peak oil in pictures

When I saw this representation of human kind's discovery and subsequent consumption of oil it became clear that it is just a blip in our human evolution. The fact that oil has been around since we were born, doesn't affect the reality that in a few short years we will have used it all up.

Make no bones about it - the fight is on, over control of the last scraps, because the society as we know it has come to depend on it. But as consumption exceeds production more and more countries, just as we witnessed in Zimbabwe, will miss out.







The term Peak Oil refers to the likely fact that we have reached the pinnacle of global oil and natural gas output. Production will soon start to decline while demand continues to surge due to an increasing world population and the rapid industrialization of India and China.

How serious is peak oil? James Howard Kunstler in The Long Emergency provides an answer.

For Kunstler, peak oil marks a sharp discontinuity in human experience. The cheap oil and gas of the recent past have created an "artificial bubble of plenitude" that has raised human population far above the earth's base carrying capacity.

When this bubble bursts, the earth's ability to support human life will dramatically decline.