*(Actually, it does, but not for the reasons you might think)

I'm a dedicated environmentalist. I'm not some conservative crazy who thinks that global warming is just a conspiracy cooked up by liberals who don't want me to enjoy my SUV, motorboat, snowmobile, and ATV. I think global warming is quite real: that the human release of greenhouse gasses into the environment, primarily CO₂, is causing global elevations in temperature leading to glaciers melting and seas rising. But global warming doesn't matter.

Why would I make a statement that is likely to cause major grief from my environmentalist friends and peg me as an outcast in the "liberal" community where I live?

Because I think the human race–and in particular, the USA–face several threats far more immediate than the 30-50 year timespan it might take for global warming to play out and become a serious threat to major portions of the human population.

The biggest threat we face is derived from the fragile, interdependent nature of our worldwide economy. The author of The Black Swan argues powerfully that predicting the future in a system as complex as our global economy is an unwinnable game. I will sidestep the prediction game and just point out frailties, i.e. points in the system that are vulnerable. While there are a million an uncountable number of ways the future could play out, when there is a highly interconnected system that has multiple weak points and instabilities, it is worth considering some of the very possible scenarios these could lead to (i.e. extreme events, or Black Swans in Taleb's language).

Number one is our dependence on oil, nationally and globablly. Every aspect of the economy depends on oil: food, transportation, healthcare, education, the war in Iraq, this blog, and your ability to read it on your computer. Because of the ready availability of this plentiful energy source, standards of living in places such as the US have risen rapidly. But so has our dependence on the ready availability of oil. A look at the rapid evolution of building patterns in cities over the past 30 years bears this out: cities have gone from primarily "downtown-focused" to "suburb-focused", the latter completely dependent on cars to sustain their existence. And cars depend on oil.

Imagine for a moment what might happen if oil prices went to $200 per barrel, leading to gas prices of $10/gallon (in 2007 dollars, not counting inflation that seems increasingly likely). This would choke our entire economy (not just in the US, but globally). Suddenly, people living in the suburbs, many of whose budgets are already stretched by big houses and big cars, would be spending $20-30 per day on a commute. Suddenly, the prices of almost every Chinese item sold at WalMart would double in price. Food prices would increase dramatically, as large scale agriculture depends on oil to run tractors, factories, and to transport the food to us. The war in Iraq would double or triple in price. Any one of these things in isolation might be manageable, if a bit painful. But if, suddenly, everything we do that depends on oil becomes 2-3x more expensive, there is risk of major economic shock. And worse, I think that such a scenario could directly lead to major international wars over remaining oil reserves. If people are suddenly thrust into poverty on mass scale in countries like the US, there will be very strong pressure on governments to do something. Doing something often involves wars. Which would of course make matters worse, because wars consume lots of energy, hence risking further economic shock. That is a downward spiral I don't want to see happen, for the sake of my own children and all the children of the world, if nothing else.

I just presented a scenario of $10/gallon. Am I just throwing up a straw man to tear down? Consider this: a 5% drop in oil availability during the "Energy Crisis" of the 70's led to a nearly quadrupling of oil prices. And the oil shocks of the 70's were mainly political in nature, hence resolvable. When widespread realization occurs that oil is no longer plentiful, and that the supply is diminishing, the shocks could be much worse. The growing demand for oil in China, India, and many other places makes the risk of such a panic more imminent. If When the sudden, widespread realization occurs that oil is becoming scarce, countries, companies, and individuals are all likely to try to hoard whatever they can - exacerbating the shock and potentially sending prices up quickly and well beyond a 3X increase from current prices. The big danger in this is that there is no public realization of this potential. While there is a subset of the populace that is focused on global warming, no movement of similar scale is apparent related to the risk of peak oil. Most of the "green" folks are so fixated on the global warming issue that it seems they don't consider the potentially devastating impact of oil suddenly running out.

I know, because I was in that camp until recently. I've been doing what I can to reduce oil consumption, such as biking to work, and I was doing it because of concerns over greenhouse gasses. While I was cognizant of the peak oil concept, my thoughts were along the lines of: well, good thing if oil becomes more expensive/scarce, because then people will drive less and reduce the danger of greenhouse warming. I suppose a lot of green people are likely thinking along similar lines.

