Peak Oil and Climate Change

When I think about PEAK OIL and CLIMATE CHANGE, there are obvious concerns that are worrying, but there are also opportunities too.

A lot of people are concerned about the ramifications of oil running out. Even economists working for oil companies recognize that this is going to happen, or is already happening.

To quote Asia Newspaper, 4 May 2005, "Fifty years ago, the world was consuming 4 billion barrels of oil per year and the average discovery was around 30 billion. Today we consume 30 billion barrels per year and the discovery rate is approaching 4 billion barrels of crude per year."

Fox News, of 28 April 2006 stated "Energy experts no longer debate about whether Hubbert's peak will occur, but when." M. King Hubbert, geologist, predicted in 1956 that the US would peak in production in 1970, was ridiculed but then proved correct. (The Transition Handbook, Hopkins, P22.)

In the Sunday Times of 9 September 2007, Zac Goldsmith says "Peak oil informs everything. People ought to know about that, but they don't. When it's going to peak or if it's happened already I don't know, but if oil ran out tomorrow we would be stuffed. We depend on it for everything."

If you haven't read about this issue for yourself, by now you are probably thinking I've lost my marbles or that I'm one of those people who believe in doomsday - that the end of the world is coming and all that kind of stuff. But that would be wrong. I am an optimistic person and I believe we have a chance to sort ourselves out before it is too late.

Nevertheless, I do have worries. How will my family travel to see each other when getting to other countries or parts of this country will become like getting to the moon?

How will people feed, clothe, and house themselves when we are dependent on oil to bring EVERYTHING to our locales? If you don't believe this, check the products around your house to see where they are made. How many are made in your town? Your state? Even your country? Think about the products you depend on every day and how they are made. Most need oil as part of their material and all need it for transportation. How about the medication you rely on? How about the latex gloves you protect your hands with? Your household cleaners? Cosmetics? Clothing fabric? Insulation? Fertilizer? Pesticide? Food? Grocery bags? CD's, DVD's? No point in going on, you get the picture.

At our house, we have taken steps over the past 30 years to become more self-sufficient and could, with adaptations live here with little or no electricity or petroleum. We know how to do it even though it will feel like deprivation after our easy life of oil dependency.

But what about the community or world at large? People are not preparing. I worry about war and chaos resulting from the coming lack of oil. Our government is arguing over distractions that keep them busy from addressing the real problems we are facing. They are certainly not telling the public what even the big oil companies know and have acknowledged in industry-wide publications or forums.

My POSITIVE vision for the future is everyone pulling together. We do not need to wait for the government to tell us what to do. We need to draw together as bioregional communities to grow and distribute food, building materials, clothing fiber, fuel, and, of course, water.

I believe we CAN do this if enough people start waking up and working together to plan for the transition into cooperative communities instead of the consumptive "every household for itself" mode of living we are seeing now.

I highly recommend the book "The Transition Handbook:From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience" by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement, published by Chelsea Green.

It is normal to dismiss this kind of thing as alarmist nonsense and continue on in denial. That would be a mistake.