[Gasification] Fool's Paradise meets "The Long Emergency"

[Mark Ludlow]

Peter,

Why is the thought of a "massive die-off" so abhorrent? Paleontology, as
well as observations of various animal populations in our time, reveals that
the massive die-off seems to be a common and "natural" way of regulating the
balance between resources and consumption. Why should it be any different in
the future?

There have been at least five great extinctions, previously. Perhaps we are
on the threshold of the sixth. If we are very considerate of the choices we
as humankind make, perhaps we can delay it a few millennia. Regardless,
species arrive and become extinct--even without the help of cataclysmic
events--and Homo sapiens will at some point just be a fossil record
regardless of whether or not we all voluntarily return to the
horse-and-buggy days, voluntarily or otherwise.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:gasification-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Peter Singfield
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 7:41 AM
To: gasification at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Fool's Paradise meets "The Long Emergency"

At 11:30 PM 2/6/2007 -0500, "Jeff Davis" <jeff0124 at velocity.net> wrote:
>Dear Peter,
>

>The sad part is that nobody cares...
>
>
>Your friend,
>
>
>Jeff
>

All to true -- and so very sad. We were taught in physics that one of the
basic laws is all things change in time.

I can not argue -- human nature never changes.

OK -- we abhor political discussions on this list. However -- the following
should be considered by everyone here. As it outlines the "trends" of where
we are heading -- and one should pay attention to such when designing
devices for a future scenario.

Ergo -- you do not want to be designing a better harness for horses when
the Model T Ford has just been introduced.

Here is the very real meat of this article:

"Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars by 
means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars running 
at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially unhelpful that 
so many self-proclaimed "greens" and political "progressives" are hung 
up on this monomaniacal theme"

"Get this: the cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on 
fossil fuels, vodka, used frymaxT oil, or cow shit). They are at the 
heart of the problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring 
system by shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things 
much worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. 
We have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common 
activities of daily life"

We have discussed that topic in depth here on this list in the past --
reduction of energy intensive life style to meet a "shared" future -- where
all can prosper -- and no massive die-off is required.

Gasifiers to run vehicles?? Why??

How about gasifiers to heat houses and a little electric power to boot??

Even then -- except for a minor percentage of people -- where will the rest
get the zillions of tons of woody biomass??

Read on then ---

I do believe this is the correct forecast -- so do not get trapped into
designing solutions based on false premises and then watch all you efforts
go down the tubes when circumstances do not meet your expectations.

The people on this very mail list divide into two basic categories -- those
"playing" at this game (week-end hippies comes to mind) and those actually
part of this new movement.

Tom T has labeled me as a player -- not a participant.

However -- in real terms -- right now -- the world can end and nothing much
changes in my life -- I'll still have transport -- electric power -- food --


With the happy bonus of much more free time when the telecommunications
complete goes "poof" and I no longer have to bother sitting at a key board.

And look "MA" -- not one single high caliber (or low) weapon at hand!!

Interesting times ---

Peter / Belize (The fringe Rat)



**********************************************************

Published on 5 Feb 2007 by Cluster Nation. Archived on 5 Feb 2007.
The agenda restated

by James Howard Kunstler


Out in the public arena, people frequently twang on me for being "Mister 
Gloom'n'doom," or for "not offering any solutions." I find this bizarre 
because I never fail to present audiences with a long, explicit task 
list of projects that American society needs to take up in the face of 
the combined problems I have labeled The Long Emergency. That the 
audience never hears this, and then indignantly demands such 
instruction, only reinforces my sense that the cognitive dissonance in 
our culture has gone totally off the charts.

Insofar as I just returned from a college lecture road trip, and heard 
the same carping all over again, I conclude that it's necessary for me 
to spell it all out a'fresh. I think of this not so much as a roster of 
"solutions" but as a set of reasonable responses to a new set of 
circumstances. (Not everything we try to do will succeed, that is, be a 
"solution.") So, for those of you who are tired of wringing your hands, 
who would like to do something useful, or focus your attention in a 
purposeful way, here it is.

Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars by 
means other than gasoline. This obsession with keeping the cars running 
at all costs could really prove fatal. It is especially unhelpful that 
so many self-proclaimed "greens" and political "progressives" are hung 
up on this monomaniacal theme.

