We're pretty much fucked

[MKSheppard]

Nah, there's nothing to be done. Might as well kill yourself now, and spare the misery. Remember, down the street, not across the block.

YES

[Superman]

Sorry if I was vague.

I'm mostly talking about the Carbon Twins of Peak Oil and Global Warming, and how they'll affect a person on the local level. I pretty much expect Joe Sheep to be fucked, but as we are aware of the problem, we need to do a great many things about it.

So when the world feels the great big resource crunch, how can we live through it all?

Wow, you sound like a delight.

[Rye]

There's no point killing yourself while everything at its decadent peak. May as well do what I'm doing and make a documentary about going to New York to get a really nice pizza before the world ends.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

There's no point killing yourself while everything at its decadent peak. May as well do what I'm doing and make a documentary about going to New York to get a really nice pizza before the world ends.

You're in an extremely good position, you know. You can find good employment as a palace eunuch if everything goes to Hell.

*grins*

[Dillon]

How well would tradesmen do in this scary new world? As in plumbers, electricians, etc...

[Resinence]

Well arn't you a bunch of happy happy people! Relax, enjoy the most luxurious time in humanities history (most likely) before it all goes down the shitter. Do what you can and realise that's all you can do for now. And stop stressing, you might have a heart attack before it all goes down

[Rye]

There's no point killing yourself while everything at its decadent peak. May as well do what I'm doing and make a documentary about going to New York to get a really nice pizza before the world ends.

You're in an extremely good position, you know. You can find good employment as a palace eunuch if everything goes to Hell.

*grins*

My balls are my own, and my own they will remain!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

How well would tradesmen do in this scary new world? As in plumbers, electricians, etc...

Electricians will be sitting pretty, considering the need for linesmen is going to massively increase.

[TithonusSyndrome]

In any case, unless I'm mistaken, Rye's missed the eunuch boat by a good 18 years or so anyways.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

In any case, unless I'm mistaken, Rye's missed the eunuch boat by a good 18 years or so anyways. :D

It's never to late to have your balls cut off. Here. I can demonstrate with a rusty spork.

[Xess]

I'm very worried about PO, but I have come to realize that I am competent, young and fairly healthy. I plan on getting my BSc in physics from the University of Winnipeg then go for mechanical engineering/nuclear engineering if I can. All else fails, I'll be working on the railroad all the livelong day.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

It wouldn't be my first choice, but as the world turns I think I'm becoming more and more set on nuclear physics, or possibly nuclear engineering, if at all possible. I sure as hell don't plan on starving or freezing, and since my brother's becoming a history teacher, I'll be damned if my family ends with me. I'll find a way around sexual orientation, don't you worry.

[Singular Intellect]

As long as self inflicted death is an option, I don't have any worries.

If humanity lacks the intelligence and foresight to minimize or avert potential realities threatening our survival, I have no pity for our race. The death of stupidity I consider a good thing.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

How well would tradesmen do in this scary new world? As in plumbers, electricians, etc...

If the world's going down the shitter, you're going to need a lot of plumbers.

[Shinova]

I don't think it's going to quite as bad as most of the people on this thread say, unless they clearly have done vastly more reasearch than I have, but I think a good estimate is a longer, harsher version of the great depression except on a global scale.

[Jim Raynor]

I don't mean to make light of or dismiss Peak Oil, Global Warming, and other problems, but the original post in this thread is talking about how most of us will be surely KILLED within the next few decades. Not just depression and hard times, but the collapse of first world societies in the near future. Am I missing something? Why is none of this apocalyptic talk on the news, or even something like the Discovery Channel?

Again, I'm not trying to dismiss this all, and admit that I don't know much about the subject. Can someone point me to some good (not unjustifiably alarmist) sources on these subjects?

[Stormbringer]

A lot will depend on what changes we, humanity in general, make before we hit a real oil crunch really. There will be sacrifices and undoubtedly a fair number of problems. But the first world is more than capable of keeping the lights on, food on the table, and a relatively decent standard of living. We're perfectly capable of building nuclear power for much of our basic needs, it's just a matter of will to do so. And there are plenty of other such things which make any wholesale collapse rather unlikely.

Things like a car in ever garage and the North American suburban lifestyle will be gone. It's simply not sustainable, sensible, or desirable in light of diminishing oil supplies. But urban population concentrations will work just fine and will survive. Mass transit and good old people power can really do more than we give them credit for any more.

So there's a significant potential for economic pain but that doesn't mean that any one need assume the worst case scenario. A lot can, and eventually will have to, be done but it's not the end of the world as we know it.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A lot will depend on what changes we, humanity in general, make before we hit a real oil crunch really. There will be sacrifices and undoubtedly a fair number of problems. But the first world is more than capable of keeping the lights on, food on the table, and a relatively decent standard of living. We're perfectly capable of building nuclear power for much of our basic needs, it's just a matter of will to do so. And there are plenty of other such things which make any wholesale collapse rather unlikely.

