by BlisteredWhippet » Sat 11 Feb 2006, 21:00:43
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jonathan_Hoag', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', 'D')on't believe them. All you need to know is every time the Iranian President farts, oil goes up $0.75, the strategic petroleum reserve is now our swing producer, and President Bush, a Texas oilman, is preaching conservation.
Oil markets are tight, for sure. Not as tight as Simmons et al would have it, though. But that has more to do with incresing demand from China and India than geological scarcity. Not to say that that won't happen. It's just that it won't be cataclismic. There is no use of oil that can't be met by other energy carriers or other chemistries. Oil is not a miracle product.
You're right until you compare what is needed to substitute other energy sources for what oil provides for us today. It cannot be done. Even if it is phased in- biodiesel for diesel and synthetic gasoline, for example, the present structure of industrial agriculture as it is practiced today must change dramatically. And with it, how and what we eat, since those are food crops. And with it, where and how we grow food. And, how we retrofit to power all our new biodiesel cars and trucks, even as we pay more and more money for less and less stuff.
It seems to me like you're proposing that the total and complete alteration of our way of life won't happen overnight, but that it will be gradual to some degree, and hardly "catastrophic". Well, the "prophets" are right in line with this scenario. Dieoff's curves, for instance, take us down the yellow brick road over a period, of, say- our lifetimes.
But ultimately the main thing that is going to change- the pivotal thing- is the energy source, not energy itself. We'll be moving from a high-quality source to multiple decentralized sources and because of certain physical laws the effect will be detractive in the example of industrial agriculture. Formerly a cheap chemical foodstock for fertilizer- oil or natural gas- it will now be expensive. Retrofitting is expensive, but necessary- it is food after all. But without excess energy input yields will fall.
Dieoff.org, truly the place to start looking seriously at "prophecy" should make it clear that within the parameters of modern life, there are going to be some economic losers. Its no secret that the American quality of life in terms of real wages, benefits, and jobs have been declining for quite some time. But will this inevitable change be catastrophic?
Let me show you an example from Nepal.
I was just researching wood burning stoves the other day. I found a study of how rural Nepalese heat water and cook food, mainly using wood stoves. Unfortunately most of the environment by now is almost completely deforested, for two reasons- 1. too many people overusing scarce available resources, and 2. inefficient use of wood in cooking and heating.
A bundle of sticks takes about a whole day to collect and costs about $3US. Forget where you get $3 a day for sticks, lets look at the Nepalese economy. The dominant source of income is tourism. So, if something happens on a fundamental price point in the global economy, lets say the price of a unit of energy doubles, triples, quadruples... are the tourists still going to show up? Are the tourists going to show up if the price of aviation fuel goes through the roof, nevermind if airlines are still economically viable... the price of tickets will surely go up. Now, with prices climbing everywhere, and discretionary spending by the average American consumer going down, regardless if the economy at large is tanking, do you think that Nepal will be visited by more or less tourists, or get more or less tourist dollars?
Do you think that if the average Nepalese person no longer has a steady income, he will not take steps to collect wood and heat his home or cook his food throughout the harsh winter? And do you think if he and his fellow villagers are starving and freezing he will still be discouraged by a handful of soldiers demanding $3US per bundle of sticks from some of the last remaining stands of trees in the region? No, he will risk life and limb to take what he needs to survive, until he has to take risks to survive again. Ultimately, the forest will be gone, and he will face starvation or other deprivation.
This is, simply put, a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportion in this person's region, this person's society. And this effect, of the price of energy increases, is totally INDIRECT. His journey from comfort and community to anarchy and starvation will be, in your words, "gradual".
Will Joe Shmoe, out of work and unable to pay the mortgage in that McMansion in Atlanta, effectively squatting on the good graces of the forgiveness of the American Banking System, see Peak Oil as a series of mitigatable circumstances at the end of which is a lifestyle not much different in many ways that the one he was enjoying, circa Feburary 2006?
Lets take a trip illustrating the second law of thermodynamics...
