Most people don't care

[Tchild2]

I now have small library of Peak oil videos.  I have showed them to my brothers (sensible fellows) to try to get them on board.  Now, when ever we get together for family functions I get the usual razzing about having my bunker ready, storin' grain, and other light hearted jabs from my brothers about the PO issues.   I think that for most people, the PO issues are not part of their paradigm.  It is just too difficult to imagine life changing so drastically and permanently, based on something that we have all taken for granted as a fact-of-life; energy when and where you need it.

What causes me the most stress is trying to decide what actions to take NOW, that will bless and benefit my children, their children and their children that follow?  Do I buy farmland or invest in some industry that is outdated now, but will be necessary in, say 70-100 years, like horse shoe cobbling?  Maybe a leather shoe repair?  An Iron welding and repair shop with a 19th centrury style furnace to heat and hammer metals?

"Son, I know your friends are going into business management at the university, but I am telling you, horse cobbling is going to be BIG after the SHTF"!  "While were at it, lets get you some experience into sterling silverr molding and casting.   Who knows but that the new aristocracy isn't going to want fine sterling silverware?"

[soylent]

Or, more to the point, most people lack any appropriate emotional response, when confronted with energy, population, food, water, or economic issues.

I think this lack of emotional response is similar to the nature of women in the sex trade.  They are dead inside, from a lifetime of being used, lied to, manipulated, used, beaten down, treated maliciously, and used.

Matt made a post recently about how people don't seem to respond to certain information.  Like anything that might affect them personally.  Any of the messages that "the aware" (that's us) might try to give to "the unwashed" (everyone else) is met with what Matt called the classic American blank stare, which I called CRABS, the classic retarded American blank stare.

If the blank stare is a measure of intelligence, then CRABS is an appropriate title I think.  But the blankness is also a measure of emotion, feeling, concern not just for their fellow humans, but also that natural, selfish, survival-based concern.  The blank stare indicates not only lack of smarts, it also indicates a deep, yawning void which has few or no emotional sparks.  As if they're already gone, like a shop-worn stripper, like a career waitress with Marlboro lines in her face, already empty inside.

They don't care, because they are literally unable to.

Not dead, but never fully alive.  And we know what those are: the UNDEAD.  The Universally Neglected and Damaged, Empty of the American Dream.

If you get the UNDEAD response from people, pity them, say a small prayer if you're so inclined, and then get the hell out of there before they infect you, before they drag you down to their level.

The UNDEAD and CRABS.  Always be on the lookout, protect yourself at all times.

edit: extraneous and

God dam it! Ignore them...
Make your own plans...You -or we- can not change people or can convince them, you would loose time uselessly...it happens to me too.
Prepare yourself with little changes or things about oil crashevery day...and at the day you consider that you prepareness must be applied, then kidnap your family and your friends -even with disproporcionated violence- and include them in your emergency oil crash plan.
I could apply this advise to me but I'm not psicologically strong enough...I must keep in secret my plan to be more efficient...

[Bruce]

 Ihave tried and tried in ernest to get people to see the light. I have given up, completely. I can not save the world and would do damn good to save myself. The task is impossible. They can have it their way. How can so many be so ignorant in the light of overwhelming evidence?...................................................... Bruce

[Chip Haynes]

   I don't see the problem as an "undead" thing- not with the bulk of the general American public anyway. (Although I admit the undead analysis was quite clever.) Quite the opposite: I see the problem as too many people too easily excited by an over-abundance of immediate shallowness (TV, recreational shopping, fun eating, and driving) to see beyond both their own nose and next week. Everyone is focused on Right Now, and Right Now is all about driving, shopping, eating and watching Britney Spears/O J Simpson/Paris Hilton/Lindsay Lohan implode. More people can tell you who got kicked off SURVIVOR last week that can tell you where we get most of our imported oil.
   So it should come as no surprise to any of us here on this forum that most folks really, truly, sincerely don't care about peak oil or the oil crash. Nor will they, until it directly impacts their non-negotiable Ameican way of life. And even then, they will do everything- and I mean EVERYTHING- in their power to put off making changes they should have made ten years ago.
   I intend to do everything I can, when the time comes, to find their plight amusing.

I'm funny that way.

