Peak Everything

by Richard Heinberg

  During the past two years, car sales have declined while bicycle sales have soared; the number of young people taking up farming has increased for the first time in decades; and organic seed companies have had a tough time keeping up with mushrooming demand from home gardeners. These trends show that higher fuel prices and public awareness will indeed motivate behavior change. But we have a very long way to go before the people of the world have broken our dependency on fossil fuels, scaled back our use of other resources and sufficiently reduced our impact on natural systems. Meanwhile, public education and citizen-led efforts (like the Transition Initiatives) are essential now to build community resilience so as to absorb the economic and environmental shocks that are on their way, and to help us all adjust to life after growth.

  The peak has happened. Get over it — and get to work.

  Introduction: Peak Everything

  DURING THE PAST few years the phrase Peak Oil has entered the global lexicon. It refers to that moment in time when the world will achieve its maximum possible rate of oil extraction; from then on, for reasons having mostly to do with geology, the amount of petroleum available to society on a daily or yearly basis will begin to dwindle. Most informed analysts agree that this will happen during the next two or three decades; an increasing number believe that it is happening now — that conventional oil production peaked in 2005-2006 and that the flow to market of all hydrocarbon liquids taken together will start to diminish around 2010.1 The consequences, as they begin to accumulate, are likely to be severe: the world is overwhelmingly dependent on oil for transportation, agriculture, plastics, and chemicals; thus a lengthy process of adjustment will be required. According to one recent US government-sponsored study, if the peak does occur soon replacements are unlikely to appear quickly enough and in sufficient quantity to avert what it calls “unprecedented” social, political, and economic impacts.2

  This book is not an introduction to the subject of Peak Oil; several existing volumes serve that function (including my own The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies).3 Instead it addresses the social and historical context in which Peak Oil is occurring, and explores how we can reorganize our thinking and action in several critical areas to better navigate this perilous time.

  Our socio-historical context takes some time and perspective to appreciate. Upon first encountering Peak Oil, most people tend to assume it is merely a single isolated problem to which there is a simple solution — whether of an eco-friendly nature (more renewable energy) or otherwise (more coal). But prolonged reflection and study tend to eat away at the viability of such “solutions.” Meanwhile, as one contemplates how we humans have so quickly become so deeply dependent on the cheap, concentrated energy of oil and other fossil fuels, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have caught ourselves on the horns of the Universal Ecological Dilem - ma, consisting of the interlinked elements of population pressure, resource depletion, and habitat destruction — on a scale unprecedented in history.

  Figure 1. Production profiles for world oil and natural gas, history and forecast.

  Petroleum is not the only important resource quickly depleting. Readers already acquainted with the Peak Oil literature know that regional production peaks for natural gas have already occurred, and that over the short term the economic consequences of gas shortages are likely to be even worse for Europeans and North Americans than those for oil. And while coal is often referred to as being an abundant fossil fuel, with reserves capable of supplying the world at current rates of usage for two hundred years into the future, recent studies updating global reserves and production forecasts conclude that global coal production will peak and begin to decline in ten to twenty years.4 Because fossil fuels supply about 85 percent of the world’s total energy, peaks in these fuels virtually ensure that the world’s energy supply will begin to shrink within a few years regardless of any efforts that are made to develop other energy sources.

  Figure 2. Global coal production, history and forecast. The International Energy Agency’s “World Energy Outlook 2006” (WEO 2006) discusses two future scenarios for global coal production: a “reference scenario” that assumes unconstrained coal consumption, and an “alternative policy scenario” in which consumption is capped through government efforts to reduce climate impacts. Both scenarios are compatible with the supply forecast here (EWG report, 2007) until about 2020. Thereafter, only a rate of demand corresponding with the “alternative policy scenario” can be met.

  Nor does the matter end with natural gas and coal. Once one lifts one’s eyes from the narrow path of daily survival activities and starts scanning the horizon, a frightening array of peaks comes into view. In the course of the present century we will see an end to growth and a commencement of decline in all of these parameters:

  • Population

  • Grain production (total and per capita)

  • Uranium production

  • Climate stability

  • Fresh water availability per capita

  • Arable land in agricultural production

  • Wild fish harvests

  • Yearly extraction of some metals and minerals (including copper, platinum, silver, gold, and zinc)

  Figure 3. Global uranium supply from known resources, history and forecast, compared with supply requirements.

  Figure 4. World total annual emissions.

  Figure 5. Global mean surface temperature.

  The point of this book is not to go systematically through these peak-and-decline scenarios one by one, offering evidence and pointing out the consequences — though that is a worthwhile exercise, and it is instructive to contemplate a few graphs showing the general trends (see figures 1 through 5). Some of these peaks are more speculative than others. Fish harvests are already in decline, so this one is hardly arguable; however, projecting extraction peaks and declines for some metals requires extrapolating current rising rates of usage many decades into the future.5 The problem of uranium supply beyond mid-century is well attested by studies, but has not received sufficient public attention.6

  Nevertheless, the general picture is inescapable: it is one of mutually interacting instances of overconsumption and emerging scarcity.

