Since the day that Edwin Drake discovered oil in Pennsylvania and Henry Ford found a way for us to consume it on a large commerical scale, the fate of America has grown more and more intertwined with oil through its habitual use. In America today, oil has become the prime mover behind everything we do (automotives, roadways, construction, chemicals such as fertilizer, farming machinery, plastics, drugs, the list goes on and on because wherever energy is consumed oil is there).

To let our civilization so blithely pursue oil with ever increasing demand for so long, knowing that it could be a limited resource is trully irresponsible.

To project military power across the globe in pursuit of oil based on a fundamentally unsustainable relationship with a potentially limited resource is criminal!

The future is hydrogen, synthesized from sunlight. The sooner we move onto this path the better. Just imagine what could have been done if we had taken the billions we are currently spending on the Irag War and Iraq reconstruction and put it constructively into the development of hydrogen fuel. This new future depends on whether the representatives of oil release their grip on the political power they hold in Washington.

The absurdity of it all boggles the mind !

History is replete with examples of the sort of cycle we are seeing now. A civilization would establish, prosper on abundant natural resource, use up those natural resources, decline into periods of intense conflict and warfare, then die out. Where are we in the cycle? Probably somewhere between prosperity and decline.

I don't think the human race will die out completely. But we will have great difficulties and we will be thinned out like a garden vegetable unless we achieve a sustainable, respectful relationship with planet Earth.

This is a fundamental issue.

Bill,

I agree 100%. The implications of "peak oil" are mind-numbing; within 50 years or so, the "non-negotiable" easy-motoring American way of life will be over.

I've been reading James Howard Kunstler, Matthew Simmons, Matt Savinar, Michael Ruppert and others. I highly recommend the DVD "The End of Suburbia" to everyone here at Propeace.

If nothing else, "peak oil" helps explain the rash behavior of Bush, Cheney and the neocons who engineered our now perpetual war in Iraq.

This is first and foremost a resource war. Just yesterday the stats came out: the US had its highest ever trade deficit, over $66 billion, and that was mostly about imported oil. America is currently importing 80% of the oil we consume.

If you feel the least bit charitable to Bush/Cheney, you will see that the war was a bungled attempt to ensure the US has a share of the remaining middle east oil, despite their rhetoric to the contrary.

For the sake of future generations, we need to raise the collective consciousness of PO, as this will surely be the single biggest hardship for future generations.

Artie