Why We Won't be Stopping the Near Term Extinction (NTE): And Why My Students Make Me Want to Cheer on the Big Cull

Each semester, when I teach English 102, my department requires I give a final. I don't like finals. The research paper at the end is final enough. So, I take pains to give them a freebie. That's right. The class before the final, I give them the answers. I write the questions on the board. I then point to the page in the book which contains the exact example I want them to use. I tell them that this is an open notes test. If you copy the examples I point to exactly into your notes and then copy them exactly into the test, you will get a perfect score.

There are nine questions. I've given them the answers. The only other requirement, which I make explicit and write on the board during the test, is that they must write in complete sentences. I feel that is only fair given that this is an English class.

And, every single semester for the past nine years, at least one student fails the final. I mean they show up and fail. Not, I'm hung over and can't give enough of a shit to show up fail, but they show up with notes in hand and fail.

The first time it happened, I was knocked sideways several feet into a new less pleasant dimension. Then it happened again and again. I began to paranoically believe that perhaps they were doing it on purpose, but my colleagues pointed out their thunderous ignorance and stupidity. (I had an entire class of college students who did not know who Hitler was, really.) At times I forget that oh-so-salient point and fall back to a position where I believe that students are in college because they deserve to be, because they are smart or some such nonsense. But reality drags me back.

Anyway, just hours ago, I gave the last final of 102 and just minutes ago finished grading the final. The score. Three failures. Two Ds. I still get the urge to snatch one of the cretins up by the collar and shout, spit flying into their face, "What the fuck are you thinking?"

But, of course, they are not thinking. These are the future nurses, doctors, engineers, and TV producers who will one day, when they are about to be culled for a cannibalistic feast, think to themselves, didn't Mr. Davies say something about this? Actually, no, I didn't. You were, in fact, watching Dawn of the Dead on your phone during class.

Near Term Extinction: More Good News

I've not added to the blog for some time due to increased painting activity on my part--I paint in oils--and due to teaching English to college kids who are somewhat problematic. Also, a few good friends have died, leaving gaping holes in my heart. One other reason lurks and that is depression. I read about many disturbing things on the Internet, including peak oil, climate change, and the most disturbing refinement of climate change, Near Term Extinction (NTE). Those of you not familiar with NTE should watch Guy McPherson's lecture. To nutshell it, according to the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, the northern hemisphere is looking at the extinction of all life, THAT'S RIGHT--ALL LIFE, within eighteen years. The southern hemisphere follows in another ten years or so. Guy points out that this doesn't include the feedback loops that will accelerate this process. We may be wiped out in as little as ten years.

Wow. Ain't that a kick in the head? Of course, what they both don't mention is that the bad times will not occur all at once on some magical date ten or eighteen years in the future, but will manifest themselves relatively slowly (though you must remember that, in geological terms, this transition is an eye blink) then accelerate exponentially. For example, as I explain to my students, this will likely mean that chances are, in five years, no commercial crops will be grown in Kansas. This crop failure pattern will repeat itself all over the world particularly in the interiors of continents where most cereals are grown. (Global warming heats interior areas much more quickly.) These failures mean starvation, riots, war, disease, and chaos. And this comes before the accelerating exponential part.

When I tell this to my students, they, without fail, become bummed out. And so, for my entertainment, and because our youth culture puts youth above all else and nothing motivates the young like getting over on the old, I explain that I'm 54 and I've stupidly and wantonly and out of complete ignorance wallowed in huge towering gouts of energy use for such a very long time that I almost feel sorry for the fact that they will be thrust into an almost unimaginably energy constrained world. HA HA! I got mine!

"Oooo, Mr. Davies," they say, shaking their little fists at me.

At one point I was terribly sad for young people, but I've seen what passes for involvement in them. Ninety-five percent of them could care less. Mainly, they don't believe me. They grew up with the energy cornucopia, as I did, and they cannot see a life without it. Secondarily, they believe that some magical technology will save us, or at least enable them to continue with their lifestyle unabated, to allow them one more round of "Call of Duty," or to upload a video of a dog biting the gym teacher's crotch, or to write tweets about poor service at the coffee shop. The bad times will only come after they have gotten theirs.

