The silent praying of the true belivers

I have argued and still believes that what we call "modern western culture" is best understood when seen upon as an religion built on the 3 pillars of; Economic growth, technological progress and the idea that we have cast the very shackles of religion and superstition.
Translated into practical terms;
- There is no limits (as otherwise said by non-believers) and everything is always going forward and getting better.

- We can solve all problems with new or yet non-existing technology (not least the problems created by technology).

- Other non-technocrat cultures are (funny/backward/don't know there own good/dangerous) and since we (are/know/have prof that we are) better we have the (right/moral duty/opportunity) to (help/give/provide/persuade/shock and awe) others to our way of life/democracy/lifestyle.

As long as we can somehow or see some prof of progress (how ludicrous it might be), we can continue to study/work/endure/believe because there in the horizon lies the modern nirvana - plenty and justice for everybody, technology that actually delivers on the promise and no-one get old and sick in that ugly, smelly way.

After WW2 progress and technology began till deliver on the promises and what was regarded as science-fiction began to melt together with they idea of the modern.

One of the effects of "the modern" is the notion that the past no longer concern us, no longer bear meaning to us - that the past cant teach us much and this gives us endless possibilities to make every mistake all over again.
Technology and oil becomes the thin paint that covers reality and the ignorance of the past even succeeded in making us forget how a lot of modern was born in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

The idea of the modern is just that.. an idea.. A slide of hand that has succeeded in persuading us that we where somewhere else resting on an all-together wonderful and everlasting new foundation.

As time went on we saw penicillin, television, atomic power, washing machines, a man on the moon and everything was fine (beside from the also modern new threat of nuclear holocaust). God proved his existence from time to time.

And things did get better in reality.. to a point. The popular belief was that it was the result of "human ingenuity" and "science". The graph shows another reality and the turning point of 1979 is the departure point from reality.
After this point we made up first with some fuel-saving innovations for a while and later when easy savings, with make-believe. Since we had so high regards of the future is was merely a formality to take out a little loan in the future that would be so plentiful - This how that went;

(source)
See how beautiful they correspond. It´s statistics from the US but it´s the same for all western countries. I should mention that Greece is especially beautiful this time of year.

One of the consequences of the future-ever-better belief is that the children is always to surpass their parents (unless they become drug-addicts or hippies). And no mobile phone or computer on the internet can hide that your car is smaller than your parents or that you cant get a loan on a (smaller) house without the help of your parents or that your job is badly paid and most of the time of a temporary nature. This challenges our beliefs, but we let doubt get the better of us in the hope that this is only a small setback and we have been promised.. and we wait and wait..
...and pray in silence.

Before the storm breaks

Nearly 2 year ago I stopped writing on the blog. From time to time I wondered why it seemed like I couldn't write another word. Since march 2010 a lot of things has happened, but mostly of 2 sorts; Stalling or events that progress toward chaos. This is the last draft I wrote 2010, but did not publish.
 

The Nina over-iced winter 2010 

"I have not written in a long time. I needed a break to think things over, see patterns evolve.

2 major movements have taken place the last 6 months.

- Peak oil is now (all most) mainstream.

- Banks have taken a much unwanted centre-stage in public consciousness.

Peak oil before the breakthrough.

At the latest ASPO conference in the US a hole new group of speakers took the stage. Peakoil has the last several years bin off-topic only discussed by die-hard's and smeared by bought of lobby consultants. Those believing in the theory of Peak oil  (many working in the oil industry) has also bin called the Peak oil movement which is sort of an irony since Peak oil is science. For many years the Peak oil "movement" was compared to the other movements in the field of conspiracy theories. Many years has been utterly wasted because of this tactic.

But now it is very clear that a group of early (public and professional) adapters has entered the stage. I am convinced they are the 2nd wave coming just before Peak oil goes mainstream.

Seen in the rear-mirror the case for Peak-oil was clear ~2004 in the public domain. Insiders from the oil-industry and several major governments seems to have known about Peak oil as early as 1999. To stall and hinder a topic as important as Peak oil is no less than criminal conduct. 11 years has been wasted - a time mainly used focusing on 2 major (oil) wars and the art of inflating real-estate.

A shy banker takes centre stage.

I have spend the last 6 month reading about money, thinking about money - back and forth, back and forth, and then there is the banks.

One of the 

One of the absolutely most amazing facts about banks and the monetary is how little most people know about bank and what money are, despite the nearly daily contact with both money and the bank."

I now have had the time to ponder and some time has passed.
Several patterns has become even clearer.
- Peak-oil is no longer a topic, mostly because we are so focused on the economy, thereby ignoring the connection between available energy and money, thereby making it impossible to act accordantly toward a solution. Still at the roadside, out of money - not out of gas. 

