Blog #3

Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller

In the first section of the book, Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller, Jeff Rubin explains why world oil supplies will not keep up with demand. The second section of the book focuses on the cause of this dilemma and how this situation will continue to worsen. Lastly, the final remarks describe how our transformed world will appear in the future.

Simply, our world is about to get a whole lot smaller in terms of where we live, how we live, and where we purchase our consumable goods. On average, the food we purchase today is transported between fifteen hundred and three thousand miles. For instance, we enjoy blueberries from Chile and lamb from New Zealand, but not for long. The transportation of this food not only consumes a tremendous amount of energy to ship it, but a huge amount of energy to maintain a cool temperature to preserve it as well. Local seasonal food will soon be the norm. The fish on the local restaurant menu will not come from the waters of Alaska, but rather the Great Lakes.

Air travel cost will exceed the average consumer. This will eliminate foreign travel but will aid economic growth for local tourist attractions. Rather than your tourists coming from Europe, they will be your local friends and neighbours. Also, suburban sprawl will diminish as gasoline prices rise to the point that it will not be affordable to drive long distances for employment. In addition, the inexpensive land once used to build affordable suburban homes, will increase in value as the demand for farmland increases.

In closing, this transformation is not all bad. What may be damaging to some economies, will be a great injection to others such as the North American manufacturers. It is imperative that we lessen the burning of fossil fuels and in turn discover an alternative for reducing our carbon foot print.