November Article

 

NOVEMBER ARTICLE

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Here is another reprint from my monthly magazine I want you to subscribe to. Published last winter. At the end of the article, I’ll post subscription information. Sorry, I kind of need to eat to have the energy to keep writing, and your subscriptions are my only income ( the befouled bastards at Amazon canceled by affiliate program, which was how you got a free blog for nearly fifteen years ). Either way, enjoy the following.

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PEAK OIL AND THE 100^th MERIDIAN

The infamous 100^th meridian is where life ends in an agricultural economy, the rain too poor to the west to rely on year in and year out. The line is easy to see, as the Texas border shoots up directly on that line west of Amarillo, going up to hit the panhandle of Oklahoma. That is not to say you are safe right up to that line. San Antonio is east of the 100^th and is no lush paradise. The line is more a Point Of No Return. The War Of Northern Aggression points of contention ( when the South tried

to move north from east Texas ) were more on the eastern borders of Kansas, more around the 96^th meridian.

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Life is precarious for farmers up to the 100^th, and impossible long term past it to the west. Primitive farmers, obviously. As if watermelon should have ever been grown in Arizona. With irrigation, the earth can support even seven billion, although the plight of those extra mouths now makes obvious the lies of an even greater population in any future not written by science fiction copy writers selling a utopia of some sort. They actually had those in the 1920's, selling Los Angeles real estate. Of course, back then L.A. had oodles of oil and far less population, and it still turned out badly. I fail to see any reason to support any optimism for moving there now.

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Or thinking that irrigation has a profitable future in most places in the US. A 300 foot well that needs to be sunk further is NOT testimony to mans technological progress, but rather an exercise in delusion. Living west of the 100^th will soon be far more of an apparent issue than most believe now ( don't worry, Rawlesian converts, as long as you are getting Rocky Mountain snow melt you should be okay. The less-Yuppie of you settling on the margins of that cults area? Where you need irrigation? Hosed ).

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Now, we've talked of West Versus East as a prepper, previously. I don't view the West as a great solution, because the vast majority of land is empty because there are only a few water sources and the population clusters there. I'm here because these are my people, culturally ( THE most important consideration at the end of the day ), I love the desert-the cold ones, where fewer live- and because I think herding is as viable as farming as a strategy and perhaps even superior. And to me, lack of water is a strategic advantage. But I'm not a farmer, am I?

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The East is NOT as bad as made out, from those with their own agenda, and while not an easy row to hoe, at the end of the day if you cannot count on the rain, you will NEVER be a successful farmer, without oil inputs. I would avoid the Washington DC to Boston ( or even just NYC-do a little population density research ) Death Corridor, but other than that most of the East is far less of a non-starter for the apocalypse than popular literature suggests. Yes, there are issues. There are issues EVERYWHERE. No one spot on this entire globe is free of survivalist issues.

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Canada would be great for someone who thrives in the cold, from a meat animal and isolation standpoint. It is also full of rabid socialists who never met a gun ban or tax hike or immigrant group they didn't want to snuggle up to and French kiss ( sorry, northern neighbor dudes-no offense. Hell, some US states are far worse than you, and it isn't your fault God only acknowledges our natural rights in America. Well, half of there, anyway ). Alaska might have been great at one time, for the same reasons as Canada, but is mostly over populated ( so is Nevada, but our cold is a bit more reasonable ), probably because of that oil tax profit share. That is now endangered, but the useless eaters are already living there.

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I could list every country in the world and tell you why you are an idiot for living there. Face facts, there are no more good prepper places left. We must ALL compromise. But enough of that. It is time to start looking at East v West w/Peak Oil in mind. I know, it is forbidden that I talk of Peak Oil. Peak Oil gets as much enthusiasm here as my fiction writing does ( no word back yet on last issues attempt ), mostly because despite my hair some of you have yet to grasp my true magnificence and if you accept Peak Oil in its entirety and its immediacy you would freak out, do the Funky Chicken and crap an internal organ.

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Well, we certainly cannot have THAT, now can we? Mercy sake alive. So, I sneak Peak Oil into other subjects and I'm no longer subject to 50% subscription renewal rate failures. In theory. Right now, I can hear your eager anticipation, will Jim tell me I'm a stud for living in the East? Will I be vindicated? The short answer is of course, yes, which was kinda sorta the same answer as before, just more so. Living in the West is fine, don't get me wrong. It is fine for a VERY select few survivalists. It most certainly is NOT the answer for the bulk of people.

