I loved hearing a grown man say, "Aww I was hoping that Nat Gas thing was a glimmering light". Hilarious.
Looking forward to the next book, Dimitry. I'm beginning my re-skilling and un-specialization already!
One thing that Mr. Greer (theArchdruid) points out is that in times of crisis, sovereign nations will sometimes pull lots of previously-unavailable levers to make sure the population is taken care of. Thus, he sort of dismisses the drastic collapse mentality. How much weight do you give to "slow but grinding collapse" vs "drastic collapse" ?
(Apologies if this is somewhat of a silly question)
O.T. but I am new to Gmail and was looking around and clicked on google documents and there were 2 of your presentations,energy elves and the Antipodes. Cool,thanks Dmitry.
My great metro area went without garbage/recycling/yard waste pick up for a week in 90+ degree weather this week. Ewwwww!!! I was shocked that people just kept piling up the same amount of crap rather than trying to cut down their garbage. Our whole neighborhood REEKS! Our personal garbage wasn't bad because we have a tight food recycling system so none goes out with the trash. Us/dog/chickens/worms. Nothing is wasted.
However, what I cannot imagine is what we will do when the infrastructure breaks down, and we lose the capability to get rid of our voluminous waste, how will we stand to live in our neighborhoods?
I thought we could take turns bicycling down to the transfer station (about 10 mi away--doable in small batches), but if we lose infrastructure, they will shut down the transfer station.
I can't imagine the majority of my neighbors learning to compost and reuse everything. I agree with Dmitry that in the first stage psychological break downs will be big.
I agree that in the cities 'trash' is going to be a real problem.
'Somewhere else' will still exist when municipal services fail, but getting stuff there will be the problem. Eventually, of course, what people have to throw out will diminish, and there will be more scavengers, and rats. (Currently I'm battling rats which are feeding on my and my neighbor's compost heaps in our back yards.)
When trash services fail in American cities they will take on much more the look of cities we see now in pictures of the 'third-world'. It's not going to be pretty.
I'm having a problem with connecting the 'Arab Spring' uprising to rising couscous prices. I thought the original spark was the fruit vendor in Tunisia immolating himself to protest all the regulations and bribery he had to endure to sell fruit on the street that started it all, not a bad wheat crop in Russia. So much to learn, but that's why I value this blog.
I often reflect on the post-energy scenario as projected by Dmitry and others, when I see a family pushing along a 'grobak', or two-wheeled cart in which they scavenge and resell, just making enough cash to survive. Mother and the kids are often sitting in the grobak as dad staggers along pulling it through traffic; when you see the two of them pulling and shoving a loaded cart up even a mild incline, you get a tiny insight into what it will take to get things about.
As for my mountain hideout in West Java, where everything is vertical (as one of Dmitry's countrymen recently discovered, when he went splat with a Sukhoi Superjet into the side of a volcano) I've been asking the old-timers how they got about, and got their produce down and town goods up, before the advent of motorized traffic. "Horses. Water buffalo. And we walked." Said to me in a tone of voice implying "What else could it be?"
7 comments:
Orlov @ 35 minutes or something.
I loved hearing a grown man say, "Aww I was hoping that Nat Gas thing was a glimmering light". Hilarious.
Looking forward to the next book, Dimitry. I'm beginning my re-skilling and un-specialization already!
One thing that Mr. Greer (theArchdruid) points out is that in times of crisis, sovereign nations will sometimes pull lots of previously-unavailable levers to make sure the population is taken care of. Thus, he sort of dismisses the drastic collapse mentality. How much weight do you give to "slow but grinding collapse" vs "drastic collapse" ?
(Apologies if this is somewhat of a silly question)
Dmitry's interview begins at about 34:30.
O.T. but I am new to Gmail and was looking around and clicked on google documents and there were 2 of your presentations,energy elves and the Antipodes.
Cool,thanks Dmitry.
My great metro area went without garbage/recycling/yard waste pick up for a week in 90+ degree weather this week. Ewwwww!!! I was shocked that people just kept piling up the same amount of crap rather than trying to cut down their garbage. Our whole neighborhood REEKS! Our personal garbage wasn't bad because we have a tight food recycling system so none goes out with the trash. Us/dog/chickens/worms. Nothing is wasted.
However, what I cannot imagine is what we will do when the infrastructure breaks down, and we lose the capability to get rid of our voluminous waste, how will we stand to live in our neighborhoods?
I thought we could take turns bicycling down to the transfer station (about 10 mi away--doable in small batches), but if we lose infrastructure, they will shut down the transfer station.
I can't imagine the majority of my neighbors learning to compost and reuse everything. I agree with Dmitry that in the first stage psychological break downs will be big.
Looking forward to the next book!
In reply to MnM:
I agree that in the cities 'trash' is going to be a real problem.
'Somewhere else' will still exist when municipal services fail, but getting stuff there will be the problem. Eventually, of course, what people have to throw out will diminish, and there will be more scavengers, and rats. (Currently I'm battling rats which are feeding on my and my neighbor's compost heaps in our back yards.)
When trash services fail in American cities they will take on much more the look of cities we see now in pictures of the 'third-world'. It's not going to be pretty.
I'm having a problem with connecting the 'Arab Spring' uprising to rising couscous prices. I thought the original spark was the fruit vendor in Tunisia immolating himself to protest all the regulations and bribery he had to endure to sell fruit on the street that started it all, not a bad wheat crop in Russia. So much to learn, but that's why I value this blog.
I often reflect on the post-energy scenario as projected by Dmitry and others, when I see a family pushing along a 'grobak', or two-wheeled cart in which they scavenge and resell, just making enough cash to survive. Mother and the kids are often sitting in the grobak as dad staggers along pulling it through traffic; when you see the two of them pulling and shoving a loaded cart up even a mild incline, you get a tiny insight into what it will take to get things about.
As for my mountain hideout in West Java, where everything is vertical (as one of Dmitry's countrymen recently discovered, when he went splat with a Sukhoi Superjet into the side of a volcano) I've been asking the old-timers how they got about, and got their produce down and town goods up, before the advent of motorized traffic. "Horses. Water buffalo. And we walked." Said to me in a tone of voice implying "What else could it be?"
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