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Discussions about Energy and Our Future
| CNN/USAToday/Gallup: There are "major problems..." (oh, if you only knew...) | The Oil Drum | The geopolitics of expertise | |
An opportunity exists for TOD to setup a 'scholastic' website version that caters to youngsters, and is specifically aimed to inform them and their teachers. The bright kids will find the DEFCON 1 sites of Dieoff.com and Savinar's LATOC on their own. Anything to help get more kids alerted and involved will be helpful.
My gut reaction is that most members of these numerous Peakoil forums are older farts like me. We need to actively include youngsters in the discussion because the future has always belonged to the kids, always will. Can the TOD website software setup an anynonomous poll to query members for age & skillset?
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Good for you for cluing your son into his future. I am really curious: what happens when he talks Peakoil to his friends and cousins? Is he considered a nutcase, or taken seriously? Has his friends' parents told you to stop your child from scaring their kids, or do they ask you for more info, books, and websites? I am starving for info on how many kids are Peakoil informed. Thxs for any reply.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast? [my signoff tagline]
I'm wondering if you and your son have been thinking about France's dependency on Nuclear, as well. I have read that we face a similar crisis in the availablity of high-grade Uranium ores, though I suppose America's warheads could power the world for a little while, if they can get down-converted instead of getting launched.
I'm in Maine, and we just finished dismantling our only Nuclear plant, 'Maine Yankee'.. and I'm not sad to see it go. I don't see nuclear as much of a 'Transition' fuel, since the energy we use to mine/refine and build reactors could as easily be applied to building Wind/Tide/Solar manufacturing, and implementing much more efficient uses of lighting, transp, heating, etc.
Bob
All my children have known about peak oil and its implications, as well as deflation and economic depression, for a long time. All of them have real skills in addition to what they learn in school and know that those skills are likely to be extremely important. They have farm chores to do and see the value in helping to provide for the necessities of their own existence. No time is wasted watching TV or playing computer games as these options are not available (and not missed). The link with the consumer society, and the path of least resistance, has been broken for them.
One might think that making young children aware of a difficult future would amount to wallowing in doom and gloom, but in fact the opposite is true. Teaching children real skills and imparting to them how important these are likely to be is very empowering. Children who are aware and prepared now can become the leaders of the future when leadership will be crucial.
Well said: "Teaching children real skills and imparting to them how important these are likely to be is very empowering. Children who are aware and prepared now can become the leaders of the future when leadership will be crucial".
Schools should be ripping out ballfields and teaching kids permiculture and animal husbandry skills. This is not only very instructive, but is a very calming and rewarding experience-- helps promote the cultural mindset of ERoEI > ERoVI. The big sports should become bicycle racing or distance racing to promote cardiovascular fitness and endurance. Shop classes in bicycle repairs, animal butchering and cooking, sewing & knitting, etc.
Each drainage basin or habitat should be assessing the best methods to Powerdown and achieve sustainability now to preclude later violence. For example: AZ's Maricopa County has increased by 536,000 in just the past five years [fastest growing in the Nation]. If the area leaders are proactive: they should institute massive Humanure requirements, very high water pricing levels, elimination of night-time external lighting, abolish car-washing, impose high energy taxes to promote Powerdown and fund Kunstler's goal of human-scale cities, and so on. These proposals would make many local residents migrate to other cities/habitats, reducing the chance of future AZ violence as most of the Phx area would gradually transmute into a sustainable ghosttown.
Otherwise, at crunch time, the sudden cutoff of imports of pipelined energy from Texas & CA will cause all hell to break loose; ERoVI > ERoEI.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Following my viewing of the documentary OilCrash! this past weekend I had the occasion to have dinner with a rather bright 18 year old young man and another gentleman, both of whom had also seen the film. The teenager is a fairly typical suburban kid with the X-Box in his bedroom on top of his TV, right next to the PC on his desk with 3,000 songs downloaded on his personally cataloged PC jukebox which is synchronized with his portable IPod. He glances at his cellphone every five or ten minutes, presumably viewing text messages from everyone he knows.
I asked him what he thought about the film, and he replied in a very unconcerned tone, "Oil runs out. Economic collapse, anarchy, government failing, resource wars, expensive gas." So I queried further about how that made him feel, in terms of his own future and he replied, again in an unconcerned tone, "life just comes and I just go with the flow, man. What else is there to do?" Further pressing got little more out of him. He understood the situation clearly, but not the problem.
