[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'B')as - Thanks for your advice. 38 years at the sharp end of the gas industry, and 26 years on standby rota for first visit gas escape classification in the rough & tumble towns of South Lancashire prepares you for anybody, and anything.

As a supervising engineer, the lads i've worked with over the years have been hard men, english & irish, but i've never known better men, dependant & trustworthy to the bone. A dying breed now as young men today prefer the keyboard to the spade.

Seems we brits again are a little misunderstood - we have had high energy prices for years (compared to America), hence have mainly small cars etc, the recent sharp rises in energy have hit the world hard, and I think America the hardest. WE Brits WILL cope, we will moan and groan (our national pastime), but we'll cope.

Question is, will you Yanks cope ?? Cheap energy has gone forever.

Regards, GASMON

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', '
')
Contrary to what Bas said above, you may find a lot less flaming here than on some other sites. There is more good sportsmanship here than you might think (there is some flaming too).

[steam_cannon]

* Nice avatar!

* Don't need the blessings, but maybe someone else does.

* I talk a lot, but I don't know much of Utopia's. Though Ukraine
may be a Utopia to me. I think "Human and Utopia" go together like
"Fire and Ice".

* No newspeak here, if someone means nukem, they say nukem.
Though most here aren't the types to want to nuke people.

What we mean by dieoff is usually referring to people dieing do to
"food production issues do to presently growing droughts in food
producing parts of the world and energy not being available thus
limiting our modern energy intensive food production.
We found a bunch of oil, started using it to pump up farm
production, grew lots of people. Now the oil is going away,
and many of these extra people may be too. That's Dieoff.

But war is also something people think may result in
many deaths, due to resource conflict. A few times the term
"Humanitarian Nuclear War" has come up, but that's not what
people normally mean or want. Many doomers are rather careless
about the mess humanity has gotten itself into, but that's not the
same as wanting nuclear war...
Please understand that.

What is a doomer? Doomers are posters who are aware of big problems
and believe there are very few palatable solutions. People eating
rations and home grown radishes are not palatable solutions
compared to modern life. Doomers are people who see the
problems man is creating will make life harder for many people.
Even "solutions" like harnessing tidal energy only result in people
breeding more and needing more food / energy. And doomers
question how many more people the earth can take. This is known
as "carrying capacity".

However regarding the tidal energy projects, I think the best thing
to do is to embark on projects like that. They cannot make up for
the oil we are losing, but projects like that can save many people so
things unwind more gracefully. You saw that film, most of the
wildlife in England is probably going to die. Destroying natural
habitats is wrong, but at this point these areas will probably be
destroyed anyway. So arguing the morality of ruining that small
area becomes a moot point. And if it's a good source of power, it
will be used when people get desperate. That's human nature.

I agree with pstarr that killing the wildlife is absolutely wrong. But
there is also the perspective that it may simply not matter anymore.
As your climate changes that place will dry up. And when the ice
caps melt, that place is all going underwater anyway...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', '[')u]Question is, will you Yanks cope ?? Cheap energy has gone forever.

[mmasters]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', 'I') had the same sentiment early on, it's a problem to be solved. People need to wake up. Then I came to the conclusion some problems can't be solved and it's greed and human stupidity that's gotten us into this trap - in short, we're screwed (a common sentiment around here). Then after a lot of thought and research I came to a stronger but more left field conclusion, that we're a essentially a bunch of cattle for a weird species of people running the show from behind the scenes. I don't believe peak oil will be the end of us but rather it will become a huge controlling factor over the population in step with the emergence of world government. Before a significant dieoff happens we will have unexpected technology and solutions begin to emerge along with a big brother of the worst kind. That's what I see happening.

[BigTex]

If you want to develop a good overall understanding of the scope of the iceberg (the tip of which is peak oil), start by reading "Overshoot" by William Catton. That will give you a good mental framework that you can fill in with a lot of the other stuff that you will encounter scouting the rabbit hole.

Be careful about reading doomer porn like "The Long Emergency" by James Kunstler early in your peak oil travels, unless, of course, you like the feeling of crap in your pants.

"Limits to Growth" (2004 version) is excellent as well. There are a LOT of papers and videos linked to in threads here that are very informative.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I')f you want to develop a good overall understanding of the scope of
the iceberg (the tip of which is peak oil), start by reading
"Overshoot" by William Catton. That will give you a good mental
framework that you can fill in with a lot of the other stuff that you
will encounter scouting the rabbit hole.

Be careful about reading doomer porn like "The Long Emergency" by
James Kunstler early in your peak oil travels, unless, of course, you
like the feeling of crap in your pants.

"Limits to Growth" (2004 version) is excellent as well. There are a
LOT of papers and videos linked to in threads here that are very informative.

