[Ludi]

Your use of the word "truth" above is troubling, EnergySpin. "People who can see the truth." Sounds extremely religious to me. I seriously dislike the word "truth" and the concept of "the truth." Facts and convincing arguments are more useful, in my opinion.

Personally, I'm not convinced we have suffient metals and other materials for wind and nuclear technology lasting 10,000 years. I'm just not sure of that at all.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')our use of the word "truth" above is troubling, EnergySpin. "People who can see the truth." Sounds extremely religious to me. I seriously dislike the word "truth" and the concept of "the truth." Facts and convincing arguments are more useful, in my opinion.

[Ludi]

Religious people use the word "truth" and the idea "the truth" constantly. That's probably why it bugs me.

I've always understood science to deal with physical reality. If truth = physical reality, then ok.

But yeah, language problems.


Perhaps some of us are studying different sets of information, and that's why we can't reach an agreement, because of incomplete knowledge. For instance, the set of information you are studying is profoundly different from the set I'm studying, as far as I can tell from what you post.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', ' ') Personally, I'm a big believer in the concept that in times of crisis, you do absolutely everything you can think of that might help solve the problem. The method has worked in my personal bad times. I don't see why it can't be applicable in general.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', ' ') You know the "powerdown" is like a teddy bear you hug when you go to sleep... feels warm and fuzzy and makes you feels good but it is better to have a real person to talk to when you feel lonely. In a powerdown scenario people will burn everything they can find. It takes 100 days for someone to starve to death ... the tropical forests will be gone in one week in a powerdown scenario.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', 'S')ince I don't have MQ's patience, and probably never will, I'll stop quarrelling with you, ES. Maybe because I’m too scared that you have a pretty good grasp about these things and I don’t. Maybe because I realize that you are on another page than me, and trying to bring together our divergent paradigms is pointless. You’re always trying to emphasize the good examples, and minimize the bad ones. I’m not so sure anymore it’s the right way to see our world.

[MonteQuest]

This thread is about people's "worldviews", not arguments and specifics within their world views.

We are seeing anything but a debate on these questions:

1. How many see peak oil as a symptom of a greater disease?

2. How many see peak oil as just another problem to be solved by man’s ingenuity?

Which one you align with is based upon your perception and reason in terms dictated by your world view.

If you use that perception and reason to debate here, you are missing the point.

Look at your worldview. If you chose #2, you must realize that this promotes a mindset not supported by ecological facts.

[MonteQuest]

Here's an old thread of mine quite appropos to this thread:

Squanderland vs Thriftville

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ook at your worldview. If you chose #2, you must realize that this promotes a mindset not supported by ecological facts.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')
Here is a classic case, folks. Two world views that knock heads with each other. IG is presenting his world view, while ES is arguing the "specifics" of his.

ES is saying we can and need to do better. IG is saying yes, we need to do better, buy we can't within the parameters of a world view that is unsustainable.

We need to do things better, but we need to do them for different reasons and in different ways based upon a new paradigm.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')1. How many see peak oil as a symptom of a greater disease?

2. How many see peak oil as just another problem to be solved by man’s ingenuity?

[Gary]

Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson has written such books as "The Future of Life." An excerpt from this book (chapter 2: The Bottleneck) was published in Scientific American in 2002.

I recommend reading at least that chapter of TFOL. Here's one rather strong statement:

"We are innately inclined to ignore any distant possibility not yet requiring examination. It is a hardwired part of our Paleolithic heritage."

Wilson submits that we must be able to combine short-term and long-term vision to come up with a "universal environmental ethic" which will enable us to use all of our wit and wisdom to see our species through the bottleneck of the next 20 or 30 years.

I wonder if "peak oil" isn't the tip of the iceberg in this way: we simply have trouble with "the vision thing" as a species.

We have "foolishly blundered" (Wilson's phrase) into this bottleneck by refusing to understand our relationship with the earth, by refusing to reflect on the possibility that we could exhaust resources or render the environment toxic to our own species.

