Peak Oil and deal are two historic events forhumans and life on earth. The first threatens modern industrialways of living and the latter threatens the climatic systemsthat are an integral part of our world and the way we live andsurvive.
A quick recap on both. Peak Oil is the point of historic maximumglobal oil flow, is the alteration of establishedclimate systems due to (in this case, anthropogenic) globalwarming. The onset of both will affect food & water supplies,mortality rates, conflict, migration and much more. The evidencethat is underway and almost past the point of noreturn is very strong and Peak Oil day by day gathers morecredence as many studies point to an imminent peak.
How do these two events affect each other though?
The decline of global oil supply and the increasing cost ofeverything as a consequence means we will see our ability todeal with the consequences of reduced.
Let us take a look at Britain. The decline of oil and gas willof its own accord make it harder to keep Britain warm but if theGulf Stream does switch off as a result of Global Warming, thegap between what is needed and what will be available will getwider. The change to a colder climate would have a negativeaffect on crop growing, at a time when declining oil and gassupplies make the agriculture business more expensive. Warmingsea temperatures are pushing fish stocks further afield, out oftraditional (and already over-fished) fishing waters. Fishermen,so dependent on oil for their boats, will have to pay more fortheir fuel to go after these already dwindling and increasinglydistant fish stocks. The insurance industry is already facingincreasing pressures from Climate Change, but when the economynose-dives past the oil peak, this double whammy could knock outthe insurance industry. Will those in increasingly flood proneareas be able to pay the insurance costs during the recessionsbrought on by the decline of oil supplies?
The European Environment Agency recently pointed to how Germanyis now at risk from more extreme weather, such as heavy rain -which raises the risk of flooding, especially the denselypopulated plains of central Europe. Cleaning up and repairingthat damage costs money and requires energy. The economicclimate, post peak, is going to be less able to deal with it. Atthe other extreme, Italy's coming crisis is drought, and thereis a need there to improve irrigation to improve agriculture.Once again, money and energy are needed, and both will be harderto come by.
Further afield we are seeing glaciers melting and other regionsbecoming more arid and water flows changing. The ability toprocess and transport water to these regions will become moreexpensive, if it is at all possible, since drinking water isalready tight in many areas. For example, desalination plantsare an energy-intensive way of getting drinking water from seawater. Another option is to build pipelines to transport thewater, but this is an expensive and complicated option. What weare likely to see, according to Tearfund, a relief anddevelopment agency, is an increase in water refugees.
As river and rain patterns change abruptly, the agriculture thathas been grown for those climates will have to change, but thepatterns may alter so much that the ability to grow food isseverely impaired, and the need for oil and gas for fertiliserand food transportation will go up. This will lead to increasesin, for example, famine and drought. With the world economygoing into a long-term downturn as a result of Peak Oil, and thecost of everything going up, the willingness and ability fromthe wealthier (but increasingly less wealthy) world to deal withthe problems brought on by will decline.
The list goes on. Forest fires will increase, but the ability tofight them will decrease. Disease will spread but the cost andtransportation of medicines will increase as a result of thegreat oil decline, while the ability to pay for them by those inneed will decrease. As the world economy goes into recession asa result of oil decline, the ability and willingness of the richto give to the poor in regions directly affected by ClimateChange will wane. Cheap oil has enabled us to tackle many of theworld's problems - to varying degrees - when we have beenwilling, but Peak Oil marks the beginning of a very big changeas far as that goes.
Worryingly, the decline of oil may simply exacerbate ClimateChange if we don't recognise what will happen and we don't seethe whole picture. In our attempt to keep business as usualwhile trying to reduce Climate Change, we are seeing more of therainforests being destroyed to grow soya beans to satisfy anenlarged appetite for oil. Nobody needs to be told how importantthe rainforests are to the world. As for renewables, these arebuilt from materials that need oil. Once again we see that thedecline of oil means an increase in costs at a time when theability to pay for it will be much lower than now. Developingalternatives will become more costly the cost of everything willincrease - this is because oil is behind everything we do. Andof course there is the likelihood of turning to dirtierhydrocarbons such as coal, when we could investing in thingslike microgeneration.
