Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT dtnspeed.net>]

I'll not believe for a minute that James is confused but he says he is:

<<I'm a bit confused by this.  If the doom and gloomers are wrong, then we 
don't need people out front on energy.  However if the doom and gloomers
have a valid point, we indeed better focus on them.>>

On second thought, maybe James is confused. I don't believe it's a
doom-or-gloom position that we are at, or nearly at peak oil for the world.
That's a fact; any easily recoverable oil has been found and is being
pumped, or will be soon. The doom-and-gloom stuff regards speculation about
how we'll respond to this unshakable fact.

<<What I mean is this:  Right now it seems as if everyone's set of
acceptable 
outcomes for the energy problem is to finesse an alternate solution,
alternate 
source of energy, to maintain our current lifestyle. >>

It's not surprising that that's what people do. Most of them aren't in a
position to do much else. Think about people living in city apartments that
reach 95+ degrees in summer if they aren't air-conditioned and have no
alternative source of heat if whatever fires the boiler isn't available. And
that's just the first problem -- what do they do if food can't be trucked
in, or if the stuff trucked in is way too expensive?


<< But what is more likely, 
says I, is that it is the alternate lifestyle that must be embraced more
than an alternate energy.  If we do the former, the latter becomes almost
moot.  >>

I imagine that alternate lifestyles will quickly follow on the heels of
exorbitant energy costs. Of course, the change won't be quick enough for
those who are dragged into it, but for those of us who have been at least
dimly realizing that the good life can't go on forever, it will be just a
matter of getting used to the fact that reverting is no longer an option.

<<The thing that comes to mind is the wok, an absolutely marvelous tool in
the kitchen.  Confusian philosophy says that Chinese food is cut into small
bites and eaten at the table with chopsticks because only a lout barbarian
would bring a weapon (a knife) to the table with which to cut his food.
Maybe.  But the more feasible explaination is that the stir-fry cuisine
developed because of a severe shortage of cooking fuel.... Short on cooking
fuel they developed a system of cooking that requires 
what must be the absolutely least amount of heat to get the job done.>>

Uh-huh, and the methane available from fermenting feces produces the hot
flame needed for wok cooking. Some years ago, in a collection of Chinese
short stories, I was quite taken by the episode of a farmer rushing home
from visiting a neighbor when the urge to shit came over him. He was not
about to contribute to his neighbor's methane producer. 

<<The rub on all the available alternative energies is that to be
successful, 
they require a change in lifestyle, much as fuel shortage induced wok did.
And if you are willing to make that lifestyle change, there's plenty of fuel

aleady.>>

I can heat with wood, or with anything combustible, but I'd really feel
bereft without electricity. I like having a computer and a radio. Once in a
while I even watch a movie on my TV, though so infrequently that I wouldn't
miss it if it were gone.

<<So I guess I find myself not so much looking for the example of people in 
alternate energy as much as looking for the example of people in alternate 
lifestyles.>>

The country as a whole is going to have to find some source of alternate
energy to bridge the change (or face civil disorder), but I totally agree
that lifestyles are going to change. It won't be a matter of choice.

Marie