: : Just what do you think will happen on that day, not too far in the future, when the oil runs out? What will become of the infrastructure that was geared toward dependency on the oil that ran out? How will the capital-poor nations fare? Will it be like this?: Keep in mind I do not claim to be an expert on most subjects already discussed here, but I have expressed my opinions.
: Question 1: I can assume that the major oil companies will have diversifed prior to that, with alternative energy sources in "stand-by" or in a rapid growth mode. Life will be drastically different, due in part to the expected high price of crude oil making personal/casual use of internal combustion engines too expensive. I think the effect will be felt long before the wells run dry.
This is a good way of generalizing about what probably will happen. The problem, as many visitors to this Debating Room will have guessed already, is that the world is all too willing to accept the leadership of oil companies in deciding its future.
Is taking the world back from the oil companies too big a call? The US goes to Saudi Arabia in 1991 to take Kuwait back from Iraq, basically for the sake of protecting "our oil," killing possibly 100,000 people in the process, and creating a pariah nation (Iraq) that American troops may soon be called in AGAIN to fight. And this is the PRIMARY pretext for the New World Order, the most important excuse the government has for continuing to spend nearly half of every tax dollar the IRS gets on military expenses.
Gee, maybe if we didn't leave our guts out there in the Middle East defending oil for the sake of the big energy monopolies, we would have a peace dividend, with which we could clean up the environment, educate our children decently, work for a decent living, and maybe allow the planet to support human life for a few more years. Is it too crazy to start thinking of alternatives to corporate domination?
: Question 2: The infrastructure will, of course, be devastated. The business sectors geared to oil and oil products will die off (obviously), and some may be able to convert to alternative sources, such as alcohol from grains and synthetic lubricants. I think the most dangerous sector affected will be agriculture. No fuel, not enough food.
The problem here, once again, is that we take our dependence on large scale corporate agriculture, with its heavy reliance on pesticides, herbicides, mechanical plows, and monocropping, for granted. I call it corporate agriculture because the food prices produced by such methods are typically so low that family farms can't survive under market conditions where one has to plant a huge crop of a single plant to pay for the enormous overhead caused by the above pesticides etc.
The infrastructure that currently allows agribusiness to dominate agriculture (not to mention agribusiness having its hands in those US tax dollars as well; Archer Daniels Midland is for instance one of America's biggest recipients of corporate welfare) will doubtless have to change when the oil starts to run out. The alternative, the move that would prepare us human beings for the future, is to re-adopt more "traditional" forms of agriculture, i.e. organic multi-crop agriculture that relies upon natural forms of insect and weed abatement, to the urbanizing world. Models of this agriculture that still exist include: Wendell Berry writes of Amish agriculture in his book THE UNSETTLING OF AMERICA, and Stephen Gliessman's textbook AGROECOLOGY illustrates sustainable agriculture using his studies of Tlaxcaltecan agriculture in the state of Tabasco in Mexico.
What can the average guy do? Plant an urban garden. Learn how to compost, create a compost heap. Create community gardens in cities and large towns. It gives the homeless something to do, it increases the peace in violent neighborhoods, and it empowers everyone toward continued survival. World society is too obsessed with "might makes right," rather than with community-building to avoid crises, with "food as a weapon" rather than with making sure everyone has enough to eat. Some people think differently, however.
Thanks for the thought-out reply, Bob. I have to wonder where everyone else is on this topic. Hello?
None.
