You never know exactly what will happen as a result of a severe economic crisis. Few people discuss it since it is quite taboo to speculate on any scenario that doesn't include growth and consumption. It is territory similar to the reluctance on the part of pundits and experts to admit or broadcast the fact that a recession has arrived even though almost everyone else knows it.

But I'll take a crack at a few broad predictions that are predicated on the economic crisis getting worse over the next 9-12 months, which I think it will, largely because economic impacts move through the system and down the income ladder like a pulse or wave that you can see coming like fans rising in the first row of Michigan Stadium, knowing you have time before it reaches you, but it undoubtedly will.

We are now observing the full force of demand destruction on most commodities including oil, waste paper, and other recyclables. It should have been anticipated but one of the major obstacles to innovation and alternatives in green practices is whether it pays to pursue. Does it make a profit? Demand destruction, as has been extensively written about, will nearly always slow or short circuit these activities. While it would be beneficial to secure additional subsidies and tax breaks for alternatives and renewables and perhaps prop up recycling efforts through subsidies, purchasing policies, or tax breaks, these cyclical swings of feasibility will remain.

Regarding recycling, it was never expected that this form of waste management would persist ad infinitum. It still facilitates a throw away mentality and requires great sums of electricity and water to create other products that will eventually be recycled or landfilled themselves. Clearly a lifecycle solution would be a far better solution (as has been recommended by Natural Step advocates) that would reduce the number of products that require any disposal at all. But this would be forward, long-term thinking and counterintuitive to the short-term disposable society that we have erected.

So, as the New York Times reports this morning in A Sea of Unwanted Imports, there are acres of baled waste cardboard waiting to be shipped to China to box our next round of electronic purchases. Since markets for recycling waste have all but dried up in the U.S., if China doesn't have a market for it anymore, where will this paper go, what will happen to our local curbside collection programs if there is no market even for waste paper or aluminum?

My guess is that these programs will limp along for a while with waste mountains growing taller like Naples street garbage mounds albeit a bit less putrid. But companies like BFI and Waste Management will either end their contracts with local municipalities or may end up covertly dumping recycling waste down railroad embankments. Alternatively, cities and towns can store cardboard for a while and distribute it to homeless families to build modern versions of Hoovervilles as the mortgage crisis deepens.

In the energy sector, environmental restrictions will seem nearly as quaint to the average citizen as the Geneva Convention appeared to Alberto Gonzales a few years back. The concept of "clean coal", dubious from a technological and financial perspective anyhow, will be shelved in favor of just getting the damn stuff to the plants. Coal mining devastation of the landscapes in Appalachia will grow in scale, scope, and speed and concerns over watersheds and labor safety will be, at best, laughed off, and at worst met with unhesitant violence. Obstacles will be quickly overcome and just having a job, historically a strong motivator for acquiescence and silence, will soon be the only concern.

Demand destruction in the automobile industry could result in a brand new pricing structure for the unsold millions of vehicles gathering dust in the ports (see NY Times link above) and paired with very cheap gasoline over the next 6-12 months may result in the last wild ride of the era of the automobile. I expect that cars will be sold at prices that would astound you even as recently as a year ago. Interested in a brand new $8000 Hummer?

Overall, I think we'll see a great deal of paradigmatic retrenchment and self-protection in the next year as resistance to the post-carbon, post-peak oil world becomes more acute and aggressive. It will be interesting to observe how the new President will situate himself related to this old model and how aggressively he will help us move to a more progressive, sustainable, post-carbon society. Admittedly he needs to be very careful and calculated in regard to any shifts but my concern is that it will be so slow and stealthy that it appears to be and may practically be stationary. And to this point is should be noted that efforts to relocalize and make local communities more resilient should only be picking up momentum over the next year. All solutions to these problems will emanate from the local. The key is for the Feds not to prevent it from happening.