Peak Oil is You
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Page added on July 12, 2012
Peak Oil’s Impact: Lawn Care
[M]y problem with the peak oil argument is that it isn’t really very clear in itself as to what it means. From what I understand at some point we get to the end of cheap oil, we’ve only expensive oil left and then, well, and then apparently something terrible happens. [1]
Very few of us who write about Peak Oil suggest that something “terrible” is about to happen at any moment. Likely consequences are certainly unpleasant, enduring, and far-reaching—all the more so if we aren’t planning to do much about it in advance, as seems clear. Just as the evolution of and arrival at Peak Oil was a lengthy process, so too will be the demonstrations of its impact on our lives.
Given that there are almost no aspects of everyday living and producing which are not dependent in large or small part on the ready availability of affordable, high-quality conventional crude oil, Peak Oil will leave few aspects of life-as-we-know-it untouched. It’s all the more important we recognize that the various “Plan B” substitutes/alternatives don’t provide us with the same combination of energy efficiency, accessibility, affordability, and supply. Changes in all that we do, use, own, make, transport, etc., etc., are inevitable.
A little foresight will go a long way. A lot more foresight would be better.
With that in mind, here’s the latest contribution to my Peak Oil’s Impact series—observations and commentary on how Peak Oil’s influence will be felt in little, never-give-it-thought, day-to-day aspects of the conventional crude oil-based Life As We’ve Known It. A little food for thought….
Do-It-Yourself Landscaping
Have a lawn at your residence? A garden? Flowers?
Ever use fertilizer? Watering can, or garden hose? Mosquitoes bother you from time to time? Good to have insect repellant, isn’t it? Leaf blower? [Gets my vote as the single most annoying home product ever invented … think R-A-K-E.]
Mow the lawn yourself? Gas mower? [Or, in winter: snowblower for the driveway and sidewalks?]
Just a couple of the basics any/all of us make use of if we tend to our own lawns or gardens or flowers. Of course, there are all kinds of hand tools and assorted other what-nots we make use of to tend to our properties, and/or compounds we add to our lawns or gardens to help them thrive.
Not a single one of those items was: created and/or manufactured by or with and/or transported and/or is used, without at least some reliance on crude oil somewhere in the process between the original idea and your usage.
Plan B Landscaping?
So when Peak Oil is obvious to all in the near-enough future … when we can’t just head down the street and fill our gas tanks without a thought; when the inferior substitutes such as the tar sands and shale oil aren’t keeping pace with demand and/or depletion of existing reserves; when investments are being curtailed because demand slackens or the price is simply too high; when net oil exporters aren’t supplying as much to the rest of the world as we’ve come to expect either because they don’t have it to produce/export, or they need more of it for their own citizens [see this], or for a host of other industrial and/or geopolitical reasons, how far down the list of supply priorities will all of the lawn tools and lawn/garden supplies fall?
Admittedly, this is hardly anyone’s idea of a tragedy. (Landscapers will no doubt beg to differ, of course. A lot of dominoes will tumble for those companies and their employees and their suppliers and the employees of their suppliers, and on and on that goes.…)
Not exactly “terrible” for the rest of us, however. But it will be at least an annoyance and a lifestyle change we’re not giving any consideration to at the moment—one to be added to a very long list of annoyances and inconveniences when the fossil fuel-powered lives we’ve been living and enjoying for decades takes a turn away from always-available and almost-always-affordable, energy-rich crude oil.
What will we do if no one plans ahead … a long time ahead?
3 Comments on "Peak Oil’s Impact: Lawn Care"
BillT on Thu, 12th Jul 2012 2:37 pm
Lawn maintenance was ALL done by hand in my youth, the 50s. Push mowers that worked with metal gears and not gasoline. A ‘snow blower’ was natures north wind that drifted snow across the drive, requiring a metal snow shovel and a lot of hard work to remove. Hand tools were used for everything, requiring only the oil energy to make them, not to use them. Chainsaws were way in the future. Ditto leaf blowers, electric hedge trimmers, etc. Somehow lawns were still landscaped and maintained and beautiful without oil, but unless you were wealthy, you did not have huge lawns arounf the castle, just what was needed for looks and the kids to play lawn games.
Cloud9 on Thu, 12th Jul 2012 11:51 pm
I was at Williamsburg a lot of years ago and remember the green being mowed by sheep.
Norm on Fri, 13th Jul 2012 7:34 am
The title of this article is intriguing, but it kinda rambles along without getting into believable specifics. I dont see how peak oil will equate to a shortage of shovels, etc etc.
I have noticed that lawn fertilizer is becoming more expensive, just plain high cost. You might blow $100 for a half-season of greening. If you are very patient, leaving a lawn to grow ‘natural’ it may eventually have enough natural species, including clover, weeds etc that it will self-fertilize and stay green on its own but that can take a decade.
The best lawn fertilizer ever made is ‘Scotts Turf Builder’ BUT thats what it was called 20 yrs ago. Today’s turf builder is crap, a dumbing-down of a once-proud product name, for the Home Depot outlets. So, you can still get the real Turf Builder but its called ‘Super Turf Builder’ thats the good one and it usually has to be mail-ordered. So the real question is, can you afford it nowadays, as everything keeps going up in price ??