Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon

Part III: Issues of Economy,
Technology, and the Ability to Adapt
Matthew David Savinar

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5 |

What about the "invisible hand" of the market and the laws of supply and demand?  When oil gets too expensive, it will become more profitable to invest in renewables.   At that point, we will just switch.

If the previous three questions have not made it perfectly clear that no alternative sources of energy currently exist that can replace oil and gas, then perhaps this quote from Michael Ruppert will help clarify the situation for you:

For all of the Pollyanna advocates of alternative energy who assure us that there is nothing to worry about, I suggest that they go and live in the northeast today and see how warm their windmills, solar panels, biomass and hydrogen myths keep them.

Where is the infrastructure to employ even the pitiful solutions that solar, wind and biomass might provide? 

Furthermore, market indicators will likely come too late for us to implement whatever alternatives we have available.  Once the price of oil gets high enough that people begin to seriously consider alternatives, those alternatives will become too expensive to implement on a wide scale.  Reason:  Oil is required to develop, manufacture, transport and implement oil alternatives such as solar panels, biomass, windmills, and particularly nuclear power plants, which require massive amounts of oil to construct and maintain.

There are many examples in history where a resource shortage spurned the development of alternative resources.  Oil, however, is not just any resource. In our current world, it is the precondition for all other resources, including alternative ones.

Right now, a barrel of oil costs $37.  It would cost between $100-$250 to get the amount of energy in that barrel of oil from renewable sources.

This means that an energy company won't be motivated to aggressively pursue renewable energy until the cost of oil double, triples, or quadruples.

At that point, our economy will be close to devastated. Our ability to implement renewables will be completely crippled.

In pragmatic terms, this means that if you want your home powered by solar panels or windmills, you had better do it soon.  If you don't have these alternatives in place when the lights go out, they're going to stay out.

We'll think of something.  We always do.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

Yes, and lots of cheap oil has been the father of invention for the past 150 years.  No invention has been mass produced without it.

The end of the oil age is a life and death game.  If you want to live, you cannot just dismiss this issue with a cavalier, "Oh, somebody will think of something."But what if somebody invents some new technology or makes some discovery that can replace oil?  We're pretty inventive you know.

How would you mass produce that invention without cheap oil?

How would you distribute that resource without cheap oil?

Is there any infrastructure currently in place to handle this currently nonexistent invention or discovery?

What is the profit margin?  Is there a profit margin?  Will the implementation of this invention or discovery destroy the automotive, energy, transportation or agribusiness industries?  Would this invention or discovery be bad for Wall Street?  How much of a shock to the Stock Market would it cause?

How long before it can be brought online on a society wide level?

Could it be implemented before billions of people die? Or would it be implemented only after that ghastly horror has motivated us to implement it?

How much oil would it take to develop it?  To manufacture it?  To transport it?  To install it?

Can our current infrastructure be retrofitted for this yet unknown invention or discovery?

How would vested interests react?

Have you considered the fact that the multi-trillion dollar energy industry has been investing ungodly sums to this end with no success?

Have you considered that without cheap oil, none of our current technology could have been produced  on more than a prototype or experimental scale?

These are questions you have to ask yourself before you stake your life on something that doesn't even exist yet.

Keep in mind that we often don't find solutions to serious problems.  Or we find them only after many people have died.  For instance, despite all of our technology, money and ingenuity, we have no cure for AIDS,Cancer, Diabetes, or even the common cold. 

If you were diagnosed with a life threatening disease, would you take it upon yourself to prepare, or would you dismiss the diagnosis with "Oh, somebody will find a cure in the next couple of years before my condition gets really bad."

You need to take the issue of oil depletion personally and seriously if you want to live.

Is it possible that the government is actually trying to speed up the collapse?

Yes, but not necessarily for "evil" reasons.

From the government's perspective, a fast collapse may be better than a slow one.

Why? A slow crash may simply exacerbate the problems, because the population at the turning point of oil production will be even larger than it would be at an earlier date. The higher the population the higher the number of deaths that will result when the cheap oil runs out.

In the eyes of our government, a fast crash may be the "kinder, gentler" alternative.

This would certainly explain why the government gives tax breaks to S.U.V. owners at a time when they should be encouraging conservation.

Damn those S.U.V. drivers! This is all their fault. I'm so angry I could set fire to a Hummer dealership!

Not so fast Mr. Self Righteous. You think you're off the hook because you ride a bicycle instead of drive an S.U.V.?

Guess what? It took oil to manufacture and transport that bicycle. The plastic that your veggie sandwich is wrapped in also came from oil. You're simply (considerably) less guilty than the S.U.V. driver.

As far as setting fire to a Hummer dealership, that's going to require oil (gasoline) to start the fire. The firefighters who come to put it out will get there in a truck powered by oil. You will end up in a prison that was built by machines that were powered by using oil. You will be taken there in a bus powered by oil.

We've all contributed to the problem. At this point, finger pointing will do us about as much good as a circular firing squad.

Well if I can't blame the S.U.V. drivers, who should I blame? Arab terrorists? Jewish bankers? Fascist corporate warmongers? Leftist environmental wackos? Bush? Clinton? Come on, I need a scapegoat!

If you're looking for a scapegoat, I don't think you will find it by looking to the usual suspects.

