Star One Smart Blog's

From The Independent...

An ominous warning that the rapid rise in oil prices has only just begun

The chief executive of the world's largest energy company has issued the most dire warning yet about the soaring the price of oil, predicting that it will hit $250 per barrel "in the foreseeable future".

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Mr Miller's prediction is well beyond even the most heady market forecasts, the most extreme of which fall between $150 and $200 per barrel, and was explained only by vague references to demand from the developing world. It nonetheless stoked an already febrile atmosphere of growing public anger across Europe over a soaring fuel cost that is wreaking havoc at nearly every level of the economy.

The British Government was urging motorists yesterday not to panic-buy petrol in anticipation of a strike on Friday by lorry drivers who deliver petrol to forecourts for Royal Dutch Shell, assuring motorists that contingency plans would ensure sufficient supplies.

In Spain, the regional government of Catalonia enacted an emergency action plan to bring in fresh food and fuel supplies after nearly half of its forecourts ran dry and supermarkets shelves were left bare. The situation was the result of the second day of an "indefinite" nationwide strike staged by lorry drivers in Spain seeking their government's help to contain the effects of expensive petrol. Scattered protests by drivers and fisherman in France and Portugal also continued yesterday.

This coming oil crisis is not a liberal/conservative issue. Of course, our Government would like to play us off against each other as sleight-of-hand to avoid addressing the pain that accompanies the facts.

The facts are that life as we've known it for the past half-century is about to change. Change, that many of us knew was coming. It's so hard to get your mind around the issue, eh?


The Olduvai Theory...

The Olduvai Theory states that the life expectancy of industrial civilization is approximately 100 years: circa 1930-2030. Energy production per capita (e) defines it. The exponential growth of world energy production ended in 1970 (Postulate 1 is verified). Average e will show no growth from 1979 through circa 2008 (Postulate 2 is confirmed from 1979 through 2003). The rate of change of e will go steeply negative circa 2008 (Postulate 3). World population will decline to about two billion circa 2050 (Postulate 4). A growing
number of independent studies concur (see text).

We're between the Twin peaks that will define humanity's future scenarios...Peak Oil (2005) and Peak Population (2070). I think that peak oil will handily take care of the population problem, long before 2070, so let's take a closer look at that.

Peak oil we passed in 2005 or thereabouts, by all accounts. There's no denying that; anyone you hear blaming Exxon or Shell is simply in denial. War for oil? That's definitely coming, if not here already. Of course our government wants to secure supply; there's ample evidence for that. When you look around at the alternatives, we ask, what else do we do? We can sit back and complain to no end about what's done; but that bell curve doesn't disappear.

So...from Future Scenarios...Collapse...or descent?

"Another factor reinforcing this tendency of some to believe in Collapse is the rapid rate of recent cultural change and the very short term perspective of modern people despite the huge increase in knowledge about the distant past. Life in cities and suburbs, surrounded by technology and sustained by reliable income and debt is "normal" for many people in affluent counties, even though these features only emerged in the latter half of the 20th century. If future change were to sweep away this way of life, many people would see this as “the end of civilisation” even if these changes were quite modest from an historical perspective. For example, a return to the conditions of the Great Depression is clearly not "the end of civilisation" but the idea that any downturn from the current peak of affluence represents "the end of civilisation", is quite widely assumed. Perhaps this reflects the egocentric nature of modern mentality where we consider our own survival and well being as being more important than was perhaps felt by past generations. It may also be interpreted as an intuitive recognition that this peak of affluence, like peak oil, is a fundamental turning point that will break the illusion of the, more or less, continuous arrow of growth and progress into the distant future." (emboldenings mine)

If we seriously look at the Olduvai Theory (ignoring Holmgren’s red herring of ‘climate change’) we know we have two problems that aren’t going away…the peaking of oil production and supply vs. ever-increasing world demand (there’s a preponderance of measured evidence that supports that theory) and an unsustainable world population (sustainable meaning at the current level of enjoyed technology and ‘modernism’).

Jeff Vail (a more level-headed sort than the 'Future Scenarios' author) reviews a new book, "Crash Course: Preparing for Peak Oil", a primer of sorts for those who want to prepare for the inevitable...

In "Crash Course," Nowak outlines four separate future scenarios for planning purposes (setting aside "Status Quo" and "Total Armageddon" as either too remote or pointless to plan for): The New Green Revolution (most optimistic), Powerdown USA, the Great Energy Depression, and The Crash (most pessimistic).

“Powerdown USA”. That’s one of the ‘more optimistic’ scenarios. Can't you see our politicians telling spoiled Americans that their TV sets and Internet connections are only going to work 3 hours out of the day? Hmmmph.

I can just see "Power Down America" happening…given that most large urban American cities during even short-term blackouts will burn and riot beyond belief.

Blackouts. Damn, I’m going to miss air conditioning.

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h/t Ace