So I discussed this response with the other gentleman sitting at the table who is closer to my age (47). And during our discussion we had a revelation -- this kid, and just about every other person that hasn't yet experienced independant life: lived out on their own, fully supporting themselves, who hasn't experienced the responsibilities of generating an income, supporting a car, running a family, assessing personal security, shopping for sustinance rather than bling, experienced the issues around medical trauma, voting after seriously considering issues, volunteering to serve his community or society in some way, experiencing the death of a loved one, living through financial challenges, etc, etc.... simply can't have the experience necessary to even conceive of the hardships that are coming his way. He doesn't have the ability to conceive of it because he has always been "taken care of" by someone else and been insulated from the hardships of life, as a child normally is. It's not his fault that he doesn't comprehend the seriousness by any means -- he's a kid growing up and that's what we do in America. But the revelation to myself and this other gentleman was that virtually all young people, say under the ages of 20-25, may clearly understand the situation, but simply can't conceive of the severity or true impacts of what's coming because they have no personal reference points to relate to it.
This is going to be a huge additional problem folks. How do we get it across to them?
I think you opened up a real 'can of worms' for us to consider in the problem of youngster Peakoil-outreach. My proposal is for the schools to have carefully supervised mandatory energy deprivation outings. A group of students would pedal their bicycles & gear out of the city to camp in the woods for a week. They would be fully fed by foraging for natural foodstuffs, or could choose to be hungry. Heat is only by woodfire, teach the kids how to kill & clean rabbits, fish, and chickens. This survival outing experience would help them grow up fast for the task ahead.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Good idea, but I'm thinking that the kids would just see it as a more intense version of camping.
What might be more realistic would be to go on a long ski style weekend to a remote lodge. The educators would then power down the area. It would be necessary to insure that the food supply was inadequate and that 'somehow' the fuel in all the cars/ transportation was gone. Of course, no cell or land line phones allowed.
After a day or so all the portable devices batteries would be drained, hunger would kick in, and the experience would start. I'm sure that long weekend scenario would get my kids attention.
The education environment could be played with a bit, for example, turning on the power for 2 minutes, then off again.
To set a good example for the children, why don't you start with yourself? Getting rid of your car is probably a good start.
I'd lose my job without a car. As it is, biking to work is dicey. Everyone just expects that I can travel to a meeting or visit a job-site thirty miles away at the drop of a hat.
I've gotten pretty good at anticipating, but every now and then I get caught without the car. Last week, my boss called. He was stuck in traffic, so I had to deliver some drawings and meet a client. So here I am riding the Xootr four miles up Opossumtown Pike in the rain, holding a roll of drawings in my non-shifting hand. I got there and they thought I was a courier.
Thank you for doing this in depth analysis.
I too have teen-age to young adult kids who don't seem to "get it" despite how often nut cake dad tries to talk to them.
All their life, they have seen mom and dad go to that big ATM machine, punch in the secret number that only adults get, and then remove the mullah.
In their minds, when you reach a certain age, you too will get the secret number and you too will get to draw out the mullah.
It's that simple.
It's a Paris Hilton world.
All elastic.
All you need is the plastic.
Get on MTV,
Be a rich celebrity. ...
(sing it to the tune of It's a Barbie World)
When Peak Oil recruits Paris Hilton - And we will if I have anything to do with it - We will get the message across.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
But I wonder about the current generation. They are sheltered like no other generation ever has been. Many are rarely ever disciplined, because their parents don't want to "break their spirits." They are homeschooled, unschooled, etc., because their parents want to protect them from the school experience. (The "gay agenda," teachers who aren't good enough, bullying classmates, or whatever.) Many 20-somethings find the real world a rude shock when they leave the nest.
I still think young people will probably do okay. But I suspect their well-meaning parents aren't doing them any favors by raising them to think the world revolves around them.
OTOH, as Peggy Noonan pointed out...if we are headed into another Great Depression or worse, it would be hard for any parent to deny their children anything now.
This was one reason I left the chemical industry many years ago to move to a rural area where I could protect my life-style (as simple as it is). I'm one of those people who has a large PV system, solar hot water, a super insulated house,large garden and orchard, etc.
I live north of Willits, CA with it's relocalization group headed by Jason Bradford. My community has a relocalization group too and it is having little success getting people interested and keeping them interested. I don't participate to any degree (although I did give some of them a tour of our place) because none of the groups with which I am aware, including my local one, have ever taken to time to even prioritize what needs to be done. They are far too warm and fuzzy for my taste.
