Don't just sit there, DO SOMETHING!

My last two posts have been circling a central issue that I feel underpins a lot of what's going on in the world. Energy. Energy is central to the functioning of economies and states. Naturally, by energy I mostly mean fossil fuels, and especially oil.

Well, there's this thing called Peak Oil. It's a multifaceted issue, but the long and short of it is, as with any limited resource, there is a production peak. After half of the oil is gone, it becomes harder and more expensive (in terms of money and energy investment) to get the rest out. What remains is lower quality, and harder to get (deep water, for example, or in or smaller reserves). So, you plateau a while as the market struggles with it, then the long slide down of production begins, while the line of expense goes ever up. Eventually the two lines cross and it takes more energy to get than to use, and it becomes not worth going after... this happens long before all the oil is actually used.

I'm reading now that oil peaked in 2006, putting us in the volatile plateau area. We're massively fucked. Consider:

With the immense petroleum input that goes into modern agriculture (fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, tractors, transit...), food prices are going up and will continue to do so. Thus the unrest in the Arab world these days. They want freedom and an equal share in their economies, but driving it is the need for affordable food. Adding to that are other systemic problems, like depleted fossil aquifers, wasting food for making ethanol (gotta keep soccer mom's SUV and joe sixpack's pick-up going!).



Goodbye soil,
goodbye future.



That alone should make us worry. Food is life, after all, and we aren't ready to jump into a local, organic food production system. The sooner we start the better. Modern agriculture is ruining the soil (what doesnt blow or wash away), which is a crime against the generations to come. This is one of the top issues in my opinion.

This reality of Peak Oil also helps explain the two wars we have going on (it's the oil, stupid!). It helps explain the power grabs and corruption in our government, and the endless recession we've fallen into, which I personally doubt we'll ever climb out of. The point is that the system is in chaos, and probably falling. Those who can are scrambling to grab what they can, it's looting at the highest levels. Peak Oil isn't the only variable in all this, of course; the system is complex. But it's a major one.

So. As I mentioned at the end of my recent post on unions, the system looks like it's going to crash. No other state or economy so depends on fossil fuels as does America's. We live too far from our jobs, from grocery stores (which are themselves too far from food sources), and from clean water (clean water? what's that?). We have paved over miles and miles of prime agricultural land. The suburbs were built on and depend on cheap oil/transportation, as does trade and manufacturing. Part of the housing bubble's collapse might be a growing if yet unconscious awareness of the coming death of suburbia. Our jobs are largely service jobs now, and do not create tangible goods or wealth. In fact, the growth economy and globalism seems to be in its death throes, which is very good for the long term but very painful for the short term. Do the words "die off" mean anything to you?

This is part of why I think getting into sustainability is vital. It's half environmental ethic, half awareness of the end of western civilization as we know it if we aren't proactive. Sounds extreme, but surely a Roman in the year 400 would have said the same of his Empire. Yet just 100 years later, Rome, at least in the West, was a memory as the so called Dark Ages began.

I don't really want another Dark Ages, and I'm sure no one does. But to avoid it, we have to wake up and realize that we are not going to be saved by a miracle technology or fuel source or some other deus ex machina. We have realities to face. We need to stop being lulled by the politicos and economists who are blind, stupid, or corrupt. The storm is coming, and praying for blue skies won't save us. We need to prepare. Large systems fall slowly, and we can help soften the blows, but we need to start yesterday.

Here's a few interesting sites, blogs and otherwise, that I've been reading lately on this topic and others. I'll be adding them to my link list as well.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/
http://thurmanhubbard.com/
http://blog.sustainablog.org/
http://www.kunstler.com/index.php
http://www.ted.com/