The Party's Over Part 9

Figure 22b.

Oil reserves by nation Jan. 1, 2003. North American reserves include Canadian tar sands; Mideast figures are stated reserves, which are the subject of controversy. (Source: Oil & Gas Journal, 12/23/02).

Both long-standing US Middle-East policies are fraying. The two have had a history of mutual tension in any case; the most prominent instance of conflict between them was the (Arab-only) OPEC oil embargo against the West in late 1973 and early 1974, which was provoked by the US support for Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 and which resulted in severe economic hardship for the American economy.

Since September 11, 2001, the disharmony between these two policies has become truly cacophonous. The position of the rulers in Saudi Arabia and most of the small Gulf States is gradually being undermined, as these regimes have come under increasing public criticism in the US since September 11. The current Bush administration is no doubt rea.s.suring these rulers that the US will continue to guarantee their security, but they must nevertheless view the shift in American public opinion as worrisome. Their pariah status in the eyes of the American people in turn makes it more difficult for the monarchies to ignore the sentiment of their own populace - which is growing increasingly critical both of Israel's policies regarding the Palestinians, and of the US "war on terrorism." The invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq add yet more division and uncertainty.

At the same time, the US leaders have announced to the world that they will unilaterally decide which actions around the world const.i.tute "terrorism" and which do not. In the view of Arabs and Muslims everywhere, the US appears to have concluded that all actions by Palestinians against Israelis, whether against Israeli soldiers or against innocent civilians, const.i.tute "terrorism." The US (and this includes most of the US media as well as the government) has also evidently adopted the att.i.tude that no acts on the part of the Israeli government against Palestinians const.i.tute "terrorism." Arabs view this as a double standard; for this reason as well, expressions of distrust and hatred of the US are mounting. When the Arab peoples see their own governments supporting America's self-defined "war on terrorism," their antagonism toward their US-backed rulers intensifies. The rulers, seeing this deepening antagonism, are becoming increasingly uneasy.

It is impossible to say whether any of the governments in the oil-rich Arab nations whose stability and security the US has guaranteed for nearly 60 years will collapse in the near future. However, those governments are clearly now under greater internal stress than at any time in the past few decades. The Saudi royal family appears divided as to the line of succession from the ailing King Fahd. Moreover, most of the citizens of Saudi Arabia subsist largely on state subsidies derived from oil revenues, which have been falling partly due to population expansion. This fall in payments to the young can hardly help but cause social tensions within that country. Thus, Saudi Arabia may well be headed toward turmoil, which could lead the US to intervene to seize the oil fields in the eastern part of that country. It seems at least possible that one of the purposes of the Iraq invasion was, in fact, to position new permanent military bases within easy striking distance of the Saudi fields.

Indeed, it may be that the disastrous outcome of the Iraq invasion has left the US with reduced, rather than expanded, options in the region.

While it is impossible to get inside the minds of US geopolitical strategists, statements by American officials suggest that they are at least contemplating the option of maintaining open supply lines through a variety of means tailored to the current realities in each of the world's oil-rich regions.

The Middle East: Next to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest petroleum reserves are those of Iraq, which were more or less withheld from the world market during the decade of sanctions , thus helping to keep global oil prices from falling too low.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, ongoing turmoil and outright sabotage have prevented the further development of that country's oil fields and export infrastructure to any appreciable degree. Indeed, in many months since the invasion, oil exports have lagged behind levels seen during the latter years of Saddam Hussein's regime.

To say that the Iraq occupation has not gone well is a serious understatement, and the consequences are likely to be grim. The US cannot simply leave, because to do so would create a power vacuum that could lead to political chaos throughout the region. But maintaining the present course will likely result in expanding resistance and civil war within the country, which could, in turn, lead to political chaos throughout the region. In short, it is difficult at this point to imagine a sequence of events leading to a peaceful and constructive outcome - barring some dramatic and unforeseeable change of strategy on the part of the US.

At the same time, regimes throughout the Middle East are on edge, seeking to rein in simmering anti-American sentiment among the Arab population, in order not to provoke further US overt or covert actions that would destabilize their governments.

Iran is likely to be a nexus of struggle in the near future. The US and Europe wish to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons - which the Iranians see as essential to deterring American imperialist aggression. Meanwhile, both China and Russia are cooperating with Iran increasingly in the areas of energy and mutual defense. From a geopolitical perspective, Iran bridges the oil-rich regions of Middle East and Central Asia, lying adjacent to Iraq on the west and Afghanistan on the east. Iran is also a major oil and gas producer, and is thus crucial to the futures of importing nations. Moreover, the Iranian government has voiced interest in selling its energy resources in currencies other than the US dollar.

