The salvation of the dark place.

The new age-ascendance movement has come to liken a souk; a fantastical bazaar that diminishes, effortlessly, into a chiaroscuro of courtyards. Romanesque arches herald uncertain passageway - conduits along which skeins of tantalizing aroma unfurl. All around, the air is a mite overburdened, laden with the fragrance of weltanschauung, the ever-diverting notes of whimsy.

The spiritual lives of many in the west are caught up in the cacophony of this marketplace, this new age capital. We sell, we sample and we haggle. Disparate practices are sold by the measure, alongside ostensibly complimentary unguents. Some claim a panacea status, while others are modestly piecemeal. Channeling, bodywork, astral projection, re-birthing, depth astrology - the octave of choice seems almost endless.

The ascension / 2012 movements are one such spice stall: a panoply of every spiritual hue and philosophical shade imaginable. There are the big hitters who, armed with their Okudagram/ Star Trek influenced websites, promulgate a ream of a priori cosmic certainties; they tantalize us with depictions of our soon-to-be realized Übermenschen status; assuage us with vignettes of our eventual – senatorial - position, alongside our galactic brethren.

Conversely, there is that contingent actively dowsing the planet for an optimum place to bug out. For these individuals, change is definitely coming from without (yet not on a dulcet, edifying super wave, but on a universal-scale Thor’s Hammer.) They are the get out of Dodge lickety-split brigade: the axis –shift, coronal mass ejection sleeve pullers. However, unlike the Peak Oil ‘doomers’ or the hell-in-a-hand basket climate change prognosticators, the light is still extant with these folks; it is just that it is way over yonder, to wit, wherever their cob-construction yurts are wont to break sacred ground. The geographic ‘sweet spot’ chosen by these groups differ - the one delegation may emphasize a liking for a certain aquifer over another - yet they all seem to share a common liking for higher ground (preferably away from the tidal surges they envision pummeling coastal areas.)

On filtering the blogosphere, two things seem certain: unsurprisingly, the new Eden will not be in Burkina Faso. And - regardless of where, exactly, utopia may effloresce - there will, no doubt, be a dearth of plumbers once you get there.

To complicate matters even further, the twenty-twelvesters are now faced with an entirely new set of individual-cum-generational distinctions. Ones that are wont to germinate throughout the (above) ideological spectrum, diversifying the masala mix ever further. In the latter part of the twentieth century, a meme around a group of so-called ‘indigo’ children sidestepped into the cultural fray, the new-age newspeak. These fledgling individuals are ascribed with certain psycho-behavioral traits which are supposed to make them unique – a meta-generational cadre apart from the hollow, overly-ascribed Generation Y moniker.

Everyone likes to feel special, and by extension, it is entirely plausible that a generation of parents, who, after becoming acquainted with the psychic Nancy Ann Tappe’s ruminations on a new evolving spiritual vanguard, decided that, in an act of subjective validation (once-removed), that their little darlings were, indeed, a cut-above the norm. However, now that these individuals have all grown body hair and are bopping to Lady Gaga, yet another clairvoyant critter has emerged: to wit, the crystal child – a classification-cum-salve that some hawkers are using to re-frame the ADHD and autism epidemics of recent years.

What’s more, as we go chuffing down the paradigm line, at each and every station, we are being constantly regaled with spiritual newbies: wave after wave of intuitive empaths, star-seeds and walk-ins (the latter of which, according to the signs, are particularly welcome - especially in your average, suburban hairdressing salon.) Consequently, it would seem that the New Age movement has, like P.T. Barnum, ‘something for everyone’; now that we are all sporting new ‘handles’ and monikers, we are assured that the Forer Effect will leave no spiritual warrior behind. Anyone who is ostensibly ‘fleece-able’ – whether tender lamb or sinewy ram – can now catch forty-winks within its soma-esque embrace.

