The Scorching of the 45th And Beyond

 This is another quick post.  In view of the record-breaking heat across much of the Global North this summer, I thought it might be instructive to document the effect which that heat has had in my particular locale.  So here are a few pictures from my garden and backyard, along with some comments.  These pictures were taken about ten days ago, and they document the damage which was caused by the Pacific Northwest heat wave of late June.

Heat stress suffered by a shade tree in the backyard.  Note the yellow, dead leaves.

Another view of the same tree.

Damaged leaves and fruit on the apple tree.

Heat damage suffered by a hazelnut tree.  Again, note the discolored leaves.

Heat injury to a conifer.  Note the dead branches and withered needles.

What the heat did to the kale.  The scorched leaves are discolored.

About two weeks before the heat wave of late June, I planted onion seeds.  The heat killed most of them.  Not all news is bad, however.  Some of the hardier and more well-established plants in the garden continue to produce, as seen below:

The artichoke plant turned into a space alien!

The summer squash did well.  The zucchini (not shown) - not so much.

Whoa!  Vashka!  How'd you get into this picture?!

And now for some comments.  I live just a bit north of the 45th parallel of latitude in the United States.  Temperatures this summer have been at least ten degrees above historical averages for much of the last two months.  This is true of nighttime temperatures as well.  The fact that nighttime temperatures have been so high is an undeniable proof of the effect of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, since carbon dioxide blocks longwave infrared radiation (IR), but is transparent to shortwave IR.  This means that as the earth warms during the daytime because of absorbed shortwave IR, it is increasingly unable to release the heat thus stored when the sun goes down, because the heat released from the ground (and from hardscapes in urban heat islands) is radiated as longwave IR.  That is why such low-tech adaptations as opening windows at night are less effective now than they used to be.

The fact of anthropogenic - that is, manmade - climate change is undeniable.  However, as we have seen during the last year and a half, there are two potential responses to the undeniable.  The first response is to make peace with reality and to try under that peace to live gracefully with reality.  So we have nations such as China.  China is actively researching collective, intelligently-planned ways to adapt its society to mitigate the local effects of a warming climate.  The Chinese are especially interested in using natural, low-tech means of lowering ground-level temperatures in urban areas, as documented in a BBC report titled, "Can You Cool A House Without Air Conditioning?"  

Then there are nations such as the United States, in which a distressingly large percentage of the population have given themselves to national narcissism.  For the sake of their damnable goal of white supremacy they are willing to sacrifice reality on the altar of their narcissism.  Their last, best chance of achieving their goal of total domination of the world was embodied in the presidency of Donald Trump.  But Trump made a serious (even though willful) mistake in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, so we got a bunch of doofuses who refused to acknowledge the mistake and refused therefore to treat the coronavirus pandemic with the seriousness it deserved.  These doofuses showed up mask-less and armed to the teeth at the state capitols of states with Democratic governors in order to "liberate" their states from mask mandates and other public health directives which these governors put into place to attempt to deal with the pandemic.  These idiots have also by and large refused to get vaccinated in 2021, as documented by a news story titled, "No, We Didn't Get The Vaccine...We're Republicans" and another story titled, "GOP Legislators in Missouri Oppose Vaccine Efforts as State Becomes COVID Hotspot."  You see, to admit the reality and seriousness of COVID-19 would be to admit that their chosen hero majorly dropped the ball.  And as good, textbook cases of narcissism, they cannot admit any mistake whatsoever.

This is why I believe that it will be very difficult for the United States to mount a coordinated, collective, realistic response to the climate crisis which has now begun to severely bite us.  For the Republican/white supremacist/evangelical devotion to predatory capitalism and unrestrained economic growth at any cost represents a mistake of much longer standing than the mistake of backing a doofus who dropped the ball in dealing with a pandemic.  If the MAGA crowd were not willing to wear masks, they sure won't be willing to deal intelligently with a climate crisis which is beginning to destroy their livelihoods.  They are a textbook case not only of narcissism but of cultic thinking.

(One note: I am almost finished with my series of posts on Gene Sharp's book From Dictatorship to Democracy.  I want to do another series of posts which are coordinated around a central theme, but I can't decide which theme I want to tackle next.  One theme that appeals to me is the theme of how cults - both religious and secular - establish themselves in a society.  It seems to me that this would be especially applicable to the United States, which seems to form cults as easily as some bodies form tumors...)

Lastly, I want to talk a bit about the use of natural mitigation strategies for local climate change effects.  From the pictures above, one can clearly see that just planting trees may not be enough to guard against urban heat island effects.  Rather, the trees must be managed so that they themselves can survive heat stress.  And it may be that trees that are historical natives to many northern climates will have to be augmented with trees that are not natives to the far North, but are native to historically hot and dry climates, trees such as the fig tree, which is able to establish a deep root system and to mitigate heat islands by efficient evapotranspiration.  This will require further research.

P.S. Not only has much of the United States dropped the ball on climate change mitigation, but Russia has hugely dropped the ball.  The wildfires in Siberia are now bigger than all other wildfires on the earth combined.  Putin's flying monkeys tout his so-called intelligence and wisdom, but Putin's Russia isn't doing very well right now.

Maintenance Day November 2020

I have a ton of things I need to do away from a computer today.  So I won't have time to write another research-heavy post.  But I will provide readers with a plan of what I intend to cover in future posts.

First, it appears increasingly undeniable that Joe Biden will become the President of the United States on January 20 of next year.  Trump's courtroom challenges to the legal election results continue to be stricken down.  Yet Trump continues with his courtroom challenges, even though these challenges have no merit.  It can be clearly seen that Trump is trying to invalidate votes cast by people of color.  It can also be seen that there are yet many Americans who continue to align themselves with White supremacy and with Trump as their leader.  Therefore, I will continue my series of posts on Gene Sharp's book From Dictatorship to Democracy.  Those of us who have been historical targets of oppression will need to continue to study the ways in which we can use strategic nonviolent resistance to neutralize the power of our oppressors.

Second, I want to continue to discuss the ways in which the outworkings of damnation move through an evil society.  I have focused almost exclusively on the United States in my previous posts, but I want to shift the focus to include Russia, which is another evil society that is now reaping what it has sown.

