Toward Yesteryear

South Coast Sunset

wolf — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:57:42 GMT

This photo is for all my friends. From the Elliott State Forest, high in the mountains just north of Coos Bay, a glimpse westward to the Pacific Ocean. A brilliant star ignites the coastal stratus with nuclear brilliance. I'm stationed in Coos Bay now. I will be here for the entire month of July. My work will put me in the Elliott State Forest nearly every day. And, so far, each new day has brought its own surprises: A red-tailed hawk carrying off a live, squirming rabbit, so weighted down that the bird could barely gain altitude. A group of four turkey vultures always found hanging about the trees at one specific road junction. A mother and spotted-fawn deer, trotting down the road in front of me. A vivid white elk skull, full of ivory teeth. Rhododendrons still abloom on a rocky mountainside while vine maple begin to turn autumn red. A wonderful mix of vegetation, including Pacific madrone, red-stemmed manzanita, canyon live oak and Bay laurel, growing among scattered western hemlock and Douglas-fir along a rocky spur ridge. A giant orb weaver hanging from its silken net, appearing out of the dark right in front of my face. Ah, the joys!

Snoqualmie Sunrise

wolf — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 04:17:49 GMT

Awoke at 02:45. Drove to the top of Snoqualmie Pass, in the pre-dawn dark, with a few truck drivers to keep me company on I-90. Then I carefully drove my Honda Accord up a rough, rocky and steep road to a pretty little lake above the ski area. All for two hours of incessant insect attacks during the crisp, calm morning of 27 Jun 2007. Photo taken at 05:21, about ten minutes after sunrise. Not a murrelet to be seen on the whole survey, though the screech owls, ravens and Stellar's jays were quite busy. The ravens were awesome. Huge, heavy-beaked beasts that seemed made of oil they were so dark. Well-fed from the dumpsters far below; the day before I saw one carrying away little plastic butter containers. The bird seemed very happy. After the Snoqualmie survey, I loaded the car, and headed south, back to Portland for a single survey northwest of Forest Grove. At the McGregor Wetlands. A survey full of owls. Owl, owl, owl. Get used to the word. Before 05:00, the amazingly eerie and alien call of the spotted owl, a sound like a coyote and human mixed in equal portions, sounded from the trees to my west. Then the harsh, raspy call of a barn owl issued from the canopy nearly overhead. Later followed by the haunting call of the great horned owl. The spotted owl gradually drifted away, then returned after about a half-hour, flitting among mossy red alder branches, with a mouse hanging from its beak--the beautiful bird paused long enough for me to get a good look through my 10x25 binoculars. Then the night-predator spread wings and sailed into a dense patch of conifers nearby, silently, neatly. I think there's a nest not too far from the station. After a few days off in Portland--time I'm happily spending with my daughter--I will then travel to Coos Bay for the month of July. I'll be busy. The peak of marbled murrelet rearing season will be at hand, which results in the peak in murrelet detection surveys. I've always liked Coos Bay, and it'll be interesting to stay there for a month.

Nearly a Week Without a Shower

wolf — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:14:12 GMT

But the above flower sure found a shower! I think that was the longest stretch I've gone without a shower since childhood. Five days. Man, does cleaning up feel so good after such a stretch of days without a wash! And, most of those days, I endured very steep climbs through dense underbrush. Which meant lots of sweat, and lots of dirt. Slopes exceeded 45 degrees, the duff was very loose, with crumbly sandstone beneath. I fell many times. Got rocks, Douglas-fir needles and soil in my boots. Sometimes elevation gains exceeded 300 meters over very short distances. Vine maple, Rhododendron, ocean spray, Oregon grape, salal, hazelnut, what-have-you impeded my progress in places, and sometimes clung my clothing or backpack firmly, impeding my progress either up or down. Spiderwebs wrapped around my face and hands; the gossamer strands were simply everywhere. I'm sure I got hundreds of the little eight-legged crawlies on me. I just ignored them. I observed for marbled murrelets on four mornings. Get up a 03:00 to 03:30, hike out in above conditions in the dark, with a bright flashlight for aid, and find the survey station. Then stand around scanning the sky as dawn unfolds, the the temperature reaches its lowest point of the day. A slow chill. Survey lasts from 45 minutes before sunrise to 75 minutes after. During the last 30 minutes or so, I find myself eager to hike back out, because I know the exertion will warm me! I saw one marbled murrelet on those four days. Bird activity in my survey area, in the vicinity of the Siuslaw National Forest not very far from Veneta (the location of Oregon's "Country Fair"), was nothing like the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. Heard some great horned owls--what a wonderfully spooky sound in the early morning. I saw coyote puppies on two different days--a den is located near one of my access roads. Perhaps the most spectacular sight occurred Tuesday morning, with a could-free sky at 03:15. The milky way stood out so vividly that, for a moment, I thought the dense swarm of stars was clouds! A grand fuzzy band that encompassed the bright rivets that pegged out more vivid constellations, like the "W" of Cassiopeia. Within seconds of my stepping out of the car, a brilliant blue-white meteor seared across the Milky Way. In silence, like the quiet forest that surrounded me. Of course, in a little more than 90 minutes, the silent forest would awake with a flood of calls from many, many different kinds of birds. (Tiger lilly found in the Oregon Coast Range after one of my murrelet surveys.)

Camping Outside Eugene

wolf — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 18:14:30 GMT

Looks like my first week at the new job will have me camping from Mon-Thur in the woodlands in the vicinity of Eugene. I'll likely be out of contact for much of that time. Oh, well. I'll have peace and wilderness! :o) The photo is a shot from the Santa Cruz Mountains, taken two days ago. Steep, but lovely climb.

Mulling Over Life, Change and the Murrelet

wolf — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 03:13:45 GMT

The world that sustains us is in constant flux, and with Homo sapiens' voracious appetite for energy, that flux has been enhanced in many ways. A constant addition of new structures and modifications to old structures is one reflection of an incredible consumption of energy. In the photo, what was a covered walkway nearly a decade ago is now an enclosed space. The water garden has become something entirely new. Outside of the photo, entire new buildings are lifting above the hilly campus landscape. The university grows, and, with that growth, the campus environment changes. New: Just like my life, which has gone through one dislocation after another during recent years. Changes that led me to this unique moment in time, where, as the fresh, blue glow of dawn spreads across the sky, I look up to find a funny little marine bird that happens to choose the biggest, most magnificent trees for their nesting sites. A unique place to nurture their young. To match the mass of a single old-growth coastal redwood tree, ten to fifteen million marbled murrelets would be required. That's just for one tree! What a grand monolith to call "home," a tremendously sturdy shelter, and one that maintains itself. How nice would it be to have such strength and longevity to support us?

Marbled Murrelet Morning

wolf — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:41:26 GMT

At Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, I saw my first marbled murrelet today! Indeed, I viewed many of the cute little birds. The avians tend to fly in pairs, energetically flapping their small wings, and racing through the sky in with a lovely choreography. At one point, we saw four flying together, buzzing darts among the mist. These birds have high wing loading, and cannot glide. They must move at 20 m/s (45 mph) or more to stay in the air. Just like yesterday, low stratus and fog occasionally enshrouded the woods, hiding the gigantic trees in a vast Pacific-born curtain, closing from all sides, and then, suddenly, lifting away, to reveal the great stands that surrounded our little meadow. A salty sea smell mixed with other scents: sweet flowers, wet hay-barn fields of grass and the tasty, sharp odor of conifers. The birds seemed to appear out of nowhere when the blue-gray gloom hung thickly over the land. During moments when the ceiling lifted high, we could spot marbled murrelets in the distance. With that wonderful trick of good optics, my new Nikon 10 x 25 binoculars brought the birds close and helped with visual identification. The murrelet calls, "Keer, keer, keer," distinctive and wonderfully melancholic, also helped with the species determination. When cloud and mist was thick, their signals alone told us of the birds' locations. Beautiful notes radiated from high above, the ghostly woods to the south, near a giant 95-meter-tall redwood to the north, and sometimes many directions simultaneously. The marbled murrelet, a member of the Auk Family, part of a long-lived lineage that had witnessed a long-past time when redwoods covered a much larger region. A bird that flew far to feed at sea, and nested among biological behemoths that had sprouted from tiny seeds and branch propagations more than a millennium before there had been a United States. The entire wood around me suggested the passage of great amounts of time. A complex ecosystem that operated on scales so large that to understand the system, a mere human had to pursue a constant intellectual struggle, and any comprehension could only be a mere facsimile at best. My presence at the site would be but a minor moment in the long history of the forest. A fleeting event, like the moist, gentle zephyrs that swirled the fog around. We practiced data notation with our hand-held micro-cassette tape recorder. There are many details to consider: minimum altitude relative to the forest canopy height, number of murrelets, types of calls if any, flight direction, nearest approach to observer, detection direction, departure direction, flight path, time of observation, and much more. This being my first try at trying to pay attention to so many birdly details, I did rather poorly, especially at first. But, given time, one begins to put together a method, and the record becomes something akin to a sports play-by-play on the radio: "05:51, two murrelets southeast, flying straight going north, three keer calls, 1.2 canopies, now a curving flight heading northeast, departure to the east…" I wasn't this good today, but that is what's supposed to happen during my training this week. Once I started to get a feel for how to approach the notation of detections, I rather enjoyed myself. Watching such beautiful creatures zip through fog and redwoods as blue the light of dawn spreads across a forest that is almost mythical in scale and appearance, and trying to make detailed observations is incredibly exciting and uplifting.

