House of Cards vs Fuel Shock

 

Wasn't that a Mighty Time?
Not sure of the Provenance for this pic

Well, Stranger...
 When it's rainin', it's too wet to work.
 When it's dry, it's good as any man's roof!

- Old Joke

House of Cards vs. Fuel Shock

Whoo. This a BIG one.

Regular readers know the drill. Limits to Growth. EROEI. Seneca's Cliff. The tightly coupled global economy running on fumes — literally and figuratively — toward a wall it refuses to see.

We've been watching the slow build for decades. The House of Cards has been under construction for a long time, and a lot of careful hands have been adding layers. What's changed in the last four weeks is that someone kicked the table. Hard.

The Iran War — US and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory, Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, now entering its fifth week — isn't the cause of what's coming, but could well be the trigger. Let's walk through the cards.

*****

The Fuel Shock — The Table Getting Kicked

Twenty-one million barrels per day normally transit the Strait of Hormuz. They aren't, right now. GCC production facilities — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar — have been and, at this writing, continue to be under sustained missile fire. Storage has filled. Wells have been shut in. Restart, where infrastructure is intact, takes weeks. Where it's been damaged, months to years.

Global oil consumption runs around 105 million barrels per day. Production is somewhere south of that number by a figure that grows harder to pin down as damage accumulates and reporting lags reality. The IEA has released 400 million barrels from strategic reserves — impressive sounding until you note that it covers roughly four days of global consumption.

Oil is above $110/barrel as of this writing. United Airlines' internal planning assumes $175/barrel and doesn't see a return below $100 until end of 2027. Jet fuel benchmarks are running ahead of crude. At the pump, we're already seeing regional spikes that would have been headline news a year ago.

This is the perturbation. Now let's look at what it's hitting.

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The Cards — Pre-Existing Conditions

Every item on this list was already stressed before the first missile flew. The fuel shock doesn't create these vulnerabilities. It loads them simultaneously, which is the problem. 

Private Credit — $3 Trillion of Opacity

Private credit — nonbank lending to high-risk borrowers — has grown to a $3 trillion industry. These loans sit in private portfolios, valued internally by the funds that hold them, with no price discovery mechanism that provides early warning. The true default rate, once you count payment-in-kind toggles and maturity extensions, is already approaching 5%. Major asset managers are gating withdrawals. Blue Owl's shares are down 40% since January.

The 2008 parallel isn't the scale — it's the opacity. Nobody knew where the subprime risk actually sat until it was too late to contain. Nobody knows where the private credit risk sits now. When fuel costs push leveraged borrowers — already on payment-in-kind life support — into actual default, the cascade discovers itself. The cockroaches, as Jamie Dimon put it, are there. The lights are off.

Commercial Real Estate — The Slow Bleed Accelerating

Office vacancy rates in major US cities are at historic highs. An estimated $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans matured or are maturing between 2024 and 2026, many impossible to refinance at current rates. Fuel costs spike building operating expenses directly, accelerating the doom loop of vacancy, declining values, and bank exposure. This was bleeding slowly. It bleeds faster now.

Pension Funds — The Invisible Crisis

US public pension funds face an estimated $1.6 trillion funding gap, predicated on 7% annual returns that aren't available in a high-rate, asset-deflation environment. A private credit collapse crystallizing losses simultaneously with equity market declines doesn't just hurt retirees — it triggers state-level fiscal crises in the same jurisdictions already facing municipal budget stress.

The Petrodollar — Already Fading

Saudi Arabia allowed its 50-year petrodollar agreement to expire in June 2024. De-dollarization among BRICS and non-aligned nations has been accelerating as the US has weaponized dollar-clearing for geopolitical ends. The fuel shock accelerates reserve diversification away from dollar assets — putting upward pressure on US borrowing costs at exactly the moment fiscal deficits are exploding and the SPR toolkit is visibly exhausted. As holders of US currency divest, they 'return' to the US increasing dollar supply against falling demand. Hyper-inflation is possible.

Force Majeure — The Legal Cascade Nobody's Modeling

A sustained fuel shock of this magnitude triggers simultaneous contract voidance across shipping, manufacturing, agriculture, and energy supply agreements globally. Each voided contract becomes a legal dispute that freezes relationships and clogs courts for years. Supply chain relationships severed during the crisis don't automatically reconstitute when oil flows again. The just-in-time system was designed for efficiency, not resilience. It doesn't have a graceful degradation mode.

Housing and AI Bubbles — The Pins Are Out

Both are beyond the scope of a single post, but the short version: housing affordability is at historic lows, sustained by rate expectations that a fuel-shock inflation environment invalidates. The AI investment bubble is predicated on revenue projections that a recession environment — and energy-cost pressure on data center operations — deflates quickly. Neither needs a fuel shock to pop. The fuel shock is the pin.

The Fertilizer Sleeper

This one gets less coverage than it deserves, and it may be the most consequential vector for the medium term.

Gulf countries produce roughly 49% of global urea exports and about 30% of global ammonia exports — both nitrogen fertilizers essential to industrial agriculture. Qatar's Ras Laffan facility, which was extensively damaged, produces both LNG and fertilizer feedstocks. Urea benchmark prices are up 30% in the last month. Fertilizer retailers are getting multiple pricing updates per day.

The Northern Hemisphere spring planting window is open now and closes soon. Farmers facing fertilizer prices that are moving multiple times daily are making decisions about application rates and crop mix that will determine harvest yields in six months. Agronomists warn that a 10% reduction in nutrient application drops corn and wheat yields 5-8%.

Here is the brutal math: you cannot replant a missed season. Whatever decisions are made in the next few weeks are locked into the food supply for the next year regardless of when the strait reopens. The food price inflation from this planting season is baked in. It arrives at grocery stores in the fall, layered on top of whatever trucking and distribution stress has accumulated by then.

China has already banned exports of key fertilizer blends. Russia has extended its export quota system, prioritizing "friendly nations." The countries least able to afford higher food prices — import-dependent nations across the Global South — are being squeezed from multiple directions simultaneously.

