*2012, Peak Oil, and Prospects for the Autism Spectrum*

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Transition Towns remind me of the commune movement in the US during the late 60s. During that time, it was widely believed that the earth was reaching the limits of its capacity, and that by the early 1980s famine would be universal, even in America, and weakened populations would be ravaged by plagues, with societal disintegration following soon after. The hippies took matters into their own hands by establishing communes, small villages where youth could relearn how to live off the land and isolate themselves from the chaos in the cities. The communes would also serve to illustrate the viability of New Left communist societal models.

By the early 1980s, almost all of the communes established some 15 years earlier had utterly failed, and most of the hippies had moved back to the cities and rejoined society. When the cataclysm didn't happen, the wind went out of the sails of the movement. Also, even in small groups, American Communism wasn't a very sustainable philosophy. Some communes dissolved into factions; others were taken over by strongmen or elite groups similar to the pigs of Orwell's Animal Farm. Ultimately, there was no authority forcing people to live there, so the people got up and left when they got fed up enough.

I suspect that the same fate awaits the Transition Towns, except for a handful that successfully integrate themselves into society by specializing in crafts and such. I don't know enough about Transition Towns to know how they're organized, but I suppose that collectivist societal models are generally the norm, since it is in the UK after all. Collectivist societies tend towards strongman rule, like Venezuela and other Latin American countries, as well as Russia and Russian-influenced states in Eastern Europe.

Collectivist nations usually have to impose heavy penalties, up to and including death, for leaving or trying to leave, as the only way to keep people in. Since commune organizers don't believe in killing those who try to flee (most of the time), and since they are small groups in a capitalist society, the communes inevitably fail. People freely joined, so they can just as freely leave, and nobody can stop them. When the members of the People's Temple realized this, Jim Jones killed them all, in the ultimate way to keep them from quitting. If they were all dead, they couldn't leave. Communes organized around religion usually end in mass suicide/murder when dissent arises-the leader orders them kept in at all costs.

If you had read anything about them, on the site I linked to, you would have noticed that they are not new towns, not separate communities, not isolated or breakaway creations, but simply already existing towns and villages of various sizes which have decided, after careful and well-thought out preparation, over 5-6 years in most cases, in full consultation with a majority of the population, to pursue certain strategies designed to help connurbations of all kinds make the transition to the more local, self-sufficient, economies which will become necessary after Peak Oil.

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I'm english. And the site I linked provides solid sources/references and links for almost all of the statistics and analysis in its main article on the subject.

The advertisments are obviously, and quite naturally, aimed at people reading the pages, as are many/most of those on WP ( Chat-lines/partner agencies, Weighted-bedding, ASD therapies, etc, etc ), but the argument seems sound and serious enough.

Personally I am looking forward to Peak Oil, because I believe that it will be good for AS, that the particular kind of challenge involved in widespread material/consumer restrictions will favour us, ( in the same way as reduced calorie intake tends to make digestion and absorption more efficient ), so the forum url, "doomers" strikes me as unnecessarily negative, but I don't think that there is any doubt that Peak Oil is going to happen, and soon, and that it will have a dramatic effect on society.
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Last edited by ouinon on 19 Jan 2009, 2:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Transition Towns Network has produced a "primer" which presents clearly and comprehensively the process of setting up a Transition Town, ( including how to deal with the 7 most common "but's" ).

Just some of the towns/villages/areas, and their population, ( in the UK unless otherwise stated ), which have already joined the scheme are: Totnes, (8,500), Penwith District, (64,000), Falmouth, (20,000), Bristol, (400,000), Brixton, (65,000), Glastonbury, (9,000), Nottingham, (280,000), Brighton and Hove, (250,000), Portobello, Edinburgh, ( 10,000), Bath, Leicester, Exeter, Liverpool South, and Sunshine Coast, Australia, ( 260,000), aswell as several in New Zealand.

The process involves setting up working groups on all the aspects of a town's functioning, including food, waste, energy, education, youth, economics, transport, water, and local government.

One very important part of the initiative is reversing the "great deskilling" of the last 40 years. Examples of reskilling are training in repairing things, cooking, cycle maintenance, natural building, loft insulation, gardening esp. practical food growing, animal husbandry, home energy efficiency, baking and preserving, shoemaking, furniture-making, weaving/knitting/sewing and dying.