If we are treating a symptom in peak oil, is the deeper, causative disease a matter of being stuck, refusing to evolve beyond the level of thinking of ourselves and our "tribe" (however we may define this) in terms of immediate security, comfort, and pleasure? This trait has often served us well, but could it also be the Achilles' Heel which brings civilisation after civilization down?

Now that we are so interconnected globally and have overshot the resources of the earth (since 1972, I believe Wilson suspects) we may indeed go extinct. Or perhaps some will survive the great die off. Or possibly we could use our large brains to reason our way through a "powerdown" scenario rather than what we are doing now, which is to engage in the Heinbergian "last man standing" resource war which no one will win.

What will it be? Who knows? If there is a remedy I think it lies in the direction of what Thom Hartmann has alluded to in the closing chapter of his "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" and also what Heinberg and others are working on in terms of engaging enough people at enough levels to actually work through and implement an effort at global powerdown.

I am working locally while engaging in the global discussion and effort to raise awareness to a point that it might be possible for people to understand the relationship between their own choices and the odds of their own children making it through the next 20 years alive.

Hartmann quotes Einstein as saying "The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten." Ironically, we may have tried to understand our relationship with the earth at various points in history, but failed because we could not step beyond that "Paleolithic Heritage" Wilson talks about. The ancients Einstein was referring to seem to be those in remote history who were more mystically in tune with the earth as a living being. While some may refer to the earth as a living sytem today, the same sort of relationship can be imagined but within the context of a more detailed understanding of our planet.

So, is the iceberg some aspect of our Paleolithic Heritage, holding us back from being able to imagine a way of living which will allow another generation or two to survive?

My guess is that even if many of us step beyond Paleolithic immediacy to imagine a realationship with possible generations to come within the context of the earth we leave behind, we are very likely too late to do enough to implement the needed changes to enable more than thirty or so more years of human existence. My guess is that we will poinson the planet much more significantly with deadly fallout from resource wars, and we will exhaust many more resources fighting them.

This does not stop me from trying. What is the saying? "I am only one. But what one can do, I will do."

Does this make any sense to others? Monte, is this anywhere near the point of this topic? (I hope so.)

[Revi]

We can't understand a low energy lifestyle, but the next generation can. We are too invested in a high energy life. They won't have that luxury. They will have to move into a new way of living. Gone will be the option of a middle class person living in 5000 square feet and driving around in 6000 pound vehicles. It'll be more like 500 square feet and the vehicle will weigh six hundred pounds. If they are lucky enough to have them. Houses will have to make half their own energy through active and passive solar. We may as well start to figure this stuff out now. The best thing we could pass on to our kids is the example we set.

[GreyGhost]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')1. How many see peak oil as a symptom of a greater disease?

2. How many see peak oil as just another problem to be solved by man’s ingenuity?

[Ludi]

I think there's a lack of communication going on.

Is peak oil really a problem that can be solved at all? Maybe the issue is the idea of "solving" the problem of peak oil, rather than acceding to the conditions which cause peak oil to be a problem, and how do we accede to this situation, rather than trying to "solve" it.

?

[Ingenuity_Gap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'H')ere is a classic case, folks. Two world views that knock heads with each other. IG is presenting his world view, while ES is arguing the "specifics" of his.

ES is saying we can and need to do better. IG is saying yes, we need to do better, buy we can't within the parameters of a world view that is unsustainable.

We need to do things better, but we need to do them for different reasons and in different ways based upon a new paradigm.

[CARVER]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GreyGhost', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')1. How many see peak oil as a symptom of a greater disease?

2. How many see peak oil as just another problem to be solved by man’s ingenuity?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ook at your worldview. If you chose #2, you must realize that this promotes a mindset not supported by ecological facts.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', ' ')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Montequest', 'W')e need to do things better, but we need to do them for different reasons and in different ways based upon a new paradigm.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')1. How many see peak oil as a symptom of a greater disease?

2. How many see peak oil as just another problem to be solved by man’s ingenuity?