End of the Modern Lifestyle: ETA Five Years

(Note: I would appreciate any submissions to reddit/digg/fark/boing boing of this post and telling your friends about it. If you click the title of this post, buttons are at the bottom to make it quick and easy. Sorry to nag. It really does help with exposure.)

From a comment at The Oil Drum (see blogroll). Oil production limit reached: expert. 10/07/2006. ABC News Online

This guy is supposed to know his stuff. The oil industry has started reaching it’s peak rate of production. Forever.

(Sometimes I feel like I’m watching a train wreck in slow motion.)

What are the implications to you and your family? What are some steps to begin taking?

1. Job-Home-Shopping need to be clustered closer together.
2. Providing for your own basic needs. Which means knowing what you need versus what you want.
3. Acquiring skills and tools to service other people’s basic needs.
4. Getting out of debt. You don’t want to have to choose between warm and dry and food for your kids.

Here’s some things you can do:

1. Learn to ride a motorcycle/scooter. Better be ready and safe. Check out classes with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. I am planning for $10/gal
2. Buy a little extra food. Rice and beans. Just do it. Find $100 and go to Costco or whatever you have in your town.
3. Read this link:http://www.buildanark.net/survival_stories/ferfal1_1.html. It can, and probably will, happen here. See the previous post about the USA on the way to being seriously bankrupt.
4. Gather experiences that expand your understanding of the world around you. Those experiences can feed your imagination when you’re trying to solve problems in your new lifestyle.
5. Find pleasure and joy in the company of family and friends. Big changes are an opportunity to rediscover the simple joys of life.

I have a long way to go. Most of us do. People just don’t get how serious the issues facing us are these days.

Yeah, yeah. These doomers are always trying to get us down. Well … there are some solid numbers out there saying big changes are on the way. Whether you are ready or not. And we don’t have a lot of time or alternatives.

Do I think we’ll be ready for the changes as a society?

No.

Read the book “Deep Survival” for some insight. One of the issues is going to be the way people’s brains structure their views of reality. By the time most people realize the map is fundamentally flawed it may well be too late. Some will make it. Most won’t.

Don’t be one of them. Question your map.