The Lure of Home

A common fear amongst those studying the effects of peak oil is thought of mobs of people fleeing towns and cities and invading rural areas. In so many science fiction movies, we see motorways clogged with thousands of cars as people panic and run from impending danger. But the difference between these scenarios and peak oil is that they were fleeing from a known and immediate danger – a flood or a nuclear bomb – whereas peak oil is a slow and gradual breakdown with an unknown set of problems and an unknown timescale.

People are notoriously reluctant to move even when things are bad – consider the inhabitants of cities like London and Plymouth who stayed even when they were being bombed during the War, or the people of Naples or San Francisco who live in the shadow of a constant natural threat that will one day destroy them. People prefer the known to the unknown, familiar surroundings to the unfamiliar, friends to strangers, especially when the place they are fleeing to is alien or, in some cases, if they don’t even know where they are going.

There is also, especially in Britain, the infatuation with owning your own home. If you have spent 20 or 30 years to buy your house, and maybe spent thousand of pounds on improving it, you will be very reluctant to leave it without somewhere definite to go to. The house is recognisable and it’s yours. In a time of fear and uncertainty, the four walls and the garden are something to hold onto. It will almost certainly be the bulk of your assets. If you leave it, who knows what will happen to it, who will invade it.

I believe that the vast majority will stay put, hoping that ‘things will recover’ or ‘the government will sort things out’. If and when they do flee, it will probably be for places they know (relatives and friends) or areas relatively close to home. I can’t see thousands jumping in their cars and using whatever petrol they have left to head off into the country. And those that do will probably be the adventurous, motivated people who would be useful in a survival situation.

In a good location, a house is a blessing; in a bad location, it is a curse.

Write to Vote

I have recently been reading “The Reason of Things” by A C Grayling, a collection of short philosophical essays and, on the whole I agree with what he says about most things. But there is one on which I take a completely opposite view and that is on voting. It is clear that he disapproves of those who do not vote as some of these quotes show:

“The reason that so many are neglectful of their democratic privileges is that they know no history…If they grasped these points, they would not be so cavalier and irresponsible about their democratic duties.”

“The required solution is that voting should be compulsory. One has to respect civil liberty arguments to the contrary, but the fact remains that citizenship imposes duties, many of them (such as paying taxes) already embodied in laws requiring observance on pain of sanction.”

“…Every refusal to vote is an act of self-disenfranchisement in which a citizen, betraying the endeavours of history, demotes himself in to a serf.”

I am fiercely against compulsory voting for several reasons:

First, it goes against the whole idea of democracy – the right to vote for whoever you want also carries the right not to vote. That surely is what freedom means. Forcing someone to vote when they don’t want to strikes me as the sort of thing authoritarian regimes do; that after all is how they get their 99% approval votes. In those systems, people are generally too afraid not to vote and it is only in a genuinely free country that a man or woman can refuse to plod down to the ballot box without getting a late night knock on the door.

Secondly, if people are forced to vote, many are likely simply to put a cross in whichever box comes to hand. Some might deliberately spoil the ballot paper or mark the “None of the above” box (if there is one), but many will no doubt see the walk to the polling station as an annoying imposition and just place their cross down anywhere. Do we really want people elected by chance or by their position on the voting paper? Surely it is better than only those who care or have an interest should vote?

There is also the problem that in Britain we have one of the least democratic democracies in the world. Our nominal head of state is unelected. Our real head of state (the prime minister) is unelected in that we don’t vote directly for him – he just happens to be the leader of the largest party. Our second chamber is unelected and most people effectively have no vote. What I mean by that is that, because we have a first-past-the-post system, in many constituencies, a vote has little meaning. If you live in a safe Labour seat, for instance, voting for Labour will make little difference as will voting for the opposition. And voting for a minor party, wherever you happen to live, is usually a waste of time. If our system used proportional representation, then every vote would have a meaning, no matter how safe the seat or minor the party.

If voter turnout is falling, then we should ask ourselves why, not look for ways to punish those who feel voting is irrelevant or a waste of time. If we could elect or leader, if we could elect the second house, if we had a fair voting system, then more people might consider voting worthwhile and not “a good walk wasted”.

