Being first into the intersection and early on the light gives traffic a big clear shot to see that bike rider. Some are pissed off by this, so what, if they are pissed it means they saw you.
One big caveat. If you want to play this game, no mistakes allowed. You must be 100.00% observant of all cross traffic. The day you race into an intersection on red and somehow miss that last car late on the yellow there is a big big price to pay and no one will have any sympathy, you will have a hard time forgiving yourself. If you make it.

What is not discussed are property taxes,

Or the system of taxation on any level. What does taxation mean when you have a debt-based system? What is the chance of understanding when the tax code is as big as it is. As of 1999 it (the I.R.S. Manual) is more than 7,000,000 words.By comparison, the King James Bible contains only 773,000 words. (Per link on http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/dearIRS.php )
Will anyone be able to own anything by the time the cheap energy party is over?

Does the nation move back to a weak central government when only the states and locals can deliver goods VS the money they collect in taxes?

What do cities/states cut to keep the mil rate the same when the price of housing drops? OR does an inflating currency take care of the numbers end, while the citizens all end up with less and less in their possession?

As property prices collapse, which I think they are going to do in the not too distant future, I would expect local authorities to charge a larger percentage of the property value in tax in order to (attempt to) maintain their revenues. In other words, I would expect property taxes to become a very heavy burden on homeowners simultaneously suffering from a series of financial calamities - negative equity, unpayable debt, much higher unemployment, loss of investments/pensions, loss of entitlements, loss of savings etc.

This is one more reason why selling and renting makes sense for many people - not just those trying to get out from under a large mortgage. Managing to be debt-free and holding on to enough in liquid assets (through a vicious deflationary spiral) to continue to pay taxes is likely to be very challenging, but homeowners not able to do this risk losing their property in the future IMO.

I doubt very much that local authorities will be able to extract enough wealth from their tax base to maintain their infrastructure no matter how much pressure they apply, but that doesn't mean they won't try.

Well said, dissident.

One caveat, or reservation, or qualification: life has a way of including suprises. The meek will inherit the earth, and so forth. (And why would a used-up earth be worth having? -- to paraphrase the song.)

The truly unexpected will not only trump the plans of the "Winners" in our corrupt civilization. The suprises will in some sense trump all of our expectations. We are all wrong in terms of our predictions about the future.

So we do the best we can and the best we know how to do. We strive to learn and incorporate that into our lives all along the way. The process is dynamic and demanding in ways. There are no guarantees related to individual or collective survival. Nevertheless, I trust the process. "Preparation" seems to me to be that simple and direct.

One of the mainfestations of the weather system intensity is the latitudinal meander of the jet streams that give us snow in April and t-shirt weather in January.

This entirely correct observation synchs with Airdale's weather related food production anecdotes below.

While the average increases projected for climate change are relatively small, it's the oscillating extremes, increasing in intensity, between the averages that will prove more and more disruptive to this vital necessity.

So far the choice has been for continuation of a oil guzzling economy over continuation of a stable food production ability. This, as well as the ongoing undermining of the scientists in the IPCC report, is what happens when economic ideology continues to prevail over ecologic reality.

Edited to add: Regardless of impending PO and its fallout, one does wonder if the fallout of lagging yet built-in CO2 induced climate change will prove to be the knock-out punch which closes the door on what's left of our PO mitigating civilization efforts.

Alas, as J.R.R.Tolkien wrote, in The Return of the King:

"Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who come after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

We could help with this if we could only get our shit together. We'll see.

Well, some of us have been doing this stuff for a looooong time. In my case, some of it goes back around 37 years.

I'll start with recycling. I was part a small group that started the first recycling center in Dover, DE around 1970. After I moved to the Bay area of California, I was the volunteer manager of a fairly large center for several years before moving to the country.

I put in my first very small (all of 77 watts*) PV system about 25 years ago and our large system (3.6kW) eight years ago. The house I designed and built 25 years ago vastly exceeds all current energy codes and is about 30% passively solar heated which is about the best you can do in my area without installing a very large active system. The house included many tubular florescent fixtures all those years ago. We began to convert to CFLs shortly after they came on the market. What's that? 10-15 years?

And, we heat with wood off of our land. I suppose gas for the chainsaws and splitter comes to 10 gallons of gas a year.

We have grown a lot of our own food too during these years.

So, some of us have actually been doing something.

