PeakOilDesign - Designing for sustainability in a challenging environment.

Happily Busy

PeakEngineer — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:39:08 +0000

To any remaining dedicated readers out there:

I'm still kicking and remain committed to the site. We recently purchased our farmstead with 5 acres just outside Yellow Springs, OH, which of course involves quite a bit of work. In addition, work life is currently very rewarding but I've gained quite a bit of responsibility, which leaves me less time to ponder post topics during the day. And I'm trying to focus on some local initiatives. All of this leaves me less time to focus on the blog, but I'll work out a better balance in time.

FYI, I'm also currently working on a long-overdue and painful site upgrade -- so if you find things not working here, that's the likely explanation.

Be back soon! Thanks for the patience.

The Real Global Warming Scenario -- That No One Wants to Talk About

PeakEngineer — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:37:48 +0000

I've been working heavily on local community and regional planning & organization -- I'll give updates here as I consolidate some info. For now, remember to look past the glitz and glare of the financial crisis and keep an eye to the wider threats:

A key factor in how well we deal with a warmer world is how much time we have to adapt. When, and if, we get this hot depends not only on how much greenhouse gas we pump into the atmosphere and how quickly, but how sensitive the world's climate is to these gases. It also depends whether "tipping points" are reached, in which climate feedback mechanisms rapidly speed warming. According to models, we could cook the planet by 4 °C by 2100. Some scientists fear that we may get there as soon as 2050.

If this happens, the ramifications for life on Earth are so terrifying that many scientists contacted for this article preferred not to contemplate them, saying only that we should concentrate on reducing emissions to a level where such a rise is known only in nightmares.

"Climatologists tend to fall into two camps: there are the cautious ones who say we need to cut emissions and won't even think about high global temperatures; and there are the ones who tell us to run for the hills because we're all doomed," says Peter Cox, who studies the dynamics of climate systems at the University of Exeter, UK. "I prefer a middle ground. We have to accept that changes are inevitable and start to adapt now."

Bearing in mind that a generation alive today might experience the scary side of these climate predictions, let us head bravely into this hotter world and consider whether and how we could survive it with most of our population intact. What might this future hold?

The last time the world experienced temperature rises of this magnitude was 55 million years ago, after the so-called Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum event. Then, the culprits were clathrates - large areas of frozen, chemically caged methane - which were released from the deep ocean in explosive belches that filled the atmosphere with around 5 gigatonnes of carbon. The already warm planet rocketed by 5 or 6 °C, tropical forests sprang up in ice-free polar regions, and the oceans turned so acidic from dissolved carbon dioxide that there was a vast die-off of sea life. Sea levels rose to 100 metres higher than today's and desert stretched from southern Africa into Europe.

While the exact changes would depend on how quickly the temperature rose and how much polar ice melted, we can expect similar scenarios to unfold this time around. The first problem would be that many of the places where people live and grow food would no longer be suitable for either. Rising sea levels - from thermal expansion of the oceans, melting glaciers and storm surges - would drown today's coastal regions in up to 2 metres of water initially, and possibly much more if the Greenland ice sheet and parts of Antarctica were to melt. "It's hard to see west Antarctica's ice sheets surviving the century, meaning a sea-level rise of at least 1 or 2 metres," says climatologist James Hansen, who heads NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. "CO2 concentrations of 550 parts per million [compared with about 385 ppm now] would be disastrous," he adds, "certainly leading to an ice-free planet, with sea level about 80 metres higher... and the trip getting there would be horrendous."

Half of the world's surface lies in the tropics, between 30° and -30° latitude, and these areas are particularly vulnerable to climate change. India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, for example, will feel the force of a shorter but fiercer Asian monsoon, which will probably cause even more devastating floods than the area suffers now. Yet because the land will be hotter, this water will evaporate faster, leaving drought across Asia. Bangladesh stands to lose a third of its land area - including its main bread basket.

