My father rode a camel...

With all this coercion, anonymity and stressful malaise it is perhaps surprising that humans are not slaughtering themselves en-masse from the sheer despair of it all. Suicide barbecues, sponsored hangings and the ropeless bungee should be all the rage. It comes as no surprise to me that those who actually do have the inclination to kill themselves often display an objective view of life and the circumstances in which they live. Feelings of isolation, loneliness and hopelessness about the world and the future are often real and well founded. Drugs are of course available for 'correction' of cognitive anomolies but does this treatment merely amount to enforced anaesthesia for those who have strayed cognitively too close to the hard realities of our era? What does this say for the rest of us. If the suicidal are sane then what illusion of reality do the rest of us subscribe to, and where will it lead us?

People commonly exist in a state of inexplicable restlessness. We bounce from one dose of social anaesthetic to another - the perceived solutions to our apparent aimlessness. The new car, the shiny digital all singing all dancing sound system, the bigger house, the smaller nose, the world odyssey - these irrelevancies fill our heads to the point where there is no room for contemplation of anything beyond. Except maybe Jordan's bizarre tits or where the next bridging loan is coming from. We hover along on little bubbles of stress and nonsense and become so conditioned to the mental static that we are uncomfortable without it. People get home and turn on the TV before they take off their jacket - for a bit of company - and sit mesmerised until bed time. We exist (the normal people) in a waking trance. Stimulated at every turn by marketeers and advertisers offering the next great progression to our miraculous suburban lives. Striving for what we 'need' and 'want' and being constantly disappointed when we get it. What if we didn't have a head full of shite. Would we notice that the way of life we support and the goals we strive for will ultimately ruin not only our own species but more than likely every other species and possibly the planet itself? What will life be like in ten or twenty years time? Well - just like Jordan, life in the future looks set to get very very ugly.

This rant is not general. We are arriving (have arrived?) at a pivotal point in human history. In 1859 a bloke called Drake drilled a hole in Pensylvania and out spewed a lot of black stuff. Soon it became clear that this marvelous black gold could be used for a diversity of purposes, from cheap clean-burning lamps to lubrication for bigger, faster-running industrial machinery. Within a few years Pensylvania and Ohio had been drilled full of holes and emptied of oil. Exploration stepped up and new discoveries kept the momentum of industrialisation rolling, though there were brief periods of panic when supply appeared to be running dry. This anxiety was ended by the discovery of the monster fields of Texas. As the world entered the 20th century industrialisation entered a phase of exponential growth; Ford pioneered the large scale production line and a couple of brothers turned man's dream of flying to reality with the arrival of the internal combustion engine. A mere 66 years later, oil fuelled progress landed a man on the moon despite the fact the world had suffered the two most destructive wars in history and a huge financial depression. In the 50's oil was superabundant and optimism for the future widespread.

There was however a very small but very insistent voice warning against the wholesale embrace of an oil driven economy. It belonged to M. King Hubbert who after years of experience in geology and oil exploration had come up with a mathematical model describing two phenomena. Oil discovery rates and oil production rates. Hubbert proposed that the rate of oil discovery would begin slowly, increase rapidly and reach a plateau (or peak) from where it would follow a similar descent to zero discovery. A parabolic 'bell curve'. He also concluded (logically) that oil production would follow an identical curve offset by a number of years from the discovery data. Using his model Hubbert predicted (in 1956) that US oil production would peak between 1966 and 1972. Those in power and in the industry were dismissive to say the least. In 1970 the US reached an output of 11.3 million barrels per day (mbd), a figure which has never again been reached and never will be. Soon afterwards the US became a net importer of oil - they were no longer self-sufficient. This meant they had to court the Arabians who now held the majority of proven oil reserves. When the Arabians enforced an oil embargo against the US in 1973-4 (for US support of Israel in the Yom Kippur conflict wih Egypt and Syria) the results were instantaneous and severe. The price of oil shot up, panic buying ensued at the pumps and the US and world economy went into a lengthy recession. The Saudis eventually brought supply back on line and maintained the price around $20 per barrel for the next 20 years by carefully regulating the amount of oil on the market. They concluded that a faltering world economy was not in their best interests - an expanding world economy meant steady business and a steady flow of dollars to the pockets of the 30,000 al-Saud sheiks who recieved between $19,000 and $275,000 per month as an allowance.

Subscribers to Hubbert's peak oil principle point out that the problems will not begin when the last drop of oil is sucked from the ground - rather they will begin to manifest themselves almost immediately after the high point of world oil production is reached. Current estimates place peak production between 2005 and 2008. It is possible we have already passed the peak or are currently experiencing it. Discovery rates have been declining since their peak in the 60's and 2003 marked the first year since 1859 that no major (over 500mb) oil discoveries were made. By Hubbert's model it is only a question of time before peak oil becomes reality. The recent inability of OPEC (Oil producing exporting countries) to turn up the rate of production to steady world oil prices suggests that Arabian supplies have been overstated - a practice not uncommon in the industry as was seen with the Shell fiasco in late 2004. The Saudi's, through their state oil company Aramco, have claimed proven reserves of 260 billion barrels, largely contained in the monster Ghawar field. American geologists who were present when the field was discovered estimated it to contain 130 billion barrels. The Saudis are currently pumping sea water into the well at a massive 7 mbd to maintain pressure. The oil which is coming out is mixed with up to 55% sea water. This does not sound like a resource capable of satisfying and regulating world oil consumption far into the future.

We had 2 trillion (2,000 billion) barrels of oil reserves to begin with. We have used around 900 billion barrels. These were the easiest to extract and of the highest quality. At current consumption levels this means there is enough oil left for 37 years. However, the remaining billion barrels is tied up in shale or inhospitable areas which are not economically viable. If the energy expended to extract a barrel of oil is more than the cost of a barrel the exercise is obviously futile. It is therefore unlikely that man will ever extract all the oil the earth contains and far more likely that economic meltdown and global resource wars will be the order of the day for the current and following generations. Indeed, the unlawful and desperate invasion of Iraq may be seen in hindsight as the opening encounter of the Last World War. The behaviour of the Arab nations is critical in the coming years - an Arab nation run by an anti-western Islamic autocracy is not beyond the bounds of reason. The US is expending vast resources in maintaining a presence in the region - an expense the American electorate and treasury cannot tolerate indefinitely. If the Arabian peninsual and its natural resources do indeed fall into 'unfriendly' hands another piece of Arab wisdom may prove to be true. The proverb says:

"My father rode a camel, I drive a Rolls Royce and my son flies a jet plane. His son will ride a camel."

And this only in the best of all possible scenarios.

Obrigado Jose para o inspiracao!