Cruisin' to Crescent City

wolf — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 17:47:37 GMT

Soon, I'll be in the car, heading to Crescent City for my marbled murrelet detection training. About six hours at the wheel, I expect. Then, tomorrow morning, I have to be at the site in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park by 04:45. With a 45-minute drive from Crescent City, I'll probably have to get up around 03:00! Given that I'm a morning person, this doesn't bother me too much, but I've been out of practice, so I'll have to adjust. The weather right now is sunny and warm, already in the 70s. A frontal system is moving in today, and could kick off some thunderstorms on my drive south. This could be interesting. Nothing like a little weather excitement on a long drive.

My Return to Ecological Field Work!

wolf — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 22:31:09 GMT

Back to the forestland for me! Woohoo! I just got hired by Turnstone Environmental, an Oregon-based firm, for the summer field season. More marbled murrelet data collection, which means a return to the remote and ancient forests of the Northwest. On Sunday, I head down to Crescent City to begin my training in marbled murrelet detection. These birds tend to nest in old-growth forests, yet survive on a diet of seafood. Due to the scarcity of old-growth habitat, and it's often very remote locations, these birds have been known to fly, on a daily basis, upwards of 50 miles each-way to get food for their young. They're a commuter bird. With a penchant for making nests in the moss growing on thick branches high above the forest floor. I'll be in Crescent City, then Arcata, for most of the week, and will probably head back up to Portland the following weekend. Then, I begin work on Monday. Right now, I could end up in three areas: Arlington, WA, Snoqualmie Pass, or Coos Bay, OR. Coos Bay is apparently the most likely spot. This is cool. I've always wanted to live down on the southern Oregon coast. Housing is provided by my employer! No worries there. I'm tingling with excitement at times. It's good to be going back to the great leafy leviathans, and their commuter-bird friends. :o)

The Call of the Coast

wolf — Wed, 30 May 2007 05:38:55 GMT

The trip to the beach was perfectly timed. Vegetation among the steep, rugged slopes of the Coast Range radiated a vivid, lush green under the brilliant May sunshine. Bigleaf maples flapped their toothy leaves in a warm breeze. Douglas-firs were covered in a halo of soft, new twiglets. Brown conifer samara rained down in each gust, their tiny wings flashing under the sun, the hard seed heads tapping on my windshield like little pellets of hail. Cottonwood seed swirled around as if they were insects on a drunken vigil, sometimes filling the Highway 6 corridor with a blizzard of white fuzz. The spoor were especially common around the streams that trickled out of the mountains, where anglers of all ages took advantage of the warmth to try to hook the next "big one." Like the water in the creeks, the air among the mountains, and even along the often murky coast, had an incredible clarity. A single smoke plume to the south, likely a burn for forest management, stood out in isolation. The dirty-white cloud, through stark contrast, enhanced the sense of clarity that surrounded me. At the whim of the wind, the pillar of soot flattened out and shot northwestward in a straight line past Tillamook far to the west. Within a few hours, the overall airflow would shift and arrive from a more northerly direction. The milky obscuration would then shunt south, a white shock-wave, the bubbling froth of a vast and silent ocean breaker that traveled down the front of Oregon's coastal mountains. With surface winds relatively light around 10 to 15 mph, and east-northeast to northeast at official stations, the cold air over the Pacific held at bay. The temperature climbed to 85F at Astoria around 14:55 before a more typical onshore breeze kicked in out of the NNW, and, within a single hour, knocked the temperature down to 74F. When I reached Tillamook around 12:45, an incredible warmth pervaded the air, one that is only occasionally experienced on the coast. No hint of the nearby Pacific's power of refrigeration could be felt. A comfortable heat swirled into the car every time I lowered a window, or opened a door. The warmth hugged the shoreline all the way to my destination, Rockaway Beach. With much excitement, my daughter and I exited the car. The lovely, nurturing air caressed us on our short journey through a gale-swept patch of Sitka spruce and shore pine and to the bright sandy seaside, with its thundering ocean waves. We found a large log embedded in the coast's powdery beige sugar, not very far from the wash-zone. Carpenter ant queens and drones crawled over the wood, the sand, everywhere. Their gossamer wings glittered under the sun even down on the dark, wet surface sear the frothing waves. The old, sea-saturated log seemed an unlikely spot for an ant city, which suggested that the wind ushered the little critters from the woodlands to our northeast. The breeze of fresh, clean air felt great. The temperature was sheer excellence. I felt very good about my careful monitoring of the weather. It takes just the right conditions for a deep warmth on the Oregon coast. I had taken the time to gather the information, made an interpretation, and took advantage of my weather sense to plan the trip days beforehand. A chance to grasp just the perfect meteorological moment for joyous sand-castle building, digging deep holes and braving a truly frigid surf. My feet hurt when each tongue of water zoomed past, especially the first few times. Those ant queens dangerously near the waves were clearly agitated by the cold sand that embraced their feet. The contrast of oceanic chill and atmospheric warmth stimulated my senses, and contributed to a remarkable sense of being alive. With a plastic bucket in hand, my child soon discovered, quite by accident, that she could catch tiny fish that rushed into the littoral zone with each wave. The fingerlings were so small, so thin, that they were largely transparent. Likely a good camouflage. The clear fish seemed as one with the water, ephemeral, ghost-like, transmitting through the very medium which they were comprised-of like a ghost is supposed to pass through walls. And indeed, they are largely water, like the rest of us vertebrates. Despite their clever spectral attire, we mere humans nevertheless saw the clouds of darting water-spirits, and caught dozens. They swam frantically in the bright buckets, a myriad sea fairies, unable to move beyond the polymer that contained them. My girl kept the fry for a time, keeping them carefully behind the castle wall that we had created near the old drift-log. Then, she'd release the fish babies to the cold, lapping surf. Followed, of course, by the joy of catching more. Once, she left one bucket unattended behind our sand fortress. The barrier offered no protection against winged beasts. Two crows landed near the container of sea-sprites, giant black gryphons among mere helpless water-bound peasants. One of the great, dark, feathered beasts lunged for the trapped delicacies. My daughter noticed the shadowy gargoyles and ran at them. The two creatures spread wings and soared high into blue, to be carried downrange by the persistent stream of air that tumbled dry wood, kelp fragments and other debris ever southward on a march that had likely been repeated on beaches world-wide for aeons. A mother's caring for her children was equally as timeless, and, with the charcoal gryphons away, my girl's little fish were safe. She paused and looked at all the little squiggly ocean denizens. Eventually, in a loving manner, she would set her fairy children free among a deep surge of Pacific water. Thus marked a few precious moments out on the beach. A place where, a half-decade ago, I used to take my daughter for regular rides in a jogging stroller. We'd ply the beach all the way to the southern end of Rockaway, leaving three linear tracks among my footprints, and visiting with people along the way. Sometimes we'd encounter a pet raccoon named Alice, an wonderfully gentle creature. I am amazed at how much time has passed, and how grown my daughter has become. The changeability of the beach is often remarked upon by people who frequent the coast. With each tide, with each winter's storm, with every chill summer breeze, a new beach is created. The shore, that dynamic interface between land, sea and air, is incredibly mutable, like a clay sculpture under the hands an attentive artist. That wave-lapped strip of land, unfixed in a manner similar to my growing daughter. Dynamic. Sweeping. Energetic. A fledgling shore-bird flying ever further with each passing day. A bright, enthusiastic person showing new abilities and discoveries as the years charge along, some due to input from me, a bit more due to the attention of other people who touch her life, and even more due to her own ideas and discoveries. She follows the surging tides of growth, and changes evermore, and becomes someone new, yet also full of echoes of past times, past selves. I look forward to our next encounter with the shore.

