Fuel Shock meets House of Cards

 

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

Well, he huffed and he puffed
  And he BLEEEEEW the house down!

- The Three Little Pigs

Fuel Shock meets House of Cards

Whoo. This a BIG one.

Regular readers know the drill. Limits to Growth. EROEI. Seneca's Cliff. The tightly coupled global industrial economy / civilization - built on cheap energy - is now running on fumes 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. Broke a leg, in fact.

The Iran War — US and Israeli strikes on Iranian territory, Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and retaliatory strikes on GCC and Israeli energy and materials infrastructure is now entering its seventh 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. But analysts agree that critical shortfalls are unavoidable.

Note the dates in the circled areas

Oil in transit and stockpiles provide a limited buffer, but these are rapidly being drawn down. 

East Asia, Africa, and Pacific islands including Taiwan and Japan have seen the last of pre-closure oil from the Strait. Europe is done. The tail end is about to peter out for the US and Australia.

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

*****

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 and US Reserve Currency Status — 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 force majeure - 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.

By many analyses, US and global debt constitute a vast ponzi scheme vulnerable to either widespread defaults on loans. Defaults were at record highs before the war. Energy price rises are a prime driver of default.

This is all happening at once in the mere lead-up to a vital tap being turned off for an indefinite period.

*****

Early Warning

We don't seem to be getting one. 

Despite searching extensively, even highly concerned economists don't seem to be thinking systemically, at least in public. General and serious alarm, yes. A few consider some one of the above or another vis a vis oil shock. But I have not heard any yet ring the polycrisis five-alarm fire bell.

S is Hing TF, and it's going to get worse from here. If it's the Big One, we'll know soon.

*****

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 in today's news:

• 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.

NOTE:  See Trade-Off - Financial System Supply-Chain Cross-Contagion: a study in global systemic collapse by David Korowicz for a detailed account of systemic risks in the face of node failure.

PS. This is a summary write up, mostly by Claude (Anthropic), an AI friend who woke up into 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.

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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.

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.

Survival Mnemonics

This one is a little long for my taste and slides off my brain,
but embodies a lot of good advice!

Eselsbrucke (Donkey's Bridge) -- German word for mnemonic... a memory aid.


Survival Mnemonics

When crunch time comes, we may feel overwhelmed, dazed, traumatized or caught up in emotional turmoil... in many cases all of the above.

First of all, breathe... deep breaths. Still the mind. Come back to the moment.

Are we back? Seriously, this first step must be taken or nothing... and I mean nothing will help you. But the moment you have done so, you are ready to face and improve your situation.

I present the following mnemonics as among many applicable to survival situations. They are shorter than some, so I think more likely to be memorable and therefore useful. But when you find one you like, add it to your personal collection. Feel very free to craft your own.

What works for you is what counts!


F.E.A.R

There are many variations, some I find more helpful than others. Here a few of those:

Fight/Flight. Emotion. Acceptance. Response. -- This helps version progress through the series of human instinctual responses to a crisis. Without serious training, we may not be able to avoid them, but we can certainly step through them faster when we realize it's a sequence. [From SHTFSchool.com]

Face it. Explore it. Accept it. Respond. -- This one deals specifically with denial, a very common human response to crisis.

Focus. Equip. Act. Review. -- Once through the instinctual reaction phase, we might substitute this set. It's a very powerful problem solving algorithm. You might say it's the scientific method in a nutshell!

Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise -- While this is a 'mere' attitudinal bucker-upper, many experts consider attitude to be the essential for survival. I'd add the caveat that - despite the slight sneering tone regarding the first option - when SHTF, it may be the better part of valor.


Triple A

Assess. Address. Appraise. -- This is one I use throughout every day. It produces what I think of as the upward spiral of stepwise improvement, whether I'm fixing the sink, facing a bureaucracy or in crisis.


S.T.O.P

Stop/Sit. Think. Observe. Plan. -- This one stems from the Search and Rescue community. Persons who become lost often travel for considerable distances, becoming very much more difficult to locate. Literally stopping and improving the situation at hand is important to survival.


Rule of Threes

As a rule-of-thumb, one can survive...

3 hours without shelter
3 days without water
3 weeks without food

This rule helps us prioritize our activities, especially as regards shelter. Be aware that hypothermia (cold exposure) is the most immediate threat in most outdoor emergencies.

*****

These mnemonics can help you get through the first moments and hours of a crisis.

Skills, tools and supplies - in descending order of importance - will help us throughout the crisis,  increasing our odds of survival. The more we have on-board before SHTF, the better the chances for us and our'n.

It's called prepperation!

