Wake Me, Shake Me

Jim Kunstler is giving Saudi Arabia three weeks before it blows. Then $10 a gallon diesel fuel will end civilization as it is presently known. Peacenik says plant your garden now. And tune up your bicycle. Time for communities to get their acts together because working together is the only way to survive as we go forward into the...ah...future.

By James Howard Kunstler
on February 28, 2011 10:20 AM

A quickening of events pulses through lands where for so long time stood still, and the oil - what's left of it - lies locked for the moment beneath hot sands - woe upon all ye soccer moms! - while Colonel Gadhafi ponders the Mussolini option - that is, to be hoisted up a lamp-post on a high-C piano wire until his head bursts like a rotten pomegranate. Then the good folk of Libya can fight amongst themselves for the swag, loot, and ka-chingling oil revenues he left behind. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton scowls on the sidelines knowing how bad it would look if US marines actually hit the shores of Tripoli (and perhaps how fruitless it might turn out to be). And Italian grandmothers across the Mediterranean wonder why there's no gas to fire up the orecchiette con cime di rapa.

The fluxes of springtime run cruelly across the sands of Araby, clear into Persia where the ayatollahs' vizeers toy with uranium centrifuges and thirty million young people wonder how long they will allow bearded ignoramuses to tell them how to pull their pants on in the morning. Along about now, I wouldn't feel secure standing next to somebody lighting a cigarette in that part of the world.

Pretty soon we're going to find out just how fragile things are in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there at the heart of things oily. Last week, King Abdullah wobbled out of his intensive care unit to spread a little surplus cash around the surging population, but let's remember that their share of the oil "welfare" has been going down steadily in recent years - a simple matter of numbers really. Putting aside even the common folk, a thousand princes from dozens of different tribes pace restively in the background awaiting the struggle that must follow King Abdullah's overdue transmigration to the farther shore. All along the western coast of the Persian Gulf and down toward the Horn of Africa, dark forces stir. Fuses sputter in Kingdoms from Bahrain to the Yemen.

Read on...

Survival Challenge: Can a City Girl Live Off Wild Food For a Week in Portland?

From May 24 through May 30, local "Wild Girl" Becky Lerner will be eating an entirely wild diet as she forages from sidewalks, parks, wilderness areas and yards in Portland. There will be no dumpster diving or mooching off gardens -- Lerner will be surviving on wild edibles only.

"I'm interested in foraging as a way to connect with the land and explore a fundamental aspect of what it means to be human," Lerner said. "It's also a valuable survival skill: Should the trappings of modernity become unavailable to us one day, knowing how to find food without grocery stores or even farms will surely come in handy."

Lerner readily admits that her pesco-vegetarianism is in question. She will face the decision of whether to endure a vegetable fast -- or else eat insects, go fishing or even consider dining on roadkill.

Read on...

As everyone knows, Peacenik periodically goes into the wilderness to practice his mushroom identification skills and survival skills. Peacenik has even roasted hotdogs in a solar oven. Peacenik considers this experiment by Becky Lerner important. Everyone should have some survival skills for the coming collapse of society and the food chain. Would you eat insects? Would you eat grubs? Would you eat roadkill? Peacenik would. Have a good weekend.

Household Dry Food Cooking

Posted by Glenn on April 8, 2009 - 7:00pm

This is a guest essay by Craig Bergland. (A companion supplement to Household Dry Food Storage by J. Bradford)

As a frequent reader and infrequent poster to this wonderful site, I find that the Campfire series is one that I'm comfortable posting to. The recent Household Dry Food Storage article by Jason Bradford has prompted me to participate, as I do have some hands-on experience in building and using cute little solar toys, and other semi-practical devices.

A nice prime rib with horseradish is a wonderful thing as long as we can get it, but we know that it is more efficient to eat grains than beef. The EROEI on non-meat foods is far higher than farther up the foodchain. We also know they are healthier and clog our arteries less. Seeds can be stored long term with minimal preps. They can be ground and baked into flours (some say longer shelf-life when whole and living -- tho' old time bakers suggest aged flour is better). They can be soaked or cracked or flaked and cooked. They can be sprouted for greater bulk and superior nutritional content -- as sprouting changes the chemical composition and increases vitamins and mass. Some can be malted to make simple sugars for consumption, and for brewing beer and alcohol. A seed diet frees up resources for more food for more (hungry) people. 30 pounds of seeds carried into the boonies is going to last me a lot longer than 30 pounds of meat. And, importantly, they can be planted in your garden to replicate themselves. Indefinitely. Because of minimal prep requirements, and long storage, they are my preferred stash. Especially since they eliminate the need for freezers and other hi-energy appliances which may lack long-term sustainability. If you don't have the resources now for a solar powered freezer and batteries, etc., you can perhaps spend less current cash instead, and buy more food (seeds) for the buck. It all depends on how much money you have and how long you think we have before...it...happens. I'm unfortunately an Early Topper and think Mad Max is going to meet the Donner Party near-term, and for more reasons than just Peak Oil.

