The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed is an excellent book, an allegory written by Ursula K. LeGuin, the inventor of the tesseract, Faster Than Light communications (which turns out to be true btw) called the Ansible. The main point of the book is that socialism, communism, and anarchism (equality rather than violent) are impossible because they fail the test of human nature. Human nature is the topic of my post.

As I've said previously, the oil is running out. We are screwed. Only, things are still worse than you're imagining because there's a little (big) problem associated with the end of cheap energy.

1. The Western states were settled because of cheap energy and aggressive real estate speculation.
2. Without cheap energy, the western states are mostly uninhabitable.
3. The majority of cities in the western states are in BAD LOCATIONS, in particular the cities of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and even San Francisco.
4. The limiting factor to sustainability in Western states is water supply.
   
5. Cities that require water to be pumped to them are screwed.
   
6. Populations in those cities will be forced to leave when the energy to pump water into them is no longer available at a price the residents can afford.
7. Those populations will go elsewhere rather than die in place.
   
8. Some of those residents will arrive in your town, having lost their homes. They will be bitter and feel the USA owes them for their losses and hardship. You will be expected to pay for this, in patience and lowered wages and increased crime from these refugees.
   
9. Until another generation of these people is born in your town or the refugees are forcibly removed, trouble between you will remain.
   

Charming, isn't it? And how many refugees? 28 million rely on the Colorado river. 5 million require pumped water in the bay area. Some of these people will displace to wetter climates EARLY, selling their properties or accepting foreclosure on NINJA loans (No Income, No Job, Amortized, no deposit) then walking away. Some of the early arrivals will be reasonably cheerful and glad they escaped the (financial) chaos that follows. In all, about 45 million people will be disrupted by the collapse just in the Western states. Most of them are going to head for the Midwest or East and try to settle into a new town or city and start over. Others from say Mexico may head South, however Mexico is in a hurt locker due to inability to invest in their oilfields, and their oil pays for 60% of their govt and welfare checks, education, public health, hospitals... basically, the needs of the poor. Without the oil money, the poor either die or they move somewhere there's money, or send their sons towards money... or go into revolution once again. There's already sit-ins at the national assembly in Mexico, trying to stop their nationalized oil from being sold off. Its against their constitution but if they don't change it, Commies take over Mexico and we'll get a FLOOD of refugees crossing the US border. People looking for a better life and willing to work to earn it. Problem is they're mostly illegal aliens, wages are eroded in an already damaged economy and the oil is going away here too. Its a freakin powderkeg with racial connotations. I don't like that much. I know and respect a lot of Mexican nationals working here on green cards. Those guys work their asses off as artisans and craftsmen and ship the money home to Mama or their wives. I can hardly imagine doing that myself. Would you go to northern Canada and work, bitten by millions of mosquitos, risking malaria and dystentary (and don't kid yourself, they suffer dysentary here, and Malaria's worst death tolls were above the arctic circle in Archangel, Russia), risking your life and being mocked by the Canadians? Imagine if they all spoke French and you knew just a few words but got mocked for it? And arrested on the least pretense, or blamed for petty crimes. Sucks balls, I tell you. So yeah, I respect them.

Anyway, I'm a Californian by birth and I've considered bailing out of the state but everywhere else is worse than here and I already know I can take the heat of the central valley. My wife and I plan to move back there while she gets her Veterinary degree, to a town called Davis. Davis is full of fuzzy hippies and liberals and I am a wolf in sheeps clothing. I invented the term and technique called "Stealthpunk", which is to dress like everyone around you and then say something appalling when nobody expects it. I insist on my observation to be true and valid rather than merely upsetting. Truth is far more potent than sillyness. I intend to astonish and educate in reality those poor deluded fools, as I have done where I live now. Carefully. Anyway, I'll have to deal with the usual hippie crap and manage to suffer the 103'F daily summer temps. At least they've got ground water and the rivers flow nearby, which is why I'm going to move there. I expect prices to rise, and the more dedicated Californians flow into the small towns thereabouts, while the less dedicated will go east or north, as there's better water supplies and potential in the PNW. Ironically, the least comfortable place to live in California, the central valley, is the best for water supplies, food supply is phenomenal, and rail transit is already in place. While the Bay Area will need to install millions of solar panels to pump water, the rich who remain after the Exodus I'm predicting over the coming decade won't have much reason to allow the return of the poor. The poor were committing crimes while they were there, and having them out of the place will make the bay area a safer and more pleasant place to be rich.

If you think the Bay Area is terrible, recall that LA and LV and Phoenix will be completely empty of all the the richest and most capable of water managers, with Phoenix and LV being completely empty. Las Vegas only exists because of cheap travel. With oil going away and airlines merging, rising fare prices, its not such a great deal. Easterners can go to Atlantic City instead. Midwesterners can visit the indian casinos. Who needs Las Vegas when it takes days to get there by Bus or train and days to get back? I don't see it surviving to 2020. There's what, 2 million people living there now? All of them will have to leave. Los Angeles? It gets 15% of its water needs from local supply. That 15% just barely covers its richest millionaires. Some of the locals THINK they get local water, but they're wrong. My hydrology skills from college traced the source of their aquifer to groundwater recharging reservoirs sourced from water pumped about 30 miles from where I now sit. That same water provides for the $3.5B in annual agriculture on the west side of the San Joaquin valley. The East side gets drainage from the Sierras. The West side of that valley is dry as a desert, 1-3 inches of rainfall a year. Tumbleweeds grow there. I shit you not. Its from the mountains to its west, causing rain shadow. Not the wettest place anyway. Most of the rainfall comes from the north of the state, down from Alaska. The South end of the state, below Big Sur, gets rain from Hawaii and leftover remnants of Pacific hurricanes affecting Mexico and Central America. Not much, really. Its a desert down there. The springs left over made for some habitation, but it ain't perfect. Not hardly. Its easy to tell. Look at the mountains. Brown in summer? That's desert. Bits of black high up? That's a sky island where there's still some perched reservoirs and leftover ice from the winter keeping plants and animals alive. They have those in Arizona and New Mexico too. Some people live up there too. Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead. Its nowhere to commute from since its miles down the mountain and that's a ton of gasoline in the best of times. And they get enough snow to close the roads in winter. Your boss on the valley floor isn't going to be interested in your story of snow chains for why you were late. So yeah, with no water without pumping, LA is going to lose at least 60% of its water supply and probably more like 70%. This 30% remaining will need to be priced up to drive down use. This will quickly drive off the poor and middle class, leaving only the rich. They can manage on that. And some creative arson and "reclamation" of things like copper wiring and pipes in the houses left behind will do wonders for China. Oh right. It will all get shipped to China. Unless the USA bans it, and enforces it with troops at the ports. Lotta work to do, checking shipping containers for copper and copper alloys and oxides.

So yeah, 45 million people, exiting the Western states, headed for your town and others. How do you plan to deal with them? Some are going to be useful people you will genuinely like, your next best friend. Most Californians are conservative and practical, btw, not fuzzy hippies. That's one of those stereotypes.