What do YOU want to preserve in the post-oil world?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by jeanneinsunland, Jun 27, 2005.

  1. jeanneinsunland

    jeanneinsunland Junior Member

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    My number-one choice:

    THE INTERNET!!!!!

    Whatever other parts of our civilisation must go by the wayside in order for us to survive, I really think we need to find a way to keep the internet going. Perhaps only using fossil fuels to make computers? Or could we figure out how to make them out of coconuts and potatoes a-la "Gilligans Island"?

    What gets your vote? (some obvious choices: books, libraries, museums, art in general, etc.)
     
  2. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    That's a hard question.

    Many computer components could probably be made out of plant polymers, although a fine line would have to be tread between being usable and being biodegradable.

    There are plastic solar panels, which require oil to make, so before the oil runs out (one way or another), we would have to find a substitute to make them FROM and the power to make them BY.

    Even though the price of oil is getting higher, the U.S. is making more and more out of plastic. Does this make sense? Not to me... It's kind of hard to believe that plastic didn't always exist. I grew up with glass shampoo bottles and waxed paper around sandwiches. Going back would be a hard thing for many people, esp the ones who have never known anything else.

    Everything requires power to make, and most of that power comes from oil. Most things are transported, and that transportation is powered by oil.

    Maybe I'm just a suspicious person, but I would bet that if oil left the equation (for whatever reason), the oil companies would be found to be holding a lot of patents that would be useful and profitable to them. I read some time ago that oil companies were buying patents for stuff that would be in direct competition with them, then sitting on them. I don't know if it's true, but it SOUNDS quite likely!

    It's an extremely complicated problem. Actually, it's kind of like an addiction, isn't it? The more you have, the harder it is to get off it.

    Um, this doesn't mean we have to go without CHOCOLATE, does it??? :cry:

    Sue
     
  3. jeanneinsunland

    jeanneinsunland Junior Member

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    Ah, yes, CHOCOLATE supply must be protected and preserved... good one!

    Anyone know if I can grow cocoa in southern California?
     
  4. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    Steel, glass and toilet paper.

    -Jonathan
     
  5. nobis77

    nobis77 Junior Member

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    I'm kinda partial to the infant mortality rate being what it is.
     
  6. jeanneinsunland

    jeanneinsunland Junior Member

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    If the birth rate goes down a whole lot, we can probably manage that!
     
  7. murray

    murray Junior Member

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    coffee.
     
  8. Meridian

    Meridian Junior Member

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    > coffee

    oh god yes!

    To be somewhat more realistic, we are not looking at a world without oil, what we are starting to see is a peak in oil production combined with an increased global demand. Oil production will eventually start to decrease, but we will never live in a world without oil, it will just become more and more expensive to extract smaller and smaller quantities. Barring a global crash of civilization or major world depression, supply and demand will dictate that prices go up and up until a reliable substitute is formulated at a cheaper price point than crude oil. However, you can bet there will be far more warfare in the world as countries such as the US and China fight for ever decreasing supplies of oil and natural gas. Who knows how bad that could get as such things have a habit of getting out of control very very fast.

    And you can bet that by that time climate change and the increasing cost of oil will have severly affected world wide crop levels leading to massive starvation and social unrest. I guess I don't have to remind people here that oil and natural gas are fundamental to modern agriculture; everything from transport to fertilizers and pesticides. Here's an an article that discusses this:

    The Oil We Eat
    https://www.harpers.org/TheOilWeEat.html
    "There is another energy matter to consider here, though. The grinding, milling, wetting, drying, and baking of a breakfast cereal requires about four calories of energy for every calorie of food energy it produces. A two-pound bag of breakfast cereal burns the energy of a half-gallon of gasoline in its making. All together the food-processing industry in the United States uses about ten calories of fossil-fuel energy for every calorie of food energy it produces."

    Maybe the movie Mad Max II will turn out to be more accurate than anyone could have thought?
     
  9. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    Right on!

    Why the U.S. needs a hundred kinds of breakfast cereal is beyond me.

    Another pet peeve is the sheer amount of JUNK that is made. I wonder if the junk will be the first to go or the last?

