[JoeGreene]

Hi folks, it's worth it for me to get your answers so...

Knowing everything you know now and given the opportunity to go
back to 1856, what advice would you offer humanity in their quest for oil?

On May 24th, I will send $100 (USD) to the person I think provided the best answer.
Hint: you might consider the oldest trick in the book.
Pennsylvania, 1849

[Raxozanne]

What goes up must come down

[k_semler]

Don't do it, to do otherwise is to have Industrial Civilisation commit suicide very slow and painfully.

[RonMN]

EVERYTHING in moderation!!!

[JoeGreene]

We have billions facing living hell here in the decade and you are going and try to head this off with a one liner? I'm more serious than that. I would hope you would try to explain - really - how oil will effect the population. I don't need a book but $100 (I will pay with you confirming payment) should get a paragraph or two.

[accept_death]

100$ seems a little drastic. What, are you going back in time?

[RonMN]

Fair enough...i can see this deserves more than a 1 liner...but even if you had the best advice, who'd listen to you?

Are you really gonna tell somebody who's hell-bent on striking it rich that they're gonna cause a collapse of civilization in 150 years? We tell people NOW that we may have as little as 5 years & they say "well i'll worry about it THEN".

I saw MANY MANY Y2K fixes that will begin to cause all the same problems in 2040 (a cheap fix if i ever saw one)...and when i asked about it, the answer was "I wont be programming 40 years from now"...

(TECHNIQUE: if date is less than 40...assume year 2000.
if date is equal or greater than 40...assume 1900).

[Doly]

If I found myself suddenly transported to Pensylvannia, 1856, and I wanted to make a difference in peak oil today, I wouldn't try to preach to the people in the Oil Creek.

Why? Because, even assuming that they heard and took me seriously, what hope is there that the average person of 150 years later knows anything about it? Even if they stopped extracting oil in Pelsylvannia, somebody else would extract it from somewhere else later.

What I would do, I would take a ship to Great Britain, locate Charles Darwin, the naturalist, and start having long talks with him. He's already convinced that Malthus is fundamentally right. He's about to write a book that will still be read and discussed 150 years later. I would just suggest a few ideas to put in the last chapter, a new chapter called something like "The future evolution of mankind."

The main gist of the chapter would be something like this: man, like any other animal, suffers natural selection. Having no natural enemies, and with medicine advancing all the time, our main enemy is a limit in the resources we need. (Add a few malthusian concepts here). This hasn't been a problem so far, because mankind is still exploring the planet. But one can envision a future, maybe not very far, where the whole planet has been explored and its full resources mapped. The chapter would also point out that the qualities that are useful to explore and exploit a whole planet aren't the same qualities that are useful to keep living sustainably in it. End with some ideas about ecology.

If such a chapter appeared in the Origin of Species, and for generations people were as familiar with those concepts as they are with the concept of natural selection, there is hope that we wouldn't be now facing peak oil.

[Aaron]

What else?

I parlay my understanding of modern science and technology into a global institution where I serve as benevolent monarch directing the people of earth into a harmonious and prosperous Utopian civilization.

[accept_death]

It was the automobile that killed us. Or more specifically, the mass production of the automobile. Until 1910 coal was still the primary source of energy. Oil just burned lamps. But once Henry Ford started giving high wages to his factory workers and letting them buy the cars they made on credit, we were finished. Everyone just had to own a motor vehicle for the novelty, and eventually it became a requirement. So if I were to go back in time, the one piece of advice I'd offer would be to preserve the railroads and street cars. Build your towns and cities around them with permenance in mind. Use it to get around town, or around the country, from city to city. Use it to ship freight. Devote the added energy from oil to creating a rail based infrastructure. Create a highway system, but nothing like the interstate. Just something in place so people can rent a car for a weekend getaway. Let the automobile stay the domain of the rich. Forget trying to be democratic about it. Use the energy from the oil for better things. Use it to create beautiful towns and cities that people can walk or bike around. Basically, try to use this gift for something other than excess personal mobility.

