Hi everyone,
I'm currently writing a paper for my freshman composition course about peak oil. It's supposed to be an argumentative essay, where I pick a stance on a controversial issue and offer opposing views to refute.
My problem is, I can't find any good opposing views to write about. I know it's probably a lot to ask, but could any of you folks point me in the direction of some articles, or give me a few ideas to go off of? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Writing a paper on peak oil
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Writing a paper on peak oil
by iMax » Fri 30 Nov 2007, 17:47:46
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iMax - Wood
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Re: Writing a paper on peak oil
by Concerned » Fri 30 Nov 2007, 18:37:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('iMax', 'H')i everyone,
I'm currently writing a paper for my freshman composition course about peak oil. It's supposed to be an argumentative essay, where I pick a stance on a controversial issue and offer opposing views to refute.
My problem is, I can't find any good opposing views to write about. I know it's probably a lot to ask, but could any of you folks point me in the direction of some articles, or give me a few ideas to go off of? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I'm currently writing a paper for my freshman composition course about peak oil. It's supposed to be an argumentative essay, where I pick a stance on a controversial issue and offer opposing views to refute.
My problem is, I can't find any good opposing views to write about. I know it's probably a lot to ask, but could any of you folks point me in the direction of some articles, or give me a few ideas to go off of? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
- Writing a paper on peak oil.
There are lots of controversial issues, can you focus your question a bit more tightly?
Will you be arguing the concept of peak oil, it's ramifications, the date of peak oil, whether its even a problem, it's association to the fiat based fractional reserve money system, carrying capacity and die off etc...
If you want real controversy I would pick peak oil and die-off scenarios. Of course you may be labeled the campus nut job just let them know you're playing devils advocate.
Search this site for die-off and carrying capacity, as well as theoildrum.com and dieoff.org of course.
Good luck.
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
-Italian Proverb
-Italian Proverb
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Concerned - Heavy Crude
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Re: Writing a paper on peak oil
by KillTheHumans » Fri 30 Nov 2007, 20:03:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('iMax', '
')My problem is, I can't find any good opposing views to write about. I know it's probably a lot to ask, but could any of you folks point me in the direction of some articles, or give me a few ideas to go off of? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
')My problem is, I can't find any good opposing views to write about. I know it's probably a lot to ask, but could any of you folks point me in the direction of some articles, or give me a few ideas to go off of? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
#4 On This List
Pretty heavy stuff though.
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KillTheHumans - Tar Sands
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Re: Writing a paper on peak oil
by steam_cannon » Fri 30 Nov 2007, 20:36:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('iMax', 'H')i everyone,
I'm currently writing a paper for my freshman composition course about peak oil.
Dam, another freshman asking for us to do their homework... I'm currently writing a paper for my freshman composition course about peak oil.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('iMax', '
')It's supposed to be an argumentative essay, where I pick a stance on a controversial issue and offer opposing views to refute.
My problem is, I can't find any good opposing views to write about.
But to simplify things, you could speak on resource depletion due to population burden - otherwise known as, overshoot.
If you haven't heard of overshoot it's like this. You have a big party and guests keep arriving. Eventually all the chips and beer get drank up and thats when they leave. When there is no more chips and beer people start to leave, well or they enjoy the party a lot less... But that's overshoot.
OVERSHOOT: Too many people, not enough resources.
For example:
"Adding up all the farming, fishing, mining, building and fuel consumption, researchers calculated our global ecological demand to be the equivalent of 120 percent of the Earth's capacity to sustain these activities."
http://www.overshoot.net/
This is a very low end estimate of how far we've overstepped our available resources. If you keep spending more then you make, you'll eventually get in trouble with debt. Since these are resources we are spending and people's lives depend on these resources, at some point shortages will cause people to die or stop having children.
United Nations
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/25/ ... p#end_copy
Leading pherologists
http://eco.gn.apc.org/pubs/smail.html
Fifty-eight of the world's scientific academies
http://www.interacademies.net/?id=3547
14 studies
http://www.ilea.org/leaf/richard2002.html
For a simple speech you could make the following separate points like a reportcard for the planet. Don't bother connecting food, oil, metals, petrodollar trade... Oil and energy connect all these things in the topic of "peak oil". But demonstrating those connections would make your speech much more complex. It's simpler to talk about what we know we have used up and what we are running out of. That's simple and understandable. And that's enough to make your point.
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The Big Party
How many more people will fit on this planet?
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Oil
Every ten years we use up as much as we used in all previous years. How long to you think that will keep up before lifestyles have to change?
