We’re on the backside of the bell curve, and once you start coming down, there’s no going back ever again. Fracking was a trick that most people didn’t see coming, one that gave us artificial time, but it’s not a long-term solution. And other “solutions,” like oil production from tar sands, are just as limited in their effectiveness. Tar sands oil production accounts for a fraction of our world’s supply and is both very energy intensive and very expensive, not to mention extremely destructive to the environment. ....
We're living in an oil-based world and we have a huge crisis coming because of this dependence. We haven't stopped the growth of CO2 emissions, and we're going to see some major changes to our environment because of that. Even if we reduced all emissions to zero today, we'll still see a couple degrees of global warming. Climate change is going to happen, it's just a question of how bad it will be. And it's a shame that peak oil has been delayed by a decade, because it may have forced action on this issue sooner.Because this article is posted in what looks like a trade journal for the renewable energy industry, it holds out promise that this industry can save us from extinction. However the author does somewhat candidly see a major problem ahead.
The other significant issue we're facing is that oil drives the world's economy, and our modern economy is driven by a concept of an infinite world, infinite growth forever. In a finite world, we're going to crash against that mindset. Society doesn't tend to react until we have an actual, immediate crisis on our hands. We'll have an oil supply crisis soon--it could be in two years, it could be in ten, but it's coming.The "mindset" is, of course, irrationally driven by our capitalist masters because they are addicted to the wealth and power that capitalism provides them with. Only a massive program that involved planning and implementation to radically reduce carbon emissions on a bigger scale than the Marshal Plan following WWII might save us.
