Remember Peak Oil? Sure looks like it's here.

[LeftCoast]

Chinese city stews over rising cost of beef noodles
A global surge in food prices hits the popular dish
By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer
July 28, 2007

-snip-

But behind the stewing in Lanzhou is a global surge in food prices that is driving up the cost of such things as a latte at a Starbucks in L.A. and a tortilla in Mexico. Food prices worldwide have risen 23% in the last 18 months, according to the International Monetary Fund, partly because of soaring demand for corn to make ethanol.

With farmers shifting to grow more corn, they are producing fewer soybeans and less wheat. That's pushed up prices of grains that feed livestock and poultry, lifting the price of meats, eggs and other goods. Milk in the U.S. costs 10% more than at the start of the year.

In China, meat and poultry prices have increased 20% from a year earlier; eggs are up 28%. Besides higher grain prices, an outbreak of "blue ear disease" at pig farms cut into pork supplies, while growing incomes continue to bolster demand for meat, particularly along China's prosperous east coast.

Even the price of cheap instant noodles is up; Chinese media said this week that it would rise this week 20% to 40%, in part because the cost of palm oil, a major ingredient, had nearly doubled in the last year. Palm oil prices have been driven up by rising demand for biofuel in Europe and strong demand from food sectors in countries such as fast-growing India.

-snip-

Wiki on Peak Oil

This article is describing exactly what Peak Oil predicted. Even though I knew it was coming, I honestly didn't expect to see it quite this fast.

On the positive side, at least high fructose corn syrup will be too expensive to shove into everything we eat soon.

[MADem]

1. All that corn syrup will be going into cars pretty soon! nt

[LeftCoast]

2. I hope it's better for the environment than it is for our bodies!

LOL

[MADem]

3. You got that right!! NT

[Deja Q]

5. Check this car out

http://autos.msn.com/advice/article.aspx?contentid=4024853

[LeftCoast]

6. Sounds like a very interesting concept

I'd love to see one of those cars in person

[Deja Q]

7. Right now, the only way to do so is to emigrate to India.

Will they let people in, the way the US lets people in? :evilgrin:

[Deja Q]

4. Or offshoring; MSM sources say the prices are due to increased demand...

Though I would never have guessed Indians would drink milk (cows are sacred there), but that has a ring of truth to it too...

More fearmongering like everything else that's being posted. That's all it is.

Effective too.


So everybody can rant and rave about higher prices.

And I'm not going to go into any tangents.

[LeftCoast]

9. Well, if nothing else, this article would strongly seem to indicate that

we are behind the demand curve for oil. That will have massive implications on an entire world economy which is predicated on cheap oil. Think about how much stuff we buy right now that is made, grown or produced half-way around the world and then think about how much it's going to cost to ship that stuff as oil becomes more and more expensive.

[Deja Q]

10. I had. Years ago. If you want the mutha of all tinfoil theories, PM me.

Mostly because I don't believe it either.

Meh, I'll say it here:

An ulterior motive behind offshoring - not out of cost, but out of stereotypes that these other nationalities do a better job than we do -- which is a lie as who HASN'T complained about the cheap quality of products or services coming to the US?

But, who has fathomed typical business sense - if it becomes too expensive, you throw it away.

Once peak oil hits, what's going to be cheaper - keeping us? Or them? They have the factories, they have people trained and in theory they will improve with time.

Again, I don't believe it either. Not with the North American Union and other things, but it's an entertaining concept anyway. Besides, some Indians have said (on other forums) their pay is starting to match US workers' pay, thus reducing the efficacy of offshoring.

Then read all sorts of articles out there on how India actually isn't producing as many engineers as some might think, amongst others, and the usual credo of moving to the lowest cost and, yeah, everything I said is a load of garbage. Still, it's more fun to think about than "bird flu".

[Subdivisions]

8. If you dig a little deeper, you'll find the most

scariest revelations imagineable with regard to where the world's fossil fuel situation stands.

You know those charts that people have compiled showing the BFEE connections (I tried to find one)? That's how connections to peak oil can be imagined when you see what's going on these days. If the news has anything to do with the economy, housing, inflation, food, or fuel, the common denominator can be reduced to one proven (US in 1970s) concept: that if one oil well can increase in production all the way to a peak after which production declines, the same dynamic will apply to total world production, also known as Peak Oil.

One caveat with Peak Oil is that you won't begin to realize the consequences of it until sometime after the moment of peak. Historically, that has been about 3 years. Some credible PO pundits predict that we reached the peak in 2005. From what I'm seeing, that's just about right.

But then again, I offer this disclaimer. I am a doomer and therefore my view of the situation may be skewered. That's why I try to keep the issue alive on DU because it helps validate my suspicions on the matter.

[donsu]

11. and climate change is ruining crops in just about every country

that too is raising food prices

[Deja Q]

12. So let's enjoy our current lives while we can.

Most of the solutions available are arguably drastic ones, and Heaven help us if we are to be culled.

[LeftCoast]

13. I think it's far too early to give up

We haven't even tried yet. There are examples all around the world of places that have had real success in this fight.

[Deja Q]

14. I know that. The link I posted above re: the air powered car is a global achievement...

There IS hope, don't get me wrong. And if the US wasn't so intent on offshoring everything, it'd be easier to want to get the loan to get the education to work in tandem with any ideas and theories I've got to make them a reality to save our race.

Anything's possible, but that also requires research for its own sake.