Last week’s post on the contemporary culture of apocalypse fandom was also, more broadly, about the increasingly frantic attempts being made to ignore the future that’s looming ahead of us. Believing that the world as we know it is about to crash into ruin, popular as it is, is only one of several strategies put to work in those attempts. There’s also the claim that we can keep industrial civilization going on renewable energy sources, the claim that a finite planet can somehow contain an infinite supply of cheap fossil fuel—well, those of my readers who know their way around today’s nonconversation about energy and the future will be all too familiar with the thirty-one flavors of denial.
It’s ironic, though predictable, that these claims have been repeated ever more loudly as the evidence for a less comfortable view of things has mounted up. Most recently, for example, a thorough study of the Spanish solar energy program by Pedro Prieto and Charles A.S. Hall has worked out the net energy of large-scale solar photovoltaic systems on the basis of real-world data. It’s not pleasant reading if you happen to believe that today’s lifestyles can be supported on sunlight; they calculate that the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of Spain’s solar energy sector works out to 2.48—about a third of the figure suggested by less comprehensive estimates.
The Prieto/Hall study has already come in for criticism, some of it reasonable, some of it less so. A crucial point, though, has been left out of most of the resulting discussions. According to best current estimates, the EROEI needed to sustain an industrial civilization of any kind is somewhere between 10 and 12; according to most other calculations—leaving out the optimistic estimates being circulated by solar promoters as sales pitches—the EROEI of large scale solar photovoltaic systems comes in between 8 and 9. Even if Prieto and Hall are dead wrong, in other words, the energy return from solar PV isn’t high enough to support the kind of industrial system needed to manufacture and maintain solar PV. If they’re right, or if the actual figure falls between their estimate and those of the optimists, the point’s even harder to dodge.
Similar challenges face every other attempt to turn renewable energy into a replacement for fossil fuels. I’m thinking especially of the study published a few years back that showed, on solid thermodynamic grounds, that the total energy that can be taken from the planet’s winds is a small fraction of what windpower advocates think they can get. The logic here is irrefutable: there’s a finite amount of energy in wind, and what you extract in one place won’t turn the blades of another wind turbine somewhere else. Thus there’s a hard upper limit to how much energy windpower can put into the grid—and it’s not enough to provide more than a small fraction of the power needed by an industrial civilization; furthermore, estimates of the EROEI of windpower cluster around 9, which again is too little to support a society that can build and maintain wind turbines.
Point such details out to people in the contemporary green movement, and you can count on fielding an angry insistence that there’s got to be some way to run industrial civilization on renewables, since we can’t just keep on burning fossil fuels. I’m not at all sure how many of the people who make this sort of statement realize just how odd it is. It’s as though they think some good fairy promised them that there would always be enough energy to support their current lifestyles, and the only challenge is figuring out where she hid it. Not so; the question at issue is not how we’re going to keep industrial fueled, but whether we can do it at all, and the answer emerging from the data is not one that they want to hear: nothing—no resource or combination of resources available to humanity at this turning of history’s wheel—can support industrial civilization once we finish using up the half a billion years of fossil sunlight that made industrial civilization briefly possible in the first place.
Green activists are quite right, though, that we can’t just keep on burning fossil fuels. We can’t just keep on burning fossil fuels because fossil fuels are a finite resource, we’ve already burnt through most of what’s economically viable to extract, and the EROEI of what’s left is dropping steadily as quality declines and costs rise. Back in the day when most petroleum on the market was light sweet crude from shallow onshore wells, its EROEI could be as high as 200; nowadays, a large and growing fraction of liquid fuels comes from deep offshore fields, fracked shales, tar sands, and other energy- and resource-intensive places, so the average for petroleum as a whole is down somewhere around 30 and sinking.
A common bad habit of contemporary thought assumes that gradual changes don’t mean anything until some threshold slips past, at which point things go boom in one way or another. Some processes in the real world happen that way, but it’s far more common for gradual shifts to have gradual impacts all along the trajectory of change. A good case can be made that EROEI decline is one such process. For more than a decade now, the world’s economies have stumbled from one crisis to another, creaking and groaning through what would likely have been visible contraction if the mass production of paper wealth out of thin air hadn’t been been cranked into overdrive to produce the illusion of normality.
Plenty of explanations have been proposed for the current era of economic unraveling, but I’d like to suggest that the most important factor is the overall decline in the “energy profit” that makes modern economies possible at all. EROEI is to a civilization what gross profit is to a business, the source of the surplus that supports the entire enterprise. As the overall EROEI of industrial civilization contracts, habits that were affordable in an era of abundance profit stop being viable, and decline sets in. Long before that figure drops to the point that an industrial system can no longer be supported at all, most of us will have long since lost access to the products of that system, because every drop of liquid fuel and every scrap of most other industrial resources will long since have been commandeered for critical needs or reserved for the wealthiest and most powerful among us.
The twilight of the industrial age, in other words, isn’t somewhere conveniently far off in the future; it’s happening now, in the slow, ragged, uneven, but inexorable manner that’s normal for great historical transformations. Trying to insist that this can’t be happening, that there has to be some way to keep up our extravagant lifestyles when the energetic and material basis of that extravagance is rapidly depleting away from beneath us, may be emotionally comforting but it doesn’t change, or even address, the hard facts of our predicament. Like the fashionable apocalypticism discussed last week, it simply provides an excuse for inaction at a time when action is necessary but difficult.
Set aside all those excuses, and the hard question that remains is what to do about it all.
Any answer to that question has to start by taking seriously the limits imposed by our situation, and by choices made in the decades already past. Proposing some grand project to get the entire world ready for the end of the age of abundance, for example, is wasted breath; even if the political will could be found—and it’s been missing in action since 1980 or so—the resources that might have made such a project possible were burned to fuel three decades of unsustainable extravagance. While new systems are being built, remember, the old ones have to stay functional long enough to keep people fed, housed, and supplied with other necessities of life, and we’ve passed the point at which the resources still exist to do both on any large scale. As the Hirsch report pointed out back in 2005, a meaningful response to the peaking of petroleum production had to begin at least twenty years in advance of the peak to avoid catastrophic disruptions; that didn’t happen in time, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.
Any response to the twilight of the industrial age, in other words, will have to function within the constraints of a society already in the early stages of the Long Descent—a society in which energy and resources are increasingly hard for most people to obtain, in which the infrastructure that supports current lifestyles are becoming ever more brittle and prone to dysfunction, and in which most people will have to contend with the consequences of economic contraction, political turmoil, and social disintegration. As time passes, furthermore, all these pressures can be counted on to increase, and any improvement in conditions that takes place will be temporary.
All this places harsh constraints on any attempt to do anything constructive in response to the end of industrial civilization. Still, there are still options available, and I want to talk about one of those here: an option that could make the decline a little less bitter, the dark age that will follow it a little less dark, and the recovery afterwards a little easier. Compared to grand plans to save the world in a single leap, that may not sound like much—but it certainly beats sitting one one’s backside daydreaming about future societies powered by green vaporware, on the one hand, or imaginary cataclysms that will relieve us of our responsibility toward the future on the other.
It’s only in the imagination of true believers in the invincibility of progress that useful technologies can never be lost. History shows the same thing with painful clarity:
over and over again, technologies in common use during the peak years of a civilization have been lost during the dark age that followed, and had to be brought in again from some other society or reinvented from scratch once the dark age was over and rebuilding could begin. It’s a commonplace of history, though, that if useful technologies can be preserved during the declining years of a society, they can spread relatively rapidly through the successor states of the dark age period and become core elements of the new civilization that follows. A relatively small number of people can preserve a technology, furthermore, by the simple acts of learning it, practicing it, and passing it on to the next generation.
Not every technology is well suited for this sort of project, though. The more complex a technology is, the more dependent it is on exotic materials or concentrated energy sources, and the more infrastructure it requires, the less the chance that it can be preserved in the face of a society in crisis. Furthermore, if the technology doesn’t provide goods or services that will be useful to people during the era of decline or the dark age that follows, its chances of being preserved at all are not good at a time when resources are too scarce to divert into unproductive uses.
Those are tight constraints, but I’ve identified seven technological suites that can be sustained on a very limited resource base, produce goods or services of value even under dark age conditions, and could contribute mightily to the process of rebuilding if they get through the next five centuries or so.
1. Organic intensive gardening. I’ve commented before that when future historians look back on the twentieth century, the achievement of ours that they’ll consider most important is the creation of food growing methods that build soil fertility rather than depleting it and are sustainable on a time scale of millennia. The best of the current systems of organic intensive gardening require no resource inputs other than locally available biomass, hand tools, and muscle power, and produce a great deal of food from a relatively small piece of ground. Among the technologies included in this suite, other than the basics of soil enhancement and intensive plant and animal raising, are composting, food storage and preservation, and solar-powered season extenders such as cold frames and greenhouses.
2. Solar thermal technologies. Most of the attention given to solar energy these days focuses on turning sunlight into electricity, but electricity isn’t actually that useful in terms of meeting basic human needs. Far more useful is heat, and sunlight can be used forheat with vastly greater efficiencies than it can be turned into electrical current. Water heating, space heating, cooking, food preservation, and many other useful activities can all be done by concentrating the rays of the sun or collecting solar heat in an insulated space. Doing these things with sunlight rather than wood heat or some other fuel source will take significant stress off damaged ecosystems while meeting a great many human needs.
3. Sustainable wood heating. In the Earth’s temperate zones, solar thermal technologies can’t stand alone, and a sustainable way to produce fuel is thus high up on the list of necessities. Coppicing, a process that allows repeated harvesting of fuel wood from the same tree, and other methods of producing flammable biomass without burdening local ecosystems belong to this technological suite; so do rocket stoves and other high-efficiency means of converting wood fuel into heat.
4. Sustainable health care. Health care as it’s practiced in the world’s industrial nations is hopelessly unsustainable, dependent as it is on concentrated energy and resource inputs and planetwide supply chains. As industrial society disintegrates, current methods of health care will have to be replaced by methods that require much less energy and other resources, and can be put to use by family members and local practitioners. Plenty of work will have to go into identifying practices that belong in this suite, since the entire field is a minefield of conflicting claims issuing from the mainstream medical industry as well as alternative health care; the sooner the winnowing gets under way, the better.
5. Letterpress printing and its related technologies. One crucial need in an age of decline is the ability to reproduce documents from before things fell apart. Because the monasteries of early medieval Europe had no method of copying faster than monks with pens, much of what survived the fall of Rome was lost during the following centuries as manuscripts rotted faster than they could be copied. In Asia, by contrast, hand-carved woodblock printing allowed documents to be mass produced during the same era; this helps explain why learning, science, and technology recovered more rapidly in post-Tang dynasty China and post-Heian Japan than in the post-Roman West. Printing presses with movable type were made and used in the Middle Ages, and inkmaking, papermaking, and bookbinding are equally simple, so these are well within the range of craftspeople in the deindustrial dark ages ahead.
6. Low-tech shortwave radio. The ability to communicate over long distances at a speed faster than a horse can ride is another of the significant achievements of the last two centuries, and deserves to be passed onto the future. While the scientific advances needed to work out the theory radio required nearly three hundred years of intensive study of physics, the technology itself is simple—an ordinarily enterprising medieval European or Chinese alchemist could easily have put together a working radio transmitter and receiver, along with the metal-acid batteries needed to power them, if he had known how. The technical knowledge in the amateur radio community, which has begun to get interested in low-tech, low-power methods again after a long flirtation with high-end technologies, could become a springboard to handbuilt radio technologies that could keep going after the end of industrial society.
7. Computer-free mathematics. Until recently, it didn’t take a computer to crunch the numbers needed to build a bridge, navigate a ship, balance profits against losses, or do any of ten thousand other basic or not-so-basic mathematical operations; slide rules, nomographs, tables of logarithms, or the art of double-entry bookkeeping did the job.
In the future, after computers stop being economically viable to maintain and replace, those same tasks will still need to be done, but the knowledge of how to do them without a computer is at high risk of being lost. If that knowledge can be gotten back into circulation and kept viable as the computer age winds down, a great many tasks that will need to be done in the deindustrial future will be much less problematic.
(It’s probably necessary to repeat here that the reasons our descendants a few generations from now won’t be surfing the internet or using computers at all are economic, not technical. If you want to build and maintain computers, you need an industrial infrastructure that can manufacture integrated circuits and other electronic components, and that requires an extraordinarily complex suite of technologies, sprawling supply chains, and a vast amount of energy—all of which has to be paid for. It’s unlikely that any society in the deindustrial dark ages will have that kind of wealth available; if any does, many other uses for that wealth will make more sense in a deindustrialized world; and in an age when human labor is again much cheaper than mechanical energy, it will be more affordable to hire people to do the routine secretarial, filing, and bookkeeping tasks currently done by computers than to find the resources to support the baroque industrial infrastructure needed to provide computers for those tasks.
(The reason it’s necessary to repeat this here is that whenever I point out that computers won’t be economically viable in a deindustrial world, I field a flurry of outraged comments pretending that I haven’t mentioned economic issues at all, and insisting that computers are so cool that the future can’t possibly do without them. Here again, it’s as though they think a good fairy promised them something—and they aren’t paying attention to all the legends about the way that fairy gifts turn into a handful of dry leaves the next morning. We now return you to your regularly scheduled
Archdruid Report.)
Organic gardens, solar and wood heat, effective low-tech health care, printed books, shortwave radios and a facility with slide rules and logarithms: those aren’t a recipe for the kind of civilization we have today, nor are they a recipe for a kind of civilization that’s existed in the past. It’s precisely the inability to imagine anything else that’s crippled our collective ability to think about the future. One of the lessons of history, as Arnold Toynbee pointed out, is that the decline and fall of every civilization follows the same track down but the journey back up to a new civilization almost always breaks new ground. It would be equally accurate to point out that the decline and fall of a civilization is driven by humanity in the mass, but the way back up is inevitably the work of some small creative minority with its own unique take on things. The time of that minority is still far in the future, but plenty of things that can be done right now can give the creative minds of the future more options to work with.
Those of my readers who want to do something constructive about the harsh future ahead thus could do worse than to adopt one or more of the technologies I’ve outlined, and make a personal commitment to learning, practicing, preserving, and transmitting that technology into the future. Those who decide that some technology I haven’t listed deserves the same treatment, and are willing to make an effort to get it into the waiting hands of the future, will get no argument from me.
The important thing is to get off the couch and do something, because the decline is already under way and time is getting short.
323 comments:
- Solar thermal is a totally unexploited industry in the United States, but water heaters in Israeli homes are virtually all thermal.
- I have no idea how you could make a living practicing home medicine -- or avoid getting arrested, for that matter -- but the book you will want to read is called Where There Is No Doctor and has been used by missionaries to save lives for decades.
- In Japan, there are tens, or even hundreds of thousands of kids who are being taught to use a soroban (abacus) as we speak, even though there's no apparent use for one in modern life. It's simply considered a traditional art, and Japan lacks the progressive impulse to discard arts that are "outdated".
For a start, I'm going to continue translating Eastern esoterica for the West. Nothing like a good mental shake-up to get the creative juices flowing.
1/15/14, 8:44 PM
Pinku-Sensei said...
One person who should know better, but completely discounts the idea of resource depletion as an important contributor to the current situation is Paul Krugman. In a New York Review of Books article, Krugman revealed that he was the research assistant for William Nordhaus’ landmark paper, “The Allocation of Energy Resources.” He “spent long hours immured in Yale’s Geology Library, poring over Bureau of Mines circulars and the like.” If someone with his experience with the economy of energy doesn’t get Peak Oil, then it’s probably hopeless for most economists to comprehend the issue. James Hamilton of UC San Diego is about it. That’s why I use people like Jim Kunstler as one of my examples of ecological economists (he's in a film I show my students; if you were, I'd use you instead), and list Krugman among the conventional economists.
Speaking of things I tell my students (I teach environmental science, a field that is full of the "bright green" types that you deride as unrealistic), I really like your list of seven sustainable technologies and plan on including them in my teaching. I'm in the middle of a two-part lecture on sustainability in which I've already mentioned organic farming and have already included solar and wood energy in the notes for the second half. Health care isn't on the agenda this week, but I know the topic will come up repeatedly during the semester, as the sustainability issues are becoming very apparent.
As for the rest, those might take some doing. I may have to use them as prospects to scare them. Hey, kids, anyone here want to what your grandparents did, and use a slide rule instead of the calculator on your smartphone? I can already imagining them freaking out. Heh, heh, heh.
1/15/14, 8:55 PM
Marinhomelander said...
Geography and climate will matter in these situations. Why on earth would anyone stay in a place where they could freeze to death when they could migrate to warmer and/or wetter climates?
Like minded people are clustered in certain places and have created the nucleus of what is in some cases already an alternate economy. Coastal California is one such place. From San Francisco north to around the Oregon border is a concentration of alternate thinkers--and a lot of entertaining charlatans-- living in the blessings of a moderate climate with great gardening potential.
Minor detail, we are in the worst drought since records began but that can change with a couple of big storms.
1/15/14, 9:13 PM
Joel said...
As far as medicine, I'm rooting for Eclectic Medicine to be among the systems making a comeback, but I'm also intrigued by what I've heard of the empirical tradition of non-Maoist (i.e., not influenced by the Barefoot Doctors program) Chinese medicine.
1/15/14, 9:15 PM
Thijs Goverde said...
Would you call the germ theory a part of a technology, or would you limit your use of the word to more strictly technological achievements?
By the way: it seems that unfortunately and, if I may use so strong a word, insanely, the germ theory is contested in some areas of alt-med.
It's one of the problems of being ahead of the pack, I think: if you're not running with the pack, you're automatically on the fringe, which puts you in close association with those who end up on the fringe for, ahem, other reasons.
On a more cheerful note: yesterday my copy of Green Wizardry finally arrived. Yay!
1/15/14, 9:17 PM
Cosmo Q said...
1/15/14, 9:24 PM
Barbara Fisher said...
You mentioned organic farming--also note animal husbandry, for without synthetic materials, we will need fiber for clothing. Alpacas, sheep, goats, rabbits--all produce fiber that can be spun and used for cloth.
Similarly, learning to knit, crochet, sew....humans in most places in the world will always need clothing, blankets, and such.
Pottery, as well. Learning to wheel-throw clay bowls and plates and such.
Carpentry.
In fact, I would say most handcrafts are something that would be useful to learn and pass on. Perhaps that is part of the unconscious impetus behind the current trend in crafting and do-it-yourselfing. I don't quite think it's just self-expression at work here.
Also, learn to play, or build or repair musical instruments. I would say that in the dark times we humans will need our music more than ever.
1/15/14, 10:03 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Pinku-sensei, fear of slide rules is purely a matter of pitching them the wrong way. These days, in a lot of circles, retro is in; try brandishing the slide rule and saying, "This, my friends, is a steampunk calculator" -- see what kind of reaction you get then!
Marin, funny -- are you by any chance in the real estate business? Climate scientists are warning that your part of the world is going to be racked by ghastly droughts for centuries to come. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a pleasant region with an ample year-round water supply that's expected to remain constant through climate change, and housing prices that are between 5 and 10 per cent (no, that's not a misprint!) of what people have to pay to get equivalent properties in your area. I'd say there's plenty of reason to head somewhere other than where you are...
Joel, depends on what you want to do and how fast you need to do it. Most of the numbers that put human footprints on the Moon were crunched with slide rules. Abaci, logarithm tables, nomographs, et al. also have their place -- it's not an either-or situation, it's all of the above! As for the old Eclectic school and trad Chinese medicine, no argument there.
Thijs, nah, I've already talked about what's involved in saving scientific knowledge and, more importantly, the scientific method. This is a different subset of the same broad challenge.
Cosmo, there again, I've discussed that at length in previous posts. The key, as I see it, is to lay off the stone tablets and work on getting the scientific method back in the hands of laypeople as a living practice.
1/15/14, 10:10 PM
John Michael Greer said...
1/15/14, 10:11 PM
Pinku-Sensei said...
I love it and so will the geeks and hipsters among my students. Thank you!
1/15/14, 10:19 PM
Susan J said...
When has this ever happened? Over the centuries each step, each turning, has been away from previous values. When has anyone ever said “wait a minute, let’s return to x”?
How many people today don’t laugh at the mention of the Luddites? Who actually knows the truth of their times?
Who today can say “wait a minute”? People educated in public schools? People raised in 2+ paycheck families?
1/15/14, 10:19 PM
Ray Wharton said...
When it comes to solar thermal I am concerned by how many gardening systems are dependent on fairly short lived plastic. Also glass doesn't have a great life expectancy if social order drops below a thresh hold. That does leave alot of good solar thermal work to do, but the gains with out glass are smaller. Thermal mass is of interest where I'm sitting, there are alot of thinks I love about the high elevation here, but it makes for wide temperature swings. Increasing the intercourse between earth and air I hope can help. Digging machines are still around, now its the time to dig some berms, onces made a good one can be maintained easily for a long time. Just need permission prom some land owners :P.
I am also really happy to see mathamatics on the list. I was a bit of a math nerd growing up to be sure, but I am surprised by how serious most peoples innumeracy is right now. Many people can't measure, or run simple figures in their head. I am starting to suspect that simply being a math nerd may be enough for a millennial to stay busy. Helping projects conceptualize numbers, once the computers get too frustrating and pricey to use, and the numbers that products come with aren't enough to muddle forward. Heck, at this point alot of the "professional mathamancers" are all just fancy dancers. Me? I haven't been schooled in math since 8th grade, but I think numbers alot. Right now I can make cellular automata calculators on go boards which can sum hundreds of numbers, do multiplication, division, and a few mathematical properties that are stable behaviors but I can't find names for. Too bad the current form is only practical for people who can think in a Fibonacci Numerals system instead of base-10; on the other hand, lots of people are so tramatized by numbers from school that a different system is soothing. This is the second year trying to turn the rules into a game, a good project for winter, one of these years I might get something catchy made!
1/15/14, 10:31 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Pinku-Sensei, you're most welcome. I'm going to have to do at least one post one of these days on the retro future...
Susan, it happens all the time. Think of the Renaissance, to cite only one example -- a lot of people looked at what was going on in their own cultures, looked at what had been around in Greek and Roman times, and decided that an older set of values made a lot of sense to them. It's only in the middle and upper classes of current industrial societies, and the canned histories they repeat to themselves, that the idea of going back to get out of a blind alley is unthinkable -- and they'll catch on eventually.
Ray, yes, glass is crucial, and it can be made with medieval technologies from recycled glass or clean sand -- that's something that would be well worth putting time into learning to make. As for a number system based on Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Section, er, perhaps you haven't heard of traditional Pythagorean sacred geometry, which is all about that, and is sustainable in a medieval setting (that was standard in the last round of dark ages in the West, you know) as well as useful and beautiful.
1/15/14, 10:49 PM
deedl said...
For example: Technical houshold items such as small kitchen devices, entertainment and large devices such as washing machines, dishwashers and so on. All those items are designed with planned obsolescence. You have to replace (in current industrial civilization) them every few years, but it is technically no problem to design them (without additional costs worth mentioning) them to properly work for decades. So the same feature can be implemented on a smaller resource base.
Next example: Heating. Lets say heated homes for every one are a feature of industrial civilization. Of course the current way of implementing this feature, heating with a lot of energy in badly insulated homes, is not sustainable on any energy source. But it is possible to build well insulated homes without a lot of fancy technology (using strawbales or cellulosebased insulation) and satisfy the resulting (small) energy demand with the little fancy technology still available on the smaller resource base.
Example Medicine: Cuba is a great example how you can provide a very good medical service (just look at life exspectancy there) using medical science to fill the doctors brains and not their wallets. If you say that that access to scientific medical service is a feature of an industrial society, than i do not see why this feature has to be dropped on a shrinking resource base.
How many resources do we waste do build and heat office buildings and to commute to them every day in cars to do a job that can be done at home, thanks to the internet, the latter one being less energy intensive.
Before you say that i quibble over details, those are just examples to make my point. We all know that our current way of living has to change if want that or not. But when making bold statements such as claiming the end of civilization, we have to be careful. We alle agree that there is no way to power our current industrial civilization. But that does not mean that we have to drop all the features of industrial civilization.
From a bottom up approach to estimate our possible future standard of living i would suggest to make a list of features of industrial civilization and then to find for each feature the least energy intensive way to implement them, then priorize them and then see how many items you can implement on a given resource base.
So i guess we will have to drop the individual car, human space travel and making vacations around the world. But maybe we do not have to drop access to mobility (public transport), acces to information-exchange/multimedia ans access to cooled/frozen foods. Access to comfortably temperatured homes. Access to Medicine. You name it.
I am sorry to say that this article is just another bold claim about the end of our civilization. But this claim has to be fed by facts. What of our energy goes into what needs (in germany: transport 35%, room heating 25%, process heat 22%, hot water 5%, light 3,7%, information/ communication 2,5%, cooling 2,4%) and what technology enables us to get what feature on a smaller energy base. Looks as internet fridges and and electric light will long be available.
After such an evaluation you can make predictions that are believable.
1/15/14, 11:30 PM
KL Cooke said...
http://www.blessedquietness.com/yarn/bbc_nostalgia.htm
1/15/14, 11:38 PM
John Michael Greer said...
KL, an excellent example!
1/16/14, 12:01 AM
LunarApprentice said...
I'm glad to see mathematics on your list.
Last year, I discovered Vedic mathematics, a startling system of calculation that is much quicker and powerful than what is taught in school. It derives from ancient (2000 year-ago) sutras that were decrypted by an Indian scholar only in the 20th century. To give a sense of how it compares with the math that you and I learned, take multi-digit multiplication or long division: By Vedic notions, our conventional manual methods amount to a formal proof of say 333/73 = 4.561.. A formal proof is laborious and overkill. Vedic math has a few tidy rules and methods which are not obvious at all. (My own study of them has been derailed by my long financial/professional emergency in my corner of the medical world).
Titles of Vedic math texts include:
Vedic Mathematics (The original, but not the most clearly written textbook)
Verically and Crosswise (the best introduction around I think)
Triples: Application of Pythagorean triples (An elaboration of Vedic principles enabling easy calculation of trigonometric functions, conics, complex math, solutions of polynomials, hyperbolic functions, and many other applications)
Astronomical Applications of Vedic Mathematics (Pencil and paper orbital mechanics)
There's another title on my wish list that covers Vedic solution of differential equations... the title ecapes me at the moment.
There are other titles on teaching Vedic math to kids. A search on the term will reveal a new world.
1/16/14, 12:08 AM
LunarApprentice said...
JMG, you wrote to Marinhomelander:
"...Climate scientists are warning that your part of the world is going to be racked by ghastly droughts for centuries to come."
I don't like the sound of that.
I moved to the Puget Sound region in 2009 in large part because it's temperate with abundant fresh surface water, local agriculture, on a traditional water and rail transport route, and not very crowded. Puget Sound is not THAT far north from Marin's turf.
So JMG, where did you get that climatological forecast? Is Puget Sound toast (literally)? Enquiring minds want to know...
PS: I had a typo in one of those book titles above; it should be-
Vertically and Crosswise
1/16/14, 12:33 AM
Bike Trog said...
1/16/14, 12:36 AM
Jason Heppenstall said...
Next winter I will harvest the next section, in what will be a 12 year cycle.
There’s a dizzying array of things that can be done with the wood. Traditionally, in these parts, the coppiced wood was used for making props to hold up the mine shafts for the tin miners. These days, most coppice woods are overstood and abandoned … just waiting for a Green Wizard to turn up and make a livelihood out of them. Generally, woodland is much cheaper to buy than agricultural land as the industrial economy only values it by the timber it can produce - which is not very high by modern rapacious capitalism’s standards. This seems like a great opportunity to me. Coppicing trees in temperate zones is probably one of the easiest ways to turn solar power into useable products. All the offcuts that are left over can be thrown into an old oil barrel (1 pound on eBay) and turned into charcoal. Trees just grow, they don’t require much husbandry. You leave the finest specimens alone - some of those big straight oak trees will be allowed to become standards, meaning that they will provide me with some pension income in 30 or so years.
Anyone thinking of making a living out of living in the woods should read Ben Law’s book The Woodland Way. His approach is holistic and he gets more or less everything from his woods - including food, construction materials, medicine etc. It’s a way of life that has existed for thousands of years in Britain, and was only extinguished when cheap imported wood became available.
I’ll be updating my Fox Wood blog with pictures and explanations of the coppicing in a few days’ time.
1/16/14, 12:50 AM
Josh said...
1/16/14, 1:05 AM
Jason Heppenstall said...
Yes - fancy restaurants are falling over themselves trying to procure a supply of snails. Once you get over the yuck factor they are very nice fried up with a bit of garlic, parsley and butter.
There's probably no easier animal to farm - and if they escape, you don't have to go far to find 'em!
I say "You eat my salad leaves - I eat you."
1/16/14, 1:07 AM
deedl said...
In my world, Germany, (separated from your world by a language border that i can cross but you can not) the general perception is different. There is a broad consensus among ALL five major political parties that we have to change. Except for the still strong car industry and their lobby, most of german industry sees the pathway towards sustainability as an opportunity for staking claims in new business fields. Why do i say that?
The assessments i demanded to do exists in your world only in fragments because it is done by the few brave lonely warners. In my world it is done by think tanks full of smart people well funded by government and industry. Germans tend to call everything into question and we also tend to plan everything in detail before implementing it. Do you think a people with this traits of character AND the scientific and technological legacy germany has would jump head first into the adventure of going renewable if there were no way of achieving the task of creating a sustainable way of industrial civilization?
You said it takes decades of work and of course that is true and that is the reason why current government plans have directions and targets for the timeframe up to 2050. The decades of work are not only planned but broad implementation is well under way for a dozend years now. And so far every single year we exceeded the plans.
Of course there are political quibbles bout the details of implementing it, about the way of paying for it, about the role of government and the market forces and so on. But this does not change the fact that every single political party is aware of the necessity of change. Be aware that the media of your world will cherry pick details of those quibbles to paint a picture of the german energy transition being an expensive mess. But despite the high prices of fuel ($7,50 a gallon due to taxes) and elctricity (second highes rate in Europe) we are the nation with the largest trade surplus on the planet, so we are living proof that highly valuable industrial goods can be produced on a small resource base.
So why do i demand a detailed assessment before making a claim? Because thats how may world works. For example the entire german housing and construction industry is doing this very assessment for low energy buildings for a decade now, since all their future business models are based on that. In my world I just have to google the results. Zero-Energy-Housing costs in construction 5% more than a traditional house per area. Thats peanuts. But its the technology to get rid of whopping 25% of our energy needs that we use for space heating. Of course it takes decades to replace or insulate the entire housing stock. But implementation is well under way.
And dont forget that all of your EROEI-assessements are current states of technology. For example today the masts of wind turbines are made of steel. In lower saxony there is a 300 ft wooden mast carrying a 100 ton wind generator and it works so well that four more are planned. This has the potential to greatly reduce the EROEI od this technology, since you do not have to process the steel. So current EROEIs of renewables are just that, current EROEIs. Those numbers will rise year until we reach the physical limits. This is a long process.
I cannot possibly summarize the loads of information my world posesses in a comment on your blog. I just can give examples to underline the statements i am making. But be aware that many questions that your world is debating about a already answered in my world with the answer being implemented right now. And be also aware that not "the world" is in decline, but that "your world" is in decline. For you that may not be a difference, but for most people on this planet it is.
1/16/14, 1:14 AM
Richard Larson said...
I'm probably too old to know which ones will work the best, but hopefully somebody will get it, see the worth of knowing which combinations are best, before some desperate soul chops them down for firewood.
For the record, I was a solar (heat) salesman for 3-4 years, that never lied about the production ability, and always made it clear as to its comparison to natural gas. The pitch for me was always about fixing your heat cost and emitting less pollution. I would add here that making glass would be another important trade in the new economy.
Typing of natural gas, the wife thought she smelled it in the basement this past week, and sure enough, the plumber we called over found two leaks! Since they have been fixed my concentration is starting to improving instead of declining...
1/16/14, 1:15 AM
sunseekernv said...
re: saturation of wind
nit picking here - but dunno about Carlos de Castro saying 1 TW is the max for wind.
Mark Jacobson says saturation wind power potentials are > 250 TW.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/14/161156783/wind-power-plentiful-study-says
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/SatWindPot2012.pdf
I'm fairly confident 1 TW is way too low for saturation, and 250 TW could very well be 10x too high, though even 25 TW is quite plentiful.
This the most recent/sensible I found:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/015021/article
Admittedly, the argument is somewhat academic given lack of coherent energy/financial/environmental policy.
Got any idea how much total wind is installed worldwide as of end of 2013?
re: drought in Marin County
What references did you use?
These say little change in precipitation there, lots of scatter in the models.
http://cal-adapt.org/precip/decadal/
http://www.climatewizard.org/
@Avery
re: solar thermal in US
I wouldn't say solar thermal is totally unexploited in the U.S.
http://www.iea-shc.org/Data/Sites/1/publications/Solar-Heat-Worldwide-2013.pdf
The U.S. is #2 in the world, but 1/10th of China. We have 15.7 GWt (GigaWatts thermal) of solar thermal collectors, though the vast majority are "unglazed water collectors" - arrays of plastic tubes for heating pools. (see page 11 of the link above).
Looks like (as of 2011) we had half the flat plate collectors that Israel does (at 2.5% of the US population).
If you want to help, look here:
http://www.seia.org/us-solar-heating-cooling-shc-alliance/solar-heating-cooling-shc-roadmap
Down at "Spread the Word" see how you can shill for solar thermal. If you think that's distasteful, remember that people are shilling for coal and oil and GMOs …
I was gratified to notice that a new house in my soon to be new neighborhood has a couple of solar thermal panels.
1/16/14, 1:17 AM
I R Orchard said...
We should be paying close attention to how 'primitive' peoples managed without steel knives or garden tools and all the other stuff we don't even take for granted. "I, pencil" for e.g.
In the mean time, in a household with 8 computers, our 25 year old Encyclopedia Brittanica (made of dead trees) is tucked away safely.
1/16/14, 2:00 AM
Les said...
Personally I’m hoping that organic gardening will also extend to small scale farming, a little bit bigger than what the Poms term “smallholders”. I’m betting the farm on it, literally. As long as we restrict ourselves to running systems that use primarily gravity, wind, sun or wood to power them, we should do OK. Assuming it gets around to raining sometime. Soon…
Cheers,
Les
PS: Chris, howzit in Cherokee? 40+? Ouch.
