The Oil Drum

In reality, we have been steadily moving towards a system of taxation that favors wealth over work.  The middle class has steadily been shrinking for many years.  We have moved into a mindset that consumption is the central goal of all our lives, and in the process have ended up augmenting our lifestyle based on going deeper and deeper into debt.  

I think it's a mistake to think of the United States as being somehow more exceptional than Europe or anywhere else.  We're different, certainly, but not necessarily better.  I doubt there is any significant difference in personality type based on people leaving Europe to come here.  You can use that sort of thinking to make almost any argument.  For example, you could just as easily say that "only those who couldn't cut it in Europe came to America."  It would have just as little validity to it.  

Europe right now is grappling with the opposite problem that we are.  Their society is designed to be more egalitarian, so that even those who are poor are better off.  For example, European poor can still go to the doctor, poor here don't have that luxury.  Now, the opposite side of that is that in ensuring stability and economic fairness, that their economies are a bit less fluid and able to quickly react.  Clearly they have problems, but they are also relatively overblown by the U.S. financial press.  

My point was essentially based on the delusional idea that 40% becomes 1% - not only won't it happen, it is not possible.

And yet, Americans believe it. There are a lot of beliefs which seem fairly unique to America, if only in part because no other society had the chance to live in such luxury that they could ignore the world around them for a generation or two. (And for those Americans who believe Europe is living in a dream world - sure, they are, in part because they also know very well what a nightmare world looks like too - they worked hard to achieve the dream.)

Sort of like saying global warming isn't true, because it is just raining for a week in DC - I should trademark something along such lines as 'Cold rain means no global warming' for the oil companies.  

I disagree about our leadership though.  I'm not liberal by any means, I'm for a small small national govt.  States should have a bit more power, but that's for another discussion.  People keep saying we did this before, so we'll rise to the occasion.  I think this is flat wrong.  We will do something about, albeit too late, but it can't FIX this problem.  It's easy to build crap and destroy even more crap with big metal bombs.  The people of those generations were used to sacrificing and dealt with rationing of common goods for the war effort.  Can you imagine that now?  

We are different people than just three decades ago.  We haven't faced a major crisis that required a national effort since WWII.  Vietnam, Korea, & the middle east conflict are NOT even close in national scope.  We transformed entire sectors of our economy into wartime mode.  We couldn't do that now and part of it has to due with the flight of all the equipment, plant & property we used to make these wartime machines.  

So much has changed especially the consuming public.  We consume like no one on this planet and we gloat on top of that.  Generally speaking we have transformed into a "me, now" culture and have little room for sacrifices.  Add on that our representatives do not represent us, rather corp america and what will motivate these people?  Personally I'm getting rid of any incumbant that I can, but the replacements don't look a whole lot better.  The business interests of this country do not jive with the personal needs of America.  However the average American will tell you different due to the success of the machine know as marketing.  

Not to mention Science is being repressed.  Does that sound like another time European history?  Science is being tarnished by this Administration and who knows what the next leader will have to say about this.  Most people are asleep at the wheel, the leaders are sleeping, and the few of us that are awake are screaming to slam on the brakes.  The only way out is reduce demand.  As a politician you will not get elected telling everyone to stop doing what they are doing.  

America has extremes which are pretty much unacceptable in a European context. And America has thrown away things which Europeans consider important to the long term.

And Europeans tend to want to keep what they have - what you see as social disorder (and which it is, at times) most people here see as standing up for their rights - and yes, they have a broader definition of 'rights' than being hired and fired as a privilege of participating in a free market where the rich are certainly getting richer, and the poor are to blame.

There are a number of ways of looking at the future, of course - personally, I prefer a place already living many of the suggestions Americans are still dimly aware of as a response to declining liquid fossil fuels. European societies existed long before fossil fuels, and they are likely to exist afterwards. The same is much harder to seriously suggest about the U.S.A.

Local agriculture, for example, is a social question, not a technological one. Technology is only a part of peak oil, though the one Americans tend to focus on it almost obsessively, either pro or con. How much farmland did the last couple of decades of suburban development cost the U.S.? And in a decade or two, do you think anyone will find that a good bargain - giving up farm fields for the hour commute to pay for the mortgage?

Europe has made different long term choices - we will see how they play out.

Thxs for responding.  Letting the collective market decide is exactly the method used by all past societies to suboptimally collapse into violence and mayhem; the typical Thermo-Gene Collision.  As mentioned before by me: Our Genes are not our friends.  Can we collectively outwit our instinctive impulses?  This is the true test of our vaunted intelligence.

Reg Morrison already has posited that GAS and other genetic drivers are already whittling away at our numbers.  Mother Nature has an insurmountable arsenal to rapidly decrease a plague specie.  No need to go into the details.

If we collectively are to be Smarter than Yeast then proactive mitigation must be driven worldwide to optimize our monumental numeric decline and retain some vestiges of civilization and other lifeforms.  Historians like Diamond, Price, and Tainter, and Geneticists like Reg Morrison, Dawkins, and Darwin strongly doubt our grey matter overcoming our ancient lizard brain.  I think we have no choice but to try our proactive best.

Of course, all my various hypothetical scenarios may not be the best answer-- I make no claim for any above average intelligence.  But I sure wish some true Einstein genius would propose a plan that the whole world would agree is the best grey-matter path forward.

At least lizards can lose their tails, then crudely consider their next option as the tail regrows.  Can Humans afford to lose their collective asses?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Not only do we flush fertilizer down the commode on a regular basis, but also we waste huge amounts of food and vegetable products.

There is research going on that may make it possible to extract NPK from sewage and animal wastes for recycling.  We also could do much better in recycling grey water to crops that are not destined to be consumed by humans, like switchgrass, tree plantations, soilseed and fiber plants, and even corn not intended for human consumption.

With some effort and known technologies, I believe that we could reduce the amount of chemical fertilizer usage by quite a bit.