Casaubon’s Book

We Regret to Inform You…

Sharon April 22nd, 2008

When climate change and peak oil thinkers run out of other things to worry about, there’s always the endless, inevitable debates about whether we are facing a “fast crash” or a “slow grind.” And I admit, I’m worried about my fellow environmentalists - because I think they are about to lose their favorite distraction. When no one was looking, we got an answer. Fast crash wins. And we’re in it now.

Wait a minute, you argue - that’s not right. If we were in a fast crash we’d be well on our way to living in a Kunstler novel. But we’ve still got cars, we’ve got food, things are slowing down, but at worst this looks like a slow grind - but the crazy lady at the blog is saying fast crash?!?!?

Before you argue with me (and you are both welcome and encouraged to), I’d like to post something a bit out of my usual style - it is simply a description of what has happened with food and energy in the last year - that’s all it is. Then tell me what you think - because it wasn’t until I began to write this introduction to the present food situation that I suddenly was struck by the fact that even a fast crash doesn’t always look fast when you live it - new normals arise and it turns out we assimilate faster than we panic.

So here we are - the “We regret to inform you that what you have imagined to be “civilization” is now falling apart” post. See if it strikes you the way it struck me.

I would also note two things. The first is that the general political consensus is that neither the food nor energy crisis will do anything but grow more acute anytime soon - we’re really in the early stages. And that this only covers the first 4 months of 2008.

_______________________________________________________

In early 2008, the world’s food and energy train came off the rails. What was startling was that it didn’t happen either gradually or in a linear way - instead, things simply fell apart at an astounding rate, faster than anyone could have predicted without being accused of lunacy.

It started with biofuels and growing meat consumption rates. They drove the price of staple grains up at astounding rates. In 2007, overall inflation for food was at 18%, which created a new class of hungry, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. In 2008, the month to month inflation was higher than 2007’s annual inflation. At that rate, the price of food overall was set to double every other year. Rice, the staple of almost half the world’s population rose 147%, while wheat grew 25% in just one day. Price rises were inequitable (as was everything else) so while rice prices rose 30% in rich world nations like the US, Haitian rice prices rose 300%.

Haiti was an early canary in the hunger coal mine. Desperately poor, by early 2008, tens of thousands of impoverished Haitians were priced entirely out of the market for rice and other staples, and were reduced to eating “cookies” made of nutrient rich mud, vegetable shortening and salt to quiet their hunger pangs. Women stood on the street, offering their children to any reasonably well fed passerby, saying “Please, pick, take one and feed them.” Thousands of Haitians marched on Port Au Prince, yelling, “We’re hungry.” And indeed, the Haitian government was complicit, allowing food relief to rot on the wharves. But Haiti was just the start.

After riots over long bread lines threatened to destabilize Egypt, the Egyptian government set the army to baking bread for the hungry. Forty nations either stopped exporting grains or raised tariffs to make costs prohibitive. Food prices rose precipitiously as importing nations began to struggle to meet rising hunger. The UN warned that 33 nations were in danger of destabilizing, and the list included major powers including Pakistan, Mexico, North Korea India, Egypt and South Africa. Many of these hold nuclear weapons.

The crisis didn’t stop among the already-poor, however. An article in The Economist reported that the crisis extended well into the middle class - Joanna Sheeran, director of the World Food Project explained, “For the middle classes,…it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster.”

Up to 100 million people who had managed to raise their incomes above $2 a day found themselves inexorably drawn back to the world poverty level, while millions of those who called themselves “middle class” began, slowly, to realize that they were no such thing. Reports noted that many of the supposed middle class in rich world nations were actually the working poor who had overextended their credit to keep up appearances. And the appearances - and credit access - were fraying

In 2007, a major American newspaper reported the growing problem of seasonal malnutrition affecting poor children in the Northern US - the rising price of heating oil meant that lower class families were struggling to put on the table. Hungry, low weight children were unable to maintain their body temperature in chilly houses, and a vicious circle of illness, hunger and desperation ensued. Malnutrition bellies began to be regularly seen by pediatricians treating the urban poor in cold climates.

Shortages were a chronic problem in the poor world, but by early spring of 2008, they began to arrive in the rich world - despite Japan’s deep pockets, a shortage of butter and wheat reminded the rich world of its dependence on food import. Many of the supply problems were due to climate change and energy issues, as Australian dairy farmers struggled with high grain prices and the extended drought that destroyed their pastures.

Following up on anecdotal reports of limits at bulk warehouse stores, in late April of 2008 rationing went official. Many Costco stores were limiting purchases of flour, rice, cooking oil and other staples to avoid shortages - and the stores tracked purchases electronically to prevent customers from visiting other Costco stores. This was the first example of food rationing, but probably not the last - at least one financial analyst was predicting corn shortages in the fall of 2008.

The energy train and the food train were inextricably linked, and indeed directly (as the costs of diesel rose rapidly) and indirectly (rising energy costs created the biofuels boom) drove the food crisis. They were linked in other, complex ways as well - the housing collapse that threatened to plunge Europe and the US into a major depression was in part due to the high costs of commuting from suburban infrastructure. Exurban housing collapsed hardest, while housing closer to cities remained desirable - for a while.

While the food crisis in the poor world made headlines, the energy crisis there went almost unnoticed. <ore and more poorer nations simply could not afford to import oil and other fossil fuels, and began to slowly but steadily lose the benefits of fossil fuels. Nations suffered shortages of gas, electricity and coal. Tajikistan, experiencing a record cold winter found itself with inadequate supplies of heating oil and a humanitarian crisis. South African coal supplies were so short that electricity generation dropped back to intermittency.

Industrial agriculture, described as “the process of turning oil into food” began to struggle to keep yields up to match growing demand. Yield increases fell back steadily, with more and more investment of energy (and higher costs for poor farmers trying to keep yields up). Yield increases, which had been at 6% annually from the 1960s through the 1990s fell to 1-2%, against rapidly rising demand. Climate change threatened to further reduce yields in already stressed poor nations - Bangladesh struggled with repeated climate change linked flooding, the Sahelian African countries with growing drought, China with desertification.

All future indications were that both food and energy supplies would fail to keep up with demand. Unchecked (the only kind we’ve got) climate change is expected to reduce rice yields by up to 30%, and food production in the already starving Sahel is expected to be reduced by half. GMOs, touted as a solution, have yet to produce even slightly higher yields. Arable land is disappearing under growth, while aquifers are heavily depleted - 30% of the world’s grain production comes from irrigated land that is expected to lose its water supply in the next decades.

Meanwhile the costs of fossil fueled agricultural skyrocketed, with Potash rising by 300% in less than a year. What should have been a boom for farmers was actually the beginning of an increasingly precarious spiral of high prices, high indebtedness and market volatility. Agricultural indebtedness rose dramatically.

Meanwhile, the ability of nations to transport food supplies began to be called into question. Early trucker protests were intermittent and largely ineffective, but real predictions of diesel shortages and a shortage of refining capacity made it a real possibility that food might not reach store shelves.

And so how does the story end? If you were reading this in a history book, what ending would you expect to see? Because just because the crash doesn’t quite read like a post apocalyptic novel doesn’t mean that we aren’t the new Po-Apoc (like Po-Mo, only darker) generation.

Sharon

food , future , natural gas , oil
Comments(137)

137 Responses to “We Regret to Inform You…”

# Michaelon 22 Apr 2008 at 12:21 pm

Well, on the bright side, all of our tomato starts have popped up (except for the Cossack Pineapple), and all four of my cilantro seeds sprouted, too!
# Christinaon 22 Apr 2008 at 12:45 pm

We will grow even more potatoes, turnips, parsnips, beets, onions, peas, beans, herbs, greens…

I can’t guess how the story ends. I try to be optimistic and see a future where we all are cultivating our gardens and living happily ever after… but I don’t really think that will be the case.

So I dig my little piece of the Earth, plant my seeds and try not to cry too hard. We live in a paradise compared to many places - we are not hungry, we have a house and a kitchen garden and we can still pay our bills and mortgage. But it’s like living in a bubble - when will it burst?

Christina
Sweden
# Jadeon 22 Apr 2008 at 1:05 pm

Yes. We’ve noticed. My best friend and I have gone from being the out-there wackos to Cassandras and then to oracles. All we do is read, then test ourselves and our sources to try to undermine our dire theories. But Bloomberg backs us up, as do papers around the world. Every mainstream site has started to sound like us in our cups.

The basic information has been out there for anyone willing to research, but the system is tumbling down far faster than I predicted even in my most pessimistic moments.

My husband, rocket scientist and math teacher, says humans keep viewing breakdown as a linear event with a consistent level of predictability. In other words we say “if things keep on at this rate then two months from now X will happen.” But it is an exponential event, not linear. Be prepared to be surprised.
# Davidon 22 Apr 2008 at 1:06 pm

And yet — and yet — all of this is sinking in on the general consciousness very very slowly, if at all. When do we start hearing about this as part of the (otherwise fact-free) presidential campaigns? Or when do we hear people in grocery checkouts talking about how they need to find other ways of getting food to the table?? It still feels as though we’re stuck in some kind of suspended animation, or it’s the frame in the crash-test film when the bumper makes contact with the wall, only you’d have to have superhuman vision to see it. A couple more frames, though…

Thank you again for all you do. I feel as though someday bound versions of Casaubon’s Book will be changing hands for high prices (as measured in seeds and labour-hours). Suggested title: Chronicles of a Crash Foretold (or “The Empire State Cassandra”).
# Teartayeon 22 Apr 2008 at 1:13 pm

Y’know, I’ve been saying for months… that the energy of the world right now… well…

Right now I feel like we’re sitting in the cars for the world’s scariest, most dizzifying roller coaster. It’s rusty, falling apart and the safety harnesses don’t lock properly. I’m sitting there, holding my harness down with all my might, and I’m scared.

