Sustainable Civilization

Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots Up Introduction - Sustainability Challenges

Our predominant industry, political, and personal paradigms developed in an era of cheap abundant energy, expanding population, and what seemed to be unlimited resources. We have gone forth and multiplied (well beyond sustainable numbers) and subdued (perhaps fatally) the Earth. The flow of stored energy needed to operate our infrastructure is ending. Belief in or dedication to a particular ideology may alter individual perceptions, but not physical facts. We need to re-think our civilization from the grass roots up, not bumble blindly on. We need to set aside the rigid mindset that separates and sees our infrastructure as distinct aspects of biological, structures and other engineering, and information and intellect. It all needs to work together with minimal loss of energy in such transformations as are necessary. There are many treatises with theories on how many people could live on the Earth based on some minimum life support per person. I propose though we ask also, what is the minimum for new healthy generations, maintaining community, and the benefits of an educated technical and developing civilization, with an eye toward providing the best living conditions per person and opportunities for continued advancement of civilization, while reducing our impact on such as remains  of nature. INTRODUCTION

As we enter a new millennium, human civilization faces numerous challenges. Much of our present infrastructure and processes are not sustainable. Much of what we do threatens not only us, but all life on the planet.

- Industry pollutes with enduring toxins that not only kill but alter our DNA. - Fission reactors provide power for a few decades, all the while “threatening” to release a

radioactive cloud, then require future generations guard against the dismantled parts for perhaps a hundred thousand years.

- We arguably divert one half of the renewable resources of the planet to human uses. - We use non-renewable resources in manners that destroy them. - The apparent abundance from hybrid crops is dependent on non-renewable resources and energy exponentially higher than the energy within the food.

- The farming and food infrastructure depletes the groundwater, mineral, and biological base essential for soil to grow healthy natural food. - Easy to mine metals and mineral resources are already "on the table". - The economy of many nations is based not on actual capability and production of the nation, but on borrowing and inflation of currency. Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine you are traveling on a multi-generation spacecraft, powered by energy radiated from a fusion reactor. You have only the biological diversity and resources put on board by the builders. Awhile back people found accumulations of long-stored complex molecular feedstock that work as convenient fuel, and can help certain crops grow more abundant. The burning strains the air recycling system, but people love the extra food, products and services it allows. The dramatic but obviously temporarily increase in the growth of food is met by expanded numbers until even these sources are strained, and continue to increase the population even in the face of facts that the food surplus cannot last the natural lifespan of the present population. It's where we are today. For the moment, our farms still grow sufficient food to feed everyone. But each new belly to fill, and each gallon of fertilizer and pesticide used, moves us closer to “peak food”. From that point on, the food infrastructure becomes less and less productive. Without reliable food, such veneer of civilization as holds back the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" could easily crumble. The world may appear large, but it is finite. We can calculate the available land, water, and other resources, and even our day to day allowance of incoming solar energy. We know the minimum calorie energy and nutrition required per person, and can calculate the area to grow food based on plant selection and growing conditions. We are facing not any government created arbitrary currency or policy limit to human achievement, but the factors of physical resources, and centrally available energy. With enough energy, resources can be reworked. Without it we may leave much of the Earth a high-tech desert. We can calculate the area required for solar energy to grow industrial materials and fuel, and the tradeoff in food area. We have calculated that we are already diverting to human use one-half of the productive life of the Earth. When you have estimated some basic footprint area per person, multiplying by 6 billion provides a sobering comparison to the available renewable resources of the Earth.

The concept of determining the "footprint", or area of naturally recycled resources required to provide for the uses of a person, city, nation, or the global population shows that in almost every defined area whether political or physical, we are beyond a sustainable population. Eliminate all human resource use that is not "life-support" for a fixed population, and you still find sustainability is at best questionable. The present infrastructure is producing food beyond that which is calculable for the sustainable input. In general, it would take several additional planets to provide for humanities present resource use rate.

How is this possible? How are we providing for 6+ billion people? Our infrastructure is dependent on the non-renewable withdrawal of the energy valued stored in fossil fuels. The timeframe when the first non-renewable yet essential input fails to meet demand is the lifespan of our present civilized infrastructure. Since the fossil fuel era really began, the global human population has increased six fold, now standing at more than six billion. We have a deadline and the clock is ticking. Business as usual is suicide. But those who see the problem and speak of it are maligned. Nevertheless those who can be awoken must be. To make the best decisions and implement the best courses of action we need the best minds at work. It will take time and significant effort to implement change. U.S. ECONOMIC ILLUSION

The admitted U.S. government debt as of September 2007 was $8.965 trillion, and rising. This number represents recognized debt, such as Treasury Bills, Savings Bonds, etc. Every year the amount is growing. But this huge number is just the tip of the iceberg.

In 2004 the trustees of Social Security and Medicare projected the current costs of promised payments to be around $74 trillion. Every year, the promises continue to grow, as does the "on the books" debt. Starting in 2008, the beginnings of the post WWII "baby boom" become eligible for their early Social Security payments. If/when these people, (who are among the highest tax paying workers) retire, federal tax income slumps, even as the promised payments balloon.

The federal government does not have the assets to make existing promised payments with “money” of real value, and politicians have no problem adding to the lies with further promised of money and benefits.

The government CANNOT provide guaranteed financial security. The government does not operate any for-profit business; it operates only by taking money from those who actually create profits, or by appearing to create "money" by inflating the currency, essentially stealing from anyone who holds the currency of the nation.

Remember, unlike a barter currency denominated in gold, grain, jugs of wine, or kilowatt hour of electricity, there is no inherent recognizable trade-good value to the U.S. dollar. The dollar only has value for so long as people believe it has. Although the dollar is used in trade between two willing parties, never forget that there is the third party of the government constantly manipulating the value of the dollar.

The economy, ANY economy, goes thru natural cycles of expansion and contraction, depending on the demographics of the population, resource changes, technological development, etc.

