Are we witnessing a Global Meltdown?
First of all I want to give you a picture of where the world is in terms of future sustainability or the level of lifestyle we are currently enjoying.
In the western civilization most people live a relatively comfortable life. By this I mean we all have plenty of food, and shelter. And from there the luxury rises depending on the position you hold with in the community. Have you ever stopped to ponder what holds all this together? And what could cause it to crumble.
There is no doubt that there are many threats facing our civilization today. Back in the 1900’s these threats we face today were not even contemplated.
With Global Warming continuing to be a headline topic, it is said by many in the scientific community to be the single biggest threat to our continuing civilization. Well there is no denying it certainly is one large threat but it’s probably not the major one. What I mean is there are other more destructive threats that you don’t hear about in the daily media. Firstly let me name the threats I’m talking about and then I will go into more detail on each of them. The first and most critical of these threats is Oil. Yes That right oil. You may be asking what’s oil got to do with it. Well as you know the western civilizations use a lot of this stuff. Back in 2005 the world was using 83 – 84 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Like all finite commodities they follow a pattern. The pattern for the production of oil looks like this.

This shows that globally oil has or is approaching the maximum amount of oil that can be retrieved from the known oil reserves. This on its own is not that much of a problem. I mean it took since the 1800’s to now to use half of the oil that we know exists. So your probably saying to yourself no problem we have a couple hundred years to go before we run out. Well it doesn’t work like that.
The easy oil is what we get first, this stuff almost delivers it’s self. Then after a while the pressure drops and they have to add pressure to the well to keep production up then as time goes on it gets harder and harder to keep up the production levels, then the oil well goes into decline and thats it.
The United states oil production went into decline back in the 1970’s and from that time on steadily become more and more reliant on imported oil these days it imports almost all of it’s oil.
The big problem is that with countries like China, and India and other developing nations basing their economic growth on the US model (high demand for oil) This pushes up the consumption of oil vastly. Into the regions of demand out stripping supply as the graph below indicates.

What about finding more oil?
It would seem that the planet has been extensively studied using all the latest in technology to scan deep into the planet. I guess you could say the entire planet has been x rayed with very little new oil being discovered. I recall a geologist saying that for every 4 barrels of oil being used we are only discovering one barrel to replace it. It’s also interesting that the oil companies have not been building new refinery’s and most of the existing ones are 20 – 30 years old. If they were planning on increasing production to meet the demand they would have built more refineries to cope with the demand. Truth is that the major oil producers know and the oild companies know and the governments know that the world production of oil is not going to meet consumption demand and somewhere in 2007 - 2008 or there abouts the price is going to go up and up and up and up and up and up... to the point where everything is going to go up in price. Let me explain that. Everything in our western civilization is based on oil. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, to the car we drive and the home we live in. Just think about the food for a moment. Take a cob of corn for example. The farmer prepares the field with a tractor using oil. The farmer fertilizes the field using fertilizes made from natural gas which is part of the energy being depleted same as oil. The crop is planted with the tractor using oil, the crop is sprayed with pesticides (sad but true) these pesticides are made from oil derivatives, the crop is grown and harvested using the oil powered machines. Then the crop is delivered to the markets in oil powered trucks and then the shoppers buy them from the supermarket and you would have driven there in and oil powered car. So how much oil is used to produce a single Cobb of corn? Get the picture now?
This oil usage is in almost everything, all our appliances, all plastics the list is to big to include here, I suggest you look it up your self, do your own research and see what you find. My job with this is to indicate there is a looming problem.
You see now that when oil fails to meed demand and forces the price up that the price increase will filter through to all the commodities we use everyday. This in turn puts inflationary pressures on the economy causing recessions, unemployment etc... All the things we don’t want.
I’m not here to be a dooms day alarmist just to let you know this is just one of the looming problems facing us in the near future. And by the near future I mean near like now onwards. Oh please don’t just take what I’m saying at face value. Investigate it for yourself only by doing that will you know the extent of the problem.
Ok next I want to turn your attention to another less known problem. The destruction of our microbes. On the surface this doesn’t seem like a real threat but when it’s investigated it is probably more serious than Global warming and Peak Oil together. Once again it’s rarely spoken of. Or out a sight out a mind. Western Civilization population has grown exponentially in just the last 200 years.