1/16/14, 2:15 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
What, that super nifty technology the Internet may eventually become uneconomic? hehe (I was joking around).
Seriously, if I hadn't read people rabbiting on about such matters I would have thought that you were joking! hehe. Of course it has to pay for itself. Mind you, I still have a mental picture of some sort of internet fairy promoting connections.
The moons have aligned again as I have been busy on several of these suggested projects and the outcomes can be seen here:
Preserving fruit
and
Mixed Orchard growth this summer
Via the magic of the Internet the readers here can have a look at some of the practical steps that I'm following right now. The future is here...
Meanwhile outside of Shangri la at Cherokee, things are not good in the SE of Australia. The temperature has taken a turn for the worst and it is as bad as it has historically been here:
Heatwave brings fires, blackouts and health dangers
Please spare a thought for us down here, we are cooking.
Regards
Chris
1/16/14, 2:52 AM
Christian Herring said...
1/16/14, 3:14 AM
gregorach said...
I think it's worth remembering that these tasks were some of the very earliest to be mechanised, and that they were mechanised long before the advent of fossil fuels. The early industrial revolution in England was based on these technologies, and they were all initially powered by water and constructed by local blacksmiths. Still, there are places (such as in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland) where hand spinning and weaving are still practised commercially, and on a significant scale. Harris tweed is known the world over, and is still produced on hand looms, from hand-spun yarn, by people for whom it's only one component of their livelihood.
One other technology that I think might manage to hang on is precision engineering - not in its modern, computer-assisted form of course, but the basic concepts of precision measurement are much harder to develop from scratch than they are to maintain, and they allow such an improvement in the efficiency and reliability of even simple machines (such as bicycles, or treadle lathes) that they seem like they might well be useful in the future. Again, it's simply an evolutionary development of relatively simple technology that was all originally powered by water, or by human (or animal) muscle.
1/16/14, 3:29 AM
Andrew said...
But John, you are completely ignoring the sudden leap of consiousness that will happen soon, and will bring us zero point free energy out of nowhere!
Seriously, people interested in real medicine could do worse than starting with watching the videos of the Association of Traditional Studies which are available for free online (as long as the internet is up, of course, so...)
Some of my favorites: How I Became a Classical Herbalist, part1 and part2, and of course all the others...
1/16/14, 3:34 AM
flute said...
By telephone I don't mean the systems we have today, but rather the old style switchboards where you ask the operator for e.g. "Cumberland 27" and she plugs in the cable to the correct hole to get you to the butcher so you can place your order. Of course not every house would have a telephone as today. But a local telephone/telegraph station here and there would have to do.
1/16/14, 3:38 AM
Michele Yamano said...
JMG- excellent post! Your blog should be required reading for every educational decision maker. As a middle school reading teacher I see first hand the nonsense that the worship of technology has created. Students can't read, don't want to read and will out right refuse to read. If they don't get it in the time frame of a commercial, they give up. "it's too hard, it's boring" Whine, whine, whine. We will have to create a new educational system in order to reeducate students in the "old" sustainable methods of living.
1/16/14, 3:49 AM
Russ said...
1/16/14, 4:08 AM
Jim R said...
For example, an acid battery -- to make acetic acid, you need the usual biological input of sugar. And sulfuric acid requires sulfur, which is found here and there in small to middling quantities, made by the earth in volcanic activity or deposited with petroleum or coal.
Now in addition to the acid, you need metals. It isn't that the earth's supply of metals have declined, they are constant. But to refine metals again requires fire. I believe the Romans mowed down entire forests to get enough wood for their metal reduction projects.
So batteries are obviously a tiny niche product. Same goes for things like glassmaking ... how about a nice niche for lesser grades of silicon (good enough for PV but not necessarily for electronics)?
IMNSHO, the problem with that low-EROEI Spanish solar project is that they are trying to scale it to industrial proportions. A lot of losses are incurred in conversion and transmission and storage in that attempt. The central Asian villager using a single panel to power a variety of small machines could be making much better use of PV.
As another key technology I would like to nominate polymer chemistry. Something that was known to the ancients as more of a craft or art form, but came into its own as a technology in the last century.
And despite its bad reputation (that floating plastic sargasso sea comes to mind), polymers are useful things ... paint is a nice example. It preserves wood or metal objects and gives them a longer life.
Also please note that polymers do not require petroleum. Though they are generally made from petroleum now, traditional polymers are made from things like flax seeds and the sap of the rubber tree.
1/16/14, 4:11 AM
Master Oogway said...
You are still avoiding the much bigger issue, population decline. I deliberately say avoid since I know you are aware of the problem. We can not sustain 7 billion people on a lower tech infrastructure.
1/16/14, 5:43 AM
Nestorian said...
This is true on a personal as well as a social level. On a personal level, morally and spiritually sound spiritual "technologies" are essential to one's happiness and fulfillment - especially in times of relentless and otherwise inevitably psychologically embittering decline.
On a social level, the more a society as a whole is imbued with sound spiritual "technologies," the more it also possesses the basic necessary condition that will conduce it toward profitably integrating all the sorts of strictly material technologies you and others have mentioned into its arc of descent.
If the thematic constraints of your blog do not permit you to emphasize this point, then I hope you will permit me to do so.
1/16/14, 6:02 AM
Mark Boenish said...
So what will our future generations be murdering each other with? Buck Rodgers ray guns now seem very unlikely. Will automatic weapons firing metallic cartridges be sustainable? Or will a return to simpler black powder weapons be necessary?
1/16/14, 6:08 AM
irishwildeye said...
One of the few positive legacies we are leaving to the future is an enormous amount of refined metals. Metals workers for many generations to come will not want for raw material to work.
With an understanding of simple mechanics and simple technologies like pedals, treadles, belts, cranks etc, metal workers, mechanics and carpenters of the future should be able to create lots of simple human powered machines.
In my youth I once saw a disused hand powered grain winnowing machine in a shed. It was a large wooden box, with a handle and most of the internal moving parts were wood. The few metal parts could be easily made by a blacksmith. Also common in my youth were disused treadle spinning machines, for spinning wool, also made mostly of wood, with a few simple metal parts.
As a teenage farm labourer I once cut up a few buckets of fodder beet with a knife. This is a slow, tedious job and dangerous when your not used to it. But many small farms at the time still had hand powered machines called mangles for the job. I never used one, but from talking to those who did a team of two could fill a wheel barrow with shredded fodder beet in a few minutes, of moderate work.
Also common in my youth were hand powered water pumps. Back then I spent some time one winter hand pumping water for housed cattle. Not as easy as a modern electric pump, but light years ahead of carrying buckets.
Even if future humans cannot make super efficient, super durable industrially produced Victorian style human powered machines like water pumps, bicycles, treadle sowing machines, or fodder beet mangles, future village carpenters and blacksmiths will certainly be able to build simple human powered machines for tasks like winnowing grain and spinning wool. Necessity being the mother of invention the same skills can be turned to making all kinds of human powered labour saving devices for the countless repetitive tasks required to run households, small farms, workshops and small businesses.
Human power is the real renewable energy source of the future, the key is to combine it with simple mechanics and produce human powered machines to increase labour productivity. This I believe will prove to be a sustainable technology.
1/16/14, 6:26 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
Marin -- ah, yes, that good old ideological apartheid. When you say "like minded" I am guessing you also mean "like-colored" and "of like socio-economic status" (yes, I have been there). No need to be molested by people who view the world differently than you do, no need to be concerned with folks who don't have sizable bank accounts. That is not the future, it is an escapist fantasy. Try dealing with some real hillbillies. Many are busy figuring out how to do this stuff without the money or ideology. They just want stuff that works, cheap. And how can you not see your "minor detail" as the writing on the wall?
Meanwhile down here where the tea-party rednecks control the politics, our climate has hardly changed while the rest of the world warms (reasons unknown, no guarantees our luck will hold), and my minimally-educated fundamentalist neighbors showed me how to make a ram pump.
1/16/14, 6:52 AM
butzjo said...
Great post. It's the Fareheit 451 of sustainable technology.
My dad, a (PE) professional engineer for 45 years, learned on a slide rule. He started to teach me once when I was a teen, but my TI-55 was all the rage. Now would be a good time to revisit his lesson so I can pass to my kids.
--JB
1/16/14, 7:00 AM
Nick Nelson said...
1/16/14, 7:09 AM
Cathy McGuire said...
One way I practice this is to constantly ask myself what inputs are needed for whatever process or tool I’m using – how many diverse or complex things/processes are needed to get me to this stage? If they are very complex, or very dependent on farflung sources, I start looking for more manual or local versions. I have noticed also that one’s tools dictate one’s layout – ie: to use a power mower, you must have a flat, rectangular lawn of generally one species of plant. There is no room with a rototiller to stop and allow a volunteer plant to grow, etc. Manual tools are allowing me to have a different relationship to my yard and my life. More silence, more time for contemplation… much less stress from noise and hurry.
I know I'm biased - the only things on that list I haven't done is shortwave and thermal power. But I just got 5 plastic fresnel lenses (it was a package) and can't wait for the Oregon fogs to lift so I can try them. I have a slide rule and soroban; I do organic intensive (and every year learn more and more); I had my own letterpress for a while and still own some type - and I can make and bind books; I have a decent herb garden and both "Where There is No Doctor" and "Where there is No Dentist" - both fascinating! - as well as many natural medicine books. A rocket stove is on my list of things to build... and really, it's fun! Most of these processes are fascinating and it feels like when I was a kid with a chemistry set (oh yeah - and I just bought myself a chemistry set - totally wimpy compared with what I had back in the 60's, but I guess they don't trust kids anymore. ;-))
1/16/14, 7:13 AM
thegreenmantle said...
Espicially the Rocket Mass Heaters .
http://www.permies.com/forums/f-125/rocket-stoves
Apart from the Math that is , but I for one am cool with the slide rule . I never understood why we needed 27 decimal places for most stuff anyway
David
1/16/14, 7:15 AM
Luckymortal said...
But we've also used passive solar and other simple DIY strategies to lower our energy bill to 68% less than standard homes and 12-15% less than "energy efficient homes" in our city. Some of the "lowest hanging apples" in terms of energy/cost input have the highest return. Our home energy independence plan also includes a russian oven in the kitchen (conveniently under our bedroom) and restoring our "remuddled" rumford fireplace. We're also trying to start a co-op that can use "experienced masons" to get rocket mass heaters installed to code. I'm trying to learn and record as much as I can about all of these.
But to me, there's one technology you missed which I've come to feel is very important. We hypothetically "grow 100% of our own food" based upon our dietary and caloric needs. However, we utterly lack the culinary technology to easily turn that hypothetical abundance into real meals. Processing and storing take WAY more time than growing. I don't know of any homesteaders who have solved this problem, or eat a diet that will be sustainable beyond the "green revolution" of fossil fueled grains. That intersection between "what to grow" and "how to use it" could use a lot of work. FYI to maximize our free time and minimize our labor, we're focusing on developing Jerusalem Artichokes as our primary staple.
1/16/14, 7:17 AM
Daddy Hardup said...
But I can't help noticing that what we're being taught is the old way of doing it by hand, laboriously entering transactions into ledgers and casting and checking the accounts.
Why? The accounting profession recognises that these tasks are done by software these days, but that learning the hard way is the only way of understanding properly how accounting works.
To add to Barbara Fisher's comment on clothing technology: growing and processing of plant fibres. Here in Northern Europe I suppose that means flax, and maybe hemp, rather than cotton.
1/16/14, 7:20 AM
james albinson said...
Bicycle mechanic.
Wheel wright/cart maker as an offshoot of woodwork. While recycled car axles/wheels will last a long time, rubber tyres will eventually perish.
Tinker - pot repairer.
General village blacksmith - nails/roves, farm hand tools.
Optician - eye glasses will need to be hand made at some point...
Miller - mill wright -water/wind/animal power.
Potter - wood fired kiln.
Machinist - you could run a lathe/mill/drill off a water wheel, or early on, with PV cells and NIFE batteries and an inverter. Backyard metal casting with a charcoal furnace.
Time keeper/clockmaker - set clocks by the stars - take account of precession, etc.
Herbalist, specialist cook, jam maker, baker - wood fired oven.
Just some odd thoughts.
1/16/14, 7:26 AM
Andy Brown said...
I'm working on the gardening (as well as beekeeping and winemaking), but I will have to look into the printing or the glass making. And have to think about the kinds of things my sons might be willing to take on.
1/16/14, 7:26 AM
squizzler said...
My nomination is bicycle technology . Not only is the vehicle more efficient and less maintenance intensive than a horse, the principle of pedals, cranks, and chain or belt drive is the most efficient means of converting leg power into useful rotary movement for domestic machinery (much more effective than a treadle as on old sewing machines and the like).
Also worthy of consideration: the engineering and vehicle dynamics principles can inform later developments like mill transmission and even aviation (the Wright Brothers were bike mechanics)
1/16/14, 7:48 AM
Sébastien Louchart said...
I'm a long time reader of your blog but a first commenter here.
I do agree with your list of technologies but there is one thing that bugs me. No tech for mobility ?
No hot-air balloons to lift and carry heavy loads, boats to travel canals and seaworthy sails to cross the ocean ?
As someone mentionned animal husbandry, horses and donkeys are the key of an energy-deprived future. Heavy horseseven start to become used again in the timber industry where I live in France.
I do agree with the short-wave radio as a technology worth preserving, however, I'm wondering why you think that long-wave radio couldn't be kept as a technology for long distance communication or broadcasting ?
1/16/14, 7:48 AM
Wolfgang Brinck said...
As to how our culture copes with declining ROEI, that will be something to see. As far as I can tell, anyone trained in economics, even critics of Capitalism such as David Harvey has a hard time letting go of the idea that economic growth can go on without some material underlying growth. Economic theorists seem to believe that when you use up one resource, the invisible hand provides us with a replacement just in time and growth proceeds at 3 percent per annum.
In any case, it seems that our current arrangement in which we are given money to pay for food and shelter in return for performing some inane activity which goes by the name of job can go on in an environment of declining resources.
1/16/14, 8:05 AM
Martin said...
I have been now a long reader of your essays and I cannot thank you enough for your guidance through these interesting times (also my gratitude goes to Karel Dolejsi of Britske Listy, who translated some of your essays into Czech and thus introduced me to you).
This post is very timely for my own situation. Only yesterday I was going through websites concerning letter pressing. 20 years ago, before I went to university, I apprenticed as type setter and worked still with moveable type, so I am not saying, I don't need to relearn it, but the foundation is definitely there.
Whatsmore, I am going to extend my skills and learn type foundry, which I find exciting. Also, the skill of making punch, matrix and cast type will be absolutely essential to maintain the technology of letter pressing.
For anyone, who'd be interested in taking up this craft, there are good resources on the internet:
letterpresscommons.com
on Youtube: Stan Nelson of Atelier press & letter foundry gives you an introduction how to produce a type matrix and cast a type.
Kind Regards
Martin
1/16/14, 8:07 AM
Dennis Ingham said...
JMG, how realistic was the research that leads you to state EROEI must be 12?
Who would set those priorities? OMG we are in deep dodo.
1/16/14, 8:12 AM
MPL said...
I hereby declare and pledge to my offspring and future generations that I will learn as much as I can about food production and preservation sans fossil fuels, and that I will patiently pass on the acquired knowledge in as complete, lasting and inspiring a form as I can.
I might also do the same with radio tech, if time allows.
1/16/14, 8:13 AM
Twilight said...
Kugelblitz! Powering a Starship With a Black Hole: http://www.space.com/24306-interstellar-flight-black-hole-power.html
I read it carefully, but near as I could tell it is not satire.
1/16/14, 8:15 AM
Anna said...
One really very positive element in my community is a co-op craft shop, and by "shop" I mean "place where people gather to work co-operatively, share tools, share knowledge, and own various pieces of necessary equipment in common.
Another is the local "folk connection," which is a nearly-free evening of shared music, where again, knowledge is exchanged (though we are a bit more reticent about letting someone else take our instruments home!)
So I'd like to throw my support behind both Mr. Greer and Ms Fisher, and add that there is one non-technological skill that also needs to be developed alongside these things: the ability to be in community.
I mean a *real* community, and not the 500-nearest-friends community of facebook ;)
1/16/14, 8:17 AM
Jesse Smith said...
Clearly the personal automobile is not going to be around forever, and it would be nice to not have to go back to horses with all their attendant issues.
I also agree with the comments above regarding germ theory and other basic medical technologies. I would really like my children and grandchildren to live in a world where there is still a way to produce polio and tetanus vaccine, for example. I will not miss Wal-Mart one bit, but I would really like to still have antibiotics available in my old age.
1/16/14, 8:18 AM
Sunyata said...
1/16/14, 8:23 AM
Wolfgang Brinck said...
Regardless of what we think of the politics of Cuba, Cuba is probably a good example of what de-industrialization looks like. I suspect what most people dislike about Cuba is the uncomfortable fact that in the absence of plentiful resources, we are looking at a lifestyle that to us looks like poverty. And I think this is why Greens like to hang on to the dream of alternative energy. The pure and simple reality of declining resources is that it requires doing with less, something that seems to terrify the average citizen with their comfortable consumerist lifestyle.
1/16/14, 8:24 AM
Bill Lindeke said...
1/16/14, 8:29 AM
Ray Wharton said...
All that being said, yes making glass is very important, and in Colorado recent legislation has provoked a major level of investment in glass blowing, and intensive organic cultivation. I have great faith that the skills being honed in those areas will branch out as food prices continue their upward trend.
As far as sacred geometry, I have started to research some of the traditional works, but, with my education and interests, progress on those lines is very gradual. I would really appreciate some suggestions for good sources, as picking through the literature blind is slow going.
Most of the buddies I nerd out about it with are much more fascinated by the cellular automata. The logicians of the early 20th century created a language of logic that was very important to make digital computers. The electric computer very likely done for, but I think that that logic is still valuable, even if your computer is a 5 hertz level 3 Draughtmancer running on a 610 space table with 8 different derivative overlays, 21 token types, and a full set of dice for running boards with abstract geometry. The I Ching has made its way into how I think about the numbers.Most of my sacred geometry research has been simply looking at traditional figures for inspiration to draw out tables for my glass bead game. Its all Pigeon Religion to me.
1/16/14, 8:34 AM
D.M. said...
1/16/14, 8:36 AM
flook said...
1/16/14, 8:54 AM
Joseph Nemeth said...
Thank you!
1/16/14, 8:59 AM
Ruben said...
1/16/14, 9:04 AM
GHung said...
#2: Passive solar thermal is the best investment I've ever made. Our south-facing glass with overhangs to control seasonal insolation just works. I would add that windows need to be operable with screens. Thermal mass helps keep things warm or cool, and virtually all of our 'air conditioning' is passive.
#3. We've been coppicing for years now. In our area, the poplars and alders regrow to harvest-ability in 2-3 years; makes fine stove wood, especially when combined with forest dead fall.
#4. Here in the southern Appalachians we have a pharmacopia of medicinal plants which we identify and encourage. We keep a library of both folk and scientific info regarding their usage. I've learned how to make tinctures and poultices. Distilling is another useful skill in the "medicinals" area.
#5. The best I've done there is to put literally thousands of pencils in storage; often found in boxes of 500 at flea markets. Paper is another problem...
#6. Our grandson is working on his ham license and we are looking for vintage tube-based ham equipment at swap meets, etc. Unfortunately, the trend is toward going digital, but that frees up a lot of old equipment.
#7. I still have my old slide rule from my pre-calculator school days, along with its instruction book.
I would suggest adding animal husbandry to the list, especially small livestock (goats, chickens, etc.) and draft animals. Also, potting and basket weaving.
Here in the mountains, there are still some old-timers who lived very much in a semi- or pre-industrial way. I suggest folks go out and pick the brains of some of the folks who lived this way, or are preserving these things.
1/16/14, 9:08 AM
3+O( said...
I can think of at least one zero-energy computational technology that required the invention of calculus (in Newton's sense) for real application, the nomogram. It allows a complicated function to be calculated with only straight-edges, by straightening the function line and curving the axis (or axes) relative to it. See the site http://myreckonings.com and http://http://pynomo.org for examples and more information.
Inspired by stack-based languages like FORTH and Joy, I've been experimenting with seeing whether stacks of paper cards can be used for general algorithms without becoming onerous to operate.
JMG, what do you think are the most crucial computational tasks a sustainable society would have?
1/16/14, 9:16 AM
Dan Pickles said...
I love the list. I've been studying herbalism, bookbinding and organic gardening for some time now. They're all incredibly fun, aside from being useful. Spending a couple of hours at my kitchen table sewing a book, or outside digging in the garden, or even just reading about herbs all feel more productive than watching some miserable reality programming.
My one addition might be Botany (which does fall under the header of general science, which you've talked about at length) and specifically foraging. Understanding plants is critical. There's staggering abundance around us, if you know where to find it and how to prepare it. It's also a productive way to get out of the house and wander around under trees for a while.
One last thing, to Marin's point: I live in Wisconsin, originally from Minnesota. We've got water, a decent gardening season, and a great history of wild foods. Also, people have lived here (and even farther north) for quite some time without central heating.I couldn't/wouldn't give this place up. Once you catch Walleye on the great lakes, you're pretty well stuck here.
Thanks again Greer. As I said before, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your blog. Keep up the good work.
1/16/14, 9:22 AM
Joseph Nemeth said...
Of course, there aren't any. That's the problem.
I find that this approach short-circuits the circular discussion that starts when you talk about resource shortages. People immediately want to talk about the "information economy" and 3D printers and the World Is Flat and how technology lets us make more with less, and the conversation heads down the rabbit-hole.
Instead, start with the fact that to sustain an exponentially-increasing economy, you need exponentially-increasing demand: so at 2% growth, we have to double our consumption every 35 years -- twice as much corn eaten, twice as many cars bought, twice as many prostitutes solicited. If you want to add new technologies, they can't detract from any of the existing industries -- you now have to eat corn AND wheat, buy a car AND ride the new maglev train, solicit the same prostitutes AND subscribe to internet pornography.
It brings the problem home: "I don't have the time or the money for all that!" Exactly.
Nor does enlisting the aid of the starving masses in Africa help. For them to buy your products, they need money. For them to get money, they must become producers. You don't have the time or the money to buy your own products, much less their products, so it means they have to buy their own products, which means they won't have any time or money left to buy yours.
Declining energy surplus is, I think, much easier to illustrate from the demand side. Yes, you can make a car for half the cost and four times the mileage using advanced technology and outsourcing, but who is left to buy it? Without an energy surplus that supports an affluent demand base, there are no customers. If there are no customers, your production costs are irrelevant.
1/16/14, 9:25 AM
Moshe Braner said...
Low-tech shortwave radio is a good goal, but it's not anywhere near as easy as the "crystal radio" in the picture linked by KL Cooke makes it look. That receiver has no amplification, and thus can only receive from nearby high-power AM radio station transmitters. Amplification is the real "magic" to preserve, and is useful for much more than just radio communications. For that, one needs either simple transistors (perhaps a sustainable technology, but does require somewhat of an industrial base), or vacuum tubes, which potentially can be home-built, but not easily (require glass-work and high vacuum pumps). For practical use, one also needs sources for (or home-building methods for) metal wires, resistors, capacitors, switches, transformers, batteries, etc. Since in the shorter term (at least one more generation) salvage of such components will be much easier than home-building, the preservation of the homebuilding methods that will be needed later on is quite a challenge.
1/16/14, 9:31 AM
Erica H said...
1/16/14, 9:48 AM
SLClaire said...
1/16/14, 9:52 AM
HalFiore said...
Some very interesting refinements and additions were made in the latter 20th century such as tertiary biological wastewater treatment and the like, and it would be very desirable to conserve those, as well. They fit very well into the scenarios I most imagine for the future.
I'm pretty sure I've hammered on these here before, so I won't go into any more detail. But I can't think of anything more worth preserving than the ability to reliably deliver water and to keep the poop out of it, which is what most of it comes down to.
You will ask what I'm doing to preserve the knowledge, and at this time all I can say is I have collected some very useful texts and manuals from the early to mid 1900s. Many projects beckon, but how many I'll get to in this life remain to be seen.
1/16/14, 10:11 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
One indicator of the possible stability of your future climate is the actual stability of the past climate through the pleistocene. And one good indicator of this is the biodiversity of the area, especially large things like trees that disperse and evolve slowly. The idea being that when your climate has been stable, you will have had fewer local extinctions and you will see more species surviving in the present day.
Here on our 40 acres of Tennessee, we have over 40 species of trees. In the whole biome of the Pacfic coastal belt (Northern CA to Puget Sound), there are only about half this many species of trees that are widespread. In any given 40 acre plot, you'd be lucky to find more than a dozen or so. Southern Appalachia and the adjoining areas in general are a major hotbed for North American biodiversity. Through the pleistocene climate swings, the forests have apparently never been wiped out and hundreds of species have managed to thrive in the region. Such has not been the case in the Mountain West and Pacific Coast, even with the greater opportunities for vertical migration in the west.
It's not an accident that we settled in one of the most biodiverse areas of the southeastern U.S. (the western highland rim of the interior plateaus province). To me that meant a healthier past and better chances for robustness and stability in the future.
And now folks will say "yes but the coming climate change is unprecedented, the past is no guide to the future now!" Sure, uh huh. But the same geographic, ecological, and atmospheric processes that helped moderate past climate changes are still our best guesses for moderation in the future too. And, curiously, the mid-south and southern Appalachia have not been showing much temperature change, a puzzle which climatologists have been discussing recently. So, maybe the past is still a guide for the future...?
1/16/14, 10:21 AM
Glenn said...
According to Cliff Mass, Professor of Meteorology at UW, the first 50 years of climate change in Western Washington will have cooler and wetter springs and summers, due to the immense thermal mass of the North Pacific upwind of us. After that, the trend is towards warmer, with more pronounced dry seasons, something like central coastal California is now; he doesn't say how long that will take or what the end point might be. I'm comfortable here for the next three generations based on that information.
Now, we do live on an island, and sea level rise will eventually take out our aquifer. If my grandchildren can't farm with their rainwater budget and cisterns, they'll have to move to the mainland. I don't regard moving much north of here as viable; Boreal Forest topsoil is too thin and acidic for grain.
Glenn
Marrowstone Island
Salish Sea
Cascadia
1/16/14, 10:41 AM
Varun Bhaskar said...
My Thursday mornings are becoming so depressing because of you but that might also just be the weather.
Look these small suggestions of preserving tech are a really good idea but shouldn't this community do this is a more organized way? Why don't you start an Archdruid low-tech wiki. We, your lovely readers, can go about finding the best books on each topic of technology and write detailed articles on the various technology processes that we have expertise on. I for one would love to know how to make acid free paper and ink.
Use the tools we have while we still have them, the most powerful tool we have against knowledge loss is the global information web.
Anyway, just a suggestion. I'm new to your blog and will be contributing to our collective success with what few resources I have. Expect more from me!
Regards,
View on the Ground
1/16/14, 10:52 AM
Alphonse Houner said...
The first four items are the core issues needed for whatever is coming. Nearly all these are found as responses to the various collapse/decline scenarios from time insensitive benign – Phased collapse – to catastrophic climate change. Even the utopian “Transition” movement based in quirky rural British towns includes some of these elements. They are certainly the core values utilized on our ongoing project in the rural Midwest.
I would add a few other elements:
1. Arts, both fine and heritage: Fine arts add enjoyment and broaden the mind and soften the coarse edges of a hard life. Heritage arts, such as weaving, wine making, coopering, cooking & baking, organic gardening & orchards – this is what we do - woodworking and such provide for basic necessities while providing discipline and release from emotional turmoil.
2. Music: We seem to be a species given to music of all types. It gives us joy, and with others strengthens our sense of family and encourages community participation and fulfills so many emotional needs. Obtain, or make – a heritage art – a musical instrument and then share you’re learning and playing with others. If you have no musical skill – unfortunately I don’t – you can whistle, sing or hum along with others or just soak it in. Some in our community participate in “Sacred Heart” singing sessions and travel all over to join with others to sing in unison – No it isn’t a Christian club. Several of our children play piano, guitar and flute.
3. Prepare to home school: The school system is a basket case which I suppose could be called a “failed system.” Already abandoned are the arts and music and progressively the basics of math, language and rational thinking – all this and the football team lives on.
Thanks again for a great piece.
1/16/14, 11:07 AM
MawKernewek said...
I don't know the numbers myself, but I suspect it is not going to be enough for the majority of the population to switch away from natural gas/electricity to wood for space heating.
How big a contribution could it make in a temperate climate like the UK, in paralell with passive solar thermal, and perhaps a reduction in how warm you expect your house to be in winter?
1/16/14, 11:11 AM
escapefromwisconsin said...
Former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld's distinction between known unknowns and unknown unknowns has passed into everyday speech. It's not the things of which we know we're ignorant that we should worry about, he pointed out. It's the things we're unaware of not knowing that can really cause trouble. It's a useful reminder of the vastness of human ignorance. But might there not be another kind of unknown, which Rumsfeld didn't mention - one that consists of things we choose not to know?
[...]
While we live surrounded by unknown unknowns, we live on the basis of unknown knowns - intractable facts that we prefer to forget. We'd do better to confront these awkward realities and muddle through more intelligently. We humans are sturdy and resilient animals, with enormous capacities of creativity and adaptability, but consistently realistic thinking seems to be beyond our powers. This may well be the biggest unknown known of them all - in an age that prides itself on its advancing knowledge and superior understanding, we're as anxious as ever to avoid facing up to our actual condition.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25680144
Except for shortwave radio, none of these are really new. The ancient Greeks planned cities to take advantage of the sun, although they didn't have plate glass.
1/16/14, 11:16 AM
Karim said...
From the available literature it appears that JMG's figures of EROEI are on the low side. However, that's not the critical issue here because even if renewable energies' (RE) EROEI were to be significantly higher, it is probably too late for a massive shift to RE to have any sort of positive impact on the effects of peak oil worldwide.
Nevertheless I have to say that EROEI figures most probably cannot be measured to a high degree of accuracy given the large number of inputs that need to be known precisely. The best that can be achieved are probably EROEI figures that give orders of magnitude. I tend to believe that EROEI figures quoted to 2 decimal places are misleading and bizarre, it is claiming an accuracy that can't be achieved realistically.
Other measures must be used to make a realistic assessment of RE, such as pay back time and cost of KWH of electricity generated. On this front RE have been making progress as far as I have been able to gauge. For instance in Mauritius, where people are fighting against the erection of one more coal powered station, the cost of electricity from coal is Rs 4 to Rs 5 per KWH (Rs 30 = 1 US $) whereas a solar farm has just signed a supply contract of Rs 6 per KWH.
I am currently involved in attempts to introduce solar farm co-operatives in Mauritius based on the German model. Together with German experts, using real figures about costs, technology available and solar insolation in Mauritius we are coming up with figures of Rs 8 per KWH and a pay back period of 4 to 5 years!
All those figures taken together mean that subject to local circumstances, a gradual shift towards RE for electric power is most probably possible within a 20 years time frame. However peak oil may not grant us this much time, nevertheless it is worth a shot. Better late than never. I am afraid that the rational of JMG on RE may actually be counter productive as it may convince many people to mistakenly believe that a shift towards RE is a waste of time and effort when every bit of RE will help and is helping right now.
1/16/14, 11:24 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
So what does this say to me? That those western rivers dry up completely, all the way to the headwaters, periodically, and have to be recolonized by widespread species that are often able to move in from the ocean. But in the southeast, those smaller rivers don't dry up, not even in the mega-droughts, over many many millennia of drastic climate change.
Fish aren't such a good indicator farther north in the eastern states, where the pleistocene ice sheets periodically wiped out everything. Whatever we might be looking at for future climate change, most people (there are always exceptions) are not envisioning a return of the pleistocene glaciers in the next few thousand years; megadroughts are a much bigger worry.
1/16/14, 11:33 AM
Karim said...
JMG is probably correct that under its current format industrial civilisation cannot be sustained on RE. But a different form of industrial civilisation can certainly be imagined that may run mainly if not exclusively on RE. I have yet to see any convincing arguments that some form of industrial civilisation CANNOT be run on RE. Indeed, the 7 technological suite taken together very much look like the embryo of an ecotechnic industrial civilisation.
Our real problem is transportation because peak oil creates a shortfall in liquid fuel used for transport and RE are not really suited for our current transportation system.
Compounded to the above transportation issue and the time needed (20 years) for any transition to RE is the fact that there is tremendous opposition to any serious shift to RE from certain Government sectors. For instance in Mauritius initiatives to boost RE are being systematically hampered by officials. Taken together it is inevitable that we shall run into very severe trouble sooner and later.
Hence the approach advocated by JMG makes sense, low cost and low tech yet functional on the household level or community level. But the more solar PV panels around then, the better for all.
Last but not least, I would add an 8th and 9th technological suite: windmills and electric generators and motors. Windmill have existed for centuries and last for decades and electric generators will be needed for radio transmissions.
Electric motors can last very long and provide very useful power for manufacturing (think of lathes) and I know that from experience as in one of our workshops are electric motors that have been running every working day for the past 60 years and yet others for 20 years or more!
1/16/14, 11:38 AM
Max Paris said...
I was just wondering where you got this fact:
According to best current estimates, the EROEI needed to sustain an industrial civilization of any kind is somewhere between 10 and 12;
Thanks
MAX
1/16/14, 11:53 AM
Wolfgang Brinck said...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-XS4aueDUg#t=468
1/16/14, 11:56 AM
August Johnson said...
I think some I’ve been communicating with have mis-interpreted my appearing to have a total preference for tube type equipment. I have a preference for tube rigs because they’re available for less money and easier to bring back to working condition. I love the performance of the latest rigs, when they work, but it’s still far easier to repair the tube stuff, even to the point that modern stuff can be impossible to get parts for when it’s the custom Integrated Circuit that’s no longer made that you need.
I have 1,000’s of transistors here; it is very easy to throw together simple QRP rigs on a whim. Bags of 100 or 1,000 transistors are quite cheap! There’s so much stuff that’s just thrown out that parts can be salvaged from!
I also think that many don’t understand that you are talking about Ham Radio during the decline, when salvage parts and some of the technology are still available. Yes, once all the salvage is used up, it will be quite difficult to replicate much, but the decline is going to be a long and drawn-out process and radio can be a big help. Even if all you could make was Spark-Gap transmitters and Coherer or Crystal receivers, a lot can be done. After all, that was the technology employed back in 1900-1915 when the ARRL was formed and trans-continental relays were being performed regularly. There’s a lot to be learned by reading books like 200 Meters & Down and The World of Ham Radio 1901-1950.
