When Will the Joyride End

[Jose Diablo]

Primer on Oil Resources

"More than half the world’s oil—and 70% of U.S. oil—will be consumed during a single human lifetime. That span happens to coincide with the Baby Boomer generation born after World War II. The graph at left shows the phenomenon. The Boomers were conceived as auto culture kicked into overdrive. As newborns, they were driven home from the hospital in a car. They grew up listening to songs like Mustang Sally and Little GTO. Getting a driver’s license was their rite of passage. During their lives many Baby Boomers will drive and fly a million miles, equal to 40 trips around the globe. Magellan and Amelia Earhart were the famous circumnavigators of their day. Now every man is Magellan, every woman Amelia."

Yep, there it is. The ride is about over.
:D

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. WE'RE BOOMERS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT

TO CARS AND MORE CARS AND BIG TRUCKS AND GAS

AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!

[Jose Diablo]

3. LOL

I guess.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

4. Yeah, I'm teasing

[jwirr]

13. And when there is no gas for the tank I'll have one to sit in.

[phantom power]

2. My grandfather rode a camel.

My father drove in a limousine. I fly in a private jet. My son will ride a camel.
--attributed to an Arab oil barron.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

19. Probably because he WANTS to ride a camel because

he is sick of the rat race.

[skids]

5. Save the boomer criticism...

...till after they are all retired. Then they are less likely to retaliate. :evilgrin: :hide: :yoiks:

[Jose Diablo]

7. You got that right

We might cut them off completely. Give it all to their kids.
:)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

17. We'll pull out our dentures and throw them at ya!

and hit you with rolled up woodstock posters.

[Jose Diablo]

6. Seriously

Something better be done and quick. We're running out of time and I'd like to think my grandchildren and their children have a future.

[4dsc]

21. Seriously, nothing will be done

until its too late.. We will not collectively do anything to resolve the problem of oil and resource depletion. Who are we trying to kid??

And the time do anything may have already passed us by.. SO hang on to your seat's ladies and germs, its going to be a rough ride..

[NNadir]

8. Speaking as a member of the "Boomer" generation let me say,

we are a huge disappointment.

Maybe that's not such a good word, "disappointment."

We are a disaster.

[Jose Diablo]

9. Well, don't be so hard on us

We were encouraged to do this. Look at all the car commercials, the ads for ski machines and boats.

Consume, it's good for the economy. Thats what made everyones paycheck.

How else could we get to work, without a car?

All these things lead us to do what we did. We inherited this legacy ourselves. Capitalism to the core.

CONSUME.

Thats us.

Reminds me of that movie with those aliens running things, but you could see them with special glasses.

[Bellamia]

10. A disaster, really?

That's kinda harsh, doesn't apply to either my son or nephews. But I understand what you mean. And believe it or not, some "Boomers" are more than concerned for the future...some dispairing........ you know, it is very sad when our "young" people say "What's the use?" Gives a mother/aunt the willies.

[umass1993]

15. Good post, NNadir

I am 34 years old and I am tired of people calling the US a "great nation." I never experienced this "great nation." My experience has been : Vietnam, Oil Crisis, Hostages in Iran, Reagan, Iraq War, Brief Clinton Interlude, and now Chimpy.

Meanwhile, our towns and cities have rotted from the core.

If this is "greatness," I am not impressed by it.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

18. shhhhh

[Extend a Hand]

11. you must have missed the memo

Darth Cheney has told us that "the American way of life is not negotiable"

[Jose Diablo]

12. I'd expect someone like Cheney to say that

He is not like the rest of us living in the reality based world.

When it's gone it's gone. We in the reality world try to find solutions to what are the real problems in the world, rather than depending on stealing what we need like Cheney's boys do.

Cheney is like one of those dinosaurs that went extinct, because he is not able to see what is real. He thinks what he says, makes reality.

Thats the difference between him and us.

[Jose Diablo]

14. I'd say that if we cannot figure out how to maintain our current level

of per capita energy budget of 12,000Kw/year, then its back to the farm, for those that can live through the next 20 years. And there will be far fewer people. But the threat of world wars will be over, who can travel far on foot to fight without the machines and the portable energy that drives them?

Keep the knowledge but lose the technology, maybe a new better times for mankind?

Somebody will live through it.

Edit: The Amish do OK.

[phantom power]

16. Knowledge has a way of evaporating in times of turmoil.

And humans have been fighting continent-sized wars since long before the invention of mechanical transportation. The Romans, the Mongols, Alexander, the Muslims, they all had their continental empires, created by waging war on those they conquered. Every one of them both rose and fell by war, on a fairly massive scale.

[Jose Diablo]

20. Still, life goes on but it can be brutal and short

All we really know about the past are those 'great' events, like the Khan hords and Alexander the Great, thats the only stuff that gets recorded as history. I imagine that for most of the people that lived in those times, it was generally pretty quiet and mostly uneventful.

As for knowledge, you got that right. Even today what would that 10 CD set recording all the great scientific breakthroughs with the accompaning math equations mean if there was no way to examine the CD's. All it takes is one generation of non-reading children and the knowledge is wiped out of the collective memory, gone. The CD's would make pretty good toys for children to play with, look as the pretty rainbow colors when it's held to the sunlight, or maybe one of those wind chimes, CD's on a string.

A new 'dark age' would follow the shut-down of the machines I think.

[dcfirefighter]

22. Dark Ages

perhaps we can go buy some hooded cloaks and becomes keepers of the Ancient Ways, a set of cloistered keepers of knowledge. I'll learn brewing and distilling. Someone else needs to learn hepatic medicine.

Actually, as long as you can get a group of people to defend themselves from the barbarian hordes, and you can find someplace with a 3-4 month growing season and 20" of rain or a steady river (and note that various first nation's peoples have lived sustainably in conditions far worse than this):

1) Water isn't that hard to purify: emergent plants do a pretty good job of it, even with heavy metals.
2) Food isn't that hard to grow.
3) Food isn't that hard to store: pickled, dried, smoked, cured, or with a bit of 1800's technology, frozen.
4) Cotton, Wool, Hemp, Linen aren't that hard to grow
5) Clothes aren't that hard to make
6) Buildings aren't that hard to build
7) People aren't that hard to entertain
8) Someone needs to know medicine.

When the post apocalyptic smoke clears, a few suggestions for a new society:
1) no one owns the earth, or even parts of it. If you want to exclude others from using a bit of it (or soil a bit of it), you must compensate the rest of us.
2) no one owns anyone else, they have a right to the products of their own labor.
3) people can trade, and confer ownership rights to, the products of their labor.
4) when you vote, make sure the winner has a Majority, not merely a Plurality. Use something other than first-past-the-post.
5) barter is ok. gold is barter. if you want lots of commerce, you need more money than precious metals provide. use scrip. don't let people loan what they don't have.