M. Ventura: Coming soon -- "Yard Sale Nation"

[villager]

Letters at 3AM

Things to come: Part 2

BY MICHAEL VENTURA

<snip>

The most crucial uses of oil and natural gas are agriculture, heating, and essential transport. As Bartlett pointed out, "We are just on the verge of not being able to feed the world. Tonight about one-fifth of the world will go to bed hungry." Whether by market forces or government edict, as the price of oil rises its prime use must be agriculture – while oil-free modes of agriculture are developed on a fast track. Americans aren't much concerned with famine in Africa, but food shortages here will get prompt attention. People across the political spectrum will be screaming for government regulation – and for smart rationing. The far right needs to eat just like anybody.

Eating habits will change. As the conservative Mr. Bartlett noted, "The time will come when you will not be able to eat the pig that ate the corn, because there is at least 10 times as much energy in the corn that the pig ate as you are going to get out of the pig by eating him. We actually do a lot by living lower on the food chain." The same goes for cattle. When beef is $20 and $30 a pound – and it will be – hamburger joints will be a thing of the past; arable land and ethanol-capable grains will be far too dear to waste on cows. Sugar will be too valuable to waste on sweets. Brazil, the world's largest sugar exporter, is already using an unexpectedly large portion of its crop to produce ethanol, pushing American sugar prices to new highs (The New York Times, Sept. 28, p.C6); we'll see the day when sugar is rationed as a precious energy commodity and a bottle of Coke will be rare and expensive. With all these changes we'll be eating less and healthier. Not much meat, hardly any sugar, lots of grains and beans, plus vegetables, fruit, and fish. A Mediterranean-Mexican-Asian diet, enforced by circumstance. Not a bad thing at all, in the long run.

Oil scarcity will prove that the power of global corporations has been exaggerated both by capitalists and anti-capitalists. Not that corporations don't wield great power, but their power is, at its base, fragile. They must play so many ends against so many middles at once that even a slight drop in profits throws them into confusion, and many are not flexible enough to sustain a deep, long-term drop. Their viability depends upon cheap transport. It doesn't matter how cheaply you produce in Asia if it's expensive to get your product to an Iowa mall. Outfits like Wal-Mart face a dim future. Wal-Mart posted lower-than-expected profits in August because people were driving less. Wal-Mart is made of plastic. Walk its aisles and all you see is plastic. When the price of plastic goes through the roof, in tandem with the price of transport (80% of Wal-Mart's goods are made in China), goodbye Wal-Mart. Many major corporations will find themselves in similar straits.

<snip>


But other jobs will be created unpredictably by the new situation, for manufacturing will become not only local but personal. As Jim Kunstler writes, "The salvage of existing material is going to be a huge business. The commercial highway strips and the Big Box pods of today may be the mines of tomorrow. ... A lot of the retail of the future will consist of recycled, second-hand goods, some of it expertly refurbished. To some extent America will become Yard Sale Nation. ... There will be a lot of work for people in many levels and layers of activity: the scroungers, the fixers, the wholesalers, the brokers, the sellers." The handy neighbor who fashions this-and-that into that-and-this – an object you can use – will become a prime supplier. So will people who can sew. Not to mention local moonshiners (for rationed grain and costly shipping will, alas, deprive me of my Irish whiskey). There will be a large black market – or rather gray, since it will be everywhere and involve every possible item from batteries to bullets. The disposable society will become the scavenging society, the inventive society.

Life will be a lot less predictable and a lot more for real. The greatest art will be the art of survival. Your credit rating won't matter (you won't have one), but your word will matter a great deal. It always does in an informal economy. Careers, as we know them, will be a thing of the past, but so will boredom; most people will be in the same boat, swapping services and skills and not knowing what tomorrow may bring. Ours will be a leaky boat, in need of constant attention. It'll be intense, interesting, and often dangerous – and that's when people feel most alive. Folks will look back at how we live now and wonder at the triviality that, as a society, we allowed ourselves to settle for. If we survive, there will be many great stories to tell your grandchildren.

<snip>

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-10-14/cols_ventura.html

[phantom power]

1. Right. Good stories all around. For the survivors.

And I bet they'll all have plenty of stories that nobody will want to remember.