Problem is, there’s a guy two seats up eating a corn dog, a couple two cars back having loud sex, my neighbour is arguing loudly on her cell phone and there’s a couple of kids playing tag by hopping between cars.

The breaks have just unlocked and the cars have jerked forward. There’s been days where I want to run up and down the street/through the malls/whatever and try to shake people out of their stupor.

I guess now we’re “slowly” rolling towards the first downwards swoop. How much speed do you think we’ll have to pick up before more people wake up?

I sound pessimistic. I don’t mean to, it’s just that’s the closest metaphor I can think of to, like I said, the way the world’s energy feels right now.

I think I’m gonna go buy some seeds today. Not that there’s not still a foot of snow on the ground, but I’ll feel better once I’ve got some sprouts started.
# Shandyon 22 Apr 2008 at 1:14 pm

I agree, Christina, just keep on keeping on, because what else can you do?

Still, despite that laundry list of gloomy reports, I think the most shocking moment I had in a long time was just this morning listening to NPR. They interviewed the head strategist of Shell Oil who, without using the actual phrase, admitted to Peak Oil and said the tipping point would be as early as 2015. That’s…right now, essentially. And if that’s what Shell is admitting to out loud, then what they really mean is that the tipping point has come and gone. Maybe I missed it, but this is the first time I’ve heard an oil company exec say it, let alone peg the date so soon. Interesting time ahead, that’s for sure.
# Lisa Zon 22 Apr 2008 at 1:27 pm

I feel strongly that, even in the midst of this crisis, we all must hold strongly to a positive vision of a future in which world citizens, including us rich ones in the West, are feeding themselves. That’s the most important thing I get from this blog. That we can do it! That we can lead the way.

Many, many circumstances will be beyond our control, but the way we envision our lives and work our future is completely up to each of us. I hold the positive fruits of this crisis in my mind, always. That doesn’t mean I don’t get down or scared, but I have a vision that I can always go back to when this happens.

I’m using helps like Shakti Gawain’s book, _Creative Visualization_, to help my mind to do this. There are many resources out there. Not to be all “spiritual” or anything, but I do think that all of us putting out positive energy and clear visions for change will influence the universe!

The other night I was at my monthly women’s drumming circle. While drumming I had a vision of the worlds’ mothers and their children marching, marching, marching for change, and then effecting that change by raising their own food. Sorry to leave out the men, but being a mother that’s what came to me.

I know, for one example, that Greenpa’s blogging about ACTION. Lots of us are going to work on this. It’s happening!
# KJMClarkon 22 Apr 2008 at 2:42 pm

Hey, you left out UG99! Wheat stem rust, a scourge thought defeated 30 years ago, raises its dusty head at precisely the wrong time. It’s confirmed in Iran and suspected in Pakistan already. You could even point out that Iran, in a simmering war with the US in Iraq, now really has a weapon of mass destruction. It not only has the UG99 stem rust, which the world’s wheat has no resistance against, but Iran also grows one of the world’s largest crops of barberry, the wheat stem rust’s sexual reproduction host. It wouldn’t be hard for the Iranians to use the wheat weapon - stem rust was stored by the US and Soviets as a potential weapon. The Iranians may become desperate enough to use it, since wheat is over 60% of Iranian grain.

Come to think of it, you didn’t mention that 18% of the US grain crop is headed for ethanol production this year. That’s 2% more than last year.

We might get lucky in the next year or two and this will all be a nightmare we woke up from. Or we might not get lucky…
# Idaho Locavoreon 22 Apr 2008 at 3:00 pm

I think you are right, Sharon - every day, more and more of the underpinnings of what we call our “normal life” are showing signs of strain or imminent collapse. It started somewhat slowly last summer - now nearly every day there are new signs of the rot that is slowly creeping through every sector of the system. One wonders how much the whole thing will be able take, and for how long.

Jade, l agree that things probably won’t crash in a nice, neat linear fashion. I think we’re seeing that won’t be the case even looking at what has already happened so far. I personally think John Michael Greer has a good grasp of what this is probably going to look like as it plays out - a series of hills where we spend an annoying amount of time teetering scarily on the precipice, then a tip, a dizzying swoooop downward, then a bit of an upward trend as things try to stabilize at the new, lower level, then another teeter, another tip, and another stomach-dropping swooooop…

It’s a hugely complex and interdependent planet-wide system we’ve built up here - I think there’s not much chance that it will just fall down neatly all at once in a tidy little heap. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we will only be able to see the pattern of the collapse from our rearview mirrors. There’s likely just way too much going on all at once on too many fronts to see it right now.
# Anonon 22 Apr 2008 at 3:03 pm

Well said!

Collapse is here and to stay. It looks like it’s arriving with a bang, not a whimper.

Prepare, prepare, prepare …

Elected officials will do nothing or not enough for the common people.

The puppeteers are in charge.

~Vegan
# Theresaon 22 Apr 2008 at 3:51 pm

Crap.

Well, my kale and tomatoes and lettuce are sprouting, and I’ve got my “Zero Mile Diet” seed kit ready to go. My bulk food order is about to be placed - I won’t be dilly dallying on that score. Now if I can just get family members to take some of this stuff seriously I’d start to feel a bit better about our collective ability to cope.
# jaseon 22 Apr 2008 at 3:54 pm

So I assume that all of you have written to your elected officials about a crash program to build more nuclear power plants? Because that’s what’s needed to save civilization - a source of clean, cheap, nearly limitless power. Dilly-dallying around just with seeds and gardens alone won’t change anything enough - people will still starve and the world will still regress to the Dark Ages.
# Sharonon 22 Apr 2008 at 4:02 pm

Even with a crash program, Jase, nuclear power plants are unlikely to come online fast enough - there are enough supply constraints - only a few companies able to provide the necessary funding, comparatively few experienced engineers. The ones I know at GE are all in their 60s and at or past retirement - and get daily offers to come out of retirement at astounding sums. They all have told me essentially the same thing - the nuclear industry is highly specialized, and even if you could remove the lead time issues for environmental approval (which has some issues) ramping up nuclear plants isn’t the same as ramping up bombers - there are bottlenecks that simply can’t be rapidly overcome.

Sharon
# Chileon 22 Apr 2008 at 4:04 pm

We’re sitting on top of a Jenga puzzle and there aren’t too many more pieces that can be pulled out before we’re lying in a pile of rubble. Damn! I wish I hadn’t sold the bouldering crashpad on craigslist. I think we’re gonna need it to soften the landing.
# Idaho Locavoreon 22 Apr 2008 at 4:33 pm

Jase,

In reality, it takes at least a *decade* to get a new nuclear plant up and running. It also takes a huge amount of funding - generally twice as much or more as projected at the outset, because a lot of things can (and do) change in 10 years time. At this point there are very few companies that are willing to take on that sort of risk - and probably even fewer banks that are willing - or able - to loan money for it.

In short, I don’t think we’re going to find the money, and I don’t think we’re going to have the time to do much with nuclear energy.
# Henry Warwickon 22 Apr 2008 at 4:41 pm

hi Sharon!

To what you have described above, I have gone further:

we need to abandon peak oil, and develop a completely different approach, one that is much more serious and direct, and less “doomer prone”. I call it the field of “Energetics”.

I wrote a blog post on it here:

http://hwarwick.blogspot.com/2008/04/end-of-peak-oil.html

I would love to hear what you think about it.

HW
# Philon 22 Apr 2008 at 4:41 pm

Era of cheap food ends as prices surge:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article3799327.ece

Sharp rise in world food prices hits plans to lift countries out of poverty:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article3799329.ece
# Michaelon 22 Apr 2008 at 4:46 pm

The Saudis are very reassuring…
——-
The IEF also had to work against perceptions that world oil and gas resources were about to dry up in the face of soaring energy demand, the forum said.

Global oil and gas resources were “sufficient to meet world needs over the next decades,” the IEF insisted.

Saudi Arabia Petroleum Minister Ali al-Naimi agreed.

“I can assure you unequivocally that the world is not running out of oil,” he insisted, pleading for calm.

OPEC coincidentally announced it would raise production capacity by five million barrels per day (bpd) by 2012 and by nine million bpd by 2020 from current output levels of about 32 million bpd.

(from http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jGbsAyaPkjUlduusvdkrQ6IuzoWQ)
# Anonon 22 Apr 2008 at 5:39 pm

Michael,

Read this:

http://www.energybulletin.net/43048.html

~Vegan
# toddon 22 Apr 2008 at 8:16 pm

What is unfortunate is that so many people see this as a surprise. Anyone who has taken the time to connect the dots could foresee this to some extent.

Being an old fart of 69, my life has been moulded by what happened to my family during the Depression. I won’t recount the stories but one of my reasons for moving to the boondocks 35 years ago and leaving behind a major career in the chemical industry was to somewhat insulate myself from the “fluctuations” of society.

It is so unfortunate that so many other people in other countries didn’t have the same options.

A good essay Sharon.

Todd
# Alanon 22 Apr 2008 at 9:22 pm

Here’s bad news for folks in the Northeastern and Midwestern U.S. (and others). Bat colonies are being hammered by a mystery disease (shades of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder).

The New York Times today has this: http://tinyurl.com/47s2mh.

Melvin Tuttle, president of Bat Conservation International and the world’s foremost authority on bats says. “So far as we can tell at this point, this may be the most serious threat to North American bats we’ve experienced in recorded history.”

