The Oil Drum

The history of peaking and collapsing societies suggests it is usually a long drawn out process that people only seem vaguely aware of. In many ways the USA has been declining since the 1970s when local oil production peaked. Since then the rise of the middle class has reversed, access to education and health care has deteriorated, civil liberties etc (only partly offset by rising technology).

There is a massive amount of waste in the west still to be trimmed down (ie eating grains rather than running feedlots, and multihousing/car-sharing not because we feel guilty but because there is no other choice). Perhaps having 10 or 20 million barrels per day below peak production wont be as crushing as we imagine. We would have already been through 5 and 1 million per day less. In the beginning we will still be arguing if it is a temporary dip or not. By the time we are certain it is a permanent downward trend we will be a few years past the idea of being shocked by it. Changing prices would have already started to change everyone's economic priorities.

There are two potential black swans to negotiate though. The first is the unwinding of the financial system that could lead to short term distortions in demand and trade relationships. The second is global warming crossing a threshold. The most immediate risk there is declining industrial activity leading to a rapid decrease in particulate pollution, loss of global dimming, and getting the full impact of greenhouse gas pollution over a very short period. Together these could be the one-two punch that causes the wholesale doom that some of us like to imagine.