The Caspian Sea: Next to the Middle East, the Caspian Sea region contains perhaps the world's largest untapped reserves of both oil and natural gas (though these have probably been over-estimated). Most of these reserves are in territory that was formerly part of the Soviet Union; some are bordered by Iran. In order to be marketable, these reserves must be accessible by pipeline. American geopolitical strategists are concerned not that these resources necessarily end up in the US, but that the US government and US-based corporations be in a position to control their flow, and hence their price.

This requires keeping any new pipelines from pa.s.sing through Iran, which is still an oil power and is still operating independent of US control. American officials prefer an expensive route through Turkey to the Mediterranean, and another route through Afghanistan to Pakistan. In May 2005, the $4 billion Baku-Ceyhan-Tblisi pipeline - which begins in Azerbaijan and pa.s.ses through Georgia and Turkey but bypa.s.ses Russia and Iran - opened, delivering one million barrels of crude per day to mostly European markets. Shortly after the recent US military action in Afghanistan, agreements were signed for the Afghan pipeline. However, despite backing from the World Bank and local governments, that project may be years from completion; current diplomatic efforts in that regard are essentially directed toward consolidating power in the region. This goal is also being sought through the same strategies used in the Middle East - by buying off corrupt regimes with promises of security and with shipments of arms for potential use against unruly civilian populations. Meanwhile the US has built 19 new military bases in the Caspian region, which appear to be permanent fixtures of the "war on terror."

Russia would prefer to see much of the Caspian's oil and gas flow north rather than south. Moreover, Russia has its own considerable oil and gas reserves and, even though its petroleum production peaked in 1987, it is in fact probably far better situated in that regard than the US over the short term. Currently it is exporting fossil fuels to Europe and the industrial nations of Asia. Throughout the 1990s, US leaders sought to use loans and debt to turn Russia into a dependent client state, and partly succeeded in that effort. However, Russian leaders are aware of the ace they hold in terms of their remnant military and industrial infrastructure, and their relatively abundant fossil-fuel reserves. Thus while the US and Russia remain overtly on friendly terms, the possibility of renewed geopolitical rivalry lurks close to the surface.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia is seeking to regain some of the geopolitical prowess of the old Soviet Union. The privatization of industries and resources that occurred under Yeltsin has declined - as symbolized by the quashing of efforts by executives to sell Yukos (one of the largest Russian oil companies), to Western firms.

Russia's greatest advantage may lie simply in its geography: it is a vast country that covers much of the landma.s.s of Eurasia.

If the US is to remain the world's superpower, it must dominate Eurasia, the site of two-thirds of the world's energy resources. This will be difficult to accomplish from thousands of miles away. America's oil imports must arrive by tanker, and this is an inherently vulnerable supply chain. The maintenance of imperial outposts likewise implies vulnerable supply chains stretching across oceans. In contrast, the countries of Eurasia can rely on pipelines, and on alliances based on geographic proximity. From a geostrategic point of view, an alliance between Russia, Europe, and perhaps China would be America's ultimate nightmare.

But this is exactly what is emerging, and the US has only itself to blame. The unilateralism of the Bush administration has predictably provoked collaborative activity on the part of countries that feel frozen out of decisions that affect their interests.

Barring an escalating confrontation over Iran, this geopolitical rivalry is not likely to erupt into a shooting war any time soon, but economic warfare seems nearly inevitable at this point. And here again, the US is extremely vulnerable, as concerted action by only a few nations could easily result in the severe undermining of the value of the US dollar.

South America: Venezuela is America's third largest oil supplier, and a prominent member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Soon after his election in 1998, Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, pa.s.sed a spate of new laws that, among other things, increased the government's share of revenue from oil exports. Chavez also reformed Venezuela's const.i.tution, through a const.i.tutional a.s.sembly and a referendum, making it one of the most progressive const.i.tutions in the world.

Given this record, the US-backed April 11, 2002 coup attempt against Chavez seemed wholly predictable. However, a successful counter-coup three days later reinstated Chavez, proving him to be a resourceful and resilient politician.16 If Chavez sticks to his quasi-leftist principles, the US will likely search for other ways to rea.s.sert control over Venezuela's oil wealth. Further coup attempts are highly likely. Meanwhile, however, China is bidding for access to Venezuela's oil.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, the US has increased military aid to the regime of Alvaro Uribe Velez - ostensibly to help the Colombian army root out cocaine growers and smugglers. However, it is clear to nearly all international observers that another, perhaps more pressing goal is to secure US corporate interests - including oil fields, pipelines, and coal mines - from rebels in the country's 40-year-old civil war.17 China: The world's most populous nation possesses indigenous energy resources, but not on a scale large enough to fuel its accelerating process of industrialization. Continued reliance on domestic coal supplies has economic advantages, but it will entail environmental devastation and will be incapable of powering the development of China's transportation infrastructure. With its burgeoning appet.i.te for energy, China is capable of dramatically changing the global supply/demand picture for oil and natural gas. Until recently, the US provided the marginal demand in crude oil. But now China is building refineries at a rapid rate, even as its consumption of crude far outpaces its indigenous production. China is using d.i.c.kensian sweat shops and near-slave labor in order to grow its economy; but its leaders know that, in order for its efforts at industrialization to succeed, human labor must increasingly be tied to fuel-fed machinery.

