climate chaos

by Shaun Chamberlin, on darkoptimism.org

Lately I seem to be encountering many climate change activists who have a blind spot when it comes to peak oil. Friends of the Earth appear to be particularly prone to this.

They claim that climate change is overwhelmingly urgent (no arguments from me there) and so that the depletion of fossil fuels is largely irrelevant. In fact they argue that it can only be good news, limiting the availability of these dangerous substances which have the potential to destabilise our climate.

But this ignores the reason why humanity is so loathe to wean itself off these fuels in the first place. They are exceptionally potent energy sources which greatly increase our ability to change our human instructure and shape the world around us. Energy is perhaps best defined as the ability to do work, and there is much work to be done in the transition to a low-carbon way of life.

Imagine that we simply immediately ceased the extraction of fossil fuels – as the climate change imperative might appear to demand. We would see unbelievable human suffering as the lifeblood of our fossil fuel based societies dried up. Our critical infrastructure for food supply, transportation, heating, irrigation, electricity and so on would all fail catastrophically.

So there is clearly a tension between addressing climate change and addressing peak oil. The earlier we reach fossil fuel supply limits – whether geological or voluntary – the better for climate change, but the more painful the ‘peak oil’ adaptation problems, and the higher the oil price.

As supply limitations prompt oil price rises, more and more countries (and ultimately individuals) are priced out of the market, leaving only those with enough money able to get the oil their lifestyles demand. Economists call this ‘demand destruction’, and it is the mechanism the market uses to close the widening gap between supply and demand.

We agree. If all oil dried up tomorrow there would be huge levels of starvation and distress amongst the people who have no connection to their food and water resources. That is why we are encouraging people to grow food and think about where their necessities come from. But the more oil we burn, and the longer this system of exploitation prevails, the more extreme the climate will become and the more species will be extinct… and so on. That is also why we are encouraging people to grow food etc….

Ideally, a voluntary switch by the masses to a more sustainable lifesyle would be the best outcome in the near future. But we aren’t naive enough to expect this to happen, not while govts do their best to ignore the issues, and the endless drive for economic growth is shoved down our throats. Perhaps just enough of us will be equipped with tools and skills to step in and help when the proverbial shit hits the fan?

Thankfully though, there are things we can do to ameliorate both climate change and peak oil simultaneously. If we begin to wean our communities off their oil addiction voluntarily then we reduce demand, and thus reduce the need for the more painful varieties of demand destruction. We lessen the desperation for increased oil supplies and so make it easier to consider the necessary step of leaving some of it where it is as a response to climate change. The more ways we can find to reduce demand, the less difficult the global supply side dilemma becomes.

It is these win-win solutions that climate change campaigners should be fighting for, and in fact they might well find that peak oil helps their cause.

Try as we might to ignore peak oil, the stark reality is that the world will be getting by on around half its current level of oil production in 20 years time. And like it or not, some who are unmoved by moral arguments on climate change become rather proactive when they recognise the reality of such a severe impending threat to their way of life.

Activists on peak oil and climate change should be indistinguishable – it really is one problem, and we all need to be working together to ensure that the motivation it generates is channelled in the most constructive directions.

culturechange.org article, written by Jan Lundberg.

The fastest way to put the brakes on global heating is to embrace the peaking of world oil extraction and the implications of petrocollapse. As long as we deny there’s a terminal outcome for our petroleum-based infrastructure — and therefore society as we know it — we will keep dancing around the crisis of climate change. Precious time is being lost while feedback loops strengthen greenhouse gas output. Embracing collapse sounds crazy and, as we all would prefer, hopefully unnecessary. But what if that’s your only ticket out of the burning theater and the rafters are about to come down?

Let’s get our priorities straight. Is the economy a sacred cow? Is maintaining it along with its institutions of government and corporations the only way greenhouse gases will be slashed, and quickly enough to stave off climate hell? Writer George Monbiot is so certain that the answer is “yes” that he may have forgotten that direct action steps on certain toes.

I think the answer to those questions is emphatically “No!” Trusting the continuation of the economy and its self-serving components of Earth’s destruction includes their assuring first their own self-preservation — as if they were divine creations of Mother Nature to be loaded onto a Noah’s Ark to save the world. No, thank you. There’s another way, but many of us of a conventional bent are loathe to make the leap — even if it would be off a burning precipice to safety within reach. When will we do it, when our neck of the woods becomes uncomfortable?