Banks has been in focus since 2008 and still is, BUT 4 years into a crises created by the banks and the bank-system the discussions about WHY the banking-system create these problems is still only skin-deep. Any trustworthy solution to the underlying problems in the current monetary system is still sci-fi and is only talked about in fringe-communities.

I'm pretty sure now I stopped writing because I really did not like the way this was going and that future felt suffocating - I could not get around the fact that I was beginning to question the good and right in man himself.
   
Meanwhile...
A new pattern is becoming clear - THE SILENCE.
A scientific breakthrough paves way for a new humanism - OUR ORIGIN.
 






More on these topics in the next post.
 

Will the car run out of gas or did I forget to fill it up?

This might seem like a very stupid question, but it have some real impact on the way act to the energy question. I was on an oil-meeting the other week and we talked about 200$ oil - more specific when oil will hit 200$. Some said we might not hit 200$/barrel, because the economy would take a dive long before 200$ - It might not reach 100$ before it would turn the economy in to recession again. If that happens its not curtain that any fingers will be pointed at the oil, but all talk will be about the "bad" economy. Then we will miss the point that the energy-price is bringing down the economy (again) and miss that we have an energy crisis, but look to the politicians or the bankers to fix the "money" problem.
when we hit 147$/barrel Juli 2008 it was clear to all (in mass-media) that there where an oil(price)problem, but when the world monetary system nearly collapsed 2 month later (October 2008) all talk of oil disappeared and to this day only a small group of die-hards have made the connection between oil and money. That the oil got to 147$ in the first placed was probably because of "good" state of the world economy up to crash - If the the general state of the world economy had bin worse when oil-demand outstripped supply and there way a price ramp-up, the price might not had passed 100$ before the "bad" economy had destroyed demand.
If I have 5 liters of gasoline left in the car, but no money to buy more gasoline, I would probably not think that I have a "gasoline problem" but likely think I'm a poor man (unsuccessful pathetic broke idiot) that need to get some money.
If I drive the car and it run out of gas, THEN I will think that I have an acute gasoline problem.
 
One of the BIG challenges right now is to promote the connection between oil (energy) and money.          
   

The case off the Open Solar panel controler - 1

Here it is - a real beauty. It so simple I can make it (alone - no help). Its cheap, no micro-components.. Its build on the Arduino project. Its scalable (if I have a large solar-panel array). Its open hardware.
Oh and its for controlling the charging of lead-acid batteries with solar-panels. If you don't control the power coming from the solar-panels it ends up cocking all the water out of the batteries (and that kills the batteries for good). I want one of these and I do in fact also need one one for my 2 55w solar-panels.
A nice fellow - Tim Nolan has put a lot of effort in this project and I really like the documentation.

Then comes the hard part - finding the right parts. Tim live in the states and he shoppes from shops there, in the states. I could do the same (same shops), but that have drawbacks.

• Difficult to return parts if parts are defect and its expensive.
• My packet could be intercepted in customs. Beside for the 2 week extra delay, there a possible extra cost. 
• The packet could be lost somewhere in transit (it happens).

So I opt for baying as close as possible to home. Then comes the problem - parts are parts are parts. Very often parts in USA is not called the same as the same part in EU. Then there is the problem of resellers naming the part something else so you can't compare prices with another reseller.

• An example: The project needs a MAX4173H ic-chip. Very well.. its a chip for charging batteries.. where to find? 

• Elfa don't have MAX4173H, but they do have MAX4172ESA and it seems to be doing the same... but i don't know for sure.. I'm not an electric engineer. The chip cost 4 euros and it feels like a very stupid problem.
•  If I google MAX4173H:.se and uk and dk and de and no - no hit. 

Its the tower of babel all over again..

More later (when I have tracked down the elusive parts).

Competition! The dream of the electric ship, or ferry, or something to keep us going on the current course.

What does this ship make you think of? Give me your best, win a big prize.

2bFrank sees this parallel:

 

Im more in this direction..

Anon thinks of this.

The open service packet service - idea.

The Open Packet Service (OPS), work just like the backbone of the Internet (the IP protocol) with a twist.

