Peak Oil

Kunstler on Colbert!

May 5, 2008

I was shocked when I read this. Two of my favorite satirists head to head on the same program? Absolutely classic! Kunstler was on to promote his new book World Made by Hand, a fictional story that takes place in the future—a future without oil. Sounds like an intriguing book. Take a comic relief break [...]

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Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil

March 2, 2008

Today, I watched the film Crude: The Incredible Journey of Oil. The film has been showing on the History Channel, but I just found the entire film available for watching on the Australian Broadcasting Company’s website.

The film is broken into three sections: the origin of crude oil, the discovery of uses for crude oil and our subsequent addiction, and the future of oil. I found the film to be interesting, but nothing in the film was too shocking to me, as I try to keep up with oil-related issues. The most informative part for me was the part on how crude oil forms and why there is such a large reserve in the Middle East. There are some other key takeaways from this film that make it an important film to watch:

- One obvious point mentioned is that crude oil took millions of years to form, but within 150 years time since the demand for crude oil skyrocketed (originating from oil drilling in Pennsylvania), we will have depleted most sources of crude oil. At least we will have depleted enough of it to where extraction cannot come close to the amount demanded.

-The film also drove home the point that there is virtually nothing that isn’t made from oil. Our oil addiction goes far beyond driving vehicles and delivering goods. If the price of oil skyrockets, there is not one commodity that won’t be affected by the rise of oil prices. >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Follow Up to the Walkable Church and Peak Oil Article

October 16, 2007

I want to follow up on the article that Jim Robbins wrote for this site yesterday on Walkable Church. I now realize that many of you reading our feeds externally or via e-mail probably cannot tell who the authors of articles are (this one is Eric). So, incorporating author names within the feed is something I will have to work on. I want to make sure authors get credit for their work in all formats!

The other thing I wanted to mention is that some of you may have concerns about the religious nature of the article yesterday, a topic we have previously shied away from. I do want to make it clear that we do not place any religious beliefs or non-beliefs above any others on this site. When Jim raised the idea with me about posting an article on the topic, I was very hesitant. I did not want to offend any of our readers. However, I think there are many lessons to learn from what Jim wrote yesterday, and he has a very interesting perspective on how walkability relates to his life with the church.

I agree whole-heartedly with Jim that peak oil is perhaps going to be the most serious cultural challenge that we face in the upcoming future—even more so than global warming and the obesity epidemic. I believe this because peak oil will affect everyone in the pocketbook—whether or not you drive a car. If what the oil industry experts are saying is true, we could face a massive crisis on any given day. The cost of oil could easily skyrocket overnight due to a major war, political struggle, catastrophic event, or problems with major suppliers (Enron anyone?). This is not likely to happen with global warming or obesity: the results are just not tangible to many people, so they do not care about them enough to dramatically shift their daily habits.

The church scenario Jim shared with us yesterday can really be applied to most every life aspect—offices, schools, rec centers, shopping malls—you name it. >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Walkable Church

October 15, 2007

In the near future…

Church attendance will drop dramatically.

Churches won’t be able to cool or heat their Family Life Centers and sanctuaries.

Church staffs and programs will be cut.

Many churches may have to close.

The most critical issue for Christians in the next 5 to 10 years won’t be evangelism or discipleship or worship. It will be a lack of energy – energy that cools buildings and heats staff offices. Energy that fuels cars that sit in church parking lots. We simply won’t be able to do church the way we’re currently doing it. The most “spiritual” issue for us in the next few years will be the “peak oil” phenomenon (an energy scarcity this country has never seen). In fact, if you Google the phrase“peak oil,” you will get 8,680,000 hits! It’s a big deal.

The Church in America will run out of cheap and recoverable oil along with the rest of the world. We have used up one-half the world’s oil reserves. We have reached the peak of oil production and the remaining fossil fuel reserves are going to be much more difficult (and expensive) to extract: There will come a point where energy giants won’t be able to extract the remaining reserves simply because the cost to extract outstrips profits gained. Of course this cost to do business gets passed on to the consumer (families and churches) in the form of catastrophic prices at the fuel pump and at the electric meter on the side of your house. Coal and natural gas are on a similar decline, and no combination of “alternative fuels” will be able to give us the scale of cheap energy we are used to. No matter what we do – and we should do something now – we may likely see a pre-industrial America and be forced to live on far, far less than we’re used to. We will have to walk. It won’t be an option.