Is this the same Todd from the forum Yahoo:RunningOnEmptyTwo? If so: I greatly admire your knowledge and expertise: you will be a great addition to TOD. I always read your postings!
You are correct about most groups being too warm and fuzzy. Hopefully the upcoming CNN show will promote more radical cultural drive for Powerdown. Jay Hanson's Thermo-Gene Collision predicts that we will go down in the worst possible way-- only time will tell if he is correct. The hardest part is breaking through to the 'movers & shakers'-- no response to my emails! We need a Bill Gates or Richard Rainwater to lead the charge for change.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Sorry, different Todd - hope I can offer similar quality posts. However, I have been very seriously following peak energy/resources since about 1999 and have been into alternate energy since the early '80s (got my first 10watt PV panels in about '83). I first became concerned after The Limits to Growth was published in '72.
FWIW, I have sort of a strange background. The first part was in business; process development manager, new plant start-up manager, plant manager in the coatings, resins/polymers, synthetic rubber and adhesives industries. I suppose I should throw in electroplating since I did research on that right after college.
The second part is touched on in my first TOD post on another thread. I gave up the status and money of business for rural security many years ago and, since, have been everything from a small-scale, certified organic farmer to a home designer and builder. I live on top of a mountain on 57 acres.
Glad to know you just the same-- you and the other Todd seem like twin sons from different mothers. I am glad you live the way you do--good for you and your acreage. We need all the potential Arks we can get. I am a newbie compared to you as I only discovered Dieoff.com and Peakoil in '03--I got a lot of work, with very little money and time ahead of me.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
It would have been useful to get his reaction to the concept of being drafted to fight in Iran, OTOH.
My (38yr old) method for dealing with this with my own young kids is to point out all of the things we use oil for, which of those will likely continue, and what will happen to the others. We went to see the redwoods this past month on their winter break, but the subtext was that planes use a lot of oil-based fuel and this may be the last time we get to fly to California.
In general, we're trying to show them how to live well with less energy. We impress upon the kids that we bike most places to do our part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and because we'll still be able to bike even if gas gets outrageous. We grow an organic garden, in the city, and buy from our local Co-op and CSA farm, by bike. We switched mostly to a woodstove so they can see how it all works, including felling and cutting the wood with handsaws. We take the train to Chicago and use the El when we're there. We use the car for those trips where we can't walk, bike, or take transit. We're even going to try tapping our Maple tree for syrup this year.
Our kids really enjoy all of this. We don't watch TV, so learning about how people used to live and seeing that it all still works seems pretty interesting to them. Little kids get geeked by things that adults think are strange. The real problem for young kids will be watching the adults in their lives lose their livelihoods and their touch with reality. I think being able to roll with the punches will be key to making sure my kids don't have to watch that close up.
I need a way to convey to him the hardship and danger that lies ahead that will get his attention -- and I can't use traditional logic because it requires a foundation in experience to relate to -- and he doesn't have that, and nor do the majority of our youth below age 20. The typical twelve year old in any third-world country is far better equipped to cope with the coming implications of PO than 20 year old people in the West.
What is the kid going to say when I tell him that due to the implications of PO that his four years of college will be met not with a job market, a career, country-club and gym memberships, a beemer, a cell-phone and the American Dream... rather it will be met with the start of the worst depression in our history -- one that likely offers massive unemployment, financial destitution for the masses, rampant homelessness, very scarce food supplies and bread/soup lines, a complete breakdown of the transportation system of the country, not even the gas to load up the car (even if you could afford it) and move to [fill in the blank -- any city] to find work (which won't exist there either), and a severely handicapped government at best. His only probable option will be to join the military to participate in the resource wars, or to start working as a farm or manual laboror. So what's he going to say when I tell him all that? He's going to say, "uhhh, yeah...right," and go right back to IM'ing on his cell-phone and listening to his IPod, and murmuring to his friends something about how adults these days are just fricken wierd.
And then, when he does get out of college with a 30-year college mortgage on his back, and confronts all the things I said above, he's going to be very, very pissed off at the adult world thinking that not only did we screw up the world for him, but that we didn't even bother to properly prepare him for the new reality...I mean, like, where's his stock broker?
