There is an old Russian saying: “If I had known where I would fall, I would have put down some straw there.”
At last year’s ASPO-USA conference, I wanted to correct what I see as a major flaw in the narrative of Peak Oil: the idea of a gentle, geologically-driven decline in oil production, which seems quite unrealistic. But I also wanted to look beyond it and sketch out some plans that would work after oil production dives off a cliff.
If we start setting aside a “Peak Oil Tithe” around when Peak Oil occurs, and if we deploy all that we’ve stockpiled when the fossil fuel economy can no longer support us, the resulting post-collapse economy is quite a lot smaller than the fossil fuel economy, but still large enough to support a significant portion of the current population, albeit at a much lower standard of living.