Fossill Fuel Dissonance

 

DAPL route

It appears that the Army Corp of Engineers has denied the easement that was to allow Energy Transfer Partners to drill under Lake Oahe.  Lake Oahe being a lake that’s in existence due to the damning of the Missouri river by the Army Corp of Engineers.  The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 3.7 billion dollar project that was to cover 1172 miles of which something like 80-90% of the work has already been completed.  This pipeline will be moving 470,000 barrels of fracked Bakken oil per day.  To give you some idea of what 470,000 barrels of oil per day means consider this:  the world produces about 97 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of oi which comes out to about 35 billion barrels per year.  Of that the U.S. uses about 19 MMb/d of which 9.4 MMb/d are imported.  The U.S. uses 7 billion barrels per year which equals out to about 20% of the total world production.  It’s estimated that the Bakken oil region has 4.3 billion barrels of oil which is slightly more than half of what we use here in the U.S. in one year.  The Bakken oil field is considered the largest oil find in U.S. history.  Of course just because it is estimated that 4.3 billion barrels exist under the ground locked up in shale does not mean that there actually is that much.  Even if there is there’s nothing that says that all of that oil is actually recoverable and able to be brought to market.  However, as of 2014 the Bakken has been producing 1 mmb/d of oil. 

             

U.S. Pipelines 

470,000 barrels of oil per day is a lot of oil, all of which will be used in the South East of the U.S. which is where I reside.  Without a pipeline, all of that oil must be transported via rail and truck which costs more, and according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, is not as safe as a pipeline.  Using the rails for the transfer of this energy means less rail cars left for transport of agricultural products.  I’m not sure how it is that using pipelines are safer than rail and truck transport considering that since 2010 there have been 3,300 incidents of leak and rupture on crude and natural gas pipelines in the U.S.  Those leaks released 7 million gallons of crude into the environment and represent a cost of 2.8 billion dollars in clean up.  Given all of that it’s still more cost efficient to transport via pipeline which equates to lower cost for gasoline at the pump for consumers.  How much can you afford to pay for gasoline? 

           

Pipeline ruptures

 The Lakota tribe, in consolidarity with many other tribes from all over the U.S., was able to stop the DAPL pipeline from crossing the Missouri river...at least temporarily.  According to an ancient Native American prophecy, the crossing of the “Black Snake” would have signaled the end of the world.  In this case the “Black Snake” being the DAPL pipeline.  I have been on the side of the Natives during this entire protest.  At one point, about a month ago, I decided that I would go to North Dakota and stand at Standing Rock to help stop the “Black Snake.”  I did not go because of my family and cognizant dissonance, which is the reason I’m writing this essay now.  I say that this is a temporary victory for the Natives because of what the Assistant Secretary for Civil Works at the Army Corp of Engineers, Jo-Ellen Darcy, said about her decision to halt the DAPL from crossing the Missouri at this time.  She said that they need to “explore alternate routes” for the crossing, and that she could not rule out a crossing under Lake Oahe or even potentially North of Bismark.  Originally the crossing was to happen in Bismark ND, but it was rerouted through the Native land after Bismark protested the crossing in their back yard. 

           

Native American Boarding School

 It was decided that the crossing would happen at Lake Oahe, where it would disrupt sacred native sites including burial grounds.  According to some sources, I have read that the Army Corp of Engineers attempted to talk with the Lakota elders and leaders hundreds of times, and that they did not show up to the talks.  I can’t say that I blame them for not showing up if this is true.  A casual glance at the history of the abuses that the Native Americans have suffered at the hands of the U.S. government is really all that is necessary to understand why they likely decided that they would be wasting their time to show up at such meetings.  Really, have we forgotten about the small pocks blankets and the Trail of Tears?  It is historical fact that for hundreds of years the Native Americans have suffered genocide due to the American Government.  Their children were taken from them by the thousands, had their hair cut, and were placed in boarding schools to learn how to be white.  Buffalo was hunted damn near to extinction to eviscerate Native American sovereignty and independence.  It is past time that we stop abusing what is left of the Native Americans.  Now imagine that the pipeline will actually cross north of Bismark.  Now when there is a rupture in the pipeline there will be even more people downstream, including the Lakota, who will suffer the environmental consequences of polluted water. 

             

Native American Land

There is a much larger problem at work here.  As horrible as the U.S. Government’s treatment of the Native Americans has been, and apparently continues to be, humanities treatment of our environment is of more concern.  What the Lakota “Water Protectors” have hopefully done is to bring more attention to the issue of how we are treating the natural world that sustains us.  What can be more important to humans than a human supporting biosphere?  If we continue destroying the biome that sustains us with noxious chemicals than how can we expect to have any type of future for our children?  What kind of future will they have if the biosphere is full of cancer causing chemicals?  The one thing that the pollution of our environment has in common is energy usage which is mostly fossil energy based.  Nuclear is even worse because it produces nuclear waste that we have no safe means of disposal for.  Nuclear generates waste that remains toxic to our DNA for millions of years. 

