[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Last_Laff', '.')...Now I'm thinking of how to change the username and I fear for that. No disrespect here though.....

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RelfF2', 'F')irst I would like to commend everyone involved in this forum. It is by far the most mature and academic discussion I have ever seen on the internet. It’s clear that there are some very intelligent and serious people here and it’s comforting to know that good minds are working on a problem even if it is left out of the public discussion...

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RelfF2', ' ') Maybe your lifetime is all you are worried about. To me this is the most outrageous expression of selfishness ever displayed in history.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'E')arth isn't that fragile. If you want high-tech and non-destructive, we need to transition the economy slowly, or we risk massive social instability and that risks war.

[rdberg1957]

Our ability to adapt and innovate will surely be severely tested by the combination of peak oil and global warming. The nexus of the two is what concerns me. Some of the changes intiated by global warming are resulting in the decline of fresh water availability as glaciers, mountain ice and snowpacks melt. Modern agriculture is both petroleum and water intensive. Diminishing supplies of oil/natural gas will mean reduced use of natural gas for fertilizers. Our ability to grow adequate amounts of food may be in jeopardy.

I believe our ability to adapt and invent could provide technological solutions to these problems, but I would not bet on technological advances as more than a partial solution to both global warming and peak oil. Even now, I read of a new process for producing corn based ethanol using 47% less energy, thereby increasing the EROEI. This process produces about the same amount of ethanol from a bushel of corn as current practice, but additionally supplies some consumable by-products such as corn oil. If new processes can be developed for ethanol, butanol and methanol, we may have partial solutions to energy problems while reducing CO2 outputs. While major problems exist with using alcohols to substitute for gasoline, if their production becomes more energy efficient, they may be viable. Plug-in hybrids with alcohol fuels may have promise in reducing both the threat of global warming and peak oil.

Whatever advances are made in technology to produce fuels or electricity more efficiently, to use them more efficiently, technological advances alone will probably not bridge the transition from hydrocarbon fuels to some sustainable future.
For our civilization to survive, we will probably have to change some notions about growth and do more with less. Physical labor may resume at greater levels. Our expectations about what a good life is will need to change. This relates to the idea of powering down. We will not only need to give up wasteful ways, but learn to identify the benefits of living frugally.

Denial is a funny thing. It is part of the human condition. Prior to World War II, pacifists were in full swing in our country trying to prevent our entry into foreign wars until Pearl Harbor was hit. After that, pacifism all but disappeared. We geared up and did something difficult and necessary. As more people recognize the energy and environmental problems, those wind farms will find more favorable receptions in the councils in England and USA. I don't expect current attitudes of entitlement to drive gas hogs to persist in the face of concrete experience of higher energy prices and noticeable climate change.

Will we change radically enough and soon enough to provide a viable transition to some kind of sustainable future? I don't know. When I face the simple mathematics which sows great doubt, I want to retreat to cliches that many use. "Oh, they'll (the scientists) will think of something" comes to mind. Human existence will end just as surely as resources will be depleted; I'm hoping for a few hundred thousand years of development before that time comes. But, again, I wouldn't bet on it.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nano', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', '.').. and once they get my version of the answer they tend to have no more questions.
Its too scary for some.

[Johnston]

Relf,

It was your choice to breed. Personally I couldn't give a toss what happens to the earth after I die.

I am going to consume as much as I can for as long as the party lasts. Hopefully it will last for my lifetime. After I die... not my problem.

You want to bring children into this world, fine, but you had better make sure it is a good place for them to live in. Your problem, not mine.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'I') will repeat myself so you understand the point I just made.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('me', 'W')ithout this petroleum infrastructure mankind is no mightier than a soft white plump seal baby on an ice flow. The earth will abide but man may not.

[marulk]

edit: Sorry, just noticed there was a thread about this subject already. I tried to see if there were any but didn't find them so I put this here. Feel free to remove this one. Hehe, kinda embarrassing first post.


Hello, this is my first post here. And as RelfF2 said in his opening words, this is a remarkable forum with really intelligent and interesting discussion, good job!

I found out about Peak Oil in last year, and thought the evidence (LATOC, mostly) was so overwhelming and down-to-earth rational that every criticism I read concerning it seemed ridiculous, like the abiotic oil joke or "Russia proves Peak Oil is a Zionist scam!". However, today I came across this article debunking Peak Oil that seemed like the most rational so far. It's rather long but I hope that you who seem to know a lot more about PO than I do could check it out and see if there's any validity. This sentence sums it up rather well: "The primary flaw in Hubbert-type models is a reliance on URR as a static number rather than a dynamic variable, changing with technology, knowledge, infrastructure and other factors, but primarily growing. Campbell and Laherrere claim to have developed better analytical methods to resolve this problem, but their own estimates have been increasing, and increasingly rapidly."

Peak Oil theory makes sense at least what I've read in LATOC or Energybulletin, but the claims that Laherrere et al would be using the statistics inappropriately is something I can't really criticize, I'm no economist or a geologist and they just might be wrong with their equations for all I know. Heck, I deeply hope they are and I don't have to spend that 200€ on a sleeping bag instead of CD:s and bicycle accessories.

[GoIllini]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('marulk', '[')i]edit: Sorry, just noticed there was a thread about this subject already. I tried to see if there were any but didn't find them so I put this here. Feel free to remove this one. Hehe, kinda embarrassing first post.


Hello, this is my first post here. And as RelfF2 said in his opening words, this is a remarkable forum with really intelligent and interesting discussion, good job!

I found out about Peak Oil in last year, and thought the evidence (LATOC, mostly) was so overwhelming and down-to-earth rational that every criticism I read concerning it seemed ridiculous, like the abiotic oil joke or "Russia proves Peak Oil is a Zionist scam!". However, today I came across this article debunking Peak Oil that seemed like the most rational so far. It's rather long but I hope that you who seem to know a lot more about PO than I do could check it out and see if there's any validity. This sentence sums it up rather well: "The primary flaw in Hubbert-type models is a reliance on URR as a static number rather than a dynamic variable, changing with technology, knowledge, infrastructure and other factors, but primarily growing. Campbell and Laherrere claim to have developed better analytical methods to resolve this problem, but their own estimates have been increasing, and increasingly rapidly."

Peak Oil theory makes sense at least what I've read in LATOC or Energybulletin, but the claims that Laherrere et al would be using the statistics inappropriately is something I can't really criticize, I'm no economist or a geologist and they just might be wrong with their equations for all I know. Heck, I deeply hope they are and I don't have to spend that 200€ on a sleeping bag instead of CD:s and bicycle accessories.

[JustinFrankl]

IMHO, the recent drop in oil prices has to do with market manipulation, such as changing the percentage of gasoline in the Goldman-Sachs Commodity Index, influencing arbitrage traders to dump their contracts, thus depressing the price.

GoIllini raises some interesting ideas, but all of them are still borne out of and supoprted by an infrastructure of cheap oil.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he primary flaw in Hubbert-type models is a reliance on URR as a static number rather than a dynamic variable, changing with technology, knowledge, infrastructure and other factors, but primarily growing.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JustinFrankl', 'T')he primary flaw in this analysis is that if URR is a dynamic variable, changing with tech, info, infrastructure, then what are tech, info, and infrastructure changing with?

They are changing with the current, extractable cheap energy.