I got an e-mail from a health professional yesterday (another Aussie) who was a newcomer to peak oil, asking me what I thought might work in the future. I have listed some thoughts below. Please recognise that it is difficult to walk the tight-rope of controversy that exists between conventional medicine and complementary medicine at the moment. I choose to walk it, however, because:

• Modern medicine as we know it must fail sooner or later (for the reasons discussed on this site). Parts will remain but it is impossible to foresee which bits, or how they will be organised and delivered to people.

• CAM is very popular with people, and evidence is accumulating about its effectiveness from randomised trials, etc. One must remember that there can be no absolutes in medicine, and that future health care will probably be an eclectic mix of what works, both “conventional” and CAM (look at Cuba).

• The people who have survived major challenges and subsequently documented their experiences (see The Survivor Personality at the bottom of the booklist in the sidebar) are those who have remained flexible and creatively used whatever resources that were available. I think that the future may be so desperate that we cannot afford to neglect any possibly useful modality, and must be willing to put our biases and prejudices aside (ie both pro- and anti- CAM), at least for the purposes of this thought experiment.

• I feel that I have an ethical duty to the readers of this blog to present as full a range of information as possible, even if some of it is challenging, or flies in the face of currently-accepted practice. I am also very interested in the principles and philosophies behind the things that we see in our worlds, and feel that these sorts of articles are widely applicable and generalisable.

I have been thinking about evidence-based medicine, how it might be relevant to the future, but also how it depends on oil (at the moment); also how we might do research in the future (and why it is important that we do), and will discuss those issues in a future posting.

You need to differentiate between modalities that you’ll use for yourself and your family, and those that you will offer to your post-carbon community professionally. The latter group need more skills / training and at least at the moment a formal qualification. The former group you can do just with a book or two and a little practice on willing crash-test dummies (ie your family and close friends).

You also need to differentiate between those that need external supplies (like herbs) and those that don’t (like reiki). Because the future is unpredictable, it’s impossible to tell what will happen, and how stable it might be (for example consider Cuba versus Zimbabwe).

We just quickly need to consider where I’m coming from - my two big things are acupuncture and reiki, but I also have some (admittedly fairly basic) knowledge of herbal medicine and mind-body techniques / hypnosis. My apologies because I don’t know anything really about chiropractic or osteopathy training or equipment, and how difficult it would be to learn and practice.

Another thought: the timing of peak oil is unpredictable and possibly soon. The subsequent disruptions are also unknowable. Given those two factors, there will be an opportunity cost in both time and money to learn something (ie once you chose you can’t learn something else at the same time). So my advice on selecting:

• Pick what most appeals to you - you need to like it to remember it if you don’t have books etc in the future.
• Any knowledge will be helpful if you know more than anyone else in your local community.
• Decide whether you need a formal qualification or not. Reasons for: In-depth information; Regulatory requirements; Peer recognition; Clinical experience. Main reasons against are the opportunity costs (time, expense, learning other things).
• Consider the points discussed below.

Supplies needed and steep learning curve - herbalism
I have noted below some of the ideas that come to me about herbalism in a post-oil future. Note that this is not a full consideration, rather some jottings about the strengths and weakness. I have made a distinction between whether supplies are needed or not, and whether it can be quickly learned or not (shallow versus steep learning curve):

1. Sooner or later you’ll have to rely on what you can grow and process locally, because commercial liquid extracts etc will disappear.
2. You will be limited to what grows in your location, and the ones that you can successfully save seed from and regrow (if annuals) and those that are frost, drought or salt tolerant, or whatever, depending where you live.
3. If you’re looking at ones that you can produce yourself, remember the native ones that grow wild by themselves and that have been used for millenia by indigenous peoples. Perhaps you might buy yourself a “native medicinal plants” type of book and a plant identification guide and do some bushwalking in your local area.
4. Conversely, you won’t be limited to local native plants - you can plant whatever will grow (eg useful plants like ginseng become accessible), but remember that for some plants it takes a few years before they “bear fruit”.
5. For the ones that you grow yourself, consider how you might harvest, process (drying, liquid extraction or essential oil distillation, etc), and store them (without refrigeration or plastic). You would need to look at how herbal remedies were traditionally prepared.
6. Also consider what might happen if you were forced to move quickly (by human or natural disasters etc) and how you might transport your supplies.

