KMO welcomes Sally Erickson and Tim Bennett, makers of the movie WHAT A WAY TO GO: LIFE AT THE END OF EMPIRE to the C-Realm. Covered topics include the shift in consciousness that occurs when one seriously delves into the vulnerabilities of industrial society and the fallout that it can have on one's relationships and the direction of one's life. Fast collapse vs. slow decline, living with uncertainty, and communication without craziness round out the list of topics.

http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2009-12-16T08_54_34-08_00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbWGoPEN9l8

In spite of the music, the fast cutting, the hyperbolic over-dramatization ("It will be a Mad Max world"), this actually does present a pretty tight summary of the major implications of Peak Oil.

KMO reads from and responds to editorials from Michael Lynch and Charlotte Allen and then plays the conclusion of his recent conversation with James Howard Kunstler which also touches on those two editorials. Other topics include looking for villains, Y2K, and the outrageously elitist notion that some things are better than other things. Jim reminds us that life is tragic and that history does not care if we make bad choices. Stupidity will continue so long as circumstances allow it, and when circumstances change we will adopt new behaviors.

KMO welcomes Albert K. Bates back to the program, and they sit down together for a chat with Richard Heinberg, author of Peak Everything. Albert admits that he's finding it hard to maintain his "soft lander" status in the face of mounting evidence, and Richard talks about the themes in his new book, Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis. Later KMO plays a clip of post-interview banter with yoga instructor and musician Danny Paradise.

Music by Glöd.

Photos taken in DC yesterday by Albert K. Bates.





Peak Oil points to the first person who can name my interlocutor in the second photo.

http://www.convergenceonzero.org/

Sponsored by zaimoni

Another Peak Oil episode? Yes, indeed. KMO welcomes Gail the Actuary, editor of the TheOilDrum.com, to the C-Realm to discuss the divergent channels in the Peak Oil reality tunnel. Topics covered include Peak Oil-inspired social alienation, the preponderance of atheists in the Peak Oil community, the link between Peak Oil and the financial crisis, and the possibility that we've reached "Peak Humanity" and now teeter on the doorstep of the "Malthusian Correction." Hey, Google, this is a PODCAST about "PEAK OIL!"

Music by Neon Brown

A Few Thoughts on Religions and on Belief Systems by Gale the Actuary

Thanks to toucansanctuary for suggesting the interview with Gale and for making the initial approach.

I was supposed to interview Jan Lundberg yesterday, but a mathematical brain fart on my part scuttled those plans. I added 3 to 11 and came up with 13 (or 1 PM). We've rescheduled for this coming Saturday.

Jan recently coined (or so he thought) the phrase "Peak Money" for an essay in which he wrote,

The former supplies of cheaply produced, abundant energy played a major role in inflating wealth over the years. Thus, peak oil brought about peak wealth and peak money. It is no coincidence that we find ourselves at post-peak money and see lower oil prices attained through demand destruction.

At the end of his essay he included this footnote:

Note: before finalizing this posting, I decided to check whether "peak money" had already been used online. Voila, my friend Jim Kunstler had done so a month ago! I'd been thinking of peak money for a little while, but must confess I've been failing to check out the popular and fun Clusterfuck Nation column that Jim produces weekly. Check out "Peak Money" Nov. 12, 2007, and I'll do the same.

In the referenced post, Jim Kunstler writes:

Finance in the 200-odd-year-long industrial era evolved step-by-step with the steady incremental rise of available cheap energy. More to the point, the instruments associated with finance evolved in complexity with that rise in energy. It was only about two-hundred years ago, in fact, that circulating banknotes or paper currencies evolved out of much cruder certificates that were little more than IOUs.

I posted something to this journal in recent weeks (I don't remember exactly what or when) in which I said something about energy and the increased level of "complexity" it allows, and someone (I don't remember who) took me to task for making vacuous use of the term. If that was you, and if you're reading this, please re-state your objection here. I'd like to have it at the ready when I talk to folks like Jim Kunstler, Jan Lundberg, or Thomas Homer-Dixon about cheap and plentiful energy and its relationship to the level of societal "complexity." If you weren't the author of the comment I'm referencing but you have a beef with the use of the word "complexity" in the Jim Kunstler quote, please do speak up.

Also, I've recently started recording interviews with a service called TalkShoe. It allows for the kinds of multi-party conference calls at which Skype generally fails. The interview is scheduled for 2 pm Eastern. If any C-Realm listeners would like to join Jan and me on the call to provide "call in" listener questions, please contact me at kmo@c-realm.com.

"C" stands for consciousness

134: Zombie Apocalypse Christmas Special



KMO welcomes Neil Kramer back to the program to praise the films of George A. Romero and to judge those who carried on and/or ripped off his life's work. What does an animated flesh eating corpse symbolize? What can we learn about our fears and our beliefs concerning the people around us by pondering the shuffling corpses of 70's cinema and their fleet footed counter-parts in the 21st Century zeitgeist? All this and a quick trip Down Under to mash Mad Max into the mix.