If you think the political left is at fault, and favor a more conservative solution, the result will be an exacerbation of what we've seen the past few years: more war, and less rights.

If you think the political right is at fault, and favor a more "leftist" solution, the result will likely be the similar to that seen during the Russian and Cuban revolutions: more war, and less rights.

Many of George W. Bush's energy policies are likely making the situation worse. At the same time, his administration has invested far more money into the development of renewable energy than Clinton ever did.

Given the circumstances, do you think Bush could be convinced to support energy conservation measures?

In 2001, President Bush stated, "We can't conserve our way to energy independence, nor can we can conserve our way to having enough energy available. So we've got to do both"

The oil companies are so greedy that they will come up with an alternative to keep making money, right?

Expecting the oil companies to save you from the oil crash is about as wise as expecting the tobacco companies to save you from lung cancer.

As explained above, corporate officers are bound by law to do what is in the best interests of the corporation, so long as their actions are legal. Their legal obligation is to make money for the company, not to save the world.

None of the currently available alternatives have anywhere near the profit margin that oil does. Even if an oil executive wanted to "do the right thing" and pursue oil alternatives, it is illegal for her to do so if it is not in the best interests of the company.

At the Paris Peak Oil Conference, Dutch economist Maarten Van Mourik of the Netherlands Economic Institute explained that because of the financial shortcomings of all currently available forms of alternative energy, a sudden crash is the profitable solution for the oil companies.

Furthermore, according to Dr. Colin Campbell:

"The major oil companies are merging and downsizing and outsourcing and not investing in new refineries because they know full well that production is set to decline and that the exploration opportunities are getting less and less.

The companies have to sing to the stock market, and merger hides the collapse of the weaker brethren. The staff is purged on merger and the combined budget ends up much less than the sum of the previous components. Besides, a lot of the executives and bankers make a lot of money from the merger."

Expecting the oil companies, the government, or anybody else to solve this problem for us is simply suicidal. You, me, and every other "regular person" needs to be actively engaged in addressing this issue if there is to be any hope for humanity.

I think you are underestimating the human spirit. Humanity always adapts to challenges. We will just adapt to this too.

Absolutely, we will adapt. Part of that adaptation process will include most of us dying if we don't take massive action right now.

The human spirit is capable of some miraculous things. We need a miracle right now, so the human spirit had better get its' ass in gear, pronto.

Unfortunately, there is no law that says when humanity adapts to a resource shortage, everybody gets to survive. Think of any mass tragedy connected to resources such as oil, land, food, labor (slaves) buffalo, etc. . The societies affected usually survive, but in a drastically different and often unrecognizable form.

The "end of the world" is here, once again. So what's new? Y2K was supposed to be the end of the world, and it turned out to be much ado about nothing.

What's new is that this is the real thing. It isn't a fire drill. It isn't paranoid hysteria. It is the real deal.

George W. Bush's Energy Advisor, Matthew Simmons, addressed this issue at the Paris Peak Oil Conference, stating:

"I think it is human nature, basically, to say that we really like to have pleasant thoughts. The one crying wolf is abandoned unless the wolf turns out to be already at the front door, and by then, the cry is generally too late. And crises are basically problems, by definition, that have gone ignored. And all great crises were ignored until it became too late to do anything about it..."

Peak Oil isn't "Y2K Reloaded." In contrast to Peak Oil, Y2K was an "if", not a "when". We know that Peak Oil is going to happen. The only question is at what point between 2004-2010 it will occur, if it hasn't occurred already.

Y2K was "announced" in the early to mid 1990's, a full 5 - 10 years before the problem was to occur. Peak Oil will occur within 1 - 5 years, and we have made no preparations to deal with it. The preparations necessary to deal with the Oil Crash will require a complete overhaul of every aspect of our civilization. This is much more complex than fixing a computer bug.

Furthermore, oil is more fundamental to our existence than anything else, even computers. Had the Y2K predictions come true, our civilization would have been knocked back to 1965. With time, we would have recovered.

When the Oil Crash comes, our civilization is going to get knocked back to 1765. We will not recover, as there is no economically available oil left to discover that would help us recover.

We had oil problems back in the 1970's. We got through those just fine. How is this any different?

In 1973, OPEC stopped selling oil to the United States in protest of American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur or Ramadan War. This coincided with the peaking of U.S. domestic oil production. Without a supply of cheap energy, the US economy went into deep recession.

In the 70's there were other 'swing' oil producers like Venezuela who could step in to fill the supply gap. Once worldwide oil production peaks (if it hasn't already), there won't be any swing producers to fill in the gap.

In the future, comparing the oil shortages of the 1970's to the Oil Crash of 2005-2050 will be akin to comparing a fender bender to a head-on collision.

People have been predicting that we'll run out of oil since like 1920 or something. Same old, same old. . .

Allow me to reiterate: it's not that we are going to run out of oil per se, but rather, we are going to run out of cheap oil.

The fact that similar predictions have been made in the past does not mean that current predictions are without merit.

Do you think people will wake up in time for us to avert, or at least soften the crash?

I hope so, but I'm not betting on it.

According to author George Monbiot, "The only rational response to both the impending end of the oil age and the menace of global warming is to redesign our cities, our farming and our lives. But this cannot happen without massive political pressure, and our problem is that no one ever rioted for austerity."