[chrispi]

That's it. I give up on trying to enlighten others about peak oil and trying to save humanity. Nobody else really gives a %&#@. I've joined the dark side and will encourage people to use, burn and waste as much fuel as they can! Global warming? Bring it on! Are we running out of liquid fuels? Come, Peak Oil, come!

What is it that could have converted a mild-mannered conservationist into a furious eschatologist? I have long since "crossed the Rubicon" and now support the accelerated demise of Western civilization that will result from Peak Oil. The hell with it, I'm wasting gas and will encourage others to do the same. And maybe there are a lot of others who secretly agree with me; after all, how else could one explain the housing bubble if one realizes that most homeowners probably won't be paying their mortgages back? What would you do if you knew the Apocalypse was coming? That's right, you'd borrow money up to your eyeballs with the foreknowledge that you won't have to pay any of it back. That's what the Millerites did back in the 1840s. Suits me fine.

It's not like we're going to become a Kardashev Type I stellar civilization anyway, not when we're blowing up mosques, killing people over cartoons, depleting our providence, building McMansions in Bumble*&^% Kansas, and generally acting like complete asshats. I've learned to stop worrying and love Peak Oil. It'll solve our problems alright...

{edited for language by MQ}

[Carlhole]

I'm coming! I'm coming!

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('chrispi', 'W')hat would you do if you knew the Apocalypse was coming?

[Novus]

Peak oil is already here. We just have to wake people up to it. Peak oil is like boiling a frog. If you throw a frog in hot water it will jump right out. But if you slowly turn up the heat it will sit in the hot water until it dies. If someone were to wake up from a five year coma today they would be in for a huge shock. Instead for the heat has just slowly been turned up. Whoever does not wake up to crisis we are already in will surely die.

[Ludi]

Oh not the damn frog again!

[chrispi]

"So long, and thanks for all the fish!"
--The Dolphins

[AmericanEmpire]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he difference between a government and a market solution to Peak Oil is the difference between changing the engine of your car in the shop and changing the engine of your car while it is still going down the road!

[thuja]

Yup- fraid to say it would be better if "peak oil" were "end of oil"- chaos insanity and die-off would ensue but pockets of survivors would continue the grand human race experiment. Peak oil will only lead to the mad scramble to stave off the inevitable (MSTSOTI)...thus ramping up coal and nuclear which could lead to global armageddon and human extinction. Better to get it over with than to watch the human race try to keep its head above water after the Titanic has sunk and its in the middle of the freezing Atlantic all alone.

[chrispi]

"When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around..."

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'Y')up- fraid to say it would be better if "peak oil" were "end of oil"- chaos insanity and die-off would ensue but pockets of survivors would continue the grand human race experiment. Peak oil will only lead to the mad scramble to stave off the inevitable (MSTSOTI)...

[malcomatic_51]

Relaxxxx... if we didn't have Peak Oil and Global Warming, there'd still be the sky up there all set to fall on our heads....

Bring back the Cold War. Life was so much simpler. Off go the sirens, you grab the nearest half-decent bit of stuff and try and keep at it for the three minutes until all's hot ashes fluttering down. Nothing to it; you could get on with your life knowing that at least if it came to it it would all be over quickly.

But now we've got into doomy things that will stretch out the pain for decades. I mean, who wants to take half a lifetime to fry slowly whilst 95% of humanity expires from thirst, hunger, disease, battle and despair all around?

My God, the Cold War was so CIVILIZED.

I suppose there are some things the human race will never grow out of.

Roll on the peak. I want to see all those suckers in their Range Rovers running their tanks dry queuing to fill up whilst I cruise by on my bicycle. A civilisation of dumb b@stards that blew its heritage in 50 years. We deserve all we're going to get.

[The_Toecutter]

We not only blew our heritage, we've thrown our future out the window.

We've had the technology for the purported technofix for a while, but inherent in its nature was a built in power down with adoption and use for the same or better living standards, contrary to what a constant growth economy demanded. The constant growth dependent 'market' and governments thus refused it outright, wishing for business to remain as usual, no matter the effect it would have on the future.

We could have started implementing it in the 90s when the technology became viable, and maybe got it fully implemented in the 2010s, just in time to address a world that has been post peak for 5-10 years or so at that time, with more than enough coming online to replace the lost oil production.

Even earlier, we could have even sacrificed in the 70s in wait of the technology that would come 20 years later, and bought more time to bring that technology online, but we didn't.

We might still have a chance, but TPTB will not budge from business as usual, regardless of the effects on the bulk of the world's population in the future.

But we likely blew it, the bulk of responsibility for this future falling on the greedy corporations and governments who refused to allow a powerdown, a powerdown that would shrink their size and authority by its inherent nature. But also ourselves take some of the blame as individual people for failing to become educated, instead content to hide behind the television.

Why, we just can't disrupt the status quo!