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Water is not THE only answer, because as history has shown, there is always a group of people who can live without farming. But we also know people can live in the Arctic, and that is NOT the answer for anyone else. The only way to live in the desert is as a nomad herder, and it is only feasible otherwise if you have a river carrying regenerative silt in the middle of that desert. If you need ANY other input from afar, you have no business farming. Period.

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And this is where the West become problematic. It isn't just the water, because drip irrigation and other tricks, but the lack of water ( and to whatever degree the soil long term ) making for a lack of outside inputs. The soil must constantly be regenerated. In the East, you will find a LOT of soil that has been damaged far in the past, and hence still damaged today from oil inputs. But if you have neighboring land NOT being farmed, you can get organic plants to compost for your farm soil. In other words, it isn't enough to have water for your crops. You must have water to grow the plants that are used as fertilizer for your crop soil.

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Rotation ONLY slows degradation to the point it isn't dangerously noticeable. Nitrogen fixers, crop, fallow, is a good enough system as far as it goes, but it is still robbing the soil. You don't have to be a scientist to under the law of entropy. You must feed MORE into the soil than you take out. Don't forget, the microbes and bugs, insects and etcetera, all need to be fed as they are improving your soil. You aren't JUST feeding in the nutrients the plant gets that you eat, you are providing energy for all of the plants infrastructure. Civilizations fall on depleted soil. So can your grocery supply.

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If you want to understand violence, you only need to look at how many times ANY group, farming or herding, man or animal, over populates, draws down past replacement levels the soil, then dies off, and add in how many units would have been eating WITHOUT the deaths from fighting. Violence is necessary to keep species healthy. Just look at the increase in partial vegetarianism from China losing most of its swine, plus a bit of that in the US from shortages ( although mainly seen as Fake Meat from processed meals ), and we are STILL seeing food issues at our population levels. Violence WILL be the end answer.

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Anyway, just know that for any group to survive long term, you need far more than a farm. You need other land only harvested for its biomass. You can have that in the East, but not in the West unless you are talking about extreme depopulation first. Even free range cows out here don't work, not long term, because of the marginal soil and water simply never being enough to replace the range use. Manure does not replenish outside a managed system, and even then you need outside inputs.

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I can guaran-damn-tee you that anywhere in the West outside a few areas, and those few are easily disrupted with any regular use, soil inputs come from very far away. Each “independent” homestead needs oil to go to a centralized location to pick up inputs that come from even further away. Even with the natural gas fertilizer and hundreds of miles away hydroelectric generated electricity to pump local water, even with carbon fuels, the most energy dense form of fuel ever, STILL the soil is NOT being replenished.

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Fertilizer added to dead soil is just a hydroponics system. To get healthy plants you need organic, alive soil. If we were still eating healthy food grown in healthy soil, you can bet we wouldn't be dropping like flies from Corona and every geriatric disease out there ( and even as it is, we STILL have a pretty darn low death rate. The human body can survive some time eating literal garbage ). Yes, we can eat crap food drawn from crap soil. We've been doing it for centuries here. You'll STILL be able to survive a short time out West with no added soil inputs. JUST stockpiling bags of fertilizer could keep you fed in the driest areas.

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But isn't focusing JUST on short term survival a Gott Damn Fools Game? Don't we mock the jerk with a backpack full of three days of food and a fishing hook on a foot of line for ignoring his long term food supply? Isn't that why you know you need to grow your own food? Okay, so if that is the case, why should you ignore the long term viability of your soil? Because in all but a very few cases, your soil is ALREADY nasty crap. You are starting from less than zero. How easy would it be for a plague of pests to eat all your crop, because it was fake food in ill health to begin with?

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If we entered the apocalypse with healthy soil, we could mistreat it, draw down its nutrients, use less inputs than needed, and still eat for some time. But we are entering the collapse with crap soil, used and abused for a minimum of a century. In some cases, for almost FOUR centuries. I'm NOT claiming preppers must be Hippie soil hugging Green weenie Gaia worshipers, feeding the soil before themselves. I expect soil abuse, because in a survival situation that is what you do to avoid starvation. What I am saying is that the soil we have may not have any more draw down to it.

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Let me repeat that. The soil we have has no more extra resources to give, and rather than reduced output you might just get none. MIGHT. I'm not saying All Ye Abandon Hope. I'm saying, you MUST start rebuilding that soil immediately, or you might just not make it past a couple/three harvests. Because you won't have oil inputs. That is the Peak Oil part, where not only are inputs out of stock, if available the transportation for them is lacking. Which means you are suddenly local. And East, local just might be a heck of a lot easier, even with increased population. There is a LOT more unused land containing biomass that you can gather with human labor, transport with human labor and get that four century dead soil right back up to snuff.