For many caught in the New Age amber, it would seem as though there is an innate need: to wit, a longing for a diverse, muddling system of psychic taxonomy that would make Carl Linnaeus proud. Moreover, it is an innate tendency that, in my mind, needs to undergo a gentle redress. If we are to spend all our time scrutinizing the quarks and the neutrinos, we surely lose sight of all larger matter; moreover, precisely the matter at hand: that is to say, that we are all one – pink or indigo, plaid or polka-dotted. These sub-groups (such as those mentioned above) are well placed to create psychical dichotomies; in doing so a sizeable proportion of the human spirit would find itself sequestered and placed within the metaphorical iron-lung of ego-identification. It brings to mind the scene from the Monty Python motion picture, The Life of Brian; the one delineating the petty antagonism between The People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front.

With so much light being worked, it seems to me that we are rapidly losing our sense of the innate value of the dark. A flashlight has little luminosity if one so happens to be standing under a noonday sun; by extension, the corona of a given light-source can only be accurately determined by a contrasting lack of light. An overabundance (or misuse) of the wrong light vibration can be fashioned into a mantle that may, in turn, be detrimental to personal and societal growth. Oftentimes, the fallout is a tendency to obviate necessary person introspection and any subsequent acknowledgement/ integration of the shadow archetype.

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the elephant in the room is rapidly transmogrifying into a hirsute behemoth. Egregious tectonic stresses are, like it or not, tugging our psyches – resource depletion, runaway climate change, overpopulation, water scarcity and food crises, to name but a few. These challenges are all-to-real, concrete phenomena; physical limitations that are not to be diminished by wishful thinking alone - whether by techno triumphalism or mellifluously chanting in a circle. Not to be deterred, however, some New Agers are wont to view environmental Armageddon as illusory, the result of an emergence of collective negativity. Others (like the twenty-twelve, get out of Dodge contingent –above) believe that catastrophe can be avoided by the judicious use of a passport. Lastly, there are those among us who believe that a cosmic, gene-altering super wave is somehow going to enable us to miraculously ascend our species’ collective responsibilities to our planet, our karmic debt to our terrestrial mother.

Now, I do not doubt that over-utility energy technologies may exist and that, as a consequence, the hallowed laws of thermodynamics may be in for a tweaking or five. However, rather pointedly, on the spiritual plane there can be no such free lunch. There never can be as there is little utility in avoiding the consequences of our actions - whether collectively or individually. Like so many maxims, there is an essential, gnomic reality in the phrase you reap what you sow.

It is posited that an overwhelming majority of the world’s mythologies are but off-shoots of a singular stamen, a central story, if you will. The writer Joseph Campbell used term monomyth to circumscribe what also came to be known as The Hero’s Journey. It is a tri-partite quest, delineated by the departure, initiation and return stages, respectively. The titular hero embarks on his adventure by leaving the mundane world behind. A series of edifying initiation challenges lie in wait – the ultimate mastery of which enable him to return, to go back to whence he came.

I posit that, as a species, we are at the threshold of the final stage in the departure phase, entitled “The Belly of the Whale.” It is a juncture that marks a nadir for the hero, who must endure the enveloping, crepuscular shadow of death, of nullity, to be reborn – and thus start his journey proper. The belly of the whale is ‘a sphere of re-birth,’ something that Campbell asserts is a ‘worldwide womb image.’ This is especially meaningful due to its birthing association. It would seem that, to continue on our way, we must acquaint ourselves of the void and utilize the strength that comes from brushing against the tapestry of melancholy. Endure we must what the Spanish mystic, Saint John of the Cross, named the La noche oscura del alma (the long night of the soul.) Astonishingly, this darkness may shortly cease to be merely a spiritual metaphor; indeed, it would seem as though it is about to bleed into the societal and civic realm.

We must steel ourselves. A concrete power down is inching its way towards us whether we like it or not. Already, throughout the western world, city councils are turning off streetlights in order to save a modicum of cash. It is conceivable that, before too long, we may get to gaze on our cityscape skylines and apprehend an altogether different vista - one devoid of usual interpolating signatures of light; one where dark, obsidian structures, evanesce into equally dark skies.

