I think Kunstler said it best: The world will be dragged kicking and screaming part into a sustainable future.

No one really knows what form of sustainable society that will be. Ran's assertion that civilization will end is purely foolish because as we all know, civilization started well before cheap energy. It wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect a return to slave labor and 17th century-style colonialism, but that's pure speculation.

It's also possible that there will be a transition to renewable energy and MUCH simpler lifestyles. No, there won't be as much energy and we'll have to do without plastics, but I think it's likely. It's perfectly possible for us to lead simple lives, in harmony with nature, while still advancing technology and building great works.

These two outcomes depend largely on how you view human behavior: one assumes that greed and avarice will prevail -- and there's plenty of history to back this up. Another assumes that we can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

As for population -- the first world is actually in good shape, because the populations of Japan, Europe and even the United States are in rapid to steady decline, respectively. US population is increasing with immigration from Mexico, but that does not represent an increase in world or continental population.

What we know will happen over the next 50 years is a long-term stagnation of the lucky economies and a crash for the less-lucky ones. You can bet we'll e among the best off during the early part of the energy decline, and hopefully enough people will become aware of the problem that something good will come of this. Ultimately the decline of oil is a good thing, because this WILL force us to stop overheating the planet.

The problem we have in the first world is that our degree of dependence on oil for basic day-to-day survival is greatest. (Though countries like India and China are certainly catching up fast.) When the oil stops flowing, we're going to be in a much greater world of hurt than places where people still remember how to do subsistence farming without cars and tractors.

While it may still be possible to get the food into the cities in a much more expensive manner than now, using emergency gasoline and/or other means of transport, that doesn't mean most people will be able to afford it when they can no longer drive their cars to work, and most of the job are gone anyway. (And forget about government assistance. Even if Bush weren't making sure those safety nets disappear, supporting huge numbers of newly impovrished would be enough to break the federal bank.) If the only survival skill most of us have is how to go to the grocery store to buy produce, then yes, basic survival does become a critical issue.

As to whether civilization itself will end, that is indeed debatable. A lot of that depends on how much you buy into the primitivist argument that everything from the agricultural revolution on down has been an unsustainable, 6000-year-long blip, which requires constant expansion or collapse. (With virtually no territory left for civilization to conquor, and the oil about to disappear, the latter alternative becomes inevitable. IF you buy into that argument, of course.)

Either way, I think we both agree that there's going to be some rough times ahead for the next several decades. For our economy, even a mere stagnation for a long period of time does amount to a catastrophy, simply because of the way our monetary system is structured.

Ran does tend to take the optimistic view that there could be a light at the end of that very long tunnel. I think there is at least some evidence to support his ideas. In addition to the environmental releif, without oil, centalized control over large geographic regions will also become more difficult. Massive multinational corporate chains will probably become a thing of the past. It's entirely possible that we could end up with a combination of the best and worst, with some regions being ruled by local despotisms, while others learn to operate in more egalitarian tribal structures. But like you say, that's all speculation at this point.

Being from Iowa, I've seen my fair share of farm-based wonders at shows. I've seen plastic bags and simple plastic containers made from corn, not petroleum.

Hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons if you have the will to mess with them until they line up. Obviously such plastics are too expensive to be in wide use right now, but in the future that might not be the case.

As bouncing points out repeatedly, the core problem with this whole argument of "civilization as we know it will end" is that it continues to underestimate human ingenuity.

And this phrase, "when the oil stops" drives me nuts. It just doesn't make sense! Oil will never, ever stop! It will keep getting less and less available and the cost of finding more will keep going up, but it will never just stop!

It is simply supply vs. demand. As its price continues to go up, human ingenuity will replace one use after another as it become feasible to do so.

Maybe some economies will hiccup, stumble, and maybe be flat for a while with some inflation. Collapse? No, I think the people preaching collapse are the ones most hoping for it for other ideological reasons.

Since I've transitioned to my new job I haven't had nearly enough interesting reference questions to answer. So . . . when Ran claims that "everyone knows you get better mileage at 55" I of course had to find sources to back what everyone knows.

Unfortunately, when I started looking for data, Google appeared to be down (I've learned I'm almost as addicted to Google as I am to the internet). However, apparently Yahoo allows pretty much the same commands as Google so I limped along in my quest. I found www.fueleconomy.gov and they also supported the claim that 55 mph gets the highest gas mileage for most cars (see article). However, I decided I wanted to look at their source material and so found this document from the Center for Transportation Analysis. In the summary statistics it does indeed say that the avereage fuel economy lost from 55 to 70 is 17.1% (drawn from Table 4.24 p.26). However, take a look at Table 4.25 (p. 28). In this particular case a 1997 Toyota Celica gets slighly better fuel economy at 65 versus 55.

For the sake of fairness, I will point out that there are quite a few flaws with this study. The largest being the sample number isn't even close to being large enough to be able to extrapolate any useful conclusions and the newest car they tested was a 1997 model. However, it makes sense to me that different cars have different speeds at which they get optimum gas mileage. After all, there's a world of difference between the little Civic Jaeger drives and an SUV.

