I've got a few questions for everyone reading this.
- Are you aware that we are just a few short years away from our oil supply running out?
- If you are, are you aware that this does not just mean you pay more for gas? Are you aware that this means that trucks will no longer be able to deliver food to stores (And a thousand other consequences)? When that happens, what will keep your family from starving to death?
- What are you going to do to prepare for it?
Don't believe me? Check out these links.
From Life After The Oil Crash:
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. 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."
CNN is currently airing special about the impending oil crisis...
The Bush Administration is quite aware of this (why do you think we really attacked Iraq?):
As mentioned previously, Dick Cheney made the following statement in late 1999:
By some estimates, there will be an average of two-percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day.
To put Cheney's statement in perspective, remember that the oil producing nations of the world are currently pumping at full capacity but are struggling to produce much more than 84 million barrels per day. Cheney's statement was a tacit admission of the severity and imminence of Peak Oil as the possibility of the world raising its production by such a huge amount is borderline ridiculous.
A report commissioned by Cheney and released in April 2001 was no less disturbing:
The most significant difference between now and a decade ago is the extraordinarily rapid erosion of spare capacities at critical segments of energy chains. Today, shortfalls appear to be endemic. Among the most extraordinary of these losses of spare capacity is in the oil arena.
Not surprisingly, George W. Bush has echoed Dick Cheney's sentiments. In May 2001, Bush stated, "What people need to hear loud and clear is that we're running out of energy in America."
And from Energy Bulletin:
The average American consumes six times the energy of the average person in the rest of the world.1 Yet we don't seem to realize the cost of our massive energy consumption on the poorer people of the world, on our own health, and the health of the environment. Although interest in Peak Oil is growing, most do not yet fully understand that this means the "American Way of Life" will be over within a few decades.
Possibly much sooner.
As you can see from the above, it isn't a bunch of crackpots predicting this. Even George W. Bush believes it.
So, I'll ask again: What are you going to do when the oil runs out?
Read more of the Martian Anthropologist's writings here.