peak oil

This is the logical outcome of using fossil fuel inputs to grow food, and then turning that food into fuel.

As Evans-Pritchard points out, “energy and food have ‘converged’ in price and can increasingly be switched from one use to another,” which is just a polite way of saying that, in a time of scarcity, rich people’s ability to pay for fuel will quickly outstrip poor people’s ability to pay for food.

Why the price of ‘peak oil’ is famine

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
The London Telegraph
February 9, 2008

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The B-List is your monthly media supplement of 7 recommended readings from beyond the Briarpatch.

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Many readers will already be familiar with the concept of peak oil — the observation that, over time, oil-producing regions reach a maximum rate of extraction, after which oil production begins to enter a terminal decline. North American oil production peaked in 1985; British oil production peaked in 1999. The question of when global oil production will peak is a subject of fierce debate.

But according to a study just released by the German-based Energy Watch Group, world oil production already reached its peak in 2006, and is projected to decline at an alarming rate of about 7% in the years to come. They predict that global oil production will have fallen by half as soon as 2030.

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