I blog about environmental and social justice issues because I am very concerned about the health of the interdependent web of life of which we are a part.

Melting Arctic ice.......beautiful and frightening!

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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Peak Oil?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
Coincidentally, I bought Carbon Shift: How the Twin Crises of Oil Depletion and Climate Change Will Define the Future (edited by Thomas Homer-Dixon) today.  The authors of the various essays agree that humanity's future is going to be drastically unlike our experience during the Age of Oil.  Thomas Homer-Dixon winds up the book by stating that " a carbon shift - either voluntary or involuntary - is now unavoidable."  And, if the whistleblower at the IEA is correct, the involuntary carbon shift is much closer than previously thought.  Perhaps we, as a country, and humanity as a whole,  should ration carbon fuels and use what we still have left to build a way of life that isn't so dependent upon hydrocarbons? Sweden is planning exactly that..... why can't the rest of the world?

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