Redesigning RESPECT! 1976's Winona: Towards An Energy Conserving Community

I used to love strolling though the stacks of the Alcuin Library in Collegeville, Minnesota.  Though uncomfortably modern, the massive building housed a world-renowned collection of ancient manuscripts.  It's brutally minimalist architecture demanded respect.


As I fished for knowledge, it always floored me how painfully irrelevant or misleading the majority of books seemed.  A minority of books caught my eye, a select few proved captivating, and the occasional gem would boost my faith in humanity.


The Alcuin Library basement is an underground bomb shelter of smooth grey concrete lined with endless stacks of ancient books.  Well, ancient by my standards, anyway... and spanning the spectrum of topics which had been banished to "The Dungeon".  Most of the books down there were nonsensical, incomprehensible, or worse, but The Dungeon also yielded  the sweetest fruits.  That's where I discovered Thoreau's Journal, Paolo Soleri's Arcosanti, and the under-appreciated works of Kurt Vonnegut.

I'll never forget finding one of the greatest books I discovered in college.  It jumped out at me from the discard stack, so I bought it for a quarter.  The soft cover, coffee-table-sized book caught my eye because my hometown's name graced it's cover.  WINONA: Towards an Energy Conserving Community.

The book is the product of a year's work (1974-75) by the Energy Design Studio at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture.  A group of graduate students under the guidance of visionary architect Dennis R. Holloway modeled the transition of Winona, MN towards sustainability.  It was written in response to the energy issues America was facing at the time due to US domestic oil production decline after it's 1970 peak and unpredictable oil prices due to the mid-70s' OPEC oil embargo.  

In Winona: Towards An Energy Conserving Community they laid out the blueprint, timeline, and motivation for turning my hometown of 30,000 people into a self-sustaining, re-localized community.  All the particulars of Peak Oil were explained lucidly.  The integrated solutions we needed to transition towards sustainability were showcased thoroughly.  Basically, everything we should have started doing 25 years ago was laid out in great detail in that 35 year old book.

This visionary work by University of Minnesota architecture students would have been so inspiring to read in the year of my birth, 1981.  When I stumbled across it in 2004 it spoke more of humanity's greed, foolishness, and capacity to deny the obvious.  Though so simple a child could understand it, this book was apparently so ahead of it's time that even now most people haven't awakened to it's truths.

The collective consciousness has been so thoroughly raped by misinformation, distraction, and spin that obvious solutions to obvious problems meet near universal resistance.  Humanity seems bent on doing things the hard way.  Let's change that.

Here's a good place to start... even if we are 35 years late to the Appropriate Technologists' Party.

More pages of Winona: Towards an Energy Conserving Community are available here.

Note the graph of Peak Fossil Fuel Usage behind these guys hand-stenciling letters on a display back in the mid-70s'.  We got the point then, so why can't we admit it again now?

And remember: always check the discard pile.  How's that old saying go?  Oh yeah...

The Roots of Our Discontent

As I've learned from recent comments, many of you think I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist or wanna-be doomsday prophet.  Given all the mainstream and alternative press devoted to crackpot theories, your assumption is understandable.


With all the disinformation being spread, it's easy to lump a THINKER like me with the Mayan Calender literalists, Bible literalists, Koran literalists, stereotypical survivalists, whiney bitch liberals, infinite-growth economists, or other DOGMATIC WACKOS.

Perhaps you picture me hunkered down fearfully awaiting a shift in Earth's magnetic field, the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera, a large meteorite impact, a plague of biblical proportions, or some other massive natural disaster.


That couldn't be any further from the TRUTH.  I couldn't CARE LESS about those commonly held fears. 


My concerns for our collective future have nothing to do with ancient prophecies, astrology, religion, or some variation on god's revenge.  None of us has any control over solar flares, planetary magnetism, super-volcanoes, meteorites, etc.  If one of these commonly feared things were to take us down, I could die happily knowing it wasn't our fault. 


After all,

.

What gets my goat is our collective failure to address glaringly obvious and inevitably catastrophic problems we do have control over.


