Short term vs long term thinking
Oil supply and costs will be a problem that should be handled with long term thinking instead of the short term thinking that relies more on gimmicks and irrational expectations. It is safe to say that the era of cheap oil is coming to an end.
Easter Island is a good cautionary but real tale. The people who immigrated to Easter Island found an island with lots of trees but also far from other islands. The people made those famous heads and had to transport those objects from one place on the island to the current locations. This was done by chopping down the trees to use as rollers to move the statues. The problem was that the trees were chopped down faster than they could grow and so the problem was that the resources of the island were much less than what was needed to support the population. The people were trapped because they could not build any boats to find another island. When Easter Island was found by Europeans, the natives were warring among themselves over the meager resources and at the same time the faith behind those large heads collapsed with an alternate faith adding to the mess.
While trees are renewable resources and oil is a somewhat limited resource, the parallels between the Easter Islanders using up their resources and our current situation can help all of us to think beyond cheap oil. Trains may be more efficient use of oil for transportation, but oil factors into so many other things that it is hard to come up with alternative solutions.
The scary part is that much of the agricultural revolution that has helped feed the current 7 billion people uses a lot of cheap oil to make that happen. Oil to power the farming equipment, oil to make the fertilizers and oil used to transport crops to the market and oil used to process the crops into the many forms food has become.
Thanks Mr Nelder for showing us the information as well as more background on what is going on. This information is important for all us to make intelligent choices for the future.
