The Great Phase
Transition:
The Post-Oil Era
By Jorge Figueiredo
07 April, 2005
Globalresearch.ca
Mankind seems on
the verge of stepping into a gigantic phase of transition.This means
that the world as we know it today will cease to exist.
I am not referring
to the possible collapse of the capitalist system, for which one cannot,
so to speak, schedule a date.
I am referring to
another phenomenon, of a physical nature and for which we can predict
reasonably accurate dates.
It has to do with
another collapse: the already announced "death of oil". This
event marks the end of an era.
The data concerning
this problem are reasonably known, mainly due to the important research
of Collin Campbell, Jean Laherrère et al. Recoverable oil is
a finite resource and humankind has already reached or is about to reach
its production peak. Hubberts Curve, the curve developed by the
great US geophysicist King Hubbert, points to the inevitable.
From the peak on,
production will decline asymptotically until it reaches the end.
The end of oil is
consequently on the horizon. It is impossible for humankind to carry
on wasting madly and indefinitely, as it is occurring today at the rate
82 million barrels/day (=~30 x 109 barrels/year).
I will not be concerned
here with describing the underlying quantitative data. In spite of the
wall of silence concerning this issue, during many years, by the governments,
the oil conglomerates, and organizations such as the International Energy
Agency, the European Union, etc., people now have access to an extensive
literature on the subject of peak oil. Whoever wishes to study it can
consult the works by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO,
http://www.asponews.org/
), Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC, http://www.odac-info.org/
), Jay Hanson http://www.dieoff.org
) and other researchers.
This paper does
not aim at repeating what has already been said. Instead, it attempts
to outline the possible consequences mankind will face, underlying the
transition between the present "oil era" and an altogether
different era that, at a loss of a better definition, I will call the
"post-oil era".
This transition
seems even more complex given the present phase of capitalism, which
we might call senile, for it assumes a predatory character and an absolute
irrationality concerning the ends (although it might appear rational
in order to attain irrational ends).
Let us say that
the end of oil will happen within 50 years (for the purposes of our
analysis, the exact timing is not the real issue).
Lets then
imagine the reasoning of one of those yuppies forged by the neoliberal
ideology, one of those extremely individualistic individuals imbued
with a strong egotism even a generational one. If this yuppie
happens to be badly informed, he will shrug off and say: it matters
little, it doesnt affect me nor my generation and it will be a
problem to be solved by the next generation.
It is however a
profound error arising from the ignorance of this short-term yuppie.
Truly enough, the effects of the end of the oil era will make themselves
felt long before the last barrel has been extracted from earth. These
effects will possibly be felt even in the short-term in less than five
from now. Many analysts consider in this regard that Hubberts
Curve has already reached a plateau that will be broken by 2008).
The first consequence
to be felt will manifest itself in the most obvious way, in terms of
its impact on price. Ali Bakhtiar, an Iranian investigator and creator
of the World Oil Production Capacity model (WOCAP), estimates that within
two years (2006), the pricve of a barrel of oil could reach US$125,
--i.e., he foresees the tripling of the price a barrel of oil even before
the end of the "plateau" foreseen for 2008.
There is another
consequence at the geopolitical level, which is obvious, despite the
disinformation campaign led by the international organizations and by
the corporate media. The beginning of the end of oil contributes to
exacerbating imperialist drive and underlying rivalries, to lay hands
upon the remaining oil resources of the planet. The war of conquest
presently ongoing in Afghanistan and Iraq, the threat of other wars
(Iran, Colombia, Central Asia, etc), the control over other countries
resources (Africa, Latin America), etc, the rivalry between American
imperialism and the European sub-imperialism, the relative weight of
OPECs production versus non-OPECs, etc, all of this is happening
right now before our eyes. The lack of an understanding of these processes
by millions of people all over the world is largely attributable to
the disinformation of the corporate media). Nonetheless, the geopolitical
dimension of this problem is now known and understood, by a sizeable
sector of public opinion.
There is another
broad implication, with even more profound and not immediately perceivable
impacts. I an referring to the present worldwide model of production
and distribution of commodities.
Lets start
by the distribution issue. Since Adam Smith theres been a developed
programme a "programme" indeed and not a "theory
of the international division of labor. It has been applied for
a couple of centuries. During the post-war decades, the World Bank and
the IMF have imposed an international division of labor which has forced
underdeveloped countries to specialize in the production of certain
commodities to be exported with a view to earning hard currency in order
to meet : 1) debt servicing obligations; 2) the spendthrift consuming
of its dominant local classes and 3) the import of food for its populations.
Based on this politics,
those countries abandoned (or were forced to abandon) any concerns about
food self-sufficiency.
It was argued that
it was cheaper to import food than to produce it domestically.
This way, numerous
African and Latin American countries have specialized in producing for
export (agribusiness, oil, coffee, meat, minerals, metals, fruit, etc)
and became no longer able to feed their own populations.
One must now ask:
What will happen when the high costs in international transportation
threaten the present globalized model of trade and distribution, in
which goods have to be transported over distances of thousands of miles?