             

Pile of Buffalo heads 

What are we to do about this problem?  Is there any solution?  Our entire built environment, our entire way of inhabiting our landscapes, the methods by which we get what we need from our civilization to maintain ourselves is all 100% dependent on fossil energy.  The renewable energy that we have can only be a temporary measure at best, and will likely not be able to sustain all 7.2 billion of us in the manner we have become accustomed.  Granted, a large percentage of that 7.2 billion are not kept up anywhere near the manner even the poorest in the U.S. are accustomed to.  Solar panels require fossil energy to come into existence, as does all of the other renewable energy schemes.  How are the materials necessary for the creation of a solar panel or wind turbine acquired?  They are acquired via fossil energy powered machinery, and then they are shipped around and manufactured and packaged using fossil energy.  They are maintained using fossil energy.  Nuclear energy is no different…well aside from the DNA damaging waste that is generated that has filled the entire pacific ocean at this point thanks to Fukushima Daiichi. 

           

Historic World Population

 Aside from the pollution that is wrought on the environment via the extraction, transport, and refinement of fossil energy there is also the end result of burning that energy.  It adds carbon dioxide among other greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.  Considering that the world uses 35 billion barrels of oil per year we are creating a lot of greenhouse gas.  Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is not a conspiracy theory, nor is Peak Oil.  It is really quite simple, and I’m sure I couldget my 6 year old to understand how greenhouse gases work to raise the overall heat that is trapped in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of said gases.  Not only do we burn 35 billion barrels of oil per year, but we are also steadily cutting down all of the trees to make more room for yet more industrial monocultured agriculture in an attempt to make more food for more people.  More people are really only possible due to the fossil energy in the first place.  What makes industrial agriculture possible?  Fossil energy.  The herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and fertilizers that we spray onto the ever decreasing top soil of our gargantuan monocultured fields are all petroleum and natural gas derived chemicals.  These chemicals then make their way to the ocean where they create dead zones.  Industry creates more pollution that makes its way into our water tables and oceans.  Due to all of the added carbon, the oceans are acidifying and destroying fisheries and corals.  Our topsoil is being eroded and blown away.  Yet still the juggernaut of industrial agriculture continues removing the trees that breath a mammal, and therefore human, supporting biosphere out.  We have created a positive feedback loop that is resulting in devastation.  All of this is business as usual (BAU). 

             

What are we to do about it?  Should we get in our cars and drive to Standing Rock using the very petroleum energy that’s intended to travel along the DAPL that we should stop? What is the alternative to using fossil energy in our society?  How can I support my family in this society without using fossil energy?  Our cars, our houses, our food, and our jobs all require the use of fossil energy.  The best solutions that we have come up with are at best temporary and require fossil energy to begin with.  Is there any way out of this mess? 

I have a landscaping business for many reasons.  It’s one of the few businesses that one can still boot strap oneself into because it requires very little in terms of capital to get started.  My constitution is such that I am happiest working outside while self-employed.  People pay good money and a decent living can be made with landscaping.  However, like all other jobs in our society it requires fossil fuels.  It just happens to be more in your face and obvious in my case.  I need a large truck to pull around equipment on a trailer, and that means a large motor that uses a lot of gasoline.  All of the machinery I use uses gasoline, so I am all of the time filling up jerry cans and topping off gas tanks during the course of my work.  The truth is that I am no more, or less, dependent on petroleum than anyone else in our society…including someone who may make their living installing solar panels. 

             

Should we stop the Black Snake from crossing the Missouri river to bring us another half million barrels of petroleum per day for our gas tanks?  If we are to do that, than should we not have some type of plan in place to sustain ourselves?  What options do we have outside of the fossil fueled BAU?  I want clean water and healthy soil capable of producing healthy food for my children.  I want healthy oceans teaming with healthy fish to eat.  It stands to reason that I should stop contributing to the pollution that is removing those things.  How can I do that?  My children need a house to live in, and they need food to eat.  Our new President is a AGW and Peak Oil denier.  He’s not going to do anything in an attempt to fix any of this.  He’s invested with his money in DAPL.  

Permaculture has all of the answers to fix all of these problems.  In fact, Permaculture was created to address the worldview that created all of these problems.  Permaculture is the answer to all of these problems.  I wonder if Trump will help create a Department of Permaculture?  What do you think?  

