Oil 1 Peak Oil 21
AT: Peak Oil Won’t Collapse the Economy
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AT: Peak Oil Won’t Collapse the EconomyYour authors assume short-term disruptions-only ours assume a long lived peak in supply. Robert L. Hirsch, Senior Energy Advisor at Management Information Solutions, February, ‘5 (Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, p. Google) [Bozman]
Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, ‘5 (The Party's Over : Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, p. 199-200) [Bozman] The energy transition of the coming century will affect human society directly, but it will also likely have important indirect effects on the natural environment. Some impacts ? such as deforestation from increased firewood harvesting ? are relatively easy to predict. As fossil fuels become scarce, it will become increasingly difficult to protect trees in old-growth forest preserves, and perhaps even those along the sides of city streets. Other environmental effects of oil and natural gas depletion are less predictable. It is tempting to speculate about the impact on global warming, but no firm conclusions are possible. At first thought, it might seem that fossil-fuel depletion would actually improve the situation. With ever fewer gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel being burned in the engines of cars and trucks, less carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere to contribute to the greenhouse effect. Perhaps petroleum depletion could accomplish what the Kyoto protocols on greenhouse gas emissions have only begun to do. However, it is important to remember that when global oil production peaks, half of nature?s original endowment of crude will still be in the ground waiting to be pumped and burned. Extraction rates will gradually taper off but will not suddenly plummet. If efforts are made to increase coal usage in order to offset energy shortages from oil and natural gas, greenhouse gas emissions might remain close to current levels or even rise. Thus, unless a coordinated, intelligent program is put in place for a transition to non-fossil energy sources as well as for a rapid and drastic curtailment of total energy usage, the net effect of oil and natural gas depletion on the problem of global warming is not likely to be significantly positive over the next few decades. The situation is similar with regard to the problem of chemical pollution: a decline in the extraction of fossil fuels might seem to hold the promise of reducing environmental harms from synthetic chemicals. With less plastic being produced and fewer agricultural and industrial chemicals being used, the load of toxins on the environment should decrease. However, many pollutio nmonitoring, -control, and -reduction systems currently in place ? including trash pick-up and recycling services ? also require energy. Thus, even if the production of new chemicals declines, over the short run there may be heightened problems associated with the containment of existing pollution sources. The reduced availability of oil and natural gas will likely provoke both electrical energy producers and politicians to call for a reduction of pollution controls on coal plants and for the building of new nuclear plants. But these strategies will entail serious environmental costs. Increased reliance on coal, and any relaxation on emissions controls, will result in more air pollution and more acid rain. And increased reliance on nuclear power will only exacerbate the unsolved problem of radioactive waste disposal. As the global food system struggles to come to terms with the decline in available net energy for agriculture, transportation, and food storage, people who have the capacity to fish or to hunt wild animals will be motivated to do so at increasing rates. But given mounting energy and financial constraints, conservation agencies will find it difficult to control overfishing and the overhunting of edible land animals. Endangered species will have fewer protections available and extinction rates will likely climb. The environmental impacts of changing patterns in agriculture are difficult to predict, given that the direction of those changes is uncertain. If efforts are made to localize food production and to voluntarily reduce chemical and energy inputs via organic/ ecoagricultural methods, then the current detrimental environmental impacts of agriculture could be reduced markedly. However, if the managers of global food systems opt for agricultural biotechnology and attempt to sustain inputs, negative environmental effects from food production are likely to continue and, in the worst case ? a biotech ?frankenfood? disaster ? could be catastrophic. B. 
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