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Crash Course- Preparing for Peak Oil
Graham Strouts, Zone 5
Book Review
Crash Course- Preparing for Peak Oil
by Zachary Nowak
Green Door Publishing 2008
… Nowak’s take on peak oil is essentially: prepare for the worst because that is looking most likely; your preparations will still be useful if the world negotiates a successful transition, but this is looking less likely. The book is aimed at the homesteader or would-be -homesteader, but anyone would do well to consider the advice he gives as much of it would be useful in any situation. The author brings six years experience of living the survivalists’ good life to bear onhis subject.
The first part is not so much for peak oil aficionados who might like to skip straight to the resource lists in part two, but is nevertheless well worth a read for the concise and informed perspectives Zachary provides.
Importantly, he takes an ecological perspective of human evolution from hunter gatherer to farmer to industrial consumer, and this helps shape his subsequent responses: the energy return changed as our numbers grew and we had to work harder for our food.
(23 June 2008)
Fixing Peak Oil Is Easy
Randy White, Lawns to Gardens
That’s right, I said it. Peak Oil is a straw man argument.
If you want to understand what I mean, watch this alternate ending to “The Lord Of The Rings”. You will quickly understand.
[VIDEO at original]
See what I mean?
What it sums up is that fixing Peak Oil all comes down to the community’s decision to follow a smarter plan, act accordingly, and share collective resources and talents with one another. That is how you win.
Think about it this way. The “Lord of The Rings” movie everyone has collectively seen presents a story the way it was written. Everyone leaves the theatre thinking that was the way the story had to be. But Ho Ho! If J.R. Tolkien had written “The Fellowship Of The Ring” to actually follow the course in the alternate ending, people would have had a much shorter movie and still had a happy ending.
And this is our society’s problem. We love thrillers. The story of “Peak Oil” is currently being presented as a potentially cataclysmic global energy problem. It is not. Peak Oil is a communications problem among a spoiled, techno-zombie culture. We have communicated with one another for so long about the story ending, we can’t decide what our global population’s story of continuity should be.
(26 June 2008)
Retreat location and avoiding the golden horde
M.D. Creekmore, Survivalist Blog
For years survival types have asked the question; where is the “perfect” retreat location? Many words have been written on the subject by authors such as Mel Tappan and James Wesley Rawles, but the simple fact is there is no perfect location. Granted some places are indeed better then others, some being much better. But trying to find the “ideal location” to avoid the golden horde is for the most part a futile endeavor.
Your best bet could be to stay where you are now. Packing up, quieting your job, yanking the kids out of school, leaving relatives and everything you know behind in order to move to a “safer local”, my not be the best answer. Getting settled in and becoming one with the community takes time, a luxury I don’t think we have at present. You will be an outsider, which is not a favorable position to be in when tshtf.
My place is located in the same area where I have lived most of my life, a small town in the Southern United States. It is not perfect, nothing is; but I know the area and the people.
(29 June 2008)