The African monsoon, although less well understood, is expected to become more intense, possibly leading to a greening of the semi-arid Sahel region, which stretches across the continent south of the Sahara desert. Other models, however, predict a worsening of drought all over Africa. A lack of fresh water will be felt elsewhere in the world, too, with warmer temperatures reducing soil moisture across China, the south-west US, Central America, most of South America and Australia. All of the world's major deserts are predicted to expand, with the Sahara reaching right into central Europe.

Glacial retreat will dry Europe's rivers from the Danube to the Rhine, with similar effects in mountainous regions including the Peruvian Andes, and the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, which as result will no longer supply water to Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Bhutan, India and Vietnam.

Along with the exhaustion of aquifers, all this will lead to two latitudinal dry belts where human habitation will be impossible, say Syukuro Manabe of Tokyo University, Japan, and his colleagues. One will stretch across Central America, southern Europe and north Africa, south Asia and Japan; while the other will cover Madagascar, southern Africa, the Pacific Islands, and most of Australia and Chile (Climatic Change, vol 64, p 59).

SmallMarting Yellow Springs

PeakEngineer — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:26:23 +0000

Last night I went to a talk by Michael Shuman, author of SmallMart and a number of other books on building local economies. He had some fantastic arguments and ideas on why focusing on local economies is far better than focusing on globalization. Key pieces of his argument were items of which most people reading this site are already aware: Peak Oil, global warming, and collapse of the global economy. But he has a very fresh and nuanced view with some incredibly solid arguments that crush the hopes and assertions of even the most die-hard globalist. I intend to get his latest book in the near future so I can speak more intelligently on local economic issues.

This weekend Shuman is also hosting, in conjunction with the Yellow Springs Smart Growth committee (which contains a few Peak Oilers), a workshop focused on analyzing the "leakage" from the Yellow Springs local economy, brainstorming ways to refocus on the local economy, and building an executable plan for the community. I'm not able to attend but several friends of mine are. It's a very exciting prospect.

Shuman discussed last night that one key reason that locally-owned businesses are held at a disadvantage is that people can't invest their pensions locally due to obsolete securities laws. Apparently, he had conversations with the Obama transition team on Wednesday and they were very receptive to rewriting these laws. This could truly be a key piece of building post-Peak Oil economies and is very encouraging with regards to the Obama team's economic mindset. I'll be staying tuned.

Winter Potatoes

PeakEngineer — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:46:48 +0000

We dug up a fairly reasonable 10 lbs. of potatoes, still intact after several hard freezes. While not a spectacular harvest, it was decent enough considering our clay soil, high moisture levels, and planting just a handful of potatoes (~3 lbs. worth?), it’s still heartening to know that potatoes truly can survive unharvested through a bit of winter. We cooked some up last weekend and even fed them to my office, but no ill effects or flavors reported (phew! ).

The next round of potatoes (and indeed the whole garden) will be grown in planters, as we’re expecting to move to our permanent homestead sometime during the growing season. One more new adventure in gardening...

Remembering It's All About the Weather

PeakEngineer — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:50:14 +0000

In light of the recent reports on arctic land ice, I thought it prudent to spend some time focused on one of the other critical crises contributing to the Great Decline: Global Warming.

My mom forwarded me a fantastic presentation on some of the latest Global Warming research as presented by a professor at Iowa State University. It contains quite a bit of observed local effects and predictions for Iowa and the Midwest-at-large. The presentation can be downloaded here (Warning: Large ppt file).

I think it’s important to remember that as dire as these predictions are, rarely do they publicize what happens when the negative temperature forcing effect of aerosols (see Global Dimming) disappears as industrial production winds down. True, economic degradation may easily help us meet our arbitrary CO2 reduction goals, but we will have no salvation from rapidly rising global temperatures. On the plus side, increased solar irradiance will increase the output from solar devices and possibly help crop yields, but then again that will overall be countered by accelerated temperature rise.

