Are we still in denial?

stumuz · Post by **stumuz** » 20 Sep 2007, 14:38

Vortex Wrote;

You might need to add employment, investment, medical - or even "defence" - preparations to your list.

The investment part is easy, just invest in actual necessaries? Land, PO prepared houses, local food production and value adding food production, value added fuel production, post PO services (installing gravity fed solar panels etc)

The employment bit is also easy if you are paid to sit in front of a laptop at the moment, you probably won?t be in a job! I have no doubt that my services as a Health and Safety Lawyer will not be attracting much interest. However, the land, fishing boat etc will be in vogue (can?t wait if I?m honest)

Medical, I?m hoping, maybe naively that the NHS will get priority in everything as per the last fuel strike. (Medical staff got the fuel)

As for defence I will demonstrate how accurately I shoot a wood pigeon to anyone who unlawfully threatens!

MacG Wrote,

Hmm... I think it's both difficult and simple at the same time. It's dead simple to imagine just dead simple and boring poverty

Simplicity and boring are all subjective, sitting in a bath with a glass of something sparkling after a tasty lobster dinner knowing you have caught the lobster and sourced the wood to heat the water which is now heating the house is a simple pleasure to me.
However, getting back to the fossil fuel point I would much rather spend the money on a good NZ sparkling white than pay my gas bill, which since finding out about PO, this is what I do.

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 20 Sep 2007, 14:41

I have accepted PO and eventual collapse of civilisation as inevitable. So my efforts go selfishly to hopefully ensuring that it is not I and my family that end up at the bottom of the heap.

This I tried to do by going 100% for a food production based survival plan, i.e. sell investments, house, pensions and plough it all into land and a farmhouse. Learn farming skills and adapt them to zero oil future. Invest in becoming independent of utilities and self sufficient in food (in a broad sense - produce enough to be able to exchange by some means for food we do not produce). This last objective is what we are working on right now.

But still, have I really understood the impact on me? I don't think so! That will probably only come from the experience itself.

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:01

stumuz wrote: Simplicity and boring are all subjective, sitting in a bath with a glass of something sparkling after a tasty lobster dinner knowing you have caught the lobster and sourced the wood to heat the water which is now heating the house is a simple pleasure to me.
However, getting back to the fossil fuel point I would much rather spend the money on a good NZ sparkling white than pay my gas bill, which since finding out about PO, this is what I do.

This is the way I think too - luxury in simplicity. We have invested in a nice big corner bath which is pure luxury, heated by wood or the sun.

The only difference is I will be sitting there sipping my home-made fruit mead made with berries out of my back garden. Or wine made from the grapes off my vine.

You can't beat having a wood stove in a cold winter.

The first winter I had my stove I had also just got together with my girlfriend. I had had no time to store any logs, and didn't really have a reliable supplier either. So we spent most of our first winter together freezing cold (no other heating), trying to keep the fire going with whatever damp logs we could lay our hands on.

I reminded my OH of this the other day, and to my surprise she said, "yes, it was brilliant wasn't it!!". That's my girl. Amazing but true.

Most people would have stuck it for about ten minutes, but not her - that's why we are together, we are on the same wavelength when it comes to appreciation of the fundamental realities of life. And that first, cold, hard winter of struggling through together made each other's company so much more valuable, and the experience absolutely welded us together like comfort and luxury never could have.

Now we have a log store, which is stacked to the top in preparation for the winter for the first time. Last year we had a good supplier who delivered regularly. When it's freezing cold outside, you just can't beat walking into to a warm living room with the scent of wood smoke and a piping hot bath waiting for you upstairs.

What could be better.

stumuz · Post by **stumuz** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:31

Fruit meade? that sounds good, is it easy to make?

Your point about adversity making you stronger is very true, the hair brained schemes I have done in the past to earn some cash were a triumph of hope of reality! But we look back on them now and laugh,for example leaving my job to set up a sctch egg business.....what was I thinking about.

Bandidoz · Post by **Bandidoz** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:42

I have fully integrated the reality of peak oil into my world view.....

...I just haven't done very much in the way of preparation

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:47

stumuz wrote:Fruit meade? that sounds good, is it easy to make?

Your point about adversity making you stronger is very true, the hair brained schemes I have done in the past to earn some cash were a triumph of hope of reality! But we look back on them now and laugh,for example leaving my job to set up a sctch egg business.....what was I thinking about.

Did you get end up with egg on your face?

You have GOT to try these things . . . much better to have had a go, failed and learnt some lessons than not to have tried at all. I tried to make a living for years from promoting music in Manchester . . . nearly lost my house at one point, I was that skint. Didn't work, but the experience definitely enriched me. (as far as I can remember, in any case . . . )

Fruit mead . . . see this thread!

