I revisited an Allan Gregg clip with guest Jeff Rubin. It's from 2009 though I never commented on it at the time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhsMr49AKM8
Rubin was touring his book "Oil and the End of Globalization". If you haven't heard about it or read it....Wait. It's not all bad news. Rubin is actually optimistic the end of cheap oil does not mean the end of society. Not by a long shot. Though things will change.
Here's a quick synopsis: Much higher oil prices along with possible carbon taxes may force the end of shipping many manufactured goods around the world. It's cheap to do it at the moment because of current low fuel prices.
So what does this mean? Not to worry though. This simply could mean we'll actually start getting serious as a society to do what we know we need to do; such as revisiting quality mass transit; localized manufacturing again which of course means jobs and skills, and an emphasis on sustainable energy and sustainable everything else.
Think of a 1950's lifestyle combining a smaller carbon footprint, but with a futuristic edge, and (maybe less cars, unless we can get all electric cars to run on and store solar energy, etc.)
Also, as an economist he explains a direct correlation between high oil prices and how it effectively creates slow growth in the marketplace. In order to have a sustainable market without dips (recessions), we need to get away from using oil as a mode of transportation.
This is why using oil to access natural gas as in shale gas fracking (once all external costs are accounted for including the cost of maintaining roadway infrastructures for trucking, carbon emission allocations for venting ((off-gassing) which there is none at the moment), replacing and trucking contaminated well water, site clean-up, natural habitat destruction, increased air pollution and ground water toxicities and accompanying medical costs for local citizens, etc) then we begin an honest cost analysis of natural gas extraction and understand this is a non-feasible way of doing business.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhsMr49AKM8
Rubin was touring his book "Oil and the End of Globalization". If you haven't heard about it or read it....Wait. It's not all bad news. Rubin is actually optimistic the end of cheap oil does not mean the end of society. Not by a long shot. Though things will change.
Here's a quick synopsis: Much higher oil prices along with possible carbon taxes may force the end of shipping many manufactured goods around the world. It's cheap to do it at the moment because of current low fuel prices.
So what does this mean? Not to worry though. This simply could mean we'll actually start getting serious as a society to do what we know we need to do; such as revisiting quality mass transit; localized manufacturing again which of course means jobs and skills, and an emphasis on sustainable energy and sustainable everything else.
Think of a 1950's lifestyle combining a smaller carbon footprint, but with a futuristic edge, and (maybe less cars, unless we can get all electric cars to run on and store solar energy, etc.)
Also, as an economist he explains a direct correlation between high oil prices and how it effectively creates slow growth in the marketplace. In order to have a sustainable market without dips (recessions), we need to get away from using oil as a mode of transportation.
This is why using oil to access natural gas as in shale gas fracking (once all external costs are accounted for including the cost of maintaining roadway infrastructures for trucking, carbon emission allocations for venting ((off-gassing) which there is none at the moment), replacing and trucking contaminated well water, site clean-up, natural habitat destruction, increased air pollution and ground water toxicities and accompanying medical costs for local citizens, etc) then we begin an honest cost analysis of natural gas extraction and understand this is a non-feasible way of doing business.
