So yesterday sometime around mid-day someone paid $100 for a barrel of oil, oil closed the day just under 100 bucks, but this is the first time anyone has crossed the $100 point. While this is not the highest oil has ever cost if you do some inflation math, in the 80’s it hit $102 and change, it is the first time we have crossed that nice round $100 mark.

So what? What does this mean. Well the most obvious answer is that oil is going to cost more, and that this probably wont be the highest it goes. That means that everything that runs on oil is going to cost more, everything made of oil is going to cost more, and everything that needs oil to get it from point a to point b will cost more. To save you the trouble of thinking of that list here are the things that wont cost more; wind, sunlight, and um thats about it.

So we are going to be a little more broke. That milk will cost a couple cents more, the gas tank will be a bit more painful to fill, that plastic crap from China will cost more, all of it will lead to us going broke. We will mindlessly march forward living the exact same lifestyle, racking up bigger and bigger credit card bills, continuing to buy larger and larger SUV’s, and moving our homes further and further from where we work. Eventually society will break down, zombies will rise up, and everyone will live like Mad Max and be forced to drink their own urine…Yea right, I have more faith in people than that.

High oil = lifestyle changes. whether or not people like it they are going to have to start changing the way they live. They simply wont be able to afford the same old lifestyle anymore. There are two ways you can go about making change. One, wait till the last possible moment and make the change super fast (this often means it costs way more, and is way more painful). Two, get ahead of the curve and make the changes in easily manageable increments (much less cost, and way less painful).

We could also be making some industrial sized lemon aid out of these mega global warming lemons. Why not jump on this opportunity to create an entire green economy based around efficiency, lowering our consumption and renewable energy. I wonder how long it will take large corporations to figure out that the best way to compete against their rivals will be to stop using fossil fuel.

What do you think $100 oil means? How high will the cost of destroying ourselves have to get before we stop doing it?