Peak Oil’s Impact: Relief Efforts

Imagine, if you can, that there is a resource everyone likes to use.  They like to use it for convenience: it lets them go places, have neat things, eat the foods they want no matter what time of year it is….
Now imagine, if you can, that this resource begins to become scarce. Imagine that the world could not discover any new supplies of this resource, nor could they produce it any faster. Imagine this was because the ‘easy’ supplies had already been used, and now the more difficult to reach supplies were economically disadvantageous to access… What would happen to the supply of this resource? It would dwindle. And what would happen to all the items that were made from it? They would rise in price. And what would happen if the resource became so scarce that not everyone could have it? How would people react? [1]

How indeed?

While it would be so much easier and better if we only had to imagine this scenario, Reality is telling us a different story—magical technology and bazillions of barrels of shale oil and tar sands underground notwithstanding. 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.

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….

In the ongoing saga of recovery from Hurricane Sandy, I find myself observing the incredible efforts, manpower, services, products, etc. being expended to help the millions of people suffering the after-effects of the latest example of climate change hoax. [Just imagine how awful the devastation would have been if climate change was a reality! Wow!]

And as I observe the broad range of generous assistance being extended to help our fellow citizens, I now almost instinctively find myself wondering what will happen when the full range of Peak Oil’s impact are being felt by all of us, and relief efforts of this magnitude are needed—as they surely will be?

Gas rationing is already being employed. Frustrations are evident everywhere as citizens struggle just to return to the most minimal aspects of normal, daily life. My wife and I watched a CNN report on a seventy-something year-old woman in New York who is now—twice daily—going up and down six flights of stairs [still no power in her building and thus no elevators] just to retrieve a half-dozen gallons of water to flush her toilet. Try that out if you’re twenty-five years old!

What gets prioritized during relief efforts in the years to come when we are all drawing from a smaller pool of fossil fuels to send power crews out to restore service, or safety officials to monitor darkened neighborhoods, or transportation services to deliver basic necessities? What gets sacrificed [and whose needs are set aside] in a mad scramble to deal with already-chaotic efforts if the most fundamental resources needed to perform any kind of relief effort is not available in anywhere near the amounts needed? Is adding more chaos and more last-minute scrambling atop chaos our wisest strategy?

NO ONE wants to think about or adapt to the long-term effects of a warming planet coupled with a decline in energy resources. There exists no standard by which those considerations are pleasant or eagerly embraced. But to not be having broad-based, ideology-free discussions is insane! Facts suck, but to ignore them is nuts.

Why shouldn’t we be having conversations about how to put plans into place now, before we’re dealing with ever-more-frequent upheavals with much less energy resources at the ready? By what measure of irrational thought is ignoring all the evidence and relying instead on a wing and a prayer a better approach?

When do we start having these conversations?

 Peak Oil Matters