World Leaders Admit The Planet Is Screwed

Well, world leaders are finally fessing up to Einstein’s folly – that the spread of nuclear weapons and technology of mass destruction cannot be controlled.

Eventually, there are going to be very big explosions in a city near you.

So party while you can, and be a good human. That means trying to help other communities so they don’t blow you up, and vice-versa.

This means all kids on earth need to get along or we will certainly witness one of mother nature’s big bangs.

Merry Christmas!

Fixing Peak Oil Is Easy

That’s right, I said it. Peak Oil is a straw man argument.

If you want to understand what I mean, watch this alternate ending to “The Lord Of The Rings”. You will quickly understand.

See what I mean?

What it sums up is that fixing Peak Oil all comes down to the community’s decision to follow a smarter plan, act accordingly, and share collective resources and talents with one another. That is how you win.

Think about it this way. The “Lord of The Rings” movie everyone has collectively seen presents a story the way it was written. Everyone leaves the theatre thinking that was the way the story had to be. But Ho Ho! If J.R. Tolkien had written “The Fellowship Of The Ring” to actually follow the course in the alternate ending, people would have had a much shorter movie and still had a happy ending.

And this is our society’s problem. We love thrillers. The story of “Peak Oil” is currently being presented as a potentially cataclysmic global energy problem. It is not. Peak Oil is a communications problem among a spoiled, techno-zombie culture. We have communicated with one another for so long about the story ending, we can’t decide what our global population’s story of continuity should be.

In America, the lagging economy is driving a dramatic move back to basics and a reversal of decades-long trends of convenience. Roughly half of all consumers with incomes less than $55,000 per year say they have trouble affording the groceries they need, while nearly a quarter of those earning between $55,000 and $99,000 also say so. Among those with incomes over $100,000, 16% report having trouble. 42% of consumers say they have given up favorite food brands because of rising prices and economic concerns. Source: IRI Economic Trend Database/AttitudeLink, May 2008

Also, large numbers of Americans face the prospect of energy shutoffs during the coming months because of rising energy prices and stagnant wages.

And so communities around the world are going to have to grapple with dwindling resources at the community level. You will not get help from the folks at the top. Anyone over 30 knows that money drives politics, and money is presently tied up in oil. This will remain true until communities free themselves from the global money system and start basing values on things that matter, such as services you provide that benefit the entire community and that do not cause harm to the environment or other people.

I would argue that hemp does not cause harm to people. It is a renewable energy resource and medicine. It’s human laws and lawns getting in the way of nature that are stopping us from having enough food and fuel for everyone.

Because cars are cool. I like walking, but I still want to drive, damnit! And right now, I am making my own fuel – which can run in any car with a combustible engine. The oil companies took over the fuel market a long time ago, and they are defending their money with as much vigor as they can.

So until local communities start firing up moonshine and having their local farmers plant sorghum as a better feedstock alternative than corn, we aren’t really serious about fixing our problems. Until we each begin to learn about the soil food web, we aren’t serious about fixing the problem. Until we each accept one another’s faiths, and work together to improve earth’s life support systems, we are not serious about fixing the problem. If we aren’t willing to help more than just ourselves, our family, and our friends, we aren’t serious about fixing the problem.

It’s going to take collective action from each of us, as well as the truth to emerge about certain solutions that have been suppressed, to implement desperately needed changes. Changes that allow us to continue to live happy lives, eat better, and travel from one place to another. Changes that are possible, given that we take away so much power from corporations and weapons companies that run the world.

Unless communities immediately create renewable local food and water systems, it means even more war and death. Until a majority of us are ready to act on the advice of innovators with proof that we don’t have to be less than human to one another and that there is plenty of land to grow enough food to feed the entire planet, we will just keep on reading headlines about bombs dropping.

If you are ready to listen to a leader that offers real ways our children of tomorrow can be proud of the actions we take today, my company has created a proven path of how we can get there. It’s a positive, loving, and life-affirming alternate ending to the Story of Peak Oil, and I am launching it in Portland.

BONUS VIDEO!

Great Videos For Our Times

Oh, the excitement!

For more fun, head over to You Tube Theater!

