The Pencil Warrior
biweekly column published July 3, 2008
Socorro, NM Mountain Mail
Dave Wheelock

Last week I was invited by a friend to a weekly afternoon meeting on the patio of a downtown Santa Fe coffee shop. As an itinerant university staff member on an annual nine-month contract, I had recently gravitated to my familial hometown for the summer. In the cooling shade of a Chinese elm a group of citizens pulled a couple of tables together to discuss local planning for the effects of peak oil and natural gas.
I was grateful for the invite. Since the first of a series of Pencil Warrior columns devoted to dwindling supplies of energy sources appeared in summer 2005 I had felt a little like Chicken Little in my adopted hometown of Socorro. In that first article I’d warned that “profound consequences of the impending peaks in oil and natural gas production will not only bring about lasting changes in our lifestyles, but threaten world civilization itself.” The coming shortage of fossil fuels was for real and would be permanent, and we’d best prepare.
The scant reader response my articles elicited, combined with the ease with which a heartbreaking number of acquaintances dismissed the subject in conversation, just about convinced me no one was listening.
Now that prices at the pump have nearly doubled, of course, the Americans are sitting up. It seems now everyone and her cat has an opinion of what’s going on, and what must be done to preserve that which cannot be saved – our “just in time” economy dependent on faraway sources of energy, supply, and even government.
But these citizens – an archaeologist, an architect, an energy consultant, a former Washington political staffer, and a county commissioner-elect were among this week’s attendees - were not here to figure out how to preserve the electric toothbrush, or corporate America. Rather their volunteer efforts revolve around creating and managing a new Citizens’ Energy Board to assist the city and county of Santa Fe in supplying that which they realize will be required in an uncertain future characterized by both climate change and energy shortages: clean, localized energy sources to fuel a new, equally regional economy. The Age of Relocalization is arriving, for those communities that have prepared to make it happen.
And it IS happening. In Europe and elsewhere, towns, cities, and whole countries are officially initiating programs to create local economies divorced from the doomed trajectory of carbon-based systems, in which literally all requisites for society – clean water and air, healthy food production, adequate shelter and security – are tied to the fate of the oil, gas, and coal industries.
The ad hoc committee has been hammering out a proposal for the formation of Santa Fe’s Citizens’ Energy Board to be presented to Santa Fe’s County Commission. The draft reflects how a relocalized economy fits naturally with the principle of democratic power sharing. “Inasmuch as local citizens are the base of the new economy, the transition process best comes from them . . . The CEB would have representation from local businesses and NGOs [non-governmental organizations], city and county energy planners, sovereign Pueblos and citizens from each county district. It would conduct studies, outreach and education, and craft ordinances relating to energy.”
For any community seeking energy (and thus economic) security the task of refocusing basic infrastructures will not be easy. As pointed out by Post Carbon Institute’s Daniel Lerch, author of the essential planner’s guidebook “Post Carbon Cities”: “Identifying and mitigating community vulnerabilities is one of the more important . . . expectations we have of our local governments. Unfortunately, as with many other undertakings that aren’t immediate or regular priorities, local governments often don’t have the resources to address such vulnerabilities except in times of crisis, when it’s too late to prepare.” Thus the critical need for citizen input.
At the meeting I sat in on, folks talked about instituting a municipally-owned electrical power grid, which could free Santa Fe’s residents from the historically tyrannical grip of the Public Service Company of New Mexico (better known as PNM). Another item of discussion was the eventual formation of similar citizens’ committees organized around food and water security, sure to be threatened in the conversion from bountiful to limited energy availability.
As we exit one era and enter another, Americans increasingly wonder what the future will bring. At the ripe old age of 55 – “halfway to 60” – it sometimes seems I’ve been there, done that. But it feels incredibly good to rub shoulders with those who are already stuck into the process of developing solutions in a way that is consistent with our democratic ideals. It will only be sweeter if Pencil Warrior readers see fit to join in the making of our next history.

