Part of my PeakOil Story (Part 2) - An Interlude of Thoughts...
In part one of my PeakOil Story, I suggested that I have been on a 25-year journey to accepting the Hubbert Peak of oil. Actually it has been longer than that, with a whole bunch more small pieces of the story to add in here on reflection, starting back to when I was a youth in the 60s and up to the near present.
One of my first favorite books (outside of the Rick Brant and Hardy Boys series) in my youth was My Side of the Mountain, the medal winning book by Jean Craighead George. The courage and skill of a city kid to adjust to living in the Catskills was most enticing.
I used to read about Native American Indians and wanted to be one (I'm Scandinavian by ancestry) - not the Tonto style of earlier images, but what I thought at the time was more realistic (but no doubt simplified in the books I read). I read about their religion, hunting methods, seasonal migration, and other aspects of life.
I used to dream of living in the mountains of Colorado or New Mexico, staring for hours at maps and trying to imagine what a place really looked like (I grew up in Minnesota).
After reading in high school Jack Kerouac's story about being a fire watcher in the West, I was attracted by the dream of similarly being a fire watcher, surrounded by and in solitude with nature, above the world, but still very dependent on it for survival. (I never did do that.)
After reading the High Adventure of Eric Ryback in high school about his solo high along the entire Pacific Crest Trail, I used to day dream of either that or hiking the Appalachian Trail or biking the width of the country (or all of the above). (So far I haven't done any of those, although I have canoed twice in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.)
In college, in my first geography class, I became fascinated about the closer spacing of towns and the organizing of economic activities in central places in Europe and earlier U.S. settled areas along the more human scales of walking, horse-drawn travel, and early railroad settlement. Also the scale of earlier cities, again largely at walking-scale as modified by streetcars. And the idea of hinterlands and "milksheds" surrounding cities, providing resources by train from the local areas to feed the city. In contrast, while I find the "newness" of suburbs somewhat "exciting" (I grew up outside the Twin Cities and lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul for five years), I've never been really excited about living in suburbs. (My more recent readings of James Kunstler's The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere have only confirmed to me what I couldn't name before, that of why I didn't then and still don't like suburbs.)
In this same first college geography class, I discovered the photographic works of David Plowden, particularly those pictures documenting the decline of previous industrial achievments and towns, as collected in his books such as The Hand of Man on America and Bridges: The Spans of North America. There was a sadness that affected me significantly.
In a philosophy of history course, I became enamored by the early notions of time as circular, with so many cultures philosophies, religion, and life style revolving around repeating, seasonal nature.
I became fascinated by railroads, and still am.
Also in college I read John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie, which became another favorite book of mine that I read again every few years. It provides a marvelous human scale journey through part of the American social and physical landscape.
In graduate school, I read about the planned communities and "garden city" utopian ideals of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ebenezer Howard. And then traveled to Europe to see these places in person, like Lelystad and Biljemeer in the Netherlands, and Milton Keenes and Bracknell in the U.K., with their walking scale and local neighborhoods, yet connected to other places by railroads. And then comparing these places with nearby cities of London and Amsterdam, again walking cities at their core, ending a day's observation with discussion over a wonderful pint of beer at the pub.
In the 1980s, my favorite British comedy on public television was Good Neighbors (originally titled The Good Life when aired in Britain on the BBC). This is a story about a 30-something couple with no kids who decide to quit jobs and make a go at a sustainable life in their suburban home.
Coming a bit closer in today:
I've always been interested in older technology, particularly the telegraph (see Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet, for a fascinating account on its history and its social and economic impact on the world), the early telephone system based on human operators and, later, stepper-based switching, and with radio (particularly shortwave radio). It will be simpler technologies that we may very well be returning to in the future when petroleum is not available, electricity is unreliable, and we won't have computers like we do today.
Similarly, I am fascinated by the early history of computers and the attempts to network them together - UUCP peer-to-peer networks, Fidonet, and the amateur radio packet network. It may very well be grassroots, community based, cooperative networks that will keep what communications we will have going in the future.
I've always been fascinated by the 1940s. Originally in the study of World War II military history (air force activities have always fascinated me), but more recently in study of what is really an exciting period of time - the last vestiges of a largely pre-petroleum era way of living. Life on the "Home Front", with its adjustments to food and fuel rationing, the industrialization of the military response, and the post-war rebuilding (e.g., the Marshall Plan) are all interesting, providing examples how people can respond, at least in the short term, to significant changes and interruptions.
Finally, at least for this post, the reading in 2000-2001 of the book, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069, by William Straus and Neil Howe. The book helped me understand that I am clearly a "Baby Boomer" (I was born in 1959, which makes me one of the last, but nonethelesss I do qualify for that categorization), and that it is alright that I am an idealist - after all, that is the major characterization of Baby Boomers and their equivalent generations in the past. The book also helped me understand the role that baby boomers could play in providing the leadership and guidance to solving a major crisis of change (such as Peak Oil might bring) in the same way that my earlier equivalents of the Missionary generation (F.D.R.'s generation) did in leadership during World War II as more commonly fought by the G.I. Generation. (I am not dissing the G.I. Generation - I hold them in high regard. I am hopeful that the modern equivalent, the Millenial Generation that my children belong to, will be equally helpful and focused for the future changes that are coming.)