[villager]

4. better to be around to tell the tale, eh?

n/t

[phantom power]

12. No doubt. It just had me thinking...

Our great grandchildren will probably write romantic or nostalgic stories about the coming century. But those of us who survive it will probably wish we could have avoided it all in favor of more "trivial" lives.

I have a few uncles who served in Viet Nam. They all have their share of stories they like to tell, and then again every one of them has stuff they'll never ever talk about, except maybe with other vets.

If guys like the author of this article, or Jim Kunstler, etc, are right, what's coming is going to be kind of like whatever it is that my uncles prefer not to talk about.

[Helga Scow Stern]

2. Mr. Ventura always has something penetrating to say. Nominated!

[acmejack]

3. Great piece in a good paper.

[NMDemDist2]

5. good article --- kick n/t

[Frustratedlady]

6. Those last two paragraphs above

Sound curiously like the stories my parents told of The Great Depression. Maybe that is what it will take to get us back to the basics and away from multiple cars, TVs, cell phones, etc., and into planting gardens, canning/freezing food, eating beans and cornbread. (Oops, forget the cornbread...the corn is being used for heat and ethanol.) Interesting article.

I'm not looking forward to this winter.

[villager]

7. this winter will be significant....

... in the fraying of American "taken-for-grantedness..."

[crispini]

8. Nominated.

[JDPriestly]

9. Control Population -- Now

Stop the nonsense about birth control being against God's will. Is starvation God's will? I don't think so. Educate women. It's the only way human culture will survive.

[cornermouse]

10. One little problem with this ...um...fantasy.

Its a nice scenario for everyone but the women.

M. Ventura is talking about a time when most women worked inside the home where they could schedule their own time, not outside where employers feel they have first call on their employees time usage and activities.

It is unrealistic to expect women to work at a job, come home to not only clean house and feed the kids from food that is cooked from scratch, oversee the kids homework, make sure they get to play their sports and attend school functions (and yes, kids even did that during the depression).

I see it is also M. Ventura's opinion that women will start sewing their own clothes (by the way, have you checked out the price of fabric by the yard lately?). Sewing clothes also requires at the very least thread, buttons, zippers, scissors, and a sewing machine to sew them with...unless you expect women to start sewing clothes by hand. In a brave new world like this, no one's going to be able to afford the cost of buying a sewing machine or the fabric.

He doesn't appear to have frequented a grocery store lately. If he did, he'd wouldn't have made the foolish assumption that people can afford to buy fish (highly expensive) or fruit and vegetables (ditto) in accordance with the food pyramid right now, let alone some nebulous time in the future.

Apparently he is assuming that we no longer will have forests or privately owned land or an environment since he assumes that every inch that can be plowed will be. Without preserving our environment and diversity of plants and animals, WE won't be around very long either.

[villager]

13. I think he indicated *no one* would have a corporate-type job anymore...

His "fantasy" about reusing/foraging on the remains of industrial economies didn't seem that gender-specific to me. I didn't see him defining roles for anybody.

You're right about the need for a healthy biosphere, though...

[cornermouse]

15. He may not have defined gender roles.

I, however, am telling you how it is in most homes.

By the way about those corporate type jobs. You're probably defining them as factories, office jobs, hospitals, clinics, shipping companies such as UPS, big trucking companies, electricity companies?

[villager]

17. but isn't he saying all that will change?

i.e., the old assumptions/divisions/ways of doing things...

...will disappear with the oil? So no more "double income" homes because... no more "double incomes!"

"Double gardener" homes, maybe...

[girl gone mad]

28. Yes, that's what he's saying.

As far as buying fabric goes, he's talking about scavenging fabric and buttons. Clothes made out of old blankets and scraps of other clothes, mismatched buttons, etc.

I think he's also talking about people growing their own vegetables, maybe raising their own livestock.

I don't have any strong opinions on his piece, but I do have a sense that with rising inflation, 'things' may be more valuable than money. Also, agrowing some of your own vegetables is never a bad idea, particularly if you can grow heirlooms. Tomatoes are pretty easy to grow, and even today you can barter with them.

[villager]

34. yes

n/t

[crispini]

31. Well, I'm curious --

when I subtract petroleum from the world, I come up with one that, like it or not, is pretty similiar to Ventura's scenario, give or take some details. And glossing over the horrible mass depopulation that may have to happen.

