[mortifiedpenguin]

No offense, but really, you are. Every time I go into topics that talk about solutions to the oil peak, topics that try to prove peak oil wrong, and stuff like that, the majority of you say something like: "Sorry, but that's not going to work. Nothing's stopping the oil peak. Humanity is screwed." Even if the topic creator is wrong, you can at least try to reassure them or something. Jesus H. Christ.

[lotrfan55345]

There is no denying fact, no escaping reason.

[KiddieKorral]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lotrfan55345', 'T')here is no denying fact, no escaping reason.

[NeoPeasant]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mortifiedpenguin', 'N')o offense, but really, you are. Every time I go into topics that talk about solutions to the oil peak, topics that try to prove peak oil wrong, and stuff like that, the majority of you say something like: "Sorry, but that's not going to work. Nothing's stopping the oil peak. Humanity is screwed." Even if the topic creator is wrong, you can at least try to reassure them or something. Jesus H. Christ.

[azreal60]

I moved this to open topics because it really didn't seem appropriate for basics. And the other thing you will find about this forum is its not really for people who can't handle truth. If you want your truth sugar coated and spoon fed, go to any major news site. They are designed for what you just asked for.

That said, that wasn't nessearily me trying to make you angry. I just want you to realize that the majority of what you hear and see is first being edited by someone else. And those editors are putting in their own biases and opinions right along with the facts. Something to think about .............

[born2respawn]

He's got a point, there's a lot of negativity here and a general "there's nothing anyone can do" vibe. While I agree that Peak Oil is coming, to say that we'll end up eating our dead because of it is scare mongering.

Will we continue living as we are? No, of course not, but that's not an apocolypse.

[azreal60]

It really depends. I guess, take a look at the planning forum. The people who seem angry are those who this society seems just fine and dandy to them, and any threat to it seems like a threat to their very lives. They are the ones talking about either tech saving us, or gloom and doom, depending on their political orientation.

Yet the people in the planning forum tend to seem almost happy. I wonder why that is? It's rather simple really. They see all the negatives of the form of society we have choosen, and they won't MIND seeing society as we know it come to an end. What that mean's can be entirely different to everyone, but at it's most basic it means the culture we live in now won't continue to work. For some of us, this is not such a bad thing.

[bart]

You are right, mortifiedpenguin, the negative slant is a problem with peak oil discussions. It doesn't necessarily help in getting the message across.

Some negativity may be necessary, though, to shake off the wishful thinking and delusions we all have. There is no quick fix, this is not an illusion. These are hard truths which can't be sugar coated.

Sometimes we may get carried away because many of us are Americans and American culture is not very good at handling disappointment or situations that require time and patience. We didn't undergo the devastation of Europe during World Wars I and II, so we don't have a memory of having overcome war and destruction. On the other hand, American culture has proved to be flexibile and resilient in the past, so I have hope.

About the question on whether Peak Oil is a reality.... As an initial skeptic of Peak Oil, I kept looking for the incisive argument that would demolish the theory. Couldn't find iit. It really shook me up to read Alan Greenspan's speech on oil and to find no reassurance there -- with all of Greenspan's intelligence and his experts and researchers, his case was astounding in its weakness.

As to solutions. Peakoil.com may not be the best place to find solutions. It's more like group therapy as we wrestle with the reality of peak oil. Since most of us can't talk to the people around us about PO, the site is invaluable as a safe place to rant, argue, question, and come to understand all the implications oF PO.

But for solutions, one will have to look elsewhere.

Some light-green solutions (technical fixes and moderate reform):

The Rocky Mountain Institute with Amory Lovins.
World Changing

Some darker green solutions (major social and economic change):

The Post Carbon institute
Permaculture
Sustainable agriculture
Appropriate technology (Small Is Beautiful, etc.)
Other visions and analysis
The Planning Forum on this website (mentioned by azreal60; I haven't spent much time there).

I think connecting with people working on solutions makes a big difference to one's emotional state. If one is just reading doom and gloom on the computer screen, one tends to feel hopeless. On the other hand, it's a morale booster to get out and do something, whether it's planting potatoes or planning a showing of "End of Suburbia."

- bart

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')bout the question on whether Peak Oil is a reality.... As an initial skeptic of Peak Oil, I kept looking for the incisive argument that would demolish the theory. Couldn't find iit. It really shook me up to read Alan Greenspan's speech on oil and to find no reassurance there -- with all of Greenspan's intelligence and his experts and researchers, his case was astounding in its weakness.

[aldente]

I second that. I mean, just look at some of the stuff that gets posted in an attempt to prove peak oil wrong. How many perpetual motion machine proposals have been posted on here?[/quote]

I indeed did post a link previously where the possibility and impossibility of perpetual motion machines are being discussed among other potential energy generating systems. I did not post the link to prove Peak-Oil wrong! Nor did I state that all answers are to be found there! Unfortuenately people like you have an attention span of not more than 10 seconds when they see "perpetuum mobile" and throw it in the same category with UFO's and crap like that. Take a few days and work your way in before you discard this site: http://www.evert.de/eft800e.htm

[holmes]

penguin i am no doomsayer. This IS NATURE MAN.
WAKE THE FUCK UP!
I AM SORRY!
i REALLY AM.
BUT A PERMANENT DEPRESSION IS COMING.
THIS A SITUATION THAT IS UNIQUE FRIEND.
DONT KILL YOURSELF. U MIGHT BE USEFUL IN THEN FUTURE.
i for one might or others might need your help if u have skills for the greATERr good. DONT LEAVE THIS SITE MAN.

