The supply chain problems arising from the unprovoked USA\/Israeli attack on Iran are becoming clear. They are multiple, affecting not just oil and natural gas, 20% of which passes through Hormuz, but also the many things dependent on petroleum. The impacts have yet to be fully felt, but what the world will experience is going to be just a practice performance for a longer term and more permanent change, a slowdown that will mean a collapse in the multiple systems on which we all rely.<\/p>\n
Systemic impacts of the Hormuz blockades<\/p>\n
Just as the people of Vietnam fought the USA to a standstill (which led to ultimate defeat<\/a>), Iran\u2019s authoritarian government has enforced a stalemate against the bigger power, in this case by preventing ships from transiting through the Gulf of Hormuz bottleneck. The USA has compounded the problem by blockading Iran\u2019s ports. While this impasse might end with a peace agreement, it has already, in early May 2026, led to price rises for petroleum products and multiple items, large and small, dependent on them. These rises are baked into the system for the near to medium-term future.<\/p>\n Petroleum<\/p>\n The way of life of the vast majority of humanity is now wholly dependent on petroleum: in effect, we eat it, wear it, get carried around by it, communicate through it, sit on it and medicate ourselves with it. Oil has the virtue of being a dense and transportable energy source. It is not so difficult to substitute for oil in applications such as electricity generation, although the renewable energy capture systems themselves are made and maintained by burning oil. It is far more difficult to do so in areas such as agriculture, shipping, aviation and heavy freight. There will still be oil available, but it will be more expensive if the blockades continue, since the global stockpiles will get depleted. This will increase the cost of many things, and for a country like the UK, which imports half of its food and most manufactured products, the impacts are obvious.<\/p>\n Oil is also vital for the manufacture of a huge variety of products. As it increases in cost, those products increase in cost. The Hormuz constriction already directly affects several critical petrochemical products, listed below:<\/p>\n Inorganic fertiliser: In addition to rising oil prices, the supply shock to fertiliser will put pressure on agricultural production, with\u00a0big implications for food security<\/a>. Around 30% of fertilizer products go through the Strait of Hormuz. Qatar is the world\u2019s biggest producer of urea, a key input to fertiliser manufacture. The region also produces around 35% of the urea and 23% of the ammonia, another feedstock for nitrogenous fertiliser, which is exported globally. Sulphur, another component of fertiliser manufacture, is also produced in the region as a by-product of oil production. Depending on the duration of the blockades, the restriction of oil and its products will lead to a recession across the world, simply as a result of price escalation. Some areas will be affected more than others, depending on the degree of their reliance on petroleum products from the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n Commentators are unified in calling this a perfect storm for the UK and world economy, and hence for livelihoods and well-being.<\/p>\n Peak resources, limits to growth and system collapse<\/p>\n The Hormuz constriction gives us an insight into a far bigger problem, the constrained nature of the resources we rely on in rich and poor countries alike.<\/p>\n Back in 1973, systems scientists at MIT carried out a computer simulation using a methodology called systems dynamics. They modelled several scenarios, using then current trends to identify likely patterns of key variables (population and industrialisation, pollution, resource depletion and land availability for food) over the coming decades. The modeling produced has been uncannily prescient<\/a>, in that what actually happened has followed the projections with relatively minor deviations, a record\u00a0superior to that of any economic forecasting<\/a>. The \u2018standard run\u2019 scenario (what would happen if trends then continued) indicated a civilisational collapse, starting about now. What underpins this grim diagnosis?<\/p>\n As more and more people achieve higher and higher levels of affluence, they consume more and more of the world\u2019s resources. Consumption increases each year and population growth, industrialisation, pollution, food production and resource depletion all follow an exponential growth curve. Material growth cannot continue indefinitely because the Earth is physically limited. Eventually, the scale of human activity exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment, resulting in a sudden contraction. This is ecological overshoot, and we are well into that. \u201cThis means that several of Earth\u2019s life-supporting systems risk crossing critical thresholds<\/a>, with severe consequences for both ecosystems and societies\u201d.