Jeff Rubin on the Effects of Peak Oil

"We shouldn’t be looking at oil prices as the effect of the recession. They are the cause." - The Globe and Mail:

One often hears disparaging comments about those that suggest that there will ever be any substantive "peak oil" effect on how we live. They are portrayed as radical doomsayers. Those expressing concern about the impact of climate change are often discounted in a similar fashion.

The question I put to those who toss aside such concerns is this: Can we afford to be wrong about this?

Consider the following numbers:

• There are 6.7 billion people on this planet
• The world population has more than doubled since 1950, predicted to reach at least 9 billion by 2050
  
• Since 1980 the world daily consumption of oil has increased by more than a third
• Even with oil reaching more than $140/bbl in July 2008, the oil industry was unable to increase production to match demand
  

As everyone will tell you, whether one accepts the concept of peak oil or not, there is plenty of oil still in the ground. The fundamental question is not how much supply is ultimately available but what will be the cost of extracting that oil at a flow rate that our economy, as currently construed, demands? Are you willing to bet the farm on the prospect that the oil industry can continue to supply an expanding population with sufficient quantities of fossil fuel energy at a price it is able to pay?

It will cost ever increasing amounts of money, time and energy to extract the remaining oil and bring it to market. It is an accepted fact that the oil we have extracted to date has been the easy stuff to get out of the ground. Although there is a lot more to exploit, it will become increasingly more costly to do so. If we want the oil, we will find ourselves paying a lot more for it over time.

Of course, as the price does inevitably rise, there will be those who will start to change behaviour and demand less. As the cost of commuting inexorably rises, people will attempt to find ways to reduce their costs through a variety of means. Some people will switch to transit or look at carpooling or other alternatives. Others will move closer to work. Such changes take time, but they will happen.

This reduction in demand will have a negative impact on the price of oil. If it has a big enough effect, some people will continue to maintain their energy consumption at previous levels. That is why I expect we will continue to have a roller coaster ride of undulating pricing in oil. When the price drops, there will be many proclaiming yet again that the "peakists" are simply doomsayers who are wrong yet again. When it starts swinging back up, while the "peakists" will be saying "I told you so", their opponents will simply blame the oil companies for profiteering. Over the long term though, year after year, decade after decade, the price will be going up and up and up. The only thing that will keep prices down is if the entire world collectively consumes less.

As Jeff Rubin points out, we are currently mired in one of the deepest world wide recessions in more than sixty years, yet oil prices are more than $60/bbl. If the economy ever does start to rev up, he predicts it will be beaten down again by rapidly increasing oil prices as supply constraints kick in. It is not a matter of if, but when.

Attack Ads - A Desperate Attempt to Solidify a Shrinking Base

Attack Ads as Schoolyard Tripe - Macleans.ca

Numerous editorials have commented on the negative ad campaign of the Conservative Party of Canada initiated a few days ago against Michael Ignatieff. None that I have read have viewed them favourably. This may be the best kind publicity the Liberals could hope for in these current economic times: free.

Many of us would like to think that such negativity would backfire, but often, it does not. Liberals and Conservatives alike have used such tactics at least since the 80's to varying degrees of success. This may explain why the Conservatives launched this most recent volley. "It worked before", may be their thinking.

This time may be different. Such a strategy is much more problematic when used from a position of weakness. Using such attacks when your support is slipping has the unfortunate side effect of shining a light on your desperation. Such a characteristic is not usually something we look for in a leader and likely repels more voters than it attracts.

Following the Money - Following the Energy

The oil we eat: Following the food chain back to Iraq—By Richard Manning (Harper's Magazine)

So many things I take for granted, like the food I eat, and the air I breathe. Then, Richard Manning points out how profoundly humanity has distorted the natural rhythms of this precious biosphere we call earth.

He starts with the observations of James Prescott Joule

(who) discovered in the nineteenth century (that) there is only so much energy. You can change it from motion to heat, from heat to light, but there will never be more of it and there will never be less of it. The conservation of energy is not an option, it is a fact. This is the first law of thermodynamics.

