A dying world writhing in agonising death throes

To quote from a Dylan song, "this aint a game no more, it's the real thing".

Among recent reports, the rate of species extinction is increasing.
Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is the highest it has been in at least one million, and possibly 10 million years.

And, oh yes, oil production has peaked, that is we have used over half of natural oil reserves and aren't discovering very much in the way of new supplies.
World oil production in 2005 was up by 0.8%, but demand had increased by 3 %.
Ghawar, the supergiant Saudi oilfield, is producing increasing amounts of water along with the oil. Previously, the water cut at Ghawar was around thirty percent. Later reports on the Internet have water cuts as high as 55 percent. (This would indicate that we have hugely overestimated the amount of oil in this particularly vital field!)
To quote from Bill Totten, "Ghawar has been producing four million barrels per day; when the Ghawar field waters out, you can kiss your lifestyle goodbye".
Bill also states that "By 2025, we're going to be back in the Stone Age".
You can read his post dated 05 March 06 in full on his blog.
http://billtotten.blogspot.com/

I believe in speaking out in an attempt to warn people to initiate change.
I periodically email our media on issues I believe in. I often get published in the Herald Sun, but never crack it in The Age, which is a pity, because they get my best letters. I do keep trying.....

My unpublished letter submitted 5th March 06 is shown below.
The actual letter was sent in response to an article calling for free public transport, an idea I had submitted letters on before, unsuccessfully. I had expanded on the core issue to discuss related streams, that is overcrowded roads due to forced commuting on infrastructure that is neglected other than for the building of roads.

My contention is we very urgently need to totally re-engineer society, and even then it may be way past the midnight deadline for change.
I have bolded the parts of my letter relevant to the drying up of oil supplies and the need for urgency to effect dramatic social change.

"Dear Mr Editor

The relief of overcrowding on the roads and the cutting of greenhouse
gas emissions both stand as excellent reasons for free public transport,
and an extremely meritorious support reason is the simplification of
administering the system, the contrary arguments of nervous nellie
beauracrats not withstanding.
I firmly believe that there is a very strong moral imperative to provide
free public transport.This is because we lack genuine full employment
and proper care for the mentally ill and socially disadvantaged in a
city environment where the social engineers lack the will to facilitate
having jobs, hospitals, centrelink and other public facilities where
people live.
Good government would also jump in and provide cross-town non radial
public transport with new services and expanded hours and frequency of
timetables.
The other part of the solution to overcrowded roads and environmental
vandalism caused by forced large scale commuting is to make it much
cheaper for people to be able to sell their existing homes to move
closer to where their jobs are situated. The solution to this is to
remove stamp duty on buying and selling of residential property.
Petrol supplies will dry up within the next five to fifteen years
regardless of the lack of foresight and courage from state and national
governments or involvement in ever more frequent oil wars. People will
be stranded within sight of highways and freeways including a newly
completed Eastlink tollway. Maybe they could all become shared pathways
for bicycles and pedestrians with E-tags attached to Rover!
The antipathy to the free public transport concept by Bracks, Batchelor,
and the State government highlights yet another reason for the almost
total lack of confidence in the Labour party as being the party for
compassion and social justice, as it endeavours to outdo the Liberals
as the best pragmatic economic rationalist front for the ruling elite".

One of the worst contributors to excessive oil consumption and greenhouse polution is aviation.
We cannot afford to have all these military jets wizzing around, apart from the damage they do when used in our wars of aggression.
In fact, if we are to have any chance of saving either the planet or some form of comfortable civilization, commercial air traffic needs to become at least ten times more expensive to cover for a huge cutback in flying frequency. Business and Governments would need to be controlled so that the goods we buy and taxes we pay wouldn't be subsidising frequent overseas meetings and jaunts.