Short and Smart

“Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.” How all of us will look like when there is no civilization because our society is collapsing? As moving on to an industrial society, oil has become one of our commodities. The phones, shirts, furniture, transportations, vehicles, food…etc, almost everything we used now a day requires oil or fossil fuel to produce. From the “Community Solutions” websites, it has divided into three categories such as food, housing, transportations. These are the ones that we based on in our everyday life. Growing and shipping the food, using energy for the purpose of efficiency, and transportation using cars. All these things has already became part of our lives, is it ever possible not to rely on oil?
In the first collapse assignment about how Easter Island has collapsed from overused their main resources. Will United States resembles a similar result? The Polynesians in Easter Island values beautiful stone statues and their God in their culture. However, they were having competitions over beautiful and tall statues just to show off their distance to god. Eventually, it caused them to cut down more timbers than they needed. The timbers are like the oil to us, it is one of their commodities. They need timbers to make canoes, rope, houses…etc. to make a living. Supposedly, the Easter Islanders were living in a very fragile environment that the possibility of having deforestation is high. But based on what Jared Diamond has said, “Easter Islanders did succeed in getting enough water for drinking, cooking, and growing crops, but it took effort.” If the Polynesians knew their clans would be collapsed, will they still cutting down their last tree just to get closer to the God and look cool? The answer is predictable, because that is what humans do. We think that perhaps somewhere else farther might have few more trees left. Or we think that God will look after us, someone else will solve the problem for us. It is extremely difficult to make someone to disbelief what they are being raised to belief. As for people, we never learn lessons unless we make mistakes. Although America has a different situations compare to the Easter Island, but it is a metaphor of how we might possibly look like, “a society that destroyed itself by over exploiting its own resources.”
Reading the articles of “Peak Oil Primer” about peak oil, the feasibility of collapse in our society is very possible. “Peak oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production…Once we have used up about half of the original reserves, oil production becomes ever more likely stop growing and begin a terminal decline, hence 'peak'. The peak in oil production does not signify 'running out of oil', but it does mean the end of cheap oil, as we switch from a buyers' to a sellers' market.” As the Easter Islanders, every culture has their own commodities that they rely on. What our industrial country relies on is oil. From the earlier unit about industrial food, most of the food that Americans eat is made from fossil fuel. From the quote, peak in oil does not mean oil is running out, it means the end of cheap oil. This might be the main problem that causes our society to collapse financially. Based on the annoying visuals from “Limits to Growth”, it said that “Capitalism needs more-and-more natural resources for more-and-more economic growth. In order to supply more-and-more natural resources for economic growth, more-and-more energy is required. Although bankers can print money, they cannot print energy!” The situations that we are facing is different from the Easter Islanders, oil is not yet running out. However, we do not have enough energy to get more oils which means lack of oils/loss of main resources. According to the article “Life after the Oil Crash”, in “What does all of this mean for me”, I think the predictions of how America will collapse is pretty reasonable. Everything is being tie up together and of course one will affect the other. “Permanent fuel shortages would tip the world into a generations-long economic depression. Millions would lose their jobs as industry implodes. Once affluent cities with street cafés will have queues at soup kitchens and armies of beggars. The crime rate will soar. The earth has always been a dangerous place, but now it will become a tinderbox. On the heels of their rapid financial ruin, people will now watch aghast as their food and water supplies dwindle in the face of a climate going awry. Prolonged droughts will spread, decimating harvests.” Lots and lots of predictions are being made by looking at the crash of oil. Which one of these nightmares should we believe?
We all know the problem, but we never get to the solution whether it is avoidable or inevitable. Reading on the article “Peak Oil Primer” about what can be done, it stated that, “Many people are working on preparations for peak oil at various different levels, but there is probably no cluster of solutions which do not involve some major changes in lifestyles, especially for the global affluent.” If people’s lifestyles have to be changed, does this mean civilization end? Nobody knows what will happen in the future, but I believe it is predictable based on what we did to ourselves. However, even the predictions are being made, how do we know which one to choose? People kept talking about when the world will end and when is the last time the sun rise. But we all are still living and breathing on this earth, how can we possibly know when this will really come true? Just like the Easter Islanders, if they know the tree that they are cutting is their last, they would have cut it anyway because they believe it is the last. Same to all the researches about collapse, we seem to know what will happen and probably start to plan something out to avoid it. But what happened if this is inevitable? Lastly, I still believe that knowing it and being aware of it, is better than knowing nothing about it.