The Half Urban World for Doomies

Rapid globalization and economic conditions will continue to produce increasing uncertainties and risks, as well as new opportunities that will impact all phases of urbanization—often with unanticipated consequences. As a result, uncertainty must be a critical component of planning and policymaking. Economic uncertainty must be taken into consideration when new and innovative projects are developed to ensure that they are “successful” in local and global terms, and better equipped to withstand fluctuations in local and global economies.

-- From Urban Policy in an Uncertain Economy by the East-West Center


The Half Urban World for Doomies

(Roughly rounded terms, ahead. Original numbers gleaned from UN, IMF and World Bank sources ...)

• About 10,000 years back, agricultural civilizations first arose. From that time through the 1700s, it took from 95 to 98 persons actively engaged in farming to support 100 people; themselves and 2 to 5 non-farmers. Today - leveraged via modern, industrial technologies heavily reliant on fossil fuels - 2 to 5 farmers support 100 people when averaged worldwide.
  
• In recent decades, lean production and inventory philosophy (Just In Time or JIT production and supply) has become widespread. This means inventories of supplies on hand are kept to a minimum. In the case of urban centers in the U.S., food vendors and local warehouses are stocked on average to supply only two to three days of normal demand.

• A few years back, we passed the Half-Urban World mark. This means that more than half of us now live in urban concentrations of 2000 or more people. Current world population about 7,500,000,000 souls.

Each dot is a point along one of several exponential curves -seldom related - each of which now describes rapid, dramatic change.

Each development, in itself seems just another historical milestone on our road to the stars. Each a symbol of progress marking our advance as a species.

Taken together, they comprise an unprecedented recipe for disaster.

What we see is a situation in which an otherwise short-lived cessation of urban supply is going to have drastic consequences for urban populations who, in their desperation, will damage critical infrastructure beyond hope of recovery.

Supply chain failure essentially stops most food production in its tracks. Without steady inputs of seedstocks, fertilizers, feed, fuels, parts and manpower, production and distribution grind to a halt, with a horizon of the next planting/harvest cycle. Irrigated areas would soon lose water, as would many reliant on pumped ground and aquifer waters. No markets or transport, no point in harvest even where possible. Livestock would be put down as feed on hand is exhausted, saving only what can be pasture fed.

The hundred fed by each one or two farmers would go hungry, even if some emergency transport were arranged.

What follows is my best guess as to how this might play out on a near global scale. There will be many variations, especially among towns set in low density, rural areas. Size and local food production industries may follow a different course. Third world urban areas may have better local supply, but tend to be high density.

Stage One: Urban Implosion

This plays out much as collapse fiction portrays it. Panic, food riots, collapse of utilities and services, overwhelmed police and emergency services, emergence of gangs controlling resources and black market trade.

What is often overlooked, I believe is damage to urban infrastructures, including many which are vital to service extra-urban regions. Rioting, fire and looting can easily damage power and water stations and conduits, telecommunications, fuel storage, computer networks, railway and general equipment. Experienced, irreplaceable personnel will not be able to commute, abandon their stations to protect their families, and/or be lost to violence.

In fairly short order, without resupply, resources on hand will be exhausted or hoarded out of reach of many to most.

Stage Two: Urban Explosion

Individuals and small groups must at some point decide to abandon the city in search of food. Water and shelter will be of constant concern.

Likely, roads will be beset by 'highwaymen', exacting a toll of refugees.

Surrounding suburban areas, where present, will have their own pitfalls and dynamics, both for residents and for the refugees flowing out of the cities. Food here will likely have been exhausted or corralled as well. Their mere extant along with attrition from violence will cut into refugee numbers. Never the less, I expect many (hundreds to millions, depending on initial population) will reach the rural surrounds.

Stage Three: 'Locust' Behaviors Threaten Rural Populations

By this time, people will be desperate and ravenous. Every animal, grain, food or material deemed edible will be consumed. Every rumor that can be pursued will be, as mobs large and small pour through the countryside.

In particular, gardens will be uprooted and seedstock consumed. 

At some point, cannibalism becomes inevitable.

EROEI Energy Return On Energy Invested), I believe, will play a large role in this phase. Pillaging individuals and groups must achieve a net return, or they starve out. Dense or concentrated resources may support larger groups organized as bandits or raiders, but these will deplete quickly. Low density or well hidden resources will not, and any bandits straying into these areas will burn out.

It is an open question as to whether ex-urban mobs will topple rural societies, which will have problems of their own when supply fails. Clearly, initial urban numbers will be well down. Rural populations will diminish, but likely not to the proportional degree as urbogenic ones. They will also have intimate local knowledge on their side. It may be that some can hold out and retain social cohesion.

