Climate change is not a clear and present danger. It is clear to scientists, to those who take the trouble to understand the science, and to those who trust the former or the latter. It is not at all clear to anyone else, and of course the truth and danger are deliberately obscured by paid deniers.

Climate change is also not a present danger, meaning it is not an immediate threat. The longer we put off confronting climate change, the more damage it will do, but the nature of the threat is creeping and exponential. Some changes are occurring right now and many may realise that climate change is a contributory factor, but the danger is distant and remote. Later, as we go up the exponential damage curve, climate change becomes a clear and present danger but it will be too late to stop the worst.

Humanity does face a clear and present danger, however, and combating this crisis will go a long way toward fighting climate change. Environmentalists must not waste this crisis. Despite forty years of environmental activism and some major battles won, the war is all but lost.

If you want to win, it is time to change strategy. The crisis is peak oil, and is dead simple:

1. There is only so much oil;
2. At some point, the peak, we will have used half of all the oil;
3. After that point, there will only be less oil; and
4. Our entire civilisation, especially transportation and food, is dependent upon oil.
5. No substitutes are anywhere near available.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that unless our need for oil remains less than the supply of oil, the price of oil is going to go up. Way up, given how dependent we are upon it.

From The Oil Drum

After the price of oil spikes, there will be a recession, and the price may come back down. That has been the pattern in recent recessions caused by oil price increases. This time, however, we have passed peak oil and that means the supply is less than it way – which means the price is not going to go down as much as it used to.

We are in a permanent recession as a result of the fact that oil prices are roughly four times what they were a few years ago. Because virtually 100% of our transportation – trucks, trains, planes, ships, and of course cars – runs on oil or its derivatives, the price of transportation has increased. The same effect exists with food, where pesticides are petroleum based, and of course tractors run on diesel. Inflation lately has been driven by these increases in transportation and food costs, and as people have to spend more on necessities like food and transportation, they will have less to spend on other things. This means less consumer demand and therefore a recession.

This recession is permanent and will probably deepen. Just prior to the recession, the price of oil spiked to $147 per barrel, and it is now approximately $80 per barrel. This is four times the price of only a few years ago, when the economy was booming. We are now in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The price of oil is not going down.

How does this recession fit into environmentalism? It is a crisis that will continue until we greatly reduce our demand for oil. Which, coincidentally and interestingly, is also a big part of the cure for climate change.

Climate change warriors need to get behind a plan to get off oil. The peak oil crisis is now, and people will respond. Whether they respond by invading another oil-bearing country, by dissolving into poverty and despair, or by conserving and moving to renewable energy is currently an open question.

Environmentalists, climate warriors, peak oilers, nationalists, and democratic reformers need to pile onto peak oil. The longer we delay, the more damage we suffer from recession, from peak oil, and from climate change. Replacing oil with conservation and renewables makes the nation energy-independent, creates a secure food supply, eliminates oil-induced inflation and recessions, and slashes greenhouse gas emissions.

Peak oil is a clear and present danger to the nation, to our prosperity, and to civilisation, and the protective steps for peak oil will greatly help with climate change. All of us need to join together to combat it.

I recently stirred some people up with a post suggesting that there should be limits to immigration, and that doing so would help with the current recession. Most of the responses focused on economic arguments why immigration was beneficial, or how it was racist to limit immigration. Nobody addressed the central point, which is this: Continuous population growth is not possible. Given that developed countries like Canada and the United States have had increasing populations since their inception, and that the world is running into hard ecological limits to carrying capacity, it seems a sensible question to ask: How much is enough?

This is not an argument for or against immigration, but rather an attempt to get you to think about how much is enough. I am Canadian, and the current population of Canada is approximately 34 million. Canada has more land area than any other country except Russia, population 142 million. “Should” Canada aim for the same population?

Or how about the United States, population 310 million. Canada is larger than the U.S., so perhaps we should be aiming for a proportionally larger population? Of course the U.S. population is growing, too, so perhaps the upper limit is yet unknown. Canada is also larger than China, population 1.3 billion. China is taking drastic measures to reduce its population, so maybe that’s too many; how about a flat 1 billion? Is that “enough?”

If you’re Canadian, the idea of 966,000,000 more people living here is probably not appealing. Our cities would be enormous – tens of millions of people in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, plus tens and tens of millions more in many other cities. Can you imagine Halifax with 19 million people? That’s the population of Shanghai. Or Victoria with 39 million souls, the same as the Greater Tokyo Area? Continue reading →

(This article makes more sense if you read the first part: Why don’t more of us conserve more? I’m looking at you…and myself.)

Given the challenges we face – climate change, peak oil, etc – why don’t I reduce my lifestyle further, even below that of ‘developed world middle class’? Why shouldn’t everyone who calls him or herself ‘environmentally aware?’

• I am not saying I am entitled to this lifestyle, only that I have it, it’s good, and it would be foolish to give it up unless forced;

BECAUSE

• It is possible to create a middle class lifestyle that is carbon-neutral, sustainable, doesn’t exploit people, and so on;

BUT

• We allowed corrupt people to take advantage of imperfect systems to make doing the right thing very difficult and expensive.

The best known way to get people to behave according to social norms is – peer pressure. I’m working hard to push us over the tipping point where it is normal to conserve, normal to live within your ecological means, and shameful to waste.

Whether I succeed or fail in creating this, some of my journey must on roads rather than rails. Solar houses are not commonly built, so I must build my own, and in the meantime I will endeavour to live in comfortable, but not excessive, surroundings.  Continue reading →

Many of us realise the nature of the threat posed by climate change, peak oil, peak everything else, fisheries collapse, ocean acidification, desertification…the list is getting longer, especially recently.¹ Even if you don’t know about all of these dangers, you know enough about one or two to know that one or two is enough to do us in. Yet many people still live lifestyles they know to be wildly unsustainable, even actively harmful. Why?

This is not the place for a detailed discussion of each of the threats previously mentioned. I am going to assume that, if you are reading this, you accept that we face at least one very severe threat that will cause great harm. There will be damage to individual and social prosperity, the economy at large, health, our standard of living, and so on. If unchecked, it has the potential to set civilisation and population back considerably. There may be differences over timeline, level of awareness, beliefs about our ability to adapt, and so forth, but we all accept that we face a severe threat. There are millions of people who accept this about climate change and/or peak oil, and/or other environmental concerns and/or etc.

And yet you still drive?

I still drive. I am very aware of the extent of many of these dangers, and how driving is contributing to making them worse. I know carbon emitted by me² indirectly contributed to the drying up of Lake Chad, which resulted in millions being driven from their lands into other, already crowded lands…and a genocide ensued. I know that any carbon emitted by me is contributing to sea level rise that will drown parts of Delta, BC, just across from my home of Victoria.

And yet I still drive, and so do many millions of ‘ecoaware’ people. How can I live with myself? Continue reading →