The die-offs are big enough that they may have economic effects. A study of Brazilian free-tailed bats in southwestern Texas found that their presence saved cotton farmers a sixth to an eighth of the cash value of their crops by consuming insect pests.

“Logic dictates when you are potentially losing as many as a half a million bats in this region, there are going to be ramifications for insect abundance in the coming summer,” a Vermont wildlife biologist, said.

More insects means less food and fiber, more impetus to use insecticides, more disease.

As Roseann Roseannadanna used to say,
“If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”
# Billon 22 Apr 2008 at 9:49 pm

I woke up yesterday, read the news as per usual and for some reason realized a perfect shitstorm is on the way. (I read the same news feeds as Sharon I guess.) I live in Japan which imports 60% of its food and 100% of its oil, gas and coal. There is still almost 0 awareness among the news media or bloggers of peak oil. Japan is really lucky it did not succumbed to US pressure to open its market to cheap US rice and destroy what remains of Japans food self sufficiency. There is going to be a major impact on grain soybean prices when Japan panics and starts trying to stockpile wheat and soybeans.

Bill
# Stephen B.on 22 Apr 2008 at 10:58 pm

Yes Sharon. *Sigh* yes, yes, *Sigh*

I’ve been coming to the looming fast crash conclusion more and more myself and kind of alluded to the same in the exchange we shared last week on the ROE2 list concerning our amazement (but not surprise) at the destruction of the airline industry.

I sit here wondering just what I would have expected a soft crash to look like and I’m not sure I really have an answer. It could still be a slow descent when viewed from a distance someday. Our modern world, once provoked, can really sound some deafening alarm cries, so maybe what we’re seeing is only the slow crash. After all, I ask myself, okay, I’m still eating, the house is here, my school still employs me -am I sure it’s getting so bad?

Yeah, it really could be. So much stuff *could* turn around a bit and soften the descent. Then again, a major bank could close and go to the FDIC tomorrow, or this grain panic http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world we’ve all been hearing about could snowball into a full-blown run on thousands of US supermarkets in a week. Diesel here is $4.79 today, closing in on $5. A major national truck hauler could cease operations next month causing panic in some major retail chain’s customers and a run there…the regional grid or my local utility Nstar could find daily business operations too difficult to support when their financing sources and other financial infrastructure (bonds, underwriting, etc.) that is so necessary to what they do every day becomes non-functional and we find the 60Hz stuff suddenly melting away.

Again, we could pull out of it for a bit. While a bunch of airlines could shut down tomorrow, our United States comrades could surprise us and still go on otherwise in a new, but very functional way just the same……..but, on the other hand, well, there’s the previous paragraph….. (I’m shaking my head too much to type much more here.)

Still, my backyard garden is going fine, our mini CSA at our school is growing…more seeds….more tools….a few more people involved….a few new folks paying attention….almost nobody outright questioning Peak Oil anymore anywhere, but instead starting to ask “What can I do?”

Gotta keep going.

If we lose the grid or the Net, however, I’m going to really miss your blog and others’, the ROE2 list, and so on. I’m at the point where I’m not sure I’m learning any major new news or knowledge insights from the online community, but the peer support is and has been priceless. If it all goes dark, well then I should be out working more with my local community and neighbors at this point anyway I guess.

Best regards all,
Stephen B.
Walpole, MA
# homebrewlibrarianon 22 Apr 2008 at 11:01 pm

A couple weeks ago I was working on a business plan for the new organization I’m helping to launch. It will be a library network that supports the libraries in Alaska. As part of the plan, you look at industry trends and then how your organization will react to those trends. One of the first articles I found talked about Peak Oil and libraries (3/15/08 edition of Library Journal). It imagined a rather rapid decline in the economy and the increase in library usage because of it. Then I started looking at economic issues that might cause more people to use libraries. Just looking at several fuel and food issues in Alaska that were happening just moments before I read about them made me realize that the crisis is real and it’s here.

Trouble is, very few people seem to have taken note.

And my coworkers still think I’m quirky for taking the bus and riding my bike and generally refusing to drive, keeping the overhead lights off in my office and using a single CFL lamp, making an issue out of recycling all the cardboard packaging we seem to end up with, taking an organic gardening class and talking about getting chickens. These are smart people, too, although fairly well off.

At the same time, I’m going to start volunteering at one of the small food pantries in town as a once a month food deliverer. The food pantry has seen a sharp increase in requests and an almost equally sharp decrease in donations. They’re having to get serious about developing a sustainable revenue stream because theyve had to carry forward last year’s expenses into this year’s budget. It’s an all volunteer operation to begin with and they’re started to fret big time.

While I haven’t reduced my resource usage by 90% like those who took the challenge, I’m headed in that direction. Personally, I’m not feeling much impact and probably won’t for a while. But I know it’s coming and I’m trying to not only be ready, I’m trying to encourage people to connect the dots and make some changes while they still have choices.

Bright note - most of the 128 seeds I’ve started since the beginning of April have sprouted!

Kerri in AK
# BC_EEon 22 Apr 2008 at 11:05 pm

In at moments like these that I appreciate the female voice in these issues. They have their unique way of stating matters I find appealing. It really is like the anode talking the cathode, that ain’t a bad thing… (c’mon EE, wadda think!)

If we are to grasp one common phenomena throughout history, it is please let prophecy be self-negating. Maybe we have the luxury of sounding like the fools at the end of all this.

I’ve been trying to encapsulate the same information for those around me and Sharon did a superb job. But, the comments by Lisa Z sparked something I have known inherently through this; and, in the end I believe she will agree. We are in for tough times - no doubt - but coming out of this I only see one path and that is evolve or die.

How are we to evolve? We have met the Peak Entropy Rate, and therefore find we cannot push our systems, extraction, ingenuity, or human willfulness to new limits. That’s it, we’re at the pin. For the biped hominid experiment to survive on this frail terra firma epidermis we call Earth, we will have to evolve in our consciousness. I can’t reveal where this information comes from, but I think you have a pretty good idea.

Although the mucking will be nasty, we face the crucial moment - I have seen it. So Lisa Z, keep on with the motherhood drumming circles and all that you do. However, keep in mind that us males are not an obsolete entity
# BC_EEon 22 Apr 2008 at 11:11 pm

…And please excuse my typos and misspellings.
# Greenpaon 23 Apr 2008 at 7:54 am

If you are right, Sharon- and I’d put the probability of the scenario playing out as you describe it at around 60% (that’s really high!) - then there is another basic need, that I haven’t seen anyone address here; don’t know if you’ve talked about it elsewhere.

You are going to need to be able to protect your family. Really. That will mean different things to different people- but everybody better think about it, or you won’t get the chance to do any evolving.
# Rebeccaon 23 Apr 2008 at 8:14 am

I too have noticed the change in pace. Sometimes I worry that the crash will be too fast, and other times I worry that it will not be fast enough. Both scenarios can be utterly disastrous. I’m getting ready to expand my garden beds (again) in the hopes that I can put enough food up this year.

One interesting thing I’ve noticed is the increasing amount of cognitive dissonance going on in the mainstream news. For instance, I listen to NPR everyday. They used to pretty much ignore things like the energy and food crises. Now, they’ll do a “serious” sandwich. Where they’ll go from a story that doesn’t really matter to one about the food crisis to another silly story (about music or some such nonsense).

To put it in terms of choas theory, cracks are becoming obvious as they spread throughtout the system and the strain is starting to show. The hologram has lifted for those with the courage to look.
# Lisa Zon 23 Apr 2008 at 8:19 am

Oh definitely BC_EE, men are not an obsolete entity. Where would I be without my husband in all of this? He’s my greatest partner in this experiment we call life.

I meant nothing sexist in my telling about my vision. I don’t just blame the men for the wrongs. We’re all in this together, good and bad.

If I have no hope to cling to, then what’s the point of changing and evolving? Humans must always have hope, and their pleasures, even as we work our butts off for survival.
# Idaho Locavoreon 23 Apr 2008 at 8:47 am

Greenpa, thanks for bringing this up. It’s been on my mind a lot as well. Even if all we get out of all of this is a recession, crime WILL go up. Everywhere.

First thing we’re doing is working to secure the house better and putting padlocks on our back garden shed, root cellar and fence gates. That won’t deter anyone who is seriously trying to get in, but it’s better than an open invite, anyway.

Other than that, I don’t know what else we’ll be doing. I’ll have to think about it.
# Theresaon 23 Apr 2008 at 9:42 am

Jade;

Actually I’m in the middle of composing a letter to my MLA to refrain from building the proposed nuclear power plant in my province and focus on ramping up solar and wind power instead, along with rewarding conservation and frugality. I’m not willing to saddle the world with gobs of nuclear waste. We’ve got enough problems as it is. Lord help us when there aren’t enough resources left to safely maintain the nuclear plants that are already built.
# Jadeon 23 Apr 2008 at 10:03 am

Theresa- perhaps you meant to call out Jase? I’m not a proponent of nuclear power. In fact, I expect everyone who knows me will be cleaning coffee off their computer screens after reading this!

Cheers,
Jade

Idaho locavore- I remain a strong fan of your comments.
# Studenton 23 Apr 2008 at 10:09 am

Great essay, Sharon. I believe you see the situation correctly. Have you seen this website? This piece spoke to me…

Excerpt from “Preparing for the
Great Waves of Changes”

http://www.newmessage.org

Great change is coming to the world, change unlike anything humanity as a whole has ever seen before, Great Waves of Change all converging at this time…

These Great Waves are not one event. They are not one simple thing that happens at one time only. For humanity has set in motion forces of change now that it must contend with on an ongoing basis. For you are now living in a world of declining resources, a world whose climate has been seriously affected, a world whose ecological condition is deteriorating, a world where humanity will have to face the prospects of great shortages of food and water and the risks of disease and illness on a very large scale, even affecting the wealthy nations of the world. The balance has now been tipped and changed, and the human family as a whole must unite and gather together to deal with these great challenges.

