Follow-up on communications

As a follow-up to my earlier musing on communication technologies, I did pen recently a document summarizing the various licensed and unlicensed two-way technologies that are available to people here in the United States and Canada. Here is the current version of it:
http://home.mchsi.com/~anderson.kevin/docs/Communication_Options_TwoWayRadio_ver1_0_3.html

(Should a new numbered version get created of this document, you will be able to find the update by checking at this webpage: http://home.mchsi.com/~anderson.kevin/)

Two-way radio will only be a stop-gap measure, as eventually we won't have the parts or electricity to keep it going. But between now and then some people will want to have it available.

Kevin

I'm still alive, just....

Just a brief post to let the world (all none of you probably reading my blog besides me and my cat), that I am still alive. I just haven't been in the mood to post on a subject appropriate for my blog.

I'm still pondering the post-oil world. Lately I've been wondering about my retirement funds (assuming I get to use them in 15 years, let alone longer than that, if I get to retire at all), our economic system, and about banking. With regard to banking, I'm exploring my fiscal conservatism in light of ideas known as "narrow" banking or full-reserve banking. I'm struggling between wanting to see my money grow in value, even while in a savings account, let alone in bonds or in the stock market, against just wanting the guarantee it will be there any time I choose to withdraw it. Currently banks are required to keep on-hand in their reserve something like only 10%, with the rest being re-invested and "creating" money. What if banks had to keep 90%, or even 100% (full reserve), on hand? How would that affect the economy? Could we even keep up with cost of living and inflation so we aren't going backwards?

Just some of what I've been thinking lately. Maybe soon I will have something substantial to post. In the meantime I keep reading my favorite blogs (see early post) and just trying to survive.

Kevin Anderson
'who is tired on this Monday that I'm posting, but so far as I know not sick yet

A First Step to Getting Others to Accept Human Impacts on Climate

While not directly Peak Oil related, a question that has pondered me for about 18 years is how to get others to accept the possibility that we, as humans, are impacting climate, possibly causing a global warming of considerable proportion.

This question came up in my mind yet again this past week. I've been co-teaching a course this semester at our seminary, titled Ethics, Environment, and Development. As part of the course, we have the students watch the Al Gore movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," and then have a discussion about it. Like other discussions I've had with students on global warming, few seem to be willing to accept the possibility that human activity is having an impact. And even fewer are willing to accept changes that might be needed except for the same tired litany of using CFL bulbs, turning off lights, and driving a hybrid, and realizing those changes alone aren't enough. I saw the same response back in the early 1990s when I used to show a different movie, James Burk's "After the Warming." That movie was even more powerful, I thought, than Gore's movie in that it attempts to portray what the future might look like in a significantly warmer world. My students were speechless.

I guess I don't blame them for being afraid. But it sure helps if one can accept that we are having an impact on the climate and change is necessary. One of Al Gore's criticisms in his movie is the number of skeptics that keeping trying to fight against the idea of human impacts on climate.

In response to those who are skeptical, after some pondering during a very slow and long walk after class on Thursday, I think I've come up with a fairly simple explanation. An explanation I hope will be easy enough for someone to accept. Let me try it on for size:

Any time humans burn either oil, coal, or natural gas, we are releasing into the atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2, a gas known to have "greenhouse" effects) that hasn't been there for a very, very long time (at least not for millions of years, or at least hundreds of thousands of years, since the carbon was first locked up by plants before being buried and eventually become gas, coal, and oil). This "ancient sunlight," now released again, means more CO2 in the atmosphere than before humans started burning oil, coal, and gas. We've been burning this ancient sunlight in ever increasing quantities for over 100 years now. And since we haven't been increasing the amount of plants in the world (in fact, the quantity and density of plants has been decreasing), which conceivably could remove that released CO2 again, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere must be increasing. So unless you feel that CO2 has no function in a retention of the sun's energy and temperature in the atmosphere, then we as humans must be having some impact.

It's as simple as that.

Notice I'm not saying anything yet about the amount of impact (other than suggest it is likely increasing), or that all measured climate warming is due to humans. For the moment I'd be happy if people just accept the fact that we are having an impact. Better yet, I'd be happy if they understand that the burning of oil, coal, and gas is the form or source of an impact, and therefore the reduction of the same burning is needed to remove that impact.

Let me start there and let this idea sit for a time.

From a currently sunny Dubuque,
Kevin Anderson

Musings on Communication Technology

After worrying about food, shelter (including winter heating where I live), clothing, and health, a concern for the future will be how we communicate.

Communication technology has long been an interest of mine. Radio and telegraphy have been particularly interests. Using the internet consumes a bunch of my time each day, both for work and pleasure. And lately I have been caught up in this switch to digital television here in the States.

My guess is that most Americans (and Canadians, Europeans, and others surrounded by electronic technology) believe we will always have telephones, cell phones, television, satellites, cheap long distance, computers, and the internet.

I think when all is said in done, however, that we won't have any of these, and hope that we might at least have a working postal service.