Lastly, I want to write posts which explore how decent people can navigate these difficult days.  Meanwhile, please read what the Reverend William Barber has to say about the United States of America.  I like this man's perspective!  "Well, I was trained in theology that whatever you call your spiritual experience, if it does not produce a quarrel with the world, then the claim to be spiritual is suspect..."  Maybe this lack of genuine spiritual experience of conversion explains why so many American evangelicals who claim nowadays that they have been "saved" and "born again" look more like Freddy Krueger than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Living In A Place Named "Predicament"

Explosion Kitty walking away from the Zombie 

Apocalypse 

And now in this post we return to the roots of this blog (and we show how a discussion of national and cultural abnormal psychology relates to those roots). This blog began as a diary of my observations of the changes in mainstream American society which are being caused by the decline in energy and natural resources needed by the global industrial economy. Personally, I think some of my earliest posts on the topic were rather amateurish, due to the fact that I didn't quite understand at first everything I was looking at. (Petroleum geology, in particular, is not my forte.) But even people who were born yesterday can catch up a bit by staying up all night studying. ;)

When writers seriously discuss resource depletion, climate change and their likely effects on the global industrial economy, some readers tend to react as if they'd just met a conspiracy theory/zombie apocalypse nut. But these subjects actually have a very solid technical background. Let's explore that background for a moment.

First, there have been thinkers from way back who understood that the earth is finite, and who accepted the possibility that humans might one day bump against the limits of the earth's resources. Two 19th century names come to mind: Thomas Malthus postulated that the human population could grow to a level that would not sustain extravagant lifestyles. Svante Arrhenius postulated that human industrial activity could release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in such quantities that it could cause significant long-term changes to the global climate. Malthus and Arrhenius did not have the benefit of computer modeling to validate their assumptions. But in the 1970's, there were scientists who did have that benefit. A group of these scientists assembled under the auspices of the Club of Rome to study possible future scenarios for the global industrial society from the 1970's to 2100. They discovered a number of scenarios in which the industrial economy would run into hard constraints related to the amount of virgin resources which could be extracted, and the amount of industrial waste which could be dumped into the environment without serious side effects. Running into those constraints would lead to economic contraction and population distress. Their findings were published in a volume titled The Limits To Growth, which has been periodically updated to the present. The First World in general, and the United States in particular, did not heed the warnings of The Limits To Growth, and so now we see the beginnings of our society running into hard constraints.

One of those constraints deserves special mention. In the 1950's, M. King Hubbert, a petroleum geologist for the Shell Oil Company, derived a simple formula from calculus to model the flow rate of an oil field as a function of its proven reserves. (See this also.)  The implications of this formula led Hubbert to conclude that production of conventional oil in the United States would peak in the early 1970's and enter into irreversible decline thereafter. He also postulated that production of conventional oil worldwide would peak some time in the early part of the first decade of the 21st century and enter into irreversible decline thereafter. He published his conclusions in a prominent peer-reviewed journal and managed to make his Shell Oil bosses very unhappy. The trouble was, he was right.

Hubbert's assumptions were validated by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere in an article titled “The End of Cheap Oil,” published in Scientific American in 1998.  This article provoked a flurry of both interest and controversy and was a catalyst in the formation of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, or ASPO in short. The Oil Drum website was also born, as well as organizations like the Post-Carbon Institute. A child lately born among this brood was the Energy Watch Group which began as a collection of geologists and other scientists sponsored by the German government under the leadership of Hans-Josef Fell of the German Parliament. (The Energy Watch Group correctly stated that the peak of global conventional crude oil production (excluding shale and tar sands) had already occurred by 2008.) All of these groups were characterized by strong technical leadership consisting of scientists with strong technical backgrounds who were well-qualified to discuss the field they were addressing, namely, the likelihood of near-term declines in global conventional oil production.

The discussion of the likelihood of near-term decline in the availability of cheap oil naturally led to the discussion of the likely impact and effects of such a decline on First World economies. This led to the generation of a number of scenarios. At first, those producing the scenarios were strongly technical types very similar to the people who were studying the possibility of production rate declines. For instance, the United States government commissioned a group of respected scientists led by Robert Hirsch to study the likely impacts on American society of permanent near-term declines in availability of oil. The results of that study were published in 2005 in a document now known as the Hirsch report.

The Hirsch report predicted major disruptions to industrial society unless preparations were made sufficiently far in advance (as in, 20 years) of the peaking and decline of conventional oil production. Hirsch, et al, did not exactly talk about zombies, but the impacts described in the report were dramatic enough to inspire a number of other people (including several people without technical academic degrees) to start mapping out possible scenarios. These scenarios tended to fall into two general categories: a “fast crash” case and a “more nuanced” case.

In the “fast crash” camp were such people as the creators of the World Without Oil website, a supposed reality “game” in which people could explore the impact of a sudden drop in oil availability. (I discovered the site in 2007, and noticed that most of its scenarios tended to be variations on a violent “zombie apocalypse” theme. But I'm getting ahead of myself.) There was also Matt Savinar, a blogger who formerly devoted himself to covering the impacts of peak oil on industrial societies. Matt earned a degree in law (and thereafter started calling himself the “Juris Doctor of Doom”) while trying to build a business selling what I would call “doom preparation kits” of emergency rations and other “collapse preparation” supplies. But there came a point in 2010 where he suddenly felt “led” to switch from collapse preparation and law to astrology. Among the ranks of “fast crash” writers were also people like Guy McPherson who is trying to build a career as a traveling doom counselor, Michael Ruppert who reportedly shot himself in 2011, and James Howard Kunstler, a former journalist and writer of fiction who used to regularly predict at the beginning of each year that the stock market would crash to a level no greater than 4000 points in that year.  Over the last few years, Mr. Kunstler has expanded his offerings to include extremely racist, misogynist and right-wing statements of the sort that make it clear that he is eager to throw those whom he deems powerless under the bus if he thinks he can get away with it. 

The “more nuanced” camp also had a number of members, who generally tended to be much less colorful and much more cautious in their assessment of the future, and who also tended to be much more prudent in giving advice and recommendations for dealing with a future of economic contraction. They also tended to be strong and deep systems thinkers. Three names immediately come to mind: first, Richard Heinberg, a fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute, and David Holmgren, who together with Bill Mollison founded the discipline of permaculture (a discipline which is now being seriously taught in government-sponsored Australian universities, by the way). In looking at a future of scarcity, such people as these tended to recognize the need to play a long game.