These problems aren't new or overly-complicated.  We've had solid knowledge confirming their existence for decades.  Hell, these problems are so apparent a clued-in person can hardly escape their awareness... and being aware of them is very painful.  It's no wonder most people spend very little time THINKING about the big picture.


Fortunately, - over the last FIVE DECADES - numerous wise people have addressed these problems and offered brilliant solutions.


Sadly, the rest of us have largely ignored these problems as we ignore so many other inconvenient and uncomfortable truths about OURSELVES.

Here in the USA, the ROOTS of our catastrophic problems are simple and few:


1) Unrealistic economic models,
and
2) Absurdly wasteful ways of life.  Please let me explain...

The inherently flawed Dream in which We Americans have placed our hope is rooted in the concept of INFINITE GROWTH.   Dr. Seuss once explained this to the kid in all of us:

"Business is Business and Business must grow."

The road to INFINITE GROWTH is paved with short-sighted development, wasteful resource consumption, and the buying and selling of a whole lot of unnecessary shit.

INFINITE growth is impossible on a FINITE planet.

The more we develop, the more we destroy.

The wealthier we become, the more we waste.

The faster we move, the more we pollute.

The stronger we git, the more we suffer from arrogance.

Most importantly, the deeper we dig, the less we have left.  

No sane human denies that Our Nation is entirely dependent upon absurd quantities of fossil fuels.  The same TRUTH applies to all industrialized nations.  WE ARE ALL using up massive amounts of irreplaceable energy.


This energy MUST flow perpetually from reliable sources.


If supply can't meet demand, things get ugly.  Shortages result, prices go up, economies flounder, conflicts intensify, "quality of life" drops, and the poorest people suffer most.  Worst case scenario international conflicts escalate which further limits available supply and perpetuates human suffering.


In a modern war - economic or escalated - one of the most effective strategies is to cut off your enemy's energy supply.  History shows this tactic's success countless times.

Not a baby food factory.

Many a castle was seiged with STARVATION.
Many a city overrun by BLOCKADE.
Many a nation crushed through EMBARGO.  
Many a corporation crippled by SUPPLY CHAIN SABOTAGE.


History's most dramatic reminder of this tactic's success is the Nazi defeat in WWII.  A crucial turning point came when well orchestrated Allied bombing cut Axis oil supplies by up to 80%.


After that, the Nazis could barely afford to fly their planes, drive their cars, heat their homes, or run their country, let alone fight a WORLD WAR.

GAME OVER FOR HITLER.

The obvious targets in a MODERN RESOURCE WAR - which could quickly escalate into WWIII - would be oil wells, refineries, pipelines, ports, tanker ships, mines, railways, etc.  Here in the US, much of our energy comes from far flung points on the Earth, offering ample opportunity for enemies to fuck with our shit.

Figures on this 2008 map are in thousands of barrels per day.  Note that the US imported over 60% of the oil it consumed in 2007.  Also note that our known domestic reserves will be entirely depleted in ~10 years if we maintain 2008 rates of production.  If things stay close to the same, by 2020 we will have to import almost 100% of all oil we use.


Clearly things CANNOT stay the same.

Concern over the obvious issue of oil dependency is the reason why many of our most enlightened scientific and political leaders have been SCREAMING - for decades - ...

"WE NEED TO GET OFF FOREIGN OIL."

Even the MORONS have addressed the importance of decreasing our dependence.  In fact, all of our last 8 PRESIDENTS have publicly acknowledged the issue.  Notice that though they made ridiculous claims to the contrary, our dependence on foreign oil has increased steadily.  Check it:


President Richard Nixon (in 1974 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources): “At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need.”

President Gerald Ford (in 1975 with 36.1% of oil from foreign sources): “We must reduce oil imports by one million barrels per day by the end of this year and by two million barrels per day by the end of 1977.”

President Jimmy Carter (1979, 40.5% of oil from foreign sources): “Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 – never.”

