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This is something that I've wondered too. Is it coincidence that the peak of US petroleum output, the high-water mark in middle-class earnings, and the onset of America's status as a debtor nation all occurred within about 18 years? I suspect that they are related. That some sectors have continued to thrive doesn't say much except that some are better at grabbing the remaining crumbs than others are. Nothing new there.
I don't think it's a coincidence, either.
Many Americans think we became a world superpower for cultural or moral reasons. Democracy, freedom, Christianity, capitalism, our "can-do" spirit, etc. The truth, I fear, is baser than that. We became a world power because we were a huge country, filled with unexploited natural resources.
We have used up many of those natural resources. Peak oil USA was a turning point of sorts. That turbo-charged globalization - the movement of economic activity to places where energy was cheaper. And made it much harder for working class Americans to get good jobs.
Something that I think is under-appreciated. I've finally gotten around to reading Charles Mann's "1491" and it's an amazing (and heart-breaking) story: Europeans apparently walked almost unchallenged into a vast country from which the indigenous peoples had only recently been all but annihilated. There has been little to compare that with in recent history (except for Australia, of course).
The other thing that I think is under-appreciated is how much America's geographic isolation from the twentieth century wars in Europe, N Africa, Asia and the Pacific gave it a "leg up" in the years following WW II. I've had this discussion with many who have argued that American hegemony in the 20th century owed almost entirely to the strength of our culture and our institutions.
Now, we're in the position -- as Asebius put it the other day -- of having "eaten our lunch" and trying to figure out where we are going for our next meal.
This (vast resources of Western Hemisphere) is the first of the two 'unrepeatable events' that Wm Catton cites in 'OverShoot', the other being of course the development of fossil fuels, especially oil and gas.
...and I should add that it looks like we're going to have plenty of company.
Me neither.
Culturally what we're are 3 or 4 greatest accomplishment? I'd say:
1. defeating Hitler
2. reubilding Japan and Europe after WW II
3. the civil rights movement
4. putting a man on the moon
Not coincidentally, these all occurred between 1945 and 1970 right when per capita oil and per capita energy consumption enjoyed their best ever yearly increases.
the constitution and jazz music
Leanan,
I ran across this while doing a bit of research on another posters link to a guy named Pain in France who uses a methane digester for all his energy needs.
Anyway...I ran across this in one of my college text books. It does give you a bit of a chill down your spine. From the book: "SOILS; An introduction to soils and plant growth" by Donahue, Miller and Shickluna. A standard college horticuture textbook still in use today, revised of course, but soil science hasn't changed all that much.
Page 153, TABLE 7-3 "Costs and yeilds at two locations of seven vegtables grown using commercial fertilizers and pesticides(chemical garden) compared to similiar gardens grown according to recommendations for organic gardening (1972)"
SITE 1
Chemical garden
Cost, total $147
Cost chems & ferts $12
Cost, hauling organic fertilizers $0
TOTAL YIELD lb's 1,768
Organic garden
Cost, total $212
Cost chems & ferts $0
Cost, hauling
organic fertilizers $22
TOTAL YIELD lb's 384
SITE 2
Chemical garden
Cost, total $119
Cost chems & ferts $12
Cost, hauling organic fertilizers $0
TOTAL YIELD lb's 1,056
Organic garden
Cost, total $111
Cost chems & ferts $0
Cost, hauling
organic fertilizers $22
TOTAL YIELD lb's 150
Source; R.C. Lambe and J.G. Petty, " 'Chemical Garden' Out-Yeilds 'Organic' Garden," Agri-news newspaper, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 4, No 2(Feb 1973),1,3.
I won't debate if thier results are skewed by funding, and alot of knoledge has been gained in the 'Organic' realm since 72', but if these numbers are even relatively close...this isn't a pretty picture.
"I won't debate if thier results are skewed by funding, and alot of knoledge has been gained in the 'Organic' realm since 72', but if these numbers are even relatively close...this isn't a pretty picture."
Not even remotely close, and probably not close even in '72. It sounds like total bullshit propaganda. Sponsored by Monsanto and whoever.
Organic yields today are typically 80-100% of "chemical garden" (ugh!) yields. The thing to keep in mind is that the chemical garden produce is mostly water and cellulose, and the organic produce actually contains nutrition. I.e., poundage of yield is irrelevant. The point isn't pounds of stuff per acre... it's human nutrition per acre, sustainably.
Add to this the synergy you get by growing more than on thing in a field and whole new dimension for measuring yield will emerge. Corn was never grown alone, until Europeans applied their own agricultural knowledge (or lack of). In fact, maize wasn't even eaten or used the way we see today. Soaked in wood ash, the nutritional profile changes significantly. This is to say nothing of the multitudes of plants cultivated in ways the Europeans wouldn't even recognize as a food production system. Science seeks to isolate to understand. However, nature depends upon synergy.
many confuse hybrid sweetcorn (for kernels) with cornmeal varieties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize
I garden purely organically and from my 600 square foot back yard garden I get about 500 lbs of produce a year. From an urban lot surrounded by buildings and trees (ie only get partial sun) in the middle of Chicago.
I'd put my yields up against those of any conventional agriculture regardless of whatever magical chemicals and genetically modified seed they might use.
Most of the folks worrying about food shortages are probably those who don't know how to feed themselves.
SpeedEbikes horray for you, you're a member of the landowning class. From what I see around me, the vast majority of Americans are not of the landowning class and never will be.
The point I was trying to make is that fossil fuel based inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, etc) are unnecessary to produce adequate supplies of food. Perhaps your point is that our socio-economic system will prevent land from be appropriately utilized? That's a risk but it is not a problem without solutions.
A lot of what happened to the U.S. economy since about 1970 reflects a shift to a new monetary scheme. Love it or hate it, the way the world is would be vastly is different without pure fiat money. Many of the the excesses of the world economy could not exist it. Reading Churchill's words about his fear of not having enough gold to pay for the UK's involvement in WWII drove home this point with me. Even in a dire emergency everything had limits.
The seventies were an opportunity to learn that resources are finite, but unfortunately the packaging & lessons learned were wrong or at least premature. The oil crisis taught a lot of people that oil really was limitless, shortages are / were just politics. James Earl Carter in a sweater, taught a lot of people in retrospect that we weren't going to run out of oil and gas iin the very short term just because a politician told us so.
In the seventies, although the American oil frontier was closed there were others. Now? Well now we have even some very thoughful people with long memories that focus on the premature messages of the seventies. More easy pickings for CERA.
The message of the fable of the Boy that Cried Wolf was not that there are no wolves. For the record, I am an early peak believer simply because of the lack of new provinces and the age / state of development of existing fields. It bothers me that my opinion may just be another wolf siting. Damn, I wish I knew what the true oil situation was in the KSA.