Here is my list of things
that could cause the deaths
of tens of millions,
even billions,
of us human animals.
1. Climate change
2. War
3. Disease
4. Economic collapse
5. Peak oil
Let's explore each one,
below the divider doodle.
1. Climate change.
I watched Al Gore's movie,
and I read two other books
on climate change.
I read what Munich Re says
about climate change.
The two main effects
of climate change are:
Rising sea level.
Storms that are more severe,
and more of them,
in the Great Plains
of North America.
Which is where I live.
I wrote a diary recently
about a nasty storm we had,
in my home town:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Bottom line,
I simply have not found any actual physical mechanism
by which climate change
will kill tens of millions of humans.
2. War:
As far as I know,
my home town,
and your home town,
and the home cities of tens of millions,
even the homes of a billion or so,
could be hit with hydrogen bombs,
delivered by intercontinental ballistic missiles.
I don't know how close or how far away we are
from such a war.
I don't know what you and I can do,
to help avoid such a war,
or to help more folks survive such a war,
other than encourage more folks to move
far away from all cities.
3. Disease:
The flu pandemic of 1918
killed an estimated 50 million, worldwide.
Get your flu shots,
and other vaccinations.
I don't know what else to do,
to reduce the body count
from the next big outbreak.
4. Economic collapse:
Actually,
my prediction is that peak oil,
rather than simply and directly causing a terrible famine,
with the supply of food stable,
but slowly and gradually getting smaller,
until folks are getting thinner and thinner,
and then slowly die,
rather than that gradual process,
I think that when the oil shortage
causes a severe enough shortage of
diesel fuel,
most farmers will quit farming,
and most grocery stores will quit
trying to bring in small shipments of food,
shipments so small,
their customers will fight over them,
those grocery stores will shut down,
by way of the managers and workers
will walk away,
and let the public have the last of what's there.
5. Peak oil:
See above.
Now,
I will try to clear up some
confusion,
from my last diary:
First,
I failed to make clear,
how peak oil
becomes an oil shortage:
not sure how you interpreted the peak
as a shortage
Why would peak oil instantly turn into a
catastrophic shortage?
Please click on this link:
http://www.eia.gov/...
If you study the graph with the peaks on it,
and study it carefully,
you will see that the study predicts
that the peak quantity of oil delivered to the refineries,
will happen in 2037,
and it will be a little over 50 billion barrels per year.
Then it heads down.
Real fast.
By 2040, 40 billion barrels per year.
By 2045, 30 billion barrels per year.
By 2050, 20 billion barrels per year.
20 billion barrels per year
is what the world had in 1975.
Can we feed 7 billion humans
on the farm food production
of 1975?
So,
sometime between 2035 and 2050,
the supply of food will be so low,
that the grocery stores will shut down;
the managers and workers will walk out,
the public will clean off the shelves,
and most folks will starve,
within a few months of that day.
A few months, because,
most folks have less than a month's supply of food on hand,
and when that is gone,
it takes about two months to actually starve.
Next point to clarify:
If they kill us for our food, a garden will make us more prominent targets.
I already answered this in the diary.
I hate to hurt your feelings,
but you should read the diary carefully,
since your life may depend on it,
and then write comments
that show you have read the diary.
Here is my answer to that comment,
from the diary,
that was already above the comment:
But if you plant a garden in the city,
your neighbors will see it.
Then,
when there is no more food in the grocery stores,
your neighbors might ask,
any food for us?
At that point,
you will need to get in your vehicle,
and go to your farm,
away from the city.
Away from neighbors
who might want to kill you,
and take what you have.
Another confused commentor:
If you want to promote gardening,
which is a great idea, especially at this time of year, you might want to be a little more upbeat about it. Like:
Growing your own veggies: A rewarding hobby!
I'm not writing about a hobby,
something to occupy your time,
so you can take a break,
and go to the grocery store,
and buy ground beef,
and stop at McDonald's on the way home,
so you can eat hamburgers right away,
and more hamburgers
on a different day.
You can put some cucumbers and tomatoes
from your garden
on your hamburgers.
That's a nice hobby.
That's not what I'm writing about.
I'm writing about ideas for surviving
the end of oil,
the end of large scale commercial agriculture.
This is a good one:
Given the age I'll be in 2035, someone killing me
isn't that big a worry.
Yes, me too!
I was born in 1955,
so I may be dead from some kind of cancer,
before 2035.
But this brings out an important point:
Everyone who reads about this
needs to ask themselves,
how old will I be around that time?
Then plan accordingly.
The younger you are,
the more years you will have ahead of you,
if you can survive this disaster.
Those of you as old as me or older,
are going to check out around that time anyway.
I'm writing this warning,
this series of diaries,
for those much younger than me.
Here's a classic.
didn't read the whole thing, got sick of having
to jump down a line to continue reading.
If you truly can't stand my writing style,
go away,
and
do
not
write
a
comment!
If you're going to post "We're all dead by 2035" then what's the point of increasing the population further between now and then?
There has never been any point of increasing
the population.
Not since our species was a small group,
in Africa,
at least 100,000 years ago,
and there may have been a danger of extinction,
at that time.
But, for at least 10,000 years,
there has not been any point
to the activity
of steadily increasing the population of humans on this planet.
Let me answer this question:
Why wouldn't hungry people descend on farms
and steal the food directly from the source?
Because it will not occur to them.
And most farms in Kansas
have some metal buildings,
with tractors in the buildings,
and a farm house.
Most farmers here grow vast tonnage of wheat,
that's shipped out quickly,
much of it going overseas.
Most farms in Kansas have no
bread,
flour,
hogs,
chickens,
vegetables,
etc.
There are some farms in Kansas,
aside from the wheat farms,
that are large scale hog operations,
and others,
that are large scale beef cattle operations,
and some dairy farms.
With no diesel fuel,
to plant and harvest the feed for the livestock,
the livestock will starve.
So,
if folks form the cities
come out to harvest some starving livestock,
before they die,
I don't think anyone will stop them.
Get the picture?
Thanks for reading.