Thursday May 05, 2005

The Second Great Depression

energybulletin.net :

The First Half of the Age of Oil now closes. It lasted 150 years and saw the rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade, agriculture and financial capital, allowing the population to expand six-fold. The financial capital was created by banks with confidence that Tomorrow's Expansion, fuelled by oil-based energy, was adequate collateral for Today's Debt.

The Second Half of the Age of Oil now dawns, and will be marked by the decline of oil and all that depends on it, including financial capital. It heralds the collapse of the present Financial System, and related political structures, speaking of a Second Great Depression.

But there are survival strategies. Governments may be persuaded to sign the Depletion Protocol* whereby imports are cut to match world depletion rate, such that world prices fall into reasonable relationship with cost, and profiteering from shortage avoided; the current monumental waste of energy may be reduced; renewable energies from wave, tide, wind, solar, hydro and geothermal sources may be brought in; and the nuclear option re-evaluated.

nb: * if they're not too busy fighting the resource wars first ...

- Okay that's about it for today's blog posts. There seems to have been a burst of peak oil related news out there currently. Or maybe it's just backlog. Hmm.

Here's looking at it from another angle - sociologists who know what they're looking for might see certain trends - for example, a return to "retro" fashion, "oldies" music playing in malls and on radio, hats and caps coming back into fashion just like in the 1930's - in general, a yearning for eras past.

And what about popular culture - major blockbuster movies and TV series going into prequels (sure, blame "Star Wars Episode III", but it isn't the only one - what about "Batman Begins", "Exorcist", "Red Dragon", "Star Trek: Enterprise" etc).

(2005-05-05 22:42:47 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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