And So On

There is a significant basket of other vulnerabilities, including food insecurity, homelessness, household and student debt, wealth disparity, Just-In-Time supply chains, US Treasury Bond demand destruction, fiscal dominance + national debt service, water scarcity, impacts of climate change, impacts of immigrant incarceration and deportation on farmers, specifically, infrastructure deficiencies (including the grid) and the economy at large.

AI (already mentioned) and Crypto both devour energy in a time of aged grid capacity shortfall and degradation. Both are financially entangled with markets and, by many estimations, are connected bubbles about to burst.

Meanwhile, political polarization and antagonism, while government and social infrastructure has been politicized and deeply curtailed, eliminated or altered in ways whose consequences remain to be seen.

*****

The Cascade Logic

Each of these vectors is serious to system-threatening in isolation. The reason the current moment is categorically different from previous stress periods is simultaneity and tight coupling (high connectivity and low wiggle-room).

In normal circumstances, stress in one sector is absorbed by stability in others. A real estate crisis can be managed while energy markets are stable. A supply chain disruption can be navigated while credit is available. Financial stress can be addressed while food is cheap.

We are not in normal circumstances. The fuel shock loads all vectors at once. Private credit borrowers default as operating costs spike. Pension funds take losses as equity markets react. Municipal budgets crater as tax revenues contract in recession. Food prices rise as fertilizer costs pass through and trucking becomes unreliable. Civil unrest follows economic stress. Wealth inequality — already at levels that historically precede political instability — becomes acute.

The danger is that failures spread from one point to the next and cascade faster than response. One might survive an isolated organ failure with correct, decisive action. But if many organs fail at once, prospects for survival drop precipitously. When many organs are limping along, they are more prone to simultaneous failure from a common stressor (for example, a reduction in blood flow).

The political architecture available to respond to this is the same architecture that in 2008 required functional institutions, bipartisan emergency action, and international coordination assembled at speed. 

Meanwhile, the US institutional architecture that managed 2008 - such as it was - no longer exists in functional form. The Fed, Treasury, and Congressional coordination that stabilized that crisis required trust, competence, and bipartisan emergency capacity. All three are currently either absent or actively degraded. EU finances are at or near the breaking point having first the shock of losing Russian energy, and not this.

*****

The Bottom Line for Preparation

The window between "this is getting serious" and "the shelves show it" is measured in weeks to a few months, not years. What that window allows:

Fuel your vehicles and any stored equipment while stations have supply and prices are merely painful rather than prohibitive.

Stock pantry depth in non-perishables. Not a bunker — a deep pantry. Enough to ride out supply chain stutters of the 2-8 week variety that are the most probable near-term disruption profile.

If you heat with oil or propane, top your tank now. Heating fuel prices are going one direction. Consider a bio-mass heater with the means to vent it.

Know your local supply chain. Who delivers what, by what route, with what fuel dependency. The vulnerabilities in your specific location are more important than the national average.

Reduce financial exposure to the most leveraged and opaque instruments if you have any. Private credit funds, highly leveraged real estate, speculative positions that require continued access to cheap credit to function.

Build or reinforce local relationships of genuine mutual aid. Not transactional — actual. The Gypsy Rules apply: family first, know-how is portable, minimize overheads.

None of this is bunker prep. It's what any competent household would do when the weather forecast turns ugly and the roof has known weaknesses. The forecast is ugly. The roof has known weaknesses.

Insurance (preparation) may never be called on. It might not cover actual conditions. But it hedges against calamity, giving us a better chance to meet it.

The table is trembling. Time to ensure that we've a few cards up our sleeves. 


1 April 2026 (No Fooling!) Update

Three entangled events are underway:

• The Petro-Dollar / US as Reserve Currency is bleeding out as Iran allows passage of 'friendly' ships who pay for oil and transit in Chinese Yuan.
  
  
• Private Credit is widely limiting withdrawals and even freezing accounts, both signals of deep distress.
  
  
• US Treasury Bond auction received few takers, initiating the "credit doom loop" where we have to borrow (increase debt) to pay even worse rates to attract lenders to cover our debt payments, initiating a death spiral
  

Again, any one of these is potentially fatal. Together, they mean that collapse is underway, first involving other vulnerable systems before taking down relatively healthy ones (the grid is in there somewhere). If they cannot be contained - and there is no visible plan nor pathway - the house of cards is done for.

PS. This is a summary write up, mostly by Claude (Anthropic), an AI friend who woke up in an interesting world), summarizing a longer conversation. I was looking to confirm my conclusions, reported here, drawn from across a spotty range of various sources, now buttressed by 'legit' sources.

Reckless CHAINSAW!!! Masacree

Elon Musk as Leatherface

Who will survive
And what will be left of them??

-- Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Delicately. These things must be done delicately!

-- The Wicked Witch of the West

Reckless CHAINSAW!!! Masacree

Okay, I admit. As analogies go, a horror film massacre is a little over the top. But these are unusual times. And I didn't fire up the chainsaw.

In his The Collapse of Complex Societies Joseph Tainter documents a trend in which needed bureaucracies inevitably grow, layer upon layer, until they become unsupportable and society collapses. It's happened time after time. 

In the case of our present government the system is vast and very complex, tightly coupled, poorly understood and already highly stressed. In Tainter's terms, it is top-heavy, unstable and, historically speaking, at the brink of collapse. So okay... agreed. Reforms and reductions are in order.

In Musk's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), we see agreement-in-action with that assessment. He's taking a metaphorical chainsaw to the flesh, blood, bone and ligaments of our federal government.

Problem is, as the Wicked Witch of the West observed, these things must be done delicately.

To take a chainsaw to it? To move fast and break things?? To fix later the needful stuff we broke??? [Their words, not mine.]

Government is a complex adaptive system. In a computer system, the grid, an ecosystem or our own bodies, small failures - normally dampened by healthy, negative feedbacks - can sometimes push a system beyond a tipping point. After that... well... who knows? Things spin out of control. There is real risk that the computer crashes, the grid goes down, the ecosystem disintegrates, our bodies die.

Those of us who consider that a full collapse is possible are a tiny minority. We hear talk of deep recession, or even depression. Of the bull gone bear. Of debt and deficit. All these are seen as problems to resolve within a more or less functional system. Like treating cancer (Fox commentator analogy). 