Supplies needed and shallow learning curve - flower essences
Please suspend disbelief for this section, if you are inclined to dismiss it out of hand. Or perhaps skip down two sections to “Mind-Body Techniques”.

The healing systems that rely on the use of essences are more bioenergy ones than herbal ones. They therefore straddle this category and the next one. They depend on outside supplies of the various essences (such as Bach Flowers or Australian Bush Flower Essences), but because they are based on the idea of captured energy (ie they “represent” and “transmit” the bioenergy of each plant, rather than containing detectable active substances), they can be used to prepare new essences on-site (ie they act as the “mother essence”, and can be used to prepare an awful lot of derivative essences.

The so-prepared daughter or child essences can then be used for healing. Note that these techniques are generally very gentle and mostly used for emotional, rather than physical, healing. So while you might eventually run out, if husbanded properly, you might not for a very long time, or never. They are also very portable.

So get some supplies in if you want to go this way. You can also learn it quickly from books if you’re not interested in a formal qualification, or do weekend workshop etc that are pretty time effective. By the way, I’ve never done any training in these, just have a couple of books and a bit of Rescue Remedy that I find works well for my children. Note that there is not, to my knowledge, a significant acceptable evidence base.

No supplies needed and shallow learning curve (sort of) - bioenergetic therapies
Let’s return to the difference between a complementary therapy that you learn as a profession, and one that you learn primarily to treat yourself and your family. In a previous blog entry I have discussed the importance of taking self-responsibility for one’s own health generally, end especially after peak oil when you will need to rely on your own resources a lot more than you do now.

The bioenergetic therapies (primarily qi gong, reiki, healing touch, shamanism, pranic therapy, and others) admirably fulfil the need for a personal and equipment-free self-therapy. Why do I say this?

Firstly, the fundamentals are usually quickly grasped. It’s just the practice that takes time. Generally what you put into the esoteric therapies pays off, often in multiples (if one has the right intention). It is the same idea as learning tennis - once you know how to hold a racquet, hit a ball, and the fundamental rules, the more you practice the better you get. Same with reiki.

Next, unlike tennis, you don’t really need any equipment other than yourself - including your hands, body, breath and intention.

Thirdly, these therapies make a wonderful daily wellness practice. Unfortunately you do need to do it daily (or almost) to get the most benefit.

Fourthly, it is entirely portable, you never need to remember to take it with you, you have it even in emergencies, and if you need to evacuate an area quickly.

Next, it’s also great for children and pets, and can be very calming for all when stress is high.

Lastly, it can be extended to more of a profession if you so desire (with extra training and practice), thereby giving you something to do after peak oil.

And one last thought. It has been an interesting anthropological journey of discovery to find that many (unrelated) cultures around the world have developed their own version of shamanism, with remarkable similarities given the isolation of some societies. Why is this?

No supplies needed and steeper learning curve - mind-body medicine.
Included in this group is hypnosis and meditation, but also prayer, NLP, creative visualisation, positive affirmations, guided imagery, and a host of other techniques. Many of the things that I discussed in the bioenergetics section is relevant to mind-body techniques as well. Again the distinction between self and others arises. The learning curve is probably shallow for self-use of these practices, but much steeper if one wants to use them professionally with clients. They are also harder (but not impossible) to use with children. Again note that practices of this type have been around in traditional societies for a very long time: consider prayer and ritual, for instance.

Equipment needed and steep learning curve - traditional chinese medicine
To a large degree the same arguments apply here as listed for herbal medicine. There is a steep learning curve for professional acupuncture, but I feel that it is well worth it if you want to be a professional practitioner (based on its effectiveness in musculoskeletal pain in particular but many other diseases in general. Good quality evidence of its benefits is also mounting, and note that Cuba has embraced it whole-heartedly). Three thoughts about needles:

1. Currently they are almost exclusively single-use, so much so that it is extremely difficult to find reusable ones (and one must then consider infection-control issues, etc). Access to supplies is therefore an issue unless you can stockpile, but even then you must consider cost, portability and security.
2. Many materials other than surgical-grade stainless steel were used by the ancient Chinese to make acupuncture needles, so there is a precedent to make them locally.
3. Battery-powered laser could be used (with solar recharging) until the batteries fizzed: It is effectively and fairly commonly used in Western-style acupuncture.