He then points out to us that:

Special as we humans are, we get no exemptions from the rules. All animals eat plants or eat animals that eat plants. This is the food chain, and pulling it is the unique ability of plants to turn sunlight into stored energy in the form of carbohydrates, the basic fuel of all animals. Solar-powered photosynthesis is the only way to make this fuel. There is no alternative to plant energy, just as there is no alternative to oxygen. The results of taking away our plant energy may not be as sudden as cutting off oxygen, but they are as sure...

(W)e humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is. This simple number may explain why the current extinction rate is 1,000 times that which existed before human domination of the planet. We 6 billion have simply stolen the food, the rich among us a lot more than others.

Richard then leads us through an interesting history of the distinctly human development of farming, and what it has done to the earth, as we have harvested the energy of seeds.

When we say the soil is rich, it is not a metaphor. It is as rich in energy as an oil well. A prairie converts that energy to flowers and roots and stems, which in turn pass back into the ground as dead organic matter. The layers of topsoil build up into a rich repository of energy, a bank. A farm field appropriates that energy, puts it into seeds we can eat. Much of the energy moves from the earth to the rings of fat around our necks and waists. And much of the energy is simply wasted, a trail of dollars billowing from the burglar's satchel.

Farming has allowed humans to exploit the planet like no other species. We accept no limits to such activity. Limits, however, are about to be imposed on us, and it won't be the first time. Plato provides one of the earliest known records of the imposition of humanity on the planet.

What now remains of the formerly rich land is like the skeleton of a sick man. . . . Formerly, many of the mountains were arable. The plains that were full of rich soil are now marshes. Hills that were once covered with forests and produced abundant pasture now produce only food for bees. Once the land was enriched by yearly rains, which were not lost, as they are now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea. The soil was deep, it absorbed and kept the water in loamy soil, and the water that soaked into the hills fed springs and running streams everywhere. Now the abandoned shrines at spots where formerly there were springs attest that our description of the land is true.

Humans stroll about this planet with a profound sense of entitlement. Blessed with seemingly unmatched intellectual capacity we simultaneously fail to comprehend our collective destruction of the only home we have: earth. Like lemmings headed for a cliff.

It Can Be Depressing Sometimes...

globeandmail.com: New York-sized ice cap collapses off Antarctica

No, I'm not talking about the reports of ice melting in Antarctica. I'm talking about the "discussion" (if it can be called that), that follows such reports.

Within an hour of the above article appearing on the Globe & Mail website, numerous comments were posted bashing the integrity of G&M for posting the article and ridiculing any suggestion that Global Warming/Climate Change was either a threat to the planet or that humans had anything to do with it even if it was happening.

I'm not a climate scientist, and don't expect I ever will have the credentials or qualifications to identify myself as such. I am a layperson who seeks out the expert opinion of those qualified in their field of expertise to help me form my own opinion on such matters.

I said as much to Professor Denis Rancourt a couple of years ago when he fired off a rant on his own website ridiculing those who were concerned about global warming. Back in June, 2007 I told him that...

I am of the opinion that some aspects of climate change are attributable to an anthropocentric source. However, I accept that, as a "layperson" I am out of my depth in discussing this with you on a scientific basis. My rather "simplistic" notion is that I find it very difficult to believe that the massive increase of human population and the subsequent large scale increase in emissions would not have some form of impact on the earth's climate systems. Maybe I am naive, but I note that it took over a million years to sequester carbon in oil and coal. It was, in the human time scale of things, a fairly lengthy process. We, as humans, have managed to release into the atmosphere roughly half of it in, essentially, the blink of an eye of time. Call me crazy, but it seems to me it would have an effect.

I don't believe that you need a Doctorate in Climatology to reach this conclusion.

However, to this day, whenever there is another report in the media of melting ice in polar regions, or anything else which may be supportive of the peer-reviewed IPCC scientific reports, comment blogs light up with ridicule from the masses. Almost inevitably, they question the motives of the scientists they mock, often suggesting they are only in it for the money. I get it. These scientists are somehow manipulating the data that purports that human activity is affecting the weather to keep them employed. Furthermore, they have been able to dupe every scientist who participated in the peer review process, not once, not twice, but hundreds of times. Talk about a conspiracy!

At this point, the only logical conclusion I can come up with is that those who claim that any suggestion of human induced climate change is a hoax are themselves simply trying to protect their own profligate ways. They actually can see the writing on the wall. They see the big picture. They have more intelligence than I have, until now, been attributing to them.