  Our starting point, then, is the realization that we are today living at the end of the period of greatest material abundance in human history — an abundance based on temporary sources of cheap energy that made all else possible. Now that the most important of those sources are entering their inevitable sunset phase, we are at the beginning of a period of overall societal contraction.

  Figure 6. The global temperature anomaly is a measure of the difference between the mean global temperature at a given point in time and the average global temperature during the 20th century.

  This realization is strengthened as we come to understand that it is no happenstance that so many peaks are occurring together. They are all causally related by the historic reality that, for the past 200 years, cheap, abundant energy from fossil fuels has driven technological invention, increases in total and per-capita resource extraction and consumption (including food production), and population growth. We are enmeshed in a classic self-reinforcing feedback loop:

  Self-reinforcing feedback loops sometimes occur in nature (population blooms are always evidence of some sort of reinforcing feedback loop), but they rarely continue for long. They usually lead to population crashes and die-offs. The simple fact is that growth in population and consumption cannot continue unabated on a finite planet.

  If the increased availability of cheap energy has historically enabled unprecedented growth in the extraction rates of other resources, then the coincidence of Peak Oil with the peaking and decline of many other resources is entirely predictable.

  Moreover, as the availability of energy resources peaks, this will also affect various parameters of social welfare:

  • Per-capita consumption levels

  • Economic growth

  • Eas
y, cheap, quick mobility

  • Technological change and invention

  • Political stability

  All of these are clearly related to the availability of energy and other critical resources. Once we accept that energy, fresh water, and food will become less freely available over the next few decades, it is hard to escape the conclusion that while the 20th century saw the greatest and most rapid expansion of the scale, scope, and complexity of human societies in history, the 21st will see contraction and simplification. The only real question is whether societies will contract and simplify intelligently or in an uncontrolled, chaotic fashion.

  Good News? Bad News?

  None of this is easy to contemplate. Nor can this information easily be discussed in polite company: the suggestion that we are at or near the peak of population and consumption levels for the entirety of human history, and that it’s all downhill from here, is not likely to win votes, lead to a better job, or even make for pleasant dinner banter. Most people turn off and tune out when the conversation moves in this direction; advertisers and news organizations take note and act accordingly. The result: a general, societal pattern of denial.

  Where might we find solace in all this gloom? Well, it could be argued that some not-so-good things will also peak this century:

  • Economic inequality

  • Environmental destruction

  • Greenhouse gas emissions

  Why economic inequality? The late, great social philosopher Ivan Illich argued in his 1974 book Energy and Equity that inequality increases along with the flow of energy through a society. “[O]nly a ceiling on energy use,” he wrote, “can lead to social relations that are characterized by high levels of equity.”7 Hunters and gatherers, who survived on minimal energy flows, also lived in societies nearly free from economic inequality. While some forager societies were better off than others because they lived in more abundant ecosystems, the members of any given group tended to share equally whatever was available. Theirs was a gift economy — as opposed to the barter, market, and money economies that we are more familiar with. With agriculture and full-time division of labor came higher energy flow rates as well as widening economic disparity between kings, their retainers, and the peasant class. In the 20th century, with per capita energy flow rates soaring far above any in history, some humans enjoyed unprecedented material abundance, such that they expected that poverty could be eliminated once and for all if only the political will could be summoned. Indeed, during the middle years of the century progress was seemingly being made along those lines. However, for the century in total, inequality actually increased. The Gini index, invented in 1912 as a measure of economic inequality within societies, has risen substantially within many nations (including the US, Britain, India, and China) in the past three decades, and economic disparity between rich and poor nations has also grown.8 In the decades just prior to the 20th century, the average income in the world’s wealthiest country was about ten times more than that in the poorest; now it is over forty-five times more. According to one study released in December, 2006 (“The World Distribution of Household Wealth,”) the richest one percent of people now controls 40 percent of the world’s wealth, while the richest two percent control fully half.9 If this correlation between energy flow rates and inequality holds, it seems likely that, as available energy decreases during the 21st century, we are likely to see a reversion to lower levels of inequality. This is not to say that by century’s end we will all be living in an egalitarian socialist paradise, merely that the levels of inequality we see today will have become unsupportable.

  Figure 7. World water use, consumption.

  Figure 8. World water use, withdrawals.

  Figure 9. Water availability, history, and forecast.

  Figure 10. Annual world grain production, total amounts and amounts per capita.

  Figure 11. World population, history and forecast.

  Figure 12. Annual marine (saltwater) fish catch.

  Figure 13. Combined oil, gas, and coal production projections, in billions of barrels of oil equivalent per year. This graph shows the probable future for fossils fuels, the source of roughly 85 percent of the world’s current energy budget.

