I learned a fun new word this week: Meatspace. Definition: Not cyberspace, where we all seem to be spending more and more time, but that other place — the real place where we are when we’re not totally absorbed by the internet, texting, Facebook, MySpace and failblog.org. That is to say, the real world. And let me tell you, meatspace is a way scary place.
There’s no instruction manual for meatspace. No shortcuts, no pause button and probably not any do-overs unless (here’s hoping) the Hindus got it right. In meatspace, your avatar is not as cool. It’s probably visually wider, and lacks the cool haircut and hip wardrobe. If you don’t like where you are in cyberspace, you can change it with a click. We are not nearly so lucky in meatspace. We’re kinda stuck here 24/7.
I mention this because I see too many people who tend to live out their lives in cyberspace, and only show up in meatspace to eat and sleep. They have no real connection to anything else in meatspace, and I think that’s going to bite them in their meatspace behind hard enough that they might actually notice here before long.
I’m watching gasoline prices steadily rise. I’m reading about a number of oil producing Middle Eastern countries starting to scale back their domestic subsidies — the very thing I wrote about in 60 Days Next Year back in 2004 that sets off a decidedly unpleasant chain of events around the world in that work of fiction-at-the-time. Will life imitate art? Stay tuned. It’ll probably be on YouTube.
We’re scootin’ right along toward a time of great change here in meatspace, and for anyone fool enough to say, "Oh, we had no warning," I can only say, "No, you had no warning because you weren’t paying attention. You were too busy in cyberspace, posting to your Facebook page, tweeting your friends and checking out all the cool apps on your hot new cell phone." Meanwhile, here in meatspace, we’re watching the situation get more interesting every day — but not any better.
The irony of this rant being nothing but another blog in cyberspace really is funny, isn’t it? Just promise me that at some point this week, you’ll turn off the computer and walk outside, if only for a minute. Me, I’m going for a bicycle ride tomorrow. A real bicycle ride, on a real bicycle, in real meatspace.
Hope I don’t get a meatflat.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Happy holidays . . . .
Jingle bells, jingle bells...! It’s Christmas time, and let me say this right up front: I really DO like fruitcake. (I guess that comes as no great surprise.) I also enjoy Christmas cookies, eggnog (non-alcoholic), and everything else that makes us make those ridiculous New Year’s resolutions. Whew. I really need to.
I also breathe a sigh of relief at the end of every year, knowing that we did another lap around the sun without any great resource glitch. As of right now, we still have plenty of oil, natural gas and coal — plenty of power. But, every year we manage to maintain the status quo is a year taken at the expense of the downside curve. Ain’t I just the greenest Grinch?
Oil is a finite commodity. Sadly, if not ironically, the Kardashians are not. We may have an endless supply of Kardashians well into the foreseeable future, while the oil is going to get tight, and the longer we use more of it now, the tighter it’s going to get sooner, later. And if you were expecting a “tight Kardashian” joke there, well, just keep in mind they have an infinite supply of lawyers while I do not. Anyway, this is Christmas, and we should all play nice. If only for a week or so.
In a couple of weeks it will be 2011, and it looks like maybe legendary oil guru Dr. Colin Campbell was wrong when he said we’d see serious oil problems in the first decade of the 21st century. (He did, however, totally peg the peak of oil production. Good call there, Doc!) We’re still moving right along, no worries in sight — and that’s a bad thing. The longer we stay ok, with plenty of oil, the steeper the drop will be on the far side when it starts to run out. Again, oil is a finite commodity. We can use it all up now, or we can pace ourselves. No, wait — it’s too late for that pace thing. Might as well use it all right now. Where are my truck keys?
So when you raise that toast on New Year’s Eve and watch Ryan Seacrest in Times Square, look around the room. Focus on your friends and family and understand: It will not always be like this. Enjoy it. Appreciate it.
Happy New Year, y’all.
I also breathe a sigh of relief at the end of every year, knowing that we did another lap around the sun without any great resource glitch. As of right now, we still have plenty of oil, natural gas and coal — plenty of power. But, every year we manage to maintain the status quo is a year taken at the expense of the downside curve. Ain’t I just the greenest Grinch?
Oil is a finite commodity. Sadly, if not ironically, the Kardashians are not. We may have an endless supply of Kardashians well into the foreseeable future, while the oil is going to get tight, and the longer we use more of it now, the tighter it’s going to get sooner, later. And if you were expecting a “tight Kardashian” joke there, well, just keep in mind they have an infinite supply of lawyers while I do not. Anyway, this is Christmas, and we should all play nice. If only for a week or so.