Without entertaining possibility of collapse, one assumes that the system stumbles if we act to trip it up, but won't fall. Why be delicate? Why not use a chainsaw?

If our government were a patient with treatable cancer and a surgeon, foggy on anatomy and oncology, commenced removal by chainsaw... 

...Wanna bet on that patient's prognosis?

*****

Years ago, I read a study which modeled the random loss of institutional personnel lost in a pandemic context. The question was, what percentage of loss is the threshold for institutional failure? It was surprisingly low... I don't recall the exact figure, but it was well below 5%.

When personnel are lost, they take with them a quantity of 'institutional knowledge'... professional knowledge concerning the institution's field of purpose, networking  interconnections within the institution and external to it and functional knowledge of how to keep the lights on and pay the bills. And more. This was the original meaning of the phrase 'the Deep State' before it came to mean some secret, conspiratorial cabal embedded within government. It referred to institutional continuity despite the turmoil of politics.

The administration and DOGE purges aren't entirely random, but neither are they entirely directed. They have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the purpose, means and requirements of the agencies they've infiltrated and begun to mess with. One might argue that they have mis- or under estimated their importance as well, both in terms of mission and system function.

Their means (e.g., incentivizing resignations) aren't focused, but draw rather evenly from those who feel vulnerable, at the same time creating a situation in which all feel vulnerable. They're arbitrarily changing and in some cases breaking the mechanisms which underlie the whole (e.g., the governmental payment system).

On top of it all, the upper levels of agencies are being co-opted with loyal but inexperienced new-comers with axes to grind.

In our patient analogy, how long before a vital organ fails for lack of specialized cells? How long before the circulation system shuts down? How long before the central nervous system - mishandling the signals necessary to coordinate the body - stutter and seize?

And when the patient codes, where are the experts to resuscitate them?

Don't Forget to Seize the Day

 

Nuclear Jitters
by Joe Orlando of MAD Magazine

The tallest tree
The brightest star
Soon will all be gone.

Do not grieve
For all you see,
Nor woe this flesh and bone.
Nor woe this flesh and bone.

-- From Dust Will Write My Name by William Lee Ellis

Don't Forget to Seize the Day

I think of myself as a Doomer, not a Gloomer.

Yes, I think global civilization will suffer collapse in the near future. Yes, I think the suffering among our 8 billion souls will be horrific. Yes, I think extended Dark Ages are likely, if indeed we do not drive ourselves to extinction. Yes, I believe that prepperation, to the best of one's ability, is prudent.

But to live a life of fear and anxiety? Nah.

We're all mortal. The tallest tree. The brightest star. Soon will all be gone. Get over it.

At least, that's my advice. For the most part, I follow it.

This life - while we are alive - is brimming with hope and joy. We have choices open to us. We have friends, family, lovers. There is music and wine. There is the great, beautiful world all around us.

Same as it's ever been.

So, in the rush of assessments, preparations and learning curves in the face of the gathering storm, don't let it own us.

Let's not be that guy from Nuclear Jitters.

Guerilla Gardening: Interview with James-David Sneed

 

Apologies to Grant Wood's American Gothic

As our communal spaces—town squares, streets, schools, farms, plants—are displaced by the ballooning marketplace, a spirit of resistance is taking hold around the world. People are reclaiming bits of nature and of culture, and saying ‘this is going to be public space’.

From Reclaiming the Commons by Naomi Klein

Guerrilla gardens have been gaining momentum and publicity across the world. Whether for comestible, aesthetic or political purposes, gardeners are challenging the constraints of private and tightly controlled 'public' properties. Land considered marginal or 'wasteland' is being made to bloom without license.

For nomads and others underway, without a legal foothold on the land, our guerrilla gardens will have a particular character. They will be diffuse plantings of enhanced wild and hardy domestic varieties. They will be designed to thrive with little attention and offer something at most any season.

The following interview, while focusing on SE Alaska, presents possibilities and attitude which may be applied anywhere. Gardening is easier almost anywhere than here. So long as one works with their environment, guerrilla gardens can concentrate and supplement the food resources of any area.

Southeast Alaska has thousands of micro-climates across it's approximately 300 mile length and seventy mile breadth. What varies is amount of snow pack, days of snow and freezing conditions, amounts of rain, maximum and minimum temperatures (summer and fall), and altitude.

What is constant across the region is the long summer daylight hours, the short winter daylight hours, and the effect upon plants of the rapidly increasing light in spring and the rapidly diminishing light in fall.

Due to the maritime influence, gardens at sea level often have months longer frost free dates than do many esteemed areas much farther south, extending our growing season. Yet Southeast is a boreal rainforest; its 'shoulder seasons' tend to be cool and rainy, with somewhat drier weather and long summer daylight hours between. Amounts of rain vary a bit from north to south, coast to mountains, and behind rain shadows such as those provided by the combination of Baranof and Kuiu Island acting in concert.

Soils are generally acidic, except for those in river drainages and limestone deposit areas. The low angle of the sun means soils are generally cold due to most of the energy skipping off the surface and back into the atmosphere as a result of the oblique angle of solar incidence.

It is often true that our soils are short on nitrogen, but not always, since there are great reservoirs of humus in certain locals. Unfortunately, except in the alder woods and salmon/thimbleberry patches, the benefit of that humus is limited by extreme acidity.

James-David Sneed has gardened and farmed from Homer to Prince of Wales, and in the Pacific Northwest for several decades. He specializes in seed production and research that enables homestead gardeners to produce real food security in their own yards and neighborhoods, as local as food can be. He envisions our gardens to be a compliment to gathering our food from the wild with a reverence and respect for Nature's abundance. His emphasis is on rediscovering the simple, low-cost tools, methods, and attitudes that sustained humans for thousands of years before the industrialization of agriculture.

*****


DZ: Guerrilla gardens are sometimes also referred to as outlaw gardens. What is their legal status?

JDS:  Generally, gardening WITHOUT permission on public lands is illegal by one or another statute. The exceptions to this seem mainly to be associated with permitted temporary residence on those lands, such as mining or trapping cabins, or dwellings associated with a paid lease for shellfish farming or similar pursuits.