The First Diner Convocation

In 2007 I read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency, and my life changed irrevocably due to the information I received from that book. Shortly after, I joined the Kunstlercast forum and posted many threads and had many in depth conversations about collapse, peak oil, and the ramifications of our infinite growth on a finite planet paradigm. I also began digesting collapse related books with precision and efficiency, and I would often order five or six books at a time by authors like Richard Heinberg, Dmitry Orlov, John Michael Greer, Michael Ruppert, and Jared Diamond just to name a few. Figuring out what the collapse of our modern petroleum dependent civilization meant to me was no easy task. I'm an Aspie, so it wasn't an emotional affair for me to deal with, but it was stressful nonetheless, and collapse became a "special interest," and it's a special interest that is still current for me. Mostly because I'm unable to not abide in the truth of things. It seems this to is part of my Aspie brain (I'll be writing about Asperger's Syndrome much more in the coming months because I have just recently stopped being in denial about the diagnosis...but this particular blog is not the time to do that).

I was a daily contributor over at the Kunstlercast, and it was the first forum I'd ever been a member of. I greatly enjoyed communicating with like minds on that forum via the written medium. I fell in love with it actually, and the regular contributors became my friends (which was great since IRL friends are difficult for me to acquire). This was a set of people whom would talk about the truths surrounding PO with me for hours on end, which is still next to impossible to do with people IRL. Threads that would stretch for days and days. I was a conspiracy theorist at this time in my life and had been for about five years. The "Kcats," as we called ourselves, helped open my eyes a bit about the nature of conspiracy theories and their many half truths. Around 2009 or so I got tired of the same old shit being discussed over and over again via countless incarnations on the Kunstlercast forum. It got boring and I decided to leave the forum without a word about it really. I just sorta left one day and never went back. I also deleted my facebook account around this same time and focused all of my writing on this blog.

The only blog I was reading at this time was John Michael Greer's Archdruid Report. He came up with the concept of the Green Wizard, and a forum was devoted to the project, which I frequented for a while. I had shifted my focus from understanding the nature of our predicament to wanting to act on the information. What became important to me was the answer to the question "what am I going to do about collapse?" The Green Wizard Project (GWP) was exactly what I needed. The GWP was mostly designed for solitary green wizards, and it was about using appropriate tech and about developing strategies that would help with minimizing the impact that the Long Descent would have on the GWP participants. The psychological component of the GWP can be summed up by JMG's own acronym "LESS." Less entertainment, stuff, and stimulation. JMG advises us all to step back into voluntary simplicity and learn how to live more in tune with the natural world and it's cycles and it's renewable pace. I became a Druid as well. For the next couple of years practicing green wizardry was sufficient for me as a response to collapse, but that to began to change as my understanding of our predicament began intensifying.

I realized that the only chance of survival in a shit hits the fan scenario, or even just a long descent scenario, would be real community. As far as I can tell, real community has gone extinct in our imagadget, narcissistic, techno delusional, American Hologram deployed and Matrix controlled consumer waste generating stank of a society. I had found fellow blogger William Hunter Duncan's blog, Off The Grid in Minneapolis, via a comment he left over at the Archdruid Report. William resonated very strongly with me (which interestingly enough, William now works with autistic people as his job). I began following his blog, and he began following mine. He may well have been the first "follower" of mine on this blog. We became good virtual friends and even exchanged books we were writing for back and forth criticism and suggestions. He told me about a new forum that he was an administrator for called the Doomstead Diner. I went and had a look, but I still had a sour taste in my mouth after boring with the Kunstlercast forum. I looked around and it appeared to be just about the exact same thing as the Kcast forum with different avatars. After a short visit I decided that I wasn't interested in joining as a member (and I just found out, via going to the kunstlercast forum to copy the web address for the hyperlink for this blog that I've been banned from the Kunstlercast Forum for some unknown reason).  

Several months later I left a comment on Morris Berman's blog and RE, the man responsible for the existence of the Doomstead Diner, saw it and it peaked his interest enough to come over here to see what I was about. William had commented on that blog and RE saw this and apparently formed the opinion that I may be a good match as a cross poster on the Diner. It felt good to have somebody seek me out for my writing, and I was more than happy to have my essays published on the Diner. I figured since I was going to be publishing my blog on the Diner that I might as well have a more focused look around to see what was shakin' in the Diner world. I've been an active participant and a Diner ever since. Not long after I arrived at the Diner fellow Diner Roamer arrived and posted a thread titled "Community OwnedDoomstead." That thread lit a spark that found good tinder and began smoking. Roamer knew about 150 acres in NC that an elderly couple owned and were interested in allowing more able bodied individuals to cultivate the land in permaculture fashion. My wife Gypsy Mama and son Ayden Zen and I all drove to NC to meet Roamer in person along with his on again off again lady friend. We met in a coffee shop across the street from the university my wife graduated from, and we all instantly liked each other. It was the first time I had ever met a virtual friend in real life...making Roamer an "in real life" friend as well. This was a very exciting and important step for the Diner. As it turns out, Roamer, GM and I's meeting was foreshadowing the now not too distant future. The 150 acres didn't work out on account of dementia and Cat Food Carol, but that's a long story (and you likely already know it if you're reading this blog). We came a pubic hair away from the first Sunstead (at the time it had been dubbed the Foxstead) within weeks of the first attempt that the Diner's made for a community owned doomstead.

