unforum

[rose]

[META] Those of us living in major urban areas

[xnera]

A general FYI for everybody: They have the community's options set so that only members of the community can comment. This means if you want to comment on the WWO LiveJournal, you need to create a LiveJournal account (it's free!) and join the community.

But you don't necessarily need a LiveJournal to comment on other WWO-related LJ posts. For example, I have my comment settings set to allow "anonymous" comments, so anybody can select "anonymous" and leave a comment in my journal. If you have an account on a system that has an OpenID server, you can also sign in with your OpenID account to leave a comment in my journal.

If anybody has any questions about how LiveJournal works, feel free to PM me. I'm a former LJ Support Volunteer so I'm quite familiar with how LJ works.

Okay, enough about LJ I agree that we need to think about taking care of each other and community living. Unfortunately I don't have any really good ideas at the moment, but I'll think about it.

[labfly]

multiple uses for fuel cells and turbines

[KSG]

The self-sufficiency push is based on the idea that oil is our main transportation method, so if that goes away, your tie to people you rely on is gone. The only reason crowded city living is possible is because there is transport between the city, which consumes far more than it produces, and the farms, which produce more food than their owners consume. Being best buddies with everyone in the apartment building will only get you food if the rest of them have some to spare.

You are right that the community push is a message missing from a lot of the talk. The community push would be making up for people, not materials, that you don't have access to. Basically, everyone needs to know first aid, and you should know which apartments have doctors and nurses in them. The emphasis away from this and onto self-sufficiency is probably there because most people see eating as a more immediate need than health care.

[Rekidk]

I think that pushing for self-dependency would defeat the purpose of this game. After all, weren't we all told that the point of this was collaboration and community--working together to solve a problem?

I'd find it quite odd if we worked together to decide to stay apart.

[KSG]

I thought the teamwork was in the form of ideas and information, not actually feeding each other. I've yet to see someone feed someone else via LiveJournal. A big part of the problem is, in fact, that without oil you become very limited in the number of people you can work with.

[Rekidk]

I agree that we can't feed eachother via LiveJournal--however, the 'community' and 'togetherness' of ARGing in general certainly makes me think that people would be willing to work together to help eachother.

I was referring to (and elaborating on) this quote in-particular:

[OrangeForAHead]

Sorry, I've been busy with midterms and projects, but I hijacked an idea. Day Without Gas, May 15th. That's not this Tuesday but the one after. You guys think it's an alright idea? If so, we have to take action immediately to make everyone aware. It could work, really!

[jwiv]

Re: [META] Those of us living in major urban areas

[Rogi Ocnorb]

Living on the outer edge of the burbs, it's interesting hearing the urban perspective on these scenarios. Most people I know around here tend to keep greater quantities of life's essentials on hand than their more efficient urban cousins. Maybe it's just that we have more room or that getting things takes more effort, so we just tend to stock up. In my house, we have a fairly well-stocked pantry and even emergency rations and drinking water. We have a woodstove and a supply of wood, extra propane tanks, medicines, ammo, money and just a lot of stuff that would be hard to get in a panic. Bulk water for bathing, growing a garden, etc. would be a problem as would gasoline. And we could use a generator, if I were more convinced that there was a real need. I'm not at liberty to tell you about a certain forgotten mineshaft a half-dozen families will meet at if the balloon ever goes up.
Is there a point to all this? Well, I think I'm trying to say that people living on the fringes tend to be a little more self-sufficient while the cities tend to attract a lot of folks who have been raised in an entitlement environment. It would only take a small percentage of these types of folks to really ruin life for everyone. If they decide that they truly deserve the food or other convenience(s) your building/block/church/business has available, they will take it from you. Looting is pretty rare in the burbs. I know, that if I were to grow a garden, it would be just as easy for someone to raid it as it would be in the city (Easier, I'm sure) but probably less likely unless things went south on a grand scale.
I applaud your desire to find a way to make the city continue to run in a crisis, but if it were something happening on a nationwide scale, the government will be too busy making sure they're taken care of to be of much help to you and I really wouldn't want to be living there.
I'm not trying to poison the thought process involved in finding solutions related to weaning ourselves from "black gold", but I think the first step would be to think of ways to keep the public involved and working together and not against each other. We really don't have an "enemy" to galvanize our thoughts and actions against like we did in WW2, so that's a huge challenge.
Some will say that I have no faith in people and am too paranoid, but like I said, it only takes a few lazy/panicked/desperate people to ruin everyone's day.

ETA: Wanted to add this link to a primer on the hydrogen economy as it was mentioned earlier in the thread. Bottom line... It takes more electrical energy to split water and collect the hydrogen than the collected hydrogen can produce. The only currently feasable way of generating hydrogen on a large scale and not violate the laws of thermodynamics involves the use of a reformer and hydrocarbon-rich sources (oil). And guess where the "waste" CO2 from that process goes?

Until we build more nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind, wave, etc. power generation facilities, fuel-cells are not the answer to our problems.
And if we're generating that kind of power, it makes more sense to switch over to as much electrically powered "stuff" as possible. It's much easier and safer to move electricity around than pressurized hydrogen and for things like cars, battery-electric cars are on the order of 3-4 times more efficient than their hydrogen fuel-cell counterparts.

[Nola]

Re: [META] Those of us living in major urban areas