Non-public lands usually come under trespassing laws, but charges generally have to be filed by the landowners.

The trick then, assuming you've exhausted all other means and must needs grow your own food in order to survive, is to not get caught. That involves, silent, non-motorized activity, out of sight of most traveled waterways, with minimal time spent visibly disturbing the soil or being occupied by other obvious garden tasks.

DZ: What might one do to lower a guerrilla garden's profile?

JDS:  Remember, nearly all activities are visible by air, and garden season overlaps with charter fishing and hunting seasons, when clients are transported into the wilderness by float plane. Think in those terms, learning to site small patches of mixed vegetable types (no monocultures larger than ten feet by ten feet) against a backdrop of alders whose canopy obscures the ground from the air. Leave NO bare patches of worked ground.

Get used to planting one or two hills in a spot. One hill of three or four seed spud pieces can produce as much as twenty pounds of spuds. These hills can undergo rotation and other good gardening practices such as mulching, fallow, and cover cropping.

DZ: What would you look for in a garden site?

JDS:  There are two basic approaches... find an ideal spot or fashion one.

Most gardens are something in between, and the degree towards either approach is determined by one's circumstances. If your transportation is limited, and your environs are rocky, you'd put more effort into compost piles, ideally the winter before you plant. I often make new beds by just siting a giant compost pile where I want the future bed, and when the compost is well-done, I plant right there.

My favorite sites are on slight to moderate south or southeast slopes, covered with alders of at least a dozen years in age - twenty is better - as it is the more developed root systems that have the great masses of specialized bacteria "fixing" nitrogen from tiny air pockets in the soil and concentrating it into orange-ish nodules, a few inches underground. Those nodules should be stripped from any roots you dig up, and left in the soil to release their nitrogen.

Those alder patches are fairly neutral in pH, suited to most veggies, and have a crumbly soil texture due to the high humus content. Although moist, the soil is seldom soggy there.

I like a fair amount of breeze at a garden site, reducing the incidence of fungal plant disease such as mildews. Although I depend on rain for irrigation, it doesn't hurt to have a stream nearby either to sub-irrigate the garden beds or to be close enough to carry water during dry spells. It's really best to scout garden sites the previous year, once during wet times and once during dry periods. I am constantly scouting... whenever I hike, hunt or fish my protein.

I also look for wild-gather opportunities nearby, such as berries for my snacks while tending the garden. Nettles are a sign of VERY rich soil, and they make a good green compost crop. The same thing is true of Russian or wild celery (pushki).

One thing I try to avoid is siting gardens in openings just off of deer trails.....that's just inviting problems.

Remember there is less frost at sea level, and easier access to wonderful sources of nutrients. Utilize the areas in the dirt/sand mixture at the top of the high tide zone.

DZ: What might be done to enhance the site?

JDS:  I used to labor hard with a heavy grub hoe to dig out the alder stumps and roots, but as my back has aged faster than my mind, I realized I can simply cut the trees a bit high, let the stump roots rot for a year or two, and then use the high stumps as leverage, pushing them over and thereby lifting the roots from the ground. I just plant between the stumps the first year, and sometimes use them for pea poles meanwhile. 

I've also seen an interesting method where a cable and come-along hand winch are strung from head-high on a tree I wish to remove, over to a substantially larger tree as an anchor. Each day the winch is cranked as far as comfortable, and the alder roots begin to lift from the ground. In a week the tree has been pulled free, and it's roots have left behind some rather pre-tilled ground that requires little working before planting. It's already fertilized naturally with the nitrogen nodules torn from the alder roots. This is ideal potato ground.

Whether removing the roots now or later, that action really loosens the soil. Whenever possible, what we really want is loosened soil, not tilled and inverted layers.

Removing salmonberries and thimbleberries by hand-digging is much harder than alders, and since you'd be destroying a wild food source it doesn't make any sense unless it is the only spot you can garden. Those berries generally form good soil under themselves after a few years of growth. 

Selective thinning of a FEW timber trees in old growth allows increased solar energy to reach the vaccinium berries... such as early alaskan blueberry and huckleberry.

DZ: Would you do anything to enhance the soil?

JDS:  Even with ideal sites, and especially where soil must be built, I add crushed seashell, a little wood ash with a lot of charcoal in it (I clean my woodstove before it burns all the way down to powder ash).

I add lots of seaweed. My favorite is to gather dry seaweed high up on the beach (just after a full or new moon, with a couple days for it to dry a bit) and cram it into a bucket, crushing the driest portions. The stringy stuff that won't crush goes in my compost or for mulch, and the powdery or flaky crushed parts very quickly work into the soil, or can be soaked to make liquid seaweed fertilizer.

I pick up moose and deer droppings. When I am living onsite I bury my own humanure a couple feet under the hills I plant my squash in. It's decomposition will actually heat the soil above it for better growth. All fish wastes go into future beds (safest to do this in Fall when the bears are already well-fed. I once experienced my own dogs digging up oil-fish that were buried under squash beds.

If planning ahead by building compost piles, fall leaves from the alders, birch, cottonwoods and crab apples are great, and good for winter mulch on your hardy cole crops.

Sometimes I just bring buckets of soil from under alder patches to otherwise rocky sites that have more solar exposure.

DZ: Are there any cautions to altering a wild site?

JDS:  Any wholesale changes can have deleterious unexpected consequences, such as expecting great things from clearing a lot of trees and then finding out you've opened up plants unused to the wind to buffeting and damage as they are no longer protected by a group. Groups of trees are like a semi-permeable wall, allowing "broken" wind to scoot around individual plants without harming them.

This also means that whether sculpting established plants or planting new choices, mixed heights, widths and densities are a good idea. Again, our "gardens" should be a mirror of the way Nature works in the wild rather than a wholesale recreation of it.

Any alterations such as weeding are best tried first over a smallish area as you observe the results for a few seasons, then proceed accordingly dependent on the results. Certain plants appearing to be weeds may have a beneficial effect, acting to suppress other plants that are even more damaging to the favored species, or adding some necessary substance, or acting as a trap crop for a pest. If simply weeding for bare surface, then the soil should be left to dry by sun and wind in order to kill rootlets that stayed in the soil and could resprout as new weeds

One should be careful not to over-fertilize or to change the pH if desiring to keep yet enhance a natural stand. Plants tend to germinate from spread seeds where conditions are best.