There is a re-ordering that needs to take place before we may transition to the more expansive realm of universal or cosmic consciousness. We need to learn the lessons of the biosphere before we may attune to a galactic super wave. When the salmon runs diminish and become naught but a memory, there is a chance that we may finally emanate a truly planetary harmonic for the first time. The fact that it will be an anthem born of grief will not diminish it one iota. Indeed, it is starting to seem that only by grieving may we finally exceed all previous limitation.

Contrary to the expectations of the many in the New Age movement, what we need is descension. All else is tantamount to spiritual chicanery. Rather, instead of soaring, Icarus-like, to a new tomorrow, we must prepare to sink to the psychical abyssal plain – that unforsaken place, frequented only by the strange and the unfamiliar. Then – and only then, in that density, in that absolute darkness - will our own light-working devices begin to attain some functional value. Like the angler fishes congregating thereabouts, our lights will at last be a thing of intrinsic worth, enabling us to discern the light of another.

It will matter little whether we are crystal child or indigo, intuitive empath or walk-in: when we see that pin-prick of luminescence coming towards us - that faint light, of another spirit, in the darkest of all possible darks – only then will we realize that we are one.

Love and Doom

I have been oscillating, spiritually, since I became Peak Oil aware. Before this tumult, I concentrated, wholeheartedly, on trying to spread a message of love and compassion. On being a good person. My spiritual questing was informed largely by Quakerism and Buddhism - paths that advocate kindness, pacifism and even-temperedness. Despite a being deeply flawed individual, I would meditate on directing ‘metta’ - loving kindness - to all sentient beings as far as I was able.

In 2005, I was hit by a steam-train of awareness that my heart could not assuage. Simultaneously, I felt rage swell in my core as I beheld the realpoliltik - the malfeasance and insanity of the globalist agenda. The evil promulgated by the lies and prevarications of the corporatists ever permeated my being. As I bore witness to the modus operandi of our fear-based death culture, it felt like a tapeworm was inching its way through my soul.

I left the Society of Friends’ (Quaker) Sunday meditations as I felt increasingly unable to subscribe to their pacifist ideal. I read Derrick Jensen and Ward Churchill and tasted a metallic truth therein. Lady anarchy was a way forward of sorts, yet there was little spiritual consolation to be had within her dictates as somewhere, deep down, my heart had been utterly broken. Literally smashed into smithereens by the sheer insidiousness of the Bilderberger Group, PNAC, the Trilateral Commission and the many other power-wielding cabals, big and small, that value power over virtue, death over life.

This is not the world I want. I cannot help but mourn this every single day. Every time I catch an ugly sound bite from the mouth of a far-right (so-called) ‘Christian’ regarding the poor, the illegal immigrant or the homosexual, I spiritually fragment a little more. Simultaneously, the thing that I am becoming, the individual stocking up on 00 buckshot, ossifies and hardens.

I was reminded of this disconnect from my former incense-burning self, trenchantly, just last week. My son brought home the words to the song that he is to sing on Wednesday as part of his kindergarten’s Christmas concert. When I heard him sing, I felt the pull of that entire world-view that had been evanescing, leeching from my soul. It goes:

“It’s about peace. It is about joy.

It’s about every girl and boy.

It’s about family. It’s about caring.

It’s about people giving and sharing.

It’s about peace, it’s about joy.

It’s about love.”

Surely this is what Christmas should be about, not about the dopamine hit from the purchase of useless gewgaws. Moreover, I wish I could better temper my fatalism with the sentiment in the above song. Surely, as Buddha maintained, there must be a middle way. While I do not wish to collapse into mawkish sentimentality, there has to be more to life than merely steeling oneself to deal with marauding MZB’s.

I am a doomer, yet, it seems, I also have this big human heart. Furthermore, in the final analysis, it seems as though it will not completely go away.

Hopes for Economic Recovery?

To all those who are affirming their collective asses off; to all those of you who are preparing for the inevitable upswing, I have to ask:

Is 'business as usual' really the best fucking scenario you can up with?

Every time I am in earshot of: "Things 'are not so bad', or "It's a great time to buy as the market is bottoming,"I want to projectile vomit.