A December Day in May

wolf — Mon, 21 May 2007 16:55:44 GMT

Yesterday, 20 May 2007, the temperature at the Hillsboro Airport reached a chilly high of 55F, and the low 46F. Northwesterly winds gusted to a maximum of 23 mph, and periods of rainfall dampened the landscape, totaling 0.29". A low, gray, misty sky dominated the day, adding a gloom that had that familiar Northwest feel. Mystery seemed to thrive in the veil of mist. Houses, muted in the watery gloom, with the warm yellow of glow of lamps accenting fuzzy windows, took on a new life, as if they had been transported to a time when creatures of fairy occupied the landscape. Woodlands and wetlands, alive with the thud of water-drops from soaked, wind-shaken leaf and stem, and obscured in darkness by the deep, frothing and scudding layer of Pacific moisture overhead, seemed to hide gnomes, trolls, and goblins, among other beings from the nether-realm. The beauty of the Northwest is to be found in many shades of gray, and myriad forms of precipitation. The day of 20 May 2007 could have been in December. In fact, it wasn't difficult to find a good match in the official record. On 13 Dec 2006, the high reached 56F after a low of 46F, and 0.38" of rain accumulated in the gauge. Southwest winds gusted to 29 mph on that cool, drippy day. Perhaps the biggest difference between 20 May 2007 and 13 Dec 2006 is that daylight lasts considerably longer in May than December. The darkness of a long winter's night adds considerably to the tenebrous nature of Pacific storms. Yet, yesterday's clouds were deep enough to provide a real sense of shadow, and a murky feel to the countryside. A December day in May.

Gas Rationing This Summer? Likely.

wolf — Thu, 17 May 2007 20:43:50 GMT

I filled up the Honda yesterday, at my usual Chevron. The price was $3.319/gal. It's been hovering around this mark for awhile now. The accompanying photo was taken in the vicinity of Long Beach, WA, on 13 May 2007. Prices in Portland are a bargain! And it looks like $4+/gal gasoline is, perhaps, coming within reach. Apparently, according to information on The Oil Drum, this week's fuel inventory report shows that stocks are rising here on the West Coast (PADD 5) despite the fact that imports are falling locally (only 93K barrels this past week, compared to 150K barrels the week before). Local production has been flat, too. This suggests that demand for fuel has taken a significant hit out her in the west. Looks like prices in the range of $3.25 to $3.50/gal for regular is the threshold for forcing Americans to conserve (California's average is $3.45/gal right now). Back east, prices generally haven't climbed this high--yet--though they likely will due to very tight stocks. Even with a total 1.5M barrels imported into the US this past week (compared to 1.2M the week before) and refinery utilization up to 89.5% (compared to 89.0% the week before), stocks were only able to climb by about 0.5M barrels in the East. Clearly, demand is still very high east of the Divide. Total US gasoline stocks are at a very low 195.2M barrels (though up from 193.5M last week). About 170M barrels is considered minimum operating level, or MOL, the amount needed to keep pushing supply through the extensive network of pipelines and related infrastructure. So, we're heading into the summer driving season with perhaps three days of supply above MOL. The potential for serious shortages looms large. We're perhaps one Gulf-of-Mexico hurricane, or some other factor (like a large refinery shut-down) away from supply disruption in gasoline. For the US as a whole, gasoline prices are very likely to continue climbing into the summer--up until that point where serious "demand destruction" slows the run-up in price, as indicated in the West, and most noticeably in California, where prices last year may have contributed to a 1% decrease in demand overall, despite there being more cars in the state ever (likely, the housing market crash is also a player in the reduced demand for fuel in CA, as fuel-consuming construction has slowed considerably). Yesterday, at an organizational meeting for the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), Matthew Simmons, energy investment banker for Goldman Sachs and a well-known expert on the broad subject-matter relating to oil production, stated that: 1) There's a 60-70% chance of gas rationing this year. 2) If a hurricane enters the Gulf of Mexico, this chance jumps to 90%. And, I note, at this time, Americans are just beginning to feel the initial pinch of Peak Oil. Edit: New information from The Oil Drum as of 18 May 2007 shows a MOL of 185M barrels (based on DOE information). This means that stocks of 193-195M barrels in recent weeks are just skirting above the MOL. In some regions, including briefly in the West, stocks have been very close, in not at MOL. This is a critical situation.

Hubbert's Peak: Is There More to Being Human?

wolf — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:55:36 GMT

The New Horizons probe, on gravity assist to Pluto, recently skirted past Jupiter's vast domain of moons, faint planetary rings and intense radiation belts. Beautiful images of a giant world draped in streaming cloud belts and swirling storms broader than the Earth were returned as the tiny probe hurtled through Jovian space. The robotic interplanetary explorer is traveling between worlds at a speed faster than any other space mission to date. With a 4 kilometer-per-second (km/s) boost from Jupiter's gravity well, the vehicle accelerated to 21 km/s relative to the gas giant and 23 km/s relative to the sun. Even at a velocity that would take New Horizons from Los Angeles to New York in about three minutes, the probe would not reach distant Pluto until 2015. Eight years traveling through the cold, dark emptiness of the outer Solar System. All the while, a growing energy crisis will continue to unfold back on the spacecraft's homeworld, the Earth. For industrial civilization, the energy shortfall marks a critical inflection point, like New Horizon's gravity assist via Jupiter, one triggered by the relentless decline in oil production world-wide, the so-called Hubbert's Peak in oil production. Oil, the lifeblood of industrial civilization. Oil is the "master domino" according to Dr. A. M. Samsam Bakhtiari, an Iranian energy expert. When the oil production domino is healthy, all the other dominos of civilization--important structures such as food production, health care, education and economies--thrive. When oil falls, the rest follow. Likely, space programs, with their delicate budgets, would crumble early. Save maybe for those programs that had military application. Would anyone listen to New Horizons' signals in 2015? What might happen to civilization world-wide over the course of the next eight years? By the middle of the next decade, world oil production will likely be dropping quickly. By 2020, it could be back to 1970-levels, with a resource-consuming human population well over twice what it was when people visited the Moon. And this projection assumes that above-ground factors such as war won't accelerate the process of oil production decline. Oil wars began in the 20th century. The Iraq invasion of 2003 appears to be one of several, and this one appears to have been among the first that is a direct response to Hubbert's peak. How many more conflicts will unfold over the next eight years? How many lives will be lost to the body-rending violence from supersonic bullets and crushing bomb blasts? With the rapid ticking-away of kilometers as New Horizons travels between Jupiter and Pluto, people will fall. Little dominoes that helped prop up the vast business of civilization. Potential nuclear conflict loomed. Such an eventuality could take away many humans, and much of the infrastructure of industrial civilization. The facilities to support space missions, such as NASA-Ames, the Kennedy Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, might be a shattered ruin. There, indeed, may be no electronic ears waiting to receive New Horizon's distant signals from Pluto. No more space discovery. The collection of Mars rovers would sit silent and collect a coat of ruddy dust over the decades and centuries, never to be visited by future human explorers on a grand mission to colonize space that seemed so inevitable during the heyday of Apollo. The artificial satellites that surrounded the Earth would die, become increasingly pockmarked with micrometeoroid impacts and eventually plunge back to Earth as their orbits decayed. The Hubble telescope would heat to plasma temperatures as it scraped the atmosphere on its way down, a brilliant flare that would just as quickly fade, like the very era of discovery that helped put the sensitive eye into orbit. No more extrasolar planet detection. No more soul-stirring images of stellar explosions, nebulae and the process of star-formation. The age of peering deep into the past, of uncovering the processes that led to the creation of the Earth, life, and human beings, would be over. It seemed possible that, as future centuries unfolded, much of the information gleaned by science could become lost. Forgotten during an age of conflict. A vast edifice of knowledge, crumbling away like the World Trade Center in 2001. What did that say of humanity? In the 20th century, our species appeared to have a purpose. People were supposedly the eyes of the Universe, probing everywhere, learning how everything functioned. Like a child peering closely at her hand, humanity, an integral part of the Universe, was in the process of learning about itself every time it explored the huge, intricate and ancient environment from which the tool-using ape emerged. With technological progress exploding exponentially during the Age of Oil, humanity's eventual expansion into space seemed like destiny. Earth's precious, beautiful and amazing life would make that next leap?occupying other worlds, reaching for the stars. Due to an almost magical nature, oil provided the fuel for god-like thinking even despite the obviously wobbly and uncertain nature that should be expected from any structure made out of a liquid. An oil crutch. A slick and easily-obtained support that temporarily masked many of the challenges of living. Now, as the Earth's store of oil became increasingly depleted, godhood seemed like a false promise. A dream. The energy crunch seemed to force humanity back to reality. Homo sapiens' self-proclaimed greatness appeared to be nothing more than a group hallucination brought about by an overwhelming addiction to a special, black hydrocarbon that formed over geologic timescales. With oil depletion, it appeared increasingly obvious that human beings were just a mere animal. Of course, deep down, most people knew this. The power of oil addiction simply kept many people from considering the reality very deeply. Humans were prone to the same strengths and failings as other species. Humans are instinctual creatures, and carry within their brains a powerful program to exploit a given bounty with as much efficiency as can be mustered. This trait is critical for survival in the energy-limited environment provided by Earthly ecosystems. Like ants swarming a pile of sugar, people exploited a vast and accessible energy resource, oil, and used it up as quickly as possible lest someone else take the good stuff away. And, as the oil ran out, humanity now faced the challenging prospect of continuing without such a powerful form of energy to prop-up the species. Without the prop, space colonization seemed a distant dream. A fantasy. Like the fantasy of utopia offered by the creation of suburbia. It seemed people were so strongly attached to the planet that gave birth to them that they would not be leaving anytime soon, if ever. Humanity's purpose, it seems, is something other than space colonies, or the discovery of all the secrets of the Universe. The purpose of H. sap, if there is one, is probably much more humble than such grandiose notions. Indeed, Hubbert's peak appears to be screaming to humanity that there is no purpose at all, save perhaps one: That age-old task of living in the harsh and challenging realm that envelops the Earth. Nothing more. Nothing less. In 2015, as Pluto is scanned by distant New Horizons, symbol of an animal that has a wonderful but nevertheless bounded technological ingenuity, and follows its program to send signals back to Earth, the new information may go undetected. At that time, human minds may be focused on the much more immediate task of staying alive in an environment thrown into chaos by an oil-starved industrial revolution. The probe will sail away into the vast depths of space, soon to be forgotten. And human beings will continue the struggle of survival among the complex depths offered by Earth's living shell. The Age of Oil closes. Reality returns.