How it works:

I want to send  a packet to my friend living a 100 km from me. I go to the Internet website for OPS and I plots in where I live and where I want the packet to go. OPS then suggests how much I should "CHARGE" the packet with - lets say 50 bobs. I pay 50 bobs to OPS. Then OPS puts on the Internet that a packet is waiting at my house for pickup and that there is 50 bobs to be made if you deliver this packet. Now here comes the beautiful part. Someone sees this message (on the OPS site) and he is going by my house anyways so he picks up the packet. He would love to take the packet all the way to the receiver, but he can only take it half the way. Fortunately there is a small OPS trading post half way on route (It a small shop of any sort with Internet connection). He hands in the packet in at the OBS trading post - This is being registered at OBS and he gets his cut of the 50 bobs - Lets say he gets 23 bobs. Then the packet lays at the OBS trading post - Charged with 25 bobs (the shop-keeper gets 2 for his service). Another person sees the packet on the Internet an picks up the packet and deliver it to the receiver, earning him 25 bobs (when my friend tells OPS that the packet is being received).
That is Open Service Packet service!

As long as the packet gets nearer to its destination you can ear money.
A traveler can pick up several packets on the way earning more money on the way.
If a packet gets stock on its way (or you think it goes to slow) to the destination, it can be "overcharged" where it is (because you can see where its stuck on-line).

Most cars only travel with 1 passenger, this could be a way to make that car travel a bit more reasonable (and economic).

The infrastructure making OPS possible is all in place (Internet, VISA, mobile phones, people, cars, boats etc.).

There is one several obstacles that need to be worked out in order to make the system work.  

• Make it  possible for citizens to earn micro-money (there is a tax bureaucracy issue here).
• Get around the argument that OPS will be used to carry illegal substances eg. drugs. When I have discussed OPS with friends they all mention this - but I cant see how this differs from other postal-services. Maybe a solution is to carry OPS packets in transparent plastic wrap. 
• What if the packet is lost on the way? Who is responsible? Again I think there is a workaround to the problem. When the OPS-traveler picks up the packet he gets liable for a specified amount and if he loses the packet the sender is compensated.

You can say that OPS is just the file-sharing network of real-world packets. People do it all the time through friends (can you take this and give it to..), OPS is just a more organized way of doing it. This is to me what getting organized is all about.  

Background:
I live on an island in Sweden and this comes with mixed blessings, one of them being trying to get a packet from "overseas". Several times I have ordered items from Australia and Hong Kong. I can follow the packet via the wonders of the Internet a see how Its getting nearer and nearer - Until it gets to Sweden then it stops. Nothing happens. 3 days later I get a letter telling me that I can pick up my FEDEX/USB etc. packet at the local post-office (5 km from here and not the nearest post-office). Trying to SEND a packet from this place ANYWHERE, and that includes just across the island, is very expensive and slow or maybe impossible.

Why you ask am I so hung up on sending or getting a packet you may ask?
The answer is that the second I want a spare part or something that is not a consumer goods that is pre-chewed and forced-feed my through proper channels I'm in trouble.
If I try to get my friends on the other site of the island something they need, I don't think it should be cheaper and a lot easier to drive a 100 km in order to do this.
The postal service has gone from bad to worse the last 20 years. Service is gone and the postman can not as before deliver anything or pick anything up (still unemployment is rising..).
If we are to able to save energy, travel less, make things last longer, repair stuff - we must have a working postal service. Before the state thought is was vital to have a working postal service - I gees its why they chose to own it - now 5 to 12, 10 minutes before we really need it, its sold of and dismantled.

That made me think of the idea of the Open Packet Service (OPS).

______________________________
Small update (24/2-2010). Announcement; The Swedish postal service is to be cut by 2000 (more).

Resilience

Wikipedia: Resilience is the ability of a material to recover from a shock, insult, or disturbance.
Its also psychological resilience. We need both physical and psychological resilience in the near future. Another way to view resilience is short-term and long-term resilience. My mother told me about a 1960 short-film describing how the whole of society is hanging in a tread - and that is how vulnerable the society is. Resilience is the opposite to this.

Psychological resilience.
As I have described earlier we have become true believers in progress and a better society (still praying to the unknown God). So if we are meet with the opposite (a crises), most people will react badly to this - denial, anger (especially at the messenger), despair and so on. We need psychological resilience to deal with the crises and we need resilience in dealing with the transition to a carbon starved future.

The Swedish state has a department called Department for psychological defense - www.psycdef.se (this sends you to another URL with a more acceptable name).

The goal of the Swedish PsyDef is;
"The task of the MSB is to enhance and support societal capacities for preparedness for and prevention of emergencies and crises. When one does occur, we support the stakeholders involved by taking the right measures to control the situation".

That sounds very good - maybe the word "stakeholders" is a little strange. Does that mean the citizens or does it mean the institutions, the government?

