[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GreyZone', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'I') can accept the view that you are an alarmist. To get people's attention you need to exagerrate. In the same vein, many environmentalists are really not so concerned about the spotted owl, they want to protect the forest that the owls are in. They may be sceptical privately of global warming theories, but espouse them publicly in order to achieve cleaner air...and so on.

However, I doubt that people like us sounding alarms is going to help. The status quo is going to maintain itself until an energy shock comes that scares the public into submitting to government organized solutions. We're like a bunch of guys sitting in a planning room in Washington in 2000 saying, "You know, what if some guys hijacked planes and crashed them into important buildings? To prevent this, let's invade Afghanistan, create a new cabinent level department, spend $100 billion on airport and port security, torture prisoners, undermine personal freedoms and start racial profiling at airports?"

"Uh, yeah, right. Your're fired!"

[Daryl]

Yup, too bad all the infrastructure gets effed up and you end up with less oil.

I'm out bro'. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Hawkcreek]

--

[Omnitir]

That was disheartening. I was really hoping that Daryl could provide at least one example of a historic civilisation that faced and overcame similar situations that we now face. I guess there is just no precedent for it.

Now about my point regarding the situation if everyone decided to do whatever it takes to get by without a car. It seems the only solid argument against this, apart from the obvious hardship of people having to work out how to travel large distances without their cars, is that apparently 1 in 6 jobs are tied to the auto industry. Okay, firstly, it’s not that 1 in 6 jobs are directly involved with cars, but rather are indirectly. Would tourism really end without cars? Would hospitality really die if people can’t drive to hotels? The problem seems to be transport above all else. If people learnt to walk/ride/catch a bus, wouldn’t all the jobs indirectly involved in the auto industry still exist? If so, this greatly alters the “1 in 6 jobs are tied to the auto industry” argument.

What about the “one door closes, another opens up” argument – if everyone were making the painful transition off the automobile, wouldn’t they be looking for human powered alternatives? Sales in bicycles would skyrocket, as would sales in all kinds of running shoes and hiking boots, and all the miscellaneous little forms of human powered transport available. With these sales comes new jobs, new industries. If everyone in America went out and bought a bicycle – and keep in mind the American consumer is going to want the best possible bicycle that their money can buy – wouldn’t this increase in the bicycle industry greatly offset the decline in the auto industry?

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omnitir', 'W')hat about the “one door closes, another opens up” argument

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'I') can accept the view that you are an alarmist. To get people's attention you need to exagerrate.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', '
')Electric cars are such an easy replacement for much of our wasted fuel use, that I can never understand why so many people seem to want to make it sound impossible to build a new fleet.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ')Matt, your arguments are weak. I'm suprised. Your website is pretty well put together.

Montequest, you got anything? It looks like the best Matt can do is rant about storm troopers and bring up Rome.

[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat was disheartening. I was really hoping that Daryl could provide at least one example of a historic civilisation that faced and overcame similar situations that we now face. I guess there is just no precedent for it.

[Hawkcreek]

--

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ') Maybe there is a recession, maybe not. The airline and auto industry, already ailing, immediately wave the white flag. The government steps in to mediate with their bankers and takes control of both industries. A crisis committee is formed. Decisions are made to begin mass producing electric cars. Simultaneously, steps are taken to expand the electrical grid via coal and nukes. Of course, all the other alternatives are pushed forward, (shale, hydrogen, solar, mass transit, railroads etc.) but it is obvious that electric auto transportation is the only strategy quick enough to save the economic infrastructure. Asia and Europe follow suit. Is that a wild idea? Sounds very realistic to me. .

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hawkcreek', 'N')ot everyone in this country waits on someone else to do things for them.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ')Matt, your arguments are weak. I'm suprised. Your website is pretty well put together.

Montequest, you got anything? It looks like the best Matt can do is rant about storm troopers and bring up Rome.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '$')1.6 trillion?Just build electric cars and jerry-rig the grid to support them. That's peanuts....and oil becomes irrelevant.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MattSavinar', ' ')Monte is much better (more mature, less argumenative) than I and he might be able to give a good overview. Make sure to read the "best of" his posts.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ')I was reading your link to the report card on the infrastructure. That is very interesting. $1.6 trillion? Man, that is alot of money! But that fixes everything? Hmm. Last I checked US GDP was about $12 trillion and annual government spending was around $2.4 trillion. OK, we can't afford to do everything at once, but we don't have to. Just build electric cars and jerry-rig the grid to support them. That's peanuts....and oil becomes irrelevant. Oil companies will be pretty unhappy and so will auto parts manufacturers, but they will just have to move on and find something else to do, won't they?

[sol]

Matt, Monte

I admire your patience and persistence I think the best way to wrap your head around and finally accept the inevitable is to try and debunk people such as yourselves, the harder you try the more you see your thinking is somewhere along the correct lines.

plus most "doomers" aka realists just know with one of those odd human senses (gut feeling) to know what is coming is going to be nasty, there is no spin to put on it to make it rosy

In my eyes we must go thru the worst and there’s nothing we can do about it physically just prepare mentally, I've come to accept this and lead my life accordingly. If I, my family and friends must die to restore balance mother earth, what can I do about it?

The slate needs to be wiped clean, the survivors can then build a better future for themselves, hopefully remembering the mistakes of the past

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ')I was reading your link to the report card on the infrastructure. That is very interesting. $1.6 trillion? Man, that is alot of money! But that fixes everything?

[0mar]

I think what most people are forgetting is that Peak Oil will utterly cripple our economy.

Everyone is looking at the numbers and crunching new effencies and such, but fail to realize the fact that when demand is 85mbd and supply is 80mbd, for the vast majority of people, it will be as if production was 0 barrels per day.

I remember in the early 90s, cigars were in huge demand. A 5 dollar cigar now would go for 20-25. That's because demand exceeded supply. We can expect the same thing for oil. If oil peaks in Jan. 2007 and declines by about 350,000 bpd per month (approximately a 5% decline), oil will be $100+ by April. In three months, we have just crashed the economy world wide. The only real way to make a transition now is to institute draconian measures. We are talking about uprooting families, slavery conditions for 90%+ of people, massive rationing that makes WWII look like a feast, etc etc.

Any talk of solutions need to acknowledge the fact that nearly every single one of them needed to take place in the 1970s.

[Daryl]

Monte, I was doing some reading of your links. I apologize. I didn't understand that you are a seer. I am honored that you have emerged from your temple to address me.

Honestly, you are belaboring the obvious. A cursory study of geologic history makes it painfully obvious that the human species time frame for existence is very small. Basic astronomy teaches us we are tinier and more emphemeral in relationship to the universe than bacteria are to us. Duh!!! Did you grow up watching Star Trek and it just dawned on you that our presence here is temporary? We're just trying to figure out a way to delay the die-off. Why? Because we don't want ourselves or our children to be ones to experience it! So you think modern technology and population growth will trigger our demise and it's going down tomorrow. It could just as easily be 2000 years from now be caused by something else. You don't know. You want to engineer a die-off now? Why, because you're hding in a bunker somewhere and plan to emerge and live in some utopian fairyland (without suburbs)?.Come on. Get some counseling and go get a job.