Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller
By: Jeff Rubin
Published: May 19, 2009
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0-307-35751-9
Publisher: Random House Canada
"Cheap oil gives us access to a pretty big world", writes economist Jeff Rubin in his prophetic and eye opening book Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. Unfortunately, writes the author, the days of cheap oil are about to end, and as a result, that big world is going to become smaller. Because of a fundamental mismatch between a decreasing supply of oil, and its ever growing demand, globalization is about to shrink to a more locally based economy.
Jeff Rubin makes clear that the world economy is fueled by cheap oil. As the global flow of oil is about to face severe shortages due to peak oil, national and global GNP will shrink. The current oil fields are facing serious depletion, and new oil sources are either very expensive to produce, or too small to replace the depleted oil fields of the world. Dreams of replacing freely flowing crude with oil sands, offshore drilling, and ethanol are doomed to failure. Not only are new discoveries rare and limited in size, they cost vast amounts of money and energy to produce. The end result is an ever diminishing rate of return of the energy dollar investment.
Jeff Rubin (photo left) doesn't simply sound warnings of shortages and high oil priced induced recessions, but suggests that there are ways to cope with the lifestyle changes. In a high priced world, with ever increasing energy costs, the trade off of distance for local production will reverse. As transportation costs rise, the value of low wage but distant production centers will disappear. The end result will be a return of manufacturing to domestic locations to avoid ever increasing fuel prices. At the same time, personal lifestyle will adapt to less driving, smaller homes, fewer suburbs and exurbs, and more local community living.
For me, the power of the book is the no nonsense explanation of how the world runs entirely on oil. Jeff Rubin packs the book with solid explanations of why the usual solutions to the oil supply and demand imbalance won't work. The author describes as well why the current economic theory breaks down in the face of peak oil. Current concepts of the relationship between supply and demand, of price, and the effect of efficiency, fail completely in a peak oil world. In their place, Jeff Rubin offers a realistic, if difficult for many to accept, solution to the inevitable increase in oil prices. He accepts that world will shrink from a globalized one to a local and community based one, where life may be lived on a more human scale.
I highly recommend the absolutely must read book Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin, to anyone seeking to understand the true fundamentals behind peak oil and exploding oil prices in the very near future. The book is a wake up call for anyone who believes that somehow technology, new discoveries, or alternative energy will maintain the status quo global economy. Instead, the author pulls no punches in describing how none of these alleged solutions even make a tiny dent in the global appetite for oil.
Read the important book Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller by Jeff Rubin, and be forewarned about the future of oil prices in a world facing rapid oil depletion. Your world is about to get much smaller. It's crucial that you prepare for that day and make the adjustments necessary to cope and prosper in the new post peak oil smaller world.
