Waking up is hard to do!

Does anybody remember that old 50's style song from a group called
The Carpenters "Breaking up is hard to do"? Well, I would like to
dedicate that song to all of the people out there who try to wake
people up to Peak Oil.

The song is not a good one. Its lyrics are shallow and the music is
pop-simple. The backup singers make me feel as if a flock of
sparrows are chirping at 8:00 AM Sunday morning right outside my
window. All I can do is put a pillow over my head.

The essence of this song is a perfect symbolism of all that is the
birth of pop culture USA. How fitting that we should adopt this song
as a symbol of all that we fight against as we try to awaken our
plugged-in and tuned-out culture to the reality of Peak Oil. To
them, we must sound like a tree of sparrows on Sunday morning
because the vast majority of people just don't want to hear anything
about Peak Oil. Wakin' up is hard to do.

I have about 5-10 successes out of about 200 direct contacts. It is
hard to estimate sometimes because I engage a lot of folks but I
would say that at least 5 people have heard about Peak Oil from me
and have checked out the facts for themselves and are now totally
sold on the concept to the point of taking massive actions in their
lives in preparation for the coming change. In retrospect, that is
not exactly failure. But why do I feel a failure? It is because of
the statistics. My success ratio is so dismal. I am getting mass-
marketing results with direct marketing tactics. What is wrong with
that picture?

Citizens from different countries react differently. I would say
that 90% of Americans will not consider for 2 seconds that Peak Oil
is a threat to our civilization at all. Most of the rest are
intellectually stimulated enough to think about it. These are the
people that I can eventually evangelize if I work at it.

My limited and subjective experience shows that it doesn't matter
how you deliver the news. You can approach the discussion with an
intellectual air or with hard-hitting facts. Regardless, the typical
response of the vast majority will be flippant and final, like: "Oh,
they will think of something." How nice it is to be a lemming
running with a pack of lemmings and to consider that "they" will set
up slide or a net to save us from the rocks below.

Let's recount a few of the famous "flippant and final" responses:

1. "Oh, they will think of something." = technology will save us

2. "The markets will resolve the issue because higher prices will
drive exploration leading to bountiful and cheap fossil fuels once
again." These people are ready to bet their lives on the argument
that "plan B" isn't necessary. And the discovery downslope of the
last 40-years is an anomoly ready to be corrected.

3. "We will simply cut back our energy use and continue on as
before, but with more sweaters and mopeds." These people fail to
consider how empty shelves at the store and starvation riots might
affect their neighborhood. Reducing one's fossil fuel footprint is
fine, but we are not talking about just less heat and less miles.
We are talking about less food, less jobs, less civilization. The
link between non-farm work and oil is a study in which we are all
about to become increasingly knowledgeable through first-hand
experience.

4. "Peak Oil is a conspiracy by oil insiders to fix higher prices."
Yeah, OK. But does it matter? Whether it is a New World Order
conspiracy or simply peak of non-renewables shouldn't you prepare
for change anyway? This is the Alex Jones argument by the way and
it irritates me because he refuses to talk numbers. I heard Alex
Jones on the radio just 2 weeks agp paraphrasing: "We are not
running out of oil, there is oil all over the place. The problem is
that the New World Order wants all the oil to themselves." Well,
that fits nicely into his thesis but where are the numbers? Where
is the oil? Anwar? Anwar would run the US for what, a few months?
We consume 20 million barrels in a day. We consume 2 times more
than Saudi Arabia pumps as fast as they can out of their motherlode
wells. Even if we believe that Anwar has 10 billion recoverable
barrels as said by the United States Geological Survey... by the
way, USGS is an organization that ASPO says delivers "amazingly
unrealistic forecasts of oil and gas abundance" in the following
link right here and in so many other places -
http://www.asponews.org/ASPO.newsletter.006.php. But even if we
take them at face value, we are looking at 500 days of US
consumption. That is less than 2 years for the biggest opportunity
to avoid Peak Oil?

The more these guys talk about "there is no Peak Oil" the more they
prove that we have a problem.

I would say that almost all of the responses I have received fit
into some combination of the above. From there, if I don't get
sidetracked into a discussion about sports or movies, I usually take
the conversation into the subject of "industrial agriculture". I
deal with the fact that most calories come from fossil fuels and
only a tiny 10% comes from the sun, indicating over reliance upon a
dwindling resource. I deal with the phantom acres that are giving us
more than 4 times crop productivity. I discuss fossil fuel factor
from all angles possible, from the fertilizers, irrigation,
pesticides, herbicides, transportation, packaging, storage,
transportation, and of course machinery manufacturing, maintaining
and usage.

Key articles for me to reference are:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
http://dieoff.org/page171.htm
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080904G.shtml

If the eyes aren't glazed over by this time, I can mention that the
world was overpopulated at 1 billion people before
Peak Oil gave us additional productivity via industrial agriculture.
And now, with 6 billion people feeding intensively
upon oil-based food, we have no plan "B", as Matthew Simmons
eloquently points out.

Very few people will go with me that far. And my impression is that
very few of you Peak Oil enthusiasts are making such inroads with
your loved ones, friends and acquaintances.

The newsgroup I would like to offer to like-minded lifeboat
builders, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArkBuilders_org/ is my
attempt to offer something focused and unique to other sites.
Responsible members of this site may exchange information on waking
people up. Bruce Thomson, founder of RunningonEmpty2 and other
famous Peak Oil sites has a well-researched "convince sheet" that
you may access here as an educational tool for example. We will be
making our own tools as well.

And moving beyond the educational experience, we will be developing
strategic plans. Some will involve relocation, others a job change.
Many of us will discover that we should move, learn a new trade,
build an energy efficient home, and find money to finance our dreams
all at the same time. Some of us will fail to achieve what we want
to achieve. Depending upon outside factors, we should be flexible to
adapt to shorter timelines for positioning ourselves. We may have to
leave extended family members behind for a while. There will be many
difficult decisions but like-minded people who share a clear goal
have a unique power. If we can believe, against all these odds, that
we will find that defensive position and that we will do more than
just survive but actually thrive, that is the place that I have in
mind for members here.

There is a mighty crash coming. Bigger than 1929 and more enduring.
Threats beyond the first two world wars are at our doorstep.
Civilization is poised to unravel in so many ways. It is a good time
to act on your spiritual faith in a loving and just God who created
you and who has a plan for you. Maybe that plan includes being a
lifeline to others in their time of need. Maybe your time right now
is for preparing even as everyone around you is convinced that you
are off your rocker.

I welcome you to be ArkBuilders in support of your friends and loved
ones and I look forward to sharing this journey with you. New
members will be allowed to post as soon as they submit a few posts.
I will keep this place clean of over-cynical views. The world gives
us enough of that already. Hey, there is nothing inherently wrong
with sports and movies, but in my best Sam Kennison voice: "We are
going off the cliff! Ohh, oHhhh! Wake Up! Stop running with the
heard! Just because everybody is doing it doesn't mean it is a good
plan. When has everybody had a good plan? OH, Ohhhh!"

Sign up at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArkBuilders_org/ Speak your
mind, share strategies and begin make a difference. Be one of the
few with a plan. Your family, friends and even people you don't
know yet are relying upon you to have your act together now and to
offer them a lifeline when all hell breaks loose.

Regards,
Tate
Moscow