Transition Culture

Transition Culture is a site for sore eyes!

Nice article

Excellent !
Thank you very much.

I find it interesting that a significant component of the peak oil crowd actually envisions an almost utopian powerdown scenario in which we all end up living like those cheery castaways on Gilligan’s Island. The reality of the situation is far darker - or have you forgotten what a week without power, water, and food looked like in New Orleans?

Peak Oil has the potential of drastically reducing the human carrying capacity of the planet. This means death by starvation, exposure, disease, and warfare - the latter caused by ordinary people fighting for resources to stave off the first three.

Human beings are basically predators - we prey upon other animals for food and we prey upon each other for money, power, and sex. From the bedroom to the boardroom, each of us competes against others for what we desire and need. Imagine how that will look when what we need is food, clothing, and shelter.

Now, I do agree with you on the point that it is virtually impossible for a single family unit to both survive and prosper alone in the wild. There is strength in numbers and as such we will form communities and villages in the post-peak oil era.

But you’d better be sure to surround your communities with strong, high walls and vigilant armed citizens - otherwise, someone else will simply take it all away from you.

A few points :

• one can only share what he has. If you prepare, you can share - if you want to. In any case it’s better to have something planned in advance than not.

• Gandhi’s example shows what millions of coordinated non-violent people (sharing the same culture with non-violent ethics) can achieve. The mayhem Europe went through during the Great Plague is quite another thing.

• I don’t want to butcher a hog properly, I want to butcher it so that I can feed myself on it , no matter if it is done well or not. (beware of the bile, however)

• Communities might work or not - your food stockpile will in any case.

• Keep Katrina in mind when making survival advice.

I have come to this simple code: I am willing to share what I have with others, but I am unwilling to let others take what they want from me.

It is not altruistic, but enlightened self interest. I expect something back from the others for my sharing with them. This is a form of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, where the only stable point of the game is to “defect”, sell out your resource competitor, take everything. Only through repeat playing of the game, iterated PD, can players find that cooperation is actually in their long term best interest.

My plan has been to establish these “trust relationships” with my neighbors before they need to be tested under difficult circumstances; do the iterations during easier times rather than difficult ones.

David Korten’s book “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community” has been valuable to me in assessing the range of responses to difficult times. Specifically his 5 divisions of human consciousness speak directly to range of behavior we see now and can expect to see in the future. It is a hopeful book, but does acknowledge the vast task of moving the majority of humanity from a socialized consciousness “small worldview”; my group first and foremost, to a cultural and finally spritual consciousness with an “integral worldview”; all of our groups going forward together.

I am trying to work towards these goals, but I do not believe that every human has the capacity to elevate their consciousness, or that they even see the need to. I see the need to keep a foot in both the utopian and dystopian camps, promoting membership of the former, while preparing to resist those who would drag us into the latter.

That is a very thoughtful
I thought it was quite entertaining.

but, to be honest, there will be no mad max scenario. When the mushrooms start blossoming, you are going to die.
period.

So, in the case of the Titanic, your advice is that the women and children should have stayed on board?

I read the piece on the Energy Bulletin, and found it quite thought provoking. Not that I am necessarily going to follow every action that was written there - but that it formed another part of the jigsaw of ‘what could/should I do’.

I found some of what Zachary wrote was quite tongue in cheek, but pointed too.
After all - Now that Tony Blair has installed low energy light bulbs in Downing Street - there is a worry that too many folks will thing that he has ’solved’ PO and Climate Change too.. I wonder if Tony has a Rainbarrel?

However other parts of his essay were (IMHO) challenging and indeed spot on. I placed a large order to Amazon today, to fill in some gaps in my knowledge. And these were not more books about Hubbert or by Matthew Simmons - but about preserving food and running a small holding.

“To know and not do - is not to know..” (heard that on a film somewhere..)

So you won’t find me in a swamp with a rainwater barrel and a 12-bore just because I read Zachary’s article, but his view is still valid because it is his view. We should all take what we need from the plethora of information available, and act as we see fit.
It is a buffet - not a set-menu.

And we must all remember what happened in New Orleans!

Keep up the good work Rob!

Again, a doomer viewpoint:
“Human beings are basically predators … Imagine how that will look when what we need is food, clothing, and shelter.”

Alternative vision (non-dark lens): NYC during the blackout - people pulling together for each other. Try looking in places on the earth that are currently and managing nicely. I mean really go look. It is doable! I live near the Amish - strong communities. My 2 daughters just got back from Ukraine. Is it alot of work? Oh yeah. But doomers envision they people will be at each others throat. Well we have this thing called higher intelligence that tells us we might get through this if we pull together otherwise we don’t stand a chance.

What Peak Oil doomers forget is peak is the 1/2 way point, not the end of oil. Until depletion/decline start hurting, don’t expect much of a reaction from the masses. But if you must, paint your sign and walk around announcing the end.

Ready…get set…Evolve!
‘Carpe diem’, boys and girls.

Thank you Rob! We will meet the challenges of peak oil and climate change as a community or not at all.

If my only choice was to survive in my little cabin way back in the woods while everyone else starves and freezes to death, I think I would rather go suck on a gas pipe, while there is still some gas left!

I entirely agree. In the UK, the only places where one could build such a “safe” refuge from a collapsing civilisation are the hills of mid-Wales and northern Scotland - harsh environments which could only support a few hundred people living a “self-sufficient” existence.

Concerned people - of which there are currently hundreds of thousands if not millions - need to be shown ways of turning their concerns into practical action for sustainability. The more some peak-oilers spread messages of doom or crude survivalism, the slower will be the spread of the Transition Culture message and the worse mess we - all of us - will find ourselves in.

We should be teaching the young all those things our grandparents wanted us to learn, the skills even they were beginning to forget.
The production of food, preserving, making things from scratch.
All of this can only come through community. The hardened survivalist might last out a few years, but being in isolation/solitary confinement will do nobody any favours.
What would be the point in survival, just to go slowly mad, alone.
The best of life is through being with others.
There’s just a chance that real community may return and we adjust. We have to hope.
Thanks for your excellent site.

That’s a very thought provoking article.

I think that surviving peak oil is possible but [i]only[/i] at a community level. Some of the survivalist tactics are sound but are best done on a community level like storing food. Rather than storing it at an individual level, food could be stored at a community level as the Mormons or the Hopi do.

And yes New Orleans can’t be forgotten and if we were to face a Kathrina like situation, I would think a group should band together and help each other to maximize chances for survival. After all, the goverment may not be there for you. It certainly wasn’t there for the citizens of New Orleans.

Wow, at first I thought this article would change my mind about how to react to PO but on the contrary, it has solidified it. I read Nowak’s article and thought it was excellent, a brief summary indeed but his point was really to debunk Peaker’s that think turning down the thermostat and investing properly are the answer.

First of all “The survivalists are like the latter, like those who were first off the Titanic in the first lifeboats that were launched half empty.” I can’t say I agree with this behavoir but one must admit that those people lived.

I also thought this line was quite funny; “I couldn’t slaughter a pig with a copy of it open in front of me, or can my own produce just from the book.” If you can’t read a book and use it to can and store produce based on the instructions, you certainly better hope you have someone around to help you. That’s exactly how I learned and it couldn’t be easier. Same goes for gardening, farming, and eating wild plants. You pick up a book, read it, try it, fail, try again.

Sure, we can’t survive in isolation but you are going to have to take care of yourself to a much higher degree than you currently do. Being a survivalist is not some live-in-the-desert on bugs and cactus juice type of exercise. It simply means being able to fend for yourself when the system that is currently caring for you begins to fail.

