Imagine how much it would cripple the world today. Would you even have a job? There would be no trucks to haul freight or food. There would be no grocery stores that had food in them. Lack of sufficient healthcare and medicine would result. Could you even heat your house with wood. No saw, splitter, truck or tractor gas. Imagine doing all the wood processing by hand. How many people would even survive the chaos?
What if, the worlds oil reserves ran out tomorrow!
- Thread starter mtcates
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remkel
Minister of Fire
I think I will be ok- the no job thing would be a nice change- seeing as how no one would have jobs it would be a free for all- just hunker down, keep the food stores up, make certain about everyone's marksmen skills in the household, and let her rip!
As for he wood, it "wood" do us some good to get the exercise.
As for he wood, it "wood" do us some good to get the exercise.
Fsappo
Minister of Fire
Same as it was 500 years ago, except we have too many people on the world now and a large majority of them are used to getting stuff for free. I think it would turn into a mad max kind of scenerio.
For me..I live in fresh water, can fish, hunt, cook, cut and split by hand if need be. Just need plenty of ammo on hand and like Remkel said. Everyone in my house will know how to shoot and aim for center mass.
For me..I live in fresh water, can fish, hunt, cook, cut and split by hand if need be. Just need plenty of ammo on hand and like Remkel said. Everyone in my house will know how to shoot and aim for center mass.
You can say you are prepared but be ready for a shock, it has nothing to do with getting stuff for free its about a system based on oil. This thread has ash can written all over it.
SolarAndWood
Minister of Fire
Believe you me, that is large part of why I burn. Since I hand split my fuel, that part wouldn't change as long as my tools are good. Sure would miss a chainsaw though. But, for the return on investment, a chainsaw is something that is likely to be around long after everything else withers away. In such a case, I'm glad that I put in some time to learn how to joint, set and sharpen my grandfather's two-man saw. Most people are really amazed at how fast a well tuned saw can chew through a round. Wood gathering would certainly not be as easy, but draft horses did it quite efficiently for centuries.
Those of you who take an interest in the long descent of the industralized paradigm (i.e., those who are wide awake), be sure to check out John Michael Greer's blog, "The Archdruid Report." He has what the old folks always called "walking around sense."
Those of you who take an interest in the long descent of the industralized paradigm (i.e., those who are wide awake), be sure to check out John Michael Greer's blog, "The Archdruid Report." He has what the old folks always called "walking around sense."
alchohol! Then we could make some real power. Propane out too? There are already small engines like weedeaters and blowers running on propane.
Can this scenario wait until Tuesday? My daughter's coming home from college . . .
Military action around the globe would pretty much come to a screeching halt. All the folks far from home would be stranded. My poor children would be home-schooled (they have thanked me for not doing this to them, but like all good curriculum junkies, I have enough to keep us going for years. Why? No clue. I now have a rationale, so thank you).
The poor speculators who are intent on driving the price of oil as far through the roof as tulip bulbs during the Bubble will have to scramble to find another host.
Rand Paul would have the Right to Work. (Even in the hero shots pasted in his ads, he looks like he's never seen either working end of a two-man saw before, doesn't he?)
Agriculture will be transformed, as most of the Green Revolution crops are heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, and our artifically-high population numbers will adjust accordingly. This will be painful for all involved. Heritage plants and animals that are adapted to local conditions would be cultivated again, and the hybrid seed market would collapse.
Ferraris, Priuses, and Lambourghinis, with the useless heavy engines and the obstructing windshields removed, will be found to make nice little trotting carts. People who do have jobs will find out that living within biking, skiing, and walking distance makes a lot of sense. Draft horses will become valued assets rather than living museum pieces.
After a period of adjustment, I think we'd get back to the business at hand of living. Think about it. Maybe the way we live is Not Normal. We live a life of ease, and thoughtlessly take for granted a level of effortless comfort that the world has never seen. Maybe we'd just get back to living the way that most people have lived through most centuries and millennia. Maybe instead of clutching one another in terror and asking via our little electronic pets, "What if! we had to push up our sleeves and get to work!", we'd just do it.
Maybe colleges would offer less art history and more wind/water/tide-energy generation classes, more agriculture and normal school classes, and people would be eager to attend because of useful information they could acquire. More children would be homeschooled, or go to the little neighborhood school that didn't require behemoth buses to transport them.
Maybe we'd stop building idiotic MacMansions and lived in houses that fit our family sizes and needs, were oriented to the sun's heat, were insulated against heat loss, and were situated in locations convenient to our places of work (which might be home on the family farm). Children might be regarded as assets and respected for their contribution to the good of the common order, instead of kept as pets that get whatever leftover bits of time are available in the mad rush to accrue and consume. They, in turn, would learn where food, clothing, and shelter come from, and that he who does not work does not eat.
We'd find designs for carpet beaters in the museums, and start making them and bartering them to one another. We'd learn to play those musical instruments sitting in the closet that everyone is too busy to play anymore. We'd learn to converse with one another in the firelight instead of sitting in front of flickering 21st-century fires and letting paid surrogates have our conversations for us. We'd get to know our neighbors instead of conversing with people we'll never meet on the other side of the country or world.