So, to get back to my point, insomuch as I have a point, I've started to come out of my depression. I've achieved this by realizing, no, acknowledging, no--still not right--what I mean is, deeply internalizing the stark fact that we all die--some very young like the boy killed by the asshole bombers in Boston and others not so young, you can fill in the blank because death among the old is as common as comma misuse among my students.

I know I cannot stop the coming collapse of human society and its eventual extinction. I've taught about peak oil for eleven years and the NTE for one and half, and I've witnessed the complete lack of desire to change things. No one cares. And here is where I had my epiphany. (FINALLY! He reaches his point. Clearly a professor!) I realized that only one human will witness the extinction of humanity and that person will do so unknowingly. Until that last human dies, there is still a species. But, given the size of the planet, no one human can know that they are the last. Therefore, to most humans, it is inconceivable that extinction can occur. As long as they can wave at a neighbor, they cannot conceive of extinction.

I know what you're thinking: Won't they suspect the truth of extinction when ninety-nine percent of the people around them have died, when no electricity let alone television signals reach their propaganda box, when the radio is dead, when they must chase down rats for food, when the temperature at night is 110 degrees, when water must be collected during the occasional deluge such as to get them through until the next deluge, and when life during the 125 degree days are impossible aboveground. Won't they have an inkling? Let's hope so. Because then, maybe, just maybe, they will do what is necessary to stem this trend...................

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Stupid humans.

As Derrick Jensen asks, "At what point will you act to save the oceans? When nine-seven percent of the fish are gone? Ninety-eight? Ninety-nine?"

At what point will people do the hard revolutionary work needed to stem the tide? We need to shut down the entire industrial economy today. Not a week from now, not a month, but now. Okay, let me ask you, and I want you to really think about this: "Will the people willingly let go of industrial society and all that entails?"

Now, the really hard question: "Will you?"

Do We Need College?

Do we need college?

I think not. The main purpose of college is not to create large groups of people who are capable of thinking independently, this is disproven on its face by the fact that most people are unaware that industrial civilization's main purpose is the destruction of the planet.

Wha????

Yes. A simple examination using the basic skills that colleges purport to teach will lead inexorably to this fact. Most of the professions that require a degree are either directly or indirectly involved in the perpetuation of the industrial paradigm. Name a degree that doesn't. Perhaps those few scoffed at degrees such my own, an MFA in creative writing, come to mind. "Do you want fries with that burger" is the usual taunt leveled at me by other minions of the Planet Destroying Machine (PDM). Perhaps those whose degrees are involved with fine arts, dance, etc. may seem to not be supportive of the PDM, but the truth is, they all support the PDM in some fashion or degree.

Next you might challenge the thought of the PDM. Why, I say, I say, without this precious industrialized society, we'd be suffering from bad teeth, poor nutrition, violence, and a lack of stuff. Total horse shit, but that is what is likely to be said. The truth is, the nasty truth that many spend untold hours trying to debunk, is that prior to agriculture the diseases of "civilization" simply did not exist. For further information I highly recommend Lierre Kieth's book "The Vegetarian Myth." Many people cite low average life span as proof of the terrible life that hunter-gatherers endured. This also is fabricated, a matter of statistical prestidigitation. The truth is, when Europeans came to the America's they were short, diseased, and suffering all the diseases of civilization. The natives were tall and healthy, until, of course, they contracted the diseases foisted on them by the Europeans.

Minor digression over. The PDM is easy to spot. Why is it destroying the planet? What makes me think this? Simple. What is the main objective of our industrial economy? Growth. You hear it all the time. "We must grow the economy." "We need more jobs." Next, consider the following statement: WE LIVE ON A SPHERE. This has dramatic repercussions. First, it means that we have finite resources. It means that we can only extract and disperse energy and materials for only so long before it all collapses. This is the easiest truth to apprehend. (Sorry, economists. I did mean to talk over your heads.) So, growth means an ever increasing need for energy and materials. That means ripping it from the Earth, which means the destruction of the planet.

If the goal is to perpetuate the species beyond another hundred years, then the PDM is not the way to go. Industrial society and its corollary of infinite growth will lead to the death of our species and many other innocent species as well. The planet will still go round and round for a very long time, but it may do so without the sound of human laughter.

