Unfixable (UPDATED)

This is a good 30-minute-or-so condensed version of the (roughly) 3.5 hour crash course and 317-page book. It's definitely more approachable.

The Q&A section after is excellent, with Chris addressing and rebutting the most comment points people might raise. That was golden and well worth watching.

I highly recommend passing this out!

Side Note: Again, I suggest as I did when the book was announced, that the original Crash Course videos look a little tired. They should be updated to reflect current events and statistics, charts and graphics, and more refined phrases and arguments Chris may have picked up since. The numbers and figures presented are rather outdated now. Updated charts would be even more dramatic today. Yes there's a book, but the book is 317 pages long and requires purchase - it's not someting you can spread to the masses the way the original Crash Course brought us here.

Poet

 Chris,

I've been a member of this site for some time and I visit it daily.  I have to say I have tremendous respect for your ability to think logically and with restraint (not skepticism) but healthy realism on the issues that are at hand.  As a mechanical engineer working in specifically the energy research field I have to say there is a great degree of insight your presentations could make even to people of incredible academic background and skills.

It is truly an age of incredible engineering challenges, scientific and application.  But the clarity I get when I digest the material you provide allows me to think as an engineer, to deduce steps, make reasonable assumptions and come to some sort of solution.

Prior to, and I believe without this resource, I would feel much more subject to the eager and loud whims of many voices who lack a more grounded and scientific thought process.

Thank you, I will be sharing this particular video for it's information density many time.

G

Poet -

Your feedback (and that of others) on the freshness of the Crash Course has not gone ignored. Updates as well as new video content (lots of it) are on the roadmap.

Some of this new content will be available with the launch of the new site early next year. Look for the rest to roll out across the remainder of 2012.

A

So which question got the book? 

Thanks for posting the video.  The presentation was excellent as expected, but I was also impressed with how Chris handled the Q&A, rattling off key data to support his position.  His demonstrated mastery of the subject makes his views more convincing.  He looked very sober-sided and a bit grim though, unlike his usual genial self.  A few more smiles would have helped alleviate the heavy topic.  Great job though.

Travlin 

Good to hear Adam.  I'm sure you folks have put a lot of work into these projects.

Travlin 

FNKRoue, I second your comments. The fact that Chris does not come from an energy background (as far as I know) makes the Crash Course, when it came out, ever more visionary.

As another mech. engineer working in the field of energy, what I find interesting / astonishing / distressing is that the majority of even so-called "experts" in these related fields just don't seem to be able to put 2 and 2 together to grasp the predicament we are in. The answer to fossil fuel shortages? Dig more out of the ground! The answer to food shortages? Cut down more forest and throw more fresh water and fertilizers on it! Even amongst the hundreds of employees in my office, the greater picture of "where is all this energy coming from?" just isn't addressed. We need work, and we want to grow the company, and we get that work by building more machinery to gobble up more natural resources. We have our place in the overall machine of the neoclassical economics-modelled economy and even though the people I work with are fully capable of grasping these concepts if they decided to put in the effort, it is not part of our mandate and even if we did understand what's coming, what else is an engineering company going to do?

These issues are complex and it takes a sound understanding of energy, engineering, ecology, economics, and sociology to really come to grips with them all. And then on the other side we have the media .... The current situation is as much an education in how the human mind can be influenced in certain directions under the proper conditioning and suggestion (and television "programming"), even when undeniable evidence to the contrary is presented. I am sure we can alll speak to this from personal experience.

Martensen is brilliant in the methods he uses to make difficult concepts easy to digest.  I teach public speaking at a California State University.  I will be incorporating this speech into my lecture for next semester.  The field of rhetoric needs to bring more attention to these core concepts.  I am working to do my part as an academic.

I have suspected as much in the past, but this video confirms for me the following:

Chris's IQ is off the charts. Truly in the 99.99% range. His thoughts are so well ordered that he speaks off the cuff as if he is reading from a book.

Chris has a photographic memory. His command of facts is incredible.

Chris is the opitome of a believable expert witness.  His tone of voice, demeanor and body language portray complete veracity.

In short he is the ideal person, with the ideal message, at the ideal time.  That such people step forward in times like this, in the spirit of altrusim and decency, gives me hope for our future.

Great presentation, Chris!

+10 Really well said, spinone!

Guns trump cheque books.

I follow these issues daily.  I have yet to read anything that disuades me from a die back scenario on some large scale.

1. Top soil depletion cannot be remedied by throwing money at fields.  Add to that the coming oil scarcity and climate change leads me to the suspicion that agriculturally marginal area will have extreme problems with fertility and processing.  Global grain supplies are already strained.

2. Money flows faster than oil.  If there is another oil shock, currencies will fail.  For those who depend upon selling their labor for money to buy food, things will get dicey.  In four minutes you suffocate.  In four days you die of thirst.  In four weeks you starve.  There are currently no massive networks for the distribution of commodities and labor save markets in the developed countries.  Typically, there is a three day supply of food in any urban area.  In the off seasons, the next harvest is months away.  Even people in areas that produce commodity crops will be in trouble for want of access and processing.

3. How far will the well armed countries go to protect their resources interests around the world?  As nation states falter, will regionalism replace nationalism?  Will California stop shipping vegetables east?  Will Montana stop shipping coal south?  Or will these networks collapse for want of currency?

4.  The next oil shock will likely cause some states to fail.  The unrest that can foment such outcomes is already happening.  In an interlocked global system, how many states can fail before the rest of the dominos fall down?

5.  If you follow Michael Ruppert (I don't buy everything he says), the 2013 time frame for the next oil shock may be the make or break point for all his lifeboat builders and the rest of us, too.  It seems plausible that if one is not prepared to grow a significant part of your own food, establish trade networks with your neighbors, and learn what the heck is going on here, one could find oneself in a big pile of doo-doo.

6.  This suburban landscape is like a millstone around our necks.  It's possible that it alone may be the biggest impediment to getting through the rough patch.  It's amazing that we have build deserts around all of our cities.  Here in the Bay Area, large tracts of land were in production as late as the 1960's.  Now, paved over and usless.

I think I need to take my meds now.