Hubbert's Downslope: The Long Way Home

wolf — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:40:59 GMT

I'm not sure why I'm writing this note in my journal. I never could keep this diary up-to-date on a regular basis. In this age of increasingly limited energy supplies, will someone find this little book high up in the coastal mountains of California, and bother to read it? Probably not. If this journal is ever discovered, the person doing the discovering will probably yell out with glee and proclaim, "Toilet paper!" Nevertheless, I feel the need to write my thoughts. Maybe that happy person will partake in reading before recycling these pages. I just completed my last drive, I'm pretty sure. My old beat-up RAV4 won't budge another inch. Flimsy ride, anyway. Ah, well, it got me around for years, and many miles. My hometown, Santa Rosa, simply felt too claustrophobic. I wanted something different from the usual neighborhood gathers each weekend, and all the constant discussion about ongoing life changes due to the energy crisis. Many of my neighbors are really worried about food. And this guy, a lawyer I think, showed up to one dinner gather. He kept going on and on about nuclear war. Made a persuasive argument for its eventuality, too. Aye, that was too much! I don't need to be reminded about the possibility of starving to death, or being part of a global nuclear gift exchange. Yes, it was finally time for something different! So I jumped in the RAV, which had been sitting unused for months, and headed for the hills. A squirt of the sprayers cleared the windshield of dust, and a glance at the dashboard showed that I only had a half-tank of fuel. I didn't even bother to look for any of the gas stations on the way out. They were probably closed. Besides, my money was tight. Unemployment checks only went so far, especially during these days of rapid inflation. I headed north on Highway 101. With traffic eerily light, and the sound of an internal combustion engine thrumming in my ears, I easily got lost in thought about the growing crisis. Protests and near-riots had begun over fuel and food prices in some cities, even uncomfortably close in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Certainly Santa Rosa wouldn't be immune for long. Just a matter of time. This had me worried most, but the growing drone of food shortages also nagged me endlessly. The two were linked, of course. As fear over nourishment grew, I gathered the situation could get messy rather fast. Ukiah seemed uncannily lifeless as I rolled through. Parking lots at local shopping centers along the highway were bereft of vehicles. The road seemed like a drought-parched riverbed, one that meandered past structures with dark, hollow windows reminiscent of the sunken eyes of the starved. Eager to get off of broad, empty 101, I took the cutoff onto Highway 20 and headed east toward Clear Lake. After a stretch, I went north to Lake Pillsbury on a lonely, windy road through beautiful, green country. Before long, I encountered the access to Hull Mountain. Some called it Mt. Hull. Guess it depended on which map you read. I'd only been to the top of the peak once, long ago, during the 1990s dot-com boom when life seemed to be going so well. You know, swimming in money and all. Now, a deepening depression covered the land with a dark pall that seemed to make even the sunniest days black. I faced perhaps my last opportunity to see the grand view from the summit. I would do it. Even in the great 1990s financial bonanza, I was cheap. My RAV was bare-bones and only had front-wheel drive. The only concession I made was to have AC and a CD player. I popped in an old, beat-up disc: Dead Can Dance, “Toward the Within.” One of the back speakers didn't work, but the melancholy and introspective music was still quite audible, and it fit my mood rather well. I rolled down all my windows to get that open-vehicle off-road feel that I so enjoyed when I was younger and traipsed all over the mountains, burning gas and beating my cars to death for no real purpose. Then I took off, up Mt. Hull's vast and steep slope. The old dirt road had undergone severe erosion over the past winter. The RAV lurched over deep ruts, loose rocks and wind-broken tree branches. Dust lifted high into the air behind me. In the steepest sections, I couldn't let the car stop. There wasn't enough traction for me to resume my upwards climb. I kept the vehicle at a constant speed and left the gear in second. The RAV crashed over potholes, thudded over, narrow toppled tree trunks, ground through rocky outwashes. Some of the thuds were quite jarring. Loud. At times, I thought the car would stall. Palls of dirt sometimes swirled through the cab. Perhaps a year ago, I might have winced at this sudden abuse to my car, wishing to keep it going for as long as possible. But, today, I continued, and watched the wilderness roll by. Driving didn't seem to have much of a future. A wonderful mix of oak trees, Bay laurel, walnut and gray pine gave way to Douglas-fir and red fir as my altitude increased. A startling number of conifer trees were dead, or dying. Some kind of disease or other stress left a brown blight on the forest. A dramatic change from the Mt. Hull I had seen years ago. Another sign of the growing crisis. The firs, dead or alive, informed me that I neared the mountaintop. As did the grade. It had more-or-less evened out to horizontal. I continued on, eager to get to a little turn-out that I had stopped at long ago. A place that had a good view. The RAV sputtered, jerked, and quit. I quickly popped the gear in neutral and guided the vehicle off the road, next to two, massive wind-sculpted firs that hadn't given up on life just yet. The fuel gauge read empty. Damn! No surprise, really, but it was still a bit shocking to see the gauge on "E". This was it. My car was kaput! It would be a long walk home. At least I had brought my gear. And the first leg of the trip was downhill. A big, steep downhill, but down nonetheless. Maybe, once back to Highway 20, I could get a ride back to Santa Rosa. Some folks still drove places. Including trucks hauling food and other necessities. I wonder how many more people would do what I had just done? Maybe the top of Mt. Hull would become a vast vehicular graveyard. A funny image is brought to mind: Hundreds of rusty hulks lining a fading mountain road. Surely, not that many people were as foolish and silly as I! I grabbed my backpack and headed for the viewpoint on foot. Birds sang. Insects flitted about. A periodic breeze rushed through the treetops, a sound that to me has a timeless sense to it. The rustling foliage brought to mind similar breezes that must have rustled the great lycopod trees of Devonian times, and the vast diversity of palm-like cycads during the Triassic. Dinosaurs must have heard the leafy rustling. Archaeopteryx, the proto-bird, must have felt the caress of such breezes. Nature's breath had washed the Earth for billions of years. The gently swaying trees remind me that life continues even as it undergoes massive change, and this makes me feel a little hopeful, or at least more at ease. My walk wasn't very long. I found the little pull-out that I had visited a decade ago. It had changed some, but not dramatically. A fairly dense assemblage of weeds poked through the old gravel. The surrounding shrubs were thicker and taller than I remembered. A scattering of giant, old firs still sat to the north. They showed no signs of the blight that had been starkly evident on the drive up. The view provided the same joy that I had remembered. To the west, I could see the coastal stratus rolling in like a vast tsunami on the Mendocino shore, say perhaps fifty miles distant. And, to the east, I gazed all the way across the Central Valley to the great Sierra Nevada. Mt. Lassen stood high, snow-less and pointy. The air had an amazing clarity. All the little details, from jagged rock outcrops to the sweeping forests and sharp treelines, were so easy to discern that it seemed like I could touch the distant mountains with an outstretched hand. Clean air: One blessing in a world of oil scarcity and limited driving. Down below, to the west, I could just make out the town of Willits. Many of the residents, I knew from news reports over the years, have been busy preparing for the energy downturn. Pursuing renewable energy sources. Rebuilding their local economy. Good for them. I hope they do well. Indeed, I might migrate in that direction. Unfortunately, as my own desire to move to the region just revealed, I fear that Willits' proximity to the Bay Area could prove a big problem. The potential flood of refugees loomed large. I looked upon the vast northern California countryside for a long, long time. Indeed, I'm still at the viewpoint, sitting on a log and writing in this book. When I pause to gather my thoughts, I drink the cool, fresh air, feel the breeze wash my face, and listen to the cheerful birdsongs. And I listen to the silence between the avian calls. An intriguing silence. A silence, I now realize, that has been slowly returning to the neighborhoods of Santa Rosa. The drone of power lawnmowers has ceased. No more leaf blowers. And the rumble of car tires on pavement has become so rare that it is almost a novelty among children, drawing them out to watch when a vehicle rolls down the street. The sound of television and stereos, leaking from open windows on a warm day, has also lessened as rolling blackouts plague the country. Yes, even as conflict and unrest erupt around the globe, a new kind of peace has begun to enter our lives. Some might see this as the calm before the storm. I'm not sure that this is the right analogy. The peace, I feel, will continue to grow even as humanity goes through its own self-inflicted turmoil. It seems to me that the real crisis began long ago, with the Industrial Revolution and an attendant philosophy that places human beings in the same category as machines. This many-centuries-long emergency has unfolded in a myriad ways across the globe. The crisis for me is encapsulated in an adult life as a computer programmer who put in sixty to eighty hour weeks to finish one software project after another. I literally burned myself out even before I had reached forty. For others, the crisis is more evident in the horrors of industrialized war as the age-old battles over limited resources and political power continue to escalate. With nearly seven billion people on this planet, there seems to be an infinite number of ways in which to experience the industrial crisis. Indeed, for many of the luckiest (wealthiest), the crisis is a seemingly endless party. Tragic. Nature had set her limits long before human beings occupied the globe. There are only so many resources available on this planet. It is clear that my species now bumps up against the boundaries. Eventually, I suspect, much of the human conflict will stop. Conflict, however, will not go completely away, for it is at the core of what it means to be alive. The fight for survival will remain as long as life exists. But the level, the noise, of conflict will ease over the years. As human conflict finally wanes, as it must with the prospect of ever-diminishing non-renewable resources, and with a dramatic reduction in human population (a topic that simply scares me), the peace will likely get stronger. Yes, the peace that surrounds me, that special sense of life's timelessness, will continue. The thought makes me feel better. In the least, if I am fortunate enough to survive the historical transition that has clearly begun, I can look forward to a world where such peace might be easier to find. This depends on many factors, for sure. In my struggle to live, will I have the opportunity to pause, and enjoy the soul-soothing peace that surrounds me here on Hull Mountain? I don't know. But the idea offers some hope. The sun is getting low. I should be heading back. The walk down Mt. Hull, even with loose rock, sticks other treacherous footing, should give me ample time to enjoy the peace that I clearly sought by driving out here. A chance for me to gather myself for whatever events the energy crisis will soon bring. It is very uplifting to see that such beauty exists even amidst a great darkness. I will place this journal under the driver's seat of the RAV. Maybe someone will find it in the years ahead. And maybe they will pause long enough to read the thoughts of a single person who is caught up in the culmination of a great crisis. Maybe the book will simply rot away as the vehicle is weathered by decades of Pacific storms. I doubt that I'll ever know. Nevertheless, penning these words has helped me clarify my thoughts and better understand my concerns. I feel calm now. I look forward to the long walk home. *** Thanks for reading. -best

