Sunday, April 01, 2007

Peak To-Do-List

Peak Oil To-Do List

1. Recite this daily: "Today is better than tomorrow."

Healthy peak oil psychology starts here. This phrase has become a common mantra among Iraqi people to remind themselves not to put their hope in a miraculously brighter future. It is a remarkably honest and pragmatic way to face dark times.

Start thinking about life with less, not more. Seize the opportunity to act now with the resources that remain at our disposal. When we cling to hope that things will "turn around" we miss today's opportunities to prepare. What we have today is the most we will ever have. It will never get easier to act than it is today.

2. Forget your "little house on the prairie."

Start preparing to weather the storm where you are. Take inventory. Be creative. Use your hands. Evaluate your liabilities and do everything you can to turn them into assets. Your situation might not be ideal, but it's what you've got. Make the most of it and resist the fantasy that a sustainable life can be bought. It can only be built where you are, one choice at a time.

3. Grow some food.

Just grow something - anything - you can eat. It's a start.

4. Stop being a consumer.

Buy only what you must have. If possible, buy it at the thrift store. Peak oil guarantees that the ship of consumerism is going down. Be the first to get in the life boat by altering your lifestyle, and you'll do it on your own terms. Everyone else will follow eventually, but as an angry, frightened mob.

5. Host monthly peak oil potluck suppers.

Make an effort to get to know other crazies like yourself. You need them, but don't forget that they need you as well. Now, here's the important part: as a group, do more than talk about what's coming. Find out what you can do for each other - and then DO it.

People tend to overestimate what we can get done in the short-term, but underestimate what we can accomplish in the long-run. If we start now and do every day what we can do, then we have a good chance of making it - changed, but still here.

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