Over the next 50 years, a typical 4,000 square foot home in our region (the Colorado Rocky Mountains) will use 600,000 pounds of coal and 12,000,000 cubic feet of natural gas... resulting in the release of 2.5 million pounds of Carbon Dioxide (CO2), a powerful greenhouse gas.

This is the same amount of CO2 that would be pumped from a car's exhaust pipe driving 100 times around the Earth!

In recent years we Americans have become the "Oil Tribe." Per capita, we are now consuming our body weight in petroleum products each week. What too few Americans understand is that domestic production of oil and natural gas peaked 30 years ago.
Two-thirds of America's oil and nearly half its natural gas is already gone. The U.S. is by far the world's largest importer of oil and in the last few years we have become the world's largest importer of natural gas, too. Depletion curves of U.S. gas and oil producing areas paint an alarming picture. For example, Texas, once one of the world's ten richest oil provinces, and home to the three-ton Suburban, does not even produce enough oil to run Texas anymore. The state must import $6 billion worth of oil each year.

Although the government predicts U.S. demand for natural gas will grow 50% over the next twenty years, U.S. gas production is now falling despite a record number of new gas wells being drilled.

Since 1990, the U.S. has added 30 million people and an equivalent number of motor vehicles. By 2030, there may be 400 million people in this country.

The U.S. now imports oil from more than 30 different countries. But two-thirds of the world's remaining oil lies in a handful of countries in the troubled and volatile Middle East.  www.peakoilandhumanity.com

In short, the nation is sleepwalking to disaster. For more on these issues, see CORE's petroleum and natural gas primers: Joyride, Methane Madness, U.S. Energy Flow - In the Belly of the Beast.