Supply and Demand: What Happens When We Can't Afford Oil?

A friend just forwarded an article from the New York Times, November 9th, "This time it's supply and demand." The rise of the price of oil is attributed to the rise in demand, initiated by the rapid growth of China and India. I think the anxiety behind this and other articles is that we have probably capped in our world wide supply of oil, not just the current growth in demand for oil by developing nations. While I have not heard that announced officially, I have heard that we will have reached the cap on oil potential within the next two years, however I suspect that has happened already. Meaning, we --the global we, everyone-- will never again be able to produce as much oil as we do currently, and this is taking into account world wide capacity. Demand for oil will grow exponentially, but the world's supply is on a downward march, there will be less and less oil available for consumption. This then is a real crisis, perhaps the first real crisis we have experienced in our lifetime, and here "our" refers to the "us" in the United States. Other countries have experienced real crisis before, but we haven't. I have wondered for years what it would be like to live here in my house in Noe Valley, San Francisco, when we have to grow as much as possible of our vegetables in our backyards and when we have to turn off the heat, and the air conditioning as well. We are lucky here in the Bay Area, we have a mild climate year round, we can survive easily without such fine climate control. I have already begun "practicing" water conservation, when I take a shower I only keep the water running briefly. I turn it off as I soap up my hair and turn it back on to rinse myself off. I find myself day dreaming, planning, my vegetable garden that will take over the yard. I want to talk about my fantasy with my husband and adult child who share he house with me. Most of the things I daydream about turn out take place. I should make clear that this is not a horror show I'm running in my head, its quite alright. Its rather the same as now, only some of our activities have changed. We're all somewhat stronger and healthier and could hardly consider the changes to be "hardships."

Ridiculous as this sounds, it seems likely that we are going to all be facing changes in our basic economic organization, although how soon or how abrupt these changes will come is unknown. How will we be able to commute long distances when the price of gas will drive us out of our cars, and public transportation is limited? What will my obsession with organization mean in a new form of social and economic organization? What happens to the perfect GTD lifestyle without a car? I daydream more about getting some kind of generator to use when supply of electricity becomes less reliable. I worry more about access to my keyboard than I do about food.

I promised many months ago to put up my "after" GTD picture, guess I need to get the camera out after I finish my weekly review, still a weak point in my GTD program. At least kundalini yoga requires nothing but internal energy. But I sure like to do it accompanied by that music with Sanskrit mantras, electricity dependent. Is everyone else quietly thinking about what things will be like when...