[MagnoliaFan]

THIS IS WHAT a 'slow crash' looks like:

11,000 apply for 400 openings at Wal-Mart's New Oakland store

Yet they claim the unemployment rate in the area is only 5.1% in the article!

"That's the way the market crashes
That's the way the whip lashes
That's the way the teeth knashes" -- William Burroughs

[Ghog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd pigs fly.

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MagnoliaFan', 'T')HIS IS WHAT a 'slow crash' looks like:

11,000 apply for 400 openings at Wal-Mart's New Oakland store

Yet they claim the unemployment rate in the area is only 5.1% in the article!

[Dan1195]

So much economic data as a whole is hocus pocus. The unemployment numbers are % of people looking for work, not % out of work. Then they add "fictitious" jobs under the assumption the some ppl laid off start there own businesss with no real data to back it up.

The Core CPI is the same way. We count oil Co profits when we look at earnings growth but dont count the Oil intself for calculating inflation.

Back to the original debate..I am not a doomer only because i believe the combo of conservation, alternatives and some demand destruction will allow a transition do something more sustainable before collapse occurs.

[snowhope]

Interesting thread. Unfortunately I voted Doomer. The highly developed countries of the world who are so dependent on oil and natural gas will crash the hardest, mainly because their society is so sophisticated and dependent upon supply chains based on just in time philosophies that will break down very quickly.

We all know the markets will crash so fast that many people will lose out big time. My opinion is that markets will become irrelevant. Personal survival will take over. A paradigm shift will take place.

When electricity starts to become unreliable - blackouts and brownouts occur in mid-winter/summer, fuels starts to become too expensive for the distant suberbians to go to work, food starts to run out in supermarkets.... demand for many products drops like a stone, what will you do?

Like everybody, you will hoard what you can (can afford) for your family. If you are lucky this will last a week, maybe a month, at best 2-3 months. Then what?

Well if you are really hungry and your children are crying of hunger, you will do whatever you have to do to get food - and I don't necessarily mean working a 12 hour day......

The big issue, is that 99% of Americans, British have gone so far beyond the natural world we just don't know how to get back to it. This is what scares me. We just don't have much chance of surviving if the SHTF big time.

So I can't see any outcome other than people fending for themselves and their nearest and dearest - I would readily steal food and water for my kids to be able to eat when they are crying of hunger! Wouldn't you?

All this talk of people helping each other and forming long queues and waiting in-line etc, etc. Well I don't know if this applies to the current world.........

[Beagle]

The question for me is "What is doomed?" and clearly modern global industrial civilisation is. So, in that regard I'm a doomer.

However, I think technical society will survive in some form in some places, other places will revert back to a pleasantly livable agrarian society and others still will become further examples of Somalia, Rwanda, Nazi Germany etc. etc. I don't think there is only one future in the cards for everyone. So in that sense I'm a moderate.

Hopefully, If a collapse of the global transportation system occurs with a global economic collapse, it will allow different regions to make independent transitions without total basketcase areas taking everyone down with them.

To believe in some sort of landing requires one to deny the basic unsustainability of the current system of pretty much everything. If it's not PO then it's peak something else followed by yet peak another thing. While we continue to devastate the environment everywhere. And is that really a "landing" when you thing about it?

[DaveA]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beagle', 'T')he question for me is "What is doomed?" and clearly modern global industrial civilisation is. So, in that regard I'm a doomer.

However, I think technical society will survive in some form in some places, other places will revert back to a pleasantly livable agrarian society and others still will become further examples of Somalia, Rwanda, Nazi Germany etc. etc. I don't think there is only one future in the cards for everyone. So in that sense I'm a moderate.

Hopefully, If a collapse of the global transportation system occurs with a global economic collapse, it will allow different regions to make independent transitions without total basketcase areas taking everyone down with them.

To believe in some sort of landing requires one to deny the basic unsustainability of the current system of pretty much everything. If it's not PO then it's peak something else followed by yet peak another thing. While we continue to devastate the environment everywhere. And is that really a "landing" when you thing about it?

[DoctorDoom]

I believe all outcomes are possible. There is a non-zero chance of complete collapse, war, and mass starvation, just as there is a non-zero chance that the peak won't happen for 20 years and we'll use the time to soft-land starting in the next 5. But those are at the tail ends of the bell curve of possibilities.

IMO there seems to be enough energy available in renewables and nukes to keep technological civilization running, and in the end we will choose to develop them rather than let ourselves starve or drop back to 18th century technology. History seems to show that we won't act until we're forced to, which seems to rule out a soft landing (i.e. any pre-peak action, and of course if we're already at the peak, it's ruled out by definition). However there is enough waste in the status quo to enable us to bridge the gap during the first decade or two of the oil downslope through conservation efforts, and that's enough time to start ramping up the alternatives. It won't be much fun, but brain-munching zombies will roam the earth just one day a year, as always.

[cornholio]

I fluctuate between doom and moderate when reading this website, but am a soft lander when out of the house : ) ... Really, it depends on the timeframe you are talking about and I'm only going to be around about 40 more years...

