Sept 22. Buy no petrol day.....
Final rant for the day.... Well for this intra sleep period anyways.... I got an email today (all capitals - make of that what you will) regarding how we are going to tackle the current fuel price hikes. I had to respond. With permission, I present the original mail and my response. All I ask is that you all take some time to think about it and tell me if I'm barking up the wrong tree.... Original:From: Yak's buddy
Subject: Sept 22nd
Date: 07/Sept/2005
IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN AUSTRALIA DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF PETROL FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.
AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.
THEREFORE THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 22nd HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT UP THEIR ASS" DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF PETROL ON THAT DAY. THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.
WAITING ON THE GOVERNMENT TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?
REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF PETROL GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING SUPPLIES MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!
WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.
SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE SEPTEMBER 22nd A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF AUSTRALIA SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"
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Yak's Reply
Subject: Re: September 22nd (Beware: Rant alert. No disrespect intended)
Date: 07/Sept/2005
Passing on that message? Mmmm... no can do sweetie. This is all happening because we are running out of oil and countries are starting to fight for it in places like Iraq, Venezuela and Columbia (Hyeah... It's all about the cocaine... nothing to do with that fatass pipeline). These conflicts will one day be called the start of the Resource Wars (Energy Wars), which will ironically spend more oil than they may gain.
I think it was the head of Chevron Texaco that said: "It took us 125 years to go through the first trillion barrels of oil. 30 years to go through the second trillion. There is about one trillion left."
In an attempt to appear powerful before their subjugated nation, the Saudis are believed to have overestimated their reserves by billions of barrels. The head of Royal Dutch Shell stood down in disgrace a couple of years ago for a similar reason. We should have been paying higher prices for years, but our governments have been putting pressure on OPEC since the oil shock in the 70's to keep production high and prices low. This is no longer possible, let alone sustainable, especially with the industrialisation of China and India. Their pace of development is accelerating too, so it can only get worse.
Babes..... The price will not come down to any degree Ever Again. It is not a renewable resource and while it isn't so much a case of there being no oil left, we are hitting the point where supply can't meet exploding demand, no matter what technologies we discover. This of course raises prices. To force our governments to keep prices artificially low will only forestall the inevitable and make the crunch that much harder to bear when it hits.
Read up on a thing called Peak Oil (aka Hubbert's Peak) for a more in depth analysis of what is happening/will happen to oil production. The fields we are discovering are smaller and harder to extract from. The net energy gain from extraction will fall ever more sharply, while the cost to do so will rise exponentially. This is logical. We are seeing it happen and since we are talking about non-renewables, the process is irreversible.
Our economy is built on the concept of endless, cheap oil. Oil provides us with everything from the petrol we use to commute to the plastics we use for our packaging, CDs and synthetic fibres. Hell, we've even been using it to make fertilizer, fucking up the soil for generations to come. Our refusal to admit that we are approaching a crisis point must stop. If we continue at our current consumption levels, as we will do as long long as we can get cheap octane, then one day (some say within 5 years, though my weather knee says closer to 10) we wil have a shock that our economies can't cope with. Entire markets will collapse. People will be turned hungry on to the streets and you will have something resembling New Orleans without the floods.
Past economic depressions have shown us that the cities empty as the men leave their families to jackeroo for whatever they can send back. The women do what poor and desparate women do. This was tough enough back in the 30s when we had a smallish percentage of the population in the Big Smoke. Over 90% of our population now lives in the cities. When those cities empty, the misery will just spread to the coutryside. Any farmland within a 5 day walk of major cities will be pillaged by starving people. Despite what we like to think about Australians, we are human, and our civility is just as vulnerable as anyone else's in times like those will be. Depite what we like to think about Australians, much of it is bullshit anyway.
