The Price of Oil:Solutions for Children

Yesterday I saw a news clip about G8 Asian powers urging an oil production hike

AOMORI, Japan (AFP) — Eleven nations that guzzle nearly two-thirds of the world’s energy called Sunday for an urgent hike in global oil production as host Japan warned the world could plunge into recession….
In a joint statement, they called for boosts to their own production and asked major oil producers “to increase investment to keep markets well supplied in response to rising world demand”.
The European Union’s energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs warned that high oil prices were a fact to be reckoned with and that major economies needed to come up with alternative energy.

“The era of cheap energy seems to be over and no economy should gamble on a potential return to low prices,” Piebalgs said.

What incredible wisdom-if there is not enough - ask mom and dad for more. The “end of oil” has been a long time in coming. Peak oil production had been predicted, ridiculed and discovered again. But,none of this wisdom reached politicians or car manufacturers. Standards for emissions were relaxed as the new gas guzzlers (SUVs) came into being.

However, people voted for these same politicians, people chose to buy and drive SUVs. Oil consumption and energy squandering continued and continues in spite of a very predictable drop in production capacity. And yet people still whine that there is magically oil left in the ground. We only need to pray to the oil fairies (insert:deity of choice, or science) and it will be delivered.

What is needed is a fundamental shift in perspective. We can not continue consuming the earth as we are for mere convenience. If you want to argue this point - think about styrofoam, plastic utensils, and all the useless garbage filling landfill sites, food production for animals and cars(ethanol) while there is global food crisis. The cancerous growth of unmitigated consumption has to stop voluntarily or (I suspect) involuntarily.

I think that the search and use of alternative fuel (ie:solar, geothermal,etc) is flawed without a change in perspective. The common criticism is that these technologies can not meet our current energy demands. That is absolutely true. However, the earth can not sustain our current energy demands. The only solution lies in lowering our energy demands. Any other solution is simply childish.