  Figure 14. Global arable land.

  Similarly, it seems likely that levels of humanly generated environmental destruction will peak and begin to recede in decades to come. As available energy declines, our ability to alter the environment will do so as well. However, if we make no deliberate attempt to control our impact on the biosphere, the peak will be a very high one and we will do an immense amount of damage along the way. On the other hand, we could expend deliberate and intelligent effort to reduce environmental impacts, in which case the peak will be at a lower level. Especially in the former case, this peak is likely to lag behind the others discussed, because many environmental harms involve reinforcing feedback loops as well as delayed and cumulative impacts that will continue to reverberate for decades after human population and consumption levels start to diminish. As the primary example of this, annual greenhouse gas emissions will undoubtedly peak in this century — whether as a result of voluntary reductions in fossil fuel consumption, or depletion of the resource base, or societal collapse. However, the global climate may not stabilize until many decades thereafter, until various reinforcing feedback loops that have been set in motion (such as the melting of the north polar icecap, which would expose dark water that would in turn absorb more heat, thus exacerbating the warming effect; and the melting of tundra and permafrost, releasing stored methane that would likewise greatly exacerbate warming) play themselves out. Indeed, the climate may not return to a phase of relative equilibrium for centuries.

  Well, if the goal of the last few paragraphs was to balance bad-news peaks with cheerier ones, that effort so far seems less than entirely successful. Surely we can do better. Are there some good things that are not at or near their historic peaks? I can think of a few:

  • Community

  • Personal autonomy

  • Satisfaction from honest work well done

  • Intergenerational solidarity

  • Cooperation

  • Leisure time

  • Happiness

  • Ingenuity

  • Artistry

  • Beauty of the built environment

  Of course, some of these items are hard to quantify. But a few can indeed be measured, and efforts to do so often yield surprising results. Let’s consider two that have been subjects of quantitative study.

  Leisure time is perhaps the element on this list that lends itself most readily to measurement. The most leisurely societies were without doubt those of hunter-gatherers, who worked about 1,000 hours per year, though these societies seldom if ever thought of dividing “work time” from “leisure time,” since all activities were considered pleasurable in their way.10 For US employees, hours worked peaked in the early industrial period, around 1850, at about 3,500 hours per year.11 This was up from 1,620 hours worked annually by the typical medieval peasant. However, the two situations are not directly comparable: a typical medieval workday stretched from dawn to dusk (16 hours in summer, 8 in winter), but work was intermittent, with breaks for breakfast, midmorning refreshment, lunch, a customary afternoon nap, mid-afternoon refreshment, and dinner; moreover, there were dozens of holidays and festivals scattered throughout the year. Today the average US worker spends about 2,000 hours on the job each year, a figure somewhat higher than it was a couple of decades ago (in 1985 it was closer to 1,850 hours). Nevertheless, an historical overview suggests that the time-intensiveness of human labor seems to peak in the early phase of industrialization, and that a simplification of the modern economy could result in a reversion to older, pre-industrial norms.

  In recent years the field of happiness research has flourished, with the publication of scores of studies and several books devoted to statistical analysis of what gives people a sense of overall satisfaction with their lives. Int
ernational studies of self-reported levels of happiness show that once basic survival needs are met, there is little correlation between happiness and per capita consumption of fossil fuels. According to surveys, people in Mexico, who use fossil fuels at one-fifth the rate of US citizens, are just as happy. (See Figure 15.)

  The opportunities to continue to enjoy current (or even higher) levels of happiness and to reduce work hours may seem pale comforts in light of all the enormous social and economic challenges implicit in the peaks discussed earlier. However, it is worth remembering that the list above details things that matter very much to most people in terms of their real, lived experience. The sense of community and the experience of intergenerational solidarity are literally priceless, in that no amount of money can buy them; moreover, life without them is bleak indeed — especially during times of social stress. And there are many reasons to think that these two factors have declined significantly during the past few decades of rapid urbanization and economic growth.

  In contrast with these indices of personal and social well-being, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is easily measured and shows a mostly upward trend for the world as a whole over the past two centuries. But it takes into account only a narrow set of data — the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. Growth in GDP is used to tell us that we should be feeling better about ourselves and our world — but it leaves out a wide range of other factors, including damage to the environment, wars, crime and imprisonment rates, and trends in education (like whether more or fewer people graduate from high school or college, and the quality of the education received.) Many economists and non-governmental organizations have criticized governmental reliance on GDP for this reason, and have instead promoted the use of a Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which does take account of such factors. While a historical GDP chart for the US shows general ongoing growth up to the present (GDP correlates closely with energy consumption), GPI calculations show a peak around 1980 followed by a slow decline.12 If we as a society are going to adjust agreeably to lower rates of energy flow — and less travel and transport — with minimal social disruption, we must begin paying more attention to the seeming intangibles of life and less to GDP and the apparent benefits of profligate energy use.