Peak Oil WTF??

If you have never heard the term, I have some new links and reading suggestions that might help to clear up the confusion.  Peak Oil is old news - it's behind us, we can see it in the rear view mirror now (2005) -  and that raises some serious questions about our way forward with this industrial society we have created.

Robert Hirsch explains in an interview:

The peak oil story is definitely a bad news story. There’s just no way to sugar-coat it, other than maybe to do what I’ve done on occasion and that is to say that by 2050 we’ll have it right and we will have come through the peak oil recession—quite probably a very deep recession. At some point we’ll come out of this because we’re human beings, and we just don’t give up. And I have faith in people ultimately. But it’s a bad news story and anybody’s who’s going to stand up and talk about the bad news story and is in a position of responsibility in the government needs to then follow immediately and say “here’s what we’re going to do about it,” and no one seems prepared to do that.

Peak oil is a bigger issue than health care, than federal budget deficits, and so forth. We’re talking about something that, to take a middle of the road position—not the Armageddon extreme and not the la-la optimism of some people—is going to be extremely damaging to the U.S. and world economies for a very long period of time. There are no quick fixes.

He further goes on to explain the ramifications.

"There are no quick fixes for something like this..."

His concern was that it would be sooner, rather than later as a soft landing would require 20 years to transition towards. Seems like we don't get that 20 years, so fasten your seat belts, put your tray in the upright position, and secure your oxygen mask before helping others. And plant a seed, or three.

Occupy your Garden

The last few months have seen the emergence of the expected reaction to what has been created in our society over the last 150 years.   The Occupy phenomenon has captured the attention of the world, and resonated across all sectors of our global society.  The underlying plea seems to cry out "We want a different world!" and those with the most skin in the game, the young, are the first to raise the cry and rightly so. 

As I look deeper, I can see the many threads that weave the tapestry of this emergent frustration, the economic justice thread being thematic, but also the threads of dignified work, food security, planetary stewardship and the realization that relying on a system based on trading digital chits which often represent a vicious plundering is no longer possible as we reach the limits to growth.


We have reached the limits of this current game and it is time to start a new one with new rules.  "A world that works for everybody, a sacred world, a world of peace."    

Starting the new game requires re-thinking the underlying premises of the current game and facing the realities of the future boldly, with no denial.  There are a few points which can inform me as I move forward into the new game: 

1. Limits to Economic Growth
2. Peak Oil
3. Need for a Suburban Transition
4. Climate Disruption

I can leave the big picture studies and projections to the professional academics.  My concern here is how do I work this on a personal level, at the level of a suburban household outside of the large metropolis of Los Angeles.  How do I teach my children and friends the reasons why we need to change, and the steps we can take toward a better, or at least survivable future? This blog will hopefully answer part of that question, my garden and life will answer the rest.

As just a single individual, a small man with my small suburban home, I can only work my own corner, I can only Occupy my own garden and be content with being a small cell in the vast body of ongoing change.  But work here I can, and the new areas of this blog will hopefully teach as well as encourage.   Compost, Soil, Gardens and Seed, Reusing, Reducing, and Recycling are my areas of interest.  Reducing my reliance on the corporate system, living lightly on the planet, improving my mind and soul as I retreat from the consumer culture, making the effort in spite of the setbacks and my own ignorance, these are the steps I feel necessary to nudge along my society into a new form.  

It is so overwhelming at times, facing the behemoth of modern industrial civilization, this global edifice that is eco-suicidal and even now beginning to tremble towards its' inevitable collapse.

But moving away from this is as simple as planting a seed.  Planting a seed is the first step on this journey of a thousand miles.  

 I thank every one of the young and old who pitched a tent and Occupied a town, I thank you for overcoming the inertia and allowing Change to be seen now as not only possible, but inevitable.