Get this: the cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on 
fossil fuels, vodka, used frymaxT oil, or cow shit). They are at the 
heart of the problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring 
system by shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things 
much worse. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car. 
We have to make other arrangements for virtually all the common 
activities of daily life.

We have to produce food differently. The ADM / Monsanto / Cargill model 
of industrial agribusiness is heading toward its Waterloo. As oil and 
gas deplete, we will be left with sterile soils and farming organized at 
an unworkable scale. Many lives will depend on our ability to fix this. 
Farming will soon return much closer to the center of American economic 
life. It will necessarily have to be done more locally, at a 
smaller-and-finer scale, and will require more human labor. The 
value-added activities associated with farming -- e.g. making products 
like cheese, wine, oils -- will also have to be done much more locally.

This situation presents excellent business and vocational opportunities 
for America's young people (if they can unplug their Ipods long enough 
to pay attention.) It also presents huge problems in land-use reform. 
Not to mention the fact that the knowledge and skill for doing these 
things has to be painstakingly retrieved from the dumpster of history. 
Get busy.

We have to inhabit the terrain differently. Virtually every place in our 
nation organized for car dependency is going to fail to some degree. 
Quite a few places (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami....) will support only a 
fraction of their current populations. We'll have to return to 
traditional human ecologies at a smaller scale: villages, towns, and 
cities (along with a productive rural landscape). Our small towns are 
waiting to be reinhabited. Our cities will have to contract. The cities 
that are composed proportionately more of suburban fabric (e.g. Atlanta, 
Houston) will pose especially tough problems. Most of that stuff will 
not be fixed. The loss of monetary value in suburban property will have 
far-reaching ramifications.

The stuff we build in the decades ahead will have to be made of regional 
materials found in nature -- as opposed to modular, snap-together, 
manufactured components -- at a more modest scale. This whole process 
will entail enormous demographic shifts and is liable to be turbulent. 
Like farming, it will require the retrieval of skill-sets and 
methodologies that have been forsaken. The graduate schools of 
architecture are still tragically preoccupied with teaching Narcissism. 
The faculties will have to be overthrown. Our attitudes about land-use 
will have to change dramatically. The building codes and zoning laws 
will eventually be abandoned and will have to be replaced with 
vernacular wisdom. Get busy.

We have to move things and people differently. This is the sunset of 
Happy Motoring (including the entire US trucking system). Get used to 
it. Don't waste your society's remaining resources trying to prop up 
car-and-truck dependency. Moving things and people by water and rail is 
vastly more energy-efficient. Need something to do? Get involved in 
restoring public transit. Let's start with railroads, and let's make 
sure we electrify them so they will run on things other than fossil fuel 
or, if we have to run them partly on coal-fired power plants, at least 
scrub the emissions and sequester the CO2 at as few source-points as 
possible.

We also have to prepare our society for moving people and things much 
more by water. This implies the rebuilding of infrastructure for our 
harbors, and also for our inland river and canal systems -- including 
the towns associated with them. The great harbor towns, like Baltimore, 
Boston, and New York, can no longer devote their waterfronts to condo 
sites and bikeways. We actually have to put the piers and warehouses 
back in place (not to mention the sleazy accommodations for sailors). 
Right now, programs are underway to restore maritime shipping based on 
wind -- yes, sailing ships. It's for real. Lots to do here. Put down 
your Ipod and get busy.

We have to transform retail trade. The national chains that have used 
the high tide of fossil fuels to contrive predatory economies-of-scale 
(and kill local economies) -- they are going down. WalMart and the other 
outfits will not survive the coming era of expensive, scarcer oil. They 
will not be able to run the "warehouses-on-wheels" of 18-wheel 
tractor-trailers incessantly circulating along the interstate highways. 
Their 12,000-mile supply lines to the Asian slave-factories are also 
endangered as the US and China contest for Middle East and African oil.

The local networks of commercial interdependency which these chain 
stores systematically destroyed (with the public's acquiescence) will 
have to be rebuilt brick-by-brick and inventory-by-inventory. This will 
require rich, fine-grained, multi-layered networks of people who make, 
distribute, and sell stuff (including the much-maligned "middlemen"). 
Don't be fooled into thinking that the Internet will replace local 
retail economies. Internet shopping is totally dependent now on cheap 
delivery, and delivery will no longer be cheap. It also is predicated on 
electric power systems that are completely reliable. That is something 
we are unlikely to enjoy in the years ahead. Do you have a penchant for 
retail trade and don't want to work for a big predatory corporation? 
There's lots to do here in the realm of small, local business. Quit 
carping and get busy.

