Lots of bright minds in DC and other places are coming up with all kinds of plans to “Save the Economy.” Well, folks, here is where I get not only alternative but down right gloomy.
I don’t think the “economy” that we have developed over the last century or so can be saved. I don’t think it can be saved because it is inherently unsustainable. Why do I believe that? Who am I to say such a thing? I’m a regular gal. Slightly over educated, but not in economics. But I read all kinds of things from all kinds of places. I’m not the only one who thinks our present economy is doomed. As to why I agree that it is doomed, keep reading.
Our economy today is dependent on one and only one energy source. If you don’t get your energy from that then you don’t get, by our economy’s standards, “enough to do anything.” No, that energy source in not electricity. That is just how we use a lot of it. The real, the basic energy source is fossil fuel. Oh, here is where I might point out that even the uranium used in nuclear reactors is a fossil fuel, perhaps the oldest one, left over from the very formation of the planet.
That dependency on fossil fuel wouldn’t be quite so bad if we used them, and had always used them, in a wise and frugal manner. But we didn’t and with the outlook our economy insists we have in today’s society we never will. We use them lavishly and wastefully.
We are using them that way even though they are no longer cheap and easy to get. You’ve all read the horror stories about “fracking” as it relates to the process of getting oil or gas out of non-permeable shale. Want to know why we are only now finding out about this problem? Because until now the oil and gas folks didn’t need to do any fracking where people rich enough or close enough to a big city TV station could bitch about it. The only reason they do it where they do it now is because they have to. Why? Because there ain’t no more else where!
Yep, that is one of the big reasons the economy is, in my opinion going to go bust. We are running out of the stuff we use to make it go. Coal? HA! What they’d have to do to make that run your car or truck is way more expensive than gas is now. Yeah, it could power an electric car, but without a lot of filtering the smoke from the stacks would have us all suffering from COPD before long.
Then there is the basic outlook our economics has taught us to have. We deserve a raise just because we showed up for work most days and were generally on time. We think we deserve a raise even if the cost of living our life dose not go up.
Why? If we have enough to live on, enough to eat, keep reasonably warm in winter, cool in summer and stay dry and comfy when it rains, and friends / family to keep us company, why do we need more money? More stuff? Human nature? Maybe. Maybe not. Somehow I think our present wastrel life style has taught us this outlook. Now we throw out things even our grandparents would have repaired and kept using. These wasteful habits of ours are really rather new to our culture and will end it.
What to do, specifically what to do NOW to survive the end of oil and the modern economy? Start a sustainable food garden. Read up on Permaculture. Learn to walk again. Help any interested neighbors start their own gardens. Work with nature, not against it.
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