Lawns to Gardens Episode 4: Homeless Survival Tips

In this episode, we head out with Railer guitarist DD Desade who lived on the streets of Portland for eight months. More and more people will be adding to the streets as Peak Oil kicks poor people in the teeth even harder. It is a worldwide problem.

DD is an entertaining tour guide for the ultimate in street living and homeless survival tips. Watch and learn! He told me he had absolutely nothing to his name. He ate out of trash cans. He begged for money. And he was free.

He was free from any responsibility – and if he could tolerate the cold and wet conditions, he could survive and just get drunk all day. It was bittersweet – and he knows over five Iraq veterans who have taken the same path – choosing freedom and drugs/alcohol over rejoining society.

Maybe some of the homeless are just trying to work things out and they will figure out ways to deal with their pain. For now, why don’t you watch this 15 minute documentary on Homeless Survival Tips. You might just learn something.

The Big Recession Is Here: Should You Learn Martial Arts?

Do you know how to kick someone’s ass?

I mean a knock-down, drag out brawl to the very end… bloody fists and a lump of beaten flesh falling as you hear the dull thud of your competitor’s body hitting the pavement.

Many people are beginning to realize just how screwed we are as Mother Earth ceases the ability to feed us all. So brothers and sisters around the planet are going to have to eventually choose to be Garden Warriors or predators. Sure, no one can predict the way things are going to go down, but they certainly are going to go down. How long you survive depends on too many variables to predict.

The question is how well you are prepared for the changes that happen in society. Not everyone is going to be nice, and just like in Nature, the weak and untrained will die off first. As much as you may hate the idea of some meathead killing you for whatever reason as laws fall by the wayside, unless you can defend yourself – it will probably happen.

It makes me wonder how much time people have to truly prepare themselves in the ways of the warrior. I can’t pretend to be an expert in this area, especially since I never spent time training in the jungle getting beat up by ninjas the way Hollywood would have us believe it goes.

No, most people with warrior skills understand that the desire to survive comes down to will power and past experience. If you have military training and equipment, you will certainly have an advantage over a white collar worker with virgin fists. But there are more and more people waking up to the “Fight Club” mentality – realizing that materialism is bunk and coming back to the principles of reality.

The fact is, as simple as we learn to live while preparing to do more with less, unless law and order is maintained and people remain civil, you might consider getting into shape sooner rather than later.

If you live in Portland, I recommend visiting Kurtis Goodwin.

BONUS FUN:

I thought I might be able to get a dodge dealer to sponsor this kind of ad. I wonder if they will ever become risk takers and buy into the idea since car sales are slowing down?

The Sexual Politics of Overpopulation

Alright, let’s get to it.

There are too many of us on planet earth to live the way we do, and no US Presidential candidate has the balls to talk about addressing overpopulation. They are busy with G rated “religion” conversations in an R rated world.
Take away the suits, and we are just monkeys with missiles. So how can the US and the world address the issue when our country is so sexually repressed?

You and I are animals that seek health and the preservation of life. We like food. Sleep. Money and the things money can buy. Life after death (for believers). The well being of our children. A feeling of importance. And sexual gratification.

No matter what your religion or sense of values, it feels good when your netherbits get tickled. I feel this is relevant to Peak Oil in that we are at the peak of population, right before some nasty things start happening as modern thinking meets the 4th Law of Thermodynamics.

While there is nothing sexy about entropy, we should keep that in mind the world now has a virtual sex machine called the Internet. Sex crimes decrease since people can find whatever they are looking for online (A 10 percent increase in Net access yields about a 7.3 percent decrease in reported rapes).

Normal people, either as couples or singles, seek sexual experiences from the magical sex box. It’s world wide, from India to Iraq to wherever. I’ll bet there are Taliban fighters whacking off in Wi-Fi enabled caves somewhere.

The point is that we are at the point with peak oil where the Zero Sum game starts to have definite losers. Right now it is starting in the poorest countries, and people are dying. Food prices will only continue to rise, and if the Ice Shelf slips into the ocean we are all fucked, no matter how many carbon credits you buy.

As long as we continue to breed and developing countries try to keep up with the Joneses (the West), we will continue to witness a decline in living conditions. As long as we continue to be prudish and deny that we are sexual monkeys, there will be fighting over the remaining bananas.