We will have to make things again in America. However, we are going to 
make less stuff. We will have fewer things to buy, fewer choices of 
things. The curtain is coming down on the endless blue-light-special 
shopping frenzy that has occupied the forefront of daily life in America 
for decades. But we will still need household goods and things to wear. 
As a practical matter, we are not going to re-live the 20th century. The 
factories from America's heyday of manufacturing (1900 - 1970) were all 
designed for massive inputs of fossil fuel, and many of them have 
already been demolished. We're going to have to make things on a smaller 
scale by other means. Perhaps we will have to use more water power. The 
truth is, we don't know yet how we're going to make anything. This is 
something that the younger generations can put their minds and muscles into.
The age of canned entertainment is coming to and end. It was fun for a 
while. We liked "Citizen Kane" and the Beatles. But we're going to have 
to make our own music and our own drama down the road. We're going to 
need playhouses and live performance halls. We're going to need violin 
and banjo players and playwrights and scenery-makers, and singers. We'll 
need theater managers and stage-hands. The Internet is not going to save 
canned entertainment. The Internet will not work so well if the 
electricity is on the fritz half the time (or more).

We'll have to reorganize the education system. The centralized secondary 
school systems based on the yellow school bus fleets will not survive 
the coming decades. The huge investments we have made in these 
facilities will impede the transition out of them, but they will fail 
anyway. Since we will be a less-affluent society, we probably won't be 
able to replace these centralized facilities with smaller and more 
equitably distributed schools, at least not right away. Personally, I 
believe that the next incarnation of education will grow out of the home 
schooling movement, as home schooling efforts aggregate locally into 
units of more than one family.

God knows what happens beyond secondary ed. The big universities, both 
public and private, may not be salvageable. And the activity of higher 
ed itself may engender huge resentment by those foreclosed from it. But 
anyone who learns to do long division and write a coherent paragraph 
will be at a great advantage -- and, in any case, will probably 
out-perform today's average college graduate. One thing for sure: 
teaching children is not liable to become an obsolete line-of-work, as 
compared to public relations and sports marketing. Lots to do here, and 
lots to think about. Get busy, future teachers of America.
We have to reorganize the medical system. The current skein of 
intertwined rackets based on endless Ponzi buck passing scams will not 
survive the discontinuities to come. We will probably have to return to 
a model of service much closer to what used to be called "doctoring." 
Medical training may also have to change as the big universities run 
into trouble functioning. Doctors of the 21st century will certainly 
drive fewer German cars, and there will be fewer opportunities in the 
cosmetic surgery field. Let's hope that we don't slide so far back that 
we forget the germ theory of disease, or the need to wash our hands, or 
the fundamentals of pharmaceutical science. Lots to do here for the 
unsqueamish.

Life in the USA will have to become much more local, and virtually all 
the activities of everyday life will have to be re-scaled. You can state 
categorically that any enterprise now supersized is likely to fail -- 
everything from the federal government to big corporations to huge 
institutions. If you can find a way to do something practical and useful 
on a smaller scale than it is currently being done, you are likely to 
have food in your cupboard and people who esteem you. An entire social 
infrastructure of voluntary associations, co-opted by the narcotic of 
television, needs to be reconstructed. Local institutions for care of 
the helpless will have to be organized. Local politics will be much more 
meaningful as state governments and federal agencies slide into complete 
impotence. Lots of jobs here for local heroes.

So, that's the task list for now. Forgive me if I left things out. But 
please don't carp at me, by letter or in person, that I am not providing 
you with anything to think about or devote your personal energy to. If 
you're depressed, change your focus. Quit wishing and start doing. The 
best way to feel hopeful about the future is to get off your ass and 
demonstrate to yourself that you are a capable, competent individual 
resolutely able to face new circumstances.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Contributor CW writes:
A point-by-point listing of what young adults can do to help create a 
'softer landing' during the long emergency. Very upbeat and positive, 
well-written in Kunstler's direct, lively style.
Nobody can do jeremiads as eloquently and with as pointed a sense of 
humor as Kunstler can, but this is a nice change of pace. -BA


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