Over the last several months, the differences in outlook between the two camps has intrigued me, not least because the way a person sees a situation tells a lot about what's inside that person. And the differences in outlook between the two camps has been interesting from a psychological, sociological and spiritual viewpoint. The key assumptions of the “fast-crashers” was that a sudden or serious shortfall in availability of the resources and consumer goods needed for a middle-class American lifestyle would result in the eruption of instant anarchy, with violent mobs (all assumed to be poor and usually dark-skinned) raping, pillaging, looting and burning everything in sight. Therefore, the proper way to prepare for such a shortfall was to buy a doomstead in Montana or some other isolated place, and to stock it with an abundant supply of guns, ammo, baked beans and gold pieces, and to outfit one's doomstead with as many trappings and gizmos as necessary to preserve “liberty!” (and a middle-class lifestyle) into the post-apocalyptic age.  (Another key to preparation was to watch the stock market obsessively every day, watching for the first sign of collapse in order to know when and how to shift one's "investments" in order to preserve maximum value.)  In such a fast-crash world, the kind of morality that regarded other lives as precious enough to share your material goods with them (especially the lives of people different from you) was to be regarded as excess baggage to be discarded as soon as possible, and the “survivors” of such a crash were exhorted to adopt a moral compass that looked a lot like the compass of selfishness that guided Ayn Rand throughout her miserable life.

One problem with such a viewpoint is that it was and continues to be contradicted by evidence from every available corner of the planet. For instance, there are hundreds of millions – even billions – of people who live in societies with per capita incomes much lower than the per capita income of the United States, and these people live quite peaceably as long as they have their basic needs met. They are not zombies. (What warfare arises among these people is usually provoked by resource-hungry Anglo-American or European powers, and not by the indigenous people themselves.) And there are a lot of poor people in the U.S. who are the salt of the earth. Who says that instant anarchy has to erupt if people don't have all the stuff that most mainstream Americans are taught to crave? Such a belief is a fallacy typical of spoiled mainstream Americans who tend to believe that if they can't have a lifestyle of “special” privilege and comfort, the end of the world must be at hand. Another problem is that people with this point of view are trying to sustain an unsustainable lifestyle by a zombie apocalypse version of hoarding, like Gollum or Smaug the dragon in Tolkien story The Hobbit. So we have people who outfit their doomsteads with several kW of solar panels and massive battery storage systems so they can enjoy all the comforts of home in case the grid goes down. (Good luck trying to get them to share any of their stash.) Why not learn to live without some of those comforts, since after all, the batteries and panels will eventually wear out?

To me, it seems that the fast-crash scenario has become something of a blank slate on which certain personalities project fantasies whose characteristics have been covered repeatedly in the psychology-related posts of the last year and a half on this blog. So it is probably not surprising that over the last few years, such zombie apocalypse/prepper thinking has been picked up by the talking heads at Fox News and similar media outlets, who have gotten into the business of hawking gold and emergency rations as part of their campaign to instill mass hysteria into a captive cult audience of aging white Baby Boomers. (That's how I knew I tasted something funny...) Another example of this is the post-apocalyptic novels of James Howard Kunstler, in which he places the survivors into ranks and social classes that suit the fantasies of Anglo-American narcissistic males. (I bought his first "collapse" novel, but I have to admit that I didn't even get halfway through it, as the prose in his novel seemed to be no better than that of the Left Behind novels.  (Although I am a Christian, I couldn't stand those books - it's a sin to make cheap art out of Scripture.)  Here are a few trenchant lines regarding Kunstler's book from a Los Angeles Times reviewer.  If you want to read some well-written post-apocalyptic fiction, I would recommend Stephen King's The Stand, although King does not deal with resource depletion and climate change.)

The more nuanced camp has thus had increasing appeal to me over the years. I now consider myself to be a member of that camp. I believe the official reports of the Energy Watch Group and of Robert Hirsch's task force. I also believe the authors of the Limits to Growth reports. I therefore believe that our global industrial society (and American society in particular) is already encountering some non-negotiable changes. But I also believe that this fact does not give us a pass to throw away our moral compass. Rather, that moral compass (and a firm grip on reality) should guide us in assessing our situation. We should be asking whether we face a problem to be gotten over, or a predicament to be lived with graciously. (I believe the evidence points to the latter.)

If then we face a predicament, how shall we address it? What are the strategic goals we should have? One reason I like people like Richard Heinberg is that he seems to be looking for solutions which benefit as many people as possible (rather than clamoring hysterically about a coming zombie apocalypse)! If helping as many people as possible is to be our goal, that goal will guide the technical adaptations we pursue. The search for technical adaptations will have to take place on three scales: the individual, the local, and the societal. And these adaptations will not be effective without first adapting psychologically, namely, in deciding whether we are willing to accept a humbler lifestyle. Dysfunctional psychology will interfere with the wise choosing of appropriate technical adaptations! Can “we” get over our modern Western, American dysfunctional psychology in an age of limits? Or will we continue to hawk the same “solutions” that got us into our present mess: guns, “liberty!!!”, selfishness, the “free market,” the exaltation of the “agentic” over the “communal” (as blogger CZBZ puts it)? The coming days will mark the end of Anglo-American “fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love,” and "we" will have to heal our diseased mindset, lest we continue to try the wrong solutions to the wrong problems. Those who keep pushing wrong approaches may end up trying to feed themselves with long spoons in Hell.  And let me tell you something.  The rest of the world will not simply roll over and die so that you can have a temporary extension of your fantasies of unlimited power.  You will have to adapt to life in a multipolar world and a multicultural society.

As far as technical adaptations, that has been my focus for the last few years, and it is the reason why I have gone back to school. I believe that the formulation of technical adaptations to resource scarcity and lower energy availability will require the presence of people with a strong background in math and the sciences. That will be the background of people who are interested in playing “the long game,” and that is the background which I have been acquiring. Those with such a background will not only be able to formulate technical adaptations, but will also be able to test and fine-tune those adaptations so that they work optimally. Along those lines, I intend, God willing, to write a post this summer about a project that I've been working on since last year. Stay tuned...

Resilience Counterpunches

Many of my recent posts have chronicled the bad news that is the unraveling of the mainstream American psyche, and the ways in which certain elements of mainstream America are taking out their dysfunction on minorities and people of color.  But all is not bad news.  In minority communities, there is a growing awareness of steps which these communities can take to become more resilient.  I'll give just two examples. 

First, there is the educational clinic about which I wrote several months ago.  I am one of the tutors for that clinic.  We (the tutors) are planning a solar energy science activity for the kids at the apartment complex we visit.  Specifically, we are planning to build solar ovens.  Our aim is to provide enough materials so that kids from five or six households can construct the ovens.  As for the ovens, they are not just some science-fair craft that is good for nothing more than melting chocolate.  Rather, these ovens will be the real deal, capable of cooking some serious food.  The design for these ovens was invented by Maria Telkes, an appropriate technology pioneer of the 20th century.  We obtained the design for the ovens from Engineers Without Borders.  We are planning to build the ovens over four sessions with the kids.  Next to their apartment complex is a large vacant lot with plenty of sunshine where they can try the ovens out.  I'll try to take and post some pictures or video of the project as it progresses.  We will also teach the kids the theory of operation of the ovens and use that teaching to further strengthen their math skills.

