Crisis: Peak Oil

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis.

The debate over exactly when we will reach "peak oil" is irrelevant. No matter what new oil fields we discover, global oil production will start declining in 2030 at the very latest.

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Global oil demand will collapse next year and commodities will not return to the highs they reached this summer in the foreseeable future, two authoritative reports said on Tuesday as they forecast a long and painful worldwide recession.

Americans are finding options where there seemed to be none. They're ready to change -- and waiting for their infrastructure to catch up. They are driving to commuter-rail lines only to find there are no parking spots left. They are running fewer errands and dumping their SUVs. Public-transit use is at a 50-year high. Gas purchases are down 2% to 3%. And all those changes bring secondary, hard-earned benefits.

Western countries have upgraded the food and fuel crisis into a national security concern as they fear record high energy and agriculture commodity costs are destabilising key developing regions of the world.

“Ten years ago I could never have imagined I’d be doing this,” says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. “I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to -- especially the ones coming out of business school -- this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into.” He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs -- very, very small ones -- so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woodchips or wheat straw, they do something extraordinary. They excrete crude oil.

Are we living in the last century of our civilization? Is it possible that all of our technology, knowledge and wealth cannot save us from ourselves? Could our society actually be heading towards collapse? According to many of the world's top scientists, the answer is yes, unless we take action now.

Oil prices made their biggest single-day leap ever Friday -- clearing $139, dragging the Dow Jones industrials down nearly 400 points and raising the once-unthinkable prospect of $150 oil and even higher gas prices by the Fourth of July.

In scanning the array of potential disasters that are rapidly headed our way I could only identify one response that was broad, deep, and inspired enough to deal with the cascading problems that are building steam and headed our way. And that was to figure out a way to help as many people as possible raise their level of consciousness as fast as possible. Specifically, that meant finding ways to accelerate personal growth, deepen our sense of connectedness (to one another, the rest of life, and the divine), and, eventually, begin to tap into the magical power of collective intelligence...