Bottom of the barrel

[dw]

by George Monbiot, The Guardian, Tuesday December 2, 2003

The oil industry is buzzing. On Thursday, the government approved the development of the biggest deposit discovered in British territory for at least 10 years. Everywhere we are told that this is a "huge" find, which dispels the idea that North Sea oil is in terminal decline. You begin to recognise how serious the human predicament has become when you discover that this "huge" new field will supply the world with oil for five and a quarter days.

Every generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our lives have been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial.

Oil itself won't disappear, but extracting what remains is becoming ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of new reserves peaked in the 1960s. Every year we use four times as much oil as we find. All the big strikes appear to have been made long ago: the 400m barrels in the new North Sea field would have been considered piffling in the 1970s. Our future supplies depend on the discovery of small new deposits and the better exploitation of big old ones. No one with expertise in the field is in any doubt that the global production of oil will peak before long.

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[ablbodyed]

1. Then why aren't we pursuing alternative....

energy? That is only one of duck-anus' crimes.
They say that they love their families. What bull...., they love money and ease and power, but screw their descendants who will have much harder lives. they say that technology will come up with something, that's their faith in capitalism. All who believe in the magic bullet RAISE THEIR HANDS.