We've since been working towards figuring out how to bioneer our way into a petroleum scarce world. We've been trying to figure out how we move forward from this point. How do we structure a new way to inhabit the land and use it's resources to meet our basic human needs in a sustainable and healing way? We don't want a commune, but we want something intentional that empowers the Sunsteaders, and gives us autonomy and meaningful community at the same time. Eventually the new effort was dubbed the SUN project (sustaining universal needs). Our driving ethic is to "save as many as you can." This translating into a tribal unit we are currently calling the "Sunstead." We want the Sunstead to be a self replicating template that will pop up like mushrooms in spite of the Near Term Human Extinction (NTHE) meme. NTHE being the idea that all life on Earth will be going extinct sometime in the next two decades (as soon as five years from now) due to run away positive feedback loops running amok in the climate control mechanisms of our planet. They may be right, but I refuse to live in a world with no hope, and I recognize that there is no way anybody can know what the planet will do. While our civilization is definitely collapsing, and while we are doing our level best to shit all over the planet that sustains us with our incessant chemical creation and consumptive waste generation, our planet is a living organism which we cannot study under a microscope.  We can't possibly know how the Earth will react.

The Sun Foundation is now a 501c3 non-profit organization, and we are currently waiting for the magic government letter to arrive so that we can begin accepting charitable donations from people like you, whom care about the reality outside of the Matrix, and our engagement with the wasteland we've inherited. In a little under two weeks a select few Diner members are going to converge on the Toothstead in Texas for the purposes of the first Diner Convocation, and for training in Monolithic Dome construction. 

The coming Convocation is proof that we're not just a bunch of keyboards circle jerking into the endless night about how fucked it all is. We want to do something in the real world about the predicament our civilization's in. The writing is on the wall, and food prices are fit to bust any time now due to drought and ever increasing super storms. I could go on about all of the problems our crumbling civilization is dealing with, but I've done that countless times here already. If you don't know what the problems are at this point than it's because you are willfully deluding yourself, or just don't have the desire to extricate yourself from the Matrix's mesmerizing hologram. We're going to meet in Texas, in person, as a symbolic act, to look each other in the eyes and validate the reality of our typed expressions, desires, goals, and to engage with reality of the real, rather than reality of the virtual persuasion. We're going to drink beer and break bread at a real Doomstead Diner table. We're going to study Monolithic construction and plant some real seeds of change. We're going to build a rocket mass heater, have a hole diggin' contest, possibly film a spoof on the NTHE movie trailer 22 After, and get to know a handful of Diner's in person. I'll be bringing my family and my boomerangs.

Most importantly we're going to ferment in a real life think tank. That's what the Convocation is ultimately about. For me, it's a vetting, and it's a chance to look my fellow Diners in the eyes (I know, ironic considering my Aspie status, but I've always been atypical even amongst the atypical...consider that the majority of the medics thought I was weird when I worked EMS to gauge how weird I am...as it turns out, not weird just not neurotypical) and see what I see. Is the SUN Foundation worth my time? Is it something that can be real? Can we actually bioneer a Sunstead, or a Waterstead, or a Foxstead, or a Doomstead? Can we actually be the force that begins fixing this clusterfuck of a predicamentation civilization? Does RE really smoke six packs of cigarettes a day? Is William really bald and in love with the Goddess? Can Eddie fix my fucked up mouth full of metal (just kiddin' Eddie...at least this time). Will Haniel and I see Aspie to Aspie and relate to one another?

I'm looking forward to finding out the answer to all of those questions. For me, the Convocation is my chance to show everybody that I really am a 6' 4" bad ass Aikido ninja permaculture green wizard druid Aspie Diner. It's my chance to look them all in the eyes, Haniel included, in an attempt to pull as much of their true intentions out so that I can shine my hyperfocused understanding of the human psyche onto them. Here's hoping we'll all be comfortable, and that William won't get his feelings hurt when I dig a bigger hole in the Texas dirt. My wife Gypsy Mama, and my children Ayden Zen and Harper Tribann will be there as well (as far as I know they're the only children Diners...hell, Harper Tribann was born a Diner). Several Diners will converge in two weeks. To hear RE tell about it, you'll all get a chance to participate in real time on the net. I hear he's bought all of the recording devices he could find. If nothing else, for the first time, Diners will break bread at a real Diner table...in Texas...and I'll get too drunk and throw my boomerangs.