At first, the Nepalese villager uses wood to heat and cook. Then, there is no more wood. He collects pinecones and twigs, until there are no more pinecones or twigs. Then he collects grass, shrubs, things that will not burn easily, and his own dung.
At first, the Atlanta-dwelling postmodern human drives his F-250, goes to his job making more McMansions and helping push urban sprawl out horizontally across formerly arable agricultural land. Then it costs twice as much to fill the tank, and the price of goods is twice as much because of inflationary pressure. And then 4 times as much. And then 8 times as much. Ostensibly by this point the "powers that be" are "turning the battleship around" and retrofitting and erecting biodiesel and PV production stations at Manhattan Project type of levels, even as the labor, price of components, and feedstock energy is less available and many times as expensive.
Joe Shmoe, if he can get gas at all, is paying through the nose. If he still has a job building McMansions, he is carpooling, or getting seriously in shape pedalling to work everyday IF the banks have decided its STILL a good idea to bankroll the development of a bunch of homes NO ONE wants to buy... IF the US Government by that time hasn't gone totally bankrupt.
Atlanta is at a pretty good longitude that shutting the heat off entirely wouldn't be too uncomfortable. But the guy has no job anymore and he still needs to eat. In fact, the entire metro Atlanta population still needs to eat and that energy is diverted to growing soybeans that will deliver biodiesel a year from now. The battle-hardened troops just back from Iraq enforce martial law, curfew, and rationing of what food is left. Inflation presses on, oil prices still continue to rise, the rule of martial law extends, aided by citizens who rightly fear other citizens just as depressed as they are.
By now Joe Shmoe's F-250's tank is bled dry and hasn't been run in months. The city is completely black at night punctuated by flickering fires at key intersections. Gunshots rattle in the distance. The media is non-existent. The TV does not work without electricity. The phone service is getting more sporadic every day. Local affiliate groups between citizens organically rise, to try and pool resources and plan strategies for everyday life. Women give birth to babies by candlelight. Men rip up their lawns attempting to plant food crops. The national guard fires on people attempting to collect water out of a city water main. Its been weeks without tap water, and people are getting sick.
Eventually, people needing to cook are cutting down the trees in their yards, or tearing siding off their houses. When there are no more trees locally that can be collected economically, they will start burning twigs, grass, and their own dung.
By this time some biodiesel is flowing. But Joe Shmoe sees none of it. There simply isn't enough biodiesel to go around, so the F-250 will continue to sit. Without a running engine the battery to freshen the electrolyte the battery has long since oxidized anyway. Sometimes he just climbs into the cab and wraps his hands around the steering wheel, feeling the soft leather of the seat underneath him. He stares out the window imagining the world as it once was.
He has heard a vague rumor that oil sells for $500 a barrel. Several years have passed by now. One child died from complications of the H5N1 bird flu, specifically, bacterial pneumonia. They were all sick around the same time. Without medical care and little food or water, it was 3 weeks of pure hell inside the house. They buried the child in the back yard. The city is quiet. The Guard patrols are less frequent and everyone wears masks. Bodies pile up in the street alongside the rest of the garbage. There has been no sign from one neighbor that anyone is there. After a few weeks him and another neighbor decide to go in an split everything they find 50/50. The stench at the door isn't too much worse than the stench in the streets, and it doesn't keep them out. There isn't much.
There has been no rain for months. The bank might have foreclosed on his house at one point early on, but the bank doesn't exist anymore- it was burned to the ground by an angry mob. Everyday he tends to the garden where his front yard used to be. He handled every seed with care and knows exactly what was planted where. Nothing is coming up though. Was it the ChemLawn that made his wife sick last winter? He doesn't know. He kneels down and picks up a handful of dirt that was once fertile loam. It blows away to dust.
By this time, the Nepalese man is long dead, his story being much less interesting since there really was nowhere to go after the wood ran out. When there was no food to be had, they joined the procession down out of the mountains, only to find more devastation. He was killed by a hatchet blow to the back of the head, and eaten.
