Year 9-15
Leave it to Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister. This severe Scot, son of a Presbyterian Minister, the closest you can get to being a dour Dutchman like me, is also not afraid to face reality. Brown’s most loyal ally in his Cabinet, Ed Balls, said last week – with the express approval of his patron – that we face “The Worst Recession in over a hundred years”, that includes the one in the 1930’s.
Before that, the longest depression was from 1873-96. Then my great-grandparents lost their money, forcing my maternal grandfather to quit university, then an elite matter, and becoming a small farmer. All because of an energy crisis: 90 percent of the world’s horses died from equine flu.
If you want to survive the next long slump, become a small farmer also, go back to horses, because the 21st century version of the downturn will also involve an energy crisis, a double one actually: Peak Oil and Climate Change.
My grandfather farmed on 15 hectares, some lush grassland for his dozen milk cows and some beautiful sandy loam for the cereal crops, a horse of course, a flock of chickens, a pig, little money but enough to eat and to share, a pillar in the church and community. I am named after him.
Then – 1873 – the world had about a quarter of the people it has now. Number 1 billion of us arrived sometime in 1803 during Napoleonic time. It took 125 years to see Number 2 billion arrive, in the very year I was born. Since then, with carbon-based energy replacing horse power, the world population more than tripled, while their baggage increased twenty-fold.
Brace yourself: disappearing are endless credit, plentiful jobs and life-time occupations. Nothing will be forever anymore, except the unusual such as freakish weather and the unwanted such fuel scarcity. The sooner we confront the coming reality, the better. When Gordon Brown openly admits the truth of our situation – and Barack Obama also warns us that we face the worst – that really means that the problem is beyond the capacity of our rulers to cure: we are on our own. No wonder The Economist commented: “The notion that [America] might never recover was previously entertained only by bearded survivalists stockpiling beans and ammunition in remote log cabins.” It’s now commonly considered.
Nevertheless politicians must give the appearance of action, however useless so the USA is digging itself deeper into the dollar doldrums.
How long will this malaise last? Ed Balls says 15 years for Great Britain. The LEAP think-tank, publishing the Global European Anticipation Bulletin, in its latest report rates the economic severity by regions. It says that the USA and UK – both the world’s most indebted nations – will suffer a combined economic and social crisis for up to 10 years; Canada and Mexico will undergo a severe recession for 3-5 years. Europe will escape the worst, contracting from 2-3 years. Africa will not be affected: having nothing anyway, it can lose nothing.
Frankly, citing a time frame is futile. Here is my take for what it is worth: with the inevitable onset of Peak Oil, the inevitable coming of Climate Change, the inevitable growth of the middleclass in China and India, the inevitable surge in the world’s population, both taxing resources even more, with all these factors exerting pressure on an ever more fragile planet, I can only conclude that a return to the good old times of the Twentieth Century will never occur again.
In the Great Depression of 1873-1896, it was the country side that suffered the most because of the horse die-off, while cities suffered less. This time it will be the cities that will bear the brunt because of the energy die-off.
Two things call for action now: first, we have to abandon petro-agriculture and embrace locally grown and self-generated food, meaning physically working the land: digging, planting, hoeing, weeding and harvesting by hand, while, second, to be most effective, the bailout billions should go the European way of electrifying and expanding the railroad system. To expand the paved highway network even more is a wanton waste of ever scarcer resources. We have squandered too much already.
In a word: we have to reactivate our small towns and cities and prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller and local scale.
Yes, that means tariffs. Yes, that means going against all current economic wisdom. That sort of thinking has brought us where we are. Yes, that means “buy Canadian,” or “buy American.” The wasteful ways of having our toys shipped in from Brazil and China and India is no longer feasible.
We still have time, but not much. Talk to your friends, your immediate family. Do things together. Pull funds. Plan wisely and read the signs of the times. Gordon Brown did us a service by stating the obvious, a refreshing gesture from a politician. It’ll probably cost him his job, because voters like to be deceived.