Second, there is the Detroit Water Brigade, a grassroots organization which has arisen in response to the Detroit city government shutoff of water to tens of thousands of Detroit residents.  Not only is the Detroit Water Brigade involved in providing water bill assistance and collection of drinking water, but they are also teaching residents the basics of rainwater harvesting.  Such efforts are geared toward enabling large numbers of Detroit residents to adapt to life without a utility system which is not only aging and increasingly unreliable, but which has been turned into a weapon against them.  If anyone wants to help, you can send donations to them, or to the Detroit Water Project.

I am sure that there are many other initiatives springing up, but I haven't had time to research them all.  As I hear of them, I will keep you all posted.  Stay tuned...

Scapegoat Survival In Uncertain Times

As I have said in the past several posts, the United States is a narcissistic nation which is facing the constraints reality is now placing on the fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance and beauty which have been poured into the American psyche from the founding of this nation until now. The truth is that these fantasies were never really meant for anyone but their creators and masters, who happen also to be the people who ruled and shaped this country from the start. The enjoyment of those fantasies came at a certain cost – a price paid by the less privileged residents of the United States, including dark-skinned minorities, Native Americans, and for a while, women. The cost was also borne by those nations unlucky enough to have things that the United States wanted, without also possessing the means to defend themselves from having those things taken by force.

When people with a grandiose view of themselves become constrained by a reality that teaches them that they really are not “all that,” such people frequently react badly. This is the reason for the rolling back of equal protection and the escalation of violence against people who have historically been scapegoated in this country, such as people of color. The rollback is now being expanded to target women. The people doing the rolling back and committing the violence are predominantly rich, white and male (although there are a few women going along for the ride).

Therefore, unfortunately, the times we all live in have gotten more uncertain than ever for some of us. To those of us who are tired of being treated as scapegoats for dysfunctional American society, I have the following suggestions: 

• Know your opponent (and his disease).

• Know yourself.

• Learn to heal your trauma.

• Become rich in things which cannot be taken away from you.

• Disengage from the system as much as possible.

My last few months of blogging have been an attempt to help people with suggestion #1. There are other resources as well for those who want help. Those who want to survive and thrive in these times must learn about malignant narcissism, not only as a problem in interpersonal relationships, but also as a driver of national culture and the policies of the wealthy and powerful members of our nation. One benefit of learning these things is that you will be able to stay strong mentally when the privileged (and formerly privileged) try to dump their hostility on you, and you will have tools for protecting yourself.

We'll explore the other suggestions in future posts.  That exploration will lead us in some directions which are not normally associated with life in the United States, as we consider the adaptive strategies which are being used by many residents of the developing world.  Stay tuned.

The Sound Foundations of Engineered Earth Construction

Earth construction has recently attracted great interest as post-Peak building method for the First World. (By post-Peak methods, I mean methods of producing useful products which are suitable for a declining or collapsing economy whose resource base is drying up.) The reasons for this interest have to do with looming resource constraints, in particular, the resources required for construction methods which have become standard over the last hundred years in the developed world. However, the principles of proper earth building design and construction must be thoroughly understood and properly implemented in order to avoid loss of life due to failure and collapse of buildings. There is a strong need for validation of techniques, practices and principles of structurally sound earth building. This validation must be accomplished via experimentation and mathematical modeling and analysis.

This validation is also of special interest in the Third World (also known as the developing world), where, according to at least one source, approximately one fifth of the world's population lives in adobe and rammed earth structures, and where, according to another source, more than 90 percent of the population in moderate to severe seismic zones is living and working in non-engineered earth buildings. A body of work now exists which documents the behavior of earth buildings when subjected to various loading events, including seismic and wind events. This development of this body of work has been spearheaded by engineering professionals, universities and governmental agencies both in the developing world and in the First World nations of the Global South.

This work reveals some surprising facts, both with regard to safe earth construction best practices and with regard to the flow of useful information in the developing world. As far as the flow of useful information, two things can be observed. First, there is a much greater proportion of public-minded engineering and technical professionals in the developing world compared to professionals in the First World. This is seen in the willingness of researchers to openly and freely disseminate their published work via the Web without charging rent on “intellectual property.” In the First World, on the other hand, rent-seeking vultures have restricted the free flow of potentially life-saving technical information in many cases. (Many of the publications from First World sources on the topic of earth construction are behind paywalls. One refreshing exception in the United States is the Getty Institute.) This is one reason why the Third World may be better poised for post-Peak adaptation than the First World. Secondly, the universities and professionals of the Third World are every bit as capable and competent as those in the First World, and in fact they may be far more creative.

In the literature which I have discovered, there are two categories of discussion regarding performance of earthen structures: the performance of non-engineered structures and the performance, experimental testing and analysis of engineered earthen structures. These discussions reveal the following observations:

1. Almost all of the literature states that typical non-engineered earthen structures perform very poorly when subjected to severe and sudden wind loads or seismic events. This applies both to rammed earth (also known as tapia, taipal or pise de terre), cob and adobe structures. Rammed earth constructions and other earth structures can be highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes and other ground motion.

2. The mechanism of disintegration of earth walls for various types of earth construction have been studied via shake table and compression tests. Among other things, these tests have documented the anisotropy of multi-layer rammed earth walls. A material that is anisotropic has physical properties that vary at different locations and in different directions in the material rather than being uniform throughout the material. This is important if there is a concern that a wall made of anisotropic material might have material properties that are not constant throughout the wall.

3. Techniques for stabilization and reinforcement of earth structures have been studied. One study focused on two particular approaches: internal reinforcement via chicken wire or bamboo, and external reinforcement with bamboo or wooden members. Internal reinforcement did not work nearly as well as external reinforcement, which spread earthquake stresses over a large wall area, dissipating earthquake energy without causing major cracking.

4. Proper reinforcement of earthen walls is key to surviving earthquakes and other environmental events. Unreinforced earthen structures suffered a number of typical failure modes. In addition, walls or wall elements that are reinforced internally with biodegradable materials like straw have been known to fail due to degrading of the reinforcement by insects and rot.

