Strong Winds Hamper Calif. Fire Efforts

(CBS/AP)  The ferocious Gap Fire is still raging uncontained in southern California's Los Padres National Forest, not far from hillside homes near Goleta.

More than a thousand firefighters are hampered by wicked winds that can whip through vegetation in areas that haven't burned in up to a hundred years, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker. Hills that are bone dry are fueling these hot spots.

Up the coast, the other huge fire still rages near Big Sur. Firefighters continue to light backfires and clear brush, but so far containment is only a dream.

And as the fire creeps closer to empty resort areas, evacuees mourn the holiday weekend that wasn't.

"Now it's just getting a little too bad, too close," evacuee Brandy Ackerman told CBS News. "At night it's beautiful, but it's really scary."

So scary - and firefighters so weary - that for the first time in 30 years, the National Guard is being called in to join them on the front lines.

Guardsman Ron Camlim said, "When you call the National Guardsmen, you know, it's kind of reached a point where, okay, more help is needed than usual."

And then late yesterday, bad news in Malibu: a new fire broke out, requiring firefighting resources already stretched to the max.

All this, months before fire season 2008 was supposed to begin.


Battling The Gap Fire

Big Sur remained eerily empty under a thick blanket of fog and smoke at the start of the long holiday weekend.

No more properties were lost, but the density of the parched terrain allowed the nearly two-week-old wildfire to keep advancing on the storied tourist town, where flames were making their way toward scenic Highway 1 and sending forest creatures running toward the Pacific Ocean for cover.

Hundreds of firefighters lit controlled fires along Highway 1 in a final effort to stop the Big Sur fire from crossing the highway where many more homes and businesses are located.

"We're fighting the fire on our terms," U.S. Forest Service fire engineer Hector Sanchez said. "We're lighting it slowly, and if we see it get out of hand we'll slow it down. It's perfect conditions, we don't have winds and we have cool temperatures."

The Big Sur fire was still 5 percent contained and had consumed more than 105 square miles and 20 homes, while the Goleta fire was 14 percent contained and had destroyed about a half-dozen out buildings and more than 10 square miles.

The Los Padres blazes were two of 335 active wildfires burning in California, down from a peak of roughly 1,500 fires a few days ago, but they were commanding the greatest share of equipment and personnel because of their locations near populated areas, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

"Any time we have structures threatened and lives at risk, it's a top priority," he said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered another 200 National Guard troops to report for firefighter training at a former Air Force base in Sacramento and then working a fire in Mendocino County early next week.

When they complete the training, they will join 200 National Guard soldiers who already were deployed to build fire lines. More than 19,000 people were working to control blazes throughout the state.

"These additional soldiers will bring much needed assistance to the efforts of the firefighters who continue to tirelessly battle the blazes across California," Schwarzenegger said.

Since a series of dry lightning strikes ignited more than 1,500 wildfires across central and Northern California on June 21, more than 520,000 acres, or 815 square miles, of range and forest land has gone up in flames.

Along with the Goleta and Big Sur fires, another blaze generating concern was burning in the Sequoia National Forest east of Bakersfield, where a wind-driven wildfire had burned about 30 square miles, destroyed one home and threatened 1,000 more in nearby communities. It was 18 percent contained.

In Arizona, officials said a blaze southeast of Prescott had burned four homes since it broke out June 28. The blaze has forced the evacuation of the mountain town of Crown King and was half contained Friday night.

[providence_z]

So while it is still impossible to answer the question of "How much time is left", we might be able to use the price of oil and gas as some rough indicators of where we''re at. We''re hovering around $125/barrel and $4/gallon right now and already seeing significant slowdowns in the housing, banking, airline and automotive industries. Shutdowns likely begin around $200/barrel and $8/gallon. At $300/barrel and $12/gallon most everything simply stops.

If prices continue to rise at a pace even roughly resembling the trajectory of the past two years, this gives us 6-to-24 months before total shutdown. From Ken''s Deffeyes'' blog post linked up above

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While nobody can predict with complete precision when "things will get bad", Ken Deffeyes - Princeton professor of geology and author of Hubbert''s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage - recently published an analysis at his blog that gives us some type of rough idea. His conclusion appears to be that oil at $300 a barrel will produce, more or less, a total economic shutdown

[providence_z]

While nobody can predict with complete precision when "things will get bad", Ken Deffeyes - Princeton professor of geology and author of Hubbert''s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage - recently published an analysis at his blog that gives us some type of rough idea. His conclusion appears to be that oil at $300 a barrel will produce, more or less, a total economic shutdown

[providence_z]

There will be emergency summits, diplomatic initiatives, urgent exploration efforts, but the turmoil will not subside. Thousands of companies will go bankrupt, and millions will be unemployed. "Once affluent cities with street cafis will have queues at soup kitchens and armies of beggars. The crime rate will soar. The earth has always been a dangerous place, but now it will become a tinderbox."

By 2010, predicts Leggett, democracy will be on the run . . . economic hardship will bring out the worst in people. Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support. These new rulers will find the tools of repression -- emergency laws, prison camps, a relaxed attitude toward torture -- already in place, courtesy of the war on terror

[providence_z]

"What does all of this mean for me?"


