Peak oil has been explained in great depth in many places with solid supporting information. I have referenced some of those books and websites at the end of this post. Here, I will do my best to explain what peak oil is and what it means for you and us, in a dead simple manner.

What is peak oil?

The concept of peak oil is very simple: The earth has a certain amount of oil (and other fossil fuels). No more is being made. Peak oil occurs when half of this oil has been used.

It is a peak because, from that point forward, there will be less oil available. We appear to have hit the peak.

What will be the effects of peak oil?

The effects of peak oil are quite deadly and easy to understand once you realise how dependent our society is upon oil:

1. Our entire society is built on readily available and inexpensive oil. Essentially every car, transport truck, train, ship, and aeroplane runs on oil. (Or gasoline, diesel, or some other derivative of oil.) Almost all farming requires oil for fuel and for agro-chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers. All plastic is made from oil. All mining requires oil-fueled machinery, including tar mining to get more oil.
2. Demand for oil is increasing as countries like China develop.
3. As the demand for oil collides with a decreasing supply, oil prices will spike. These spikes cause recessions.
4. In addition to oil price spikes, oil prices will trend upward, causing a permanent recession, or more likely, a depression.

There you have it; peak oil is simple and deadly. Continue reading →

There are some wise folks predicting serious problems ahead for the United States and countries dependent upon it. They range from economists like Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz to pretty much everyone who has looked into peak oil. I have said that the current recession is permanent (and will deepen) because rising oil prices are increasing the prices of food and transportation, which means less money for non-necessities – which means fewer jobs.

Political elites have been withholding the truth from Americans for a long time about certain realities like peak oil and climate change. As a result, no significant preparations have been made.

The longer you have untreated gangrene, the more of you the doctors are going to have to cut off to stop it. And if you wait too long, the sepsis spreads throughout your body and nothing can be done. You’re poisoned from within. You’re dead.

Gangrene has been spreading throughout the United States for decades now, and has been studiously ignored. The main reason is corruption of the political system by corporate executives. Elected politicians are supposed to represent the people. Were they doing so, they would have raised warnings and taken action some time ago. However, corporate executives – there is no sense putting the blame on ‘corporations,’ which after all are run by people – have been bribing our politicians for many years to put their interests over those of the people and the country. Continue reading →

The powers-that-be, from the banksters to worried politicians, must be desperately seeking the next bubble. How else will the former get rich(er), quick? (I think we can safely rule out the idea that many of them want to get rich the old-fashioned way: slow and steady through building something of real value. Or that they think they already have ‘enough.’ Surfing the bubble is the latest way to get rich, and it is much easier if you have a hand in creating the bubble.) And the latter must be concerned that the current recession appears unwilling to end – and probably permanent thanks to high oil prices. But from what can a bubble be made? I have an uncomfortable feeling it’s going to be one or more of:

• Ethanol
• Carbon trading
• Nuclear power
• Green energy
• Railways

Any area of the economy that grows continuously is a bubble, and eventually must pop. The dotcom boom-and-bust was a prominent example, where investors poured money into marginal ideas, causing massive overvaluation – that was corrected sharply and painfully. The housing bomb that recently exploded caused a worldwide recession as prices rose to levels beyond the reach of many – but who were given mortgages anyway.

A continuous growth economy is also a bubble that must eventually burst; nothing can grow forever on a finite planet, and we are pushing the limits of what is possible given the availability of energy (peak oil) and ‘biofeedback,’ meaning the planet is about to eat us through climate change, resource depletion, and so on. Continue reading →

A word of warning: To many, the Mobilisation Plan given here will seem extreme, even ridiculous. It calls for a radical restructuring of our economy, how we use energy and where we get it, how we transport things, including ourselves, how we grow our food, build our buildings, and even govern and educate ourselves. Radical it may sound, but necessary it most certainly is, and the sooner we implement something like it the more of civilisation we get to keep.

To those people who think this plan too ‘radical,’ I would suggest two things: First, what you or I think is entirely irrelevant in the face of reality. If the reality is that declining oil supplies will wreak havoc on our civilisation, then no amount of scoffing will prevent it. I would suggest you acquaint yourself with reality before deciding upon a sensible course of action. I will admit that it was only a few years ago that I would have considered this plan extreme, but I have been busy educating myself about the truth of our situation. This article assumes that you have done some research already and are aware we face multiple crises; you know I am not scaremongering, but simply confronting reality.

Second, if you are willing to think sensibly about our current economic model, that is what you will find to be ultimately insane. And you will realise that one reason such ‘radical’ changes are needed now is because we did not make smaller changes earlier. We are like the smoker who has ignored doctor’s warnings for a long time, and now faces radical surgery and possibly even death as a result.

Here are the things that must be done in developed countries, particularly Canada and the United States; you can see why we’re unlikely to do them – there will be great resistance from vested interests and the majority of unaware people. As a result, we will likely suffer greatly. Continue reading →