I Tells the Tell

There are generally considered to be four possible outcomes to a future of decreasing energy availability. Probably the least preferred of the four is the "Mad Max" collapse theory where gangs of ruthless killers terrorize the barren countryside looking for the last drops of oil. But it's not all bad.

I've been reading Daniel Quinn's Ishmael and in the book the protagonist is asked to to describe civilization's "origin story". Nearly all "primitive" cultures have an story of their origin which tells how their tribe came into existence and why their world has the characteristics it does. In the book, the lead cannot describe ours, the origin story of today's industrialized civilization. Then I caught a bit of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and ran into this classic scene where Max hears the origin story of the kids.

These kids, the remnants of a plane the crashed fleeing the destroyed cities of Australia, formed an origin story. The story is presented orally in front of a mural of cave paintings depicting their arrival to the lush oasis in the middle of vast apocalyptic desert. Now, I could go on a tangent about the kids' desire to return to "Tomorrow-morrow Land" and it's "hi-scrapers" and how Mr. Max wants to everyone to stay put and be, no joke, "thankful" that they have found this little Eden instead of scratching out a hen shit existence in the cesspool of Bartertown in all it's methane powered glory, but I'm going to stick to the hope presented by this little passage.

Perhaps, if all Al Gore's wonderful toys fail to get built and if (hopefully not) the Transition Town movement cannot establish enough resilience-y into our communities than one can only wish that a few of us can eek out a life built in balance with the natural world and have a beautiful origin stories filled with appreciation of how they got where they are and what resources they have left.