At the personal level, I would commend acupressure as a very worthwhile practice. Just buy a book or two and there’ll be hours of fun to be had in the comfort and privacy of your own home. Seriously though, it can be very useful especially for pain relief, including in children and can be learned in a few hours by applying it as needed.

Links and Resources

Complementary and alternative medicine at the US National Institutes of Health:

Acupuncture

Herbalism

Mind-body

Bioenergy

TCM

Prayer

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At the start of June 2007, the Australian city where I live (Newcastle NSW) was hit by a monster “1 in 30 year” storm that flooded hundreds of homes and ran up a damage bill of over $1 billion Australian dollars.

As a consequence, our house was left without electricity for around 5 days. It’s winter here, and although temperatures are relatively mild (no lower than 4-5 degrees Centigrade overnight), it was cold enough when one is accustomed to home heating.

So as I sat there in my small circle of candlelight, in my 4 layers of clothes, socks and beanie, I decided to make use of my situation by thinking about how it might provide some insight into some of the issues likely to confront us as peak oil and gas approach.

The first thing I did was to start two lists – they are titled “items I’m glad I had” and “items I wish I had”. I brainstormed a few initial points for each, and then added to them over the next few days as events dictated. I will present both lists below, and then discuss some of the issues that arise. I have linked some of the items to their Amazon counterparts in case you’re not sure what I’m talking about. The items in bold got an asterix from me as being the most important ones.

Items I’m glad I had
Candles
Matches
Head Light (Petzl Tikka Plus - 3AAA)
Trangia Stove + fuel (TRANGIA 25-3 ALC STOVE NON STK)
Warm Sleeping Bag (Columbia 0-Degree Elk Meadows Mummy Sleeping Bag)
Water Containers
Powerful Torch
Good Raincoat
Warm Hat
Warm Socks
Wind-up Torches (Dynamo Wind-Up Flashlight)
Skylights in house (for natural lighting)
BBQ and gas
Shovel (to clear blocked drains outside)
Tarpaulin

Items I wish I had
Gas Camp Cooker
Gas Lantern
Wind-up Radio (Emergency Weather Radio - Solar Crank Radio Flashlight with Weather Band)
Nightstar Torch (Nightstar Magnetic Force Flashlight Hi-Tech Clear)
Solar Mobile Phone Charger
Old-Fashioned Stove-Top Kettle
Spare Batteries for everything
Candle-Lantern (More efficient lighting and easy to walk around with candle)
Dried Food (easy to prepare in one pot)
Waterproof Safe (mainly for photos and important records)
Spare petrol (Hard to get due to power failure)
Pot-Belly Stove (for heat, cooking and light)
More Skylights (quite dark inside as days were overcast or raining)
Generator (perhaps  mainly to prevent food spoilage + light)
Lap-Top Computer (could recharge at friends house and stay online)
Solar Hot Water (hot water emerged as the main modern-day luxury that was hard to go without)

Comments and Observations
I was able to live in a lot less space (as I had rooms closed to conserve heat, and it was hard to see in the day to do finely-detailed work or read).

I used a lot less things (as all the high-tech stuff was deactivated), and they tended to be general purpose rather than specialised.

Battery-powered items will fail fairly quickly unless you are able to recharge them, or have a cache of copper-tops. Likewise, mobile phones are only of continued utility while the people that you want to talk to are able to charge them up, as well as yourself.

I was surprised to discover how quickly the survival instinct kicked in. For instance, I developed an increased sense of self-reliance, solving problems with low-tech fixes. I also became increasingly frugal with my use of “consumables’, as I didn’t want to exhaust my supply of batteries, stove fuel and candles.

I was amazed to see how important light (both natural and my limited artificial resource) was. I really was governed by the sun; I could only work outdoors in the daytime, and at night it was hard to do things by candle-light (and also why waste candles when you don’t need to). It really came down to a trade-off between the amount of candle-burn versus the need to get something done at night. I was amazed that I was thinking in these terms, given that the blackout was artificial and short-term (compared to the long emergency). Another thing – you need light to cook at night (preferably keeping one’s hands free – hence the value of my headlight).

Conclusion
I gained a lot more insight into these issues than I thought I would (given the short-term nature of the event). Newcastle really was a mess for a few days, and it was hard to get things done. Candles, gas stoves and lanterns disappeared immediately, so if you didn’t have it at home you missed out (hence my list) – get prepared now!

