Like a peyote chewing shaman reporting his vision of the afterlife, I have returned from the land of Peak Oil. Sort of. Over the summer I had the fortune or misfortune to spend two weeks in a forgotten Central America hellhole known as Nicaragua. After first adjusting to the culture shock, I marveled at the way people lived, worked, related and played in this impoverished throwback of a country. Then I had my epiphany! This was the land of Peak Oil and foretold the story of many other lands in the not too distant future.
First, a little background. For most U. S. citizens, Nicaragua is just an historical curiosity, being the focal point of the Reagan era “Iran-Contra” affair. Iran-Contra was a typical American foreign policy misadventure. An avowed leftist, Daniel Ortega, had won a general election. Ortega worshipped Fidel Castro and sought to model his homeland into a quasi-communist utopia. One of Ortega’s first acts was to void the titles to private land throughout most of the country, enraging corporate interests in the U. S.
A small resistance group, calling themselves the “Contras” hid in the Northeast mountain region of Nicaragua. They financed their operations with small time drug sales. From a political and military standpoint the Contras were a non-starter.
Since selling arms to Iran violated the Arms Export Control Act, the Reagan administration set up a clandestine, “off balance sheet” operation under the guidance of an ideologue named Oliver North. The basic idea was the administration would illegally sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy that had recently held US citizens hostage for over a year, and funnel the money to the Contras to overthrow Ortega.
The Iran-Contra foray was an unmitigated disaster. Iran was equipped with state of the art weaponry that stalemated their war with Iraq and which threaten U. S. interests to this very day. The clandestine operation came to light in 1986 and Ronald Reagan went on national TV to say he did not have sexual relations with those Contras. Shortly thereafter, he recanted and a commission was appointed under Senator John Tower. Reagan gave illogical and inconsistent testimony to the Tower Commission, citing his poor memory. North and his boss, John Poindexter, were tried and convicted, but the convictions were overturned by a Reagan friendly appeals court. George H. W. Bush later pardoned 6 other Reagan aides.
For their part, the Contras failed to overthrow Ortega but became one of the most well armed drug cartels in the world. Even now a hapless soul wandering into Contra fields is often murdered on sight with state of the art U. S. weaponry.
Two elections later Ortega was beaten at the ballot box and the semi-communist experiment came to an end. Ortega’s successor, Barrios de Chamorros, tried to undo the taking of the private lands some fifteen years after the fact, creating even more legal confusion. If that wasn’t enough, Ortega was then re-elected in 2006.
The net result for Nicaragua was a failed state from almost every perspective. Already one of the poorest countries in Central America, the political and legal uncertainty prevented the foreign investment that fueled change in other poor countries. The CIA Factbook lists Nicaragua as the 3rd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 48% of the population below poverty levels. The distribution of wealth is among the most uneven in the world.
Nicaragua enjoys practically none of the oil rich modern lifestyle we so take for granted. There are no interstates, parking decks, drive through windows, or suburban cul de sacs. Only the very rich can afford an automobile at all and even these are used sparingly.
As the days rolled on, I began to connect the dots with peak oil. The political and legal missteps resulted in a society that has one foot in and one foot out of the modern, petroleum based universe. This country has no oil reserves, refineries or oil resources to speak of and must fend in an oil unfriendly environment.
My own bias is that peak oil will not be a sudden cataclysmic disaster with the ball of humanity rolling off the proverbial table. My vision is more like the air slowly coming out of the tire as we rumble, slower and slower, towards the side of the road. I expect the transition will be more violent and painful in the U. S. than elsewhere simply because we have grown more dependent upon it. If there is a sudden die off of the population I think it much more likely to result from global warming or nuclear war.
So what does peak oil look like?
Transportation
This country does not have the well organized transportation, food, industrial basket weave that moves everything around the U. S. There is no petroleum supported game of musical chairs flowing imports in and through the country on flatbeds, seaports and interstate highways. The “3,000 mile salad” is a Nicaraguan pipedream and there are no Walmart shoppers.
The few paved roads are only two lane in most areas and even these are riddled with potholes, wash outs, debris and neglect. The road from Leon in the northwest to San Juan Del Sur on the southwestern coast was essentially missing for long stretches. Cars weaved around potholes, islands of upraised asphalt, and mud. At some points the oncoming cars, supposed to be on the left, were 50 yards to our right as a result of these machinations. For those stretches, speeds never topped 20 kph. Wild chickens, pigs and dogs share the streets with barefooted children. Outside of the major cities and main drags, roads are dirt paths if they exist at all.