If you don’t see what Nowak see’s then fine, don’t buy books and learn how to fend for yourself, remain dependent on the system. But understand that if you must spend all of your time convincing others that the ship is going down, all the lifeboats will be gone by the time you get the brain washed sheeple to listen to you.

I have the same sort of response to people (including my dad) who talk about the value of gold in a predicted time of hyperinflation. Like I’m gonna walking down the street with gold coins to the bartering market past starving neighbors!

So as well the survivalist response seemed to offer little to me as an urbanite. Money worries me the most.

When I do go down the path of speculating on economic collapse, it is tough to imagine anything, but I do find myself in a dilemma between “paying down debt” and “investing” in skills/tools/systems that will lower the energy resources I need to survive.

The first “reducing debt”/saving is more an individual virtue because it opens the door of time. It’s hard to help the neighbors or participate in community if you have to work 2 1/2 jobs to make ends meet.

The second “investment” is a very wide question that exists also between the survivalists (How to get MY house to function minimally off the grid as necessary?) versus collective (get my community to function minimally off the grid as necessary?) - or same issue in transportation - (how do I get around?) VERSUS (how does my community get around?)

Well, then there’s still a question of “which community” - the scattered minority who is worried like me, or the people who live across the street. The first community I suppose helps us organize action IN our respective second community.

And then I come back to money. Where can our money go the furthest? In PV cells on 100 roofs, or working collectively for a wind turbine for the neighborhood? What sort of organization would be required to build cooperative networks in a neighborhood and WHO has time for MORE MEETINGS?

So TIME and MONEY seem the issues now.

I also think of Wendell Berry’s essays on “Home economics” talking about the practical functionality of a household. Single adult/parent households are overwhelmed and even two-adult/parent families tend to have more obligations than time, so I must expect the future will hold larger households - whether underemployed siblings, retired parents, or others who have time/skills to offer in exchange for below-market rent living.

Well, I try to imagine how I’d live if my income was cut by a factor of 4, and of course the answer is sharing burdens of debt and cost of living. There’s much untapped potential for the bold anyway, and that’s where I get some hope our lives can be restructured when circumstances change.

I admit in “depression” times communities will come together by necessity, and when/if things brighten again, many people will go back to more “individual freedom”.

I am still scared for so many people I know who seeem to be on a financial cliff now, and making ends meet each month by credit cards. Sure, the moneyed people will LOSE more in inflation, but losing or downgrading a job seems more than a likely possibility, and maybe many people worry about this, but it doesn’t seem like it.

i think if everyone else, or even most people, that i talked to about peak oil also saw it as a likely catalyst to a “great turning” i would find your article more plausible.

i do think there will be families, neighborhoods, maybe even whole counties where pre-planning, a critical mass of insightful and committed activists, and auspicious external conditions allow a “turning”. and that is a vision clearly to be preferred to a guy at a gate with a gun guarding maggotty grain.

but this notion that, “Either we all pull through or none of us do” perhaps seductive as a religious maxim is false. in reality, 30,000 kids are dying of malnutrition and diarrhea everyday - ask unicef. but your kids and your neighbors kids are doing fine. that is unfair, and there it is.

your argument seems to be that we should devote our limited time and energy to trying to “powerdown” and relocalise. and the part about “we all pull through” seems to imply that it is not morally correct to even strategize about where to be, as its “everybody or nobody” (literally). one of the last serious persons to advance this kind of thinking had the excuse of being born into a culture that believed in a politically-oriented and activist god. and he ended up dead on a cross. and the people who momentarily embodied that kind of thinking turned into power-scuffling imperial lackeys.

on what theological basis do you attribute your immense hope? on what dialectical sociological analysis do you site your belief in the “great turning”? or more likely, in which deep psychological need springs the desire to believe that if you are Really Really Good Everything Will Be Great?

Good response to Nowak article, and brings up a lot of good points, but misses a major one - that in a survival situation, the best defense is collective self-interest.

If things really get nasty, you’re a lot safer within a small community of motivated, productive people than isolated and sitting on top of a storehouse of food and ammunition, hoping that you and your assault rifle will save the day. Good luck with that.

I live in Central Florida. In the fall of 2004, we got clocked by four hurricanes in five weeks, each time just beginning to get things back together before being taken down for another week. Things were bad - power out most of the time, sewage problems, traffic anarchy, you name it - but the big difference here is that we’ve seen it before. And we all learned from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 that we couldn’t count on the government for help.

When the storms came, the smart people didn’t wait for someone to take charge. They set up neighborhood resource coordination systems. They worked together to clear debris, to share supplies, to get information back and forth. Sure, there were the jerks who made trouble, but they didn’t get very far - because local neighborhoods were already putting things back together again and could defend themselves if necessary. As a result, we got the lights back on and went on with our lives.

New Orleans? Just the opposite. They all waited for the government to save them, and when that didn’t happen, they turned on each other.. but I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Ideological individualist survivalism doesn’t protect us from the jerks, it gives rise to them. The truly best survival skill is knowing how to build and maintain communities (unfortunately, a skill that most of us have lost in the last century, here in the U.S.). It’s about self-interest as much or more than altruism.

David Brin’s science fiction novel “The Postman” really tackles the issue brilliantly. Written back in 1985, it paints a U.S. collapse future created mainly by biochem and nuclear war, but it could very, very easily be mistaken for a worst-case Peak Oil scenario as well. One of the major themes of the book is the threat survivalists pose to others and to themselves.

I enjoyed a good belly laugh! Thanks for the article. As Mark Jenkin said in the post above, there is no set menu, and while we might crave to find safety in a formula, the context of the situations as they unfold will dictate the response from second to second. We must be flexible. I’m trying to learn as much as I have time for and balance that with the business of daily life. I want to be as ready as reasonably possible but there is no way to anticipate what is “really” going to happen. So it seems I have a new hobby, gardening and reading up on permaculture, humanure, and other topics I would have found exceedingly odd before I learned about peak oil. Nothing is wasted, no matter how it all turns out. Everything I learn about, companion planting or how guns work, is growth. All of it. Because I am in a good position to tell people about peak oil and other issues, I am watching my social circle slowly expand. Again, growth. I buy extra food and put it away, but I should anyway, Katrina taught me that. No regrets, no matter how things turn out. I know I’m doing the best I can with the resources I currently have but I am always open to learning and doing more.

I know I don’t have control, never did. Control is an illusion. I’m 41 and know that without the oil culture my lifespan, if I was lucky, would be about 35. All these extra years I have lived have been gravy, I have lived on borrowed time/oil/carbon. I’m not ready to die, but in terms of the bigger ethics picture, I have had my fair share of earth’s resources.

With no regrets, we should relax as best as we can while moving forward. Nothing else will work unless we think we can see the future.

IMHO, The suvivalists have it wrong but not for the reason you describe above. Cities were viable before peak oil. Not all of them, but many were. If you were thinking about a complete implosion of society on the order of a civil war of Liberian or Somalian proportions I would still go for the cities. The reason being that the cities that were viable before oil will find some way to manage and protect what’s there. I’ve spent some time poking around the countryside and nobody out there could make it for more than a few months without oil without winding up in conditions of extreme poverty. It’s too spread out and car dependent. When considering what’s going to happen with the population at large think depression not mania. Besides, I know a guy who got back from Cuba a while ago and he said that the cities do much better than the country side. Same probably goes for North Korea.

My sentiments exactly. Thanks for the article.