Maybe now that Google's back up I'll look for some more studies on this subject (or maybe not :) ).

The reason a range from 45-55 is usually given for optimum gas milage is that somewhere in there, wind resistance goes from being a minor consideration to being a major consideration.

45mph, being common knowledge for optimum gas milage is probably a bit outdated because of changes in the lower torque ranges on gears, as well as the more slick design of cars.

I would say the optimum cruising speed of automobiles is least suspicious among Ran's assertions. (1) People don't know, conciously or subconciously that oil production is peaking. A few informed people and oil businessmen, such as Dick Cheney, know. But the public is largely unaware of that. (2) Assuming energy availability decline leads to destabilization, it's unlikely that buying land will do anything. Does Ran really think he can live entirely off the land he's purchased? If so, does he think he'll be able to afford property taxes? If you follow his logic, land for farming is going to become quite a comodity and he would have a real contest, in that scenerio, to keep ownership of his property.

For some history on that last part, I recommend reading A People's History Of the United States' documentation on the mass seizures of farmland in New York during the early 1800s. Land ownership puts implicit trust in the system. Ran distrusts the system, but still trusts it to honor his ownership of land -- an obvious contradiction.

bouncing, you are dead on accurate with your comment about Ran and his assertions regarding land. How can he honestly expect civilization to collapse but people to still recognize his deed for his land?

If civilization as we know it actually were to collapse, it is those with the biggest guns and the most bullets who will control everything, including his precious land.

If you really expect civilization to collapse, your best choice for survival is to do what all good survivalists do:

- stockpile as much dried, canned, calorie dense food as possible

- stockpile as much weapons as possible in big underground bunkers.

- organize all your neighbors into a militia dedicated to follow you. The bigger the militia the better. You'll be going up against warlords raising feudal armies.

- in short, be prepared to wage constant warfare to protect your freedom, your food, your land, and your women from being raped. Not exactly any idealist's paradise.

If any of you have read David Brin's book, The Postman, I think he did a really good job of extrapolating a post-apocolyptic world and the causes behind it. Of course, his plot takes creative license to be interesting.

I was actually a little curious myself, so I asked him. Here's the email conversation (edited slightly to make it easy to follow):

me:

Hey Ran, one of my readers was asking about this, and I have to admit I'm kind of curious myself. Do you have to pay any property tax on your land?

Ran:

yes. for now, it's under $200 a year.

me:

Also, once the hard times hit, what's going to keep the system from simply finding a way to "officially" invalidate your ownership of the land, as the elites have done to the poor in times past when things got rough? If you don't trust the system to begin with, how can you trust it to respect your title on the land?

Ran:

do you have some examples of elites doing that during the DECLINE of a civilization? it's my impression that they usually do that during the expansion stage. during the decline of rome, they totally let go of people in rural communities - they didn't even have to pay taxes! i think the reason is, they have decreasing resources to enforce declarations of ownership, so they concentrate on the cities.

of course, nothing's a sure thing. all kinds of things could go wrong with my land. obviously, that's no reason to not try.

Me:

Thanks for the reply. I can't say I know of any examples of land seizures during a civilization's decline, although I'll inquire amongst the skeptics to see if they can think of any. The example my reader pointed out was farmland seizures in New York in the 1800's, but that was obviously during America's growth period.

Do you mind if I reprint your response on my site for others to read?

Ran:

go for it. i'm sure there have been some land seizures during a civilization's decline, but i don't think it's common enough to worry about, compared to hostile neighbors or eco-catastrophe. if for some reason we get global cooling, my land is already cold, and i'll probably have to abandon it. and if yellowstone has a super-eruption, i'm a little close. the important thing is to be adaptable, to choose a path but be willing to change it. you can print this too, or whatever parts of it you want.

So, does anybody want to take a stab? Have there been land seizures during the downfall of other empires in times past?

Well that's easy, The Great Depression. There were thousands of extremely well documented cases of land foreclosures and out-right seizures during the Great Depression, mostly of farmland. In the economic ruin the southern states faced after the civil war, mass land seizures were quite common too.

There is an important distinction between collapse of government and decline of economic conditions. A collapsed government is unlikely to facilitate in the seizure of land, but its collapse also leaves a vacuum of the very power that protected it from seizure by would-be criminals. But what we aren't going to see, at least in the short run (50 years?) is the collapse of the American government -- just the decline of the economy and civil liberties. In a declining economy, the government may take a role in seizing what little resources are left on behalf of the elite.

I'm not buying his argument. If government collapses, his deed is worthless. If it doesn't, he has to trust that the government would act as an honest broker on behalf of a small landowner, and I do think most historians agree that when times are bad, government accountability is bad too.

The Economist made oil its front page Apr 30th

Time and Newsweek have both had articles on oil, the rising price of oil, and limited production of oil.

Yes, its been in the mainstream press.

No, CNN isn't running hourly updates on the state of oil. That would be silly.

In Oklahoma they pretty much have daily updates on the price of oil, along with reprinted speculation by people out of the know. The weird thing is, the people I share an office with, who are all in the oil industry, all seem quite certain we've already peaked.