Whats in store?

Well lets get down to business.
In the next few posts I will be setting the agenda, making a few fun predictions and showing some charts to set the scene.

First, I should explain how I began to get so caught up in this interest.
The first time I began to question the exsisting "cornicopian" view of resources was back in Geography class. Different teachers would make mention of exponential population numbers, and also of limited resources with XX number of years remaining. Some of those teachers would make brief mention of these facts together as if to suggest that something bad might be around the corner - but without actually saying much about it. It always seemed to me that the combination of these two trends ought to be causing some concern in the big wide world - yet everyone seemed blissfully unaware. That was about 20 years ago...

When I moved to the USA my jaw dropped. I suppose it was no secret that in the UK we have some steep sales taxes - especially on fuel. But when I saw the prices of fuel and the way people behaved with it in the US, I was a little shaken. The population in the UK is about 60 million, in the US its around 300 Million. To find this many people consuming energy in what could only be described as an orgy of waste, lets say that was enlightening.

As I settled in I started to become more and more American, caring less about what I consumed. Occasionally academics or media commentators would talk about resources and a rebuttal was always made by an economist. Economists have typically approached resources with the cornicopian model. This model tells us that technology always finds a way to extract resources more efficiently, and to exploit them more fully (leave less in the ground). In effect nothing ever runs out, we either keep finding more, of we find something even better.

Another phrase you'll hear is "the stone age didnt end due to lack of stones". This analogy tells us that we should simply expect something better to come along, and not worry about the supply/demand constraints.

Another side hobby of mine has been to observe differences between my old home in Europe and my new home. Everywhere I looked, EVERYWHERE that I found differences between the UK and the US I find a connection with energy prices.

Some things you might not connect? Obesity, Home prices and Climate to name a few. Ah shucks I just mentioned climate. Its worth noting early on that will not talk a whole lot about climate change. Frankly I think the other issue outweigh climate change. I dont think theres much to talk about with climate change. If its true, the world gets a bit hotter, the sea levels rise a bit, some things change a bit. The extent and the true cause of the changes appear to be the cause of a great deal of debate. I will blog my full opinion on the matter some day but thats not the real reason for this effort.

So understand the effects of energy prices has been a bit of a side hobby of mine. Trying to make sense of it all is possible, but we will need to look at some charts and graphs. And occasionally to spice things up we will talk about things like food prices, water, vegetarians and some others things.

We will also talk about what might be done as a solution, what life might be like in the future and make some predictions which we refer back to later.