  

[Blade1]

Chip
          What do you expect? If the good guys were the ones to die off it wouldn't be quite right would it? Cannons are worthless without cannon fodder.
                                                               Blade1

[Chip Haynes]

You're right, Blade- and we're pretty much up to our amrpits in fodder these days. Look around your office. How many people that you work with right now do you think will be able to make a reasonably painless tranistion to a low-oil lifestyle? One in ten? One in a hundred? We've got about 45 people in our office here, and I'd be screamingly optimistic to say there might be two of us that could simply park our motor vehicles tomorrow and make a go of it if we had to. One in twenty? Five percent of the US population? I think that is, by far, the most optimistic figure you'll ever see in answer to the question. The other 95% of the American population honestly believes that we will A) Keep on motoring along forver as we have for the last 77 years or B) The government will "do something" or C) Technology will save us.

Screwed doesn't begin to cover it.

It's gonna be like Screwpalooza out there.

[Blade1]

Chip
      When you're right you're right. You shouldn't put such an opptomistic slant on it though.
                                                                                    Blade1

[suburban_junkscape]

.  Close your eyes for one tiny moment, folks, and just imagine how great it could be if everyone in our society was on board. What a feeling of true community and security we could have as a culture with common goals.
(Okay, wakey wakey, now. Get back to your slogging, proles, daydream time's over.)
     

Huh?(!) Where do you live? I want to go to that planet.

[v]

Or, more to the point, most people lack any appropriate emotional response, when confronted with energy, population, food, water, or economic issues.

I think this lack of emotional response is similar to the nature of women in the sex trade.  They are dead inside, from a lifetime of being used, lied to, manipulated, used, beaten down, treated maliciously, and used.

Matt made a post recently about how people don't seem to respond to certain information.  Like anything that might affect them personally.  Any of the messages that "the aware" (that's us) might try to give to "the unwashed" (everyone else) is met with what Matt called the classic American blank stare, which I called CRABS, the classic retarded American blank stare.

If the blank stare is a measure of intelligence, then CRABS is an appropriate title I think.  But the blankness is also a measure of emotion, feeling, concern not just for their fellow humans, but also that natural, selfish, survival-based concern.  The blank stare indicates not only lack of smarts, it also indicates a deep, yawning void which has few or no emotional sparks.  As if they're already gone, like a shop-worn stripper, like a career waitress with Marlboro lines in her face, already empty inside.

They don't care, because they are literally unable to.

Not dead, but never fully alive.  And we know what those are: the UNDEAD.  The Universally Neglected and Damaged, Empty of the American Dream.

If you get the UNDEAD response from people, pity them, say a small prayer if you're so inclined, and then get the hell out of there before they infect you, before they drag you down to their level.

The UNDEAD and CRABS.  Always be on the lookout, protect yourself at all times.

edit: extraneous and

Well, really there is not much you can do.

So people just keep putting one foot in front of the other and try to get by life the best they can and not get overwhelmed. 

I wrote to 10 of the leading newspapers in the US on this very topic...not one wanted to print my work.

We know we all add to the problem, yet we all have to work, maybe we have familles to support, have to eat, warm out homes in the winter, travel to work and to get food, run a fridge.

Sure a few of us can live off the land...off the grid, but not 7 billion of us.

It is the same way with Buddhist monks. The monks beg for their food to detach them from life to escape samsara and go to nirvana.

Now society can support a few monks begging, but society cannot survive if it is composed of 100% monks begging of each other. Someone has to produce the food, and clean up the human waste.

This is why we don't do anything about global warming...because we can't...it overwhelms us.

Our energy and global warning problems are bigger than all of us. We can't 'buy' our way out of this mess.

To do anything substantive would cause a financial and population backlash of unimaginable proportions.

The world is in a death spiral. it is just how we have built our world over the years.

It would be one thing if we all reverted back to rural living, burning trees for fuel and housing and living within our comfortable means allotted to us by nature, as our ancestors did back in the day. But 7 billion people can't burn the trees!

And what we could do, even with drastic measures, would not cure global warming but only slow things down.

In addition, there is no one global entity to control all the green house gas emitters. China an India plan on adding more dirty coal burning electric plants to feed their burgeoning economies.

We can't start wars over green house gas like we do oil...even then we would have to go to war right here at home before we point fingers at other countries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3143798.stm

As far as foreign wars, many of these newly rich nations seem to be in a war of sorts to see who can build the biggest and the tallest. Well, the bigger the building is the more energy it takes to power it and the more green house gas is given off to pay for the ego behind the monstrosity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_the_world#Tallest_buildings

Thoreau once said when people invited him to dinner they 'put their pride' in how fancy and expensive a meal they could make. Whereas he put his pride in how simple and inexpensive a meal he could make.