Dave Wheelock, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of New Mexico. He can be reached at davewheelock@yahoo.com. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Mountain Mail.

The Pencil Warrior aka Dave Wheelock

Last year two learned friends, both professors at New Mexico Tech University, and myself agreed to present through our community press a series of articles on two topics we understand to be of paramount importance. It was apparent to us that even as misinformation about global warming often overshadowed fact, the full implications of dwindling supplies of oil were virtually unknown to our fellow citizens.
In a preliminary meeting we discussed measures we might advocate for society to deal with these emergencies. I aired the growing opinion that even in the best conceivable scenario of dramatically increased government and business commitment to energy efficiency, coupled with a crash development program of clean and sustainable forms of energy, significant disruptions to our everyday lives appear unavoidable. We had best prepare to live without many of our accustomed luxuries if we want to avoid deprivations of the necessities.
Although his exact wording may escape me now I’ve not forgotten the exclamation from one of my co-conspirators: “You’re suggesting people change their culture!” He was right.
Our fundamental dilemma today is how citizens of an industrial society – people of distinctly different backgrounds and means but all habituated to effortless energy use - might be moved to voluntarily phase out a previously unchallenged lifestyle of convenience in favor of one more self-reliant, more demanding - and more survivable.
According to Richard Heinberg’s afterword to The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, the energy in a single gallon of gasoline is roughly equivalent to the work output of a human being (about a quarter of a horsepower) for a month, and an American working at a minimum-wage job can buy a gallon of gas for about 20 minutes’ worth of labor. Dr. John H. Leinhard of the University of Houston estimates that the average combined energy used by each American (for transportation, tool use, communications, climate control, lighting, entertainment, conveniences, etc.) is the equivalent of having over 150 human slaves 24 hours a day. The energy we’ve used to create our civilization has been incredibly cheap, and we assume it will be so tomorrow.
The easy availability of such a powerful energy source has given rise to tremendous complexity in our society. Labor-intensive functions like agriculture have been largely assigned to machines, freeing an ever-increasing portion of the population to specialize in “careers” far removed from the production of their own basic necessities. At the same time, the pursuit of luxury and convenience has become nothing less than a cult. Members of my generation can remember when color television was a neighborhood sensation; now it is considered a necessity. When the electric can opener and toothbrush came on the market, I admit I thought they would pass, as fads do. I was wrong, but pass they will, if only because we run out of steam (to use a dated metaphor) before we’re done with them.
The ride-me lawn mower, the power leaf blower, and increasingly the automobile reflect a culture not only heedless of the physical limitations of its energy sources but also oblivious to the true source of its own advancement. A mere blink of history’s eye has produced in our country an unprecedented un-consciousness of the laws of nature and the inescapable requirement of abiding by them. And while it has been a remarkable run, we are finally approaching the end.
The physical requirements of retaining the desirable characteristics of civilization through the coming energy shortfalls are no secret. Populations everywhere will need to convert to more localized, self-sustaining, low-energy economies, utilizing production loops that produce little or no waste. In other words, successful humans will be those that live in ways that harmonize with the earth’s systems, not vice versa.
In such a future there will be much to learn and adaptations to make, but the principles for doing so are understood. The more pressing obstacle in 2008 is that of redefining our ideals, and thus our goals. Neither “big” nor “new” will necessarily be better. “Waste” and “pollution” will be more widely understood as moral as well as practical issues. “Success” can no longer mean he who possesses the most. To the extent our neighbors come to appreciate and commit to the principles of true sustainability, we will avoid a lot of the strife toward which we currently seem headed.

Dave Wheelock, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of New Mexico. He lives in Socorro, NM, where his column The Pencil Warrior appears in The Mountain Mail newspaper. He can be reached at davewheelock@yahoo.com.