In the early stages, after spreading awareness of the issue with film-screenings, open-space meetings, etc, and the setting up of a steering committee, an important step is building a picture of local resources, especially "resilience indicators", a term which refers to the ability of a system or community to withstand impacts from outside. Examples are:

% of food grown locally; amount of local currency in circulation/local exchange systems; number of locally-owned businesses; commuting distances for workers in the town, and for those living in the town but working outside it; % of energy produced locally; quantity of renewable building materials; % of essential goods manufactured in or close to the town, and % of compostable waste which is actually composted.

The Transition Towns approach is "sensible", serious, and extremely well thought out. Peak Oil, and the need to transform our way of life, is not a fantasy.

Here's the link again. The Primer is to be found about 6 side-headings down on the left, under "Transition Initiatives".

http://transitiontowns.org/

Reading it I get the distinct impression that AS/people on or near the spectrum will have something important to do/contribute again, ( something which is not only in information technology and the sciences ). Something that makes sense.

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As I recall, it's been 4 years away for over 10 years now. Been expecting it for so long, it'll probably take us by complete surprise.



As Above So Below? I can go along with that. My doubts on astrology are not that it is impossible for forces beyond us to affect us, but that they are so complex we can never fathom them.

Peak oil is probably just to frightening for most to think about. Funny how we've become dependant on something that was of little use but a few hundred years ago. What ignored substance could become the foundation of the next 200 years?

I think we'll adapt to the peak oil crisis and although there will be big repurcussions nothing will happen on the scale of terrible things that have in the past. I think Obama will most likely lead the US to be similar in policy to the EU and that will ultimately develop enough critical mass and financial backing to make tackling oil dependency and energy efficiency a mainstream effort.

In the EU recently it's been decided to increase renewable energy by 20%. The market will in some ways develop ways of coping. It's likely that the amount of vegetarians will increase significantly as meat production requires so much land and so much oil to transport, which is expensive, which many people will not be able to afford as expensive oil drains on their finances.

This is already being evidenced to some degree. I also think quite obviously the demand for public transport will increase as oil prices increase since the cost per person for a bus or train is far lower than for a car or motorcycle. That too will be a good thing for increasing efficiency of transport and reducing pollution and noise and making life more pleasant. Car sales are already dropping dramatically like nothing we've ever seen for decades.

As car use declines, public transport use increases and urban spaces are designed to be more pedestrian-friendly it will result in a healthier population who are more active. An increase in vegetarians and people who eat less meat will result in more people being as healthy as, say, the Italians which will result in having to pay far less tax for health care as people require it less.

While lots of people will lose jobs eventually there will be lots of new jobs in public transport and as more people turn to vegetarianism since vegetables, pulses, eggs and milk require far less land than meat production more people will have jobs on farms.

And even if people don't get the jobs somehow we will find a way of adapting. It might be for the government to pay unemployed people to play street music and give them lessons if required to entertain the people fortunate to have jobs. I'm an optimist and there's definitely always hope. Life is a hope.

All of this overlooks the serious questionability of the peak oil idea period. There are gross oversimplifications in that model. Just by way of example, you can find a critical article published in Science here

Not only is the article already five years old, but its validity is also seriously called into question by Science's own editorial notes at the foot of the page;

"The USGS figure of 3 trillion in reserves is based on discovery projections which have been heavily criticised, and so far have proved far from accurate."

"Colin Campbell's description of Maugeri, [ the author of the article ], as one of those "flat earth" economists seems apt."

There are many articles by serious scientists, analysts and economists, on reputable sites, ( one of which is the Transition Towns site I linked ), agreeing with the idea of Peak Oil, so many that if I were to list them it would go on for pages, and who would read them? Noone, judging by the complete failure of someone to read about TTs before posting their flight of fantasy about them, despite my providing a link.

The article you linked to was just one out of dozens on the subject of oil published by Science in the last 5 years, but one of the very few which did not believe in Peak Oil.
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Jan 2009, 9:11 am, edited 3 times in total.

That does put it in perspective. Petroleum was once used only for lamps/lighting, roads, and weapons. It was the invention of the internal combustion engine which caused us to become dependent on it. So it's possible that another invention might transform something which we now barely use into a similarly precious commodity.

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Some ways in which I think that people on or near the autism spectrum are particularly suited to the kind of life which may develop after Peak Oil:

Most AS need things to make sense. A fast-everything consumer-culture doesn't make much sense when people are starving, ( and we know it, because we see it on TV ), and pollution risks destroying the environment for ever.