I would suggest that you try going for 24 or 48 hours without electricity twice a year (winter and summer) if possible and safe for you to do so. If you want a real challenge, do it right now to simulate a storm or unexpected blackout. The insights that you find might surprise you.

We welcomed a baby son into the world early last Monday morning. And through the haze of sleep-deprivation, I remembered my commitment (to myself) to post something at least once weekly to this blog. So here I am. Because it is so topical for me, I thought that I would focus today’s post on emergency preparation for families. In writing this article I have edited some of the information at ready.gov (BTW a good resource for personal and community preparedness; look beyond the focus on bioterrorism - and the US if you live elsewhere - and seek to draw more general lessons from the information they present).

Emergency Planning Tips from www.ready.gov
You should plan in advance what you will do in an emergency. Be prepared to assess the situation, use common sense and whatever you have on hand to take care of yourself and your loved ones. Think about the places where your family spends time: school, work and other places you frequent. Ask about their emergency plans. Find out how they will communicate with families during an emergency. If they do not have an emergency plan, consider helping develop one.

Develop a Family Communications Plan
Your family may not be together when disaster strikes, so plan how you will contact one another and review what you will do in different situations. Consider a plan where each family member calls, or e-mails, the same friend or relativein the event of an emergency. It may be easier to make a long-distance phone call than to call across town, so an out-of-town contact may be in a better position to communicate among separated family members (and also should be physically safe and not need evacuation, etc). Be sure each person knows the phone number and has coins or a prepaid phone card to call the emergency contact (also program into mobile phone address book). Even though you may have trouble getting through, be patient and keep trying.

Deciding to Stay or Go
The first important decision is whether to stay put or get away. You should understand and plan for both possibilities. Use common sense and available information to determine if there is immediate danger. In any emergency, local authorities may or may not immediately be able to provide information on what is happening and what you should do (think Katrina). Make sure that you watch TV, listen to the radio or check the Internet often for information or official instructions as they become available. If you’re specifically told to evacuate or seek medical treatment, do so immediately.

Staying Put and Sheltering-in-Place
Whether you are at home, work or elsewhere, there may be situations when it’s simply best to stay where you are and avoid any uncertainty outside. In fact, there are some circumstances where staying put and creating a barrier between yourself and the potentially contaminated air outside by sealing the room (a process known as sheltering-in-place) is the essence of survival. Plan in advance where you will take shelter in this kind of emergency.

Choose an interior room or one with as few windows and doors as possible. Consider precutting plastic sheeting to seal windows, doors and air vents. Each piece should be several inches larger than the space you want to cover so that it lies flat against the wall. Label each piece with the location of where it fits. Use available information to assess the situation. If you see large amounts of debris in the air,or if local authorities say the air is badly contaminated, you may want to shelter-in-place and seal the room.

Quickly bring your family and pets inside, lock doors, and close windows, air-vents and fireplace-dampers. Turn off air conditioning, forced air heating systems, exhaust fans, clothes dryers, ovens and hot-plates.Take your emergency supplies and go into the room you have designated (consider pre-stocking the room with food, water, first aid kit, medications, radio and torches). Seal all windows, doors and vents with plastic sheeting and duct tape or anything else you have on hand. Listen to the TV, the radio, or check the Internet for instructions.

Getting Away
There may be conditions under which you will decideto get away, or there may be situations when you are ordered to leave.Plan in advance how you will assemble your family and anticipate where you will go. Choose several destinations in different directions so you have options in an emergency. Consider pre-briefing any friends or family at each destination, and cacheing food, water, medications and other essentials.

If you have a car, keep at least a half-tank of gas in it at all times. Become familiar with alternate routes as well as other means of transportation out of your area. If you do not have a car, plan how you will leave if you have to. Take your emergency supply kit, unless you have reason to believe it has been contaminated, and lock the door behind you.

Take pets with you if you are told to evacuate; however, if you are going to a public shelter, keep in mind that they may not be allowed inside (and perhaps may be safer left at home?). If you believe the air may be contaminated, drive with your windows and vents closed and keep the air conditioning and heater turned off.

