Lilacs, Rainbows and a Partial Book Review

(WARNING: I'M GOING TO GO OFF THE DEEP END TODAY. Knowing full well that you may think I'm absolutely nuts if you don't already, I'm going to talk about Peak Oil. The End of The World As We Know It [not TEOTW, mind you, just AWKI]. And here goes...)

So, I started trying to reduce my household energy usage when I signed up for the Riot for Austerity last spring. Honestly, I can't even remember where I heard of it or how I found it online, but I was so intrigued by the idea of it. I couldn't stop thinking of it. Reduce our household energy usage and consumption by 90%. 90%! How was that even possible while still living a "normal" American life?

Well, I guess that depends on how you define "normal". But I/we (my family was along for the ride) signed up due mainly to concern for the earth. To do our part to slow or halt global warming. To pollute the air and waters less. To use less so others could have more. Etc. Etc. To do it "just because". Just because it's a good thing to do. (Read here for the Theory of Anyway by Sharon and here for another good take on it.)

Then all kinds of things started happening. Our health insurance premium went up 25% and there was no raise in sight for George. Prices for gas and food and heating fuels skyrocketed and still there was no more money in our bank account. After the TRA, the 403b, the medical and dental and taxes were taken out, and after all the bills were paid, we had about $300-$500 max. a month for all our expenses including food and fuel (and this is with my PT job). Suddenly gas for the two vehicles was $160/month and that left sometimes $200 a month for groceries. And nothing else!

I became even more thankful that I had signed up for the Riot.

Because we were focused on eating more locally, we had bought a 1/4 beef from friends, we had jars and jars of tomato sauce, salsa and jams, the freezer was full of frozen fruits and the cool bedroom closets had boxes of winter squash hiding in them. We have been able to get by on spending far less at the grocery store this year because we had already put away all this food. Yes, it did cost us more last summer when we were stocking up, but we had more money then and were we glad we did it!

Because we had been focusing on saving energy to help the environment, we were already getting used to living with the furnace set to keep the house at 65 deg. F. We were already thinking of ways to un-electrify our lives, and had knowledge of things like solar and rocket ovens, preserving foods without freezing or canning (haven't gotten to that yet but we know how to do it and will slowly do more and more, things like root cellaring, crock fermenting, etc.), and buying cheaper, more storable grains in their whole form then grinding them to make flours (as of yesterday we are the proud owners of a Lehman's Best Grain Mill). Well, lo and behold all these things were saving us money and in the end we really needed that too.

Now, even with ever-rising prices on the basics, our financial situation is better. George just got a raise and will get another one in the fall. But we'll still keep doing these things, stepping up our gardening and more, to lessen our dependence on the country's current energy and agricultural structures (the ag. business really just being an arm of the cheap oil/energy structure these days, as is the medical establishment, the government, the shopping mall, suburbia, etc.)

Gasoline is getting more expensive not because of the oil companys' greed, though certainly they are greedy. They're making windfall profits these days, it is true. I think they're hoping to use them for the near future when their business no longer exists in its current form. The motto is going to be "change or die", and they'll probably end up doing both.

Gas is getting more expensive because oil is running out. Demand is up and yes, supply is at its highest level ever. It's at its peak according to geologists and experts. We still have half the world's oil left in the ground. Yes, half. Tons of it. Good news?

Maybe good news to some but emphatically not good news for our current infrastructure. Because the oil left is now the half that's hardest to get. Within the next 50 years or so it will cost two barrels of oil to get three barrels out. The same goes for natural gas. It's going to become more and more expensive, at some point it will take more oil to get it out than it produces (sort of like ethanol does now). To continue will be pure foolishness.

Alternative energy "solutions" (which I used to believe in wholeheartedly) also depend on oil. It takes oil to make plastic, to make the PV Solar Panels, to make the batteries which the Solar Panels power, to make the wind turbines and to power the heavy equipment which installs the wind turbines. It takes oil to mine for coal. It takes oil, it takes oil, it takes oil. Our entire society is built on oil. What happens when it runs out? Or even just gets too expensive to pump and refine and use?

Well, I don't think it has to be that dire. It may be. It probably will be. But we will survive it.

One guy who thinks it's going to be really dire is James Howard Kunstler. His book, The Long Emergency, is the one I mentioned in the title for my "partial book review". Partial because I've only read half of it so far. But I can't wait to tell all of you to go out and get it! I've heard of this guy for months, and I read his websites once in a while--not always liking his blunt word choices. I'd also "scanned" this book at Barnes and Noble but was pretty afraid of it for quite a while. But then I read Kunstler's latest fiction novel, World Made by Hand, which I got at the library after not being able to put it down at Barnes and Noble when I "browsed" it there. WMBH is not the best novel I've ever read, but it passed my test as a page-turner and I read it all. And after that, I just had to read The Long Emergency.

Let me tell you, it is a well-written book. It's not as scary as I thought, or maybe I'm more ready for it now than I have been. Kunstler takes his reader through the history of oil. He is very thorough in his assessments and his writing is easy to understand. I think those who read this book don't have to take out of it a doomsday fear, but can use it as a base for informing themselves about the true world situation and what may happen in this century. The subtitle for the book is Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.

And I really think that's what this is all about. Surviving. Thriving. Being aware and prepared, whatever may come.

Maybe I have gone off the deep end to believe all this stuff. Maybe we'll figure out cheaper ways to get the tar sands out of Alberta, and maybe that oil and the stuff in the President's favorite, ANWR, will last us further into an increasingly oil-hungry world than we can predict. Maybe this is all bunk! I was quite the skeptic for a long time, and I can still hope all those experts are wrong. But as we saw America pass its oil peak in the 1970s we are likely now seeing the effects of the world's peak now, already.

What are we going to do about it? I for one would prefer not to be in any more wars over this. There are other, better ways...Maybe the promise is in the rainbows and the lilacs, which in spite of it all don't forget to shine or bloom each spring.