How To Prepare
"To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties
then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible."
—Benjamin Franklin
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Beyond Peak Oil
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What is Peak Oil?
Colin Campbell Founder of ASPO |
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" NEOCON IMPERIALISM OR APOCALYPSE NOW ________
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"Let's look at it simply. The most
important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that
economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims
on a sea of oil."
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"You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe."
"You take the
red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I"ll show
you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
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Here are a list of articles to get you started thinking and preparing for what is a certain future that we all need to be prepared for.
If you haven't heard of the term "Peak Oil" you can bet that soon, if not already, you will be experiencing the consequences of a world addicted to an energy source that can no longer keep up with global demand. Oil is getting scarce, and world governments are already preparing for the fallout. The real question is what are you going to do to prepare you and your family for the coming decline in oil production and it's consequences?
Simmons'
investment bank,
Simmons and
Company International
, is considered the most reputable and reliable energy investment
bank in the world.
Given Simmons' background, what he has to say about the situation is
truly terrifying. For instance,
in
an August 2003 interview
with From the Wilderness publisher Michael Ruppert, Simmons
was asked if it was time for Peak Oil to become part of the public
policy debate. He responded:
It is past time. As I have said, the experts and politicians
have no Plan B to fall back on. If energy peaks, particularly
while 5 of the world’s 6.5 billion people have little or no use
of modern energy, it will be a tremendous jolt to our
economic well-being and to our health — greater than
anyone could ever imagine.
When asked if there is a solution to the impending natural gas
crisis, Simmons responded:
I don’t think there is one. The solution is to pray. Under the
best of circumstances, if all prayers are answered there will
be no crisis for maybe two years. After that it’s a certainty.
In May 2004, Simmons explained that in order for demand to be
appropriately controlled, the price of oil
would have to reach $182 per barrel Simmons explained
that with oil prices at $182 per barrel, gas prices would likely
rise to $7.00 per gallon.
Simmons predictions are downright tame compared to what other
analysts in the world of investment banking are preparing themselves
for. For instance, in April 2005, French investment bank Ixis-CIB
warned,
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Regardless of a town’s current physical or economic state, the pre-petroleum wisdom of its founders is contained in its location. Before petroleum, settlement required any number of factors that will be crucial for collapse survival. That these towns were founded and thrived as long as they did is evidence of their suitability for life in the absence of hydrocarbons, and perhaps of their unsuitability for life in the petroleum age. More
THE PARADIGM IS THE ENEMY: The State of the Peak Oil Movement at the Cusp of Collapse
The maxim that I live by is that what we need today, right now, is not a plan, but options. Plans do not bend well. They tend to break. And with breaks in plans come break downs in function. The only plan that I live by today—the only plan that I recommend to our subscribers—is to increase one’s options as much as possible and to selectively choose those options based upon what is happening in the world now and what those developments might mean for the future.
Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century (PART ONE OF THREE) - By Dmitry Orlov -
June 1, 2005 0900 PST (FTW) A decade and a half ago the world went from bipolar to unipolar, because one of the poles fell apart: The S.U. is no more. The other pole – symmetrically named the U.S. – has not fallen apart – yet, but there are ominous rumblings on the horizon. The collapse of the United States seems about as unlikely now as the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed in 1985. The experience of the first collapse may be instructive to those who wish to survive the second. More
Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century (PART TWO OF THREE) By Dmitry Orlov
We all expect heating and air-conditioning, hot and cold water, reliable electricity, personal transportation, paved roads, illuminated streets and parking lots, maybe even high-speed Internet. Well, what if you had to give up all that? Or, rather, what will you do when you have to give up all that? More
Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century (PART THREE OF THREE) - By Dmitry Orlov
More to the point: in a consumer society, anything that puts people off their shopping is dangerously disruptive, and all consumers sense this. Any expression of the truth about our lack of prospects for continued existence as a highly developed, prosperous industrial society is disruptive to the consumerist collective unconscious. There is a herd instinct to reject it, and therefore it fails, not through any overt action, but by failing to turn a profit, because it is unpopular. More
There is always a bubble someplace. In a world of fiat currency and fractional-reserve banking, where money is effortlessly multiplied and pyramided, the sequence of boom and bust become inevitable, like the sequence of the seasons. In this system, the government cannot prevent the expected corrections anymore than it can prevent the onset of winter. The strong housing market has all the makings of being the next bubble—in particular high leverage and unsustainable price increases. More
Doomsday: The Final Months of the “Housing Bubble”
The facts are astonishing. The current housing bubble is “larger than the global stock market bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stock market bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history.” (The Economist, June 16, 2005) More
The post-peak oil job market
Many types of jobs will cease to exist: public relations executive, marketing directors, et cetera. I think work will be very hands-on, and a lot of it will revolve around food production. -- James Howard Kunstler, 2003. When I speak before college audiences about peak oil, I often ask if there are any engineers present. I suggest that they concentrate on jobs that will produce rather than consume energy, particularly energy that is renewable and doesn't create greenhouse gas emissions. While it is difficult to tell exactly what kinds of jobs will be available in the post-peak oil age, inklings of some broad principles are coming into view. To discern those principles I propose to contrast what is valued in today's job market with what will likely be valued in a post-peak oil job market. First, let's look at what has traditionally been valued in pre-peak industrial society.
