Preaching Peak Oil in the Local Coffee Shop

October 18, 2004

I’m not sure why, but every time I walk into the coffee shop, somebody immediately asks me what the latest doomsday scenario is.

In fact, some of them have taken to calling me “Doom and Doomer.” I figure this is fine, since I publish news, and scandal and catastrophe are my favorite things.

Lately I’ve been telling them the end is near because world oil production seems to be peaking, and as far as I can tell, we’re all going to end up riding skateboards and scooters to work. The problem in a nutshell is that China and other Asian countries are industrializing at a feverish rate just as many geologists are starting to wonder if the world’s ability to produce oil is about to peak and then begin a permanent decline.

Since the giant American economy is designed to work on infinite rivers of cheap oil from the Middle East, oil depletion would mean a return to The Great Depression … or perhaps something worse

When that happens, all the Wal-Marts and other big-box stores will have ceased to exist because they sell cheap stuff made from oil and hauled halfway around the world in huge cargo ships and millions of diesel trucks. It’s a sort of miracle to live in an age when we can do stuff like this, but the whole house of cards depends on oil never getting scarce or expensive.

One of the best observers of peak oil is James Howard Kunstler, an author who says Americans are committing economic suicide by investing trillions of dollars in suburban sprawl and big-box stores — patterns of settlement and lifestyle that will be useless when the oil crisis hits. He thinks survivors will live in small towns with access to locally grown food and locally manufactured products. People will soon make their living, he says, in a kind of “yard-sale nation,” refurbishing and trading all the stuff manufactured during the 20th century.

This actually sounds kind of cool to me, especially if the government declares martial law and seals off the cities so that urban starving people don’t come over here and steal our garden tomatoes. Perhaps we might want to install a valley militia up on McClure Pass.

It does raise the question: Could this valley survive — or perhaps even thrive — after the age of oil becomes a distant memory?

As long as the irrigation systems hold out, we can grow lots of food here. If enough diesel remains to haul coal, the miners would still have jobs. We could also learn how to make shoes, clothes, soap and all those other things we used to buy in the big boxes. Heck, we could even rescue all those horse-drawn plows now being used as mail boxes and put them back to work!

Kunstler believes that state and federal governments will go bankrupt after oil becomes depleted, and it’ll be up to local towns and counties to relearn to how to create basic, functional communities. His best advice to everyone? If you happen to live in the American suburbs, this would be a really good time to think about getting out.

Richard Heinberg, another oil expert, says we have four choices: Fight endless war trying to secure the last oil fields; power down to simpler and more elegant communities; hope (until the bitter end) for a magic elixer; or build lifeboat communities to survive the massive die-off when peak oil hits. Guess which ones he thinks the U.S. will choose?

Hmm … No wonder they call me Doom and Doomer.


Tags: Fossil Fuels, Oil