Book Review
Crash Course- Preparing for Peak Oil
by Zachary Nowak
Green Door Publishing 2008
Peak Oil is upon us, and collective action on a large scale seems unlikely. Technical solutions are chimerical. Each of us must decide what the future may hold and begin working on a plan to face that future.
When Zachary Nowak began drafting this essential resource list oil was pushing $70 a barrel. Now nearly double that, peak oil seems ever more of a reality and its consequences are being felt even in the oil-guzzling west with an growing sense of urgency: the party really is over and all the chickens are coming home to roost (to mix metaphors): food riots, truckers strikes, inflation, rising unemployment, bankruptcies and the looming shadow of global recession.
It increasingly looks as if the time to prepare may have been yesterday, but as the title suggests, a crash course of emergency and more long-term preparation is still possible and Nowak provides an entertaining primer in the basics.
We are on a collision course with a difficult reality, an inconvenient truth that is much more immediate than global warming. Crash Course is an accelerated tutorial, a study-at-a-distance workshop on what you need to know to survive the Peak.
Nowak’s take on peak oil is essentially: prepare for the worst because that is looking most likely; your preparations will still be useful if the world negotiates a successful transition, but this is looking less likely. The book is aimed at the homesteader or would-be -homesteader, but anyone would do well to consider the advice he gives as much of it would be useful in any situation. The author brings six years experience of living the survivalists’ good life to bear onhis subject.
The first part is not so much for peak oil aficionados who might like to skip straight to the resource lists in part two, but is nevertheless well worth a read for the concise and informed perspectives Zachary provides.
Importantly, he takes an ecological perspective of human evolution from hunter gatherer to farmer to industrial consumer, and this helps shape his subsequent responses: the energy return changed as our numbers grew and we had to work harder for our food. Early humans had a considerable impact on their local resources as they migrated across the globe, apparently hunting to extinction most of the mega fauna they encountered and exacting a toll on the resources their environment could supply. This may have resulted in part of the push towards agriculture which allowed more total energy to be harnessed in the form of cultivated crops and storage – but at a cost:
It may come as a surprise, but the average hunter-gatherer, to get his 2000 daily calories, expends about 500 calories, whereas an agriculturalist “spends” about 1200.
Nowak challenges us, therefore, to think again about the romantic idea of growing all our food in a home garden- on its own, it will be too hard; we need permaculture- perennial agriculture with tree crops and fruits- alongside foraging for wild plants to get by.
I would question however the assertion that few people even amongst experienced back-to-the-landers are unlikely to be producing currently more than 2% of their food- I know several people who appear to be growing maybe 90% of their own vegetables for example which I would have thought at a guess could be nearer 15-20% of their total food.
In the second chapter, Nowak outlines the three variables that will effect how the crisis unfolds and define the kind of responses we may need to make: the speed of the onset of crisis; its severity; and duration.
Here he challenges the idea of community powerdown projects like Transition Towns: they may not be able to bring about in time the kind of localised, sustainable future in small communities that we may wish for, nor may they be able to withstand a sharper and more severe collapse:
Most people who share this vision of the future see a near-seamless transition riding on the crest of Permaculture teach-ins and community supported agriculture, but what if the duration is longer? What if a Peak event creates chaos which takes some years to transition from an urban society to sustainable communities? Look at your neighbors and imagine them hoeing weeds and making biodiesel before you answer this question (or imagine them hungry, and scared of the no-more-streetlights dark).
It is a mistake, Zachary points out, to have too much faith in our ability to develop the necessary skills to sustain ourselves when all around us may be chaos.
Belief in progress and the idea that “technology can save us” or that humanity will just come through some how, what with our extraordinary ingenuity and so on, Zachary lists as some of the “dangerous axioms” that pervade especially American society and culture, but are strong elsewhere as well.
This leads to his very interesting observation that rational arguments do not really work that well.
People often ignore incontrovertible evidence and airtight arguments because the result conflicts with their belief systems.
Zachary tells us that his experience of trying to “change people’s minds”- to accept the error of our ways and the inevitability of a collapse of some kind- have been frustrating and perhaps not really time well spent. In many ways I can confirm this from my own experience- three years on from when I first saw “The End of Suburbia” and began film screenings and talks on Peak Oil, along with many others, there has been little to show in terms of any wide-scale awakening of the general populace, much less amongst our politcal leadership. Im not sure that I ever expected any- I always felt that even if one person present in a room was reached, and maybe able to set off on a more appropriate trajectory in terms of their priorities in life, then it was worth it.