You may think I’m trying to be funny. I’m not. As the economic collapse speeds up and more people are in their own personal dire straights, they will be freaked out and depressed. Attitude is key now as things get bad.

I believe we are entering a period of time when an intervention is needed and social programs will become overwhelmed. This Thanksgiving, food banks reported huge drops in inventory and the ability to help feed people.

Hungry, desperate people are no joke. But somehow through despair, sex always breaks through, and no matter what you have been told, God won’t get mad if you take care of your needs. Do whatever you have to do to keep up a good attitude and stay positive.

It’s about to become a very rough ride.

How Would You Spend $150 Billion Dollars?

Our intelligent money spenders in Congress are out to spend another $150 Billion dollars of our collective hard-earned money to keep paying contractors to shoot people in the Middle East.

My question is… instead of spending that money on continued warfare, how would you spend $150 Billion?

Things to consider:

- We have the technology to free ourselves from the needs of oil.
- We could create great paying jobs used to implement the technology used to free ourselves from oil

I’m open to suggestions.

Secrets To Making Money With Peak Oil

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, there are ways thou shalt be able to maketh ends meet while the economy takes a crappeth on itself!

Know a Baby Boomer with a bank account?

Seriously. You might be able to siphon off of them for a bit longer while they can still muster the cash to fill their RVs and motor coaches with affordable fuel. After all, it’s the older crowd that has most of the money (resorts are full of them), while the younger crowd is starting to feel the burn of debt. No doubt hordes of twenty-somethings will be moving back in with mom and dad soon (if mom and dad still have a house). I don’t want to brow beat people anymore though. It’s too late for that… the crash is already happening, and the stage is set for some big event to fully usher in a completely totalitarian state. People didn’t have the backbone, temerity, or organizational skills to stop that from happening. That’s the power of TV entertainment for ya.

For those that tried, kudos to ya. It’s hard to spark change when even peaceful protesters are being shot and killed these days. But if people REALLY wanted to change the system, it could be done.

The problem is there is no leader able to break through to the world able to convince enough people that the world is everyone’s oyster to share. Everyone is clinging to what little pieces they think are theirs, which just goes to prove that there are lots and lots of people on the planet who think highly of themselves, controlled by a tiny percentage at the top. But now as the reality of Peak Oil really gets under way, we each have to think critically about ways to keep putting food on the table, making a living, and not getting desperate and turning to crime.

Here We Are
First comes economic pain – as we are seeing right now. Mortgage defaults, layoffs, and rising costs of living. Sales declines of all kinds are contributing to the recession, while some niche companies like survival goods are seeing spikes in sales. An ominous sign of things to come for sure.

It really is going to come down to coming to terms with reality, and making lemonade from the fact that your future may not be going according to plan. Life gets pretty scary when your monthly bills multiply like rabbits on E. Pressures will rise at work, and you might be coming home and taking it out on (Insert person or pet here). It might have been that new car you bought, or that massive mortgage. It could be the fact that you bought whatever advertisers made you and your friends think was cool, so everyone got the latest ‘thingamajig’ in different colors, with awesome add-on accessories to boot.

That’s what we’ll call “The Former Economy“. It’s all our collective fault, not any single person’s – so why not start making yourself more valuable? Now is as good a time as any to turn those useful skills you have into the ability to be happy while learning to live with less.

Can you farm?
Can you build or create useful things that help people?
Can you sell those useful things?

Now is the perfect time to learn new skills
You’ll need them. I sure see a lot of “For Sale” signs these days, and it’s only going to multiply (HINT: maybe you should wait to buy whatever you are planning on buying and get a killer deal later on.)

No matter what, remember that scarcity is a frame of mind. You still have much more than many other people, even if you have to downsize or you lose possessions. If you lose your job or your house, you are still alive and kicking enough to go earn an honest living, even if it means a temporary setback in your living standards. I’m just as vulnerable as you.

The best part about suffering is when you realize how awesome it is to redeem yourself and become a do-gooder.

Fun Bonus!
I’m always curious how people find “Lawns to Gardens”. Here are just a few search terms that have routed people to this Blog.

