[dohboi]

Nice post, fvr. There are various powerdown plans and numerous lengthy threads have been devoted to them.

Everyone in the world could commit to living with a minimal footprint tomorrow (see for example www.myfootprint.com ) --cutting out nearly all meat and dairy, giving up nearly all alcohol and tobacco, eating (and consuming in general) only locally and organically, walking and biking everywhere (no more flying or driving), living in small and densely populated buildings which are well insulated against hot and cold and located close to places of work, committing to no more than one child per couple and not till after 35, buying only what is absolutely needed, reusing, recylcing...

These measures would quickly collapse demand for oil (and other fossil fuels and resources) and fairly quickly draw down the population...and destroy the economy as we know it. In spite of the last point, I strongly advocate this. Many would be much healthier under such a regimen.

But I also know that this of course will not happen. Or rather, as you point out, much of it will happen but not voluntarily. Population will fall largely for less pleasant reasons than voluntary restraint. Consumption of everythig will fall because we are past "Peak Everything" (the title of Heinberg's recent book, which I recommend).

Besides strong individual resistance to such changes, the powers in charge of the gobal economy believe in consumption growth (in spite of its more and more obvious destructive impact on the earth and many of its people) as a kind of religion, since it has helped them acquire an ever increasing portion of the world's wealth.

But at this point, even if a miracle occured and everyone adopted such a regimen, and even if it was done without major wars and negative fallout from such a sudden adjustment, we (that is all living thigs on earth) would likely be in for some rather rude shocks.

Last summer's record loss of arctic ice, 100+ years ahead of projection from just months earlier, suggests that global tipping points have been reached and passed:

The soon-to-be-ice-free Arctic Ocean will heat 24/7 during summers leading to melting of the enormous masses of methane in the neighboring arctic tundra, which will add as much GWG as has been released by all industrial activity to date.

The direct solar heating of the Arctic Ocean (added to the heating from GW) will almost certainly set off the "clathrate gun" (wiki it)--realease of the even-more-massive quatities of methane in the ice at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. Such release may have been the trigger for the most massive (read "near total") extinction events in the biological record.

The next stage is likely the shut down of the thermohalide circulation, depriving the deep ocean of oxygen and other nutrients, which will lead to enormous blooms of hydrogen-sulfide-spewing bacteria, enormous clouds of which gas will drift across the the land poisoning and smothering everything it touches.

For further details read the recent, excellent "Under a Green Sky" by Peter Ward.

So the original poster is ultimately right in this sense--peak oil could perhaps, in a totally theoretical but in practice all but impossible scenario, be addressed; but global warming (or climate collapse) seems to have taken on a runaway force all its own and will likely be a massively destructive force no matter what we do or don't do (though I still find it ever more ludicrous and criminal to add fuel to that fire by using any more ff than absolutely necessary).

And you thought Kunstler was gloomy!

Cheers, and happy new year.

[mel1962]

Anthill

Welcome to Peak Oil, notice the name and I don't want to bury you, but many of us feel the "Global Warming" is a cover for the real problem "Peak Oil". IMHO!:)

[jeezlouise]

I used to know this kid with asthma. I kept telling him, "there's abundant reserves of oxygen all around you. Quit worrying."

I used to know this kid with asthma...

[WildRose]

vfr, excellent and thorough posts, with lots of useful links. You have summarized most of what I've learned about consumption and resource depletion from this site and related reading over the last three years.

Anthill, welcome. You've been provided some good information to read.