This is a work in progress

New World

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Created 2006/03/17, modified 2008/11/30

The major global problems that we are facing:

Climate change;
Declining petroleum supplies;
Declining world food production;
Destruction of habitats;
Loss of wild foods including, in particular, fish stocks;
Overpopulation;
Increasing environmental impact of each person;
Overcommitted water supplies;
Loss of soils and soil fertility;
Declining phosphate supplies;
Loss of biodiversity;
Spread of weeds and pest animal species;
Rising sea levels;

Introduction

As I started work on this page I heard a statement on the radio that "every family's worst nightmare is a home invasion". I suspect that while this may be true in Australia in 2006, a home invasion will be trivial compared to the upheavals that we will have to endure with climate change, overcommitted water supplies, rising sea levels, and petroleum prices so high that a private car becomes a luxury that very few can afford. Not only all these in themselves, but there will be large areas of the earth that are at present highly populated and will become uninhabitable, due to rising sea level or climate change; great migrations will take place from these places with terrible consequences to the displaced people and their neighbours.

I have previously written about the oil supply running out, mainly in terms of what oil is likely to be substituted with, and greenhouse/climate change.

Getting properly started on this page has been more difficult than most of the Net pages I have written. While I have very little doubt that society will be greatly effected by such things as those listed above, I find it very difficult to imagine the detail of the changes we will face.

Gas

Will liguified petroleum gas (LPG) or compressed petroleum gas (CPG) replace oil? I believe that global reserves of gasseous petroleum are not great enough to fill the gap for long. Gas, at best, may provide a partial and temporary filler while oil declines.

I have discussed some of the points of this section in A sustainable transport system.

What is likely to happen as the oil runs out?

It depends largely on the order in which these problems are going to hit us. Current indications are that, while water supply problems are already on the increase, declining oil supplies, with steaply increasing prices, will be the first to have great world-wide effect.

Steaply rising oil prices will cause unprecedented impact on the global economy. Modern agriculture, transport, and mining are greatly dependent on cheap oil. They are also some of the major greenhouse gas producers; so one of the early effects of declining oil will be at least a temporary decline in the amount of greenhouse gasses going into the atmosphere.

Liquid and gasseos fuels can be made from coal, shale oil, tar sands, etc. However, to produce enough to replace 'natural' petroleum would require big investment infrastructure spread over a number of years. I don't think any government in the world, nor any of the major oil companies are working on this at the scale that will be needed.

So, what will happen as oil prices rise so high that people can no longer afford to run their cars, airlines have to increase their ticket prices so high that all but essential travel becomes impossible, long distant trucking becomes uneconomical, and international shipping costs go through the roof? In the early stages we will probably see:

a steap decline in the use of the private car;
a steap decline in air travel;
a steap decline in international tourism;
a move from road to rail transport (rail is much more energy efficient;
a decline in mining with consequent rises in commodity prices;
a forced increase in recycing and reuse;
a move toward sale powered shipping is possible;
an increase in renewable power, such as wind and solar;
an increase in ethanol (and methanol) production;
increased use of wood as a heating fuel;
a move toward obtaining liquid fuel from wood;

Any replacements for oil will take time to achieve. In the mean time there will be heavy impacts on the world economy.

The present globalised food production and distribution will collapse as the oil runs out, we will develop more self-sustainable communities.
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What effect will the end of petroleum have on greenhouse?

More expensive petroleum will result, in the short term, in decreased fossil fuel burned and consequent reduction in greenhouse carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Not only will there be a direct feedback, eg. people will use their cars less as the fuel price rises, but there will be multipying effects, for example:-

Mining costs rise because mining uses large amounts of petroleum. This will lead to -
Higher prices of metals, which will lead to -
Higher prices of machinery (manufacturer's costs will also increase due to the petroleum that they use)
Producing fertilizer requires large (fossil fuel) energy inputs, so the cost of fertilizer will rise
The combination of higher machinery, fertilizer and fuel prices will greatly increase farmers' costs so farm produce prices will have to rise proportionately
The cost of delivering that produce will rise because of higher fuel prices.

So the cost of foodstuffs will rise by a much greater percentage than fuel prices. The costs of most consumables will rise for similar reasons to foodstuffs costs. The resulting greatly increased cost of living will make people cut their nonessential spending, including on fuel for their cars.

It seems to me likely that these accumulating effects will cause major upsets to the global economy, with probably deep economic depression.

In time people will look to unconventional petroleum sources as a source of energy. Many of these are more greenhouse polluting than petroleum; so the loss of petrleum will not necessarily result in less greenhouse carbon dioxide being produced in the long term.

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Combinations of environmental and economic factors

What if the price of fuel rises significantly in an area where the water supply is already heavily committed and where rainfall is declining because of climate change? Compounding of effects such as this will happen in some places and will be much worse for the inhabitants of those places than one effect alone.

Cities

Modern cities have largely been designed to suite the motor car and cheap liquid fuel. There are wide multi-laned roads, shops are out of walking range of housing, their viability depends on the cheap transport of goods and materials into cities from a large surounding rural area.

This is all going to change. As energy-efficient public transport replaces private cars (usually transporting only one person) the need for multi-lane roads will greatly diminish; the need for paths suitable for cycling and walking will increase. As private cars become too expensive to fuel there will be an increased demand for old-style corner delis and local supermarkets within walking or cycling distance rather than huge shopping centres within driving distance.

As the cost of transport increases I suspect that smaller regional cities will become more viable than larger cities. Electric rail will become very important as a way of moving goods into cities.

As the price of food rises there will be a trend back toward the vegetable garden in the back yard. How will this effect those houses that have been built on such small blocks that they have no significant back yards? I suspect that, again, larger cities will go into decline and smaller cities where land is more affordable will prosper. What will happen to the large areas of deserted housing that may develop in big cities?

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Employment

Recessions and depressions caused by economic downturns following unafordable fuel prices seem very likely. I suspect that people will quickly discover that they can do without many non-essentials; this will result in the loss of jobs, especially in cities.

On the other hand, with the use of machinery on farms and market gardens being minimised, there will be an increased demand for labour outside of the cities.

Industry

Large centralised industries will, in at least some cases, tend to be replaced by smaller decentralised industries.

For example, at present wheat is carted long distances to large flour mills, from there the flour goes to large centralised bakeries, the bread is carted to large shopping centers, and finally people drive their cars to buy their bread. There is much more use of transport involved in this system than there needs to be. Smaller flour mills could be placed closer to where the wheat is grown, smaller bakeries could be spread around, and smaller shops closer to where people are living.

The temptation of war

If a powerful nation is in trouble because of declining access to petroleum will it be able to resist taking petroleum from a weaker neighbour by force?

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Index

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On this page...
Cities
End of petroleum meets greenhouse
Environment meets economics
Introduction
Temptation of war
What is likely to happen as the oil runs out?

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