[JoeW]

I suggest a two-pronged attack:
1) Convince the dumbasses (use religion!)
2) Convince the scientists (use science!)
#1:
If you go back to the US in 1856, it was a country inhabited by a God-fearing people.
Knowing that the right-wing Christians will hijack the fate of humanity in the late 20th and 21st centuries, it will be important (and ridiculously easy) to convince these simple people that the earth's oil belongs to God and that use of it will result in great devastation to mankind.
A gold plate or stone tablet to this effect located near a major oil field in TX should suffice. The gold plate or tablet would be engraved using modern equipment and taken with me back in time. The imbeciles who discover it will no doubtedly declare that mankind could not have created it, and therefore the message must be from God.
Since everyone sins, however, and this is generally accepted, oil use will continue as it would have...but there will be a ton of people that will be paying attention to oil issues.
#2:
I will approach the prominent scientists of the time, informing them that I have come from the future (they are sure to eat this up!) and give them some tidbit to prove it (a man with the initials JWB will soon be a famous assassin). I will bring with me all available documentation of known oil reserves, Peak Oil Theory, and explain the problem in detail to the great minds of the time. I'm no genius, but they are, so let them work on the answer. They just got a 200-yr head start on the problem.

[JoeGreene]

Your answers are appreciated!

BTW, when I say go back to Pennsylvania I mean that figuratively. For all I care
go back anywhere, anytime before that discovery.

Also, maybe some people have not weighed in, waiting for a better offer.

They are shrewd because I'm going to double the winning to $200. If anyone
wants my work number so our firm's accountant can hold the money let me know.
I don't want anyone to think this is a trick just because the right answer
is the oldest one in the book.

[highlander]

Joe W
Your contempt for religion, whoops I mean Christianity, has made you a dumbass. Google Manifest Destiny

You can't change history
You can't change human nature

If I could, I'd get about 10K barrels of the Penn Crude and dump it into the Ohio river to show folks what kind of mess they are about to make. Of course, they would be convinced technology and science could clean up the mess.

[oowolf]

Tip: buy stock in an outfit called "Standard Oil".

[JoeGreene]

Don't anybody laugh. Humor could indeed win the prize.

The reason why is in the meaning of "Isaac".

[smallpoxgirl]

I think the right advise was given...by folks like Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Geronimo, Tecumseh, etc. The American world view made people completely unable to hear or understand. Only when they start to go hungry will it occur to them to change their world view.

[JoeGreene]

Okay, did I expect too much out of this bunch? You have hell around the corner and have no one on first base as the reasons. If there is a God, could he expect to take this PeakOil bunch to a new planet with any hopes of avoiding the same problem. I don't think so Tim.

Here is what I expected someone here to say to the 1850 world...

Dear Congress,

There's a lot of excitement here in Pennsylvania about discovery of underground oil. Congress should look into this concept before we do something really deadly. I'm no expect but it's apparent to me that population is regulated by the amount of the sun's energy per acre.

If we add to that energy source ten fold [per acre] then in theory this oil thing will eventually doom mankind (it's not infinite). The only way to avoid is if all this energy mollifies man sex drive (I don't see that happening) or if its replenishment is greater than its usage (I don't see that happening either). What's worse, the more oil there is the bigger the disaster.

I writing now because once it starts you will never be able to stop it. I know the stuff is temping but the math doesn't lie.

Sincerely,
Joe Greene

This is just a little help. The big answer is still out there and remains the oldest trick in the book.

[Liamj]

It seems Joe may already have an answer in mind, which kind of takes the fun out of it, but anyway..

What would i do back then? I'd push like hell for the royalties (what extractors pay to the State) on the extraction of oil to be calculated on some inverse function of the remaining reserves, e.g. royalty on barrel X = $1 x (total reserves/remaining reserves).
That'd make oil forever increasingly expensive, on a daily basis even (!), while still letting the market drive discovery, use, etc. The combination of price instability and sheer magnitude would ensure conservative use. Well, you'd hope so.

[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JoeGreene', '
')
This is just a little help. The big answer is still out there and remains the oldest trick in the book.

[JoeGreene]

Good job Raxozanne, you're getting warm!

There are a whole lot of religious folks out there (excluding present company I'm sure) that think just like you who don't swear. When they find out about the trick some won't get it at all, many will go into denial, the rest will go...

"....Ohhhh, S_it!, Get pastor John on the phone QUICK"!

Raxozanne: right book, wrong trick.