Ok.
At the moment I am obsessed by two things. The first, as always is the Bicycle. No surprise there. The second, is the increasing likelyhood of an 'Oil Shock'. Of course both obsessions are something of a closed loop system. I do (no shit) secretly fantasize about being the Pol Pot of Bicycle advocacy. 'Year Velo'. Bring it on.
On the wireless last night was a documentary on a successful aid project in Africa, produced (or aired) because of the G8 summit in Scotland. A perfectly pleasant documentary detailing the successes surrounding a micro loans scheme designed to help the rural poor of Africa move from subsistance farming to a functioning agrarian economy. But most importantly, compared with the west, a highly localized economy, with most goods and services being transferred or provided within tens of miles at the most, and mostly via human or mixed use beasts of burden. (yep, you can eat your oxen when done with them and they don't laze around all day like pigs.)
It has been said that, through military might, America is earning itself the right to starve last in this century. The ASPO stuff below (see depressing) is grim. Dashing all hopes for a Kunstleresque return to Agraria. It suggests totallitarian control of the populace facilitating rapid depopulation and tight central control of resources, with the liberal use of nukes to 'put the poor nations out of their misery'.
Then it really struck me. Barring some miracle scientific breakthrough, the rural poor of the third world are already living the post oil life that we ourselves may have to lead. Sustainable development based around intensive agriculture, and building functional local economies will have given them the head start in the lifestyle that we in the west will find an incredibly bitter pill to swallow. Furthermore, the race is on to institutionalize knowledge and techniques needed to sustain such a life in the face of devastating depopulation in areas hit worst by AIDS. How long before there are African run aid projects to teach us how to live without our Volvo and microwave? Once our countries have negotiated truce in any civil wars and opened our economies to African goods and investment of course...
Life may well get out of control in the West. During the 70s oil shock, near riots in the queues for petrol in the US were not uncommon. As the suburban way of life becomes untenable due to the rising costs of petrol, people are going to be pissed off.
When I was growing up we lived in a highly protected economy. Most goods, if not completely manufactured here, were partially manufactured or at least assembled locally. There were even New Zealand made computers. Now we have embraced a lifestyle built around cheap import goods and more importantly, cheap imported cars. How many school children could actually find their way to school on foot nowadays? Suburban property has become an obsession. Coastal property more so. Personally, I have 4 family beach properties available to me. The Coromandel holiday home has become a right of every Aucklander. I wonder how well the house prices in Tairua will do when the owners have 2 days of laden riding on a bicycle to get there?
I still think that New Zealand will weather any coming recession well. After all we still have people who actually remember what it was like to have a much smaller economy, where foreign exchange was limited and buying local, or DIY was a neccesity. The current housing boom with developers building whole neighbourhoods is a recent phenomenon. In the US this has been the predominant form of housing development since the 1950s. Even at great depression level, despite our geographic isolation, our climate, resources and resourcefulness will see us living a reasonable quality of life. It will be much closer to the life of our grandparents and great grandparents. But look how they turned out. It did them good.
As i said below, Kunstler _is_ an optimist. Regardless of whether we have a catastrophic crash, or merely an extended economic depression, life is going to have to change. When oil companies are running campaigns to urge caution with fossil fuel consumption, there is something afoot. My pick is that mid next decade oil production will be half of what it is today. Even the optimists amongst those who believe that we are in decline put us at 70% of current production within 10 years.
Maybe we can sit down and talk about the revolution and stuff? But it doesn’t work like that! Time to place yourself in the context of that rural African village. What are you going to do for food, or what can you do to trade for food? What skills do you have now that will transfer to that context?
I sincerely hope that you haven't lived your life working at a career in Human Resources.
Posted by nic at 07.07.05 13:43