Peak Oil Blues Blog

Reflections on Peak Oil from an “Undeveloped World” Immigrant

This was posted as a comment, but had so many useful thoughts about emotional reactions to Peak Oil, I’ve made it a post of its own.

KM

Emotional Reactions

I learned about Peak Oil (and all the other disasters: financial breakdown, climate change, resource depletion beyond oil – water, food, etc.) about five months ago.

The first weeks I was numb and obsessive: I wanted to read more, know more. I watched videos and talked about the subject incessantly. I became frantic about buying things that we may need, checking things at home and de-cluttering to make space for food and other “survival” things we would need.

For a few weeks, I couldn’t sleep well. I change all my routines and abandoned my studies. Nothing had the same meaning and I started asking about the worth of each decision and step made.

I did many things, from stocking food erratically and without any strategy, to engaging in more volunteering projects. I started taking courses on emergency preparedness and disaster response and bought books on permaculture, disaster preparedness, urban gardening, peak oil and homesteading.

I had already started to make order in our family finances, but now the debt became an obsession again. At the beginning, I was caring for every drop of water we used, and turning lights off around the house. Then I abandoned that a bit, although the use of water and energy was significantly reduced. I adopted “new” ways to deal with some routines:

I built compost and then I bought a compost bin (more practical for our townhouse), also bought a clothing rack and started using it for small clothes (anything but big towels and blankets). I stopped watching TV, reduced the time I spent in the shower, bought a bicycle and started a garden in pots in my townhouse deck (they don’t allow me to do vegetable gardening in the actual soil, much less have chicken).

My emotional reactions seem to be very similar to those of other people in blogs and books. My preparations, at least initially, may be the same, although less radical, in part for lack of family support and in part (mostly) for lack of money…I don’t have the option of moving to a farm or even to a house where I can garden and have livestock. I am too new in Canada and I have a huge debt, acquired just buying this townhouse made of sticks, with plastic pipes that may break in 5 more years, and which garden I pay but can’t use…

Others’ Reactions

People’s reaction and my strategy towards them is also similar: my husband listens but doesn’t take action and is becoming a bit irritated, telling me that if I continue with this monotony I’ll go crazy. Friends listen and tell me not to worry that much or ignore me, and I am scared of bringing up the subject with others…

I am still trying to start a community garden, but have no idea of how many supporters, if any, I will have in this community. Things go really slow and I watch everybody as if I were an alien: that’s how I feel. I find myself thinking: “look at them, how they continue their lives, ignorant of what will happen”; or I read the news and think “they are not telling all the truth, they are trying to continue this facade”; sometimes I feel anger, sometimes fear or even panic, sometimes it just doesn’t matter anymore, and sometimes the paranoia comes back and I start stocking and buying again…

I have abandoned my studies and don’t know whether it makes sense to continue, as they cost money and I’m pretty old (46) . However, I also know that if I want to continue working in my field, I will need a bachelor degree or it will be difficult to find another job when my current contract ends.

New Considerations

But now things have slowed down a bit…I have become more “political” and read other type of news and blogs, however, I have also started to challenge the Peak Oil “movement” with a little of third-world immigrant critical thinking…

Let me explain: I was born in a third-world country-Argentina- that had its own history of ups and downs. My childhood had probably the last “good times”. However, I didn’t have a TV or fancy things. My “gifts” for Christmas were clothes, no toys. My family had a small old car and I was used to public transportation and lots of walking. We used to have many blackouts and I lived in houses where there was no tap water: the water came from a well that we had to pump. Other houses where we lived (we rented and moved a lot) were old, European style and their pipes were always malfunctioning. We never had a drier or a washing machine until I was 10. We always had a vegetable garden of some sort and the grocery store didn’t have many exotic things.

Emigration

Then a coup d’état sent us to different places. I emigrated as a refugee to another “third world” country, but this time, this was an oil country (Venezuela). There, we had a small TV and a bigger house, we never starved but we had chickens and some vegetables in the backyard. Power outages are very common in Venezuela. You may be more than 24 hours without power and everybody continues their lives: go to work, pay the bills, complain, party, study…Water was scarce as well: we may have a whole week without water: we were used to it and had plastic bins that we usually filled when the water was back, to save for the “dry” days…you become use to it.

I visited Argentina (my home country) when the energy crisis was in its worst moment: cars were abandoned on the streets, nobody would care about thefts: who would steal a car if the gas was so expensive or inexistent? Elevators would work only twice a day for 30-60 minutes each. Grocery stores and shops wouldn’t label the products because prices may go from 10 to 1000 in one hour. The banks froze all the accounts and people couldn’t take their money (they allowed a small amount each month per person). People started to do barter: you exchanged services for goods and vice versa…

I’m not saying that what’s coming is not bad. I’m saying that there are many people out there already living this or with fresh memories of living like this. And they survive.

I am not dumb. I understand that what is coming is bigger as it will impact more people, more deeply, and there will be not come back to “normal” (or they may be, smalls “come backs” each time shorter, until the “normal” doesn’t come back anymore). But I am starting to think that those who decide to abandon everything and buy a farm, creating a “bunker” full of food and strange systems are not stopping to think on what may really happen.

Things are not going to stop suddenly and for good. Systems will start to fail slowly and with hiccups: you may have more blackouts than expected and they will be longer. You may start experiencing scarcity of some goods: exotic foods, certain products, etc. Gas, electricity and water prices may raise and people will struggle. Jobs will become more and more instable and employers will continue (they have already started) taking advantage of immigrants, youth, women and anybody who is in real “need” and may accept a lower salary, no benefits, contracts that end without notice, no vacations, etc.

Things have already started: I work with refugees and immigrants and I can tell: refugees now are not just persecution cases. There are refugees and immigrants who immigrate due to the effects of climate change, exploitation and corruption, wars, financial crises, countries where water, power, food and goods are scarce or too expensive and where human rights are violated because nobody cares.

The “Peak Oil” is already here.

It has been here for years. We are already in transition. It is just that for a part of the world, the party lasted longer and more people though they had earned the “right” to use and abuse of the resources, no matter how they were obtained or who was working so they could have them…

I still remember my sense of wonder when I arrived to Canada: in Spring, in the small city in Ontario, people would through furniture to the street: you walked and could see fridges, stoves, coaches, TVs, tables, toys, clothes…I couldn’t believe it! I used to wonder when visited the grocery store: tons and tons of FOOD, all kinds of exotic beverages and brands…I came from a country where you may not have milk for months or toilet paper for weeks. You can imagine my eyes.

I quickly became part of this new “reality.” We bought a townhouse and a car. We bought furniture and books and beautiful things. We didn’t spend that much as others, but we became indebted as the rest. We rationalized: “we work hard, we studied hard, and we come from countries were things were tough, we ‘deserve’ all this.”

Do we?

Two Realities

My challenge now is to put together these two realities and see things in perspective: we are strong and resilient and we shouldn’t panic. After all, we have experienced this before and we survived. We even were happy.

Another difference I feel I have when I read the comments from other people concerned about Peak Oil, is that I feel blessed and happy. These times are special times: humankind developed technologies and discovered things never imagined. We have created and build things; we have “grown” in sciences and humanities, arts and technology. That won’t be taken back. No matter what the future brings, what happened happened. So in a way I am thankful to have been born in these times: to have known Internet, being able to listen to music made before I was born thanks to the magic of a CD or my Ipod, to be able to check a book and have it in my hands in a week, to communicate with friends in Spain and Italy…to have been in an airplane many times, in trains and jeeps and have visited museums and watched great movies and so many other things!

I can’t be angry at humankind because of science and technology or arts. I can’t be angry about music or the fight for human rights, the overcoming of slavery and discrimination and the birth of so many projects and groups. I feel blessed and thankful for having been exposed to both worlds and share what each other feel and think about (each other). This couldn’t have happened without cheap energy and technology.

I am also aware of human history: we have experienced wars and famine, natural disasters and epidemics. Humans were never peaceful, loving and caring. These things develop when all needs are covered and it is easy to care for others than ourselves. I may not be right here, as there are many groups such as some aboriginals from Latin and North America, as well as some Asian cultures that have developed systems of profound caring for Nature and other beings in general. And none of these groups were particularly abundant. However, they were not starving either…

Human beings don’t learn that much: they tend to repeat the same mistakes. The reason for this is that their lives are short and they tend to learn from own experience, not from books or other human beings. This means that no matter how much you teach children about how horrific the Nazis were, they won’t’ “feel” it real, it is just a vicarious feeling and may be challenged and changed…so things that have happened in the past may happen again.