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Food
"This year’s world grain harvest is projected to fall short of consumption by 61 million tons, marking the sixth time in the last seven years that production has failed to satisfy demand. As a result of these shortfalls, world carryover stocks at the end of this crop year are projected to drop to 57 days of consumption, the shortest buffer since the 56-day-low in 1972 that triggered a doubling of grain prices. "
http://www.energybulletin.net/17261.html
As Fertilizer Prices Soar
"The cost of anhydrous ammonia has nearly doubled, due to the skyrocketing price of natural gas, which is used to manufacture the popular nitrogen fertilizer."
http://nationalhogfarmer.com/mag/farmin ... lue_rises/
U.S. about to become net food importer
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/2/9/211544/4045
"I like to eat great cheeses and wines from France and Italy, and I enjoy tropical fruits in the middle of winter. When the U.S. was a dominant food supplier, this seemed rather like the natural order of things. But now U.S. imports of meat and grains -- to name two commodities that used to be our strength -- are rising. America now imports two dollars of feed grains for every three dollars of exports, and imports $2.5 billion more red meats than it exports, ERS data show."
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Metals (take out a soda can and put it on the table)
http://i3.tinypic.com/81efq5c.gif
http://i3.tinypic.com/730mf49.gif
http://i1.tinypic.com/85mqr5x.gif
http://i3.tinypic.com/8e7lmq0.gif
http://i12.tinypic.com/85zxcf9.gif
http://i7.tinypic.com/6u8dq2p.gif
http://i6.tinypic.com/6y22erk.gif
http://i2.tinypic.com/7x2zqx5.gif
http://i5.tinypic.com/8bpffhk.gif
Examples of how things can just get used up by a metal hungry population.
U.S. Manganese Production
U.S. Arsenic Production
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/images ... igure4.jpg
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Environment: Never has so many people lived on the planet...
Many people like "Al Gore" even think we are using up our environment...
CO2 chart: Icecores and CO2, higher then it's ever been...
Temperature follows CO2 and we are heading into CO2 ranges this planet has never seen. This is the chart everyone has heard about. Temperature goes up and goes down, but never like this. CO@ and temp have never went up like they are now. That's the part talk show radio hosts like Rush tend to forget to tell audiences. You may need to mention that when talking to an audience.
Climate Change “Three Times Faster Than Worst Predictions” (2007 Article)
by the US National Academy of Sciences
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06 ... faster.php
Fiddling with figures while the Earth burns
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 751509.ece
Warmer Earth may slash farm yields
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16042134/
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Are we in some kind of overshoot? Are we using up all our resources? What could the implications be?
Overshoot in nature
The Big Party
How many more people will fit on this planet?
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Counter arguments?
"In a more recent book, Simon (1994,65) has asserted that we already have in the world's libraries "the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years."
Yeah right Does anybody think the population can keep doubling for the next 7 billion years? Retake math 101 you think so...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The Problem of Denial
http://www.greatchange.org/ov-catton,denial.html
DENYING REALITY
There are others who deny the whole idea that carrying capacity has now been, or ever will be, exceeded by the human load. Writing of a future "age of abundance," an economist at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, has argued that just because a grocery store stocks only a three days supply of milk no one worries that life after the third day must be lived without milk, and similarly, we should not expect to run out of copper simply because copper mining companies calculate that they have only a certain number of years of reserves. When they use up those reserves, they will have a renewed incentive to locate new sources of supply (Moore, 1995,116).
He insists, therefore, that the only reliable measure of "a resource's supply is the change in its market price." In support of that view, he cites Julian Simon's book. The Ultimate Resource, a title alluding to human brains and reflecting a faith that ever-increasing numbers of them on this planet will ensure an escalation of solutions to outrace any escalation of problems.
In a more recent book, Simon (1994,65) has asserted that we already have in the world's libraries "the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years." After noting the relative recency of much of our technological knowledge, Simon adds, "Even if no new knowledge were ever invented after those advances, we would be able to go on increasing forever, improving our standard of living and our control over our environment."
If most human ecologists would regard this as quite preposterous and detached from reality, I have felt almost as stunned each time I have read the negating paraphrase by Julian Simon and Herman Kahn (1984,1-2) of the summary of The Global 2000 Report to the President:
If present trends continue, the world in 2000 will be less crowded (though more populated), less polluted, more stable ecologically, and less vulnerable to resource supply disruptions than the world we live in now. Stresses involving population, resources, and environment will be less in the future than now... The world's people will be richer in most ways than they are today ... The outlook for food and other necessities of life will be better ... life for most people on earth will be less precarious economically than it is now.
The emphases and ellipses are by Simon and Kahn, obviously intended to make their glowing expectations contrast maximally and point-for-point with the Global 2000 summary they were paraphrasing.
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You would still have to do research on "the club or rome" and make powerpoint slides, but you could make this into a speech much more easily then peak oil...
http://tinyurl.com/22eoqh
Even if you used a well polished ppt slideshow on peak oil and tagged on on some cockamamie counter arguments, I think your speech wouldn't work. Peak oil is too complex and bewildering for most audiences that aren't being paid to be there. So you might be better off just explaining "overshoot" and skipping the economics of oil...
P.S. I hope your teacher doesn't search the net to see if you plagiarized...
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