Just more to consider when planning your farmstead…

Peak Oil Warfare: Community Security Strategy

PeakEngineer — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:32:16 +0000

In Identifying the Risks, I provided an analysis of the most likely threats a given post-Peak Oil community will face. While my conclusion was that the single greatest security threat can be characterized as crime, I would like to reiterate that there is finite -- if significantly smaller -- risk that a community might face the other scenarios outlined. These possibilities will be discussed briefly in this post and in more detail in the future.

Now that we have identified the primary security threats to our community, where do we begin defending against them? The answer, as most any military professional will tell you, is to define clear goals in an overarching security strategy.

When talking of security, we must first understand that security does not necessarily equate to military solutions. Community (or National) security includes many different aspects, the most significant of which are economics, diplomacy, information, and military power. I am reminded of the story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant: The first blind man feels the trunk and declares it a snake, the second feels the leg and declares it a tree, and the third feels the tail and declares it a rope. For our purposes, the story would go something like this: The first blind man, an economist, senses a nation’s poverty and declares it a financial problem. The blind statesman senses a dispassionate world and calls the problem a failure of international diplomacy. The blind scholar senses a nation’s misleading or absent exchange of knowledge and decries a problem of education and communication. The blind soldier senses the anarchy of militias and demands soldiers stamp out the problem of lawlessness. All are right about the example troubled nation’s security, yet all are wrong if they don’t understand the whole elephant: stability.

Stability is the aggregate measure of all aspects of security. We cannot hope to establish stability to a post-PO community by a military solution alone. This is the failure of authoritarian regimes throughout history and it is the source of current failures in the Middle East. Stability cannot be dictated.

A wise and sustainable Community Security Strategy (CSS) must encompass all aspects of a stable community. This means dividing appropriate attention and resources to not only martial solutions, but economic, informational, and yes, diplomatic aspects.

I’m sure several readers at this point are asking "But what of tactics, man? You lured us here with the title of Peak Oil Warfare!" To that, I ask for patience -- we will get to the specifics of how to provide physical security for your community, but I insist that it is critical to understand the context of military decisions before making them. To do otherwise would unquestionably doom your community to failure from unseen directions.
I propose the following key elements for a comprehensive CSS: Establish economic security, raise and maintain an appropriate security presence, conduct regional community outreach, and establish robust information systems.

Establish Economic Security
"Economic Security" in a Peak Oil context likely has a far different meaning than we currently understand it. Economics is the study of the intersection between psychology and resources, and we currently focus far too much attention on this description than on studying the resources themselves. Hence, our fall into a world of Peak Oil and global warming without having understood how our extraction (and abuse) of resources undermined the resource base itself. (Note: For an excellent analysis and opinion of the inherent flaws in the assumptions of modern economic theory, I point you to this article from Scientific American.)

In a post-Peak Oil context, economic security has a more obvious connection to resource security. This would include developing farming capabilities (food security), ensuring a clean water supply (water security), assisting families with developing sustainable post-PO homes (shelter security), as well as standing up specialized operations like blacksmithing, carpentry, medical care, and so forth.

Conduct Regional Community Outreach
A wealthy community with poor neighbors is not a strong community. The interdependence of neighboring communities has largely been ignored in modern times and will sharply regain prominence in the years ahead. Becoming insular will not serve to improve a community’s security, but rather put it at risk of retaliation due to the envy or ire of its neighbors. Remember that the wisest military leader is the one who engineers conditions such that a war need never be fought.

Diplomacy with your neighbors increases security by establishing a network of mutual aid in the event of attack, natural disaster, crop failure, or any other calamity that can befall a human. The benefits of reaching out and sharing with your neighbors most often result in exponential returns back to you.

Specific strategies could include: 1) Organize a regional council of community leaders to identify projects that would provide benefit to the entire region. Politics will always intrude on human affairs, so it is important to ensure your representative exhibits strong skill at navigating political minefields.

2) Establish a Community Reserve Corps to deploy to other communities for building up sustainable infrastructure. This may sound ludicrous for a community that is itself caught in the throes of a post-Peak Oil world, but it is not as ridiculous as you might think. The concept is to send rotating teams of sustainable designers, builders, farmers, doctors, and security professionals to spread what your community has learned to others that might have no such capability. The investment would very rapidly reap rewards by putting more heads on the problems involved with establishing sustainability, and -- most importantly -- improve the stability of the region surrounding your community. This concept will be discussed in more detail in the future on this site.

