This is not America

[UndercoverElephant]

The more I browse through the breaking news stories on "Life After the Oil Crash", the more I realise that this crisis is going to play out very differently in different parts of the world. The American peakers are right to worry. Their problems are far worse than ours.

For them, it is the death of the American dream - the end of suburbia. But in the UK, we don't even have anything like American suburbia. Sure, have the suburban sprawl of places like South London - but these places aren't actually chronically dependent on freeways and car transport. They aren't as spread out as American suburbia. And for all of Dr Beeching's attempts to destroy the rail network, we do still have a rail network.

We also don't have the cultural problems they have. By that I mean that we've already lost our empire and for all our military adventures under Blair, we are not deluded into believing the world revolves around us. Most people in the US seem to believe that if the US goes into meltdown, the rest of the world will cease to function. They think that the other western powers will support an attack on Iran because we are so dependent on US leadership and military might that when in a fix, we'll do as we are told. This is all delusion. The middle east is heading for an economic boom. Outside the western world there are many cultures who already survive on much less than we do, and so have less far to fall when the post-peak world emerges.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you spend too much time listening to Americans panicking about peak oil, you risk getting sucked into fearing things which are actually much more of a threat to them than they are to us. Sure, it's going to cause massive changes all over the world, but this is not America and I believe that the UK is far better placed than the US to cope with what it is to come. Our culture and our national infrastructure has evolved from something which existed in a time before oil and in the end this will make a big difference.

[MacG]

Sure. Add a collapse in demand for oil from the US, and the rest of the world can have more oil for some time.

There are, however, so many variables in this equation that it's impossible to make a calculation.

Will our politicians be able to understand what's happening? And act accordingly?

Will we be able to maintain "social contracts" on national levels? Or will brats and chavs stealing from both ends of the system rule the day?

What the hell will happen in Asia? They are just to many on to little land.

Will the US agricultural exports keep flowing?

Questions, questions...

[UndercoverElephant]

MacG

I don't have answers to those questions except the last one. US agricultural exports will sharply decline.

But I don't think that Europe is as vulnerable to rapid, catastrophic breakdown of the whole system as the US is. However hard the transition is for us, it is surely not going to be as hard as it is for them. I can see European societies holding together while the US falls apart. The one thing which really worries me about the cohesion of society in Europe is what happens with respect to the relationship between the Islamic communities and the rest of the population. If we are going to save ourselves, we have to identify as a single population all pulling together. We don't need a subsection which primarily identifies itself as Islamic rather than European.

Geoff

[RGR]

The more I browse through the breaking news stories on "Life After the Oil Crash", the more I realise that this crisis is going to play out very differently in different parts of the world. The American peakers are right to worry. Their problems are far worse than ours.

[Vortex]

I have just received an email from LATOC saying that due to a 'run' on their emergency foodstuffs, they are having to refuse orders!

Dunno if it's true .. but if so, why are Americans bulk buying End Of The World food stocks all of a sudden?

What do they know that we don't ??????

[Norfolk In Chance]

Always leave the punters wanting more...

[MacG]

I have just received an email from LATOC saying that due to a 'run' on their emergency foodstuffs, they are having to refuse orders!

Dunno if it's true .. but if so, why are Americans bulk buying End Of The World food stocks all of a sudden?

What do they know that we don't ??????

The market for "survival" food is a tiny, tiny market, even in the US. I would guess it's not even a promille of the food market, probably in the ppm range. A shift from 200 ppm to 400 ppm of the food market would DOUBLE the demand, and few organizations can handle such logistics in specialized markets like these. 400 ppm is still a tiny, tiny market though.

The entire thing is rather stupid, and just an expression of neurotic behavior - trying to BUY yourself out of problems which are genuinely of organizational nature. Also, if you really want to stock up on food, they have it in the nearest supermarket.

My verdict: No person or family is an island which can "buy" security. Whatever happens in the future, we must face it as a SOCIETY. No individual have a chance on his/her own.

OK, ok, ok, if there is a TOTAL collapse, with zombie hoards and cannibalism and all, it might be a successful strategy to hide in the woods with stored food for some year, but there are no historical precedents indicating that this should happen.

[Andy Hunt]

I think one thing which might hold things together here in the UK is receiving news on the TV and radio of how bad it is in other parts of the world.

The fear of how bad it could become could be a powerful motivator for us to get it together here. If you see what I mean.

And I do agree that we stand a better chance of coming through in one piece than the USA. Under the veneer of modern society is a still-functioning system of market towns surrounded by farms, and a national railway network which could be run on coal if necessary, as well as canals and relatively short road connections between big cities.

[nepenthean]

Yep, we're screwed here in the states.

[Andy Hunt]

Yep, we're screwed here in the states.

But even so you do have some of the best ideas for restructuring and survival: Earthships for example.

It's just whether they can be deployed on a large enough scale fast enough.

[energy-village]

And I do agree that we stand a better chance of coming through in one piece than the USA.

Good points. But I'm worried there are just far too many of us. The last I heard England had 9 million more people than she could feed. Presumably some level of trade will still exist, but I'm not sure what we can offer in exchange; unlike France, Canada, US, Brazil, Australia, Russia etc we're rather lacking in natural resources.

Financial services, banking, insurance, media and cultural products, aerospace, military, pharmaceuticals. A lot of what we offer now seems, well errrr ? doomed.

[UndercoverElephant]

And I do agree that we stand a better chance of coming through in one piece than the USA. Under the veneer of modern society is a still-functioning system of market towns surrounded by farms, and a national railway network which could be run on coal if necessary, as well as canals and relatively short road connections between big cities.

My thoughts exactly. If necessary, we can return to a coal-driven rail system and horse-drawn narrowboats. The greenbelt laws designed to make sure we didn't lose the countryside around our big cities will also have accidental side-benefits. Our biggest problems are psychological and political. People are going to have to accept that the world is going to be different and politicians are going to have to re-learn what leadership is instead of just making short-term decisions designed to win a few votes. Monopolistic criminal organisations like Southern Water need to be replaced by government-run institutions which care about their customers instead of fraudulently shafting their customers in order to provide a return to their shareholders. But if we can get over those problems, we already have a system that can be converted to a post-oil economy relatively easily, compared with that of the US. I really do not understand what the US will do when both air travel and petrol for private cars become prohibitively expensive.

[UndercoverElephant]

And I do agree that we stand a better chance of coming through in one piece than the USA.

Good points. But I'm worried there are just far too many of us. The last I heard England had 9 million more people than she could feed.

Yes, this is a bit of a problem. We need to stop immigration into this country right now. This is one thing the labour government does finally appear to be doing, although it is doing it for the wrong reasons (trying to win cheap votes).

I think our greatest natural resources are in the sea. We need to stop non-UK fishing in UK waters and manage our fisheries properly.

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJRF8xGzvj4

[energy-village]

I think our greatest natural resources are in the sea. We need to stop non-UK fishing in UK waters and manage our fisheries properly.

We had better follow Iceland's example then and get some gun boats. When times get really tough the factory ships will be fishing here in ever larger numbers - and they won't be worrying about maintaining sustainable levels of fish stocks.