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The Forum > Article Comments > All aboard the train > Comments

All aboard the train : Comments

By David Warrilow, published 6/4/2011

If we are to maintain our standard of living with rising fuel prices we will have to increase efficiencies and do things smarter.

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“Without trucks Australia stops”

There should be an addition to the sign that says, “ without oil the trucks stop”.

“Take a sample of any 10 items within easy reach and you’ll realize that nearly everything you own is produced overseas.”

There is the reason for the terrible state of the world and the reason that it will all end in tears, quite soon.
If we did not have the transport system to support globalization, we would not have the demise of manufacturing in all but the third world countries, where the corporations could shift their factories to and use what is virtually slave labour to produce their products.
There usual excuse for paying a pittance to their overseas workers is “ well they are better off now with paying jobs”.
I wonder?
Have a look at the destruction of the environment in many of those countries.
There is a perfect storm approaching that will cause so much misery that the lower standard of living they had before globalization, will be looked back on with nostalgia.
Peak everything and especially peak oil will wreak havoc with the so-called level playing field.
The inevitable recession/depression as the price of oil escalates will bring a cold wind of change to all. It is to be hoped that this happens sooner rather than later, when all ability to continue with a local economy is not lost.
We are going to take a savage cut to our profligate life style that take us down to the third world and not bring them up to ours.
Posted by sarnian, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 9:51:58 AM
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I think the government's likely response to Peak Oil is the wrong one, namely to reduce fuel taxes. Natural gas in compressed or liquid form will undoubtedly continue to replace diesel in trucks and buses. However if the carbon tax doesn't have too many giveaways it seems likely that new power stations will be gas fired, not coal. The simultaneous arrival of two new forms of demand for gas, transport and power, are certain to drive up the price. Dare I suggest new power stations should be nuclear? That will free up gas for transport.

A partial solution to rising food prices is to eat more local raw food and less store bought food. Thus potatoes could substitute for bread and pasta. Tasmanians would eat fewer bananas while Queenslanders would eat fewer cherries. However it's hard to see people willingly accept drastic cuts to diet and energy use. I think we've got a few more years of denial (eg building new airports) before people accept the reality of the energy situation
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 10:08:57 AM
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sarnian "There is the reason for the terrible state of the world and the reason that it will all end in tears, quite soon."

Care to put a number on that ?

When will it all end in tears?

Honestly there is so many disaster porn hysterics out there, all constantly disappointed, all in a rush to predict doom and are getting more and more angry that it just doesn't seem to happen.

Natural disasters have always been with us, a few man made ones occur here and there, that's life.

"There is a perfect storm approaching that will cause so much misery"

"Peak everything and especially peak oil will wreak havoc"

"The inevitable recession/depression as the price of oil escalates will bring a cold wind of change"

"We are going to take a savage cut to our profligate life style that take us down to the third world"

doom!

You wish!

Children, your life will be fine, work hard, be honest and look after your family and friends, try not to get caught up in religions or sects, they tend to confuse value systems with real life, try to avoid being caught up in the misery that makes people think there is no future. Avoid people who are unhappy or want you to be unhappy.

There will be a future, and you should look forward to it, it will be greater than our past.
Posted by Amicus, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 1:05:31 PM
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Oh,oh! The eternal optimist Amicus has sought to shut down all conversation with a typical "You're nothing but a doomer" post.

I harped on the subject of energy depletion for long enough to know that there's no way of changing the mind of an eternal optimist. Like religious fanatics, they refuse to do the study, they refuse to look at the science.

I broached this very subject with a good and long term friend. She reacted much the same way. When I asked her why she wasn't prepared to do the maths and study the situation of energy depletion, she dismissed it out of hand. I then asked her why she remained so steadfastly optimistic and her reply was very interesting. She stated simply...... "because the alternative is just to terrifying to contemplate!" Is that where you're at Amicus? Is the reality to terrifying to contemplate?

And yes, I was once an optimist too, but then I began to read reports, do my homework and finally began to understand where we're heading with our wasteful use of energy and for a time, my world was tipped upside down. But eventually I came to realise that life can be so much sweeter with a return to a time when an I-Pad was only something hanging on Jet Jackson's wall.
Posted by Aime, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 1:43:58 PM
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depends on what you read aime, I read lots of stuff that makes me look forward to the future - if only silly pessimists would stop holding things up because this or that or something else might go wrong

at the end of the 19th century, it was similar to the way it is now, much doomsaying, electricity was bad and dangerous, the motor vehicle was evil etc etc but fortunately the doom sayers were not as well organized as they are today

I contemplate the future, and it looks good

I work in high tech and see stuff that is years out which looks good.

If the UN and a few other organisations which are completely political monsters would leave a lot of folks alone and stop trying to "govern" every aspect of life, people might be able to get on with progress.