LD's Resume of Doom

Thanks to the Diner's newest member, Redreamer, for this beautiful fox picture...it's my understanding she captured it with her camera

I've been tasked by a fellow Diner over at the Doomstead Diner forum to come up with a Doom Resume. The idea is to write up a convincing synopsis of why your sorry ass is worth using resources to integrate you into a community post-collpse. Say for whatever reason you are dislocated from your current abode...be it a pointless waste of space that will blow away as soon as chaos happens, or a life boat intentionally designed to weather bad societal shit..like the Just In Time (JIT) trucking that our suburban America requires for things like...food...shutting down. Imagine, and this is my favorite doom scenario due to it's complex richness, that the tractor trailers that keep our current civilization going stop pulling 80,000 pound loads down the interstate system of these failed states of America (FSoA), for even just a couple of weeks due to say 7 dpg diesel. "Experts," whatever the hell that means, say that we have a three day supply of food in the box stores across America...the Walmarts, and Ralphs, and BiLos, and Buy N Larges that house all of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation turds of prepackaged, sterilized, devoid of all nutrition, toxin rich, plastic, bad imitations of eddibility, "food." All those shelves will be empty of anything vaguely edible within 24 hours of the official kick off of Zombie panic. Thus has writing a Doom Resume become a worth while endeavor for all of us Post-Petroleum humans to write, and spread into the doomosphere. This is my Resume of Doom.

My worth, in terms of skill sets, started at round 14 years old for me. That's the year I dove head first into the world of Army JROTC. My fourth year I was XO of the battalion, which made me 2nd in command...that means my senior year every cadet except one, the battalion Commander (who has been flying Black Hawks for the last ten years or so) had to salute me. I was best Recon three years in a row and Recon Commander my fourth year. Now, all of this means that I learned, as well as taught, useful skills like orienteering, mountaineering, marksmanship, knot tying, repelling, map reading, and general wilderness survival. But most importantly I learned how to lead men and women, and do it well.

My next set of skills, that were acquired during those same years, had as much a spiritual dimension as practical physical one. I trained in Nihon Goshin Aikido for four years. This is a Japanese style martial art that was created for sword fighting...in the days of the Samuri. Steven Seagal is trained in Hombu Aikido, which is only different because their circles are much wider, whereas Nihon Goshin is tighter and closer to the body. This is a system of self defense that revolves around pressure points, joint locks, and throws, and puts a heavy emphasis on learning human anatomy so that you can know what nerve you are activating...or what tendon, ligament, or bone you might intentionally break pending the offender decides it for himself. I rose to Ni Kyu, or "student instructor," which is a purple belt. I had all 50 techniques in the art when I quit due to moving cross country. When I quit I was working on weapons training...things like how to take a gun or knife away from somebody who is trying to shoot/stab you. Now, at 33, I can still do a running ninja roll over a chain link fence...granted those days are numbered I'm sure. However, I learned this skill set by burning into my muscle memory while my muscles were still developing during early teenage years.

At 18 I began seriously questioning Christianity and religion in general. I became an atheist and basically started over for myself. I arrived at home in Buddhism. Then I moved on to other things like Druidry. Point is I have a spiritual background that is based on empirical experience and not solely on shit other people have written or said. Examples of this experience are a full blow out of body experience, Astral Travel, and years of lucid dreaming. However I remain humble in knowing that there are others more spiritually advanced than I whom I can learn from. To me, humility and equanimity are two of the most important spiritual endeavors where other people, and how you treat them, are concerned. I think this makes me well balanced where morals and ethics are concerned. It also makes me flexible and tolerant of others spiritual views.

Next I suppose would be the USN where every recruit is trained in the art of fighting fire. I was broken down as an individual and reborn into a collective identity in boot camp despite my best efforts to not allow this process to happen. After boot camp I trained at Naval Nuclear Power Training Command to be a nuclear engineer of the mechanic persuasion. After NNPTC came Prototype in Saratoga Springs NY. Then I was stationed in Bremerton Washington and shortly deployed to the Persian Gulf where I was when 9/11 happened. First bombs dropped came off of my boat...the U.S.S. Carl Vinson CVN-70. First chance I got, upon returning to the continental U.S., I went UA (unauthorized absence) as well as "missing ship's movement" as the ship left from San Diego to Bremerton without me. I learned a lot in the Navy...too much to cover in this synopsis...you can start with 115 days at sea without seeing land...all while working 7 days a week. Four hours of sleep was a luxury...use your imagination.

After the Navy I went to a bartending academy in Seattle Washington and began a career as a professional drunk. I also had a short period of time spinning records in the Seattle rave scene. During this period I moved back to Upstate SC and have remained here ever since...that was 2002. I supported myself by waiting tables and tending bar for about 4 years. During the last year I ran a mom and pop hole in the wall bar for ruffians and all manner of Southern drunk rednecks. I was a general manager as well as head short order cook, bartender, and ass kicker (although due to my training, I never had to put any drunk dirt necks in the hospital). I was able to persuade drunk rednecks, hillbillies, dirt necks, and the occasional out of place gang banger, without violence, to do what I said....the confidence that Aikido gave me assisted in that skill). But when I'm applying point pressure to your mastoid sinus you tend to do what I say to stop the excruciating pain...nevermind if I grab your hyoid bone.