China has recently surpa.s.sed j.a.pan to become the world's second foremost oil importer (the US is still first in line, importing twice as much as China and j.a.pan combined). Increasingly, China and the US are competing for long-term oil export contracts in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and even Canada and South America.

China's economic influence is expanding quickly throughout Asia - including the contested Caspian Sea region - bringing it inevitably into conflict with US strategic interests there. Here as elsewhere, American strategists would prefer to avoid direct confrontation, as China's increasing share of the global economy and its ma.s.sive production of export goods for the US market ensure that any open conflict would inevitably harm both sides. Nevertheless, since China is capable of absorbing a quickly growing share of the available global oil exports, economic and possibly military conflict with the US is likely sooner or later.

Economic warfare between the two nations would damage both severely. The US has been able to run up ma.s.sive deficits in recent years partly because of China's willingness to purchase American government debt in the form of Treasury Bills. China could thus help precipitate a collapse of the US dollar merely by dumping its investments on the international market. However, this would hurt China as well, since that country is dependent on food imports from the US, which could be halted if compet.i.tion turns ugly.

China also has strategic energy-resource interests in the South China Sea that overlap with those of nations other than the US. The area - bordered on the north by China, on the east by the Philippines, on the south by Indonesia and Malaysia, and on the west by Vietnam - is believed to possess significant undersea resources of gas and oil (though exploration efforts to date have been disappointing). All of the nations in the region have conflicting claims on those resources. As policy a.n.a.lyst Michael Klare has pointed out in his book Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, growing demand for energy in Asia will affect the South China Sea in two significant ways. First, the states that border on the area will undoubtedly seek to maximize their access to its undersea resources in order to diminish their reliance on imports. Second, several other East Asian countries, including j.a.pan and South Korea, are vitally dependent on energy supplies located elsewhere, almost all of which must travel by ship through the South China Sea. Those states will naturally seek to prevent any threat to the continued flow of resources. Together, these factors have made the South China Sea the fulcrum of energy compet.i.tion in the Asia-Pacific region.18 In recent years, China has seized several islands from Vietnam and established military outposts on them; meanwhile, most of the nations in the region have embarked on an arms race to protect shipping lanes and defend resource claims.

Britain: Only a few years ago British Prime Minister Tony Blair was hailing the new information economy as a replacement for the old oil economy. Then came the oil price spike of 2000, which wreaked temporary havoc on London's financial markets. Perhaps Blair has since come to appreciate the significance of the fact that the rate of his nation's share of the North Sea oil and gas extraction appears to have peaked in 19992000. North Sea oil gave the UK a tremendous economic boost during the past three decades; but as of 2005 Britain has ceased to be an oil exporter and will need to import increasing amounts of petroleum in coming years in order to maintain its economy. British coal production is also in steep decline. Blair may have decided that his nation's economic survival hinges on future access to the resources of the Middle East and that the best way to ensure that access is through maintaining a close military and political alliance with the US. Though his positions on issues in this regard are often unpopular among his const.i.tuents, Blair is forced by circ.u.mstances to provide the US with aid and cover in its otherwise unilateralist pursuit of global resource dominance.19 The Balkans: This is not a resource-rich region, but one essential to the transfer of energy resources from Central Asia to Europe. It is also the site of Camp Bondsteel, the largest "from-scratch" foreign US military base constructed since the Vietnam War. Located in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo on farmland seized by US forces in 1999, Camp Bondsteel lies close to the US-sponsored Trans-Balkan oil pipeline, which is now under construction. Brown and Root Services, a Houston-based contractor that is part of the Halliburton Corporation, the world's largest supplier of products and services to the oil industry, provides all of the support services to Camp Bondsteel - including water, electricity, spare parts, meals, laundry, and firefighting services.20 While it would no doubt be an oversimplification to say that US military action in the Balkans in the 1990s was motivated solely by energy-resource considerations, it might be just as wrong to a.s.sume that such considerations played only a minor role.

Regional rivalries and long-term strategy: Even without compet.i.tion for energy resources, the world is full of conflict and animosity. For the most part, it is in the United States' interest to prevent open confrontation between regional rivals, such as India and Pakistan, Israel and Syria, and North and South Korea. However, resource compet.i.tion will only worsen existing enmities.

