This week I heard an interview of Jeremy Rifkin on the CBC. He recently wrote a book entitled
The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis.
For those of you who don't know, Rifkin is a high-level adviser for both U.S. public policy and the EU with regard to a number of issues (see below).
One of his claims: peak oil prices are to blame for the economic crisis. When oil peaked at $147/barrel, the current world economic system started grinding to a halt until the prices dropped again.
He coins the term "peak globalization," which refers to the situation where, back in the '70s, if we were to divide up all the oil reserves equally to everyone on the planet, this equal share would have hit its highest value. The problem? The population is growing faster than oil reserves. As time goes on, we have less oil available to us per capita. This is different from "peak oil theory," and I think it's more significant, and it helps explain what happened when oil hit its peak price and the markets recoiled.
He explains this and more in this fascinating speech he conducted at Google:
To go into his ultimate position here would take too much, so I suggest simply watching the video and maybe commenting on what strikes you.
Also, have a look at this:
Energy and Our Future | Jeff Rubin: Oil Prices Caused the Current Recession
You will see a chart showing the correlation between oil prices spiking and global recessions. Jeff Rubin is another interesting figure on the topic of oil and our future. He used to be a high-up economist for a major bank in Canada before he quit to publish and promote his book
Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization.
Both of these guys are making similar claims: the world as we know it must/will change, and this change is rooted in oil and how we use it.
Rubin's claims include oil reaching $200/barrel (his many economic predictions have come true, with a few exceptions). When this happens, he sees globalization collapsing and localized industries taking shape, i.e. no more glut of cheap Chinese imports.
It's not peak oil we should worry about; it's peak globalization.
- What do you think of all this?
- Do you believe globalization is at risk?
- Do you think we, as a species, are capable of mass change to accommodate these predicted challenges?
- What out of all of this strikes you the most?
- Are they as interconnected as they seem?
- Do you have anything else to add?
Do you see the end of our current industrial age and the ushering in of the Third Industrial Revolution (Rifkin)?