Human beings have another characteristic: they are very varied. You will find so many diverse ways of thinking about the same thing, you’ll find different feelings as well. Look out there and see religions, for example, and you will know there is no hope when a religion convinces people of killing their own daughters or shutting the doors to neighbours just because they don’t believe the same.

Look at what people “want” and what they do when they have money to spend: some want a garden and a small house, but most want cars and clothes and toys and travels and houses and parties.

There is no “hope.” Nobody will “save” us. We just exist, as animals and plants do. And each wants food and shelter and love or power and energy to continue living…human beings won’t change because of the long emergency. The world will change as it has always changed before. Trees won’t care, even if they die, as they have (apparently) no conscience. Dogs may care, cats won’t, they will just feel uncomfortable and may move to a better house, or may come back to hunting.

So even when I love Nature profoundly, even when I love life and people and this world, I peacefully acknowledge that I don’t necessarily live in a time different from others, nor I have to panic about how bad things will turn out. I just happened to live 46 years of relative peace and abundance, and now things (as always have done) will change again. I may die in the struggle, I may starve. Or I may thrive and be able to help others to do so. But we will all dissolve and become again part of the trees and the soil and the animals, and the cycle will continue and evolve as usual, to who knows what new “being” or “thing”…

Nobody really knows what we are. Not even those who swear they do: they just repeat as zombies what has been written centuries ago in their books by somebody smart or mischievous. There may be a plan or we merely may exist as a wonderful accident. Or we may be Nature’s conscience… nobody really knows. What is real is that we are part of this planet and depend on it and its systems to survive.

We can prepare and learn as much as we can (and I will continue doing it and helping others do it), however, something is certain: no matter how prepared and stocked you are, if during an earthquake you are hit in the head by your roof, you may die. No emergency kit will save you. So prepare, yes, but also accept life and its cycles as they are.

“Undeveloped World” Immigrant

*******

Dear UWI,

Many of the reactions you discussed are common to many of my contributors:

• Shock
• Numbness
• Panic
• Sleep problems
• Incessant Research
• Fear-based buying
• Dramatic  changes in priorities
• Adopting new anxiety-driven interests

You have lived without many things growing up that many in the “developed world” would consider essentials:  electricity, running water, toys, TV’s, cell phones, cheap oil.  And you were happy.

You are aware that by “pre-fossil fuel” standards, the life you had as a child was still luxurious:  you had manufactured clothes you could afford to buy, food choices from a market, etc.  Still, you suspect that it is possible, if you physically survive, that you can find pleasure in living your life even as things worsen.

You argue for one of two common scenarios:  A slow collapse.  Others believe a fast collapse is possible, and in some ways preferable.  But clearly we will more than likely have many years of the type of deterioration you mention- what I’ve called, in 2008, the “sucky kind of collapse:”

It’ll be that sucky kind of collapse where the electric bill just gets bigger and the commute to work gets more expensive month-by-month, if you even get to keep your job. The raises will stop, along with the bonuses, but the credit card bills won’t. The supermarket will have less variety, but everything will cost a great deal more. “Mr. Necessity,” as Chuck Willis says, is just a big drag, and he’s hanging around us more and more, suggesting we skip the organic for the store brand labels, and buy the cheaper tires. Talk about a drag. 

The article talks about a fantasy collapse and three types of “doomer” reactions.  And I’d definitely call you a “Do More Doomer.”

And you have another trait of a true survivor:  Gratitude.  You are grateful for the things you have been giving in this bountiful time.  Peak Oil has left you marveling at all of the fabulous things you can access:  books you can buy and have delivered in a few days, electronics, flights to visit friends thousands of miles away, a telephone call to most anywhere.

You don’t expect a quick fix, a magic cure, and you don’t have to “hope” for something different.  You’ve started your community garden, and cross your fingers for a neighborly response.  And you acknowledge that even if you work hard to prepare yourself in sensible ways, your best made plans can be dashed.

That’s a lot of processing you’ve done in 5 months.  Most people take several years to work through that process you’ve described.  Maybe the world you came from wasn’t quite so “undeveloped” after all!

Thank you for your thoughtful detailed comments.

P.S.  In today’s years, you aren’t so “old”

Canadian Physician with Panglossian Wife

Dear Peak Shrink,

I’m a family physician in Ontario, Canada, and I’m married with four children all under the age of 8.  I first heard the words “peak oil” in 2007, and began to realise the full implications (peak money, peak food, peak population etc) in 2008.  I’ve been preparing in a low key way ever since (more about what I’ve been doing below).  But my main problem from the start has been that my wife is absolutely not on the same page with this, to the extent that we are both now starting to be concerned about our marriage.

My wife is somewhat anxious, obsessive and perfectionist and has strong views on many things which makes her difficult to argue with.  She tends to dismiss me on medical things, for example, even though I’m a family physician (I don’t claim infallibility, but I do know a little bit about this stuff). If our views conflict, she tends to express her own view fairly forcefully and expect that to be the view that goes forward, rather than exploring why I take a slightly different view.

I tried to involve her at an early stage in discussions about peak oil and what we should do about it, strategies for saving for retirement and so on, but she has made it clear on every occasion when I have tried to raise the subject that she does not want to discuss it or even think about it, or look at the evidence.  She deflects all attempts at discussion with responses like “You’re just catastrophising” (is that even a real word?), “What makes you think you’ve got some special insight that other people don’t?” “Pensions are always safe”, “There’s nothing we can do about the economy so there’s no point worrying about it”, “Civilization has got along just fine for the last 300 years so it’s not going to change now,” etc.

Her unwillingness to grasp PO etc isn’t due to any lack of intelligence or education.  I think it probably has its roots in a general insecurity which causes her to need to believe that the world tomorrow will be much the same as it is today, except maybe slightly better, and there won’t be any unexpected or frightening changes.

I’ve looked at other forums discussing the psychological effects of peak oil, and there seems to be a consensus that you can’t tell people about peak oil until they are ready to hear it, and you can’t show people the evidence until they are ready to see it.  So every few months I make a tentative attempt to raise the subject again, I get rebuffed again, so I leave it alone for a few more months.

In the meantime I have been making what preparations I can.  We moved house last year to a 2-acre lot in the countryside surrounded by farms, which is a pretty safe place to be in the event of a fast crash, although I didn’t tell her my main reasons for wanting to be there.  I’m diverting small amounts of cash each month to peak oil preps like buying small quantities of silver, photovoltaic panels when they are on sale, and materials for making raised beds.  I’ve got the kids enthusiastic about planting seeds and growing food, although my wife needless to say is rather dismissive (“You know those watermelon plants are not going to produce any watermelons and the kids are just going to be disappointed, don’t you?”).  We’ll see about that.  And I’ve been networking with like minded people, particularly in my local area.

If she was “on board” with PO, the main change I would like to see is for both of us to work less hard and less long hours, earn less money and spend more time on leisure activities and with the children.  We both work full time plus, although she is cutting back her hours slightly from about 125%, to just full time.  We  juggle our time frantically 24/7 with some outsourcing to school, day care and babysitters.  I would like to spend half an hour a day in the garden showing the kids how to grow flowers and vegetables in raised beds, but I am lucky if I manage half an hour a week.

The reason we work these ridiculous hours is mainly because she is anxious about money.  I can see the sense in doing it until we have paid off the mortgage, and I have told her that after we have paid off the mortgage (in less than 5 years) I want to start running a bit less fast on the hamster wheel, but she is convinced that I need to continue working at this pace until I retire  so that we can build up our retirement nest egg.  I secretly agree with Dmitry Orlov’s thoughts about the retirement nest egg – it’s likely to be more like a retirement dried pea by the time we’re done – and I resent working so hard in order to (probably) see it evaporate away in recession and inflation.  I’ve tried to gently tell her that I have my doubts about this, but she absolutely will not listen.

We recently had a new kitchen installed, with a granite countertop.  That was her idea.  I was quite happy with the old kitchen.  The new kitchen and granite countertop look nice, it was what she really wanted, I don’t begrudge it to her and we haven’t argued about it.  I just think that the price of the new kitchen isn’t measured just in dollars, it’s the 200 or so hours that I spent earning the money, and maybe that time would have been better invested in going on long country walks, or teaching the kids to fly kites, or dipping for dragonfly larvae in the pond.  This is such a different perspective to hers, though, that it’s very difficult to convey it to her.

