The Long Emergency - Skeptics? - Page 2

[gentlemango]

Originally Posted by ShaggyDaddy

The truth is most cities have lower environmental impact per person than most homesteads.

i believe it. We have neighbors who still burn their trash.

[wombatclay]

I personally don't give much credit to "the sky is falling we are all dooOOOOOooomed" scenarios... it's "nice" that they get people thinking and assessing their lifestyles but I really don't think the sort of overight collapse of the world as we know it will happen. At least IME social collapse takes a while (excluding war time scenarios like Yugoslavia, Iraq, or Darfur/Sudan). We're not going to wake up one morning to find that there is no oil.

That said, I do think the "american way of life is non-negotiable" camp is in for a rude awakening. But TLE is a bit too black and white to be believed.

[McFeelings]

I don't really buy it either. I do try to live a more sustainable, natural living lifestyle. I prefer to do it out of a desire for spiritual simplicity and living within my means rather than out of fearmongering. Ultimately, while we can be prudent by having food and water available and knowlege of how to grow food, etc. I think the extreme stockpiling and reclusing is simply living in perpetual fear of disaster.

[ShaggyDaddy]

Originally Posted by gentlemango

i believe it. We have neighbors who still burn their trash.

oh god, I know... that annoyed us so much when we were rural... especially since our county landfill is a methane recovery plant, and they use that to fuel the public transportation busses and partially fuel the municipal power plant.

[MistyB]

"Humans have been resourceful in the past and will continue to be so in the future."

Exactly how I feel. I do think that we are on a path that we can not maintain BUT I do not think it will end up in chaos or world wide panic like many of the people here are planning for. Things will adjust over the next few decades. I don't envision energy costs decreasing but I think consumer demand and costs will start to change people to live differently year by year. Maybe I am too overconfident but I think alternative energy will be implemented in many facets of the world over the next 25 years.

[Violet2]

Originally Posted by Synchro246

I don't really see a logical fallacy in those two statements. Besides the fact that I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that PO is going to result in "the end of the world" (what does that even mean?) I don't think all the oil needs to be gone to drastically affect the economy.
.

I could have been more clear in my thought. PO dogma asserts that we are running out of oil and nothing will save us b/c everything needs oil (even alt. energy) then PO dogma turns around and says 'but there will always be some level of oil'. I don't think those two assertions can really live together, but I see it all the time in PO rhetoric.

And PO totally discounts and ignores any technological advances b/c they need oil, which we are running out of and won't have, except we will always have some level of oil around. See what I mean?

Besides, if we can make ethanol we can fuel alt. energy if, worst case, PO really was the apocalypse. We may be running out of cheap oil, but we are not out of options. PO thinks the end of cheap oil is the end of us.

V

[neetling]

Originally Posted by Violet2

There are issues with the PO dogma. My fave logical fallacy is that PO is the end of the world, yet in the same breathe PO says there will always be some measure of oil.

Not to mention ethanol can be made out of almost any biomass.

So, worst case scenario, we could cobble together enough energy to keep food growing, distribute it, and build alternative energy products, that once in use, don't rely on any oil input.

And PO forgets that while govt may have its head in the sand, science does not. Scientists are well aware of the needs for alt. energy and are working on it. Alt. energy is going to be the next big economic boom.

However, we are not prepared for any type of transition or shock to the system. The govt isn't prepared. We are not a culture that believes in planning for lean times. I do agree with Kunstler's blog that the MW floods are this generation's wet version of the Dust Bowl. When a huge segment of your agriculture is wiped out in a time when fuel prices are at record levels in a weak economy, that is a recipe for bad ju-ju.

At this point, with the way oil futures are going and the US' warmongering, I think we are going to create a self-fulfilling prophecy with PO. It's going to feel like PO even if we actually still have oil to burn.

And even if PO is a bunch of fearmongering, the current mortgage crisis has nothing to do with it (even though PO proponents try to claim it does) and is currently one of the biggest problems our economy faces. I am much more concerned about the coming recession and what some are saying will be a Depression. My DH's employer claimed a loss for the first time in 30 years. Second quarter doesn't look any better. We suspect layoffs will start sometime in 2009 unless the economy turns around.

V

What does PO mean?

[wombatclay]

PO- peak oil, the theory behind the long emergency theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

[MamaMonica]

Originally Posted by gentlemango

i believe it. We have neighbors who still burn their trash.

Unfortunately my neighbors do it in the city, too- they use their fireplaces It's worse because the houses are right on top of each other.

[mackysmama]

I think we'll be okay for the primary reason that the big oil companies are too greedy to NOT come up with alternative energy sources. Shell Oil is building a big solar energy plant in Houston and the other energy companies are investing heavily in research (you know, with those HUGE profits they've been having recently). Yes, things will change and we will need to curb our wastefulness and learn to be more resourceful but I don't think our kids are going to be wearing loin-cloths and shooting domestic cats for dinner.

[wombatclay]

Cats- awwww, they wouldn't eat cats! Exclusive carnivores taste funky. Catfur loinclothes though might be the next big fashion.

[KaraBoo]

I would have quoted ShaggyDaddy's post but I'd end up quoting the whole thing.

I believe a change gonna come but it won't be as "gloom and doom" and "back to basics" as completely as some wish.