Embracing collapse doesn’t sound at all crazy to us. There is no option. Collapse is coming either from peak oil or, if we carry on allowing civilisation to dictate the terms of our existence, from pollution, deforestation, species extinction and climate change. By embracing collapse, embracing change, we are recognising that this social model does not work for a large percentage of the earth’s population, human and non-human alike.

Putting collapse on the table

What if government and corporations and the global warming threat are one and the same thing? What if the inevitable collapse of government and corporations could bring about the desperately needed curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions? If that seems like an impossible dream scheme, we supposedly have the option of building our way out of climate hell through the popular green-techno “solution”: Monbiot says, “build the installations required to turn the energy economy around – wind farms, wave machines, solar thermal plants in the Sahara, new grid connections and public transport systems”.

If we are now in sudden peril, isn’t it a lot easier and quicker to cut off the gangrene of commercialism and consumerism than to reform it some day? Maybe I’m naive about cutting it off, but if it isn’t done now to get rid of a “mere” foot, and face the pain with grim determination, then soon we will be faced with losing the leg and then the whole organism.

Big government and corporations are the gangrene. The accummulation of wealth with all impacts of those activites ‘externalised’ has made a few people immensely wealthy, but at what cost to the rest of us and our planet?

Considering collapse with eyes wide open

Now to flesh out instant collapse. I don’t really want to do so or see it occur in my lifetime. But I feel compelled to refute the game players’ faith in keeping up the status quo for the sake of our survival amidst climate extinction. Some of them are truly without a clue as to natural living and decentralized forms of economics for whatever smaller human communities are manageable and sustainable. Others have gotten a whiff of the poorer, funkier lifestyle of those who have nothing to lose materially, and they say to themselves, “No way, I’m not gonna live in a f___ing yurt.” Out loud they continue to warn us of the climate crisis and command attention of everyone who isn’t an SUV die-hard, and point to the Promised Land of benign technology and smooth transitioning. Ah, thank you oh savior — but meanwhile I see your lifestyle is not a’ changin’.

I’m all for benign technology and smooth transitioning. However, for a whole overpopulated planet, where is it besides in theory? Yes, it’s vital to use some energy and to use technology for needs not normally associated with energy. There are ingenious ways of using less energy to do a lot of important tasks and to enjoy a full life of comfort. Yet, maintaining comfort for billions of people is not realistic, and only a few hundred million are actually living in comfort today. As we are seeing with food prices rising and pollution unabated, the vaunted social benefits of governments and corporations are failing us. George Monbiot warns us that we must not reject “all state and corporate solutions,” as he claims rejecting them is the main goal of some climate activists. Some “solutions” would be wonderful to see and actually come to pass. But will the state and the corporations ever promote such climate protection as needed by the biosphere so as to eliminate their own power?

Corporations by design are machines that take resources and turn them into products that we, denigrated to the role of consumers, consume in exchange for giving them money. Th acquire that money, we too have to find some natural resource – for many all we have is time and energy – and swap that for money. Viable ecosystems, and natural habitats have no value in that system, neither do love, joy, awe and wonder or other human feelings.

Historically the whole system only works with cheap abundant energy, for the past hundred years this has come in the shape of oil and its by-products. Before that it was slaves (and still is in many parts of the world now). You cannot turn shackles or guns into spades and garden tools, without first melting down the weapons. This system needs melting down, so we can rebuild it into something beautiful and benign, from the bottom up, based on consensual cooperation and goodwill.

What would a post-petrocollapse economy look like?

Let us now focus on the positive after having stated some negativities of the problem: What would a non-petroleum economy or a post-petrocollapse economy look like? What would the alternative to the “burning theater” look like? Let’s say we somehow abandon our dependence on government and corporations, and we slash our own energy use. If that means quitting your job now, let’s imagine it anyway. Let’s imagine the trucks not pulling into the supermarkets, and the grid going down. Not even emergency services as we know them are working. (I don’t want to see this, but what if they are about to happen?)

Our daily life at first would be in a panic — where to obtain food? What about water, and does the pump not work “’cause the vandals took the handles”? In some parts of the world, the less petroleum-dependent parts, the panic will be minimal. In others it will be full bore, where we presently drive down the street for our needs and we order no end of services for our homes through utilities and overnight couriers (who use greenhouse-gas emitting trucks and airplanes). Let’s say you’re in a modern city and petrocollapse hits before total climate breakdown causes something worse. Can we call up the government and corporations and ask them if they are still reconciling their priorities? Those priorities include protecting the wealth of the few and guaranteeing consumer splendor for those willing to work their butts off while not questioning authority.

