| abstract
| - The more people who are aware and prepared in any emergency situation, the better the opportunity to reduce the overall impact and panic. Startled and frightened and/or angered and vengeful individuals will not be thinking clearly and acting rationally. The problem is not availability of information but a refusal to see it. Not an overall lack of mental ability, but a refusal to think. Each of us must shortly choose a new path, or we will be forced into one. Do you want to survive? Do you know what it takes to sustain yourself in a limited resource environment? A little knowledge, and a lot of enthusiasm, can go a long way. Photosynthesizers are the basic energy source for any ecosystem, which is a complex web of living and non-living factors. These webs are not fixed, like parts of a machine, but the do eventually develop relative stable ranges of numbers of each member of the system. Despite our relative isolation in homes, and cities, humans must nevertheless be seen as PART of an ecosystem. We need to recycle biomaterials, grow a diverse mix of crops in a multitude of micro environments, with hand cultivation to minimize soil disruption, with an aim to establishing a stable ecosystem. Where are YOU going? We can ignore depletion, and continue as we are, have good times until the fossil fuel era ends, and face whatever disaster is presented. We can personally conserve, but if we do not build for the post oil paradigm, we miss out on the good times until the fossil fuel era ends, and face whatever disaster is presented. We can personally conserve, and use "excess" resources to take advantage of the remaining time, cheap energy and materials, to step past the collapse, into the post oil paradigm. For the present, it is still possible to "click", or make a phone call, and have services or supplies delivered. After the crash becomes widely apparent, it will probably be too late for individuals to afford significant preparations. When do you need to act? Back in January 2004, Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes, of Princeton University, jokingly predicted we would reach the half-way point for the remaining oil supply on November 24, 2005 (Thanksgiving Day). Using best available data, after the fact he has corrected himself. He calculates that we passed the half-way point on December 16, 2005. We need to effectively and efficiently network and focus our distributed capabilities and resources to maximize all of our transition to a sustainable paradigm. In the collapse of previous complex societies, when they were geographically isolated, individuals survived by dispersing into the wilderness, and foraging. There was however, always "civilization" elsewhere on the Earth. The collapse we face will essentially occur simultaneously worldwide. There is not sufficient "wilderness" left between complex centers in which the present population could disperse. Clive Ponting, in "A Green History of the World" writes that a human population of around four million, achieved about 10,000 years ago, may be the maximum supportable by a hunter gatherer society, and that in the abundant wild of the time. By around 1800, the limits of local, self-sufficient agriculture and fertile land were essentially reached, with a global population of less than 1 billion. Since that time, we have used, and abandoned many marginal farming areas, and in our chemical applications and one-way nutrient flow denigrated what might have otherwise been fertile fields. In that a hunter forager lifestyle, or even a return to animal powered and manured agriculture requires a GREATER area per person, they appears to be a guaranteed method to a large population dieoff, and perhaps a death-knell for the remaining wilderness.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)