A Matter of Survival
Posted on May 26, 2008
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Dale Allen Pfeiffer
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will never go hungry.”
Introduction
Recently, my daughter and I saw a man on the side of the road holding a sign on which was scrawled: “Homeless. Will work for food. God bless.” While this is not an unusual sight in Flint, what struck me in this particular case was that this man did not appear at all disabled. He appeared to be a very able young man who had simply fallen upon hard times. After doing what we could for the young man, my daughter and I continued on our way, albeit now worried about the man’s welfare and wishing we could have done more for him. I reflected on the thought that all too soon we may see many more people like this young man, fallen victim to the hard times of economic collapse and peak oil. These people will need help, and while a hand-out may help a little, it would be much better to arm them with a little survival knowledge which will help them to find the necessities of survival.
While I in no way wish to encourage the rape of our remaining wilderness, I do feel that the following material should be presented to allow those in desperate straits some options for their survival. The material presented here is representative of a whole school of such knowledge and skills, essential to living in nature, which is all but forgotten in our modern world. The knowledge presented here is freeing and empowering, and it is my hope that somebody may benefit from it. Nowhere is it more apt than in discussions of homelessness and starvation. In the United States, federal and state governments own large portions of land and still other privately owned patches are kept idle for economic reasons. A patch of vacant land a mile square could easily support three industrious homeless people. I emphasis that any who do take this suggestion should be very careful not to disturb the land where they are dwelling. The goal should be to swim through the wilderness without ever making a ripple.
The information which I am presenting here is but a sampling of that body of knowledge pertaining to free existence in nature which vanished from human consciousness too quickly after we stepped away from nature, knowledge so vital to our relationship with nature. This information should be general among all people. Yet, this knowledge is freedom, and freedom holds its own price.
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Planning Ahead in the Age of Oil Depletion on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.
Posted on December 1, 2007
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Frances Oommen 14 July 2006
We live on the beautiful Island of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is almost the end of the road, except for Newfoundland.
The community
It is what used to be termed a “depressed area.” At the present time, the coal and steel industries are no more, the fisheries are shrinking and the young people are moving away in droves to find paying jobs in other parts of Canada. There are many early-retirees, and older workers who have a lot of practical abilities such as carpentry, welding, metal work, electrical, concrete and construction skills which they learned and used in the heavy industry jobs they had in the coal mines and Sydco Steel.
There are some polluted “hot Spots” in Cape Breton, - the most well known one being the Sydney Tar ponds.(1) But generally speaking, the island is one of the most pristine and unspoiled places left in the world.(2) Wild flowers and birds are seen everywhere. Not many people use pesticides to kill “weeds” in their lawns, like they do in Ontario, and no one worries about dandelions.
People who live here are very close knit - everyone knows everyone else. And (like in India and other countries, where family ties are strong and important) people ask about family connections, look out for each other and help each other. Every summer people help each other out, repairing their houses and cars, sharing tools and labour, even if there is no money to pay. There is an informal barter system already in place. Many people choose to stay in Cape Breton, even though they cannot find a paying job, because of family ties, and the inner strength and support of the community. Family members who remain have not become isolated or separated from each other as they have in other parts of Canada.
Food/Agriculture/Health
“Food” in the supermarkets comes from as far away as California, and the Food Terminals in New Brunswick, Montreal and Toronto. On average this food has traveled approximately 2,500 kilometers to the table! Can it be fresh?
Real, fresh, mostly organic, locally- grown food is available at the Cape Breton Farmer’s Market. (3) This is purchased by a small proportion of the population. There is a lot of unused arable land which could be used to produce food for local markets. A conference to discuss the opportunities for the development of agriculture on Cape Breton has been in the works for some time, and in 2006 a conference entitled “Sharing Knowledge on Agriculture and Rural Life in Atlantic Canada will take place in July. (4) According to the Cape Breton Regional Health Authority, generally speaking the average diet is poor and the population has a higher-than-average rate of disease than the rest of Canada.(5)
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How to Plan for Peak Oil on a Limited Budget
Posted on December 1, 2007
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Chris Lisle
Preparing for peak oil can be relatively easy, since the preparation is 75% mental, 15% physical, and 10% fiscal. Don’t be flabbergasted at what to do. Quit asking should I buy solar? Should I buy an axe? Should I buy a gun? The answers are no, no, and no. If in fact, billions of people will die, look at all the stuff that will be left behind. So, don’t buy it, pick it up off the ground when others leave it behind.