In a world of ever-growing population and declining resources, humanity will face a great decision, a fundamental choice in which direction to go: Do nations compete and challenge each other for the remaining resources? Do they fight and struggle over who will control these resources and who will have access to these resources? For indeed, all the great wars of humanity’s turbulent past have been a struggle, fundamentally, over gaining access to and control over resources.

The choices are few, but they are fundamental. And those choices must not be made simply by the leaders of nations and religious institutions, but by each citizen. Each person must choose whether they will fight and compete, whether they will resist the Great Waves of Change, whether they will struggle with themselves and with others to maintain whatever lifestyle they are holding onto, or will they recognize the great danger and will they unite to begin to prepare for its impact and to build a new and different kind of future for humanity.

For you cannot maintain the way you live now. Those rich nations, those wealthy people, those people who have become accustomed to affluence, feeling it is not only a right but an entitlement from God and from life, they must be prepared to change the way they live, to live far more simply, to live far more equitably, for the sharing of the remaining resources will require this. The rich will have to take care of the poor, and the poor will have to take care of one another, or failure faces everyone, rich and poor. There will be no winners if human civilization should fail. There will be no supreme nations. There will be no supreme tribe or group or religious body if civilization fails. And the Great Waves of Change have the power to lead human civilization to failure. That is how great they are. That is how long reaching their impact will be.

It is certainly not a time to be ambivalent or complacent. It is certainly not a time to just think that government leaders should take care of the problem for you, for you must now look to your life and to your circumstances, every one of you.

This is the world that you have come to serve. This is the world you have created. These are the circumstances facing you now. You must face them. You must take responsibility that you have played a small part in creating them. You must accept this responsibility without shame, but the responsibility is there nonetheless. For in the face of the Great Waves of Change, there is nowhere to run and hide…

Preparing for the Great Waves of Change at
http://www.newmessage.org
# jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 10:22 am

Oh my God Theresa, I can only pray that you are joking. Sadly, that seems not to be the case. Solar and wind just aren’t there in terms of providing the energy density that we need. Will they be there in ten years? Maybe. But nuclear power has been there for fifty.

‘Not willing to saddle the world with gobs of nuclear waste.’? Please - coal plants put out more waste, of all kinds, than a comparable nuclear power plant, and they disperse it directly into the atmosphere rather than in compact, easy to handle solid or liquid forms. Conservation and frugality are fine and all, but it is a simple fact that you need energy, and in high density, too, for modern civilization.

I can grow a vegetable garden, hunt deer or turkey, eat local and ride a bike. I can turn off lights, put solar panels on my roof, use a hand-cranked computer. But when it comes time to manufacture the solar panels, or the medicine that protects against disease and injury, or to continue researching and developing new technologies - conservation and frugality just won’t cut it alone. We need nuclear power.

‘Enough problems as it is’? You mean pollution and climate change? Nuclear power would go farther than anything else towards solving those problems. And if there are ever not enough resources to safely maintain nuclear power plants, well… First, modern plants are fail-safe. If they aren’t maintained the fuel would just sit there and safely decay as it has done in the natural world for billions of years. And secondly, if there ever comes a point where the plants can’t be maintained, well, first of all your solar and wind won’t be maintained long before that, and second of all, since civilization as we know it would have collapsed at that point any concerns would be mooted.

Idaho Locavore - And that is *exactly* why we need to start a crash program *now*. Can we cut back and conserve and make it through another ten or twenty years? Likely, albeit with major hardship in the worst case scenario. But beyond that, can we make it without using the bootstraps we have now to get a safe, clean, dense source of long-term energy up and running? Not a chance.

And money? We’re willing to throw however many billion at changing lightbulbs or increasing gas mileage while ignoring the much bigger concerns right under our noses? You’d lobby for millions or billions to put in stop-gap solutions and temporary fixes, but when it comes to the underlying problems you throw up your hands and say “Screw this, it’s too expensive”?

Oh, and Sharon - citation needed? What supply constraints, exactly? Are these supply constraints as in, we don’t have them on the shelves right now, or supply constraints as in, there’s no way to make more than X a year short of annexing Canada and retraining a million workers? Just because there isn’t a current surplus doesn’t mean there’s a supply constraint.
Also, the plural of ‘anecdote’ isn’t ‘data’. So what if a few retired nuclear engineers prefer to stay in retirement?

Of course the nuclear industry is highly specialized. Which is why there are scientists and engineers working on it every day in countries across the world. France and Japan, to name just two, have massive nuclear infrastructures already. The resources are there, but thanks to people like you and those who read your blog, they’re being left to rot on the shelf.

That environmental approval you mention? The only reason that is a bottleneck is because of the ignorance of basic math and physics rampant among most environmentalists. If a proposed nuclear power plant didn’t have to take the yammerings of randoms whose knowledge of what they’re protesting is stuck at the ‘Simpsons’ level, the cost for these sources of clean, cheap, and long-term electricity would drop drastically. There’s really no rational argument against nuclear power, which, when added to the fact that it solves such a huge slice of the problems we’re dealing with, only makes opposition to it - especially among those who are allegedly in favor of the environment - all the more puzzling.
# Greenpaon 23 Apr 2008 at 10:32 am

“There’s really no rational argument against nuclear power, ” –

really?

Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl, Chernobyl.

Don’t try that nonsense about “it can’t happen again” - that’s what all the proponents said about Chernobyl in the first place.

Build more plants- it becomes more certain.

Nuclear power is just too dangerous to have anywhere on the planet. If you want to have it on Mars- that’s fine with me. But not on Earth.
# jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 10:40 am

First of all, ‘Chernobyl Chernobyl….’ is exactly what I meant by ‘no rational argument.’ Imagine a parent about to give their child antibiotics for a deadly infection when someone comes over and starts yelling about how someone’s kid, somewhere, died of an embolism after an incompetent nurse botched the procedure. That is not a rational argument. It does not weigh the benefits against the slim risks, it does not look at the other alternatives, the context, and it contains no overarching structure of logic, mathematics, science, or any factual basis. What happened at Chernobyl has been explained and corrected. Despite your seemingly dim view of human intelligence, we do learn from our mistakes. (Most of us, at least.)

All right, Greenpa - Chernobyl. Chernobyl was, literally, designed to melt down. It was the product of a second world barely-literate team of incompetent engineers. And even then, when it did melt down, the actual toll, both human and ecological, was much less than that of the possible alternative sources of energy.

I’ll say it simply - Chernobyl can’t happen again. It was a series of design flaws that have since been fixed. Nuclear power is certainly safer than coal or any other fossil fuel. Again, it is a matter of basic (and I do mean elementary) math and science. Argue against nuclear power? I suppose you could, but until you went on a crusade of much greater magnitude against all fossil fuels first, not only would you be wrong, you’d be a logically inconsistent hypocrite to boot.
# Anonon 23 Apr 2008 at 10:43 am

Greenpa, I’m glad you brought this up.

Crime is already going up. Someone tried to steal our bicycles a few weeks ago in the evening with four adults at home, despite our fenced 5 acres.

We’ve never had any burglaries around here. Leaving doors unlocked was our daily routine, even while on our long daily country walks.

For 15 years we’ve had our bikes against the back of the house with a plastic cover, no padlocks. I heard a noise behind the house and thought it was a black bear who frequently pays us a visit. Well, I enthusiastically peeked out the window (9 p.m.) and saw our bikes being dragged along the back of our property. I guess they saw my face against the window and ran. When my husband and two sons went outside shortly thereafter, the bikes were in different parts of the yard with the plastic cover tangled up around them (a 3 ft. knife slit on the plastic cover! This was scary — they carried a knife!). The cover must have slowed them down.

Now we have padlocks on bikes, shed, kayak, etc. and I lock our doors when I’m at home alone and go to the backyard with our dog to hang clothes or work on the garden.

BTW, our dog (border collie mix) did not hear the intruders. She was indoors and music was playing, perhaps loudly?

Should we be armed? I’ve never shot anything. My family is debating this. My older son says we should be armed. Any thoughts anyone?

~Vegan
# Anonon 23 Apr 2008 at 10:53 am

NO NUKES !!!

“Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack.” ~ Dan Becker, director of Sierra Club’s global warming program.

~Vegan
# rogeron 23 Apr 2008 at 11:01 am

the nature of change:change is a very slow build up of many components and them there is an explosion of events sort of like a pregnancy 9 months to develop the fetus and them birth take place in a very short time (having lived 82 years i have seen a lot of quantitative accumulation and now the change is qualitative ,a negative one I must say,hope this makes sence to you
# jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:01 am

So, it looks like Dan Becker has worked as a member of Ralph Nader’s ‘Congress Watch’ on campaign finance, automotive safety, corporate responsibility and did various lobbying. Then he was a campaign coordinator, a lawyer as the ‘Legislative Counsel for Environmental Action’, then finally joined the Sierra Club. Huh. I don’t see anything in there about physics, engineering, or mathematics. Is there an argument there, or are you just parroting an insipid quote?

But, as in quack homeopathy, perhaps like cures like. Here’s a bit from one of the cofounders of Greenpeace, who incidentally supports nuclear energy.