The ride is over

The cheap oil glut over the last century, and the lifestyle it built for us, was a one-time ride; an unusually prosperous blip on the world history timeline. The Church, as we will see, has enjoyed this ride just like everyone else.

The ride is over.

This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse Bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global “Peak Oil.” – from the website: Life After the Oil Crash.

>>Continue Reading This Article>>

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James Howard Kunstler’s Suburban Fantasy and the Devastating Effects of Peak Oil

July 15, 2006

Say what you will about James Howard Kunstler, but I think we need people like him. People that say what needs to be said, and sometimes abrasively. As we have seen throughout history, the educated people that say blunt and controversial statements often get the most media attention. Mr. Kunstler can certainly fit into this category. He is an “expert” on the devastating effects that peak oil and rising oil prices will have on the U.S. and its economy. He basically predicts that this outcome is inevitable if we do not change our oil consumption habits immediately. He is the author of several books, including The Geography of Nowhere and his latest book, The Long Emergency. If you have not read anything by him or heard him speak before, you should start with his bio and website. Be forewarned, he often uses explicit language to make his points.

Mr. Kunstler recently wrote an article on the Suburban Fantasy at TomPaine.com, and I wanted to share a few important excerpts from that article:

It’s actually kind of funny to hear Americans complain these days about the cost of gasoline and how it is affecting their lives. What did they expect after setting up an easy-motoring utopia of suburban metroplexes that make incessant driving inevitable? And how did they fail to register the basic facts of the world oil situation, which have been available to us for decades?

Trouble with oil will spell huge problems with how we grow our food, how we conduct trade, how we move around and how we inhabit the terrain of North America. These systems are going to wobble and eventually fail unless some effort is made to reform their scale and their procedures. For example, Wal-Mart’s profit margins will disappear as higher diesel fuel prices hit its “warehouse-on-wheels.�

Now, in the face of this, you’d think that the national leadership in politics, business and science would prepare the public for substantial necessary changes in the way we do things. What we are seeing across the board, though, is merely a desperate wish to keep the cars running by any conceivable means, at all costs. That is the sole target of our focus. Our leaders don’t get it. We citizens have to make other arrangements. >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Is Your Community Ready?

October 23, 2005

Peak oil awareness is gaining a critical mass nationwide, and not just amongst scientists. Monthly meet-up groups are arising nationwide, even in Midwestern communities as diverse as Louisville, Kentucky (see Louisville Courier-Journal article) to discuss what this means to them and what they can do to be prepared. Whether the true crisis will actually arise [...]

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Bush Administration Changes Tune on Energy and Oil Consumption

October 9, 2005

In 2001, Then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was asked if the Bush administration had plans to reduce energy consumption. “That’s a big no. The President believes that it’s an American way of life,” Mr. Fleischer said. Interesting how a couple of hurricanes and rising oil prices can rapidly make an administration change its mind.

The Gadsden Times reports that President Bush is encouraging individuals to cut back on auto trips. “We can all pitch in. People just need to recognize that the storms have caused disruption,” Mr. Bush stated. He also added that if Americans can avoid going “on a trip that’s not essential, that would be helpful.” Mr. Bush did not go as far as to state that we need to encourage more compact and walkable growth, however, the new Federal transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU has included some positive measures toward these initiatives (see:“AmericaBikes.org”:http://www.americabikes.org/ ). >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Davidson, NC: An Extreme Walkable Community

September 4, 2005

Davidson, North Carolina has tagged itself as a walkable community. Following the recent increase in gas prices, perhaps there is no community doing more to live up to this tagging. According to a Lincoln Tribune article, it seems that all government employees are walking, biking, or using public transit to get to work. “I have [...]

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Bring on Peak Oil and Higher Gas Prices

September 1, 2005

I feel bad writing about rising gas prices during the middle of a national tragedy, but there is so much discussion about it in the media that I got upset and had to offer a counter argument. There was a great article published recently in the Lansing City Pulse about how some people are welcoming the higher gas prices in hopes that America will invest in more walkable places and mass transit, and this was before Hurricane Katrina devastated the South. Already Lansing, Michigan is seeing a large increase in public transportation ridership because of the gas price increases. The article also has a striking graphic on how much other countries pay per gallon of gasoline in comparison with the US. Both the UK and the Netherlands pay over $6 per gallon of gasoline! An interesting note on the picture above: I shot this photo last year in California to show to people back East how expensive gas was. Now, with prices over $3 a gallon in California, people would be lined up for blocks for those prices… >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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