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  • From: William Genest <genest@pivot.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Peak Oil
  • Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:29:42 -0400

This is an imp't discussion for us IMO - Just read "The long emergency - survivng the convergent catastrophes of the 21st century" by James Howard Kunstler- Many permies have probably read his other books too - He's hardly a fanatic but oy ! What a picture he paints ! Two points I would raise re: gene's post: One, SUV's getting 100 MPG - the problem with energy conservation/innovation is that it masks the problem i.e. we do more with less, prices stabilize and people go back to consuming more - with more people using more oil ( rmemmber exponential population growth and the rapid industrialization of the third world !) you get a phenomenom like in California which in spite of radically improved emissions standards over the years neverhteless has worse air quality than ever.

2.It is not the disappeanace of oil in 40-50 years that is the problem , but the slightest disruptions of supply that are imminent - We forget how taut are the supply lines of food - that food = oil - they are petro-chemical fertilizer, pesticides, fungides, herbicides etc . And every bite of food travels 2000km and all of it wrapped in plastic ( oil).... Never before have I more clearly understood the need for a permanent agriculture....
3. Some areas of the world will do better than other - according to Kunstler the southwest is doomed once the airc onditioning gets truned off and the Northeast, with its history of democratic cooperation and good farmland and water may do better ( though how we'll heat our homes I have no idea).

4. All of this has to be contextualized with climate change, disappearing forests, water, land etc. Political upheaval and the general unsustianbility of everything we know - Americ'as might and ability to keep the peace is entirely dependent on oil too...

William

On Oct 10, 2005, at 11:02 AM, efmonaco@comcast.net wrote:

I've stayed out of the Peak Oil discussions so far because there's too much speculation for my taste: There are many scenarios including the one where the masses of people realize that the oil is limited, gas goes to $10/gallon, SUV's evolve to get 100 mpg, and the suburbs gradually shrink down to dense urban ecocities with mass transit and sustainable agricultures. It's one of the possible futures, and one which we should all envision.
But (you knew there was a but), recent events in the Gulf Coast have shed some light on a scenario that was not as well seen (at least by me). Did you notice which city got hit with the highest gas prices just after Katrina? It was Atlanta, at $5/gal, with many stations running dry. Why? Because Atlanta has no refineries. It gets all its gas from pipelines from Pascagoula, MS and Mobile, AL, which were hit. While fear and price gouging hit everybody to some extent, nearby Houston wasn't nearly as affected because its refineries weren't hit. California wasn't affected because its refineries weren't hit. Chicago wasn't affected because its refinieries weren't hit. And the northeast wasn't much affected because its refineries weren't hit.
Since the refineries were back online in a few days it all passed by and prices came back down albeit to a new level, which is largly explained by record profits of the oil companies, many of which are also refiners.
So what if a rough hurricane season knocked out most of the Gulf coast's refineries. That's more than 40% of US capacity. Add to that an earthquake in Long Beach, CA and the run on the remaining oil would grind many of the cities of the US to a halt. That means no food on the shelves, so no need for that long trip to Tobytown from the boonies. And all in quite short order, a few days max. Looting starts immediately as it did in New Orleans, it moves into the suburbs shortly thereafter, then to the rural areas and ecovillages that everybody knows about. With sea levels rising, polar ice caps melting, ocean temps rising, etc., this one may play out sooner than the doomsday scenario of chaos due to the last drop being pumped out of the Middle East, which will be swallowed up by China anyway. Time to dust off that old seed press to make lube oil for the chicken tractor. Squirrel stew anyone?
-Gene Monaco



Well, I'm not giving up on cities, at least, my
city in particular, and I am one of the
co-moderators of runningonempty2@yahoogroups.com ,
which presently has 5500+ members and has been
discussing peak oil since 2001, and I have read
every single message in that group.

There is certainly a group of peak oil folks who
favor a retreat to a remote rural homestead. They
generally also believe there will be a fast, ugly,
and violent crash/die-off of the human species,
from the present 6+ billion to a few million in
the space of a few years. See
http://www.dieoff.com for more information about
that.

I tend to think the situation is going to play out
as a long, slow grind and general impoverishment
(in terms of energy and financial resources). I
think my particular city is well positioned to
meet those challenges (I live in Oklahoma City).
We have a million people in the metropolitan area,
but it is low density by the standards of say
Boston or New York City. We have 1/6th of an
acre, plus the city's easement, and you can do a
lot with that.

Regarding the suburbs, I wonder if they will
perhaps be reborn as market gardens for the
central cities. It is possible, for example, that
today's upscale suburbs could become the low-rent
areas of the peak oil future. After all, many of
the poor areas of modern cities were once very
upscale neighborhoods. In the early years of the
decline of fossil fuels, I expect that a lot of
people with resources are going to move back into
cities, and probably displace poor people. Zoning
changes and the demise of neighborhood
associations will lead to these big houses being
chopped up into apartments. Since many of these
houses sit on large lots, and there tends to be a
lot of green space, it is not a big jump to see
those lawns turned into intensive food producing
gardens, both to produce food for the inhabitants
and a surplus to sell in the city.

It's true, people in these retrofitted suburbs
won't be raising golden acres of grain, but I
personally expect that farming of basic staple
crops -- like beans and grains and corn for human
consumption -- to continue well into the future,
and that there will be enough fuel to move them
around. I sent a series of messages to
runningonempty2@yahoogroups.com which considered
the energy required to produce and deliver a basic
daily ration of beans and grains (2 pounds if I
remember correctly) to everybody in the country,
and assuming that (a) all imports were cut off,
and only domestic petroleum supplies were
available, and (b) that US oil production
continued to decline at its historical rate), it
would be 40 or 50 years out before there would not
be enough domestic oil production to provide that
amount of food to everyone in the country.

I also expect that livestock production for meat
will continue, although the feedlot/confined
animal feeding operation system will die.

Here in Oklahoma City, if I can get beans and
grain and some meat from farm country, I am pretty
confident that with what we can raise on our
former lawns we would have enough to eat. As
things change enough, Oklahoma City will probably
change its city ordinances and I could have
chickens which would be a real plus.

I think over time the big megalopolises will
decline in population, and I think that more
people will move to rural areas, mostly to small
towns and that there will be some movement from
the colder parts of the country to the Sunbelt,
but I expect cities to endure for quite some time
and for there to be enough food to feed the people
there.

Robert Waldrop
http://www.energyconservationinfo.org

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gryphon Danu"

I'm not so confident about that Toby. Humankind

has gotten along quite

well over the ages from living off the land.

Afterall , it was energy

from coal and oil that made life in the big

cities possible. Once that's

gone, I don't see much hope there -- too many

people will be competing

for too few resources; city dwellers are equally

dependent on

transported goods, especially food.

Yeah, living completely rural outside of a

community as you once did is

probably a bad choice -- but leaving cities for

small, progressive towns

that are in close proximity to agriculture and

other natural resources

like timber, good soil, and clean water is

really the way to go. I

personally like the ideas they're formulating

over at

http://communitysolution.org

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Best Regards,

William Genest

- Founder Green Mountain Permaculture Institute of Vermont
Solutions, Sustenance, Sustainability
www.greenmountainpermaculture.com

- Creator "Regeneration - The Art of Sustainable Living"
From "Something-Must-be-Done" to Something we can do !
www.regenerationshow.com

- Ecological Coordinator
Club St.Paul Ecological Golf Course

- Vice-President Green Party of Quebec "pour nous et nos enfants"
www.pvq.qc.ca

- National Spokesperson Green Party of Canada
"The Future is Now ! "
www.greenparty.ca







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