What you are saying is:

"Who knows, if we are lucky we can continue to rape and degrade the biosphere. Maybe we can up the extinction rate to 300 species a day? Yea! While we are at it, let's find more kids to frog-march into the Bangladeshi sweatshops! In addition, we can all ingest evermore cancer-causing chemicals; we can turn a blind eye while our children's brains continue to be beleaguered with the burdens of ADHD and autism.

"Let's continue to fight our usual wars and ignore the everyday collateral damage - the inconvenient and utterly innocent corpses of women and children.

"If we cross our fingers and wish upon a far away sun, we may get all our usual anodyne messages from the TV (and all our favorite reality shows.)

"Yes, it's going to be great: we will all continue buying compact flourescent lightbulbs, and smelling our 'greener by the day' farts."

I am unequivocal. Damn your despicable recovery hopes (and the insane and addicted civilization that promulgates them.)

I want no part of it. I am a doomer not just because of an absence of hope. It is far more proactive than that. Doom is the only rationality I have. It tells me that this 5000 year old death-urge must cease or somehow be irreversibly stalled - even if it leads to our complete annihilation.

I do not subscribe to the scintillating 'new car smell' version of the future.

The Quick Collapse and Other Melodies

There is dread in the air. It has a tangible, almost olfactory quality. Moreover, I am getting keener, more adept at detecting the necrotic notes that are now emanating out from the economy. Of late it seems as there are times when every market murmur contains a sleight-of-hand contrived to mask fiscal reality. The United States’ once formidable manufacturing base has – along with the silent generation who fed smelting furnaces – largely, ‘gone-fishing.’ The common-sensical notion that people actually need to make things has been swapped for a mise en abîme paper chase of dodgy debt repackaging. The telltale rot is everywhere if you care to look. On July 11th, oil futures rose to $147.27 a barrel. A month and a half earlier, the price of rice had doubled over a seven-month period (prompting Sam’s Club and Costco to impose restrictions on bulk sales.) For peakniks, they were halycon days: editorials and op-ed articles that spoke of about peak oil’s ‘new-found credibility ’ were everywhere (proof, surely, that the mallards were lining up, once and for all.)

Yes, the shit was inching towards the fan like a determined brown caterpillar. Watching it, loping along, I caught myself engaging in a mute mantra: “Go on buddy,” I would intone. “Only another few inches to go, you can do it!”

Then, just as it seemed as the entire megalopolis of cards was about to tumble, a great load of nothing came to pass; nothing insofar as some Executive Branch fairy godperson wove his /her magic wand and all normalcy was seemingly ‘restored’. The bear in the market had been tranquilized by a well-aimed dart sticking out of its hairy hock and all clamoring had quietened to a mundane hum (at which point the cud-chewing could return, to wit, the interminable buzzing about the new iphone 3G, the dulcet-toned merits of bamboo flooring and the internecine machinations of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance…)

The tragic thing though, is that I got left behind in this whole process. Resembling a gnarled, steroidal body-builder, I am left flexing, pumped to high-heaven. With endorphins and adrenaline coursing through my tissues, I feel like King Lear, roaring at the tempestuous cumulonimbi. I holler, “Hold on a mo. What about the collapse of the Western Banking Paradigm? What about the transition to a Korten-esque Earth community, people? What gives?”

To make matters worse, by the end of July, the media did a tail-spin. As the price of light sweet crude contracted, Peak oil luminaries were send back to their respective wildernesses. They were crack-pot Cassandras after all! These happenings only added to my psychic immobility. To make matters worse, the sheeple felt vindicated. Through their latte foam moustaches, the ripostes came thick and fast:

“So, what happened to the $200 a barrel oil then, Nostradamus?”
“See this Venti Moccacino? Paid in Canadian dollars. No Ameros here, padre!”

It took a while, but eventually I, too, began to settle. I now view these times as interolating plateaux marked by subtle deflationary flutterings in my chest; the bodily re-grouping after an expenditure of nervous energy. However, for some less fortunate than I, these cyclical, undulating energies may presage an almost bipolar shift. Collapse watching is an enervating and often exhausting sport, pock-marked by an emotional to-ing and fro-ing at the best of times. To be aware of resource depletion and the unsustainability of the corporatist market model can open a door to an awareness and, simultaneously, a vulnerability that can be extremely hard to bear.