Do we need college? Not as currently configured. What we need are schools that prepare us for a no- to reverse growth world. Engineers must become de-engineers, trained to help us disassemble the dangerous and poisonous elements of our society such as nuclear facilities, operating and abandoned mines, waste dumps, junkyards, cities, and chemical plants. We need agricultural schools to become permaculture schools. Doctors need to treat the whole person with herbs and natural practices and to, above all, teach people how to avoid contact with industrial civilization. Doctors need to teach how to avoid having children using common herbs. The arts need to tell the truth about planet killing and stop serving as the propaganda arm of the PDM. And, finally, economists need to find a new trade. Their "science" is merely the art of counting the imaginary chits that make the PDM go. In a society without constant growth, there is only one type of economy and that is the gift economy.

How do we escape the grinding wheel of "higher education?" We won't. As long as we live in the expert society driven by people telling us expert lies and us believing those lies because we have been taught to embrace the daddy authority figure for so long that to contradict daddy would cause severe cognitive dissonance. No, the society at large will force march us all to our doom in order to propitiate the PDM. And many of you will feel very smug about the whole thing as you dust your degrees and puff your chests feeling your solidarity with the PDM's expert class. You will engineer the railroad routes, design the cattle cars, study the psychology of frightened masses in order to move them without fear of rebellion, you'll work out superb computer programs to track everyone as they move through the PDM, and you'll design wonderful killing machines and ovens. And, as you pat each other on the back and as the final days of the human species come to pass, you will no doubt write plaintive poetry bemoaning the loss of the golden age of industrial civilization.

I know in many people's eyes, I am a heretic. I've bitten the PDM's all giving hand. What I wish I could do is wrap a massive cord around the PDM's leaden feet and ankles and cause it to trip and crash to the Earth, splintering it into a million pieces. So far, there are few college courses on killing the PDM.

Maybe next semester.

Great Ad for "The Heirloom"

Duncan Crary of the Kunstlercast has, despite a ravaged throat, produced a pitch perfect ad for "The Heirloom." Of course, the Kunstlercast is a must visit site regardless of my literary ambitions. Every week Duncan and James Howard Kunstler, of "The Long Emergency" fame, get together to talk about the topic du jour and interview guests about the ongoing collapse of the industrial world. The show is lighthearted despite its weighty topic and has more laughs than moments of pathos. Between Duncan's interesting asides coming from a different generation and Jim's often hilarious wit bombs, the show is over all too soon, making one itch for the next episode.

The banner ad on the site looks great as well. I'm not sure what all I need do to get this book in front of people, but I'm doing everything that seems reasonable. Everyone I've met, except one crotchety old judge, has loved it, even the literary types seem to not hate it. I hope you will too.

But, of course, the irony lies in the collapse of civilization making an ephemeral project such as a novel about the collapse of civilization a seeming race against time. If you believe the fast crash crowd, then this is a silly gesture, and the energy spent writing would be better spent building a farmstead. If you believe the slow, economic stair-step crash scenario, then anyone still in the business of writing (or any venture) would face a steadily deteriorating audience, both in number and in physical, spiritual, economic, and mental health.

I must imagine that all of the peak oil prognosticators, pundits, and commentators, not to mention authors, both non-fiction and fiction, have at some point thought of the deep and troubling irony of both working within the system to get their voices heard, to build up their brand identity, to sell themselves and their products, and working to get out of a system that they may see in a range of lights from evil but doomed to awesome but doomed. Obviously, I am facing that right now.

For those who are on the "industrial society is evil but doomed end" of the spectrum, such as myself, the mere thought of all the paper needed to publish books, the metal that goes into the printers, the electricity consumed, the entire knock-on chain of industrial cause and effect, makes me cringe and fret that my little book is the anti-christ, that no one needs to read anything that light! Everyone should immediately buy a copy of "One Straw Revolution," or "Endgame."(Does Derrick Jensen wrestle with the same demons? Ruh-roh, I introduced a meta-irony loop by mentioning his book, "Endgame!")

What about books made of electricity? Unfortunately, these involve computers and all their rare earth metals, the plastics, hell, the aluminum for the Mac, the energy and the misery of the labor force. The ebook hardly seems a lesser evil.

