[rogerhb]

Absolutely. The ASPO crowd, Simmons, even Gordon Brown want OPEC transparency.

But will they? Is it in their interests?

The Hirsch report says we need 20 years to prepare, so even if the date was 2025, we still have to start now.

If you want to change the future, what better day to start than today?

[FireJack]

I should mention that even if we somehow did overcome the effects of peak oil without any major effects there is the bigger problem of resourse depletion. I wonder that even if I live through the worst of what peak oil throws at me what could I do if no natural resourses are left.

I think $64 oil is a pretty good indication that peak oil is here. Plus matt simmons did mention that people from the oil industry are saying saudi arabia has already peaked. Im not holding my breath either way.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FireJack', 'I') should mention that even if we somehow did overcome the effects of peak oil without any major effects there is the bigger problem of resourse depletion. I wonder that even if I live through the worst of what peak oil throws at me what could I do if no natural resourses are left.

I think $64 oil is a pretty good indication that peak oil is here. Plus matt simmons did mention that people from the oil industry are saying saudi arabia has already peaked. Im not holding my breath either way.

[medicvet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ur country is a blinding paradox of the rich and the poor, the powerful and the cogs that must keep showing up for work everyday so filet mignon can be served in the most exclusive restaurants. Tom Delay can bulley senators on the floor by yanking on their ties and threating to choke them, but if a poor black man in New Orleans loots a bottle of water during a national disaster he is liable to get shot.

[elroy]

What I'm wondering is, when peak oil hits, will the average person recognize that the main cause for the depletion of our resources has been mass consumerism, or will they blame it on the oil companies ?
If the latter, then things aren't really getting any better. Then wood will be the next resource. Peak Wood in 2080 ? Terrible thing to think of.

[SHiFTY]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')eingberg said that ASPO had pushed their peak oil date back to 2007. The earliest date now set forth is still Thanksgiving 2005. If we took the mean of the significant predictions we are probably looking at 2012-2015.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', '
')But I want to sound a note of caution. If Peak Oil is now 2005 or even 2007 we cannot avoid the worst consequences, if it is in 2012 we can mitigate it only by serious efforts. But what we lose if we get fanatical without more evidence is credibility.

[Ludi]

Elijah, I don't understand your position. It seems to me very much like the position of some people who say we need more studies of global warming before we take steps to mitigate the damage we're doing to the global life systems. We know Peak Oil will occur. Why wait around for more information before taking steps to mitigate it? Especially since meaningful mitigation will take decades to implement. This makes no sense to me whatsoever.

[Ibon]

Peak oil consequences reach to the core of our cultural values and the battle to restructure our culture toward sustainability will be fought on the spiritual, moral and ethical level as hard science and statistics will continue to demonstrate unequivocably that we are running out of time.

What is missing is the authority as Doly pointed out. But you can sense that this has the potential to become a huge mass movement, in fact you can almost feel the momentum speeding up during the past months. I don't think the waiting will be long, in fact I don't think this is comparable to the 60's which was ideologically driven and parked firmly in the left. Peak oil acts as a common denominator and reaches across the whole political spectrum. Even if oil pices fall back due partially to the refinery bottle neck we wont be able to return to a complacent consumerism. The cat is out of the bag.

Katrina is only the beginning of what will be a series of events, some political, some economic, some natural events, that will increasingly reveal the vulnerability of our current human value system that has led us to the brink of collapse. Collectively we know this, even though for many it still lies below the conscious level in a denial. Denial works when the insfrastructure that holds the consensus reality is solid. When it starts to break down it threatens the core of our belief system.

We will start to see in our political leaders, celebritries, and spritual leaders this authority emerge as the collective consensus reality surfaces to the truth of our unsustainable dehumnanizing cultural value system. The elite will no longer be able to hold the masses in check. It will be a revolution.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', '
')I am pretty certain Ludi that if you obey like good little surf and reduce your energy consumption voluntarily someone of the people ho frequents the various elite gatherings of the earth will make money off of your goodwill..[/i]

[mgibbons19]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', '.')... But I want to sound a note of caution. If Peak Oil is now 2005 or even 2007 we cannot avoid the worst consequences, if it is in 2012 we can mitigate it only by serious efforts. But what we lose if we get fanatical without more evidence is credibility.

....

[SinisterBlueCat]

Ibon, what an awesome post. I do not know about anyone else, but I find the prospect of a coming revolution terribly exciting. My father-in-law, an 86 year old 82nd airborne paratrooper who landed at Normandy said just yesterday that there are three types of people...

those who have lead great, exciting lives filled with experience and adventure.

those who have lived for the most part completely crappy lives filled with pain, suffering and loss.

and those who have lived in mediocrity, nothing great, but not really bad either.

Death and change are not a fearful things to the first two types of people. Only for the last.

I am tired of the wasteful, brain dead, plastic wrapped, suburbanite, endless motoring society we live in and I am ready for change. And to me, the situation will be win-win. If I live though it, wow. If I die, I am dead.

As for the rich being safe and somehow protected through such a revolution, I say bah. Some yes, but many, many more no. Revolutions are just that, a time of great change and reversal of fortune. Many rich in this country never earned a dime of what they have, and they are only able to keep it because they know how to play by the rules of this society. But if this changes in a big way, and the old rules are thrown out and new rules put into play, they are screwed.

In the book Gone with the Wind, Ashley called the Civil War the Gotterdammerung, the doom of the gods and what gods they were....until things changed.

[Paul64]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he people of America are completely unaware (for the most part) that their lives are being bought and sold.

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ElijahJones', '
')I am pretty certain Ludi that if you obey like good little surf and reduce your energy consumption voluntarily someone of the people ho frequents the various elite gatherings of the earth will make money off of your goodwill..[/i]

[Ludi]

SinisterBlueCat, so why not join the revolution, then?

[Ardalla]

My compliments on a well written essay. The old me of 20 years ago would have agreed with you 100%.

I think we need to keep in mind that there are a large number of people in the US that are only 2 or 3 generations removed from their sharecropping ancestors. There has been a tremendous movement out of the lower/middle working class of the early part of the last century. These people are now living in $200,000 - $400,000 homes and driving SUVs.

PO scares the hell out of these people. They will not hear of it. They don't want to return to this idyllic life you speak of. They will fight it by denial and by violence if necessary. These people DON'T MIND that the rich are getting richer as long as they are getting their piece of the pie.

Just as an example, there is a guy I work with who is upset about high gas prices. He says we should demand that the Saudis lower the price of crude. If they don't co-operate, he says just take the oil. He supports Donald Trump for president. He is a factory worker in a union plant who one would expect to be Democratic. He is not atypical.

The US is in denial and the drama that is unfolding will be played out on that stage.

[Ludi]

Why the heck would anyone want to return to sharecropping??