What will happen
when the freight costs (per ton) become astronomical? it will no longer
be sustainable.
What will happen
then?
A tentative answer:
there could be a return to the theory confirmed all over millennia
of the countries seeking self-sufficiency in food production.
This intuitive theory, full of good sense, however, has been brutally
destroyed by modern-day capitalism (Cuba, with its post-1989 experience,
could then lecture the world).
But will this system
have the intelligence, the rationality and the resolve, with a view
to promoting significant changes in social class relations? A return
to of food self-sufficiency would mean, by itself, an authentic revolution
pertaining to the dominant oligopolistic structures of trade and distribution
which prevail in todays world. We can predict that monopoly capital
will ferociously combat such course and do every possible and imaginary
effort to prevent the adoption of such route.
The problem of transportation
will be equally real concerning the structures of distribution within
each country. Even with the present barrel prices at a normal "level"
there are already African countries that dont even have the resources
to import oil refined products. This situation could extend to other
oil non-producing countries, in Africa and elsewhere. We can only imagine
that the difficulties in transportation might give birth to localized
production within each country, with probable initial retrocessions
in levels of productivity (more primitive methods, etc).
City-countryside
relations will be equally affected; the countryside will have difficulty
in feeding the "inflated" cities of the erroneously-called
Third World.
Concerning production,
the consequences reveal such a multifaceted and complex character that
it is hard to predict what could be the final outcome. Though summarily,
and without intending to act as a futurologist, I can imagine some possible
consequences:
In agriculture,
we verify that the intensive type (the so-called agribusiness) rests
on inputs whose origin lies on oil thats the case of nitrogenous
fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides, fuel for agromachinery, etc.
Consequently, oil scarcity will tend to reduce work productivity and
the profitability provided by land. And this would occur more intensely
in "fatigued" lands, which have been producing for many generations
and whose fertility can only be restored by artificial means. Mankind
has been extracting fertilizers from the land almost for 200 years now
and discarding them out in the cities sewers.
In the case of small-scale
agriculture the prospect would naturally be less serious in comparison
to the first one. However, we still need to know in what way this could
produce a sufficient surplus able to restore the losses of intensive
agriculture. Propriety relations will certainly have to be altered in
order to allow land access to millions of new farmers.
Demographic consequences
are also a distinct possibility, both at the level of the population
growth rate as well as pertaining to the spatial distribution of population
namely a de-urbanization, with a return to the countryside in
order to farm the land. The present proportion in developed countries,
in which 10% of the population feeds the remnant 90%, in all likelihood
canot be maintained. More people will have to dedicate themselves to
farming.
Industry will be directly affected, naturally beginning by the most
"energivorous". The obsolescence of some parts of the worlds
industrial park constitutes a strong possibility, as well as the dumping
and discarding of many of them (oil refineries, factories of conventional
vehicles, etc). We might see the emergence of smaller industries more
self-sufficient in the use of energy, following the lines advocated
by Schumacher. Therefore, it will not represent a return to the historical
past because now mankind benefits from a patrimony of acquired knowledge
that can be put to the service of producing in new moulds (electronics
devours less energy and can be at the service of production). This process
would most certainly lead to the development of renewable forms of energy
(solar thermal and photovoltaic, wind-power, tides, waves, geothermic,
hydroelectric, biogas and biomass, etc), of natural gas (whose Hubberts
Curve appears more linear, more extensive in time and with a less defined
peak) and of nuclear. Less certain are the prospects of the hydrogen,
since the latter is not a primary energy source (Its advocates, like
Rifkin and the European Union, have not yet explained where it can be
extracted from at sustainable costs when natural gas and oil come to
an end theres also an energy waste in order to obtain hydrogen
from water!).
These brief strokes are a mere impressionist perspective in order to
convey an idea of the Era Transition about to come. These are simple
examples of alterations that could arise.
But whatever the
changes, we can be certain that huge alterations will inevitably arise
in the production mode and the Worldwide strucutres of distribution,
and nothing will be at it was before.
We are then faced
with an announced and predictable crisis in terms of chronology. Many
analysts predict the end of the present "plateau" of Hubberts
Curve by 2008. Less predictable in terms of dates is the possible outcome
and impacts of the crisis on the capitalist mode of production and its
longterm tendancy towards (postponed) systemic collapse.
The above mentioned
processes are likely to bring about wide-ranging modifications, more
significant than those brought about by the Industrial Revolution in
the nineteenth century resulting from the invention of the steam engine.
The industrial revolution was initially confined to Great-Britain. It
then spread very slowly for more than a hundred years throughout the
world (and even so not throughout the whole world, for industrialization
hasnt even nowadays reached vast areas worldwide).
On the other hand,
the end of the Oil Era will affect the whole world in synchrony: the
scarcity of oil will simultaneously affect everybody.