Where do we put our pride?

We surely don't put it in living within our means and in balance with nature.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epates.html

Lets say we decided to turn off the coal fired plants for 25% of a 24 hour day to save some fossil fuel.

Saving 25% seems to be a modest proposal.

So they shut the coal fired plants down for 6 hours during peak daytime operation.

And lets say we don't care that all the frozen food in the markets will thaw out and the refrigerated foods will spoil.

And lets say the workforce will sacrifice their jobs for the 6 hours every day while the electric is shut off.

And we put up with the gridlock and accidents from not having traffic lights and the doctors and hospitals all shut down.

And people just hold their noses over the backed up sewage that cannot be processed when the electric is off.

The real problem with trying to implement even a modest 25% fossil fuel saving plan is this - it just can't be done.

Coal fired plants are not of the nature to be turned off and turned on with the flip of a switch.

If a coal fired plant was turned off and completely cooled down it would take many days to bring it back online. If a coal powered plant was shut down even for 6 hours, it would take between 10 to 12 hours to bring it back to operational capacity.

In addition, when the plant is started back up, all the fossil fuel that is consumed in the startup does not make electric, it just goes to bring things back up to speed. And during startup, the plant operates at lower temperature and produces more pollution at those lower temperatures. And if that is not enough, startups of that magnitude send out power surges that destroy transformers and cause grid problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant

There is no 'simple or easy answer' to this issue nor is there even a 'not so simple and hard answer' to our dilemma.

The World Coal Institute estimates world energy reserves as follows:

"At current production levels coal will be available for at least the next 155 years compared to 41 years for oil and 65 years for gas."

http://www.worldcoal.org/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=21

Even though this was written a few years ago and it is based on 'current production and consumption' it gives the same haunting message to the generations to come.

We may not see the end of our free flowing energy as we know it - but some of our descendants will in the not so distant future. This is the legacy they will inherit from us.

Mankind is just a little 'too smart' for his environment and learned to live beyond natures intended means.

But mankind does not seem 'smart enough' to fix the mess that it has created.

Yes, mankind has done great things over their reign on earth, but we must always remember nature does not bow to us..in the end we all bow to nature.

Our population has grown to levels where it has passed the point of no return for supporting a sustainable human population as we know it today.

And leading the pack of over consumers is the USA.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption

Consumption is ingrained in us and we know no other way. And even if we wished to amend our ways, how could all our retirement funds take the hit? America is built on borrowed money, spending and consumerism.

And what does all that consumerism lead to?

It leads to the mess we are in now and the bigger mess the world will be in once India and China pick up momentum to copycat the envious lifestyle that they have held in high esteem as the 'American Dream'

I love our country and would rather live here than anyplace else in the world. But be that as it may, our country and the rest of the world is built on unsustainable means and the bill is coming due soon for our spending spree.

Since the US is said to be about 75% Christian and was founded on maximum freedom for its people, I doubt whether the US will ever come up with a population control plan. It would be too controversial and it goes against promoting life, certain religions and personal freedoms.

But let me be clear, I am not promoting atheism -- or theism. I only bring them up as they pertain to the discussion.

And while I cannot deny the wisdom of promoting life as many religions profess and personal freedom, sometime we must accept the lesser of two evils if promoting life turns into being more destructive to life than 'not promoting' it.

It then becomes a decision whether to choose between the 'greater good for the whole' or the 'greater personal right for the individual'... and the whole be damned. (Whole meaning entire human population of our planet.)

For instance, on a farm if the plants are planted packed like sardines (or 'packed like sushi' as they say in Japan) the plants do not flourish.

In nature, trees that are overcrowded weed themselves out by nature's decree. But if man forced the trees to not weed out and forces crowding the trees may die from disease due to a forced and unsustainable growth plan.

So it goes with how our planet is evolving...a sad but exactly true statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation

Fueling the problem of consumption is the games the Federal and World banks play with interest rates. They manage the economies in ways to fuel consumption and mask the real trend. Witness the recent cries for Federal bankers to lower interest rates...so the stock market can go up...fueled by spending of the consumer.