Yes, I think this is speaking more to the mental adjustments or phases of peak oil depression than a real break from the community solution or realistic alternative plans. A survivalist plan isn’t much of a plan as it has too many limitations. Upon closer inspection it falls down easily. If you forget a can opener you’re stuffed etc.

I have to think that Zachary Nowak would also realize, if eventually, that going it alone is just not possible given the amount of knowledge and specialization required just to live. Let’s think about that one, I mean, water sterilization, sanitation, medicine/health care, food production, teaching, mid-wives, tailors and candlestick makers… the list is endless but not hard to understand. Two years each of us on one topic means that the community becomes, and remains, the best tool for any situation. We end our useless corporate gerbel individual cubicle existence and return to helping each other. Highly preferable.

Thank goodness too. Just so much easier to work together and specialize in different areas. We all need each other and the faster we get past the ‘go it alone’ approach the better.

maybe a 12 step reaction to peak oil would place both your arguments and Nowak’s into a larger understanding as more people hit the peak oil mental brick wall/paradigm shift?

As a side note, I don’t believe his article was meant to be just the survivalist answer, but such a response for those looking at that as a solution depending where they are in the peak oil depression scale. It would seem to me he would be therefore respectful of your arguments.

cheers
walter

Rob,

I’m a big fan of yours, and regret never having had a chance to speak with you in Pisa at the ASPO conference.

When I saw the Kinsdale plan, I was very excited, it’s the best yet, and I sent it off to Jason Bradford in Willits, who’s been working on this as well:
http://www.willitseconomiclocalization.org/

You are very lucky to live in an area where such a hopeful, positive, plan can be implemented.

When I first heard about the Rimini protocol, I immediately began drafting a local plan for Oakland, California where I live, because energy reduction plans need to be implemented locally, bottom-up.

I sent my first draft to Jon Bosak. He’d already been thinking about doing the same thing and quickly moved forward with a plan for his area:
http://www.ibiblio.org/tcrp/doc/project.htm

I was already familiar with Wackernagel’s ecological footprint and other carrying capacity models, have spent a lot of time researching the history of agriculture in California, taken permaculture courses and best of all, John Jeavon’s bio-intensive methods of farming to preserve topsoil for millenia.

But I discovered how deeply into overshoot the Bay Area was:
http://www.energyskeptic.com/Oakland_Depletion_Protocol.htm

The United States has roughly 80% of its population in urban centers, many of which are unsustainable. Some cities might be okay, but most probably aren’t. Each city needs to look at what the population of a city was before the age of coal, whether there’s year-round rainfall, what the soil is like, how far a city is from major agricultural areas, what the railroad infrastructure is, etc, etc.
http://www.energyskeptic.com/Book_List.xls

So I agree with you that we need to work together to solve the peak oil issue, but it demands a RAPID back-to-the-land movement in the United states, because we need to go from one-half of one percent of our population feeding everyone else, to 90% of the people feeding 10% in towns and cities.

How do you actually make Folke Gunther’s “ruralisation” plan happen quickly? How do you specifically do that in the United States, comprised of overweight, combustion engine spoiled people who get their information from Television and are scientifically illiterate?

Given the carrying capacity of the United States as roughly 100 million people, I don’t blame those who see the inevitable dieoff ahead from doing that they can to survive. I just wish they’d pool their assets and start ecovillages dedicated to soil and knowledge preservation.

Alice Friedemann in Oakland

[...] http://transitionculture.org/?p=447 [...]

I agree that communities have the strongest survival potential . Conversations about relocalization, on the web , are generally useless . In my view, aguaponics and solar retrofit are the critical components of survival . I think my backyard can feed a minimum of four people year round using aguaponics.

Good article, Rob. Most of us wouldn’t want to up stakes and head for the hills anyway. Far better to stay where you are, grow your own food, develop friendly connections with the neighbours and see how things pan out. We really don’t have any idea how Peak Oil will unfold.

I suspect the ‘head-for-the-hills’ types are just over-reacting in the sudden panic that comes with thinking life-as-we-know-it is going to end. Personally, I think the types of scenarios you are working for will be absolute bliss if they occur.

I just read the article, so I am still stinging from the criticisms, but I have to say that I am thrilled that you took the time, Rob, to write a long, thoughtful critique of my piece, not to mention that in two days twenty-six people decided to comment on your critique (though this likely has more to do with your blog’s following than my article). You made a lot of good points about being alone, and I’d like to take the opportunity sometime soon to respond to them (and to a point agree with them). Some other things I think you misinterpreted, and this is likely because I didn’t explain them well. I sincerely hope that we can move to a more sustainable society, one where local culture returns and people work together. I think the books that I mention teach skills that would be useful either in a crash situation OR in a sustainable community situation, which is of course the advantage of planning for the worst case: its preparation often can be used in the less-than-worst case, something that is not always true. The ‘g’ word - yep, excellent point…not a subject I wanted to address for a number of reasons. One criticism of your critique: I know blogs often have images but I thought yours were a little mean-spirited, intended more to mock me than to make logical points. Your critique was intellectually weaker for their inclusion, not stronger (I do sort of resemble the last image…my deerskin cloak has better stitching,though).
We shold remember we’re all on the same team: trying to make the world better for all its species, while trying to avoid the painful die-offs nature has in store for those whose populations become “cancerous.” Yes, I hope the enxt twenty years go well, but I’m not going to plan on it because that’s what I want.
In any event, I will try to get to the response soon. Thanks again to Rob and everyone else for the comments! Others canbe posted here (I’ll be reading more from this site, too!) or sent to me directly at “GreenDoorPublishing” at “yahoo.com.”

The Rules of Doom Club:

The First Rule of Doom Club is:
You are not allowed optimism in doom club.

The Second Rule of Doom Club is:
YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED OPTIMISM IN DOOM CLUB!

Third Rule of Doom Club:
All optimists shall be branded Utopians. Because all Utopians are delusional.

Fourth Rule:
Doomers conferring with optimists must convert them.

Fifth Rule:
If an optimist yells “enough” or gives up, the debate is over. (Doomer wins by default)

Sixth Rule:
No thinking. No reasoning.

Seventh Rule:
“Debates” with optimists will go on as long as they have to.

And the Eighth and Final Rule:
If this is your first night at Doom Club, you have to have a Fright!

I have to say that reading all the responses here makes me feel very grateful the UK has rigorous laws governing personal firearm ownership and so is not full of guns.

So much stuff I read coming out of the USA goes on about the “when they come with guns” moment. Something which doesn’t particularly register with me in the UK. Of course the army have guns, some police have guns, and some inner city criminals have guns, and some farmers have shotguns - but this is a drop in the ocean compared to a US style situation. (Also I find it hard to imagine some Yardie walking miles out of inner city Birmingham into the Black Country looking for some small-holding he can hold-up with his dodgy pistol and five bullets or whatever other similar situation could be proposed.)

It saddens me that above and beyond any actual threat posed by the firearms themselves in the USA, it is the knowledge of their widespread distribution that contributes to a doomy attitude about what people are like in general and how they will react to difficult times. All of which encourages a general mood of fear - of the future, of strangers, of neighbours even…

Deal with the survivalist issue now, disarm America.

Dear Sue Lyons (comment 12):

Would you please leave me your supply of canned goods when you vacate your cabin? Thanks. I appreciate it.

I’ll gladly take over your little cabin, and indeed will give you a decent burial as a gesture of thanks. There are well over 100,000,000 firearms in the hands of US consumers. I don’t want to end years of knowledge-gathering, skill-building and preparations at the hands of one of them.

Are the rest of you going to wait until TSHTF to head down to the home supply store to pick up your 30 gallon water barrels and complete kit of hand tools? Better a day early than a day late. Again…. lessons of Katrina.