The government decided to build a scenic north to south coastal railway similar to the one in California. After proudly building the first stretch out of San Juan del Sur, they moved north for the next section. In short order, the completed section was completely and totally missing. Every rail, pin, tie, and everything else that could be pulled up and carted off was simply gone. Understandably, the project was abandoned.
The airport in Managua would be the equivalent on a fairly nice middle sized airport in a mid-size U. S. market. It is the only serviceable airport in the country. The other airports are either unpaved or unable to accommodate large planes. The three seaports are forced to serve multiple purposes to bring in needed goods.
I met college age students who had never traveled from Leon to Managua, hardly more than an hour’s drive away. Many had not seen the beaches or mountains that were less than 100 miles away. Leisure travel, supersavers, and weekend jaunts exist in novels, but not in reality for Nicaragua.
By my unofficial count, I would guess that roughly 20% move by foot only. Around a third use bicycles, mopeds or motorbikes. Private cars account from maybe 20% of the traffic and the balance is in horse drawn carts, taxis, buses, and public transport. The horse or ox drawn carts are usually made from rummaged materials of four small car tires and axles under a wooden cart with benches or chairs affixed.
For the time I was there, the friends and family of my escort and the driver owned not one car among them. In fact, they commandeered our rented vehicle at every turn to buy groceries from distant stores, schedule doctor appointments and visit friends and relatives that were seldom seen. The car was viewed as a rare and prized treat for special occasion use.
Utilities
Utilities are a daily hit or miss proposition. Water, electricity and telephone service fail several times a week, for hours at a time. Trash is thrown by the roadsite and is picked up at irregular intervals, if at all.
The internet is served by cafés that rent by the hour. Some are DSL quality but you must pay for every service along with the time. Printing, downloading, and uploading cost extra. Outside of the cafes, the internet is so slow as to be practically unusable. The service provided in our hotel took about 20 minutes to boot up.
Only the most wealthy in the cities actually have air conditioning or heat. An open air atrium centers most dwellings, with its trees providing shade along with seasonal lemons.
The water had a nasty habit of dying out in the middle of showers and the electricity would black out and then pop back on the wee hours of the morning, only to be gone again by breakfast.
Local phone service was acceptable most of the time, but long distance and overseas calls were difficult or unavailable.
Work
The entire country seems to be underemployed. Most work here is the trading of fairly menial labor. Taxis, farming, shop keeping, apartment rental, leather tanning, farming and animal husbandry are prevalent.
The collapsed infrastructure essentially eliminates the fast paced electronic commerce we take for granted in the U. S. Web based businesses are almost non-existent. There is no electronic market for anything – not stocks, commodities, food, nothing. Unlike China, there are no smoke filled industrial areas cranking out steel or pipe or brick.
Since education is cheap and available, the country boasts many doctors, lawyers and engineers, but practically none of them actually make a living at these professions. My guess is that not enough of the populace can afford these services on a regular basis. Some teach and work on the side, but most are taxi drivers, housekeepers and just simply unemployed.
The industry should be farming but that’s a story unto itself. There are many bustling shopping areas and many eclectic shops, cafes, and stores, but they lack air, lighting, or electronics. Mostly they sell basics and locally produced artifacts. We tried in three cities for find a battery for a fairly standard Konica camera without success. Transactions are done in cash and change is parceled out by hand.
Food
Most peak oil readers know the degree to which agriculture is petroleum based. The symbiosis goes far beyond just the diesel fuel of tractors, harvesters, and trucks.
In this land of peak oil, the lack of the petroleum products has stunning agricultural effects. Nicaragua boasts some of the finest soils in the world, has plenty of rainfall and sunshine, and you would expect it to be a garden of Eden. Yet, at the mercy of mostly animal and human labor, the farms seem paltry compared to the neat, plush, geometric rows in the U. S. heartland. Larger farms come equipped with sniper stands and warning signs that trespassers will be shot.
