In Reply to: Factor in the disproportionate amount of automobile use in the USA. posted by oscar on June 6, 2007 at 10:47:24:
There's a big debate going on in the Peak Oil community about what the optimal location is to survive and thrive in a post-peak world. Some say rural, for access to food. Some say rural villages, with food a bit further away but more people to supply services. Some say urban because the concentration of people, goods and services makes distribution and access more efficient. I think it depends on how far down the curve we fall. If we fall a bit, we might readjust our lives to make cities optimal. Fall a bit further, and villages become optimal because you can't get enough food into cities. Fall further, and it's every man for himself out on the farm raising spuds and setting rabbit traps. Obviously, the level of urbanization that remains optimal will vary from country to country. I'd expect large cities to remain optimal longer in North America than in Africa, for example.
One of the food problems we may face as well as distribution is the loss of farming knowledge. In the 1900s 50% to 70% of the North American population was engaged in agriculture either directly or indirectly. Now it's about 2% thanks to the leverage afforded by fossil fuels. If we need to increase the human inputs into agriculture again, we'll have a very hard time reconstituting the knowledge - especially if the decline in fossil fuels is fairly rapid (i.e. over 4% per year).
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Culture shock won't kill you, food shortages will. - GliderGuider 06/6/0711:36:28 06/6/07 (5)
- I light a cigarette post-peak, GG. - Jim Pearce 11:49:50 06/6/07 (0)
- I expect Resource wars will accomplish a lot of the "necessary culling". - oscar 11:43:38 06/6/07 (3)
- They may not be enough. - GliderGuider 12:26:07 06/6/07 (0)
- The serious resource wars will be fought over water oscar. - Jim Pearce 12:03:06 06/6/07 (0)
- A good argument for - piece-it pete 12:01:37 06/6/07 (0)