From the Report:
In all cases, remain calm. Be prepared to adapt this information to your personal circumstances and make every effort to follow instructions received from authorities on the scene. Above all, stay calm, be patient and think before you act. With these simple preparations, you can be ready for the unexpected. If you have a working smoke detector, you understand that preparing makes sense. Get ready now. This common sense framework is designed to launch a process of learning about citizen preparedness. For the most current information and recommendations, go online to www.ready.gov

Working Together
Schools, daycare providers, workplaces, neighborhoods and apartment buildings, like individuals and families, shouldall have site-specific emergency plans. Ask about plans at the places where your family spends time: work, school and other places you frequent. If none exist, consider volunteering to help develop one. Youwill be better prepared to reunite your family and loved ones safely during an emergency if you think ahead, and communicate with others in advance.

Neighborhoods and Apartment Buildings
A community working together during an emergency makes great sense (and might also be the crucial factor that ensures your survival). Talk to your neighbors about how you can work together. Find out if anyone has specialized equipment or expertise (such as a power generator or medical knowledge) that might help in a crisis. Decide who will check on elderly or disabled neighbors. Make backup plans for children in case you can’t get home in an emergency. Sharing plans and communicating in advance is always a good strategy.

Schools and Daycare
If you are a parent, make sure that your children’s schools and daycare providers have emergency response plans. Ask how they will communicate with families during a crisis. Do they store adequate food, water and other emergency supplies? Find out if they are prepared to shelter-in-place if need be, and where they plan to go if they must get away.

Workplaces
Ask if your workplace has a disaster management and evacuation plan that is regularly updated (or consider forming a working group - perhaps integrated into an existing occupational safety committee - to prepare one if it doesn’t). Take a critical look at your heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems to determine if they are secure, or if they could be feasibly upgraded to better filter potential contaminants. Find out how to turn off the system if necessary. Think about what to do if you and your co-workers can’t go home, and make sure you have appropriate supplies on hand.

POM Comment
While all of these suggestions may not be applicable to every person or situation, I thought that there was enough value there for each of us to make them worth publishing.

Click here for the complete 16 page brochure where I got this information from (includes a plan template at the back).

Click these links to see examples of each type at Amazon: First Aid Kits; Hand Crank Torches; Hand Crank Radios; Survival Kits; Water Purifiers; Leatherman Multitools; Portable Power Generators; Swiss Army Knives. It’s worth having a look so that you know the types of things that you can pick from to include in a kit of your own.

Finally, remember that all material on this website is (C) Paul Roth 2007 (-/+ co-authors where applicable) and covered by our disclaimer.

Interesting 3-part series about the author of 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive, a great no-nonsense guide to survival.

I’ve found the book by this bloke to be a very useful introduction to surviving the wild - it’s also got a great layout and design with lots of cartoons etc.

I found the following check-list on a US Government site. I post it here for your use, as it is related to the preparedness sub-theme of the blog. It is also a similar idea to that found in When Technology Fails.

When preparing for a possible emergency situation, it’s best to think first about the basics of survival: fresh water, food, clean air and warmth.

Recommended Items to Include in a Basic Emergency Supply Kit:

• Water, one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation
• Food, at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Battery-powered or hand crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both
• Flashlight and extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust mask, to help filter contaminated air and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
• Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
• Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
• Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
• Local maps

Additional Items to Consider Adding to an Emergency Supply Kit:

• Prescription medications and glasses
• Infant formula and diapers
• Pet food and extra water for your pet
• Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container
• Cash or traveler’s checks and change
• Emergency reference material such as a first aid book or information from www.ready.gov
• Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person. Consider additional bedding if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Complete change of clothing including a long sleeved shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes. Consider additional clothing if you live in a cold-weather climate.
• Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper – When diluted nine parts water to one part bleach, bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Or in an emergency, you can use it to treat water by using 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
• Fire Extinguisher
• Matches in a waterproof container
• Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
• Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils, paper towels
• Paper and pencil
• Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children

Today’s video is about Cuba and peak oil.

I hope you like it

Available as a pdf for registered users.

Many of us who are aware of (dare I say preoccupied with) peak oil and its likely effects on an unprepared world tend to get so fixated on it (I know I do), that the potential for other factors to also cause disruption is neglected. So in this post I’d like to address any such neglect by exploring some of the non-oil factors that could come into play in the future.

