In this first phase of the Era of Peak Oil it is hard to miss the incontrovertible fact that all signs point to energy conservation and renewables as ways to ease our way out of the energy crunch and move towards the soft landing I mentioned in my last post.

At the very least, you would have to be an outright ignoramus -- or on the oil industry payroll -- to not realize that the current state of energy policy and production is unsustainable.

The high price of petroleum and the lack of progress on conservation and sustainable solutions have made things difficult and expensive for everyone in the entire developed world. And that does not even include the obvious environmental and medical harm we have done as a society to our planet and our bodies respectively (we all know about climate change, but there is an asthma epidemic in many high-traffic areas, the worst of which is in New York City).

Proven reserves are low. Drilling costs are high.

Non-OPEC production is stuck.

NYT:

Analysts at Barclays Capital said last week that non-OPEC supplies were “seemingly dead in the water.” Goldman Sachs raised similar concerns last month, saying that growth in non-OPEC supplies “can no longer be taken for granted.”

At the same time, oil consumption keeps expanding at a faster clip than production.

Diesel fuel is $4.18 a gallon. Gasoline up 9.5 cents last week alone. Record-highs all around.

Dana Perino on Monday:

"We are very aware of the high price of gasoline and the impact it is having on people across the country, and on businesses in particular," Perino said

The Bush solution?

DRILL DRILL DRILL. ANWR ANWR ANWR.

"No magic wand," Bush says with his trademark smirk.

And after all the talk about drilling in ANWR, Bush attempts to make good on one -- just ONE -- conservation talking point... namely, increased CAFE standards.

How did that go over?

And in the meantime we have done, increasing CAFTA................

Ugh!

*smacks forehead*

Hopeless.

Today's Peak Picks:

* Supply side to blame for high oil prices (SFGate)
* Have oil prices peaked? (Telegraph.co.uk)
* Alaska Drilling Rears Its Head Again (CBS News)

Peaklinks:

Google News: Peak Oil
Google News: Peak Oil RSS Feed
Wikipedia: Peak Oil
ASPO: Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas

Now that oil has broken the $115 mark, is hovering around $120, and shows no sign of slowing down in advance of the summer "driving season;" I firmly believe that as of roughly March 2008 we have officially entered the Era of Peak Oil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/business/worldbusiness/04oil.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energyprices.html

The only question now is where do we go from here?

There are two options. Work our asses off as a global nation to become a green and sustainable society ASAP and vote Democrats into office -- including and especially Obama or Clinton into the White House. OR, we continue on more of the same, we elect John McCain as President and we do basically nothing until it is too late (it is already too late).

The first option is called the "Soft Landing," where we do our best to mitigate the catastrophe that will be oil/gas that is simply too expensive to maintain a functioning modern society. We transition off of this cost-prohibitive resource and move towards cheaper, cleaner forms of energy and a green economy immediately.

The second option, called the "Hard Landing" basically entails our standing bye and watching as our modern Western Society literally grinds to a halt causing untold pain, war, and death.

We have entered the Era of Peak Oil.

We need to make drastic changes and we need to do it IMMEDIATELY. I hope more people like me will devote their lives and efforts to greening Western Society to help preserve whatever freedom and Democracy we have left after George W. Bush.

If you are interested in discussing this topic, please comment below or say hello: ethan [at] greenbrooklyn [dot] com.
I will be posting more on this topic here, so stay tuned.

Thanks. And thank you to TPM for allowing me to blog here.