The Rise and
Fall of the Oil Age by
Fred Touche
As gasoline prices keep
climbing, irate drivers seeking scapegoats have homed in on all the
obvious targets: oil companies, taxes, terrorists, U.S. President
George W. Bush, etc. Regrettably, the root cause is much more insidious
and heart wrenching because the real culprit is you. Every time you run
your vehicle, lawn mower, power boat or fly to Hawaii, you're depleting
a finite commodity that cannot be replaced.
A rough estimate of the
total amount of conventional oil that ever existed on Earth is about
two trillion barrels, and since the beginning of the oil age we have
extracted about one trillion barrels. Because of the inherent
constraints of geology and the methods used to extract oil, the halfway
depletion point coincides with the point of maximum possible
extraction. No one knows exactly when this halfway point will be
reached, but it will likely happen within the next few years. An
unstoppable decline in oil production will follow. Demand for oil will
in all likelihood continue to increase, causing prices to skyrocket. We
might already be at the beginning of this trend. Ironically, lowering
taxes or inventing more effective methods to find and extract oil will
simply accelerate the depletion, causing even higher prices in the long
run.
Our oil-guzzling party
will come to an end with a hangover littered with the rusting hulks of
the oil age. But don't despair. Humans have shown a remarkable ability
to adapt to changing circumstances. A world with less oil might very
well be a healthier world.
Fred Touche is the author
of the Wilderness
Navigation Handbook.
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