My Respects to Miss Pollyanna

“Betwixt the optimist and pessimist the difference is droll; the optimist the doughnut sees, the pessimist the hole.”

“The pessimist sees the glass as half empty, the optimist sees it as half full.”

Those are the definitions of optimism and pessimism I hear bandied about most often. And if you define optimists and pessimists that way, optimism looks like the superior option. The only problem is, neither definition is true. Optimism and pessimism aren’t about the ability to appreciate what you have, but about an expectation of where you are headed.

So if seeing the glass half full isn’t optimism, what is it? I nominate the term ‘Pollyannaism.’ If you’re not familiar with Eleanor Porter's story, Pollyanna was a young orphan who played ‘the glad game.’ She not only found something to be glad of in every circumstance, but she saw beyond human failings and brought out the best in people. We have come to use the term “Pollyanna” as a negative: “an excessively or blindly optimistic person; also unreasonably or illogically optimistic: some pollyanna notions about world peace,” but Miss Polly deserves better, and so do we -- the world needs more people like her. Moreover, one can be a pessimist and still be a Pollyanna.

So I’m going to rewrite our lexicon. A Pollyanna is a person who sees the doughnut, not the hole. An optimist is one who thinks that despite all evidence to the contrary, everything will work out just fine. And a pessimist is one who believes that even though things appear to be going well, sh*t is bound to hit the fan. I try to be a realist – one who looks at where we are now, what we are doing, and where that is likely to take us. There are times when I come to the conclusion that everything will work out just fine, and there are times when it appears shit is going to hit the fan. But either way, I hope to take lessons from Pollyanna and appreciate what I have while I have it.

Good Reads

Some good reads well worth the time:

An article on the Transition Initiative in the US which includes an intro to Peak Oil and opinions from several different sources. One of the best articles on the subject that I've read to date.

Sharon Astyk's ruminations on 'where we live' -- the global markets we rely upon and the consequences of long-distance living.

James Kunstler, in his weekly address "Clusterfuck Nation," explains with his typical acerbic wit why we the economy cannot return to 'normal.' We've been borrowing from tomorrow and tomorrow is finally here:

The US economic situation is going to get a lot worse. Many more people are going to lose incomes and chattels and will suffer, and the moment will arrive when they will direct their anger outward. They need to be told two things: that the borrowed-against future is now here, requiring very different behavior; and that those who received lavish payment for looting the American future unlawfully will be subject to due process of law. So far, nobody has even been fired, let alone officially investigated.

And a plug for Greg Craven's book, What's the Worst That Could Happen?, available now for pre-order! What makes Greg's book different from all others out there is that Greg doesn't try to tell you what to think. His book is about looking at the debate on global climate change from the perspective of risk management, and he offers guidelines on how to evaluate for yourself the information that bombards us from every angle. Plus, Greg is funny.:D He has written an easy-to-read alternative to the academic tomes that weigh down the bookstore shelves. Buy a copy for yourself and one for a friend! (Or buy one to donate to your local library . . . !)

Newsreel, June 2009

Some interesting stuff in the news these days.

The US Global Change Research Program has presented to Congress and the American President a 190 page paper entitled ‘Global Climate Change Impacts in The United States.‘ If you are still wondering whether or not global climate change is real, or whether or not it is anthropogenic, the answers are here. This paper includes the most up-to-date, most thorough answers science has to offer. And if you are wondering if and when and how that might affect you, this paper addresses that, too. Well worth a read. Or if you don’t have time to read the whole thing, you can browse the colorful graphics.

Of course, admitting there is a problem isn’t the same as solving it. Where to begin? Well, there’s the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill. Hummmm. Seems Monsanto (one of my all-time favorite moustache-twirling villains) and Dow Chemical (okay, I have more than one favorite!) are pulling some behind the scene shenanigans to promote poisoning of the earth and cornering the entire world’s seed stock as carbon off-sets worthy of subsidies. Lex Luthor would be proud!

In the meantime, we’ve had another shooting in Pensacola. It seems a certain mobile home park got behind on its water bill and so the more than 100 residents (who have been paying their rent all along – which supposedly includes utilities) had their water cut off. No water for over a week and the sewers were beginning to back up. Well, a local church decided to help out. They came over with water, food, and giving hearts. In the midst of this community bonding, a 17-year old from a neighboring town showed up. He had a beef with one of the residents over a stolen wallet, so he shot him in the face. The victim has since died.