Todd

*77watts and two truck batteries might not sound like much but it allowed us to keep our refrigerator/freezer from thawing when the power went out and to run a 12volt DC pump so we'd have some household water pressure rather than going out and hauling buckets from the storage tanks.

Changing lightbulbs is nothing but today's version of the state of denial. Media and politics have pre-empted and hijacked the climate issue, which means it's dead, and will only be used to further existing agenda's.

The predictable result is the inflation/devaluation of terms like green and sustainable. The oxymoron "green cars" has been used so much, nobody questions it anymore. As a society, we will change our ways only if we can make a profit doing so. For that, green cars work miracles. For the climate, they are a disaster.

-------

Late last year, the first news of interference with the IPCC reports surfaced. I then expressed the wish that some of the scientists involved would speak out in public, and be quoted in the media. The LA Times article below may be a start.

The climate is in a much worse state than the IPCC reports claim. Of that we can be sure. Not only has there been interference at the last stages of writing, the reports are strictly based on consensus. A few "denying" scientists can thus water down conclusions a lot, even before the writing begins.

Dire warming report too soft, scientists say

A new global warming report issued Friday by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of Earth's future: hundreds of millions of people short of water, extreme food shortages in Africa, a landscape ravaged by floods and millions of species sentenced to extinction.

Despite its harsh vision, the report was quickly criticized by some scientists who said its findings were watered down at the last minute by governments seeking to deflect calls for action.

"The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game," said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped write a chapter on the polar regions.

.... the report is also, in a sense, a more pointed indictment of the world's biggest polluters — the industrialized nations — and a more specific identification of those who will suffer.

Thus, some nations lobbied for last-minute changes to the dire predictions. Negotiations led to deleting some timelines for events, as well as some forecasts on how many people would be affected on each continent as global temperatures rose.

An earlier draft, for example, specified that water would become increasingly scarce for up to a billion people in Asia if temperatures rose 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — a point that previous studies have said is likely to be reached by 2100.

A table outlining how various levels of carbon dioxide emissions corresponded to increasing temperatures and their effects was also removed.

The actions were seen by critics as an attempt to ease the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are gradually warming the planet.

Several scientists vowed afterward that they would never participate in the process again because of the interference.

"Once is enough," said Walsh, who was not present during the negotiations in Brussels but was kept abreast of developments with a steady stream of e-mails from colleagues. "I was receiving hourly reports that grew increasingly frustrated."

While I haven't been active as long as some, I've gotten fairly serious about it, well before the original SPM came out. I've posted a list of my actions here on my web site:

One of the first things people ask any activist, especially an environmental activist, is ,"You talk a good game, but what have you done? Have you made any of the sacrifices you are asking others to make? Are you prepared to lead by example?" It's a fair question, and one that deserves a response. Here is what I've done up till now.

1. Prevented population growth: I am deliberately childfree, and have had a socially responsible vasectomy.

2. Downsized my home: Three years ago I sold a 3500 square foot, triple-garage suburban McMansion that I shared with one other person and moved to a 1600 square foot urban bungalow that is half the distance from my work and is shared with three other people.

3. Improved my home heating and cooling system: When we moved in we replaced the existing medium efficiency furnace and A/C with high-efficiency units. We keep the thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two in the winter.

4. Bought energy efficient appliances: We bought an EnergyStar refrigerator. Every light in our home that is not on a dimmer is a compact fluorescent.

5. Improved home insulation: We had an energy audit done on the house, replaced a bad window, and installed weather stripping. Further attic and wall insulation upgrades are in the plans.

6. Use green electricity: We have changed our electricity supplier from the standard nuclear, coal, hydro and gas supplier to a green energy cooperative (Bullfrog Power) whose generating capacity produces no greenhouse gases at all.

7. Downsized my car: Two years ago I traded in my BMW 540i/6 on a 2001 VW Jetta TDI. diesel. I'd have bought a Smart Car, but I needed the back seat. I didn't buy a hybrid because I'm still unconvinced about their total life cycle cost.

8. Use public transit: I now take the bus to work every day instead of driving. As a result my annual automobile mileage is about a quarter of what it was.

9. Stopped flying: I fly about once every two years.

10. Grow some of our own food: We have turned all our flower beds into vegetable gardens which we water from rain barrels and fertilize with compost. I'm planning on donating half the remaining lawn to the vegetable garden effort next year (more food, less mowing). I don't fertilize my lawn and I mow it with a reel push mower.