So what I need -- solid advice on how to adequately explain to and prepare the kids for the new reality -- something they can identify with and understand.
Finally, anyone sending their kids to college in the next five years might seriously consider how to council their kids on wise career choices for the future -- there's not going to be a huge market for Business Administration majors, or Aviation, Computer Science, Hospitality Management, or Interior Design, ...well, you get the idea. Better to guide them toward Permaculture/Agricultural Sciences or Animal Husbandry, Civil Engineering or Solar Power sciences, Building Skills, etc.
My daughter, otoh, did read it. She has at least admitted that it is coloring a lot of her thinking. She is considering changing her major from Maritime Admin to Agronomy, transferring to Texas A & M Galveston to the College Station campus. We'll see if it takes...
I used to Read a Lot of books, 100 to 150 a year, Anything under the sun, I used to Spend most of my daylight and a lot of dark hours outside and doing things in nature or my garden. Even I don't read that much any more, how do we convince a YOUTH of the world to go back to that, when even then I was the non-normal teenager.
The Youth will suffer the most and be the most angry when they realize that their elders did not prepare them for the coming times. And be warned some of them really like Anarchy and Chaos, and have been going that path a long time.
"Repeat after me children: People are stupid! Remember the limits! We're dumber than yeast! Technology is the problem! Don't think big! That's what got us into trouble last time!!"
If you folks had your way, they'd all be zombies, drooling at their tables like the kids in Taliban madrassas.
In fact, a kid just e-mailed me the other day through my blog, and thanked me for presenting the other side. Apparently his teacher made the class watch "The End of Suburbia", and then gave them a big lecture about how the future was dark, violent, poor and hopeless. The kid didn't like it, and asked a few impertinent questions. I told him to keep right at it. I told him to be a punk and fight back. Don't listen to the pompous old farts trying to ram doom down your throat.
Thxs for responding. I surmise that you have not extensively studied Dieoff.com and Savinar's LATOC. I further surmise that you have not carefully studied the ongoing African decline and looming energy shortages elsewhere due to depletion meeting Overshoot. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I suggest that being aware of the worst potential outcome is the best way to motivate us to prevent the worst. The Schlesinger quote is appropriate: "Two modes of operation, complacency or panic". Neither promotes solutions. Realizing early that the ship is sinking, then calmly heading for the lifeboats should be the optimum goal for everyone, but especially the kids.
I tell young adults that they will probably have to kill my generation [I will soon be 52] in the next ten to twenty years if they don't prepare for Powerdown. I tell them that they will be so desperate to feed their children that an old man shuffling along with a bag of food will be an easy target. I tell them that it is far better to combine our efforts to reorganize our lifestyles as Kunstler suggests to prevent the 'panic outcome'. My goal is to break their complacency, but prevent panic.
If all the young kids could be convinced to always pedal, and never seek to own an automobile-- this alone would profoundly help Powerdown this nation. They would also be physically prepared to ride the required distances to help insure their future survival. This is a far better plan than emulating Zimbabwe where one of the leading inflationary products is the desperate scramble for bicycles.
If I was a ten year old kid today: I would rather be told that I might never be able to afford a car because of Peakoil, than have my parents purposely delude me with promises of the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. JD, if you were suddenly ten years old, what would you want your parents to tell you?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The only exception would be if oldies (anyone over 40) had sufficient skills and knowledge (and adequate health / vigour) to justify preserving. Note that those would be skills appropriate and relevent to the then current reality.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that few younger than maybe 70 years old have much in the way of useful skills, and many youngsters seem short on appropriate knowledge. Likely to make for a bigger die off, that. Maybe those oldies who have a lot of skills and knowledge will be treasured if they adapt, who knows. I'm not convinced it will be a too nice world to live in, unless I can be really useful I think, on balance, I would prefer not to.
It's definitely good to have some real oldsters around, for their knowledge. After the Asian tsunami, it was feared that tribes of native peoples who lived on isolated islands in the area had been wiped out. But they suffered no losses at all. When they saw the water go out, they immediately ran to the high ground. And they didn't get caught like many others did, assuming the first wave was it, then getting caught by the second one. They knew to wait until the new boundary between land and water was settled. Their ancestral knowledge saved them.
