Ecconomic collapse, peak oil etc..?

Question

please speculate as to what the political and public situation will look like if these potential situations come to pass.

it's a huge HUGE question, but please try to put some basic facts on the table, a rough sketch of what you think is likely to happen to the planet.

if you can provide a link to a site that has info that's great also.

specifically i'm interested in what people expect from during and after such events become undeniable realities.

i'm not asking for more evidence that these problems are real, but what we will do about them if they are.

Answer 1

Well, entire books have been written to deal with this subject (I'd recommend two in particular: "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler, and "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg).

In short, here's the deal:

(1) Suburbia will literally ROT as economic contraction and the unaffordability of gasoline for long commutes makes such impossible to sustain.

(2) Air Travel will become prohibitively expensive and become a miniscule fraction of what it is today economically.

(3) There will be a large shift away from industrial agriculture as practiced in the 20th century. Farm labor will employ a much larger percentage of the populous and emphasis will grow on localization of production (i.e., Fruits and veggies grown in New Zealand or Chile will no longer be shipped to N. America & Europe).

(4) During the contraction phase, it's likely that countries like the US and China who have both large appetites for petroleum and large militaries may attempt to seize oil reserves in oil-exporting countries by force.

(5) In the US, some attempts at salvaging Suburbia will likely take the form of massive investments in unsustainable and low-EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) 'solutions' like coal-to-liquids or shale oil mining. Ultimately, it won't be enough to offset the period of cheap oil we've become accustomed to.

(6) Expect massive political and economic unrest, foremost in developing countrys and then eventually in developed ones. Actually, the developed ones actually contain the potential for greater unrest due to their lack of preparation and loss of coping mechanisms (most American's haven't a clue about how to grow food).

(7) World population will trend downward due to resource scarcity resulting from the decline in industrial agriculture and food transit worsens.

You're correct that the implications are nothing short of  massive. Almost everything we produce and consume is in some way tied to oil. It has to all change, one way or the other.