But I am starting to feel that time may be running out, both for peak oil and maybe my marriage.  The crude oil price is creeping up month by month and I’m anticipating a return to the oil prices of summer ’08 at some point not too far away.  My wife is complaining that I’m quieter that I used to be, I don’t talk to her as much, but it’s difficult to talk to someone who doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, even though there’s a lot we should be talking about and it’s very important.  We are sinking substantial sums of money into our traditional tax efficient retirement savings plans, and if she is expecting disappointment in the watermelon department, I think that will be nothing compared to her disappointment in the pension fund department in the long run.

I don’t expect remote control marriage guidance counselling, but any suggestions (from anyone) would be appreciated.

Regards,

Canadian Medical Doctor with Panglossian Wife

*******

Dear CMDPW

I have to tell you that your letter stands out for its unusual themes.

 Perhaps things are better economically where you live, and your family is financially well off.  Most of my readers struggle for energy and food independence, and if they are in debt, to pay it off.  They are wanting to build a more sustainable community and get to know their neighbors.  It sounds like these issues aren’t ones you share.

As far as your wife goes, I believe there are two kinds of people: those who don’t get it and those who don’t WANT to get it.  I think you put your wife in the second category.  ScienceDaily on Nov. 21, 2011 had an article that quoted new research published by the American Psychological Association that stated that the less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed:

 Participants who felt unknowledgeable about oil supplies not only avoided negative information about the issue, they became even more reluctant to know more when the issue was urgent, as in an imminent oil shortage in the United States, according the authors.   link

You are showing a tremendous amount of patience for what you think of as basically neurotic anxiety.  Your wife insists that each of you work a lot of hours to save for retirement, and then decides to spend a considerable amount of money on a luxury kitchen.  You ask that both of you spend more time with the children, but if falls on deaf ears.

What’s more, with your kids being under 8, the next 10 years are their childhoods and teen years, so if you wait until then to start spending time with them, they won’t appreciate it, I assure you.  They’ll wish you were still working, and would stop “bothering” them.  Someone else will have raised them already.  I’m not a believer that “quality time” is enough.  Kids are all “belly-to-belly” creatures.

You have shared a tremendous amount in your email, and your candor deserves the same from me.

“Quality” Kid Time

You are ultimately responsible for the way you spend your time during your children’s earliest years. They won’t accept “your mother made me do it.”

Would you?

You are ultimately responsible for how well you prepare your children (and the rest of the family) for the future you believe in your heart is coming.  They won’t accept “your mother didn’t believe me, so I didn’t do what I needed to do.”

Would you?

Contempt and Taking on the B*tch

Taking your wife on sounds like a Herculean task.

 You’re a physician for heaven’s sake and she won’t take your advice about medicine!

 Nevertheless, to do anything less is forcing you to sacrifice something precious to all of us:  an expectation of being treated with respect.

I spend a lot of time talking about contempt in my (hopefully) soon to be available book ‘I Can’t Believe You Think That!”

Contempt is THE most damaging emotional expression in intimate relationships, and one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” that indicates a breakdown in a relationship.   (The other three are criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.)

From your email, it appears that your wife is demonstrating several seriously corrosive marital interactions, the foremost of which is contempt.

Statements like: “You’re just catastrophising” and “What makes you think you’ve got some special insight that other people don’t?” are all indications.

Contempt is also the single best predictor of divorce.

 A husband’s contempt predicts the number of infectious illnesses his wife will experience in the next four years.  Contempt is also a direct attack on the value and worth of another human being, and frequently brings on depression.

It is also interesting to note that the frequency of contemptuous exchanges among happy couples is nearly zero.

Recognizing Contempt:  The Facial Eye-Roll

What is contempt?  Eye-rolling is one facial display.  Gottman defines it this way:

Contempt is typically a statement made to put one’s partner down by taking a superior higher plane than one’s partner, like maintaining the high moral ground. It usually arises from sense that one is better than one’s partner on any dimension, such as neatness or punctuality. People are very creative with contempt and snobbery; the usual method is an insult or calling one’s partner an unflattering name (for example, “you’re a jerk”). One of my favorites is interrupting to correct someone’s grammar when that person is angry with you.

Ekman and Friesen have identified a cross-culturally universal facial expression of contempt called “the dimpler,” which results from the unilateral action of the left buccinator muscle that pulls the left lip corner aside laterally and creates an unflattering dimple on the left side of the face. Contempt may be accompanied by belligerence, which is a provocative form of anger.

 

Contempt:  Spouse’s Angry Reactions to Peak Oiler’s Sadness and Despair

In couple’s work, we see the expressions of contempt as a response of reactive anger to the emotions of sadness and despair.  We see the display of contempt as creating distance to manage their own intense anxiety that one partner feels in the face of the other partner’s direct request for support, comfort, and nurturance.  It effectively kills trusting feelings, stifles dependency, and reduces the level of commitment and trust.

The message from the contemptuous spouse is “I know you need reassurance of my commitment and caring right now, but I can’t handle that pressure.  I’m going to distance from you.”  Each time  you say “I want to buy a small quantities of silver” or “I want to invest in photovoltaic panels,” and you express your worries and anxieties, she expresses indifference, disrespect, or contempt.  You are asking for  support, nurturance and caring, and she’s responding with criticism, belittlement, and sarcasm.  It is clearly the most corrosive form of relational problems.

We call the style of attachment ‘anxious’ when a partner, faced with sadness or despair, reacts first with anxiety that intensifies into anger.  How could your wife not see your sadness or despair?  Of course she sees it.  But in response, instead of responding to it by supporting you and exploring your concerns with you, she  responds to this sadness or despair with contempt, disgust, or domineering behavior.  She is escalating the negativity in your relationship in dangerous ways, and you are responding by understandable withdrawal.  In your case, a bit too “understanding.”  You do her no favors.

Why do partners react in such a negative way?  Why are partners who are suppose to be loving, act in a condescending distant or neglectful way?  What we have learned through research is that beneath this contempt lies deep feelings of anxious (as opposed to “secure” or “avoidant”) attachment.  For many, this contemptuous spouse is feeling hopeless about ever being truly loved, so they default to “spoiling” the attachment.

  She is exquisitely aware of your withdrawal, even through your “nice guy” presentation, and, most likely, she hates you for it.

The “as if I agree with you” attitude on your part has caused her to have given up trying to connect, really connect, to you.  She is  angry at being asked to be supportive and nurturing of your worries when she, herself, feels you are only giving ‘lip service’ to her deepest fears. She feels abused, tricked into loving a man who only ‘tolerates’ her, instead of deeply, passionately desiring and respecting her. Her hostility says “I won’t be fooled again.  Why should I value you?  You have disappointed me so!  I tried to reach you, (perhaps earlier in the marriage) but it was hopeless!  If I open up to you, you’ll just shut me down later, so the heck with you!”

This is hard for the “caring, patient husband” to really understand.  Why, despite his “endless tolerance” for her “irrationality;” his “acceptance” of her “blind adherence to conventional beliefs,” does she still fly off the handle and respond to him so negatively?  Why does she act so spiteful and belittling to his carefully and rationally delivered, carefully researched facts?

As one Mother wrote:

• If I’m frustrated with a non-response, as I’m wiping the counters, I roll my eyes.
• If I’m angry at an overreaction, as I’m walking away to do laundry, I roll my eyes.
• If I’m tired of all the fighting in my car, as I’m driving along, I roll my eyes.

Marriages and families operate at a certain level of equilibrium normally.  A dance develops where the harder we try to change our partner, the more resistant they become to that change.  The more certain we are of our “rightness,” the more contemptuous they act toward our deeply held convictions.  There are families where one spouse isn’t allowed to even talk about some strongly held beliefs in front of the other, their friends, or their kids.  Those topics are ‘off limits.’  But these silenced partners are hardly helpless victims.  They are carrying out a “demon dance” that is bringing nothing but unhappiness to both of them.

When contempt is exchanged between couples, (or “contempt” and “long-suffering silence”), they have to decide whether to get help, or let it die a slow (or not so slow) relationship death.

While in this marriage, Dr.,  you appear to be more “understanding” of your wife’s spending on things you see as a waste of your earning hours, I’m sure that she has picked up on your attitudes.  The “nice guy” is seldom seen as “fully supportive” by the “b*tch wife.”  Marriage has a way of unwrapping even the thickest social “face” of the dutiful spouse.

Just because your perspective may be “correct” from my point of view, “giving up” to “keep peace” is seldom a useful marital strategy for keeping harmony, in the bedroom or in the kitchen.

Seek out someone who knows what they are doing in the marital therapy world and made TRUE peace, not this distancing stance you’ve adopted.

Good luck.

Peak Shrink

Where Will the Grandkids Live?