So how will communicate? I don't know - how did people communicate 500 years ago? By person-to-person carrying of letters and stories, traveled there by foot, horse, and sail. And the town crier and over-the-fence gosiping. In the end, that is likely all we can count on having. Communication will be slow, but it will take place. It just may not go very far.

Why the pessimistic view?

Well, all of our modern communication depend on electricity, and high-tech production that use tight tolerances and materials that are rare (except for sand) and will become too costly for the average person to own or support. I just don't see it continuing after some point in time, as this will be closely tied to the loss of oil.

So what do we do in the meantime?

I know that I, for one, plan to spend as little money as possible on televisions and computers, to name two specific technologies Same with automobiles, which are likely to become expendable before the other items. All three need to be viewed as expendable, likely to get disposed. The novel, World Made by Hand, by John Howard Kunstler, which I described in an earlier post, provided a good example of how that could happen. A critical constraint, at least for anything requiring electricity, which all electronic technologies need, can be taken away very easily. It doesn't have to disappear completely - just becoming inconsistent, starting with roaming blackouts, is enough to make its availability unpredictable. It will become easier to expect electricity not to be there at all, rather than sitting around waiting for it. Besides, when the electricity does come on, watching television or getting on the internet will be very low priorities compared to just making sure food can be cooked or cooled.

Forget about cell phones (mobiles). They will one of the first communication methods to disappear. I'm hoping basic telephone will be one of the last to die, along with basic radio, although even today's telephone system is very sophisticated and computerized behind the scenes. Television will disappear in the middle somewhere, especially now that it is going to digital broadcasting, which is a most complicated technology, requiring more sophisticated manufacturing of components and less tolerant of interference. Even computers, let alone the internet, will be less accessible, first due to rising costs and later due to lack of ability to keep it going; the government, military, and large corporation users will be the last to lose out, long after the idea of "personal" computing disappears.

It is best now to think about all of this being unavailable someday. The world is in effect going to get very large and very small at the same time. Very small in that one's area of movement will be small indeed, with communities effectively isolated from each other, which means in a time scale the world as a whole will become very large, too large for all but a few to know it or travel to see it.

Looked at it this way, it makes no sense to spend US$800, let alone $1,600 or more, on a new widescreen digital television. It is a poor investment given that it may become a useless object in a short time. Same goes for similar costs for a new computer. They just don't make sense anymore. But that 46-inch TV sure looks nice! And that new laptop sure would be fast!

Now if only I could break my habit today of using these technologies. Yet, as others will argue, we need to use these technologies all the more while we go through this transition to a post-oil world (and therefore by implication a post-electronic communication world). There is so much we need to learn, and to share, and time is short, which modern communication can help.

We will see what happens.

Cheers from Dubuque,
Kevin Anderson

eBook "Lights Out" by Halffast

While I don't normally make a habit of reading survivalist literature or watching post-apocalyptic movies (although I will admit to liking some), I was in the mood this past weekend to read an eBook that I was aware of. In this case the book is called "Lights Out" by an author who names himself "Halffast." You can currently find copies of this 600+ page book at these two URLs:
http://survivalmonkey.com/SF%20books/LightsOut!/LightsOut-Current.pdf
http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdf
The book is about 2.5 Mbytes in size as a PDF, in what appears to be 8-1/2x11-inch format. (Or if you prefer smaller chunks, ten chapters at a time, start here: http://www.survivalmonkey.com/Lights%20Out.htm)

I started the book on Saturday, while doing laundry, and finished it Wednesday evening. I read about 100 to 120 pages a day, except for the marathon stretch on Wednesday when I finished the book.

It is the story about the survival efforts of a subdivision of people, and later many, many others, who live just east of San Antonio, Texas, following a terrorist attack against the entire U.S. (and later Europe and elsewhere) using missile-launched nukes to knock out electricity, lights, and most other devices dependent on electronics with an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) blast. Set in this decade, the book follows about 120 days or so of survival and how they had to start over again. First to preserve themselves against nature and mostly raiders, and later hopefully later to thrive, which it appears they did based on the brief epilogue about 60 years into the future.

Be prepared for much fighting, blood, killing, etc. There are many survivalist ideas in the book, if you are into this type of thing (which I am not), including military-type tactics. I read it mainly for an unusual diversion from the cold winter weather, but also to keep in my mind the possibilities of what could happen some day. Similar to my reading this past year of "Earth Abides" and "World Made by Man." I don't think I'm wanting this or another form of apocalypse to happen, but I'm also not saying that it couldn't happen. It is hard to say what terrorists might do, a fast-moving pandemic, or what not having oil might mean if it happens too quickly for people to gradually adjust.

Other books I am considering reading in the coming year, but that I haven't bought yet, include Caryl Johnston’s Peak Oil novel "After the Crash," Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” and "Ecotopia"by Ernest Callenback. At the same time, I hate to dwell on the idea of apocalypse, as it is depressing.

