This week’s Speaker’s Forum* speaker was Jeff Rubin, a Canadian Economist and expert on peak oil. Despite his prediction that peak oil will hit us next year, he seems much more relaxed than most who speak about peak oil. He claims several factors will actually help our economy. Although we won’t be able to afford to drive anywhere, we also won’t be able to ship goods from China – meaning that we have to produce these goods here, creating jobs. Of course our dollar will be worth much less, but we’ll probably survive.
When asked about how to get leaders to start caring about rail and mass transit he’s again very calm – he just doesn’t expect them to do anything until gas is $7 a gallon, but either now or later they’ll come around to mass transit. Rough quote: “Once people start giving up their cars and stand around waiting for a bus but no bus comes, it isn’t long before representatives will start getting phone calls.” Of course it’ll be much less painful if we start preparing now…
* I highly recommend subscribing to the free podcast. They have an in-depth hour long topic each week which is generally recorded at Town Hall.
Nice summary Matt. As Winston Churchill is purported to have said, “Americans always do the right thing… after they’ve exhausted every other option.”
Awesome, we’ll probably survive.
I really love Speaker’s Forum. My only complaint is that they often have the same people as SPL, but I guess that’s the way book tours work.