Before I get to them, I’d like to briefly consider why our society might be so vulnerable in the first place. A big factor is the lack of functional reserve in many critical systems. Many doctors would already be familiar with this concept and its use in physiology. It describes the resiliency of a system (ie the ability to function after some sort of impairment). Let’s choose a biological example as an illustration. Consider the liver. In the pristine state, a liver has a large functional reserve. It is able to perform its life-sustaining services by using just a fraction of its total capacity. It therefore has an inbuilt redundancy system that allows for the loss of liver cells without compromising hepatic function. This explains why one can resect a liver tumour, or safely transplant just a part of a liver without killing one’s patient. It also explains why a person with mild to moderate alcoholic cirrhosis can lead an essentially normal life if they stop drinking.

So let’s apply this concept to our society. Picture the degree of debt that many are in, or the just-in-time inventory management systems that place only a day or two of supplies in a supermarket. Or maybe widespread financial derivatives trading or outsourced hospital linen services. Each factor decreases the functional reserve of the system, by reducing its ability to deal with sudden shocks (as there are minimal reserves available to act as a buffer). Globalisation and interconnectedness make it worse by allowing essentially instantaneous communication (thereby letting the shockwaves that follow sudden events to spread rapidly and extensively; this has the effect of magnifying any disruption because all people react at the same time). And in our highly complex world, even small events can similarly be magnified in importance, for example when a relatively small but critical process fails.

This brings us to the natural world. Buffers like the atmosphere and oceans allow nature to adjust to sudden events, just like the corresponding ones in the human world do. This results in a readjustment of natural parameters within ranges that coincidentally allow life on earth to flourish. Part of the way they do this is by transforming, storing or otherwise “hiding” harmful substances.

Unfortunately for us, many natural buffering systems are saturated, or operating at full capacity (some are likely to be over-saturated, but that’s another part of the story). They are therefore vulnerable to even small fluctuations or short-term shocks, as they do not have any spare capacity left to cope.

So what happens when natural, cultural or physiological systems are at saturation point and are assaulted by (even small) further disruption? They tip (see TheTipping Point for further information). That means they change suddenly from one state to another. If one is thinking about livers, hepatic failure is the result. If financial derivatives, think share market crash. If natural systems, think rapid climate change or population die-off. All are, of course, very bad if it happens to involve you.

I contend, like other authors, that many social and natural systems are poised at their tipping points right now (or may well have crossed them, given the time lags present in systems like oceans and climate - we just don’t know it yet). There is therefore a whole menu of potential causes for societal crisis and disruption, in addition to peak oil. They are categorised below.

Infectious diseases

• Human: Pandemic influenza; SARS; HIV; TB.
• Animal: BSE; Newcastle disease.

Conflicts

• Wars: Middle East; regional conflicts.
• Terrorism: Bioterrorism; nuclear; high profile (9/11); oil terrorism; infrastructure (eg Strait of Hormuz).
• Piracy.
• Resource Wars: Water; mineral resources; timber; land.

Environmental / biosphere events

• Weather: Heat waves; cold snaps; droughts; floods; storms.
• Shortages: Water; energy (oil); minerals; uranium (eventually ?); blackouts.
• Degradation: Soil; water.
• Pollution: Air; water; soil.
• Accidents: Nuclear; chemical; oil spills.

Economic and political factors

• Share market crashes.
• Property price crashes.
• Recession / depression.
• Unemployment.
• Inflation.
• Extreme political regimes.

Urban or social disruption

• Urban decay.
• Riots.
• Escalating crime.

This list is an organised version of a brainstorming session that I did. If you can think of others please leave me a comment. My reason for this post is simple: even if you remain a peak oil sceptic, there are so many other potential causes of crisis that one needs to think seriously about how we (as both individuals and as a society) can prepare for and cope with future disruptions.

I hope that I have demonstrated the need to pursue a basic level of preparedness for you and your family, especially as occurrences like water supply disruptions could place your health at risk. I would suggest this book as a fantastic place to start your preparation.

I got an e-mail from a health professional last week, asking me what I thought about the types of training that might be useful to prepare for peak oil. I had been thinking about this issue for some time on a personal level, and thought that I would make some jottings to guide myself (and perhaps others), as well as answering my correspondent?s question.

Dealing with uncertainty
Firstly, let?s consider the setting. We need to acknowledge that the events of the coming decade or two are essentially unknowable. Even though there has been in-depth discussion about the collapse of previous societies (Diamond?s Collapse and Tainter?s The Collapse of Complex Societies spring to mind), there has never been a continent-spanning, interdependent, instantly-linked global civilization like ours. I would contend therefore that although there have been many useful predictions about possible futures (see for instance David Holmgren?s Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability), as well as the example of Cuba (but also Zimbabwe), they are ultimately conjecture. All that we can depend on is that we can?t depend on any one future prediction, no matter how desirable.