Is there any chance that the imminent doom you are expressing is partly a holdover from the 'Nuclear Nightmares', of the 'diving under schooldesks' that so prominently characterised the 'background mental noise' of the 50's-70's? It's so easy to sit here and look at the potential of the sky-falling, and conclude that we'll simply be 'at each other's throats' as the sole, obvious result. I know we hope for the best, and are trying to steel ourselves for the 'worst', but please don't think that painting your picture of the worst makes it into the 'realistic' appraisal of things to come. We do have some relevant historical examples of how amazingly people have pulled together when things went to hell. (Depression, WWII, 9/11)
Said Grandfather to the boy; I have two wolves in me, doing battle. One fights for love, and the other for hate, and they are in a fight to the death.."
BOY: Grandfather, which one is going to win?
Grandfather: Whichever one I feed.
Reality is always in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder usually thinks their perception of it is mostly correct. I guess we will have to differ for now,I expect the USA to go through more hell in the next 10 to 15 years than it has at any time since the civil war.
So you can stop worrying about not having the internet or TV. Even heat and transportation will eventually transition to all-electric - though it will take a long time. But at some point we'll all plug our car into the grid at night and we'll do fine without gasoline. In the meantime, we'll figure out how to make cheap cars that get 100 mpg or more, so there will be some personal transportation for everyone. People will buy cheap electric space heaters to substitute for their oil heat. Life will not stop.
What we won't have for a while is a lot of the amenities of life that we're used to like transportation options that we now take for granted. So fewer and far more expensive air travel and sea travel options. During the transition to electric cars, we'll have less car traffic. But let's remember that peak oil does not mean no oil. So we'll still be able to buy gas and heating oil - but it will be a lot more expensive. So people will buy motor scooters as well as using bikes when they can. And the wealthy will keep driving cars as they always have.
The other thing we won't have is a robust economy. For quite a while - at least a decade, I would think, maybe longer - we will have enormous unemployment. That's the real problem kids need to understand. But there will be new job opportunities too - anything involved with producing and distributing electricity will be a good career. Also mining. Oil sands production. Railroading. Designing, selling, installing and servicing solar panels. There will be lots of good employment opportunities. Unfortunately, there will also be a lot more unemployed (and inappropriately trained) people looking for those opportunities who will never find them.
So I think we need a little balance in what we teach and what we "vision" for the future. Yes, it will be very tough. No, it is not the end of civilization or the world as we know it.
Switzerland is creating two flat electric rail North-South rail links between Germany & Italy with massive tunnel projects on both routes. Plans are for a maximum slope of 0.8% on teh rail line vs. trucking over the Alps. A 40 to 1 energy savings ? 2.5% electricity joules replacing 100% oil joules ?
I am "unimpressed" by battery operated electric cars as a solution. No significant energy savings, and significant impacts on grids and generation requirements.
Far better is grid operated electric Urban Rail. A 100 to 1 energy savings (or more) for light rail today vs. single occupancy SUVs, pickups & cars fro commutting. Urban rail changes the pattern of development into a more sustainable form, thereby reducing the demand for transportation.
Massive expansion of Urban Rail (subways, light rail, streetcars, commuter rail) will gain 100 to 1 efficiency gains WITH EXISTING TECHNOLOGY ! No "breakthroughs" required, only technology with a century of operating experience. And Urban Rail transforms Urban Land Use, reducing the demand for transportation.
Implementation ? Give me the highway building budget for a dozen years and the DC & SF experience after 1970 will be replicated in over a dozen cities (40% of commuters take rail to work, half a billion gallons saved/year NOT COUNTING CHANGED LAND USE). Get people to bicycle to the station and save even more.
BTW, as a neurologist have you seen an increase in numbers of brain pathologies (perhaps due to chemicals in our environment)? Lately I'm hearing about one person after the next succumbing to maladies of the brain. Is it a coincidence or is something bigger going on?
- uranium price follows an almost linear increase in price since 2001, at 40$ per pound (15/3/2006), near its all time high, inflation adjusted (which is worse than oil !)
- the waste is dangerous, very costly to handle
- the international underground work to maintain local markets and securing the transportation system is as "dirty" as what is necessary for oil and is far more secretive
to say only a few. I we would really like to switch to an electricity based economy, the amount of investment would be tremendous. France, with its faltering economy - one of the weakest in Europe - is for sure not able at all to achieve such a giant project.I am not sure I can really answer your question about the epidemiology of brain diseases. In my practice I think that brain tumors are a bit more frequent (especially lymphomas and gliobastomas) than 20 years ago. I'm also alarmed by a relatively high frequency of Creutzfeld Jacob disease in my area (a mostly rural one) but I have difficulties in comparing this to other regions because we don't have a national registry for this disease.
