Oil prices keep rising at an ever increasing rate, causing hardship amongst those who can least afford it.
The rate of discovery has been falling since 1964. Other replacements such as oil shale are not up filling the gap of cheap oil. Many claim there is no shortage, meanwhile demand from newly industrialised countries such as East Asia is increasing rapidly outstripping supply.
Time is running out for planned change to renewable and sustainable energy sources, soon we will have restrictions on growth forced upon us. This means working people will likely go without essentials of food and transport, some countries may experience large scale hunger. We saw in the 1970s oil shocks, and the recession that followed. Thatcher Regan and Douglas' answers were to put the blow torch to the belly of the workers, forcing wages down to reinvigorate bosses profits. Prices of oil came down in the 80s and 90s, but wages never returned to their previous highs. Now Bollard is suggesting that workers again take a cut in their standard of living to save the failing oil based economy. But this time they aren't so lucky and there's no return to $10 a barrel of the 1990s, the current thinking in the west that oil will be in plentiful supply until the year 2050 is a pipe dream, the government fiddles while the world burns "