More links to come, but for now here are five scientifically plausible scenarios leading to Zombie Apocalypse! http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-apocalypse-could-actually-happen.html

"C" stands for consciousness

131: Rocky Top



M. King Hubbert's peak is a perfect mathematical abstraction, and gliding over the top at speed might leave one with a giddy feeling of momentary weightlessness, but according to Albert K. Bates, the reality described by the mathematical object is more of a rocky mountaintop than a glassy smooth parabola, and moving over it's jagged topology won't (doesn't) feel much like gliding.

Read Albert's thoughts on bio-char or learn more about the upcoming permaculture design course in Belize.

The musical interlude in this episode features a track from Tibet2Timbuk2.

You can find the Michael Pollan for Agriculture Secretary petition here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/MPoll4Ag/petition.html

"C" stands for consciousness

127: The Cube Remains the Cube



KMO explores the middle ground between techno-utopianism and and Peak Oil collapse fetishism with Digital Crusader, Eric Boyd, who attended the recent Singularity Summit. The Michael Tsarion provides his perspective on the mechanisms of political power and the significance of the Obama electoral victory.

Micheal Tsarion: http://www.michaeltsarion.com/

Eric Boyd: http://xprizecars.com/



Eric recommended some essays that can be found on Marshall Brain's webpage: http://www.marshallbrain.com/

"C" stands for consciousness

126: Horticultural Consciousness



What is Thinkism? And what does it have in common with Peak Oil Doomerism? Was agriculture a good idea? What are the prosepects for giving it up? KMO discusses these and other burning questions with Toby Hemenway and Eric Boyd in this week's installment of the C-Realm Podcast.

Musical interlude by Tibet2Timbuk2: http://www.ethnosuperlounge.com/tibet2timbuk2/index.html

C-Realm Amazon Store: http://astore.amazon.com/crealm

Please, vote for the C-Realm Podcast in the Culture / Arts category at http://www.podcastawards.com .

You can hear Cody's McKenna/Kramer mash-up here:
http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com/entry/2008-10-28T10_35_25-07_00

"C" stands for consciousness

120: The Long Descent



KMO welcomes author and Archdruid, John Michael Greer, to the program to discuss his new book The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age and explore the possibility that Peak Oil may play out more like a fall down the stairs than like a plunge from a third floor balcony. Do the worldviews of Peak Oil aficionados, Singularitarians, and Trekkies all spring from the book of Revelations, and are modern visions concerning progress and the human future really just ancient religious myths in secular drag?

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

John Michael Greer made reference to Limits to Growth. I would recommend an episode of the Electric Politics podcast in which host George Kenny interviews Dr. Dennis Meadow, one of the three co-authors of Limits to Growth:

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2008/07/modeling_planetary_dynamics.html

I read portions of Rapture of the Nerds, Not by Steven Smithee and made reference to the upcoming Singularity Summit:

http://www.singularitysummit.com/

I'm hoping to get John Michael Greer on C-Realm in the near future. Here's a paragraph from a recent blog post of his that shows what I think he would bring to the program:

Look for proposals for responding to the crisis of industrial society these days and you’ll find that nearly all of them fall into three groups. First are those who want to organize a political movement to throw the current rascals out of office and put a new set of rascals in. Second are those who talk about building ecovillages in the countryside, to provide a postapocalyptic version of suburban living to today’s smart investors. Third are those who plan on holing up in a cabin in the mountains with guns and canned beans, and waiting until the rubble stops bouncing. I’ve argued elsewhere that none of these is a viable response to the future we’re most likely to face, but there’s another point worth noting: each of them is also something many people in today’s American middle class want to do anyway. Quite a few people nowadays think they ought to have more political power; an equally large number like to daydream about moving to a new exurban development far out in the countryside; and of course, the appeal of firearms collections and fantasies of self-reliance remains strong in an age that has problematized traditional images of masculinity. To a great extent, peak oil has simply become another excuse for the pursuit of activities, real or imagined, that many people find desirable for other reasons.

C-Realm Podcast

"C" stands for consciousness

111: Stop Digging



KMO welcomes Peak Shrink, Kathy McMahon of PeakOilBlues.com back to the program to talk about practical steps people can take to move in the direction of independence and preparedness. KMO also reads a passage about denial and social inertia from The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon.

26 things you can do to RIGHT NOW manage your anxiety

by Kathy McMahon

You can hear my 2007 conversation with Thomas Homer-Dixon here:

http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/player/web/2007-05-30T13_24_49-07_00

And my conversation with Michelle Espinosa here:

http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/player/web/2007-08-22T20_34_57-07_00

At the end of the episode, I mentioned that I had scripted something to read in place of my usual ad lib closing comments. ( Read more... )

Granted, I didn't post this to libertarianism, but I find it significant that the number two answer was "Yes, it would spell disaster for global corporate capitalism." One person said they wanted to see oil production peak because they hate humans, but not one person said they wouldn't want to see production peak because it would put an end to global corporate capitalism.

