Why are we wasting time?

Any investment in further increasing our dependence on oil is a not only a foolish waste of resources and time but increases the impact on our society when the crunch shows up. As posted earlier, the amount of energy required to pump dwindling reserves is increasing, from 100:1 in the 1930's to 11:1 today. That's 11 barrels delivered for every barrel spent chasing it. This is referred to as EROI, energy return on energy invested, and as David Murphy says over on The Oil Drum;

"Declining EROI means that the net energy contained in each unit of energy delivered to society is decreasing over time, requiring the extraction of increasingly greater quantities just to meet societal demand, decreases the quantity of energy remaining in the ground for future society, makes it more difficult to find and develop the remaining bit of energy. With every barrel we pull out of the ground we propel ourselves further down this path, creating a more difficult situation for future generations."

According to Lester Brown on The Oil Drum;

"Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year."

So why are wasting time? Why am I? Why are you?
Why are we waiting for government to do something about this? It is not likely to happen until they, the government, see us doing something about it first. So.....

Start a transition initiative to get yourself and your community off of the oil addiction turntable.

Walk, ride a bike, use public transport.

Convert your house to use renewable energy.

Grow your own food.

Find an occupation that is not dependent on fossil fuels.

Invest in resilience not in consumerism.

The scale of change required is huge. The sooner we get started the more likely we will succeed. Do something to make a difference.