Human civilization never really knew the extent of our dependency on oil; never realized how much we all needed it to survive. There were seven billion people on Earth, Before the Peak… today they say there's barely a billion left alive.
Trains, planes, cars, heating, refrigeration, computers, TVs, DVDs, electricity, Food, Water, medicine, the military; it all rested on the shoulders of a petroleum based economy, and without it our fate was sealed.
The oil hikes of the first days of the 21st Century were nothing compared to the gas rationing of the late 2010s, the fuel and food riots, and the Great Drought that all followed. When we passed the peak it didn't take long for the markets to panic. That panic contributed more to the collapse than anything else; perhaps if we'd remained calm, we could have had the time to find a real alternative. All those hybrid cars and the few electrics, they didn't add up for shit. The Prius couldn't transport billions of tons of food all over the country, let alone the world. Once the price got too high it quickly hit the supermarket shelves. Corn for $100 an ear, Milk for $80 a gallon, rice… worth more than gold in some places. The dollar was on its knees after just a year of living like that, and social unrest spiraled out of control. People were starving to death in the cities and suburbia, and they weren't doing much better in the country.
By the winter of 2019 over 100 million people had either starved or frozen to death in America, over two billion worldwide. Some people got by with Natural Gas, but it takes oil to move everything that enables natural gas to exist. Looters ran wild throughout the streets and rumor had started about people who just went mad from the hunger and started eating people.
The year before the President ordered the opening of all emergency oil reserves, and recalled most of the US Military to enforce Martial Law, but by the Summer of 2020, the United States Military had finally ran out of fuel too. The nuclear carriers and subs still ran and the jets could still fly on ethanol, but the jeeps, the trucks, and everything you need to run an Army, they were DOA. It was no longer logistically possible for the Federal Government to administer the continent, and with that came the Morgan Acts.
Signed in the Spring of 2021 the US Government decided to divide the administration of the country into four distinct zones, each with a Military Governor who would keep martial law in affect, "until such time as our energy crisis can be remedied." What a bunch of bullshit. Eastern, Mid-Western, Central, and Western, each divided along major geographic lines. Each military governor would report directly to the President, but in reality they were Emperors of their own countries. That same year the death toll in America was up to over 200 million, world wide… they just stopped counting.
…And so, here we stand at the end of it all, out of gas and out of time, a nation broken and burnt. It was inevitable I suppose, all empires fall eventually, ours just took the whole damn planet with it; like Rome before us. I wonder how people will remember the great American Empire down the line? Will they be inspired by what we accomplished? Or will they just pity us for our shortsightedness. I don't know, and to tell you the truth, I really don't give a shit.
This is Lokhe Verlack, 107.9 KFNK, signing off, for good.
-Last known private radio transmission from the Pacific Northwest. December 22nd, 2041 CE. Human
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