Where you going to run to?

I live on a hill and outside the USA so I'll be fine right here.
What the gun slinger's revolution starts I'm out of range.

 

The Sierra Nevada Alliance www.sierranevadaalliance.org, a consortium of 100+ groups encompassing the entire 650 kilometer long Sierra Nevada, developed several guidelines over the last 16 years:

1. Strong local economy. Support the one-owner shops (gas station, grocery store, hardware store). Yes, we all go to COSTCO and other big box stores for some things, but we live locally. Our children attend local schools.

2. Broad based public involvement and support. Talk to each other. No hidden agenda.

3. Rational water use. Do not transfer water from on place to another (high energy cost).

4. A solution to a problem cannot be to transfer the problem someplace else.

This helps to answer the question of where to move to. You stay put and help make your local community a better place.

 

Was there a sale on cliches at Costco of which I was unaware? :der:

Fortunately you will not have to become a victim of this imagined fate since you said Peak Oil social chaos is BS. If it's BS, then why the diatribe about the consequences? Oh, that's right, it was a hastily-constructed segue to make a few tired jabs at people who think differently than yourself.

 

Well, I thought my mental scenarios were scary! I really don't expect much of this to happen. Peak oil is more transitional than abrupt. We'll hit something akin to the Great Depression, there may be some localized riots in city centers, and many more people will become homeless. But civilization will march on. My house, being in a suburb without public transportation will go significantly down in value. But I planted grapevines and a plum tree (as ornamentals, but pulling double-duty), I'll continue that over time. Convert my fireplace to a high-efficiency one, put an AC inverter in my Prius for short-term outages. We won't have a nuclear war, just like we didn't have one in the 50's or during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not to say Pakistan or somebody won't let off a couple bombs at some point, who knows what Iran will do, but it won't be something involving whole continents. Supervolcanoes? Come on, those could take thousands of years to build up, we should have lots of warning this time around. Unlikely something like that (including major asteroid) would happen in our lifetime. Better to try to pay off your mortgage ahead of time so your house won't be repossessed if you're forced to work at minimum wage. Of course pay off your car ASAP.

But in the case of something dramatic, I have a few acres of land back home where I grew up, on a farm, where I have friends and relatives, including an uncle with a solar powered well. It's also 600 miles from Chicago, just far enough to safely get there on one tank of gas (in a Prius, driving under 50 mph), but most others wouldn't (and a couple trusted places to stop along the way). I don't have guns, but my relatives do, and I've used them before. We still pick the wild strawberries, blueberries, raspberry, pincherries, chokecherries, plums and mushrooms. I have a book on edible plants (like cattail roots), just in case. Everybody has a big garden (but mostly from hybrid seeds - that's another problem), opening of deer hunting and fishing season are practically school holidays.

I agree with most of that. We will adapt. Production of oil will follow a bell curve, with possibly a plateau near the top. It won't be a cliff shape. Global warming will take decades and centuries to figure out and adapt to. The survivalist group will be disappointed again, like in the Y2K scare and nuclear winter threat of Reagan's term, and other times before and still to come.

But if something really does happen, 80% of Americans don't know anything about growing their own food, and it would get ugly quickly (and sort itself out in a couple years). One more reason to bring my son back to the farm periodically. So I don't think the worst will happen, but I want to be somewhat prepared, just in case.

 

Not so sure about that. Urban poor, yes. Rural poor, no, they know how to feed themselves and build their own houses and make their own entertainment. You just need to be on their good side because they know who the locals are.

If electricity rates go thru the roof, I think there'd be a mass migration back out of the south, which was only made comfortable with massive amounts of affordable A/C.

I think rural areas will see a resurgence, because they'll need more workers as manual labor becomes more profitable than machinery. More people means more services in towns, and also a big push for locally-grown food will help. Manufacturing may return, as it won't be cheaper to ship raw materials to China and ship the finished products back here. That's a strength of the NE (the rust-belt).

I agree that the semi-arid areas will have problems, any drought will become magnified with the stresses we're adding.

One person (in the U.S.) growing enough food for 50 is only possible with using the stored energy of petroleum - used for fertilizer, planting, harvesting, shipping, etc. As fossil fuels become expensive, the equation may change dramatically, but over a decade or two.

 

So. I'm going to need to sell my house and have a sustainable house built farther northeast, perhaps in the Sierras (and buy several firearms and learn to use them) because in 20 years I'm going to be retired and in my 70s.

Or do I just wait here for someone to shoot me?

 

Sometimes reading through these threads I wonder what someone like this would think of our "predicament".


It sometimes seems we as a society have lost all confidence that we can persevere.

Read her story. You may find the story to be motivational...or then again maybe not.
Indian beggar gets bank account

I'm still staying put...If the lady pictured above can do what she did then I think that I, my family, my community and my country can work through a pretty wide array of problems.

Oh yea, note the part about Indian money being smuggled to bangladesh to make razor blades...for a profit. That is real desperation.

I wish I could bottle the optimism exhibited by Laxmi Das.

 

Don't do Costco, Wal-Mart is bad enough! Must have hit a nerve with the Cliche' though!