As the petroleum production peak approaches, the US will likely make efforts to take more direct control of energy resources in Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Caspian Sea, Africa and South America - efforts that may incite other nations to form alliances to curb US ambitions.

Within only a few years, OPEC countries will have control over virtually all of the exportable surplus oil in the world (with the exception of Russia's petroleum, the production of which may reach a second peak in 2010, following an initial peak that precipitated the collapse of the USSR). The US - whose global hegemony has seemed so complete for the past dozen years - will suffer an increasing decline in global influence, which no amount of saber rattling or bombing of "terrorist" countries will be able to reverse. Awash in debt, dependent on imports, mired in corruption, its military increasingly overextended, the US is well into its imperial twilight years.

Meanwhile, whichever nations seek to keep their resources out of the global market will be demonized. This has already occurred in the cases of Iran, Iraq, and Libya - which sought to retain too large a share of their resource profits to benefit their own regimes and hence attained pariah status in the eyes of the US government. Essentially they were seeking to do something similar to what the American colonists did in throwing off British rule over two centuries earlier. Like the American colonists, they wanted to control their own natural resources and the profits accruing from them. Many readers will object to such an a.n.a.logy between American colonial patriots and modern-day Libyan or Iraqi leaders on the grounds that the latter are, or were, autocrats guilty of human-rights abuses that justified their condemnation by the international community. But we must recall that America's founders were themselves engaged in slavery and genocide and that many US client states - including Turkey, Israel, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia - have also been guilty of serious abuses.21 In the future, secure access to resources will depend not only on the direct control of oil fields and pipelines but also on successful compet.i.tion with other bidders for available supplies. Eventually, the US will need to curtail European and j.a.panese access to resources wherever possible. Again, every effort will be made to avoid direct confrontation because in open conflict all sides will lose. Even the closest trading partners of the US - Canada and Mexico, which are currently major energy-resource suppliers - will become compet.i.tors for their own resources when depletion reaches a point where those nations find it hard to maintain exports to their energy-hungry neighbor and still provide for the needs of their own people.

Civil wars will be likely to erupt in the less-industrialized nations that have abundant, valuable, and accessible resources, such as oil, natural gas, and diamonds, rather than in those that are resource-poor. This conclusion is based on a correlation study by Indra de Soysa of the University of Bonn of the value of natural resources in 139 countries and the frequency of civil wars since 1990.22 The finding runs counter to the long-held a.s.sumption that internecine warfare is most likely to occur in resource-poor countries. Often rival groups within nonindustrial countries use wealth from the sale of resources - or from leases to foreign corporations to exploit resources - in order to finance armed struggles. Pity the nations with resources remaining.

The least industrialized of the world's nations will face extraordinary challenges in the decades ahead, but may also enjoy certain advantages. Industrialized nations will seek to choke off the flow of energy supplies to resource-poor economies, most likely by yanking their debt chains and enforcing still more structural-adjustment policies. However, less-industrialized nations are able to squeeze much more productivity out of energy resources than are the energy-saturated economies of the industrialized nations. Less-industrialized nations are therefore potentially able to bid prices higher, or to absorb higher energy costs much faster, than the industrialized nations. This is only one of many wild cards in the longer-term game that will be played out as the world's energy resources slowly dribble away.

Taking It All In.

This is probably a good point to stop and take a breath. The picture drawn in this chapter is a profoundly disturbing one. It depicts a century of impending famine, disease, economic collapse, despotism, and resource wars. The reader may be wondering: Is the author deliberately exaggerating the perils ahead in order to make a point? Or is he simply a gloomy and depressed individual projecting his neuroses onto the world?

Nothing in this chapter was written deliberately to depress or alarm. The future projections under each heading above represent not possible though improbable disasters - like an asteroid striking the Earth tomorrow - but the likely outcomes of present trends. And I hasten to point out that, while my personal life has held its share of frustrations and disappointments, I am reasonably cheerful and optimistic by nature. However, as anyone would, I find this picture of the future to be deeply disturbing. Everyone I have met who understands population and resource issues comes to essentially the same conclusions and has to deal with the same emotional responses - which typically run the gamut from shock, denial, despair, and rage to eventual acceptance - and a determination to do whatever is possible to help avert the worst of the likely impacts.