There will be riots, vice, disease (most of our medicines are oil based), misery, suffering and death. A desparate man will do anything to feed his family - to feed himself. Sociologists in the know about peak oil are predicting global catastrophies. Even the optimists are predicting over 2 billion dead globally. Pessimists (such as Steven Hawking) put that number somewhere over 5 billion as countries go to ever more brutal wars to claim what is left of the black gold. This is before we even get into the global-warming/advancing-desert/soil-depletion/oceanic-dead-zone/melting-permafrost stuff. War only exacerbates these phenomena anyway. With a bit of luck, we'll all choke on methane before we have to start eating each other. When I call these days the last rays of mankind's golden age, I am not being romantic. We are, and for years have been living beyond our means, with wealth unheard of and we are reaching the end of our credit.
So whilst it would be great to stick it up the oil companies (hey, you know how I hate those guys); whilst I would love us to give old mother nature at least one day's worth of fresh air before she annihilates us for our trangressions; I would much rather we said "Fuck all that" and Stopped. Using. Oil.. We need that oil to extract the coal that we burn for electricity. Without electricity (as New Orleans demonstrated) we revert to the Dark Ages. The dark ages are one step from the stone age...
Now personally, I can't see suburban Australia thinking that far ahead. We are kept too busy to nut this stuff out and prepare for it. (Some would say too thick headed, decadent and selfish.... they WANT that 4x4 afterall, and it's sooooooo much more convenient to drive to the over-lit, airconditioned 7-11 than to get off their fat, Kentucky-Fried-Asses and walk). We have barely pushed for alternative energy and complain about aesthetics when our government does something constructive, such as wind farms. Presently, alternative energy supplies won't be able to make up 20% of required demand. In a sunburnt country like ours, with massive drought (and thus sunlight)... where are the solar panels? Our shallow Port Phillip Bay could generate shitloads of tidal power, but we dredge it instead to get heavier diesel powered ships to deliver plastics and steel to our ciy's front doorstep. Just quietly? We are fucked,
As long as we jam on our caps lock and email the world in an attempt to force our Fearless Leaders into helping us bury our heads in that little sandpit; as long as payed off douchebag professors run around sabotaging projects like Melbourne 2030 because "Melbournians like driving too much"; as long as we build freeways without accompanying train lines (who ever heard of an airport the size of ours that doesn't have a fucking train station?
I like how you are moving to the mountain. Make sure your land is fertile and that you have a gun or two and a shiload of bullets. You need a loooooot of oil to extract that metal, smelt it and craft a bullet. But you don't want to overdo it on the stockpile though. Economic depressions always result in gangs of bandits looking for more firearms. However, there is safety in numbers. Find a town of approximately 5000-10000 people and settle nearby - at most a day's walk from the centre of town. Towns this size are sustainable as they have enough folk to provide doctors, policemen, teachers, protection. Local farming (optimium yeild is gained from crop rotation on a 3 acre block) can feed the town and provide you quid-pro-quo protection against any ravaging hordes. Get there soon so that you can forge the relationships that you will need to help protect you, your husband and your daughter. You have between 5 and 10 years to get that shit sorted and ready to go.
Now I'm sorry for getting all heavy on you, but this current sting is just the beginning of the end of oil based industrial civilisation. Think about it. Oil Is Running Out. It ain't like we are going to find/create that much more, no matter how much we avoid thinking about the issue. And whilst it is decades too late to avoid suffering in the transition from our current economies, the earlier we act, the easier it will be. Taking a day off from buying more will not make it any easier. Easing prices to help us consume more is only going to make it worse.
So sorry for the polemic, but I have to voice this. And I thank you for providing a cue to do so. If you could do me a huge favor, please pass this on to the people you passed the first mail on to and whoever sent it to you (good luck getting through any profanity filters :) If you like, I can fix it up) and demand instead, that we think of something a little more long term.
Love you. I mean it.
xx
P.S. If you want a funky boycott, go to www.adbusters.org . They're a bunch of culture jammers dedicated to getting our lives back from the marketing machine. Each year they have an international Buy Nothing Day (around Novenber 26th), to help stick it up the companies and their advertisers. This year they are thinking about a Buy Nothing Christmas. Gee... imagine a Christmas where you didn't have to stress about affording all those bloody presents!!!! Imagine the happiness as you gave each other time and love instead. Imagine celebrating the birth of our alledged saviour, instead of cursing his festival because you are too tired, stressed and over-extended...