The Pencil Warrior
Local Solutions Needed to Respond to Global Challenges
Dave Wheelock for the Socorro, NM, Mountain Mail
March 6, 2008

Our city is not prepared for the great changes coming our way. I am not referring to the pressures posed by rapid population expansion in the western states, a nationwide economic recession, or the buildup of pollutants and toxins in our life systems. While these large scale issues have the capacity to greatly affect our community, we remain like the proverbial frogs sitting in the pot of heating water. Rather than jumping out (or finding a way to turn off the flame), we compromise our quality of life to stay in the pot. But neither global warming nor the end of the era of fossil fuels will offer such compromise.
While discussion of the potential consequences and mitigation of climate change have finally gained traction in the public arena, the issue of peak oil remains relatively covert. Nevertheless a growing number of petroleum industry analysts, whose business is to track and predict global crude production, assert an undulating plateau of supply has been reached, with a permanent decline likely as soon as 2010. Significantly, the trajectory of natural gas production also seems to be at or near a similar downslope. As with climate change, we likely have entered a brief pause after which options will rapidly close down due to mounting shortages. $10 gas, anyone?
The incredibly low prices of oil and natural gas have in just a few generations blinded us to our utter dependence upon them for our economy and lifestyle. We so take them for granted that we have real difficulty conceptualizing what life will be like in a post-carbon world, let alone accepting that many of us will likely experience that world firsthand.
Our cheap energy culture has evolved to rely on petroleum-based systems for our food, medicine, manufactured goods, power (including heating and cooling), transportation, and leisure activities. Even the most fundamental element of our survival, water, is largely dependent on fossil fuels for sanitation and delivery.
It is increasingly accepted that even with massive and immediate commitment to all known forms of alternative fuel and energy – solar, wind, hydro, biomass, biofuels, nuclear, whatever – we will soon be forced to adapt to massive disruptions to our power and transportation systems in their present forms.
Fortunately some folks have shaken off the blinders. Around the world citizens from every walk of life are forming study groups and engaging local governments in making the transformation to a less energy intensive future. From the slogan “lessening our dependence on foreign oil” they have deleted the word “foreign.”
The most direct means for achieving this goal are embraced in a strategy of “relocalization” – reducing consumption while producing locally. In addition to developing sustainable ways to provide for our clean energy needs, we citizens will need to recall much of the knowledge lost in a headlong flight to dependency on distant markets enabled by cheap fossil fuels. Cultivation of food and medicines, manufacture of clothing and hard goods, fostering of our children and elders, even entertainment and the arts will be increasingly performed by our neighbors and ourselves. In these vital pursuits, we will be fortunate if our area’s original inhabitants are still in the mood to share their centuries of region-specific knowledge.
While the road ahead will not be an easy one, it could be a deeply satisfying one. Sources for exploring the possibilities already exist; a good one can be found at Relocalize.net, where you can join or add to a network of some 182 “post carbon groups” engaged in a fascinating variety of learning and interaction.
Local government exists to serve local needs, and there is an urgent need for civic leaders to be involved in planning for their communities’ long-range future. History is full of episodes – as unnecessary as they were chaotic - resulting from governments’ failures to present rational strategies to populations faced with crisis. As our reliance on distant and dwindling resources to fulfill our needs begin to make less and less sense, we will need new strategies to cope with a slower-paced, less wasteful, and more localized lifestyle.
A unique tool for identifying and addressing our community’s vulnerabilities to uncertainties of energy and climate is Post Carbon Cities, a guidebook written for local governments by Daniel Lerch of the Post Carbon Institute. The manual’s executive review and a slideshow can be found at postcarboncities.net/guidebook.
Socorro’s strengths, weaknesses, and resources –as those of Magdalena, Reserve, and San Antonio - are as unique as her people and history. We should begin to develop local solutions to global shortages, while we can.

Dave Wheelock, davewheelock@yahoo.com, is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin living in Socorro, NM. He holds a degree in history from the University of New Mexico. Mr. Wheelock’s views do not necessarily reflect those of the Mountain Mail.

