The conflict has triggered the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. — International Energy Agency (IEA), March 20, 2026
||| FROM ELISABETH ROBSON |||
In my previous op-ed on “tightening our belts”, I wrote about the need to prepare for harder times; to “tighten our belts” as global instability begins to ripple outward into everyday life here at home. That moment is here.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has made something unmistakably clear: despite decades of rhetoric about so-called “transition” and resilience, our world still runs—profoundly—on fossil fuels. When that flow is disrupted, everything moves with it.
Fuel prices are the most visible shock. But they are only the beginning. Modern agriculture depends heavily on fossil fuels, not just for transport, but for fertilizer production. As energy prices rise, so too will the cost of growing food. That cost will reach grocery shelves soon enough.
It doesn’t stop there. Diesel fuels the trucks, trains, and equipment that move nearly everything we rely on. When diesel prices rise, the cost of transporting goods rises with it. At the same time, oil and gas are the raw materials for plastics, packaging, and countless industrial products. Even small disruptions can ripple outward into delays and price increases across a wide range of everyday items.Some of the effects are even less visible, but no less real. Helium, for example, is a byproduct of natural gas production and is essential for semiconductor manufacturing. Qatar produces ~30% of global helium, and this supply has largely been disrupted. The ultra-pure helium is used in places like Taiwan, which manufactures 60% of global semiconductor supply and makes 90% of the most advanced chips. Constraints there can cascade into higher costs and longer wait times for electronics, appliances, and vehicles. What begins as a disruption in one part of the energy system quickly becomes a broader increase in the cost of living.
In response, institutions like the International Energy Agency are now openly discussing demand reduction: using less, traveling less, conserving more. In other words, the very measures long associated with serious climate action are being reframed as emergency responses to supply shocks.
It raises an uncomfortable question. If reducing consumption is what we turn to in a crisis, why was it so often treated as unrealistic or unnecessary when framed as a long-term response to ecological overshoot and its many symptoms, including climate change?
For years, we have spoken the language of “transition” without fully embracing its implications. Efficiency gains, new technologies, and market signals were expected to carry most of the burden, while in reality not slowing fossil fuels use or reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the slightest. The present moment is a reminder that physical dependence does not yield easily to aspirational goals. When supply tightens, reality asserts itself quickly. As I often say: reality always wins eventually.Here in the county, these global dynamics are no longer distant. We are already seeing rising costs in energy and essential services. At the same time, we face decisions about public spending and taxation that will shape our resilience in the years ahead.
This is not an argument for or against any specific measure. It is, however, a moment to be clear-eyed about constraints. Households are being forced to make difficult choices, prioritizing essentials and delaying or foregoing what they can. It is reasonable to expect that our public institutions operate with a similar awareness and that in a time of tightening margins, discipline matters.
The broader lesson may be this: “tightening our belts” is not just a temporary response to crisis, but a condition we will need to learn to live with, whether driven by geopolitics, resource limits, or the realities of overshoot.
The sooner we approach that reality with honesty, the better prepared we will be to navigate what comes next.
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Eliminating nuclear weapons and wars would go a long ways to making this a far better world. Tightening belts … logical thought , but not specific enough.
Small example, but think about what $200 Billion (Department of War ask ), but it will be MUCH higher than $200 Billion taxpayers will likely have to provide the Department of War just for this one questionable outcome military “excursion.”
Of course, the world’s multi-governments and hundreds of differing religious and billions of personal beliefs have both magnitude and momentum that is impossible to ever bring under any reasonable control.
I agree Robert; the mitigation measures laid out by the IEA are essentially “reduce, reduce, reduce!” While the bulk of the reductions they suggest are exactly what we should have been doing all along if we had actually been serious about climate change (and overshoot), it is unlikely to make any difference in the big picture given the global push for “more and more and more.”
That said, my own personal plan to tighten my budget wherever I can, knowing that prices are going up sharply in coming months, continue to work hard to try to reduce my dependence on electricity as much as possible, knowing the price will continue going up, and urge the County to find more ways to work within its existing budget.
Until we change from a wartime economy the downward spiral will continue.
The question is how do we change to investing in infrastructure, education, health care, and renewable energy instead?
Bob, as “resources” dwindle in availability and quality (e.g. ore grades reducing, oil & gas declines, soil degrading from agriculture, etc.) it seems likely conflicts will grow, so personally I don’t see wartime economies going away anytime soon.
Here in the US we already spend far more on healthcare per capita and as a percentage of GDP (roughly 17-18%) than any other high-income nation, yet consistently experience worse population health outcomes, including lower life expectancy, higher chronic disease burdens, and higher rates of avoidable deaths. High costs are driven by higher prices for services and drugs, rather than higher utilization, thanks to our insanely inefficient private health-care system. It’s not clear to me how more investment will help anything; seems instead we should figure out why our outcomes are so bad given the investment we already have.
And if you follow energy analysts as I do, you’ll know that in most of the energy grid regions in the US, adding more renewables is causing prices to go up, not down, as back-up power plants run more inefficiently, and electricity storage and infrastructure upgrades to support the renewables are costly.
A recent article comparing states with so-called “clean energy” mandates with states that have no “clean energy” mandates found that “states with clean energy mandates have higher electricity prices than non-mandate states, and they have also increased at nearly double the rate since 2020.” So more renewables is unlikely to help with consumer costs, certainly not in the near term.
Very interesting times! Seems like the best moment to step in and consumer demand that not everything be hermetically or otherwise sealed in plastic — particularly since the producers responsible for the ludicrous amount of plastic production/utilization might now have more economic incentives to explore alternatives.