11. Eat local food: We eat a lot of local food that doesn't need to be transported long distances.

12. Eat less meat: We eat a third of the meat we used to, and very little fish (the oceans are emptying too...)

13. Repair, re-use, recycle: We are fortunate to have a good curbside recycling program where I live. In addition we save and re-use many items that others simply discard.

14. Got involved in politics: Rather than wait around for our governments to do anything, we're trying to change the governments, by getting involved in politics at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. Progressive parties and candidates only need apply.

These changes have yielded remarkable dividends. In the last three years I have lowered my personal carbon dioxide emissions from 12 tonnes per year to 2.5 tonnes per year. My life is simpler, less expensive, more sustainable, more engaged and much more enjoyable.

I've been experimenting with light bulbs and gardening and such for years already.

I've been riding cargo trikes and pedicabs with trailers for my main mode of transportation here in Minneapolis, MN, USA for at least 7 years now.

I work off of these HPV's as my work trucks and do a fair share of family and personal errands with them as well.

I've been working on the "community" aspect of preparation as well. Until just recently people have been extremely resistant to change.

Lately it seems that some folks are beginning to listen and consider change, but more related to Global Warming (what the IPCC report is about, of course) than related to Peak Oil.

I sure did not need the IPCC to tell me what my own personal research has been telling me for years. I've not waited to change until validated by the political and economic Establishment.

My guess is that by the time Global Warming and Peak Oil reality "Trickles Down" to the Establishment, it is probably far too late for change, and whatever changes are considered will not be for the benefit of most of us anyway. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But I am willing to be pleasantly suprised.

Well,

I replaced most all of lightbulbs :-)

Anyway, I grow a good chunk of my food, and am learning more about canning and root cellaring and that sort of thing. In fact, I teach Sustainable Gardening (college course), among other things.

I cut my own firewood on my own woodlot (15 acres), which I skid out to my woodshed with my big draft horse (Percheron mare, for those who are interested in that sort of thing).

I heat with wood, though I would love to find a woodburning cooking range that I could afford.

My personal expenses are very low, but I have a mortgage, and, I'm embarrassed to say, some credit card debt accumulated when I was laid off a few years back. I am trying to claw my way out of debt, but it's slow going. Employment opportunities are not all that good around here.

What else. I live in a sparsely populated area, but such neighbors as we have are wonderful people, very competent, and between the bunch of us probably have every useful tool imaginable and the skill to use it. I try to be good friends with everyone around. We're already pretty helpful to one another, and have the rudiments of a barter economy.

My idea is that everyone doesn't have to be good at everything or have everything. I'll trade my surplus veggies for some of your surplus maple syrup, etc. I'll trade a day of work with my horse for a box of cartridges for my 30-30 :-) That sort of thing.

Plans for the future? Grow more food, plant more fruit trees and berries. Insulate house better. Reduce debt as quickly as I can. Learn more about handling draft horses - I would like to be a valuable local resource.

The most worrisome thing to me is growing older and creakier, which, believe it or not, seems to be happening. This would worry me, PO or no. I wish I was 20 years younger, or 30 years older :-)

Taking a break from putting in a new raised bed today.

I was thrust into "E" mode a few years ago by personal circumstances and am continuing that and implementing L, P and H now.

I work at home as a freelance copy editor, but am diversifying my sources of income -- working part-time at a local restaurant and considering other kinds of work I could do within the community, possibly starting a business.

I live in a 900-sf 102-year-old house on about 1/9 acre in a small community in the eastern part of Arizona. (Moved here three years ago from the Phoenix area for lifestyle and cost-of-living reasons -- prior to learning about PO.) I am a 10-minute walk from the grocery store, health food store, cafe and post office, about 1/2 mile from the hardware store and the restaurant where I work. I know and like my neighbors. I have an extra bedroom I can rent out if necessary.

I do drive down to Phoenix two or three times each month (80 miles one way) but am cutting down as much as I can. I drive a 99 Sentra that gets about 35 mpg.

I had to replace my water heater last month and saved the old tank to make a solar heater. I'm learning plumbing and am purchasing and learning to use tools. I'll be getting a rifle and learning to use it this year (there's quail, dove, rabbit, javalina, and, er, snake). But I am mostly vegetarian. I make my own bread and grind my own wheat. I keep a full pantry. In the winter (it does get cold here, down to 15 F this past winter), I wear sweaters and hats; for the summer I've got a swamp cooler and a hammock.

