Imagining Life Without Oil, and Being Ready

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/us/06peak.html?hp

Imagining Life Without Oil, and Being Ready

For Mrs. Wilkerson, 33, a moderate Democrat from Oakton, Va., who designs computer interfaces, the spill reinforced what she had been obsessing over for more than a year — that oil use was outstripping the world’s supply. She worried about what would come after: maybe food shortages, a collapse of the economy, a breakdown of civil order. Her call was part of a telephone course about how to live through it all.

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Andre Angelantoni is not taking that chance. In his home in San Rafael, Calif., he has stocked food reserves in case an oil squeeze prevents food from reaching market and has converted his investments into gold and silver.

The effects of peak oil, including high energy prices, will not be gentle, said Mr. Angelantoni, a Web designer whose company, Post Peak Living, offers the telephone class and a handful of online courses for life after a collapse.

“Our whole economy depends on greater and greater energy supplies, and that just isn’t possible,” he said. “I wish I could say we’ll quietly accept having many millions of people unemployed, their homes foreclosed. But it’s hard to see the whole country transitioning to a low-energy future without people becoming angry. There’s going to be quite a bit of social turmoil on the way down.”

Transition US, a British transplant that seeks to help towns brace for life after oil, including a “population die-off” from shortages of oil, food and medicine, now has 68 official chapters around the country, since starting with just two in 2008. Group projects range from community vegetable gardens to creating local currency in case the national one crashes.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. solar panels made out of recyclables and windmills please

[gateley]

8. Yes, please. nt

[L0oniX]

2. There is no answer to the problems related to oil supply depletion.

All there is ...is denial and that's what keeps the train moving.

Watch "What A Way To Go Life At The End Of Empire" http://www.freespeech.org/free-speech-tv-schedule

[Initech]

3. Oil is the root of all our problems, and we need to get rid of it.

[Turbineguy]

4. Yes.

Stock up on food and gold and then tell everybody so they'll know where to look.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. lol n/t

[peacebird]

6. rice, dry beans, and vegetable seeds seem more useful to me than gold or silver...

but then, what do I know?

[alittlelark]

7. I share your value system.

[gateley]

9. You can't eat gold. nt

[northernlights]

12. seriously

is Andre planning on eating gold and silver?

learn to garden, birdkeeping, goatkeeping, etc.

[SoCalDem]

10. "Oil" is in/on almost everything we touch daily

It's in our clothing (unless you exclusively wear linen, cotton, wool..and even those have to be transported and processed in plants that use fossil fuels for lighting, cooling, heating)

It's in our food chain..HEAVILY, because of fertilizers, & fuel to plow the fields, keep the bugs off, make it grow faster-taller-bigger, and then again to haul it all over the place

It's in our furnishings & homes & cars..

It's everywhere.


After WWII, the petroleum corporations inundated us all with plastics (an offshoot of petroleum) and our lives have never been the same since..

It's all so sad when we think of all the opportunities missed. While war-ravaged nations were rebuilt with state-of-the-art new technology and interlinked transportation systems, our 100 year old creaky systems remained untouched, patiently awaiting their demise as concrete, rubber & auto companies "planned" our eventual sprawl.

We've always been sold, and been sold ON, newer-shinier-bigger-easier, and were suckers for all the "wonderful" new products.

[Odin2005]

11. No, will will be transcending fossil fuels and have a high-tech carbon-free society.

Going backwards will only result in even more suffering. The ONLY way is forward.