To say that this guy is a little 'extreme' in his viewpoint would be a mild understatement. He's firmly a candidate for tin-foil. Many of his assumptions are that people will not adjust to what we'd consider reduced standards of living (extended families in one large house, returning to a more agrarian lifestyle, etc) that I don't agree with, particularly the claims that all alternatives will never match up to oil so there's no point in even trying.
- Individual houses in sunny areas can run quite fine on solar alone, or a combination of solar and 'other' (biodiesel/biogas/wind,geothermics/whatever). It'll involve a reduced standard of living compared to what we currently enjoy, but it's obviously doable because there's a lot of people off the grid currently doing it. Yes, it would cost a lot to get everyone outfitted with solar, but with families moving back to live with the 'rents/gran'rents, it's not like every single detached dwelling CURRENTLY in existance would need this. Additionally, as the economy wound down, much of that energy would also no longer be necessary and be routed towards more immediate concerns of living (ie. farming).
- Oil may have a limited availability that's shortly coming to term, but there's certainly (unfortunately) enough bitimus coal out there to run power plants for a good long time, and you can, right now, today, get electric cars or gas-electric hybrids that can yield astonishingly high miles per gallon. A recent article about people modifying toyota prius to accept wall current for recharge claims a yield of up to 180mpg(!!). Additionally, food movement (which still remains the most important cargo) can be handled by train.
- Food GROWING will become problematic and more expensive as the slide progresses... expect to see the return of the 'victory garden' in a big way when tomatoes get up to $5/lbs. One expects that governments would turn over more resources to food growth and agricultural development, but that assumes a government can retain control over a hungry, desperate and angry former middle class (which, in the US, would be armed to the teeth) clashing over the scraps.
Even in the worst case scenarios of no new oil hard crash everything go boom, the people that survive will thrive much as they did prior to oil's big debut. Civilization, art, science, culture, travel, medicine et al progressed at a more languid, leisurely pace in the 1800s, but it did progress at a far more sustainable level than we currently press on with today. Of course, there were a lot more farmers and a lot less mouths to feed...
I don't know how much dieout as a result of famine could be warded off in a 'catastrophic failure' like that, but if you're that worried about it buy a hundred acres near a stream somewhere and get familiar with dirt again. Hell, even if YOU don't farm it, by virtue of having the land and the means to retain it puts you in a great position if some hungry people come wandering by willing to trade work for food. If we're destined to return to a sharecropper society, I sure as fuck know I'd rather be the landowner than the tennant farmer.
Of course, with a topic as complex and dark as this, I suspect most people reading the thread will now demand pictures of tits and twat.