    Sue
     
  10. Tona

    Tona Junior Member

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    I bet junk will be the first to go --- and that people will continue to find more ways to repurpose junk, making art and other useful things out of it.

    I would like to see continuing investment in communication (including the Internet) and transportation, but with a focus on how to make these technologies greener. And I think we should continue to invest in certain high-tech medical technologies that could save lives or improve the quality of life for people who are sick or injured (this doesn't mean retaining the type of health care system that we have in the United States, for instance, but at least on keeping the most useful technologies).
     
  11. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    The sad thing is that we've GOT pretty good technology, but we aren't using it, because oil is so easy.

    Bio-diesel, methane gas from manure, solar -- all of these could be put to use better than they are.

    I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the U.S., they're still building housing tracts so the windows face the street. Why not use a tiny bit of brain material and orient them toward the sun (south, here), put on some eaves appropriate to the latitude, and collect some passive solar gain?

    Too dumb. Too lazy. Too greedy.

    Sue
     
  12. Tona

    Tona Junior Member

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    Yeah, I hear you --- it's frustrating that we're not implementing knowledge that we already have.

    I'd like to see public policy reworked so that there are financial incentives for construction companies and car companies to build green. There will always be some individuals (like most of the people on this list probably!) who will educate themselves to break out of the mold -- maybe convert their car to run on vegetable oil or design their home around permaculture principles -- and it's necessary to have innovators. But I think the majority of people will go with established convention because they don't have either the energy or desire to deliberately re-assess everything in their lives. ... so the key, I think, is to find ways to make it as easy and common-sense as possible for that majority to choose more sustainable practices.

    Recently two different families I know were talking about putting vinyl siding on their homes because they thought it would be so much more efficient. And I know people who have recently bought homes in covered-over-farmland subdivisions because that's the only housing option that seemed feasible to them. Clearly, the companies that are creating these options are not having to pay the bulk of the real costs of the goods they produce. (I may have gone a bit off-topic here; I guess I needed a rant!)
     
  13. mossbackfarm

    mossbackfarm Junior Member

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    Besides the coffee, I'm really going to miss washing machines. Doing it by hand does not sound fun...

    Rich
     
  14. Penny

    Penny Junior Member

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    Wine

    What about wine?
     
  15. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    I think wine can be made without oil. All you have to do is stomp the grapes with your feet. Delivery could be a problem, so you would just have to drink all of it yourself.

    :lol:

    Sue
     
  16. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Ok Rich, so what exactly will you be washing by hand when the washing machines are all gone anyway? I don't think we'll be getting t-shirts from Bangladesh for 50c anymore... Not only will we be washing our clothes by hand, we'll be MAKING them by hand!
    Here in HI we have plenty of coffee, but I think I would get over my addiction pretty quickly if I had to grind it by hand.
    Oh goodness... Does it even bear thinking about?
     
  17. mossbackfarm

    mossbackfarm Junior Member

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    Richard

    Heh, good point. But I suspect we'll get used to those handspuns smelling pretty funky after working all the time to grow all of our food.

    Rich
     
  18. Penny

    Penny Junior Member

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    Wine post oil

    Yeah, wine could be made without oil. So i reckon if I set up my 106 acres well I could produce my own and if I couldn't transport it i would have to drink it myself. Then I wouldn' care about the lack of oil!
     
  19. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    The wine from 106 acres of grapes could probably buy a bit of biodiesel from the guy down the road.

    We have the technology, just not the brains to use it.

    Sue
     
  20. Penny

    Penny Junior Member

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    Wine/ Oil

    Sue the comment was a bit light hearted . I agree with others that there is oil but at the moment because it is cheap it is wasted.It seems that humans do not value things unless it costs a lot, and do not realise that we do not own the earth we are only it's guardians and carers, we should pass it on to our children in a healthy state. here in Australia, the driest continent. governments are constantly trying to find ways of increasing water supplies. We have enough it is just that most is wasted, garden and lawn being the biggest waste. I only know one other person who grows any of their own food, but see lawn watered all the time. I think clean water is going to be as big ir bigger problem than oil in the future here
     

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