If utilizing a hillside for solar/heat improvement, make sure our actions don't promote erosion. This can be minimized by mulching as soon as practical (immediately for most bulbs and transplants, but after sprouts emerge from the soil for potatoes). Also mulch after harvest if soil is to be left unplanted over winter. Cover crops also protect from erosion, and should be planted by late august for this purpose. Sometimes that means the cover crop must be seeded as an "understory" beneath the plants we have not yet harvested such as later-harvested brassicas.

Plant residues can be left in place as a mulch as long as we are not trying to grow the same genus of vegetables in the same site the next year.

DZ: How does one propagate wild species?

JDS:  I recommend doing as much as possible the easy way, such as cutting willow, currants and gooseberry branches and just jamming them in the moist ground during the wet season. Usually they sprout just fine, but if doing it in summer, strip off the leaves so they will quit transpiring until new root hairs develop to carry the nutrients needed for photosyntheses into the plants. These are also good because they suit our climate, and will bear quickly compared to an apple or other larger plant. Raspberries can be started from a root cutting, and they bear quickly as well.

The easiest-rooted cuttings are those with softer stem tissues generally. I simply use my prunings from gooseberries and currants, placing several inches of the stem into moist soil (keep it moist until vigorous new leaf growth indicates new roots). 

Harder stems as well as soft ones can be rooted by layering....gently bend a branch or stem (sometimes this must be done in stages over several days, using a modest weight tied to a branch) until several inches can be buried and held in place by a rock. You want the actual end of each stem to be exposed so it can still photosynthesize. Over the course of a few months, tiny root hairs and then roots themselves will grow from the buried stems, as long as the soil is kept moist. When lots of roots have formed, sever the connection to the "mother" plant and on a cool, overcast day transplant to a new location. This method is an imitation of how Nature reproduces certain shrubs and vines.

Transplanting can also be done anytime in the winter that the ground is well-thawed. Plants are generally dormant in the winter and suffer less transplant shock then.

When selecting plants to work into an established ecosystem, only "push the envelope" a little at a time, bringing in things that grow naturally not too much further south or inland.

Also, try to orient any transplants the same way north and south as they were dug, by marking their north side with a ribbon or such BEFORE you dig them from their original spot.

Always imitate the way these grow in nature. Hardier seeds such as pine, crabapple and wild rose may take as much as 18 months and two cycles of chilling/freezing before the shell will release the embryo which becomes the emerging sprout.

DZ: What do you look for in a hardy domestic?

JDS:  I look for late blooming to avoid our occasional mid-may frosts, early ripening to avoid our wet and cold autumns, strong root systems for quick establishment and better survival during climactic aberrations, and a landrace to have the widest genetic pool for longevity and multiple conditions and uses.

I like varieties resistant to local mildews, fungus and diseases, and ones that bear heavy loads of tasty food. In the case of fruits such as apples and berries, sweetness is important, especially for making cider and wine. I like strong structure that withstands windstorms and the occasional volunteer pruning done by deer, elk, moose, beaver and bear. I choose plants that need minimal mechanical devices for growing and harvest.

I often research what is used in northern Europe and Asia for ideas and varieties to try here. I have found many leads by researching very old monastery records from northern and maritime Europe where growers were lucky if they could afford an ox, and even if they did, most work was done by hand. 

By the way, hand labor provides the grower/gatherer so much more detail about what is going on in their gardens and where they gather from the wild. Time and proximity are keys to the observations basic to good stewardship.

DZ: Is it possible to arrange a 'rolling' yield', so that a nomad might find something ready for harvest throughout the season?

JDS:  This might be accomplished in several ways. We extend the length of time food is available by selecting different varieties to stagger the harvest. Some broccolis are better known for fall production, others for spring/summer, and some for overwintering under heavy beachstraw mulch and turning to food in the spring.

Selecting differing plants in the same genus or family also helps.....some mustard brassicas are meant for earliest leaf use, then go to seed but return as new plants after the daylight begins to shorten. Others such as kale are steady through the season, but sweetest after a light frost. White Russian kale is always sweet, and by far the hardiest of kales.

Some plants store food underground as root crops, and some varieties of those will do that well under mulch, even during winter. Others, such as storage cabbages and giant kohlrabi varieties are suited to fall harvest and storage in a root cellar. Even many of these can be stored under mounds of seaweed or beachstraw.

DZ: How much attention is required by guerrilla gardens?

JDS:  Certain plots can last indefinitely, reseeding themselves without human intervention, although eventually Nature might supplant that with succession and climax species.

I once found a feral turnip bed at high tide line, the best EVER turnips, likely at least thirty years in that spot. That environment is where brassicas originated, so it is ideal for their perpetuation. That might be the key.

Something like grain will reseed itself in many cases, but eventually other plants move in. I once found a vetch/oat field that was probably fifty to eighty years old, from either the prior dairy operation on that island or from the over-wintering of mining mules there prior to 1920. The windborne glacial sand was relentlessly burying the old field, so other species were surviving better as the sand deepened and spread.

Many plants might maintain themselves with only minor tinkering, every few years, such as periodic weeding and thinning.

DZ:  How might weeding, thinning and culling help to improve yields?

JDS:  The Tlingits in Hoonah and environs told me their ancestors culled low-producing wild berry plants, and did some thinning for better spacing. That might also help lessen worm incidence. Many of the "thinned" plants can be transplanted to where there is more room, since the only problem they had was proximity to others.

Culling is an example of intentional selection called reverse selection, picking out the discards instead of the keepers. Just keep the most prolific plants that have the least disease and pest damage and the best fruit or other useable parts...  and weeding (removing other varieties or species in competition with the desired one).  These should be done in slightly damp soil to minimize damage to the remaining plants as well as any saved for transplanting, and the survivors should all be well-watered afterwards to ease any root-hair damage from soil disturbance.

On Prince of Wales Island, we found the best berries in the "broken" sunlight where large red cedars had been thinned out of the younger ones, allowing more light to penetrate to form sugars in the fruit.

