[rockdoc123]

Well I think there are some similarities between Y2K and PO....and of course many differences. The biggest similarity I see is that 90% of the population took all of the Y2K is going to happen for sure and here is why....it isn't a maybe it is for sure stuff that was in the press as scientific fact. Similarily many people,( a lot of who post here) pretty much believe everything that someone posts here or elsewhere if it fits their particular theory...ie. Peak Oil is going to happen right away and it will be dissasterous. IN both cases a lot of folks are not seeking out the data and working the numbers themselves going to the sites where you can get hard data.
Of course the dissimilarities are that 1. oil production will definitely peak one day whereas Y2K will not definitely happen, 2. one can pretty much jot down on paper all of the economic, political and technical drivers that will determine when peak oil happens (although it is a comlex system and subject to chaos theory).....with Y2K it was more or less a surmise on the part of a few guru techwenies.
My view is that Y2K is much more similar to the dissaster scenarios thrown out there by the climate change scientists. Bad science which a gullible public will lap up with joy.

[GL]

I think Lou Grinzo has a good take on the differences between Y2K problems and peak oil. Here: Peak Oil is not "Y2K the Sequel" The rest of the site is recommeded as well.

"Peak oil is a completely different situation, in that there's no serious debate that the supply of oil will peak some day, and that if it peaks soon and supply declines noticeably we're in for some "interesting" (to put it mildly) times. The pertinent questions about peak oil are when will it happen and how far will supply fall short of desired demand post-peak."

"The Y2K bug, like peak oil, was a unique event in human history, but it was a "fix it once and it's done" issue that could be forgotten once completed."

"For all the talk in the countdown to Y2K about how utterly dependent the world was on computers, the truth is that a lot of society still wasn't threatened by it."

[halfin]

I followed the Y2K situation very closely and I see a great many similarities and parallels to Peak Oil. As before, many of the main advocates are making money off the issue. No, not random people posting here, but that's just the same as for Y2K, there were plenty of message boards such as comp.software.year-2000 where random people posted. But the big sites were selling books and things just like today.

The biggest similarity is in the mindset and mentality of the true believers. One of the most interesting phenomena is the tendency for one-up-manship. That is, people seem to compete to see who can forecast the most dire consequences.

Back in Y2K, there were those who said, it will be terrible, there will be a recession, everyone will be thrown out of work, there will be riots and hardship. And then the next guy would come along and call him a "Pollyanna"! It won't just be riots and hardship, it will be death! Death and destruction! Your children will be drinking animal pee out of hubcaps, and you'll be grateful that they are alive!

The same kind of thing happens today with PO. Some come along and say that we will have a recession and that economic growth will be a thing of the past. Others disparage them as refusing to face the real issues, that there will be massive dieoffs and a Mad Max fall of civilization.

And under it all is the long-lived guns-n-gold survivalist fringe, often with a touch of religious fanaticism. PO is a little different because its fanatics are as likely to come from the left as the right, so the end of the world, God is coming types keep their heads down a bit more than with Y2K. But they are present as well.

Of course the biggest difference between PO and Y2K is that we can never look back and say that PO didn't happen. If we are still in the same situation 5 or 10 years from now, the PO guys can still argue that the peak is just a couple of years away, and disaster is waiting to strike. At least with Y2K we had a deadline, it came and went. PO will constantly be looming overhead.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('halfin', ' ')
Your children will be drinking animal pee out of hubcaps, and you'll be grateful that they are alive!

[aahala]

My favorite Y2K story is that of Montana's Libetarian Senate nominate,
Stan "The Smurf" Jones.

His skin had turned a permanent blue, from a silver solution he had been
mixing up in his garage and drinking, as an antidote to the approaching
Y2K bug.

He got the idea from a seminar run by one of those millinum groups
that popped up all over the US prior to 2000.

[joewp]

I'd like to point out that Y2K did happen, for a limited number of unprepared businesses. I spent a lot of time in January updating hardware and software that didn't work correctly after 01/01/00. The managers/owners of these businesses pooh-poohed Y2K as "alarmist propaganda", and they got burnt!

