If/when a petroleum shortage impacts it will concentrate minds wonderfully. But when it comes the window of opportunity could be brief and risky. If things deteriorate too far too fast there could easily be too much chaos for sense to prevail and for us to organize cooperative local alternative systems. [1]
“Too much chaos” is certainly one problem-solving approach! Perhaps it should not be the first one, however.
Unfortunately, the more often the more prominent voices—those unwilling to share with followers the full scope of our future fossil fuel/energy supply challenges—are given forums for public consumption, the greater the odds that “too much chaos” will be the strategy available to all of us.
Of course, none of this is going to happen next month or next year, or perhaps not for several more years. But that’s not a reason to set it aside for now. The scope of adaptation to a diminished and ever-diminishing thereafter fossil fuel supply does not lend itself to anything close to a quick-fix.
The challenge now is all the greater because we’re presently in the midst of an over-supply of oil, and prices have dropped to or near historic lows. That’s obviously not a problem for consumers … today.
So why is oil so cheap? There are various contributing factors relating both to supply (production rate) and demand. The main supply factor is that production of U.S. shale oil has increased rapidly to 3.5 million barrels a day, along with the renewed oil production from Iraq and Libya. Saudi produce one third of OPEC’s output, and this time they have refused to cut production because they want to keep (grow?) their share of the market.
At the same time, demand has fallen because the global economy (especially China) has slowed down.
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