If that wasn’t bad enough, a few days later some deputies responded to a call for assistance with a young man who was having a seizure at this very same mobile home park. Somehow, someway, their K-9 dog got out of the sheriff’s car and attacked the patient’s mother, sending her to the hospital with multiple bite wounds. Police aren’t sure how the dog got out of the car, but suggest that the woman aggravated the situation by reacting inappropriately, “’It didn't help that she was hysterical,’ Roy said.”

Bottom line is that if your water is cut off, your sewer is backing up, your neighbor is shot and killed during a church cook-out, your son is having a seizure, and you are being attacked by a police dog, by all means don’t get hysterical!

I am struck by how readily a trigger gets pulled. I am struck by the callousness of the water company and how readily they turned the water off. I am struck by how easily things can go awry when deputies overreact. I am struck by the ‘blame the victim’ attitude of law enforcement. I am struck by the one ray of light in this story – the church members who showed up to offer relief.

I am concerned about the number of guns in this country. I am concerned that hardship brings out the worst in some people. I am concerned that this story is only the beginning . . .

Dear Abby

I’m still not a huge fan of Dimitry Orlov, although if Sharon Astyk were to market “I’d do Dimitry Orlov” bumper stickers, I might buy one just because it’s such a great insider joke.

Maybe part of the problem I have with Dimitry is his off-hand dismissal of efforts such as Transition initiatives. As I see it, any movement toward a more sustainable, more resilient tomorrow is better than sitting around waiting for the sky to fall. We need positive visions of what the world could be. We need more bicycles, more gardens, more community. Okay, maybe reality will fall short of the plans that were made, but a step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.

Or maybe I have a problem with him because he seems so sure of himself. I like writers who admit they could be wrong. Or maybe because he seems so ‘out there’ – so far out on the fringe that he risks 'kook' status and I’m trying to convince others that doomsayers such as he are not kooks but intelligent, well-informed, rational people who just happen to be really good at reading the tea leaves.

All that said, Dimitry made some salient points that I’d like to share.

In answer to the concern how long before TEOTWAWKI?, Orlov offers the following:

Now: end of growth, onset of permanent crisis.
The next decade: steep declines in the availability of fossil fuels; some of the natural realm left intact; some ability to make alternative arrangements.
The following decade: collapse of fossil fuel industry; natural realm largely destroyed; no ability to make alternative arrangements.

A fast collapse is the optimistic scenario. The alternative is a nasty ‘slow burn.’

The biggest risk of all, as I see it, is that the industrial economy will blunder in for a few more years, perhaps even a decade or more, leaving environmental and social devastation in its wake. Once it finally gives up the ghost, hardly anything will be left with which to start over. To mitigate against this risk, we have to create alternatives, on a small scale, that do not perpetuate this system and that can function without it.

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It’s always personal. No one will inform you that collapse has happened; you will only know that it has happened to you.

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There are two components to human nature, the social and the solitary. The solitary is definitely the more highly evolved, and humanity has surged forward through the efforts of brilliant loners and eccentrics. Their names live on forever precisely because society was unable to extinguish their brilliance or to thwart their initiative. Our social instincts are atavistic and result far too reliably in mediocrity and conformism. We are evolved to live in small groups of a few families, and our recent experiments that have gone beyond that seem to have relied on herd instincts that may not even be specifically human. When confronted with the unfamiliar, we have a tendency to panic and stampede, and on such occasions people regularly get trampled and crushed underfoot: a pinnacle of evolution indeed! And so, in fashioning a survivable future, where do we put our emphasis: on individuals and small groups, or on larger entities - regions, nations, humanity as a whole? I believe the answer to that is obvious.

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I think that what makes us likely to think that technology will save us is that we are addled by it. Efforts at creating intelligent machines have failed, because computers are far too difficult to program, but humans turn out to be easy for computers to program. Everywhere I go I see people poking away at their little mental support units. Many of them can no longer function without them: they wouldn't know where to go, who to talk to, or even where to get lunch without a little electronic box telling what to do. . . .

There are people who believe in the emergent intelligence of the networked realm - a sort of artificial intelligence utopia, where networked machines become hyperintelligent and solve all of our problems. And so our best hope is that in our hour of need machines will be nice to us and show us kindness? If that's the case, what reason would they find to respect us? Why wouldn't they just kill us instead? Or enslave us. Oh, wait, maybe they already have!

