Meet the doomsayers of our time
SHERYL NADLER FOR THE TORONTO STAR
Calan Boyle is part of a movement that believes there will be a collapse in the world's oil supply, leading to anarchy. He's preparing for the worst.
Take Peak Oil seriously - it'll be here much sooner than you think
While panic is not the prescription, experts are warning that the time to begin taking Peak Oil seriously is past.For millennia, doomsayers have been predicting the end of the world as we know it. These days, theory dovetails with fact: oil is disappearing. Should we be listening?
Feb 15, 2009 04:30 AM
After the planes hit the towers, Paul added a to-do to his long survival list.
At the time, he was working on the eighth floor of a west-end office tower. So he convinced a guy at the local outdoors supplier to teach him to rappel. Then he bought 60 metres of rope and packed it, along with some climbing gear, into a briefcase. Then he tucked the briefcase under his desk.
"It seemed like the intelligent thing to do," he shrugs.
Three years ago, Paul heard about Peak Oil. This is the millenarianism of our recessionary time, a doomsday scenario with a wrinkle – scientific backing. In essence, Peak Oil states that the world's supply of crude will soon go into permanent, inexorable decline. This is widely accepted amongst experts. The main points of debate are exactly when this will happen, how quickly oil will deplete and what happens next.
Since oil powers nearly everything in our society – transportation, heavy industry, food production and, most importantly, economic growth – those same experts warn that any reduction in its supply will lead to financial destabilization and social upheaval. At best, they suggest, we're in for a seismic change in the way we live.
They leave the 'at worsts' to people like Paul.
"When cars stop running? And grocery stores go bare? What do you think is going to happen?" Paul said. "It's mind boggling once you grasp it."
The Star met with Paul at a pub in the city's suburban west end. He didn't want his name or any other "personal data" used, for reasons of "operational security." No pictures. No visits to his house.
He is a hulking man in his mid-50s who lives alone. Though he is a conspiracy-minded fellow, he was also disarmingly self-aware and funny.
"What did you expect?" he asked with a smile. "Head-to-toe camouflage?"
In the jargon of his peers, Paul is a 'doomer.' Those who don't share his concerns are 'sheeple.' And sheeple don't rank in Paul's world.
The high priests of the doomer set include the acerbic critic of suburbia, James Howard Kunstler, and Matt Savinar, founder of LifeAfterTheOilCrash.net. They envision the Peak Oil aftermath as something out of Mad Max. Chronic oil shortage will dovetail with urban violence, ecological degradation and financial chaos to create a series of cascading catastrophes. They expect the 21st century to look a lot like the 18th. Scary scenario: primitive. Really scary scenario: primitive and dangerous.
Others see the oil dip coming, but cautiously hope that we will roll with the blow, rather than be floored by it. The disappearance of cheap, ready oil will get us out of our cars and refocus us on a less materialistic local economy. Toronto political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon captured the spirit of that group in the title of his last book, The Upside of Down.
Paul will concede there is a small chance that might happen. He holds his thumb and index finger in front of his eye and carefully measures out a half-millimetre worth of chance.
"Maybe," Paul said, humouring me. "But I don't think so."
Paul has been interested in the outdoors and survivalism all of his adult life. He began hunting as a young man. During the early '80s, he and a group of four friends began taking regular excursions deep into the bush, teaching themselves how to live off the land.
"We were getting ready to disappear into the backwoods. Because of the nuclear stuff," Paul said.
War didn't break out. Paul's friends got married and had kids. He still keeps in touch with some. At least one thinks he's "crazy" now. Paul feels just as sorry for him.
The situation has changed, but Paul still has a plan. Recently, he bought a 38-foot steel-hulled sailboat. He's in the process of outfitting it – water filtration system, satellite navigation, food stores, including stuff he cans himself in his townhouse.
When things start going wrong, he'll hit the water. He'll hug the eastern seaboard all the way down to the Panama Canal (which will presumably still be in working order). Then he will pop into the Pacific and sail back up to Costa Rica. Once there, he'll find an isolated shore and start over.
