealth of information about Y2K. It ranges from the deeply paranoid to the earnestly idealistic, with a broad credible, sensible middle, and dashes of skeptical mockery here and there. Most of this commentary, across the whole spectrum, is intelligent and remarkably well-written, even by the extremists...
This leads to another major aspect of Y2K. I believe it will deeply affect the economies-of-scale of virtually all activities in the United States, essentially requiring us to downsize and localize everything from government to retail merchandising to farming. Particulars below.
If nothing else, I expect Y2K to destabilize world petroleum markets. These disruptions will be at least as bad as those produced by the 1973 OPEC oil embargo (so-called). The aftershocks of that event thundered through the American economy for the rest of the decade, giving us several years of interest rates above 15 percent and a weird malaise that puzzled economists called "stagflation (stagnation + inflation). The OPEC embargo involved a lot of backstage political shenanigans, but apart from these, the actual market shortfall appears to have been about five percent of our imported oil. In 1973 less than half of our oil came from foreign producers. Today, more than half does. Of that, at least 30 percent comes from countries that are considered unprepared for Y2K, countries over which we have no control and limited influence.
I doubt that the WalMarts and K-Marts of the land will survive Y2K. Their fabulous success the past 20 years had been due to the combination of continually falling gas prices, relative world political stability (and long distance outsourcing of cheap labor), and computerization. They operate at extremely narrow profit margins. They will not be able to adapt to even modest changes, and especially fluctuations, in their business equation. In order for WalMart to make a $100 profit, it has to ship 1000 plastic wading pools from California to Pennsylvania - and then sell at least 997 of the wading pools. What happens to their profit margin if the price of truck fuel goes up even modestly - say 30 cents a gallon (which by international standards would be a tiny increase)? What happens to WalMart if their customers’ disposable income decreases by seven percent? What happens if their merchandise supply chain is interrupted by the Y2K problems of their thousand-fold vendors? Or if their own systems produce corrupted data. Or if all the above happens during the same time period? It seems to me that national chain retail is exactly the kind of activity that has achieved an absurd and inadaptable economy of scale, and that they will not be able to function in a post-Y2K world.
The aftermath of Y2K will require us to do things differently. We are going to have to live more locally, and more self-dependently. All our activities will have to be conducted on a finer scale. The "move to quality" that is sometimes invoked in discussions of financial investments will apply across the cultural and economic board. There will be less room in our lives for junk of all kinds: junk food, junk merchandise, junk entertainment, junk relationships. We are going to have to re-invent smaller-scaled farms (with value-adding activities), and we’re going to have to localize, or at least regionalize, commerce. We may have to start making some things again ourselves, or do without them for a while.

[BeerSponge]

Yeah, JK's comments are just like the hubbub about automation replacing the factory worker in the 1950s. While it did to a large degree, America got richer, not poorer in the process, even though the individual factory workers left were reduced in number and takehome pay, a trend that continues today.
So I tend to think there will be a positive overall financial return for America with post peak oil, even leading to some of the improvements in the US that JK wants, but as with the factory workers, at the expense of the people stuck out in the suburban sprawl after its time, just like the factory workers whose time has passed.

[Abrey]

Greetings All. Finally got my TypePad account working ;)

JHK's current MO appears to be 'staying on message', which is to reiterate major points of his books, by using current events to highlight specific talking points. A very nice summary of the major ones appears in Rolling Stone magazine online, back in March of 2005, when he wrote a synopsis of The Long Emergency: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

This was the articule that caught my attention to this issue, encouraged me to buy his book, and to begin reading other writers discussing this subject, many of them listed in JHK's Favorite Links section.

He also uses his weekly blog to vent his spleen over what he describes variously as the delusion and cluelessness of our fellow Americans. It's an important point, and one that will likely figure into the discussion of this subject more and more, as time goes on.

But JHK has either not been interested in elaborating on some of the more complex issues inherent in his books, such as the phrase Making Other Arrangements, the topic of this week's column; or has decided that he is better off in repeating his talking points as a way of attracting attention to his message at all, and thereby make a living at it. A good example of this was the online video link someone posted a week or two ago here of one of his speeches at some University. It's nothing you haven't heard before, and one wishes he took the opportunity to explore some of these issues he raises further.

Other posters have commented in weeks and months past whether JHK feels like a Prophet Without Honor in his own land, frustrated that his pronouncements have not yet come to pass. Maybe that is irrelevant. To paraphrase his own words, he's going to keep on talking about it this way until circumstances force him to stop. Then either he'll quietly fade away, or realize it's time to change the subject.