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Now, supposing all goes well, and we have a swift and decisive collapse, what should follow is an equally swift rebirth of viable localised communities and ecosystems. One concern is that the effort will be short of qualified staff.

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We have a huge surplus of “factory-farmed humans” and a shortage of “free-range humans.”

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It is an unfortunate fact that the recent centuries of settled life, and especially the last century or so of easy living based on the industrial model, has made many people too soft to endure the hardships and privations that self-sufficient living often involves. It seems quite likely that those groups that are currently marginalised, would do better, especially the ones that are found in economically underdeveloped areas and have never lost contact with nature.

But the best part of the whole article is Orlov’s ardent advice (this aside from his admonition to invest in land and bronze nails):

Conserve energy: get plenty of rest and sleep a lot. Sleeping burns ten times less energy than hard physical labor.

Save time: avoid living by a schedule. Choose the best time to do each thing. Work with the weather and the seasons, not against them.

Pick and choose: always have more to do than you ever plan to get done.

Have plenty of options: You don’t know what the future holds, so (don’t) plan accordingly.

Think for yourself: the popularity of a stupid idea doesn’t make it any less stupid.

Laugh at the world: make sure to maintain a healthy sense of humor.

Now that is much-needed advice -- advice I can even live with!

Future in a Maelstrom

When last we met, I was extolling the virtues of life-to-come, the happy ending I've wrenched from an uncertain future, but it's likely to be a long, rough road from here to there. The whole point of this exercise in crystal ball gazing was to facilitate decision making in the here and now -- if I see a hurricane coming, I can prepare. So how does one prepare for a future in a maelstrom?

First of all, there are the basics to consider. Apart from some highly-skilled followers of Tom Brown, Jr., most of us will need a form of exchange to help provide for our basic needs. Currently, that form of exchange is the dollar bill or some electronic version thereof. But there is a possibility that we will see the end of money as we know it – due to hyperinflation, widespread unemployment, and/or the bankruptcy of the federal government. It could happen that dollar bills will be worth little more than toilet paper (or not as much . . . I do value my toilet paper!) So what's a body to do? Hang onto your gold jewelry and Granny's silver service for starters. And put your change in a jar. Paper money may eventually be more valuable as mulch than legal tender, but metal currencies should retain some value. There may come a day when a penny is worth more than a hundred dollar bill. (Sounds crazy, I know, but crazy seems to be where we are headed!)

You can also start setting yourself up to provide goods or services that will be needed in the future. Plan on having something you can barter or trade. Make yourself more useful alive than dead. The following are what I foresee as useful occupations. You might have your own list:

Food production without the aid of fossil fuel-powered equipment, artificial fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, refrigerated storage or transport. This includes not only the obvious – growing edible plants, raising chickens and other egg producers, bee-keeping, raising sheep, goats and cows, fishing and hunting - but also things like baking bread or making cheese.

Mushroom growing – for food, medicine, and as a means of detoxifying and/or enriching soil.

Alcohol production – even in hard times, people want their booze!

Health services that rely upon folk medicines, herbal tonics and remedies, acupuncture, reiki, etc.

Mid-wifery

Clothing production - sewing new clothes, but also the ability to take existing clothes and get more use out of them. Eventually, we will need those who can take raw materials to a finished piece – i.e. from carding wool to spinning, dyeing, weaving or knitting – or tanning leather.

Production of any useful item, especially those things which are consumable – soap, paper, pen and ink – or those things that will be needed for daily life – such as cob ovens, pottery, furniture, shoes ...

Reconstruction – turning shopping malls into co-housing units, ripping out parking lots to create permaculture gardens.

Mr Fix-It services – everything from rehanging a door that has come off its hinges to replacing glass in a broken window to repairing mechanical devices, especially those that do not rely upon power to operate.

Inventing new uses for old things

Salvage and reclamation (mining dumps and abandoned buildings for reuseables)

Black-smithing, barrel making, milling, broom and basket making – the crafts that are still preserved in places like Williamsburg, VA, Silver Dollar City, MO, Sturbridge, MA, Cherokee, NC and other historical villages and amusement parks.

