End of the world as we know it?

What fun is it to predict the world’s impending demise? I can’t see the joy of telling people that the world will collapse in ten years when oil becomes too expensive. A professor from the University of Arizona recently published an article in The Arizona Republic about how civilization will unravel because of the current oil crisis, and I have some questions for him.

If civilization is going to self destruct in ten years, why aren’t we seeing any signs of it now? Yes, oil is a problem. No, corn ethanol is not the answer. What exactly will happen when we run out of oil? Will we have to ride our bicycles everywhere? That doesn’t sound so bad to me.

Actually, Guy R. McPherson says that it’s the jump we’ll have to make when oil shoots up in price; he says that when oil reaches $400 a barrel we won’t be able to afford it and “In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100% percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream”. So, if this is true, what do we do?

One solution I’ve heard so far is pretty good. Here it is:

• Taxing Oil: by gradually putting and increasing a tax on our oil, people will not only get used to the higher priced oil and the leap we’ll have to make won’t be as large, but the tax money can be used to fund research programs concerning renewable fuel, and ‘greener’ cars.

So whatever path we chose to take, we need to act. And, no, I don’t mean act as in the ‘whenever you get around to it’ kind of action. I mean the now ‘dinner’s burning’ type of immediate action. Just stop wasting oil, get a hybrid car until the better electric cars and biofuel cars come out.

-Calister F. Wells