Article predicts 'tragic destiny' for the US

Rolling Stone recently posted an article by James Howard Kunstler called The Long Emergency.

As I read this, my heart sank. It discussed the end of cheap oil for the US and how that alone will change it forever. Once we reach the peak of oil production, we will start to see the price of oil skyrocket due to the fact that everyone knows that we are close to the end of the supply.

When you think about it, we use oil to do so much in the civilized world. It heats our homes in winter and also allows us to live far from work and allows the shipment of cheap goods from across the world. It has created a global economy, which we are all a part of now. Oil also allows us to have electricity in our homes and work. This electricity lets us communicate with the world in real time ( like I am doing right now ) and gives us a chance to see how we are so alike each other, as well as how we are different.

It has given us the opportunity to either get to know each other and become friends or gives us the means to find new things to hate and destroy. Which one of these have you been doing lately?

The article also mentions the fact that most civilized countries and superpowers will do anything to keep the oil flowing regardless of how unstable a region the fluid comes from. Frank Herbert wrote about this in metaphor in Dune about how the "spice must flow." Oil must flow for the leviathans called civilization to keep moving forward consuming everything in their path.

I would imagine that most people in the US would approve unanimously of a war being fought to keep gasoline cheap and their way of life the same as it has been for the last century.

The author sees the end of suburbia because as the public services start to fail, the people living in large cities and suburbs will be unable to have running water, electricity, or the means to travel back and forth to cities that have no groceries to sell or jobs to go to.

Tourism falls because no one can afford to buy a ticket. As tourism falls, so do the airlines. All of a sudden everyone is isolated. You have no one to worry about but your own people. All of you struggling to live off of the same resources. How will my country fare? How will yours fare?

I try to make people realize that if/when this happens to the US, this happens to the world because we are all in this together. We are all connected in ways that we don't realize.

What happens when the largest consumer nation stops consuming? What happens when China no longer has a place to sell its goods? What about Korea? Or Taiwan? What happens to England, Russia, Germany, or France who have a similar economy as the US? They currently pay close to $6.00 per gallon now. What happens to them when petrol prices rise to the point where no one can afford to commute between their countries?

What happens to the Middle East when there is no more oil to sell? What other sources of income do they have?

Kunstler wrote a frightening article that brings home the realities of how fragile our world really is and how we should set our differences aside and work together to find solutions if we want to survive. No egos, no nationalism, but coming together as one race. The human race.

According to Kunstler, we will soon see if we can survive or not.


Bandit: Title edited thanks to cooperation from xman..


[edit on 31-3-2005 by TheBandit795]

The stupidity of oil dependency has been pointed out for decades, but oil barons and capitalist manufacturers with billions invested in obsolescent plant and machinery care little for the world's future, really. It's just their short term dynasty that matters.

Well, what about the U.S. oil reserves? Although they are under government protection, if the stake of the country's survival was at hand, the government would ultimately tap into those resources until they could allow a different type of fuel. We have some in Texas, in Arizona, and mostly in Alaska.

-wD

If the price of oil gets too high it will kill off the Oil Market but the world will survive. We have other things for fuel. The reason we dont use them now is because its cheaper to use oil. If oil ever cost more then say it would to produce hydrogen then there will be a switch off.

Big oil is not going to let their money and power slip away when the wells dry up. They will just become Big Hydrogen or Big Solar or Big Fussion and be as powerful as ever. Besides switching over to say a hydrogen infrastructure will cost alot of money and you do you think is going to pay for it and control it.

[edit on 29-3-2005 by ShadowXIX]

Exactly, Wars wont be faught over oil, something new will emerge. Hydrogen Cells, Solar power.. personally I dont see why Solar power isnt used more so than oil. I mean, all that needs to happen is to find a way to HARNESS the engery, enabling it to be stored.

The sun would be one big battery charger.

I wonder if there's any data anywhere that PREDICTS how many years worth of oil this planet has left...

And what if it is all a scare by the envirowacko's?

The end of the age of oil? I think not!


Personally, my father was in the oil business and this same stuff was said in the oil crisis of the 70's, what happens if it seems to get close to running out? We find a new fuel or more sources. Plain and simple.


Technology and progress will not be stopped.

Peak Oil is not a certainty, and it doesn't seem to have anything approaching acceptance in the geological (or even broadly scientific and techinical) or economic fields. The presentations of it that I have seem seem to be pretty complicated and I've never seen anything in them that screams 'fraud/idiot'. However I find it very difficult to beleive that geologists don't support it because of a 'conspiracy' or sheer ignorance. Since there isn't anything, if its true, that can be done about it anyway (literally), I also can't see much reason to worry about it. If its true, everyone's life is forfeit, and only a small number of people will survive and live in a horrible barbaric existence, and agreeing that Peak Oil is real isn't going to help anyone survive it. Nothing, really, can help one survive a general 'system's collapse'.

I had once thought that the strategic reserves were 'strategic' in the sense that they'd be used incase of an embargo and the military needed to mobilize. Not true at all. The reserve exists soley to reduce the price of gasoline and oil.



The strategic reserves are not untapped oil fields, they're collections of oil that has been purchased and are not put onto the market.