Even if there was unlimited and free fossil fuel to provide the energy to operate the economy, there is no apparent way that the U.S. could actually pay this debt in real value. The only apparent "out" for the government is inflation. This creation of money out of thin air DESTROYS the value of existing money.

There are nations that actually spend less then tax revenues. Of all the nations on the planet, the U.S. is THE WORST in deficit spending. We annually go into debt more than every other nation on the face of the planet combined.

Denying the situation, and actively making it worse, seems insane, unless you realize our politicians, and our news media, are fully aware of the situation, and the fact there is no sane way out. Stop the overspending, and the economy crashes now. Announce the promises won't be paid, and there is political fallout, and the economy crashes now. Keep churning out the promises, and MAYBE your term will end quietly, and someone else will have to account for the disaster.

It's the same with the "peak oil" situation. Those who run government and businesses appear determined to run full speed for as long as possible. They have been advised repeatedly of the problems we face. The rational conclusion is they do not see any solution from the top down.

SUSTAINABILITY AS A CONCEPT A Sustainable Civilization is one where the needs of the present can be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is one where there are feedback loops, physical and mental, personal, family, and societal which keep in check population growth and resource use. It is one where resources, physical and energy are “banked” as a safety net, and to allow concentrated large expenditures for improvement projects. Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor, on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assistd, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally? - Professor A.A. Bartlett

The time required for a society to make a planned transition to sustainability on its own terms, so it can live within the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, increases with increases in

i ) the size of its population

ii ) the rate of growth of its population

iii ) the society's average per-capita rate of consumption of new resources.

Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim. -Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

Sustainable civilization is not about integrating humanity into natural ecosystems. What we need to do regarding such of the natural world as remains, is to leave it alone. Sustainable civilization is about the human community as a distinct ecology. The word sustainable implies the ability to continue for an indefinite period. We should be considering the period in which we hope humans will inhabit the Earth, at least several thousand years or until we develop interstellar travel and can truly go elsewhere.

To put sustainable into an easier to comprehend timeframe consider, as did earlier occupants of this country, seven generations.

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations"

- From the Great Law of the Iroquois Nation

If we consider the range of child bearing years to be between the ages of 16 to 40, seven generations is somewhere between 96 and 280 years.

How much of infrastructure of present-day civilization has been in place for 200 or more years, can be powered or provide for, or otherwise be useful 200 years or more from now?

Fossils as old as half a million years show essentially physically present day human remains. Will humans, and human civilization, still be here in another half million years?

Despite stories of places such as Atlantis, the archeological record appears to show that as of the end of the last ice age human civilization was still at the hunter-gatherer level, with perhaps a total population of 37 million people. We have destroyed a great deal of the wilderness, and if we lose civilization and fall again to such a level, we can expect the sustainable population of humans to be significantly less than this.

In his work Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond shows that it was their physical environment, in particular crops and animals readily domesticated, rather than a biological difference in peoples which lead to the significant differences in development.

For a brief period, withdrawal from the energy account represented by oil has permitted humans to live in places, numbers, and manners that are otherwise not possible. We now face the real potential for collapse of civilization on a global scale, with much of the natural ecology already gone, and the remaining already overtaxed.

If we lose civilization, there is no known bank of energy to power rebuilding and continue to provide for a large population. We must understand the meaning and consequences of our demand and use of the resources of the world, what we can, and cannot do.

RESOURCE USE CONSIDERED

For all practical purposes, resources can be considered as renewable, or finite. Our resource use can also been seen as destructive or reusable.

Renewable resources (i.e. air, water, food, solar energy) cannot sustainably be used at a rate greater than renewal. Renewable resources can arguably be used to some extent in a "destructive" manner, such as boiling away water, or burning wood, where natural processes, or human technology such as a steam condenser can bring the resource back to a useful form.

Finite resources such as oil can "renewably" be used in non-destructive manners, such as feedstock for plastics or lubricants. But when these are destructively (i.e. burned) used for all practical purposes the resource is gone.

Groundwater is a prime renewable resource example. Groundwater is in essence a big, leaky rainbarrel. When it is pumped out faster than it is being refilled, the water table drops. Some groundwater is “fossil water”, in place since the last, or previous ice-age melt. Once used, it is gone forever, for all practical human purposes.

We drawn down our “bank account” of fossil fuels to propel our vehicles, and turn our generators. At some point, potentially much sooner than we like, any need for these trips, and our electrical power, will have to be met by another means:

- A renewable fuel - A non fuel burning transport - Relocate daily needs within walking distance - Power from other sources, reduced or eliminated demand

No aspect of civilization that must be sustained indefinitely could rationally be based on the destructive use of a non-renewable resource. (Our whole civilization suffers this insanity.)

HIDDEN RESOURCE DEPENDENCE FOSSIL ENERGY EMBEDDED IN FOOD

In peak oil discussions it is frequently presented that food production using hybrid / green revolution crops requires 10 calories of input (in the form of pesticides and fertilizers) for every calorie of food produced. The Columbia University "Vertical Farm" project raises this estimate to 20:1. (Transportation or cooking of the food NOT included in this estimate.) What does this translate to in real world terms?

In general, a human needs 2000 calories of energy per day. Although they are normally spelled the same, a food calorie is in fact 1,000 "heat" calories. Posit therefore that a gallon of gasoline contains 144,000 BTU, which equals around 36,000 food calories. If the peak oil commentators are right then to produce 2,000 calories of food requires the use of 20,000 calories of oil. (55% of a gallon)

For a projected U.S. population of 300 million, annually it is around 60 BILLION gallons, or between 15% and 20% of U.S. annual fossil fuel use as oil. At $2.92 per gallon almost $178 BILLION in oil just to produce our food.

As an example, if you eat commercially produced food, you daily meals represent a dependency on oil equal to a 30 mpg vehicle driving 16 miles.

Absent this un-sustainable input, the food production miracle of the green revolution crops, in use worldwide, and upon which the majority of the 6+ billion population depends, ends.

FRAMING THE PICTURE

The focus of this treatise is not intended to be on fossil fuel use, but we must acknowledge our present infrastructure is essentially dependent on energy from consumption of cheap, abundant oil.