There are those who love me who tell me I should go on a news fast. That too much time spent visiting Life After The Oil Crash will only further addle my brain. Maybe they are onto something, yet I suspect it is only half the story. The truth is, if I am addicted to anything, it is my recreational fantasy that civilization may, suddenly, go to Hades-in-a-handbag. I kid you not: when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went under, I actually broke out the popcorn!

Consequently, I am slowly beginning to realize how much emotional capital I have invested in a fast crash scenario. The way I see it, I would much rather eat the quarter-pound turd burger right off the bat. If society is going to haemorrhage, I suspect it may be prudent that we begin bracing for it now - not next year and definitely not in 2012.

As a fast crash aficionado, I end up comforting myself with the fact that most of the peak oil mavens are on the home team, so to speak. There is an assuaging quality to a rapid dismantlement insofar as we would be cast, largely, as bystanders (or rubberneckers.) In this sense, a fast crash may, paradoxically, ask less of us in the very short term. Despite my erstwhile art student longing for a Situationiste spectacle on a continental scale, a fast crash, is still a plausible prognostication. In a global postmodern society businesses are highly networked and, as such, susceptible to viral coding and other chaotic phenomena. I am reminded of the permaculturist and author, Robin Wheeler, who circumscribes the world economy brilliantly as being “[…] a big, tippy bag of wrestling cats [.]”

Conversely, there are those who maintain that societal collapse may not happen quite so soon, that we may be facing a rather more drawn out societal erosion. According to Oregon Arch-Druid and blogger John Michael Greer, we may be a facing societal winding-down, an ultra long prelude to The Long Emergency that may well play out over one or two hundred years. In a nod to David Korten, he calls it the Long Unraveling of the Industrial Age. He adds a quasi-Jungian twist in his insistence that the western psyche has a tendency to project two narratives into the ether, twin mythologies regarding our future destiny: ‘the narrative of the apocalypse’ and the ‘narrative of inevitable progress.’ Both are popular in his estimation as:

“[…] They push the necessity and the costs of change onto somebody else: the “they” who are expected to think of something just in time to keep progress on track, for example, or the supposedly faceless billions who are expected to hurry up and die en masse so that the flag of some future utopia can be pitched atop their graves.”

I find his reasoning lucid and rather unsensationalist - quite the opposite to the average doomer’s “wig out/bug-out” mentality. He offers up an idea as to why some of us may find comfort in a fast crash: namely, the cessation of quotidian clock-watching and card punching. When civilization crashes and all the “others” die-off, it will finally be our time to shine. Make no bones about it, first-order-of-the-day: we will tell the man to fuck off, once-and-for-all. Then we will step up to the plate - like some manner of Victor Mature hero - and make yurts. And squirrel jerky.

Conversely, until this precipitous moment arrives, we can all still take a wii.

In the final analysis, those who are intimately familiar with the labyrinthine complexities of civil and business infrastructure are precisely those voices we should be attending most closely - folks like Matthew Simmons and Michael C. Ruppert, who have transitioned, outwardly, from dealing with the ruling elites or “T.P.T.B.” Also, ‘collapse watchers’ like Dmitry Orlov have a lot to offer insofar as they are able to regale us with primary source testimony and practical insight à propos previous historical incidences of societal failure.

Personally, I am weary of the emotional highs and lows, the whole teetering nature of the zeitgeist. It weighs heavily on my shoulders. I am beleaguered by the oft-encountered, little spoken of ‘peak oil’ yoke (the pressure of which has been known to exacerbate personality disorders, wreck marriages and divide families.) I want the current paradigm to fail because I am hurting so.

One last thing. If by chance you should witness my raging against the aforementioned tempest, stop and listen. You will hear me yelling “enough is enough, already. Collapse, godammit, collapse!” You will see for yourself that I have had more than enough of this chimps tea party that is patriarchal civilization, this cult of thanatos.

