The fact that we have not run out of oil as the Malthusians predicted suggests that our exploitation

of oil is as
sustainable as any other  resource use  on the planet”. Evaluate the truth of this statement. (15 marks)
This was written with 5 minute Google search, and 25 minute of writing. Not lying.

The Malthusian catastrophe, by theory, should have happened years ago, as extreme exploitation of the most
valuable, but finite resource was drying up after the industrialization of western countries. However, we found
oil, a discovery which resulted in exponential growth in every aspect of human life. As of this moment, Those
who follow E. Boserup’s view have been proven to be right, as mankind has found infinite ways of exploiting this
finite resource yet we have still not run out.
However, what should be noted is that although production is reaching to a gradual plateau, consumption is
reaching all highs. The exploitation is not sustainable, due to its finite nature. The concept of Peak oil is the point
in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production
enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, and the
combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. Based on Hubert model of 1956, the peak oil would be
around 2010. Some may argue that this model is outdated as we have found more unknown reserves, but the
argument against it would be that the model was made with the idea of unknown reserves, and probably couldn’t
have predicted the global hyper-exploitation of oil by the former LEDCs (like China, whose population has more
than doubled from 600 million in Hubert’s time to 1.4 billion) going through phase 2 of the Demographic
transition model. The concept of peak oil is very important as oil is a finite resource which is accumulated over
extremely long periods of time. Therefore, the term ‘production’ is not even technically correct, as although our
current ‘extraction’ rate is meeting the demands of our consumption, the reserves and production have a very
real and finite limit as indicated by the statistics as well as models.
Moreover, the geographical location of countries with highest consumption and those with highest production
rate is unequally distributed throughout the globe, which leads to the commodity of oil becoming an increasingly
powerful political tool. Saudi Arabia has 25% of the oil reserves in the world, followed by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, and
UAE, leading to 63% of the world’s known reserves to be dependent on the Middle Eastern region. On the
contrary, North America, which produces 5% of the world’s oil, consumes 50% of global oil. Possession of oil has
been pinpointed as the focal reason for some of the wars in last three decades, such as the Iraq war, or the Gulf
war. As oil becomes a political tool, its production and availability becomes volatile, which would severely
interfere the lifestyle of everyone on earth as 93% of our lifestyle has been attributed as result of oil production.
This means that as oil becomes more and more valuable with increasing exploitation, it becomes less
politically/socially sustainable, for the poorest countries who need it the most to industrialize would not be able
to afford it amidst the oil battle of superpowers. This would also lead to economic unsustainability.
Therefore, as we reach closer to the eventual plateau and decline of oil exploitation (extraction) with growing
demand from LEDCs to industrialize, with sparse use of alternative energy to depend upon, the statement above
is a naïve, reductionist point of view.