In my last entry I claimed that the phenomena of peak oil would cause great economic and social hardships on the entire world. Here I hope to shed light on the more specific threats we can expect to see in the coming decades. Many may argue that they are perfectly content to just ride a bicycle or that they have no need for a car where they live, and a few people even claim they would be fine without electricity and all of the work that entails. However, this is not the extent of the problem. The problem is that all of us, regardless of our attachment to modern luxury, have to eat to survive and currently the worlds agriculture is very heavily dependent on oil. In a recent article published in the The Salt Lake Tribune it was bluntly stated that,
"Inhabitants of the United States literally eat oil. Oil is necessary to make the fertilizer and pesticides used on our crops; to irrigate them; and to fuel the machinery used to plant, cultivate, and harvest them. In one study conducted in 1994, it was calculated that feeding each American each year required the equivalent of 400 gallons of oil, exclusive of the energy, mainly oil, needed for packaging, refrigeration, transportation, and cooking. The authors calculated that for every calorie of food energy delivered to the consumer, 10 calories of other energy, mostly oil, are required. The lesson is clear: Without oil we starve."Human life will go on without many of oils products such as the transportation, electronics and machinery but a break down in the farming system leads to famine. Human population has doubled in roughly 60 years and our oil consumption has increased even more exponentially. Traditional, pre-oil agriculture simply cannot feed 7 billion people. In a report sponsored by the European Union it was determined that the greatly enhanced yields from hydrocarbon aided farming produces about 75% of the worlds grain and feeds roughly 60% of the human population. As it stands, that is almost 4 billion people. Anything but the most optimistic of view points is rather troubling when all of this is considered.