Toward Yesteryear

wolf — Mon, 07 May 2007 05:02:35 GMT

Dear Anna, How long has it been since I actually wrote you a letter by hand? Years, for sure. Remember those little notes that I would send you? The ones where I would draw wildflowers and butterflies in the margins? And include uplifting thoughts to help you through your busy workday? So long ago! Before either of us had discovered e-mail. I certainly enjoyed writing those letters. As I penned those messages, I always imagined your soft face, framed by your fine brown hair, and your lively hazel eyes. Well, Anna, it seems that life demonstrates again that it tends to flow in circles, or more accurately a long and irregular spiral. I recall all those discussions we used to have about life philosophies. Life, of course, acts. We can believe all we want that it will move forward in a certain direction, and then something comes along to remind us that it can, without advance notice, change at any moment. Just as I hung my hands over the computer keyboard to type out a note to you, the electrical service failed. Now, I sit in the dark with two little candles flickering on my old dining table, and can't help this stark feeling that, perhaps, we're seeing the beginning of the end of the "new" way of doing things. We're entering a new era, I suspect, and we'll have to adapt to yet another "new way." And this new way looks like it may be similar to the "old way" that, currently, seems like a distant memory. Oh, I'm sure the power will return to California at some point, Anna. We've all been through blackouts throughout our lives. And, in this case, the grid doesn't appear to be damaged. Stars fill the sky. There has been no storm to crack power poles, no earthquake to shake lines to the ground. No, Anna, this appears to be classic load-shedding. An all-too-familiar rolling blackout. I wish I knew more, but my usual source of information is, of course, down—the internet. I should try to find that emergency radio. Maybe when I'm done penning this letter. "Load shedding?" you ask. I can still hear your voice so clearly. That sweet, soft tone that enthralled my young ears. Yes, Anna, even in the vast, powerful United States, we aren't immune from the consequences of a strained energy supply. Here in little Ukiah, I'm probably the victim of the demand from the masses who live just to the south, in the dynamic and energy-hungry San Francisco Bay Area. Perhaps this is due to an increase in heating demand from a recent cold spell. Summer has forgotten to arrive, that's for sure! I suspect that we might have a frost here, under that clear, cold sky. And with natural gas in short supply due to ever-diminishing production despite an ever-increasing number of new well-heads, the price sure has escalated. Those natural gas outages in So Cal weren't just quirks. I'm sure much of the remaining supply is being allocated to emergency services first, and other customers second. As a result, I can only guess that many people have switched to portable electric heaters. Which might have put an enormous strain on the electricity supply. Now many of us sit in the dark, and become increasingly cold. In fact, I just donned another blanket. That beautiful cover that you made for me during our long honeymoon. The one decorated with carefully-cut fabric leaves in all shades of autumn warm--red, orange, yellow. The lively cloth foliage is hard to see in the dim light. But even with diminished presence, the promise of a toasty reprieve from the chill is reassuring. Ah, yes, Anna, I can see your wry smile. Indeed I should have bought some wood for my little fireplace, the one that has been unused for perhaps a half-decade. I recall how you loved fires. They so fit with your idea of romance. Feel free to laugh at me now, for I'm now wishing I shared your romantic sense—I should have been more sympathetic to the simple joys you found in life. I'd at least have more warmth! And from more than one source. What an amazing, and frightening time we live in, Anna. Peak oil and peak natural gas, as they go through their uncompromising arc of depletion, have now bumped us down the comfort scale. Load shedding used to be a problem for the poor, or so-called "developing" nations, only occasionally showing up in the developed world due to very--how should I put it?--interesting circumstances. The local news agencies have been failing us over recent years, only rarely reporting the ever-increasing occurrences of power interruption in developing nations. And even more rarely portraying the situation within its broader geopolitical framework despite a strong interdependence between nations. Thus failing to show us how the problem has been spreading like a stealthy disease: South Africa, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Colombia, to name just a few places that have been suffering increasing hardship. As the price of fossil fuels escalated since the early part of this decade, many of the poorer nations have been struggling to keep power plants in operation, and maintaining vulnerable distribution grids. Now it looks like the load-shedding problem has migrated up the international ladder of affluence and is hitting the so-called "first world." I had to smile after writing the above paragraph. Yes, Anna, I certainly haven't lost my enthusiasm for the subject of energy production. I recall you reminding me more than once that I often got carried away with that topic. In front of your carefully-made romantic fires, or at dinner parties, or even on evening strolls through the park, where a simple lamp alongside a path would bring to my mind thoughts of electron flow and hydroelectric dams. Sometimes you just wanted to talk about more personal things. Concrete, down-to-earth things. Like plans for our next vacation. Or events in our friends' lives. Or our recent adventures in the workplace. Vividly, I recall how the little stories I told about my childhood would keep you deeply enthralled. I was a bit of a wild-child. I now understand how my adventures would interest you, sweet Anna, the girl who always wanted to please her parents. I should have accommodated you more often, and listened to your own stories with as much care as I put into my work on energy. You always had a thoughtful approach to life. And we certainly had the ability to talk about many things when we were young. What happened? I guess we changed. Just like the world is changing before our very eyes. Or, perhaps more so, we were too busy with our extremely active progress-driven lives to pause, and explore the very things that had brought us together in the first place. How I wish I could sit next to you now, Anna, and tell you more of those stories from my boyhood. To simply sit close to you, and feel your warmth under the pretty blanket of dancing autumn leaves. To simply hold your hand--hopefully it would be one of those times when your fingers were actually warm! How such small digits ever retained heat still amazes me to this day. Yes, Anna, with someone near, someone whom I could talk to, the dark would be much less intimidating. As it is, I don't even have a cat! It's just me, and my tiny, old house. And your lovely blanket. I guess writing to you helps. I hope you're okay down there in Monterey. Maybe you still have electricity. I'm not sure--without a doubt the greater Bay Area's in the dark, or there wouldn't so many crisp, clear stars in the sky. In any event, I suspect the power will be up and running again sometime after sunrise. We will then resume our normal lives. Until the next hiccup. And, I'm sure, power interruptions will increase in frequency and duration over the years. At some point, what passes for normal will look quite different from what we've experienced up to the present. I hope social unrest during this critical transition doesn't cause serious problems. How people will react to fear--fear about the gigantic unknown that the energy downturn poses--is my biggest concern as we enter this uncertain time. Feel free to send me your thoughts. I wish you well, Anna. Know that I'm thinking about you, and if you ever need assistance at this important juncture in history, I will be there for you. As you can easily tell, I've never really stopped loving you. Maybe, as the world changes, and the pace of our lives slows to a more sane level, we will discover some of that magic spark that so captured us decades ago. The end of the industrial age could very well have its perks. May the US Postal Service continue to run for a long time. Take care, Anna, Your good friend, Anthony +++ Thanks for reading. This story won the "Please Pass the Hanky Award" at the World Without Oil website. Thanks! -best, Wolf

