[Vision2020] Fwd: Earth Policy News - The World After Oil Peaks

[Art Deco]

Tom,

Thank you for this post.  Now if could only persuade the majority of your 
political party to take this problem very seriously, you'd be a national 
hero too.

W.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Trail" <ttrail at moscow.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 8:47 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Fwd: Earth Policy News - The World After Oil Peaks


> >Visionaries:  A timely article.
>
>
> Tom Trail
>
>>May 23, 2006
>>
>>THE WORLD AFTER OIL PEAKS
>>
>>http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch02_ss6_7.htm
>>
>>
>>Lester R. Brown
>>
>>
>>Peak oil is described as the point where oil production stops rising and
>>begins its inevitable long-term decline. In the face of fast-growing
>>demand, this means rising oil prices. But even if oil production growth
>>simply slows or plateaus, the resulting tightening in supplies will still
>>drive the price of oil upward, albeit less rapidly.
>>
>>Few countries are planning a reduction in their use of oil. Even though
>>peak oil may be imminent, most countries are counting on much higher oil
>>consumption in the decades ahead, building automobile assembly plants,
>>roads, highways, parking lots, and suburban housing developments as though
>>cheap oil will last forever. New airliners are being delivered with the
>>expectation that air travel and freight will expand indefinitely. Yet in a
>>world of declining oil production, no country can use more oil except at
>>the expense of others.
>>
>>Some segments of the global economy will be affected more than others
>>simply because some are more oil-intensive. Among these are the
>>automobile, food, and airline industries. Cities and suburbs will also
>>evolve as oil supplies tighten.
>>
>>Stresses within the U.S. auto industry were already evident before oil
>>prices started climbing in mid-2004. Now General Motors and Ford, both
>>trapped with their heavy reliance on sales of gas-hogging sport utility
>>vehicles, have seen Standard and Poor's lower their credit ratings,
>>reducing their corporate bonds to junk bond status. Although it is the
>>troubled automobile manufacturers that appear in the headlines as oil
>>prices rise, their affiliated industries will also be affected, including
>>auto parts and tire manufacturers.
>>
>>The food sector will be affected in two ways. Food will become more costly
>>as higher oil prices drive up production costs. As oil costs rise, diets
>>will be altered as people move down the food chain and as they consume
>>more local, seasonally produced food. Diets will thus become more closely
>>attuned to local products and more seasonal in nature.
>>
>>At the same time, rising oil prices will also be drawing agricultural
>>resources into the production of fuel crops, either ethanol or biodiesel.
>>Higher oil prices are thus setting up competition between affluent
>>motorists and low-income food consumers for food resources, presenting the
>>world with a complex new ethical issue.
>>
>>Airlines, both passenger travel and freight, will continue to suffer as
>>jet fuel prices climb, simply because fuel is their biggest operating
>>expense. Although industry projections show air passenger travel growing
>>by some 5 percent a year for the next decade, this seems highly unlikely.
>>Cheap airfares may soon become history.
>>
>>Air freight may be hit even harder, perhaps leading to an absolute
>>decline. One of the early casualties of rising oil prices could be the use
>>of jumbo jets to transport fresh produce from the southern hemisphere to
>>industrial countries during the northern winter. The price of fresh
>>produce out of season may simply become prohibitive.
>>
>>During the century of cheap oil, an enormous automobile infrastructure was
>>built in industrial countries that requires large amounts of energy to
>>maintain. The United States, for example, has 2.6 million miles of paved
>>roads, covered mostly with asphalt, and 1.4 million miles of unpaved roads
>>to maintain even if world oil production is falling.
>>
>>Modern cities are also a product of the oil age. From the first cities,
>>which took shape in Mesopotamia some 6,000 years ago, until 1900,
>>urbanization was a slow, barely perceptible process. When the last century
>>began, there were only a few cities with a million people. Today there are
>>more than 400 such cities, 20 of them with 10 million or more residents.
>>
>>The metabolism of cities depends on concentrating vast amounts of food and
>>materials and then disposing of garbage and human waste. With the limited
>>range and capacity of horse-drawn wagons, it was difficult to create large
>>cities. Trucks running on cheap oil changed all that.
>>
>>As cities grow ever larger and as nearby landfills reach capacity, garbage
>>must be hauled longer distances to disposal sites. With oil prices rising
>>and available landfills receding ever further from the city, the cost of
>>garbage disposal also rises. At some point, many throwaway products may be
>>priced out of existence.
>>
>>Cities will be hard hit by the coming decline in oil production, but
>>suburbs will be hit even harder. People living in poorly designed suburbs
>>not only depend on importing everything, they are also often isolated
>>geographically from their jobs and shops. They must drive for virtually
>>everything they need, even to get a loaf of bread or a quart of milk.
>>
>>Suburbs have created a commuter culture, with the daily roundtrip commute
>>taking, on average, close to an hour a day in the United States. While
>>Europe's cities were largely mature before the onslaught of the
>>automobile, those in the United States, a much younger country, were
>>shaped by the car. While city limits are usually rather clearly defined in
>>Europe, and while Europeans only reluctantly convert productive farmland
>>into housing developments, Americans have few qualms about this because
>>cropland was long seen as a surplus commodity.
>>
>>This unsightly, aesthetically incongruous sprawl of suburbs and strip
>>malls is not limited to the United States. It is found in Latin America,
>>in Southeast Asia, and increasingly in China. Flying from Shanghai to
>>Beijing provides a good view of the sprawl of buildings, including homes
>>and factories, that is following the new roads and highways. This is in
>>sharp contrast to the tightly built villages that shaped residential land
>>use for millennia in China.
>>
>>Shopping malls and huge discount stores, symbolized in the public mind by
>>Wal-Mart, were all subsidized by artificially cheap oil. Isolated by high
>>oil prices, suburbs may prove to be ecologically and economically
>>unsustainable.
>>
>>In the coming energy transition, there will be winners and losers.
>>Countries that fail to plan ahead, that lag in investing in more
>>oil-efficient technologies and new energy sources, may experience a
>>decline in living standards. The inability of national governments to
>>manage the energy transition could lead to a failure of confidence in
>>leaders and to failed states.
>>
>>National political leaders seem reluctant to face the coming downturn in
>>oil and to plan for it even though it will almost certainly become one of
>>the great fault lines in the history of civilization. Trends now taken for
>>granted, such as urbanization and globalization, could be reversed almost
>>overnight as oil becomes scarce and costly.
>>
>>Developing countries will be hit doubly hard as still-expanding
>>populations combine with a shrinking oil supply to steadily reduce oil use
>>per person. Such a decline could quickly translate into a fall in living
>>standards. If the United States, the world's largest oil consumer and
>>importer, can sharply reduce its use of oil, it can buy the world time for
>>a smoother transition to the post-petroleum era.
>>
>>#     #     #
>>
>>Adapted from Chapter 2, "Beyond the Oil Peak," in Lester R. Brown, Plan B
>>2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (New
>>York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006), available for free downloading or for
>>purchase on-line at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB2/index.htm
>>
>>
>>Additional data and information sources at www.earthpolicy.org or contact
>>jlarsen (at) earthpolicy.org
>>For reprint permissions contact rjkauffman (at) earthpolicy.org
>>
>>
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>
>
> -- 
> Dr. Tom Trail
> International Trails
> 1375 Mt. View Rd.
> Moscow, Id. 83843
> Tel:  (208) 882-6077
> Fax:  (208) 882-0896
> e mail ttrail at moscow.com
>
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