Oil Running Out

Industrialised countries are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, especially oil and gas. Gas and oil together provide 70% of the energy used in both the US and UK. But the world’s reserves are rapidly diminishing, and they don’t have to actually run out before precipitating a crisis. (An introductory article to Peak Oil)

NZ Greens Co-Leader Jeanette Fitzsimons Full Speech: “Picnic for the Planet 2005”

Our civilization “is the first to develop a level of personal comfort that creates the illusion and the expectation that, thanks to our civilisation and our technology, we can forever conquer cold, hunger, pain, illness and eventually death itself. We have done this thanks to the use of one substance: oil.”

Dollar on an oily slope

The unabated rise of international oil prices and depreciation of the dollar will push economic growth in the US down to about 2.5% in 2005, but will have little impact on economic growth in the European Union, where growth is expected to accelerate modestly.