Establish Robust Information Systems
Essential reading for a Peak Oiler is The Postman by David Brin (or even the movie, with Kevin Costner) (also look here). The setting is a post-apocalyptic America with violent militias and fractured communities struggling to survive. The story (actually, the movie more clearly draws this point) beautifully illustrates how the seemingly simple act of communication can have a massive impact on human psychology and in turn lead to economic, diplomatic, and military capability developments, all of which add up to -- drumroll -- community security.

Information is the grease for the engine of a well-functioning society. Information -- and control of information -- is key to leveraging advantages for your communities against potential adversaries. This includes not only communication (internal and external) but gathering of intelligence. A community must have a clear understanding of what is going on inside and outside its borders and use that information to develop intelligent plans.
I would hazard a guess that most of us know fewer than ten of our immediate neighbors, and few details even of those ten. This will largely contribute to the death of some communities in the near future, but you can easily take steps to encourage communication in your own immediate area. Laying that tentative groundwork now will improve your community’s ability to weather ever increasing risks.

Raise and Maintain an Appropriate Physical Security Presence
Addressing economic, informational, and diplomatic issues will provide a solid foundation for a secure community, but in order to execute a security strategy there must be a physical security presence. We currently see such a presence in our communities every day in the form of police. Consider that even currently we live in an extremely stable society, which requires only a minimal security presence (police) to maintain civil order and prevent the friction of crime from significantly impacting the workings of the community. Unfortunately, a post-Peak Oil situation inevitably leads to a weakening in the three foundation areas of economics, information, and diplomacy, for which we must compensate by increased physical security.
The first item that must recognized for any community security strategy to succeed is that the current model of municipal police will not be enough to secure a community in an unstable post-Peak Oil environment. It is extremely unlikely that the police would recognize this on their own until it is too late to prevent harm to the community from increased security threats. However, please note that it is extremely important to separate military function from police functions -- blurring this line inevitably leads to authoritarianism, which is the last thing a struggling community needs. The training for municipal police versus military is starkly different in philosophy, and it would be best to establish and maintain two distinct corps of security personnel.

So how best to augment the police force? For a community, this can take many forms. As alluded to above, the security situation consists of both internal and external threats. Internal threats would include the typical array of crime with which we’re familiar: theft, domestic issues, fights, and other more violent crime. This should be dealt with by a corps of people whose training is focused on resolving disputes peacefully (the function of municipal police -- “peace officers”). External threats in a post-Peak Oil environment require a different approach, as preserving the community peace often means keeping interlopers out. This is likely the best function for employing the former military in your community, and training should focus on more military-style tactics.

I don’t mean to pretend that developing this capability will be easy, particularly due to potential conflicts with police authority, difficulties winning approval from the community, and the substantial risk of a para-military team being viewed as something far more sinister than a community protection force. Every community situation is different and will evolve differently. Some areas are perhaps already perfect (in a sense) for establishing a robust external security force, and yet other communities might view their position as so stable that the mere whispers of armed men augmenting the police might bring horror. That is why a clear and flexible strategy is necessary and must be very carefully tailored to the individual situation. If you plan on being a leader in the post-collapse world, it is your solemn duty to educate yourself on security policy, politics, and the very nature of your community in every detail. Then develop a plan to build long-term security.

Developing the Details
While it is difficult to generalize strategy, it is even more difficult to generalize tactics that would be effective for every contingency. The next topics in the Peak Oil Warfare series will focus on tactics that might be relevant for a post-Peak Oil world and how to build these capabilities. We will also flesh out timing strategies for implementing security plans -- it should be clear that you cannot implement security strategies overnight and that there is very little you can do while the world is relatively stable. Rather, you must be prepared to deliver well-thought out solutions for the future right at the moment of doom, when people will be eager and desperate for the needed approach.