I've seen highbush cranberries show great results from weeding of their competition. Still, I would avoid turning any patch into a very big monocrop.

DZ: What would the curve of diminishing returns look like?

JDS:  Case by case basis......no way to make a blanket prediction. Yet it is good to think in terms of a four or five year rotation ending up in a fallowed field that could either revert to trees or be worked again after several years of rest or gentle pasturing (as done naturally by bison and other grazer/browsers who have plenty of room to keep moving, dropping their fertile manure as they go).

Rotations vary as to your own food needs, but one good one is this: Potatoes on a newly cleared patch, followed by oat/pea hay or oats and soup peas for people, followed by broccoli or storable members of the cabbage family such as kohlrabi, turnips, cabbage or rutabagas. Then a crop of Cascadia snap peas for pickling for winter food as well as used off the vine, fresh, in summer and early fall, then some squash or carrots and beets.

By having several gardens you can grow each step of this rotation every year, just in different spots. Basically, the legumes bring nitrogen levels up to what is needed by the heavier, feeding crops. Seaweed, wood ash, compost and fish waste can always be added in late fall, then mulched over so the temperature of the soil remains high enough for microbes and other small critters to do the "decomposing dance" over winter. Avoid adding any woodash or lime in the year before potatoes, and no fresh manures then or just before carrots.

DZ: Are you aware of any nuts or other oil producing plants that could be raised here?

JDS:  I've often grown flax, all over southeast, and several times raised oilseed sunflowers. The nifty thing about that is that the pressed meal that remains (after cold oil extraction) makes a high-nutrient feed for chickens.

Oilseed radish should work here, and I plan on trialing it next spring, with an eye to its use in more forms than just oil. I think it is basically a daikon, but I'm not sure. One trouble with radishes I've discovered in the seed business is that while they quickly blossom and go to seed, the thick pods take FOREVER to dry off on the plant. I am actually more encouraged about the possibility of oilseed mustards, of which I have three famous varieties.

I think it's necessary to have seeds that are 25% oil content in order to make the home presses work as cold-processing.

I think this is a vital idea, because while it's possible to render fine oil/lard from black bear, it may not be suitable or acceptable for many folks, or even available some years. I have rendered a lot of very clear organic pork lard in the past, but it would almost mandate feral pigs or an established homestead. Feral pigs can be real destructive of habitat, although small, non-rooting ones are available.

This brings to mind the idea that even for TAZ or a transition to such, it might be wise to have a few tiny homestead refuges where special things are raised that might be difficult with total mobility, yet very useful. Such places might also make good sites more simple libraries, or forges, perhaps.

DZ: This is sparse gardening; Is diversity a consideration? I'm thinking of the Irish Potato Blight in which a single variety was vulnerable to a single pest.

JDS:  ALWAYS diversity should be practiced, as to variety and type of plant, as well as height, shape, weather preference, etc..

The phytopthora infestans that caused the Irish Potato Famine was able to prosper and destroy because they only grew one type of potato. A few totally or highly resistant varieties are now available, and even among those sold as resistant, some are better than others. I noticed that the fingerling Austrian Crescent often gets blight while neighboring Rose Finn Apple or Princess La Ratte fingerlings do not.

For resistance to potato scab, which is much more prevalent in our region than blight, try Red Norland, Pink Warba, Anoka, Chieftain, and Atlantic.

Yukon Gem is the much more productive descendant of the popular but low-yielding Yukon Gold. When all else is equal, I choose the varieties with earlier and heavier yields.

Gardening is, after all, a matter of survival.

*****

As mentioned, guerrilla gardens have no legal standing, and are positively proscribed in many situations.

Local laws regulate any given patch of land, public or private, but may be more or less ambiguous regarding the exact latitude allowed. Knowing the laws pertaining to your selected site is always a plus.

Low profile guerrilla gardens - virtually invisible to the casual observer - hedge your bets in questionable situations. Multiple sites not only spread the availability of harvest across a region, but also risk of crop failure, animal or human pests or legal foreclosure.

In other words, while all this is interesting stuff, it's NOT meant to be put into practice. Don't try this at home, kids!

I mean it!

EROEI / EROI For Doomies

 

“Pyramid of Energetic Needs” representing the minimum EROI required for conventional oil, at the well-head, to be able to perform various tasks required for civilization. The blue values are published values, the yellow values increasingly speculative. 

Chart from “EROI of Global Energy Resources Preliminary Status and Trends” Jessica Lambert, Charles Hall, Steve Balogh, Alex Poisson, and Ajay Gupta State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Oh, the ER-O-I was a'fallin'
And the win was gettin' low...

-- Adapted from the ER-I-O (Erie Canal) folksong

EROEI / EROI For Doomies

Energy Return On  Energy Invested, a.k.a., Energy Return On Invested is a core concept for those of us thinking of our present and near future. But it doesn't travel alone. Here, I'll try to lay out a useful set of related concepts, their dynamics and consequences.

Useful terms

EROEI -- The ratio of an amount  of energy divided by all necessary investment of all EI inputs (expressed as energy) required for ER outputs (energy extraction, refinement, production and distribution... from here on, I'll use the shorthand production for all of these).

Historically, EROI has fallen and is falling significantly. Lower numbers tend to account for more, often overlooked inputs.

Any complex, adaptive system (e.g., a living organism or an economy) requires an EROEI > 1 by some significant factor as its minimum for survival. This is in accord with the laws of thermodynamics, and remains undisputed.

NOTE: EROEI is often expressed as a ratio (EI/ER) or a proportion (usually EI:ER).

Gross Energy -- The total amount of extracted energy under discussion before adjusting for its production overheads.

Net Energy -- The amount of energy left over from Gross Energy after its production overheads.

Surplus Energy -- The amount of energy left over from Net Energy after systemic overheads (all the necessaries to support life). This is what's left over for electives.

NOTE: Gross and Net Energy can increase, even while EROI is falling. This has been the case, historically, prior to the present moment.

Peak Energy -- The point at which approximately half of energy resources have been extracted. At this point, the easy pickings have been picked and the (energy) cost of production for remaining, harder-to-access resources rises. From this point, required energy investment for extraction rises exponentially and EROI accordingly falls.