So in essence the answer to your question is not to wait until JHK explains what Making Other Arrangements means; but for us to figure it out for ourselves.

I'll hazard my own explanation.

Making Other Arrangements, for me, means moving out of the Suburbs and back into the City, where I can be closer to work and within walking distance to various community centers and services, such as the grocer, the barber, the cleaners, the bakery, the doctor, and so on. It means using the automobile much less. It means relying on public transit more. It means becoming involved in the local city council public meetings to try to convince officials to invest in local rail instead of expanding freeways. And to encourage the creation of local businesses to start making certain products we are now importing from China, because one day we won't be able to afford to import them, and will have to start making them ourselves. It means convincing others around me to do the same.

JHK is referring to something much bigger than my modest suggestions and efforts. He's saying we need to move away from Suburbia entirely, perhaps reconverting it back to farmland, so that people will have food to eat at all. It means an entire class of Americans will have to become farmers again. It means people will have to be clustered closer together, towns to become much smaller, and to have products produced locally and transported much shorter distances from manufacturer to retailer. The How, Who, and Where is what remains to be discussed, and will be very difficult to implement, as no consensus exists on how all this is to be done.

My desire is to become part of some community, somewhere in this country of ours, that wants to rebuild a smaller city, and have the essential products and services necessary to sustain that community within a reasonable travelling distance. This does sound vague, I know. But I think it's time the discussion got underway, and from previous posters, there appear to be many individuals who have put up their own websites detailing their efforts to this end. I wish to become part of that discussion and make a meaningful contribution to creating a better community.

[Abrey]

Second try. Didn't realize there was a posting limit. :)

Making Other Arrangements, for me, means moving out of the Suburbs and back into the City, where I can be closer to work and within walking distance to various community centers and services, such as the grocer, the barber, the cleaners, the bakery, the doctor, and so on. It means using the automobile much less. It means relying on public transit more. It means becoming involved in the local city council public meetings to try to convince officials to invest in local rail instead of expanding freeways. And to encourage the creation of local businesses to start making certain products we are now importing from China, because one day we won't be able to afford to import them, and will have to start making them ourselves. It means convincing others around me to do the same.

JHK is referring to something much bigger than my modest suggestions and efforts. He's saying we need to move away from Suburbia entirely, perhaps reconverting it back to farmland, so that people will have food to eat at all. It means an entire class of Americans will have to become farmers again. It means people will have to be clustered closer together, towns to become much smaller, and to have products produced locally and transported much shorter distances from manufacturer to retailer. The How, Who, and Where is what remains to be discussed, and will be very difficult to implement, as no consensus exists on how all this is to be done.

Is he right? Maybe the question to ask is what kind of living arrangement is good for ourselves, regardless whether JHK's pronouncements turn out to be true or not.

My desire is to become part of some community, somewhere in this country of ours, that wants to rebuild a smaller city, and have the essential products and services necessary to sustain that community within a reasonable travelling distance. This does sound vague, I know. But I think it's time the discussion got underway, and from previous posters, there appear to be many individuals who have put up their own websites detailing their efforts to this end. I wish to become part of that discussion and make a meaningful contribution to creating a better community.

[Gary]

What I notice is that man has progressed to the point that his life style has become unsustainable. That has become obvious due to the Peak Oil issue, as well as overpopulation and pollution of the evironment. I think that our host here is advocating that trying to keep the party going with techno fixes is unsustainable also.
It's the "party" that needs to tone down, at least to a sustainable level. Culture change.
In trying to keep the party going business will run around making all kinds of new gadgets that use less energy. It's the making of all those new gadgets that is the extention of the same old problem. That new consumerism is still consumerism and will accelerate the depletion of oil.
Until we learn from history, rather than relive it, and back off - tone down the party, we will continue to keep on causing the problems.(same problems but with a different face)
We just do not have to keep expending energy, of any source, at the rates we are.
A simplier life has more advantages than energy conservation. It can have humanity conserving effects as well.

Gary

[nostalgia]

Hello,
I have a problem with just one little detail - 'any way that you cut it, less net energy means less net productive capacity and ultimately less net wealth generated.'