In a couple of weeks it will be 2011, and it looks like maybe legendary oil guru Dr. Colin Campbell was wrong when he said we’d see serious oil problems in the first decade of the 21st century. (He did, however, totally peg the peak of oil production. Good call there, Doc!) We’re still moving right along, no worries in sight — and that’s a bad thing. The longer we stay ok, with plenty of oil, the steeper the drop will be on the far side when it starts to run out. Again, oil is a finite commodity. We can use it all up now, or we can pace ourselves. No, wait — it’s too late for that pace thing. Might as well use it all right now. Where are my truck keys?
So when you raise that toast on New Year’s Eve and watch Ryan Seacrest in Times Square, look around the room. Focus on your friends and family and understand: It will not always be like this. Enjoy it. Appreciate it.
Happy New Year, y’all.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Baby, it's cold outside
Ok, so it’s cold here right now. I did not come down here for this. I live in west central Florida (Clearwater), and they’re talking about it being down in the thirties here for a couple of nights. Yeah, I know, compared to, say, Minnesota, this ain’t so bad. Balmy, even. By the end of the week, it will be back up in the 70s, so I’m not complaining, but still…
So what do you suppose will happen up north when natural gas and heating oil start to get too expensive, and then become unavailable in the coming years? How long would your house be inhabitable in the winter when the power goes off? These are not idle questions. Of the four seasons, there’s one that can kill you. What’s it like where you live in the winter? And is it worth the risk? It’s not like you’re going to get much of a warning on this, you know. (Well, other than me. Here. Now.)
In his book, The Adjustment, Charles MacArthur wrote of the disaster that befalls the New York metro area when the power grid fails totally in the middle of a February blizzard. It is a stark and sobering look at just how fast it can all go so very badly when the power goes off in deep winter — especially in a big city. A matter of hours. Maybe minutes. In his novel, Charles writes of an immediate and mass migration south, by any means necessary. Not everyone makes it. I think he got that part absolutely right as well. I do expect to see people moving to Florida in record numbers as the north (the Midwest and the northeast) becomes more difficult and less comfortable in the years ahead, all in the aftermath of peak oil and declining natural gas supplies. Lacking power and heat, I would expect Canada to be emptied out in fairly short order — and I wouldn’t blame them one bit. It gets cold up there, I hear.
Sometimes I wonder if a slow decline in energy resources is worse than a sudden crash. Slow declines tend to offer hope — it might not be that bad — we might turn it around — maybe it’s gonna be okay. With a fast crash, you know you’re pooched and you have to deal with it Right Now. Fast is a great motivator.
Until last winter, I said I never knew why anyone would live north of I-10. We had such a long, cold winter here last year, I’ve amended that to I-4. Another bad one and I’m dropping it down to Alligator Alley. And St. Thomas, in the USVI, is looking mighty good about now. Ah, but we will be warm and sunny again by the weekend here. All will be well. For now. For us.
If you live in the far north, or even north of I-10, you might want to take a very serious look around you. Three seasons a year, you’ve got a good thing going, but winter is not your friend. Please don’t mistake it for one. And always remember: The Sunshine State awaits!
One more thing: if you still haven't found that perfect gift for the holidays, Peak of the Devil is on sale for just $12.95, free shipping and guaranteed delivery before December 25 if you order by December 21. Simply click here and we'll get it for you.
So what do you suppose will happen up north when natural gas and heating oil start to get too expensive, and then become unavailable in the coming years? How long would your house be inhabitable in the winter when the power goes off? These are not idle questions. Of the four seasons, there’s one that can kill you. What’s it like where you live in the winter? And is it worth the risk? It’s not like you’re going to get much of a warning on this, you know. (Well, other than me. Here. Now.)
In his book, The Adjustment, Charles MacArthur wrote of the disaster that befalls the New York metro area when the power grid fails totally in the middle of a February blizzard. It is a stark and sobering look at just how fast it can all go so very badly when the power goes off in deep winter — especially in a big city. A matter of hours. Maybe minutes. In his novel, Charles writes of an immediate and mass migration south, by any means necessary. Not everyone makes it. I think he got that part absolutely right as well. I do expect to see people moving to Florida in record numbers as the north (the Midwest and the northeast) becomes more difficult and less comfortable in the years ahead, all in the aftermath of peak oil and declining natural gas supplies. Lacking power and heat, I would expect Canada to be emptied out in fairly short order — and I wouldn’t blame them one bit. It gets cold up there, I hear.
Sometimes I wonder if a slow decline in energy resources is worse than a sudden crash. Slow declines tend to offer hope — it might not be that bad — we might turn it around — maybe it’s gonna be okay. With a fast crash, you know you’re pooched and you have to deal with it Right Now. Fast is a great motivator.
Until last winter, I said I never knew why anyone would live north of I-10. We had such a long, cold winter here last year, I’ve amended that to I-4. Another bad one and I’m dropping it down to Alligator Alley. And St. Thomas, in the USVI, is looking mighty good about now. Ah, but we will be warm and sunny again by the weekend here. All will be well. For now. For us.
