ABSTRACT
Lives in the rich North have been premised upon increasing incomes, wealth, security, movement, wellbeing and longevity. The economies of North America, Western Europe and parts of Asia seemed to be set fair for many decades of growth fuelled by the high carbon systems of production and consumption. Movement became significant in the contemporary world indeed the freedom of movement, as represented in popular media, politics and the public sphere, is the ideology and utopia of the twenty-first century. Dubai started drilling for oil in 1966 but soon the oil began to run out so a gigantic visitor, real estate and consumption economy replaced it. The peak oil hypothesis states that extracting oil reserves has a beginning, a middle and an end. The Great Crash of 2008 was partly activated by the speculative building and risky funding of extensive tracts of 'marginal' suburbs and related shopping and leisure developments within the US.
