An Apocalyptic View of the Future

Most peak-oil experts talk about the fact that great changes are coming to our way of life when cheap petroleum products no longer drive our Wal-Mart/Big Box gas guzzling ways. They talk about getting by with less, reverting to older modes of transportation and eating more locally-grown food. But, those suggest a fairly comfortable, if incovenient, more rural lifestyle, so much so, many readers say “good! that’s what we need!”

Paul Eccleston however, presents a much more dangerous possibility, in which food and water are in short supply, and billions face death in the dismantling of our oil-dependent lifestyle.

Richard Heinberg, one of the world’s leading experts on oil reserves, warned that the lives of billions of people were threatened by a food crisis caused by our dependence on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.

Higher oil prices, the loss of farmland to biofuel crops, climate change and the loss of natural resources would combine with population growth to create an unprecedented food shortage, he claimed.

The only way to avoid a world food crisis was a planned and rapid reduction of fossil fuel use – oil, coal and gas – and a switch to more organic methods in the growing and delivery of food. It would mean a return to living off the land not seen for 150 years.

Unfortunately, a necessary move like this would be, at best, difficult even with everyone pulling the same way. As long as the few who greatly profit from our oil-dependency and the scarcity that’s gathering are convincing when they tell American masses that there’s no real problem, those masses won’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to eventually save ourselves.

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Posted in Peak Oil