The Great Depression II -- or The Greater Depression II?

PeakEngineer — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:48:36 +0000

In the media, the current financial calamity is constantly referenced to problems during the Great Depression. But an article posted by aboutime on LATOC points out, this comparison falls exceedingly short. A much more apt comparison is to the Greater Depression, otherwise known as the Panic of 1873. Read this description of the conditions leading up to the Greater Depression:

The problems had emerged around 1870, starting in Europe. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, formed in 1867, in the states unified by Prussia into the German empire, and in France, the emperors supported a flowering of new lending institutions that issued mortgages for municipal and residential construction, especially in the capitals of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. Mortgages were easier to obtain than before, and a building boom commenced. Land values seemed to climb and climb; borrowers ravenously assumed more and more credit, using unbuilt or half-built houses as collateral. The most marvelous spots for sightseers in the three cities today are the magisterial buildings erected in the so-called founder period.

But the economic fundamentals were shaky. Wheat exporters from Russia and Central Europe faced a new international competitor who drastically undersold them. The 19th-century version of containers manufactured in China and bound for Wal-Mart consisted of produce from farmers in the American Midwest. They used grain elevators, conveyer belts, and massive steam ships to export trainloads of wheat to abroad. Britain, the biggest importer of wheat, shifted to the cheap stuff quite suddenly around 1871. By 1872 kerosene and manufactured food were rocketing out of America's heartland, undermining rapeseed, flour, and beef prices. The crash came in Central Europe in May 1873, as it became clear that the region's assumptions about continual economic growth were too optimistic. Europeans faced what they came to call the American Commercial Invasion. A new industrial superpower had arrived, one whose low costs threatened European trade and a European way of life.

While the eventual end effects of the Great Depression and the Greater Depression have some parallels, the entry conditions were far different. To understand what we face economically in this first phase of The Great Decline (our current crisis), we need to focus on prior events where the entry conditions more closely match. If we ignore this prior example, we may not prepare ourselves accordingly for the fallout.

New Voice for Sustainability at Peaknix.com

PeakEngineer — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:47:19 +0000

New PeakOilDesign member Nika has a fantastic and relatively new blog called peaknix. Nika is a life sciences researcher and has several blogs documenting her organic farming activities, adventures in cooking from the backyard, and liberal homeschooling. I'm very impressed with Nika's insight and all that she has accomplished in improving the way she and her family live their lives. Nika is clearly an asset to this site and the Peak Oil/sustainability communities. Her writing and path reminds me very much of Sharon Astyk and I suspect Nika will soon be widely recognized as another strong voice for sustainability. An excerpt from peaknix.com:

I guess its about waking up.

Part of waking up to peak oil is to realize that our consensus reality has been holding us back. That middle class consensus reality masked the edge-nature of our existence. We chose to believe that we were entitled.

We are not.

– Repeat after me –

We. Are. Entitled. To. Nothing.

Our gift right now is of time but its not really about bunkering down.

Its about releasing the entitlement mentality and embracing change and then understanding resilience and cultivating some level of optimism.

I am a mom of three – last winter, when I GOT peak oil on an intuitive level, the first thing I mourned was peak education.

I had to realize that there is simply no way that I could afford to put even one child through college (I went to school on Pell Grants and scholarships, my parents didn’t pay for the core costs tho they did cover food and dorm – never cheap – don’t know what Pell Grants are? Ask the republicans and Reagan specifically).

I panicked and then did that V-8 head-bonk thing .. I have known this for a long time but was never able to articulate it. It was freeing in some ways to realize that the cost of education has become CRIMINALLY expensive.

Not only do we homeschool, I intend to steer my children into organic farming internships and agricultural sciences. Not so much because that is how we will survive but because those activities will make SENSE. My job .. it doesn’t make SENSE in the transition. That’s ok, I have learned one important thing in grad school – how to learn.

I am not saying that things are peachy or that it’s the apocalypse nor am I saying that you should not prepare.