Richard Duncan of the Inst.i.tute on Energy and Man reached essentially these same conclusions when he began to correlate world energy use and population data in terms of overshoot and collapse. His resulting "Olduvai theory" predicts that the life of industrial civilization will be a "horridly short" pulse lasting roughly 100 years (from 1930 to 2030), with its high point corresponding to the peak of global per-capita energy use - which occurred in 1979.23 He named his theory after the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, which is a.s.sociated in the public mind with human origins and the Stone-Age way of life. Duncan believes that humanity will return to an essentially Stone-Age existence after the end of fossil fuels and industrialism (I don't agree with Duncan that this is the inevitable outcome of the energy transition, since many civilizations existed before fossil fuels came into use). "Industrial civilization doesn't evolve," Duncan writes. "Rather, it rapidly consumes the necessary physical prerequisites for its own existence. It's short-term, unsustainable." After developing his theory for over a decade, Duncan now thinks that "electricity is the quintessence of industrial civilization" and that it will be the failure of the power grids, rather than the peaking of global oil production, that will trigger the end of industrialism.

What was Duncan's emotional response to his own theory? He writes: Back in 1989 I became deeply depressed when I concluded that our greatest scientific achievements will soon be forgotten and our most cherished monuments will crumble to dust. But more so, I knew that my children would feel the pressure, and will likely suffer. That really hurt. In time, however, my perspective changed. Now I just treat the Olduvai theory like any other scientific theory. Nothing personal. Each year, I gather the data ... and watch the theory unfold.

But why should anyone pay attention to the gloomy prognostications of population/resource a.n.a.lysts in the first place, when there are so many cheerier images of the future available from economists, politicians, and religious leaders? Realistically, human nature being what it is, I a.s.sume that the vast majority of people will continue to prefer happy illusions to the stark truth, no matter how compelling the arguments in this or any other book on energy resources. Still, the fact remains: as long as we trade on false hopes, we only dig deeper the hole we're already in.

We tend to be victims of what Ernest Partridge of the University of California at Riverside calls "perilous optimism." As Partridge puts it, [h]uman beings thrive on hope. Without some sense that our individual deliberate effort brings us closer to a fulfillment of our personal goals, we simply cannot function from one day to the next. And yet, hope often betrays us, as it blinds us to clear and evident danger and leads us to courses of action and inaction that will eventually result in the loss of our property, our livelihood, our liberty, and even our very lives.24 When Does the Party End?

It is probably simplistic to equate the coming peak in petroleum production with the end of industrialism. There are at least six major linked events that could be considered markers of the end of the historic interval of cheap energy, and two of them have already occurred: 1. The peak in global per-capita energy production. According to White's Law, "culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting energy to work is increased."25 During the period from 1945 to 1973, world energy production per capita grew at 3.24 percent per year. From 1973 to 1979, growth slowed to .64 percent per year. From 1979 to 2000, energy production per capita declined at an average rate of .33 percent per year. However, growth of energy demand in China and India in 2003 and 2004 resulted in a spike in global per-capita energy consumption that reached the 1979 level.26 2. The peak in global net-energy availability. Throughout the past couple of decades, more total energy has continued to be produced each year, on average, from all sources combined; but the amount of energy spent in obtaining energy has increased at a faster pace. This is especially true for oil, coal, and natural gas, for which net yields are falling precipitously: it requires more drilling effort to obtain a given quant.i.ty of gas or oil now than it did only a few years ago, and more mining effort to obtain the same amount of coal. The peak in the total net energy available annually worldwide has almost certainly already pa.s.sed, but it is unclear exactly when: complex calculations are involved and no official agency has bothered to undertake them. A good guess would be that the net-energy peak occurred between 1985 and 1995.

3. The peak in global oil extraction. As discussed in Chapter 3, this peak will probably be reached between 2006 and 2010. The exact year is uncertain, and the event may be masked or altered by economic factors. We will know only in retrospect exactly when the peak occurred.

4. The global peak in gross energy production from all sources. This is likely to coincide closely with the global oil-extraction peak.

5. The energy-led collapse of the global economy. Even if an economic collapse occurs first for other reasons (as fallout from the collapse of the US dollar, the bursting of the American stock-market bubble, expanding war in the Middle East, or the implosion of more scandal-ridden American corporations), energy constraints will eventually hit the global financial system. Energy scarcity will cause a recession of a new kind - one from which anything other than a temporary, partial recovery will be impossible. We humans may, if we are intelligent and deliberate, create a different kind of economy in the future, building steady-state, low-energy, sustainable societies characterized by high artistic, spiritual, and intellectual achievements. But the industrial-growth global economy that we are familiar with will be gone forever. The timing of this event will again depend upon that of the global petroleum production peak.