“That’s why I left Greenpeace: I could see that my fellow directors, none of whom had any science education, were starting to deal with issues around chemicals and biology and genetics, which they had no formal training in, and they were taking the organization into what I call “pop environmentalism,” which uses sensationalism, misinformation, fear tactics, etc., to deal with people on an emotional level rather than an intellectual level.” - Patrick Moore.
# Greenpaon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:01 am

“Argue against nuclear power? I suppose you could, but until you went on a crusade of much greater magnitude against all fossil fuels first, not only would you be wrong, you’d be a logically inconsistent hypocrite to boot.”

Quite true. Which is exactly why I went off the grid - 100% - 30 some years ago.

Why

I’ve been intending for some time to write a full, long blog post about all the ins and outs of nuclear, similar to the one on switchgrass. From the standpoint of a biologist. Yes, the physics is simple. And the math. And I grew up in a house full of engineers, and one son became one.

Right at the moment, I’m tied up with other disasters; but check in; I will be writing about it one of these days. I’ll say this- the biologists have been miserably incoherent in making their points, so far.

It’s not the physics that’s the problem. It’s the biology.

(and, incidentally, my Chernobyl Chernobyl mantra recitation is totally logical. Just not in the direction you’re thinking of.)
# Kasaon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:31 am

I’m not going to get deeper into the nuclear argument if I can help it, though I think everyone is bringing up good points even if jase is actually the only one explaining his in detail.

I don’t like nuclear. Why? Because unlike a botched shot from an incompetent doctor, the consequences of a nuclear screw up are actually quite a bit higher. Exploding windmills aside, solar and wind power are frankly, pretty low risk.

That said.

We literally cannot make the equipment for these technologies and install them fast enough. We do not have the money or the capability - there is a two year waiting list for windmills right now, if I remember correctly. And if Sharon’s opinion is correct, we will certainly crash before we can retrofit our way of life. Now probably building a shit ton of nuclear plants isn’t going to be much faster, and lobbying for wind and solar farms instead of nuclear is a fantastic idea.

But shutting down currently open plants, and preventing any construction that is already planned (as stopping these plans aren’t going to lead to any comparable wind or solar plants anytime soon) is probably counterproductive at this point. At least for me, it’s a trade off I’m not willing to make when it comes to power to produce things we desperately need, like wind and solar infrastructure (not to mention powering hospitals, and making the fancy food buckets everyone wants to buy for food storage, etc).

But that’s just my opinion.

-Kathryn
# Meganon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:45 am

If it ever comes down to people needing to actually protect themselves and their things with guns from other people with guns, and suffering enough to become that violent … please just shoot me right off the bat. That world is too awful for me to want to continue in. You can have my stuff. :/

If that makes me a quitter, so be it. My life has been wonderful and as I simplify things it becomes MORE wonderful … and I’d rather it be cut short than taint it with that level of trauma, or to live among the leftovers of that level of behavior.

That said, I’m preparing for hard times in all ways but lethal protection of my things.

And chiming in on the nuclear debate, if we want there to be enough power for everyone, it needs to be considered. Solar is great and I wish it were enough. But I don’t think it will be. I’m on the fence, but it seems inevitable.
# jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:47 am

“Why? Because unlike a botched shot from an incompetent doctor, the consequences of a nuclear screw up are actually quite a bit higher.”

Here’s where the mathematics comes into play. Take a coal plant - it churns out ton after ton of pollution every day, including more radioactivity than any nuclear plant. Over time, this pollution will kill thousands of people and despoil hundreds of acres via acid rain, soot, etc.

While the absolute, utter worst case scenario for a nuclear plant - say, a direct hit by a sizable meteor (just a plane wouldn’t do it - you can fly a jet into the side of the containment vessel and have it shrugged off) would maybe - maybe - be worse than the effects of one month of coal-fired pollution, for instance, the chances of it are astronomically lower.

If you do the math, you’ll find that while a nuclear reactor has a moderate potential consequence times a very low probability times a short period of time, a coal plant has an equivalent consequence times a near certainty over a long period of time.

Moreover, solar and wind, while they do not have any risk of failure in and of themselves regarding the generating apparatus, the secondary effects do have negative consequences. Both solar and wind rely upon intermittent sources of energy - and efficiently storing energy for later release has always been the number two problem, right behind an optimal means of generating it in a usable form. True, a solar cell may not melt down (although neither will a modern nuclear plant.) But it may go through a stretch of cloudy days, or hail may damage it, and leave a hospital or pharmaceutical plant without power.

Not only are windmills and solar power plants not up to the immediate demands of a civilized economy, but the ‘waiting list’ for nuclear power plants is caused in huge part by the knee-jerk emotional Luddism of many environmentalists. See the previous point about how even the most ridiculous claims have to be addressed with multi-million dollar reports and studies, long after the design and site have been tested, confirmed, approved, and prepared.

Building nuclear plants may not be any faster than these other alternatives - that depends on how many windmills, for instance - but they will certainly provide more energy with a smaller footprint. You could take five years and install so many thousand windmills, or you could take five years and install a nuclear power plant that has ten times the electrical generating capacity of those windmills.

And holy hell, shutting down existing nuclear plants? I am literally shocked that is considered - by anyone - to be on the table still. Coal fired plants produce more pollution, despoil more environments, and kill more people than all of nuclear power put together. We need more safe, clean, and cheap electricity like nuclear energy - which I might add here, has been used as such by other countries for decades.
# Meganon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:58 am

Re-reading my last post makes me sad, because I realize I’m already living among the leftovers of that level of behavior in the world right now, just not right in front of my face. What if it came to MY front door? Why is that different from everyone else’s that are already living through it? I need to get back on Greenpa’s wagon.
# Harmonyon 23 Apr 2008 at 12:10 pm

Oh Jase,

Even though I can see you are completely sold on the idea that nuclear power is “THE ANSWER” I can’t help but comment.

It saddens me that you believe that when the time comes that we can no longer “safely” contain the huge amounts of radioactive waste we already have sitting around the problem is “moot, because civilization as we know it will already be gone”. Perhaps it is moot for you, as you may be dust, but you have no right to speak and decide for the generations to come.

You put too much belief in “fail safe”, it always is “fail safe” until something happens and then its “well we thought the chances of that happening were so small we didn’t put a plan in place.”

Lastly, you undercut any argument you had by insulting the intelligence of all who disagree with you. One doesn’t need to be a nuclear scientist to understand risks vs benefits of nuclear power. And, unlike you, I do not feel the health and welfare of future generations is a moot point. Shall we discuss the half life of the waste vs the “half life” of the storage containers?
# Ahavahon 23 Apr 2008 at 12:17 pm

You know, you mention “rising consumption of meat” right off the bat as a reason for the food crisis - but you neglect to mention that a huge percentage of meat products are being fed to pets, not to people. The pet industry has grown by leaps and bounds, and many people’s pets are eating better than some people’s children are. But I have yet to see anyone call for a moratorium on pet ownership - why is that?
# PostCarbon Rhode Island » Blog Archive » We regret to inform you….on 23 Apr 2008 at 12:44 pm

[…] Sharon Astyk, the farmer/writer/goddess behind the great blog Casaubon’s Book, offers another unflinching look at the mess we find ourselves in, and the world’s poor (but not only the poor in many cases) as the canaries in the coal mine. Gotta love the first comment: “On the bright side, my tomato starts are coming up.” Essential reading. […]
# Jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 12:44 pm

Harmony - first of all, I never mentioned the ‘moot’ argument in relation to the nuclear waste repositories. It was specifically in connection with the plants themselves. Second, the ‘huge’ amounts of radioactive waste are not all that huge - 20 tons of compact waste per reactor per year, from what I’ve heard, compared to many tens or hundreds of times that per plant from coal fired - and in that case, far from being into the soil or even groundwater, the radioactive and regular pollutants from fossil fuels are dispersed directly into the atmosphere. The point actually being made was twofold - first, that even in the case of power plants crumbling due to lack of infrastructure, the sort of doomsday scenario envisioned by some won’t happen. And second, that if civilization is beset by such a calamity, then worrying about the proper maintenance will be about as important as checking whether or not you have your insurance card in the glovebox as the bridge you’re on plummets into a river.

Regarding your second point, see my previous arguments about statistics. Nothing is ever absolutely certain - condensation from the ceiling vents could drip onto my keyboard, short it out, and electrocute me. Even just sitting in a chair, your heart could randomly give out, or you could have a grand mal seizure. The odds of those happening, however, are all astronomically low. So too are the odds of modern plants failing into a dangerous configuration. And the scenario you describe, of ‘oops we missed that because the odds were small’ is a straw man - Chernobyl was a failure by incompetent design, and Three Mile Island actually went pretty much as designed. The total radiation released was… about three years of normal background for even those close to the plant.

But more specifically, even assuming your argument is correct - ‘the odds were small so they weren’t considered’, that doesn’t make it support your position. Every time you get onto a bicycle or into a car, there’s a small chance that you could get into a possibly fatal accident. It’s a small chance, a very small chance though, which is why we keep riding bikes or cars - the benefits outweigh the risks time the odds. Same here. If you’re playing a game where you have a 99.999% chance of winning double your bet, and a 0.001% chance of losing half of your bankroll, do you take one bad spin and cry out that it’s all pointless? No, of course not.

For your last point, twofold - I am not insulting anyone’s intelligence here. Ignorance is not the same thing as intelligence, or a lack thereof. If I rail against candidate X for supporting Y, and then someone calls me ignorant and wrong because X really opposes Y, they are not calling me unintelligent. They are simply pointing out that I did not consider all the facts in existence. Ignorant is a lack of knowledge and is, if anything, a failure of those who seek to disseminate that knowledge. Willful ignorance, ignoring the facts, is a different manner, but I have given the benefit of the doubt here in that case.

