The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has attracted more media attention over the past week than any other news event, including the bailout of Greece. While the oil spill is a huge environmental disaster and may expose how inefficient the U.S. government is at handling a disaster, the media should be giving far more attention to a couple of recent studies that warn that there could be a major, global oil shortage within the next five years.
Last month the U.S. Joint Forces Command released a report which analyzed the world's oil supply and demand situation in the coming years. The study concludes the following:
"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," (Pg 31)
The U.S. military is not alone in their pessimistic assessment of the world’s future oil situation. A group of British industries that are heavily-dependent on the availability of oil formed a task force to study the prospects of a coming oil shortage. The task force released their study in February, and this is what they found:
“the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES) finds that oil shortages, insecurity of supply and price volatility will destabilise economic, political and social activity potentially by 2015”.
If these reports’ ominous predictions come true (I believe they will base on my own research) then the world is going to have far bigger problems than what most people realize. A global economic and financial collapse can occur even if there is never an oil shortage because almost every country has an overwhelming debt burden and is managed by leaders who are incompetent at dealing with it. However, when you combine a major global oil shortage with a collapsing global economic and financial system you have the recipe for something far worse than the oil spill the media is so focused on. You have the perfect recipe for the next world war…