Good day to you all.

Well, whilst I liked Gilligan’s Island, I don’t recall them actually doing any substantial work to ensure their survival. Unfortunately, most of the first world humans have developed interdependent structures that have not much to do with trust. Whilst I would like to think that people will develop strong, trusting, caring communities, it can be shown that these usually only develop in response to crises, and in discrete and somewhat isolated ways. In other words the heartfelt hopes of previous writers looking for some generally accepted, enlightened, gradual path to a new economy/society cannot occur until people understand (and I mean really understand) that they need each other. I am afraid that some self-imposed intellectual disciple towards such a goal will be misplaced. People these days are so dependent and inter-dependent on current structures, that even slight perturbations are met with anger and confusion, and violence (and of course denial by the leadership). Intelligence will be needed to get through such times, but it won’t be just head knowledge, it will need to be at a visceral level, which will only be the result of many re-learned lessons, trials and tribulations, mistakes and failures. New interdependencies will grow from such places. I’m not suggesting going it alone, but you will really find out who your friends are !

Hello: I think ther has been a lot of good comments to the survivalist side and the other side, both have good points. My point, have friends and develope some skills, be prepared for tough times. Start by going to library and looking up Goverment emergency powers, that is the scary part-GOVERNMENT!

Efficiency on acerage (you’ll never be “self-sufficient) would probably take the average city dweller five to ten years (yes, 5-10 yrs.). The problem with city dwellers is that there’s been several generations of knowledge lost, tools that aren’t make anymore, resources that are not as abundant as they once were, and so on. Wildlife have been depleted, natural habitats have been destroyed, and nature cannot sustain humans as it once did.

Our preceeding generations traded everything for elaborate systems promising an easier life, based upon cheap, abundant energy, easy money, corporatism, and government welfare. Yes, there have been many positives (or you may view this short list as positive), but the truth is that these generations trade efficiency, prudence and wisdom, for aberant consumerism and waste as though there was NO tomorrow!

Now, we are starring straight into the tomorrow which they denied existed. The basic truth of the matter is found in the Olduvai theory. Starvation is what’s in store for billions. Many will die early deaths by wars, famine, and poor health conditions.

The government and social systems that have been constructed by our prior generations are intrinsically incapable of responding appropriately to the near-future crises. I am sure that, in the U.S., at least, that there is a plan. But that plan is closer to the draconian government that we’ve all seen developing over the last 50 yrs. and what was put into over-drive after the 9-11, false-flag terror-op.

More false-flag terror is likely. Fascistic martial law is quite possible. Government will hang-on with force as long as it can, until the last light goes out in Washington, District of Criminals.

I totally agree with you Rob. Your Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan spurred me into action. We’re organizing the 100 Mile Diet Challenge (http://100milechallenge.com/) in upstate New York as part of an effort to relocalize our food supply.

These points were already addressed above, but I think they need reinforcing.

1) You say, “Either we all pull through or none of us do.”

I believe that sentence betrays a serious misunderstanding of what “overshoot” means. We can’t just sing kumbaya and pretend that we have harmonious community values to get us through resource shortages. Competition is the only entrenched, understood method we have for dealing with shortages on this level.

If you aren’t planning to compete for scarce resources, then climb onto that cross now, cause you’re gonna die there.

2) Where you see “survivalism”, there often may instead be a much simpler trend, which is just a move towards less dependence on the system, on complex and high-energy supply chains. May of us are still living in the city, getting ready to show our neighbors how to garden and save rainwater and dry foods for the winter.

It is just a matter of seeing a crisis big enough to make them give a damn about it.

Hopkin’s treatment of Nowak’s article is rather philistine. As a minority of responses have noted: a “survivalist” position is not monolithic; not just rambo, woodsman, hunter, boyscout; and certainly not what those caveman pictures are meant to evoke. It was really quite unfair.

Undoubtedly, the history and pre-history of humanity demonstrates that people are more likely to survive in cooperative groups than as isolated individuals. BUT…Nowak is not stating that we choose to go it alone rather than opt for intentional communities that are preparing for a post-Peak world.

If one wants to simplify the “survivalist, doomer” position as being the lone camper in the woods with a knife, okay…but one could do the same to the “utopian” position as some kind of glib, peaceful, pacifist paradise.

I’m afraid Hopkins does not deal with the darker side of humanity. Please, address this issue. If suburbanites are busy fighting each other for a parking space a Wal*Mart, what will they do when two families must share one can of tuna? Will they sing “Kumbayah” at a campfire and split up the portions.

The survivalist, doomer argument–if it is one argument in the first place–must be taken seriously and I am afraid Hopkins has not done this.

I read both articles on energy bulletin and came over here to comment.
As an example of a community focused on needs and sustainability we could look to the amish or somewhat more urbane the mormons who maintain large supplies of stored foods and survival implements.
If we really could pull together, small to medium size cities would be putting a hold on developing any local farmland, starting up coops for food and clothing
setting aside woodlots and assisting residents with conservation measures.
As an example my city of 200 thousand is developing every patch of good farmland, has no water conservation plan, does not ask residents to sort recyclables and
continues to push big budget projects.

A short time ago I purchased some solar panels and a 12 volt freezer. I decided that if the power went out the best way to deal with it was to be self sufficient as least for awhile.
I dont have a water collection setup in place but that would be my second hightest priority project.
There is still a lot of farmland around but water is a problem in southern california and everything is based on inputs and machinery.
Although I believe in working together for the community, I dont plan on supporting nuclear or other big budget infrastructure projects as a solution.

Nice one, Rob. We must also remember thay one of the reasons the Neanderthals died out and we survived is that they stuck together in small groups, unwilling or unable to communicate with other groups, therefore any knowledge that a group possessed e.g. where to find food or water, how to keep warm, make certain tools etc. died out with that particular group. We survived due to our creativity and communication skills. These are what make us human. We are a social animal, able and willing to share knowledge with others in large communities. The internet is just the latest example of this. I think this will help see us through. Share and survive; isolate and die.

I read what you wrote with interest, but I’m afraid your photos and tone might be undercutting your message. It may be easier to stereotype and point to extremes in a community than it is to look more carefully at what wisdom their philosophy might offer to all of us. If we are interested in building community, we may need everybody, including those who have chosen to keep the basic arts of preparing for difficult times a living, breathing art form. These same people teach others how to hunt or butcher or breed animals; how to can or grow or harvest food; how to weave or sew or preserve fabric. While we may not choose to do all of these things, a move toward greater self-sufficiency might be the unifying message we can all embrace.

Survivalism, in its more moderate form, is also social commentary that requires the adherents to “walk their talk.� When we teach our children at home, it is commentary on a loss of faith in public education. When we choose to grow our own food, it is because what is sold as food is often tasteless and lacks nutrition. When we slaughter our own animals, it is because we know they haven’t eaten hormones and chemicals, have been raised with care, and slaughtered gratefully.

There is also an implicitly political message in making a caricature of the “survivalist,� as it suggests that there is nothing in our environment that we need to adapt to and “survive.� If we embrace any notion of having to “power down,� we may want to consider a different message.

Such ridicule isn’t deserved by many people I could label ‘survivalists.’ A true survivalist has gone into that ‘dark night’ and realizes that the notion of isolation is an absurd one.

One final point: when the fire breaks out, the true survivalist has already taught their families to prepare for it, which exits to use for escape and to crawl, not walk to them if the smoke is heavy. And also, I doubt you’d get most survivalists to buy the notion of an “unsinkable� ship, either. The best would have taught their families to swim, and what to do in the event that there was no room on the lifeboats. That event happened because of a lack of planning. I doubt a ‘survivalist’ was to blame.

