They'll be talking about the high price of food

This is a quote by Richard Heinberg from "Oil, Smoke and Mirrors". I mentioned this very informative video in my last post as well as the quote in its complete context. Here is the complete quote by Richard.

• "And yet people won't be talking about the Oil Peak. They'll be talking about the unemployment figures. They'll be talking about the high price of food. They’ll be talking about the fact that you can’t get on an airliner and travel any more because all the airline industry has collapsed. There are only a few carriers still in business, and the tickets are astronomically expensive. They’ll be talking about the latest war or terrorist incident. And they will have completely lost sight of the one event that caused all those effects."

Also note this quote from Colin Campbell.

• "They're going to have to wipe out just mountains of capital."

And one more from Richard Heinberg.

• "Peak Oil could, in fact, mean wide spread hunger and even famine on a global scale if we don't prepare for it."

I mention these quotes because they contain the clues I watch for in the news that indicate the impacts of Peak Oil are happening. The video was produced in 2006, but I've known about the virtually insurmountable impacts of Peak Oil since 2002. In 2006, the US economy was doing just fine even though many people were not. Housing prices were going up. The Stock market was going up. Everything was just hunky dory. But then I watched "Oil, Smoke and Mirrors". That quote hit me like a ton of bricks. The MSM was never going to seriously talk about Peak Oil. The Government was never going to acknowledge Peak Oil. The good citizens of the US were never going to talk about Peak Oil. But they will be talking about the beginning effects of Peak Oil. So I watched and listened. Nothing...for about a year. I breathed a sigh of relief because everything was still, you know, hunky dory. I knew Peak Oil was real and that we needed to start addressing the issue twenty years ago, but maybe we had time.

But then I started hearing echos of the above quotes. Because of the Housing/Credit crisis there have been billions of dollars written off. That's the mountains of capital Colin mentioned. Unemployment is rising at a frightening rate. The price of food is skyrocketing. There are food riots in the poorer economies. Still, the West seemed to be plugging along. Then yesterday I found this headline in the news.

• Britain urging return to wartime food frugality

with the subtitle

• Families urged to cut food waste to combat rising global prices

Peak Oil is here. Peak Oil is now. There is one undeniable truth about people. They can be very unpleasant when they're hungry. They are deadly when they are starving.