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.
To illustrate the absurdity of buying stuff, what would you buy? It’s impossible to know what to buy, because the event of peak oil is unknown in both time and scope. Preparing for peak oil is not like preparing for a hurricane which we know will hit sometime next week, so we will buy wood to board up the doors, some extra batteries, and maybe get out of town for awhile. Peak oil will not be some isolated calamity that you somehow survive and wake up the next morning and count your blessings. Preparing for peak oil is all about preparing yourself mentally and physically for a complete and permanent change in lifestyle. It is first realizing that there will be no one to come to your rescue the next morning - there will only be you and those around you, and the realization that the next morning will be more of the same, maybe worse than the day before. It’s the realization that you will have to learn to get by using less. So start now by getting over the idea you have to buy stuff and get into more debt.
So how do you prepare for a situation like peak oil, which is so indefinite in time and scope? Since we don’t know exactly what will happen and when, any preparation has to prepare you for any contingency at any time - now or 20 years from now. If you do the following, you and your family will be prepared for peak oil or any thing else life may throw at you. Those things are: (1) develop the right attitude; (2) stay healthy; (3) get out of debt; (4) decide where your going to live (build your shelter); (5) buy a good sleeping bag; (6) have a month of food on hand; (7) get good peers.
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Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century
Posted on December 1, 2007
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Dmitry Orlov
Introduction
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.
Reasonable people would never argue that that the two poles were exactly symmetrical; along with significant similarities, there were equally significant differences, both of which are valuable in predicting how the second half of the clay-footed superpower giant that once bestrode the planet will fare once it too falls apart.
I have wanted to write this article for almost a decade now. Until recently, however, few people would have taken it seriously. After all, who could have doubted that the world economic powerhouse that is the United States, having recently won the Cold War and the Gulf War, would continue, triumphantly, into the bright future of superhighways, supersonic jets, and interplanetary colonies?
But more recently the number of doubters has started to climb steadily. The U.S. is desperately dependent on the availability of cheap, plentiful oil and natural gas, and addicted to economic growth. Once oil and gas become expensive (as they already have) and in ever-shorter supply (a matter of one or two years at most), economic growth will stop, and the U.S. economy will collapse.
Many may still scoff at this cheerless prognosis, but this article should find a few readers anyway. In October 2004, when I started working on it, an Internet search for “peak oil” and “economic collapse” yielded about 16,300 documents; by April of 2005 that number climbed to 4,220,000. This is a dramatic change in public opinion only, because what is known on the subject now is more or less what was known a decade or so ago, when there was exactly one Web site devoted to the subject: Jay Hanson’s Dieoff.org. This sea change in public opinion is not restricted to the Internet, but is visible in the mainstream and the specialist press as well. Thus, the lack of attention paid to the subject over the decades resulted not from ignorance, but from denial: although the basic theory that is used to model and predict resource depletion has been well understood since the 1960s, most people prefer to remain in denial.
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Collection, Storage and Controlled Release of Lightning and Other High Voltages: A Research Proposal For Energy Independence
Posted on December 1, 2007
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David W. Hausmann
Synopsis
This submission is the condensation of a research proposal sent to NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) annual competition for funding and was submitted to NASA in June of ’01 and again in September of ’03, with revisions in response to the analysis of the ’01 proposal. The basic idea is that we are ignoring and therefore wasting a free, environmentally friendly source of vast amounts of energy in the form of lightning. As the energy source is already electricity (re: Benjamin Franklin), there are neither fuel costs nor losses due to the conversion of one form of energy to another form of energy. Today, lightning rods throw this energy away, safely shunting it to ground without using any of the potential energy collected and guided to a safe grounding rod. I propose we instead shunt the power to a storage device and use the energy rather than throwing it away.
Collection, Storage and Controlled Release of Lightning and Other High Voltages:
A Research Proposal For Energy Independence
The most significant innovation in this proposal is a method to efficiently release the high voltage stored in the bank of CRTs (cathode ray tubes, or TV picture tubes). Solid resistors have always been considered the method to lower the voltage to a level at which it could be used. However, when such a large voltage drop is placed across a solid resistor, a great deal of the electrical power is dissipated as heat, which makes the process very inefficient. Another problem with solid resistors, especially high voltage variable resistors, is reliability. Many times the high voltage arcs across the resistor and damages the surface that the rotor makes electrical contact with. A variable resistor is desirable so that as the power is drained from the CRTs and the voltage drops, you could compensate and maintain a steady voltage. The innovation described in this proposal should alleviate these problems.
