By now a disturbing trend becomes clear: the two problems of Climate Change and Peak Oil together are worse than either by itself. Strategies that might help to keep lights burning and trucks moving while reducing emissions are questionable from a depletionist point of view, while most strategies to keep the economy energized as oil and gas disappear imply increasing greenhouse gas emissions. As we will see, the closer we look, the worse it gets.
As noted above, both groups need to design a survivable energy transition strategy in order to “sell” their message to policy makers. Carbon emissions come from burning depleting fossil fuels, the primary energy sources for modern societies. Thus both problems boil down to energy problems—and energy is essential to the maintenance of agriculture, transportation, communication, and just about everything else that makes up the modern global economy. [Link]
(Thanks to PeakEnergy (US) for directing me to this article.) I agree with Jon S. that this article is a very important addition to the public dialogue on energy issues. I have long claimed that the issues of Climate Change and Peak Oil are really two sides of one coin which is hydrocarbon dependency. We are not going to solve either problem alone because, as Mr. Heinberg explains, the two problems are really just symptoms of another common problem which is uncontrolled hydrocarbon exploitation.
Imagine if we had somehow limited our use of hydrocarbons over the years to some small fraction of todays consumption. Today we would probably have neither global warming (at todays rate, anyway) or peak oil (by definition). I suspect we would also have a lot fewer people as well because there would not have been the green revolution or globalization to encourage population increases. They are really the same problem.
We need to be thinking on this level. We need to be thinking about the real problems that confront us. We need to be thinking.
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