Concern about global resource depletion, at least in certain circles, is generating individual hoarding behavior - I don't know how prevalent this is, the potential advantages it will ultimately confer, or any of the subtleties of the'must have' list. This brief Campfire essay is a (somewhat disjointed) exploration of the short term translation of financial capital into basic goods, from the perspective of long term timing and social trajectories. (I expect it will generate some good discussion, especially following Luis' piece on Sustainability)

The genesis for tonight's Campfire topic was an argument with a close friend a few weeks back, questioning the purpose/effectiveness of time spent blogging/speaking/educating about the various systemic errors embedded in conventional energy, economic and social thinking. Her question to me, before I left for a speech at U of Wisconsin, was unexpected:

"How can you be certain that all yours and others 'outreach' efforts will only result in slowing down our consumption paradigm just enough to allow for 20 or 30 more years of pulling in resources from the periphery, thereby unintentionally causing an ultimately greater ecological disaster than the one you are efforting to avoid?

I didn't have a quick answer to that one, though I have since puzzled out a rational response. Tonight's short essay then, is about unintended consequences, our human penchant to 'mess with things', and the benefits (or drawbacks) of wider education on our looming energy crisis.

Successful adaptation to issues surrounding resource depletion will require (at least) 1)the ability to think about the future, 2)the recognition that if nothing is done the future will be worse off than the present and 3)the ability to act now, while time and resources are still available to act. Many reading this site qualify for at least 2 of the above. My own sharing of discoveries, analysis and opinions about Peak Oil with friends, family and acquaintances over the past 5 years, has met with a wide disparity of reactions. There is a significant group of people that fall into the category of 'thanks, but I don't want to know anymore about this topic'. They don't often use those exact words, but might reply to an email about Cantarell decline rates with a picture of their son at baseball practice, e.g.

Tonight's Campfire relates to the spigot of information surrounding Peak Oil and Limits to Growth more broadly, etc. Are you happy you learned about the coming energy transition or do you long for the days of Peak Oil ignorance? If you could do a rewind would you want the Peak Oil information spigot fully open, a moderate flow, or a bare trickle?

This post is an open thread to discuss the implications of H1N1 (or future pandemics) on energy. Who knows how serious this flu strain will be, or the next one? What we do know is that 1) our current long run energy decisions are largely being based on the erroneous but comforting assumption that price is a valid signal of future scarcity, 2) we have 6.77 billion humans, about 50% which are connected daily through a complex just-in-time delivery system of basic needs and information, and 3) we have an economic marker system that has way overshot what it was attempting to mark. What then might happen to future energy supplies if either the perception, or the reality of a flu or other pandemic in the next few years sweeps the globe?