It is hard to project a sustainable population size for a suddenly oil-deprived city. But we can picture the survivors looking at available ground for growing food and rigging rooftops and plastic tarps to gather rain water. Depaving will have to be by hand because we neglected to do it when we had the petroleum-energy. Will green technology be available off the shelf to do all we need in the post-petroleum world? Somewhat, but let’s keep in mind that no one was stocking any shelves lately.

Perhaps we’ll hear quirky songs with exhortations such as
“Monkeywrench the truck and car
By not spending su dolar”
(I wrote and recorded it and I perform it; the last two words are Spanish)

In smaller communities there will be coordination of available resources and immediate conversion of, say, pasture land to growing grain and vegetables. Where are the seeds for this? Let’s say we have them. What about tractors and fertilizers, etc.? The answer is human power. Biofuels are not and will not be in sufficient supply to maintain anything like our present practices (such as everyone eating food). Richard Heinberg of Post Carbon Institute said that we would need “50 million farmers in the US, one out of six people.” Animal power will be much appreciated, as in Cuba after its petrocollapse in the early ’90s. But have you seen any oxen lately in the U.S.? Pedal power systems exist already and will become extremely popular.

At the end of a hard day of physical work, petrocollapse survivors will not be turning on the telly and zoning out, only to take orders the next day from their former masters in government and corporations. Instead, there will be community meetings after work, and the next day there will be more physical work. But ingenuity and skills will be just as important. People will organize themselves for tasks cooperatively, as we did for uncounted millennia. Except, this time, gathering firewood for the meals to cook may include taking furniture out of abandoned homes and buildings. This is foreseeable as an easy option when die-off has happened — from our losing the petroleum for food production and distribution that we have been taking for granted for almost a century. Or we can foresee die-off from climate extinction.

Articles including short stories have been published in this column on the subject of post-oil society, so details won’t be restated here. The point is that we will soon be using a lot less energy, to a thankful degree for our cherished climate, and deforestation will also be crimped by our losing the fuel for the chainsaws and bulldozers. Petrocollapse saves the climate. So far we’ve talked about the involuntary collapse.

The nature of this website is to try to encourage more people to see what is coming, and embrace voluntary collapse. There are millions around the world who will be singing and dancing when the corporations implode, and can no longer oppress, exploit and enslave in the name of profit (for the few). Although it will be difficult for many many people, nowhere near as difficult as continuing to live within this abusive system.

Voluntary collapse?

But wait. Some don’t talk about collapse, voluntary or otherwise, as they let their actions speak instead. They buy only local goods and services. They keep their income and spending to a minimum. Quality of life is far more important than quantity of wealth and material things. After all, we can only eat one meal at a time and wear only one pair of shoes at a time. Speaking of time, it should be our own, for our families and visible, familiar community, and not for the boss or the Tax Man. Furthermore, the most efficient conservation activity is accomplished by children who are not born; constrained fertility is the strongest action possible. All of this behavior contributes to collapse of the consumer economy and the authority of government.

Talking about a voluntary collapse prior to petrocollapse to save the climate is getting almost no public discussion. It implies an unpopular and hated — and many would say completely unrealistic and antisocial — course of action. And no one would participate. Well, some would as soon as they see there’s nothing to lose. It would be tragic if this undesirable and painful course became popular and chaotic. There could be ugly scenes and dislocation, were it somehow to succeed. But it could possibly be for the most part quite nonviolent. If the idea were circulated and followed that we must slash petroleum use now, and not buy any corporate products, and suspend having children, this would bring down the global warming industrial system very soon. It would take only a certain amount of this non-cooperation, as Gandhi called it, for success. Once the corporations fold and government power ebbs, as people take to the streets and meet their neighbors to work with them, our main challenge only begins. But the greenhouse gases will have at least been slashed.

If governments and corporations did not get enough continued slavish patience to give us a green society, we’ll say “You had your chance.” How long do we wait to say this — when they’ve allowed carbon dioxide to reach the fatal 450 parts per million in the atmosphere? The choice is still yours for now.

And there would be something growing in its place, as we reforge community links, support local sustainable business, enjoy where we live and travel less. There would not be a vaccuum full of nothing but need and hunger. As one system dies, taking the empire who has no clothes with it, another safer, cleaner and more democratic system will grow.