Dire outlook

Of Gasoline and Gardens: A Look at the Future

Modern industrial society runs on oil and its derivative, gasoline. All the plastic or synthetic items around us, from clothing and computers to appliances and tools, are made from oil. Almost all of them were manufactured with machines that either run on oil or on electricity that was produced by oil. Each one of these items was shipped to a store — which we drove to — in vehicles that run on oil. Cheap oil and combustion engines drive our global society. They are what separate us from the person-powered, hand-hewn, land-centered life that our predecessors lived barely 100 years ago. Although many of us believe our modern lifestyles will be maintained by alternative energy sources, many experts disagree.

At the Guelph Civic League “Amazing Possibilities” conference two years ago, James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Long Emergency” and “World Made By Hand,” solemnly declared the raw, immediate power of the gasoline engine cannot be replaced by wind, solar, electricity or green fuels at the degree or volume required by our machine-driven society. In other words, we can only run at our present level with oil — cheap oil — and the days of cheap oil are over. The cost of oil and gas will continue to rise because supply is limited and demand is increasing. As the price of oil goes up, the price of everything else connected to oil goes up as well. We are holding onto a balloon that is pulling us off the ground. There is only one thing to do — let go before it’s too late.

Rising prices. Food shortages? Food riots? Rationing? Gas lines?

Closer than we realize. King Petrol must be overthrown.

Simplify. Garden. Decrease usage. Precycle. Reuse.