An Australian opinion on oil and food

[GliderGuider]

Michael Lardelli is Senior Lecturer in Genetics at The University of Adelaide. Since 2004 he has been an activist for spreading awareness on the impact of energy decline resulting from oil depletion.

He has written numerous articles on the topic published in The Adelaide Review and elsewhere, has delivered ABC Radio National Perspectives, spoken at events organised by the South Australian Department of Trade and Economic Development and edits the (subscription only) Beyond Oil SA email newsletter. He has lectured on "peak oil" to students in the Australian School of Petroleum.

Peak oil means peak food as well

Optimism about our future is compulsory. It is politically incorrect to profess anything else. No matter what problems we face - ecological overshoot, global warming, energy decline, overpopulation - we must nevertheless be optimistic and hopeful that we will find solutions. People who do not believe that we will overcome our difficulties and continue ever upwards on a path of continuing economic growth and progress are "doomers". They spruik "doomer porn". They utter their nonsense because they hate the human race. If we fail and fall it will be their fault for being so pessimistic! They are undermining our resolve and ability to respond. Human ingenuity can always find a way if we only believe it!

I like to think of myself as a scientist (but that is always for others to judge). For a scientist the principal we hold most dear is objectivity. We must try to interpret data without superimposing our own beliefs, values or desires upon it. Even when it tells us what we do not want to believe. Even when the data make us sick to the pits of our stomachs with terror.

I am pessimistic about the future because I have seen and understood the data on resources. I know that oil production peaked in July 2008. (I have seen the unpublished reanalysis of the International Energy Agency’s own 2008 report that shows this conclusively.) I know that our use of other resources - such as water and phosphate - is critically unsustainable. Now that energy is declining there will not be enough to invest in building the alternative energy future that many of us dream of.

The nature of our economic/political system means that the declining fossil energy supply will go to the shorter term priorities of growing food, supporting armies and maintaining (as far as possible) the comfortable lifestyles of an ever-contracting circle of the wealthy. The time needed to build any form of alternative energy infrastructure - and the scale of the expansion needed in the face of the current and worsening energy decline - mean that it will simply never happen.

Today we are often told we need a new "Manhattan Project" for alternative energy but we will never make the sacrifices necessary for this in our already worsening economic situation if we are not truly, deeply fearful of the consequences of failure. Only fear - not optimism - can motivate populations sufficiently when they are already struggling with rising food prices, falling incomes and unemployment.

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I share Lardelli's position that a clear-eyed understanding of the predicament we face is essential if we are to respond appropriately. I do not share his emphasis on fear as a motivator, largely because I believe we're well past the point where even a fear-based response will be able to fix the problem. That's certainly true if by "fix the problem" one means "preserve our social structures in pretty much their current form with as few internal dislocations as possible, by changing energy sources and optimizing resource efficiencies."

The approach I favour is to spread the awareness of what's actually happening as broadly and deeply as possible; let all people who are touched by the awareness work on whatever aspects of the predicament seem most immediate to them; and then let whatever changes occur as a result simply happen organically. It's easier, is guaranteed to work, and it's a heck of a lot more interesting than trying to plan everything in advance. As a bonus, it works the same whether you're pessimistic, optimistic or agnostic.