Enough for today...more to come later.
One of my first favorite books (outside of the Rick Brant and Hardy Boys series) in my youth was My Side of the Mountain, the medal winning book by Jean Craighead George. The courage and skill of a city kid to adjust to living in the Catskills was most enticing.
I used to read about Native American Indians and wanted to be one (I'm Scandinavian by ancestry) - not the Tonto style of earlier images, but what I thought at the time was more realistic (but no doubt simplified in the books I read). I read about their religion, hunting methods, seasonal migration, and other aspects of life.
I used to dream of living in the mountains of Colorado or New Mexico, staring for hours at maps and trying to imagine what a place really looked like (I grew up in Minnesota).
After reading in high school Jack Kerouac's story about being a fire watcher in the West, I was attracted by the dream of similarly being a fire watcher, surrounded by and in solitude with nature, above the world, but still very dependent on it for survival. (I never did do that.)
After reading the High Adventure of Eric Ryback in high school about his solo high along the entire Pacific Crest Trail, I used to day dream of either that or hiking the Appalachian Trail or biking the width of the country (or all of the above). (So far I haven't done any of those, although I have canoed twice in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.)
In college, in my first geography class, I became fascinated about the closer spacing of towns and the organizing of economic activities in central places in Europe and earlier U.S. settled areas along the more human scales of walking, horse-drawn travel, and early railroad settlement. Also the scale of earlier cities, again largely at walking-scale as modified by streetcars. And the idea of hinterlands and "milksheds" surrounding cities, providing resources by train from the local areas to feed the city. In contrast, while I find the "newness" of suburbs somewhat "exciting" (I grew up outside the Twin Cities and lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul for five years), I've never been really excited about living in suburbs. (My more recent readings of James Kunstler's The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere have only confirmed to me what I couldn't name before, that of why I didn't then and still don't like suburbs.)
In this same first college geography class, I discovered the photographic works of David Plowden, particularly those pictures documenting the decline of previous industrial achievments and towns, as collected in his books such as The Hand of Man on America and Bridges: The Spans of North America. There was a sadness that affected me significantly.
In a philosophy of history course, I became enamored by the early notions of time as circular, with so many cultures philosophies, religion, and life style revolving around repeating, seasonal nature.
I became fascinated by railroads, and still am.
Also in college I read John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie, which became another favorite book of mine that I read again every few years. It provides a marvelous human scale journey through part of the American social and physical landscape.
In graduate school, I read about the planned communities and "garden city" utopian ideals of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ebenezer Howard. And then traveled to Europe to see these places in person, like Lelystad and Biljemeer in the Netherlands, and Milton Keenes and Bracknell in the U.K., with their walking scale and local neighborhoods, yet connected to other places by railroads. And then comparing these places with nearby cities of London and Amsterdam, again walking cities at their core, ending a day's observation with discussion over a wonderful pint of beer at the pub.
In the 1980s, my favorite British comedy on public television was Good Neighbors (originally titled The Good Life when aired in Britain on the BBC). This is a story about a 30-something couple with no kids who decide to quit jobs and make a go at a sustainable life in their suburban home.
Coming a bit closer in today:
I've always been interested in older technology, particularly the telegraph (see Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet, for a fascinating account on its history and its social and economic impact on the world), the early telephone system based on human operators and, later, stepper-based switching, and with radio (particularly shortwave radio). It will be simpler technologies that we may very well be returning to in the future when petroleum is not available, electricity is unreliable, and we won't have computers like we do today.
Similarly, I am fascinated by the early history of computers and the attempts to network them together - UUCP peer-to-peer networks, Fidonet, and the amateur radio packet network. It may very well be grassroots, community based, cooperative networks that will keep what communications we will have going in the future.
I've always been fascinated by the 1940s. Originally in the study of World War II military history (air force activities have always fascinated me), but more recently in study of what is really an exciting period of time - the last vestiges of a largely pre-petroleum era way of living. Life on the "Home Front", with its adjustments to food and fuel rationing, the industrialization of the military response, and the post-war rebuilding (e.g., the Marshall Plan) are all interesting, providing examples how people can respond, at least in the short term, to significant changes and interruptions.
Finally, at least for this post, the reading in 2000-2001 of the book, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069, by William Straus and Neil Howe. The book helped me understand that I am clearly a "Baby Boomer" (I was born in 1959, which makes me one of the last, but nonethelesss I do qualify for that categorization), and that it is alright that I am an idealist - after all, that is the major characterization of Baby Boomers and their equivalent generations in the past. The book also helped me understand the role that baby boomers could play in providing the leadership and guidance to solving a major crisis of change (such as Peak Oil might bring) in the same way that my earlier equivalents of the Missionary generation (F.D.R.'s generation) did in leadership during World War II as more commonly fought by the G.I. Generation. (I am not dissing the G.I. Generation - I hold them in high regard. I am hopeful that the modern equivalent, the Millenial Generation that my children belong to, will be equally helpful and focused for the future changes that are coming.)
Enough for today...more to come later.
posted by Kevin Anderson K9IUA at 10:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home