The resulting crash is known as a Malthusian catastrophe.
After World War II, the green revolution changed the face of agriculture. Crop yields were substantially increased by bringing high-yield grains together with enhanced agricultural infrastructures and first-world pesticides and herbicides. As a result, countries like India and the Philippines, which were previously at the brink of severe famine, were able to become self-sufficient, feed their people, and generate revenue from grain exports as well. In this way, the impending Malthusian catastrophe was averted. Or was it simply delayed?
The green revolution was indeed a miracle of technology, but in those postwar times, little thought was given to long-term impacts on the environment or society. Industrialized agriculture is hardly what we would call sustainable. It is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for fertilizers, harvesting, and transportation; uses vast amounts of freshwater; and creates dangerous outflows of pollutants and unwanted nutrients into the environment.
Peak oil is the term used to describe the maximum point of world petroleum production or extraction. After this peak is reached, the supply can only decline, because the amount of oil and gas in the earth's crust is finite. Many scientists believe peak oil will occur in this decade, and others insist it has already passed, but no one argues that it won't come soon, except a few executives and economists from the oil business.11 It is common knowledge that global oil reserves are generally overstated,12 so it is likely that where exactly the peak is, will be known only in retrospect.
One might argue that, as easily recovered oil reserves disappear, oil that is harder to extract will become cost-effective. That may, in fact, be the case if the evaluation is based solely on economic factors. But what of the environmental costs? As onshore and nearshore oil availability decreases, the search for oil is pushed farther out to sea into deeper water. And even though oil industry executives and political leaders alike tell us the technology behind deepwater drilling is safe and secure, a single mistake or error in judgment can have devastating environmental consequences. Consider the most infamous consequence of peak oil to date: the April 2010 explosion and sinking of the British Petroleum drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. This accident killed eleven crew members and left a gushing oil well open for eighty-seven days to spew almost five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.13 In an effort to disperse the oil, British Petroleum sprayed more than seven hundred thousand gallons of chemical dispersants into the spill, before the Environmental Protection Agency insisted that less toxic alternatives to the selected dispersant be found.14 This was the largest spill in the history of oil drilling and the worst environmental catastrophe to date in U.S. history. It will take decades before the world knows the full extent of the environmental consequences resulting from the Deepwater Horizon spill, but the preliminary estimates are no less than ominous.
Oil extracted from oil shale and tar sands is economically viable only if oil prices are high. That is because this oil is expensive to extract. It must be cooked out of the sands, and the industrial extraction process itself requires tremendous amounts of natural gas (used to melt the oil out of the sand) and water, and tends to degrade large areas of formerly undeveloped boreal forest and tundra. The lunacy of this is well-expressed by Rob Hopkins in The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, who likens extraction of oil from tar sands to squeezing thirty years of spilt beer from the sawdust of a pub floor.15 Something only a desperate alcoholic would do.
The ramifications of oil depletion (what happens after the peak is passed) are far-reaching and potentially devastating to the way of life to which most of us have become accustomed. The cost of energy will increase, because most of our energy is produced by burning fossil fuels. And perhaps even more insidious is the likelihood that, as supplies go down, prices of all things petroleum-related will go up sharply. Oil is an ingredient for plastics, cosmetics, medications, and fertilizers. Indeed, it's difficult to imagine a world without oil. There will be widespread humanitarian costs: as oil prices rise, the price of food increases, and these increases are deeply felt in poor countries. Availability of food may decrease globally, leading to widespread famine, the potential destabilization of governments, and the increasing possibility of wars over access to natural resources.
To mitigate these effects, we will need twenty years’ lead time before the point of peak oil is reached, to find alternative and renewable solutions to our petroleum dependence.16 If the peak has already passed or will occur in this decade, that opportunity has been passed and our civilization will probably change substantially before our societies are able to refuel.17 There is now much discussion in the United States about government and private investment in renewable energy infrastructure and technology. A positive sign to be sure, but this is only the beginning of that process, and it has probably started too late to stave off some of the predicted impacts on the current way of life.
Some think nuclear energy will be our salvation. This is predicated on several assumptions. First, that the safety issues that led to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl can be managed effectively. Second, that nuclear proliferation and the security risks associated with weapons-grade nuclear materials can be mitigated. Imagine a world where terrorists had easy access to radioactive waste that could be used in low-tech, yet quite destructive, “dirty bombs.” Third, it is predicated on the assumption that uranium, on which the entire industry depends, is available. Like oil and natural gas, uranium is not limitless.
A final issue of grave concern is that of global security. In his 2009 testimony before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn warned of risks and vulnerabilities from a changing global climate.18 World shortages of water and food will likely increase, eroding political stability in countries where governments are not able to keep pace with the essential needs of their people. Access to fossil fuels necessary to maintain effective military forces will require an increasing and unsustainable transfer of wealth to oil-producing nations, many of which are hostile to the United States and its allies. Border conflicts will spread, further taxing international military capacities. Changing climate will also stress the efficiency of weapons platforms and military support structures. McGinn spoke on behalf of the Center for Naval Analyses’ Military Advisory Board, whose members are all distinguished and high-ranking officers from the U.S. military establishment. While his testimony was decidedly from an American national security perspective, the risks and impacts he described will doubtless affect all nations and peoples. McGinn's testimony and the Center for Naval Analyses' reports illustrate how climate change and declining energy reserves are dangerous trends, and not solely for environmental reasons.19
Finally, let's consider what the combined effects of the diverse challenges we've outlined might be to the environment. In a recent publication, Jeremy Jackson looked at the syner-gistic effects of stressors—including overfishing, acidification, warming, pollution, and invasive species—on the health of our oceans. The study looked at four major ecosystems, of which coral reefs and coastal seas and estuaries were found to be critically endangered, continental shelves endangered, and open oceans threatened.20 Humanity's destructive lifestyle has led to a 50–90 percent reduction in many fish populations from estimated historical levels, the death of 50–75 percent of coral reefs worldwide, hypoxic “dead zones” near many river outlets, introduction of destructive invasive species, the filling of part of the North Pacific Ocean with floating plastic trash,21 frequent toxic algal blooms, and increasing human and wildlife diseases. Keep in mind this list does not even address terrestrial ecosystems, where a whole new set of issues becomes relevant.
This is sobering stuff. The evidence of trouble on many levels is overwhelming, and much of it points to environmental and economic stressors that are happening now. This, then, is not a problem for our children's children, but a problem we all must address immediately. These are not national issues but pressing global ones in need of expedient solutions.
We do not think there is some magical environmental education solution that will cure these anthropogenic ills. Nor do we know of any quick or all-encompassing fixes
