Reinventing Collapse- The Soviet Example and American Prospects

[cedric]

http://zone5.org/2008/06/27/reinventing-collapse/#more-143

Whilst I've not read this book this review makes interesting reading.

Reinventing Collapse- The Soviet Example and American Prospects

Dmitry Orlov

New Society 2008

When I met Bill Mollison at the International Permaculture Convergence in Croatia three years ago, all he wanted to talk about it seemed was cannibalism. He had traveled in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union and told me that, in Moscow, the joke was, if you go to the provinces, be careful what they serve you up for meat.

There had been widespread hunger and general hardship, resulting in a dramatic decline in life expectancy, an underclass of the homeless and unemployed and those unable to care for themselves, and a loss of hope in the future.

Despite this, things could get much worse in an even more energy dependent USA.

“Reinventing Collapse” is perhaps the most important and disturbing- as well as amusing- peak oil book you will read. A Russian emigre who had the opportunity to observe the collapse of the former Soviet Union from the vantage point of someone living in America, Orlov sees a similar process unfolding in an America all but oblivious to how quickly things may change there. Peak oil will result very soon in the vast nation beginning to fall apart at the seams as the lifeblood of its economy drains away with no backup available. Big systems like agriculture are so energy intensive that they will quickly collapse and there is barely any resilient, self-reliant communities left.

[Extend a Hand]

1. "Thriving in the Age of Collapse" by Dimitri Orlov

is an article on the Soviet collapse written before his book was published:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dtxqwqr_19gjjvp8

A while ago Matt Savinar proposed that I write an article that specifically addresses the situations and concerns of some of the visitors to his Web site. He was also kind enough to provide me with three profiles, each of which is a composite of many people. One profile is of a young professional, another is of a middle-aged couple, and a third is of a high school student. My task was to adapt my knowledge of the circumstances in which people in Russia found themselves after the Soviet economy collapsed to the needs of diverse people in the United States. This I have tried to do. Keep in mind, however, that these are not real people, and that although I sometimes offer them detailed advice on subjects such as education, law, finance, and medicine, I do not practice any of these professions, and what I express here is mere opinion.

My premise is that the U.S. economy is going to collapse, that this process has already begun, and will run its course over a decade or more, with ups and downs here and there, but a consistent overall downward direction. I neither prognosticate nor wish for such an outcome; I just happen to see it as very likely. Furthermore, I do not see it as altogether bad. There are some terrible aspects to the current state of affairs, and some wonderful aspects to the post-collapse environment. For example, the air will be much cleaner, there will be no traffic jams, and people will have plenty of time to devote to their children and to people within their immediate community. Wildlife will rebound. Local culture will make a comeback. People will get plenty of exercise walking around, carrying things, and performing manual labor. They will eat smaller and healthier diets. I could go on and on, but that is not the point.

Since such a scenario might seem outlandish to some people, I would like to sketch out why I find it entirely plausible. There is an ever-increasing amount of mainstream media attention being paid to the looming energy crisis. At this point, very few people still argue that there is not a problem with the energy supply, immediately for natural gas, eventually for oil. There is also a viewpoint, which is ever more closely and persuasively argued, that what we have to look forward to is a permanent energy shortfall, which will cause economic and societal dislocations that will be monumental in scope, and will transform the patterns of everyday life. The current, consumer-friendly economy would be no more, replaced with a subsistence economy characterized by a good deal of privation and austerity.

This viewpoint is usually served up under the rubric of “Peak Oil” - the all-time global peak in the rate of extraction of conventional crude oil. The connection between the inability to goose up oil production beyond some already icecap-melting number, and the immediate trotting out of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, is not immediately obvious. But apparently the U.S. economy is a sort of pyramid scheme, based on nothing more than faith in its growth potential, and can only continue to exist while it continues to expand, by sucking in ever more resources, particularly energy. Even a small energy shortage is enough to undermine it. So Peak Oil is hardly the problem – it is the foolish notion that infinite economic growth on a finite planet is possible. Collapse can be triggered when any one of many other physical limits is exceeded - drinkable water, breathable air, arable land, and so on – and so the limit to sustained oil production is only one of many physical limits to growth.

This is a short excerpt the link above is to a long article.

Here is a link to Orlov's blog:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/

[cedric]

2. Thanks for that

The blog looks like it will provide some thought provoking reading.

[Strelnikov_]

3. Reading it right now

Don't agree with his cynicism regarding 'all' of our political leadership (he emigrated from the FSA just before the Reaganization of this country had begun). However, I find his writing to contain a lot of food for thought on how one may prepare for our own 'special period' (year zero, discontinuity, smash, . . .).