Friday night is date night here at the Feddersen household. Last date night (warning, the following details of our crazy, debauched night life might not be suitable for all audiences) Jennifer brought home a video called "A Crude Awakening". ACA is about peak oil, a topic that fascinates me. The film talks at length about whether we have either hit that point in history or whether we soon will and what we will do as we start to use up the remaining half of the oil left on the planet. I've been thinking about peak oil for a couple of years now. Questions like what will happen when the six billion people on the planet become nine and we can no longer feed six holds a grim fascination for me. Is there any other way to grow enough food for those of us on the planet when cheap petroleum based fertilizers and cultivation tools are no longer available? Will cheap airplane travel become a thing of the past along with all of the things that go with it like fresh pineapples jetted in to northern climates? Will we collapse in on each other as we scrap over decreasing resources in an over-populated world? Will resource rich but militarily weak countries such as Canada become targets - see what's happening with the Northwest Passage and the increased Russian presence near Norwegian oil fields in the North Sea for hints about how that might play out. Or will we all become some kind of peaceful agrarian society peddling our bikes around villages and living local lives but with all of the neat things we have invented?
As a father and somebody who cares deeply about this topic and about what will happen to our planet if the global warming folks are correct I think a lot about this topic. I would like to write a simulator that allows people play with variables and have meaningful discussions about what the next 100 years have in store for the planet and all of the living creatures upon it. I'm not sure I can write such a thing - individual simulators about things like rising oceans are one thing but a simulator that encompasses all of it and further makes it into a balanced game... well if any of y'all are capable of writing such a thing then please drop a line when it's done. I'd love to play it.
style: inset; border-color: black black black black;
border-width: 3px;
background-color: #000000">