I’m also working on the Organic Gardening, Solar Thermal and Bookbinding. All of this is actually lots of fun, especially when you leave the High-Tech expensive stuff out of it!
1/16/14, 11:58 AM
ando said...
Namaste,
mac
1/16/14, 11:58 AM
Ruben said...
Bill, is there a reason why you specified a rocket stove fireplace insert?
I think rocket stoves get so much press because they make a large amount of heat for something that is made out of old tin cans.
But, they are not the most efficient or cleanest burning stove.
If you are trying to maintain the character of your home, perhaps a masonry heater would be a better choice. There has been quite a bit of development in DIY masonry heaters if you search for the Russian Bell.
No Tech Magazine: Rocket Stove Heating
LOW-TECH MAGAZINE: Sunbathing in the living room: oven stoves and heat walls
LOW-TECH MAGAZINE: Tigchel heaters and Finovens
1/16/14, 12:36 PM
Adrian Ayres Fisher said...
My contribution to "savable" technologies is a working, practical knowledge of regional ecosystems. I guess this is more of a meta-technology that necessarily informs the listed technologies (plus fiber arts and handicrafts). However, as many people have become more separate from nature, this kind of knowledge is in real danger of being lost.
I would like to point out that while green wizards are working on various savable/adaptable technologies, and that clearly descent is happening, we also aren't "there" yet. This is a weird hybrid time, a time to take some advantage of what's available in the present, that will last a long time, with an eye to a more descent-ed future.
Haven't commented in awhile because we've been fixing the kitchen of our very old house to be more energy efficient, more durable/adaptable and to better accommodate scratch cooking and food preservation and storage.
1/16/14, 12:42 PM
Mark Rice said...
Here is Ben Bernanke trying to explain What Caused the Decline in Long Term Yields. The explanation looks to be entirely financial and "economic". There seems to be no awareness of any physical reality behind all that finance and "economics". If all you have is a hammer than everything is a nail.
1/16/14, 12:43 PM
Carl said...
1/16/14, 1:05 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Bike, trig's useful for much more than that, and a good trig-function slide rule makes it easy as 3.14159 ;-).
Jason, excellent. Coppicing's crucial, and not merely for firewood -- coppiced ash trees produce splendid building timber for pole construction, for example.
Josh, fair enough. Glad to hear that you're working on it.
Jason, sounds tasty.
Deedl, for the record, I have a decent reading knowledge of German -- Latin and French had to come first for professional reasons, but there's a long list of Dichter und Denker I plan on reading in the original. As for your broader point, though, stripped of the triumphalist rhetoric, what it amounts to is that Germany happens to be in a position just now to be able to afford the massive government subsidies needed to prop up renewable energy -- and it's in that position because of systemic fiscal imbalances in the Eurozone that are bankrupting Southern and Eastern Europe to prop up the German economy. That's not a sustainable situation, and it will be interesting -- in the sense of the apocryphal Chinese curse -- to see how it plays out in the decades ahead.
More broadly still, of course the US empire is ending -- I spent most of my 2012 posts talking about that, and my book on the subject will be published in March. That said, I urge you and my other German readers not to fall into the old delusion of supposing that the decline and fall of an Anglophone empire necessarily means the rise of a German-led Europe to, shall we say, its place in the sun. It was because of that same fantasy that Germany spent the first half of the twentieth century slamming face first into one self-induced catastrophe after another. If the same mistaken notion is once again getting traction east of the Rhine, I have to say, along with Hermann Hesse, "O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!"
Richard, good. A better knowledge of companion planting is a contribution worth having.
Sunseeker, I'm aware that de Castro's estimate is controversial, and that it's much lower than the estimates that proponents use -- in fact, I think I said as much (as did de Castro in his paper). His methodology, though, takes into account thermodynamic limits the others don't. As for Marin county, I'll have to find the papers I read.
Orchard, you don't do any of those things without tools, of course, but that's not at issue; most of the tools are very easy to make from metal scrap and have very long working lives as well. The technologies I want to preserve are the ones that are at serious risk of being lost.
1/16/14, 1:10 PM
August Johnson said...
I’ll be sharing the different new and old books that I feel are good contributions.
I understand that the Green Wizards site is going to be getting a total restart in the near future; hopefully this will allow lots more knowledge to be exchanged.
1/16/14, 1:14 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Cherokee, er, "the moons have aligned"? I knew Australia was a long ways away, but the nearest place I know of with more than one moon is a bit further than that. ;-)
Christian, micro-hydro and mini-hydro is sustainable, and well worth cultivating; big dams fill up with silt in a matter of decades to a century or so, and lose most of their ability to produce power -- and of course there's also the ecological damage, which is not small.
Gregorach, good. What will you personally do to make sure these things survive to be passed onto the future?
Andrew, that's right -- not to mention the horde of flatulent unicorns on their way from Zeta Reticuli right now, who will meet all our energy needs if we can only figure out how to filter twinkle dust out of methane!
Flute, possible. Radio's actually easier and cheaper, because you don't need the network of wires connecting station to station.
Michele, you've touched on one of the most critical needs we've got -- a different way of educating both adults and children. I plan on a series of posts about that down the road a bit.
Russ, excellent. It's good to hear from someone else who gets it!
Jim, of course. Everything in the deindustrial future is going to have to function at a much smaller scale. Polymer chemistry? A possibility -- here again, what do you propose to do to preserve this?
Oogway, I'm not avoiding it, I've discussed it repeatedly here. Population is a dependent variable, not an independent one, and as the limits to growth bite harder, we're going to see population growth turn into population decline -- the original Limits to Growth study puts that at 2030 or so, and I expect global population to bottom out somewhere around 2150 to 2200 at maybe half a billion. The mechanisms for population contraction? There are four of them, and they ride horses.
Nestorian, I'm not at all sure I'd be comfortable describing spirituality as a technology -- it's more a relationship, as I see it. Is it crucial? Yes -- but as Spengler pointed out a long time ago, a return to religion is one of the predictable events in the decline of a civilization, so that one's probably covered.
1/16/14, 1:24 PM
onething said...
Thijs Goverde-
I don't think it is exactly true that some people don't buy the germ theory of disease. It is rather that they think other things can trump germs, such as having a healthy immune system and getting enough of the right nutrients. It was Claude Bernard who said "The terrain is everything." Certainly we know that some people seem to catch every cold and flu that comes along, and others are rarely sick despite great exposure. So there is obviously more going on than the germs themselves.
Having said that, I completely agree that asepsis is crucial and easy to attain. Medicine might need to drop a lot of expensive tests and use more clinical diagnostic skills.
Another thing similar as regards health is our knowledge of nutrition. If people got exercise and ate natural foods, and understood that variety in the diet is needed, we could get by with much less medical intervention. Pine needles are meant to be very high in vitamin C. So you can gather them and make tea (minimally boiled).
Barbara Fisher -
That was an excellent list. I am interested in a couple of them.
1/16/14, 1:40 PM
Enrique said...
I would like to encourage you in your quest to translate the esoteric traditions of the East for a Western audience. The peoples of Europe and North America have forgotten so much of their ancestral traditions, and those of us who are interested in such things could use the inspiration and knowledge. I have enjoyed reading not only your comments on this blog, but your writings on your own blog and on Gornahoor. The Archdruid Report and Gornahoor are two of my favorite websites, and among the most intelligent and insightful on the Internet. I am looking forward to reading your forthcoming book on the sacred sciences of ancient Japan. I have already pre-ordered a copy. Keep up the good work!
JMG - "This, my friends, is a steampunk calculator"
I am still into roleplaying and miniatures gaming, and I can tell you that will while medieval fantasy and sci-fi are still popular genres, games with a steampunk theme have become extremely popular these days, as are the films of Hayao Miyazaki, who incorporates a lot of steampunk aesthetics and themes into his movies. I also have an artist friend who does a lot of artwork with a steampunk theme as well.
The funny thing is that it’s very likely that the highest level of technology that could be sustained by an ecotechnic society is probably equivalent to late Victorian or World War I level technology, with a few new twists such as modern ecology and sustainable organic farming thrown in for good measure. Moreover, there is a great deal that could be done with technologies that were developed during that era, such as windjammers, dirigibles or those magnificent solar powered engines that were developed by the French in the late 19th century.
Maybe steampunk is the true wave of the future.
1/16/14, 1:51 PM
jim said...
Inheritance 2280 Treasure Buckets
I sat nervously with my sister as the Priestess translated the message from our long dead ancestor into modern English:
“To my distant descendants, this is the 12th and final map to last 12 buckets of stuff from my time. I know that the greed and short sightedness of the people of my time will cause a great many troubles for you.” The Priestess looked up and said “Now, that is an understatement.” She then continued to read “ I hope these buckets contain materials and objects that you will find useful. It is my hope that these things will make your life a little less difficult.”
…….
Our party found the site and dug up the 12 black plas buckets, and I asked the ruinman how to open one up. He took one bucket and pulled a piece of black plas of the top, then made some slits in the top with his knife and pried off the top. Inside the container was a small booklet made of white plas the title was “On Optics”. I had no idea what that meant, but there were other things in the container, Binoculars!! Two pair, they would be worth a fortune in Sinadi. This strange metal object with wheels and a mirror that has the word Ziess on the side. Ten boxes filled with small rectangular pieces of glass, and several boxes with round glass. My sister and I hugged each other because we knew that just one bucket was going to be enough to make our lives much easier. If the priestess OKs the Ziess as not being demonic we may have something very valuable.
I reached for the next black plas bucket and opened it to find……
1/16/14, 2:14 PM
raul parolari said...
China has restarted since 2011 the research (with 400 engineers on the project).
If (a big if) the technology is resurrected successfully, things could dramatically change.
1/16/14, 2:20 PM
Mark Luterra said...
Why should an EROEI of 10-12 be necessary to support an industrial civilization? And is that the number required to support our particular industrial civilization, or any industrial civilization at all? Can you cite your sources?
EROEI is a complicated thing, because the ability of a technology to be sustained, in my view, depends more on the complexity of the required inputs than the measured EROEI.
If energy is all that is needed, and in the form produced by the technology in question, then a low EROEI looks the same as a low conversion efficiency. Let's say I need 1 MWh of electricity per year, and I have hypothetical solar panels with an EROEI of 2 that require only basic materials (wood, straw) and electricity to produce. In that case, I simply need to install enough panels to product 2 MWh per year and put half of them to work producing more panels.
Of course, real photovoltaic panels don't work that way, requiring mined materials and a great deal of intense heat (charcoal furnace? solar thermal?) for their manufacture. And yet they are simpler than giant wind turbines, which require cranes that can handle many-ton structures and electrical capacity to manage shifting generation on the scale of megawatts.
All of this is to say that I don't care for the way you write off wind and solar because their EROEI is around 9 and somebody came up with a study that no less than 10 will do. I realize that there is a false tendency to feel that because something really ought to work, then it will, and you are reminding us to avoid falling into that trap. Even so, it seems that with an EROEI of 9, or even 4-5, it should be possible to build a solar-powered factory that produces photovoltaics, and if that is possible then it just might also be possible for small communities of "higher" technology to survive through the coming decline. The monasteries of the new dark age, if you will.
1/16/14, 2:30 PM
Kathleen Quinn said...
1/16/14, 2:37 PM
Yupped said...
For example, it is hard to make a living as a natural healer (say a community or clinical herbalist) although some do. But if you combine herbal remedy making and counseling with making products, selling herbal teas, some teaching and writing, say, it is possible to eke out a living. Some people even make a great big living pushing fancy tonic herbs and adaptogens on wealthy health hipsters.
Lots of things are possible if you can figure out how to build up new skills while surfing the wave down. But just waiting for the tide to be all the way out before jumping in will be tricky, at least from a making a live perspective.
1/16/14, 2:49 PM
Fidelius said...
@JMG - regarding your blog post: I would add one technology/device category to the list: Mechanical precision instruments. The ability to measure time, temperature, height, distance and so on as precisely as possible is quite important in engineering and planning. Slide rules are useful for calculations, but you need measurements to calculate with.
1/16/14, 2:54 PM
Ashley said...
My area of interest is the handicrafts. I knit, sew, crochet, spin, dye, bead, and embroider. I'm also particularly passionate about making long lasting and well-fitting clothing. A lot of people are deeply intimidated by the idea of producing their own clothes and the threat of future scarcity isn't enough to make people feel learning this "out-dated" skill worthwhile. But I've found that talking about making clothes that actually fit my body has gotten several of my friends interested in clothing production.
There are SO many resources online for learning clothing construction, tailoring, fitting, alterations, etc., and gaining access to these skills while the tutorials are freely available online is, in my opinion, extremely worthwhile. I now know far more about sewing than I could have learned even 10 years ago because of the sewing blogosphere,. I know techniques that are not easily found in books carried at your local library, and even in my over-educated town are not taught in any formal setting. And for the record, I went from first wearable garment to making all of my own clothes (including winter coat and basic tailoring) in 4 years. I've been planning on starting sewing workshops for years, and will once I no longer have young children.
1/16/14, 3:06 PM
Phil Harris said...
I can think of utilitarian reasons, but one piece of technology that is fairly easily retained just for its 'magical' value, is sound recording.
One of your book ('Ecotechnic'?) mentions that we have just one haunting melody from Roman times. It lasts I think you say, all of 25 seconds. It would be good to have a gold disc or two playable on a wind-up. I would dearly like to have the voice of Socrates in discussion, as an example.
I can't help thinking there could be some very clever analogue data-storage waiting in the wings of long winter evenings down on the farm. The amazing burst of innovation of horse-driven farming tools, local blacksmithing in the first instance, in America in the 19thC and early 20thC, suggests that minds had time. Might even be transmissible on your SW!
best
Phil
PS You have, I guess, a lot of very valuable soil data in America recorded down to field level. Check your local Agri service does not throw it away or put it in a form that will not be retrievable.
1/16/14, 3:07 PM
daelach said...
Overmore, I made a logarithm table myself, using a computer that is available today. Logarithms, reciprocal values, square roots, trigonomotric functions. Cube and other roots can be calculated with logarithms in two steps. I have also some sliders.
The reason was that I thought about how to perform calculations without a computer, and I found this knowledge appealing.
Another thing is that I set up unbreakable encryption that can be done without computers. Unbreakable even if the opponents still have computers. Some pieces of paper, pencil and ordinary dice are all that's needed. The "one time pad" is well known for such circumstances. Of course, the key exchange is the cumbersome part.
@ deedl: You are talking about the amount of energy needed to operate the computers. JMG is talking about the energy needed to drive the whole industrial manufacturing and supply chain. See the difference? The internet will not break down because we can't pay the electricity bill. It will break down because we will not be able to afford producing computers (on a large scale), failing to replace the computers that wear out. Remember that we are not talking about a time horizon of a some years.
1/16/14, 3:24 PM
onething said...
I don't quite get your question. Processing and storing take a lot of time...yes, they do. What do you mean about not being able to turn it into meals?
We got a good crop of apples this year. I spent days in the kitchen and made applesauce, apple pie, apple juice, apple crisp, and finally froze cut and peeled apples. I was reduced to locking my husband out of the house and threatening him not to bring in another apple! (Just kidding) It was hard to accept that we could not use all the available apples.
I'm genuinely scared at the thought of living without a fridge and freezer, but I talked to one 70-year-old at the garden club last summer who grew up without it, and it is more doable than I thought. I just don't like heavily salted or smoked meat.
The hillbillies are a great resource, and often even have the old tools hanging in the barn.
1/16/14, 3:36 PM
Ms. Krieger said...
1/16/14, 4:21 PM
Liquid Paradigm said...
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/16/green-energy-demandineuropemaybethreateningamericanforests.html
And I saw somebody's already pulled the thorium reactor boondoggle out of mothballs to share with us the much needed Imminent Miracle Cure.
*sigh*
@Kathleen, I'll be right over. ;)
1/16/14, 4:37 PM
Twilight said...
Probably not for much longer. Unless some miracle happens the Emerald Ash Borer will destroy them all. The rate at which they are being consumed makes it very unlikely that anything can stop it. They are already under separate attack around here by a fungal wasting disease called Ash Yellows. Not much hope for them.
If the Asian Longhorned Beetle breaks out, which is likely inevitable, then birches, maples, poplars and willows will be devastated too, along with any ash trees that are left.
The forests may be very much changed in North America, something which is particularly hard for me to deal with. I suppose in such an environment coppicing may be very important, as it developed in places where timber was generally over-harvested.
1/16/14, 4:39 PM
Rita Narayanan said...
while a lot of stuff gets written about global warming and such very few people like Kunstler tell it like it is.
It is very scary from an Indian perspective because even the poorest of the poor are all looking at first world affluence.
on the other hand you have an educated elite who talk about human rights and the environemnt but whose own education and sensibilities are elite academia.
often the proponents of rivers, tribals and such get funding from the US...a famous person such as Arundhati Roy runs between talks funded by rich American foundations.
The modern world has made it possible for a liberal elite to play the game that they have always accused the Church of playing and the world will have to pay the price.
the responsibility on those who preach is always heavier when it comes to walking the walk.
Thanks!
1/16/14, 5:23 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
1/16/14, 5:24 PM
Russ said...
1/16/14, 5:59 PM
Twilight said...
It is amazing how efficient some of these modern stoves are, and had they understood the principles something similar could have been constructed in the 1800's too. Think of the labor and time this would have saved them, not to mention the trees.
Stoves with catalysts are available too, but I purposely looked for something that did not require special materials or complex firebox parts.
1/16/14, 6:05 PM
team10tim said...
I would like you to reconsider Christian Herring's question about hydroelectric power. The big problem with most renewables is that the energy being harnessed is highly diffuse. Hydroelectric gets around that problem elegantly by letting the environment do the concentrating into easy to use rivers.
There are, or course, problems. They silt up and have ecological impacts. But the big problem is that hydro won't provide all the power that an industrial society needs. We are pretty much using all the good hydro sites already and we still need lots more power. But just because it can't power the entirety of our civilization's needs doesn't mean that we can't use it at all.
The EROEI of hydro depends mostly on the location, but I have heard numbers as high as 100:1 several times. So the question is can a region, like the Columbia river in Oregon, provide enough energy to produce the level of local industry necessary to maintain, repair and replace the hydro infrastructure for, oh, let's say 500 years?
Thanks,
Tim
1/16/14, 6:13 PM
Cathy McGuire said...
I found this cool link of a museum started at the turn of the last century that has the most awesome collection of old tools and items. I wish I lived anywhere near Doylestown, PA!!
http://v-e-n-u-e.com/Concrete-Toolbox-A-Visit-to-the-Mercer-Museum
BTW, someone asked about steel as a future industry - I just read this about a Scottish iron age hill fort that was making "high-carbon steel" (whatever that was) - so the low-tech is there!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-25734877
1/16/14, 6:30 PM
Cathy McGuire said...
In the whole biome of the Pacfic coastal belt (Northern CA to Puget Sound), there are only about half this many species of trees that are widespread.
Umm... was the Pacific Coast even THERE during the pleistocene epoch?? it was formed from lots of fairly "recent" volcanoes, as I recall... Dang - you made me get up and find my Oregon geology book... says about half the state only started to emerge from the ocean 200,000 years ago... so give us a break - we're newbies! ;-)
1/16/14, 6:49 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Wildeye, fair enough. What do you personally propose to do to bring that about?
Bill, that's an interesting question about which I know nothing. There ought to be ways to adapt rocket stoves and other high-efficiency woodburning technology to existing fireplaces, though.
Butzjo, break out that slipstick and get some fluency with it! I can tell you from personal experience that a slide rule can solve complicated trig equations faster than a pocket calculator, and get them right -- I used mine to pass the Amateur Extra class ham radio license exam, and didn't miss a math question.
Nick, there are many ways to do a solar still. Are you willing to invest the time and research into finding a design that can be built and used without sheet glass?
Cathy, the Fresnel lenses ought to be interesting! When time permits -- which may be a while -- I have plans to build a solar calcination furnace for spagyric work, and have considered a Fresnel lens for that. I'll be interested to hear how well yours work.
Greenmantle, excellent. Excess decimal places are usually a source of false confidence anyway.
Mortal, er, who are you including in that "we," when you say "we" don't know how to store, process, and use the food we grow? For myself, I beg to differ -- and there was a lot of work along those lines going on back in the appropriate-tech movement. Visit the kind of used bookstore that doesn't get much turnover, find an old copy of Stocking Up or the like, and you'll be pleasantly surprised...
Daddy H., that's really good to hear. I meet far too many people who know how to make a computer do things but literally have no idea what's going on -- it's just a black box that spits out figures to be taken on faith.
James, it's easy to make a list. Which of these will you take up, practice, and transmit to someone younger? That's the question that actually matters right now.
Andy, exactly. I'm focusing on technological suites that might be lost; metalworking is going to be around for the long term.
Squizzler, again, it's easy to make a proposal. Are you personally going to do something to get that technology into the waiting hands of the future? Otherwise, it's empty air...
1/16/14, 7:33 PM
Chris G said...
We are, besides the problems of energy limits, and changes to climate effected by human action, also limited in our relation to the world by rationality. While rationality gives us greater power, this is limited because it is confined to our concept of self - a physical self. This is demonstrated by the willingness to allow other species to go extinct, a willingness to disrupt natural processes, as well as by a worship of selfishness represented in our political, economic, and cultural relations.
When the matter of energy limits gets discussed, the limits are either ignored (by most, which is an aspect of selfishness) or denied (because it seems "they" have always come up with something to save us.)
That selfishness in large part, I believe, is fed by an erroneous concept of time, well demonstrated in Christianity, where some still feel it necessary to conceive of the Earth/Universe as only 6000 years old.
What the list in JMG's post represents is a recognition of the need to be part of the greater whole of life/nature, a willingness to adapt to what it can provide for us, rather than the need to stretch nature to our desires.
Over and over following this subject and JMG's blog, I'm reminded that, really, the problem isn't how much sunlight got stored up for our use, or whether we can devise new, more powerful ways to gather energy together for our use; but the ability of the rational mind to adapt to changes. We are quite adaptable, however, and one of the key adaptations, a kind of spiritual technology, is to recognize the limits of the unique human adaptation to nature, called rationality. To recognize that there are times to quit thinking about things and use other modes of adaptation.
This is represented often in those who dispute the particular measurements, for instance, of EROEI. Maybe the numbers are a little more "optimistic" (re human ability to harness power); but really at best that offers maybe another 100 years, or maybe 200 years, of industrial civilization, mass production, greatly augmented human physical power. Compared to a million years, or even just 6000 years, is that worth more extinctions, more climate disruptions?
And just as importantly, what we've gotten for having tapped into all this energy for human control, is greatly diminished human capabilities, sadly degenerate human behavior, lots of destruction and conflict. Power corrupts, so thank goodness, I would say, for limits.
What can be found in the list above, a practical list of technologies that are adaptive, and many of the others mentioned by the commenters, is the peace that comes from being part of something much, much greater than oneself - the rest of the world.
(ps, all due credit, a lot of the ideas in this comment come from what I've gleaned from JMG, as well as other writers.)
1/16/14, 7:49 PM
Ruben said...
My local greenies are very into rocket stoves as well. In fact, I am too. But as I learned more about rocket stoves I realized that many of my local greenies don't understand how they work.
Rocket stoves require an insulated firebox. That is how they burn hot enough to reduce indoor air pollution. I frequently see thermal mass used instead of insulation.
1/16/14, 7:51 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Wolfgang, true enough. I've discussed the revival of discarded technologies more than once here, but it's a worthwhile topic and can use more discussion.
Martin, excellent! If I had the spare time, which unfortunately I don't, letterpress printing is very likely something I'd get into -- a highly creative craft as well as a necessary one.
Dennis, I've argued at some length in my book The Ecotechnic Future that it should be possible to support a society with a modest range of advanced technologies on a renewable basis, and over the long run, that's what this project is about. Getting from there to here is the problem -- we missed the window of opportunity that would have allowed us to make a smooth transition, and only a small minority of people are willing to make the sacrifices that would be necessary to avoid the normal processes of decline and fall, so the emergence of ecotechnic societies is going to have to wait until the approaching dark age is over and done with.
MPL, solar dehydrators used to be fairly popular -- I used one in the early 1980s, with extremely good results. Might be worth adding to your studies!
Twilight, I'm still going to wait for those flatulent unicorns from Zeta Reticuli.
Anna, good. There are actually quite a few nontechnological skills that could use developing, and the ability to get along constructively in a community is certainly one of them.
Jesse, I don't happen to know whether bicycles will be viable or not in a deindustrial future; a lot depends on whether specialized technologies such as steelmaking can be carried out extensively enough to make steel frames affordable -- and what about tires? I'd encourage you, personally, to do some research on that.
Sunyata, my impression of his work -- which is admittedly based on a fairly limited amount of reading -- is that he's pushing yet another version of the myth of progress, with leaps into new and more expanded states of consciousness providing the necessary onward-and-upward mechanism. I don't find that interesting, helpful, or relevant to the real world. If I'm misunderstanding him, though, by all means clue me in.
Wolfgang, I'd like to offer one amendment. It's not just that lifestyles that have a lot less energy and the products of energy look like poverty to us; such lifestyles are, in fact, impoverished in every material sense of the term. I really don't think it helps to sugarcoat that hard reality!
Bill, no, I didn't forget about it. I have significant doubts about whether bicycles will be viable in the deindustrial future. Just because something is efficient in terms of converting muscle energy to motion doesn't mean that a good fairy will keep it available?, you know.
1/16/14, 8:04 PM
John Michael Greer said...
DM, as I mentioned earlier, I don't expect metalsmithing skills to be at any risk of being lost, and yes, turning dead cars (as well as dead skyscrapers!) into knives, shovels, etc. will be another growth industry far into the future.
Flook, no, slavery happens when the supply of labor falls short of the potential demand. When you have six and a half billion spare people who will do just about anything to get enough food to stay alive, there's no need to invest in the social complexities of slavery -- you just have to put out a "Help Wanted" sign.
Joseph, I've spent most of the last year talking about the most abstract end of the subject this blog is meant to explore, so I'm not surprised that this week's post is getting so enthusiastic a response. It's encouraging, though, that so many people are ready to hear suggestions about something they can do!
Ruben, funny.
GHung, excellent. As far as ham radio goes, have your grandson surf over to Green Wizards Radio -- that's becoming a very solid source for info on that end of the Green Wizardry project.
3+0( -- nice Hieroglyphic Monad, by the way! -- that's a heck of a good question, to which I don't think anyone alive today knows the answer. Thus the need to get a good wide range of mathematical options into the hands of future calculators.
Dan, glad to hear it. I don't see botany as a technology, which is why I didn't include it in the list. Is it worth preserving? Good heavens, yes -- a solid grasp of botany is essential for the gardener, farmer, herbal healer, ecosystem repair tech, etc., etc., etc.
Moshe, you might want to have a look at Pete Friedrich's book Instruments of Amplification, which covers a range of different handbuilt amplification technologies suitable for radio frequencies. Handbuilt vacuum tubes are well within the reach of medieval technology -- you need glassblowing, delicate metalwork, and a simple vacuum pump, and all those are easily arranged (medieval alchemists used vacuum distillation in some of their work). Once you have amplification, furthermore, the rest is easy -- books on radio from the 1920s have plans in which every single component other than one tube is completely handbuilt.
Erica, no argument there. We grow and save about half our own seed these days, and that's only going to pick up as things proceed.
SLClaire, that strikes me as an excellent idea. Relearn how to do it, and then get some experience in teaching it, and you may just have yourself a lively second career.
HalFiore, if you've made a collection of texts, that's excellent. May I encourage you to take one more step? Take all your texts that are out of copyright, scan them to PDF, and get them onto a website for free download, then post something to the Green Wizards website and here as well for those who might find them useful. That could be a real contribution.
1/16/14, 8:28 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
1/16/14, 8:44 PM
dave1941 said...
After that, we'll make liquid fuel from biomass, which grows fast in a high-CO2 atmosphere. It'll be more expensive, but still better than horse carts and sailing ships.
1/16/14, 8:52 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Varun, the site you want to visit is http://www.greenwizards.org -- it's about to go through a major makeover, and will be serving as a venue for exactly the kind of discussions you've suggested.
Alphonse, yes, I know the last year or so has been very abstract. My academic background is in history of ideas; I consider Nietzsche and Schopenhauer pleasant light reading, and I like to discuss the philosophical dimensions of all this at some length now and then. Still, trust me, I've noticed how many of my readers would much rather read a discussion of what they can do about the crisis of our time, and I promise we'll be covering that in more detail in posts to come -- it'll make a pleasant diversion from talking about the future of fascism and the shape of the coming dark age.
MawKernewek, those are good questions, to which I don't know the answers. I do know that coppicing provides firewood without devastating forests, which is a crucial point, and that when other resources run out, coppiced wood and a rocket stove can still be cooking your dinner!
Escape, thanks for the heads up -- he's quite correct, of course. I'm going to quibble a bit about your comment that none of these are new -- that's true in very general terms but emphatically not so in specifics, and the specifics are worth preserving.
Karim, if investing in PV or other green technologies becomes an excuse not to deal with the desperate need to conserve resources and use much less energy, then I'm far from sure that investing in PV is a good idea. As for the possibility of sustaining some kind of technic civilization on renewables, of course -- that's the core theme of my book The Ecotechnic Future, you know!
Bill, the reason you won't find headwater endemics in the Puget Sound basin, again, is that the Puget Sound basin was under a mile of ice until about 13,000 years ago. Further south, the Coast Range and the Cascades both had massive glaciation during the ice ages, and the streams then flowed through tundra to the sea -- and let's not even talk about the cataclysmic floods from glacial Lake Missoula that devastated the entire inland basin! Again, it's a depauperate ecosystem for reasons that go far beyond the kind of climate change we're talking about at this stage of the game.
Max, extensive discussions on The Oil Drum and Resilience.org. You might find it useful to search their archives.
Wolfgang, thank you.
August, delighted to hear it. I'm far from sure that tube radios won't be available for the long term -- again, glassblowing, delicate metalwork, and simple vacuum pumps were well within the reach of your common or garden variety alchemist long before fossil fuels were more than geological curiosities -- and in the meantime, as you say, there's an enormous amount that can be done with salvage. I've been very pleased to notice that QST has been full of homebrewing articles of late!
1/16/14, 8:52 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
What I'd think would be plausible would be extracting the heat from the hot exhaust stream after the firebox, as I thought the space-heating designs I had seen were intending to do. But they all used enormous thermal masses, which really have to be designed into the construction from the beginning. Just unsure whether any realized increase in efficiency would be worth the design etc. hassles.
1/16/14, 9:04 PM
backyardfeast said...
On our homestead, when I think about serious survival, having a little bit of power--to run the chest freezer, for instance--makes a big difference to our lifestyles. As might a solar lantern or a solar oven, if the stories from the developing world are to be believed. A little bit of electricity is a nice thing to have, and we are looking into trying to produce a little.
However. Our industrial system, I would argue, is far more dependent on liquid gases for transportation than anything else, and solar isn't going to make a dent in that realm. How do we mine, manufacture, and then transport goods, resources, minerals, food,or information without diesel or other liquid fuels? We're not making concrete or building wireless towers with solar!
So go ahead--build solar panels with an EROEI of 10 or 12. And then try to produce steel or mine silicon or rare earth metals with them. Let us know how that goes.
1/16/14, 9:15 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Adrian, that's perhaps the best excuse for not commenting I've heard in the last year. Glad to hear it!
Mark, well, he's an economist -- the poor dear can't be expected to think clearly about resources, can he, now?
Carl, exactly! Some of the handbuilt vacuum tubes I've seen are things of real beauty, and have quite a decent Mu (that's "amplification factor" for those who don't speak the jargon) to boot.
Onething, the thing to keep in mind is that an energy source has to provide enough energy to support all the infrastructure that's needed to provide it with raw materials, spare parts, ways to transmit energy to its end users, and so on. Grid-tied PV, in other words, isn't viable over the long term unless it produces enough electricity not only to cover its own manufacturing and maintenance, but to cover its share of the supply chains, mines, factories, and the electrical grid, with all its> supply chains and so on. An EROEI of less than 3 won't do that. Are there useful things to do with solar energy? You bet, but they presuppose a much simpler lifestyle and a less interdependent technological infrastructure.
Enrique, funny you should mention that. I'm planning a post on steampunk, or something like it, as the wave of the future. If you do live-action roleplaying, and have or can do a steampunk engineer persona, why not add a slide rule to your gear and brandish it authoritatively as you make emergency repairs on the dirigible? ;-)
Jim, your crystal ball is working well, I see. I'll be saying more about this next week, but I'll whisper this now: there's going to be a second short story contest, and another anthology. Are you up for finishing that story and submitting it?
Raul, I want you to stop and think about what you've just said, and why. It's absolutely standard these days, when a discussion of the practical realities of the Long Descent gets under way, for people to come charging in, insisting that (insert unproven vaporware technology here) will, or can, or may save us. Why do they do that with such regularity? Because it provides them with an excuse for not doing anything as the crisis of our age tightens around us all. That's what you're doing, and what everyone is doing when they come barging in here to talk about some other technology that some other people are creating somewhere else that will make everything better.
I'd encourage you to remember, furthermore, that the further any nuclear technology is from being actually deployed for commercial power generation, the cheaper and more wonderful it seems -- ordinary fission power, remember, was being sold as "electricity too cheap to meter" back before the first generation of commercial nuclear power plants came out and proved otherwise. Do you know what technical challenges and economic difficulties might be involved in trying to deploy thorium reactors on a large enough scale to make any difference? Have you even thought about such questions? I have to confess I doubt it -- and in the absence of such real-world considerations, excited chirping about thorium reactors or some other bit of vaporware is simply one more distraction in the way of thinking clearly about the mess we're in and what has to be done about it.
1/16/14, 9:16 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
1/16/14, 9:26 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Kathleen, maybe it's just because I live in a region with a long tradition of moonshine production, butI have no fear that the brewing and distilling of alcoholic beverages will ever, anywhere, become a lost art! Of course it's worth preserving, and not just for enjoyment -- alcohol is an excellent disinfectant, a very good fuel, and also a highly useful solvent.
Yupped, an excellent point -- good enough that you get tonight's gold star.
Fidelius, of course. The questions I have are, first, whether Germany can weather the backlash from the financial imbalances that are making it prosper at the expense of southern and eastern Europe; second, if a Russian-German alliance emerges -- and it's far and away the most sensible approach for both sides -- whether that will split the EU into pro- and anti-Russian camps, as seems most likely; and third, whether any of that can keep Germany and the rest of Europe from being dragged down in the common wreck of the industrial world.
Ashley, delighted to hear it. I already get a significant fraction of my clothing from my wife's spindle, knitting needles, crochet hooks, etc., so I'm inclined to think that there's a vast amount that can be done along these lines!
Phil, that's a fascinating question. I'd be happy to have some Roman sheet music -- but sound recordings for the future, yes, that might work. As for documentation on soil, yes again; as far as I know, the whole country had its soils surveyed on a county-by-county level, and that's exactly the sort of lore that gets lost all too easily as things come apart.
Daelach, excellent! I've done a little work with a Chinese abacus, not enough to be fluent but enough to get a sense of the potential; slide rules and logarithm tables are more my style, mostly because they relate to math I use fairly often. Still, good to hear that somebody else is working on low-tech mathematics.
Ms. K., true enough.
Liquid, well, yes. I also read recently, though I can't find the link just now, that one of the big solar firms in Germany has been reduced to begging its creditors and investors for mercy in order to stave off bankruptcy.
Twilight, granted. What the forests will look like a thousand years from now, with climate change added to invasive pests, is a very complex issue.
1/16/14, 9:39 PM
biglakejudy said...
1/16/14, 9:49 PM
K!EF said...
I am still a novice to this technology, although I do have a good knowledge of regenerative agricultural technics, which helps a lot.
To anyone interested in this subject, I would highly recommend LEILA DARWISH'S book EARTH REPAIR - A GRASSROOTS GUIDE TO HEALING TOXIC AND DAMAGED LANDSCAPES, published a few months ago by New Society Publishers. As far as I know, one of the very few books written on this subject.
1/16/14, 9:54 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Russ, do you happen to know if those old CB rigs can be refitted for 10 meters? If so, that might be another way for people to get inexpensive ham rigs.
Tim, that's a good question, to which I don't know the answer. 500 years, though, seems like a very long time given river siltation issues.
Cathy, that BBC piece is stunning. High carbon steel is what you need for really good knives, swords, and many classes of tools. I had no idea that was being made that long ago! It's certainly doable in a low-tech setting -- some of the best steel on Earth, tamagahane steel (the raw material for the finest Japanese swords), is made by hand using pine charcoal in a very simple smelter -- but it's fascinating to learn that the trick was worked out so much earlier than older histories of technology thought.
Chris, well, yes. That's a lot of what I was trying to talk about last year. As I mentioned to Nestorian, I don't consider it a technology so much as a relationship, but it's crucial.
Dave, you really need to check your claims against history. Did the Germans have coal-to-liquids technology? You bet...and yet the Wehrmacht still ran out of fuel. Why? because coal-to-liquids technology has a very low rate of energy return on energy invested, too low to meet the needs of an industrial society. You might also want to check those airy comments about biomass against real world data, because they don't support your fantasy either, you know.
Backyardfeast, exactly. A little electricity is easy to generate -- wind, micro-hydro, a Stirling motor bolted onto your wod stove flue, you name it -- and easy to store in metal-acid batteries. Liquid fuel's another matter; one gallon of gasoline, remember, contains as much energy as one ton of fully charged car batteries. That's why, again, I want to focus on the things that are known to work on a home- and village-scale level.
Bill, there are some glorious U-shaped glacial valleys in the Siskiyous, just north of the CA-OR border, so the answer is at least partly yes. As for the Bay area, though, that's a different bioregion, and one I don't know at all well; I wouldn't be a bit surprised, since it's semiarid at best, if it got hammered by serious droughts at certain phases of the planetary weather cycle.
1/16/14, 10:10 PM
John Michael Greer said...
K!EF, fair enough. Are you studying that?
1/16/14, 10:17 PM
John Michael Greer said...
1/16/14, 10:31 PM
Matt Heins said...
I am curious as to what better course of action Archdruid Greer and others think the German national government should be taking? It may be that they are doomed to failure, but what other feasible plan should they implement?
Trying to run basically business as usual on renewables seems like a very good first step to organized energy decline to me. From both my own reading and deedl's comments it seems like Germany is already getting this.
1/16/14, 10:41 PM
Ruben said...
I don't know how the BTUs of rocket stoves stack up. I suspect not as good as masonry heaters which have been refined over generations. Rocket stoves, after all, are really meant as competition for a pot balanced on three rocks.
It sounds like you don't have a lot of physical or aesthetic room for a big pile of cob for your mass. How about doing something like a water coil--you could move your thermal mass to less obtrusive location. Just watch for steam generation in the pipe!
1/16/14, 10:45 PM
deedl said...
How did this come around the corner? Did anybody read what i said? I claim that we will not make that much sacrifices in the coming decades that we will lose the status of being an industrial civilization. I never talked about keeping the current level of activity and i surely never talked about anything that has to do with rising.
Nobody in Germany has any intentions to dominate Europe. Germans are sick of getting involved with other nations problems (see Iraq, see Lybia). It is rather that most Germans just don't want to be dominated by Europe in a way that they have to pay the others bills. That is an important distinction. Of course with a sixth of the population and a quarter of economic output Germany is a major player in Europe, but it is still to small to influence European politics without partners.
@ daelach: Here you have a nice overview about the energy and emergy of the internet (http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~barath/papers/emergy-hotnets11.pdf). It concludes that the total energy for both operating AND maintaining physically the internet (includign replacing every smartphone every two years and every server every three years) results in 1,1-1,7% of world energy consumption. This Energy is roughly half operation and half embodied energy in the hardware.
You can easily further reduce those costs by using the hardware much longer (it is technically no problem to build computers that run for decades) and by reducing the use of the internet for the important data (you can cut the amount of data and therefore operational costs enormously by just stopping to stream videos). Access to knews, to scientific knowledge, realtime communication and individually produced content can all be text based and therefore produce no significant amount of data. So a simple textbased internet can be maintained on a very small budget and still offers the significant advantages. If you ask people below 30 if thex would rather use their car or their internet, we all know how the will choose, and they are the generation that will be faced with those decisions.
1/16/14, 11:14 PM
TomK said...
thanks for another great post. I have been following this blog for a few years now.
Concerning healthcare, I am a dentist and have volunteered as one in rural Nepal back in 2009. There I could see first-hand how energy and technology/equipment-intensive the profession is and how brittle and prone to disruptions due to ever-present power cuts is its exercise. Also, the need for the profession comes from one of the most widespread diseases, the tooth decay. Tooth decay is a disease of the industrial world ever since refined sugar has entered our food chain on a large scale. Prior to that, tooth decay was a disease of the rich. That is why there were really no dentists, say, in the 1790s. Rural Nepal essentially is a pre-industrial culture, so the people need to pull a tooth here, wisdom teeth can cause problems. Then there is gum disease and tooth wear, but as you grow older, it is considered natural that the teeth get worn or get lost. This is not really considered a disease among the locals and is definitely not a priority health care concern. Under primitive conditions and in the absence of refined sugar in the industrial food, all you need to do is to have someone to pull teeth. In Europe in the 1600s, you would go to a blacksmith for that. As for gum disease, you can brush your teeth yourself with a primitive brush, maybe you could add a herbal decoction. As a useful remnant of our industrial age, maybe a simple glass ionomer cement, which could be blended by hand from a powder-liquid, could be used as a filling material after removing carious substance from a tooth by a simple hand instrument. These are the things you simply could add to physician training, so that a future sustainable health care worker/physician will be a true generalist and will eliminate the whole dental profession. In fact, tooth extractions are a part of training of physicians in Nepal. Some of those are sent to mountainous outposts by the government and serve as true health care generalists. To be sure, in the cities, as well as among the few affluent Nepalese, tooth decay is rampant, just as it was in the industrial world after the diet had changed, but before the advances of the dental profession were introduced to the public. It seems to me that we first export some of the features of our culture, in this case, introduce cheap candy so that the poor can afford it, then a disease will spread, which again creates a much greater need for dental care. And here I was, imported dentist on a volunteer mission. The rural Nepalese can actually do without all of these - bits of industrial culture, candies and imported dentists. As mentioned before, the only useful aspect of what I did there and thousands of other dentists in other so called developing countries, is to identify the procedures, tools and technologies that can still be put to use if you don't have power, water lines, expensive dental chair etc.
1/16/14, 11:17 PM
k-dog said...
I'm reading an old book I recently picked up at a used book store. Written in the seventies the title is 'Fundamentals of Solar Heating'.
I pass a new housing development near where I live daily which is about half finished. All the new homes will have gas heat and the development which is under construction by a national home builder could have easily been built with solar heating systems to augment the conventional heating systems being built into the homes.
The added cost of solar heat augmentation could have been folded into the home mortgages in such a way that new buyers could have saved money at the end of the day on a month by month basis through gas savings.
To expect such sagacity from a particular builder of a dozen homes may be unreasonable but no such wisdom is expressed on any homes built anywhere. Our economic arrangements only allow for the fastest possible buck to be made and the wisdom of adding solar heating would be considered foolish by a builder who only desires to build homes as fast as possible, sell them, and move on.
At what point would lower more human and earth friendly technology be expected to replace corporate resource intensive technologies? It seems to me our economy and culture will not allow any shift in the way things are done until long after the need becomes apparent. As things are now a dark age will be well under way before any sustainable technologies emerge.
1/17/14, 12:10 AM
Anonymous said...
I didn't have the information to be able to do any calculations, but I always wondered...
...given that the estimated projections were that the things would probably have around 20 years of functional life, if you knew the total amount of electrical power required, between the processes and all the support systems of the plant, to make a panel, in KW-Hrs, how would the total lifetime output of a panel in KW-Hrs compare?
And, of course, people will have taken note of one bit of information there; the estimated 20 year lifetime before it becomes effectively scrap. (Did I mention the toxic ingredients that make the current flow when sunlight hits it?)
One other note, relevant to the essay. Readers with better memory might check me on this, but I vaguely recall a short story by, I think, Harlan Ellison, about future "calculators".
In this story, the "calculators" were actually people who actually knew and practiced the generally forgotten craft of doing mathematical calculations... without any electronic equipment! In the setting of the story, the gizmos that had once done such things were gone, and over the course of the time of the gizmos, most people had forgotten (and eventually, never learned) how to actually do math with a pencil and paper (or some other low-tech means). So the specialized group known as the calculators did the math for people. It was basically like medieval monks who kept the art of letters alive in a culture where the average schlub was illiterate.
JLE
1/17/14, 12:20 AM
Boddah Meep said...
I think if you take most peoples naive techno-utopia view of the future and then divide it by (prehistoric past + 19th century man) you get probably future. lol something like that
I agree with Bill Mollison that the worlds problems can be solved in the garden. And if you try to prove otherwise the Shao-lin monk has devised a way to sneakily snap you in the jaw with his shovel.
I'd like to second another commenter that the stance 'against germ theory' is not necessarily saying that a 'germ' doesn't necessarily cause cholera sympotms, aids, or TB, but that much of the inner and outer world are inhabited by 'germs'. The effect of the germ is varied as exemplified by the fact that 30% (aprox) of the world is infected with the TB mycobacteria or whatever its called. Yet only half or less (again i forget the details) will ever experience TB. Instead it is found that organisms can be held in check by a healthy superorganism. Some take it a step further and would say that the rapid proliferation of a various organism is intended as a healing response, say for instance TB helping you to clear your lungs. I don't know that I think that could be considered 100% true, and is probably often wrong, but I think its a good notion to consider.
As for the ASH trees, and the maples birches etc. Its always sad if a species doesnt make it but I always see the death of a tree on my property as an opportunity to put in a new one. I am all about establishing as many useful trees (shrubs, herbs, vines, roots) as I can. I don't much buy into the native nonnative argument. I will plant anything I can control (avoid vigorous runners in many situations) but i certainly do not believe i have the right to tell someone they cant grow it. I do not believe its our job to keep lands 'native' as we are a main infractor of that in america. By forcing lands to be native we force our food to be grown elsewhere and force all the negative consequences far and wide. Instead our only obligation should be to find the species which keep introduced opportunists in check. So for our imported ash destroyers it is our job to find their enemies. I do not believe the ash will be wiped out. Just as the american elm wasn't and the chestnut wasnt.. The losses were devastating almost unimaginable but are being overcome by plant breeding. To say we need a 100% american chestnut, to me, is like saying the 'whites and the blacks shouldnt breed' (absurd).
So rambling done, my main point is that food/plants are the most important thing to the human world. The more diversity, the more skills and simple metal tools we can use effectively to work with plants (including animal husbandry) the easier and more pleasurable our lives will be. When the supply lines shut down plant mobility will too and so I believe that their motion needs to be facilitated now.
By all means people should tend vulnerable natives, but do that as a hobby, do it where you would tend your garlic, and grow garlic mustard where the native was if its gonna help with survival.
Personally I am working to create a fully functioning diverse farmstead using a global list of species. It is my intention and hope to incorporate animals in such a way that their life is not more valuable in death. Being a buddhist vegetarian I believe certain animals have a role not just in death for humans but as workers who can provide functions.
The breeding of plants, for more resistant ashes perhaps, or chickens who lay later in life. To breed better yielding northern nut trees. More resistant bees. The list goes on. It borders on technology/knowledge/skills, and its insanely vital to the human species.
I also love old methods of wood working, but i use the new power tools now. I find it a fine balance that I still keep up with what people expect of me and what I can do using the primitive lifestyle.
1/17/14, 12:20 AM
irishwildeye said...
1/17/14, 12:45 AM
Joel said...
"shattered glass can be melted down and used for glassblowing and the like. My guess is that harvesting old glass from landfills will be a growth industry for centuries to come." Some problems arise, though: "glass" is many different substances...not as different as "metal", but you can't really melt bottles and windows and laboratory beakers together into much that's useful. The technology of discerning various types of glass, and of adjusting their formulation (bottles, especially, are composed to be blown by machine, not by hand, or so I've read) is in danger of vanishing and would be needed for such a recycling effort.
3+0(: Certain I can't answer the question you asked, but a big-picture view of the field might help you choose what to do first. I know of no better source for that, than "Where Mathematics Comes From", by Lakoff and Nunez. Audacious title, I know, but they build up from the experiences of toddlerhood to Euler's identity, using cognitive linguistics. Difficult reading, but being fluent in how the field of math (at least, all the math one would encounter in the first couple years as an undergraduate) is cognitively constructed should help in building a toolkit.
1/17/14, 12:51 AM
mkroberts said...
Regarding technologies to save, to give the next civilisation a flying start, I cringed at the thought of yet another civilisation starting to damage the environment. Isn't that what civilisations do?
To the actual technologies, you mentioned cold frames and greenhouses in number 1. Even though glass or (perish the thought) plastics might be around for much of the decline, can they be expected to be available between civilisations? Maybe number 2 may also suffer from the lack of processed materials in that phase. Coppicing - yes; I only wish I could figure out how to do it, with two failed attempts so far. Healthcare - agreed. Number 5, maybe, depending on how severe the final stages of this civilisation's collapse is. Shortwave radio - yes but, again, I'm not sure this could be kept alive through the bottleneck. Maths - agreed.
Now, let me think of what I can do ...
1/17/14, 2:26 AM
Somewhatstunned said...
Wasn't that Schiller rather than Hesse? I don't read or speak german but I recognize those wrods as the first sung words from Beethoven's choral symphony.
1/17/14, 2:28 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
haha! Very amusing. I never said which planet (or solar system) I was speaking of... hehe! Planets and moons are probably as common as muck across the universe.
I am exhausted as I spent the afternoon successfully fitting another permanent high pressure sprinkler for bushfire purposes (digging trenches, installing rural plumbing and mucking around with pumps).
Not only do I have to consider potential future warlords and bush rangers, but also fires which more often than not have human origins. It was 43 degrees Celsius today (109.4F). This is the 5th day in a row with temperatures above 40 here. No wonder, I thought that I'd never seen these conditions before, because I hadn't in my lifetime.
Anyway, as you'd expect in these extreme weather conditions there are some monster fires in South Australia and also some pretty serious ones in western Victoria. Despite the fact that they are hundreds of kilometres away, the dense smoke is all about me and you can smell the fires.
Just in case anyone was thinking that these were small affairs, the photos speak a thousand words:
Grampians fire conditions the worst since Black Saturday
We do things big down under.
I have long since come to the conclusion that we here as a society are completely incapable of managing the forests as they need to be managed. It is only a moment in time, nature will sort it out and eventually we will recognise the need to manage the environment across the planet because we have no alternative. That’s where we are heading.
By the way, I respect the fact that you committed to a list of techniques. Most of them I adhere to here, it is a shame that other people are using a wait and see strategy. I can assure them that such a strategy is counterproductive when a crisis hits as it will dump them in with everyone else. Asking for help in a crisis puts a person at the wrong end of the bargaining arrangement. In our society as it stands, everyone has to sell something.
Hi Les,
Thanks for your thoughts. It has been as bad here as I could imagine. Most of the drought strategies are paying off. I'm glad to hear of your work in taking organics to the next level. Unfortunately, I'm a small holder and forest guardian here. Still the kangaroos, wallabies, wombats etc. all benefit. I've recently discovered the benefit of leaving a medium "soak" out for them at night. They love it.
Regards
Chris
1/17/14, 2:47 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Due to weather related circumstances, the reading of the comments has only just begun...
Hi Ray,
Quote: "When it comes to solar thermal I am concerned by how many gardening systems are dependent on fairly short lived plastic."
Exactly. That is why I wrote the article on planting densely. It has the exact same effect and doesn't cost you a cent. More importantly it is replicable using plants.
PS: I'm about to re-experiment with coffee bushes having learnt some serious lessons with the previous plants.
Regards,
Chris
1/17/14, 3:06 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Welcome to the dialogue. I recommend spending some time dwelling on the many failures of the Weimar Republic.
Germany has long energy and food supply lines and once a country has exceeded its carrying capacity, then without Oil, it can only promise a difficult future.
Regards
Chris
1/17/14, 3:23 AM
Karim said...
JMG You are quite right to say "if investing in PV or other green technologies becomes an excuse not to deal with the desperate need to conserve resources and use much less energy, then I'm far from sure that investing in PV is a good idea."
However it need not be so. Over the years, at least in Mauritius, I have noticed that the more society talks about and implements RE (inclusive of but not limited to PV) because of high energy prices, the more it becomes easier to talk about conservation, reduction in energy consumption and implementation of energy saving measures.
Some people here are beginning to openly question our hunger for ever more consumption, energy included and become more receptive to the need of actually reducing consumption levels.
In short, an all out drive towards all sorts of sustainable / green technologies whether low or high tech, large or small scale, imported or locally manufactured can and do spur an intelligent public discussion about lowering consumption, conservation and recycling. This public debate together with an honest assessment of what RE can or cannot do is to be commended.
There will be many failures, set backs and disappointments as the usual entrenched interests act to counter this drive and certain technologies fail, no doubt, but there is just one chance that this drive may smooth the way ahead by exploring different pathways.
And in the spirit of dissensus, all reasonable options ought to be explored for nobody knows which tools will work best at a given location.
Regards
1/17/14, 3:48 AM
Tyler August said...
This fellow made one. It's not exactly built to a heritage aesthetic, but it won't damage what's there, and has a certain steampunk charm. See: http://www.iwilltry.org/b/build-a-rocket-stove-for-home-heating/
@JMG: When you talk about saving things like movable type, it really brings home just how dark the coming dark age may be. I think the recovering society you showed in "Star's Reach" may have lulled me into a false impression of optimism.
1/17/14, 5:05 AM
Phil Harris said...
If I counted correctly there have been 8 major glaciations in the last 800,000 years. The land was re-colonised by plants each time during the inter-glacials - except for some stony ground in very inclement places. A lot of re-stocking came from 'refugia'; at least we know this for Europe. There are significant differences in tree diversity North / South, where typically tree species are many times fewer in the northern re-colonised zones (see boreal forests).
In Britain the diversity is very noticeable in inventories of total plant wild species. Britain has been at the boundary of successive glaciations. Very roughly 200+ species in a kilometre square in the north near latitude 56, and 400+ species only 600 Kilometres further south. (There is also a huge range in species / communities with slight changes in elevation in Britain, which equate to climate boundaries. Here in Scotland, the arctic is barely a 2 mile walk up any steep and high enough hillside. We still have alpine plants on some of our higher slopes.)
Evolution of individual species clearly goes back a lot further than a few ice ages. I have not looked for info on the evolution of for example redwood species adapted for fire-climax – but we must be looking at millions of years? The redwoods must have been able to compete for other reasons in very different environments that came and went in alternation with fire climax? These were wetter as well as warmer worlds if we go back more than a million years.
best
Phil H
1/17/14, 5:24 AM
raul parolari said...
1) Raul, I want you to stop and think about what you've just said, and why. It's absolutely standard these days... for people to come charging in, insisting that (insert unproven vaporware technology here) will, or can, or may save us
I did not come charging to sell vaporware. I pointed out that the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) is an interesting technology, and that the Chinese Academy of Sciences (with DOE and Berkeley Univ) is working on it. I even added: if (a big if) the technology is resurrected successfully, things could dramatically change.
2) Do you know what technical challenges and economic difficulties might be involved in trying to deploy thorium reactors on a large enough scale to make any difference?
First: the MSR technology is not a "cute idea"; the kernel was proven at ORNL in the 60s (by the same engineer who patented the LWR, Alvin Weinberg). The Chinese visited ORNL a few years ago and took a copy of all the documentation.
Now: it may take 7 years to build several prototypes (e.g., China completion date for prototypes is 2017 and 2020), and 10 years more to start mass production.
How many reactors would be needed? take as objective to replace Coal consumption. The world burns more than 1400 GWY of Coal per year.
How long would it take to replace that poison? if we installed a 1 GW MSR per Week, it would take 27 years.
I am aware that all this may be too late for our planet (as we know it), so it's just a possibility. In any case, good luck with your project, I enjoyed reading it.
1/17/14, 6:09 AM
RPC said...
1/17/14, 6:53 AM
DickLawrence said...
- Dick Lawrence
1/17/14, 6:55 AM
ozoner said...
Big thanks to you and your [rational] posters!
I am very encouraged to hear that some are interested in printing tech and have a question regarding that. Trippticket (of Small Batch Garden) was distressed that his precious reference library was being destroyed by mildew in the North Georgia woodlands. I'm wondering if anyone is studying a low-tech solution for preserving these paper treasures? (Sure, re-printing/copying, but there are sooooo many important works out there, I'm not sure that even a concerted, Apollo-Project style effort could get it all re-made before it turned to Earth-food.) I wonder how the Library of Congress keeps its' collection in good shape, but I would bet it's fairly energy intensive.
Thank you all for your practical inputs!
Ps. Last season was my first attempt at planting saved seed. It did very well; I'll do more.
Kathleen Q., just received a book called "True Brews" for making cider, beer, wine, sake, sody-pop, mead, kefir, and kombucha. Excellent and low-tech!
1/17/14, 7:19 AM
August Johnson said...
1/17/14, 7:27 AM
thrig said...
That modern society says yes, and eagerly courts such growth--well now, that might be telling.
1/17/14, 8:01 AM
Jim R said...
"Plastics."
In answer to your question, JMG, and given that I am convinced of most of your observations (we have had 40 years to 'get it right' after all) are correct, I keep looping back to acid-free parchment paper, heavy metal black ink, and shaped blocks of inexpensive low-melting bismuth alloys.
How much of Wikipedia can be distributed in this way, and what sort of time capsule would be needed? Cornerstone of a pyramid?
1/17/14, 8:48 AM
Greg Belvedere said...
I would appreciate any resources you could provide.
Also, I'm thoroughly enjoying Green Wizardry. I will definitely put the info to use when I move out of my overheated Brooklyn apartment this spring. With the exception of the coldest winter days I always have the windows open at least a crack and never need anything heavier than a t-shirt.
Though I have already started growing some sprouts and plan to pick up The Apartment Farmer if I can. I have some experience with organic gardening and composting. When I moved back in with my folks after college I had a nice garden for three years. I miss it terribly. So the resources you provide will definitely fill in some of the holes in my knowledge.
Also, as a librarian I look forward to reading some of the books you recommend on cybernetics etc.
1/17/14, 8:50 AM
Nastarana said...
I would particularly like to mention two of the sewing arts: crochet, which I am now learning. Crochet is a kind of knot making which is extremely versatile. Almost any string-like substance, from lace, to torn-up old clothing strips to various yarns can be crocheted into rugs, potholders and similar useful items. Now that we are going soon to be able to grow hemp again, perhaps we will see a revival of the art of ropemaking; I am afraid my fingers are too small and arthritic for that, but I can still manage various kinds of decorative braid.
I also suggest that sewers learn pattern drafting. Two good books are by Dorothy Moore and Donald McGunn. Both are OOP and were selling for from $10-$20 second hand the last time I looked. Wishful thinking to the contrary, tropical ethnic clothing styles are not practical in cooler climates, and, people do love the comfort of clothing which fits them exactly, as Ashley said above.
I also suggest that technical drawing is a skill which should be preserved. The textbooks and tools are still around, and the essential tools, T-square, dividers, compass, scale, etc., were well made from good materials and can last almost forever. Had the cathedral builders been able to use the techniques of drawing to scale, there might have been fewer collapses of towers than did happen.
1/17/14, 10:20 AM
thetinfoilhatsociety.com said...
I am teaching a beginning spinning class at the end of this month; I teach knitting and crochet, and am passing along my skills to my grand-daughter who is 4. I have also taught on of my DIL's to knit and give her hand spun to knit with.
I process cotton, flax, and wools of various breeds for different purposes (they aren't all the same!). I spin the fiber and then knit or weave with my yarns.
I sell many of my products but also gift many to those with an appreciation of the time and skill necessary to produce such useful items.
I have a firm commitment to participating in living history demonstrations and in any other venue where I can tell people the history of cloth and hopefully interest people in learning the skills themselves. I have even piqued the interest of more than one man in the technology of spinning wheels and inspired them to attempt making one themselves. They are quite high technology with deceptively simple parts.
My friends, family and co-workers all joke that if the apocalypse hits they're coming to our house because they'll be warm (wood stove), well fed (grow our own/preserve our own), and clothed.
JMG, there are a number of guilds and groups keeping these skills alive; you can find a list of them at http://www.weavespindye.org/local-guilds My guild, I am proud to say, is one of those listed.
I have to say, the act of crafting is a form of meditation for me and the plus is I get useful and beautiful items from my meditations.
1/17/14, 10:30 AM
Bogatyr said...
Not only is there no washing machine, there is no space where one could possibly be fitted. In the bathroom, I found a T-shaped wooden tool, used for agitating clothes so that they can be washed in the bath without bending over. I'm not very good at doing this, not having had much practice. Fortunately, this morning I discovered that this apartment complex has a central laundry, where residents can take their dirty clothes. Its fees are quite reasonable - but probably, Soviet citizens may have found them quite steep, and would have preferred to wash and dry their clothes in the apartment, as granny slept on the sofa and the kids amused themselves out on the streets somewhere...
Central St Petersburg, as I look at it out of the window here, is quite interesting. Nevsky Prospekt itself looks very prosperous these days, but even the major streets radiating off it have grand 18th or 19th century buildings with the plaster crumbling and the roofing entirely made of rusting corrugated iron. I begin to understand Dmitry Orlov's position rather better - and to know what slow collapse is going to look like back home...
1/17/14, 10:45 AM
redoak said...
That house built in 1763 has a lot of life left in it, so I built this new place with the intention that it too will be useful in 250 years.
1/17/14, 11:25 AM
Progress and Conserve said...
In the more homogenous communities of my youth, the law was generally enforced by one or a few men, equipped with guns and badges, to be sure - but mostly equipped with iron willpower, and the tacit support of the society at large.
But today, law enforcement has come to rely much more on technology, massive manpower, and SWAT operations employed freely. An energy-descending future is going to reverse all of this.
What started me thinking about this was Bill Pulliam's: "Marin -- ah, yes, that good old ideological apartheid. When you say "like minded" I am guessing you also mean "like-colored" and "of like socio-economic status" (yes, I have been there). No need to be molested by people who view the world differently than you do, no need to be concerned with folks who don't have sizable bank accounts. That is not the future, it is an escapist fantasy"
Bill, I disagree. Throughout history, people have lived in tribes or villages where most everyone was "like-colored" and of a similar (usually very low) socioeconomic status. I think the misty future will see most humans return to this, as prosperity ebbs.
Unless, that is, someone can devise a system of sustainable and very low-tech law enforcement - to hold down the property crimes AND to keep your various groups away from each other's throats.
And JMG, you'll want to ask what I'm doing now to help law enforcement transition to a lower energy future. I'll tell you, but in a later post. I think I'm about at the "blogger limit" for this one.
1/17/14, 11:38 AM
August Johnson said...
When Computers were Human
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7999.html
1/17/14, 11:53 AM
Roger said...
But especially growing food. Maybe it's easier in tropical or subtropical places where you throw down a handful of pumpkin seeds and in a few weeks pumpkins are taking over the world.
I'm having trouble picturing the new society and system of governance. The one I keep seeing is where the local authority, in the form a glorified warlord and a clique of thugs, extract half of what you grow as a tax. I can imagine the rationale ie to keep the peace, to maintain order, to administer justice, to provide for collective security. Because one thing is for sure, you won't be left alone to humbly go about your business. Somebody, whether you like it or not, will be on your case making demands backed by the threat of violence. Duly constituted authority is defunct? The Senate no longer meets? Something else will take their place.
Necessity will be the plea. And it will have the imprimatur of the local worthies. Be reasonable, they'll say, and pay up, it's for everyone's good. And do you know what will be most galling? You'll know the man, he'll have been your neighbor, you'll have grown up together, his wife will know your wife, his kids will know your kids. No matter, you'll pay. Everyone will.
1/17/14, 12:07 PM
Ruben said...
Ursula Franklin - Wikipedia
Both the print and audio versions of her Massey Lecture series, "The Real World of Technology" are absolutely excellent. She would classify religion and language as technologies, and regualrly asks, "Who controls this, and who does it benefit?"
"Franklin is best known for her writings on the political and social effects of technology. For her, technology is much more than machines, gadgets or electronic transmitters. It is a comprehensive system that includes methods, procedures, organization, "and most of all, a mindset".[5] She distinguishes between holistic technologies used by craft workers or artisans and prescriptive ones associated with a division of labour in large-scale production. Holistic technologies allow artisans to control their own work from start to finish. Prescriptive technologies organize work as a sequence of steps requiring supervision by bosses or managers.[6] Franklin argues that the dominance of prescriptive technologies in modern society discourages critical thinking and promotes "a culture of compliance".[7]
1/17/14, 12:07 PM
LewisLucanBooks said...
This is an English series from the good old BBC. A historian and two archaeologists live for a year on such farms. They're great overviews of how things were done in the past. I think the trick is to see what interests you and then go searching other places for depth. I have a good idea how tin was mined and smelted, and how to harvest copper nuggets from the outflow of old copper mines. How to make large quantities of charcoal.
But the sections on capturing wild yeast (for brewing or bread making) and the section on making clotted cream caught my attention and I'll give them a try this summer.
I also picked up an interesting book at a library sale. "The Forgotten Arts & Crafts" by John Seymour. Again, an English source. A nice overview of forgotten technologies and crafts.
1/17/14, 1:35 PM
Robert said...
On Germany's domination of the EU and the crisis of the Eurozone one potential solution might be to revisit the scheme proposed by the British economist Keynes at Bretton Woods in 1944, a scheme that was rejected by the USA who were determined to put the world on the dollar standard.
Keynes proposed a new neutral unit of international currency – the “Bancor” – and a new institution to manage it – International Clearing or Currency Union (ICU) All international trade would be measured in Bancors. Exporting would accrue Bancors, importing would expend Bancors. Nations would be expected to maintain, within a small percentage, a zero account with the ICU. Each nation’s Bancor account would be related to its national currency through a fixed but adjustable exchange rate.
Nations that imported more than they exported, debtor nations, would pay a small interest charge to the Clearing Union on their overdrawn account. This would encourage them to promote exports as well as a marginal currency devaluation. But equally nations that ran an aggressive trade policy and exported more than they imported would also be charged by the Clearing Union for their surplus account. This would encourage them to find ways to spend their excess Bancors back into debtor nations or gradually lose that surplus. These charges were intended not so much as a deterrant or punishment but as a benign feedback mechanism ensuring that over time trade would remain in balance.
If Greece and the other weaker countries were allowed to restore their national currencies but were part of Keynesian type European Currency Union with the remaining Eurozone the currency problem and the chronic trade deficits with Germany could be resolved.
It would also be in the interests of the US to cooperate with the BRICs and the EU and agree to a Keynesian ICU for the global economy. As things stand the dollar's role as world reserve currency is not sustainable and if an ICU were set up the US would be cushioned against a potential collapse of the dollar with devasting effects on the US economy.
In my view it is only the US military that maintains the dollar's role. It's interesting that the only thing the Axis of Evil nations had in common when they were first labelled such was using the euro to denominate their bank reserves and do all their overseas trading and shopping. At one stage, Venezuela and OPEC also considered switching to euros.
The Eurozone crisis has already led to the rise of neo Nazis in Greece and could give rise to terrorism in the Meditteranean countries. The global competition between the dollar, euro and yuan could lead to war. A Keynesian ICU might avoid a lot a people getting killed.
1/17/14, 1:38 PM
onething said...
"At what point would lower more human and earth friendly technology be expected to replace corporate resource intensive technologies? It seems to me our economy and culture will not allow any shift in the way things are done until long after the need becomes apparent. As things are now a dark age will be well under way before any sustainable technologies emerge."
I think about this and see this as being the case all the time. It adds yet another layer of surreality to my perception of life in this society.
Cherokee,
I wrote you an answer to your questions about vegetable gardens at the end of last week's post.
The hottest temp I remember living in was 115 in central California as a teenager, in the 70s.
1/17/14, 1:41 PM
streamfortyseven said...
Also, here's more information - during WWII, this species was cultivated in the US as well, producing about 45 kg of rubber per acre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum_kok-saghyz
1/17/14, 1:54 PM
Fidelius said...
I tend to interpret this as a moral superiority complex: Pointing out what others should do (but aren't doing) can feel incredibly good. Until the others actually start doing what you pointed out. Now they've taken away your moral superiority. Who do they think they are? Quickly, tell them it's all wrong and futile anyway so you can feel morally superior again! Ha, that'll show them!
