Oi! Brighten up!

[martinezhockley]

Woah! Too much doom and gloom folks. Try looking at a few positive angles www.culturechange.org has good tips for Americans we can use all over the world. UK culture is steeped in Go it Alone ideas to do with surviving catastrophes, from Ray Mears to that other bloke I can't remember. It's an anorak nation. The greatest damage our oil age has inflicted is the break up of more natural human cultures such as tribal or clan style communities. How many of you talk to your neighbours? Suburbia has ruined our chances of survival and everybody escapes suburbia by going it alone in a shack well stocked with tins and survival stuff. I would hate to survive like that! Instead of writing to each other on this forum, why don't you build a society around you and discuss all this. Given our highly divided society it's safe to assume things will break down gradually. Companies will go bust, supply side manufacturing will decline, bringing supplies to a minimum, over a gradual period if you have created a community, you'll have a better chance of not just surviving but establishing a future.

[MacG]

Instead of writing to each other on this forum, why don't you build a society around you and discuss all this.

*Ahem*... I have tried that. Still do. They think I'm crazy. The few who listen that is, most people ignore it. And I'm a skilled science lecturer getting rave reviews from students when explaining far more complex things than PO (although I'm pimping for industry right now).

[martinezhockley]

In case I offended anybody with the ?anorak nation? thing: we are all influenced consciously or subconsciously by society around us. In the UK the telly culture has had some positive effects. Having lived in several different countries (U.K, France, Switzerland, United States, and my home country- Spain) I have no hesitation in calling UK T.V the best in the world. It doesn?t make your brain go dead, and it has always been used imaginatively to inform the viewing public. But there have always been loads of ?do it yerself? progs, eventually leading to the ?survive it yerself? kind. So the idea of having to survive something is quite deeply ingrained in the British society which I feel never quite got used to the fact that it was no longer under second world war rationing! Now we have the prospect of actually having something to survive and all those ingrained reactions are coming to the surface. You seem to be almost relishing the prospect, looking forward to the opportunity to ?survive? something. While you are all stocking up on tinned foods and warm sweaters, wind -up radios and self generating torches, I am carefully planning how to tell my family how we should prepare. My family consists of three immediate members and about 24 others of all ages and we all live within a small radius of one another. We see each other every day. Our work colleagues have become adopted family members. Our neighbours are people we share meals with, whose children are our children?s school mates, and many of them have significant veggie patches. I am incredibly well placed to establish a larger self reliant community because of the traditions of Spanish family and societal life which have been largely preserved in this region. Nevertheless, I sometimes cannot sleep worrying about a possible IMMEDIATE collapse which I trust will not happen. I feel terribly sorry for countries which don?t have even a vestige of this kind of communal living, but this is one of the things you should be making huge efforts to REVIVE. Otherwise all the worst case scenarios shall happen and it will not be worth surviving for. Only by telling as many people as possible, in the gentlest way possible (everybody must hit a brick wall in their own way!) can we hope to establish communities worth surviving in. Now I?m going to take a look at a web site called www.planbproject.org which has some good ideas, and I suggest you all read Richard Heinberg because he puts into perspective the geopolitics which are often brought up on this forum, albeit from a U.S viewpoint, there is a lot which can be adapted to other countries.

[martinezhockley]

Yes, telling people the end of the world is nigh, has never been a good career move Can't help thinking it depends how you put it. I mean the Christians and so forth still seem to be listened to, no? I think it's not helpfull to tell people the bad news straight off, it's enough to draw their attention to modern agricultural practice and link it with the question; what'll happen when nobody can afford the oil/diesel/fertilizer/pesticide. Like in about 10 years time? Don't know. I guess that's why we all joined forums like this, but then we're preaching to the converted!

[PowerSwitchJames]

Up until about a year ago, most people who came across peak oil thought they were crazy...or at least figured they must be if something this big was no being discussed. And let us not forget how much of a change to your psyche Peak Oil makes. It is distressing on many levels. It is for this reason that we come here and talk amongst ourselves - it is a small oasis of sanity, where talking about it amongst ourselves helps. This is the first step. To go from here and build an actual society...that is a bigger challenge that many of us have begun to think about, but it is far from easy to change or to know precisely what to do. However, we have begun to make changes in our lives our expectations but change takes time. For many involved here, especially those involved in the campaigning, we perhaps hold hope that our best chance of personal survival is to do what we can to help society survive or crash softly, and that comes through awareness raising and discussion.

[peaky]

The future for us doesn't come fully formed and we are all here in our way helping to make that transition to a Post Carbon future. Talking, sharing, meeting and planning are all part of that process and eventually we shift and start a new thought, a new way of living and relating. Some of us are really well placed to do that straight away, and some have a lot of baggage - material and emotional - before they are in that place. I reckon we're all heading for the roughly the same goal, but in our own ways and at different speeds. Diversity in action

[isenhand]

<< Up until about a year ago, most people who came across peak oil thought they were crazy>>

I only found about peak oil this year but I have always thought it was foolish to be so dependent on it. People didn?t think much of that idea either!

<< To go from here and build an actual society...that is a bigger challenge that many of us have begun to think about, but it is far from easy to change or to know precisely what to do.>>

I don?t think we need to build an actual society, I think we just need to build a network of people who the know how to build a society (I hope that makes sense). I think most people will just carry on as they are till the last regardless of what we do. If things go really bad then people will change. A t that point I there is a plan is place and a few people distributed around then things can move more smoothly to a new for of society.

I have been working on some ideas and there are plenty of other people doing the same (I will put my ideas up on the web a some point). So there is already plans forming.

<< How many of you talk to your neighbours?>>

We do and where I live we have a ?small community? of a sort. Not PO ready or even award yet but it?s a frame work that can be when the time is right. We also have a network of friend that could easily form another community so there is something there when needed. All we need is the plans and the means to communicate + finances for land etc.

[martinezhockley]

I found out about Peak Oil precisely one month ago. I don't know what makes me different, but it changed my way of thinking practically over night. Maybe I was ready for change, looking for something different in my life after three years dedicated exclusively to raising my only daughter. After chapter 5 of Heinberg's The Party's Over, I was crying the next morning while telling my husband about it. Since then, I haven't stopped brooding over it and making preparations on a personal level which only now are progressing to telling friends and family. Yes, we all assimilate bad news differently, but time is one thing we have not enough of and we must FORCE ourselves and our surrounding population to ready themselves. I agree, discussing and raising awareness are the first steps. And let's not underestimate how the changes we make personally can really affect those around us.

[rs]

I've had dozens of discussions with people regarding PO. I try not to be alarmist and to get the issue across in a way where their 'loony radar' doesn't go off, but I've had little success so far.

I think most people just aren't ready for it. Unfortunately by the time they are it'll be too late!

Their I go again, doom and gloom!