The only person you can rely on
So in times of uncertainty one must turn inwards and examine one?s self; after all, if you can?t depend on yourself, then who can you depend on? With this in mind, I believe that the only real, useful and anxiety-lowering way to manage future unpredictability is to manage your own inner environment ? your thoughts, feelings and skills. Psychologists call this having an internal locus of control (being ?the captain of your own ship?). It is having the confidence that you will find a way, no matter what happens. Siebert?s The Survivor Personality discusses this issue, as does Lundin?s 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive.

You might also see some of my previous writings on the need to take personal responsibility:

• Personal responsibility and health care after peak oil
• Personal actions to improve your chances of post-peak survival
• Why ?healing? & ?wellness? are different to ?medical care? and what it means for peak oil.

Upgrading your current profession or skills
With that in mind, let?s consider a possible process for picking a peak oil upskilling course. Where possible, think about how your current work or profession might make the transition to a post-peak future. For instance, if you?re a farmer, perhaps you might pursue information about organic farming methods, or start breeding draught-horses. In contrast, if you are currently in a profession that you think won?t make the change to an energy descent future, you might consider changing careers altogether. Keep in mind that you will have gained a lot of ?transferable skills? since you became an adult (no matter what your job description), many of which will stand you in good stead to make the transition.

Minimum knowledge required
We will all need a minimum level of self-care skills and knowledge (like darning a sock or cooking a meal on an open fire) that you can begin to practise now, so don?t despair if you can?t think of anything to do ? just learn the basics. My other initial thoughts are to pick something that appeals to you, or that builds on a current hobby - you need to like something to learn and remember it, especially if you don’t have books and other resources in the future. Remember that any knowledge will be helpful if you know more about a certain topic than anyone else in your local community.

The rest of this article presents a framework that can help you to decide which courses to do, how long they should be, and whether you need formal qualifications or not. You should be able to apply these criteria to everything from choosing an alternative health field to weaving, blacksmithing and farming. A bold statement I know, but let?s see what develops.

A decision-making framework
Siebert says that the people who have survived major challenges and subsequently documented their experiences are those who have remained flexible and creatively used whatever resources were available. I think that the future may be so desperate that we cannot afford to neglect any possibly useful skill or body of knowledge (no matter how unpopular or marginal it seems at the moment). We must be willing to put our biases and prejudices aside.

Professional qualifications versus personal knowledge
You need to differentiate between knowledge that you’ll use for yourself and your family, and that which you?ll offer to your post-carbon community professionally.

The latter group needs more skills / training and (at least at the moment) a formal qualification. The former group you can do just with a book or two and a little practice on willing crash-test dummies (ie your family and close friends).

The main drawback of a formal course is the opportunity cost (time, expense, and learning other things). What does that mean? It means that if you commit to one thing, you can?t do something else at the same time or with the same money, and if you?re studying hard you can?t be working in your veggie garden. A second issue is that if the major societal changes that we all fear begin when you?re half-way through your course, you may never finish it. Still, half-finishing a nursing course gives you a great knowledge base to start from, and allows you to be an important resource for your community if no-one else has any nursing experience.

In contrast, the main reasons in favour of seeking a formal qualification include:

1. Greater depth of information (as opposed to just reading a few books).
2. Regulatory requirements (for instance if you want to change careers soon and become a herbalist).
3. Peer recognition and access to continuing education, courses and conferences.
4. Ability to conduct research, publish results, and write authoritative articles.
5. Greater experience (as a component of a formalised course ? for instance the clinical experience component of a university nursing course). Remember that although knowledge is important, it remains theoretical until put into practice.

Reliance on external supplies and transport
Once you decide on whether you need a formal qualification or not, you next need to consider the amount and cost of supplies required to keep your chosen vocation going. For instance, consider the difference between psychotherapy (no supplies) and herbalism (ongoing supplies).

Because the future is unpredictable, it’s impossible to tell what will happen, and how stable it might be. A corollary is that no-one will be certain if supplies will be available, which ones they will be, in what quantities, or for how long. One of the problems with conventional medicine is its reliance on globalised supply chains that need oil to keep running. Now consider herbalism as currently practised: many practitioners seem to use liquid extracts and capsules that they buy from large wholesalers - in terms of the reliance on oil-fuelled transport there is no real difference between it and conventional medicine! Of course this is different where the herbalist grows their own plants and prepares their own extracts.

