If you thought global warming was going to be a big problem, read this...

[azjoe]

Here's a really depressing concept if it's true...

End of the world as we know it

You might feel fine, but high oil cost, scarcity mean American Empire is about to come crashing down
Guy R. McPherson
University of Arizona professor
Apr. 6, 2008 12:00 AM

Peak oil spells the end of civilization. And, if it's not already too late, perhaps it will prevent the extinction of our species.

M. King Hubbert, a petroleum geologist employed by Shell Oil Co., described peak oil in 1956. Production of crude oil, like the production of many non-renewable resources, follows a bell-shaped curve. The top of the curve is termed "peak oil," or "Hubbert's peak," and it represents the halfway point for production.

The bell-shaped curve applies at all levels, from field to country to planet. After discovery, production ramps up relatively quickly. But when the light, sweet crude on top of the field runs out, increased energy and expense are required to extract the underlying heavy, sour crude. At some point, the energy required to extract a barrel of oil exceeds the energy contained in barrel of oil, so the pumps shut down.

Most of the world's oil pumps are about to shut down.

We have sufficient supply to keep the world running for 30 years or so, at the current level of demand. But that's irrelevant because the days of inexpensive oil are behind us. And the American Empire absolutely demands cheap oil. Never mind the 3,000-mile Caesar salad to which we've become accustomed. Cheap oil forms the basis for the 12,000-mile supply chain underlying the "just-in-time" delivery of plastic toys from China.

There goes next year's iPod.

In 1956, Hubbert predicted the continental United States would peak in 1970. He was correct, and the 1970s gave us a small, temporary taste of the sociopolitical and economic consequences of expensive oil.

We passed the world oil peak in 2005, and we've been easing down the other side by acquiring oil at the point of a gun - actually, guns are the smallest of the many weapons we're using - paying more for oil and destroying one culture after another as the high price of crude oil forces supply disruptions and power outages in Third World countries.

The world peaked at 74.3 million barrels per day in May 2005. The two-year decline to 73.2 million barrels per day produced a doubling of the price of crude. Later this year, we fall off the oil-supply cliff, with global supply plummeting below 70 million barrels/day. Oil at merely $100 per barrel will seem like the good old days.

Within a decade, we'll be staring down the barrel of a crisis: Oil at $400 per barrel brings down the American Empire, the project of globalization and water coming through the taps. Never mind happy motoring through the never-ending suburbs in the Valley of the Sun. In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream.

In short, this country will be well on its way to the post-industrial Stone Age.

After all, no alternative energy sources scale up to the level of a few million people, much less the 6.5 billion who currently occupy Earth. Oil is necessary to extract and deliver coal and natural gas. Oil is needed to produce solar panels and wind turbines, and to maintain the electrical grid.

Ninety percent of the oil consumed in this country is burned by airplanes, ships, trains and automobiles. You can kiss goodbye groceries at the local big-box grocery store: Our entire system of food production and delivery depends on cheap oil.

If you're alive in a decade, it will be because you've figured out how to forage locally.

The death and suffering will be unimaginable. We have come to depend on cheap oil for the delivery of food, water, shelter and medicine. Most of us are incapable of supplying these four key elements of personal survival, so trouble lies ahead when we are forced to develop means of acquiring them that don't involve a quick trip to Wal-Mart.

On the other hand, the forthcoming cessation of economic growth is truly good news for the world's species and cultures. In addition, the abrupt halt of fossil-fuel consumption may slow the warming of our planetary home, thereby preventing our extinction at our own hand.

Our individual survival, and our common future, depends on our ability to quickly make other arrangements. We can view this as a personal challenge, or we can take the Hemingway out. The choice is ours.

For individuals interested in making other arrangements, it's time to start acquiring myriad requisite skills. It is far too late to save civilization for 300 million Americans, much less the rest of the planet's citizens, but we can take joy in a purpose-filled, intimate life.

It's time to push away from the shore, to let the winds of change catch the sails of our leaky boat.

It's time to trust in ourselves, our neighbors and the Earth that sustains us all.

Painful though it might be, it's time to abandon the cruise ship of empire in exchange for a lifeboat.

