Old Father Hubbert

In the mid 1950s, a geophysicist named M. King Hubbert published a paper that predicted that US oil production would reach its peak in the late-60s or early-70s and decline thereafter. Hubbert's premise that oil is a finite resource whose availability is similarly limited by our ability to effectively extract it was one with global implications that have only increased over the past half-century. Though some of the specifics as to when global production will peak and how steep the declines will be are debatable, the basics of Hubbert's theory (popularly known as Hubbert Peak Theory) largely seem to hold true, as shown by the decline in US oil production since the 1970s.

Hubbert Peak Theory seems poised to return to the news in the wake of fresh reports about the long-standing concern that estimates of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves may be overstated. As the country with the largest reserves of oil in the world, the question of when that country will see its production of oil peak and decline is literally of global importance.

Of course, only time will tell whether Saudi oil production peaks a year, a decade, or a century from now. In the meantime, this brings to mind an aspect of the debate over "global warming" that zealots on both sides of the debate seem unwilling to pursue.

Whether or not you believe carbon emissions are detrimentally affecting Earth's climate, why isn't it a good idea to find ways to reduce them and the pollution that often accompanies them? In the same way, and indeed related to the climate change debate, whether you believe global oil reserves are overstated or not, petroleum is still a finite resource that should be used wisely and conserved.

Some may dismiss this talk as somehow anti-capitalist or un-American. I prefer to think of it as pro-future. It's not about red states and blue states, it's about what kind of world we pass on to future generations. To think otherwise is far more questionable than any application of Hubbert Peak Theory ever could be.