But I would go further with my revision of our voting system: I would bring in a test before anybody was allowed to vote. If my doctor wanted to discuss an illness I had, I would hope that he would consult other qualified people and not just drag people of the street. If my car has a problem, I go to a mechanic, not a dustman or, indeed, a politician. So why do we let people vote who know nothing about politics?

We wouldn’t want to limit voting to just the rich, for instance, or a selected group of people. We have taken too long to progress from that state. But I do think that, before you vote, you should show a minimum amount of knowledge about who you are going to vote for. Nothing complicated, just a few simple questions such as “Name the leaders of the main parties” or “When did women get the vote?” If people did not know these things or couldn’t be bothered to find out, then it suggests they are unlikely to know the difference in the parties and know exactly why they are voting for one over another. The universal franchise would still exist – everybody would still be entitled to vote – but they would have to show some desire to take it seriously first.

The result would be that those who didn’t care about politics, or don’t have the capability to make an informed decision, would be free to ignore the polling booth on voting day. Those who did vote and consequently elected our government would have at least done some research on where to cast that vote. Who knows – making it something you earn rather than have automatically might attract more people to bother in the first place.

Reply to an email on emigration

Question:
I just read some pages on your site. I find it very interesting, your comparison of how well different countries would cope. I know you didn't analyse it, but I live in South Africa and have tried to ask one or two other people how South Africa would fare compared to other countries and only had one reply so far - he said from a resources point of view we are quite well off (relatively) - we have quite a low population density overall, (although in a crises I imagine millions of refugees might come here, we already have about 5 million Zimbabweans living here, by some estimates, because of that country's economic collapse) - we do have massive coal reserves (I think we rank just behind Australia in terms of coal reserves, if I'm not mistaken) and are the only country with a coal-to-liquid fuel thing going as of yet, we have warm climate etc. On the negative side, if other countries' governments are not going to plan adequately then believe me, ours will be even worse. We have been cursed with incompetent and corrupt, but highly paid ministers, who, for example, saw 10 years ago that we would need a lot of new power plants to adequately supply the country will electricity by 2007. Despite warnings, they sat on their hands and handed out massive bonuses to incompetent managers of our country's electricity supply commission (who were put there because of political affiliations, to a large extent) who didn't do their jobs properly. So now we have regular electricity rationing and they are proposing hiking electricity prices by over 50% for two straight years in a row so that they can accumulate capital to build new power plants. My point is that if they foresaw a power crisis 10 years in advance and did nothing, they certainly are not going to be able to adapt smartly to any peak oil crisis. The other problem in SA is social - we have a serious crime problem, (and not just the kind of crime that results from our high income inequality, but violent organised crime, rape etc) by most countries' standards, and I might imagine looting and theft would escalate greatly. Racial tensions might rise as well. As South Africans we've become quite apathetic because government here is quite arrogant and never accepts responsibility for sorting out crime or even the electricity fiasco that has made itself felt in the last year. On the other hand, there are aspects of South African lifestyle that one can't enjoy elsewhere - bigger houses and spaces, fantastic and convenient weather, scenery, relatively cheap food (although the price of food is starting to go through the roof) - all things that are perks. We can produce all kinds of foods and fruit and don't need to import certain fruits like Europeans do, for example. Although much of the country is dry, the eastern and northern parts of the country receive decent amounts of rainfall, and we get a lot of water from Lesotho. As an aside, Zimbabwe used to be a major food producing country ("the breadbasket of Africa") until Robert Mugabe went berserk - now the country relies on food aid. But in your opinion, based on the research you have done, where would South Africa stand in regard to other countries? What do you think of our resource preparedness? Social preparedness? I ask this because a lot of my friends are discussing emigration - mostly my friends find Australia attractive, but would people be better off in Australia in five or ten years’ time? You live in the UK. How do you think the UK will fair overall? I'm curious because the UK has quite a dense population - would it be able to support all those people without cheap fertilisers and oil for tractors etc?

Answer:
On the whole, I agree pretty much with what you say. In resource terms, South Africa is very handily placed with both commercial resources (such as coal and, don't forget, gold which is the first choice during a recession) and the 'living' resources such as weather, food, etc. It really should be in an excellent situation now and well prepared to face the future.