The idea behing peak oil is that, there is not enough oil in the ground anymore, or rather there won't be 'very soon', to make pumping it out 'cost effective'. Eventually the fields are 'weakened' and the cost of extracting oil is greater than the 'profit' or 'usage' of it. So you hit 'peak oil' and the oil based world collapses, even tho there is still, technically, plenty of oil out there. It has nothing to do strictly with all the fields running dry, or oil merely being 'expensive'.
Take that for what its worth, its my understanding of the idea.


Because its not as cost effective. It costs more to do most stuff with solar power than oil in most cases.


Its not at all plain and simple. If 'peak oil' is correct, then its a disaster. There are no real alternatives to burning fossil fuels right now or in sight. I, personally, don't think peak oil is at all true. But its saying far too much to think that entire new global resources of energy can be magically found. Fossil fuels, short of burning wood, are really the only big, industrial, energy source that humans have ever had.

[edit on 30-3-2005 by Nygdan]

I think right now it comes down to it costing more per watt of energy to use Solar then say Nuclear or Oil. So Companies make more money using oil. But if oil becomes too expensive that could be a good choice. Solar tech is getting better all the time as the newer cells convert a much larger percent of the suns rays to usable energy. That helps to drive the price down as you need to make less cells for the same energy.

The sun gives us immense free and for all practical purposes infinte energy something on the order of 1000 watts per square meter here on earth.

That's an interesting article and sociologically, it is probably accurate as to what will happen eventually, provided some ingenious unforeseen energy source is not discovered or some man-made or natural disaster removes enough humans from the equation to limit demand.

However, the article does not adequately address the full petroleum potential, which with enough incentive could very well push back that oil peak disaster that so many have predicted.

For the more studious among us, I offer the following references:

www.csmonitor.com...

www.csmonitor.com...

msnbc.msn.com...

msnbc.msn.com...

www.washingtonpost.com...

The Big Rollover



[edit on 05/3/30 by GradyPhilpott]

a couple decades ago a friend of mine working for a US based oil company coined a reserve that spans from longreach in New South wales(australia for those who are ignorant) to the Bottom of South Australia, there is to his estimates enough oil to last Australia 100 000 Years(no i'm not kidding) so it would last the US..depending on the consumption, well lets just say that Australia doesn't consume a lot of oil. This oil belongs to the US because they found the oil field.

I have No links to back this up, because I Was told this directly by the person who helped find/claim rights to it. Interesting isn't it.

The fact of the matter is no one knows for sure when the oil will run out. It could be soon it could be generations from now. I am enclined to believe we face an imminent crisis but that is just my opinion. However even if you dont believe we face an imminent crisis there is no reason not look into ways to expand our capabilities.

Oil will run out some day that much is certain. What we have to ask ourselves is do we want to be in a situation where there is a desperate last minute search to find a new fuel source while millions die from lack of power or do we want a situation where when the announcement is made that the oil has run out the one thought that goes through peoples minds is "Oil who still uses oil in this day and age?"

What's this "US haters......" nonsense? What has that to do with any of this post besides making a daft title?

The prospect of permanently high world oil prices has little to do with the current global dislike of the current version of the US right-wing.....

....even if the Iraqi war was the mechanism that spurred it into being.

(It might help if the cheerleaders could bear it in mind that neither they nor Bush and Co are 'the US'.)

I've done a bit of topical reading and do not have a link for it, but I was reading somewhere that there is some evidence to indicate that the oil is renewing itself. That oil may not be a biological entity (left over squished dinosaurs), but something that renews itself deep in the bowels of the earth where pressure and heat interacts with minerals, etc. Boy! That would be neat.

Read the artical above.



Yes, but what will the cost be. If you want something, you have to take it from somebody.

Cheers

Article is not some anti US propaganda. It's trying to tell you that you have to spend less and that the resouses on this planet are limited.

There are massive untapped oil fields in Canada, Russia, the artic(Northpole), Greenland, oceans, & who knows what is under Antartica. Global warming is a natural occurring process when one looks at the history of the planet. This is just envirowacko scaremongering spread by SUV haters. Even though most people wouldn't turn down a free Cadillac Escalade, Licoln Navigator, or H2, they simply wine about SUV's cause they can't afford one and a jealous.

it's MADMAX time, baby!

the world economy will falter, somewhat because the US and other large consumer markets will turn isolationist, but also because those countries exporting the large amount of consumer goods and services will need those at home and slow or halt exporting. rural living will be forced upon most people that have the room to do so, such as those of us in the US, canada, other large open land areas. it will be for protection, for stability and for self-sufficiency. there will be banditos and the wild west will open up again.

I agree here. I've asked xman to change the title thread.

Its starting baby!!

money.cnn.com...

"DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. Wednesday said it signed an $88 million deal with the Department of Energy to build a fleet of 40 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and further develop the technology..."


When the US drops its dependancy on middle eastern oil, the whole region will dry up into a desert sink hole. They will beg the rest of the world for aid as they export nothing else of value. Harsh? Yes, but 100% true.

First hybrids, then hydrogen powered. Its coming people, and soon too. Once oil demand is reduced to almost nothing, so will the middle east...