This graph indicates the sort of growth I’m talking about. Now that picture alone should tell you something about whats going to happen.
In nature and in history anything that has a near vertical assent is going to revers. I won’t keep going up forever. And when it comes down it will look the same in reverse. Scary scary thought. My point here is that we have been pumping all sorts of toxic chemicals into the soils to get higher yields and higher productivity not realizing that the chemicals are reaching rivers and water tables. When these chemicals come into contact with the microbial life forms they have a devastating effect on their health and these microbes are the base of life for the planet they are at the bottom of the chain so to speak. I we take out these guys then everything above them in the chain is at risk. I challenge you to do some research for yourself. Here’s and example, plankton which is the base of the food chain in the ocean. Because of the pollution from this chemical life we live the oceans are becoming more acid or the pH of the ocean is shifting. The plankton are not tolerant of this sudden shift and are dying out. This intern means less food for the next level up the chain and it has an effect on the amount of Co2 that enters the atmosphere which in turn affects global warming. All these things are connected Oil use causes pollution directly and indirectly. Pollution causes poisoning of the microbial lifeforms. The death of the microbial lifeforms causes and increase of Co2 entering the atmosphere. Which causes more global warming.
So you can see that everything has a compounding effect on everything.
I’m not going to go into global warming as a threat because you already know of that and what it’s doing to the planet.
So lets recap
Major Threats to our survival on this planet
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Global Warming
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Peak Oil
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Destruction of the microbe
Now I want to point out some other concerning facts. Now I’m not here to do the doomsday stuff just to inform you and recommend that you do your own research to get your own take on what I’m saying here.
Ok, Lets look at what is likely to happen in the up and rapidly approaching future. And look at the alternative energy sources that are available on this planet.
Alternative energy sources.
So you say to yourself it’s all ok because we have Solar Power and Wind Power and Hydrogen Fuels and Nuclear Power. Yes that is true we do have all this stuff. But lets examine it’s real uses.
Solar Power.
Solar power is not going to power our heavy industry, it’s a light weight solution it will power a home with light and some appliances and thats about it. It’s not at a stage where it is going to take the place of oil. The manufacture and production of the Solar panels is made possible through oil.
Don’t get me wrong I love solar power but I also realise its limitations.
Hydrogen Fuel
The Hydrogen fuel debate has been around for a while now, but the facts still remain this. It takes more energy to produce the Hydrogen than you can get from the stuff. And it’s difficult to store in sufficient quantity to get any real use out of it. Then we have the problem of infrastructure who is going to put up the vast sums of money needed to build all the refueling stations all over the world. And do this in time before the oil becomes to expensive to use. My point here is this Hydrogen story is flawed.
Wind Power
There have been and are many wind generating stations firstly they are unreliable as the wind has to be blowing more often than not. The technology like all technology of today relies on oil to be manufactured and delivered to site. While this is a step in the right direction it’s only a small insignificant addition to the energy requirements needed to replace our dependence on oil power.
Hydro Electric Power
This form of electricity generation has been around for a long time and is going to remain an important part of our energy platform. This is not the answer either. If it was we would have had much more development in this area than we have today.
Nuclear Power
Of course we have nuclear power, but this is not a cheap form of power either. It produced deadly waste products that take a very long time to break down (thousands of years) and we user oil powered machines to dig the uranium out of the ground and transport and process it. The Power stations require oil powered machines to build them. This form of energy is dangerous and costly.
There is not a single form of energy readily available that goes anywhere near the cost effectiveness of oil. Lets examine it for a moment.
Lets say your car does 30 miles per gallon or 10km per liter. Lets look at how much energy that is.
If you were to stop in a straight flat stretch of road switch your car off and put it to neutral and start pushing your car for 30 miles or 48 km how long would it take you? Estimates are it would take you up to six weeks to push your car 30 miles or 48 km and thats providing it’s flat.
How much is your time worth? Lets assume you get $1 per hour for pushing your car. This equates to something like $1008 for the work. So how much is a gallon of gas? $3.44 US.
So lets exaggerate and say its $5 per gallon for gas. Thats $5 for the energy to propel your car 30 miles. Or $1008 if you did it at only $1 per hour. See the vast differential in energy costs. We have been brought up with an unsustainable understanding of energy. Energy has been so cheap for so long that we have taken it for granted and it’s almost impeded in our DNA. There is no denying it that we as in all of humanity have a problem a large and serious problem to deal with in the very near future.
Not to mention the risk of war between the countries that have an insatiable appetite for oil. I mean just think and I mean think about this for a moment. Here we have the USA, China, India, Russia Etc.. China, Russia and India are developing nations China is growing at around 10% per year that means they have an energy demand 10% bigger each year. Of the nations mentioned above which ones are going to reduce their economic growth to allow a fair sharing of the remaining oil reserves? Which countries have taken military action to protect their oil supplies already ? Does the invasion of Iraq ring any bells? What was the purpose of that invasion? Was it to find weapons of mass destruction or to safeguard their oil supply? And if it was the weapons of mass destruction where are they? It’s not a hard one to work out. Iraq is not the only target, There is Iran and Venezuela just to mention two that are on the radar of the USA. Is what they are saying about the Governments of Venezuela and Iran true or is it another smokescreen like Iraq and excuse to invade and take control of the resources ? I will leave that to you to work out. Also ask yourself this question, which of these major superpowers USA, China, India, Russia have nuclear weapons and which ones would use them if it was the only way for them to secure their energy supply?
I could write volumes on each of the subjects briefly discussed here and if you do some Internet searches you will find volumes yourself. There is a better way to live a sustainable way to live for the life as an energy slave is noway to live.
Written by
Maurice Price
Ex-Energy Slave
References on the microbe
Emerging Infectious Diseases
Who Speaks for the Microbe?
The Land Institute
Agriculture and Biodiversity Loss: Industrial Agriculture
Naked Ape to Super Species
Authors Dr David Suzuki and Holly Dressel
References on Peak Oil
End of Cheap Oil
National Geographic June 2004
4 Corners
Story on Peak Oil
Collin Campbell
Petroleum Geologist
Oil Crisis
Author Colin Campbell
Peak Oil Australia
The Oil Depletion Analysis Center
(ODAC) is an independent, UK-registered educational charity working to raise international public awareness and promote better understanding of the world's oil-depletion problem.
Colin Campbell DVD
Petroleum Geologist
Peak Oil imposed by Nature DVD
Documentary Film
Video Oil, Smoke & Mirrors
End of Suburbia
Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
What a way to go
Life at the end of the Empire