A recent article on the website Gristmill.org entitled 'Peak Oil: Not an environmental silver bullet' argued thatenvironmentalists hoping that awareness of peak oil willincrease support of renewable, decentralised energy is naïvewhen the likely situation is that there will be a stronger turnto environmentally damaging, dirtier fossil fuels. Does thatmean that activists should shun Peak Oil?Absolutely not. Peak Oil and have to beunderstood as an overall package, not separately, and we shouldall be looking at this, shouting clearly that "If we're notcareful, we might just end up where we're heading!"
The main thing about Peak Oil - and this could be what everyoneneeds to grasp hold of - is that it is symbolic of much morethan just oil supplies. Because oil is so important toeverything that modern industrial society is based upon,including the assumptions of continuous growth, we can see thatthe decline of oil will pose serious questions about how we liveand the systems, structures and culture we have developed. PeakOil is therefore a symbol of the high-watermark of thehydrocarbon human and everything associated with it. Care forour environment and our climate should be a big part of theanswer because that is what we will have left when thehydrocarbons are gone, and we must place proper value on that.The confluence of Peak Oil and means that it isnow time to ask ourselves, as a species, the biggest questionswe can.
So let's ask those questions now. What do we want to achievewith our remaining oil (and gas) resources? What do we want ourlegacy to be? What are we aiming towards as a species and doesthat meet what we want to achieve as individuals? How do we wantto achieve this? Do we want to make the transition as easy aspossible? Do we eschew personal responsibility and have blindfaith that 'the markets' or 'technology' will solve everything,thus putting off doing anything?
We can clearly see that things are going to change, but are wegoing to be led by events or do we lead them? Do we create a wayof living that brings us more in balance with the environmentand dramatically reduces greenhouse gases through a combinationof efficiency and absolute reduction in greenhouse gasemissions? Or is the current way of doing things so important totry to cling on to (even though it is so ultimately futile thatwe'll destroy so much in the process) way beyond the point of noreturn?
It simply does not make sense to expand the use of energyresources that will increase if our ability todeal with those magnified consequences will be even moredepleted further down the road. This is what has to be madeabsolutely clear. The great decline of global oil production isbad enough without and vice versa - but do wewant to make things worse for ourselves and those who follow? Isthat to be our legacy? What kind of fool would cover an infectedwound with a poisoned bandage?
Peak Oil and are a bigger threat together thaneither are alone. Our biggest hope is to similarly converge ourunderstanding of them, and how to deal with the problems theypresent. Peak Oil and must be fused as issues -an approach is needed to deal with them as a package. If we arelooking for answers, the environmental movement has pushedsuitable ones for a long time. Peak Oil presents a tremendouschance to push those solutions ahead, failure to incorporate afull understanding of Peak Oil into the solutions argument forClimate Change would be an abject failure.
The bottom line is that business can live with toan extent but it is the threat of declining oil supplies thatreally strikes fear into politicians, economists, and many otherpeople who prefer to ignore as a problem, becauseit will hit them financially, and soon. The Climate Changemovement can sell the green solutions to the challenge of oildecline. The movement has been saying for a longtime that we should change, Peak Oil means categorically we haveto change. Fuse them together and hopefully we'll get moremomentum moving us in the right direction.
Written by: James Howard of PowerSwitch.Org.Uk - Raisingawareness of Peak Oil in the UK.
Sources:
www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825265.400en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming#Spread_of_diseaseen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_securityen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalinationgristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/28/125110/28www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1654803,00.htmlwww.globalpublicmedia.com/news/539www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0124-11.htmnews.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1234244.stm
About the author:James Howard lives in London and works on a campaign to raiseaware of Peak Oil in the UK.
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