karma2

Not to be a pessimist or anything, but the world as we know it is coming to an end.

We are within a few years of the peak worldwide production of oil. Oil production peaks when you're about halfway through the total available. U.S. production peaked in 1970 and has been declining ever since. North Sea oil production is declining. Venezualan production is declining. Indonesian production is declining. Many of the smaller producers are in decline. The Saudis claim they can increase production but they are having a hard time delivering--one of the reasons why oil prices have hit record highs almost every day for the last two weeks.

When oil production peaks, prices will skyrocket. And then the party is over.

And that's not the worst of it. Since 1990 the world has consumed more food than it has produced, cutting food stocks in half. There are only a limited number of years that this can go on.

One reason why food production is no longer growing is that water tables are dropping around the world. In China and a half dozen other countries thousands of villages have been forced to move because their water sources have dried up.

The sad part of it is that we were warned about this thirty years ago. The Club of Rome's "The Limits of Growth" demonstrated that sooner or later population would overshoot the ability of the earth to support it.

Thirty years ago we could have done something about it. Now it's too late.

Sorry.

Time to learn how to live with less.