Wondering about life in the future

Thursday, September 22. 2005

Wondering about life in the future

Since being exposed to information about "peak oil" -- the fact that worldwide oil production has or will soon reach its peak and decline after that (calculated in a similar manner to an earlier calculation of U.S. peak oil production that proved uncannily accurate); since watching how quickly civil order can break down in a crisis; since watching gasoline prices skyrocket to over $3.00 a gallon in a couple of weeks while wondering how much of that was simply oil companies gobbling up profits; since demand for oil continues to increase throughout the world, I do wonder what the future will hold. Will we continue to go to war for oil? Will we wake up and start investing in mass transit systems that would be more energy efficient? Will we change land use patterns, particularly in housing, to reduce the need for motorized transit? Will we sink into a long decline? I am not optimistic.

Posted by Kitty Degler in Current Events at 19:21 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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I wonder if there's any research out there that investigates societal change as a result of a resource limitation or a transition to a different resource.
We suspect the Cahokia population moved on because limitations on wood. Whale oil was becoming scarce in the 19th century when society transitioned to a different lighting method.
I'm worried less by this than I am by the extreme consolidation of wealth going on.

#1 Sam Chapman on 2005-09-23 15:54 (Reply)

I have been told by a source that is reliable that we are not about to run out of oil. We have a very large reserve of shale oil, especially in Colorado and Wyoming which can be accessed with improved technology which will last for years. Our problem is not a lack of oil, but restrictions which have been imposed by those who see environmental hazards. We for example, have to custom tailor our gasoline for very many parts of the country. We have shortages because refineries have not been built for many years because of limiting laws. We also pay about double for our sweet crude. Regular crude in used in the rest of the world. Sweet crude of course produces gasoline which is claimed to be more environmentally proper. Of shore drilling restrictions prevent the US from producing more crude. We could produce enough domestically to get along with out eastern oil. Would it bring the cost of crude down pretty quickly if we even just started to produce more oil in this manner?

#2 Sam Chapman on 2005-09-23 21:49 (Reply)

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