[Atr0p0s]

I had a conversation with my friend the other day about peak oil. While sipping his burger king fountain beverage and waddling down the sidewalk in his fast food chubbiness, he claimed that oil was being created every minute where ever there was any form of biological waste. I asked if he had any ideas what the geologic processes were that formed oil and he said that when plants and trees die, they eventually turn into oil. He stated that if you dug low enough anywhere, you would strike oil just beginning to form. I cut my next period class to continue arguing with him, and I couldn't make him budge, though he eventually shut up and now yells at me whenever I mention peak oil.

Question: Are we up against conspiring companies and theiving bureaucracies or pure ignorance? What is the source of this ignorance? Can we overcome it? If we overcome it, can we go further?

[Pops]

IMHO:

Ignorance.

Self-absorption.

Egotism.

Apathy.

Fear.

[TheSupplyGuy]

While I've found that my peers (preppy teens) nearly refuse to believe peak oil despite their 1300 SAT scores, my other friends who are just as smart, but don't buy into pop culture as much believe it much more readily as long as I have enough evidence. I guess it just depends on how much you have to lose from peak oil.

[notacornucopian]

Pops, I thought I would add my two cents worth to this discussion.

I agree completely with the ignorance/self absorbtion/egotism/apathy/fear summary of your post. But there seems to be something that allows some people to " get it " over others. From my observation, the willingness to accept the truth about a subject has a lot to do with an individual's tolerance of pain. Whether it's the realization that your children face a difficult future, or just another reminder of your own mortality, peak oil acceptance will bring us great amounts of pain and hardship. Humans have a tendency to avoid pain and pursue pleasure - how does admitting that peak oil is real work within that framework ?

[k_semler]

I highly reccomend that you advise your friend to read the book entitled "Hubbert's Peak, The Impending Wold Oil Shortage" by Kenneth S Deffeyes. Deffeyes used to be a petrolium geologist that worked for Shell, along with M. King Hubbert. He is currently employed as a professor of geology at Princton University. This book is very informative, and details exactly how oil and NG is formed, found, where to find it, and discusses alternative fuel resources. This book is very very well written, and I would reccomend it as a book for anyone seriously interested in Peak Oil. This book is 190 pages, followed by 14 pages of bibliographical references, and a 4 page index. It is very scientific in nature, and I would say it requires at least a 10th grade education to completly comprehend. It is a very informative book. This book is sorted under the catagory "Science/Geology". The ISBN of this book is 0-691-11625-3.

For a book that is as equally researched, but is "lighter" reading, I would reccomend that your friend read "The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies" by Richard Hienberg. Richard Hienberg has been researching and writing about the energy supply problem and the issues invoved in them for approximatly 11 years. He is currently employed at the New College of California in Santa Rose, CA. The first half of this book is very similar to "Hubbert's Peak, The Impending Wold Oil Shortage", only not as scientific, and easier to read. The second half of this book confronts the myth of sustainablity, alternative energy resources, and the impacts of the future depletion of oil resources. The second half of this book is like a cold slap in the face from reality. This book is sorted under the catagory "Current Affiars/Environmental Studies". The ISBN for this book is 0-86571-482-7.

If your friend reads both of these books, and is capable of understanding exactly what the authors are talking about, he will realise the severity of the Peak Oil situation, and the best that can be done is to ease the transision to the new world that awaits humanity. Simply put, industrialized society in its current form is not sustainable in the long term. To ensure our current standard of living does not degrade, we as a society must reduce consumption, transfer over to renewable resources, reduce population to the 2B level that was on earth before the onset of the industrial revolution, and re-gain lost farming techniques. Every aspect of life will be affected, and the latest gas prices are only the start of the post-peak world. Welcome to the downslide.

Oddly, the civilisations that have been untouched by the industrial revolution will have the greatest chance of survival. Chances are, than the most impact will be felt in first world nations such as the United States. The higher the living standard is, the farther it has to fall to be in equalibrium with the earth as a whole. Less industrialisation means less change.

If you don't belive that 1st world countries will be more affected by this, consider how much of an impact $25.00/gal gas would have on the residents of NYC, Chicago, LA, or any other large city. The cost to fill a car similar to mine would be roughly $625.00 for one gas tank. Times this by 2 for the amount of gas I use per month, and that would be one hefty gas bill. My tank is 25 gallons. Now imagine a nation of 270,000,000 people having to pay $25.00/gal, but making no more than they do now. Along with the cost of gas and oil rising, so would the cost of energy, transportation, shipping, manufacturing, food, and everyghing else. The economy would literally come to a halt. There would be no food being grown, harvested, or distributed to the masses. There would be virtually no long distance transportation, there would be no raw materials to forge into salable goods due to the exorbanant transportation and mining costs. Lack of products would mean loss of jobs. Loss of jobs would mean people would not be able to afford the costs of modern living. The economy and nation would collapse to an irrecoverable point given the current energy reliance on petrolium. The US would quickly devolve into a 3rd world nation.

