Time For Decisions

John Darvill

1998

Published in:

Technocracy Digest, 3rd quarter 1998, No. 329

This is an excerpt of a lecture Given at Aldergrove, B. C., on March 15, 1998

One of the biggest problems that we face at the present time is resources. As our population grows, our resource-base becomes depleted. Here, in North America, and other parts of the world, the reason our economy works as well as it does, is that we have depended on cheap automotive transportation. Our society has been managed in such a way that people move further and further away from the areas of function, and travel more each day, depending upon the automobile. We also rely upon cheap oil to heat our homes, and convert it into plastic. Many things that we take for granted come, basically, from oil.

Cheap oil for transportation and the availability of cheap oil has become the hallmark of this system for the last 50 years. It is safe to say, at the present time, that if cheap oil was not available, this system would not run as well as it does. More people would be displaced, and the cost would probably climb to a horrendous level.

If you think back to 1973-1974, you probably will remember the oil embargo when the Arabs, in order to get a better price for their oil, decided to limit the amount of oil which would be placed on the market. This worked for a short period of time, until the Arabs realized they were only cutting their noses to spite their faces. Probably most of you remember the line-ups for gasoline which were prevalent in the U.S., although not so much in Canada.

This caused a short upheaval in the economy of the U.S. and the turn towards smaller cars took place for a few years, and the tendency to build cars which were more fuel-efficient and used less oil. This lasted a few years until the oil was flowing again; and now, the trend has become, again, towards bigger gas-guzzling cars, and the oil is now being consumed at a fantastic rate.

But the next time we face a decline in the use of oil, it will not be because of an artificial scarcity brought on by Arabs, but because of an oil scarcity. It is estimated that, by the year 2005, it will cost more energy to get a barrel of oil out of the ground than that barrel of oil will yield monetarily.

From that time onwards -- 2005, in all probability -- the amount of cheap oil available in the world will decline very rapidly as the resource dries up, and the reserves are used up quickly.

It is also estimated that, by the year 2002 (remember 2002 is less than four years away) most of the world will be entirely dependent upon Mid-East oil to get the bulk of their supplies. Bear in mind what this means, going back to 1973, except that, instead of having an artificial price barrier placed against the world supply of oil to the Western world, primarily, you will have a scarcity where we will be completely dependent on oil from the Middle East to keep our industries functioning and cars travelling, and many other things that we depend upon.

It means that, probably four years from now, the cheap automotive fuel, as we know it, will have been depleted, and the cost of running cars, and heating our homes, and the many other things for which we use oil, will rise prohibitively.

Also, bear in mind, that there are various other related problems that will also occur. Ever since 1948, there has been a problem between Israel and the Arab countries surrounding them. Up to now, the Israelis have held the whip-hand because they are in a position of power; a position of being able to depend upon the United States and Europe to provide them with those things that are necessary to maintain them as a viable nation. But when oil supplies become more depleted, and we become more dependent on Middle East oil, the attitude of North America towards Israel will undergo a very drastic change, and the hostilities, which we see in the United States against the Middle East, will likely change. At that time, the Arabs will have a bargaining chip far more effective than they have had up to now; namely, the declining availability of cheap oil.

It is estimated, by the oil industry and by several geologists, that by the year 2010, 50 percent of all of the world's oil will come from the Middle East. That is only twelve years away. Some people are very optimistic and figure we have at least until 2020, which gives us 22 years from now.

By the year 2010, when 50 percent of oil in the world comes from the Middle East, and we are dependent upon the Middle East to that extent, what is going to happen to the price of oil? What is going to happen to the cost of heating fuel? What is going to happen to all those things which, today, we take for granted and assume they will continue to be supplied, so that we can maintain the wasteful Price System.

What is going to happen to the business climate? The business atmosphere? The ability to do business in the United States and Canada, and other parts of the world, when this occurs? In other words, as stated before, the end of cheap oil, and conventional oil -- that which is taken out of the ground and fed in liquid form -- will come to an end, and we will be paying the price for it. And, we will be paying the price for the waste and proliferation which occurred in the last 50 years. And, we, as a civilization, will be faced with what we are going to do to replace that oil by some other form of energy, if that is at all possible.