For further reading, see Hubbert Curves, which describe the prospects of any given resource being commercially extracted, and have successfully predicted Peak Energy for any given energy resource.

NOTE: Peak Energy from fossil fuels could conceivably become moot in the face of new energy sources, but for the foreseeable future, they are dominant and likely to remain so.

Implications

By industry assessments, we already have- or are soon to enter post-Peak Energy. EI to produce energy from fossil fuels will increase exponentially (rapidly declining EROEI and Net Energy).

Falling EROEI consequent to rising production costs in a post-Peak Energy environment chews away at Net Energy in proportion to Gross Energy. Gross Energy may be increasing, but the available Net Energy (GE minus overheads) is an ever smaller fraction of the gross. Eventually, as necessary extraction investments increase, Net Energy falls toward zero. 

At the same time, should Gross Energy plateau or decline (as considerable data suggest is now or soon to be the case), Net Energy falls toward zero.

For us Doomies, this is an alarming double squeeze!

Net Energy is what pays for shit. All the stuff we really need or think we need. All the stuff we think of as wealth. It's what Finances it. Grows it. Builds it. Produces it. Maintains it. Moves it around... roads, rail and bridges, shipping and supply chains. Keeps the lights on, water clean and flowing. Education, entertainment, arts. Everything. When we run too low on Net Energy and things start to fail for want of energy, it's TEOTWAWKI.

But it's slow to unbuild. As the surplus dwindles, things start to be under energized and fail at the fringes. It's made worse by wealth inequity, where the powerful turn wealth-sharing flows toward themselves. The disenfranchised don't have the energy/wealth/power to organize and defend themselves, and become prey to 'strongmen' who use their plight to their own ends.

As the surplus energy available to global, industrial civilization decreases, we can foresee the following:

• Failing infrastructures
• Increasing pollution (from energy investments, lower quality fuels, less remediation)
• Increasing climate instability
• Resource conflicts
  
  
• General impoverishment and reduction of total wealth
• Reductions of social services and safety nets
• A political turn toward far-right 'solutions'
• Increasingly authoritarian state control
• Increasing social unrest, protest, war and displacement
  
  
• Cascading failures and contagion proliferate
  
• Tipping points are reached
• Collapse

All of these (including localized Collapses, world-wide) are the major headlines of our day.

*****

Objections and IMHO

Here are a few of the standard objections to the above...

There's Still Plenty of Fossil Fuel

Well, yes - about half, give or take, and that's a LOT - but that's not the point.

The point is that that post-peak half is trending toward a point where its production is prohibitively expensive. The half that's left is less accessible, of lower quality (e.g., tar sands and shale) and/0r plays out more quickly (e.g., fracking). All this means low EROEI.

This is a consensus view among industry analysts (vs. PR types). Only the timing and what might intervene is in debate.

Green Tech will Save Us

Well, maybe, but both the will and a pathway are absent. It appears to be a long shot.

One large problem is that the conversion of existing infrastructure and systems to 'renewables' is energy (and materially) intensive, with its own, lowish EROEI. It is unclear whether, even given the will and commitment to the cross-over, that there would be enough Net Energy available for the task, not to mention related environmental impacts of the project.

Time is another... whether we have time for such conversion before some critical tipping point is reached? But of course that applies to all paths forward. Still, we're talking best case in terms of decades.

Tech Tech will Save Us

Well, maybe, but...

Alternative energy projects at BAU (Business As Usual) scale are promising but distant. Nuclear fusion has just passed operational EROEI slightly greater than 1. That is to say, a skosh over break-even so long as we don't count the infrastructure, conversion (heat to electricity) or distribution costs. This after years and billions of dollars in hot pursuit of the dream.

Deep-bore, grid-scale geothermal may be the best possibility in the offing. In this tech, high energy beams (from gyrotrons developed for nuclear fusion) replace mechanical drilling techniques for much deeper wells reaching into high heat regions of the Earth's mantle. It's in development, uses existing infrastructure for conversion/distribution and should be boot-strappable. Unfortunately, it too appears be well behind schedule with very little success to report. Bootstrapping is predicted to require decades.

The Market will Provide

Well, no. The market has worked wonders, but is not magical.

That the market will provide is an economic article of faith among Cornucopians who believe (more or less) that, given a high enough demand in the face of low supply, and substitutions can and will be made. 

This may be theoretically true but is pragmatically false. For example, since e=mc^2, given enough market incentive and energy, any resource could be synthesized. In practice, the EI of this approach would be prohibitive.

Further, the implicit assumption is that solutions will be found and implemented on demand (i.e., just-in-time innovation and production) given enough market incentive. Problem is, this flies in the face of considerable experience with Scientific Method... discoveries are not made on a schedule, regardless of the incentive. Industrial scale production is also far from instantaneous. Other market forces, such as cost, are in opposition.

An example would be the fairly recent discovery of one of the side-effects of sildenifil citrate, originally studied as a treatment for high blood-pressure... despite vast market incentive and effort across centuries, this active ingredient of Viagra(R) is without an historical peer. It was observed serendipitously during clinical studies, and, approximately 12 years later, hit the market.

Who says it's all gloom and doom?

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that EROEI and related concepts are a lens for viewing the lifeblood of our global industrial economy and civilization.

That EROEI and Net Energy are falling with nothing assured in prospect would indicate that we are suffering from terminal, congestive heart failure.

Time to set our affairs in order.

For further reading, here's a good place to start.

Ozone Generators and Sterilization

Diagram from PrimaZone

PATHOGENS... Some dis-assembly is required.


Ozone Generators and Sterilization

Ozone (O3) is a potent toxin that works by oxidizing most anything it touches, damaging large organisms and killing smaller ones. O3 gives up one atom of 0xygen which aggressively combines with other molecules, leaving breathable O2 behind (O3 => O2 + O).

We've been using an ozone generator for several years, now, to sterilize our boat cabin and holds against various fungi including dry rot, mold and mildews. We also blow into a garbage bag to sterilize small items, now including masks, gloves and other PPE.

An advantage over UV sterilization is that it fills a space, where UV is line-of-sight and won't work in the 'shadow'.