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=5134

SunnyJim · Post by **SunnyJim** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:55

I've got 40 pints of beer, 1 demi-john of elderberry wine, and one of grape & blackberry wine on the go at the moment. The wines should be ready for chrismas 08! Seems strage and nice to be making stuff now that won't be ready for more than a year!

Got a full woodpile too, and all of it cut and chopped by my own fair hand (some with chainsaw it has to be said).

We're getting an old solid fuel rayburn put in soon. Now that really will be luxury.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 20 Sep 2007, 15:59

emordnilap wrote: I agree, Sunny Jim, bring on 'no oil' as fast as you like.

Which should, effectively, be in about 150 years time. 'no oil' isnt quite the name of the game. A tiny ammount of oil and gas is still being produced in Pennsylvania, which started up production in the 1860's. In fact, with recent price increases, output has been rising.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/oil ... ports.aspx

the important known unknowns ( As D. Rumsfeld might put it) is what is the global decline rate curve going to look like on the other side of the global peak, and how will the Export Land Model play out - what will be available for consumer countries? 'No oil' for the consumer countries, as opposed to the world as a whole, could come unpleasantly quickly.

The steepness of the decline curve has enormous implications as to if and how we adapt to the situation.

stumuz · Post by **stumuz** » 20 Sep 2007, 16:10

Andy Hunt Wrote
''Did you get end up with egg on your face? ''

No the environmental health dept came knocking!
I then decided plumbing would be less hassle, so wth no training or qualifications started some basic plumbing.I don't think you could get away with it today ...just as well!!

syberberg · Post by **syberberg** » 20 Sep 2007, 16:18

I first learnt about PO 3 or 4 years ago, since then everything has been filtered through the lens of PO. At school we were taught that the fossil fuels were a finite resource. They're going to run out sooner or later. I just didn't think it would happen in my life time.

I've never really liked the industrialised world/society and have often dreamed about what it would be like once it collapsed. How much better the world would be without the infernal combustion engine, without the disgusting levels of waste in the capitalist system (not the communist system is much better when it comes to industrial waste). I just never thought I'd actually get to witness the collapse first hand.

I've always kept myself one step removed from society so that I can comment upon it in my lyrics, but now it's got to the point where I just can't relate to "normal society", nor have any great desire to interact with it. It would be nice if I had the money to be able to prepare more, but I do have one advantage, in that I will be inheriting just enough land to be able to look after me and mine.

@emordnilap: Can we at least keep the horse-drawn machines? I can happily lose the infernal combustion engines.

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 20 Sep 2007, 16:35

I'm in the same state of mind as Jim and Andy. I think I'm having a 'will I cope?', worry day!

emordnilap - I really agree about the noise thing. Living in London (for a while longer anyway) it's unavoidable but I find it much more objectionable when I am out of London. Last year, I did a five-day permaculture course at the Sustainability Centre in Hampshire and it is completely quiet there: no distant traffic and very little local traffic. It must be one of the last spots in south east England not despoiled by the sound of incessant, internal combustion engines.

syberberg · Post by **syberberg** » 20 Sep 2007, 19:37

Adam1 wrote:I'm in the same state of mind as Jim and Andy. I think I'm having a 'will I cope?', worry day!

My main worry at the moment is prioritising my purchases as I/we are on a below average income. Still, got a bit of a bonus the other day - a free LED hand-crank torch. It's not that bright, but is certainly enough to see where you're going.

Keela · Post by **Keela** » 20 Sep 2007, 19:45

syberberg wrote:I've always kept myself one step removed from society so that I can comment upon it in my lyrics, but now it's got to the point where I just can't relate to "normal society", nor have any great desire to interact with it.

Simple. Just redefine what you regard as "normal"!

Really there are no such things as either "average" or "normal".

To me, I AM NORMAL!
To many others I may be something else...... but we'll not go there. I'm happy to be MY TYPE OF NORMAL!

And of course Powerswitch NORMAL is to consider our futures carefully in the light of certain information..... (just to try to tie my comments into the topic of the thread!)

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 20 Sep 2007, 19:52

Medical staff got the fuel

Medical staff ...and their boyfriends ... got the fuel. Saw it happening ...

syberberg · Post by **syberberg** » 20 Sep 2007, 20:03

Sally wrote:
syberberg wrote:I've always kept myself one step removed from society so that I can comment upon it in my lyrics, but now it's got to the point where I just can't relate to "normal society", nor have any great desire to interact with it.
Simple. Just redefine what you regard as "normal"!

Really there are no such things as either "average" or "normal".

To me, I AM NORMAL!
To many others I may be something else...... but we'll not go there. I'm happy to be MY TYPE OF NORMAL!

And of course Powerswitch NORMAL is to consider our futures carefully in the light of certain information..... (just to try to tie my comments into the topic of the thread!)

Well said Sally.

PowerSwitch

Are we still in denial?

I haven't fully come to terms with peak oil and its implications.