6. The collapse of the electricity grids. This collapse may occur at somewhat different times, and at different rates, in different nations and regions, depending on the robustness of the grids themselves, on the resource basis with which electricity is generated (coal, nuclear power, hydro, wind, etc.), and on the continued local availability of particular fuels. For example, the decline in natural gas production in North America may hasten grid failure in this part of the world. But everywhere, except in regions where electrical power is already supplied mostly from renewable sources (and such places are rare), the grids are extremely vulnerable; given the time and the investment levels needed to switch to renewable sources of electricity on a large scale, even if extraordinary efforts are undertaken now the electrical generation and distribution systems on which industrial societies depend may ultimately be unsustainable.27 If and when they come down for good, it's lights out. The party will truly be over.

If optimists see the gla.s.s as half full and believe that things are good and getting better, they may conclude that there is little need to be concerned about the future and hence fail to take action. On the other hand, when pessimists see the gla.s.s as half empty and believe the world is going downhill and getting worse every day, they may conclude that there is nothing that can be done and also fail to take action. It is the realists who, seeing that society faces dire and increasing threats, recognize that there is much that can be done to mitigate the worst of the likely impacts and take informed action to make the best of the situation.

That is my essential purpose in this chapter - not to depress but to help readers who are willing to do so to face reality squarely and to take informed action, so that as many as possible of the dire impacts discussed here can be prevented or mitigated.

Those who live in industrialized countries happen to have been born into the most complex societies in history, ones that have reached the stage where - as Joseph Tainter would put it - the returns on their ongoing investments in greater complexity are quickly diminishing. We have arrived at a point where global societal collapse - meaning a reversion to a lower level of complexity - is likely, and perhaps certain, over the next few decades. Once humanity has pa.s.sed through the coming period of shedding complexity, it is entirely possible that our descendants will attain a much less-consuming, fulfilling way of life. But the process of getting from here to there is likely to be horrendously difficult, and the desirability of the outcome will depend to a very high degree on actions taken now.

6.

Managing the Collapse:.

Strategies and Recommendations.

We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.

- Kurt Vonnegut.

We must face the prospect of changing our basic ways of living. This change will either be made on our own initiative in a planned way, or forced on us with chaos and suffering by the inexorable laws of nature.

- Jimmy Carter (1976).

To avoid deprivation resulting from the exhaustion of nonrenewable resources, humanity must employ conservation and renewable resource subst.i.tutes sufficient to match depletion.

- Ron Swenson (2001).

We can't conserve our way to energy independence, nor can we conserve our way to having enough energy available. So we've got to do both.

- George W. Bush (2001).

If we accept the notion that the global industrial system will probably collapse in one way or another within the next few decades, several questions follow. Some inevitably center on personal survival and the welfare of family and friends. Others are more generally humanitarian in spirit: How can we minimize human suffering as the party winds down? How can we preserve as much as possible of nature and culture? Further, how can we find a way down the Hubbert curve that offers incentives and satisfactions so that the human spirit will still have worthy goals (other than continued economic growth and material affluence) toward which to strive?

If collapse cannot be avoided altogether, the best alternative is clearly a managed collapse, in which society would undertake a deliberate, systematic process of simplifying its structures and reducing its reliance on nonrenewable energy sources. (Again: I am using the term collapse here in the technical sense in which Tainter employs it, namely to refer to any substantial reduction in social complexity, and not necessarily to the complete, sudden, chaotic disintegration of all inst.i.tutions.) There is already an extensive literature of recommendations along these lines - although some of it seriously understates the political and economic challenges inherent in the project of deliberately shrinking the material throughput of a social system designed on the a.s.sumption that resource availability will continually grow.