When humanity started its 100+ year oil party most of the 1 billion or so individuals lived primarily in small, essentially self-sufficient communities.

Like spendthrift heirs, we have squandered most of the incredible resource oil represented not in long term improvements, but on devices, uses, and life support for an expanding population, which demands ever-faster destruction of the remaining stored energy.

Nations such as the United States, with a per person energy and resource use that is probably greater than that of any other definable group on the planet, rightfully deserve the "blame" of their increased throughput. But there is more to the story.

To those who consider the concept of long term sustainability, the challenges of the coming "peak oil", and the realization of how dependent we are on the destruction of non-renewable resources…

You have the choice offered by Morpheus, in "The Matrix":

Take the blue pill, wake up and believe whatever you like, or:

Take the red pill, but "… you may not like how deep the rabbit hole goes…"

To achieve sustainability is going to present large challenges, and you may not like what is necessary. But first and foremost, think.

"Sustainability" must become part of every decision. It's not that driving a gas-guzzling vehicle is "wrong". It's a waste of a finite resource, yes, but it's the personal decision of the driver.

The "problem" comes when the same destruction of a finite resource is the sole means to provide an essential aspect of life, society, or civilization, where the need is known to be long-term and far outlasting the finite resource.

The fossil energy embedded in food shows that the peak in oil availability is a concern not only for those who drive a huge SUV, but everyone dependent on green-revolution crops. This scientific miracle, feeding an expanding population, has been a spiraling short-sighted mistake. We do not need to reach the point where we are “out” of oil, for significant problems to arise.

Whether you are picking garden plants, planning for your healthcare, deciding on your vote for Propositions or politicians, LOOK TO THE LONG TERM, or if not acknowledge you don't care about your children's future.

Essentially the entire global socio-economic-industrial system, all of the jobs, and the government tax revenue dependent on such, evolved and developed under a paradigm of continued growth in population, expanding food supply, and in particular expanding energy supplies. As fossil fuels are depleted, this all stops.

All of the fossil fuel powered machines, stop.

All of the crops dependent on fossil fuel derived pesticides and fertilizers, stop.

The businesses, and tax revenues, stop.

The government programs, stop.

The federal government will have difficulty keeping national defense in operation, let alone having any useful funding for anything else. Yes, the federal government can pay out any amount it likes:

It can print money.

It can go into debt:

For money that it eventually, somehow, repays (not likely), or;

It can go into debt for money it never intends to repay.

Expanding "money" in these manners is a source of inflation.

Expanding demand though, whether per person, or in the number of people, is a source of "actual" price increases.

Do NOT believe that any federally funded program is "sustainable".

The situation with the government of a state is further limited. The state cannot print money, it can only hold a gun to the head of the state residents and demand a percentage of the value the residents have produced. It is the same the rest of the way down the government chain.

We are entering a new paradigm, which requires essentially a steady-state population.

Life support, clean air, safe water, and nutritious food, must again be local.

Resources and energy must be accumulated, and used and invested wisely.

The economy, at least whatever aspects you rely on, must be local.

If the excesses in production end, so do the excessive tax revenue that funds growing programs. Are we going to have a society of free individuals working together voluntarily, or a complete take over by governments controlling every aspect of life? Virtually anything in-between is an inherent conflict.

If you believe that business as usual can continue, whether for individuals, private sector businesses, or the government, ask yourself how?

PEAK OIL

"Peak Oil", which is the point where the wells simply cannot be pumped as fast as demand, may soon be reached. Some say it already has. Sometime before exhaustion, as wells dry up, oil will no longer be cheap, or abundant, and the present infrastructure will have to be progressively shut down.

There are those who advocate a position that notwithstanding historical or present use of oil, that with technology we can eliminate our dependence on oil, yet continue to operate our highly fuel dependent economy and infrastructure.

And the information on remaining supplies is not necessarily reliable. In early 2006, Kuwait announced it had mis-represented its remaining supply of oil to be twice the true amount.

In late 2006 Mexico announced that its giant Cantrell oil field which at its peak produced around 730 million barrels per year has fallen to 650 million with progressive decline expected. This one field represents 2% of the world capacity.

CO2 & GLOBAL WARMING

Whether you believe the global temperature is rising, or that human activity is a cause, the CO2 level in the atmosphere is increasing. Glaciers and the polar ice caps are melting.

For relevant background, one gallon of gasoline weighs about 6.25 pounds. When burned the hydrocarbons combine with oxygen from the air. The result per gallon is exhaust with a CO2 aspect of 19.3 pounds and around 8 pounds (1 gallon in liquid form) of water vapor, both greenhouse gases which would not naturally have been in the atmosphere. You also get carbon monoxide and other nasty stuff.

Every gallon of gasoline burned releases CO2 equal to nine people breathing a full day. (Est. at 2.2 pounds of CO2 per person per day.) To use plants to remove the CO2, for each gallon of gasoline burned you would need to use organic methods to grow around 1/2 acre of lush vegetation, gather it all, and seal it away "forever" such that it is never eaten or rotted.

If the peak oil and fossil fuel depletion folks are anywhere near right, within a decade rising demand (i.e. China at around 14% per year) and falling supply (i.e. the losses in the Cantrell field in Mexico) WILL, absent a scientific miracle, prompt a return to "King Coal" and the associated greater pollution, and the short term benefit (long term danger) of fission reactors. This allows a short-term continuation of the status quo, followed by collapse if we've not used the time and resources to shift to a sustainable infrastructure and balanced population.

