[shakespear1]

Many of my friends USED TO believe that PO was not an issue. Many are turning around especially those who are geologists.

[emailking]

I feel for you turtleT. My solution to living on a graduate student's salary was to stay close to home and live with my parents. Most of my fellow students were constantly worried about money and debt, and several even had trouble getting the school to pay up! I am glad I got out of that mess. They were starting to threaten my job due to a Teaching Assistant surplus.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')hey are oil distributors and own MULTIPLE gas stations ( Citgo)

[JustinFrankl]

The chuckling and laughing to me are signs that they aren't quite sure themselves, or that they have disregarded the entire concept.

The peaking of oil is a serious concept with serious ramifications. That someone blithely suggest that there's nothing to worry about or that "Oompa-Loompa-Land is literally swimming in a sea of oil" suggests ignorance and naivete.

I'm sorry to say but it doesn't sound like your relatives know what they're talking about and have no special, secret information about this. They are riding the wave and now is when it's highest. The view from up there must be spectacular and they must feel like royalty, almost like god's chosen, and now they have a long, long way to fall.

[coyote]

Remember Hubbert himself was given the same treatment, roundly, by the entire industry and pretty much everybody else. People didn't take him seriously until he was proven correct by time. Now there's a much larger body of evidence, but still I think we're likely to see the same reaction from many people. Not trying to be overly confident, these folks probably know more than I do about the industry as a whole. But Peak Oil -- well, after all the research I've done over the past year, they'd have to explain to me exactly why it's not a problem.

I'd actually be pretty thrilled if they succeeded.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roy', 'S')preading the word serves to alienate friends and loved ones almost without exception...

[Roy]

I guess I don't know the number of open-minded independent thinkers that you do.

The most common responses I get are (not necessarily in order)

1. they said that in the 70's
2. they'll think of something (technofix energy fairy stuff)
3. so what, there's nothing we can do about it anyway
4. too negative-no time to read etc (favorite of fellow gen x'ers)
5. there's plenty of oil here in America that we deliberately didn't drill (this from former oil workers in Louisiana that I worked with)

Luckily for me my wife got it. 8^)

And you're right, the "we're screwed" approach is ineffective.

I should have qualified that line you quoted by leading the sentence with "In my experience".

No offense intended.

Roy

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'F')olks, I have not been brushed off, laughed at, or disbelieved by so much as one individual I've talked to about this. Everybody immediately gets it, and most remark that they're not surprised.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coyote', '.')..Incidentally, in what part of the country do you live?...

[coyote]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', 'N')ext time you people broach the subject to somebody new, try my method of stealthily opening their eyes to that 84 millon barrels a day figure. Then ease into how the global oil industry has been overstating reserves for decades, and see if lights start coming on.