Unstable Food Supplies
There are a number of factors that effect Americans’ daily lives becoming unstable and the near future is becoming more and more unclear. Peak Oil is starting to have its predicted effect on the everyday, and I’m not just talking about $4 plus at the pump.
I’m talking about food.
As many have been lecturing us for a long time, we are a civilization made possible by cheap petroleum. I was listening to the PTB’s apologist/chief spinologist Rush Limbaugh a few days ago as he was attacking Obama’s statement about “failed policies of the past,” translating in the way only el-Rushbo can, saying that the Democrat’s nominee is calling the development of petroleum a “failed policy.” Once again, Limbaugh evades the point. The failed policy isn’t the development of petroleum, but rather the continued reliance on cheap petroleum as the foundation of our civilization. Rush is wrong when he says that America was built on petroleum. It was built on cheap petroleum, and our failure to wean ourselves from the stuff and use our great ingenuity and the wealth that temporarily inexpensive resource made possible, is indeed a “failed policy.” (ed note: I used to be a Rush Limbaugh fan. I’m a basically conservative American who feels that Limbaugh and the Republican Party no longer speaks for me)
Most people think that petroleum only goes in your car’s gas tank and oil reservoir. That’s only the beginning. Cheap petroleum is the very foundation of the cheap consumer culture that is most garish in the Wal-Mart, Costco and Sam’s Club culture. From the packaging to the physical store construction to the semi-trailered transportation system, everything you see stocking the 3 storied Sam’s Club warehouse is made possible at ridiculously low prices by…You guessed it, cheap oil.
But that ship is sailing. Fast.
There have already been spot shortages of staples, and as the long, hot summer continues into fall, I predict we’re going to see more and more of that. Prices are already climbing, and that’s only going to accelerate. It’s going to be along time, if ever, until prices are at the level they were a couple years ago again. Sadly, or maybe predictbly, the biggest factor in this equation working against us, is the fact that the people running things – baby boomers – have never experienced shortages, scarcity or anything resembling what their parents lived through in their younger years. And the generation who lived adult life in the Depression? Those of them left are 100 years old. There aren’t many of those still around and writing of their experiences and sounding warnings about today, which is why even though the smart ones among us can show us charts and equations and historical parallels, few are listening to them.
We’d better start. Shortages are coming. You may experience difficulties in finding food to buy at any price. I can’t repeat this enough. The era of cheap oil, and the bounty it has delivered to us is over. Get used to it, if you can.
Posted in Economy, Peak Oil, SocietyTags: Economy, Famine, Food Shortage, Peak Oil