FOR GODS SAKE DONT TAKE YOUR LIFE PENGUIN.
THIS IS JUST A MODERN OVERSHOOT AND CRASH. IT WILL BE THE MOST DISASTEROUS AND HORRIFY CRASH OF ALL TIME.
IT HAS BEEN BREWING FOR 60 YEARS.
BUT THERE IS HOPE IN SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES.
THERe ARE NO FUELS THAT CAN MAINTAIN THIS SCALE.
EVEN IF THERE WAS IT DOES NOTHING TO FEED THE MASSES.
WE ARE OVERSHOOTING BY 200 PERCENT AND GROWING.
LOGIC BRO.
SPEND YOUR TIME GETTING THINGS TOGETHER NOT WORRYING ABOUT UTOPIA THAT NEVER WAS.

I KIND OF TAKE SOLICE IN IT ALL. NO USE FIGHTING IT.

[pepper2000]

I don't believe in magic bullets, but I do believe there is much humanity as a collective can do to mitigate the damage and even get some positive consequences out of it. If we generally don't panic, accept the reality that we have to live with less, and are willing to work hard to make a better future for the next generation, I don't think the next few decades will be all that bad. Attitude is very important.

There is a degree of hypocrisy in criticizing our leaders for not doing anything worthwhile to deal with the problem, while also saying that nothing can be done.

[Chocky]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't believe in magic bullets, but I do believe there is much humanity as a collective can do to mitigate the damage and even get some positive consequences out of it.

[backstop]

Chocky - both your ignorance and your defeatism are showing in your post.

Ask yourself why you've never seen a case of smallpox in your family or your nation.

The reason is that humanity, collectively, under the aegis of the United Nations, invested the time, national sovereignty, political commitment, expertise, funds and whatever else it took, to eradicate that scourge from the earth.

So count yourself very very lucky that many people in the past were, and many alive today are, committed to advancing collective solutions.

Those people are undoubtedly your best chance of avoiding possible starvation amidst the mayhem of the collapse of an absurdly over-armed society. Your help is needed to advance the common good.

This is not a put down, so please don't take it as such. You posted only the standard outlook that you've been taught by a grasping urbo-centric materialist culture.

Maybe it's worth looking at other and older cultures than the one that has you reciting such stuff ?

regards,

Backstop

[cthulhu]

Backstop, your ignorance and pipedreams of enslaving humanity are showing:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su48a6.htm

[savethehumans]

The facts are "doom and gloomy," of that, there is no doubt!

However, once industrial civilization starts to crumble (yes, with the accompanying die-off, unfortunately), WHAT kind of a world we build from the ruins is still up in the air. (Unless that air is SO altered by burning coal, oil shale, methane, et al, we extinct ourselves...but I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel on the species--yet.)

Me, I like the ideas of relocalization, a barter economy (get you some barterable skills, OK? Mechanical, farming, holistic medicine, teaching "how-tos" to people, etc.), civic participation, books as a form of learning AND entertainment, et al. It won't be a paradise--people will have to work HARD (tho there's satisfaction in a job well done!) and instant-everything will be gone forever (this may not be a bad thing!). But if renewable energies manage to get developed to any real extent before the crash, we wouldn't be totally back in any stone age--or even little house on the prairie. It'd be limited, of course--but limiting is something we should've been doing more of by now, anyway.

Yes, Doomsday is a likely possibility. So is a society that rises from the ashes (like that there phoenix bird!). YOU, and others who want it, have to decide to build it. (Prayer wouldn't hurt,either--we humans do have a way of blowing it trying to do it on our own!) The first step: admitting and accepting all the truth about what's happening now, and what is about to happen. You don't have to like it (does anyone LIKE it?! Not me!), but anything you--or we--CAN do must start from "the basics." And that means, accept that the world will NEVER run at the energy/production levels it has (from the 1800s till now) again. And given the conditions of this world, maybe that's a good thing, too....

[Chocky]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')aybe it's worth looking at other and older cultures than the one that has you reciting such stuff ?

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mortifiedpenguin', 'N')o offense, but really, you are. Every time I go into topics that talk about solutions to the oil peak, topics that try to prove peak oil wrong, and stuff like that, the majority of you say something like: "Sorry, but that's not going to work. Nothing's stopping the oil peak. Humanity is screwed." Even if the topic creator is wrong, you can at least try to reassure them or something. Jesus H. Christ.

[backstop]

Chocky - With regard to other cultures, I'd recommend the website of Survival International as a starting point for info on survivinhg indigenous cultures, and, if you chose to visit them or other countries' prevailing cultures, then make a point of working with them rather than just passing through as a tourist.

Yes, you are dead right that the world has "been biding its time" to pull together over the burgeonimg problems; to put it mildly this has been due to the planet's major economy being diametrically opposed to the solutions. With the dollar's decline, this position is changing, perhaps quite rapidly.

No, I don't have a back-up plan if we fail to pull together as a culture and fail to deploy the collective solutions, as to me no such plan is more than fantasy given the rising unpredictability of outcomes we face.

I do have self-reliance (from decades of rural living) if its needed - those who haven't got that can't be much help to others in extremis. But it's very plain to me that advancing interdependence internationally, regionally and locally is the key to our societies' evolution towards a sustainable culture.

regards,

Backstop

[mortifiedpenguin]

Just to clear my name a little (something like that): Yes, I believe peak oil is going to happen. I'm not one of those people who thinks that we can easily invent our way out of this one. All I'm trying to say is, don't be so hard on the "technology will definitely save us" people, and don't say there is absolutely no way out of this. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, a scientist will figure out nuclear fusion, or a bunch of drillers will discover a new source of energy, like Metatron from that Zone Of The Enders game. BTW, that game kicks ass.

And holmes- I'm just curious, what size straitjacket do you wear?