Second - even if the point were to be conceded (which, as above, it has not) any ad hominem arguments would have no impact on the rest of the argument. If I were to say that “A implies B, B implies C, thus A implies C, you are an idiot who has bad taste in music”, my argument that A implies C would still be perfectly valid.

And I am sorry if you take offense from this, but given your seemingly knee-jerk reaction to nuclear power, you do not seem to be understanding the benefits and risks. As evidence of that, you make no mention of the benefits, ignore the solutions to the risks - the studies done by reputable scientists on modern designs, not to mention the plethora of disposal plans and options that do in fact deal with the waste given off by nuclear reactors - waste which, incidentally, would be reduced if nuclear power was expanded and more modern plants built.

Finally, you yourself are setting up straw men to launch ad hominem attacks - the very fact the I care so much for future generations is why I advocate nuclear power. Without it we will be, and indeed have been, polluting the planet further for the forseeable future. With it, however, we will have - again - safe, clean, and cheap electricity to support modern society and all of its benefits.

(Research the various types of modern reactors, specifically breeder reactors, as well as the array of current sequestration and reprocessing options, to see how your concerns about the waste disposal are misplaced.)
# etbncon 23 Apr 2008 at 12:53 pm

To me this post really conveys the essence of this blog’s subtitle: “Ruminations on an Ambiguous Future”.

I see a number of good insights and good thoughts here. I don’t have time to comment as thoroughly as I’d like, but I do want to affirm the connection I see between Sharon’s post and Lisa Z’s response.

I’ve been known to say that, “If the state of the world doesn’t scare the hell outta ya, ya don’t really get it. But panic is not a healthy state of mind to do anything about it.”

Having a clear-eyed view of what’s happening around us, accepting that bad news, and somehow integrating that news into a positive vision of the future seems to me a healthy, sane approach to living in this world.

Thanks y’all
# Taraon 23 Apr 2008 at 12:58 pm

Megan, I feel the same way you do. My husband is taking steps to arm us even more than we were before, which I’m opposed to (and which makes for some interesting debates around the hosue), but I also generally agree with Greenpa’s point. I am personally in the midst of trying to reconcile these two positions, as it sounds like you are, and I must admit it’s difficult. I hope you are able to work it out in a way that you’re comfortable with.

Along these same lines, I would also like to suggest that now, more than ever, is the time to get to know people. This is something that younger generations like mine have blown off in favor of our fenced-in, insulated, no face-to-face contact lives. My husband and I have recently begun learning how beneficial it can be to cultivate real relationships with as many people as possible. We’ve met and gotten to know people whose skills and knowledge are invaluable to us, and often ours are to them.

I believe that this is how we will ultimately survive. The more we really know other people, the more we can pool our skills, knowledge and abilities for the greater good. Plus, while I can’t account for what people might do in a time of crisis, I have to believe that if you know your neighbors well and have a history of working with them rather than against them, it can’t help but slow the rise of violence at least a bit. Don’t wait. Get to know people personally (not online). Find out what they know. SHARE what you know. Help each other out. It’s already paying off in spades for us.
# Boysmomon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:07 pm

Maybe it’s just the nature of some of the other sites I frequent, but this looks like slow collapse to me! Fast collapse would be, say, EMP taking down the power grid completely, for example. Life as we know it gone within a matter of a couple days or hours.
To me, this is slow. There’s enough time to convince people to plant a few jerusalem artichokes in their gardens this summer. There’s still enough time for folks who are medicine-dependent to realize there’s a problem and learn what herbs can be substituted or perhaps stock up on their particular medicine or make the lifestyle changes that would keep them from having to take medicines at all. There’s still bikes in the store, and folks can still buy one. There’s time to chop wood and get that old woodstove hauled back in from the shed and set up before winter.
Jase, are you really trying to say that an incompetent or fanatic, or simple lack of maitainance can’t take down a nuclear plant? It’s well worth remembering that the nuclear plant accidents we have had were caused by people doing stupid stuff. What happens if the nuclear maintanance guys decide they’d rather go grow food so they can eat than keep the power plant up and running? Electricity’s not the only problem, after all, fuel for transportation is, too. I don’t think anyone here is advocating more coal-burning plants, but I do think we should think about decommissioning the nuclear plants we have and the best, fast, safe way to do so if need be (and maybe post the instructions in large type by the front doors): I’ve seen somewhere recently that within seven to fifteen years of no/insufficient maintanance they would start having issues. No, I don’t have a cite. They’d still be doing better than the average car at that rate, though.
Megan, most of the world is already that way. Just we privilaged first-worlders haven’t had to deal with it recently. The bad guys may want your stuff, or maybe they’ll just want you. Personally, I’d rather shoot the aspiring rapist/torturer, but then I have children, and judging from the first hand accounts of civil wars/revolutions I’ve heard, the monsters don’t get any nicer with time, so I look at that possibility as not just protecting my kids, but protecting everyone else’s kids. Maybe they just want your stuff this time, but is it worth risking if you can stop them before they go further?
# Aaronon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:16 pm

The quickest way to solve the global food crisis is for those in the first-world economies to significantly reduce their egg, dairy and meat consumption. There is enough grain to go around for six and a half billion people - but if several billion of those people take seven pounds of grain and produce one pound of meat, then there isn’t enough to go around.

Will a person in the first-world give up meat so someone on the other side of the planet can eat? Not likely.

Hoarding by grain-exporting countries, pillaging of third-world cities, followed by the breakdown of the global supply chain is the likely scenario. Peak oil won’t be necessary for the fall - simple fear and greed in the face of an easily-remedied food shortage will do the trick.
# Meganon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:16 pm

Tara,

You hit it right on the nose! I’m already doing just that. I love my neighbors. LOVE them. We all help each other out and freely share our tools, lend things, help fix cars, and keep an eye on each other. I live in one of the most active neighborhoods in my town as far as community awareness and such, in a really great town. I think that is why I said what I did. If MY area is resorting to guns and violence, it’s really the end of all things. Living to see harm come to my neighbors or my community would be so devastating to me, I just can’t imagine it and don’t want to. I’d rather be the first to go. Cowardly? Probably.
# Greenpaon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:19 pm

One more peep on the nuclear thing, then out, for me.

The major mistake all engineers make is “no, that wasn’t an engineering problem- it was human incompetence.”

Yes? Your building still fell down. Because one of the design parameters didn’t fit the real world. WHICH INCLUDES INCOMPETENT HUMANS - always.

Are you telling me Chernobyl was the last time anyone will do anything incompetent?

For very specific example: US Navy- screwed up

This story- where the regular inspections of a nuclear reactor on board a sub were- NOT DONE- for months- then records were FAKED - then covered up- then the cover up covered up - did not hit the news really big. But if the US Navy can’t run reactors right- just how eager are we to have civilians in Serbia- etc- running them? For hundreds of years?

It’s not the physics - it’s the humans.
And breeders make plutonium. I know some folks in Pakistan who would love to have it more available.
# Lisa Zon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:19 pm

Love your comment about getting to know your neighbors, Tara. Part of me would love to move to my own 5 acres, but most of me is happy to stay put in my wonderful neighborhood in my small city surrounded by farmland here in Central MN. I think we have the best world! (Though I would love the quiet of country life, I think…)

In our neighborhood, particularly in the few blocks around us, we all know each other by name. We get together regularly for parties, most impromptu like backyard fire evenings, but some are planned and happen annually (4th of July, Fall Potluck, Holiday Progressive Dinner, etc.). We moved into this neighborhood four years ago, and to our amazement these things have been happening here for years. We felt like we’d moved back to “Leave It To Beaver” land! And we thought we were buying the house because we liked the house. Ha! It’s the neighborhood that is the real value.

Other things we do…We informally share ladders and tools and cooking tips. Some neighbors have even had cooking parties in which the hosts demonstrate a favorite family recipe (pizza on the grill, pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins, to name a couple) and the guests make their own. And then everyone eats! One generous neighbor has the “block pick-up truck” that we are all free to borrow. We usually give him a 6-pack of beer after using it for hauling garden stuff or whatever, but he doesn’t care either way. My DH who grew up on a small apple orchard voluntarily prunes neighbors’ trees when they need it. Others watch the kids, or brew the beer or roast the coffee beans, or whatever. None of these things is required here; they just happen because it’s the way it is, the “spirit of the place” as it were.

It truly is remarkable here, and it gives me hope that if our community exists like this, there are others out there and THIS CAN HAPPEN ALL OVER AGAIN! (Sorry to shout–mainly just for emphasis.)

As for a gun, I don’t think you’ll find me with one. Like Megan, I’d rather you just shoot me. However, thinking of my kids…I don’t know what I’d do if they were threatened. I’ll have to keep thinking on it.

Peace, Lisa Z (BTW, I love all these comments today!)
# Jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:25 pm

Not entirely, no - the studies have shown that a jetliner couldn’t bust open a containment building, but I will concede that a group of fanatics could somehow fight their way inside, smash everything, and cause a meltdown.

Or they could just fly planes into buildings. That’s both more likely by many, many orders of magnitude and more damaging.

Also, no - the accidents we have haven’t been the result of people doing stupid things. Chernobyl was caused by the fact that the reactor design was - as known even then - almost ludicrously incompetent. It was practically designed to melt down. And Three Mile Island was an accident in a pneumatic line… that ended up with no loss of life or injury. If you’re referring to criticality accidents, well, yes, some people have done incredibly stupid things there. But people doing stupid things is nothing new - farmers get crushed thawing silos or poisoned by fertilizer, people walk into open elevator shafts. It’s part of life.

Again, why on earth would anyone think of decommissioning nuclear reactors? They work. They are currently in operation. They are cheap, clean and safe. We need such electricity now more than ever.