Do your own thought experiment. What does YOUR world without petroleum look like?

[Hope springs eternal]

11. More ideas, less doom & gloom

If we could get fuel cells up and running, this wouldn't be an issue. Making farm equipment with renewable energy, or using human labor, will make this problem a lot less severe. I mean, imagine a communist-style farm for the poor of Africa/Asia/Latin America, they live off of and grow the food while our electric powered boats/trains bring it to us.

Basically, make food, make electric, we're pretty much set. Cars are out and so are the big homes. They didn't have those in 1900, and people, and our economy, did just fine.


Remember, oil wasn't around until the 1900's. We ate well before, we will again...

[villager]

14. isn't that basically what he's saying?

what you concluded in your last line?

[Richard D]

18. But there were a lot less people!

That makes a difference. The Green revolution (the use of petro-based insecticides and fertilizers) allowed for a huge population growth.

[davekriss]

26. There were 1.8 billion souls living on the earth in 1900

There are nearly 7 billion today. The difference is due to the cheap energy kick we got through oil. Turn that spigot off, then you are turning off the Green Revolution which staved off the Malthusian disaster that late 60's/early seventies writers were fearful of.

The non-oil carrying capacity of the earth seems to be around 2 billion; we have nearly 7 billion. You do the math.

To complicate things further, most of the agrarian and crafts skills that sustained many before the Oil Interval are long forgotten. The transition to 2 billion over some time is not going to be fun.




Think Soylent Green. Yum!

[Raksha]

16. This really makes a lot of sense.

I've been visualizing a future like this, more and more often and in more and more detail. I already know how to recycle yarn from thrift shop sweaters and make it come out as good as new, so does that put me in the running for the new Yard Sale Nation?

[dretceterini]

19. My wife and I

actually enjoy growing our own organic garden. My wife loves to knit, quilt, embroider, and cross-stitch, etc...maybe home-made goods made with love and care will come back into favor and the big-box crap will disappear...

[villager]

24. I have *got* to get another garden going...

Been renting and moving from place to place these last coupla years...

Time to plant seeds, at least in the literal sense...

[The Doctor.]

20. Yes... I've been thinking a great deal lately of legumes and insects...

It seems only rational to devise a system by which most of our macro-nutrient needs are met through horticulture.

But I think some types of bugs will serve well to supplement.

[dretceterini]

23. None of the Washington

cockaroaches for me, thank you very much

[callady]

21. Hope alot of folks will read this n/t

[KittyWampus]

22. 2 Words: Thermal Depolymerization

[eridani]

25. Don't agree about the fish

We are going to have to leave many fish stocks strictly alone until they recover.

[kineneb]

27. already happening in rural counties

...such as where I live. No big box retailers here except MallWart and KFart, and lots of folks won't shop there anyway. Most people buy stuff by driving to larger cities or by mail order. Yard sales and thrift shops are common here. I found a pair of Gloria Vanderbelt jeans, almost new, for $2.50 at a local thrift store. They fit me and my budget, and helped out the local hospice organization. I am wearing a pair of pants I found at the big Rotary yard sale from last weekend!

You would be surprised what folks throw out...I built a gate for the yard by recycling pallets from the lumber yard. So it took some time, but since I didn't have the money to buy the lumber, reuse is better than no gate. Our neighbors have some old windows which I would like to turn into parts of a greenhouse.

Not so long ago, this was the way most people lived. During the Depression, everyone reused stuff. And yes, women did a lot of the work, but since no one had real jobs, it didn't matter. The point was to survive, and spend as little of one's money as possible in the process.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

29. Link to part 1

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2005-09-30/cols_ventura.html

more to come in this series.

[earth mom]

32. Thanks I was just searching for it on the site! :) eom

[villager]

35. it's a good series....

n/t

[crispini]

30. Kick

:kick:

[snappyturtle]

33. Kicked and nominated......

Of all the scary news, I find Ventura's articles the scariest!! It truly frightens me. Fortunately, I have my grandmother's treadle sewing machine and I can use it and my husband is a wonderful builder--a very conscientious one--energy efficiency, for instance. But I fear for my children who have known such "good" consumer times.They've never done without in their lives. The saving grace may be that most people will be in the same fix. My prayer is that this "new time" comes around us slowly enough that we can acclimate in stages.