[Xenophobe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')I haven't seem anything official, but the speculation for the plug-in Prius release date tends to point to 2012, and test drives supposedly show mileage around 65 mpg.

Far from perfect, but certainly seems to be a real step in the right direction. And I'll bet Toyota can produce serious volume by say 2015, if the demand is there.

[pedalling_faster]

well, we've never had a real march or protest.

how can Peak Oil be a movement without marches & protests ?

thinking for a second - about how many people have prepared for Peak Oil by buying high-mileage cars, re-arranging their lives to shorten their commute ... maybe people who are serious about preparing for Peak Oil are too busy for marches and protests.

on this webcast
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/f ... 0205-3.mp3

Jim Puplava (Financial Sense guy) talks about all the preps he did/ is doing, to prepare for Peak Oil.

no protesting though !

[Xenophobe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')As it is now, a Ford Focus hybrid gets better long-range mileage than a Volt.

[Lore]

The Volt, the Prius and Ford Focus are a joke. All made with a huge expenditure of energy and raw resources that are in an ever growing short supply. It never made sense, in the long term, for an expensive 4,000 lb. auto to be shuttling around a single 150 lb person.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Xenophobe', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'T')here´s no such a thing as a peak oil movement, there´s just a group of people.....

[teotwawki]

It seems to me to be all anthropic existentialism and darwinistic evolution at work. Whether "fast" or relatively "slower" crash it all ultimately comes down to different modes and methods of preservation and conservation that best suits the human species in aggregate. Nature (the laws or observations of physics/reality) is very 'shrewd', calculating and ruthless and could care less about our idealistic feelings on how thoughts normally "ought" to be.. "Happy-feel-good" emotions evolved as adaptive mechanisms to suit individual and collective survival in the overarching relentless march forward. Not the other way around.

It is not really about peak oil, or even oil, as it is about trying to predict how things (on the macro level) will play out. Oil just happens to be a major factor. Not that we (on an individual level or collective level) can control it or fundamentally change it much, but we psychologically just like to see how things could play out. We can't really change the weather either, yet why do we all look at those forecasts? Sometimes we simply "want to know" but don't necessary seek to do anything about it, other times it is about preparing on an emotional if not physical level.

People always vaguely allude to this "elite" TPTB that are plotting NWO and operating behind the scenes in foreign and world affairs. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of people in high places of power. But I don't think there really are any small group of all-powerful, all-controlling TPTB that enact their wishes upon the world in any substantially top-down manner. Yes the human species is controlled in a hierarchical manner and there will always be a master/slave relationship.. but many of the larger influences and seemingly coordinated actions that have occurred may not actually be the consorted effort of obscure individuals on the highest rungs acting in unity and unison.. it could simply be the result of emergence of complexity systems (an analogy would be the "invisible hand") at play, more the forces of evolution at work rather than that of a group of all powerful and evil people. After all, "they", (if there is a they) are just as constrained by the structural forces of the physical world as any of us are! Policies are always reactionary to physical environment, not vice versa! Just look at an ant colony for example. There are no blueprints, and no single ant is programmed with the knowledge on how to construct a colony, and yet together they build something magnificent.. something that seems to require an "collective intelligence" that they couldn't possibly possess. There is no "ghost in the machine", no boogeyman, no real international TPTB.

In terms of fast/slow crash scenarios, well part of it depends on what is your own personal subjective threshold of fast or slow.. And granted no one can really come out and prediction what is going to happen on what timescales and whatnot.. not to any degree of accuracy that would matter to anyone on a day to day or even month to month basis.

But there are trends that have been increasingly making themselves obvious to the observant. One of them is "cannibalism".. And I don't mean human meat eating (although it may come to that someday) but rather the scale-invariant cannibalization of and on all levels, domains of existence.. Both from the top-down and the bottoms-up... On the international level we already see smaller nations being "sacrificed" for the welfare of maintaining and propping up the larger superpowers. When push comes to shove and there ain't enough to happily and abundantly go around, might equates to right. Iraq was sacrificed for oil so that soccer moms back home can continue to afford their nonnegotiable way of live for as long as possible. Soon it will be the rest of the Middle East and OPEC nations.. Large nations will swallow whole the smaller proxy counties to preserve their "weight loss".. The Federal Reserve's policy of QE2+ seeks to rob the world of the wealth and so that America Empire can take over and "buy up" the entire world without so much as firing a single shot.. It remains to be seen how this plays out, but part of it hangs in the balance is how effectively the US military can continue to maintain its petrodollar hegemony through means of coercion (Iraq, Iran, Afghan) or infowars propaganda (Egypt)..

