Life After Peak Oil
You all know how much I like a good article on Peak Oil. It sounds naughty and makes me think of naughty things. Makes me want to tool (on a bicycle, of course) on down to Chester's House of Lube and pick up somethin' for the nightstand drawer.
But seriously folks, this is a pretty good article. This fellow Kunstler, who has a new book out called The Long Emergency, paints a decidedly bleak picture of life as the oil dries up.
We have evolved a cheese-doodle agriculture system run by large
corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, which grow immense
amounts of corn by using fossil fuels to produce immense amounts of
corn-based junk food. The prospects are poor that we will continue living
this way. The implications are enormous. We will have to grow much more
of our food closer to home.
Also, our national retail chain system -- otherwise known as Wal-Mart and
Co., Wal-Mart and wannabes, Wal-Mart and imitators -- is unlikely to
survive both the rising costs of oil and far more volatile price
fluctuations. Their economic equation requires them to predict the cost of
transport because their margins are so razor thin. And they won't be able to anymore.
Remember: These immensely hypertrophic organisms like Wal-Mart are
products of the special economic growth of the late 20th century, namely
an unusually long period of relative world peace and extraordinarily
cheap energy. If you remove those two elements, all large-scale
enterprises --corporate farming, big-box shopping, big government,
professional sports -- are going to be in trouble.
uh-oh.
But seriously folks, this is a pretty good article. This fellow Kunstler, who has a new book out called The Long Emergency, paints a decidedly bleak picture of life as the oil dries up.
We have evolved a cheese-doodle agriculture system run by large
corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, which grow immense
amounts of corn by using fossil fuels to produce immense amounts of
corn-based junk food. The prospects are poor that we will continue living
this way. The implications are enormous. We will have to grow much more
of our food closer to home.
Also, our national retail chain system -- otherwise known as Wal-Mart and
Co., Wal-Mart and wannabes, Wal-Mart and imitators -- is unlikely to
survive both the rising costs of oil and far more volatile price
fluctuations. Their economic equation requires them to predict the cost of
transport because their margins are so razor thin. And they won't be able to anymore.
Remember: These immensely hypertrophic organisms like Wal-Mart are
products of the special economic growth of the late 20th century, namely
an unusually long period of relative world peace and extraordinarily
cheap energy. If you remove those two elements, all large-scale
enterprises --corporate farming, big-box shopping, big government,
professional sports -- are going to be in trouble.
uh-oh.
posted by cookie christine @ 5/17/2005
2 Comments:
At May 18, 2005,
Anonymous said…
OK, read the article but not the book. Based on the interview, this guy is just cashing in on socio-econo-babble.
Sure, we're being dumb as a bag of hammers wasting oil. I mean doesn't anyone else remember '73? (If not, read Halberstams "The Reckoning." Please)
But as soon as it becomes economically advantageous (probably after about 300 years, when we run out of coal, and long after everything above 50 feet of current sea level is part of the oceans; run, Cookie, run!) we will begin to exploit solar, wind, and tidal power. Of course, the po' folks (which might be us by then) won't be able to afford to do that. Being a good carpenter probably won't do much good, as we will have burned all the trees in a last-ditch energy frenzy. But sweating behind a plowshare could be useful, and looming would be good. Knackers will have a field day as the horse population expands.
Or maybe we will go through the kind of population bottleneck that seems increasingly likely to have occured about 70,000 years ago, reducing the human population to about 10,000 indiviuals. Or maybe we will get wiped out altogether, and no horses will have to go to the knackers.
One can hope. What you hope for is up to you.
At May 18, 2005,
John Howard said…
Peak Oil scares the shit out of me. I keep wanting to post about it, but it's just so depressing. I did see a preview for an FX Network original movie that's coming up.
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