A lot of neurologists do believe that pesticides and fertilizers could be partly responsible for degenerative disease, especially parkinson's and alzheimer. We do observe an increased prevalence of these diseases but this is generally linked to improved diagnosis and ageing of the population. But a colleague of mine who works in another rural area has had the idea of comparing the frequency of farmers among our parkinson disease patients. I have done the same work and found that 36% (from 160) of my patients with parkinson's are farmers, while this is the case in only 21% (from 336) of my patients with alzheimer's. But bias for such observations is enormous and it is difficult to be affirmative about such uncontrolled statistics.
What really worries me, is that I have come to diagnose about 12 malnutrition syndromes in the past 2 year stemming from social misery, while I haven't seen one from 1990 to 2001.
Thank you for that most informative feedback on the French perspective.
We in the USA are constantly hearing from the pro-nuke crowd about how well France is doing with their all nuke energy program. You seem to be saying the exact opposite, namely, that the post oil (post Iraq) civilization in France is seeing increasing numbers of people slipping below the poverty line and increasing cases of malnourished people.
I suspect this is how the course of USA civilization will also slowly unravel. Now we are seeing more and more people without "medical insurance coverage". Soon we will see more and more families slipping into bankruptcy as they are unable to make enough to meet their debt loads. The governement has already conveniently destroyed the welfare system so the same people who dutifully paid taxes all these years will no longer have a "sefety net" to fall back on. Then doctors in the USA will start reporting on increased malnourishment cases in the USA. Unemployed youth will start rioting. The government will blame it on religious extremism. But the blonde haired ladies on MSM will still be smiling and delivering "Mission Accomplished" happy news to the rest of us.
The cost of recycling fuel is high in human inputs such as engineering and labor, but low in energy. And there should be a very steep learning curve with lower costs if more fuel is recycled. (One of the Bush proposals that I actually like is to recycle ALL of the trans-unranium elements and not just Plutonium. More fuel, harder to handle due to HIGH specific radioactivity. More difficult to make a useful bomb from such a mix).
France has played harder, and dirtier, games to secure uranium. Simply buying it from Canada and South Africa would be easier.
The TGV (and ICE et al) give the French a way to travel around the EU in reasonable time with only a few drops of lubricating oil. Trams systems are going into every French town on any size (say 200,000) that voted correctly, and existing lines are being expanded.
French agriculture BADLY overfertilizes due to the EU Common Agricultural Policy (also far too much pesticide for the same reason).
France has a decent hydroelectric system (~10% to 12% of electricity).
France has a weak economy and social problems. but these should not become much worse due to post-Peak Oil. France has built a buffer for itself already.
Everyone realises that everyone else* has gone through a lot, and we are in this together. Civic involvement is very common and people are actively looking for ways to help the city and each other.
* I do not have a local accent and strangers often ask to find out if I am "preKatrina" resident and not an out-of-town contractor.
I wonder if there is a correlation between age and Peak Oil belief? Are Peak Oilers a bunch of old farts who are past the best part of their lives, and are projecting onto the world their own sense of having hit their limits, with nothing before them but an inexorable decline?
Comparing PO, and a greener more personal future world, to that American empire state of mind is actually quite refreshing.
I couldn't live with myself as a parent if I hadn't tried to mould my children for the world they'll be facing. Laissez faire parenting is a complete abdication of responsibility IMO.
If the peak oil nutters were to get their way, we'd end up with a whole generation of kids memorizing dieoff.org, just like the kids in the madrassas memorizing the Koran. Sitting at their little tables all day, nodding and reciting like they have Parkinson's disease.
The bottom line is this: People predicting doom have a track record which is PISS-POOR. Sure, you may think you're right this time, but that's the same thing you said last time.
Should we have molded the children of the 1960s to face the inevitable starvation of the 1970s? Obviously not. Have a little humility. The future is a question mark, not a settled fact.
And when you meet them in the next life, if you do wind up in the same location, what will you say to them then?
Should we have prepared our children for those inevitable realities? Recall, mind you, that Paul Ehrlich was a Professor at Stanford who appeared regularly on the Tonight Show. Can't get more credible than that.
We should be preparing them to hook into a lunar-space-powered grid cause that is so obviously a realistic future to look forwared to and plan for.
Best,
Matt