Reply #77: Why we are screwed

[rustydad]

I too remember the 50s with nostalgia. Milk delivered in return glass bottles (cream on top), the ice cream truck, the bakery truck, the corner store, the corner mechanic, three TV stations at best, one car garages, bike to school, honest presidents. And yet there was a lot wrong too, like McCarthy witch hunts, VP Nixon, huge V-8 powered cars, but all in all a better time.

What prevents us today from addressing 'Peak Oil' is that we are a culture that has lost it's ability to future plan. Most people live for the moment, buy more than they need with borrowed money, those with home equity refinance to buy unneeded devices of pleasure. We simply have given up on the future. Our retirement systems depend on the pyramid scheme stock market. Social Security has been "borrowed" away. No politician will tell you about anything except that which may happen during their election cycle, 2 or 4 years usually.

The energy shortage wall is just ahead of us and the is no hand on the brake. I see the outcome either being a slow decay into village and hamlet living for those who can transition (the strong and healthy). The economic system will have to re-evolve from the barter system to a new localized currency. The nation states and corporations will be gone forever. That is my rosy scenario.

On the other hand we may end up using all the worlds military machines to battle to get the dwindling energy supplies of the world. In that scenario I doubt that human kind will survive. It will be the end time although not at all like the Fundies like bush think it will be. The only thing coming out of the clouds will be nuclear bombs, thousands of them. Bob