Future is About Living Within Our Means
By ANDREW LAPPING
IHAD a very disturbing experience last week at the local petrol station. Filling up the Range Rover, I watched the meter on the pump sail beyond pounds 100, finally settling at pounds 105.
But no, this wasn’t even a full tank. The pump simply wasn’t capable of delivering fuel beyond this point. Presumably nobody thought there was a car on the road that could absorb so much fuel, or more likely, contemplated petrol hitting pounds 5 a gallon.
Why is the price of petrol so high and how can the average driver afford it? Looking further ahead, what will be the long-term consequences of a dwindling and more expensive resource on how we go about our daily lives?
It’s all to do with “Peak Oil”, a term we are likely to hear a lot more of in the next few years. It’s the point in time when maximum production is reached, after which it enters terminal decline. In 1956, an economist predicted that the United States would reach Peak Oil in 1970. Few believed him, though he has since proved to be correct. Since then, most oil producing countries have crossed the great divide, leaving the developed world with the challenge of adapting to a new order.
The recent fuel protests, sparked by big price spikes in oil, driven by a production shortage, highlight how we have failed to prepare for a scarcity of black gold.
What are the long-term consequences of a declining supply of cheap oil? I found an interesting report on the internet, which concluded that: “The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system.
“The decline in fossil fuels will influence almost all aspects of our daily life. The now-beginning transition period probably has its own rules, which are valid only during this phase. Things might happen which we have never experienced before and which we may never experience again once this transition period has ended.”
The report suggests our very way of life is about to enter a period of massive change and that, beyond the transitory phase, the world will return to local, rather than globalised, scale. So what should we do? Today’s complex, highly regulated, globalised world is no longer viable, simply because we use so much energy keeping it afloat. The faster the world spins, the more energy we expend to sustain it. Our desperate need to maximise production and productivity creates even higher dependency. At some point, certainly in our lifetime, the sheer cost of energy production will exceed the energy it produces, a real tipping point.
I believe we need to gradually decouple ourselves from the global economy and reconfigure our regional economy to become as self- sufficient as possible. Our fixation with growth, largely driven by politicians and big business to create the illusion of progress and wealth, has to end.
Globalisation, through increased connectivity and low-cost energy, is likely to be replaced by the rebirth of local communities that will grow more of their own food, generate their own energy and build their own homes using local materials. Is that so bad? Contrary to what you would think, a recent study found that increased income stopped us getting any happier around 1961. When asked which decade, from the 1950s onwards, would most respondents most like to have lived in, the 1960s came out on top. A further 62% said they hated their job.
In truth, most of us want the world to slow down and return to a more localised community. Maybe David Cameron got it right when he said the future is about quality of life and living within our means.
The recent violent spike in oil has brought Peak Oil into sharp focus. It provides us with an opportunity to embrace change before its effects are more shocking. The Government should resist pressure to ease the burden, save for those of most need, and seize the moment by steering the debate away from subsidy to improved efficiency.
Peak Oil is a driver for change. We should embrace it now, rather than fight its short-term effect.
The recent violent spike in oil has brought Peak Oil into sharp focus
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