For several months I have pondered the above question. As we age we become more reflective than when we were young, and the hustle and bustle of life filled every waking minute. No, I am not talking about the geographic location of their future life, but the time period in which they will live, and what their way of life may be.

My study and research over the past 6 years have led myself and many others to believe that we are about to embark upon a very unique time in the history of mankind on this planet. I believe we are about to witness time running backward with the decline of the oil age. I’m not talking about the hands of your clock moving in reverse, but the achievements that we have come to embrace and depend upon gradually ceasing to exist in a useable form, for those living at that time. It will be living as if we were at the back of the history book, and reading forward to the front as the passage of time moves ahead.

Skills, materials, processes, and techniques crucial to our lives today will gradually be replaced by less sophisticated and less efficient skills, materials, processes, and techniques similar to those of a bygone era. James Kuntsler has written extensively about this process in several of his books. Many have read his works and pushed them aside as being a very imaginative work of fiction that surely never could happen. After all, the great works of fiction written in the past, such as those of Jules Verne, have suggested forward growth to the time period we are familiar with today. Not so fast though. Has there been a historical precedent when the very process of regression actually did occur?

Because of the diligent work of historians and archeologists in the last several decades, we have a view of a significant period of time in which such a regression indeed has occurred. Many techniques and technologies from this prior period were lost to humanity, for hundreds or even thousands of years, only to be “re-discovered” in the last two centuries. That period of time existed from around the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD forward. With its demise, many skills and technologies were lost. Hydraulic setting cement, which is an extensive component used to build our modern seaports, bridges, navigation channels, and dams, was lost with the fall of the Roman Empire, and not re-discovered until 1300 years later.

Modern brain surgery dating from around 1935, actually had its origins as far back as 7000 BC, but that skill also disappeared during the fall of the Roman Empire, only to be re-discovered 78 years ago.

The Antikythera Mechanism, a very sophisticated analog scientific computer, comprised of many intricate gears and dials, was in use during the first century BC, but its use was lost around the fall of Roman Empire, only to be re-discovered in the mid 1800’s. Not until the late 1800’s could precise gears be made to replicate some of the functions found in the earlier device from 1900 years previous.

History reveals that we have had massive society regression on a large scale in the past. To think ourselves immune to that today is faulty societal thinking. My belief is that we will begin to experience this process at a gradually accelerating pace sometime within the next five years. The decline of the oil age, and depletion of other natural resources will begin to remove the familiar from our lives at an ever increasing pace. All are now familiar with the predicted demise of the fossil fueled private transportation, and commercial air travel. What other goods and services also will begin a slow disappearing act? Just about anything depending on a supply of fossil fuel in its manufacture, transportation or content can be expected to decline in availability. Modern medicine, modern electronics, abundant affordable food, clothing, plastics, glues, building materials, school supplies, sports equipment, and just about anything your else your eyes see today.

So where do I think my grandchildren will live when they are 40 (ages today 10, 14, and 21)? I think they will live in a world very similar to the first decade of the last century. There will be some electricity available, mostly in the cities I think, but it will be intermittent. Those who are lucky enough still to have a land line will maintain some communication ability. There will be limited use of airplanes, but not for air travel. Medicine and medical supplies will be limited and not available in the variety that we have today. Anything plastic will be a curiosity, and not currently available. Radio, TV and Internet will become “things of the past” . Media, and the internet to some extent, exist only for one purpose, to advertise goods and services for you to buy. At some point the amount and variety of available goods will decline to a level that will no longer sustain the operational expense of any of those venues.

We seem to be building a better mouse trap for ourselves worldwide. The written word and pictures are now converting to an all electronic format. Book store closings abound. What will result when the lack of energy and fossil fuel chemicals make the devices displaying that media unavailable? A great amount of collective and personal history, along with “how to” will vanish. We will still have libraries with “hands on” physical books, but new material will be slow to obtain.

The hardest reality that my grandchildren will experience, will be the memory of a time when many more conveniences and goods were commonplace and available. If you were able to go back and ask people living at the beginning of the last century about the quality of their lives, they would likely tell you that life was pretty good for them. Quality of life would appear to them to be far better than that experienced by their ancestors.

I think that many generations may pass before the world, its people, and its resources will regain some form of sustainable equilibrium.

Where do you think your grandchildren will live?

Chuck

Dead Reckoning

From the beginning of time, people have used a process to navigate their way around their environment. Today we call this process “Dead Reckoning”. In its simplest form, one starts from a known reference point and heads out in a particular direction for a certain number of steps, miles, days or weeks, to arrive at a previously unseen destination. As time went on, we added some sophistication to the process by factoring in water currents, winds and more accurate distance measuring, along with a magnetic compass for directional guidance. Until the availability of GPS, this was a fairly common method of navigation on the seas or in the air.

The prime requirement for dead reckoning always is to set out from a known reference point. All the other tools and processes are built upon that single requirement to hopefully deliver you close to your desired destination. If one starts from an unknown reference point, there is no indication as to what direction will lead to a desired destination.

A comment that I read in various blogs and news articles about the economy and the energy dilemmas is something to the effect of “We have never seen this combination of conditions before.” “We are in uncharted waters”. It will be very hard for us to proceed ahead, because there is no known reference point today, and hence no particular known direction to go. Friends have commented that we seem to be unsure as a nation as to what we should do, and so we have gridlock in our legislative bodies. Business is unsure of the environment it which it finds itself, and is unwilling to make any commitment to one particular direction or another. As this strange economic and energy uncertainty continues, we will see only increased gridlock both in government and in business.

Gridlock goes beyond government and business. All of us have become ensnared by a mental gridlock that sometimes brings us to a complete standstill. It is not hard to find examples of this gridlock among “peak-oilers”. One group advocates the direction of a deep woods hideaway in Montana or Wyoming. Another group advocates the direction of the transition movement. Still another group advocates the direction of stockpiling food and weapons while sheltering in place.

All of us have a desired destination of “Security”. Since we have arrived at landmarks for economy and energy that we do not recognize today, it is very difficult to plot a future course to “Security”. We are at a place in time where our internal GPS is telling us “recalculating”. To make matters worse, a concise description of what “Security” even looks like makes setting a Dead Reckoning course ever more difficult. My mental image of where “Security’s” location is likely to be far different from yours.

The economic reference location at which we currently find ourselves, although not at all familiar to us, bears certain similarities to such a time 82 years ago. Even this similarity has not been of significant help to us today in determining our new direction, as our experts have tried several courses from our current reference point, and we still seem totally lost. The energy reference point is by far the more problematic since the world has never been at this reference point in recorded history. Dead reckoning will serve no purpose here, because we really don’t know where we are going, or even a general direction in which to proceed.

The old saying “If you don’t know what to do, do nothing” will drive many to do just that. But that could be a very poor choice for this journey. Some known things will hinder us on this journey, such as debt, and we should try to rid ourselves of as much of that as possible before venturing further. We know some things that we will need on the journey, such as water, food, shelter, working with our hand skills, and clothing to name a few. We should be using this time before a direction to “Security” becomes clear, to develop alternative ways to meet all of those needs.

If you think that drinkable water comes from the faucet, electricity from the outlet, food and clothing from the store, and money from the bank, then you must consider what alternatives you will use if one or more of those necessities become unavailable while we are plotting what we perceive as our personal course to “Security”. Now is the time to acquire the alternative means to supply the daily necessities, while we wait to discern a reference location from which to launch towards our vision of “Security”.

Gridlock does not work in government or in business. To set a Dead Reckoning course today from our present unknown reference points may expend valuable resources and time, and deliver us to a destination that is less than desirable. Our destination of “Security” will look different to each one of us, and we must use our time and resources wisely before embarking on our journey.

Today, we find ourselves struggling to navigate through uncharted waters, sailing as yet upon uncharted seas.

Only you can determine your perceived location of our present reference point, and only you can set your Dead Reckoning course to your own future and proceed.

Chuck

The Limits of Technology

Last week we watched an unusual early spring outbreak of tornados from Kansas through Virginia. Some 39 people lost their lives in these violent storms. Having viewed the destruction on nightly TV news programs, it is amazing the fatalities weren’t even higher. During that outbreak, one community, Harveyville, Kansas, was hit without warning, with the loss of a resident. What made this particular incident so unnerving was the fact that the community was close to a powerful weather radar facility and experienced weather bureau staff. The storm had produced a tornado in an adjacent county prompting a warning for that county. But the radar seemed to show the storm falling apart quickly, and the weather bureau staff chose not to extend the warning to the next county, and the sirens didn’t sound.

