Peak Oil and Climate Change – Who cares?

Westernised industrial civilisation is like an all night party with a live band in attendance. We've had a great time and hope it will continue. It is past 3.00am, the beer barrel is nearly empty and the drummer has gone home. The party continues but the band is missing the beat. Dawn is approaching and the hang-over will soon kick in.

Politicians seem to be blinded by the glare of populist opinion and have no desire to be party poopers. Most government initiatives relating to issues of climate change and Peak Oil appear to be to subdue public anxiety by token gestures and to encourage the party – goers to continue to party. All behaviour has consequences and deliberate and sustained self delusion ends in tragedy.

Like many other people I am concerned about the consequences of our life style and the rate at which humanity is consuming finite resources and dumping our waste into an environment with a limited capacity to absorb it.

There seem to be two main contenders for the cause which will bring the party to a sudden and tragic end: Climate Change and Peak Fossil Fuels.

Climate change is extensively covered by the media and has many high profile activists seeking to change political attitudes so that sufficient action can be taken in time to avert disaster. Films like "An inconvenient Truth" and "The Age of Stupid" have made their point.

Peak Oil seems to be the elephant in the roomAs a non-expert I have spent months trawling through web sites to try and obtain sound evidence about the true situation regarding the continuing availability of fossil fuels. All the evidence points one way.

At current rates of consumption, ignoring the growing demand by developing economies the world has remaining:

• 46 years supply of economically recoverable oil reserves,
  
• 80 years supply of economically recoverable gas reserves,
  
• 150 years supply of economically recoverable coal reserves.

We have our prophets, many of whom do not habitually wear sandals and live in Tepee's. In the 1960s, as part of a series of lectures titled, Of Men and Galaxies, the astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle said: "It has often been said that, if man fails to make a go of it on earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing high intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone and high grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high level technology. This is a one shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." Hoyle, 1964.

Small is BeautifulIn his book Small is Beautiful, published in the 1970s, the economist E.F. Schumacher emphasised that in his opinion the high density energy contained within fossil fuels such as coal and oil was the capital which provided the means for the technological civilisation of today to be developed. He said we are spending this capital, indiscriminately and recklessly as revenue and that our capital will soon be exhausted.

Charles Handy, the business organisation Guru and author in his book, The Empty Raincoat, describes the Sigmoid Curve. This is an S Curve graph and is an ancient philosophical understanding of the origins, progress and demise of organisations, cultures and relationships. On the curve he speaks of two points, A and B.

A is the point on the curve where it is rising towards its peak and B is a point on the curve where it has passed its peak. At point A the subject, be it an empire, a business or a marriage is moving towards ever greater success but has options to change and develop in different directions. At point B the subject has passed its peak and has no options to prevent its inevitable decline into oblivion. At point A the subject is able to use its knowledge and resources to reinvent itself and to take off on another S Curve to a different destination.

In my opinion the Party of Westernised Industrial Civilisation is very near or even past point A.

I could be wrong and would love someone to prove it.

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