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A Convergence of Horse and Bicycle Modes of Transport
Posted on December 1, 2007
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Terry Dyke
Abstract
The bulk of post-oil land transportion will probably be limited to the bicycle and the horse. The two have such complementary strengths and weaknesses that choosing between them poses a dilemma. This article analyzes the potential for resolving it by applying horse power to cycling technology.
Horses & Bicycles
After the Oil Crash, most technology that we consider worthy of the label will be well beyond our ability to create and produce. In that sense, it will be a post-technological world. Still, even the stone hatchet is a technology, and as a practical matter, there will surely be technologies available for our use that lie somewhere between flint hand-tools and the advanced oil-dependent techologies of the Machine Age.
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How to Transition from the Car Culture to the Bike Culture Paradigm
Posted on December 1, 2007
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Curt Sommer
Americans have become very accustomed to a life of convenience and leisure. Since the early 1950’s, American culture has revolved around the use of the car for personal transportation. The automobile, while offering unsurpassed individual mobility, is also one of the most inefficient forms of transportation. In the future, more people will rely on the simplicity of the bicycle for personal transportation. This essay explores the issue of why this transformation will be a monumental undertaking and why people should consider bike commuting now, by addressing four primary advantages of bicycle commuting: environmental degradation/resource intensiveness, national/economic security, national/personal fitness, and some effective steps towards a commuter bike lifestyle.
Environmental Degradation/Resource Utilization
Automobiles have arguably had one of the most dramatic effects on our society; however, they are also the single greatest cause for much of our current ecological dilemmas. Thousands of people are killed every year in auto accidents, and millions more are seriously injured. Automobile pollution accounts for a large degree of the increase in global warming. Overwhelming scientific opinion agrees that irregular species migration and extinction resulting from global warming is caused by excessive emissions from automobile usage. Over 90% of our transportation energy comes from fossil fuels, and the US currently imports over 50% of its oil consumption. The U.S. comprises less than 1/5 of global population, yet it consumes over 25% of all natural resources. We have become accustomed to a specific type of lifestyle, and in particular one of convenience and opulence.
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Our Village
Posted on December 1, 2007
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Dmitry Orlov
A few years after the Soviet Union collapsed, I spent some time living in a small Russian village where my wife’s side of the family owns a house. There is nothing special or unique about this particular village; I am sure that it is just one of thousands like it, scattered over the vast expanse of Russia. It is a simple place that caters to simple needs. Like many such places, it was only very slightly affected by the collapse of the Soviet economy: you’d have to know what to look for to detect changes, and none of them made obvious the fact that elsewhere life had changed in dramatic ways.
The United States is now facing a predicament similar to the one the Soviet Union confronted some two decades ago. There is a great deal of discussion, among those few who try to think for themselves, about the right way to respond to the permanent energy crisis that has already started to grip the country. The entire American way of life is an artificial life support system that runs on fossil fuels, and it is going to get knocked out as these fuels run low. Of the few people who have any notion that this is happening, even fewer can imagine what might come next, beyond the gut feeling that it will be unpleasant.
Some people have started to entertain thoughts of returning to a rural way of life and surviving through subsistence agriculture - like the people in our village. This is, of course, an excellent idea. If meadow voles could talk, they would categorically deny that their lifestyle and diet are in any way affected by fossil fuel prices and shortages, stock market crashes, cities looted by armed mobs, internment camps run by federal emergency goons, or what have you. But we are not meadow voles, and when we decide to start living off the land, as with any new endeavor, it is important for us to learn as much as we can, and to think things through. However, given the subject matter at hand, to be of any use, such learning and thinking must be sufficiently concrete, simple, and down-to-earth.
There is an element to American culture that never ceases to amuse me. Even when grappling with the idea of economic disintegration, Americans attempt to cast it in terms of technological or economic progress: eco-villages, sustainable development, energy efficiency and so on. Under the circumstances, such compulsive techno-optimism seems maladaptive. I love the new advances in organic farming, which I find fascinating and very useful, but why do people seem incapable of doing the simplest things without making them into projects, preferably ones that involve some element of new technology? Thousands of years of happy composting using heaps and pits are behind us: now we need bins - and plastic, oil-based ones at that!