Guy R. McPherson is a professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona.

[JMS]

While I'll admit that crude has to run out at sometime, ever since the first barrel was pulled from the ground this has been a common mantra!
If the U.S. would stop kowtowing to the environmentalists and actually begin producing oil again that moment would be far off into the future! It would also give us the needed time to find an alternate and viable energy source!
Right off the California shoreline we have tons of oil that by law we can't drill for because of an oil spill in the 70's in that area. Funny thing is that area is full of oil seeps under the ocean which put out per year the same amount of oil as that oil spill. If we drilled in that area the pressure would be removed from those seeps resulting in much less oil seepage into the ocean plus give us a steady supply of oil for many years!

[DSailing]

The end or our species? I seriously doubt that; considering that our species survived long without the need of oil. It may revert back to that sytle of living, but what's wrong with that? I kind of look forward to that moment.

[Wildtim]

HOw about the Noth Dakota deposits that were just Talked about on the news.

The author of that aritcle is pretty inattentive to current events as well as being a real glass is half empty kind of guy. Remind me not to invite him to any dinner partys he would ruin the good cheer.

[JMS]

The end or our species? I seriously doubt that; considering that our species survived long without the need of oil. It may revert back to that sytle of living, but what's wrong with that? I kind of look forward to that moment.

I wouldn't mind it myself but I don't think most could handle the tooth and nail, hand to mouth type of existence! Most would not be used to the hard cruel reality as they are too comfortable in their easy way of life! I don't think most people realize how easy they have it!

[denmason]

Do a search on Abiotic Oil.
Me thinks that there is a chance that we have been lied to.

[Bruno]

While I'll admit that crude has to run out at sometime, ever since the first barrel was pulled from the ground this has been a common mantra!
If the U.S. would stop kowtowing to the environmentalists and actually begin producing oil again that moment would be far off into the future! It would also give us the needed time to find an alternate and viable energy source!

Building and using cars that can do miles per gallon, instead of using gallons per mile would help
That and not using airco to turn giant buildings in the middle of the desert into walk in freezers.

Right off the California shoreline we have tons of oil that by law we can't drill for because of an oil spill in the 70's in that area. Funny thing is that area is full of oil seeps under the ocean which put out per year the same amount of oil as that oil spill. If we drilled in that area the pressure would be removed from those seeps resulting in much less oil seepage into the ocean plus give us a steady supply of oil for many years!

You are not trying to bring logic and common sense into a political discusion, are you

[JMS]

Building and using cars that can do miles per gallon, instead of using gallons per mile would help
That and not using airco to turn giant buildings in the middle of the desert into walk in freezers.



You are not trying to bring logic and common sense into a political discusion, are you

I lived in Arizona for four years and at least four months out of the year we had our air conditioner on! we kept our house at 80 degrees fahrenheit And believe me, when you came in out of that desert heat you felt like you were walking into an icebox! In the desert Air conditioning is a must either that or live underground!

[Bruno]

I wouldn't mind it myself but I don't think most could handle the tooth and nail, hand to mouth type of existence! Most would not be used to the hard cruel reality as they are too comfortable in their easy way of life! I don't think most people realize how easy they have it!

I do know how easy my life is.
But there is a reason we came to be here in this state: as a people we generally think it is better, and I agree.

My grandmother used to say there was nothing 'good' about the old days.
She live through 2 world wars, a recession and hard times.
Every week, kids were being buried because they died of one infection or other that is perfectly curable these days. With only 3 kids (or 2 in my case) the chances of having surviving offspring are not that good.

Of course then we will be back to a society of robber barons, local lords who rule supreme, outlaws etc...
And with the current structure of society, 90% of the people would die and there would be civil war (or do you think that those 10 million new yorkerss can survive in NYC without food or electricity?)

When people sy they yearn for the life of e.g. 19th century England or US, they seem to forget that instead of being a lordling, they would likely be peasant nr 159875 working the field for a landowner, and after 30 years of back breaking work, you'd die of one horrible disease or the other.

[Russel Baldridge]

"If you're alive in a decade, it will be because you've figured out how to forage locally."

That's just silly. Though I can't say I wouldn't mind it, camping is great fun.