Nicaraguan farmers laughed at notions of organic or sustainable techniques. They were having enough trouble sharing the crop with insects and animals and were hoping for kindness from Mother Nature in place of irrigation. Despite the natural advantages of Nicaragua, there is no comparison in agricultural output.
The very poor clearly compete with the animals for food as well as share the roads. Rib cages can be seen from the roadway on dogs, cattle, and horses. The flaca vaca (skinny cow) became a running joke. Pigs, chickens and even cows are freed to forage along the road side. Somehow they seem to find their way back home. When the horse pulling a cart dies, it is often left by the side of the road.
The farms are close to the city, but are not nearly the romanticized visions that many Americans have. These are filthy, smelly sweatshops that work long hours in blistering conditions for a very meager existence. Farmers inhale dust and dirt and suffer constant sun exposure and skin rashes.
For good measure, hurricanes occasionally obliterate the crops so everyone just starts over. Like their phantom railroad, reports abound of farmers planting crops on their acreage only to find every single seedling stolen after a short absence.
Food is so plentiful in the US that most of the agricultural effort is designed to trick the eye instead of sustain the body. The food products so produced are large, colorful, and symmetrical. They make visually appealing presentations - large, deeply colorful fruits, free of blemishes - that effectively compete for the consumer’s dollars. They are also virtually void of taste. Compared to this presentation, the heirloom varieties seem gnarly and colorless.
Two hundred years ago a shovel could yield a 16 inch depth of topsoil. The topsoil would be the by-product of nature’s composting and would environ tens of thousands of tiny life forms. Earthworms, insects, microbes, feces, and vegetable matter all played their important roles. Today, a shovel may yield 8 inches of very sterile topsoil. The growth results from the infusion of massive quantities of petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides.
I am aware that a small subculture in the US has already begun experimenting with permaculture style sustainable farming. Sorry, but I don’t really think that counts. The escape from suburbia is, at first, refreshing and envigorating. It may be a psychic as well as a physical vacation.
Yet everyone knows it isn’t real. At every moment there is the subconscious comfort that the little experiment can be terminated. If you need to catch an airplane, its going to be there. If you need sophisticated medical treatment and pharmaceuticals, you know they are available. If you get a whim to ride a motorcycle to Chicago for sushi, no one is going to stop you.
There is a qualitative difference when sustainable living is how you sustain yourself – when the drudgery, heat, and hard labor really make the difference between living and dying.
There is a subcurrent in the peak oil literature that peak oil will lead to widespread starvation. There may be a very real starvation issue as a result of overpopulation, but I don’t envision mass starvation in the U. S. In fact, I suspect that food demand will decrease significantly.
Our agriculture system is efficient from the standpoint of creating vast quantities of feed for animals that will be slaughtered and, in turn, become feed themselves. An estimated 500,000 cows are slaughtered every single day, most of it for the U. S. market.
The meats are freeze dried, wrapped and trucked to fast food restaurants, fine dining restaurants, hotels, hospitals, schools, prisons, churches and the corner grocery. The meats supplant instead of supplement and the entire system is dependent on massive amounts of cheap, readily available fuel.
Of themselves, most of these meats are nearly tasteless. To rejuvenate the taste buds, they are infused with huge quantities of salt and butter to add sensation and fats. The Food Network chef, Emeril, always draws applause when he says “I don’t know where you get your meats, but where I get mine they don’t come seasoned.
The result is a nearly instantaneous gratification for anyone who is hungry and has gas in a car. Pizza can be delivered, hamburgers are available on most corners, and Taco Bell typically stays open all night. For variety the hamburger is exchanged for steak which is exchanged for barbeque pork which is exchanged for roast beef and the cycle continues. Chicken and fish are added to the mix.
While the 10,000 advertisements we see in a typical day all l tell us this is American nirvana, it has everything to do with profits and little to do with sustenance. Practically all of the serious research concludes that we are not well sustained at all. In fact, we are obese, cancerous, and diabetic.
From the standpoint of actually feeding human beings this system is extremely inefficient. Most of our land provides agricultural fodder for animals, not humans. A vegetarian diet requires less than 5% of the land mass of a modern meat based diet. It requires a tiny fraction of the energy input of the carnivorous diet.