I bought my vegetables from a CSA farm last year but hope to rely on my own garden this year. I'll be planting mostly desert-adapted plants (beans, cowpeas, sunflowers, squashes, melons, amaranth). I'm considering getting certified in permaculture. I have a rudimentary rainwater harvesting system. I know how to make a cooler out of clay pots and sand! I'll be looking into keeping chickens. I need to make a solar oven.

Oh, yeah, and I don't have kids and I plan to keep it that way.

I recognize the questionable wisdom of living in the desert -- and am considering moving to Oregon -- but I think this might not be the worst place to be.

Patricia

Speaking as someone who buys natural gas in Germany, that spread is meaningless - oil and natural gas are coupled at the end user level, to provide 'investment security' for the natural gas infrastructure installation.

In other words, the natural gas companies in Germany have been cleaning up - but the behavior of normal citizens in Germany remains based on increasing energy prices, which means better insulation, and lots more wood being stockpiled - I have never seen so much wood cut and stored before.

In part, this behavior is also encouraged as all energy bills are measured in kilowatt hours - comparison is simple.

The world's largest exporter doesn't have a free market - instead, it knows how to use free market principles to achieve social goals.

75% mental?

It had better be more like 75% getting ready.

Everyone wants to see a sllllooooowwwww crisis. Some wish for it in order to 'wake us up'.

I don't see that. When I go to suburban areas near large cities I see mind boggling numbers of automobiles and semi's all over the highways and interstates. From Raleigh,NC to Greensboro during most hours is a mind harrowing experince.

Then try DC and Northern Virginia!!!

Try New York and the huge miles people commute.

Does anyone think this can just slowly subside and become a viable paradigm? What I think is that folks will totally panic once it becomes obvious. They will just go stark mad.

The anger and violence in driving habits shows too clearly the mindset of drivers. If you are going to slowly rob them of their ability to get food,drive to work and all the rest then its going to be chaos and very very fast.

The huge enormous overhang of vehicular traffic and habits are just not going to be easily assimilated by the average dweller in those places. You are speaking of their ONLY lifestyle

Why just not having gas to run their lawnmowers and keep that pretty green carpet and keep up with the neighborhood will mean that most will die of instant shock in one week or less.(humor injected here).

The yuppies are on a binge. Its auto and movement related. They can't live any other way. They will slaughter you on the highways if it comes to that. The angst will out.

And when they run out of fuel a long long way from home? And no stations with gas are convenient? Then it will hit them. They may die from all this. Then they will start to tear the asshole out of all around them and whatever they can grab or steal or take.

It won't be pretty. I saw some of this in '73. We were a much kinder gentler nation back then and yet the anger bubbled out. That was over 30 yrs ago. We have changed and very very significantly since then.

Yes many will sit in their dark houses and wait it out but many will be extremely pissed and just won't sit by. At least they still have a bit of spinal cord left in that area. Our's is a violent culture.

Many say ..oh we are against the war in Iraq. I think different. I think may don't give a rat's ass as long as their current lifestyle rolls on and on.

If they gas goes? They might say instead "time to go nuclear". Wittness the lack of concern for 3rd world countries of late. That was all a politicans game anyway IMO. Its wasn't that most people gave a damn. Some did. Most didn't

Its isn't that fuel will disappear. Its they way their mindset will work when the facts become reality.

Airdale-I've seen the elephant. He is not gentle.

This is so true.

You see once you see the mushroom cloud in the distance it's probably only a few seconds, perhaps minutes, before your town gets blasted. In that case it's best to get under a desk, put you hands over your head, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Now contrary to popular belief, the ability to kiss one's tukkis good bye is as much mental as it is physical. It requires flexible muscles which are generally tightened due to mental stress. So you must remain calm if you are going to kiss your ass goodbye without pulling a muscle.

=)

As far as what to do: it's pretty simple: #1 Get out of blast zones. #2 learn to live at a stone age level of existance.

Obviously actually putting this into practice takes a bit more work and fanegaling (sp?).

Klee, I 'd like to repeat WestTexas's mantra about preparation for peak oil:
Economise-learn to get by on half your income
Localise-support your neighborhood merchants and services and farms, so you can get everything you need locally
Produce=learn a trade or get in a business that will support you after TSHTF.
Its good advice, and you will sleep better not being vulnerable to foreclosure even if everything stays the same.