<\/p>\n Globally, we are using the equivalent of one and a half planets\u2019 worth of the Earth\u2019s ability to renew its resources and absorb human-generated matter, e.g. carbon emissions, every year. Indeed, 2.8 times in the case of the UK<\/a>. That requires at least a 60% reduction in the size of the UK\u2019s production and consumption footprint, and more than an 85% reduction in the case of the Nitrogen, phosphorus and Carbon Dioxide emission boundaries<\/a>. What this means is that, firstly, the resources supporting humanity \u2013 food, minerals, industrial output \u2013 will begin to decline. This would be followed by a collapse in population.<\/p>\n It is important to understand that contraction or collapse happens, not because physical resources disappear entirely, but because the quality of some resources declines as more and more of them are extracted.\u00a0 Easy to extract oil reserves, for example, are succeeded by those that require more sophisticated and costly techniques<\/a>\u00a0for drilling, pumping and refining.\u00a0 Mineral deposits become\u00a0successively less densely concentrated<\/a>, requiring more energy to extract and producing prodigious mountains of spoil. It therefore requires more and more energy and investment to extract usable high-quality resources from raw materials. The same goes for energy: the key concept here is diminishing Energy Return on Investment<\/a> (EROI). This diverts resources away from productive industry and agriculture, and eventually the process, and hence the system, becomes unsustainable. The resulting economic collapse is likely to precede the overall collapse of the Earth\u2019s life systems.<\/p>\n Are not renewables the answer? Yes, in part, but they cannot substitute for either the scale of use or all the multiple uses of oil and other hydrocarbons.<\/p>\n Firstly, obviously, you cannot make petrochemicals out of sunlight or wind. We have been warned<\/p>\n Hormuz is a warning, a preview, or a dry run for what lies in store. Already, the warnings are emerging into the mainstream. In the last few months, two previously suppressed government reports have emerged. One is a national security assessment titled Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security<\/a>, the other considers major issues in\u00a0food security<\/a>. The first report listed a number of startling headlines, each with a rating of the government\u2019s confidence in the analysis given (not of the likelihood of these dire events occurring).<\/p>\n Global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity.\u00a0High Note again that this is not from some eco-activists but from the UK government itself.<\/p>\n
\nSulphur products, notably sulphuric acid, are used in a host of industrial processes, including copper and cobalt extraction.\u00a0\u00a0Some 49% of the global sulphur trade passes through Hormuz<\/a>.
\nPlastics\u00a0are made almost exclusively from\u00a0petroleum fractions<\/a>. To name but two types,\u00a0polyester is used in clothing, and polypropylene has a huge variety of applications<\/a>, from automotive plastics to rope to medical disposables.
\nPharmaceuticals:\u00a0some\u00a085% of NHS prescriptions could be affected<\/a>, paracetamol and aspirin being particularly vulnerable. Life-critical cancer and stroke medications will also be affected.\u00a0 NHS sources predict shortages from June 2026.<\/p>\n
\nSecondly, industrial-scale renewables provide electricity. Despite advances in battery storage, large-scale deployment of battery storage is not feasible for heavy freight and similar uses.
\nThirdly, the\u00a0increasing scarcity of critical minerals<\/a>\u00a0(copper, rare earths, for example) will constrain the scale of renewable energy capture systems, so they will not be able to substitute for the scale of energy currently used.
\nFourthly, the manufacture, deployment and maintenance of wind turbines, solar panels and energy storage systems are all dependent on fossil fuels<\/a>.
\nFifthly, the true EROI of electricity generation by renewable energy capture systems\u00a0is low<\/a>. All this means that our future will be far more energy constrained than today, possibly a tenfold decrease overall.<\/p>\n
\nCascading risks of ecosystem degradation are likely to include geopolitical instability, economic insecurity, conflict, migration and increased inter-state competition for resources.\u00a0Moderate
\nCritical ecosystems that support major global food production areas and impact global climate, water and weather cycles are the most important for UK national security.\u00a0High
\nEcosystem degradation is occurring across all regions. Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse.\u00a0High
\nThere is a realistic possibility that some ecosystems (such as coral reefs in Southeast Asia and forests in the very far North) will start to collapse from 2030, and others (rainforests and mangroves) will start to collapse from 2050. Low
\nAll countries are exposed to the risks of ecosystem collapse within and beyond their borders.\u00a0\u00a0Moderate
\nWithout significant increases in the UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food. Moderate<\/p>\n