I put an end to the alcohol/drug abuse, nomadic, anglo saxon, reckless, living for the now, ready to burn up in a blaze of spontaneous combustion glory, lifestyle at the behest of my now wife, then girlfriend GM (gypsy mama of Diner fame)...and began the skills of learning how to be domesticated in the Matrix. This prompted my next skill set, which I began before I gave up that reckless lifestyle, the skills involved in being a medic. For 2 years I worked in convalescent transport "granny snatchin" at the most unholy, lotion and doodoo scented, depressing cesspools of human misery known as nursing homes, before I got into EMS. For six years I worked for a county EMS agency as an EMT-intermediate dealing with all manner of human tragedy, gore, insanity, dead newborns, dismembered and dead loved ones, and body decompositions. I was a professional in dealing with the shit you can't deal with. Why else do people call 911...at least the responsible ones...which granted are in short number these days. I learned a lot about not only the human spirit, mind, and body in this profession...I also learned how to spot knuckleheaded Zombies due to their scent alone. If you are a Zombie I can smell you...thank you EMS.

During the years of EMS I became Peak Oil aware after reading The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler in 2007. I had about 3 years of solitary dealings with this information before my wife started finally taking notice around 2011. I've been PO aware for six years now. At about year three, I finally made it through all of the states of grief and decided it would be a good idea to procreate. I have two children now. Ayden Zen who will be three in less than a month, and Harper Tribann who is two weeks old today. Thus I have learned (or rather am learning) how to be a good and responsible parent. The goal being to facilitate children who will grow into adults with the ability to thrive in The Long Descent, or Long Emergency, or whatever you want to label the clusterfuck we are currently experiencing the opening acts to.

While I was working as a medic my Southern-as-they-come Paramedic partner taught me how to deer hunt. This resulted in me killing two deer in my second full season of hunting. My first season I didn't kill shit because my hillbilly partner decided I had to deer hunt for the first time with his bird gun (a 12 gauge with a fuckin' bead on the end of it...all season...good luck to me). There I was, in a little ass oak tree bout 8 inches around in a ladder stand 12 feet off the ground, swaying in the wind, with two 100 pound does 100 yards out in plain site. I was standing...did I mention I was literally swaying in the wind, and I was applying pressure to the trigger gettin' ready to lob lead at a deer for the first time. This was arguably an irresponsible shot, which aside from the swaying, had me wondering. Just before the gun went off they caught my scent and run oft. The second season I euthanized Bambi twice and consequently field dressed (under the direction of my partner), threw the deer in the bed of my truck and then skinned, quartered, and butchered both deer on my own at home. You should have seen me in the woods behind my house, buck hangin' from his hind legs and me trying to de-glove the whole body. I used a reciprocating saw to remove the head. This is the reality of eating meat...I know it intimately.

I began gardening organically right out of the gates in 2007. It was the first skill I decided to learn after reading about Peak Oil and the global clusterfuck that is the Trifecta of doom (climate change, global economic breakdown, and Peak Oil). I'm in my sixth year of gardening now, however that would be the second year of Permaculture. In 2012, right after resigning from my lucrative position as an EMT in the state of SC (29,000 dollars was what I grossed my last full year which was 2011), I began permaculture training in Asheville NC. I trained in a new program called "Permaculture in Action" which resulted in a certificate of completion. I helped install permaculture design on something like seven different properties during five two day weekends. I learned a lot about permaculture and have been applying the principles to everything I do outside with plants ever since. I've been successfully keeping chickens for the last year and am considering moving from just eggs to a meat operation as well. I have been able to cover my meager costs of keeping the birds by selling the eggs for 3 dollars a dozen.

Now I'm a full time student training to be a Registered Nurse for a well paid position at the Ministry of Health. I have many other skills I've developed over the years like fermentation. I can ferment a good drinkable alcoholic cider that will get you drunk, and I have just about perfected the art of mead making with nothing but good local honey, champagne yeast, and a bucket. I can make all kinds of krauts and make the best fermented hotsauce you've ever ate (just ask JoeP if you don't believe me). I know how to can and grow food on the cheap using mostly scavenged materials. In fact, I'm familiar with most homesteading activities now due to practice in my own life. I even have a humanure operation that's got the biggest volunteer tomato plant you've ever seen growing out of it (last years humanure pile).

