Humanity's way of life is on a collision course with geology—with the stark fact that the Earth holds a finite supply of oil.
No one knows for sure, and geologists and economists are embroiled in debate about just when the "oil peak" will be upon us.
Peak oil takes the premise that the amount of oil left for us to use has "peaked" (or is just about to peak). Once worldwide production begins to fall and with no corresponding decrease in demand, oil prices will skyrocket, leading to widespread chaos. Richard Heinberg, a Californian college professor paints a dire picture.
"It's not just going to be a matter of replacing gasoline with something else and continuing on our merry way. We're actually going to have to change our transportation systems and reduce the amount of transportation that we do."
Heinberg is also sceptical of the prospect of biofuels saving the day. "It's clear ethanol and other biofuels are going to entail a trade-off between food and fuel. If we try to replace gasoline and diesel fuels with biofuels we'll simply fail because we don't have enough land and people will starve in the process."
If we are to gently surf the downward slope of Hubbert's bell curve rather than precipitously tumble off the edge, Heinberg says, it will take a social transformation of no lesser magnitude than the industrial revolution. "I don't think we are going back to exactly how people lived 200 years ago but we are going to need lots more human labour in agriculture and that means the middle class is going to start shrinking."
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3 comments:
Oil will eventually run out, thats why they are looking for alternative fuels. Hopefully by the time oil runs out we'll have an alternative...
The climax of the market economy will return the world to the hands of the "unreasonable few".
The masses will be subject to hardship and a pathetic life.
what if a supervolcano erupts before that and we dont get any sunlight?humanity is doomed either way
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