It is drug habit that Greenspan got us hooked on and we just can't get away from.

Our economy is not based on sustainable health - it is based low interest credit to encourage compulsive spending, debt and living a life of constant consumption with a 'disposable mentality' when it comes to durable goods.

All this consumption to artificially fuel our economy to make our retirement funds only go up contributes to more and more global warming and the depletion of our natural resources. Then the governments juggle the numbers to make the inflation figures seem artificially low, so everyone's retirement portfolio will make them happy so they will continue to buy and consume more...and on it goes....IT IS ALL WE KNOW

You see, no other animal destroys its environment except mankind. We are the only ones that do not accept and live within our comfortable means. We not only debt with our finances we debt with our environment. What we are borrowing in terms of petroleum, coal and natural gas takes millions of years for nature to make. Yet we are using it all up in just a few hundred years...we can never pay it back.

The scary thing is China and India are just starting to bloom with their demands for fossil fuels We haven't seen anything yet with the meteoric rise of gas, energy and over consumption.

 In China the per capita car ownership rate is 40 car owners per 1000 persons. In India it is much lower, running 8 cars per 1000 people. As these two giants evolve more of their population will want cars...in India, they are making a $2500 car as well.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/05/percapita_car_o.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20394364/

But what can one say about the problem unless people just cut back reproducing?

Everyone has a desire to have some sex stimulation and through that stimulation comes more and more people.

And everyone has a desire to keep warm when it is cold or to keep cool in the heat or move about the earth and wear clothes. And it is from all those desires that global warming fueled through the expenditure of fossil fuels takes place.

But the sad reality is even if people cut back having babies, we are only delaying the inevitable and that alone will not fix the problem. It can be compared to men stuck underwater in a crippled submarine. The more they move around, the quicker they run out of air and die. The less they move, the longer they can live...but the end result is the same.

Now maybe some genius will come up with a replacement for petroleum, natural gas and coal to meet all out needs. But it is unrealistic to think we can grow enough corn to fuel all the trucks, airlines, cargo ships, cars and other needs we humans have in addition run all the power plants and factories, heat and cool our homes.

Now, I don't claim to have the magic bullet to fix all our woes. I'm just a simple philosopher not a scientist or genius. All I can do is to bring the problem to the forefront and ask that we all work in a healthier direction that the one we have been headed in. And when we can understand that all humans are interdependent and not independent of one another, we come to realize that we all share the same breath.

See:

http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=8.0




Take care,
 
 
V (Male)
 
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
vfr44@aol.com

[joe-bob henry-bob]

V ...dude.

Why are you spamming the board with multiple copies of the same extremely long thread-killing post?

Moreover, you're at a peak oil forum.  Why are you trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs?   

This is the forum for LATOC http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/  If you read through everything available there and go through all the links, you'll have a good overview of what is already taken as a given here... if people are posting here, they probably don't need to be further educated to help them accept that there is a peak oil problem or that mitigation of the problem will range from extremely difficult to impossible.

It did seem that you were presenting a few straw man arguments

It would be one thing if we all reverted back to rural living, burning trees for fuel and housing and living within our comfortable means allotted to us by nature, as our ancestors did back in the day. But 7 billion people can't burn the trees!

burning trees is hardly the only option.  Better insulated homes, earth bermed homes, radiant barriers, white rooves, geothermal heating/cooling are some alternatives.  An earth-bermed home with windows facing south doesn't require the burning of so much as a stick of firewood.  Dirt is in plentiful supply and does not require coal or gas to function.  There are some interesting web sites that feature dome and arch construction using essentially JUST dirt.

The real problem with trying to implement even a modest 25% fossil fuel saving plan is this - it just can't be done.

Coal fired plants are not of the nature to be turned off and turned on with the flip of a switch.

If a coal fired plant was turned off and completely cooled down it would take many days to bring it back online. If a coal powered plant was shut down even for 6 hours, it would take between 10 to 12 hours to bring it back to operational capacity.

this is not the way a power company would conduct rolling blackouts.

And lets say we don't care that all the frozen food in the markets will thaw out and the refrigerated foods will spoil.

they would instead figure out the optimum amount of time to run a blackout where food will not spoil, and roll blackouts at those intervals.

And we put up with the gridlock and accidents from not having traffic lights and the doctors and hospitals all shut down.