On a more serious note: I'm quite sure the German think tanks involved in the energy transition are acutely aware that our current energy habits cannot possibly be sustained with renewables. In 2010 a study on peak oil by a Bundeswehr think tank was leaked and made the rounds in the media (if anyone is interested, simply google "german military peak oil study"). It shows that the German military (and, by extension, the German government) have a very clear understanding of peak oil and its dire consequences (the government wisely chose not to comment on the study at all). Still, something like the energy transition has to be sold to the masses somehow without causing panic or despair. The claim that everything will be alright and we can continue to consume as before is a sales pitch, nothing more. Keep calm and build windmills.
What else should they do? Nothing, like all the others?
1/17/14, 2:30 PM
Moshe Braner said...
Also, even thought I grew up dabbling with vacuum tubes and thus they're nostalgic to me, I am quite aware that their high power requirements are rather inconvenient in a future without the electrical grid. Even industrially produced miniaturized tubes optimized for lower power use are orders of magnitude more power hungry than transistors.
As an aside, JMG, are you going to join the recent flurry in the peakoilblogdom of writings on "collapse on demand"?
1/17/14, 2:35 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Deedl, I'm uncomfortable with the thought of giving you a lesson in your own cultural history, so I'll simply encourage you to look up the bog-standard German rhetoric about "the Anglo-Saxon cultural circle" between 1871 and 1914, and note the similarities to your post. That said, if that's not what you had in mind, fair enough; I admit I was nettled by the bland arrogance of your assumption that I couldn't possibly be familiar with any language but the one I grew up with. That comment of yours would have been gauche under any conditions; given that I've just spent a year talking about Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler, it was really quite uncommonly rude.
Tom, those are excellent points. One of the major challenges to be faced by health care in the deindustrial future is the need for health care providers to back out of the current fetish for hyperspecialization and get back to plenty of general practitioners and a few specialists.
K-dog, that's why it's up to us -- individuals who see the need and are willing to invest their own time and effort -- to make the thing happen now, while there's still time to save much of what's currently known.
Anonymous JLE, yes, that's one of the things that solar power proponents usually forget -- just how much energy it takes to manufacture a PV cell. As for the story, I don't recall anything by Ellison like that -- are you possibly thinking of Asimov's "The Feeling of Power," which has a similar plot?
Boddah Meep, I've seen Shaolin shovel forms; I don't know that I'd call them sneaky, as they're well designed to reduce an opponent to bloody chunks, but they'd certainly do the trick.
Irishwildeye, excellent. Glad to hear it.
Joel, of course it'll require sorting and a fair amount of the sort of hands-on knowledge any craft picks up. "Now you don't just throw bottles like this into the crucible," the master says to the apprentice; "you have to crush it, and mix it with some of this sand over here, and then you get something you can use..."
Mkroberts, yes, there's also that little point! As for glass, granted, that could be a bottleneck, but there may be ways around that; the sooner it gets some serious attention from green tech types, the better.
1/17/14, 2:54 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Parenthetically, I take a wry amusement in the way that Hesse so often got (and gets) dismissed as an impractical dreamer disconnected from the real world. In 1914, he predicted that the war would be a disaster for Germany; by the early 1920s -- you'll find this in Steppenwolf, for example -- he was already saying that what passed for German patriotism at that point was driving Germany straight toward a second war that would be even more disastrous than the first; in The Glass Bead Game, he predicted that the wars of the 20th century would end European global dominance and reduce Europe's nations to minor players in global politics. The soi-disant "hardheaded realists" dismissed all these predictions -- and we've seen who turned out to be right...
Cherokee, that's got to be grim. Stay safe!
Karim, that's very good to hear. Here the US, unfortunately, most people treat PV and other green energy options as excuses not to conserve.
Tyler, remember that Star's Reach is well along the curve of recovery, long after the really harsh times of the drought years or the Third Civil War and its aftermath. I'll be discussing dark ages in more detail as we proceed.
Phil, it's similar here, though there are inescapable differences generated by the location and orientation of mountain ranges.
Raul, until it's proven to be commercially and economically viable, it's vaporware. Plenty of technically feasible processes are expensive toys or irrelevancies because they can't be used in a manner that will pay for itself. The core point I was trying to make, though, is that what you did here is something that happens whenever anybody tries to have a serious discussion about the aftermath of the industrial age, and what to do about it: instead of contributing to that discussion, people try to derail it by waving around some technology or other that can save us all, blah blah blah. That's an evasion, not a contribution.
RPC, that's a complicated issue. Of course fossil fuels also get subsidies, but for the most part, they have vastly better EROEIs than renewables do. A case can be made that subsidies for fossil fuels are mostly there to line the pockets of the rich, while subsidies for renewables in many cases are the only things that make renewables economically viable at all.
Dick, I'm going to repeat my recommendation of Pete Friedrich's book Instruments of Amplification, which presents several handbuilt vacuum tubes that don't require tungsten filaments, and several other ways of amplifying that don't use tubes at all. There are other ways of doing the thing!
Ozoner, damp climates are hard on paper, no question. I don't know a lot about the best ways to counter that, but it's an issue that needs to be explored.
August, I thought so. Thanks for the details!
Thrig, good. Will you study ropemaking and post something about it to the Green Wizards forum?
1/17/14, 3:09 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Greg, heck of a good question, to which I don't know the answer. Anyone else?
Tinfoil, I'm impressed by the number of fiber-art craftspeople who have popped up in response to this post! (My wife, who teaches drop-spindle spinning at the local yarn shop, is delighted as well; she says it's great that more people who work with fiber are realizing that what they're doing isn't just a hobby, but a contribution to the future as well.) Yes, yes, and yes; all of this is worth doing.
Progress, good. Yes, I will indeed ask that, and look forward to hearing from you.
Roger, take a moment sometime to calculate how much of your income gets paid out in taxes and other payments to government at all levels, national, state, and local. Your average medieval peasant paid considerably less of his annual in-kind income to the local baron and the church. One of the reasons that feudalism takes off so quickly and so reliably in the aftermath of a failed civilization is that the local baron normally charges much less for his services than the late and not always lamented empire charged for the equivalent. More on this as we proceed...
Ruben, interesting. I'm not at all sure I agree with her use of the word, but her concepts are certainly worth exploring.
1/17/14, 3:17 PM
Enrique said...
A professor of mine once argued that much of the social welfare system and so-called “affirmative action” programs are essentially the result of the government buying peace by bribing potentially aggrieved elements of society into not rioting or challenging the status quo. He also argued that much of what passes for politics these days is essentially political economy, that is to say, who gets the goodies and who has to pay the price.
As recent riots in London, Paris and Stockholm show, that seems to be not working as well as it used to, and I think we see a lot more that sort of ethnically motivated conflict in Europe, America and elsewhere. As the Long Descent continues, governments will be less and less able to keep the peace using this approach because the funds and resources will no longer be there. We will have to return to a community based model, those communities will be much more homogeneous, will be based on a firm set of cultural and moral values, and those who either cannot or will not abide by the values of their community will have to leave or pay a heavy price for not doing so. There will no doubt be many such communities living side by side, but within a given community, there will be a lot less “diversity” and a lot less tolerance for criminal, deviant and antisocial behavior and behavior which violates the social norms of that community.
The sort of mass immigration and enforced multiculturalism and “diversity” (which is really nothing more than a weasel word for the socially destructive racial, ethnic and gender politics of the radical Left) that we see today is going to cause huge conflicts, even civil wars and insurgencies, in the not so distant future in many countries. It’s only due to the fossil fuels boom and the things it made possible that the leftists and liberals could indulge their utopian fantasies, including those of an egalitarian society, which has never existed on the face of the Earth and never will. Even hunter-gatherer tribes tended to be dominated by a small group of tribal elders and often warred with other tribes. It’s just the way things are.
We should and will return to smaller, decentralized political structures, and yes, communities that are based on ethnic ties, in part because the ethnic, racial and religious conflicts will be too severe to manage otherwise in the absence of the Leviathan state.
1/17/14, 3:25 PM
K!EF said...
Well, I wouldn't call it studying yet, rather familiarizing myself with the subject (workshop & reading). I went to Layla's workshop last year and was astonished to hear how toxic our urban/ backyard soils can be due lead paint (used a few decades ago) and other hidden remnants. This was quite eye opening and made me aware how ill equipped our communities are to deal with this legacy on a low tech basis.
So its on my list of things I am learning about in more detail, together with biodynamic's, Victor Schauberger's understanding of farming and forestry and other "ancient" technics of healing/ working the land.
On a different note: I've heard now several times that some biodynamic farms were tested (by university scientist's) for nuclear radiation after Tschernobyl, but the Geiger counter didn't pick up any radiation there, although on the neighbors field it did. I don't have reliable source for this claim other than hearsay. Are you aware of these claims?
1/17/14, 3:44 PM
Joseph Nemeth said...
A quibble, but it's important to diagnose dysfunctions correctly. This implies that the politicos are deluded and somewhat stupid, which seems to be true enough, but it implies that they could be educated out of the dilemma.
They cannot, because that's not the problem. The problem is that you can't turn local resilience into big business, by its very nature, and at this point, none of the national players are the least bit interested in anything that isn't big business.
Even if the politicos are completely aware of the dilemma, they don't have any choice: to do anything other than fawn over the big campaign spenders means their tenure in office is over. Nor do the big campaign spenders have a lot of choice: promoting local resilience means loss of company income. Those who are bound to "fiduciary responsibility" to their shareholders, cannot legally make sound long-term choices for the future, if it means a dip in short-term profits: they, likewise, will be fired for that sort of behavior.
Which merely underlines your primary thesis, which is that it's up to localities to embrace local resilience -- as is fitting, since it hardly makes sense for local resilience to rely upon federal grants.
Locals should understand, however, that the national level of politics and business will be a cold and steady wind in their faces, and it will get stronger and colder in direct proportion to their success. I'd even venture to guess that if local resilience becomes robust enough, it will be denounced as unpatriotic, and perhaps even as terrorist activity.
1/17/14, 3:46 PM
Ian Stewart said...
It's also interesting to read Bill's comments about the west coast fish populations being repopulated from the sea. The Delta water supply controversy was partly predicated by a judge's ruling that the endangered Delta smelt was being killed by the pumps which provide much of the San Joaquin Valley, and there's also concern about the population of salmon spawning on the Sacramento River. The San Joaquin River is pretty much innavigable in the northern part of the valley, and even if industrial-grade irrigation tapered off, climate trends make me wonder if that would really change.
1/17/14, 3:51 PM
Adrian Ayres Fisher said...
Hi Chris,
Wishing you all the best as you confront the dangerous heat and threat of fire.
Regards,
Adrian
1/17/14, 3:55 PM
Joseph Nemeth said...
They're easy to make, and are excellent accumulators: you can spend an hour on a bicycle spinning one up, and then throw the clutch and use up all that energy in a fraction of a second -- that's a lot of power. It's also fairly easy to charge in parallel -- many people riding bicycles for an hour, say.
The issue you'll find with existing flywheel technology is that it's trying to duplicate the feats of the dead dinosaurs (oil) and compete in the big business environment. It's not enough to make a decent flywheel that serves a purpose: it has to compete with an electric motor attached to a gasoline-powered generator, AND you have to be able to standardize it and sell one to everyone for all possible uses. So "modern tech" in flywheels tends to be experimental, using extremely dense, high-tensile strength materials spinning at ridiculous speeds, which introduces a lot of problems, including substantial property damage if one of them ever locks up its bearings.
You'll never find one of those in a low-energy future, nor much need for one.
1/17/14, 4:07 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
1/17/14, 4:11 PM
Ian Stewart said...
1/17/14, 5:13 PM
Enrique said...
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4374/immigration_a_denial_of_democracy
Of course, it’s not just the UK, but countries throughout Europe, from Spain and Greece to Sweden and Finland, that are facing these issues, and the policies of the EU and the liberal elites have made things far worse. This is an issue that isn’t going away, no matter how much the liberals and leftists try to delude themselves and everyone else, and it will probably end being settled like it usually has in the past, through inter-communal violence and warfare.
1/17/14, 5:36 PM
Unknown said...
I lament the potential loss of photography. I find the early history of photography and its resurgence as an artform endlessly fascinating. It is possible to brew your own "film" and printing paper, some of it is relatively low tech. Quality lenses last a long time. Am working on a home built view camera with a 1950's lens from a design popularized in the 1890s.
Likewise, I dearly love the pigments that came to the fore with industrial chemistry such intense blues, greens, reds, oranges, purples so intense they come out of the tube looking black...
1/17/14, 5:54 PM
Luckymortal said...
As such, once you look past the most basic level, you find how hard it is to use those sources if you would prefer to avoid one of the vices above.
If you have the answers here, you have something that no one in the sizable group of homesteaders and farmers (including 3 generations in my own family) that I've talked to in 10 years study of the subject have figured out yet.
I'm assuming you source 100% of your food in such a way?
1/17/14, 7:22 PM
Robert said...
Interesting about the Bundeswehr report. I attended a public talk given by retired British general Sir Mike Jackson - the same guy who refused to obey Wesley Clark's orders to take military action against the Russians when they sent paratroopers into Kosovo during the 1999 Kosovo war and by doing so averted potential catastrophe - and the subject of energy came up. He asked us to imagine flicking the switch and the light not coming on. So yes the military everywhere are well award of Peak Oil.
He also said the politicians are incapable of thinking more than three months ahead.
1/17/14, 7:22 PM
John Franklin said...
See Robert Peel's police system, which seems to have (at least in Britain) worked better than the currently used model, before it was foolishly replaced by Unit Beat Policing in the 1960s. It was imperfect. Everything is. But that said, it worked with half as many police per person, and none of the fleets of gas guzzlers needed by our current police force.
Peter Hitchens writes at length about it in "The Abolition of Liberty". My view is that something like this would stand a much better chance of surviving the Long Descent than today's system of policing.
1/17/14, 7:55 PM
August Johnson said...
As I mentioned to JMG, soon I'll have a lending library of books including the License Manuals. Not everybody needs to keep the manual after they get the license. Some may chose to buy and pass it on when they're finished, others just need to borrow one to study or see if it's something they're interested in.
1/17/14, 9:35 PM
mkroberts said...
Permaculture, particularly forest gardens, would be useful to pass down. Working with, rather than against nature, would certainly be preferable to what civilisations usually end up doing.
Humans, of course, will go extinct some day, and any passed down knowledge will be lost. Maybe we shouldn't be trying to pass down anything other than basic survival knowledge (which isn't don't now). That got humans to and through past civilisations. Anything more might be a bonus but wouldn't that be icing rather than the cake?
Having said that, I'd love one piece of technology to persist. That is the making of good quality acoustic instruments. We can always sing, of course, but having some other way of making music would certainly be a big boost to any communities that make it through the bottleneck.
1/17/14, 10:59 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
> planting the vegetables in a rather haphazard and random pattern.
That will make it a confusing place for garden predators at the same time as teaching you plant identification. The article also provided other good reasons for doing this strategy.
> Don't I have to plan some pathways to get around?
Of course. Walking through a garden bed eventually compacts the soil, which destroys the air in it and makes it susceptible to anaerobic bacteria (not what you or your plants want). You can just throw in a few pavers and walk on them, or put paths through like I do here.
> so that you have a younger set and not all things ripening at once
Yeah. In natural systems not everything ripens at once. This also confuses garden predators because they follow cycles and you are restricting their food supply. Everything ripening at once is good for commercial growers, but rubbish for the home gardener. Why would I want 50kg of tomatoes in one week, when they can ripen over many months?
> perhaps it won't be necessary to carefully rotate crops
Eventually you have to rotate crops. But if everything self-seeds it will find a natural balance. You just have to plant species like mustard for example which fumigates soil. Also deep rooted perennials like comfrey which bring up to the surface minerals and nutrients. Go for maximum diversity and you avoid problems. No one ever actively went out and fertilised a natural forest or grassland (yes, people did manage those ecosystems though) and yet they continue to grow. Mimic nature, it'll save you work.
> about the strip mining
See the above comment. Plant foxgloves, comfrey, borage, lucerne in amongst your vegetables and you avoid this problem. It just doesn't look like what people think it should. There is a whole world of plants to choose from and anything that is undemanding and grows of its own accord is probably building top soil.
> pretty well obsessed with my flower garden
Yeah, they're nice and all, but why not chuck some vegetables into the mix. Carrot flowers aren't small and they provide feed for beneficial insects. Dill is amazing looking.
If you don't let some of your vegetables self-seed then you have to buy in seed every single season. That is getting tricked by business. Self-sown vegetables here are earlier, hardier and just as tasty (if not more in some cases) than seedlings. You have to start somewhere though.
I'm suggesting both.
Good luck and keep us updated.
Chris
1/17/14, 11:27 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
Top work. Your activities have a long history in the UK.
Hi Richard,
Well done. It is a good strategy. Someone once told me you plant a pear tree for your children.
Hi Adrian,
Thanks for your thoughts.
Regards
Chris
1/17/14, 11:30 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
Thanks for your thoughts. I survived here unscathed, so far.
There were a few fruit tree deaths, but it is usually the first year trees, any that were moved, or any that were previously "pruned" by stumpy the house wallaby - the nemesis of all fruit trees.
This week, I'll be continuing the process of putting the farm into drought mode. Climate weirding threw me for a six (cricket reference) as it was completely surprising how quickly the local climate could deteriorate during a season. The next week looks like it will be a lot cooler. Water infrastructure of all varieties is critical here for me, the plants and the animals.
It is still really smoky here too.
As an interesting side issue which is relevant to this weeks essay, there has been a bit of discussion on the renewable energy forums about how peoples equipment de-rated in the extreme heat. De-rating means that the systems throttled the capacities to reduce the heat stress on the electronics.
The stuff I use here is locally manufactured and rated to continue working up to an ambient temperature of 55 degrees Celsius (131F). The people on the forum look down upon the equipment I use because it is considered clunky and old tech. However, under extreme conditions it continues performing. The controllers have no fans - which can fail - just really massive heat sinks.
I'm not gloating, but the people seriously confuse efficiency with resilience. I'm starting to think that the simpler a technology is, the longer its useful lifespan will be.
When it cools down - during winter - hopefully I'll get a chance to start looking into QRP low-power transmitter and receiver technology.
I'm really enjoying this essay and the discussions it has engendered.
Gotta bounce,
Chris
1/17/14, 11:52 PM
wall0159 said...
Great essay. I think it's a little on the negative side. While I accept that we _have_ to take a huge cut to our collective energy consumption, I'm not convinced that it _has_ to mean the end of industrial civilisation.
I think an interesting attempt at doing the sums can be found in this free book:
http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html
I think the author does a good job of conveying the difficulties (he does the numbers) to be faced in moving to a stable society from where we are now, while also showing that it is yet possible.
This does not mean that every (or, indeed, any) country will actually do what is needed -- as you have observed, there are many examples of societies who have chosen to perish rather than change their cherished beliefs. But I think it does show that it is possible, and that we _could_ still do it, if we had the collective will power. I think it's _possible_ that Europe and China are doing what is needed.
btw. in this hypothetical future, I don't believe each house would necessarily have a car, A/C or a computer. But I think society as a whole might maintain some kind of high-tech manufacturing. I think the numbers in "Without The Hot Air" support this.
(I'd be interested to hear some critiques of this book, if anyone has read it and has an informed opinion)
Thanks,
1/18/14, 12:50 AM
Compound F said...
Myself, I prefer reason to hatred, but I suppose I know something of hatred, as well, just to cap-off Frost's little gem.
On the other, How does one explain the beauty of the moonlight in the pines? Ray Charles.
This "transition" is going to be a shock.
1/18/14, 12:52 AM
dltrammel said...
(I've been debating posting for about two days now, reading the replies.)
I see alot of people posting how they are learning skills that WE are going to need in a World Gone Harsh. Yet 90% of you I have never seen post to the greenwizard forum.
You talk the talk, yet don't walk the walk.
AKA, you want the recognition of learning the skill but don't want to expend the energy to share it. You post here about the thing you are learning yet in the Long Descent, skills know by one are useless.
The Green Wizard site is getting a complete reboot in the next few months, and a few of us are working our asses off to help the millions out there who need our help and knowledge.
If you are in your basement doing skills, yet never share, then honestly.....shame on you.
1/18/14, 2:32 AM
sunseekernv said...
re CdTe and Energy Payback Time calcs
If you want to do these studies well, you probably need to be a recognized academic with no axe to grind/no interest in other PV companies. Otherwise you have to use public data, which are more questionable than going directly to the companies.
Since you're not in that category (if you were, you wouldn't need to ask the question), I'd start with the comments/bibliography here (though it's from early 2012):
http://www.csp.fraunhofer.de/aktuelles/details/id/47/
Many of the articles will be behind paywalls, and I doubt there are many here besides myself who shell out the $2737/year for a subscription to Progress in Photovoltaics, or the $4K for Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, or even the few hundred for Photon International magazine, or even know about to read PVTech online (http://www.pv-tech.org) for free.
Sidenote: they allow anyone - for free - to look at the "top" papers from the recent European Photovoltaic Energy Conference for 2013,
at least thru the end of 2014. (note only a few papers are up yet - and the selection is limited - feh!).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291099-159X/homepage/eu_pvsec_2013_papers.htm
This micro-grid paper about India is interesting from what would a village of poor folks do with a bit of PV
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.2429/full
Anyway - how to get papers if you don't have access and don't feel like shelling out the typical $39.95 per paper.
You search for the exact title, or a phase from the title (or abstract - since the abstracts are all online) and the main author's name.
So then you'll get search results of:
* bootleg copies - which one ignores unless one chooses to do otherwise.
* essentially the same paper that the author(s) presented at another conference/published elsewhere
* the author's courtesy stash "for personal, non-commercial use only"
So for example, item 12 is behind the paywall at ProgPV, but a search for that title turns up:
http://elnostrefuturenergetic.cat/tutenslaparaula/images/pdf/ScientificPaperonPV.pdf
Almost the same authors, instead of a published version from 2011, this is from the EUPVSEC from 2009,
so a bit older. But since science is an evolutionary thing (mostly), things probably didn't change all that much, or if they did, it's almost always to the established trend (e.g. PV got cheaper).
So, long story coming to point, EPBT (Energy Payback Time) under a year for CdTe ground mount systems.
That's a 20+:1 EROEI.
Seems like one could at least breed replacements for PV at those rates. Most EROEI studies I've seen claim around 5:1 to maintain, and 10:1 to grow societies.
Crystalline silicon has come down to about a year lately too.
(But not during land rush conditions, where newbies paid twice price for junk that failed early. My copy of Prieto & Hall is on order.)
1/18/14, 3:45 AM
The Croatoan 117 said...
1/18/14, 4:29 AM
Greg Belvedere said...
1/18/14, 5:51 AM
thecrowandsheep said...
A number a people have questioned for what purpose primitive calculation could be deployed.
The first numerical weather prediction forecast, by pencil-paper-slide rule combo, was undertaken by Lewis Fry Richardson during World War I in between hauling bodies from trenches to hospital units (now that is a scientist!). Richardson estimated that one would need tens of thousands of human calculators to give a useful forecast before the weather arrived as Richardson's own forecast of 6 hours took weeks to complete. This was not viable until von Neumann put his ENIAC machine to work 30 years later using a stripped down version of Richardson's own equations.
Perhaps it is possible to produce a viable forecast using even a more minimalist weather model with a slide rule, and with what we know today about the weather? Perhaps a network of that neolithic technology, the barometer, could be maintained and communicated with a bunch of Greer's radios to provide the intial conditions? Or are more traditional methods ranging from the mythological to the graphical to the statistical (which is sometimes a complete connected circle) more realistic?
The real question though is whether any systematic weather forecast is terribly high up on the list of necessities going forward? It is quite possible that a weather forecast is an industrial-era luxury that doesn't work perfectly anyway and can be essentially papered over with a bit of know-how, experience (climate change?) and an umbrella.
1/18/14, 6:34 AM
sunseekernv said...
"So far, though, PV cells require chip fabrication plants with clean rooms, …"
I can accept the rest, but this is just wrong. One does not need (or want!) a semiconductor grade clean room to make PV. A clean-enough-for-PV "clean room" is trivial. A class 1 or better cleanroom for the latest ICs is a monster. Nor does one need the vast majority of equipment/processes needed for modern ICs, to make solar cells.
What would you say to someone saying you can't do spagyrics because you don't have the high tech facilities that Amgen or Gilead Sciences have, complete with a formal Good Manufacturing Process program and an Atomic Adsorption Spectrometer for Quality Control of the ash.
You'd likely say something like I only need to ash some plant pulp and evaporate the water from the soluble salts (for example) without contaminating it with wood smoke. I don't need an anaerobic bioreactor or DNA sequencing machine or rooms of lab animals, etc. etc.
Have you read this yet?:
http://thingsidlikepeopletoknow.blogspot.com/2013/10/krampus-wish-list-photovoltaics.html
(I see I need to fix my "tube radios need 10s of watts" in view of the Russian thermo-electric generator on a lamp thing - a couple of watts will do for some tube radios).
One of the references therein has videos of PV wafer processing - note the room and the operators. NO bunny suits - not even hair covers, NO raised floors with holes in them for laminar flow exhaust, NO banks of filters overhead to provide ultra clean air. Just a rather plain industrial building.
http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/manufacturing/emitter-diffusion
That site has more videos of other steps. Asides from some automation/robotics, it's just not very high-tech, and no clean room/photolithography is in evidence.
I wish I could find some pictures from the 50th anniversary (2004) of the silicon solar cell of the guys making them - guys dressed in shirts and ties - no cleanroom whatsoever in evidence (1950s).
PV making is not low tech for sure (?mid tech?).
But if one can make steam engines -> steel cylinders->compressors and vacuum pumps…, and do megawatt scale electricity for some hours, one ought to be able to do silicon PV.
n.b.
There are 300+ Gigawatt of wind turbines running in the world today, and more than 100 GW of PV.
300 Gigawatts is 400 Million horsepower.
http://www.wwindea.org/webimages/Half-year_report_2013.pdf
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/02/100-gw-of-solar-pv-now-installed-in-the-world-today
The hundreds of thousands of people involved in those industries have great incentive to grow/maintain them. Will they face obstacles as oil runs short - of course, "adjustments" will have to be made... But will they just give up without a fight - not likely. But they're not going to need (semiconductor grade) clean rooms to make PV.
"...in that case someone needs to get to work on it right away…"
Well, I know (of) hundreds of people doing just that, and I'm doing some self-funded research to do it even more.
re glassmaking
While the Greeks didn't have glass windows (only glass vessels, often opaque), the Romans did - even in Britain.
These folks (did) offer lessons/do research/reproductions in the UK.
http://www.romanglassmakers.co.uk/index.htm
Videos of one of these guys (unfortunately not making window glass):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ8jjcOGAdA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMNIEfo6vZY
Another book for my list:
The Glass Workers of Roman London
1/18/14, 7:03 AM
Luckymortal said...
7 or 8 years back, I had the opportunity to lead an ongoing discussion on this topic, which included subsistence farmers from truly non-western, isolated tribal regions of Argentina, Mexico and Honduras. It was interesting to learn that their approach to food was basically similar to our North American Native approach, or to the "pottage-centered" approach of medieval European peasants. Or really, any community that has to grow most of its own food and is pressed (or values) time, like Dogen's culinary prescriptions in medieval Japan.
So, of course, applying that approach, I can claim to have grown 100% of my own food last year, but to have been too spoiled to take advantage of it. I'm sure many homesteaders can make the same claim. It can be used for anything you can grow, forage or hunt, and requires NO storage processing and minimal preparation labor.
But a "bread and pottage" diet isn't likely to win over many to the cause of sustainable living. And providing calories becomes a major problem.
I cannot fathom that grains will continue to be a major part of our diet in North America. Even if I assume that we're only going to attempt to keep a tiny fraction of our population going, I can't imagine us growing as much grain as was grown in our pioneer era on our now depleted soils, under climate stress, and current levels of ecosystem degredation. Impossible.
Unfortunately, the meat-heavy diets implied by the AMAZING farming experimentation of Joel Salatin or Mark Sheppard seem equally unsustainable. First, these methods are heavily energy dependent. But more importantly, their "multi-level marketing" business model should be a huge clue that they haven't found something sustainable. And finally, can you imagine a North American diet where meat is an EVEN BIGGER percentage of the diet than what we eat now?
So I have focused on the diets experimented with by Ecology Action as the best way forward. We use plans similar to that provided in One Circle Garden to ensure food autonomy and limit our growing time requirements. Next, we use extensive methods to add variety to our diets. This is very similar to the hedgerow culture of England, or really the foraging cultures throughout Europe. And still, turning all the stuff we grow into FOOD, minus the "bread and pottage" approach, in a sensible amount of time is difficult. I cannot yet imagine a culture that can do this and sustain the amount of specialization necessary to maintain our critical multi-generational projects, such as dangerous nuclear infrastructure, etc.
1/18/14, 7:13 AM
Nestorian said...
I was using the word "technology" in an analogous sense, much in the same way that the word "illness" is used analogously in the phrase "mental illness" (though psychiatrists are unwilling to cop to this, since they would lose their medical franchise if they admitted that mental "illness" is not illness in quite the same sense as are diabetes and heart disease).
If a technology in the literal sense refers to a set of practices that aim to transform the physical world in accordance with human wants and needs, based on underlying (physical or scientific) principles, then I think such a definition can be very readily extended in an analogous way to the spiritual realm: A lived spirituality refers to a set of practices that aim to transform one's inner world in accordance with human wants and needs, based on underlying (moral and spiritual) principles.
1/18/14, 7:51 AM
Lunchista said...
1/18/14, 8:03 AM
Roger said...
For example, are military expenditures worthwhile? Many people see the US military as a force for global order. I see it mostly as a gigantic waste of money.
Global order? The US fleet runs hither and yon with dozens of aircraft carriers and nuclear armed submarines. What good are they? Everyone knows the nuclear arsenal is for show.
Sanctions? Iranian mullahs laugh in their beards. As for this current Iranian charm offensive, everybody's in stitches. And I'll bet these current "negotiations" have them rolling in the aisles in Teheran. And not only in Teheran. I mean, who are we kidding? Was the eventual outcome - an Iranian nuclear stockpile - ever in doubt?
Around the South China Sea the local regimes are hoping hopelessly for American help because it isn't coming. They will confront China - or not - on their own. The realization must be dawning on them. Blue State Americans (who at least in their own minds are highly educated and knowledgeable about the wider world) are running foreign policy for now. And, from that lofty perspective, is the South China Sea, or Syria for that matter, worth the bones of even one misguided and ignorant Red State patriot? No chance.
As for the Palestinians and Israelis, can they even keep a straight face when Hillary or John go over to talk sense?
The US "supports" this or that kleptocratic despot? So what, it's all a waste of money, the regimes in question don't need American "support". They have more than enough money of their own.
You could go on forever on the waste and the pointlessness.
How will it be in the future? I'm not optimistic. It may be cheaper for a local Baron to run things but I have a feeling they'll still find ways to really annoy their subjects. I think they'll go from whacking jihadis overseas to whacking people on their own soil. Nothing like a good rampage. This is what people do.
But, as you say, more on this as we proceed. I look forward to it.
1/18/14, 9:54 AM
Phil Harris said...
Wikipedia is not bad for an overview. My experience with laboratory centriges suggests that over about 12,000 rpm you need a vacuum to counteract air friction.At that speed if the rotor is heavy it needs heavy armour casing for safety.
But they are being used - see wikipedia - and quote: "Flywheels built as part of James Watt steam engines have been continuously working for more than two hundred years."
best
Phil
1/18/14, 10:14 AM
LewisLucanBooks said...
As part of that section, there was about a 15 minute segment on "rope walks." The ways the Edwardians created enough rope for fishing and fishing vessels. It was a nice little introduction. Showed how it was done and the resulting product. Plus the "amateurs" gave it a try.
That's what I like about the series. Now, given my age and singularity, there's a lot that I won't incorporate into my ever lower tech life. But I like the many possibilities presented. And, there's plenty of small thrifty tips and ways of doing things that I do incorporate into my life.
1/18/14, 10:17 AM
Joseph Nemeth said...
The next step is to realize that if you're inventing a "new" tech for a low-energy future, or recovering an "old" tech, it is NOT going to be competitive. In fact, it's going to look like a ton of hard work to use it, produces inferior results, and is not economical.
Its time has not yet come.
I think JMG's point may be a bit more subtle. I think he's raising the question of what from our time/culture/technology is worth preserving, not so much for survival on the long bump down, but for rebuilding on the far side. Or just because it's worth preserving, period.
I suspect it's a fairly small list.
Here's an equivalent kind of gedankenexperiment (hypothetical). Imagine the ancient high civilization of the Lemurians, who used unicorn horn powder to power great engines of magic, flying carpets, ambrosia, music that springs from the air itself, etc.
But they hunted all the unicorns to absolute extinction long ago, and there is no more unicorn horn dust to be had. Ever.
What elements from their culture and civilization would have been worth preserving for us?
Designs for flying carpets are pointless. That technology no longer works, and will never work again. We can't perform their music because we can't make the magical instruments. We cannot brew ambrosia. Anything once touched by unicorn horn powder as part of its tool chain is most likely gone forever. All their art and philosophy foolishly presumed an endless supply of magic, and now, makes no sense at all.
What makes sense to preserve from the Age of the Lemurians?
It's going to be a short list.
1/18/14, 10:52 AM
dave1941 said...
Because we bombed their coal-to-liquid plants.
"Coal-to-liquids technology has a very low rate of energy return on energy invested, too low to meet the needs of an industrial society."
The ER/EI ratio doesn't matter when ER is precious liquid fuel and EI is dirt-cheap coal. It now costs less than $60 to make a barrel of synfuel, when liquid crude sells for $95.
1/18/14, 11:22 AM
Marcello said...
There would be quite an incentive for radio technology to survive, as long range communications would be a game changer for any political/military entity of note, compared to means such as despatch riders, heliographs, optical telegraphs and such.
Minimum EROI for an industrial civilization. In my view arguing that an industrial civilization can perhaps barely manage to get by on renewables with careful planning and trimming of all waste misses the point; even if it was theoretically possible societies are made up of irrational individuals who will not go along with the sort of effort necessary to pull that off.