It was not the fault of the radar or the radar operator in the interpretation of all those green, red and yellow displays. It was simply the fact that technology can do only so much in the detection and analysis of impending natural weather events. After many decades as a trained storm spotter, I have come to accept the limitations of technology in “Tornado Alley”, where there is no substitute for eyes on the ground. It may come as a shock to some that radar does not see a large percentage of tornados on the ground or funnel clouds aloft. We have become complacent in expecting that the colorful displays we see on TV are the final word on the threats before us. We have trusted that technology has reached a point where we no longer have to worry about a surprise attack from Mother Nature. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What surprised the weather bureau after the 2011 tornado outbreaks in Alabama and the Joplin tornado was the loss of life, some 500 plus individuals, the greatest loss since 1936, long before radar had been invented. Clearly, from the devastation observed, early warnings kept that loss from being many times greater. It demonstrated that technology was a significant contributor to preserving lives, but it was not a total solution to their living safely with Mother Nature on the rampage.

So what does all this rambling have to do with Peak Oil Blues? Over the past several days I have received several e-mails from friends about “new” technology in the oil and gas fields making us energy independent in a few short years. First of all, the “new” technology is some 60+ years old; it is only since oil and gas have reached higher prices allowing newer technologies to be employed.

Secondly, we have collectively come to expect that technology will triumph over any obstacle, even if it is the total lack of an available resource. As a nation we have allowed ourselves to become lulled into complacency, assuming that the wizards of technology will somehow allow us to extract the proverbial blood from a turnip, and therefore, we as a population have to do nothing but sit back, and continue our customary driving and consuming, while waiting. We much prefer to accept hype over facts, which can be uncomfortable.

But what happens when the population runs directly into the limits of technology? I think that like the storms of weather, we will face the storms of economics and energy. There will be many consequences where people and these storms collide. The consequences will be physical, economic, emotional, mental, and intellectual. Many will ask “Why didn’t the sirens sound?” so that we could take precautions and make preparations. The result will be very troubling times. There are no guidelines to follow. As a population we will have to write the “book” on how to deal with the decline of the energy age from Chapter 1 forward, since this has not occurred before. Many authors and websites have written the Preface; we will have to build upon their work.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but we must understand its limits in supplying solutions for our daily needs. Some of that supply will have to come from the work of our own hands and those immediately around us (community).

From all appearances, the economics and energy storm in reality is not diminishing, but the technology is not really detecting that, either from an omission or commission in reading its displays. Our technology is nearing its limits, but public awareness is almost “nil” that a storm indeed is approaching.

The sirens should be wailing now for you to take precautions, but they remain silent.

This is the time for you to have eyes to the sky.

Chuck

The Essentials – Less with Less

Recently, our local government held a budget retreat to plan the 2013 budget. The press release following this preliminary budget goal setting was sobering at the minimum. We are by now accustomed to government officials applying the most positive possible spin on an announcement. If this were indeed the positive spin, I hate to contemplate the true reality.

The government official stated to those gathered; “We can no longer do more with less, or even the same with less; that clearly we are going to do less with less”. He further stated “everything is on the table”. Today the local area comprised of a half million individuals is not yet grappling with double digit unemployment; it has the enviable unemployment rate of 6.7 percent. Nor is it grappling with severe mismanagement issues. However, as so many other government entities, it is grappling with sharply declining revenues, caused by the popping of the real estate bubble. This is an issue that will continue to grow during the course of the next few years.

This announcement is a story that many of the readers of Peak Oil Blues already have been living for the past 2 years or more, but it is just now beginning to arrive in my area. Many will read the first 2 paragraphs and yawn saying “been there, done that”. Let’s look more closely to determine why this issue here is so important.

It is occurring in an area that is not yet undergoing severe economic distress. That should be cause for alarm in other parts of the country where already unemployment is off the charts, and business is drying up. Secondly, it is a sign that things are truly not improving within our national economy. Finally, that our government officials do not see any improvement, or recovery on the horizon. This is not a short term problem with a quick fix. Painful reductions will be required to bring expenses and available revenues into balance.

As governments respond by trimming services and resources, the risks and responsibilities will be shifted right back on the shoulders of individual citizens. As the revenue continues its downward slide, many of the services that we depend on (the Essentials) to keep our communities and ourselves personally intact will contract to the point of being just a remaining shadow of service. Imagine having severe chest pains, calling 911, only to be informed that the EMS service can’t get to you until they have taken care of the three other citizens already waiting ahead of you. Picture yourself calling in to report a burglary in progress, only to be told that the only available law enforcement cannot be there for another 2 hours, responding to a backlog of more pressing calls. Does this sound like the plot of a horror movie? Already this has become the reality in several areas our country today. I expect living in such scenarios to become more prevalent during the next 12 months.

The continued eroding of our Essentials will cause great anxiety over the next few years. It will be up to us as individuals to try to prevent break-ins, reduce fire hazards, and build enough cohesive strength of community around us to assist with such needs as transport to emergency medical care. Our responsibilities for well being are being shifted back to us from all levels of government. Our 911 system is a wonderful thing, but only if the needed help arrives in a timely manner. We suddenly find ourselves having to shoulder more of the responsibility for meeting the challenges of protecting our lives and property.

Fuel costs will impact many of our commercially supplied “Essentials”. The responsibility for locating and acquiring those “Essentials” will be totally our own. Right now, the responsibility is shared between the store owner and yourself. As long as the store owners can make a profit, after covering overhead, they will continue to try to meet their responsibility as a supplier to you the customer. But as the profit from doing so diminishes under the weight of rising fuel costs, owners will supply progressively fewer of your “Essentials”.

If you want to do an interesting experiment starting today, go to your favorite food store, pick an aisle in the canned goods area, count the number of steps from the beginning of the aisle to the end. Walk up and down the aisle several times; note the variety and brands of canned goods carefully. Repeat this process a year from now and see if anything has changed. This only works if the store doesn’t “remodel”. “Remodel” is a convenient term used to hide the fact that the store no longer carries as much merchandise or variety by shuffling its locations around the store. We will see lots of “remodeling” in the future.

Many of you will say this is too gloomy a posting, and surely cannot happen here. The sad fact is that already it is happening around you. The pace of change to a less with less lifestyle is gradual now and not readily apparent unless one stops and looks, but the dark horizon suggests that the process is about to speed up.

As our government officials stated “we can’t get more with less, or keep the same with less”. We will have to deal as individuals and communities with living less with less. The “essentials” are not only supplies, but services too. The time to start determining how you will accommodate a future with “less” is today.

After today the time that remains to make your plans is less.

Chuck

Lies, Pipe Dreams, and Promises

In the United States it is election season. In all the other seasons that we observe, it is readily apparent which season you are in. The green grass and bright flowers signal Spring, then comes the warm (or hot) Summer sun and lots of outdoor activities. The Fall brings us the vivid color of fall trees and a slight hint of cooler air. Soon afterward we are forced to put on coats to brave the cold winds and snow that follows Fall into Winter. The climate seasons are regular as day following night.

Every two years in the United States we are subjected to election season, with the fourth year being the most pronounced. Unfortunately, it lasts for a full year, a very long season. You know when election season has started, because every media outlet, (TV, radio, and print) is spewing forth a great collection of Lies, Pipe Dreams, and Promises from the candidates for office. Truth, if it is anywhere to be found, can be measured only in micro quantities. The voting public seems to be swayed not by what is best, but what is loudest.

In prior days and times, when there were enough economic and fossil fuel resources, electing the wrong person or group wouldn’t have a lot of impact, because the bureaucratic process moved so slow. A bad choice could be modified in two years or replaced in four without too much damage being done. Today though, the story is different. Those of us who are involved with Peak Oil realize that civilization is walking on a razor thin wire of resources. The economic and spare fossil fuel nets have been pulled from beneath our path. It is a perilous walk indeed, not only for the United States, but the rest of the world.

Yet we have leaders and candidates that are uttering Lies, Pipe Dreams, and Promises that are so far from reality that it is absolutely frightening. Their grand visions and plans are built on assumptions of spare economic and fuel resources that simply don’t exist. Their pronouncements of 100 years of this or that energy source aren’t built on facts, but on hype straight out of energy companies public relations departments that was designed to keep investment dollars flowing, not energy.

As the choices for leadership in our government process narrow down, I keep wishing there was a “None of the Above” box on the ballot. I see no candidate with a realistic vision of the future, just a vision crafted by pollsters to gather the votes. I suppose it has always been that way, but today the times ahead are too difficult and perilous to allow pollsters to craft our national vision. Unfortunately, it is the process today. The public will grumble and raise their voice a little after the election when they discover the lies they were told and the false promises of a future that doesn’t exist. But somewhere the public will reach a point where they are like the news anchor character in the movie “Network” who loses his grip on his mental state and runs to the window, throwing it open and screaming to no one in particular “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Are we there yet? Perhaps.

