[Shadow_Group] Talk of oil decline moving into mainstream

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

Talk of oil decline moving into mainstream


By ONN staffer 

YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio -- Until about five months ago, Mel Hutto had
never heard of "peak oil," the belief that global oil production will
decline and never return to the levels that have nourished American
lifestyles. 

Now the 66-year-old retired business consultant says he will change
his lifestyle and campaign in his hometown of Bellingham, Wash., about
the need to reduce reliance on oil. 

"We're going to be without oil. The whole industrial culture will at
some point start breaking down," said Hutto, who, out of curiosity
attended a conference on the topic in this southwest Ohio town. "I
tried to think this wasn't real and wasn't really going to happen." 

Talk of peak oil is moving from obscure energy workshops and technical
journals into the social consciousness via books, National Geographic
and other magazines and college curriculum. 

"It's beginning to move more to the mainstream of public discussions,"
said Frank Laird, associate professor of technology and public policy
at the University of Denver's Graduate School of International
Studies. "There is a lot of unease about oil and energy." 

The notion began in the 1950s when geophysicist M. King Hubbert
predicted that global oil production would peak between 1990 and 2000.
The prediction _ based on production profiles and estimates of oil
reserves _ was largely confined to scientific circles. 

Paul Thiers, assistant professor of political science at Washington
State University Vancouver, has added the topic to his natural
resources class. He said the fighting in Iraq and rising gasoline
prices are generating interest in the subject. 

The world uses about 80 million barrels of oil a day, and consumption
continues to increase. U.S. consumption alone is expected to grow
nearly 50 percent in the next 20 years. 

How soon production will begin to decline is dividing oil experts.
Some believe it is imminent. They say discoveries of oil have slowed
and that there is little left to be found. Others believe oil will be
abundant for at least several decades and that new technologies to
extract oil will help ensure plentiful supplies for a long time. 

"I can't deny it's coming. What I do deny is it's around the corner.
It's not peaking," said Robert Ebel, a petroleum geologist and head of
the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank. 

Ebel said consumers will switch to other forms of fuel before oil
shortages occur. 

But Matthew Simmons, who has been researching oil depletion and peak
oil for 10 years, said the peak might already have occurred. 

"We don't have the data to say it will happen in five years or it
happened last year," said Simmons, president of the Houston
energy-investment advisory bank Simmons and Company. "It might be two
or three years or it might be seven." 

About 200 people in November attended what was billed as the first
national conference for laymen on peak oil. The session was held in
Yellow Springs, a liberal-leaning village and home to Antioch College,
which has a history of social activism and civil disobedience. 

The main speaker, Richard Heinberg, believes oil production will peak
within five years. Once production begins to decline, the oil-reliant
U.S. economy will begin to shrink, and transportation, power and other
oil-dependent products and services will become much more expensive,
he said in an interview. 

"It means the undermining of the whole way of suburban life that has
been developed in America," said Heinberg, who wrote "The Party's
Over," a book describing the imminence of peak oil. 

The conference was hosted by Community Service Inc., a Yellow Springs
group founded in 1940 and dedicated to developing a nation where the
population is distributed in small self-sustaining communities. 

Pat Murphy, executive director, believes a decline in oil production
will force Americans to abandon gas-guzzling cars, long commutes to
work and their large homes in the suburbs. He sees the suburbs being
replaced by small, self-sufficient communities _ many in the country _
that use alternate energy sources and grow their own food. 

"We can't ship Caesar salads from California to Canada any longer," he
said. 

Some people who attended the conference are acting on their fears. 

Jifunza Right-Carter, a Chicago physician, has purchased 40 acres of
land outside of the city to use alternate energy sources such as solar
and wind power and to hold classes for people interested in ways to
reduce reliance on oil. 

"It's not something that we just have to throw up our hands and say
we're doomed," Right-Carter said. 

Hutto said he intends to try to establish a community of between 100
and 200 people devoted to using alternate forms of energy and growing
their own food. 

"My life is going to be very different than I planned it," he said.
"It really is a historic conference. I think we're going to look back
at this little event in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as a starting point." 

Original article : 
http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2763307&nav=Ls19Lsgn








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