Oil spill and carbon emissions not enough

Posted on | July 11, 2010 | No Comments

In The Daily Beast of the 8th of July BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is not enough to create a bipartisan majority in favor of taking America off it’s addiction to oil.

No, neither carbon emissions, nor a major oil spill is likely to be enough.

The fact that will eventually do the job is the global peak in oil production and the following reduction in the oil supply that will make it increasingly difficult to run the global economy in the way that it is now configured with global supply chains. This will cause increasing oil prices and over time there will be shortfalls in the oil supply that will force countries to rapidly embark on policies to reduce the dependence on oil.

This, however, will not be a fast and easy route to oil independence. There is no silver bullet. The measures have to include a combination of development programs for renewable fuels and programs to reduce the need for oil by behavior change and changes in the structure of supply chains and other large scale systems of the economy.

We will have to find the most effective ways of reducing our dependence that will give the biggest bang for the buck.

Even if we do not have large scale programs yet, the people who understand this have to start developing the methods and principles to do this, so that we as a society can “hit the ground running,” when politicians finally get their act together and make the necessary decisions.

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