If the global warming sentinels such as Vice President Gore are correct, if we continue fossil fuel use, our "best case " scenario could be the global warming presented in his book and movie "An Inconvenient Truth", with the same need for a sustainable infrastructure and balanced population, but with an ecosphere more polluted and with lessened life-support capability. Making even morning television news in 2007 is the melting of the Greenland ice cover. Observations are that as it melts it develops crevices, tunnels and faults through which the melted water seeps to the buried surface, making a slick between the glaciers and the rock holding it up. This scenario potentially allows, when the applicable “tipping point” is reached, for the mountain of ice to slide toward the sea in a relatively short period of time. The Greenland glaciers contain enough water to raise sea level twenty feet, or seven meters. This challenges coastal communities worldwide. While the fastest slide would allow populations to walk away from the coast, constructed and food infrastructure would have to be rebuilt on higher ground. The changes on current flow in the Atlantic, and weather patterns, can only be guessed at. Loss of the weight of the ice could cause the land mass of Greenland to be pushed up, leading to seismic events and further distortion of the land/sea area ratio. A US Navy survey suggests that Arctic polar ice will be gone by 2016. What are your thoughts and plans if this means the Greenland ice melts around the same timeframe? Whether voluntarily now, or from exhaustion a few more polluted decades from now, the central theme is the end of the fossil fuel era, and all of infrastructure and aspects of civilization that are dependent on such.

ARE YOU PREPARED ?

CONSERVATION

Minor conservation efforts such as driving a hybrid (I drive a Prius) may reduce your personal costs and allow you to divert the savings for greater personal changes, but they have virtually NO significance in the overall picture.

The oil I don't burn is bought and used by someone else, perhaps as farm chemicals. Virtually nothing we do today has any meaning if your goal is our children living as adults in a world still powered by oil.

In a manner of speaking, we are living in a theme park, what we experience as our life support infrastructure is no more real for the long-term than the experiences of an amusement park visit. No fossil fuel use is sustainable. No function based on such is sustainable. No economy based on fossil fuels is sustainable. No government program based on the economy of a fossil fueled society is sustainable.

Conservation does not remove the conundrum of embedded fossil fuels in our food, without which the industrial food infrastructure that feeds the present population fails.

In the big picture, we need to end all dependence on non-sustainable factors, STARTING with fossil fuels. As an example, if this country gets cut-off from foreign oil, in a matter of weeks virtually everything we see and experience as modern society will shut down. Is your personal "life support" and "security" arrangements ready for this?

No conservation measure for oil is going to make anything "better" unless it is linked to a program to end our addiction in the time the conservation programs allows. Absent such a link, conservation that merely provides "more of the same" prompts a larger and more dependent population, and portends a greater "hangover" to our oil party.

Unless you are, as Heinberg comments, "Waiting for the magic elixir", your children need to understand the scope of the situation and know how to obtain the essentials of life in a sustainable manner, and how to avoid the worst of the collapse that he and other peak oil advocates present.

Even if global population was in decline, draconian conservation methods may not allow for remaining fossil fuel use to continue long enough for global population to lower to sustainable levels. The transition period to a post oil paradigm promises to be an unpleasant, dangerous time, during which individual survival may be difficult, and with a significant risk that civilization itself may be lost.

Fossil fuels represent an essentially nonrenewable resource of untold millions of year’s accumulation of energy, which our use destroys in a comparative blink of the eye.. In the manner we use much of it, we destroy other aspects of the environment. Burning it for energy is silly, but at least when we are forced to stop, the impact is not directly life threatening. Perhaps our greatest insanity is our use of fossil fuels as fertilizer, pesticides, and powering machines to greatly expand food production, and the population that has grown far beyond levels that can be sustained in an environmentally favorable manner on renewable resources.

POPULATION STABILITY CENTRAL SUSTAINABILITY ISSUE

The problem with peak oil is not gas guzzling SUVs, diesels or two stroke engines spewing fumes, or the energy embedded in our food.

It's what we can do, what we have, and what can be sustained absent non-renewable resources. To those newly arrived to the concept of peak oil, and the realization of how dependent we are on the destruction of non-renewable resources…

There are roughly as many humans alive now as existed cumulatively throughout all of recorded history prior to the industrial revolution. That means that a large proportion of all the geniuses - and monsters - who have ever lived are alive today. Most of the modern infrastructure has been constructed in a single lifetime, and was not designed or engineered to last.

In the big picture, the world is NOT going to sustain 6+ billion people absent the green revolution crops (dependent on fossil fuel derived fertilizers and pesticides), the engines and machines that pump the groundwater (beyond renewal rate), plow the fields, process the food, etc.

No matter how bad we may think things could become, we must keep our heads, and teach our children to do the same. Hopefully, we will not reach a point where our government intrudes on family decisions. But short of affirmative limits being imposed, we can at least "lobby" for elimination of misguided incentive to expansion.

Communities can slow their population growth by removing the many visible and hidden public subsidies that support and encourage growth. The Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968) makes it clear that there will always be large opposition to programs of making population growth pay for itself... Those who profit from growth will use their considerable resources to convince the community that the community should pay the costs of growth. In our communities, making growth pay for itself could be a major tool to use in stopping the population growth...

But if you have done the right thing and turned your community into a permaculture paradise, there is still the question of how to you prevent your community from being overrun?

SCOPE OF THE OIL SITUATION UNITED STATES EXAMPLED

For the moment the U.S. is the largest single nation oil consumer, with the highest average per person oil use. Let's look at the basic oil facts for the United States to try and start to put the situation in perspective.

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that in 2004 the continental U.S. remaining traditional oil supply was somewhat less than 22 billion barrels (BBL). The widely debated (whether to drill or not) Alaskan wilderness fields represent probably another 10 BBL. DOE also estimates that U.S. 2004 use was 7.5 BBL (elsewhere estimated at 10 BBL/Year). Where do you imagine we could possibly get annual energy income from renewable resources equal to the fuel equivalent of 10 billion barrels of oil?

The remaining domestic fossil fuel bank account represents less than 3 years of present demand, but of course the remaining wells CANNOT be pumped fast enough to meet that demand. U.S. defense use is (2005) was estimated at around 123 million barrels per year (1% to 2% of total U.S. use), with 72% of such being in the form of jet fuel. The 2006 “Annual Energy Management Report” indicated the Pentagon used 116,800,000 barrels of petroleum, which is 1.1% of U.S. annual use.