Klee, I 'd like to repeat WestTexas's mantra about preparation for peak oil:
Economise-learn to get by on half your income
Localise-support your neighborhood merchants and services and farms, so you can get everything you need locally
Produce=learn a trade or get in a business that will support you after TSHTF.
Its good advice, and you will sleep better not being vulnerable to foreclosure even if everything stays the same.

Hi Klee,

The reality is that making the change in paradigm is almost impossible for many people. I'm one of the best perpared TOD people and have used arguments similar to your when I speak to people about these issues and haven't had any better success.

I think it is comparable to when I decided to leave the chemical industry to move to the boondocks 35 years ago. All my buddies at work said, "Boy, I wish I could do that" and then went on to come up with a bunch of rationales as to why, in their case, it was impossible. What it came down to in many instances was that they had defined who they were by their business card. They didn't want to be just another guy in the middle of nowhere in jeans and work boots with no status.

I retired just before I was 60 (I'm 68 now) and one thing to keep in mind is that things do become more pysically difficult as you get older. I've had the advantage of establishing our infrastructure (garden, orchard, alternative power, etc.) for 28 years at our current place. There is no way in heck that I could pull it off now (although I'd really like to design and build one more house using all the design tricks I know now). Your retiement plans may be to stay where you currently live but if they include moving, age is something to consider.

I wish you the best but don't have any words of wisdom. One thing that just came to mind is that my decisions have been strongly influenced by how the Depression impacted my family. If there are any fmily members still alive who went through it, they might be able to influence your husband.

Todd

You are right. A slow decline can only be achieved by sufficient levels of discovery. Since the chances of finding large fields is asymptoting to zero, it is going to have to be many small fields. Perhaps there will be a period when they are found but sooner rather than later they are going ot get scarce too. I do not think the typical depicition of global oil production from the past into the future as a symmetric bell shaped curve is realistic. It will be skewed, with a short future tail compared to a long past tail (even if there is lots of oil left in the ground). For the production curve to be symmetric requires a certain level of discovery that looks to be too optimistic as well as gentle depletion from existing fields totally unlike Yibal and Cantarell.

Besides assuming a slow decline in oil, most of the mitigation strategies (increased use of solar, wind, railroads, nuclear, etc.) assume that the monetary system will hold up. I'm not sure this is an assumption we can make, with the amount of debt we have and its dependence on continued growth for payback.

If we have a US monetary crash, it is likely to take quite a lot of the world along. I can imagine a scenario in which much of world trade drops dramatically, at least for a time. When it starts up again, actual goods may be traded, rather than IOUs. I wonder how much oil would continue to be produced under such a scenario, and what share of the total world oil production the US would be able to purchase.

Any mitigation strategy that has a chance of working hinges on a slow decline rate. Both Stuart's and ace's work points to a slow decline, thankfully.

There may or may not be a slow decline in production; for oil available on world markets it makes no difference. Oil after Peak can never be purely a scientific issue, the human factor, the power game, will take center stage.

When any form of decline sets in, oil available will fall off a cliff, and our societies will change beyond recognition.

The world's armies and corporations will secure and monopolize as much supply as they can lay their hands on and feasibly store. That is what makes Iraq and Iran such big prizes: large quantities of oil, that you can leave stored underground.

The fights over remaining supplies will be relentless, since the decline makes clearer than ever that oil is power. If you don't take and secure it by force, somebody else will. It'll be the only game in town.

Of course, the game has already started.

I too like you're post treeman. & my point about war above is what Heissofly is saying; war will/is going to dominate over geology ; & increase decline at least some. Then as Gail says we are in a different world finance wise; then all bets are speculating IMO; & I worry Chimp is right more serious war i.e. nukes. & yes treeman this stuff will make u crazy if u focus on it 24/7- while still trying to make a living /keep connected in this world which denies all these problems. My pattern is to focus on this a lot; to do preps, then backoff -at least on the heavy stuff. This has been very stressful on our marriage. I have developed one close friendship around preparing- much younger than me & as I was recognising this he said well let's hope I don't have to use u for nourishment. I said ok by me if I decide to euthanise. So it goes with this difficult to think about s$%T.

Put very crudely, as it's late for me, it appears that "ideology" trumps reality every time.

It seems as if we construct a managable, understandable and palatable world in our heads, and then "superimpose" this "model" on the real world outstide. I suppose this is only "natural" as the world is so big and so difficult to understand. We seem to regard this "virtual" world, our own mental construct, as "objective reality", often regardless of emperical evidence.

