I'm feeling too tired to write properly about this, but here goes. I'm subscribed to NZ National Geographic online magazine, which is a reasonably trustworthy source, and last Friday I learned that NZ only has 18 days of onshore diesel stored. By now I guess it's down to 15 days. No idea if the article is accessible if you don't have a sub, but here's
the link.
I've been ruminating in a confused way about that, since Friday. Will it be the start of supply line collapse here, as we're at the far end of that chain, in worldwide terms? Or just a period of restrictions, annoyances and a degree of belt tightening? It'll affect two things massively - transport, and farming. Like, the trucks that bring food and essentials to supermarkets, and deliver groceries to us, and in the longer term, it'll affect the farms growing the food.
Bring an old bastard who's profoundly unfit and who doesn't get out much, there's not a lot I can do for others, except maybe to help my immediate neighbours in some way. And I vacillate between vague prepping notions, nihilism, and thinking it'll turn out to be nothing after all. But I read apocafics, so I wonder. I mean, my car's petrol tank is fairly full and I use it only occasionally, but if it runs out will there still be buses? Which doubtless run on diesel. And if petrol gets harder to come by will people start stealing it, like, siphoning it off from cars parked outside like mine is, close to the road?
The fuel crisis expert guy in the article, Nathan Surendran, recommends talking to neighbours to prepare, but I'd definitely feel weird if I did that. At this point, anyway, when things alternate between feeling totally normal or like we're all fiddling while Rome burns. Or doesn't burn, due to the lack of diesel.
Guess I'll get an extra grocery delivery in, and make sure I have seeds in case I need to clear my garden beds of flowers and plant veggies more seriously. And I did unearth my camping gas stove and lamp in the last "cyclone", but I think we'll have power, as most of our grid runs on hydroelectricity (with the parts to repair the power stations probably delivered by diesel-powered trucks).
Well, we'll see if this is anything. Covid was fast. A week or three of worrying reports then (for us, here) whammo, lockdown. It felt surreal at the time. This is like that pre-Covid prodromal period with some signs and warnings cropping up but no one here taking it seriously, mostly. And our government now is largely shits and idiots, not a decent crisis leader like Jacinta, who actually listened to experts.
I'll keep fiddling, and let you know how it goes.
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