The problem, as you have recognised, is government - the same reason why Zimbabwe is a mess when it should be the "breadbasket of Africa". I am not generally a supporter of empires, despite my nationality, but the British Empire did at least leave both South Africa and Zimbabwe in a good condition to face the future with a competent administrative structure and good transport links. The reason why both countries threw this away was due to corruption in their leaders, the apartheid regime and Mugabe. As Lord Acton said "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

The problem with deciding whether to stay put or emigrate is that the deciding factor with how a country will cope is the one factor we cannot predict - the type of government it will have and how they will react. Who would have thought that the apartheid regime would have brought forth Nelson Mandela? I also think back to when I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. The idea that the Soviet Union would disappear before the end of the century would have seemed ridiculous but Gorbachev appeared from nowhere and it happened.

Since we don't know what sort of governments will come along in the next few decades, it is hard to choose a country to move to. In Europe, at the moment, I would expect the Scandinavian countries to produce more sensible governments (it is helpful if you are on the outskirts of a continent and largely ignored by others) but it is not impossible to imagine Norway, with its carefully managed oil resources, becoming the target for a desperate country in the future. When times get bad, governments get bad.

I personally think the UK is going to be a bad place to be in the future. North Sea Oil is running out quickly and we are very densely populated so we are not well placed in the sense of resources. Our government (and the opposition party) seem to be moving so quickly to the authoritarian right that I suspect they will turn to violence and oppression as they try and cope with the future, rather like the USA. That is one reason why I am leaving the UK in July and I hope to live abroad permanently. Initially I will hope to live in the Czech Republic but, because of the uncertainties in the future, I want to get too fixed in my status. I want to be in a position to move if I see problems ahead.

So that sums up my advice to you. I don't think we can look at any country and say it is a safe haven for the future, either because its government may turn irrational or oppressive, or because it may be attacked for its resources, or invaded because of desperation by a neighbour. We can look at some countries such as the UK, USA and China and be pretty sure that they will not be good places to be, but it is not so easy who will be okay. Australia may seem okay now but they could face problems ahead: how will the country fare under global warming - will the desert areas expand? How will they cope with oil shortages since it is not that well endowed with fossil fuels? What will the overpopulated areas of Asia do if they see an apparently peaceful and under-populated country so near?

I don't think that South Africa is necessarily a bad place for the future. I don't know its politics well enough to see where the government is going, whether it can produce a far-sighted leader who will put it on the right path, but it is, at least, well-positioned resource-wise. A good leader in a poor country is not in a position to do much, however wise he may be. I would say keep your options open, be flexible in your own resources and be in a position to move if things turn bad.

Question:
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I hope our government somehow keeps its head on its shoulders in the years to come. Not that you need to know - but much of the political goodwill that was here after Mandela came to power has been squandered – it’s tragic how openly corrupt some of our politicians are and yet they are never held accountable. I'm led to believe that our ministers, in an oil crisis, would think "every man for himself, especially me" and abuse their power and connections for their own advantage and leave the country to suffer. Anyway, as an aside, I studied finance, but through a strange set of events starting teaching temporarily, and since I liked it and was not married, teaching has become a more permanent job for me for the past few years (I teach high school maths).
I've lately wanted to get back into my original career plans and have been furthering my degree to keep my qualifications current - I used to think one day I would work for a big investment bank or something of the sorts. Now I'm doubting whether that will be feasible.

Frankly, those kind of institutions suffer greatly in recessions, and, to be honest, I actually am at the point (after learning more about the world's monetary systems and other things) that most of the financial industry is almost parasitic to the rest of society - it produces very little of social value and yet a massive amount of wealth is diverted to large numbers of people who work in that sector.
If you were to advise broadening one's skills so as to be mobile and employable, or be able to feed oneself, what skills would you recommend acquiring? Which professions ought to do well? Would engineers be in demand in some way? As for more basic skills?
Just curious what your thoughts might be.

Answer:
Finance may yet be a useful trade in the future. With house prices collapsing (in the USA and UK, at least) and recession looming, many people will need advice on what to do with their money.

The occupations that will be useful are those that people can't do without, whatever the situation: doctors, dentists, car mechanics, farmers, police, army. Even sewage workers are essential. My present trade is a graphic designer which is not too useful in a recession - advertising is one area people will cut back on. One reason why I am moving into teaching which will always be around. Trades like carpentry and plumbing will be useful although people will often try and do these things themselves - electricians and gas fitters are better placed since DIY with these can be risky. Engineers, especially if you specialise in renewable energy, will be well placed.