5. As a result of laboratory tests, mathematical modeling and observations of actual earth structures in the aftermath of actual earthquakes, a number of governmental agencies and NGO's have published earth construction design guides. Many of these design guides agree on key points. In addition, there are countries in the developing world and the Global South which have formulated or are formulating earth building codes. New Zealand is one such case. Their New Zealand Earth Building Standards can serve as a repository of best practices and a starting place for model codes for earth building in other countries. Unfortunately, access to the New Zealand standards is not free.

6. In addition to design guides for building professionals and code-enforcing officials, certain governments and NGO's have developed earth construction manuals for non-professional, unskilled builders who would be typical in rural or poor urban populations. Among the governmental agencies disseminating this design information is SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje, www.sena.edu.co), a national public entity of Colombia in South America, which publishes literature for public education and vocational training throughout South America. In addition, the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur has published the IAEE Guidelines for Earthquake Resistant Non-Engineered Construction, which is available in PDF form free of charge at the IIT Kanpur National Information Centre of Earthquake Engineering website. A 2011 draft update of these guidelines is also available from the International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering in Japan. Such guidelines embody low-cost, effective approaches for building safe earthen structures.

7. Researchers have studied the challenge of reinforcing and retrofitting existing earthen structures which have historical significance. Recommended retrofit practices are emerging. Many of these retrofit practices involve addition of bamboo reinforcement to the exterior surfaces of earth walls, both outside and inside an earthen structure, in order to spread forces and stresses so that they don't result in concentrated failure at one point.

Many more facts could be gleaned from the available literature, but unfortunately, I am out of time. However, a list of references and cited works is included at the end of this post. Enjoy!

Additional References And Resources:

1. “Seismic Behavior and Rehabilitation Alternatives for Adobe and Rammed Earth Buildings,” Luis. E. Yamin, Camilo A. Phillips, Juan C. Reyes, Daniel M. Ruiz, 13^th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, 2004.

2. “Modern and historic earth buildings: Observations of the 4^th September 2010 Darfield Earthquake,” H.W. Morris, 9^th Pacific Conference on Earthquake Engineering – Building and Earthquake-Resilient Society, April 2011.

3. “Non-Engineered Construction In Developing Countries – An Approach Toward Earthquake Risk Reduction,” Anand S. Arya, 12WCEE 2000, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India.

4. “Review of Non-Engineered Houses in Latin America with Reference to Building Practices and Self-Construction Projects,” Aikaterini Papanikolaou, Fabio Taucer, European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2004.

5. “Seismic Performance of Mud Brick Structures,” Joseph Hardwick and Jonathan Little, University of Bristol, EWB-UK National Research Conference 2010 and Engineers Without Borders UK, 2010.

6. “Low-Cost and Low-Tech Reinforcement Systems for Improved Earthquake Resistance of Mud Brick Buildings,” Dominic M. Dowling and Bijan Samali, The Getty Institute.

7. “Assessing the Anisotropy of Rammed Earth,” Quoc-Bao Bui, Jean-Claude Morel, 11^th International Conference on Non-Conventional Materials and Technologies, 2009.

8. “Planning and Engineering Guidelines for the Seismic Retrofitting of Historic Adobe Structures,” E. Leroy Tolles, Edna E. Kimbro, William S. Ginell, The Getty Institute, 2002.

9. “An Improved Means of Reinforcing Adobe Walls – External Vertical Reinforcement,” Dominic Dowling, Bijan Samali, Jianchun Li, SismoAdobe 2005, Lima, Peru.

10. “Earthquake Resistant Rammed-Earth (Taipal) Buildings,” J. Vargas, Catholic University of Peru.

The Danger Of Telegraphing Your Punches

As some long-time readers of mine may have noticed, my blogging has undergone a bit of a hiatus over the last year. This was due to my working two jobs, one of which involves teaching. The demands of the two jobs left very little time for anything more than scattered, brief commentary on this blog. Now, thankfully, I am down to just one job. Though the pay is significantly less than before, the peace of mind is significantly greater.

At the beginning of my (partial) silence, my writing was strongly focused on the subject of resilient neighborhoods, including topics such as the elements of a neighborhood that provide for resilience in the face of economic contraction and energy descent, as well as steps for building neighborhood resilience. Overwhelming busyness prevented me from exploring these themes further, but I was able to keep up with the writings of others who were exploring these topics, in particular, Joanne Poyourow, a writer active in the U.S. branch of the Transition movement. She wrote a five-part series of articles on economic resilience as applied to local communities, as well as a separate post on her own blog, titled, “Resilience: A View From The Transition Movement.”

Her articles and the suggestions contained therein were both good and practical. Yet as I read what she had to say, along with reading the daily news of what was being done to our nation and our world by the holders of concentrated wealth and power, I found myself having second thoughts, even as I reconsidered my own focus and emphasis. It seemed that Joanne had fallen victim to a blind spot which seems typical among many activists concerned with economic contraction and energy descent. I will attempt to point out that blind spot now, along with what I believe to be the issues that must be faced by ordinary people seeking to adapt to our present times.

I'll start with a quote from Gale Warnings, a blog written by Stormchild. The quote reads in part, “...most of us spend our lives as prey, economically and psychologically. Awareness is the key to understanding this; but once we understand it, we may transcend it, choosing, when we can, to be neither prey nor predator.” The problem people have faced almost from the outset is simply this: the fallen tendency for some humans to conduct themselves as predators and to regard all of their fellow humans as prey. There is a long history of predator-prey relationships across societal and geopolitical scales, culminating in the predation of the entire world by the Anglo, American and European empires.

As I see it, three trends have been at work in the world over the last two hundred years or so. The first trend is the tendency toward the concentration of the power and wealth of societies – particularly in the West – in the hands of an ever-diminishing number of master predators who are able to out-compete their fellows for prey, and who eventually succeed in laying claim to every available bite of prey. The second trend is the fight for freedom waged by the prey against their predators. During the 20^th century, this fight for freedom was ostensibly successful in many parts of the globe and many sectors of American society. Several countries were able for a time to escape from being banana republics or something similar, and many members of ethnic minority groups in the United States suddenly had wonderful doors of opportunity opened for them. While this did indeed upset the elites at the head of fading European empires or the expanding American empire, this fight for freedom was tolerated somewhat, because the continual expansion of the global industrial economy was able to absorb the exponentially expanding appetites of these elites even as they lost some of their prey to freedom. (Of course, between the overthrow of colonialism and the gains of the civil rights movements in the 1960's and now, the elites were able to subtly erase nearly all civil rights gains and to recapture a very large proportion of escaped prey, but that's a subject for another time.)

