The Oil Drum: Canada

331 comments on Energy Decline and National GDP in 2050: The Growth of Destitution

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westexas on November 13, 2007 - 11:41am

Interesting comment by George Ure, at Urban Survival:

A great resource is “The bean book” by Rose Elliot. However, the information and recipes in the book can be had free if internet access is available.

Recipes abound, especially on the internet, but what is the key is turning the thinking around. Most humans on this planet, for most of history, have been poor. Let us learn from their examples and learn to live and eat well with little money.

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GliderGuider on November 13, 2007 - 11:47am

Yep. Over the last 100 years we in the developed world have come to regard our increasing wealth as inevitable, normal and somehow our "right". It's the old problem of shifting perceptual baselines writ large.

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writerman on November 14, 2007 - 3:11am

GliderGuider,

Thank you for the article.

Most of my daughter's friends are taking year off before starting at university. A surprising number of them are planning trips around the world, stopping off in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, then California and a wander through the US before the get to New York!

A quick word with these "golden children" reveals a total lack of awareness about the nature of the world of scarcity we appear to be heading for. It's frightening. They all come from educated, professional families, who live really well, pretty similar to the Roman gentry. For the them the world is their gilded oyster. They're mostly occupied by finding new ways to spend, new sports to try, and exotic vaction destinations.

Basically, people are enjoying the party as long as it lasts, because they've given up on thoughts of changing society. Society, is, as it is. Whilst there are environmental "challanges" new technology will provide, and materially, things can only get better!

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ericy on November 14, 2007 - 8:50am

My niece attends a private school, and many of her classmates in my opinion are spoiled rich kids. Thus my niece comes home from school with all kinds of crazy ideas about what's important in the world and what isn't. This kind of handbag. That kind of car. Etc, etc...

I try and bring her back to earth every so often, but she usually just looks at me like I have two heads...

My brother and his wife aren't that way at all, and my brother and I are really in agreement about our consumeristic society and Peak Oil. They both teach in the public school system (and the crap they see at work is what motivated them to send their kids to private school).