If we just had to keep our military machines in operation, our (2006) remaining internal supplies could meet current military fuel needs for well over 100 years, but the supplies CANNOT operate any significant portion of the economy, including weapons construction, or even current food.

DOE indicates the U.S. only pumps 8% of our own use. Emergency measures might increase the pumping rate significantly, but it is doubtful it could even reach 50% of present use.

U.S. TIMELINE - WORST CASE

Posit that there is a 10 day supply of oil and fuels "in the pipeline" at any given time. Oil production (pumping rate) in the U.S. passed peak production in the early 1970’s, and has been in decline since then. If the U.S. gets cut off from foreign fuel supplies, in 10 days the commercial supply drops to about 8% of expected demand. With a slow decline we might have something like that for perhaps 20 years final exhaustion.

Food alone may represent 20%+ of the U.S. annual use. In a United States cut off from foreign oil, using present industrial farming, we might be able to feed 40% of the current population, which would preclude any internal use of oil to expand domestic production, or rework infrastructure for a solar economy. The U.S. is reported to have 4% of the remaining global supply. This puts the global supply at around 800 BBL.

We need to act to eliminate this dependency before an emergency is upon us. GLOBAL DEPLETION

Recent (2004) global oil use approached 30 billion barrels (BBL) per year. 800/30 = 26 years (2030). Using more optimistic estimates of remaining useable supply, at recent consumption rates global oil supplies still may be exhausted before 2040. Even if you completely eliminated the U.S., the time for global depletion is only delayed by around 30%.

But of course, demand is not stable. In fact it rises every year. Perhaps the most significant factor is the expanding use in China. In 2004 China burned around 2.4 BBL, or about 8% of the annual global use. This was a 14% increase from 2003.

If every other nation on the Earth held their use to 2004 levels, and China increased yearly at their recent rates, depletion would occur around 2024. But long before depletion, we encounter the challenge of demand exceeding pumping rate.

FOSSIL FUEL VALUE IN PERSPECTIVE

When demand exceeds possible supply, expect prices to rise. A price / work comparison of oil in terms of human labor, perhaps pointless, but nevertheless presented: A human can work at around 75 watt per hour (256 BTU). In the U.S., minimum wage is something like $5.25 per hour. A gallon of fuel may be able to do 144,000 BTU of work, or around 562 hours of human labor.

At the U.S. minimum wage each gallon is doing the "work" of over $3,000 worth of human labor. Oil has annually provided in recent years energy to power civilization that is roughly equal to the dedicated labor of 250 billion slaves, who do not have to be feed, provided clothing, shelter, medical care, days off, etc.

Conversely, one hour of human labor (75 watthour) not enhanced by a need for a functioning mind, is worth the same as about 3/10 of one ounce of gasoline. At say $3.00 per gallon, one hour of such mindless human labor would be worth just over ½ cent. In electrical terms at 8 cents per kwh a hour of mindless human labor is “worth” 6/10 cent. There may be up to 1,200 billion barrels of oil left that can be usefully obtained. 1,200 billion barrels of oil is difficult to envision, but at this time it is what the infrastructure of present day civilization is dependent upon. To put this "best case" quantify of oil in perspective, how much would it be if it were already pumped out, and divided equally among everyone on the planet? Your personal "best case" share, upon which you are betting the future of your children, grandchildren,, etc. would be around 7,600 gallons. Do you want your future dependent on the quantity of oil that fills an above ground swimming pool 5' deep and 16' in diameter? BIG PICTURE BEST CASE TIMELINE

The known available & remaining "fossil" alternatives, if energy is not used at any rate greater than 2005, put humanity in a timeframe that is essentially:

2030  - 	Pick you own year for effective depletion of traditional oil. +5 -	Time gained from tar sands +22 - 	Time gained from shale oil +20 -   Time gained from coal to oil +30 -	Time gained from easy uranium 2107 -	Most optimistic “fossil” options end

The author believes the above timeline is far too optimistic, but it can at least be argued using known data, and assuming no increase in demand, no increase in population, and global peace is enforced. At the end of course, the population must somehow plummet.

2006 - 	Global population around 6.6 Billion.

It can be argued that a sustainable global population can not exceed 1.2 billion, essentially what it was before the oil party started. Population demographics are such that if a one child per couple guideline was rigorously followed, we might expect natural attrition to lower the population to 1.2 billion by 2087. The real-world situation of course is that overall the population continues to grow. Despite the "bad press" absent immigration and pro-population growth government programs, the population in the United States would be stable or maybe in a slow decline, EXACTLY WHAT IS REQUIRED.

In contract China requires a new city the size of Philadelphia EVERY 30 DAYS.

ELIMINATE FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCY

Whether to avoid global warming, or due to effective depletion of fossil fuels, we will be forced to stop burning such. Look at what DOES NOT work without fossil fuels, or the ongoing input of fossil fuel derived molecules (such as pesticides and fertilizers), and start your own steps toward sustainability. The present global civilization evolved in a paradigm of continued growth in population and energy use, neither of which is logically sustainable. We need to look at what is needed for a sustainable civilization, starting our picture from the grass roots up.

If you want to influence a country’s intellectual trend, the first step is to bring order to your own ideas and integrate them into a consistent case, to the best of your knowledge and ability. Required is honesty, knowing what you do not know, constantly expanding your knowledge, and NEVER evading or failing to correct a contradiction. This means development of an active mind as a permanent attribute. -Ayn Rand

PREPARATION

The more people who are aware and prepared in any emergency situation, the better the opportunity to reduce the overall impact and panic. Startled and frightened and/or angered and vengeful individuals will not be thinking clearly and acting rationally.

The problem is not availability of information but a refusal to see it. Not an overall lack of mental ability, but a refusal to think.

Each of us must shortly choose a new path, or we will be forced into one. Do you want to survive? Do you know what it takes to sustain yourself in a limited resource environment? A little knowledge, and a lot of enthusiasm, can go a long way.

