My 2007 peak oil to do list
by Alan Wartes
Having written frequently about peak oil, I have the (often heartbreaking) privilege of receiving letters from people in the early stages of awakening to this issue. It is a privilege because I get to be among the first to help guide them out of the fog of our cultural psychosis. It is heartbreaking because I am constantly reminded what a terrifying experience that is.
For instance, here's what Mark from New Jersey recently wrote:
I view my life and outlook in two distinct periods-pre-peak and post-peak. Guess you feel the same. Co-workers tend to think I am somewhat out there. I do feel powerless in that I [am] tied with a mortgage, debt-student loans...that's it. I have no credit card debt, own my car but the question is if TSHTF [the shit hits the fan], what then???? It is not like I can pick up and buy a house with 2 or 3 acres with absolutely no money nor job. Have those questions come up when you have considered all that awaits us?
Have those questions come up? Um, you could say that. Anyone who has considered "all that awaits us" has felt crazy, powerless, and has lost sleep wondering, "if TSHTF, what then???" Mark, you are definitely not alone. "What then???" has been asked in countless ways, but the meaning is always the same. What we want to know is, what does peak oil mean? How should we live? Even when we seem to be stuck endlessly going over the evidence that the big black clouds on the horizon really do mean a storm is coming, what we are searching for is an answer to the question, "What can I DO?"
Well, since you asked, here is my abbreviated Peak Oil To Do List for 2007:
1. Recite this daily: "Today is better than tomorrow."
I know, this sounds backwards to us and unreasonably pessimistic. But it is not backwards. It is the truth. Healthy peak oil psychology starts here.
I read recently that this phrase has become a common mantra among Iraqi people to remind themselves not to put their hope in a miraculously brighter future - at least in the short term. It is a tragic statement on the consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but it is also a remarkably honest and pragmatic way to face dark times. Those of us who are waking up to the implications of peak oil have a lot to learn from this point of view.
We in the prosperous West have been thoroughly brainwashed with the opposite idea: tomorrow will always be better than today. (By "better" I mean as measured by capitalist economic standards, not necessarily by true quality of life standards). If this were not true, no one would ever sign a 30-year mortgage, confident that all that future wealth is already there for the taking. No one would spend their money on an SUV that gets eight miles per gallon. Our whole culture is built on the assumption - no, the conviction - that tomorrow we will have more of everything than we did yesterday. Who can blame us, really? For as long as we've had a steadily increasing supply of energy to fuel economic expansion, it has been true.
Then along comes peak oil with a whole different set of assumptions: first, slowing supply growth; then an uneasy supply/demand parity; then slight supply shortfalls; finally, not so slight shortfalls as world oil production shrinks by eight percent a year, or more. As energy supply goes, so goes the economy. It's not rocket science.
So what can you do? Begin by wrapping your head around the idea that, economically speaking, today is better than tomorrow. Start thinking about life with less, not more. Why? It is critical that we seize the opportunity to act now with the resources that remain at our disposal. When we cling to hope that things will "turn around" next year, or the year after that, we miss today's opportunities to prepare. What we have today is the most we will ever have. It will never get easier to act than it is today.
2. Forget your "little house on the prairie."
In his letter, Mark hit the nail on the head when he wrote, "It is not like I can pick up and buy a house with 2 or 3 acres with absolutely no money nor job." Right you are. There is no frontier cottage we can run to where it's always summer and apple pies are cooling on the windowsill. Honestly, most of us wouldn't know what to do with 2 or 3 acres of land anyway.
So here's the challenge: start preparing to weather the storm where you are. Take inventory. Be creative. Use your hands. Work. Evaluate your liabilities and do everything you can to turn them into assets. Your situation might not be ideal, but it's what you've got. Make the most of it and resist the fantasy that a sustainable life can be bought. It can only be built where you are, one choice at a time.
3. Grow some food.
Don't panic. I didn't say become a subsistence farmer. Just grow something - anything - you can eat. If all you have is a window box, take out the petunias and put in spinach. Give a corner of the yard to tomatoes and basil. If all you wind up with is one pot of spaghetti sauce, congratulations! It's a start.
At this point in the game, growing the food you eat is not a necessity. But knowing you can certainly is. If you can manage a garden of lettuce greens, then why not potatoes or corn? Why not cabbages, carrots, and prize-winning peppers? You can do it. One day you'll have to. Just ask the Cubans who lost their oil supply when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Besides, in the process you will go outside. You'll watch the sun across the sky and pick the best spot for planting. You'll put your hands into the dirt and begin to know it as your place. You'll hand a zucchini or two over the fence to your neighbors. You'll find out that a rabbit lives under the shed in your backyard. You'll breath a little slower. You'll find out what food is supposed to taste like. You might see that even as peak oil forces us to live with less, it may also open the door to a life of more connection and satisfaction.
4. Stop being a consumer.
No kidding. Just stop. Buy only what you must have. If possible, buy it at the thrift store. Peak oil guarantees that the ship of consumerism is going down. Be the first on your block to get in the life boat by altering your lifestyle, and you'll do it on your own terms. Everyone else will follow eventually, but as an angry, frightened mob.
Everything I don't buy didn't consume oil to mine, process, package, transport, and warehouse. It didn't pour tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It didn't outgas toxins into my home, or clog a landfill once I'm done with it. Everything I refuse to buy is an upraised middle finger to the asshole industrialists and financiers who think of me and my family as stupid cows to be milked.
Seriously, stop spending. While you're at it, stop paying your credit card bill.
5. Host monthly peak oil potluck suppers.
In other words, make an effort to get to know other crazies like yourself. Think of it as an addiction recovery support group. You need them, but don't forget that they need you as well. Now, here's the important part: as a group, do more than talk about what's coming. Find out what you can do for each other - and then DO it.
A friend said to me recently that people tend to overestimate what we can get done in the short term, but underestimate what we can accomplish in the long run. We are not going to solve our vulnerability to the end of the era of hydrocarbon man by next week. But, if we start now and do every day what we can do, then we have a good chance of looking back in a few years and being pleasantly surprised that we made it - changed, for sure, but still here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peak oil or no, Alan's suggestions will improve one's mental, social and financial health.
I particularly liked Alan's second suggestion about starting where you are, rather than dreaming about a "little house on the prairie." They echo the experiences of Michael Ruppert when he tried to relocate to Venezuela ("Evolution"):
Start building your lifeboats where you are now. I can see that the lessons I have learned here are important whether you are thinking of moving from city to countryside, state to state, or nation to nation. Whatever shortcomings you may think exist where you live are far outnumbered by the advantages you have where you are a part of an existing ecosystem that you know and which knows you
One suggestion I might add to Alan's list is get to know the past. For more than 99% of the time humans have been on earth, we have lived with energy constraints. Traditions and past techniques have much to teach us.
Peak Oil Blues is a resource for people feeling emotional turmoil about peak oil. The site is devoted to "the unique social and emotional challenges we face in a post-petroleum age."
-BA
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