Peak Oil: Psychological Shock Now

wolf — Thu, 03 May 2007 23:08:38 GMT

The impact of Peak Oil on one Oregon resident. * "No civilization can survive the physical destruction of its resource base." --Bruce Sterling * The low, dark roll-cloud passed overhead like the curl of a vast, seething wave. A burst of small hail quickly swept across the park's field and thrummed against the plastic roof of the play structure on which I stood. The cold, white spheroids, blasted under the shelter by a chilly west wind, tapped against my shoes, and stuck to my daughter's long, pink coat. With big, blue eyes, she looked at the field, which had now become partially lost to the haze created by the veil of plummeting pellets of ice. Her face showed an incredible wonder for the meteorological phenomenon that had transformed our little world of play. * Production at Cantarell, Mexico's largest oil field, is crashing. Mexico provides a significant amount of crude imports to the United States. * My daughter asked, "How long would the hail last?" I glanced at the sky. The charcoal-gray cloud had shifted to the east. The band of precipitation was clearly narrow. I replied, "Only briefly." Many thoughts swirled through my mind, and distracted me from further elaboration. Peak oil. Collapse. When I went off to college, I had one of the greatest times of my life. The university offered an amazing world of learning; intellectual, social, artistic and much more. Would my daughter have a chance at the same experience? I couldn't answer that question. It didn't seem likely. I had just turned 18 when I went to college; still just a child in many ways. And here was this five-year-old standing next to me. So young, so dependent on me for her well-being. Would she even have a "normal" childhood? What would her life be like when she reached ten, twelve, fifteen? The wind's chill seemed to increase, and a shiver shot down my spine. * Wars were a likely response to resource depletion. The 20th century's world-wars appear to have been largely about who controls the flow of energy resources. WW III seems a possible outcome post-Peak-Oil. * The hail shifted over to a cold, steady rain. My daughter ran over to a little metal steering wheel built into the wall of the play structure. "We need to turn the ship around!" she exclaimed as she spun the wheel. Yes, I thought, I wish we could turn the ship around. Even more, I wished I could put my Peak Oil thoughts aside and join in the fun. I tried to do just that and stepped next to her. The frigid rain jabbed my face. "Let's get into port and out of this storm," I said, wishing I could be more enthusiastic. I spun the wheel with her. The play structure did not move. * Energy is required to do work, and more energy is required to expand the amount of available work: industrial economies, dependent on growth, will likely suffer greatly from energy scarcity. People should economize, localize and produce, ELP. * Since my own college experience, I had made many decisions in my life that, in the light of Peak Oil, I now regretted. An economic dislocation of historical--singular--proportions seemed the likely outcome of diminishing available energy. My financial decisions hadn't been the best. I had assumed business-as-usual, and I acquired more debt than I probably should have. My job situation was very shaky. In the shadow of Peak Oil, I felt very vulnerable. An economic depression could crush me. And with me would go my daughter, the most important person in my life. This was the girl who had been born three weeks after 9/11. The little life that had warmed my heart the moment I first held her, and gave me hope during such a tragic, dark time. Now, I wasn't sure that I could give her any hope. There seemed to be little hope left. Hope seemed to fade along with the diminishing oil reserves. With all my education, why hadn't I encountered any serious discussion about the potential consequences of resource depletion? If I had known what I know now, I would have done many things differently. I suppose therein lay the answer to my question. * Due to the increasing internal consumption of producing countries, oil exports would likely diminish at a faster rate than oil-field production declines. From the perspective of an importing country, a slow production decline could seem like a crash. * The rain turned to mist, and the wind slowed. Spinning the metal wheel had lost its luster. "The queen bee needs some flowers," said my daughter. She leaped down a drenched slide to go pick little daisies from the green, grassy field that surrounded us. The queen bee was an imaginary monarch who liked to get lots of beautiful floral gifts. In return, the bee gave away treasure. Honey, I imagined. A nice thought. But it didn't bring a smile to me. Honeybee populations in many areas of the world appeared to be collapsing. Maybe, in some fashion, the bees' population reduction was related to my species' massive fossil fuel consumption. No one seemed to really know the real cause. But it was frightening. My daughter plucked little blossoms from the ground, smiling. I wished I could still find the ability to grin again, like my daughter who always seemed to provide that pleasant little gift with abandon. Oh, sometimes I still smiled, and laughed, but a hint of sadness, melancholy always surrounded the humor. Peak Oil was so damn serious. My society should have taken it as such three decades ago. * Ghawar, Saudi Arabia's--and the world's--largest oil field, is dying. When Ghawar's production is post-peak, the world is post-peak. * Thunder rumbled to the southeast. The storm had continued to intensify even as it passed us, and a black blotch of cumulonimbus turned the southern sky into a massive cave with a bulging, gravid ceiling. As I stared at the awesome scene, electricity seethed from the cloud. The flash left bright afterimages across my vision. Nearby house lights flickered. Would Peak-Oil-related blackouts begin in a few years? Indeed, when would electricity become unreliable? When would the internet's utility rapidly diminish? Would I be able to communicate with my family, who were scattered all over the country? During such a tumultuous future, would I ever be a dependable dad for my child? Were things as hopeless as they seemed? Thunder rumbled, and shook the plastic floor under my feet. My daughter ran toward me. Her eyes were open wide, and the smile had been replaced with a worried look. Yep, time to get inside. I made my way down the damp stairs. My little girl clamped onto my legs, and said, "I'm scared!" I held her tight. "It's okay. We'll head home." I hoped beyond hope that I could continue reassure her as the Peak Oil Maelstrom unfolded. I would try my best to be there for her. However, the future seemed so very dark. * "I seriously believe that the peaking of the global production of crude oil--commonly known as 'Peak Oil'--has occurred in 2006 and will be 'The Event' bound to dominate the history of the 21st century: one of those 'Historical Inflection Points' which abruptly change "fundamentals" in the course of World History." -- Dr. A. M. Samsam Bakhtiari. * Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Jeffrey Brown for his writings on ELP and the oil export situation. Thanks for reading. -best

A Starling Discovery

wolf — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:09:32 GMT

Yesterday I sat down outside a Starbuck's. I don't frequent the place, but occasionally drop by. A low concrete wall surrounded much of the outdoor enclosure. I plunked down on a chair in the corner, next to this wall. I could look over the barrier and survey the great expanse of parking that had been installed for the shopping center that contained the coffee shop. Trees full of fresh, green leaves lined the parallel rows of vehicle stalls. The sun shone between scattered clouds, and a cool northwest wind occasionally prompted me to shiver. People whisked past outside, busy on myriad errands. Cars rolled among the corridors between parking spaces. A beautiful, dark starling, with just a hint of blue and purple sheen landed on the wall. I could have touched the bird, it was so close. Golden eyes briefly stared at me. Then the dainty creature reached down with its beak and plucked a tiny piece of food--likely a chunk of bagel--from the top of the barricade. The bird clearly had no fear of me. Apparently other customers had been quite friendly to this bird. I just watched. Small pieces of food were scattered about on top of the wall, and the animal quickly cleaned them up. Life can be very efficient. The starling exhibited a strong sense of confidence. But also tempered with some caution--those brilliant eyes always watched me. I wasn't fast enough to capture the bird. We both knew this. If I chose to reach out, the starling would simply flit away, and find safety at the top of a nearby tree. I was reminded of women. All too often when I encounter a woman that seems interesting, seems to share at least some of the same mental space that my mind occupies, when I reach out, she tends to fly away. But not always. Sometimes, I find that rare, open-minded person who's ready to explore the depths of life.