One of the better recent texts in this regard is Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future, by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jrgen Randers (1992). In it, the authors present the updated results of their computer model World3 which, in the early 1970s, modeled future outcomes from trends in population and resource use, producing projections of industrial collapse in the mid-21st century (this initial work was reported in 1972 in the best-selling book The Limits to Growth). When Meadows et al. refined the program and fed in new data twenty years later, they again found that "the model system, and by implication the 'real world' system, has a strong tendency to overshoot and collapse. In fact, in the thousands of model runs we have tried over the years, overshoot and collapse has been by far the most frequent outcome."1 In spite of this, the authors believe that a "sustainable society is still technically and economically possible. It could be much more desirable than a society that tries to solve its problems by constant expansion."2 They offer recommendations based on their computer modeling that could enable industrial societies to avoid destructive collapse if programs of resource conservation, population stabilization, equitable goods distribution, and emissions reduction were adopted immediately (that is, by the mid-1990s). The authors write that it is: impossible for anyone now to describe the world that could evolve from a sustainability revolution as it would have been for an English coal miner of 1750 to imagine a Toyota a.s.sembly line. The most anyone can say is that, like the other great revolutions, a sustainability revolution could lead to enormous gains and losses. It too could change the face of the land and the foundations of human self-definitions, inst.i.tutions, and cultures. Like the other revolutions, it will take centuries to develop fully - though we believe it is already underway and that its next steps need to be taken with urgency .... 3 Another helpful set of recommendations is offered by environmental systems a.n.a.lyst Hartmut Bossel in his book Earth at a Crossroads: Paths to a Sustainable Future (1998). There Bossel contrasts the current "compet.i.tive model" of unsustainable development with a "partnership model" of sustainable development. Continued compet.i.tion, according to Bossel, will lead to resource wars, a reduction of resources available per capita, and a polarization of rich and poor. Cooperation, on the other hand, holds the promise of networking the unique capabilities and skills of people of diverse backgrounds to achieve a synergy, such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, in terms of human welfare, more could be achieved with less matter and energy flowing through the social system. Bossel writes: In discussing our future, it is important that we understand the full implications of "sustainability" .... A sustainable society will have to allow development without physical growth (of material and energy flows and population). Its population must eventually remain below a certain limit that is probably less than today's global population. The per capita use of energy and materials must be less than what it is now in the industrialized countries of the North. All energy must be renewable, all materials recyclable. These limited throughputs of resources must support a system that maintains an unlimited potential for non-material cultural, social, and individual growth.4 Essentially similar arguments are made by Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum in their book A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies (2001). They note that [p]recedents from ecological systems suggest that the global society can turn down and descend prosperously, reducing a.s.sets, population, and unessential baggage while staying in balance with its environmental life-support system. By retaining information that is most important, a leaner society can reorganize itself and continue making progress .... The reason for the descent is that the available resources on Earth are decreasing .... That the way down can be prosperous is the exciting viewpoint whose time has come. Descent is a new frontier to approach with zeal .... If everyone understands the necessity of the whole society adapting to less, then society can pull together with a common mission to select what is essential .... The alternative is a world of selfish battles for whatever resources remain.5 Virtually all of the authors who have contributed to the literature on sustainability tell us that, in order for a transition to a lower-complexity and lower-throughput society to occur without a chaotic collapse, humanity will have to take a systemic approach to resource management and population reduction.

In this final chapter I intend to sketch the general outlines of the social, economic, political, and individual-lifestyle changes that are needed in order to minimize the consequences of energy-resource depletion and to build the foundations of a society capable of enduring for many generations into the future. I will save two important questions - Is it too late? and, Are these recommendations realistic? - until the end of the chapter.

You, Your Home, and Your Family.

There is much that you, as an individual, can do to prepare for the energy transition. Below are suggestions grouped into eight categories; but as you take your first steps on the path toward a sustainable lifestyle, you will find that these strategies naturally blend into each other. You will also find new friends who are on the same path and who can offer encouragement and suggestions. Many thousands of people find satisfaction in making these sorts of efforts for their own sake - not just as a strategy for survival during an antic.i.p.ated social or economic crisis. Over the past decade or so, my wife and I have employed most of these strategies in our home and with our community of friends; and my colleagues and students and I explore them in some detail in our yearlong program on Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community at New College of California.

Energy usage. Begin by a.s.sessing your current energy usage, then decide which areas of usage are essential and which are nonessential. Gradually and deliberately reduce your nonessential usage. This is a process that may continue over some time and may require considerable experimentation and ingenuity. Examine your utility bills carefully and begin using them as a feedback mechanism to tell you how you are doing in your conservation efforts.

You can improve the energy efficiency of your home relatively easily by replacing incandescent lights with compact fluorescents; by more thoroughly insulating walls and roof; by replacing single-pane glazing with high-e double-pane windows; and by choosing energy-thrifty appliances. Direct most of your effort toward the area where your energy usage is greatest. For most people, this will be home heating.

Alternative energies. After you have pared your energy usage to the bare minimum, consider equipping your home with a renewable energy source. Photovoltaic systems are expensive now, but when electricity prices begin to soar you might be glad you invested in one.

Wind power may be feasible for you if you live in a rural setting. Small wind turbines generate power more efficiently than do PV panels, but they require tall towers and can make an unpleasant noise.

If you rent your house or apartment, altering the building itself may seem unfeasible. You may instead wish to examine your housing options: might it make sense to move to a place where it would be easier to pursue radical energy efficiency and energy independence?

Your home. If you are thinking of building a new home or remodeling your existing one, consider using ecological design principles and natural or recycled materials. Straw-bale, rammed-earth, and cob construction can be used to build houses that stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer with little or no energy usage. Many counties now routinely grant building permits for these kinds of alternative structures, which have proven themselves over time to be durable and efficient.

Building one's own structure is an extraordinarily empowering experience. If you lack construction skills, take a workshop on basic carpentry and find a builder who is familiar with natural building, who is willing to teach you, and who will allow you to do as much of the work as you can.

