5 posts tagged “world without oil”

At times, I can't help but feel that if the suburbanite + self-sufficiency contingent had their way the cities would be festering holes of decay, sealed off by the National Guard and turned into real life versions Lud.  There's been an awful amount of hatred of cities thrown about over the past few months as every possible and imagined negative aspect has been highlighted and laid upon  the urban doorstep. That's not what this is about though.

Sure, property crime is up.  Yes, demonstrations in the streets are becoming more and more frequent as people demand solutions from their elected leaders.  People being evicted from their homes and having trouble making ends meet.  Losing their jobs because they can't afford gas.  Going hungry because they had to get gas or pay the electricity bill or whatever.  But you know what, that's everywhere and when, and if its more noticeable now, it's in part because we're looking a little harder and maybe a little more aware of the world around us.

That's a bit of what's been sticking in my craw during these past few months.  I recycle.  I specifically buy green generated power.  I walk to the grocery store, the local bar, the local restaurants, the library, and when it opens, the farmers market. I buy local and organic whenever possible.  Except for my job, I literally have nowhere that requires me to drive.   For gods sake, I've even used the same travel mug twice a day for a year to get my coffee from The Coffee Shop That Will Not Be Named (in a pinch), and whenever possible from the TWO local coffee shops that are in walking distance to me and that procure their beans from a local distributor. But nobody wants to talk about that.

Instead, there is this marked tendency to rush forward to embrace despair and fall over themselves to be the first to proclaim the apocalypse.  I can understand that to some extent.  Certainly, there have been nights where having gone out and witnessed the remains of someone's dreams that I've drank more than I should to numb myself to the plights of my fellow man.  But rather than continuing to focus on the negative, maybe it's time we as a community as a whole tried to re-focus on finding the positive and if there are problems focus on positing a solution or a way to deal with the problem rather than simply allowing ourselves to continue to wallow in our own destructive self-pity.  Falling into despair  is the easy part of all of this.  Hope is certainly more tricky.

* This originally started as a response to Pachinko_Chance and it got a bit lengthy.

If this is what our leadership considers to be a solution, then we are well and truly screwed.  We need leadership, not photo ops of pols knowing what the "common man" is going through.

The irony of B'more starting such a "festive" week with a ethanol tanker accident will be hysterically funny after another double of scotch.  Until then, it's just depressing as it will do little more than; and excuse the pun, add fuel to the fire. 

Scared Terrified of the possibility of an outage, even now people continue to swarm upon gas stations at the slightest rumor that a gas shipment has come in. Topping off tanks unneccessarily, they create  a self-fulfilling prophecy of gas shortages and fuel shortfalls.   God forbid anyone learned a damn thing from Katrina.  Still, it's hard to blame people as shortfalls and gas price fluctuations continue to occur on a more than frequent basis; but at the same time, people are worsening the situation on the whole.  

I really hope that http://fooworks.com/us-troops-seen-around-alberta-oil-fields/ is the Qubecois separatists attempting a fast one. If US forces have attempted to forcibly annex a portion of Canada then we might as well push that great shiny red candy-like button - it'll be cleaner and quicker than what is about to follow.

From - http://ottawa.usembassy.gov/content/can_usa/didyouknow.pdf

In 2005, Canada supplied about 13% of the United States imports of oil, 85% of its imports of natural gas [jwiv - roughly 20% of the US total demand], and virtual all of its imports of electric power . . . [jwiv: ~43Million Megawatt hours http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat6p3.html].

What does that mean in real terms?  Remember that east coast blackout a few years back that lasted a few days?  Imagine a longer term and more permanent version of that.

Politically, NATO relations - already strained by Afghanistan and Iraq will more than likely be tipped into a downward death spiral ending in either the complete dissolution of the organization of the removal of the US from it.

Going without saying, the UN will attempt to inflict immediate trade embargos and sanctions against the US, but those will be stymied for a time by the the US blocking them with its veto on the security council.  Ultimately, the US would have to be forced off of the security council in order for the resolutions to go through.   Individual countries however will seek to apply pressure on their own initiative.

More speculative

Probable, but not definitive

• Institution of the draft to bolster troop force levels that are currently depleted by Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Large scale riots of the US population

• Seizure of US owned, European based assets (financial and military)

• With the US/Europe fully distracted by a three front war and significant internal strife, SOMEBODY is going to invade Israel.