I've been cosidering this subtle and esoteric view of things because recently I've been remembering the Irish famine in the middle of the nineteenth century. We've recently spent time on TOD chattering about the Titanic disaster and the temptation to see this as a metaphore for our society. The iceberg is Peak Oil and we're about to ram it...

But I was thinking that the famine in Ireland might be a more far more appropriate and disturbing analogy. Here the disaster didn't appear out ot the darkness, but there was ample warning. The was time to mitigate the worst effects, yet nothing was done until it was too late. In 1847, even though millions were starving in Ireland, over six thousand ships left Ireland loaded with food; wheat, barley, pigs, chickens, cows... all bound for Liverpool.

The attitude in London to the starving millions wasn't all that different to that of our leaders to starvation in the third world. In fact, apart from the blatant racism directed towards the Irish, it's stunningly similar.

Basically, the British, nineteenth century version of capitalism didn't see a role for the state, rather the "invisible hand" of the "market" would sort things out eventually. Reading contemporary accounts relating to the political response to the "famine" is chilling, as these voices and attitudes seem so modern. One has a gigantic crisis. Informed experts agree on what kind of remedial action is needed, but do we really take notice? Not really, because to do so means questioning the basic tenets of the ruling social/economic ideology, even when it's obvious that the ideology is inadequate and is leading to disaster. I kept thinking about hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. Over a century has passed but the same lazy, arrogant, pigheaded and incompetent motherfuckers are still in charge! God help us all.

I'm not saying that we are going to exactly copy the same disasterous policies that allowed the potato blight to cripple Ireland for decades, only that there are stricking similarities in the way blinkered ideologues and rigid state systems deal, or don't deal, with certain types of challanges. One is struck by our ability to mobilize society through war; why can't we summon-up the same determination, willingness to co-operate, and strength to deal with other forms of crises? Why are we prepared to waste billions on war yet seem unwilling to invest in alternative sources of energy? Does ideology really trump reality every time?

Westexas' Export Land Model, which states that oil exported will decline -much- faster than oil produced, due to increasing domestic demand in exporting countries.

That is the WT ELM model :-)

ELP is economize, localize and produce as a strategy to prepare for post-Peak Oil.

http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2007/04/elp-plan-economize-localize-prod...

Best Hopes,

Alan

WT is Westexas- geologist , Oil Drum contributor/poster who has advocated Economise - pretend you have to live on 1/2 your current income. Localise -get as close as possibly to work/home etc. Produce be in a position where you produce something, i. e. not financial services for ex. I apply this to home as well as work.

(QUOTE)"The only fly in the ointment is possible Thermonuclear War."

You are a master of understatement.

More like the forest fire underneathe the dab of ointment, with the fly now sizzling in it.

Last I heard the world's food reserves have dropped from 116 days to 55 and Bush and his ilk are pushing ethanol production . . . . Hey, Bill, where are you going with that gun in your hand?

BTW a 20 pound bag of rice is likely about 10 bucks -- can you buy bullets cheaper?

Now instead of the above, try this site for some good advice:

http://www.cluborlov.com/ClubOrlov/ConfSlides/index.html

William,

Just want to say I know EXACTLY how you feel. (I'm 4 years out of school and age 28.) It's why I stopped going to the local Peak Oil meetings. It was mostly aging hippies with lots of money to do numbers 1-6. I was like "this is great but I'm barely covering my rent and student loans. what am I just suppossed to sit here and die while you assholes put up your solar panels?"

(My personal financial situation has improved a bit since then but essentially not that much different.)

I told them they should arm themselves because people in my shoes (or those without shoes all together) will simply steal their solar panels and vegetables when tshtf. and They can pray to the mother goddess and yap about ghandi all they want as I rip the solar panels off their roofs and their vegetables out of their gardens.

This is why I always put an "H" on "ELP". Humanize. Improve your relationships with the people around you. Bind yourself into as many human networks as you can. People are much less likely to attack, and much more likely to help, people they feel a bond with.

Plus it makes the acronym more mnemonic. "What should I do?" "You should HELP."

Right, Neutrino. I'm all over that. The bumper sticker in my head these days, waiting to be made up..

"Double, Triple Even QUADRUPLE your gas mileage overnight- Carpool!"

or maybe

"Seats 4 Comfortably. Give your SUV the exercise it deserves. CARPOOL!"

I don't know.. any suggestions?

Bob Fiske

Yes, my memory isn't what it used to be either. Sorry but you asked for that.