So there you have it...my skills, or worth as a potential vagabond post-petroleum human. If you fill in-between the lines, and connect the dots, and see in all dimensions and what-not...then I think I make a pretty valuable asset to your community. Pending the Foxstead doesn't get off the ground before TSHTF, and I get dislocated, and end up at your doomstead...now you can know my skills. My wife Gypsy Mama has a bunch of her own skills that have been won during a life of high tragedy. She recently turned into a Goddess before my eyes while giving birth to our second son Harper Tribann. She did that naturally. As in no epidural, or pain killing compounds of any kind. Just her and our beautiful second son. We are leading the charge out of the Matrix and it's destructive hologram of control. We have skills that will assure we survive anything short of a Near Term Human Extinction Event. Personally, I believe we will survive even that...like a prehistoric endospore that is still viable.

I didn't list all of my skills all official resume like because I'm not official like. There are a multitude of things I didn't list like knife sharpening, hole digging, joke making, fishin', and all manner of professional Jack Leggin'. But where survival is concerned...I and mine will survive. My hope is to bioneer what has been dubbed the Foxstead here in upstate SC with my vagabond crew of Diners. That is if the bottom doesn't drop out of this global bitch, or a super tornado doesn't come through and make the above a dissertation in doomer pointlessness. So what are your skills? We're accepting applications for the first Foxstead. Consider the task of writing your Doomer Resume your application for admittance. We're planning on saving as many as we can...non-Zombies at least. 

An iconic picture taken in Turkey days ago...coming to a Theater of Doom near you any day now (thanks JoeP)

 

Collapse Fatigue

It has always been the case that we live in an uncertain world. Our world is uncertain because the nature of reality is transience. One thing to be certain about is that things change, have changed, and will always change and this can be explained by understanding what entropy is. This rule of physical law is the great driver of decomposition and an explanation for why things change. Entropy applies to everything and there is no escaping it. The more complex a system becomes, the more energy that system uses, the more energy that is lost to nothingness. Eventually everything will be equalized into one great equilibrium where nothing is different from anything else. This almost sounds like a definition for spiritual enlightenment!

Humans are a pretty complex assortment of variables both on a physical level and on a psychological one. Collapse applies to both of these levels. It is a very physical phenomenon that gets transformed into a psychological one when filtered through human awareness (or lack of awareness as it were). Collapse fatigue is a psychological problem that's due to the process of collapse that is currently underway. It's widely understood to be a fatigue that is caused by waiting for this collapse to occur, but I submit that this is an unfounded because collapse is occurring all around us. Entropy ensures that this collapse is always the case, but sometimes when conditions are right things will increase their decomposition. We want these conditions to be right so that we can avoid collapse fatigue. What exactly does this idea look like?

Let's take the example of a compost pile with our civilization being said pile. There are as many ways to composts as there are to skin a chupacabra, but in the end the results are eventually the same. The process itself creates life. The final act of dying offers up those substances that are required to facilitate life. On one side of this gradient we have a pile that is simply left to decompose at it's own rate anaerobically. It's a loose pile with no particular shape, nobody tends to it, it's not kept at the perfect moisture, the carbon to nitrogen ratio is never taken into consideration, it's just left to rot...eventually. On the other end you have the compost pile that is tended to as a loving parent tends to a newborn. The point is to facilitate the aerobic breakdown of the organic materials in order to arrive at the end product, compost, as quickly as possible. We want collapse to be an aerobic situation when it's anything but. We want there to be some type of order , but there is no order to be found. It would be nice if the whole process didn't stink so badly. If only someone or something would come along and take the terrible stink away. The thing with an aerobic compost pile is that the keeper of the pile knows what they are doing. They know that the end result is compost. The keepers of our pile have no idea that we are decomposing (albeit some of them do, but overall they are clueless IMO).

We're all in this decomposing pile of a civilization together. Those of us suffering from collapse fatigue have realized that we are decomposing. We are composting anaerobically which just adds insult to injury. Why are we the only ones that smell this horrible smell? There's billions of organisms in this pile, and yet we are the small few that realize the overall picture. Let's get the oxygen, n/c ratio, and moisture right and get on with it already! But alas, the keepers of this pile could care less. They aren't keeping this pile to make soil. They're keeping this pile because it's the cheapest option for profit. The antidote to collapse fatigue is to realize that we are dealing with an anaerobic pile. The pile is massive and nobodies going to expend the energy to turn it.

Probably the greatest debate within the peak oil community is the one of fast collapse versus slow collapse. Those who are suffering from collapse fatigue advocate for a fast collapse. They do that because they secretly want to see the collapse. They want their prognostications to be vindicated before their peers. After all, we've spent all of this time, money, and energy prepping and we're going to go to our graves having never needed any of that preparation? I believe this is the case. There may be a natural disaster or a "cliff event" on the stair step collapse that will give us reason to enjoy our preparations, but there will never come a time when we can stick our fingers in the faces of all of those sheep and say to them "see, I told you so." When those cliff events happen there will be countless excuses emanating from the idiot screen explaining it all away. "Don't panic, there is a solution, the government and scientists are on it...technology, now back to the regularly scheduled show." Those who can't go back to enjoying the show no longer matter. They get pushed down the memory hole where they no longer count as statistics. The become proles and economic non-persons.