[...] I no sooner submitted a commentary on an article republished in Energy Bulletin yesterday entitled Why the Survivalists Have Got it Wrong when I got the following email from a reader of the article I submitted that was published today in the same website. I’ll paste my comments in their entirety below, but one point I made was that there was an implicit political message in ridiculing the ’survivalist,’ in that it suggested to those new to the Peak Oil community, that we might have little reason to adapt and survive anything of any great significance. I don’t think we need to do that. The popular media will do that for us. It reads: Thank God I found Your Website! I’ve been enlightened and it was scary. Like the majority of Americans, I believed I lived in a safe, secure world where resources would never dwindle to the point of affecting us. How wrong I was. [...]

That’s a very thought provoking post, Kathy. I have always thought that knowning the basic arts is needed but that it is best done on a community level as no one person can do everything by themselves.

I do have some tendenices toward survialist thinking and that is why I am conviced that knowing ’survialist’ skills is best used within the community rather than in isolation.

Great stuff, Rob. Your site gives me the courage to go forward each day. But I do want to point out that the Survivalist/Pessimist - Permaculturist/Optimist characterisations assumed here are not fixed and may even be reversed. Just look at Ran Prieur’s writings for example:
http://ranprieur.com/essays/katrina.html

YMMV on “the lessons of Katrina”.

Spend some time at TheDailyReckoning.com and you will see that the new age survivalists are smart, disaligned, and mobile. When the global economy collapses and some of us finally muddle through customs, to escape what is going on here, for a quiet third world bungalow, hopefully with your wealth carefully socked away in a safe bank. When you get there, they will already be drinking wine and sitting on the porch. The race has always gone to the swift. The rich are already moving offshore.

Survivalism has been portrayed in the above article as an unreasonable and aberrent reaction to the ills of the world, and peak oil in particular. The photos depict a loner whacko complete with long hair and beard.

Survivalists I am familiar with see that a whole lot of things are unstable, from peak oil to Iran and Iraq, to possible bird flu epidemics. They have found that most people are asleep to the world’s problems and risks, and even more, do not want to wake up! They have taken concrete steps to secure food, make gardens, educate children at home if need be, and to protect their families and/or hunt food. These are the sort of can-do people who would be very useful in an energy descent situation. Reviling folks for being practical about their homestead food supply and for trying to do something concrete to optimize their family’s chances of survial just doesn’t make sense.

Hey, co-opt these folks! There are a lot of possible life niches out there, and diversity can be enriching, not to mention more stable than a monoculture.

An ethical response to peak oil is all very nice but we are in this situation exactly because mankind as a whole doesn’t follow any such ethics. Relying on an ethical response given the proof of times past is fine if youo are prepared to die an ethical death.

On another point - I suspect that the attitudes of the folk who join together in your rural Irish community are quite different from those living today in urban/suburban America. I don’t know about everywhere else but the neighbhors I have are not the kind who join hands and sing songs. I think the acceptable response is going to very largely depending on where you live - and one key ingredient in determining your fate in times to come is making the decision now about where you live and who your neighbhors are.

The transition towns initiative is not as much to do with ethics as it is to do with common sense - putting in now, the infrastructure required for post peak oil. It’s not (hand holding, song singing, la la la…) utopian, just plain old common sense.

Rob,

I’ve followed your blog with interest and respect and admire the work you are doing… There are a number of interesting points made in the original 2 articles and in the commentary that deserve follow up.

On this issue what I see is less of a debate between 2 extremes than a narrow spectrum of opinion covering isolationist and communal survival solutions.

Both are in my view rational responses to the perception that hard rain will fall within our lifetime. I see the localised town scheme schemes as valid but sitting squarely within a survivalist tradition of making a conscious decision to be more self-reliant, of planning for the future, of developing the skills that our species have found useful for eons before oil was discovered… and of choosing the group of people you’d want to weather the storm with (whether that group is 3, 30 or 300).

Conversely within survivalist literature I also think you’d be hard pressed to find individual (i.e. one individual or one family) survival attempts recognised as offering the best chance and I didn’t read Nowak’s article as specifically advocating complete isolation. Anyone that has tried to grow food seriously will recognise the value of co-operative action. Anyone that has thought seriously about self-aid as a serious response to medical emergency will recognise the value of specialisation.

Where I do disagree is with your “all or none� philosophy as an adjunct to the communal localised town approach as I think this dangerously underplays understanding of the issue. If you accept that oil based input has lead to overshoot then I see 2 possible outcomes:

1. The correction to overshoot through collapse and die off OR
2. A longer term more managed evolution/process of population/energy decline – and as many have commentated we don’t have the time or the energy available now to do that on any grand scale.

Faced with resource pressure history has shown that if humans are given a choice between starving and pillage they’ll choose the latter as a rational course. Its also entirely rational in that situation to want to protect the people you perceive to be your ‘own’… if we go the route of hard collapse in 10 years will the people that put effort into evolving and protecting their communities within Totnes or Kinsale willingly share the food they’ve grown or want to shelter the ‘outsiders’ starving at the gate?

Nowak’s article was useful in several counts – in its encouragement to develop the skills in food, household systems etc whilst we have comparative ease and comfort, in its recognition of the need to move beyond reiteration of the problem to a solution. All of these are commonalties in the spectrum of solutions between energy descent planning and isolationist survival that should be encouraged.

I also think that there is something to be learned from a survivalist approach that carries out boarder risk assessment of the threats to survival (however large the lifeboat) – including not only peak oil but climate change, bird flu/ biological etc. It’s great that Totnes have a plan for energy descent but if you are then sideswiped by a pandemic there may not be many left to see in the great turning. In criticising survivalism as something separate, isolationist and negative theres a danger you close your eyes to an approach that recognises threats come in multitude of forms and that you should consciously choose which to put your efforts into. My feeling is that those towns are made stronger if they take on board some rational decision making on not only food and energy but also medicine and, yes, defence.

For me the debate here isn’t an either/or – we all see the storm coming and have determined on a course of action – the choice we make is on the nature/size of the lifeboat (1 person, 1 family, several families, a town) and which will best whether the storm. In the run up to the storm the skills we know will be needed remain common wherever you sit on the spectrum and should be encouraged.

Thanks for your great work and chnace to comment, Rob – even if I do believe on this one you’ve called it wrong

Cheers
Jon

I have some problems with the survivalist approach, too, but regarding the following:

“Imagine you and a number of other people are in a house and the house catches fire. Do you look around the house for other people and help those out that you can, or do you bolt out of the house at the first sniff of smoke?”

…I don’t think that this is a fair analogy. For many survivalists, most of the people around them in the burning building are throwing fuel on the fire and are unwilling to leave because they think that it might be too cold outside. In that case, they are presented with a decision between joining the majority in death or trying to save themself and the one or two other people who seem to want to continue living, albeit under a new paradigm.

Rob … I saw this article posted at Energy Bulletin and wanted to thank you for a thought provking and well-written piece. I will certainly be taking a closer look over the rest of this site.

I have serious doubts whether we can descend the impending energy down-slope in a peaceful fashion be that on a geopolitical scale or locally. I agree with you though that any pre-emptive actions that we, as individuals, take must be community based rather than a more extreme ’survivalist’ response but when it comes down to it there will be some hard choices to make and it is hard to see how people will continue to be able to react in a ‘community spirit’ as things get worse. I guess I have a pretty low opinion of people generally.

