Hello, friends.

Please allow me to introduce myself briefly before I start posting in earnest.

Some years ago I was investing in natural resources, and began to realize that one problem with buying petroleum producers is that no matter how expensive petroleum becomes--the producers' own reserves are a wasting asset.

More to the point, I suspect we've already hit peak production. While we don't run out any time soon, demand in excess of production implies rising prices. The really bad news is that we don't get in trouble when it all runs out--we get into trouble when it takes more petroleum to extract what remains than you get out of the extraction process. I suspect that point comes sooner than is generally realized.

I have realized for a long time that it takes roughly 10 calories of petrofuel to produce 1 calorie of grain.

My approach is not to go out and buy a Prius or a solar panel. You can not buy a solution to this problem. A lot of environmentally correct "solutions" are themselves energy-intensive and capital-intensive (as some of you have discovered, judging from past posts). A Prius for example is full of banks of lead batteries. Solar panels are expensive and the banks of batteries used to store the electricity when the sun don't shine represent a significant energy sink just to manufacture and distribute them.

Too much of our existing infrastructure is tied up in unsustable systems. I suspect that until the whole thing is rebuilt, technologies will need to take a few steps backwards, at least temporarily.

I have done enough homework to have figured out a few survival strategies. And I know something about economic systems which might be helpful to some to make their own permaculture schemes economically feasible. Unfortunately I am lacking in a number of basic skills at a level appropriate for the technological level that I suspect will be necessary in order to get through the crisis.

I will share what I know, and I hope that others can educate me.

My contributions to Permaculture at this point are essentially theoretical. I live in a city and will continue to do so at least as long as my children benefit from certain opportunities. I do have a backyard vegetable garden and am already applying ideas regarding sustainability.