Peak Oil Warfare: Identifying the Risks

PeakEngineer — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:55:25 +0000

In speaking of Peak Oil, may people frequently highlight the need for security and self-defense against random aggressors. While it is clear that the security environment in a post-Peak Oil world will be far more volatile, few have given a thorough look at the nature of the threats we will face. Will it be bands of crazed suburbanites, oppressive government regimes, or legions of foreign troops that pose the greatest threat? This writing is intended to provide a thorough and objective look at the future of personal and community defense so as to guide us on the most effective ways to prepare strategies.

First, some assumptions for this discussion. Here we are focused on the security environment following a societal collapse characterized by energy scarcity. This should be held distinct from a purely financial phenomenon where oil is still widely available. (Side note: While on the surface it may appear we are currently in the midst of the latter scenario, I would argue strongly that energy scarcity is both a core cause and future result of the systematic financial collapse. That is, however, an argument for a future analysis.)

A second assumption is that the reader lives outside of densely populated urban areas. Under no reasonable scenario will an urban area have adequate resource security in the face of Peak Oil, so to speak of military defense of such an area is moot. This general analysis should be applicable, however, to persons living in small towns, some suburban areas, or rural areas.

1. Oppressive Regimes

The single greatest security threat in many survivalists’ minds is the spectre of the government smashing down your front door and raiding your stockpiles. Recent government leadership and actions have certainly provided some legitimacy to these fears. The deployment of active duty brigades on American soil and executive orders enacting martial law during any given crisis certainly don’t bode well for the future of freedom in this country.

If government forces do choose to exert their will on the populace, there is no feasible military response for a local community. Local para-military and militia forces cannot compete with a fully trained and equipped army to achieve meaningful military victory. Period. To focus your community defense efforts solely to counter the threat of government attack is a waste of resources and may in fact result in attracting enough attention to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If your greatest fear is government attack, your preparations should focus on ways to make your community as minimal an interest as possible in order to avoid government takeover or attack.

If in fact the government did declare martial law, consider this: there are 300 million people in the United States supported by a standing plus reserve military of 3 million. Consider also that in contrast to the residents of countries with which the U.S. has previously been in conflict, 40% of all U.S. households own at least one firearm. Consider also that the U.S. government is a hair’s breadth away from insolvency, and funding a sustained conflict against even a portion of its tax base would be national suicide.

To sum up these points, martial law outside of urban centers is not feasible in the United States and any military action outside of cities would be so minimal that any single community would have an extremely low probability of attack.

2. Foreign Invaders

Although the United States is currently bogged down in non-traditional modes of warfare, many within and without the U.S. military predict that the U.S. will soon face the threat of another peer competitor along the lines of the U.S.S.R. Such a peer competitor would likely not be a single country, but a global alliance centered on a major power like Russia, China, or both. Some in the Peak Oil community fear that such a strong energy-secure player could easily overrun a now-weakened U.S. and play havoc with its people.

Admittedly, a new anti-U.S. alliance is a real and credible threat in the very near future. However, to leap from the current situation, with the U.S. hegemony spread to all corners of the world, to a time when Chinese troops march down Main Street, U.S.A. is a monumental shift in realities.

Even though the U.S. is significantly weakened politically, economically, and diplomatically, the country still holds significant physical and figurative ground world-wide. The approaching depression alone will not completely unravel this power; it will take sustained pressure in a world of declining energy availability to erode U.S. globalization. A third world war would likely only result in the U.S. losing its overseas footholds and retreating back within its borders – and that would be after several years of conflict.

Adversaries of the United States (and the West) will likely continue to use asymmetric means to weaken the U.S., by further undermining our economic, energy, cyber, and political interests long before the advent of open warfare. Our adversaries understand that it is foolish (and will remain so for at least several years) to attempt to compete with the U.S. in the one domain we have trained and prepared for exceptionally well -- large-scale open combat.

