Yesterday a friend of mine comes to me and says "great news...were going to buy a house!". I said to him very calmly... Why would you do that? He said: "Well I have a family now so we are going to need somewhere for them to live and I am sick of paying rent". Using academic and anaecdotal evidence I unpacked his suburban dream in the traditional argument around peak everything (oil mostly), collasping environment, and depleteing energy supplies. To which he replied: "Well I am still going to need a home anyway". To be honest I think it went over his head, and that's the point.
I am glad that he displayed restraint. When I mention the empirical fact that the hopes and dreams of the ontologically challenged westerner are on the precipice of being flushed down the meterphorical toilet in a SNAFU that will parallel nothing like humanity has ever experienced, I find that most people are contently holding on to that dream of suburbia in their heads as a denial response. And they will defend it to the death without any evidence what-so-ever.
Peak Oil:
There is really no debate anymore that the hours of trapped sunlight provided by oil wil never be replaced by any other source of energy, or combinations of energy that currently exists on this planet (Pimentel & Patzek 2005). It is clearly evident that in this 21st century when the energy behind the means of industrial food production, food and personal transport, and home heating stops. My friends suburban dream home is going to be a defunked asset for many many reasons (Brown 1995: Leach 1975: Brown, Wolf & Bell 1989: Mitchell 2005: and on and on seriously I only have so many words).
Assett values aside consider this: At the start of the oil age in 1830 there were 1 billion people on this planet living with some sustainability within the boundries of specific land use areas. In 2008 there were 6.7 billion people over 90% whom require oil to bring them the basics of life: food, water, shealter, transport, warmth. (Bériault 2005)
Now consider that the last major discovery of oil was in the 1930's and that it peaked somewhere between 2005 to 2008 and you can kind of predict where humanities dependence on this scarce resource is going to lead us if WE do not respond (Adelman 1993: Heinberg 2007: Deffeyes & Silverman 2004). Forget politics, forget economics, forget the discovery of another energy source, and forget technology (which is NOT a subsitute for energy) (Magnus 1979: Openshaw 2000: Odum - Ambio: 1973: Watanabe 1992). The breakdown of oil will mean the end of the maintainance of the incredible population that exists on earth today and that is an empirical fact, no question, end of story.
Oh and by the way projections show peak oil having a direct starvation impact for my country in 2020.
At this point my friend would have been best buying horse, a gun, and a piece of land so he could learn how to grow food. Because like pimping, growing food ain't easy. But his suburban dream home ideology is preventing him from seeing his future as anything less than idilic. A suburban dream bathed in Oil.
Peak everything:
Ah yes, because you see if it was just oil alone we might be able to bury our heads in the sand for a bit longer, However sadly it's not just oil. (Campbel 2008: Hall, 2009: Heinberg 2007: Kunstler 2005: Manslow: 1989: McMahon, Finlayson, Haines & Srikanthan: 1992: Mohring 1970: Engle Mustafa & Rice, 1992). Peak fish, peak soil, peak coal, peak food production, peak virus, peak carbon, peak lithium, peak stress, peek land, peak population, peak species are either here, have already come, or are almost there.
So will my friend be able to leave his house, drive to his job, sell a product, go home, remain safe? Well...
If his car doesn't have gas... If his house isn't warm... If he has no food... If he has no goods... You maybe starting to see my point at this stage. If not, don't worry. Over the next few weeks I will be posting more.
The question that I am sure you will ask yourself is: If we have known this since the late 1950's what have we been doing about it? That dear readers is the problem, and the solution... Well why don't we add that to the list of things my friend should consider before he buys his home.
In the meantime... Critical Terrorist.
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