‘The End of Suburbia’

After peak oil comes what fresh hell?

…Humans always seem to have to learn things the hard way. Maybe we’re just an exceptionally stubborn species, but more likely we’re simply slow on the uptake.

There has been a faint chorus of people warning about the end of oil since the 1970s. These days the chorus is getting a bit louder but most folk are still watching the approaching calamity like an enormous tidal wave far off on the horizon. “Look at that . . . It’s pretty big, hey? Hmmm, getting closer now. Yep . . . Umm . . . oh SHIT!”


It probably won’t be until an actual physical toll has been enacted that things will change significantly. But as the demand for oil continues to increase, and the easy to find oil is used up, the prices of everything, most especially food, will also increase. Possibly exponentially. It becomes, as peak oil theorist James Kunstler has aptly termed it, The Long Emergency.

The Tyee