where the red necks are

Good permaculture article referenced from the Energy Bulletin.

One of the things that drives me nuts about peak energy is the aftermath. I'd love to live on a farm and raise my own food. I worry that my dainty hands are better suited to raising and lowering a cubicle chair, rather than milking the pigs or collecting popcorn in the fields under a noon day sun.

I got skills. I can order knick-knacks on EBay, I can merge through seven lanes of traffic, I can even feed my goldfish. It hardly needs to be said that the value of these skills has peaked, and will steadily decline over the next twenty years.

Who among us has useful post oil peak skills? Is being smart and adaptable enough, or does that equal a one way ticket for re-education at some hypothetical Mid Western Gulag?

So I am a big fan of permaculture, and also high tech, low energy solutions for the future. I truly hope that certain urban areas will be livable as described in the top referenced article. I can grow food on a small scale and be a good neighbor. That I would like. Maybe my plot can be zoned for beer trees.

The pragmatic side of me says that for every green city like Portland, there will be a devastated wasteland like Phoenix or Las Vegas.

It is a matter of no small curiosity on my part to see how the USA will deal structurally with Peak Oil.

Millions of displaced and dispossessed humans, rummaging about.