As it is a moderate drop in economic activity has already created a lost generation in the West, while in Greece children malnutrition has apparently become an issue, despite the fact that the level of economic activity is still pretty high by historical standards. Without expansion the current economic system will self destruct while produce bizarrely dysfunctional results along the way. And the only likely alternative in the cards is fascist/nazi rule, not ecotopia.
1/18/14, 11:28 AM
Roger said...
Leftist utopian fantasies? Maybe. Well meaning but misguided? Who knows. There are also those that say that the multicultural ideology of the left is really an ideology of hate and disdain. Maybe it's that too. But, if that's the case, then the wolf came in sheep's clothing as they say and the wolfish ideology clothed itself with talk of love, compassion, equality. All good things. Who could argue? Only the mean-spirited and those of ill-will could argue.
But, regardless of motive, those in favor cast themselves as good hearted, enlightened, intellectual, forward looking, rational. Who wouldn't want to be like them? Really, don't you want to be able to get delectable ethnic dishes? Of course you do. Enough of the racism and judgmentalism and closed mindedness, enough of the church and the scowling pastor and the glowering old-people and nosy church-ladies, enough of parched Anglo ways and tasteless roast beef and dry and overcooked chicken. And enough of soaking your repressed emotional ills in gin and tonic. It's time for a new start, time to cast off old ways, to open the windows and let in some fresh air. It's all about progress, right?
And if you weren't on board, if you had questions, if you were a skeptic, if you did argue, if you could see alternative and unpleasant scenarios playing out, well then, you were an uneducated bigot, a racist, a hater. The opposite of all the good things a good person wants to be.
I suppose at this point it's academic to debate the might have beens and the motivations of the instigators. Because, decades into this venture, it is how it is and we'll collectively have to find a way forward and try to keep the hot-heads under control.
The end point may be constellations of culturally homogeneous communities. It's how we get from here to there that's the worrying part. We've seen ethnic cleansing pretty recently. We see on the news and on youtube how multi-religious and multi-ethnic places crack up. Horrifying stuff. If life is all about facts and evidence, and facts and evidence are what the Left habitually waves around, then the facts and evidence at hand are not at all encouraging.
It's a question of whether assimilationist forces, no small things themselves, can smother ethnic particularity. But, assuming the worst comes to pass, assuming that after a period of mayhem, that people manage to sort themselves into separate communities, how do these separate communities get along seeing as they'll likely be living cheek by jowl? How does it all come together into coherent countries? Maybe it doesn't.
Lots of questions, not many answers. Maybe those wise and judicious people, the theorists that touted themselves as our moral and intellectual superiors, would kindly offer their superior guidance on this.
1/18/14, 12:07 PM
Robert said...
I fear you may have a point. I am very worried about those in Europe who wage hateful campaigns against Islam per se. There are many Fascists and far right militants in Europe who regard Muslims the way they did Jews in the Thirties and see the left as traitors betraying the nation. This is the ideology of Breivik.
However this is not to be confused with criticizing multiculturalism. I believe Marine LePen in France is right in criticizing multiculturalism. It is a concept that cannot work if you desire a cohesive, society, built on solidarity, justice and trust. Those goals can only be achieved when there is a high level of trust present in a society, which is in turn a result of shared behaviors, norms and values and yes identity. Multiculturalism undermines this by putting all norms, values, behaviors and identities on an equal footing. I fear that multiculturalism and trust in a society are inversely related, whereas the more culturally homogeneous a society the more social solidarity there will be.
Perhaps in the early days our decision makers were too naive to see that mass immigration is detrimental to solidarity, national cohesion etc. But mass immigration is the perfect weapon against the working classes. It leads to wage dumping, and if those imported for work can't find work it puts strain on the social safety net that was supposed to protect the working class of a country. The more the majority believes that a disproportionate amount of social security benefits are going to ethnic minorities and immigrants the more likely they are to be hostile to the welfare state. Labour unions in many places were always a little bit more uneasy about mass immigration than other parts of the left, because it was so blatantly obvious that it damages one of their core interests. But by now they're either completely subdued by the diktat of political correctness and the fear of being branded racists when they criticize mass immigration, or they have changed sides to the likes of the National Front in France. It's a sad situation because it really is a case of one vulnerable group (the working class) being played against the other (poor undereducated immigrants who want a better life). Sure the Middle Eastern or South Asian immigrants didn't come to France or Britain with the intention of damaging social cohesion and being troublesome. They didn't choose to be put away in ghetto-like suburbs that were going to turn into social hotspots. But that is what happened, and we now know that this is what you get unless you are very very smart about your immigration policies (like Canada, or Switzerland). But it has progressed beyond that point...
I believe the middle classes are next. They're attacked from all sides. Globalisation is proletarianising the middle class and they could become very dangerous and produce leaders of fascist or xenophobic nationalist movements.
Ultimately liberal values are not sustainable without social democratic economics and assimilation of the immigrant/ethnic minorities into a common culture. This cannot be done without defeating neoliberal economics on the right and political correctness on the left.
There is a political philosopher in France called Alain Soral who has coined the term Left of Labour and Right of Values.
1/18/14, 12:07 PM
Moshe Braner said...
It is interesting though how the labor prices vary wildly around the world, e.g, in a poor village in India the PV installation costs are presumably a lot lower. Which opens up a wider question: to what extent can one de-couple from the surrounding society in terms of the energy intensity of the lifestyles. After all, the money paid to the installers in a first-world country is then used to buy gasoline for a personal automobile, send kids to an overpriced and air conditioned college, overpay the local medical system, etc. I am typing this comment to be sent over an internet connection that offers far more bandwidth than I need, but I am paying for it as if I was using the bandwidth, thus I am subsidizing my neighbors' usage of real resources for frivolous purposes (such as watching cute cat videos).
1/18/14, 12:17 PM
Moshe Braner said...
1/18/14, 12:31 PM
John Roth said...
It’s usually considered a good idea to read a bit of a forum to get an idea of what the people on it think. Had you done that, you’d be well aware that JMG, as well as many of the other posters, don’t think that there is enough investment capital available to build all the reactors needed, by possibly an order of magnitude. Since you rather obviously didn’t do that, yes, you came “charging in.” And since the investment capital doesn’t exist, it’s vaporware.
It’s not a matter of technical feasibility. If we, as a culture, were in a position to build out nuclear capacity, and thought it was a good idea for other reasons, thorium may well head the list of possible technologies.
@thecrowandsheep
Weather forecasting depends critically on a national, and to some extent a global, system of sensors. Without that data the best you could get is advance warning of major storm systems, using JMG’s amateur radio system.
Interestingly, the vacuum tubes needed for the old tube computers (like the IBM 705 II that was the first system I was actually paid to work on) don’t need good linearity. They’re either on or off.
@sunseekernv
While I can’t speak for JMG, my impression is that your estimate that it would take an enterprise with about 20 people to manufacture photovoltaics and discrete transistors using 1950s technology puts it outside of what he’s interested in.
For myself, if I had the money to invest and was about 30 years younger, I’d be very interested in seeing if this could be put together into a working system.
1/18/14, 12:48 PM
Joseph Nemeth said...
Hmm. I think we need to ask what long-distance communication is good for. If you're looking for Skype, sorry. Ain't gonna be.
But if all you need is to get a message through, why not use a spark-gap radio? This was the first kind of "radio" used for wireless telegraphy. They're very simple to build and maintain. You get long range the way you always do that sort of thing, with relays -- even fibre optic cables have repeaters. In the case of telegraphy, you have human operators who receive messages and retransmit them to the next relay.
1/18/14, 1:19 PM
Joseph Nemeth said...
Energy storage is a function of not only rotational speed, but also mass. If you picture a flywheel made of granite, two stories tall, it will store a whole lot of energy even if it's turning very slowly.
One downside of flywheels is gyroscopic forces. Basically, the axis of a flywheel wants to point in the same absolute spatial direction -- to a very good approximation, it wants to point at whatever star it was pointed at when you spun it up. You can wrestle it around to point somewhere else, but it resists the movement by twisting it around 90 degrees from the torque you are applying. This puts stress on the bearings, and thus slows the flywheel down through friction.
Since the earth is rotating, putting a different star along the flywheel axis at every moment, your bearings get a lot of stress as the earth's motion tries to make the entire flywheel twist out of its bearings. One solution to this is to point the axis of the flywheel directly at the North Star. If you're at the equator, this will mean a horizontal flywheel axis, and at the poles, a vertical flywheel axis. Anywhere in between, you'll have your flywheel axis at a funky angle to the ground, which may or may not be usable.
1/18/14, 1:37 PM
Calm Center of Tranquility said...
A friend was just talking about this site a week or so ago... synchronicity abounds.
Trish
1/18/14, 3:42 PM
Unknown said...
@the other Unknown--teams of oxen are also good for hauling large heavy loads short distances.
After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, there was a heavy demand for lumber to build new housing in SF and its suburbs. One source for this lumber was the virgin redwood forests of coastal Mendocino County, a couple of hundred miles north.
I attended a historical talk, illustrated with photographs, about how the forest was logged. Imagine the size of a full grown coast redwood: as big around as a large round dining table and about six storeys tall. (Giant sequoias, which grow farther inland, are shorter and bigger around.) These were felled by hand, sawed by hand into segments, the segments dragged out by large teams of oxen, then floated downriver to sawmills.
Some of the logged over land was purchased by the federal government and later transferred to the State of California, which for decades has contracted out to a consortium of non-profit organizations to manage a public group campground on it. The second growth redwoods, a mere century old, are already forty or fifty feet tall. Redwoods grow fast.
When the feds owned the land, it was one of dozens of family camp grounds operated by the federal government as a New Deal service. Camp David, the President's retreat, was originally another such camp. The Mendocino Woodlands is the only surviving New Deal campground still being used as a public campground.
1/18/14, 4:40 PM
Unknown said...
Earlier in the comments this week, someone mentioned the utility of small muscle powered mechanical devices that were in common use in the U.S. until about fifty years ago.
That brought to mind a recent historical documentary on PBS called the Poisoner's Handbook. The documentary was about advances in forensic medicine made by the New York City police department. There was a scene in a circa 1930 laboratory of a scientist rotating a pair of test tubes in a hand cranked centrifuge. It bolted onto the table like the hand cranked meat grinder my mother owned.
To the person who is working on a pedal powered washing machine, good luck to you. When you've developed your design, see whether improvements can be made to the hand cranked mangle (set of rollers for squeezing water out of laundry) that was bolted to the top of 1920s era washing machine tubs. And please do what you can to make your device commercially available. I'll buy it when I move house.
Back in the appropriate-tech era, I read about someone trying to design a muscled-powered washing machine for Third World countries. I kept my eye out to see what became of it, but it seems to have vanished without a trace. I suppose it had too low a priority to get funding.
Next to indoor plumbing and sinks with drains, the single biggest labor saving device for Western ohouseholds in the past century and a half may have been the washing machine. Getting the dirt out of clothes and sheets by slapping them on a rock, rubbing them against a washboard, or agitating them by lifting wet laundry up and down, is tedious and takes a lot of upper body strength.
If a household were to have piped hot water, a greywater drain, a mechanically efficient muscle powered device to agitate the laundry, a mechanically efficient device to squeeze out the water, and a place to hang the laundry out to dry, laundry could be done in a couple of hours without powered automatic machines. As energy prices go up and incomes go down, a bolt-on crank washer connected to the kitchen or bathroom sink might be an attractive alternative to the laundromat.
1/18/14, 5:15 PM
wall0159 said...
Now solar often uses aluminium frames. Aluminium is *extremely* energy intensive to refine. No one would ever refine aluminium using power from PV -- even now, much aluminium is produced at places with "free" power (eg. Iceland's geothermal, or other sites with hydro) because otherwise the electircity costs are prohibitive. I think that including this in the EROEI is misleading and paints an overly bleak picture.
Having said that, I agree with the theme of your post which is that we won't be fueling a society full of electric cars from PV panels ;-).
1/18/14, 6:28 PM
Grebulocities said...
In this day and age, electronic devices are subject to planned obsolescence with an expected lifetime in the 3-5 year range, but I suspect that this is largely because consumers would rather buy a new computer than repair their horribly outdated 4-year-old one. A single failure of a critical component is enough to cause people to discard an otherwise functional electronic device.
In a world where new electronics are prohibitively expensive and no better than the old ones, the incentives will shift toward maintaining computing devices for long periods of time, as well as toward cobbling together homemade computers from the trillions of electronic components that have already been manufactured (sifting through the broken ones to find the ones that work). I suspect that enough working electronic components will be salvageable that basic computing will decline quite slowly, still existing into the 22nd century.
Of course, among the simplest things you can do with a computer is use it to perform arithmetic. Given that electronic calculators appeared in the mass market well before full-fledged computers and that they're simple to make, I think that the calculator will be around for quite a while.
If anything, this makes preserving old ways of doing math even more critical - if the last calculators disappear long after slide rules and abacuses (and maybe even widespread knowledge of pencil-and-paper calculation) have disappeared from living memory, mathematics could easily suffer a much worse decline.
As for what I'm doing personally, I have a slide rule and know basically how to use it (although I'm not very good at it), and I just found an abacus for $3.50 on ebay. I want to learn the abacus well enough to be able to use a "mental abacus" to speed up my mental arithmetic. I also like that they can be used for all four basic functions and are accurate to as many significant figures as you could need, although I suspect slide rules are still better for uses like trig functions, exponents, logarithms, etc.
1/18/14, 8:16 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Robert, it's a sensible scheme, and the reason it won't get put into place is the same reason it wasn't put into place in 1945: control over the world's dominant currency gives too many advantages to whatever nation has it, and so nations with the power to impose their will on others inevitably impose their currency as well.
Stream, ouch. The advantage of natural latex from rubber trees is that you don't have to replant every single year, so the return on energy and resources is better. Doing without latex may turn out to be more viable for most uses.
Moshe, back before the grid reached rural areas, many households had radios anyway, powered by batteries which were usually charged by windpower. You had an A battery and a B battery, one to heat the tube emitters and one to provide operating voltage. It seems to have worked fairly well. At the same time, the Soviets were mass producing thermoelectric generators powered by a single kerosene lamp that kept radios powered all across Siberia, so the absence of grid power clearly isn't an insuperable obstacle.
Enrique, one thing that people on the rightward end of the spectrum tend to lose track of is that ethnic communities tend to be shredded in the course of a civilization's fall, and what comes out of the mess isn't a restoration of old ethnic communities, but the emergence of new ethnicities. Consider the post-Roman history of Britain, in which millennium-old tribal identities went away forever and survivors from all over Roman Britain, hanging onto survival in Wales and Cumbria, redefined themselves as "compatriots" -- that's what Cymry, "Welsh," literally means. A plausible future history of Europe might see southern and central Europe occupied by a völkerwanderung from the Middle East, while the descendants of all of today's European peoples -- concentrated, perhaps, in Scandinavia, the Alpine regions, and the mountainous parts of far western Europe -- redefining themselves as members of the same new national communities, irrespective of where their ancestors came from.
K!EF, fair enough. Please do keep studying it, and get to work practicing it; it's a skill worth knowing. As for the claims about Chernobyl, I hadn't heard those -- does anyone else reading these comments know more?
Joseph, nah, you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the politicians are too stupid or deluded to take a sensible approach. I'm saying that coming to grips with our predicament involves such a massive reorientation of society, in the teeth of so many special interests and popular prejudices, that it would be political suicide for the politicos to make those choices.
Ian, that's harsh news. In your place, I admit I'd get out if I could. Still, dissensus rules!
Enrique, no, it's not going away, since middle class lifestyles these days depend on importing laborers who will work for sweatshop wages, thus forcing down prices and sustaining the fantasy of prosperity. I wonder how many people who talk about the problems with mass immigration would be willing to see the cost of everything they buy double, let's say, as the price of shutting the door?
Unknown, oxen work better in some contexts; horses and donkeys work better in others. Are you involved in raising any of these? If not, talk is cheap...
1/18/14, 10:24 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Mkroberts, historical examples suggest that there's a lot to be gained by trying to get useful knowledge and skills through any approaching bottleneck; those societies where such an effort takes place generally have an easier time returning to stability and relative prosperity after the dark age than those that don't.
Cherokee, that's a great example of resilience vs. efficiency. Old and clunky beats new and fragile every time once conditions get rough...
Wall1059, you know, this is interesting. For a very long time, people who've wanted to dismiss what I was saying have almost inevitably turned either to cornucopian or to apocalyptic claims. Now, for the first time since this blog got under way, I'm starting to field a significant number of "sure, we're going to have to give up some things, but I think you're too pessimistic" dismissals. That suggests that the conversation may finally have gotten past denial and anger and is starting into bargaining. An excellent sign!
Compound F, well, I'm not a great fan of Russell or for that matter of his definition of liberalism! Still, you're right that my point of view falls into the otherwise unoccupied middle ground among several of the core political and cultural dichotomies of our time.
Sunseeker, energy payback time is not EROEI, because it doesn't include a share in the whole system needed to make a given energy technology fit into the broader economy and society. If those systems actually had a 20+:1 EROEI, people who installed them would be making money hand over fist, instead of having to depend on government subsidies and going broke when those get cut.
Croatoan, if that's the technology that appeals to you, by all means get going on it, and share what you learn.
Crow, you can do a certain amount of functional weather forecasting without computers in two ways. The first is to have some basic meteorological instruments, track the weather you get, and learn what tends to follow what in your area. The second, if there are at least a few hundred miles of settled country to the west of you, is to have a radio and find out what weather they're getting today -- that's fairly often what you'll have tomorrow, adjusted for local climate and topography. Beyond that, yes, an umbrella and some tolerance for weather's vagaries are good to have!
1/18/14, 10:42 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Mortal, in a couple of centuries, people will be very glad to get bread and pottage. As for grains, there I disagree -- remember that I'm expecting a great deal of population contraction, and there are sustainable ways to grow grain if you're not trying to do it at current scales. Native American corn-beans-squash culture comes to mind, as does East Asian wetland rice culture -- post-climate change, a lot of eastern North America might be good for rice paddies, for example.
Nestorian, understood. The problem from my side is that I've seen far too many people trying to use spirituality the way they would use a new electronic gizmo, as a lifestyle accessory that (as technologies generally do) requires no deep personal involvement, and the results have not been good.
Lunchista, are you learning how to do that?
Roger, my point is that historically, in the twilight years of big civilizations, the local warlord generally provides better service for less cost than the former imperial bureaucracy did. That's one of the reasons that warband culture so reliably mutates into feudalism, and why feudalism is so resilient and so successful until urbanization comes in. More on this as we proceed!
Joseph, excellent. That's exactly the point -- and the question that follows, then, is how technologies that don't rely on unicorn horn dust can compete with the unicorn industry. The answer? They can't, if we're talking about competition in economic terms; the post-unicorn technologies have to find constituencies that will preserve and transmit them for reasons other than economics. That's the issue I've been trying to address here, in a variety of ways.
Dave, if coal-to-liquids fuel was that cheap compared to petroleum, energy companies would be piling into CTL like nobody's business. That's not happening -- which shows that your reasoning's flawed. By the way, Allied bombing campaigns didn't succeed in crippling any other part of Germany's wartime economy -- production of new planes for the Luftwaffe, for example, increased steadily right up until the end of the war -- so you're going to have to come up with something better than Allied bombers to explain why CTL didn't keep the Wehrmacht fueled. The reason, of course, is the very low EROEI, which made CTL uneconomical even with vast amounts of slave labor to dig and mine the coal. South Africa's SASOL CTL scheme, which used a similar process, was just as uneconomical in practice -- it had to be propped up by large subsidies, and even so, never really worked well.
Marcello, no argument there. We'll be talking about the prospects for fascism in the deindustrial future in a couple of weeks.
Moshe, no argument there either. Electricity just isn't that economically viable unless you have extravagant amounts of fuel to burn to generate it, and don't have to worry about the losses.
Joseph, the problem with spark-gap is that it isn't limited to a single band -- it sprays radio waves across the spectrum. A slightly more complex design with a crystal for frequency regulation will give you a nice tight signal, which you can then control with a Morse code key. Is it Skype? No, but ham radio operators who are good at CW (Morse code transmission) routinely beat the pants off teenage texters in competitions to see who can get the most information through fastest.
1/18/14, 11:04 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Unknown Deborah, hand-agitated or pedal-agitated washing machines used to be around in the appropriate tech scene -- it's been a while, but if I can find the time I'll go digging through my books and see what I can find. Soap, hot water, and clean clothing prevent a lot of nasty skin diseases and other health problems, so they're definitely worth having on the list.
Wall0159, as I said, the study has already come in for criticism, some of it justified. The point that I return to, though, is that powering the grid via renewables doesn't seem to be economically viable without huge and continuing government subsidies -- which suggests that there's something wrong with high-end claims about how much net energy you can get out of renewables.
Grebulocities, here again you're touching a point that I discussed in responding to Joseph Nemeth. The process of preserving technologies for the future can't depend on what's economically viable now; they have to be preserved and transmitted for other reasons. More on this as we proceed.
1/18/14, 11:22 PM
mkroberts said...
I agree, getting useful technologies through the bottleneck would definitely be better than not. However, I'm not sure that whole societies will make it through, as you seem to suggest. If they do, then some passed down technologies will likely survive, but should we (being us and many descendant generations) plan for societies to make it through or just smaller groups and communities?
1/18/14, 11:28 PM
Bogatyr said...
@tinfoilhat Yes, fabric is also a big issue. Interesting that you've got yourself some looms. I'd seen documentaries on Harris Tweed, such as this one, and had wondered where such machines might be obtained...
On the overall topic of clothes, I'm a bloke: as such, I like to spend the minimum possible time shopping for clothes. However, I noticed a timely comment posted by a friend of a friend (both female) on Facebook a couple of days ago: "I've noticed lately that we seem to be asked to pay a higher and higher premium for natural fibres as more and more budget (and by budget I mean under $150 a garment) clothing is made of synthetics. Cotton should not be twice the price of polyester. Even viscose seems noticeably more costly than nylon or poly". This would seem to make sense in out current cornucopian oil-based economy. It does mean, though, that when oil prices do eventually rocket, new clothing may be in short supply.
@dtrammel: I see alot of people posting how they are learning skills that WE are going to need in a World Gone Harsh. Yet 90% of you I have never seen post to the greenwizard forum. You talk the talk, yet don't walk the walk". Calm down, dude. Personally, I do actually have an account on the Green Wizards forum. I haven't used it for a long time because it serves no purpose for me - at the moment. I'm learning from people IRL, so I don't need to go online to ask questions. I'm not yet knowledgable enough to share tips. Perhaps the time will come.
However, although I genuinely appreciate the effort you're putting in, telling us that we're not walking the walk just because we're not using your forum? A little perspective might be in order...
1/18/14, 11:49 PM
Unknown said...
Robert writes, "Ultimately liberal values are not sustainable without social democratic economics and assimilation of the immigrant/ethnic minorities into a common culture. This cannot be done without defeating neoliberal economics on the right and political correctness on the left."
Hear, hear. That is the course that American politics followed (on the whole, with some push back) from about 1890 to about 1980, which IMO is why racial conflict rather than conflicts among any ethnic or religious groups has been the intractable problem in American society. Although social mobility has slowed in recent decades, the permanent underclass in the U.S. consists mostly of people of African descent.
Our original national motto translates "From many, one,".
During the period of rapid industrialization around the turn of the last century, the U.S. had virtually unrestricted immigration from Europe and allowed some immigration from Asia. Probably the majority of American citizens today have at least one ancestor who came over on the boat during that time. All of mine did. The southern expansion of U.S. territory had already turned a bunch of Mexicans into Americans before the Civil War.
At the peak of the 1880s-1910s period of immigration, one out of ten U.S. residents was foreign born, which is the case again right now. In between were five decades of severely restricted immigration, during which time the children and grandchildren of those waves of immigrants forgot their ancestral languages, moved up the social ladder, and intermarried with everybody else.
Labor unions, social workers and churches all played (mostly) constructive roles in turning those waves of immigrants and their offspring into flag-waving Murcans. It wouldn't have worked if there hadn't been enough wealth to go around, but it did pretty much work until recently.
1/19/14, 12:57 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Thank you. Unfortunately, I haven't made any friends pointing out the obvious to the renewable energy community (the Emperor really has no clothes!). hehe. Oh well.
They really do like those funky digital displays, DC-DC step voltage step downs, graphs and on line data monitoring.
Anyway, I threw down the gauntlet to see whether they could explain themselves. I just don't understand how de-rating can be considered well adapted to the local conditions. It would nice if someone explained it to me.
I de-rate in the heat!
Regards
Chris
1/19/14, 1:08 AM
AlanfromBigEasy said...
There was an anti-Italian riot in 190x after the Chief of Police was murdered. His dying words were "the dagos did it".
After the Civil War/ War of Yankee Aggression, there was a pitched battle between the intergrated police force and white veterans. The white veterans won until the US Army arrived. But this was not a riot, but civil war.
These are the only examples I can think of.
Our comity and tolerance has created a culture that has contributed much - and is a joy to live in.
1/19/14, 3:10 AM
Nestorian said...
What sorts of bad results does this sort of trivialization of the inherently non-trivial typically lead to?
1/19/14, 6:49 AM
Andy Brown said...
I think the biggest difference between those who talk the talk and those who walk the walk - are that the walkers have been humbled (if not humiliated and defeated) by the effort to put these kinds of things into practice. The forum is the place to compare notes on such things.
Given how thin on the ground green wizards are - it seems like we all ought to be amassing libraries about things we may have no intent on doing ourselves. (I have no interest myself in doing radio, but would love to have something to give the neighbor who had had zero interest until the cable company went bankrupt. Let he and his buddies get on that weather thing.)
I hope the energy brought out by JMG's post this week translates into a sustained conversation about these technologies that can live at Green Wizards - even as the blog continues its move to other topics.
1/19/14, 8:22 AM
Moshe Braner said...
"Low-tech shortwave radio. ... if all you need is to get a message through, why not use a spark-gap radio? This was the first kind of "radio" used for wireless telegraphy. ..."
As JMG already said, spark-gap is very "broadband" in the sense of splattering the power over a broad range of frequencies. That meant that it was useful only in the earliest days of radio, when there were only a handful of radio networks around the world, for use only by the richest entities, e.g., the company that sailed the Titanic.
Narrow-band radio transmission is not too hard, although it does require tubes or transistors. Narrow band reception is a whole 'nuther game, requiring a lot of amplification in multiple stages (each one with a tube or transistor) plus multiple resonant circuits, some of them tunable... There is a reason why hams of my generation often built their own CW transmitter but scrounged for a factory-built receiver.
1/19/14, 9:44 AM
Moshe Braner said...
1/19/14, 9:50 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
There is a bigger point here. You and others seem to view these "ethnicities" as though they are real things, handed down from antiquity. They are no such thing. They are eclectic melanges that have arisen within the last few centuries (or less in many case) and which are always in change. People have moved around for thousands of years, cultural boundaries have always been porous. "Multiculturalism" is the way human societies have evolved and exchanged information, ideas, and technology, for thousands of years before it had a name. And you can bet that a number of (mostly older males) have ALWAYS been opposed to it.
I like to (half) joke that when I was young and living in the southeastern U.S., Mexicans were white and Jews were not. Now in the same region, Mexicans are not white, but Jews are.
Cultures, ethnicities, and perceptions change and evolve. That was the past, it is the present, it will be the future.
1/19/14, 10:08 AM
Kevin said...
Weather forecasting is a necessity for shipping, and potentially life-saving. If you know where and when a storm is coming, and what its severity will be, you can often sail out of its path, or avoid the worst of it. If global climate forecasts are accurate, bad storms are likely to become more frequent and increasingly lethal. The same argument supports conserving marine radio. Most definitely *not* luxuries.
1/19/14, 11:13 AM
LewisLucanBooks said...
A great machine called the Calculor is built. It's components are humans, kidnapped and chained to desks to provide the computational power to run the machine.
Another good post apocalyptic read about preserving books for the future, set on the Oregon Coast is "A Gift Upon the Shore" my M. K. Wren.
1/19/14, 11:19 AM
Marc L Bernstein said...
It is a small but critically important group of wise persons who understand the process of uneven ecological, economic and technological collapse through which they and their community are traversing. Without this group (probably a few culturally educated scientists, scholars and intellectuals but also permaculturists, intelligent laborers, etc.) the social order itself is in jeopardy. Many persons will blame the wrong things for their suffering and hardship. Easy targets (poor people, handicapped persons, old persons, unprotected children, etc.) will be scapegoated. Racism will increase. Theft and violence could reach dangerous proportions. Drug addiction and other escapes from reality will be alluring to confused persons. Suicides will increase.
Dmitry Orlov mentioned this in his books on the stages of collapse.
It won't be pretty.
1/19/14, 12:08 PM
Progress and Conserve said...
I cannot seem to find much good news. (And thanks to Enrique, and several others who contributed ideas.) The arc of law enforcement, like that of the military and government generally, is presently toward ever more technology, speed, and fuel consumption.
It appears likely that as generations pass, yet before we reach the midpoint of JMG's predictions - that our surviving descendents are likely to have the unfortunate experience of living in a third world country with a first world military, security, and police apparatus.
If you live in an area where law enforcement is administered by an elected sheriff, then you have slightly more input. You should consider the possibility that your local sheriff could become THE most important person in your life - depending on how the future plays out. At least you can try to support the guy who will add an extra investigator or a bicycle patrolman - instead of adding an armored vehicle and a second SWAT team.
There are plenty of "preppers" among the law enforcement and emergency services people that I know; and it's logical to argue that this is because these are folks who understand how fragile a veneer modern society might really be.
Does this understanding extend up the chain of command to those who should be doing long range planning for genuine long-term decline of the sort JMG foresees.
I see no evidence of that at all.
1/19/14, 12:38 PM
Progress and Conserve said...
Bill, I'd like to point out that "mostly older males" has a whiff of ad hominem in it. Plus, it's inaccurate, as the young poster known as Juhana would freely attest.
And yes, movements of people have been natural for all of human history. But such movements have always moved at walking speed until very recently.
But, what we have now is the state-sponsored migration of literally millions of people and their completely intact cultures, and very often at the speed of passenger jet aircraft.
It's unprecedented in human history. It's fueled by oil, prosperity, and (hopefully?) good intentions; but little else.
You and JMG argue that it will all end and be OK, in the fullness of time. Enrique, Juhana, I and many others; argue that it will end poorly.
Do consider, though, that almost ANY policy or behavior of mankind can be revoked or changed for a changing future. Even governments could adapt, given sufficient time.
But for immigrant-driven overpopulation, this is not so, and only the Four Horsemen can revoke or change it.
OK - to haul this back to this week's topic, and sustainable law enforcement - -
I agree with the most "liberal?" of you liberals - that law enforcement absolutely must maintain absolute even-handedness toward minority (and majority) groups of all sorts. And I'd further argue that this even-handedness must be especially evident in public areas and public streets.
If law enforcement ever publicly acknowledges the existence of "no-go" areas that include public streets and public neighborhoods.
Then interested observers can know that we have turned a corner into a darker future - and that it might be very hard to turn back.
1/19/14, 1:31 PM
AlanfromBigEasy said...
I questioned if the EROEI to "maintain society" would hold at 10 if society became more efficient (see Grenelle France as an example). He said 10:1 was needed for current Anerican society.
Also he refused to discuss Prieto and Hall book or solar EROEI unless one bought the book. I have some issues there.
Side note: Sunpower claims annual decline of 0.25% vs 1% for others. They also claim 44% more watts per meter2 initially and 75% more power per meter2 in the first 20 years.
Even if Sunpower PV panels take more energy to fabricate, I suspect that they have a significantly higher EROEI over their first century of use.
PS: Prieto & Hall used warranties to determine lifespan of solar PV. This would be like using auto warranties to claim cars last only 50,000 miles.
1/19/14, 1:50 PM
sunseekernv said...
Who's loosing money on PV?
1) manufacturers trying to compete with Chinese state subsidies - duh.
2) manufacturers/investors who believed in unicorns and thin film but haven't been at it for 30 years like First Solar (think Solyndra and more amorphous silicon vendors than anyone can name). double duh.
3) (some small number of) people who bought systems that were improperly installed or made of defective components from bankrupt/non-responsive vendors (see #1). my condolences/caveat emptor.
4) conventional utilities - because of PV owners making money with PV
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21587782-europes-electricity-providers-face-existential-threat-how-lose-half-trillion-euros
People who might loose money:
5) people who relied on subsidies in nations (Spain and a few places in Eastern Europe) back in times when modules were expensive and PV hadn't reached grid parity, but now the governments are trying to wiggle out of contracts.
The vast majority of PV customers are making money from FITs (Feed In Tariffs), or saving money on electricity bills. And since FITs in Germany have declined below the retail price of electricity, self consumption is up - but people are still making money on PV because system prices have declined even more.
Chart on page 5 of:
http://www.gtai.de/GTAI/Content/EN/Invest/_SharedDocs/Downloads/GTAI/Industry-overviews/the-photovoltaic-market-in-germany.pdf
Note that as PV continues to get cheaper, the power companies will offset more and more of the older FITs by arbitraging cheap PV.
California wineries were saving money with PV back in 2007!
http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=features&content=50614
When the press says "new technology - fracking will save us" - you have the background (from theoildrum.com, books, etc.) to say "not so fast".
* fracking isn't new
* it's only (semi-)economic due to quadrupled oil prices
* the decline rates are horrendous
* thus it helps a little for now, but not much longer
When the press says "PV bubble"
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/business/energy-environment/solar-power-craze-on-wall-st-propels-start-up.html
why do you apparently believe them uncritically?
I say:
* no fair complaining about renewable subsidies (including restrictive policies) until there are no more fossil fuel subsidies, and a carbon tax.
* of course investors are looking at renewables, we're at peak oil, peak coal is 10-15? years out (sorry Mr. CTLs), peak natural gas not much further - should they invest in (soon to be) declining fossil fuel companies or take a chance on growth in renewables? (at least some of the rentier class are thinking of such things.)
* it's a measure of the extreme denial of the larger population that some homeowner complains that not only was he forced to help save the environment, but he only saved $200/year. (is this nuts! you get paid to do the right thing, and it's still not enough?! - Scary!)
* while there are some issues with grid stability/storage, they are manageable
* given PV in most of Europe is now at/beneath grid parity, the next step is large storage to increase renewables penetration even further.
