sobering article

[psybelle]

Nine Meals from Anarchy: Yes, it's about Britain. But the causes are global in nature, the lessons apply here as well as "over there"...


Oil is expensive, getting moreso, and it's never going to be cheap again. (Don't talk to me about frakking or tar-sands or the like - the reason those are being exploited *now* is because the easy stuff is mostly gone. All of the current sources of petroleum products are more expensive to extract in terms of money and energy - we've hit the point of diminishing returns and that also is only going to get more expensive.)

All the things that depend on oil are going to get hideously expensive. Food, clothing, the current plastic whatevers (healthcare! "use once and discard" is the standard, for obvious reasons of infection control)...


This is the iceberg. And there simply are not lifeboats for 9 billion people... There aren't even sufficient lifeboats for Westerners. (The Republicans have been dismantling lifeboats as fast as they can, as if that will do *them* some good. I think it's more "Only we get nice things" than Stross's Fallacy, but there does seem to be a whiff of desperation to the latest round of idiocy...)

Comments

[feyandstrange]

The Daily Mail is a gossip rag, not a reliable news source. Dillington's part of the Food Security people: http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/news-events/news/2011/110210-pr-food-security-strategy.html has more recent data than a shoddy panicky 2008 piece of tripe in the Mail.

There are a few other reasons fracking is happening: it's gotten a lot cheaper to frack thanks to tech improvements, there's unused LNG and gas capacity in the USA already, and since gas is different from oil, we could a) use it here instead of importing and b) make a lot on exports if a few changes were made. (And we'd rather be getting our imported fuels from Canada's shale than the Saudis; who's nicer?)

I don't really support fracking; I think the environmental and geological concerns are too serious to be worth it. But I can sort of support using LNG from fracking as a stopgap measure in the switch from Big Oil to renewables, as some folks want(ed) to do with it.

I don't expect riots any time soon. Food prices go up fairly slowly most of the time (witness beef over the last year or three) and folks don't notice those costs. Also, the EU has CRAZY food surplus storages that make ours look sensible, and coddles their farmers in ways that make our treatment of Big Ag look like buying it a cheap drink before demanding sex.

[psybelle]

Gah. I'd completely missed that the piece was nearly 5 years old....

On the other hand... Population pressures, climate change (and the related issues of extreme weather, changes in the patterns of diseases for crop plants and animals), fuel shortages and escalating costs all are not going to simply go away. The article may have been alarmist in tone, but the points are valid. And, quite frankly, I don't mind people worrying about this a bit...

[feyandstrange]

Promoting crappy alarmist badly sourced junk journalism just makes everyone who agrees with the facts involved look bad, though. And like you said, Stross' law. I'd rather people be concerned and find rational answers than OMG PANIC ELEVENTYONE.