Healing Our World
Weekly Commentary
By Jackie Giuliano Ph.D.

The Well WILL Run Dry

I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to what it is telling me. -- M.J. Slim Hooey

One of the greatest challenges to increasing our connection to the natural world has been a widespread lack of motivation in the developed world. Many people ask, why should we sacrifice the good life, why should we decrease our consumption, and why should we worry since things seem to be pretty much OK? Some people have a hard time listening to those concerned with the environmental and social issues since there seems to be an endless supply of everything.

Of all the resources that we use, fuel oil may be the one with the greatest impact on our world. Up until recently, most of us believed that there was an endless supply of oil. Yet this has never been the case, and even oil industry analysts are now discussing the inevitable end to that finite, non-renewable resource.

Now scholars and analysts are agreeing that we WILL run out of oil and other resources. This has always been known, but more and more you will see this idea being carried in the mainstream media as we get closer to depleting key raw materials. As prices increase, the gap between those who have and those who don’t will widen. Many of us who have today will be the have-nots of tomorrow.

Fossil fuels may have done more damage to our people, our environment and to our perceptions of our relationship with the natural world than any other material. Think about it: our ability to get into a car and go anywhere we want anytime we want has dramatically affected our very perception of fundamental concepts like time, distance, and space. We measure distance in terms of freeway minutes and consider our car an extension of ourselves.

"For over 150 years, mankind has been used to an ever-growing supply of cheap and abundant energy," said Colin J. Campbell at this year's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Toronto. Campbell is a former exploration geologist who believes that oil production will peak within the decade. "The implication of this on industry, world politics, and economics seems to me to be enormous," he said at the October meeting. Others feel the peak may be two decades from now, but it will come. Campbell is the co-author of an article in the March 1998 "Scientific American" magazine entitled "The End of Cheap Oil."

When the quantity of oil burned since oil extraction began equals the amount yet to be extracted, the peak will be reached. The International Energy Agency in Paris reports that oil production could peak before the year 2015. By 2020, the demand for oil could exceed the supply by 17 million barrels per day.

The end of oil production is a much harder date to predict and is not really as important as when production peaks. The peak will be a time of crisis if world dependence on oil continues unchecked, since demand will exceed the supply. More costly methods will be used for a while to extract oil from tar, heavy oil and hydrocarbons locked in shales.

This is the time when the rich will become very much richer while the gap between economic classes widens. Imagine paying five, ten, or even 20 dollars for a gallon of gas. It could happen in our lifetime.

We must urge our political and corporate leaders to develop alternative energy sources now. We cannot allow the development of electric and solar powered transportation to continue at a slow pace.

But we must also take a hard look at our own lives and ask some probing questions. How can we decrease our dependence upon fossil fuels before the new millennium begins? What would it mean if we lived nearer to where we worked, played closer to home instead of driving to faraway destinations, and conserved energy in our lives any way we can?

Now is the time to practice conscious living - doing the right thing while we have choices. A global reduction in oil and resource consumption could avert a global Armageddon. In our lifetimes, we may see the decline of available oil. Our children will definitely see it. Some feel that this will be the first collapse of the wasteful way of life we have been leading. Our leaders will not prepare us for this shift - we have to do it ourselves.

Now is the time to find the motivation within to do what we know in our hearts is right - right for our world, right for our culture, and right for our children. Because the well will run dry.

RESOURCES

1. The March 1998 Scientific American article on this subject is reprinted at http://dieoff.com/page140.htm . When you have time, look at other parts of that web site. It is filled with challenging information about the carrying capacity of our world.

2. Explore the concept of whether our world has a carrying capacity or not at http://dieoff.com/page110.htm 

3. Get help with overcoming consumerism at the Media Foundation at http://www.adbusters.org./main/index.html  

4. Visit the Overcoming Consumerism page at http://www.hooked.net:80/users/verdant/index.htm  

5. Learn about using renewable energy at home from "Home Power Magazine," on the web at http://www.homepower.com/  Find many links to information on renewable energy sources in their links section at http://www.homepower.com/resites.htm  

6. Keep up on electric car development from the Electric Auto Association at http://www.eaaev.org 

7. California is an energy guzzler and a leader in alternative energy development. Keep watching the CALSTART organization, a non-profit group made up of industry and government groups. They maintain an excellent database on alternative fueled vehicles at http://www.calstart.org/services/catalog/  

8. More alternative fueled vehicle links are at http://www.calweb.com/~tonyc/webpoint.html  

9. Visit the Real Goods catalog for many alternative energy products at http://www.realgoods.com/ 

10. Visit CoOp America for ideas about building a sustainable world at http://www.coopamerica.org/ 

11. The resources already exist to solve the Earth's problems. Visit the World Game Institute's "What the World Wants" project to learn the startling reality at http://www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/  

12. Keep your eye on corporations through Corporate Watch at http://www.corpwatch.org/ 

13. Petrochemical products are used in household cleaners as well. Find out some simple non-toxic cleaning methods at http://www.lalc.k12.ca.us/target/units/recycle/recipes.html  

14. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them you want action taken now to develop alternative energy sources. Tell them not to wait. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html   or you can search by state at http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html  

15. Learn about the issues. Seek out books on the subject. A good source for used (and new) books is Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon at http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/associate?assoc_id=212 where you will find a wonderful alternative to the massive chain bookstores taking over the market.

Visit the Healing Our World Archive and check out the many resource links in past articles.

This Healing Our World article appear courtesy of Jackie Giuliano (copyright 1998)
and is printed with the permission of the Environment News Service.

Jackie Giuliano, Ph. D., can be found in Venice, California, thinking about ways to use less gas - while he considers driving an hour tomorrow to a gourd farm. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Phoenix Southern California Campuses. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@deepteaching.com and visit his web site at http://www.deepteaching.com