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Paris Hilton blowjob

Can 6.5 Billion Humans Find Happiness?

I was just reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s “How to Be Happy All The Time”. Yup, I’m a spiritual guy, and I believe we are at the point just before we head into a new period of either:

1) Harmony with one another and mother earth
2) Complete and total destruction

I’m not sure how a mix of the two would look, but I must wonder: Can 6.5 billion people be happy?

After all, the people dying every day from bombs, starvation, disease, and other assortments of unfair circumstances must not be happy. But are the people who ignore such suffering to watch the latest episode of whatever on mindless TV happy either?

When one realizes that happiness is more a state of mind rather than tally of possessions, it often is a moment of clarity allowing a person to step outside of themselves to examine the real world. There are poor people with very little that pity miserable kings with golden castles. Seriously.. don’t we have enough stuff already?

We are using up too much of the earth. The real world we live in does not care about your beliefs or mine. The real world, however, does rely on a certain set of natural rules that goes something along the lines of “Don’t shit in your own nest“.

My brothers and sisters, we have been pooping a lot, since the discovery of agriculture and locomotives. And while the capitalists of the world would very much enjoy for you to keep consuming, we have pretty much messed up the planet and overpopulated the place.

There are too many people that don’t care about enough other people. Too many selfish folks on the planet to stop the aggression – and when the news announces that we’re gearing up to attack Iran and no one even cares to protest… wow. I guess since congress told Americans to screw themselves and the current leadership is set on more military adventures… we have just given up and gone back to our TV dinners.

Just for the record, we could have tried a lot harder. “I had to take the kids to school” or “There’s nothing we can do about it” are piss poor excuses, and you should be ashamed.

Am I out of line here? Are people waking up, or is this world headed for constant warfare over oil and water, bringing on untold billions of deaths? Is anyone out there?

Presidents, Politicians, And Priests: False Gods

Insomnia. It’s a frequency thing these days.

I just can’t help thinking about which of the people in this world with the power to end it will do so, and I’m not sure we’re gonna colonize space in time. Let’s face it – as oil, natural gas, fresh water, and farmland runs out, we are entering a deeper phase of scarcity, increased confusion, and rising violence. Throw in that global warming thing and we have ourselves a recipe for catastrophe soup.

Right now, we must choose whether as people of the world we will collectively fix this planet, or we will all perish. I mean, the system that keeps us fed, clothed, and transported is breaking, no matter where you live. It’s a global system, and we’re all in this together. Meanwhile, the United Nations has been reduced to a beacon of false hope as the big player countries are quickly making new alliances based on their geography, resources, and information awareness.

Here’s a thinking exercise for you: Imagine dividing up a classroom of students, and assigning them each the role of a country. The kids that are picked as China and Russia start huddling, pooling together their armies and create their own little cooperation agreements to take a stand against the kids representing the US, Mexico and Canada.

I don’t even know how to ponder the Middle East thing. Good luck to you leaders with that.

But one thing is for sure… we had better quickly figure out how to keep feeding ourselves as the oil crash kicks in – or some false God is going to end life on this planet. Or who knows, maybe we are supposed to do it by design. I don’t subscribe to any religion other than that all things are energy, and the Universe has defined sets of laws.

You don’t need to be the smartest monkey to figure out that there are too many people on the planet. Or as Phil Collins puts it:

Too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can’t you see
This is a land of confusion.

I guess I’m just seeing too much violence in the world as some people are cheering on Armageddon. As far as I know, all religious texts tell you to mind your own business and if it does come, it’s not for you to say when.

And it’s not for some President of a nuclear armed nation to say when, either. Or a group of politicians. Or priests. Or a set of people who have a certain religious world view and are blind to any suggestions otherwise. Anyone can latch onto and internalize verses from books that have been translated many times, have had words and meaning twisted, and that contain cultural views from a long time ago.

But if you go deep, deep to the core of all of them, even the ones you read – the ultimate truths are presented clear as day. I choose to live by those truths, which means that even if you hate me for pointing out that humans have the smarts to fix the world rather than destroy it, I still love you too.

And for cryin’ out loud… start growing food at home, get to know your neighbors, and actively work for peace in this world.