From Dubuque,
Kevin Anderson

Blogs I follow regularly

Just a brief post to let you know of four blogs that I regularly monitor (once a week typically) on the subject of Peak Oil and ideas for changes that need to be made. No particular order, they are:

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php

which is published by someone, Jan Lundberg, who used to be an oil industry analyst and who left that industry quite a few years ago. Jan's thoughts are sometimes extreme, and other times very good. His interests are broader than just Peak Oil.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/

a weekly blog article (updated Monday mornings) by the author James Howard Kunstler, who has been speaking against suburbs, etc., for some time ("Geography of Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency") and wrote the fictional novel I read last year, "World Made by Hand."

http://sharonastyk.com/

a blog updated almost daily with interesting ideas about food security.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/

Another interesting blog, updated on Wednesdays, that is fairly wide-ranging and with well thought out ideas.

Kevin Anderson

I'm Still Alive

I'm still alive. I just haven't felt like writing. Like most of you, I'm caught up in life (work, family, etc.) and watching the economy.

For instance, I recently moved some of my retirement investments into hopefully more "secure" vehicles. Or put it another way, I've moved a bunch (but not all yet) of my 403 money out of stock options to things like money market and government security options. Money market vehicles, for instance, have a huge stigma attached to them by investment companies about not wanting to "break the buck" (i.e., lose money). My goal in these shifts is to at least temporarily minimize my losses. I can always reconfigure my asset allocations later to put more money back into stocks and other supposed "growth" vehicles once the economy improves. But in the meantime, I don't want to lose my retirement investments.

Not that I expect to spend this retirement later. Being I'm only 49 now, I believe all this - retirement monies, social security, etc. - will have all but disappeared by the time I might retire. Even "retirement" is a word my wife and I are realizing won't likely be an option for us, let alone for our children. I am keeping open the option for my three university-aged children to move back home. Maybe we can survive the old style way, by multi-generational families under one roof. I don't see how we can do otherwise.

We also want to work on building up further our cash-based emergency fund and in storing at least a modest amount of food. Just in case....

Sober in Dubuque.
Kevin

Sidebar on Higher Education and Jobs of the Future

Today I find myself pondering the future with respect to jobs that will exist after the economy shrinks and the respective need for higher education.

I work in higher education, and have been involved in one fashion or another my entire adult life. I have a vested interest in higher education. I am the product of higher education. I also have my oldest son at the university as an undergraduate right now, plus my younger two will graduate from high school this spring and are off to university next year as well. As I reflect on the shrinking economy and the cost of my children getting their education, and then think ahead to what is to come, I find I have very mixed feelings about what they are and are about to do.

Admittedly James Howard Kunstler's new novel, World Made By Hand, has shook me up somewhat. So much of what we take for granted today for employment, travel, and access to resources will likely be gone after Peak Oil. Not that I will miss it that much, at least as I anticipate it coming. And I am somewhat shaken by the recent decision by Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Episcopal seminary near Chicago, to not offer a traditional residential Master of Divinity any more, due in part to a self-recognition of an over-abundance of Episcopal seminaries, but largely due to an ongoing budget deficit, which the continued education of traditional students will only make worse.

Higher education, particularly graduate -level education, is not cheap. It is a very large and costly industry. I have wondered on many occasions how students will be able to afford post-secondary education in the future, and in turn how many institutions, and what kinds of institutions, of higher education will be viable in twenty years.

When I think ahead to the world described in Kunstler's novel, and to the nature of essential jobs in small towns and rural areas (but also cities), I come up with a very short list of those needing post-secondary education, at least those needing a Bachelor's degree, let alone a Masters and beyond. Comparing that list (more in a moment) against the number of students getting degrees and the fields these studies are in, one quickly becomes aware of a chasm between needs and wants. The needs are very small compared to the surplus of fields graduating students. I don't dispute the economics that currently, and have for several decades, favored the income earned by college graduates as being substantially more than the cost of education and the earnings of a student who didn't complete college. But I can't help wondering if those days are already numbered. And therefore wondering if my children will in turn be favored by their education, and the cost (i.e., debt) we must bear in the near term to make it happen.

So what jobs need higher education for their preparation? Here is my short list:

• The medical profession, primarily doctors, nurses, and dentists
• Lawyers (and hopefully not so many of those...)
• Teachers, including elementary, secondary, and some post-secondary (to educate the same and those in the other professions being listed)
• Pastors, priests, clergy
• Some engineers, particularly understanding structures and materials for safety sake
  

That's about it.

Pretty much all of the other activities/professions you'd expect people to be involved don't require a college degree. Some vocational training perhaps, but not a college degree. And even those listed above will not number into being nearly so many people as our educational system is set up to produce, let alone all the other graduates we are turning out. So the higher educational system is bound to shrink. How extensive, and how quickly, is what we will discover as Peak Oil unfolds.

For now am I saying "no" to my children going to school? No. I can't point my finger at enough certainties to do that. But I am admittedly very cautious about the amount of money it may be prudent to put into their education. And I am questioning my own future for employment down the road. Some people are saying many factors will be converging on or about 2010 or 2011, which is very soon.

I guess I/we will find out.