[nth]

1939 to 1945, USSR population decline about 20-30m people. This is about 15% population reduction.

This period went through a major drought and a huge war.

WW2 is a resource war started by Germany and Japan. Japan had an embargo by US and US allies, so they had no choice but to go to war to get resources. Germany was more like taking back land they lost during WW1 and pride, but their war effort towards Eastern Europe was aimed at securing food and oil supplies.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cultural_sublimation', 'I') have started lurking through this forum some time ago, but this is my first post. Though I am obviously concerned about Peak Oil, I cannot help but to notice that a lot of people here have a strange fascination with doom. What's up with that?

Seriously, though people should be worried about the issue and perhaps even a tiny bit scared, always talking about the end of the world will only get us labelled as lunatics. Why can't a community like this one focus a bit more on the positive news about energy? Yes, I know there are also some of those, but isn't it funny that the gloomier threads always get more posts, and that the optimists are often labelled as cornucopian? (there is a difference!)

Anyway, I would just like to share with you some positive news related to peak oil. First, this week and for the first time, wind turbines were the number one source of power in Spain, providing 27% of power to the grid. Wow. This is not a tiny country with 10 people and a goat. We're talking about an industrialised european nation with 44 million people. Second, Spain's neighbour Portugal has realistic goals of having 45% of all its power come from renewable sources in just three years time.

Will peak oil hurt? Certainly. But more and more I am convinced that we can be moderately optimistic about the future. If instead of doom you are looking for moderately optimistic, yet still realistic, predictions about the post-peak future, they are also out there. It just seems many among us have a tendency to block them out and prefer to read about the soon to come apocalypse. (Quick test if you're a doomer: which of the two links in this paragraph are you more inclined to click instinctively?)

[Newsseeker]

I am a doomer because I do not believe the future will be bright. All the wind farms in the world won't keep the trucks running past peak and I don't think I'll be wrong. But in daily things I try to stay upbeat.

[billp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he modern way of life is screwed. This is not the end of the world, just the end of globalization/ consumerism/ idiotism.

[syrac818]

The original post is spot on in my opinion.

I've been checking out this board for years, and after a while you begin to realize, "whoa...I think these people might be a little crazy". There is always, always reasons to be paranoid of the coming years, and this has been the case throughout human history. You basically have a decision in life - sit paralyzed in fear of what is ahead, or do your absolute best to shift and evolve with life's changes. A person needs to be flexible not just physically but mentally - and the general vibe in here is so dire and rigid that there is little room for progress. People have become emotional attached to the idea that the end is near, and are simply not willing to hear anything contrary to that.

It's just exhausting, and at times downright ridiculous.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Coolman', ' ')the human population will probably be much lower in 2100.

[billp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here is always, always reasons to be paranoid of the coming years, and this has been the case throughout human history. You basically have a decision in life - sit paralyzed in fear of what is ahead, or do your absolute best to shift and evolve with life's changes.

[bshirt]

I'm optimistic that PO will bring....

1. the end to the endless, mindless laws created by lying, thieving politicians for stealing the sweat off our backs to buy more votes.

2. the end of the [s]SS Gestapo[/s] IRS.

3. the end of the great US welfare state.

4. the end of overwhelming bureaucracy.

Yeah, as bad as it's going to be.....I'll take my chances.

[lawnchair]

For a not insubstantial number of us, serious "doom" is our mode of optimism. You could label us the Kunstler/Illich camp. It's not traditional Luddism... technology is great, sometimes. But, a lot of modern civilization is irredeemably ugly, and never more so than standing on the curbside for twenty-five minutes praying for enough break in traffic to get to the other side of the street. The greater part of what is made today... houses, foodstuffs, cities, laws, media, graduates, etc... is designed to be lousy but profitable. Those of us who believe this have no recourse to change the track of civilization. There exists in "doom" a hope that this ugliness will be forced to change.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lawnchair', 'F')or a not insubstantial number of us, serious "doom" is our mode of optimism. You could label us the Kunstler/Illich camp. It's not traditional Luddism... technology is great, sometimes. But, a lot of modern civilization is irredeemably ugly, and never more so than standing on the curbside for twenty-five minutes praying for enough break in traffic to get to the other side of the street. The greater part of what is made today... houses, foodstuffs, cities, laws, media, graduates, etc... is designed to be lousy but profitable. Those of us who believe this have no recourse to change the track of civilization. There exists in "doom" a hope that this ugliness will be forced to change.