If you live in the far north, or even north of I-10, you might want to take a very serious look around you. Three seasons a year, you’ve got a good thing going, but winter is not your friend. Please don’t mistake it for one. And always remember: The Sunshine State awaits!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
What about electric cars?
There’s been a lot of interest in electric cars lately, with the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt both about to hit the market. Too many people still see them as the answer to our dependency on oil, both foreign and domestic. Sadly, they are not the answer, and it’s tough to get people to understand that.
First, electricity is not an energy source. It is an energy carrier. That is, we have to generate electricity using another energy source — such as oil. Using oil to make electricity so we don’t use oil makes no sense at all. And yet, that’s exactly what people are lining up to do.
This next generation of electric cars (they’ve only been around a hundred years or so) still have a lot in common with their antique ancestors: they are expensive, heavy and have a limited range. Take a look at the Chevy Volt, if you can find one to look at. It will cost about forty thousand dollars and take up to ten hours at 110v to charge the batteries to go just 40 miles — about an hour’s drive on a ten hour charge.
The Nissan Leaf will go for over thirty thousand dollars and still takes eight hours to charge using an optional (recommended) 220v charging station you can have built into your home. Obviously, one does not buy an electric car to save money. No word yet on what replacement battery packs might cost for these cars when the time comes — and it will.
Power companies across America are both sweating bullets and jumping for joy. Sure, the extra income will help (and you’d better believe these things will make a serious bump in your monthly electric bill), but, in the words of the Associated Press’s Jonathan Fahey, “Plugged into a socket, an electric car can draw as much power as a small house. The surge in demand could knock out power to a home, or even a neighborhood.” Estimates on the cost of having a 220 volt charging station wired into your home go as high as $4,000 (for both the purchase of the charging station and the installation) over and above the price of the car, but not taking tax credits into consideration.
Electric cars are going to be the next Prius; that is, the next greenwash on wheels. People will buy them to look green, and still do nothing to curb their miles or their dependency on fossil fuels and private motor transport. They are not the answer.
To me, it makes more sense to buy a $10,000 subcompact and work harder to drive it less. Says the guy with the full-size pick up. Ah, well. It will be interesting to see how this next wave of electric cars are received by the motoring public.
And I just wish GM had worked harder to make the EV-1 their electric vehicle flagship. Now that was a cool electric car.
First, electricity is not an energy source. It is an energy carrier. That is, we have to generate electricity using another energy source — such as oil. Using oil to make electricity so we don’t use oil makes no sense at all. And yet, that’s exactly what people are lining up to do.
This next generation of electric cars (they’ve only been around a hundred years or so) still have a lot in common with their antique ancestors: they are expensive, heavy and have a limited range. Take a look at the Chevy Volt, if you can find one to look at. It will cost about forty thousand dollars and take up to ten hours at 110v to charge the batteries to go just 40 miles — about an hour’s drive on a ten hour charge.
The Nissan Leaf will go for over thirty thousand dollars and still takes eight hours to charge using an optional (recommended) 220v charging station you can have built into your home. Obviously, one does not buy an electric car to save money. No word yet on what replacement battery packs might cost for these cars when the time comes — and it will.
Power companies across America are both sweating bullets and jumping for joy. Sure, the extra income will help (and you’d better believe these things will make a serious bump in your monthly electric bill), but, in the words of the Associated Press’s Jonathan Fahey, “Plugged into a socket, an electric car can draw as much power as a small house. The surge in demand could knock out power to a home, or even a neighborhood.” Estimates on the cost of having a 220 volt charging station wired into your home go as high as $4,000 (for both the purchase of the charging station and the installation) over and above the price of the car, but not taking tax credits into consideration.
Electric cars are going to be the next Prius; that is, the next greenwash on wheels. People will buy them to look green, and still do nothing to curb their miles or their dependency on fossil fuels and private motor transport. They are not the answer.
To me, it makes more sense to buy a $10,000 subcompact and work harder to drive it less. Says the guy with the full-size pick up. Ah, well. It will be interesting to see how this next wave of electric cars are received by the motoring public.
And I just wish GM had worked harder to make the EV-1 their electric vehicle flagship. Now that was a cool electric car.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Peak oil and a new generation gap
I think we need to talk about the generation gap here for a minute. I say that after doing a couple of book signings and noticing a couple of things. At my first signing, the crowd was mostly older people – people over 40. The young guy in the crowd, maybe in his early thirties, was the one that commandeered the room to share with us the joys of T. Boone Pickins and how T. Boone was going to save us all with natural gas, so no worries.