The problem in the above analysis is that it does not take into account the potential shock to the economy of sudden, major price spikes in oil, and the devastating results, both to society and the environment. Just a few examples here. If oil suddenly goes above $200/barrel, we can forget about protection for places like ANWR, Grand Staircase National Monument, and etc. With the survival of nations at stake, any place that has oil will be explored and tapped, in a rapid manner without concern for environmental consequences. If food suddenly becomes 2-3X more expensive to produce and transport, with a big portion of the population unable to afford food, hunting (both legal and illegal) will surge in popularity, risking the collapse of wildlife populations. With the lifeblood of nations hanging in the balance, wars are likely, and wars are nearly always very bad for the environment.

It is not in question that peak oil will be reached in the relatively near future. The only question is how it will play out when that happens. The peak oil alarmists (of which I can recently count myself one) think that we have no present replacement for oil that can be deployed on a widespread basis. While lots of people argue that human ingenuity will find a solution to the problem, if the solution requires widespread deployment of new infrastructure (e.g. hydrogen or electric powered transport), that's going to be very hard to do after oil has peaked and economies are collapsed. The time to be switching over is now, while we still have enough oil left to afford to put new infrastructure in place. The problem is, we are not doing that, and may not do so until we are already in the midst of an oil shock. Then it is likely to be too late.

It is interesting to observe that the present administration in the US seems aware of the peak oil problem. Bush apparently has a completely off-grid capable residence in Crawford. Cheney has made numerous statements alluding to his understanding of the dangers of peak oil. This sheds new light for me on why they decided to go to war in Iraq. While I always believed it was for oil, I cynically thought it was solely due to their desire to profit from it. I am sure the latter is true, but I also now think that there is a deeper motivation that relates to Cheney's near paranoiac personality: he is truly afraid of what will happen in the US when oil runs out, and so he is on a mission to procure more.

Unfortunately, I think that's entirely the wrong strategy. We've spent nearly 1/2 trillion dollars on the war so far. Let's say, for example that that same amount of money were invested to put solar panels on every rooftop in the US. It would buy approximately enough solar to provide 4 gigawatts of electricity (assuming $10/watt). That's nearly enough to provide nearly the entire electric grid in the US. And that estimate is not counting the efficiencies that would come from scaling up production, nor from scaling up other sources such as wave power. And having such cheap, available electricity would be a strong motivator for the more rapid rollout of pluggable electric cars and bikes. This would be a major step towards weaning ourselves from oil forever. And instead, we've wasted it on a war for a limited supply of oil that we may or may not ultimately gain control of. How pitifully stupid - it may have sealed our fate. If there are history books remaining in the future, it seems likely they will note Bush and Cheney as the ones who tipped the US into its ultimate destruction by initiating this wasteful war and setting us up to be strangled by our addiction to oil.

And so I finally return to the original premise: global warming doesn't matter. That's because it seems reasonably likely that within the next 10-20 years, we will all face a crisis of proportions previously unseen in human history, due to peak oil. When it comes down to major segments of the world population suddenly being thrust into poverty and starvation, the idea of seas rising and glaciers melting seems kind of quaint and remote. If only we survive long enough to get to that point!

However, I'm glad that global warming has raised our collective awareness of dependency on oil, and caused increasing numbers of people to take energy-saving steps. So don't spread the word that global warming doesn't matter - just let everyone go on thinking it is a crisis and that we have to do something about it right away. While the reasons might not be the right ones, the resulting actions just might save humanity.

Nobody can predict the future, and there are many ways this might play out. Someone might finally invent fusion energy. Or some other source that we can't envision now. So I think there are ways this could play out less chillingly (but still not without pain). I will explore some alternative scenarios in a future blog entry.

Well, that trip seems like ancient history... but if you want to see us on our folding bikes touring around Tuscany, Italy, here you go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgurme/sets/72157600056717449/

Enjoy!

I think it's interesting to note that the business which prompted my rant about "bike snobs" has gone out of business lately.

Perhaps being a bike snob is not so profitable after all!

See, there's this common perception that bikes are toys, not serious transportation. That's probably in large part because the whole bike industry here in the US promotes biking as sport. It is pathetic that the large manufacturers are so pathetic about promoting bikes as utilitarian vehicles.....A lot of people tell me they are scared to bike, because they might get run over. But this ignores the statistics. Yes, accidents happen. But so do heart attacks. Biking regularly prevents heart attacks, and all the evidence indicates that the positive health effects of biking far outweigh the risk of accident. Read More...