Peak Oil and Peak Everything…Including Football

One of the very dangerous things about Peak Oil is that it will eventually have an effect on everything in our daily lives.

Everything.

Consider Peak Football and waving goodbye to Ronaldo. In short, Rob Hopkins, blogging at Transition Culture discusses the possible trade of a Manchester United player for a large amount of cash. Hopkins points out that, though he’s a huge fan of Ronaldo, given the trouble now coming into view because of Peak Oil, the team might well be better served by eliminating a lot of debt than having a world class player on its roster.

In this discussion, Hopkins has an interesting idea:

I spent a couple of days last week attending the Green New Deal think-tank type event in London, and at one point we were asked to speak about what we thought we would see in the world in 50 months from now (late 2012). One of the things I came up with was “the first World Cup Finals to be cancelled because no-one could get to them”.

Obviously, he’s talking about a world where it’s too expensive to travel. That world is approaching fast, my friends. Because it’s such a horrible thought, most Americans don’t think it through to its logical conclusion. This is all very dangerous because if fuel costs too much for us to travel, and too much to drive to work every day, it’ll be too expensive for the trucks to bring the Twinkies, Doritos and 24-can cases of Bud Light to the neighborhood Safeway, too. This is a serious, serious, problem.

Because here in the U.S. we spend so much energy talking about whether Peak Oil even exists or not (global warming, too, for that matter), we don’t have anything left to discuss what the hell to do about it, and that’s a problem.

The absolutely insane “drill, drill, drill” crowd, led by the far right talk radio pitchmen are successfully keeping the discourse on the truth or lie of the approaching problem, while countries like the UK are moving forward on “transition,” hoping to preserve as much of their way of life as possible as oil becomes more costly. Since the British culture is far less dependent on the automobile, they’re way ahead of us, and in that is perhaps our answer.

Many, including James Kunstler, don’t think it’s possible for the U.S. to even come close to preserving our current way of life. American culture is based on the suburb, which is made possible by cheap oil. Without cheap gas, the suburbs don’t work. Unfortnately, we don’t have a plan ‘B’. It’s the auto or nothing. We’ve allowed our rail system to decline to the point where it’s a joke, and would require enormous quantities of effort, money and belief to turn it around. Possible? Sure. If we had a government capable of both understanding the problem and rallying us in a space race-like effort, we could accomplish creating a new rail system that would take a lot of the pressure off of the automobile. But, the men and women who make up our government are mostly ignorant of the problem, spending their time fund-raising so they can get re-elected, and cutting political deals to enrich themselves (which is why they want to get re-elected). So, they rely on lobbyists and twenty-something aides to “formulate” their opinions and their beliefs on the issues confronting us today. lt’s a recipe for disaster.

I read about the transition movement in the UK and long for similar projects to grow here. There’s some of it, of course, but our leaders are so busy dealing in fantasy and cinematic messages like “the terrorists are coming and I’m the one who can protect you!” and “I have the plan that can fix the economy.” It’s all nonsense. We might as well elect Bradgelina as first couple and just be done with it. Neither Obama nor McCain will be any more influential in finding a solution to our problems that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would be. Come to think of it, the latter couple probably, in reality, have a better grasp of the problems affecting our world today than the former two, both of them beltway bandits looking to the American people to immortalize them with election to the White House.

As the Housing Market Collapes, Neighborhoods Become “Ghost Towns”

As Michael Panzer points out at Financial Armageddon today, Jim Kunstler writes about a distopia where the suburbs are abandoned and become the new slums. Peak Oil and the housing bust feed on the final, inevitable collapse of the great American suburban experiment.

Interesting piece by Alex Roth of the Wall Street Journal about how half-built suburban developments strand early buyers in “post-calamity” like communities.

It’s a serious situation that will be worse before it gets better.

Attacking Iran “Madness?” Think again

Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said on Saturday that any attacks against the Islamic republic would be an “act of stupidity.” Quotes a report from China Net. Reuters quotes Elham as saying again that should Israel attack, Iran will crush them.

Both reports talk about the “madness” and “stupidity” of attacking Iran. What the Iranian mouthpiece fails to mention is the necessity, some say is playing a major part in the possible future attack on the country’s nuclear facilities, and of course leadership and infrastructure. With a deepening housing crisis in the U.S. and financial troubles that look bleaker every day (the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history – IndyMac’s assets were seized yesterday), record high oil prices and a weakening dollar, the thought that our leadership might go once again to the well of war to create economic recovery is not as much conspiracy theory as it was a few months ago.

Many talk about the fiscal (not to mention moral) fiasco the Iraq war has become, but looked at from a larger perspective, it has put the U.S. and our allies within easy striking distance of the only remaining oil-rich enemy, as the reports of Israeli jets practicing for an Iranian raid and using U.S. airbases in Iraq in the operations show. And though we seemed to be getting along through the 1990s, clearly the 444 days the Iranians held Americans hostages during the end of the Carter administration has not been forgiven by many of us. Should we commit to a clash of arms, I think there will be more American support for that action than many expect. A clue that an attack is near may well be a PR barrage that brings those memories back to the forefront. Watch for the mainstream media to begin replaying that footage, in an effort to reignite anti-Iranian feelings.

It’s a dangerous time. Watch carefully for the clues, be prepared and keep your family safe.

Service sector shrinks

Article from Reuters. That this would be a surprise to anyone defies all common sense.

Entering the 20th century, the vast majority of Americans were employed in food production. Our resources were vast, and required a lot of hands to make the food we eat. Industry came, and with it, both higher paying jobs making cars (and other things). Fortunately, that same technological advance brought automation to the farm, freeing up a lot of those previously food-producing hands to go look for work in the factories in the big cities.

When foreign competition killed our steel and automotive industries, we started using the computers the industrial revolution made possible to create and sell “information.” The ridiculously cheap oil supplies we enjoyed (thanks to our “friendship” with oil sheiks in the ME) allowed us to create huge constellations of suburbs with their accompanying fast food franchises and big box stores, and sell things to each other, soaking up the enormous tidal waves of cash created by an army of manipulators of the economy.

America now has an economy that can be reduced in metaphor to a village of people who pay each other to do each others laundry. As long as some outside entity keeps sending checks to the villagers, it all works. But the many trouble-chickens coming home to roost in the U.S. right now are drying up the resources of that outside entity and the money is stopping.

What you are seeing right now in America, as we celebrate the birthday of this glorious Republic, is that we’re starting to do our own laundry. And so are our former customers, our neighbors.

And that’s a problem.

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.