Anyway, this poll is long past it's expiration date. I'd like to replace it. I'd kinda like to do a singularity-minded poll, but I don't have any notion as to how to go about it. Any ideas?

"C" stands for consciousness

110: A Crash Course in Burning Bridges




KMO welcomes Zachary Nowak, author of Crash Course: Preparing for Peak Oil to the program to discus the utility calculus of preparing for tough times. Later KMO gets a head start on next week's interview with Peak Shrink, Kathy McMahon. Finally, Terence McKenna speaks across the years from the early 90's to share the good news about living in a world that's out of control.

In introducing Crash Course: Preparing for Peak Oil, I read an excerpt from a review by Frank Kaminski. You can find the full text of that review here:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45566

I know that a fair number of the people who listen to the C-Realm Podcast for the "mind-blowing" stuff scratch their heads and shrug at the amount of attention that I pay to peak oil, agriculture, and, increasingly, economics. Of course, the physical realities of living in a post-peak America is compelling as all get-out for those who take the time to think it through, but this is only a portion of what keeps me coming back to this topic. It's a lot like climate change (existential threat, or "the eugenics of our time?") in that, whatever position you're inclined to take, you can find people who obviously spend a lot more time thinking about this stuff than you do who have a dog and pony show complete with data and graphics to support whatever point of view best fits the totality of your pre-existing ideological commitments.

For example, two perspectives on Peak Oil. First up, theheretic explains why we're frakked!

http://community.livejournal.com/peak_oil/712074.html?style=mine#cutid1

We've seen protests and riots over fuel prices in Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the UK over the last few weeks. This is only the beginning of troubles. As the prices rise thanks to production falling, the blame game will continue, and further irrational public behavior will worsen. The public have resolutely refused to grasp that oil is ancient energy and it WILL run out. Right now, our leaders here in the USA point fingers to delay tactics, like offshore drilling, domestic discoveries (which would have already been exploited if they were remotely as big or easy as these non-geologists like to claim). ANWR? That's 45 DAYS of oil supply. That's it. If you saved it for US-only consumption, you can stretch it to around 6 months of oil supply. Better than nothing... only it takes 5 years to reach the marketplace. All those pipelines and wells and sideways drilling takes TIME, and by 5 years from now, the price of oil will be around $500/bbl. and something like $20/gal, well beyond the means of humble lower and middle class users to buy. Only the rich will be burning $500 oil.

On the other side of the coin:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/14695

In 1965, world oil production was 12 billion barrels. It may peak soon at 30 billion. Estimates project that in 2040, production will have slipped to 12 billion barrels—back to 1965 levels. To descend to that point would require a drop in consumption of 2.2% per year for 35 years. Can we do this? I think so. From 1973 to 1975, and again from 1979 to 1983, consumption fell by roughly this much per year. When prices fell, consumption rose again. For a glimpse of the future, note that when gasoline prices briefly spiked 30% due to Hurricane Katrina, US usage dropped 6% over two weeks. Saving 2.2% each year is well within reach.

I've exchanged a couple of emails with Toby Hemenway, the author of the second quote, and I may be getting together with him in tele-space in August to talk about the psychology of catastrophe fetishism. If you had him on the phone, are their any questions you'd like to put to him?

Someone over on the Peak Oil News & Message Boards transcribed large segments of my interview with NASA scientist, Dennis M. Bushnell. You can find it here:

http://www.peakoil.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=42186

I was scheduled to record an interview with Dmitry Orlov today, and we did speak for a bit, but Dmitry lives on a sailboat, and while he was below deck, the wind was still blowing against his cell phone mic. I'm sure you've had the experience of talking to someone who was outside in the wind. It's very distracting.

Dmitry closed the hatch on his boat, and that stopped the wind noise, but then it got unpleasantly hot inside the boat. Hardly ideal conditions for an interview, so we've re-scheduled. In the time we were talking, Dmitry did mention that an essay by Michael T. Klare called Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower has just been published in the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel.

Here's a sample:

From the end of World War II through the height of the Cold War, the U.S. claim to superpower status rested on a vast sea of oil. As long as most of our oil came from domestic sources and the price remained reasonably low, the American economy thrived and the annual cost of deploying vast armies abroad was relatively manageable. But that sea has been shrinking since the 1950s. Domestic oil production reached a peak in 1970 and has been in decline ever since -- with a growing dependency on imported oil as the result. When it came to reliance on imports, the United States crossed the 50% threshold in 1998 and now has passed 65%.

Though few fully realized it, this represented a significant erosion of sovereign independence even before the price of a barrel of crude soared above $110. By now, we are transferring such staggering sums yearly to foreign oil producers, who are using it to gobble up valuable American assets, that, whether we know it or not, we have essentially abandoned our claim to superpowerdom.

(...)

The managers of these (sovereign wealth) funds naturally insist that they have no intention of using their ownership of prime American properties to influence U.S. policy. In time, however, a transfer of economic power of this magnitude cannot help but translate into a transfer of political power as well.

Peak Oil heavy-hitter Matt Savinar weighs in:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic39346.html