We are currently reaching Peak Oil.

Less Oil means higher prices for Petrol and Fertilizers.

Expensive Petrol and Fertilizers will raise Food Prices and lower overall production.

Less Food means Starvation.

Starvation will reduces the amount of Humans.

Less Humans means less Industry and Farming.

Less Industry and Farming will reduce CO2 and Climate Change.

Global Grain stocks are already in decline and food prices have skyrocketed in recent years (especially for poor nations).

We are already on our way to solve climate change …

Most Westerners waste precious fossil resources by  travelling alone in their cars or on their bikes. In developing nations cars, motor bikes and even push bikes are for mass transport.

If you travel alone on a car 95% of the petrol will be wasted  to move the car – not to transport you.

If the distance allows it than use public transport or a bike – or a small vehicle with a better weight to passenger ratio.

Westerners should see cars and motorbikes no longer as cool lifestyle choices(for their penis or social status), but as serious tools to be shared with others. The age of unsustainable individual transport has to come to an end.

Business Week: The Great Ethanol Scam

Turn food and greenery into fuel seems to be a loosing idea. Food prices have risen thanks to biofuels and too much other important resources are used to produce it (water and fertilizer – also made from oil):

Not only is ethanol proving to be a dud as a fuel substitute but there is increasing evidence that it is destroying engines in large numbers.

Ouch!

Cars used to be much smaller and used a lot less petrol. Compared to SUVs these old Autos look like toys, but they were much less thirsty.

Today’s cars spend most fuel on moving themselves forward – the passengers weight make hardly a difference.

The 1967 VW Beetle weight a mere 840 kg and a Toyota Prius NHW20 Hybrid 1,317 kg. Just for fun: the Hummer H2 weighs an amazing 2903 kg.

Each kg saved makes a difference and especially today we have so many tough , but amazingly light materials. So lighter cars should be no problem at all.

Amazingly to me we seem to learnt very little or nothing from the oil crises of 1973. Especially because in the 1980’s the oil prices went down like a rock and everything seemed fine.

Europe always had higher taxes on petrol, so we naturally built and drove smaller cars. The US went “el gigante” as usual and feel in love with SUVs, Hummers and other thirsty vehicles.

So from 1973 to 2008 we wasted precious THIRTYFIVE years to seriously reduce our global consumption and develop alternatives. It is simply amazing how much time we wasted fiddling around with small stuff instead of pushing ahead.

The idea of peak oil (maximum production followed by gradual decline) is hardly new itself – a certain Mister King Hubbert published this very idea in 1956. And that oil isn’t a renewable resource has been bloody obvious since we built cars.

Once again: it is shocking that all these high-tech countries like USA, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, etc. have so little to show so little progress in terms of energy independence.

Germany is currently world leader in solar and wind energy, but we hardly use these technologies. Instead all industrial nations talk about using extensively atomic power. But it is once again a short term solution, since the world’s reserve of plutonium ain’t that big either.

It all comes down to money, not intelligence or logic in the end. We could have done more, but we didn’t. We still are doing not enough. We will only speed up our development when the price of petrol rises even higher and our laziness will become unaffordable.

But I am seriously afraid that we won’t even react than. Instead we simply “agree” with lesser comfort and don’t mind millions of people starving, because oil is also important for food production.

Cultures and civilizations are not very good in reacting to slow changes and threats. They simply adapt without overcoming the threat.

So peak oil might also imply peak civilization – unless some egghead saves our global asses from decline with a brilliant invention. But our culture won’t be the first nor the last to maybe disappear, slowly rott or “sleep away” …

Producing meat uses many primary food sources like wheat, maize or grain – and also oil for additional transport. Plus meat always needs to be cold – and therefore needs even more energy for refrigeration.

All livestock farts and produces loads of greenhouses gasses – and that’s actually as much bad gas as produced by cars.