A friend wrote last night expressing his, understandable frustration about the slowness of the political leaders to respond to the facts of Peak Oil,and their failure to begin paving the way for new means of providing for the necessities of life. It grew out of a conversation around some documentary films on Cuba (The Power of Community, and The Greening of Cuba), who had their Peak Oil moment back in 1989.The films tell how the average Cuban lost several pounds of body fat before their food growing efforts yielded fruit, but they came through and met the challenge in creative and innovative ways. They moved away from fossil fuel dependent agriculture and turned to permaculture and organics. There is much we can learn from them. One of these films is being screened at the Waiheke Community CInema on July 18th.
This is my letter in response to my friend's outpouring of frustration:
The Greens, Labour, ACT, National, and any others that may come along are part of an old system that I have been saying for some time is broken and is not supposed to be fixed. It is based on old models of working which don't (work) anymore. They assume a top down management model that wont work.
I dont waste my energy supporting or fighting them, but prefer to channel it into creating the bottom up foundational systems which will grow and thrive as the old systems collapse. As people wake up and see the extent to which they have been lied to by their leaders, they tend to express anger first, but then they look for other ways to function, operate, interact, live and get their needs met.
I dont believe that pointing fingers at Bush, or Cheney, Clark or any other 'leader' does anything more than postpone the inevitable moment when we wake up and realise that we are the responsible party. Looking to someone in a 'leadership' position and demanding they fix things is a form of giving away power. Me weak, you strong, you big powerful person fix this problem for poor powerless me.
The entire system that is consuming the final supplies of oil is being encouraged by those people, yes to be sure. But it is we the people who are filling our tanks, buying the produce which has travelled around the globe to get to our table, after being fertilised and pesticided and packaged to get there. As we wake up and do things differently we buy out of that system and withdraw our suppport for it.
Now it could move faster if 'leaders' got on board and helped educate the masses, who are asleep, because they continue to be fed world cup football and told that everything is fine - just keep consuming. But then those people would remain in the same position of being manipulated by whatever the latest message is. And this moment seems to be about awakening from the slumber and becoming self-aware and aware of our inter-dependent place in the totality of humanity.
My reading of the situation is that there will be a significant die-off of the human population. We have found a food/energy source that has enabled us to explode our population - it has doubled in my lifetime. Now that food/energy source has peaked and we are on the downward slide, and with it will surely come a reduction in the population that depends on it.
Some realise this, and are stepping back from dependence on oil as an energy/food source, and I would rather put my time into supporting and working with those people, than struggle to wake up those who are fast asleep.
Good news about the thermette - thanks for the prompt, I will put this on my preparedness list.
Gently,
James
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www.yesterdaysfuture.net
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