Just the Facts :: Why Build Resilience?
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Our Investments
We used home equity as an ATM to make up for falling wages. The family home was the greatest part of our net worth. Then the real estate bubble popped, and the money dried up. (The stock market lost 50 percent, too.)
Cheap Energy
We depend on cheap energy for almost everything. Nothing yields the high return for energy invested we got from the easy-to-reach oil fields we’ve already used up.
It Takes Energy to Get Energy
A Stable Climate
As climate change escalates, weather disasters become more frequent and intense. In the past 50 years, events requiring federal aid have increased almost sixfold.
Oil
The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) says peak oil is near—when production begins an Irreversible decline, spelling the end of our oil-crazy culture. Optimists, including the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), predict rising production. But even if they’re right, the additional CO2 will accelerate climate change.
More Oil or Less Oil, We Have to Change
Kelly Shea researched and designed this fact sheet for A Resilient Community, the Fall 2010 issue of YES! Magazine. Kelly is an editorial assistant for YES! Magazine.
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The Page That Counts: Fall 2010 (with complete citations)
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SOURCES:
Investment
Flows of Funds Accounts of the United States, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, First Quarter 2010, pg. 104, Chart B.100.
Climate Stability
Declared Disasters by Year, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2010.
Cheap Energy
“Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil,” American Scientist, Charles A. S. Hall, Vol. 97, May-June 2009, pg. 236, Figure 10.
Recent Applications of Energy Return on Investment, The Oil Drum, David J. Murphy, 2009.
Oil
EIA prediction:
International Energy Outlook, Energy Information Administration, 2009, pg. 22, Table 3.
ASPO prediction:
Summary of Oil and Gas Depletion, The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, World Production and Non-Conventional Production original data charts courtesy of Colin Campbell, Nov. 2008.
CO2 levels:
IPCC Third Assessment Report: Climate Change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001, Annex II.
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