I would guess that there will be a period of fluctuating but (gradually or rapidly) increasing gas prices over the next 5 or 15 years, to a level we all find painful. The first stage will (I believe) feel a lot like the 70's with talk of rationing and carpooling and downsizing cars to reduce usage and expense. This period may last years. Investments and savings will fall in value. (Note to self: withdraw from market before the crash this time).

When the concept of declining oil reserves is first discussed seriously most will tend to believe that alternatives (coal, natural gas, hydrogen, nuclear) will be able to meet our needs as they arrise. Alternative sources of fuel (gassification of coal) will be ramped up, and it may feel like a new equilibrium between oil production and consumption can be reached. This would require major changes, with reduction in private vehicle energy use and more public transportation but accomidation seems possible (if not easy). What this period will feel like (the first and second decade of peak oil) is unclear but will be revealing... There will be a struggle to hold onto appearances of our consumer society, but those who downsize and adapt best (conserve their personal resources) will be far ahead of those who just don't accept the change.

What frightens me more than the plateau and then slow decline in gas (with increasing prices) which may occur in the next 5 or 15 years is the depression that may accompany it's beginning... occuring when the US economy faces recession due to oil in the face of our huge deficit. It is not inconceivable that a global depression and devaluation or collapse of the dollar might result. The disruption, loss of productivity, unemployment and suffering of a global depression resulting from a collapse of our current vulnerable banking system is the "wild card" that keeps me from predicting a smooth transition in the first decade or two after peak oil, and makes me more a "moderate" within the first decade of peak oil.

Still, even in a depression there is work for some... Life goes on and food is produced. A higher percentage of income (possibly much higher) will go to food, and less will go to crap from Walmart. I do think that even though oil is expensive there will be enough to provide basic calories in the first decades. It may be tasteless (beans and rice) but a day's work will provide food. Breadlines will provide food for those unable to work.

Some areas (cities, poorer suburbs) will be hit harder, with more crime and urban decay, and even riots at times... Even so, I dont think starvation will be an issue in the first decades in the US.

I think adaptations (more coal gassification, nuclear) will preserve some industry and quality of life in the immediate decades after peak oil... Adaptations (gardens, buying a piece of land) may allow more quality of life and better nutrition but will probably not be necessary to avoid starvation in the next 2 or 3 decades.

After a few decades its hard to say... An optomistic picture would be one in which oil resources are saved for agriculture while rail and barge is used for transportation when possible. People work for money, but live simple lives and are generally content to buy food, clothing and little else... Depression might or might not change that picture, as unemployment created would free up labor for needed public works projects to adjust to a new economy.

Longer term (50 years into peak oil) I will be dead, as I'm 35 now : ) . But, oil will be scarce and food production will be declining. Hopefully basic calorie needs for humans can be met with simple grains/beans... Less efficient use of resources (cattle) for meat will be a rarer luxury.

I think that over 100-200 years a new equilibrium will be reached with a smaller, much less mobile, more frugal society surviving with a new mix of low energy high tech industry geared to make basic tools and communications, and farming still dependant on fossile or other power. Economies will be much more local, though there will still be international communication and small scale national government projects.

500 years from now I cannot predict ... But with all of the non-renewable fuels used up and barring some breakthru in fussion technology things may look a lot like 1880, but with really good rifles and radio's available...

Under this scenario we will never reach interstellar travel, so instead of visiting other planets we will be visited by Captain Kirk.. We will be the agrarian world that seems nice but is really ruled by a powerful computer we think is a god.

PS- Im still buying a gun, to hold off you Doomsday types.

PPS- When I'm a pessimist I think there will be oil wars within the next 20 years, that will escalate to a world war. Then we nuke someone. Then we get nuked. Then zombie hoards roam the plains. And we eat brains.... mmmm, brains

[NEOPO]

I think we need more then three choices.
Dungeons and dragons had 9 alignments if you count "true" neutral.
We can surely do equal or better then TSR!!!

I think 90% of the doomers and moderates (thats me) should kill off the 9% landers and then get on with powering down.....debate over!!!

Pops for WORLD PRESIDENT!!!

[FatherOfTwo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DoctorDoom', 'I') believe all outcomes are possible. There is a non-zero chance of complete collapse, war, and mass starvation, just as there is a non-zero chance that the peak won't happen for 20 years and we'll use the time to soft-land starting in the next 5. But those are at the tail ends of the bell curve of possibilities.

IMO there seems to be enough energy available in renewables and nukes to keep technological civilization running, and in the end we will choose to develop them rather than let ourselves starve or drop back to 18th century technology. History seems to show that we won't act until we're forced to, which seems to rule out a soft landing (i.e. any pre-peak action, and of course if we're already at the peak, it's ruled out by definition). However there is enough waste in the status quo to enable us to bridge the gap during the first decade or two of the oil downslope through conservation efforts, and that's enough time to start ramping up the alternatives. It won't be much fun, but brain-munching zombies will roam the earth just one day a year, as always.