By Terry Weiss, Money Morning
In a riveting interview on "CBS This Morning" billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens slammed presidential candidate Mitt Romney's energy plan, saying it focuses entirely on new oil drilling with no mention of natural gas.
"The United States has more natural gas than any other country in the world... but there was no mention of [it]," Pickens said.
President Obama's "plan" isn't much better, according to Pickens.
"They don't know anything about energy in Washington. We're still importing dirty OPEC crude. Why are we going to take clean natural gas and send it out of the country," he said referring to both candidates calls for exporting the current glut of natural gas rather than use it for domestic consumption.
"That tells you there is no plan."
Approximately 487,000 natural gas wells exist in the U.S. - enough to provide 100 years-worth of domestic energy . But, the fact is, the U.S. is still largely "built for oil."
According to some estimates, the U.S. has 60,000 "processes" that rely on oil and petroleum based products, everything from growing and transporting food, to household items needed to make our lives easier.
Pickens is worried we're running out of time to convert these processes to run on natural gas and reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
headed for disaster?
Many experts warn it's already too late.
According to Dr. Chris Martenson, a former VP of a Fortune 300 company and an internationally recognized expert on the dangers of exponential growth in energy and the economy, the massive overhaul of our energy system would take 20 years at least.
" The problem is, we don't have twenty years,"Martenson said. "We might not have even onebefore oil becomes too expensive for society."
Martenson's analysis, in fact, has been gaining widespread attention after he appeared in a controversial documentary that has become an American "wake-up" call for economic dangers that lie ahead.
The documentary warns of a looming economic catastrophe.
Specifically, Martenson and a team of influential economic experts say they have discovered a "frightening pattern" they believe points to a massive economic collapse unlike anything they ever seen in the history of the world.
The work of this team of scientists, economists, and geopolitical analysts has garnered so much attention, they were brought in front of the United Nations, UK Parliament, and numerous Fortune 500 companies to share much of their findings. Click on the short video above to see the eerie pattern.
And according to these experts - who have presented their findings to the United Nations, the UK Parliament and a long list of governments - our energy system will be the first domino to fall, sending shockwaves throughout our society.
"What this pattern represents is a dangerous countdown clock that's quickly approaching zero," said Keith Fitz-Gerald, the Chief Investment Strategist for the Money Map Press, who predicted the 2008 oil shock, the credit default swap crisis that helped bring about the recession, and the Greek and European fiscal catastrophe that is still wreaking havoc until this day.
"The resulting chaos is going to crush Americans. It may even happen well before Americans hit the polls in November."
Martinson explained their findings further:
"We found an identical pattern in our economic and energy systems that guarantee they're going to fail," Martenson said. "This pattern is nearly the same as in any pyramid scheme, one that escalates exponentially fast before it collapses. Governments around the globe are chiefly responsible."
"And what's really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn't limited to energy and the economy. We found the same catastrophic pattern in our food, and water systems as well."
According to Martenson, these systems could all implode at the same time.
"Food, water, energy, money. Everything."
Dr. Kent Moors, one of the world's leading energy analysts, who advices 16 world governments on energy matters and who currently serves on two State Department task forces on energy, also voiced concerns over what he and his colleagues uncovered.
"Most frightening of all is how this exact same pattern keeps appearing in virtually every system critical to our society and way of life," Dr. Moors stated.
"It's a pattern that's hard to see unless you understand the way a catastrophe like this gains traction," Dr. Moors says. "At first, it's almost impossible to perceive. Everything looks fine, just like in every pyramid scheme. Yet the insidious growth of the virus keeps doubling in size, over and over again - in shorter and shorter periods of time - until it hits unsustainable levels. And it collapses the system."
Dr. Moors warns this type of unsustainable road to collapse can be seen today in our energy, food and water production. All are tightly connected and contributing to the economic disaster that lies directly ahead.
According to polls, the average American is sensing danger. A recent survey found that 61% of Americans believe a catastrophe is looming - yet only 15% feel prepared for such a deeply troubling event.
Fitz-Gerald says people should take immediate steps to protect themselves from what is happening.
"If our research is right," says Fitz-Gerald, "Americans will have to make some tough choices on how they'll go about surviving when basic necessities become nearly unaffordable and the economy becomes dangerously unstable."
"People need to begin to make preparations with their investments, retirement savings, and personal finances before it's too late," says Fitz-Gerald. 
