720 canning lids

Two Saturdays ago Bi-Mart had a canning jar lid sale as they do every summer and I bought 480 regular Ball canning jar lids, and 240 wide mouth lids, a mixture of Ball and Kerr. The lids are interchangeable as you know. I bought about 100 more this week.
Anyway, I emailed a friend about the purchase and he asked in a return email why I bought so many. He had a dozen or so canning jars and was thinking of buying 12 lids apparently. At that moment I realized how differently each of us prepares, or does not, for our quickly coming uncertain future, where the only certainty is a lack of cheap energy from oil.

Why would anyone want a dozen canning jar lids? Why do I think 720 is about 5 times not enough? So I've been thinking about that space between his 12 canning jar lids and my desire for thousands of lids. How differently we each approach Peak oil given our individual circumstances.
My friend is growing a small garden and will can a small amount produce. He has bought a single solar panel and a small charge controller. Without putting a word to it he is practicing what will be necessary to know later but not actually shifting his lifestyle to a new low energy future now. And there is no right or wrong here, we all are living on this luxury liner as it sinks, if you'll forgive that metaphorical image, and each of us is deciding at what point we mark the "party over" and become earnest in our preparations. Also somethings you simply cannot do without detaching from job and family.

If you knew that a complete oil collapse was going to happen on July 28, 2007, and you understood that this would mean a collapse of the economy and the distribution of all the things we buy at the super market, at Walmart, at the gas station, heating fuel, and gas prices of $50/gal, what would you do today?

Your preparations would probably include buying everything you would never be able to buy again or make. You might also decide to move temporarily or permanently. You might run your credit cards up to the max and use the money to buy emergency supplies, seeds, garden tools, get your well dug, or buy every solar panel and wind generator you could afford. In the short term you might buy a generator or two and all the gasoline you can get cans for - because - as the saying goes - they won't be making any more of that (and what is left will rise continually in price).

Anyone following the confluence of the perfect storm that is coming in energy, health, global warming, fish stocks, erosion, over population, pollution and disease understands that the day described above is absolutely coming but maybe not on July 28 of this year. Any day it can happen when the financial world takes delivery of the fact that we pumped the greatest amount of oil on May 5th of last year (2006), that we are indeed post peak, and every property, every business is now extremely over-valued as the flow of petro dollars will be ever smaller from now on.

So my friend's question puts my head right in the middle of the mess. Do you prepare now and appear an idiot to all around? I must participate in my middle class life to keep resources (money) flowing in, while I rush to teach myself a shit load of new skills. Sometimes it seems all to much to do, sometimes it seems I'm insane for doing it at all, but most of the the time it seems to slow and too little.

Yet a little at a time, I'm more streamlined and will be less affected by some of the aspects of what is coming (collapse of currency, loss of jobs, destruction of transportation, loss of air travel, extending over time to loss of food, and then a die off world wide to a population 6 times smaller than what we have now). I take that I produce all my own power (solar panels) for granted now. I was only plugged in for about 20 days last year in November (rained constantly in Oregon). I have heirloom seeds for 5 years planting, I have 6 months of food for myself, an 2 years of insulin. I will be able to live about 5 years if insulin is no longer produced by a carb free diet and weight loss. My goal is to store 5 years worth of insulin at a perfect temperature which might stay effective longer.

I also expect upheavals and I see the linked aspect of fuel, demand, and supply mechanisms much more clearly. So the preparation my friend is making is about practicing, and mine right now is an attempt to actually separate myself to a degree from what is coming. Practice and doing are critical to everyone who would like to improve their prospects during times of great upheaval.

The commonality between my friends and I is that we have looked the problem in the eye, and though our understanding my be flawed and distorted, we have not flinched from the data that exists in every segment of the society. We understand how fucked we are, we differ only in our reactions and our preparations to that information.

What amazes me is that the information is all about - and easily acquired - just start by googling "peak oil" and follow from there, yet most people look for a moment and can't look at it at all - this is true at every level of government, business and education as well as in the mind of most individuals. We are not talking about fringe people who have a new cause, it is geologists, and scientists and it is not new information - it was always visible from the first day we pumped our first barrel of oil. However, it would appear that we all have such investment in what we have "achieved" that we simply cannot look at the end of our current energy rich life style at all. Only denial works for most. Lemmings don't do well at the end of their lifestyles and if you continue to lack the courage to look at what is coming then when it arrives a vast majority of deeply in debt people will find themselves hungry, homeless, and in shock.