Photosynthesizers are the basic energy source for any ecosystem, which is a complex web of living and non-living factors. These webs are not fixed, like parts of a machine, but the do eventually develop relative stable ranges of numbers of each member of the system. Despite our relative isolation in homes, and cities, humans must nevertheless be seen as PART of an ecosystem.

We need to recycle biomaterials, grow a diverse mix of crops in a multitude of micro environments, with hand cultivation to minimize soil disruption, with an aim to establishing a stable ecosystem.

Where are YOU going?

We can ignore depletion, and continue as we are, have good times until the fossil fuel era ends, and face whatever disaster is presented.

We can personally conserve, but if we do not build for the post oil paradigm, we miss out on the good times until the fossil fuel era ends, and face whatever disaster is presented.

We can personally conserve, and use "excess" resources to take advantage of the remaining time, cheap energy and materials, to step past the collapse, into the post oil paradigm. For the present, it is still possible to "click", or make a phone call, and have services or supplies delivered. After the crash becomes widely apparent, it will probably be too late for individuals to afford significant preparations.

When do you need to act? Back in January 2004, Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes, of Princeton University, jokingly predicted we would reach the half-way point for the remaining oil supply on November 24, 2005 (Thanksgiving Day). Using best available data, after the fact he has corrected himself. He calculates that we passed the half-way point on December 16, 2005.

We need to effectively and efficiently network and focus our distributed capabilities and resources to maximize all of our transition to a sustainable paradigm.

In the collapse of previous complex societies, when they were geographically isolated, individuals survived by dispersing into the wilderness, and foraging. There was however, always "civilization" elsewhere on the Earth. The collapse we face will essentially occur simultaneously worldwide.

There is not sufficient "wilderness" left between complex centers in which the present population could disperse. Clive Ponting, in "A Green History of the World" writes that a human population of around four million, achieved about 10,000 years ago, may be the maximum supportable by a hunter gatherer society, and that in the abundant wild of the time.

By around 1800, the limits of local, self-sufficient agriculture and fertile land were essentially reached, with a global population of less than 1 billion. Since that time, we have used, and abandoned many marginal farming areas, and in our chemical applications and one-way nutrient flow denigrated what might have otherwise been fertile fields.

In that a hunter forager lifestyle, or even a return to animal powered and manured agriculture requires a GREATER area per person, they appears to be a guaranteed method to a large population dieoff, and perhaps a death-knell for the remaining wilderness.

EPIPHANY - SURVIVALISM IS DEAD END THINKING

My initial reaction nearly a decade ago to awakening to more detail of our oil dependency was survivalist, with plans for a remote retreat. We purchased a little over 40 acres of remote desert land, and started putting in the necessary support for a remote homestead, essentially a survivalist retreat. It had been part of a cattle ranch, and came with and old windmill, water tanks, fencing, etc. as part of the old operation.

The area received more than 12" of rainfall per year, and had plenty of underground water not very deep. It also had plenty of mesquite trees, cactus, jackrabbits, coyote and snakes.  From our highest hill, I could see the three plus miles to the nearest paved surface.  In effect, I has hoping that I could run and hide, hoping that someone else would "do something" to take care of the problem.

On a summer afternoon I was there alone investigating the property. Climbing one of our hills, at the top, my chest hurt. I reached for the cell phone to call for help, and had my epiphany.

Even if I dialed 911, and an ambulance was dispatched immediately, the coyotes could be munching on my remains long before an ambulance could travel the nearly 30 miles of paved road, then 6 miles of winding dirt to my location.

Survivalist bunkers, or disbursing the population precludes the interaction among people essential to maintain specialized technical skills and knowledge.

Hiding may still be the best survival step, but in the bigger picture, it's a dead end. We needed a different, and hopefully better "Plan A" than an isolated bunker.

Even if there is some well hidden "Galt's Gulch" retreat for the wealthy and powerful, there are limits as to what can be achieved in a small community. Giver the highly interactive nature of current civilization, the physical limits are not however immediately self-evident.

Even basic information on physical needs was not readily available in a manner relevant to building or reworking for sustainable community. Survival is an inherent aspect of ongoing life, but this treatise is not "survivalist" in nature.

PRESERVE A STABLE FOUNDATION

If you start immediately, while resources are still abundant, you may be able to create security for self, family, and community during the crash. Hopefully you can initiate or associate with a community structured to function in the new paradigm. It will be upon those who survive, with knowledge, skills, and abilities intact, who are well fed, with excess resources, to create a positive future for humanity, if there is to be one.

THE NEAR FUTURE

Heinberg presents in his book Powerdown essentially four positions regarding peak oil. Last man standing, waiting for the magic elixir, powerdown, and building lifeboats.

Governments by their nature tend toward the use of force to take what is wanted. It is probable that to AVOID a world at war, a collection of powers, probably “lead” by the U.S., must act as global policemen to enforce a policy that nations will not fight over resources. It could mean maintaining military forces in oil areas for the duration of mankind’s dependency on oil.

There are those who are confident that new technological developments will make oil irrelevant, indeed, that oil companies have suppressed such developments. The conspiracy theorists may be right. We may indeed leapfrog the currently touted "hydrogen economy" into "STAR TREK" technology.

While I do not expect this leap in our immediate future, I acknowledge there is potentially much science for us yet to learn, IF we can maintain functioning civilization, and act intelligently. A joke, which I've seen attributed to Iassic Asimov, is that perhaps supernova stars are not natural events after all, but rather alien civilizations who have an "industrial accident" with a zero point energy device.

Even if there is no explosive potential, each such device is a new source of surface heat. Imagine the effect of billions or trillions of them in operation. But until these devices are clearly demonstrated, we must act within available known technology, products and knowledge.

We can voluntarily reduce our resource demands, both in per person demand, and working toward a smaller population, or we can individually look to the battles of “last man standing”.

Beyond reducing resource demands, we can individually, and in expanding groups, re-work our own lives to eliminate our dependency on non-renewable resources.

