Flying insects outside in Northern Illinois on November 26th?

By D. VanThournout -- 11-27-05

I can't help but think this is a little strange. Everyone says "how nice it is outside today". I walked to the store because it is typical this time of year for it to be too cold outside for me to ride my bicycle. As I started walking to the store I realized that it was certainly "nice" enough to be riding instead of walking. It is only four blocks from my house and I enjoy walking so I didn't turn around and walk the twenty steps back it took me to think these things and get my bike.

There is a convergence of events coming together soon that will forever change human "civilization". In the words of Dr. Vine Deloria Jr. "In recent years we have come to understand what progress is. It is the total replacement of nature by an artificial technology. Progress is the absolute destruction of the real world in favor of a technology that creates a comfortable way of life for a few fortunately situated people. Within our lifetime the differences between the Indian use of the land and the white use of the land will become crystal clear. The Indian lived with his land. The white destroyed his land. he destroyed the planet earth."

When I was young and we played cowboys and Indians I was always forced to be the Indian... later I began to identify with the struggle of the natives against the environmental destruction the white man's way was causing. I read Black Elk Speaks and was further drawn into the native way of thinking. I remember reading about the Lakota prophesy which claims the White Buffalo Calf Woman would come back when a white buffalo was born and purify the world. I think Black Elk put it like this; "The world of the white man would be rolled back like a carpet and the world of the Indians revealed".

I thought about this quite a lot over the years... It always seemed the most outrageous claim. I always had to believe that while I agree with most native people concerning the white man's ridiculous anthropocentric view of the universe, we are only one strand in the web of life, I wasn't at all sure of the crazy idea of rolling the white mans world back like a carpet... I also had quite a bit more attachment to the "perks" of western "civilization" than I do now.

Recently (about three years ago) I stopped researching cosmology through the NASA website Astronomy Picture of the day and began researching Oil. In reading as much information as can be gathered through the Internet (google peak oil and read everything), I have found that most analysts, if you were to plot them all in a graph, predict that the world will reach peak oil between 2006 and 2010.

The following was taken from wikipedia:

The United States Geological Survey estimates that there are enough petroleum reserves to continue current production rates for 50 to 100 years. A year 2000 USGS study of world-wide oil reserves predicted a possible peak in oil production around the year 2037. That is countered by an important Saudi oil industry insider who says the American government's forecast for future oil supply is a "dangerous over-estimate."

Colin Campbell (geologist) argues that the USGS estimates are methodologically flawed. One problem, for example, is that OPEC countries overestimate their reserves to get higher oil quotas and to avoid internal critique. Population and economic growth may lead to increased energy consumption in the future

The world will reach what is known as the Hubbert Peak probably sooner rather than later. The united States reached it's Hubbert Peak in 1971. What this means is that we had in 1971 about half the oil we started with. It was at that time our economy required the US begin buying large amounts of foreign oil. The alternative would have been to adapt by researching and developing renewable energy technology and stop using oil. What will happen when the entire earth reaches it's Hubbert Peak? Our economy typically goes into recession in response to just a small increase in fuel cost. What will happen when diminishing supplies and increased demand causes price increases from which there will be no reduction? The thought eventually occurred to me that maybe that "crazy" Native American prophecy wasn't so crazy after all. Maybe the world of the white man will be rolled back like a carpet.

In researching oil I began to see how fragile our "civilization" actually is. The list of things that we use oil for is nearly endless. I think that nearly 90% of what we use here in America is derived from oil. Whether it be powered by oil, directly made from oil (plastic, chemicals etc.), brought to you by oil, or sprayed with chemicals derived from oil to keep it growing and free from bugs... Your life (as you know it) currently depends on oil.

This is why we need to pay attention to and preserve indigenous cultures; we will all end up living as they do.

Many anthropologists have argued that agriculture has led to the demise of civilization after civilization. The Mayans, Inca's Aztec's... I believe we are now beginning to see it on a global level. Climate change has always occurred. Deforestation has always occurred. Humans have always grown food. All eventually to the detriment of that culture. The extent to which a culture becomes adapted to and dependent upon a practice such as agriculture, is the extent to which their culture can be adversely affected by drought or climate change. It has also been argued that Armies not only became possible through agriculture but "necessary".

In the end, it seems that the very idea that the world revolves around humans, that we need to conquer nature, and dominion over the earth is our god given right, has led to a level of exploitation that threatens the very fabric of life upon which our vast machine depends. Global warming and peak oil conspire to prove us wrong (as if a huge gaian limit cycle were about to squash the entire human race like a bug in a petri dish). We are an integral part of earth. Now, as cheap energy becomes a thing of the past, we need to learn how to be good stewards of the earth rather than exploiters and conquerors.

D. VanThournout

Contact the author at DVanThournout@thedeprogrammer.com

© : TheDeProgrammer.com 2004  Fair Use Granted

The following was taken from www.heatisonline.org:

Highlights of World Energy Modernization Plan:

I. The elimination of national subsidies in industrial countries for fossil fuels and the provision of equivalent subsidies to develop and deploy renewable and highly efficient energy technologies and job retraining for displaced workers in the fossil fuel industries.

II. The adoption internationally of progressively more stringent Fossil Fuel Efficiency and Renewable Content Standards as a complement to the emissions "cap-and-trade" system embodied in the Kyoto Protocol. This strategy could be of use to individual nations as well.

III. The elimination of regulatory barriers which impede competition and support wasteful, inefficient high-carbon technologies in order to create freer competition in energy according to the criteria of cost, efficiency and low-carbon content.

IV. The creation of a World Energy Modernization Fund using the revenues from a tax on international currency transactions or other comparable revenue sources to finance the development and transfer of climate-friendly (renewable, high-efficiency and low-carbon) technologies to developing nations.

V. The creation of a new agency or the authorization of an existing agency under the Kyoto Protocol to facilitate a rapid transition to climate-friendly (renewable, high-efficiency and low carbon) energy facilities worldwide through transfer of technologies and expertise according to principles of equity, sustainability and competitive energy markets.

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