A. M. Samsam Bakhtiari: Peak Oil in 2006

wolf — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 20:53:41 GMT

Yesterday, in a new article titled "The Century of Roots," Dr. A. M. Samsam Bakhtiari, retired long-time employee of the National Iranian Oil Company, has declared that Peak Oil is behind us. We're in a Post-Peak world now. His WOCAP model points to 2006 as being the peak year for annual production. Note that, so far, it appears that monthly peak was May 2005. But average production was a tad higher in 2006, despite the peak month in 2006 not being as high as May of 2005. To see Bakhtiari's article follow this link: http://www.sfu.ca/~asamsamb/THE%20%20CENTURY%20%20OF%20%20ROOTS/THE%20%20CENTURY%20%20OF%20%20ROOTS.htm I strongly recommend it--very interesting reading. Bakhtiari joins a growing list of knowledgeable people calling Peak Now (or Peak Past): Kenneth Deffeyes, Matthew Simmons and Jeffrey Brown (“WestTexas”) among others. Evidence continues to grow that oil supplies have become very tight lately. There's a large shortfall world-wide that's being covered by stock draws. It's hard to tell specifically how much we're down, as oil goes through so many steps from well to fuel tank. But the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia seems to be unable to meet demand--they've reduced deliveries to China, for example, by around 7% to 10% each month for the past few months, and will do so again in May. These reductions have not been requested by China. With a booming--outright exploding--economy, China’s looking for all the oil it can get. Many people in the business are expecting some limited fuel shortages to occur this summer when driving demand peaks as people take advantage of good weather and head out on vacations. Indeed, I’ve already heard of some trouble in Canada with supply. And a refinery fire in Texas has caused a small shortage in one delivery area that includes a small portion of Colorado. In Washington, some temporary shortages have already appeared in Renton and Tacoma. Just a few examples of the sensitivity in the current supply. The price of 87 octane fuel at my preferred Chevron station here in Beaverton, OR, was $3.019/gal yesterday. I believe this is the highest it's ever been. At this time last year, we were paying $2.539/gal, and at its highest point in the summer, the price climbed into the low $2.90s. The West is in a particularly nasty squeeze because our supply sources are more limited than those regions east of the Divide. Compared to demand, refinery capacity (much of Oregon's fuel comes from Washington) is simply not enough. And the summer driving season hasn't even begun. Fuel prices will probably continue to increase. -best, Wolf "The problem will resolve itself. Just not in a nice way." --Cid Yama

Tom Friedman's Blowing "Green Smoke" Up Our Collective Rears

wolf — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:25:01 GMT

Tom Friedman's writing tends to be an excellent example of the shallowly-thought-out junk that the Mainstream Media feeds the masses these days. His latest, "The Power of Green," appeared in the New York Time's Sunday Magazine. James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency," does an excellent job assessing the level of delusion that Friedman displays at: http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/04/blowing_green_s.html I've probably done it before, but it's worth repeating. I strongly suggest that anyone who hasn't, pick up "The Long Emergency" and read. This is probably the most accessible text on the currently unfolding energy-crisis (among others) that the US is in (all of global civilization, really). The 9/11 tragedy was perhaps the first clear fracture of the blinders for most Americans--the first glimpse at the cold, hard and desperate realities that curculate throughout the globe. Unfortunately, shortly after the towers fell, many people appear to have found new blinders. This is a furthering of the tragedy--we've lost another five years to at least put in place an embryonic mitigation effort to address the massive energy crisis that afflicts this country. Granted, the Iraq invasion was clearly just such an action (one that demonstrates the level of desperation and emergency that we're in). But the war seems to have failed, at least in part. We should have been doing much more than a foolish invasion. Putting much of the cost of the war into a crash program to build-out alternative (non-fossil-fuel-based) power--wind, solar, nuclear--probably would have been a wiser move. Anyway, what we are generally left with is local and personal action. Remember: ELP. Economize, localize and produce. Some add a concept and create the acronym HELP, which includes "humanize." A great article by Jeffrey Brown, who helped put together the ELP concept, can be found on The Oil Drum at: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2446 -best, Wolf "The problem will solve itslef. Just not in a nice way." --Cid Yama

Oil Prices: A Glimpse Into the Next Few Years

wolf — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:38:03 GMT

The graphic above (courtesy of Ace at The Oil Drum) provides a means to understand one aspect of the ongoing oil-production crisis. In 2005, global civilization entered the "Amber Zone" which is a very critical period in which any spare oil-production capacity available from swing-producers, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), will be essential to cover spikes in fuel demand. Spikes like the summer-driving demand peak seen each year. Spare production capacity appears to be very limited these days. It is telling that, after the devastation of oil-production infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, KSA did not increase output to meet a significant loss in US domestic oil production. Instead, oil had to come from elsewhere--the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) happened to be one of those sources. Note--conventional wisdom informs that KSA is the biggest swing-producer in the world. It's status as swing-producer is in serious question and has been a topic of extreme interest over at www.theoildrum.com. When demand seriously pushes against production, as it is want to do in the amber-zone, oil prices will have the tendency to spike. Note that, with the price of oil currently trading in the $60 to $65 range for WTI (West Texas Intermediate), and higher for other benchmarks, such as the United Kingdom’s Brent Crude, the forecast above already appears to be too optimistic--and it's painting a fairly bleak scenario. Given the inherent instability in the system--from geopolitical tensions in many oil producing regions, to vulnerability to natural disasters (such as hurricanes) and so forth--the possibility of a serious price spike is definitely here. From 1970, when US domestic oil production peaked and began irreversible decline and forced the nation to switch to importing oil to meet demand, to 1980, prices for oil climbed about 1,000%. In a similar scenario with world oil production apparently peaking in May 2005 (crude + condensate--not total liquids as in the above chart) with the price around $55/bbl and with nowhere left to import oil from (Titan?), one might expect oil prices to easily be around $550/bbl by 2015. That translates to gasoline around, say $25-$30/gal in the US. Think about this for a moment--what will the price of all other goods be if fuel prices manage to increase by an order-of-magnitude? What happens to the economy? Likely recession and depression will strike long before 2015, and prevent oil prices from climbing so high. But this doesn't mean that things will be any more affordable in a relative sense. Peak oil is like a rising tide. The poorest (closest to shore in this analogy) are hit first. With the price spike to about $77/bl last year, this has clearly begun. Countries such as Uganda, South Africa, Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, etc. are experiencing extreme oil shortages. These are the victims of the first bidding war over energy sources that are becoming increasingly scarce in the face of growing demand (especially from economically rising countries such as India and China). Note--these are, in part, the victims of our own greed. We Americans use wayyy more oil than we need to live healthy, comfortable lives. Our greed, though somewhat understandable from a raw human-nature standpoint, is inhumane. People are suffering and dying today because they don't have access to even 5% of the energy resources that Americans do. And this is only one part of a very bleak and grim story. Incidentally, Nigeria is one of the countries facing oil scarcity. They are an oil producing nation. Much of the oil produced is sold to the wealthy nations, leaving the locals with very little. Getting back on track, the next round of the oil bidding war appears to be starting. This time it will be restricted to the more wealthy countries, for so many of the poor nations have already been taken out of the market. Undeveloped countries are drowning in the rising tide. During this round, one might expect nations with an intermediate-level of economic development to be inundated. Outbid and faced with few options. But at what price will this happen? If $77/bbl knocked out many of the poor nations, then, what about fairly well-off countries? $95/bbl? $110/bbl? It should become obvious that this next bidding war could cause a price spike into the triple-digits, and fairly quickly. The above chart, being a forecast, smoothes out the volatility. What does ~$95/bbl mean for US? Probably gasoline in the $4.00 - 4.50/gal range for some regions, and price inflation for many goods that are transported over long distances, like food. When most countries are inundated by the flood of rising oil prices and taken out of the market, and the bidding war is restricted to just the richest nations, then, conceivably, there may not be much of a ceiling on how high the price per barrel could go. Note that in some limited markets, such as in Turkey, oil is already trading at $300/bbl and people are nevertheless using it. This is probably closer to the true value of such a special resource. It's been undervalued for too long, and we Americans have become too dependent on it as a result. Because of this, we have a serious crisis on our hands. And it looks to get a whole lot worse. -best, Wolf "The problem will solve itself. Just not in a nice way." -- Cid Yama "No civilization can survive the physical destruction of its resource base.” -- Bruce Sterling