* the vast majority of whining about high costs/subsidies of renewables comes from fossil fuel owning power companies (who are loosing their profits) and the religious nuts from the cult of the almighty dollar/euro who don't want to come to Jesus - or at least the understanding that infinite-growth-forever-on-a-finite-world is literally unsustainable, so they strike up a chorus of "renewables are bad<->uneconomical, climate change is a fraud, peak oil is bunk" as loud as they can shrilly shill.
* we need to make (and celebrate) as much progress with efficiency (e.g. PassiveHaus movement), conservation, PV, wind, geothermal, sustainable biomass, and run-of-the-river hydro as we can. These are the few bright spots. Our liquid fuels and other resource depletion problems are looming larger with each passing day.
1/19/14, 1:50 PM
Kevin said...
1/19/14, 1:54 PM
Dornier Pfeil said...
I read Deedl's words and I think of the American Right who bristle and cry whenever someone points out, in a negative manner, the American dominance of the globe. "WE ARE NOT AN EMPIRE! WE ARE NOT AN EMPIRE!"
Deedl, I am quite willing to grant that the German people and government are much better behaved than they have been at certain times in the past and that they have generally better habits than a good part of the rest of the world. I'll even grant that these habits are as much a part of their national character as they are a result of enforced discipline from the outside(a consequence of all the events from 1918 to the present time). But it is a whole lot easier to be thrifty, constructive, and productive when your nation is sitting on top at the output end of a wealth pump sucking on the rest of Europe.
Some time in 2012, at the same time Mr. Greer was writing about the fall of empires, I read a small blurb in the Wall Street Journal. The article was a middling article buried in a middle page of the B or C section of the paper so not anything alot of people would read or worry about but it carried obvious overtones for anyone willing to see. It was about the preferential treatment the ECB and smaller commercial banks were giving to German industry. Not an unreasonable thing in and of itself, for the normal reasons, but one curious part of the giveaways was that commercial banks in southern Europe were forced to accept a provision granting individual purchasers of German cars lower interest rates on the loans then they would get on purchases of locally sourced cars. Think about that for a moment and you'll see why it represents a flow of wealth out of southern Europe and into Germany. That kind of concession can only happen because of the political power expressed by an empire.
Mr. Greer---"Cathy, that BBC piece is stunning. High carbon steel is what you need for really good knives, swords, and many classes of tools. I had no idea that was being made that long ago! It's certainly doable in a low-tech setting -- some of the best steel on Earth, tamagahane steel (the raw material for the finest Japanese swords), is made by hand using pine charcoal in a very simple smelter -- but it's fascinating to learn that the trick was worked out so much earlier than older histories of technology thought.
Mr. Greer, I would be surprised if someone of your extensive background reading in ancient technology had never encountered Wootz steel. The techniques that made it are now lost but the archaeological evidence for it goes back to 300 BCE. While it probably wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the Japanese were the pre-eminent metal workers of pre-modern history, tamagahane isn't intrinsically a noteworthy steel. Japanese swords acquire their exceptional qualities and characteristics not from the steel but from the exceptional knowledge the Japanese steel workers have of forging technique. Wootz on the other hand is a very good steel. India probably had the pre-eminent metallurgists of the pre-modern period. One of the what-ifs discussed by blade weapon enthusiasts is what might have been if Japanese metal workers had been able to apply their fantastic knowledge of forging technique to that fantastic steel.
4096 limit reached...cont.
1/19/14, 2:51 PM
Dornier Pfeil said...
Someone mentioned how hydro-electric damns concentrate energy from across a large area. I wonder if perhaps their ability to concentrate another resource from across a large area wouldn't have some value in the future. Mr. Greer pointed out how dams become backed-up by silt as they age. Some dams have a facility to purge build-up but most don't and even the ones that do are not 100% effective at clearing it. Wouldn't this silt represent a rich source of trace elements gathered from across vast distances and concentrated at a dam? While they would be completely inadequate for replenishing the soils of the industrial farm belt they could be mined for intensive small plot farming. Would two or three cubic yards of silt mined from behind a dam and transported on a single wagon represent a valuable commodity to any farmer?
1/19/14, 2:52 PM
Shining Hector said...
As far as sustainable healthcare, it's probably both easier and harder than most people expect. Easier because the truly effective things we do aren't horribly resource intensive or complicated, harder because getting there is basically going to require a reboot of the entire system and the slaughtering of numerous sacred cows which will probably end up angering almost every stakeholder. I'll try and keep it brief.
From my perspective, one big problem is that our reach exceeds our grasp. You probably imagine the purpose of having a healthcare system is to treat otherwise healthy individuals who come down with something or other, get the condition treated, and go along their merry way. This does indeed happen, but that doesn't cost a whole lot, because the interventions usually aren't that complicated and once someone gets better, they're better and no longer need us. What really gets expensive is keeping people who are never going to get better "alive" no matter the cost or outcome.
Healthcare is also expensive because of all the regulations that have to be followed and the crazy markups for drugs, medical equipment, etc. A night at the hospital didn't always cost a month's salary, but with all the documentation, staffing requirements, etc. it does. I haven't really come up with a valid thermodynamic reason that a new drug takes literally 4 orders of magnitude more expense to the drug company to make than the bottle of 400 generic Benadryl you can buy at Costco for $3.99. Whenever I open up a pack of light blue Prolene sutures, I like to wonder if they came off the same assembly line as the fishing line they look identical to and were shunted aside, labeled "for medical use", and marked up 4000% like the tins of "premium" meat in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
You mentioned the AMA monopoly, but really doctor's salaries are only a small fraction of healthcare expenses. At a rough guesstimate, a typical primary care doc probably throws around 30 times their salary in resources, counting support staff, prescriptions, imaging, referrals, etc. An ICU intensivist probably comes out to more like 100 times or more of their salary. We get paid a lot, but we're responsible for a lot, too. We might be the visible face of the medical establishment, but our golf games are not we're not what most of your hard earned money is going to support. Subject your idyllic alternative care practitioners to the same regulatory and legal environment, and give them responsibility for the same patients and marshaling the same resources as opposed to making the basically healthy feel better about themselves, and they might not look so cheap.
1/19/14, 3:37 PM
August Johnson said...
A couple very good books about the beginnings of Amateur Radio and all that was done with spark:
200 Meters & Down
The World of Ham Radio 1901-1950
Both are available from the ARRL.
Also, narrow band reception isn’t now and wasn’t then reserved for factory-built receivers, just look through the issues of QST and the ARRL Handbook up to even the 1970’s, lots of 2, 3 and 4 tube and transistor regenerative and even superhet receivers to be built from scratch.
My father built several receivers for CW work in the 1930’s by scrounging tubes from the local radio repair shop’s trash pile. The first new tube he bought came at a price, he painted his parents whole house to get the money to buy it. The Hams today build simple regenerative receivers and use them on the air for CW aren’t doing without “narrow-band” receivers. Yes, they’re not up to the performance of the $2000 factory rigs but they are very useful in the crowded band today. The idea that hams had to buy a factory-built receiver to get decent performance is false. Many times all they could afford was to build their own.
Examples
Tube regenerative
http://makearadio.com/tube/tube-radio-schematics.php
Transistor regenerative from 1968
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/6803024.pdf
1/19/14, 4:25 PM
August Johnson said...
1/19/14, 5:06 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
As for immigrant communities transposed with their cultures "completely intact," I have to say "huh?" Cultures don't stay "intact" very long. Even if you don't have direct experience with immigrant cultures, look at some of the cinema and fiction they produce. The infiltration of the new into the old across the generations is a major recurring theme.
Of course it is different this time. It is always different, every time. And yet, it is also the same. Cries that the "native" culture will be subsumed or displaced by the "alien" one have been heard around the planet probably ever since humans first populated it.
1/19/14, 7:05 PM
Mark said...
Then there's a suite of gnosis relating to animal care, which reading James Harriots' books illuminates.
Geiger Counters?
1/19/14, 7:47 PM
August Johnson said...
http://www.qsl.net/kg7bz/9811qex026.pdf
1/19/14, 8:48 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
Any checks that exist on local law enforcement come down from the State and the Feds. The ballot box is less than ineffective at removing, or even limiting, corruption; instead, it rewards it.
Bottom line -- just stay away from the people who are involved in those activities. Make your own circle of friends who are just not connected to the world of local law enforcement or organized crime. If you need the law, and the sheriff doesn't know you very well, you will probably get reasonable response. Just be sure not to give him any means by which he can pressure you into his sphere (i.e. anything that is either a threat, or an opportunity to exert control). Clean (in a legal sense) and modest living are your best defenses against lawlessness; you just don't attract much attention that way, which is a good thing.
And, if someone did break into your place and take some of your stuff, odds are it was your own nephew. Really. Not kidding. Handle it inside the family.
And be REALLY judicious about what beds you jump in to.
I guess the short version -- sustainable law enforcement is about being a peaceful member of your community. You don't attract trouble, and you will get help if trouble finds you anyway. Don't expect much from your sheriff; ideally he will barely know your name.
1/19/14, 11:11 PM
MawKernewek said...
What is your opinion on the relocalisation of corruption?
What would be gained or lost from going from multibillion dollar lobbying and banking industries back to potentially corrupt local officials?
I had an odd dream last night, there was someone wanting to upgrade their computer hard drives to a newer model, though they were only a year old and they hadn't come close to exhausting their capacity. I pointed out that he could use one of those programs that overwrite them with random data to erase them and sell or give them away but he insisted on destroying them...
1/20/14, 2:09 AM
Clarence said...
clarence
1/20/14, 2:39 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Quote: "Probably not for much longer. Unless some miracle happens the Emerald Ash Borer will destroy them all."
Those are symptoms of a badly managed and under fertilised forest. What you are witnessing is decline. Healthy, well managed and fed trees in a diverse ecosystem are quite resistant to pests and disease. Think about what the loss of the massive passenger pigeon population did to forests in the US. Of course admitting that means that we'd have to blame ourselves for their present state.
I had a locust plague last summer during the drought and all that happened was that the birds became very well fed for a few weeks!
Hi Kathleen,
Well done, you. Buying alcohol is getting tricked by business. It is much easier and cheaper to make your own. Plus it is very useful stuff. You go girl!
Hi Adrian,
Yes, it is a weird hybrid time. We have so much stuff available that we fail to even see it. Glad to hear of your efforts with the local ecosystem.
Regards
Chris
1/20/14, 2:43 AM
dltrammel said...
My apology, I was at the end of a 12 hour shift followed by 2 hours writing up the tutorial on "The Long Descent" section for the new Green Wizard's site, so I was just a hair tired.
Sometimes I grow a bit frustrated that there is so much talent and knowledge in this community of people who read and comment to this blog, yet so few of you put forth the effort to share that knowledge.
Cherokee Organic and a few others blog, and I don't doubt that others do I don't see. There is a real disconnect with most people when it comes to nature now. Children who don't even know the season or who are scared to pick up an earthworm. Adults who hurry to the restroom to throw up when told the chocolate chip cookies they just ate were made with duck eggs not chicken.
Its about to get bad out there. Then alot worse.
When the US goes the way of Greece, with defaults on our debts and 25-40% unemployment, then I fear we will see the rise of a new fascism here.
We are afterall the world's biggest military force. And I know many people from both the Left and Right who privately express frustration that the World isn't like it was before, when the rest of the countries out there "loved" us and accepted us as the world's policeman.
They question why WE spend so much of our budget helping those other countries out, while here at home we have poverty and hardship.
I worry that there will come a time when the American public says, frak em, and lets just take what we are owed. If the US develops a military spirit like the pre WW2 Japanese or worse a Nazi like movement then God help the rest of the world.
1/20/14, 2:54 AM
dltrammel said...
Thanks dude, lol.
@ Marc L Bernstein
One of the areas I have pushed hard to include in the Green Wizard handbook of skills is the ability to build communities and to influence their local government.
A sane voice in the shoutings is going to be very important .
@ Progress and Conserve
Do you know most police departments have a "Ride Along" program, which allows the public to ride along with an officer for a few hours on one of their shifts.
I recommend everyone does it. Its a great way to connect to the guys and gals are out there in you community seeing first hand what goes on in your town.
It can even get you out of a ticket some times, lol. I rolled thru a stop sign a couple of months back, early morning going to work, and didn't notice the police car to the side street. The officer who pulled me over, I'd done ride along with. He laughed when he saw who I was and after telling me, I should have know better, let me off with a warning.
That and attending your local City Council meetings is a good way to hold your government accountable.
Its alot easier to abuse a faceless mass of humanity. Harder to pepper spray a man who knows your wife and children's names.
Your first line of defense in a World Grown Harsh will be the local government and its police force. Make them your friends.
1/20/14, 3:12 AM
dltrammel said...
About skills, there should be noted a definite division. Skills that will be useful in the next Dark Age and will help us get through it.
And "bridging" technologies. Those are skills which need the energy input of cheap oil but will help us as we de-evolve into a more sustainable future.
Solar Panels are a good example. Unaffordable once the subsidy of cheap oil goes away and parts break down yet important to helping us cope.
Solar Thermal tech is one that we will keep and use in the next Dark Age. Things like south facing buildings and thermal syphon window units that can be built by hand will be common then.
---
The second point is that a technology stands a better chance of being retained if the advocator for that tech can make the argument it has dual use, both for public and military.
Future warband leaders are more likely to support lense grinding and glass making efforts is you justify it as a way to provide their military with superior telescopes and binoculars. Not glasses for the masses.
Low tech short wave radio, has obvious military uses too. Letter press printing can be used for military manuals and training.
As much as I hate it, making your case why in a world with limited resources, your tech should be supported is going to probably come down to justifying it to the local ruling elite.
And the military that keeps them in power.
1/20/14, 3:35 AM
Jesse said...
Maybe I'm way out in left field but its just a thought.
PS - loved Not the Future We Ordered
Yukoner - Jesse
1/20/14, 4:01 AM
Nastarana said...
Consider the biblical account of the 12 plagues from a secular perspective. As at least one historian has pointed out, the sequence of (most of the) plagues is what would happen during a record high Nile inundation. That in turn would have been caused by an exceptionally massive monsoon. Moses, tending his flocks and watching the clouds pile up to the south, day after day, would have known what was coming. Pharoah's magicians should also have known, but, then as now, functionaries tend to tell Pharoah whatever he wants to hear.
We tend to forget that the ancient words which get translated 'magician' don't necessarily mean Harry Potter with a wand.
1/20/14, 4:45 AM
Zach said...
It's probably been 10+ years now since I got fired up about the dream of an ecological mini-farm up in the northwoods. So, besides a shelf full of books, where am I?
Still a software engineer, working at the intersection of automotive and mobile technologies. How much more ephemeral can one get?
And, instead of a "green" home, I've adopted a 1970's balloon-frame foreclosure on a small lot in a subdivision built to support the Willow Run plant in its heyday. Irony abounds.
(As the saying goes, "if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.")
So, other than a few meager gardening skills, I haven't advanced much in Green Wizardry. I suppose that qualifies as a failure to "walk the talk."
On the other hand, libraries can be useful to other people. I learned that a young friend (in his twenties) has dreams of building a cheap natural home rather than entering the mortgage trap. Maybe I can help him out. We'll see. He has some of my collection now, with whatever encouragement I can offer. So, perhaps not a complete failure after all. Time will tell.
peace,
Zach
1/20/14, 5:15 AM
Ray Wharton said...
I appreciate your comment encouraging sharing on green wizards, and time permitting I will start haunting there more often time permitting. That being said I have a bit of a screen addiction, and at this point other than keeping up with TADR I don't allot much computer time.
Also the things I most important lessons I have learned recently have been the ones which I have no idea how to communicate digitally.
I will once a week try to visit Green Wizards, and see if I stick, but have faith that in my face to face world of Colorado I am actively participating in sharing what tiny bit of knowing I have to contribute.
It would be good for the Green Wizards site to prosper in the twilight time of the internet. I will try to contribute to that. Thank you for the cage rattle.
1/20/14, 6:46 AM
Joseph Nemeth said...
"In the early 1920s Russia, devastated by civil war, Oleg Losev was experimenting with applying voltage biases to various kinds of crystals for manufacture of radio detectors. The result was astonishing: with a zincite (zinc oxide) crystal he gained amplification.[34][35][36] This was negative resistance phenomenon, decades before the tunnel diode. After the first experiments, he built regenerative and superheterodyne receivers, and even transmitters. However, this discovery was not supported by authorities and soon forgotten and no device was produced in mass quantity beyond a few examples for research. Crystodyne was produced in primitive conditions; it can be made in a rural forge, unlike vacuum tubes and modern semiconductor devices."
1/20/14, 7:09 AM
ViewFromHere said...
I’m living in an area that has undergone great demographic lose (50%) since the 1980’s farm crisis. I am bearing witness to the decay of infrastructure. I’m literally watching buildings collapse all around- barns on long vacant farmsteads falling in, grand 3 story brick Main St. buildings collapsing since the roof could not economically be maintained, consolidated school districts leave lovely schools sitting vacant in every small town, lack of remaining people to tend to the basics of community- serving on boards, providing leadership, delivering the Meals on Wheels, 4-H clubs …). In other words, I’m living through and have a front row seat to the Long Descent. And like JMG has said, we are coping by ‘harvesting’ the remaining parts of that ‘glorious past’ to build a different future. The bricks from the lovely 3 story building that collapsed are being used to build a small one story building. We used the equipment from the closed schools to build a community kitchen in a vacant Main St. building so local farmers can process their foodstuffs—like a mini processing plant. So far have made hard apple cider, maple syrup, grape juices and jams, and more in the past few months.
Per JMG’s comment about weather forecasting, we can watch our pastured cattle increased hunger for hay. They seem to know another artic vortex is on the way and have ‘tucked in’ to the hay at a greater rate. I so love having a husband who knows his animals so well that he can read their behavior.
In terms of adapting to a limited future, I start with my everyday life. I mind my ‘wants’ and train myself to be absolutely happy with what I have. I also pass this onto my kids. Let’s celebrate that we are warm on this cold night! Huzzah! Our dinner prayers is “For what we have, let us be truly thankful!” Our family of 5 downsized our house size, refuse to make any house upgrades for aesthetics only reasons, and are careful to invest in things. This way of thinking is a cure for western civ malaise, in my opinion. There are always improvement projects- gardens, compost, to say nothing of the larger farm projects. And I do want to work beauty into our farm.
Of great interest, on a dangerously cold day, you can look at the various plans drawn up by North Dakota State University being in the 1920’s through the 1980’s for barns, cisterns, rammed earth tampers (1925), solar collectors (1970’s), vegetable storage and much more. This is a nice collection of the legacy of a public university that sought to serve the small and mid-sized farmers around them. Check out the Misc. for plans for community buildings (1920’s) that I still see on the landscape around me in the township halls dotting the landscape. http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/extension-aben/buildingplans
Wonderful list of skills to preserve from you JMG and all the readers. One thing I’m seeing lost is animal husbandry. There were 200+ dairy farmers in our county 50 years ago. Now there is one. So many children were once raised knowing much about animals health, reproduction, care, housing, etc… Now that will no longer be passed down. We lose this broad based set of skills at or peril. And the loss occurred in just 2 generations.
1/20/14, 7:31 AM
August Johnson said...
http://www.greenwizardsradio.org/Forum/index.php?topic=18.msg27#msg27
We need to get more of these discussions going, I'm going to be making a similar posting later today.
1/20/14, 7:59 AM
onething said...
1/20/14, 8:34 AM
Flagg707 said...
My local paper has been running a series of what life was like in Mid-Missouri during the Civil War era (short summary - Missouri was NOT a place you wanted to be back then, especially in the early years).
Two items of interest.
One - reading snippets pulled from the many and varied newspapers from the region, modern comment trolls would have been hard-pressed to keep up with the insults, rage, and nonsense published back in those days.
Two - the Missouri Legislature rejected a bill to incorporate the “Grand Grove of the United Ancient Order of Druids of the State of Missouri” and mentions this was continuing fallout from something called "the Great Secession" of 1833.
See: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/civil_war/years-ago-speaker-abruptly-adjourns-house-in-midst-of-heated/article_54249654-7ffb-11e3-94fc-001a4bcf6878.html (if it is paywalled, I'd be happy to cut out the snippet)
This bit is the third item down on the list.
Regards
1/20/14, 9:33 AM
Jasmine said...
Great Blog. I can think of one example in the UK of a transport system which enthusiastic hobbyists and holiday makers helped to preserve though the second half of the 20th century, when it was in danger of being abandoned thanks to increasing use of cars and lorries. The fact that this system has been preserved could help to mitigate some of the affects of declining oil supplies. This is a real world example of how enthusiastic hobbyists can help to keep technologies going,even though main stream society had no need of them at the time because of cheap and plentiful oil.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries a vast network of canals was built throughout Britain which helped to facilitate the industrial revolution. The development of the railways in the 1840’s led to a decline in the use of canals. However there was still enough commercial goods being transported on the canal network to keep it goinguntil the second world war. The rise of motorized transport then led to a rapid decline in the use of canals. From an economic point of view the canals should have been abandoned and left to silt up. In the early 1960 there was pressure from governments and local authorities to do exactly this. However Britain is a nation that loves messing about in boats and the canals were increasingly taken over by holiday makers in motorized cruisers and narrow boats. This meant that the canal network remained economically viable and continued to be maintained. Many canal were abandoned around the 1950’s and 60’s. However many local group of hobbyists and enthusiasts went to great effort to bring many of these canals back into use and restored locks and viaducts, because they saw it as a vital part of our heritage. As a result of this country still has an extensive network of canals and has preserved the skills needed to maintain and operate them. There are according to Wiki 2200 miles of canals and navigable rivers in England and Wales. Many of them connected in a network that goes from London to Bristol, Liverppol and many parts of the North and Midlands. This country would also have the skills needed to bring back those canals that were abandoned back into use. Many of these canals were designed for boats that could be pulled by horses so we would have a transport system that could still be used even in the absence of fossil fuels. This network will be vital in the future when it starts to be reused for transporting commercial goods.
1/20/14, 9:39 AM
Glenn said...
Recent events in Michoacan would seem to provide a real world alternative narrative. Though, I suspect that rivals to the "Knights Templar" cartel might have had something to do with the arms the "citizen vigilantes" so conveniently had.
In all seriousness, a local militia is a functional solution to the problems of both community defense and law enforcement; albeit the law enforcement may be imperfectly applied. [Pax, Bill Pulliam] There were plenty of non-feudal and feudal historical cultures where the model worked. Pre-christian Scandinavia, for example, was one. There are others, if you care to look for them.
Glenn
Marrowstone Island
Salish Sea
Cascadia
1/20/14, 11:05 AM
daelach said...
The abacus serves as a helper for the addition / subtraction of the logarithm values. You could use paper, but paper will be expensive, so the abacus helps to minimise paper consumption. Besides, this can be introduced as steampunk digital computer: The abacus is the CPU plus RAM, the tables are the ROM, additional paper is the harddisk. ;-)
On the other hand, the slider is faster because addition / subtraction are performed using the scales moving relative to each other. So it depends on what precision is really needed.
@ deedl: If the whole base for industrialisation itself fails, then EVERY industry fails with it, and especially one that is so dependent on world-wide distributed raw materials as the computer industry.
@ German military peak oil study, I remember interesting articles in the Australian Defence Forces Journal revealing that they also are aware of this topic:
http://www.adfjournal.adc.edu.au/UserFiles/issues/180%202009%20Nov_Dec.pdf (page 28, Peak Oil Theory)
Plus another one that addresses the complexity of modern military as a problem:
http://www.adfjournal.adc.edu.au/UserFiles/issues/182%202010%20Jul_Aug.pdf (page 44)
The latter one is particularly intriguing because it is a militaryarticle that begins to envision the (military) benefits of LESS. The main point is: bigger, better weapons become useless if the supply chain fails. Simplified: if you don't have ammo, a pistol is less powerful than a spear. Peak oil is explicitely being mentioned in this article, too.
So yes, it's not only the German military that is pondering about peak oil. I bet every major nation's military is. They do know, and so do the governments.
1/20/14, 11:19 AM
Janet D said...
I just had to throw my 2 cents in with Bill Pulliam, above. I have a cousin who is an attorney in a mid-sized Western town that still has a rural mindset. He is a strong Catholic, white male, small-town-raised...in short, you think he'd be a total right-wing Republican. And he might have been had he not done a stint in the City Prosecutor's office shortly after law school. He was APPALLED at the corruption of the law enforcement, so much so that to this day (20 years later), he still shudders about it. Said they would manufacture "evidence", look the other way (depending), use brute force when completely unwarranted, take bribes, offer bribes, etc. etc.
I'm all for smaller, more localized communities. But I sometimes see this idealized longing for such among the Peak Oil and Prepper communities. It takes only a short walk through history to see that there are some pretty nasty small communities, especially if you're at the wrong end of the unrestricted, ugly boot headed your way. Think of what African Americans in the rural South endured for decades prior to MLK, Jr. and television. Unfortunately, some of that will undoubtedly be returning to us.
1/20/14, 11:25 AM
nuku said...
1/20/14, 11:50 AM
GreenEngineer said...
First of all, I you seem to equate "can we sustain industrial civilization" with "can we sustain our current lifestyles". These are two VERY different questions - currently, we're pouring probably the majority of our energy into activities which actively undermine society's continuation. The EROEI threshold for that is obviously going to be much higher than what is required just to keep something resembling industrial civilization.
Note that this can cut two ways: it suggests that we could keep a technological civilization going with lower-grade energy sources; on the other hand, such a civilization is not going to much in the way of luxury, unless those luxuries are restricted to an elite few. So you could have a egalitarian semi-tech culture, but you could equally well (and most likely with current trends) wind up with a high tech feudalism. If you restrict the high-intensity luxuries to 0.1% of the population, you can likely keep going like that for as long as your prole class will put up with it.
Secondly, I want to question your claim that there is any real agreement about a minimum EROEI threshold for technological civilization. Clearly such a limit must exist. By history it's less than about 20:1 and by inspection it must be higher than 1:1. More precisely, it get's hard to say.
I find this post and the associated graph (the second one) very helpful in thinking about this question in particular. As the author points out, at the end of the day, what matters is net surplus energy. The graph in question shows the available surplus energy under a range of EROEI conditions. Two things jump right out:
The difference between a high (100+) EROEI and a moderate one (~15) isn't very much, compared to the difference between a moderate one and a low one (~5). There's a knee in the curve right around 8, after which life gets increasingly more difficult.
In terms of the EROEI of a particular energy source, the difference between EROEI of 12 and EROEI of 8 is very much a function of chosen boundary conditions. But on a system-wide basis, the difference in net surplus energy is quite large. So I don't think we can necessarily conclude that renewable technologies CAN'T sustain a technological civilization - the critical threshold is in the error bands of the various estimates involved. The real answer is a function of the actual EROEI of the energy source, but is also a function of the level of non-energy-producing activities your civilization is trying to sustain, and it's level of energy efficiency.
At least in the context of the built environment (my area of expertise), getting serious about efficiency (I mean, actually serious; not the current level of interest which has a ROI threshold of 2-3 years) could make the difference between crashing at EROEI 12, or sustaining at EROEI 6.
1/20/14, 1:37 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
I'm not sure that Michoacan is the best model, really. The drug lords there and in other countries are supported by huge influxes of cash and weapons from the rich nations. What we are contemplating is a world where there are no longer any rich nations, and we are living in one of the formerly rich nations on the way down. It might be a very different picture. Mexico is still on the way up economically, at least in the very recent past.
1/20/14, 2:16 PM
William Church said...
Like I've said though, as long as we can maintain the bacon/smoked meat and beer making technology at a respectable level I will make out Ok. :)
Will
1/20/14, 2:36 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
As a further note regarding the resilience of the electronics required for solar PV in hot weather: The answers came through from the renewable energy community:
- The latest wizz bang battery charger / PV controllers (which perform the super nifty trick of stepping down DC voltages) de-rate approximately 15% to 20% of their upper capacity when ambient temperatures exceed 40 degrees. They’re known as MPPT (maximum power point tracking) and use a funky algorithm (they are not all the same, some are way smarter than others – in this case price is a reliable indicator) to convert volts and amps so as to achieve the highest possible charging voltage and current.
- Those same controllers achieve increased efficiency over older controllers during sunny, cooler weather when the PV panels output higher voltages. The older controllers are PWM (pulse width modulation) which are basically super-fast switching devices.
- The reason for the previous point is that during hot weather, the actual voltage and current generated from the PV panels declines as the surface temperatures of the panels increases. Remember the panels generate electricity with light - not heat. People often confuse this point. Heat actually reduces the energy generated.
The funny thing is that so many people love to think of massive PV arrays in deserts (I suspect because the land is not built on and therefore out of sight). However, this is very sub optimal conditions for PV power generation. Pretty amusing huh? Add in a reflective concentrator and you will actually further reduce output as heat will be even more concentrated on the PV panels.
The final point that they raised was that the controller I use, because it actually does less functions (ie. The newer designs have to do the super-fast switching but also DC to DC voltage step down), it doesn't get as hot. One conclusion that they came to was that in these conditions the PWM controllers were actually having lower losses than the alternative newer controllers. Interesting stuff.
I really respect the people on the renewable energy forum as some of them are years ahead of me in terms of hands on experience in all sorts of areas.
As to the winter performance of solar PV, all I can add is that my winters are a lot sunnier than Germany. Honestly, I sometimes feel like telling people, "install it and then we'll discuss how it works in the real world."
PS: Is this week a frack load of comments or what? (I always feel a bit naughty using the word frack).
Hi Lewis,
Nice work. I hope the recent cold wasn’t too bad out your way? Due to the small population here, it is a tough school for Australian authors and they certainly rarely if ever make a living wage.
Hi dltrammel,
Thanks for the big thumbs up! If I give away eggs from here, unless I know that people have previously owned chickens, I give those eggs a good clean and also advise the people to eat the eggs within a short period of time. What else do you do?
Regards
Chris
1/20/14, 2:40 PM
oneotaBill said...
1/20/14, 3:06 PM
John Roth said...
A lot of people miss the distinction between things that are counted and things that are measured. Things that are counted (coins, apples, oranges, etc.) can use an abacus, things that are measured (length, weight, etc.) can use a slide rule. They need fundamentally different mathematics at the practical level.
1/20/14, 3:51 PM
Glenn said...
Point taken. Please note the weasel worded conditions I put in my comment. The events in Michoacan simply got my attention and got me thinking about militias, and from there to societies such as the pre-Romanized Goths, Celts, Scandinavians, Haida, Tlinkit, Maori etc. Not ideal societies by modern liberal democratic standards; most had slavery and class divisions. But, arguably, more egalitarian than the current U.S. And certainly more so than the European feudalism that followed the fall of Rome.
I would argue that it was precisely the removal of the Gothic and Hunnic war bands from their parent societies, being Romanized, then grafted over a Romano-Celtic underclass; combined with a memory of a civilization in which all power and land ownership devolved to a common overlord (Caesar) than made European feudalism what it was. It might even explain the suppression of women below the level of even Greece and Rome (they were from the "losing" Celtic population).
Glenn
Marrowstone Island
Salish Sea
Cascadia
1/20/14, 5:00 PM
Progress and Conserve said...
Its a lot easier to abuse a faceless mass of humanity. Harder to pepper spray a man who knows your wife and children's names.
Your first line of defense in a World Grown Harsh will be the local government and its police force. Make them your friends." ...dltrammel...
Extraordinarily well said, dl!
Several posters have written to record their mistrust of local law enforcement. This is understandable. All human systems are going to be subject to graft, corruption, abuse of authority - and all the rest of human failings.
But - to think that Federal/State oversight is a panacea for this - ignores the fact that ALL human systems are subject to human failings. (It also ignores the mayhem that the US government exports around the globe, but that's another issue.)
More importantly, it ignores the warnings of our host here at the ADR, who suggests that Federal/State oversight will not always be available.
Oftentimes, I sense a level of disengagement, among ADR posters - preparing for a future collapse, but unwilling to engage with the flawed systems of today. This is the future you get folks - from permaculture to politics, it begins now.
To that end - I'll express frustration with those who refuse to vote, usually as some sort of a form of protest. I understand the arguments; the system is rigged, there's no difference in the candidates, etc., etc.
And, maybe that's true to some extent - for Pres., and some upper level offices. But there are races down the ballot (local Sheriff, to hammer a point) that could be VERY important in a descending future.
So, write in Mickey(Frackin') Mouse for President, if you feel you must. But get involved with local issues. And vote!
JMG - I think your ideas on all of this might be very worthwhile. And I'd like your thoughts on the law enforcement angle as well, if you please. You did a great series of posts that involved maintaining government, proper parliamentary procedure and all of that.
If you addressed enforcing those laws that future parliamentary groups might actually produce, then I missed it. I'll be looking back in the archives.
1/20/14, 6:10 PM
Unknown said...
@Clarence--Thanks for the link to the foot-powered clothes washer. On the plus side, it's portable, the spin dry feature is good and might prove useful for other household tasks, and so is leaving the operator's hands free.
On the minus side, because it's made of plastic, nothing besides the handles and seat cushion can be manufactured, repaired or replaced with local tools and materials.
I also have doubts about the ergonomics. Since the operator has to sit on top of it to press the pedal, she or he has to have legs of the right length in order for the necessary repetitive motion to be comfortable. I didn't check to see whether pedal height adjusts.
$40 would be a whole lot of money for an Andean villager. If there's no way to repair the thing when parts are damaged or worn, it's not such a good investment, even if she pays off part of the cost by taking in washing. Just another expensive imported gadget destined for the midden.
The design you end up with depends on the criteria you set at the start. If portability was the priority so women can wash clothes at the water source rather than carrying water home for washing, it makes a great deal of sense to use plastic.
Otherwise, separating the agitation and spin dry into separate devices would make them easier to make with locally sourced materials, tools and skills. I've got armchair notions for how both could be built.
1/20/14, 7:43 PM
cromberg said...
You state that your academic background is in the history of ideas. Have you ever wondered how humans got the idea that they are fundamentally different from other species on this planet, when the facts are that human bodies do not include any unique chemistry or structures, and they do not exhibit any genetic behavioral imperatives other than to survive and reproduce, just like all other species?
Have you wondered why humans believe they are a special case that is not bound by the evolutionary rules that govern all other species, and that this exempts them from evolution’s penalties?
Have you wondered why humans believe that they exist on two separate planes, one physical and the other spiritual, and that this bestows the ability to choose their behavior on a moral basis that overrules their baser animal instincts?
