Thanks, mella 1, for the mention of The Road; I've somehow missed hearing about that one until now. Apparently there is a screen version, too [
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la...8748.story and
http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/08/07/s...-the-road/ ]. I think I will try to see the film before reading the book, as the film version is usually such a let-down if a book is extremely good.
I have a copy of "The World Without Us" autographed by Alan Weisman, but really doubt it will come to that. Did you see the film version "Life After People"?
http://www.history.com/minisites/life_after_people Interesting how events would unfold if all people disappeared -as via an airborne disease outbreak of unprecedented lethality, but such is extremely unlikely to ever happen.
Impressive planetoid strike animation in that Pink Floyd link. Fortunately, the odds of a mass as large as that body striking the Earth anytime soon (if ever, at this point in the life of our solar system) are extremely remote.
The scenarios which seem most realistic and prompt some anxiety for me are those where things just run down and stop working because of too many failures of too many sorts at too many points in the overall system. The anxiety is not so much for myself as for my children and grandchildren, thinking about the quality of the world we leave them if we bungle things any further. If over several generations the Big Island became more like Easter Island than the relative paradise it could be even during a systemic collapse elsewhere, then it would be such a waste and shame.
Dave M, your comments and the music video link you posted are intriguing.
Yeah survival co-ops that's a heck of an idea. But I do think it's already been done. Most of you city folks would call us hicks, hillbillies and rednecks.. but when you need to know how to gut and clean a hog or build a hog trap I bet you call us sir. I do think it's a good idea, but not that original. Here's somethin for y'all to think about. Oh BTW you might want to check that pagen sht at the door if you run into these suvivilist..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4s0nzsU1Wg
While the guitar playing and singing in the music video are admirable, I found the images a bit disquieting inasmuch as there were only Caucasian faces shown there with few friendly smiles and much prideful glowering among them. Are there no country boys and girls but white boys and white girls in all the wide range of places he sang of? Self-sufficiency and rural culture are much more racially diverse than this.
Moreover, while the bard sings of the resilience, skills, and virtues of this cadre the images show time and again a marked dependence of this particular group upon internal combustion engines. There are images of nature, of a sort, but seemingly more central to the lives of the people shown are engines and motors -all of which run on petrochemicals.
I have lived among other country boys and girls who hunted in the jungle with blowpipes, bow, & spear and fished from canoes paddled by hand; if gasoline and ammo were to no longer be available then I suspect those friendly folks and their culture would still be there, largely unperturbed, many decades later. Likewise, many Eskimos, Alaska Natives, and others resident in remote villages would rightly think of the people shown in the music video as being soft and pampered "city folk" compared to themselves, but not with contempt, sullen resentment, or a vague general hostility.
Frankly, even though I am a white man myself if ever we all need to depend upon one another for the basic survival of our community then I feel much more confidence and faith in the good friends of many races I already have in Puna than I would place in fellow white men of the Aryan brotherhood shown in that music video.
E pluribus unum it were not, you know? Or, at least so the flavor of that music video seemed to me, despite the quality music. Maybe it was all the Confederate flag imagery in combination with an absence of anyone but somewhat testy white folks. What a nightmare the future will be in Puna if groups ever violently square off along racial and/or religious lines and view each other as mortal enemies.
Your question
"Soo here's the deal, you're going to have to get the Lack and Jon.. those two, with AKSteven and Dick W. and you might have a chance at survival. Now why do you think those guys are important?" seems filled with potential for some really outstanding comedy. Please do fill us in on how you see this gaggle of silly geese giving any crew a better chance for survival. That should be good for some laughs!
More earnestly, imho if greatly changed times come upon us then my hope is we can be enough of a well-prepared community exercising good foresight and mutual cooperation broadly enough amongst ourselves than no one, two, or few people are critical to the success or failure of overall efforts. Rather, Puna can be greater than the sum of its parts by everyone pulling together as a genuine community. Success as I would define it would look like life not as just mere survival, but like life as celebration.
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman
"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."
NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt
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