Wilbert the Haitian trader had sailed into Grand Turk in a leaky old sloop and was selling charcoal and grills made from scrap iron. A Goliath of a cruise ship glided away from the dock behind him. It was a Caribbean Kodak moment if ever I saw one, ancient days set against the new.
But when I get home and show my photo to Gus the computer guy, he laughs and says: "That's not a picture of the past - it's the future."
A refugee from Silicon Valley, Gus turns out to be a devotee of Peak Oil, a movement which believes that our industrial world is about to collapse into mayhem not because of climate change, but because oil supplies are about to run out.
By co-incidence, this month's Harper's magazine tells me that Peak Oil-ers have become the prophets of the "Liberal Apocalypse", with thousands of followers including 340 |
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Upstate Downstate |
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Peak Oil devotees believe the world is about to collapse as the oil runs out |
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in New York. They buy and hoard gold while planning "defensible" farm communities.
The name refers to the moment of "peak" oil production: expert opinion has set that date between 2000 to 2020. Then comes the decline to no more petrol, agricultural fertiliser, or silicon chips for computers, and anarchy as we fight for the remaining puddles. "We'll all end up extinct," says Gus.
But before extinction we'll go back to Wilbert and a world familiar to Captain Morgan. His sloop is powered by wind, his crooked mast cut from dwindling forests, and his charcoal sticks the only cooking fuel left. Haiti is the first Western nation to collapse as a functioning state and Wilbert, who has painted "Merci Jesus" on the skiff he rows to shore, leads the way. It's a scary way to look at a pretty picture. 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 8, 2006
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