Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: What the Price of Oil Means for the Way We Live

by JeffRubin (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2009

  $3.29

  Cheap oil is equal to foreign imports. Huge houses. Big cars. Binge flying. Expensive oil is equal to local food. Local industry. Small cars. Fewer flights. Our civilization as we know it is entirely dependant on cheap oil. And that civilization is about to get the shock of its life. Our systems of trade, finance, shipping and manufacturing, of labour and international relations are all going to be affected as oil supplies dwindle and prices fluctuate wildly. Soaring energy costs are not going to get thrown into permanent reverse; but, as a direct result, the machinery of globalization certainly will. For years Jeff Rubin has been accurately predicting how the world's dwindling oil supply will affect oil prices. Now he shares his predictions for what is going to happen next, including how oil prices will bounce back after the current economnic crisis and why permanently cheap oil is now a thing of the past. He explains why the conventional rules of economics don't work when it comes to oil markets and shows why prices will continue to rise in the coming years, even as demand increases. He reveals how globalization and developing economies are accelerating depletion of oil reserves and pushing prices ever higher, and in turn shows how this will lead to a new inflation, with higher food prices and transport costs. But there is good news: as Rubin shows, skyrocketing oil prices will lead to a new kind of localised living, in which we'll reinvigorate our national manufacturing industries, embrace local food production and make positive changes in where and how we live and work.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.29

  Our civilization as we know it is entirely dependent on cheap oil. And that civilization is about to get the shock of its life. Our systems of trade, finance, shipping and manufacturing, of labour and international relations are all going to be affected as oil supplies dwindle and prices skyrocket. Soaring energy costs are not going to get thrown into reverse; but, as a direct result, the machinery of globalization certainly will. For years Jeff Rubin has been accurately predicting how the world's dwindling oil supply will affect oil prices. Now he shares his predictions for what is going to happen next. He explains why the conventional rules of economics don't work when it comes to oil markets and shows why oil prices will continue to rise in the coming years, even as demand increases. He reveals how globalization and developing economies are accelerating depletion of oil reserves and pushing prices ever higher, and in turn shows how this will lead to a new inflation, with higher food prices and transport costs. But there is good news: as Rubin shows, skyrocketing oil prices will lead to a new kind of localized living, in which we'll reinvigorate our national manufacturing industries, embrace local food production and make positive changes in where and how we live and work.

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $16.21

  Soaring oil prices caused four out of the last five recessions. They caused the current recession. And they will cause the next one. Expensive oil costs us more than just money. It costs jobs, homes and in the long run it is going to radically alter the way we live. For if cheap oil is the fuel that keeps the machinery of globalisation in motion, then expensive oil has the same effect as pouring diesel into an unleaded tank. Everything stalls; the engine fails. Oil prices will rise again in the coming years, as this utterly convincing insight into our collective future argues. And as oil prices fluctuate wildly, our society will change dramatically, and for good. From the homes we live in and the cars we drive to the food we eat and the places we work, our daily lives and global economy are going to be transformed. But while this new, smaller world will take some getting used to, it will also open our eyes to a more localised and ultimately more liveable way of life.