If you believe in Kunstler's main point, that America essentially produces nothing of any real value, there is a contradiction in his thinking which pretty well mirrors America's - more is better, even if it is only more trash. It is quite possible to live better with less - Europeans, with their six weeks vacation and essentially universal health care are simple examples. Europe spends considerably less per capita for a health system which works better for everyone, not simply the well-off, and in the America Kunstler inhabits, six weeks free time would lead to riots, it would seem. More playgrounds, using simply tended open space and mainly wood to build things like swings doesn't require a fossil fueled society, it only requires one that thinks such things are important.

His statement preceding the first one quoted, 'a society that has to make do on substantially less net energy than has been the case for the past hundred years.' is also wrong in a true if somewhat subtle way. Though there are many ways to look at energy use, America returning to the standards of the 1960s in the next 10 years is a challenge, not a disaster - though admittedly, it could turn into a disaster in a society which currently seems incapable of meeting any challenge, from invading an oil producing land to protecting the world's 4th or 5th port (depending on your source) from hurricane destruction.

What I am curious about is how Kunstler can write 'The model of an economy that produces more wealth as its basic energy inputs contract is a contradiction in terms' while ignoring both Europe and Japan, who seem to have been more prosperous in the last two decades using approximately half of the energy required by the U.S. A trivial example - the high speed ICE electric rail system connecting most major German cities does not require any significant amount of fossil fuels to run at this point - hydro, nuclear, and wind could power it today (though it would a pure luxury item - the electric freight trains carrying food produced on farms using biodiesel tractors, as is happening now, would probably get priority). The expansion of both wind and hydropower is continuing in Germany - the talking phase was in the 70s and 80s, the testing phase was the 90s, the first major projects are online now, and the hoped for major world market exports is assumed to be within the next 5 to 10 years. You may not be able to run suburbia from wind turbines and solar cells (Germany is basically the world leader in producing both), but I am fairly certain a stripped down, efficient society can still function on what is available around them.

For someone who so clearly sees the waste in America, why is it so difficult to understand how much less energy would be required to lead a better life - with a number of serious dislocations for what most Americans seem to consider graven in stone.

But the 'wealth' gained would be in time and human relationships, one can hope, not in money. America is already sick from thinking wealth and money are the same.

And while I don't want to get into a debate between two fairly original observers of the world around them, I don't think Noland (who I read regularly on weekends, when his writing appears) is talking about preserving American suburbia - he is talking about a global picture. There are industrial societies which have been steadily making the investments in things which Kunstler scorns because they won't save America's suburbia. I don't think Noland has Kunstler's provincial attitude or narrow focus - Germany plans to make a lot of money from wind turbines, solar cell production, and developing high efficiency diesel motors which will run on a vareity of fuels - none of these long term, export oriented, and technologically advanced industrial goods are designed to save American suburbia - it is meant to keep Germans from getting too cold in the dark. After all, Germans do remember what that is like - and how it happened to them.

Just because Americans seem to be living in a Hollywood movie waiting for the happy end doesn't mean anyone else is. And just because the rest of the world isn't living in a doomsday scenario doesn't mean they are stupid in doing the best they can to keep themselves from starving or freezing. It is true that the dream of a McDonald's at every street corner will suffer a hideous death at the hands of reality, but then, most people I know in Germany are waiting that with at least as much eagerness as Kunstler. They find the trash spewing, fat depositing chain a true abomination.

[Bustin Justin]

JHK is a bell-ringer, for sure. But the Y2K issue is a red herring.

For one, if you analyse the entire screed, its still mostly about an energy economy, oil and gas, and civic infrastructure. So what if the computer bug subpoint did not materialize as predicted? JHK should keep calling it like he sees it and it should be up to the reader to do the rest.

As far as making other arrangements, I see it as generously NOT dominiating a topic by letting the listener come to his own conclusions. You complaining ninnies want your saviors to come as a cross of Malcolm X and Jesus Christ. Guns and loaves.

Is there something infantile in your repeated queries in this vein? Something essentially capitalist? You seem to worship the efficiency of having someone come through with all things for you. The "Full Meal Deal" as it were. Problems AND solutions. Theory AND practice.

When someone postulates on the nature of future events, its wise to temper the prognostications with restraint. If you were so inclined to follow your insipid brethren in finding the all-purpose savior figure in 1999 you could have taken the advice of many writers and followed a specific course of action and loaded up on canned tuna, duct tape, and bottled water.