Large companies are merging with and buying up or buying out smaller companies. This "consolidation" reflects a macroeconomic truth and reality, and in the future the lowest point ATC for most industries will demand natural monopolies.. so again from the standpoint of conglomerates and corporations we will continue to witness the relentless and inevitable march towards cannibalization.

And even within a single individual company the higher uppers are protecting themselves and their own indirect viability by canning/cannibalizing the lower ant works to save on labor costs. Employees are expected to work more and more but for less and less pay and real benefits. Here technology comes to their rescue/damnation and through the new paradigm of out-sourcing, cloud computing, etc CEOs will continue to shape policy to take advantage of those last remaining economies of scale and render obsolete both skilled and unskilled workers alike.

Cannibalization has even affected the dynamics of interpersonal relationships on a dyadic level. As we revert to a third world nation so too will the cultural, society, ethnic, legal and traditional norms change to reflect with the times. You will see all the "civil rights", all the "progress" we have made go in reverse. Once again females will marry for security and safety and for food and resources and not for good looks or love or any of that relatively new-age stuff. Most men will go without a woman, and a few rich men will hoard all the most attractive and fertile women.. This is how it always has been in the past, and how it will soon be again.

With food prices about to skyrocket, water, arable land, and famine issues through much of the world.. soon cannibalization will finally reach an individual level. As the body starves it first burns the fat, then the protein, then the body organs, and when it starts chewing on the heart and the brain then you die.

But of course, I don't doubt that some regional TPTB (not to be confused with an international/global TPTB) will seek in a last ditch effort to solve the problem by getting rid of the world's population... I think this is why US might do a surprise first strategical thermonuclear strike on Mainland China and do a decapulation strike, then getting rid of Chinese population... and after China they will join with Russia to take out India's population.. With half of the world population gone, they will also have scared the smaller nations and the rest of the world becomes America's colonies and slaves and US can still reign supreme for the next 100's as projected in PNAC. After all, an orderly decline/slow dieoff may not appeal to US since it is already "on top" of the food chain.. Those on top of the pyramid don't want an orderly shutdown, they want everyone to sacrifice so they remain the relative position.

But if that doesn't happen, and while on the topic of hybrids and electrics, Volt and Prius will soon get international competition from the Chinese's Build Your Dreams (BYD)

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pedalling_faster', 'w')ell, we've never had a real march or protest.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'I')t never made sense, in the long term, for an expensive 4,000 lb. auto to be shuttling around a single 150 lb person.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Xenophobe', ' ')...the rationing and shortages which peak oil is supposed to cause will not bother the average Volt commuter.

[mos6507]

teotwawki,

You start off talking about how the world isn't controlled by some NWO elites and then go on to document typical Alex Jones tinfoil about the "empire" (queue John Williams Imperial march theme), genocide and thermonuclear war.

You don't know whether you're coming or going, man.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')The Volt will fix all that. It will make everything almost.....cornucopian!

[teotwawki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 't')eotwawki, You start off talking about how the world isn't controlled by some NWO elites and then go on to document typical Alex Jones tinfoil about the "empire" (queue John Williams Imperial march theme), genocide and thermonuclear war. You don't know whether you're coming or going, man.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')CIA/MI6/Mossad/Federal Reserve/Goldman Saches/etc ≠ NWO or Global TPTB

[teotwawki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '[')url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2380051,00.asp]Here's a little something[/url] to help balance your anti-american screed.

[TheDude]

BYD attempted to market a PHEV in China, the F3DM. Almost up to 300 sales since 2009, I see. I measure these pitiful sales in "pl," i.e., parking lots. We're saving just as much far more gasoline by putting people permanently out of work.

I love all this ad hominem. If these guys were around this site in 2006 they'd be screaming and hollering about how there is absolutely no possibility that housing prices could decline from their secular trend - and have no end of refs to back up their false assertion. Which is spreading fear in another form, Mr LoathesTheAlien. Or wallowing in delusion, or denial, or...ah, who gives a shit!

[teotwawki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', 'B')YD attempted to market a PHEV in China, the F3DM. Almost up to 300 sales since 2009, I see. I measure these pitiful sales in "pl," i.e., parking lots. We're saving just as much far more gasoline by putting people permanently out of work.

[Ludi]

Yes, these problems are all "self-correcting" as long as we aren't interested in quality of life, or even being alive.

[teotwawki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')es, these problems are all "self-correcting" as long as we aren't interested in quality of life, or even being alive.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('teotwawki', ' ')now it seems that this illusion can no longer be propped up.

[AirlinePilot]

You can have your prius and believe any mumbo junmbo you want. I'll stick by my prediction that the Volt will be a poor selling vehicle and an example of our limited thinking with respect to PO and how it affects us moving forward.

Any mileage claims need to be supported by studies of how real people drive them in the real world. Not some hyper-miling freaks.