There is a dilemma when you try to build up the resilience in the country.
One of the most destructive forces that can be unleashed in a country is panic and chaos. Ex. looting can destroy a working society in short time (see Iraq).
To get through the first shock without panic and chaos is vital. Therefore you want the citizens to be calm in a crises and the listen to the authorities.
THEN you want the citizens to have personal resilience and stamina, being able to cope without authorities (for a while). The state knows it can not be everywhere in times of crises and that people have to make it through on there own.
So there is needed 2 sorts of resilience:

• Shock resilience (short term, trusting authorities, centralized)
• Abandonment resilience (long term, self sustaining, localized) 

Shock resilience is mostly needed in case of a war, a great catastrophe, breakdown of the banking system or the electric grid, an outbreak of a pandemic, in the hours and days following the crises.
 
Abandonment resilience is needed needed in the aftermath of war, catastrophes and is needed to cope with slow moving negative changes like rising unemployment, rising prices, shortages, living with the consequences of interruptions in the electric grid, the banking system, in the month following the crises.     

Physical resilience.
This can be translated to sustainability, invulnerability, independence, durability.
Often described as the capacity to keep vital parts of the society functioning (mostly police, hospitals, government, military, banking system, electric power is meant by that). Ideas of self sustainability has long been abandoned and the trend going towards globalism. Ideas of local self independence is not part of any central governments thinking or policy. Some local people think about this, but when it comes to actually prioritize and build resilience in the rural areas there is nothing. The trend since 1960 has been going towards centralization.
Again its reasonable to talk in terms of short and long time resilience in the society.
The development of bigger faster machines and transportation plus pervasive communication technology has greatly improved the short term resilience since WW2, but the long term resilience is since WW2 been greatly reduced. A power-cut will cripple the society instantly and the petrol reserve will last max. 90 days. After 90 days are we in very unplaned territory.
The long term physical resilience is just not there - lack of petrol and lack of spare-parts will grind the current society structure to a halt.

The planing for long term resilience was on mind of those in power after the war, but this focus withered away gradually until it was silently totally gone somewhere in the late 1980s. 
I have found an example of some one of the last long term resilience efforts.
As late as 1980 there was still a university department in Sweden looking in to how the biggest Swedish car manufacture could prepare Volvo cars to run on gasified wood gas if needed. During the second world war more than 1.000.000 cars and trucks was modified to run on wood-gas. It was this effort made it possible to have continuation of the civil society during the war. This lesson was finally lost 1986 and today we are even more vulnerable than 1939 because modern cars can for the most not be modified to run on wood-gas without a major intrusive intervention on the car. Read more on www.gengas.nu och här.

Here is another sad story from Sweden. This story is of now. The expansion of wind power is being hampered by many "stakeholders", one of them being the military. Modern wind turbines are big and they shadow the radars of the military. That means that the military turns down many application for wind turbines. The military do this on the base of national security (and has done for many years). That brings us to question of national security and that brings us to the question of resilience - short term and long term. A more energy independent Sweden would be more resilient and more secure as I understand security - national security. Today Sweden is participation in the "operation" in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is about natural gas and gas-pipelines. I doubt very much that Sweden would be there if Sweden was energy independent - fighting wars in faraway countries is a question of national security and I don't believe its a good solution to our energy dependency (I'm not interested in the moral aspect of the question). Permitting Sweden to become this vulnerable to factors we can not control in countries very far from Sweden is irresponsible to say the least. This policy has weakened the Swedish (and EUs and USAs) national security to a state where we have to be aggressors in order to get the resources we need. This is the result of a very faulted security policy. That politicians have acted in this short-sided manor is not surprising, but how security expert within the military and intelligence haven't protested loudly during the last 35 years is a mystery to me. To build the wellbeing of the society on a dwindling oil resource is more than critical. The facts have been around for 35 years! Even the US military has faced the facts. And again its not me and some other nobodies who think that the peak oil is a fact - Its the IEA, The International Energy Agency. We are prepare for the Ruskies, but not trivial facts of live.

And when it comes to preparing the population for a carbon-starved future the policy's are just as depressing. Somehow the risk of scaring people and thereby damaging the stock marked outweighs the risk of social chaos and shock when the bubble burst. This is VERY much contra to what the whole idea of a psychological defense. The trust in authorities is paramount in times to come and the time has come to face the facts - The stock marked and the financial system can not be saved by optimism. The last bailout was the last bailout and it kept us warm for 1,5 years, but the smile is wearing thin. Trust is a hard won currency. Who is going to listen politicians excusing them self, saying that nobody could have known? The public servants should consider how they can keep some of their credibility in the coming times.    
I'm afraid the only plan is the "don't panic - help will come" and that is not a plan.