The Oil is Going
These are some notes from an article by Katherine Mieszkowski. It discusses planting gardens and drafting city plans for the days when oil is gone.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/22/peakoil/print.html
A report on Peak Oil released in February 2005, known as the Hirsch Report, plays out three scenarios: Wait for the peak to occur before transitioning, plan a decade ahead, plan 20 years ahead. Only the third scenario concludes that major liquid fuel shortages could be avoided.
We have a problem that has no real solution, and we are trying to mitigate what will happen to culture. Some predict we are going back to the 13th century at some point – this is significant !! It is going to be more third world-like and people are going to need to cope.
Cities will start to struggle to provide basic services such as police, firefighting, public transport, water, road repair and other community services.
Office workers will lose jobs as businesses flounder under the strain of a failing global economy.
We cling to the vain hope that better fuel efficiency, more conservation and alternative energy will step in and save the day. The myth of biofuels – the likes of ethanol, fuel from crops like corn and switchgrass are not going to save the day. We would not be able to produce the same amount of energy that we now get from 85 millions barrels of oil a day. Sheer volume aside, we will end up overmining the soil.
As energy gets more expensive, food will get more expensive. Bio-intensive farming methods require 4,000 sq feet of land to produce enough food to feed a vegetarian diet to one person.
Some communities are already developing policies and infrastructure to become energy and food self-reliant. Convert school yards into a farm for healthy food in the cafeteria, put farms next to hospitals. Find local sources for electricity.
For individuals, having land and the ability to produce your own food is going to become very important.
We will need to adapt, not necessarily technically but rather socially.