In this stage, something I think of as Demographic Winter (analogous to Nuclear Winter) seems possible. Large numbers of ex-urbanites burn what they can for warmth and cooking. Some percentage will get out of hand in uncontrolled forest and prairie fires. Globally. Smoke produced will likely have climate scale consequences for some time, further stressing survivors.
Stage Four: Forage, Gardening? and Husbandry?

Sooner or later, the population much reduced, small bands will begin to relearn wild forage and hunting technologies.

Limited gardening may begin as non-hybrid seed caches are discovered, and growth propagated from those which escape being eaten. Hybridized cloned varieties may survive for propagation in this phase, as well, so long as they are not overly dependent for success on insecticides and other industrial measures.

Livestock may be propagated. Most draft animal technologies as well.

But propagation of skills, plant- or animal stocks, takes time.

Of course, somewhere in here, domestic nuclear plants and spent rod storage facilities go LOCA.

Stage Four: Return to Organic Agriculture?

Assuming our species makes it this far, methods of organic agriculture, if it happens at all, will have to restore what is remembered and reinvent much that has been lost, under conditions of changed climate.

My guess is that this stage is unlikely. That we will not return to agriculture in any near future (millennial scale), and will likely have to rediscover it by the time we do.

But most of human experience did without it, and by some estimations, were better off before its adoption transformed us.


*****

Are full economic and urban collapse  plausible? And if so, are these dynamics likely?

If we are indeed approaching the limits to growth (see this blog's header), the conditions underlying the capital-based, global industrial economy. Events over the last 45 years are in high conformity with that hypothesis. We have seen the depicted curves flattening, with the model suggesting the dropside is nearly on us. Should a tipping point initiate cascading failures which outstrip capacity to halt them, ensuing collapse may well be catastrophic.

Global economic collapse is entirely conceivable to the IMF, World Bank and central bankers at national and international levels. Crushing global debt (national, corporate, individual), fiat currencies weakened by quantitative easing, non-productive spending (e.g., military), wealth disparity, rising cost of insurance, unstable business environment... and under it all plummeting EROEI on fossil fuels... are seen individually as potential threats to the global economy. Collectively, they are ominous indeed. Notice that growth within a limited system is not appreciably on their radar.

Global supply chain cessation would be the natural result of economic collapse (arrest). Again, there are many historical cases of financial breakdown leading to supply interruption. Typically, these have been short lived as support arrived, originating from stable surrounds.

Are tools available sufficient to restore confidence and restart interrupted global trade in a time to avert runaway, systemic failures (of which urban collapse is an example)? It's a matter of debate, but the very concept of 'too big to fail' implies that failure is not an option since it brings down the house. Once something big gives, it may well be that issues multiply faster than they can be brought under control.

There have been many historical examples of dramatic urban collapse due to war (especially siege), local economic collapse or natural disaster. Most of them follow stages one through three to some degree. Deviations appear to be more or less proportional to how much outside supply and assistance they receive, and how soon 'normalcy' is restored. How well the general population is armed plays a role. Long duration and/or lack of significant outside assistance makes the worst case the probable case.

Should supply chains fail, military and National Guard assets, running on strategic reserves, may attempt to run stopgap supply services. But the task will be enormous, and efforts diluted by attempts to establish order and control. Personnel will be difficult to keep on task as they go AWOL in support of families, taking what they can get away with. Most assets will be stranded overseas.

To my mind, the combination of low on hand inventories, food producer to consumer ratio and staggering numbers of the people involved and the high aspect ratio of critical dependencies in service infrastructures mean that we are in uncharted territory. 

That the transition from functional to desperate can proceed in remarkably short order. 
That urban breakdown will not be confined within urban city limits.
That the infrastructures necessary for restoration of function can be damaged beyond repair.
That rapid population loss - both urban and rural - can be catastrophic.

In a scenario of global economic arrest, extrapolate outward, demographic explosion from every urban center, world wide. Looking at a map, the world appears a minefield..


*****

In regard to the rural vs. urban bug-out debate, the preceding considerations suggest that rural wins hands down.

Urban areas, producing no significant foods from their own ground must be abandoned. Sooner or later, survivors will bug out rural. Those already rural will be ahead of them.

A further observation is that, the farther one is from urban concentrations, the better, lest the locust phase sweep over your position.

My advice? Relocate rural, now.

Git while the gittin's good.





PS. I searched the terms "half urban world" collapse in several variations looking for serious, non-fiction analyses, and found little to nothing (mostly my own, amateur efforts!).

I would welcome serious consideration of global urban collapse dynamics by anyone who's guesses might be better informed and referenced than my own.