I was coming from Port Orchard/Bremerton on the 3pm ferry and decided to go first to my Des Moines residence on an absolutely tight bus schedule. My first return bus picked up three wheelchairs and dropped them off, so I didn’t get to my bank in time. Needed cash, but that ATM outside was out of order, so downtown on express bus, but the secound ATM I tried was also out of order. Okay, now I need to wait 30 minutes for another metro # 5, third ATM worked, but the #5 then was over 15 minutes late and by now, my ETA at Phinney Ridge was after 8:20, so I gave up. Went to First Thursday at the Art Museum instead, which was an extremely well-attended event.

Our society is not set up for effective, constrained energy living, what I experienced on a minor level will be general reality for people coping with various breakdowns of complex systems. Regardless of the fate of SPOA, the issues of resource depletion are not going to go away and basic living difficulties are going to become more commonplace. There remains a cultural need for a community forum where people can discuss resource depletion in realistic ways and to plan/prepare themselves.

There is a huge marketplace for end of the world cycle type of thinking, just look at the 2012 phenomemon or the Left Behing Rapture series or the lecture just given at Phinney Ridge by that ET-God Messenger quack, Marshall Vian Summers this past weekend. My own tinfoil beliefs are at these ‘social memes’ are cultural psy-ops to explain, manipulate and control various sub-sections of the public. For sure, a lot of these ‘disasters’ are sure to happen, as a direct consequences of our civilizations’s demands and extractions from our abundant, but finite and ecologically constrained world. Witn the wrong understandings and attractive explanatory myths, it is more likely that present trends will not be reversed, destructive practices not ceased, necessary infrastructure investments not made, ecosystems not preserved and the eventual outcome of the ever cascading crises to be much worse than what needs to be.

I have just read over the Peak oil explanation of this web link and the links embedded in those articles. The info is really pretty good and the presentation not excessive or hysterical at all, it is a good, sober and reasonable exposition and I am guess that a number of minds not just one or two added to the writing.

I am disappointed in, but accepting of the evolution of SPOA. This is a bit critical, but it seems that what has happened is a logical result of various decisions and actions made by core SPOA principals to establish SPOA as an proponent of early peak and imminent hard crash scenarious well at the same time disrespecting and discounting the opinions, values and beliefs of more moderate members of the peak oil and sustainability community.

What seems to be happening in reality is in slow motion however, and many of the leading peak oil writers look like they are very wrong in their timelines as well as their dismissal of emerging petroleum/gas recovery technologies and other energy developments. I think this group’s love affair with the more lunatic side of the peak oil community like Kuntsler, Ruppert, Darley, Duncan Simmons and Savinar is a mistake (even if they are fun and often enlightening to read).

Then when the simple costs and realities of doing or managing anything, in this case running a group and community network – on the volunteer energies of a shrinking group of enthusiasts – became too great relative to the opportunity costs for these enthusiasts, the group’s fate moved toward the path of dissolution. SPOA decided not to have a legal structure nor establish any type of business enterprise or cash flow other than voluntary donations.

It may be that taking care of one’s family and spending time with your daughter, watching her grow and learn, sharing in her joys and discoveries, expressing love and teaching her about things you understand, are far, far more important to one’s survival and happiness than organizing a lecture series on peak oil. It is good for people to get clear senses of their priorities and to nourish themselves and their close ones.

This doesn’t mean that peak oil is dead as an issue nor that there is no longer reason not to maintain a public forum for its discussion and exposition. What it does mean is that SPOA as a group entity has lost momentum, direction and energy. I personally feel that while the life boat concept is sensible and actually necessary, that the community outreach portion is just as critically essential.

Lots of talk and writing was devoted to building a resilient community, but in actual practice, a form of cliquism and exclusion seemed to be practiced. You either agreed whole-hearted or you didn’t belong.

So dissolution may be the best solution right now. I do favor a resurrection of SPOA after it has regained focus. I welcome meetings over meals and drinks, where it would be possible to discuss goals, focuses and positions with the main stakeholders in the SPOA brand. I sort of favor a passing of leadership to a new generation of SPOA core with careful consideration given to the preferences of the people who have contribute so much to SPOA.

So what will works? What is desired? What do you want to do? Right now, we have probably have little more than a year until the next superspike in energy and commodity prices. CERA and Goldman Sachs have both issued warnings that a ‘poor’ investment climate is delaying petroleum and energy infrastructure investments and a supply crunch is heading to us in 2010/11. We really ought to believe those guys on this. SPOA could continue to be a bright light spreading insight, knowledge and practical advice to the larger community as people face what is certain to be unfortunate discontinuties in their understanding of reality. This is something worthwhile to do. -Joe

Even with hydro, the issue is that replacing oil with hydroelectric energy means there’s not enough to live the way we do and drive around incessantly: either everyone would have to cut back their use by like 90%, or we’d have to hold contests to see who gets to have the enrgy they need for the 25 mile daily commute.

In the end, therefore, the hydro faces the same issues: if one doesn’t change their habits, then one would have to replace oil wars with water wars once everyone tries to do make the switch to hydro, and consume as much as before with a different fuel source.

There is no escape from the conclusion that we’re just consuming at an unsustainable rate, and that’s going to be a meaningful problem in the near future instead of one we just give a lot of lip-service to.

-Robert

From fertilizers (petroleum-based) to farm equipment (diesel powered) to distribution and transportation (diesel again), there is indeed a war required to get the biodiesel to you to fill your tank. And it’s definitely not inconsequential.

Get yourself a plug-in electric car charged from a renewable resource and then maybe, just maybe, you can sport a bumper sticker with that claim. (Although, of course, it could be argued that the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines uses a ton of petroleum as well, so you might want to stick to hydro

In preparation for Marisha’s presentation and to demonstrate what motivated people can do, take a look at these videos that describe some of what she describes. 

Community Gardens

How much food can I grow?

Richard Heinberg’s Suburban Permaculture

Orcas Island Permaculture

Urban Pemaculture

Backyard Sustainability

Backyard Permaculture

Jason Bradford’s Brookside Farm