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Then you can take all your enemies body parts, not for cannibalizing, but to feed the plants that will become your compost to rebuild your soil. I don't speak with any authority on that, but I would imagine that process to be pretty safe. You are using one plant removed PLUS the heat of composting to avoid any pathogens. In the West, not only do the bodies not decompose ( they mummify if the soil is dry enough, and so add nothing to the soil. With bodies and human waste in the desert, best to desiccate on the surface first before burying ), you are dealing with worthless soil anyway.

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In the West, you have no extra biomass. That is it. That is as simple as can be. And where there is extra, you have a very long distance to go to get it. Meaning you probably use far more calories than it can deliver going to go get it. The West had indigenous populations, but on the same scale as the Arctic inhabitants. Living on the edge of existence because they had been forced out of far better land by stronger tribes. Which, while we are at it, were NOT great care takers of the land either, despite what Dances With Wolves might have taught you.

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Don't believe me? What did they use for fuel out on the tree-less prairie? Buffalo chips. Now, what replenished the soil, if that was the case? They were STILL drawing down the fertility of the soil, even if it would have taken some time to notice. All people, through all times, any where and any when, eventually draw down the soil. If it takes a century for an undisturbed patch of soil to rebuild, do you think maybe a human farming that, or an animal eating MORE in times of lean would perhaps use up that soil just a tiny bit quicker?

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Species ALL over populate and die off, that is their control mechanism. Humans, with violence, actually INCREASE our survival odds by regulating the end demand of depleting resources. Otherwise we would be akin to a herd of deer stripping a land area of vegetation when the group got too large ( which is why we hunt, to keep the survivors healthier, right? ). I am NOT telling you to be in balance with nature, to only take the surplus.

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I'm saying that you WILL once again overpopulate. And you can either get ready for that by taking better care of the soil, to increase the health of the plants adding to your survivability, or you can plan on the Violence or the Population equation to counter the consequences of worse soil. You can use violence to take from better soil elsewhere, or you can go the infanticide or geriatricide route. These are your options, because right now, you SHOULD be viewing the negative consequences of relying on oil to mask our bad soil.

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You are a retard if you think Corona will ever end. It cannot end, because it is the camouflage for violence counterbalancing our depleting oil no longer replacing our depleted soil. Right now, the triage is slight and barely noticeable. We started out Opium Killing the seniors, right about after the Baby Boomers started retiring. Now we are Corona Killing them. And if you think Governor Grandma Killer is a bug and not a feature, you have no clue what we are in for. Of COURSE the government is Baby Stepping the genocide. But triage it is. Of COURSE they are Baby Stepping the race war. But triage it is. Of COURSE they are Baby Stepping the total end of imports, by merely ending the useless plastic trinket supply, but that WILL soon include all energy and food imports. A triage.

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Banana shortage due to a hurricane? I thought hurricane season was over a few months ago? When you see shortage after shortage after shortage, do you not see anything but shortages in your future? You shouldn't. Institutional system shortages, a form of benign violence ( like the over a year and a half old drug supply shortage, killing by neglect ), is the START of violence direct to flash flood depopulation. A triage. If you need any more detail than that, just stay in the suburbs next to the ghetto. A revolver should have enough ammo to put the whole family out of their misery before they are burned alive inside.

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Get your head out of your flag draped ass. Hubris kills. Not to say, head East, young man. This is only to say, despite more enemies to kill, the East is most of our long term better bet. But you are where you are. Make the best of it. Realistically assess your area, and make hard choices. I make no secret of the fact I might be successful as a herder, if the breeders survive, but even then, I'll also have to be a raider. That is the geological imperative. If you are East, you'll have to depopulate your area of operation.

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In the West, you'll need to genocide. The area does NOT support those already there, the resources too fragile to accommodate any others. In the East, you just need to persuade them to move on. In the West, because water is too far apart without oil transportation, if you let anyone live they have no choice but to double back and attack you. In the East, even with more people, they are not forced to go far to survive, so you will have less conflict even so ( except that coastal corridor ). And no, all the Yankees will NOT move south to survive. Cutting wood for winter is safer than attacking those living in the South.

( .Y. )

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James M Dakin

181 West Bullion Road, Unit 12

Elko, Nevada 89801-4184

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