The Oil Crisis Started 30 Years Ago

It is customary to look for the critical year of oil production in absolute terms, but in the year 1970 or thereabouts there was another important “conjunction,” to use an astrological metaphor. Global production will peak at some point in the early 21st century; it may have already done so, although the mendacious accounts of remaining reserves make exact dates impossible to determine precisely. Nevertheless, in many senses it is not 2005 or 2010 that is the critical date, but rather the early 1970s.

countercurrents