The third trend should concern us all very much, because it is the trend at work right now. I said that the appetites of the elites are exponential. What I really mean is that the expression and manifestation of those appetites is exponential. Today they want one bite of prey. Tomorrow, they will want e bites. The next day, they will want eⁿ slices, where n is an integer greater than 1. As long as the economy controlled by these elites grows at a rate greater than eⁿ, they can tolerate the escape of a few prey from their grip. But what if the economy should begin to contract because of the decline of its resource base and the inability of the earth to absorb any more of the waste products of that economy?

That is the situation we face now. The well has run dry. The resource base of the global economy is drying up, the global economy is contracting, and no one can do a thing to stop it. When governments and wealthy people at the top of society see these things unfolding, their response and priorities are very different from the responses and priorities of ordinary people who see these things unfolding. We live and function in an economy in which the notional “wealth” held by the largest holders of concentrated wealth and power actually consist of relationships of dependence which they have established with the vast majority of the rest of us through trickery and force. In other words, they have made us to depend on them for nearly every necessity of life, which they are willing to give to us in exchange for our labors. The surplus of those labors is creamed off for themselves, leaving almost nothing for us to enjoy. And the “necessities” which are given to us in return for our labors are very tightly rationed, or in increasing cases are mere junk, froth and “empty calories” disguised as necessities.

One needn't look far to see examples of what I am talking about. How about having to pay thousands of dollars a year for “health insurance” which does not actually guarantee that you will be able to see the doctor you need, let alone avoid medical bankruptcy should you become seriously sick? How about not being able to get from point A to point B without driving a new car that costs tens of thousands of dollars, forcing you to go into debt just to get around? How about being beholden to private utilities, including privatized water and sewer services?

Every relationship of dependence on our formal, official economy is a claim on the fruits of your labor – whether it's an interest-bearing debt you owe because of the cost of buying a house, a car or an education; or whether it's the percentage of “market share” of which your purchasing decisions comprise a part; or whether it is the tax burden imposed on you as an ordinary citizen as part of your government's promise to bail out rich financial institutions. These claims make up a large part of the notional “wealth” of the predators at the top of our society.

Many of us now see that the formal economy is in trouble, and that it can no longer deliver the necessities it promises, and we are talking among ourselves, making plans, publishing on the Internet, trying to start movements, trying to warn and influence the policy makers at the helm of society. But the predators at the top see these suggestions and movements as threats to their wealth. For even if we all cooperatively fashion a society that is equitable and suited to energy descent, this means the loss of the power of the elites. If on the other hand, we ordinary people begin to break free from the system on which we depend – if we begin to fashion survivable, sustainable alternatives to the system – we will be regarded as escaped prey by predators who can no longer count on an expanding economy to satisfy their ever-expanding appetites.

(Here I must insert a quote I discovered this last week from a talk given by John Taylor Gatto to the 11^th Annual International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) in 2003. In his talk he described how the elites of our society see themselves – not as conspirators, but rather, “When you bought your last package of chicken parts, or slabs of beef, or a side of salmon, did you think you were participating in a conspiracy against the lives of these animals? It's a ridiculous idea, isn't it? Q.E.D. You and I are the chickens, the beef and the fish.” I don't know that I believe this isn't a conspiracy, but I thought his quote about chicken, beef and fish was right on.)

If you find ways of meeting your needs outside the system and you are unwise enough to publicize them, I see one of three things happening to you. First, what you are doing may be declared illegal, even though before you opened your mouth, it was perfectly legit. The second and third possibilities are especially relevant if what you do involves networking with others or creating alternative societal arrangements. If you form alternative networks for providing services or necessities to people apart from the dominant system, there is the possibility that global uber-capitalists may drive you out of business by flooding their perceived “market” with low-cost alternatives to your network. This highlights something we all need to realize about the wealthiest members of the official economy, namely, that although they are sitting on unholy amounts of claims on wealth which they call “capital,” they are always trying to grow the size of their “capital.” So their capital “chases yield” – in other words, the super rich are always looking for some market they can corner via strategic investing in order to increase their claims on the rest of us while deepening our enslavement to them. (This is why it is so hard to become an entrepreneur or small businessman in the United States nowadays.) The third thing that may happen is that if there is a political element to your alternative social arrangement – if it takes on the character of a movement – you will be joined by infiltrators and ersatz “reformers” claiming to “be working within the system to try to change the system,” and they will co-opt your movement and derail it.

In other words, if you seek to escape from our present economic system because you see that it is crumbling, you will become an offense to the masters of that system, because they are predators and you have just become escaped prey. Now that their system is shrinking, they grudge the loss of any prey, and they will do all they can to make sure their appetites are satisfied at your expense. Under such circumstances, does it make sense to openly talk and write about establishing “Transition Networks,” or to openly talk and write about establishing local currencies and barter arrangements, or to disclose – on the Internet, for all the world to see – any other suggestions for community action and community resilience? Jeff Vail and John Robb have written about the concept of “open source insurgency” as an outcome of the efforts of ordinary people to break free from predatory systems. I admit that I need to study in more detail exactly what they mean by “open source insurgency,” but I think it is now becoming increasingly unwise to publicize many of the strategies people might use to make themselves and their localities more resilient. I think it would be better for people to discuss and plan their strategies for resilience in face-to-face conversations with people they can trust. I also think it is far past time for people to take a step back from technology and to rediscover methods of communication and collaboration that don't depend on the Web and that are less vulnerable to eavesdropping. This may mean that “neighborhood resilience” takes on a multicolored hue, that there arises a huge variety of means by which various neighborhoods and groups of people in cooperation with each other become “resilient.”

Closed The Shop, Sold The House...

It must be tempting sometimes for the most popular collapse-watchers and writers to wonder how others take their words – especially their advice. In this post I'll talk a bit about the effect a few collapse-watchers have had on some recent decisions of mine.

I remember several months ago how I started to become very interested in The Automatic Earth, a blog which mainly focuses on the financial aspect of the decline and contraction of our present industrial society. I learned a great deal about finance from the site (although I must admit that I can still be confused by some of the more abstruse aspects of the world of modern finance). If I had to summarize the main points of The Automatic Earth, I would state them as follows:

• The global industrial economy dominated by the First World, particularly the United States, is in the throes of a deflationary contraction.

• This deflationary contraction consists of the extinguishing of multiple, mutually exclusive claims on wealth and the contraction of available credit.

• The fact that credit and multiple mutually exclusive claims on wealth are being extinguished defines this present time as a deflationary time, even though the prices of energy and many commodities are now rising.

