Practicing what they preach?

It always amuses me to hear public officials praise mass transit and walkable communities. Of course those are good things, but honestly, when was the last time you saw your city's mayor waiting at a bus stop? Do your city council members walk or use mass transit to get to the store/work/church/city hall on at least a semi-regular basis? Probably not.

But then again, that would make our local leaders about the same as everyone else, so it's not fair to hold them to a higher standard.

Did I read somewhere that Utah County might not get commuter rail until 2030, and that during upcoming construction on I-15, they're going to have temporary passenger train service to get Utah County commuters into SLC? I'm so glad I don't live in that poorly planned, sprawling monstrosity, otherwise known as northern Utah County. I don't see why anyone in their right mind would want to live in American Fork and work in downtown SLC. I know some people really like the city they grew up in, or their dream house they built (even if it's poorly designed with pinkish bricks, grey stucco and a few other mismatched architectural features arranged asymmetrically), but I just don't think that it's worth spending two hours sitting in my car each day.

And no, I'm not an architecture snob. I just don't understand why people will spend $350,000 to build a new house and not build it with a more timeless design.

Good design:



Not-so-good design:

Let's play the blame game!

Americans are good at pointing fingers. For example, consider the current high gas prices.

We hear all of the following:

"It must be those evil oil companies."

"If only those damned environmentalists would let us drill in ANWR, this wouldn't be happening."

"Those environmentalists won't let us build more refineries!"

"The Republicans are in bed with 'Big Oil.'"

Heaven forbid that we actually take responsibility for our current energy predicament, and admit that our lifestyles have been built around cheap fossil fuels in a living arrangement that can't be maintained as oil and natural gas go into depletion. Sadly, as things start going to pot, many Americans will be in a state of denial, and will desperately cling to an obsolete way of life.

Just a couple of points to be made here:

As Matt Savinar points out, ANWR only contains about 10 billion barrels of oil, or about the amount that the U.S. consumes in a little over a year. I always laugh when I hear people say that if we drilled in ANWR, we wouldn't have to import Saudi oil anymore. Yeah, keep dreaming.

And as for refineries, think about it this way. Why the hell would a company build an oil refinery when they know that worldwide oil production is going to go into decline? Talk about a bad investment.

When will it snap?

About a year ago, I was driving on I-15 through Farmington and Kaysville, and I was taken back by how many new subdivisions there were on the west side of the freeway. I can still remember when it seemed like there were no houses west of the freeway in that area, and I thought about Legacy, and how it will be when Davis County will be built out.

But then it hit me - I had one of those cold slaps on the face, if you will. I realized that this thing that many happily tout as "growth" and "progress" can't go on forever. What happens when Davis County is built out? Will Morgan County look like the Davis County of today? What about west Weber County? How far will the sprawl march? Could we handle a drought in 30 years if our population was double what it is now? How much farmland can be gobbled up, even though the populations of both Utah and the world keep growing exponentially? If the Wasatch Front could no longer import its food, could we feed ourselves with the population and amount of farmland that we have now?

There's only a fixed amount of water in the world (and a small percentage of that is clean, fresh water), a finite amount of steel, and a finite amount of other metals. The world only has so much land, and gets only so much sunlight. Logistically, the world can only support a certain amount of people, and it doesn't look like we'll have the means to colonize Mars or the moon anytime soon.

And when will it all snap? What will finally send gas prices spiraling upward, never to come back down? Will it be some sort of terrorist attack or other problem in Saudi Arabia? Will it be when both the government and the corporate media openly report that world oil production is peaking? Will it be something else that will make people panic? Would our society be able to survive in a world with dwindling energy?

Disclaimer

There's something that I need to say before I continue to make posts on this blog.

I don't claim to know exactly what the future will be like. Maybe cold fusion will be figured out and all of our energy needs will be met. Or maybe there will be enough technological innovation that will let us survive the onset of declining fossil fuels.

But realizing just how much our lives depend on fossil fuels, and realizing that it would be one helluva feat to transition the goods we consume, our modes of transportation, our lifestyles, the economy, etc., away from fossil fuels, and also realizing that worldwide oil production is quite likely to peak in the next five to ten years (oil production already peaked in the U.S. in 1970), it's reasonable to say that we're in for some hard times ahead. Wow, that was a doozy of a run-on sentence.

Actually, I would prefer that nothing bad happens in the future. I'll admit, I enjoy cruising along a dead street late at night. I enjoy getting in my car and going out to eat. I enjoy having air-conditioning and a natural gas stove. I use a lot of products that were made with petroleum.

But I'm also sobered by the implications of peak oil production, and that's why I've started this blog.

It's about food, not cars

When people think of the world's fossil fuels running out, they immediately think of their cars and gas prices. But being able to drive your SUV should be the last of your worries as far as oil depletion goes.

Let me explain.

The world has about 6.5 billion people. 6.5 billion people are able to live on the earth because of increased food production. Increased food production has been made possible by the green revolution in agriculture. And the green revolution has been made possible by enormous inputs of fossil fuel energy. Think about all of the fuel it takes to run the tractors, to process the food, ship the food, for you to drive to the store and buy the food, and for you to cook the food. And perhaps most important, so much fertilizer used in industrial agriculture is made from natural gas. I once read a quote that said something to the effect of "modern agriculture is the use of land to convert fossil fuels to food."

So in short, the energy from fossil fuels, which has been built up over thousands if not millions of years, has allowed us to have more food, which has allowed us to have more people on the planet. But when oil and natural gas start going into depletion, we're all screwed. And it's doubtful that we'll stumble upon some magical alternative source of energy that will let us keep industrial agriculture going the way it has been in recent decades.