The UN wants to be in charge, it's really really big government, and they are trying to get bigger .. that's a problem that I do see.

otherwise, I think folks worry too much, are scared silly by lobby groups and organizations who excel at fear and too many folks like you read all the negative stuff, and fill the pockets of fearmongers

you can bag me out for being positive, that's fine, I am an optimist, but not blindly - but I do see blind pessimism ..like Ho Hum, he prefers sites that tell him the world is ending .. sheesh!
Posted by Amicus, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 2:21:38 PM
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Amicus,
I am not angry, just resigned to the inevitable and it is happening.
Just take a look at the oil price.
The most accurate at the moment is for Brent crude because the pipeline from Canada bolsters the WTI, producing a surplus in WT by having two supplies, one from the South & one from the North. $122.22 as I write. Getting perilously close to the catastrophic $147.00 of 2008
You might have also noticed the price of petrol? It is climbing steadily and will continue to do so. This will affect the price of food again.
If you want corroboration please take the time to look at the chart below:
http://prudentinvestor.blogspot.com/2011/01/chart-of-day-oil-prices-vs-food-prices.html

“Children, your life will be fine, work hard, be honest and look after your family and friends, try not to get caught up in religions or sects, they tend to confuse value systems with real life, try to avoid being caught up in the misery that makes people think there is no future”

I would think from the above quote that you are well into denial. If you have children, then you would do well to think of their future and face the facts.

“There will be a future, and you should look forward to it,” you say.

Only if you are prepared to accept a dismal future.

By the way : In 1900, China had 467 million people Europe - 325 million North/ Central & South America - 178 million Africa - 13.5 Australia and New Zealand - 0.5 million.
Hardly stressing the planet was it?
Posted by sarnian, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 3:34:32 PM
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Amicus said "at the end of the 19th century, it was similar to the way it is now, much doomsaying, electricity was bad and dangerous, the motor vehicle was evil etc etc but fortunately the doom sayers were not as well organized as they are today"

All very true Amicus, but the assent of cheap and abundant energy was still ahead of them. We no longer have that luxury.

And not for one moment am I saying that there will be "no" future, just one that every different to what we know today. The earth is being pillaged for increasingly rare resources. Massive human population growth has only been made possible by the extraction and use of fossil fuels. Without oil, for example, the "green revolution" would never have happened and many more people would be living in continuing famine or not be here at all. Modern medicine could never have come about without the same cheap and abundant fossil oil source and once again, that medicine has lead to greatly increased lives for people in the Western culture.

I know Amicus, that nothing I say will ever change your view, but I'm big enough to say that I really do hope you're right because I already have 6 grand children and I want them to have the same opportunities that I had growing up. You asked Sarnian for a time frame. Well, I'll give you one. We will experience serious fuel shortages before 2020, probably 2015 but lets just say 2020, just 9 years away! Following that, we will see world finances spiral out of control into a depression of ever intensifying magnitude. There will be no available "cheap" energy to build the future you talk about, but I'll make this deal with you..........
Posted by Aime, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 3:47:27 PM
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If we're still pounding away at the keyboard and nothing has changed by 2020, I'll willingly travel to meet you, provided it's possible and shout you a nice lunch somewhere. Hell, I'll even throw in a beer (also a wine or spirit) and I'll stand up before you and apologise for my pessimism. Unfortunately, should my predictions come to pass, then I won't be getting a free lunch from you, so it's a very one sided equation :-)
Posted by Aime, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 3:48:17 PM
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Amicus is the eternal optimist, however one should never forget the old exponential function, especially when one considers population (the good old elephant in the room). We are hitting the limits to growth, the evidence is everywhere. People like Amicus just like to keep the blinkers on. The author, although on the right track but his final paragraph beggars belief, he should learn about the Jevon's Paradox......Jevons paradox (also known as the rebound effect) is the observation that greater energy efficiency, while in the short-run producing energy savings, may in the long-run result in higher energy use. It was first noted by the British economist W. Stanley Jevons, in his book The Coal Question published in 1865.

