THE END IS NIGH ALARM ALARM ETC

[tacd]

Had a really lovely extended weekend in Brighton with Laura at the start of February - nobody had ever told me what a nice place Brighton is! It's got lovely pokey quaint lanes, actual alleyways and sweetshops and things, and a generally happy atmosphere all over. I already want to live there. I should probably update things like this sooner after the actual event to capture some element of detail, but there was exploring and meeting up with friends and a jacuzzi bath thing in our bathroom, so everything went sunny and well.

For whatever reason, I've been spending most of today reading everything I could find on peak oil - it's obviously something I already knew about, but I've never actually spent much time thinking about it as an actual literal real thing that will happen. I've always been aware of peak oil as something that would fundamentally change life across the globe when it happens, and yet I still plan my life as if it doesn't exist. But what can you do? No matter how certain it is, it still somehow seems ridiculous to start saving for a plot of arable land and essential supplies. Part of me just won't accept that as a reasonable course of action when everything is still superficially just dandy.

I don't want to rewrite all the articles I've looked at, but the basic summary is thus:

• Oil is obviously a finite resource.
• The entire economy of the planet is not only based in some way on oil (as the fuel to drive all worldwide transport as well as being a vital component of a vast number of industrial processes), but also on the assumption that there will always be more energy available tomorrow than there was today.
• The United States, United Kingdom, and many other countries have already passed their peak production. As in, way back in the 70s and 80s.
• Because of the way OPEC works, oil-producing nations are encouraged to inflate their estimates of how much oil they have in reserve. Which goes unnoticed until reality catches up. So chances are we actually have less in reserve (in OPEC countries) than we think.
• Demand will increase as it always has done, and sooner or later world supply will simply run out. And there is no ready alternative to oil.
• ...unless everybody agrees to consume less and start working on a mixture of alternatives right now. Sure.
• Depending on who you believe, the peak may come as late as 2025, or as early as December just gone.
• When Ghawar (the world's largest remaining oilfield) goes dry, the jig is really up. (And even better, we won't see the end coming.)

I'm aware this whole entry will probably come across as a little :tinfoil:, but I guess that's how I feel after spending a whole day reading dozens of different versions of "we are completely fucked". But strangely, I'm also feeling kind of calm. I can't deny that there's a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing that almost certainly during my lifetime, Nature is going to give mankind the biggest slap in the face it's ever known. Yes, I take some morbid pleasure from the thought of hordes of arrogantly ignorant people (Americans, mostly) utterly failing to understand why the society they freeload from is falling apart around them. (And if you want to really get into conspiracy-theory mode, you could argue that the US government is already preparing for inevitable mass riots and looting.)

And if that's a bit too RAEG AGANST TEH MACHIEN, then it's still nice to think that the incredibly shitty state of so many things around the world will end, or at least change significantly (although admittedly to probably just a different kind of shitty). It seems beyond bizarre to imagine in a serious and factual way that the way of life we enjoy just won't be around for our kids, or even for us in old age... but damn, it seems like everything apart from barefaced oil-company propaganda is pointing that way.

Hm, what an oddly disjointed update.