When Technology Fails: How to Survive the Long Emergency

By Brianne Goodspeed , Chelsea Green Publishing. Posted January 30, 2009.

MS: Yes, on a number of occasions. I used to enjoy taking solo back-country trips through the high Sierra in the dead of winter, which required several of these skills. From extreme skiing, to rock climbing and mountaineering, to surviving avalanches, several times my body has reacted perfectly to potentially deadly situations faster than my mind could think of the proper thing to do. I have also used the "Pit of the Stomach" method to help me make a few critical decisions. I once kept the airway open for a woman who had fractured her skull in a mountain biking accident. She was gurgling and choking on blood, and may have suffocated before the ambulance arrived had I not intervened.

BG: At one time -- and not really that long ago -- it was considered impractical for a middle-class college kid to want to learn to farm, whereas learning computer skills was seen as critical for a young person's future. Do you think ideas about what is practical and impractical -- good versus not-so-good investments for the future -- are changing at all?

MS: The truth is that if technology fails in a big way, your ability to do things with your hands, like grow food, make a shelter and heal people without high-tech pharmaceuticals, will be quite valuable. Your ability to work well with others, and to be well liked and personable, will also be quite valuable. The lone wolf will face a miserably lonely existence and will be easy pickings for someone who is tougher, has more buddies and is better armed. Strength will be in tight-knit communities with a shared pool of resources and skills cemented by strong personal bonds.

BG: You write that you doubt we will see technology fail completely. What do you think will fail and -- if you don't mind indulging your imagination -- how do you think it will happen?

MS: If we don't proactively develop carbon-neutral alternatives to both oil and our current ways of burning coal for making electricity and cement, I believe that the dual threats of climate change and economic collapse will take our society down. We are already seeing huge economic repercussions from the past year's record-breaking oil prices, and I believe that this is just the beginning, because even though the world's output of traditional crude oil has been dropping for the past few years, this drop has been offset by increases in production from tar sands and biofuels, which are much harder to process than good old "sweet crude" oil.

In the next year or two, it appears that the declines in traditional oil will accelerate and the gains in biofuels and tar sands will not be able to keep up with these declines. Adding to this problem is the fact that India and China's rapid industrialization is increasing their appetites for oil at a rate of about 10 percent per year. The world's declining oil fields just won't be able to keep up with the demand for oil, so unless we hurry to develop and implement the technologies to get us off the oil and coal habit (burning coal contributes nearly twice as much greenhouse gasses per unit of energy as does burning oil), then our economies will collapse under the strain of escalating fuel prices exacerbated by horrendous global calamities due to climate change.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba's supply line to foreign oil, consumer goods and spare parts evaporated. Most Cubans lost at least 20 pounds of weight, agriculture switched from oil- and chemical-intensive methods to organic methods, and natural healing replaced most pharmaceuticals. Most people's lives went on fairly well, so Cuba is a good example for how to make the best of a bad situation.

On the other hand, as a result of the same Soviet Union collapse, the lights and the heat went out for most North Koreans, and many millions of people starved or froze to death in the harsh North Korean winters.

So, do we proactively do our best to minimize the pain of our transition from "business as usual" and a fossil fuel based economy to a sustainable way of life, or do we just try to pump the oil faster, net the last remaining fish in the sea as quickly as possible, and cut down the last rain forests so we can maintain the illusion of a good bottom line for as long as possible before the depleted natural systems collapse all around us while we go out with a bang?

BG: So, uh, what happens when our iPods won't work?

MS: We may have to learn how to sing, play banjos and gather round the camp fire to entertain ourselves, much like our ancestors did.

BG: Are there positive aspects of technological failure?

MS: In general, technology failures usually bring out the best in people. When the Cypress Freeway collapsed in Oakland, Calif., during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, homeless people became heroes risking their lives to crawl under tons of debris and pull survivors from their wrecked vehicles. I think the heroes in New Orleans outnumbered the looters and rapists by at least 20-to-1. Local catastrophes usually nurture a strong sense of community and the desire to serve others unselfishly.

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