Or will this season of Lies, Pipe Dreams, and Promises just pass like so many before it?

Chuck

The Background Music Has Gone Silent

In the dark ages as a lad, I attended many of the “horror” or “monster” movies of the time. There were such notables as “The Thing”, “Them”, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon”, “Godzilla”, “The Blob”, “The Tingler”, “Kronos”, “The Creature from Beneath the Sea”, and many others. Today’s audiences would consider those movies more comical than horrific because of the crude special effects of that day and time. Today’s audiences require several gallons of fake blood and body parts before the movie can be even remotely considered as a “horror” movie.

But one common ingredient between those movies of yesteryear and today is the same. That is the background music. It alerts our minds that something really sinister is about to happen. The background music is not itself notable, in fact it is notable in that it isn’t really noticed during the movie. Still it is there. As the tension builds in the plot, the music becomes louder and louder, causing us to sit on the edge of the seat, afraid to look, but afraid to turn away. The music tells us subconsciously to stay alert something horrible may happen. Our inner voice wants to yell “Don’t open that door!”, “Don’t get out of the car!”, “Don’t go see what made that noise”. Common sense tells us this is time for flight, not mere curiosity. In the movie world, an expendable actor or actress ventures forth to investigate the noise or phenomena that is just off screen( usually at night). The background music rises almost overwhelming the senses. Then the expendable character sees nothing and the background music goes silent, allowing us to let down our guard. As players begin to return to a place of safety, the monster strikes. Then the music begins to rise again as the previously unknown monster now goes after the stars, who miraculously escape to spread the alarm.

So what does that have to do with “Peak Oil Blues”? Last fall we were being treated to a lot of daily background music that kept rising in volume. The music accompanied some of the visuals we saw in the media. Some was anecdotal about a layoff here, a business closure or failure there, a neighbor whose house was foreclosed, or who lost a job. The music in our minds kept us on the edge of our seats. It seemed like we couldn’t open the newspaper or turn on the TV without some ominous image or story seeming to suggest that a horrible economic or energy monster was about to strike us in our prime. Suggestions of countries collapsing, whole economic systems evaporating right in front of our eyes, leaving us victims of this unfolding horror movie, were daily occurrences. These visions drove the background music to an even louder intensity. You could almost feel the tension in the air tapping you on the shoulder. Anxiety levels were rising along with the background music. The Occupy movement gave evidence that something was wrong.

Then in mid December it happened. What? Nothing! We looked around and the background music had gone silent. No longer was the music rising to the stories of diesel shortages in the northern plains and Canada. No longer did the music accompany the stories of Eurozone collapse, or Chinese economic problems. We breathed a sigh of relief and coasted through the holidays feeling free of worry over what might be out there in the night.

But did the economic and energy monsters really decide that our politicians, technology, and media were a force too formidable and slink off into the night? I don’t think so. Just within the last week noises have begun emanating from the bushes out in the darkness of the future. And the noises were not made by rabbits looking for food. First we heard the noise of the World Bank forecasting that 2012 would make 2008/2009 look like child’s play. Then another bush rustled and we heard the noise of the Nigerian oil industry on strike. And the bushes around the Middle East still continue to rustle. All we can hope for is the monster rustling in the bushes isn’t as large as the sounds it is making in the dark. Perhaps it is a really clumsy monster!

I don’t think the economic and energy monsters have gone back to hiding to plan a new strategy. I think they still remain in the bushes nearby, waiting to pounce at any moment. The old saying over the centuries has been “the calm before the storm”. I think we are now in that calm right before either or both monsters re-emerge to confront us. If you are preparing for this oncoming storm, that is great, you need to redouble your efforts. If you aren’t preparing, you need to start. You can’t effectively battle “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” (was the “Black Lagoon” an early reference to a lake of oil??) with a set of car keys and a bunch of nifty cell phone apps.

The silence of the background music during this brief calm should provide incentive sufficient for us to begin or continue to prepare ourselves for less energy, less money, less security, less food, less mobility, less comfort, less convenience, to name a few.

Those who fail to prepare themselves will be the expendable actors in this drama.

Chuck

Ants, Angels and Armor: Further Conversations on Human Nature

“The big system can be pretty overwhelming. We know that we can’t beat them by competing with them. What we can do is build small systems where we live and work that serve our needs as we define us and not as they‘re defined for us. The big boys in their shining armor are up there on castle walls hurling their thunderbolts. We’re the ants patiently carrying sand a grain at a time from under the castle wall. We work from the bottom up. The knights up there don’t see the ants and don’t know what we’re doing. They’ll figure it out only when the wall begins to fall. It takes time and quiet persistence. Always remember this: They fight with money and we resist with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time”
― Utah Phillips

Graphic Source

Six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans.  Source

After I posted “Sustaining Our Better Angels,” Bill Rees and I got into an email conversation, drawing into the dialogue, other wonderful thinkers, including Rex Weyler, co-founder of Greenpeace International, who decided to pull from this conversation and write an article for the Watershed Sentinel.

I would like to make a few brief comments before you read this article.

The first is what I believe are the dangers of discussing a human’s “animal nature” that require “supra-instinctual survival strategies” to overcome.  My question is:  Who is capable of “supra-instinctual survival strategies”?  Our leaders?  A few elites who can overcome their ‘baser’ instincts and see beyond their immediate needs? To quote my early post: “As people living in the wealthiest of nations, we may have, as Dr. Rees suggests, sunk to our lowest selves, become lost and destructive, plundering the planet while drowning in our sea of “stuff.” But this is simply a perverse and pervasive cultural meme promulgated by a powerful and influential oligarchy.”

It is a common strategy to dilute blame.  This strategy says “We are all to blame, not just the rich and powerful.”  This is horse manure.  As Utah Phillips has said:

 “The Earth is not dying - it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.”

We don’t need new institutions, trans-national powers, or powerful elites- hundreds of people making decisions for the rest of us.  We don’t need to step out of our “animal nature” or be washed of the original sin of our biopsychological heritage.

Our “better angels” are not above us.  They are within us, ready to be called forth.

From:  Watershed Sentinel 25  November-December 2011 Environmental News from British Columbia and the World 

In 2010, UBC professor and “Ecological Footprint” originator, Dr. William Rees, wrote “The Human Nature of Unsustainability”  for the Post Carbon Reader, explaining evolutionary/genetic reasons that our “reasonably intelligent species” appears unable to recognize its ecological crisis or respond accordingly. Rees explains that most species share two traits that aid survival but risk overconsumption of resources:

1. To expand to occupy all accessible habitats, and
2. To use all available resources.

Humans are what biologists call “K-strategists.” The “K” stands for a habitat’s carrying capacity, which large mammals tend to fill, resulting in evolutionary pressure to gratify individual desires for food, sex, etc. These tendencies – to expand, consume, and satisfy short-term desires – have survival value until the species overshoots its habitat capacity. Thereafter, without a predator or other force to check growth, such species can obliterate a habitat as reindeer did on St. Matthews Island and as humans are doing on Earth as a whole.

“Certain behavioural adaptations helped our distant ancestors survive,” writes Rees, “but those same (now ingrained) behaviours today … have become maladaptive.”

Better Angels

Fair enough, thought clinical psychologist Dr. Kathy McMahon, but what about our “better angels?” Do we not, “have within us, the very innate altruistic qualities needed to work our way back to that simpler, communally-focused way of life …that will bring us back to our senses? It is happening already.”

McMahon, who posts stories of environmental trauma on her PeakOilBlues.org website, knows full well, “We’re bombarded with alarming headlines on a daily basis. How do we find the sane space between Doom and Denial?”

In a response, McMahon asks,

“Does our understanding of the economic and socio-political dominance of ‘Homo Economicus’ inform all we need to know about human nature to motivate behaviour change?” She writes, “We must pause again to ask ourselves: ‘Which humans are we talking about?’ We may need to look outside The First World for insights and broader understandings.”

This post led to an enlivened email dialogue between Rees and McMahon, a model discussion that our world needs, between two engaged thinkers. Here are some excerpts:

Rees: Kathy, thanks for your detailed and sensitive dissection …Humanity is a conflicted species … [torn] between what reason and moral judgment say we should do, and … what pure emotion and baser instincts command us to do. In “What’s Blocking Sustainability,” I suggest a way out, not far removed from your own analysis:

 We have reached a crucial juncture in human evolutionary history … genes and ideology that urge ‘every man for himself!’ might well mean destruction for all. Long term selective advantage may well have shifted to genes and memes that reinforce cooperative behaviour. Emotions such as compassion, empathy, love and altruism are key components of the human behavioral repertoire. The central question is whether we can muster the… political will … [to] reinforce these natural ‘other regarding’ feelings.

