by copious.abundance » Sat 06 Dec 2008, 00:29:12
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('thuja', 'H')ere is your only salient argument (and its just not a very good one): Peakers did not determine the extent of the price drop, or some predicted that prices wouldn't drop, therefore the premise that oil is finite is wrong. Wow...really really illogical and bad argument. No soup for you....
If you were actually aware of more things I've written here, you'd be aware that I've never said that oil wasn't finite (of course it isn't, duh). So you are trying to score points by misrepresenting my position. The mistakes peakers make are:
1. Trying to predict when oil production will peak. This is a game for fools. Nobody knows. Period. Some go even farther and automatically assume we've
already peaked. Then when another new record is set, they just keep setting back their new prediction for the current year or somewhere else in the next few years. Again, this is a game for fools: Nobody knows. It is factually and scientifically accurate to say, "Oil production will peak someday." But to try to actually put a
date on that event does nothing more than set yourself up to make a fool of yourself. Why so many people insist on risking not only their own credibility, but the credibility of their whole movement, by making "predictions" which, 99% of the time, turn out to be false, I have no idea. Someday someone will get it right, but not because they were smart, but only because they were lucky.
2. Assume that just because it's "finite", means that we're near or past peak production. For example, there is a "finite" amount of iron ore on planet earth - but that doesn't necessarily mean we're about to run out of it soon. And, even if world production of iron ore did peak, that does not necessarily mean the world economic system was at the cusp of some terrible precipice. There could be any number of reasons why world iron ore production might peak that don't entail economic catastrophe or even a cause for concern. It could be nothing more than someone has discovered something better than iron ore and steel, and this substitute is being used instead. As I said somewhere else, ironically, peak oilers have a more oil-centric worldview than even cornucopians: They assume without question that peak oil production = world economic problems forever. This does not follow: World oil production could peak for no other reason than
demand for oil had peaked - which, in turn, could be caused by increased use of CNG cars, somebody perfected long-range car batteries and fusion power, the world going into a long-term demographic decline, or maybe we've figured out how to download ourselves into super-duper computer networks and become cyborgs who don't need oil-fueled vehicles anymore, or . . . any other of a number of reasons. It is a religious faith that modern civilization
must be powered by oil, and therefore if oil production declines, so will civilization.