What? Almost double the price in 6 - 8 months? Get outta here.
And a one and a two...
Okay, it’s not impossible. Stranger things have happened.
People have crossed Canada in a Smartcar. A group of friends have written close to 1,000 posts in less than 18 months at Four Mugs and a Crock - without a Crock for many months. The Crock is now in Papua New Guinea. G. W. Bush became President of the USA. After six weeks in the bottle my home brew now tastes better than conventional beer.
But I’m not willing to say - today - that oil will go that high. (The last 3 barrels? Maybe.)
I am willing to agree, however, with experts and observers who say that our lives will change on nearly every level IF... IF... oil reaches $250 per barrel (pb).
(E.g. Richard Worzel, financial analyst, author and futurist says, “You can pick any aspect of our lives and it (i.e. oil at $250 pb) would change it significantly.")
It just strikes me very funny that we wouldn’t change and live sustainably until almost every process and product is priced to the sky.
[My home brew does taste better than conventional beer. How did I not know this?]
For example:
Worzel said that fresh produce in the winter would be costly and difficult to come by.
So, it never occurred to anyone in the past while poking a tomato from Florida, California or Guatemala - as tough as a scuffed up rugby ball - that its long trip on a gas guzzling truck wasn’t worth the price? By half?
And it never dawned on anyone that supporting local produce growers was a whole lot better for us in the long run?
No?
I don’t agree with that either.
(Stay tuned for more $250 questions.)
.
4 comments:
Spiking oil prices are giving me a great baseline to explain supply-demand curves to our eldest son.
The corollary of the current global economic turmoil is that the last 20 years of cheap, dirty, non-renewable energy resulted in behaviours that are entirely inconsistent with sustainability.
True costs remained invisible in the age of cheap oil. Now, the cost impact of energy on all sorts of societal activities are suddenly visible. On the surface, it hurts. But it's been inevitable since the end of the last energy crisis from which we apparently learned...nothing.
One imagines where we'd be if our leaders had had the foresight to invest in alternative energy following the first energy shock. One imagines where we'd be if we had demanded more of our leaders to do just that.
I guess I'll be riding my bike to my interview tomorrow morning. Good thing the camera shot will only be shoulders-up. They'll see my shirt, tie and blazer, but will totally miss the cargo shorts and sandals.
carmi,
we now may be getting closer to paying the true cost of extracting, distributing and burning fossil fuels; the planet (incl. everything and everyone on it) has subsidized fuel costs with its own health and stamina for 200 years.
(i intend to borrow part of your comment to include in a future post.)
hope you enjoyed your bike ride this morning.
many years ago Lloyd Robinson of CTV News went from one studio to another after his evening report and, as a talk show guest apologized for his manner of dress; shirt, tie, sports jacket - baggy, comfortable pants. In my opinion - a perfect match.
gord h.
Nice post Gord. I am also very skeptic about 250 dollars per barrel. I listened to some prestigious US economist on EconTalk and according to his opinion it is just a result of supply and demand. And I think it is impossible that demand could be so much higher in 8 months. And also supply is still higher. Producers are still introducing new and new places with huge resources of crude oil. Since I am working as a realtor I’ve experienced the same situation with Toronto condos. But the final state was far away from expectation.
re comment from toronto realtor;
supply and demand is a tricky business; is Saudi Arabia willing to bump up supply when they can charge the sky for what's under the ground?
and will demand steadily climb, even faster than supply, as China and India produce and then sell millions of cars at under $3,000 each for their new middle class?
$250 oil? nothing is impossible, unless we're talking getting back into my size 30 jeans now that I've stopped marathoning.
gh
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