The neo-liberal global economic system is on its deathbed, and Israel may soon have to provide for all of its own food and fuel needs, instead of trading for them with other countries, says a senior Israel agronomist. Dr. Elaine Soloway of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura says that the main cause for the collapse of international markets and subsequent retooling of Israeli industry to produce almost all necessities locally will be the end of the age of cheap fossil fuels.
"The idea that everybody's going to produce specialties, and them fly them around all over the world, that's going to be history," Soloway insists. "Raising vegetables and shipping them to places that are up to their eyeballs in water doesn't make any sense. We are selling our water cheaply to the Dutch, who are drowning," she says, referring to the large amounts of water necessary to grow vegetables, which are then exported. "The Dutch have to put up greenhouses, and we have to stop selling them peppers."
...*...
Schutt struggles with his desire to warn others of the formidable challenges that he sees approaching on the event horizon. "Many times, when I try to talk to people about this, they will say to me, 'Oh, but Dave, they'll come up with a solution', this mysterious 'they'," says Schutt. "I have really really bad news for people who think that," he adds. "There's no solution, if the problem is, 'How do we maintain a financial system, a life that requires constant growth?'"
Preparing for the end of the world as we know it
HT The Oil Drum
No comments:
Post a Comment