To reduce the human eco-footprint, the emphasis in free-market capitalist societies on individualism, greed, and accumulation must be replaced by a renewed sense of community, cooperative relationships, generosity, and a sense of sufficiency.… We must self-consciously create the cultural framing required for the brighter colours to shine.

McMahon: Bill, thank you. We aren’t far off in spirit. I was most disturbed by no mention of corporate advertisers when you discuss the power of memes to shape thought.  I substituted the word “corporation” in your article for “human” and I found the result a running, raging polemic. Here’s a sample:

Given the availability of cheap energy, regulatory relaxation, technological innovation and social manipulation, corporations became a dominant force in the human endeavor worldwide…. The size and scale of corporate growth and influence is unprecedented…. The expansionist myth is a central tenet of corporations.

The violent mindset … impacts the collective community consciousness in areas of creativity, ruthlessness, economic prosperity, inner peace, outer peace, power struggles, greed, envy, materialism and narcissism.  This violent meme has so dominated discourse in the USA, that our unconscious assumptions about what is “human nature” are debased.

We have another equally powerful and “evolutionarily based” nature: altruism.

Rees: The corporate sector …spends billions of dollars to create advertising ‘memes’ that play to peoples unconscious fears, desires and insecurities… turning people into consuming cogs in the capitalist machine. In other writings, I have condemned the role of corporate advertising:

“Consumption … has become the meaning of life … the criterion of existence, the mystery before which one bows (Ellul 1975) … the consumer society was actually a deliberate social construct … a multi-billion dollar advertising industry is still dedicated  to making people unhappy with whatever they have … Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life …” (From “Toward Sustainability with Justice” in Colin Soskolne’s Sustaining Life on Earth).

The same general pattern applies to the … anti-science narrative sweeping the US and elsewhere today. We have entered a “new age of unreason.” Powerful corporations and individuals (e.g., the Koch family) fund think-tanks designed specifically to mis-inform the public … [A] perverted individualism abhors laws and regulations, diminishes community and generally undermines … the public good.

In “What’s Blocking Sustainability,” I mention that repeated exposure to ideological assertions “actually help[s] to imprint the individual’s synaptic circuitry in neural images of those experiences … People tend to seek out experiences that reinforce their pre-set neural circuitry and to select information from their environment that matches these structures.”Conversely, “when faced with information that does not agree with their internal structures, they deny, discredit, reinterpret or forget that information,” (Wexler 2006, p. 180).

This is why it is so difficult to induce social change. The neoconservative right-wing has so skillfully exploited this dimension of human biology, that vast numbers of Americans and Canadians are persuaded to vote against their own interests. The entire manipulation is oriented toward protecting the interests of the owners of capital, the corporate sector and their acolytes.

There is no hope for change if we mis-define the problem and fail to understand the deep bio-psychological roots of cultural inertia. By contrast, the opposition are doing everything imaginable to entrench that inertia. If enough people come to understand… that they are being manipulated, there may be a groundswell of resistance before it is too late to turn things around.

McMahon: You’re correct that the values of Homo Economicus are deadly to the planet. But it is dangerous to confuse the dysfunction of humans impacted by global free market capitalism, with the norms of human psychology. Unipolar depressive disorders are the leading causes of disability worldwide. Is this a normal human state?

The solutions are local, not global… communities deteriorate in predictable ways, but they can also be healed systematically. “Comfort,” “belonging” and “protection” are features that all humans crave, and therefore there is no need for “supra-instinctual survival strategies.” We live in an insane culture.

Rather than marginalize the cries for reform, we need to normalize the pain. Protest and concern are healthy reactions to loss and grief … We should study those who aren’t suffering these symptoms. Those who can’t or don’t feel the loss or who don’t know why they are drinking and drugging themselves, that is the true tragedy.”

**********************

The key difference between Dr. Rees and I remains the emphasis we place on our better angels.  Evil exists.  However, I don’t see greed, selfishness or aggression as any more dominant than altruistic instincts.  Phrases such as ‘supra-instinctual survival strategies‘ make me nervous because they suggest an elitist top-down approach to the dilemmas of depleting energy reserves, degraded environment conditions and economic hard times.  Personally, I remain deeply suspicious of solutions that require thunderbolts from on high.   And, you’ll see a lot of proposals out there that argue that centralized solutions are our only hope, suggesting we turn over the control to those who know better. The danger we face is not our nature, but the ease of which we see only the “knights” and miss the “ants.”  The ‘shiny armor’ is the media, which shapes the discourse.  The ants are all around us now, seemingly insignificant, camping out in parks, singing a new Handel hymnal about corporate greed, and paying off the K-mart holiday lay-a-way bills of complete strangers all across the USA.

I’d rather cast my lot with the ants.

Losing the Loved One You Can Talk to…

Hi Peak Shrink,

I just commented on your latest blog entry and as I clicked the submit button I felt a great loss.

I can talk about my fears with my husband, but only to a certain extent. He is totally into all our simplifying and gardening and tinkering with sustainability, but out of principle (not to take what you don’t need, not to waste, to be responsible for future generations, etc.). He does not “believe” in Peak Oil, and Climate Change will be very slow, and the economic recession will soon lift.

He is an optimist: whatever problems will arise, technology and science will save us.

I wish I could be like him, rather carefree yet still doing everything to live more lightly on the earth. Sometimes I think his motivations for living so carefully are purer than mine, because my motivation is largely fear. I’m a pessimist, a Doomer, I guess, of the Do More kind, and of the kind who always smiles, you know? Forge on and tally-ho and all that!

The one time I wailed to my husband, at that terrible beginning of the ”awakening”, he understood (not the awakening, but my distress) and he immediately followed on our new path. But on most days I am combative and resourceful and there’s no time or inclination for wailing. And I find that on those days I can’t talk to him about what underlies my actions, my preparations, and it’s like he has forgotten, or can no longer believe it. Stocking up on water? Peak Oil? I don’t believe in that nonsense.

Do I *have* to cry out in order to be heard?

My other dialogue is a monologue, really, to the largely anonymous and somewhat mysterious (i.e., unresponsive) audience on my blog. But there it is the same: I talk about the actions, and only once in a while about the motivations, and only very rarely about the despair.

So my last resort was a family friend whom I trusted and looked up to.  A good listener and concerned friend. I’ll never forget my first talk with him about this, when I was suddenly inspired (or rather, so hard pressed) to just lay it on the table, the raw fear in just a few words and not too many tears, and how he got it, how concerned he was, that I should live with this, and how did I, really, live with this, and please take care, take heart…

Several weeks ago he was at our house with his family and we had just installed our rain barrels. Besides the obvious opportunities for the garden I also touted our plan to do some sort of rain water purification. Why? he asked.  In case the water supply fails, I said.

He rolled his eyes.

Not only do we live with the crippling fear of nothing less than the destruction of our children; we live also with the daily belittling of it by our loved ones. As long as there’s no wailing, no physical, unmistakable, forceful expression of our utterly wrecked hope… how serious could it be? How easily can it be ignored, denied?

On my resourceful days I often find myself amazed at the contradiction between my behavior and calmness on the one hand and the knowledge (or belief) I carry inside. There are many reasons for it – I can do more here with my daughter than in a psychiatric ward or drugged on prozac - but isn’t it something? What, I don’t know. I like to think of it as a feat of strength, though sometimes I suspect it is a belittling itself, even a drugging, like that strange “becalming” you speak of…

Well, this turned out longer than I had planned, but one thing is clear to me at the end of it: that you should know how important *you* are as the only active and respectful and concerned listener available to some or even most of us.

Sail on.

Tally-ho.

Hi Tally ho,

Thank you for your kind words.  I really appreciate you for acknowledging the hard work I do, and it helps me feel connected to you.

You need that same acknowledgement, but not just from me.

Being emotionally ‘strong’ is great in most situations, but not defensively so in our most intimate relationships.

Your letter expresses the feelings of many of my readers. I hear your words echoed in the consultations I do, as clients express pain about the way they are treated by close friends or intimates.

Some of my readers will consider you a lucky woman to have a spouse who at least cooperates with your preps.  But none of us want to be married to a willing “hired hand.”  We want and need our intimate relationships to be much, much more.  We need to be known to those we love.  We need to feel heard by them.  We need to feel understood, trusting, and safe to be ourselves when we are with them.