This is not to imply that we shouldn’t be concerned about the very real possibility of major war, just that it is not a near-term (i.e. within the next one or two decades) security problem at the local community level. Even if, decades hence, we face the prospect of foreign powers on U.S. soil, all the difficulties outlined in scenario 1 apply to a foreign occupier -- only much more magnified given their foreign status.

3. Mutant Zombie Bikers

Many in Peak Oil circles (and other survivalist groups) speak frequently of “Mutant Zombie Bikers” (MZBs), or some facsimile thereof, which are composed of highly mobile independent groups of heavily-armed bandits scouring the countryside for riches or destruction. In this “Mad Max” scenario, individuals or even isolated communities do stand a reasonable chance of mounting adequate defenses against MZBs. But are scores of roving MZB groups attacking peaceful communities a likely scenario following societal collapse?

To state the obvious, with the advent of Peak Oil, oil will become a very valuable commodity. As recently witnessed during the gas shortage in the U.S. Southeast, gasoline supplies dwindle to near zero within a matter days. In such a scenario it is unlikely that any sizeable group have the ability or the foresight to meet their logistical requirements over any significant length of time. While some isolated cases of MZBs may exist (e.g. gangs commandeering tanker trucks or well-fueled military units going rogue), MZBs are unlikely to pose a significant threat to the average community. While it may be prudent to consider the possibility of an MZB encounter (which we will discuss shortly), it could prove a disastrous (or even fatal) waste of resources to focus on MZBs as the primary security threat while ignoring the key risk to post-Peak Oil communities.

4. Internal Threats

So if biker gangs, martial law, and foreign occupiers aren’t our greatest security threats, what is our greatest risk? In short, crime.

This is not a trivial threat. Consider the number of neighbors or relatives you know who have made preparations or even listened to concerns about Peak Oil and the host of other crises on the horizon. Chances are they can be counted on one hand, at best. This presents a huge security risk literally in our own backyards as our hungry friends and neighbors grow desperate in their needs for food, warmth, and water. Crime will present itself more and more frequently as time goes by and is by orders of magnitude the security risk about which we should be most concerned.

The catch, however, is that we need friends and neighbors in order to assure our long-term survival. Despite many survivalist claims to the contrary, it is a much greater risk for an individual or family to attempt to survive the wilderness alone than the threat of attack by those closest to you.

The strategy for security preparations against local crime is by no means a purely military one. Remember the adage “war is continuation of politics by other means”. The wisest strategy for security is one that focuses on developing a strong political situation which dictates the smallest possible military backup. Strategies for ensuring physical security must focus on ensuring food, energy, and water security for the local community, which gives the residents something to defend rather that erode.

Even the best prepared among us will be forced to make tough choices in the time ahead, such as who to help and who to guard against. However, we must err toward assisting the needy, even if we keep a wary eye on what we have painstakingly prepared for ensuring our own survival. We cannot hope to keep what we have prepared if we are not prepared to keep our community.

Specific strategies for security will be explored in the next installation of this series, which will clearly delineate the key provisions for comprehensive community security in a post-Peak Oil environment. This will include not only preparing for the primary security concern, internal threats, but ways to guard against the other three possible concerns (MZBs, martial law, foreign occupiers) using the appropriate prioritization of time and resources.

Poison Ivy Monster

PeakEngineer — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:41:18 +0000

In addition to all the veggies in our garden, we are growing a fabulous crop of poison ivy at our rental house. I knew we had a significant infestation after I had to abandon my first compost pile that was overtaken by a field of aggressive poison ivy sprouts. I had also noticed quite a few isolated patches spread throughout the yard. But I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I noticed that what I had thought were two tall, healthy, green trees were actually very dead trees with woody poison ivy monsters climbing their skeletons as high as 30 feet (above).

My plan is to smother the ground patches with mulch and slice into the base of the woody vines. I need to do the smothering without the landlord noticing, as he was concerned about it being “unsightly” (right...where nobody but us would see it?) and preferred we apply poison. While eradicating this plant may be one of the rare exceptions where I could justify pesticides, I prefer to try less destructive -- and probably more effective -- organic options.