The peak oil flame is going to be much hotter, if you ignore it.

[WhistleWind]

I'm probably repeating other posts, but here is my 2p worth.

Y2K was real. I tried buying a TV on 31/12/99 and the credit
card wouldn't clear. I paid by cheque.

Y2K was taken seriously by people with money because the
biggest impact was going to be on the money controlling
computer systems.

Y2K was an easy event to hype in the media because it was a
one-off event with a well defined date - easy to prepare all those
docudramas showing crashing planes and dieing hospital patients.
Much like an asteroid impact movie.

Y2K was a simple event to describe to the dumbed down public.

Y2K was overhyped because most of the world was not dependant
on computer systems. At worst it would cause a lot of rich people
to lose some money and a few people might die in a few accidents.
A friend of mine stocked his roof with cans so he could eat during the
anarchy. Hopefully for him they are still there, he may need them soon!

Y2K was a technical problem with a well defined procedure for
fixing it. A lot of money was spent, and the problem was fixed.
The economic status quo was not changed.

PO is real problem as well.

PO does not have a well defined date, it is not a single event, but a
gradually growing crisis that the media will only acknowledge after it
is irrefutable.

PO is a result of geology that is not easy to explain to a US
public which has been force fed the myth of the power of the market
since the day they were born.

PO is going to hurt everybody, but it is going to hurt the poorest
people the most, so the (really) rich people don't care, and won't
alert the public to the problem.

PO does not have a technological fix. It is going to hurt. It will hurt
poor people (ie most of the world's population) less if there is a
reversal of globalisation, local food production, self-sufficiency,
local alternative sources of energy. All of these would reduce the
economic power and profits of the big corporations, so these solutions
are being actively suppressed. See the anti-wind farm hysteria at the
moment in the UK media.

PO is going to happen. The people with real power cannot prevent it.
They are so beholden to the god of profit that they prefer to let the
world crash and burn rather than warn people to let them prepare,
because it would hurt their bottom lines a year of two sooner than
is otherwise necessary.

[LadyRuby]

I have to admit that even though logically I think this all makes sense, being that I'm kind of a researchy/analytical person, it still doesn't REALLY feel real to me. It feels kind of like I'm planning, in a giddy kind of way, for summer camp. And yet I know enough about history and other countries and cultures to understand that just because I personally have never faced truly great economic hardship, that it doesn't mean I won't. How to get over the feeling that this is all just play??

[Jaymax]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut a nagging question to me is if all this hype (on this board for example) is much like the Y2K hype from a few years back, which as we all know thankfully came to nothing.

[joewp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jaymax', '
')[and yes, Y2K also enabled lots of 'consultants' etc to make alot of money producing not alot - but ultimatly the idea that Y2K was nothing but hype is really kinda insulting to those of us who played a part in fixing it before the day.]

[gluc0se]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LadyRuby', ' ')It feels kind of like I'm planning, in a giddy kind of way, for summer camp. ... How to get over the feeling that this is all just play??

[TheTurtle]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')

To wash down the grubs and maggots no doubt!

[JoeGreene]

Man can survive just about any problem - grow food, move mountains, light the darkness, purify water, fix computer code, relocate, stay warm, communicate. Unfortunate for him, it is all predicated on the use of energy.

He can solve the energy problem by finding more of it or reducing his head count. As such, those you think are your family will have to turn in order to save themselves.

[medicvet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JoeGreene', 'M')an can survive just about any problem - grow food, move mountains, light the darkness, purify water, fix computer code, relocate, stay warm, communicate. Unfortunate for him, it is all predicated on the use of energy.

He can solve the energy problem by finding more of it or reducing his head count. As such, those you think are your family will have to turn in order to save themselves.

[richardmmm]

peak oil is a lot of hype from a guy who predicted the peak of oil production in the US correctly. but failed in many other areas. if a guy invented a car but failed in his inventions of boats and planes, would you ride in his new and yet untested space craft ?