• The best short-term strategy for weathering the present deflationary contraction consists, among other things, of holding as much cash as possible while becoming debt free and securing the means to maintain your own existence.

There's a fair bit of wisdom in these things, as well as other strategies not mentioned here which are listed at the Automatic Earth. But whenever there is advice from a particular source, one is also likely to find somewhat contrarian advice from others.

Anyway, I found myself following the advice listed above, as well as other maxims, such as “Take care of your health,” and “Be worth more to your employer than he is paying you.” I've been working two jobs, one as a practicing engineer and one as an engineering adjunct instructor. Engineering is not the most poetic profession on earth, but then, as Chico Escuela used to say on Saturday Night Live, it's been “bery, bery good to me.” However, I've been working like a dog for nearly a year now. The cash flow has been good – if one's goal is to “preserve liquidity” in the face of a deflationary depression. And I deliberately negotiated a salary with my boss that was lower than the going rate for someone with my experience, so I believe I have been worth more to him than he's paying me.

But he's wanting more and more of me, and over the last several months, it seems that a great many aspects of my life have been put on hold while I devote myself to work and to teaching. This is not a very resilient arrangement, for if the economy suffers the sort of shocks that it experienced in 2008, my firm could lose a number of key clients. There are things I should be doing toward building a resilient neighborhood where I live, toward writing and chronicling the unfolding story of life on the downside of Hubbert's Peak, toward doing good and trying with my neighbors and friends to preserve those things that are of greatest value. The demands of my work have gotten in the way of such things. Most of my co-workers regularly put in workweeks that average between 50 and 60 hours. The only skills we seem to have are cubicle skills. And what good is the money if you die of a heart attack or stroke trying to earn more of it? Or, as the Good Book says, “For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Thus, over the last few months I have come to certain conclusions. A few weeks ago, I gave my boss notice that I am quitting Although I am willing to stay on long enough to finish a couple of projects, I intend to be finished before the beginning of summer. For the next several months, I will be relying solely on my income as an adjunct professor. (This is my version of voluntary “radical cashectomy”.) I will be reducing my monthly expenses as well. Fortunately my house is paid for and I have no other debts, so debt is not an issue.

I have written out a mission statement of sorts for the next couple of years. It could be summed up in one phrase: “transforming myself (along with the people I care about) into someone who might stand a chance, given the world's assumed trajectory.” (Hat tip to Dmitry Orlov for that one.) The savings I have accumulated will provide me with a bit of “learning curve” time to accomplish this. One of my main goals is to develop a suite of post-Peak skills, with an emphasis on understanding general science and engineering and their application to a post-Peak world. Another goal is to become a competent teacher of these skills, as well as a builder of resilient enclaves and a repairer of culture.

I will also continue to write pertinent posts for this blog. Stay tuned!

The Development of Post-Peak Best Practices

In the First World, there is a body of knowledge, practices, and wisdom for living in modern society as it has existed for the last several decades, and as many optimistic thinkers believe society might continue to exist for the foreseeable future. This body of received wisdom is predicated on the assumption that modern society and its inhabitants will always have access to ever-increasing quantities of energy, resources and wealth.

Yet there have been those who are willing to look beneath surface appearances in order to question the foundations on which modern First World society rests. Many of these thinkers have come to conclusions that differ drastically from the future which is envisioned by the optimists. From the darker and less cheerful thoughts and writings of these people a different body of knowledge, practices and wisdom is arising. Whereas the wisdom of the optimists is based on a future of ever-increasing abundance, the darker wisdom of the realists is based on the likelihood that most of us will have to live on much less, in a world that is a lot less comfortable and predictable than the world we have been used to until very recently.

There is one thing that can be said for the wisdom of the optimists. That wisdom and its body of techniques has been extensively documented, codified and taught until it has taken on the air of unquestionable truth. Thus most people believe that whether you're building a house, treating an infection, or dealing with waste management in a city, there's only one right way to do it – and even though that right way is based on techniques that require a lot of resources and energy, this is not an issue, “because we live in America, and we are a rich country!” In other words, most of us in the First World believe that our society has created the best possible practices for living together as a society and meeting the needs of society.

The wisdom of the dark realists has not been nearly so well documented, codified or taught. This is the reason for the angst many of us feel at the realization that the foundations of First World society are starting to crumble, its resource base is depleting, its wealth is dwindling, its wells are running dry. The realization of these things naturally provokes the questions, “So what do we do? How do we adapt?” It's unnerving to realize not only that the world is changing in ways we hadn't counted on, but that we have to create an adaptive strategy seemingly from scratch.

To be sure, some great work has already been done in formulating adaptive strategies. I am thinking of a guy named John Michael Greer whose blog has lately been describing a number of low-tech adaptive strategies for post-Peak living. (By the way, I don't necessarily agree with everything Mr. Greer says on his blog – but then again, I don't always agree with everything I say either. ;)) Mr. Greer's work is in turn based on the writings of many people who were part of the back-to-the-land movements in the 1960's and 1970's, and who did extensive, rigorous research on low-tech, low-impact living. I also think of Joseph Jenkins and his Humanure Handbook, a book that describes a safe, low-tech method of recycling human waste into fertilizer. The interesting thing about Mr. Jenkins' book is that although it is written in a humorous, colloquial style, it actually began as his masters' thesis. Therefore he treats his subject with rigor and technical accuracy.

What is needed now is more work of that kind, extended across many different disciplines, from health care to education, from small-scale manufacturing to building design and construction, and more. The trouble with many suggested post-Peak practices is that they are not very well documented, and seem to be sold more on the basis of emotion or symbolism than on the basis of whether or not they actually work.

I am thinking of one example in particular, that of earth construction. I have a copy of the Barefoot Architect by Johan van Lengen. It's a fascinating book based on a fascinating premise – namely, that one can create a useful guide for home construction for Third World residents based on the use of vernacular methods and materials. It's obvious that such a book would be useful for many depressed and declining parts of the First World as well. The only problem I have with the book is that it seems to be lacking in describing mathematical techniques for validating key elements of building design. Where math is mentioned, it is sometimes treated in a cavalier manner – almost as if it was optional. (An example: on page 400, Mr. van Lengen describes the construction of earthquake-resistant walls, then says, “For those who like equations...” before writing a very simple formula. It's as if he's implying that you don't need to know the math behind constructing an earthquake-resistant wall in order to actually build one.)

