Letters to the Editor
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What is our response?
Andrew, your point is a very good one, but it bears remembering that what's really important is not necessarily the shortage itself, but our response to those shortages.
Shortages of oil (e.g. "Peak Oil") have been the main focus of the shortage discussion, at least for people keyed in on this topic, but of course oil is necessary for food, and it supplies energy for manufacturing and productivity. So a shortage of cheap, available oil ultimately leads to other shortages.
How we will respond to this? The track record of the American government is not a good one. To date, our response has been "plan world conquest to seize control of remaining oil assets." Hence the invasion of Iraq and our hate-affair with Venezuela.
At what point does America wake up and realize that we need a new type of response to these questions of Malthusian proportions?
I read on the New York Sun today that there are food shortages in Northern California -- are people so out of it, so tuned out to the problems of the world that they will literally have to starve before they start asking what's going on?