You have to look at the situation as an ordinary person and think what would be useful. In the UK, for instance, dentistry is rapidly becoming private as NHS support is cut back. But people will always get toothache and, in the future, I can see people making a living here by travelling around doing private but cheap dentistry. I've read about yachtsmen who are doctors and dentists and travel the road, financing themselves by doing their work. People will keep their cars going rather than buy new ones and odd job mechanics will have a place.

Reply to an email on surviving

Question:
Peak-oil problems have started ('it's happening'), so I'm thinking seriously to relocate. I work and live on an island now (Curaçao) in the Caribbean, but an island seems to me one of the worst places to be in a few years from now. Or maybe possible is an island with much less people (1000-2000) and own agriculture. Maybe even the best if there is a lot of ground water (and rain). What is your opinion regarding this ? Your recommend Russia or Brazil as the best. France (nuclear power) don't seem too bad, but what happens when no food is available in the (big) cities ? Hide and survive in the countryside for 6 weeks? Norway maybe, but same problem with food-availability I think.

Answer:
The problem with an island, especially a small one, is that, as newcomers arrive, or the society grows or splits, they cannot easily expand. The idea of a large group of people putting all their belongings into a ship and sailing off to a virgin island is unlikely. On the other hand, you are likely to get fewer outsiders arriving to settle once the costs of flying discourage overseas travel and a smallish island with a strong government is quite a self-contained environment (as with Cuba). The climate is generally better, food sources are more ample and it is easier to defend.

The page about “Which Country” is meant to make people think about suitability rather than be an absolute guide. Obviously you cannot class a whole country as good or bad for survival – a rich man in Bangladesh is going to be better off than a poor man in Norway, although Norway as a country will probably cope better than Bangladesh. France’s nuclear power I see as a potential disaster – 39% of its primary energy consumption comes from nuclear (79% of its electricity) and 36% from oil. We know that oil is going to decline and, if there are problems with uranium, it will find three quarters of its energy coming from two uncertain fuels. France has no native uranium so, if there is a big rush for nuclear in the future, it could find it difficult to procure enough. That is not a good situation to be in.

Survivability depends on your small scale situation. I would think the worst place to be would be a megalopolis like Mexico City, Rio or London. With millions of people and almost all food and energy having to be brought in, they are not attractive areas to be as things fall apart. The surrounding lands, both urban and rural, are also under threat from refugees from the cities.

A completely rural settlement is not necessarily that attractive either. A small village will have few amenities which means having to go to nearby towns for food and goods, and the small number of people is not good for security (in the sense of coping with normal problems as well as defending against intruders).

Probably the best grouping would be a larger village or a small town which has the infrastructure, amenities and population to cope while being small enough to retain a sense of community. Some sense of isolation, such as being far from major areas of population (eg. Cornwall) would be beneficial. People in cities would be envious of these areas but the long distances are likely to dissuade many.

Reply to an email on recessions

Question:
I have been looking the BP figures. Am I right in assuming that the early eighties downturn in total production was due to economic recession? How would one know that a downturn now was not caused by similar factors? Another thing: When will the BP figures for 2007 be available? What is your sense of what is happening now with the economic down turn?

Answer:
The major drops in oil production in the 1970s and early 1980s were due to the OPEC embargo and the Iraq/Iran wars. This helped contribute to the economic recession which, as you say, reduced demand, thereby keeping production low.

It is true that recession now (and high oil prices) would reduce demand and we would expect this as a series of "hills" and "valleys" on the downslope of the Hubbert Curve. Economic theory would suggest that, as unemployment and inflation rose, demand for oil would drop, therefore decreasing the oil price and, as a result, production. Then people would start using the cheap oil resulting in higher oil prices and increased production.

But if we are really at the Hubbert plateau, then when the recession ends in a few years time, production might not be able to be increased. That will probably be the real proof that we are on the downslope. Production decreases now may be just due to recession. As with so much of the Hubbert Theory, we will not know it for sure until some time after the event.

The BP figures are usually published around June or July of the following year.

I'm not an economist but it seems that the present recession in the USA is due to many things, not just the price of oil (although that is contributing). There is the famous credit crunch which is due to excessive borrowing over the years. When anybody - person, company or country - borrows beyond its means, there will come a time when it has to face the consequences. The USA has had a massive debt for many years. Factors such as the massive military spending and the rise of China and India are all contributing.