Power generation (windmills, water wheels, direct solar, geo-thermal, harnessing kinetic energy, oil extraction from plant material)

Power-free alternatives (candle-making, passive solar, horse-breeding, food preservation – drying, pickling, fermenting, root cellaring)

Creation and maintenance of water supply systems

Transportation services (think rick-shaws, horses and buggies, bicycle deliveries, sail and rowboats)

Communication services (ham radio, private mail and delivery services)


In addition to what-to-do, there is where-to-do-it to consider. Do you live in a place where life could go on if things start to fall apart? In deciding whether you should stay where you are or try to move, you might want to consider the following:

Do you know your neighbors? If not, you might want to make a concerted effort to get to know them.
If you do know your neighbors, are they people you could rely upon if things get tough?
Do you have a support system of family and/or friends?
If you didn't have access to motorized transportation, could you get to the places you need to go?
Are there local food markets within walking/biking distance?
Is there enough arable land to feed the locality if the supply chain were to break down?
Could you survive without power for an extended period of time?
What is your water source and how reliable is it?
What is your power source and how reliable is it?
How vulnerable are you to civil unrest or extreme weather events?
How much is crime, particularly turf wars over drug territories, already a problem in your area?
Do you own your home free and clear? If you have a mortgage, is it an adjustable or fixed rate? Do you rent?
What is your source of income and how reliable is it? (Pension funds and retirement checks could disappear. . .)
Could you, where you now live, set up a business that would allow you to offer essential goods or services?

Some of the negatives where you now live could be addressed – for example, installing more insulation, double pane windows, a metal roof, a wood-burning stove (especially if you have access to a renewable source of firewood), or a composting toilet. You could put in water cisterns to collect rainwater and/or create graywater systems for irrigation. You could replace carpeting with a flooring that doesn't need vaccuming (i.e. wood, bamboo, tile, or cork), or throw a block party and get to know your neighbors.

Also keep in mind that some of the negatives may change with changing times – your mortgage indebtedness may disappear if the banking system fails, local ordinances against chickens may go unenforced, land that is now parking lots or golf courses may be converted to food production, zoning laws that prohibit at-home-businesses may come to be ignored. On the other hand, some negatives may only get worse. No place is perfect and no place is guaranteed to be ground zero.

You can also begin the process of building self-sufficiency. Put up a clothesline and hang your clothes to dry. Buy or make a solar oven. Start growing and preserving more of your own food. Build a library of how-to books. Practice frugality -- find ways of reusing more and wasting less (which can be rather fun, actually -- like doing crossword puzzles only better!) Put your money into durable goods that could be useful in a powered-down future: a flint for starting fires, a sturdy bicycle with cart for hauling, inclement weather gear, crank-powered radios and flashlights, non-electric food grinders, a shovel and pruning shears, good knives and a sharpening stone . . . Take advantage of the internet while we still have it to learn all you can. Consider getting chickens or bees. Learn to darn socks and sew patches. Save your vegetable cooking water and use it to water your plants. Take up dancing or a musical instrument. Collect things that matter to you. Experiment. Play with stuff. Cultivate a sense of humor. Drink a little wine with your friends.

Am I following my own advice? Well, some of it. . . As I've said before, none of us really knows what the future holds, but being prepared for the worst seems the better part of wisdom, and could even be fun. When all is said and done, these are interesting times!

I Could Be Wrong

Okay, the long-awaited, much-anticipated happy ending, or where Kunstler gets it wrong. James Howard Kunstler, with his highly acerbic wit, has been foretelling The Long Emergency for some time now. And for the most part, I think he has cause and effect pretty well nailed. Where I think he errs is in predicting the demise of suburbia -- wishful thinking on his part. Kunstler hates the suburbs, sees them as an ugly blight on America and an affront to his sense of esthetics. Ugly they may be, but ugliness is not a fatal flaw, not even for boxes of ticky-tacky.

Kunstler assumes that with happy motoring a relic of the past, suburbanites will be forced to flee – either to the more densely populated urban centers or to walkable small towns. While I agree small town life will soar to the top of the hit parade, why would anyone want to relocate to the city? If we do have a break-down in the supply chain, densely populated areas would be hardest hit and more than likely to experience civil unrest, aka ‘get yer guns out boys and let’s have us a looting spree!’ Cities are where black-outs and brown-outs are most likely to trap people in unlivable circumstances and where potentially unsanitary conditions could lead to epidemic. Why would someone living in their own home in a friendly suburb want to uproot and move into chaos? Okay, so maybe the bank actually owns the home and the neighbors aren’t all that friendly, but those are details that can be managed by the resourceful suburbanite.