I do not want its ‘so-called’ technological progress, its Back-to-School sales, its depleted uranium-tipped ordnance, its fish gene ‘enhanced’ tomatoes, its 700-billion dollar Wall Street bailout. If the price of gasoline, natural gas and distillates are going to go through the roof (as predicted) then a part of me longs for someone to hurry it along and put a firecracker up its ass. Ultimately, I only have one personal meta-narrative, an amalgam of the two that John Michael Greer spoke of above. I court the myth of the ‘progressive apocalypse,’ a much-needed societal rites-of-passage for us all.

Subsidized Rain Barrels in the GVRD

Having grown up in and around Britain’s allotment culture, water butts (rain barrels) were part of my existence right from when I was knee-high to a nematode. Indeed, some of my earliest gardening experiences involved watching the members of this aforementioned phylum wriggle through the algae soup that languished alongside my grandfather’s greenhouse.

Whether you see yourself as the quintessential “doomsteader” or, on the up-side, an Urban Utopian Agronomist, rainwater harvesting has a lot to offer to everyone. Saving rainwater for personal use is the ultimate in practical sustainability.

Primarily, a water barrel will enable you to side-step the usual summer hose-pipe restrictions. What’s more, you will be giving your vegetable garden the bountiful gift of un-chlorinated and oxygen-rich water. I have witnessed the difference rain-water makes first-hand; I guarantee your seedlings will grow with an increased vigour.

I had been in the market for a good rain barrel for some months; I made several reconnaissance trips to the Home De[s]pot ilk of store and, to be frank, I was most disappointed with what I encountered thereabouts. Aesthetic choice was rather limited. Yes, there are those drab round barrels; for as little as $40.00* + taxes you may procure a container whose form I have, unfortunately, come to associate with toxic-waste containment. However, on the other end of the price-spectrum, there are those units that come replete with wooden casings and heavy-duty brass faucets. So, if you want a barrel that would not look out of place in the PNE showhome, you can expect to shell out a tidy sum – ordinarily, upwards of $180.00 (+ taxes.)

By far the best option is the Flexahopper barrel (see above image) offered up by Burnaby City Council. It holds 345 litres of rainwater and is made of industrial strength plastic. The good news is that Burnaby residents may buy this as a subsidized item for a very competitive $70.00 (+ taxes.) What’s more, an extra five bucks is all it takes to make one magically materialize outside your residence. They may be obtained from the City’s Yard Waste Depot located at 4800 Still Creek Avenue (west of Douglas Road). Call 604.294.7460 for more details.

Other pilot schemes that offer the Flexahopper are in place across the GVRD. Vancouver residents may pick up one for $75.00 (+ taxes) at the Vancouver South Transfer Station, located at 377 West North Kent Avenue. For those in Coquitlam, call 604-927-3500.

*A subsidized ‘radioactive-plasma container’ is available for West Van residents at the aforementioned price. Call 604 925-7101. The same deal for Port Moody residents: call 604-469-4572.

Finally, my barrel-of-choice is also sold at source by Flexahopper Plastics, 604-946-8783 – located at #12 - 7151 Honeyman in Delta (for a pricier $170.00.)

Knowing your landbase ensures your best ability to survive.

The first organizer of the Vancouver Peak Oil Citizens Group, Max - a highly like-able young permaculturist and eco-activist - renounced the post allegedly, because he foresaw our powering-down and transitional efforts going to s***. I remember hearing this information from my predecessor, Steve. I was told that he was off, ‘walking the land,’ trying to find out ‘where it is at.’ As I began to Contemplate Max’s life-path, I also began to question more of my own plans for the future. Put it this way, if I am to use the folks at LATOC as a yardstick, I am woefully unprepared, ripe for the die-off. A secure home with crate-loads of ammo is the de rigeur minimum - or so the message boards would have us believe.


I have about a month’s worth of food and some basic emergency supplies. The usual suspects: the fresh, bottled water, the excess propane, the Katadyn water filters and purification tablets. Oh, and next years’ seeds are in cold storage.