[billp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here exists in "doom" a hope that this ugliness will be forced to change.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Olle', '
')
You and I are soulmates! This doomerporn make me wanna puke

[Ludi]

"Humanity" has, and can, live different ways from how we live now....we aren't used to those ways, nor do we have all the skills/knowledge to live them easily, but, they are there as an option, should we choose (or, be forced) to live a different way. Personally, I'd rather choose a different way to live, which is what I'm doing, in the process of, in fact, currently in my own life.


But others may choose to give up!

[billp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he evidence is too overwhelming. Everything from your medicines, to fishing nets, to plastic toys and widgets to the nylon shirt on your body, to the steel thats processed for your commodities is oil based/associated in varying degrees...and 6 billion want a share of that lifestyle.

[killJOY]

I'm an optimist--not because of "bio"fuels, or "alternatives" or goddamn windmills. I'm an optimist because I know how to grow and ferment my own cabbage, raise bees and harvest honey, feed and milk a cow and make yogurt cheese butter.

Etcetera.

Screw the rest of the world. And their goddamn windmills.

[steam_cannon]

Katrina or Doom?

Fighting mobs with a the "Shotgun and Chainsaw" and hidden health-packs everywhere that only you can find? I used to think there wasn't much sense to those games but now I wonder.

Also I have to agree with the general opinion that optimists just haven't studied enough to appreciate on just how many levels we're fucked.

* End of oil exports in other countries is very very bad, everything is made from oil...
* Natural Gas cliff would be scary, I like being warm.
* Seas running out of fish and growing anoxic dead zones.
* Mountains running out of metal and important metals for alloys.
* The low quality coal that's remaining; that can't make up for other shortages.
* Farmlands drying up, dropping food production.
* Rich doing odd things: Bush buying water rights, Halliburton and others leaving country, unstable currency, massive inflation on horizon, housing bubble trouble(do you live in a house?)...

Any one of these puts a wrench in the works. Yeah, we have a cornucopia, of trouble! Plenty for you and your kids! Most elements of modern life are at or approaching their breaking point. You can think about one problem like fuel liquids and figure that we will liquefy coal and make it all right. But then if you look deeper that process doesn't work well and we don't have enough coal to match growth or current needs...

The reason for optimism is that people rarely look for problems. If they see a problem they may look if there is a solution. But very few people get to the next step of checking that their solution is correct, feasible, scalable, etc... The mistake in all this is thinking that there is a solution. But there are no pleasant solutions to problems relating to exponential growth.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('killJOY', 'I')'m an optimist--not because of "bio"fuels, or "alternatives" or goddamn windmills. I'm an optimist because I know how to grow and ferment my own cabbage, raise bees and harvest honey, feed and milk a cow and make yogurt cheese butter.

Etcetera.

Screw the rest of the world. And their goddamn windmills.

[CrudeAwakening]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gil Stern', 'B')oth optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NEOPO', ' ')once you are through your own denial and rationalization phases and once you come to the same conclusion that so many have come to before you then please provide me with a reason to be optomistic beyond my own determination to survive

[TheDude]

If you haven't you should read some of the more technical topics here on matters like biofuels or electric cars. The repostes to the super optimistic estimates of what we can do are quite damning, and from very sharp and talented people.
Another thing to consider is that the people who come up with all these schemes seem to be living in a vacuum where all they have on their mind is how to make more efficient solar panels. Many people here see the big picture of the forest burning to the ground outside the lovely shaded grove the Cornucopians are busy Blackberrying on.
And - consider that in our short time on Earth messing about with hydrocarbons and uranium we've managed to destroy more species in toto since that 10KM rock smashed into the Yucatan 65 million years back. Humans just aren't cut out for stewardship of this or any other planet, we're just too aggresive and short-sighted. Those may have been good qualities back when we were hunting/gathering (although some extinct megafauna might beg to differ) but they aren't what we need to make a go of it long term.