Read on...


Peacenik will be going back into the primitive wilderness tomorrow for the long weekend. Peacenik will again enjoy working on Peacenik's survival skills while living in an information vacuum. This post has lots of good information on solar cooking. Tomorrow Peacenik will cook a hotdog with nothing but solar energy and a crudely constructed solar oven made out of 50 feet of Reynolds tin foil. Peacenik will report back on Monday. Have a good holiday weekend.

The End of the Financial World as We Know It

By MICHAEL LEWIS and DAVID EINHORNPublished: January 3, 2009

AMERICANS enter the New Year in a strange new role: financial lunatics. We’ve been viewed by the wider world with mistrust and suspicion on other matters, but on the subject of money even our harshest critics have been inclined to believe that we knew what we were doing. They watched our investment bankers and emulated them: for a long time now half the planet’s college graduates seemed to want nothing more out of life than a job on Wall Street.

This is one reason the collapse of our financial system has inspired not merely a national but a global crisis of confidence. Good God, the world seems to be saying, if they don’t know what they are doing with money, who does?

Read on...

When the New York Times starts talking about the end of the financial world as we know it, it confirms the obvious. Yet many pundits and commentators continue to talk about "the bottom" and recovery, and the status quo, and business as usual. Peacenik wonders about the inflation/deflation debate. If Peacenik had any money what should Peacenik do? What should you do? The urge to ignore it all, and hope for the "muddling through" thesis to play out is great. But Peacenik thinks this is the end of globalization and capitalism. Peacenik thinks buying some seeds is a good idea. Can anyone protect themselves from hyper-inflation or deflation? Probaby not. But Peacenik recommends taking some small steps towards survival. Peacenik got a solar flashlight for xmas. Peacenik wishes everyone all the best for 2009.

"Personal Survival Skills: Life at the Twlight of Empire

By Michelle Fealk, Adriana Guillen, Colin Peacock, Sarah Rios, and two anonymous contributors

We are a small group of students with diverse backgrounds and life goals. We began this journey relatively uninformed about the impacts of peak oil and other end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios, and our opinions differ as to how accurate or biased those scenarios are. But we share a common interest in personal survival as the chance of civilization collapsing increases, and we wish to share our newly accumulated knowledge with others who are similarly concerned about their own futures.

This report is intended to serve as a guide along the path we have, thankfully, already trodden and worn down, along with several thousand scientists, conspiracy-theory crackpots, and average frustrated chumps as we have come up against a world in turmoil. Specifically, we face an ambiguous future in a world that grows increasingly dependent on oil even as global supplies fall.

Read on...

After yesterday's doomsday article by Ilargi Peacenik thought that Peacenik should offer up something useful and upbeat. A survival guide. Enjoy.

How do we deal with all of the financial distress?

Posted by Gail the Actuary on September 17, 2008 - 10:15am

The world's financial markets are in great turmoil. How do we deal with all of this? Let me tell you my view. Yours may differ.

For those of us who are peak oil aware, we know that the world is finite, so the period of continued compound growth cannot continue. Because of this, we have known that eventually we would start seeing turmoil in financial markets. It should be clear that putting our faith in these markets is crazy, even if this is what financial planners have told us to do. If we have already divorced ourselves from this faith, we are ahead of the game.

Looking at the situation from a historical perspective, we have been privileged to live in the world at a very unusual time--a time when oil was in abundance, and we were able to have conveniences that people a few generations ago wouldn't even have dreamed of. We know that this must come to an end, and that gradually we will get back to a world more like it has been over the millions of years that people have walked the earth.

Read on...

Peacenik thinks Gail the Actuary has some good advice in this post from the Oil Drum. The bottom line is that we still have to live our lives regardless of the economic circumstances. Peacenik is all in favour of a civil society, and helping neighbours and the less fortunate. Peacenik hopes that the financial doom and gloom will not be as bad as it seems it might be. Peacenik senses a bottom in the market might be near. Oh my god, Peacenik has turned into Larry Kudlow.