Where would you rank in The Oil Drum’s Peak Oil DEFCON scale?

The Oil Drum is one of the best resources on the web for keeping up-to-speed on peak oil’s progress and ramifications. The site also lists several “Peak Oil Primers,” and amusingly ranks them on a DEFCON scale. The DEFCON scale was designed to indicate the activation level of the U.S. military, with DEFCON 5 being “normal peacetime military readiness” all the way up to DEFCON 1, which signals an “imminent or ongoing attack.”

Having spent some time on each of those sites, I can say that they all predict very bad outcomes as peak oil progresses. TOD’s DEFCON rating appears to come from the optimism a site has about avoiding the worst of these outcomes, and how far along we are. I think it is fair to say that Kunstler and Savinar think sliding down the razor’s edge is unavoidable.

Where would you rate yourself? Do you think we still have time to develop alternatives, that peak oil has not yet arrived, that its impact will be slow and we can adapt? Put yourself at DEFCON 5, the lowest rating. Think like Kunstler and Savinar, that there are going to be significant casualties and a big chunk of civilisation will be lost? You’re at DEFCON 1. Or perhaps you’re somewhere in-between.

Personally, I stand at Defcon Zen. What is will be, and we do what we can.

I see us as just on the edge of the first step down of our punctuated decline; we’re in Greer’s first crisis. He predicts that such crises, which include economic depressions, typically last 10-25 years. During the crisis period, we are adapting to a lower availability of energy, and must scale back our civilisation accordingly.

I figure the current recession will deepen and many people will become permanently unemployed. There are millions who will simply have to find other ways to get by, or “make other arrangements” as Kunstler says, because there just won’t be jobs for everyone. In this first crisis, though, I think there will be ways for most who want to, to get by.

Conservation and local gardens have great potential to slash individual energy and food costs and energy use very quickly. They also cut the need for income. I think local responses will spring up, like local farms reviving and suddenly being profitable, as they no longer have to compete with subsidised imports.

While this means most people will eat more locally-grown and in-season food, it also means the price of food will rise. That means people have less money for everything else, and that means higher unemployment.

There are currently many farm jobs filled by migrant workers and immigrants, legal and not, and there will be great pressure to throttle immigration. I think the developed countries will have to stabilise their populations, whether they like it or not, within this crisis. Americans and Canadians will need the jobs, and will pick fruit and harvest vegetables, like it or not.

This counters the rise in unemployment to an extent as yet unknown, although the wages will be low. And so it goes, spiralling slowly down until we reach some sort of equilibrium where we can sustain a certain lifestyle, either sustainably if we’re wise, or temporarily if we’re not. In the first case, we can begin to rebuild. In the second, there will be a partial recovery and many will think good times are just around the corner, but in reality another step down awaits.

The crisis has begun; it’s going to get worse before it gets better – and it may not get better. Or, it could be an improvement on what we have in many ways. We could make a big shift to living sustainably, to implementing a zero-waste society – waste not, want not – and end up with walkable communities, net-zero energy solar houses, and a pretty decent standard of living. Fewer electronic geegaws, though.

How we respond is unknown as we proceed down this first slope. So far, there has been precious little action and disaster seems certain. But it’s a bumpy ride down, and we may wake up at any point during this first crisis. Once awake, there are wise courses of action to take, ones that lead us to a sustainable future so that this is the last crisis, and there are other courses that merely bring on another step down.

I suspect part of what wakes people up will be the ongoing devaluation of their homes. More and more people will be “underwater” and the banks will simply have to take a writedown in some way. If not willingly, there will be unignorable public resistance.

An oil war in the Falklands would be a shock, too. It would sure look like an Imperial Power siphoning off a resource from a developing country. The issue has already united Latin America. The potential for a war between the United Kingdom and Latin America could jolt people awake.

Or something could trigger a very rapid and deep decline, such as Saudi Arabia cutting back on supply significantly, regardless of the reason. War. Terrorist act. A recognition that their oil fields are in decline plus a sudden desire to use their oil to build a post-oil economy, leaving much less for export. Then it wouldn’t matter how ‘awake’ people were; the descent to a lower level will be rapid.

There is no way to know what it will take to wake humanity from its slumber, or if that is possible, and what the response would be. Given these unknown and at present unknowable variables, it only makes sense to take a Zen approach. Well, what to me is a Zen approach, given that I know very little about Buddhism:

• A good future is possible
• Wake people up
• Save my own soul

The first two I have already covered: A decent future is possible but only if people wake up and take a sustainable course of action. That is the purpose of this site.

The soul, whatever it may be, is only alive that anyone is aware as long as the body is alive, so if you want to save your soul then save your body. I am doing my best to acquire skills that will be valuable during the crisis, to ensure I have a secure place to live, a garden, a protective community, and so on.

We are entering a new and challenging era. There will be much that can be learned, many things rediscovered. It can be good or it may be bad, but ultimately we each must make the best of whatever time and circumstances we have.

Suggested books if you want to learn more

The books below discuss in much more detail some of the ideas mentioned in this post.

The first book is James Howard Kunstler’s The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. Kunstler explains why peak oil is imminent and a problem.

The second book is John Michael Greer’s erudite explanation of peak oil and the expected outcome.

The third book is about a growing local movement to “Transition Towns,” and offers a positive vision and hope that we can make a difference locally, as our federal and state governments are not leading.

The final book is about growing your own vegetables year-round in a solar greenhouse, something we might all want to look into.