They understand that if in fact the science is true, that the only way to protect the earth from human induced climate change is to greatly curtail the release of CO2. Such a prospect, of course, scares the hell out of them. What, cut back their automobile use, give up that annual trek to the Caribbean because it's too cold in Canada for them? Stop eating strawberries in February? They really are in a state of denial, but not just about climate change. What they categorically refuse to accept is that the way we have been living is completely unsustainable. No wonder they say such stupid things.

James Howard Kunstler on the Tragedy of Suburbia

Kunstler can be so cynical and rude, but he tells it as he sees it. His passion shines through as he implores us to promote communities "worth caring about".

Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice

Choice is good, right? Therefore, more choice must be even better! Well, not so fast.

Ten Years Out

The year 2019 seems, in some regards, unfathomable - a distant time only written of in futuristic sci-fi novels. But 1999, the same length of time - over my other shoulder - doesn't seem that long ago at all.

What future were we envisioning for ourselves "ten years out" in 1999? The phrase 9/11 was not part of our lexicon, except as a 3 digit phone number for assistance. The dot com bubble was just that - an as yet unexploded bubble. We didn't view it as such at the time. No, we saw only expanding wealth, choosing to believe it was a payoff of the computer age. In 1999 the future was now - and wealth and prosperity was to become everyone's reality.

Did anyone think then that within ten years they would live through the infamous redefinition of 9/11 or witness wars in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq? Who amongst us thought that $100+ oil and food riots were ever possible? Climate Change? That was for others to worry about. Worldwide recession? Not a chance!

There were a select few, however, who were very concerned about all of these issues. Some foresaw part, if not all of what ultimately unfolded. I, however, certainly wasn't amongst that elite group in 1999. I blithely went about my existence, not engaged in long term speculation as to such possibilities on the world stage. I had recently purchased a new car and home. All was well with my corner of the planet. Like many, I was benefiting from the aforementioned stock market bubble of the day. What was there not to like?

Like most, I had never heard of the concept of "Peak Oil", let alone "Peak Everything". I did not understand the extent to which my lifestyle was entirely dependent on the provision of cheap carbon based energy. Who understood, other than agricultural scientists, that the "green revolution" of the past few decades that fended off world starvation had only been possible with vast increases in the use of oil based fertilizers? To the majority of us who spent an ever decreasing proportion of our income on food we simply interpreted it as a sign of the improving times. Life was good, our bellies were getting bigger, and we had to find other things to complain about - like the cost of cell phone rates, or hockey tickets.

So, here I am in the spring of 2009, contemplating how my existence will unfold "ten years out", by the spring of 2019. At times I even raise my gaze further to the spring of 2029. I ask myself - are we making the decisions now - on both a societal and personal level - to prepare for the reality of the world to come? Are we ready for the inexorable decline of energy resources? Do we understand that food has been cheap because energy has been cheap?

Like Matt Simmons, I certainly hope I am wrong, but I expect that the energy and economic shocks the world has experienced in the past two years is only the beginning of overwhelming change. I expect that the globalization of trade will be reversing. By 2019 we won't have sufficient flow of cheap energy resources to sustain that type of exchange. One of the perversities of the future will be that at an informational level the world will continue to flatten, allowing us to instantly see and have infinite interpretations of what is going on virtually anywhere on the planet. Simultaneously though, with the shrinking availability of energy per person, we will, out of physical necessity, be developing a more localized economy. Local food production - no, local production of everything- will be much more than cute. Increasing numbers of us will have accepted it as a necessity of survival.

By 2029 these changes will have gone far beyond the tipping point. Those expansive dreams of encouraging unrestrained material wealth envisioned back in 1999 will have long been recognized as unsustainable. My only hope is that it will have been replaced with more enduring, locally based, and sustainable ways of being. One of the biggest battles will be over how we divide up the ever shrinking benefits of economic wealth to an ever increasing population. The friction will intensify as those who feel they must continue to have the right to increase their wealth is confronted by the needs of the growing number of desperate people the world over (and in our local communities), who are fighting for their very survival. I am curious to see how things shall unfold, and, in many ways, quite fearful. Unless we can resolve issues of greed, these shall be very difficult times indeed.