What to do? I could opt for the cynicism du jour, both lamenting the state of the world and making knowing snarky asides. I could weep, wail, and gnash. I could take up arms. I could even fill out petitions and spend time with protestors.

But, after much thought, I've decided I will write and paint. These two things are what I do best and most enjoy. If any of my work inspires or impels someone to action or to a better understanding of the crisis, then I consider myself as having a life well spent.

For the enjoyment of anyone who has not seen my paintings, here is one from my upcoming show.

Thanks, and enjoy the book.

Radio Can Kill the Death Star

A recent ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has done more to undermine the rightwing stranglehold on media than anything since Limbaugh got called out on his slut comments. The ruling got rid of thousands of repeater station applications that have allowed the national wingnut media conglomerate a cheap way to spread their daily helpings of rightwing hate and misinfo without the bother of doing anything local, like actually reflecting the political and moral leanings of the community.

This ruling clears the way for President Obama's Local Community Radio Act signed in 2011that will allow local communities to set up low power FM radio stations without interference from the giant media conglomerates and their uniform messages of hate and wingnuttery. Imagine! Local people broadcasting local information for local people. The same old tired corporate playlists will vanish. Local artists will be heard.

But, most importantly, the beginnings of a local post oil network will be formed. The one thing about radio is its simplicity. Low power radio is decidedly low tech, relatively speaking. If you've ever built a crystal radio as a kid, you know what I mean. This is practically at the level of finding the right rock and a bit of wire and hooray! you have a radio. Of course, broadcasting will take a bit more technology, but the good news is that it lasts. Once set up, and if it is cared for, that radio equipment will last for decades.

What does that mean? In a resource constrained world, local people can get market information, weather warnings, local news about local events, and a sense of community. It also means that we will benefit by ridding the local community of the terribly divisive noise we get from the national fascist media. No longer will people from outside the community go unchallenged.

Every town and neighborhood in the country needs to set up a rudimentary low-power broadcast station, preferably powered by solar panels and batteries or even a windmill or waterwheel. With that distributed network of local stations, the centralized powers that currently choke the airwaves with garbage designed to keep the people uninformed and hooked on wingnut insanity will no longer have that power. This network will help prevent regionalism and tribalism from fracturing the country too quickly when the oil emergency comes.

Get busy! Find out how to apply for a low-power radio license. Apply. Do it.

The Rabbit Hole in the Desert

In a pair of recent posts, "Galactic Scale Energy" and "Can Economic Growth Last?," physicist Tom Murphy asserts that, on a finite planet, unconstrained growth, whether it be growth in energy use or economics, is a doomed proposition. Because it comes from the standpoint of physics, his thinking is not subject to the fuzzy thinking of politics or imaginary sciences like economics, it is rooted in precisely what can be done and for how long before the realities of our physical world destroy our fanciful dreams.

With that in mind, follow me down the rabbit hole as I examine the plain as day facts that will inevitably inform our futures. First, we know with dead certainty that the route we are now taking is suicidal, given Tom's analysis. There are really only two questions: Do we fight this insanity with every option available, or do we wait for it to sort itself out?

Each of these can be broken down into smaller subsets. The first requires one to agree as to what we are fighting for. Ideally, we would be fighting for the most sustainable outcome. If we are merely substituting slow growth, and hence planetary destruction, then we are obviously still on the unwanted path. So, given entropy and the gradual dissipation of all metals upon which industrial civilization is based, it would seem that following a path of "sustainable" industrial civilization is a non-starter. The next lower level of "civilization" would be pre-industrial agricultural civilization. As Jared Diamond has shown, this level of civilization is as damaging as industrial civilization, with the dubious distinction of taking longer to destroy its environs. Look at the Middle East; where forests once grew, we see desert. Listen to Plato, who laments that the forests of Greece were disappearing rapidly due to population growth. Do we want to turn every corner of the earth into desert? That leaves pre-agricultural "civilization." I reluctantly use that term because, like Jensen, I adhere to the definition of civilization as an entity that must import resources to survive. Pre-agricultural societies did not import resources. They lived in the environment.