Forbes: Safest and Least Safe Places in the US
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In the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation, some Americans--particularly Gulf Coast residents--may be wondering whether there are places in the U.S. that are safe from such natural disasters. The short answer? No.
Relocation: Cities, Peak Oil, and Sustainability
Many Peak Oil disaster scenarios are premised on an overnight catastrophe, as if suddenly all over America we’ll flip the light switch or turn the tap and nothing will happen. Yes, that would result in riots, martial law, and chaos. But Peak Oil almost certainly won’t look like that. We won’t drop from today’s production of 80 million barrels per day to nothing overnight, or even in 20 years. We’ll go to three-dollar-a-gallon gas, then four, then six, with increasing conservation steps along the way. Comparisons to major power outages or massive storms are wrong. Acute and chronic problems wreak very different results.
If you are up to your eyes in debt, with a mortgage, loan(s) and credit card(s), what will happen when you lose your job or are forced to take a job paying substantially less then you need to service these debts. "Your house is at risk, if you are unable to keep up the repayments on it". This well-known phrase should give you an idea of what is likely to come. The economic downturn that brought on the last housing market crash in the early 90s was small, compared to the possible energy crisis ahead. Many people lost their homes and were left with huge debts. The current housing boom has taken personal debt to new highs and left many families very vulnerable.
How to Plan for Peak Oil on a Limited Budget
This feeling of a need to buy stuff is in fact the very reason why we have this predicament. We over-consume. The preparation problem is not addressed by buying more stuff; it’s addressed by mentally and physically getting used to the idea of getting by on less stuff. The more you learn, the less you need to carry on your back. People spend 80% of their time worrying about things that don’t happen. So, stop worry and start acting
Preparing for the end of an era...without petroleum
But oil is running out. If we keep using it at the present rate (plus a 3% increase in demand per year!) all known stocks will be exhausted, according to the latest estimates, sometime between 2050 and 2080. As each of the world’s 4,000 or so oil-fields reach maximum “production”, decline to zero and close an unprecedented crisis will descend upon our globalised world. We may even find a few new oil fields, but the price of this “black gold” is bound to increase. First it will reach uneconomic and disruptive levels (e.g. the increase from US $10 to $50 per barrel from 2001 to 2004, the 2006 record level of $ 75 per barrel of crude) and then (as it runs out) to prohibitive levels (above $100/200 per barrel), putting the purchase of petrol well beyond the purse of most developing countries, and beyond the purse of the poor and middle-class in any country.
A 12-Step Journey to Oil-Free Travel
Can it be done? Can we keep on traveling once the oil supply’s gone, or when it becomes too expensive for ordinary folks to use? Transport uses 70% of America’s oil supply, so it’s clearly the biggest issue we have to address.
Urban v. Rural Sustainability and Relocation
Transition to a Post-Technological World
Peak Oil Crisis - Prepare To Survive
It is estimated that the world has less than 40 years of oil reserves if all known oil reserves were recoverable. Natural gas is following the same pattern as oil and it too will run out in less than 60 years. Life will not continue as is until every last drop is gone. There continues to be small amounts of oil proven as reserves around the world, but not in the quantities that will alter the clear shortages and competition for it.
Post Soviet Lessons for a Post American Century
Questions to Inform Your Investment Strategy
Peak Oil Prep Sites
The Community Solution to Peak Oil. Many excellent resources are available through the website of this US based organisation "dedicated to the development, growth and enhancement of small local communities... that are sustainable, diverse and culturally sophisticated." The Community Solution have organised two recent grassroots Peak Oil conferences, and have developed a case study of Cuba, a country which has relatively successfully adapted to an artificial oil peak.