Tankwoman's post "Putting Out Fire With Napalm" quite nicely opens the door to this post. My fellow blogger is talking about using less of the earth's available resources, cutting back on the energy she wastes. She has insulated her attic, wears sweaters in the house, uses a blanket on the couch. Normally she keeps the thermostat on the down low. She also rides a bicycle when and where she can, she also walks. She bought an electric scooter, the current condition of which is unknown. (I knew it was broken, haven't known if it got fixed.)
I am posting to link you to an article with the most simple, clear and articulate discussion of "Peak Oil" that I have yet come upon. It is titled "Peak Oil, Energy Futures and Violent Conflict" and comes from the current edition of Peace Magazine. Written by Dr. Jack Santa Barbara of the Sustainable Scale Project and the Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University, it leads one gently through technical explication in a way that is entirely understandable, both scholarly, footnoted and accessible at the same time.
Under the section titled "What Are the Implications of Peak Oil?" Santa Barbara says:
Global trade which depends on cheap energy will be greatly affected. Transporting goods long distances will become unaffordable. Prices for many goods which rely on such long distance transportation will become less stable, and will increase with each decline in annual oil production. Industries which rely on such transport will be affected, as will employment. Those sectors which have thrived from economic globalization will be most affected; the volume of goods shipped is already beginning to decline as a result of increased fuel prices. Food security will become a major concern of developed countries, which have increasingly relied on importation of basic foodstuffs. People who cannot walk, cycle, or take public transportation to work and to obtain basic necessities will find their lives increasingly difficult.
In short, the occurrence of peak oil on a global basis will change much of what is today taken for granted.
Tankwoman, I believe, was saying much the same.
The real issue comes in the last section of the article, and is the one we all need to confront, individually and as a nation, as a global community of human beings. The question is this: How much energy do we need? In this nation, as in the rest of the developed nations, we live on such a scale that we consume far more than our share of energy resources.
A standard of living that is high by objective indices of human well being (e.g. infant mortality, female longevity, food availability, educational opportunities, etc) is possible with roughly one third of the daily energy use of the average North American.[10] The same goes for subjective measures of personal happiness. Another way of stating this relationship between energy consumption and human well being is that about 60 per cent of North American energy consumption is wasted in that it provides no objective contribution to measures of well being. At the same time, because a minority of humanity consumes more energy than they need, approximately two billion people do not have access to electricity. Clearly, energy distribution is a major issue of social justice.
So, we could have what would still be a very high standard of living while consuming one third of the daily energy we now use. Imagine that. One third. The second statistic is even more amazing to me - that we in fact waste roughly sixty percent of our energy consumption, that it actually contributes not at all to our well being. We are no happier with our enormous overshare of the world's resources than we would be with less.
So, why not start consuming less? Insulating attics, wearing sweaters, taking the bus, growing community gardens, walking to the post office, buying used instead of new, sharing large purchases (riding mowers, washer/dryers, pools, hot tubs) in neighborhoods (oh god, we'd have to get to know our neighbors), cooking slow food at home, sweating in the summer instead of running the AC - well, I could continue this list until I ran out of room entirely.
What if everyone in this country sat down and made a list of the things they could live perfectly well without? Many of those things would, in some very real way, be petroleum-product dependent. We seldom think of our use of oil except as fuel for our vehicles and furnaces. We seldom examine our lifestyle in this way. Friends who have spent time in places like India and Africa have a very different outlook on the American way of life. I remember my own surprise at life in this country when I returned after four years of living in Central America, and that was a long time ago. We take so much for granted. Unless we start to make a real transition soon, our awakening will be more than rude, it will be brutal.