So, we need to return to a pre-agricultural society. Is it possible? Well, should we fail to try, the only question is will there be any of the human species left to return to that level of existence. In other words, we essentially can let things play out from whatever starting point we choose.

We can let it play out from here and simply not try, and that will lead to spectacular human tragedy in the form of privation, starvation, war, disease, and planetary destruction.

We could consciously go back to an agricultural civilization and slowly suck the life out of the planet, creating deserts as we go, going through famine after famine, until we are again herding goats in a hardpan desert beneath a scorching sun.

Or, we could consciously shoot for a pre-agricultural society based on planetary and other species' needs using what little cheap energy we have left to build and train that society based on local conditions and projected climate change patterns, with an eye toward maximum adaptability, redundancy, and fairness. This route by no means suggests that we are out to save everyone. That will not be possible. It means that we are out to save the biome known as planet earth where many thousands and millions of species are at our mercy.

We will end up at a point where all the extraction based technology is gone. That is certain. The only question is, "do we want to do this the easy way, or the hard way?"

Out in Paperback!!

Holy cats! The book is out in paperback and I can hardly restrain myself. The photo represents what I expect everyone to be doing at the book signing after a few beers and other adult beverages. You must bring your own anti-gravity boots.

The book is available at Amazon.com for 14.95 cash dollah. A mere pittance for what you get: a vastly entertaining read, a colorful cover with a special puzzle hidden in the obscure symbols, a fan for summer heat, fuel for winter chills, a weapon against your foe, a shield against the rude, a sunshade for any six by nine area of your person, and a massive coaster that will handle mega-steins of frosty beer. Yes, all that and there is probably more, limited only by your imagination.

Immediate Results

Before civilization began its march out of the fertile crescent on its one-way mission of planetary destruction, humans lived seeking immediate satisfaction: food to eat, security of life, and social contact of the moment. Depending upon who you ask, that pre-civilization period lasted anywhere from 2.5 million years to 250,000 years--a very long period in any event. Whereas, agricultural/industrial civilization is a pinprick on the hide of history.

We still seek the immediate, but it is often the irrelevant, non-real side of life. That impulse to simply do what is available, no matter future consequences, is hard wired into our thinking, even if that means hurting the planet and thus ourselves.

But, hard-wired or no, we need to short-circuit that brain pattern, or we are in for a very short but hard trip to collapse. Some argue that it is inevitable, and others believe that the techno-fairy will tap its magic wand on our monstrous, pointy-headed society, magically taking us to that "NEXT BIG THING."

Oh, foolish people.

That "next big thing" is a pipe dream and a recipe for further destruction. Let's say we invent that mother of all techno-masturbatory dreams--fusion. What then? If we listen to the techno-philes, it is "Game over, we win." According to them, it means we get to keep going with business as usual.

Hmm. So, that means we will continue to pave the planet, cut down the forests, destroy the topsoil, use up the fresh water resources, and rape the oceans, except we can do it really fast now that we have all that cheap energy. Energy, free or not, does not mean the planet suddenly becomes an infinite supplier of all other resources. The cupboard will run out. Meanwhile, the population continues to grow. When we hit that next great wall of crisis that is all the worse due to the business as usual viagra effect of fusion, the number of people who will die due to a collapse doubles, triples, or perhaps quadruples. Oh my. So, it seems that encouraging business as usual is tantamount to encouraging a larger die-off. Would that be a war crime in the war to save the planet? How even more monstrous would we have thought Hitler if it came to light that his plans included breeding more Jews, Gypsies, and other "undesirables" in order to kill even more of them? What if he kept those people in large camps, called "cities" where they would build the machinery of their own future destruction?

Whew.

Immediate results. This is not a bad thing if framed correctly by a reality that comports with that outlook. In other words, we want the good kind of immediate result: the satisfaction of planting a crop correctly, knowing that later in the season food will be available; cleaning up the rivers, knowing that years, if not decades from now, everyone will be able to drink from that river; encouraging ecosystems not only for their ability to share with us, but their ability to share with all. The results we seek will accrue to the next generation, and the next, and the next, and even maybe to the current generation. The result does not have to be an immediate tangible payout. It can be a payout in pride and satisfaction knowing that your acts are contributing to the future, to the seventh generation.

Do not wait for someone to tell you to do this or that. Just take the future by the hand and do what's next. Plant that native nut or fruit tree. Find a neglected spot that will support your life addition and plant it. If we all did this once a day, a week, or month, the world would fill up with life that then goes onto to provide more habitat and life, and it all grows exponentially until we live on a planet where we don't grow food, food grows.

We need this. While it would be fun to kidnap some environmental terrorist from the corporate world and make them pay somehow for their depredations, that act would only eliminate one small cog soon to be replaced by another. Now, I am not saying we should not fight the corporations in all ways possible (see Endgame by Derrick Jensen), but along the way, please attempt to add to the world every chance possible.

The de-engineering of civilization is also important, and I'll cover that soon.

New Review of The Heirloom!

Here is a great review by Amy Crawford!

Amy writes, "The Heirloom takes an innovative and very effective approach in dealing with current potential outcomes, if society continues down the road it's on.

A well written novel, interesting characters and believable scenarios. It grapples with the reality of life. We live in such a fantasy world of "I want it to be this way". .. but what happens if the "foundation" falls out. i.e. not just expensive fuel.. but NO fuel; what then?

This is not a downer storyline where the story line is "no one will listen, the world is falling apart". It's much more interesting than that. Instead there are solutions but our protagonist resists the new reality... just as most of us would.

If the "worst happens" what are the possible outcomes, and what are the alternatives. Because the "future" IS unknown the author hints at possibilities.

But underneath it all, the core issues and realities are look squarely in the face, and dealt with. The whole time I was reading the book I kept thinking, "Yes! someone's finally put the whole picture together!" I woke up in the middle of the night and had to get up and go finish reading... it definitely held my interest every moment of the way."

Getting the Message Out

In an extraordinary rebuff of the planet destroyers, the graduating students of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA sought an alternative to Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil and noted war criminal in the battle to save the planet, as a commencement speaker. After negotiations with the school, the students brought in Richard Heinberg to speak directly after Tillerson. Heinberg is a Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.

This move is all the more interesting as WPI is a leading engineering and technology school. When one of the premier Planet Killer Universities finds itself in the odd position of its students rising up and demanding that a prophet of civilizational collapse speak at their commencement, you have to wonder what will happen next? Cats and dogs sleeping together? G. W. Bush admitting he was not only wrong but should be prosecuted for war crimes? That Newt Gingrich doesn't sound like an amphibian dental disease?

This all begs the question: what does this mean? Do these students understand the technological trap we've fallen into six thousand years ago and now see the light and wish to return to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, or will they continue the destruction of the planet but with a lesser technology, a smattering of smart grids, recycling, and french fry grease to power itsy-bitsy cars? While I applaud their audacity in the face of their indoctrination at the hands of a tech school, I find it hard to believe that they are willing to give up the planet-wrecking cudgel of technology.

In the brilliant, forward-looking minds of these young engineers and scientists, I suspect that they see not the elimination of killer tech but a "refinement," a subtle series of adjustments that will allow business as usual to proceed but with a seemingly sustainable engine of "new" technology to power our lifestyles. Among the many technologies I would imagine they see continuing would include the computer. For them, the computer represents a "smart" use of energy, something that is part of the solution, rather than one of the world's most pernicious problems. But it must be eliminated, or rather, it will suffer slow death, compared to its meteoric rise as the grid collapses in small gradations. Without server farms sucking down the equivalent of a Seattle's worth of electricity, the computer becomes a stand alone curiosity, no longer attached to the huge web of pseudo information that has come to supplant true experience. Another point of refinement will be the automobile. While it is not fair to paint all of these graduates with the same brush, I will bet that there is a gradation of autophilia in their hearts that will manifest itself in the form of various "super" cars that will get increasingly great mileage.

