An Important Point

Here's a note to the regular readers of this blog. Whether or not you remember which season it is, that season, and the weather with you, will have an impact on your daily reality. Whether or not you take cognisance of the coming crisis caused by Peak Oil, it will continue to advance on us, and our lifestyles will change whether we want them to or not.

It's easy to be confused by the statistics and data out there. I studied economics and marketing, but that doesn't make me any less susceptible to spin, and economists seldom give straight answers. Only the market knows what it is doing, and the market is often caught by surprise too.

One of the confusing issues is that Peak Oil means a time when the world produces the most oil it will EVER produce. This means the supply capacity reaches its maximum. Here is where I make an important point: When peak oil is reached, it means the econmoy of the world is actually in the best shape it will arguably ever be. The world is awash with oil, so the last thing that seems to be happening is that we are running out. The critical factor to remember though, is just after this Peak hits, demands begins to gradually outpace supply, and this trend increases in leaps and bounds. We are in the area of the bell curve now where it is levelling off and beginning a precipitous plunge. At the moment we just see a few spikes, and nothing seems unusual as the global machine is running bigger and faster and louder than ever. None of this means we are running out of oil. It just means we reach a Peak, and after that, we can never again match the supply of oil to the ever increasing demand. Because it becomes difficult to extract the 2nd half of the world's oil, it's more expensive even if we are more efficient at it.

The crappy thing about this, is that we can only know for sure if we've reached the Peak by looking in the Rear View mirror. That means, we'll only know for sure once it's already hit us, and the impacts are coming in thicker and faster. But like the seasons, we can also look at the signs of change, and make some personal preparations. This is what I'd like to encourage.

Expect things to start changing now in the world. You will see exchange rates fluctuate, domestic commodity prices rising (inflation) and much greater instability.
You will see tremendous conflict in a world where everyone is still pursuing infinite growth, and the resources are simply not there. Technology runs on energy. Energy is not technology, although they go hand in hand, but technology like this computer you're using needs energy to run, and it took energy to deliver it to the shop where you bought it. You may think it's dramatic to imagine cars stopping on roads, ships stuck in ports, supermarkets running out of food, but if you consider what we are seeing in the world today, a convergence of various catastrophes, the news reports that are being quoted, and the trend we are seeing in the price of oil then it does seem that a Great Winter of Discontent is approaching.

I saw an advertisement for one Earth on TV a few mornings ago. The voice of Patrick Stewart. "Imagine a community on an island, a growing community. The island is small, and soon there is not enough food or water, and the peopl