juiceman1

Here's a news story for you all: Iraq's oil production falls short of goals.  In case anyone still doubts the trouble we're in (and I'm amazed that some people still do), Iraq hasn't been able to meet it's oil production goals since <b>2004</b>. Why is this the first time most of us are hearing about this? If the oil is almost gone, difficulties in getting to the oil that's already there are incredibly important. I mean, we can't blame the Iraq War for causing this crisis in the first place, but it's very feasible that it moved it up by a few years. That's the problem with short-termed politicians that surround themselves with yes men and fabricate the evidence to go along with their ideas of how the world should work. If nothing else good comes out of this, at least I'm pretty sure a Democrat will win the next presidential election. Too bad it might very well be too late for them to do any good.

But I said I didn't want to play the blame game, so I should stop. We've gotta focus our energies on <i>solving</i> problems. The time for preventing them has already gone.

So I know it's been a while.  I've been trying to live with less and less lately, so I get used to it.  That means the computer only goes on when it needs to (and I'm sure to keep it on power saving mode as much as possible).  I'm even writing this first in a notebook by hand so I could type it as quickly as possible when I was all done.

It's interesting the little effects I've noticed.  Like, the other day, the water in my shower started taking a really long time to warm up.  I don't know if this is crappy plumbing or some side effect of the oil shock but it made me think...what happens when I don't get to take hot showers any more?  I'm absolutely addicted to them.  They relax me, clear my mind, and are just generally amazing things for my mental state.  I think they will be the hardest thing to give up for me.

Former President Jimmy Carter came to speak here at UCI last week.  I was surprised he didn't meantion the oil shock at all, especially considering the topic of his speech was the Middle East.  He talked about peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  The only time a real hint of the whole oil thing came out was in response to a question about how the war in Iraq has affected Middle East stability.  He answered that the worst mistake this country has made in its entire history was going to war in the first place.  I think that reverberated witha  lot of us, with news of the difficulties our troops are having defending oil supplies in Iraq, and the fact that if we weren't there, maybe we could use less oil for fighter jets and more for keepng school rooms well-lit.

I'm really glad for the year and a half I spent as a vegetarian.  I'm pretty sure by the time this is over, we'll all be vegetarians (unless we're hunting for our own food).  I mean, the meat industury uses so many resources to produce what is, in all reality, a very small amount of food.  I read somewhere that of two plots of land the same size, one used for vegetarian farming and one used for raising livestock for meat, the vegetarian plot can produce over 20 TIMES as much food.  That's amazing.  I started planting some stuff for my own use...I'm not very good at it though.  I don't have a green thumb...I think I have a purple thumb or something.  But I'm learning.  And that's another positive effect this crisis is having: we all are going to have to learn things again that have long been forgotten from our collective memories.

So I went and saw Spider-Man 3 the other night.  A luxury to be sure, but a needed one.  I think I found the film more entertaining by virtue of the fact that halfway through, I realized that we might not have movies like this anymore.  How can we justify using all the resources that go into creating a special-effects blockbuster movie like this one?  It was really good getting to go out with friends and enjoy a fairly brainless movie, because that's something we might not be able to do again for a long time.

I guess I understand why the plot of all these dystopian or post-apocolyptic movies that I love so much always stem from a draconian dictator taking power.  The easiest way to solve a problem is to enforce dramatic rules from the top that no one would ever be willing to place on themselves, on their own accord.  In fact, I think that's the only way to solve a problem like this whole crisis (because of game theory and the prisoner's dillemma...I'd write in more detail about that, but I'm going to save it for later...hand cramps).  The problem is that once a government (or, god forbid, a person) takes dramatic power, it seldom wishes to give it up again.  How many of our civil liberties have we seen eroded due to September 11th, even though the direct crisis that we needed to deal with is long over?

I'm not going to lie.  I'm scared.  I really think I'm in a position to get through though.  The world we know afterward might only barely resemble the world we know now, but there's nothing we can do about that.  I think the sooner people realize that their way of life IS going to change, forever, then the sooner we can start looking for ways to make life post-crash as comfortable as possible and resume making progress as a global society.

Hello folks.