Decisive and far-reaching
changes affect the future and existence of Mankind. Is it not astounding
that the majority of the World's decision-makers, starting with
the so-called "statesmen" (if they even really exist), the
media and such entities as the OECDs International Energy Agency
have casually ignored a problem of this scale and magnitude,
a problem that potentially jeopardises the very foundations of society.
Worse still: the problem is often not only ignored but also denied,
in an authentic ostrich politics.
During repeated
years, the oil monopolies, state bodies (such as US Geological Survey),
international organizations (e.g the World Bank, OECD, the IEA have
casually ignored or "pretended to ignore" this problem in
order to avoid going against the powerful (business) interests.
For individuals
imbued with neoliberal ideology, the predatory actions upon natural
resources for the benefit of capital is considered "normal".
This way, forests are being irreversibly annihilated at a worldwide
level, phreatic freshwater is being exhausted, land and water are being
contaminated, fishing grounds are being exhausted by catches that dont
allow for the renewal of the stocks , etc, etc and oil is being
decimated in a barbaric way at the rhythm of 82 million barrels/day
(4,1 thousand million tons/year). The new trend in the USA is the so-called
Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), potent monsters that devour gas at a
scale never witnessed before.
There are mountains
of evidence on the process of depletion. Those who prefer to ignore
the problem altogether are nonetheless obliged to present to some "answers".
Thats how the "negationists" emerged with their fallacies.
One of those species
of negationists are the common economists, short-sighted but full of
dogmatic certainties. Their "negationism" relies on neoclassical
economic theory. They claim that the market mechanism ("invisible
hand") will regulate everything, for it is considered a mere question
of prices. This way, if demand exceeds supply there will "simply"
be a readjustment in prices. This means that those who can pay for the
new prices will be able to burn oil in a prodigal way. But what they
fail to mention is what would happen to those who will be unable to
pay several times the present prices. These people constitute the majority
of humankind. The present examples of the impoverishment of whole continents
(Africa, Latin America) does not, in this regard, augur well.
Another type of
negationist thinking pertains to those who bear a boundless faith in
technological progress. Such type of negationism is more frequent among
those who know nothing about science, but who, so to speak, rely on
science to resolve the problem. This kind of negationism is visible
at the political level, among politicians, mainly heads of State and
heads of government.
They see no sense
of urgency in taking cognizance of the real problem. Moreover, international
organizations such as the European Union and the OECD contribute to
this camouflage and often encourage us into adopting simple solutions
which favour the interests of the corporate monopolies. There arent
really any ready technological solutions that could substitute oil in
the short-term and at a significant scale. Those who claim not desiring
gas but the "service" provided by gas and that this same service
could be provided by a lesser quantity of gas (or by any other alternative
fuel) fall within this technological utopia. And those who speak of
the pseudo-solution of biofuels are also caught up with a fundamental
fallacy for, even without thinking of the underlying costs, farmland
is not infinite.
There are still
other types of negationists, like those who piously believe (or pretend
to believe) in official statistics about proven, probable and possible
reserves, findings, productions, etc. But a great majority of those
statistics must be expunged of spurious data, which have been inserted,
in accordance with the interests of those who produce these statistics.
They will probably awaken when long hidden truths come to the open,
truths like this one: that the worlds major oil field (Ghawar,
in Saudi Arabia) has already reached its peak and that, even by using
secondary recovering techniques, it is beginning to decline. Or that
the decline phase has already hit the worlds second major oil
field (Cantarell, in Mexico), whose production began in 1979.
I have no intentions
of acting as Cassandra. I dont intend to "wage an energy
terrorism". I do intend, however, intend to stir up and rouse the
attention of public opinion to a problem that, until now and in general
terms, has been silenced.
Mankind has the
right and the duty to be informed of what is happening. We must launch
the debate. This confluence of the capitalist crisis in its "senile
phase" with the oil crisis will certainly have profound repercussions
on all of us.
The outcome of these
crises is not pre-determined. There are a lot of possible and factual
solutions, there are many "possible futures". If the present
mode of production and distribution were rational and fair, we would
have to proceed to a maximal sparing of the remaining reserves of oil
and carry on as smoothly as possible into the transition to a post-oil
world. But the capitalist mode of production and distribution is neither
fair nor rational. Thus, we can predict great confrontations among peoples
all over the world and the corporate monopolies which dominate them.
In some regions of the world, revolutionary situations may erupt, but
will only be of value if the people and their vanguards are prepared
to do away with imperialism in the form of a power struggle otherwise,
imperialism will impose its own "solutions", with a retrograde
character that only aggravates the underlying situation. It is a race
against time. The outcome will present a revolutionary or fascistic
character. It is a terrible challenge. In order to face it, we must
forcibly in our inner conscientiousness take cognisance of whats
at stake. Withdrawal positions and "possibilisms" can only
lead to defeat.
Jorge Figueiredo
is a specialist on energy issues. He is editor of the critically acclaimed
Portuguese news and analysis website www.resistir.info
This paper presented
to the International Debate "Civilization or Barbarity", Serpa,
23-25/Sept/2004.
© Copyright
belongs to the author 2005.