Contrary to the impositions of the whiz-bang-blinded and the gadget-addled among us, living off the land is not about projects, or systems, or organizations, but about shovels and buckets and hoes, and it is not even so much about skills or techniques, as it is about habits. Yes, you too can pick up the healthy habits of growing and gathering your own food, storing it, cooking it, eating it, excreting it, and, yes, even composting the end result. The temporary bounty of fossil fuels has allowed a lot of the former peasants to live like nobles for a time - residing in mansions, moving about in carriages, and having people serve them. Once these sources of energy are depleted, many of these former peasants will be forced to revert back. They will once more have to live in huts, travel on foot, wield their ancestral scythes and sickles to provide their sustenance, and do their own chores.
But we are people, not voles, and mere subsistence is not enough. Village life is about growing food, but it is also about much more. It is about the sense of security that comes from knowing what you need and how to help yourself to it. And it is about the profound experience of beauty that only comes from direct, daily contact with nature. Finally, it is about the sense of eternity, of the timelessness that comes from knowing that nothing ever has to change unless you want it to: great empires may rise up and crumble all around you, but the village will abide.
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Almost the Way Life Should Be*
Posted on December 1, 2007
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by Mike Bendzela
*There’s an inane sign that greets you when you cross over from New Hampshire: MAINE: THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE. I don’t see that people live any differently here than anyplace else.
In January of 1998, we endured a 48-hour ice storm here in the Northeast: our foretaste, perhaps, of a world running low on oil.
In the middle of the storm, a delivery truck managed to back into our icy dooryard, bringing in bulk goods for our little food cooperative. While hauling a case of recycled toilet paper off the tailgate, I heard an enormous “pop.” I looked up in time to see the tall, Y-shaped elm tree on the other side of the house splitting in half. One leg of the “Y” fell against the barn; the other leg ended up in the road.
The power went out, naturally. Our response was: OH, BOTHER.
That night, my partner and I stood outside in the blackout listening to the storm. The trees, encased from trunk-to-tip-of-twig in an inch of ice, creaked and crunched as they rocked in the wind. “My god, listen to that,” I said. “They sound like leather jackets.”
Whole limbs broke off giant oak trees, and mature birch trunks leaned over so far under their burdens of ice, they snapped in half. We could hear a continual popping like gunshots in the dark woods, followed by the long whoosh-tinkle of ice-encrusted branches plummeting to the ground—exactly as if someone were tossing fully-ornamented Christmas trees off the tops of buildings. The world was coming to an end.
We had a further dilemma—we were supposed to have a potluck supper that night for the folks in the co-op, after we distributed the food and toilet paper. Actually, it wasn’t that much of a dilemma, and when the phone calls started coming in, we told people to come on over, that is, if they could make it around all the fallen trees and powerlines in the roads.
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Alternative Local Economies
Posted on December 1, 2007
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by Ted Millich
Synopsis
We cannot develop alternative, sustainable energy without first dealing with power inequity. If the rules that govern the way money is issued in the current world financial system (the global monetocracy) are replaced with more just rules, we can change the relationship to power that we each have. Then we will be better able to prepare for the future.
Introduction
We need to prepare for the coming energy crisis, but we are not. Many of us are anticipating it, but we are not working together as a community towards preparing for it. Part of the reason is ignorance, but even after everyone realizes it is here, it will be difficult to do what needs to be done because the incentives provided by our global economic system encourage such things as short-term planning, redundant commercial land development, frivolous product manufacturing, slave wages, power imbalances, high-energy use, autocratic decision-making, and pollution.
Capitalism, or the Global Monetocracy System, disincentives many consciously responsible options. If we change the way money is issued and interest is given, we can change the way that we provide incentives that guide the decisions behind the products we make and the work we do. One of the largest aspects of this change will come about because of who makes the lending decisions. Also, when money can’t make money from interest, money won’t be more valuable than the things we buy with it: a forest will be more valuable than the money made from the sale of the trees. Also, wealth will not be transferred from most of us to the wealthiest of us. In other words, power will be spread out more evenly than it is now.
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