Okay, I just have to say that this week has been pretty relaxing. I’ve been able to slow down my reading to where I can enjoy and retain rather than skim for ideas. And my writing has been more relaxed. I have enjoyed it quite a bit. My fiction, well, I have serious doubts a full size novel is going to be hatched. I’m pretty sure I can do short fiction much better. What is that? Easily amused but quickly bored. I’ve gotten past the short story length but it won’t make it from novelette to novella. Look at the bright side, you won’t have to buy any books. I’ve taken last years “Bisonia” ( go to http://www.bisonia.blogspot.com/ if you want to read the original ) and fleshed out the characters Top and the Captain and added some details to the narration. It's just to the first battle, so I’m not sure if I’ll end it or add more chapters in the future. I was going to take the whole thing and double it for the novel but like I said, I don’t think that is going to happen. And I can’t keep you all waiting too long or your fickle butts will wander off. Go to the new blog http://www.bisonfiction.blogspot.com/ for it.
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A huge Thank You to a very loyal minion ( Gary ) for the six books he sent. They are all ones I didn’t have, except The Long Emergency, but that one is worth having an extra copy. And Paul, I got your very generous donation. Thanks to you as well. I’ll put that towards the solar units to be constructed soon.
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Crash Course
was recommended to me by a minion, and I’m glad that he did. I had no idea it was out there. I got it on DVD, but if I recall correctly it is available on U-Tube. Also, you can go to http://www.chrismartenson.com/ . It is three hours, so I thought watching it on TV was worth the seven or eight bucks. In short ( although you know I’ll get into the long of it soon ), think of this course as teaching you the expediential growth chart. That’s right, the dreaded Gore Hockey Stick From Hell. Gore, may his bloated and putrid flesh be assigned to all of eternity to that location ( as Tom Robbins
asked recently, quite correctly in my opinion, is Hell a dry heat or a humid heat- because if you think about it that would make all the difference in whether you wished to sin or not ). If I were the expediential chart, all fuzzy and cute and giggled over by adoring fans for both my longevity and my last minute star performance, I would be embarrassed as all get out that I was associated with a scare mongering Gore Warming attempt. “Well, as you know, when I’m not throwing elections for fun and profit, I enjoy sitting in my twenty three room mansion and burning all the natural gas that could have gone to keeping young infants warm in winter so I can rest up and think of what other falsehoods I can dazzle you with. And it is a sweet gig, I hardly even have to work hard at it, you idiots that are public school educated have no chance at all of detecting my insincerity”.*
Don’t run away crying in anger and soiling your Joe Camel
boxer shorts. This course does mention Peak Oil
, and environmental degradation, but mostly it is about economics
. He ties the three together nicely, but 80% of it is economics. I know most of you are bound and determined to ignore me on Peak Oil, and quickly dismiss my logical panic attacks, so be assured that this course takes it nice and easy and doesn’t make any claims to pessimism. Throughout, he is calm and optimistic. I think he is a dumbass for that, but I understand you can’t expect to stampede the sheep herd and stay a successful businessman. I would rather panic now and look foolish later. If I’m ever right, I’m covered. If they stay the course, keep calm and cool and take the incremental approach and then happen to be wrong, they are dead. But I bring up the tone of the course to assure you that your friends and family can watch it without thinking you are a nut job. By focusing on economics, they might actually listen. By Gum!, their SUV and McMansion ( and Trophy Whore ) are on the line here! *
Back to the exponential growth charts. Population, 2% a year ( or whatever it was ), a flat line until suddenly within a century it zooms up. US debt- slow and steady and then up like a rocket. Same with oil use. Now, if oil is responsible for the growth on the other two charts, what happens when oil goes down? And add to that the resource depletion graphs. Copper ore
has an upside down hockey stick, where recently we have seen a crash in the percentage of ore in the tons of rock mined. It used to take dozens of pounds of rock to give out one pound of copper ( if a pure nugget wasn’t on the surface, which obviously happened in the past ) and now it can take several hundred. This requires more energy to process. And coal. The tons of coal mined has grown steadily for decade after decade. But, ten years ago the amount of energy from all our mined coal has peaked. Peak Coal BTU’s has already happened. Peak Uranium
is thirty years old, and it fell off a cliff rather than slid down a slop. The continental US Peak Oil is forty years old, and at half the level as our peak even when the Gulf and Alaska is added. Next we come to our net energy for oil and other fuels. This is getting fun!*
In 1930, we used one barrel of oil to pump 99 barrels out of the ground. In 1970, our net energy on oil was 25-1. We got twenty five times the energy used. Not great like 100-1 but not too shabby. Today, the average new oil well delivers a mere 3-1 net energy. Tar sands are 2-1 and ethanol is only 1and ½ to 1 ( which explains our willingness to use it as it isn‘t much of a loss net energy over new oil ). We might be pumping more but we are getting less energy for our troubles. But, as I said, no need to panic. This course is mostly economic. If you take it just on economic merits, this course should scare the crap out of you. Plainly, patiently, indisputably teach you how we are so screwed. He won’t say it, but you can connect the dots easily enough. That is the great thing about this course. It boils it all down to basics. It doesn’t lose itself in hysterics like you get from reading my articles. It will inform the total layman about all these issues, and it will add further neurosis to seasoned vets of this kind of study. Highly recommended.
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The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
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Guest article tomorrow.
6 comments:
Chris Martinsen and his "CRASH COURSE" is a big deal and it is good you recommend his site: http://www.chrismartenson.com/
As the exponential curves of resource depletion go sharply upwards, our decline goes sharply downward. Some, but not all, of my closest friends think I am completely loony when I bring up the ramifications of peak oil. Some won't even talk to me about it and shun me. It's too much for them to give up their dreams of socialist or capitalistic progress when confronted with the reality of disintegration.
Anyway, you mentioned "The Long Emergency" which is a very good book. Your readers might want to check out www.kunstler.com/blog to get an idea of some possible political ramifications of our present predicament.
Lord Bison you have blessed us again with another gem:
"I would rather panic now and look foolish later. If I’m ever right, I’m covered."
Perhaps, instead of fiction you should publish "Bison's Gems" a book full of your wise one-liners. Good work, keep it up and enjoy the new work schedule.
Jack Schitte
I've been going nuts all week because I haven't gotten my doom porn fix for the past 6 days!!! Lord Bison, please.....please write everyday - it's where I get my doom porn fix.
I'm not sure longterm growth was even 2%. It may have been between hard winters and diseases, droughts that trimmed it back to a real long term growth of less than 2%
No, no one "believes" in Peak Oil, because it's just too frightening and too much against the American religion of God Will Provide.
But, if you can hit 'em with economics, now that's different. And exhibit A in this is, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair originally intended it to be a story about the plight of the poor immigrants working in the meat packing industry, with only an occasional aside about the lack of hygiene and chemical treatment of food, but the middle-class readers of the book brought about some change in food preparation because they realized they ATE that food. Immigrant children freezing to death would have been fine with them, it's just that if that leads to dirty food, well, put a stop to that!
If you go to posting once a week, make your new post on Monday like Kuntsler (not a spelling error in my book) does or Wednesday like Greer. You may lose less readers that way.
Terms to learn: Slope, slop
The Long Emergency and Crash Course are must read/watch material.
I thought we had already settled on Mondays as the Best Day Of The Week To Bask In The Glory Of All That Is Wise And Powerful.
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