It's 4am, and I can't sleep.  It's this damn oil crisis.  So I started this second journal as a way to talk about it, record my thoughts and reactions to it as it progresses.  This is an important historical era, and I think it deserves its own journal.  That, and I'll all about compartmentalizing and organizing and stuff like that, so it seems good to have all my thoughts on the topic in one place.

My main journal name is <lj user="juiceboy">.  I chose the name for this new one, juiceman1, because I think this oil crisis is really going to force us all to grow up fast (the 1 is just because somebody already took juiceman...I considered trying 'manjuice' but then I proceded to collapse in a fit of giggles, meaning it was probably not the best choice).  Anyway, loss of innocence is such a common theme in literature (thanks to Mr. Thornburg for teaching us Lord of the Flies), and now more than ever we're going to have to confront what that really means for us.

So, how is the oil crisis affecting me?  Honestly...it's not yet.  Prices for gas are up around $4.50 a gallon, but I'm probably the only person in Orange County who doesn't have a car.  That's really sheltered me from any immediate consequences (other than people being less willing to give me rides places), but I'm not foolish enough to think that this crisis won't affect me.  The buses are going to start charging more, I'm sure of it.  After all, they run on gasoline too.  Not to mention how many more buses they'll have to add to the routes in order to keep up with demand once we reach that critical point where the cost of gasoline is greater than the convenience of driving yourself places.

Speaking of buses, Orange County isn't exactly known for public transportation.  As an example, I live about 20 minutes away from Disneyland, if you drive straight there (barring too much traffic).  To get there on public transportation, I would have to take two or three buses (depending on the time of day), and the journey would take at least an hour and 45 minutes.  How is this system going to be able to absorb a massive oil shock?

Anyway, back to how this is going to affect me (because, you know, us humans are selfish creatures...although maybe that's how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place).  I've never been good at economics.  I mean, I'm a political science major, and I'm pretty damn good at math, so you'd think econ would be cake, but I could never wrap my head around a lot of it.  Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear to me that this spike in oil prices will cause a lot of negative effects on the rest of the economy.  I mean, people will be spending more money on gas, thus having less money to spend on other things.  The market would logically have to adjust by lowering prices on other things...except for the cost of production of those things will almost certainly go up given that much manufacturing involves oil of some sort.  I'm just thinking aloud here, but this seems like bad news.  Less money to spend plus the inability of the market to reduce prices...that means a lot of people aren't going to be able to get the things they want, either because they can't afford it, or because supplies will drop dramatically.  We'll have to see how that plays out in the next few weeks...meanwhile, I'm stalking up on stuff as much as I can now.  I realize that's going to exacerbate the problem, like how everyone pulling their money out of banks helped cause the Great Depression, but my own survival is at stake, and I have to do what I have to do.  I'm considering planting a little garden of basic vegetables and fruits...it'll be tricky though, since I live in a dorm.  I work here in the housing community too, though, so I might talk to my supervisor about using some of the landscaped areas around here as makeshift gardens.  I hope it doesn't come to the point where we need that...but I've seen enough dystopian movies to know that every precaution taken BEFORE disaster strikes is potentially something that can save your life.

Who's responsible for this?  I don't think now is the time for playing the blame game.  We have to figure out how we can fix this, or, if it's not possible to fix it, how we can adjust to this brave new world.  Saying "Oh, this is Bush's fault for invading Iraq" or "Oh, this is oil companies fault for being greedy" just takes energy away from the real problems.  Besides...we're the ones that were USING all that energy, all that oil.  If anyone is to blame, it's all of us for getting complacent.  We're seeing the consequences of years of using oil like it was going to last forever.

Interestingly enough, one of those consequences was the development of computers.  Now, I think computers are going to be our salvation, as people use the Internet to figure out methods of coping and dealing with the situation at hand.  We have the potential to create community on a scale never before imagined on this planet, and I think only by creating that community, by working together despite race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability status, religion, or anything like that, are we going to pull through this.  I have an infinite amount of hope in the human spirit, and I think maybe, even in a worst-case disaster scenario, the world will end up a little more united after this.  Maybe we'll finally realize how silly we were wasting all these years fighting each other.

But it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.