Lifting the Veil

I was talking the other day with my buddy Ian about an interesting website called: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. It basically talks about how we are finally reaching peak oil and that a quick decline is about to follow. Since most goods, products and services on this planet are linked in some way or another to oil he is projecting that massive changes are going to occur whether we like it or not. Ian and I were discussing how hopeful we were for the future, and what things needed to change in order for the future to be not quite as bleak. Ian talked a bit about a different paradigm of looking at the future and the way we are currently living. He posted this alter-paradigm on his blog, it is to a T what Daniel Quinn talks a lot about in his books. The premise is basically that our current culture (everything from religion to agriculture) is based on a model that does not work, one that works against the laws of nature. For human life to continue we need to lift the veil of ‘mother culture’ and turn our path back to living within the laws of this earth. Bernie did a really nice summary of this on Glasnost while discussing the article:

The problem isn’t so much the internal combustion engine in and of itself. even if all our vehicles were converted to electric or hydrogen, the energy has to power them still as to come from somewhere. Problem is there isn’t really any solution, even if we somehow could get all our energy needs from wind, water, solar, geo-thermal etc. the amount of money and resources to invest in this would be astronomical, and like the author of the article points out that in order to get the materials and actually manufacture these types of things we would need mass amounts of our current energy source: fossil fuels.
It seems like the only solution might be something similar to what Danial Quinn suggests, to semi-de-industrialize, de-urbanize, and live in small self sufficient communities. I saw an interesting piece on Daily Planet about this experimental community out in the middle of the desert living in dome houses, using no cars, producing their own organic food, getting limited electricity from solar, hydro etc… The energy crisis might force us into something like this whether we like it or not…