Things like a car in ever garage and the North American suburban lifestyle will be gone. It's simply not sustainable, sensible, or desirable in light of diminishing oil supplies. But urban population concentrations will work just fine and will survive. Mass transit and good old people power can really do more than we give them credit for any more.

So there's a significant potential for economic pain but that doesn't mean that any one need assume the worst case scenario. A lot can, and eventually will have to, be done but it's not the end of the world as we know it.

We can do worse than that and get by just fine. Nobody actually needs electric power at home, for example.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This ridicuous overreaction some people are having on this board is because they literally can't imagine living in a world without modern conveniences. Well, I'm sorry to say it to them, but those conveniences have only been around for the past 90 years for the most part, and the other 9,000 years of settled human habitation haven't featured any of them, so they'd better get used to the prospect that we're going back to the 1890s.

As Lucius Beebe (a famed railroad historian and newspaper man who enjoyed a more or less openly homosexual relationship in a period of comparative repression) sarcastically observed:

When a friend complained that if Thomas E. Dewey was elected it would set the country back 50 years, Beebe retorted "And what was wrong with 1898?"

Hold that.

Keep it in your heads.

And get used to it.

Because that's where you're heading.

[Shinova]

But that's the thing. Exactly how ridiculously bad does it have to get for one to say that homes won't have basic electric power anymore? I mean seriously. There's mass migration to the cities, and then there's everyone suddenly reverting to the nineteenth century. I mean is that even realistically plausible?

Granted the crude awakenings website gives a very good and sobering rundown of all the stuff that rely on crude oil, but so bad that no home will have even basic electricity?

So let's say we go back to the 1890s. The question then is are we ever getting back out?

[Stormbringer]

But that's the thing. Exactly how ridiculously bad does it have to get for one to say that homes won't have basic electric power anymore? I mean seriously. There's mass migration to the cities, and then there's everyone suddenly reverting to the nineteenth century. I mean is that even realistically plausible?

Not as likely as Her Grace seems to be implying. A goodly chunk of the US is supplied by coal-fire power plants. And we can certainly expand our nuclear energy production, and a certain amount of other sources as well, to meet a basic level of needs. So unless we're really moronic about it, it's unlikely that a basic level of electrical service will disappear. It may not support a 5,000 sq ft home in the middle of no-where surburbs but it should be able to keep cities and towns going.

For all that peak oil should concern people, it's not going to just disappear over night with no warning. Production will eventually decline in readily accessible regions, less economic sites will be tapped, prices will go up, and demand will be cut as people switch over to alternatives. That may well take years or decades to play out. Either way there's time to adjust.

We'll have to screw the pooch pretty severely to wind up with the nation blacked out.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm saying that the government will intentionally deny electricity to private homes so that it can be redirected to powering massive industrial expansion and the construction of huge amounts of nuclear power plants, copper cable, electric farm vehicles, nuclear reactors for ships, etc, which are going to be required to offset the end of oil. The energy for producing all this new equipment which will have to replace the old equipment will have to come from somewhere--and we will probably end up having to cannibalize it from private luxury use.

[Alerik the Fortunate]

One question is, how quickly will it dawn on the general populace that oil production is inevitably and irreversibly declining? And what will be the political reaction? Authoritarianism of some sort seems inevitable, but will we be able to transition to a rational authoritarianism without tremendous losses from unnecessary warfare launched by some idiot populist neo-religious nutjob with popular support and some convenient scapegoat? Look what our current administration has managed to do at the peak of our prosperity in a period of relative global peace. How will a more enlightened, sustainability minded government come to power at a time when many of our economic and social assumptions are being rapidly undermined and people in general are not likely to be much more educated than now?

In a nutshell, do you think we have a chance at securing a relatively sane transition to relatively intelligent government?

[Xess]

I'm saying that the government will intentionally deny electricity to private homes so that it can be redirected to powering massive industrial expansion and the construction of huge amounts of nuclear power plants, copper cable, electric farm vehicles, nuclear reactors for ships, etc, which are going to be required to offset the end of oil. The energy for producing all this new equipment which will have to replace the old equipment will have to come from somewhere--and we will probably end up having to cannibalize it from private luxury use.

I figure you'll see people going to a theater for a movie on a Saturday( or holiday or what have you) when the government allows a few hours of power to select places for their modern entertainment.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I figure you'll see people going to a theater for a movie on a Saturday( or holiday or what have you) when the government allows a few hours of power to select places for their modern entertainment.

In a situation like this, movie theatres will probably be able to generate enough revenue to afford very high taxes on energy use to stay open nearly 24/7. Capitalism won't cease to exist entirely; the government will just have a very strong hand over control of the means of production, and corporate bodies (not corporations) will form to protect the interests of the workers, farmers, etc, and probably to own the means of production.

I may be somewhat biased there toward my own ideological aims, however, as I'm an avowed syndicalist.