What will the new world without cheap oil to manufacture cheap goods bring?  Well, it will most certainly bring much less of the material everything we have today.  This could  be perceived as a negative outcome if we were to evaluate the situation using the material yardsticks to which we are accustomed.  But what if we try an objective analysis of a world lacking material goods:

The missing cheap electronics will mean we might have to find ways of entertaining ourselves that do not require  electronic storage.  We might be tempted to attempt to learn how to play a musical instrument, or how to use the musical instrument of the human voice.

Without our cheap theater equipment we might become bored enough to venture out into the real world to discover what is there.

Without the gas to run automobiles we might have to walk from place to place using muscles and lungs that become healthier when used frequently.

Without cheap cameras and computers we might find a way to explore recording images manually in some way.  We might decide to try capturing images on canvas with paint or pencil.

In essence, we might find that the missing things in our lives bring about changes that enrich our lives.

Now here’s an interesting book by a man who was the chief economist at CIBC World Markets for twenty years.  Rubin talks about standing in the new terminal at Pearson International Airport and wondering what it could be used for once it becomes obsolete due to  $200-a-barrel-oil killing air travel.  If we think gasoline would be expensive, just imagine the price of jet fuel.  Rubin predicts not just the demise of air travel but the globalized economy as well.  Those myriad cheap goods from China won’t get here on ships fueled with $200 oil.  He suggests we might need to revisit our cheap-oil enabled lifestyle.  The changes he talks about would most certainly turn our comfy little material western world upside down.  This book is food for thought.  More later…

Well recent events have certainly changed the  Peak Oil timeframe.  At today’s price of $46.80 it is at it’s lowest since May of 2005.  So we’re back to cheap oil.  For now.  As I write this I am watching the SUVs cruising past my store on Fourth Avenue.  The same SUVs Detroit will continue to crank out if only the government will give them about $34Billion as an incentive.

Now, let me get this straight.  Detroit builds machines that use huge amounts of gasoline and oil but has been unable for years now to make a decent profit from the sales of said machines.  They wish to continue building these machines  for which they cannot seem to make any money and require the government to pay them to do so.                                                                                                                                                                                             Ah, what a long strange trip it’s been.

I have been in business for 30 years now and have never once  even dreamed of such a self-serving scheme.

But then, I don’t employ thousands.

Perhaps we need to rethink the internal combustion engine idea in total.  Perhaps this economic downturn is a golden opportunity to revisit  our support of an industry gone hopelessly wrong.

If the automakers cannot make a profit selling their oil-devouring monsters maybe that is a sign that the automobile as we have known it is obsolete.  Maybe it’s a sign that we need to find other ways of getting around.  Maybe it’s a sign that autoworkers, parts manufacturers and suppliers and all of the other detroit hangers- on need to find other ways of making a living.  And maybe it’s a sign that we need to revisit all of our oil-fuelled and wasteful lifestyle.

We in North America are in the process of exiting the most prosperous, luxurious, and self-indulgent period in history.  We are the spoiled generation, living off the non-renewable stored  wealth of oil and natural gas energy.  We have spent our wealth foolishly, and continue to do so.  Now this period is ending.  The current price of oil at $117 is about 5X the price of 8 years ago.  And nobody knows how much higher it might go, although there are some predictions of $300 in the next decade.  And nobody is predicting a reduction.  Hang onto your hats because everything, absolutely everything that you do is dependent on oil; oil at $30 a barrel!

So when you awaken in the morning and look over at the clock,  the cost of the electricity it runs on is going up due to the cost of lubricating the generators at the hydro dam, plus all of the other equipment for maintenance of the dam and the thousands of miles of transmission lines that bring the power to your clock.  And your house is crammed full of electrical appliances, as is your office/store/warehouse. Your breakfast, even without the power to run your fridge/stove/microwave/coffeemaker, is dependent on oil to make the fertilizer that grows the food and to power the trucks to transport it to your store.  And then your car needs it to pick up the food.  And you haven’t even left the house yet…

I’d like to share a little story that, I think, illustrates the connections we can have through the books that come into our lives.

Some years back I had a part time business buying and selling used books.  My father and I were talking  one day and I was telling him  how I was able to find salable books by frequenting yard sales and thrift shops.

“You know,” he said, after listening to some of my exploits, “I had a book years ago that I haven’t been able to locate.  It was called ‘forty power tools you can make’  It was such a great book.  I lent it to a guy I knew and he moved away and the book went with him.  I haven’t heard from him since, and I have no idea where he is now.”

Dad talked more about the book and told me how he had often used it to help him in his woodworking hobby.  It gave detailed instructions for assembling power tools using old automobile parts and pieces of scrap metal.

But there was more to the book than just its practical value.  The copy he had loaned had in fact been given to him by a good friend.  Dad expected that one day his friend would ask about the book  and he would have to tell him it was gone.  He felt responsible for the loss of this great gift from a friend.  He said he had looked for it in second hand bookstores over the years but nobody had even heard of it.  It was obviously something he not only missed but  had almost given up hope of ever finding again.

“If you ever run across that book, pick it up for me,” he said.

I told him I would keep my eyes open for it but that the chances of finding that particular title among the books I found at garage and church sales were pretty slim.  I filed the title away in my head but felt I would probably never come across such an obscure book.

The years slipped by and I stayed with my book business, stopping for every yard and garage sale sign I saw and searching the want ads for rummage sales and church bazzars, looking for interesting and saleable books; my dad’s request neatly tucked way back in my mind’s filing cabinet in a folder labelled ‘lotsa luck on this one’.

Then, one fall evening as I scanned the shelves of books for sale in a church basement, a slim brown book caught my eye.  There it was:  ‘forty power tools you can make’.  I could barely believe my luck.  I found myself, as I picked it up, smiling broadly with the realization that something both unexpected and portentous had just happened.  A sticker on the front cover of the book informed me that I would have to pay twenty-five cents for this little piece of my father’s past.

The next day I drove to my parents’ house in Surrey with the book.  Dad was out in his workshop in the back yard when I arrived so I got the latest health update in the kitchen with mom.  Dad’s health had been failing the past year.  He had emphysema which was progressively worsening and at sixty he looked and felt much older.

“He’s not very good this past few days”, mom said with a worried look.  “His breathing is not good.  He gets out of breath so easily lately and he’s quite depressed.”  The depression was unusual for dad.  Even though his health had been iffy for years, he rarely let it get him down.  Mom’s anxious expression said it all.  Dad wasn’t doing well.

The awareness of my father’s situation sank in as I headed out the back door toward the workshop with the book in my hand.  I felt the same helplessness I knew mom felt watching dad wearing away slowly with this disease.  Maybe the book would lift his spirits a bit.

Dad was just starting back to the house after firing up the old pot-bellied stove he used to heat the shop and I watched him coming down the path toward me.  He looked so much older and his gait was slowed.  It seemed to be such an effort for him to take each step.  And when he saw me he didn’t flash that quick smile of recognition I always got.  He looked weary and defeated.

I walked up to him and without saying a word, handed him the book.  He took it in his hands.  It was a moment before he realized what it was.  Then,  as we stood there on the path and dad recognized the book, I watched a marvelous smile, like a sunrise, light up his tired face.  And then something else happened.  He looked slowly from the book to me.  The smile was still there but there was something else in his eyes, a combination of joy and gratitude and, I think, the kind of thanks he found it difficult to find words to express.  We stood there, dad and I, that fall afternoon in his back yard, connected as perhaps never before by a priceless twenty-five cent book.

Welcome to the Kestrel Books Blog. We’ll be sharing with you our thoughts about the world of books and how they fit into, and enrich, our lives.  We’ll also be talking about our world in general and hope that through discussion and the sharing of ideas we can coax a more hopeful and positive way of life.