"I don't think we're going to see the end of the year without something major," Paul warned. Then he leaned over and said consolingly, "You're in the first stage. Denial."
The escape over water is a familiar trope of the doomer ethos. The other is the so-called `doomstead' – an isolated farm that can be stocked, self-sustaining and easily defended.
Calan Boyle, 27, lives with his parents and two younger brothers on a 50-acre plot a short drive from downtown Hamilton. He is not as publicity-shy as Paul, but thinks twice about giving his address.
"You never know," Boyle said.
Boyle has been following Peak Oil developments for five years. What he's read has convinced him that he and his family may have to use the farm as a bunker in the near future.
Though he earns little working at a publishing start-up, he plows much of his money into the farm. Raised planting beds, topsoil, a hydroponic set-up in the basement.
He has toted up an impressively detailed list of the food required to keep a family of five going for a year. On a spreadsheet, it runs to nearly 500 items, including 229 kilograms of flour and more than 9,000 litres of drinking water.
"I'm hoping to have everything set up in five or 10 years. Who knows if there's going to be that much time?" Boyle said.
His brothers, aged 17 and 21, are helping. They've gained an expertise in herbal medicine and solar energy. Boyle's parents don't share his pessimism, but see its upside.
"They're just happy I'm out there doing something productive on the farm," Boyle said.
Boyle isn't a zealot. He hopes he's wrong. But he's doing what he can to prepare those who are nearest and dearest.
"A friend of mine just had a Christmas-slash-housewarming party. So I asked her, `Would you be freaked out if for a gift I brought over a hundred pounds of white rice wrapped in Mylar?'" Boyle said. She was. He brought it anyway.
Like any well thought out plan, both Paul and Boyle have a backup. If the world hasn't gone to hell in a couple of years, Paul's escape route will become a retirement jaunt.
"Maybe I'll sail over to Europe and visit relatives for a while," he said.
Once Boyle gets farming figured out – and this is a solo, DIY effort – he might try supplying produce to local markets and restaurants.
Aside from pessimism, self-reliance defines the doomer movement.
There are communities popping up in the GTA that provide the same education, minus the alarmism. Laurie Varga, a 31-year-old graphic designer, is the founder of the Toronto Survivalism Group. She also maintains a blog called The New Survivalist.
"There are two kinds of survivalism. The old school can be ex-military, guns and ammo, religious fundamentalism," Varga said. "I wanted to do something blending wilderness survival and an environmental lifestyle – simpler and slower."
Varga's fiancé introduced her to Peak Oil a couple of years ago. It confirmed her growing belief that things were slipping toward the metaphorical cliff.
"(Peak Oil) is just one thing. There are so many possible bad scenarios – climate change, pandemics, epidemics. This makes you feel like you're doing something about it. A feeling of safety is what a lot of people are looking for," Varga said.
She floated the idea of an urban survivalism group on MeetUp.com last summer. Today, the Toronto Survivalism Group has attracted 155 members. Two weekends ago, two dozen gathered in High Park for an afternoon seminar on emergency shelter construction. Group members volunteer their expertise – from first aid to gardening. Varga, a martial artist, teaches self-defence. Sitting at a Queen St. coffee shop, she leaned across the table to show exactly where she would hit someone in order to lay them out flat. She laughed as she did so.
Unlike Paul and Calan Boyle, who view the future with creeping dread, Varga is remarkably upbeat. It's not that she isn't anticipating the breakdown. It's that she is looking forward to the potential for societal renewal.
"It's scary and exciting," Varga said. "I'm a big believer that you get back what you put out there. If we perpetuate the idea that we have to prepare and train for violence ... you could end up creating the very thing that you want to defend against."
Varga prefers to imagine a world of want where people help each other. Calan Boyle hopes for better, but is preparing for the worst. Paul? Paul doesn't have much faith at all.
"I want the people I care about to pay attention to this," Paul said. Then he waved off in the direction of downtown Toronto. "The rest of the sheeple? They can keep munching grass."
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