As I see it, Joe Suburban loses his job. Wifey is still employed but the income is stretched really thin. The kids have to quit the soccer team and karate lessons – gas is too expensive to waste on unnecessary jaunts – but they have dusted off their skateboards and everyone knows to look out for them when they turn into the cul-de-sac. Joe is actively looking for work but with unemployment figures climbing Mt Everest, he is doubtful of finding anything soon. But he can grow a few vegetables in the meantime. Hey, the Obamas have dug up the White House lawn, why not do the same? Soon his front yard tomato patch is one of many on the street. Suzie next door has chickens but no one is telling code enforcement. Suzie is sharing the eggs with neighbors and who knew she had such a killer recipe for blueberry crumble? Tom down the block is being foreclosed upon but the bank is telling him to stay where he is and pay what and when he can. Better to have Tom and kin in the house than another vacant home no one will buy. Mary’s kids have moved back home and her house is a bit crowded, but they’re finding ways to adjust. When the out-of-work gather in the streets to talk economy, the question du jour is ‘how bad will it get?’ Consensus is that it could get really, really bad. No one is spending money on video games or electronic gadgets any more. Every extra dollar goes towards stocking the pantry with staples. Oprah recommends having a three-month supply of food on hand and people are taking her advice. She is Oprah after all.

When Wal-Mart’s shelves start looking bare, the tomato patch becomes a full-fledged garden. The Dervaes family of Pasadena is the new American Idol. There is hunger in suburbia, but not starvation; old Mrs. Applebee can’t get out and garden anymore, but the neighbors take turns bringing her meals. In return, she’s sharing her Depression Era knowledge of how to prepare cabbage a hundred different ways. When gas rationing becomes a reality, Mrs. Suburban can no longer get to work clear across town, so she and Joe turn their garage into a family business. Joe was always good at tinkering so he starts a little repair shop and his wife is cutting hair. Suzie, next door, is running a bakery. Mary, with the houseful of grandkids, puts all those kids on bikes and is running a fetch-and-deliver service; there aren’t many cars on the streets anymore, so traffic isn’t a problem for the two-wheelers. Zoning laws are being ignored with impunity and code enforcement hasn’t been seen in years. There are occasional disputes among neighbors but a newly formed neighborhood council is hearing complaints and people pretty much abide by their decisions.

Not everything is Green Acres meets Leave it to Beaver. Times are tough. People are making do and doing without. The weather is playing havoc, flooding some and leaving others burned out in extended drought. In places where the growing season is short, people are finding it difficult to store up enough food to make it through the winter. Pigeon pie has become a new favorite though some prefer roast squirrel, and venison stew solves the browsing deer problem. Armed gangs make occasional forays out into the suburbs, but not like they used to. Wonder if they’ve all killed each other off?

With all the hardship, one would think people would be bitter and angry. Well, some are. There are those who sit around and moan all day about the good old days and how easy it was back then. But for the most part, people are finding they enjoy their lives more than they ever did. There is a new energy in America, a new sense of purpose. People are finding clever ways to recycle discarded junk into useful new items. Kids are playing in the streets when they’re not being home-schooled or picking peas. Mom brings her homebrew to the nightly neighborhood pot-luck and Dad is helping the next-door neighbor create swales in her garden. The empty house at the end of the block has become a civic center; everyone donated extra tools, cooking utensils, sewing supplies and books to its lending library. When advertising dried up, television went off the air, and the internet is down, but radio has enjoyed a new surge in popularity. Oh, it’s not the commercial radio of a few years back, this is people in their garages giving the local news, relaying messages to loved ones in distant places, reading recipes and putting on talent shows. The electrical grid has become unreliable but people are generating their own power with windmills made from parts salvaged from the dump. It’s not 24 hour power, but it’s enough to get by. And it’s not the America we thought we were getting when we were saving to send our kids to college and putting our money in 401K's, but it’s an America of amazingly resourceful, innovative, caring people who have risen to the challenge of their times and have been pleasantly surprised by life without widescreen TV’s and morning commutes.

Okay, that’s the happy ending I’ve managed to eke from where I see us headed. Of course, I could be wrong. Actually, I know I’m wrong. The future always has a joker to play – the one thing no one foresaw, the one thing that changed everything. No one ever gets it right. But maybe I’m close. And maybe not.

And They Lived Happily Ever After

I’m a sucker for happy endings. If a book or movie doesn’t have a happy ending, I don’t want anything to do with it. That’s part of why I spend so much time peering into my crystal ball, trying to understand where we’re headed. As I look at the near future, I see us falling inexorably into turmoil – but what comes after that? I’m trying to look far enough into the future to find the happy ending. Which brings me to John Michael Greer and where I believe he has it wrong.

