Crude Awakening -- by Michael Clare -- The Nation 11/8/04

[Guest guest]

Just wanted to mention that we're running out of oil.

The attached article from the "The Nation" (Nov 8, 2004) called

"Crude Awakening" by Michael T. Clare

is a book review that reviews 5 books on the topic.

 

Clare spells out the basics of the impending end of the petroleum era

and even includes discussion of the catastrophic effects on agriculture.

 

Unfortunately, this monumental warning is buried in the election

coverage of the issue, but members of the Cow conference may be interested.

 

Sample quotes:

 

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If not already aware of all this, readers of The Nation should be on

notice that both the imminence and the timing of peak oil matters--big

time. Because petroleum supplies 40 percent of the world's energy--far

more than any other source--and because oil powers most of the world's

cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes and ships, a permanent decline in

global output will have a powerful and lasting impact on the US and

world economy. Unless affordable substitutes are developed, a decline in

global oil output will produce rising transportation costs, diminished

economic activity, high inflation and the onset of a deep and prolonged

worldwide depression. Furthermore, because modern, mechanized

agriculture is wholly dependent on cheap oil--for herbicides and

pesticides, as well as truck and tractor fuel--a contraction of

petroleum supplies will result in reduced food production and, in all

likelihood, mass human starvation.

 

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But what if peak oil arrives sooner rather than later, as predicted by

Hubbert's followers? If this is the case, we are in for extreme trauma

and difficulty. While it is conceivable that hydrogen will prove the

fuel of choice in the second half of this century, it is unlikely that

the required infrastructure--estimated to cost several trillion

dollars--will be in place by 2015 or 2020, when global oil production

may begin its irreversible descent. In that eventuality, we will have to

undergo several decades of punishing scarcity until a new energy regime

has been put in place. Worldwide economic activity will contract during

this period, billions of people will starve or suffer, and the major

industrial powers will engage in ceaseless "resource wars" over any

remaining pools of petroleum.

 

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Here's the link to the article on The Nation's website

 

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=klare&c=1

 

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So if it turns out that we can no longer depend on petroleum powered

agriculture to feed us in 2015, I was just wondering if anyone had any

other ideas on how we could produce food?

 

Also, I was wondering if anyone thinks the GBC might be interested in

pursuing alternate means of providing food for the Deities rather than

relying on tractors and semi-trucks?

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi