Mark West

Charles Stross, in a recent interview in Locus, made an excellent point about why futurology, as a field, has failed so miserably at predicting the future.

At 12 to 15 months out, forward planning can be effective; at up to two and a half years out, it is largely speculative because of the cumulative effect of small technological and social changes, Stross argues. From more than two and a half years out, future planning is just speculation.

In many ways, fiction authors like Stross have been better at predicting the future than professional futurists; the professionals tend to extrapolate some single trend, while SF writers have to create entire, articulated societies that work as functional entities.

And one thing that fiction shares with reality is a turning point — that point at which the decisions and the actions of the various characters have come together to make a given outcome inevitable.

In April of 2008, the United States seemed to reach just such a turning point.

Gasoline prices reached record highs. That, alone, could have been attributed to pure avarice — but the oil companies were posting Brobdingnagian profits. Such profits, for business analysts, are a sure sign of trouble in an industry, as Benjamin Graham suggested in his classic analyses of stocks. They mean that an industry has no place to reinvest ready cash in order to guarantee future profits.

In the petroleum industry, the implication is particularly chilling —- there is nowhere for new exploration or drilling to occur. Nor is there a need for new refineries — since there is no new oil to be forthcoming. The politicians can yammer about ANWAR, and the oil companies can prattle about how they are really “going green.” But the huge profits, and the lack of reinvestments, tell a different story —- the era of oil is over.

At the same time, the iron law of supply and demand has taken hold, leading to a second dramatic change. As oil prices skyrocketed, the economic viability of ethanol-based fuels increased, and firms began to convert food into fuel, particularly in the United States, whose history of low fuel prices and efficient food production made such conversion most practical. The upshot of this conversion was a perception of a shortage of some staples, particularly rice, in the U.S. Worldwide, food shortages led to riots and unrest.

As Stross suggests, predictions of the long-term future are particularly unreliable. But in the short term, there can be little question that the United States, with a virtually nonexistent public transportation system, a wildly inefficient housing stock consisting of cheap and vast McMansions, and a public accustomed to huge sport-utility vehicles, is particularly ill-suited to the looming days of short oil supplies.

The outcome will be that the vast granaries of the U.S., which export more grain than the next 10 largest grain exporters, will find an eager new market for their product. That grain will go into the production of ethanol — and the rich oil sheikdoms of the Middle East may find themselves in a pretty pickle indeed as their oil supplies dwindle and their ability to rely on the U.S. for cheap food falters. The number two and three world exporters of grain — France and Canada — will be in a similar quandary. The Saudis may well have what oil remains, but as the world converts to ethanol, I would wager that they would prefer bread.

Thus, with Stross’ warning in mind, April 2008 may have been a harbinger of a dreary future. The aberration of the oil economy is ending; King Food will usurp Big Oil to rule sovereign over a hungry world.

And while we in the U.S. may shiver in our vast and cold houses, planning our infrequent trips to the farmers’ markets, at least we won’t be hungry.
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Mark West is a professor of mass communications at UNC Asheville.