There are two possible ways around this supply issue. Firstly, if the best visions are turned into reality, it is likely that organic agriculture / permaculture (including medicinal herb growing) within a local setting will be a dominant method of living. In that case, herbalists, weavers, spinners and other craftspeople might be able to source their supplies locally. Secondly, consider the idea of salvage. There are going to be a lot of rusting motor vehicles (and other oil-age artefacts) hanging around. They will be a great source of steel for the budding blacksmith (not to mention vinyl and fake leather for multiple domestic uses), and may partly overcome the possible lack of raw materials.

Appropriate knowledge and equipment
It is likely that the information that you will need to know for any contemporary course will be ?21^st century? and oil-dependent. So as you learn the information in your chosen area, always consider how you can apply it to a scarce oil future. You should also think about obtaining a basic set of tools and equipment while you can still get them. I would suggest a focus on well-made, reusable (and resharpenable) hand tools rather than power ones, or those that need ?consumables? (for example a hand drill, wood plane, files and hand saw rather than a power sander, cordless drill and circular saw).

I have noticed that the level of skill and types of techniques described in books published between 1880 and 1920 are approximately ideal in terms of their level of technology and lack of reliance on oil. Why? This was the period when predominantly ?oil-less? craftsmanship was at its peak, before descending into the oil-drenched future. So if you want to be a herbalist, buy some books from that period and learn how to prepare remedies from basic ingredients. Likewise, if you want to be a blacksmith, learn how to make your own tools, forge, and bellows.

Putting it all together
I have designed some simple tables with worked examples to hopefully make the decision-making process clearer. There is also a table that allows you to compare the costs and time commitments of specific courses once you?ve picked a broad discipline. You can download the file by clicking here to see the download page: PeakOilUpskilling

I?ve been thinking about how one might deal with anxiety as we transition to a post-oil world. Obviously it depends on the speed of change and the degree of social stability, but it?s fair to say that the ?age of anxiety? that we are in now probably won?t be finishing any time soon.

I have been most pre-occupied with how primitive societies dealt with anxiety. Did anxiety exist as we know it? Did the level of violence prevalent in much of our history raise or lower anxiety levels? On the one hand, there was the ever-present threat of the appearance of some horde ready to rape and pillage. On the other, violence was used routinely to settle disputes. Now, assuming that one was the victor in such a dispute, was your anxiety lessened after you ?fixed? the problem? Or did you worry incessantly about a payback attack?

I presume that the processes that emerged as primitive societies attempted to make sense of their surroundings (for example rituals and sacrifices) may have been a response to anxiety, and an attempt to lower it. Take as an example the uncertainty of the weather. A sacrifice or ceremony in the name of the rain god would have displaced some of the anxiety onto an invisible deity, thereby reducing personal worry. And if the rains failed to come, and presuming you survived, did your personality remain fairly intact because you?d done all you could?

I also think that anxiety must have conferred a survival advantage, due to its prevalence in our society. The release of adrenaline and other hormones, as part of the fight or flight response, obviosuly helps one survive threatening encounters. I wonder if anxiety was an integral part of that (for example by increasing alertness and arousal), or rather an unwelcomed side effect that impaired performance?

I?m not sure of the answers to the questions I?ve posed. There must have been some people better at dealing with anxiety than others, and some societies, locations, and periods of time where the degree of personal safety, food, water etc was high and personal risks relatively low.

But also consider this - you live in a small village in a mud hut somewhere. And while the Mongol hordes aren?t over the next hill, there is a significant degree of violence in your area, directed at all groups in the population. And the violence has been going on for years, and is unlikely to stop any time soon. How do you go about your daily routine with calmness and peace of mind? How do you nurture a family? Are you able to get a good sound sleep at night?

I?ve done a few Google searches but haven?t really found any information that can help. I?m going to have a look at Victor Frankl?s book Man?s Search for Meaning as a possible source of inspiration, but I would also be grateful for any contributions you can make. Just click add a comment at the top of the post to contribute your opinion or reference material. I?ll be thinking about this topic over the next few weeks and will write some more about it as I develop my ideas - check back soon.