Prologue - The Age of Consequences (3-4)

A Chronicle of the Age of Consequences ___________________________________ iii

bridges between ranchers, environmentalists and others around practices that improved land health, had taught me a fair amount about the topic. But Mr. Gore's documentary raised my anxiety level tenfold. The specter of melting glaciers, disappearing sea ice, vanishing species, expanding deserts and falling quality-of-life for humans as a result of global warming was sobering, to say the least.

My anxiety deepened as I contemplated the movie's unsatisfactory conclusion - that small steps, such as changing light bulbs or inflating car tires, were considered appropriate remedies to rising planetary temperatures. To my mind, they seemed extraordinarily puny. Rather than fostering a hopeful feeling, these 'solutions' suggested instead that we are in a deep box from which there is no easy escape.

I knew that Mr. Gore's documentary was controversial in some quarters. Skeptics of global warming included highly credentialed scientists, for example, and there was (and still is) considerable debate among researchers about the fine line between natural and man-made "forcings" of climate change. But I wasn't sure this debate mattered much anymore. The critical issue, I realized that sunny afternoon, is the emerging consensus that Business-As-Usual means serious trouble for us and the planet.

An image came to mind: a bright warning light - in the shape of a thermometer - shining in the dashboard of a speeding vehicle called Civilization, accompanied by an insistent, and annoying, buzzing sound. And like all warning lights, I thought to myself as Gen and I crossed the parking lot, we ignore it at our peril.

Actions have consequences, as Mr. Gore made abundantly clear. Greenhouse gases, created by a century of intense industrial

The Age of Consequences ______________________________________________ iv

activity, have become important agents in climate change. But inaction has consequences too. The planet is approaching a climatic tipping point, many scientists insist, which when crossed could threaten life as we know it. As a result, we face a great "moral crisis," as the former vice-president put it, especially when we consider the consequences of our behavior for future generations. We need to get busy, and quickly.

I didn't dispute the call-to-arms. I knew the warning light wasn't going to turn itself off. Still, my take-away message from the movie was a bit different than what Mr. Gore intended: we're in a pickle of our own making.

That's because I knew climate change wasn't the only warning light demanding attention. Two months earlier, while traveling on business to New York City, I picked up James Kunstler's best- selling book The Long Emergency, which tackled a different aspect of our modern predicament whose effects were no less troublesome: the imminent arrival of peak oil.

Here's what I learned: In the years since the first oil derrick went up in western Pennsylvania in 1859, the world has burned up approximately one-half of all known oil reserves. This is a critical fact because not only is petroleum a finite, non-renewable resource of incalculable value to human well-being, it has become the lifeblood of all industrialized economies. So when the halfway mark is reached - its 'peak' - and production begins an inevitable decline this lowering of our collective 'blood pressure' will make us dizzy and lead to all sorts of trouble. That's because there is no adequate substitute for energy-rich, easy-to-produce, easy-to-transport, safe-to-use oil. All other energy sources, including