President Ronald Reagan (1981, 43.6% of oil from foreign sources): “While conservation is worthy in itself, the best answer is to try to make us independent of outside sources to the greatest extent possible for our energy.”

President George Bush (1992, 47.2% of oil from foreign sources): “When our administration developed our national energy strategy, three principles guided our policy: reducing our dependence on foreign oil,…”

President Bill Clinton (1995, 49.8% of oil from foreign sources): “The nation’s growing reliance on imports of oil… threatens the nation’s security… [we] will continue efforts to…enhance domestic energy production.”

President George W. Bush (2006, 65.5% of oil from foreign sources): “Breakthroughs…will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.”

President Barack Obama (2009, 66.2% of oil from foreign sources) “It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil while building a new energy economy that will create millions of jobs.”


But We haven't changed anything. We haven't even made a legitimate effort.


In fact - and this is what really SCARES ME - the brunt of Humanity is DOZING OFF as we sink beyond oil's global production peak.  On the downslope of this predictable bell curve the supply of oil available at any future point in time is guaranteed to be less than we currently extract.

This isn't rocket science.  It's basic supply chain management.  BELIEVE IT!


If you need proof, history provides a very clear example of the bell curve oil production follows.  All we have to do is look at US domestic oil production because that PEAKED in 1971.

We're also offered rather conclusive proof that GOOD POPULAR MUSIC is a thing of the PAST.  There's no denying that. ;-)


Here's an interesting graph that lists important countries' oil peaks and factors that into the bigger picture of overall global supply.  Each individual country's DOCUMENTED peak year is listed after it's name.  Note that Alaska is listed separately from the United States, and that it's peak production year came way back in 1989.

By these numbers we're ALREADY A FEW YEARS PAST PEAK OIL PRODUCTION and the downward tend of decreasing production is accelerating.  Since oil is crucial to INFINITE GROWTH ECONOMICS this timing meshes well with the GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEPRESSION we've been experiencing lately.


So yeah, US Oil Production peaked long ago and GLOBAL Oil Production is currently at or beyond it's peak.  There is absolutely NO DOUBT that the amount of oil available at any given future point in time is going to DECREASE both RAPIDLY and SIGNIFICANTLY.  No matter what we do, no matter what technology we develop, no matter how badly we trash the planet trying to suck every last drop of retrievable oil from it, we are guaranteed shortages of our most crucial resource.  That's just the way it is here on a FINITE PLANET.


I'm sorry to burst your precious little bubble of HOPE, but TRUTH is more important.


Meanwhile, global demand for energy is SKYROCKETING as rampantly developing countries - most notably China - mimic our American example and embrace an energy-intensive, CONSUMERISM-based society.

Notice that Chinese energy consumption DOUBLED in the last DECADE.

Now, returning to OIL in particular, let's look at Chinese consumption for the recent past.

Between 1980 and 2006, Chinese oil consumption QUADRUPLED!


If we look at future projections, we witness the TRAGIC DISCONNECT between PLANNING and REALITY which is at the root of our CURRENT DEPRESSION and could very well catapult humanity into WORLD WAR III.

These projections are from 2009.


Despite the fact that we are now at or beyond PEAK OIL, the US Energy Information Administration is putting out blatantly impossible projections of future oil consumption.  SInce  we are already using the maximum amount of oil that we can extract from Planet Earth at any given point in time, it is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for any country to increase their oil consumption beyond current levels without TAKING IT FROM SOMEONE ELSE.  


Take your pick.

Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy.


An honest projection out to 2030 predicts global oil consumption at LESS THAN HALF of current levels.  In the near future, every nation is going to feel a big pinch in their energy flow.  Instead of voluntarily changing lifestyles to embrace the new reality, a more likely scenario involves more of the same fighting for OIL.


OIL supply goes DOWN.  CONFLICTS over oil go UP.  Guaranteed.


This situation poses a potentially catastrophic dilemma.  Around the world, ~7 billion people not only need OIL to eat, but growing numbers of them are also firm believers in the inherently flawed philosophy of INFINITE GROWTH and the WASTEFUL LIVING prompted by CONSUMERISM.


