Imagine slashing the your income across the board by 85%. That’s the comparison John Michale Greer draws to the coming age of energy scarcity in his latest post,

The most reasonable estimates suggest that, given a crash program and the best foreseeable technologies, renewable sources can probably provide the United States with around 15% of the energy it currently gets from fossil fuels. Since every good and service in the economy is the product of energy, it’s a very rough but functional approximation to say that in a green economy, every American will have to get by on the equivalent of 15% of his or her current income. Take a moment to work through the consequences in your own life; if you made $50,000 in 2009, for example, imagine having to live on $7,500 in 2010. That’s quite a respectable income by Third World standards, but it won’t support the kind of lifestyle that the vast majority of Americans, across the political spectrum, believe is theirs by right.

Greer’s words are a very apt and shocking demonstration of the new world we’re facing. And while I don’t think there is evidence to support the expectation that we’ll need to go from 100% current energy consumption to 15% current energy consumption overnight, the change will likely be rather rapid, over a quickly approaching 10-20 year period. Will the expectation we’ve been sold of a leisurely retirement with independence from others through accumulated wealth dissipate with ease? I doubt it. Obama wouldn’t ramp up operations in Afghanistan, in my opinion, unless he’d seen the same intel that the Bush administration had. The intel that shows the shocking reality of the coming energy scarcity age. The USA isn’t going down without a fight and seeing that happen, its easy to expect this next decade to be quite messy.