So I’m still pessimistic about the transition phase whilst being optimistic about the prospects of those who make it through the other side.

The faux survivalist neo-hippy will be the second to die. The first will be the total fool.

This is intended as a ‘sidebar’ to the survivalist discussion, not supporting either side of the issue. There’s a shaky assumption in both sides of the survivalist debate

Just as you’ve been considering the economics and sustainability issues for yourselves, consider those issues from the ravaging hoard’s point of view. I found it very helpful to take the other side of the question. In your thought experiments or projections about your crash future, consider being a ‘bad guy’ long enough to see the fragility of the strategy. The fear that we have about the ravaging hoard is overblown, there just is too much hyperbole and too big a fear factor for reality. Have a bit of fun thinking what you would do if instead of being ethical, you decided to get through the Crash by joining (or forming) a Mad Max gang. It will clarify a lot of issues if you try solving the problems from the mob’s side of things. By no means is the Mad Max scenario an easy gig for the marauder. Marauding’s not a very … er … ‘sustainable’ strategy for getting through the bottleneck. Consider some aspects:

ï‚· Leadership and organization are much more critical, and good marauder leadership is not a very common skill set.
ï‚· Resource consumption is very very high, and the stress of providing timely sustenance for your marauders is awfully critical, more so than for the peaceable population. So is safety. One violent failure and your gang is out of business, whereas a localized community or a survivalist establishment may be more resilient
ï‚· The learning curve of your average marauding lifestyle is very steep, much steeper than a localized community or a survivalist outpost. And neither Heinburg nor the Green press has published any books good for Post-Peak marauding.

So it helps to look at the critical requirements for gangs in the Mad Max Scenario. Oh sure there may be some initial and/or localized success from marauding; but as a strategy for longer than a few days? Uh uh. Look at the recent marauders you know about, Watts riots, Katrina break-ins, looting in 3rd world crises. A couple of days and then …

Some gangs may do alright and have a long run at success, but both the localized communities and the survivalist strategies have the upper hand. If it’s a fast crash, communities will experience a few successive waves of marauding, then things will subside except in isolated instances as the starvation die-off kicks in. If it’s a slow transition, well, defenses against marauders will keep pace with the mob’s threat.

For you history buffs, the most likely scenario for Mad Max gangs is Northfield Minnesota, or Coffeeville Kansas, not Thunderdome or the apocalypse boogeyman of our nightmares. Relax.

Tom

“Either we all pull through or none of us do.”

This comment by Rob, is almost as bleak as the survivalist philosophy. I think reality is somewhere inbetween. Rob mistakes “society” for “all of society”, when referring to collapse. A local community may be able to survive a societal collapse and I wouldn’t expect all of humanity to die or survive. I think only an extreme optimist could envision a world of 6.5 billion people (or even a UK of 60 million people) having come through oil dependency and living happily in a set of permaculture communities.

So, whilst the survivalist philosophy, as ridiculed here, is one extreme that will not work, there may be an ideal of a larger self-sufficient community that could survive. After all, isn’t that our only hope?

Why Rob Has Got It Wrong About Peak Oil Survivalists

I think the problem people are having with the whole ’survivalist’ mentality is in associating it with the survivalist of the atomic era, meaning the folks who hoarded canned foods and illegal weapons into self contained bomb shelters to ride out the radioactive aftermath of WWIII. I knew a kid growing up who’s dad was one of these guys… creepy.

I think I would fall into the category of a survivalist according to the above article, but I see little in common with myself and the survivalists of yore (i.e., the ones implied by the pictures associated with the above article). The main difference is that the Atomic Survivalist was (is?) all about saving their own skin by living in a concealed bunker and killing off any starving marauders with heavy weapons.

I see the Peak Oil Survivalist (myself) as someone concerned with the issues of survival in the post peak world: how to feed & clothe oneself in an ongoing, sustainable fashion. This outlook does not in any way require ‘going it alone’. In fact, community is important for a wide variety of reasons… not the least of which is companionship. But as the old saying goes, ‘charity begins at home’… which I am here somewhat twisting to mean that you must be able to take care of yourself before you can take care of others.

I live in a very rural area near Yosemite park in California, and my wife and I have been involved in starting a local sustainable living group. The first meeting was based around a viewing of ‘The End of Suburbia’… and what a wonderful group of people became part of my life! But this is just a part of being a homesteader and preparing for troubled times, not the solution to those problems. The focus of my activity is on becoming as self-sufficient as possible - out of possible necessity, not the desire to live in a remote, armed compound.

It’s comforting to hear other voice the idea that no one can really know what things are going to look like after peak (although I’m frankly much more worried about an imminent depression than hard oil crash). Given the idea that there is still plenty of oil left (just not enough to meet demand) but that due to price it will likely be much less ubiquitous than it is now, I tend to imagine a US that is somewhat like a high tech version of the early 19th century. There will be cars, but fewer and used only infrequently. There will probably be many more horses/mules/donkeys in rural areas, due to strictly practical reasons of economy & useful byproducts (chiefly manure). Etc. etc.

My point in my little exercise in fortune telling is to point out that as a Peak Oil Survivalist, I see community as still very relevant and essential. Still, I believe until WWII, the chief occupation of large numbers of Americans was growing food. Who knows what else will become hard to get when Wal-Mart type stores crumble, so it seems sensible to become self sufficient. Doesn’t seem crazy to me.

I think my comment would be that local community action in preparation for powerdown is the only viable option. The danger is that it will be so slowed and handicapped by the the inertia of central government - indeed this is why action needs to come from the grass-roots - that there will be some terrible short and medium-length crises along the way. These will bring fuel, electricity and food shortages, interest rate rises, housing market collapse, economic chaos, etc. These may go on for many years before Transition to a sustainable future is underway on a broad scale. People need to be prepared both for community-centred Powerdown strategies which minimise personal and local discomfort, AND for lengthy periods of strife brought about by central government inaction.

I would love to live in a community of like minded souls bent on rehaping the world into a sustainable, enlightened and forward looking place especially since I have children.
However, it is prudent to have some skill sets that would be useful in such a place. It is also prudent to have three to six months of food stuffs for an emergency. My contention is that in some collapse, the higher probability event is that it will be slow with fits and starts and shortages, with some time to adjust. Some of the fits will be periods of famine, perhaps even in this country. I want to eat. I want my kids to eat. One does what one must in those situations.
As socially evolved as we 21st century humans are, turn out the lights and you see what a significant portion of humans will do - run amok. What if they run towards you? My estimate of the best course of action would be to a) Hide - in which case you need a good spot b) run away - in which case you need a ‘bug out bag’ and a place to go c) fight them off - in which case you and all your enlightened friends need a means of defense
JMHO

Thanks for the article Rob.

I agree that community is the ultimate answer…BUT I think community will come after the collapse.

People(Sheeple) are not yet even willing to believe that oil is peaking, much less to turn off the TV or read. They still want to complain that the government needs to make oil cheaper.

Yes, I am a survivalist and I am proud to be.

I tried building my neighborhood in the city into a collective for a major event. People, if they didn’t laugh me off, just thought I was crazy. Even my family thinks I’m a little over the edge….BUT I am preparing and I no longer live in the city, I did go to the country. Some of my family is with me, they still don’t believe but the farm raised chicken certainly tastes better than what you get in the store. And the vegetables I raised and canned will taste really good this winter. And I already have seeds (non hybrid) for next years crop.

I am making friends locally who are of a like mind and that’s where I will work to build a community of support.

