Lucky Us?
By Jeff Berg
15 May,
2008
Countercurrents.org
I have just today run across a report that leads me for the first time in a long time to pose the following optimistic question. Is it possible that some important events are conspiring in our favour for a change? By "our" in this case I mean to say the world as a whole. It is always important I think to define who it is one means by we.
This welcome change of pace has come about as a result of the following very small number of words: "Liquids production will significantly decline after a likely bumpy plateau 2010-2020 and likely chaotic oil prices. 30 years from now, production of easy oil will be 35% less than to day but production of all liquids (including from coal and biomass) only 5% less than today." ~ Jean Laherre, April, 2006.
The report from which the above quote is taken was given to the European Geosciences Union General Assembly April, 2006, Vienna, Austria. To read the whole report: http://www.hubbertpeak.com/laherrere/EGUVienna2006.pdf
To many familiar with the world of geophysics Jean Laherre's projections are among the best in the business. If this projection of his proves out in the main it has profound implications. In fact such a lengthy plateau may prove in practice to be the best of all possible energy worlds. For one thing such an outcome would provide many decades worth of evidence to the cornucopians and the endless growth economists that their visions and projections are not supported by reality. I.e. The facts on and under the ground. For another this would mean that we will have considerably more time to adjust to the peak in liquid fuels than is today believed by many. Best of all a three decade plateau in liquid fuels, albeit a bumpy one, gives us in potential at least the time and fuel needed to make a substantial transition to a postcarbon civilization worthy of the name.
For North America however this does not mean by any means that we are anywhere near out of the woods. For one thing this report talks not at all to the very profound natural gas crisis that has been left so late that significant economic pain and social impacts are now largely unavoidable. For another what this projection in no way says is that N.A. will only have to cut its consumption of liquid fuels by 5% over the next thirty years. For today at least I will leave aside the macroeconomic and geopolitical concerns that augur poorly for the collective fate of our continent's people and the social services that define that fate.
For those paying attention there is no longer any rational doubt that we here in N.A. will be moved by numerous forces to bring our absolute consumption of liquid fuels down significantly over the next few decades. What also cannot be doubted is that this will cause no small amount of hardship. It is however also essential to note that this reduction in our fuel consumption is precisely what needs to happen for any number of compelling reasons. That this is so, and that the events and forces moving us in this direction are now pretty much locked into place, is the conspiracy to which I referred at the outset of this piece.
Absolute consumption of energy will come down significantly in North America over the next few decades. What this will mean to the quality of our democracies and our lives is, for now, still an open question. We have not yet totally foreclosed the possibility of positive outcomes arising from this decline in available energy. By the same token it also most certainly cannot be said that we have as of yet begun to gallop off in the best direction. I.e. Towards the sun.
But if Laherre is right, who knows? We who are today alive in the world may yet have the time and resources necessary to accomplish the most profound wish of any generation: To pass on a decent world to those who will take the torch from our failing hands. What is on the other hand very much known is just exactly what kind of world we will pass on if we treat the next thirty years as we have treated the last thirty.
ton confrere,
J.F. Berg
www.postcarbontoronto.org
www.pledgeTOgreen.ca