Now consider this exact same scenarion of $25.00/gal gas in some 3rd world country that has not seen industrialisation in any massive scale. I will use Bangladesh here. What impact would the petrolum costs have on a rural village of farmers on Bangladesh? Not much. The Oxen are not reliant on petrolium, nor is thier distribution system. Thier manufacturing is not reliant on fossil fuels either. All of thier energy is directly supplied by either the Sun, water diversion, animal power, or man power. Thier food transportation network is just the oxen, (or people) bringing in the grain from thie fields, and harvesting an animal once in a while for some meat. Thier housing is biult from natural materials that occur in the environment around them. Most of thier tools can be easily replaced by natural resources already plentiful in thier area. The major exception would be the wroght-iron plough, and Axe. Thier food source is only a couple miles away at maximum distance, so thier is no need for a heavy transportation infastructure. Most traveling is done in and around the village, so animal power and human power suffice pleanty. Rural farmers in Bangladesh would be virtually unscathed by the oil crunch.

So the question is, are we better off because we are "civilised", or are we actually in a worse situation? I suppose this depends on if you are looking at merely the present, or the future that awaits earth as a whole.

[dwenergyman]

Free Bananas

Most here have watched Jane Goodall's highly televised Gorilla studies.

To this day the part I remember most for what should be obvious reasons is when Jane started giving the Gorilla's way more bananas then they could ever eat or dare to eat. The Gorilla's hierachy fell apart at the seams very rapidly and social cooperation when out the window too. It was nothing but banana hoarding and constant fighting, zealously and well chaos.

Jane took away the plentiful bananas and after a while life went back to living on the edge and cooperation and social order was slowly restored again.

Damn if I don't see some similarities in this Gorilla experiment and human beings, the worlds most dangerous predators.

dw

[dmtu]

I suggest apathy and a lack of education in regards to what oil actually is. I swear most peeps think it is just a liquid that you put in the car for lubrication and fuel.

Having just finished Hienbergs book, It's a good primer but there's nothing you can't find on the net. Thats not to say the book is without merit I'm just saying I had already seen most of the content on-line. From a personal aspect I thought Hienberg was kind of dry when compared to Deffeyes, But I am more technically/mechanically inclined, if that means anything. In reality I think they should be sold in a set, Deffeyes for the technical and Hienberg for the social.

[ConCit]

Cover of National Geo. here in the States and a movement like this 1 in Oz. Maybe we can finally start getting some traction in the mainstream. It's clearly too late to avoid a hard turn downwards (we should have started in the Seventies) but there might be time to avoid the worst IF this really does start spreading.

Concerned Citizen.

PS. I found the Aussie website in the very interesting comments beneath this followup to an article posted here recently.

1. http://www.stcwa.org.au/beyondoil

2. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/ ... 68795.html

PPS I had to footnote the URLs because they weren't coming through as links when I did a preview. Dunno.

[Pops]

I didn't have time to read all your links concit, but have too agree that the Nat. Geo. article is a good thing.

[smiley]

When I talked with some people about peakoil a year ago they just dismissed the idea as being ludicrous.

I think they must have filled their tanks last week-end because they suddenly were asking me for some further documentation on the subject.

Maybe there is a growing awareness that despite the vast amount of reserves its getting more difficult to supply the world needs.

[Onyered]

Leaf, look at some of the threads farther down about trucking. I think Missing Link and Pops both had one. High gas prices cost us money out of our pocket, but diesel fuel is vital to keep the US economy going. I think something like 70% of the cities in the US get everything they use by truck. If there are disruptions in the trucking industry the economy could crash. Then most people won’t care how much gasoline costs because they won’t have a job or money to spend anyway.

[k_semler]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leaf', 'K')_Semler, I feel has the issue pretty close on how I feel the outcome will be. The hope is to start downscaling on a massive scale and to start looking ASAP for alternatives even if they produce even 5% of fossil fuels. Also I would be inclined to start changing the infrastructure of the USA to a more localized type. We are just too dependant on the Auto…and I see the auto becoming a thing of the past. I don’t buy into the alternatives for this. I feel the remaining fossil fuels need to be used for heating and agriculture. So I agree America will pay a very heavy price for the consumers we’ve become.

[ConCit]

My wife was dismisive at first but she has finally come around although she'd still like to know what I plan to do about it. SO I'm working on that cold fusion thingummy in my garage

But take a look at what happened when someone reviewed Goodstein's book on Slashdot. While some folks fought the good fight, it seems most folks are either ready to write this off as another Y2K hoax. Of course, if all the COBOL programmers handed been pulled out of mothballs and spent two years combing through old code, that might have ended differently.

ANyway, read if ya want and see why I'm just topping off the kerosene and learning how to pack saltpeter in the shotgun

http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?si ... 88&tid=192

[Ender]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('notacornucopian', ' ')Whether it's the realization that your children face a difficult future, or just another reminder of your own mortality, peak oil acceptance will bring us great amounts of pain and hardship. Humans have a tendency to avoid pain and pursue pleasure - how does admitting that peak oil is real work within that framework ?