The same criticism can be leveled against some people in the Portland metro area who offer classes in “cob building.” None of these teachers has a degree in civil engineering, nor are any of them registered structural engineers. Almost all of them look like people who should be wearing tie-dyed T-shirts and Birkenstocks, people who will tell you that you should build with earth because it's “natural” and “wholistic.”

Now just for the record, I believe that earth construction has great potential as a building technique of the near future, due to the wide availability of earth, the simplicity of construction methods, and the extremely low environmental impact of earth construction. But if someone's going to build an earth house for me, I want it done right – and I want to know that it's been done right. (We live in Seismic Zone 3 around here.) Otherwise, I might never be able to get to sleep in my brand new earth house, or alternatively, I might be terrorized by nightmares about my house falling down on me.

Earth construction is just one example of the sort of post-Peak techniques and practices that need to be developed much more rigorously and with much greater technical accuracy. There are others, such as post-Peak (plant-based) pharmacology and post-Peak general medicine. A robust, reliable post-Peak medical practice should be well-researched, evidence-based, with proven results. (I am not a fan of modern First World medicine, but whenever I hear someone say “I reject Western Medicine. Instead, I take bee propolys and colloidal silver and I meditate for three hours under the full moon at least three times a month,” my ears shut off instantly. Some of you know what sort of person I'm talking about.)

I could go on listing examples of disciplines that need more rigorous treatment, but I'm sure you all can think of a few. I'd like to close with a few things I think are needed in creating a body of post-Peak knowledge, skills and practices.

First and foremost, such a body of knowledge must be open. That is, it must not be subject to copyright restrictions, not made into the “intellectual property” handmaiden of a bunch of rent-seekers. (This, by the way, is quite contrary to the foolish and greedy choice recently made by Jules Dervaes and his family to attempt to claim ownership of the English language phrase “urban homestead.”) Secondly, such a body of knowledge must be peer-reviewed by its users and practitioners. That peer-review must be done with rigor, according to established rules of inquiry. (Scientific method, anyone?) Thirdly, such a body of knowledge must be taught by those who have demonstrated mastery of its disciplines. Such an approach would make people more willing to accept this knowledge readily, as proven knowledge.

Mind you, this post is not a “policy paper,” but rather a suggestion – for those who are willing to do the hard work of developing a knowledge base of post-Peak practices.

My Resilient Neighborhood, Part 2 - A Homeschooling Experiment

In my last post, I said that as teaching has become an integral part of my strategy of personal resilience, so it has become the mainstay of my outreach to my neighborhood. I also began to describe my efforts in teaching guitar to some of the kids in my neighborhood. In this post I'd like to talk a little about a few of my motivations for teaching these kids.

Much of what has been written about building resilient neighborhoods has focused on the psychological, relational and social aspects and benefits of building community. So it is that many posts on building resilience have focused on the social power of collaborative efforts such as group cannings, neighborhood block parties, people meeting to sing together, and so forth.

Believe me, I value these aspects just as much as anyone else, and I see their importance. I think particularly of the human element of working with children, and how emotionally stretching such an exercise can be. Anyone who has taught kids (and who has cared whether they learn or not) knows that working with kids can break your heart sometimes – or be the source of some of the best experiences in life at other times. (The anticipation of those “best experiences” is what keeps me going.) I also think of how good it has felt to befriend some of my neighbors – especially those who are not originally from the U.S. – and for us to begin to learn to rely on each other.

But to focus only on the psychosocial or relational aspects of building resilient neighborhoods turns many resilience-building activities into mere symbolism rather than practical actions that can meet practical needs. Therefore I have also focused on the practical applications of initiating an neighborhood teaching effort. I am thinking particularly of a C-Realm podcast I heard of an interview with Jeff Vail back in July 2010, in which he described how the “nation-states” of the world are in decline due to the failure of various “states” (national and sub-national governments) to live up to their social contract to care for their constituent “nations” (that is, the people who actually live within the notional borders of the various “states.”) Of course, we can see that the failure of the social contract between states, especially in the First World, and their constituent nations is due to the hollowing out and wholesale ripoff of these states by the wealthiest members of the constituent nations.

What this means is that the median members of various nations are seeing their standard of living and quality of life being gutted in order to maintain the wealth and prerogatives of the richest members of those nations. Government programs and institutions which were created in order to raise the quality of life of all are now being gutted in order to maintain the wealth of society's richest members. The government's sole remaining claim to legitimacy is that it controls the official, visible market of the official, formal economy. However, the abandonment of median citizens by the state is opening a huge door for the emergence of a parallel, “diagonal economy” consisting of locally-created alternative arrangements for median citizens to get their needs met, or, as Jeff Vail puts it, “...for highly networked groups of scale-free, self-sufficient communities to begin taking care of themselves within the crumbling or increasingly irrelevant auspices of [the State].”

What does this look like where I live? Well, one parent I know told me a few months ago of her concern over the Portland school system's decision to cut school hours and class offerings for her elementary school kids. Social institutions such as public schools have already been largely turned away from providing median children with a real education, and now in many states the small benefit that public schools provide is in danger of being removed entirely due to strapped state budgets. The failure of the State to provide for the education of its median children (i.e., the vast majority of children who are not from rich families) opens a door for local, volunteer-based, grassroots educational solutions.

But the test of a “diagonal economy” or the emergence of local, grassroots alternatives to services no longer provided by the state or its official institutions is that these alternatives must work at least as well as the things they are replacing or supplanting. Otherwise the emergence of a “diagonal economy” or local alternatives is nothing more than useless symbolism. Thus it is that in my efforts to teach guitar, I am actually trying to teach guitar. I aim to make my lessons fun, engaging and relational; borrowing a page from Ivan Illich, I try to create a convivial learning environment. But I also am doing my best to make sure my students know all the chords in first position, how to tune a guitar in standard tuning, how to read music in standard notation, what a time signature is, what a key signature is, how to fingerpick ergonomically so that they don't develop tendinitis, and how to play interesting and challenging pieces.

This is all being done pro bono, after hours, informally, and I think it is the way a lot of people in a lot of neighborhoods are going to be doing things as they seek to meet the educational needs of their own neighborhoods. Moreover, if I can get away with providing a rigorous, technically exact basic education in music in this way, it will prove to me that I can also teach other subjects in this way – necessary subjects like mathematics, biology, basic Mendelian heredity including plant-breeding, small livestock husbandry and other subjects pertinent to a post-Peak future.

This leads to the question of what sort of subjects would make a good curriculum for post-Peak education and how rigorously those subjects should be developed. Although some writers have already tackled this question, I'd like to add my two cents. But not tonight; I've got to practice guitar for a bit.