Lessons from the (Presumed) Enemy

It turns out we in the United States, along with the rest of the industrialized world, have some things to learn from those we are supposed to despise. The recent histories of two communist countries - North Korea and Cuba – illustrate divergent responses to unavoidable crisis, with dramatically different results. Even as our own inaction leads us toward the more disastrous outcome, the path with the light at the end may still be open to us.
For reasons stemming from the 1991 collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, both North Korea and Cuba unexpectedly found themselves without their main source of economic aid. Without developed oilfields of their own, these communist states abruptly lost the energy source to fuel their industrialized agricultural systems. Modeled after the so-called “Green Revolution” (still in progress around the rest of the world), these systems relied upon artificially-produced crop varieties which require massive inputs of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides.
Despite a dramatic scarcity of these synthetic components, plus the fuel and lubrication to run the requisite agricultural machinery, economic planners in North Korea did nothing. The result of their inaction, compounded by a series of natural disasters, resulted in widespread famine that resulted in the starvation of an estimated two million citizens. North Korea has yet to recover; according to Amnesty International, a recent national nutrition survey found that 7 percent of children were severely malnourished, 37 percent were chronically malnourished, and 23.4 percent were underweight - a 70 percent rate of malnourishment.
Cuba’s response was different. Instead of freezing at the controls, President Fidel Castro appeared on Cuban national television to alert all Cubans about imminent energy shortages a week before his government received formal notice from Russia of its intention to curtail oil shipments, resulting in a 50 percent decrease in the available supply. With the Cuban agricultural economy concentrated on growing sugar cane for export in return for oil, plus the ongoing economic embargo imposed by the United States, a full blown depression was on its way.
In what is known in Cuban history as “the special period,” the national government took radical steps to transition the economy away from its reliance on fossil fuels. Reliance on automobiles was replaced with mass transit engineered through the conversion of semi trailer trucks into busses - the Cuban “camels.” Large tracts formerly committed to sugar cane were broken up, put under the control of smaller local councils, and dedicated to fruits and vegetables, using organic methods that relied on skilled farmers working with animal power in the place of farm workers trained to operate machines. Family plots, urban gardens, even rooftops were dedicated to growing food, as was land formerly sacrificed to the oil-intensive factory farming of meat and dairy products.
Along with lifestyles, the entire diet of Cuba changed, and there was pain. Before the transition was complete, the daily ration in some places was one banana and two slices of bread. Although the average Cuban lost some 20 pounds, famine was averted, while the food economy had become arguably the most ecologically and socially sensitive in the world. In 1999 Cuba was awarded the Swedish Parliament’s Right Livelihood Award, known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize,” for these advances. Today, while enjoying a greater level of food security, Cuba’s health statistics are roughly equivalent to those of the United States.
The lessons of Cuba’s escape from oil dependence are numerous. While it is arguable that dictatorship enabled a command-and-control response from the national government, Castro’s early and frank public assessment of the situation enabled each person to understand and become part of the process of survival. A pre-existing national commitment to public education provided a workforce capable of adapting to unforeseen events that would unfold along the way. When centralized administration of the transition proved cumbersome, some decision-making powers were conceded to nimbler community councils.
Cuban research in natural agriculture and medicine had a twenty-year head start, dating back to lessons learned from the worldwide oil supply shocks of the 1970s. Alarms raised by scientists that oil-intensive agriculture was damaging the island’s soil had also contributed to the search for a better way.
Finite resources like fossil fuels will come to an end of usefulness for human society. The relevant question is whether we will have food and energy systems ready to replace oil’s central role in our survival. Our lifestyles will change, yet the extent of suffering tomorrow will be dictated by the decisions we make today. How will we decide whether our future will look more like that of North Korea or Cuba?

Dave Wheelock, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, is a collegiate sports administrator and coach who lives and home-studies in Socorro, New Mexico.