People are complaining to each other in the press in emails about petrol prices.
We’ve heard some blaming petrol companies for profiteering.
We can look at what the oil company profits are locally by looking at a company like Caltex which is locally listed so their Profit & Loss figures are public information.
Others want the government to bring down the price by cutting fuel excise. What difference would that make? Less money for social benefits such as roads health education. A slight difference in the price which will continue to head up anyway.
How many of us are facing the real issue which is what is happening to oil supply globally? How many of us are asking ourselves how we are going to live when oil prices become increasingly prohibitive as they will do? How many of us have any idea how dependent our whole way of life is on oil for food transport economic funtioning and a huge proportion of all our goods and services which simply would not be available without oil.
What effect do you think the unrest in the Middle Eastern oil producing nations is having on oil supply?
What effect do you think Chinese and Indian massive growth in car numbers and consumerism is having on oil demand? What effect is the unrelenting growth in global population having on oil demand?
Do you know how rapidly the number of countries not ‘post-Peak’ in oil supply is dwindling? How long ago the discovery of substantial new oil resources peaked? That the whole global oil supply has already peaked? That Australia’s oil supply has peaked?
Do you know what it means for oil supply to Peak? How rapidly that will change our lifestyles? How dramatic and extreme the changes will be? How little time there is to use our remaining reserves to prepare to leave ourselves in the most resilient state we can to live in a future where we will have little access to oil.
There were periods when ordinary people did not have access to petrol during the war – it is a precious resource that will be diverted to key strategic uses as it becomes increasingly scarce.
Peak oil is not the only challenge we face in our crisis-ridden world now but it is one of the urgent one.
It is a “wicked problem” – no easy answers profound effects. The energy is oil is unbelievably rich – replacing it with anything is unlikely to be possible beyond a small fraction. Adapting is going to be a huge task for each and every one of us and we’ll feel all the range of emotions (denial grief anger we’ll hope and delude ourseves about technical solutions or endtimes rescues). Ultimately it will be up to us to make the best of it. Whatever we do it won’t be business as usual. The worst case scenarios are black beyond imagining. Our bodies (our 7 billion bodies) are substantially made of chemicals that were produced directly using oil. It is very questionable whether many of us would be able to survive without a constant abundant flow of oil.
This is not a game. This is as serious as it gets. We need all our thinking caps on. We need all our efforts to plan and work now to have any hope of having a future.