But that is exactly the problem. The resources must still be mined and moved and shaped and assembled, all of which requires energy. The destruction goes on albeit with a sweet veneer of techno-green. If you play out the formula to its natural and inevitable end, we end up at the same place--planetary destruction. Like the spiderweb cracks that race across your windshield when a rock thrown up by a truck smacks it, the web of necessary precursors reach back and forward into time. Need plastics? Where do we get them? Oil? Natural Gas? Do we use corn fed plastics? How do we plant the corn? By hand? Harvest? By hand? No. Machines. Lots of machines. Do the machines magically appear or are they made? Does it cost energy to make them? What do we make them out of? Metal? We have to mine the metal. That takes large machinery. It must be made. We need metal machines that melt and refine the metal. Machines to shape the metal, from ingots to sheets to wire. We need roads to deliver the metal. That means asphalt and concrete. That takes oil and plenty of energy. In other words, we need a pre-existing oil-based manufacturing base in order to build the "alternative" future. And, we need constant maintenance of the base.

Chicken and egg, my friend.

So, these wonderful baby engineers and scientists are all chomping at the bit to fix the technology problem with more technology. Yea!

So, while I appreciate the press coverage and the thought that enough students at a Planet Destroyer University got together to demand that this rather radical person in the form of Richard Heinberg be present to offer up a breath of truth, I cannot help but feel that people out there will think that these students have an alternative version of the tech problem that works better, and that is a problem.

Because it will not. The truth is we are part of a brief spike in technology and population, a tiny thin micro spike in the two million year history of humanity that will completely be forgotten in another micro spike. This aberration is at its peak.

We need the message to change, but we risk offering business as usual when what is needed is a clean break. Bless you Richard Heinberg and the students of WPI for telling us part of the truth. Let us hope that the rest leaks out.

Sitting on the Porch

One of the most pleasing activities I've ever enjoyed is sitting on the porch, wine glass in hand, tunes squawking from the tiny iPod amplifier, and simply watching the fire in the chiminea. It seems to be a bit old fashioned, but it is relaxing. And, depending on your age, this activity may seem anachronistic to the point of laughter, but many of the people I know, the artists, the writers, the musicians who are shaping local communities with local ideas are being seen more and more on each other's porches, playing music, talking softly about their day and all mostly under the age of forty and many in their thirties and twenties. Ironically, the ones who seem to see this as stodgy are in fact the older generations of the nineteen sixties and seventies.

Yes, the vast majority of Americans shift from theme bar to theme bar, ever seeking the best pre-packaged experience that money can buy, eyeing the fifty flat screens filled with generic sports, cheering for cheering's sake, going to movies showing the retread techno-triumphilist de jour, and then home to the local weather guy and his corny hand-off to the anchor team.

But that is going to change with the upcoming energy shortage. I have a feeling that the country will quickly become a nation of porch sitters. We will grudgingly leave the dark caves of our homes, the info-packed flickering screens forgotten as we find ourselves forging new relationships with our neighbors in light of fewer jobs, less money, more time on our hands, and an oppressive, cable/internet bill.

Hot summer days will be mitigated in the porch's shade and breeze because running the A/C will be far too expensive. Maybe the cooling unit will be turned on for the occasional party, an expensive treat for one's guests, or ran as a single window unit in the highly insulated bedroom during the sweltering nights. Maybe the sleeping porch will come back into fashion.

Perhaps the neighbors will stop by with baskets of eggs, pickles, tomatoes, jerked rabbit meat, or some of their famous blackberry jam, seeking a trade for your time, expertise, tools, leather scraps, or singing skills. As a node in the informal economy, the porch may prove extremely useful.

Security will also be part of the porch's domain. Every pair of eyes on the street means fewer strangers able to get into mischief. With a sinking economy, crime is likely to rise. People who can no longer fulfill their fake dreams of plastic riches through a growing economy, may try to keep the dream alive through ransacking their neighbors homes. As relationships and trust grow in the neighborhood, so will the sense of possibility. Fear will decrease as people come to believe that their neighbors have their best interests in mind. And, with that trust, a sense of an extended world will emerge, the sense that your land does not end at your property line but is connected by air, wind, and water, meaning that your pollution will not be spilled onto your neighbors' land or your own land, not because you, he, or she owns it and want to keep it pristine, but because any insult to a particular part of the land will be an insult to all of the land. The land is indivisible.

In this blog, I intend to talk about many things, but I wish above all to convey the sense that despite all that is coming down the pike, right smack at us, that localism must feel like the answer. We know it is the answer. We must feel it is the answer.