JHK to my knowledge has not committed any of the following errors:

1. Advocated a specific course of action outside civic infrastructure, in which he has a detailed history of analysis.

2. Advocated building a bomb shelter/y2k stockpile.

3. Advocacted buying guns or training for guerilla warfare.

4. Advocated the killing of all cats.

5. Advocated investing in any kind of alternative energy company or endeavor.

Pure commentary, thats what I come here for. Not the usual stupid opiniation evidenced in the rest of the blogosphere.

Why would I want my intelligence insulted by some moron telling me what my options are? That kind of discourse is best suited to the response column.

As for my own opinions about what "making other arrangements" means, I boil it down to several principles. These are the things which make life meaningful. All else is expendible before these things:

1. Clean water. Violators of clean water should be shot, hanged, drawn and quartered.

2. Uncontaminated land. Violators should be hung, shredded, and composted.

3. Real food, free of genetic aberrations, industrial abnormalities and contaminants, localized, and sustainable. Unsound agriculturists should be quartered, drawn, drowned, shot, and composted.

4. Responsible populations. Excessive breeding of humans or animals should be punishable by death, or worse.

I could go on and on, but to bottle it up, "making other arrangements" means doing the exact opposite of what we've been doing up until now.

Whats the alternative? Giving false gifts and spiritual emptiness of overpopulation, dirty water, mitigated ecosystems, and a synthetic protein wafer to the next generation?

"Making other arrangements" means being prepared when the shit hits the fan. It all depends on your relation to the fan and splatter zone.

Another phrase that has been running through my head for a while is "Make hay while the sun shines". Nothing lasts forever. parties end. No free lunch.

The question is, do you want to return to a symbiotic relationship with nature or an adversarial one? One of those paths leads to growth, one to death. The sweeter option is certainly not the right choice. Think "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

Either we inherit decaying industrial dystopia or evolve out of this mousetrap. The solutions at this stage, I believe, are purely philosophical- precursors to action. Like a maze, there are many wrong paths.

The industrial sophists believe in the righteousness of human ego. They envision techno-utopia. Problem is a divorced sense of humanity. They cannot imagine other arrangements, and so their imaginations are limited. The vision is incomplete, focusing on narrow-term goals, missing the big picture. Overspecialization of solutions means their perspective is couched in an oversimplification of the human condition. Unable to grasp what humanity needs, it offers what a few humans can afford: cures to their self-imposed afflictions of capital affluence.

Thats my critique of techno-utopianism. Successfully executed, it will result in a more extreme version of the same-old, same-old. Wealth disparity, gunboat diplomacy, ecological nightmares, and a 'lifeboat adrift' meta-concept of human societies.

Democracy not working: make other arrangements. Ecological order breaking down: make other arrangements. Disequilibrium in human happiness: make other arrangements. Mulitply self-interested actions not serving common good: make other arrangements. Fast food making you fat and stupid: make other arrangements. Having to commute to soul-crushing job: make other arrangements.

PS. Cyndiluwho, couldn't get back to our debate last week, I promise a response. I do appreciate your pluck and verve.

[t]

I still would like to know what these "other arrangements" are. In the mean time, I will pursue things like wind and solar until someone can come up with a better idea. Do I expect to live in an America that permits us to continue on as before? Of course not. For that matter, I would like to see a much lower energy lifestyle regardless of the energy available.

In the mean time, howeve, we will attempt to replicate the current lifestyle with coal. It won't last forever but will get us through to the next generation, by which time we will have effectively destroyed the planet .

Sadly, Kunstler is wrong. We will be able to replace oil and will meet global warming's worst scenario in the process.

Low net energy will lead to high gross energy, much higher than we have ever experienced. The American lifestyle will stop when it stops not when Kunstler wants it to and not when I want it to.

Kunstler is warning the world but is not telling the world what it needs to do. Kunstler keeps talking about the American lifestyle.

Next he should tackle the Chinese lifestyle . The Chinese clearly think that Americans have this lifestyle thing figured out. Despite Peak Oil, they are roaring full speed ahead like it's 1950. They clearly think they will be deeded another planet so they can emulate America.

[george]

Jim always has a visceral hatred for the 'burbs, but what does he hold out as superior? Why places like Seaside, Florida, where multi-million dollar homes are built on SAND on a barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico hard by the water. That these places are inhabitable at all is only because the Federal taxpayer-the surburbanite that Jim loves to hate so much-picks up 80% of the flood insurance tab for these plastic imitations of Olde Florida. The rich people who these pretentious places as second homes often fly into a nearby airport on their corporate jet to visit for a few days. And JK thinks SUBURBIA is unsustainable?

