[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nocar', 'M')y BEST argument for why everything will be (sort of) Okay is History:

[namenick]

mos6507 wrote: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think everyone here is kind of waiting with baited breath to know whether the crash will be gradual, moderate, or catastrophic.

[nocar]

mos wrote
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't think any historical event can be used as a comparison because of the rate of the rising population (especially in the post WWII years with the baby boomers). Also remember that while much was diverted for the war effort, oil was still plentiful in the US 50 years ago.

So the powerdowns that worked in the past may not work this time when the oil propping up the overshoot tapers off. We really venture into uncharted terrority where the underlying carrying capacity of the local environment becomes more of a hard limit and the overshoot is exposed for what it is.

[s0cks]

Best case is that peak happens soon and it's hard hitting. I look forward to a complete re-think of how we live and how society works. Infinite growth on a finite planet is seriously dumb thinking.

Humans used to live in a sustainable way as hunter gatherers where we and many other species could have lived for millions of years. Now we wander how many decades we have left? And for many animals their time is already up.

Worst case is that we continue fighting for oil to live an impossible dream forever. That we keep breaking our backs and bending over to get as much money as possible because big plasma TV's and fast cars are what really makes us happy.

[Ludi]

Socks, I hope you'll post more (possibly in the Planning Forum) about how you would like society to rethink itself and how you yourself are acting to bring about these changes.

[namenick]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('s0cks', 'B')est case is that peak happens soon and it's hard hitting. I look forward to a complete re-think of how we live and how society works. Infinite growth on a finite planet is seriously dumb thinking.

Humans used to live in a sustainable way as hunter gatherers where we and many other species could have lived for millions of years. Now we wander how many decades we have left? And for many animals their time is already up.

Worst case is that we continue fighting for oil to live an impossible dream forever. That we keep breaking our backs and bending over to get as much money as possible because big plasma TV's and fast cars are what really makes us happy.

[Valdemar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('namenick', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('s0cks', 'B')est case is that peak happens soon and it's hard hitting. I look forward to a complete re-think of how we live and how society works. Infinite growth on a finite planet is seriously dumb thinking.

Humans used to live in a sustainable way as hunter gatherers where we and many other species could have lived for millions of years. Now we wander how many decades we have left? And for many animals their time is already up.

Worst case is that we continue fighting for oil to live an impossible dream forever. That we keep breaking our backs and bending over to get as much money as possible because big plasma TV's and fast cars are what really makes us happy.

[namenick]

You may understand what you're trying to say Vladimir but I'm not sure others do.

Did you happen to notice he said: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')est case is that peak happens soon and it's hard hitting.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nocar', '
')Mos, you are right about the US not being hit particularly hard during WWII on the home front. That is why England and Sweden are more interesting cases - all oil was imported, and those imports as well as almost all other imports were cut off. So very very little oil was available, and using a private car was out. England had coal, Sweden had hydro and wood, so trains, home cooking and home-heating could function.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('namenick', 'D')oom and gloomer. Doesn't even want to see an orderly transition from oil to alternatives. Sad case.

[s0cks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('namenick', 'P')erhaps he's a christian and doesn't care what happens to the people of this world, but I do. My hope is that we start to become educated to what we need to do and we are able to make some changes before it costs the lives of billions.

My optimism right now centers around a new pres and government in the US which will take that country away from the Bush lunacy and start towar recognizing what the problems are to deal with soon. That could lead the entire world! Think about it and how the US greed and selfishness is holding us all back.

[sittinguy]

Everything will be OK because.
they will keep proping things up for another 20 years, WE will be be OK

Our kids and grandkids are the ones that are really screwed.

[Duende]

Hmmm... "why everything will be ok."

What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Things are already not ok for billions of people on earth, and they're getting worse all the time.

Oh, you must mean "ok" for (wealthy) Westerners. And by "ok" you probably mean "business as usual."

I see absolutely no way we can continue to prop up this standard of living on top of the backs of billions of slaving third worlders while trashing the planet, poisoning the air we breathe, poisoning the water we drink, vacuuming the oceans, and plowing rainforests for soybean fields.

Think ecologically for a moment: there is no way whatsoever we can expect unlimited growth in a finite world. Peak oil is a symptom of a larger problem; that larger problem is the myth of entitlement.

Maybe "ok" is just supposed to mean there isn't a massive die-off. Well, I suppose that would be better than the alternative. Truth be told - the longer we live on borrowed time, and the higher the stakes become, the more casualties there will be.

This is to say absolutely nothing for the millions of species who have suffered anthropogenic extinction already anyway. They've had their die-off; now maybe it's our turn?

[Alcassin]

I think even it can be better than now BigTex, because we will stop dreaming and get serious. The current mainstream ideas will be slowly eroding, because more and more people don't buy the stuff, and start to see themselves as a part of Nature, not against it. Rising awareness of new ideas will create new solutions.

However the economic outlook of the "praising GDP" society is not going to be great, but human ingenuity is hard to measure, and we will find the way to live great life without so much stuff, we can get there, and fulfill our lives with love, empathy, sensitivity and security. It really counts.

I think it will be the end of a nightmare of consumptionist society in the most degenerated schopenauerian style - that because the life is miserable we need to have more... and more, and more... to kill the pain of our pointless existence. When we can't conform our lives in human-human relations, we live through and by things we control or own, and usually we treat humans like they are things to control and own. This rots society from the beginning, leads to great apathy, unleashes our talents in wrong direction.

For me decline in the pruduction of oil isn't a single-issue problem. It's the way how we budget the planetary resources and how we live on a planet which is an almost perfect closed system. Once we acknowledge this a global society we will understand that we share the same fate wherever we live, and what is more important, we aren't invulnerable as we all thought. We should seek chance to success The better world is always possible, it doesn't depend on our current style of consumption.

It may be naive, but there is a part of me which hopes it may happen.

The second, pessimistic side says: people die, they don't change; we are aware but resistless; long-term strategy is short-term profit; business as usual; we won't stop plundering, we haven't tried this yet, so the crash is more or less inevitable; resource wars, human greed; deforestation, soil erosion, decline of drinking water; destruction of oceans; rapid climate change when we will unleash the huge reserves of coal; destruction of habitats; starvation; corruption; politics as usual until new Stalin/Hitler alike comes into game; short-sighted behaviour; egotism; infantile narcissism - simple effects of irresposiblity.

What strategy will we choose is still uncertain, and time is inexorably running out.

[LoneSnark]

Doom and gloomer. Doesn't even want to see an orderly transition from oil to alternatives. Sad case.

Religious? Hoping for Armageddon?

[namenick]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('namenick', 'D')oom and gloomer. Doesn't even want to see an orderly transition from oil to alternatives. Sad case.

[namenick]

Alcassin wrote: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'p')olitics as usual until new Stalin/Hitler alike comes into game; short-sighted behaviour; egotism; infantile narcissism - simple effects of irresposiblity.

[Alcassin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('namenick', '
')Don't you understand that we already have a Stalin/Hitler and he is George Bush?

[Grifter]

You make good posts Alcassin but..

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alcassin', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')an a good argument be made for defending the US' oil wars?

[Alcassin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grifter', '
')I'm not so sure about that. Can you describe what pure evil is?