The reason why this is going to continue being a slow collapse is because of the nature of the interplay between fossil fuels and our civilization. Fossil fuels represent the entirety of the keepers of this compost pile. Fossil fuels (more precisely humans burning of) explain everything from our shifting and changing climates, droughts and super storms, to the global economic crises, to the poisons that permeate everything, to the shrinking water tables, to those whom are starving. This is true because our current civilization was built on a foundation of fossil fuels. Currently those in the PO community who are arguing for a fast collapse scenario are doing so because of the nature of economics. They say that there has be be a breaking point in our global economic system because we can't keep creating more money ad infinitum. I say they can, and will keep creating money. They can do this so long as there are fossil fuels to burn.

Money is nothing accept a token that represents a share of the Earths fossil fuel supply. Money used to be a representation of precious metals, but all of that stopped when man figured out about exploitation of fossil fuels. Now money is directly proportional to the amount of fossil fuel energy that is available for our exploitation. We didn't arrive at the top of Hubbert's curve overnight, and we're not going to find ourselves at the bottom overnight. There is going to be a long and invisible process of people using less and less energy. Western civilization wastes gargantuan quantities of fossil fuel energy. We can easily use half of the energy we do and still have a life that doesn't vastly depart from our current lifestyles. In fact, we are going to be forced into accepting this new reality. Every year we are going to use just a little bit less energy than the year before. We are going to have just a little bit less money than the year before. We are going to have less of everything directly proportional to the amount of energy that is available.

We haven't seen much austerity the past seven years because we've been making up the difference with unconventional energy. Austerity is the closest thing you're gonna get for proof of collapse. As petroleum becomes more scarce so will money. What we're going to see is the economic crises. Just as we saw it in 2008 with the too big to fail fiasco. A couple of banks caused the U.S. government to print a couple trillion dollars? No, peak oil caused the government to print that money. Simply put, peak oil defines the process of collapse. The telescreen won't be talking about peak oil. It will be talking about the economic crises.

Collapse fatigue is a psychological process that need not be endured. Lamenting over the process of collapse, sure, but suffering because it has not happened yet is not recommended. Collapse fatigue can be avoided by simply understanding that there is not going to be a fast collapse. There will be war, disease epidemics, famine, natural disasters worse and more frequent than years before, financial austerity, and marshal law. There will be explanations for all of these things broadcasts via the telescreen. There will be as many explanations as their are idiots to believe them. What there won't be is our civilization talking about how we built our house on a foundation of sand right on the beach just before sea level rise caused by burning fossil fuels. Your neighbor and work associate is not ever going to talk about the ramifications of peak oil. Waiting for these things to happen is no different than waiting for Godot. S/he's there, but s/he's not going to appear and shake your hand.

It's completely understandable that we want collapse. It's no different from the terminal cancer patient wanting euthanasia. Our way of life is without redeeming characteristics. If you are reading this I don't need to go into all of the reasons why. If you are aware of collapse fatigue than you are aware of how insane our civilization is. Is it any wonder that our children go to school and randomly massacre their peers? Is it really a mystery as to why? Who are we to lash out at to voice our discontent? This system is a faceless and nameless process that can't be pinned down. There isn't a king who's head we can collectively cut off. There is nowhere to escape this calamity. Nowhere to run and hide. The entire planet has been usurped by petroleum and petroleum governance. The patient has already died and we don't have the decency to pull the technological plug that animates the corpse. That's what our civilization has become...an animated corpse. Everybody agrees that it's not a corpse. This is what we have erroneously labeled collapse fatigue, and this is what we should be lamenting.

We just want society to call a spade a spade, but it's not going to happen. The best we can do is prepare for the worse. It beats doing nothing. But in those preparations don't be operating under any delusion that one day your going to be proven correct before your peers. The best you're every going to get is labeled a kook and given a television show on the topic of prepping for the sheeple's anesthetizing entertainment. If you can make yourself believe that there is not going to be a fast collapse than you have the cure for collapse fatigue. It is a product of the fast collapse scenario and nothing more. Our civilization is too big to fail just like those banks were. As long as they've got fossil fuel energy they will be able to hide our civilizations process of entropy. Fossil fuels are simply too energy dense to notice all of that energy that we are pissing away. Collapse depression is a real thing that can't and shouldn't be avoided, but collapse fatigue need not be a problem. It's a product of unfounded prognostications about how our energy future is going to play out.