You may have come across this term recently in the mainstream press. To help understand the present human situation, the antnest and sugar metaphor is useful:

What happens if you put a kilo of sugar beside an ants nest? When the ants discover it,
the ant nest population will explode, the area around the nest will be cleared bare by the activity of the newly increased ant numbers. At some point the ants will be using more sugar than they are discovering (that is where we are with oil – peak oil), and the supply of sugar will start to rapidly dwindle. Eventually the sugar will be gone, and there will be massive die-off in the nest from starvation. Because the ants were so efficient, using the sugar to power their ability to strip the surrounding area bare, ant numbers will undoubtedly drop far below the numbers that existed before the sugar was found. Not only has sugar run out, but the ants previous sources of food has now all but gone as well.

That is the scenario in which we find ourselves. For the last 100+ years human numbers have swelled, as we used oil to expand our food sources and our ability to strip the planet of resources. We are now at Peak, and in the coming years we will have less and less oil to power our society, and thanks to global economics that oil will become increasingly expensive – that is increasingly unavailable to all but the ‘richest’ (in monetary terms) people.

This doesnt just mean that most of us will find it harder to fuel our cars. We have come to rely on oil for practically every aspect of our lives. Our food is grown using pesticides and fertilisers derived from oil. Everything is transported, often huge distances, to us using oil. Our clothes and practically all ‘products’ are made either out of oil (plastics), or resources that are mined, transported, manufactured using oil. Our homes are heated using oil or gas (that is also peaking soon). Health care relies on oil. Everything will be (and in fact already is) impacted by increasing oil prices, and even ‘natural’ products get to us using cheap oil for transport.

Most information about peak oil seems to be looking at how we can carry on ‘business as usual’ in the peak oil age. Not here. Oil has enabled humans to trash the environment at an unprecedented rate, and the exhaust fumes of our factories, transport, power stations has pushed the planetary climate systems into instability. If we find alternatives to oil, that enable humans to continue outcompeting all other lifeforms on this planet, we will find ourselves on a planet that can no longer sustain life – probably very soon.

The only viable solution is to dismantle civilisation. To return to simple lifestyles, closer to the landbase from which we acquire our livelihoods. We have wasted a potentially unimaginably valuable resource, allowing a few to live in unbelievable wealth while the majority of the humans on this planet are condemned to work for the machine that keeps them chained. The impact of peak oil may not come soon enough to preserve the planets ability to sustain any number of us, if any at all. This civilisation needs to be stopped while the planet can still support life.

We can continue trying to keep this system running, feeding our cars with valuable foodstocks (ethanol or buifuels made from grains etc), so we can carry on getting to our meaningless jobs, while billions starve.
Or we can ‘enough!’ and try a different way, working to repair our damaged landbases, taking local responsibility for our food, and the impacts our actions have.

Either way, there will be massive die-off in the human population. There are simply far too many of us, the planet cannot sustain this many humans, particularly as many of the ecosystems we rely on for our food have been decimated by the global juggernaut. But the choice is ours of whether we consciously work for a better juster sustainable reality, and try to make the process less painful, or we cling to the greedy selfish insane reality we call civilisation, undoubtedly heading down the path to holocaust and a world increasingly governed by fewer and fewer mad rich people, intent upon maintaining there privilege at the expense of the rest of us. Its your choice – please stop listening to the cultural brainwashing, and start what is potentially the greatest adventure of your life. Your life and that of those you care about may well depend on it.

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