[kd]

"A spirit of violence permeates the whole of our science, technology, economics...It makes us think absurdities such as infinite growth in a finite environment were possible; that we could go on finding and burning as much oil evey ten years as in all previous history; that science could cure the sickness of the environment;...that man's furture was one of little work and endless leisure; that man has moved from the age of scarcity into the age of plenty. Nothing could be firther from the truth."

-E.F. Schumacher

[James O'Brien]

I think the unifying concept of the 21st century, in everything from energy to technology to human relations, will be unity itself. There are a lot of bottom lines that come into play with regards to the Peak Oil issue, but the one that trumps all is this: our thoughts create our reality. This may seem a little wishy washy to some, but it's a universal truth, and what it means is that there are no limits to what we might create in this sea change moment now before us. Like many who follow Kunstler's musings, I admit there's a certain perverse glee in imagining a kind of apocalyptic collapse to the consumer beast that's been running rampant across the planet the last 100 years or so. And quite a few are, let's face it, bored with the current plot of human history, in which the majority of our species have been shunted into a quasi-permanent version of the board game monopoly, with apparently no way off the board other than our own personal deaths or the sort of aforemention Kunstlerian apocalypse one can't help but fantasize about. But there's another path we might take, personally and collectively, and that is the enlightenment of the human species. I will allow a moment for snickering, but that is all. While it appears that we are rushing towards our doom, vis a vis Peak Oil, massive corruption all across the board of big business and politics, etc, etc, at the same time one can view human history as the gradual demise of tyranny and the empowerment of the individual. The truth is we've past the apocalypse sell-by-date already. It was scheduled for '99 to '01, according to all the best prophets. You can say it's merely been postponed, which could wind up being true for you as an individual, but as far as the human race on this planet goes, we're just now waking from the Rumpelstiltskin slumber of history, wiping the fossil fuel crust out of eyes and at last ready to don the garments of our awakened divinity. What does that mean exactly regarding Peak Oil? It means we are going to see the 20th century for the dark age it has truely been. When we know ourselves as One with God and our fellow man at the deepest levels of our being, an era of unprecedented peace and cooperation will be ushered in. It seems naive from one persepctive, yes, but let's not be so quick to thumb our nose at something that's been the whole point of our human history to begin with. When cooperation and unity replace seperation and competition as the foundational bedrock of human relations, the scale of what we can achieve will be unimaginable from our current perspective. Problems like the shift from fossil fuels to another energy, will be far, far less of a problem than they seem viewed from our current perspective. I agree that things like hydrogen fuel cells and the like aren't going to cut it. Our recent forays into renewables and the notion of free energy are merely the first baby steps toward solving a problem that definitely has an answer. Things that seemed impossible when you where in first grade are child's play to the fifth grader. And we're about to go from kindergarten to college grad overnight. The shift from old energy to new energy could come as quick, relatively. Sure there might be an interim point that is less than comfortable, but these are the labor pains that precede birth. The birth of the new and the death of the old tend to go hand in hand. Both are available for viewing everywhere you look today. The later half of this decade is a nexus point. History was designed with this conclusion in mind: the species wakes up to its divinity and creates a new world. With what? Thought. We've got a lot of transformative thinking to do, but we can handle it. Transformation is our middle name. Now, if you'll excuse me, i've got to go work on my cold-fusion magneticly powered particle beam transformer. It's going to be my new coffee machine...

[James O'Brien]

When cooperation and unity replace seperation and competition as the foundational bedrock of human relations, the scale of what we can achieve will be unimaginable from our current perspective. Problems like the shift from fossil fuels to another energy, will be far, far less of a problem than they seem viewed from our current perspective. I agree that things like hydrogen fuel cells and the like aren't going to cut it. Our recent forays into renewables and the notion of free energy are merely the first baby steps toward solving a problem that definitely has an answer. Things that seemed impossible when you where in first grade are child's play to the fifth grader. And we're about to go from kindergarten to college grad overnight. The shift from old energy to new energy could come as quick, relatively. Sure there might be an interim point that is less than comfortable, but these are the labor pains that precede birth. The birth of the new and the death of the old tend to go hand in hand. Both are available for viewing everywhere you look today. The later half of this decade is a nexus point. History was designed with this conclusion in mind: the species wakes up to its divinity and creates a new world. With what? Thought. We've got a lot of transformative thinking to do, but we can handle it. Transformation is our middle name. Now, if you'll excuse me, i've got to go work on my cold-fusion magneticly powered particle beam transformer. It's going to be my new coffee machine...