My view is that, if the Hubbert Peak/Plateau was still decades away, then this recession would be like the ones of the past, eventually being succeeded by recovery. But this one is more complicated. I don't think China and India will be so affected by the recession so the demand for oil will not drop dramatically (unless a war creates a shortage such as a US attack on Iran). This means that, when the West reaches the point where it tries to climb out of recession, oil production will not be able to keep pace with increased demand and we may not be able to.

Other people with more economic knowledge than me think this recession could be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. I wouldn't disagree.

Enemy advances

There are many things about the resource war in Iraq that I dislike but one in particular that has surfaced recently is the crowing about how the ‘surge’ has worked. The surge is just a fancy name for troop reinforcements and it is no surprise that such an increase has appeared to bring about an increase in peace and stability. But the surge is not over and we will not know whether it has succeeded until those reinforcements are removed.

Remember Mao’s thoughts on guerrilla warfare:

The enemy advances, we retreat;
the enemy camps, we harass;
the enemy tires, we attack;
the enemy retreats, we pursue

I imagine that the resistance forces in Iraq are biding their time, training and fortifying for the time when and if the US reinforcements leave. Only when that happens will we be able to say whether the surge has been a success or not.

Left-wing thinking

An idea came to me recently, not an idea that I have ever heard before but something that got me thinking. I was watching a news report on the law and order and two interesting things – a fact and an opinion – came up. The fact was that Britain has more people in prison than almost anywhere else in Europe. The opinion was what we should do about the apparent growing crime rate. Most people’s views seemed to be that we should build more prisons.

The incongruity here should be clear. If prison worked, we should have less crime in Britain since we put more people in prison. If crime is growing, then prison isn’t the answer so we shouldn’t be thinking of that.

The idea that came to me was that, to be left-wing requires intelligence. Right-wing thinking is often, though not necessarily, a sign of lack of intelligence. The idea, for instance, that we should imprison more people, or for longer, is a *right-wing mind-set. It is the instinctive attitude, the one you take without taking the time to think about it. It is my instinctive view. When my car was broken into, my initial attitude was to get the perpetrators and lock them up for a long, long time. Stick them in the stocks, even. But when you calm down and take the time to think about things, your attitude often changes. Thinking about prison and crime, it seems clear that simply putting more people in prison isn’t going to work – more radical, less obvious solutions are needed. We need to be more left-wing in our thinking.

Similarly with capital punishment. The instinctive, right-wing view is that execution is the better preference – a deterrent and something which stops people re-offending. A bit of thought though (as well as statistics) shows that it isn't a deterrent. If it was, crime would have been almost non-existent in Victorian times when you could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread, and the USA (which has capital punishment) would be far more peaceful than Europe (which has none). Crime is not that simple.

Religion is another area which often has right-wing views and you only have to look at fundamentalist, creationist thinking to see what a lack of intelligence can do. A greater proportion of scientists are atheists than in the general populace, and a scientist must be intelligent (although not necessarily wise). Religion, especially fundamentalist religion, clearly appeals to those who either don’t want to think for themselves or are unable to. The idea that everything in the Bible or Koran is literally true is clearly ludicrous to anybody with a smidgen of intellect as well as being impossible (since they contain contradictions). It’s the easy way out for the dim-witted – all your decisions are made by the priest or religion, and your morality is decided by someone else. That doesn’t mean that no intelligent person can be religious, of course, but I would imagine that few of them are fundamentalists. When dogma competes with intellect: the greater the latter, the more obvious the outcome.

As far as peak oil is concerned, the tendency among believers is to be both intelligent and left-wing. Some of the concepts in PO are not easy to understand without a little thought and, since the whole idea and answer revolves around great change, the idea of conservatism does not fit in very well with it. Right-wingers, I suspect, would be found amongst the economists and politicians.

(I realise that this could all be, of course, a bit of wishful thinking. Being rather left-wing myself, it would be nice to think that this showed how intelligent I was.)

*I use here the traditional position of left and right as synonyms for libertarian and authoritarian. An excellent website, http://www.politicalcompass.org, sees this dual view as simplistic and prefers a quadruple view using two axes, libertarian-authoritarian, and a left-right economic one. I shall use left-right in the traditional sense here.