Most people at this site, have a tendency to have a holier-than thou attitude, if you don't cite 15 scientists your a troll.

As for the rest, following the conversation, "Theft of Water, Globalization will become localization and we will come to depend on each other more and more. Wherever you end up, get to know your neighbors, learn how to work together and look out for each other. We will need experts in growing food, nutrition, medicinal plants, water reclamation, hunting, survival, etc.

 

I think it's more like ~80%.

I'm not a pessimist either. I think that we'll solve our problems. We won't be star students but we won't be dropouts either.

 

Then your choice of words for the thread title kinda led people into thinking the more extreme path. "Where would you move to" implies less panic & desperation.

I like where my sister lives though. Off of a small valley in the Montana mountains, with a river and farms in the valley, a dam (I assume hydroelectric), railroad tracks, easily defended on either end of the valley and a bunch of rural yahoos with guns who would be willing to defend it. She lives a mile out on a gravel road, the last house with electricity (yes, there are more houses beyond hers). They have honey bees and chickens and a horse. Hank Williams Jr. could be singing about this place when he says "a country boy can survive".

But if you really want to move to a place that will weather the economic storms ahead, I'd recommend Brazil. Not so much for the climate, but because of their sugar cane-based ethanol and oil reserves make them energy exporters, but with a varied industrial base and not hostile to Americans (at least not yet!).

What I remember reading is 50% of corn crop goes to feeding livestock, 20% goes to ethanol, and the remaining 30% is exported or used for local food.

 

I have friends in Costa Rica. They also have real estate in Guatemala.

Might just have to pack up the dog and take a leisurely drive down there.

Or sell the house, back everything, including the car and go by Freighter. He's in IT so I'd have internet access. Hopefully the Dollar will holds it's own against the Quezal. Then my retirement dollars will stretch farther.

 

So, what triggers such a move?

Moving (running) during a calamity would probably not work since the highways and borders may be closed, fuel would be short etc etc.

I suppose that a person seriously considering moving would have a trigger (the event which when reached initiates the move plan) or would currently be in the process of moving.

Has anyone made an appointment with the movers yet?

 

No, but I'm looking for work elsewhere as we speak... Not just because of this topic, though.

 

This isn't an instantaneous calamity. It will be slow and insidious and many people won't see it coming until it is too late.

 

Good luck in your job search. What, if any, environmental criteria will you use to select your location for work?

 

But a calamity non the less. For those who do see it coming and have selected potential relocation sites what will trigger the initiation of the move plan?

For me there would have to be a threshold which still allows freedom of movement.

Personally, I would select a location and move there if I felt that was necessary. I'd move to the location because there was appeal on a variety of fronts: primarily good soil, good water and good climate. Most areas like this are already populated so infrastructure probably would not be an issue...if one moved prior to the climax of the calamity.

Waiting until the calamity is fully realized would put one in the awkward position of refugee and would likely mean arriving with many others simultaneously in less than desireable conditions.

 

No, but it sure seemed like the first step advocated was to get the ammo rather than figure out how to get by using less oil. Stockpiling ammo is part of the problem and really not a solution. It gives the gun owner a false sense of security. Sitting on the farm and having the electricity, water, transportation, and supplies get cut off makes a big stockpile of ammo look foolish. (Please note that the comments and response is to engage two sides of a discussion, not dismiss your view.)

Totally agree.

If you follow how closely the actual oil production follow both the US and the worldwide Hubbert curves, it actually becomes very easy to get a good idea of the decline. The worldwide peak was about 2005 so we already are looking at the back end, but there is time (~decade(s)) to make great strides. The incredible wasteful ways of today is being corrected by economics alone. The best off will be those that figure out how to best transition to oil independence rather than who has the most ammo. Key is figuring out where the social unrest occurs. Oftentimes it is in the rural areas and not the big cities.

India and China with only 2-3 billion survive with vastly less. If the US is facing a survival problem, most of the remaining world population is gone.

Nope, I responded because it looks like you would put up an intelligent set of replies. If I wanted a fight all I have to do is claim GW Bush is the best president ever. (Humor!) On an earlier post I pointed out that running out of fuel has happened quite often (Easter Island and Haiti's trees, etc.). By looking at what happened throughout history, we can get a good idea of what will happen...but this requires skill and patience, not a biased view.

The forum is for discussion. Don't hesitate to digress. My point here is if hunting animals replaces raising animals for meat, then goodby animals. Humans with just arrows and spears wiped out most all big species upon arrival. (Where are those mastedons?) Now we can do it in months, rather than centuries.

 

Sounds good....but when I look at the history books, this is very rare and almost non-existent in civilized coutries. Starving people are usually dying, not forming big moving masses. Take the Darfur region for example. The starvation did not lead to violence. The violence lead to starvation. The US is a LONG way from starvation, the very poor parts of the world are not.

Right now the oil habit is kicking us. Seems to be working.

It would help greatly if you could find a few relevant historical examples to support your position. (Did the Donner Party turn murderous?.....or did they resort to cannibalization?) Starvation has been around a long time so there is plenty of material to draw from. North Korea is another example. Did they invade South Korea for food?

Let's find out. We both have ringside seats.