And this is not a vegetarianism borne of philosophical inclinations, eastern religious beliefs or environmental concerns. It is a diet based on necessity and it is how the race has survived throughout history. In cultures that ate meat, the meat was a delicacy reserved to the wealthy and for special occasions. When times demand, there are vastly more efficient methods of feeding humans.
The same is true for the “3,000 salad.” While the modern palate enjoys the “dainty dishes” that derive from easy access to very exotic ingredients, it really has nothing to do with sustenance. Watch an hour of the Food Channel and you will see wonderful, mouth watering dishes, some in 30 minutes or less.
Yet there is no thought at all of the immense energy and waste baked into the cake, so to speak. The ingredients typically include chocolates, bananas, sugar, lemons, pecans, tea, almonds, corn, wheat, rice, peaches, coffee, oranges, and apples. The spices and flavorings include vanilla, saffron, garlic, chocolate, cumin, etc.
There is simply no place on earth that can naturally grow all of these disparate foods and spices. These delicacies are not possible without monoculture farming and sufficiently cheap transport.
When the cheap fuel inputs are no longer available, agriculture will target human sustenance and not profits. The diet may be simpler, less varied and less tasty, but it can feed more people per acre.
Housing and Culture
The disparity between the wealthy and everyone else really shows in the housing. Wealthy villas sport beautifully manicured lawns, orchards and groves, brightly tiled swimming pools and patios, wrought iron fencing and relatively spacious airy rooms. The poor live in one room hovels made from discarded or stolen metals with dirt floors stacked side to side for support. An opening serves the purpose of a doorway. Animals and children move freely in the dirt paths beside long rows of clothes drying on clotheslines. In the middle, you have smallish but comfortable houses and tiendas sporting a meeting area or veranda and maybe a small garden as their status symbols.
People are much more involved in the arts than in the US. Artwork, dancing, music and festivals are common. They have a lot of free time. Many simply lounge in doorways or street stoops watching the world pass by. There are practically no gated communities, attached garages, cul de sacs or other alienating societal separations. Everyone is pretty much on top of everyone else.
People eat what they can. Outside of Managua, there are no U. S. fast food or even casual dining facilities. Restaurants are few, with limited menus, and are for special occasion treats.
Insects, Etc.
Since we were there during “fly season” it was impossible to protect the food from the flies. The waiters come with two napkins per person. The first goes in your lap and the second is placed on top of your glass to keep the flies out. The use the various home remedies, but nothing really works.
Since there are few insecticides, people simply get accustomed to living with insects, geccos, and lizards.
There is one shopping mall in the country, virtually no drive throughs, fast food outlets, strip malls, or parking decks. In the second largest city, we could not find a battery for my Canon camera.
Many live for the evening rigaton and salsa clubs. Alcoholism is a pervasive problem, but not one that gets the do-gooder finger waving that we are accustomed to. In fact, its almost encouraged in some sections.
Conclusions
From my perspective as a modestly affluent middle aged American, there was much to learn and much to fear from this experience. Many peakists are accused of hating our society and secretly harboring a desire to see our downfall. If you might fall into that group, I would suggest a couple of weeks in Nicaragua.
On a downbeat note, I also concluded there isn’t much you can do about it. The lack of energy derived labor affects everyone – high and low, rich and poor, young and old, right wing or left wing. There is no escape from the heat, the inconvenience and the hard labor required. Rich or poor, prepared or not, all suffered from the power outages, inconvenient travel and lack of availability of very basic items.
On an upbeat note, it was stunning to see how quickly we all adapted. Perhaps it was the knowledge that it was a hiatus that would not last long, but it became pretty normal pretty fast. Humans are amazing creatures.
Certainly there were no frivolities except for the very rich. I saw no lattes, smoothies, natural food stores, book shops, self improvement or even home improvement stores. There are no Disney Worlds, amusement parks, and practically no Dominos pizza, multiplex cinemas, golf courses, or Chuck E. Cheese.
My overall impression is that the people are reasonably happy. Some young people attending school in San Francisco or working in the US, express a desire to return and live their lives in Nicaragua. They feel more connected.
The hardest part right now is dealing with the militantly apathetic populace. Most of us can’t even persuade our families to begin to prepare. If this has become a sore subject or a constant conflict, my advice is to let it drop. Don’t bring it up. Don’t say anything at all about it.
Just announce that you have good news. You’re taking the family for a wonderful vacation to Nicaragua.