Amicus can see a bright future, apparently because he works in the high tech end of town and his view of the future seems ever bright, rightly or wrongly. Ultimately technology folds with substitution and efficiency and we end up back with the Jevons issue.....good luck with that
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 4:56:27 PM
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I've been hammering on for ages on OLO about the direct link between economic growth and oil. Just as you can count calories in terms of oil, you can economic growth as well. This is why I'm against a carbon tax, because it's a piss-weak response to the problem: maintain the rate of consumption (and this isn't for quality of life, it's for the capital that gets scooped off the top). The real hard problem that no one will contemplate, because there's putatively "no alternative to capitalism", is that the problems of peak oil, AGW and the rest "cannot" be addressed in an economic growth context.
I wish someone would point out the flaw in my reasoning!
How can we reduce consumption of oil and greenhouse gases in an economic growth paradigm--which means more people, infrastructure and the markets they drive?
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 6 April 2011 6:24:36 PM
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amicus, let it go mate .. leave them to their happy state of pessimism.
Posted by rpg, Thursday, 7 April 2011 7:05:10 AM
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For the optimists two items from What's New
NORMAN BORLAUG: THE DEATH OF THE GREATEST AMONG US.
He died Saturday at the age of 95. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Gregg Easterbrook described him as "the very personification of human goodness." He was that, but he was also a brilliant scientist and tireless teacher of poor farmers in distant lands. His own education began in a one- room schoolhouse in Iowa. His work in agronomy led to the Green Revolution and saved perhaps 1 billion lives. In accepting the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, however, Borlaug warned against complacency: "we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction. . . Man also has acquired the means to reduce the rate of human reproduction, effectively and humanely . . . but has not yet used this potential adequately. There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until food production and population control unite in a common effort."

3. POPULATION: THE BOMB IS STILL TICKING.
Libertarians are fond of pointing out that John Holdren, the President's science adviser, collaborated with Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb). Shocking! Ehrlich’s best-selling 1968 book predicted mass starvation by the end of the 20th century due to unconstrained population growth. Ironically, the major health problem in the US today is an obesity epidemic. But not everyone lives in the US. Two technological developments postponed the looming catastrophe: the green revolution for which Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, and the Pill. In most industrialized countries the Pill has brought the fertility rate down to about 2.1, needed for a stable population. In Muslim nations however, which suppresses women’s rights, fertility is as high as 8.
And, like it or not we are exhausting fossil carbon at an alarming rate and without where will we get essentials such as fertilizers and other chemical feedstock and reducing agents?
Posted by Foyle, Thursday, 7 April 2011 9:40:10 PM
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Amicus wants a date put on the time our difficulties start.
Like many problems of this nature it is very hard to tie down.
In the case at hand it has to do with the nature of complex systems
and the way they fail.
My guess is there will be at first perhaps in the next 3 to 5 years a
gradual difficulty in supply of diesel and then later petrol.
It will not be all that bad except perhaps having to wait in a queue
for a tanker truck to arrive from time to time.
However as these small shortages gradually spread in effect it will
reach a point where some critical function fails because, perhaps,
a spare part did not arrive quickly enough.

This failure then causes more widespread failure and this where the
the complex system failure takes over which leads to collapse.
How much time there is between the start and the end of this process
may not be predictable. It is that point at which our governments are
failing in their duty to those who put them in power.
Examples can be seen in Japan at the moment where for the loss of
the printed circuit board for a car the whole plant has to shut down.

However if China and Europe have tied up significant amount of supply
with ownership and contracts we may find that we switch immediately
from full supply to 40% of what we can supply ourselves.
This effect would be catastrophic.

Governments are simply leaving it to luck and not planning for support
systems for their populations.
Compared to this problem global warming is a non event.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 11 April 2011 3:40:57 PM
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Bazz,
I agree with your prediction but you have left out an important part of it. As the shortages get worse, you will, have to get used to paying anything up to $3 per litre with in a couple of years and of course it will continue to climb till it is only affordable for the very rich and governments.
This will have a flow on effect. There are not many of our products and services that do not depend on CHEAP oil.
Posted by sarnian, Monday, 11 April 2011 5:23:35 PM
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Yes Sarnian, exactly so, I paid $1.50 today, so we are halfway to $3.
It will have a more complex effect, as people will start to change to
public transport and car sharing. Certainly it will make today's
announcement of the widening of the M5 look silly.
Even more silly is the resurrected of the 2nd airport for Sydney.

It may also have the effect that those who can afford $3 to $8 a
litre,as forecast by the CSIRO, will be those wealthy or on expenses
for their job.
A mind picture I have is someone walking 7 km to the station and as
he passes the service station a Rolls Royce is filling up for $500.

In Australia ASPO thinks we will start seeing shortages somewhere
between 2011 and 2015. A lot will depend on whether Australia can
wield enough clout to get a fair share of world supplies.
But who said that world markets are fair ?
You sell us oil and we will sell you food !
If a market scramble starts I don't think small countries like
Australia will get much of a look in. There are reports that there
will be market "tightness" in the latter part of this year.

There is a piece of legislation that enables Federal Government
control of fuel supplies. However it is intended for situations like
industrial accidents and strikes etc. It considers techniques like odd
and even number plate days.
It is not capable of coping with a permanent shortage.
It does not enable permanent rationing.

The big worry will be the supply of food for food production and its
transport, processing and packaging.
Each calorie of food requires 10 calories of oil.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 11 April 2011 10:40:38 PM
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