[Someone]

Haha makes me glad to live where I do! JHK says my city is unsustainable. I say it's probably one of the more sustainable cities on this planet, if there is such a thing.

Everyone has thier own home. Everyone has thier own land. Everyone has enough land for a really large garden. The city is surrounded by arable agricultural lands (which our economy is partly based upon). That land feeds a large portion of the world with grains and beef. Worst case scenario, we have to grow stuff in our own gardens and go work on the farms that surround us(and do manual labour...oooh the horror lol)... we will survive. Cities like New York and Los Angeles, now those are some sad cities that may encounter some problems. We have more land area than New York and 1/15th of the population. We all have backyards, (large ones too). I'm thinking we are better off than most places. Even the hutterites and mennonites do very well here without oil.

But we have that opportunity to change the economy over to electric vehicles/solar. Solar is cheap, abundant and reliable. It should be interesting to see if we do get transitioned in time or not. Even if we do change over to solar, we will not be able to continue our same consumption patterns of our other natural resources. Either way, I got my food, water and shetler covered. Do you?

It would be interesting to find out what various people on this blog are actually doing to protect themselves against a possible economic disaster, natural disaster, war, financial collapse, etc. What are hte people on here doing?

[mota]

can i have some of what the last two are smoking? it might make the apocalypse that much more manageable...

[Doug]

Capitalism and the "free markets" won't have the solution for the coming energy crisis and resulting social chaos. When the people have nothing to lose they will dismantle the oppressive capitalist system and replace it with communism where industrial production is not for profit but rather for use. The workers will control the future classless society based on communism. The sooner we start dismantling the capitalist system the better. Raise the red flag high and let's get busy. A revolution is at hand!

[Someone]

Doug, Communism is more flawed than capitalism because someone ends up being supreme ruler. Do you think Stalin lived in teh same conditions the average peasant did?

And James O'Brian... I agree!!! Love what you said!

[JungleWoods]

I think why Kunstler says "make other arrangements" and leaves it at that is because who knows what those arrangements will need to be in the post peak world? Each geographic area will have different problems and obstacles. What will work for some won't for others. The thing is, there are no real answers, we're gonna have to wing it.

[Bor]

Y2K was fixed because of high awareness created by people like James Kunstler.
Yes, nothing tragic happened on January 1 of 2000. But Y2K catastrophe was prevented by billions (!) of dollars invested into programs fixing. Jim could be right without this kind of investment. Of course, his message was dramatic. Too dramatic? I am not sure.

The Peak Oil situation is completely different. People, who do not understand the difference, are just plainly illiterate folks. They just cannot help it for they strongly believe that there is another globe inside of our globe and it is much larger that the first one

[Peter]

"This does sound vague, I know. But I think it's time the discussion got underway, and from previous posters, there appear to be many individuals who have put up their own websites detailing their efforts to this end. I wish to become part of that discussion and make a meaningful contribution to creating a better community."

That's what we are all about, and you are welcome to join us. Survival will be community-based and not something achieved by Mad Max types.

[Gary]

James O'Brien says:

"I think the unifying concept of the 21st century, in everything from energy to technology to human relations, will be unity itself. ................................. but the one that trumps all is this: our thoughts create our reality. This may seem a little wishy washy to some, but it's a universal truth, and what it means is that there are no limits to what we might create in this sea change moment now before us."
"But there's another path we might take, personally and collectively, and that is the enlightenment of the human species. "

Thank you James for saying so - I totally agree.

With peak oil, Mother Earth is giving us a little nudge toward unity. If man fails to catch the hint - well another opportunity will arise. Sooner or later man will get there. I say sooner is OK with me! The sooner the better.

In all our worldly discussions we tend to forge that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Boy are we good at the human part!! So now.....

Gary

[JungleWoods]

Someone writes:
"It would be interesting to find out what various people on this blog are actually doing to protect themselves against a possible economic disaster, natural disaster, war, financial collapse, etc."

#1 in my book is being without debt. That includes mortgages as well as credit cards. We do without if we can't buy it with cash.

#2 is growing a substantial portion of our own vegetables and grains by organic means. Organic gardening is a good exercise in living in a recyclable environment.

#3 is riding our bikes to work more often than not.

#4 is downsizing the portion of our home we heat and cool.

Every day we rethink what will be sustainable in the future and make adjustments.