As for maintenance, what are these ‘issues’ you refer to? Without that it’s meaningless. Moreover, New York City would flood and start to literally fall apart on the same timespan without maintenance, with assuredly more drastic consequences, so you need much more context.
# Jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:32 pm

Greenpa - Your fire burned out of control and torched a forest! It was obviously defective in design, thus we must ban all fire! I mean, gosh - pointy sticks could hurt someone, they could fall on them or throw them at people. Better ban those too…

See any point previously made on the benefits versus costs, taking into account timeframes and probabilities.

First - unless you have data otherwise, it appears that there was no danger present. Second, holding up ‘Serbia’ as an example is ridiculous. You might as well look at (again) fire and say, “Well, if we give a flaming torch to a two-year old something bad might happen, so we better not.” It’s an illogical straw man.

And lastly, nuclear proliferation is one of the biggest straw men of them all. First, there are enough nuclear weapons floating around from the Soviet breakup that it’s not a new concern. Second, it takes a hell of a lot more to build a supercritical bomb than just a hunk of metal. You’d get more bang out of conventional bombing techniques or bioweapons. And lastly, MOX fuel and fast neutron reactors *do* reuse plutonium. Breeder reactors are just one link in the fuel cycle chain.
# Taraon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:32 pm

Bear in mind, too, that getting to know people doesn’t have to be limited to those in your neighborhood! Just in the last six or eight months, we’ve cultivated many worthwhile relationships with people that are some distance away - some as much as 50 or 60 miles. Don’t be afraid to get more personal with people you think you’ll never see again - that person you bought something from on craigslist, for example, maybe be a wealth of knowledge. Or, you may have something they need. We’re finding that as we seek out resources for gardening, raising livestock, sourcing local food, making veggie oil fuel, etc., we meet people circumstantially that it pays to stay in touch with!
# Lisaon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:35 pm

So I went up to help my mom and sister at Sam’s club today—I really hate that place but that’s another issue. Anyway, the Sam’s club in Hickory, Nc is limiting customers to 4 units of bulk rice—Units were in 20lb or more. Thought it interesting.
# Greenpaon 23 Apr 2008 at 1:38 pm

Lisa Z - “As for a gun, I don’t think you’ll find me with one. Like Megan, I’d rather you just shoot me. However, thinking of my kids…I don’t know what I’d do if they were threatened. ”

Yep, that’s the problem. Two things-

I totally agree about neighbors. They’re critical, and will save your butt.

They also, inevitably, plug you into the wider community- they know, and blather with, people you don’t. Hence, news spreads.

It can be VERY useful for the local community to know you have good weapons. It will slow down the scum, a little.

And it WAS, as it turned out, “neighbors” who stole our pickup after the flood last fall. Not ALL of them are your buddies!

Might have helped if more people in the local area thought we were cranky and ready to shoot.

This stuff is not fun. But think of the kids. Talk to your family.
# Brian M.on 23 Apr 2008 at 2:01 pm

Practical solutions have to take into account human beliefs, even irrational human beliefs.
Americans are not going to give up meat, egg, and dairy quickly. It is too engrained in our culture. You can slowly chip away at the culture and bring more and more people over to the vegetarian or low-consumption side. But there is not the political will, unity, or agreement to change things quickly. It may be that Americans will not be able to afford much meat, egg, and dairy, and will have to do without whether they want it or not, as Cuba found involuntary vegetarianism in the 90s. But that is likely to make them status symbols and symbols of better times, and to increase longing for them. Trying to convince people to voluntarily reduce consumption of meat and dairy, or prepare them for involuntary shortages is sane, making plans that start “if all Americans just gave up meat and dairy…” is not. It is wishful thinking rather than planning.

The same is true of nuclear power. Too many Americans oppose it, whether for good reasons or bad reasons is irrelevant, there is simply not the political will to create a massive nuclear power plant building program in the US any time soon. Americans are more familiar with the downsides of nuclear power than the downsides of not having as much electricity as they’d like. We can argue which of these is worse, (certainly I’d rather like on a Amish farm lacking electricity than in the Chernobyl zone of exclusion, but that’s me) but that doesn’t change the fact that America does not have the political will to create a large scale nuclear program at this time. And it doesn’t even look like we are close to enough political will for that to me. “If America just began building nuclear power plants as quickly as possible” … is not planning, it is wishful thinking. “If our accounting rules were changed so that people bore the real environmental consequences of their choices on their balance sheets …” then things would be much better in many subtle ways, but we aren’t close to that either. “If (insert your favorite highly unlikely solution), then (things would be much better)” is often true, even though it is also irrelevant, and distracting from genuine pragmatic planning for coping with problems. It is worth occasionally mentioning these longshot possibilities in case they become plausible someday, and we can debate their merits if they ever become likely enough to worry about, but too much emphasis on them is usually a distraction. Or at least that’s how it seems to me.
-Brian M.
# Shandyon 23 Apr 2008 at 2:35 pm

The community-building aspect of the future is an interesting conundrum to me. It seems like a good idea, and yet what I know about my neighbors doesn’t make me want to endear myself to them in any way. I live in a very mixed neighborhood that is partially gentrified, with an odd combination of garden-growin’ treehuggers and SUV-lovin’, high-life-livin’ consumerists. If they have to be part of my own personal Monkeysphere, I’m not sure what to think about that with regard to the future. Perhaps the best I can do is keep on trying to lead an environmentally responsible life in some meager way and engage in a little viral social change. Inspiring a neighborhood seems like a safer security option than arming myself against a mass of people I can’t hope to overcome no matter how many bullets I buy. There is always someone bigger and stronger and more weaponriffic than you are. Spending the rest of my life in some kind of bunkerhunker? No, don’t think so.

Jase, I happen to agree with your analysis regarding nuclear power, although I’d like to see it used in combination with multiple energy-producing technologies that take personal homes off the grid and encourage reduced power use overall. We waste energy because it’s easy to do so. If every household was responsible for producing the power it used, I think that would bring about some much-needed lifestyle changes. Large-scale power produced by nuclear plants could be focused on essential services, mass transportation and the like, which require a far greater energy input than can currently be provided by other technologies.

And you know, Jase, I’d swear that you and I know each other. The anonymity of the net and all of that, but if you were a maker of a certain beverage moving to a certain state that came to a certain couple’s holiday party and partook mightily of a cheese board, well, then we do. And if you’re not, then . . . I guess we don’t!
# Marinus Berghuison 23 Apr 2008 at 2:37 pm

The biggest trouble in our world is our system of education. For the last 25 years we have forced our young to regard work as an evil to be avoided at all cost (robots) hence practical thinking has vanished. Also the thousands of unnecessary law obligations to suit an extreme minority has dumbed down populations to the point where individual responsibility has all but been forgotten.(sue everyone in favor of self)
Climate change or not, the decisions made by the mega rich to get control of yet more money for no other reason than the THRILL OF THE KILL, lost sight of the fact that nature abhors force.
Man is a lazy animal and for thousand of years has striven to make anyone else a slave so they can live without work.
The endless wars creating weapons so one can kill from a distance without being seen are devoting more resources to death than to life and no one that I know of is opposing this.
Note the success of Hillary Clinton after telling everyone she will obliterate Iran if …….)
It is obvious that the collective death wish is in play here. (if you have to die,why not have some fun killing others before their time)
This is true for the individual as well as a collection of individuals called a nation.
In the final analysis we are all dancing to the moods of King SOL the all seeing eye.When it gets tired of all the needles slaughter, it heats up a little and most of us will die so have fun killing your neighbour for a mouthful of food.

Ren Berghuis
# Jaseon 23 Apr 2008 at 2:41 pm

First of all, dismissing something by saying that for ‘good reasons or bad reasons’ people don’t like it is ridiculous. Would you react the same way if a majority of Americans had shrugged at conservation and left the lights on, the faucet running, and all bought Hummers? The goodness or badness of the reasons is irrelevant, eh?

There’s a distinct difference, too, between longshot possibility as in ‘one in a million chance’, and longshot possibility as in ‘this will absolutely work if we do it, but nobody will want to.’ Nuclear power is the solution. It is plausible, deployable, economical, ecologically sound, and effective today, right now.

Thus the very first thing I said about calling the elected officials, writing them to support nuclear power. Dismissing it because a contingent of ignorant people - as you yourself called them in so many words, saying that they aren’t familiar with the fundamental facts of the issue - doesn’t like it for flawed, emotional and sensationalistic grounds is a Pyrrhic triumph of irrationality and cowardice over any hope for a better tomorrow.
# Dr. Richardon 23 Apr 2008 at 2:41 pm

I spoke with one of the managers in the Leesburg VA Costco this afternoon. The Costco stores in Virginia are now rationing rice but have not started rationing flour, cooking oil, or other foods yet. Our store had four pallets of 50 lb and 25 lb bags of rice that were about 1/3 to 1/2 full.
# Shandyon 23 Apr 2008 at 3:09 pm

But is that rationing because they don’t have rice and don’t foresee getting any more, or because people are panicking and buying rice because they think there’s a panic? Everyone wants to get theirs, you know? Heaven forfend that anyone in this country is ever told they can’t have something! I live in hurricane country and you should see what people will buy when the media ramps up and starts freaking people out. Every time, I pity the store managers that have to deal with the crazy-eyed, shrieking animals that, at any other time, would be perfectly normal customers. What do you mean I can’t buy Spam????

