US gasoline supplies have not been this low since 1969. This isn't news because we're distracted by the Bailout, and the color of Sarah Palin's lipstick. Matt Simmons talks about the USA being out of fuel in 3 days if all Americans topped up their fuel tanks. He says grocery stores would be empty within a week. Bottom line: oil shortages are IMMINENT. Imminent oil shortages = imminent food shortages. Food shortages = anarchy.
If you think talk about oil and energy is overblown, consider this. Once there are shortages more and more people will begin to go without the basics, including food. Try to imagine what will happen to the average city when a number of the inhabitants of that city cannot get food. Once oil shortages hit (and they are manifesting right now in the aftermath of Hurricane's Gustav and Ike - 30 million barrels have been lost thus far) food shortages follow almost immediately.
Today (this is in South Africa) sections of our usually reliable local grocer, Pick 'n Pay, had no lettuce at all today. Sections of the aisle were completely bare. Fruit was very thin. There were no grapes at all. There were no bottled gherkins.
"Too many financial players assured us that the worst was behind us, while things got worse and worse." Matt Simmons.
Fashionable oxymorons:
We need energy independence.
Brutal reality: 100% impossible. We will never achieve energy independence.
Technology is a game-changer/Technology will save us.
Brutal reality: Technology will have no impact; if anything technology exacerbates the rate of energy consumption, including the efficiency in which energy is distributed for consumption. Some gains are made by efficiencies in consumption, but these are more than eclipsed by the rates of consumption everywhere. Also, Technology is not energy. A computer, as clever as it is, cannot work during a power failure. A computer cannot generate or make energy; in fact each terminal is known as a 'user'.
We can drill our way out of this mess.
Brutal reality: We have no spare rigs and few places to drill with any significant impact.
Our energy system is transparent.
Brutal reality: we live in a dark world of hidden data, especially in terms of energy data.
"Oil and gas is our industrial oxygen. Without oxygen our system soon dies." - Matt Simmons.
"Peak Oil is the singular most dangerous crisis of the 21st century." - Matt Simmons
NVDL: I highly recommend that you listen to this speech right now.
If you think talk about oil and energy is overblown, consider this. Once there are shortages more and more people will begin to go without the basics, including food. Try to imagine what will happen to the average city when a number of the inhabitants of that city cannot get food. Once oil shortages hit (and they are manifesting right now in the aftermath of Hurricane's Gustav and Ike - 30 million barrels have been lost thus far) food shortages follow almost immediately.
Today (this is in South Africa) sections of our usually reliable local grocer, Pick 'n Pay, had no lettuce at all today. Sections of the aisle were completely bare. Fruit was very thin. There were no grapes at all. There were no bottled gherkins.
"Too many financial players assured us that the worst was behind us, while things got worse and worse." Matt Simmons.
Fashionable oxymorons:
We need energy independence.
Brutal reality: 100% impossible. We will never achieve energy independence.
Technology is a game-changer/Technology will save us.
Brutal reality: Technology will have no impact; if anything technology exacerbates the rate of energy consumption, including the efficiency in which energy is distributed for consumption. Some gains are made by efficiencies in consumption, but these are more than eclipsed by the rates of consumption everywhere. Also, Technology is not energy. A computer, as clever as it is, cannot work during a power failure. A computer cannot generate or make energy; in fact each terminal is known as a 'user'.
We can drill our way out of this mess.
Brutal reality: We have no spare rigs and few places to drill with any significant impact.
Our energy system is transparent.
Brutal reality: we live in a dark world of hidden data, especially in terms of energy data.
"Oil and gas is our industrial oxygen. Without oxygen our system soon dies." - Matt Simmons.
"Peak Oil is the singular most dangerous crisis of the 21st century." - Matt Simmons
NVDL: I highly recommend that you listen to this speech right now.
 clipped from globalpublicmedia.com
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1 comment:
Hi, I'm the host of the Peak Moment Conversation with Matt Simmons taped at the ASPO conference.
We're glad to see it linked here, and want to let your readers know that we post a half-hour Conversation each week. They provide perspectives and initiatives for local self-reliant living. Our guests are individuals and communities responding to climate chaos, energy decline and economic turbulence. Talk and tours about renewables, permaculture, electric vehicles, what cities are doing, suburban sustainability gardening and more.
Next week we'll have Jim Puplava of Financial Sense who also spoke at the ASPO conference -- on financial effects of peak oil.
We also have DVDs of presentations by Richard Heinberg (peak oil), Julian Darley (Relocalizing), David Korten (The Great Turning) and others.
Visit us at www.peakmoment.tv. You can contact me at janaia (at) peakmoment.tv.
Janaia Donaldson
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