And people just hold their noses over the backed up sewage that cannot be processed when the electric is off.

this is assuming no prioritization is possible.  obviously, people can prioritize.

...run a fridge.

 

Get some 8-inch solid insulation.  Build a box that your fridge can fit in.  Seal the seams.  Cut a hole in the back.  Put the fridge in the box and attach the coils through the hole.  Put some foil between the insulation and the coils.  Fill any unused space in your fridge and freezer with 2litre bottles of tap water.  You now have practically free refrigeration that will easily last through a 6 hour blackout.  Depending on the aesthetics you could probably do this for about 50 bucks and it will save huge amounts of energy.

Since the US is said to be about 75% Christian and was founded on maximum freedom for its people, I doubt whether the US will ever come up with a population control plan. It would be too controversial and it goes against promoting life, certain religions and personal freedoms.

actually, us population growth is already negative when you factor out illegal immigration.

For instance, on a farm if the plants are planted packed like sardines (or 'packed like sushi' as they say in Japan) the plants do not flourish.

check out permaculture, solar gardening, or square foot gardening.  I would also point you to the farming methods in upland Papua New Guinae, where people have been doing intensive gardening for tens of thousands of years.

I could go on, but basically, you've posted a generalized pre-prepared educational statement that seems targeted to win over those who are not peak-oil aware to a group that seems to be far more aquainted with the problem than you (and I would say I myself am low on the totem pole compared to others here in that way...)

Welcome to the LATOC forum... I suggest reading a little more deeply at the main site and through the forum, but please stick around.  I learned a lot here myself.

[Michelle]

I've sent Matt a PM about v's long windedness. He bares an eerie resemblance to Arriving Arrarat.
That dude's posts made my eyes glaze over for sure.

[soylent]

Or, more to the point, most people lack any appropriate emotional response, when confronted with energy, population, food, water, or economic issues.

I think this lack of emotional response is similar to the nature of women in the sex trade.  They are dead inside, from a lifetime of being used, lied to, manipulated, used, beaten down, treated maliciously, and used.

and where is the problem? if most people don't care, we will fight less warlords or foe comunities...
if most people don't care, all what will happen will be more predictable.
if most people don't care, comunal invests will be sured.
if most people don't care, we won't care about so many people.

That's a good new, isn't it?

[max_power]

Or, more to the point, most people lack any appropriate emotional response, when confronted with energy, population, food, water, or economic issues.

I think this lack of emotional response is similar to the nature of women in the sex trade.  They are dead inside, from a lifetime of being used, lied to, manipulated, used, beaten down, treated maliciously, and used.

and where is the problem? if most people don't care, we will fight less warlords or foe comunities...
if most people don't care, all what will happen will be more predictable.
if most people don't care, comunal invests will be sured.
if most people don't care, we won't care about so many people.

That's a good new, isn't it?

True but when its your family and friends that don't care, its very frustrating and sad.

[Bruce]

 I've asked myself a thousand times why do people not listen. The answer I think is this. The pump price is 2.49 in my area. Wal-mart is still open and Friday is pay day......................................... Bruce

[reddawn2]

Its funny,  for lack of a better word, how I can understand the Peak Oil theory as the greatest issue of our time and my friends/family quickly dismiss it like your claiming you just saw a UFO.

These people aren't dumb.  They aren't close minded. They aren't wrapped up in Infotainment or their next instant fix whatever that may be. They are normal, everyday, intelliegnt, concerned, compassionate, smart people. And they dismiss even the notion that there might even be a chance that Peak Oil will effect anything.

1.  Most believe that environmental laws prevent the US from drilling domestically.  If those laws were lifted we would have enough Oil for the next 100 years.
2.  Most believe that Coal will be enough.
3.  Most beleive that Alt energies will some day scale up and the market will determine when that takes place.
4.  auhh I could go on but you get the point.

Quickly dimissed. Which is really puzzling to me.  Most people will discuss just about anything. Not Peak Oil.  They say one or two things about it , then the conversation changes. I find it fascinating and odd at the same time.

This is just a guess,  but I think many dont understand the complete impact and scope that the Peak Oil theory covers. They think of Oil in physical terms.  Peak Oil  is much much more than just how much Oil is left. Im not even sure that "Peakers' completely undertand the scope and magnitude of how Peak Oil will effect the World. Im not saying it has to have a negative effect,  although I do believe it is.