I hope that the people in the cities fare better than I expect them to. Since most are not interested/aware of the possible scenerios and have a few days food on hand at most, I really don’t think a lot of good will come out of the cities. (ie: think of the gangs there now…it won’t get better)

I did not take vacations, I did not buy new fancy cars or expensive homes. I did not make a big salary, so when I have sacrificed and put back for my family, I really don’t think I’m going to give my families chance for survival to any Tom, Dick or Harry who thinks they are entitled to it.

Again, community is the answer, you just have to decide where your efforts will be worth your time.

God Bless and good luck to all of you in the coming days.
CG

I agree that it is not either/or. It is both survival with guns AND community organization. Face it: that’s what it’s always been like in organized society.

Here in Suburbia, written off by both pure survivalists and pure communalists, I foresee homeowner associations stepping up to protect property and thus form community survival groups. To survive, they will organize neighbors to provide security, grow food, collect water, raise or hunt meat, trade with surrounding HOAs and other suburban towns, and to prevent every house from falling completely into the hands of the bankers.

I may end up with 10 people living in my house instead of three. The front lawns and golf course and common areas will probably be transformed into community crops and community sheepgrazing. But with my neighbors next door taking turns on block guard duty, I may even be able to get some laundry done out back.

I tried to organize my neighbors for the Peak Oil powerdown. I went door to door with a pamphlet of facts, and suggestions what we can do about them. The responses were indifferent to rude. So what the hell. They can starve, and if they try to take my potatoes or chickens I will certainly repel them with whatever means necessary. The hell with those idiots.

jeez i was thinking of replying to this post the other day, and now it’s become an epic comment session, which i’ll have to read latter…

excellent article btw. As much as i admire what you are doing, my opionion is there needs to be a serious appreciation for the darker scenarios of peak oil. I think the approach to any future problem should look at the potential scenarios and the levels of risk associated with each scenario. They way you are approaching peak oil at the moment to me seems like you assume a level of society will be maintained enough for your movement to take hold and stand the fall out. I think we need to be more flexible in the approach, and ask questions like “what if a food riot breaks out?” “what if the legal system collapses?”. The problem is not just about energy as much as it is about the infrastructure of society.

I think we should think about different levels of threat to our society and prepare different approaches for them, rather than just one approach which could be inappropriate.

If we do have food riots then what happens to our society? We shoul be discussing this scenario now, as well as discussing how premaculture can be a model for low energy food production. If we discuss the darker side of our dependency fallout then perhaps it won’t every get so bad. All essential serives have emergency plans: police, health care, fire department, government. What we need now is a community emergency plan, which local governments should have, but it needs to be put in the context of the emerging energy/food crisis.

If we educate people on what to do when an extreme crisis occurs, such as no food in the supermarket for 5 straight days, then we may be able to avoid complete failure of society. An emergency plan would be a backup and compliment our transition from the worst case scenario to the longer term green growth type model.

Perhaps if parents knew who to contact, what to expect, where to get the basics to survive a crisis then they wouldn’t join a food riot in order to feed their children.

This scenario shouldn’t be simply left in the hands of central government. We need to engage with the community and look at preventative measures, and not rely on armed troops on the streets or a fight in a food aid queue.

I don’t think we should shun survivalists. Survival skills are a basic understanding and knowledge which teaches people to what degree they can cope in the worst situations where they simply cannot depend on help. What we need to do is appreciate these skills but incorporate them into a whole approach to the future of our society.

and the thing about the titanic was, as far as my little history knowledge stretches, people can blame bad luck or racing through ice burge water but the person really to blame is the designer of the boat. It doesn’t matter than the boat suck, what matters is that no one thought to make enough life boats. The fact that people saw this problem and paniced made it even worse, but you can’t blame them, they saw the situation for what it was, a desperate race for survival.

I think in your community you are building a boat which will ride on the choppy seas ahead, but you must consider building life boats even for a boat within a boat within a boat. with many fall back options you will have designed flexibility and confidence in those who ride the boat.

Links for the Week - September 9, 2006

If I am a lone hoarder/survivalist, my stash will be confiscated either by violent mob or by violence-backed Government. Eventually I would run out of firepower.

But if I focus on teaching survival skills to as many people as possible, it reduces my risk of being overrun. My risk is reduced even further if many others are engaging in preparing their communities also.

The scary thing is: preparation is not happening on a wide enough scale right now. But running for the hills instead - only brings you back to point one: the thieves, official or unofficial, will find you anyway.

So if you are going to lose either way, you may as well choose the one that would protect you best: prepare your community.

In communities/neighborhoods where they still deny peak oil, we could use babysteps: instead of starting with doom and gloom predictions, use cost savings as incentives. WE know why the costs of heating and cooling and transportation are going up; they only need to know that they can save money. Or we could tap into other social and environmental motives for spreading permaculture gardening; green building; ‘campout’ survival skills etc.

In the absence of a Kinsale or Totnes type public education project, I think that supporting related local organizations like 4H, scouts; and adopting projects like starting a community food garden, promoting ‘emergency storm’ preparedness and ‘get out of debt’ seminars, [even birdflu 'epidemic' preparedness] etc serves to spread survival skill sets even if folks aren’t ready for the peak oil reasons for it.

Greetings Survivalist,

I am seeking to form or become involved with an existing small community of like-minded people.

I have been a deep green activist for over 25 years and have arrived at the inescapable conclusion that a near-future collapse is inevitable, as the Earth’s immune system will seek to return balance back to the Earth at the expense of our overly fecund genus. I am of the opinion that the population bomb is about to detonate and all attempts at conservation are futile while human densities continue to spiral out of control. Unfortunately, most humans will make it through the other side, which will be the point of this cleansing exercise.

It has been difficult finding folks on-line that want to do little more than talk about this subject. I suspect that those who are already successfully involved in survivalist communities are flying under radar and probably not advertising their location and MO. My vision is to acquire land in a rural setting and form community with perhaps 5 – 10 other like-minded couples. My girlfriend and I are already making some initial preparations for transitioning. We would like to involve ourselves with other people/couples who have a similar inclination for preparedness and survivalism. Preferably couples who have no children, or at least are not actively breeding with a kid-centric community in mind. There is obviously much more to discuss in such an arrangement and much of it is open to discussion. I hope we can enjoy this new journey of simple and self-reliant living. May we live well and then die out… Please feel free to contact me if you are serious about transitioning or have any similar thoughts.

Regards, Zimba
zzzimba@satx.rr.com

wow what a short sighted and very un-informed blather on survivalism. One
major point is survivalism isnt just
about OIL! survivalism is about getting
through the worst possible situation
no matter what KIND it is. As we can see
your going to choose to be a “katrina”
victim rather then plan ahead. How very
ignorant of you. Yes when it comes down
to push or shove a survivalist has a much
better chance of living then you will.

Survivalism is about surviving - and I personally think your depiction of the lone survivalist is just a largely biased stereotype to depict “those people” as whacko. That’s why you chose the pictures for the post that you did.

Anyone that could look at something like Katrina and New Orleans (or even the start of the panic in places like Atlanta in the days after when fuel supplies were shut off) and not think “Hmmm… my suburban neighborhood with 2000 other unprepared people and no tillable land might not be the best place to ride out the storm” would frankly astound me.

Regardless of what causes the “storm” the point is being prepared and being realistic. I don’t have the income or resources to have extra on hand for everyone in my community, but I do have the resources to store up for me and my family (and sometimes even extended family). We do have a family farm, and it’s where all of us go in crisis anyway… so the idea that you scoff at people who are prepared for the worse and instead reccomend trying to …. what? Offer free classes on gardening to executives and soccer moms? Do you actually think they’re going to take the time out to learn? It’s not like they just haven’t thought about learning those skils, it’s that THEY DON’T CARE because someone else is doing it for them.

