Truly, defending the U.S. is not something I generally do, but Italy and its handling of natural gas shortages come to mind - having a prime minister go on the national networks he owns (or are government owned) to remind those who cook to put lids on their boiling pots is pretty absurd.

The U.S. as we currently know it is unlikely to survive a decade, in part because American society seems to have replaced reality with Hollywood.

I have no real idea of what follows the current society that exists in the U.S., except that it will likely be much more in touch with reality. However, my opinion is that change in attitude will out of necessity, and not voluntary. And there is a fair chance that it will look very unpleasant to people from other cultures. A sort of fanatic purification which returns the U.S. to its 'real' roots comes to mind, for example, cutting Americans off from the wider world we share.

Now, if only someone can figure out how to pry thousands of nuclear warheads out of the U.S. before it fractures. Trust me, there are other scenarios which I can imagine that would be nightmarish on a scale that makes the doomer discussions here look like a pleasant fall afternoon in the park.

Franz,

Your account is almost 2 years old, but that post suggests, to me at least, you haven't been reading here much.

AS a US citizen, I agree with your assessment - as many here do.

Hang around a bit and you might get some excellent dialog about how non-normal the US is from some well-informed wordsmiths ;).

Franz,

Gratuitous anti-American comments are the worst part of The Oil Drum.

Dave

I would also mention New Zealand. The Wellington central business district was out of power for several months in '04-05. I recently saw a story, albeit written by a Green, suggesting that a repeat was not too far away.

As for Europe, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria lost their Central Asian gas this winter. Who's next?

The usual round number I see for the population of "The West" is a billion people. The anglo-saxon countries total over 400 million of that. Forty percent, with the rest split a dozen ways, does not add up to an outlier.

Edited to add that a quick google for "italy power failure" is also instructive.

Franz;
At the level you're asking your question, you'll never get a realistic answer, but you'll at least get to do some fine finger-pointing.

Hollywood isn't America, first off. It's stuff that Americans buy, and as you remarked, clearly a lot of other folks buy it as well. It pretends to paint a fantasy picture of 'America', but there are a lot of people who aren't actually duped by this charade, and many of their consumptive actions are more a result of the system they've grown up within. You can't choose to get around town with a trolleycar if the Highway Lobby and the AutoCo's had them all ripped out half a century ago, after all.

Misunderstanding our country biased towards our prominent Squeaky-Wheels, Loudmouths and Yahoos is no surprise, of course, but your conclusion that 'Other western nations don't get this stuff..' is what drew my attention. England's energy status doesn't look an awful lot more secure than ours, does it, due no doubt to many of the same unsubtle demands of a persistently 'Short-term view' market-ideology and a glorious addiction to the black stuff. The 'Continent', meanwhile is at the end of a series of umbilicals going towards Russia, KSA and Africa, to name a few.

It seems to me that as particularly uncouth and gluttonous as the USA can be (and that's the part that always sells best on camera), that we are ALL 'soaking in it', and have to change a lot of our habitual ways of dealing with energy, and of stereotyping one another, if we want to find a way out of the maze.

Bob

Franz, you hit the nail on the head re the USA. Everyone should read "Dark Ages America" by Morris Berman. I just picked up a copy on a recommendation. Things are going to be tough everywhere when the oil and gas run out but Americans are going to be particularly nasty with our toxic level of extreme individualism, materialism, stupidity and religion. Read Berman's book if you aren't convinced. Get out now if you can.

... the fact that US society is, well ... retarded?

Fecundity and IQ are fairly strongly negatively correlated. What do you expect?

Mean IQ is arbitrarily set at 100. Since the lower a person's IQ the more childern they have, on average, the mean intelligence of the population inevitably declines. But since the mean is set at 100, an IQ of, say, 110 today is equivalent to ~90 a few generations ago. As population pressure mounts, environmental crises potentiate one another, and cheap fossil fuels are running out, we need all the intelligence we can muster. Unfortunately, intelligence, like petroleum, is becoming depleted.

Go Franz!

Let's list some developed ("Western") countries:

Canada
Australia
New Zealand
Japan
Germany
Italy
France
Spain
UK
Ireland
Hong Kong (part of China)
Singapore
Korea
Austria
Switzerland
Belguim
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Finland

Most of these have been handling their energy issues reasonably well for decades, via taxes on fuel and automobiles, focus on public transportation, maybe encouragement of nuclear power (France and Japan), and many other means. None of them have an SUV/freeway/McMansion problem, except perhaps Canada and Australia. None of them have the gaagaa debate in which the SUV/McMansion lifestyle is "non-negotiable." Most of them don't have talks about "electrifying" and "double tracking" rail (noble as they may be), as this was done about fifty years ago, and is as common as indoor plumbing.

The US is indeed the outlier.

Franz,

There is no normal except in a statistical sense of an average of all peoples.

Germany has opted for a massive solar build in spite of its geographic location so far north (very cost ineffective). Germany has opted for shutting down its nuclear power plants in spite of its location so far north.

Britain is looking at an electric power gap starting around 2018 and is going to build a bunch of offshore wind that is twice as expensive as onshore wind and way more expensive than nuclear.

Italy is a mess in lots of ways. The corruption for example.

I could go on and name more dumb policies by more governments. But my point is I see plenty of foolishness and stupidity everywhere I look. The difference with the US is it is wealthier, more powerful, more visible. So people like to take pot shots at it.

Franz,

I'm confused by your point really. What have you got against Americans? They virtually invented the electricity industry and all the groovy gadgets that work because of it, while the stupid Europeans whose scientists like Georg Ohm, Allessandro Volta and Andre Marie Ampere discovered electricity, were too culturally stuck to adopt a new way of thinking about energy and how to harness this wonderful natural phenomenon.

Without the efforts of American entrepeneurs like Edison, who did't just invent new technologies but worked hard to exploit their commercial use, we would not be here on TOD bagging the shit out of eachother. Give credit where it is due. I don't know where you are from or the circumstances of your life but the fact that you have access to American invented technology leads to me believe that you have probably personally benefited a great deal from the fossil fuel fiesta and the Americans who basically invented all the apparatus to exploit it.

Americans are a little different to the rest of the world. Hollywood simply exagerates a basic truth that I have learned about American culture. The entrepeneurial spirit of rugged individualism, basic freedoms to fail or succeed by your own wits, and an almost arrogant disregard for what anyone else thinks of you are the drivers behind Americas technological superiority that outshines the rest of the world by far.

I think sometimes that there is a great deal of smug satisfaction here to watch America fall both economically, politically and militarily. American power has not been all sweetness and light to be sure, and some of the excesses of American culture are quite vulgar and destructive. America will have to go through a cleansing of sorts to clear out this excess and energy decline is likely to be the trigger that causes this. But I would urge you to think seriously about the consequences of a seriously destabilised America before you hurl insults, despite your contradictory claims of not wishing to cause offence.