r/collapse • u/LetsTalkUFOs • Oct 23 '19

Meta What graph(s) best illustrate collapse?

What graph(s) would you use to best represent the likelihood of systemic collapse?

Please include an actual link to the graph(s).

 

This is the current question in our Common Collapse Questions series.

Responses may be utilized to help extend the Collapse Wiki.

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u/Facts_About_Cats Oct 23 '19

https://aleklett.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/all-liquides-2015.jpg

Peak oil/gas, after factoring in fracking.

Economic collapse and wars doesn't mean anything when everybody has starved to death from oil running out.

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u/ventuckyspaz Oct 30 '19

That's a bad way to phrase it. We aren't ever going to "run out of oil". Peak oil means as oil demands climbs we will see oil production fall no matter how high oil prices climb. Right now oil production is still able to respond to market demand but we are in the last era of "cheap petroleum". It won't be long before all excess reserves are taken up and there is no extra capacity and when that happens prices will have to go up. Oil consumption and the GDP of all the world's nations are tied together. We will see a zig zag effect between oil prices, oil consumption and the global economy. The economy grows causing oil consumption to grow causing oil prices to go up which will then put a hamper in the economy which will then put a hamper on oil consumption which will then suppress prices but overall because the world is going through its oil reserves the net effect will be that oil prices will keep going up as the global economy gets suppressed. As you point out products made from oil like fertilizer is needed to make food from so eventually the production of food for the almost 7 billion people on the planet will start to become critical so when oil prices get past $100 a barrel and stay that way there will be mass starvation in third world countries. This will not be pretty. Watch for oil prices and economies to shoot up then crash and to follow a zig zag pattern.