Our speech and logical reasoning resides in our left brain. External stimulus that reaches our right brain, and our older structures, the hypothalamus and amygdala, does not transfer to our left brain as speech. Instead, it is transferred as genetically derived emotion, which the left brain often interprets as spiritual. These emotions disengage rational thought whenever our genes perceive a threat to themselves or to their alleles, without our left brain even being aware of it.
All this is fleshed out in great detail, with many referenced studies, in “The Spirit in the Gene,” by Reg Morrison, which I highly recommend. There is an excellent summary of Morrison’s main points here:
http://regmorrison.edublogs.org/files/2012/06/gamblers-3-2fe1qvj.pdf
Here is one of Morrison’s concluding statements, which may not make complete sense until you read the link referenced above:
“The widespread acceptance of such credos as creationism, astrology and sustainable economic growth gives adequate warning that the fraction of the population capable of applying even the most basic rules of evidence to mystically derived information is so small as to be inconsequential. It means also that the most seductive and dangerous forms of mysticism, those that underpin racism and religious fundamentalism, are totally bullet proof.
By selectively preserving the mystics among our hominid ancestors evolution not only gave us the weapon that would catapult us from obsolescence to world domination, it seems also to have taken out a shrewd insurance against our overwhelming success. Only such a deliciously rewarding and tamper-proof device as mysticism could have prevented us from foreseeing the danger of overpopulation a long, long time ago.”
I suspect you can't make a living espousing Morrison's ideas (amply demonstrated by the fact that Morrison's book is out of print), as there is great resistance to the idea that we are genetically driven just like any other animal. So I understand that you must continue to emphasize near term preparation for the long descent. I just thought you would be interested.
1/20/14, 8:04 PM
Bill Pulliam said...
The issues of corruption and selective enforcement mostly arise in the realms of organized crime. In my area at present, this takes the form of cock fighting, dog fighting, other gambling activities, a small amount of prostitution, and a lot of illegal drugs. Worth noting that these drugs are banned by the feds, not the local laws. I can't imagine in the absence of the federal ban that marijuana prohibition would survive a month here. It is only the threat of federal charges that keeps the pot growers and distributors under the thumb of the sheriff's office.
So you do mostly have a choice. If you don't engage in any of the fighting, gambling or prostitution, and you limit your recreational chemistry to what you can grow yourself, you can for the most part stay out of the way of the graft.
For the record, I vote in every local election. When I don't know the names on the ballot, I talk to trusted friends who have been here longer. Another thing about rural politics, the names on the ballot are not strangers. They are people you see around town and do business with; some will be folks you know quite well. Eventually you may even find yourself listed there.
1/20/14, 9:16 PM
Iuval Clejan said...
Please take a look at my Luddite Manhattan Project on my blog and on John Baez's blog (Google). This is a proposed attempt to figure out through a think/simulate/do tank how to create a sustainable technology ecosystem instead of thinking we already know the answer. Being a techno-loving luddite, I am partial to the view that industrial technology is not sustainable no matter what, even with renewables and reduced consumption, but this would not be assumed, it would be shown to be true or false.
I am currently working on some solar thermal technology, using computer technology (Libre Office Calc and the internet), but once we build something we won't need the computer anymore, though we might use integrated circuits to make a tracker (or maybe just use a clock with gears).
I have also been trying to get a functional loom, so I could start weaving screens (yes, I know this is not standard fare for weavers) but alas, both looms I found here are missing some parts. The Leclerc Nilus is missing several wooden frame parts, which I could fabricate in the wood shop, but I don't have exact dimensions. The Glimakra Ideal is missing the ratchet wheels, which I think are made of just wood, and which might be complicated to make. They cost $120 each from the company, so I was hoping to maybe swap one from the Leclerc (made of metal), cut away the part of the breast beam which it mounts on with a slot and wedge, and instead just screw it in and attach handles to the beam. Then maybe find an old circular saw blade and do the same thing for the other ratchet. But I have reticence cutting the loom, such a pretty piece of wooden furniture, not just a functional tool. If any readers have the ratchet wheels and they are willing to part with them, please contact me on the green wizard forums,
1/20/14, 11:37 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
So you are in the UK?
Quote: "The sort of mass immigration"
How do you explain the powers that be off loading excess population from the UK to Australia from 1788 onwards? Did they have fossil fuels?
Mass migrations are part of the human condition, deal with it. In cultures that do not limit their numbers, this is a relief valve. How are you personally going on that front?
People tend to think of the ecosystem anywhere as a fixed thing or state), but in reality, it is a system in a state of flux and constant change. That is life. I wouldn't expect to visit the forest here, again in say 200 years (if it were theoretically possible) and expect it to be the same as today.
Regards
Chris
1/21/14, 12:53 AM
Juhana said...
And Robert, you truly nailed it by describing how native working classes and immigrants have practically been thrown into dogfighting pit by more affluent parts of political machine known as the Western state. Coming from steel worker background myself, and being (former) union activist I have lost count how many times I have faced some upper-middle class liberal/leftoid steaming hate against native working class males, because they do not follow his/her leftist map to Utopia. Yours was strict description of the situation in the Western Europe right now. There is no turning back the wagon anymore, people in the working class/public housing areas just have to split into inclusive, ethnically sectarian communities. The process is under the way already, you cannot close your eyes from that fact anymore even if you reside in ivory tower rooms of academic aristocracy. Because of that, social democratic politicians at least in the Nordic countries are suffering attack of hysteria... And trying to suffocate political protests from their former core support groups by limiting free speech and bringing to the table "thought crime" concepts. It is very surreal right now up here in the North. Wellfare state in ruins and social democratic parties attacking working class political opinions with vehement rage seen only between fights of former brothers... Cain and Abel stuff indeed. Here in the North any suggestion to the future with no political dimension is destined to fail, because so many critical things are decided in the tables of politicians right now.
1/21/14, 1:09 AM
Clarence said...
there are different approaches to this process of designing and building lower level devices/machines for use in places and times of scarcity and impoverishment.
as for improvements on this device, there are other approaches to this process available via the web. you might find that someone is addressing the concerns and wishes you have. happy researching.;)
clarence
1/21/14, 2:03 AM
Juhana said...
I think that future CTL projects shall be forced "campaigns", where forced labor shall subsidize with their sweat and work that plants keep going on... Like great canal projects in the Russia under Stalin, or pyramid building in the ancient Egypt. So military, internal security forces, creme de la creme of the aristocracy... Do not wait for them to be going around with horse chariots any time soon. But for common people, for them it shall not guarantee current life styles.
1/21/14, 2:06 AM
Hanshishiro said...
1/21/14, 10:46 AM
Nano said...
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jan/17/peak-oil-oilandgascompanies
1/21/14, 11:14 AM
Gunnar Rundgren said...
1/21/14, 11:15 AM
Hugo said...
http://es.scribd.com/doc/201069614/Siete-tecnologias-sostenibles
Thanks.
1/21/14, 11:26 AM
Bill Pulliam said...
How many genocides have been conducted in the name of "multicultural political correctness?"
How many genocides have been conducted in the name of "preserving national and ethnic identity?"
How many of the immigrants "flooding" your shores are refugees from wars that are being fought on the basis of nationalism and ethnic identity?
Those of you in Europe, what makes you think your working class wouldn't be falling apart regardless of immigration policy? Ours has collapsed here in the U.S., and in spite of some screaming demagogues it has very little to do with immigration. Much more due to globalization, against which a losing battle was fought by people around the world of all ethnicities.
Does NO ONE in Europe remember what happened the last time your continent got obsessed with national and ethnic identities?
Policies based on ethnicity have a VERY VERY VERY bad track record in the history of the world.
1/21/14, 11:30 AM
Phil Knight said...
Bill, I think there are three forms of conspiro-paranoia in the world today:
1. Left-wing paranoia - normative values and social cohesion are being undermined by "Neoliberal ideology".
2. Right-wing paranoia - normative values and social cohesion are being undermined by "Cultural Marxism".
3. Far-right paranoia - the Neoliberals and Cultural Marxists are all in it together.
1/21/14, 1:38 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Cherokee, if it's anything like what I've seen here, what's happening is that people buy into the idea that the new stuff is "new and efficient" -- meaning, basically, "warm fuzzy! warm fuzzy!" -- and then scramble around to justify that claim in the teeth of the facts.
Nestorian, that's a post in itself, or possibly an entire book! The usual result, though, is the replacement of spirituality with something else dressed in spirituality's cast-off clothing.
Moshe, not so. A cheap regenerative receiver with one tube or transistor can be made very selective; I've done it myself. It's purely a matter of circuit design.
Lewis, fascinating. I'll have to find that.
Marc, now please go back and read the post, and notice that I said nowhere that my list was a comprehensive set of skills and essentials. It's not -- it's simply a list of seven sustainable technological suites that I think would be worth handing down to the future.
Progress, you might want to look up Josephine County, Oregon. They've just laid off the last of their law enforcement officers due to extreme budget shortfalls, and volunteer groups are forming to take up the slack. It'll be an interesting experiment!
Alan, as I said in the post, the Prieto/Hall study is open to criticism. That doesn't change the awkward way that solar PV fails to pay for itself without big government subsidies.
Sunseeker, a nice collection of pro-solar talking points -- did you get them off a single website, or do you collect them? Mind you, you've sidestepped nearly all the issues I've raised on this blog about the problems with renewables, but that's standard. I wasn't aware that the media is talking about a bubble in solar power -- I don't follow the mainstream media at all -- nor, to the best of my recollection, did I say that we're in one; we're probably about to begin one, for reasons I'll discuss next week and the week after, so by all means get out there with your sales pitches. Unlike most other responses to the stage we're about to hit, investment in solar PV might actually do some good -- if only in that there will be plenty of cheap PV panels available when the bubble pops and the bankruptcies start.
Kevin, excellent! Read up a bit on airship navigation -- I'm pretty sure they also used sextants -- and yes, you've got steampunk GPS. And get an astrolabe, and learn how to use it; they may be old but they're seriously cool.
1/21/14, 1:39 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Hector, the AMA monopoly isn't a matter of who makes how big a salary. I was referring to the draconian legal penalties inflicted on practitioners of alternative health care in this country, which were heavily backed by the AMA (the name "Morris Fishbein" might be worth looking up if you're not familiar with it) as a way of giving MDs monopolistic control over health care in the US.
Mark, lists are easy to make. Which of these things are you, personally, going to pass down to the future?
August, excellent! My first ham radio homebrew was a little two-transistor regenerative receiver, which promptly surprised me by bringing in a shortwave signal from Cuba -- I was in Seattle at the time -- with nothing more than a random-wire antenna strung around the ceiling of my bedroom. It takes astonishingly little to get decent radio reception...
Bill, that certainly matches my experience. Relocalization is not a panacea.
Dltrammel, that's one option. Religion is the other that reliably works. Even if your local warband leader sees no point in printing, your local religious tradition will have plenty of business for your print shop.
Jesse, hmm. I'll give it some thought.
Nastarana, that's a point I tried to make in a post a while back.
Zach, that 1970s balloon-frame foreclosure is probably ripe for retrofitting, you know!
Joseph, fascinating! That's an example of the kind of technology that will likely be lost forever, or for a good long time, unless somebody adopts it and gets it into the hands of people who will do things with it.
Onething, well, I'm pretty puzzled by it myself.
Flagg, thanks for the blast from the past! The UAOD used to be the largest American Druid order, though that was quite a while ago; it's not directly related to AODA, the order I head. Still, interesting to see that being discussed by a state legislature in the middle of the Civil War!
1/21/14, 1:57 PM
Unknown said...
I think Lucky Mortal is saying that the least energy intensive diet for an agricultural area that does not have a Mediterranean or subtropical climate, taking into account energy used for both food production and preparation, has historically been boiled grains, legumes and vegetables supplemented by small quantities of foraged plants. And that this won't work unless you can reliably grow a lot of grain.
I see the point, but the Irish peasantry developed an even more parsimonious diet in the 17th century and survived on it until the Potato Famine. The Irish peasant diet consisted of potatoes, dairy products and a few green vegetables, with small amounts of bread and fish.
1/21/14, 2:35 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Glenn, and for that matter feudalism normally incorporates the local militia model. We'll discuss that in more detail down the road.
Daelach, and also the specific kind of math that needs to be done. It's very much a both/and, rather than an either/or matter.
Janet, I wish I could disagree. Human beings are human beings, and corruption and abuse can and do happen just as easily on a local level as on a national one. You're right, of course, that a lot of people want to pretend that there's a utopia available somewhere -- just one more facet of the toxic sense of entitlement that corrodes so much contemporary thinking.
Nuku, of course it does. Expect such "deals" to be bundled and sold as asset-backed securities as the solar bubble gets under way.
GreenEngineer, it's easy to say, "well, of course, we can just be more efficient' -- but remember that efficiency is the opposite of resilience, and don't forget to factor in the up-front resource and energy cost of those efficiency measures. In some abstract sense, sure, an industrial society can be sustained on a very low EROEI -- but the devil is always in the details.
Will, then I'd encourage you to get to work mastering those two core technologies yourself! ;-)
Cherokee, this is one of the reasons I tend to see solar thermal as inherently better than solar PV -- turning sunlight to heat is easy, and involves so much less waste! I wonder if solar thermoelectric systems would work better in those desert settings.
OneotaBill, when you say "we," do you mean you and people you know? If not, again, talk is cheap.
Progress, I didn't address it. I'll be considering it for a future post.
1/21/14, 2:42 PM
Matt Mc said...
A brief guide and a packet of seeds
"The system identifies two critical thresholds. The lower of the two is the “viability threshold”, at an EROEI of about 6:1. At this point, energy costs absorb over 14% of economic output, making the economy barely viable at all.
"Well before that point is reached, however, there is the “investment threshold”, set at an EROEI of 14:1. At this point, the cost of energy is 6.7%. Whilst the remaining 93% of output may suffice to keep the economy going, it is insufficient to fund net investment in new capital assets."
The author Tim Morgan authored many of the Tullet Prebpn analyst reports over the last couple of years.
1/21/14, 2:45 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Step outside the world of self-justifying ideologies and it's tolerably clear that human beings, like all other living things, are partly constrained and partly free, and that it's possible to increase the scope of individual freedom to some extent by bringing biological and cultural automatisms into consciousness and subjecting them to the "strange loops" of reflective awareness. Of course that middle view doesn't support anybody's agenda of blame, so it tends to get neglected -- even though it's the only one that escapes self-contradiction.
Juhana, there again, you're not paying attention to the lessons of history. The ruling classes are among the very first to go up against the wall when a civilization tips over into decline, and once fossil fuels become a major energy sink, those warlords who figure out how best to do without them will be much more likely to survive and triumph over the ones that cling to them.
Nano, the military's been on this for something like a decade. It's just the civilian leadership that's clueless.
Gunnar, exactly. We could have done so much if we'd have kept going with the promising starts made in the 1970s! As it is, that's water over the dam, and what matters now is what can be done with the limited time we've got left.
Hugo, glad to hear it. I hope it does some good!
1/21/14, 2:52 PM
John Michael Greer said...
1/21/14, 2:55 PM
onething said...
Certainly a grounding in moral and spiritual principles would be good, the problem is that there is so much counterfeit spirituality, and by counterfeit I mean lacking in true sincerity.
Re Hector and JMG - I think behind the monopoly for MDs is the real monopoly, that of the pharmaceutical companies, who control the paradigm the MDs work with. Many actual MDs have also been stopped from doling out alternative medicine.
1/21/14, 3:20 PM
sunseekernv said...
(And gee, with 72% of New Zealand electricity from hydro and geothermal, no wonder PV in NZ has a way to go. But you guys got Tokelau 100% solar powered - cool!)
The intent is for cities/counties (property tax collecting authorities) to help get more energy efficiency and/or renewables out there. Since many people (now) move every few years, many homeowners don't want to pay for efficiency/weatherization/renewables as a lump sum up front, because they figure they'll be moving before they get payback. And such things are still considered outré, so they fear they won't get their money back if they sell before payback.
Or they just lack the capital, either in truth or because the new SUV/mondo flat screen TV/designer kitchen got a higher priority.
So the local governments use their highly rated debt to get cheap money, and lend it to homeowners to do the upgrades/installs, then the homeowner pays the government agency back over typically 10 - 20 years.
When one buys electricity from the power company, they do the financing of the power plant under the covers, and the ratepayers indirectly pay back the utility company's creditors over time. But if an individual buys their own mini power plant (or a bunch of insulation/good windows/etc.), the individual must come up with the capital explicitly. (or do PACE where it's offered, or lease a system from SunRun/Sungevity/Solar City/SunPower/...)
How many people buy cars or houses or make big "home improvements" with cash?
Most people take out a loan. PACE is just a loan from a foresighted local government.
In the U.S. and other places withOUT decent Feed In Tariffs and/or decent economics (like Hawaii, but now HELCO is freaking that so many people are going solar) - banks are skittish about lending to mere mortals doing "weird stuff".
In places like Germany, with a stable FIT and stable/fair policies (and lots of experience), and now grid parity, banks will loan for PV systems no problem. No need for PACE there.
old, but basic info on PACE
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/47097.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PACE_financing
DSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency) claims to be in flux, but still up.
http://www.dsireusa.org/
One can search for Incentive/Policy = PACE
but there's only a few listed.
GreenWizard note - those of you considering insulation/windows/upgraded HVAC/solar hot water/... might want to look thru DSIRE - may as well snag some gov't money/tax breaks/... as long as they're available. Maybe any of you who are business owners or worker bees thereto could look into this if relevant.
This seems to be the clearing house for PACE:
http://pacenow.org/
Oh - I see.
I thought the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac ruckus was resolved logically - but I guess not. Residential PACE programs (on any federally guaranteed loans - i.e. most in the US) may be nixed by the "helpful" bureaucratic control freaks of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Well, I guess I'm glad commercial PACE programs are still going on unfazed, the more energy efficiency/renewables out there, the softer the descent will likely be.
1/21/14, 5:04 PM
dltrammel said...
Why eat them in a short period?
My mother wants some chickens by Summer so guess who is going to get the work building the coop? I wish she lived in the same city, then perhaps I'd get some eggs out of it, lol, but she's about 400 miles away.
As for what I've been doing, I was working on a tutorial series on insulating and weatherizing for renters but my camera finally died, so that's on hold. So is a experiment on removable solar thermal panels for some of my windows. I think I've figured out a simple way to add a bit of free heat to a room, whether its better to just insulate with heavy curtain I'll have to see the thermometer data.
I like a lot of pictures when I do a tutorial so I need that camera. I've been wanting a new camera that I could swap out lenses and do close up picture from my garden, so I'll probably hit the store next weekend.
Sustainability for renters and those who don't own their homes is going to be one of my focuses on the new Green Wizard site. Some of the others working on this with me have other areas they will focus on.
I had a bit of luck in this "fraky" economy back in June when I lost my job but then found one that pays half again as much as I was making. I long ago took JMG's call for LESS to heart and have trimmed my expense down drastically, so the extra income has been good for fattening up my reserves as well as giving me the opportunity to propose some changes at the Green Wizard site and actual fund them.
We weren't going to let people take a look at the new site until it was much further along, planned opening to the public is April but since I brought it up, why don't we? You can check it out here:
Green Wizards Website
(remember we're still under construction...)
It was at the end of November that I proposed to Cathy, Teresa and JMG that it was kind of time to get off our collective butts and really do something with the concept. I'd gotten a copy of his "Green wizardry" which really opened my eyes. I recommend anyone who hasn't bought a copy yet, do so. Once JMG agreed with my ideas, I spent most of December getting infrastructure, website design and hosting in place.
Now that is set up, we're adding content now. One thing that's taking some time, is that JMG's Green Wizardry book is copy written and so we can't just post section of it to the site. I'm having to completely rewrite the major ideas in my own word, with only small quotes from the ADR and JMG.
Given the high standard he maintains in his writing I have been working hard to live up to that, so its taking some time.
The new site is going to have a lot more information. Sections explaining the Long Descent, what the concept of Green wizardry is, as well a ongoing course of study being built by I hope everyone here.
We will still have the forum but updated, as well a blog section. There will be a core group of site bloggers as well a guest writers.
As I said I'll be doing a blog on adapting for renters. Cathy is doing one on gardening. August has come on for the radio section and I believe Glen is going to be blogging about his experience on the water with boats.
I actually planned on approaching YOU Cherokee for a viewpoint from down under, btw that post about "Preserving Fruit" is exactly the kind of stuff we need, as well as Jason Heppenstall for his forestry and coppicing work, and a bunch more people here, lol.
Its just JMG as always being a few steps out in front of us all. He keeps us from being lazy.
(continued in next post due to length limit)
1/21/14, 10:44 PM
dltrammel said...
I hadn't planned to be contacting people until probably March when we got more more done, but let this be an open invitation to everyone. No one does it all. We are often good at one or two things and if you are, and want to share your knowledge please let me know.
(Contact me at zombie trainer @ G mail com)
If you have a blog of your own and want to occasionally repost with us, that's cool too. Let me know. We'll work out the details.
BTW you can view some of my thought on the project and the site, if you look down the page to the "2013 Year End Review". We welcome any suggestions or comments you have about the site.
Also some of the informational pages are done. Here's one I've done on JMG's concept of "Predicaments and Problems" that he wrote of last year. It gives you idea of what you'll be seeing on the new site.
"Predicaments and Problems"
I will warn everyone though, (evil laugh) I don't sugar coat the coming Collapse. JMG gets to be the good cop, I get to be the bad cop.
(Expect humor while you study Green Wizardry.)
I know its late in the week and we'll be seeing a new ADR post tomorrow but please feel free to stop by the site and voice your opinion.
David
1/21/14, 10:53 PM
Marlow Charles said...
Your reply to Cromberg is stunning.
Your second paragraph expresses a sentiment that I have been aching to hear for a very very long time.
I have been flabbergasted (& a little self doubting) to read so many many highly intelligent writers who simply do not wish to question their own self -contradictory views on determinism.
Respect & thank you for yet another challenging post.
1/22/14, 12:37 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
You are most likely correct. I use solar hot water here and it rocks.
PS: Well done, this week is a record number of comments.
Hi crow,
Err, if you know what to look for then the animals and insects can tell you when it is going to rain. Ants build levies around the entrances to their tunnels. Spiders move under cover and sometimes into the house prior to rain. They both seem like quite reliable indicators from my experience.
The birds are usually quite good at predicting rain too. You just have to spend the time to get to know the indicators.
Regards
Chris
1/22/14, 12:53 AM
John Michael Greer said...
Cherokee, I was noticing! The next highest comment count was on "The Next Ten Billion Years," and I'm trying to draw some kind of conclusion from the comparison!
1/22/14, 11:16 AM
Del Nogal said...
Alcoholic, lactic, acetic ... fermentations are useful processes for food conservation and conditioning.
This domestication of the invisible has been an asset of mankind for millenia.
Domestication technologies have this amazing property: you can forget how you invent a dog from a wolf, cheese from rotting milk, but still maintain and hand over the technology from generation to generation.
1/22/14, 12:23 PM
cromberg said...
1/22/14, 12:33 PM
squizzler said...
Regrettably, a glance at the balance sheet of my bike related business suggests that I am presently doing way more than my dues to put this technology into the waiting hands of the future. If only the accountant saw it in those terms!
Best, David
1/22/14, 12:46 PM
Moshe Braner said...
1/22/14, 1:01 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
Yes, I've been wondering about this too. As a suggestion (and I'm not saying it is a definitive answer by any means), this essay views the future through the lens of tomorrow. The next 10 billion years also used the same technique.
This allows for a whole world of speculation and also, if I was being very cheeky, many of the responses fall into the plan to make a plan strategy, which is a highly traded strategy indeed these days.
The other essays which receive far less comments are viewing the future through the past and the present lenses. This provides much less wriggle room for people.
One marketing technique I've read about is the push-pull technique and the comparison seems quite apt to me?
Dunno though, there is certainly something in it.
Regards
Chris
1/22/14, 1:20 PM
hapibeli said...
Let us not get carried away with " I have the better locale"
1/22/14, 5:57 PM
Emmanuel Goldstein said...
Whatever else you do, try to get a copy of this book;
Kachadorian, James. The Passive Solar House: Using Solar Design to Heat and Cool Your Home. White River Junction, Vermont; Chelsea Green Publishing, 1997. www.chelseagreen.com, ISBN: 0-930031-97-0.
This is a book of designs and building principles that allow you to make a home entirely heated by passive means; Sunlight in Winter, and radiant and heat exchange cooling in Summer. No exotic building materials are used.
The book was written by a contractor who built and sold these homes for 15 to 20 years, starting in Vermont. I am definitely going to use these floor plans and principles to make my final house.
Key features include South (ie., equatorial) orientation, salt-box design, and a passive heat storage design that the author calls a "solar slab."
1/22/14, 9:01 PM
GreenEngineer said...
Just to be clear, I am well aware of the inverse relationship between efficiency and resilience, and I know just how hard it is to say "well, we can always get more efficient". Energy efficiency is what I do for a living, more or less.
That said, in an economy as ornate as ours, there are plenty of things we do which make us both less efficient and less resilient. Glass box skyscrapers, for example, or our addiction to SUVs.
And that's precisely my point. I have no illusions that we can keep our current lifestyles down at EROEI of 10:1. There is a lot of waste in the system, but not enough to squeeze us down that far and still give us glass skyscrapers, SUVs and cheap air travel.
However, I'm pretty sure we could keep (more or less) our current standard of living - which is distinct from lifestyle - at those low EROEIs if we can be at all smart about our resource allocation (the probability of that does seem pretty low, but see below.) For example, personal automobile ownership is probably not possible at 8:1, but a high degree of personal mobility (at least local mobility) probably is. (Or we can keep 1% of the population in SUVs while everyone else walks, but that circumstance is probably not stable for more than a generation.)
Responding to Matt Mc: That is a very interesting link and I will have to study it at length. But in principle I agree with the assertion that there is a threshold of viability which is pretty low, and a (much higher) threshold of investment. Or, to put it another way, there's a threshold of viability for technological civilization, and another threshold of viability for modern capitalism (i.e. the investment threshold).
As we cross the higher threshold, the economic system will show increasing signs of stress. At some point, the only thing which will keep the system going in our inability to believe in alternatives. (It may be that we're at this point already.) In this view, our future as a technological species depends on how we react in the space between the investment threshold and the viability threshold. If we let the old system die, then maybe we can figure out a new approach. Or we can ride the old system right on down, past the real threshold of viability - at which point, technological civilization is in fact utterly doomed.
Based on my personal experience, this is really key. This breakdown of the old order will, hopefully, take with it a lot of our modern expectations and illusions. And that is key, from the point of view of technical sustainability. I can design a building - even a large, high occupancy commercial building - to remain comfortable in all kinds of weather, with very little energy use.
I cannot design such a building to operate effectively without the active participation of the occupants. Occupant behavior is central to the effectiveness of radically green buildings. Currently we expect the building to keep us comfortable without any mindfulness or involvement on our part, and THAT is the truly insurmountable design barrier. If during the breakdown we are able to let go of those expectations, a whole new vista of potential low-energy solutions will open up for us.
1/23/14, 5:51 PM
AlanfromBigEasy said...
A mix of renewables, with EROEI > 100 to EROEI 50 hydro mixed in with lower EROEI solar, wind and biomass, can have an acceptable net EROEI even if some components are low. The weighted average is what is important.
Quite a few hydropower installations will never silt up (almost 5 GW at Niagara Falls for example). And even those that do skit up can be easily reconfigured to run-of-the-River hydropower schemes.
WAY too much of our current GDP in the USA is consumption (not true of China). Diverting several percent to energy conserving and producing investment can have a significant cumulative impact.
Fund insulation tax credits instead of invasions, buy solar panels instead of a Caribbean vacation, etc etc. Same GDP and energy use, but MUCH better long term results.
I have little doubt, unlike you, that viable long term mitigations (NOT solutions !) exist.
My pessimism is based on the unlikeliness of our collective self making logical decisions in our own long term self interest.
1/24/14, 1:31 PM
Bogatyr said...
I sympathise as well: I used to be be involved in politics, and I sometimes found it incredibly frustrating that people just didn't seem to understand that there were really important things that needed doing to address social problems etc... Of course, other people had their own, usually more pressing, issues to be dealing with.
Perhaps you've done this, but I suspect you need to reconsider your marketing strategy. 'Marketing' is often taken to be a dirty word, but it isn't: it simply means identifying what people want, and responding to it.
In the case of the audience here at TAR, some readers are interested in the topics JMG covers, but aren't doing much about it in their own lives, or don't know where to start. They don't need the Green Wizards site - or at least, it wouldn't appear to be the most obvious destination.
Some are already deeply engaged and knowledgable, but their time is occupied actually getting things done; contributing to the Green Wizards site would actually consume time that could be used more effectively on their own efforts.
Others, like me, may have identified the skills they want to acquire, and in so doing have also identified the people we need to learn from IRL. As I mentioned before, the Green Wizards site is not useful as a knowledge source but neither are we knowledgable enough to contribute.
A handful have both the time and the knowledge to contribute meaningfully.
So what could you do?
Well, one way is comparatively cheap: identify bloggers who are learning relevant skills, or experts in these fields, and incorporate their RSS feeds into the site. This will take some setting up and curating, but is ultimately easier than having everything written freshly. There are lots of people in traditional crafts etc who have blogs of some kind or other, and people are more likely to write for themselves and people they know on their own blog than to write for strangers on another site.
Secondly, get yourself mentioned, or write guest posts, on related blogs that have a bigger audience. Our host has mentioned several times, I think, that his readership has been boosted after TAR was mentioned elsewhere, bringing in curious new readers.
You may also want to think about the look and feel of the GW site. At the moment, it's very bare-bones, which may work for TAR, but a lot of people will be more comfortable with photos and an attractive design. Having just visited it to take a look, you also need to sort out the hosting - the URL still contains "http://teresamcguffey.com/", so some settings are wrong somewhere.
Anyway, just a few thoughts that are meant to be helpful!
1/25/14, 11:59 PM
nwlorax said...
I don't respond often because well and truly, the Peak Oil Debate shaped all of my childhood and youth through college and reliving it is usually a no win subject.
I inhaled almost every issue of the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) journal, from 1969-1984, edited one article of some import, and three important biomarker species of nanoplankton that differentiate between terrigenous and pelagic sedimentation are named after my sisters. I remember 1972 very clearly, because AAPG statisticians in the "7 Sisters" proved conclusively that many if not most of the small inner city children of the US will freeze to death if lead is removed from gasoline due to the need to divert heating oil into gasoline production. Obviously, this didn't happen. So, let me suggest a useful strategy for evaluating nonsense,or at least improbability applicable across many fields.
An enormous contribution to mathematics made c. 1935 was Benford's law. (Yes, someone else nailed it c. 1890, but Benford published.) Simply stated, it is possible to differentiate between nonsense and useful data sometimes-in some contexts-by looking at the digits. I mention this because so long as counting and differentiating things into groups is a useful skill, probability and statistics will be valuable.
Benford wrote before Eniac et al existed. In fact, an argument could be made that without the physical book that Benford looked at, noting which pages were more discoloured from use than others, his discovery could not have been so easily made.
Had Benford's work been applied to the (fill in the blank) financial crisis, said crisis would have been nipped in the bud by forensic accounting. At least I hope so.
It is possible to do very complex math without digital electronics. Until the early 1960's tide computers in the US (for all coastal areas) were mechanical. That's right, they used rooms filled with gears, offset cycloids and the like, and got the right answers which were then published. The electronic replacements for the tide computers copied the input and derived equations to make a virtual copy of this machine.
Seems to me that using a voice input system to ask a central database a simple question about adding two single digit numbers is not a triumph of technology, but of stupidity. A smarter machine system would respond at a much lower level of complexity and energy use by solving the problem directly or requiring the user to solve it. Back in the 1950's this was known as "Polymorphic Computing" and fell out of favor when memory became less of a constraining factor.
The right questions to unleash computational prowess on might be something like this--
What is lowest erg-consuming device or methodology that can perform operation/calculation X? (No cheating by introducing a brilliant mathematician who survives only on stuff grown on some offshore island.)
We should be looking at ways to design and implement such machines, recognizing that some processing is best done by humans. I can think of one failed Mars mission where the failure to maintain the Metric System in measurements cost ~$670 million dollars.
Some natural cycles are so long that we as a species haven't been keeping records long enough to notice these things. Given that modern Corporate Society is based on ignoring all information older than 90 days, seems to me there is some room for improvement in designing sustainable methods.
1/27/14, 9:03 PM
averagejoe said...
I’ve recently read your book the Ecotechnic Future and I found it fascinating. I enjoyed this post but I would like to add something. As you point out in your book, before we get to the ecotechnic future we will have to go through a scavenging phase, and this will involve reusing and recycling what we can, and this phase interests me, as its likely to directly affect me and my children.
I am a classic car enthusiast, Volkswagens in the main. What I like about old cars, is what I dislike about new cars, and that is their simplicity. An old VW is made of simple components, that doesn’t involve computers and printed circuit boards. It can be repaired using simple tools, and minimal technical knowledge or skill. It also has the ability to be patched up using what is available. I think moving forward, ‘products’ that are like this will be far more resilient in a scavenging phase. More modern cars may be more fuel efficient, but need computers and trained technicians to tell you what’s wrong with them when their computer components fail, which they frequently do. They demonstrate all the failings of “excessive complexity”. Older more simple technology will fair better in my opinion, than the latest technology. I can picture old cars providing good service until they are 100 years old with regular maintenance, whereas modern cars will simply be discarded. Cuba probably is the best example of how simple technology can be repaired indefinitely, patching up using whatever is around, to keep something going by owners and friends with a minimal skill set and tools.
“Excessive complexity” seems to me to sum up all that is wrong with modern day technology. It means to me that it is less resilient. Anything that has mechanical components instead of computer controlled ones, and simple electronics seems more desirable to me. There are some exceptions. I think PV panels will work. But they don’t have any moving components to wear out so they are relatively simple and have a long life span. The inverter will be the weak point however.
So over the next 50 years or so we may witness more use of what are considered to be now ‘old’ technologies resurfacing, because they are capable of being maintained by the average joe, in a world where simplicity, and resilience is key.
Regards
K
2/14/14, 1:49 AM
R Schwartz said...
2/18/14, 10:18 AM
Dave Z said...
Suggestion: Effective anaesthetics are some of them low tech, and strike me as a major gift of modern medicine.
Comment: Wilderness First Responder training goes a long way toward the emergency end of sustainable health care. Good place to start, with established, citizen systems already in place.
8/22/14, 10:07 AM