I've been thinking about studying up on survival skills. There are always tales of armageddon in the news, but lately the tales have begun to sound more probable. Something about the combination of oil shortages and global warming that gives me the creeps. Think I'll look into a nice wooded plot.
A few weeks ago there was a column in the Toronto Star about the impending oil shortage. Estimates are anywhere from 5 years to 30 years, but given the numbers I'd say it's going to happen eventually. Richard Gwynn writes:
The U.S. Energy Department reckons that this ``tilting point" won't happen until 2037. Its calculation is widely criticized, with its forecasts for increases in demand dismissed as far too conservative.
One well-known petroleum geologist, Colin Campbell, has put the tilting point at 2010, or little more than a half-decade away. Another, Kenneth Deffeys, forecasts that it will occur this year.
The basis facts are these: The entire world now both produces and consumes some 75 million barrels of oil a day. By 2015, or a decade away, demand is expected to increase by more than two-thirds, or by another 60 million barrels a day.
This extra demand simply cannot be met. We would have to find and develop the equivalent of 10 new North Sea oilfields in just a decade. Even if Iraq's oilfields are fully developed, with almost unlimited new investment and new technology, it could only produce an extra 6 million barrels, or a mere one-tenth of the amount needed.
Even Dubya has acknowledged the trend:
A bit surprisingly, President George W. Bush, himself an oil man, has actually expressed some concern about the issue. He's said, "It's becoming very clear that demand is outstripping supply."
Environmentally, an oil shortage would be a great thing. There are some 900 million cars in the world, and I'm sure taking a few of them off the road wouldn't hurt the air and water and everything else. But socially an oil shortage would mean absolute chaos. Of course the shortage will happen in stages, with gas prices skyrocketing (some say this could happen this year). So the chaos will be a sort of slow burn, not an instantaneous meltdown.
The Americans will blame the Chinese for the shortage, since China is the world's second-largest guzzler and has yet to exploit its industrial potential. Everyone else will blame America, because it is the world's number one guzzler, and unabashedly so. But the real problem is homo sapiens, not one country. Our collective stupidity and selfishness will make political expediency in solving the problem a difficult, if not impossible, task.
I figure the worst will happen during my lifetime, which gives me good reason to start learning about how to prepare a beetle for dinner with some rocks and twigs, and how to hone my defiant hillbilly voice for when the coppers try to storm my mountain cabin.
According to a recent story in The Guardian, climate change could produce far more chaos worldwide than the so-called threat of terrorism ever could.
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
It's really convenient for the Pentagon that warfare is going to define our toasty future (I don't live in Britain, so instead of a coming ice age -- sorry about your luck, GB -- I'll be basting in a Pentagon-controlled world of drought and famine). I guess we should give all our money to the people who make war, since war is what we'll be making. I mean, they know what to do in case of emergency (break glass, then break country who made the glass). How is permanent war in the future any different from the permanent war now enjoyed by most human populations?
Anyway, the point is I have some learning to do. I also need a gun. Turns out, those guys in Michigan were right. Boy, do I feel stupid.
I figure I still have at least 5 to 10 years to become a proficient marksman, and a capable hunter and fisher. I'll have to find a wooded area with food but no snakes. I don't like snakes. I'm not sure what I'll do when the bug spray wears off; I'll be totally exposed.
Can you believe The SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea is only $17 at Amazon? Why the fuck did I get an education? I could have survived on $17 for the rest of my life.
In the meantime, I should probably keep track of the emerging New World Order.
9:56:00 PM 
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