COPING WITH AWAKENING

We sincerely appear to be approaching a crossroad, where we will have to choose between business as usual, leading to a collapse of civilization, and voluntarily changing our infrastructure and lifestyle to one that provides for continued and sustainable development. Perhaps we should apply Dr. Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grief, to humanities present global situation. The first stage is denial. "There's plenty of oil"… or food… or water… or room on the planet… Next comes anger or resentment. "Who did this!" or "We've been set up!". The third stage is bargaining. "If I can just make it to retirement", or "…get the kids thru college", or "If we impose taxes… or rationing… we can…" delay the obvious outcome, and sooth ourselves by not having to think about it now. The fourth stage is depression. A population sustainable absent non-renewable input and the present infrastructure is MUCH smaller than alive today, no visible program of conservation allows supplies to be stretched to match any "natural" population reduction, and extensive conservation would cause economic collapse of the infrastructure. There is no apparent "safe" landing for most of the planet. Finally comes acceptance. You can't save the world. You may not be able to save yourself and your family. Any effort may be futile, but do you elect to do nothing, or calmly analyze what is needed for the future after the crash, and where to invest your energy now for the best return in you future living conditions? If you are looking for someone to be the pioneer for positive change, look in the mirror and realize that some must be those who wake up. Envisioning a high tech, complex civilization from the top down is an incredible challenge. So don't try to.

WHAT TO DO UNTIL THE LAST DROP In disaster preparedness planning, mitigation efforts are those that reduce or eliminate some aspect of the disaster addressed. With proper preparedness, you can mitigate much of the foreseeable personal consequences of resource depletion (such as peak oil) and demand (per person and standing population) exceeding possible supply of renewable resources. While our challenges are global in scope, there is no readily apparent big-picture or top-down solution. Everything from our pollution of the air & water, unsustainable food systems, dependence on “mining” of even fossil water, emphasizes that the solutions need to be implemented starting at the most basic levels in order for the bigger picture to be one of comprehensive, effective, and lasting solutions, such as are appropriate to the local conditions. You can complain about the situation, and demand someone else act, or you can take personal initiative and responsibility, get your own house in order, and serve as an example and guide to others. You can seed a grass-roots effort to redevelop and rebuild your community. The post-Katrina events in New Orleans included expected riots, theft, and assaults. The complex and expensive infrastructure and controls of the city, and larger governmental entities, failed. There were also though instances of people banding together for protection and mutual support. You must get beyond coping, and act. 1. Accept that oil, and other fossil fuels are a finite resource. Accept they are, and will continue to be burned. Not only can't you stop it, our infrastructure is so dependent that stopping the burning and other fossil fuel uses could trigger the crash of civilization.

2. Don't feel "guilty" about your personal use of fossil fuels, BUT take prompt steps to lessen and "ASAP" eliminate your DEPENDENCE on such. (Including your dependence on the fossil fueled infrastructure, including food and earnings to pay debts.)

3. Select your personal vision of what an oil depletion (and depletion of our other finite resources) scenario looks like, and act accordingly. If you expect World War III, head for the hills, build and stockpile a bunker. If you expect the continued stress of products and services being priced out of the marketplace due to rising cost of depleting resources, plan ahead to live without them and look for alternatives. 4. Wherever you intend to call home, make it such that home can be livable without the need for constant input of fuel or outside energy. Take up the hobby of gardening now. Learn what you can grow in your area, and get accustomed to a diet from your own crops.

5. The job market, good and services, income and therefore tax base are not going to resemble what we see today.

6. What do you need to consider, and to, to create a personal home and local post crash community?

CIVILIZATION AS A CONCEPT

Civilization implies a greater range of knowledge, opportunities, and types of challenges then is applicable to a family or village scale association. There is physical security. There is the opportunity to specialize. There is greater opportunity to express creativity. There is the opportunity to preserve the knowledge and creations of the past, and build upon them. Civilization relies not only on the physical presence of essential physical resources and energy, but on the circular argument of confidence in civilization.

Civilizations tend to develop around a centralizing philosophy. For the long term we need agreed upon law and discipline, an approach to interaction that encourages everyone involved to plan and act along the lines of stability and permanence. We need a philosophy that encourages practical and useful physical construction well integrated and meant to last. But civilization can be fragile, fractured by irrational fear, loss of hope and vision for the future, or even by boredom.

Civilization tends to bring with it though seeds of its own destruction, such as layers of government and organized religion, self proclaimed elite, and it tends to decay into mob rule, or rule by physical force. We see forced labor or taxation to fund projects or programs that aggrandize the leadership, but provide no practical improvement. Can we achieve the benefits of a complex civilization, attained by mutual respect and voluntary agreement? What about resisting those who initiate force?

The skill and will to fight, as well as the tools to do so are essential for preservation of civilization. Peaceful, non-technical civilizations tend to be over-run by those who see it as their right or duty to initiate force, and by those with the technology to overcome such resistance that can be presented. Realistically also, at the individual level those who abdicate personal responsibility, whether for the basics of life, responsibility for their actions, etc., are taking steps toward empowering an oppressive hierarchy. A Sustainable Civilization is one where the needs of the present are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs using the same resources. It is one where there are feedback loops, physical and mental, personal, family, and societal which keep in check population growth and encourage building for the future. MASLOW In his hierarchy of needs theory Maslow more eloquently states the logic that gasping, dehydrated, starving humans are not focused on esoteric aspects of civilization. Underlying needs must be met first.

1. Physical 2. Safety 3. Love/Belonging 4. Esteem 5. Actualization

1. Do you have under your control or ownership the means to meet:

- the need to breathe - the need for water - the need to eat - the need to dispose of bodily wastes - the need for sleep - the need to regulate body temperature

2. Safety concerns come to the forefront once physical needs are met. These include:

- Physical Security & Safety from Violence - Security of Revenues and Resources - Moral and physiological security - Familial security - Security of health

3. Love/Belonging needs. After physical and safety needs are fulfilled, the social level involves human emotions and the need to be accepted and to belong, generally at a level beyond that of the immediate family.