Sleepwalking Into the Future...

wolf — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:18:35 GMT

...or not. “Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.” -- Henry Ford Here's what one enterprising Canadian has done to begin adapting to increasingly scarce energy resources (his net handle is GliderGuider): "One of the first things people ask any activist, especially an environmental activist, is ,"You talk a good game, but what have you done? Have you made any of the sacrifices you are asking others to make? Are you prepared to lead by example?" It's a fair question, and one that deserves a response. Here is what I've done up till now. "1. Prevented population growth: I am deliberately childfree, and have had a socially responsible vasectomy. "2. Downsized my home: Three years ago I sold a 3500 square foot, triple-garage suburban McMansion that I shared with one other person and moved to a 1600 square foot urban bungalow that is half the distance from my work and is shared with three other people. "3. Improved my home heating and cooling system: When we moved in we replaced the existing medium efficiency furnace and A/C with high-efficiency units. We keep the thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two in the winter. "4. Bought energy efficient appliances: We bought an EnergyStar refrigerator. Every light in our home that is not on a dimmer is a compact fluorescent. "5. Improved home insulation: We had an energy audit done on the house, replaced a bad window, and installed weather stripping. Further attic and wall insulation upgrades are in the plans. "6. Use green electricity: We have changed our electricity supplier from the standard nuclear, coal, hydro and gas supplier to a green energy cooperative (Bullfrog Power) whose generating capacity produces no greenhouse gases at all. "7. Downsized my car: Two years ago I traded in my BMW 540i/6 on a 2001 VW Jetta TDI. diesel. I'd have bought a Smart Car, but I needed the back seat. I didn't buy a hybrid because I'm still unconvinced about their total life cycle cost. "8. Use public transit: I now take the bus to work every day instead of driving. As a result my annual automobile mileage is about a quarter of what it was. "9. Stopped flying: I fly about once every two years. "10. Grow some of our own food: We have turned all our flower beds into vegetable gardens which we water from rain barrels and fertilize with compost. I'm planning on donating half the remaining lawn to the vegetable garden effort next year (more food, less mowing). I don't fertilize my lawn and I mow it with a reel push mower. "11. Eat local food: We eat a lot of local food that doesn't need to be transported long distances. "12. Eat less meat: We eat a third of the meat we used to, and very little fish (the oceans are emptying too...) "13. Repair, re-use, recycle: We are fortunate to have a good curbside recycling program where I live. In addition we save and re-use many items that others simply discard. "14. Got involved in politics: Rather than wait around for our governments to do anything, we're trying to change the governments, by getting involved in politics at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. Progressive parties and candidates only need apply. "These changes have yielded remarkable dividends. In the last three years I have lowered my personal carbon dioxide emissions from 12 tonnes per year to 2.5 tonnes per year. My life is simpler, less expensive, more sustainable, more engaged and much more enjoyable." This posting is courtesy of The Oil Drum and can be found in the comments section at: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2445#comments He provides some things to think about. Note that this is just the beginning of the changes that will have to be made. Our lives will tranform rather quickly over the years. But the transition will be easier for those who have begun the changes already, at a time when they aren't being forced upon us by circumstances. -best, Wolf "The problem will solve itself. Just not in a nice way." -- Cid Yama "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel.” -- Saudi saying

The Energy News Is Grim At Best

wolf — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:04:34 GMT

The evidence, often from very secretive nationalized oil companies, is nevertheless becoming overwhelming that world oil production is at its peak, and has likely begun its decline. For you Tribe memebrs still living in that "American Dream" of denial--the idea that you can wish upon a star and everything will become better, so eloquently put by James Howard Kunstler--it's seriously time to wake up. Oil is the lifeblood of industrial civilization. It is directly tied to the growth of industrial economies. As oil becomes increasingly scarce, it will become impossible to continue growing economies. Think about this: loans are made on the assumption that they can be paid back, with interest, a feat that can only be accomplished successfully in a growing economy. The result of energy scarcity is simple: recession, then depression. Unlike the Great Depression, this one will likely be worse, for it will be without end, as energy supply steadily diminishes. A good name for this new era might be the Greater Depression. The slow descent down the energy production curve appears to have begun. We're in the easy phase, the top of the curve, where decline rates in production are modest. Phase two will begin when production declines accelerate. The questions you should be asking yourself is how you're going to live your life in a future that has increasingly limited availability of energy? All future bets are off. For most of those born after about 1960, there won't be a retirement, for example. One way to plan for what's to come in the near-term, say from now to about five years out, is to ask how you're going to live your life on 1/2 of your current income, with all other expenses (fuel, heating, electricity, FOOD) at least doubled in price (it could be a lot worse). Unemployment is going to skyrocket, which means a growing possibility for civil unrest. Expect the largest systems and institutions--the ones so dearly dependent on cheap energy, like globalization, large and burdensome government institutions, medical care, air travel--to be among the first to go. Our lives are going to get ever-more localized in scope. This will be forced upon us by the cold, raw reality of geology and thermodynamics. Nature made our grand fossil fuel party possible, and, as the available supply diminishes, she's going to shut down the dreamworld that many in the industrially developed areas of this planet have been living-in during the past several decades. And remember--hangovers really suck. I will provide three links for your perusal. These are three summaries of the Peak Oil problem. There are many more. Educate yourself. Scour the web and see what a growing body of people are discussing. I start with one that is the least grim, and probably the most accessible to many. The final one is the most grim. Problem is, it's perhaps the most realistic in many ways. http://energybulletin.net/primer.php http://www.omninerd.com/2006/05/17/articles/52 http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ Pick up Jame's Howard Kunstler's book, "The Long Emergency". It's a great, and very accessible account of the problems we face. And, note, he's considered an optimist by some! And, by all means, go to The Oil Drum, which has many very bright people looking at the problems we face, and make a habit of reading it to keep up on the events that truly matter: http://www.theoildrum.com Many people here in America have a certain intuitive sense that something's seriously wrong, a feeling that has persisted for years. Depression and anxiety rates are at all-time highs. A logical conclusion is that many are picking up the signals from the periphery of the mass-media blinders, and know that, a serious crisis is unfolding even as most of us sleepwalk into the future. These folk are the canaries in the coal mine. Threy're letting you know that a major crisis is unfolding, a disaster that’s largely developing in silence. Best of luck to you all, Wolf "The problem will solve itself. Just not in a nice way." -Cid Yama

Incident at Gemslime, Scene 2

wolf — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 06:48:10 GMT

With sophisticated ECM, and other stealth enhancements, the Intruder is undetected by the numerous sensors that monitor the environment around Gemslime's few research colonies. The Blacktron operative lands relatively close to one of the stations.

Holiday Cheer to All

wolf — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 00:16:54 GMT

Sail through the stars, and drink lovely fluids (if that's what you feel like doing) on this merry day! Cheers! Swwwissssssshhhhhhh... -Wolf

A Lego Tale: Incident at Gemslime, Scene 1

wolf — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 02:51:18 GMT

Gemslime: A Titan-sized moon that orbits a Saturn-like gas-gaint in a binary K5V, K7V starsystem over 1,700 light-years from the Earth. The world has Lunar gravity, and a fairly dense atmosphere, over 2 times that of the Earth's at the surface. And it harbors life, abundant life. Terrestiral forms utilize much silica in their skeletons, both photosynthetic and animal. Hence the planet's name: A world of creatures that can have a gem-like appearance, interwoven with the softness of carbon-based flesh. A world as beautiful as it is dangerous. At this time, in the year 2277, the only colonies on the planet are a few widely scattered scientific research stations. What would Blacktron be doing here? What nefarious purpose will the sole occupant of the Intruder unleash upon the few colonists who are occupied with their demanding research in the strange forests of Gemslime? Stay tuned... Background image courtesy of NASA. Model designed by The Lego Group, and built by the author.

Creation as Meditation

wolf — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 21:58:26 GMT

My life has been turned upside-down from a number of venus. One way I deal with all the complexity is to create additional complexity. I build large Lego sets. As I figure out the constructions, I figure out pieces of my life. Much of this building takes place in quiet solitude. But my daughter joins me, too, and to see her enthusiasm for these toys is uplifting. She's made many of her own space ships. The picture shows some of my Lego "friends": Four blue astronauts from "Classic Space". They're about 20 to 25 years old. The gal to the right is newer, and is custom made from various Star Wars and City parts. Behind them is the Space Command building, fully occupied. The set I'm working on is a scientific research station on an alien life-bearing world that has roughly Lunar gravity, but a reasonably thick oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Spacecraft and other buildings abound in this landscape, plus alien plants and critters, but you don't see them in this view. Over time, as this construction grows, I'll post more pictures. I hope to show this Lego behemoth at BrickFest PDX, which is 30 Mar to 01 Apr 2007.