biodiversity loss, climate change and peak oil -related threats

[Strive]

Hi folk

So I've read up a bit on these subjects. For the military- minded (I realise there are a few around here) I would recommend the book Climate Wars by ex-military Gwynne Dyer. This doesn't touch much on peak oil though.

For liberal lefties I would recommend The Transition Timeline by Shaun Chamberlain.

Actually I would recommend both books to everyone.

For those who don't know, peak oil has been defined as 'the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production is expected to enter terminal decline' (even accounting for the discovery of new oil sources.) Please refer to the work of Chris Skrebowski, consulting editor of the Petroleum Review. The moment of peak oil is notoriously difficult to calculate, not least because oil companies are reticent and / or ambivalent about their figures. However some analysts have put the date between about 2000 and 2020...in other words we could already be on the downward curve. I have read some to suggest that there WILL be no replacement in time by other fuel sources for current inrastructures, as current infrastructures simply are not sustainable using any other fuel source, or the time frame needed to reinvent the whole global system for new fuel sources would not 'work', (unless there would be urgent, simultaneous understanding of the challenge by many engineers and scientists worldwide...and it's getting too late for that). Many people have a blind faith in hydrogen or some other wonder fuel 'taking over' from oil, but apparently it doesn't work like that.

Based on my very limited understanding of world events, below are what I see as the most likely unfolding threats within the next 3-5 decades, all related to biodiversity loss, peak oil and rapid climate change (the latter which I see as incontestable -whether it is man-made or not, it is happening) with the tricky added two elements of global population growth, and increased standards of living i.e. energy demands per person in developing countries, especially China, India, and Brazil. (A problem in itself...it's been calculated that we would need six planets to sustain humanity if everyone had the same energy use as the average American...no offense meant to Americans, that's just the way it's happened).

Sorry for the messy order here, but by biodiversity loss I refer to the rate of extinction of species which in the time of modern human civilisation (i.e.now) has reached a rate far greater than at any time in the Earth's history, barring the fifth previous mass extinction events (the dinosaurs being one, I don't know what the other five were).

So, first, let me state what I see as very likely problematic unfolding realities that are difficult to contest. Second I will list what I see as the likely scary implications or at least potential implications of these realities.


1. UNFOLDING REALITIES (I ESTIMATE AT 90% LIKELY)

a) Continued general warming of the planet's surface, resulting in increasing unpredictability of weather events, including increasing unpredictability of rainfall patterns. Also, increasing temperatures around the equator.

b) Increasing scarcity of oil and thus more and more prohibitively high price of oil / petrol / all oil and petrol derivatives including petrochemicals and all plastics ~(which includes anything that is made out of plastic!) There is considerably more gas and coal left than there is oil, but these do not relate to the extensive infrastructures of oil, and secondly will not be adopted globally due to climate change restrictions. A related trend is that we will see nuclear power adopted more and more, although it is not much safer than it ever was and the specialist technology, as far as I understand it, cannot be replicated globally 'in time' to deal with the extent of coming oil scarcity, (not that we would want it to, would we?) Most so-called renewable energies still require oil in their production and transportation.
[As for Alaskan tar sands, they are literally scraping the barrel, and expend more energy to extract the oil than is gained from burning the oil, believe it or not]

c) Continued biodiversity loss i.e. species extinction.

d) Continued wish by people the world over to have more and more, especially those in developeing countries to want to live like those in 'developed' countries.


2. UNFOLDING THREATS (WHO KNOWS HOW LIKELY, BUT IT IS 99% LIKELY TO ME THAT SOME OF THESE THREATS AT LEAST WILL UNFOLD)

a) Migration of peoples away from the heating equator north and south, especially north to better standards of living, so for instance from S America to America and from Africa to Europe. Immigrant clashes with local populations, competition for jobs and resources, rise of far right governments and groups in the north, and further, civil war, in reaction, and in further reaction to the far right.

b) Potential extinction of bees and other insects needed for pollination of much of the world's food supply, potential for extinction of more and more fish varieties, endangering the global fishing industry, and due also to unpredictable rainfall patterns, more crop failure in general, more jobless, more hungry, more starving, more rioting, and potential huge migrations of people where crops fail...leading to similar tensions as described in a) above.

c) A generally warmer wetter global climate (wetter seems to be concensus but not sure about that) coupled with population growth could mean increasing likelihood of incubation and transmission of all diseases including deadly ones, on epidemic scale, as well as migration of bugs and pests, damaging to crops and humans, in unpredictable ways. (It is a FACT that in the last few years the malaria-carrying variety of mosquito has been found as far north as Spain for the first time).

d) Increasing serious psychotic episodes in individuals who are not told the truth by their governments and who will have to live under increasing pressure from all threats. Increasingly desperate behaviour exhibited by an increasing number of people.

e) Increasing likelihood of appropriation of nuclear material by terrorist groups and rogue governments, as transportaion and generation of nuclear material increases to try to make up for shortfall made by peak oil and post peak oil event. I would even lay a bet that transportation and generation of nuclear material will INCREASE, not decrease, in explosive risk (regardless of terrorists) as officials desperately try to cut corners to meet energy quotas. Happy days!

f) Ultimate and final collapse of all global stock markets, as the markets themselves and the commodities within them rely on oil

g) Energy, food and water wars between nations and within nations, as unpredictable rainfall patterns, scarcity of oil, increasing crop failure due to climate change and pests, and increasing populations, combine to put pressure on everyone, everywhere. (See Gwynne Dyer's book, mentioned above). A potential WWIII for resources on an unprecedented scale (Aren't all wars for resources, ultimately?)

My advice?

1) Be as aware as you can
2) Know how to forage and hunt
3) Be prepared to be mobile
4) Base yourself in the country, not the city.
5) Make yourself a valuable commodity in a number of ways, so that you are more useful to people alive than dead.
6) Make as many connections with as many differently skilled people as possible.
Lucky 7) Get lucky!