4. Esteem needs. Humans have a need to be respected, to self-respect and to respect others. People need to engage themselves in order to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution and self-value.

5. Self-actualization is the need of a person to make the most of their unique abilities and to strive to be the best they can be. Imagine the potential of a city of a million self-actualized individuals who:

- Embrace the facts and realities of the world rather than denying or avoiding them. - Are spontaneous in their ideas and actions. - Are creative. - Are interested in solving problems. - Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. - Feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life. - Have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority. - Judge others without prejudice, in a way that can be termed objective.

No one person, or small group, is going to have all of the skills, knowledge, and opinions we need to get to a sustainable community, or even a definitive place to start. It all starts with an exchange of ideas, success and failure stores, and resources. Energy and resource surety at the community level is essential, but at the present is lacking.

Our government and private sector institutions were created and developed in an era of cheap energy and continued expansion. This either has, or will shortly end. These institutions, and those individuals working for, or benefiting from such, can be expected to balk at the functioning end of their empire.

BIOMIMICRY

In Biomimicry, Janie M. Benyus presents 10 "Lessons" humans need to learn, not only as individuals but as a civilization. Nature evolves complex systems, with every niche filled with life, that are "run" by multiple and overlapping feedback loops.

Consider a blade of grass. A single seed can, even if surrounded by a hostile environment; self assemble from the bottom up. The blade of grass serves as a pioneer and life support system for other plants and creatures, each of which contributes to the development of a micro environment, each with natural feedback loops to monitor and check growth.

If non-thinking creatures can act in relative symbiosis to weave a multi layer, multi purpose, season adaptable physical environment, with little energy or resources lost, resistant to outside disturbance, can we learn to:

1. Use waste as a resource. 2. Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat. 3. Gather and use energy efficiently 4. Optimize rather than maximize 5. Use materials sparingly 6. Don't foul their nests 7. Don't draw down resources 8. Remain in balance with the biosphere 9. Run on information 10. Shop locally

Y2K

The late 1990's awoke many to potential infrastructure vulnerabilities related to Y2K computer problems. We are now in the early states of weaknesses showing in the energy infrastructure, upon which all other core infrastructures are dependent.

Y2K became for the most part a "non-incident" due to the pro-active cures put in place prior to the date-certain "catastrophic" event. While an energy crash is not date certain, its existence is certain.

The objective reality is that the community must become self-reliant at least in all of the essentials of life for the relevant local population.

Our sustainability challenge may also have high technology, and social components, but if physical essential are not met we won't get to these.

GET A CUP OF COFFEE

Feedback to earlier versions of this treatise included that it does not provide clear guidance on how to build a particular type of home, organize a neighborhood, etc. So, to clarify to new readers in advance, this is not a blueprint, nor is it a step-by-step set of instructions as to how to put together a homestead, or organize a community.

There are many self-help books, and free materials on the web (for now) such that any detailed area you might need to investigate for self improvement or self reliance is readily available. Most of these materials though are on survivalist, or isolated primitive homesteads, not addressing the larger picture of avoiding, or minimizing the collapse of civilization.

This treatise is intended to present a different picture than survivalism, or a “back to the land” approach. The author hopes to spark not only self reliance in the essentials for personal and family safety, but also to inspire networks where warranted, and contemplation of a philosophy of “enlightened self interest”.

I have been asked if/when I might publish a guide such as this. The earlier that people wake up, and the better informed they are, the better not only for them, but for everyone. The author hopes the ten chapters of this treatise, and the various appendices, provide all readers a “jump start” toward making sustainability changes in their lives and communities. This treatise is available free on the web. If you cannot find them, email the author and I will send you the latest versions.

This is intended to get people to think, and for those new to facing the sobering reality of how far from sustainability we are, to present information so you do not have to research how to “re-invent the wheel”. This is intended to prompt YOU to take your first steps, and wake up others.

Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand. - Ancient Chinese

A thought experiment: The evening before your next day off, BEFORE the sun sets, make a steaming thermos of your favorite hot beverage, and set the thermos outside. Arrange it so you will wake up with the sunrise. Turn off your utility provided power, water, gas, phone, cable, etc.

Envision the flow of, and benefits derived from fossil fuels have ended, as they sometime must. In the morning, your money will only be numbers on scraps of paper.

Are you safe for the night? Can you provide a meal for your family for the following day? For a week? What about your sewage?

We need to have appropriate steps taken, and changes made, at every level. The human infrastructure IS our "natural" ecosystem, most of us just don't realize it. The problems we face are global in scope. The important life support solutions are however local in nature.

We must be the change we want to see. - Ghandi

If you will indulge a personal peeve, while you've got your television "disconnected" from the babble of broadcast or cable, leave it disconnected. Break the addition to the useless drawl. Talk with your family and friends. Read and research. Sit and think.

This writing is an accumulation of notes and thoughts by someone for whom the challenges of long-term sustainability have been a long term concern. Check the facts presented, and my math, and make your own conclusions, and plans. With hard work, and some luck, we may avoid the worst.

The paradigm of cheap abundant oil is dying, as will be the entire infrastructure dependent on such. Before you encounter this gas station, you must begin to think and act for the long term, starting with the basics.

INDEX

I.	Your Homestead And Essential Life Support.

II. Physical Sustainability Factors and 	Limitations.

III. Neighborhoods and the Web of Life.

IV. Sustainability Principles or Guidelines.

V.	Ecovillage. Minimum planning for continued organized society.

VI. Sustainability Programs, Politics, and Technology.

VII. The City As Ecology.

VIII. Sustainability Laws.

IX. Global Civilization.

X.	Future.

APPENDICES

A.	Appropriate Technology

B.	Mess Micro Environment Subsistence System

C.	Factoids

D.	Medicine Bag

E.	Summary / Handouts

F.	Bibliography

G.	Biography

H.	Tucson, Arizona Ecocity analysis

I.	South Tucson – Ecovillage analysis

J.	Oak Flower – Neighborhood analysis

K.	Our Family Urban Homestead Plan

L.	Our Plant Selections