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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Food Security
  • Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:19:59 -0600


Dan, I'm posting an excerpt from that site you included. This is Kunstler.
But let's try not to forget: for millions among us, this predicted hardship
has already landed on top of them. Below a certain income level, people
just can't drive to a job. Maybe the underground economy (read: below the
tax radar) will save those who can't afford the mainstream lifestyle.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
-------------------------------------

The latest statistical work by Dallas geologist Jeffrey Brown over at The
Oil Drum.com, suggests that something else is happening, something that was
not anticipated: an imminent oil export crisis. This Export Land Theory
states that exporting nations will have far less oil available for export
than was previously assumed under older models. (Story here.) The theory
states that export rates will drop by a far greater percentage than net
production decline rates in any given exporting country. For example, The
UK's portion of the North Sea oil fields may be showing a nine percent
annual decline for the past couple of years. But it's export capacity has
declined 60 percent. Something similar is in store for Saudi Arabia,
Russia, Mexico, Venezuela -- in short, the whole cast of characters in the
export world. They are all producing less and they are all using more of
their own oil, and have less to send elsewhere.

Brown's math suggests that world oil exports will drop by 50 percent within
the next five years, certainly enough to trigger a systemic breakdown in
market allocation, meaning serious supply shortages among the importing
nations. That's us. We import two-thirds of all the oil we use.

The implication in all this is that the activities that have become
"normal" for us during the post World War Two era will very shortly become
untenable. An economy based on suburban expansion and incessant motoring is
on the top of the list of supposedly "normal" activities that will not be
able to continue. I would maintain that even if we had 20 years, no
combination of bio-fuels and other alternatives would enable us to keep
suburbia running. But this latest work indicates that we have much less
time to adjust.

This new information is consistent with my view that we had better prepare
to make other arrangements for living in this country, by which I mean
specifically re-localizing, de-globalizing, with an emphasis on local
agriculture wherever possible, the emergency restoration of passenger
railroad service and related modes of public transit, the rebuilding of
local commercial infrastructures, and a radical rethinking of how we
inhabit the landscape under New Urbanist lines.

Perhaps the most imminent danger is that the financial markets, which have
been driving our insane, hollowed-out economy, will soon recognize what's
in store and implode, creating a crisis of capital that will leave us with
no ability to make any emergency investments, such as would be required to
rebuild the railroad system. The equity markets sure blinked last week when
two hedge funds based on phony-baloney collateralized debt obligations
tanked. The collateral underlying this load of hallucinated "wealth" is
comprised of contracts made by the insolvent for suburban houses worth far
less than the value stated on the contracts -- with every indication that
the real value will keep dropping.


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 6/26/2007 at 2:06 PM Dan Conine wrote:

>Here's another story about the 'future'.
>
>http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2007/KunstlerDirectAnxiety.html

>
>I'm with the Survival Acres guy. If for no other reason than by
>comparing the stock market, the Depression, and the difference in
>concentrated farming/food dependence of now and 1929. Back then, people
>had some chance of finding a farm with stored food, fields of cabbage, a
>few extra potatoes, and a lot of small homes with a family cow providing
>wholesome milk from grass, and chickens.
>Today, there is only the System, and the few of us out on the Fringe who
>know how to grow our own food, but there aren't nearly as many of us as
>there are going to be desperate people doing desperate things. The local
>gas station owner (from India, who stops in to pick up chicken feed
>occasionally) said that he is seeing as many cars travelling on weekends
>as he normally would see on the 4th of July. Not as many mobile houses,
>though, but more cars. Where are all these people going, and what are
>they accomplishing when they get there?
>
>Oh yeah, we need to grow more corn to feed THEIR habits...... :-P ...
>
>Dan
>Belgium,WI
>







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