If you live in a rural or semi-rural area, a composting toilet might be a good alternative to a conventional septic system, in that it would allow you to use human wastes as fertilizer for trees and shrubs. As discussed by Joe Jenkins in his Humanure Handbook, there are even simpler and more direct methods for composting human waste, though local ordinances typically prohibit them.6 Finances. Reduce your debt. Whatever interest you are paying on loans - especially credit-card interest - is nonproductive and a drain on your personal energy budget. Further, don't buy what you don't absolutely need. Forget about your "patriotic duty" to the consumer economy and to the maintenance of the national financial system. Your primary duty is to a higher cause: personal and planetary survival.

Exiting the consumer treadmill is psychologically as well as financially freeing. The "voluntary simplicity" movement has been growing internationally for the past two decades, and local networks and support groups exist in many areas.

Appropriate technology. Begin replacing some of the Cla.s.s D tools in your life with Cla.s.s A, B, and C tools (see Chapter 1). A well-made hand tool - a hoe, garden spade, saw, chisel, or plane - is a joy to use; employing it properly requires skill, but offers considerable satisfaction.

These days it is often more time-consuming and expensive to repair and reuse manufactured objects than simply to throw them away and replace them. But as energy resources become more scarce and valuable, having basic maintenance and repair skills could mean the difference between continual frustration and lack on the one hand and sufficiency and satisfaction on the other. Many junior colleges offer cla.s.ses to the public on small-motor repair. Knowing how some of the simple devices we depend on actually operate tends to raise one's level of self-confidence, even in the absence of energy shortages. Begin to a.s.semble a small library of books and articles on home repair and maintenance and begin to try fixing simple things on your own, seeking advice whenever necessary.

Health care. Perhaps the most important appropriate technologies are those for health maintenance. Learn about healing herbs and basic medical procedures that can save lives in the temporary absence of doctors and hospitals. Start a medicinal herb garden in your back yard or window box and a.s.semble a natural home medicine chest consisting of dried herbs and herbal tinctures, as well as books on natural first-aid remedies.

Food. Grow as much of your own food as you can. Doing so successfully will require practice and experimentation: gardening is both an art and a science. If you live in an apartment, explore window-box or hydroponic gardening.

Unless you have a very large city lot or some acreage, considerable gardening experience, and a fair amount of time on your hands, it will be unrealistic to expect to grow all of the food you will need to sustain yourself and your family. However, you can make it your goal to grow more of your diet each season by managing your garden more carefully, and by planting a wide variety of vegetables that can be harvested more or less continuously. A greenhouse or cold frame can help extend your growing season year-round.

Saving seed is a time-honored traditional craft that contributes both to self-reliance and to the maintenance of the genetic commons. Buy open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties of vegetable seeds, and in your garden set aside some s.p.a.ce where a few plants from each variety can complete their life cycles, yielding seeds for next year. Seek out neighbors who are avid gardeners and whose families have lived in your area for several generations: they may have heirloom seed varieties, well adapted to your local soil and climate, that they would be happy to share with you in return for some of your own more unusual seeds or produce.

Look for alternatives to chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Some nurseries specialize in supplies for the organic gardener.

In order to keep from quickly depleting your soil, you will need to build and renew it each year. You can make your own compost from lawn clippings, leaves, soil, manure, kitchen sc.r.a.ps, and crops grown especially for the compost pile. A worm box - which turns kitchen sc.r.a.ps into rich black humus - can be employed even in a small apartment.

If you have the s.p.a.ce, keeping a few chickens can serve several purposes at once: chickens can produce both food (eggs and, if you wish, meat) and nitrogen-rich fertilizer while periodically ridding your garden of snails, slugs, and invasive insects.

Food self-reliance entails devoting some thought and effort toward preservation and storage. Drying is the easiest means of preservation, and it requires no energy source other than the Sun. Canning takes more planning, work, and energy, but enables you to put up larger quant.i.ties.

It is easy to construct a solar oven that will cook food even on cold winter days, as long as the Sun is out. A meal consisting entirely of food that you have grown and that you have cooked slowly in a solar oven is truly a banquet of self-sufficiency.

Transportation. For most Americans, the automobile is a key personal link to the oil-based energy regime of industrialism. A new car rolls off the a.s.sembly line each second, and the global fleet uses twice as much energy from oil as humans obtain from the food they eat.

Resources for Home and Family.

Energy Usage.

The Energy Saving House: A Practical Guide to Saving Energy and Saving Money in the Home, by Thierry Salomon and Stephane Bedel (New Society, 2002).

The Home Energy Diet: How to Save Money by Making your Home Energy Smart, by Paul Scheckel (New Society, 2005) Alternative Energies.