I have only been reading the archdruid a short time, so I may be mischaracterizing his prognostications, but he did write recently, “one of the lessons the past offers is that the fall of civilizations is a slow, uneven process.” I’m not sure what he means by ‘the fall of civilizations’ as it applies to life-as-we-know-it, nor am I certain what he means by ‘slow,’ but I do have my own take on where we might be going and how fast we’re getting there.

I believe that life-as-we-know-it is about to change drastically and forever and that the process will be anything but slow. It will, however, be uneven. If you live in Monroeville, Alabama where the paper mill that was one of the town’s biggest employers has now shut down, life-as-you-know-it has already changed. If you live downriver from TVA’s Kingston coal-fired power plant, life-as-you-know-it has already changed. If you lived in Plaquemines Parish, Pass Christian or Dauphin Island prior to Katrina, life-as-you-know-it has already changed. But are these isolated events – life as it has always been – or are these events part of a newly emerging pattern of disaster?

The answer to that question is a long one. It begins with money. Money is a shared fiction – dollar bills have no intrinsic worth and for the most part our money today isn’t even that tangible – it’s nothing more than numbers in a computer. As long as we all agree to share the fiction, things go along pretty smoothly, but lately the fiction is wearing thin. Chris Martenson does a very easy-to-understand crash course in global economics but the bottom line is this: our financial system is based on growth. Without growth, everything falls apart. Our whole economy is essentially a Ponzi scheme where tomorrow’s assumed growth is what pays today’s bills. To keep everything greased and in running order, we must spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need. If we stop spending – because we’ve been laid off from the mill or the business where we worked is now wiped off the planet by a tidal wave or just because we’ve decided that we don’t need all that junk – then the dominoes begin to fall, and once they start falling, they will have to play themselves out. I don’t see how it can happen any other way. We cannot sustain infinite growth in a finite world – eventually we will run up against the wall of limited resources and I believe that eventually is now. Yes, there are great new ideas out there – cradle-to-cradle manufacturing, for example -- but the scale of the necessary changeover and the pressures of limited time and funding mitigate against a smooth transition. And as with any transition, there is hardship. What happens to lumber jacks and coal miners if we no longer need their services? What happens to Chinese manufacturers if we no longer buy their plastic salad shooters?

After money, we have oil. Oil is the wonder resource – it not only provides cheap, abundant energy, but it provides it in an easy-to-refine-and-use form and leaves us with side benefits -- the chemical concoctions that make agri-business a going concern and provide us with our ubiquitous plastics. But oil is running out. Okay, we’ve only used about half of the world’s supply, but it was the easy, cheap half. And as demand eventually outpaces supply, we will see both rising prices and shortages. Rising oil prices means that the price of everything goes up. Considering the shaky foundation of the all-mighty dollar, we could even see hyper-inflation. Shortages could just mean long lines at the gas pump but they could mean much worse, especially if they occur during a long, cold winter. And if there is a sustained disruption in our oil supply, we could see something that looks like this:

Almost overnight, gas stations are running on empty. The trucking industry is unable to deliver groceries to the stores. The airline industry is unable to get its airplanes in the sky. International commerce grinds to a halt as cargo ships sit idle in ports. Farmers are unable to get gas for their equipment or fertilizers for their fields. Construction equipment sits rusting. The power industry is unable to deliver coal to power plants. The power grid is still viable but unreliable. In a desperate measure, the U.S. government starts rationing gasoline. First priority are the military, emergency responders, and public works. Second priority are truckers transporting food and/or coal. Third priority are farmers and coal miners. Private vehicles are last on the list. Many of those who still have jobs are forced to quit as they can no longer get themselves to work.

Yes, but it doesn't have to be oil. We can build electric cars, wind mills, solar arrays, and generators powered by the tides. We can use passive solar and geo-thermal to heat our homes and photo-voltaics to power our television sets. Maybe, but here again, the scale of the necessary changeover and the pressures of limited time and funding mitigate against a smooth transition. And none of the above can replace oil’s side benefits.

I’m not even going to go into the possibility of war, water shortages, or extreme weather events due to climate change because I think that we already have enough ingredients for a breakdown in civil order. People who are out of work, out of food, and out of hope but who have ready access to guns won’t sit quietly by and wait for things to get better. That takes me back to my previous post.

What???? I thought she was giving us a happy ending. Well, stay tuned . . .