Our media machine has been pumping out FLASHY BULLSHIT for decades, and the rest of the world has bought into the tragic concept of INFINITE GROWTH under the guise of the GOOD LIFE, aka THE AMERICAN DREAM.


Here in the HOMELAND, we're now starting to suffer for a century of serving as such a BAD EXAMPLE.  What goes around comes around, and this one is guaranteed to bite us all in the ass.


It's frightening to speculate what happens once demand drastically eclipses supply, but many people have looked to the future and offer LOGICAL predictions.  On this site, OILFREEFUN, I will now start offering my own predictions along with suggestions of what we can do as individuals to minimize this catastrophic trend while preparing personally for the worst.


Crazy?  Perhaps... but nowhere near as crazy as INFINITE GROWTH ECONOMICS or the ABSURDLY WASTEFUL LIVES which most of out countrymen have "chosen".


If you're still reading, I'm sure many of you are skeptical and pondering how alternatives to oil factor into the big picture.  My own personal reasoning is this...


If some other source could meet the need that oil currently fills for us, do you think we'd be fighting perpetually to maintain our supply of foreign oil?  If there wasn't oil in the Middle East, none of us would care remotely what happened there.  This war began a long time ago and will continue for a long time into the future.  It is being fought entirely because of OIL.

The fact that we've fought so long and so hard for oil provides ME with all the proof I need to BELIEVE that nothing can realistically replace it.  If there was any other viable option to "Keep America Rolling", I'm confident that our economic and political leaders would have embraced it long ago.  After all, Our Presidents have been soap boxing energy independence for 40 YEARS.


Sadly, THERE IS NO OTHER VIABLE ENERGY SOURCE which is why we get a bunch of BULLSHIT regarding national energy policy.

Coal and Natural Gas can be turned into liquid fuels but the process is very costly and wasteful.    Also, reserves of these fossil fuels are nowhere near sufficient to do what they do for us now while replacing the energy deficit from decreasing oil availability.

Ethanol offers a false hope because it takes huge expanses of farmland and massive amounts of water and fossil fuel energy to produce.  If anything, ethanol production exacerbates our current predicament, contributes to climate change, artificially inflates global food prices, and takes food from the mouths of people who are already starving.  You don't have to take my word for it:

Time Magazine, April 7th. 2008 

Solar, Wind, Hydroelectric, Tidal, and Geothermal power are great, but there is absolutely NO POSSIBILITY of these sources coming anywhere close to meeting our current energy needs.  Right now, the US gets 6% of it's energy from renewable and "clean" energy sources.

Source: NPR, 2009

Unless we somehow come up with TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF NEW ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE almost OVERNIGHT, there is no way clean energy is going to fill the growing void left by decreasing oil supplies.  No other energy source comes close to providing what oil does and no energy source ever will.

If you did your homework, you know that...

THE ONLY TRUE SUBSTITUTE FOR OIL IS A DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT LIFESTYLE.


SUSTAINABILITY gets plenty of lip service, but most people don't even understand what "sustainable" means.  Almost all "green" initiatives are short-sighted loads of crap.

If you haven't personally felt the pinch yet, remember that in a global perspective we in the United States are still relatively rich.  That said, even here in Teton County, Wyoming - the wealthiest county in the United States - many people struggle to find jobs, pay bills, and get by.  Meanwhile, the big buckaroos who've settled here for cushy tax purposes have got more money than they could ever spend.


The NEW DEPRESSION is going to get MUCH WORSE and the gap between rich and poor will continue to grow to UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS.

INCREASING INEQUALITY coupled with RESOURCE SCARCITY and UNAVOIDABLE INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT at a time when the PARADIGM OF INFINITE GROWTH HAS NO OTHER OPTION BUT TO SHIFT is the recipe for MASSIVE GLOBAL CHANGE.


While this change certainly won't be pretty, it doesn't have to be deadly.  Keep reading and I'll do my best to help keep you at least a few steps ahead of the HERD.


PEACE.