US oil fields were well known and it was not a hard call. global oil is less well known and has been tapped for a shorter period of time.

there have been many hypes like this on energy resources, for example in 1919 the head of the US geological survey pronounced there was only 4 years of oil left...........wrong.................

the californian fields were said to have some 40-50M barels of reserve in the 1940s but subsequent have been tapped for over 700M and are still going........wrong............

the in 1840s in Britain scientists of the day announced there was only 7 years of coal supplies left in the world...........wrong..........

before that firewood for steam engines was going to be totally depleted etc etc etc adinfinitum back 10,000 years.

oil is not running out, there are plenty of untapped reserves, and this is just a revenue exercise for the oil companies...............oh look GW is an ex-oil man with the largest fund raising election effort on record, what a coincidence.................

Y2K is a different thing, something entirely man made and therefore mand fixable, oil is something from nature and is different, but there have been these kinds of running out scares since time began, why should this one be any different.

there are cold fusion and hydrogen engines so efficient you can drive for a year without ever stopping for fuel, they have been known since the 1930s............why are these not in circulation ?? because they would be a severe military threat. imagine trying to defeat hilter, or russia (cold war) if they had these engines. you'd have to wipe out every single unit to win the war.

when the time comes these things can be rolled out in a matter of 1-2 years.

right now the aim is not to roll them out but to refinance the oil industry for another 20 years or so.

[Z]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('richardmmm', 't')here are cold fusion and hydrogen engines so efficient you can drive for a year without ever stopping for fuel, they have been known since the 1930s............why are these not in circulation ?? because they would be a severe military threat. imagine trying to defeat hilter, or russia (cold war) if they had these engines. you'd have to wipe out every single unit to win the war.

[gt1370a]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('richardmmm', '
')US oil fields were well known and it was not a hard call.

[richardmmm]

http://jlnlabs.imars.com/index.htm

take a look at this site, this is not some conspiracy junk, this is hard science with details all laid out, mathematics and things you can even rig up at home.

there are plenty of alternatives to oil, it is ignorance to say that there aren't.

the world was considered flat 500 years ago and people were put to death if they thought overwise. the dogma of the day was preserved to maintain power over the masses............does anything ever change ??

i have a degree in geology from one of the finest institutions on the planet and geologists can make watery statements like oil might peak in 2035. it is meaningless. Geology in terms of measuring what is actually underground in the layers is a very inexact science.

the science of the past was flawed and also repressed to maintain dogams that held the power stucture in place, it is not a conspiracy, it is basic socio-psychology............. the science of today is still flawed and people still refuse to admit mistakes or acknowledge new discoveries.

there are papers coming out lately that prove that oil is not a fossil fuel at all but a product of high pressure and the break down of carbonates in the upper mantle. again this is not some conspiracy tripe, although you can find plenty of misinformed pseudo sites proclaiming all kinds of things, there is genuine stuff amongst it.

whilst the geology of strata themselves is always vague, the pressures and temperatures and compositions are well documented and with modern technology can be recreated in a lab, more the realm of physics and chemistry.

http://www.gasresources.net/energy_resources.htm

http://www.physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/9/9/1

http://www.energybulletin.net/2098.html

Oil is not running out, it is a sales pitch.

There is not one shread of real evidence that oil is a fossil fuel. It is a dogma from the roll over that took place after coal. Coal is a fossil fuel it contains the remanants of peat, organic debris, etc. cooked up under pressure. Oil as a liquid was assumed to be formed in the same way and some contaminants found in some of the early reserves were used to prop up the idea in the 1800s that oil was also a fossil fuel. Scientists postulate, that is all they can do really no one actually knew for sure.

It becomes the dogma of the day and is jolly convenient for banging out over priced product, despite what more modern finds are saying.

[CrudeAwakening]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('richardmmm', '
')there have been many hypes like this on energy resources, for example in 1919 the head of the US geological survey pronounced there was only 4 years of oil left...........wrong.................

the californian fields were said to have some 40-50M barels of reserve in the 1940s but subsequent have been tapped for over 700M and are still going........wrong............

the in 1840s in Britain scientists of the day announced there was only 7 years of coal supplies left in the world...........wrong..........

[Kaare_Mai]

I have to ask this:

Is this BiGG disguised?

No flaming intended. Just a question.