And when I plan it comes down to this: I plan to plant more beans next year. I will double the potato plot to make room for some early and mid-season varieties. Other than that I plan to to take a last trip to the Old Country - preferably before my Grandmother dies and before the civilian air-fleet is permanently grounded.

I find it so hard to make contingency plans for my existence when I am so bloody caught up in living that self-same existence. And, despite being the son of a farmer, I am also a former quasi-urbane metro-sexual. I am the product of the eighties and the British Education combined - probably not what you would call true survivor material. To this end, I hope it is not all Mad Max hair-do’s and pointy sticks anytime too soon!

Ultimately, wheresoever I am now, is exactly where I am connecting with my landbase. Presently that is Burnaby. Often I project into ‘A Long Emergency’ scenario. Often, during walking meditation along the perimeter of my immediate landbase, a voice will percolate upwardly through my being:

“The H.Y. Louie Distribution Warehouse is the best place for food reconnaissance raids (as it is hidden.) The war zone will be on the other side of Lougheed, about the Costco loading bay. Yes, that is where the gun-fire will be…”

Knowing your immediate landbase ensures your best ability to survive.

While a significant number of my fellow activists are eye-balling Nelson as a agrarian utopia, I pose the question: Can the Kootenay landbase accommodate a post-postmodern diaspora of this kind? I fear it may not be able. Moreover, how will the indigenous population feel about any prospective exodus?

If it all goes to hell-in-a handbasket, I will evanesce into the woods like the best of you. Until that time I am going to more intimately connect with my locale. I am going to find the mythical spot where the best blackberries grow on the borders of Lake City; where the most reliable natural water-source is in late August.

I will prove to you that chantrelles grow here. Once I find them.

Beware the "Resource Transitionists"

I was reading an article about, guess what, peak oil, and I read the following paragraph:

"The current [energy] debate represents a significant twist on an older, often-derided notion known as the peak-oil theory. Traditional peak-oil theorists, many of whom are industry outsiders or retired geologists, have argued that global oil production will soon peak and enter an irreversible decline because nearly half the available oil in the world has been pumped. They've been proved wrong so often that their theory has become debased."

Debased. Mmm.

This irked me a little. OK, a lot. That was until I remembered Derrick Jensen's words about most writers being propagandists (myself included.)
In its defence, the entire P.O. "notion" was based on the correct assumption of M. King Hubbert - namely that the U.S. would peak its production about 1970. (His later predictions about the timing of the world Peak were, indeed, more premature than Ken Deffeyes' - but unlike the latter, it did not embrace the OPEC oil shocks of the '70's.)

Still, it is important that we stand by what we believe and always have believed. Peak light sweet crude has happened. Oil is now nudging $100 a barrel. (Just a few months ago, I remember doom-saying that this would be a reality by Christmas-time and people just gave me blank stares!)

In the final analysis, Peak Oil is beset by the pitfalls and the mists, of futurism. Our track record, however is largely impressive. Recent energy reports bear witness to this - yea, even the aforementioned article.

Indeed, the paradoxical affirmation/denial of the aforementioned article may presage an entirely new phenomenon.

I am being led to believe that, in the next few years, we are going to be nudged aside by an opportune bunch of technocrati who will call themselves "resource transitionalists" (or something similar). They will say that "they always had the view that oil was a non-renewable resource and that they had always been planning for crunch scenarios, etc."

Bull.

We must not let them steal our thunder. NOT ONE IOTA! I say this as they are doubtless going to be part of that hydra-headed beast that will seek only to further degrade our land-base. We, as Peak Oil activists, are more than Cassandras. Much more. We stand for environmental integrity and re localization efforts. We stand against the needless violence and exploitation of the planet, the poor and the non-civilized. We are the sane in an insane world.

Watch: the "resource transitionalists" will use our research, quote our luminaries and deride us at the same time. They will use us as a bulwark by which they will spring onto the world's stage. Doubtless, among their ranks you will find former A-list actors turned politicos, spineless, Smirnoff-soaked (then to be) ex-premiers....

Indeed, if you see any of these creatures, feel free to "out" them here.