Apparently AS are more able to deal with crisis than many NTs because one of our "problems" is that we tend to approach all situations from first-principles. We are used to constantly calculating how to handle conditions. ( Most NTs approach situations by rote ).

AS tend to be able to choose that which seems logical/sensible/reasonable over socially acceptable or fashionable.

AS are interested in systems, how to make components work together, if/when they can "see" the whole/majority of a system, which with more things organised at a local level would be the case.

Certain AS have great affinity with animals. Some AS are very gifted at crafts.

AS tend to prefer group activities based on common goals/interests/activities rather than vague social agendas.

Most/many AS tend to need hands-on experience, a from the "bottom-up" understanding of things, which in small re-localised economies should be more accessible.

Many AS are almost physically offended by waste and non-sense. Many have a tendency to recycle, re-use, repair, hoard, and hang on to things, and the current throw-away culture depresses and alienates us.

AS tendency to notice and appreciate the "small things", focusing/concentrating on "parts" of systems. Our self-propelled, almost compulsive attention to detail is practically a drawback in this consumer culture which very often seems to neither need it nor have time for it.

AS tolerate "less stimulation" far better than most NTs. For many AS the reduction in noise, lighting, speed, smells, etc, which might follow Peak Oil would mean less overload.

I think it is possible that many of our qualities which are now mocked/slighted/ignored/criticised may begin to seem valuable to society, after Peak Oil.

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Choosing to believe the small minority of "experts" who do not believe in it at all, when most of the relevant "experts" predict that it is going to happen, ( even if they don't agree about exactly when ), suggests either that you have "superior" information, ( because you work in the area of geological sciences, for example, or are an expert in economics yourself ), OR that it is a question of faith, which is always personal.

Predictions about Man-made Global Warming fall into the same category. Which one you believe depends entirely on which "experts" you put your faith in. There is no scientific way for someone to decide between them except in so far as "believing the majority" position has statistics in its favour.

I have a "tendency" to believe in Peak Oil because most of the most qualified experts seem to agree that it will happen sometime/may already have happened. See Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

But I accept that the issue is so complex that even the "experts" can not be completely sure about it.

Which is why I find the fact that in 2012, ( after 83 years ), Uranus will be once again in its 1929 position, ( date of the Wall Street Crash, followed by the Great Depression), worth taking into account.
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Jan 2009, 7:29 am, edited 2 times in total.

The Aztec astrologers predicted the end of the world in 2012, so you can't be right because we'll all be dead.

Unless being dead is the improvement you're referring to. If we are all dead then we definitely won't be having oil problems.

The actual meaning of the end of the Mayan "Long Count" calendar, ( which the Aztecs based their own system on ), was "unclear" to the Mayans themselves apparently, and their "inscription relating to it is incomplete". ( from Wikipedia ).

It seems more likely that such an event stood for "major world change"/a new cycle in the Mesoamerican symbolic system, which knew nothing of the 5 outer planets and was largely numerology based, ( and even then might only be "accurate" for their own region ), rather than "the end of the world".

So although it might refer to cataclysmic events/revolutions in the world/american order in 2012, it need not mean the death of the human race, ( though this is always possible ).

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Sorry, you have your facts wrong there. Oil is formed by dead sea animals being compressed under sand and rock over millions of years. You have this mixed up with coal. I learned this in chemistry and passed that exam with flying colours so meh XD
Apart from that, I find your theory very interesting. I have always been interested in astronomy but never really pursued the interest. Have you thought of the doomsday theory of 2012? The mayan calendar ending and all lol.

According to the highly respected Energy Watch Group's 2007/2008 Oil Report, oil already peaked, in 2006, and is simply taking time to "sink in"/impact, as had been also predicted would happen.

The Executive Summary of the report is at:

http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadm ... 0-2007.pdf

and in non-pdf at:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/36087

The report was published just before production in 2008 managed to pass the previous peak of 2004, ( after four years with no increase ). 2012 is maybe the year that it will finally hit us.

Even the I. E. A has changed its tune. After insisting for years that oil would never peak they now admit that supply will not meet demand and that oil will probably peak within the next 15-20 years, which is suspiciously close to the number of years that govts say it will take to transition "peacefully" to more efficient and/or reduced energy consumption, and other fuels, ( as if their estimate is based on not wanting to panic anyone ).
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Last edited by ouinon on 22 Jan 2009, 5:33 am, edited 3 times in total.

If only somebody could invent an engine that ran an crushed slugs and stinging nettles. I've got so many in my garden, I'll be rich.