Someone is going to say: "There are other oil reserves in the world." We are talking about the conventional oil that comes out of the ground quite readily, and can be pumped out at a reasonable rate. Somebody is going to say: "What about the oil sands in Athabasca, and what about the sludge oil in Venezuela? To extract those oils from shale, and oil from the Orinoco sludge, in Venezuela, is extremely expensive. It costs a horrendous amount of money, and also, the environmental and pollution problems associated with these, will likewise grow. The sand and the sludge from the oil sands in Athabasca; the heavy metals and sulphur content in the Orinoco sludge, from Venezuela; these things would have to be dealt with, and this would become part of the cost. There, again, the cost to the consumer would be high, indeed. And, add to this the extensive cost of the environmental damage which would result from trying to extract these non-conventional oils in this manner.

What is the solution? There is no longer the 50 or 60 years you had when Technocracy first talked about the necessity to change our methods of operation. You now have, depending upon how optimistic you are, up to 12 years, or 22 years, in order to come up with some kind of solution which would make sure our civilization does not collapse completely. Now, what are we going to do in the meantime? Are we going to have sufficient intelligence to realize that we are in a situation where we are completely dependent on oil reserves from other parts of the world?

Technocracy, 60 years ago, offered several alternatives to the wasteful use of automotive transportation. They pointed out mass transit as the most efficient method of moving people on a large scale. At that time, in the eastern part of the United States particularly, they had a very efficient electrified railway system, which ran relatively cheaply, from an energy point of view, and which was very efficient. For a variety of reasons, mainly business, from General Motors and Firestone Rubber, and other people with investments in the automotive industry, bought up these efficient railway lines and then discarded them, and the freeways and highway systems to which we have become accustomed, were introduced, and we were forced to depend upon the private automobile if we were going to travel anywhere.

In 1933, when Technocracy first talked about mass transit and building a trans-continental railway system which would operate at 200 to 300 miles per hour, even with the technology of that day, it would have been relatively simple to build. There was no railway system to speak of; the United States and Canada, with their vast rural areas, would have made it relatively simple to build a high-speed, efficient railway system to cross the length and breadth of this Continent. And we would not have allowed ourselves to be placed in the position where we were almost completely dependent on the private automobile if we wanted to move around.

Again, back in 1933, when the United States and Canada were largely rural, Technocracy pointed out that if we were to build what, in those days, they termed "Urbanates" (in other words, living areas), where everything you needed on a day-to-day basis were provided within walking distances or short distances from where you lived -- your recreational facilities, health facilities, your educational facilities, where you worked -- all of these things would be in close proximity to where you lived and worked.

You could reach your destination very easily by some means: bicycle or small utility electric vehicles. Your supply systems -- your water, your sewage, your power systems -- these would be buried underground in tunnels and made easily accessible and easily serviced. These kinds of Urbanate areas -- the areas in which you lived and functioned on a day-to-day basis -- would, again, ameliorate the necessity of transportation by road. The complete reliance we find ourselves in, today, on the automobile, would not have occurred in the first place. Many of the problems associated with the automobile -- the waste of resources, the death and destruction, the environmental damage which is occurring as a result of the automobile -- would not have occurred in the first place.

We have got to start from scratch if we are ever going to overcome these problems. We have to tear down most of what we have built in the last 50 years and virtually start all over again. We have to eliminate our huge cities, like New York, Chicago, almost any major city in North American today -- mine them for the resources that can be obtained from them, and build again.

We are, of course, collectively, in one hell of a mess. We are, collectively, in a mess because we have a society that can not be sustained for too many years into the future. We don't have the resources; we have too large a population, and horrendous problems of disposing of waste materials, and keeping the environment reasonably clean. These problems are far greater than the Price System can handle. This Price System, which depends upon debt tokens and money for exchange of goods and services, can no longer operate.