Is Peak Oil getting too real?

by **bodigami** » Sat 03 May 2008, 02:52:20

In your personal experience, including w-e you may know that is happenning now world wide...

by **Hagakure_Leofman** » Sat 03 May 2008, 03:09:26

is there an award for 'best poll questions'!?

by **bodigami** » Sat 03 May 2008, 03:12:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hagakure_Leofman', 'i')s there an award for 'best poll questions'!?

by **wisconsin_cur** » Sat 03 May 2008, 03:17:16

I took the third option trying to articulate what is coming into mainstream focus, without looking too far into the future.

I was listening to CNBC this morning and first I heard a commentator use the term "Peak Oil" in a sentence. It was not a question, it did not carry the conotation of "theory." He was using it as if it was a commonly accepted fact.

A short time later there was discussion of depletion rates and how that effects the economy going forward. MSM seems to be acknowledging that there is both shit and a fan.

When it hits, I don't know. What will it look like when the shit begins to move towards the fan? I hope I recognize it when I see it... I think when I hear the first sounds of an exporting nation limiting exports in order to keep the price down at home or to build their own Strategic Reserve or something like that, then I will cross over into the moving poop camp.

Until then, I just have that bloated constipated feeling.

by **wisconsin_cur** » Sat 03 May 2008, 03:36:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'I') think when I hear the first sounds of an exporting nation limiting exports in order to keep the price down at home or to build their own Strategic Reserve or something like that, then I will cross over into the moving poop camp.

Until then, I just have that bloated constipated feeling.

by **thylacine** » Sat 03 May 2008, 05:29:41

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'I') was listening to CNBC this morning and first I heard a commentator use the term "Peak Oil" in a sentence. It was not a question, it did not carry the conotation of "theory." He was using it as if it was a commonly accepted fact.

A short time later there was discussion of depletion rates and how that effects the economy going forward. MSM seems to be acknowledging that there is both shit and a fan.

by **SOS** » Sat 03 May 2008, 05:37:40

I voted for the second option ......... However, I reserve the right to change my vote to the first option next month! The article linked below tempted me to vote for the first option:

http://www.energybulletin.net/43111.html

by **wisconsin_cur** » Sat 03 May 2008, 06:52:15

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thylacine', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', 'I') was listening to CNBC this morning and first I heard a commentator use the term "Peak Oil" in a sentence. It was not a question, it did not carry the conotation of "theory." He was using it as if it was a commonly accepted fact.

A short time later there was discussion of depletion rates and how that effects the economy going forward. MSM seems to be acknowledging that there is both shit and a fan.

by **phaeryen** » Sat 03 May 2008, 07:25:09

We got 120$ oil, we got the food riots, we got first worlders protesting against gas prices.

I think we have the turd hitting the fan here. To everyones frustration though, its going to be one motherload of a turd. And its just going to get bigger & worse.

by **Gerben** » Sat 03 May 2008, 08:08:49

I've got some of this disgustingly smelling stuff in my eyes and I can't see if it already hit the fan or still has to hit it. It will take me a few years to know for sure. But it sure smells like shit.

by **kjmclark** » Sat 03 May 2008, 08:09:24

I picked the third option, but I'm leaning toward the second. The interview with Fatih Birol posted at the Energy Bulletin last night freaked me out a bit. So here's the head of the IEA, formerly a cornucopian but quickly becoming a bit of a doomer. The interview is published in this month's Internationale Politik, which is supposed to be the "Foreign Affairs" equivalent in Germany. So, there's an official, high level warning that there is an unidentified, stinky brown mass flying potentially toward the fan.

The other thing that really concerns me is that Sharon Astyk's essay, worrying though it was, left out UG99.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')g99 threatens global famine.

It is the name for a variant of stem rust, a form of wheat disease, which was first identified in Uganda in 1999, hence its name. It is devastatingly damaging to wheat, and so far agricultural scientists have not been able to find an effective defense against it. Ug99 has defeated the two main gene complexes, Sr 31 and Sr 24, which protect most wheat strains from stem rust. It appears to resist most fungicides.

Of the 50 genes we know for resistance to stem rust, only 10 work even partially against Ug99, warns Rock Ward, leading the fight against it at the international Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Less than 1 percent of the world's wheat crops contain these genes.

After being restricted to East Africa, Ug99 has now been identified in Yemen, and the FAO now reports that it (or something very like it) has also been spotted in Iran. Spread by the wind, it is not easy to stop or to control, and the prospect that it almost inevitably spreads east into the Indian sub-continent and north in Russia and then to Europe is nothing short of nightmarish.

The FAO says that some 65 million hectares of wheat, which produce about a quarter of the global wheat harvest, are now directly under threat. It gets worse. Over two-thirds of the wheat strains in North America are vulnerable to this disease.

And this comes at a time when world wheat reserves are at their lowest level since records were first kept, and when there are global shortages of other staple foods like rice.

by **Jack** » Sat 03 May 2008, 09:29:55

I voted that it had already hit. Phaeryen alluded to several items, all worthy of note.

We are seeing food riots and real hunger in the third world. The first world is experiencing inflation, economic difficulty, and some distress (including hunger) among the bottom quintile of the population. The President has started talking about conservation.

I wonder what it will take for people to recognize that the events we have been expecting are here, now, presently. Are we willfully blind?

by **pedalling_faster** » Sat 03 May 2008, 09:49:23

i feel confused. the dollar was sinking, as expected as part of TSHTF.

but then this rebound in the dollar, & gold dropping. almost looks like muddle through, as opposed to TSHTF.

there's probably some movie where a character is looking at "muddle through" on the left, and TSHTF on the right, right before they get run over by TSHTF.

perhaps the US government deserves some points for faking it. but then, given the amount of experience they have in that department ...

by **Ludi** » Sat 03 May 2008, 10:15:58

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', ' ')Are we willfully blind?

by **vision-master** » Sat 03 May 2008, 10:24:27

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen it hits, I don't know. What will it look like when the shit begins to move towards the fan? I hope I recognize it when I see it... I think when I hear the first sounds of an exporting nation limiting exports in order to keep the price down at home or to build their own Strategic Reserve or something like that, then I will cross over into the moving poop camp.

Until then, I just have that bloated constipated feeling.

by **kokoda** » Sat 03 May 2008, 10:25:43

The fan is on its highest setting, the shit is entering the terminal phase of its flight trajectory and we are all sitting in splatter range.

When it hits we will all know about it.

by **mel1962** » Sat 03 May 2008, 10:55:06

I don't think its hit the fan yet, but we are on our way! I believe we are at the beginning of the plateau! If you haven't made preparations yet, I would do so now!

by **underdressed** » Sat 03 May 2008, 11:29:54

Surely, the shit has hit the fan. Fortunately, those of us with computers are, generally speaking, farther from the fan than those poor folks eating mud pies.

The shit you see flying is not going towards the fan -- it's coming from it. Smile if it hasn't hit you, yet.

by **eastbay** » Sat 03 May 2008, 11:39:39

The 'problem' we've all been talking about and contemplating for the past four years here has now started.

The process of getting it underway and seriously eroding our lives may take some time, but it's rolling along nicely now and it's unstoppable.