Reviewed by Dr. William Batt, Albany, NY
"Authoritative data [i.e., from independent experts
outside of government and the oil industry] indicate that
from about 2009 on, there will be a permanent 3% per year
decline of output from the world's now-emptying global oil
fields." Because oil provides the basis of our
transportation, our agriculture, our industrial
mechanization, and much of our home heating and power, we
will face a crisis of historic magnitude, yet one which
many influential parties today have an interest in not
wanting to disclose or address. This dilemma cannot be
surmounted by any policies of economics; rather they result
from the laws of physics. Moreover, there are no realistic
substitutes to adequately provide the full range of power
requirements that petroleum has heretofore given us. Even
the often touted "renewable" power sources like solar and
wind will take enormous investments, and there is simply
too little time before the crisis arrives.
How are we - every individual and nation on earth -
going to cope with this crisis? Each alternative, argues
Professor Richard Heinberg, has so many downsides that we
face a future of profoundly lowered sights. He both
presents the data and explains why so many in industry and
government have refused to face the looming crisis
squarely. Many will dismiss this book as just one more
Cassandra speaking, but it is incumbent then for such
critics to know the arguments and answer them if they can.
They will have a difficult time. The thesis goes even
further: that the fossil-fuel based economy has allowed
world population to soar to over six billion, but as the
basis of such food provision becomes exhausted, the number
will shrink once again to what it was capable of supporting
in the absence of petroleum based fertilizers and
cultivation, at best about two billion people, and perhaps
by 2050. How that scenario will unfold is beyond the scope
of his book except in a limited way, but demonstration of
our dependency upon carbon-based power is graphically
shown, and outlines of what might happen are referenced for
the reader to explore.
The basis of Heinberg's book is three years of a
very active listserve begun in February 2000 and moderated
by retired Cornell Professor Jay Hansen. It grew out of
Hansen's extensive website, www.dieoff.org, which presented
his ideas on the subject of energy resources, and two
listserves (energyresources@yahoogroups.com and
RunningOnEmpty@yahoogroups.com) to continue the discussion.
In the intervening period, there have been nearly 40,000
posts on energyresources alone, contributed by an open
membership of over 600 very knowledgeable subscribers.
Management of the discussion has now been passed to a
colleague who has been able to maintain the discussion at
an equally sophisticated level, and the richness of these
exchanges are remarkable testimony to the power of the
internet.
But who can possibly search through and follow some
forty thousand messages, coming at the rate of about thirty
a day, often long detailed commentaries and submissions of
data that can overwhelm even experts in the field! It is
now fortunate, then, that a book has just been issued that
organizes and summarizes much of their message in a form
that is comprehensible to the lay reader. It presents a
future that will be alarming to many, but the tone of the
book is very sober. Fortunately also, Professor Heinberg,
in his fourth book, reflects the ideas expressed accurately
and concisely for so difficult a subject. He also had the
help of some of the leading experts in the world in guiding
his effort. Notable among them were Jean Laherrere, Walter
Youngquist, Professor Hansen himself, and Colin Campbell,
who wrote the forward.
The book's concluding chapter has an upbeat quality
by suggesting answers which a citizen can undertake for
self protection, even though the fundamental solutions need
to be addressed by governments and industry. But the prior
chapter provides the core of the argument:
Oil extraction worldwide follows a parabolic curve,
the peak year coming on or about 2009. United States
peaked in 1970; Saudi Arabia and Iraq are the only two
nations that have not reached their peaks. Alarmed about
the public's lack of knowledge and concern about what we
face, the listserve members collaboratively set up an
additional website to present the case: www.oilcrisis.org.
Heinberg uses all of these sites and listserves. "Within
only a few years," he argues, "OPEC countries will have
control over virtually all of the exportable surplus oil in
the world (with the exception of Russia's petroleum, the
production of which may reach a second peak in 2010,
following an initial peak that precipitated the collapse of
the USSR). The US - whose global hegemony has seemed so
complete for the past decade - will suffer an increasing
decline in global influence, which no amount of saber
rattling or bombing of "terrorist" countries will be able
to reverse. Awash in debt, dependent on imports, mired in
corruption, its military increasingly overextended, the US
is well into its imperial twilight years." (P.198)
A few pages later (p.230-31), he continues that the
outcome is "inevitable." "The US, as the center of the
global industrial empire, does not have the choice of
whether to decline; it can, however choose how to decline
- whether gracefully and peacefully, setting a helpful
example for the rest of the world, or petulantly and
violently, drawing other nations with it into an
accelerating whirlwind of destruction."
"Such a unilateral US relinquishment of global
dominance would, it could be argued, open the way for
another nation - perhaps China - to take center state.
Might Americans wake up one day to find themselves subjects
of some alien empire? It may help to remember that the
inexorable physics of the energy transition preclude such
an occurrence. In the decades ahead, no nation will be
able to afford to subdue and rule a large, geographically
isolated country like the US. Only small, weak, resource-rich nations will be likely
targets for conquest."
Dismissing his arguments as those of a Cassandra is
no option. Agree or disagree, it is the responsibility of
every citizen to read and understand the implications of
Heinberg's message.
---------------------
Bill Batt may be emailed at HWBatt@yahoo.com