Four pallets of such huge bags of rice! How long would that have sat in your Costco unsold if there had never been a vague article in some obscure newspaper saying that someone else said a store in their area was rationing, and that story got sent zinging around the InterTubes? Just wondering.
# AppleJackCreekon 23 Apr 2008 at 3:29 pm

I found this today … a top headline on the CBC news site (that’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/23/worldvision-cut.html

Quote:
World Vision says soaring food costs will force it to cut 1.5 million people from the roster of 7.5 million it fed last year, one-third of them children who rely on the organization’s aid to survive.

The rising cost of oil and fertilizer, more fields being used to produce corn for ethanol, drought in Australia and changing food consumption patterns have all contributed to the current crisis, Toycen said.
# Food and Energy Trouble (4/23/2008) « Duluth Energy Realityon 23 Apr 2008 at 3:39 pm

[…] Sharon Astyk: It’s Official, We Are Now in a Fast Crash Scenario http://sharonastyk.com/2008/04/22/we-regret-to-inform-you/ […]
# BoysMomon 23 Apr 2008 at 3:54 pm

Yes, Chernobyl had design issues, but wasn’t it a human pulling out the things that dampened the reaction that was the direct cause of the meltdown? It’s been about twelve years since I was studying up on Chernobyl, and it’s not data I use daily, but that’s my recollection.

It’s not that I couldn’t start a forest fire with a match, it’s that the forest fire can’t possibly release the same sort of contamination, effecting the same sort of area with the same sort of long term effects. When a forest fire burns out, that’s it, stuff starts growing again as soon as it rains. Radiation lingers a long time.

You compare to New York in terms of maintanance, what makes you think NYC will exist in its present form ten years from now? As fuel prices climb, it is more expensive to deliver food to the city. It is also more expensive to produce the food–not only fertilizers and pesticides, but tractor fuel, airplane fuel, etc. Seed for most farms is delivered from elsewhere. People will leave the city, in hopes that there will be food elsewhere.
Nuclear power plants will not and cannot replace the fuel infrastructure. Maybe if we’d built them back in the sixties and gone for electric transportation, but it’s a little late now. We don’t have the infrastructure for electricly powered transportation, and we don’t have the time to build it.
Why would one think about how to shut the power plants down? They are all getting older. Things that are older are more prone to mechanical failure. We had an electrical outage due to a transformer failure last winter–power was out for a day while the power company brought in a new transformer from wherever they keep them at. What if you have a part go bad in a power plant, any part, and there’s no fuel for the truck to bring in the replacement part from where it happens to be? Eventually you’ll go through whatever spares are locally stored, after all, given enough time. Or what if the storage space has been looted and the spare part damaged? If the plant’s partially or completely computerized, you do know the lifespan of a hard drive, right? And all the other computer components? We’re not talking decades, here. (How EMP hardened are nuclear power plants, anyway?)

Why should the information on how to shut it down be widely diseminated among the populations near the plant or placed prominently in the plant? Because if we have any pandemic or epidemic, we could very easily loose the people who right now have this information stored in their brains (or even if the guy who knows how happens to be insulin dependent or warfarin dependent or what-have-you and the shipment is a few days too late). I don’t think it’s as simple as pushing an ‘off’ button, though if it is then we should certainly tell people. If there’s no food delivered to the area around the plant, and it’s not growing enough to sustain its population, then the folks who work there will leave.
I think you’re thinking that with sufficient nuclear power life as we currently experience it in the US will continue. And there’s a point at which it perhaps could have done so. Those of us who would consider turning off the nuclear plants are simply those who think we have passed that point in time, that it is just too late, that the combination of other factors–petroleum, wheat blight, economics, political machinations, the list is just about endless–has taken us too far down another path, and that there are no longer the resources to go back and choose a different road. (And of course those who think that nuclear is too dangerous a power to have in human hands in the first place favor closing the plants.)
# Susanon 23 Apr 2008 at 3:57 pm

People are so scared they are talking seriously about nuclear power and violence! I’m scared too; but I wish to point out that there are so many things we don’t need, that doing without these needless things would be enough to greatly soften the “collapse.” Some examples: When I was a child there was very little air conditioning, a huge energy drain. We were used to it –no problem. The Amish live without electricity or fossil fuels and I’m sure many enjoy life. Our current way of life is just not necessary. Before the industrial revolution people lived full, interesting and reasonably well fed lives. Better fed, indeed than many of our obese but malnourished Americans today.
The problem is not technical, but cultural. We can create a culture that is cooperative, practical and enjoyable. People are so afraid of losing hospitals and medicines. Keep in mind that both of these kill as well as cure. My mom died of a superbug caught in a hospital. We all must surrender to death eventually. It’s more important that children don’t starve than that we have plenty of CAT scans happening (which can cause cancer from the radiation). A cultural choice: (See if you feel shocked by this simple thing.) We can grow poppies and make tea to ease the worst of what disease brings, so fear not. There is also the rest of the huge natural pharmacy in herbal knowledge. Most of the diseases treated “industrially” are preventable: diabetes, cancer, heart disease. We stopped hearing about carcinogens about 20 years ago because they are impossible to avoid in normal modern life.
We are confronting a time of cultural and, for some, physical death and rebirth. This cycle is a normal part of life, in small and large ways. If you’ve ever been “mortified” (embarrassed) by something you did or said (we all have), finding yourself wrong in some way, you have experienced a little death and rebirth. Everyone wonders what can they do? The answer is: There is so much to learn and do! Stockpiling and gardening are good. But for what purpose ultimately? To survive just a little bit longer? Yes, in order to build new skills and knowledge to share. Our strong, brave young people are dying in a stupid war because they need jobs, a sense of belonging, structure, challenge, and meaning –something to live and die for. Let’s give them something else to believe in, to work on, to belong to, to live and die for!
As a species, we may perish from global warming. If so, so be it. Surrender in embracing reality is a beautiful, dignified choice. One thing for sure, linked as we are right now, we are confronting crisis as one world, as a species in its entirety. This is new. We are like someone headed for rock bottom in some kind of negativity. I hope and trust that, as a species, we will do the classic 180 degree flip into positivity –a cultural golden age. Yes, much will die. That’s utterly inevitable at this point, even desireable in some aspects. However, what will live? What do we love the most? Let’s stockpile that.
# BoysMomon 23 Apr 2008 at 4:00 pm

Shandy, not just obscure–I’ve seen articles about it on CNN, FOX, and the WSJ.
I do think people are buying who normally wouldn’t just because they saw it on the news. I hope some of my relatives are, anyway. I normally buy in those big sizes, but then I come from blizzard country, and a lot of folks do that round these parts. No Costco here, either, though.
# Lisaon 23 Apr 2008 at 4:11 pm

Shandy and BoysMom, there didn’t seem to be a lot of folks trying to get to the rice, more folks walking by with perplexed expressions and asking what’s up with the rice? As I looked around me at the checkout most folks were buying things like disposable plates, cups, chips, and toilet paper. Oh, candy, lots of box mixes, etc. Shopping seemed down thru out that town and the malls had much fewer visitors then comparable days.
# Guy Fox in Key Weston 23 Apr 2008 at 4:12 pm

WHERE THERE IS NO INSIGHT, THE PEOPLE PERISH!

There are simply too many humans trying to survive on a planet of limited space and limited resources. Praying to the almighty male sky-god man in the dictatorship of heaven will NOT save us from being more clever than wise. Our very survival will depend on abandoning dogma and tribe-all-ego arrogance… and replace these vectors of ignorance and fear with common sense.
# Shandyon 23 Apr 2008 at 4:26 pm

BoysMom, I hear you; I’ve seen the articles, too. But it you trace them back, they all have the same root in one short article in something called the New York Sun. That’s exactly what I’m talking about; the internet has an amazing power to take one thing and balloon it to an amazing level through nothing more than the power of repetition. If everyone is saying it, it must be a big deal.

But there is eye-witness Lisa seeing people wondering what the heck the big deal is. Which has to make you wonder if, as far as this moment in time goes, it really is a big deal in a country where people are not, in fact, living on a bowl of rice a day.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, except to say that I tend to be cautious when the media get excited about something. I had an interesting conversation in Northern Ireland once about “riots” and our perception of what Americans thought Northern Ireland was like. A very perceptive Belfast man pointed out a simple truth–if you fill your camera frame with the faces of six unruly protesters, it looks like a LOT of protesters. See, they’re everywhere (in this frame). Belfast is full of rioters! But is it? Not so much. I guess I’m saying I’m prepared to be prepared, but I’m not prepared to freak out just because CNN has hit it’s daily doom button.
# Shandyon 23 Apr 2008 at 4:28 pm

Its! Its daily doom button! Ugh, I’ve committed one of my own pet peeves! How embarrassing.
# drilleron 23 Apr 2008 at 5:08 pm

I wonder if human beings don’t learn to consider sustainability in their behaviour but the hard way - after the catastrophe.

In fact there seems to be sort of a castastrophe-prevention dilemma, that prevents a more intelligent way action.

A well known example is Katrina vs. New Orleans: It was well known in detail that the city was threatened and what to do about it. And this was also several times on the media.
But building dams etc. was considered “too expensive” so the projects stayed on the waiting file - until Katrina came.

Another example is the water problem in Mexico - closely linked to the present food problems. Some 17 years ago I did some groundwater research in the Guanajuato basin and I was quite surprised to find that in the basin’s center each year the water table was about one(?) meter lower. This was due to overproduction, as agriculture, industry and people consumed more water than was fed back by rainwater.
The water authorities already knew about the issue, but other experts obviously didn’t as they still were puzzled about the area’s “strange” hydrogeology.
Furthermore big parts of the groundwater and surface water was highly contaminated. Everybody seemed to know about it, but this was taken for granted.
A few years later I heard that the authorities were creating a commission (with a nice long name) in order to

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