Government would be transformed, and another group of people would understand the meaning of calluses as they left Washington and tried to parlay lobbying into a marketable skill. Even the Martin Sheens and Rush Limbaughs of the world might shut up and pick up some tools.
I'm going through a bit of a field-ground shift as I start to accrue wood for the coming years. I passed a fuel oil truck as I was zooming home to grab my truck to pick up some pallets last week, and realized that if it came to it, I could make it without that truck ever pulling in my driveway again. And then I started thinking about how artificial a way of life that is--and that we've grown so dependent upon it that we consider it normal. And, as the title of this thread suggests, so much so that the idea of doing without strikes terror into out hearts.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of complete mayhem and terror and the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, we'd heave a collective sigh of relief, shake our heads and ask, "Wow, that was some ride, wasn't it?" and in the ensuing silence, learn to listen to ourselves and one another.
Military action around the globe would pretty much come to a screeching halt. All the folks far from home would be stranded. My poor children would be home-schooled (they have thanked me for not doing this to them, but like all good curriculum junkies, I have enough to keep us going for years. Why? No clue. I now have a rationale, so thank you).
The poor speculators who are intent on driving the price of oil as far through the roof as tulip bulbs during the Bubble will have to scramble to find another host.
Rand Paul would have the Right to Work. (Even in the hero shots pasted in his ads, he looks like he's never seen either working end of a two-man saw before, doesn't he?)
Agriculture will be transformed, as most of the Green Revolution crops are heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, and our artifically-high population numbers will adjust accordingly. This will be painful for all involved. Heritage plants and animals that are adapted to local conditions would be cultivated again, and the hybrid seed market would collapse.
Ferraris, Priuses, and Lambourghinis, with the useless heavy engines and the obstructing windshields removed, will be found to make nice little trotting carts. People who do have jobs will find out that living within biking, skiing, and walking distance makes a lot of sense. Draft horses will become valued assets rather than living museum pieces.
After a period of adjustment, I think we'd get back to the business at hand of living. Think about it. Maybe the way we live is Not Normal. We live a life of ease, and thoughtlessly take for granted a level of effortless comfort that the world has never seen. Maybe we'd just get back to living the way that most people have lived through most centuries and millennia. Maybe instead of clutching one another in terror and asking via our little electronic pets, "What if! we had to push up our sleeves and get to work!", we'd just do it.
Maybe colleges would offer less art history and more wind/water/tide-energy generation classes, more agriculture and normal school classes, and people would be eager to attend because of useful information they could acquire. More children would be homeschooled, or go to the little neighborhood school that didn't require behemoth buses to transport them.
Maybe we'd stop building idiotic MacMansions and lived in houses that fit our family sizes and needs, were oriented to the sun's heat, were insulated against heat loss, and were situated in locations convenient to our places of work (which might be home on the family farm). Children might be regarded as assets and respected for their contribution to the good of the common order, instead of kept as pets that get whatever leftover bits of time are available in the mad rush to accrue and consume. They, in turn, would learn where food, clothing, and shelter come from, and that he who does not work does not eat.
We'd find designs for carpet beaters in the museums, and start making them and bartering them to one another. We'd learn to play those musical instruments sitting in the closet that everyone is too busy to play anymore. We'd learn to converse with one another in the firelight instead of sitting in front of flickering 21st-century fires and letting paid surrogates have our conversations for us. We'd get to know our neighbors instead of conversing with people we'll never meet on the other side of the country or world.
Government would be transformed, and another group of people would understand the meaning of calluses as they left Washington and tried to parlay lobbying into a marketable skill. Even the Martin Sheens and Rush Limbaughs of the world might shut up and pick up some tools.
I'm going through a bit of a field-ground shift as I start to accrue wood for the coming years. I passed a fuel oil truck as I was zooming home to grab my truck to pick up some pallets last week, and realized that if it came to it, I could make it without that truck ever pulling in my driveway again. And then I started thinking about how artificial a way of life that is--and that we've grown so dependent upon it that we consider it normal. And, as the title of this thread suggests, so much so that the idea of doing without strikes terror into out hearts.
Maybe, just maybe, instead of complete mayhem and terror and the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, we'd heave a collective sigh of relief, shake our heads and ask, "Wow, that was some ride, wasn't it?" and in the ensuing silence, learn to listen to ourselves and one another.
jimbom
Combustion Analyzer
We would be warm from our stove. The nearby spring flow averages 100 million gallons per day. Plenty of people could and would use that for water. My great grandparents kept the milk in the spring branch to keep it cool. We would be posting on the tree at the fork in the road rather than Hearth.com. I still remember the commands for the horse team, but we no longer have horses, harnesses or the iron for them. Today's horses probably don't know the commands themselves. Other than that, we would still be living in possum hollar like today.
I guess that boidiesel and ethanol would in time take the place of petroleum and life would return to normal. This however would take some time and the transition would be interesting.
SolarAndWood
Minister of Fire
A couple possible upsides are that there would be a lot less crap going to the landfills and a lot less noise coming from the highways.
Not sure ethanol is going to fix anything, maybe in the long run but using corn to make it with has got to change.mtcates said:
Cellulosic ethanol production techniques are progressing, but I read that butanol production is perhaps a better goal.
Did not see that one coming.Gary_602z said:One reason why I keep up on a good supply of blowup dolls! Money in the bank my friends!
Gary
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