A few days later, at a book store, I was accosted right off the bat by a twenty-something who offered me a major sneer for not having, on my person, irrefutable scientific evidence that the Alberta tar sands operation was bad for the environment. My fault for positioning myself at a table between him and the coffee bar. He was obviously inconvenienced by having to walk around me. My bad. Won’t happen again.
Nevertheless, I’m sensing a trend here: Older people (over 40, let’s say), do seem far more willing to accept and understand the idea of peak oil and the massive era of change that we are facing. Young people, not so much. But why? Even older people, baby boomers mostly, have lived their entire lives in the lap of luxurious oil. I know I have. Sure, we remember when the phone was bolted to the wall and you actually had to dial it. I, personally, remember when the TV only got three channels (if we were lucky) and they all went off at night. Can you imagine? Still, even then, we knew we had it made. We had a ’58 Pontiac Chieftain, for cryin’ out loud. So why can’t the younger generation see that we have a problem now? And why are the older among us more willing to accept the idea of peak oil and the coming change?
Maybe it’s the level, intensity and total intrusion of “modern life” on the younger among us. They have always had cell phones and techno-gadgets and it’s entirely possible that they have never even seen a manual transmission car. Televisions hard-wired for 500 channels 24/7 are the norm. Radio is beamed from satellites and the Internet is everywhere. The Chieftain didn’t even have seat belts. But Alvin Toffler was wrong.
Toffler wrote Future Shock, a book about how technology will overwhelm the people of the future. Nope, didn’t happen. Sorry, Al. We have willingly absorbed and embraced technology at a stunning rate. Yes, even me. I’m typing this on a laptop computer with wireless Internet capability that can, at the push of a button, connect me with the world. Sure didn’t see THAT coming back when I was in high school — but here it is, and I have a handle on it. No biggie. Maybe Toffler and I need to get together and write the sequel to his book: Retro Shock. That’s what’s coming. Are you ready?
Future technology is not going to trip us up, but the future loss of oil and natural gas will send us reeling. As our lifestyles go back in time to find a sort of low-energy stability, we will have to abandon much for what we have today — much of what we take for granted will have to be given up. All of the easy stuff. Our “anytime, anywhere” lives will have to be planned far in advance, to allow for the much lower levels of energy available. Even robot maids take power. You wait, kid, you’ll see. It’s going to be interesting to see how people (and which people) adapt to the changes brought on by peak oil in the years ahead. Young or old, no one gets a pass on this. Everyone is going to have to play.
A few days later, at a book store, I was accosted right off the bat by a twenty-something who offered me a major sneer for not having, on my person, irrefutable scientific evidence that the Alberta tar sands operation was bad for the environment. My fault for positioning myself at a table between him and the coffee bar. He was obviously inconvenienced by having to walk around me. My bad. Won’t happen again.
Nevertheless, I’m sensing a trend here: Older people (over 40, let’s say), do seem far more willing to accept and understand the idea of peak oil and the massive era of change that we are facing. Young people, not so much. But why? Even older people, baby boomers mostly, have lived their entire lives in the lap of luxurious oil. I know I have. Sure, we remember when the phone was bolted to the wall and you actually had to dial it. I, personally, remember when the TV only got three channels (if we were lucky) and they all went off at night. Can you imagine? Still, even then, we knew we had it made. We had a ’58 Pontiac Chieftain, for cryin’ out loud. So why can’t the younger generation see that we have a problem now? And why are the older among us more willing to accept the idea of peak oil and the coming change?
Maybe it’s the level, intensity and total intrusion of “modern life” on the younger among us. They have always had cell phones and techno-gadgets and it’s entirely possible that they have never even seen a manual transmission car. Televisions hard-wired for 500 channels 24/7 are the norm. Radio is beamed from satellites and the Internet is everywhere. The Chieftain didn’t even have seat belts. But Alvin Toffler was wrong.
Toffler wrote Future Shock, a book about how technology will overwhelm the people of the future. Nope, didn’t happen. Sorry, Al. We have willingly absorbed and embraced technology at a stunning rate. Yes, even me. I’m typing this on a laptop computer with wireless Internet capability that can, at the push of a button, connect me with the world. Sure didn’t see THAT coming back when I was in high school — but here it is, and I have a handle on it. No biggie. Maybe Toffler and I need to get together and write the sequel to his book: Retro Shock. That’s what’s coming. Are you ready?
Future technology is not going to trip us up, but the future loss of oil and natural gas will send us reeling. As our lifestyles go back in time to find a sort of low-energy stability, we will have to abandon much for what we have today — much of what we take for granted will have to be given up. All of the easy stuff. Our “anytime, anywhere” lives will have to be planned far in advance, to allow for the much lower levels of energy available. Even robot maids take power. You wait, kid, you’ll see. It’s going to be interesting to see how people (and which people) adapt to the changes brought on by peak oil in the years ahead. Young or old, no one gets a pass on this. Everyone is going to have to play.
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