Triage for the post-peak oil age

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Triage for the post-peak oil age

 

Published on 14 May 2006 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 14 May 2006.

Triage for the post-peak oil age

 

by Kurt Cobb

 

When casualties overwhelm battlefield doctors, they are often forced

to sort the wounded into three groups: those who will survive without

treatment, those who will likely die even with treatment, and those

who will probably live but only with treatment. In the post-peak oil

age we will likely be faced with a similar situation in deciding which

activities a lower-energy society can support.

 

Tentatively, I propose the following triage for various broad areas:

 

1) activities that are " Expected to Make a Full Recovery, " ones that I

think will spread and intensify out of necessity,

 

2) activities labeled " Code Blue " --the medical term for emergency

treatment of heart attack patients--activities which I think may only

survive with our active intervention or which may only be available at

the level we want them to be through special efforts, and

 

3) activities labeled " Do Not Resuscitate " which are unlikely to

survive post-peak no matter how much effort we put into them. Only

" Code Blue " items are meant to indicate my preferences for a post-peak

oil world.

 

The other categories are predictions (a dangerous practice) about what

I think will and won't thrive in a low-energy society. I will

certainly miss some activities such as cheap air travel. Others such

as motorized sports, I won't. But, my preferences don't matter since

the availability and price of liquid fuels will, in my view, determine

the fate of both activities.

 

The table below is not meant to be a complete list by any means. No

doubt readers will disagree--perhaps vehemently in some cases--with my

predictions and preferences. My aim is neither to irritate nor to

prescribe, but rather to help begin a process that I believe will

become absolutely necessary. I say absolutely necessary because our

failure to recognize those activities which won't survive under any

circumstances may cause us to waste valuable (and diminishing) energy

resources on hopeless cases. That lost energy will be energy that we

cannot spend on things that we will desperately need such as wind and

solar power.

 

No one likes to choose, but choose we must if we are going to have the

future that we want (given our constraints) rather than the one that

is simply forced upon us.

 

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