Mideast's own oil consumption helping to drive prices up

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 04/18/2008 | "Middle Eastern oil-producing nations are behind today's record high oil prices, but not for the reason you might think. Taken together, oil-rich nations represent a bloc of fast-growing economies that are now sucking up new energy supplies almost as fast as they're coming to market."

This goes along with what I was saying in the last post. For now the oil producers are just deciding to use their share of the bounty. When the other shoe drops, and they decide they need to also save some for the kids, its over folks.

The rise of the new energy world order

Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs: "The combination of rising demand, the emergence of powerful new energy consumers, and the contraction of the global energy supply is demolishing the energy-abundant world we are familiar with and creating in its place a new world order. Think of it as rising powers/shrinking planet."

I am waiting for the other shoe to hit the floor. At some point the producers that are left will say, "Hey, I am going to need this stuff in the future. Why should I sell it to anybody?" At that point the U. S., who is only producing one third of it oil requirement, will be in big time trouble.

Fuel Choices, Food Crises and Finger-Pointing

New York Times: "The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels."

Even though we are seeing a lot of these kind of stories in the news lately, it is really just the beginning. Until we find a way to reduce our consumption to a sustainable level we will be playing this zero-sum game.

Rising prices threaten millions with starvation, despite bumper crops - Green Living, Environment

"All the familiar signs of impending disaster are here, and in spades. Across the developing world already hungry people are now having to eat even less. Food stocks have plunged to record lows. Food prices have scaled new heights. Food riots are spreading around the globe. Yet the world is still harvesting record amounts of grain."

[Link: Independent.co.uk]

This is exactly what over-population should look like. The pressure is from the number of consumers not the supply. When we have no way to limit the numbers of people (or even the growth rate of the population) or the amount they consume, we will eventually reach the point where we cannot produce fast enough to keep up. Many have said this all along. More have scoffed.

Enlightened Primitivism

Haven't posted recently but I have been thinking about our predicament just the same. Oil has nearly reached $100/barrel and gas is creeping up towards $4/gallen hereabouts. I am still convinced that we are heading inexorably towards a showdown with finite Earth. We don't seem to be aware except on the fringes. Really big things happen slowly enough, and so overwhelmingly, that we don't notice them I guess.

I am working on an idea that I am now thinking of as Enlightened Primitivism. Putting aside the divisive questions of "when the peak will arrive?" and "can alternative fuels make up the difference?" I think we can all agree that we live in a finite world and, if we continue to consume its bounty, we will eventually use it up. When that time arrives we will be returned to a state of lower expectations because without cheap, abundant, dense energy sources, todays technology does not happen. Many fear that we will then digress to a primitive, pre-industrial agrarian society. But that doesn't have to be the case. If we are careful we should be able to take, if not our technology, our knowledge with us. Much of what we know about the world around us has been gained with the help of industrial technology and abundant energy. If our cultures are to return to a lower energy, lower technology state then let us do so benefiting from the knowledge that we have gained. Primitive maybe, but hopefully not ignorant. I have not thought through all of the implications of this yet. As I do, I will share it here.

Have a good new year.

World Energy and Population

[Link: World Energy and Population]

This article is the first of two articles on global availability of energy through the first half of this century. This article discusses the actual energy likely to be available and the second article delves more deeply into the consequences of these trends and is shown here. This is not the only attempt to approach this subject in the popular press. Several writers, most of the peak oil variety, have done these same sorts of projections. Some of those articles are more strident than this one and I consider that a plus. We don't need additional reasons to fear the future. I like the scope of this presentation though, because the author has tried to isolate the effects without overly complicated or hopeful assumptions about future developments in the field.

With gas and heating fuel prices heading for the sky we have all begun to feel that something new and momentous is happening. When new circumstances arise unexpectedly, it is sometimes difficult to keep from looking for a magical cause or maybe even hoping for a magical cure. Forget it. That won't happen this time either. The best we can do is try to understand what is really happening. Articles like this can help with that. A rational solution can only be derived from a realistic perception of the problem at hand.

'Humanity's very survival' is at risk, says UN

Thirty per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are under threat of extinction, while one in ten of the world’s major rivers runs dry every year before it reaches the sea.

[Link:
Times Online]

When I read an article like this I realize that all life on earth, including humanity itself, is in anywhere from serious to fatal trouble. It isn't what is in the article itself that scares me though. It is the fact that an article like this can be written about the conclusions of a huge number of learned scholars in pertinent fields of study, representing the only international "governmental" body there is, and nobody, especially those who might have some chance of doing something about it, will even notice. From where will a solution to the problems we are facing come I ask myself. There is no one seeking a solution. We have the brains, certainly, to see the problem and even to imagine a solution but we don't seem to have the intellectual courage or political will to face those answers.