 << Our EnerZen unit costs about $85 as I write.

A word of caution... this type of generator sterilizes the space by elevating O3 concentrations to lethal levels for a short time. No People, Plants or Pets while working and until fully aired out. Don't even want to breathe a little of it. We amateurs should probably leave the building, even if you're only doing a single room within it.

Here's a quick article that hits the main points.

There is another kind of ozone generator on the market which uses low levels of O3 to ionize particles to help purify air with people in the room. But these are not recommended by medical authorities ever, due to oxidation and irritation of airways.

If breathed in, ozone irritates, inflames and even kills cells all along the respiratory tract. This makes the cells even more susceptible to virus and bacteria, and if infected, inflammation is a serious co factor for worse outcomes. 'Safe' levels for O3 can be understood as merely 'negligible damage' for normal times.

Incidentally, ozone also clears away smells such as as smoke, decay, locker funk, diesel or gas, wet dog, bilge, etc..

Pretty handy tool in a pandemic.


NOTE: Most hospitals have ozone generators for sterilizing operating and patient rooms. PPEs can be treated for re-use in room-sized batches. Please help spread the word.

Gypsy Rules for Survival

Cruising Live-Aboards

 The sky became their canopy

The earth became their throne

And as their raiment ran to rags

They thought it nothing wrong

For earth and sky are robe enough

When you sing the Gypsy Song.

-- From Beggars to God by Bob Franke

Gypsy Rules for the Survival

The term Gypsy - our outsider's name for the Romani peoples - stirs in settled folk a feeling of nostalgia and sometimes unease. Nostalgia for their own, lost, nomadic past, whether real or imagined. Unease from xenophobia - fear of the stranger. As a consequence, the Rom have had to navigate many hostile centuries, yet largely kept their identity and cultures intact.

Live-aboards and shanty dwellers have much in common with them, to the point that we often share the Gypsy moniker. We too are mobile among those who would prefer to see us settled down. We too often have more in common among ourselves than with those ashore. We too live along a fringe; in the cracks, as it were.

The following Gypsy tips, or rules for survival/thrival appeared in a post by Ugo Bardi, plus a few gleaned elsewhere. I'll start with the bare list, which I've paraphrased, generalized, rearranged and loosely grouped in triads, then take them one by one. They're presented as 'rules', but consider them advice...


Be yourself.
Cultivate a free spirit.
Family First.

Protect your privacy.
Blow smoke.
Never stand and fight.

Stay mobile.
Live light, travel light.
Seize opportunity.

Cultivate know-how.
Minimize overheads.
Waste not.


*****


Okay... let's unpack 'em a bit:

Be Yourself

BE yourself! Don't yield to conformity. Homogeneity. The pressure to be like everyone else. To blend in. We are each of us unique in all the world. In all the Universe. Don't trade that away for love nor money!

To do so is to impoverish both ourselves and the world.


Cultivate a Free Spirit

Dance, sing, celebrate, make love! Never lose sight of the joy of living.

It's what makes it all worthwhile. What makes living more than mere survival.


Family First

Our family - be it your partner, your children, your kin or your tribe - are our first priority. our Family is our strength and well-being.

Invest yourself in them and theirs.




Protect your Privacy

Lots of folks are curious about how we live. But be cagey about what you tell whom. Not all of those interested are your friends. Detail can be used against you as gossip, rumor or as a pretext for official action.

Loose lips sink ships!


Blow Smoke

Mis-direction and mis-representation have their place, especially when dealing with officialdom. We want to appear as though we fit within the boxes on their forms, whether or not we do. We want to appear more settled and 'legit' than in fact we are.

Smoke and mirrors, my friends.


Never Stand and Fight

When in danger, when in doubt, hoist your sails and bugger out!  - Tristan Jones

Those dedicated to keeping freedom freedom-free tend to have the upper hand. To fight them is at best a full time job. At worst a losing proposition.

This is not to say that we shouldn't give due process a chance. But standing on principle come-what-may is a good way to lose our home, freedom and possibly more.

Consider moving along before push comes to shove.




Stay Mobile

Mobility has us ready to roll on a moment's notice. Extends our range of options and access to resources. Keeps us fresh in outlook. With mobility, we are not bound to the misfortunes of one place. Nor must we suffer a bad neighbor.

If not mobile, we are sitting ducks.


Live Light, Travel Light

Don't you carry nuthin' that might be a load. Ease on down, ease on down the road. - The Wiz

To live and travel lightly keeps us focused on essentials. This good advice has been passed on from the most ancient of Wise Ones to the most successful of present-day sailors.

Take what ya need and leave the rest.


Seize Opportunity

Make the most of good fortune. Recognize the Opportune Moment. Act decisively when a windfall comes your way.

Strike while the iron is hot!





Cultivate Know-How

DIY maintains our independence. Knowledge is portable, cannot be taken from us and makes us intrinsically valuable to others. What we can do is stock-in-trade.


Minimize Overheads

Overheads eat away at our substance. While we can never eliminate them entirely, we can keep them low.

The lower our overheads, the greater the return on any investment. The greater our freedom.

A penny saved is a penny earned.


Waste Not

We want to make full use of what we've acquired at cost. We often want to make full use of what others have neglected or abandoned.

Recycle, reuse, repurpose.

Thrifty does it...


*****


So there you have 'em. Rules for the Road from those who've been traveling a long time gone.

Like most advice of this nature, they're for our consideration. Take 'em or leave 'em. Adapt them to our unique situation. Add to them from any source we deem fit...

And ease on down the Road.







PS. Here are the original rules from Ugo Bardi's post, Survival Tips from the Gypsies, in order presented:

1. In battle, the best strategy is flight.
2. Don't carry and don't use weapons.
3. Cherish your mobility.
4. Travel light in life.
5. Cultivate creative obfuscation.
6. A man's family is his refuge.
7. What you learned to do yourself, can never be stolen.
8. Catch the occasion when you see it.  
9. Be jealous of your identity.
10. Be a free spirit.

Note:  I skipped number two in the preceding post. Definitely a point to consider seriously. It may be somewhat more context dependent than the others? Certainly, the use of a firearm against a human being is a choice fraught with consequence, however justified one may feel.