Food shortages now hitting U.S.? Is peak oil on its way?

The New York Suns is reporting that stores like Costco on both coasts are restricting the amounts of rice, flour and cooking oil that customers can buy at one time. Is the worldwide food crisis starting to hit home?

Combining that article with Economist Paul Krugman’s analysis “Running Out of Planet to Exploit” in the New York Times today, and you can see good reason for worry. Krugman notes that the confluence of skyrocketing energy and food prices can be caused by only three things — (1) a commodities bubble created by speculators, (2) a temporary shortage we can work our way out of or (3) unrelenting price rises that result from using up natural resources that cannot be replenished


In Krugman’s view, today’s situation falls somewhere between (2) and (3). Though estimates may vary, it seems clear that we are on the verge of ever-declining oil supplies, at a time when the billions of people on the planet are guzzling more and more oil.

Krugman notes that we were in similar shape back in the Seventies. We pulled out of the crisis then, so many people assume we can do the same thing now.

The reality, however, is that we should have heeded the warning shocks in the Seventies. Had we followed President Jimmy Carter’s advice on weaning ourselves from foreign oil then, we would not be overwhelmed by the challenges in doing so now.

DetNews