Jeff,

Actually, I would not call it "delusional." You are right, for mental health purposes of the vast majority of people, it is better NOT to think about this.

I have the flexibilty of being able to move anywhere I want as I have enough for a plane ticket and a year of expenses, and I can maintain my current income stream from anywhere so long as BAU continues. So for me it is at least possible to take action although as you know from our private exchanges, it is damn hard to figure out what to do.

Most do not have this flexibility. They are stuck where they are. What good would it do for their brain to digest this stuff? They can't act on the info so they would probably have a mental breakdown if they thought the way I did.

If I was not fortunate enough to have this degree of flexibility in my personal life, my brain would probably find a way to delete or deny this out of existence for my own short-term good.

This is why I haven't sent my sister a copy of Crude Awakening. She's a 27 year old teacher in San Jose. What can she do, realistically speaking, to prepare for all this?

@ the hippies: yes, yes, I know. She could grow an urban garden and hold relocalization meetups! *realistically* that's not going to amount to jack squat in her current location. San Jose is not quite as bad as Los Angeles but I think a quick look at this pic will let you know why I think relocalization efforts in the big cities are pretty pointless:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/postoilbulletin/mapoflosangeles.html

Edit:

Here's a satellite image of san jose circa 1994. It's twice as bad now given the development spawned by the tech boom:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/San_jose_ca_199...

There's no point in even trying to seriously prepare in such a place.