[Kaj]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', ' ')I think "Human and Utopia" go together like "Fire and Ice".

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kaj', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', ' ')I think "Human and Utopia" go together like "Fire and Ice".

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'W')ell (tongue in cheek) things might not be to bad for the good old
British Empire come 2050, I'm sure our Dominion of Canada will supply
you yanks with wheat at the market value (with a little discount,of
course, as were old chums) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

[mmasters]

Haha good pictures!

[Heineken]

Yes, that's a terrific illustration of our peril, Steam. Great job putting that together.

I've always been scared of rollercoasters. Guess I'm riding one whether I like it or not.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'S')team cannon, big tex, Thanks for the info.

Well (tongue in cheek) things might not be to bad for the good old British Empire come 2050, I'm sure our Dominion of Canada will supply you yanks with wheat at the market value (with a little discount,of course, as were old chums) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

This whole subject gets bigger by the hour.

[Heineken]

deleted----goof

[dunewalker]

GASMON, you oughta mail that speech to Barak Obama campaign headquarters---nice pep talk.

However, I don't ascribe to the "technology will meet all challenges" camp. Most Americans apparently do. The technology of the future, IMO, is that derived from individual effort, not the collective consciousness. Make shelter, get heat, find food, defend territory, this will be of and for the local economy, period.

[steam_cannon]

I have to say, you are alright GASMON.

Sure try to find the positive where you can, simply being alive to
see these things transpire is an awesome thing.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', 'I')n WW2... went to the moon... silicon revolution...

You people have the guts, knowledge & know how. You can do
anything with these qualities. What you need is the will.

[BigTex]

GASMON, if you are wondering what type of gloomy slime many of us here are wading around in, it is the concept of "phantom carrying capacity."

Phantom carrying capacity is a concept used by, among others, Catton in "Overshoot", and it refers to the idea that a population can significantly exceed the sustainable carrying capacity of its habitat on a TEMPORARY basis by consuming the resources that are needed to keep the habitat in a sustainable state.

For us, overpopulation is one of the chief culprits in the overshoot of the earth's sustainable carrying capacity by humans. Examples of our reliance upon phantom carrying capacity to support our current population include widespread reliance on non-renewable resources for which there aren't practical substitutes, chief among them fossil fuels, followed by a crowd which includes good soil, clean air, old growth forests, potable water and somewhere to dump all of our trash.

Part of what gave the U.S. such swagger in the past was that we had success which we imagined was the result of being smarter and better looking than everyone else, but in retrospect it may have been a combination of a hardworking and diligent population aided by a tremendous tailwind of cheap energy, an amazing natural resource endowment, and a large land mass to explore, settle and conquer. The question is how great the U.S. would have been or will be when you take away these gifts.

One of the first significant speed bumps you will encounter here is resistance to the idea that technology mated with human ingenuity is all that is needed to solve our current problems. The truth about technology is that it creates a lot of problems in the process of solving others. In a world of increasingly scarce natural resources, this structural problem with technological solutions may become much more pronounced and people may discover that technology is actually a huge dead-end, a one way ticket into a state of overshoot. In fact, many have come to the conclusion that technology actually aggravates the reliance upon phantom carrying capacity, and thus causes the original problem you were seeking to solve (the need for more energy) to become a much larger problem (the need for a habitat for our species).

This is the central and troubling insight of a lot of seemingly gloomy people here.

It is a vastly more vexing problem than a motivational speech can solve.

However, I would love to be convinced that the analysis above contains a flaw I have overlooked (but noting that it may not happen for a long time doesn't qualify as a flaw).

The good news is that you will find counter-arguments to the case I make above (do a search for "cornies" and "cornucopian" and you will find them). The bad news is that they aren't very persuasive.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'G')ASMON you to will awaken but will it be too late?

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'G')ASMON you to will awaken but will it be too late?

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'M')ost people don't realize it until it has been breached, but we all have a doom hymen. There is a lot of doomer foreplay before the consummation, and I believe that this is where people spend a lot of their time, fiddling around with cornie porno, bio-fuels and backyard windmills. But when you finally feel that POP, and it may be while you are reading "Overshoot" (for Pstarr I think it was reading Kunstler), a sense of certainty and clarity just washes over you, and it is really a very special moment of doomer sensuality. When it's over, the best thing you can do is just step outside, have a cigarette, and quietly look to the heavens as you think to yourself "this is SO fucked up."

(Those who don't know what I'm talking about just haven't experienced it yet.)

[Iaato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'W')hen it's over, the best thing you can do is just step outside, have a cigarette, and quietly look to the heavens as you think to yourself "this is SO fucked up." Those who don't know what I'm talking about just haven't experienced it yet.)