NEW YORK - Famine, disease, economic collapse, despotism, and resource wars.
Sounds horrific, but that's what's in store unless the world cuts back fast on
its energy consumption, according to a new book.
In "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies," author
Richard Heinberg argues global oil output will peak in three to 12 years, and if
an aggressive shift to include new energy sources, like wind, solar or fuel
cells in the mix doesn't happen by then, grim consequences will result.
It's no surprise the United States, which consumes a quarter of the world's
oil and imports more than half of the 20 million barrels of oil it now uses
every day, is at the top of Heinberg's list of offending countries.
But the author stresses high growth rates in oil-thirsty countries like China or
India heighten the chances of calamity by increasing competition among nations
for oil and therefore requiring the shift to alternatives to be even more
decisive.
"The party, which is the past 200 years of fossil fuels use, is coming to an
end, and we have the choice as to how to bring that party to an end," Heinberg
told Reuters. "Either we do it voluntarily or it will be thrust upon us."
While Heinberg has his share of detractors, even among those who agree that the
world may well face some sort of crisis when oil production begins to tail off
for good, his worst-case scenario is certainly attention-grabbing.
He predicts a less global world where cities shrink into towns as people move
closer to food and water supplies, where currencies will be local, electrical
power delivered by cooperatives and bicycles and walking widespread once again.
"We are going to have to run the movie of globalization in reverse," said
Heinberg, an ecology professor at the New College of California, in Santa Rosa
north of San Francisco.
He also reckons many U.S. citizens would be willing to trade in their
energy-intensive lifestyles in exchange for assurances militants halfway around
the world would drop America off their target list.
Heinberg's views stand in stark contrast to those who believe that the
transition from petroleum to alternative fuels will be smooth, even if new
energy sources cost more.
"(An alternative to oil) is presumably going to cost more, but it doesn't
necessarily mean that it will be catastrophic and it doesn't mean that the
change is going to be abrupt, it could be a smooth transition," said Ron Minsk,
economist and special assistant for economic policy to former U.S. President
Bill Clinton.
A SIMPLE CHOICE
To avoid catastrophe, Heinberg stresses that the United States must immediately
reduce its dependency on petroleum and work on downsizing its resource-intensive
way of life with a view toward conservation and developing renewable energy.
In his book, Heinberg quotes Colin Campbell - a geologist and author known for
his forecasts that world oil production is likely to peak within a decade - to
help make the case that time is of the essence to avoid disaster.
But Campbell's claim that: "We now find one barrel of oil for every four we
consume," is dismissed by people like Minsk as scaremongering.
Heinberg's detractors acknowledge that oil will obviously run out one day, but
generally say that if oil prices rise as supplies begin to tighten, market
forces will kick in to avert a global disaster.
"Since the 1950's people have been predicting that oil production will peak 10
years later, and we are now in the 2000's and people are still predicting that
production will peak in a decade," Minsk said.
Minsk said higher oil prices might hurt the economy in the near term, but would
also increase the economic incentive to explore and develop oil and alternative
energy sources that may have previously been too expensive to develop before.
Oil prices reached $40 a barrel this year in the weeks before U.S.-led forces
attacked oil-rich Iraq on fears that widespread destruction of oil fields there
could shock the world economy. Prices have since settled back to around $26.
Heinberg considers the latest conflict in Iraq not as an attempt to get rid of
weapons of mass destruction but as a way for the United States to secure oil
supplies. The invasion was, in his view, an early sign of the resource wars of
the future he predicts if alternatives to oil are not quickly pursued.
He also says that in the absence of massive investments in alternative energy -
that is in the billions of dollars rather than the millions proposed by U.S.
President George W. Bush in his latest budget - relying on price spikes as an
early indicator of supply problems is pretty much useless.
That's because the next big supply crisis is likely to signal the beginning of
the end of the petroleum era and thus the beginning of chaos - first in the
developing world but also, eventually, in the industrialized world as well.
"We really need to wake up. It is the greatest challenge that we have faced in
the last 200 years," Heinberg said.