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
As usual people’s actions are moronic. When oil was plentiful and so was food, technology, energy and easy heat people could afford to make mistakes and not die from them. In the past before this easy lifestyle people died from subtle errors in judgement but that kept the gene pool pure from poor survival tendencies.
Not anymore. Maybe paranoia is the last bit of survival essence most people have left. Yet it is considered a negative trait. Society has always fought against wildness, but wildness has always carried with it the survival instinct.
Now, just like broody hens were bred out of the factory chicken so too has society bred out of many the raw instincts needed to survive even from simple exercises, never mind the instinctive gut level fear and paranoia that comes on from real danger.
Maybe the only wild humans that are left are the indigeneous and the homeless. Native indigenous people’s still retain a commanding respect for changes in the wind, humidity and light, not to mention noise from possible stalking animals.
Homeless people have also developed a keen acumen when it comes to the five senses but also carry with them a heightened awareness of conscious fear, fear that can signal a possible predator, dangerous climate conditions or just disdain from passerbys wanting to deride them.
Perhaps we should look a little more closely at just how these innate gifts can once again rise to the occasion over time when we need them. Maybe we can appreciate the wildness that resides in all of us that can possibly save our lives in the future.
Perhaps homeless and struggling people have a lot to teach people about surviving amidst chaos and decline of the empire. Maybe we could consider them our mentors and our teachers. We are all moving toward less whether we want to believe it or not. Less does not mean negative. It means paring down life to it’s bare essentials. These stalwart individuals should gather our repect not our harsh judgment. For they have experienced less before others. They are the prototype of humans evolving with less. They are our evolutionary future.
I totally agree.
We have come to expect people -let’s call them ‘them’ – to come up with solutions for us so that we can effectively sit back and do nothing. It’s worked pretty well, this approach, for the last few decades but I fear we are fast approaching the time when our reliance on manufactured solutions won’t do the trick.
What’s more, our reliance on this approach means we are even less prepared for when the inevitable occurs.
Great blog, by the way!
Jason
The difference is that people know that tornadoes have only one effect; destruction and they are exogenous to their lives.
Oil, like milk or food is not exogenous, it “comes from” a store and when one store-bought item vanishes, another always takes its place.
The learning is very deep and the unlearning requires an equally deep acceptance of very high levels of uncertainty and the reality that failure to get it right in an uncertain world means hunger, cold, disability and death. Nobody in their “right” mind wants to go there voluntarily.
To see the danger, the hear the sirens requires, literally, that we are not in our right minds, that in terms of the prevailing culture, we are delusional, that we “see” things that literally “aren’t there”. Not yet anyway.
Those “lucky” Jews who saw in 1932 what was coming in Germany and were prepared to walk away from place, position, possessions and family when the danger was not “there” were very special people. By definition, they are exceptionally rare in a community. I am hoping that I am one of them.
“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad” is true, but it is equally true that those who wish to be saved have to go mad as well, its the only way to break the grip of the culturally embedded “reality” that we, and our parents and grandparents have lived in for 100 years.
The sirens have been sounding for a long time. But most of us cannot, for the sake of our sanity, hear them.
“But most of us cannot, for the sake of our sanity, hear them.”
The real problem here is we’re “civilised”…we are deeply afflicted with a spiritual disease that has a physical vector: Wetiko (http://consumercide.com/wetiko.html)
Or look at it this way, as “civilised” we have
1. toxic hubris
2. extreme entitle-itis
3. political naivety
4. ecological iliteracy
It’s time to wake up and join the dance. Resist or join the die-off.
http://www.deepgreenresistance.org
Read the book: http://www.scribd.com/doc/62058061/Deep-Green-Resistance-Strategy-to-Save-the-Planet-by-Derrick-Jensen
Read this book review: http://canadiandimension.com/articles/4542/
Resistance is fertile! Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow!