Jeff Rubin "Why your World is about to get a whole lot smaller"

ISBN 978-0-7535-1963-9. "Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller - Oil and the end of globalisation" by Jeff Rubin was published by Virgin Books in 2009. This paperback boasts 286 pages including Intro, two main sections, 8 chapters, a conclusion, acknowledgments, notes and index. Rubin is a new name for many us used to the works of Hopkins or Heinberg. He was the Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets and claims to have been one of the first economists to predict the 2008 Oil price spike as long ago as 2000. They call it "the dismal profession" and one might be a tad wary of reading what an economist has to say about peak oil. Indeed, as the old adage goes, if you believe infinite growth can continue on a finite planet you are either mad - or an economist. That would make Rubin a very different sort of economist. Not for him the cheerful ignorance of the Chicago School. In short, he is "OUR" sort of economist, much as Lord Stern. This work stems from Rubin's research conducted alongside fellow CIBC World Markets employee, Senior Economist Peter Buchanan. Together they looked the growing trend for oil supplying countries to start "cannibalising" their own supplies. In English that means that the people in oil exporting nations start to use their own petroleum in the same fashion as it was used in the countries they used to sell it to. Outrageous behaviour.

Clearly Rubin is a man who understands from the get-go that none of us will perpetuate western lifestyles if EVERYBODY has a western lifestyle. In order for poor people to become rich the rich will become poorer. Two other colleagues at CIBC World Markets also helped Rubin produce this analysis. Not only is this a bit of a joint venture but, being Canadian, it has little or none of that parochial North American nonsense that so ruins a good book about supposedly 'global' energy and humanitarian issues. Rubin's life turned around back in 1997 when he read Colin Campbell's "The Coming Oil Crisis". The two later met and the rest, they say, is history. He became slowly convinced of the case for peak oil and set about warning his fellow economists and global markets of the risks. Much as with Hubbert, before him, they laughed at him. Then they laughed again. Then it all came true. Then they stopped laughing. The idea that this book offers the world is actually relatively "conventional" if you are well read in the Peak Oil topic. There may be little here that you won't find in the work of Rob Hopkins or Richard Heinberg. What is remarkable is WHO is writing it. The cover proudly boasts that the book was "Longlisted for the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award" whilst the blurb includes reviews by The Financial Times and Newsweek. Clearly this is the Peak Oil, Climate Change and Localisation message creeping under the radar of big business. This time is long overdue. It is no longer enough for these ideas to be blogged to death by Guardian columnists and writers for The Ecologist. They can talk all they like but nobody will listen. Times they are a changing. For years Matt Simmons, an investment banker, has been providing thoughtful analysis on oil depletion. He seemed alone. No longer. The tide is turning. We are now entering some kind of end-game where (surely) all the arguments have been won. If we live in a world where the CEO's of oil companies freely discuss peak oil and climate change with their bankers then (finally) something might actually happen. Afterall, these people MATTER. They have the ears of Presidents.

As for the content of the book - well, for an Economist's work you will find it very easy to read and almost entertaining. Sure, where Rubin's waxes lyrical about the relationship between inflation and interest rates may well leave you confused, but the rest is a joy to read. Being an economist he first divides the problem up into "supply" and "demand" and quickly dispels the myth (that other economists have) that the market will simply resolve the issue. Rubin's has done his homework and read the IEA Energy Outlook reports of global Oil Depletion Rates. It is there in black and white. We are about to enter a period of oil price instability and oil companies will stop investing in extraction. This chaos could go on for ten years before peak oil even becomes an actual visible trend in hindsight. In fact myth-busting is what Rubin's is good at as he knocks down the lazy assumptions of politicians (and most members of the public) one by one. For example: no, there isn't enough energy from renewables for us all to have electric cars. Much of the sort of stuff that the environmentalists have been screaming about for years is laid out clear and straight in Rubin's words. He tackles the significant economic effects of the end of cheap oil with these words "Oil prices, not delinquent subprime mortgages, are what bought down the global economy." (page 185) He doesn't mince words does he? Whilst the alleged subprime catastrophe gets one chapter so does climate change. Rubin's describes global warming as "the other problem with fossil fuels" which will earn him the sympathy of many of us who think THAT debate is getting pointless. As Rubin's is never tired of repeating, most of us won't be driving cars in the future. Whatever the climate does and whose-ever fault it is, it makes no difference. Everything is about to change. Global travel and trade is about to be severely curtailed. Our world WILL get smaller. "A smaller world is a less carbon-intensive world." (page 159) Certainly a good soundbite to use with people who think that they will solve climate change whilst on holiday on the Ski slopes of Canada.

But it isn't all curtailment. Not how Rubin sees it. He believe that we need a carbon tax and this will be beneficial in deglobalising the economy. We'll have to return to the days of being jacks-of-all-trade. Local generalists not global specialists. Rubin often cites the concept of how all those workers in the steel trade or car-making, who got laid off when their jobs went to Korea, will benefit from Peak Oil. They will all get their jobs back. Indeed, unlikely alliances are now being formed between erstwhile environmentalist groups and Union bosses. Previous antipathy has long gone as the workers now understand that high carbon prices, far from driving them out of work, will actually protect local jobs. This is not a book for those expecting a techno-fix. Rubin's rubbishes this idea but he is no wide-eyed romantic wishing for some wistful bucolic future where everyone returns to an agrarian way of life. He expects to see suburbia break down by a slow process de-evolution, back into farmland. Indeed, this is already happing in some places. Rubin's vision is positive and realistic without being grim. He sees it as the next natural stage of human life on earth - a challenge to be overcome. As such this is recommended reading throughout government and for all people who believe that only environmentalists care (because they are can't think straight). Stick this on your shelf next to "The Economics of Climate Change" and quote from it liberally. Highly recommended.

He doesn't miss a thing.
Exemplary. This is what happens when your stockbroker neighbours start rewriting "The Party's Over" in the language of economics. Brilliant for the armoury.