Nevertheless, the point is well taken: the time for conferences and committees may be over. It is time to seriously consider much more immediate preparations on a personal and domestic level. These may still have a wider effect in leading by example and putting structures in place to help ride out the collapse.
In the third chapter we are taken through a range of different scenarios that could unfold as we ride down the slope of energy descent: “New Green Revolution”; “Powerdown USA”; “The Great Energy Depression”; and “The Crash”, each one as seen through the eyes of a student, a middle-aged father, and an older woman. This is the most useful and interesting part of the first section and takes us beyond simplistic one-size-fits-all and run-for-your-gun discussions. Collapse will be a very personal, tailor-made event for each of us and our experiences will vary widely according to location and degree of preparations, as well as the way in which the collapse unfolds.
The section finishes with a round-up of the issues so far: Powerdown for a slow transition or Survivalism or Collapse? While Zachary clearly feels the second is the most likely he points to failings in either extreme and advocates a “middle ground” which basically consists of preparing for the worst by focusing on personal preparations and expanding one’s self-reliance skills, while at the same time working with a community wherever possible.
…given my personal set of axioms (severe crisis, difficult to convince people), a summer spent planting fruit trees and experimenting with lactic fermentation is much more valuable.
The second part is essentially a resource list of books and websites worth collecting and researching which provide information you may need in an energy hungry future. .
He freely admits that the premise that you have money and resources for buying a smallholding and building a sustainable shelter is not in the reach of everyone and offers little solace for those who are not in as position to relocate.
It is a fascinating and comprehensive overview of many of the best resources available in the areas of the house; food production; and food preserving; followed by a more brief outline of resources for home medicine and disease prevention, survival skills, and tools, accompanied throughout with good practical advice. It could serve well as an outline for a permaculture course or peak oil survival training, and I found the references very useful even though I have been looking at a lot of the material for years.
The book ends with a discussion on the limits to the idea of preparing a refuge of some kind. As already said, it is not an option open to everyone. In answer to the common criticism that remote places with good supplies are an easy target for marauders, Zachary comments:
I have no response to this other than to say that I hope that it does not get that bad that quickly, or that it gets really bad really quickly, so desperate marauders diminish in numbers. Yes, that’s a horrible thing to say but I will not hide that I have pondered it.
It seems likely to me that the desperate are more likely to flee towards the cities, where there may be some level of organization at least for a while- soup kitchens perhaps. Historically, the country has faired worse that the towns in times of collapse, although parts of the big cities may become truly desperate places. Hungry people who turn up on your doorstep may be far more likely to offer to work for food, and be keen to learn all the skills you have been developing. People who are ahead of the game in terms of preparedness will be very useful to their community- perhaps the most important survival asset of all.
Peak Oil is upon us, and collective action on a large scale seems unlikely. Technical solutions are chimerical. Each of us must decide what the future may hold and begin working on a plan to face that future.
This book is an excellent place to start.
These comments coming from Graham make me think it may indeed be too late to Do Something. If the eminently sensible Transition Towns movement is beginning to seem futile, then Dimitry Orlov’s wonderfully funny “Reinventing Collapse” may be correct in advising us not to bother. This 40-something Bostonian was born in the Soviet Union, emigrated to the US at age 12, was educated there and began his career. When when it became possible, during Glasnost, the adult Orlov returned to visit family, witnessing firsthand the political and economic collapse of the Soviet Union. Orlov makes some of the same points as Zachary Nowak: each of us will create a uniquely personal response to chaotic conditions. He advises not to commit to any one plan, stay light-footed, be wily, know who has what you need and how to get it from them, blend in, be an observant critical thinker, and keep a sense of humor. All societies collapse eventually, which is somewhat comforting. What I see is that just as we are hurtling towards a dozen kinds of doom, there is a great flowering of creativity in wholistic thinking, of which permaculture is one very good example. While people in the Northern U.S. wonder what will happen to them when heating their homes is no longer possible, alternative energy “hackers” in Berkeley are designing affordable, locally producable wood gasification units that can fuel home heating with walnut shells or pine cones or trash.