The point is - in any grid down situation, fast or slow - me and mine know what to do and when to do it. We will not be stranded on the bridge across from the stadium. We will not be murdered in the stadium. We will survive - and it won’t be some scary “I haven’t seen another human in 10 years” situation either.

Oh, and to blow your theory completely out of the water - have you thought about how long it takes to grow a crop of anything? What do you eat in the mean time? Your commune idea is lovely and all as long as some of them survive to pick the corn.

Ridiculous. Thats what I thought. I didnt even bother to read it all.
The comparisons are invalid and the whole premise of the article (Or what I read) hovers on the thought an end is in site.
If a house is on fire, safety and normality exists just on the other side of the door. Of course you’ll try to save those besides yourself.

In a true power down like Peak Oil you may be faced with a decision. Hoard your supplies to yourself and live, or share your supplies and die with all the others. Feel good emotions of having done the right thing morally wont make my death any more enjoyable.

More to the point, WHY should I share my work with others? I want a big screen TV, I want a sports car, DVD library to the ceiling, new home theater. I want all the fancy gizmo crap the modern world can give me. But I save my money and buy things I may or may not need should things go poorly in our world.
Why should someone else beenfit from my hard work? I dont believe they will.

Read the story of the ant and the grasshopper. People can feel free to party aand enjoy life all they want. I choose not to. If it comes a time when things in our world go poorly, I’ll be well situated and you can enjoy your memories before you die.

“I have very little time for the survivalist response to peak oil,”

Perhaps that’s why you’ve responded to this Straw Man survivalist instead? How many actual survivalists have you talked to or met when conducting the research for this article?

Your Titanic analogy is flawed. The survivalists are not the ones who jump the lifeboats and make for safety. The survivalists are the ones who anticipate the unavailability of life boats and bring their own inflatable rafts. It is the unprepared that end up being a drain on the resources of society in times of need. Self-sustaining survivalists are in a much better position to help others. This same flaw in reasoning is prevalent throughout your article.

When people are unprepared, Katrina happens. They will loot, rob, murder, and do whatever is necessary to take what they need to survive, because they had not prepared in advance. Those of you trying to build the a social cooperative will be the easiest targets for these kinds of people. This is because the primary threat comes from the very community you’re trying to build. If everyone were morally-righteous upstanding fellows who were willing to work for a better world, your ideals would work wonderfully. But in reality, Katrina happens.

The aim of survivalists is not to remove themselves from society and live forever in isolation. It’s to ride out the immediate chaos long enough to rebuild. Quite contrary to your romanticized view of the long-bearded, lonely man living on a mountain or in a shelter, many real survivalists work together to build communities much like the ones you describe. The main difference is that survivalists do not share your naivete - the violence will come to you even if you don’t seek it, and the unprepared will become victims.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. It could very well be that you’re right on all counts, and survivalists are completely off-kilter for the realities of what will happen. It could be that the decline of society will be gradual enough for us to adapt and restructure. It could be that, in the case of a disasterous event, by some miracle of human evolution, there are no looters or murderers, and everyone will work peacefully for mutual benefit. If that is the case, survivalists will still fit in just fine, and will be able to contribute more from their stockpiles than those who didn’t save. Better to have and not need, than to need and not have.

Whereas you call survivalists immoral and irresponsible for the measures they take to prepare, I say that those who don’t prepare are the immoral and irresponsible ones. They will be in no position to contribute to any sort of community, and will become either the criminals or the victims in times of disaster.

For those of you that think that this article is thought provoking you must have an IQ lower than your shoe size and you’ve got to believe that affirmative action has helped our country.

Get real, this is just a bunch of liberal bullshit! I heard it in the socialism classes that I had to take in college and managed to tear apart the professor’s arguments right in front of the entire classroom.

What a TWIT!
Robert

I have experienced probably a half-dozen disasters first hand. The survival mentality of preparing is as important as keeping your gas tank filled. If you fail to do that, you are in a dead vehicle and can’t go anywhere, and depend on yourself to find gasoline, or on someone else to do it for you i.e. roadside assistance. The purpose of preparing is to avoid those problems in the first place. And most survival types I know have gone above and beyond to share what they had during a disaster
we experienced locally. Failing to prepare can at best be an inconvienience, and at worst, cost a life.

The author is suicidally naive.
Inner city inhabitants start looting within minutes of a power outage. Within a week of a catastrophe, 95% of all city dwellers will be putrid masses of rotting flesh.

what a very weak article that doesnt
even consider other scenarios in
combination with peak oil problems…

I’m one of those terrible survivalists.

I have a wife, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 goldfish and a desert tortoise. I pay monthly on credit cards, a mortgage, 2 car payments, auto and home insurance and sundry utilities. I live in the exurbs of Los Angeles and work in IT.

The household has own so many firearms I have to think to count them all. Lets see… Between the 4 of us, we have 4 shotguns, 7 rifles, 3 pistols, a couple of antique replica percusion rifles ana couple of pellet guns. I taught the kids about firearms safety as soon as they were old enough to listen, then got them into target shooting around age 6.

We used to keep a double barrel shotgun loaded with rubber buckshot and tear gas when we lived in a tough neighborhood but now they are all locked away and out of sight.

Firearms are a fun and interesting part of life and an important aspect of my native culture (rural northern Michigan) and my national heritage. Most of my pieces are inherited from my late father and my late father-in-law. They are useful tools in certain situations. I point out all this to suggest that even so, they aren’t a large part of survivalism. A loaded brain is far more important than a loaded gun.

Haven’t gone hunting in many a year but I keep threatening to go on a wild boar hunt. Boar were imported by Hearst back in the 30’s and remain today a nonnative pest through much of central CA. Only thing keeping me back is that my wife is Jewish, ditto the kids, so I’d have to find some place to donate the meat to. But in most areas hunting isn’t an important element of survival plannng. There isn’t enough game for it to be viable. It isn’t in my plan.

BTW, yes, you can slaughter and butcher a pig by reading a book. Trivial task, less daunting than changing a tire.

In my garage I have 5 gallon buckets of assorted bulk food stuffs and large shelving units containing sundry canned and packaged food. The dogs have plenty of kibbled food too. In the back yard is 6,000 gallons of water in a covered swimming pool. Not an ideal water source but in a pinch it will do once you get the chlorine out. If need be we could dig down about 20 feet and hit water as we are next to a dry river bed. I have extra gasoline on hand and a whole raft of batteries as well as a hand cranked radio. Wife is a nurse and we’ve plenty of medical supplies and I know my way around first aid/CPR, so I figure first responder type emergency medical care is covered.

We have 5 acres in the southern Sierra with a trailer on a solar 12 volt system. The area is open range cattle country. I like it but my wife thinks it is too far from civilization for her taste as a permanent home. We could bug out there for a long time if we had to.

What are my plans as a survivalist? I’ll play any situation by ear. My plans don’t involve a lot of shooting. I served 6 years in the military and carried a gun for a living in private security while I worked through college. I am a modestly competent gunfighter, competent enough to know that combat MUST be avoided if at all possible. I would not care to be shot and I desperately do not want my family shot at. So despite all the firepower, the guns will largely stay locked away and out of sight unless some need forces my hand.

I don’t anticipate a sudden disintegration of society from declining oil. We will simply adjust to higher prices and find ways to avoid using energy. More energy sources will be found though the extraction costs will be much higher. Between nuclear, wind, geothermal, coal, coal gassification, shale oil and tar sand there will be enough on hand to give civ