It is painful when, in our most important relationships, we feel discounted, mocked, or trivialized.  It is a daily wound that does not heal, and it leaves us insecure and uncertain.  We withdraw, become depressed or feel chronically angry and embittered.  We stop being responsive in sex with our intimates, and stop having fun with our ridiculing friends.  We live like strangers in our own homes, or with our buddies, needing to hide our deepest fears, and keep our opinions to ourselves, instead of turning to our loved ones for relief, comfort, and reassurance (or even lively debates!)

We are creatures of attachment, and we attach profoundly to only a couple of important people in our lives.  The way (or style) of attachment we form have deep roots in the attachments we learned early on, but these aren’t childish needs.  Strong attachments make us able adults.  Psychologists have learned that with strong attachments, adults do better in the outside world.  When our home base is secure, we feel more powerful, and are more resilient and effective in our interactions with others and in our working lives.

Basic Emotions

All over the world people experience and display at least seven basic emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, contempt, fear, interest, and happiness). They are deeply ‘hard wired’ into us, and extend back to our primate ancestors.  You’ll notice love isn’t among these emotions, because it is too powerful and complex a set of feelings.  Intimates do a “dance” in the way they interact and use emotions to securely attach to another.  They want to answer for themselves the following types of questions:

• Do you love me?
• Are you a safe person to love?
• Is your love conditional?
• Can I depend on you when I need you?
• Will you place me above others in your life?  Do I matter?
• Will you be there for me if I show you this weak and fragile person that I hide from other people?

Maintaining a long-term relationship depends on your partners’ feeling and expressing respect, admiration, and gratitude to you (and the reverse is also true).  Commitment and intimacy flourish in a climate of trust, appreciation, friendship and forgiveness.  These are not just “nice ideas.” They are backed by solid longitudinal research which have studied both successful and divorcing couples over several decades.

Lovemaps

In this safe environment, couples build a vision of their partner’s inner world, hopes and dreams.  They don’t only know WHAT they hope for by WHY they want it- the underlying meaning.  I can’t stress enough how important this is.  Gottman calls them “love maps.”  They are a roadmap you create in your mind of your partner’s inner psychological world.

It is the most basic level of friendship… It’s about feeling like your partner is interested in knowing you, and your partner feeling that you are interested in knowing her or him. What are your partner’s worries and stresses at the moment? Do you know? What are some of your partner’s hopes and aspirations? What are some of his or her dreams, values, and goals? What is your partner’s mission statement in life? The fundamental process in making a love map is asking questions and remembering the answers—keeping them in working memory. These should be open-ended questions that you want to know the answer to, not closed questions like “Did the plumber come?” People rarely ask questions. But when they do, it’s an invitation, as opposed to a statement, which is like “take that.” Again, there are three parts to love maps: (1) ask questions you’re interested in, (2) remember the answers, and (3) keep asking new questions.

Trust evolves as a relationship matures.  Attributions are made about the partner, who is seen as reliable, dependable, and concerned with providing expected rewards to the partner; and trust implies “a willingness to put oneself at risk, be it through intimate disclosure, reliance on another’s promises, sacrificing present rewards for future gains, and so on.

Peak Oil Relationships

An awakening to the realities of the 3 E’s during an ongoing marriage have a profound impact on intimate relationships and close friendships, because they tear away that shared future vision, and replace it with something dramatically altered and often frighteningly grim or anxiously uncertain.  For the spouse, I ask the Peak Oil aware person to imagine their plans to move with their family to a lovely house in delightful surroundings.  Then I ask them to imagine that without discussion, your partner has sunk your money and your future into a falling-down shack in a dangerous ghetto. The experience is disorienting and confusing.  How could I know so little about them?  How could they change our plans so dramatically?

Gridlocked Problems

When gridlock happens in a relationship, the presenting ‘issue’ is seldom the whole story (even if it is TEOTWAWKI). Lurking beneath the “presenting issue” is something deeply meaningful, something core to that person’s belief system, needs, history, or personality. It could be a strongly held value or a dream not yet lived.  No one compromises on such a strongly held issue.  Compromise is impossible and feels like a ‘sell-out.’ Only when partners feel safe with one another can they talk about these issues, and express interest in knowing about them.

Grieving Lost Dreams

Sometimes we, in the Peak Oil community are so insistent on arguing for what we know to be true, that we, as you describe, aren’t grieving for all our own lost dreams that we believe are impossible.  We have to be able to open up and talk about both our fears and the lost dreams we felt forced to set aside in face of a “new normal.”  We have to communicate that we really care to know about the underlying meaning of the other partner’s position. This isn’t the time for persuasive arguments or problem solving. The goal is for each partner to understand the other’s dreams behind their position on the issue.

Your emotions drove you to dare to reach out to your husband and share some of your fears.  You dared to ask him for comfort, acceptance, and love, to move into that future with you.  In response, he was reassuring and cooperative, but you suspect that he hardly understands why you changed your fundamental beliefs so drastically.  I suspect you are right.  And there is part of you that wants him to understand you totally, but might be fearful about exploring it yourself.  Living constantly with fear is exhausting and wears us down.  You already live with your fear of the future.  However, you also live with the fear of showing your most vulnerable self, the part of you that is motivated by fear, reactivity, and probably, at times, a puzzle even to yourself .

Do I Have to Cry Out?

Now you ask “Do I *have* to cry out in order to be heard?”   I hear that “crying out” is hardly something you want to have to do.  It sounds like you frame your fear, your sadness, your despair as vulnerabilities that are better hidden away from him.  Maybe it seems easier to show him the “strong, certain” side.  But is it?

You imagine that your partner is somehow better than you, for his cheerful optimism and willingness to do things “just because.”  Your fear keeps you weak in comparison.  Do you imagine that he sees it as his responsibility to help you become a better person?  Is he ‘humoring you’ by doing these preps, so you don’t show to him the same vulnerability you did during your awakening?

The “Flawed Spouse’ Syndrome

For many of the couples I work with, one partner acts as if they believe that the problem in the relationship is because they ended up with a flawed spouse.  It goes both ways, with those of us in the Peak Oil community feeling like we ended up with someone foolish enough to believe TPTB, and our ‘resolute mate’ who believe that their intimate partner ‘went off the deep end.’ In either case, the view is that we’re with someone who isn’t as perfect as we are. We try to point out the idiocy of their beliefs, opinions, or actions, but they just don’t listen.  We’re showing them how they can be better, but they insist on being the way they are.  Therefore, it is our job to point out their mistakes, and we expect them to be grateful for all of our efforts to improve them.  When they aren’t, or they actually get hostile towards us for being critical, we are righteously annoyed. It’s our right to be, we claim.  After all, if our partner would just ‘come to their senses,’ they’d see that we are right.  Even worse, they’d see how miserable they are making us for being so ____ (stubborn, ignorant, arrogant, gullible, etc).

These are legitimate fears, Tally ho, because you feel them deeply.  But you are afraid of having these attachments and needing him the way that you do.  You are frightened that if you really open up, he will mock you, dismiss you, trivialize your concerns as “crazy”or “groundless.”

Emotions as key Organizers

Emotions are a key organizer of our inner experience and in love relationships.  Emotion, we’ve come to learn, aren’t erratic intrusions into our otherwise calm relationships.  Emotions shape our attachments.  They have the power to move our partners and evoke new responses, just as your expression of distress did during your “awakening.”  And, as my readers will no doubt notice, your husband responded to that distress.  While he may not have agreed with why you were upset, for him, the pain you voiced was enough to change his behavior.  You two have a strong foundation.

And over the years of living together, couples develop a “dance,” that repeats around emotional communication.  In the face of emotional expression, partner’s begin to respond in predictable ways.  The response is a form of communication, and a cycle develops where emotions, and the dance itself become the organizing force.

Try this during your next conversation:

(1) Notice negative emotion before it escalates.

(2) See the emotional expression as an opportunity for intimacy.

(3) Validate or empathize with the emotions your husband expresses.

(4)  Help your husband give verbal labels to all emotions that he is feeling.

It is interesting to note that Gottman’s research showed that dads who follow the above strategies, called ‘emotional coaching’ were better dads and better husbands. Their children felt closer to them, and moms appreciated them more. During conflict with their wives, emotion-coaching dads were respectful,  not contemptuous. They knew their wives well and communicated a lot of affection and admiration to them in the oral history interview. Apparently, good marriages and good parenting are made of the same stuff.  And both are vital in hard times…

Good luck and thanks for writing.