The Crash Course - Chris Martenson [8]
In the near future, humanity as a species will have to grapple with a condition that it has never faced before: Less and less energy will be available each year. In the past, there was always another continent brimming with energy resources to tap; another well that could be drilled; more hydrocarbon wealth that could be brought up from the depths. We have always had access to increased resources when we wanted them, and during that long run of history, we have fashioned an enormously complicated society and global economic model around the idea that there always would be more.
Along the way, we moved from burning wood to burning coal, then to whale oil, and then to petroleum. The unanswered question is this: After oil, what comes next? What is the next source of energy? Nobody has a truly viable answer for that as we cross the threshold of Peak Oil, a concept that represents the moment after which slightly less and less energy comes up out of the ground for us to use as we wish. Many hold out hopes that technology will ride to the rescue, perhaps in the form of nuclear power, natural gas, or alternative sources of energy. But the issues of time, scale, and cost loom large, because we have taken so long to finally recognize the imminence and severity of the petroleum predicament.
With a peak in energy extraction, a host of environmental issues suddenly come into play. Agricultural soils that were forced to produce higher yields via the continuous application of fertilizers derived from fossil fuels will turn out to have been fundamentally depleted. Minerals of increasingly dilute concentrations that require more and more energy to produce will suddenly cost exponentially more each year to extract and process. Where markets once allocated our energy resources according to ability to pay, true scarcity will soon form the dividing line between economic progress and decline for the world’s various nations. How soon will all of this happen? If not this year, then within 20 years, which is a blink of an eye given the scale and scope of the potential disruptions implied by this structural shift.
It is only when we assemble the challenges we find in the economy, energy, and the environment—what I call “the three Es”—into one spot that we can fully appreciate the true dimensions of our predicament. The next 20 years are going to be shaped by fundamental resource scarcity in ways that we have never experienced in history. The developed world is entering this race economically handicapped, with no one to blame but itself.
The primary question is whether we want our future to be shaped by disaster or by design. The set of predicaments and problems that we now face are very different from the conditions of the past 20 years and therefore present a solid challenge to the existing status quo. Those currently wielding power and influence are most likely to defend the status quo, raising the risk that our future will consist more of disaster than design. Further, abrupt changes have the unfortunate tendency of escaping notice by the majority of people, who have been conditioned to expect that the future will resemble the past. This is a perfectly valid assumption for ordinary moments, but it is a liability during extraordinary times.
A lucky few will see the changes coming ahead of time and seize the opportunity to make a more gentle series of adjustments on their own terms, while most will be caught unawares and have a much rougher period of transition. Fortunately, by examining and understanding the ways in which the economy intersects with and depends upon energy and other resources from the environment, it is possible to safely navigate and even predict the coming changes.
That is where The Crash Course comes in. I will teach you the system of thinking that I used to foresee the financial difficulties of 2008 and 2009 years in advance. Not only did I survive the great credit crunch of those