What all of this means, in short, is that the aftermath of Peak Oil will extend far beyond how much you will pay for gas. To illustrate: in a July 2006 special report published by the Chicago Tribune, Pullitzer Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek described the consequences of Peak Oil as follows:
. . . the consequences would be unimaginable. Permanent fuel shortages would tip the world into a generations-long economic depression. Millions would lose their jobs as industry implodes. Farm tractors would be idled for lack of fuel, triggering massive famines. Energy wars would flare. And carless suburbanites would trudge to their nearest big box stores, not to buy Chinese made clothing transported cheaply across the globe, but to scavenge glass and copper wire from abandoned buildings. Source
Journalist Jonathan Gatehouse summarized the conclusions of Oxford trained geologist Jeremy Leggett, author of The Empty Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and the Coming Financial Catastrophe, in a 2006 Macleans article as follows, emphasis added:
. . . when the truth can no longer be obscured, the price will spike, the economy nosedive, and the underpinnings of our civilization will start tumbling like dominos. "The price of houses will collapse. Stock markets will crash. Within a short period, human wealth -- little more than a pile of paper at the best of times, even with the confidence about the future high among traders -- will shrivel."

[providence_z]

In the U.S., up to 20 percent of the country''s fossil fuel consumption goes
into the food chain which points out that fossil fuel use by the food system
in the developed world "often rivals that of automobiles". To feed an
average family of four in the developed world uses up the equivalent
of 930 gallons of gasoline a year - just shy of the 1,070 gallons that
same family would use up each year to power their cars. Source

According to the Organic Trade Association, the production of one pair of regular cotton jeans takes three-quarters of a pound of fertilizers and pesticides. Source

In short, people gobble fossil fuels like two-legged SUVs.

For more information, see:

Why our food is so dependent on oil

Will the end of oil be the end of the end of food?

How will we grow food after Peak Oil?

Hungering for natural gas
"Are all forms of modern technology actually petroleum products?"


Yes.

[providence_z]

"Big deal. If gas prices get high, I%u2019ll just drive less. Why should I give a ***?"


Because petrochemicals are key components to much more than just the gas in your car. As of the year 2002, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US. Source The size of this ratio stems from the fact that every step of modern food production is fossil fuel and petrochemical powered:

Pesticides and agro-chemicals are made from oil;

Commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which is made from natural gas, which is also peaking in the near future. Source

Most farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil-derived fuels.

Food storage systems such as refrigerators are manufactured in oil-powered plants, distributed using oil-powered transportation networks and usually run on electricity, which most often comes from natural gas or coal. Like oil and natural gas, coal too is peaking in the near future. Source

In the US, the average piece of food is transported almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. Source In Canada, the average piece of food is transported 5,000 miles from where it is produced to where it is consumed. Source

A recent article published by CNN documented just how much fossil fuel energy is used to produce our food.

[providence_z]

Many industry insiders think the decline rate will far higher than Cheney anticipated in 1999. Andrew Gould, CEO of the giant oil services firm Schlumberger, for instance, recently stated that "An accurate average decline rate of 8% is not an unreasonable assumption." Source Some industry analysts are anticipating decline rates as high as 13% per year. Source A 13% yearly decline rate would cause gobal production to drop by 75% in less than 11 years.

If a 5% drop in production caused prices to triple in the 1970s, what do you think a 50% or 75% drop is going to do?

Estimates coming out of the oil industry indicate that this drop in production has already begun. Source The consequences of this are almost unimaginable. As we slide down the downslope slope of the global oil production curve, we may find ourselves slipping into something best described as a "post industrial stone age."

[providence_z]

Fortunately, those price shocks were only temporary.

The coming oil shocks won''t be so short lived. They represent the onset of a new, permanent condition. Once the decline gets under way, production will drop (conservatively) by 3% per year, every year. War, terrorism, extreme weather and other "above ground" geopolitical factors will likely push the effective decline rate past 10% per year, thus cutting the total supply by 50% in 7 years. Source

These estimate comes from numerous sources, not the least of which is Vice President *** Cheney himself. In a 1999 speech he gave while still CEO of Halliburton, Cheney stated:

By some estimates, there will be an average of two-percent annual growth
in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a
three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That
means by 2010 we will need an additional 50 million barrels per day.Source

Cheney''s assesement is supported by the estimates of numerous non-political, retired, and now disinterested scientists, many of whom believe global oil production will peak and go into terminal decline within the next five years, if it hasn''t already. Source

[providence_z]

The issue is not one of "running out" so much as it is not having enough to keep our economy running. In this regard, the ramifications of Peak Oil for our civilization are similar to the ramifications of dehydration for the human body. The human body is 70 percent water. The body of a 200 pound man thus holds 140 pounds of water. Because water is so crucial to everything the human body does, the man doesn''t need to lose all 140 pounds of water weight before collapsing due to dehydration. A loss of as little as 10-15 pounds of water may be enough to kill him.

In a similar sense, an oil based economy such as ours doesn''t need to deplete its entire reserve of oil before it begins to collapse. A shortfall between demand and supply as little as 10 to 15 percent is enough to wholly shatter an oil-dependent economy and reduce its citizenry to poverty.

The effects of even a small drop in production can be devastating. For instance, during the 1970s oil shocks, shortfalls in production as small as 5% caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago with natural gas: a production drop of less than 5% caused prices to skyrocket by 400%.